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- 2004-03-06t08:18:39Z. RE: Bush. Comic Art. Computers. Food. Fun. Games. Green. Haiti. Martial Arts. Presidential Elections 2004. Science. Scribblings. Sex. Show Biz. Tech. Web.
- 2004-03-11t02:42:32Z. RE: Bush. Chicago. Computers. Faith. Food. Haiti. Interesting. Money. Politics. Presidential Elections 2004. Sex. Show Biz. Web. Writing.
- My First CSG Thread: Control and Protection. RE: Martial Arts. Swords. Email. Sports.
- 2004-03-20t10:46:58Z. RE: A v B. Chicago. Computers. Elections. Faith. Food. Free Speech. Games. Green. Interesting. Iraq. Martial Arts. Money. Philosophy. Politics. Science. Sex. Spain. Web. World.
- 2004-03-25t19:53:37Z. RE: 9/11 Commission. Chicago. Computers. Design. Elections. Engineering. Entertainment. Faith. Games. Interesting. Iraq. Martial Arts. Media. Money. Politics. Science. Sex. Terrorism. The Passion of the Christ. Web. World. Words.
2004-03-06t08:18:39Z
| RE: Bush. Comic Art. Computers. Food. Fun. Games. Green. Haiti. Martial Arts. Presidential Elections 2004. Science. Scribblings. Sex. Show Biz. Tech. Web.
2004-03-06t08:18:39Z
Bush
-
Bush bio on Web inflates Guard service
- 'Questions remain about President Bush's long-ago service in the Texas Air National
Guard. But the basic outline of his Guard service is not in dispute: After a year in flight
school, Bush spent five months learning how to fly an F-102 fighter-interceptor and then 22
months as a part-time pilot. He stopped flying in April 1972 -- 30 months before his formal
commitment would normally have ended. ...But the State Department biography of Bush, which
has been on its website since 2001, makes the president out to be more of a frequent
flyer....'
- 'The State Department site --
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/ : pubs/presbush/bio -- says that before Bush graduated
from Yale in 1968, "he went to the offices of the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Air
Force Base outside Houston to sign up for pilot training. One motivation, he said, was to
learn to fly, as his father had done during World War II." It continues: "George W. was
commissioned as a second lieutenant and spent two years on active duty, flying F-102 fighter
interceptors. For almost four years after that, he was on a part-time status, flying
occasional missions to help the Air National Guard keep two of its F-102s on round-the-clock
alert." '
- The Free-Lunch Bunch: The Bush team's secret plan
to "reform" Social Security
- 'Larry Lindsey, Bush's tutor on economics during the campaign and later chairman of the
White House's National Economic Council, devised a scheme based on creative accounting
principles. Essentially, it proposed that the government would issue substantial new debt to
sustain old-style benefits. This debt would be serviced and paid down by confiscating
revenues from the higher returns from those opting for new-style personal accounts. For the
first nine months of the administration, this was called the "free-lunch" plan--a painless
way to convert to a blended, private-accounts model. Inside of the Treasury Department and
the Council of Economic Advisers, however, officials were befuddled by it. Lindsey seemed to
have never called upon analysts inside the Social Security Administration to run the traps
on his idea. Treasury and CEA did--and the numbers didn't even come close to working out.
But that didn't stop Lindsey, or the president, from believing in and promoting the "free-lunch"plan.'
- Can you say "Why that little fucker!"?
- Bush-Chenney TV Ads. The official ads. I
think using 9/11 in is ads is along the lines of his "Mission Accomplished" and "The Turkey Has
Landed" stunts. It's cheesy and it will work on some chumps. Perhaps it will bring up other 9/11
issues: What about the 9/11 investigation? Was invading Iraq a necessary response to 9/11?
-
http://www.instapundit.com/archives/014443.php
- 'Here in the blogosphere it's been interesting to see a lot of people who have supported
Bush on the war suddenly souring on him on a lot of other fronts, and in many cases even saying
they won't vote for him in the Fall. This seemed to start when Saddam was captured -- just
scroll through Andrew Sullivan's archives around that time and you'll notice a change, though it
wasn't just Andrew -- and has steadily grown and spread.'
- 'The war effort is, in fact, going well -- but to some degree that's actually hurting Bush
by taking it off the front burner. And if Osama turns up captured or killed, that will actually
exacerbate the problem by making it easier for people to pretend that we don't need to worry
about the war any more. ... War is stressful, and the temptation to pretend it's over and put it
out of your mind is strong. I suspect that even some people in the White House -- where the
exhaustion level has got to be high after nearly thirty months of war -- feel that way, at least
subconsciously.'
-
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_02_29.html#002626
- 'If you look at the TV ads the president just unveiled today, you quickly see a main --
probably the main -- theme of his reelection campaign: it's not my fault.'
- 'What we're seeing now is that these two things -- 9/11 and the current state of the country
-- are coming unhinged in the public mind. If they stay unhinged, President Bush looks less like
a 'war president' than a president who just won't take responsibility for anything that happens
on his watch. Thus the new ads, the message of which might fairly be summed up as "It's midnight
in America. But if the Democrats were in, the sun might never come up!" '
- Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist
mastermind
- 'With Tuesday's attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is
now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq. But NBC News has learned that long
before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation
and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself -- but never pulled the trigger.'
- ' "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to
execute the president's policy of preemption against terrorists," according to terrorism expert
and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.'
- Like I've said before: Bush is sort of fighting terrorism but he's doing a suck job of it.
- Confidence Man: The case for Bush is the case
against him.
- 'How can Kerry persuade moderates to throw out Bush? By turning the president's message
against him. Bush is steady and principled. He believes money is better spent by individuals
than by the government. He believes the United States should assert its strength in the world.
He believes public policy should respect religious faith. Most Americans share these principles
and think Bush is sincere about them. The problem Bush has demonstrated in office is that he
has no idea how to apply his principles in a changing world. He's a big-picture guy who can't do
the job.'
- 'From foreign to economic to social policy, Bush's record is a lesson in the limits and
perils of conviction. He's too confident to consult a map. He's too strong to heed warnings and
too steady to turn the wheel when the road bends. He's too certain to admit error, even after
plowing through ditches and telephone poles. He's too preoccupied with principle to understand
that principle isn't enough. Watching the stars instead of the road, he has wrecked the budget
and the war on terror. Now he's heading for the Constitution. It's time to pull him over and
take away the keys.'
- 'In recent months, congressional hearings and document leaks have unearthed a disturbing
history. Again and again in 2001 and 2002, U.S. intelligence agencies sent signals that Bush was
wrong. ... Bush ignored every one of these warnings. They couldn't be true, because they didn't
fit his theory. He couldn't stand the complexity of the facts or the ambiguity of
intelligence.'
- 'Bush was right to propose tax cuts in 1999. The economy was booming. The surplus was
ballooning. ... The point was to keep the surplus from piling up, refunding more and more money
as it poured in from a growing economy. ... Then everything changed. The stock market tanked,
and the economy slowed. Sept. 11 shook the nation's confidence and drastically altered military
budget projections. ... The world changed, but Bush couldn't.'
Comic Art
- C.H.E.S.S. (Calvin and
Hobbes Extensive Strip Search).
- All the C&H strips by Bill Watterson online and searchable!
- 'Calvin: You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.'
- 'Calvin: Childhood is short, maturity is forever.'
- 'Calvin: It seems like once people grow up, they have no idea what's cool.'
- 'Hobbes: Do you think there's a God?
Calvin: Well somebody's out to get me!'
- 'Calvin: A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a
battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.'
- 'Calvin: I hate it when I can't gird my loins with funny animals.'
- 'Calvin I'm a simple man, Hobbes.
Hobbes: You?? Yesterday you wanted a nuclear powered car that could turn into a jet with
laser-guided heat-seeking missiles!
Calvin: I'm a simple man with complex tastes.'
- 'Calvin: It's only work if somebody makes you do it.'
- 'Calvin: This morning I had a wonderful dream. By holding my arms out stiff and pushing
down hard, I found I could suspend myself a few feet above ground. I flapped harder, and
soon I was soaring effortlessly over the trees and telephone poles! I could fly! I folded my
arms back and zoomed low over the neighborhood. Everyone was amazed, and they ran along
under me as I shot by. Then I rocketed up so fast that my eyes watered from the wind. I
laughed and laughed, making huge loops in the sky! ...That's when Mom woke me up and said I
was going to miss the bus if I didn't get my bottom out of bed; 20 minutes later, here I am,
standing in the cold rain, waiting to go to school, and I just remembered I forgot my lunch.
Tuesdays don't start much worse than this.'
- 'Calvin: Where do we keep all our chainsaws, Mom?'
- 'Calvin: Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind
of excess.'
- 'Calvin: It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of
lightning.'
Computers
-
Assigning passwords to computer history: Biometric scanners, other products gaining ground
- Article hilights:
- Microsoft's solution makes the user use RSA Security Inc.'s SecureID cards plus a PIN.
- Another solution is biometrics like fingerprints or retinal patterns. Fingerprint scanner
are starting to cost only $50-170.
- I think we're still a long way off from feeling comfortable with corporations storing
biometric data. What if someone steals that info? Then they can impersonate us forever
because a person's biometric data does not change.
- Some old but good links I dug up:
- Good Programmers Are Not Lazy
[PDF].
- The Case Against
Extreme Programming
- When good interfaces go crufty
- What
must the great programmer know?
- Real Programmers Don't Use
PASCAL. Ye olde classik. BTW: It's a humor piece and some of the stuff is damn dangerous.
- 'If you can't do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you can't do it in assembly
language, it isn't worth doing.'
- 'Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.'
- 'If there is not enough schedule pressure on the Real Programmer, he tends to make things
more challenging by working on some small but interesting part of the problem for the first nine
weeks, then finishing the rest in the last week, in two or three 50-hour marathons. This not
only impresses the hell out of his manager, who was despairing of ever getting the project done
on time, but creates a convenient excuse for not doing the documentation.'
- 'Then Dennis and Brian worked on a truly warped version of Pascal, called 'A'. When we found
others were actually trying to create real programs with A, we quickly added additional cryptic
features and evolved into B, BCPL and finally C. We stopped when we got a clean compile on the
following syntax:
for(;P("\n"),R-;P("|"))for(e=C;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("| "+(*u/4)%2);
To think that modern programmers would try to use a language that allowed such a statement was
beyond our comprehension!'
- 'Real Programmers don't write application programs, they program down to the bare metal.
Application programming is for feebs who can't do systems programming.'
- Programmers
Are Like Artists: Linux expert Bruce Perens on the motives of people who work on open-source
software -- and the communities it creates
- 'Now, programmers are like artists. They derive gratification from lots of people using
their work. Writing software that just gets put away feels like intellectual masturbation. All
of the good comes from someone else participating.'
- 'Q: What else is driving open source?
A: There's also plain old economics. Here's the case with Hewlett-Packard. They have something
like 2,000 operating-system programmers. For Linux, they will have [about] 200 programmers
because they're sharing the cost of that with IBM (IBM ), Intel (INTC ), and many other
companies. They're saving money on that. Most software is not a profit center but a sales
enabler for hardware and services.'
- Halloween X: Follow The Money
- 'Excuse me, did we say in Halloween IX that Microsoft's under-the-table payoff to SCO for
attacking Linux was just eleven million dollars? Turns out we were off by an order of magnitude
-- it was much, much more than that. The document below was emailed to me by an anonymous
whistleblower inside SCO.'
- 'This is the smoking gun. We now know that Microsoft raised $86 million for SCO, but
according to the SCO conference call this morning (03 Mar 2004) their cash reserves were $68.5
million. If not for Microsoft, SCO would be at least $15 million in debt today.'
- Gates:
Buy stamps to send e-mail
- 'Many Internet analysts worry, though, that turning e-mail into an economic commodity would
undermine its value in democratizing communication. But let's start with the math: At perhaps a
penny or less per item, e-mail postage wouldn't significantly dent the pocketbooks of people who
send only a few messages a day. Not so for spammers who mail millions at a time.'
- 'Instead of paying a penny, the sender would "buy" postage by devoting maybe 10 seconds of
computing time to solving a math puzzle. The exercise would merely serve as proof of the
sender's good faith.'
- My first reaction was "Bill you evil, greedy bastard!", but it does sound like a possible
anti-spam method. We'll have to think this one through more.
- It Had To Happen: The
Disposable Computer. Funny because I also have a link on a disposable phone in this post
too!
Food
-
McSupersizes to be phased out. About time! "Would you like that super-sized?" was one of the
most annoying phrases: it wasted time and it felt like they were trying to gyp me. I've
super-sized an order as often as I've used the Windows Briefcase feature: never!.
Fun
Games
Green
-
Ocean Power Technologies to Harness Spanish Waves
- 'Ocean Power believes the 100 megawatt plants will be able to produce at an operating
cost of 3-4 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with 5-6 cents for wind.'
- Gee jobs are tough, what come after the info/service economy? The post-oil economy.
Companies like OceanPowerTechnologies.com
will rake in the dough. But Bus is so entrenched in oil that he's dragging us down with him.
-
Insurer warns of global warming catastrophe
- 'The world's second-largest reinsurer, Swiss Re, warned on Wednesday that the costs of
natural disasters, aggravated by global warming, threatened to spiral out of control, forcing
the human race into a catastrophe of its own making.'
Haiti
- Bush accused of
supporting Haitian rebels
- ' "The Bush administration is again engaged in regime change by armed aggression,"
former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark said. "This time, the armed aggression is against
the administration of the democratically elected president of Haiti." '
- ' "The U.S. talks about democracy, but it's their democracy, not the people's
democracy," Dupuy said. Using Venezuela as an example, Dupuy and Clark accused the
administration of not supporting governments that replace any group of ruling elites. "Any
government that has the support of the majority of its people will have a problem with the
United States," Dupuy said.'
-
Aristide Leaves Haiti to 'Avoid Bloodshed' Holy cow! An unexpected personal act which may
actually save lives! However it seems that the rebels may go ahead with their plans. This should
be a good window to send the international peace keepers.
Martial Arts
- FBI Guide to Concealable Weapons [PDF].
- Dozens of variations of concealable knives and spikes.
- Reminds me of stuff lying around the house of my friend Nick.
- Box cutters and their like might be good for an assassination in a crowded situation,
but such weapons will never again be used to hold an entire plane hostage.
Money
Presidential Elections 2004
Science
- The Girl Who Feels No
Pain
- 'Gabby [Gingras] was born with a genetic defect called "Hereditary Sensory and Autonomic
Neuropathy Type-5". It is so rare her doctors don't know of another person with it in this
country. Research done for her parents turned up a dozen known cases in the world.'
- 'The teeth she didn't break off while biting toys were removed by an oral surgeon after
Gabby chewed up her mouth and tongue so badly she had to be hospitalized. "Pain is the
protective mechanism, and she doesn't have that," Dr. Smith says. Gabby didn't have pain to
save her eyes either. She scratched them so severely, that at one point doctors sewed them
shut to keep her fingers out. But, the damage was already done.'
- 'Gabby broke her jaw a year ago and no one knew it for more than a month. Last fall, she
snuck out of bed, stood in front of a hot steam humidifier and suffered second-degree
burns.'
- Science, Strong Inference (The
New Baconians) [1964-10-16]. 'Certain systematic methods of scientific thinking may
produce much more rapid progress than others.'
- The Junk Science of George
W. Bush
- 'Today, flat-earthers within the Bush Administration--aided by right-wing allies who
have produced assorted hired guns and conservative think tanks to further their goals--are
engaged in a campaign to suppress science that is arguably unmatched in the Western world since
the Inquisition.'
- That fucking fucker. The article has many explicit examples ranging from:
- Air quality at ground zero.
- Microbes in our food.
- Global warming.
- Ground water contamination by Halliburton.
- Drilling in ANWR.
- Water diversion from the Klamath River.
- Everglade wetlands
- Pesticides in drinking water.
- Abuse of mountain top strip-mining.
- 'Spadaro, the nation's leading expert on slurry spills, recalls, "We were geotechnical
engineers determined to find the truth. We simply wanted to get to the heart of the matter--find
out what happened and why, and to prevent it from happening again. But all that was thwarted at
the top of the agency by Bush appointees who obstructed professionals trying to do their jobs."
'
- 'In a dramatic expansion of this disturbing strategy, the Bush Administration now plans to
systematically turn government science over to private industry by contracting out thousands of
science jobs to compliant consultants already in the habit of massaging data to support
corporate profits.'
- 'At least federal employees enjoy civil service and whistleblower protection intended to
allow them to operate professionally and independently. Private contractors don't enjoy the same
level of protection. "You can shop for the right contractor to give you the kind of result you
want," says Frank Buono, a retired Park Service veteran who now serves on the board of a
nonprofit whistleblower protection organization.'
- 'Science, like theology, reveals transcendent truths about a changing world. At their best,
scientists are moral individuals whose business is to seek the truth. Over the past two decades
industry and conservative think tanks have invested millions of dollars to corrupt science. They
distort the truth about tobacco, pesticides, ozone depletion, dioxin, acid rain and global
warming. In their attempt to undermine the credible basis for public action (by positing that
all opinions are politically driven and therefore any one is as true as any other), they also
undermine belief in the integrity of the scientific process.
Now Congress and this White House have used federal power for the same purpose. Led by the
President, the Republicans have gutted scientific research budgets and politicized science
within the federal agencies. The very leaders who so often condemn the trend toward moral
relativism are fostering and encouraging the trend toward scientific relativism. The very
ideologues who derided Bill Clinton as a liar have now institutionalized dishonesty and made it
the reigning culture of America's federal agencies.
The Bush Administration has so violated and corrupted the institutional culture of government
agencies charged with scientific research that it could take a generation for them to recover
their integrity even if Bush is defeated this fall. Says Princeton University scientist Michael
Oppenheimer, "If you believe in a rational universe, in enlightenment, in knowledge and in a
search for the truth, this White House is an absolute disaster." '
-
Experts Say New Desktop Fusion Claims Seem More Credible and
Shrimps spew bubbles as hot as the sun
- 'Sonofusion has already achieved more scientific respectability than cold fusion ever did,
with two articles published in major journals. And unlike cold fusion, sonofusion is based on
known science. Scientists have long observed a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence, in which a
burst of ultrasound causes a bubble in a liquid to collapse and emit a flash of light; some have
speculated that the gases trapped in the collapsing bubbles could be heated to temperatures hot
enough for fusion to occur.'
- I dunno. They've cried wolf with this stuff so many times that I'll just wait and see.
Scribblings
- I'm having one of those days where I just stare at my work. I've made a few micro-steps of
progress, but this is definitely not a day where I'm in the groove, lost in thought, and typing
furiously. Nor is it one of those days where all I need is a little break to surf, sip, or
strech. I need to totally pull back and re-center myself.
- What am I doing? What am I spending my time, thoughts, feelings, efforts, and life on? What
is my contribution, my added value? Here are some answers in no particular order:
- I live with and love my wife and kids. I have my extended family and friends.
- Contributions: Important, humane, and satisfying. I haven't regretted any time I've
spent romping with my kids,communicating with my wife, or interacting with my family and
friends. Even the rough times are worth it. I need to enrich this activity
further.
- I am the head programmer for Iclops, a start up company that does diagnostic OLAP data analysis
for the health care industry.
- Contributions: Company needs me and we fulfill some niche in society. The work,
while technically challenging, could be more meaningful or I need to make more money or both.
Or perhaps if the company would make some sales. In any caseI can set my own hours at Iclops,
so the flex time is unbeatable.
- I practice martial arts, with a current focus on swords.
- Contributions: Good for my health and fun. Contributes to the continuation and
propagation of a worthy field. The martial arts has always been a good environment for
making friends.
- I explore topics and write about them.
- Contributions: Satisfying and fun. Oddly enough a few others benefit from some of my
explorations. I like the breadth of topics I cover but perhaps I should be a choosier
about my topics and cover certain topics (such as ethics) with more depth.
- I play WarCraft III, a computer Real Time Strategy game.
- Contributions: Fun but entirely selfish. This eats time from all my other
activities. The strategic insights gained are probably negligible. Clearly I need to kick this
addictive habit but I need some sort of clear breaking point. Perhaps I should switch to
playing Go.
- What would I like to do?
- Work in a more meaningful field such as science, teaching, environment, archaeology,
writing, artificial intelligence, world hunger, politics, etc.
- Perhaps I don't dream enough
when I job hunt. I don't job hunt when I currently have a job (but perhaps I should), so
when I job hunt it is out of necessity and usually I grab whatever comes my way.
- On the other hand we're all ants in colony and even the simplest jobs fill a niche.
- Make a hobby of making more money: probably through interesting investments.
Sex
-
Woman Reports Neighbor for Disturbingly Loud Sex. I guess I'd rather be kept awake by
sex-noise than boom-box-noise.
-
I Did It For Science:
Experiment: To have sexual relations with "the world's finest love doll." [NSFW]. I was
going to ignore this but at $6000+ per doll, the folks at
RealDoll.com [NSFW] are clearly serious about their silicone,
fully-articulated, full-size, fully-customizable product. These are definitely not the freakish
looking dolls that Billy Murray might have pulled out on a SNL skit. However, depending on your taste,
I suspect they are in Mashiro Mori's Uncanny Valley.
-
Woman uses sex act as
manslaughter defense
- 'But [Heather] Specyalski claims that [Neil] Esposito was driving, and she was performing
oral sex on him at the time, said her attorney, Jeremiah Donovan. He noted that Esposito's pants
were down when he was thrown from the car.'
- 'Assistant State's Attorney Maureen Platt said the defense is flawed. "His pants could have
been down because he was mooning a car he was drag racing," Platt said. "His pants could have
been down because he was urinating out of a window. His pants could have been down because he
wasn't feeling well." '
- The other thing is that it is most likely that Esposito was driving the car since it was
his.
Show Biz
- The Passion of the Christ
- Matrix
Tech
-
Philips' New Camera Lens Works Like Human Eye. 'Unlike high-end digital cameras, the new
lens does not require mechanical moving parts because it works by manipulating two fluids in a
tiny transparent tube.'
- Digital Utopia and its
Flaws: Cory Doctorow In Conversation With R.U. Sirius [for NeoFiles]
- Yikes! Over-quoting again! A good interview.
- 'You went from where you controlled 100% of who got to listen to your music to where you
control 0% of who got to listen to your music. You went from where only people who bought a
ticket could listen to you to where anyone who could build or buy a radio could listen to you.
It made Napster look like kids' stuff.'
- 'This year's music publishers are last year's pirates ... always. The radio barons are the
people who were pirating music; the recording industry are the people who were pirating sheet
music; the cable operators were the people who were pirating broadcast television. It's not hard
to understand that someone who has gone up the ladder wants to pull it up behind them and close
the hatch.'
- 'NF: The person who makes music available is seen as adding value.
CD: Right. It's about taking back your cost centers and turning them into profit centers. From a
business perspective, if you can take back all of the stuff that costs money and get your
customers to do it, and just keep the stuff that makes you money, you make more money. Duh. And
this is the thing the music industry has yet to figure out about the whole file sharing universe
is that it throws their cost centers like marketing to their customers. Marketing is
accomplished through a word-of-mouth mechanism like file sharing.'
- 'Every other media revolution that we've had from Gutenberg to the radio to recorded music
and so on, ended up with an industry that's a thousand times larger, that makes a thousand times
more money, and makes available a thousand times more work. That happens every single time!'
- 'What does it mean to own a book? In some ways, if you own a paper object, you own the book
in a less meaningful way than if you own the ASCII version of it cause the ASCII version can be
turned into the paper book. The digital book turns easily into the paper book. The paper book --
it's really unwieldy to turn it into the digital book. And you can't change it to 100 formats.'
- 'And in some ways, selective enforcement is the best regime you could hope for. For example,
a cop picks up a kid who is doing something wrong and makes a decision to let the kid off with a
warning. The policeman has an opportunity to do genuine, on-the-ground, human, community
policing. He is allowed to exercise some judgement. Now when that judgement gets exercised in a
way that's racially discriminating like profiling it's a disaster, but every single one of us
growing up probably did one dumb thing that got us into trouble with the cops. But not all of us
got hauled off to jail for it. Some of us got taken home and had to sit down with our parents.
And we didn't do that dumb thing again. That's to the good.'
