Coyote Howling - Peripheral Visionary

My inner geek screams

So Charles Murtaugh points out this article on Tech Central Station:

I had an aunt and uncle who were Communists until the end. They saw any flaw in the capitalist sytem as fatal, and they saw hope in the most tired and discredited leaders and systems (my uncle wrote an exultant pamphlet about Yugoslavia under Tito).

I am reminded of my aunt and uncle whenever I read an anti-Microsoft tirade...

...and I can't help but think the author, Arnold Kling, may have a point. My first computer was an Atari 800 with a cassette recorder for data storage. I learned what is now considered an evil programming language, Basic, so I could fiddle with the programs and games that Atari ran. My monsters in "Crush, Crumble, Chomp" were invincible.

But I bought the thing to do word processing, because I didn't want to have to do another 1,000,000 words on a typewriter.

Word processing is still #1 on my list of Reasons Why I Have a Computer, though Internet research is a very close #2. (Oh, all right, and there is that selection of first-person shooters, too.) I have bought three distributions of Linux (Caldera, Corel, and Mandrake) and the horrible realization is that I don't have the time, hobby or otherwise, to get a system really up and running. I just want to work, play, surf, etc.

But my inner geek still whines for the command line....

Missing the point

Theater Company Swaps "Hunchback" for "Bellringer"

LONDON -- A British theater company has changed the name of its adaptation of the classic novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, so it won't offend people with the disability.

Oddsocks Productions swapped "hunchback" for "bellringer" because it did not want to upset people with scoliosis, producer Elli Mackenzie said Friday. The condition causes the spine to curve and, in extreme cases, the development of a hunchback.

"We did not want to reinforce any stereotypes about Quasimodo's disability," said Mackenzie.

Good grief, what do these clowns think the story is about? It's about the perception of the Hunchback as some sort of monster, as a stereotype, and overcoming that. It's not about overcoming the stereotype and persecution of a bellringer. This is right up there with tossing out "To Kill a Mockingbird" because in illustrating the wrongs of racism, it uses racist terms.

Talk about oversensitivity.

Being ridden out on a rail

Amtrak - The little engine that couldn't

"No one wants to see Amtrak die," Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said Tuesday, echoing the consensus about a government-owned corporation that lost more than $1 billion last year. While not literally true, Mineta's statement reflects the political reality that Amtrak will no doubt survive this week's death threats, as it has survived so many before. And that's unfortunate. We need to let Amtrak die, so that others might live.

Too late, we've bailed them out again. For this year. Next year....

Who knew....

You sometimes doubt yourself - who you are and what you can do. You're a curious person, with questions and concerns about the world. You go along with the crowd and aim to please others to your best ability. But when you finally discover what you're really capable of, you can do some serious ass kickin'! You're fast and furious, and you will always stick up for what you believe, and those who you care for. Not only that, but you're charming and charismatic, so you get along with people well, and others often look up to you.

Now, where's that white rabbit chick....

And the show goes on

Game Pirates Rule the Seize

Warcraft III, the much-anticipated sequel from Blizzard Entertainment, hits store shelves on July 3. The series, which is the company's most recognizable franchise, hoped its rollout would create a big splash in an industry that thrives on glitz and glamour.

That wasn't to be. While designers rushed to complete the game, groups of crackers around the world were trying to get their hands on Warcraft III before it was released. It's a regular dance between game companies and pirate groups. The bigger the game, the more intense the pressure on both sides. In this battle, the game companies almost never win.

Three weeks before Warcraft III hit stores, it was cracked.

I am reminded of The Day, back when Apple, Atari, and Commodore (oh my) ruled the computer universe, and IBM was just trying to get a PC off the ground. Several, er, acquaintances had vast collections of pirated software. "Demon dialers" would locate other computer systems by systematically dialing every phone number in a given area code with a given prefix. On and on, it was a game.

When I asked why he had all the pirated stuff, the answer was, "They're like money. You upload stuff to earn credits to download stuff."

This game continues, only now a little more anonymously and with somewhat broader distribution via the Internet. Rather than learning a specific electronic bulletin board system (BBS) phone number, you get an FTP address, access name and password.

You would think after all this, the companies trying to fight it would understand: they can't stop it. As fast as they develop a new anti-piracy scheme, as fast (or faster) someone cracks it. Here's the example of Warcraft III. There are others. Windows and Office XP with the "product activation" feature removed float around everywhere.

And look at how fast someone figured out how to make copies of Sony's "copy-protected" music CDs, with nothing more than a magic marker.

I have to wonder how much money is spent preventing the "billions of dollars lost to piracy."

Political action committees in action

From Best of the Web comes a link to the Daily Pundit Archives wherein William Quick reveals a letter-writing campaign organized by MoveOn, a group originally put together to oppose the Clinton impreachment. The focus of their current campaign? Stop any action against Iraq!

Interesting. As BoW puts it: "Pro-Clinton, Pro-Saddam?"

Such a surprise

NEA: Statement -- Statement of Bob Chase, President of the National Education Association on the U.S. Supreme Court Decision on Private School Tuition Vouchers

The National Education Association pledges to continue to fight for children and public education - and oppose divisive and counterproductive proposals to divert energy, attention, and resources to private school tuition vouchers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the Cleveland private school voucher case. Just because vouchers may be legal in some circumstances doesn't make them a good idea.

Except in this case they were arguing that children be forced to attend one of the worst schools in the nation. This is to their benefit how?

For the last 30 years I've watched schools go straight down the tubes. Where is the "improvement" Chase cites in his statement? He writes that reading and match scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress have "increased steadily since 1992," etc. From a low of what? It reminds me of the tactic you see in some stores, where prices are increased just prior to a sale, just so they can advertise "major price cuts." Only this is in reverse, with scores having dropped to all-time lows, with no where to go but up.

The fact is that public schools, from the administration down to the classroom teacher, haven't had a lick of competition. For them there has been no need to improve because they had a captive audience. In California they even managed to make it a state constitutional issue that education get at least 40% of the state budget.

And yet...education in the pits.

Bring on the vouchers. With a shrinking student body, maybe public education will finally begin to improve.

Driving is not a "right"

Lifting Veil for Photo ID Goes Too Far, Driver Says

MIAMI, June 26 -- A Muslim woman who says the state is violating her religious rights in demanding that she remove her veil for a driver's license photograph will be in court this week to try to regain her driving privileges.

So don't drive. I'm in California. All through driver's ed it was drilled into me that driving is not a right, it's a privilege granted by law. You need to meet certain criteria, obey a set of laws, etc. In Florida, you are required to submit a "full-face" photo for your driver's license. This lady refuses, ergo no license.

Where's the bad? Her attorneys are amusing.

"Are we suggesting that it's O.K. for any police officer to stop her and require her to remove her veil just so she can be identified?" said Randall Marshall, legal director in the Miami office of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which is helping to represent Ms. Freeman.

Well, actually, yes. Again, I can only speak from California law and experience, but it seems safe to assume that Florida operates much the same. If you get stopped for a traffic infraction you are required to show your driver's license. You do that for at least two reasons. 1) To demonstrate you have a license to drive. 2) As proof of identity. It's grounds for dismissal if you contest a citation and the officer who issued the ticket can't identify you as the one he gave the ticket to. In fact, it's part of the rap that you say, "I identified the driver with her valid California state driver's license."

But, he's even sillier:

He said the state's argument that "safety concerns" demanded full facial photos was "bogus," in part because his client had offered to provide fingerprints, DNA or other information that could be used to verify her identity.

I can only assume that this attorney is willing to have his client sit in jail pending the required tests, the ones necessary to confirm that the "fingerprints, DNA or other information" that she submits matches her? Last I heard, DNA testing took some time....

It's mentioned that other states don't require photographs for their licenses. Well, that's their bad, because the driver's license for many states is completely useless for identification purposes. I'll give you odds that those states are high on the list for forged licenses.

Again, it all boils down to rights. You have a right to practise the faith of your choice. You don't have a right to drive.

This is our opinion...maybe

Judge Stays Own 'Pledge' Ruling

A day after he shocked the nation by declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, a federal appeals court judge in San Francisco put his ruling on hold Thursday.

What, he's surprised by the typhoon he and the others created? I can see him now, mumbling to himself, "I'm not gonna take the heat alone. Let's get all 11 of us to vote! Why in God's (unconstitutional) name did I have to write that god(oops)damn opinion?!?"

I'm telling ya, this is one of the funnier political and judicial moments in US history.

Ron Barrier of American Atheists Incorporated in New York endorsed Wednesday's court ruling and said atheists are standing firm in the midst of the decision's criticism.

