Adrift at Sea —Dan’s blog on dankim.com

I recently had a conversation with a woman about politics. She is a Republican, and I am not. Whether I am still a Democrat really has more to do with whether the party can get its head out of its collective rear and find a spine, more than my political and social beliefs. I don’t have anything against Republicans for the most part, and several of the people I care about and love are confirmed Republicans.

The real issue I have is not with Republicans, but with George W. Bush and his regime. I don’t think that there has been any president that was less deserving of the trust of the American people. He has repeatedly shown that he can not be trusted—whether it is political, moral, societal or fiscal in nature—to do what is in the best interests of the American people as a whole.

Politically, George W. Bush has done more to estrange the United States from the world at large. His unilateral policies have not earned the United States any favor abroad. Nor have his high-handed attempts to dictate to the world as a whole. His complete disregard for the international rule of law, as shown in the prison camps, prisoner abuse scandal and the CIA torture flights only increases America’s vulnerability to terrorist attack.

His attempts to interfere in personal relations and personal decisions, like that of the Terri Schiavo case, show that he has little regard for the rights of American citizens. The NSA wire-tap scandal and the use of military and police to spy on anti-war protest groups also shows his disdain for basic human rights outlined in our country’s Constitution. The Republican party claims it is “Pro-Life” yet they advocate the death penalty.

His continual misrepresentation of the truth to further his own administration’s goals is well documented. The war in Iraq is a prime example of this—where are the weapons of mass destruction; where is the proof of connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda; where are the nuclear materials Iraq was supposed to be acquiring—all of these were reasons to invade Iraq…yet none of them were based in truth or fact.

His treatment of the US economy is worse than that of most third-world dictators. His administration has gone from having one of the largest surpluses in US history to having the largest deficit in US history. Yet, the neo-conservatives claim that the Democrats are the party of big government. Historically, this has proven to be an outright lie as shown in this graph. (The graphic is from one of the blogs I read regularly, but I’ve forgotten which blog it was from…)

The way the White House has handled the recent incident with Dick Cheney is very typical of the Bush regime’s response to many events. First, say nothing and hope no one notices, if that fails you try to cover it up and hope no one notices, if that fails you blame the victim, then you say as little as possible and hope everyone will forget about it.

The other point of the Dick Cheney accidental shooting is the lack of responsibility. Last I checked, even though Whittington should have said he was moving into that area.—a man in a bright orange hunting vest is clearly not a quail—and Dick Cheney has some responsibility for shooting something so obviously not a game bird.

Most Republicans, as individuals, I have no problem with… it is their party, and the neo-conservative fascists that are in power currently that I take issue with.

I saw this video because of a post on h2uh0, and wanted to share it with my blog readers.

The video takes a different perspective on the events of September 11, 2001, and comes up with a strong case for a conspiracy. While, I don’t agree with some of what is in the video, and agree with other parts—the video does raise some very interesting questions. Watch it and draw your own conclusions. Given, the behavior of the Bush administration, and their propensity for lying about much of what has gone on, is going on, and what will be happening—it really isn’t that unrealistic or improbable.

The video is fairly long, about 80 minutes, so you will want to be comfortable. Something is very wrong with the government as it stands today… something is rotten in Washington, DC. Please share this with your friends and family. To watch the vid, click here

Here is the puzzle, as stated on kottke.org.

“A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?”

I’m going to re-define the problem a bit, as the way it is currently written, it is a bit vague. There are various versions of this floating around the web, like the one over at kottke.org, a second variant over at kottke.org, and Tempus Fugit.

Scenario 1: A jet plane is sitting on a conveyer belt. The conveyer belt is designed so that the movement of the belt will offset any movement of the plane that might be caused by the thrust from the jet engines—the plane will not be able to move forward because of this. The plane has unlimited fuel, and the runway is infinite in length. Will this plane be able to take off?

If you change the assumptions slightly, then the picture changes completely.

Scenario 2: A jet plane is sitting on a conveyer belt. The conveyor belt will move at a speed equal to the speed of the plane, as measured the second earlier, but in the opposite direction. The plane will be able to make forward progress, albeit slowly due to the offset movement of the conveyer belt. The plane has unlimited fuel, and the runway is infinite in length. Will this plane be able to take off?

My take on it is that if the plane is unable to make forward progress, the plane will be unable to take off. The plane in Scenario 1 can make no forward progress—no forward motion means that there is no air moving over the wings—so the amount of lift generated is not great enough to lift the plane from the conveyor belt. Given unlimited time and fuel, the plane in Scenario 2 will eventually be moving forward fast enough to take off. The movement of the air over the wing surfaces is what generates lift for an airplane. The amount of time it takes to reach to reach takeoff speed is irrelevant.

Please comment on the two scenarios.

Wandering the internet, I came across an article with an excellent and sane response to terrorists and terrorism. America could learn alot from this. My thanks to Emergent Chaos for the link. I highly recommend that you read the article.

Terrorism, at least in the United States, is not the constant, ever-present threat that the Bush regime makes it out to be. The Bush regime is not interested in promoting the security of the American public, but in taking advantage of the insecurity of the American people to further their own agenda and to gather power to themselves. The Bush regime raises the threat level to manipulate the public, with little, if any, regard to whether an actual threat exists.

The current clamor over the prevention of an attack on the Library Tower building in Los Angeles, by the same people who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks is being used as a smokescreen to draw attention from and to justify the illegal and unconstitutional warrantless wiretaps authorized by GWB. Did the warrantless wiretaps have anything to do with thwarting the Library Tower attack? Very unlikely, as the Bush regime is strangely silent on that point. If they NSA wiretaps had helped prevent the Library Tower attack, I think GWB would be announcing it to further justify his bad acts.

As it stands right now, you stand a much better chance of being killed by a drunk driver than you do of dying in a terrorist attack. In the United States, in 2004, 16,694 people died from alcohol-related car accidents. How many died from terrorist attacks? But you don’t see the people cowering in fear of drunk drivers. Terrorism is far scarier than drunk driving only because it is so uncommon.

What to do? Good question. How should you let terrorism affect your life?

You should live your lives, as far as it is possible, with very little difference from before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and since. By doing so, you will deny the terrorists the victory of affecting your lives in any meaningful way.

You should not fear people because of the color of their skin, their country of origin, or the faith they practice, but take them and judge them on their actions and behavior as individuals. You probably have as many home-grown nutcases as there are foreign-born ones.

You should not fear air travel, or travel to foreign countries, at least so far as that is possible. Travel to places where the danger is obvious, like Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, and other areas with known risks should be avoided.

Accept people from other nations, other backgrounds, other races or other religions, based on their actions—not the descriptions of strangers you’ve seen in the news, and of people you’ve never met. You might be surprised by how much things change if you do this.

Don’t let your friends, family, neighbors, or government treat people differently, solely based on their religion, race or country of origin. Every religion, race and country has both good people and bad. Any generalization you make is bound to be very wrong.

Don’t let your government take away the freedom to express yourself, to believe what you want, or live without fear. The government is made up of ordinary people, like you or me, and they are no more likely to be right than anyone else. If the government has an agenda, then they are far more likely to be wrong than not.

Fundamentalist religions want to control your life and tell you what you are allowed to think, believe, or do. It doesn’t really seem to matter if the religion is based in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or something else. Fundamentalists want to control you—and in that, they are no better than the secular dictators and fascists—except that they think have religion on their side.

