This story is kind of upsetting.

Like hundreds of young men joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism.

Known as "the atheist guy," Hall has been called immoral, a devil worshipper and -- just as severe to some soldiers -- gay, none of which, he says, is true. Hall even drove fellow soldiers to church in Iraq and paused while they prayed before meals.

 "I was ashamed to say that I was an atheist," Hall said.

"Religion brings comfort to a lot of people," he said. "Personally, I don't want it or need it. But I'm not going to get down on anybody else for it."

I dunno...it's just kind of unnerving that in this day and age, a person should feel ashamed to be known as an atheist (especially one that is respectful of others' right to believe).  In fact, recent polls have shown that atheists are the most distrusted group in America, even below Muslims:

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

It just doesn't make sense.

High property taxes?  Check.  Terrible congestion?  Check.  Exit 13?  Check (for those not in the know, exit 13 on the NJ Turnpike is the location of an all encompassing foul odor from the refineries located in the area).  Overabundance of guidos?  Check.

For all the reasons that NJ sucks, there are a few bright spots like the grease trucks at Rutgers and an interesting little ruling by the NJ Supreme Court:

The justices say that IP addresses are sufficiently anonymous to justify privacy protection because, theoretically, only the Internet service provider can identify who is associated with a specific IP address.

"Internet users today enjoy relatively complete IP address anonymity when surfing the Web. Given the current state of technology, the dynamic, temporarily assigned, numerical IP address cannot be matched to an individual user without the help of an ISP. Therefore, we accept as reasonable the expectation that one's identity will not be discovered through a string of numbers left behind on a website"

Time has an interesting article summarizing a study done at Perdue University on animals and how their bodies responded to artificial sweeteners.  More specifically, how their metabolism responded.  The results are a bit surprising:

When an animal eats a saccharin-flavored food with no calories, however — disrupting the sweetness and calorie link — the animal tends to eat more and gain more weight, the new study shows. The study was even able to document at the physiological level that animals given artificial sweeteners responded differently to their food than those eating high-calorie sweetened foods. The sugar-fed rats, for example, showed the expected uptick in core body temperature at mealtime, corresponding to their anticipation of a bolus of calories that they would need to start burning off — a sort of metabolic revving of the energy engines. The saccharin-fed animals, on the other hand, showed no such rise in temperature. "The animals that had the artificial sweetener appear to have a different anticipatory response," says Susan Swithers, a professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University and a co-author of the study. "They don't anticipate as many calories arriving." The net result is a more sluggish metabolism that stores, rather than burns, incoming excess calories.

So does that mean you should ditch the artificial sweeteners and welcome sugar back into your life? Not exactly. Excess sugar in the diet can lead to diabetes and heart disease, even independent of its effect on weight. But it's worth remembering that when it comes to counting calories, it's not just the ones you eat that you have to worry about. The calories you give up matter too, and they may very well reappear in that extra helping of pasta or dessert that your body demands. Your body may actually be keeping better count than you are.

My knowledge of physics isn't that great (most of it has been purged since completing my college physics courses ), but one thing that I do know is that perpetual motion, according to Newtonian physics, is thought to be impossible in the real world.  Thane Heins seems to have come up with a contradiction to Newtonian physics and the first law of thermodynamics :

In an interview with the Toronto Star, [Dr. Riadh] Habash was cautious but matter-of-fact with what he's seen so far. "It accelerates, but when it comes to an explanation, there is no backing theory for it. That's why we're consulting MIT. But at this time we can't support any claim."

It's now Jan. 28 – D Day. Heins has modified his test so the effects observed are difficult to deny. He holds a permanent magnet a few centimetres away from the driveshaft of an electric motor, and the magnetic field it creates causes the motor to accelerate. It went well.

Contacted by phone a few hours after the test, Zahn is genuinely stumped – and surprised. He said the magnet shouldn't cause acceleration. "It's an unusual phenomena I wouldn't have predicted in advance. But I saw it. It's real. Now I'm just trying to figure it out."

I'm just as skeptical as the next guy, but I'm going to keep my eye on this and see what comes of it.  It's also a pretty amazing story for Heins if science can legitimize his discovery.

