Interviewer: Mr. Helpmann, what would
you say to those critics who maintain
that the Ministry Of Information has
become too large and unwieldy ...?

Helplmann: David ... in a free society
information is the name of the game.
You can't win the game if you're a man short.

-- From "Brazil"

Newsweek's Michael Hirsh makes this chilling assessment:

The Bush administration calls the war on terror "the long war." But if we are to take the president and his aides at their word, it is more like a permanent war, one that by definition can never end.... And that means the extraordinary powers that George W. Bush has arrogated to himself "during wartime"--including the surveillance of Americans--could become permanent as well. It all sounds frighteningly Orwellian.

(cross-posted at" Hoot at the Dark)

Wired lists History's Ten Worst Software Bugs.

The Top 10 list includes bugs both intentional ('Morris Worm' and the dreaded 'Ping of Death') as well as the unintentional (rocketry software, medical radiation devices, operating systems, phone switches, computer chips).  

Of all the bugs that make the list, however, the CIA should probably be credited with the all-time worst: