The federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Science Foundation (NSF) have issued a stunning joint announcement: PC viruses, worms, and spyware can now be transmitted via human contact.

Researchers at St. Paul's College in Virginia have isolated roughly 100 cases of systems infected by human contact, the two agencies said at a press conference at NSF headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The mode of transmission? Each system's user had physical contact with another user whose system was known to be infected. The level of contact was found to be as brief as a handshake. One researcher, Avril Hidokwon, said she documented a case where the Netsky.P virus spread to 12 systems via a sneeze.

Scientists have long held that electronic viruses could not possibly spread unless there was some sort of digital (wired or wireless) connection between the infected PC and the victim systems (or the victim systems and servers). "What we did not account for," explained Hidokwon at the hastily organized joint press conference, "was nanotechnology."

PC Magazine

The president's commission on intelligence delivered half a report. Like the general played by Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men," the commission acted as if America can't handle the truth. The commissioners would have us believe that those who provided the false intelligence were solely to blame, and the senior political leaders who ordered and presented the claims to the public were passive victims. Conservative pundits have quickly declared, "case closed," and urge us to focus on rearranging the deck chairs on the intelligence ship. But buried deep inside the report is evidence that contradicts the commission's own conclusions and raises serious questions about their recommendations. Most damning is the tale of two CIA analysts who were removed from their positions for "causing waves" when they questioned the reliability of the defector known as "Curveball."

Proliferation News and Resources

Well, it is a very nice April snowstorm here in Colorado today. It be dumping outside and I am inside cruising the internet. Here are some things I have found:

Check out the films on this site: sheepfilms.

This is just a funny joke today... but tomorrow?
Big Brother may be late, but he's coming...
I just wanted a pizza pie.

Not a damn one of these is true, but ignorant people will be fascinated by your knowledge! Amazing Facts!

Discover What the World Thinks About U.S.: Watching America

"Doodles, Drafts and Designs" is a travelling exhibition that was created by The Smithsonian Institute's National Museum Of American History. Doodles

How fast are your reactions? Try a reaction test called Sheep Dash.

Stupid Computer Tricks & Computer Stupidities

Westwords Best of Denver 2005

My hosting service Fatcow finally gets their servers working again!

Sometime after 2:17 PM MDT yesterday all of Fatcow hosting service went down. It was so bad that not even their site was up. All the email sent to me since then is gone. It was just swallowed up by the deep, dark void of never-never land in cyberspace.

They where just sold to Endurance International and I hope this is not a sign of things to come.

-- Update --

At this time Fatcow's mail server is not working. I can log in but I am not able to send or receive any email. They must have either had a total system failure or they just moved everything to Endurance in Massachusetts and didn't say anything about it.

This sucks! Come on Fatcow, lets get this fixed!

-- More Info --

Read this thread on Google Groups

-- Update --

This morning at about 10:00 am I finally started receiving consistent email. So, we are looking at about 42 hours of down time all together on my email.

An interesting note: There has been no word from Fatcow about what happened. No emails or info on their site. Nothing.

Very Strange.

Just another April winter storm in Colorado. Looks like a good 6" so far and it's still coming down!

More photos

- Tom Toles - 04/17/2005

1994-'03 stats show an unsettling trend

Air quality in three of Colorado's national parks has worsened over the past decade despite tougher rules and millions of dollars spent to fight pollution, according to new information released by the federal government.

Rocky Mountain National Park, along with Great Sand Dunes in the San Luis Valley and Mesa Verde in the southwest corner of the state, have seen either increasing smog, worsening visibility or both in the 10 years from 1994 through 2003.

But there also is some good news in the numbers. Visibility on clear days at Rocky Mountain National Park is improving. In addition, new regulations more tailored to the park's specific problems are expected to make at least a dent in the pollution that's dirtying its air.

Of Colorado's four national parks, the data is most complete for Rocky Mountain. It shows smog levels rising and worsening visibility on the haziest days. It also shows that increasing levels of nitrogen compounds are falling on the park, chemicals that can gradually acidify park waters and soils.

Rocky Mountain News

You could see this one coming a mile away, Lance Armstrong anounced today that he will retire after this years Tour de France. I guess all that talk about riding other of the classics was just that, talk.

"The Tour de France will be my last as a professional cyclist," Armstrong said at press conference in Augusta, Georgia. "It will be the last one, win or lose. Having said that, I'm fully committed to winning a seventh title."

VeloNews

In a split decision, a three-member arbitration panel from the American Arbitration Association/North American Court of Arbitration for Sport (AAA/CAS) has ruled that former Phonak star Tyler Hamilton is guilty of homologous doping - transfusing another person's blood - and ordered the 34-year-old American suspended from competition until April of 2007.

The panel handed down the maximum sentence for a first-time doping offense, ordering that Hamilton begin serving that suspension on Monday and forfeit any results earned on or after the date of his positive test, September 11, 2004, the date Hamilton won the eighth stage of the Vuelta a España.

"The UCI took the necessary action to protect the integrity of its sport," Madden said. "This decision shows that sport is committed to protecting the rights of all clean athletes and that no athlete is above the rules."

Hamilton first tested positive at the 2004 Olympics, after winning a gold medal in the individual time trial. That A-sample positive, however, was not confirmed by a required test on his B-sample, because the laboratory in Athens followed existing laboratory protocol and froze the entire blood sample, rendering its red cells unsuitable for testing.

VeloNews

When was the last time someone asked you how to put files on a CD or where the nearest post office was, even as they sat right in front of an Internet-connected PC? Two minutes ago? Sense a problem here? Columnist John C. Dvorak does and wonders when people will realize that they can answer most of life's basic questions by using their PCs. Dvorak believes this is part of a larger and much more disturbing trend.

