I wish I were surprised

(CNN) -- In the face of international outrage, President Bush said Friday that he was disgusted by photographs that apparently show American soldiers abusing detainees at a prison outside Baghdad.

"I share a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated," Bush said. "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's not the way we do things in America."

University-sponsored blogging

Wayne State, are you listening? You desperately need to copy this idea:

A team at the Digital Library Development Lab [at the University of Minnesota] has developed UThink, a free blogging tool for University students, faculty and staff.

A blog, short for “web log,” is a personal Web site — or online journal — that can include stories, political opinions, pictures or anything else an author decides to post.

...

“The libraries recognized the potential for this as a medium for scholarly communication,” Eric Celeste, an associate University librarian said. “Your friend might say, ‘God, that’s a rotten idea.’ Or your professor might say, ‘Hmm, that’s an interesting idea. Here are some more resources.’ ”

The development team, which also includes Bill Tantzen and John Butler at the development lab, integrated the blogging tool with the University’s current X.500 username and password system.

Popular blogging tools such as LiveJournal and Blogger require multiple-step processes to create a blog. UThink, which is based on the Movable Type blogging system, requires one step to create a blog, after the user logs in to the system.

“It’s just convenient,” Froehle said of the login system.

Celeste said UThink could be used in classrooms to enhance discussion and debate, but it will not replace WebCT, the University’s course management program.

“WebCT will still serve its purpose for classes that want to be private,” he said...

We cannot understand it

Here's my question: does Euler's fundamental fact regarding complex numbers change depending on gravity? ;)

Digital university

Wayne State University has made good efforts in the realm of digital student services. You now check your admission status, register for classes, check your grades, and pay tuition online. All positive steps!

But I'm not impressed with WSU's digital classroom software, Blackboard. It's an okay piece of software -- if you remember to check it regularly. What I believe Blackboard needs to do (besides authenticate against Wayne State LDAP, but that's another gripe), is syndicate.

I should be able to pull down RSS or Atom feeds of Blackboard announcements that relate to the classes I'm taking. Judging by the Blackboard company's site, the software looks customizable. We need data syndication, and RSS/Atom aggregators on the Internet Toolkit CD! Wayne State can be a leader here, not a follower. But the computer people need to give us more options!

(Either that, or promote Movable Type to professors.)

iTunes 4.5 Radio Charts

If you're looking for new and exciting music to download, iTunes 4.5 has made it even easier. You can now look up the most popular songs on radio stations all across the nation. If you want to be truly adventurous, look up WDET-FM 101.9 in the Detroit area. They play awesome stuff.

Linux and fair use

Via Slashdot, here's a telling excerpt of an MIT student's interview with Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA. He's the bastard responsible for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

TT: But today, you still cannot on the market actually buy a licensed DVD player for Linux.
JV: I didn’t know that.
TT: So the question is, do you think people who go to Blockbuster, they rent a movie, they bring it home, and they play it on Linux by circumventing the access control, are those people committing a moral transgression?
JV: I do not believe that you have the right to override an encryption. Because if you have the right to do it, everybody can do it. For whatever benign reason you have, somebody else has got one even more benign. But once you let one person deal in a digital copy -- and I don’t have to tell you; you know far better than I that, unlike in analog, the ten thousandth copy is as pure as the original -- it is a big problem. So once you let the barriers down for your perfectly sensible reason, you gotta let it down for everybody. I don’t want to get into the definition of morality. I never said anything was immoral in what I was saying. I said it is wrong to take something that belongs to somebody else.
TT: Indeed, but are you doing that when you rent a movie from Blockbuster and you watch it at home? ... I run Linux on my computer. There’s no product I can buy that’s licensed to watch [DVDs]. If I go to Blockbuster and rent a movie and watch it, am I a bad person? Is that bad?
JV: No, you’re not a bad person. But you don’t have any right.
TT: But I rented the movie. Why should it be illegal?
JV: Well then, you have to get a machine that’s licensed to show it.
TT: Here’s one of these machines; it’s just not licensed.

[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line “qrpff” DVD descrambler.]

TT: If you type that in, it’ll let you watch movies.
JV: You designed this?
TT: Yes.
JV: Un-fucking-believable.
TT: So the question is, if I just want to watch a movie--I rent it from Blockbuster--is that bad?
JV: No, that’s not bad.
TT: Then why should it be illegal?

