Oracle just sent out a message about their Data Masking Pack, which allows you to copy around production data while removing social security numbers, patient names, etc. in a consistent manner. Check Oracle’s site for more details.

Jerome a Paris at Daily Kos has a good apolitical article on the current problems with the banking system. It goes quite a bit beyond the mortgage crisis…

Three years ago, Ryan Tomayko explained REST to his wife. It’s still a pretty good summary of how web applications work.

Let me count the ways.

A little glass vial?

A little glass vial!

No, seriously.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, equated lawmakers’ requests for funding for special projects with corruption on Wednesday even though Palin herself has requested nearly $200 million in so-called “earmarks” this year….

“I got an old ink pen, my friends, and the first pork barrel-laden earmark, big-spending bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it. You will know their names. I will make them famous and we’ll stop this corruption,” McCain said during a rally at a park in suburban Washington, D.C.

Oh, wait, don’t answer that, the past 7 years has answered that question quite well.

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don’t care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace — in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough’s show — the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin’s scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

I didn’t understand at first what the big deal was about Google’s new browser. However, then I ran across the comic book that explains the new features, and I was sold. Unfortunately, it doesn’t yet allow you to password-protect your stored passwords, which is a bad thing IMHO — it’s one of the big reasons I stay away from IE these days.

I haven’t banged on it very hard yet, but I plan on exercising it as much as I can. My default browser is still Firefox, and will probably stay that way for a while.

And I was worried about the cops in Denver. :-( I should have known this was coming…

Following up on this weekend’s extreme raids on various homes, at least 250 people were arrested here today in St. Paul, Minnesota…. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now — the radio and TV broadcaster who has been a working journalist for close to 20 years — was arrested on the street and charged with “conspiracy to riot.”… [H]ere’s a woman being pepper-sprayed at close range by a marching legion of police while standing on the side of the road holding a flower…. Democratic strategist and CNN commentator Donna Brazile was hit by pepper spray on her way into the Xcel Center.