Tea is the gateway drug to Militia movement

The Sepoy mutiny (IOT) is traditionally said to have begun with a rumor that new rifle cartridges, which soldiers had to bite to use, were greased with pig and cow fat.

The rumor spread quickly, and enraged many. It sounds plausible to me, but Melvyn Bragg's 3 guests all agreed that the truth was irrelevant. The rumor was a spark on dry kindling. It didn't have to be true, and refutation was irrelevant.

When a people are prepared to believe, beliefs are powerful and fungible.

I thought of that story when I read David Barstow's epic study of the all-white Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement is rife with fear and rumor, and it is ready to believe.

The Tea Party had its roots in the GOP, but now it's largely lead by Glenn Beck. Wildly popular with a part of the GOP base the Tea Party is a threat to the corporate heart of the GOP - and Beck's Mormonism is an issue for GOP evangelicals.

So the Tea Party is mixed blessing for the GOP. That's a problem, but it's not the big problem.

The real problem is that the Tea Party is proving to be a "gateway drug" to the pro-terrorist Militia movement and a wide range of the far right fringe parties. Timothy McVeigh wannabes are warming up, just as they did for Clinton.

Challenging times.

See also:

• Glenn Beck's white nationalist fans - Glenn Beck - Salon.com
• The fears of the GOP base - last defenders of America
• The roots of Klan 2.0 and 912 – A justified fear of change
• Palin, Noonan, and the fears of euro America
• Historian wanted: The American Liberty League and 1930s Fascism
• Frank Rich - The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged - NYTimes.com

Snitty Apple Console message

I've been having OS X issues lately, so I've spent time in the Console (yes, the days of full function OSs are limited).

I liked this particular message:

2/28/10 10:32:19 AM [0x0-0x294294].com.microsoft.Excel[6407] Sun Feb 28 10:32:19 Stanford-MacBook-2.local Microsoft Excel[6407] : The function `CGPDFDocumentGetMediaBox' is obsolete and will be removed in an upcoming update. Unfortunately, this application, or a library it uses, is using this obsolete function, and is thereby contributing to an overall degradation of system performance. Please use `CGPDFPageGetBoxRect' instead.

Reflections on friends who vote GOP

I have not been a fan of the modern GOP. I see today's GOP as the party of torture, corruption, thoughtless bellicosity, cynical manipulation of American fears and hatreds, bad policy, anti-science, anti-reason, and so on. I also disagree with most GOP values, though my support for abortion rights is unenthusiastic.

And so, when a good person and a friend writes asking when I might join the "sane" party, I am taken aback. My Dems are often (mostly?) corrupt, pompous and venal - but I do think of them as the saner party. How can good people feel the GOP is the sane alternative? It is suspiciously convenient to say these people are delusional. Instead I'll try to examine their beliefs along four chasms - Facts, Values, Faith and Tribe. I think I can understand their beliefs best in those terms.

Facts

Not everyone obsessively follows hundreds of blogs and uses selected super-readers as fact filters. More reasonably, but unfortunately, not everyone reads factcheck.org. If you live in some parts of the country, and if you don't read online news or the New York Times, you will be told many things that are not true. More perniciously, you won't hear of anything that might change your perceptions.

If you believe the chain letters, or the WSJ OpEd page, or Murdoch's newspapers, you may well believe the Democrats are insane.

This seems like the easiest canyon to bridge. Facts, after all, can be tested. Predictions can be falsified. In reality, however, Vulcans are few. People may be attracted false facts because they support three other chasms.

Values and culture

What do the strong owe the weak? When do the ends justify the means? What are the limits to tolerance? What far can Americans move from a cultural mean?

These are fundamental differences. A good and generous person may feel they owe nothing to the weak save what they choose to give. That person is a natural supporter of the GOP. These are legitimate distinctions

Faith

We usually think of Faith in terms of Deities, but there can also be a Faith in Markets. Faith, by definition, is not amenable to discussion. If you believe the true duty of all men is to serve a particular deity, then your first political choice must be to support the Party closest to your deity. If you believe that Markets are infallible, then you must support a Party that shares your belief.

