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Hackers operating through Chinese Internet servers have launched a debilitating attack on the computer system of a sensitive Commerce Department bureau, forcing it to replace hundreds of workstations and block employees from regular use of the Internet for more than a month, Commerce officials said yesterday.

The attack targeted the computers of the Bureau of Industry and Security, which is responsible for controlling U.S. exports of commodities, software and technology having both commercial and military uses. The bureau has stepped up its activity in regulating trade with China in recent years as the United States increased its exports of such dual-use items to the growing Chinese market.

Stop lying. Just. Stop.

(No hint is given as to how this would apply to syndicated articles written in the US and published abroad.)

Naw, this administration would never skirt US laws by conducting operations in other countries. I wonder how long it'll take right wing bloggers to start foaming at the mouth about the New York Times jeopardizing our national security with another leak.

Honestly, I expected this kind of stuff was going on already. Remember Robert Redford's job from "Three Days of the Condor"? He was a "reader" for the CIA - fed all the schemes and dirty tricks he could find into a database so someone could find potential threats.

That's what these people tried. Didn't work so well, though.

Sure, I've collected all this great data, but now how to I find a buyer? Do I just walk up to the competition's CEO and say "Hey, I got the goods on company XYZ, how much is that worth to you?"

Funny how Americans can win the Nobel Prize for Big Bang work, but Bush is still trying deny it and replace real empirical science being taught in schools with religious mumbo-jumbo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/08/02/AR2005080201686.html

Everyone here should read this article:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/10 /zeroday_firefox_exploit_claime.html

It actually turns out that Mischa Spiegelmock and Andrew Wbeelsoi are closely related. As we all now know, Misa works for LiveJournal. Andrew Wbeelsoi is part of Bantown, who claimed responsibility for a Javascript attack on LiveJournal (see http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/01 /account_hijackings_force_livej.html).

The two are obviously related, and LiveJournal should consider immediate termination of their employee Mischa, as he is in league with Wbeelsoi, who attacked LiveJournal members themselves.

Here as some nice quotes from the article:

"We do have exploits for all the stuff we're going to show you," the 21-year-old calling himself Wbeelsoi said. "We'll give them away to anyone who proves their actions are going to be politically motivated. We don't care what side you're on as long as you commit yourself to destruction."
"We were just trying to have some fun up there," Spiegelmock said.

Mozilla should really consider civil, if not criminal actions. Damage to the Firefox brand has already been done, regardless if the exploit is real or not.

Everyone here should read this article:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/10 /zeroday_firefox_exploit_claime.html

It actually turns out that Mischa Spiegelmock and Andrew Wbeelsoi are closely related. As we all now know, Misa works for LiveJournal. Andrew Wbeelsoi is part of Bantown, who claimed responsibility for a Javascript attack on LiveJournal (see http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/01 /account_hijackings_force_livej.html).

The two are obviously related, and LiveJournal should consider immediate termination of their employee Mischa, as he is in league with Wbeelsoi, who attacked LiveJournal members themselves.

Here as some nice quotes from the article:

"We do have exploits for all the stuff we're going to show you," the 21-year-old calling himself Wbeelsoi said. "We'll give them away to anyone who proves their actions are going to be politically motivated. We don't care what side you're on as long as you commit yourself to destruction."
"We were just trying to have some fun up there," Spiegelmock said.

Mozilla should really consider civil, if not criminal actions. Damage to the Firefox brand has already been done, regardless if the exploit is real or not.

I think the most interesting part from the Post piece on this is this last line, about LiveJournal's Mischa Spiegelmock, who co-presented this Firefox malarky.

"The Toorcon talk was given by Mischa Spiegelmock a software engineer for Six Apart's LiveJournal blogging service, and a guy speaking under the pseudonym "Andrew Wbeelsoi."

Also, Wbeelsoi, or "Weev" as he is called by friends, is part of a group that calls itself "Bantown," a loose-knit outfit that claimed responsibility for a fairly high-profile Javascript attack against close to a million LiveJournal users, an attack that Security Fix profiled in January."

There is also a post about this on the Washington Post. Apparently, they were just having fun?

If I was Alistapart, I would have gotten rid of this "clown" immediately.

Who said anything about the NSA or the CIA being used to influence people? The Bush administration has been caught paying reporters to print stories so many times now, I've lost count.

