November 29th

You Heard it Here First

The corrosive effect of money in politics has finally become a big enough story to make it to the front page headline of the Washington Post. After I wrote my commentary yesterday on money and corruption in politics, Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a Vietnam era fighter ace, admitted taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors, and he subsequently resigned.

Mr. Cunningham said that he steered legislation favorable to the defense contractor in return for large bribes. That's what you get when you mix money and legislation. This case is just the tip of a huge iceberg, and it's one ugly iceberg at that. I can only hope that even Republicans are fed up with the corruption that riddles our entire government, and will also come to the conclusion that it's time to clean house (The House, The White House, and the Senate).

I can't think of a better example of why we need to get all  money out of politics. Money is not free speech, it is the most corrupting influence in our political system.

                                         Dr. John

November 28th

Fix the System

Many people have expressed grave concerns about our voting system and the reported voting irregularities in the last three elections. Suggestions for fixing our voting system typically involve standardized voting equipment that leaves a paper trail. While this is a laudable and important goal in itself, I believe it misses the greater underlying problem with our current voting system.

When the Supreme Court ruled that limiting campaign financing was the same as limiting free speech, the flood gates were opened for insinuating corruption throughout our political process. From K Street energy corporation lobbyists who were called on by Dick Cheney to write energy legislation to Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay laundering political money, the corrosive effect of money on our political system is evident.

The one thing we can do that will have positive, pro-democratic ripple effects throughout the entire political system is to make all campaign funding public. Public broadcasters would again be required to give every political candidate equal free air time, and corporate as well as private monies could only be given to a political slush fund that was given out equally to all candidates running for office. I also suggest that lobbyists not be allowed to have private meetings with legislators, only public meetings with the press present. It's time to stop the insanity of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on every single election cycle, turning our electoral system from a bastion of democracy into a cauldron of political corruption.

                                         Dr. John

November 25th

Microsoft Selling More Crap (Xbox 360)

One day into the launch of the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, complaints are flying around the Internet on it's numerous problems. Problems from a Microsoft product?? You must be kidding!

Apparently, the problems include, but are not limited to: games crashing constantly, system overheating and crashing, hard drives not functioning, the DVD drive scratching game disks, and the systems shutting down automatically in the middle of a game.

Now consider this mess from Microsoft's point of view. They rushed the new game console to market to take advantage of the holiday shopping season, not because it was ready. This will end up costing them dearly, in dollars and public relations. For example, it is reported that Microsoft is losing $152 or so on each Xbox 360 sale, because they are hoping to make the money back on game sales. That is a huge up-front expense for MS, and now you can add all the repair/replacement charges they will incur for the many faulty units.

And what about their already thoroughly tarnished reputation? If it can go any lower, it will after this screw-up. But realistically, anyone who thought that Microsoft was going to come out with a perfect gaming machine was simply delusional. Microsoft always rushes half-baked stuff to market, but people keep buying it.

If you think this is bad, just wait until you try to upgrade to Windows Vista next year. Hoo Boy!

NOTE: Some Xbox 360 victims claim that if you put the unit on something that gets the power supply off the floor, allowing air circulation under the unit, it won't crash. Sound engineering at it's best.

                                          Dr. John

November 24th

Cheney's 30 Year War on the CIA

Quote from Sidney Blumenthal today: " The hallmark of the Dick Cheney administration is its illegitimacy. Its essential method is bypassing established lines of authority; its goal is the concentration of unaccountable presidential power. When it matters, the regular operations of the CIA, Defense Department and State Department have been sidelined."

Blumenthal points out that many of the so-called intelligence failures of the last 3 decades can be directly traced to 'Darth' Cheney himself. No one in Washington is more power hungry, and no one is more arrogant than our de facto president, who has spent his entire career manipulating intelligence, and threatening any dissenters in the intelligence community.

Beginning with his distortions of the threat posed by the Soviet Union during Cheney's beloved cold war, all the way through the collapse of the Soviet Union, the attacks on 9/11, and the failed war in Iraq, the CIA was turned into a political arm of the administration, rather than an information gathering agency. In every case, the intelligence was cherry picked, massaged, managed and manipulated to make the case for greater executive power.

In every case, Cheney's manipulated intelligence estimates were way off base, and invariably led to the never ending string of "intelligence failures" that left observers dumbfounded when the mighty Soviet Union magically crumbled, and the weapons of mass destruction were nowhere to be found in Iraq.