- 'The problem with adhocracies is that they have no defense mechanism against what happens
when someone exercises their judgement poorly; when someone tries to hijack the system they
sometimes succeed. Now I don't buy the idea that every system that's hijackable is hijacked. The
internet is full of systems that at least at a certain scale don't get hijacked. And then maybe
they hit a certain scale where they do. I mean, trolls are a great example of this. Any time you
have a message board of a certain size where you have no rules and no moderators, you get them.
Usenet at a certain size worked. But Usenet at a bigger size still works. I think that anyone
who says Usenet doesn't work isn't paying attention to the fact that lots of people send and
receive messages that have nothing to do with their penis size on Usenet every day. Usenet
unequivocally works but it works really differently than it did. It has had to develop some
defense mechanisms as a consequence.'
- 'NF: As you read along, it's your protagonist who is disrupting the adhocracies. He's
assuming that there's a state of hostile competitiveness coming from others, and as a reader
you're not sure if the protagonist is correct.
CD: Right. And one of the category errors that he commits is the error of assuming that he
can act in a way that would be unconscionable if someone of ill will did it because he is a
person of good will. And it's the same category error that spam fighters make ....
NF: ... and nearly all political activists and politicians....
CD: Right. We have this idea that we will never enforce ideas badly. But spam fighters have this
idea that it's perfectly acceptable for AOL to silently discard mail without telling the sender
or the recipient based on criteria that are secret. In any other regime, we would think this is
a really bad idea, right? But spam fighters are people of good will. And I'll even stipulate for
the sake of argument that every span fighter today is a person of good will. But when we
enshrine in the architecture of the network the ability for someone to silently discard mail
based on secret criteria without telling the sender or the recipient, then we create the
opportunity for someone of ill will to do very bad things. The internet is a kind of ongoing
process of discovering how to defend utopia.'
- 'Trust is one of the hardest things to do in network design and trust is one of the hardest
things to do in social design. And trust and betrayal are what our social contract revolves
around. We have a first amendment not because of what people of good will would do if we put
them in charge of who may say what -- and not because there aren't some things that are so
unconscionable that they shouldn't be uttered -- but because the framers couldn't think of a way
to trust people to reliably decide what should and shouldn't be spoken. '
- 'I think that normative pressure is what keeps us all in line. I think that we all have
urges toward deviance in some ways. I mean, not in the kind of leather-and-chains sense but in
the traditional sociological sense ... being a little bit weird. I think the only reason in
fact that it mostly appears that we're all doing the same thing is because we don't look hard
enough.'
- 'There's this amazing Bill Gates quote from Davos last week where he was talking about how
Microsoft was going to get back into search and compete with Google and someone said, "You know
you guys did a pretty crappy job with search the first time around." And he said, [paraphrasing]
"Yeah. You know what we did? We focused on the 20% of the queries that represented 80% of
what people were looking for instead of the 20% that were really odd. But what we found out is
that the whole perception of value lives in whether or not it meets those little queries." '
- Disposable Cell Phone -
Phone-Card-Phone
- 'Trademarked the Phone-Card-Phone®, the device is the thickness of three credit cards and
made from recycled paper products. This is a real cell phone (outgoing messages only) with 60
minutes of calling time and a hands free attachment.'
- Cool. Now I drug dealers can have more freedom.
- UC Berkeley
researchers developing robotic exoskeleton that can enhance human strength and endurance.
Gee, I could've used one of those the last time I went hiking. I wonder how it would have
handled all the mud, slippery logs, and sharp rocks?
- The Universal Card
- 'Wired News is carrying a
story about a new product
from Chameleon Network that's supposed to replace
all of your credit/debit/customer cards. It can read the information off of the magnetic strips
of credit/debit cards, scan the barcode off of customer loyalty cards, and even memorize the
RFID signals of devices like the Mobil SpeedPass. All of this information is stored in a device
called the Pocket Vault, and is unlocked with the user's fingerprint. If you wish to use a
magnetic strip card, you select the card from the touch screen and put a Chameleon card, which
looks like and can be run in standard readers like a credit card, in the Pocket Vault. The
Chameleon card will then assume the identity of the card you selected, but only for 10 minutes.
In this way, if the card is lost or stolen, nobody can use it. In the case of RFID, you just
hold the Pocket Vault up to the RFID scanner for a reading. For barcode-based cards, the barcode
will appear on the screen and can be scanned by a standard barcode reader. Chameleon Network
says this technology will be available in early 2005 and is expected to cost under $200.'
- Alas there's still that problem of having your personal biometrics encoded, which if hacked,
would be usable forever.
Web
- CSS.MaxDesign.com.au. Many variations on lists
and stuff on floating and selectors.
- Color Scheme. Very nice. See
colors interactively using HSL, different common combinations (schemes), web-safe or not, and as
viewed by different kinds of color blindness. The funny thing is that I was just tinkering on my
Color section.
- The Deep Web
- 'Information stored in databases is accessible only by query.'
- 'Non-textual files such as multimedia files, graphical files, software, and documents in
non-standard formats such as Portable Document Format (PDF).'
- 'Information that is new and dynamically changing in content will appear on the deep Web.'
- This topic is relevant given the current browser wars between Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. EG:
Yahoo to expand offerings.
- Warning:
Blogs Can Be Infectious
- 'Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs, the
researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from
lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution.'
- 'When they plotted the links and topics shared by various sites, they discovered that topics
would often appear on a few relatively unknown blogs days before they appeared on more popular
sites.'
- ' "A lot of sites that get listed by search engines as most relevant are not always the most
relevant," said Adar. "For instance, Slashdot often gets listed at the top, but it's just an
aggregator. I may want to go to the source." '
- Everyone learns from everyone else and ideas are shared all over, but you'd think that with
links it is much easier to attribute your source than ever before.
2004-03-11t02:42:32Z
| RE: Bush. Chicago. Computers. Faith. Food. Haiti. Interesting. Money. Politics. Presidential Elections 2004. Sex. Show Biz. Web. Writing.
2004-03-11t02:42:32Z
Bush
- Bush's flip flops
- Here's just one on the list: 'Bush is against nation building; then he's for it.'
- Hehe. That's the thing about simplistic arguments: they're easy to counter. The problem
is most people may never hear the counter.
-
Pre-9/11, Bush Deprioritized Counter-terrorism and Targeted It For Cuts. And while you're
there check out
The "Average Joe".
- Promises, Promises
- 'Economic forecasting isn't an exact science, but wishful thinking on this scale is
unprecedented. Nor can the administration use its all-purpose excuse: all of these forecasts
date from after 9/11. What you see in this chart is the signature of a corrupted policy process,
in which political propaganda takes the place of professional analysis.'
-
- Press Briefing by
Scott McClellan [2004-03-09 Tue]
- Recently Kerry pointed out that Bush has time to go to a rodeo but is only willing to give
the 9/11 investigation commission 1 hour of his time. This press briefing labored the point to
absurdity. Scott McClellan could have simply said that the meeting is scheduled for 1 hour but
that if they need more time he will give it to them. So much for "full cooperation".
- 'Q Scott, this morning you were talking about -- you said that the President will answer all
the commission's questions. There seems to be a change in tone, when this afternoon you're
saying that one hour is a reasonable period of time.
MR. McCLELLAN: Everything I said from this podium here, this afternoon, is consistent with
what I was saying earlier today.
Q Well, now you're emphasizing that one hour is a reasonable period of time.
MR. McCLELLAN: I've said that before.
Q Right, but this morning you were talking primarily about -- you said over and over again,
the President will answer all questions asked --
MR. McCLELLAN: And, of course. I want to make that point. Obviously, the President is going
to answer all the questions that they want to raise.
Q And even if that --
MR. McCLELLAN: But many of their questions have already been asked and answered.
Q Even if that runs over the allotted period of time?
MR. McCLELLAN: Nobody is watching the clock, Terry. But again, there is a reasonable period
of time that has been set aside for this meeting.
Q Just to nail it down --
MR. McCLELLAN: Terry two, or Terry one. Okay, Terry one.
Q It's on the schedule for an hour --
MR. McCLELLAN: And believe me, you can answer a lot of questions in one hour.'
- Create Custom Posters.
The official GeorgeWBush.com site has this feature
that let's you easily make a Bush poster. So why am I posting the link here? Well you can have
fun by hacking it by putting in your own message. I like how it says "Paid for by Bush Cheney".
- Support for
Bush Falls on Economy and Iraq. 'President Bush, the target of months of criticism during
the Democratic primary season, has seen public support fall to the lowest level of his
presidency for his performance on the economy and the situation in Iraq, a new Washington
Post-ABC News poll has found.'
- The new Pentagon
papers
- 'A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed
information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.'
- 'I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the
Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in
the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies. I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within
OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion
of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the
executive office of the president. '
- 'In November, my Insider articles
discussed the artificial worlds
created by the Pentagon and the stupid
naiveté of neocon assumptions about what would happen when we invaded Iraq. I discussed the
price of public service,
distinguishing between public servants who told the truth and then saw their careers flame out
and those "public servants" who did not tell the truth and saw their careers ignite. My December
articles became more depressing, discussing the
history of the 100 Years' War and
"combat lobotomies." There was a
painful one titled "Minority Reports"
about the necessity but unlikelihood of a Philip Dick sci-fi style "minority report" on
Feith-Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld-Cheney's insanely grandiose vision of some future Middle East, with
peace, love and democracy brought on through preemptive war and military occupation.'
- 'War is generally crafted and pursued for political reasons, but the reasons given to the
Congress and to the American people for this one were inaccurate and so misleading as to be
false. Moreover, they were false by design. Certainly, the neoconservatives never bothered
to sell the rest of the country on the real reasons for occupation of Iraq -- more bases from
which to flex U.S. muscle with Syria and Iran, and better positioning for the inevitable fall of
the regional ruling sheikdoms. Maintaining OPEC on a dollar track and not a euro and fulfilling
a half-baked imperial vision also played a role. These more accurate reasons for invading and
occupying could have been argued on their merits -- an angry and aggressive U.S. population
might indeed have supported the war and occupation for those reasons. But Americans didn't get
the chance for an honest debate.'
- This is what I've been saying all along!
- 'Will Americans hold U.S. policymakers accountable? Will we return to our roots as a
republic, constrained and deliberate, respectful of others? My experience in the Pentagon
leading up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq tells me, as Ben Franklin warned, we may have
already failed. But if Americans at home are willing to fight -- tenaciously and courageously --
to preserve our republic, we might be able to keep it.'
Chicago
- Did a Comet Trigger The
Great Chicago Fire?
- 'Perhaps it was not Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern that sparked the Great
Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed the downtown area and claimed 300 lives. New research
lends credence to an alternative explanation: The fire, along with less-publicized and even
more deadly blazes the same night in upstate Wisconsin and Michigan, was the result of a
comet fragment crashing into Earth's atmosphere. '
- At first I was doubtful but this Robert Wood guys should know a thing or two about the
orbit of comets.
-
Wanted: 4,000 candidates. City schools beat drum for local council elections.
- 'The elections will be held April 21 at elementary schools and April 22 at high schools.
Registered voters living within each school's attendance boundaries vote to elect the council's
six parent and two community representatives. The Board of Education appoints the council's two
teacher representatives; the principal automatically is on the council. The councils approve
school budgets, review school progress, and every four years vote on principals, said James
Deanes, director of school and community relations for Chicago Public Schools.'
- 'Deanes said many people don't sign up to run because they worry about the time commitment.
The councils typically require between 5 and 10 hours of work a month, he said. Anyone
interested in running for their school council can get an application at their school, library
or post office or contact the Chicago Public Schools office, Deanes said.'
-
Local School Councils. The official CPS link.
-
Voting information.
- Don't forget to vote on 2004-03-16 Tuesday Chicagoland!
- Funny but my polling place this year is the showroom at Sierra Auto Inc., 2352 W. Belmont
Ave.
-
Chicago Tribune endorsements
Computers
- What's on my Pen Drive?
- 'Just recently, I read an article somewhere on the 'net in which an industry pundit
suggested that in the (near) future, PCs would simply act as processing and display engines,
and we would all have a memory stick with all our "stuff" on it. Well, hey, this was a great
idea, but me being me I didn't want to wait for the future, so I set about looking for a way
to do it myself.'
- 'I determined that these would be my requirements:
- A Word Processor - MS Word compatible - for writing reports; [A:
MS Word 5.5]
- A Spreadsheet Application - MS Excel compatible - for converting data in
emergencies, and moer important, keeping my expenses up to date; [A:
Sphygmic]
- Secure Shell (SSH) application - to remotely manage my system; [A:
puTTY]
- Some sort of development software - I sometimes need to write ad-hoc stuff off site;
[A: Borland's Turbo Basic 1.1 and
Pacific C]
- Web browser; [A: OffByOne]
- Email client; [A: Ultrafunk's Popcorn]
- My favourite "toolkit" applications; [A: He gives a nice little list of freeware]
- Any client software I need to install;
- Storage space, for "stuff". [A: 10 MB to spare!]'
- Then he crams all this stuff onto a 32 MB USB pen-sized drive! Ha ha! Old software never
dies!
- Links for different models of USB memory sticks.
- The Macintosh at 20:
Interview with Jef Raskin.
- Jef Raskin created the Apple Macintosh in 1979 and invented click-and-drag selection.
- 'I'm very disappointed in the Macintosh interface. It's more complex, harder to use than it
was when we started. It's always puzzling people. Even though I have the latest version, OS X,
what they call Panther. The Panther keeps on biting me, crashes once or twice a week. The whole
system crashes, individual programs crash pretty often still, but the interface is so complex,
there's so many parts to it that I have to go to other people and ask them how do you do this.'
- 'As for the one-button mouse, I'd observed at Xerox Parc which had a 3-button mouse,
that people were very confused as to its use and when I was designing the software for the
Macintosh, in designing the interface, I figured that if there was only one button, there would
never be any question on what you have to press the number of ways of using a one-button mouse.
I think this was probably a mistake ... So if I was designing one today, it would have two
buttons and they would be labeled.'
- Ha ha ha! The one-button mouse sucks!
- iPod ad parody: Steve Ballmer [Flash
animation]. Ballmer is actually that enthusiastic.
- Optical
Drives: Simplified DVD Labeling
- 'HP has come up with an elegant answer: Use the same laser that already burned the data to
make a label on the flip side of the disc. A technology dubbed LightScribe enables drives to
burn a silk screen-like, high-contrast label on the upper side of CD or DVD media bearing a
special coating. After completing a data burn, users will be prompted to flip the disc over to
burn a label onto the other side. '
- Brilliant! One of those ideas that make you say: "Why didn't I think of that?"
- iPod Used In Domestic
Homicide
- 'A Memphis woman [Arleen Mathers, 23] was arrested and charged with first-degree murder
after she bludgeoned her boyfriend [Brad Pulaski, 27] to death with an iPod.'
- 'According to law officers, Mathers was hysterical when police arrived and told them that
she killed her boyfriend only after he accused her of illegally downloading music and erased
about 2,000 of her MP3s. Mathers complained that it took 3 months to build her music
collection.'
- If only she had made a backup. When will people ever learn: SAVE OFTEN!
- 'According to Apple's website, the iPod is partially made of a hard metal plate that's been
praised for it's resistance to regular wear and tear, like drops and coffee spills.'
- I wonder if her iPod still works? Does it give a licking and keeps on ticking?
- The world's two worst variable names
- Hmm. The article title alone entices me to use
$data and $data2 as
variable names. Obfuscation, here I come!
- 'Of course it's data! That's what variables contain! That's all they ever can contain. It's
like you're packing up your belongings to move to a new house, and on the side of the box you
write, in big black marker, "matter." '
- 'More generally, any variable that relies on a numeral to distinguish it from a similar
variable needs to be refactored, immediately.'
- Ha ha! Programmers walk around the world and when they see something blatantly wrong they'll
say things like "The White House needs immediate refactoring!"
- Best
Computer Pranks Ever. I'm not one for pranks: some of these are punishable by an
ass-kicking.
- The Command Line - The Best Newbie
Interface?
- Ha ha! CLI rules!
- 'This essay describes the surprising results of a brief trial with a group of new computer
users about the relative ease of the command line interface versus the GUIs now omnipresent in
computer interfaces. It comes from practical experience I have of teaching computing to complete
beginners or newbies as computer power-users often term them.'
- 'Firstly, Tillie doesn't do more than one thing at a time. Certainly she 'multitasks',
putting the kettle on while reading mail for example, but her attention is focused in one place
at any one time. The indication to Tillie that the kettle has boiled is unobtrusive and
effective but she defers dealing with it until after she has read her letters.'
- 'Another feature of Tillie's life is known locations for known things. Letters have a
certain place when they should be replied to and when they should be sent. Tillie does these
things at different times during the day.'
- 'Finally we notice the importance of dialogue in her life, both implicit and explicit.
Tillie has an implicit dialogue with the letter box, opening and looking for letters is
equivalent to asking the box 'Have you any letters' and it replying, in this case, 'Yes, two'.
Tillie has explicit dialogue with the grocer while retrieving information about today's
products. '
- 'One could consider a newbie a tourist in the land of the computer. We must remember the
neither know the language or the culture.'
- 'All users, after an initial bootstrapping phase, preferred the CLI "discussion" method for
interacting. All reported that they felt more in control and better able to find things out.
This probably was due to the higher amount of interface consistency and more task-based
interface that the CLI tends to encourage. '
- CeBIT to premiere USB Swiss
Army Knife. Drooool...
Faith
- NatReformAssn.org (The National Reform
Association).
- 'The mission of the National Reform Association is to maintain and promote in our
national life the Christian principles of civil government, which include, but are not
limited to, the following:
- Jesus Christ is Lord in all aspects of life, including civil government. Jesus
Christ is, therefore, the Ruler of Nations, and should be explicitly confessed as such
in any constitutional documents.
- The civil ruler is to be a servant of God, he derives his authority from God and he
is duty-bound to govern according to the expressed will of God.
- The civil government of our nation, its laws, institutions, and practices must
therefore be conformed to the principles of Biblical law as revealed in the Old and New
Testaments. '
- Fundamentalists like these are a hair away form other fundamentalists like the Taliban.
One of the worst kinds of evil is evil done in the name of the good.
- Interestingly enough, they are aware that the US founding fathers were not actually
Christians but Deists since they include a link to
ISmellARat.com.
- FIRST-PERSON: Mel Gibson's
end-around
- More frightening religious people. It's a fictional account of the Left's views on the
Right as presented by some very Right-oriented Baptists.
- ' "You're positively quaint. That kind of stuff went out with virginity and 'love thy
neighbor.' In our world, there are no longer any such ideals as courage and character. There
is no absolute truth. We make it up as we go along, film by film. You're joking, right?" '
- As if no one else knows about courage and character. As if they know what the
absolute truth is.
- TheocracyWatch.org. "The Rise of the Religious
Right in the Republican Party"
- 'March Toward Theocracy: Since the Religious Right began to dominate the Republican
Party, and the Republican Party won majorities in both Houses of the U.S. Congress, the
influence of the Religious Right has become immense. And they have a powerful ally in the
White House. The President's Faith-Based Initiative is transforming the United States into a
"Christian" nation.'
Food
Haiti
Interesting
-
'Dead' girl, mum back together
- 'A Philadelphia woman [Luz Cuevas] has been reunited with her daughter [Delimar], who
was declared dead six years ago after a kidnapper [Carolyn Correa] took the child and
burned the house down to cover her tracks.'
- 'Delimar's mother never believed her child had perished. "She said when she ran up and
the baby was not in the crib, she said she knew that the baby was kidnapped and was not
burned in the fire," said local politician Angel Cruz, who helped Mrs Cuevas get her child
back. But no one believed Mrs Cuevas until she attended a birthday party in January for the
child of a friend. Mrs Cuevas noticed that a six-year-old party guest bore a striking
resemblance to herself and her other children.'
- Ad with singing poop maggots
[Korean Flash]. Bizarre but my kids liked it.
- Cat and Bunny [Korean
Flash]. Very good, much better than the preceding. A sweet little love story. Whoops the
original link is dead. You'll have to dig it out at the maker:
SamBakZa.net.
-
Simpsons-Related Dear Abby Column Pulled. 'The column is titled "Wife meets perfect match
after husband strikes out." In the letter, the writer describes herself as a 34-year-old mother
of three who has been married for 10 years to a man who is "greedy, selfish, inconsiderate and
rude." The writer says her husband, Gene, gave her a bowling ball for her birthday -- complete
with the holes drilled to fit his fingers and embossed with his name. Undeterred, the woman
decides to learn to bowl and heads to the local lanes, where she meets another man, Franco, who
is "kind, considerate and loving." '
- Are You Bipolar?
- Freaky Frogs
- Sleeves: Original Tatto'd Clothing. The IP is
suspicious.
- Texas public service announcement
against drunk driving [video, scary]. The video concludes by showing
Jacqueline Saburido, the surviving victim of a
drunk driver. Please don't drink and drive. Jacqui: the world appreciates your courage in
participating in this campaign.
Money
- Given the recent successful charges against Martha Stewart and WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers,
I hope this is a sign that the American justice system is aware that we need accountability in
this country. I hope this spread to President Bush.
- PriceNoia.com. This site checks the price for your
item at the 6 international Amazon.com stores. This would
be more impressive if it also checked other vendors.
- Warren Buffet's annual letter
to his shareholders
- 'Berkshire, on your behalf and mine, will send the Treasury $3.3 billion for tax on its
2003 income, a sum equaling 2½% of the total income tax paid by all U.S. corporations in fiscal
2003. (In contrast, Berkshire's market valuation is about 1% of the value of all American
corporations.) Our payment will almost certainly place us among our country's top ten taxpayers.
Indeed, if only 540 taxpayers paid the amount Berkshire will pay, no other individual or
corporation would have to pay anything to Uncle Sam. That's right: 290 million Americans and all
other businesses would not have to pay a dime in income, social security, excise or estate taxes
to the federal government. (Here's the math: Federal tax receipts, including social security
receipts, in fiscal 2003 totaled $1.782 trillion and 540 "Berkshires," each paying $3.3 billion,
would deliver the same $1.782 trillion.)"
- OMFG! If every major US corporation paid an appropriate amount of tax like Berkshire,
we'd all be much better off! Berkshire is not suffering any by paying taxes and neither do we.
- SaveOvertimePay.org
- A site by the AFL-CIO.
- 'Under a proposal by President Bush, more than 8 million workers
might not be paid extra for the overtime hours they work. The Bush administration is pushing to
finalize these changes before March 1--including a change that would
take away overtime pay
from veterans.'
- Related links:
- The Economy
Summed Up: Pay Any Price, Bear Any Burden, to Avoid Creating Jobs
- Mark Schmitt quotes Charlie Cook: 'In December, the CEO of a California-based high tech firm
told me that "there is no amount of overtime that we will not pay, there is no level of
temporary services that we will not use, there is no level of outsourcing or offshoring that we
will not do, in order to prevent us from having to hire one new, permanent worker in the U.S."
As I travel around the country, meeting with business leaders, I hear similar, though less
succinct thoughts in almost every sector and every part of the country. U.S. wages, health care,
and other benefit costs have gotten so high -- and the press by investors for high stock prices
is so great -- that the premium is on wringing every last bit of work out of as few employees as
possible, to do anything but incur the costs of adding permanent employees.'
- 'First, it puts outsourcing/offshoring in context. It is not a phenomenon to be studied and
accepted or discouraged or encouraged in isolation, but part of a larger trend that include
various techniques to avoid actually hiring people.'
- 'Second, it strengthens a point that was true in the prosperous period of the late dot-com
boom as well as today: We have been consistently invited to give up security in exchange for
short-term prosperity.'
- 'Government, under the liberal consensus of the New Deal through the 1970s, did not
redistribute income. Rather, government's greatest achievement was to create SECURITY --
the kind of security that created the opportunity to join the middle class. Deposit insurance,
pension insurance, COBRA (the provision that allows people to maintain health insurance after
losing a job), unemployment insurance, etc. -- these were the great achievements of American
liberalism. And they are either becoming irrelevant, or completely neglected in the current
climate.'
- 'Third, the Cook paragraph shows that we must do something about the costs that prevent
American businesses from hiring.'
