September 2006 Archives

The Bush Administration has for the past few years served almost as an object lesson in the virtue of humility by their lack of it. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to jettison the old baggage, but in Bush's case, he listened to the wrong people and is now paying the price:

Card made his first attempt after Bush was reelected in November, 2004, arguing that the administration needed a fresh start and recommending that Bush replace Rumsfeld with former secretary of state James A. Baker III. Woodward writes that Bush considered the move, but was persuaded by Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, that it would be seen as an expression of doubt about the course of the war and would expose Bush himself to criticism.

He got rid of Ashcroft, who was arguably a harmless and moderately effective leader in a position that really didn't matter much to the War on Terrorism. Sorry, Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism or whatever PC crap they're calling it these days. But, he wouldn't get rid of Rumsfeld, and it was all because Cheney and Rove said it might make him look weak.

What's ironic about this, is that getting rid of the Secretary of Defense would not have made us look weak. Firing the generals who were tasked with putting the invasion together and executing it, now that would be arguably a sign of weakness.

If anything, this sort of thing is yet another tally of times that Bush has shown himself to be a fairly weak leader. Coming from Clinton, he may seem tough, but by any objective standard he allows the advisors and ministers to run the King's show. It's ironic, that a man who normally disdains outside opinion when it disagrees with him, would choose to ignore his gut instinct at the moment in time that it would make or break his administration's efforts in one of its most critical areas.

Darwin awards, anyone?

At least seven men in five states have been fatally electrocuted since July while hacking through power lines to steal wire made of copper, which has been commanding near-record prices, police say.

"It is a growing problem with the rise in the price of metals," says Lt. Shea Smith of the Greenville County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina. Smith says one thief died Aug. 30 and another July 7. Both were found with wire cutters and other tools that suggested their intent. He says at least 30 more copper thefts have occurred in the county so far this year.

What can you say about someone who tries to steal a copper powerline, but doesn't try to find a way to shut off the electricity first? Even better, what about the person who is so stupid that it never even occurs to them that this is kinda a prerequisite for a "job well done?"

Sometimes it really is amazing how long it takes for the federal government to start getting the big picture. How long will it take before someone tries to suppress this information, the way that the FCC tried to suppress the latest report about local media ownership?

But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands - making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.

What the defenders of Islam have failed to do is actually base their arguments on facts and Islamic teaching. It's entirely a bunch of wild-eyed flailing around, asserting such rubbish as "Islam is no less compatible with democracy than any other religion" when in fact the stacks of proof have not only failed to defend them, but have almost categorically contradicted them.

It is true that most religions are not really incompatible with democracy and modern society, but then none of them even remotely share what are undeniably Islamic views about life, death and coexistence in a pluralistic society. Now, cue the multiculturalists and social liberals who will no doubt point to the existance of Muslims who not only don't do these violent deeds, but oppose them. One could just as easily find Buddhists who reject the Buddha's teachings on not being attached to material possessions or Christians who use violence to spread the Gospel message (directly against Christ's teachings). The fact that these people exist does not make them observant adherents of the religion they claim to profess.

As for me, well, I am just chuckling over this report. It is amusing to see an official government report that Islam actually is, believe it or not, a source of sincere spiritual justification for slaughtering those who disagree with you. Not that that's going to stop people from just denying that because it makes them feel good, but it's a start.

Some others:

Plus + Ultra

Pink Flamingo

Rosemary at QOAE

Donald Sensing

And for once, I think Michelle Malkin and I can firmly agree about something. I'll meet y'all down by the River Styx at the new icecream stand...

Random thoughts abound...

You know what I think is really pathetic about torture and stuff like that? All of the armchair generals, wannabe tough guys and scared for their lives soccer moms who are tough on terrorists when they don't have to see the ugly side of things. Here's a clue. If you can't stomach the idea of personally doing something to someone, chances are it ain't right. It's not the same as being squeamish about blood. People get squeamish about doing it themselves because it goes against the basic knowledge of good and evil that everyone is born with.

Windows Vista is actually a great operating system. It's worked fine for over a month now as a replacement for Windows XP. The user interface is more responsive, prettier and it's got some cool things like a built-in disk imager so no more need to use Norton Ghost for backups.

My one regret about the way that we studied coding in college was not getting a chance to take some more hardware and low-level programming classes. I miss working in C (not C++) with pointers and things like that. Some of the way things are taught now are so disjointed that you can go an entire four years without understanding a damn thing that happens at the hardware level. It's by the grace of God that I got at least some good background on that through C and C++ before doing Java...

So yeah, did I mention that things are going great between my girlfriend and I?

I'm having to give up coffee for the time being. So, I'm going over to the dark side. I'm going to replace it with one (maybe two) cups of Chai tea a day. I got some Oregon Chai, but plan to replace that with some good ol' Tazo Chai which is a whole hell of a lot better than Oregon Chai. I'd forgotten about that, but was rudely reminded when I took a sip of the Oregon Chain. It ain't bad, but Tazo beats it hands down!

Wouldn't it be great to have a job this easy?

And one last thing. I know I've heaped praise on it before, but I've gotta do it again. The Sage extension for Firefox is the best way to keep up with the blogs you read (or want to read). Nothing better for not having to keep a bunch of bookmarks or hitting up the main page hoping for an update.