[snip]

JV: But you’re trying to set your own standards.
TT: No, you said four years ago that people under Linux should use one of these licensed players that would be available soon. They’re still not available -- it’s been four years.
JV: Well why aren’t they available? I don’t know, because I don’t make Linux machines. Let me put it in my simple terms. If you take something that doesn’t belong to you, that’s wrong. Number two, if you design your own machine, you can’t fuss at people, because you’re one of just a few. How many Linux users are there?
TT: About two million.
JV: Well, I can’t believe there’s not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don’t know the answer to that... Well, you’re telling me a lot of things I don’t know.

The iron fist of DRM

Apple released iTunes 4.5 today. It's full of awesome new features (the printing features by themselves are enough to jizz over), but unfortunately, it also comes with a new version of the FairPlay DRM system, which makes sure you don't do things with your music you're not supposed to.

Apple has closed both the analog and the digital holes in the DRM system. Until today, there were three ways to "liberate" your music from copyright restrictions (enforced by DRM):

1. Burn your purchased music to a CD, then re-rip the music to MP3 or AAC.
2. Use a sound editing program such as Amadeus II or Sound Studio to import your purchased music (using QuickTime), then export the song as AIFF.
3. Use the very naughty program PlayFair to hack into the DRM keys on your computer, decrypt the songs, and write a new, perfect AAC copy with no DRM.

Today, options 2 and 3 are no longer available. You can still re-rip your music, but it's undesirable due to the digital->analog->digital conversion. I suspect using Audio Hijack Pro to capture iTunes' output (before it hits the sound hardware) is just as dirty of a process.

Looks like everybody is kinda stuck until the anonymous author of PlayFair writes a new version!

Topics for doctoral candidates in mathematics

I have a couple of related mathematical questions that desperately need solving. Even Google doesn't know the answers! Here they are:

1. What is the probability of a standard Klondike Solitaire hand being unwinnable?

2. What is the best strategy for playing Klondike Solitaire in order to maximize your chance at winning the winnable hands?

My solitaire program keeps track of my aggregate playing statistics, and it looks like I win 15.6% of the hands I play. I wonder how much I could improve that number?

Come on, mathematical community! This problem has been staring you in the face for years (we have Microsoft to thank), but no one is tackling it!

The suburban theme park

The New York Times makes a discovery while going out campaigning for Bush in Ohio:

The clusters of new rental town houses going up in Franklin and Delaware counties, still fresh with the scent of painted lumber, have created for Republicans what the colonel, drawing on his military career, likes to call ''a target-rich environment.'' Our first stop was a development called Times Square Apartments. As we approached the first set of doors, I mentioned to Ashenhurst that I was heartened to see quaint little stores thriving near the entrance, like Old Stuff Antiques and the Casual Gourmet.

''Oh, those stores aren't real,'' he said with a smile, and when I looked closer, I saw that he was right. They were merely decorative store windows, a few feet deep at most, designed to create for residents the warm aura of a bustling town center. Later, when we drove across the road to ''the Farms,'' where Ashenhurst lives, I was surprised to find that the horses peering out over white picket fences were in fact not horses at all, but rusted re-creations. There was an inescapable political undertone to this new town-house culture. The developers had designed communities of white nostalgia -- theme parks for the conservative middle class.

Carpe diem

This women's rights rally in D.C. looks like a great place to pick up chicks!

Search terms

How do people find my site? Often, they'll use a search engine to look for something, but instead happen upon geekable.com. Here's some of my favorites so far from the month of April:

which way do you point first in music conducting?up or down

where is this quote from we only live once and if we have one filled with regrets then it wasn t much of a life

what do i do to get drugs out of my system in 2 days

porno application for both sexes form for a joke like a factory application form

how did the word dick come into use regarding sex

i thought we d moved from friends with benefits to hanging out to dating with potential but it turns out all along we were just hooking up

a place to get sounds that will have thunder sounds on and that i can insert them on to microsoft power point

i am a star & want to me other actors like my self

the public culture wants to buy the details the amusement turns

hizzle for zizzle

livejournal i hate my desk and im writing curse words all over it

the fattest black women in the world in half length movies

women with facial hair women with facial hair

shut the fuck up arnold schwarzenegger photoshop

How do you check for powers of two?

My programming project is finished!

Within part of my program, there is a function that determines if an integer is a power of two. Does anybody know of a better way besides this? (Code sample is in C++)

A fool with a tool

Richard Cringely recently wrote a strange article, so Tim Bray had to point out the obvious:

Earth to Bob: the problem with AI isn’t that the “A” part isn’t fast enough, it’s that we don’t understand the “I” part.

Then we can make all sorts of crazy laws

Offensive bill in Michigan's Congress. Clever response to the bill's sponsor. Patriot Boy has it covered.