But Bush ordered the NSA to be used for domestic spying and that's against the law, why not for disinfo, too?

Below, you ask when Bush ordered torture. Are you trying to be disingenous, or or you really that naive? He wouldn't order any particular use of torture personally! But if you think he hasn't ordered torture, you haven't been following the news. Here, I've made a google search for you.

I carefully read Osama's list of justifications for attacking America, and economic exploitation was not among them. His principal complaints were American military and political intervention in the Middle East--especially troops in Saudi Arabia, sanctions in Iraq, and occupation in Palestine.

From an interview with OBL:

Rather, it already, by the grace of God, exists. As for oil, it is a commodity that will be subject to the price of the market according to supply and demand. We believe that the current prices are not realistic due to the Saudi regime playing the role of a US agent and the pressures exercised by the US on the Saudi regime to increase production and flooding the market that caused a sharp decrease in oil prices.

I should add OBL has an economics degree.

Although wealth disparity has been exacerbated within this country, wages in some 3rd-world countries (China for example) have converged somewhat with 1st-world wages, which tends to reduce the disparity

WaPo's version the AP article
Freely accessible archive of above

And I'm not suggesting that the future is bright. I have no idea what the future will bring. Unlike the idiotic devotees of Marxism, I have no preposterous pretenses about laws of historical development which predict everything that will happen. There are no laws of history which we can discern that govern all of historical development. As an example, most of the 20th century was marked with crises and wars that were surprises to almost everyone and that cannot have been predicted by any theory that was then available.

Actually, I (and other historians and politicians) find it depressingly easily to predict historical development from the past. The most notorious failures are people who insisted "history was over" in one way or the other, and that a given situation cannot possible be compared to other things: a view called exceptionalism. But human drives and emotions have remained unchanged for thousands of years. One can make some good predictions about given situations, and more importantly, history tells us what can work. (P.S., just about every major war in the 20th century was predicted -- ask Winston Churchil about WW2).

If you notice, in my previous posts, I do believe in free markets. Throughout history, free markets seem to have the least negatives (still negatives, but the lesser of all evils). More importantly, the freedom of individuals to do what they will seem to improve society & prosperity. It's only when one or more individuals decide to curtail other individuals' freedoms that problems arise. Whether they be the robber barons of old or governments of today. And the current version of globalization is, IMHO, a hideous amalgamation of the two. True free trade benefits everyone; social mobility benefits everyone, and seems to result in more peaceful societies. Current globalism is about corporations using governments to co-erce populations into channeling money & productivity to themselves.

Nevertheless, globalization presents a serious and realistic hope that many people in the world will enjoy a standard of living somewhat above the crushing poverty and desparation that had been the norm for almost everyone until recently. As such I find it amazing that so many people who claim sympathy with the poor would oppose globalization so vociferously. In my opinion, we have an ethical obligation not just to voice sympathy with the poor but to take steps which we have reason to believe could actually ameliorate their plight. As such we have an ethical obligation to be rational and effective, not just sympathetic

"human rights experts expressed concern yesterday that the language in the new provision would be a precedent-setting congressional endorsement for the indefinite detention of anyone who, as the bill states, "has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or its military allies.

The definition applies to foreigners living inside or outside the United States and does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as an unlawful combatant."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/09/25/AR2006092501514.html

"José Padilla (also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir) (born October 18, 1970) is an American citizen of Puerto Rican descent "

"On June 9, 2002, two days before District Court Judge Michael Mukasey was to issue a ruling on the validity of continuing to hold Padilla under the material witness warrant, President Bush issued an order to Secretary Rumsfeld to detain Padilla as an "enemy combatant,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(al leged_terrorist)

It appears they now end also when the TSA starts with their lies and deception. From the blog:

He asked if he was under arrest and if not, could he proceed. The sheriff's deputy told him he was not being arrested, but that he was merely being "detained".

From the Washington Post article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/09/28/AR2006092801437.html

TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said Bird was free to express his opinion and there is no prohibition on writing on bags.

"The passenger was never detained by TSA. Local law enforcement briefly interviewed him and determined he had not broken any laws and he was allowed to fly," Clark said.

