Chump Change

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In what has to be the lamest excuse for a “penalty” ever, Sony BMG has been fined all of a whopping $1.5 million dollars for massively FUBARing at least hundreds of thousands of computer systems, and making them vulnerable to hackers.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $1.5 million and kick in thousands more in customer refunds to settle lawsuits brought by California and Texas over music CDs that installed a hidden anti-piracy program on consumers’ computers.

Not only did the program itself open up a security hole on computers but attempts to remove the software also damaged computers.

Announced Tuesday, the settlements cover lawsuits over CDs loaded with one of two types of copy-protection software — known as MediaMax or XCP.

Personally, I regard this as way too little punishment for what is no less that utterly callous disregard for the security of computer systems everywhere. Sometimes, people can listen to music CD’s at work. What if this piece of crap had made systems containing crucial private data vulnerable? Like, for instance, the computers at a medical or insurance company? Simply put, computer security isn’t going to become a top priority in many places until some companies are burned, and burned badly in civil court. Until then, all we can do is be as careful as possible with our personal data. It won’t stop abuse in the long run, but there’s no reason to make it ridiculously easy for the bad guys.

Just to note: the article is from the AP, and out of Los Angeles. You’d think that the “world class” Chronicle could at least try to localize it by getting some commentary from Richard Garfield, or something.

Is Cancer Next?

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OH MY F’ING GOD. Just found on Instapundit:

A CURE FOR DIABETES?

In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body’s nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.

Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. “Mice with diabetes suddenly didn’t have diabetes any more.”

Don’t get too excited yet, but let’s hope this pans out. If it does, we’ll have to wonder what else we’ve been missing in diseases we thought we understood.

My father died from complications of diabetes, and I am borderline diabetic myself. Several of my co-workers are diabetic and had to take early retirement. All suffered from complications. This could be huge, even if it were only diabetes. The kicker? It’s not–although the treament doesn’t directly have anything to do with other diseases, it marks a radical change in how we think neuropathic diseases work.

They also conclude that there are far more similarities than previously thought between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and that nerves likely play a role in other chronic inflammatory conditions, such as asthma and Crohn’s disease.

The “paradigm-changing” study opens “a novel, exciting door to address one of the diseases with large societal impact,” said Dr. Christian Stohler, a leading U.S. pain specialist and dean of dentistry at the University of Maryland, who has reviewed the work.

You see, all along, we’ve been thinking “the pancreas stops making insulin.” A while back it was discovered that it still makes insulin — it just isn’t releasing it because the tiny production “islets” are inflammed. By injecting a simple extract of chili peppers to kill the pain nerves in the pancreas, the inflamation went away, and the pancreas’ of the test mice started producing insulin again. Stranger still, insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes) dropped dramatically after the treatments.

Let’s hear it for lab mice. Next time someone says “animal testing is inhumane,” I suggest giving them a few chronic diseases.

The Right to “Exist”

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I’ve been cleaning out the e-mail box (something I’ve been atrociously lazy about) and in the process, I’ve come across a few gems. This link was sent by my first reader and Dallas resident, Dr. Heinous.

LOS ANGELES, April 14 — A federal appeals court panel ruled on Friday that arresting homeless people for sleeping, sitting or lying on sidewalks and other public property when other shelter is not available was cruel and unusual punishment. The 2-to-1 ruling, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, essentially invalidated a 37-year-old ordinance that the police have used to clear homeless people off the streets. Legal experts said the case, which they believed to be the first involving the rights of homeless people in public spaces to reach the federal appellate level, would be closely followed by cities nationwide.

The Eighth Amendment, barring cruel and unusual punishment, prohibits Los Angeles “from punishing involuntary sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter,” Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote. The Los Angeles police responded by releasing a statement that said: “The condition of being homeless in and of itself is not a crime and should not be treated as such. But the criminal element that preys upon the homeless and mentally ill will be targeted, arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

It would be nice if we could just target, arrest, and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law that criminal element preying upon the homed, mentally well-adjusted, taxpayers of our fair city. But you know how it is, some folks just have the right to exist wherever they want, the rest of us have the right to pay taxes for their protection.

Computerized Election Fraud

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“I for one, welcome our new programmer overlords.”

Via Instapundit and Slashdot, this news from the National Institute of Science and Technology:

“Paperless electronic voting machines ‘cannot be made secure’ [pdf] according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In the most sweeping condemnation of voting machines issued by any federal agency, NIST echoes what critics have been saying all along, that due to the lack of verifiability, ‘a single programmer could rig a major election.’ Rather than adding printers, though, NIST endorses the hand-marked optical-scan system as the most reliable.”