Nothing against the OLPC project, but I like Bill's idea a little bit better.

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates announced a new direction Friday as he pledged $306 million in grants to develop farming in poor countries and leading the charge for for corporate responsibility at a major meeting of business chiefs.

"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," Gates said.

I'm not much of an anthropologist or historian, but it just seems like common sense that in order to help the most impoverished nations, the right way to go about it is to develop sufficient agricultural infrastructure and supply (and of course, cheap, renewable sources of energy (solar, wind) and clean drinking water).

As much love as Steve Jobs gets from the hipster crowd, I think Bill deserves some dap as well for his truly humanistic altruism.  If anyone can make some true headway in solving some of the most difficult humanitarian problems in the world, it's Bill Gates.

I like how Paul sticks by his principles and doesn't take the bait. Excellent response.

Wow...the "joke" by McCain in that last video just came of as completely ignorant. Once again, Paul lays the smack down on the rest of the field. I'm not clear on the rest of Paul's views, but clearly, the man is the only honorable, principled, and honest guy in the whole Republican field.

If he doesn't win the nomination, we'll know where the Republicans stand in terms of their priorities.  And once again, these videos remind me why I can't watch Fox News.  The response that McCain gave in that third video definitely would not have made it across his lips in say a debate on NBC since he clearly would have come across as a racist and completely ignorant.  But it says something about the audience of Fox News that he felt that everyone would get a good chuckle out of it and decided to give that as a response.

On a recent late spring trip, my wife and I visited Hyannis, Massachusetts.  During some free time, we had a chance to walk down to the beach and take a stroll.  We were greeted at the beach by a thick mist and an unbelieveable wind blowing off of the ocean.

About a week or so later, I was reading some articles regarding how Edward Kennedy pulled the NIMBY card regarding the erection of a massive array of wind turbines off of the coast of Hyannis as a source of alternative energy.

The benefits for the region seems clear:

Environmentalists say the $770 million wind farm -- enough to power 3 out of every 4 homes in New England's most coveted vacation region -- would be a crucial step toward clean, renewable power, without burning a single barrel of Middle Eastern oil, and at a time when scientists are issuing increasingly urgent warnings about the effects of global warming.

But the opposition from the politicos seems to be avid.

Massachusetts' Republican Gov. Mitt Romney and Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, whose family compound in Hyannis would look out at the wind farm -- have warned that the unsightly turbines would depress property values and damage the local economy, which relies heavily on tourism.

I guess some would consider an array of wind turbines to be "unsightly".  But to me, it is a stunning view of progress and scientific achievement of the highest order; it is a beacon into the future in which we learn to live with nature and not in spite of it.

So the question is, how can we effectively tap the awesome power of wind in a cost effective manner without touching a nerve with the NIMBY crowd?

Enter Shawn Frayne's windbelt concept.  It is an idea so simple in its execution and so elegant in its design, that it's nearly indistinguishable from magic (of course, there's solid science behind it as well).

Frayne’s device, which he calls a Windbelt, is a taut membrane fitted with a pair of magnets that oscillate between metal coils. Prototypes have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph slivers of wind, making his device 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines.

Science: It Works, Bitches!

This time, coming from a Yahoo! exec (with a spine), Ian Rodgers.

If the licensing labels offer their content to Yahoo! put more barriers in front of the users, I'm not interested.  I won't let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. I will tell Yahoo! to give the money they were going to give me to build awesome media applications to Yahoo! Mail or Answers or some other deserving endeavor. I personally don't have any more time to give and can't bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value.

Ian highlights perhaps what is the most compelling force behind the proliferation of MP3s:

History tells us: convenience wins, hubris loses. “Who is going to want a shitty quality LP when these 78s sound so good? Who wants a hissy cassette when they have an awesome quadrophonic system? Who wants digitized music on discs now that we have Dolby on our cassettes? Who wants to listen to compressed audio on their computers?” ANSWER: EVERYONE. Convenience wins, hubris loses.