Barrier said the government needs to recognize that there are millions of Americans with no religious beliefs who still are patriots and citizens and taxpayers.

And many millions more who hold strong religious beliefs. Amazingly, all those in the Senate and in the House who in the past have cried "foul" whenever the notion of school prayer is brought up, are screaming against this decision. Hypocrits all.

Equally amusing is the reaction of Michael Newdow, the man who filed the original suit. His honest observation is that Congress is up in arms in order to garner votes, but then he makes himself look silly when he speaks about how listening to the Pledge "injured" his daughter. His second grade age daughter.

And it turns out he originally filed this suit in Florida four years ago.

Why can't he just admit he's using his daughter as leverage to get this thing into court? This crap about protecting his daughter from the ravages of religion is just nauseating.

He would be on firmer, better ground just quoting Eisenhower when he signed the bill that inserted "under God" into the Pledge, in 1954.

In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future.

The question is whether "under God" imposes a specific faith. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof[.]" What faith is invoked by the use of the word "god"? I can think of several right off the top of my head.

It's all so amusing, really. I think many are genuinely surprised by the uproar. They literally hadn't a clue.

Why Ted Kennedy is an idiot

After hearing of the Supreme Court decision unholding the Constitutionality of school vouchers, CNN reports and quotes Senator Ted Kennedy as saying:

Private school vouchers may pass constitutional muster, but they fail the test when it comes to improving our nation's public schools.

It's flat wrong to take scarce taxpayer dollars away from public schools and divert them to private schools. Despite the Court's ruling, vouchers are still bad policy for public schools, and Congress must not abandon its opposition to them.

They're not "private school vouchers," Ted. They're vouchers that allow a parent to choose what school to send their child to. They're not an attempt to improve public schools, except in encouraging them to clean up their act and actually do the job of teaching, something they're horrible at right now.

Of course, since this is a report from CNN, that's the major quote in the entire story.

And I guess neither read this article:

A study conducted by Rand Corp., American Institutes for Research and several government entities -- called the CSR Research Consortium -- found that California's efforts to reduce the size of school classes produced mixed results. Moreover, the report cautioned that so many variables were involved that it was "difficult to isolate the effects of any single one."

Nevertheless, class-size reduction "roughly translates to moving a student who was at the 50th percentile to the 53rd percentile" -- only a slight improvement.

Of course, class-size reduction is a major liberal movement because smaller classes will mandate more teachers, which translates into large teacher unions, which means more political clout. This same article contains this tasty, relevant bit:

Harvard University's Paul E. Peterson has found that voucher programs are raising students' scores in Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York City -- and at lower costs.

"The reforms that are cheap and work," Peterson says, "are the hardest to get by the special interests that dominate education."

Amen to that.

European oddities persist

Here about this one on Rush, and had to pass on that the European Union has been trying to regulate the size and shape of fruits and vegetables. However, these EU rules have not enforceable in England!

For 29 years, they have kept Britain's cucumbers and bananas on the straight and narrow. But now two judges have decided that the bêtes noires of Eurosceptics – the EU fruit and vegetable regulations – have no force in law.

...

[W]hile officials in Brussels and London insist the rules are designed to protect consumers, the pedantic nature of some of them has provoked widespread derision. Rule 1677/88, for example, stipulates a cucumber can have a premium "Class One" classification only if it curves less than 10mm for every 10cm. Similar rules have applied on the shape of bananas since 1994.

Lovely. And I thought US regs were, er, ridiculous.

YIPPEE!!!

Court upholds school vouchers

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the use of taxpayer-paid school vouchers to send children to private schools, finding that a Cleveland program does not violate the Constitution’s church-state doctrine even though the majority of students use the vouchers to attend parochial schools.

Of course, since this story is on MSNBC.com, it reeks of bias. Gads, it's not even subtle!

"The 5-4 ruling led by the court's conservative majority...." How come nothing else is ever reported as being led by the "liberal majority"? Why does this matter? The implication is that this is purely a conservative vs. liberal matter, and if that's the case the matter isn't being resolved by the law but by political ideology. And if that's the case, which "side" is letting ideology lead the way, because that side isn't doing their job.

"...lowers the figurative wall separating church and state..." How in the hell does it do that? The majority opinion is clear that vouchers are not a violation of the establishment clause because the parents are making the choice, not the school, not the state.

There is also the silly quote from the dissenting opinion, Justice David Souter writing: "There is, in any case, no way to interpret the 96.6 percent of current voucher money going to religious schools as reflecting a free a genuine choice by the families that apply for vouchers."

Nonsense! You want interpretations? 1) That percentage of families are religious and don't mind sending their kids to a religious school, since doing so supports the faith of their choice. 2) People choose these religious schools, knowing that their teachings of faith (or lack thereof) at home are what count, yet also knowing that these schools provide a vastly better education that the existing public school system. 3) Due to the suppression of this concept, the choice are largely limited to existing religious schools. As vouchers become the norm, more alternatives will develop. It's called "free enterprise," bobo.

The start of something...huge

Best of the Web also pointed out a post by Den Beste, on his USS Clueless blog, an interpretation of President Bush's speech on the Middle East. In short:

This wasn't a speech about peace; it was preparation for war. It wasn't a peace plan, it was a plan to cease efforts at peacemaking. It wasn't engagement by the US, it was a decision by the US to disengage.

Den points out the seemingly endless parade of news "reports," opinion pieces, editorials, etc., that have said over and over that Bush can't do anything about Iraq until the Palestinian issue is settled. Nonsense! Remember the Gulf War? Saddam shot Scud missiles into Israel in an effort to distract Coalition efforts against him. The supposed purpose was to get Israel to retaliate directly, pissing off the rest of the Arab world, and starting a general bruhaha. Didn't work.

The same thing is going on now. "No no," the opponents of action say. "Can't go after the root of terrorism until you settle this little scuffle over here."

Hah! I think Den's got it right, only it's WW4, not WW3.

Saudi tolerance

Best of the Web pointed the way to this marvelous story:

Riyadh Daily: MoC Bans "Star of David" Spoon

The ministry of commerce prohibited the circulation of a spoon bearing "Star of David" given as a gift by a certain company when a customer buys a certain product. To this effect, the ministry issued a warning to the company not to distributed these give-away to all its branches all over the Kingdom, Al-Eqtisadiah Arabic newspaper reported yesterday. According to the paper, the ministry did not object to the product itself because it is good and safe for human consumption.

The director of the ministry’s branch at Asir, Mohammad Abu Kharsha, told the paper that inspectors of commercial fraud in Asir withdrew children’s pistols also bearing "Star of David", the six-cornered star. Also withdrawn are types of sweets which has the same "Star of David" label. In the same development, the ministry’s inspectors in Jeddah confiscated a large number of laser disks and children’s toys all bearing "Star of David". The ministry is investigating the ways why these products had been brought into the Kingdom.

Wonderful people, terrified of another religion's symbol.

A lucid moment

BBC News: Cuba backs permanent socialism

After three days of speeches, the Cuban National Assembly has voted to amend the country's constitution, making its socialist system of government untouchable.

"A return to the past is undesirable, unthinkable and impossible for our people. The revolution is invincible," Vice-President Carlos Lage told the assembly.

Oh, such a suprise. The moment of lucidity, however, comes from the BBC's Havana "correspondent," and makes a beauty of a wrap for the report:

The BBC's Daniel Schweimler in Havana says opposition in Cuba has been stifled and many said they felt pressured into signing the petition.

...

Our correspondent says only the most committed sincerely believe that 99% of Cubans support Mr Castro's government, but it is clear that 99% do not feel they can oppose him either.

See, lucid reality in the press. A thing of amazement!

On the passing of Michael

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Who's bad?

Wake up and smell the coffee, folks. Michael Jackson is done. Ten years ago, Sony would not have been in a position to dream about bullying Jackson, then the biggest star in the universe. But really, didn't we all know he was done when "HIStory" was released in 1996? People should have noticed how resistant the supposed Jackson-loving masses were to that year's media blitz.

Ouch! And that's one of the mildest comments....

A new SST?

Japanese jet prototype to rival Concorde

It looks like a winged javelin and would zip along at twice the speed of sound, with the supersonic boom reduced to the tolerable rumble of a Boeing 747. It would go twice the distance of the Concorde, seat three times the passengers, and cut emissions by 75 percent.

Sound like science fiction? Japanese researchers say they're ready to prove it's not.

What with the Airbus A380 and the Boeing Sonic Cruiser, the commercial air industry is everything the space shuttle "industry" is not. That is, alive and well.

Is this why my cameras collect dust?

