Yesterday’s WSJ, on the difficulties in the financial markets, warns that inflation isn’t dead:

Which brings us to tomorrow’s (now today’s — Ed.) Fed meeting. The markets are expecting another cut of 50-75 points in the benchmark fed funds rate, and if recent history is a guide will immediately price into futures another 50-point cut down the road. The stock market may rally, until it once again decides that easier money can’t remedy what is fundamentally a problem of bank solvency. That problem can only be resolved by financial institutions and regulators coming to grips with the losses, raising more capital to cushion the blow, and closing or selling those banks that can never recover. That will require a more aggressive, and pre-emptive, regulatory role for the Fed — and that we would applaud.

What the U.S. and world economy don’t need is a Fed that continues to insist that inflation expectations are “well-anchored” when everyone else knows they aren’t. The Fed needs to restore its monetary credibility, or today’s panic could become tomorrow’s crash.

It would appear that financial institutions that bought heavily into the excesses of the subprime situation without requisite caution are paying the price for their follies. It is important that this happen.

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As has so often been the case with overseas events, the best coverage of the Tibetan situation is at blogs.

One is the Tibet Will Be Free blog of Students for a Free Tibet. Go there.

Just one coverage example that makes the point: The Economist took the pictures, but the blog explains them.

The indispensable RConversation reports that the Great Firewall of China, whose construction has been assisted by members of the BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame, is doing a “good” job of keeing the Chinese people in the dark about events in Tibet.

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A “Jeopardy” answer: The United States.

The question: What country that has achieved a 28% reduction in greenhouse emissions per dollar of real GDP? (quoting from an EPA report excerpted at the Reason link):

In 2006, total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions were 7,201.9 Tg CO2 Eq. Overall, total U.S. emissions have risen by 14.1 percent from 1990 to 2006, while the U.S. gross domestic product has increased by 59 percent over the same period (BEA 2007).

The math: 114.1/159.0 = 71.8%, i.e. a 28.2% reduction per unit.

If the globlarmists (those who erroneously believe that global warming is occurring, that it is primarily man-made, and that radical reductions in living standards are required if the planet is to survive) wanted to have their cake and eat it too, they would leave the US economy the heck alone. More prosperity, less greenhouse gas per unit of prosperity. In fact, they would encourage initiatives like the Asia-Pacific Partnership that promise to help developing nations like China and India achieve similar per-unit reductions. But they won’t.

Memo to Objectively Unfit and Supposedly Reconsidering-it Mitt Romney (HT Gregg Jackson in an e-mail): Don’t even think about it, pal. We weren’t done, and you don’t want the rest out there.

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This will keep IT managers up at night:

A team including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Princeton University, and other researchers have found a major security flaw in several popular disk encryption technologies that leaves encrypted data vulnerable to attack and exposure.

“People trust encryption to protect sensitive data when their computer is out of their immediate control,” said EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen, a member of the research team. “But this new class of vulnerabilities shows it is not a sure thing. Whether your laptop is stolen, or you simply lose track of it for a few minutes at airport security, the information inside can still be read by a clever attacker.”

The researchers cracked several widely used disk encryption technologies, including Microsoft’s BitLocker, Apple’s FileVault, TrueCrypt, and dm-crypt. These “secure” disk encryption systems are supposed to protect sensitive information if a computer is stolen or otherwise accessed. However, in a paper and video published on the Internet today, the researchers show that data is vulnerable because encryption keys and passwords stored in a computer’s temporary memory — or RAM — do not disappear immediately after losing power.

Ouch. Don’t let that laptop stray.

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Congressman John Boehner, with this move, is again showing why he’s a great American. The Earmark Reform site needs to be kept open, and those who are in the way of reform need to be exposed. The attempt to shut it down is a blatant attempt by Speaker Pelosi to continue, and extend, business as usual, and is simply unacceptable.

Those who are in the way of earmark reform need to pay a price at the ballot box this year.

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I think this Washington Post article on home-equity lines deliberately overplays the severity of what’s happening.

Here’s an example:

Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, suspended the home equity lines of 122,000 customers last month after reviewing their property values and outstanding loan balances. The company, like others, has an internal automated appraisal system that tracks values.

The company declined to disclose how many of the affected borrowers lived in the Washington area. About 381,000 borrowers in the region had home equity lines at the end of last year, according to Moody’s economy.com.

USAA Federal Savings Bank froze or reduced credit lines for 15,000 of its customers, including Corazzi, and will not reconsider its decisions until “real estate values improve substantially,” the company said in a statement.

The first paragraph uses a big number with no context. How many million equity lines does Countrywide have? That info should be pretty easy to find, or ask for. If it’s more than 2.3 million (and I suspect it’s a lot higher), then only 5% (and I suspect the percentage is much lower) of Countrywide’s equity lines have been suspended.

Because there is no paragraph break between the first and second paras, the second excerpted paragraph’s stat is vague. I can tell that it’s equity lines from all lenders, but I believe that many readers will believe it’s Countrywide only, and may even think that one-third of Countrywide’s lines (122K/381K) are affected, which would clearly be wrong.