Many fundamentalist religious groups are but a tiny, if vocal, minority of their religion. You shouldn’t allow these vocal, and often violent, minorities dictate the actions or beliefs of the majority. If you allow a vocal and violent minority to speak for you, then you are guilty of implicitly approving what they say or do, and should be treated as such.

Fear is the ally of the terrorist. Fear is the ally of the bully, the dictator and the fascist. Don’t show your fear, for in most cases, there really isn’t all that much to be afraid of. Don’t let your leaders tell you who to fear, and why you should fear them. This applies to both civil and religious leaders.

Ignorance and apathy are terror’s allies. Care about something—anything—but care. Open your eyes, your hearts and your minds and really learn about the world around you.

Truth, grace, compassion, and knowledge are terror and fear’s mortal enemies—make them a part of your life. There is more good in the world than you can see at first glance—much of it is hidden in the little nooks and corners, where you may not initially look for it. The ugliness is usually far easier to see, and far more visible.

Much of this, I learned from my wife, before the attacks on September 11, 2001, during My Life with Gee. At the time, the enemy wasn’t terrorists—but cancer.

I recently read an article that pointed me to Dr. Lawrence Britt’s essay on the Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism. For those of you not familiar with the essay, I’ve posted it below as taken from rense.com.

Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism—Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights—Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause—The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military—Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism—The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media—Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security—Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined—Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected—The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed—Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts—Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment—Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption—Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections—Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Now let’s take a look at each of Britt’s fourteen points, and how America, in 2006, under the Bush Presidency Regime is faring.

Powerful and Continuing Nationalism—I would have to say that this is definitely present. When the Bush regime believes it can dictate world policy unilaterally, what else can it be.

Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights—Also present…we just have to look at Abu Ghraib, the Attorney General’s previous approval of torture as White House Counsel, the NSA spying on US citizens without warrants, and the long history of the Bush regime’s behavior towards human rights.

Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause—The scapegoats and enemies of the state in this case are the ever-lurking fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. Why else would the Bush regime be fighting a “War on Fundamentalism.” Nevermind, that the fundamentalist Christians are just as bad in many ways, and are in power in the Bush regime. Part of the reason I think Osama bin Laden has never been captured is the necessity for him as the Al Qaeda Boogeyman for the Bush regime.

Supremacy of the Military—Check, yup, the military is getting a big fat check, and the lower and middle class are getting royally screwed. Too bad that GWB didn’t see fit to equip our soldiers properly, before sending them off to get killed in a pointless and endless “War on Fundamentalism.”

Rampant Sexism—This is a bit more subtle, but if you look, you will see that abortion rights and the rights of homosexuals are being covert assault as Britt points out.

Controlled Mass Media—Also a bit more subtle than some of the other points. How many of the mainstream media actually were willing to publish the Danish editorial cartoons. How much has the media made of the repeated highly illegal and ethically questionable actions of the Bush regime over the last six years.

Obsession with National Security—The Bush regime has mastered using the “Threat Level” for political gain. They have little hesitation about using fear-mongering to further their political goals, as seen just after the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when the Bush regime raised the threat level based on out-of-date information. The “War on Fundamentalism” is framed as such an issue that many civil rights must be given up in order for it to succeed.

Religion and Government are Intertwined—Also true, as the neo-conservatives are closely allied with the Christian conservative right. Look at their positions on abortion, the death penalty, assisted suicide, and other issues.

Corporate Power is Protected—Also true. Look at who is benefitting from the “War on Fundamentalism” and the resulting high oil prices—Halliburton, the defense industry, and the oil industry… where do the Bush regime leaders have their roots…Halliburton, the defense industry, and the oil industry. I guess Britt’s “The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite” appears to hold quite true here as well. Also, look at the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and other attempts to quash, previously legal, fair use of copyrighted materials.

Labor Power is Suppressed—I don’t really see any signs of this. If I am missing something obvious, please let me know.

Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts—Censoring a NASA scientist… hmm, I guess that would qualify. The lack of defense for the Danish cartoons would probably also qualify here… in a country that is founded on the right to freely express oneself… how sad.

Obsession with Crime and Punishment—Britt says, “Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism.” This would probably cover the warrantless wiretaps, and the use of the military and local police to spy on anti-war protest groups.

Rampant Cronyism and Corruption—I guess this is pretty well covered too. Vice Fascist President Dick Cheney used to run Halliburton, and Halliburton got a majority of the military contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. George C. Deutsch worked on GWB’s Presidental theft campaign, and he got appointed to censor NASA, even though he was hardly qualified. Another glaring example is the failure of FEMA after Hurricane Katrina due to Bush regime crony Michael Brown not having a clue about emergency management. Another good example of cronyism is Kevin Warsh, who was recently appointed by GWB to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as seen here

Fraudulent Elections—Here’s another good point in case. Although it hasn’t ever been proved, or even been questioned, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bush regime stole the elections in 2000 and 2004.

In 2000, the election was decided by a Supreme Court, with a Republican-appointed majority; in a state where: the Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, worked as a campaign manager on the Bush Presidential election campaign and did not recuse herself from making decision regarding his election and stopped the hand re-count; and the governor, Jeb Bush, is the brother of the Presidential candidate in question.

In 2004, the election was decided by two states: Ohio, where the CEO of Diebold— manufacturer of many of the electronic voting machines used in the state—swore he would do everything to deliver the votes of the state of Ohio to the Bush candidacy, and the voting machines in question had no verifiable audit system and have since proven to be easily manipulated; and Florida, where problems plagued the ability of predominantly Democratic voters due to voter registration problems, and the state’s governor was still the brother of the candidate.

Also, please note, that the Bush regime stated that the exit polls in Ohio, which showed Kerry as winning the state, as not accurate—yet exit polls are generally used for that same purpose in monitoring other elections in other countries by our government.

I guess the Bush regime has brought fascism home to America. All hail King George….wait…wasn’t this country founded because of another idiot tyrant named King George. Maybe another revolution is in order.

Again, in terms of full disclosure, I did not vote for GWB in either election, so I am not guillty of supporting and abetting his fascist tactics and behavior. I am a Democrat, but I do not blindly support a party that has failed to pull itself together to confront the fascist behavior by the current government.

Apparently, the powers that be are angry with Apple for succeeding where the other technology companies could not….or for that matter the music labels failed too. Thomas Slattery has been given the green light for his monopolization claim under the federal Sherman Anti-Trust act according to the articles at eHomeUpgrade and Tera Patricks’ blog.

I don’t see iTunes and the iPod as a monopoly. There is nothing preventing you from using music from other on-line music stores on your iPod. Granted, it isn’t simple to do so, but there is nothing preventing you from doing it. There is nothing that forces you to use the iTunes Music Store (ITMS) to buy your music. There is nothing that prevents you from using music you already own on an iPod, as many of my friends do…having spent the time and energy to “rip” their CD collections to the iPod.

This is not the same as the other computer monopoly situation, with Microsoft Windows. Apple doesn’t prevent you from using competing sources of music when you buy an iPod. Apple doesn’t force you to use ITMS to purchase your music. Apple doesn’t even prevent you from using ITMS music on a non-iPod mp3 player. Granted, again, Apple makes it a bit more complicated to use ITMS music on a non-Apple mp3 player, but that’s their right to do so.