The chasm of Faith is a legitimate distinction between the GOP and the Democrats. Even religious Democrats tend to accept theological tolerance -- even when that tolerance is theologically inconsistent. The GOP has a much stronger claim to the Christian fundamentalist vote.

Tribe

Humans support their Tribe. It is especially hard for a member of a powerful Tribe to see its time is passing. The GOP is the Party of the White Tribe, and in particular of the White Male Tribe. The Democratic Party has a much blurrier Tribal identity, but if you're non-White or Gay or Lesbian it's a natural home.

The GOP and Dems are separated by chasms of Fact, Faith, Values and Tribe. The chasm of Fact seems easiest to cross, but often choices of Fact serve needs of Faith, Values and Tribe. Good persons, by reasons especially of Faith, Values and Tribe, may feel my party is less than sane.

Surviving corporate life - stand or sleep

Pity the American office drone. This week we see our premature demise from multiple angles ...

Stand Up While You Read This! - Olivia Judson - NYTimes.com

...It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting ... you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you...

... Several strands of evidence suggest that there’s a “physiology of inactivity”: that when you spend long periods sitting, your body actually does things that are bad for you....

... consider lipoprotein lipase. This is a molecule that plays a central role in how the body processes fats; it’s produced by many tissues, including muscles. Low levels of lipoprotein lipase are associated with a variety of health problems, including heart disease. Studies in rats show that leg muscles only produce this molecule when they are actively being flexed (for example, when the animal is standing up and ambling about). The implication is that when you sit, a crucial part of your metabolism slows down.

So you can't sit -- but you can't just stand all day either ...

How siestas help memory: Sleepy heads | The Economist

... It has already been established that those who siesta are less likely to die of heart disease. Now, Matthew Walker and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that they probably have better memory, too. A post-prandial snooze, Dr Walker has discovered, sets the brain up for learning....

... The ideal nap, then, follows a cycle of between 90 and 100 minutes. The first 30 minutes is a light sleep that helps improve motor performance. Then comes 30 minutes of stage 2 sleep, which refreshes the hippocampus. After this, between 60 and 90 minutes into the nap, comes rapid-eye-movement, or REM, sleep, during which dreaming happens. This, research suggests, is the time when the brain makes connections between the new memories that have just been “downloaded” from the hippocampus and those that already exist—thus making new experiences relevant in a wider context.

The benefits to memory of a nap, says Dr Walker, are so great that they can equal an entire night’s sleep. He warns, however, that napping must not be done too late in the day or it will interfere with night-time sleep. Moreover, not everyone awakens refreshed from a siesta.

The grogginess that results from an unrefreshing siesta is termed “sleep inertia”. This happens when the brain is woken from a deep sleep with its cells still firing at a slow rhythm and its temperature and blood flow decreased. Sara Mednick, from the University of California, San Diego, suggests that non-habitual nappers suffer from this more often than those who siesta regularly. It may be that those who have a tendency to wake up groggy are choosing not to siesta in the first place. Perhaps, though, as in so many things, it is practice that makes perfect.

Wireless headsets mean we can do calls easily while standing, pacing, even doing some light weight lifting -- or perhaps while going for a walk (though not with an AT&T iPhone - the connection will drop). Siestas are tougher. There's much to be said for working remotely ...
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Fallows on the Nexus One - feel the fear Apple

James Fallows is a senior editor at the The Atlantic, and an adventurous man with a first rate mind. He's not a tech guy by profession, but at heart he's a geek.

I put a lot of weight on his incidental tech opinions, such as his review of the Nexus One.

Briefly - he likes it. A lot. He's abandoned his beloved BB like yesterday's fish.

Feel the fear Apple. Banning Google products from the iPhone was a cowardly and desperate move. You may yet regret infuriating your geek customers.

You know how to reach me Apple. I have suggestions.

Nikon and Canon. Apple and Google. Competition is good.

Canada v USA - bring it on

I couldn't watch the first USA v Canada game. But now ...

Team Canada brings down Russia (Montreal Gazette)

... At the Olympics, Canada hadn’t defeated the Russians in any form -- as Russia, the Soviet Union or United teams since 1960, that black-and-white TV era when Canada was represented by Harry Sinden and his fellow Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen. Canada’s overall Olympic record against Russia just improved to 2-9.