Why the police need to be extremely serious about getting the right address and being civil and professional just in case they didn't:

"He told me the dispatcher gave police the wrong address," says Lupe.

The real domestic violence call was two houses down. Officers arrested another man for assault. Lupe says his daughter is now frightened by police.

Even in most adults, an experience like what that guy went through would leave them at least a bit wary of dealing with police. When a child sees his or her parent getting hauled out of the house like a criminal, it has a powerful impact on the child. That's especially true if the parent is completely innocent and it turns out to be the police who were at fault or just plain wrong like it was here.

Got the wrong address. That's human. Hauled him out of the house like an animal. Questionable (at a minimum). Haul ass when you find out that you were tipped off to the wrong house. Can you say "not accountable to you" any louder to that child?

The Muslims, though increasingly bold in Europe, are hell bent on a trend that will only lead to massive state-sponsored and executed bloodshed among their own. How much more of this sort of thing the Europeans will tolerate is anyone's guess, but if it keeps up, the return of totalitarianism in Europe cannot be all that far behind it:

It looks as if immigrants youths want to turn nightly rioting during the Islamic holy month of ramadan into an annual tradition. Around 8:30pm last night violence erupted again in Brussels, the capital of Europe. The riots centered on the Brussels Marollen quarter and the area near the Midi Train Station, where the international trains from London and Paris arrive. Youths threw stones at passing people and cars, windows of parked cars were smashed, bus shelters were demolished, cars were set ablaze, a youth club was arsoned and a shop was looted. Two molotov cocktails were thrown into St.Peter’s hospital, one of the main hospitals of central Brussels. The fire brigade was able to extinguish the fires at the hospital, but youths managed to steal the keys of the fire engine.

And their reason for being so violent and attacking one of the few societies (*cough*a lot of asia*cough*) that wouldn't round them up and machine gun them to death en masse?

The immigrant youths claim that they are upset by the death of Fayçal Chaaban, a 25-year old criminal, in a Brussels prison last Sunday. Yesterday morning the authorities announced they would hold a meeting with the youths to hear their grievances about security in prison, but the meeting, which was due last night, could not take place because of the riots.

You are sometimes condemned by the company that you keep, and they aren't even pretending that "poverty" is their excuse the way that the French Muslims did back when Paris was being lit up every night. Solidarity with a dead criminal, how lovely. They show their discomfort by lashing out like wild animals, and then they wonder why the local culture ends up fighting back by electing people who aren't limp-wristed leftists and who actually believe that their culture is worth defending against a horde of hoodlums.

I don't expect a lot of people to really understand my position on torture. It comes from an authentically religious worldview, a way of seeing the world that takes the existence of God as a given. I not only believe that there is one true Creator-God, but that this deity is perfect in His holiness and uncompromising in His expectation that we try to follow in His footsteps.

The Bible says that we are not to fear those whose power extends only to harming us in the flesh, but rather to fear the One (God), whose power extends to even into death to stand in judgement of everyone's soul. I see the issue of torture as a true test of spiritual character for our country. The history of God's relationship with His creation is one of protecting it from evil against odds that would be impossible for man. Trust in the Lord and He will deliver you from your enemies.

Some of the things that are being talked about are not torture, they're just playing hardball. Withholding food from enemy combatants until they talk, depriving them of sleep and making them listen to loud music are a far cry from the rack. Waterboarding and things like that, are not. They stand precisely at the precipice where we decide what kind of country do we want to be. That's when we go from aggravating the weak-willed to making people genuinely fear for their lives.

Oh sure, we're civilized enough right now that state-sanctioned rape and things like that won't happen for the time being or probably within a generation, but they'll happen at some point in the future. Only an idiot would look at this moral issue and think that it is immune from the slippery slope that has had America sledding toward Soddom for the past few generations on other issues from greed to sexuality.

If we go down this path, make no mistake about it. We will be different in terms of degree, but not fundamentally who we are, from our enemies. We'll just be the lesser of the two evils, and that is a far cry from being the "good alternative" that previous generations tried to be for European imperialism. To put it in terms that conservatives will understand, we'll play libertine San Francisco to the Islamic enemy's Bangkok. How do you like them apples?

In the name of keeping kids and teens from using drugs and carrying weapons, the Republicans, in their "infinite" wisdom, would now have students be able to be subjected to strip searches at school. Presumably, this will be done in advance on sports teams that might have to travel through TSA's "security" when going to regional or national competitions. Hell, they might make it part of the normal social studies curriculum to prepare them to be good citizens in the new Amerika.

At a time when students are being increasingly subjected to various forms of sexual assault and interest by their teachers, the good-spirited Republicans also saw fit to not include a single provision that would ease the many concerns that parents would have:

The bill does not address whether body cavity searches are included, whether training will be provided to staffers performing them, whether background checks on staffers would be necessary, whether students who have been sexually abused in the past would be subject or whether parental notification would be required. Without those specifics, the judgment of local school administrators will be the litmus test.

I've said it once, I'll say it again. Politicians should be legally held liable for the effects of the legislation that they pass. This law is a recipe for disaster because of how poorly designed it was, and how poorly implemented it will be. Parents won't have any recourse when their kids and teens are violated in the name of public safety.