Microsoft prevented many computer manufacturers from offering alternatives, or offering bare systems, without an operating system. There was an inherent Microsoft tax on almost every new system you bought—you paid for an operating system, even if you weren’t going to use it. They also forced most computer manufacturers to leave off alternative web browsers, after incorporating their web browser into the operating system. Microsoft also used their control of the computer’s operating system to bring their products to market dominance.

In the beginning, Apple didn’t have the ability to force their products to market dominance, as they didn’t have the market share to do so. The iPod and ITMS have become the dominant players in the mp3 player and online music store markets due to being the best product. In terms of ease of use, simplicity, user interface, the Apple iPod and iTunes have simply excelled, compared to the other products out there. Yes, the rise of the iPod, as the dominant music player, and the rise of the iTunes Music Store are closely linked, but that didn’t necessarily have to be the case. I know many iPod owners who have never even looked at the ITMS, providing the music for their iPods from their extensive CD collections*.

The Hardware

The hardware, and how it is designed is the first part of Apple’s success. Let’s first look at the iPod, and how it became the dominant mp3 player. The user interface of the iPod is simple and elegant. It doesn’t much matter whether it is an iPod, a click-wheel iPod, an iPod photo, a video iPod, an iPod mini, an iPod nano, or the iPod shuffle. It simply has the most intuitive user interface. This is the hardware part of the mp3 player system.

There were other mp3 players that got to the market before the iPod, and there have been far less expensive units than the iPod—yet the iPod is the one that caused a revolution in the way we listen to music. In fact, the iPod has spawned an industry of its own—supporting the iPod with accessories, replacement drives and batteries.

The first iPods were very expensive and hard-disk based. Apple didn’t even have a flash-memory-based unit until January 2005. Yet, in less than a year’s time, the Apple iPod shuffle was able to take over 80 percent of the flash-based mp3 player market, and is now the dominant player in both the flash-based and hard-disk-based mp3 player markets. Why is that? Ease of use, quality and simplicity are the reasons.

The Software

The second part of the equation is the software.

The iPods originally shipped with MusicMatch for their Windows-based users, and iTunes for the Mac-based users. MusicMatch was widely used by several mp3 player brands as the software for Windows. As far as I know, none of the other mp3 players have ever supported the Mac to any degree. So, the iPod and the other mp3 players really did start out pretty evenly matched.

Apple then ported iTunes to the Windows platform, and started shipping it as the default software, and later as the only software for iPod users. The iTunes software interface made it far simpler to rip music from CDs; far easier to organize your music; far easier to create play lists for your iPod; and far easier to load the music on to the iPod. Now, converting a large collection of music from CD-format to digital format for your iPod was very simple. It also allowed people to use any mp3s** they had collected on their iPod.

Competing mp3 players had serious, often near-fatal, software issues, which made getting music onto their players very difficult or impossible. An mp3 player without any music on it is not very useful. A good example of this occurred a few years back, when a friend of mine bought an mp3 player for his daughter.

The hardware was cute, simple and fairly well-designed overall. However, installing the software was extremely difficult, and the software was badly written, unstable. It made moving music from a CD to the mp3 player very complicated. Setting a playlist was a nightmare.

Finally, he asked me what to do… I said, “With mp3 players, the hardware is only part of the package, the software is pretty important too. After all if you can’t get the music on the mp3 player—it doesn’t really matter how good the mp3 player is, does it.” Then, I told him to go buy his daughter an iPod mini.

Installing iTunes and getting the first CD ripped and loaded onto the iPod took less than 20 minutes… He had spent more time than that just trying to install the first mp3 player’s software.

The Music Store

ITMS is the last part of Apple’s success in the online music industry.

By integrating ITMS into iTunes, Apple made accessing the iTunes Music Store very simple and intuitive. It also made moving the music you bought from ITMS to your computer and your iPod very simple. While using iTunes as the interface for the ITMS didn’t guarantee any customers—it made it far more likely that people would at least take a look at what ITMS could offer them. The fixed pricing and ease of use kept customers coming back.

Digital rights management software was part of what was required by the music labels to agree to sell their product online. Apple’s DRM software, Fairplay, is very generous in its terms, especially compared to many of the competing online music stores. The terms of the DRM and the ease of buying and listening to the music, and now videos, is what made ITMS such a success.

Points to Consider

ITMS is tied to Apple’s iPod, is this fair? No, it really isn’t fair, but Apple is in this game to sell hardware, and ITMS is just part of what makes the iPod hardware so attractive.

The iPod is tied to ITMS, is this fair? No, but it is one of the major selling points of the iPod.

Can you use ITMS-purchased music with a non-iPod mp3 player? Yes, but it isn’t simple to do, and you might a hit on the quality of the music.

Do you have to buy music for you iPod from ITMS? No, there is no requirement to buy music or video from Apple’s ITMS for your iPod. While, it is easier and more convenient to use ITMS—you can still “rip” music from your own CD collection and listen to that on your iPod. Nothing forces you to use the ITMS.

Can you use non-ITMS music on an iPod? Yes, but it may not be simple to do, and you may take a hit on the quality of the music. Most of the difficulties of using non-ITMS music on an iPod aren’t Apple’s fault. The other music services could support either the aac or mp3 file formats, but have chosen not too. The DRM software is also an issue, but that too is not Apple’s fault—except in that Apple is not willing to license Fairplay.

Should Apple license Fairplay? They could, but it really isn’t in their interest to do so at the moment. In the near future, it probably will be, but for now, as long as the cycle of ITMS and the iPod continues—there is no real imperative or advantage for them to do so.

Why hasn’t someone else come up with an iPod killer? Because, no one else has come up with a combination of hardware and software that is comparable to the iPod and iTunes, in terms of ease of use and simplicity. No one else seems to understand that it is the combination of hardware and software that has brought the iPod to dominance. ITMS is merely frosting on the cake for Apple.

Is it a monopoly situation, similar to Microsoft’s hold on the computer operating system market? No, Apple hasn’t forced any of its customers into using either iPods or the iTunes Music Store. Apple hasn’t forced anyone to use iTunes. Apple has made it much easier and simpler to do so, but it hasn’t forced anyone to do anything.

Conclusions

Yes, iPod users are likely to use iTunes—as not using iTunes makes using an iPod much more complicated, but there is nothing forcing them to use the ITMS. Likewise, ITMS users are welcome to use other mp3 players, but getting their ITMS music onto a non-iPod music player is going to be much more complicated than using an iPod. But Apple isn’t a music monopoly, as iPod users aren’t required to use ITMS, and can buy their music on CD, or from other online music sources***. And even though, ITMS users aren’t restricted to use of iPods—the use of any other mp3 player is vastly more complicated and will result is a loss of quality.

* Ripping CDs are an option for most mp3 players.
** Large mp3 collections were a result of the Napster revolution.
*** The online music services that use the mp3 or aac formats will allow the use of their music without any loss of quality, if the music service uses DRM, then there will likely be a degradation in music quality.

Score one for the side of truth, ethics and science.

Apparently, GWB’s politically appointed toady, George C. Deutsch, has resigned according to this article over at New York Times. While NASA won’t disclose the reasons for his resignation, the fact that George (Deutsch, not Bush) lied about graduating from Texas A & M University has recently come to light.

Douche Deutsch was the primary person responsible for trying to muzzle Jim Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist, as reported in this Boston.com article. He was also responsible for trying to introduce “Ideological Intelligent Design” into the NASA literature and have them refer to the Big Bang as a theory.