- 'There is no reason that risk should be the burden of some employers, while other employers
evade health care costs entirely. This is why I find the idea of a system in which health
insurance is attached to the individual rather than the job so appealing. It not only ensures
near-universal coverage, it gives business predictability in their health care costs and
requires all businesses to contribute, rather than letting some employers take advantage of
others. The New America Foundation has the most detailed approach here,
in a readable and
persuasive paper.'
Politics
Presidential Elections 2004
-
Voters face stark choice in the fall
- ' "There is a tremendously polarized electorate," said Joe Andrew, who was chairman of
the Democratic Party in 2000. "Democrats are much more aggressive and my Republican friends
are the same way. There is a tremendous gap not on where they think the country will go
but on where they think the country has been. Usually in elections there has been an
accepted set of facts of what has happened, a story line. Here the story line is so
different [between] the two groups. That will dictate the politics." '
- This is in essence what makes this election the most politicized ever. There is
selective remembering, selective forgetting, and selective interpretation of the past on
both sides of the fence. The issues aren't honest anymore because we can't get to the
heart, the facts of anything. This is one of the strongest reasons for why I believe we
need an administration change. I want someone who will see more sides of the issues.
Admitting weaknesses and uncertainties strengthens your credibility. Having principles
does not rule out having doubts.
- 'Richard Nixon famously said that a GOP candidate runs to the right in the primary
season, then moves to the middle for the general election. And a mirror image of that has
been true for the Democrats.'
- RNC tells TV
stations not to run anti-Bush ads
- 'The Republican National Committee is warning television stations across the country not to
run ads from the MoveOn.org Voter Fund that criticize President Bush, charging that the
left-leaning political group is paying for them with money raised in violation of the new
campaign-finance law.'
-
Sen. McCain Open to Being Kerry's VP. It's unlikely but I'd OK it! Yet another sign of
Republicans acquiring a distaste of Bush too.
Sex
-
In just 30 days, aisle is cleared for gay marriage. Not detailed but a nice little rundown
of the past 30 day on the issue.
- PoleTricks101.com.
- 'Women all around the country are finding out that pole dancing is a sexy way to
entertain your man (or men!) Not only that, it's good exercise and just plain fun.
PoleTricks 101 is dedicated to bring you the training, the equipment, and the satisfaction
of dancing with the sexiest of all props... the pole!'
- Riiight. Actually they're just selling an instructional DVD. I seriously doubt that this
is the next exercise phenomena.
- Safe For Work Porn. Everyone is fully clothed
and no genitalia or expressions are shown but the positioning is unmistakable. Exposes certain
elements about porn that are often overlooked because of the explicit content. Content
originally entitled "Pornography" by French artist
Edouard Levé.
- Poll Finds
Growing Support for Gay Civil Unions
- Good news! America is not filled with homophobes. We need to grow this support further
and tell Bush where he can shove his amendment.
- 'Public support appears to be growing for legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples, as
well as for allowing states to make their own laws regulating gay marriage, according to the
latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.'
- 'About half the country -- 51 percent -- favors allowing gay couples to form civil unions
with the same basic legal rights as married couples, up 6 percentage points in less than a
month. A slightly larger majority also rejected amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex
marriages in favor of allowing states to make their own laws, an increase of 8 percentage points
in recent weeks.'
-
Online porn often leads high-tech way. Not surprising actually. There's money in them there
gams!
Show Biz
- I forgot to mention the Oscars last week.
- I watched it live. Billy Crystal has been the best host for a number of Oscars now.
- Lord of the Rings won all 11 Oscars that it was nominated for last week. Whoo hoo!
-
Questions for Oscar. So Sting was playing a "hurdy-gurdy"
Web
- BugMeNot.com.
- 'BugMeNot.com was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that
require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information
(such as the New York Times).'
- I like the idea but it sounds like they could run into legal problems.
- RSS is raging
- 'Now that RSS is ascending so powerfully, I want to make an offer on its behalf. It
would be easy to say that other formats don't matter, but even if I believe that, the
community is better off if we have one format we're all promoting; as opposed to having
continued arguments about whether "issued" is better than "pubDate". The truth is that
neither is better or worse. If it works it's good. So from this strength, I've outlined a
plan to merge RSS and Atom,
much the same way we merged UserLand's format with Netscape's format in 1999. By making this
offer to the Atom people I'm giving them a chance to get out of conflict with RSS.'
- Sounds civil and fair to me. Backwards compatible with features that everyone wants and
plans for a non-proprietary future.
- The perils of Googling.
Hmm: How to use Google to help you crack passwords.
Writing
- To read or not to
read: New Shakespeare translations are the question
- Example:
- "Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know wherefore they do it." -Act 5, Scene 1.
- "I know how they think, and I understand why they're doing this." - Same scene, "No
Fear Shakespeare" translation.
- Example:
- "Beware the ides of March." Act 1, Scene 2
- "Beware of March 15." Same scene, "No Fear Shakespeare" translation.
- Clearly these translations should only be used as supplements.
2004-03-13t16:18:19Z
| RE: Martial Arts. Swords. Email. Sports.
My First CSG Thread: Control and Protection
Here are a few posts from a thread in the Yahoo Group
of the Chicago Swordplay Guild about
control in swordplay and the influence of protective gear. I'm recording the thread here because
it's a nice topic and it was my first exchange in the group. :)
Background: Dan designed and created a fiberglass sword because he was frustrated with how
quickly shinai (Japanese bamboo practice swords) broke in full-contact long sword sparring. The
initial engineering on the sword is impressive but it needs some work: It deforms, it's pokey, and
it "slaps". There was a thread about the sword and the experience people have been having with it in
class. I jumped into that thread with a small comment that led to a fairly meaty thread. I knew my
comment would be slightly controversial, but, hey, it broke the ice.
NOTE: I've removed all last names except for mine.
#4888
1)these are not meant for hockey helmet use
2)we all need to pull cuts and thrusts better regardless of what simulator is used...I've had
my bell rung pretty good by shinai as well as hard hits to the ribs. If we can't learn better
control really quickly than I don't see how anyone should be fencing with aluminum.
dan
#4905
Perhaps a few bouts without armor, while dangerous, would encourage better control. A full
speed blow stopped a hair away is impressive and beautiful.
-George Hernandez
#4906
Impressive and beautiful... true. After all, if we're hurting each other with protection
doesn't it make sense to get rid of the protection? Let's crack a few skulls in an attempt to be
beautiful and impressive. After all that's what we're trying to do. We're not about scholarship.
It's better to look good than to actually be good right? I am one of the people who has had the
most issues with control. This was witnessed by all on Saturday with an excessively late blow
against Ralph. Yeah, it would have been so much better if he wouldn't have had a helmet on.
And now this might be crazy but how about we try to use control while wearing the proper
protection? Any and every time a sword or sword simulator is in your hands it is an opportunity
to practice control.
Why dont' we do that instead of getting stupid.
Jain
#4907
George, you haven't been around for very long, so I'll be gentile. =)
Safety first. Period. See you Sat!
-Dave (GB)
#4916
Clearly we should wear protection. I'm sure that our insurance requires it. As far as
actually free sparring without protection, I don't think that can be done safely with live
weapons even by the most skilled.
My background is 13 years of training and teaching practically everyday in Shotokan karate.
The only protection we used were cups and cloth fistpads. We relied heavily on control. Anyone
can hit you and hurt you, but it takes training to exchange blows without injuring your partner.
In karate control was learned quickly because our weapons and armor was our own flesh. (You
won't have padding in real life.) A soft block was just as effective as a hard block but a lot
less painful. An uncontrolled technique to a defended target was painful on both sides. Then
there were the exercises that involved practicing receiving blows.
Protection serves multiple purposes. 1. It protects against slip-ups in control. 2. It
encourages faster, more forceful techniques. 3. In non-practice usage it provides life saving
protection. 4. Armor can appear impressive and have a psychological effect. 5. Protection can
discourage certain kinds of techniques or weapons. etc.
However there are negatives about protection: 1. It can encourage sloppy whack-attack
techniques and fighting styles. 2. It can give you over confidence and an under appreciation of
the pain and death your opponent can inflict. 3. It's hot, cumbersome, heavy, sweaty, expensive,
etc. 4. Grappling situations are artificial because your hands are clumsily covered and you
can't work on choke holds through a helmet. etc.
We should use protection but have an appreciation of control. How do we do this? There's
reasoning, there's "punishment", there's immediate pain feedback, there the experience of seeing
the result of lack of control, etc.
I saw that Greg made you guys do more reps if you made contact with the floor. That's good
but "punishment" feedback should be instantaneous. The problem with weapons is that only the
defender gets immediate pain feedback, while in karate both the attacker and defender get
immediate pain feedback.
Personally I'm for reasoning. Saving energy is a good reason for control. Preventing
injuries. The coolness of surgically defeating an opponent. Conserving your costly weapon. etc.
I've had enough pain, thank you. I've also seen enough results of lack of control, thank you.
-George Hernandez
#4917
Thanks Dave, I appreciate it.
You don't have to be gentle with my ideas: Just be gentle with me. :)
I'm happy to argue over my statements, and I'll tolerate ad hominem arguments in person ("Oh
yeah?! Well, you're so ugly that your doctor's a vet!"), but I don't have time for ad hominem
arguments online.
See y'all Sat!
-George Hernandez
#4918
George,
Thank you for an articulate, temperate response to Jain's somewhat testy comments. (Sorry,
Jain.) ;-)
Though it's been a long while since my own study of karate (Shorei-Goju), I can appreciate
your reasoning. For my part, I would put even more emphasis on the differences between
empty-hand sparring and weapons practice.
The crucial difference, it seems to me, is the vastly greater force and speed even a relative
beginner can generate with a weapon, long before he or she can reliably and accurately control
that force. (And I would say that this applies to me at this point.)
After all, aren't the speed and force (and reach) that weapons provide the reasons weapons
were created?
So I suspect that control of weapons, particularly something long and heavy like a longsword
waster or padded simulator (compared to, say, a foil or a kama), is a distinctly more difficult
task than control of the empty hand.
If you don't mind my asking, what rank do you hold in Shotokan, and where do you study?
Scott
#4925
Yes, humans have neither fang or claw so we use weapons. And yes weapons are more dangerous
than empty hands. For example: My son was able to chip my TV screen with a stick whereas his
hands usu. just apply peanut butter.
We can add other dimensions to the control issue:
A. School philosophy. I've appreciated how after just a few lessons, I'm in there free
sparring! Some schools might have you shaking sticks in empty air for months before you even got
close to even ritualized sparring. Don't get me wrong. I like this feature.
B. Newbishness. I see lack of control as a newby feature. (I lost a toe nail because someone
was simply heavy footed during an exercise.) The paradox is you want everyone to attack
vigorously and yet have control. If a newb makes excessive contact, it isn't really his or her
fault. If an experienced person make excessive contact, he or she should be embarrassed.
Of course accidents will happen but they should be much rarer for advance people. When my
opponent happened to burst forward at the precise moment I was punching and he got knocked flat
on his back: that was an accident. When my opponent did a blind reverse spinning kick to my head
and cracked my molar in half exposing the nerve: that was lack of control.
I was a seasoned 3rd dan (degree black belt) nearly ready to test for 4th when I retired in
1999 (my wife and I were having babies, my knees were hurting, work was heavy, and I was tired
of politics). The last place I taught was my own school in Chicago. (The old space 1470 W.
Webster is up for rent if you guys ever want to lease a place. We installed that floating floor
ourselves.)
I'm having an interesting time trying to forget everything I know and learn swordsmanship
from scratch (and from a Western approach). The old "empty my cup before I fill it" deal. It's
all about fun and exercise now.
-George Hernandez
#4933
I think these differences of opinions come from people's different backgrounds. Most folks
training with the CSG don't have much experience in other martial arts, so their sparring
experience is limited to CSG style sparring. For a number of reasons, the CSG has elected to go
down the full contact path (which of course doesn't mean not using control), and so our weapon
simulators reflect that.
There are some historical fencing groups out there who use less forgiving fencing weapons,
such as steel blunts, for the their free fencing from day one. Steven Hand and his group use
this approach. Obviously, they have to practice a lot of control and are not able to go as hard
and fast as we are. Each method has it's own advantages and disadvantages. When you spar full
contact, you get to learn what it is like to fight at full speed and learn to take a hit, but
you don't learn as much control. That is why, IMO, the CSG is going to have a hard time
switching over to the aluminums. It is quite a bit different than most of us are used to.
So I thing that that where Jain and George are failing to meet eye to eye is just the
difference in their respective martial art backgrounds. I believe that some sort of balance
between the two methods of sparring the best approach, but then again, my own personal martial
art background is probably getting in the way. That's just how it is!
-Keith
#4934
George-
I can see already that you are an enthusiastic and welcome member to the Guild!
I appreciate the thought that put into safety issues and the fact that you are a seasoned
veteran of physical contact. These qualities should enhance everyone's experience. I agree that
our foremost safety "equipment" is our discipline and control. It even starts with selection of
Guild members. I am in constant awe of our members' attributes: artists, actors, librarians,
authors, martial artists of various faiths, geeks, athletes. Everyone contributes to elevate the
art. It's like Camelot, or a rennaisance.
So, in that spirit, feel free to question, critique any issue of safety. There is no real
safety without it.
Lessons here:
Think about what you are doing.
Appreciate your partner.
Don't be afraid to question.
Safety equipment doesn't actually provide much safety.
Also, beware large wookies, or a smiling Mark [snip].
Nick
#4936
LOL, yes, George has jumped in with both feet!
For those of you who didn't meet George at last Wednesday's class, here's a formal
introduction:
Everyone, this is George. He took the Intro to Rapier class at Pulaski.
George, this is everyone.
We can all do a face to face on Saturday - perhaps social practice even?
Ash
#4941
OK, as the head instructor, I guess this is where I need to chime in.
Firstly, George I appreciate all three of your posts, and the points you were trying to make.
I also largely agree with them.
As Scott suggested, weapons are...well...weapons and the damage they can cause is nothing
short of lethal. So a certain degree of safety gear is always necessary. But it isn't and
shouldn't be a substitute for control.
Your comments about too much gear distorting technique is absolutely true. Likewise those
wherein any sort of touch is a hit. The two worst martial arts exhibitions I have attended were
a touch convention TKD tournament and a full-contact escrima tournament. In the former, the
fighters were skilled, but they weren't fighting, they were massaging the rules to make fast,
uncommitted attacks that would have done zilch in a fight. In the latter, the rounds were timed
and the combatants wearing escrima armour, which is roughly a gambeson, helmet and hockey
gloves. The sticks are lighter than normal and whoever lands the most hits wins. With little to
fear in the armour, it looked like to spastic cuisinarts attacking each other - not a single
effort being made to parry an attack. Whoever had the fastest hands won.
So as always, it's about balance. We've tried to structure the lower levels of
sparring/fencing - the novice longsword program and its prize-playing with students training in
minimal gear (nothing, or gloves and a fencing mask, depending on the technique) with a training
weapon, and bouting a weapon that is generally safe - the shinai-based swords - that can be used
in minimal gear but still provides enough sting and a "flinch factor" that people aren't willing
to just get hit. So far that has worked relatively well. At this initial level, when a student
is learning basic body mechanics and technique, I think the ability to bout at speed and with
significant force is important to impart how to actually use these weapons.
OTOH, you can know how to hit fast and hard, and not have a clue on how to modulate that
force as necessary. This isn't just a training liability, it's a fighting liability. Thus the
importance on control.
Further, there are just nuances that a metal weapon makes when fencing that a stick of any
sort can't do. Those are lost on newbies, so to my mind the risk of the more dangerous weapon
vs. what they will get out of it isn't justified. But as one progresses that changes. Thus the
scholars should be moving to training exclusively with aluminum and steel swords and bouting
with the aluminum ones - yes with more protection than the shinai, but not much. This is the
point wherein most Guilders are working on getting now.
Anyone who has seen well trained kenjutsu practitioners know that that they practice their
two-man kata (our "set-plays") full-speed, full-force, in distance with boken (wasters) with
zero protection. Escrimadors are the same way with their various flow drills. That is the sort
of training goal we should all have (although there's little reason not to have just a fencing
mask for safety), and while more gear will always be necessary, that is the same sort of control
that we all need to work towards when bouting. It's a long, slow process.
Anyway, there's a lot more to say about this, and more to work on as a group in the months to
come, but I think you get my gist.
Best,
Greg
I liked how this thread could have been a flame war but was diffused. My experience is that
controversial or extensive topics should be discussed in articles, phone calls, or in person (best)
but not in emails and message boards. (For more on this topic see
The Tyranny of Email.) I noticed that many of the posters above were good at avoiding
the flaming and staying on topic: this resulted in a thread with actual substance instead of just an
exchange of insults. This is why it is important that the Presidential candidates debate instead of
merely exchange negative ads (See
Democrat Kerry
Challenges Bush to Monthly Debates).
The topic of control and protection is also related to the recent news in the NHL (National Hocky
League) where Vancouver's Todd Bertuzzi broke the neck of Colorado's Steve Moore with a sucker punch
from behind. [Fighting
loses its appeal for this hockey fan]. If you have a score to settle with someone, then you do
it by beating them at the game or you settle it between yourselves at the bar afterwards. Plus the
whole behind the back attack was lame. Like John Wayne said: Never insult someone behind their back.
In martial arts if you're in a fighting match and you break the rules, it's bad for several
reason beyond the ones mentioned in the thread.
- You're a loser who can't win by playing the rules. This was pretty evident in the movie
Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon, when the 2 heroines fought it out and the younger Ziyi Zhang cheated to
beat Michelle Yeoh when she would have otherwise lost.
- Breaking the rules in martial arts can be very dangerous. Practicing a martial-like sport
instead of a martial art can make you forget that there is danger. Protective gear can make
people forget how vulnerable people are.
- Roughness escalates. This can be used to take your fighting to new levels but often it just
makes your fight stupid.
- Roughness can improve your character and your abilities, but excessive roughness does not.
If anything it detracts from the game, from progress, from fun.
In the real world of personal combat, there are no rules: go assassinate, murder, mass murder,
rape, assault and battery by any means necessary. Of course you'd be wrong, your actions illegal,
and you should go to jail.
In the real world, if you are attacked, if you are in a legal right to defend yourself, then you
should defend against your opponent vigorously by any means necessary (not just any means). Of
course, it would have been better to avoid the situation in the first place but sometimes it isn't
possible.
The concepts of personal combat are transferable to mass combat. The British thought the
Americans were fighting outside of the rules by using guerilla tactics in the American Revolutionary
War. However the Americans were fighting for a "just" cause. I imagine some of the modern terrorists
are fighting the powers that be for what they consider to be a "just" cause. When you have conflicts
between the powerful and the weak (whether class, race, military, economic, religious, etc.), the
weak might be driven to use any means necessary.
That is why the American Civil Rights Movement was a proud moment in history:
- The weak used peaceful dissent to fight a powerful foe.
- The powerful eventually listened and has worked hard to fix the inequities.
Our current situation with terrorism is not one to be proud of:
- The weak are using terrorism and violence to fight a powerful foe.
- The powerful have used pre-emptive war, circumnavigated democratic processes, scattered
cooperation, and have struggled to listen or learn about the causes of the problems.
In martial arts or modern war, we have to harness our violent animal side but dominate with our
minds, fairness, love, and love of life. This is not just yada, yada: Bushido, The Way of the
Warrior, involves thinking deeply about pain and death, which leads you to really appreciate joy and
life.
2004-03-20t10:46:58Z
| RE: A v B. Chicago. Computers. Elections. Faith. Food. Free Speech. Games. Green. Interesting. Iraq. Martial Arts. Money. Philosophy. Politics. Science. Sex. Spain. Web. World.
2004-03-20t10:46:58Z
A v B
- Fork v Chopsticks
- Before I go on with this discussion, it should be noted that I'm very proficient with
chopsticks.
- Lets compare these utensils:
- Picking up tiny morsels. Fingers or a tooth pick would do this job better than
either a fork or chopsticks. I can pick up a single grain of rice with chopsticks but
it's not worth the effort. A fork alone can't pick up a single grain of rice but a fork
combined with a spoon can easily pick up small items, so the fork wins here by a slight
cheat.
- Picking up small to medium bite-sized items. Both are very good at this. However it
is somewhat easier with a fork, so the fork has a minor win here.
- Picking up large bite-sized items that can be stabbed. Chopsticks can do this to a
minor degree, but this is a specialty of the fork. The fork wins easily.
- Picking up large bite-sized items that cannot be stabbed. Neither wins: Use your
hand.
- Drinking fluids. Neither wins: This is a job for a spoon or for drinking directly
out of the cup, glass, or bowl.
- Cutting food. Neither can cut alone: This is a job for a knife. However a fork is
great for helping a knife cuts, so the fork wins by a slight cheat again.
- Appearance. Both can be made to look beautiful.
- Ease of cleaning during a meal. Both are easily licked or wiped during a meal.
- Ease of cleaning after a meal. Tines can sometimes be difficult to clean. Chopsticks
are always easy to clean. Chopsticks win on this point.
- Forming sets. It is slightly more difficult to parse out forks with spoons per
setting, than it is to grab a handful of chopsticks and parse out a pair per setting.
Chopsticks have a win here.
- Summary: The fork has 4 wins, chopsticks have 2 wins, and there are 4 ties. It seems
that chopsticks are more server oriented while forks are more consumer oriented. Both must
be supplemented with more specialized utensils depending on the dish.
- My vote is for the fork.
Chicago
- Marshall
Field's for sale: Sagging results a drag on parent firm [Target]
- Alas! It was bad enough when they stopped making Frangos in house.
- 'The poor performance by Field's, as well as the struggles of another homegrown
merchant, Sears, Roebuck and Co., are clear examples of how fundamental changes are remaking
the retail industry, squeezing traditional department stores. On one side, discounters such
as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target are stealing price conscious shoppers. On the other,
luxury retailers such as Nordstrom Inc. and Neiman Marcus Group Inc. have lured high-end
shoppers.'
- 'Wednesday's announcement creates uncertainty for the Field's chain, known to
generations of Chicagoans for its Frango mints, green bags and Christmas displays in the
windows of the State Street store. It was the nation's first department store to include a
dining room and offer a bridal registry. ... It began as a dry-goods retailer on Lake Street
in 1852 and was renamed Marshall Field & Co. in 1881. Batus Industries Inc. bought the chain
from Chicago's Field family in 1982, and Dayton Hudson Corp., now Target Corp., acquired it
from Batus.'
Computers
-
Lindows Concedes Name Game to Microsoft in Benelux
- O the power of Microsoft... lawyers.
- 'Lindows.com Inc., a maker of low-cost computers running Linux software, on Friday said
it had halted operations in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg in the latest round of
its cat-and-mouse legal battle with Microsoft Corp.'
- 'In its filing, Microsoft had complained that the Lindows main Web site,
http://www.lindows.com, was flaunting a previous Dutch
court injunction against using the Lindows name by referring visitors from Belgium,
Luxembourg the Netherlands and Sweden to a separate home page,
http://www.lin---s.com/. Visitors to this referral
page were met with a stick-figure sketch of an unfinished game of hangman. The accompanying
text, which read Lin---s.com, was situated above the letters of the alphabet. Twenty-three
of the 26 letters were crossed out, with only the "D," "O" and "W" remaining, leaving the
reader to complete the puzzle and fill in the full word "Lindows." '
- I'll have to admit that Lindows was trying to pull of a pretty lame cheap trick.
- FBI adds to wiretap wish
list
- 'A far-reaching proposal from the FBI, made public Friday, would require all broadband
Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire their networks to support
easy wiretapping by police. '
- ' "It is a very big deal and will be very costly for the Internet and the deployment of new
technologies," said Stewart Baker, who represents Internet providers as a partner at law firm
Steptoe & Johnson. "Law enforcement is very serious about it. There is a lot of emotion behind
this. They have stories that they're very convinced about in which they have not achieved access
to communications and in which wiretaps have failed." '
- Frightening stuff. There is no privacy. This is like having a spy-bug in your computer. You
might as well have a spy-bug on your phone, in your living room, in your car, in your mail,
anywhere, everywhere.
- What The Font?!
- 'Ever wanted to have a font just like the one used by certain publications, corporations, or
ad campaigns? Well now you can, using the WhatTheFont font recognition system. Upload a scanned
image of the font and we'll show you the closest matches in our database! '
- Nice little online utility.