Note that he _was_ told by a TSA supervisor that his First Amendment rights ended where the security area began. Clark's answer is clearly evasion, as she simply asserted that he had his First Amendment rights, without referring to the fact that a TSA functionary had told Bird he did not.

She was also deceptive in saying he had not been "detained by TSA". He _was_ detained by the deputy sheriff as a direct result of action by TSA, and they damned well knew he'd be so detained. Absent the TSA attempt to intimidate him and screw him over, he would not have been detained by anyone.

Typical government duplicity. As one person put it, the procedure is, "Admit nothing. Deny everything. Make counterallegations."

It is clear that Bird's rights were, in fact, suppressed by a government functionary "under color of authority".

The crappy part is that ther are no meaningful sanctions in the law against this kind of behavior. The worst that will happen will be a tiny note in the supervisor's dossier that he'd gone too far. More likely, he'll be given a commendation for zealous service in guarding the "security of this great and noble nation, founded under the principle of liberty for all, including those Iraqui ragheads, if they ever let us ram democracy down their throats with the muzzle of a gun".

As for Bird, he'd have no recourse if he missed his flight, got put on the "no fly absent a thorough rectal examination" list and suffered a business loss due to his detention.

you must be referring to this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/04/18/AR2006041801604.html

The opposition was more concerned that there wouldn't be enough time to switch over before the election. And, the move was interpreted by the Dems as a backhanded way to suppress turnout, especially considering his earlier stands on absentee and early voting. Personally, I've hugely in favor of a paper trail and the Maryland Dems have an inexplicable level of confidence in Diebold.

because we all know how unbiased and meticulous the press is.

How do you know it was actually democrats who were opposing him.. is this like the "democrats" who screwed up the response to katrina.. you know.. the democratic governor who was somehow magically in charge of fema..

A week after the primary election was plagued by human error and technical glitches, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) called yesterday for the state to scrap its $106 million electronic voting apparatus and revert to a paper ballot system for the November election.

"When in doubt, go paper, go low-tech," he said.

Linda H. Lamone, the administrator of the Maryland State Board of Elections, quickly denounced the plan to swap voting systems just seven weeks before the general election as "crazy." And Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said it "cannot happen. It will not happen."

Ehrlich said that, if necessary, he would call a special session of the Maryland General Assembly to change the law to allow paper ballots. But Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) dismissed the idea of a special session, saying elections officials should focus instead on fixing the current system.

"We paid millions. These are state-of-the-art machines," said Miller, who called Ehrlich's announcement a political ploy to energize his Republican supporters.

You realize that this argument has you in the position that you have to admit that the Democratic election official that approved the ballot was so incompetent that they couldn't spot an obvious rouse?

No, it doesn't. People are busy. They assume good faith by those who work for them.

Not to mention that the Republicans would have had to know in advance that Florida was going to come down to a couple of hundred votes, and dammit, Palm Beach would deliver them their election!

You assume the Republicans limited their corruption of the vote to just one precinct. This is very odd when you have the United States Supreme Court opinion mandating that vote counting under Florida law be stopped before it completed. You can't just pretend the Republicans were being corrupt in one place.

Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. "It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

The technical team's findings had no apparent impact on the intelligence agencies' public statements on the trailers. A day after the team's report was transmitted to Washington -- May 28, 2003 -- the CIA publicly released its first formal assessment of the trailers, reflecting the views of its Washington analysts. That white paper, which also bore the DIA seal, contended that U.S. officials were "confident" that the trailers were used for "mobile biological weapons production."

Now, in fairness, the article notes that the team whose report you track states:

That report said the trailers were "impractical for biological agent production," lacking 11 components that would be crucial for making bioweapons. Instead, the trailers were "almost certainly designed and built for the generation of hydrogen," the survey group reported.

But this article raises the startling idea that a second trailor may have been mated to the first for specific purposes. Hmmmmmm. I wonder if you could find any of those 11 missing components in a second trailor?

I wonder why they needed growth tanks to make "hydrogen"?*

Well, experts can disagree.

What can be taken as truth about "weapons-related program activities" after the biological weapons trailers story?

Two teams of experts agreed that they were bio-labs, one team didn't. You pick the didn't side to believe, and that seems to be the activity most open to questioning.

Most of the rest is much less squishy than the debate over the probable bio-weapons trailors, namely:

New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km -- well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

Clandestine attempts betwe

And he wasn't AWOL from the TANG,

How do you know this?