Finally, note the subtle change from the first paragraph, which covered freezes only, to “froze or reduced” in the third.

All in all, I believe the authors intended to make things look worse than they really are. After all, what’s usually happening is that an unused credit line is being reduced. Seriously now, if the bank lowers the credit line on a credit card you seldom use from $10,000 to $5,000, where’s the suffering?

Associated Press writer Tini Tran, in covering the fallout inside Mainland/Communist China from Steven Spielberg’s decision to resign from his position as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics over that country’s involvement in Darfur, introduced the critical reaction to his decision as a “groundswell” rising up from the public. But the detail presented indicates that the reaction came from Chinese officialdom far more than from the public in general (bolds are mine):

China Media, Public Angered by Spielberg

Hollywood director Steven Spielberg’s decision to quit the Beijing Olympics over the Darfur crisis is drawing condemnation by China’s state-controlled media and a groundswell of criticism from the Chinese public.

….. Officially, the Chinese government has not directly criticized Spielberg by name, expressing only “regret” over his decision. But the state-run media and the public have been far less restrained.

In newspaper commentaries and lively Internet forums, they have expressed outrage, scorn and bewilderment that China’s Olympics have come under international criticism from Spielberg and others.

A biting front-page editorial Wednesday in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, blasted Spielberg for his decision.

….. Over the weekend, the Guangming Daily, also published by the Communist Party, ran an editorial saying Spielberg “broke his promise to make his contribution to the Beijing Olympics and betrayed the Olympic spirit.”

….. An editorial in the China Youth Daily was equally scathing.

….. China often uses its newspapers to make statements it does not want to officially comment on. But the issue also has exploded on the Internet, where scores of Chinese have been quick to add their criticism of Spielberg.

So let’s see. The first three examples Tran cited call came from official party publications. Finally, Tran got to “the Internet.” She only cited a couple of comments, one on the Sina.com portal, and another at an unnamed site.

So where’s the “public groundswell”? Even if there were a documented “groundswell,” what, if anything would it mean in a country that so tightly controls what people can and cannot say and do on the Internet (with the unfortunate help of US-developed high tech and US-based high-tech companies)? Finally, if the government wanted to created the impression of a “groundswell,” it would not be all that difficult. After all, it has an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 net minders (i.e., censors) monitoring what its citizens are doing. It would not be difficult to get a state-induced comment swarm going just among them.

Tran’s take on the criticism of Spielberg only works if you believe that the official publications she cited represent public sentiment. Give me a break.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From the end of this Campaign Spot post, — It looks like Hillary is virtually conceding Wisconsin:

Among Democrats, (Strategic Vision’s poll says) it’s Obama 45 percent, Hillary 41 percent, and 14 percent undecided. Yet Hillary’s not going to the state until Saturday!

Real Clear Politics shows that Rasmussen has the same 4-point margin. I predict that the candidate known around here as BOOHOO (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama) will win by at least 10; a 15-20 point crush would not surprise me one bit.

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Obamaball turns out to be hardball, which I’ll explain after the excerpt:

Obama’s political action committee has doled out more than $694,000 to superdelegates since 2005, the study found, and of the 81 who had announced their support for Obama, 34 had received donations totaling $228,000.

Clinton’s political action committee has distributed about $195,000 to superdelegates, and only 13 of the 109 who had announced for her have received money, totaling about $95,000.

Now THIS is entertainment.

Most of the “superdels” gladly took Obama bucks thinking that the guy had no chance, and perhaps expected as much or more moolah from Hillary.

Oops. That clearly isn’t how it’s working out. Now, having received more money from Obama, and with Obama being the clear front-runner and pledged delegate leaders, what’s a superdel to do? Turn him down, look like the ultimate ingrate, and risk being on the outside looking in during an Obama administration? I don’t think so.

Obama, in playing the “green card,” was smart enough, obviously very early in the game, not to “bank” on superdel ethics, instead relying on a language universally understood. Despite trailing in superdels by about 80 with almost exactly half of them counted, I expect that he’ll win them going away, and that many, like John Lewis yesterday (see Update 4A at link), will switch.

Of course the whole process is corrupt, but that’s perhaps another topic for another time.

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From the “It’s Always Something” Department: Wireless multifunction printers as security risks (HT Instapundit). Seriously.

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Somebody needs to help me with this, because I don’t understand why the Wall Street Journal is on such a high horse over how John McCain’s campaign survived through the summer and fall:

Banks have made loans against some dubious collateral lately, but John McCain’s fund-raising list? That was the security the candidate put down when he took out a $3 million loan in November to get his then-struggling campaign through the primaries

Earth to Journal: McCain’s net worth, according to Senate disclosure records, is between $15 and $20 million. If the bank believed that the collateral pledged wasn’t sufficient, it clearly could have demanded more backing. McCain was clearly willing to do whatever it took to get through the trough. This suggests strong self-confidence and the willingness to fight instead of folding in the face of adversity, i.e., normally considered good things.

The paper’s point about the need to get rid of the campaign contribution limits is valid, but complaining about how McCain got through times seems the ultimate in sour grapes.