- Perl/Php Translation. Concise.
- Guinness
record for world's smallest disk drive. 4 GB on a 0.85 inch (22 mm) quarter-sized drive by
Toshiba. Slated for production by 2004-12.
- VisiBone Announcement #11, March 2004.
I've always liked VisiBone's style and products. They've updated their cards and they have a new
nifty card for fonts.
- Graphical User Interface Gallery.
This is actually pretty cool. Different icons in different OSes, remembering what Windows 1.0
looked like, etc.
- Driving to Laptopia. Just
what we need: A4LA (Another 4 Letter Acronym): LOTL (Linux On The Laptop)
-
Cashing In on Virus Infections
- 'After a recent epidemic of computer viruses that seemed much worse than usual, security
experts are questioning whether the antivirus software industry is working hard enough -- or has
enough incentive -- to develop new and better ways of stopping nasty software. '
- Sort of pokes the conspiracist in you eh? Sure some of these hackers do it for their own
reasons (like using your server as theirs or "SCO deserves it") but profit would be a good
reason to do it an the ones who'd profit are the antivirus folks.
- Consider also the pop-up ads: They are extremely annoying. Would anyone ever buy anything
from something so annoying? The only product I see being sold is software to block the pop-up
ads. The same type of argument could be made for spam, viruses, worms, etc.
Elections
-
Unscripted Kerry calls GOP liars
- 'Seemingly unaware that his microphone was still on, Sen. John Kerry used
uncharacteristically harsh language Wednesday to describe Republicans as "crooked" and
"lying" during a quiet exchange with several workers at the Hill Mechanical Group in
Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood.'
- ' "We're going to keep pounding, let me tell you. We're just beginning to fight here,"
Kerry said. "These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's
scary." '
- 'Wade said Kerry used the word "crooked" to describe the personal attacks he has
endured. Those attacks, he said, included doctored photos of Kerry falsely showing him
protesting the Vietnam War with Jane Fonda and wrongly portraying him shooting a prisoner
during his stint in the Navy.'
- Howard Stern's
schwing voters
- 'The raunchy jockey is mobilizing his army of listeners against Bush -- and they could make
a difference in November'
- 'Declaring a "radio jihad" against President Bush, syndicated morning man Howard Stern and
his burgeoning crusade to drive Republicans from the White House is shaping up as a colossal
media headache for the GOP, and one they never saw coming. '
- Way to go Stern!
-
Dems attack videos promoting Medicare law: Bush administration pays actors to pose as TV
journalists. Not surprising. His PR team has been faking crap all along. Come to think of it his
administration has been fudging things all along as well.
-
Rove: Kerry Has Taste of Bush Campaign
- Rove shares some of his insights on how he'll run the campaign.
- 'Addressing a small group of conservative activists, Rove assured them that Bush planned a
nimble campaign able to counterpunch even before Kerry opens his mouth.'
-
-
Publicity Campaign Under Scrutiny: Bush Administration Releases Fake News Reports Touting
Medicare
- 'Federal investigators are examining pre-produced television news stories, written and paid
for by the government, which have the appearance of legitimate news segments delivered by
independent reporters. Recorded in both English and Spanish, they were sent to local television
stations across the country to publicize the new law.'
- Sigh. I'm sick and tired of posting about all the crap Bush does.
-
Obama routs Democratic foes; Ryan tops crowded GOP field
- Whoo hoo! I voted for Democrat Barack Obama and he's now the Democrat nominee for the IL
seat in the US Senate. He go 54%, while Dan Hynes, took 2nd place with only 23%.
- In contrast Republican Jack Ryan's 36% narrowly won over 2nd place Jim Oberweis who got 23%.
- While both winners are both handsome Harvard grads, Obama will win the Illinois Senate seat
currently held by Republican Peter Fitzgerald for several reasons:
- There are no African Americans in the senate at the moment.
- Why would you vote Ryan, if his ex-wife Jeri Ryan (7 of 9 from Star Trek: Voyager)
had to get a restraining order against him.
- This country needs to pull away from the radical Republican direction.
Faith
Food
Free Speech
- The Daily Stern
- 'This morning, Stern tried to play a clip from the
Oprah show
yesterday in which they were doing exactly what Stern was fined for yesterday: defining
sexual colloquialisms. Oprah defined "tossing your salad," Howard defined "David Copperfield."
Oprah played it on her show. Jimmy Kimmel played the clip on his network show to make the point.
But Stern's button-pushers hit the delay button when he tried to play it. Howard begged to play
it: Let them fine Oprah as a pornographer. But they won't fine Oprah. They only want to fine
Stern. Same statement, different mouths, different treatment.'
- The FCC can kiss my fucking ass while I piss and take a shit. Sure words like shit, piss,
fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd, cock, ass, and twat are swear words but
there are ideas and actions that are much more profane. (I'm surprised that nigger wasn't on the
FCC list at the time that George Carlin got in trouble for it.) Most of the women's magazines in
the grocery aisle are just as steamy as Stern's stuff. Who watches Stern that doesn't know what
they're getting into?! Where the hell will these cocksuckers draw the line? Fuck this radical
Right movement!
- FCC Revives Notion of the
Profane
- 'In a decision released yesterday, the FCC announced a new doctrine of fining "profane"
broadcasts. Although
18 USC 1464
has always given the FCC jurisdiction over "obscene, indecent or profane language," the FCC
has never based any fine on "profane" language, preferring to rely on indecency rulings.
Given the newness of this interpretation of the law and the vagaries of the definition of
"profane," this might be the most far reaching of the FCC's recent assaults on freedom of
expression. Could the FCC be getting into the business of regulating hate speech?'
- 'Back in October, the FCC ruled that the use of the word "fucking" as an adjective was
not indecent (Bono
Says 'Fucking' on TV; FCC Says 'OK'). Following
Janet Jackson's wardrobe
malfunction, the FCC decided to revisit that decision. Unsurprisingly, it was overturned
and the use of the word "fucking," as in "this is really, really fucking brilliant," was
found to be indecent.'
- 'The first thing that struck me, however, was not that the use of "fucking" as an
adjective was found to be indecent. I understand the FCC thing about indecency. I don't
agree, but I understand it. What struck me and what I don't really understand is this whole
"profane" thing. Isn't "profane" something like blasphemy or contempt for the sacred? Well,
it used to be. Used to be, as in people are seldom prosecuted or fined for it anymore, and
the FCC never used it. Turns out, where most anti-indecency folks would have been happy with
overturning the original "fucking" decision, the FCC decided to go one big step further and
has decided to basically create a doctrine of the profane.'
- 'The second half of the definition is really what is of interest. My first question in
regards to this is, what is the difference between "grossly offensive" and "patently
offensive"? There is no distinction in law between the two that I am aware of.'
- 'For the FCC, a finding that something is "patently offensive" should terminate any
further inquiry as to whether the speech can be regulated. Under the FCC's definition, once
you have determined that something is "patently offensive," it is profane and you can
regulate it. The FCC will never have to make a further inquiry as to whether that particular
speech is indecent.'
- 'Yes, but the statute discusses "profane" language, not profanity. They are related
terms to be sure, but they are not synonymous - we still need a definition of "profane" that
is not identical to "indecent." Furthermore, by emphasizing a definition of "vulgar and
coarse" language, the FCC seems to be emphasizing a highly vague and overbroad standard.
After all, not all vulgar and coarse language is indecent or "profane." For example, "Check
out that hot momma!" is vulgar and coarse, but it is hardly indecent or profane. The
American Heritage Dictionary claims that "kick butt" is vulgar slang. Well, maybe, but I
hardly think it is profane or indecent in nearly any context. Indeed, "fuck" is always a
profanity, but it is not necessarily "profane" to say it, for example as part of a bona fide
news cast. So, although "fucking" might be "patently offensive" in this context, we still
haven't gotten any closer to an idea about what "profane" means.'
- '"Profane" can't be about blasphemy, that would raise all sorts of freedom of religion
issues, but it has to be distinct from "indecent." I think that leaves hate speech. Seems to
me the FCC has decided that it wants to regulate the broadcast of hate speech.'
Games
- Pastimes and Paradigms: Games We
Play. 'The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections investigates the evolution of games
since 1800 through PASTIMES AND PRADIGMS : GAMES WE PLAY. The exhibition includes a wide variety
of antique and contemporary games, as well as rare books on rules, strategies, and recreation.'
- http://www.eyezmaze.com/vanilla/. Irritating
for adults but some kids will like it.
Green
- Earth faces sixth mass
extinction
- 'Butterflies in Britain are going extinct at an even greater rate than birds, according
to the most comprehensive study ever of butterflies, birds, and plants. '
- 'Crucially, the decline in populations happened in all the major ecosystems and was
distributed evenly across Britain, rather than in just a few heavily degraded regions.'
- 'This claim is strongly supported, at least for plants, by a second study published
alongside Thomas' paper in Science. Carly Stevens of the Open University in Milton Keynes,
UK, and her colleagues studied the diversity of plants in 68 grassland sites in the UK.'
- People used to bring small creatures down into the mines so that if those caged little
animals died, then the people would know that something dangerous was going on and the
people should get out. Of course the Brown people will say "Oh its just some butterflies,
birds, and grasses... we'll be fine."
Interesting
- Barbie Fashion
Show
- I'm not into Barbie but I know at least 1 little girl who is: Connie.
- 'A Barbie Fashion Show is held on Mar.10, 2004 in Paris. The show is to celebrate the
45th anniversary of Barbie's birth.'
- Dozens of photos of Barbie in some very nice outfits.
- The Creatures From the Sandwich Shop: Behind the
singing rodents in the Quiznos ad.
- "We love the subs! 'Cuz they are good to us. The Quiznos subs. They are tasty, they are
crunchy, they are warm because they toast them. They got a pepper bar!" -Lyrics sung by
spongmonkeys of RatherGood.com origin.
- Sadly, I've got the goofy song stuck in my head. I was able to ignore it before as the usual
hatten-like videos passing around the Web. But this style has spread beyond the Web to TV land
and now that I've met different people talking about it, it has become like a wart in my brain.
 - Video of the commercial
- HouseGymnastics.com. O dear, some people just
never grew up. (Lucky fools). An indoors version of
UrbanFreeFlow.com.
- "Stairway To
Gilligan". Ha ha! Parody of "Stairway To Heaven" sung with the lyrics of the theme song from
Gililigan's Island.
- Lite-Brites Online. Whee! Connie
will love this.
- Select All: Can you
have too many choices? Nice article. Many ideas with business applications.
- 'A few decades of research has made it clear that most people are terrible choosers--they
don't know what they want, and the prospect of deciding often causes not just jitters but
something like anguish.'
- 'In the real world, neither people nor firms maximize utility. Life is complicated, the
options of the marketplace are numerous, and the human intellect is frail. As Herbert Simon, the
1978 Nobel laureate in economics, observed, any firm that tried to make decisions that would
"maximize" its returns would bankrupt itself in a never-ending search for the best option. What
firms do instead is "satisfice," to use Simon's term: they content themselves with results that
are "good enough."'
- Ah yes, procrastinators are well aware of these techniques. Sometimes you just have to jump
in and deal with your choices. Personally I'm a maximizer but I can make the decision if there
are time restraints.
- 'In a study conducted several years ago, shoppers who were offered free samples of six
different jams were more likely to buy one than shoppers who were offered free samples of
twenty-four. This result seems irrational--surely you're more apt to find something you like from
a range four times as large--but it can be replicated in a variety of contexts. Students who are
offered six topics they can write about for extra credit, for instance, are more likely to write
a paper than students who are offered thirty.'
- 'Why should this be? Schwartz suggests that it has to do with the irrational way people
measure "opportunity costs." Instead of calculating opportunity cost as the value of the single
most attractive foregone alternative, we seem to assemble an idealistic composite of all the
options foregone. A wider range of slightly inferior options, then, can make it harder to settle
on one you're happy with.'
- The Senator Prank. A man sent a
letter, posing as a 10 year old boy, to all the US Senators asking them for their favorite joke.
- TheoryCards.org.uk. 'The Theory.org.uk Trading
Cards are a pack of 32 cards featuring theorists and concepts close to the hearts of people
interested in social and cultural theory, gender and identity, and media studies. '
- This is a really short quiz with astonishing
results; It'll only take a minute or two. When asked to name people you know, please be
truthful; it matters. Don't take this quiz unless you're prepared to be a chump. (Nothing
harmful)
- TemporaryTemples.co.uk. Actually only
mildly interesting because some of this stuff is easily faked with Photoshop these days.
- Exit Mundi: A collection of End-of-World
Scenarios. But hasn't it all been laid out by Isaac Asimov?
- Human Target [2 minute video].
Stupid but funny as hell. The guy could have run away screaming at any moment but he held his
ground. I think they should have had more than just 1 bucket of water.
- The modern-day Venus de Milo.
'The vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square is to be filled with a marble statue of a naked woman.
Rather than aping classical sculpture, the model - Alison Lapper, born with no arms - says it is
a very modern take on femininity.'
- AnimalYawns.com. Just a bunch of pictures of
animals yawning. I wasn't going to post it but then I noticed that I was yawning too! I must
have some empathy after all.
- Airport ABCs: An Explanation of Airport
Identifier Codes.
- I'm parking this here because amazingly enough a need to know this kind of stuff always
comes up.
- Of course all of you Chicagoans know why O'Hare airport is ORD, right?
-
From pirate dwarves to ninja elves...
- 'I have always considered the profound distinction between ninjas and pirates to be an
absolute one. One was either ninja or pirate - there were no inbetweens. One personality type
was skilled and proficient, elegant and silent, contained and constrained, honourable and
spiritual. The other type loud and flamboyant, gregarious and unrestrained, life-loving and
vigorous, passionate and strong. I thought all people must pledge their allegiance, or be
categorised accordingly.
- I'm more ninja than pirate.
- The other day at work, another binary pair was presented to me - a co-worker who doesn't
declare people pirate or ninja, but instead elf or dwarf. For him, humanity falls into doers and
thinkers - elves being elegant and timeless, conceptual and refined, abstract and beautiful
while dwarves are practical and structural, hard-working and no-nonsense, down-to-earth smiths
and makers. It's a view of the world that's expounded a bit in Cryptonomicon.'
- I'm a little more dwarf than elf.
-
- 'And it doesn't end there! You could plot people's operating systems against it - Dwarves
being more Linux-focused, elves more Apple-oriented. Pure graphic designers have a tendency
towards the top right, interaction designers are spread across the top. You can also deduce a
lot about the people I tend to associate with online - there's an enormous clump of people on
the pirate / ninja axis who aren't heavily elf or dwarf. In this context, this suggests a group
of old-school web people who have tended toward balanced expertises across a range of
disciplines. It's interesting how those people with more clearly defined job roles tend to move
towards the corners too.'
- Eccleston is new
Dr Who
- I just hope they focus on the stories and don't try to make the special effects particularly
good.
- 'Shallow Grave actor Christopher Eccleston has been named as the new Doctor Who to front the
cult BBC sci-fi show when it returns next year. '
-
Iraq
-
A soldier back from Iraq discusses the war and the U.S. soldiers fighting that war, the
suicides, and much more.
- Here are some of the better questions and answers. The questions are italicized.
- 'Do you think the American public is well-informed about what is happening in Iraq? No,
I really don't. I see young people on my medical table all the time, people who have lost
their legs or arms or had other terrible injuries. No one back home sees any of that. I've
been home for a month and I haven't seen a casualty yet on television. I'm still waiting.
Where are the casualties? It's as if it doesn't exist, as if it doesn't happen.'
- 'What about Iraqi deaths and injuries? We don't care about Iraqi deaths. It's
something that does not even count. The hospital was told not to keep count. The Iraqi
infrastructure does not keep an account of the deaths anymore. '
- 'Why? The American government told them not to. We do always keep a list of the
Americans injured and the number that die. But here in America you don't see anything about
these soldiers coming back. You don't read anything about the funeral. It's like it's a
secret, like these people didn't exist. '
- 'Was it like this in previous wars? No.'
- 'What brought about the change? From what I gather, it used to be that the
president would go out to the area to meet the [deceased] soldiers coming in. They would
drape the caskets and they would actually watch and give a moment of silence as the coffin
came by. The Bush Administration felt that was too much for Americans to handle, so they
secured that part of the ceremony so that no one knows when that fallen soldier comes home.
It's an injustice to the military, because you gave your life to the country and the country
should give something back to you. Even just a moment of silence. Every day that someone
dies, the flag should be lowered to half staff. Not just because a politician died.'
- 'Are the men and women in the U.S. military in Iraq sufficiently trained before going
over there? No. I am extremely concerned about the major shift that is taking place
right now, between now and June, where there's going to be a much higher percentage of the
troops being Reserves rather than full-time, active duty military. The difference is that
the active duty go through far more training than Reserves. Up to now, we've had a mix of
about 20 percent Reserves and 80 percent active duty. With the change going on now, they are
rotating out tens of thousands of active duty troops and replacing a lot of them with
Reserves. We've heard that could be 80 percent Reserves and 20 percent active duty. Some
sources say it could be 50/50. But the main point is, nothing like that has ever been tried
before, and these Reserves are being sent into a war zone.'
- 'What did you think about President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Iraq? I was
there when President Bush came to the [Baghdad] airport. The day before, you had to fill out
a questionnaire and answer questions, that would determine whether they would allow you in
the room with the President.'
- 'Is a soldier free, for example, to speak to the media if it is in support of the
president and his policies, but not free to do so if in opposition or if raising
uncomfortable questions? If you are spouting good things about the president, you are
allowed to speak. If you are saying anything negative, you are not allowed to speak. '
- 'How did you feel when you saw President Bush arrive in a flight suit on the aircraft
carrier off the coast of San Diego, with the banner "Mission Accomplished"? We laughed.'
- 'Why? We have a saying about people who dress up in military uniforms, like Idi
Amin or Mussolini. People like that have something to hide. The reason they wear the uniform
is to make themselves feel big, feel proud.'
- 'How did you feel when the President said to the Iraqis, to the insurgents,
"Bring it on!" Being a medical person, I take an oath to try to protect my troops at all times.
Anything that puts them in danger, alarms me. And that was unnecessary.'
- 'Do the troops currently serving in Iraq have a sense of how long the U.S. military
is likely to remain there? Yes. We know it's going to be a minimum of ten years.'
- 'Based on what? Based on our government telling us that. A minimum of ten years.'
- 'And these caucuses that have been proposed by the American occupation authorities
and the Iraqi Governing Council they appointed? They're not going to fly.
- 'Because there would be American control over them? Yes.'
- 'Which is what people like Ayatollah Sistani are questioning. Dead against. He
thinks the Governing Council they have now is phony. They will not survive if an election
happens. Many of those people are from Virginia, New York, and London. They spent the last
20 years in the United States and England.'
- Rumsfeld Caught On Camera [50 sec.
video]
- Ha the fucker! He says he and the Bush administration never used the words
imminent/immediate threat and then they pull out citations where he did. Then Rumsfeld goes on
to completely ignore his lies. I'm sick of the people changing their stories and denying stuff.
As if we have no memories or we're idiots. As if they god damn fucking Jedi Masters or
something.
- And if he denies that there was an immediate threat, then we went in preemptively right?
- Iraq On The Record
- 'The Iraq on the Record Report, prepared at the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, is a
comprehensive examination of the statements made by the five Administration officials most
responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President
George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of
State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. '
- Powerful blast
shatters Baghdad hotel: At least 29 dead, 50 wounded
- Former White House Terrorism Advisor: Bush
Admin Was Discussing Bombing Iraq For 9/11 Despite Knowing Al Qaeda Was To Blame
- 'Former White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tells Lesley Stahl that on September
11, 2001 and the day after - when it was clear Al Qaeda had carried out the terrorist attacks -
the Bush administration was considering bombing Iraq in retaliation. Clarke's exclusive
interview will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday March 21 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS
Television Network.
Clarke was surprised that the attention of administration officials was turning toward Iraq
when he expected the focus to be on Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. "They were talking about Iraq
on 9/11. They were talking about it on 9/12," says Clarke.
The top counter-terrorism advisor, Clarke was briefing the highest government officials,
including President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the aftermath of 9/11. "Rumsfeld
was saying we needed to bomb Iraq....We all said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan,"
recounts Clarke, "and Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are
lots of good targets in Iraq.' I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places,
but Iraq had nothing to do with [the 9/11 attacks],'" he tells Stahl.
Clarke goes on to explain what he believes was the reason for the focus on Iraq. "I think
they wanted to believe that there was a connection [between Iraq and Al Qaeda] but the CIA was
sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there, saying, 'We've looked at this
issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection,'" says Clarke.'
- Off the Mark on
Cost of War, Reception by Iraqis
- 'A year ago tonight, President Bush took the nation to war in Iraq with a grand vision for
change in the Middle East and beyond. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, his administration
predicted, would come at little financial cost and would materially improve the lives of Iraqis.
Americans would be greeted as liberators, Bush officials predicted, and the toppling of Saddam
Hussein would spread peace and democracy throughout the Middle East. '
- 'On April 23, 2003, Andrew S. Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International
Development, laid out in a televised interview the costs to U.S. taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq.
"The American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on
funding for this." That turned out to be off by orders of magnitude. The administration,
which asked Congress for another $20 billion for Iraq reconstruction five months after Natsios
made his assertion, has said it expects overall Iraqi reconstruction costs to be as much as $75
billion this year alone.'
- 'In testimony to Congress on March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz said Iraq "can really finance its own
reconstruction, and relatively soon." In fact, the administration has already sought more than
$150 billion for the Iraq effort.'
- 'In its predictions a year ago, the Bush administration similarly underestimated the
resistance the United States would face in Iraq. "I really do believe we will be greeted as
liberators," Vice President Cheney said in a March 16 interview.'
- 'Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz derided a general's claim that pacifying
Iraq would take several hundred thousand U.S. troops. And Rumsfeld, in February 2003,
predicted that the war "could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." '
- 'By yesterday, 574 American and 100 other coalition troops had died in Iraq. As many as
6,400 Iraqi soldiers are believed to have died in combat, and the insurgency continues to claim
the lives of Iraqi civilians. '
- '"Unfortunately, it's been 11 months since the fall of Baghdad, and the U.S. still hasn't
fulfilled those expectations of [providing] basic security or services," said Kenneth Pollack,
research director of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center and a former National Security
Council staff member in the Clinton and current Bush administrations. "At this point, Iraqis
are beginning to think that, if those services have not been provided, it may be because we're
unable or unwilling to do so." '
- 'A poll of Iraqis released this week by ABC News found that 42 percent of Iraqis, and 33
percent of Arab Iraqis, said the war liberated Iraq, but that 41 percent of Iraqis, and 48
percent of Arab Iraqis, said it humiliated the country. The presence of U.S.-led forces in
Iraq is opposed by 51 percent of Iraqis. '
- 'The ABC News poll confirms this. Fifty-six percent of Iraqis said things are better than
before the war, and 71 percent expect that their lives will be even better next year. '
- Finally, some good news. Of course this could have been achieved by other means.
-
Poland 'taken for a ride' over Iraq's WMD: President.
- So Spain's pulling out 1300 and now Poland's pulling out 9,000. And elsewhere the Bush
administration is minimizing it by saying something like "O, it's only a small fraction of the
100,000 soldier there most of whom are American". So then: is it really a coalition? Asshat?
- ' "That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken
for a ride," [President Aleksander] Kwasniewski said Thursday. '
- Eric Alterman interviewed
by Dennis Miller [video]
- Ha ha ha! I thought Miller was supposed to be a smart comedian who was pro-Bush but Alterman
totally runs him down.
- Dennis Miller sucks
hard is a good textual rundown by SK Bubba
- 'Miller then started mocking him, laying over in his chair, acting like he was asleep,
saying "You're pissed off. Why are you pissed off? This is all I'm getting from you", blah blah
blah. "Gimme a question and I'll ask you a question" says Miller dismissively. '
- It looked so weird and pathetic when Miller did this. Perhaps Miller was on depressants.