The case seems pretty clear that he WAS "Absent WithOut Leave" it's just that nobody in a position to go after him cared to do so because of who his daddy was.

Failure to be prosecuted for going AWOL does not mean that it did not happen.

Are you saying that everyone who didn't see him where he was legally required to be is a liar?

What can be taken as truth about "weapons-related program activities" after the biological weapons trailers story? Notice the key point, that these trailers were cited as evidence of bio-warfare activities in a public speech two days after Pentagon experts unanimously concluded they weren't. And over and over for almost a year after that.

Many conspiracy theorists point to FEMA's preliminary report, which said there was relatively light damage to WTC 7 prior to its collapse. With the benefit of more time and resources, NIST researchers now support the working hypothesis that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated. "The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7," NIST's Sunder tells PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom--approximately 10 stories--about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out." NIST also discovered previously undocumented damage to WTC 7's upper stories and its southwest corner.

NIST investigators believe a combination of intense fire and severe structural damage contributed to the collapse, though assigning the exact proportion requires more research. But NIST's analysis suggests the fall of WTC 7 was an example of "progressive collapse," a process in which the failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the entire building to come down. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or "kinks," in the building's facade just before the two penthouses disappeared into the structure, one after the other. The entire building fell in on itself, with the slumping east side of the structure pulling down the west side in a diagonal collapse.

According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building's failure: In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each floor. "What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors," Sunder notes, "it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down."

I highly recommend the rest of the web article, or the book Debunking 9/11 Myths - Why conspiracy theories can't stand up to the facts, by Popular Mechanics.

The 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy, one planned and executed by Al Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, international in scope, that has been attacking the United States, and many other countries*, repeatedly since the early 1990s. They took credit for the 9/11 attacks. Video has found in Afghanistan showing Bin Laden had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Muhammad Atta's "martyrdom video" has just surfaced.

Al Qaeda's goal is to reestablish the Islamic super-state combining government and religion, the Caliphate, over the entire region, and to spread Islam to control the entire world. They understand that it will take hundreds of years, but are willing to do their part. You can see this in Bin Laden's letter to America where his first two demands are to convert to Islam, and implement Sharia... if we don't, they will keep killing us.

(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.....
(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you......

(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your pol

They were supposed to offer free cards to those who couldn't afford them, but failed to do so... I'd say that's more a failure of bureacracy than racism, as the NAACP claimed.

What I find much more curious is that the article was printed without a byline, and that there was an apologetic Editor's Note explaining why they felt they were justified in printing the story.

There's no byline because it's a sidebar that's part of the rank one article (which was the top story on the front page of the Sunday issue, and which spilled to pages 16/17.) See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/09/30/AR2006093000293.html. This sidebar is implicitly Woodward's as well.

The editor's note is interesting, but I don't read it as apologetic. Rather it's adding context using the standard journalistic practice of presenting enough facts to make the "what she said" and "what the facts say" reality gap clear. This is a little less strong than printing "liar", but it's considerably more effective.

It would seem that seem that RFK Jr and many in the public have a rather myopic memory when it comes to allegations of vote fraud. One would expect that Mr Kennedy would certainly be aware of the controversy surrounding the outcome of the 1960 Presdential election especially since his uncle John F. Kennedy was elected.

Or was he? Rather than Ohio and Florida, that election came down to narrow wins in Illinois and Texas. Both states were Democrat-controlled and rife with allegations of fraud. Did Mayor Daley of Chicago arrange for the dead to vote? Did Johnson's own political machine throw Texas? Like 2004, the answers depend on who you ask.

Here you go! The release of Windows 95 hyped in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/long term/microsoft/stories/1995/debut082495.htm

Woohoo! The future is waiting. Now lets get back to 1995... ;)

You need to do a bit more research before making your claim.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36425-20 00Nov16?language=printer

It's a myth that any petrification has to happen at all in order to form a fossil. Bone and shells are obvious examples, because they are *already* mineral when they are made in the living organism (consisting of calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate, respectively). Nothing has to change in order for them to preserve for the long term, other than ending up in an environment where the groundwater chemistry isn't going to dissolve those minerals after burial.