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I suppose the nabobs of McCain negativity at the Journal will figure out a way to spin this, but it’s hard not to be impressed with this remark he made to a group of bloggers a couple of days ago:

Listen, I’ll never forget you. You were the only guys who would listen to me for a couple of months. Do you think I’d ever forget you?

I remember getting an invitation or two to McCain’s blogger conference calls last year, and not going to them, thinking “What’s the point?”

More of this, and the talk-radio stereotype that John McCain is in a perpetual seethe might evaporate.

Just to be clear: I am NOT a big McCain fan, based on a number of his policy positions. As far as I’m concerned, he still needs to make the sale.

A Hollywooder shows some spine:

Steven Spielberg has decided not to participate in this summer’s Beijing Olympic Games as an artistic adviser, citing China’s lack of progress in resolving the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
His move is a public relations blow to the Chinese government, which is under pressure to force the government of Sudan to resolve the crisis in Darfur.

Spielberg’s worldwide profile could lead others involved in the Games to pull out and even lead sponsors to reconsider their roles in the event.

Let’s hope so.

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Speaking of China (HT Information Week via Techdirt), this is four months old, but it needs more notice than it has received:

A “Journey to the Heart of Internet censorship” on eve of party congress

In partnership with Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Chinese Internet expert working in IT industry has produced an exclusive study on the key mechanism of the Chinese official system of online censorship, surveillance and propaganda. The author prefers to remain anonymous.

On the eve of the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which opens this week in Beijing, Reporters Without Borders and the Chinese Human Rights Defenders call on the government to allow the Chinese to exercise their rights to freedom of press, expression and information.

“This system of censorship is unparalleled anywhere in the world and is an insult to the spirit of online freedom,” the two organisations said. “With less than a year to go before the Beijing Olympics, there is an urgent need for the government to stop blocking thousands of websites, censoring online news and imprisoning Internet activists.”

Good luck with that.

Techdirt describes the size and scope of the censorship machine:

Apparently, there are three agencies responsible for different aspects of online censorship: the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau, the Bureau of Information and Public Opinion, and the Internet Bureau. There’s also the Beijing Internet Information Administrative Bureau to handle all the internet firms located in Beijing. It’s all very organized. The Propaganda Agency is in charge of licensing news agencies — but the licenses aren’t to report news or do any, you know, reporting. The licenses are to report propaganda provided by the government. The Public Opinion group basically watches over what public opinion is saying and lets Party leaders know about it, so that a response can quickly be generated. The Internet Bureau, then, is where the real censorship takes place. As for the Beijing Internet organization, it meets with the big internet firms and tells them what news stories will be allowed or not allowed that week.

All with the assistance of members of the BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame. According to Information Week, three of whom (Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!) called for, and got, the US State Department to form a task force last year “to investigate the problems posed to the Internet by repressive regimes” — that they are assisting.

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A Cincinnati-area state rep has introduced a bill to make English the official language in the State of Ohio. This post from Virginia (HT Instapundit) is part of why it’s a good idea.

Covering further Chinese clampdowns on the Internet, and following up on 2007 predictions made at the end of 2006 by Forbes’s Rich Karlgaard and Biz Weak:

(more…)

Statistics only the KKK could love:

The CDC shows a majority of women who get abortions are white (53 percent) compared with 35 percent done on African-Americans, 8 percent on women of other ethnic backgrounds and the race of the woman was unknown in four percent of the cases.

However, the abortion ratio for black women (472 per 1,000 live births) was 2.9 times higher than the ratio for white women (161 per 1,000).

Examined another way, nearly half of all pregnancies among black women end in abortion while just 16 percent of pregnancies among white women end in abortion.

The abortion rate for black women (28 per 1,000 women) was 2.8 times the rate for white women (10 per 1,000).

Those statistics continue to worry pro-life leaders in the African-American community.

Why don’t those statistics worry every leader in the African-American community?

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Ho-hum hiring headline (bold is mine):

Cessna to add 1,500 jobs in 2008

Cessna Aircraft plans to add 1,500 jobs next year, the majority of them in Wichita, company officials said this week.

Cessna plans to increase Wichita employment by about 1,200 in 2008, said senior vice president for human resources Jim Walters.

“It’s primarily, if not solely, driven by growth,” Walters said.

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Here’s an interesting juxaposition:

This extraordinary lost data discs business is, I think, particularly wounding to the Brown regime, for it gives off that same vibe, of a government descending into anarchy, and not in a good way. The whole world is now sniggering at Britain.

….. (instead of 25 million affected by the British data loss, it’s) only seven million. That’s okay then.

The author is, of course, being sarcastic.

The Brits haven’t learn how to manage the PR around data losses as Ted Strickland and the State of Ohio have. Instead of starting with a high number and taking it down, you should, as Ohio’s government did last summer start with a very small number, and work your way up. By the time you get to a really big number, people have long since stopped paying attention.

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This ID theft story looks like a tough one to top.

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In France, somewhat-conservative and general Bush-backer Sarkozy has the trains running on time, and appears to have beaten a transport strike designed to cripple his attempts at pension reform.

