From now on, the government says that you should consider yourself pre-pregnant at all times. Because, you know, this administration considers you to be nothing more than a uterus on legs. And better to tell you to keep taking folic acid and avoid booze (you lushy tramp!) than actually fix our healthcare system that fails to provide adequate prenatal care. Won't somebody think of the children?!

Apparently, the Bush administration is using all those collected phone records to hunt down journalists' confidential sources. Great. Just when I think I've finally hit on something that seems too paranoid to be true, they prove me wrong. Again. For the bazillionth time.

Approval rating: 29 percent. My question is--to pull out of this death spiral, are they going to try to act more sane or more crazy? Bet on crazy.

I am annoyed and a little ashamed that I really only heard about this via the Onion, but Pfizer gave an unapproved drug to Nigerian children, some of whom may have been sickened or killed by Trovan, the pharmaceutical in question. Informed consent is the cornerstone of modern medical practice. If Pfizer didn't get it from their subjects, they are truly, truly fucking evil. I mean, getting damn close to Nazi evil. And our government buried the report on it. Fuck, that's evil!

It's my belief that everyone hates their telephone company, but they never really say anything about it. I mean, it's for the most part of local monopoly or duopoly, not counting VOIP for which you still need a cable or telco to get the Internet connection. That's why I'm particularly stoked that we now have a very real, crystallized issue around which we can rally our hatred--they're selling us out to the feds (and they could be on the hook for several tens of billions of dollars in legal damages.)

This is a particularly good time for people to really hate their telcos, because they're also trying to fuck up the Web. By eliminating Net Neutrality, they become like mob enforcers, squeezing out protection money from companies that don't want their service to "have some kind of unfortunate accident." Activists are already tying the two scandals together--good for them. Ma Bell's got the ill communication--terminally ill.

At some point, the continuing support Yahoo provides Chinese authorities has to become enough of an embarassment to the company that it affects the stock price and motivates the company to change course, but maybe an organized boycott is needed to speed that along. At any rate, this make the fourth dissident they've helped jail under the cover of "obeying local law," so, again, fuck Yahoo.

Apologies to Tres, but, seriously, fuck Yahoo--that makes three journalists they've thrown to the dogs. They and Google and Cisco Systems and Microsoft and every other internet company are going to keep rolling over for the Chinese government and imprisoning journalists. Only the Feds can stop them.

The only good thing I've heard out of the mouth of a Jersey Republican, ever, has been Rep. Chris Smith's condemnation of their actions. And while I'm loathe to do it, I compliment him for taking up the issue, even if he is only grandstanding.

Last night, I watched Frontline's piece on the Tank Man. Watch it. Watch how the Chinese government massacred the people of Beijing, including nurses, doctors, and rescuers. How it shot fleeing people in the back. How one anonymous man stopped a line of tanks with his courage. And then watch how, Ministry-of-Truth style, American internet companies are erasing his existence, like Tiananmen never happened. Do you see Tank Man in this search? Good, there he is, first page. How about this one? Or this one?

Fuck Yahoo (and Google and Microsoft and Cisco.)

Awesome. Not only are we safe from fans of the Clash, the feds are also busy taking down ninjas. Or, at least, a college kid dressed up as a ninja for a party. Whatever. He's probably a terrorist, and "probably" is good enough for the ATF to draw their weapons on an unarmed student. If only Osama had dressed up as a fake Japanese assassin, we would have had him in lockdown pronto.

On a positive note, this does benefit the cause of the pirates. Pirates, as you well know, are beloved of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I read a good summary of the situation in Blizzard's World Of Warcraft MMORPG with a LGBT-friendly guild called Oz. One of the most interesting issues is the public-accommodation status of the game. Is it more like a restaurant, where discrimination is forbidden by law, or a private club, where people are free to be total assholes? Obviously, I favor the restaurant comparison, but this is something that will come up more and more as online communities develop and take the shape of real-world communities.

Just as a side note, I really wanna pwn the little shit who reported being "offended" by Oz's founder promoting the guild. Twerp.

This time it's in Washington state. Seems that a local pharmacist refused to fill prescriptions for antibiotics because the scrip came from a women's clinic that performs abortions. I'm in awe of a moral framework that finds the good in a woman dying from infection or preventable cancer so she can be shown to world as the whore that she is. Frankly, it makes me nostaglic for the big red A.