Winer cranks up the self-righteousness

Hee hee... Dave Winer's pissed about Google. It appears that Google has been experimenting with indexing syndicated web feeds, but only RDF/RSS 1.0 and Atom, and not XML/RSS 2.0. Of course, Winer can't stand it when people ignore him and his syndication format:

Google is starting to crawl for two syndication formats, but is not crawling for the third, most popular format, that's supported by most of the other tech companies and major publications.

Andrew, if this is what it appears to be, it's both tying in an anti-trust sense, and PR disaster in the making. I never in a million years thought Google would stoop this low, even Microsoft on its worst day never played this dirty.

Developers, no matter what format they prefer, are going to be outraged that Google, which is a search engine, is trying to control and define publishing. This should be illegal, although of course I am not a lawyer.

Dave, why don't you do some investigating before making crazy accusations about Google?

Tamales and absurdity

Here's a strangely disjointed article from Reuters. (via Motor City Rocks)

Tamale Chef Kills Friend, Cooks Him

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Mexican cook killed his drinking buddy, cut up his body and boiled him in herbs, according to police who fear he may have been turning him into tamales.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday they had arrested Carlos Machuca, a tamale-maker, at his home in the western city of Morelia on Tuesday, after receiving an anonymous phone tip.

Officers found a man's mutilated corpse in the living room and body parts simmering in aluminum saucepans on the patio, state prosecutors told Reuters.

"We saw the flesh and the tamales, and our first impression was that he was making tamales with the flesh of the deceased, although it has yet to be confirmed," Lorena Cortes, a spokeswoman for Michoacan state prosecutors, said.

But she also told Reuters by telephone that Machuca, 56, may just have been trying to dispose of the body. Police say he stabbed the man through the heart in a fight after they had drunk together.

Tamales are made of packets of maize dough with a savory or sweet filling, typically wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves. They often contain pork or chicken.

I also think the writer of the article accidentally cut the last sentence short. I think it was supposed to be:

They often contain pork or chicken, instead of cooked human flesh, you SICK FUCK!

The true nature of libertarians

I laughed so hard at this blurb from the Onion, I almost cried:

Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Department
CHEYENNE, WY—After attempting to contain a living-room blaze started by a cigarette, card-carrying Libertarian Trent Jacobs reluctantly called the Cheyenne Fire Department Monday. "Although the community would do better to rely on an efficient, free-market fire-fighting service, the fact is that expensive, unnecessary public fire departments do exist," Jacobs said. "Also, my house was burning down." Jacobs did not offer to pay firefighters for their service.

Weird Al Honors Parents' Memory With 'Tears In Heaven' Parody
FALLBROOK, CA—Zany, mourning entertainer "Weird Al" Yankovic has parodied Eric Clapton's eulogy song "Tears In Heaven" in loving tribute to his parents, who recently died of carbon-monoxide poisoning in their San Diego home, a spokesman for Yankovic said Monday. "Al's hurting deeply right now, and this is his way of honoring Nick and Mary," Karl Tuft said of the song in which a subdued Yankovic sings, "First you lit some flames / Then the smoke stopped your breathin' / Carbon mono's th'way you went... / Up to heaven" over a somber, minor-key accordion melody. Tuft added that the best way for Yankovic to give voice to his pain and loss was by altering the voice of Clapton's pain and loss.

Sweet salty cream

Via the Disclaimer Band journal, here's a neat way for young children to make Land O' Lakes do-it-yourself pornography. Boy, that would have helped when I was a horny twelve-year-old!

Wrapping it up with the Wayne Review

I'm tired of emailing the Wayne Review, so I thought I'd post their most recent reply and comment on it here.Read the rest of "Wrapping it up with the Wayne Review"

Project status update

I have completed the forward and backward transformation code for Discrete Cosine Transform and Discrete Fourier Transform. That's two-thirds of the code!

Jeff feels obligated to respond

From: Jeffrey
To: waynereview@yahoo.com
Date: April 19, 2004
Subject: Logical fallacy lesson

Joe,

Judging from your email, I don't think you actually know what a strawman is. I direct you to the following website:

http://www.cuyamaca.net/bruce.thompson/Fallacies/strawman.asp

You see, a "strawman" occurs when you don't accurately represent the views and opinions you're trying to refute. I'll give you a couple of examples. The first is when you invented this "quotation"...

"African Americans are unable to succeed on their own. They need special care that will be provided by their elite white benefactors so they will have their proper place in society. After all, they cannot survive on their own as well as white Americans can."

You have another strawman argument later on in the editorial, when you claim...

Liberals want you to believe blacks do not have the same opportunities because white Americans are holding them down, preventing them through racism from succeeding. The interesting thing is the liberals can only point to a little anecdotal evidence, as well as a mysterious force called "institutional racism" as the evidence of this oppression.

