Americans are so fat...

...that they're now "bottoming out" the boats on the "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland, for the first time in its 41-year history. Disneyland is now redesigning the ride, and preventing overweight patrons from bringing the ride to a halt is part of the plan.

Macintosh security lags behind Windows and BSD

Tom Ptacek at Matasano Chargen has a rundown on the new security features in Mac OS X Leopard, which are still not quite up to snuff with what's in Windows Vista or OpenBSD.

Here's a followup with more details.

Congress grills Yahoo over Chinese subpoenas

Declan McCullagh live-blogged the U.S. House of Representatives hearing on "Yahoo Inc.'s Provision of False Information to Congress," which was about an incident in which Yahoo responded to a subpoena from the Chinese government for the identity of a subscriber who turned out to be a Chinese reporter, who was convicted of leaking "state secrets."

Anybody note anything ironic or hypocritical in these excerpts?

10:20 a.m. ET:
Apparently, the Beijing State Security Bureau provided a document to Yahoo--similar to the FBI's national security letters--to Yahoo China on April 24, 2004. It invoked the term "state secrets" when demanding information about Shi Tao. Callahan never saw the document, which was written in Chinese, before testifying last year. Lantos says Callahan should have demanded a translation before his testimony, and Yahoo should have known that any request invoking state secrets is suspect because "state secrets is a trick phrase used to fabricate phony but devastating (charges against an) innocent person who shares our values in an open and free society."

10:30 a.m. ET
Now the two Yahoo execs are being asked to apologize to Shi Tao's mother, who is sitting in a front row of the hearing room. Lantos: "I would urge you to beg the forgiveness of the mother whose son is languishing behind bars thanks to Yahoo's actions." I wonder if Lantos and other Patriot Act supporters will apologize to Americans like Brandon Mayfield (falsely jailed under the Patriot Act) or Sami al-Hussayen (a Webmaster who provided hyperlinks to Muslim sites and was prosecuted under the Patriot Act).

10:45 a.m. ET
Rep. Chris Smith, the New Jersey Republican who was chairman of the Foreign Affairs panel last year, is now speaking. He's saying that "Yahoo knew the police requests had to do with 'state secrets.'" That may not be as descriptive as he (and the other panelists) seem to think. It seems to me that it's a catchall term that's probably invoked regularly by China's security apparatchiks. It's not like the police requests said "give us this information so we can put an innocent journalist in jail."

12:20 p.m. ET
Now it's Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican: "Were any of them fired?" He's referring to Yahoo employees. Rohrabacher again: "Are you going to comply with requests from authoritarian governments in the future?" Callahan replies: "We are looking at ways to operationally and legally structure the entity... so we would not have to do that."

12:52 p.m. ET
Lantos again, to Yahoo's Callahan, excerpted: "Morally you are pygmies... An appallingly disappointing performance. I think we cannot begin to tell you how disappointing Mr. Yang's and your performance was... attempt to obfuscate and divert... outrageous behavior."

Why don't we see some of this moral outrage from Congress directed at the executive branch of the United States, at a time when 64% of the country disapproves and 50% of the country strongly disapproves of the president's performance (beating Nixon's worst performance)?

More on waterboarding as torture

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars observes that "the US has not only always considered waterboarding to be torture, but has aggressively prosecuted other nation's for war crimes for using that technique on American POWs," quoting Judge Evan Wallach:

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."

Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding....

As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas.

More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation."

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."

The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

And in the comments at Ed's blog, tacitus notes the following from a contributing editor at the National Review Online, Deroy Murdock:

While the White House must beware not to inform our enemies what to expect if captured, today's clueless anti-waterboarding rhetoric merits this tactic's vigorous defense. Waterboarding is something of which every American should be proud.

Unbelievable.

UPDATE (February 14, 2008): Happy Valentine's Day. The current head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, Steven G. Bradbury, USA Today reports, says that waterboarding is illegal and that "There has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law." The military banned such practices in 2006. Waterboarding is still "in the CIA toolkit" but requires approval by the president and the attorney general in order to be used, and has allegedly not been used since 2003. Congress is considering legislation to ban the CIA from using it at all; CIA Director Michael Hayden says current law already casts doubt on whether the CIA can legally use it.

UPDATE (March 9, 2008): George W. Bush has vetoed legislation which would have explicitly banned waterboarding from the CIA repertoire.

Spammers and criminals for Ron Paul

From metafilter:

When Ron Paul email spam started hitting inboxes in late October, UAB Computer Forensics Director Gary Warner published findings on the spam's textual patterns and the illicit botnet used to spread it -- findings which were picked up by media outlets and tech websites like Salon, Ars Technica, and Wired Magazine's "Threat Level" blog, the latter in a set of followup posts by writer Sarah Stirland: 1, 2, 3.

