I've long held that GWB is not an evil man, that he is obviously not very intelligent, and well meaning in his way. I've lauded his boldness and even his stubbornness. I've also criticized his unwillingness to admit error or failure.
A combination of recent events has led me to change my mind. I believe that GWB is so extraordinarily ignorant as to present a serious danger to himself and his nation. This is a man who repeatedly demonstrates a single-minded determination to destroy the USA.
He wants warrantless wiretaps of Americans. He wants to sanction American torture.
This is a man who does not understand the concept that, like any human institution, is potentially abusive and therefore it's power must remain in check. There is no self-examination evident - there is only "we want more power and authority and leeway to protect the American people." Protect the American people AT ANY cost. Including the cost of losing our freedom, our liberty, and our pride at being American.
The current news item is this: GWB has called his own intelligence reports "naive" that claim that the war in Iraq is causing more harm than good; check out this story: Dubya labels his own intelligence info 'naive'
This president needs to be impeached immediately for 1) initiating the first pre-emptive war in American history, 2) repeated violations of the Geneva Convention (and attempting to legitamize these breaches in US court), and 3) repeatedly attempting to circumvent the United States Constitution (warrantless wiretapping) in his single-minded, rabidly focused goal of "protecting the American people."
This man is a danger to himself and others, and he must be stopped.
OKCupid! The What Chess Piece Are You Test
Well I took this 14 question survey and was pegged a "black knight". I can't say I'm unhappy with the result. The knight is one of my favorite pieces. Come on, it's a horse!
A Black Knight You scored 3 Power-Finesse, 2 Leader-Follower, 4 Unique-Ordinary, and 2 Offense-Defense! |
The rules don't really apply to you, do they? Impediments for you are opportunities, not obstacles. You are dashing and flamboyant, and you like to be right in the middle of the action. You like to protect your team and your King and Queen, by fighting off those who would dare to threaten them. In the long run, however, you cannot win the game alone. It is impossible for you to checkmate your opponent all by yourself, so you appreciate and value your teammates. |
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My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The What Chess Piece Are You Test written by Gundark27 on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test |
Rigamarole: TsunamiReady
The National Weather service has a strange little thing called "Tsunami Ready". Lt. Tim Colins of the Seal Beach PD presented on this breifly. I was most impressed by the fact that his Powerpoint was repleat with "tm" symbols. It looked like bearucratic nonsense.
TsunamiReady Information from NWS
TsunamiReady Information from NWS
The Dreaded Friend Critique...Overheard!
The Dreaded Friend Critique. I just (over)heard one being given to someone here in the coffee shop. Interestingly, it was quite similiar to some friend critiques I've receieved over the years, so I listened closely.
The DFC usually begins as a concerned sounding friend criticizing some behavior. In this case, person B let person A know that they behave arrogantly. It began as a concerned, selfless sort of thing, but ended in rising anger and leaving the coffee shop.
I obtained two peices of wisdom from observing this. First, that the arrogance of this person stems from the fact that they are quite self-interested and that this drives the topic of conversation. Person A uses his friends as sounding boards and mirrors. He isn't really interested in them, per se. The second piece of wisdom is that person B made the mistake of becoming agitated by this behavior. He failed to love his friend, warts and all.
There is some more wisdom here. It is impossible to criticize when you're even a little angry. Just listening to the conversation, as civil as it was, made my stomache turn. Now, perhaps this was the anxiety of recognition, but I think it was more that I was sensing person B's hostility. It also begs the question: why do people hang out and have friends? What is their motivation? Is it a simple "safety in numbers" sort of instinct?
I am tempted to say that the most serious problems occur when there is no meaningful reason behind the relationship. There is neither great love nor is there great practical forces brining the people together. If it is just a basic, vague instinct to have friends, people to hang out with to avoid feeling lonely, then you are skating on thin ice! The slightest difficulty will cause problems!
Once you become interested in other people's welfare, you can become interested in their interests and needs. At that point you can shape your conversation into a pleasent combination of what will nourish your needs and theirs. Some are born with this skill, but for others it must be learned.
