John Gilmore has sued the US Government in order to force it to disclose the laws requiring ID checks when we fly; the government’s response has been that the laws themselves must remain secret for “national security reasons,” which precisely no one with half a brain believes.

It gets better, though: now the Feds are insisting that their own arguments in the case must be kept secret as well. What about oversight?

“We’re dealing with the government’s review of a secret law that now they want a secret judicial review for,” one of Gilmore’s attorneys, James Harrison, said in a phone interview Sunday. “This administration’s use of a secret law is more dangerous to the security of the nation than any external threat.”

Damn right. I fear what an unchecked Executive may do far more than I fear Al Queda. We will always have enemies beyond our borders, either because we backed friendly dictators or committed some other foreign policy cockup, or because sometimes people just hate for no good reason; that’s a given. But we shouldn’t have to deal with these kinds of enemies of freedom, liberty, and transparent government within our own republic. Christ.

Whisky of Mass Destruction: how the US spied on the Bruichladdich distillery.

I’m sorry the sanctions against the city and NYPD weren’t harsher, but a NYC judge has ordered the release of more than 500 “demonstrators” (including some juveniles) held too long in legal limbo in what was clearly a ploy to assure a quiet RNC, and never mind the Constitution.

The good news is “the courts still work.” The bad news is it took this long, and the people who ordered this approach — “arrest everydamnbody, and hold ’em until somebody with a lawyer starts squawking” — will see no real consequences.

In the annals of advertising, there are a variety of campaigns that really stand out. “Where’s the Beef” became a national catchphrase; Miller Lite’s initial “Tastes Great/Less Filling” ads lived for a full generation.

We’re not sure, but we think Carl’s Jr. (Quicktime) may be on to something here. But we’re not sure it’s precisely what they’re shooting for.

He’s been put on leave after he lied to his boss about an affair. Not quite impeachment, but perhaps he’s on his way.

At least, that’s what Senior Heathen Toy Analyst E. O’Corn wondered over breakfast this morning when discussing these rather unfortunate plastic toys that are apparently someone’s idea of a joke. We assumed they’d be there already, but apparently not. Still, we’ve little doubt the market will address this issue soon enough.

“It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are fucking morons.”

We think we’ve figured out why women’s beach volleyball is so popular.

Convincing evidence and allegations have surfaced implicating U.S. military medical personnel in the abuse at Abu Graib. So much for that pesky oath. BoingBoing has coverage.

Fafblog scores again:

“Giblets is not concerned with the heartless exclusionary legalism of the Catholic hierarchy!” says Giblets. “Giblets is concerned because it clearly states that only unleavened wheat can turn into parts of Jesus! We have been workin with leavened flour!” “But we have to Giblets,” I says pointin at the nicely molded Jesus dough. “Otherwise our Jesus Bread-Golem will not rise when we bake him.”

From the AP, we learn that for teens, sex and drugs frequently go together.

Clearly, more research is needed.

Case in point: AT & T’s guidelines for “Sweeping, General”. (Via Limon)

Some rock-throwing LA kids inadvertantly angered 120,000 bees from a colony large enough that it had compromised the structural integrity of the building housing it.

If you’ll excuse us, we have to go have an enormous attack of the heebie jeebies now. And also pay the Terminex bill.

A New Jersey girl has had her first communion declared invalid because the wafer in question was gluten-free; said girl has celiac sprue disease and cannot therefore consume wheat-based products.

Way to distract from that ugly sex abuse scandal, Trenton Diocese!

Robert X. Cringley has some interesting things to say about a study the Department of Justice had done regarding sentencing guidelines, and what effect they have on crime. The study found that longer sentences actually increase crime, though, so the DOJ buried it, and never mind the consequences, because it’s more important, I suppose, to lock people up than to work for a healthier society.

I hate people.

According to a predictable source, Beasley, Canada now boasts the world’s first bigfoot hooker:

Fascinated by her incredible erotic powers, men are drawn to her like flies to honey. “Helen is over seven feet tall and covered with soft fur,” says frequent patron Jacques Barbette.

Brad DeLong takes Easterbrook to task for a particularly stupid editorial from The New Republic about how physics is “mumbo jumbo” on account of it not making any sense to him. Easterbrook also makes it abundantly clear that he knows little and understands less about the nature of light, electromagnetism, and gravity.

