The Oil Drum: Katrina Introduces Peak Oil to a Nation

The Oil Drum:

Katrina IS a big deal today and will be for weeks to come, not just because New Orleans is below sea level and not just because she could cause massive loss of life and property, but because Katrina could also disrupt Gulf supplies of petroleum (the GOM supplies around 1.3mbpd, we use around 20mbpd in the US) from rigs, refineries, and pipelines, etc., for a while.

Great Site, via John Robb.

Identity Thief Steals House

Plastic:

James Cook left on a business trip to Florida, and his wife Paula went to Oklahoma to care for her sick mother. When the two returned to Frisco, Texas, several days later, their keys didn’t work. The locks on the house had been changed.

They spent their first night back sleeping in a walk-in closet, with a steel pipe ready to cold-cock any intruders. The next day, they met the man who thought he owned their house, because he had put a US$12,000 down payment to someone named Carlos Ramirez. The Cooks went to the Denton County Courthouse and checked their title. Someone had forged Paula Cook’s maiden name, Paula Smart, and transferred the deed to Carlos Ramirez. Paula’s identity was not only stolen, but the thief also stole her house. Even the police said they’ve never seen a case like this one, but suspect the criminal was able to steal the identity and the house with just Mrs. Cook’s Social Security number, driver’s license number and a copy of her signature.

Via Bruce Schneier who points out that the National ID card (supported by our good Senators Feingold & Kohl) won’t solve this problem:

This is a perfect example of the sort of fraud issue that a national ID card won’t solve. The problem is not that identity credentials are too easy to forge. The problem is that the criminal needed nothing more than “Mrs. Cook’s Social Security number, driver’s license number and a copy of her signature.” And the solution isn’t a harder-to-forge card; the solution is to make the procedure for transferring real-estate ownership more onerous. If the Denton County Courthouse had better transaction authentication procedures, the particulars of identity authentication — a national ID, a state driver’s license, biometrics, or whatever — wouldn’t matter.
If we are ever going to solve identity theft, we need to think about it properly. The problem isn’t misused identity information; the problem is fraudulent transactions.

RFID Commercial Research at the UW

Ryan J. Foley writes from Madison, WI:

What makes UW-Madison’s lab unique is its collaboration with industry and its focus on the physics and engineering behind the technology, said Sweeney, who has visited other RFID labs elsewhere.
Critics worry, however, that UW-Madison is contributing to technology that could ultimately track humans.
One such fear involves the use of tags in clothing and shoes. If the chips aren’t deactivated at the time of sale, unsuspecting consumers might essentially be carrying around information about their buying habits, allowing stores to target them with intrusive marketing pitches the next time they visit.
“When I see the move of RFID into universities, it concerns me,” said Katherine Albrecht, a privacy advocate who specializes in RFID technology and shoppers. “It is sending a message that not only do we not have to worry about privacy but you can profit from it by a career perspective.”

Wisconsin Badgers vs. Bowling Green

Saturday’s opener looks like a tough match for the home team. Bowling Green’s quarterback passed for over 4,000 yards last year with only 4 interceptions. Pete Thamel disects Bowling Green’s “devastating” spread offense:

Now, the offenses Meyer and Brandon will run will be conceptually similar but vastly different. Brandon’s quarterback, Omar Jacobs, had a more productive year than Smith last season, passing for 4,002 yards while throwing 41 touchdown passes and only 4 interceptions.
Jacobs, a junior, landed at Bowling Green after a quarterback backed out on his commitment 10 days before signing day. Meyer called every quarterbacks coach he knew to see if there were any unsigned quarterbacks. He got a tip from a coach at Kansas State on a towering quarterback with an unorthodox throwing motion in South Florida – Jacobs.
Mullen was recruiting in Michigan and drove to Notre Dame, where Meyer used to be an assistant, to watch film of Jacobs. The next night, Meyer was in Jacobs’s living room making a pitch for Bowling Green. Jacobs bit, and four years later is considered a Heisman Trophy contender.