Outlaw Justice: When Hackers Retaliate Against Cyber Security
I used to be a hacker. It was a long time ago, decades before the future World Wide Web was available. I operated anonymously (except to my clients who paid me for what I discovered). I tracked down people whose cars, pledged as security on automobile loans, had been targeted for repossession. I performed my "hacking" duties over the phone using codes and pretexts. I infiltrated semi-secure bureaucratic systems (unemployment claim offices, utility company billing desks etc.) to precisely extract the whereabouts of drivers who had borrowed money to buy automobiles and then skipped town without ...
Wishing Charlie Sheen Farewell, a Speedy Recovery and Effective Rehab
After a week of Charlie Sheen madly ranting and raving to anyone who would listen (which added up to a substantial crowd), Warner Brothers Television announced Monday afternoon that despite a wildly successful seven and a half seasons, it has terminated the star of "Two and a Half Men" their top-rated show, "effective immediately." Maybe now he will get medical help. I've tried to avert my eyes from the train wreck that has become Charlie Sheen's faster-than-a-locomotive life, but a story on the front page of The New York Times business section on the TV and film industry culture Monday ...
Note to Mike Huckabee: Lay Off of Natalie Portman's Baby
Following the Academy Awards telecast, Mike Huckabee told radio host Michael Medved "I'm very happy to say that I missed it because usually it's about the most boring waste of several hours that I've ever experienced." I can't disagree with the former governor about the dullness of most of this year's broadcast, but I dotake issue with what he had to say next about Best Actress winner Natalie Portman. The former and perhaps future GOP presidential aspirant disparaged the star for being a poor example by encouraging women to have "out-of-wedlock" children (why not just call them "bastards," ...
Melissa Leo's Unscripted Moment at the Academy Awards
The Oscars didn't really hold my attention Sunday night and sadly, after I got distracted,they still went on and on. Before the first commercial, however, I was glad to hear winning cinematographer Wally Pfister thank his "union crew" on the film "Inception." As my husband is a member of the screenwriters' guild, I was also glad to see, for the two winners in his professional category, that the Academy got it exactly right. Related Stories The Oscars: 'The King's Speech' and Natalie Portman Reign The Oscars: Young, Pretty, Snarky, So Who's ...
Secrets and Lies: What Prevents the Next WikiLeaks?
With the verdict last week by a London judge to honor Sweden's request for his extradition, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, could soon be charged and tried in Swedish courts. Assange, wanted for questioning regarding "unlawful coercion, sexual molestation and rape," has said he plans to appeal the judge's decision but failing that effort, he will be transferred to Stockholm in March. If he is charged and convicted, his jail sentence could be as long four years. Even if fortune should turn in Assange's favor (not entirely unlikely as he has a book contract, discussions are under way ...
'The King's Speech': Hollywood History Needn't Be Accurate
I don't disagree with Peter Brown's essay in Politics Daily that "The Kings Speech" is bad history. The film, nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, at this weekend's Oscar ceremony, leaves the average student of 20th-century world history scratching her head. I seem to remember more about the Third Reich and Hitler's rise and wonder if there wasn't something more historically significant about Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain besides his concerns to alleviate the tongue-tiedness of the new king, George VI. Similarly, Winston Churchill's concern about Prince Albert of ...
Was Lara Logan's Bravery Dangerous Bravado?
There are risks to being an uppity woman. The down side of being a role model is that women who act like they own the place inevitably tick people off as much as they inspire. Lara Logan, the glamorous and seemingly fearless CBS Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent who was attacked last Friday in Cairo during the moments of chaos following President Hosni Mubarak's resignation, is the kind of woman who gets noticed. She has one of the hardest and most prestigious jobs in journalism and she got it in spite of, or because of, a habit of saying and doing whatever she wanted to. I don't know ...
Is LASIK Eye Surgery Safe? FDA Scientist Regrets Saying 'Yes'
In Washington, D.C., a culture that embraces regulatory oversight and rule-making and where bureaucracies are everywhere, no federal agency is more warren-like than the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the safety and efficacy of food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and medical devices. The health and well-being of every American depends on the FDA's rigorous collecting, sifting and interpreting of data to approve products ranging from those that cure nail fungus to devices that electronically zap the brain to relieve anxiety. FDA regulators are scientist bureaucrats who tirelessly ...
'O: A Presidential Novel' by Anonymous: Credit Where Credit is Due
As my colleague Jill Lawrence reports, a book titled "O: A Presidential Novel" has recently been released by Simon & Schuster and, though reviews so far are tepid, the undisclosed identity of the novelist has captured the short attention span of the political press. Appealing to the clubby insider sensibility of National Press Club members, the publisher, Jonathan Karp, kicked off a sly inside-the-Beltway guessing game by suggesting "it would be great" if possible suspects "refrained from commenting" on their non-authorship, in "solidarity with the principle that a book should be judged on ...
Women to Watch (and Watch Out for) in 2011
Here at Politics Daily, we've been recalling strong women whose terms sadly ended in 2010. On the year's last weekend, the New York Times' annual year-end roundup, "The Lives They Lived," paid appropriate tribute to film actor Lynn Redgrave, whose title role in 1966's "Georgy Girl" validated and emboldened women to love and appreciate their non-hourglass body shapes. The Times' idiosyncratic list, however, left off Jill Clayburgh, whose 1978 portrayal of an unmarried woman did more for single-girl empowerment than former Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown could ever have hoped for. (Brown, ...
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