An insight has just struck me, so please allow me the hubris of of naming the following Grant’s Law:

No matter how much bandwidth is devoted to delivering new information, it will always be limited by what the receiving mind is willing to accept which challenges prior beliefs.

Technorati Tags: commentary, opinion

This whole “Able Danger” thing seems to be wheels within wheels, and I am not connected enough to untangle the satire, nor the disinformation, from the reality.

There is a recent post at Baldilocks, the author whom is someone I trust to sort the propaganda from the BS when it comes to matters concerning the military, that if I read it at face value, seems to indicate that there is at the least something unusual going on.

I cannot believe that anyone in any capacity in the government of the United States honestly had a reasonable idea of the plans for the attacks on September 11, 2001, and I am compelled to believe that as is the case I have observed all too often in far, far too many situations, if information was available, it was lost in the cluster-fuck that any large organization makes of vital data.

Why do you think the term “cluster-fuck” was invented?

The question remains, however: Where do we go from here?

I stand by my analysis that we as a people and a nation have over-reacted to the attacks on September 11, 2001. The threat represented to the United States by the Wahabist-based terrorist organizations is far, far less than that posed by the Soviet Union not all that long ago, a menace which was truly existential, or the challenge that is soon to be presented by China, which will consist of both an existential, military threat along with an economic challenge that the former Soviet Union would never have been able to mount.

We will not be able to spend China to death as we did the Russian-based Soviet Union.

Again, I repeat, we need to keep our eyes on the real threat to our long term pre-eminence and even, dare I say it, survival.

The math, while horrifying, leads to only one conclusion.

Do the math yourself, after your own research.

Technorati Tags: Able Danger, China, commentary, terrorism, War on Terror

How does one quote sufficiently from a post to convey the idea therein, encouraging people to go “read the whole thing” as the blog-cliche goes, while not over-quoting to avoid either ruining the impact of the recommended post or discouraging readers to click on the link and take the time to read?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but the long quote below is intended to encourage you to read the entire post I recommend.

At Because We Have Thumbs, Sarah the Penguin writes:

We have people evacuated from New Orleans in the homes and churches of over half of the states in the union. From all of the news reports, blogs and first hand stories from people who work with evacuees everyday, there is simply no evidence to support these claims of disgusting behavior on such a large scale.

…But it triggered something in my mind.

We all know that this type of behavior exists within the low income communities.

But it is even more pervasive in the highest class in America.

“Trust Fund Babies� and “Welfare Crack Heads� share the same DNA.

Paris Hilton behaves more like the people described in these e-mails than the people who sleep on the cots in our shelters tonight.

I’m not defending the behavior, I’m just pointing out that it’s not limited to those who depend on welfare and charity and it has absolutely nothing to do with race, class or culture.

How can you not be disgusted at those who will blame the poor their own poverty and neglect to scold those who squander the wealth they did not earn? Bigotry is rampant in our society but it has seeped into the cracks and no longer sits openly on the surface.

When someone expresses concern for those who live in poverty, they are automatically branded as a “liberal�, which means they must also be against the war in Iraq and therefore they are a traitor and must be rebuked before they can spout any more lies.

The same is true for anyone who suggests that increasing taxes to pay for more welfare programs is bad for the economy is tagged as a “greedy republican� and must be shouted down in public for their crimes.

As is noted in the category for this post, I recommend reading this post, and as always I recommend thinking before reacting with what your knee-jerk inclines you to do.

Technorati Tags: humanity, hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, poverty, human nature, recommended reading

Even though I’m sure to the average viewer the site I discovered today, Encyclopedia Astronautica, is completely innocuous, for me it has a tinge of sadness and regret, that of opportunities foregone and the spirit of hope and discovery lost.

Technorati Tags: recommended reading, science, science & technology, science and technology, technology

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
   -W. Somerset Maugham

Technorati Tags: quotes

I have always been suspicious of the agenda of the Republican Party, regardless of their proclaimed agenda of representing “conservative values”.

The problem I have had is that the “conservative values” that they claim to represent have not been in alignment with the pro-business policies they have promoted when in office.