In the meantime, former French President and Bush-basher Jacques Chirac is “under formal investigation for corruption” for “front jobs at City Hall to individuals from Chirac’s Rally for the Republic Party (RPR)” when he was Paris Mayor in the 1970s and 1980s.

Expect Old Media, which is bent on perpetuating the myth that “the world hates us” because George Bush is president to give these stories short shrift.

This is the first half of a long-overdue catch-up post, to say the least. The other half will appear tomorrow. Hopefully I can get back into a once-a-week (or more) groove with this.

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Ohio Representative Danny Bubp, who is heading to Iraq, is a popular guy in the Alliance, as he should be. Andy’s Angle has an audio interview; Mark at Weapons of Mass Discussion has a tribute. Stay safe, Mr. Bubp.

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Bearing Drift doesn’t like the Sirius-XM merger, though I think he wants shareholders, and not the FCC or the Justice Department, to stop it.

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Boring Made Dull is not impressed with the deal BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame member Yahoo! made with relatives and other associated with imprisoned journalists in China. He shouldn’t be. The journalists are where they are because of the company’s cooperation with the Chinese Communist police state, weren’t freed as a result of the talks, and should be freed immediately.

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Brain Shavings got to something I’ve been meaning to (which is why I need to do these posts more) — The UN is whining about US “control” of the Internet again. Claudia Rossett at Pajamas Media thinks this is something to be really worried about, but I don’t think the assembly of complainers has any real clout — yet. Nevertheless, they’re not to be ignored.

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Eye Hacker Blog has a story you know Old Media won’t touch unless their faces are rubbed in it — “Anglicans Ask to Join Catholic Church.” Lots of ‘em. And I’m sure you know why.

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TaxMan Blog (HT Conservative Culture) — “….. our military loses almost 1000 soldiers a year even in ‘non war’ eras.” I also like his newly-designed Michigan quarter.

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Patrick at Central Ohioans Against Terrorism has a must-see video (link to CBN article is here) with transcript, about terror sympathizers and terrorists — in Hillard, Ohio, and Metro Columbus. I don’t suppose anyone at the Columbus Dispatch has bothered to see it.

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Interested-Participant updates us on “virginity restoration.” Really.

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FYI News is 3. Congrats. It is a truly special place. Where else can you get news about coffee-preparing monkeys, cows fleeing McDonald’s, and the pants-lawsuit judge losing his job?

Old Media’s selective outrage over censorship has never been more apparent than with its kid-glove treatment of BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame member Google. Matthew Vadum has more on that:

More evidence of the company’s thinly-veiled, warm and fuzzy politically correct authoritarianism keeps popping up.

Now Google Video has suppressed a video of a speech that Spencer, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), made at Dartmouth College. Spencer, whose family comes from the Muslim world, sees his work as “calling attention to the roots and goals of jihad violence.” He carefully explains his belief that “Islam is not a monolith,” and says that he has “never” characterized all Muslims “as terrorist or given to violence.”

Giddy Google Shareholders beware: The company has openly embraced the economic and ideological sellout known as “Corporate Social Responsibility,” for which it and equity holders will, eventually, pay dearly. Just ask Ford, which looked untouchable in the late 1990s, what happens when you go too far down that road.

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Utah’s school voucher attempt has failed badly:

Most of the opposition’s $4.4 million came from the National Education Association and state teachers’ unions from Florida to Alaska. Voucher supporters countered with more than $4 million, nearly three-quarters of that from (Voucher supporter Overstock.com chief executive Patrick) Byrne and his family. Byrne says vouchers are the only way America’s “broken” public education system can stay competitive with other industrialized nations.

So much for “choice.”

Those who cheer the defeat are apparently OK with the status quo, which is to throw more money at failed schools. Kansas City was the lab for blank-check education, and it totally failed.

Parents who care, and who can, should be seriously considering private schools and home schooling. They can’t afford to wait for a national answer.
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This juxtaposition of what I saw this morning at Drudge matches my reaction (link to underlying article is here):

These people do focus groups to decide where to take a vacation (halfway through link; “It got so bad that even Clinton’s vacation plans were determined by Dick Morris’s polls.”). Less than a week ago, they were telling the press how much they consult with each other. As the ad says …..

The AP’s Nedra Pickler Pickler continues to play the victim card for Mrs. Clinton, characterizing the pretty mild criticisms of her rivals as “caustic.” Nedra, I’ve seen caustic, and what you describe in the article as caustic isn’t even in the neighborhood of caustic.

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In local elections:

• Incumbent and irretrievably tainted Ernie Fletcher’s selfish insistence on running for re-election, regardless of the consequences, cost the GOP what should have been a safe governorship in Kentucky.
• Hamilton County’s jail tax-sales tax went down 56-44. As stated in a post during the petition drive, it belonged on the ballot regardless of the outcome.
• Cincinnati’s school levy failed, as it should have; the system’s spending per student is nearly the highest in Ohio, for no good reason.