There is nothing wrong with our intelligence agencies, only with the master manipulator running roughshod over them. Dick Cheney must be forced from office for his high crimes and treasonous acts that have left the country more in jeopardy than since the war of 1812. But this time the threat is from within, rather than from without.

                                           Dr. John

November 21st

The Complicit Can't Criticize
 

Have you noticed how the most Democrats as well as virtually all major media outlets have failed to seriously criticize the deadly disaster in Iraq, and join John Murtha in calling for troop withdrawals? Why would these supposedly “liberal” people not consider the escalating violence in Iraq and the Republican’s current political weakness sufficient reasons to speak out publicly against the war and in favor of troop withdrawals?

Because those who are complicit can't criticize that which they have so ardently advocated in the recent past. Major news outlets from the New York Times to the Washington Post to CNN appeared to delight at the prospect of going to war in Iraq; before, during, and since “mission accomplished” even in the aftermath which has become increasingly deadly, and ugly.

Short, victorious foreign wars are wonderful at driving up readership and ratings. Unfortunately for the media, protracted insurgent wars are less popular, as witnessed by the ever reducing incidence of war progress updates on the front pages of most major newspapers.

Similar to the case with the media, the Democrats find themselves in a position, now exploited by the Republicans to squelch criticism, where their previous acquiescence on war leaves them unable to mount an effective response to the deteriorating situation in Iraq. Even after 37 year war veteran John Murtha calls for troop withdrawals, the Democrats are unable and unwilling to take a stand with him.

A lesson learned about complicity in advocating war.

                                            Dr. John

November 20th

God-Fearing Put Fear of God in Corporations

The American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, which my folks took me to many times as a child, has just opened a new exhibit on the life and works of Charles Darwin. The esteemed Niles Eldridge is curator of the exhibit, which will be on display until May 29th. The exhibit cost the museum $3 million, which would normally be partly offset by corporate contributions. But US companies are so afraid of the Christian Right in the US that not one single company agreed to sponsor the exhibit. That news prompted me to give a generous donation to the museum right on the spot.

With 51% of Americans saying they don't believe in evolution at all, it's no wonder that corporations are so skittish. I wish that at least a few would show some backbone, and stand up to the Religious Right; deciding in favor of education, science and reason over orthodoxy and superstition.

Open Letter to My Senators

Dear Senator Mikulski,

I am writing to express my strong support and great admiration for John Murtha, who has done what other Democrats have refused to do, speak the truth to the deceitful Bush Administration. The administration has bungled every single aspect of the war in Iraq, from permitting looting, to firing the police, to not securing the peace, to enraging the populace with midnight house raids and the infamous Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

We have let our troops down again by giving them an unwinnable insurgent war, and then leaving them there in harms way for years. Wrong policy, wrong war. Our troops are now the incendiary fuel that drives the hatred and insurgency.

Under these circumstances it only makes sense to take John Murtha’s suggestion, and move our troops to an over-the-horizon position where they can react as a rapid strike force, if necessary. This will assure and give hope to the Iraqi people that we are not going to be military occupiers for years to come.

Standing behind Bush’s failed Iraq policies will only harm Democrats, who must now stand together to call for an immediate phased withdrawal of our overworked troops to neighboring countries where they can be dispatched to hot spots when required.

I am not requesting that our troops be withdrawn, I am demanding it. They have suffered enough, and their continued presence there will only exacerbate the problems created by Bush’s disastrous militaristic policies. How many more Americans and Iraqis must die before you come to this obvious conclusion? Who knows more about what our troops are facing, you and President Bush, or John Murtha?

Obviously, John Murtha. Vote to remove the troops now.

Sincerely,

John R Moffett
 

November 17th

Why Do Conservatives Defend Incompetence, Lies and Bad Policies?

No matter how many terrible mistakes that the Bush administration makes, conservative pundits and citizens defend them despite the obvious incompetence and misleading. Why? I have observed for many years now that conservatives in particular have come to the point where they perceive politics as a sports event, rather than as governance. In sports, it doesn't matter if your team is right or wrong, good or bad; they are "your team", and you stick with them come Hell or high water.

I believe that this type of sports mentality has so completely consumed the minds of many Americans that they no longer even consider the underlying policies and decisions, they only consider if the policies are proposed by "their team", or by the "other team". Hence, you have Republicans bitterly defending massive national debt, sweeping increases in the power of the Federal Government, and dubious foreign wars for regime change; all of which were anathema to conservatives when President Clinton was in office.  