There is a difference between being “libertarian” and “capitalist” versus “pro-business”. The first (two) consist of a belief in the free market while also striving to preserve the liberties and rights of individuals over that of non-persons such as corporations, the second is the promotion of business even if it is at the expense of the liberties and rights of the individual.

In other words, “pro-business” is NOT truly conservative by the definition I thought was prevalent in the United States.

I believed “conservative” stood for small government, less spending by the federal government, less interference by the federal government in local affairs (the opposite of the No Child Left Behind Act), and more individual freedoms (the opposite of the USA PATRIOT Act, advocated for both renewal and expansion by the current, nominally Republican administration).

Hence my question: Who exactly does the GOP represent?

It certainly doesn’t seem to be the values of the conservatives as I understand them.

In many ways, I am a nominal “conservative”.

I support the right to keep and bear arms (within certain limits, I do feel that some limitations are necessary, such as registration of weapons along the lines of bazookas and others that go far beyond the capabilities understood by the founders), I believe that government handouts are NOT the best way to alleviate poverty, but I also believe that there is an obligation to help those whom have not been taught good methodologies for making personal decisions (I just don’t have a universal prescription on how to help them), and I do believe that ultimately, with rights come grave responsibilities that we neglect at our peril, as we are learning now.

Is my view of “conservative” in the United States so out of whack?

If not, who does the GOP represent?

Technorati Tags: commentary, opinion, politics

…from the eternal necessity of what John of Argghhh! refers to in his post “Been here, done this - but only in peacetime.”

Technorati Tags: recommended reading

…can be found in the inaugural Weblog Calvinball Play of the Week award at my “immoderate” weblog Radio Saigon.

Technorati Tags: Calvinball Play of the Week, opinion, right-wing, right wing, weblogs, right-wing weblogs, right wing weblogs

…is almost immediately ruined in the very next post by a description at Power Line of Texas State Prosecutor Ronnie Earle who gained the indictment for conspiracy against Senator Tom DeLay as “corrupt” while giving no supporting evidence whatsoever for the negative description of Prosecutor.

As a matter of fact, Prosecutor Earle is known for his pursuit of Democrats with equal vigor as Republicans. To wit (from the Los Angeles Times):

Two decades later, Earle is going after another powerful Texas politician, and the defense is no different. When he indicted U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Wednesday, the Texas Republican lashed out at Earle, calling him an “unabashed partisan zealot.”

Just one hitch: Earle may be a Democrat, but, he said, so were 12 of the 15 politicians he has indicted over the years, including Mattox. Even Mattox said Wednesday that Earle long had targeted people on both sides of the political aisle, roiling the halls of power in Austin — and now Washington — at every turn.

“He had a very negative impact on my life,” Mattox said. But in DeLay’s case, he added, “I think Earle is carrying out his responsibility.”

However, as soon Prosecutor Earle indicts a sacred cow of the right-wing, he is suddenly partisan and “corrupt” to use the word at Power Line.

Calvinball at its finest.

Technorati Tags: commentary, weblogs, right-wing weblogs, right wing weblogs, right-wing, right wing, politics, news, right-wing politics, right wing politics

Watch out, the apocalypse may be coming.

I actually agree with the substance (if not the details) of a post at Power Line.

If Senator Bill Frist was stupid enough to ask his blind trust to sell a stock based upon inside information, then he should be convicted and thrown out of office. Someone that stupid should NOT be in the Senate or any other position with a smidgen of responsibility.

However, even in the wake of the revelation of his idiocy with his “long distance diagnosis by video” of Terry Schiavo when the autopsy report showed him to be completely wrong, it is far too easy to invent a case of “insider trading” because of the random nature of the stock market. In addition, the explanation of the rationale behind the stock trade is not only plausible, but it shows a politician of his stripe striving to avoid even the appearance of conflict-of-interest, which is vital to anyone planning to run for President, as he so obviously is working towards.

If the Democrats choose to pursue this when there are so many clear, legitimate avenues of attack (let’s take the ballooning budget and the comment by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay that “there is no fat to cut” in the budget after the passage of the widely acknowledged pork-laden Highway Bill), then they show that collectively they are bigger idiots than Senator Frist was in the Schiavo matter.

