Software security expert Bruce Schneier reports on a database error in nearby Porter County, Ind., that has cost the county millions of dollars, and what that means to software design:

A house erroneously valued at $400 million is being blamed for budget shortfalls and possible layoffs in municipalities and school districts in northwest Indiana.

[...]

County Treasurer Jim Murphy said the home usually carried about $1,500 in property taxes; this year, it was billed $8 million.

Hot, cold, rain, snow, and a frige'n pigeon.

Some items in the news today that probably should go without comment:

• Spotsylvania County, Va., sheriff's deputies tried a novel approach to catching prostitutes: having sex with them.
• British scientists hooked a robot up to slime mold to model the mold's behavior.
• The British newspaper The Economist pointed out that hardly anyone mentioned Cheney's bird-killing as an issue in itself this week.
• The Washington Post has a lengthy analysis of the Danish cartoons and why they became the focus of such violence.
• Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified before Congress this week.
• And finally (and overdue), Sammy Sosa is retiring from baseball. Que lastima.

...even if she doesn't need men. In her column today (sub.req.) she pulls no punches with two men no one needs:

As the story of the weekend's bizarre hunting accident is wrenched out of the White House, the picture isn't pretty: With American soldiers dying in Iraq, Five-Deferment Dick "I Had Other Priorities in the 60's Than Military Service" Cheney gets his macho kicks gunning down little birds and the occasional old man while W. rides his bike, blissfully oblivious to any collateral damage. Shouldn't these guys work on weekends until we figure out how to fix Iraq, New Orleans, Medicare and gas prices?

Anne made me watch the Westminster Kennel Club Show yesterday and Monday. OK, she was right. I found myself rooting for Shaka the Rottweiler, but Rufus the Bull Terrier won instead.

Photo: AP

The Ohio Democratic Party has honked off Paul Hackett, because they believe another Ohio representative has a better chance of getting elected to the Senate this fall:

"It boils down to who we think can pull the most votes in November against [incumbent GOP Senator Mike] DeWine," said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. "And in Ohio, Brown's name is golden. It's just that simple."

They're nuts. And now we've lost exactly the kind of person we need in the party. And we look like idiots.

Actually, the ODP look like idiots, but Harry Ried and the rest of our party didn't come out too well in this one, either. Unless there's something I'm missing about Hackett, he's exactly the kind of person we want running for Senate in Ohio.

Here's Hackett's side of it.

Vice President Cheney has been cited for not having a hunting stamp required for non-residents to shoot birds in Texas. One assumes he didn't have the proper license to shoot people, either, but that bit is still under investigation.

Josh Marshall wonders about Dick Cheney's hunting accident Saturday:

At a minimum it seems a tad ungentlemanly to put out word through your media operation that the guy you just shot was at fault for getting shot.

But I don't know. Tom Lehrer wrote a song about it many years ago:

I always will remember,
'Twas a year ago November,
I went out to hunt some deer
On a mornin' bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

Anyway, this flap about whether the guy Cheney shot was to blame or not obscures discussion of the truly culpable party. I mean, who gave that man a gun in the first place?

The Washington Post has more.

Washington today is getting its biggest snowstorm in three years. I was there three years ago, so I can imagine what will happen.

The title kind of says it all.