Yes, it’s been 50 years since Canada celebrated an Olympic win over this nation, and if that number rings a bell, it should. It was also 50 years between Olympic gold hockey medals when Canada won at Salt Lake City in 2002.

Canada next faces the winner of the Sweden-Slovakia game. The US beat Switzerland so they play the Czech-Finland winner.

At this point both the US and Canada are favored to win their next games.

If they do, we're set for one hell of a showdown.

Update 3/4/2010: It was all we could have hoped for. Fabulous game. Just fantastic.

The rise of software rental (aka software as service)

I'm evaluating the combination of Notational Velocity and Simplenote (iPhone) to manage my "notes" [1], including those related to home and work. I'll have more on that in my tech blog when I've got some personal experience, but it's interesting now to look at how software pricing is changing.

For years we've "leased" software, but we've had effectively unlimited licenses. After a vendor reaches their core market (revenue), they have little incentive to continue supporting the product (costs). Few vendors have Microsoft's power to force upgrades [2]. Some very fine software has died of this "natural cause".

On the other hand "cloud" services like SmugMug have a sweet recurring revenue model. They sell their service at a yearly price, and they can be the envy of desktop vendors (SmugMug benefits from a wicked lock-in, but that's another post.)

Over the past few years, however, I've seem more vendors experiment with 1 year licenses. This is an easier sale if there's a server-side dependency. For example, after a 1 year hiatus I again pay about $20 a year for Spanning Sync, primarily so I can sync my OS X Address Book with Google Contacts.

Simplenote is floundering about with pricing, but I gather they've suffered the usual iPhone app fate - initial growth then no revenues. Judging from their recent customer reviews they've been flamed for obscuring their current sales model [3]. As of today the base application is "free", but if you look very closely at their web site you might see mention of the "premium" service. The premium service is $9/year and includes:

• no ads
• automatic backup of older notes
• create notes by email
• RSS feed
• Unlimited API Usage (free limit is 2,000 API requests/day)

This seems like a very nice set of services and well worth the price -- especially since Notational Velocity (open source, free) means there's no data lock.

The last is an essential requirement for the new model of subscription software. There can't be any data lock. You have to able to move to alternatives easily, or just walk away and be none the worse off. Both Spanning Sync and Simplenote (with Notational Velocity) meet this test.

I like this new model, as long as it's tied to data freedom. It gives me hope that the sofware I love will stick around for a while.

[1] See below. My current solution (Tooldedo Notes + Appigo Notebook) isn't bad, but I'd like to free my notes from the limitations of proprietary formats and I'd like to find a solution that will enable easier integration with Outlook/Exchange note-type functions.

• Moving Palm notes to Toodledo via CSV file - what worked. (Hard!)
• Appigo Notebook is coming to the iPhone
• Kiss your Google Notebook good-bye
• Palm to iPhone migration - address book and notes (Aug 2008 - dated)
• Toodledo gets it
• Appigo and Toodledo – nasty emergent design flaw makes a mess of my iPhone Notes and Tasks
• Evernote's import/export test (updated)

[2] Corporate customers pay for the latest version of Office even if they choose to deploy older versions.

[3] Their pricing model seems entirely reasonable. So why the heck can't they make it more obvious? I wonder if there's a language problem here ...

Update 2/25/2010: I'm still evaluating Simplenote + Notational Velocity + Simplenote Chrome extension (aka simplenote ecosystem), but that tech blog post isn't ready to publish. It is interesting, however, to note the international background:

• Simplenote - Google Chrome extension gallery (Johnston - Canada)
• Notational Velocity (OS X) - sync locally expose, spotlight, search (Zachary Schneirov - Russia)
• Simplenote Chrome plug-in: search, edit. (Jan Andersson - Sweden)

It's a creative world. The dominance of the US in software development was always unnatural; that time has passed. US Patent laws will accelerate the migration of software creativity to more rational nations.

The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics - explained

Eons ago my peers used to puzzle over the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. Back in the 1960s an essay on the topic by Merci Cooper ended with this conclusion …

… The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve….

Why is it that the “the great book of the universe is written in the language of mathematics” (Galileo Galilei)?