You know, when this sort of thing is easy to research — I mean, it’s not like Google’s hard to use, and there’s an awful lot of printed material on the subject geared toward a lay audience. Ignorance is one thing; remaining so out of spite or some sort of suspician of “booklearnin'” is yet another.

We have not yet heard the worst of this story.

In January of this year, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba was ordered to investigate the actions of the military police at Abu Ghraib. The 53-page executive summary of his findings caused a sensation when it was leaked in April. The full report — 106 “annexes” composed of internal Army memos and e-mails, as well as sworn statements made by soldiers and detainees to the Army’s CID (Criminal Investigation Division) — shows the prison under siege and out of control. In violation of Army policy, Abu Ghraib was located in a war zone, where detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were under daily assault by mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. Prisoners were regularly beaten, sodomized with broomsticks and police batons, terrorized by military attack dogs, and subjected to psychological torture, including at least one mock electrocution. Salon

An unabashed, proud racist will be running for Congress in Tennessee this fall as a Republican, since he won the primary.

Rick “Superfreak” James, icon of funk, dead at 56. Once famous for his music, in recent years he’s been more famous for (a) serving time for assault and (b) being memorably lampooned by Dave Chappelle, who may play James in a biopic next year.

A cop in Kansas city didn’t like that a 60-odd year old grandmother honked her horn, so he tasered her. And they wonder why people don’t trust the police.

Ever hear of a 1970s advertising “expose” book called “Subliminal Seduction?” I think the people at Dodge have. Or, at least, somebody at their branding firm is having a grand time at their expense.

In case the link rots, here are the salient images:

To quote the original site, “I linked the Dodge emblem (on the right) to their site in case you want to buy a truck.”

As it turns out, doodlebugs (a.k.a. “rolly-pollys”) come in four sizes: small, medium, large, and OH MY SWEET LORD. Fortunately, the latter appear to be confined to very, very deep water, so we’re safe.

For now.

Armstrong cemented his lead in the Tour de France today, utterly smashing his remaining rivals in the individual time trial. From the linked story:

Armstrong finished the 9.6-mile climb through 21 hairpin turns to the L’Alpe d’Huez ski station in 39 minutes, 42 seconds — the only rider under 40 minutes. He was 61 seconds faster than second-place Jan Ullrich and actually passed his closest challenger, Ivan Basso, even though the Italian started two minutes ahead of the Texan.

He’s now something like three minutes ahead of everyone else, which makes it look an awful lot like Win Number Six is right around the corner. All Hail Lance!

OH DEAR SWEET LORD NO. With David Soul, no less.

We found this commentary which provides even more amusement at the expense of the excitable bitty referenced previously.

Man celebrates 23rd birthday by stripping, coating self with cheese. He was, of course, arrested.

The BBC has a story running that begins:

A man in the US state of Florida was arrested after he allegedly used his pet alligator to hit his girlfriend. David Havenner, 41, faces misdemeanour charges of battery and possession of an alligator, said the authorities.

We wish to make clear that while certain Heathen staffers are in fact Floridians, at no point have they threatened Chief Heathen with any sort of reptile. Also, this is in no way related to occasional-Heathen Yvonne, who gots a lizard.

A couple weeks ago, a truely shockingly banal and ridiculous tirade appeared at WomensWallStreet.com, authored by one Annie Jacobsen. The piece itself is worthy of a Lifetime movie; seriously, it’s on par with “Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear.” The gist of the thing — which is terribly irritating to read both for its absurdly overwrought prose style and the awful design of the site — is that she was on a Northwest flight from Detroit to LA that included some Middle Eastern people who did all sorts of scary things on board. By “scary things,” of course, she means “talking,” and “moving about the cabin” and “carrying oddly shaped bags” and, worst of all, “using the lavatory.”

Now, enough people were freaked out, apparently, that an investigation was done, and the 14 men turned out to be — shock! — innocent musicians hired to play a gig in LA. Not that this changes Jacobsen’s mind, of course, nor the minds of the thousands of critical-thought-impaired lemmings who shared her freakout via the WomensWallStreet story.

I read her piece about a week ago, about the third time it showed up in my mailbox from well-meaning friends. Turns out, I’m not the only one who thought it was hysterial fear-mongering from some suburbanite bitty who doesn’t get out much; Salon’s Patrick Smith, author of the ongoing column “Ask the Pilot,” had a similar reaction that’s far more eloquent and clear than my post here. Read it.

