Jr. Walker & The Allstars
Shotgun

H/T Bat for this post. It just goes on and on and on……..
Bat’s comments on this article:

How many times does it need to happen? Folks, you
cannot trust the government or any entities with your
personal information and no oversight! Someone
*always* abuses it eventually. Similarly,
corporations cannot be trusted to act in the public
interest without oversight and regulation. Many
countries have a Department of Privacy or something
similar, and we need the same. Human beings are
commodities to these people.

Some lending companies with access to a national database that contains confidential information on tens of millions of student borrowers have repeatedly searched it in ways that violate federal rules, raising alarms about data mining and abuse of privacy, government and university officials said.

The improper searching has grown so pervasive that officials said the Education Department is considering a temporary shutdown of the government-run database to review access policies and tighten security. Some worry that businesses are trolling for marketing data they can use to bombard students with mass mailings or other solicitations.

Students’ Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and sensitive financial information such as loan balances are in the database, which contains 60 million student records and is covered by federal privacy laws. “We are just in shock that student data could be compromised like this,” said Nancy Hoover, director of financial aid at Denison University in Ohio.

Continue reading at the Washington Post

I believe no good will come from this. Yes, there are problems that need to be addressed. But I see this more as a way for “special interest” groups to get their foot into the door than much needed maintenance. And let’s not forget the NSA.

MSNBC:

Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government’s blessing want to scrap all that and start over.

The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a “clean slate” approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.

The Internet “works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions,” said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean’slate projects. “It’s sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today.”
[...]

One challenge in any reconstruction, though, will be balancing the interests of various constituencies. The first time around, researchers were able to toil away in their labs quietly. Industry is playing a bigger role this time, and law enforcement is bound to make its needs for wiretapping known.

There’s no evidence they are meddling yet, but once any research looks promising, “a number of people (will) want to be in the drawing room,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor affiliated with Oxford and Harvard universities. “They’ll be wearing coats and ties and spilling out of the venue.” (emphasis mine)

Now Chicago takes on the rest of the world. The Windy City’s bid to hold a Summer Games for the first time moved to the international stage Saturday when the U.S. Olympic Committee capped a yearlong search for an American candidate for 2016 by picking Chicago over two-time host Los Angeles.

“It’s just beginning,” said Patrick Ryan, Chicago’s bid committee chairman. “It’s a long road.”

Having won over the USOC despite lacking venues ready for an Olympics, Chicago’s task is to persuade the
International Olympic Committee that it deserves to be the host, joining a group of bidders expected to include Madrid, Prague, Rome, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.

The IOC will award the 2016 Games in October 2009.

Complete story at YAHOO!

Years after Michael Fay posted a picture of Nick Ciccone (above) on his blog, he heard from Ciccone’s stepbrother the marine had killed himself. But the picture “made him alive for them”.

See all of the featured pictures from the BBC website

In a report from Iraq today, two British helicopters have crashed in an apparent mid-air collision, killing two military personnel and seriously injuring another.

British Defense Secretary Des Browne said initial reports suggested the crash north of Baghdad was an accident and not caused by an insurgent attack.

The Puma helicopters came down in the early hours in a rural area near Taji, site of a large US base.

The BBC understands they were taking part in a special forces mission.

read more at the BBC

Sunday Talk
* Meet the Press: Gen. Anthony Zinni (ret); roundtable of NYT’s David Brooks, WSJ’s John Harwood, PBS’ Gwen Ifill, and WaPo’s Eugene Robinson.
* Face the Nation: VP Dick Cheney (R).
* This Week: Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM); Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA); roundtable of Dem strategist Donna Brazile, ex-Pentagon spokesperson Tori Clarke (R), George Will, and ex-Labor Sec. Robert Reich.
* Fox News Sunday: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI); Rev. Al Sharpton; Nat’l Security Archive dir. Tom Blanton.
* Late Edition: Walter Mondale (D), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ); Sen. James Webb (D-VA); Nat’l Urban League Pres. Marc Morial; pundit Amy Holmes (R); Children’s Defense Fund Pres. Marian Wright Edelman; AEI’s Richard Perle; Iraqi gov’t spokesperson Ali Dabbagh; roundtable of John Roberts, Andrea Koppel, and Jeffrey Toobin.

TV Alerts
* Charlie Rose 4/13: Iraqi journalists Ali Fadhil, Zeyad Kasim, Ayub Nuri; AEI’s Richard Perle; New Yorker’s David Remnick, CNN’s Jeff Greenfield, ABC’s Martha Raddatz, and Prof. Michael Eric Dyson
* Bill Maher 4/13: Dana Carvey, ex-Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ), Scott McClellan (R); via satellite Sheryl Crow and Laurie David; Al Sharpton
* Political Capital: Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) (Bloomberg, repeats throughout weekend)
* Chris Matthews Show 4/14-4/15: Dan Rather, Cynthia Tucker, David Ignatius, Andrea Mitchell discuss “McCain gets ready to announce: How can he overcome his problems? The upcoming George Tenet book: Will the blame for going to war be passed to Cheney’s office?”. Quotes here.
* This Week at War: Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) on 4/14
* After Words (C-SPAN2 at 9pm): ex-Iraqi Defense Min. Ali Allawi on 4/14
* Newsmakers (C-SPAN, 10am): FDA Admin. Andrew von Eschenbach on 4/15;
* Road to the White House: Elizabeth Edwards in IA on 4/15; Mitt Romney in IA on 4/15; Bill Richardson in NH on 4/15
* 60 Minutes: Education in prison on 4/15; 1998 Don Imus interview on 4/15; Duke lacross players on 4/15;
* Q&A (C-SPAN, 8pm): CIA dir. Michael Hayden on 4/15
* The View: Bill Maher on 4/16;
* The Daily Show: Andrew Card (R) on 4/16; Sig Hansen on 4/17; Ali A. Allawi on 4/18; Jeremy Scahill on 4/19
* The Colbert Report: Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) on 4/16; Elaine Pagels on 4/17; Sean Penn on 4/19; Robert Pinsky on 4/19; Russell Simmons on 4/23; Dr. Andrew Weil on 4/24; David Walker on 4/25; Tom Wolfe on 4/26;
* Tavis Smiley: Bruce Bartlett on 4/17;
* Leno: Tim Russert on 4/18
* Larry King celebrates 50 years in broadcasting: Bill Clinton on 4/19; Bill Maher on 4/20

Source: Newsie8200