In a recent In Our Time programme on Mathematics' Unintended Consequences I heard, from one guest, a personally persuasive explanation. It’s a fundamentally anthropic explanation that goes something like this:

1. Entities that can do mathematics arise as a consequence of natural selection.
2. Natural selection can only occur in regions of a universe that have interacting and persistent patterns (perhaps including recursion).
3. So a universe containing mathematicians will also be a pattern-based universe.
4. Mathematics is a process for describing and manipulating patterns.
5. Therefore mathematics is a language that can describe pattern-based universes, including our own.

I’m good with that.

OS X defect: The missing uninstaller

I strongly prefer OS X and Macs to running XP or Windows 7. (I've no experience with Vista, I know XP extremely well and Win 7 well).

Even so, there are several domains in which Windows crushes OS X -- and has for many years.

One example is Windows terminal services/remote desktop. It's fabulous technology; Apple's VNC variation is relatively pathetic. Another is Parental Controls. A third is the file security model. There are about a half-dozen of these persistent, significant, but little noted Windows advantages.

One of the most peculiar Windows advantages arises from Apple's approach to product uninstallation. Take CrashPlan for example:

FAQ: Installing and Uninstalling [CrashPlan Support Site]

...Mac OSX: Open the installer.dmg file and run the uninstaller.

Windows: Use Add/remove programs.

Windows -- Use Add/Remove. Mac - go to the product website (if it still exists), find an installer, download it, run it.

One of the painful memories of my OS/2 days was learning that installation was irreversible. Many applications could not be uninstalled from the WorkSpace environment. Things are only a little better in OS X.

Yes, many apps can be uninstalled by dragging them to the trash. Many, however, cannot.

This is an ancient problem, and Apple has never shown an interest in fixing it. It's one of those lacunae that makes OS X feel old and forgotten.

PS. Incidentally, the CrashPlan uninstaller is a very unfriendly unix shell script that, at one point, asks for your admin password in a fairly cryptic manner. It fits with my suspicion that CrashPlan has been causing my MacBook to lockup on awakening from sleep.

AIDS, South Africa, Lysenko and Climate Change Denial - when ideology trumps science

In an article talking on the hopeful prospect of controlling HIV through a combination of screening and treatment, we are reminded of one of the great tragedies of the 20th century -- how the ideology of Mandela's African National Congress tarnished his personal legacy and, far more importantly, led the premature death of millions ...

Blanket HIV testing 'could see Aids dying out in 40 years' | World news | guardian.co.uk

... More than 30 million people are infected with HIV globally and two million die of the disease each year...

... The disease is overwhelmingly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for a quarter of all HIV/Aids cases globally. Half of these are in South Africa....

The ANC in general, and Thabo Mbeki in particular, chose ideology over science. Mandela, by then an old man, did not object. Millions will die, even with the best current treatment millions will suffer and many will die prematurely.

Stalin made a similar mistake, choosing Lysenkoism over Darwinism, in part because Lysenko suited Stalin's ideology. Millions died of the famines that arose in part from following Lysenko's practices.

In modern America the GOP is today following the grim path of the African ANC and the Soviet Communist Party. Again, ideology is preferred to science. Again millions of lives are at stake.

This is why despair is not an option.

There is hope. Most of the GOP disagrees with me about the responsibility of the strong for the weak, and much of the GOP doesn't share my thoughts on the role of fundamentalist Christian theology in American governance. Those differences are fundamental, and not directly amenable to logic or scientific resolution. On the other hand, the GOP's opposition to climate science seems more opportunistic and tribal. There is room for negotiation, including creation of a Grand Jury of Science to help move the cultural debate.

This is not the time to give up. GOP -- don't become the ANC.

See also:

• The HIV genocide delusion
• The horrible price of the War on Science - lessons from AIDS denialists
• When science is rejected: AIDS and the failure of South Africa

IOT Radiation: Gamma and X-rays

In Our Time, Radiation is a superb 50 minute review of 19th century physics -- with bits before and beyond. This is the physics that brought us much of the modern world - though for GPS we needed Einstein.

Listening again to how physics became ether-free I couldn't help but recall the old McCluhan meme --"The medium is the message". Deep, man.