- 'Miller let Alterman talk about his book for a while, about the war on terrorism, Iraq, all
the lies and deception. Miller mocked him some more, and then started interrupting him. At one
point he wouldn't let Alterman finish a single sentence, and Alterman said "Ok, is this how
you do it? Is that all you've got? This is your argument?" '
- 'So anyway, more about Bush lies and deceptions, Iraq, etc. Alterman was smoking, and
Miller had no rebuttal or intelligent follow-up questions whatsoever. Of course, deep inside
Miller must have known that everything Alterman was saying was true and that there was simply no
defending the White House policies Alterman was talking about.'
- Must've been depressants.
- 'Then Miller abruptly sat up, grabbed his note cards, turned to the camera and said
dismissively "OK you've been great come back anytime." '
- That is anytime Alterman wants to kick Millers ass!
- "Terror Is Losing" by
Paul Wolfowitz
- Some good news about the status freedom of speech, electicity restored, oil production
restored, schools reopening, etc. 'Funding for public health care is up 26 times the level under
Saddam.' I have no doubt that we are indeed planting and growing democracy in Iraq. But this
does not mean that the way we've fought terrorism was the cheapest or best way to do it
financially, politically, logistically, etc.
Martial Arts
Money
- Record Gas Pump Prices
Expected in Spring
- 'The Energy Information Administration, an Energy Department agency, said this month
that gasoline prices might rise to a nationwide average of $1.83 a gallon in April and $1.82
in May, past the previous record -- not adjusted for inflation -- of $1.747 a gallon in August
2003. Gasoline prices have already climbed more than 20 percent this year to an average of
$1.72 nationwide. '
- The Future of Money and How Banks
Should Prepare
- 'By 2008, no one nation will be able to stabilize the world economy as the United States
has done since World War II. The global economy is growing proportionally larger than the
U.S. economy. Until recently, the U.S. dollar has been the only global reserve currency. Since
the introduction of the euro in 2000, Chinese and Japanese companies have begun shifting some of
their assets into euros. And Russia may switch its trade in oil from dollars to euros. If this
trend moves rapidly, national economies will face a painful adjustment. '
- Yep, OPEC will probably switch to euros too (no thanks to that dumb ass Bush).
- Fed
freezes key rate at 1958 low [1.00%], blocked by weak jobs growth
- 'Combined with weighty tax cuts, super-low rates helped propel growth to a 19-year record
8.2 percent in the third quarter of last year, before leveling off to a more sustainable 4.1
percent in the last quarter.'
- Yes, Bush's short term input with short term results. But with taxes and interest rates so
low: what else do they have? Will they ever admit that progressive democratic deals give people
security and continuity, which is what's really important?
- The Brief
Reign of the Knowledge Worker: Information Technology and Technological Unemployment
- U.S.
Administrator Imposes Flat Tax System on Iraq
- I mentioned this
back in
December and it's still hard to believe but let's see how this experiment runs. After all
anything can happen in Iraq.
- Related links:
Philosophy
- Whose Life
Would You Save?
- Very good. Very rare to see a true mesh of philosophy and science. It covers a
lot of classical ethical problems.
- ' "Let's say you're walking by a pond and there's a drowning baby, " Greene says, over
chicken tikka masala. "If you said, 'I've just paid $200 for these shoes and the water would
ruin them, so I won't save the baby,' you'd be an awful, horrible person. But there are
millions of children around the world in the same situation, where just a little money for
medicine or food could save their life. And yet we don't consider ourselves monsters for
having this dinner rather than giving the money to Oxfam. Why is that?" '
- 'Over the past four years, Greene has scanned dozens of people making these kinds of
moral judgments. What he has found can be unsettling. Most of us would like to believe that
when we say something is right or wrong, we are using our powers of reason alone. But Greene
argues that our emotions also play a powerful role in our moral judgments, triggering
instinctive responses that are the product of millions of years of evolution. "A lot of our
deeply felt moral convictions may be quirks of our evolutionary history," he says. Greene's
research has put him at the leading edge of a field so young it still lacks an official
name. Moral neuroscience? Neuroethics? Whatever you call it, the promise is profound.
"Some people in these experiments think we're putting their soul under their microscope,"
Greene says, "and in a sense, that is what we're doing." '
- ' "Kant puts what's right before what's good," says Greene. "Mill puts what's good
before what's right." But by the time Greene came to Princeton for graduate school in 1997,
he had become dissatisfied with utilitarians and Kantians alike. None of them could explain
how moral judgments work in the real world.'
- 'The crux of the matter, Greene decided, lay not in the logic of moral judgments but
in the role our emotions play in forming them. He began to explore the psychological
studies of the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume argued that people call an
act good not because they rationally determine it to be so, but because it makes them feel
good. They call an act bad because it fills them with disgust. Moral knowledge, Hume wrote,
comes partly from an "immediate feeling and finer internal sense."
- 'The evolutionary origins of morality are easy to imagine in a social species. A sense
of fairness would have helped early primates cooperate. A sense of disgust and anger at
cheaters would have helped them avoid falling into squabbling. As our ancestors became more
self-aware and acquired language, they transformed those feelings into moral codes that they
then taught their children.'
- 'As Greene's subjects mulled over his questions, the scanner measured the activity in
their brains. When all the questions had flashed before the volunteers, Greene was left with
gigabytes of data, which then had to be mapped into a picture of the brain. "It's not
hard, like philosophy-hard, but there are so many details to keep track of," he says.
When he was done, he experienced a "pitter-patter heartbeat moment." Just as he had
predicted, personal moral decisions tended to stimulate certain parts of the brain more than
impersonal moral decisions.'
- He he. Science isn't as hard as philosophy eh?
- 'The more people Greene scanned, the clearer the pattern became: Impersonal decisions
(like whether to throw a switch on a trolley) triggered many of the same parts of the brain
as does non-moral questions (like whether you should take the train or the bus to work).
Among the regions that become active was a patch on the surface of the brain near the
temples. This region, known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, is vital for logical
thinking. Neuroscientists believe it helps keeps track of several pieces of information at
once so that they can be compared. "We're using our brains to make decisions about things
that evolution hasn't wired us up for," Greene says. Personal moral questions lit up other
areas. One, located in the cleft of the brain behind the center of the forehead, plays a
crucial role in understanding what other people are thinking or feeling. A second, known as
the superior temporal sulcus, is located just above the ear; it gathers information about
people from the way they move their lips, eyes, and hands. A third, which comprises parts of
two adjacent regions known as the posterior cingulate and the precuneus, becomes active when
people feel strong emotions.'
- This also gives insight on how leaders can tell soldiers to go to war. Bush may
logically think that "they" should be killed instead of "us" and they also feel strongly
about "our" deaths and feel less strongly about "their" deaths. Bush is wrong: neither
"they" or "us" should be killed, and a leader should feel for the death on both
sides.
- Pope John Paul and other spiritual people believe that there should be much less
war. Doing "evil" in the name of the good should be extremely rare, it should be an
extreme case. If you have to do evil in the name of the good then you have to be sure
that you've exhausted all other options. (I don't think Bush did.) Only then do you send
societies toughies to do evil in the name of the good. That is why society appreciates
its police officers and soldiers: yes there is the physical hardship and self-sacrifice,
but there is also the fact that they have to dole out the punishment, they have to do
"evil" on our behalf.
- Martial artists, cops, and soldiers play out and visual injuring, maiming, and
killing hundreds and hundreds of times on practically a daily basis. It is definitely
for the mental toughness to do morally challenging tasks, but such training should not
handicap moral judgment. Such a person has to feel that they have to do what they do.
The situation at hand has to warrant it. They have to trust that their orders were
necessary, that their leaders followed processes, developed by society, and that the
leaders had the judgment to deviate from processes only if absolutely necessary.
- People would make better moral judgments if any potentially evil act had great
intellectual reasons and great emotional heights from many perspectives. A leader should
visualize killing a thousand men one at a time with his bare hands before sending
soldiers to war. A leader should visualize picking a thousand pockets one at a time
before scamming their customers.
- I suspect that many religions and movements use the emotion of physical suffering to
"inspire" goodness. Christ suffers because of our sins. Buddha suffers to understand the
poor. Martin Luther King, Joan of Arc, and suicide bombers are martyrs for their causes.
- 'Budding psychopaths don't generate the feeling that they will hurt someone, and so they
don't rein in their violent outbreaks.'
- 'Of course, not all people feel the same sort of moral anguish. Nor do they all answer
Greene's question the same way. Some aren't willing to push a man over a bridge, but others
are. Greene nicknames these two types the Kantians and the utilitarians. As he takes more
scans, he's hoping to find patterns of brain activity that are unique to each group. "This
is what I've wanted to get at from the beginning," Greene says, "to understand what makes
some people do some things and other people do other things." Greene knows that his
results can be disturbing: "People sometimes say to me, 'If everyone believed what you
say, the whole world would fall apart.'" If right and wrong are nothing more than the
instinctive cracklings of neurons, why bother being good? But Greene insists the
evidence coming from neuroimaging can't be ignored. "Once you understand someone's
behavior on a sufficiently mechanical level, it's very hard to look at them as evil," he
says. "You can look at them as dangerous; you can pity them; but evil doesn't exist on a
neuronal level." '
- Admittedly, I tend to be more Kantian myself. Superman, Batman, and most of the
comic book super heroes might break rules for the greater good but they would
practically never kill one to save the many. Pseudo-heroes like the vigilante Punisher
often kill for the greater good, but they are purposeful exceptions to the super hero
rule. In other literature the good guys sometimes kill the bad guys but they're the
"bad" guys, there's a lot of angst, or there are random deaths. In real life when you're
trying to kill the bad guys, some innocents get killed and hurt. Except for explicit
self-defense, a society should not preemptively kill people, especially without full
consent of the society.
- 'Many of the world's great conflicts may be rooted in such neuronal differences, Greene
says, which may explain why the conflicts seem so intractable. "We have people who are
talking past each other, thinking the other people are either incredibly dumb or willfully
blind to what's right in front of them," Greene says. "It's not just that people disagree,
it's that they have a hard time imagining how anyone could disagree on this point that seems
so obvious." Some people wonder how anyone could possibly tolerate abortion. Others wonder
how women could possibly go out in public without covering their faces. The answer may be
that their brains simply don't work the same: Genes, culture, and personal experience have
wired their moral circuitry in different patterns. '
Politics
- Kennedy's Other Speech
- 'Senator Edward Kennedy gave two magnificent speeches last week, but only one received
the attention it deserved. While
his blistering
attack on the Bush
Administration for manipulating and distorting intelligence to justify attacking Iraq
was noted in the Washington Post and other papers, the Senator's
fiery progressive
manifesto--delivered at a New York conference called Re-Imagining the Welfare
State--went virtually unreported.'
- Here are some quotes form Kennedy's 2nd speech:
- 'One by one, issue by issue, program by program, the Republican Right has
methodically turned away from policies which brought about a century of progress for
working Americans. They want to build the 21st century economy on 19th century economic
values, as if the last 100 years had not occurred. For them, the law of the jungle is
the best economic policy for America -- not equal opportunity, not fairness, not the
American dream. Their policies will inevitably result in a lesser America, and have
already meant a growing gulf between rich and poor. '
- 'And today, the gulf between rich and poor is the widest it has been in nearly 70
years. The percentage of national income going to the middle class has also shrunk.
Since 1980, the average after-tax income of the wealthiest 1% rose by more than 200%,
increasing by $567,000 in real dollars. In stark contrast, the average after tax income
of middle-income households rose by only 15% during the same period, increasing by just
$5,500. And the average after-tax income of the working poor rose by an even smaller
percentage, just 9%, growing by a mere $1,100. In fact, in recent years, 90% of all
gains in personal income have gone to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. The number of
Americans living in poverty is growing. These disturbing statistics vividly demonstrate
that the widespread prosperity which progressive policies helped to create over the past
century can easily erode if those policies are abandoned. '
- 'America is facing an infrastructure crisis. By funding more of those building
projects now, we get a double benefit -- more efficient facilities and well-paying jobs.
For example, every billion dollars invested in highway construction produces 47,500
jobs. That can have a big impact on the economy in a hurry. '
- 'One of the most disturbing facts about the current jobless recovery is that today's
new jobs pay $8,000 less on average than the jobs being lost. Today's workers are
working harder for less. We have a serious problem not only with the quantity of
available jobs, but with the quality as well. '
- 'Is it more important to allow a few thousand heirs of the wealthiest families in
America to inherit their millions tax free or to use a portion of the revenue from that
tax to enable millions of Americans to build a better life? I believe the answer is
obvious. Whether this country should be doing more to give all children a better start
in life and all families a greater hope of living the American dream needs no debate. '
-
'Special skills draft' on drawing board: Computer experts, foreign language specialists lead
list of military's needs
- 'Richard Flahavan, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, said planning for a
possible draft of linguists and computer experts had begun last fall after Pentagon personnel
officials said the military needed more people with skills in those areas. '
- 'A targeted registration and draft is "is strictly in the planning stage," said Flahavan,
adding that "the whole thing is driven by what appears to be the more pressing and relevant need
today" -- the deficit in language and computer experts. '
- Umm, yo military dudes? I, uh, like, suck at computers and I might make the, um, missiles,
like, crash on the White House by mistake?
- Every Child Left Behind
- 'The federal No Child Left Behind law is threatening to wreck public education in Minnesota
and elsewhere. That's what it was designed to do. '
- What a fucked up program! Who's the author? Oh ... Bush.
- Amazing that Bush the asshat is breaking schools all over the US by making them jump through
impossible hoops but when it comes to making corporations jump through hoops for the sake of the
environment, he let's them off the hook (EG: Bush let's old polluting companies escape from the
grandfathering rules which would have made them retire).
- They Can Already Taste blood
and They are Ready to Kill... Our America
- Some pretty radical stuff but some people just can't see it.
- 'Who are they? Well, here's the short list. John Ashcroft, Tom Delay, Dick Cheney, Rick
Santorum, Antonin Scalia, George W. Bush, Pat Robertson, Don Rumsfeld and they taste blood. Why?
Because they are just inches away from accomplishing their objective...the take over of our
country by their radical, extremist, right wing, Christian agenda. What will they do when
they have accomplished that? Take over the world. Think I'm kidding? '
- 'I saw Bill Clinton on the news last night defending John Kerry and I felt like I was seeing
the Cavalry rushing to the rescue. I am now officially sending all my money to John Kerry, the
DLC, the DNC, the Congressional Black Caucus, Michael Moore, Nancy Pelosi, Sidney Blumenthal,
Barbara Boxer, Molly Yard, Chip Berlet, Diane Feinstein, Jesse Jackson, Howard Stern, Al
Franken, Max Cleland, Harvey Fierstein, Tom Daschel, Jeanine Garofolo, Ted Kennedy, Jay
Rockefeller, Sophie Masloff, Larry Flynt, Howard Dean, Al Gore, John Graham, Dick Gephart, Aaron
McGruder, George Soros, Sean Penn, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Tom Hayden, John Edwards, Bob
Woodward, Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, Barney Frank, Patti Smith, Barbra Streisand, Martin
Sheen, Carol Moseley Braun, Arianna Huffington, Lou Dobbs, Ben Bradley, Tom Robbins, Rob Reiner,
Tom Harkin, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, Gen. Wesley Clark, Col. Anthony Zinni, Robin Williams,
Whoopie Goldberg, Jim Hightower, Williams Rivers Pitt, Peter Coyote, Molly Ivans, Wayne Madsen,
Rob Kall, Hunter Thompson, Ira S. Levine, Patrick Johnston, Michael Allen, Paul Krugman, Walter
Cronkite, Madonna, Mrs. and Mrs. Rosie O'Donnell, John Dean, Valerie Plame, Joseph Wilson,
Gloria Steinham, Cheri Huber, Joe Trippi, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Robert Kennedy, Jr., the
Paul Wellstone Foundation, MoveOn.org and anyone else who will promise me that for the rest of
their lives they will spend every waking minute trying to defeat these lunatics.'
- H.R.3920.
Title: To allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court.
- WTF! It's bad enough that Bush & co. want to smear the Constitution with the anti-gay
marriage amendment, but now they want to break checks and balances? Is this some sort of
"insurance" in case the Supreme Court doesn't vote the way the Bush, the administration, the GOP
would like it to?
- I'm really, really sick of
all this circumventing democracy. Haiti government not to our liking? Then pass around US guns
and let the rebels take him out by force instead of via a democratic process. Iraq government
not to our liking? Then bust in there by going around the UN and shove US appointed leaders upon
them.
- Related link: Not-So Supreme: The dumb new
proposal to veto the Supreme Court. 'But Lewis wants to upend the whole bench instead. His
plan represents a categorical refusal to be bound by the decisions of any judge holding a
"living Constitution" view. It says, and increasingly pundits on the far right have argued, that
anyone who interprets the Constitution using a theory that differs from one's own is simply not
a judge, and that law as decided by such judges is simply not law. That goes beyond demagoguery
to arrogance and lawlessness. Whatever I may think of Justice Scalia and strict constructionism,
I would never suggest for a moment that his decisions do not bind me. '
- Mysterious Fax Adds to
Intrigue Over the Medicare Bill's Cost
- We may never know the real story but it's certainly intriguing.
- 'Ms. Bjorklund had been pressing Mr. Foster for his numbers since June. When he refused,
telling her he could be fired, she said, she confronted his boss, Thomas A. Scully, then the
Medicare administrator. "If Rick Foster gives that to you," Ms. Bjorklund remembered Mr. Scully
telling her, "I'll fire him so fast his head will spin." Mr. Scully denies making such
threats. '
- 'But Mr. Foster went public last week, and details of his struggle for independence within
the Bush administration are now emerging, raising questions about whether the White House
intentionally withheld crucial data from lawmakers.'
- 'But some Republicans are openly questioning the White House, and the Senate Democratic
leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said he saw a "growing scandal over the Medicare drug
bill." '
- The Apparat. George W.
Bush's back-door political machine: It's anti-democratic, anti-Constitutional, and is working to
create a one-party America
- Long article, with a lot of links mentioning the many organizations tied to the radical
Republican movement. The short story is that this apparat has been built by corporate
America: only they have the money and the goals to do this. Many Americans can't see it because
most Americans are in the net, the apparat Matrix. Much of the rest of the world can see this
because they aren't.
- 'In its latest report, called The
Axis of Ideology, the NCRP has identified at least 350 tax-exempt, ostensibly non-partisan
organizations within the right-wing's activist front, many operating at regional, state, and
local levels. They have penetrated the three branches of the federal government, and dominate
the political debate. They guide and oversee the agenda that directs White House action (or
inaction). Two of these organizations housed the planners who invented the Iraq war.
Rob Stein, an independent Washington researcher, follows the money flow to the radical
activist establishment. He estimates that since the early 1970s at least $2.5 to $3 billion
in funding has been awarded to the 43 major activist organizations he tracks that constitute
the core of the radical machine.
He terms the big 43 the "cohort" -- an "incubator of right-wing, ideological policies that
constitute the administration's agenda, and, to the extent that it has one, runs its policy
machinery."
He calls the cohort "a potent, never-ending source of intellectual content, laying down the
slogans, myths, and buzz words that have helped shift public opinion rightward." The movement's
propulsive energies are largely generated within the cohort.
Stein describes it as movement conservatism's "intellectual infrastructure" --
multiple-issue, non-profit, tax-exempt, and supposedly non-partisan. The apparatus includes
think tanks, policy institutes, media-harassment enterprises, as well as litigation firms that
file lawsuits to impose their ideological templates on the law.
They mastermind the machinery of radical politics, policy, and regulations. They include
campus-based centers of scholarship, student associations, and scores of publications. The
shorthand of their faith is well known: less government, generous tax cuts for the privileged,
privatization or elimination of Social Security and Medicare, rollbacks of environmental
safeguards, major curbs on the public's right to go to court, and a laissez-faire free market
system unfettered by regulations or public-interest accountability. Bush campaigns to advance
the ideological agenda of the right, and the radical front in turn campaigns for Bush.'
- 'The architectural shape of the right-wing counter-establishment resembles the apparatus
that ran the Soviet Union. The Russians called it the "apparat" -- a vast bureaucratic
web of power that housed the organs, official and unofficial, of the ruling Communist Party.
It included the administrative departments that fictively ran the Soviet government. In fact,
the party ran it all. Its ruling Politburo and Central Committee were paramount. The Soviet
apparat was headed by a privileged ruling class, the nomenklatura, manned by a
faceless army of bureaucrats, the apparatchiki.
The structure of the apparat was triangular, comprised of the party, the organs of
state security, and the military establishment. The leadership elite in the Kremlin presided
over all of it.'
- 'The American apparat of the far right can be viewed as a variant of the Soviet model
- amorphous in overlapping functions at the top but monolithic in its aims. It is an external
government that guides the federal government. In a stunning sense, it is counter-revolutionary
and anti-Constitutional.
The American apparat has learned from the failures of the Iran-Contra and Watergate
operations, which functioned within the government, and were thus subject to governmental
oversight and correction. Not so the apparat. With its operations spread over a spectrum
external to government, it attracts neither official nor media attention. It operates
invisibly -- in the open.
The NCRP writes, "There is considerable organic alignment and cohesion on the right."
Conservative funders and non-profits are all on the same page, dedicated to the broader goals of
radical politics.
The American apparat functions as a broad strategic, policy-formulating, and coordinating
machine. Like the Soviet apparat, it is triangular in structure. The main leg can be viewed as
the nomenklatura -- the central command of the cohort. Subordinate to it is the second leg --
the major units of government, including the White House and the Congressional majority. The
President governs as the creature of the apparat, along with his cabinet.
Vice-President Cheney bridges the two as a senior member of the nomenklatura. So does Karl Rove,
the White House political operator, along with the leaders of the Republican Congressional wing
-- Senate and House majority leaders Bill Frist and Tom DeLay.
The third leg can be viewed as the Republican political wing. In the party realignment of 1992,
the national Republican apparatus was taken over by the apparat, and reduced to an appendage.
The national party is now principally a tool for the disbursement of campaign largesse; and it
supervises the machinery of elections and coordinates state party functions.'
- Memo by Justice Scallia
[PDF]. Basically he's refusing to recluse himself from the case of VP Cheney v the US
because: 1. He trusts his own integrity. 2. His friendship will have nothing to do with his
judgement. Riiight.
- "Weak on Terror" by Paul
Krugman
- 'Polls suggest that a reputation for being tough on terror is just about the only remaining
political strength George Bush has. Yet this reputation is based on image, not reality. The
truth is that Mr. Bush, while eager to invoke 9/11 on behalf of an unrelated war, has shown
consistent reluctance to focus on the terrorists who actually attacked America, or their backers
in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. '
- 'Why, after all, has his inner circle tried so hard to prevent a serious investigation of
what happened on 9/11? There has been much speculation about whether officials ignored specific
intelligence warnings, but what we know for sure is that the administration disregarded
urgent pleas by departing Clinton officials to focus on the threat from Al Qaeda.'
- 'This wasn't just a rhetorical switch; crucial resources were pulled off the hunt for Al
Qaeda, which had attacked America, to prepare for the overthrow of Saddam, who hadn't. If
you want confirmation that this seriously impeded the fight against terror, just look at reports
about the all-out effort to capture Osama that started, finally, just a few days ago. Why didn't
this happen last year, or the year before? According to The New York Times, last year many
of the needed forces were tied up in Iraq. '
- I've always said that going into Afghanistan was fine but what did Iraq have to do with
9/11? Bush has done a sucky job of fighting al Queda so far.
- 'It's now clear that by shifting his focus to Iraq, Mr. Bush did Al Qaeda a huge favor.
The terrorists and their Taliban allies were given time to regroup; the resurgent Taliban once
again control almost a third of Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda has regained the ability to carry out
large-scale atrocities.'
- Thanks a lot Bush. Asshat.
- 'Some of the administration's actions have been so strange that those who reported them were
initially accused of being nutty conspiracy theorists. For example, what are we to make of
the post-9/11 Saudi airlift? Just days after the attack, at a time when private air travel was
banned, the administration gave special clearance to flights that gathered up Saudi nationals,
including a number of members of the bin Laden family, who were in the U.S. at the time.
These Saudis were then allowed to leave the country, after at best cursory interviews with the
F.B.I. '
- Fuck, this story has been around forever but Bush has never cleared it up, the little ass
wipe.