Most of the "young Earth" creationist claims about supposedly "young" fossils are founded on the misconception that petrification can't happen fast, that conventional geologists think mineralization always happens slowly, or that it must occur at all in order for something to become a fossil, none of which are true.

As you imply, none of this matters to age unless petrification is the only method used to determine the age of fossils. Given that petrification isn't used by geologists at all for age dating, and it would be unreliable if it was used (because the rates of the process or even its occurrence at all is so variable), the whole issue is irrelevant when it comes to the age of fossils.

But that's par for the course. "Young Earth" creationists waste an awful lot of time attacking popular misconceptions and other straw man arguments. Fortunately for them, unfortunately for the rest of us, the accuracy of the science doesn't really matter, as long as it sounds good.

They and other theocrats might get the upper hand someday though, now that they've just this week fooled the U.S. congress into passing a law that will discourage constitutional legal challenges based on the establishment of religion clause. If I understand the bill, the next time anti-science creationists try to pass off some of their religious claims as science in the classroom, it looks like it will take someone with deep pockets to legally challenge them, unlike challenges for any other constitutional issue.

I guess compromising the ability to protect the constitution is okay as long as it is for a good cause.

Clinton was warned of Bin Laden's intention to use hijacked aircraft as weapons against the US in December 1998 in a different more specific PDB. He took no action.

No, that would be treating the symptom, not the problem.

If you are worried about [...]

And what if we don't know "what we're worried about"?

What then?

Have an attack happen and then keeping running flamebait stories on slashdot five years after the fact when there's plenty of blame to go around?

Or actually do something to aggressively try to detect plots and prevent attacks before they happen?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A586 15-2004Jul17.html

Kinda makes Hillary a hypocrite based on what she said here, now doesn't it? - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A586 15-2004Jul17.html

Those looking to pin this ONLY on this current administration are showing they are simply interested in partisan politics. There is plenty of blame to go around.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A586 15-2004Jul17.html

Kinda makes Hillary a hypocrite based on what she said here, now doesn't it? - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A586 15-2004Jul17.html

Those looking to pin this ONLY on this current administration are showing they are simply interested in partisan politics. There is plenty of blame to go around.

I have not heard of this, and I am extremely skeptical this is true. There are a few secret special judges who do nothing but FISA. No one below a certain security clearance even knows who they are, much less why and what they ruled for any case.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/02/08/AR2006020802511.html

The NSA is doing it's job. The NSA (DoD) has no standing to get warrants in a civilian court. So what should they do with information about a person that is in contact with a known bad guy? Under this administration and from recommendations from the 9/11 commission, the information is passed to the FBI. They used to just site on the information because the "wall" prevented them from notifying law enforcement. If the FBI can not follow up with this lead by going to get a warrant from the FISA court (oversight), what should they do?

That's nothing. This same House just passed the Theocracy Protection Act, and the Torture Lover Act.

Grand Inquisitor Abu Gonzales will now have the option of torturing you when god tells him you're bluffing.

Where's the information for that? I'm wondering because neither the Zune or iPod is being promoted for its MP3 file abilities.

Yes but they and the market they are in is still widely referred to as "MP3" players. Otherwise Zune would have 100% of the "Zune market" which would be madnesss.

I got that figure a bit wrong, it was over 75% (as of 2Q 2006). There are other studies as well.

It's the government's duty to protect the USA from these attacks by preventing them.

How do you propose they do that? Dig up their cold war psychics?

No, seriously. How do you propose that the governments of the world stop something that might happen in the future? By rounding up a bunch of britons with no plane tickets, no bombs, and no passports, and claiming they were going to blow up planes headed for the US? By stopping everyone who looks vaguely Pakistani from getting on planes while allowing white boys with pipe bombs in their backpacks to pass the checkpoint?

We have systems in place that should be protecting us now. We have no fly lists to protect us from people who we think might try to blow up a plane but that we can't prove this, however they've pretty much been rendered useless by inaccuracy and incompetence. For every Democratic Senator who can't fly because he was on the no fly list or not, how many people are there that are not on the list but that we suspect they might try to blow up a plane? (Or, if you believe the DHS officer when he says it was just "an accident" how many people on the list are "accidentially" let on board planes?) The TSA currently allows people to bring up to 4 books of matches on board, just in case someone has a legitimate reason to set their shoes on fire, but refuses to let people who call them stupid get on the plane.