So who wants to take pot shots at homeschoolers now? Strip searches, prison-style lockdows, violence, mental abuse. These really are core values and experiences that productive citizens need in their socialization growing up. If you love your children, you'll send them to the nearest public school so that they have a head start, especially now that they are being offered a crash course in dealing with airport security.

Wherein morality and emotionalism join forces to become a united front for asinine legislation and infantilization of adults:

"If they're a student I just think they're off bounds regardless of their age," said Rep. Warren Chisum, who led the fight to broaden the law. "I felt like if we didn't do that we just virtually made it open season on students that are 18 years old."

In other words, we won't allow students who are legal adults to have consensual sexual relationships with other adults because the honorable representative Chisum knows better than them. One has to wonder if he would feel this way about someone in their mid twenties having a sexual relationship with her. I bet he supports the 18 year old student being able to hold a job, join the military and vote. Hell, being from Texas and a Republican, he no doubt would have no problem executing the student for a cold-blooded murder.

But consensual sex, man that's just impossible for a man to handle because even though he is a legal adult, he is a student!

It's too bad that there aren't laws that hold legislators like to equally asinine standards like "felony failure to legislate intelligently." I'd be willing to draft something like that just to teach them what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

Reading stuff like this makes me laugh a little. It's hard not to laugh at the women who make these mistakes because they are all too often women who are just high enough in the IQ department to be expected to figure some things out. Like... men are uncomplicated most of the time, and that generally a woman can take him at his word when he says "this is what I'm thinking" when they're dating.

A girl I dated actually got on my case because I was predictable... in the sense that she could count on me to be a certain way and do certain things. A lot of her crap was her fault, actually, but that's sufficiently fundamental as to be implied. Anyway, I could never figure out if she was just jonesin for me to randomly clock her, rape her, stand her up, wiz all over her bed. She was short, so maybe I should have thrown some flair into it by throwing her rail-thin body across the room...

Simplicity is elegance. Anyone who disagrees with this is not an engineer of any stripe nor is qualified to ever be one. Women should be eating up the simplicity of the male mind. Men love to please women, it makes us feel strong. If a woman wants to be pleased, dropping a gentle, but direct suggestion works like a charm. Do it with a cute smile and a twinkle in your eye and it could be most things short of cutting a testicle off and putting it on one of this little umbrellas that get used in frou frou drinks.

Now, I've found that having a random and bizarre personality/sense of humor works wonders on women. They suddenly don't want to contemplate the possibility that you were being cryptic and had a deeper meaning. I suggest making vague and menacing references to non-euclidian geometry and astrological alignments resurrecting ancient and terrible cities at the witching hour. Then start singing the Firefly theme song out of nowhere.

Works like a charm.

Take my love, take my land...

Glenn Reynolds raised some interesting points about voter security in an age of electronic voting. Diebold is legendary among geeks and nerds for its non-existent security, which has been repeatedly proved to be hardly worthy of the ignoble mantle of "joke."

As Glenn observed, procedure is a key aspect of how a proper, secure voting process happens, but I want to take it a step farther than that. It is not only the fundamental problem with our voting system today, but it is the only effective way to attack the issue of voter fraud.

A computer is incapable of determining who should be allowed to vote without the proper information being provided to it. This is where the importance of procedure begins. Electronic voting does nothing to address the political issues that cause voter fraud in the first place. These range from weak-kneed election officials kow-towing to race agitators to dead people being allowed to exercise the franchise from beyond the grave.

Technical solutions to the problem must begin more fundamentally than just at the voting machine level. They must be involved at every step of the process.

The first step of the process is to harmonize all local and state government databases that affect the voting process, even tangentially. They must be indexed with a common and consistent set of information so that they can work together to accurately inform one another. A prisoner database should automatically inform the voting records database that someone is a prisoner; the local hospital's systems should inform the voter records database that a person has died.

The ability to harmonize the databases that local and state governments use already exists, but is encumbered by the bane of any new process: bureaucracy. In this case, it faces what could turn into a formidable enemy as an automated process is quite possibly the antithesis of a human government bureaucracy. It is absolutely necessary to keep as many people out of the loop as possible to protect the process, which naturally disempowers the bureacracy overall.

There is one final issue with electronic voting machines, such as the ones that Diebold sells, and that is that it is impossible to know if the entire live suite of machines is safe. Glenn touched on that point, but there is one last problem, and that's that no one can truly verify whether or not there isn't something, at some point that is compromising the data ranging from a program that hijacks and rewrites the network data packets to a trigger in the database that randomly turns one vote into another.

It is true that conspiracy theorists have harped on this problem for a long time, but then it is a sign that you really don't appreciate the severity of the issue, both technically and in terms of political consequences, if you blithely, nonchalantly dismiss it as "it'll never happen." When the future of your republic is tied to a badly designed machine that is one Compact Flash card away from executing a quiet coup d'etat, that is one of the most fundamental problems a society can have.

Just in case you were wondering why it is that there are a lot of men who are increasingly cynical about women being held accountable for sex crimes and mistakes, I offer this example:

A female high-school substitute teacher in Utah will serve no time behind bars for performing oral sex on a 17-year-old male student, despite comments from the judge that a man would have likely gone to prison.

"If this was a 29-year-old male and a 17-year-old female, I would be inclined to order some incarceration," noted 3rd District Judge Mark Kouris during sentencing yesterday for Cameo Patch.

