Finding Disaster Coverage At Search Engines
Following the unprecedented terrorist attacks on the United States today, web users turned en masse to search engines for information. It took those services some time to adjust to the demand, but as the day progressed, many came up to speed.
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/01/09-wtc.html
Wednesday, October 03, 2001
Saturday, September 29, 2001
Saturday, September 22, 2001
In Europe, Some Say the Attacks Stemmed From American Failings
There was no rejoicing or support in Europe for the killing of so many Americans. Many Europeans wept and the continent fell silent for a moment last week in remembrance of the dead.
But it has also become clear that some Europeans feel that ordinary Americans have largely floated on a tide of prosperity, triumphalism and indifference to the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their view is that the United States has now been confronted with a sobering reality, and that it must try to understand. For those critics, Americans are now facing unsurprising retaliation from an important part of the Islamic world that considers America to have declared war on its faith.
The arguments are sometimes simple — America should expect war in return for bombing Iraq regularly. Some Europeans also contend that many Americans have a blinding confidence in their own goodness and so do not see that the acts of the United States are regarded in many quarters as driven by the domineering pursuit of national self-interest.
European writers and intellectuals have pointed to a catalog of actions that include the bombing — in reprisal for the terrorist bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa in 1998 — of one of Sudan's two pharmaceutical factories on the challenged grounds that it was linked to Osama bin Laden, aid to Israel to buy weapons used against Palestinians, or even the American refusal to intervene to stop the mass killings in Rwanda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/international/europe/22DEBA.html
There was no rejoicing or support in Europe for the killing of so many Americans. Many Europeans wept and the continent fell silent for a moment last week in remembrance of the dead.
But it has also become clear that some Europeans feel that ordinary Americans have largely floated on a tide of prosperity, triumphalism and indifference to the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their view is that the United States has now been confronted with a sobering reality, and that it must try to understand. For those critics, Americans are now facing unsurprising retaliation from an important part of the Islamic world that considers America to have declared war on its faith.
The arguments are sometimes simple — America should expect war in return for bombing Iraq regularly. Some Europeans also contend that many Americans have a blinding confidence in their own goodness and so do not see that the acts of the United States are regarded in many quarters as driven by the domineering pursuit of national self-interest.
European writers and intellectuals have pointed to a catalog of actions that include the bombing — in reprisal for the terrorist bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa in 1998 — of one of Sudan's two pharmaceutical factories on the challenged grounds that it was linked to Osama bin Laden, aid to Israel to buy weapons used against Palestinians, or even the American refusal to intervene to stop the mass killings in Rwanda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/international/europe/22DEBA.html
Saturday, September 15, 2001
The Strategy: Leaders Face Challenges Far Different From Those of Last Conflict
"I condemn it morally, and I do think it was cowardly," Mr. Kerrey said. "But physically, it was the opposite of cowardly, and if you don't understand that, then you don't understand the intensity of the cause and then you're papering over one of the most important things. There is hatred out there against the United States, and yes, we have to deal with terrorism in a zero-tolerance fashion. But there is anger, too, and they ought to have a place for a hearing on that anger, in the International Court or wherever we give them a hearing."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15PREX.html
"I condemn it morally, and I do think it was cowardly," Mr. Kerrey said. "But physically, it was the opposite of cowardly, and if you don't understand that, then you don't understand the intensity of the cause and then you're papering over one of the most important things. There is hatred out there against the United States, and yes, we have to deal with terrorism in a zero-tolerance fashion. But there is anger, too, and they ought to have a place for a hearing on that anger, in the International Court or wherever we give them a hearing."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15PREX.html
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Sunday, September 02, 2001
Israeli Kids at School Amid Chaos Arab communities countrywide initiated a three-day school strike, leaving 400,000 Arab students at home and 600 schools closed. Many expressed anger and frustration with the Israeli government, accusing it of neglecting the Arab minority for years.
In Gilo, built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War, parents delivering their children to their first day at school were apprehensive. The neighborhood came under heavy fire last week, prompting Israel's army to move into Beit Jalla for two days. before pulling out Thursday.
``You have to try to live normally,'' said Hezi Cohen, as he led his daughter Shelli, smartly clad in a white shirt and pleated dress, into her first class, past TV cameramen, photographers and journalists. Moments later the country's premier walked in.
``You have stood up to a hard battle, as if it was no battle at all,'' Sharon told students assembled in the school's gymnasium, under a sign that read ``a year of peace and security for Gilo students.''
``I promise you that I will take the issue of security upon myself, and I won't allow more shooting on Gilo,'' he told the elementary school students.
As the Jewish schools opened on schedule, Raji Mansour, head of a group that is monitoring Arab education, said Israel provides Arab students with only a quarter of the funding it allots to Jewish students.
``The whole country knows there is a wide social division, discrimination and scandal,'' he said. ``There has to be a change of policy -- at least equality (with Jewish schools).''
Schools in the Arab sector need an additional 1,600 classrooms, and the group is demanding a budget increase of $12.5 million, said Atef Moaddi, a member of the monitoring group, called the Follow-up Committee of Arab Education.
In meetings held late last month with the Ministry of Education, the group raised a number of issues, requesting the budget be doubled in order to allow for extra schooling hours, and an expansion of the existing academic system to match standards at Jewish schools.
If the strike does not achieve its demands, educational institutions in the Arab sector will resume their strike Nov. 1, until their demands are met, Moaddi said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Back-to-School.html
In Gilo, built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War, parents delivering their children to their first day at school were apprehensive. The neighborhood came under heavy fire last week, prompting Israel's army to move into Beit Jalla for two days. before pulling out Thursday.
``You have to try to live normally,'' said Hezi Cohen, as he led his daughter Shelli, smartly clad in a white shirt and pleated dress, into her first class, past TV cameramen, photographers and journalists. Moments later the country's premier walked in.
``You have stood up to a hard battle, as if it was no battle at all,'' Sharon told students assembled in the school's gymnasium, under a sign that read ``a year of peace and security for Gilo students.''
``I promise you that I will take the issue of security upon myself, and I won't allow more shooting on Gilo,'' he told the elementary school students.
As the Jewish schools opened on schedule, Raji Mansour, head of a group that is monitoring Arab education, said Israel provides Arab students with only a quarter of the funding it allots to Jewish students.
``The whole country knows there is a wide social division, discrimination and scandal,'' he said. ``There has to be a change of policy -- at least equality (with Jewish schools).''
Schools in the Arab sector need an additional 1,600 classrooms, and the group is demanding a budget increase of $12.5 million, said Atef Moaddi, a member of the monitoring group, called the Follow-up Committee of Arab Education.
In meetings held late last month with the Ministry of Education, the group raised a number of issues, requesting the budget be doubled in order to allow for extra schooling hours, and an expansion of the existing academic system to match standards at Jewish schools.
If the strike does not achieve its demands, educational institutions in the Arab sector will resume their strike Nov. 1, until their demands are met, Moaddi said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Back-to-School.html
How Not to Win the Battle but Lose the War Unintended consequences have long dogged Israel. Until its army stormed into Lebanon in the early 1980's to root out Mr. Arafat and the P.L.O., it had no real issue with Hezbollah, or the Party of God. Now, Hezbollah is seen by Israelis as a constant menace on their northern border.
Also in the 1980's, searching for a political counterweight to the P.L.O., Israel nurtured a new group called the Islamic Resistance Movement, known by its Arabic shorthand, Hamas. Guess which group became the bigger threat for Israelis.
Then in December 1992, in retaliation for the murder of several Israelis, the army rounded up some 400 Hamas members and dumped them in a barren stretch of southern Lebanon. There they stayed for many months. And there they learned bomb-making techniques from Hezbollah guerrillas, returning to Gaza and the West Bank bigger and badder than ever as far as Israel was concerned.
Unintended consequences have also tarnished attempts at peace, notably the Israeli-Palestinian agreements reached in Oslo in 1993. "Rock-solid assumptions made in 1993 produced radically different results," said Joseph Alpher, an independent strategic analyst in Israel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/weekinreview/02HABE.html
Also in the 1980's, searching for a political counterweight to the P.L.O., Israel nurtured a new group called the Islamic Resistance Movement, known by its Arabic shorthand, Hamas. Guess which group became the bigger threat for Israelis.
Then in December 1992, in retaliation for the murder of several Israelis, the army rounded up some 400 Hamas members and dumped them in a barren stretch of southern Lebanon. There they stayed for many months. And there they learned bomb-making techniques from Hezbollah guerrillas, returning to Gaza and the West Bank bigger and badder than ever as far as Israel was concerned.
Unintended consequences have also tarnished attempts at peace, notably the Israeli-Palestinian agreements reached in Oslo in 1993. "Rock-solid assumptions made in 1993 produced radically different results," said Joseph Alpher, an independent strategic analyst in Israel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/weekinreview/02HABE.html
And There Was Light, and It Was Good?
There hardly seems a place on earth untouched by social and political hierarchies linked to skin color, which rank the world's rainbow of skin tones according to two shades, light and dark. That distinction is the foundation of the current notion of race.
As how to define racism, much less what to do about it, roils the delegates to the United Nations' World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, it might be wise to remember that the importance of skin color is largely a modern invention.
Certainly, slavery and many other oppressive forms of hierarchy have existed throughout human history, as have differences in skin color. But the idea that the two have a cause-and-effect relationship is relatively new, with its genesis, many academics say, in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the colonialism that emerged with it.
ANOTHER way of thinking about skin color is to ask: When did Europeans start thinking of themselves as white?
"There was no whiteness prior to the 17th century," said Manning Marable, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. "Whiteness is the negation of something else. The something else are Africans who are described by Europeans not by their religion or nationality but by the color of their skin. And nowhere in Africa did Africans call themselves `black.' "
The word race was used for the first time in a modern sense, it is widely believed, in a 17th-century French travelogue, Dr. Brace said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/weekinreview/02SAUL.html
There hardly seems a place on earth untouched by social and political hierarchies linked to skin color, which rank the world's rainbow of skin tones according to two shades, light and dark. That distinction is the foundation of the current notion of race.
As how to define racism, much less what to do about it, roils the delegates to the United Nations' World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, it might be wise to remember that the importance of skin color is largely a modern invention.
Certainly, slavery and many other oppressive forms of hierarchy have existed throughout human history, as have differences in skin color. But the idea that the two have a cause-and-effect relationship is relatively new, with its genesis, many academics say, in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the colonialism that emerged with it.
ANOTHER way of thinking about skin color is to ask: When did Europeans start thinking of themselves as white?
"There was no whiteness prior to the 17th century," said Manning Marable, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. "Whiteness is the negation of something else. The something else are Africans who are described by Europeans not by their religion or nationality but by the color of their skin. And nowhere in Africa did Africans call themselves `black.' "
The word race was used for the first time in a modern sense, it is widely believed, in a 17th-century French travelogue, Dr. Brace said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/weekinreview/02SAUL.html
Saturday, September 01, 2001
Report Shows Americans Have More 'Labor Days'
American workers have increased their substantial lead over Japan and all other industrial nations in the number of hours worked each year.
The report, issued by the International Labor Organization, found that Americans added nearly a full week to their work year during the 1990's, climbing to 1,979 hours on average last year, up 36 hours from 1990. That means Americans who are employed are putting in nearly 49 1/2 weeks a year on the job.
Americans work 137 hours, or about three and one-half weeks, more a year than Japanese workers, 260 hours (about six and one-half weeks) more a year than British workers and 499 hours (about 12 1/2 weeks) more a year than German workers, the report said. The Japanese had long been at the top for the number of hours worked, but in the mid-1990's the United States surpassed Japan, and since then it has pulled farther ahead.
"It's unique to Americans that they continue to increase their working hours, while hours are declining in other industrialized nations," said Lawrence Jeff Johnson, the economist who oversaw the labor organization's report. "It has a lot to do with the American psyche, with American culture. American workers are eager to make the best impression, to put in the most hours."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/01/national/01HOUR.html?pagewanted=all
American workers have increased their substantial lead over Japan and all other industrial nations in the number of hours worked each year.
The report, issued by the International Labor Organization, found that Americans added nearly a full week to their work year during the 1990's, climbing to 1,979 hours on average last year, up 36 hours from 1990. That means Americans who are employed are putting in nearly 49 1/2 weeks a year on the job.
Americans work 137 hours, or about three and one-half weeks, more a year than Japanese workers, 260 hours (about six and one-half weeks) more a year than British workers and 499 hours (about 12 1/2 weeks) more a year than German workers, the report said. The Japanese had long been at the top for the number of hours worked, but in the mid-1990's the United States surpassed Japan, and since then it has pulled farther ahead.
"It's unique to Americans that they continue to increase their working hours, while hours are declining in other industrialized nations," said Lawrence Jeff Johnson, the economist who oversaw the labor organization's report. "It has a lot to do with the American psyche, with American culture. American workers are eager to make the best impression, to put in the most hours."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/01/national/01HOUR.html?pagewanted=all
Friday, August 31, 2001
South Africa's Mbeki Has Bleak Message on Race
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his opening speech to the conference, said Israel could not use ``the ultimate abomination'' of the Holocaust as an excuse to never examine its own behavior.
``We cannot expect Palestinians to accept this (the Holocaust) as a reason why the wrongs done to them -- displacement, occupation, blockade, and now extra-judicial killings -- should be ignored, whatever label one uses to describe them,'' he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-race.html
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his opening speech to the conference, said Israel could not use ``the ultimate abomination'' of the Holocaust as an excuse to never examine its own behavior.
``We cannot expect Palestinians to accept this (the Holocaust) as a reason why the wrongs done to them -- displacement, occupation, blockade, and now extra-judicial killings -- should be ignored, whatever label one uses to describe them,'' he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-race.html
Rancor and Powell's Absence Cloud Racism Parley
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who arrived this morning, warned that the debate over the Middle East threatened to eclipse the conference, which is intended to highlight discrimination in all forms — from concerns about racism in the criminal justice system in the United States, to the plight of women in Afghanistan, to modern-day slavery in Sudan.
Mr. Jackson and other civil rights leaders here including Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, and Wade J. Henderson, director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said it was a mistake not to send Secretary Powell. The delegation will be led instead by E. Michael Southwick, the deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations.