So, when will the industry finally get it?  Meanwhile, it may just be time to dump iTunes for Amazon's DRM free offerings instead (by the way, I'm in love with Amazon Prime).

Check for additional commentary at TechCrunch.

The most puzzling aspect of this whole MP3 revolution has been why the industry has been slow to adopt and embrace it. 

For one, it reduces the physical limitations of distribution and shelf space.  No trucking of boxes of CDs, no need to hire a bunch of teenagers to stock your store shelves, no worries about running out of stock...it seems like it would be a media company's dream come true. 

On a second point, as countless others have pointed out, CDs inherently contain no copy protection scheme in place.  In addition to this fact, the CD is typically a much higher quality source than most MP3s...why haven't we seen the RIAA crack down on the likes of Sony, Teac, Maxell, and the various resellers and manufacturers of CD-R media? 

A third point to consider is that the media companies are absolutely silly in ignoring the potential marketing data that can be mined.  Embracing digital distribution, with the right agreements and systems in place, allows them to track and profile every paying customer!  Make a deal with Apple, Amazon, Yahoo!, other distributors and consumers: we'll go DRM and lower prices, but you must provide aggregate data about the customers that we can slice and dice to repackage for marketing purposes. 

The irony is that the P2P paradigm that started the MP3 revolution that is driving the music and movie industry nuts is likely to also be the same paradigm that will allow them to thrive in the current world of digital distribution.

I've been in a somewhat heated debate with my once CEO and now VP regarding the effectiveness (or rather, the ineffectiveness) of DRM and how the media companies are really just screwing themselves (whilst also screwing customers) by not adapting and accepting digital as this generation's radio.

I've always held the stance that DRM is a useless encumbrance to legitimate users of the content while providing merely a false sense of security to the copyright holders; those who want the content bad enough will circumvent the DRM somehow.  In the end, regardless of how good the DRM is, the simple fact is that the end product must be output at some point in time.  The content can always be captured as output from some trusted system (though some quality may be sacrificed).

Time and again, we've seen that the application of DRM is a fruitless effort in the cat and mouse game with hackers that the hackers have won every time.  Witness:

• DeCSS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS
• AACS crumbles: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/04/aacs_crack/
• QTFairUse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QTFairUse

In his open letter, Steve Jobs comments on DRM and states:

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

I tend to think that a technology visionary like Jobs "gets it".  He understands that it is quite likely that no perfect DRM system can ever be created but in an effort to use these imperfect DRM systems, the only people that are being punished are legitimate consumers of the media by being locked into proprietary stacks of players, online stores, and digital media.

He also touches upon an oft ignored point: the CD, a digital source, itself does not contain any form of DRM.  It's true that the designers of the format perhaps did not foresee a world digitally connected and able to distribute 650MB worth of data in mere seconds (BitTorrent),  but that does not absolve the fact that they're plugging the crack in the dam while ignoring the gaping hole.

It is my view that the actual number of people who actually rip and distribute music from CDs and DVDs are a very small percentage of all consumers.  Meanwhile, there is a much larger percentage of consumers who get their copies illegally from these sources via peer to peer and file sharing networks.  And yet a larger percentage of people are actual legitimate consumers who plunk down the full price of the CD or DVD in stores and take it home with them.

What the music industry should be concerned about is not that marginal percentage of sources (those who hack the DRM systems or use the resultant software to rip and distribute the content - this group will continue to do so, indefinitely), but the much larger portion of the consumer population that illegally downloads the output of these providers even in the face of the minor threat of legal action.  The question of course is how they can reach this consumer (or at least a large proportion of this consumer).

The secret seems to be offering a "fair deal" to the consumers.  I can still remember the days when CD singles cost $5, 6, 7, even 8 dollars!  Of course, what is "fair" is arbitrary and, as my VP would say, "determined by the market" (what he seems to disregard is that the music industry was guilty of price fixing to artificially inflate the cost of CDs instead of allowing for the market to decide the fair price), but clearly, this price seems absurd!  Of course, then the question is, what is fair?  Is iTunes' $0.99 model, "fair"?  It's difficult to say since "fair" is relative to the consumer.  To some, $25,000 is "fair" for a cell phone while to others, $250 seems absurd for a cell phone (obviously different products, paying for brand, etc.; but the essence is that they are functionally equivalent in damn near every way).  Price is not the only factor: consumers, as Jobs noted, expect that once they've paid for the content, they can reuse it (not redistribute it) in their cars, on their cell phones, on their portable music players, and so on.  In the consumer's eyes, DRM is but a nuissance driving them to find DRM free, illegally distributed versions of the content.

