Tomorrow, the Army Times -- and all other Military Times papers, including Navy and Air Force Times -- will run an editorial calling for Donald Rumsfeld to tender his resignation or be fired, due to his gross incompetence in handling the Iraq quagmire.

For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don't show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.

Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.

And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.

Now, the president says he'll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.

This is a mistake.

It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation's current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.

Link

The Institute for Public Policy Research, a UK think tank, has released a report on the deplorable state of British copyright law, where it is still illegal to rip your CDs and put them on your iPod. Britain is seriously considering extending the term of copyright on sound recordings by 45 years, to a whopping 95 years -- and not just for new recordings, but retroactively. Nearly all the 50-year-old sound recordings ever made are out of print. Locking them away for 45 more years creates the very real possibility that every known copy of these recordings will expire before their copyright does. Adding another 45 years to these old records can't possibly provide an incentive to make new recordings -- Elvis Presley isn't going back into the studio, not even if you gave him a million years' worth of copyright.

Most British copyright law gets written at the behest of giants like EMI, without any public interest analysis -- and it's time that changed.

IPPR deputy director Dr Ian Kearns said: "When it comes to protecting the interests of copyright holders, the emphasis the music industry has put on tackling illegal distribution and not prosecuting for personal copying, is right.

"But it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have that is the job of government."

Report author Kay Withers said: "The idea of all-rights reserved doesn't make sense for the digital era and it doesn't make sense to have a law that everyone breaks. To give the IP regime legitimacy it must command public respect."

Link (Thanks to everyone who suggested this link!)

The UK information commissioner called Britain a surveillance society, where "dataveillance" of buying habits is combined with cameras and other surveillance methods to track practically every movement of Britons.

I saw this first hand, as when the London Underground phased out almost all forms of paper tickets in favor of the inherently less private RFID-based Oyster card (the only paper tickets remaining were single-rideday tickets, and the LU doubled the price of those). Even the banks get in on the act -- Citibank UK sent me a "mandatory questionnaire" that demanded that I disclose every source of income I have or might have or had, all property I owned all over the world, whom I loaned mney to and why, and so on -- they claimed that this was to comply with British terrorism rules. When I confronted them on this, they backed down and said it was an optional mandatory questionnaire.

Not only are cameras all over Britain -- especially London -- but many indoor spaces have rules that say you aren't allowed to shield yourself from their gaze, prohibiting motorcycle helmets and even hooded sweatshirts. The hoodie has become a symbol of surveillance-dodging hooligans -- a favorite (ab)use of the expansive, extra-judicial "anti-social behaviour orders" (ASBOs) is to order kids to stop wearing camera-foiling hooded jumpers.

The report's co-writer Dr David Murakami-Wood told BBC News that, compared to other industrialised Western states, the UK was "the most surveilled country".

"We have more CCTV cameras and we have looser laws on privacy and data protection," he said.

"We really do have a society which is premised both on state secrecy and the state not giving up its supposed right to keep information under control while, at the same time, wanting to know as much as it can about us."

Link (Thanks to everyone who suggested this link!)

McAuliflower sez, "KookiSushi inspired me to create my own candy fake sushi for April Fools Day. I was so happy with the resulting marshmallow nigiri (tamago, unagi, ebi) that I created a how-to guide on my food blog. The candy sushi can look startling real!"

Shaping rice for your sweet sushi treats is best down when the krispy mixture is still slightly warm. If it cools and firms up too much, warm it slightly in the microwave for easier forming.

Rolls: The rice base for the rolls is easily shaped when one finds the appropriate sized circular object to cut out cylinders of rice krispy pieces. The average sushi roll slice is just over 1 inch across. Many circular cookie cutter packs will come with a circle small enough to cut pieces for the rolls. When in doubt- make your piece small so that it is bite sized and can be popped into your mouth in one fell swoop.

Nigiri: To shape the rice base for sushi draped nigiri, I was fortunate to have a nigiri press (featured in the picture) on hand. It produces a piece that is a 1″ x 2″ rectangle with rounded corners, much like a pillow. Alternatively, this shape can be formed by hand.

Link (Thanks, McAuliflower!)