• Two Thousand What? (Top-Tier Dems won’t guarantee withdrawal from Iraq by 2013)
• Ohio Data-Theft Drip Continues; Call in the Feds? (Yet more affected people and entities were identified this past week, including many from outside the state)

From USA Today:

Consumers score the right to freeze credit

In a major reversal, TransUnion, one of the Big Three credit bureaus, says it will allow individuals in all 50 states to freeze their credit histories.

The service, which goes into effect Oct. 15, is a big victory for anyone who wants to be more proactive about preventing identity theft, consumer advocates say.

“Consumers deserve the right to a low-cost security freeze that makes it easy to prevent crooks from opening fraudulent accounts,” says Gail Hillebrand, senior attorney for Consumers Union.

TransUnion broke ranks with Experian and Equifax. A June story in USA TODAY described how the Big Three credit bureaus have lobbied for two years to stop strong credit-freeze laws from being adopted at the federal and state levels. The bureaus disseminate credit histories used by lenders to issue credit cards, mortgages and other loans.

A credit freeze bars the bureaus from issuing your credit history, the summary of loans and payments that forms the basis of your credit score. Because few lenders will issue credit without first seeing a credit score, putting a freeze on your information means ID thieves can’t use stolen Social Security numbers to fraudulently open new accounts.

….. TransUnion says it will provide the security freeze free to ID theft victims and charge others $10 to initiate a freeze and $10 to lift it temporarily or remove it. States with the most consumer-friendly security-freeze laws typically charge $5.

I think TransUnion should have dropped their prices to $5 or less. My personal opinion, given that the data is about the consumer and carries so much importance, is that freezes should be possibly-free or nearly-free. If there are to be fees, they should reflect the costs of providing the service, which when spread over millions of people, should be a lot less than $10 per freeze or unfreeze.

TransUnion is finally acknowledging that it can’t stop the push for freeze legislation as long as the bureaus don’t have a nationwide program of their own. I expect, and hope, that the other two bureaus will fall in line shortly.

From a business standpoint, TransUnion, because it is offering a freeze to anyone who wants it, avoids the hassle of complying with at least 30 existing state freeze laws. Some states (foolishly, in my opinion) limited freeze access to victims of ID theft. It’s still true that the bureaus have to deal with lower fees in some states.

From a political standpoint, assuming that Experian and Equifax see the writing on the wall, the bureaus will be be able to go to Washington and ask for national legislation with at least a little credibility. Uniform national legislation makes constitutional sense because of the impact of credit, credit files, and credit scores on interstate commerce. The hope is that national legislation will knock the fees down to a more reasonable level. I believe this will happen, because the bureaus will figure out that they can monetize a decent amount of the new Internet traffic that will result from freeze and un-freeze requests.

Here’s an Ohio question: Should the Strickland Administration offer to pay for or reimburse the cost of a TransUnion freeze for anyone affected by the data theft that occurred earlier this year at no charge? If not, why not? I say: “Freeze, baby, freeze.”

By the way: How many readers knew that the State announced on July 11 (currently second item at link) that “an additional 583,558 individuals will be eligible for Debix protection”? That is, their data was also on the stolen data tape, bringing the total number of those affected to well over 1 million.

It gets better: There’s a link to the governor’s related press release at that page. There is no July 11 press release at the linked page. A person at the state’s ID Theft Hotline says they’ll look for it, and get back to me when they find it.

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UPDATE, Sept. 22 — That was quick. Late yesterday, Equifax also announced that they would make credit freezes available to all. As of 1PM on Saturday, Experian had no announcement or comment.

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Previous Posts:
- June 27, 2006 — EVEN MORE Reasons to Pass Universal Credit Freeze Legislation
- June 26, 2006 — Just a Few More of the Many Reasons Congress Should Pass a Universal Credit Freeze
- August 10, 2005 — What May Be the Mother of All Data Thefts Proves Why Data Encryption and Credit Freezes are Needed, NOW
- July 19, 2005 — It’s Time for National Credit Freeze Legislation

Apparently, the world’s largest Internet search business believes it has little to fear from those who object to its continued involvement with government censorship in communist China. Google agreed to censor its search-engine results in accordance with government wishes in January 2006. That control regime is still in place, as comparative searches on “Tiananmen” at Google.com and Google.cn readily show.

Oh, company co-founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page have said that what they agreed to do in Mainland China was a “mistake.” But that’s only because of the fallout, not the cooperation decision itself, as this January excerpt from the UK Guardian shows:

Last year in a speech in Washington Mr. Brin admitted the company had been forced to compromise its principles to operate in China. At the time, he also hinted at a potential reversal of its stance in the country, saying “perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense”.

From what was said yesterday a policy change seemed unlikely in the near future. Co-founder Larry Page said: “We always consider what to do. But I don’t think we as a company should be making decisions based on too much perception.”

Much of the harm had come from newspaper headlines, he said, which affected perception for most people, who then did not read the actual articles.

So small is the company’s concern over continued blowback that it has begun actively pushing for international privacy standards, expecting no one in Old Media to notice the irony.

The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampall certainly didn’t. Her 600-word story, which begins as follows, never mentions China or the search company’s involvement with it:

Google, a frequent target of privacy advocates, yesterday called for new international standards on the collection and use of consumer data.

Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel for Google, told a U.N. audience in Strasbourg, France, that fragmentary international privacy laws burden companies and don’t protect consumers. He argued for an international body such as the United Nations to create standards that individual countries could then adopt and adapt to fit their needs.

“The ultimate goal should be to create minimum standards of privacy protection that meet the expectations and demands of consumers, businesses and governments,” Fleischer said, according to a transcript of the speech provided by Google.

But what about a government which is uninterested in and hostile to privacy protections, and which instead uses its control of the Internet as part of an obvious attempt to perfect its police state?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Stealth operating system updates, from Microsoft:

Microsoft caught doing stealth updates

files on both Windows XP and Windows Vista without displaying the usual notification or permission dialog box – even if the user had previously disabled automatic updates. Microsoft, however, calls it built-in behavior and no cause for alarm.

Scott Dunn of “Windows Secrets”, reports nine files in XP and Vista have been altered by Windows Update in what he calls a stealth move by Microsoft. The updates are upgrades to the Windows Update service itself, and are not harmful to the system. However, the tactics used by Microsoft to perform them are comparable to those used by spyware companies, thus raising some concerns among the privacy minded.

Look, in the real world, 99% of us don’t understand or care what Microsoft, Apple, or others are doing to our OS’s in their updates, as long as our routines aren’t disrupted. Most of us, for better or worse, probably wouldn’t object to automatic updates after being asked the first time if they’re okay. It’s the mixing of announced updates and stealthy ones that raises suspicions that either someone is trying to cover for previous mistakes or invading our privacy, and puts commentators like this one, who makes great points about network administration problems, into high dudgeon.

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At OpinionJournal.com, “Borking Ted Olson” reveals the laughable reason why the former Solicitor General will not get support from the current Senate majority:

“Ted Olson will not be confirmed,” declares Senate Majority Leader Reid. “He’s a partisan, and the last thing we need as an Attorney General is a partisan.” That standard could certainly stand some fleshing out. As “partisans” go, Mr. Olson doesn’t come close to Bobby Kennedy, the brother of JFK; or Griffin Bell, close friend of Jimmy Carter (and a fine AG); or for that matter Janet Reno’s Justice Department, which was run for years not by Ms. Reno but behind the scenes by close friend of Hillary Clinton and hyper-partisan Jamie Gorelick.

Mr. Olson remembers who killed his wife, and would likely not cut her killers’ fellow-traveling sympathizers, disrupters, and legal gameplayers any slack. THAT’s what they don’t like about him.

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Memo to Darryl “That’s Entertainment” Parks of WLW (700 on the AM dial in Cincinnati): This is NOT “entertainment.” Nor is this. This weekend, I endured the fateful podcast of September 7. The Bill Cunningham-Seg Dennison dust-up is contrived nonsense unworthy of what used to The Nation’s Station.

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In a column hyping Alan Greenspan’s “I should have done more” appearance Sunday on CBS’s 60 minutes, the Associated Press’s Jeannine Aversa asserts that “A meltdown in that (subprime mortgage) market has rocked Wall Street.”

Really?

The S&P 500 is less than 5% off its all-time high, and is up about 6% in the past 5 weeks while much of the hyperventilating over the “meltdown” has occurred.

If this is “rocked,” Jeannine, I say “rock” on.”

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Speaking of which, Ken Fisher has a response to the subprime situation at TCS Daily:

TCS: Let’s talk about the current status of the subprime mortgage market. Are you worried?

KEN FISHER: The only thing I fear about the subprime mortgage market is what politicians might do, because fundamentally everyone gets this backwards.

TCS: You don’t see major long-term economic consequences?

KEN FISHER: I think intuitively everybody knows that in the long term, this is not a big deal for the economy and the stock market. I don’t think it’s big enough to matter.

I’m not as sure as Mr. Fisher is. He mistakenly mixes in subprimes with all teaser-rate mortgages at the end (some teaser-rate mortgages were subprime, but most were not), the whole thing is still worth a read.

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I pray that the Army is wrong about the likelihood of Matt Maupin still being alive, but fear that they are not.

USA Today — “A record 60% say the United States should set a timetable to withdraw forces ‘and stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq.’”

Gallup’s actual report shows that the “record 60%” is one whole point higher than the previous record back in May. Since the margin of error is plus or minus 3 points, shouting about “a record” seems more than a little shaky.

Also, look at the exact question Gallup used:

29. If you had to choose, which do you think is better for the U.S. — [ROTATED: to keep a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better, even if that takes many years, (or) to set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and to stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq at the time]?

Wait a minute — Isn’t it likely that the support for a timetabled withdrawal has increased precisely because the situation HAS gotten better? That doesn’t exactly jive with the talking points of the “surge hasn’t worked” crowd, does it?

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This is not getting anywhere near enough US press attention. The fact that the Reuters dispatch is at Information Week and almost nowhere else proves that point:

LONDON, Sept 5 - Alleged Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. and German government computers are part of an espionage strategy aimed not just at gaining intelligence but causing disruption and embarrassment, Western officials and experts say.