But Mr. Jackson said he and others agreed that the language of the proposed declaration against racism seemed to target Israel unnecessarily, particularly given the dismal human rights records of many countries participating in the conference.
"The issue of racism is too big to reduce it to the controversy about the Middle East," Mr. Jackson said in an interview. "One can be against the settlements, against the assassination of leaders and not have to label Israel as a racist state. If one goes into labeling, there are a lot of labels to go around."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/international/31RACE.html?pagewanted=all
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who arrived this morning, warned that the debate over the Middle East threatened to eclipse the conference, which is intended to highlight discrimination in all forms — from concerns about racism in the criminal justice system in the United States, to the plight of women in Afghanistan, to modern-day slavery in Sudan.
Mr. Jackson and other civil rights leaders here including Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, and Wade J. Henderson, director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said it was a mistake not to send Secretary Powell. The delegation will be led instead by E. Michael Southwick, the deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations.
But Mr. Jackson said he and others agreed that the language of the proposed declaration against racism seemed to target Israel unnecessarily, particularly given the dismal human rights records of many countries participating in the conference.
"The issue of racism is too big to reduce it to the controversy about the Middle East," Mr. Jackson said in an interview. "One can be against the settlements, against the assassination of leaders and not have to label Israel as a racist state. If one goes into labeling, there are a lot of labels to go around."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/international/31RACE.html?pagewanted=all
More Women Are Losing Insurance Than Men
In the past, because of women's higher rate of poverty and historically greater eligibility for Medicaid, women have been less likely than men to go without health insurance. In 1994, for example, there were 15.7 million uninsured men and 13.1 million uninsured women. But the gap has been closing rapidly. In 1998, there were 16.7 million uninsured men and 15.3 million uninsured women, according to the fund.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/national/31INSU.html?pagewanted=all
In the past, because of women's higher rate of poverty and historically greater eligibility for Medicaid, women have been less likely than men to go without health insurance. In 1994, for example, there were 15.7 million uninsured men and 13.1 million uninsured women. But the gap has been closing rapidly. In 1998, there were 16.7 million uninsured men and 15.3 million uninsured women, according to the fund.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/national/31INSU.html?pagewanted=all
Thursday, August 30, 2001
Under the Nuremberg Code of 1947 and the World Medical Associations Declaration of Helsinki, those seeking to conduct medical tests on human subjects must explain the purpose, risks and methods of the study and obtain each subject's voluntary consent to participate.
Families Sue Pfizer on Test of Antibiotic
During a meningitis epidemic in 1996, Pfizer treated 100 Nigerian children with the antibiotic Trovan as part of its effort to determine whether the drug, which had never been tested in children, would be an effective treatment for the disease. Pfizer treated 100 other children with ceftriaxone, the gold standard for meningitis treatment, but, the suit says, at a lower-than- recommended dose. Eleven children in the trial died, and others suffered brain damage, were partly paralyzed or became deaf.
Vanessa McGowan, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, said yesterday that the company had not yet seen the suit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, and could not comment on the allegations. In the past, Pfizer has said that the number of deaths in the Nigerian Trovan trial was lower than the overall fatality rate for the meningitis epidemic and that the trial had been a philanthropic effort that benefited most of the sick children, not a self-serving effort to obtain quick clinical data, as the suit contends.
In early 1996, within weeks of learning about the meningitis epidemic from an Internet site, Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, sent a six-member research team to the Infectious Disease Hospital in Kano, Nigeria, a strife- torn city suffering concurrent epidemics of bacterial meningitis, measles and cholera. The Pfizer team selected children for its test from the long lines of ailing people seeking care at the hospital.
"Pfizer took the opportunity presented by the chaos caused by the civil and medical crises in Kano to accomplish what the company could not do elsewhere — to quickly conduct on young children a test of the potentially dangerous antibiotic Trovan," said the suit, which was filed yesterday by Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, a New York law firm that specializes in representing groups of plaintiffs against large corporations.
Pfizer conducted the trial at the same hospital where Doctors Without Borders, the Nobel Prize-winning relief organization, was already providing free treatment with chloramphenicol, the cheaper antibiotic that is internationally recommended for treating bacterial meningitis.
"Rather than provide the children with a safe, effective and proven therapy for bacterial meningitis," the suit said, "Pfizer chose to select children to participate in a medical experiment of a new, untested and unproven drug without first obtaining their informed consent, or explaining to the children or their parents that the proposed treatment was experimental and that they were free to refuse it and instead choose the safe, effective treatment for bacterial meningitis offered at the same site, free of charge, by a charitable medical group."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/30/business/30DRUG.html?pagewanted=all
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Wahmpreneur News Magazine: Website Security Heads Up For Small Business
August 20, 2001 -- Small businesses had better wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to their website security solutions, if a recently published article in Interactive Week is anything to judge by. Credit card fraud and identity theft have consumers concerned not only about perpetrators but also about the privacy practices of the merchants transacting business online.
According to the report, there is apparently growing sentiment among consumer advocacy groups and among politicians about the lack of consequences to online merchants whose shoddy security practices make it easy for hackers to steal sensitive information. The sentiment is understandable, to a degree. It is much easier to sue a business for its privacy practices than it is to catch the Romanian hacker that actually committed the theft of personal information.
And the issue gets hotter every time some high-profile company or institution gets their servers hacked into. Just this month, there was the highly publicized case of RegWeb.com. A hole in their security systems revealed more than 300 customer credit card numbers.
http://www.wahmpreneur.com/articles/Aug2001/security.html
August 20, 2001 -- Small businesses had better wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to their website security solutions, if a recently published article in Interactive Week is anything to judge by. Credit card fraud and identity theft have consumers concerned not only about perpetrators but also about the privacy practices of the merchants transacting business online.
According to the report, there is apparently growing sentiment among consumer advocacy groups and among politicians about the lack of consequences to online merchants whose shoddy security practices make it easy for hackers to steal sensitive information. The sentiment is understandable, to a degree. It is much easier to sue a business for its privacy practices than it is to catch the Romanian hacker that actually committed the theft of personal information.
And the issue gets hotter every time some high-profile company or institution gets their servers hacked into. Just this month, there was the highly publicized case of RegWeb.com. A hole in their security systems revealed more than 300 customer credit card numbers.
http://www.wahmpreneur.com/articles/Aug2001/security.html
Monday, August 27, 2001
Growing Audience Is Turning to Established News Media Online "National sites will get more and more of a share of the news audience and the smaller sites will get less and less," predicted Vin Crosbie, president of the consulting firm Digital Deliverance.
The Web is still an ancillary news source for most people, after broadcasting and newspapers, Mr. Crosbie said. But he and other analysts also say that new-media news consumers, who tend to be younger than the audiences for traditional media, are increasingly going in search of old media online.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/business/media/27WEB.html?pagewanted=all
The Web is still an ancillary news source for most people, after broadcasting and newspapers, Mr. Crosbie said. But he and other analysts also say that new-media news consumers, who tend to be younger than the audiences for traditional media, are increasingly going in search of old media online.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/business/media/27WEB.html?pagewanted=all
Sunday, August 26, 2001
Did Machete-Wielding Hutus Commit Genocide or Just 'Acts of Genocide'?
One of the issues administration officials debated behind the scenes was whether it was best to avoid using the word genocide to describe what was happening, as that might increase legal and political pressure to act. Documents disclosed last week by the National Security Archive show some of that debate. On May 21, 1994, Secretary of State Warren Christopher agreed to allow department officials to say that "acts of genocide have occurred," and on June 10, he finally flatly called it genocide. Between April 6, when the killing began, and July 4, when the Tutsi rebels took over the capital city of Kigali, an estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/weekinreview/26WORD.html
One of the issues administration officials debated behind the scenes was whether it was best to avoid using the word genocide to describe what was happening, as that might increase legal and political pressure to act. Documents disclosed last week by the National Security Archive show some of that debate. On May 21, 1994, Secretary of State Warren Christopher agreed to allow department officials to say that "acts of genocide have occurred," and on June 10, he finally flatly called it genocide. Between April 6, when the killing began, and July 4, when the Tutsi rebels took over the capital city of Kigali, an estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/weekinreview/26WORD.html
Israel Hits Palestinian Posts in Response to Deadly Raids
Israel usually targets Palestinian security installations in its retaliatory strikes because it holds Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ultimately responsible for attacks on Israelis. Israel says Arafat's security forces do little to rein in the militants, and sometimes participate in attacks on Israelis.
The Palestinians blame Israel for the violence, charging that its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the cause, exacerbated by roadblocks and travel restrictions there. The Palestinians say their police and security are defending themselves against Israeli aggression.
Now the Palestinians charge that the United States is blatantly taking Israel's side in the conflict.
On Sunday, Palestinian police officers inspected the ruins of the four-story building in Gaza City that housed their headquarters, showing reporters a green metal fragment with yellow lettering that said ``for use on M-84'' -- referring to a one-ton bomb that, according to the Pentagon's Web site, can be fitted with a laser guiding device and carried by the U.S.-made warplanes used in the raids.
The Israeli military said only that the bomb was not a new type and has been used before. The U.S. air force dropped thousands of M-84 bombs on Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.
U.S.-made Israeli attack helicopters hovered near Arafat's headquarters during the air strike, but they did not open fire. Returning to Gaza on Sunday after a trip to Asia, Arafat briefly toured a police structure that was shelled by Israeli tanks in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.
Asked Sunday about the legality of Israel's use of U.S. weapons against the Palestinians, a State Department
official expressed opposition to use of heavy weapons in urban areas, where the risk of casualties is high. Speaking on condition of anonymity, she said the State Department monitors the use of U.S. weapons to ensure they are used according to the terms of transfer under American law.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
Israel usually targets Palestinian security installations in its retaliatory strikes because it holds Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ultimately responsible for attacks on Israelis. Israel says Arafat's security forces do little to rein in the militants, and sometimes participate in attacks on Israelis.
The Palestinians blame Israel for the violence, charging that its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the cause, exacerbated by roadblocks and travel restrictions there. The Palestinians say their police and security are defending themselves against Israeli aggression.
Now the Palestinians charge that the United States is blatantly taking Israel's side in the conflict.
On Sunday, Palestinian police officers inspected the ruins of the four-story building in Gaza City that housed their headquarters, showing reporters a green metal fragment with yellow lettering that said ``for use on M-84'' -- referring to a one-ton bomb that, according to the Pentagon's Web site, can be fitted with a laser guiding device and carried by the U.S.-made warplanes used in the raids.
The Israeli military said only that the bomb was not a new type and has been used before. The U.S. air force dropped thousands of M-84 bombs on Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.
U.S.-made Israeli attack helicopters hovered near Arafat's headquarters during the air strike, but they did not open fire. Returning to Gaza on Sunday after a trip to Asia, Arafat briefly toured a police structure that was shelled by Israeli tanks in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.
Asked Sunday about the legality of Israel's use of U.S. weapons against the Palestinians, a State Department
official expressed opposition to use of heavy weapons in urban areas, where the risk of casualties is high. Speaking on condition of anonymity, she said the State Department monitors the use of U.S. weapons to ensure they are used according to the terms of transfer under American law.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
Palestinian Raids Kill 6 Israelis, Including 3 Soldiers at Gaza Base
The raid took place near Bedolah, part of a major bloc of Jewish settlements in southern Gaza known as Gush Qatif. Although the teeming Gaza Strip has been a Palestinian autonomous zone since 1994, significant stretches remain in Israeli hands, with the army in control of key intersections to protect an estimated 6,000 Israelis living in Gush Qatif and more isolated settlements. Like many army posts in Gaza, the one hit on Saturday was near an Israeli enclave.
Clashes between soldiers and Gazans have become routine over the last 11 months. But assaults like the one on Saturday are uncommon. It clearly rattled Israel's military.
"The specific incident reflects a new form of audacity that we hadn't yet witnessed," said Maj. Gen. Doron Almog, the army commander in southern Israel and Gaza.
Undetected, the raiders made their way across ditches and through the barbed-wire perimeter of the base, where they opened fire and threw hand grenades from close range at the soldiers, some of whom were asleep. A major, Gil Oz, 30, and a staff sergeant, Yaakov Nir, 21, were killed. An unidentified medic was fatally shot when he tried to give first aid to Major Oz. At one point, General Almog said, his soldiers and the Palestinians were locked in hand- to-hand combat.
In a firefight said to have lasted about 10 minutes, one Palestinian attacker was killed. The other got away, but was found several hours later, hiding in the greenhouses of a nearby settlement, Atzmona, where he was shot and killed.The two Palestinians were identified as Amin Abu Hatab, 26, and Hisham Abu Jamus, 24.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/international/middleeast/26MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
The raid took place near Bedolah, part of a major bloc of Jewish settlements in southern Gaza known as Gush Qatif. Although the teeming Gaza Strip has been a Palestinian autonomous zone since 1994, significant stretches remain in Israeli hands, with the army in control of key intersections to protect an estimated 6,000 Israelis living in Gush Qatif and more isolated settlements. Like many army posts in Gaza, the one hit on Saturday was near an Israeli enclave.
Clashes between soldiers and Gazans have become routine over the last 11 months. But assaults like the one on Saturday are uncommon. It clearly rattled Israel's military.
"The specific incident reflects a new form of audacity that we hadn't yet witnessed," said Maj. Gen. Doron Almog, the army commander in southern Israel and Gaza.
Undetected, the raiders made their way across ditches and through the barbed-wire perimeter of the base, where they opened fire and threw hand grenades from close range at the soldiers, some of whom were asleep. A major, Gil Oz, 30, and a staff sergeant, Yaakov Nir, 21, were killed. An unidentified medic was fatally shot when he tried to give first aid to Major Oz. At one point, General Almog said, his soldiers and the Palestinians were locked in hand- to-hand combat.
In a firefight said to have lasted about 10 minutes, one Palestinian attacker was killed. The other got away, but was found several hours later, hiding in the greenhouses of a nearby settlement, Atzmona, where he was shot and killed.The two Palestinians were identified as Amin Abu Hatab, 26, and Hisham Abu Jamus, 24.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/international/middleeast/26MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
Saturday, August 25, 2001
Against Impossible Odds, Sojourners Magazine/September-October 2001
If you were an activist in apartheid-era South Africa, you could be pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and killed. But ordinary South Africans, though poor and oppressed, could still visit their mothers or join their buddies to play soccer, and generally they were able to move freely around the country. Palestinians, however, can't just wake up in the morning and decide to go visit a friend, or end the day by going to see the sunset at the water's edge. The theft of spontaneity. Jean Zaru told me she hadn't worked with her assistant face to face for three months, because they couldn't get in the same room at the same time. It was easier for international visitors to come to the Sabeel conference in Jerusalem than for local Palestinians to get there from their own villages and cities.