So apparently it's not the policies that conservatives object to, but rather, it's whether the policy is proposed by "their team", or the "other team". Until Americans come to grips with the fact that politics is a life and death, fortune or famine endeavor, not a game, we will be in deep trouble as the negative consequences of bad policies come home to roost.

                                            Dr. John

November 16th

How the War Could Have Been Won

If the Bush administration had not formed the Coalition Authority under Paul Bremer in early 2003, and had not fired the Iraqi army and police, we might not be in the situation we find ourselves today.

If they had immediately turned the primary local security responsibility over to the remaining Iraqi police and army units, and provided backup support for the existing security infrastructure, things could have gone very differently.

This was not to materialize because the freedom of the Iraqi people was never the real goal of the Cheney team. Reasons first cited for war included weapons of mass destruction, then connections to terrorism, then overthrow of an evil dictator, and finally, as an afterthought, “the freedom of the Iraqi people”.

The cultish desire of the Cheney team for a long term military presence in a tamed and compliant Iraq prevented them from following the obvious course of turning control of the country over to the people as soon as Saddam was deposed. Hence the long, erratic and excessively deadly process that has dangled national independence just beyond the grasp of the Iraqi people for years.

Insurgency is the natural expression of a proud people fighting back the only way they can against what they now perceive as a foreign occupation, rather than liberation. Liberation of Iraq was well within our grasp after the fall of Baghdad over two years ago.

It now seems well beyond our grasp.

                                             Dr. John

November 15th

The Cloistered President

George Bush has a cronyism problem primarily because he is insecure in the face of criticism and discontent. He surrounds himself with people that rarely disagree with him, that tell him he is "the most brilliant person I have ever met", and who act concertedly to create a cloistered world to shield him from the reality he has shaped.

When was the last time you remember party operatives, thugs and CIA agents screening all the people who attend each presidential speech? When can you remember a president who has had fewer press conferences? When can you remember a White House spokesman that refused to answer all questions? When was the last time you remember a President who would only give speeches to crowds packed with staff and hard-core, donating Republicans?

It will be a long time before we fully understand the negative consequences, or "blowback" in intelligence jargon, of the Bush administration's naive and excessively belligerent actions. We have a president who, unfortunately for the world, can remain endlessly in denial because his cloistered cocoon keeps him fully insulated from the harsh realities wrought by his policies.

                                             Dr. John

November 12th

Bush Lies About Lies!

In his self-serving Veteran's Day speech yesterday, Bush had the incredible gall to say that there was no truth to the fact that he lied the country into war. I wonder if there are any special penalties for a president who lies a country into war and then is caught lying in public about the lies?

Bush insisted, as do all talking-point Republicans, that the Democrats in Congress saw all the same intelligence, and came to the same conclusions about the necessity for war in Iraq. Lies.

As detailed in the Washington Post today, Bush and Co. had far more intelligence than was handed over to Congress, including the infamous presidential daily brief about Osama bin Laden. Further, none of the contradictory intelligence was handed over to Congress. There were volumes of intelligence data that cast grave doubts on the assertions of some that Iraq still possessed significant quantities of weapons of mass destruction.

As always, the Republicans use the same old tired refrain; "the Democrats did it", when talking about the party that is totally out of power. There is never any soul-searching, or blame directed at any Republicans whatsoever. It's always the Democrats fault. How pathetic. Expect to hear a lot more about how the Democrats took us to war in Iraq, and how the Republicans are innocent as newborn babies.

As far as I can tell, Bush and the Republican leaders in the White House and Congress have become pathological liars who are incapable of coming clean with the American people. But the lies are wearing very thin, and the King is starting to look naked to more and more of his hapless subjects.

Sony's DRM Nightmare

I said almost 2 years ago as it became clear that Byzantine copy protection schemes were headed to a computer near and dear to you that these so-called "Digital rights Management" (DRM) methods were going to cause significant problems for computer users. That nightmare has come true in the form of Sony's CD copy protection scheme made by the company "First 4 Internet". But what I had not foreseen was the massive, litigious backlash against a major corporation caught selling faulty DRM-protected software.

Sony now faces numerous class action lawsuits, and I expect more will be filed over the next few weeks. The problem with their CD copy protection scheme is that it hides software on your computer which then leaves your computer vulnerable to virus or Trojan attacks. Attempting to remove the software can destroy your current Windows setup forcing you to reinstall everything. It doesn't get much worse than that when it comes to digital rights management. Sony has discontinued production of DRM-protected CDs in the meantime.