As the Scientific Activist post above notes, Deutsch’s primary qualification was having been a worker on GWB’s presidential campaign. The 24-year-old Deutsch has no scientific background or experience, and little journalistic experience to speak of. I agree with the conclusion drawn by the Scientific Activist and have quoted it below.

The Bush administration and the Republican Party can give lip service to science all they like, but when they show such a flagrant disregard for scientific integrity by placing someone, whose only qualification is having worked on the Bush campaign, in such an important position, everything else they say is meaningless.

This was another flagrant attempt by the Bush regime to silence the truth and muzzle opponents to their oil-industry driven agenda. GWB and his administration have repeatedly proven themselves to believe they are “above the law” and shown that they have no regard for the truth, ethical behavior, or rule of law.

Apparently Dell has given up the fight against the iPod. The Dell Digital Jukebox, which was heralded as the iPod killer has lost. Apple’s iPod and iTunes continues to be the 800-lb. gorillas of the MP3 player and online music markets.

Dell is discontinuing the Digital Jukebox series of hard-drive based MP3 players. Once the remaining stocks are sold, Dell will continue to support them, but will not be manufacturing more. Dell is planning to concentrate on flash-based MP3 players according to the article on Ars Technica.

The real problem that Dell, River, Creative and most of the other MP3 players are having is they don’t understand the problem. MP3 players will only be truly successful if they have good software to support them—after all, an MP3 player without any music on it, isn’t very useful.

Currently, there is no software that competes with Apple’s iTunes software platform, which is available on both Windows and Mac platforms. Another advantage Apple’s iPod has over most competing products is the user friendly and intuitive interface. The final advantage is the iTunes Music Store, which is the simplest and most-effective of the legal music download services.

Over at the Badgerlife Journal, there’s an article with another view of the editorial cartoons of Mohammed and Islam. I’ll quote the article here.

The Islamic community isn’t bothered by seeing an innocent person getting his head cut off, isn’t bothered by the bombings in Spain, isn’t bothered by the commuter train bombings in London, isn’t bothered by the homocide bombers in Israel. But publish a few cartoons of Mohammed and the entire Muslim world erupts in rage.

What is there left to say about the morality of this group, the utter lack of civility? They are truly the barbarians at the gates of civilization.

If the Moslem community doesn’t feel that they need to do anything about the fundamentalist fanatics… then why should the rest of the world respect the Moslem community, or treat them as other than the irrational supporters of terrorism that they are becoming in fact.

While I do not believe that most Moslems are irrational or evil—the lack of any widespread condemnation of the actions of the terrorists, and the general over-reaction of the Moslem community as a whole to the relatively harmless editorial cartoons, which were pointedly accurate in some cases, make me wonder about Islam as a religion as a whole.

Editorial cartoons have been in the news quite a bit recently. The main furor is over the Danish newspaper depictions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed, which can be seen here. The reactions of the Islamic fundamentalists has been a bit extreme, but not surprisingly so, given that they are Islamic fundamentalists. What is worrying is the reactions of other, non-Islamic groups, like the Vatican, which has called the cartoons a “unacceptable provocation”; CNN, which has in its cowardice, refused to even show the cartoons in question; and our own government, which has denounced the publication of cartoons that incite religious or ethnic hatred. The Hammer of Truth blog makes these points quite well.

Now, lets take a closer look at the cartoons.

The first one is of a bearded man wielding a knife, with a woman in a burka on either side. His eyes are blocked out so they can not be seen. To me, this is not all that far from the Islamic fundamentalist point of view. They do treat their women as property or worse. How many beheadings have we seen committed by Islamic fundamentalists—too many.

The second is of a “perp walk” type line up, where the person seeing the seven choices, says “hmm. I don’t recognize him.” This is not unreasonable, as many Moslems claim that Islam is a religion of peace…yet how much violence is committed by Islamic fundmentalists. I honestly don’t think that Mohammed would recognize Islam as the religion he founded, if he were to return today.

The third cartoon is of a cartoonist surreptitiously drawing a cartoon of Mohammed. This is not too far from the truth, given the reaction of the Islamic fundamentalists. I don’t doubt that the radical Islamists would open a fatwa against the cartoonists, if they haven’t already.

The fourth cartoon is of a bearded and turbaned man leading a donkey. I personally don’t see anything offensive about this cartoon.

The fifth cartoon is of a several symbols, which contain a Star of David and an Islamic Crescent, but have an offensive caption which says: “Prophet! daft and dumb keeping woman under thumb”. Although I find the caption offensive, I’d have to admit that the Islamic radicals do “keep their women under their thumbs” and essentially treat them as property. While I would have worded and drawn it differently, I think that the cartoon does make a valid point. How civilized can any religion be, if it treats half of its believers as little more than property?

The sixth cartoon is of a turbaned man in robes saying “Stop, we have run out of virgins” to a line of burnt and smoldering suicide bombers. I do find this one somewhat funny. I know that the Koran promises martyrs 70 or 72 virgins. Given how many suicide bombers there have been, and how badly treated the women are under fundamentalist Islam, I think this is probably accurate. Then again, some may not like it because it is so accurate—the truth hurts.

The seventh cartoon is of a turbaned man’s head drawn as a bomb with a lit fuse. Yes, this is a bit offensive, but it is also quite accurate—ever hear of a suicide bomber.

The eighth cartoon is not of Mohammed the prophet, but of Mohammed, a student, writing in Arabic on a blackboard. Given how common the name Mohammed, in its various spellings, is in the Islamic culture, this is not an impossible situation. As I don’t read Arabic, I can’t be sure what the blackboard says. I don’t really see this as offensive, but a lot depends on what the Arabic says.

The ninth cartoon in the series, is of a turbaned man, probably a imam, saying to his sword-wielding, bomb-carrying, and gun-armed followers, that the cartoons are made by a non-believing Dane, and that they should not take it so seriously. This is a very valid point.

The tenth cartoon is a drawing of a turbaned figure with the star and crescent. I don’t really see this as all that offensive either.

The eleventh cartoon is of a turbaned, clearly caucasian man holding a drawing of a turbaned stick figure. The man’s turban has a orange that says “PR Stunt” on it. This drawing I just don’t get.

The last figure is of a turbaned and haloed man. I don’t really see this as all that offensive either.

If someone, preferably a non-fundamentalist Moslem, can tell me why all of these are considered so offensive, I would really like to know.

A very valid point is made by this cartoon. Islam did not gain the image problems it has today based on a few cartoons by Danish newspapers. The long history of fundamentalism and related terrorism, and the acceptance of the fundamentalists by the mainstream Moslems as a whole goes a long way to explaining the image problems that besiege the Islamic faith. If the mainstream Moslems don’t like it, then they should excise the fundamentalists, as one would excise a cancerous growth. If they do not police themselves, they can not blame others for trying to point out what they are allowing to happen.

Islam isn’t the only group having cartoonists target them, as seen in this Washington Post article, and this cartoon. The US military didn’t much like the cartoon, but they didn’t threaten to bomb the paper’s headquarters or kill the cartoonist.

A Stitch in Haste has an excellent, if pointed, series of articles on Islam, and whether it is a “Religion of Peace”. Given the current controversy, where the Islamic fundamentalists are denouncing the Scandinavian countries based on a series of a dozen political cartoons, and have resulted in Islamic attacks on some of the Scandinavian embassies, one has to wonder.