And now, the government wants to know who's calling who. Tell me, how exactly do you intend to discover terrorists based on call history when you don't already know who the terrorists are, since if you knew who the terrorists are, you'd have already gotten a warrant to listen in on every single call to or from them, and subsequently warrants for those people's call histories as well? What exactly will the government learn from this, beyond the most popular pizza delivery?

Being pissed off at the loss of liberty is only a fraction of the rage I'm feeling now. The rest is reserved for the Republicans who are pissing my tax money away on things like this that they are incapable of justifying.

It's a mixture of fact and assertion. Here's a list of assertions. I grant most of them are probably at least partly true. But I gather also that many of the 150 posts were from people disputing one or another fact or assertion.

It is a mixture of fact and fact. The discussion takes off after the first commenter does exactly what you just did -- accuse the writer of being slipshod and partisan. This poster gets quickly put in his place by the rest of the commentors. He eventually starts defending torture.

All of the issues regarding domestic instability you raise with North Korea have been raised before regarding the Soviet Union, China (which is still technically in the middle of a civil war and went through the cultural revolution with its nuclear arsenal intact), India and Pakistan. They are reasonable points, but if you want to talk about the real proliferation threat these days it involves the disintegration of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal, not the development of small-scale nuclear deterrents. Iran would no more provide Hezbollah with a nuclear device than the US would provide one to the Northern Alliance.

In any event, this discussion is not taking place in a vacuum when the implied alternative to proliferation is preventative war. That particular doctrine almost destroyed the world in 1962 (Cuba is now known to have had nuclear devices it would likely have used in the event of a territorial invasion), and all the brinkmanship bought America was a few years of breathing space until the Soviets developed intercontinental ballistic missiles. Sometimes live and let live is a better philosophy.

I'm not really interested in who is running the US government because you are right that it is irrelevant to the issue of how to handle nuclear proliferation. And I do not see any differences between the Republicans and Democrats over North Korea. I'm simply not at all convinced that a small arsenal of nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea is a problem. The country is starting to move in the same direction China did almost thirty years ago. It has been experimenting with export-oriented production zones and apparently is a major source of global heroin production. The country is sending its best and brightest children into China to be educated.

I don't think you're in a position to tell me what is real or obvious.

I don't want to descend into a flame war, but there simply isn't support for your assertions. So rather than deal with them all let me just take one on in a bit of depth - the case of Iraq and nuclear weapons:

No-one with knowledge of Iraq believed that the country was on the verge of producing nuclear weapons or even chemical and biological weapons prior to the US invasion. The issue was whether Iraq was attempting to hide WMD that it was hypothesized Iraq had already developed. None of the evidence linking Iraq to nuclear weapons or uranium-enrichment was remotely plausible. Allegations of links were trumpeted by those trying to make a case for war. This the significance of the Valerie Plame story: Joe Wilson's wife was outed as a CIA agent when he went public in the New York Times showing claims the administration was trying to make about Iraqi efforts to procure uranium as the forgeries they were. Powell's presentation to the United Nations was presented as a "slam dunk" case by the pro-war media. His evidence for "mobile development trailers" was attacked at the time by experts. It has since been conclusively demonstrated that these experts were in fact correct:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/04/11/AR2006041101888.html

So what was the actual problem with Iraq? The big one was that the west did not have accurate figures about actual Iraqi stockpiles. Estimates of Iraqi stores of chemical weapons were drawn up using projec

"It's worth noting that Netcraft's anti-phishing toolbar detected this site as malicious and tried to prevent me from visiting it, as it is designed to do. I have to say that I've visited countless phishing sites in the past few months, and Netcraft's toolbar has done its job almost unfailingly."

toolbar.netcraft.com

If you think you're going to get arrested for posting to Slashdot you've got a screw loose.

Why? Maybe I won't be arrested today. Or this year. Or this decade. But do you honestly believe that every single President for the rest of the life of the law will be as honest and good as Bush? Hell, let's leave the President out of it, no matter what you or I think of him, he's sitting around in the White House, not going around arresting people. All I need to do is cut off some homeland security agent in traffic while he's having a bad day.