Kenneth Brower writes about Ansel Adams at 100. I've never been a huge fan of Adams, preferring pictures with more people than just the photographer in them. And, voila, Brower sums it up as:

His critics have conceded Adams his pre-eminence in the history of modern photography, his eloquent composition, his technical mastery of printmaking, his ingenious "zone system," and his vast influence as a teacher. But the consensus seems to be that Adams did all these things too well. Today in photography we are seeing a retreat from Adams-style classicism, a glorification of images that look accidental. Photographers with whom I work, men and women who spent years mastering their trade, are dismayed by this development. Morning is no longer the photographer's hour. The young editor or curator complains about the prettiness of low-angle light. Couldn't the photographer shoot more at noon, when the light flattens everything out? Where is the irony? (By which the postmodernist means a kind of empty hipness.) Does everything have to be so sharply in focus? So composed? Couldn't we blur things more, to suggest movement? The photographer hurries home to search the wastebasket for rejects.

I used to work for the man who was best man at Adams's wedding. Needless to say, having a negative view of Ansel was dangerous. My father was a huge fan, but then my father grew up in the Colorado Rockies. Those stark black and white pictures were like picture post cards from home.

When I learned the Zone System, and actually began to understand it, my darkroom work improved immeasureably. I'd hike all around the Bay Area (all right, drive or ride), camera bag at hand, Nikons at the ready, and blast away a few rolls of Ilford HP-5 pull-processed to ASA 200. (See, I can still sling some of the slang around!) Film back to the darkroom, process, dry, print, play, print some more. Great fun, truly.

But the lure of Adams eluded me. Reading Browers's article makes me think that I never saw Adams the right way. The technical virtuoso of the view camera, his prints shine best when viewed large, and you'll not find a book large enough to give the same effect.

If I still had access to a darkroom, I'd dust off the cameras. Then again, I could always see if Fuji has improved Fujichrome Professional 50 (exposed at ASA 80, FYI; slide film is gorgeous is slightly under exposed). It's hard for a decent lab to screw up your slides, other than through physical destruction.

Yasir, we barely know ye....

David Brooks gives A Brief History of Yasir Arafat:

Yasir Arafat claims that he was born in Jerusalem, but he was actually born in Cairo. He claims to belong to the prominent Jerusalem family of Husseini, but he is at best only distantly related to it. He claims that he turned down a chance to go to the University of Texas, but according to one biographer, the Palestinian-born writer Saïd K. Aburish, it is highly unlikely that he was ever accepted. He claims to have disabled ten Israeli armored personnel carriers in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but Israel didn't even have ten APCs in the sector he was in. He claims to have made millions as a businessman in Kuwait, but this, too, is almost certainly untrue.

Obviously, Arafat is a congenital liar. But there's more to it than that....

A report on Minority Report

So, we went and saw "Minority Report" on Friday, opening night. And again last night, so we could actually see it this time. Friday night we were jammed into the front rows. It was an interesting view of Tom Cruise’s nose hairs. It was less than thrilling for seeing the movie.

I liked it. I thought it was excellent. I would be ecstatic if the last minute (literally) could be cut off. The last minute is so awful that it could destroy the glow from the film, so I ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist. Spielberg has no equal working today, yet he constantly undercuts himself. Maybe he’s not cynical enough, maybe it’s a lack of faith in the material.

I have a minority opinion that "A.I." was better than most believe. It starts coming undone by the end, though, because it won’t end. It keeps going and going and going and going and… You get the picture. Everything it shows is beautiful unto itself, but it keeps coming. Gads, just let it end, Steve. Pick an end and keep it!

"Minority Report" isn’t that bad, but it’s in stark contrast to all that has come before. So, ugh, let it be gone. That tacked on, glowing sun, happy-ever-after ending they originally tacked onto "Blade Runner" is what I’m talking about. Thank God, Ridley Scott could cut it off for his “director’s cut” (one of the view times a “director’s edition” actually improves a film). Maybe Spielberg could do likewise here. After all, the “ultimate edition” of "Close Encounters" restores the original, beautiful ending to that film, “special edition” please kiss my ass.

But, I digress. "Minority Report" is beautifully filmed, lovingly assembled, and a run through the jungle of paranoia. It has several staged set pieces that could (and should) be used in film schools to show How It Is Done. The search by the mechanical “spiders” is one of the best, though I personally prefer one later on, involving a man with balloons.

Anyway, two snaps in a circle and a Z-formation for "Minority Report." One of the best science fiction films made, ever.

And speaking of Tom Cruise films, also saw "Vanilla Sky" over the weekend, on DVD. I need to see it again, because right now it stands as one of the grossest examples of deus ex machina I’ve ever seen. God awful ending! Horrible. Makes me ill thinking about it, and the director’s commentary saying how he’d be happy if it got people to discuss the film for 15 minutes, urgh! We’re discussing it, all right, because it has a for crap ending that destroys, nay, disassembles the entire film that preceded.

How bad is the ending? "Minority Report’s" ending is better, and see the above for my opinion of that.

Last film note of the day: Also saw "Lilo & Stitch" over the weekend (something for the kid’s, you know, and that includes me). Okay, so it has that sense of sloppy sentimentality that infests Disney films, but so what? That’s what you expect when you see a Disney film. "Lilo & Stitch" demonstrates that the House of the Mouse can still crank out entertaining films, animated or otherwise. It also validates what they tried to do with "Atlantis," namely make a family fun film without a string of nauseating songs. Oh, there’s music here, but it is actually part of the film, not stand-alone set pieces.

So, see it. Even if you don’t have kids, see it. Even if you hate animation, see it. The opening sequence alone, where you meet Experiment 6-2-6 (soon to be known as Stitch) is worth the price of admission all on its own. And that’s before the opening titles!

A new legal high

Pledge Declared Unconstitutional

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - For the first time ever, a federal appeals court Wednesday declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the words "under God" added by Congress in 1954.

Oh, how we tremble before three letters. That someone can get so annoyed whenever someone declares a love for God and country, or even just God, is just amazing to me. That someone got so annoyed that they took the issue to court is beyond the pale.

However, I find myself wondering what in the heck the Congress was doing in 1954, inserting that little "under God" phrase. Apparently the pledge was just peachy until then. The only reason for adding "under God" was to declare a religious affiliation. Adding that to the pledge stands on its face as an endorsement of a given religious belief. It's amazing it lasted this long.

Fool me once, shame on me....

Palestinians Set Elections for January 2003

JERICHO (Reuters) - The Palestinian Authority under pressure from President Bush to dump Yasser Arafat as its leader, announced Wednesday that presidential elections will be held in mid-January.

Pretty words, but how do you trust them? Arafat dismisses chunks of his council in a move toward reorganization, but weren't those men elected? (Maybe not, I really don't know.) Arafat was "elected" in January, 1996. I see cites that say his "term of office" ended some three years ago, so how legit is the claim that he is the "democratically elected" leader of Palestine?

Then again, I haven't been able to find anything that outlines how elections are held within the PLO, or the Palestinian territories, etc. So, how was an election held, who organized it, etc.? In short, there's this claim that Arafat was elected, but what is the term of office? Was he elected for life? If so, why new elections....

Poor Yasser. Must be tough being a democratic elected dictator nowadays. Maybe he should take lessons from Fidel.

What's in a name....

I've noticed that OpinionJournal has taken to referring to our current military actions as World War IV. Turns out their using the notion of Eliot Cohen, who wrote World War IV, which has this straight-to-the-point quote:

The enemy in this war is not "terrorism"--a distilled essence of evil, conducted by the real-world equivalents of J. K. Rowling's Lord Voldemort, Tolkien's Sauron or C. S. Lewis's White Witch--but militant Islam. The enemy has an ideology, and an hour spent surfing the Web will give the average citizen at least the kind of insights that he might have found during World Wars II and III by reading "Mein Kampf" or the writings of Lenin, Stalin or Mao. Those insights, of course, eluded those in the West who preferred--understandably, but dangerously--to define the problem as something more manageable, such as German resentment about the Versailles Treaty, an exaggerated form of Russian national interest, or peasant resentment of landlords taken a bit too far. In the reported words of one survivor of the Holocaust, when asked what lesson he had taken from his experience of the 1940s, "If someone tells you that he intends to kill you, believe him."

And he's right. Stroll around the assorted Arab, Islamic, Muslim--whatever--sites and you get a distinct and vitriolic view of the world. All of their problems are the fault of the United States and Israel. If only we'd go away...but leave the money!

All this talk of a Palestinian state, of the oppression of the Arab world, etc., is smoke and mirrors. There is a large movement (growing? spreading?) that longs for a great clash of civilizations, the one vast battle that will eradicate all non-Islamic faiths from the world. Osama bin Laden and his ilk want to set the world on fire.