There is indeed Palestinian violence against Israeli settlements. Shootings and even mortar shells have been aimed into them. Some people have been killed, and the fear is very high. There have been casualties even among Israeli children. Two 14-year-old boys were found dead in a cave near their settlement, their bodies battered and mutilated with rocks, killed by Palestinians. And we've seen the results of suicide bombers, including at a Tel Aviv disco. In my opinion, attacks against civilian populations are terrorism. Such terror can never be justified. Never.
But the Israelis use such incidents to justify shelling Palestinians in massive, disproportionate retaliation. They've even resorted to bombing Palestinian targets with F-16 fighter planes. The casualties are enormous, including Palestinian children and infants caught in the middle of attacks against civilians that must also be called terrorist.
The Israeli army is shelling the most exposed houses in Palestinian villages directly from the settlements, knowing they're attacking unarmed civilians with families and children. I went into Palestinian homes that had been shelled, met the families. In one I saw the huge shell hole in the wall of the children's bedroom. The kids were scared that night, cowering in their parents' room down the hall, or they surely would have been killed.
By the end of June, 558 people had been killed in the current wave of violence—78 percent of them Palestinians (92 percent of those injured are Palestinians). More than 100 children under the age of 17 had died—86 Palestinian children, and 18 Israeli children. In a very moving moment at the start of the Sabeel conference, we named each victim of the violence, from all sides. Every individual life counts in God's eyes.
Movements are responsible for the images they project. When the Israeli military shot and killed 12-year-old Mohammed Dura in his father's arms as they cowered in fear against a wall in Gaza, the powerful images went around the world. But three days later, two Israeli soldiers were captured and lynched by angry Palestinians in the city of Ramallah in the West Bank. The image flashed around the world was that of bloody hands raised by an angry Palestinian mob over the lynched soldiers' mutilated bodies. If the images from Birmingham and Selma had been dead cops, we wouldn't have won the civil rights struggle in America.
There is no "symmetry" in the violence of the Middle East today. Israeli violence is enormously disproportionate to Palestinian violence. That includes the violence of the settlements and closure policies themselves and the Israeli military practices, especially in their retaliation against Palestinian attacks. Despite this lack of proportionality, there is no moral or strategic justification for the Palestinian violence in response to Israeli domination, especially when it targets civilians. No argument, even lack of symmetry, will suffice.
http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/sojourners/issue/soj0109/article/010910.html
If you were an activist in apartheid-era South Africa, you could be pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and killed. But ordinary South Africans, though poor and oppressed, could still visit their mothers or join their buddies to play soccer, and generally they were able to move freely around the country. Palestinians, however, can't just wake up in the morning and decide to go visit a friend, or end the day by going to see the sunset at the water's edge. The theft of spontaneity. Jean Zaru told me she hadn't worked with her assistant face to face for three months, because they couldn't get in the same room at the same time. It was easier for international visitors to come to the Sabeel conference in Jerusalem than for local Palestinians to get there from their own villages and cities.
There is indeed Palestinian violence against Israeli settlements. Shootings and even mortar shells have been aimed into them. Some people have been killed, and the fear is very high. There have been casualties even among Israeli children. Two 14-year-old boys were found dead in a cave near their settlement, their bodies battered and mutilated with rocks, killed by Palestinians. And we've seen the results of suicide bombers, including at a Tel Aviv disco. In my opinion, attacks against civilian populations are terrorism. Such terror can never be justified. Never.
But the Israelis use such incidents to justify shelling Palestinians in massive, disproportionate retaliation. They've even resorted to bombing Palestinian targets with F-16 fighter planes. The casualties are enormous, including Palestinian children and infants caught in the middle of attacks against civilians that must also be called terrorist.
The Israeli army is shelling the most exposed houses in Palestinian villages directly from the settlements, knowing they're attacking unarmed civilians with families and children. I went into Palestinian homes that had been shelled, met the families. In one I saw the huge shell hole in the wall of the children's bedroom. The kids were scared that night, cowering in their parents' room down the hall, or they surely would have been killed.
By the end of June, 558 people had been killed in the current wave of violence—78 percent of them Palestinians (92 percent of those injured are Palestinians). More than 100 children under the age of 17 had died—86 Palestinian children, and 18 Israeli children. In a very moving moment at the start of the Sabeel conference, we named each victim of the violence, from all sides. Every individual life counts in God's eyes.
Movements are responsible for the images they project. When the Israeli military shot and killed 12-year-old Mohammed Dura in his father's arms as they cowered in fear against a wall in Gaza, the powerful images went around the world. But three days later, two Israeli soldiers were captured and lynched by angry Palestinians in the city of Ramallah in the West Bank. The image flashed around the world was that of bloody hands raised by an angry Palestinian mob over the lynched soldiers' mutilated bodies. If the images from Birmingham and Selma had been dead cops, we wouldn't have won the civil rights struggle in America.
There is no "symmetry" in the violence of the Middle East today. Israeli violence is enormously disproportionate to Palestinian violence. That includes the violence of the settlements and closure policies themselves and the Israeli military practices, especially in their retaliation against Palestinian attacks. Despite this lack of proportionality, there is no moral or strategic justification for the Palestinian violence in response to Israeli domination, especially when it targets civilians. No argument, even lack of symmetry, will suffice.
http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/sojourners/issue/soj0109/article/010910.html
Thursday, August 23, 2001
3-Strikes Law Is Overrated in California, Study Finds
"The real impact of the law is a tremendous distortion of crime-control resources," Mr. Mauer said. "As the 25-year-to-life inmates stack up, California will be housing a disproportionate share of elderly inmates. We know that 50-year-olds commit far less crime than 25-year-olds, and every dollar going into housing a 50- year-old inmate is a dollar not going into dealing with a 16-year-old beginning to get into trouble."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/23/national/23SENT.html
"The real impact of the law is a tremendous distortion of crime-control resources," Mr. Mauer said. "As the 25-year-to-life inmates stack up, California will be housing a disproportionate share of elderly inmates. We know that 50-year-olds commit far less crime than 25-year-olds, and every dollar going into housing a 50- year-old inmate is a dollar not going into dealing with a 16-year-old beginning to get into trouble."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/23/national/23SENT.html
Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Web Bugs Might Bite Back at Marketers
Some marketers may be violating their privacy policies or collecting consumer data without permission by using Web bugs on their Web sites, according to a study released this week.
Titled "Web Bugs -- A Study of the Presence and Growth Rate of Web Bugs on the Internet," the study was conducted by Internet site tracking firm Cyveillance Inc. Cyveillance gathered data from more than 1 million Web pages and compared a random sample of pages from 1998 and 2001.
Web bugs, also known as clear GIFs or 1-by-1 pixels, are graphics embedded in Web pages or in e-mail messages that can track site visitors or readers of e-mail.
While Web bugs can be used for such benign purposes as tracking the number of visitors to a Web page, its potential for collecting more detailed information worries privacy advocates.
The Privacy Foundation, a nonprofit consumer education group and privacy watchdog, has said the use of Web bugs is tantamount to illegal wiretapping.
Data that can be collected by Web bugs include IP addresses, the URL of the Web page location of the Web bug on it, the time and date it was served, the type of browser used to retrieve the Web bug and previously set cookie values.
It is through cookie values that marketers using Web bugs could collect data such as personally identifiable information and transactional information.
"The results of this study emphasize what we're seeing everyday -- companies want to earn and retain the trust of their customers, and an association with Web bugs has the potential to seriously undermine those efforts," Panos Anastassiadis, president/CEO of Cyveillance Inc., Arlington, VA, said in a statement.
http://www.imarketingnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=16686
Some marketers may be violating their privacy policies or collecting consumer data without permission by using Web bugs on their Web sites, according to a study released this week.
Titled "Web Bugs -- A Study of the Presence and Growth Rate of Web Bugs on the Internet," the study was conducted by Internet site tracking firm Cyveillance Inc. Cyveillance gathered data from more than 1 million Web pages and compared a random sample of pages from 1998 and 2001.
Web bugs, also known as clear GIFs or 1-by-1 pixels, are graphics embedded in Web pages or in e-mail messages that can track site visitors or readers of e-mail.
While Web bugs can be used for such benign purposes as tracking the number of visitors to a Web page, its potential for collecting more detailed information worries privacy advocates.
The Privacy Foundation, a nonprofit consumer education group and privacy watchdog, has said the use of Web bugs is tantamount to illegal wiretapping.
Data that can be collected by Web bugs include IP addresses, the URL of the Web page location of the Web bug on it, the time and date it was served, the type of browser used to retrieve the Web bug and previously set cookie values.
It is through cookie values that marketers using Web bugs could collect data such as personally identifiable information and transactional information.
"The results of this study emphasize what we're seeing everyday -- companies want to earn and retain the trust of their customers, and an association with Web bugs has the potential to seriously undermine those efforts," Panos Anastassiadis, president/CEO of Cyveillance Inc., Arlington, VA, said in a statement.
http://www.imarketingnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=16686
Monday, August 20, 2001
Palestinian and His 2 Children in Day's Toll
Military checkpoints that dot the West Bank and Gaza Strip have come to embody the great divide between the two peoples since the start of the present conflict last September.
The effect of the blockades is to keep Palestinians virtually locked in their towns and villages for long stretches, making it difficult for them to get to work or even to go on simple excursions like shopping trips.
To Israel, the checkpoints are a necessary security measure, given the squads of suicide bombers that radical Islamic groups say are poised to attack Israeli cities. But Palestinians see only collective punishment. Inevitably, many of them look for ways around the barricades, finding them on back roads and paths that are also known to the Israelis, who often turn a blind eye. Mr. Abu Lawi was taking such a route today when the soldiers opened fire, killing him and wounding five other Palestinians.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/international/middleeast/20MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
Military checkpoints that dot the West Bank and Gaza Strip have come to embody the great divide between the two peoples since the start of the present conflict last September.
The effect of the blockades is to keep Palestinians virtually locked in their towns and villages for long stretches, making it difficult for them to get to work or even to go on simple excursions like shopping trips.
To Israel, the checkpoints are a necessary security measure, given the squads of suicide bombers that radical Islamic groups say are poised to attack Israeli cities. But Palestinians see only collective punishment. Inevitably, many of them look for ways around the barricades, finding them on back roads and paths that are also known to the Israelis, who often turn a blind eye. Mr. Abu Lawi was taking such a route today when the soldiers opened fire, killing him and wounding five other Palestinians.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/international/middleeast/20MIDE.html?pagewanted=all
Saturday, August 18, 2001
Yale and the Price of Slavery
Presentism is very often advanced in defense of America's founders. It is comforting to think that their generation, so distant in time from us, lived in a condition of moral ignorance, and thus innocence, regarding slavery. But that is not the case. Even Thomas Jefferson, some of whose statements exhibit an almost demented racism, could see clearly that slavery utterly compromised the nation: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever," Jefferson wrote. "The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us."
George Washington was an enthusiastic slaveholder in his early decades, buying slaves to build himself a plantation empire; but by the end of his life he found slavery repugnant. In his will Washington freed his slaves and specified that the children be educated, believing that with education and training the freed children of slaves could take a more fruitful and productive place in Virginia society. If we accept the statement that "it's downright inappropriate to render a moral judgment" on slavery, we are more willing to accept slavery than George Washington was.
If the founders had such misgivings over slavery, how is it that they allowed slavery to continue? The answer is not that they didn't know any better, but that they kept slavery so the Southern states would join the union. It was a transaction, a deal, just like the deal that put the national capital on the Potomac in exchange for the federal assumption of states' debts — and not unlike the deal the Hairstons made in causing their kin to disappear. With their eyes open, the founders traded away the rights of African-Americans, many of whom had fought bravely in the Revolution, so that the national enterprise could go forward.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/18/opinion/18WIEN.html
Presentism is very often advanced in defense of America's founders. It is comforting to think that their generation, so distant in time from us, lived in a condition of moral ignorance, and thus innocence, regarding slavery. But that is not the case. Even Thomas Jefferson, some of whose statements exhibit an almost demented racism, could see clearly that slavery utterly compromised the nation: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever," Jefferson wrote. "The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us."
George Washington was an enthusiastic slaveholder in his early decades, buying slaves to build himself a plantation empire; but by the end of his life he found slavery repugnant. In his will Washington freed his slaves and specified that the children be educated, believing that with education and training the freed children of slaves could take a more fruitful and productive place in Virginia society. If we accept the statement that "it's downright inappropriate to render a moral judgment" on slavery, we are more willing to accept slavery than George Washington was.
If the founders had such misgivings over slavery, how is it that they allowed slavery to continue? The answer is not that they didn't know any better, but that they kept slavery so the Southern states would join the union. It was a transaction, a deal, just like the deal that put the national capital on the Potomac in exchange for the federal assumption of states' debts — and not unlike the deal the Hairstons made in causing their kin to disappear. With their eyes open, the founders traded away the rights of African-Americans, many of whom had fought bravely in the Revolution, so that the national enterprise could go forward.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/18/opinion/18WIEN.html
Friday, August 17, 2001
Patent Laws May Determine Shape of Stem Cell Research
The patent, held by a foundation at the University of Wisconsin, is apparently the only one of its kind in the world, leaving the university in such a powerful position that next week the health officials will begin negotiations in hopes of reaching an agreement to allow federally financed scientists broad access to the cells.
The patent, which covers both the method of isolating the cells and the cells themselves, gives the Wisconsin foundation control over who may work in the United States with stem cells, and for what purpose. In turn, the foundation has granted important rights to a biotechnology company, the Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, Calif., giving that company considerable say over who ultimately profits from stem cell therapies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/17/health/genetics/17CELL.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all
The patent, held by a foundation at the University of Wisconsin, is apparently the only one of its kind in the world, leaving the university in such a powerful position that next week the health officials will begin negotiations in hopes of reaching an agreement to allow federally financed scientists broad access to the cells.
