Missing Mary Road

My brother sent along a link. It’s about a fellow named Spocko and a radio station named KSFO.
Beginning in 2005, the blogger Spocko began a letter writing campaign to advertisers on KSFO pointing out the hate speech on the station and urging them to withdraw their sponsorship. Some advertisers, including Visa, did. On December 22, 2006, Spocko received a cease and desist letter from ABC lawyers, insisting that he remove audio clips of KSFO radio hosts claiming that he had violated fair use doctrine of copyright law. Spocko refused, claiming he was within the legal definitions of fair use. On January 2, 2007 his Internet service provider, 1&1 Internet, took down his website. This could potentially evolve into a legal precedent as the Electronic Frontier Foundation has agreed to defend Spocko against threats of a DMCA SLAPP suit.

Spocko’s statement on the controversy:

“Advertisers should be able to decide if they want to keep supporting this show based on complete information. We already know that management at ABC and Disney support these hosts, which means that the ABC/Disney Radio brand now apparently includes support for violent hate speech toward Muslims, democrats and liberals.”

Mike Stark brought this to the attention of the mainstream via citizen internet journalism through postings such as this one at Daily Kos and the use of the exceptional Spotlight Project.

Read through to figure out what Spocko was going on about and why it was such a big deal and to what extent Corporations will go to defend hate speech and right wing nutters.

Ashley’s mom and dad called her their “Pillow Angel” – the girl has a rare medical condition called “static encephalopathy of unknown etiology.” Ashley’s condition means that even though her body grows normally, her brain is “stuck” developmentally as a 3-month-old baby.Ashley’s parents had now revealed that doctors have given Ashley a hormone treatment to limit her growth (as well as to remove her uterus and block the development of her breast), thus stopping her from growing into a woman. In effect, Ashley will forever remain in a child’s body.

Ashley’s parents say that because she will remain the weight of a child, it will be easier for them to move her around, bathe her and involve her in family activities – movement that will benefit her physical and mental well-being.

Dr Douglas Diekema from the University of Washington in Seattle, who was on the ethics committee that gave the go-ahead for Ashley’s treatment, told the BBC that the panel agreed “because the parents convinced us it was in fact in this little girl’s best interests”.

“If she were smaller it would be much easier for them to continue to provide a much more personal level of care,” he said.

But Agnes Fletcher of the UK’s Disability Rights Commission said is was “unnecessary medical treatment to deal with what is essentially a social problem”, referring to “the poverty and lack of support” faced by families with disabled children.

Needless to say, this is controversial. Read the whole story before you decide whether this is morally right or wrong. Links: Ashley’s Blog | BBC | Times

From the security guru Bruce Schneier,

There’s new software that can predict who is likely to become a murderer.

Using probation department cases entered into the system between 2002 and 2004, Berk and his colleagues performed a two-year follow-up study — enough time, they theorized, for a person to reoffend if he was going to. They tracked each individual, with particular attention to the people who went on to kill. That created the model. What remains at this stage is to find a way to marry the software to the probation department’s information technology system.When caseworkers begin applying the model next year they will input data about their individual cases – what Berk calls “dropping ‘Joe’ down the model” — to come up with scores that will allow the caseworkers to assign the most intense supervision to the riskiest cases.

Even a crime as serious as aggravated assault — pistol whipping, for example — “might not mean that much” if the first-time offender is 30, but it is an “alarming indicator” in a first-time offender who is 18, Berk said.

The model was built using adult probation data stripped of personal identifying information for confidentiality. Berk thinks it could be an even more powerful diagnostic tool if he could have access to similarly anonymous juvenile records.

The central public policy question in all of this is a resource allocation problem. With not enough resources to go around, overloaded case workers have to cull their cases to find the ones in most urgent need of attention — the so-called true positives, as epidemiologists say.

But before that can begin in earnest, the public has to decide how many false positives it can afford in order to head off future killers, and how many false negatives (seemingly nonviolent people who nevertheless go on to kill) it is willing to risk to narrow the false positive pool.