Today's news that's buzzing around the Internet community is the upcoming release of Radiohead's next album.  Most of the buzz centers around the fact that this is the first major artist/group to release their music completely independently...no music labels involved.  Not only that, this is the first mass live experiment in determining "fair" pricing in terms of music and media:

From Time:

There's no label or distribution partner to cut into the band's profits — but then there may not be any profits. Drop In Rainbows' 15 songs into the on-line checkout basket and a question mark pops up where the price would normally be. Click it, and the prompt "It's Up To You" appears. Click again and it refreshes with the words "It's Really Up To You" — and really, it is. It's the first major album whose price is determined by what individual consumers want to pay for it. And it's perfectly acceptable to pay nothing at all.

It will be an interesting experiment indeed; the results of which, if shown to be successful, will shake the music industry to the core as other artists start to adopt the model.  The music industry has been put on notice: adapt or die.

Will Radiohead be successful?  Will they earn a dime?  One thing is for sure, they will gain a new audience of listeners who would otherwise not have been willing to purchase a CD for $16.00, but will surely download and sample the new tracks for free or for a nominal price.  But from this, it's easy to predict that Radiohead will surely increase sales of their previous albums as a new set of listeners discover the group because they've opened their content to the consumer.

It is the same with Internet radio stations, where the absurdity over the proposed rates to be paid by Internet radio stations was just recently put on hold.  In the age of HD radio broadcasts and radio-to-computer devices, what sense did it make to treat Internet radio any differently from traditional FM radio and even satellite radio?  Like traditional broadcast radio, Internet radio serves the same purpose in that it allows consumers to discover artists that would otherwise not have been given a glance (every CD I've purchased in the last 5 years has been a result of hearing the artist or group on an Internet radio station first).  It's simply that I'd rather listen to music from my computer than from my stereo.  To the consumer, the nuances of distribution and control of the media are irrelevant: the consumer just wants to listen to the music and it's really no different than an HD radio broadcast.

The media companies need to adapt and embrace technology.  They need to study how consumers want to use the content.  They need to understand that the old models won't work anymore in a connected world where content is expected to be transferrable with little hassle and reusable by the consumer (just as a CD should play in your car, in your desktop stereo, on your computer, or from a portable CD player (do people still use those?)).

A Republican leader with some balls, some heart, and most importantly, lots of humanity.

Well said, sir, well said:

Mayor Sanders: "With me this afternoon is my wife, Rana.

"I am here this afternoon to announce that I will sign the resolution that the City Council passed yesterday directing the city attorney to file a brief in support of gay marriage [with the California Supreme Court].

"My plan, as has been reported publicly, was to veto that resolution, so I feel like I owe all San Diegans an explanation for this change of heart.

"During the campaign two years ago, I announced that I did not support gay marriage and instead supported civil unions and domestic partnerships.

"I have personally wrestled with that position ever since. My opinion on this issue has evolved significantly -- as I think have the opinions of millions of Americans from all walks of life.

(Sanders with lesbian City Councilmember Toni Atkins)
"In order to be consistent with the position I took during the mayoral election, I intended to veto the council resolution. As late as yesterday afternoon, that was my position.

"The arrival of the resolution -- to sign or veto -- in my office late last night forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do.

"I have decided to lead with my heart -- to do what I think is right -- and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is to sign this resolution.

"For three decades, I have worked to bring enlightenment, justice and equality to all parts of our community.

"As I reflected on the choices that I had before me last night, I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community that they were less important, less worthy and less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage -- than anyone else -- simply because of their sexual orientation.

"A decision to veto this resolution would have been inconsistent with the values I have embraced over the past 30 years.