The Ron Paul fan response was swift and decisive: clearly the botnet was the work of anti-Ron Paul hackers trying to discredit his campaign, and Rudy Giuliani had paid Stirland (and not UAB Computer Forensics) to do a smear piece -- as claimed by a YouTube video pointing to posts on RudyGiulianiForum.com. Thus proving, once again, that the Ron Paul campaign's greatest liability is not so much his far-right conspiracy-driven antifederal libertarianism, but rather the spittle-flecked anger of his own noisiest supporters.

There are definitely a lot of nuts among Ron Paul's supporters. Meanwhile, he raised $3.8 million yesterday (apparently a number revised downward from $4.3 million) in the largest one-day online political fundraiser ever. Intrade currently shows Paul as the third most likely GOP nominee, after Giuliani and Romney.

A few other Ron Paul-related blog posts that I realize I've neglected to mention here, from Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

"Is Ron Paul a Dominionist?" Argues that Paul appears to have much in common with some theocrats.

"Sandefur on Ron Paul" Doubts that Paul is a dominionist, but suggests he might be a Thomas DiLorenzo-style neo-confederate who thinks we don't even need a federal government (in which case he wouldn't really be the supporter of the Constitution that he seems to be) and that the U.S. Civil War wasn't about slavery (which is pernicious nonsense).

I also just came across this story, which says that Paul would like to see the U.S. Constitution amended to remove the subject of abortion from the purview of the courts, which is yet more anti-constitutional insanity.

The Best of the Lippard Blog Index

This is an index to some of the best posts of The Lippard Blog, which started in August of 2005.

Many posts on Network Neutrality
"Network Neutrality Index"

Many posts on Information Security
"Information Security Index"

Many posts summarizing conference presentations
"Index of Conference Summaries"

"Who are the climate skeptics?" December 16, 2009

A concise take-down of all three parts of "Zeitgeist: The Movie":
"Zeitgeist: The Movie" June 11, 2008

Posts on skepticism
"Arizona's homeopathic medical board" July 21, 2009
"Brian Dunning on debate" August 19, 2009
"Massimo Pigliucci on the scope of skeptical inquiry" October 21, 2009
"Skepticism, belief revision, and science" October 21, 2009
"What are the goals of Skepticism 2.0?" November 4, 2009
"Where is the academic literature on skepticism as a social movement?" November 4, 2009
"A few comments on the nature and scope of skepticism" January 6, 2010
"What to think vs. how to think" November 20, 2010

"Christian deception about The Art of Deception" June 23, 2007

David Paszkiewicz evangelizing to his public school classroom. The Lippard Blog broke this story to the blogosphere before the mainstream media picked it up.
"Public school teacher tells class: 'You belong in hell'" November 12, 2006
"Kearny High School students defend their teacher" November 15, 2006
"Embarrassingly bad arguments in support of David Paszkiewicz" November 20, 2006
"David Paszkiewicz makes the New York Times" December 18, 2006
"A Letter from Paul LaClair about David Paszkiewicz" December 18, 2006
"Kearny High School and David Paszkiewicz make the NY Times again" December 31, 2006
"David Paszkiewicz publicly displays his incompetence" January 14, 2007
"Letters to the editor about David Paszkiewicz" January 20, 2007
"Kearny Board of Education releases memo and statement" January 23, 2007
"David Paszkiewicz on global warming; Kearny High School bans recording" February 1, 2007
"Paszkiewicz has Matthew LaClair removed from his class" February 9, 2007
"ACLU, PFAW give notice of possible lawsuit against Kearny public schools district" February 19, 2007
"Recording proves Paszkiewicz denied making comments" February 24, 2007
"Kearny Board of Education and LaClairs settle case" May 9, 2007
"Kearny board of education member hasn't had enough controversy" May 15, 2007
"David Paszkiewicz takes students to Creation Museum" June 7, 2009

Matthew LaClair went on to generate more press by pointing out misrepresentations in a popular textbook.
"Faith-based U.S. history text exposed" April 9, 2008
"Matthew LaClair's speech from Freethought Today" April 10, 2008
"Matthew LaClair op-ed in Los Angeles Times" April 27, 2008

