Looks like this story slipped under my radar: Ashcroft attempted to subpoena medical records of women who received legal abortion care. Apparently the court blocked this request:

Judge won't let Ashcroft have hospital's abortion records: U.S. Chief District Judge Charles P. Kocoras blocked a move by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to obtain medical records from Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where dozens of the controversial procedures have been performed in the past two years. The late-term abortions were performed by Dr. Cassing Hammond, an obstetrician-gynecologist who is part of a New York lawsuit challenging the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The plaintiffs are a group of doctors as well as abortion-rights advocacy groups. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. Justice Department lawyers subpoenaed the medical records of 40 patients to see if they contradicted Hammond's claims that the abortions were necessary to protect the mothers' health. Kocoras ruled that strict Illinois medical privacy laws meant the patients' records couldn't be released. 'By demanding the rationale behind the abortions he performed, the subpoena would thereby require Northwestern to disclose medical history information of Dr. Hammond's patients,' Kocoras wrote in a Feb. 5 opinion, noting that, while Hammond practices at Northwestern, he is not a hospital employee. More importantly, Kocoras wrote, the Northwestern patients aren't involved in the lawsuit -- their doctor and the federal government are.

This information was forwarded to me by NARAL ProChoiceAction.org.

After waiting weeks for shipping, and after spending hours in the car looking for the FedEx distribution center, I finally got my copy of the non-crippled MandrakeMove "Live CD" Linux distribution, with USB key. Here's my review: it doesn't fucking work. It is supposed to boot up and read data from the fucking USB key, but it doesn't seem to activate the fucking USB services. It never sees the fucking key at all. Thanks, Mandrake, for taking my money and wasting my time. I heard you guys had improved, but those rumors have been proven false. Good luck with your fucking bankruptcy, fuckers. What shits me the most is that this exact same goddamn computer ran Mandrake just a few years ago and the USB fucking worked. Pardon me, I'm having a shitty day and I need to go retract some recommendations I made to people on the basis of early reviews of MandrakeMove. All that goddamn money and the manual is on par with what you get with Windows. This setup is partly intended for people who are new to Linux. Imagine the disappointment when a newbie buys this and can't even get through the first fucking boot. Damn you Mandrake for shitting on Linux's good name!

Creationist watch: Columbus, Ohio [Plain Dealer] The State Board of Education gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a 10th-grade biology lesson that scientists say could put "intelligent design" in Ohio classrooms.

Love lab predicts marital outcome [BBC].

Its real name is the Relationship Research Institute [at the U. of Washington]. It is here that scientists say they have created a mathematical model that can tell which marriages are doomed to end in divorce. Psychologist John Gottman and applied mathematicians James Murray and Kristin Swanson claim their predictions have 94% accuracy - and this after viewing just the first few moments of a conversation about an area of marital contention. The key turned out to be quantifying the ratio of positive to negative interactions during the talks. The magic ratio is five to one, and a marriage can be in trouble when it falls below this. The mathematical model charts this interaction into what the researchers call a "Dow-Jones Industrial Average for marital conversation".

This is interesting, but I still have to point out that there is an implicit bias at work here, namely, that marriages are the only kinds of relationships that are worth studying or talking about. There was a good article in the Times the other day about how one of the main sticking points for both sides in the gay marriage debate is the word "marriage" itself. None of the constitutional amendments under consideration in Massachusetts would prevent the creation of "civil unions", which would carry fully ALL of the rights that heterosexual marriage would. But this still doesn't make anyone happy. Gays want to be "married", and bigots want "marriage" only for themselves -- simply due to the social acceptance that supposedly comes along with the word. Why is marriage so revered?!? And, the companion question, why is divorce so stigmatized?!? The divorce rate is really high. Different ways of calculating it assign it different numbers, but an extremely rough number we've all heard is that 50% of all marriages will end in divorce (and, recently, it's been reportedly higher). I have personal philosophical objections to the institution of marriage, but I'm not here to tell others what to do. What I AM here to do is to point out that marriage should not carry with it this idea of permanence. It's a slightly weighted coin flip. Get married if you want, but remove the stars from your eyes first: it'll probably end in divorce. Moreover, who cares? When it's assumed that the word and concept "marriage" itself is an absolute good, we spend far too much time wringing our hands over the bad that comes from the end of marriages. Why is an unhappy marriage superior to two happy single people? If our intention is to allow as many children as possible to grow up with two parents present, then perhaps we should emphasize some concept other than marriage as a prerequisite for birthing and raising new humans. I nominate the concepts of maturity, levelheadedness, wisdom and experience. I'm going to skip to the conclusion, and point out exactly what's to blame for all this debate and semantic posturing about "marriage" and "civil unions" and this undue emphasis on marriage in society as a whole: religion. Religion is a substitute for critical thought. Marriage is a religious ritual that was co-opted by secular society as a business relationship, but still tried to retain its mystical aspects. Hence, people enter into these very serious and binding legal agreements without thinking about every aspect thereof. "God wants me to marry this guy, I can tell!" And, truthfully, it doesn't even have to be a formal monotheistic deity: "I have to listen to my heart, and I just KNOW that this woman is the one for me." There is no cerebral cortex in the heart. Perhaps more practice using the brain would rid society of the need or desire to "listen" to the "heart", and, hence the need to both marry AND subsequently divorce. HA! It's so SIMPLE when you're a snob!