His most recent article, RoP: Burn, Embassy, Burn also says a fair bit about the state of our country’s government. I’ve quoted the relevant text here:

And the idea that our State Department, our diplomats, would have contemplated, even for a moment, siding with these hoodlums would be unimaginable, until you remember that we have our own intolerant religious fanatics running the country right now. Suddenly it ceases to be surprising.

The cartoons in question can be seen here. I will also be posting them to my blog shortly.

The Irregular Times also has a very good piece on the responsibility of cartoonists versus the responsibility of religious fanatics. I’ll quote the most relevant section here:

I believe that such claims are based upon the acceptance a false premise: The idea that it is a reasonable and predictable result of the creation of a cartoon that the people whom the cartoon offends will engage in acts of violence to gain revenge.

I will not accept that premise. It is not reasonable for people to react to cartoons with violence, and it is not reasonable for us to refrain from creating images out of fear that someone might start murdering people after seeing those images.

In short, it is not the responsibility of a cartoonist to avoid provoking fanatics to murder. When fanatics commit acts of murder in response to cartoons, it is they who bear the full responsibility of their actions.

Honor killings, suicide bombing, murdering a film maker, beheading women, desecrating a Buddhist temple, crashing planes into buildings, and blowing up trains are all actions Islamic fundamentalists have taken. Is it any wonder, that Islam is seen as a religion of terrorists, and not a religion of peace.

I doubt that Mohammed would approve of many of the actions taken in his name. I also doubt that the Koran has anything in it that justifies the killing of innocents, as the Islamic fundamentalists have done. The reason Islam has gotten such a bad reputation and is stained with the blood of innocents, is that the Moslems have allowed the fanatics to do evil deeds in the name of their religion without denouncing them. I do not believe that most Moslems are evil or fanatic, but the actions of a small minority has been allowed to shift the world’s perception of them as a whole.

If anyone can show me where in the Koran it states that the taking of innocent lives is justified by Islam, I would like to see it. I think the Moslem community as a whole has a responsibility to weed out those who use their religion to justify terrorism—if not, then they should not complain that Islam is being demonized unjustly.

A Stitch in Haste also makes a good point about the intolerant religious fanatics in our own country. The Christian neo-conservatives are almost as bad as Islamic fundamentalists. The Christian right is currently in power in the United States, and have committed their own acts of terrorism, both in the world at large and in this country. While their actions may not be quite as savage as those of the Islamic fundamentalists, they are no less deadly in many ways—killing via an unjust war is just as deadly to the innocent bystanders, as are suicide bombers.

Fanatics in any religion are evil.

This morning, I was checking my e-mail and my internet service died.

I checked both routers* and noticed that the PPPoE connection was failing to authenticate. Now, while I can’t say much good for the folks over at Verizon Wireless, the people who support the Verizon FiOS service are phenomenal.

I called the 888 customer support number and spoke to someone about the outage. Within five minutes, he had a network technician checking on it. Within ten minutes of my call, I had my service back up and running. I was told that a set of cards in one of the racks had gone out, but were easily swapped out.

I also straightened out my e-mail problems over at Verizon.net in another few minutes. The Verizon.net e-mail had always been a problem, but as I have so many other e-mail accounts, it wasn’t one that I had done anything about initially.

Kudos to Verizon’s FiOS group. For those of you who don’t know what FiOS is, it is Verizon’s new broadband Fiber Optic Services, and it rocks.

* The network here at the house is rather complicated and has four different subnets and four routers, mainly to protect the wired machines from the wireless network. It is probably overkill for the average home user, but I like my security.

There’s a very good post over at Not Bad For A Cubicle on Airport Security. He is one of the few that I have seen writing on the subject who realizes that most of the highly visible security measures that have been implemented in the United States are also among the least effective. He also points out that the odds of dying in a terrorist attack, at least in the United States is so remote that your chance of winning the lottery may be higher.

It is now 2006, not quite five years after the events of 9/11/2001. To date the total number of people killed in the United States by the actions of terrorists numbers less than 5,000. To date, the number of military personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the War on Fundamentalism is 2,000+. For the year 2002, the following statistics were published:

1. Heart Disease………………………………………696,947
2. Cancer………………………………………………557,271
3. Strokes……………………………………………..162,672
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases…………….124,816
5. Accidents…………………………………………..106,742
6. Diabetes……………………………………………..73,249
7. Influenza and pneumonia………………………….65,681
8. Alzheimer’s disease………………………………..58,866
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis….40,974
10. Septicemia………………………………………….33,865

Again, I have to wonder if the money the United States is spending on prosecuting the “War on Fundamentalism” wouldn’t be better spent on medical research and universal health insurance.

The United States of America is still the only leading industrialized nation that does not have universal health care coverage of some sort. If spending the vast sums currently being used in Bush’s “War on Fundamentalism” yielded even a meager two-percent reduction in life lost to the nine medically-related top-ten causes of death, then the numbers of lives saved would be over 36,000 per year.

Here’s a humorous piece on Abel’s website not updating. Airios.com was featured on CSS Vault for almost the last six months.

My favorite quote from the piece:

Jared: I’d like to think the answer to this is obvious, but does God rule the universe with a Mac or a PC?

Abel: In all honesty, God loves Windows. As much as he likes the gooey sweet interface of the Mac, he still prefers the simplicity of Windows. But heaven is pretty much open source, so you have your choice of OS.

Jared: Windows? Seriously? I think you just destroyed my faith. Though Windows ruling the universe does explain how George Bush got re-elected.

Although, personally, I’d like to think that God, if he were a technophile, would use a more enlightened OS like Mac OS X.

Yahoo news has an article on how some of the e-mails related to the Valerie Plame investigation against Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff are missing. That key e-mails, specifically related to the investigation, were not archived strikes me as very suspicious.

My favorite quote from the article is from Steve Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists government secrecy project, who says, “Bottom line: Accidents happen and there could be a benign explanation, but this is highly irregular and invites suspicion.”

This would probably not seem as suspicious if the Bush regime didn’t have a solid track record of lying and misleading the public, and a history of generally unethical and illegal behavior.

Do you want to know why there are so many nasty lawyer jokes. This article is probably one of the reasons why. Some overly litigious lawyer has decided that there is merit in a class-action suit against Apple over the iPod. The basis for the lawsuit is the possible hearing loss caused by the use of an iPod. I’ll quote the relevant paragraph from the article here:

The portable music players are “inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss,” according to the complaint, which seeks class action status. The suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, seeks compensation for plaintiffs’ hearing loss and upgrades that will make the iPods safer.

This is one of the reasons I believe that the legal system in the United States is in dire need of reform. Frivolous lawsuits, like this one, come up all the time, and cost the companies sued thousands of dollars, and indirectly lead to increased costs for their products. If the courts in this country were more like those in Great Britain, where the loser is forced to pay the legal costs of the winner, most of these nuisance suits would disappear.

Suing Apple for the possible hearing loss caused by misuse of the iPod is like suing the automakers for drunk driving accidents. One could make the same argument, that cars are inherently defective in design and not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of drunk driving.

People need to take responsibility for themselves and their actions. Turning up the volume on an iPod is a personal choice….and if you do so constantly, you’d best be able to deal with the onset of hearing loss. Furthermore, many of these “victims” have probably listened to other audio devices at high volume, prior to and while owning an iPod. I seriously doubt that their hearing loss is solely the fault of the iPod.