The patent, which covers both the method of isolating the cells and the cells themselves, gives the Wisconsin foundation control over who may work in the United States with stem cells, and for what purpose. In turn, the foundation has granted important rights to a biotechnology company, the Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, Calif., giving that company considerable say over who ultimately profits from stem cell therapies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/17/health/genetics/17CELL.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all
Yahoo - Inability to Type Not a Disability 9th Circuit Rules
A newspaper reporter whose repetitive stress injuries have left her unable to use a computer keyboard isn't "substantially limited" in major life activities under the Americans With Disabilities Act, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.
The 2-1 majority said Fresno Bee reporter Jacalyn Thornton didn't meet her burden of showing she was limited in her ability to work or perform manual labor.
"In this case, Thornton was able to perform a wide range of manual tasks, including grocery shopping, driving, making beds, doing laundry and dressing herself," wrote Judge Michael Daly Hawkins in Thornton v. McClatchy Newspapers, 01 C.D.O.S. 7070. "Her inability to type and write for extended periods of time is not sufficient to outweigh the large number of manual tasks that she can perform."
http://biz.yahoo.com/law/010815/30247-4.html
A newspaper reporter whose repetitive stress injuries have left her unable to use a computer keyboard isn't "substantially limited" in major life activities under the Americans With Disabilities Act, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.
The 2-1 majority said Fresno Bee reporter Jacalyn Thornton didn't meet her burden of showing she was limited in her ability to work or perform manual labor.
"In this case, Thornton was able to perform a wide range of manual tasks, including grocery shopping, driving, making beds, doing laundry and dressing herself," wrote Judge Michael Daly Hawkins in Thornton v. McClatchy Newspapers, 01 C.D.O.S. 7070. "Her inability to type and write for extended periods of time is not sufficient to outweigh the large number of manual tasks that she can perform."
http://biz.yahoo.com/law/010815/30247-4.html
Monday, August 06, 2001
A Study's Verdict: Jury Awards Are Not Out of Control
A comprehensive study of nearly 9,000 trials across the country has found that judges award punitive damages about as often as juries and generally in about the same proportions.
The role of judges in awarding punitive damages was "surprisingly prominent," the study found, adding that moves to limit punitive awards by juries "may be a solution in search of a problem."
The study, believed to be one of the largest of punitive damage awards, challenges widely held ideas about jurors' decisions that have influenced state judges, legislators, Congress and even the United States Supreme Court.
Jury punitive damage awards, which are intended as punishment, have been a focus of particular criticism because of occasional huge awards that critics say have no relation to compensatory damages, which are intended to pay injured people for their losses.
A draft of the study, provided by the authors, said that judges and juries each awarded punitive damages in about 4 percent of the cases in which plaintiffs won.
The study, to be published in March in the Cornell Law Review, analyzed court statistics on 8,724 trials in 45 large trial courts across the country. It was conducted by two Cornell professors, Theodore Eisenberg and Martin T. Wells, and three analysts from the National Center for State Courts, an independent research group in Williamsburg, Va.
By showing that judges and juries generally have similar views of punitive damages, the study suggested that juries may be far less arbitrary than is widely believed, said Neil Vidmar, an authority on jury issues at Duke Law School who was not involved in the Cornell research but was familiar with it.
"It is novel," Professor Vidmar said, "because the conventional wisdom is juries are irresponsible, incompetent and don't know how to make an assessment."
The study is expected to be controversial not only because it concludes that jurors may be more rational than they were believed to be, but also because it contradicts other research.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/06/national/06LEGA.html?pagewanted=all
A comprehensive study of nearly 9,000 trials across the country has found that judges award punitive damages about as often as juries and generally in about the same proportions.
The role of judges in awarding punitive damages was "surprisingly prominent," the study found, adding that moves to limit punitive awards by juries "may be a solution in search of a problem."
The study, believed to be one of the largest of punitive damage awards, challenges widely held ideas about jurors' decisions that have influenced state judges, legislators, Congress and even the United States Supreme Court.
Jury punitive damage awards, which are intended as punishment, have been a focus of particular criticism because of occasional huge awards that critics say have no relation to compensatory damages, which are intended to pay injured people for their losses.
A draft of the study, provided by the authors, said that judges and juries each awarded punitive damages in about 4 percent of the cases in which plaintiffs won.
The study, to be published in March in the Cornell Law Review, analyzed court statistics on 8,724 trials in 45 large trial courts across the country. It was conducted by two Cornell professors, Theodore Eisenberg and Martin T. Wells, and three analysts from the National Center for State Courts, an independent research group in Williamsburg, Va.
By showing that judges and juries generally have similar views of punitive damages, the study suggested that juries may be far less arbitrary than is widely believed, said Neil Vidmar, an authority on jury issues at Duke Law School who was not involved in the Cornell research but was familiar with it.
"It is novel," Professor Vidmar said, "because the conventional wisdom is juries are irresponsible, incompetent and don't know how to make an assessment."
The study is expected to be controversial not only because it concludes that jurors may be more rational than they were believed to be, but also because it contradicts other research.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/06/national/06LEGA.html?pagewanted=all
Saturday, August 04, 2001
Susan Calcari
Susan Calcari 1956-2001
Susan Calcari was born on June 25th, 1956 in Iron Mountain, Michigan -- the daughter of Robert and Carol (Oien) Calcari. She graduated near the top of Iron Mountain High School's class of 1974 and went on to graduate with honors from Michigan Technological University in 1978. Shortly after graduating, she moved to San Francisco, where she began her career.
Susan was the founder and Executive Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Internet Scout Project, which publishes the Scout Report and does research related to online resource discovery. The Scout Report is one of the Internet's longest-running and most respected publications.
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/about/susan.html
Susan Calcari 1956-2001
Susan Calcari was born on June 25th, 1956 in Iron Mountain, Michigan -- the daughter of Robert and Carol (Oien) Calcari. She graduated near the top of Iron Mountain High School's class of 1974 and went on to graduate with honors from Michigan Technological University in 1978. Shortly after graduating, she moved to San Francisco, where she began her career.
Susan was the founder and Executive Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Internet Scout Project, which publishes the Scout Report and does research related to online resource discovery. The Scout Report is one of the Internet's longest-running and most respected publications.
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/about/susan.html
Monday, July 30, 2001
Unmasking the Poor
The poor are pretty well hidden from everyone except each other in the United States. You won't find them in the same neighborhoods or the same schools as the well-to-do. They're not on television, except for the local crime-casts. And they've vanished from the nation's political discussion.
Hiding the poor has been quite a trick, because there are still millions upon millions of them out here. And despite all the rosy scenarios we've been fed — the end of welfare as we know it, rising tides lifting everybody's yachts — they're not doing very well at all.
This has been made clear in a new report from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington and in Barbara Ehrenreich's latest book, "Nickel and Dimed."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/opinion/30HERB.html
The poor are pretty well hidden from everyone except each other in the United States. You won't find them in the same neighborhoods or the same schools as the well-to-do. They're not on television, except for the local crime-casts. And they've vanished from the nation's political discussion.
Hiding the poor has been quite a trick, because there are still millions upon millions of them out here. And despite all the rosy scenarios we've been fed — the end of welfare as we know it, rising tides lifting everybody's yachts — they're not doing very well at all.
This has been made clear in a new report from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington and in Barbara Ehrenreich's latest book, "Nickel and Dimed."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/opinion/30HERB.html
Tuesday, July 24, 2001
ZDNet: Smart Business | What's Next
What's Next
The Editors of Ziff Davis Smart Business, Ziff Davis Smart Business
August 2001
E-business reality check: Barry Diller, Sam Donaldson, Mohan Sawhney, Ted Nugent, and other innovators on the future of the Next Economy—and how to profit from it.
http://www.zdnet.com/smartbusinessmag/stories/all/0,6605,2781480,00.html
What's Next
The Editors of Ziff Davis Smart Business, Ziff Davis Smart Business
August 2001
E-business reality check: Barry Diller, Sam Donaldson, Mohan Sawhney, Ted Nugent, and other innovators on the future of the Next Economy—and how to profit from it.
http://www.zdnet.com/smartbusinessmag/stories/all/0,6605,2781480,00.html
Friday, July 13, 2001
Overcome by Slavery
The resonance of the Jefferson- Hemings affair provides a reminder of how much slavery has become part of contemporary politics. Bill Clinton realized this early on; hence the debate over The Apology and his appointment of the Commission on Race and Reconciliation. Congress has also gotten into the act, mandating that Civil War battle sites supervised by the National Park Service address slavery. Disputes over the Confederate flag and Confederate History Month have roiled politics in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Virginia, and California has required insurance companies to divulge if they have ever insured slave property. Finally, there is the matter of reparations, which has found advocates in some of the nation's prominent litigators.
It would be comforting to conclude that recognition of slavery's importance to the development of our economy, politics and culture has driven Americans to a consideration of the past. But there clearly is more to the current interest in slavery. There is a recognition that American racism was founded in slavery, and a general, if inchoate, understanding that any attempt to address race in the present must also address slavery in past.
This attempt has become imperative as American society perceptibly grows more segregated, the benefits of economic growth are unevenly and unfairly distributed among races, and a previous generation's remedies for segregation and inequality are discarded as politically unacceptable.
In short, behind the interest in slavery is the crisis of race. The confluence of the history of slavery and the politics of race reveals that slavery has become a language, a way to talk about race, in a society in which blacks and whites hardly talk to each other at all. In slavery, Americans have found a voice to address some of their deepest hurts and the depressing reality of how much of American life — jobs; housing; schools; access to medical care, to justice and even to a taxi — is controlled by race.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/13/opinion/13BERL.html
The resonance of the Jefferson- Hemings affair provides a reminder of how much slavery has become part of contemporary politics. Bill Clinton realized this early on; hence the debate over The Apology and his appointment of the Commission on Race and Reconciliation. Congress has also gotten into the act, mandating that Civil War battle sites supervised by the National Park Service address slavery. Disputes over the Confederate flag and Confederate History Month have roiled politics in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Virginia, and California has required insurance companies to divulge if they have ever insured slave property. Finally, there is the matter of reparations, which has found advocates in some of the nation's prominent litigators.
It would be comforting to conclude that recognition of slavery's importance to the development of our economy, politics and culture has driven Americans to a consideration of the past. But there clearly is more to the current interest in slavery. There is a recognition that American racism was founded in slavery, and a general, if inchoate, understanding that any attempt to address race in the present must also address slavery in past.
This attempt has become imperative as American society perceptibly grows more segregated, the benefits of economic growth are unevenly and unfairly distributed among races, and a previous generation's remedies for segregation and inequality are discarded as politically unacceptable.
In short, behind the interest in slavery is the crisis of race. The confluence of the history of slavery and the politics of race reveals that slavery has become a language, a way to talk about race, in a society in which blacks and whites hardly talk to each other at all. In slavery, Americans have found a voice to address some of their deepest hurts and the depressing reality of how much of American life — jobs; housing; schools; access to medical care, to justice and even to a taxi — is controlled by race.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/13/opinion/13BERL.html
Thursday, June 28, 2001
ShopGuideNews
Forrester Research analyst George Colony said, "News, sports and weather imparted on static Web pages offer essentially the same content presented on paper, which makes the online experience more like reading in a dusty library than participating in a new medium."
http://www.shopguide.com/news/article_report3_06-27-01.asp
Forrester Research analyst George Colony said, "News, sports and weather imparted on static Web pages offer essentially the same content presented on paper, which makes the online experience more like reading in a dusty library than participating in a new medium."
http://www.shopguide.com/news/article_report3_06-27-01.asp
Tuesday, June 26, 2001
Tassini v. New York TimesFindLaw for Legal Professionals
The links are to the full text of the majority opinion upholding Freelancers rights re: publication in electronic databases
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=00-201
Monday, June 11, 2001
Virus Searches for Pornography The new virus, which is called VBS.Noped.a, searches the target's machine for what it suspects may be child pornography and reports the names of files to the police. There are no reports of police officials acting on such results, and antivirus software companies say it has not yet been distributed widely and is at relatively low risk of damaging computers.
Technically a worm, the virus is of unknown origin and was spotted by computer security companies on May 22. It arrives as an attachment to an e-mail message titled, "FWD: Help us ALL to END ILLEGAL child porn NOW." When a recipient opens the attachment, child pornography statutes appear on screen. The program then searches the user's hard drive for picture files that have pornographic-sounding names and then sends an e-mail message and a list of suspect files to a law enforcement agency picked at random from the program's database.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/technology/11VIRU.html?pagewanted=all
Technically a worm, the virus is of unknown origin and was spotted by computer security companies on May 22. It arrives as an attachment to an e-mail message titled, "FWD: Help us ALL to END ILLEGAL child porn NOW." When a recipient opens the attachment, child pornography statutes appear on screen. The program then searches the user's hard drive for picture files that have pornographic-sounding names and then sends an e-mail message and a list of suspect files to a law enforcement agency picked at random from the program's database.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/technology/11VIRU.html?pagewanted=all
Friday, May 25, 2001
Gore Talks High Tech in Washington
"There is no technological silver bullet that's going to solve a problem unless it is used by people who understand its capabilities and are willing to make changes in their actions,'' Gore said in a speech at the Communications Solutions Expo.
Gore drew a parallel between the use of information technology and the introduction of electric motors a century earlier. While electric motors were superior to steam engines, productivity did not increase until managers built new factories along a horizontal rather than vertical axis and changed work habits to take advantage of the new machines.
"You learn more and have more opportunity for growth from experiences that are setbacks than from the experiences that are smooth sailing. One of the first lessons you learn is that smooth sailing really is better,'' Gore said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-tech-gore-dc.html?pagewanted=all
"There is no technological silver bullet that's going to solve a problem unless it is used by people who understand its capabilities and are willing to make changes in their actions,'' Gore said in a speech at the Communications Solutions Expo.
Gore drew a parallel between the use of information technology and the introduction of electric motors a century earlier. While electric motors were superior to steam engines, productivity did not increase until managers built new factories along a horizontal rather than vertical axis and changed work habits to take advantage of the new machines.
