One of the first "grown-up" books I read as a kid was Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess of Mars. Wonderful stuff for an 11-year-old boy. It's been said that Princess is a root tale of SF, and has influenced both scientists and writers at an early age. A true "Sense of Wonder" book from 1910.
Now comes word that Kerry Conran (writer/director of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) has signed to direct the film version of Mars. Way cool. Of course, like Jackson and LOTR, he'd better do it right....
The Inquirer techie-rumour site has this post about spam being targeted as a national security threat. The obvious indirect threat (that spam overwhelms the eavesdroppers) is a prime consideration, it seems. But I think they miss a cleverer use: steganography.
One could use a standard spam format -- say a Nigerian letter -- with apparently random words attached. Most of the time the words ARE random, but on Der Tag the go order (e.g. "frumious bandersnatch") is embedded into them. Send these out to the typical jillion recipients, including your agents. The agents set their spam filters to trap the go order. This totally defeats any possible Echelon system, the recipients are not identifiable, and the sender looks like just another spammer.
So, let's treat this as the threat it is. Open up a new Guantanamo, say in the Antarctic, and start chucking spammers into it. Just another side benefit of the War on Terror.
The problem with regulating speech is that, like the Internet, it routes around your barriers. ABC reports that Bush is asking McCain to help stop so-called "527" groups from running ads in the campaign, and if that doesn't work, to legislate further restrictions on political speech.
"We want to pursue court action," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to New Mexico. "The president said if the court action doesn't work, that he would be willing to pursue legislative action with Sen. McCain on that."Of course, this will never end until political speech from non-approved sources is outlawed entirely.
Via Joanne Jacobs comes this column regarding reasoned discourse as practiced at Rutgers University. As Joanne states, it's hard to summarize, other than I'd hate to be one of this guy's students.
Kerry: Mr. President, when you were informed of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11, you sat and did nothing for almost seven minutes, listening to a children's book being read. Why didn't you get up immediately and take action?
Bush: Senator, when I heard of the second plane, it was clear to me that the country was at war. It was also clear to me that, if the attack got much worse, that I might be called upon to use nucular weapons in a short period of time. That possibility gives a man pause ... or at least it should. I can't think of a better place to consider such awful possibilities than in a roomful of children.
<paranoia>
I just can't help thinking that Muqtada al-Sadr's last act will be to blow up the Iman Ali shrine, with the Americans left holding the bag. Iran, which has backed al-Sadr with millions of dollars, will then use this as a pre-planned causus belli to send tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Revolutionary Guard types into Iraq. Coupled with this would be an Iranian-engineered Shi'ite uprising in the Iraqi south. I really doubt that we are prepared for that, just like we weren't prepared in Korea. Iran's goal, of course, would be a nuclear-armed Iran-Iraq.
</paranoia>
John Kerry has no problem with moveon.org-style ads that portray Bush as Hitler. He lauds Michael Moore's film that portrays American troops as racist jackbooted thugs. He asserts that these are independent groups that he has no control over. Yet Kerry has no problem hiring staff from moveon.org, and seems to be willing to let Moore energize the Democrat base.
But let some veterans speak up about their distrust of Senator Kerry, let hem tell about their feelings of betrayal, let them accuse the would-be commander-in-chief of slander and disloyalty -- in short, let them "speak truth to power" -- and Senator Kerry acts. Not content to simply whine about the nasty things being said, Senator Kerry sues to make them stop.
So far, Kerry has sued at the FEC to ban the ads, and his supporters have demanded that booksellers blacklist the critical "Unfit for Comamnd" book. Some have gone so far as to deface bookseller's websites. And this guy lectures Bush on 1st Amendment rights!
Kerry bases his charges on an outrageous New York Times hit piece on the Swiftboat vets who oppose him. The piece claims, through a convoluted web of inuendo and conspiratorial fantasy, that Bush is secretly controlling and funding the vets:
Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.Strange charges from someone who has somehow managed to arrange for "independent 527 groups" like moveon.org to take up the advertising slack for him over the next few weeks.
The Democrats have a strategy for dealing with Ralph Nader. Use lawyers to muzzle him, to keep him off ballots, and to chew up his money with baseless and repeated legal roadblocks until the election is over.
