Update: The captain of the cruise ship has been arrested.

I've been seeing headlines about the cruise ship disaster in Italy today, but I just around to reading one of the articles. What an unbelievable mess. 3,000 passengers and 1,000 crew and utter chaos. So far 3 are dead and many are missing. Many said it was like being on the Titanic:

The worst part came when a lifeboat crew member told everyone, "Women and children first," Smith said. "All these families who were clinging to each other had to be separated," he added.

And this poor woman: [More...]

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Via Mashable, check out these one minute videos of three guys traveling through 18 countries in 44 days. Move, Eat, Learn. All are pretty great, but I liked Learn the best. Terrific music too, by Kelsey James.

“Move” shows actor Andrew Lees strolling toward us in perfect sync, surrounded by a mind-boggling group of scenarios, all whizzing by so quickly you have to watch this quick clip a few times just to absorb it all.

[More...]

Stratfor, the intelligence site hacked by persons who self-associate as AntiSec and members of Anonymous, has just issued this notice to its members, offering them a year of identity theft protection services from a company named CSID. The text is below: [More...]

I got an e-mail this morning from the New York Times saying I had canceled my subscription and could renew at a discount. So did 8 million others in their database. Only, I didn't cancel anything. I tried calling the Times and the phone lines were busy (3 different ones.) I can't remember the last time I got a busy signal calling someone.

Turns out, it was a mistake. To make it worse, the Times first told people on Twitter the e-mail wasn't from them: [More...]

You may remember Barrett Brown from the recent dust-up over the plan by some members of Anonymous to out those believed providing assistance to the Mexican drug cartels. The plan was off-again, on again, with Barrett being the major spokesman.

He's back, now weighing in on the Stratfor hacking of its subscriber and e-mail databases. He says the purpose of the attack was not to obtain the credit card info, but the email database. [More...]

Sad news from the Agitator: Pain Relief spokesperson Siobhan Reynolds, who for years fought the feds, and proseuctor Tanya Treadway, advocating for the rights of pain patients and doctors who prescribe to them, died in a plane crash this weekend. She was 50.

See this Slate article by Radley Balko on the vindictive grand jury investigation against her.

One of the people she helped: Richard Paey, a 45-year-old father of three in a wheelchair, suffering from multiple sclerosis and chronic pain from botched back surgery, sentenced to 25-years for forging prescriptions to treat his pain. Reynolds helped get the sentence reversed. An interview with Paey is here.

One more to read: Cato's 2005 Treating Doctors as Drug Dealers:The DEA’s War on Prescription Painkillers.

Advocates against the war on drugs have lost an important ally. RIP, Sibohan Reynolds.

Second Update: Stratfor has sent out this updated message. It may be too little too late. If they didn't encrypt the card data and left full credit card numbers and pins on their servers, it sure doesn't seem like they would be in compliance with PCI Data Security Standards. There will undoubtedly be lawsuits over this. Stratfor can hire the best security firm on the planet now, but its poor judgment is going to cost it subscribers and business and its reputation is going to take a serious hit.

Third Update: There's bickering going on. Sabu responds to a tweeter who says no one else in Anonymous besides #AnonymousIRC and #Anonymous Sabu knew about the hack:

We did the hack under #antisec which is an operation within anonymous. Unsure who made you a leader, but we are decentralized

[More...]

Andrew Sullivan:

It is quite something for a writer to accuse a presidential candidate of essentially supporting America's enemies, and of being full of venom and hatred for the United States, when he has served this country as a congressman for decades. [. . . N]otice the baldly McCarthyite language by Dorothy Rabinowitz.

If Christopher Hitchens were alive, he'd never stand for this Decadent Coastal Enclave-based Fifth Columnism.

Speaking for me only

From the NY Times comments:

"As I never bought the argument that Saddam had nukes that had to be taken out, the decision to go to war stemmed, for me, from a different choice." -Tom Friedman, December 11, 2011

"The way you get that compliance out of a thug like Saddam is not by tripling the inspectors, but by tripling the threat that if he does not comply he will be faced with a U.N.-approved war." Tom Friedman, February 9, 2003

Link

Was Tom Friedman lying then or is he lying now?

Suck on this.

Speaking for me only

Tom Friedman now:

Iraq was always a war of choice. [. . .] seemed to me to be a legitimate strategic choice. But was it a wise choice? My answer is twofold: “No” and “Maybe, sort of, we’ll see.” I say “no” because whatever happens in Iraq, even if it becomes Switzerland, we overpaid for it.

Tom Friedman then:

Friedman writes "I have nothing but respect for the Americans, Brits and Iraqis who paid the price to make it possible." Speaking for me only, eff you Tom Friedman.

Good call by Time Magazine. The 2011 person of the year is The Protester.

Christopher Hitchens has passed away . He died of pneumonia, a complication of his oesophageal cancer. He was 62.

Here is his last political column, written for Slate 3 weeks ago. His final personal column, written for Vanity Fair and the Jan. 2012 issue, is here.

Also at Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter writes Christopher Hitchens: In Memoriam. VF's Christopher Hitchens page is here.