Answers in Genesis Schism: How Creation Ministries International split from Answers in Genesis.
"Answers in Genesis schism: U.S. group goes solo" March 3, 2006
"More from behind the scenes of the Australian/U.S. creationism schism at Answers in Genesis" November 20, 2006
"John Mackay and Answers in Genesis" November 21, 2006
"Answers in Genesis revenue declines by 50% in 2005" December 29, 2006 A huge mistake--this was a half-year financial report.
"Creation Ministries International gets into the UFO business" December 30, 2006
"Creation Ministries International sues Answers in Genesis" June 3, 2007
"Answers in Genesis responds to CMI" June 5, 2007
"Kentucky newspaper covers creationist lawsuit" June 17, 2007
"More disappearing content from the Answers in Genesis website" June 18, 2007
"Answers in Genesis hires Andrew Snelling" June 19, 2007
"NCSE on Answers in Genesis schism" June 21, 2007
"AiG/CMI reach verbal settlement" August 31, 2007
"AiG/CMI settlement seems to have fallen apart" November 13, 2007
"Creation Ministries explains settlement breakdown" November 15, 2007
"New summary of CMI-AiG dispute from CMI" January 8, 2008
"Update on CMI-AiG lawsuits" July 25, 2008
"CMI/AiG lawsuit update" August 9, 2008
"AiG/CMI: judge accepts, then withdraws mediation offer" August 12, 2008
"CMI responds to AiG dispute summary" August 15, 2008
"6th Circuit Court of Appeals tells AiG and CMI to go to arbitration" February 14, 2009
"AiG/CMI dispute settled" April 15, 2009

Creationist Finances
"Creationist finances: Some conclusions" January 8, 2007 Concluding post in a series of examinations of creationist organizations' finances.

Copyright
"Derivative musical works and copyright" March 20, 2007

History of the CIA
"CIA employee identities discoverable via web searches" March 12, 2006
"Libby says Bush gave him permission to out Plame" April 6, 2006
"How planespotting uncovered CIA torture flights" October 20, 2006
"Redacted Iran op-ed shows Bush administration insanity" December 26, 2006
"CIA and White House block Cunningham investigation" January 12, 2007
"White House involvement in Duke Cunningham scandal" March 27, 2007
"BAE, Bandar, and Bush" June 12, 2007
"Abolish the CIA" August 1, 2007
"A Brief History of the CIA: 1945-1953 (Truman)" August 11, 2007
"The CIA in Venezuela in 2002" August 15, 2007
"A Brief History of the CIA: 1953-1961 (Eisenhower)" August 27, 2007
"Secret U.S. endorsement of severe interrogations" October 4, 2007
"CIA head investigates CIA Inspector General" October 13, 2007
"If you think waterboarding isn't torture..." November 4, 2007

InfraGard
"Tinfoil hat brigade generates fear about Infragard" February 8, 2008
"FBI responds to 'shoot to kill' claims about InfraGard" February 15, 2008
"More InfraGard FUD and misinformation" February 23, 2008
"New Mexico InfraGard conference" February 24, 2008
"Of course I'm right" February 26, 2008

Scientology
"Scientology Sampler" March 4, 2006
"Arizona legislators sponsoring bills for Scientology front group" March 11, 2006
"Antony Flew on advisory board of Scientology front group" March 11, 2006
"Matt Stone calls Isaac Hayes on his double standard" March 13, 2006
"Comedy Central pulls Scientology episode from reruns" March 17, 2006
"'Industry sources' confirm Cruise role in 'South Park' controversy" March 20, 2006
"Fox News: Isaac Hayes did not quit South Park" March 21, 2006
"CBS series pilot based on Scientology?" March 28, 2006
"Scientologists pay another web visit" May 30, 2006
"Welcome, Church of Scientology visitors!" September 23, 2006
"Scientology-friendly Foley in rehab in Clearwater, Florida" October 2, 2006
"The Bridge: Attacked by Scientology" October 17, 2006
"Scientology 'Industry of Death' exhibit in Missouri capitol" January 11, 2007
"State legislator who supported Scientology also supports global warming denial" January 27, 2007
"Karen Johnson trying to become Arizona's dumbest legislator" February 1, 2007
"Keith Henson arrested in Prescott, Arizona" February 4, 2007
"Thayer Verschoor's latest attempt at censoring academia" February 17, 2007
"Christian ministers partnering with Scientology" November 4, 2007
"Andrew Morton's Tom Cruise tell-all" January 6, 2008
"'Anonymous' launches 'war' against Scientology" January 22, 2008
"Hoax white powder sent to Scientology" January 31, 2008
"Scientology protests" February 10, 2008
"Niece of David Miscavige speaks out against Scientology" February 12, 2008
"Dave Bird, RIP" February 13, 2008
"Michael Shermer on Anonymous protest of Scientology" February 20, 2008
"Scientology critic Shawn Lonsdale dies" February 20, 2008
"Millennium reruns" March 22, 2008
"Scientology sucks at JavaScript" March 25, 2008
"Scientology OT levels leaked through Wikileaks" March 28, 2008
"Mike Rinder left Scientology" March 28, 2008
"Scientology celebrity escapes" April 17, 2008
"Ex-Scientology Kids" April 24, 2008
"YouTube's double standard on Scientology" May 2, 2008
"A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant" December 3, 2008
"Jeff Jacobsen article on Anonymous protests against Scientology" December 17, 2008
"A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant" December 19, 2008
"Diskeeper sued for Scientology indoctrination" December 21, 2008
"Scientology v. the Internet history lesson" January 4, 2009
"Bart Simpson shilling for Scientology" January 29, 2009
"Scientology and religious visas" March 5, 2009
"Former high-ranking Scientologists speak out in SP Times" June 21, 2009
"SP Times Scientology article on Lisa McPherson" June 22, 2009