Sony has been suffering from poor sales, and has been forced to lay off many workers in recent months. These lawsuits could be enough to cause significant further harm to Sony over the next several years, and the P. R. debacle could drive many customers away from Sony, further exacerbating their business problems.

We can only hope that such horror stories force more companies to rethink their digital rights management plans for the future. Computers are glitchy enough already, and don't need a lot of hidden crap software installed without your knowledge,  which can only mess things up even worse.

                                             Dr. John

November 9th

Evolution Wins in PA, Science and Reason Lose in Kansas

A fitting end to the absurd court case in Dover PA over the teaching of creationism in science classes materialized yesterday when the voters voted all 8 religious fanatic school board members out of office. I hope they get the message; don't mess with our kid's education! It will be very interesting to hear what the judge rules on the PA creationism case, because if he rules against the religious defendants, it will shut down the teach-creationism movement in PA for years to come.

The Kansas school board should take note of the PA vote, as they voted 6-4 yesterday to rewrite the definition of science for scientists and teachers. In their vastly superior wisdom, they decided to remove that pesky part of science that says the goal of the endeavor is to find natural explanations for observed phenomena. Now, apparently, scientists in Kansas can investigate possible supernatural causes for the leaves changing color in the Fall, and birds migrating South for the Winter. I wish them luck, and while they are at it, I'd love it if they would figure out why reality shows are popular, and why Republicans pretend to care.

 Arnold's Evil Plans Terminated

California pretend Governor Arnold "I'll be back" Schwarzenegger lost all of his strong-arm ballot initiatives yesterday. This is the beginning of the end of the Governator, and that is a very good thing indeed. I predicted that California would grow disgusted with Arnold as he attempted to dismantle the California government, and rework it to suit his own agenda. He became far more unpopular far more quickly than I had even suspected. Looks like we will get a Terminator 4 movie after all. Funny how killer robots in the future get so old looking as time marches on.

Fear Profiteers 

The Republicans used the Cold War to maintain a climate of fear which would help them win elections, and pass laws that normally would not pass public muster. For the most part, it worked with some notable setbacks, such as the Senator Joe McCarthy debacle. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Republicans needed a new bogeyman to scare the populace with, and they were handed one on a silver platter on September 11th 2001. Now terrorism is the new poster child for the Fear Profiteers, who use it relentlessly to gain and maintain power.

Fear profiteering has been very successful for the Republicans in the interim, literally, with Dick Cheney and Halliburton making money hand over Frist.... er, fist, from the "war on terror", and Don Rumsfeld reaping great rewards from Tamiflu sales resulting from the massive bird flu scare fest.

Fear profiteering, and it's ugly half-brother, war profiteering, can only work if the public blindly accepts the fear tactics at face value. There was at least some indication that such was not the case when the Bush administration rolled out their official "Fear-ometer" in the form of the color coded terror alert system. This was a blatant attempt at creating an instant "fear-ratchet" to foster unease among the population. Based on the fact that Bush and Co. stopped using the color-coded terrorist alerts, it seems that the public has rejected the Fear Profiteer's odious modus operandi.

                                             Dr. John

November 8th

Vote!

If you live in NY, NJ, CA or other state that is holding elections today, please go out and vote, especially if you're a Democrat that hasn't voted in years, or ever.

Republicans should go and vote for more of the same, since they seem to love huge deficits, illegal wars and corruption in government.

                                          Dr. John

November 7th

Propaganda Extravaganza

If you're Karl Rove, and you hate Public Broadcasting for actual reporting rather than towing the Republican party line, what do you do? You get Congress to change the rules so you can stack the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) board with Republican hacks, and then you install your good buddy Ken Tomlinson as the head of the CPB board.

After a short tenure where he launched numerous witch hunts to purge Public Broadcasting of all liberals and moderates, Tomlinson was forced out, but not before he made sure the board was composed of hard-right conservatives. The report on what went wrong with Tomlinson's tenure is so far being kept from the public by the Republican board. Apparently, the report includes emails between Karl Rove and Tomlinson on how to pursue the liberal witch hunts, such as the one launched against Bill Moyers.

Let's hope that the board is forced to release the report in it's entirety, rather than a Karl-approved redacted version. It looks like the Republican's CPB propaganda extravaganza may be coming to a much needed end.