This Business Week piece on the decline and [expected] fall of Sun covers much of the trouble with the embattled creator of Java, but it misses the most basic point: Sun has bet the farm that people will pay a premium for Solaris, one of the last surviving proprietary Unixes.

This used to be true; in the late 90s, my old firm worked almost exclusively on Sun hardware running Solaris; we delivered that platform to an awful lot of happy customers because it was the best possible choice. Windows, then as now, just wasn’t up to the task, and the other Unixes — HP/UX, IBM’s Aix, etc. — weren’t as popular. Then something weird happened: Linux. Within a few years, it was awfully hard to find a reason to pay for an expensive, proprietary server when Linux on commodity hardware did the job just as well.

The server choice conversation these days pretty much starts and ends with “Windows or Linux?” Unless there’s some other (usually political) reason, though, the right choice is almost always Linux for sheer TCO reasons. You can run on cheaper hardware than an XP system, and you have access to the whole of the Open Source pantheon of software. To choose an expensive Sun machine running a closed OS is to spend even more money than the Windows system requires, which throws far more money at the problem than is reasonable in most contexts.

I won’t pretend that there aren’t some applications that could benefit from Sun hardware, but remember that Google runs on commodity hardware, and their needs probably exceed most. Even if you’re not the world’s index, when you can do 3MM hits a day and support 150,000 users with two commodity boxes running Linux, Apache, and Postgres (like these guys), why exactly would we want to buy Sun machines and software?

The BW piece only mentions this obliquely, but at the end of the day I think it’s the biggest problem facing Sun, and they’re doing little to face it. They sell high-end servers running proprietary Unix, and pretty much nobody else is making money doing that anymore. Their other lines of business aren’t significant on the bottom line. Most folks see that (which helps explain their market position, stock price, and the ongoing departure of key execs). Except, apparently, Sun CEO Scott McNealy.

Wired News is running a piece this week pointing out what most web folks have been irritated by for years: New York Times article links expire, which makes them particularly inappropriate for web usage. We here at Heathen actively try not to link to NYT stories, since we know that in a few weeks, (a) the link will expire and (b) motivated searchers will discover that online access to that same article will cost them $3, or 300% of the cost of the daily edition.

This curious policy — charge for archives, give away the daily news for free, and above all have the links break — means that folks looking for information on current events via Google will find virtually no reference to the Times. The Wired piece considers what this means for the “paper of record” — and how they got to this odd position.

They’re refusing to mount a billboard in Times Square purchased by an antiwar group. While a variant of the original design (at right) with a dove instead of the bomb is still being evaluated, CC stated:

[…] the decision to reject the ad was made independently by the Spectacolor division. But he said the company generally does not run copy that would be unsuitable for children or cause them to ask difficult questions, nor does it run political attacks that could be considered “personally offensive. SFGate.com coverage

Yeah, we gotta avoid those hard questions. I mean, that could lead to THOUGHT and ANALYSIS, and that’s only for people who hate freedom, right?

Via jwz.

Ian Spiers went to take pictures of a local landmark as part of his photography class. The cops decided he was up to no good despite the fact that countless others at the location were also taking pictures.

Law enforcement must not be allowed to continue to coopt 9/11 as an excuse to harrass people they don’t like, or that don’t look like them. They work for us. Their job is to keep us safe, not bully student photographers.

According to the LA Times, the Pentagon now plans to hold some detainees in secret to prevent them from being subject to legal scrutiny under the recent SCOTUS rulings.

We’re pretty sure that’s just plain evil.

Lawgeek discusses a recent preliminary injunction granted to a tape drive manufacturer seeking to use the controversial anti-cirumvention provisions to prevent repair services from working on legally sold drives for legitimate customers. If this ruling stands, it could be illegal in the future to have your car serviced by anyone other than the dealer, for example. Does this sound right to you?

In other copyright news, the INDUCE act — which makes the DMCA look almost benign — is creating quite a storm of protest. Hatch’s law would render illegal any device or technology that “induces” copyright violation, meaning that, essentially, copyright holders would have a say in what technology would be legal. The INDUCE act could be used to attack, among other things, VCRs, iPods, and even general-purpose computing equipment. I think we know by now not to trust anyone who says “well, sure, it COULD do that, but trust us, we won’t use it that way.” Right. Read more.

The Pentagon announced this week that it “accidentally” destroyed the exact records of GWB’s military service that would have proved he was never AWOL. What, exactly, are the odds? I mean, we’re sure he’s innocent, but now he has to live with the stigma of guilt because of this ever-so-unfortunate turn of events.