Dvorak: The Dumbing Down of America

Broadcasters and the Public Interest: Gambling with Our Democracy

A study of local news during the last election by the Norman Lear Center clearly shows that the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality continues to drive news decisions. And that means that when citizens across the country went to the ballot box last year, they were essentially forced to shrug their shoulders and roll the dice.

As trustees of a public resource, broadcasters have a statutory obligation to air programming that is in the public interest. But too many in the broadcast industry continue to resist even minor efforts to strengthen the public interest standard - to the detriment of the public, and our democracy itself.

Campaign Legal Center

Well, well. George W is getting a poltical comeuppance – and it's coming from a place he least expected: conservatives.

At issue is his enthusiam for the liberty-busting USA Patriot Act, a little shop of autocratic horrors that the Bushites rammed through congress under cover of the 9/11 terrorist attack. Several of its most intrusive, anti-democratic provisions expire this year, and Bush has made their renewal a top priority. These provisions include "sneak-and-peak" secret searches by the FBI of people's homes and computers, the secret raiding of libraries and medical offices to grab people's records, and a definition of "terrorist" that is so broad that it includes citizens who simply protest government policy.

Fortunately for America, there are some real conservatives who balk at such a dangerous extension of autocratic police power, even if it's imposed by Bushite Republicans masquerading as conservatives. Libertarian-minded Republicans – such as Bob Barr, Paul Weyerich, and Grover Norquist – have now joined such liberal adovcates for liberty as the ACLU in an oddfellow coalition to battle the Bushites. Called Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, the coalition is rallying grassroots opposition to the renewal of the most offensive parts of the perversely-named Patriot Act.

The grassroots need little rallying, however, for they're already on the move. Montana, for example, is in the forefront of a "red state rebellion" against Bush's intrusive police powers. Montana lawmakers have overwhelmingly approved a strong resolution criticizing Bush's Patriot Act, uniting Republican legislators with Democrats. "Civil liberties are a bipartisan issue in Montana," said a Republican state representative from Trout Creek, who led the house effort to pass the resolution by a vote of 88 to 12.

Whether you're Republican, Democrat, or whatever, you can't take liberty for granted. To fight the Bushite's grab for more police power, call the coalition: 1-800-583-9122.

Jim Hightower

This week the feds are investigating whether Martha Stewart may have violated terms of her home arrest. She was attending the Time magazines "100 Most Influential People of 2004" issue party. Martha made the list and is one of those 100.

Oh, still no news on when the feds may find Osama Bin Laden. But then, he is just small pototoes amd a minor character compared to the evil and ruthless Martha Stewart who we all should be very wary of!

House Overturns New Ethics Rule as Republican Leadership Yields

Republicans said that they had surrendered to the Democrats to try to restore a way to enforce proper conduct in the House.

"Mr. Hastert's relenting to Democrats' demands marked a startling turn as Republicans confronted the fallout from a stalled ethics process that Democrats said was rigged to protect Mr. DeLay, who was admonished three times by the ethics committee last year."

"One of the most immediate effects of the House's reverting to the old rules will be the opening of an investigation into persistent questions about Mr. DeLay's overseas travel and his relationships with prominent lobbyists. His fund-raising operations are under investigation by a grand jury in Texas, and some of the lobbyists' roles have come under increasing scrutiny by federal investigators in recent months. While Mr. DeLay has not been named as a target of those investigations, the attention paid to his troubles has proven disruptive in the House."

"The vote marked another pivot in a politically charged ethics tug-of-war expected to persist in the House. Lawmakers of both parties said they expected the resolution of the standoff to lead to calls for ethics inquiries into not only Mr. DeLay but also other members, including Democratic leaders."

New York Times

Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence pushed the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence officials yesterday to share more information on the use and effectiveness of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

"I think we need to have more public disclosure in examining and assessing its impact," Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) said. "We are to some extent doing oversight in the dark," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said.

Members at the sparsely attended hearing told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and CIA Director Porter J. Goss that the public is not comfortable with roving wiretaps, delayed notification searches and new authorities to obtain the library, credit card and health records of individuals who are not the subject of a criminal investigation but who might be of intelligence value in terrorism probes.

But none of the members at the hearing, one of a series in recent weeks to consider reauthorizing 16 provisions of the act due to expire at year's end, suggested they were concerned enough to vote against renewing the provisions or making them permanent.

"From last week's hearings, it appears that there's broad support for the proposition" that the act's provisions should be made permanent," with some changes, said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). Gonzales has proposed some technical modifications.

The Washington Post

Check out this piece of video. I can't say these are the smartest boys I have ever seen. A bicycle drag-race through the streets of NYC.

Laws? We ain't got no laws. We don't need no laws.

Helmets? We ain't got no helmets. We don't need no helmets.

FYI, this beast is 51 MB big. Hope you are not on a dial-up!

nyc-bicycle-dragrace.mpg

Osha Gray Davidson has a must-read investigation in Rolling Stone about the Bush administration's efforts to create, in a tiny paragraph buried way way down in its federal budget proposal, a "Sunset Commission." And what, pray tell, would this Sunset Commission do?

The proposal, spelled out in three short sentences, would give the president the power to appoint an eight-member panel called the "Sunset Commission," which would systematically review federal programs every ten years and decide whether they should be eliminated. Any programs that are not "producing results," in the eyes of the commission, would "automatically terminate unless the Congress took action to continue them."

Rolling Stone