"You learn more and have more opportunity for growth from experiences that are setbacks than from the experiences that are smooth sailing. One of the first lessons you learn is that smooth sailing really is better,'' Gore said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-tech-gore-dc.html?pagewanted=all
Monday, May 21, 2001
New Economy: Pact Raises Competition Questions
The contract — between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, and VeriSign Inc., — is the latest turn in a long, complicated process that continues to raise questions over whether the government's decision to move from a monopoly to market competition has truly opened the field to other players. An equally important issue has faded: whether the public has benefited from the new system.
Unlike the I.R.S., Icann is not a government agency; it is a nonprofit corporation with a limited policy mandate. But critics, including some in Congress, say it overstepped its boundaries in renegotiating the contract with VeriSign through proceedings largely shielded from public view.
The main concern with the contract is that it allows VeriSign to continue operating the registry database for dot-com addresses and collect a fee of $6 a year for every dot- com address registered, while also competing with other companies in selling those addresses to the public. Under an earlier contract, Network Solutions, which has since been acquired by VeriSign, would have been required to sell either the registry database or its retail division, on the theory that operating both was a conflict of interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/21/technology/21NECO.html?pagewanted=all
The contract — between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, and VeriSign Inc., — is the latest turn in a long, complicated process that continues to raise questions over whether the government's decision to move from a monopoly to market competition has truly opened the field to other players. An equally important issue has faded: whether the public has benefited from the new system.
Unlike the I.R.S., Icann is not a government agency; it is a nonprofit corporation with a limited policy mandate. But critics, including some in Congress, say it overstepped its boundaries in renegotiating the contract with VeriSign through proceedings largely shielded from public view.
The main concern with the contract is that it allows VeriSign to continue operating the registry database for dot-com addresses and collect a fee of $6 a year for every dot- com address registered, while also competing with other companies in selling those addresses to the public. Under an earlier contract, Network Solutions, which has since been acquired by VeriSign, would have been required to sell either the registry database or its retail division, on the theory that operating both was a conflict of interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/21/technology/21NECO.html?pagewanted=all
The Standard: Don't Know Much About a Science Book Why do our eighth-graders do so poorly in
math and science compared with students
around the world? Why is it that 80 percent
of U.S. high-school graduates never go on
to take a college physics course? Why do so
many American graduate schools attract
more foreign students than U.S. citizens to
their science and engineering programs?
One reason is that the science textbooks found in most American classrooms are, in a word, atrocious. They are riddled with errors, sloppy thinking and glitzy illustrations that illustrate little in the way of actual science. We shouldn't be
surprised that American children are turning away from science when their introduction to it is at best incoherent.
Final Report
Without a clear-cut author or pair of authors to “define” the text or give it direction, these texts fail miserably. Committees produce mush and it is very difficult to find anyone with the authority to make corrections. Instead of being able to deal directly with authors we dealt with “editors” and got answers to our concerns about inaccuracies such as “Well we have to make the science simple,” “We don’t think that your qualifications are good enough,” and “Our experts disagree with you.”
math and science compared with students
around the world? Why is it that 80 percent
of U.S. high-school graduates never go on
to take a college physics course? Why do so
many American graduate schools attract
more foreign students than U.S. citizens to
their science and engineering programs?
One reason is that the science textbooks found in most American classrooms are, in a word, atrocious. They are riddled with errors, sloppy thinking and glitzy illustrations that illustrate little in the way of actual science. We shouldn't be
surprised that American children are turning away from science when their introduction to it is at best incoherent.
Final Report
Without a clear-cut author or pair of authors to “define” the text or give it direction, these texts fail miserably. Committees produce mush and it is very difficult to find anyone with the authority to make corrections. Instead of being able to deal directly with authors we dealt with “editors” and got answers to our concerns about inaccuracies such as “Well we have to make the science simple,” “We don’t think that your qualifications are good enough,” and “Our experts disagree with you.”
Thursday, May 17, 2001
ShopGuideNews
Online Cigarette Sales are Smokin' A research briefing from Forrester warns that much of the online tobacco purchases are coming from kids - but not for long.
In the days before the Internet, teenagers looking to buy cigarettes often had to talk an older friend into purchasing them or attempt to bluff their way past a cashier intent on verifying their age. Now, teenagers can point and click their way to a nicotine fix, often without verifying their age, even though tobacco sales to minors are as illegal online as they are in the real world.
Much of the Internet cigarette market is shrouded in vagueness. Many of the sites are run from Indian reservations, which are free to set their own retail regulations, but some are not. Analysts say they have no idea of the size of the total market or even what the biggest companies are. "You get the feeling many of these are fly-by-night," said Preston Dodd, an analyst with Jupiter Communications, a research firm specializing in Internet commerce.
http://www.shopguide.com/news/article_report1_05-16-01.asp
Online Cigarette Sales are Smokin' A research briefing from Forrester warns that much of the online tobacco purchases are coming from kids - but not for long.
In the days before the Internet, teenagers looking to buy cigarettes often had to talk an older friend into purchasing them or attempt to bluff their way past a cashier intent on verifying their age. Now, teenagers can point and click their way to a nicotine fix, often without verifying their age, even though tobacco sales to minors are as illegal online as they are in the real world.
Much of the Internet cigarette market is shrouded in vagueness. Many of the sites are run from Indian reservations, which are free to set their own retail regulations, but some are not. Analysts say they have no idea of the size of the total market or even what the biggest companies are. "You get the feeling many of these are fly-by-night," said Preston Dodd, an analyst with Jupiter Communications, a research firm specializing in Internet commerce.
http://www.shopguide.com/news/article_report1_05-16-01.asp
Monday, May 14, 2001
New Economy: Behind Bars, a Market for Goods
During the 12- month period ended June 30, 1999, the Federal prison population rose 9.9 percent, the largest yearly gain ever reported. The incarceration rate has tripled since 1980.
To some, these figures are a national embarrassment. To others, they represent a marketing opportunity. Particularly in consumer electronics.
Take headphones. They are a ubiquitous feature of prison life, given the potential for conflict over noise and music preferences. Indeed, headphones are required by some corrections departments and are popular items in commissaries and mail-order catalogs that sell directly to inmates.
New Economy: Behind Bars, a Market for Goods
During the 12- month period ended June 30, 1999, the Federal prison population rose 9.9 percent, the largest yearly gain ever reported. The incarceration rate has tripled since 1980.
To some, these figures are a national embarrassment. To others, they represent a marketing opportunity. Particularly in consumer electronics.
Take headphones. They are a ubiquitous feature of prison life, given the potential for conflict over noise and music preferences. Indeed, headphones are required by some corrections departments and are popular items in commissaries and mail-order catalogs that sell directly to inmates.
New Economy: Behind Bars, a Market for Goods
Sunday, May 13, 2001
The First World Hacker War
After last month's collision of an American spy plane and a Chinese jet, hackers in the United States and China began defacing Web sites on both sides of the Pacific. Then Chinese hackers, led by a group called the Honkers Union, declared war.
The White House's site was shut down for hours, computers at the California Department of Justice caught a virus and the eastern Ohio's Bellaire School District site played the Chinese national anthem while displaying China's fluttering red flag.
Most attacks involved cybergraffiti. American hackers tended to be insulting ("Slouching Tiger, Ridden Dragon" was slapped on a Chinese site); Chinese hackers, righteous ("We are ready to devote anything to our motherland, including our lives" was left on several American sites).
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/13/weekinreview/13BOXB.html?pagewanted=all
After last month's collision of an American spy plane and a Chinese jet, hackers in the United States and China began defacing Web sites on both sides of the Pacific. Then Chinese hackers, led by a group called the Honkers Union, declared war.
The White House's site was shut down for hours, computers at the California Department of Justice caught a virus and the eastern Ohio's Bellaire School District site played the Chinese national anthem while displaying China's fluttering red flag.
Most attacks involved cybergraffiti. American hackers tended to be insulting ("Slouching Tiger, Ridden Dragon" was slapped on a Chinese site); Chinese hackers, righteous ("We are ready to devote anything to our motherland, including our lives" was left on several American sites).
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/13/weekinreview/13BOXB.html?pagewanted=all
Wednesday, May 09, 2001
News: Wired U.S. homes drop in 2001
The study, conducted by Telecommunications Reports International, found that the 0.3 percent decline to 68.5 million was partly because of the shrinking number of free Internet service providers. That said, the number of households paying for Internet access rose 8 percent, according to the telecommunication media group's report.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5082502,00.html
The study, conducted by Telecommunications Reports International, found that the 0.3 percent decline to 68.5 million was partly because of the shrinking number of free Internet service providers. That said, the number of households paying for Internet access rose 8 percent, according to the telecommunication media group's report.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5082502,00.html
Maybe They've Been Reading “Neuromancer”?
News: High-tech vigilantes face legal threat
In the U.S., firms are increasingly
using hacking tools to attack the
systems of hackers. Thirty-two
percent of Fortune 500 companies
have installed counter-offensive
software, according to a survey by
security consultancy WarRoom
Research. Tactics include launching
Trojan horse attacks to damage and
disable a hacker's computer, and
automated scripts that can erase an
attacker's hard drive or hijack e-mail.
However, Sommer pointed out that
such measures could cause
companies to break the law. "There
is no clear line between cyber defense
and attack," he said. If a company
launches a counter-attack after
detecting a hacker, it could inflict
damage on a third party--because
hackers often launch attacks via other
companies' systems. This raises
issues of legal liability for any
damage caused, though the law in
this area is still unclear.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2716730,00.html
Tuesday, May 08, 2001
F.C.C. Wants Higher Fines for Phone Monopolies
At a hearing earlier this year, Mr. Powell laid out his philosophy to lawmakers: "I might give you a better benefit of the doubt, but when you cheat, I'm going to hurt and hurt you hard."
The commission is charged with carrying out the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which sought to break up local phone monopolies held by the regional Bells and allow new companies to enter and compete. The act requires the Bells to lease and open up parts of their networks to competitors.
The agency can fine companies that deny rivals access up to $1.2 million for each violation.
For dominant phone companies with multibillion-dollar revenues like the Bells, "this amount is insufficient to punish and to deter violations in many instances," Mr. Powell wrote in a letter to the heads of the Commerce and Appropriations Committees in both houses.
He recommended increasing the amount to $10 million a violation "to enhance the deterrent effect of commission fines."
The commission should be able to award punitive damages, legal fees and costs in formal complaint cases, he wrote.
He also suggested that the statute of limitations on investigating an accusation — currently one year — be extended.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/08/technology/08PHON.html?pagewanted=all
At a hearing earlier this year, Mr. Powell laid out his philosophy to lawmakers: "I might give you a better benefit of the doubt, but when you cheat, I'm going to hurt and hurt you hard."
The commission is charged with carrying out the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which sought to break up local phone monopolies held by the regional Bells and allow new companies to enter and compete. The act requires the Bells to lease and open up parts of their networks to competitors.
The agency can fine companies that deny rivals access up to $1.2 million for each violation.
For dominant phone companies with multibillion-dollar revenues like the Bells, "this amount is insufficient to punish and to deter violations in many instances," Mr. Powell wrote in a letter to the heads of the Commerce and Appropriations Committees in both houses.
He recommended increasing the amount to $10 million a violation "to enhance the deterrent effect of commission fines."
The commission should be able to award punitive damages, legal fees and costs in formal complaint cases, he wrote.
He also suggested that the statute of limitations on investigating an accusation — currently one year — be extended.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/08/technology/08PHON.html?pagewanted=all
Big advice, small price - Apr. 30, 2001
Should you serve on an advisory board? Susan Stautberg offers four reasons to do it.
1. Build your network.
2. Associate with innovative group. Advisors chosen for brainpower, not position.
3. Establish relationships with decisionmakers at the company.
4. Prepares you to later serve on corporate board
http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/04/30/sbrunning/q_jane_col/index.htm.
Should you serve on an advisory board? Susan Stautberg offers four reasons to do it.
1. Build your network.
2. Associate with innovative group. Advisors chosen for brainpower, not position.
3. Establish relationships with decisionmakers at the company.
4. Prepares you to later serve on corporate board
http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/04/30/sbrunning/q_jane_col/index.htm.
Monday, May 07, 2001
New Economy: Privacy Concerns for Google Archive
In Usenet's original incarnation, messages posted to newsgroups disappeared within weeks, replaced by other comments on the same topic in what was perceived as an ongoing electronic conversation. When Deja.com, then called Deja News, began archiving messages in 1995 and making them searchable, there were protests by those who felt the bulletin boards were never intended to be permanent.
In response, Deja made it possible for users to exclude their postings from its archive by typing the phrase "X-No-archive: yes" at the beginning of a message. With that change, and as Deja subsequently shifted its business model toward consumer- written product reviews and trimmed its public Usenet archive, the privacy issue faded to the background.
Google's acquisition of the archive, however, not to mention a mass-audience popularity that Deja never achieved, may revive some of those privacy concerns. Although Google may be preserving an important historical resource — an effort that some have lauded — the company is also making the record of this "human conversation" accessible in ways that its participants may not have been able to anticipate.
Some of the messages on Usenet involve caustic personal attacks — or equally vitriolic defenses against those attacks. Others display ill-conceived opinions, rash statements or embarrassing late-night rants. And all of it is now searchable by entering a key word, a date range or a name. Postings include a name and e-mail address; the text of messages can also be searched to see if someone is mentioned by name.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/07/technology/07NECO.html?pagewanted=all
In Usenet's original incarnation, messages posted to newsgroups disappeared within weeks, replaced by other comments on the same topic in what was perceived as an ongoing electronic conversation. When Deja.com, then called Deja News, began archiving messages in 1995 and making them searchable, there were protests by those who felt the bulletin boards were never intended to be permanent.
In response, Deja made it possible for users to exclude their postings from its archive by typing the phrase "X-No-archive: yes" at the beginning of a message. With that change, and as Deja subsequently shifted its business model toward consumer- written product reviews and trimmed its public Usenet archive, the privacy issue faded to the background.
Google's acquisition of the archive, however, not to mention a mass-audience popularity that Deja never achieved, may revive some of those privacy concerns. Although Google may be preserving an important historical resource — an effort that some have lauded — the company is also making the record of this "human conversation" accessible in ways that its participants may not have been able to anticipate.