See also Chocolate sushi

Five record companies are suing the children of a New Jersey soccer mom who refused to pay them blood money when she was accused of downloading music. Patti Santangelo is a "computer illiterate parent" whom the record companies accused of downloading infringing music and from whom they demanded $7500. Santangelo had never downloaded anything, so she refused. The record companies sued her. She defended herself.

Now Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal are suing her children, alleging that they are the infringers. It's apparently a publicity stunt, as the record companies leaked the news of the suit before they served the children with papers.

It said Michelle Santangelo, 20, has acknowledged downloading songs on the family computer and that her brother, Robert, 16, had been implicated in statements his best friend made. It accuses the two of downloading and distributing over 1,000 songs, including "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" by the Offspring, "MMMBop" by Hanson and "Beat It" by Michael Jackson.

"In short, each of the defendants participated in the substantial violations of plaintiffs' copyrights at issue and then concealed their involvement, standing idly by as Patricia Santangelo repeatedly protested their innocence and chastised plaintiffs for filing allegedly frivolous litigation," the complaint said.

The Santangelos' lawyer, Jordan Glass, disputed the recording industry's allegations and said he was at Michelle Santangelo's deposition and does not recall her "admitting or acknowledging downloading."

Link

See also:
Interview with mom who won't pay off the RIAA shakedown
RIAA using kids' private info to attack their mother
Judge to RIAA: Keep your "conference center" out of my court
Anti-RIAA lawyer: no limit on how many people we can defend
Online fundraiser for mom being sued by the RIAA

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement)

Make magazine publisher and editor Dale Doughtery is at the Punkin Chunkin' World Championships (where contestants build machines to fling pumpkins as far as possible).

He says: "I thought you'd like the Loaded Boing truck, which accompanied a huge slingshot pumpkin thrower. It's clear and crisp in Delaware."

Link | Flickr photos of past Punkin Chunks

KookiSushi: fetishistically accurate replicas of sushi, executed in fine chocolate, including green-tea "wasabi" and chocolate soy sauce. Link (via Popgadget)

The Exploratorium has instructions for building a projector to view the transit of Mercury across the Sun, an event the occurs only 12 times a century. Link

Korea -- famed as a kind of net.paradise where the DSL runs to 100 megabits and penetrates every home -- has pioneered a darker Internet phenomenon: a wholesale breach of net neutrality by a cablemodem company owned by LG.

The ISP in question runs a broadband video service that is being creamed by a competing Internet service. In order to "compete" better with the winning player, they simply cut off access to it for their customers, saying "IPTV is a broadcasting, not a telecommunications service."

Two million cable modem subscribers and one million LG Powercomm broadband customers are being blocked from watching video from video on demand service HanaTV, Korea Times reports. Korea’s innovative Hanaro, #2 to Korea Telecom in broadband, has signed up 60,000 customers for video on demand in the first three months. KT Vice President Shim Ju-kyo tells Korea Times ``We are 100 percent ready to introduce Internet TV services and we will do so next year as soon as the legal framework is set up,’’ LG’s sister company, Dacom, has an IPTV offering of their own in the works. Hanaro is controlled by U.S. investors AIG and Newbridge, while Goldman Sachs and Bill Kennard’s Carlyle Group have been investing in Korean cable companies.

The Korea Cable TV Association is maintaining “IPTV is a broadcasting, not a telecommunications service” and boycotting the Hanaro offering. Cable networks have been fighting a regulatory battle to keep telcos out of the TV business.

Link (via Isen)

French researchers have resurrected the "Phoenix virus," a "fossil virus" that lay dormant in the human genome. The retrovirus infected our ancestors millions of years ago, and is apparently still infectious in its new revivified form.

A team led by Thierry Heidmann at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France, near Paris, decided to try to awaken the ancestor of an entire family of HERVs called HERV-K(HML2). To "correct" for mutations, the researchers took dozens of known HERV-K(HML2) sequences and aligned them to create a so-called "consensus" sequence. Then they converted this information into a complete viral genome.

The researchers showed that the newly crated virus could infect a variety of human cell lines and replicate. But its infectivity was extremely low, perhaps because human cells have evolved resistance against such viral invaders.