The failure I observed was simply that person A is not aware of person B's needs. Person B is only aware that his own needs are not being satisfied, and opted for direct confrontation rather than modifying communication to get what he needs. In that particular instance, one modification of the conversation would be to ask lots of questions. People like person A find "what do you think?" sorts of questions absolutely irresistable. The English language is flexible enough that by simply prepending "what do you think..." in front of statements about other people's feelings (for example) Person A would not be able to ignore it.
The DFC usually begins as a concerned sounding friend criticizing some behavior. In this case, person B let person A know that they behave arrogantly. It began as a concerned, selfless sort of thing, but ended in rising anger and leaving the coffee shop.
I obtained two peices of wisdom from observing this. First, that the arrogance of this person stems from the fact that they are quite self-interested and that this drives the topic of conversation. Person A uses his friends as sounding boards and mirrors. He isn't really interested in them, per se. The second piece of wisdom is that person B made the mistake of becoming agitated by this behavior. He failed to love his friend, warts and all.
There is some more wisdom here. It is impossible to criticize when you're even a little angry. Just listening to the conversation, as civil as it was, made my stomache turn. Now, perhaps this was the anxiety of recognition, but I think it was more that I was sensing person B's hostility. It also begs the question: why do people hang out and have friends? What is their motivation? Is it a simple "safety in numbers" sort of instinct?
I am tempted to say that the most serious problems occur when there is no meaningful reason behind the relationship. There is neither great love nor is there great practical forces brining the people together. If it is just a basic, vague instinct to have friends, people to hang out with to avoid feeling lonely, then you are skating on thin ice! The slightest difficulty will cause problems!
Once you become interested in other people's welfare, you can become interested in their interests and needs. At that point you can shape your conversation into a pleasent combination of what will nourish your needs and theirs. Some are born with this skill, but for others it must be learned.
The failure I observed was simply that person A is not aware of person B's needs. Person B is only aware that his own needs are not being satisfied, and opted for direct confrontation rather than modifying communication to get what he needs. In that particular instance, one modification of the conversation would be to ask lots of questions. People like person A find "what do you think?" sorts of questions absolutely irresistable. The English language is flexible enough that by simply prepending "what do you think..." in front of statements about other people's feelings (for example) Person A would not be able to ignore it.
Java Logging in J2SE 1.4
Jason Hunter (of Servlets fame) wrote a nice piece on J2SE 1.4 logging. A topic like this should only require a page or two of explaination, and that's what you get here.
In fact, he also has a good introduction to NIO on the Oracle site as well.
In fact, he also has a good introduction to NIO on the Oracle site as well.
Islamic Democracy
Has the phrase "Islamic Democracy" ever been uttered by Pres. Bush? It seems to me that this phrase has a lot going for it if it is to be accepted by Middle Eastern folks.
Democracy, unqualified, is scary. It would seem to lead to a McCulture, something noone really wants. But a democratic, freedom loving state that is wholy and proudly Islamic - now that's something everyone can look forward to, and be proud of when it comes.
ABC News: Bush Pushes Democracy in U.N. Speech
Democracy, unqualified, is scary. It would seem to lead to a McCulture, something noone really wants. But a democratic, freedom loving state that is wholy and proudly Islamic - now that's something everyone can look forward to, and be proud of when it comes.
ABC News: Bush Pushes Democracy in U.N. Speech
Weird Web App Design ... from Google
I'm a big fan of Google Desktop. Hit CTRL twice and I can type in the name of any program or document on my computer to access it. Oddly, this doesn't seem to be what Google intends Desktop to do: it intends it to be much more, a host for various "Gadgets" to take up screen real-estate.
Consider the email gadget: it gives some useful features, namely the Microsoft Outlook inspired popup on recepiet of new mail. This can be quite handy, but it can also be distracting. But lets say this is a good feature. The weird thing about the gmail gadget is that when you open a message, gmail comes up with just that message, and no context. You can't get to other messages through the newly popped up web interface. This is frustrating because you've been trained to use the application in one way, and now the gmail gadget is forcing you to use it in another way.
I can understand the reasoning: don't confuse users by transferring "application level" control over to another interface (namely, the browser) when the application level control is handled somewhere else (namely, the gadget). This is indeed a cleaner approach from a programmer's point of view: it is a perfect seperation of responsibilities. Gadget gets app level control, the browser shows a single message. No one steps on each others toes, and the functionality is orthogonal.