"I do believe that times have changed. And with changing time, and new life experiences, come different opinions. I think that's natural, and certainly it is true in my case.

"Two years ago, I believed that civil unions were a fair alternative. Those beliefs, in my case, have since changed.

"The concept of a 'separate but equal' institution is not something that I can support.

"I acknowledge that not all members of our community will agree or perhaps even understand my decision today.

"All I can offer them is that I am trying to do what I believe is right.

"I have close family members and friends who are members of the gay and lesbian community. These folks include my daughter Lisa and her partner, as well as members of my personal staff.

"I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved ones -- for each of them to find a mate whom they love deeply and who loves them back; someone with whom they can grow old together and share life's wondrous adventures.

"And I want their relationships to be protected equally under the law. In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships -- their very lives -- were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana. Thank you."

Touching, well thought out, reflective, compassionate, and sincere.

A hand for Jerry Sanders.

This is probably the most sensible an informative bit of commentary on the current market conditions (DOW -387):

I love how 90% of farkers don't understand exactly what the crisis is right now.

It's not the fact that the housing bubble "burst". People aren't jumping out of skyscrapers because their house value went down by 5%.

The vast majority of the problem is that the credit market for certain types of bonds has tightened up, to the point that it's almost not even trading at this point. To those that are newbies, the bond market is roughly 10x the size of the stock market in terms of dollar value. It is huge. Bonds get traded back and forth every day, and billions upon billions of dollars worth.

What happened is that mortgage-backed securities are farked up. During the housing boom, lenders would give mortgages to people, then they would package them up and then sell a whole shiatload of mortgages to things like pension funds, hedge funds, mutual funds, etc. The lenders like this because they reduce their risk, and the funds like it because it's a reliable source of income, at least mortgage-backed securities are. Well, it turns out that the lenders were selling the funds investment grade mortgages, when in fact they were more like junk bonds; the people who got these mortgages not only faked their income, but in reality could only afford these mortgages under the best of conditions. Now that short-term interest rates have spiked up, many people have defaulted on these loans. More importantly however, the price of the mortgage-backed securities drop because their price is in part related to how reliable they are as an investment.

Now, many hedge funds invest in MBSs on margin, which really screws them up, because all of a sudden they owe a huge amount of money on worthless securities. This is why 2 Bearn Sterns hedge funds got screwed over and a 3rd one is in question. It's like owning stock in a gold mining company with a certain reported amount of gold, and then finding out that there really is no gold. The price will plummet, and if you bought that stock on margin, you will get a margin call.

The same thing happened with the French hedge fund that this article is talking about. What is worse, however, is that if the markets aren't trading, you can't tell how much the stock is worth, so the French stopped trading the funds until it can get better clarity as to how much their fund is worth.

The submitter's headline is misleading because the govt isn't injecting $12 billion, it's $12 billion more than they usually inject. They are always buying and selling bonds to create liquidity. This is what they mean by the US or Euro governments injecting funds into the bond market. They are going around buying bonds to create an artifical market because regular traders aren't buying them anymore. They are buying these bonds to create liquidity, so that traders will have confidence they can buy and sell bonds again, and once the market recovers they will turn around and start selling them back to replenish their reserves.

This is the real danger here. This MBS contagion has spread throughout the world because every one around the world has invested in US MBSs. We have no idea how bad this contagion has spread, but if this MBS problem takes down funds around the world, and the credit market really tanks and there is a flight to quality, making things like MBS fall even further, it could literally evaporated trillions dollars of peoples investments around the world.

From poster tstoneman.

Opening up the newspaper this morning, I came across two terrible rulings recently passed down by the Supreme Court.

The first has to do with MSRP.  I'm guessing that the majority of American's who are not filthy rich often go bargain hunting for prices below MSRP in hopes of finding that killer deal.  I'm guessing that if you're like me, you're willing to sacrifice some service at the point of sale for a better price.  This is part of principle of what has driven online sales: for the retailer, they save by not needing to have sales people or point of sale service while for customers, they often get a chance to save a huge amount over retail outlets.