Technorati Tags: commentary, politics, Senator Frist, Senator Bill Frist, Bill Frist

A while back, I wrote a couple of posts on carbon and carbon nanotubes. New developments associated with this intriguing molecule continue. I was made aware of one of the recently discovered uses of carbon nanotubes in the technical conference I attended a few weeks ago here in Grenoble.

This application of carbon was in association with what are termed bioreporters, which are living sensors such as bacteria that have been genetically modified to glow when exposed to certain chemicals (note - link opens to a PDF file). The glow is detected by an integrated circuit which then reports the detection of the chemical. For example, one of the key problems of life support in space travel is related not to removing carbon dioxide from the air and adding oxygen, it is the avoidance of buildup of undesirable or even harmful gases, such as certain organic compounds. While detection of these compounds using a completely electronic/micromachined system is possible, living organisms can be both much more compact and more sensitive with the bonus of being cheap to make.

One of the key problems in designing a system that contains both bioreporter organism and the integrated circuit is how to contain the bioreporter while providing it access to interact with the environment it is intended to monitor. Mentioned almost in passing at the technical presentation on this topic was that they discovered the bacteria they were using tended to stick to carbon nanotubes. Since it is well understood how to make carbon nanotubes that are anchored to a silicon surface, the adhesion of the bacteria to the carbon nanotubes may allow a relatively simple solution to the containment problem.

Carbon nanotubes also may be used to create strong but light materials such as cables and ribbons. A key test was recently completed aimed at using a carbon nanotube ribbon as part of a “space elevator”, which would allow orbital access by merely riding an elevator that climbs up a ribbon hanging down from a station in geosynchronous orbit. This could potentially reduce the cost of reaching orbit to that approaching conventional air travel today.

Think of that!

Not bad for an element that is also used as pencil lead.

Technorati Tags: geek cool, science, technology, science & technology, science and technology

…on politics:

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
   -Lord Acton

…and applicable to blogging:

There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you’re busy interrupting.
   -Mark Twain

Technorati Tags: quotes, politics, blogging, Mark Twain

I lived in Texas when the whole re-redistricting fiasco played out. There was definitely something not quite kosher going on, but my assumption at the time was more of an “abuse the process” action, not something that was arguably in violation of the letter of the law (in this case, campaign finance law in Texas).

Representative Tom DeLay did take a direct role in the re-redistricting imbroglio, attempting to get federal agencies involved in tracking down the Democrats from the Texas state legislature who had fled the state to prevent a quorum from being achieved and the re-redistricting from being passed.

Now, it appears that a grand jury has found enough evidence for an indictment against Representative DeLay for conspiracy to violate the campaign finance law.

While it is entirely possible that this case is being pursued so energetically because the prosecutor in Travis County involved is a Democrat, with all the ethics reprimands and other shady actions swirling around Representative DeLay the old saw “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” comes to mind.

Where there is power, it seems we are condemned to also have abuse of power.

UPDATE: The Commissar at The Poliburo Diktat writes that he wants to learn more before he is convinced of any valitidy to the accusations of “partisan witch-hunt” that are being flung about by many on the right-wing.

Technorati Tags: commentary, news, DeLay, Tom DeLay

As always, click on the thumbnail to get a larger image.

Here is another angle of the church where the sunlight was shining through the stained glass windows:

In older times (pre-indoor plumbing), the small courtyards between the buildings had wells that the inhabitants used for their water. I had a photo showing one of the courtyards in the last post of photos. Here is one of the remaining wells, but it is filled in now:

In the last post of photos, I also mentioned the poetically named escalier escargot, or “snail stairs”. I had a photo of the exterior of one of these staircases. Here is a photo I took through a window that shows the spiral staircase from below:

Lyon was a major regional capitol in the Roman Empire, and there are ruins of two ampitheaters which have been refurbished and are used for concerts. This is from the upper levels, where it has not been refurbished:

Here is another photo of the two churches that I posted the other day. In this photo, I was trying to get the silhouette of the cross that was at the peak of one of the towers on the lower church against the lighted upper church. The composition isn’t as successful as I had hoped, perhaps after some cropping (which I’ll do later):

I have more photos that I may post once I’ve finished cleaning them up.