All he has to do is tell the computer when he files the paperwork that I was "fighting for the other side" (you know, its funny how so many Republicans (talking heads and Senators alike) love to use exactly that language when talking about liberals, are you really sure about me having a screw loose?) and I lose everything, even the ability to go to court to prove that I wasn't fighting for the other side.

Or hell, I could just be arrested by mistake. Or you could. Wouldn't that just suck? Just think, it'll be like a game of uncle, except instead of "uncle" they keep beating you until you admit you're a terrorist. Doesn't that sound like fun?

The elected President advocates teaching intelligent design.

If the overwhelming majority of Americans are reasonable people then they must not be voting.

"for the duration". That's an interesting phrase. Given what we know about the "war on terror" (sic), this is quite likely to be "for the duration of your life" if you're captured.
Don't you understand anything? They are no longer just capturing jihadists carrying guns out in some foreign country, they are arresting unarmed American citizens on US soil. (And Canadians, too.) Do people have rights, or not? If most Americans don't believe they do (and it's clear you don't), then the rest of us will eventually have to leave or start a revolution.

Actually, they do seem to have stealth satellites, developed under the MISTY program. Here's an interesting snippet from an article a couple years ago:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A561 71-2004Dec10.html

The United States is building a new generation of spy satellites designed to orbit undetected, in a highly classified program that has provoked opposition in closed congressional sessions where lawmakers have questioned its necessity and rapidly escalating price, according to U.S. officials.

The previously undisclosed effort has almost doubled in projected cost -- from $5 billion to nearly $9.5 billion, officials said. The National Reconnaissance Office, which manages spy satellite programs, has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the program, officials said. The satellite in question would be the third and final version in a series of spacecraft funded under a classified program once known as Misty, officials said....

Here's an article with some more info:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /mystery_monday_050103.html

I think few Americans right now realize that congress is working, yesterday and today, on passing (not just writing or introducing, but passing, it's already through the house and now up for vote in the senate) a bill that will end habeas corupus and legalize torture:

http://news.google.com/news?q=torture+bill+senate+ habeas&hl=en&hs=GCv&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox&rl s=Swiftfox:en-US:unofficial&sa=X&oi=news&ct=title
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Sectio nID=40&ItemID=11071
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?Stor yID=20060924-060744-4556r
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/09/26/AR2006092601475.html

Habeas corpus is one of the oldest tenets of western civilization, predating the U.S. Constitution and even the Magna Carta, and it says, simply, that if someone is to be held in custody by the state, there must be a demonstrable reason for their imprisonment. It is the basis of "probable cause," "warrants" of arrest, and your right to a trail to establish your guilt or innocence.

This bill not only legalizes torture acts against enemy combatants by the U.S. government, it also gives the president and the secretary of defense the authority to unilaterally decide who is an enemy combatant, without review, oversight, process, or documentation of any kind, and to act on that decision, without trial, documentation, or any means of appeal. The standard for being an enemy combatant is essentially that you don't "support" America in some way or another, not according to some objective standard of evidence, but again according to the personal impression of either the president or the secretary of defense. This includes American citizens.

Once they decide you are an enemy combatant, you can be picked up, with no warrant or probable cause, no evidence, and no process other than "the feds said you don't support America." They no longer need evidence. Under this statute no right to trail or judicial review will exist (because you are now like those at Gitmo, rather than a citizen), and you can be tortured at will.

This is what the senate is working on YESTERDAY AND TODAY. It's likely already too late to affect the outcome, but if you haven't yet it might be a good day to call your senator and say that you OPPOSE the bill that legalizes arbitrary indefinite detention at the whim of the president and the legalization of torture.

No, I just ignore "facts" from right-wing websites with as much credibility as Baghdad Bob. Which is about all that turns up if you Google for "saddam hussein terrorism".

• The UN Security Council ("Deploring threats made by Iraq during the recent conflict to make use of terrorism against targets outside Iraq" and "Requires Iraq to inform the Security Council that it will not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory")
  
• President Clinton ("In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now- a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists")
  
• President Clinton's State Department ("Iraq continued to plan and sponsor international terrorism in 1999").
  
• The Council on Foreign Relations ("Saddam Hussein's dictatorship provided headquarters, operating bases, training camps, and other support to terrorist groups...")
  
