If you’re in favor of those cameras at traffic lights that automatically issue citations, this weblog post may change your mind.

Neil Turner has a review of the new stuff in Firefox 0.9. I’m waiting until it’s released before I upgrade.

djst also has some suggestions for improving the new look introduced with this release. The problem is that the new theme does not conform to the Windows XP interface guidelines, unlike the old theme (Qute). Interestingly, this brings Firefox back around to one of its original problems — when it was initially released it didn’t behave enough like a Windows application.

Bruce Schneier explains why the Witty worm is important in a piece for Computerworld. Witty affected users of an unpatched version of a specific firewall product, and nailed every one of them in 45 minutes. According to Schneier, the worm is small, well-written, and bug free. It’s worth remembering that the only thing that saves most people’s computers from utter destruction is that most worms are written by incompetent programmers. We can all hope that Witty is an anomaly rather than the start of a trend.

Michael Lewis: The Irresponsible Investor. The crux of the matter:

Of the roughly $19 trillion in American investment capital, in other words, $17 trillion or so is invested with the implicit instruction: ”Just give me back as much money as possible. Gouge consumers, cheat employees, poison the environment, lie to the public markets — just do it all sufficiently artfully that it doesn’t dent my portfolio.” Then, when the market falls and one of the people on the receiving end of their beastly demands is caught behaving badly, investors collapse to the floor in disbelief and bay for their money back. It is at that moment — and not a minute before — that they discover the novel idea that businessmen in possession of other people’s capital should be held to the highest ethical standards. But of course, now the idea pays.

For a long time I told people that in my dream world I would abolish the stock market because its main purpose was to eliminate the concept of personal responsibility for people who run businesses. Investors in mutual funds don’t even know which companies they invest in, so the only criteria for success in publicly owned companies is whether your stock helps investors make more money. I later decided that my solution wouldn’t really solve anything, but it is a mark of my frustration with corporate behavior.

Beautiful Horizons: Bush to the US Constitution: Drop Dead

I seriously hope that nobody who reads this site is planning on voting to reelect our current President, but if you are, please don’t do that. I understand that you might not like John Kerry, or that you might think that the Democratic party is utterly worthless, or that you’re from Texas, but look, if you’ve managed to grit your teeth and stick with this site for any period of time, then chances are the Bush administration doesn’t see this country the same way you do. You might think that the President’s job is to uphold the Constitution, these guys see their job as subverting the Constitution because they know better. If you can’t vote for Kerry, vote libertarian, or vote for Nader, or abstain. But don’t give a vote to Bush, he doesn’t deserve it.

Gentoo is Rice compares users of Gentoo Linux users to ricers (those kids who bolt all kinds of weird aftermarket mods and bogus stickers onto their Toyota Tercels). My own history of statements regarding Gentoo Linux can be found via this search. As I’ve said before, I use Gentoo because it’s the only Linux distro that I’ve managed to keep up and running for an extended period of time without blowing up. I fear though that my server at home is on the precipice of a major collapse due to some problems with KDE and Gnome.

You can always count on people to ruin everything.

The other day I mentioned weblog hosting service PowerBlogs. Today I’m wondering why this company can’t provide their customers with RSS feeds that work? I only know of two PowerBlogs sites, but neither of them have properly working RSS feeds. That’s pathetic.

Christopher Allbritton has published his latest dispatch from Iraq. I only get to see my neices and nephews a couple of times a year. If you asked their parents how much they’ve changed over the past six months, I don’t think they could give you as good a description as I can after I’ve just seen them for the first time in half a year. Similarly, Allbritton is immersing himself in Iraq after being away for a year or so, and his impression of how things have changed is sobering.

The big news of the day is that the White House collaborated with the Pentagon and the Department of Justice to cook up a manual for disregarding US and international laws prohibiting the use of torture.