Ralph Nader's efforts to get his name on ballots in important swing states as an independent candidate for president are becoming mired in legal challenges and charges of fraud by Democrats who have mounted an extensive campaign to keep him from becoming a factor in this year's election.Now, it seems to me that even Jimmy Carter would scream if someone in, say, Mexico, did this to a minor party. Shouldn't the USA have cleaner elections than Mexico? What exactly are we telling the dictators of the world? That it's OK to use one's money and political power to keep upstarts off the ballot? I despise Ralph Nader, but I despise these electoral hoodlums more.
Several recent polls show that Nader could draw at least 2 or 3 percent of the vote in more than a dozen states where the race now appears close enough for him to alter the outcome, most likely to the detriment of Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, and in favor of President George W. Bush.
With reports that Republicans are bankrolling and gathering signatures for Nader in at least 10 states, local Democratic parties across the country, encouraged by an umbrella group called United Progressives for Victory, have initiated a series of efforts to stop him state by state. So far, with 77 days until the election, Nader seems almost assured of getting on the ballot in 11 states. He has filed petitions in more than 20 others and is awaiting rulings on their validity. He has yet to file in 18 states.
But he is entangled in an assortment of lawsuits, including ones in states that may be the most contested in November. He is in court in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona, and faces potential suits in Oregon, Iowa, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Nevada.
He is also in court in states like Texas (for Bush) and Illinois (for Kerry) that are not expected to be battlegrounds. But the legal challenges there are diverting his time and resources.
Germany, it seems, has declared war against men. Or at least those few recalcitrant cavemen who insist on urinating while standing. According to this article, such reprobates can even be fined:
German men are being shamed into urinating while sitting down by a gadget which is saving millions of women from cleaning up in the bathroom after them.Somehow, I think this will be counterproductive. I also wonder how they assess fines. Thank God for the USA and the Right to Privacy.
The WC ghost, a £6 voice-alarm, reprimands men for standing at the lavatory pan. It is triggered when the seat is lifted. The battery-operated devices are attached to the seats and deliver stern warnings to those who attempt to stand and urinate (known as "Stehpinkeln").
"Hey, stand-peeing is not allowed here and will be punished with fines, so if you don't want any trouble, you'd best sit down," one of the devices orders in a voice impersonating the German leader, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Another has a voice similar to that of his predecessor, Helmut Kohl.
A Recovering Democrat writes ABC's "The Note" to contradict their assertion that no Gore voter could conceivably vote for Bush this time.
I disagree with the Republican party on some key issues: school choice and capital punishment, for instance. But I can no longer throw in my lot with a party that venerates Michael Moore. I can no longer throw my lot in with a party that thinks the war on terrorism is just a metaphor, like Johnson's war on poverty or Reagan's war on drugs. I can no longer throw my lot in with a party that thinks that the insane ramblings of a Jim McDermott constitute rational public discourse, or that the breathless appeals to international mediators of an Eddie Bernice Johnson are anything other than a national embarrassment.As they say, read the whole thing. More at VodkaPundit
A psychology professor from Colorado: "I've never voted for a Republican in my life before now (2 Clintons, 1 Gore, and PA Gov. Ed Rendell). But frankly, I think that nobody can truly say what Kerry believes, and that's disturbing to me. His DNC speech sealed my vote against him, with the aforementioned 'retaliation' and the fact that he's running on 30 year old accomplishments and entirely skipped his long Senate career."
Microsoft has released its long-awaited Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. This major update to Gate's flagship OS has a lot of good things to be said for it. Not only does it close any number of security holes in Windows and gives users more control over what Internet connections are allowed, but it also supports anti-virus hardware incorporated into the new AMD64 processors. Of course, one person's improvement can be another person's problem....
Two things have come up so far.
One is the limitation of 10 connections to any TCP/IP "port" (where "port" is a software term -- each particular Internet protocol is assigned a TCP "port" number. It's not to be confused with some spigot on the back of the computer). For the most part this is not a problem, and it does slow the spread of certain network viruses, like Sasser. But for peer-to-peer connections where files are cobbled together from pieces on 100 different machines (e.g. eMule), this is a major problem -- things crawl to a halt fairly quickly. While all kinds of arguments against P2P are possible, sneaking a kill into a major upgrade where users are encouraged to let Microsoft upgrade their machines automatically, is well, a little underhanded. Then again maybe no one at Microsoft realized the problem, but that's a bit hard to believe, especially when the limit is not alterable by the user even through the registry -- it's hardcoded.
The other problem is a bit less of an issue -- certain programs which attempt to execute code out of data areas, without letting Windows know they are doing so, will no longer work on some hardware. This is a fallout from the advanced virus protection, and can be fixed by patching the offending software, but it will annoy people for a while when their no-doubt-critical application stops working. Programs that require vast speed on repeated operations (e.g. graphics packages) are most likely to do this ("unrolling loops"). Fortunately, this feature can be turned off on a program-by-program basis.