Since your mission statement declares you seek to be the most "intellectually honest and ethically just" paper around, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the basic rules of argument and common logical fallacies. One of my evil, pathetic, lying, traitorous, unpatriotic, hypocritical, radical, incompetent liberal professors made me buy Introduction to Logic, Tenth Edition, by Copi and Cohen. I'd be happy to lend it to you, if it means I'd be able to read through a single article of the Wayne Review without breaking out a red pen.

Cheers,
Jeffrey

P.S. "Your" is a possessive adjective. "You're" is a contraction which replaces "You are". I had that nailed down back in middle school.

The Wayne Review replies

From: waynereview@yahoo.com
To: Jeffrey
Date: April 19, 2004
Subject: Re: Affirmative Action article

Jeffrey,
We never have liked him (the straw man.) He ruined the Wizard of Oz for us, and we have been pissed ever since. Look for our next article in which we lynch Jar Jar Binks to continue our crusade.

On a serious note. Our paper is an opinion paper, its not a totally objective news times, journal, gazette, or any other daily news source. IT follows in a long line of NEWS REVIEW, hence the name. As for a Straw Man, I would contend that it is not. I think that it might be a tad thin as far as examples, but it is meant to convey and opinion not necessarily a list of facts. The article is not the "Editors" either, it is, like the disclaimer states, merely the opinion of its author, we at the Review do agree with the general idea and theme, but it is not specifically the view of the entire Wayne Review Staff.

I read your Blog, and I want to comment on it. Your right, our paper does have a lot of grammatical errors. I will not make excuses for that, and it does disappoint me that we were so lacking in our copy editing. But our objective is to spur debate on several issues. We do not aim to convert people to think like us, or to even appeal to every person. But when people read us, they either agree, disagree, or think about the issues. We will continue to get better both in our writing, and our technical aspects of publication.

By Blogging about us, we know that we are at least encouraging you to think about what we write about. Even if you disagree, we are accomplishing one of our primary goals.

I as the editor do not believe this country is in need of some type of class warfare, but more of a conflict between the principles that many currently hold and the idea that we must return to the principles that founded and created this country. The ideology and morality that set the country on its way to becoming the greatest country in the world.

I dont expect you to ever like us, agree with us, or even praise us. Heck you may never read us again. But you did read the first two issues, and now as a student at Wayne have thought about and formulated new ideas, and solidified old ones. We accomplished one of our goals and that makes us happy.

Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, and thank you for being committed to your ideals and principles enough to email us.

Joe Koss
Editor-in-Chief, The Wayne Review

How to feel better

I'm dyin' here with my computer project -- too much stress, too little time! Luckily, I know how to brighten my mood: barbershop quartet music!

Update: I almost forgot, you can go to the SPEBSQSA archive and download 950 mp3s!

Email to the Wayne Review

From: Jeffrey
To: waynereview@yahoo.com
Date: April 18, 2004
Subject: Affirmative Action article

Dear Editors,

After reading your article "Affirmative Action: 21st Century Slavery", I only have one comment:

You sure know how to beat the shit out of a strawman.

Regards,
Jeffrey

Pulpy

I love NetNewsWire, but if Pulp Fiction is as good as the marketing suggests, I'll switch in a heartbeat. Sorry Brent -- you'd better start coding faster! :)

Seven is a lucky number

I'm going blog-crazy today! Here's a quick blurb from Nerve's Weekend Review:

Pfizer, maker of the reigning penis-picker-upper, is now offering a free seventh refill of Viagra to men who have already filled the prescription six times. Free erections are hard to beat. Actually, on second thought, they're easy to beat. Ba-dum-bum.

The web experience

I noticed a peculiar thing just now while surfing the web in Safari.

It almost never crashes.

How far we've come since the days of Netscape 4 on Mac OS 8, which crashed every goddamn day.

Good grief

Not only did I manage to get my car locked inside of a Wayne State parking structure last night, but when I finally retrieved it, I took the drivers' side mirror off of the car on I-75!

(No, I wasn't driving the Beetle, thank goodness.)

Construction work forced the closure of the left lane, and some idiot-fuck DOT worker placed a construction barrier inside of the middle lane, where I was driving. I didn't see it until the car in front of me swerved to avoid it. I swerved just enough to avoid hitting the barrier head on, but not hit the semi-truck in the lane next to me. The side mirror was an unfortunate casualty.

It's not a bug

The funniest computer-related vanity license plate of all time? Rick Schaut lets us know:

But, to date, the best vanity license plate I’ve ever seen, by far, was on a VW beetle. It read, “FEATURE.”

Ooh, me, me

"Can someone please tell me why a person would need an assault weapon in the city of Detroit?" Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said at a Wednesday news conference.

(Note that this does not mean I condone carrying assault weapons in Detroit, I can just see why someone would.)

Career options

The Onion provides a bit of hope:

Man Nods His Way To The Top
BOSTON—Using his unparalleled ability to nod after his superiors speak, Thomas J. Mieritz, 39, rose to the level of vice-president at Fidelity Investments Monday. "I knew Mieritz was the man for the job the instant I started talking. He was ready to get on board with every one of my proposed mutual-fund investment initiatives," Fidelity chairman Edward C. Johnson III said. "I thought, 'Now, there's a man who makes smart decisions without a lot of hullabaloo.'" Johnson added that, if Mieritz can master boot-licking, buck-passing, and myopic self-satisfaction, he'll probably run the company one day.

A blind man leads the dumb

Andrew Sullivan, Wednesday, April 14, 2004:

I've just watched the press conference later on C-SPAN. Not only was the transcript encouraging. I found the president clear, forceful, impassioned, determined, real. This was not an average performance. I found it Bush at his best. He needs to do it more.

Q Mr. President, before the war, you and members of your administration made several claims about Iraq: that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators with sweets and flowers, that Iraqi oil revenue would pay for most of the reconstruction; and that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said, we know where they are. How do you explain to Americans how you got that so wrong? And how do you answer your opponents, who say that you took this nation to war on the basis of what have turned out to be a series a false premises?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me step back and review my thinking prior to going into Iraq. First, the lesson of September the 11th is, when this nation sees a threat, a gathering threat, we've got to deal with it. We can no longer hope that oceans protect us from harm. Every threat we must take seriously.

Saddam Hussein was a threat. He was a threat because he had used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. He was a threat because he coddled terrorists. He was a threat because he funded suiciders. He was a threat to the region. He was a threat to the United States. That's the assessment that I made from the intelligence, the assessment that Congress made from the intelligence; that's the exact same assessment that the United Nations Security Council made with the intelligence.

I went to the U.N., as you might recall, and said, either you take care of him, or we will. Any time an American President says, if you don't, we will, we better be prepared to. And I was prepared to. I thought it was important for the United Nations Security Council that when it says something, it means something, for the sake of security in the world. See, the war on terror had changed the calculations. We needed to work with people. People needed to come together to work. And, therefore, empty words would embolden the actions of those who are willing to kill indiscriminately.

The United Nations passed a Security Council resolution unanimously that said, disarm or face serious consequences. And he refused to disarm.

I thought it was very interesting that Charlie Duelfer, who just came back -- he's the head of the Iraqi Survey Group -- reported some interesting findings from his recent tour there. And one of the things was, he was amazed at how deceptive the Iraqis had been toward UNMOVIC and UNSCOM; deceptive in hiding things. We knew they were hiding things -- a country that hides something is a country that is afraid of getting caught. And that was part of our calculation. Charlie confirmed that. He also confirmed that Saddam had a -- the ability to produce biological and chemical weapons. In other words, he was a danger. He had long-range missiles that were undeclared to the United Nations; he was a danger. And so we dealt with him.

What else -- part of the question -- oh, oil revenues. Well, the oil revenues are -- they're bigger than we thought they would be at this point in time. I mean, one year after the liberation of Iraq, the revenues of the oil stream is pretty darn significant. One of the things I was concerned about prior to going into Iraq was that the oil fields would be destroyed. But they weren't, they're now up and running. And that money is -- it will benefit the Iraqi people. It's their oil, and they'll use it to reconstruct the country.

Finally, the attitude of the Iraqis toward the American people -- it's an interesting question. They're really pleased we got rid of Saddam Hussein. And you can understand why. This is a guy who was a torturer, a killer, a maimer; there's mass graves. I mean, he was a horrible individual that really shocked the country in many ways, shocked it into a kind of -- a fear of making decisions toward liberty. That's what we've seen recently. Some citizens are fearful of stepping up. And they were happy -- they're not happy they're occupied. I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either. They do want us there to help with security, and that's why this transfer of sovereignty is an important signal to send, and it's why it's also important for them to hear we will stand with them until they become a free country.

Iraq's dictator has made a public show of producing and destroying a few missiles -- missiles that violate the restrictions set out more than 10 years ago. Yet, our intelligence shows that even as he is destroying these few missiles, he has ordered the continued production of the very same type of missiles.