More "science"

Study: Humans overtaxing the Earth - June 25, 2002

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The consumption of forests, energy and land by humans is exceeding the rate at which Earth can replenish itself, according to research published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Wait, something's missing from this story. Ah, here it is:

...Wackernagel and his team found that in 1999, each person consumed an average of 5.7 acres (2.3 hectares). The global average was significantly lower than industrialized countries such as the United States and United Kingdom where 24 acres (9.6 hectares) and 13.3 acres (5.3 hectares), respectively, were consumed per person.

I knew there had to be an anti-West slam in there somewhere!

Never mind that the US exports much of what it produces, especially food (and in the case of food, the amount of farmland shrinks while food production increases). Adding that in will spoil the message, that this entire "ecological footprint" notions is nonsense.

Sick puppies

A mother’s blessing to kill

GAZA CITY, June 25 -- Mariam Farahat interrupted the somber greetings offered by a visitor. "I don’t want condolences, I want congratulations," she said. "I encouraged my son to sacrifice himself. It is a victory."

She was speaking of her firstborn, Mohammed, 19, who was killed in March during a one-man raid on an Israeli settlement in the southern Gaza Strip. Armed with an assault rifle and grenades, Mohammed killed five students at a military school for religious Jews and wounded 23 other settlers at Gush Katif before he was gunned down.

...

Farahat said Mohammed informed her beforehand that he was preparing an attack on a settlement. He disappeared for a while, but on the eve of the assault, he came to the house for lunch. Farahat fixed him kebab and cucumber salad. Mohammed told her he had inspected and photographed his target, and was ready to act. He said he dreamed of Paradise, where virgins are promised the martyr, she recalled.

"I said, 'Don't think twice. Achieve your goals.' ..."

There is no reason here, no logic. No morals, no ethics, no sense of right and wrong. It's all just, "Let's kill the bastards!" and if you die, you become much loved and revered. Hey, you even get to rape virgin slaves in the afterlife. What could be better?

I feel that David Brooks says it best in his Atlantic commentary, The Culture of Martyrdom:

Suicide bombing is the crack cocaine of warfare. It doesn't just inflict death and terror on its victims; it intoxicates the people who sponsor it. It unleashes the deepest and most addictive human passions--the thirst for vengeance, the desire for religious purity, the longing for earthly glory and eternal salvation. Suicide bombing isn't just a tactic in a larger war; it overwhelms the political goals it is meant to serve. It creates its own logic and transforms the culture of those who employ it. This is what has happened in the Arab-Israeli dispute.

The sad horror here is that someone thinks it's great to die for a cause as long as they take out a lot of their enemy. And here's a mother embracing that, and setting such a wonderful example for her children.

Thieving bastards!

News: Microsoft sued over 'shocking' Xbox ad

French filmmaker Audrey Schebat filed suit in a Paris court claiming that a TV commercial for Microsoft's video game console was copied from her short film "Life," according to Toronto's Globe and Mail.

Is Microsoft incapable of making anything original?!?

Oh, but they're not illegal, just undocumented....

7 Killed, 31 Injured In Border Crash

EL CAJON, Calif. -- Seven people were killed and 31 others injured when the wrong-way driver of a van filled with illegal immigrants struck four vehicles as he tried to avoid a border checkpoint in El Cajon, authorities said.

Marvelous. One of the fatals was an elderly gentleman just driving down the road, minding his own business, when the van struck him head-on.

Not that INS takes any of this seriously anymore. Obviously if we would just open our borders and let everyone in -- no checks, no procedures, etc. -- this problem, and others like it, would go away.

Never mind all the new problems that would crop up....

NASA grounds space shuttle fleet

MIAMI, June 25 -- NASA has grounded the U.S. space shuttle fleet indefinitely after finding small cracks in propellant lines on the main engines of two shuttles, U.S. space agency officials said on Tuesday. The discovery of the cracks on shuttles Atlantis and Discovery during recent inspections will delay the scheduled July 19 launch of shuttle Columbia, which was to carry the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, and six others on a science mission.

The youngest shuttle in the fleet (Endeavour) is eleven years old; the oldest (Columbia) is twenty-one.

There is no replacement on the drawing board. There are "concepts" in the works. Expendable boosters, while based on decades old designs, have undergone such a series of "updates" as to become Something New. Not the shuttle.

Burn, baby, burn!

Interesting opinion piece of our current fires:

Born to be Wild?

You don't read about fires on forestland owned by private timber companies, which have long used controlled burns and selective logging to protect their assets. Farmers have an intense interest in maintaining the health of their land. Property owners willingly spend gazillions planting trees, flowers and shrubbery--and then protecting it from the elements. Is public ownership of vast tracts of land the only way to arrange for the environmental amenities that we seek? Europe seems to get along without "wilderness" areas, though nobody would deny it has a great deal of environmental charm.

What has always amazed me is the environmentalist assumption that given modern regulation, plus profit motives, lumber industries and the like are just out to destroy the source of their income, i.e. trees. The thought that maybe, just maybe, they see trees as a renewable resource and therefore manage that resource doesn't occur to them, at least for the most part. And when it does, the next reason for blocking the timber industry is because of "old growth" or spotted tree owls.

Nevermind that there weren't any "spotted tree owls" where they said there was. It was a "gestalt" impression that such animals were there, too bad so sad they were never found, oops. That particular area, northern California, seems much the same today, without lumbering, as it did thirty years ago, with lumbering. The only difference are the deserted towns and half-empty cities, the unemployment, and the sense of moving through a graveyard.

OpinionJournal - Thinking Things Over So the epic trial ended with a government victory. But one
that brings to mind Pyrrhus of Epirus, king of an ancient
country in northwest Greece. Plutarch reports that after
defeating the Romans in the battle of Asculum in 279 B.C.
Pyrrhus said, "One more victory like this will be the end of
me." His name lives on in the word for victory at too great
a cost.

College freedom of expression

Chas Rich at Sardonic Views has the complete tale of UCSD vs The Koala, a satirical campus newspaper that had the audacity to poke a little fun at a campus group known as Mecha.

The UPI story he quotes starts with:

The University of California at San Diego administration colluded with a Mexican-American student militant who threatened violence against a campus magazine's staffers in a failed bid to punish the disfavored publication, a series of e-mail messages revealed.

...and keeps getting better. Gads, I love this state (of insanity) called California!

Halleluiah, I can see the light!

What revelations have led to this?

Arafat ready to accept Clinton plan

NABLUS, West Bank (CNN) -- At the end of a week in which Palestinians killed 31 Israelis in terror attacks, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told a newspaper he was ready to accept a proposal first made by U.S. President Bill Clinton as a framework for a Mideast peace settlement.

...

Clinton's plan offered Palestinians control of most, but not all of the territory taken by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, and called for Palestinians to scale back their demand for the right of return of refugees, a move Palestinian officials said earlier this week they were willing to make.

Isn't this what many have been saying all along, that Arafat walked away from a deal that gave him something like 95% of what he was asking? Now it's good enough? What made the difference?

Oh, maybe that even his supporters are saying he's useless? Hmm, could be....

And this is just cynical:

Arafat also told Jerusalem daily Ha'aretz that "foreign forces" were exploiting hopeless Palestinians, persuading them to carry out suicide attacks against Israelis. He said two families of suicide bombers from Jenin were paid $30,000 each.

What, he's not getting his cut any more? To even imply that he didn't know this was going on, despite all the press coverage to the contrary, is just too ludicrous for words.

And the CNN story quoted above leaves this little tidbit out of the original article:

He also said he had imposed a house arrest on Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza. His advisers have expressed amazement that Israel has not taken any steps against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, preferring to focus its military campaign against the Palestinian Authority and Fatah.

Sounds like it should read, "I can't control them, they don't like me, please eliminate my internal opposition!"

But maybe that's the cynic in me.

Hollywood, gotta love it

Harry Potter at the mercy of pirates?

Seems that AOL/Time-Warner shipped an unknown quantity of "Harry Potter" DVD's without analog encryption, meaning that you can make clear, beautiful copies of the film, DVD to video tape. Digital encryption remained in place. And why would they do this?

Jon Peddie, analyst at Tiburon, Calif.-based Jon Peddie Research, said the studios for now are spending substantially larger amounts of money lobbying Congress for new copy-protection laws and regulations than they are spending to install copy controls at the content level.

"I am speculating that Hollywood’s rational for dumping millions of dollars into lobbying and soft money to influence Congress is viewed as a one-time expense, as opposed to an ongoing expense of paying for the encryption license for each and every movie they make," Peddie said.

So all their customers are presumed guilty, and everyone gets to pay so they feel...Safe.

