Interesting Stuff

Things are at least beginning to change a little in American politics. The Democrats, since taking over the legislative branch of the government earlier this month, have already started passing ethics legislation to try to curb the problems Washington has been having with lobbyists. This is part of their larger plan to make changes now that they’re in power. We’ll see how far these measures actually go, but it’s at least a start. In particular, I hope they actually create an independent investigative group for ethics violations; it seems like many ethics problems in Congress get brushed aside because the people involved are also the ones in charge of policing such actions. Time will tell.

As part of rethinking the Iraq policy, President Bush has begun rearranging the military staff, and is considering sending in 30,000 more troops to the country. I don’t think adding in more troops is a good move; I imagine it would be more demoralizing for Iraqi civilians and give the insurgents hope because they were able to thwart the 140,000 US troops already over there. However, from what I’ve heard from Anderson Cooper’s interviews of soldiers in Iraq, they really need more troops, or else the country will never get out of its current troubles. I’m becoming more and more convinced that there is no way to get Iraq into a better situation in the foreseeable future, and the “best” thing for everyone might just be to pull out and let it sink into civil war for a couple years. I know it sounds heavy-handed, but I still haven’t heard of a strategy that doesn’t eventually degenerate into that anyway.

On a related note, the US death toll in Iraq broke 3,000 over New Years. I realize it’s not much compared to the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed (or the conflict in Darfur, or the Falun Gong persecution in China, etc), but it’s still worth noting.

A bit of a rant: the LA Time’s article that I linked to discusses “next week’s announcement next week” that President Bush is expected to give. Don’t they have editors for these articles? They could at least have someone give a quick once-over to these things. Bah.

The United Nations voted to impose sactions against Iran regarding its nuclear programme, and President Ahmadinejad has (I believe rightly) called these sanctions illegitimate, citing the right of all countries, according to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970, to develop peaceful nuclear energy programmes. and as former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter describes in his book Target Iran, the current weapons inspectors in Iran right now can find absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. So, here’s what we’ve got from Iran at the moment: peaceful nuclear development, denial of the Holocaust, vows to destroy Israel, rejection of every trading package which would supply them with nuclear energy without developing it on their own (including Russia’s very generous offer), and now correctly calling the UN on their misguided sanctions. What on earth are they trying to accomplish? They have all the drawbacks of a real programme and an empty threat, without any of the advantages of either one. Any insight would be appreciated.

It seems that AT&T has given up on their anti-net neutrality stance, though I suspect the issue will flare up again in a year or so. Since the last time I discussed it, I have been convinced that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a really good stance on the issue: neither “side” on the issue is particularly meritorious (getting rid of net neutrality is obviously a bad thing, but getting the US government to examine and regulate most of the world’s internet traffic is a privacy problem waiting to happen). I don’t have a good solution to this yet, but I’ll keep watching the issue.

There has been a bunch of other news since I last posted, but this is starting to get pretty long. The condensed version: Saddam Hussein was executed, Bangkok experienced a series of explosions New Years Eve which injured/killed surprisingly few people, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is wanking that his $200,000 salary isn’t enough money, and Microsoft gave nice laptops to some bloggers hoping they would post good stuff about the company, but instead has received a backlash from other bloggers (who I think are mainly jealous that they didn’t get one). Right… I think that’s all the news for now.

The news everyone seems to be talking about is that former US President Gerald Ford has died, presumably of something related to old age. Although I had always had the impression that he was a bumbling fool and everyone disliked him for pardoning Nixon (which apparently lead to his defeat in the next Presidential election), lots of people seem to be coming out of the woodwork and saying how great Ford was at bringing the nation together and healing them after the Watergate, Vietnam, and civil rights problems the country was experiencing.

In what I consider more interesting news, the Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled that the state Senate must vote on the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The legislature moved to recess without voting on it, which is against the state laws. However, the court aknowledges that they cannot force the lawmakers to vote on the issue (and the lawmakers have done this before). Assuming the amendment gets at least 25% of the Senate’s votes, it would go to a public election. This makes a lot of sense for constitutional amendments; it seems like they should be ratified by the people. However, it seems like a really bad idea to let the often ignorant, stupid, and bigoted masses decide on civil rights issues (can you imagine what would have happened if segregation had been put to a popular vote in 1954, instead of just letting Brown v. Board of Education stand?). We’ll see what happens, and although it would be nice if lawmakers followed the law, I really hope that gay marriages aren’t banned.

Finally, it looks like President Bush is considering changes in his Iraq policy, though I personally doubt he will set any sort of timetable. From what I’ve seen on CNN (Anderson Cooper is so awesome!), we need more troops over there to keep everything from collapsing into civil war (you know, more than it already has), but we don’t appear to have many more troops to send over. The whole thing is a disaster, but at least Bush is starting to consider new options instead of just burying his head in the sand. Time will tell how this turns out.

