In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google...

As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted.

As part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties.

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.

AFAIK this is the first time a major U.S. entity has publicly admitted the widespread attacks that China has been launching against a wide range of U.S. interests for years. In some respects whats most interesting about this is that it is an act of foreign policy by a corporation. Typically it would be governments that publicly call out other nation states for their actions. Our government, for some reason, has not done so regarding this spying activity.

Official Google Blog: A new approach to China

The U.S. government on Tuesday imposed its first-ever punishment against airlines for stranding passengers aboard aircraft, fining three carriers $175,000 for a six-hour ordeal in Minnesota.

Good!

U.S. airlines fined for stranding travelers on plane | U.S. | Reuters

According to the Senate Armed Services Committee report on the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2010 Triana (aka "DSCOVR" or "GoreSat") is back: "The Air Force is very interested in the space weather information and is part of an interagency team looking at the possibility of refurbishing DSCOVR and launching it to an orbit referred to as L1, about one million miles from Earth on a line with the Sun. If the team determines that the satellite can be refurbished and launched, they will make a recommendation to the President. Notionally, NOAA and NASA would pay for refurbishing the satellite, the Air Force would pay for the launch, and all agencies would receive the data."

Sweet.

GoreSat Is Back | NASA Watch

News has emerged of a milestone reached on the road towards a potentially world-changing piece of technology. We speak, of course, of US military plans to introduce roving steam-powered robots which would fuel themselves by harvesting everything alive and cramming it into their insatiable blazing furnaces.

Robot land-steamers to consume all life on Earth as fuel • The Register

The long-grounded Deep Space Climate Observatory may be revived for an assignment very different from the controversial mission that was cancelled for its infamous mix of politics and science.

I support this project. We ought to have a camera at that location. The Blue Marble image is one of the most widely distributed pictures in human history and it has had a significant impact on people's perspective about the world. The composite images are not comparable - people want to see the real thing - Really looking down upon our world holds a power that is hard to quantify. Once it exists people will use it everywhere.

The Republicans killed this project for cynical political reasons. By the time it became a political issue $97 million had already been spent - and was thus wasted by failing to launch. Throwing $97 million down the drain is not fiscally responsible!

SPACE.com -- Mothballed Satellite Sits In Warehouse, Waits For New Life

PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.

PolitiFact | The Obameter: Tracking Barack Obama's Campaign Promises

Privacy advocates say prosecutors are misusing child pornography laws by turning them against the very people they are meant to protect.

The accusation comes following a raft of recent child pornography cases against juveniles accused of photographing themselves in the nude.

This week, prosecutors in Greensburg, Pennsylvania charged six teens ranging in age from 14 to 17 with creating, distributing and possessing child pornography, after three girls were found to have taken photos of themselves in the nude or partially nude and e-mailed them to friends, including three boys who are among the defendants.

More evil visited upon innocent people at the hands of an overreacting state.

Child Porn Laws Used Against Kids Who Photograph Themselves | Threat Level from Wired.com

A high-profile task force created by 49 state attorneys general to find a solution to the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem, despite years of parental anxieties and media hype.

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force was charged with examining the extent of the threats children face on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, amid widespread fears that older adults were using these popular sites to deceive and prey on children.

But the report compared such fears to a “moral panic” and concluded that the problem of child-on-child bullying, both online and offline, poses a far more serious challenge than the sexual solicitation of minors by adults.

Sounds like this story might give the wrong impression. Click through to the thread.

Report Finds Online Threats to Children Overblown - NYTimes.com

Ghosts I-IV is ranked the best selling MP3 album of 2008 on Amazon's MP3 store.

NIN wasn't always considered mainstream, but any way you slice it, a long, ambient industrial album like Ghosts I-IV is not pop music. Its amazing on a cultural level that this is the most popular MP3 album on Amazon. Is this really what people are listening to these days, or is this some sort of statistical anomaly?

Granted, *I* like this kind of stuff a lot. Ambient Industrial is probably my favorite musical genre. But I always figured I was the sort of jerk who was qualified to wear this t-shirt. I never thought an album I really liked would top Amazon's sales charts.

If an anomaly, is it due to the album's price? Its a bit cheaper and a lot longer than most of the MP3 albums on Amazon but its only cheaper by a few bucks. Are Amazon shoppers more likely to be into Nine Inch Nails? Some people are arguing that Nine Inch Nails fans are more likely to spend money on their band's work, rather than download it from a torrent, because they are a loyal fan base, but as a loyal NIN fan I bought my copy from NIN's website, rather than Amazon, when it was announced on their mailing list, so I'm not sure these sales reflect that core fan base.

If this isn't an anomaly, are people seeking out more ambient industrial music in general? Has there been a surge in interest in Square Pusher? Autechre? Logikal? Or is it Trent Reznor's fame that has put this album out in front? Are people snapping up this album not because its the sort of stuff they are really into but because they kind of like NIN and there just isn't anything better out there in 2008?

I have a deeper worry that I've been mulling over for a few months...

Does the popularity of this sort of music reflect a dark undercurrent in American culture at the dawn of a serious economic cataclysm? I recall feeling that the new Batman movie was, well, a bit too intense. It was, in fact, exactly the Batman movie that I always wanted them to make - serious and complicated, but suddenly it made me uncomfortable to find THAT movie as THE summer blockbuster... I looked around myself in the theater and I thought "they've gone too far... these people aren't supposed to be into this kind of stuff."

The counter culture is supposed to be dark, brooding, complicated, and intellectually obtuse. Normal people should be downloading Pop Tarts and watching Indiana Jones. When they turn to this kind of thing instead, in huge numbers, what does it mean? What makes for a cool anti-fashion on the fringes is positively disturbing when it goes mainstream. What are we becoming?

re NIN best selling cc-licensed music (Lessig Blog)

This might be the key passage of my interview with John Ziegler on Tuesday, for it is, in a nutshell, why conservatives don't win elections anymore. It is not that conservatism generally permits less nuance than liberalism (in terms of political messaging, that is probably one of conservatism's strengths). Rather, the key lies in the second passage that I highlighted. There are a certain segment of conservatives who literally cannot believe that anybody would see the world differently than the way they do. They have not just forgotten how to persuade; they have forgotten about the necessity of persuasion.

I never recommended this article but I keep coming back to it in my thinking. Its a bit too partisan to the point of being unfair, but its interesting nonetheless. I've certainly been confronted with many conservatives who seem to take the position that if you don't agree with their views that there must be something wrong with you. Serious factual objections are just laughed off rather than engaged. Political positions are to be agreed with, not seriously discussed. Its not about the ideas. Its personal.

There are also Liberals who act this way, but the medium is the message, and there may be a connection between this perspective and the conservative preference for radio.

Perhaps in some respects this is what makes living in Atlanta more tolerable than living in San Francisco. Partisans generally conclude that I am the opposite of whatever they are because I'm always critical of their ideas.

Conservatives who assume I'm a liberal don't feel the need to change my views. They think I'm an idiot, and they don't bother talking to me about politics because they are looking for confirmation and are not interested in having a persuasive discussion, particularly with an idiot like me. I am therefore free to continue to be an idiot with only mild annoyance at the fact that I am so perceived.

Liberals who assume I'm a conservative, on the other hand, believe that I am at least complicit with and possibly personally responsible for disease, oppression, genocide, poverty, death, and the general plight of man. I am the enemy, and it is absolutely necessary to change my views so that I stop oppressing people. I am not just to be ridiculed but I am to be hated, and I cannot be left alone to my evil ideas. This tends to make living around liberals a great deal less comfortable.

FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right: Did Talk Radio Kill Conservatism?