Small mercies, no. 2

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A US judge has banned so-called ‘intelligent design’ from being taught in science lessons in a Pennsylvania school district. Report from this week’s EducationGuardian:

A courtroom battle seen as a test case for the teaching of science in America ended in a decisive victory for evolution yesterday when a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that it was unconstitutional to teach “intelligent design” in biology class.

In a 139-page decision that was scathing about the area school district and dismissive of the science of “intelligent design”, US district judge John Jones III ruled that the school district of Dover, Pennsylvania, had violated the constitution by ordering teachers to read a statement which challenged Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Yesterday’s verdict concludes a trial that was seen as the most important legal review of science and religion since the 1920s. It arrives at a time when the teaching of evolution is under attack in school districts from Georgia to Kansas and when the school district in Dover was seen as the cutting edge of a new effort by the religious right to inject its views into America’s state school system.

Needless to say, the ID nutters are not deterred. This one will run and run, but the careful nature of the judgment suggests to me that they are on a hiding to nothing. The US may currently be run by religious maniacs, but the Constititution firmly separates religion and state and I can’t see even a Bush-packed Supreme Court changing that.

Small mercies

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We must always be grateful for them. For example, this report in the Guardian.

Monaco has declared Sir Mark Thatcher persona non grata because Prince Albert wants to shake off its reputation as a haven for shady businessmen.

Margaret Thatcher’s 52-year-old son has fallen victim to the attempts by the mini-state’s authorities to put “ethics at the centre of life” there and has been asked to leave when his temporary residency card expires in just over six months’ time.The decision has dashed Sir Mark’s hopes of settling permanently in Monaco. It is the result of a determined effort by the recently enthroned Prince Albert to clean up the principality’s reputation.

Sir Mark is said to be on a list of undesirables who include money launderers, tax dodgers, drug dealers and the mafia.

Hmmm… If I were a money launderer, drug dealer or mafia boss I would be contemplating suing for defamation on the grounds that one’s reputation would never recover from being publicly associated with Thatcher fils. In the meantime, given that he has been refused permission to settle in the US, he will just have to live in the UK and pay tax like the rest of us.

Hackers download pirate movies onto compromised PCs

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From The Register…

Hackers have developed a sneaky technique for installing pirated movie files on Windows PCs infected with the lockx.exe rootkit. Doctored copies of BitTorrent are loaded on infected machines and used to download Disney movies or the film version of Mr. Bean.

The motive for the bizarre (and short-lived) attack, linked to a Middle East-based group in control of the network of infected machines – remains unclear. FaceTime Communications, the firm which uncovered the attack, reckons the assault is an experiment which might be applied to far more malign purposes in future. The trick creates a scenario where an infected users might be accused of sharing copyright-protected contact without ever using file sharing software.

Tut, tut. A useful way of blackmailing someone, though. Another reason for avoiding Windows boxes.

Quote of the day

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We’ve learned a valuable lesson, I hope, from the music industry: if somebody doesn’t give people what they’re looking for, then someone else will fill that void. If I hear a song on the radio, they don’t say, “Oh, and in four months you can buy the CD.” Right? They say, “Hey, download it to your iPod today!”

Todd Wagner, CEO of 2929 Entertainment, the company (cofounded by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban) that’s experimenting with the “simultaneous release” program for movies. From an interview with David Pogue of the New York Times.

It’s not like Vietnam…

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Fred Halliday, writing in OpenDemocracy.net on the US predicament.

Many analogies are being made with Vietnam, but it is perhaps the analogy with the Soviet war in Afghanistan which is most telling. When the Soviets sent the Red army into Kabul in 1979 they sought to limit the political and economic costs by restricting numbers to around 120,000 i.e. to that necessary to garrison the major towns: hence the official term “limited contingent” for their troops in that country over the following ten years.

The US in Iraq has faced a similar problem, in that it has not been able to commit the full level of forces it could and which was necessary effectively to control the country. Those limits have now had their own consequences – in a US force increasingly restricted and vulnerable, without adequate local counterparts, and with almost no significant intelligence on enemy plans and dispositions.

The reply of the Iraqi guerrillas to Bush’s Annapolis speech on 30 November was incontestable: with a lightly-armed unit, and recorded by video cameras, they took control of an important Sunni town, Ramadi, and held it for several hours; a few days later, and also observed by video, they attacked a US patrol and killed ten of its members. Bush, Cheney and the US army have by now realised they are in an unwinnable situation: how long it takes them to act on this remains to be seen.

The Dave effect

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It’s happening, and though I hate to say it, I told you so. Today’s Guardian has the results of an ICM poll which brings uncomfortable news for the government.

Two-thirds of voters believe the government has run out of steam, according to a Guardian/ICM poll which places the Conservatives ahead of the Labour party for the first time since 2000.

The poll finds that the Tories are ahead of Labour by 37% to 36%, with the Liberal Democrats on 21%, compared with Labour’s five-point lead a month ago. Minor parties have also been squeezed from 10% to 7% by the David Cameron-led Tory revival. It is the first time in five years the Tories have been ahead – the last was during the fuel crisis – and the second time since 1993, after the pound crashed out of the European exchange rate mechanism. It suggests that a solid majority of voters, 55%, is now dissatisfied with the job Tony Blair is doing as prime minister, though he remains overwhelmingly popular (82%) among Labour voters.

Now here comes the interesting bit…

But Gordon Brown’s chances in a 2009-10 election against Mr Cameron and Charles Kennedy are rated even more pessimistically. With Mr Brown in charge of Labour, the Tory lead widens to 41% to 36% with the Lib Dems on 18% as they lose votes back to Tory candidates.

My conclusion: Labour will have to skip Brown and go for someone younger if they want to hold on to power. It’s the boredom factor at work.

A corporate pantomime

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This morning’s Observer column…

Since this is the time of the year for pantomime, how about one for a corporate audience? It’s called Sony and the Rootkit and it’s a true story.

It tells of how a once-great electronics company fell in with bad company, did some stupid things, was found out by a plucky band of bloggers and now is being pursued through the US courts by some avenging lawyers.

The only thing lacking at the moment is a happy ending for Sony…

More…

Mediamax is the other company Sony called upon for help with DRM. Ed Felten has an interesting post summarising what another blogger found in the prospectus Mediamax filed with the SEC. The Prospectus states, en passant, that “several enhancements have been implemented to make it very difficult to locate and/or remove the device drivers” and that “the software is designed to be completely invisible to users, programs and system components.” Remember that this is their description of their software, not some barbed interpretation by a blogger!