Now, granted, all she did was give him oral sex, but the judge clearly admitted that he was applying a double standard. He is guilty in his own right for not applying the law properly, but when was the last time that you saw a feminist arguing that such a woman should be sent to prison, like a man would, out of the principle of equality before the law? Ha! Fat chance you're ever going to see that happen in this universe (though it might happen in an alternate one).

The writing is on the wall: the double standard just isn't going away. But... maybe it's more of how it was written...

Pretexting, what we used to call "social engineering," is a time-honored practice wherein you commit fraud to gain access to records or a computer system. Since the HP Board of Directors fell victim to it, Congress has grown worried about this "new trend." So, naturally, they are going to work hard to ensure that companies cannot do this to their employees, but they remain entirely defiant on law enforcement being allowed to use this practice. You did know that law enforcement and intelligence agencies are legally exempt from this form of fraud, right?

The problem, though, is that the proposals in front of Congress aren't likely to stop some of the most aggressive users of "pretexting": the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies.

They're simply immunized. Police who engage in pretexting and the shady private investigators they hire won't be affected. A CNET News.com chart of 11 supposedly "anti-pretexting" bills shows that all but four bills exempt police in one way or another.

Let's be clear about what pretexting is. It means committing fraud to acquire someone's personal records, such as phone calls, without their consent. It's like hiring a private investigator to break into someone's safe-deposit box one evening because you're curious about their net worth.

Here's the rub. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies don't need this ability for legitimate work. They already have avenues that they can go through, quaintly known in traditional English as "courts" (the postmodern Bush-English translation is "den of liberal traitors"). When they need information, they simply go to these "courts" and get a warrant for the information, which is a legal document saying that someone has the audacity to watch what they are doing and tell them what they can look at and take back with them. It's a waste of time and money, I know, because there is no track record of executive power being abused.

"Pretexting" is believed to be part of how the NSA got ahold of those phone records. As the article I linked to above points out, most of the major federal agencies use this fraudulent tactic to get around the legal requirements. Apparently the rule of law is too much of a burden for law enforcement. Why even stop them from continuing to cherry pick which felony crimes they are going to give themselves the privilege of committing to make their lives easier?

Meanwhile, things keep getting worse and worse for HP's former Chairwoman. It looks like she and those she hired are just not going to be able to avoid criminal prosecution for their use of social engineering. Better that the rule of law apply to part of the elite than none of it, I suppose...

I was listening off and on to a show that my girlfriend was watching in the background while I cleaned up yesterday. It was about a guy who went through considerable efforts to help other Katrina survivors get off their feet. He let them stay with him for free, cut their vehicles out from under trees, etc. Hero, right? Damn straight. The guy went well above and beyond any normal civic duty that he would have to help others. Then the show said, "to all the heroes out there, the survivors of Katrina." It was something crazy and stupid like that. I'm not sure of the exact wording but it was "Katrina survivor = hero."

....

We so badly rape the word "hero" that it's lost most of its value as a label. The conservative and populist parts of America are the main culprits behind that. Virtually every single person who wears a government uniform gets to wear the title. "Our heroes in uniform." Yeah, thanks for showing up and doing your frigging job, while we pay for your GI Bill and give you training. Can you believe this crap? We call people heroes for doing their damn jobs, which just cheapens the word "hero" for those brave souls who risk (and often lose) everything for their fellow man.

I don't mean any disrespect to the uniform and those who do take some small risks for us, but here's the awful truth. We pay them to take on those low-level risks everyday. They signed up, often for enormous benefits. The real heroes are the cop who nearly or does sacrifice his life (not expected of him, by the way) to save an innocent person from a criminal or the soldier who throws himself into harm's way to let his buddies get away. Just patrolling the neighborhood and taking on the random risk of getting shot or carrying a rifle into battle is not genuinely heroic.

That, my friends, is merely what we used to call civic virtue. There was a time when that was expected of all of us, but professional armies and police forces have taken that away from us.

Here's to the real heroes. The cops who buck the code of silence to pursue justice at their own expense. The cops who throw themselves between the public and genuinely dangerous criminals in heated situations (that weren't of their own making, like most SWAT raids) to save innocent lives. To the servicemen who risk and lose their lives to save their comrades and who put their own safety aside to comport themselves in battle in a civilized way that shames their enemies regardless of the outcome.

Slashdot got some controversy going with this semi-hysterical look at kids programming. The gist of the article is that we may end up doomed because we don't have good line programming languages like BASIC in popular use anymore. This part should be enough to explain to everyone where the author is coming from and why he is barking up the wrong tree:

Meanwhile, the same guys were offering -- at the fourth layer -- a programming language that folks could use to create new software of their very own. BASIC was derived from academic research tools like beloved old FORTRAN (in which my doctoral research was coded onto punched paper cards, yeesh). It was crude. It was dry. It was unsuitable for the world of the graphic user interface. BASIC had a lot of nasty habits. But it liberated several million bright minds to poke and explore and aspire as never before.