Courtesy of Fark, here's an interesting article in The Slate about the hypothetical/actual press reporting of John Kerry's hypothetical/actual liasons with plausible interns. I like this one:

Selling Sleaze: A User's Guide - Ten ways to rationalize the publication of infidelity rumors. By Timothy Noah: "4) It's a story about financial impropriety, maybe. Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros' affair with Linda Jones became the public's business because he paid her more than $250,000 while the taxpayers were paying his salary. Apparently the taxpayers didn't want him spending his salary on a sexy blonde; they wanted him to spend it on a subscription to National Journal. Cisneros resolved this by paying $100,000 to the government. If this can be sold as a financial scandal, anything can."

It looks like some Microsoft Windows source code has leaked onto the internet. Oh gee. This didn't sound very remarkable to me, since the source code of rising *nix competitors has long been circulating. But the BBC makes some amusing points:

BBC NEWS | Technology | Q&A: Microsoft source code leaked: "Fourthly, for Microsoft to have this code paraded in public is hugely embarrassing. Not least because the code is littered with profanity and might show that many Microsoft programmers do not do a very good job. In the past independent programmers that have deconstructed other Microsoft applications have been shocked at what they found within the code. Rivals and critics will be able to see exactly how Microsoft staff do their work."

Congressional WMD hearings: Powell is angered by questions and skepticism. Powell yells at staffer. Congressman calls Point of Order. Powell yells at Congressman. Cane fighting ensues. Rep. Ackerman (D-NY) declares there is no truth. Everyone knocks back a cup of hemlock tea. [Powell Washington Post]

Slashdot has a post directing reader's to SCO's marketing website titled "5 Reasons to Choose Unix instead of Linux." Here they are:

1. SCO UNIX? is a Proven, Stable and Reliable Platform 2. SCO UNIX? is backed by a single, experienced vendor 3. SCO UNIX? has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap 4. SCO UNIX? is Secure 5. SCO UNIX? is Legally Unencumbered [The SCO Group | SCO Grows Your Business]

Items 2,3, and 5 are contestable on a variety of grounds. SCO may have a "Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap," but it doesn't appear to have anything to do with supporting or developing software. I also find it a little strange that they call themselves an "experienced vendor", when they have never actually developed a successful software product. Their ownership of Unix is due only to a limited purchase agreement. In its entire history, the company has only ever profited from lawsuits. SCO's CEO, Darl McBride, does not have much of a background in successful business activities. Prior to joining SCO, he was self-employed as a Plaintiff in a million-dollar lawsuit against his former employer, IKON Office Solutions (a.k.a. the craziest company in Utah). Yes, I am saying that his job at the time literally was suing his employer.

The SCO case is constantly taking new twists and turns. Most recently, Novell has gone on the offensive against SCO and in IBM's defense, arguing that SCO has never owned the Unix System V copyrights, but distributes the software under license from Novell, who retains copyrights. One of Novell's terms in their asset sale agreement is that SCO must amend its user licenses at the discretion of Novell. Novell has therefore directed SCO to waive all requirements of confidentiality on the Unix source code, thereby obliterating their case against anyone:

'Accordingly, pursuant to Section 4.16(b) of the Asset Purchase Agreement, Novell, on behalf of The SCO Group, hereby waives any purported right SCO may claim to require Sequent (or IBM as its successor) to treat Sequent Code as subject to the confidentiality obligations or use restrictions of Sequent's SVRX license.' [GROKLAW]

Grocklaw also quotes the Asset Purchase Agreement between Novell and SCO, which says the following:

(b) Buyer shall not, and shall not have the authority to, amend, modify or waive any right under or assign any SVRX License without the prior written consent of Seller. In addition, at Seller's sole discretion and direction, Buyer shall amend, supplement, modify or waive any rights under, or shall assign any rights to, any SVRX License to the extent so directed in any manner or respect by Seller. In the event that Buyer shall fail to take any such action concerning the SVRX Licenses as required herein, Seller shall be authorized, and hereby is granted, the rights to take any action on Buyer's own behalf. Buyer shall not, and shall have no right to, enter into future licenses or amendments of the SVRX Licenses, except as may be incidentally involved through its rights to sell and license the Assets or the Merged Product (as such term is defined in the proposed Operating Agreement, attached hereto as Exhibit 5.1(c)) or future versions thereof of the Merged Product.

Meanwhile, IBM is running the slickest Linux ad campaign ever. The Open Source Software model will emerge victorious from this fray, and stronger than ever, especially with Unix source made public. I hope this is the beginning of the end of restrictive proprietary software licenses.

An interesting read in the Times: The Elusive Science of Cold, dealing with attempts to accurately reflect the temperature a person will feel. Some nice debunking tidbits, like this:

Catherine O'Brien, a research biologist in the thermal and mountain medicine division at the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Mass., said that although it flies in the face of common sense people with more insulation — fat — whose body core is better protected from the cold, may feel cold more quickly than thinner people with less protection. The reason is that insulation keeps heat in the core, away from the skin, which gets cold. When the skin gets cold, you feel cold.

And, in keeping with the current CorpseDivine patent theme, there's a company that's come up with a method they think is superior to the old:

The RealFeel, Dr. Myers said, takes into account eight parameters — not only temperature and wind, but also "precipitation, cloudiness, density of air — all the factors that affect human comfort." His company has applied for a patent on the method used to calculate the RealFeel, which raises the possibility of competing private temperature interpretations — letting the market decide the temperature. Keeping the method proprietary also leaves other scientists with nothing to say about the method, because they cannot see the calculations.

Yay! The market! Horay for the market economy!

Glory Gee to Beezus: An American Airlines pilot terrified passengers on his flight when he asked Christians to identify themselves and went on to call non-Christians "crazy". [BBC News]