Science
- Study Suggests Ovaries Can
Be Recharged: Findings in Mice Dispute Notion Female Mammals Are Born With Finite Egg Supply
- 'Scientists say they have found stem cells in mouse ovaries that apparently generate new
eggs well into adulthood. If similar cells are found in women, they could lead to treatments
to postpone menopause or restore fertility, either in older women or in women who have
suffered infertility as a side effect from cancer treatment.'
- Hmm I also heard a related story on the radio where a woman had some of her ovarian
tissue removed before her cancer treatment, then after the treatment they reapplied some of
it and it appears that she is regaining some of her reproductive powers.
- Great Wall invisible
from space: Chinese astronaut. Ah ha!
- Toyota Announces Overview of "Toyota
Partner Robot": Robots to Be Unveiled at Expo 2005, Starting March 2005. Ah good. The more
the merrier. Honda has their ASIMO but the US has...
squat.
- The relocation of Paris.
Alas! Archaeologists have discovered that Paris is not built upon the ancient capital of Gaul
(called Lutetia by the Romans)!
-
New Clues to Women Veiled in Black
- 'There is no question that women bear the brunt of the illness that Winston Churchill
referred to as his "black dog." The National Comorbidity Study, a large survey of adults in the
United States released last year, found that 1.7 women for every man had experienced at least
one episode of depression. Roughly the same ratio has been found in recent studies in nine other
countries, including Canada, Brazil, Germany and Japan, said Dr. Marta Meana, an associate
professor of psychology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.'
- 'Another risk factor appears to be something that researchers call overthinking, a tendency
to dwell on petty slights, to mentally replay testy encounters and to wallow in sad feelings.
Studies show that this type of negative thinking is far more common in women than in men, and
that it can be a harbinger of clinical depression.'
- The cause? Well the article covers all sorts of causes like social bias, physical and sexual
abuse, poverty, genetic, hormones, etc.
- Astronomers are losing
Pluto
- 'Discovery of the one more planet in the Solar System made astronomers think again about the
classification for planets. Working group of International Astronomic Union (IAU) intends to
decide if this space object called Sedna is a planet or not. IAU considers minimum size of the
planet as the key criterion. The outcome of applying this criterion may be depriving the Pluto
of the status of planet. Some astronomers have always considered the Pluto too small to have
this status.'
- 'One of the solutions for the "Pluto problem" is making the Pluto exception and agreeing to
continue considering the Pluto planet.'
- Hmm. I'm wishy washy about this one. If we find a mass in the Koiper Zone that is larger
than Pluto and it orbits the sun then it's just not fair to not call it a planet. Screw
tradition: let's establish objective parameters that distinguish planets, planetoids, and
asteroids.
- The nuclear merit badge: Using
common household items, he [suburban Detroit teenager David Hahn] almost built a breeder reactor
- 'David's aptitude for science was phenomenal. From a 1960s-era book of chemistry
experiments, he quickly gleaned the principles and skills of manipulating reactions, and
expanded his capabilities with long hours of research at the library. His safety record was
literally stunning. Taking only the barest precautions, he remained unfazed by accidents that
turned his hair green, burned his skin, or knocked him out cold. Larger blunders alarmed his
father and stepmother, but he learned to cover up his failures. '
- 'And so it was that with ingenuity and supplemental information from letters to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, 17-year-old David gathered and refined - mostly from household products -
enough radioactive material to make a crude breeder reactor in his backyard. It was small and
would never create an appreciable amount of fissionable fuel, but by the time David disassembled
the runaway experiment in 1994, his Geiger counter was detecting radiation from several houses
away. '
- Booze flash! Tests
confirm that beer bubbles do fall. That is all.
- Vehicle to autonomous biped
robot conversion for the Mini Cooper r50. See what happens when you play with Transformers
too much?
- Your Trekkie
Communicator Is Ready
- Well, it's about time!
- 'Just as Captain Picard would do, Vocera badge wearers can touch
the slim device they wear on their uniforms, say who they want to talk to and, assuming that
person is wearing his badge, be connected.
The badge contains two chips, one a digital signal processor chip from
Texas Instruments (nyse:
TXN - news -
people
), the other a fairly unremarkable wi-fi radio not terribly dissimilar from those found in
any Wi-Fi networking card used in a laptop PC. The TI chip handles all the voice processing and
the wi-fi radio transmits them up to a computer network.
That's where the real work takes place. Hitting the badge button and
saying a name triggers a powerful server-based application that matches the name spoken with a
database entry. It then locates that person on the network, activates their badges and starts
the conversation, which takes place using Voice-Over-Internet Protocol or VOIP--meaning the
voices are converted to bits and transmitted over a computer network.'
- 'With the Vocera badge, a nurse needs only to hit a button and say the name of a doctor. The
request goes over the hospital's wireless network to the server, which then locates the
appropriate doctor and delivers the message more or less instantly. If the doctor is available
he or she can respond right back. If not, the nurse can ask for another doctor, by name or by
specialty. Say "I need an anesthesiologist," and the server finds the nearest anesthesiologist
and connects him.'
-
Astronauts Try to Save Hubble Telescope
- Hubble is the god damned best telescope humanity has ever had. I think it is a worthy effort
to keep it going as long as possible.
- 'An Internet petition has collected thousands of names, O'Keefe's e-mail system is clogged
with complaints, members of Congress are demanding reviews by independent groups, and the chief
Columbia accident investigator is urging a public policy debate on the Hubble gains versus
shuttle risks.'
- 'Astronauts -- Hubble repairmen included, who say they would do it again -- like to point out
that a ship is safe in the harbor, but that's not what ships are built for. Says Bruce
McCandless, who helped deliver Hubble to orbit and now works in industry: "John Paul Jones is
also reported to have said, 'Give me a fast ship for I intend to sail in harm's way.' He wasn't
going to sit in the harbor, either." '
Sex
-
Teens Pledging Sex Abstinence Often Fail-Study
- 'The study of a nationally representative sample of about 15,000 youths aged 12 to 18
found that 88 percent of teenagers who pledged to remain virgins until they are married
ended up having sex before marriage.'
- Ha ha! Not shocking at all. That's why teens need to be taught about birth control,
condoms, STDs, etc., and not just abstinence.
-
Protesters sing, pray and chant as lawmakers weigh gay marriage question
- ' "I'm here to support 5,000 years of Judeo-Christian heritage of one man, one woman,"
said Dixon, a 52-year-old schoolteacher, who said she made the trip with 20 other members of
a Christian group to defend the definition of marriage from the "homosexual minority." "There
is no separation of church and state," she said. '
- Ah yes, the American Taliban is emerging. This is a crusade after all eh?
- If
diamonds are a girl's best friend, hand jobs are a close second. 'Along with letter jackets,
hand jobs are a high school thing.'
- On-line Orgasmic Simulation.
O dear! Make orgasm is so lame!
- Tenn. County Officials Seek to
Ban Gays
- 'Rhea County commissioners unanimously voted to ask state lawmakers to introduce legislation
amending Tennessee's criminal code so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against
nature. '
- '"We need to keep them out of here," said Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced
the motion. '
- 'County Attorney Gary Fritts also was asked by Fugate to find the best way to enact a
local law banning homosexuals from living in Rhea County.'
- You can smell their homophobic stench from here. Imagine if they tried that here in Chicago
or San Francisco.
- LGBT Federal Workers
Lose Job Protections
- 'Gay and lesbians in the entire federal workforce have had their job protections officially
removed by the office of Special Counsel. The new Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, says his
interpretation of a 1978 law intended to protect employees and job applicants from adverse
personnel actions is that gay and lesbian workers are not covered.'
- 'Bloch's position is a marked departure from how the previous special counsel, Elaine
Kaplan, enforced the law. "The legal position that he is taking, that there is some distinction
between discrimination based on sexual orientation and discrimination based on conduct, is
absurd," Kaplan told Federal Times.'
- 'Bloch was appointed by President Bush to a five year term beginning in January.'
- Why can't people see that there is a different kind of war going on right here in the US?
These are our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews, and they are
short steps away from becoming sub-human in the US. What will it take before people see what's
going on? Will we have to give take away their right to vote? Deport them? Imprison them?
-
For Children of Gays, Marriage Brings Joy
- 'But even if gay marriage goes away, gay parents will go on living de facto married lives,
rearing children from past heterosexual marriages or forming families through adoption, foster
care or sperm or egg donation.'
- 'The 2000 census reported that 594,000 households in the United States were headed by
same-sex partners, a figured considered by some experts to be conservative. Of those, about
33 percent of lesbian couples reported having children 18 years old or under, while 22 percent
of male couples did. '
- So that should be around 1.2 million votes against Bush right there. And that's not even
counting the single ones.
- 'Studies show that children of gay and lesbian parents are developmentally similar to those
with heterosexual parents, said Charlotte J. Patterson, a professor of psychology at the
University of Virginia who has studied gay and lesbian families.'
- ' "I'm not gay," Mr. Humphrey-Keever said. "I'm a fiscally conservative Democrat. I've had a
really stable household. I've had two excellent role models with a strong work ethic. I've seen
two people who have loved each other." '
- Adult-Related TLDs Considered
Dangerous
- 'In an RFC [RFC 3675] prepared by Donald
E. Eastlake 3rd and Declan McCullagh, an analysis is offered for proposals to mandate the use of
a special top level name [EGs:
.xxx or .sex] or an IP address bit to
flag "adult" or "unsafe" material or the like. This document explains why these ideas are ill
considered from legal, philosophical, and technical points of view.'
- I see seen nothing wrong with an porn TLD as long as it is not a requirement and is more
like the self-regulation done by video/computer games. Then you won't run into problems with
censorship. But of course the FCC would just fuck this all up.
- It would be easy for parents, libraries, etc. to block out .xxx sites. It would also be
helpful for consumers of .xxx sites.
-
The Slashdot thread on this had an interesting bit:
- 'While I agree that a
.sex TLD is 1.) a dumb idea, and 2.) a potential legal and regulatory morass, I
think it's shortsighted to just roll your eyes and write it off as another "won't someone think
of the children" proposal.
Some people just don't like being inundated by porn when they use the Internet. Period.
I mean, come on -- we all know that if you spend time randomly surfing the Web, you can hardly
go an hour or two without randomly stumbling across some porn -- or reference to porn -- in the
form of an advertisement or a pop-up or a joke site or whatever. Half the spam you receive --
and you can't help receiving it -- falls under most people's definition of porn.
So why is that? We don't put up with it in the rest of our day to day lives.
Most communities regulate porn theaters, porn magazines, etc., very strictly. Even if you,
personally, like and consume porn in the privacy of your own home, if you leased an office
building, you probably wouldn't want a porn theater opening up on either side of you. If your
office had a magazine-swap rack in the break room, you probably wouldn't want your employees
leaving porn there. Very few people would vote to let their city accept advertising from porn
companies on park benches and bus stops.
I don't think it's out of line to have a reasonable expectation of being able to spend your day
without viewing porn. So how to tackle that problem on the Internet?
It seems to me that the porn industry has a lot of money, and they're willing to pay it to
people to get their advertising and their products out there to where people will pay to consume
them. If that's the root of the problem, then it does not seem unreasonable to me to propose
possible ways of regulating the way the porn industry does business. The
.sex domain is one such idea.
Not the best one, perhaps, but a legitimate one nonetheless.'
- 'While I agree that a .black TLD is 1.) a dumb idea, and 2.) a potential legal and
regulatory morass, I think it's shortsighted to just roll your eyes and write it off as another
"won't someone think of the children" proposal.
Some people just don't like being inundated by black people when they use the Internet.
Period.
I mean, come on -- we all know that if you spend time randomly surfing the Web, you can
hardly go an hour or two without randomly stumbling across some black person -- or reference to
black people -- in the form of an advertisement or a pop-up or a joke site or whatever. Half the
spam you receive -- and you can't help receiving it -- falls under most people's definition of
black culture.
So why is that? We don't put up with it in the rest of our day to day lives.
Most communities regulate who's allowed in it, housing prices, etc. very strictly. In fact,
in the South there are still many towns that do not have a single black person. Even if you,
personally, like and talk to black people in the privacy of your own home, if you leased an
office building, you probably wouldn't want a black person moving in on either side of you. If
your office had a magazine-swap rack in the break room, you probably wouldn't want your
employees leaving a rap magazine there. Very few people would vote to let their city accept
advertising from Gangster Rap labels on park benches and bus stops.
I don't think it's out of line to have a reasonable expectation of being able to spend your
day without viewing black culture. So how to tackle that problem on the Internet?
It seems to me that the NAACP has a lot of money, and they're willing to pay it to people to
get their advertising and their agenda out there to where people will pay to consume them. If
that's the root of the problem, then it does not seem unreasonable to me to propose possible
ways of regulating the way the NAACP industry does business. The .black domain is one such idea.
Not the best one, perhaps, but a legitimate one nonetheless.'
- 'Instead of trying to figure out what's naughty and what's not, we can just whitelist all
white-middle-class-evangelical-family-friendly content, put it in .PRUDE, and they can block
everything else.
Advantages: the evangelicals are happy because they can be pure and clean without having to
actually make any moral choices, and the rest of us can use this thing called "free will", which
allows people to view and avoid whatever content they desire. '
Spain
-
Madrid Terror Train Blasts Kill 190
- 'Ten terrorist bombs tore through trains and stations along a commuter line at the
height of Madrid's morning rush hour Thursday [2004-03-11], killing 190 people and wounding 1,200 others
before this weekend's general elections. Officials blamed Basque separatists for the worst
terrorist attack in Spanish history.'
- 'The bodies of the dead, some with their cellphones ringing unanswered as frantic
relatives tried to contact them, were carried away by rescue workers. The wounded, faces
bloodied, sat on curbs as buses were pressed into service as ambulances. '
-
Following Attacks, Spain's Governing Party Is Beaten [2004-03-14]
- 'Spain's opposition Socialists swept to an upset victory in general elections on Sunday,
ousting the center-right party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in a groundswell of voter
anger and grief over his handling of terrorist bombings in Madrid last week.'
- 'José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the 43-year-old lawyer who will become prime minister'
- Obviously some people will see this as a 'win' for Al Queda because they can influence
elections with terrorism, but really Aznar invaded Iraq when the majority of Spain was against
it. The Spanish people have been wanting to change and pull away from Bush for a long time
coming now. This election is merely democracy in action.
- If there is a general European trend of pulling away from the US, it definitely means that
we need to get Bush out and replace him with someone who others will work with. The conspiracist
in me wouldn't be surprised if it was... no, I won't go there.
- Spain
Campaigned to Pin Blame on ETA: Despite Evidence to Contrary, Basque Group Was Focus in Blasts
- BTW, ETA stands for "Basque Homeland and Freedom" in Basque.
- 'Beginning immediately after the blasts, Aznar and other officials telephoned journalists,
stressing ETA's responsibility and dismissing speculation that Islamic extremists might be
involved. Spanish diplomats pushed a hastily drafted resolution blaming ETA through the U.N.
Security Council. At an afternoon news conference, when a reporter suggested the possibility
of an al Qaeda connection, the interior minister, Angel Acebes, angrily denounced it as "a
miserable attempt to disrupt information and confuse people. ...There is no doubt that ETA is
responsible" '
- 'In retrospect, however, there were signs that the government was at least selective in
releasing information about possible culprits. By 11 a.m. Thursday, police had already
discovered an abandoned white van in Alcala de Henares -- a town where the bombed trains passed
through -- containing seven detonators and a cassette tape with verses of the Koran recited in
Arabic, officials said later. Sources familiar with Spanish intelligence services said the CNI,
the National Intelligence Center, had suspected al Qaeda from the beginning. '
- Yes, yes! People will change
-
Purported Al Qaeda Letter Calls Truce in Spain
- All sorts of interesting possible Al Queda statements.
- 'group claiming to have links with al Qaeda said on Wednesday it was calling a truce in its
Spanish operations to see if the new Madrid government would withdraw its troops from Iraq, a
pan-Arab newspaper [the Arabic language daily al-Hayat] said.'
- ' "Because of this decision, the leadership has decided to stop all operations within the
Spanish territories... until we know the intentions of the new government that has promised to
withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq," the statement said. "And we repeat this to all the brigades
present in European lands: Stop all operations." '
- Hmm. Something that stops al Queda. Do we even really know what al Queda wants? Did we
bother to find out? This is one of the reasons why I and others have stressed that this should
have been a police action and not a war. If it were a police action, then these terrorists are
just gangs of nuts to be hunted down by police all over the world. But by making it a war, it
legitimizes them in their own eyes, that yes, they are an organization on equal footing to go to
war with the US.
- 'The statement said it supported President Bush in his reelection campaign, and would
prefer him to win in November rather than the Democratic candidate John Kerry, as it was not
possible to find a leader "more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather
than with wisdom." '
- 'The group [the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades] is named after Muhammed Atef, also known as Abu
Hafs, a close bin Laden aide killed in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan '
- Homage to Castilla: "Appeasement" in
Spain
- 'The unexpected victory of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) over the more
conservative Partido Popular (PP), which had backed the war in Iraq, was widely and roundly
denounced as a clear case of capitulation to terror. ... But this facile, if morally satisfying,
reading seems to elide some of the peculiar details of the Spanish elections. '
- 'The PP was indeed projected to win a majority in the Spanish Parliament in all the major
polls before the March 11 terrorist attacks, which killed over 200 Spaniards and injured more
than 1,600. '
- 'So what happened on March 14? A point seldom noted is that, in terms of absolute votes, the
PP did only slightly worse than in 2000, when it won 10.3 million ballots. The 9.6 million votes
it earned this year would still have been enough, in 2000, to give it the majority. The
difference this time around was a massive increase in turnout, an unsurprising response grounded
in a sense of national solidarity following the attacks. This meant millions of young
voters, overwhelmingly PSOE-sympathizers, turned out who might otherwise have stayed home. '
- 'All this notwithstanding, it's clear that some voters turned against the PP because they
felt that Aznar's undemocratic march to war had exposed Spain to terrorist retaliation. But
does such a shift necessarily constitute "appeasement"? Aznar had defended the war in Iraq
as measure necessary to "guarantee the security of Spaniards from any internal or external
threat," and his government sought to dismiss claims that a Spanish club was targeted for
bombing in Casablanca because of Spanish participation in the war. Meanwhile, PSOE officials had
suggested that Spain, Britain, and the U.S. were "kicking a wasp's nest," that "the war in Iraq
was going to provoke more hatred and rancor and, therefore, the threat of more instability."
Transparently, Aznar was mistaken and the opposition was correct. Are Spanish voters to be
tarred as cowards if they now hold Aznar accountable for his miscalculation? A few especially
glib commentators have suggested that the Spanish should "blame the terrorists," not the PP. But
why can't they blame both?'
- 'It is hard to suppress the suspicion that much of the criticism of Spaniards we're now
seeing is ultimately, if indirectly, about the U.S. election. Fail to support Bush, whispers the
subtext of these critiques, and you might as well be some sort of Spaniard. I'll take
that as a compliment.'
- Ha ha! So now the war hawks will start using "Spaniard" as an insult like they've been using
"Frenchie"?
Web
- Blog Survey:
Expectations of Privacy and Accountability [by MIT]
- 'Here we report the findings from an online survey conducted between January 14th and
January 21st, 2004. During that time, 486 respondents answered questions about their
blogging practices and their expectations of privacy and accountability for the entries they
publish online'
- 'the great majority of bloggers identify themselves on their sites: 55% of respondents
provide their real names on their blogs'
- 'when blogging about people they know personally: 66% of respondents almost never asked
permission to do so; whereas, only 9% said they never blogged about people they knew
personally'
- '83% of respondents characterized their entries as personal ramblings whereas 20% said
they mostly publish lists of useful/interesting links (respondents could check multiple
options for this answer). This indicates that the nature of blogs might be changing from
being mostly lists of links to becoming sites that contain more personal stories and
commentaries. '
World
-
China Endorses Private Property
- 'China's parliament has agreed to landmark changes to the constitution that will protect
private property for the first time since the 1949 revolution'
- ' The BBC's Beijing correspondent says with this vote, China is abandoning one of the key
pillars of communism. The vote to amend the 1982 constitution was passed with 2,863 in favor to
10 against, with 17 abstentions. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that the "changes to the
constitution are of great significance to the development of China." '
- This is a lot quieter than the fall of the Berlin Wall but its practically the same: the
fall of a Communist state.
- 'China's parliament also voted to enshrine human rights in the constitution, for the first
time. The mention of human rights reads: "The state respects and preserves human rights." '
- Amazing that China has been making such strides forwards while America under Bush has been
moving backwards.
- Survey finds
deepening distrust towards US
- 'A year after the US-led invasion of Iraq, resentment and opposition toward the United
States have intensified in Europe and the Muslim world, a survey taken in nine countries showed.
There is a sharp and growing disconnect between the views of Americans and people who live in
other countries, according to the poll, which was published on Wednesday. '
- 'Only in the United States and Britain, the majorities of those surveyed thought the
anti-terror campaign was a sincere effort. The poll also found the effectiveness of the Iraq war
in combating terrorism is disputed, and only in the United States do most people think it has
helped the war on terrorism. Solid majorities in every country but the United States hold an
unfavorable opinion of President George W. Bush. '
- Fucking USA [video]. This
went around a while back but I never posted it. Funny even if you disagree with it. Bush has
done wonders for our image eh?
- African
Aids drug plan faces collapse. Didn't some asshat make an announcement at a one of State of
the Union Addresses that he was going to help with AIDS in Africa? Yes, that asshat was Bush.
- Taiwan's president [and VP]
shot at rally
- 'Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian and Vice-President Annette Lu have been shot at a rally
only hours before the country goes to the polls.'
- Odd, they got of at least 2 shot but near-missed them. The wound looks like it could have
been deadly so I don't buy the conspiracy theories saying that this was a ploy by the 2.
2004-03-25t19:53:37Z
| RE: 9/11 Commission. Chicago. Computers. Design. Elections. Engineering. Entertainment. Faith. Games. Interesting. Iraq. Martial Arts. Media. Money. Politics. Science. Sex. Terrorism. The Passion of the Christ. Web. World. Words.
2004-03-25t19:53:37Z
9/11 Commission
- Former Bush
adviser apologizes for Sept. 11
- 'President Bush's former counterterrorism chief apologized yesterday to the families of
9/11 victims for failing to protect them, but said Bush had scaled back anti-terror efforts.
Richard Clarke's testimony set off a wave of emotion from the victims' families and
infuriated the White House.'
- ' "Clarke is the first person who's ever apologized," said Mindy Kleinberg, whose
husband was killed at the World Trade Center. "I felt like crying." '
- 'For 2 1/2 hours, Clarke coolly recounted his version of events in Clinton and Bush
administrations in the years before the worst terror attack in the nation's history. He said
that under President Bill Clinton, there was "no higher priority" than combating terrorists.
The Bush White House, he said, made it "an important issue, but not an urgent issue." '
- 'Clarke grew so frustrated at the Bush team's alleged inattention to terrorism that
he wrote a letter a week before the 9/11 attacks to Rice. In the letter, he urged
Rice to imagine a day "after hundreds of Americans lay dead at home and abroad following a
terrorist attack" where officials would ask what could have been done to prevent it.'
-
Bush under fire
- 'President George W. Bush is eager to make national security, and in particular his
administration's war on terrorism, the centrepiece of his case for re-election in November.
But as new evidence emerges about events before and after September 11 2001, doubts about
the judgment and performance of the president and his top national security advisers are
proliferating. Those doubts have been reinforced by this week's hearings of the national
commission on terrorist attacks on the US.'
- 'The more damaging allegation this week has come from Richard Clarke, the former
counter-terrorism chief under both Mr Clinton and Mr Bush. He said senior officials were
obsessed about Iraq in the days after the attacks on New York and Washington and determined
- erroneously - to attack Iraq. Though eventually persuaded to confine the first stage
of the war on terrorism to Afghanistan, they quickly shifted their focus back to Iraq within
days of the fall of Kabul.
Mr Clarke and others make the point that this represented a distraction from the real war
on terror. With Mr bin Laden and al-Qaeda leaders still at large, there was unfinished
business before the decision was made to invade Iraq. Now, with growing evidence that
Iraq has become a recruiting ground for terrorists, the case that Iraq was the wrong war is
stronger than ever.