Link (via William Gibson)

Make's Bre Pettis produced a video that shows you how to make a big honking apple bazooka. Link

Above, a page scaned from a zine produced by residents of a WWI prisoner of war camp. What follows is without a doubt one of the most incredible reader submissions we've ever received. Daniel J. Geduld says,

On a recent trip to visit my parents, I was given several documents which belonged to my late grandfather, Sol Geduld. He led an amazing life. Born in Germany in 1905, he was put, along with his father, Harris Geduld, in a POW camp when World War I broke out because his father was a British subject. His mother, Bertha, was German and was not put in the camp. He and his father were traded for two German POWs and went to live in England. My Grandfather didn't know any English, but picked it up very quickly and ended up going to a prestigious high school where he showed an early aptitude for art and was on his way to becoming an architect or commercial artist.

Unfortunately, when his father died, he was pulled out of school at age 16 by his mother and taken back to Germany and forced to work odd jobs which is where my English Grandmother found him, working in an ice cream parlor in 1930 and they married that year and moved back to England. This was very lucky as they were both Jewish.

Although he continued to work various odd jobs during the depression apart from a few months where a serious bout of dermatitis made work impossible, when WWII broke out, he was incredibly active in the war effort despite being too old to join the military. He painted huge posters seen all over London to promote the war, he volunteered as an air raid warden meaning he was outside of a shelter during air raids, making sure others got to safety. He also got a job as an aircraft inspector, first for Handley-Paige and their Halifax Bomber and later for DeHaviland and their Mosquito fighter/bomber. Being an inspector meant he actually had to go up in the planes with the test pilots and make sure everything was working properly.

Eventually, they emigrated to America to be closer to my father who had moved to Indiana after receiving his PhD in London to work at Indiana University but only moved to Indiana itself shortly before I was born and they had retired. They both lived out the rest of their days there and my Grandfather spent his retirement volunteering for a community guarden and head start programs while doing much of the promotional artwork and advertising for them. He was a brilliant man and unfortunately died when I was still in high school but I still miss him very much.

Now, on to the documents. Although there are more than these two and I plan to scan more in later, I will share these first. They are from two very different points in my grandfather's life and you will see why I gave you his biography first.

The first document was a souvenir from his days in the POW camp, known as Ruhleben camp. It was in Germany on a former race course and around 4000 English men lived there. The document was a magazine which was printed at the POW camp called In Ruhleben Camp. It is sometimes very funny and sometimes very poignant (the story about the camp orchestra actually brought tears to my eyes: page 1, 2, 3, 4). Above all it is very, very English. Ridiculously English in the way only people away from their beloved homeland could be. There are more issues which I will scan in at some time in the future, but they are all in bad shape and this one was the most deteriorated. It is missing its cover. You can see it here: Link.

The second document is his notebook from when he was training to be an aircraft inspector in the second world war. Despite never finishing high school, he had to learn some pretty complex engineering, but his skills definitely helped him out. All of the illustrations were hand-drawn by my grandfather with a fountain pen. I don't understand a lot of it, but it is still just a beautiful document to look through. There is a second, longer notebook I will scan in at some point which is better preserved as it has been re-bound. You can see the notebook here: Link. I hope you enjoy these two little pieces of history.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
FLICKR PHOTOSETS:
- Part 1 (WWI POW camp zine)
- Part 2 (WWII engineering notebook).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I found myself poring over the elder Mr. Geduld's drawings for hours, and the prose in the camp zine is incredible. I think the inside cover is my favorite scan of all, if only for this one short line:

This is our first number, alas,
it will not be our last --
a quaint wish but our readers will understand.

And then, there's this announcement for a short story competition:

Stories should not exceed 1600 words,
and and it should be borne in mind
that they have to pass the Censor.

Many thanks to Daniel, from all of us at BoingBoing, for sharing these amazing, rare documents with the world.