Iraqi operatives continue to hide biological and chemical agents to avoid detection by inspectors. In some cases, these materials have been moved to different locations every 12 to 24 hours, or placed in vehicles that are in residential neighborhoods.

We know from multiple intelligence sources that Iraqi weapons scientists continue to be threatened with harm should they cooperate with U.N. inspectors. Scientists are required by Iraqi intelligence to wear concealed recording devices during interviews, and hotels where interviews take place are bugged by the regime.

These are not the actions of a regime that is disarming. These are the actions of a regime engaged in a willful charade. These are the actions of a regime that systematically and deliberately is defying the world. If the Iraqi regime were disarming, we would know it, because we would see it. Iraq's weapons would be presented to inspectors, and the world would witness their destruction. Instead, with the world demanding disarmament, and more than 200,000 troops positioned near his country, Saddam Hussein's response is to produce a few weapons for show, while he hides the rest and builds even more.

Inspection teams do not need more time, or more personnel. All they need is what they have never received -- the full cooperation of the Iraqi regime. Token gestures are not acceptable. The only acceptable outcome is the one already defined by a unanimous vote of the Security Council -- total disarmament.

Great Britain, Spain, and the United States have introduced a new resolution stating that Iraq has failed to meet the requirements of Resolution 1441. Saddam Hussein is not disarming. This is a fact. It cannot be denied.

Saddam Hussein has a long history of reckless aggression and terrible crimes. He possesses weapons of terror. He provides funding and training and safe haven to terrorists -- terrorists who would willingly use weapons of mass destruction against America and other peace-loving countries. Saddam Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country, to our people, and to all free people.

If the world fails to confront the threat posed by the Iraqi regime, refusing to use force, even as a last resort, free nations would assume immense and unacceptable risks. The attacks of September the 11th, 2001 showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction.

We are determined to confront threats wherever they arise. I will not leave the American people at the mercy of the Iraqi dictator and his weapons.

In the event of conflict, America also accepts our responsibility to protect innocent lives in every way possible. We'll bring food and medicine to the Iraqi people. We'll help that nation to build a just government, after decades of brutal dictatorship. The form and leadership of that government is for the Iraqi people to choose. Anything they choose will be better than the misery and torture and murder they have known under Saddam Hussein.

Across the world and in every part of America, people of goodwill are hoping and praying for peace. Our goal is peace -- for our nation, for our friends and allies, for the people of the Middle East. People of goodwill must also recognize that allowing a dangerous dictator to defy the world and harbor weapons of mass murder and terror is not peace at all; it is pretense. The cause of peace will be advanced only when the terrorists lose a wealthy patron and protector, and when the dictator is fully and finally disarmed.

...I gleaned a couple of things: he actually believes that intelligence evidence of Saddam's deliberate and continued defiance of the U.N. could sway the Security Council. You have to admire his faith in the sincerity of his opponents. Alas, it's pretty clear by now that the French, Germans and Russians simply don't care if Saddam is flouting the U.N. They just don't want American military power exercized in the region - ever again. I doubt if they had videotape of Saddam making anthrax in his bathrobe that they'd agree to enforce their own resolution. I still think forcing a vote is the right thing to do, even if we lose badly. After these past few weeks, watching the extraordinary duplicity and blindness of several Security Council members, I've reluctantly come to the verge of hoping that this crisis helps destroy the United Nations as a credible international body. And I don't think it would harm Bush badly on the home front. His position that it is his duty to protect Americans is a good and solid one. No one will dismiss that argument - especially if we find horrors inside Iraq. I also noticed Bush's emphasis on a "just" post-Saddam regime, which is not the same as instant democracy. We'll have to keep the pressure up on that one. All in all, though, this press conference struck me as a mistake.

Beer taste

My experience with beer is limited, since I'm only 21. But I've found that my opinion of certain beers is almost entirely based on the aftertaste. Certain beers have a sour, bitter aftertaste (at least to me) that makes them unbearable. I don't know if it's the barley, or the malt, or the hops, but I wish I knew which beers were going to be unpleasant before I ordered them! Here's a quickie list of beers I like and don't like; if you know a lot about beer, please help me!

Good beers:
Guinness
Killian's
Heineken
Big Red (available at Mr. B's)

Bad beers:
Sam Adams
Michelob Lager

If I go by Zesty's beer-drinker classification, then I'm a "Faux Sophisticatous". But pickier.

Different standards for the mentally handicapped

Pandagon wants to know why we grade Clinton and Bush differently:

Okay, the most consistently and patently ridiculous reactions to the August 6 PDB is that it didn't specifically refer to the 9/11 attacks, and that it wasn't Bush's responsibility to press the intelligence agencies on the very real threats outlined in the PDB. It wasn't up to Bush to direct the intelligence services. It wasn't up to him to react to the threat that his intelligence services said al-Qaeda posed, it was up to everyone else to give him the plan.

