Passport cards for Americans who travel to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean will be equipped with technology that allows information on the card to be read from a distance.The technology was approved Monday by the State Department and privacy advocates were quick to criticize the department for not doing more to protect information on the card, which can be used by U.S. citizens instead of a passport when traveling to other countries in the western hemisphere.

The technology would allow the cards to be read from up to 20 feet away. This process only takes one or two seconds, said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the State Department. The card would not have to be physically swiped through a reader, as is the current process with passports.

The technology is “inherently insecure and poses threats to personal privacy, including identity theft,” Ari Schwartz, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement. Schwartz said this specific technology, called “vicinity read,” is better suited for tracking inventory, not people.

The State Department said privacy protections will be built into the card. The chip on the card will not contain biographical information, Barrett said.

And the card vendor - which has yet to be decided - will also provide sleeves for the cards that will prevent them from being read from afar, she said.

A 2004 law to strengthen border security called for a passport card that frequent border crossers could use that would be smaller and more convenient than the traditional passport. Currently, officials must swipe travelers’ passports through an electronic reader at entry points.

The technology change for passport cards was initially proposed in October 2006, and public comments closed on Jan. 7, 2007. The State Department received more than 4,000 comments, and most were about the security of the technology.  (Source)

After months of delay, the State Department finally, on the last day of the year, submits this decision to the Federal Register.  After taking that long, couldn’t they have improved the technology so that security concerns could have been alleviated?

If you’re concerned about the environment and consider it a waste to simply toss that Christmas tree in the trash, visit Earth911 and find a place near you where you can recycle it into mulch.

Recycle Your Christmas Tree

More tips from Earth911 for a sustainable holiday season.

Isn’t free thinking really anti-god?

Personally, I’d like to see the world move into the 21st century without the burden of trying to accommodate 1st century thinking. Society has evolved far beyond the conditions of the 1st century, yet the majority of Americans are still trying to decide our future based on concepts appropriate for a 2000 year old nomadic band of Middle Easterners.

I’d like to see modern humans divorce themselves from all ancient myths and superstitions, not just religion. Why do people still insist on “trusting luck”, crossing their fingers, knocking on wood, wearing lucky charms? True, we’re only just starting to understand how nature works, but we already know enough to start leaving our nonsensical beliefs behind.

I have no intention of “destroying” your faith. I’m not even sure how skepticism and doubt could do that if your faith were strong. What I would like to do is present counter-proposals to all the things theists insist can only be explained by the gods so that they have another point of view to consider. Perhaps they’ll finally see that believing in gods is no longer necessary and is even unhealthy in many situations and begin to look around them with a new perspective.

Can’t  you question the existence of gods without referring to believers?

Usually not, since the gods are only kept around by the belief of their followers. It’s the believers who create the gods. We can only address their belief.

(Posted in response to questions I’ve recently been asked)

The fact that I admired a president who bungled a war, added $32 trillion to the next generation’s debt and made America a torturing nation is a matter of record - and some shame. (Source)

Too few conservative former-Bush supporters have the decency to apologize publicly for their previous stand. I have to admire Andrew Sullivan for being honest about his change of heart.

Human evolution is speeding up. Around 40,000 years ago our genes began to evolve much faster. By 5000 years ago they were evolving 30 to 40 times faster than ever before and it seems highly likely that we continue to evolve at this super speed today.

Our population explosion and rapidly changing lifestyles seem to be the drivers of this acceleration, the discovery of which contradicts the widely held notion that our technological and medical advances have removed most of the selection pressures acting upon us. (Source, subscription required)

Genetically we’re evolving faster, while mentally and philosophically we’re still mired in the Dark Ages.  In too many ways we’re nothing more than 1st century nomads with technology.

The rocketlike rise of a once-obscure former Arkansas governor and Southern Baptist minister to the front ranks of the Republican presidential campaign owes much to the likes of Don Swisher.Chatting between Sunday services about the campaign in the foyer of First Assembly of God Church, Swisher said he plans to vote for Huckabee Thursday night at the Iowa precinct caucuses, the first official nomination contest of the 2008 presidential campaign.

“I like Huckabee,” the semiretired West Des Moines resident said yesterday. “He’s pro-life, a Baptist minister, so he’s Bible-based.”

Evangelical Christians are a formidable force in the Iowa caucuses: They are believed to make up more than 40 percent of the Republican electorate.

Religious issues have dominated the campaign to an uncommon degree even in a state where televangelist Pat Robertson placed first in the GOP caucuses in 1988.

The debate hasn’t centered just on issues such as abortion and gay rights that are important to religious conservatives. Much of the discussion has involved the personal religious faiths of the two leading Republicans – Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon.

“I’m really surprised how much religion has been an issue in the campaign,” said Bruce Nesmith, a professor of political science at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who studies religion in politics.

Throughout most of 2007, evangelicals were deeply split, with pockets of support for Romney, former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and even former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, despite his support for abortion rights and a turbulent personal life that includes three marriages.

But many evangelicals stayed on the sidelines in the hope that a candidate they found acceptable would emerge.

For many of them, that person – Huckabee – was there all along. It just took people a long time to notice.

“They were deeply split until about a month or so ago. There is no one particular candidate who seemed like the obvious candidate to them,” said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Des Moines.

“They liked what Romney said about social issues but didn’t trust how sincere he was. They wanted to like Thompson, but Thompson entered with such a splat. What happened, of course, was Huckabee slowly but surely made an impact.”

Huckabee won supporters thanks to his amiable campaign style, a succession of well-received debate performances and unflinching views on abortion and gay rights – in contrast to other Republican contenders whose social-conservative credentials are suspect to evangelicals.