I have several friends who are lawyers, and don’t waste the court’s time with cases like this one. The ones that do should be the ones at the bottom of the ocean.*

* Comes from an old lawyers joke. For those who don’t know it, I’ve posted it here.

Q: What do you call 10,000 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean.

A: A good start.

I was recently asked by one of my readers about the Telstar and how it compares to the Corsair F28. He was wondering how much of a performance hit you take with a Telstar over a F28. He was also curious about how well the Telstar points upwind and how well it performs in light winds.

Here’s how the specs stack up against each other.

Beam: The Corsair is also 19′ 9″ wide, compared to the Telstar’s 18′, which may give it a bit better stability…but I doubt it is significantly more stable. The stability is also influenced by the ama and rig design, but I can’t speak to which is more stable overall.

Draft: The Corsair is a bit deeper draft, with 4′ 11″ daggerboard down and 1′ 2″ with daggerboard up, versus 4′ 6″ centerboard down and 1′ with it up for the Telstar. I don’t know which has more surface area, the daggerboard on the Corsair or the centerboard on the Telstar, and that is probably more significant in terms of lateral tracking ability than the actual draft.

Hull: I believe the Corsair has slightly less windage than the Telstar, as the cabin is significantly smaller than that of the Telstar. This probably gives the F28 a bit better performance upwind.

Rig: The Corsair also has a 36′ 6″ rotating mast, rather than the slightly shorter 35′ fixed mast on the Telstar, which will give the F28 a bit better performance, especially upwind. However, the rig on the Corsair is attached to the amas, and may be significantly weakened when the amas are retracted. The rig on the Telstar is attached to the center hull and is not affected by the ama position. The heavier and taller rig on the Corsair will tend to be less stable than the lower, lighter rig on the Telstar.

Sail Area: The Corsair has more sail area, with 300 sq. ft. for the main and 175 sq. ft. for the jib, compared to the Telstar’s 242 sq. ft for the main and 168 sq. ft. for the jib.

Waterline: The Corsair’s waterline comes in at 26′ 3″ versus the Telstar’s 26′ 6″. I don’t believe the difference is a significant one, especially given that these are multi-hulls, and not displacement monohulls.

Weight: The Corsair is about 900 pounds lighter, at 2,690 pounds, compared to the Telstar’s 3,600** pounds. This gives the Corsair the edge.

Upwind Performance: The Telstar points upwind quite well, and I’ve sailed one as close as 35 degrees off the wind, but performance is much better once you’re at about 45 degrees or so. I’d imagine, if I had been interested in more performance, we could have pointed a bit higher, but with some loss of speed. This is pretty comparable to the Corsair F28 in my experience.

Light Air Performance: This is probably more a factor of what sails you have in your inventory. I believe the roller furling screacher on the Telstar is 400 sq. ft. versus the Corsair’s 358 sq. ft screacher.

On the Telstar, we were able to do six knots close reaching in nine knots of wind using the only the main and 150% Genoa. Granted, we weren’t trying to trim the sails to maximize performance at the time. On a Corsair F28 in the spring of 2004, we were doing a bit over ten knots in ten knots of wind close reaching, but I don’t remember what sails were up at the time and the crew was trying a bit harder to make some speed.

Note: Two things that matter: on the Telstar, we had a 50 HP four-stroke outboard motor and four people; on the Corsair, we had a considerably lighter 9.9 HP two-stroke engine and three people.

Conclusion: I think that the Corsair F28 is a faster boat than the Telstar. The Corsair F28 is lighter and has a more efficient rig and can have more sail up. The spinnaker for the Corsair is much larger than the Telstar, 780 sq. ft. versus 590 sq. ft. The rotating mast also gives the F28 an edge upwind. If the Telstar and the Corsair are both loaded up for cruising, then I think the Corsair’s racing oriented design will suffer far more than the heavier Telstar. If both are stripped down in weight, the Corsair will offer significant performance advantages over the Telstar, as the Telstar is not designed to be raced.

But, I don’t believe that the speed advantages of the Corsair F28 outweigh the advantages of the Telstar—in terms of the comfort and safety, cabin space, better galley and head facilities, side decks/net usability, rig design or ama design. Also note, I don’t believe the Corsair F28 has lifelines on the amas—the Telstar does have removable lifelines for the amas as well as rigid sidedecks.

The Telstar can easily motor at 15 knots with the amas deployed or retracted using the 50 HP outboard. I don’t believe the Corsair is capable of this—certainly not with the amas retracted. The Telstar cruises at about seven knots with the 20 HP outboard. Also, I believe the Telstar’s amas are slightly more buoyant than the Corsair’s but don’t have actual figures for this.

If you’re looking for a boat to scream around the buoys with, then the Corsair makes much more sense. If you’re looking for a very capable and comfortable cruising sailboat, with an emphasis on comfort and versatility, then the Telstar is probably a better choice.

* Telstar jib size estimated from the 150% genoa, which measures 274 sq. ft.

** The weight of the Telstar is based on the specifications found in the Telstar 28 owner’s manual that is currently being written by Performance Cruising, Inc., which includes the weight of the outboard, sails, rigging and options. The boat I was on was probably slightly lighter, around 3,400 pounds or so. The Corsair F28 weight is from Corsair’s website and I believe it only consists of the actual hull and rigging, and does not include the outboard or other options.

Just a quick note that it has been less than a day since Microsoft released the IE 7.0 beta 2 and there’s already a security hole announcement. Granted, this is a beta… but still, you’d think that with all their previous security problems, they’d have tightened up the code a bit better than this.

Thanks to realtechnews.com for the story and link.

I just read an article over at Hammer of Truth which shows more Republican conservative stupidity. Oklahoma Republican State Representative Lisa J. Billy has proposed a bill that would redefine nudity and sex; favor certain businesses over less morally acceptable ones; and limit the First Amendment rights of those less morally acceptable businesses.

Her definition of nudity, as taken from the bill, would be:

“State of nudity” means any bare exposure of the skin located on the body of a person below the armpits and above the knees.

Her definition of sexually-oriented material would be:

“Sexually-oriented materials” means any textual, pictorial, or three-dimensional material that depicts nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse…

and her definition of a sexually-oriented business would be:

“Sexually-oriented business” means any business which offers its patrons goods of which a substantial portion are sexually-oriented materials. Any business where more than ten percent (10%) of display space is used for sexually-oriented materials shall be presumed to be a sexually-oriented business;

Of course, I don’t think that Rep. Billy has taken any time to think about what exactly her bill may result in. If the law passes, then wearing most summer clothes, be it shorts, mini-skirts, or swimwear could result in public nudity charges. Hmmm.. I don’t think the fashion industry is going to like this… either are most women I know… or men for that matter. Most of the clothes people wear for physical activities like bicycling, working out at the gym, tennis, and golf could be a problem too.

Her definition of sexually-oriented materials makes many common businesses, like bookstores, very likely to become classified as a sexually-oriented business. Any book or magazine that has a passage that even mentions nudity or sex becomes sexually-oriented material. The nudity definition makes most photographs used in advertising sexually-oriented materials.

Are the conservatives really this out of touch with reality…and really this stupid and irrational? It would appear they are.

Here’s another good example of corporate cluelessness.