Toronto's excellent Free Software and Open Source Symposium has posted the audio from its talks. Organizer Bob Boyczuk sez, "There's some pretty cool stuff, including keynotes by Shaver, by Marcel Gagne (who explained why we suck at promoting open source), and by Nat Friedman (who made a case for the OED being an early open source project, then somehow managed to segue into a demo of Novell's cool new SLED 10 desktop - not sure how he did that, but it was seamless at the time). There's a whole bunch of other talks by a variety of people on a variety of interesting open source and open content and licensing issues, including EFF's Ren Bucholz's talk on the 'Next Generation DRM Systems and the Shadowy International Organizations Who Love Them,' and Chris Blizzard's talk on OLPC. And the list goes on and on. All of this is available in divx and mp3 (later today) formats, and under a CC license." Link

See also: Kick-ass free software/open source con coming to Toronto, Oct 26-27

Snip from AP story: "A judge declared a mistrial Friday in the fraud and grand theft trial of a Swedish businessman whose 162-mph wreck in a classic Ferrari led to the charges alleging he stole two luxury sports cars. Jurors told Judge Patricia Schnegg they were deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting Bo Stefan Eriksson." Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:

* Gizmondo's Spectacular Crack-up
* The phony police business is alive and well
* Rare Ferrari busted in half

EFF's Derek Slater sez, "Michael Crook isn't the only bully who's abusing the DMCA. This week, EFF also fought back against 'self-help' group Landmark Education's attempts to suppress an investigative television news piece critical of its methods. Using the DMCA and alleged copyright violation as a pretext, Landmark subpoenaed three websites hosting the video -- the Internet Archive, Google Video, and YouTube -- seeking the identities of the anonymous uploaders. But the news piece at issue isn't copyrighted by Landmark, and to the extent the video includes Landmark's copyrighted material, such use is self-evidently fair use. EFF filed objections to these bogus subpoenas on behalf of the Internet Archive and the Google Video uploader. YouTube sent notification to the user about its subpoena and is giving the user a reasonable opportunity to move to legally nullify, or 'quash,' it." Link (Thanks, Derek!)

Two paintings by Southern California artist Tim Biskup were recently stolen off the walls of an art gallery in Berlin, Germany. The theft happened on or around October 14th, 2006. The gallery, Gallery Engler, was open at the time.

Here are the details of the missing pieces along with URL links to images. (Click on thumbnails for enlargement)

“Scatterbrain”

Cel Vinyl Acrylic On Wood

10.5” x 7.5”

“Monster”

Cel Vinyl Acrylic On Wood

12” x 10”

Please help in any way you can. Post the information online and of course, if you hear or see anything about where these painting might be contact Tim Biskup's publishing company, Flopdoodle INC. by email.

Kaden Harris says:

I grew up in the country; my dad was a conservation officer in Ontario for 35 years, and he *knew* the great outdoors. Sometime in the mid '60s he gave me a copy of Ernest Thompson Seton's Two Little Savages. Adventures, common sense, philosophy, woodlore, respect for the environment and indigenous people, and *lots* of makin' stuff: Two kids from disparate backgrounds living as "Indians" in the early 1900's. Why this book isn't a constant kidslit best seller speak volumes about post millennial society in a way that saddens me deeply. Thankfully, it's in the common domain.
(It's worth noting that while the book contains many admirable elements, its title and characterization of Native American people would now be widely acknowledged as racist. Like other artifacts of this period, this book reflects the popular culture of its time.)

Link

Reader comment:

Ben says: Along with Robert Baden Powell, Seton is the lesser-known co-founder the Boy Scouts of America. This old Outside Magazine article gives some insight into Seton and his Little Savages.

93 million miles: distance from Earth to the Sun.
93 million dollars: cost of transforming the Griffith Observatory.

After five years of darkness, Hollywood's historic Griffith Observatory re-opened yesterday with much hoopla, and many happy nerds.

------------------------------
TINY VIDEOS shot with a tiny camera:
* Ribbon cutting with Mayor Villaraigosa (0:27)
* Zeiss 12" refracting telescope (2:41)
* A walk on the roof, with Jen Collins. (2:07)

PHOTOS: Link to Flickr photoset.
------------------------------

I went to the ribbon-cutting ceremony with my pal Jen Collins, who art directed a documentary about the reconstruction (which stars Leonard Nimoy who was present, too).

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Observatory director E.C. Krupp, and a host of celebs and politicians were there speechifying. But the real stars in the house were all the astronomers and old-school science buffs, some of whom were part of the Observatory's history since its early days.

Jen and I wandered around and drooled over the Zeiss 12" refracting telescope, the Tesla Coil, the camera obscura, and lots of amazing hands-on astronomy exhibits. Thankfully, the extreme makeover left the spirit of this beautiful 1930s site intact.