For Huckabee, being a former minister who often wears his religious values on his sleeve closes the sale with some evangelical voters.

“I’m a born-again Christian,” said Eleanor Bauer, a retired graphic artist in Ankeny, Iowa. “And if I see something in life that I have a question about, I ask God about it. I feel like we are being led by God.

“Where someone else tries to go by their own wisdom instead of God’s, we just get in trouble. Huckabee would turn to God.”

But others, such as retired pastor Phil Carroll, a McCain supporter, thinks that when it comes to religion, Huckabee lays it on too thick.

“He’s a good man, but pastors get called to the ministry by God,” Carroll said. “Did God call him to be president? I don’t think so.

“John McCain, being a Christian, does not play the God card. He thinks that’s unethical, and I agree with him.”

Huckabee, interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday, said he had no religious tests as governor of Arkansas when it came to public policy issues and would not as president.

“I never proposed a bill to remove the Capitol dome and replace it with a steeple,” he said. “We didn’t do tent revivals on the grounds of the Capitol.”

But critics question whether religion influenced Huckabee as governor to push for the early parole of a convicted rapist who went on to rape and kill two other women. They suggest Huckabee was swayed by a friend who was also a pastor who befriended the prisoner, Wayne DuMond, along with the rapist’s contention that he had been “born again.” Huckabee says he did not pressure the parole board to act.  (Source)

Americans seem determined to blindly set course for a theocracy without the slightest qualm.  They don’t seem to consider the fact that should we become a “Christian nation”, all our future wars will be similar to those fought in the Middle ages.  Once again it will be god against the heathens.

They also don’t seem to realize that religion is not tolerant of dissent.  At some point our rights will be suppressed to the “glory of god”.  And which god is destined to become our national savior?  The Baptist concept of god, the Lutheran, The Catholic, the Mormon?  If they all worshiped the same god, there wouldn’t be so many denominations across the nation.  If you’re a theist but worship the wrong god (i.e. not the national god) you’ll be no better off than those who don’t believe at all.

I’d like to think that this religious sturm und drang  is simply the dying cry of an outdated philosophy, religion’s disparate, dying breath.  Those who support Huckabee or Romney out of sympathetic religious views had best consider what will become of the United States should religion become a primary criteria for the next president.

For anyone who has ever lived with, and loved, a dog.

One of the jazz world’s greats has died. Oscar Peterson was a truly gifted pianist. He’ll be missed by all of us who love jazz.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Obituary: Oscar Peterson

1) Do not under any circumstances microwave a full cup of coffee with sugar already added.

2) Keep a roll of paper towels handy near the microwave.

3) Do not attempt to drink the coffee you made in the process of learning rule #1.

Put The Big Red Button on your site

I cannot recommend that anyone install the just released SP1RC for Vista.

Using a non-production computer running Vista Ultimate, I followed Microsoft’s instructions to the letter, adding the extra step of creating a restore point before beginning the installation process. The process first installs 3 Windows updates over a period of a couple of days, then it begins the Service Pack upgrade. The upgrades installed without a problem, but the installation of the Service Pack hung up at 0% completed. It stayed in that state for over 10 hours. There was no indication of an error, just no progress. Windows couldn’t load beyond the welcome screen. During this time I was unable to access my desktop or applications.

I’m not even linking to the SP1 update sites. If you really want to try it, you can find it. But I recommend you don’t bother.

…with this music video. Everybody, on put your shoes for dancing into disco.

Don’t blame me if this gets stuck in your head all weekend.

And Bill O’Reilly’s upset about store clerks who say, “Happy Holidays”?

Microsoft Corp. quickly shut down Santa Claus’ Web privileges after it found out the automated elf it created for kids to instant message with was talking naughty, not nice.

(MSNBC is a joint Microsoft - NBC Universal venture.)

Last year, Microsoft encouraged kids to connect directly to “Santa” by adding northpolelive.com to their Windows Live Messenger contact lists. The Santa program, which Microsoft reactivated in early December, asked children what they wanted for Christmas and could respond on topic, thanks to artificial intelligence.

The holiday cheer soured this week when a reader of a United Kingdom-based technology news site, The Register, reported that a chat between Santa and his underage nieces about eating pizza prompted Santa to bring up oral sex.

One of the publication’s writers replicated the chat Monday. After declining the writer’s repeated invitations to eat pizza, a frustrated Santa burst out with, “You want me to eat what?!? It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else.”

The exchange ended with the writer and Santa calling each other “dirty bastard.”

Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn said the company’s engineers tried to clean up Santa’s vocabulary, but even after making changes to the software, the company wasn’t comfortable keeping him online.

“It’s not like if you say, ’Hello Santa,’ he’s going to throw inappropriate stuff at you,” said Sohn.

Sohn said Santa’s lewd comment was sparked by someone “pushing this thing to make it do things it wasn’t supposed to do.”

Santa is just one of many “agents,” or automated IM programs, that computer users can chat with on Live Messenger. Some are useful — customer service agents, for example — while others are frivolous, like an alien that responds to IMs with burbling extraterrestrial noises. Sohn said some of the bots are programmed to fend off inappropriate messages.

“If they’re meant to be cheeky and have fun with you, they may repeat certain things back,” he said, or respond to certain words with “that’s naughty.”

Sohn said Microsoft was not aware that the Santa code included the foul language, but insisted the company did not suspect an employee prank.

Microsoft disabled Santa Tuesday. On Wednesday, northpolelive.com appeared to be online in one reporter’s essenger contact list, but Santa did not respond to her messages.

(Source)

This almost makes Vista seem benign.