Pakistan and YouTube
"Pakistan takes out YouTube, gets taken out in return" February 25, 2008

Housing Bubble: Einzige's series on Maricopa County's preforeclosure rates.
"Maricopa County's Trustee's Sales Notices" September 30, 2006
"A Steep Cliff--Phoenix Notices of Trustee's Sales" December 12, 2006
"Update on Maricopa County Trustee Sale Notices" January 31, 2007
"Phoenix Foreclosure Update" March 1, 2007
"Latest Real Estate Market Info for Maricopa County" March 31, 2007
"Where Are We Headed?" April 30, 2007
"Maricopa County Trustee's Sale Notices for May 2007" May 31, 2007
"The Trend Continues" July 4, 2007
"Words Fail Me" July 31, 2007
"This is getting ridiculous" September 6, 2007
"September's Fall" September 28, 2007
"Back with a Vengeance" October 31, 2007
"Have things finally peaked?" December 2, 2007
"December's Phoenix Housing Stats Update" December 31, 2007
"February Maricopa County Notices Update" March 5, 2008
"March's Market Update" April 1, 2008
"April Trustee's Sale Notices" May 4, 2008
"Phoenix Trustee's Sale Notices for May, 2008" June 7, 2008
"July's Pre-foreclosure Numbers" August 3, 2008
"August's Notices of Trustee's Sales" September 14, 2008
"Phoenix-area foreclosures" November 30, 2008
"Maricopa County Notices of Trustee's Sales for October 2009" October 30, 2009

Atheism: Einzige's parable.
"The Parable of the Roommate" November 1, 2005

Antony Flew's new book

Today's New York Times has the story about how Roy Varghese wrote Antony Flew's new book for him, titled There Is A God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

Break-in at CI Host colo facility

The Register (UK) reports that C I Host, a webhosting provider, has now had a fourth break-in at its Chicago colocation facility. Someone cut through a wall with a saw and stole customer equipment (and the DVRs or tape recording devices for the CCTV system). C I Host apparently took days to inform its customers of the break-in, and some have voiced suspicions that it was an inside job.

UPDATE (February 4, 2007): There was some followup discussion.

Christian ministers partnering with Scientology

CNN reports that the Church of Scientology is partnering with ministers of low-income Christian churches to provide free tutoring, using L. Ron Hubbard's "study technology." More at the Secular Outpost.

If you think waterboarding isn't torture...

...read this description of it from Malcolm Nance, former chief of training at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in San Diego:

I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school's interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques employed by the Army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What is less frequently reported is that our training was designed to show how an evil totalitarian enemy would use torture at the slightest whim.

Having been subjected to this technique, I can say: It is risky but not entirely dangerous when applied in training for a very short period. However, when performed on an unsuspecting prisoner, waterboarding is a torture technique - without a doubt. There is no way to sugarcoat it.

In the media, waterboarding is called "simulated drowning," but that's a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.

Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

How much of this the victim is to endure depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim's face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs that show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia - meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.

(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

Most of the media discussions of waterboarding have completely omitted the part about the subject's lungs filling with water and made it sound like it's no more than having your head dunked under water, like bobbing for apples at Halloween.

UPDATE (November 14, 2007): Some doubts have been raised about Nance's reliability and whether waterboarding actually involves water filling the lungs (as opposed to triggering the gag reflex and some drops of water entering the lungs), though it's clear that the psychological effects are extremely strong, with the average CIA Officer able to withstand 18 seconds before begging for it to end. For the doubts on Nance and the details of waterboarding, see the comments on these posts at Positive Liberty and Captain's Quarters.

UPDATE (December 31, 2007): Here's a guy who experimented with waterboarding techniques on himself, and vividly explains the results.