My grandfather Leo J. Scanlon was an amateur astronomer. He was a "maker." Born to an Irish immigrant family in Pittsburgh, PA, he made his living as a plumber but used to dumpster-dive in steel mills and glass factories with pals, scavenging glass and metal to build telescopes and backyard observatories. He built the world's first aluminum-domed observatory in Pittsburgh, and Einstein came to visit it once. His observatory was torn down, but I have a marker and an asteroid to remember him by.

Yesterday at the opening ceremony, Griffith Observatory resident Astronomical Observer Tony Cook told me one of the astronomers involved in the original design of this site was part of the same amateur astronomy scene as my beloved "pop-pop," during the Great Depression. They may even have been friends. I can't wait to learn more about the history those two men shared.

A love of the stars connected them back in the '30s, when Griffith Observatory was built. That same love still connects me and my grandfather, even now that he has left this planet to join those far-away specks of light.

David "eecue" Bullock from blogging.la was there at the Observatory opening, too. Here are his pics from the grand opening yesterday: Link. Here is his photoset of HDR pics from a tour last week: Link. Here is audio he captured of Villaraigosa and others, during the ribbon cutting ceremony: MP3 Link.

Tech notes: video and stills shot with the itty bitty Canon Powershot SD360, photos and video edited with iMovie and iPhoto. Linux users: if the embedded video above makes your browswer farty, try the new Flash 9 beta which includes Linux support: Link. (Thanks, Micki Krimmel and Steven Starr / Revver.com)

Reader comment: Jim Winstead says,

As the page you linked to says, "Since opening in 1935, more than seven million people have put an eye to Griffith Observatory's original 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope." What is new is an attached telescope (or two?) that allows a live video feed to be shown down in the main building, for guests who can't (or don't want to) make the climb to the telescope. Link

David Friedman says,

What? A whole article about Griffith Observatory and its history, but no mention of the fact that it figured prominently in "Rebel Without a Cause"? You must be saving that for an "Observatory Zen" entry, huh? Here's the famous fight scene at the observatory: video Link. (look for Dennis Hopper in the background at 1:48 into the clip) This follows a lengthy scene inside the observatory, but alas there is no clip on the YouTube.

John Sheehan, 33, was arrested yesterday near a train station in El Cerrito, California after police responded to reports that he was lying on a tree stump masturbating. When police asked Sheehan whether he was carrying anything like a weapon, he responded that he had an awl stored in his ass. Police were planning to bring Sheehan to the emergency room but he kindly removed the tool himself before an ambulance was called. From the Contra Costa Times:

Mindful that a 6-inch metal awl wrapped in black electrical tape could be used as a weapon, officers kept their weapons trained on the 33-year-old.

Sheehan went quietly afterward, without explanation.

Sheehan was paroled from state prison last week... Police booked him into County Jail in Martinez on suspicion of parole violations, indecent exposure and one felony count of possessing a concealed weapon.

Link (Thanks, Tess Hand-Bender!)

Why do some animals play dead when threatened by a predator? The commonly held belief is that many animals including snakes, bison, chickens, rabbits, and, of course, opposum act dead to discourage those who would eat them. Recent research suggests that this isn't always the case. For example, the Parachromis friedrichsthalii fish acts dead in order to hunt. Smaller fish move in to take a nibble and wham! Other animals, such as hognose snakes, do exhibit what scientists call "tonic immobility" upon sensing a predator, sometimes delivering an Oscar-worthy performance. From Science News:

When a hognose snake that's facing a predator flips belly-up, its mouth opens and stays agape, sometimes oozing drops of blood. And the snake defecates or otherwise releases an unappetizing smell. "It's spectacular," says Gordon Burghardt of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Grossly dead as the animal may look, Burghardt and Harry Greene, now at Cornell University, found that it's paying attention. Even snakes just 2 weeks old resurrect themselves sooner when a nearby human is looking away from them rather than directly at them.

Europe's grass snake puts on an even more realistic death act, says Patrick Gregory of the University of Victoria in British Columbia. When he caught his first grass snake years ago in France, it went limp. "I thought I'd accidentally killed it," he says. A death-feigning grass snake stays in character, not flopping back to its original position after it is turned over.

