Plus, it's more fun to administer than a shot ...

Herpes virus may protect against bacterial pathogens:

A major point of discussion between the two groups concerned the implications of such research for the development of vaccines against herpes virus infections. Dr. Virgin suggested that "decreased infection may be associated with unintended negative consequences for vaccinated individuals." In response, Dr. Blackman argues that possible transient protective effects did not outweigh the already recognized pathological consequences of herpesvirus infection. Both groups agreed that the protective effects of herpesvirus infections merit further study.

More thoughts on a secure Internet

David Isenberg and David Aken have a sweet, old-timey vision of the Internet. 

Even their bad guys are a bit old school -- virus writers who just want to degrade your machine for fun or who hope to steal your credit card number by extracting one number from one machine. But credit card numbers are easy to steal in bulk, and that's where the thieves are going. Invading individual machines is much more likely to be for the purpose of botting them on behalf of a spam or DDOS network. And once they've been botted, the machines' new overlords will take good care of them, even installing antivirus software to keep other malware out.

It's probably true that most of us who are moderately careful have not noticed a serious intrusion into our computers from the Internet. But we wouldn't, would we? Unfortunately, the users who have the sophistication to identify intrusions -- and the users who have something worth stealing -- have noticed, a lot, and they've run out of easy fixes.

I'm nostalgic for the old Internet too, but I already live on the new Internet, too. So do you if you use a corporate network. What's wrong with letting the two models compete?

More worries about the future of Mexico

  Even Texas is getting nervous.

And the UNHCR seems to think we can just turn everyone in Mexico who's worried about drug violence into a refugee.

And this is just cool: a way to knock off several diseases AND antibiotic resistance

Science News / Sponge’s Secret Weapon Restores Antibiotics’ Power

NYT asks whether security problems will force us to a new Internet

Do We Need a New Internet? - NYTimes.com  This sure looks like the way we're going.  Two nets:  one anonymous and dangerous, the other heavily authenticated and a lot less entertaining.

Rep. Norm Dicks objects to border enforcement in Washington State

After all, the last time DHS caught a terrorist along that part of the border, he was bound for California.  And that's, you know, somebody else's district.

E-Verify Trashed in Stimulus

Pretty sad. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127982&intsrc=news_ts_head