I’m back in MN for a week, and although it’s great to see friends from high school again (and hopefully play some more bridge with Jim), my mom is already driving me nuts. I think I just need to spend as much time as possible outside of the house, and I’ll be ok. If you’re in town, give me a call; my number is on Facebook (yes, psifer, it really is)!

I realize the title is a bit forced. The worst thing is that if you unscramble the anagram, it’s still a bit forced. Oh, well; they’re both cromulent titles/headlines.

First, some heartening news, as horrible as it is: the Iraq Study Group’s report, which says again that we’re losing the war, our troops, and the hearts and minds of all people involved, has made a lot of people unhappy. However, public opinion seems to be pretty much in line with its claims (which seems unusual; typically expert analysis disagrees with “common knowledge”). The UN seems to be pretty upset with this whole imbroglio as well. It appears that even some Republicans are starting to view the situation from a more realistic point of view, and are beginning to search for a way out of this quagmire before it ruins the political party. Could there be a glimmer of hope for a withdrawl from Iraq? I am not aware of any way to do it without leaving Iraq less stable than it was with Saddam around, but it might still be for the best at this point.

How’s this for some really shiny news: a Firefly MMORPG appears to be on the horizon. Assuming this is as cool as I hope it is, it almost makes me wish I owned a Windows box. Almost.

NASA has announced plans to go ahead with Bush’s (perhaps ill-conceived) plan to put a permanent base on the moon by 2020. This could be really cool, or it could be a huge waste of money. I’m not sure anyone knows which it will become, but several other countries are interested in joining in on this project. We shall see what happens.

There has been another ceasefire between the Israelis and Palestinians, even though the Palestinians continued to launch rockets into Israel several hours after the supposed ceasefire began. Ordinarily I wouldn’t put much stock in this, but it has lasted a surprisingly long time. There was a bit of intra-Palestinian violence recently, but the truce has lasted remarkably well. In fact, this seems like the best news in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict since about 1993.

For the first time in a really long while, I don’t have any really bad news to post. Huzzah!

I realize that this would have been more timely before the election, but I’ve come across a very good demonstration of how Diebold voting machines can be compromised without leaving any evidence behind. Seeing this stuff makes it seem much more real than reading about it.

and one more reminder to not trust Wikipedia more than you’d trust a friend of an acquaintance: the entry on Jim Sensenbrenner has had its “controversy” section removed. There is now no mention that Sensenbrenner introduced the controversial PATRIOT and Real ID Acts, nor is there a mention of his travel budget, which is paid for by special interests (against congressional rules) and is the largest of any Congressperson. edit: upon closer reading, these things are sprinkled in among the other sections in the page, but are not as easily accessible as they had been. So remember: don’t trust Wikipedia to be either correct or unbiased, any more than you’d trust anyone you’ve just met. Edit: and don’t trust the pages to keep the same format they have now.

The big thing around here is that UCLA Police tasered a student for refusing to show his ID or leave the library. This was caught on camera and can be found on YouTube, though I should post a WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS VERY DISTRUBING, AND WATCHING IT MADE ME PHYSICALLY SICK. If you are still interested, here is the video. The UCLA administration has ordered an independent investigation into the matter, while the student has hired a civil rights attorney and filed a lawsuit for brutal excessive force.

In other news, the US has decided to trade nuclear technology with India. I think this is an absolutely horrible move on many different fronts. India has not signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, and may very well restart its arms race and standoff with Pakistan. Part of the fuel sent to India will be used in civilian reactors, but part is also reserved for military applications that the UN will not be allowed to examine. Finally, this gives the US even less bargaining power to get Iran to stop its neclear programme (which I am given to understand is completely non-weapons oriented; they seem to be pursuing only energy). I got to see Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq (who resigned because he was convinced they didn’t have WMDs when the politicians kept saying they did), a couple weeks ago, and he said at the time that as soon as the election was over, Bush was going to start pushing the Iran nuclear weapons thing again (which has already started: the US navy has begun moving troops into the Persian Gulf). Ritter, as a former weapons inspector, has pored over the reports of the current weapons inspectors in Iran, and is confident that they have done a good, solid job but have found absolutely no evidence whatsoever of a nuclear weapons programme in the country. I’ve gone off on a tangent, but the main idea is that the US is trying to lie about Iran, and their actions with India are only undermining their position further.