The relationships among the great range of freezing behaviors have yet to be clarified. "I see them as part of a continuum," Burghardt says.

Many questions remain: Are some of the activities seizures? A mental meltdown in response to disorientation? And how do some feigners remain conscious of vital details such as the gazes of observers?

Link

Kent "Dr. Dino" Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and the Dinosaur Adventure Land creationist theme park in Florida ("where Dinosaurs and the Bible meet!"), and his wife face more than 200 years in jail for tax fraud. (Previous post with background here.) Yesterday, Dr. Dino was found guilty on 58 counts, including not paying an $845,000 employee-related tax bill. From the Pensacola News Journal:

U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers released Jo Hovind until sentencing but denied Kent Hovind's request to be released. He most likely will be detained at either Escambia County Jail or Santa Rosa County Jail until sentencing.

(Assistant US Attorney Michelle) Heldmyer said Kent Hovind was a flight risk and a "danger to the community."

His attorney, Alan Richey, argued that the Internal Revenue Service pursued his client because of his religious beliefs.

Kent Hovind, whose life's mission is to debunk evolution, says he and his employees are workers of God and therefore exempt from paying taxes. He pays his employees in cash and does not withhold their taxes or pay his share as an employer.

Link to Pensacola News Journal article, Link to Scientific American's "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense"

UPDATE: At Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman draws the link between Dr. Dino and cryptozoology. It seems that Hovind has been funding a search for Mokele-mbembe because, Loren writes, "He felt if he could prove that a living dinosaur species existed, it would overthrow evolution. Of course, such a discovery would do no such thing, and there are many 'prehistoric' species that exist little changed today." Link

Brent sez, "MSN Music is shutting down, in favor of pushing Zune and Real Rhapsody for their 'Buy Now' links. News.com says MSN Music files won't play on Zune or Rhapsody, and there's no upgrade path."

As for those who have bought MSN Music tracks, Microsoft said on its Web site that users will still be able to use their songs, transfer them to compatible music players and burn them to CD.

You were a sucker if you bought MSN Music tracks. You're a masochist if you buy Zune tracks.

Link (Thanks, Brent!)

Chirag has analyzed "the words that presidents used frequently in their speeches shows which issues they deemed important. The prominence of 'Terrorist' in G. W. Bush's tag cloud is unsurprising while Richard Nixon was all about 'commitment' somehow. Move the slider around to see the changes in tag cloud. Link

The Pastor Ted Haggard scandal now includes sex and drugs. (See previous post here.)

Richard Sanders, a voice expert who worked on the Oklahoma bombing, JonBenet Ramsey murder, and Kobe Bryant cases, says voicemails left on a gay escort's answering machine belong to megachurch pastor and Bush ally Ted Haggard.

The voice mails for from a man who calls himself "Art." It should be noted Haggard's middle name is Arthur.

The first voice message, left on August 4 at 2:18 p.m., says:

"Hi Mike, this is Art. Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply. And I could pick it up really anytime I could get it tomorrow or we could wait till next week sometime and so I also wanted to get your address. I could send you some money for inventory but that's probably not working, so if you have it then go ahead and get what you can and I may buzz up there later today, but I doubt your schedule would allow that unless you have some in the house. Okay, I'll check in with you later. Thanks a lot, bye."

The second voice message, left on August 4 at 5:10 p.m., says:

"Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever. I will call though you early next week to see what's most convenient for you. Okay? Thanks a lot, bye."

Jones claims Art is referring to methamphetamine in the messages.

Also, according to the Non-Prophet blog, the New Life Church Board of overseers has sent an email to members of the church mailing list that states that Haggard has confessed to at least some of the charges:

Since that time, the board of overseers has met with Pastor Ted. It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true. He has willingly and humbly submitted to the authority of the board of overseers, and will remain on administrative leave during the course of the investigation.

Link | Video of Haggard speaking to Channel 9 in Denver | Video with voice mail allegedly left by Haggard

Philosopher and atheist Daniel C. Dennett, author of "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon," recently had a close brush with death.

An ambulance sped him to a hospital, where a C-T scan revealed he had a dissection of the aorta. The lining of the main output vessel carrying blood from his heart was torn, creating a two-channel pipe where there should be one.