From USA Today (6/29/07):

The 5-4 decision overturned a 96-year-old law that prevented manufacturers from setting minmum retail prices.  The majority wrote that lifting the pricing ban could benefit consumers if retailers offered better service or selection.

Wait, what?  How about benefitting consumers by offering a better price?  Why not leave it up to the retailers to choose which model they choose to bring in customers?  If customers wanted service, they could choose the retailer that offered it.  If they wanted to find a bargain, they could choose the retailer with the best markdowns.  Instead, the court has decided that the consumer has no say in this...no freedom of choice when it comes to price shopping.

What I found was completely asinine was a statement by Richard Doherty:

Richard Doherty of technology market researcher The Envisioneering Group agrees, saying the price ruling could lead retailers to use more free products and better services as sales incentives.  "It's sure to be to consumers' benefit this summer and Christmas."

Is this guy on crack?  How about I just want to get a good deal on a HDTV...I don't want any "quote-unquote-FREE" stuff.  I don't care for point of sales services; I do my research on the products I buy and I already know what I want when I go into the store; I want to get the best deal that I can...why not leave that decision up to the individual consumer?

To make matters worse, the article offers commentary from a multi-billionaire:

Bill Gates, of golf equipment maker Ping, says, "Not every consumer is a bargain shopper.  Some consumers are looking for quality, innovation, personalization and customer service when they shop."

That's fine, Bill, if you have the money for all that jazz, but how about the rest of us who are just trying to put away some money for retirement, for our kids, for our families?  We just want to get by with a good deal.  How about this novel idea: let the consumers decide what they value - price or service.

Argh!

As if this wasn't bad enough, the Supreme Court also ruled to strike down school diversity programs on a national level:

The dramatic 5-4 decision throws into legal doubt programs that factor in race, including magnet schools that use race to draw students from different neighborhoods.

Accorind to Chief Justice Roberts,

Classifying and assigning schoolchildren according to...race is an extreme approach.

Well then, what would you suggest Mr. Roberts?  How do you overcome the economic hurdles that create defacto segregated schools?  How can you deny that integration - even if it is forced - is to the benefit of our racial diversity and our social fabric?

The fact is, if school children were simply assigned to schools based on location and district, it would in fact create further segregation and slowly reverse some of the progress that has been made.  I think it is true that we fear what we do not know or understand.  We view those who are different from us as outsiders because we do not understand their cultures, their languages, their traditions, and their ways; what better way to overcome the defacto segragation that occurs by township (and economic boundaries) they to help ensure a minimum level of integration?

Such an upsetting way to start the day...

The Washington Post has a great narrative on the VT shootings.

Something about the statements in a transcript from Bill Maher's show is really scary and yet it evokes a "HAHA WTF IS HAPPENING TO THIS COUNTRY...LOL" feeling in my mind.

New Rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word, "liberal," they also have to take back the word, "elite." By now, you've heard the constant right-wing attacks on the "elite" media and the liberal "elite," who may or may not be part of the Washington "elite," a subset of the East Coast "elite," which is overly influenced by the Hollywood "elite." So, basically, unless you're a shit-kicker from Kansas, you're with the terrorists.

You know, if you played a drinking game where you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being elite, you'd almost be as wasted as Rush Limbaugh.

I - I don't get it. In other fields outside of government, "elite" is a good thing, like an "elite" fighting force; Tiger Woods is an "elite" golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an "elite" doctor. But, in politics, "elite" is bad. The "elite" aren't down to earth and accessible like you and me and President Shtt-for-brains.

Which is fine, except that whenever there's a Bush Administration scandal, it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment, and you think to yourself, where are they getting these screw-ups from? Well, now we know. From Pat Robertson. I'm not kidding.

Take Monica Goodling, who, before she resigned last week, because she's smack in the middle of the U.S. Attorneys scandal, was the third-ranking official in the Justice Department of the United States. She's 33 years old. And though she never even worked as a prosecutor, she was tasked with overseeing the job performance of all 93 U.S. Attorneys.

How do you get to the top that fast? Harvard? Princeton? No, Goodling did her undergraduate work at Messiah College. You know, Messiah, home of the Fighting Christ-ies? And then went on to attend Pat Robertson's law school. Yes, Pat Robertson, the man who said that the presence of gay people at Disney World would cause earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor, has a law school.