Mr Bush insists that dealing with Saddam Hussein was necessary to eliminate a tyrant with
weapons of mass destruction and the means and motives to assist in the terrorists' war on
the US. But that assertion looks shakier by the day. '
- DOJ Asked FBI
Translator To Change Pre 9-11 Intercepts
- 'FBI translator, Sibel Edmonds, was offered a substantial raise and a full time job in
order to not go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to
retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been
received before September 11, 2001 by the FBI and CIA.'
- "I appeared once on CBS 60 Minutes but I have been silenced by Mr. Ashcroft, the FBI
follows me, and I was threatened with jail in 2002 if I went public." -Edmonds
- Summary of recent stuff from Richard Clark from MoveOn.org.
- 'Clarke repeatedly warned the Bush Administration about attacks from al Qaeda,
starting in the first days of Bush's term. "But on January 24th, 2001, I wrote a memo to
Condoleezza Rice asking for, urgently -- underlined urgently -- a Cabinet-level meeting to
deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo-- wasn't acted on." According
to another Bush administration security official, Clarke "was the guy pushing hardest,
saying again and again that something big was going to happen, including possibly here in
the U.S." The official added that Clarke was likely sidelined because he had served in the
previous (Clinton) administration. '
- 'In face-to-face meetings, CIA Director George Tenet warned President Bush repeatedly
in the months before 9/11 that an attack was coming. According to Clarke, Tenet told the
President that "A major al-Qaeda attack is going to happen against the United States
somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead." '
- 'On September 12, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld pushed to bomb Iraq even though they knew
that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan. "Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq,"
Clarke said. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb
Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are
lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of
places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.' " '
- 'Also on September 12, 2001, President Bush personally pushed Clarke to find evidence
that Iraq was behind the attacks. From the New York Times: "'I want you, as soon as you
can, to go back over everything, everything,' Mr. Clarke writes that Mr. Bush told him. 'See
if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way.' When Mr. Clarke protested that the
culprit was Al Qaeda, not Iraq, Mr. Bush testily ordered him, he writes, to 'look into Iraq,
Saddam,' and then left the room." '
- 'The Bush Administration knew from the beginning that there was no connection between
Iraq and 9/11, but created the misperception in order to push their policy goals. "[Rumsfeld,
Cheney and Bush] did know better. They did know better. They did know better. We told them,
the CIA told them, the FBI told them. They did know better. And the tragedy here is that
Americans went to their death in Iraq thinking that they were avenging September 11th, when
Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. I think for a commander-in-chief and a vice
president to allow that to happen is unconscionable." '
- 'The war on Iraq has increased the danger of terrorism. In his book, he writes
that shifting from al Qaeda to Iraq "launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that
strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide." '
- Dick Clarke Is Telling the Truth: Why he's right
about Bush's negligence on terrorism
- 'First, his basic accusations are consistent with tales told by other officials,
including some who had no significant dealings with Clarke.
Second, the White House's attempts at rebuttal have been extremely weak and
contradictory. If Clarke were wrong, one would expect the comebacks--especially from
Bush's aides, who excel at the counterstrike--to be stronger and more substantive.
Third, I went to graduate school with Clarke in the late 1970s, at MIT's political
science department ... He was very smart, a highly skilled (and utterly nonpartisan)
analyst, and he knew how to get things done in a calcified bureaucracy ... He was arrogant,
made no effort to disguise his contempt for those who disagreed with him, and blatantly
maneuvered around all obstacles to make sure his views got through. ... The key thing,
though, is this: Both sets of traits tell me he's too shrewd to write or say anything in
public that might be decisively refuted.'
-
Clarke Watch
- ' "Frankly," he said, "I find it outrageous that the president is running for
re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it.
He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11.
Maybe. We'll never know." '
- Fatal in Difference: Bush's catastrophic allergy
to Clinton
- "The Clinton
Mind-Set" by Peter D. Feaver
- ' Defenders of the Clinton administration have twinned this claim -- "We can't be blamed,
because no one wanted us to take stronger military action" -- with its post-9/11 obverse
assertion: President Bush doesn't deserve any credit for toppling the Taliban and ending al
Qaeda's sanctuary, because after Sept. 11 anyone would have done this. In the words of Bush's
most recent and surprising critic, former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke: "Any leader whom
one can imagine as president on September 11 would have declared a 'war on terrorism' and would
have ended the Afghan sanctuary by invading." '
- Feaver then tries to totally subvert that paired set of claims.
- 'the critical event was not simply Sept. 11, 2001, which changed the public's perceptions,
but also the 2000 election, which changed the commander in chief. President Bush came into
office convinced that the casualty phobia of his predecessor had made America a tempting target,
a paper tiger. When terrorists struck the twin towers and the Pentagon, Bush interpreted it as
proof that America looked weak. '
- BULLSHIT. Clinton met every attack with a counter-attack, Clinton was actively
working on counter-terrorism. This counter terrorism infrastructure was handed over to Bush but
Bush did squat until 9/11. Then he reactivated Clinton's counter-terrorism infrastructure and
rightly went after the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then he screwed it all up with his Iraq invasion.
- Bush could have been soo great! Even if had been a slacker pre-9/11, he could have been the
best President ever. He had the US and the world behind him. He could have reformed and
invigorated the UN, really move forward in true global cooperation. But he fucked up so bad.
- 'While most of the recent media attention has focused on early internal debates about Iraqi
involvement, in fact the early public debate about 9/11 was over whether Bush was rash in
declaring "war" on the terrorists. Most experts and pundits -- especially among our allies --
still clung to the "counterterrorism as law enforcement" mind-set. And viewed from that frame,
it was foolhardy to declare war. '
- BULLSHIT. This is revisionist. There are always some people who are against military
actions ever but effectively no one was ever against hunting down terrorists or smacking the
Taliban in Afghanistan. The real "war" protests came with the press into Iraq.
- 'Would a less stubborn commander in chief have pursued the risky war plan that ultimately
toppled the Taliban and put al Qaeda on the run? The record of the '90s suggests otherwise.'
- Ridiculous. The events of the '90s simply pale in comparison to 9/11.
- Transcript: Clarke Praises Bush
Team in '02.
- Ah. Here Bush is using Fox News as his tool to try to politically counter Clarke.
- The meme that will be pushed is that Clarke was praising Bush before but now he's
criticizing him so Clarke is talking out of both sides of his mouth. The counter to this
Bush/Rove counter is simple: As an employee you always put your boss in a positive light.
- The other meme they'll try to use to counter Clarke is that he's selling his book. Of course
he's selling a book, but what does that have to do with the veracity of his statements? Nothing!
What a lame attack.
- Clarke Stays
Cool as Partisanship Heats Up
- 'There was good reason for the tension. If the critique presented by Clarke, who left the
Bush White House after two years, is to be accepted, a key rationale for Bush's reelection
has been lost. In Clarke's view, the Bush administration ignored his pleas to make terrorism
a high priority before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, reacted inadequately to the attacks and then
strengthened terrorists by persistently pursuing war in Iraq. '
- '
Back at the hearing, former Illinois governor James R. Thompson, a Republican member of the
commission, took up the cause, waving the Fox News transcript with one hand and Clarke's
critical book in the other. "Which is true?" Thompson demanded, folding his arms and glowering
down at the witness.
Clarke, appearing unfazed by the apparent contradiction between his current criticism and
previous praise, spoke to Thompson as if addressing a slow student.
"I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done, and to
minimize the negative aspects of what the administration had done," he explained. "I've done it
for several presidents."
With each effort by Thompson to highlight Clarke's inconsistency -- "the policy on
Uzbekistan, was it changed?" -- Clarke tutored the commissioner about the obligations of a White
House aide. Thompson, who had far exceeded his allotted time, frowned contemptuously. "I think a
lot of things beyond the tenor and the tone bother me about this," he said. During a second
round of questioning, Thompson returned to the subject, questioning Clarke's "standard of candor
and morality."
"I don't think it's a question of morality at all; I think it's a question of politics,"
Clarke snapped.
Thompson had to wait for Sept. 11, 2001, victims' relatives in the gallery to stop
applauding before he pleaded ignorance of the ways of Washington. "I'm from the Midwest, so
I think I'll leave it there," he said. Moments later, Thompson left the hearing room and did not
return. '
- Ha ha ha! Clarke kicking ass!
- 'The gallery drew quiet when Lehman questioned Clarke. "I have genuinely been a fan of
yours," he began, and then he said how he had hoped Clarke would be "the Rosetta Stone" for the
commission. "But now we have the book," Lehman said, suggesting it was a partisan tract.
Clarke was ready for that challenge. "Let me talk about partisanship here, since you
raised it," he said, noting that he registered as a Republican in 2000 and served President
Ronald Reagan. "The White House has said that my book is an audition for a high-level position
in the Kerry campaign," Clarke said. "So let me say here, as I am under oath, that I will not
accept any position in the Kerry administration, should there be one."
When Clarke finished his answer, there was a long pause, and the gallery was silent.
Lehman smiled slightly and nodded. He had no further questions. '
Chicago
- CTA
station in works for Block 37. A "super station" downtown with express service directly to
O'Hare and Midway airports. Block 37 is bounded by State, Randolph, Dearborn and Washington
Streets, i.e. right across the street from Marshal Fields.
Computers
- The C#
Design Process: A Conversation with Anders Hejlsberg. 'After 13 years with Borland,
Hejlsberg joined Microsoft in 1996, where he initially worked as an architect of Visual J++ and
the Windows Foundation Classes (WFC). Then, Hejlsberg was chief designer of C# and a key
participant in the creation of the Microsoft .NET Framework. Today, he leads the ongoing
development of the C# programming language.'
- First-Generation Electronic Paper
Display From Philips, Sony And E Ink To Be Used In New Electronic Reading Device
- 'the world's first consumer application of an electronic paper display module in Sony's new
e-Book reader, LIBRIé, scheduled to go on sale in Japan in late April. This "first ever"
Philips' display utilizes E Ink's revolutionary electronic ink technology which offers a
truly paper-like reading experience with contrast that is the same as newsprint. '
- 'The Electronic Paper Display is reflective and can be easily read in bright sunlight or
dimly lit environments while being able to be seen at virtually any angle - just like
paper. Its black and white ink-on-paper look, combined with a resolution in excess of most
portable devices at approximately 170 pixels per inch (PPI), gives an appearance similar
to that of the most widely read material on the planet - newspaper. Because the display uses
power only when an image is changed, a user can read more than 10,000 pages before the four
AAA Alkaline batteries need to be replaced. The unique technology also results in a compact
and lightweight form factor allowing it to be ideal for highly portable applications.'
- 'Sony's e-Book reader LIBRIé, the first device to utilize Philips' display solution for
enhanced reading, is similar in size and design to a paperback book. LIBRIé allows users to
download published content, such as books or comic strips from the Internet, and enjoy it
anywhere at any time. LIBRIé can store up to 500 downloaded books. '
-
- Totally, totally, totally awesome! Of course, this will fill its own niche. This will
not replace a well loved hardcover book.
- Related links
-
Paring Away at Microsoft
- 'The European Commission issued an antitrust ruling against Microsoft yesterday that is
intended to force the company to change its fundamental business strategy of bundling new
products into its Windows operating system, which runs more than 90 percent of all personal
computers. The ruling imposed a $603 million fine. It also required Microsoft
to offer a version of Windows without its Media Player and divulge technical information to
competitors so that they can create software for business servers that would work well with
Windows. '
- Bah! Pennies in comparison to Microsoft's $50 billion cash reserve! Let's see if
this encourages stronger DOJ action.
- 'And Microsoft executives declared that there would be no changes in their product plans
or business practices as a result of the European decision.'
- What, Microsoft regretting what they've done, or admitting that they've done
anything wrong, or changing their ways? No sir! The upcoming "Longhorn" version of
Windows and "Yukon" version of SQL Server is built around bundling, their whole search
strategy to counter Google is built around bundling, their home entertainment systems
are built around bundling.
- 'Beyond the moves to open the Windows desktop to rivals, Microsoft faces growing
competition from Linux, an operating system that is distributed free. Even more important,
Microsoft's dominance is threatened by a shift in computing from the personal computer to
technologies like Internet-connected cellphones and Internet-based services offered by
Google and similar companies. '
- All challenges but nothing lethal for Microsoft.
- DOJ criticizes EU's
ruling on Microsoft
- ' The U.S. government fought its own antitrust battle with Microsoft,
a case that was filed in 1998 and settled in 2002. Although the government proposed a breakup of
Microsoft, it never proposed that Microsoft remove any part of Windows and for a reason, Pate
said.'
- However some problems can't be fixed by reorganizing a company:
sometimes the tech itself must be "reorganized".
- "Imposing antitrust liability on the basis of product
enhancements and imposing 'code removal' remedies may produce unintended consequences," Pate
said. "Sound antitrust policy must avoid chilling innovation and competition even by 'dominant'
companies. A contrary approach risks protecting competitors, not competition, in ways that may
ultimately harm innovation and the consumers that benefit from it." '
- This is true. You want to be careful but does Microsoft need to be handled with kid gloves?
- Microsoft looks to unite PC, Xbox
games
- '[The new] XNA tools will help in the creation of games for the current Windows XP
operating system for PCs and the current Xbox, said Vice President J. Allard, and will be
extended in the next version of the Xbox and Longhorn, the successor to Windows XP. '
- Leading to bundling, and not mere cross-platform power. There are good reasons for
doing this but an unregulated Microsoft would twist it for anti-competitive purposes.
- [Sun CEO Scott] cNealy: No Open Source Java
- Bwah-ha-ha! Java is shaking. Bad news considering that JVM support for Microsoft is ending
soon too.
- 'We're trying to understand what problem does it solve that is not already solved' -McNealy
- Here are some comments from the article and the thread at Slashdot:
- 'Very obviously it solves the problem that .net has a good open source system which is
easily distributable by all FOSS operating systems, yet there is still no decent FOSS java
implementation. I guess they have decided to cede their market to Microsoft and .net'
- '
I agree we need an epen source Java, but we also must note the following (I'm playing
devil's advocate):
1. Sun wants to make sure there is only one and only one Java version, or else the promise of
write-once run-anywhere falls apart. I think those are good, honest intentions.
2. The current java license allows *anyone* to create a clean-room, open-source, royalty-free
version of java. So, why hasn't IBM (for example) made their java implementation open source?
Why does it have to be Sun?
Having said that, one solution I see is for Sun to create an open source Java, BUT also
create some kind of license where there can only be *one* official java spec, and any
implementation that deviates from that spec, even if only on one single method call, class name
or variable, cannot call itself java-compatible, java-derived, java-based, or even use a logo
remotely resembling the java logo, or use a name even remotely resembling the word "java".
Also, why doesn't the team developing Mono simple drop it and create a clean-room
implementation of Java? They can do it faster than the .net clone, risk-free, and fully open
source. After all we ALL know that Microsoft will not allow Mono to be 100% compatible with
.Net, and we ALL know that having Mono is only helping Microsoft.'
- 'Where are all the forks of linux? Just because its a language does not mean it will fork
and fracture. Perl isn't forked to hell. Nor is python. Nor are many open source languages. '
- 'Sun, learn from your mistakes. There was a time when Java's license prevented abuse by
Microsoft, but that time has passed. C# is Microsoft's new approach to "embrace and extend"
Java, and the only effective way to counter it is to make Java fully open-source now, before C#
inexorably crushes Java. The writing is on the wall yet again -- don't let Java die the same
lingering death that NeWS suffered! '
- '1) You can make your own java compiler.
2) You can make your own JVM.
3) You can make your own libraries.
4) Your java code can be open source.
What does making java "open source" mean? It means making the standard open. Why does the
core java standard need to be open when you can write your own open source libraries? Sun
already has a community process for adding features. '
- 'Here's the crux: what they're being asked to open source is something they make no money on
ALREADY. They provide it for free (as in beer). It needs to be free (as in speech) so that it
can ship in the default installs for all the Linux distributions. Ever since the fiaSCO, Linux
distro providers have become even more vigilant about making sure software meets GPL
compatibility requirements. '
- 'Why do people think making something Open Source is unanimously good? Indeed, in this case
I think Open Sourc-ing Java would be a bad move. Java has a slew of sattelite ecosystems and
things that are portrayed as "technologies" themselves. I think Java desperately needs a
backbone on which those entites can rely on for stability. In fact I think this is why Java is a
little too popular. Now days you cannot get a Java project without being required know J2EE,
JNDI, JABC, JDEF, JJJ, and fifteen other acronyms. The whole thing has become an exercise in
marketing. Now factor in the coup de gras of different permutations created by Open Source
people and you're thuroughly confusing the situation. '
- Debugging. Slashdot book
review.
- ' Understand the system: Read the manual, read everything in depth, know the
fundamentals, know the road map, understand your tools, and look up the details.
- Make it fail: Do it again, start at the beginning, stimulate the failure, don't
simulate the failure, find the uncontrolled condition that makes it intermittent, record
everything and find the signature of intermittent bugs, don't trust statistics too much,
know that "that" can happen, and never throw away a debugging tool.
- Quit thinking and look (get data first, don't just do complicated repairs based
on guessing): See the failure, see the details, build instrumentation in, add
instrumentation on, don't be afraid to dive in, watch out for Heisenberg, and guess only to
focus the search.
- Divide and conquer: Narrow the search with successive approximation, get the
range, determine which side of the bug you're on, use easy-to-spot test patterns, start with
the bad, fix the bugs you know about, and fix the noise first.
- Change one thing at a time: Isolate the key factor, grab the brass bar with both
hands (understand what's wrong before fixing), change one test at a time, compare it with a
good one, and determine what you changed since the last time it worked.
- Keep an audit trail: Write down what you did in what order and what happened as a
result, understand that any detail could be the important one, correlate events, understand
that audit trails for design are also good for testing, and write it down!
- Check the plug: Question your assumptions, start at the beginning, and test the
tool.
- Get a fresh view: Ask for fresh insights, tap expertise, listen to the voice of
experience, know that help is all around you, don't be proud, report symptoms (not
theories), and realize that you don't have to be sure.
- If you didn't fix it, it ain't fixed: Check that it's really fixed, check that
it's really your fix that fixed it, know that it never just goes away by itself, fix the
cause, and fix the process. '
- Netscape Co-Founder's 12 Reasons for
Growth of Open Source
- "The Internet is powered by open source."
- "The Internet is the carrier for open source."
- "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
- "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
- "Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
- "Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
- "Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
- "Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
- "Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
- "There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software
companies."
- "Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
- "It's free."
Design
- Michael McDonough's Top Ten
Things They Never Taught Me in Design School
- Talent is one-third of the success equation.
- 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
- If everything is equally important, then nothing is very important.
- Don't over-think a problem.
- Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns.
- Don't forget your goal.
- When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance.
- The road to hell is paved with good intentions; or, no good deed goes unpunished.
- It all comes down to output.
- The rest of the world counts.
- WoodThatWorks.com. 'Kinetic Sculpture: No
batteries, No electricity! '
Elections
- Kerry Ad
Focuses on Domestic Agenda: Aides Try to Shift Campaign's Tone
- 'Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry's campaign manager, said Bush is running "an unprecedented
negative campaign" because he has "no positive case to make." Senior strategist Tad Devine,
accusing the president of "distorted" advertising, said the campaign concluded it was more
important to address voters' bread-and-butter concerns than be drawn into constantly
responding to Bush's on-air attacks.
- 'Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt responded, "John Kerry's campaign seems to be summed
up this way: I went to Vietnam, yadda, yadda, yadda, I want to be president. He would have
the American people ignore his 19-year record in the United States Senate. . . . In the case
of John Kerry, the truth hurts."
- OMFG. Yadda, yadda, yadda? Like Vietnam was nothing (or at least Bush did nothing
during Vietnam).
- The Old Bloody Shirt. See what
a Vietnam vet thinks of Holt's comment:
- 'I know nothing about Terry Holt. I don't know whether he ever served in the
military, or whether he was even old enough to have served in Vietnam. But I thought
it was a very revealing quote -- a kind of political Freudian slip, so to speak.
Because it revealed the degree to which the Republicans no longer feel it
necessary to pander to (or even show much respect for) those who served in Vietnam.'
- Why should they since Bush skipped out on it?
- 'In my mind's eye I have this image of some GOP flack in the year 2032, talking
to some smart-ass reporter from the Washington Post, and bashing his guy's opponent
for running on his Iraq war resume: "His whole campaign is: I went to Iraq, yadda,
yadda, yadda. I want to be president." '
Engineering
- Pot-in-Pot
- 'This is Mohammed Bah Abba's Pot-in-pot invention. In northern Nigeria, where Mohammed is
from, over 90% of the villages have no electricity. His invention, which he won a Rolex Award
for (and $100,000), is a refrigerator than runs without electricity.
Here's how it works. You take a smaller pot and put it inside a larger pot. Fill the space in
between them with wet sand, and cover the top with a wet cloth. When the water evaporates, it
pulls the heat out with it, making the inside cold. It's a natural, cheap, easy-to-make
refrigerator.
So, instead of perishable foods rotting after only three days, they can last up to three
weeks. Obviously, this has the potential to change their lives. And it already has -- there are
more girls attending school, for example, as their families no longer need them to sell food in
the market. '
- I've seen this before but I'm posting it here because it's such a cool invention.
- SawStop.com [see videos]. I understand how it works...
I've seen the videos... but no way am I sticking my finger in a circular saw! Good technological
development.
- Concrete casts new light in dull rooms.
- 'The days of dull, grey concrete could be about to end. A Hungarian architect has
combined the world's most popular building material with optical fiber from Schott to
create a new type of concrete that transmits light. A wall made of "LitraCon"
allegedly has the strength of traditional concrete but thanks to an embedded array of glass
fibers can display a view of the outside world, such as the silhouette of a tree, for
example.'
- What a bright idea! This has a lot of potential
- 3D ads to put virtual
beers on bars
- 'The system, from X3D Technologies in New York City, allows the virtual drinks to jump
up to a metre in front of the screen. They can be viewed with the naked eye from
anything up to a 120 degree angle.'
- Engineering Puns. '10
rations: 1 decoration'
Entertainment
- It's too bad that I don't listen to music much.
- iTunes has had songs on-line for 99¢, but now WalMart has songs on-line for 88¢.
- You can listen to songs for free at Starbucks and then buy them burned to a CD if you like
them. (Double-whammy here because I don't drink coffee either.)
- I, Robot trailer [see video].
Looks awesome! However it doesn't appear to be directly from any Isaac Asimov story. One scene
had Chicago in it: It would be cool if it was set in my home town!
Faith
-
The Dark Materials debate: life, God, the universe...
- 'Last week, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, caused controversy
by praising the National Theatre's adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark
Materials - a work that has been interpreted by some as anti-Christian. The two men met
at the theatre on Monday to discuss the meaning of religion in art and literature -and its
enduring relevance to the education of our children. This is the record of their
conversation'
- PP: '... The word that covers some of these early creation narratives is gnostic - the
Gnostic heresy, as it became once Christianity was sort of defined. The idea that the world
we live in, the physical universe is actually a false thing, made by a false God, and the
true God, our true home, our true spiritual home is infinitely distant, far off, a long,
long way away from that. This sense is something we find a lot of in popular culture, don't
you think? The X-Files, you know - "the truth is out there". The Matrix. Everything we see
is the false creation of some wicked power that, as you say, is trying to pull the wool over
our eyes, and there are many others.'
- PP: 'One of the most interesting things for me about this notion of the Fall, is that
the first thing that happened to Adam and Eve is that they were embarrassed, with
consciousness. For me it's all bound up with consciousness, and the coming of understanding
of things - and making the beginning of intellectual inquiry. Which happens typically in
one's adolescence, when one begins to be interested in poetry and art and science and all
these other things. With consciousness comes self-consciousness, comes shame, comes
embarrassment, comes all these things, which are very difficult to deal with. '
- 'PP: Which leads us to Mel Gibson. Have you seen that film?
RW: I haven't seen it.
PP: Nor have I, so we can talk about it! That's all right.
RW: We're allowed opinions without the constraints of reality!
RB: He is presumably selling his film on the basis that it is very realistic. I mean
people are thinking that they're getting close to seeing what happened.
PP: What fascinates me about the phenomenon, is that churches apparently are spending
thousands of pounds buying, block booking tickets and giving them away to atheists in the
hope that by seeing someone tortured to death we'll reform. '
- PP: 'This is exactly the heart of the problem of representation isn't it, whether we're
talking about a myth or something else. I'm very struck by Karen Armstrong's description in
her new book of the difference between myth, which she calls something that is a sort of
basic human response to the problems of the great questions of life and death, what she
calls logos, the rational attempt to work out answers by using our reason.