Technorati Tags: France, letters from Europe, Lyon, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Lyon

Operation Eden is a photoblog containing images from the area devastated by Katrina.

The images are remarkable.

What luck for rulers that men do not think.
   -Adolf Hitler

To read the excuses I have seen regarding policing comments on weblogs, it is positively amazing the double standards being applied.

Let’s see. If I own a house, I am expected to throw away any trash that may blow into my yard, even if I didn’t throw it there, because I am expected to “keep the neighborhood clean”.

However, if I am the proprietor of a weblog, if someone posts a comment patently offensive, I can write it off as an “inside joke” and not worry about “keeping the neighborhood clean” if the comment is in accord with the political leaning of the weblog, even if by any reasonable standard the comment is offensive.

Fascinating.

The right-wing and the left-wing are both equal in their hypocrisy.

Explain to me again why the human race is worth a damn?

I’m on the verge of giving up hope… I need a reason to believe what anyone does is worthwhile.

Right-wing, left-wing, they are all the same.

Not worth even the electrons used to display the text, much less the glucose molecules needed to read it.

Technorati Tags: left wing weblogs, left-wing, left-wing politics, left-wing weblogs, politics, right wing, right wing weblogs, right-wing, right-wing politics, right-wing weblogs, weblogs

The nature of the comments I have received (and chosen not to approve) with respect to what I felt was a relatively innocuous post regarding the unacceptability of calling someone “GAY PORN COCK OF LIES!” on a right-wing weblog has shown that the right-wing is just as despicable as the left-wing.

OK, boys and girls, you tell me, how is the left-wing so much worse?

Perhaps you should clean your own house first before you start calling the left wing out for being so idiotic?

Technorati Tags: right wing weblogs, right-wing weblogs, weblogs

jaded - adj. Worn out; wearied

hope - v. To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment

I freely admit I am jaded, tired, worn out and wearied after the years of striving against the idiocy, the refusal to see the obvious that lies outside the comfortable, canalized ways of thought.

I am not speaking merely of politics on the national scale, but also of the petty politics within corporations, the insignificant battles between individuals that accomplish nothing more than feeding individual egos, for in the end it is all the same, egos striving for their own enhancement, whether on a small scale or large, whether within a company or on a national stage.

Of the seven deadly sins, vanity (aka PRIDE) is that which inflicts the most damage upon others.

In the last twenty years, I have become jaded to an extent that the idealist I was twenty years ago would not recognize.

Yet, I still choose hope.

In the past weeks, I have been struggling with something I regard as fundamental.

I believe that societies should police themselves, they should not appeal to some governmental agency to make things “fair”.

Yet, I also do not believe in “blogwars”, especially after having participated in a few, much to my regret in retrospect.

So, how does one point out bad behavior without getting involved in a blogwar?

I am still struggling with this question.

The case in point:

A relatively recent post at Protein Wisdom by Jeff Goldstein regarding a post by Joe Gandelman at his own weblog, The Moderate Voice (full disclosure, I am one of the people allowed to post at The Moderate Voice). The post by Goldstein includes:

I have no doubt that, were my site to be placed into one of Mr Gandelman’s categories, I’d be lumped in with the “Good Jobbers�—those who see a conspiracy of media perfidy which is responsible for laying blame at the door of the feds. But such is incidental, ultimately, to whether or not the feds did in fact do a good job by the standards of federal response—and that, as I’ve taken great pains to point out over the last week or so—has hardly been determined either way, and has been the focus of many of my posts.

Consequently, I took the opportunity to ask Joe, in his comments, why there is no category available to those of us who really do just want the truth - those who are unwilling to conclude until all the facts are in—and so are unwilling to “knowingly� impute to FEMA failures (beyond typical bureaucratic snafus) until such time as substantial federal response failures are actually proven?

And the reason is clear: Mr Gandelman has made up his mind—and being independent of mind and non-partisan of heart commits one, in his assessment, to divvying out blame in equal shares like one distributes cubes of birthday cake—which means that his meta-analysis is just as flawed as the various analyses he aims to summarize.