In the past 10 days, Beijing has hotly denied reports in Western media that Chinese hackerspenetrated systems in the Pentagon and in the chancellery and key ministries of German leader Angela Merkel.

An Expatica report about attacks on French government systems contains a typical Chinese denial that is really a non-denial:

China vehemently denied that its army was involved in international computer espionage on Thursday after newspaper reports that the British government had sustained cyber attacks from the Chinese.

“Saying that the Chinese military has made cyber attacks on the networks of foreign governments is groundless and irresponsible and are a result of ulterior motives,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

We don’t consider our CIA part of “the military,” so why would they?

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Home schooling is still drop in the educational bucket in Belgium, but it’s growing. Hopefully, those parents won’t face the campaign of harassment and intimidation Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal faced last year.

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Speaking of Belgium, it’s having a harder time keeping its factionalized government together than a certain country in the Middle East. Seriously, the country could break apart. Parts of Belgium could end up being annexed into France, Germany, Luxembourg, and/or the Netherlands, at the rate things are going. The aforementioned Belien of the Brussels Journal has blanket coverage.

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Taranto at Best of the Web made a spot-on point yesterday after he read this Bloomberg-carried paragraph about what has thus far (crossing fingers) been the second consecutive hurricane season with lower than expected storm activity:

The predictions reflect variables that make this kind of weather forecasting “more art than science,” said Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Two of the nine Atlantic hurricanes predicted already have occurred for the season that ends Nov 30. Last year, five storms emerged after nine were anticipated.

This does blow a bit of a hole in the “storms will increase in number and severity” aspect of the “climate change” arguments, known around here as globaloney, and those arguments’ promoters, know around here as globalarmists. Taranto’s response:

Remember that: Weather forecasting is “more art than science.” Except of course when the forecasters want to dismantle our entire industrial economy. Then it’s settled science that no one may even question.

In an editorial, the New London Day (requires free registration; will require subscription after seven days) tells us that absolutely nothing has been done in the area that was the subject of the Kelo v. New London (CT) Supreme Court decision — even though the final settlement agreement with the holdouts was over a year ago. Oh, and the first agenda item for the area where a perfectly fine neighborhood of houses, many over a century old, stood, is ….. (brace yourself) ….. building 80 units of ….. (I warned you to brace yourself) ….. rental housing.

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Ho Hum Hiring Headline:

11:53 AM September 7, 2007
Taiwan firm to expand, add 1,400 jobs

A Taiwan-based computer component manufacturing company plans to add 1,400 jobs over the next two years as part of an expansion in Plainfield, Gov. Mitch Daniels said today as he departed for a trade mission to Japan.

….. Daniels said FoxConn (Electronics) would make a multi-million dollar investment to its assembly facility following the company’s recent receipt of a significant order from a customer. The governor declined to identify the customer, but noted Foxconn is trying to get another major contact, which would entail more possible jobs.

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Here’s yet another article about companies making “high-risk workers” pay more for health-insurance coverage. In it, a privacy organization weighs in:

The National Workrights Institute says employers that assess surcharges are trying to control private behavior and amassing huge amounts of personal health data.

“It’s a backdoor approach to weeding out expensive employees,” legal director Jeremy Gruber said.

What if the evidence shows that people who are divorced have histories of higher health claims than those who are married? Or, as I suspect is the case, that those who engage in what is euphemistically referred to as “alternative lifestyles” have histories of higher health claims? If any company is successful in making those arguments stick and starts assessing higher medical costs on those affected employees, you’ll see a really quick 180-degree turn on the part of many who currently think all of this is a good idea.

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Some news about the $215 million Bureau of Workers’ Compensation scandal found in the Toledo Blade:

The head of a money management firm indicted in June in the loss of $215 million in Ohio injured-worker investment funds concealed the circumstances of his earlier departure from two bank jobs, the government contends.

Before Mark D. Lay of MDL Capital Management in Pittsburgh was hired to manage Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation funds, he lost nearly $1 million in foreign currency trading at Mellon Bank and nearly $800,000 at PNC Bank in 1988-89, prosecutors said in a July 26 filing that was the subject of a hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court.

Prosecutors said the personal background that Mr. Lay gave the bureau did not mention his jobs at the banks.

The information, the government said, “could have alerted the [bureau] to his tendency toward rogue behavior.”

Note, however, that it’s an Associated Press story. Blade reporters can’t be bothered covering a $215 million BWC loss, even though they did the saturation thing with Tom Noe and Coingate. Though it has taken years and has cost millions in opportunity costs (money that could have been made if invested elsewhere), it looks like the Noe money will nevertheless be recovered. The Lay money is gone forever.

I wonder what page of the Blade’s print edition this news appeared on? Betcha it wasn’t A1 above the fold.

I indicated my disinterest in following the daily ins and outs of a 23-month presidential campaign way back in December (last two paragraphs). Since then, the maneuvering by states wanting to be first, or nearly first, in the presidential primary process has spun out of control. Michigan wants its voters to brave possibly blizzard-like elements in mid-January — maybe, at least based on early results, to more quickly forget a certain football team’s potentially very ugly season.