• President Jimmy Carter, who placed Iraq on the State Department list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in 1979
  
• Vladimir Putin, who warned us in 2002 that Iraq was plotting terrorist attacks against the United States

(Here what I was about to post, but you pretty much summed up my viewpoint. Before all, here is a direct link to this Symantec Internet Security Threat Report -- Volume X: September 2006 that is talked about.)

It turns out that Firefox leads the pack with 47 vulnerabilities, compared to 38 for Internet Explorer.

Totally. Pointless. Comparison.

First, as the Slashdot posting correctly points out, the window of vulnerability is much larger with IE. Microsoft is known for taking months to fix some vulns, and is taking longer and longer over the years.

Second, what about the importance of these vulns ? Was it 47 minor DoS for Firefox and 38 critical arbitrary code execution vulns for IE ?

Third, what about the methodology used to gather the vuln counts ? The report always says "Source: Symantec Corporation", with no more information. Did they count Firefox security related bugs or security advisories ? Did they count 1 Microsoft patch fixing N vulns as 1 or N vulns (too many studies make this mistake) ?

Fourth, what about silently fixed vulns in IE ? Microsoft is known for secretly fixing vulns that are discovered internally, and of course they never talk about them in public. Symantec certainly did not count these.

There are just too many reasons making virtually all studies comparing the number of security patches between 2 products useless. This one is no exception.

For those not wanting all the crud that surrounds the article on the linked view http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/09/23/AR2006092300510_pf.htmlhere is the print view.

Someone within HP is acting against Mark Hurd, otherwise documents demonstrating his direct culpability would not have surfaced. It appears to me that this information seals Hurd's fate... he will probably lose his job, face criminal charges, and be the target of a class action lawsuit from the reporters from whom he fraudulently obtained phone records.

The question is who is leaking and why.

HP is now the synthesis of Compaq and DEC, and there probably isn't an HP employee who doesn't know of a terminated coworker. Perhaps it is possible that someone with a grudge over a past termination decided to eliminate Hurd.

But then again, the terminations aren't over. Perhaps someone in the crosshairs decided to halt the process by taking out the CEO.

Or perhaps the leaker is directly involved in this chain of activity and is covering themselves by sacrificing the superior.

In any case, HP has not done well with executives from Lucent and NCR/Terradata. Perhaps it is time to consider promoting from within? Where can HP find someone to restore the HP way? Certainly not from outside.

Also prior art for phony "questions" at press conferences, like what the article accused Hurd of doing. Both parties will keep doing it as long as we put up with it.

You will note that I didn't attribute my comment to Benjamin Franklin. I simply pointed out something that should be glaringly obvious to those who like to misuse his quotation.

Ah. Well you sure made it sound like it was something Franklin really meant when he said his famous quote.

Care to reference the text of the Constitution that defines secret, untapped communication with known terrorist entities as an "essential liberty"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_t he_United_States_Constitution

Using "secret" as an euphemism for "warrantless" doesn't make it legal.

Traffic rules are not a "recommendation" - they are enforceable law.

Like I said, I think they are just an recommendation, just as most other dumb laws. Murder and causing harm to others are already illegal, what's the point in extraneous laws that only restrict how people use their own car without bringing anything new to the table? Having standardised rules of behaviour in traffic is of course a good thing, but making it illegal to drive over the speed limit on a long stretch of road in the middle of nowhere? Now that's just stupid.

So I'm interested why you feel any different about the long term safety that is provided by tracking the communications of known terrorists with people within our borders.

/rant

After what happened to the Canadian citizen Maher Arar I have no faith whatsoever that your current government is capable of doing anything right, this new law will just fuck up more innocent people's lives, under the guise of "anti-terrorism".

Torture is evil, goddamnit, I don't care how many million lives it could save.

/end rant

But this week I've been so perturbed by the progress of the torture-enabling bill that I didn't even notice a surveillance-enabling bill slipping through the pipeline.

So what is the average apathetic voter thinking right now? CNN's current headline for the former bill is "GOP, White House snap terror bill deadlock" (see, because we would only torture terrorists) and I didn't see any mention of the latter bill at all. The only thing that's been even lower on the news radar is the Democratic Party - are they being shut out of the media and ignored by the blogs, are they pro police state, or are they just being quiet so as not to lose too much of the pro police state vote in November?