If this is your position...do you have any credibility whatsoever when you criticize Clinton for not doing more? ...

A Weird Al tragedy

This is so depressing, I can't stand to think about it:

FALLBROOK, Calif. - The elderly parents of Grammy-winning recording artist "Weird Al" Yankovic were found dead in their home, apparently victims of carbon monoxide poisoning, officials said.

Nick and Mary Yankovic were found dead Friday in their suburban San Diego home by relatives who were worried because they had not seen the couple in a while, said sheriff's Sgt. Conrad Grayson.

Paramedics found Nick Yankovic, 86, in a chair in the front living room. His 81-year-old wife was on the bathroom floor.

A wood fire had been set recently in the fireplace, Grayson said.

"The house was full of smoke when they opened the door," Grayson said, adding that the family members found the flue closed.

Drum slaps the ho

Kevin Drum has become much more politicized ever since he moved to washingtonmonthly.com, and I like it:

It's a good sign of a bankrupt argument and a bankrupt movement when even a disagreement over payscales in a retail store descends into rote accusations of anti-Americanism. Unfortunately, this has become so commonplace that it's no longer fair to call this kind of demagoguery McCarthyism. That's unfair to McCarthyites.

Welcome to the modern face of American conservatism.

Household vocabulary, vol. 1

Uncle Karl (ung'kel kärl') adj. 1. indicative of a telemarketer on the Caller ID [c. 2003, brother Brad, slang form of unknown caller]

Big Tony reciprocated

From an Associated Press article, we gain some insight into Antonin Scalia:

He said he spends most of his time thinking about the Constitution, calling it "a brilliant piece of work."

Be careful what you wish for

editor \Ed"i*tor\, n. One who edits; esp., a person who prepares, superintends, revises, and corrects a book, magazine, or newspaper, etc., for publication.

Roxanne

As a followup to my post about traffic enforcement, I want to mention that Pleasanton, California has decided to try out the (awful) idea of giving red lights to detected speeders. This isn't the first city in California to try punishing speeders with red lights:

At least one other place in California has put together a traffic signal that is deputized against speeders. The Ventura County city of Thousand Oaks installed one in 2000 that Pleasanton traffic chief Jeff Knowles, who used to work in Thousand Oaks, has been watching closely.

"The people who were concerned about speed are pleased with it, but you'll hear a different story from some of the users of the road," said Thousand Oaks senior civil engineer Jim Mashiko.

Thousand Oaks has discovered a few hiccups, Mashiko said. Pedestrians, for example, must be given the green on all four crosswalks in the intersection at the same time, so they are not confused by a sudden yellow and red aimed at a speeder.

In addition, [road] rage could become an issue as drivers can be guilty by association if a speeder is just in front of them, just behind them or moving simultaneously in the opposite direction.

P.S. In case the title of this post went over your head....

Fun with surveys

This article doesn't surprise me at all:

Wireless Internet is spreading faster in southeast Michigan than any other metropolitan area across the country, according to a new national study.

Detroit made the biggest jump in the rankings of Intel Corp.'s America's "most unwired cities," leaping from 48th last year to 28th. Ann Arbor ranked 40th.

...

Nearly three-fourths of Michigan's 323 hotspots verified by Intel are in the Detroit area.

2003: Detroit: 1 hotspot
San Francisco: 10,000 hotspots

2004: Detroit: 240 hotspots
San Francisco: 12,000 hotspots

In this imaginary scenario, yes, Detroit's 23,900% increase is much larger than SF's 20% increase, but San Francisco is blanketed by wireless hotspots!

Detroit, on the other hand, is blanketed by urban decay.

(This post was updated in order to correct a math error.)

Low Supply, Dude

Sounds like my plan involving LSD and jumping out of a plane is going to be harder than I thought.

They used my slogan!

A while back, I suggested a good talking point for the Democrats to use in order to defeat Bush. Now Kerry and friends are employing it:

Branded by Republicans as a classic tax-and-spend liberal, the Massachusetts senator's campaign tried to turn the tables with a report -- to be released on Monday -- accusing Bush of "empty rhetoric and political posturing" by claiming to be a fiscal conservative.

"It's as if Bush is a drunken sailor, spending recklessly," said Roger Altman, deputy treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and a Kerry adviser. "When it comes to spending, this administration's rhetoric does not match the reality."

...

"Basically, American taxpayers cannot afford another four years of George W. Bush," Altman said. "If a family managed their household budget like this, they'd lose their house, their car, and any hope of building a brighter future for their children."

