Google is introducing Google Spreadsheets.

Mike asks: why? His view is that most spreadsheet users will be unwilling to put spreadsheet data onto a server they don’t control out on the Internet. I think there certainly are some of these people, but I don’t think this is a major problem for Google for several reasons.

First, most people don’t care about the implications of Internet storage. The runaway success of web-based email tools (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) makes this very clear. I don’t know about you, but I routinely receive sensitive information in my email, or certainly information that could be used to access sensitive information. It’s clear people will trade this security hit — if they even realize it exists — for convenience.

Second, I assert without supporting data that most spreadsheets aren’t in any way sensitive. No one would have gained anything by hacking Google Spreadsheets and viewing our wedding plan last year, for example. Most spreadsheets, even the ones with financial data, are wholly mundane and of use or value only to those who create and reference them. Even in a world of perfectly sophisticated security-minded consumers, this leaves an enormous volume of spreadsheet applications that are perfect for Google.

Third, the killer app here is sharing. The tools that people like 37 Signals are creating aren’t better than standalone desktop apps at what they do, but they’re good enough that people use them because doing so makes sharing the information trivial. “Collaborative spreadsheeting” in an office or between offices is an activity fraught with peril; the usual result is several competing versions all sitting in everyone’s email attachment folder. I know Mrs. Heathen and I fought this issue with our wedding data, and I know a certain theater company that would love to be able to share a single sheet without constantly locking people out. Google can address this as a baseline quality of Spreadsheets, and in doing so create a value that Microsoft cannot emulate at all.

Now, obviously Google can’t possibly be aiming to eliminate Excel. It really is a good program; it’s perhaps the best thing to ever come out of Microsoft. However, it’s become almost required, since there are vanishingly few alternatives that are visible to normal people (OpenOffice doesn’t count), and it’s expensive. Casual spreadsheet use probably generates more sales than real number crunching, and that’s the market Google will target here. If you don’t have to buy Office after all — alternatives to Word are legion, and only the marketing droids need PowerPoint — how much money per seat do you save?

Slashdot reports that Windows XP secretly phones home. Regularly. WTF?

The Pentagon is removing the section on Geneva Convention compliance from its field manuals.

Or, at least, charge you money for making copies of CDs to put on your iPod. No, we’re not kidding:

Simply put, SIRA fundamentally redefines copyright and fair use in the digital world. It would require all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately from the originating copy. Even copies of songs that are cached in your computer’s memory or buffered over a network would need yet another license. Once again, Big Copyright is looking for a way to double-dip into your wallet, extracting payment for the same content at multiple levels. Today, so-called “incidental” copies don’t need to be licensed; they’re made in the process of doing *other* things, like listening to your MP3 library or plugging into a Net radio station. If you paid for the MP3 and the radio station is up-to-date with its bookkeeping, nobody should have to pay again, right? Not if SIRA becomes law. Out of the blue, copyright holders would have created an entire new market to charge for — and sue over. Good for them. Bad for us.

OMIC notes that the Boston Globe is the only group still covering the signing statement issue; in this installment:

WASHINGTON — The board of governors of the American Bar Association voted unanimously yesterday to investigate whether President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in reserving the right to ignore more than 750 laws that have been enacted since he took office. Meeting in New Orleans, the board of governors for the world’s largest association of legal professionals approved the creation of an all-star legal panel with a number of members from both political parties. They include a former federal appeals court chief judge, a former FBI director, and several prominent scholars — to evaluate Bush’s assertions that he has the power to ignore laws that conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution. Bush has appended statements to new laws when he signs them, noting which provisions he believes interfere with his powers. Among the laws Bush has challenged are the ban on torturing detainees, oversight provisions in the USA Patriot Act, and “whistle-blower” protections for federal employees. The challenges also have included safeguards against political interference in taxpayer-funded research. Bush has challenged more laws than all previous presidents combined.

Bush urges gay marriage ban enshrined in Constitution. From the CNN story:

“Sadly, President Bush is playing election-year politics with this divisive issue,” the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Friday. “He is shamelessly using this ploy to energize his right-wing base. We should never rewrite the Constitution to enshrine intolerance.”

Olbermann rips O’Reilly a new one, again. The video is a few minutes long, but watch it. Bill has been citing the Malmedy massacre in World War II as evidence that US troops have always committed war crimes, which, apparently at least in HIS head, means that it’s ok, and that we need not worry about Haditha. Fox’s blowhard prince gets his facts completely wrong TWICE. There was a massacre at Malmedy, and unarmed POWs were shot dead by their captors; that much he gets right. The prisoners were, however, Americans, and it was them who ended up the victims at Malmedy. Not that this troubles Bill at all, natch.

But thank God for Olbermann.

They’ve slashed antiterror funding for Washington and New York. Clever.

In addition to Washington and New York, the grant decisions included a 46 percent drop for San Diego, where several of the Sept. 11 hijackers lived; a 61 percent decrease for Phoenix, where an FBI agent suspected that terrorists were taking flight training; and a 30 percent reduction for Boston, the point of origin of the two jetliners that crashed into the World Trade Center. Phoenix Mayor Phillip Gordon called the grant reduction from $10 million to $3.9 million “outrageous.” He said that Phoenix, the nation’s fifth-largest city, includes a network of dams, a nuclear power plant and numerous other potential targets. “Shame on them,” Gordon said. “They are literally stripping the ability to protect this area by actions that are incomprehensible.” Winners included Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as smaller cities such as Louisville (up 70 percent), Charlotte (64 percent) and St. Louis (31 percent).

It’s getting harder and harder to be surprised by how completely stupid this Administration is.

Microsoft is launching a paid subscription service designed to make Windows more secure.

Wow. Sell a crappy, broken product, and then charge people to sort of fix it. Absolutely astounding.

Slashdot reports that Washington state has made online gambling a class C felony, or “just as bad” under the law as, say, possessing child porn. Those convicted under the law could face $10K in fines and up to 5 years in the pokey. For playing poker on teh Intarwub.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote. In a victory for the Bush administration, justices said the 20 million public employees do not have free-speech protections for what they say as part of their jobs. Critics predicted the impact would be sweeping, from silencing police officers who fear retribution for reporting department corruption, to subduing federal employees who want to reveal problems with government hurricane preparedness or terrorist-related security. Supporters said that it will protect governments from lawsuits filed by disgruntled workers pretending to be legitimate whistleblowers. The ruling was perhaps the clearest sign yet of the Supreme Court’s shift with the departure of moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and the arrival of Alito.

More here.