Meanwhile, "Harry Potter" sold 20 million copies (DVD and tape) in the first week of release. Pirating obviously destroyed its sales potential.

Go, Stevie, go!

FUTURE TENSE / Spielberg returns to form with menacing, suspenseful 'Minority Report'

In "Minority Report," Steven Spielberg has made the least sentimental film of his career -- and the shrewdest movie of the season so far. Creative energy and intelligence inform every frame. Nothing is left to chance. This is the kind of pure entertainment that, in its fullness and generosity, feels almost classic.

My son and I see it tonight, and since we're both big Spielberg we're already halfway to loving it. Bias? Heavens, yes. Meanwhile, the New York Times review is a little more restrained, but still one of praise. And Desson Howe at the Washington Post is flat-out snooty, with the zinger, "Everyone's too busy shooting, firing, running away or cajoling someone for information to get down and act."

But I love Ann Hornaday's summary (also with the Washington Post):

So where does "Minority Report" stand? As an adult summer movie it provides some provocative entertainment for those willing to stomach some of its more unsavory visual elements and grim story. As a futuristic thriller it is probably too conventional to rank as a cult classic on par with "Blade Runner" (also from a Dick story), and the intricacies of its plot don't add up to anything worth puzzling over. But as a Spielberg movie, it is yet another installment in an artistic trajectory that has become much more interesting in the past decade. Spielberg's dark side may not be where everyone wants to live, but it's somehow encouraging to know that he has one.More after I've seen the film.

The French roast of the town

Berkeley ordinance would ban all but politically correct coffee

Berkeley, a place passionate about coffee and progressive politics, could become the only city in the nation to ban coffee not grown with strict protections for workers and the environment.

The proposed ban -- contained in an initiative crafted by a lawyer one year out of law school -- has gathered enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot, City Clerk Sherry Kelly announced Thursday.

...

"When I'm drinking my coffee, I'd rather not be destroying the environment or exploiting workers," said Berkeley lawyer Rick Young, 36, who graduated last year from UC Berkeley's Boalt law school, where he wrote a paper on the legality of such a law. He turned in petitions containing about 3,000 signatures Monday.

There's a reason.... No, scratch that. There are reasons why it's referred as the People's Republic of Berzerkley.

The mayor's comments are lovely, that such a ban would probably be illegal but she support's such goals. Young, the proposal's author, compares such a ban to seat-belt laws and banned leaded gasoline. But what a silly no-no! Frankly, I oppose seat-belt laws because if you want to let yourself get tossed out of the car, crushed, etc., go right ahead; of course, your insurance company should then be able to go, "Oops, no coverage!"

As the leaded gasoline, that "ban" evolved out of a natural drop in consumption as more and more cars came equipped with catalytic converters, emission control devices that are murdered when leaded gasoline is used. This "ban" was actually to the benefit of the refineries, which had one less fuel type to produce and maintain.

I can see the police now. Imagine a SWAT raid on Starbuck's (which, incidentally, sells "fair trade" coffee that would remain legal). A scene like the one in "Minority Report" would be cool, four black jump-suited, helmeted soldiers for justice, dropping in through the ceiling, MP-5's at the ready. "Drop the coffee, drop the coffee!" Spilled cups everywhere, officer steps in puddle, slips, gun discharges, beans go flying, cups shattering, evil proprietor hit by a burst, Fascist bastard anyway, responsible for so many deaths....

Most of the 14 Mexican immigrants who were smuggled across the U.S. border and died in the Arizona desert last May came from the bleak coffee industry in Veracruz, she [Deborah James, fair-trade director for Global Exchange] said, and coffee growers in Colombia are pulling up their plants and growing coca for cocaine instead.

See? Bastards!

Anyway, for those with raging interest, there's always www.geocities.com/coffeelawinfo/, the web site the proposal's author maintains.

I need practice....

This James Lileks Screed should be mandatory reading for everyone.

Where there is smoke....

Robert X. Cringely from The Pulpit, on the many thefts of Microsoft:

Also, Why Microsoft Keeps Getting Sued

This is far from a new story line [MS's alleged theft of a new video compression technology]. 3Com claimed that Microsoft did much the same thing with OS/2 LAN Manager ("You made a mistake, you trusted us," said 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe, quoting an unnamed Microsoft executive.) Jerry Kaplan claimed Microsoft did exactly the same thing, stealing technology from Go Computer for its Windows for Pen Computing. Stac Electronics claimed that Microsoft stole disk compression technology from them in a similar manner, though in Stac's case, it isn't alleged: They took Microsoft to court and won. This is happening so often, I'd say there must be something to it.

But I have to wonder why Microsoft would engage in such foolishness. They could have bought Burst.com at any point, and never even been able to detect a level change in Microsoft's corporate bank account. Why risk so much just to screw (allegedly) a little company from Santa Rosa?

If there is a reason, it has to come from the competitive nature of Bill Gates as Microsoft's spiritual and ethical leader. Everything is a competition to Bill, and every competition has a winner and a loser. Microsoft people have always been encouraged to see the game, not the consequences, and to win the game even if winning this way makes no sense.

And here endeth another chapter in the continuing saga of "Oh God, Why Did I Trust Microsoft?"

And a view from abroad

Arafat is only interested in saving himself

Then there is Yasser Arafat and his circle of associates, who have suddenly discovered the virtues (theoretically at least) of democracy and reform. I know that I speak at a great distance from the field of struggle, and I also know all the arguments about the besieged Arafat as a potent symbol of Palestinian resistance against Israeli aggression, but I have come to a point where I think none of that has any meaning any more.

Arafat is simply interested in saving himself. He has had almost 10 years of freedom to run a petty kingdom, and has succeeded essentially in bringing opprobrium and scorn on himself and most of his team. Why anyone for a moment believes that at this stage he is capable of anything different, or that his new streamlined cabinet (dominated by the same old faces of defeat and incompetence) is going to produce actual reform, simply defies reason.

I never thought I'd ever agree with anything Edward Said, er, said, but here it is. My, how strange a world we live in.

Effective leadership in action

Palestinian Gunmen Kill 6 in Jewish Settlement

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen killed six Israelis, including a mother and three of her children, in a raid on a settlement in the West Bank on Thursday, hours after Yasser Arafat demanded an end to attacks on Israeli civilians.

One can't help but observe the bravery of these "gunmen." I'm sure they were worred about the fierce resistance the children would put up. After all, they teach their own kids how to wear explosives....

And I can't help but notice, again, that Arafat is pointless. At best. At worse, he puts on a public face of condemnation while in the background he's planning all this shit. Either way, he's an asshole in need of...relocation.

Empires on the edge

Dan Gillmor's reaction to Microsoft's stance of "no compromise":

Microsoft leaves no doubt in blowing off judge's order

...We've made our deal with the feds, proclaimed the lawyers [of Microsoft]. We're not going to even consider a compromise.

Of course they would say that. The deal with the Justice Department, plus the nine other states that went along, is one of the most remarkable government gifts to a lawbreaker since Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. At least Ford sincerely had the national interest in mind.

All this energy, all this time, and all because a thuggish company was allowed to get away with theft so often for so long. Well, theft as far as I'm concerned. Theft of the base MS-DOS code, theft of the very nature of a GUI, theft of...oh, on and on.

If laws involving the protection of legit intellectual property rights had been properly enforced, we wouldn't be in this mess right now. I am loathe to see a government "solution" to the issue because they invariably suck rancid wind. Yet Micro$oft persists in acting as one of those rich corporations that give Rich Corporations a bad name. A basic fact has to be recognized, that Bill Gates & Co. don't innovate, they borrow (steal) and renovate; they exist in an evolutionary world, nothing revolutionary. They could no more think of a genuinely new way of working with a computer (or of doing business) than Bill Clinton could say "no" to an intern.

Meanwhile, I've gone back on my earlier proclamation, and a copy of Office XP Standard resides on my laptop. Very pretty, very evolutionary (the most revolutionary aspect is how the software mandates activation, and there's a clue), but in a nice way. And despite that, I still prefer WordPerfect....

The future's so bright....

Wired 10.07: Citizen Plane

That's what's so audacious about Vern Raburn's vision: He wants to give birth not just to a new plane but to an entirely new mode of air travel. Call it the on-demand airline. If Eclipse takes off, it will have changed air transportation and introduced the most innovative private plane since the Learjet first flew in 1963. The low price and operating costs will be unprecedented.

If he can make this work, the possibilities are interesting. Certainly more so than high-speed trains in California [snort].

Loverly

Public Protests NPR Link Policy

People who'd like to link to NPR can do so easily by filling out the online form -- it asks for a linker's name, e-mail address, physical address, phone number, information about the linking site, how long the link will remain on the site, the "proposed wording of the link and accompanying text," the U.S. state in which the linking site is incorporated and if it's a commercial site.