Stansfield Turner, Carter's CIA Director who was asleep during the Iranian revolution and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, thinks that Bush's selection of Porter Goss as the new CIA chief is purely political.
Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, who was CIA chief during the Carter administration and supports Sen. John Kerry's presidential bid, said selection of the Florida Republican marked "a bad day for the CIA." Goss was chosen simply "to help George Bush win votes in Florida," he said.Not to be outdone, Sen Charles Shumer has just one criterion:
"This is the worst appointment that's ever been made to the office of director of central intelligence because that's an office that needs to be kept above partisan politics," Turner said.
"I would find it very hard to support any nominee who did not endorse the 9/11 commission recommendations on intelligence.... The focal point of this nomination is not who he is, but these recommendations."Apparently the fact that Rep. Goss is Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a former Army Intellegence officer and CIA spook aren't the right qualifications qualifications for Kerry and his people. Not all that surprising. I bet Goss can't even speak French.
Clark Smith posts a small rant over at Calblog regarding the administration's misguided invite to "international election observers" (i.e. Jimmy Carter's usual collection of anti-American socialists). While I agree that US elections need no help from countries that have dictators within living memory, I do have a few places they could visit as long as they're here:
Fun article in Slate discussing the widespread vehicle weight limits on CA's residential streets. It seems that, technically, most larger SUVs (BMW X5 and up) exceed the 6,000 pound limits in effect in many cities.
While I don't think enforcing such laws is a good idea, nor politically possible, I do have some issues with CA law with respect to SUVs. I think it can be summed up in one question:
Why is it possible for a 3-time drunk driver to operate an 8,000 pound vehicle, and to do so with only $15,000 of liability insurance?
The FCC voted today, 4-1, to approve 13 proposed methods of recording and sharing digitial video. All but one method (TiVo's) prevented any meaningful distribution of recorded content. TiVO submitted a plan to allow Internet distribution to remote devices that had a TiVo security dongle attached (e.g. laptops in hotel rooms, vacation homes, extended family networks, etc). A network code in the dongle would prevent piracy. The MPAA utterly opposed the TiVo plan, wanting to limit all transfer to physical media, such as write-once DVDs, or at worst, physical home networks.
An earlier LA Times article discussed the MPAA's argument:
The studios and their allies maintain that allowing remote access to programs would undermine free local television broadcasts, the market for syndicated shows and other important elements of their business models. Hollywood also fears that viewers with high-capacity, Internet-connected recorders will have less appetite for DVD box sets of popular TV series.And there it is. The MPAA and the broadcasters do not want to change their business model, even though it's based on a thoroughly dead local-broadcast-footprint assumption. Between satellite, the Internet, and cable conglomerates, the local broadcast and local market approach to television is so obsolete that only law and more law can save it.
Under several of the MPAA-supported approaches, viewers would be able to move recordings to laptop computers and other devices that they could take on the road.
TiVo, which had 1.6 million subscribers at the end of April, wants to give viewers even more flexibility: They could transfer shows from their recorder at home to any Internet-connected computer equipped with a special TiVo security device. Each owner would be entitled to transfer shows to as many as nine other recorders and specially equipped computers.
TiVo has taken elaborate steps to prevent programs from being intercepted, duplicated or forwarded. Still, the MPAA, the National Assn. of Broadcasters, the National Football League and Major League Baseball oppose the technology, in part because TiVo owners could send their security devices and recordings to anyone in the world.
"We think that TiVo does permit indiscriminate redistribution, albeit to a very limited number of people," said Fritz Attaway, an MPAA lobbyist. "When you multiply that by 100,000 or 1 million or 10 million TiVo owners, what does that do to the business model of local broadcasters?"
It's looking more and more like John Kerry is banking on a major terrorist attack inside the US to boost his candidacy. This piece in the Boston Globe is typical of the positioning Kerry is doing on the subject:
John F. Kerry said yesterday President Bush is "encouraging the recruitment of terrorists" with a response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack that has alienated moderate Muslims and left the United States without sufficient defenses, a charge the president branded "ridiculous" and said reflected "a misunderstanding of the war on terror."By this reasoning, President Clinton's response to al Qaeda attacks in the 90's was the reason for 9/11. Someone should ask Kerry if that's the kind of thing he means.
"They'll like us when we win."