Yeah, right. Kos has more to say on the subject, and pretty much nails it. Ask a lawyer what destroying evidence means in criminal procedings, too; if we follow those rules, we should assume not that the records were exculpatory, but that they were as damning as possible.

Then again, it’s also simpler to believe the world is flat. The Guardian covers the career and influence of Laurie Mylroie, someone best described as “nutbird Saddam conspiracy theorist.” Mylroie believes, among other things, that Saddam was behind every major act of terrorism against the US in the last 10 years, including the Oklahoma City bombing; she’s also sure they pulled of TWA 800 despite the NTSB’s findings that its tragic end was accidental.

Notwithstanding all this, she was nevertheless hired as a terrorism consultant by the Pentagon; Richard Perle thinks she’s fabulous, natch, and Wolfowitz apparently drank the Kool-Aid as well. Of course, that these guys were already looking for a reason to invade Iraq just made the path easier.

Starting with a theory and then working to publicize only the evidence that supports it isn’t exactly a quest for truth; it reminds us a bit of this piece on distinguishing pseudoscience from the real deal.

The House, which had momentarily grown a pair as opponents of the PATRIOT Act — from both parties — sought to curb portions of the far-reaching “anti-terror” law, has backed down in the face of a veto threat. The Feds will remain free to peruse our reading habits. Oh joy.

Critics of the Patriot Act argued that without it, investigators can still obtain book store and other records simply by obtaining subpoenas or search warrants. Those traditional investigative tools are harder to get from grand juries or courts than the orders issued under the Patriot Act, which do not require authorities to show probable cause. [Emph. added.]

Once a government GETS powers, they are generally loathe to give them up. Those who give up liberty in the pursuit of security would do well to realize that, and that (furthermore) this kind of “safety” actually puts us in MORE danger from an overpowerful government. Bruce says so, and he knows what he’s talking about.

We’re trying very hard not to consider pronouncements like this simple scaremongering in an effort to pump up the incumbent. I mean, how much more vague can you get?

Congress overturns Bush’s new Cuba restrictions.

Check out what NEC wants to do with their batteries. If they have their way, it’ll be illegal to bypass their “protection” and make batteries compatible with NEC devices, allowing NEC to charge whatever they want with no fear of competitive pressure. Look for the same thing to happen with any consumable, like ink cartridges (where this stuff is already happening), toner cartridges, and even garage door openers (though there’s been some case law there already).

The one that cost half again more than Congress was told? The one where an actuary knew this, but said he’d been threatened with dismissal if he told Congress the real figure?

An internal HHS investigation confirmed that the top Medicare guy, Thomas A. Scully, did indeed threaten to fire the chief actuary if he told the truth. Scully has since resigned to take a job as a — wait for it — lobbyist for drug companies (who will benefit from the law, natch). This is good for Scully, since the investigation found that if he were still a Federal employee, he might be subject to sanction; as is, he broke no laws, so he’ll suffer no consequences. (NYT link; use nogators/nogators)

Norwegian couple has sex on stage during a concert by — and we are not making this up — a band called The Cumshots.

Ellingsen, age 28, and Leona Johansson, age 21, are members of the environmental organization “Fuck for Forest.” They have sex in public in order to put focus on the rainforest.

We got yer rain forest right here. Heh heh. Heh heh. GG Allin would be proud, we’re sure.

There’s something a little fishy about the news coverage of Saddam’s hearing. Press corps? What press corps?

Over at Balkinization, there’s a lovely summary of the recent jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas:

Putting together Justice Thomas’ opinion in Hamdi with his vote in ACLU v. Ashcroft, we may infer that the President can throw any citizen in a military prison indefinitely, but that the citizen has the right to view pornography while there.

Heh.

A judge has ruled that the state must release the list to the media; it’s a cinch the state will appeal, however, this is a step in the right direction. What possible reason is there to keep the list secret?

On Monday, the Supremes ruled that not only did Yaser Hamdi — an American captured in Afghanistan — have most of the rights afforded accused criminals, but that the Gitmo detainees must also be afforded the opportunity to challenge their status. (The Jose Padilla case, in which an American citizen was arrested in the US on suspician of working on a dirty bomb plot, was handed back down on a technicality, but it seems clear from their Hamdi ruling that Padilla would enjoy at least the rights afforded Hamdi.)