Some of the people who loved him prayed for him during his recovery. He responds to those friends in this essay, thanking "goodness," not God, and explains why.

As I now enter a gentle period of recuperation, I have much to reflect on, about the harrowing experience itself and even more about the flood of supporting messages I've received since word got out about my latest adventure. Friends were anxious to learn if I had had a near-death experience, and if so, what effect it had had on my longstanding public atheism. Had I had an epiphany? Was I going to follow in the footsteps of Ayer (who recovered his aplomb and insisted a few days later "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief"), or was my atheism still intact and unchanged?

Yes, I did have an epiphany. I saw with greater clarity than ever before in my life that when I say "Thank goodness!" this is not merely a euphemism for "Thank God!" (We atheists don't believe that there is any God to thank.) I really do mean thank goodness! There is a lot of goodness in this world, and more goodness every day, and this fantastic human-made fabric of excellence is genuinely responsible for the fact that I am alive today. It is a worthy recipient of the gratitude I feel today, and I want to celebrate that fact here and now.

Link (thanks, John Brockman)

Jeff says,

The New York Times is reporting that the feds have shut down the Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal (old Link) due to concerns from weapons experts that the "papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs."

One diplomat is quoted as saying, “If you had this, it would short-circuit a lot of things.” I was able to find indexes to older (less sensitive) documents (and some html from pdfs) still cached at Google tonight. Rep. Pete Hoekstra pushed for the public release of the archive (Wiki link) to help determine "whether Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or hid or transferred them". Critics have said the archive was created to perpetuate misinformation about WMDs (Salon link, subscription required) .

This is sure to reignite the debate over which party is best protecting the country's national security interests.

Link (found via TalkingPointsMemo)

Even as Microsoft announces that it has reconsidered the crippling restrictions on reinstalling its new operating system Vista (the original terms stated that you could only reinstall once before it locked up and died), SecurityFocus's Scott Granneman details more damning restrictions in the Vista license. When you unwrap your copy of Vista, you "agree" not to publish damning information about the OS -- benchmarks, security vulnerabilities -- except under terms dictated by Microsoft (and those terms can change at any time).

This is a piece of software that comes with a gag order.

Granneman covers other ways in which the Vista "agreement" takes away the freedom you'd assume you'd get when you shell out your hard-earned dough for a product. The key here is that Microsoft, and innumerable others, have elevated the user license to a high art. Practically every vendor now believes that it can turn a sale into a "license" just by putting a sticker on the package that says, "by opening this box, you agree."

Real agreements are negotiated. You and I sit down at a table and hammer it out. Real agreements aren't "subject to change without notice." Real agreements don't make you agree not to sue for negligence. Real agreements don't make you agree to treat your property as if it still belonged to the guy who sold it to you.

This is an obscene legal fiction, for if all it takes to form an agreement is to announce that it has been formed, then the very idea of legitimate agreement is dead. How can you have a social contract if the notion of contract has been strangled by innumerable shrinkwraps, clickwraps, and EULAs?

The draconian limitations I've discussed could only be enacted by a monopoly unafraid of alienating its users, as it feels they have no other alternative. Microsoft may yet learn, however, that there are limits to what its users will bear.

Link to Vista license analysis, Link to changes in Vista reinstall license (via /.)

See also:
Vista licence: Microsoft's abusive relationship with you
Vista license only lets you reinstall your OS on new PCs twice

A phishing scam caught a number of employees at the Dekalb Medical Center in Decatur, GA. They were sent what appeared to be notices from their employer, telling them they were fired, with a link to a "career counselling site." Loading the site installed a keylogger on your computer.

Called targeted spam or spear phishing, this type of spam that’s currently on the rise is particularly vexing because the spammer is able to “spoof” the sending e-mail address to make it look like it’s coming from within the organization of the recipient, making it difficult for spam filters to catch. And, unlike traditional spam that is sent in the thousands, spammers are sending just handfuls of these messages at a time, again making it difficult for antispam technology to detect.

Link (via /.)