Now a rational depiction of the events of Holy Week would have to be a sort of cinema.
You'd have to show it cinematically, as I take it that Mel Gibson does. But that would miss
the other part wouldn't it? Wouldn't it miss the mythical element of it, which is something
that has to be lived and lived and lived again? '
- 'RW: The curious thing about fundamentalism is that I think it's a very, very modern
phenomenon. It's a kind of reaction to a scientistic rationalism which says, it couldn't
have been like that. And the fundamentalist, instead of saying, well what question's being
asked here, immediately bounces back and says, oh yes it was, and you then have a sterile
standoff, which doesn't at all get to the level of the mythological and the proper positive
sense that you're talking about. '
- 'RB: Question from a fellow atheist who is appalled by the materialism of this society -
how would PP recommend children develop spiritual life?
PP: I don't use the word spiritual myself, because I don't have a clear sense of what it
means. But I think it depends on your view of education: whether you think that the true end
and purpose of education is to help children grow up, compete and face the economic
challenges of a global environment that we're going to face in the 21st century, or whether
you think it's to do with helping them see that they are the true heirs and inheritors of
the riches - the philosophical, the artistic, the scientific, the literary riches - of the
whole world. If you believe in setting children's minds alive and ablaze with excitement and
passion or whether it's a matter of filling them with facts and testing on them. It depends
on your vision of education - and I know which one I'd go for.
RW: I think we're entirely at one on that, I must say. '
Games
Interesting
-
http://www.detoursvideo.com/Elsewhere.htm [see the videos].
- Holy crap! David "Elsewhere" Bernal is the Master and Commander of popping. A must see.
- Kollaboration.org.
- Dug this up via the Elsewhere link.
- 'Kollaboration is under the umbrella of ProKreation Productions, a cutting edge,
pioneering production company promoting entertainment in the Asian Community. ProKreation
Productions aims to bring together Asian Americans and sharpen the level of talent within
the Asian community.'
- Some pretty fine moves. Fancy katas (pre-arranged routines) are cheesy and out of place
in Japanese or Korean martial arts but fit in just fine in Kung Fu or the dance world.
- Japanese Old Photographs from the
Bakumatsu-Meiji Period (1860-1899). Just filing this link here.
Iraq
- The Damage Done: It's
easy to send soldiers off to war. It's a lot harder to face them when they come home
 - 'The men in these photographs are soldiers who were wounded in Iraq. Two of them were
wounded in firefights. One was delivering ice. Another walked off into the desert on a
bathroom break and stepped on a mine. One was wounded while blowing up a munitions dump. Two
of the soldiers who look the least damaged are blind, far more damaged than the camera can
record. Whatever they may feel about their condition now, these men tend to sum up our
involvement in Iraq in simple, blunt phrases. Like this, from a double amputee: "The
reasons for going to war were bogus, but we were right to go in there. Saddam was a bad guy."
'
- Americans are more emotionally affected by photos of injured Americans than photos of
the many more injured Iraqi civilians.
- Know thine
enemy
- 'As the fear of terror stalks the West, we have to keep it in perspective and frustrate
the first objective of terrorists throughout the years - to provoke the enemy to behave
badly and so widen the conflict. '
- 'The British methods faced their greatest tests from the IRA terrorists within Northern
Ireland and Britain over the last three decades, coping with atrocities which were designed
to provoke the fiercest reprisals. It was the refusal to respond - with some bloody
exceptions - which prevented the IRA from widening its support and prepared the way for a
settlement.'
- 'Bin Laden's long-term masterplan was quite clear. He wanted, like previous
arch-terrorists, to force his opponents to respond ruthlessly and, to achieve maximum
publicity, to produce further recruits.
The primary purpose of the terrorists, wrote Bernard Lewis, Washington's favourite Middle
East expert who was one of the brains behind the Iraq war, 'is not to defeat or even to
weaken the enemy militarily but to gain publicity - a psychological victory'.
He wanted to provoke a holy war, a Western crusade which would set Christians against
Muslims. And he wanted to get the Americans out of his own home country, Saudi Arabia, to
bring back the puritan rule of the Wahabi sect.
In all these objectives, he soon succeeded. President Bush quickly declared a
'crusade' against him and a war against terrorism, though it should never have been seen as
a war, as British historian Sir Michael Howard soon pointed out. He sent the American fleet
back to the Middle East, undermined the Saudi royal family and removed American troops. He
gave bin Laden and al-Qaeda the maximum publicity. And he rapidly antagonised innocent
Muslims outside and inside America, with 'racial profiling', draconian legislation, mass
arrests and detentions and the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. '
- 'It was always the first rule in countering terrorists - to make sure that they would
not gain support among their moderate countrymen. It would be the ultimate blunder if,
in the panic over the horrors of terrorism in Europe, the British forget their historical
lessons and allow themselves to be provoked into multiplying their enemies. '
-
No end in sight for U.S. in Iraq
- ' "Failing to internationalize the peace has meant that the United States itself is
responsible for everything that happens in Iraq, and becomes . . . the sole target,"
Birenbaum [, David, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations] said. "And that creates
a big problem for a president who is committed to making something of Iraq and doesn't want
to see an endless string of body bags." '
- Carter
savages Blair and Bush: 'Their war was based on lies'
- 'He said: "There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently. That was a
war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely
that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction. And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair
probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence ... a
decision was made to go to war [then people said] 'Let's find a reason to do so'." '
- Just for balance, here are a few pro-Iraq War links:
Martial Arts
Media
Money
-
"The Outsourcing Bogeyman" by Daniel W. Drezner
- Odd to see someone actually defending offshore outsourcing.
- 'According to the election-year bluster of politicians and pundits, the outsourcing of
American jobs to other countries has become a problem of epic proportion. Fortunately, this
alarmism is misguided. Outsourcing actually brings far more benefits than costs, both now
and in the long run. If its critics succeed in provoking a new wave of American
protectionism, the consequences will be disastrous -- for the U.S. economy and for the
American workers they claim to defend. '
- Related links:
- 350 Tax Increases? President Bush applies
the Powell Doctrine to running for re-election
- '[Bush] asserted that John Kerry had voted for higher taxes 350 times during Kerry's 20
years in the Senate. Vice President Dick Cheney and other presidential surrogates have been
using this statistoid for several weeks, and it has been picked up and repeated in the
conservative media echo chamber.'
- 'But this isn't about taxes; it's about honesty. Honesty means more than factual
accuracy, it means avoiding disingenuousness: not talking crap when you know it's crap.'
- This is one of the things I hate about Bush: A lot of what he say is factually
true but he dishonestly uses truths.
- 'The best way to see the absurdity of saying that John Kerry voted for higher taxes 350
times is to apply Bush's madcap logic to Bush himself. ... At Bush's current rate of 16 "tax
increases" a year, he'd have 320 under his belt if he could stay in the White House for 20
years. ... And isn't it simply ridiculous to suggest that George W. Bush is more complacent
about higher taxes than John Kerry? Yes, it's unfair. It's ridiculous. That's the point. '
- Report Says Medicare to Go
Broke by 2019
- More or less equal?
- 'There are three broad areas of difficulty. The first is measuring what people,
especially the poorest people in developing countries, consume. The second is valuing
consumption in a way that allows useful comparisons to be made across countries and over time.
And the third, in effect, is settling on an appropriate basis of comparison. Which
matters more, for instance: whether inequality is widening among nations, or whether inequality
is widening among all the people of the world, regardless of which country they happen to live
in? Judging any claim about global inequality is impossible without a clear understanding of how
the researchers concerned have dealt with all three questions. '
- The first part of this chart shows that the trend is downward, i.e. the richer countries are
getting richer, while the poorer countries are getting poorer.
- However the second part of the chart shows that a different trend, i.e., thanks esp.
to China and India, more people are getting richer than are getting poorer.
- Note that it could also mean that a very few people in China and India are getting richer.
- Some people could misuse the second part of the chart to say that the wealth gap is not as
large.
- 'The countries of sub-Saharan Africa are represented by the white circles. These are not
just the poorest countries in the world, but also the slowest-growing.'
- It's a good time to
be an entrepreneur. 'Venture capitalists who've enjoyed the stock market gains last year are
increasingly amenable to paying small fortunes to entrepreneurs with good ideas. ... Here's why.
Venture capitalists are faced with an abundance of capital raised in 1999 and 2000 that have
to be spent in the next couple of years. '
Politics
- Scandal after scandal
after scandal
- 'In fact, we've seen more substantive scandals involving the GOP in the last three years
than we ever did with Dems in the 90s. I'm not talking about scandals that ought to be
investigated; I mean Republicans and their scandals that have actually been the subject of
formal investigation.'
- Then he goes on to list around 16 official scandals.
- Floor Statement of
Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle on the Administration Attacking Good People for Telling the
Truth
- 'I want to talk this morning about a disturbing pattern of conduct by the people around
President Bush. They seem to be willing to do anything for political purposes, regardless
of the facts and regardless of what's right.'
- He then goes on to briefly discuss how Bush attacks good people for telling the truth:
- 'Larry Lindsay, for instance, seems to have been fired as the President's
Economic Advisor because he spoke honestly about the costs of the Iraq War'
- 'General Shinseki seems to have become a target when he spoke honestly about
the number of troops that would be needed in Iraq. '
- 'U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers was suspended from her job when she
disclosed budget problems that our nation's parks are less safe'
- 'Professor Elizabeth Blackburn was replaced on the Council on Bioethics
because of her scientific views on stem-cell research. '
- 'When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill stepped forward to criticize the
Bush Administration's Iraq policy, he was immediately ridiculed by the people around the
President and his credibility was attacked'
- 'Ambassador [Joseph] Wilson, who by all accounts served bravely under
President Bush in the early 1990s, felt a responsibility to speak out on President
Bush's false State of the Union statement on Niger and uranium ... Within weeks of
debunking the President's claim, Ambassador Wilson's wife was the target of a despicable
act. Her identity as a deep-cover CIA agent was revealed '
- 'Richard Foster, an actuary for the Department of Health and Human Services,
has revealed that he was told he would be fired if he told Congress and the American
people the real costs of last year's Medicare bill. '
- 'The White House's former lead counter-terrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, is
under fierce attack for questioning the White House's record on combating terrorism ...
Now the White House seeks to destroy his reputation. The people around the President
aren't answering his allegations; instead, they are trying to use the same tactics they
used with Paul O'Neill. They are trying to ridicule Mr. Clarke and destroy his
credibility, and create any diversion possible to focus attention away from his serious
allegations.'
- 'Think about those words. He would lose his job if he did his job. If he provided
the information the Congress and the American people deserved and were entitled to, he would
lose his job. When did this become the standard for our government? When did we
become a government of intimidation? '
- So is Bush an ass or is he an ass?
- NewAmericanEmpire.org. In case you're thick,
the site is a parody of the NeoConservative
NewAmericanCentury.org site.
Science
- Things fall
apart: What if the dark energy and dark matter essential to modern explanations of the universe
don't really exist?
- The New Science Wars: Is George
W. Bush's the most anti-science administration in modern times?
- I've
already blogged on this thread but the thread lives on.
- 'When a leading psychologist like Harvard's Howard Gardner
calls the president's science adviser a "prostitute," it's a safe bet that all is not
well in the realm of government science policy. Indeed, in the past month, the United States has
been engulfed by a kind of "science war," one pitting much of the nation's scientific community
against the current administration. Led by
twenty Nobel laureates,
the scientists say Bush's government has systematically distorted and undermined scientific
information in pursuit of political objectives. Examples include the suppression and censorship
of reports on subjects like climate change and mercury pollution, the stacking of scientific
advisory panels, and the suspicious removal of scientific information from government Web
sites.'
- O Bush, Tomás de Torquemada the Inquisitor would be proud of you. Once again I am sickened
how your stench has invaded so many of my blog topics.
- Scientists
jaw over human brain growth
- 'The gene mutation led to weaker jaw muscles, the team suggests. Humans then developed
larger brains because their jaws no longer constrained the growth of skull.'
- 'And anthropologist Dean Falk of Florida State University in Tallahassee notes that other
studies suggest human jaws didn't shrink until much more recently, when cooking started and
foods became softer. Thus, the initial increase in brain size preceded thinning of the jawbone
and skull in early humans. "And don't forget that the biggest brains on record come from
thick-skulled Neanderthals." '
- Whee! Fun stuff! It sounds like some scientists are trying to defend their weak chins!
Sex
- SuperModelPersonals.blogspot.com
[fashionably NSFW].
- Lamer than it sounds. Someone takes fashion shots and inserts some fantasy dialogue. The
models have the last word because the fake personals get old but the photos just keep
looking good.
 'Raging bulimic,
and unapologetic label-whore seeks handsome boy-toy accessory. Duties will include: telling
me which jeans my butt looks good in, lifting heavy things, and killing bugs and stuff. Must
be able to coordinate outfits before we go out. Bad shoes are a dealbreaker. No smokers!!!'
-
Simulatore di Orgasmi [NSFW game in Italian]. I think you win by properly faking an orgasm.
-
ThornePeters.com [NSFW]. This "Kingpin" is a cheesy
sexual hedonist more like Larry Flynt than Hugh Hefner but the content funny in a strange,
gagging sort of way. The site has a feeling of a Photoshop hoax.
-
Wo-Hen Nankan, the "Asian Prince" is actually
Thorne Peter's long lost brother! Wo-Hen is actually much funnier.
-
AtlasPerovic.com [NSFW: medical grossness]. "Atlas Of
Congenital Anomalies Of The External Genitalia". SWEET LORD! My eyes have gone blind!
-
Oregon county
bans all marriage.
- 'Rebekah Kassell, a spokeswoman for Basic Rights Oregon, a pro-gay marriage group, told
Reuters; "It is certainly a different way for county commissioners to respect their
constitutional obligation to apply the law equally to everyone." '
- Petaphilia: The Great
American Man-Dog Marriage Panic.
- 'With support and prayer, you may come to understand that gay marriage won't open the door
to anything--except your fantasies. '
- I like this method taking someone's idea and showing how ridiculous it is.
- Dispatches From Girls Gone Wild.
I must be getting old because the link was almost boring for me. I'm only posting it here as a
public service.
Terrorism
- Leader of
Hamas Reported Killed in Israeli Strike [2004-03-21]
- 'Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and leader of the Hamas militant group that targeted
Israelis in suicide bombings, was killed by missiles fired from Israeli helicopters as he
left a mosque at daybreak Monday, witnesses said. '
- 'Yassin was viewed as an inspirational figure by his followers in the Gaza Strip and
West Bank. His death could spur violent protests not only in the Palestinian areas but in
the wider Arab and Islamic world, where he was well-regarded as a symbol of the Palestinian
battle for independence.
Thousands of angry Palestinians gathered minutes after the attack, calling for revenge
against Israel.
In announcing Yassin's death, Hamas said, ''(Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon has
opened the gates of hell and nothing will stop us from cutting off his head.'' '
- So in a few days we will see what where this "Eye For An Eye" world leads. Of
course Hamas is not the same as Palestine but some people won't make this distinction.
- Related links:
- How we got homeland security
wrong
- 'Today probabilistic modeling technology is so well accepted that after the attacks of Sept.
11, 2001, AIR's clients immediately called for a new model that would capture the risks of
terrorism. The model, completed in 2002, assesses the likelihood and cost, in human life and
dollars, of different kinds of attacks in every part of the country. It's not perfect, but it's
smart. '
- 'International terrorism, as most experts will tell you, is not as unpredictable as it
feels. Terrorists follow patterns. And while we can't read the minds of zealots, we can get a
good idea of what kind of damage they could do in any given location. We can estimate the cost
of an attack on a port in Los Angeles vs. an attack on a port in Prince William Sound. We can
calculate where a nuclear blast of a given force would kill 500,000 people as opposed to 50,000.
These are the logical estimates that insurers and investment banks are seeking as they try to
quantify the risk they face. But while all this strategic thinking is going on in the private
sector, the government has responded to terrorism in a less rational way. '
- 'Of the top 10 states and districts receiving the most money per capita last year, only the
District of Columbia also appeared on a list of the top 10 most at-risk places, as calculated by
AIR for TIME. In fact, funding appears to be almost inversely proportional to risk. '
- 'Under the direction of Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, then chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, they decided to adopt a formula that had been used in years past for
distributing terrorism-preparedness funds, a formula that had never been written into law before
and that was designed for a sum of money that was incomparably smaller. This unusual formula
mandated that each state receive a minimum of three-quarters of 1% of the total pot of money,
with smaller shares going to territories like Puerto Rico. That meant that 40% of the funds had
to be divided up equally among the states, regardless of size or population. ... But Congress
alone isn't to blame for the skewed funding. The executive branch was left with exceptional
leeway to spend the remaining 60% of the funds any which way -- including according to risk.
'
- 'So far, though, pork-barrel tradition is winning out in Washington. Change will require
more people like Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican from New Hampshire, who has spoken out in
favor of risk-based funding, even though it would almost certainly mean less money for his own
state. "We know certain facts about the enemy. There are certain logical places where you're
going to use weapons of mass destruction," he says, as if it's obvious. "This is a question of
national security. Politics is irrelevant." '
- Sudan: Darfur is World's Greatest
Humanitarian Disaster, Says UN Official
- 'The pattern of organised attacks on civilians and villages, abductions, killings and
organised rapes by militias was getting worse by the day, he said, and could deteriorate even
further. "One can see how the situation might develop without prompt [action]...all the warning
signs are there." '
- 'In an attack on 27 February in the Tawilah area of northern Darfur, 30 villages were burned
to the ground, over 200 people killed and over 200 girls and women raped - some by up to 14
assailants and in front of their fathers who were later killed. A further 150 women and 200
children were abducted. Since a rebellion in the region emerged in February 2004, about 700,000
people have been displaced while another 110,000 have fled to neighbouring Chad. Over 10,000
are estimated to have lost their lives. '
- OK, let's see... The graves in Sudan are fresh, not accumulated over years like the ones in
Iraq. ... If we didn't go into Iraq for WMD, but possibly for humanitarian reasons then we
should be jumping into Sudan right now. But are we? So far all we've got is talk (US
Intervenes in Sudan Talks). Iraq on the other hand was premeditated by the Bush
administration regardless of what the UN did.
- 9/11: Internal
Government Documents Show How the Bush Administration Reduced Counterterrorism
The Passion of the Christ
- The Passion of the Heist. Here come the
parodies.
- Python's
'Life of Brian' to be re-issued.
- Ha ha! I guess there were parodies of The Passion before it even came out. Excellent
time to re-issue Monty Python's Life of Brian!
 - Related link: Python film to
challenge Passion
- A few quotations from the movie are in order [via
http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/python/Scripts/LifeOfBrian/brian.html]:
- REG: Apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads,
the fresh water system, and public health...what have the Romans ever done for us?
- BRIAN: Look. You've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow
anybody! You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!
FOLLOWERS: Yes, we're all individuals!
BRIAN: You're all different!
FOLLOWERS: Yes, we are all different!
DENNIS: I'm not.'
- MAN #1: I think it was 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'
Web
- Local.Google.com. Google came out with search service
that finds local links/places to compete with
Local.Yahoo.com. Both are sort of OK but both are also improving.
World
- Voting Bloc: In Geneva, the U.N.'s
successor may be testing its wings
- 'Imagine a better Washington. Imagine a conservative Republican administration
working hand in glove with liberal congressional Democrats on a foreign-policy initiative
designed to strengthen the United Nations while simultaneously increasing America's clout
there. Imagine both parties and both branches bringing this initiative to fruition smoothly
and unfussily, during an election year. Say, this year. Say, right now. Pinch yourself. It
is happening.'
- Please let it be true! I want to believe!
- 'The United Nations' credibility and effectiveness are tattered, a fact that is
not news to Americans. According to polling by the Gallup Organization, 60 percent of
Americans rate the U.N. as doing a "poor job in trying to solve the problems it has had to
face." The reasons for disenchantment go deeper than last year's tiff over the Iraq war. The
most fundamental is that the United Nations is built on an obsolete premise: that countries
governed by their people and countries governed by thugs, thieves, or tyrants should meet on
equal terms, one vote each. '
- 'To add injury to insult, democracies at the U.N. are disproportionately weak. The U.N.
is dominated by a cluster of regional and ideological caucuses. African countries, for
example, are pressured to vote together, with undemocratic governments often calling the
shots and democracies going along to get along. Tyrants thus routinely exempt themselves
from human-rights resolutions, while log-rolling ensures that condemnations of Israel sail
through. '
- 'In 1996, a private group called the United Nations Association of the United States of
America [, the UNAUSA,] floated the idea of a caucus solely for democracies. With 120 or so
nations (out of 191 U.N. members), such a caucus could serve as a powerful counterweight to
the traditional caucuses.
- 'All of that was groundwork. What had yet to happen was for the caucus to meet at the
U.N. to do actual business: devise common positions, advance resolutions, eventually vote as
a bloc on nominations and policies. It is this operational coordination that the
administration hopes will now begin in Geneva, under the leadership of Chile, which
currently heads the Community of Democracies' steering group. Predictions are risky, but
where you see an acorn, it is not crazy to foresee an oak. With a little light and water,
the democracy caucus will inevitably grow. In time--you heard it first here--it may
overshadow the U.N. '
- 'On Capitol Hill, support is strong in both parties. In 2003 the House
overwhelmingly passed a bill, still awaiting Senate action, requiring (among other things)
that the U.S. seek a democracy caucus. ... Partisanship is nowhere to be seen. The Bush
administration, like the Clinton administration, supports the idea, and, said Lantos, "There
is not the slightest doubt in my mind, although I haven't talked to him about it, that John
Kerry will be just as enthusiastic." ... Rarely have liberal idealism and neoconservative
realism converged so completely. That confluence assures the democracy caucus a future,
regardless of which party is in charge. '
- My Interview With Rebecca. He he.
Smash politely interviews a college anti-war activist while thinking about ripping her head off.
I admire his civility. Oddly enough I side with Smash on this one.
- I'm not a Marxist and while people were killed on behalf of communism, it doesn't mean that
there is nothing to be learned from Marx. However the problem is arises when people are too
idealistic and aren't dealing with some of the pragmatic problems. I'm Left but not that far
Left.
- 'Watermelon: Red on the inside, Green on the outside.' Interesting. I'm "Green" but not
"Red". What color is progressive Democrat?
- Anti-war activists who are for using violence to combat war are twisted. Iraq will be a
democratic state and the US is doing good work to rebuild it. There are extremists on both sides
of this Iraq issue. The danger arises when everyone gets lumped with the extremes and people
don't argue about the specific policies and general policy directions.
- The line of 'war for oil' is pretty old. The current line is the Iraq War was right but
unnecessary and illegal.
- Yes Iraq and Palestine must have 2 states. They just need to draw the lines and stick with
them.
Words
- Easy on the
Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle: Elmore's Rules of Writing
- 100 Most Often Mispronounced
Words and Phrases in English. Serious but fun.
- Charles [Miller]'s
Rules of Arguments.
- This would actually save me and many others many hours of our lives if we listened. It's
around 20 paragraphs and it's all good.
- #6: 'Saying something controversial in your own space (i.e. your weblog) is only arguing if
you directly reference somebody you are disagreeing with (or it is clearly understood in subtext
who you are disagreing with), and that person is likely to give a shit about what you said.'
- 'The ideal attitude to project during any argument is one of calm disinterest.'
- 'Any emotional involvement you show is a weakness that can be exploited by your opponent.
Even being passionate about your subject is dangerous, because over time passion becomes zeal,
and zeal becomes shrillness. Affect the air of someone who is completely convinced of their
correctness, but does not really care that the rest of the world is so stupid as to not realise
it.'
- Alas, I'm afraid that I've become that way about being anti-Bush. Usually I don't care and I
assume people are just doing their jobs: sore are doing it at their earnest best, some are doing
their job lazily, etc. But with Bush, it's as if there's a smell of rotten eggs and I have to
keep waving my arms because the stench is overwhelming. I wish he'd just go away.
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![[PHOTO: George Hernandez]](/h/Media/zMisc/GHLogo.gif){kind=small}