The "scripting" languages that serve as entry-level tools for today's aspiring programmers -- like Perl and Python -- don't make this experience accessible to students in the same way. BASIC was close enough to the algorithm that you could actually follow the reasoning of the machine as it made choices and followed logical pathways. Repeating this point for emphasis: You could even do it all yourself, following along on paper, for a few iterations, verifying that the dot on the screen was moving by the sheer power of mathematics, alone. Wow! (Indeed, I would love to sit with my son and write "Pong" from scratch. The rule set -- the math -- is so simple. And he would never see the world the same, no matter how many higher-level languages he then moves on to.)

There are many problems with this article, and they are the sort of thing that might be taken seriously by those who know jack about programming, so let's get started...

First of all, line programming, with its love affair with goto can be just dangerous. Old BASIC is notorious for its use of the goto command, which allows you to arbitrarily jump between sections of code. When used improperly, a goto will result in you jumping to a section of code that can, in that context, cause things to go wildly out of control very quickly. Any remotely intelligent programmer breaks down any task that might have to be repeated into a separate subroutine (function or method, whatever name you prefer). The reason why this is done is that it's the only flexible and intelligent way reduce complexity.

The author is quite incorrect about Python, and no one in their right mind would recommend that anyone start out learning how to program with Perl unless their goal was to discourage someone from programming because of its learning curve. Python has an interactive shell that compliments its interpretter, allowing people to run small snippets of code without actually running the whole script or program. Not only that, but it is very good at isolating defects in the code, a definite benefit for an easily frustrated student learning to program.

It's been a while since I have done anything with BASIC, but consider this VisualBasic statement and the equivalent statement in Python:

Dim x as Integer

x = 1

That was the VisualBasic version. Now, here's the Python version:

x = 1

Now, consider the following example of the Fibonacci Sequence written in Python:

a = 0
b = 1
while b < 500:
sum = a + b
a = b
b = sum
print sum

I can't think of a simpler way for a child or adolescent to algorithmically express the Fibonacci Sequence short of writing it out in pure English. Python is on many levels the new BASIC, but when used properly, it is significantly more powerful. Unlike BASIC, Python is a very flexible, standardized language with a robust library included with its intrepretter that allows people to write useful stuff with a minimum of effort compared to other languages. Google, for example, makes heavy use of Python for their products.

Now, why are students arguably less involved in software than they used to be? I think there are a few good reasons:

• Doing cool stuff is in some ways harder because the bar for what is cool has been set higher by modern advances.
• Modern languages are easier in some respects, but harder. Java, for example, is geared much more toward someone wanting to write "serious" software than a language like BASIC which is better for quick and dirty projects.
• Lower standards, anyone? The education system has reached an abysmal low and students are caught between the low and rigid standards and bureaucratic nightmares like "No Child Left Behind."

For those that want to program before they get out into the "real world," there has never been a better time than the present. It wasn't possible to create a simple game in the early 80s using a very high level language like Python, but it is today. The work that would have required long hours of learning assembly language and C can now be done in a few days of learning Python and some basic OpenGL. You just have to get used to the fact that programming is has become a much more common skill than it was 20-25 years ago and fewer people will be wowed.

Things like this make me shake my head and realize why we are losing the War on Terror. Our "leaders" might as well come out and just admit that they have the articulation skills of a small child and be done with it. If they are so unable to express what they are fighting for and defend it, that they cower before the pen of Le Monde, what hope do we have of winning anything against a people who believe that they have a divine mandate to murder our people?

Yes, yes, I know that this is a non-lethal weapon, but it's the principle of the thing. Our "leaders" are weak and worthless. What matters is that they would rather risk the health of law-abiding or minimally criminal Americans, rather than have to defend their actions to the world when they use it against Islamist fighters and their sympathizers.

How has open source software benefited you? Here are some things worth considering the next time you hear someone saying that open source software development is just another left-wing, anti-capitalist movement:

• It formed the foundation of MacOS X, allowing Apple to rebuild itself as a company and bring serious comeptition to bear on Microsoft.
• It powers Google's search products, allowing them to create flexible packages that have brought more refined searches to the public.
• It enabled the creation of the blogosphere by providing an extremely low cost platform for the development and deployment of content management systems for the masses. Without Perl, Python, PHP, PostreSQL, MySQL, Apache, Linux and FreeBSD, it would be too expensive and complicated for most bloggers to do their thing.
• It has forced high end database providers to start providing low cost database products such as Oracle Express that are actually useful.
• It restored competition to the browser market.

Open source software is not perfect, and it is not the be all, end all method of profitable software development. However, it has brought a lot of benefits to the public in its own right and it is a sad statement about the state of public policy that the wonks would risk legally endangering open source development for the sake of protecting corporations that compete with open source projects.

The right to tinker and create new property precedes civilization. It is one of the most fundamental of human rights. It doesn't surprise me that the legal profession, a profession that has never generated a single, solitary piece of wealth in its long, sordid history would not understand this.

Unlike Stephen Green or James Joyner, I think the threat to the West from Islam is one that is purely of our own making. There is not a single Islamic country that could wage a successful war against the first world countries, nor is there much risk that would come from "alienating" the Islamic world.

I would like to point out one very simple fact about the Islamic world that gets missed: they need us at least as much as we need them. Take a serious look at where most of the Islamic countries in OPEC get their technology from. Infidel countries, that's right. They cut us off on oil, we cut off exports to them and suddenly they find that oil doesn't provide spare parts for their vehicles, none of which are built locally (for a variety of reasons). Within a few years, their computerized components begin to fall apart, and if you thought that vehicles were hard to repair...