Apparently, in an attempt to recycle paper, the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, both subsidiaries of The New York Times, sent out credit card data on possibly as many as 240,000 subscribers. The credit card data was printed on paper, which was then recycled internally and used for printing the routing slips attached to 9,000 bundles of newspapers sent to retailers and carriers last weekend, according to the newspapers.

There are articles about this story at CNN, Emergent Chaos, The Network Security Blog, and MSNBC. I’m glad to see that even the Boston Globe has an article about it on their website, along with a message from the publisher.

This is one of the very few recent data breaches that was non-electronic, which didn’t require dumpster diving of any sort. It appears to be the result of a very poorly thought out paper recycling initiative by what I’ve read.

Ironically, Ars Technica has an article on how the Council of Better Business Bureaus has released a report stating that identity theft is under control.

Of course, any report has to be examined to see if there is any potential bias by either the people funding the research or writing the report. In the case of this report, it was partially funded by Visa and Wells Fargo, which may mean that it may not be all that unbiased.

Update: According to Slashdot account and routing information for 1,100 subscribers who paid by check was also released.

There’s an article over at the Washington Post about health care workers and new legislation which will allow them assert their religious values and not provide services which they find morally objectionable. I’ve quoted the first two paragraphs below.

More than a dozen states are considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs, a surge of legislation that reflects the intensifying tension between asserting individual religious values and defending patients’ rights.

About half of the proposals would shield pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control and “morning-after” pills because they believe the drugs cause abortions. But many are far broader measures that would shelter a doctor, nurse, aide, technician or other employee who objects to any therapy. That might include in-vitro fertilization, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cells and perhaps even providing treatment to gays and lesbians.

A Stitch in Haste has a very good post about this very issue.

A few questions I have to ask are:

• What about patients rights?
• What about being able to expect to get legally allowed medical treatment, without being subject to someone’s moral or religious scrutiny?
• Doesn’t this effectively allow caregivers to discriminate against their patients, based on their sexual orientation or religious beliefs (or lack thereof).
• Don’t health care providers have a ethical and legal responsibility to their patients to provide them with all available medical care options?
• Don’t patients have a right to know if the beliefs and morals of their care providers may affect their ability to provide otherwise legal medical care options?
• Don’t care providers have a responsibility to disclose whether their personal beliefs and morals may possibly affect patient care?

Again, this is an attempt by the conservatives to indirectly force their moral beliefs onto others through legislation. They have tried similar tactics with regards to “Intelligent Design” being taught in the classroom. They have failed there, and I hope that the courts will see reason in these cases as well.

Last night was the annual State of the Union address by the President. In this case it was given by GWB, the current Commander in Thief Chief.

Several of the blogs I read have their takes on the State of the Union. Here are a few of my favorites from this morning.

The Irregular Times has a photo of the SOTU, with new caption bubbles located here. They also have an excellent retrospective look at GWB’s 2005 SOTU and how it compares to the reality of 2005 located here. They also have a humorous drinking game based on the SOTU here. They also have an interesting, but unrelated, essay on Republicans and Family Values located here.

Prawfs Blog has a good post on GWB and how America is addicted to Oil here.

Michael Hampton, over at Homeland Stupidity gives his opinion on the SOTU here. They also have a transcript of the SOTU posted here.

Personally, it is my belief that the State of the Union is not very promising at the moment. All is not well in the United States, and this can easily be seen given the past year’s events and:

• how much the National Debt has grown
• how many civil and personal rights have been lost or infringed upon
• the actual lack of success in the GWB’s personal “War on Fundamentalism” or whatever he has re-named it to
• the loss of respect and status of the United States in the world, mostly due to the current regime’s actions
• the corporate lack of ethical behavior, responsibility and accountability, especially as seen in the Enron scandal
• the same lack of ethical behavior, responsibility and accountability by the Republican leadership, as seen in the Delay, Abramhoff, NSA scandals, etc.
• no actual improvement in the security of the American people

Well, RFID Passports are now a reality thanks to GWB’s administration insisting on them. Once again, this is a case where some idiot has thought putting technology into a process would make it more secure. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Adam, over at Emergent Chaos, has pointed out some flaws identified in the RFID passport implementation. Although his article specifically mentions Dutch passports, since these passports are supposed to be standardized between countries, these flaws will probably be found in all the passports using the same technological standards.

My favorite quote, and probably the most important statement in his article is:

The radio has no function, and introduces a plethora of security holes. It should be removed now, before the State Department needs to replace millions of passports.

I’ve mentioned this issue almost a year ago, which you can read here. As far as I can tell, none of the questions I’ve asked have been answered with any degree of satisfaction. My theory—that the new passports may allow terrorists to create “smart bombs” which can target specific nationalities is not unrealistic. Again, this is probably a result of someone doing something because it might help with security, while having no fundamental idea of what real security actually is, or how to achieve it.

Technology, being used for technology’s sake, rarely is effective, unless it is done with a thorough understanding of the underlying issues and requirements. That is not the case here. RFID technology is not a technological panacea that will make national security or identifying the bad guys easier, unless it is properly used. In fact, it is more likely to make national security, especially for our citizens abroad, far lower, and make them more easily identifiable by the bad guys.

Apparently, the Republican party is corrupt at the state level as well as the federal level. Given the state of the current Republican leadership, and how much of it is current either under indictment or investigation, this isn’t all that surprising.

New York’s Republicans have their own Abramhoff-type scandal. You can read about it over at Irregular Times. There’s more on it over at New York Liberal.

This is an excerpt from Irregular Times article.

The elements are all there. Illegal gifts. Secret meetings at lavish vacation getaways. Politicians sleeping over at Walter Rich’s mansion in Cooperstown, New York. Real estate giveaways to campaign donors. Huge government grants for railroads that don’t exist. Forced employees donations to Republican candidates. A tell-all book from an insider to the Walter Rich empire that is about to hit the shelves.

Well, glad to say that GWB did not disappoint (see my previous post).

The government of the United States is officially in default. They’ve exceeded the debt ceiling of $8.18 trillion dollars, and are now at $8.19 trillion dollars, as noted in the Homeland Stupidity blog. Of course, what would you expect from a man who has been treating our country’s economy like that of a third world country with a tinpot dictator. Oh, wait, I forgot, we’re a first-world country with a tinpot dictator…

He’s been spending huge bucks on his “War on Fundamentalism” or whatever he is calling it today. He’s been spending it on mostly useless or ineffective Department of Homeland Security initiatives, which have done little if anything to really increase the security of the people of the United States. He’s been spending it to spy on Americans, via the NSA and the military. He has given huge tax cuts to large corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Apparently, GWB hasn’t the brains to understand that if you keep spending money, but don’t take money in, either in taxes or by reducing your expenses elsewhere, then you will eventually run out of money to spend. Somehow, GWB has gone from having one of the largest surpluses in the federal budget, when he came into office, to a record-breaking deficit. Who pays for his foolishness and stupidity—in the end-all of us Americans pay for GWB’s mistakes.

The Hammer of Truth and A Stitch in Haste blogs both have excellent articles on this issue.

I was chatting with a friend over AIM earlier today, saying how I was wondering what to write about for my blog. Normally, GWB or his administration does something incredibly stupid, either with foreign policy or domestically, and then I have something to write about. But for the last few days… nothing… Probably a good thing. Well, Sarah said that GWB is really too easy a target. Then she went on to say that maybe it was worth writing about the fact that the current administration hasn’t done something really stupid in a few days.