And what kid wouldn't want to attend? It's three years, and you only have to read one book. U.S. News & World Report, which does the definitive ranking of colleges, lists Regent as a Tier Four school, which is the lowest score it gives. It's not a hard school to get into. You have to renounce Satan and draw a pirate on a matchbook.

This is for people who couldn't get into the University of Phoenix.

Now, would you care to guess how many graduates of this televangelist's diploma mill work in the Bush Administration? 150. And you wonder why things are so messed up. We're talking about a top Justice Department official who went to a college funded by a TV host. Would you send your daughter to Maury Povich U.? And if you did, would you expect her to get a job at the White House?

In 200 years, we've gone from "We, the people," to "Up With People." From "the best and the brightest" to "dumb and dumber." And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George Bush than Pat Robertson's law school?

The problem here in America isn't that the country is being run by "elites." It's that it's being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And, by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail, went to a real law school.

Wow...this actually explains a lot. I mean, a certain level of cronyism is to be expected. But I would have much rather have seen appointees from Yale instead...

Perhaps one of the best comments I've read on this:

That totally reads like an Onion article. Pat Robertson School of Law?

Indeed, our government is becoming even more like satire.

The story of how Liviu Librescu, a 76 year old professor, sacrificed his life to save the lives of his students is a must read for anyone following the Virginia Tech shootings.

Students of Liviu Librescu, 76, an engineering science and mathematics lecturer in at Virginia Tech for 20 years, sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said the son, Joe.

He will be remembered as an honorable and courageous man.

So the big news today is that EMI is going DRM free.

A few months ago, in a hotel room in King of Prussia, I had a short debate with Brad and Jim (CEO and CTO of the company I work for). 

One of the technologies that we circle around frequently is Microsoft's Information Rights Management Server.  The gist of it is that it allows administrators to control the actions a user can perform on a document such as printing, emailing, copy/pasting text, and so on.  In short, it is a software solution to controlling distribution of a document, much like DRM when it comes to distribution of digital media like music and movies.

However, to me, this has always seemed like a big sham.  Why?  Because any user that wanted to counter this could do so quite easily.  It only adds a false sense of security, which is doubly dangerous if the documents in question are highly sensitive. 

For example, if printing were to be disabled on a document, the user could still use print screen to capture the image and print that instead.  Disable print screen, and the user can still take pictures with a high resolution digital camera.  Force employees to check all digital devices before entering the building, and the employee can still take notes by hand.

In short, IRM, like DRM, simply presents an encumberance to legitimate users of the digital content while not preventing losses to anyone that really wants the information or content illegitimately.  As we've seen in the DRM space, no form of digital rights management will ever work.  Ever. 

Steve Irwin, Mr. Crocodile Hunter himself, has passed away.

It's the kind of news that sets you back and leaves you kind of lost.  At least to me, Irwin was an icon in many ways.  Here was a man who had made a career--a very successful one at that--doing what he genuinely loved; one could not imagine him doing anything but what he did.  In addition, Irwin's love and respect of Nature, his sense of presentation, and his appeal helped to bring more audiences, young and old, a better understanding of our natural world.

Aside from that, Irwin had an aura of invincibility...as if he could always escape Death himself as he had done time and again on his show.  And with his openness, you felt like you knew the guy...as if the Irwin that you saw on TV was basically the Irwin that you would expect to see in real life: friendly, inquisitive, open, honest, and fun loving.  I think these qualities make this loss even more saddening as we all felt like we knew him personally.

So it was quite shocking (really quite shocking) to read that he had passed.  At least he died in pursuit of what he loved: helping people all over the world explore the natural world from their armchairs.

Perhaps I was being a bit delusional.  I really thought that Team USA could win it all this year.

Alas, it was not to be so. 

Team USA lost to Greece 95-101.  While Team USA only lost by 6, the game itself was never really within reach of Team USA after the half.  Greece held onto their halftime lead for almost the entire second half and even extended it to 14 points on solid defense, great movement by their gaurds, and solid offensive execution.  The Greeks ran the pic-and-roll to perfection and simply relied on the American's stagnant offense to deny posessions.