The tangled web that we have woven with the Islamic world is one that is squarely our collective fault. Westerners don't want to admit that we are playing Russian Roulette when we invite Muslims into our borders. No one seems to find it just a little daft that we invite a religious group where it seems that at least 1 out of 20 of its members is a bonafide sociopath who is dedicated to working with other like minded sociopaths for the complete destruction and subjugation of the host society. I could be wrong, but I would say that immigration and student visas are the *ahem* root causes of actual acts of terrorism on Western targets by Muslim terrorists.

There was a time when the Republicans would have launched an investigation into treason for a politician and his family for being close friends to a royal family that sponsors anti-American terrorism. Today, if the Democrats had any testicular or ovarian fortitude (which presupposes functional genetalia, unfortunately), they would be rightfully holding McCarthyesque investigations of the Bush family for their ties to the Saudi royalty.

One thing is for sure, and that's that we had some semblance of common sense during the Cold War and World War II that we don't have today. We didn't allow Soviet citizens to come here unfettered without any oversight, nor did we allow the KGB to set up recruiting booths on college campuses, which is what we tolerate the Saudi-based Wahabi death cult doing in our Islamic communities. Leaders don't make excuses, victims don't bring it on themselves, idiots do both of those things.

That is why we stand to lose the War on Terror.

Meanwhile, we seem to be doing a bang up job of reforming Afghanistan! And wouldn't relations between religions in America be just wonderful if we had these guys working for Habitat for Humanity?

If only liberals and most libertarians could grasp the importance of this statement:

People's beliefs about God's personality are powerful predictors, according to the survey. Those who found God engaged and punishing were likely to have lower incomes and education, to come from the South and be white evangelicals or black Protestants. People who believe God is distant and nonjudgmental are more likely to support increased business regulation, environmental protections and the even distribution of wealth.

You mean that ideas actually have consequences? Perish the thought!

If they carried this survey over a little bit further they might have come to the following conclusion: "those who subscribe to a conservative interpretation of Islam are inclined to believe that it is acceptable to use force to convert non-believers".

I've said it once, I'll say it again. Religion is a much more powerful force than virtually any secularist can comprehend. It shapes the way that an adherent sees the world and interacts with others. A religion that holds violent teachings is going to be hard-pressed to fit into a liberal, pluralistic society. It is a legitimate--and very necessary--question to ask whether or not a liberal, pluralistic society should play Russian Roulette with its future by taking in people who adhere to such a belief system.

Chalk another one up to ham-handed government action against an ISP. Pennsylvania police all but dismantled an entire Usenet provider in order to get access to the information on a few newsgroups. Granted, it was a child porn case, so one can understand their urgency, but cases like this illustrate what is wrong with the way that law enforcement operates. Maybe things will get better in the future when (hopefully) newer generations of cops will actually understand some of the popular Internet protocols out there, but I doubt that.

Usenet is interesting because when you post a message to a newsgroup, it gets sent all across Usenet to a myriad number of providers. Once the cat is out of the bag, damn it's out of the bag! It is a very, very useful protocol for sharing information and discussing things, but it is also a very good protocol for criminals like pedophiles to mass-distribute illegal content. Now, most of the issue could be solved with proper software and police work, but that's easier said than done when you're talking about local governments.

It's sorta fitting that we are silencing our own democratic process as we are trying to force it on others. Apparently it works great for the Iraqis, but Americans aren't ready for unfettered democracy. Either that or we've just been bad kids and are going to have to go sit in time out. And by time out I mean we will allow an oligarchic elite decide what can be said and what can't be said while the Fate of the Union (or is it Onion, since it stinks so bad right now) hangs in the balance.

I think that this is one of the two reasons that we're so hated around the world. We're a nation of hypocrites. A violent nation of hypocrites. We bomb the hell out of other countries, tell them how good freedom feels and they watch as we regulate the hell out of our own people. It's do as we say, not was we do (and y'all did) but with a loaded gun backing it up. Can anyone blame them for wondering why we cheerfully and patriotically bomb the hell out of them, while avoiding the very form of government that we claim that we want to impose on them?

Everyone's a psychopath except for me and thee and I have my doubts about thee...

Needless to say, the "gunfights after every traffic accident" which were predicted by the gun control advocates have not transpired in any state adopting such "no retreat" measures.

But make no mistake, they continue to fight such legislation. Their latest tactic? Identifying the death of any armed home invader or rapist at the hands of his intended victim as a "murder," they have launched a Web site opposed to these new self-defense laws, dubbed www.licensetomurder.com.

The crux of the anti-self-defense crowd's argument is that everyone except for them is a psychopath ready to gun down a minivan full of kids at the slightest provocation after a stressful day. This is clearly why they are so adamant that only the police can carry guns and use them at their discression. Everyone knows that they have a job that never gets them into situations where heated words or rude behavior get the best of them...

A martial arts instructor I knew once commented to the effect that the average fight lasts only a matter of several seconds to thirty seconds. The person who attacks in most situations is going to win. So, one can only conclude that these people are objectively in favor of putting law-abiding citizens into a position where they'll probably be maimed or killed.