Of course, credit where credit due. A big round of applause for Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing for making this public, or at least blogging it out there.

And even in this, the hypocrisy of NPR oozes out:

It isn't only commercial activity that concerns NPR. Asked if a link from someone's noncommercial homepage would bother the company, Dvorkin [Jeffrey Dvorkin, NPR ombudsman] said: "It depends on your homepage -- what if you're an advocate for left-handed socialist diabetics? We wouldn't want to give support to advocacy groups."

"It's part of keeping our integrity that our journalism remain noncommercial, and we're not engaged in advocacy in any way," Dvorkin explained.

Not engaged in advocacy? Who're they trying to fool?!?!? Anyway, don't link to NPR, heaven forfend. You might spoil their self-image or something.

"Version fatique"?

Glenn Harlan Reynolds (aka, Instapundit) over at Tech Central Station:

TCS: Tech - 'Version Fatigue'

I'm tired of learning how to do new things. Well, not really. But I've noticed that my tolerance for reading the manual and familiarizing myself with all the aspects of a new product or piece of software is much, much lower than it used to be.

I find I've adopted the same attitude. At the moment, it's caused me to jump off the upgrade cycle. I'm relatively happy with Windows 2000, M$ Office 2000, and Corel WordPerfect Office 2000. All the XP and 2002 versions can just...wait.

What I fail to understand is when a company adds a feature, maintains support for that feature, but won't let you use it anymore. For example, in previous versions of WordPerfect, I let the software number chapters in a manuscript. I could move an entire chapter to a different place, and the software would re-order all the numbers. (Neat little trick I learned from sci-fi writer Robert J. Sawyer, who was using Word Star for crying out loud, but that's another story.)

Since version 8 of WP, I can't figure out how to do that any more. Old file update without problem, and maintain the feature, but if I want to do this in a new file, I have to copy and paste the "old code" into the new document. So thank God for WP's "reveal codes" mode.

Then there's the manner in which WP imports Word documents. In Word, the margin you set for text and the margin you set for headers are different (and can lead to some interesting formatting). When you import a Word doc and convert it to a WP wpd file, it inserts this little bit of code that allows WP to mimic that feature. However, try as I might I cannot find how to just type that code and setting into WP from the get-go. Frustrating.

I suppose I can't stay off cycle forever, and I'm about to go through a new round of "version fatigue," as where I work is dumping Windows/Office 95 (eek, my feet suddenly got cold, is hell freezing?) and jumping to Windows/Office XP. Argh!

Empires Fall, the latest chapter

Microsoft won’t back Sun product

Just before closing arguments in its antitrust case, Microsoft delivered a broadside to one of its bitter software rivals, declaring Tuesday it will stop supporting Sun Microsystems' flagship product by 2004.

Microsoft cited Sun's opposition in the case as the reason for the decision to remove support for Sun’s Java programming language from future versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)

"The decision to remove Microsoft's Java implementation was made because of Sun’s strategy of using the legal system to compete with Microsoft," Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said in a statement.

A Sun spokeswoman did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

For a company that is so all-fired concerned about its customers, to the point of bolting other applications into its operating system for "customer convinience" -- and, coincidentally, competition elimination -- this is a strange stance. (Not that I'd cry if Java and Active-X both went bye-bye.)

Several witnesses appearing in the states' case against Microsoft, including executives of computer maker Gateway, accused the software giant of retaliating against companies that refused Microsoft edicts or helped the government build its antitrust case.

And, voila, here they do it in public, admitting that retaliation is part of the reason for this decision. Madmen are in charge of the company.

A federal court found that Microsoft created programming tools that fooled Java programmers into thinking they were writing software that would work on any version of Java, rather than just Microsoft’s version. Microsoft still disputes that anyone was tricked into writing incompatible software.

And this was one of the actions taken against Microsoft that was open and shut. They attempted to co-opt a competitor's product and make it uniquely their own, then denied it. Now caught, they're just going to pretend the product doesn't exist and that none of their customers use it. They're concern is...touching.

"The settlement agreement between the companies prevents Microsoft from making any changes -- including any security fixes -- to our Java implementation after January 1, 2004," Cullinan said. "We will not put our customers or Windows at risk so you can anticipate that there will be no Java in Windows from that point forward."

Yet somehow others are able to put Java to work without attempting to steal it from Sun. Obviously Microsoft likes this entire notion of intellectual property theft, from MS-DOS v1.0 on.

Ah well, life goes on. Macintosh looks more attractive each day, though I'd still like to tinker with a Linux box. A Mac would still leave me stuck with M$ software, while a Linux box would probably require more hobby time than I'm able to devote at this time.

HOWEVER, I am tremendously excited to see what sort of product and company knocks M$ into the dirt. It's out there, just wait and see.

Inflammatory, indeed

So I'm driving into work this morning, listening to the local news station, when they talk with ABC correspondent Ann Compton (and if I misspell the name, tough). They're talking about the "latest round of violence" in the Mideast and what this means to the "peace process." So then Ann says that the latest Israeli response to murder-suicide bombers is "inflammatory," the sort of action that will inspire more murder-suicide bombers.

(All right, she said just "suicide bombers," but that term is woefully inadequete.)

"Inflammatory"?!?!?!? So according to this ABC correspondent, it's all the Israelis fault?

Just makes you wanna scream.

PS - There is no such thing as a "peace process." The sad fact is that in that neck of the woods, and probably the world 'round, peace comes from the barrel of a gun.

The heart of the matter

Hollywood vs. the Internet

Excellent piece of Mike Godwin, who distills the discussion over the DMCA and Hollings's "bill in progress" as:

One way to understand the conflict between the Content Faction and the Tech Faction is to look at how they describe their customers. For the content industries, they’re "consumers." By contrast, the information technology companies talk about "users."

If you see people as consumers, you control access to what you offer, and you do everything you can to prevent theft, for the same reason supermarkets have cameras by the door and bookstores have electronic theft detectors. Allowing people to take stuff for free is inconsistent with your business model.

But if you see people as users, you want to give them more features and power at cheaper prices. The impulse to empower users was at the heart of the microcomputer revolution: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak wanted to put computing power into ordinary people’s hands, and that’s why they founded Apple Computer. If this is your approach -- enabling people to do new things -- it’s hard to adjust to the idea of building in limitations.

...

The Tech Faction believes people should be able to do whatever they want with their digital tools, except to the extent that copyrighted works are walled off by DRM. The Content Faction believes the digital world isn’t safe unless every tool also functions as a copyright policeman.

At the heart of this argument are two questions: whether computer users can continue to enjoy the capabilities computers have had since their invention, and whether the content companies can survive in a world where users have those capabilities. What’s been missing from the debate so far has been the users themselves, although some public interest groups are gearing up to tackle the issue. Users may well take the approach I would take: If computers and software start shipping in a hamstrung form, mandated by government, I’ll quit buying new equipment. Why trade in last year’s feature-rich laptop for a new one that, while faster, has fewer capabilities?

Amen to that.

Brutal film

So God finally allowed me to see "Black Hawk Down." What do I mean by that? When it was at the theatre, each and every time we were going something happened. Like what? Broken car, sick kid, dead grandmother--literally! The final blow was standing in line, all kids away elsewhere, free time to ourselves, no long lines, money in hand.... "Sorry, but the projector is broken. We hope to have it working for this evening's showing."

I gave up and waited for the DVD, which I bought the day it came out. The curse continued for over a week, however, as I was unable to watch it. Now I have. E-gads.

I liked the book. Bowden did an excellent job gathering together his sources, documenting each and every detail, and then writing a comprehensive tale that is easily read, and makes the sheer confusion at the time accessible. Kudos!

Ridley Scott does the same with the film. Regretably, he does this at the expense of creating any single character who is memorable. Instead, rather than focus on a single individual's twist of fate and fortune, Scott lures you into focusing on all members of the group. Every death stands out like a slap, from Sergeant Pilla taking it in the base of the head, to the Somali inadvertently gunned down by his own young son. "Brutal" is too soft a word for this film. It's been a long time since I couldn't watch any moment within any film; this one made me look away from my own television, in my own living room. Makes me wonder what a theatrical performance would have been like.

Unlike Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," there is not a shread of a glimmer of a hint of uplift in this film, and that's probably it's biggest flaw. The sheer act of survival, that "only" 18 died under such conditions, is the one Good Thing by the end. Scott has been here before. Watching "Alien" in the theatre was like putting your head in a vice and letting someone slowly turn it tighter. You can't help but admire the craft, but ugh.