Pretty scary stuff, as it gets into the realm of thoughtcrime.

The United States is one of the few countries in the world whose currency isn’t distinguishable by blind people. Most other nations use raised text, different-sized bills, or other methods to assist blind people in spending their money. If a recent decision by a federal court in D.C. survives appeal, however, that will soon change. Under Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, federal programs cannot deny ‘meaningful access’ to people with disabilities. Because blind people are unable to distinguish U.S. currency without assistance, the court held that they are denied meaningful access to their own money. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to come up with ways for the blind to tell bills apart. He said he wouldn’t tell officials how to fix the problem, but he ordered them to begin working on it.”

via /.

The U.S. government has entrusted billions of dollars in Iraqi reconstruction funds to outside contractors. But how is all that money actually being spent? In this week’s List, Foreign Policy mag takes a look at some of the major missteps made by private firms in Iraq.

Bechtel

An engineering and construction firm based in San Francisco, California
What it’s doing: Repairing key components of Iraq’s infrastructure, including the power grid, water system, schools, healthcare clinics, bridges, and telephone service

Value of contracts in Iraq: $2.3 billion, including its undisclosed profit

Major missteps: Before pulling out of Iraq last month, Bechtel failed to complete several tasks it had agreed to take on. Its biggest failure? Not completing the construction of a new children’s hospital in Basra. The hospital, which was trumpeted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush, fell a year behind schedule and overran its original budget by as much as 150 percent.

Bechtel’s take: The company claims security was the biggest obstacle to its operations in Iraq, pointing to 52 company casualties (47 of whom were Iraqi nationals). As to why the company failed to finish building the children’s hospital, Bechtel also points to difficult soil conditions in the area.

CACI
Information technology contractor based in Arlington, Virginia

What it’s doing: Interrogation services and intelligence gathering

Value of contracts in Iraq: More than $66 million

Major missteps: More than 30 CACI interrogators have operated alongside U.S. Army counterparts in Iraq, and at least one was implicated in the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison that was uncovered in 2004. The abuse scandal led to private lawsuits accusing the company of torture. CACI responded in September 2005 by announcing it would no longer perform interrogations in Iraq.

CACI’s take: None of the company’s employees was ever charged for the Abu Ghraib scandal, and the company continues to assert that its employees met the requirements stipulated by its contract with the U.S. military.

KBR
The major engineering and construction arm of Houston, Texas-based Halliburton.

What it’s doing: Reconstruction of Iraq’s oil industry, as well as providing logistical support and services to the U.S. military

Value of contracts in Iraq: More than $10 billion

Major missteps: U.S. government auditors have slammed Halliburton for weak cost controls, mismanagement, and overbilling. Overhead costs accounted for 55 percent, or $163 million, of its contract to restore Iraq’s oil industry to working order. It also billed the government for work it didn’t do and overpriced gasoline it imported into the beleaguered country.

Halliburton’s take: The company blames the high overhead costs on poor planning by the U.S. government, including requiring the company to prepare for work that did not begin for nearly a year.

Parsons Corp
A Pasadena, California, engineering and construction company

What it’s doing: Rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, including healthcare and security facilities and water and sewage systems

Value of contracts in Iraq: More than $5 billion

Major missteps: The Pentagon terminated one of its contracts with Parsons when only six of the 142 health clinics the company was contracted to build were completed after more than two years. The company also cut corners on a $75 million police academy, leaving bathrooms that leak into student barracks.

Parsons’ take: The contractor cites a lack of security in Iraq when explaining its construction shortcomings. The company’s executives also blame subcontractors for the mess.

before google came around, the only other funny six letter word with two g’s and two o’s was googly. now google has taken that role, and taken it well. and the word is on everyones lip and searching (on google.com) is now referred to as googling. the google blog explains the legal problems that this stirs up and how you can google someone, and how you can’t.

keith olbermann may be one of the greatest american patriots out there today after this ‘special comment’ of his. is habeas corpus really dead? did dubya really do the unthinkable? watch this clip and find out.