I also finally learned the relationship between Gamma Rays (Hulk) and X-Rays (Superman). In retrospect, I've been forever confused by the alpha, beta, gamma particle nomenclature.

For the few who might be as unknowingly confused as I've been all my life, X-rays are forms of light (EM radiation) associated with electron transitions. Gamma rays are forms of light (EM radiation) associated with processes in the atomic nucleus. (A wikipedia article on Gamma Rays suggests my confusion arose in part due to the redefinition of Gamma and X-rays over the past thirty years.)

Alpha and beta "radiation", on the other hand, isn't electromagnetic (light) radiation -- it's particle emission. The confusion between alpha, beta and gamma "radiation" arose when they were discovered and named together.

Of course I'm sure I've got something wrong in this summary, but it does feel like progress.
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The Houben story - things that are too good to be true

Too often, miracles aren't.

The Guardian - Nov 23, 2009 ...

Trapped in his own body for 23 years - the coma victim who screamed unheard | World news | The Guardian

For 23 years Rom Houben was imprisoned in his own body. He saw his doctors and nurses as they visited him during their daily rounds; he listened to the conversations of his carers; he heard his mother deliver the news to him that his father had died. But he could do nothing. He was unable to communicate with his doctors or family. He could not move his head or weep, he could only listen.

Doctors presumed he was in a vegetative state following a near-fatal car crash in 1983. They believed he could feel nothing and hear nothing. For 23 years...

The article refers to the results of a new brain scan that showed normal activity. Houben had been "locked in", but conscious. The story received international attention. It seemed plausible to me, though horrifying. The implications were obvious for the care of other persons in a vegetative state.

Except ... Looking at it on the original Guradian article one can see an aide holding Rom Houben's hand. It's the only clue that his communications were "facilitated". I never saw that picture. Had I seen it I'd have been very skeptical. Facilitated communication is a tragic deception.

Today, Feb 20, 2010, the Guardian reports ...

No miracle as brain-damaged patient proved unable to communicate | Science | The Guardian

It seemed to be a medical miracle: the car crash victim assumed for 23 years to be in a coma who was suddenly found to be conscious and able to communicate by tapping on a computer.

The sceptics said it was impossible – and it was. The story of Rom Houben of Belgium, which made headlines worldwide last November when he was shown to be "talking", was today revealed to have been nothing of the sort.

Dr Steven Laureys, one of the doctors treating him, acknowledged that his patient could not make himself understood after all. Facilitated communication, the technique said to have made Houben's apparent contact with the outside world possible, did not work, Laureys declared...

It's a terribly sad story for Rom Houben's loved ones and for all the families and friends of persons in vegetative states. Many hopes have been falsely raised.

Miracles, by their very nature, require skepticism. The Guardian should been far more cautious last November. They're an interesting news organization, but they're not the New York Times.

A Google Reader snapshot of the coverage is interesting (click for full size) ...

Despair and climate change - a Grand Jury of Science

Despair is easy.

Sometimes it is justified. Other times, humanity surprises.

Dramatic change happens. It usually takes at least 20 years, and there are usually reversals along the way. In my lifetime I can easily think of smoking cessation, the end of littering, women's rights, gay rights, civil rights, cleansing of wealthy nation water and air, the fall of the Soviet Empire, dramatic reductions in family size, the creation of the EU, the Y2K resolution, the international Ozone agreement, and the dramatic reduction of poverty and suffering in China and India.

I thought 9/11 would be the start of a long series of mega-terrorist actions around the world, including bioweapons and dirty bombs. It wasn't.

It's these kinds of slow moving but radical changes that make elderly people say things like "it will all work out in the end". It's not true of course; history tells us it often doesn't work out. Anyway, in the end we're all dead. Still, the sentiment is understandable. If you're 80 you've seen a lot of intractable problems solved.

So, no matter how easy it feels, despair about American politics, global climate change response, institutional corruption, healthcare costs, US healthcare coverage, world food supplies, the end of cheap oil, the collapse of mainstream journalism, the Great Recession and rich world debt is an unaffordable indulgence.

Consider the response to climate change. We know we need a carbon tax equivalent and more, but America has moved backwards on this one. There's widespread American doubt about where the Earth's climate is going and what we can do about it.