Some of the messages on Usenet involve caustic personal attacks — or equally vitriolic defenses against those attacks. Others display ill-conceived opinions, rash statements or embarrassing late-night rants. And all of it is now searchable by entering a key word, a date range or a name. Postings include a name and e-mail address; the text of messages can also be searched to see if someone is mentioned by name.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/07/technology/07NECO.html?pagewanted=all
Sunday, May 06, 2001
Segregation Growing Among U.S. Children
Though, over all, blacks and whites live in slightly more integrated areas now than they did in 1990, the segregation of their children worsened in the decade, according to the analysis by researchers at the State University of New York at Albany.
The conflicting trends between children and the overall population reflect the continuing exodus of white families with children from cities to largely white suburbs, leaving more childless whites to live in more integrated neighborhoods, researchers said. They noted that settings that forced racial integration, like college dormitories, did not include children.
The findings carry unsettling implications for race relations in a nation that, while more racially and ethnically diverse than ever, still has several major urban areas where white and black children are interacting less frequently.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/06/national/06DESE.html?pagewanted=all
Though, over all, blacks and whites live in slightly more integrated areas now than they did in 1990, the segregation of their children worsened in the decade, according to the analysis by researchers at the State University of New York at Albany.
The conflicting trends between children and the overall population reflect the continuing exodus of white families with children from cities to largely white suburbs, leaving more childless whites to live in more integrated neighborhoods, researchers said. They noted that settings that forced racial integration, like college dormitories, did not include children.
The findings carry unsettling implications for race relations in a nation that, while more racially and ethnically diverse than ever, still has several major urban areas where white and black children are interacting less frequently.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/06/national/06DESE.html?pagewanted=all
U.S. Scientists See Big Power Savings From Conservation
Their studies, completed just before the Bush administration took office, are at odds with the administration's repeated assertions in recent weeks that the nation needs to build a big new power plant every week for the next 20 years to keep up with the demand for electricity, and that big increases in production of coal and natural gas are needed to fuel those plants.
A lengthy and detailed report based on three years of work by five national laboratories said that a government-led efficiency program emphasizing research and incentives to adopt new technologies could reduce the growth in electricity demand by 20 percent to 47 percent.
That would be the equivalent of between 265 and 610 big 300-megawatt power plants, a steep reduction from the 1,300 new plants that the administration predicts will be needed. The range depends on how aggressively the government encourages efficiency in buildings, factories and appliances, as well as on the price of energy, which affects whether new technologies are economically attractive.
Another laboratory study found that government office buildings could cut their own use of power by one-fifth at no net cost to the taxpayers by adopting widespread energy conservation measures, paying for the estimated $5 billion investment with the energy savings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/06/national/06CONS.html?pagewanted=all
Their studies, completed just before the Bush administration took office, are at odds with the administration's repeated assertions in recent weeks that the nation needs to build a big new power plant every week for the next 20 years to keep up with the demand for electricity, and that big increases in production of coal and natural gas are needed to fuel those plants.
A lengthy and detailed report based on three years of work by five national laboratories said that a government-led efficiency program emphasizing research and incentives to adopt new technologies could reduce the growth in electricity demand by 20 percent to 47 percent.
That would be the equivalent of between 265 and 610 big 300-megawatt power plants, a steep reduction from the 1,300 new plants that the administration predicts will be needed. The range depends on how aggressively the government encourages efficiency in buildings, factories and appliances, as well as on the price of energy, which affects whether new technologies are economically attractive.
Another laboratory study found that government office buildings could cut their own use of power by one-fifth at no net cost to the taxpayers by adopting widespread energy conservation measures, paying for the estimated $5 billion investment with the energy savings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/06/national/06CONS.html?pagewanted=all
Wednesday, May 02, 2001
ZDNet: Story: Are all hackers nasty, intrusive evildoers? Not necessarily
Outsmart the hackers regardless of their intent. Patch your applications today. For peace of mind, I use this free software update service from ZDNet. So should you.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2714430,00.html
Outsmart the hackers regardless of their intent. Patch your applications today. For peace of mind, I use this free software update service from ZDNet. So should you.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2714430,00.html
News: Lawyers slam FBI 'hack'
According to court documents filed in the case, the FBI and Department of Justice lured two suspected Russian hackers to Seattle with job offers at a fictitious security company. After monitoring the duo's connection to two servers in Russia, the FBI used the suspects' passwords to download incriminating data from those servers.
The tactic is likely to be challenged in court; if it is deemed lawful, the precedent could allow law enforcement and intelligence communities free rein to hack foreign computers. In addition, such a ruling could provide a legal loophole for other countries to break into U.S.-based computers in search of data that could aid their own investigations.
"It's extremely dangerous just to throw the door open--it will be a free-for-all," said Jennifer Granick, clinical director for the Stanford University Center for Internet and Society. "It won't just be individuals (hacking each other). It will be corporate espionage."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5082126,00.html
According to court documents filed in the case, the FBI and Department of Justice lured two suspected Russian hackers to Seattle with job offers at a fictitious security company. After monitoring the duo's connection to two servers in Russia, the FBI used the suspects' passwords to download incriminating data from those servers.
The tactic is likely to be challenged in court; if it is deemed lawful, the precedent could allow law enforcement and intelligence communities free rein to hack foreign computers. In addition, such a ruling could provide a legal loophole for other countries to break into U.S.-based computers in search of data that could aid their own investigations.
"It's extremely dangerous just to throw the door open--it will be a free-for-all," said Jennifer Granick, clinical director for the Stanford University Center for Internet and Society. "It won't just be individuals (hacking each other). It will be corporate espionage."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5082126,00.html
Tuesday, May 01, 2001
Slashdot | Netscape Says No RSS 0.91 For You The problem here is that the RSS format was written in XML and used a DTD (document type definition) that was stored on the Netscape servers. Whenever *someone* *somewhere* tries to parse a RSS file the Netscape server is queried for the file and the RSS file is validated against it. So now that Netscape removed the file people don't get to see the RSS summary but get an error instead.
What could be done is putting a copy of the file on an alternate location and changing all RSS files to match the new URI... well, this could be done if it weren't for the fact that Netscape copyrighted the RSS DTD... the only sollution left is to change to the updated RSS format which doesn't depend on Netscape.
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/04/28/2119211.shtm
What could be done is putting a copy of the file on an alternate location and changing all RSS files to match the new URI... well, this could be done if it weren't for the fact that Netscape copyrighted the RSS DTD... the only sollution left is to change to the updated RSS format which doesn't depend on Netscape.
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/04/28/2119211.shtm
O'Reilly Network: Oh My! Netscape [May 01, 2001]
My.Netscape, a personal portal sporting hundreds of channels carrying content from individual providers, has shed its free content and become YAM*, Yet Another My.*. In the process, they also broke RSS 0.91.
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/263
My.Netscape, a personal portal sporting hundreds of channels carrying content from individual providers, has shed its free content and become YAM*, Yet Another My.*. In the process, they also broke RSS 0.91.
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/263
Monday, April 30, 2001
MPAA v. 2600 - Brief of Amici Curiae in Support of Appellants and Reversal of the Judgment Below
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
It cannot seriously be argued that any form of computer code may be regulated without reference to First Amendment doctrine. The path from idea to human language to source code to object code is a continuum. As one moves from one to the other, the levels of precision and, arguably, abstraction increase, as does the level of training necessary to discern the idea from the expression. Not everyone can understand each of these forms. Only English speakers will understand English formulations. Principally those familiar with the particular programming language will understand the source code expression. And only a relatively small number of skilled programmers and computer scientists will understand the machine readable object code. But each form expresses the same idea, albeit in different ways.
http://cryptome.org/mpaa-v-2600-bac.htm
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
It cannot seriously be argued that any form of computer code may be regulated without reference to First Amendment doctrine. The path from idea to human language to source code to object code is a continuum. As one moves from one to the other, the levels of precision and, arguably, abstraction increase, as does the level of training necessary to discern the idea from the expression. Not everyone can understand each of these forms. Only English speakers will understand English formulations. Principally those familiar with the particular programming language will understand the source code expression. And only a relatively small number of skilled programmers and computer scientists will understand the machine readable object code. But each form expresses the same idea, albeit in different ways.
http://cryptome.org/mpaa-v-2600-bac.htm
Friday, April 27, 2001
Does an Anti-Piracy Plan Quash the First Amendment?
The fair use doctrine under copyright law permits uncompensated use of copyrighted works in some circumstances, such as in teaching, research and news gathering. Thanks to fair use, a reporter can quote portions of a newsworthy letter in an article and a scholar can use parts of a poem in a dissertation.
But there's a related question that has never been settled by the courts: Does fair use, which has its roots in the First Amendment, entitle the scholar, reporter or others to gain access to the copyrighted work in the first place -- -- especially when the material is guarded by a technological device designed to prevent digital piracy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/technology/27CYBERLAW.html?pagewanted=all
The fair use doctrine under copyright law permits uncompensated use of copyrighted works in some circumstances, such as in teaching, research and news gathering. Thanks to fair use, a reporter can quote portions of a newsworthy letter in an article and a scholar can use parts of a poem in a dissertation.
But there's a related question that has never been settled by the courts: Does fair use, which has its roots in the First Amendment, entitle the scholar, reporter or others to gain access to the copyrighted work in the first place -- -- especially when the material is guarded by a technological device designed to prevent digital piracy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/technology/27CYBERLAW.html?pagewanted=all
Sunday, April 22, 2001
When Online Hearsay Intrudes on Real Life
"It's becoming harder and harder to draw a distinction between the real world and the virtual world," said Lauren Weinstein, creator of an online discussion group called the Privacy Forum. "They've become so intertwined now that most of the same problems and risks that we associate with the real world are coming from the virtual side — and a whole lot of them that nobody thought of."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/technology/22GOOG.html?pagewanted=all
"It's becoming harder and harder to draw a distinction between the real world and the virtual world," said Lauren Weinstein, creator of an online discussion group called the Privacy Forum. "They've become so intertwined now that most of the same problems and risks that we associate with the real world are coming from the virtual side — and a whole lot of them that nobody thought of."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/technology/22GOOG.html?pagewanted=all
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
News: Security expert: 'We are losing the battle'
"The future of Internet security is not very good," Schneier said. "New methods are being invented, new tricks, and every year it gets worse. We are not breaking even. We are losing the battle."
The reason not to panic, Schneier says, is that we have to accept the poor state of security and work to mitigate the risk of attacks rather than try to prevent attacks altogether -- an impossible task.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2705973,00.html
"The future of Internet security is not very good," Schneier said. "New methods are being invented, new tricks, and every year it gets worse. We are not breaking even. We are losing the battle."
The reason not to panic, Schneier says, is that we have to accept the poor state of security and work to mitigate the risk of attacks rather than try to prevent attacks altogether -- an impossible task.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2705973,00.html
DMNews.com | News | Article
Six months after Direct Marketing Association president/CEO H. Robert Wientzen announced a multimillion-dollar privacy consumer education campaign, the effort has yet to see daylight.
http://dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=14558
Six months after Direct Marketing Association president/CEO H. Robert Wientzen announced a multimillion-dollar privacy consumer education campaign, the effort has yet to see daylight.
http://dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=14558
FSB: Bush to Small Biz: Share the Load
In the 2002 budget that President George W. Bush formally submitted to Congress on April 9, the SBA's funding was slashed by $360.5 million to $539 million. He plans to achieve some of that savings via an old Clinton-administration cost-cutting theme: cutting subsidies for 7(a) guaranteed loans and having lenders and loan recipients make up the difference by paying higher fees.
The President's plan would also cut federal funds provided to the nation's network of Small Business Development Centers and introduce fees of $10.75 to $11.00 an hour for counseling provided to small firms by an SBDC counselor, after a free first hour. President Bill Clinton had also tried to assess new counseling fees in the past, but Congress enacted legislation in 1997 that barred that move. So a new law would be required to allow the new SBDC fees to be imposed. Federal funding of the SBDCs is matched by state money.
Other cost-cutting measures proposed by Bush include moving certain disaster-assistance programs to other federal agencies.
http://www.fsb.com/fortunesb/articles/0,2227,1555,00.html
In the 2002 budget that President George W. Bush formally submitted to Congress on April 9, the SBA's funding was slashed by $360.5 million to $539 million. He plans to achieve some of that savings via an old Clinton-administration cost-cutting theme: cutting subsidies for 7(a) guaranteed loans and having lenders and loan recipients make up the difference by paying higher fees.
The President's plan would also cut federal funds provided to the nation's network of Small Business Development Centers and introduce fees of $10.75 to $11.00 an hour for counseling provided to small firms by an SBDC counselor, after a free first hour. President Bill Clinton had also tried to assess new counseling fees in the past, but Congress enacted legislation in 1997 that barred that move. So a new law would be required to allow the new SBDC fees to be imposed. Federal funding of the SBDCs is matched by state money.
Other cost-cutting measures proposed by Bush include moving certain disaster-assistance programs to other federal agencies.
http://www.fsb.com/fortunesb/articles/0,2227,1555,00.html
FSB: Win the Loan You Need
The annals of small business history are filled with stories of entrepreneurs who got turned down by banker after banker for a loan. Getting the big brush off is almost a rite of passage.
But it doesn't have to be that way. By understanding how the lending process works, you can fast track your loan application. Use this arsenal of advice to position your company to get the credit you need.
http://www.fsb.com/fortunesb/articles/0,2227,1552,00.html
The annals of small business history are filled with stories of entrepreneurs who got turned down by banker after banker for a loan. Getting the big brush off is almost a rite of passage.
But it doesn't have to be that way. By understanding how the lending process works, you can fast track your loan application. Use this arsenal of advice to position your company to get the credit you need.
http://www.fsb.com/fortunesb/articles/0,2227,1552,00.html
Spirits maker serving free start-up cash - Tech News - CNET.com
Scotch whisky maker Johnnie Walker's Keep Walking Fund will award a total of $500,000 in grants to entrepreneurs, organizations and individuals in September.
The fund plans to give up to $100,000 per grant recipient. And while that amount may be small compared with the investments companies would receive from angel investors or venture investors, entrepreneurs will not have to give up any equity in their companies.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-5578314.html?tag=cd_mh
Scotch whisky maker Johnnie Walker's Keep Walking Fund will award a total of $500,000 in grants to entrepreneurs, organizations and individuals in September.