                                           Dr. John

November 6th

Bush's Police State

Did you ever wonder why the Bush Administration called it's new, sweeping suite of police-state laws "The Patriot Act"? So they could brand any law abiding dissenters (like Democrats) as unpatriotic, of course. Pre-emptive political attacks against dissenters are like matching book ends with pre-emptive wars.

The Washington Post has a long story today on a 100 fold increase in FBI's issuance of "national security letters", since the Patriot Act was made law. These "letters" are issued to anyone from a librarian to a financial organization requesting information on innocent US citizens. The records they access include information on topics such as where a person makes and spends their money, what the person buys online, with whom the person lives, how much they gamble, how much money they borrow, where they travel, how they invest, what they search for and read on the internet, and who telephones or e-mails the person at home and at work.

And they are issuing over 30,000 of them every year now, looking into average US citizens lives, not just the lives of foreigners living or visiting here. And because of a new executive order issued by George Bush (Executive Order 13388), even when people are found innocent and uninvolved in any wrongdoing, the collected records can be kept by the government, and even shared with "private sector entities", meaning corporations.

There is a December 31st deadline for many provisions in the "Totalitarian State Act", as it should be called, so please, everyone write your Senators and demand that the provisions not be extended or made permanent. That is, unless you're a communist that longs for the good old days of Stalin.

Senator's email page

                                           Dr. John

November 4th

Deja War All Over Again

Why would the Bush administration and the NSA attempt to stifle a 2001 report on 40 year old information from the Vietnam era? Perhaps because arrogant war mongers who never studied history are running our country now.

A report by an NSA historian, Robert J. Hanyok, concluded that the intelligence intercepts and other information concerning the Gulf of Tonkin incident that precipitated the Vietnam war were purposefully falsified. Mr. Hanyok wanted his historical report made public, but higher level officials in the Bush administration squelched it.

The reason given to Mr. Hanyok by higher officials was that they did not want people to make inconvenient comparisons between the purposeful deceptions used to justify both the Vietnam and the Iraq wars. An aid to Mr. Hanyok decided to speak out because, as he said: "This material is relevant to debates we as Americans are having about the war in Iraq and intelligence reform. To keep it classified simply because it might embarrass the agency is wrong."

But more than simply being embarrassing to The Agency, the report is a damning condemnation of the Bush administration's criminal misuse of intelligence to justify an unnecessary war. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. George Bush could care less about the lessons of history. Rather, he's "earned political capital, and he's going to spend it". Unfortunately, the troops in Iraq and the American taxpayers are the ones paying the price for Bush's arrogant ignorance of history, and his Imperialist war in the Middle East.

                                           Dr. John

November 3rd

Republicans Play Religious Right for Fools

Anyone who thought that in general, Republicans were fine upstanding religious folk that take the concerns of the faithful to heart will be disappointed to read emails between Republican lobbyists Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon. Here is an excerpt about their strategy to play religious people for fools from one email:

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees. Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

The most egregious fact is that the religious "wackos", as they so delicately put it, would be fooled into thinking they were supporting a bill that would eliminate gambling on an Indian reservation, when in fact they were voting for an initiative to protect Coushatta gambling revenues.

It is very sad that religion has been turned into a political weapon by Republicans, most of whom only feign religiosity, but never truly practice it. Is Pat Robertson practicing what Jesus preached when he calls for political assassinations? You tell me.

Government is forbidden from making laws that would promote or deter religious observance in the US, and this fact has let unscrupulous conservatives hijack religion and use it for political propaganda purposes. The conservatives know that no panel or commission would ever be set up to determine which "religious" organizations were valid places of worship, and which were political front companies, like Pat Roberson's "700 club". So they can go on deceiving millions of people around the country, and taking their money, without the profits being taxed. A constitutionally protected scam; a religious shakedown operation.

We can only hope that as religious people hear what many corrupt Republicans really think of them (that is: easy-to-fool wackos), they will turn on the party of deception, and begin to vote in their own best interests.

                                        Dr. John

November 2nd

Fighting For Freedom and Democracy?

Bush and Company love to talk a good game on freedom and democracy, but they are in fact people who "hate our freedom", and who despise the rule of law under our democratic system. We already knew that prisoners are being held in jails overseas that are not required to follow the rule of US laws. We know that the CIA and other agencies have been torturing people in the name of freedom and democracy.