The forthcoming Logitech Alto laptop stand is a nice compromise between a dock and just plunking your lappie down on your desk. The stand comes with a full-sized keyboard and three extra USB ports. Folds away when you're done, too. Link (via Wonderland)

Flickr user Daniel W lovingly documents his wonderful Hallowe'en cardboard maze: "Constructed out of cardboard boxes, duct tape, and 300 bolts. The maze spans two rooms and a hallway." Link (via Make Blog)

Update: Jennifer sends us a link to box rivets -- "For building box mazes (work on coroplast, too) way better than bolts!"

Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen has filed an excellent investigative piece on the Department of Homeland Security's meltdown in the face of the Zotob virus, which crashed and compromised the ill-starred "US-VISIT" program. The DHS stonewalled on this, refusing to release documents related to the crash, and Wired News had to sue to get the Department to honor its Freedom of Information Act request. When they cracked loose the "sensitive" documents, it turned out that DHS officials had been protecting the "secret" of their incompetent response to the attack, not any technical details on the program.

While the idea of US-VISIT is universally lauded within government, the program's implementation has faced a steady barrage of criticism from congressional auditors concerned over management issues and cybersecurity problems. When Zotob began to spread last year, DHS' inspector general had just finished a six-month audit of US-VISIT's security; the resulting 42-page report, released in December, would conclude that the system suffered "security related issues (that) could compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive US-VISIT data if they are not remediated."...

A before-and-after comparison of those documents offers little to support CBP's security claims. Most of the now-revealed redactions document errors officials made handling the vulnerability, and the severity of the consequences, with no technical information about CBP's systems. (Decide for yourself with our interactive un-redaction tool.)

Link

See also US-VISIT immigration system spent $15 million per crook caught

EFF's Derek Slater sez,

Come support the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and hear DRM-free tunes from Calabash Music this Sunday at Little Baobab in San Francisco.

Calabash Music is a leading online distributor of music from around the world, providing its entire catalog in MP3 format and splitting sales revenue 50-50 with artists. Local DJ and Calabash Music General Counsel Jim Sowers will be spinning African, Caribbean, and Latin music all night long. Part of the proceeds from the cover charge ($5) will go to EFF, and EFF staff members will be there to chat (and dance, if you're lucky).

WHAT: EFF and Calabash Music Mixer
WHEN: 8 PM until late, November 5
WHERE:
Little Baobab
3388 19th Street
San Francisco, CA, 94110, (415) 643-3558

More details at EFF's site and at Upcoming.org.

Chris Spurgeon says,

Each month at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA, just down the road from where I live, there's a huge flea market. Last month I made a major score...twenty large glass slides from the dawn of the manned space program.

The slides (back then there was no Microsoft PowerPoint of course, talks were often accompanied by slides) appear to be from a presentation outlining how the U.S. could get a man on the moon. The best I can tell, the slides are from 1962 or 1963, just a year or two after President Kennedy set the goal of getting to the moon by the end of the decade.

There's some great stuff here, if I do say so myself...artist illustrations of what landing on the moon might look like, models of the lunar module prototypes, and some great weird graphs of the rise in transportation speeds and weapon destructiveness over the centuries.

Link

Reader comment: NASA Apollo Lunar Surface Journal contributor Markus Mehring says,

A really nice find. I could swear I've seen some of those slides before, possibly in the one or other NASA center archive. I'll look around and report back in case I dig something up.

Anyway, on to the point:

You just have to appreciate the little bugs throughout some of these slides, such as the orientation of Earth (uh, landing on the lunar north pole?), and most of all its illumination in this scene. With sunlight coming in from that angle, we should obviously be seeing a crescent Earth, not a full disc like this. Certainly not every illustrator is a science artist of, say, Don Davis or Rick Sternbach proportions.

I wonder how many Moon Hoax Believers™ will take this as proof for, well, whatever exactly. After all, they also tend to argue that just because some "NASA illustrations" depict a stark burned-in crater underneath the LM descent engine (unrealisticly, and not in accordance with the local circumstances and laws of physics), there has to be one in real life too, and that the absence of same thus has to be "proof" for a faked landing. Ironically, the way these slides show a charred and swept soil under the lander is quite correct, and -not surprisingly- pretty much exactly what actual Apollo photos document.

What do we learn from all this? A concept illustration is (1) conceptual and (2) illustrative. It's artwork, not a real-life photograph, not an accurate design diagram. There are limits to how much realism and flawlessness one can expect from it.