No one was more surprised than I that the Court was willing to slap the Executive so hard; this is an astoundingly good thing for our Republic. As Justice O’Connor, writing for the majority, said:

We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the NationÕs citizens. […] Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake. […] Likewise, we have made clear that, unless Congress acts to suspend it, the Great Writ of habeas corpus allows the Judicial Branch to play a necessary role in maintaining this delicate balance of governance, serving as an important judicial check on the Executive’s discretion in the realm of detentions. […] Thus, while we do not question that our due process assessment must pay keen attention to the particular burdens faced by the Executive in the context of military action, it would turn our system of checks and balances on its head to suggest that a citizen could not make his way to court with a challenge to the factual basis for his detention by his government, simply because the Executive opposes making available such a challenge. [emph. added] Absent suspension of the writ by Congress, a citizen detained as an enemy combatant is entitled to this process. Because we conclude that due process demands some system for a citizen detainee to refute his classification, the proposed “some evidence” standard is inadequate. Any process in which the Executive’s factual assertions go wholly unchallenged or are simply presumed correct without any opportunity for the alleged combatant to demonstrate otherwise falls constitutionally short. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, elipses denotes elided citation

The Court makes it very, very clear that what the Executive has done — detain people on their say-so and refuse to allow any sort of judicial review or access to counsel — is wholly inappropriate and definitely unconstitutional. Thank God someone’s paying attention; even a Bush-friendly court couldn’t give ’em a pass on this bullshit.

Ashcroft, apparently unfamiliar with or contemptuous of the portions of the Constitution inconvenient to him, has had a predictable reaction, insisting that the Court has “given more rights to terrorists.” We submit that the only rights being withdrawn or granted here are those enshrined in our most basic law, and the only granting happening here is a restoration of rights illegally abrogated by an overzealous Executive. The Court says you may not imprison people indefinitely with no counsel or right of judicial review; it has NOT said you may not investigate and arrest terrorists. (That the Court had to even rule on this is a bit shocking, and is emblematic of the sort of power grab apparently acceptble to the ruling party; Ashcroft’s reaction makes it clear that HE thinks he ought to be able to lock anybody up he wants with no review, and I think that’s more than a bit scary.) Recall that none of these people have had any opportunity to challenge their status, not even U.S. citizens Padilla and Hamdi.

Some will insist that our Constitution ought not apply to “terrorists,” though we wonder how we can tell the terrorists from the rest without some judicial review. Simply trusting the executive branch doesn’t seem like a terribly wise move; there’s a reason we have three branches of government, and if you wondered why before, perhaps this sequence of events will remind you.

The US Justice Department, apparently tired of fielding lawful Freedom of Information Act queries, has denied a request seeking access to their database on foreign lobbyists on the grounds that copying the information would crash the system housing the data, which is wrong on so many levels as to defy description. This response basically says “making backups will make it crash,” which implies they have no backups, which implies widespread negligence in DOJ’s IT halls.

Of course, they could just be liars who don’t want to share information with the public about what they do. But I’m sure our government would NEVER lie to us, right?

We’re going for a drink now.

Or, rather, the Army — which is preparing to call up retired and discharged troops for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a delightful feature, Engadget’s Phillip Torrone walks us through something we geeks have known for a long time: Windows defaults to allowing any inserted CD to run whatever it wants when inserted. This is an enormous security hole, and in fact will be disabled in the next version/patch of XP. This article will allow you to get ahead of the game and disable the behavior — called “autorun” — for yourself. Everyone using a Windows computer should do this.

That disabling autorun also disables most kinds of CD copy protection is not a coincidence; for those DRM tools to work, they have to install software on your computer that explicitly prevents you from, say, copying the CD to your hard drive to listen to at work. Such software is always installed on the sly, of course, because few of us would allow the installation if they were honest with us. Because such DRM programs are unwelcome payloads installing and executing without our permission, they fall into exactly the same category as all sorts of other spy programs and malware, and consequently are blocked by precisely the same security measure. Remember, it’s your computer, and your CD.

(“But wait!” you must be thinking. “Aren’t the DRM folks and record labels smarter than this? Surely, Mr Heathen, they’re not this stupid.” I’m afraid they are, gentle reader; in fact, the author of one DRM system — the one used on the aforementioned Velvet Revolver disc — were going to sue a Princeton student for $10 million when he wrote a paper noting that pressing the shift key at the right time (which temporarily disables autorun) bypassed their system.