So how do we start to turn this around? We can't expect leadership from the cognitively impaired and corrupt US Senate. We need to turn the American people. Hollywood won't do it.

So how about a Grand Jury of Science? Greybeards remember Richard Feynman's role on the Rogers Commission investigating the Challenger disaster. That committee, led by a genius with a robust ego and a showman's flair, produced a robust and widely trusted report on a complex technical and social issue.

We need something like that today. We don't have big popular names like Feynman or Einstein at the moment, but we've got great scientists and communicators all the same. Obama could put together a Grand Jury of Science led by a team of scientific communicators and working (ie. under 65) non-climate scientists.

The panel would call witnesses from the world of Climate Science and cross-examine them. Under the committee's auspices climate scientists, economists, and technical consultants would prepare an American (has to be American to be plausible) rigorous report on what the science tells us, what the uncertainties are, and what we should do (ie. Carbon Tax).

Yes, Americans pay far more attention to Glenn Beck than to mere logic and science, but remember the 1964 Surgeon Generals Report on Smoking and Health. Even though it really didn't say anything new, it still became the foundation for a discussion that took (yes) 20 years to conclude. At the time it came out smoking was routine, even expected. The report played a vital role in a major social change.

Victory is far from guaranteed. Failure is an option. Despair, however, is not permitted.

Google has Aspergers

The geek world has been debating whether Google's Buzz debacle arose from incompetence or malevolence. Did Google think they were doing something genuinely delightful, or is Buzz simple a cynical emulation of Facebook's "be evil" strategy?

I've been learning to the cynical and evil explanation, but a comment by Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, has changed my mind ...

Google boss says 'nobody was harmed' by Buzz debacle |Technology | guardian.co.uk

...talking to phone industry executives at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Schmidt said that nobody had been harmed by Buzz and that the problems were merely the result of poor communication...

This is an outrageous statement. Schmidt cannot know that nobody was harmed, either directly through the bonding of Buzz streams to public profiles or indirectly through inevitable misunderstanding. Even if he were omniscient, since many people have felt harm, it's a stupid thing for a CEO to say.

So why does this make me feel that Google is more incompetent than evil?

Because in my experience someone who says something that's obviously wrong most often believes what they are saying.

Which brings me to my corporate diagnosis. We can do that now that our courts have decided that corporations are people. I am a physician after all.

Google has Asperger(s) syndrome. For Google, people are an slippery and elusive concept. It explains a lot.

PS. I don't care what the DSM V says about Aspergers, it's a useful concept.

Update 2/22/2010: I think the person responsible for Buzz is also responsible for the obstinate Gmail message thread-by-subject-line model. Same sort of stubborn certainty.

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Google's latest inadequate Buzz patch - Profile deletion

Google claims to be trying to fix the Buzz Problem, but they're refusing to reduce the link between a public Google Profile and any Buzz activity.

For Google the public Profile is the great search prize. They won't give this one up easily.

So at the moment the only way to truly remove your public Buzz trail is to delete your Google Profile:

Edit your (Google) profile - delete profile:

... This will disable Google Buzz integration in Gmail and delete your Google profile and Buzz posts. It will also disconnect any connected sites and unfollow you from anyone you are following...

You can now do this from your Google Dashboard, from Profile settings, and possibly from the Buzz tab displayed in Gmail (which I no longer see).

There are side-effects to Profile deletion. It appears it will not only remove your Buzz followers, it will also remove your Google Reader followers. It may also remove your authentication with various connected sites and your Gmail OpenID credentials. It also removes any value attached to your Profile before Google attached the Buzz stream to it.

Google needs to do two things that they are extremely reluctant to do:

• Near term: allow users to remove Buzz streams from the public profile.
• Longer term: allow users to associate multiple Google Profiles with a single Google account and to control which ones ares associated with various Google properties, authentication and sharing services, etc.

Until they do these things, they have earned their new Gordon's Corporate Evil Scale score of '8' - average for a publicly traded company and in spitting distance of Microsoft's '10'.

Update 2/20/10: A week after I removed my full name from my Google Profile a search on my name still retrieves the profile and the few Buzz posts I've left undeleted. Quite a screw-up.