Just a Thought

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Why the hell is Mayor White so worried about what janitors for private businesses make here in the City of Houston, when he can’t even give city employees a cost of living increase? He’s seeing to it that janitors get raises of up to $2.00 an hour and health insurance, but he can’t be bothered to budget some of that budget surplus he was supposed to give back to the taxpayers (before he gutted the revenue limits) for his own employees?

Why is the mayor so busy trying to help out SEIU, and encouraging, instead of fighting them, in regards to unionizing city employees? With one hand, he holds back on employee raises and benefits, and stokes resentment against the city — perhaps chasing employees into the arms of the union; with the other he twists the arms of private businesses to give in to union pressure, thereby giving SEIU a track record of “success” to tout to the very employees they are trying to recruit.

Why would a mayor “renowned” for his business accumen go so far out of his way to advance the cause of a union that doesn’t do anything for the city? Is White colluding with the SEIU in order to duplicate Tammany Hall here in Houston?

If you think “that’s politics; who cares?” just remember what Tammany Hall was most famous for:

Corruption.

The Tammany Society was formed in New York City in 1786. Initially a social organisation, it became increasingly political and by the middle of the 19th century had become a significant force in city government. Although controlled by wealthy men, the organization attracted the support of the working classes and the immigrant population.

Let’s repeat that, shall we? Only try it with some local flavor….

The Tammany Society Greater Houston Partnership was formed in New York City Houston in 1786 1989. Initially a social business organisation, it became increasingly political and by the middle of the 19th century first decade of the 21st century had become a significant force in city government. Although controlled by wealthy men, the organization attracted the support of the unionized working classes and the illegal immigrant population.

I don’t know if this shoe fits, but it sure looks like a good match. If so, who will be Houston’s Samuel Tilden?

UPDATE: Just recieved in e-mail. Spaminate the city employees!

City of Houston employees are preparing for upcoming negotiations. But before we can sit down at the bargaining table, it’s important that we decide which issues will be discussed at the bargaining table.

To help make sure we win a contract that improves our lives and our jobs, we all must complete the bargaining survey.

It only takes a few minutes to make sure your voice is heard during negotiations.

Visit www.organizehope.com to complete the bargaining survey online and help build a better future with HOPE.

***PLEASE NOTE: DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE FROM YOUR WORK EMAIL ACCOUNT.***
It is against City of Houston policy to forward non-work related emails.

Don’t you just love that last part?

Traffic and Transportation

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From Instapundit:

IN THE MAIL, AN INTERESTING BOOK ON TRAFFIC: Ted Balaker and Sam Staley’s The Road More Traveled: Why the Congestion Crisis Matters More Than You Think, and What We Can Do About It. They argue that traffic congestion does much more harm than is generally appreciated, and that municipalities’ programs aimed at making traffic worse in order to encourage people to use mass transit are deeply mistaken. They also argue that fixing traffic problems is easier and cheaper than is popularly thought. I’ve read the first several chapters and it’s very interesting; I hope it gets a broad readership. Interesting tidbit: If you exclude New York, America has more telecommuters than mass-transit commuters.

I have to wonder what this has to say about problems similar to Houston’s . I may have to do a bit of book shopping this weekend…

A New Force?

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Instapundit links to an article at The Economist, pointing out that the margin of victory in some Democratic wins was less than the number of votes obtained by the Libertarian Party. Unfortunately, it then veers off into the “conventional wisdom” that any Republican voting for the Libertarian Party is just shooting themselves in the foot:

And acting as a spoiler is dubiously effective at achieving one’s goals. In theory, it could pull the Repubicans towards the Libertarians, but in practice, it may just elect Democrats, pushing the nation’s economic policy leftwards.

Well, there’s always that fear. The problem is, if we constantly give in to it, nothing will ever change. We have an electorate that is about as restless as it has ever been. We’ve always had a looney left or and a whacko right; but now that the left is about to be unleashed. Hopes that the Democrats won’t be as stupid as the Republicans were have got to be on a par with opium dreams–come on, they’re the Democrats, you know, the ones that almost handed this election back to the Republicans? Will it scare conservatives and centerists back into the Republican fold? That’s what the Republicans have to be hoping today, as they play musical chairs and put new faces to the front.

There’s only one way to get any change in the status quo: break one of the national parties. I had hopes two years ago, that it was going to be the Democrats that would break first, as the last of the “Libermans” gave up the rear-guard action and decided the only sane choice was to split the party. Instead, it’s going to have to be the Republicans. Fiscal and legal conservatives have two enemies in the Republican party: greedy politicians and the religious fanatics. The first is what got us conservatives into this hole, and the second doesn’t care how much power it gives to the government, as long as (their version of ) the bible is law.

