The Atlantic has a scathing article about TSA airport security, citing a number of demonstrated attempts (with success) to get past the "security theater" that is our current airport security system. Don't read this article if you believe that TSA security works and you're safer because of it—it might be very disturbing.

OK, I'm still confused by this oft-quoted figure from the McCain/Palin campaign that "[Alaska] produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy." (Gibson interview with Palin, September 11, 2008, as noted on The Times). From my calculations, even when only Oil is taken into account, that number is off by quite a bit.

In some good news for consumers, the FTC has decided to get more serious about the Telemarketing Sales Rules that govern telemarketing phone calls. The decision is pretty readable, but the salient points are after the jump.

There's been a lot of commentary over the last few months about Comcast and their filtering/traffic manipulation/smoothing/whathaveyou. In general, customers are up-in-arms about one of their one-to-two choices for high-speed internet doing things behind their backs to change the way the internet appears to them. However, there's also been a ton of fear-mongering (on both sides) about what this action, and potential FCC reaction, means to the future of the Internet.

A good article from Ars Technica about the potentially weakening case for software patents and why it isn't the end of the world. Countering the fear-mongering piece by Duffy on the issue. For more of my thoughts on this, I posted an patent-related article on Cartographica earlier this month.

Generally, I don't talk about the FSF (promulgators of the GNU "Free Software" license). The main reason is that I've spent most of my life writing software for a living and these folks are just plain wrong on how collaborative software should be done, in my humble opinion. However, this time they've gone too far and I'm not going to sit here and let this go unnoticed. If you've ever supported the FSF financially before, please stop. Why? Because they've made themselves into the PETA of the software. They're angry with Apple and to show it, they've engaged in what is appropriately referred to as a "denial of service attack" on Apple's technical support organization, the Genius Bar. Learn more after the link

The Register had an article last week quoting Richard Whitt, senior policy director at Google saying that Google is creating a set of tools to allow users to determine if their ISPs are filtering their access to the Internet. This is going to raise the bar a little...

Reminding me of the infamous Polish study which considered costs across the social spectrum, government and university researchers in the Netherlands have issued a report in the Medical Journal of the Public Library of Science indicating that people who smoke or are obese live shorter lives and are less expensive to the health care systems of their countries.

A speech given by U2's long-time manager Paul McGuinness details his take on the music industry and the internet and computer/device hardware industries. I think the synopsis is provided by a single question he asks: "Who's got our money and what can be done?" Stay tuned after the jump for the story of a complainer who charges 75% of a months salary for a performance and still wants to have more.

Inspector General Fine found that the FBI overreached its authority by heavily using the National Security Letter system. The report has not been denied by the administration and has, in fact, been acknowledged as a "serious problem" by FBI Director Mueller and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Thanks to CNet for the heads up.