If the Wolverine State’s move stands, it means that New Hampshire voters, whose state has a law that its primary must come first, will barely have time to put away the New Year’s champagne glasses before they vote. In turn, Iowa’s citizens may be taking Christmas wrappings out to the trash on the way to voting in their caucuses.

All of this will chronologically take place not just weeks, but months before the following took place in previous election cycles:

• An incumbent president deciding not to run for reelection (LBJ, March 31, 1968)
• The “I paid for this microphone” vs. “we were sandbagged” incident (Reagan and Bush, early March 1980)
• Even as late as 1988, the “Super Tuesday” primaries following New Hampshire were on March 9.

There are three words to describe the current reverse leapfrogging: Stark, Raving, Mad. The whole enterprise is in need of a comprehensive top-to-bottom rethink.

Smoke-filled rooms (or perhaps latte-laced lounges, to accommodate 21st century preferences) have never looked so good.
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Texas recently became the 34th state to pass a law giving consumers the ability to freeze their credit. A credit freeze prevents anyone, including you, from accessing your credit information. It is a powerful tool for preventing identity theft (however, it does NOT keep ID thieves from using existing accounts you might have unless you close them all and get new account numbers). If you want or need to buy a house or car, or otherwise have your credit file accessed by a lender or other party, you have to “unfreeze” or “thaw” your credit file, then “refreeze” it when you’re done. More info on credit freezes, and why they are needed, are at this previous BizzyBlog post.

The Wiki entry for “Credit freeze” only lists 25 states with freeze laws. Ohio is not one of them, and I don’t think the legislature slipped in a freeze law in while I wasn’t looking. The Buckeye State should have passed freeze legislation long ago. Better yet, Congress should pass a credit freeze law allowing anyone to freeze their credit (many state laws only allow those who have been victims of ID theft to put freezes on). Ohio Congressman Paul Gillmor has sponsored one such bill (HT Weapons of Mass Discussion), which, among other things, allows for free thaws and freeze restorations (most state laws allow the credit bureaus to charge up to $10 for each thaw and restoration; since there are three major bureaus, it may cost up to $60 during any kind of multiple-lender search for credit). The principal benefit of a national law would be uniform rules for all, just as the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) apply uniformly nationwide. Legislation of this nature is consistent with the federal government’s constitutional role in interstate commerce.

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From the “Why are you surprised? Department — Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers and several Dartmouth alums, including Volokh Conspirator and erstwhile sparring partner Todd Zywicki (his latest Dartmouth-related post is here), have used their elected positions as trustees at the school to advocate “controversial” things like halting the deterioration, objectively measured, in the school’s quality of education. Y’know, like having real professors instead of grad assistants teach classes, keeping overhead low so that as much money as possible goes to instruction, etc.

The Empire appears to be on the verge of striking back by taking all meaningful oversight away from the trustees and giving it to an unelected star chamber modeled on Harvard.

If they succeed, the obvious warning to prospective Big Green students is that $48 grand doesn’t buy what it used to.

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A big mistake — a very, very big mistake, noted in a sensible Toledo Blade editorial:

THE reported cash-for-hostages agreement reached by South Korea with the Taliban in Afghanistan is a textbook mistake, with potentially unfortunate consequences for the United States.

….. Although the South Koreans deny it, the understanding in Afghanistan is that they paid cash to the Taliban for release of the hostages, perhaps millions of dollars. That is very bad practice in hostage negotiations because it, in effect, sets a price for future hostages and makes similar kidnappings more likely.

Of course it does.

The SOB Alliance’s newest member, who in addition to running Central Ohioans Against Terrorism, is also a FrontPage.com writer, has penned the definitive piece on the PC Police/Ohio Democratic Party ouster of Megan Pappada.

I’m late to this one (unlike RAB), and there’s not much more to say. Nevertheless, there are a few overlooked items I will comment on tomorrow Friday.

From Reporters without Borders (HT BoingBoing via Instapundit):

Government gets blog service providers to sign “self-discipline” pact to end anonymous blogging

Reporters Without Borders condemns the “self-discipline pact” signed by at least 20 leading blog service providers in China including Yahoo.cn! and MSN.cn. Unveiled yesterday by the Internet Society of China (ISC), an offshoot of the information industry ministry, the pact stops short the previous project of making it obligatory for bloggers to register, but it can be used to force service providers to censor content and identify bloggers.

Google isn’t mentioned. This RConversation link from earlier this month indicates that Google is as censorious as it has ever been. So on anonymous blogging, maybe the ChiComs didn’t feel they even needed an agreement from Google.

“The Chinese government has yet again forced Internet sector companies to cooperate on sensitive issues - in this case, blogger registration and blog content,” the press freedom organisation said. “As they already did with website hosting services, the authorities have given themselves the means to identify those posting ‘subversive’ content by imposing a self-discipline pact.”

Reporters Without Borders added: “This decision will have grave consequences for the Chinese blogosphere and marks the end of anonymous blogging. A new wave of censorship and repression seems imminent, above all in the run-up to the Communist Party of China’s next congress.”

And in the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics.

It Looks like the BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame isn’t going anywhere soon.