Here, though, that torture serves a purpose. Like "Saving Private Ryan" before, it takes any notion of a glorious war and throws it out the window. It doesn't discuss the politics (at least, not too much); you've given the situation from the grunts perspectice, and what they have to go through. I don't see this so much as an anti-war film as a "docudrama" of what war is truly like, or as close as you can get on film. And it's not just gore gore gore, but the confusion, noise, bravery, nerves, inaction, action, etc. In short, two snaps in a circle and a z-formation!

I'll leave the pros and cons of whether we ever should have been in such a situation as Somalia for another day.

A slight double standard

Ruling Bans Disability Access Lawsuits

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court Monday unanimously ruled that punitive damages may not be awarded to people suing cities and government boards that do not accommodate the disabled with wheelchair ramps and other modifications.

The court said boards and agencies that accept federal money can not be sued for punitive damages. They can face lawsuits, however, and be forced to pay actual damages and make changes in accommodations.

So if you are a federal, state, or local agency you're protected, but if you're Joe Average Business man...watch out! Marvelous.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said that adding punitive damages in cases like this "could well be disastrous." He said recipients of federal funds probably would not agree "to exposure to such unorthodox and indeterminate liability."

Again, marvelous. Everyone else can be made to pay through the nose, because the money lies in the punative award. Obviously everyone needs to get federal funding.

Hey! Someone gets hurt at the house of someone on welfare. Is the welfare recipient shielded by this law and/or ruling? Just a thought.

Depressing

Salon.com Technology | The end of the revolution

It is a sad story, in the end, this "taming of the Net." In "Ruling the Root," Mueller, with all the precision and economy of a masterful prosecuting attorney, demolishes the techno-libertarian myth of the Internet as a new space for human interaction that is uncontrollable and inherently independent. Despite the widespread belief that the Net is so decentralized and distributed as to be able to elude governments and even nuclear devastation, there is a central point of control -- the so-called "root."

Sounds like fascinating reading.

I thought she was supposed to kick his butt

Woman Accused of Cutting's Off Man's Buttocks

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A woman enraged at her boyfriend attacked him with a utility knife and cut off nearly all of his buttocks, leaving him near death on a dark, rural road, a prosecutor said Thursday.

No comment.

Our honored allies...

Saudi Broadcasts Promote Anti-Semitism, Martyrdom

NEW YORK -- A television station backed by a Saudi prince has sparked outrage by broadcasting clips that show young children being taught to hate Jews -- referring to them as "apes and pigs" -- and embrace martyrdom.

It gets "better"...

During a May 7 episode of Muslim Woman Magazine, anchorwoman Doaa 'Amer asks her special guest, a 3-year-old girl named Basmallah, a series of questions the youngster quickly and calmly answers.

"Are you familiar with the Jews?" Amer asks.

The girl says yes, and says she does not like them "because…they’re apes and pigs."

The girl says she learns this from the Quran. I doubt she's reading it directly, so some adult is giving her an, er, interesting interpretation. I love the description of the network:

Widely watched Iqraa television is ART's effort to provide "a focused insight into the teachings of the Quran" to "intellectual, elite, and conservative Islamic markets."

Lovely people. The Saudi prince sponsoring all this is the same one who offered $10 million to the World Trade Center relief fund, but was sent packing by Giuliani after he said US support for Israel was responsible for 9/11.

Ah, "science" in action....

BBC News | AMERICAS | Q&A: The US and climate change

Why has the US refused to go along with international efforts?

As the world's biggest polluter, no real dent in global warming can be made without the US.

The US contains 4% of the world's population but produces about 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions. By comparison, Britain emits 3% - about the same as India which has 15 times as many people.

...

The average American produces six tonnes of carbon dioxide, the average Briton three tonnes, a Chinese 0.7 tonnes and an Indian 0.25 tonnes.

Oh my, how horrific of us. They also say....

US industry is largely dependent on coal and oil, the fuels that produce the most carbon dioxide.

May I have nuclear energy? Please???

According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, pre-industrial (1860) concentrations of carbon dioxide were 288 parts per million, while the figure for 2001 was 369.4ppm. (Read report here.)

So that's...what...an increase of around 28-29%? Where'd it come from?

Well, according to the UN, specifically their World Meteorological Organization, we're to blame for it all, damn our human-animal hides. However, they also say...

Carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere by a variety of sources, and over 95% percent of these emissions would occur even if human beings were not present on Earth. [Emphasis mine.]

According to their report (actually another Q&A sheet), we nasty, vermin-like humans contribute around 3% of the carbon dioxide cranked into the air each year. This is sufficent to "exceed the balancing effect of [natural] sinks" (natural processes by which carbon dioxide is scrubbed from the air).

That's a powerful 3%. If the US of A were to completely eliminate its production of carbon dioxide (which would certainly make a "real dent"), humans would still contribute some 2.25%, and that's enough to overwhelm them there sinks, and that's all she wrote. Does it have to be said that this is why the Kyoto treaty was tossed out the window? It is meaningless, while at the same time crippling to the US economy.

Besides, I really resent the BBC characterization of the United States as "the world's biggest polluter." Perhaps the author(s) should go to this site and check out the pollution levels in major Chinese cities. The air in Beijing (and all the others) makes Los Angeles (and even Tokyo) look downright healthy by comparison.

Cue the "Jaws" Theme

Tuning in to a deep sea monster

Scientists have revealed a mysterious recording that they say could be the sound of a giant beast lurking in the depths of the ocean.

Say, let us go for a swim....

Everything is all our fault

Yes, we're bastards.

West's pollution 'led to African droughts'

Scientists in Australia and Canada say that pollution from western countries may have caused the droughts which ravaged Africa's Sahel region in the 1970s and 1980s.

...

The research says that sulphur dioxide from factories in Europe and the United States has cooled the Northern Hemisphere, driving the tropical rain belt south - away from the Sahel.

But if sulfur causes cooling, and carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) causes warming, do the two cancel? Which rules? Which is it?

I am soooooo confused.

Or maybe it's the "science" that's confused. At least one of the researchers has the courage to admit "[i]t's still speculative, and the model isn't very refined, but it's very interesting."

Overstated case?

Technology Review - Power to the Players

Suppose a Federal Judge was asked to determine whether books were protected by the First Amendment. Suppose instead of seeking testimony from noted literary scholars, examining the historical evolution of the novel, or surveying the range of content at the local bookstore, the judge choose four books, all within the same genre, to stand in for the medium as a whole. Better yet, suppose the judge didn't even read the books and instead simply listened to the prosecutor read excerpts aloud. Would this seem remotely adequate?

Thus begins a June 7, 2002, artitcle posted on MIT Technology Review's online site. It refers to an April 19, 2002, finding by U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Sr., (related to Rush?) that video/computer games contain "no conveyance of ideas, expression or anything else that could possibly amoun to speech" and they therefore were not entitled to free speech protections under the First Amendment.

Sounds rather ominous, as this article in Salon noted:

...that could be a disaster for anyone who wants to see games evolve into a medium every bit as culturally relevant as movies or books. It is, of course, indisputable that the world of gaming is replete with titles that have little redeeming value, just as it is true for every other artistic medium. But as Medal of Honor and other games demonstrate, computer gaming has created a new means of conveying complex, relevant ideas. One more uninformed ruling, and the potential of this medium could be curtailed even further, by legislators with elections to win, and ideologues who've pincered it from both sides of the political spectrum. The stakes really are the future of free expression; and as this ruling makes plain, the need for the game industry to mount a preemptive attack is past due. The time for a counterstrike is now.

Beauty, a call to arms!

What seems lost in both of these articles, however, is the St. Louis, Missouri, ordinance in question. Both briefly state that the ordinance restricts/forbids the sale of explicitly violent or sexual games to minors (under the age of 17), and I have to ask, "And that's a problem how?" Isn't that effect imposing a ratings system on computer games? This ordinance, as briefly described, seems nothing more than saying minors under the age of 17 can't buy games with excessive violence or sex.

Sounds like an "R" rating for a movie, does it not? Does the "R" rating amount to a challenge to free speech? Not so far.

In fact, at Game Industry News, an editorial on the finding reads, in part:

A federal judge’s refusal to grant First Amendment protection to violent video games has foiled the Interactive Digital Software Association’s first effort to block a St. Louis ordinance restricting access to the games, but has not stopped the fight.

...

Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh on April 19 denied IDSA’s motion for a summary judgment that the ordinance is an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment freedom of expression. The judge, of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri, ruled the games he examined did not meet standards for meaningful expression.

The key question that I'm addressing is this:

He also ruled that the ordinance being challenged was not unconstitutionally broad or vague, which in effect made the issue of whether games are constitutionally protected speech moot. [Emphasis mine.]