Finally, the scariest news for today: the Military Commissions Act was signed into law today. Among other things, it allows people, even US citizens, to be detained and tortured (by the definition in the Geneva Conventions) without ever being charged or told why they are being held, at the sole discretion of the president. The scariest part about this is that if there are abuses, there is absolutely no way they will ever be disclosed or appealed. If you are wrongfully imprisoned by this law, you will never be given access to a lawyer, you will never be allowed to challenge the legality of your detainment, and you will never be heard from again. I feel very frustrated that the majority of Congresspeople were in favour of this. Due to laws like this, combined with the Real ID Act of 2005 (which requires a National ID card to be carried by everyone starting in 2008, and which was introduced by civil liberties foe Jim Sensenbrenner), it seems that our country has become alarmingly protofascist. It’s really scary stuff.

Today’s nerdtacular tip is brought to you by the letter π and the number e: if you telnet into port 80 of a webserver, you can write your HTTP requests by hand. I haven’t quite figured out how to use this to my advantage yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s there somewhere… I can now fill in my own custom values when submitting forms, without bothering to download and edit the source for the page with the form on it, if nothing else (though I’d still need to look at the source to see what parameters the form contains).
A quick example →

It’s worth noting that China has frozen Korean money transfers in protest over North Korea’s recent missile tests. I’m a bit surprised that China is willing to take such a strong action against what I thought was a close ally.

The more interesting news is that more chinks in the Bush administration’s monolithic confidence over Iraq are beginning to emerge. October, despite the observance of Ramadan, is already the most deadly month in Iraq for US troops since April. Most importantly, American diplomat Alberto Fernandez told al-Jazeera that the US acted with “arrogance and stupidity” in Iraq, and is now in a nigh unwinnable position. He was later forced to retract his position. The White House seems to be claiming that his statement was a mistranslation, despite the fact that Fernandez is fluent in Arabic (and presumably English, too).

Finally, I give you a history of Arial and Helvetica fonts, including a reason to like Helvetica and dislike Arial (Helvetica:Arial::Java:Javascript, one might say). I also include a guide to spotting the differences between the two. This was brought to my attention on the tex_latex community. I feel weird saying this, but it’s kinda fun being a typesetting snob and noticing the papers that lack ligatures and do paragraph/page spacing wrong.

There is a fantastic tech talk about how to teach computer science to kids. Too often, they see the name and think it’s about programming, and are consequently turned off to the subject. This kiwi teaches CS without using a computer, but has all sorts of fun, hands-on activities for kids to do as they learn about sorting and compression algorithms, error-correcting codes, DFAs, and other parts of CS. If you ever need to inspire kids, this video is definitely worth a watch!

Speaking of videos to watch, check out this Dove commercial. I’ve gotta give them props for that.

On a newsier topic, Bush has begun to admit that the war in Iraq is going poorly and is starting to accept the parallels between this war and Vietnam. Might this be the beginning of someone in the Republican party taking a look at reality and then accepting responsibility for what they’ve screwed up? Not likely, but a man can dream, can’t he?

By the way, please, please register to vote (and then actually vote) in the elections on November 7. In California, you need to register (which can be done at your local DMV) by October 23 (this coming Monday). As John Stewart once quipped, “this country is run by extremists because moderates have shit to do.” However, voting doesn’t take up much of your time, and can help shape which direction the country will go, even if it’s still being run by extremists. No matter which parties/candidates you support, please vote. and please take 10 minutes and read up on the parties/candidates you plan to vote for, and make sure that they really do represent your interests; too often people are elected by an ignorant population that doesn’t realize what it’s doing. You want to vote for the communist party? That’s fine, so long as you know what they stand for and agree with it. You wanna vote for someone because the politicians tell you to? that’s not so good.

So learn about your favourite party, and then vote for them!

First off, quite possibly the first science fiction movie was Le voyage dans la lune, a silent film made in 1902 based off stories by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne (the French narration can be found here). It has some surprisingly good special effects, and is well worth the 14 minutes it takes to watch.

Also, it appears that Microsoft is actually going to require that all kernel-space drivers be certified in Windows Vista, which I think is going to be fantastic. They are permanently moving graphics stuff into user space, so I don’t anticipate many drivers needing certification. I expect that this will make the Windows kernel much more stable and secure, to the point that the BSoD might be a thing of the past in a few years. The Slashdotters are naturally wanking about OSS issues, but I think this is actually a pretty great change. The worrying part is that they could very well put copyright enforcement stuff in there, which no one would be able to change, even for legitimate reasons. Yes, that would be a poor design decision from a stability/security standpoint, but Microsoft hasn’t had the greatest record with that stuff in the past. Here’s hoping that the execution goes as well as the planning!

This past Thursday, I got to hear John W. Dean, former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon, speak at the library. He was the first insider in the Watergate conspiracy to stand up and speak out against what is happening. Since then, he has become very disillusioned with the Republican party, and the Bush administration in particular. He writes weekly columns for FindLaw, and has recently written 2 books, Worse Than Watergate, and Conservatives Without Conscience.

His talk was absolutely incredible. A summary of his talk, in particular his analysis of the modern Republican party →