For my part, I simply will not place blame until I’m convinced blame has been earned. Which is not to say that I haven’t already drawn several conclusions—I have; but rather to note that, from my perspective at least, the investigation in ongoing. And that scapegoating because you think yourself “fair� and like to affirm your moderate, independent bona fides is just as wrong as scapegoating because you are a Machiavellian hyperpartisan looking to use a pre-figured narrative to score political points against your ideological enemies.

As far as this goes, it is a reasonable disagreement with what Joe Gandelman has posted on his weblog. However, the comments to the post at Protein Wisdom venture into the realm of what any reasonable person would call unacceptable. To wit (copied directly from the comments of the post at Protein Wisdom):

Is that Joe “GAY PORN COCK OF LIES!� Gandelman?

Fuck him. Not literally, of course.

Unless you like that kind of thing, that is. Wouldn’t want to be non-inclusive.

Posted by mojo | permalink

on 09/13 at 12:22 PM

Don’t you have to be a moderate to fuck a moderate? Isn’t there some type of law that says you can’t have sex with someone of another political pursuasion?

Unless it is some type of metaphorical ass fucking.

tw:except, Except when?

Posted by rls | permalink

on 09/13 at 01:03 PM

(Note that “Mojo” didn’t bother leaving a valid email address…)

I need someone to explain to me exactly how either of these comments are productive in any sense of the word.

I originally had intended to post this under the title of “Cleaning your own house first”, directed at those on the right-wing who take joy in pointing out the excesses of the idiotic left on the Daily Kos or the Democratic Underground, but ultimately I do not want to dilute the bad behavior by making it partisan.

This type of behavior is wrong, no matter towards whom it is directed.

In the past, I have written posts critical of those whom I disagreed with; however, when the comments became a “bash-fest”, long before they reached the depths of the comments in Protein Wisdom towards Joe Gandelman, I stopped them in their tracks with a strong statement that although I disagreed with what was said by the blogger referenced I did NOT intend my post to become a venue to personally insult the blogger with whom I disagreed.

Jeff Goldstein disagreed with what Joe Gandelman wrote. That in itself is fine. However, Jeff Goldstein provided a forum for freely insulting the person of Joe Gandelman and did NOT choose to intervene when the commenters to his weblog stepped out of line.

For that, Jeff Goldstein should be noted as himself stepping out of line.

So here I sit, trying to figure out how to point this out without starting a blogwar, yet not waiting so long that it is irrelevant.

I fear that I have hesitated too long.

The right-wing likes to talk about “personal responsibility”.

Show me that choosing hope is not idiotic.

Here is an opportunity to step up to the plate and show that personal responsibility means something.

If you are unwilling to do so, then don’t post on your weblogs how the “lefties” are so evil for their asinine behavior.

—

UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein has posted his view in the comments to this post, so please read them.

Technorati Tags: commentary, opinion, some thoughts, weblogs

As I sit here, gathering information on my two flat panel displays which are being driven by a video card that has more memory and processing power than my last three computers I bought before 2003 combined (and 200 times more memory than my first PC), listening to music stored digitally in a format that I dreamed of back in 1984 when I had my first CD player and wished for a solid-state music player that would never skip and thought that would never be possible, writing this on a computer that operates with a 32 bit CPU operating at over 2.5GHz clock speed (nowadays an old processor…), I think back not only to when I started in the semiconductor industry over 14 years ago, but also to the first time I encountered integrated circuit technology, around 30 years ago:

The game “Pong”.

For whatever reason (possibly my father being a “techno-geek” even before the term had been invented), my parents were early adopters of almost all new technology. This meant that we had the original “Pong” game.

Now, it’s “retro”.

Sigh…

I always looked forward to the future of more powerful computers, enabling us to make even more advancements, and I have helped make some of those advancements possible in my 14 year career in semiconductor integrated circuit technology R&D.

Somehow, though, having the games I played as a child now labeled “retro” is saddening.

We all age, but aging seems all the faster recently.

Yet somehow, the simplicity of the game of “Pong” is still alluring, even to those jaded by photo-realistic graphics and hyper-fast action.

There are some fundamentals to human nature that are not removed or reduced by technology.

This may be our saving grace.

Technorati Tags: science & technology, technology, personal, commentary