But it sucks from a usability standpoint. Users (or this user, at least) am used to seeing a message in the context of an "inbox" and, without changing interfaces, moving "forward" and "backward" through a list of recieved messages.
Admittedly, Gmail, GDesktop, and this particular gadget are "beta". But since everything google makes, apparently, is still in beta and will remain so for the indefinite future, doesn't that sort of reduce to meaninglessness the "beta" moniker?
Consider the email gadget: it gives some useful features, namely the Microsoft Outlook inspired popup on recepiet of new mail. This can be quite handy, but it can also be distracting. But lets say this is a good feature. The weird thing about the gmail gadget is that when you open a message, gmail comes up with just that message, and no context. You can't get to other messages through the newly popped up web interface. This is frustrating because you've been trained to use the application in one way, and now the gmail gadget is forcing you to use it in another way.
I can understand the reasoning: don't confuse users by transferring "application level" control over to another interface (namely, the browser) when the application level control is handled somewhere else (namely, the gadget). This is indeed a cleaner approach from a programmer's point of view: it is a perfect seperation of responsibilities. Gadget gets app level control, the browser shows a single message. No one steps on each others toes, and the functionality is orthogonal.
But it sucks from a usability standpoint. Users (or this user, at least) am used to seeing a message in the context of an "inbox" and, without changing interfaces, moving "forward" and "backward" through a list of recieved messages.
Admittedly, Gmail, GDesktop, and this particular gadget are "beta". But since everything google makes, apparently, is still in beta and will remain so for the indefinite future, doesn't that sort of reduce to meaninglessness the "beta" moniker?
Anousheh Ansari, Just in Time
Anousheh Ansari flys into space just in time to show us the absurdity of ethnic and religious conflict between the Middle East and the West. Ansari is a poke in the eye of an Iranian regime that degrades women. She is a poke in the eye to Western bigots who think that all Middle Easterners are good at is being over sensitive to percieved religious slights. She is an example of the best of what this Earth can produce: a powerful dreamer who can warp reality to match her own dream.
She did it with the X-Prize. She is doing it now with the ISS. Robert Heinlien (himself a great proponent of privatly funded spaceflight) would have been suprised, but I daresay not displeased, that THE leading figure of the privatization of space flight effort today would be of Iranian descent, and a woman.
You go, girl.
She did it with the X-Prize. She is doing it now with the ISS. Robert Heinlien (himself a great proponent of privatly funded spaceflight) would have been suprised, but I daresay not displeased, that THE leading figure of the privatization of space flight effort today would be of Iranian descent, and a woman.
You go, girl.
Pope Bendict XVI's Speech that caused the furor
Here is the speech.
Once again I am exasperated by the violent Muslim response. Personally, I think the quote was used in poor taste and was indeed inflammatory. But that doesn't really matter: they are *words*. They aren't even words used to set policy for dealing with or ruling Muslims. They were thoughtless and insensitive, no matter if they were quoted, but they are not worth killing nuns over.
The very essence of civilization is the ability to react nonviolently to the things that other people do or say that we don't like. With the Danish cartoons and now with this, many Muslims, including those in power who should know better, have shown that they don't understand how to be civilized. These uncivilized violent reactions shame Islam, Muslims, and the Prophet infinitely more than what even the most virulent detractor has to say about the religion. A restrained reaction speaks volumes about a group's character. So does a violent reaction.
Once again I am exasperated by the violent Muslim response. Personally, I think the quote was used in poor taste and was indeed inflammatory. But that doesn't really matter: they are *words*. They aren't even words used to set policy for dealing with or ruling Muslims. They were thoughtless and insensitive, no matter if they were quoted, but they are not worth killing nuns over.
The very essence of civilization is the ability to react nonviolently to the things that other people do or say that we don't like. With the Danish cartoons and now with this, many Muslims, including those in power who should know better, have shown that they don't understand how to be civilized. These uncivilized violent reactions shame Islam, Muslims, and the Prophet infinitely more than what even the most virulent detractor has to say about the religion. A restrained reaction speaks volumes about a group's character. So does a violent reaction.
My McDermott Cue
According to the McDermott Pool Cue Guide my cue is an E-D6 made in '90 or '92 and worth around $190. Cool! I think it was closer to a '92 model, as I only started shooting seriously in college.
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