I wish it were still possible to build a national party from the ground up in this country, but the truth is, only about 1 person in 100 has enough desire for change to strike out in entirely new directions, and can combine that with enough will to make a change. If that one person wants to influence 50 of the remaining 99, he or she is going to have to already be in a position of leadership. Much as it pains me to admit is, Joe Blogger down the street isn’t going to get it done. But such people of influence are already part of the current Dem/Rep power structure; they generally don’t see any benefit in being revolutionaries and overthrowing the established order.

The only way to bring these people forth is for it to be clear that they will have followers. And as long as the voters continue to deliver votes to a political class that’s all struck from the same mold, discontent, no matter how strong, will continue to be judged within current boundries; a perceived lack of followers ensures a lack of leaders. Therefore, I judge voters for the Libertarian Party in the recent race as not being counterproductive, but registering their discontent. They are asking for a leader to emerge who will not be just another face, telling the same lies.

Will they get one?

Houston Voters Approve

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Yep, with nearly half the votes counted, every one of the propositions is on the way to an easy victory. Only one of them is below 60% approval. G, which will blow the Revenue cap off, has 64%, and H, which will add “$90 million for police” has over 70%.

Clearly the groups that proposed the revenue cap originally are going to have to reorganize and establish themselves as permanent political forces, if they wish to protect what they gained.

Did You Vote?

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Already done with my civic duty. I can definately say that my choices were very simple. Since I wrote off the Republicans and despise the Democrats, my choice for every race was simple: I voted a straight Libertarian ticket. They’re not the Jacksonian party, but they’ll do until we get one. Or maybe we should just go take over the Libertarians?

Exit Polling… or Exit Pulling?

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You decide.

U.S. exit polls have been wrong before. In fact, according to the Edison-Mitofsky report, they have shown a consistent discrepancy favoring the Democrats in every presidential election since 1988. And while the 2004 discrepancy was the highest ever, they were almost as far off in 1992. More specifically, the “within precinct error” (WPE) reported by Edison-Mitofsky showed differences favoring the Democrat of 2.2 points on the margin in 1988, 5.0 in 1992, 2.2 in 1996, 1.8 in 2000 and 6.5 in 2004.

Bear in mind that the average loss in a mid-term is 6 in the Senate, and 25 in the House. If you take the average error in those presidential elections, you get 3.54%, an amount that anyone will tell you is “within the margin of error.” And so it is — for a single election. But the error is consistantly one-sided, and in 16 years, no polling organization seems to have figured out how to correct for it. You think that would be a high priority, wouldn’t you?

How odd that that it hasn’t been…

Public Works Boondoggles

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A transportation project that’s supposed to be a city landmark, costing far more than it should? A boondoggle of multi-million dollar proportions, foisted off on an unsuspecting public by the people “who know mass transport?” Yep, Portland is having lots of fun constructing a simple mass transport option. (See 20061029.1400 entry.) More info here.

What I want to know is this: what the hell are they going to do whenever it storms? Cancel classes because the students can’t get from one campus to the other?

What I really want to know is this: Is there something about mass transit that makes its advocates stupid? Or is it the other way around?

Stupid, stupid, stupid

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Sometimes the city really pisses me off, it’s so damn dumb. Ask someone a direct question, and they don’t THINK about the answer, they just give you their idiotic misunderstood idea of what the answer was supposed to be. That’s how you end up putting the wrong phone number on a bazillion forms, and get a p.o.’d supervisor somewhere who’s wondering why his phone is ringing off the wall.

As for what’s really got me going right now, let’s just say that the city is cheap to the point of stupidity. “We don’t want you to spend $75 one time to do this properly. Use this other, totally inappropriate tool that can’t do the job. Why? Because someone said so. Never mind that they probably meant something else; what that person said was this and I’m not going to question orders from that high, even if they make no sense.” But he likes to run things like a business, after all.

Three guesses who I mean, and the first two don’t count.

Gut Check

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Airplane hits building in Manhattan, everyone thinks “here we go again.” Fighter aircraft scrambled over several cities. Probably not Houston; ours have to come from upstate now.

Fortunately, it appears to be just semi-random stupidity; a small plane, not a major hijacking. That doesn’t mean it’s NOT terrorism, but it’s not large scale terrorism.

I did grin a bit at Steven’s remark, after the worst of the rumors were over:

For crying out loud, man; lousy aim! If you’d gone about a mile and a half southwest, you could have hit the UN building. Jeeze!

Nail the General Assembly, and the average IQ of New York would increase by double digits.

Meanwhile, in more local news, word has reached the office that Stephen F. Austin HS is on lockdown due to an intruder. Office rumor says he/she had a gun, but there’s nothing on that here, at KTRK.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot to include: Hell yes! The treason charge lives!