Saturday, January 4, 2003

Life on Earth Is Feeling the Heat A variety of species, from frogs to flowering plants, have demonstrated changed behavior in response to increasing world temperatures over the last few decades. According to the results of two studies published today in the journal Nature, these changes are not isolated events, but instead represent a worldwide pattern, or "fingerprint," of global warming. [Daypop Top 40] No, wait, really, this isn't proof at all, we need to keep studying things before we take any meaningful action. Seriously, folks, why should we stop buying and driving SUVs, just 'cause a few worrywarts say the sky is falling? 10:42:38 PM

Korea counseling As far as I can tell, the Bush administration drew a line in the sand for North Korea, North Korea stepped over it and called the U.S. bluff, and now the president's gang are saying, "Gee, we don't have any choice but to negotiate here, otherwise North Korea will incinerate Seoul." It's the worst possible position for an international power to be in -- with its credibility shot and no apparent plan for either diplomacy or force. How can the otherwise bellicose Bush team have found itself in this mess? It looks like another example of Bush Syndrome -- that way our president has of responding to major events by saying, "Don't bother me with reality, I've already made up my mind." The syndrome has hitherto been on display in the administration's economic policy, which has doggedly stuck to precisely the measures least likely to lift us out of the lingering recession because, well, they are what Bush embraced back in 1999. In the case of North Korea, Bush has already determined that Saddam is public enemy number one. Who cares that North Korea is more volatile, closer to nuclear capability and less predictable? [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment] 10:05:59 PM

Now Corporations Claim The "Right To Lie" While Nike was conducting a huge and expensive PR blitz to tell people that it had cleaned up its subcontractors' sweatshop labor practices, an alert consumer advocate and activist in California named Marc Kasky caught them in what he alleges are a number of specific deceptions. Citing a California law that forbids corporations from intentionally deceiving people in their commercial statements, Kasky sued the multi-billion-dollar corporation. Instead of refuting Kasky's charge by proving in court that they didn't lie, however, Nike instead chose to argue that corporations should enjoy the same "free speech" right to deceive that individual human citizens have in their personal lives. If people have the constitutionally protected right to say, "The check is in the mail," or, "That looks great on you," then, Nike's reasoning goes, a corporation should have the same right to say whatever they want in their corporate PR campaigns. [Daypop Top 40] 9:49:54 PM

Bush's Year of U.S. Surveillance. The Bush administration's efforts in 2002 to poke into the private lives of American citizens prompt one privacy advocate to draw comparisons to Sauron, the all-seeing dark wizard in The Lord of the Rings. [Wired News] 9:47:43 PM

Time magazine loves Dick Cheney. Americans aren't so sure. The newsweekly gushes over the V.P. and the Bush administration in its year-end issue -- ignoring its own poll showing a major erosion in public support for the White House. [Salon.com] 9:22:22 PM

Onward, Christian soldiers. With its allies now controlling Congress and the White House, the religious right launches a crusade to cleanse America of sin. The first battlefield: Women's bodies. [Salon.com] 9:18:55 PM

Bush kills program that tracks layoffs. Bush's quick fix for the rotten job market: kill the Labor Department program that tracks mass layoffs. [Boing Boing Blog] 9:14:54 PM

Linux Is Cheaper Than Windows. In the survey, Linux admin salaries were slightly higher than Windows admins, with Linux at $71,400 per admin, and Windows at $68,500 per admin. But Linux admins took care of an average of 44 servers and Windows admins an average of 10. So the salary per processing unit was Linux, $12,010, and Windows, $52,060. [ZDNet] 9:00:47 PM

Entertainment Cartel Gearing Up to Ban Time-Shifting TV. Studios Using Digital Armor to Fight Piracy. Lying dormant in virtually every digital cable box in America is technology that can prevent viewers from recording certain programs to watch them later. Soon, several Hollywood studios are planning to tell cable operators to flip the switch. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 8:58:14 PM

Weekend Reading. Totalitarianism nears: Without protest, Americans are giving up freedom. Today, people of the United States have given up their rights through the "Patriot Act," the "Homeland Security Act" and the Pentagon's new system of "Total Information Awareness." The astonishing thing about this "land of the free" is that most Americans now have no effective rights and do not care. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 8:56:37 PM

Could fear of terror muzzle science? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology walked away from a $404,000 study because the government wanted to restrict participation by foreign students. Other universities are balking at demands that the government check research in the name of national security before scientists can publish or even talk about it. [Daypop Top 40] 8:10:09 PM

Government Openness at Issue as Bush Holds Onto Records The Bush administration has put a much tighter lid than recent presidents on government proceedings and the public release of information, exhibiting a penchant for secrecy that has been striking to historians, legal experts and lawmakers of both parties. [Daypop Top 40] 8:06:12 PM

Whose Side Are You On, Mr. President? The administration has co-opted the word "reform" to promote its goals of weakening government restraints in a variety of areas. It's noteworthy that the administration has never pursued the corporate chieftains whose greed stunned the nation last year with the same energy that it goes after lawyers who are fighting for the consumer. [Daypop Top 40] 6:42:44 PM

© Copyright 2003 Michael Alderete.