The fund plans to give up to $100,000 per grant recipient. And while that amount may be small compared with the investments companies would receive from angel investors or venture investors, entrepreneurs will not have to give up any equity in their companies.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-5578314.html?tag=cd_mh
FSB: Attract New Business Now
Just because the economy is uncertain, it doesn't mean you can't continue to grow your business. With a solid game plan, you can insulate your company—and your bottom line—from the ups and downs of the stock market.
Direct Marketing Diva: The Art of Winning Referrals
Get your customers to send new accounts your way.
Net Guys: Expand Your Customer base
Use the Internet to reach consumers around the world.
Net Guys: Direct marketing for the Internet Age
Put these powerhouse techniques to work for your business.
http://www.fsb.com/fortunesb/articles/0,2227,1558,00.html
Just because the economy is uncertain, it doesn't mean you can't continue to grow your business. With a solid game plan, you can insulate your company—and your bottom line—from the ups and downs of the stock market.
Direct Marketing Diva: The Art of Winning Referrals
Get your customers to send new accounts your way.
Net Guys: Expand Your Customer base
Use the Internet to reach consumers around the world.
Net Guys: Direct marketing for the Internet Age
Put these powerhouse techniques to work for your business.
http://www.fsb.com/fortunesb/articles/0,2227,1558,00.html
Fortune.com
1. Household E-Budget Crunch
2. Rebirth of Voice
3. Going for Rapid Returns
4. The End of Privacy
5. Gigabit Ethernet Rocks
6. eBay
7. Stick With Storage
8. Wireless E-Mail
9. The Three-Network Web
10. Beyond the Box
http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?doc_id=200846&channel=artcol.jhtml&_DARGS=%2Ffragments%2Ffrg_morestories.jhtml.1_A&_DAV=artcol.jhtml
1. Household E-Budget Crunch
2. Rebirth of Voice
3. Going for Rapid Returns
4. The End of Privacy
5. Gigabit Ethernet Rocks
6. eBay
7. Stick With Storage
8. Wireless E-Mail
9. The Three-Network Web
10. Beyond the Box
http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?doc_id=200846&channel=artcol.jhtml&_DARGS=%2Ffragments%2Ffrg_morestories.jhtml.1_A&_DAV=artcol.jhtml
Friday, April 13, 2001
Law Professor Sees Hazard in Personalized News
Filtering software will allow consumers to create a personalized media diet catering to their tastes, the forecasters contend. Whether it be a steady stream of world news, baseball statistics or politically conservative editorials, intelligent filtering software will make focused information delivery possible.
The ease and speed with which citizens get information in the digital era expands democracy, he argues, but the Internet simultaneously makes it all too easy to customize media experiences, narrowing readers' minds and souls.
"Democracy requires at least two things: that people have common spaces where they can share experiences some of the time, and that people have unanticipated, un-chosen exposures to ideas and other people," Sunstein, 46, said recently …
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/13/technology/13CYBERLAW.html?pagewanted=all
Filtering software will allow consumers to create a personalized media diet catering to their tastes, the forecasters contend. Whether it be a steady stream of world news, baseball statistics or politically conservative editorials, intelligent filtering software will make focused information delivery possible.
The ease and speed with which citizens get information in the digital era expands democracy, he argues, but the Internet simultaneously makes it all too easy to customize media experiences, narrowing readers' minds and souls.
"Democracy requires at least two things: that people have common spaces where they can share experiences some of the time, and that people have unanticipated, un-chosen exposures to ideas and other people," Sunstein, 46, said recently …
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/13/technology/13CYBERLAW.html?pagewanted=all
Wednesday, April 11, 2001
ZDNet: Story: Protect yourself! A pair of lethal viruses lurks on the horizon
One of the earliest, and most famous, virus to damage a PC's BIOS is Chernobyl, or CIH. The CIH virus, triggered on the anniversary date of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, April 26, infected more than a million PCs in Korea and resulted in more than $250 million in damages. Be aware. CIH is still around, and its second anniversary is in two weeks.
Similar to CIH is another virus called Kriz. Triggered on December 25, Kriz clears the information in the BIOS. If you have the Kriz virus, Symantec has a tool to remove it. Even if you don't have Kriz, its threat still lingers. This past December, several antivirus companies noticed that Kriz had piggybacked with other, newer viruses such as Bymer. That's yet another reason to keep your antivirus signature files up to date.
Now there's a more sophisticated virus called Magistr. Because it is a mass mailer, like Melissa, Magistr can spread quickly. Since it changes its subject, body, and attached file names with each new infection, Magistr can also be tricky for antivirus software to detect. What started as a trickle of reports worldwide has become a steady stream. Within the last month and half, Magistr has climbed from obscurity to the penultimate position on the MessageLabs top threats list.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2706608,00.html
One of the earliest, and most famous, virus to damage a PC's BIOS is Chernobyl, or CIH. The CIH virus, triggered on the anniversary date of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, April 26, infected more than a million PCs in Korea and resulted in more than $250 million in damages. Be aware. CIH is still around, and its second anniversary is in two weeks.
Similar to CIH is another virus called Kriz. Triggered on December 25, Kriz clears the information in the BIOS. If you have the Kriz virus, Symantec has a tool to remove it. Even if you don't have Kriz, its threat still lingers. This past December, several antivirus companies noticed that Kriz had piggybacked with other, newer viruses such as Bymer. That's yet another reason to keep your antivirus signature files up to date.
Now there's a more sophisticated virus called Magistr. Because it is a mass mailer, like Melissa, Magistr can spread quickly. Since it changes its subject, body, and attached file names with each new infection, Magistr can also be tricky for antivirus software to detect. What started as a trickle of reports worldwide has become a steady stream. Within the last month and half, Magistr has climbed from obscurity to the penultimate position on the MessageLabs top threats list.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2706608,00.html
Tuesday, April 10, 2001
Mass Victimization Net Crime Not Far Off - Gartner Mass victimization crime, or online theft from thousands of people simultaneously by one individual, is less than two years away and the perpetrator will probably get away with it, researchers predict.
Such global online theft is inevitable via converging technologies and poorly equipped international law enforcement authorities, according to Gartner Inc. [NYSE:IT]
"Using mundane, readily available technologies that have already been deployed by both legitimate and illegitimate businesses, cybercriminals can now surreptitiously steal millions of dollars, a few dollars at a time, from millions of individuals simultaneously," Gartner Research Fellow Richard Hunter said in a news release. "Moreover, they are very likely to get away with the crime."
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/163928.html
Such global online theft is inevitable via converging technologies and poorly equipped international law enforcement authorities, according to Gartner Inc. [NYSE:IT]
"Using mundane, readily available technologies that have already been deployed by both legitimate and illegitimate businesses, cybercriminals can now surreptitiously steal millions of dollars, a few dollars at a time, from millions of individuals simultaneously," Gartner Research Fellow Richard Hunter said in a news release. "Moreover, they are very likely to get away with the crime."
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/163928.html
Saturday, April 07, 2001
For Some Reason Black Unemployment Always Iis and Always Has Been Twice White Unemployment
Job Loss in March Biggest in 9 Years
The unemployment rate took another tick upward, to 4.3 percent from 4.2 percent in February and 3.9 percent in October, as the Labor Department's job figures, announced yesterday, finally reflected the parade of layoffs and hiring freezes since last fall. Job losses in March, as they have been for months, were concentrated in manufacturing. But this time, job gains elsewhere were no longer sufficient to offset the cutbacks.
Blacks are suffering the most from rising unemployment. Their unemployment rate was 8.6 percent in March and averaged 8.1 percent in the first quarter, up from 7.5 percent in the fourth quarter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/business/07ECON.html?pagewanted=all
Monday, April 02, 2001
Top 25 Most E-Mailed Articles From the New York Times Most popular articles sent by NYTimes.com readers in the last 24 hours.
http://ea.nytimes.com/cgi-bin/poppage
http://ea.nytimes.com/cgi-bin/poppage
The trouble is, these filters are dumb: they can't tell the difference between a sexual solicitation sent by e-mail and a news story about restrictions on online pornography or between a computer virus and a story about a computer virus.
Compressed Data: Law Newsletter Has to Sneak Past Filters
There is nothing wrong with David Carney's spell-checker. It is on purpose that in his e-mail newsletter, Tech Law Journal, he misspells words like sex (sez) and pornography (pormography) and camouflages the names of computer viruses. If he did not, he explained last week in an editor's note, his journal would never get past the computers at readers' offices that screen incoming e-mail messages for references to sex or network security.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/02/technology/02FILT.html?pagewanted=all
Medical Fees Are Often Higher for Patients Without Insurance
A New York gynecologist says he gets $25 for a routine exam for a woman insured by Group Health Insurance and charges $175 for the same exam for a woman without insurance.
"It's horribly ironic," said Paul Menzel, a professor of philosophy at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. The care of the poor once was supported by the wealthy and the insured, but now the opposite is happening, he said. "It is the people who are most provided for, not the people who are least provided for, who get the benefit of cost-shifting," Professor Menzel said.
In a medical emergency, uninsured people can get care, even if they walk away from their bills. But if it is not an emergency, doctors and hospitals may insist on payment, often requiring a deposit in advance. As a result, some uninsured people struggle for years to pay medical bills and others put off seeing a doctor until minor problems become major ones.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/02/national/02INSU.html?pagewanted=all
A New York gynecologist says he gets $25 for a routine exam for a woman insured by Group Health Insurance and charges $175 for the same exam for a woman without insurance.
"It's horribly ironic," said Paul Menzel, a professor of philosophy at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. The care of the poor once was supported by the wealthy and the insured, but now the opposite is happening, he said. "It is the people who are most provided for, not the people who are least provided for, who get the benefit of cost-shifting," Professor Menzel said.
In a medical emergency, uninsured people can get care, even if they walk away from their bills. But if it is not an emergency, doctors and hospitals may insist on payment, often requiring a deposit in advance. As a result, some uninsured people struggle for years to pay medical bills and others put off seeing a doctor until minor problems become major ones.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/02/national/02INSU.html?pagewanted=all
Thursday, March 29, 2001
Justices Consider Status of Digital Copies of Freelance Work
There was considerable debate throughout the argument about what actually happens when publishers transmit an issue to Lexis/Nexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. that is also a defendant in the case, for inclusion in its electronic database. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the outcome might depend on whether "the whole electronic analog of the entire paper is transmitted at one instant" or "article by article."
Mr. Tribe said that while a separate electronic file was created for each article, so that the articles can be identified and retrieved, "the technology shouldn't obscure what's happening." The entire newspaper is essentially transmitted at once, he said in an effort to bolster the view that inclusion in a database does not change the basic concept of an issue of the newspaper.
He said the freelancers' view of the law "is really quite a Luddite theory, that putting this stuff in a way that the 20th and 21st century has to have it is an infringement."
But Mr. Gold argued for the freelance writers that "the preparation of the article files as separate article files" for transmission to the database was itself the first in a chain of multiple copyright-infringing acts. It was the "equivalent of printing each article as an individual article that can be combined with any of a million others in a new work," he said.
If that is an accurate description of the transformation from print to database, the publishers would be infringing the freelancers' copyrights because under the law, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, authors retain their individual copyrights even as the publisher of a collective work like a newspaper or encyclopedia holds the copyright to the complete product or a revision of it. Publishers hold the copyright on individual articles produced by staff writers, as opposed to freelancers.
Since the mid-1990's, publishers have generally required freelance authors to waive their copyright in any electronic republication. So this case, New York Times v. Tasini, No. 00-201, has little implication for current practice in the publishing industry. But if the publishers lose, they face the prospect of considerable financial liability for past copyright infringement. The issue has been joined in new lawsuits filed recently by freelancers against publishers around the country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/29/technology/29WRIT.html?pagewanted=all
There was considerable debate throughout the argument about what actually happens when publishers transmit an issue to Lexis/Nexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. that is also a defendant in the case, for inclusion in its electronic database. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the outcome might depend on whether "the whole electronic analog of the entire paper is transmitted at one instant" or "article by article."
Mr. Tribe said that while a separate electronic file was created for each article, so that the articles can be identified and retrieved, "the technology shouldn't obscure what's happening." The entire newspaper is essentially transmitted at once, he said in an effort to bolster the view that inclusion in a database does not change the basic concept of an issue of the newspaper.
He said the freelancers' view of the law "is really quite a Luddite theory, that putting this stuff in a way that the 20th and 21st century has to have it is an infringement."
But Mr. Gold argued for the freelance writers that "the preparation of the article files as separate article files" for transmission to the database was itself the first in a chain of multiple copyright-infringing acts. It was the "equivalent of printing each article as an individual article that can be combined with any of a million others in a new work," he said.
If that is an accurate description of the transformation from print to database, the publishers would be infringing the freelancers' copyrights because under the law, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, authors retain their individual copyrights even as the publisher of a collective work like a newspaper or encyclopedia holds the copyright to the complete product or a revision of it. Publishers hold the copyright on individual articles produced by staff writers, as opposed to freelancers.
Since the mid-1990's, publishers have generally required freelance authors to waive their copyright in any electronic republication. So this case, New York Times v. Tasini, No. 00-201, has little implication for current practice in the publishing industry. But if the publishers lose, they face the prospect of considerable financial liability for past copyright infringement. The issue has been joined in new lawsuits filed recently by freelancers against publishers around the country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/29/technology/29WRIT.html?pagewanted=all
Sunday, March 25, 2001
Chicago Tribune | Opinion -- THE AD WAS WRONG
From the 1860s to the 1930s, under the Homestead Act, the U.S. government gave away about 246 million acres for some 1.5 million homesteads. Researcher Trina Williams estimates that today 46 million Americans are current beneficiaries of this wealth-generating giveaway, from which black families were largely excluded.
Until desegregation in the 1960s, whites had exclusive access to most critical resources for building wealth. For example, after World War I the Air Commerce Act gave the new air routes to white-run companies.
Access to wealth-generating mineral deposits and radio and television airwaves was reserved for whites. Access to homeownership was limited by anti-black discrimination.
http://chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/perspective/article/0,2669,SAV-0103250290,FF.htm
From the 1860s to the 1930s, under the Homestead Act, the U.S. government gave away about 246 million acres for some 1.5 million homesteads. Researcher Trina Williams estimates that today 46 million Americans are current beneficiaries of this wealth-generating giveaway, from which black families were largely excluded.