So, here I am, writing about the fact that GWB and his administration hasn’t seemed to do anything stupid in a few days. Of course, he could be trying to not screw up just before the State of the Union address on Tuesday…or there could be a monumental screw up coming on Tuesday. We’ll have to wait and see, but at least for now, it doesn’t seem that GWB has done any more mutilating of the Constitution or trampled on any additional rights that we, as Americans, are supposed to have.

I was reading Bruce Schneier’s blog and he had an article on a man who was on the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list. The person was detained and had his passport confiscated upon his return to Canada. The strange part in this story is he never set foot in the United States, having flown from Canada to Mexico and back, without actually ever having landed in the United States.

Question: Exactly why and how does a man get detained and have his passport confiscated just for being on the no fly list if he never enters the US?

Also in his article, he had a link to a story about another potential terrorist. I think this second story really highlights how incompetent the TSA is about the no-fly list. The person in the linked story, whose name is on the no-fly list, is four years old. My, Al Qaeda must be recruiting in pre-schools now.

Actually, the linked story goes on to clarify that Edward Allen, the four-year-old, isn’t actually the person on the no-fly list, but that he will be haunted because he shares the same, fairly common, name as someone who is of interest to the TSA. Given the amount of money spent by GWB and the department of Homeland Stupidity Security, you would think that they should be able to distinguish four-year-old Edward Allen, from terrorist suspect Edward Allen relatively easily.

The fact that the TSA requires Edward Allen to show three forms of identification to prove he isn’t the individual they are looking for is rather absurd. How many four-year-old children have three forms of identification, much less three forms of picture identification.

Question: Why can’t the TSA distinguish between people with similar names, but obviously different characteristics?

This is not the first time having the same name as someone on a terrorist watch list has caused problems. James Moore, author of several books critical of the Bush regime, has had a run in with the no-fly list as you can read here.

Of course, Schneier’s article from last July discusses what a complete failure Secure Flight has been. Given that the Bush Administration seems more interested in the appearance of doing something about national security, terrorism and using the threat of terrorism to expand its own powers, rather than doing anything to substantially increase the actual security of Americans, this is not a surprise.

Question: Why can’t the Bush regime actually concern itself with real security, rather than using national security for political and personal gain?

Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission is close to deciding what should happen to ChoicePoint regarding their selling consumer credit data to a ring of identity thieves. They’re being fined a currently undisclosed amount, and are required to setup a fund to help victims of identity theft, which is to be administered by the FTC. I hope that the settlement also includes some sort of external auditing or oversight of ChoicePoint’s obviously irresponsible business practices.

What is a bit worrisome is that ChoicePoint has not admitted to any wrongdoing in the course of the FTC investigation. ChoicePoint allowed a ring of identity thieves to become customers of their services. Doesn’t ChoicePoint have an obligation to the people whose information they sell to make sure that their customers are legitimate, and not criminals.

As I said in a previous post about ChoicePoint: “What is really ironic about ChoicePoint selling data to bogus customers is they are one of the companies that has marketed itself and its services to DHS to help identify possible terrorists.”

Other stories from my blog on ChoicePoint and identity theft can be seen here.

Update: ChoicePoint to pay $10 million in fines to FTC plus $5 million for fund to help victims of identity theft. ChoicePoint also has to submit to third-party audits every other year until 2026. From the news.com story < a href=”http://news.com.com/2100-7350_3-6031629.html?part=rss&tag=6031629&subj=news”here.

Sherry, over at Stay of Execution, has an excellent article about Doing Something You’re Bad At.

I’m going to quote most of it here:

A mentor of mine spoke to me on exactly this issue, about seven years ago. She grabbed some pens and pencils from a nearby can and held them in her hand, like this. She said, “Think of each pen or pencil as a skill or attribute you have, or a sense or ability of yours. And think of its height above your fingers as the level of development you’ve attained in that particular skill.” I nodded. Okay. “For most people, it’s kind of a random mix. It looks kind of like this, with all the pens and pencils at different levels.” I nodded. “During our lives, we work to increase the height of these pencils. That’s personal development.”

She then tapped all the pens and pencils down with the flat of the other hand, much lower. From the bottom, she poked a couple pencils up so they were very high above the others, as pictured here. “You,” she said, “look kind of like this. You have some very highly developed skills, that tower over the rest of them. And you have a lot of these pencils that are scrunched way down, and that haven’t really developed very much.” I gulped. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. “Part of this is that you were born this way,” she continued, gently. “But part of it is that these highly developed parts know really well how to get better. You’ve gotten very good at getting them higher up. But these other parts, well, you don’t really know how to do that — it’s a little bit clumsy and new and awkward. So you choose to put your energy into the pencils that are really high, because it’s easy to see progress that way.” I nodded.

“But these really high pencils, what’s going to happen if they get much higher? They might fall out. There’s nothing to hold them in. They’re not supported by anything around them. So they’re mad at these other ones. They look down from their mighty height at the low pencils, hunkered down there, and they resent them for not being higher, for limiting them. They are scornful and angry.” Yikes. “And that doesn’t make the low parts feel very good about trying to develop.” Ugh. “You need all these parts. There are things the low pencils can do that the tall pencils just aren’t equipped to do. They need each other. And the only way these low pencils are going to grow is if you give them some attention and some energy, and if you encourage them, even if they’re clumsy and awkward at first. Your highly developed parts can’t be mean to these other parts.”

Her mentor rocks… and now I want the readers of my blog, myself included, to go out and work on those short pencils…and do something we’re not good at, and try to strengthen our weakpoints.

Everyone knows that the Motion Picture Association of America is very much against unauthorized copying of movies. Then why is the MPAA admitting that it copied a movie, when it was specifically told not to by the copyright owner.

The movie in question is Kirby Dick’s This Film Is Not Yet Rated. According to the story on Los Angeles Times, Dick specifically requested via e-mail that the MPAA not make copies of the movie. In spite of the very clear wishes of the copyright owner, the MPAA goes ahead and makes additional copies for its internal use anyways.

Do you see something seriously wrong with this situation. Here is an excerpt quoted from the MPAA’s website page on Anti-Piracy.

Manufacturing, selling, distributing or making copies of motion pictures without the consent of the copyright owner is illegal…

Movie pirates are thieves, plain and simple. Piracy is the unauthorized taking, copying or use of copyrighted materials without permission. It is no different from stealing another person’s shoes or stereo, except sometimes it can be a lot more damaging. Piracy is committed in many ways, including Internet piracy, copying and distribution of discs, broadcasts, and even public performances…

…The movie industry has and is taking a firm stance against Internet thieves who steal millions of dollars in copyrighted material with complete disregard for the law.

To rephrase: Piracy is the unauthorized copying of copyrighted materials without permission. Making copies without the consent of the copyright owner is illegal, and no different from stealing another person’s shoes or stereo, except in that it may be more damaging.

But, according to MPAA’s Kori Bernards, the MPAA previously has made copies of other movies submitted for ratings. The MPAA seems to feel that there is nothing wrong with doing exactly that.

From the MPAA’s actions, I guess it is okay to copy a movie, and only use it internally. Does that mean it is okay for me to copy a movie and use it internally, as long as I’m not going to distribute it? If I’m not making money off of the copy I make, and only make a limited number of copies, is that legal?

Last time I checked, the laws apply to everybody, even the MPAA and their staff.

Shouldn’t the MPAA be setting a better example if they really wanted to cut down on the rampant movie piracy.