This appears to be supported by this paragraph within the CIN editorial:

The St. Louis County ordinance, passed in October 2000, is similar to the Indianapolis ordinance restricting access to violent games. Citing school shootings in Columbine, Colo., Jonesboro, Ark., and Paducah, Ky., as evidence of the harmful influence of the games on minors, the county prohibited sale or rental of home video games rated M or AO by the Entertainment Software Review Board to persons under 17 without parental consent. Similar restrictions were placed on access to arcade games rated Red by the American Amusement Machine Association. The law goes into effect in July.

Now, this notion that Columbine et al is "evidence of the harmful influence of games" aside, note that the ordinance specifies ratings voluntarily used by the gaming industry itself. It does not impose a new rating system. It takes a system already in place and says that if you rate a game M or AO, etc., then resellers shall not sell it to minors under the age of 17.

Again, where's the beef? Where's the Constitutional issue?

Much has been made recently that people who overstate their case actually undermine their case. There is already a 7th Circuit Court decision (out of Indianapolis) that games are entitled to First Amendment protections, a decision made at a higher court level than Limbaugh's.

The judge’s finding that the ordinance was narrowly crafted to advance a compelling state interest, and thus allowing regulation of protected speech, made the issue of First Amendment protection irrelevant, Lowenstein [president Interactive Digital Software Association] said.

"In short, nothing we could have done on the speech issue would have changed the outcome of this case at the district court level," he said.

You should be able to find Limbaugh's decision here. Maybe there's more to this than has been said thus far. If so, I haven't see it yet.

From FlashBunny.org, a report on the Gun Show Loophole. Provided in the public interest.

(And thanks to InstaPundit for pointing it out....)

Maybe it's the weather...

So I'm reading a Matt Welch column on manufacturing dissent, and I find the name Barbara Kingsolver as one of them, so I get curious and check out her website (yawn) and that leads to Common Dreams - News & Views for the Progressive Community. Why is it considered "progressive" to assault any notion of western thought, philosophy, capitalism, etc.? I found one article that was critical of Arafat, but only after making sure you understood that the Israelis and the US were still all wrong. Others had little blurbs like:

Mr Bush's Titanic War on Terror Will Eventually Sink Beneath the Waves

Dirty Bombs, Blowback, and Imperial Projections

Have You Had Your Bush Outrage This Week?

Tainted Corporations Sing the Blues

Is Henry Kissinger a War Criminal?

Cheney's Mess Worth a Close Look

Perverse Incentives of Terrorism War

United Spies of America

The Jihand Against 'Jihad' [my favorite title]

So again I ask, why is all this considered "progressive"?

Good grief!

In a previous post I noted a story coming out of the SF Bay Area about two kids being convicted of felony assault and battery for shooting a spitwad at another kid. Some juicy quotes included:

Dan Macallair, executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, said the criminal prosecution "is another example of our society moving toward criminalizing kids. I don't know what purpose this serves."

Macallair said the incident "sounds more like a typical schoolyard prank that resulted in an incident in which someone got hurt" as opposed to an intentional act of violence.

Attorneys for the boys said today that they will appeal the convictions pending a June 6 sentencing hearing in Martinez.

"What we have is an unfortunate accident with injury to a child, but what one time had been horseplay has now been, by the D.A., elevated to felony status, just on the basis of the unfortunate outcome of an accidental act" said Pittsburg attorney Marek Reavis, who is representing the older child.

And I said:

The closing quote from the boys' father is pretty spot on: "Things just went too far. Kids cannot be kids anymore."

Well, shame on me for forgetting that it sometimes helps to have all the facts in hand, because now we have:

These two boys no longer boys

Somebody had to do it. Jeffrey and Stephen Figueroa had built up shocking resumes of intimidation, disregard for authority and mischief.

Neighbors feared them. School authorities repeatedly warned them. So when Jeffrey, then 12, shot a sharply pointed spitwad that permanently damaged a classmate's eye, it became the catalyst, the thing that was finally going to make these boys accountable.

Their parents hadn't done it. The school hadn't done it. Everybody wanted to cut these kids one more break. That's our instinct, here in the sunny, clean-cut suburbs. These are children; surely they didn't mean it.

The article lists the number of times both boys had come to the attention of school and juvenile authorities...and nothing was done. Testimony in court was that they essentially terrorized their neighbors, other children, etc....and nothing was done. So the judge in their latest bit of "mischief," their "horseplay," decided that enough was enough.

I especially like the community service portion of the sentence: working at the Lion's Club center for the blind.

You can just choke on the irony

Hunger talks start with lobster and foie gras

THE opening day of the UN World Food Summit, dedicated to combating global hunger, was marked yesterday by a sumptuous lunch for the 3,000 delegates served by 170 Italian waiters.

The summit leaders were offered foie gras, lobster, and goose stuffed with olives. followed by fruit compote.

The Rome lunch was a symbol, for Western leaders at least, of the extravagant and bloated bureaucracies that the aid business has created, and went some way towards explaining why so few of them were in attendance yesterday.

I can't help but wonder that many places in the world today would be better off if the UN would just...go away.

I loved this portion, too:

A stream of limousines and police outriders escorted the leaders from the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a sprawling United Nations bureaucracy housed in the former Fascist Ministry for the African Empire near the Colosseum, to the luxury of hotels on the Via Veneto and the city’s finest restaurants.

....

They [FAO officials] acknowledge that many Third World regimes are corrupt and that maladministration and dictatorship are as much responsible for economic backwardness and malnutrition as drought and natural disasters. But the FAO’s backers say that the organisation has laudable aims and the West should help to achieve them instead of carping from the sidelines. [Emphasis mine.]

The FAO was founded in 1945, initially to help countries devastated by the Second World War to re-establish food supplies and later to help the newly independent countries of the Third World.

If the record is mixed, it is because the West has failed to provide the "political will", and the funds, to back up their promises, Nick Parsons, the FAO spokesman, said. Of the $70 billion (£48billion) spent on development aid worldwide, just $11 billion goes on agriculture.

Rush Limbaugh often points out that these programs rely on people's perceptions of their intentions, not their actions, and here we have the backers of one such agency actually saying that. "Yes, we're ineffectual and we eat well (pass the lobster, please), but we mean well...."

Next?

Activists Awarded Millions In Suit Against Police, FBI

OAKLAND -- Two Earth First! activists have been awarded approximately $4.4 million by a federal jury in their suit against Oakland police and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.

The verdicts and awards from civil juries stopped meaning anything to me when they blamed McDonalds for a lady spilling coffee on her lap, and thus awarded her millions (though the award was greatly reduced on appeal).

Still, I continue to be amazed by police officers who feel compelled to manufacture evidence. The implication here is that someone attempted to murder two people, and that someone is still out and about.

Which freedom(s) go(es)?

Poll: Americans favor freedom curbs

OKLAHOMA CITY, June 11 — Four in five Americans would give up some freedoms to gain security and four in 10 worry terrorists will harm them or their family, a new Gallup poll shows.

I have read that the real purpose of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act was to get the public used to "prior restraint" as a way of life. That is, you may commit a crime some day, so we get to stop you today.

Now people are willing to give up some freedom for some security.

Question: Which freedom(s)?

A brief breath of sanity

Hate Crimes Bill Dealt a Setback

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle swiftly pledged to bring the bill back to the Senate floor by year's end. "There is no argument that can be made that hate crimes can be left unattended," he said.

Sure there is: there's no such thing as a "hate" crime. ALL crime involves hate, to one degree or another. Unless you are making the mere emotion of "hate" itself a crime, and let's not go there. Upon that road lies controlling how and what people think. Hey, wait a minute....

Color me confused

Police Dog Accused of Racial Profiling

"I had received complaints from African-Americans saying they believe the dog only attacks African-Americans," councilwoman [Wanda Jones] Dixon said Monday. "I think the dog makes the distinction."

...

"To say the dog is racial ... that's ludicrous. That doesn't make sense," [Police Chief Robert ] Martineau said.

I thought dogs were -- literally -- color-blind?

An excellent column on a difficult issue

Abortion: A Moral Quagmire

Fanatics on both sides are using reprehensible and deceitful tactics. An honest dialogue on abortion must start by re-setting the stage, by denouncing the approaches that block communication.

What are those approaches?

God's punishment for anti-Semetism!

France ousted from World Cup

France is leaving the World Cup early, scoreless and embarrassed. The defending champions crashed out of the World Cup in the first round Tuesday.

I'm joking, of course, but it is the sort of thing you keep hearing nowadays. Just the other day I got an email that stated 9/11 was God's punishment for America's evil ways. "You reap what you sow!" Etc., etc., etc., arf!