Now the Washington Post reports that the CIA is operating at least eight "black sites" in foreign countries which are secret not only to the American people, but to the people of the host countries and to Congressional oversight as well. One large facility in Eastern Europe has been affectionately dubbed "the Salt Pit".

Democratic principles, such as Due Process, are not things a government can discard when they become inconvenient; they are the core of our legal system. But the Bush administration has thrown out all of our Democratic principles, and opened the Pandora's Box of secret, indefinite detentions of anyone labeled "terrorist" without trial or legal counsel. And in true amoral, anti-Democratic fashion, they torture the detainees.

It's no wonder that Bush and company have demanded that the CIA be exempted from the new law passed in the Senate that would force all US personnel to adhere to the Army Field Manual's rules governing the treatment of prisoners.

Our government is not only amoral and anti-Democratic, they are using the rhetoric of "freedom" to spread totalitarian oppression around the globe. They are criminals, and the World Can't Wait another 1174 days for these criminals to be run out of office. I suggest we give them all a couple year stay in the "Salt Pit", to give them a taste of their own vile medicine.

                                        Dr. John

The Bird Flu Scam

I'm not an MD, but I'm a research biologist, and I know something about how viruses mutate. The constant fear-mongering about the "bird flu pandemic" has me fuming mad. Bush gave a long, absurd speech yesterday trying to instill as much fear in the public as possible about the bird flu causing millions of deaths.

Pertinent biological rule #1: a human pandemic requires that the virus or bacteria can pass directly from one person to another. Right now people can only get the "bird flu" if they work all day in close contact with infected birds. No human to human transfer, because the virus doesn't have the correct machinery to do two things: 1) easily get inside human cells, and 2) transfer intact through the air or through body fluid contact from one person to another. So currently, the virus is harmless to the average person.

What has me and other biologists scratching our heads is the insistence by the Bush administration that the bird flu will mutate to be transmissible from person to person. This is curious, because it is harder to tell how a virus will mutate than it is to figure out where a tropical storm in the Eastern Atlantic is going to go over the next few weeks. It is impossible.

So how can they be so sure that a 1 in 10,000 chance that the virus could mutate to be able to directly pass from person to person will happen? Unless they are working hard in some "black biological weapons lab" to mutate the virus just the right way, they can't have the faintest idea how the flu might mutate. It could mutate to more easily infect wild birds, or mutate to be less deadly to chickens. Anything can happen with mutations, they are inherently unpredictable.

Perhaps the most insidious facets of this story are that it appears the Bush administration is using fear to keep people distracted, and that high government officials are profiting greatly from the scare tactics. Tamiflu doesn't stop the bird flu, but the fear mongering has driven sales through the roof. The parent company that makes Tamiflu; Gilead Sciences, is having a great run on it's stock since the flu scare began, and Don Rumsfeld owns millions of dollars worth of the company's stock.

Anyone getting angry yet?

                                       Dr. John

Give 'Em Hell Harry!

Yesterday, Democratic Senator Harry Reid invoked rule 21, forcing a closed session of Congress, and Bill Frist had an instant hissy fit.

Senator Reid invoked rule 21 to demand answers from the Republican controlled congress as to why the Republicans have failed to investigate faulty pre-war intelligence as they promised they would.

Bill Frist, in his infinite arrogance, said that the use of rule 21 was a "personal slap in the face", as though he thinks of himself as the entire US Senate. The Republicans have marginalized the Democrats in Congress for years now, and then they have the incredible gall to say that the Democrats were "hijacking the Senate", when in fact they were only trying to get to the bottom of the lies used to justify an illegal war.

Give 'em hell Harry!

                                        Dr. John

November 1st

Don't Play Sony CDs on Your PC

Sony has implemented a very dangerous and poorly written copy  protection scheme on new music CDs that can destroy your installation of Windows if you try to remove it. You can only play the content of the CD using the bundled media player, which installs a so-called "rootkit" on your computer that  patches several functions via the system call table, and alters registry and other files. A "rootkit" is more often found in spyware than in copy protection software, and is not something you want to install on your system. But you get no choice when you go to play the CD on your computer.

The folks who found the rootkit code on Sony CDs have a nice little tool you can download to check your system for any hidden rootkits.

You have two choices; play the CD on your stereo system only, or don't buy any Sony CD that says "Copy Protected Content". I highly recommend that people not support this kind of intrusion into the guts of your computer's operating system. Send Sony a message by not buying their copy protected CDs.

                                         Dr. John