The Wayne Review, Vol. 1, Iss. 1

Recently the "Wayne Review", an extremist-conservative newspaper, started distributing its premier edition on Wayne State's campus. It consists of grammatical errors, ad-hominem attacks against liberals, and good ol'-fashioned puritanical libertarianism. Unfortunately, the Wayne Review does not publish online, so the only way to read it is to find a physical copy. Let me take you through some of the articles:Read the rest of "The Wayne Review, Vol. 1, Iss. 1"

Hoping for a miracle

How fair do you think this assignment is?

Write a program that transforms and back-transforms a two-dimensional image using the following transformations:

DCT: Discrete Cosine Transform
DFT: Discrete Fourier Transform
DWT: Discrete Wavelet Transform

Compare your results with MATLAB.

Wish me luck!

P.S. DCT is actually the technology behind JPEG compression. DWT, from my Googling, appears to be the compression-method-of-choice for the FBI's fingerprint database.

Big Tony and Constructionism

Salon has a fun article up today about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Here's an excerpt:

Cass Sunstein, a leading scholar of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said that Scalia is "one of the best writers in the court's history," but that he'd be even better if he showed at least some tolerance for opposing views. "He has a definite defect, which is insufficient appreciation that reasonable people disagree with him," Sunstein says. "His opinions would be much stronger if they were permeated with an awareness that reasonable people who disagree with him happen to be wrong, rather than -- as he occasionally portrays them -- lawless or buffoonish."

Michael Ramsey, a former clerk for Scalia who now teaches law at the University of San Diego, has a more positive take on Scalia's negativity. "When he's confident about an outcome, he doesn't beat around the bush in order to assuage people's feelings," Ramsey said. "When he sees an argument that he sees as a stupid argument, he treats it like a stupid argument, which is what he thinks it merits."

Justice O'Connor is the most frequent target of the "stupid argument" treatment. Although O'Connor, like Scalia, was appointed by Reagan, she passes for a centrist on this conservative court. In close cases, she is almost always the pivot point on which hard decisions turn. If O'Connor votes with the conservatives, they win 5-4. If she votes with the liberals, they win 5-4. According to one analysis, O'Connor was in the majority in each and every one of the court's 5-4 decisions in the 2003 term.

For Scalia, O'Connor's "defections" are particularly galling, and he rails vigorously against her whenever she strays. As one experienced Supreme Court practitioner put it in an e-mail exchange with Salon last week, Scalia's "'Sandy, you dumb broad...' opinions have been masterpieces of contemptuous nastiness for more than a decade."

As he travels the country speaking to law schools and religious groups, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia likes to say that the U.S. Constitution is dead. It's not a "living document" whose meaning changes with the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," but rather a set of rules established once and for all in 1789. The Constitution, Scalia says, means "what it meant when it was adopted."

That's progress?

I don't understand Jim Henley's rationale here:

...But then I thought of Madrid. One detail has gotten lost. The killers detonated their bombs by cell phone. They themselves got off the train safely, though alert action by the Aznar government rounded several of them up in short order.

They didn't kill themselves too.

Yes, they murdered hundreds. Yes they are evil men, mass murderers who should be killed after trial and sentencing. Yes, we have a long way to go. But they were not suicides like the destroyers of the Cole and Khobar Towers, the WTC hijackers and the numberless slaughterers of Jews in Israel and elsewhere. The President has already taught these aficionados of martyrdom to value their own lives, if not yet others. That's progress. That's a start. It is not, obviously, a final victory. But it's proof that our government's plan to change the culture of death is starting to work. Once our enemies realize the central principle of our own culture - that life is sweet - for themselves, then the next lesson is to apply the principle to others...

1. Teach terrorists to value their own lives
2. Teach terrorists to value the lives of others

I suspect that terrorists already realize the value of their own lives, and that's why acts of terrorism that involve suicide make such a dreadful statement -- the terrorist felt so strongly about something that they were willing to sacrifice their lives, and murder others, to try to change things. If anything, the fact that the Madrid terrorists didn't kill themselves during their terrorist act is a step backward, because it shows that terrorists can attack us with impunity, and unless our law enforcement efforts are strong, there will be no consequences for the terrorists.

Update: Apparently I didn't realize that the post was an April Fools' joke. Sorry -- it sounded too much like an Andrew Sullivan argument to be funny.

All golden

Lately I find myself listening to the song "The All Golden" by Van Dyke Parks over and over again. I'm eventually going to have to buy his album Song Cycle so I can hear the real version, and not the live performance I downloaded from iTunes.