Until desegregation in the 1960s, whites had exclusive access to most critical resources for building wealth. For example, after World War I the Air Commerce Act gave the new air routes to white-run companies.
Access to wealth-generating mineral deposits and radio and television airwaves was reserved for whites. Access to homeownership was limited by anti-black discrimination.
http://chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/perspective/article/0,2669,SAV-0103250290,FF.htm
Chicago Tribune | Opinion -- THE AD WAS WRONG
In an 1860s Boston speech, the white abolitionist Wendell Phillips made the case for major reparations, saying, "There is not wealth enough in all the North to compensate this [African-American] generation--much less the claim it has as heir to those who have gone before."
He added, "Agriculture, cities, roads, factories, funded capital--all were made by and belong to the Negro." The great black leader Frederick Douglass made a similar case.
At an 1865 Republican convention, Rep.resentative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania called for taking hundreds of millions of acres from former slaveholders to provide compensation to those enslaved. Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts called for land grants to those enslaved because legal equality did not eradicate disparities in wealth-generating assets.
Notions of liberal control of the media notwithstanding, details about the price African-Americans have paid for nearly 400 years of oppression have rarely been published. That price remains high. Today, on the average, black Americans live 6 or 7 years less than white Americans, and black families average about 10 percent of the wealth of white families.
Such inequalities are substantially the result of centuries of racism. In a major book, "The Wealth of Races" (1990), economic experts estimate the current value of labor stolen from African-Americans. Two scholars estimate the current worth of the slave labor expropriated from 1620 onward as at least $1 trillion.
For part of the segregation period, 1929-1969, another scholar estimates the cost of labor discrimination against black Americans at $1.6 trillion.
Another researcher estimates the loss from post-segregation discrimination in employment as at least $94 billion for just one year in the 1970s. The accumulated economic loss for African-Americans since the 1600s is likely in the trillions of current dollars, and such calculation does not include the non-monetary costs.
The federal government is heavily implicated in giveaways to whites.
http://chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/perspective/article/0,2669,SAV-0103250290,FF.html
In an 1860s Boston speech, the white abolitionist Wendell Phillips made the case for major reparations, saying, "There is not wealth enough in all the North to compensate this [African-American] generation--much less the claim it has as heir to those who have gone before."
He added, "Agriculture, cities, roads, factories, funded capital--all were made by and belong to the Negro." The great black leader Frederick Douglass made a similar case.
At an 1865 Republican convention, Rep.resentative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania called for taking hundreds of millions of acres from former slaveholders to provide compensation to those enslaved. Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts called for land grants to those enslaved because legal equality did not eradicate disparities in wealth-generating assets.
Notions of liberal control of the media notwithstanding, details about the price African-Americans have paid for nearly 400 years of oppression have rarely been published. That price remains high. Today, on the average, black Americans live 6 or 7 years less than white Americans, and black families average about 10 percent of the wealth of white families.
Such inequalities are substantially the result of centuries of racism. In a major book, "The Wealth of Races" (1990), economic experts estimate the current value of labor stolen from African-Americans. Two scholars estimate the current worth of the slave labor expropriated from 1620 onward as at least $1 trillion.
For part of the segregation period, 1929-1969, another scholar estimates the cost of labor discrimination against black Americans at $1.6 trillion.
Another researcher estimates the loss from post-segregation discrimination in employment as at least $94 billion for just one year in the 1970s. The accumulated economic loss for African-Americans since the 1600s is likely in the trillions of current dollars, and such calculation does not include the non-monetary costs.
The federal government is heavily implicated in giveaways to whites.
http://chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/perspective/article/0,2669,SAV-0103250290,FF.html
Saturday, March 24, 2001
Paranoid Lately? You May Have Good Reason
DURING the endless presidential election, every time-honored institution — from the Supreme Court to the Democratic and Republican leadership to the voting booth itself — fell under mass suspicion. Soon enough, the phrase "the unsuspecting public" became a contradiction in terms: the public did a whole lot of suspecting.
The public suspected that one or both parties had exhibited questionable judgment in their post-election antics. The publicsuspected that behind the scenes, the nonfictional characters dwelling on televised deserted islands might be even nastier to each other than they are on camera. The public suspected that in some states, a chipmunk could steal a Social Security number and have no trouble receiving a credit card. Paper shredders became popular holiday gifts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/weekinreview/25BADE.html?pagewanted=all
DURING the endless presidential election, every time-honored institution — from the Supreme Court to the Democratic and Republican leadership to the voting booth itself — fell under mass suspicion. Soon enough, the phrase "the unsuspecting public" became a contradiction in terms: the public did a whole lot of suspecting.
The public suspected that one or both parties had exhibited questionable judgment in their post-election antics. The publicsuspected that behind the scenes, the nonfictional characters dwelling on televised deserted islands might be even nastier to each other than they are on camera. The public suspected that in some states, a chipmunk could steal a Social Security number and have no trouble receiving a credit card. Paper shredders became popular holiday gifts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/weekinreview/25BADE.html?pagewanted=all
Friday, March 23, 2001
Warning From Microsoft on False Digital Signatures
The Microsoft Corporation warned computer users today that someone posing electronically as a company executive had fooled VeriSign Inc, a provider of digital signatures, into issuing fraudulent electronic certificates in Microsoft's name.
The false documents could potentially be used by software virus writers or other vandals trying to trick unsuspecting users into running hostile programs on their computers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/23/technology/23SOFT.html?pagewanted=all
The Microsoft Corporation warned computer users today that someone posing electronically as a company executive had fooled VeriSign Inc, a provider of digital signatures, into issuing fraudulent electronic certificates in Microsoft's name.
The false documents could potentially be used by software virus writers or other vandals trying to trick unsuspecting users into running hostile programs on their computers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/23/technology/23SOFT.html?pagewanted=all
Wednesday, March 21, 2001
Workplace: Laid Off and Locked Out of Your PC
Who owns the personal data that employees routinely store on their office computers? And what rights do departing workers have to retrieve their intellectual "belongings" before they are escorted out of the building?
The answers may surprise some workers. The statutes and court rulings that protect a person's physical-property rights do not generally apply to electronic property. That means an employee who is unexpectedly ushered out of his office can appeal to the law to retrieve his sales awards, baby pictures or golf clubs, but not his personal files stashed on a hard drive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/21/technology/21HARD.html?pagewanted=all
Who owns the personal data that employees routinely store on their office computers? And what rights do departing workers have to retrieve their intellectual "belongings" before they are escorted out of the building?
The answers may surprise some workers. The statutes and court rulings that protect a person's physical-property rights do not generally apply to electronic property. That means an employee who is unexpectedly ushered out of his office can appeal to the law to retrieve his sales awards, baby pictures or golf clubs, but not his personal files stashed on a hard drive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/21/technology/21HARD.html?pagewanted=all
Cryptologists Discover Flaw in E-Mail Security Program
If confirmed, the flaw would allow a determined adversary to obtain secret codes used by senders of encrypted e-mail.
The program, called P.G.P. for Pretty Good Privacy, is used by human rights organizations to protect vulnerable sources, by corporations to ensure secure communications and by millions of individual users.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/21/technology/21CODE.html?pagewanted=all
If confirmed, the flaw would allow a determined adversary to obtain secret codes used by senders of encrypted e-mail.
The program, called P.G.P. for Pretty Good Privacy, is used by human rights organizations to protect vulnerable sources, by corporations to ensure secure communications and by millions of individual users.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/21/technology/21CODE.html?pagewanted=all
Monday, March 19, 2001
How Did They Value Stocks? Count the Absurd Ways
Among the harsh realities one stands out. Of all the hot air generated during the great bull market of the late 1990's, none propelled stock prices further than the notion that new economy stocks were a breed apart and should not be held to stringent, old economy investing standards. Internet companies and cutting-edge telecommunications concerns, after all, were revolutionizing the world. So, the thinking went, their share prices deserved equally radical valuation methods. Out went traditional methods used by securities analysis that prized earnings. In came freewheeling measures of worth, like revenue growth, Web site traffic and even customer "share of mind."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/18/technology/18PERF.html?pagewanted=all
Among the harsh realities one stands out. Of all the hot air generated during the great bull market of the late 1990's, none propelled stock prices further than the notion that new economy stocks were a breed apart and should not be held to stringent, old economy investing standards. Internet companies and cutting-edge telecommunications concerns, after all, were revolutionizing the world. So, the thinking went, their share prices deserved equally radical valuation methods. Out went traditional methods used by securities analysis that prized earnings. In came freewheeling measures of worth, like revenue growth, Web site traffic and even customer "share of mind."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/18/technology/18PERF.html?pagewanted=all
Thursday, March 15, 2001
InternetNews - Web Developer News -- Flaw Uncovered in TCP A security hole in one of the Internet's most basic
protocols -- discovered by security consulting
firm Guardent Inc. -- leaves the door open for
potentially devastating network attacks that
would be difficult to defend against, detect or
trace.
http://www.internetnews.com/wd-news/article/0,,10_710891,00.html
protocols -- discovered by security consulting
firm Guardent Inc. -- leaves the door open for
potentially devastating network attacks that
would be difficult to defend against, detect or
trace.
http://www.internetnews.com/wd-news/article/0,,10_710891,00.html
Sunday, March 04, 2001
KeenSpace.com - Free Online Comic Webhosting
What is Keenspace.com?
Keenspace.com is the newest member of the
Keenspot Entertainment family. Our goal is to
provied free web hosting to all the online comics
who want a friendly, cool place to be hosted.
By bringing all the online cartoonists into one big
happy family, we can work together to make
internet cartooning the best it can be.
You can even make money off your site if you get
enough page views to cover our hosting costs. See
the F.A.Q. to learn more about how things work
and how you can make money off your site.
http://www.keenspace.com/
Check Out Keenspot
http://www.keenspot.com/
What is Keenspace.com?
Keenspace.com is the newest member of the
Keenspot Entertainment family. Our goal is to
provied free web hosting to all the online comics
who want a friendly, cool place to be hosted.
By bringing all the online cartoonists into one big
happy family, we can work together to make
internet cartooning the best it can be.
You can even make money off your site if you get
enough page views to cover our hosting costs. See
the F.A.Q. to learn more about how things work
and how you can make money off your site.
http://www.keenspace.com/
Check Out Keenspot
http://www.keenspot.com/
Friday, March 02, 2001
Juries Find Their Central Role in Courts Fading
"Why have a jury at all?" one former juror, Michael
McCarthy asked bitterly in an interview.
Mr. McCarthy said he and his fellow jurors were
outraged in December when a Houston judge told
them that Texas' tort-reform law would require a
reduction of more than $100 million in an award
they had given the family of a pipefitter killed in an
industrial accident at a Phillips Petroleum plastics
plant in 1999.
The worker, Juan Martinez Jr., died when highly
volatile chemicals exploded in a 500-degree fireball.
The jury concluded that the accident had resulted
from lax safety measures at the complex, which had
experienced three explosions over 12 years,
including one that killed 23 workers and injured
132 others in 1989.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/national/02JURY.html?pagewanted=all
"Why have a jury at all?" one former juror, Michael
McCarthy asked bitterly in an interview.
Mr. McCarthy said he and his fellow jurors were
outraged in December when a Houston judge told
them that Texas' tort-reform law would require a
reduction of more than $100 million in an award
they had given the family of a pipefitter killed in an
industrial accident at a Phillips Petroleum plastics
plant in 1999.
The worker, Juan Martinez Jr., died when highly
volatile chemicals exploded in a 500-degree fireball.
The jury concluded that the accident had resulted
from lax safety measures at the complex, which had
experienced three explosions over 12 years,
including one that killed 23 workers and injured
132 others in 1989.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/national/02JURY.html?pagewanted=all
Thursday, March 01, 2001
Privacy's Guarded Prognosis
…a woman promoting
pharmaceuticals showed up in his office two years
ago armed with juice and bagels for the office staff
and a printout from a computer database for him.
"After the preliminary niceties, she asked me if I
wanted to see a list of my perimenopausal patients
who were not on estrogen replacement therapy," Dr.
Sheehan recalled…
It is still not common for doctors to keep patient
medical records in electronic databases. All told,
only about 5 percent of all doctors' offices do so.
But most hospitals keep laboratory results and
insurance and prescription information in computer
databases, as do pharmacies and insurance firms.
And as data is exchanged, it can be used in
unforeseen ways. The woman who visited Dr.
Sheehan worked for a company running a
pharmaceutical benefit program, so it could have
collected the data about Dr. Sheehan's patients from
claim forms.
Marketing is not the only way patient information
may be put to unexpected uses. Medical information
could also be used to deny insurance coverage, or
even employment, to someone. Another concern is
identity theft because Social Security numbers and
birth dates are commonly used to identify patients.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/01/technology/01MEDI.html?pagewanted=all
…a woman promoting
pharmaceuticals showed up in his office two years
ago armed with juice and bagels for the office staff
and a printout from a computer database for him.
"After the preliminary niceties, she asked me if I
wanted to see a list of my perimenopausal patients
who were not on estrogen replacement therapy," Dr.
Sheehan recalled…
It is still not common for doctors to keep patient
medical records in electronic databases. All told,
only about 5 percent of all doctors' offices do so.
But most hospitals keep laboratory results and
insurance and prescription information in computer
databases, as do pharmacies and insurance firms.
And as data is exchanged, it can be used in
unforeseen ways. The woman who visited Dr.
Sheehan worked for a company running a
pharmaceutical benefit program, so it could have
collected the data about Dr. Sheehan's patients from
claim forms.
Marketing is not the only way patient information
may be put to unexpected uses. Medical information
could also be used to deny insurance coverage, or
even employment, to someone. Another concern is
identity theft because Social Security numbers and
birth dates are commonly used to identify patients.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/01/technology/01MEDI.html?pagewanted=all
Tips for Avoiding Computer Crime
Tips for Avoiding Being a Victim of Computer Crime
Copyright 1999-2000 by Ronald B. Standler
http://www.rbs2.com/cvict.htm
Tips for Avoiding Being a Victim of Computer Crime
Copyright 1999-2000 by Ronald B. Standler
http://www.rbs2.com/cvict.htm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