Via Instapundit

Anyone remember the Gonzalez case that I blogged about a few weeks ago? Remember how I have been saying that the War on Drugs has been *ahem* "problematic" for police professionalism and ethics? Well, once again, I was right:

Dallas County Sheriff Brian Gilbert insisted Friday that he can carry out his elected duties despite a judge's order that he hand over his gun and stay away from several county buildings until his felony theft case is resolved.

Judge John Lloyd on Friday banned Gilbert from the sheriff's office, jail and courthouse "unless accompanied by his attorney for purposes of his own court appearances."

Gilbert also was ordered to surrender his passport and turn over any firearms to his attorney.

Gilbert faces a first-degree theft charge over an estimated $120,000 that allegedly disappeared after a March 15 traffic stop along Interstate Highway 80. Iowa state auditors are said to be in the final stages of a complete review of the Dallas County evidence room. State authorities have said they could consider additional charges, and take steps to remove Gilbert from his job, depending on the results of that audit.

It does say that they later found more money in the guy's car and therefore he very well may have been a drug dealer, but I don't think that that has any bearing on the issue of how the police handled the money or the due process issues inherent in this case. The fact remains that police were allowed to take money without due process restrictions, and this could happen to anyone. You will find a lot of stories of people having money seized at air ports because they failed to report it and things like that. Bottom line is that regardless of what the guy is guilty of, these rules apply to everyone with large amounts of money on them.

Things like these theft charges are bound to happen when you have a lot of money that can be taken without accountability. Growing up in a law enforcement family, I heard some stories every now and then of shady dealings wherein money would disappear from an evidence pile and end up in the hands of an informant and things like that. The accountability problems are real, and they grow when the restrictions are fewer and farther between.

But that's all ok because he is apparently a swell guy:

Art Catron, Gilbert's 80-year-old neighbor, said Friday that he believes the whole issue is "stupid," "idiotic," and "a waste of time." He also criticized the Register's three-month investigation of traffic stops, among other things.

Gilbert did nothing wrong, Catron said.

"As far as I'm concerned, he's a top lawman and a top officer all the way around."

It would seem that Senator George Allen proved to be useful for a change back when the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was headed to a vote. He really is not a libertarian on most issues, but at least he had it in him to vote against something that was so completely unconstitutional on its face, which is much more than can be said about Bush.

John Hawkins seems to be typical of the Republicans here, as he is incapable of saying that maybe it's time to impeach the people behind this and run the whole lot out of Congress behind them. I can't think of a more direct assault on the Constitution than this bill in recent times. It is a blunt way of saying "we don't care what the text says, we'll do it anyway."

And of course the Supreme Court saw nothing unconstitutional about this. Any effort by part of the federal government to shut down political speech violates the first amendment, and only an idiot would disagree with that. It doesn't matter what nuance the Supreme Court mysteriously finds, they do not have the magical power to redefine basic things like 1) the Constitution presupposes that only Congress can establish laws and other binding federal rules and 2) the first amendment's actual text contains no exceptions.

Take a good look at that list again. If you see your Senator who is up for reelection on that list, it doesn't matter what they have done. I don't care what conservative pet cause they have stood up for. If they have a "yea" next to their name, they need to go!

More at the Club for Growth

You didn't really think that Caesar was handing out freebies, did you?

The bills would force California public schools to change curricula (SB1437) and policies (AB606) to promote transsexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality to children as young as kindergarten without their parents' permission.

AB1056 also would spend $250,000 to turn 10 schools into "sexual indoctrination centers," officials said.

The governor already has signed one bill that will require private schools including Christian colleges and others to promote homosexuality if any of their students receive state grants.

I'm sure that your kids are going to be the "salt and light" of their sexual indoctrination center, what with their ability to engage in a point/counter-point debate with their teacher at every step of the way. Just their presence in the room will exude such holiness that people will be flopping to the ground like at a Benny Hinn gathering. You'll have teachers throwing up their hands praising the God of Israel in every corner of San Francisco's gay districts because you sent your kids in their to do battle for the Lord.

I've just gotta know one thing? How f$%^ing stupid do you have to be to regard a pre-teen or young teen as a "missionary" to their school? Especially in a state like California where you have the entire state apparatus arrayed against them to defend against their every move while simultaneously force-feeding them anti-Christian propaganda. Take one good look at the SBC's priorities, and it becomes readily apparent that they are more concerned with winning elections than winning souls.

Having used Windows Vista pre-RC1 on my laptop, I have to agree with this ZDNet blog post. There is a lot of FUD being thrown around about Windows Vista, but on any decent system it should run well. In fact, I got Windows Vista pre-RC1 to run faster--with all of the new GUI features--on my laptop than Windows XP does. The speed and general responsiveness is very impressive. Overall, the next release of Windows is moving in a very positive direction and will probably provide a great deal of competition to both MacOS X 10.5 and especially Linux.

My laptop, by the way, has the following specs for those who think that my laptop is some sort of beast:

• 1.6Ghz Pentium M
• 1GB of RAM
• Radeon Mobility X300 w/ 128MB of RAM
• 7200 RPM 60gb hard drive
• (It's a Dell Inspiron 6000)

In other words, it would be sold for about $500-$600 today on Dell's website. The only reason that I went back to Windows XP was that there are no drivers for my Intel 2915 wireless chipset. That said, it still has some bugs in it like standby and hibernate modes not working at all on at least that laptop.

Some may say that Microsoft is going to spec themselves out of the market, but the developer tools that matter will target Windows XP and Vista equally. Microsoft may not be able to target old PCs, but developers won't have to worry that users who are stuck with Windows XP are going to be cut out of the new market.

Don't be evil:

The first thing that came out of our mouths when we heard that Google is working on a system that listens to what's on your TV playing in the background, and then serves you relevant adverts, was "that's cool, but dangerous".

The idea appeared in Technology Review citing Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, who says these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later.

Just be Big Brother. I have been sorta looking for an alternative to Google, and this will be the cause of it if they ever go this route. With their advances in statistical translation, they are paving the way for the pefect totalitarian software: record the voice, analyze the voice, translate it into any language that they know. Any takers on when the government will start to get involved with this by working with Google? I'd give them just a few years after Google proves that it is doable.

I have set a goal for myself that when AdSense sends me my next check I'm going to close out my account and remove the ads. That's part of my general migration away from total Google dependence. I suggest that others do the same.

But court records released since then suggest that what Gonzales described as a "deadly plot" was virtually the pipe dream of a few men with almost no ability to pull it off on their own. The suspects have raised questions in court about the FBI informants' role in keeping the plan alive.

Isn't it wonderful to see your tax dollars at work keeping you safe from real terrorist threats like psychotic nutjobs with a low probability of ever even meeting a terrorist who will want to work with them? There were many unanswered questions since the beginning, since the government wasn't exactly forthcoming with many details about the operational capabilities of these guys. One would have assumed that they would have played that angle up really well if there were some substance to it.

I think that this part says it all about why this was a waste of time, money and manpower:

The FBI would eventually pay the informant, who had previous arrests for assault and marijuana possession, $10,500 for his services in the Batiste investigation and reimburse him $8,815 for his expenses.

Small time wannabe terrorists who would never amount to much (and would never be used by serious, dedicated, trained terrorists). An informant who stood to make a lot of good cash and probably get some legal help from the FBI. An agency desperate for good PR in the face of an abject failure to coordinate its people that made it impotent to stop the largest terrorist attack in American history.

Need I say more?

You know what I am really sick of in politics? All of the bad analogies and living the past, fighting the wars of previous generations. World War II is over; Hitler is dead and gone. Stop looking for Nazis under every bush because most of them are dead. The rest of them are brittle old soon-to-be-corpses enjoying the last years of their pathetic lives.

Do you know what Fascism means? It's an actual ideology, not an insult. Meaning, that there is some sort of actual substance to what it means to be a Fascist. Here's a Fascist, there's a Fascist EVERYBODY'S A FUCKING FASCIST THESE DAYS!

If you have a functional brain, you don't need to use analogies, metaphors and bad historical comparisons to understand the world. Get over it, the "good old days" are gone and you're going to have to look forward instead of looking back fondly on the past.

Lee actually seems to be getting it:

I asked once before for concepts in Christianity comparable to dhimmi, jihad, kufr, of naji. There are none. If you disagree, find them, and explain why they are comparable. [A coworker] said that gentile was comparable to dhimmi, which is ridiculous. Gentile is to dhimmi as African-American is to nigger.

Dhimmitude is comparable only to South African apartheid in its vicious treatment of the üntermenschen. Again, if you can find me a similar concept in the Christian Bible I would love to see it.

Deuteronomy 24 contains numerous commands for the Jewish people saying that they must fully respect the rights of the foreigner in their land who is living within the boundaries established by the God of Israel. In fact, that book contains many verses which protect the rights of non-Jews living in Israel who worship Yaweh or those who work for Jews. Then there is Matt 10 which contains this little gem which explicitly forbids the use of coercion against non-believers:

There are more parts from the Old Testament which require protection of foreigners here.

11"Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. 12As you enter the home, give it your greeting. 13If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. 14If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. 15I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

Now, if you still think that the God of the Old Testament is a very different one from the God presented in New Testament scripture, consider these two verses:

16 And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the disputes between your brothers and judge fairly, whether the case is between brother Israelites or between one of them and an alien. 17 Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for judgment belongs to God. -Deuteronomy 1

And this one, which is a great example of the "Christian doctrine" of grace in the Old Testament. It's from Isaiah 6:

5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

What does that sound like? If you guessed the New Testament parable of the tax collector and the pharisee, then you are correct. People get thrown off on this sort of thing, primarily because the New Testament is smaller and more straight-forward. It talks a lot more directly about how to live, our relationship with God and things like that than much of the Old Testament does.

One of the important things that Christianity has that Islam does not have, and this is the key that Lee missed, is that it has no concept of the ends justifying the means toward the expansion of the catholic body*. Period. Anyone who spreads Christianity through evil methods would meet "an apostate's welcome" in their first moments in the afterlife.

The only exceptions to moral rules that exist in Christianity pertain to protecting your neighbor's life. For example, it is moral for a Christian to tell a would-be killer a lie to save their victim. Simply put, Christianity only recognizes such exceptions where the goal is clearly in accordance with the 2 highest commandments: love God with all of your being and love your neighbor as yourself.

(*The "catholic body" is the united body of Christ. It is the "invisible, catholic church" that spans all believers from all nations and tribes throughout human history from the earliest humans to the last Jewish converts at the end of the age of the gentiles.)