Growing up, one of my best friends was half Greek.  I can pretty much predict that there's going to be a lot of celebration by the Greek community tomorrow.

The poor shooting really did the team in.  Aside from Carmelo Anthony and Kirk Hinrich, the rest of Team USA was just stone cold from the floor, and most importantly, from the line.  Clank after clank from the charity stripe.  Terrible.

The player I'm most disappointed in is LeBron James.  Anytime the ball touched his hand, the offense seemed to stagnate as teams simply let him dribble it out and played solid defense as he lowered his shoulder to drive.  On the other hand, the player that impressed me the most was definitely Carmelo Anthony who quietly played an excellent tournament, showing amazing versatility, maturity, and range (not to mention his shooting touch).

I also wonder if the offense would have flowed more smoothly if Brad Miller spent some more time in the lineup.  Miller, who, like the Greek big men, is adept at running the pic-and-roll and he has the range to finish inside or out.  Not only that, Miller is a superb passer and a very solid big man.  It's too bad that he didn't get a lot of playing time.  It seemed like Coach K chose to use a smaller lineup for better mobility, but in doing that he sacrificed a great deal of interior defense which allowed the Greek team to get layups almost at will.  While Miller isn't going to give you spectacular blocks like Howard or Bosh, his defensive footwork is excellent and a better outside shooter than either.

The most interesting stat of the game?  Greece had zero offensive boards in the first half.  Jim Durham commented that they made such a high percentage of their shots, there were no offensive boards for Greece to grab.

So what's next for Team USA?  Well, they play the winner of the Spain-Argentina game tomorrow so it's not guaranteed that Team USA will even medal at all.  It can be argued that both Spain and Argentina are better teams than Greece.  Would it be a total disappointment if Team USA didn't medal?  Well, let's put things into perspective; these guys had about three weeks to practice and this team is extremely young.  Let's not forget that they finished 6^th in the 2002 World Championships, so this is a step in the right direction and certainly a learning experience for them.

How can Team USA get better? 

First of all, Team USA needs more no-hesitation outside shooters.  I wonder how this game would have played out had JJ Reddick been available or if Adam Morrison had made team.  "Ammo" is one of those fearless shooters who would have been perfect for this team. 

Second, LeBron needs to watch some tapes of this game.  With him at the helm, the offense stagnated tremendously.  He was Anthony Mason-esque with his over dribbling and use of his shoulder to try to power through people.  LeBron needs to look to make the pass earlier in the posession and make some cuts to get towards the basket.  When he's good, he's good.  But in international play, LeBron was merely so-so.

Third, Coach K needs to spend more time on defense for the next competition.  The US is hindered by the fact that they can only play man-to-man as it would appear they never practiced the zone.  Greece had the luxury of going to either man coverage or zone, depending on how Team USA was doing.  Shooting poorly?  Switch on the zone D and essentially shut them out.  Hot shooting?  Stick to man deny the ball and lock up the shooter.  These are the exact tactics that the Greeks used. 

Fourth, get more defense oriented point veteran gaurds.  Chris Paul had a terrible game and couldn't make any shots; he looked lost on offense for the first time in the tournament.  Not only that, Team USA point gaurds simply didn't command the pace and flow of the game by initiating the ball movement.  But this is an error of youth and inexperience.  With Chauncey Billups at the helm, Team USA would have had a better chance to win this game.

Fifth, Team USA needs some offensive sets in the half court.  I mean, they must have known that they couldn't possibly run every team out of the gym, right?  They must have known that they would eventually have to play some solid half court ball, right?  Well, if they did know, they didn't show it at all.  Nothing fancy; just some easy sets/schemes to break out the zone and get out of a funk.

Well, it'll be interesting to see if they even medal this time around.  Regardless, big props to these guys for playing their hearts out and commiting the time for Team USA.  I'm really looking forward to what these guys can do with a bit more time to gel and play together.

And yes, I stayed up all night to watch this game.

A patriot is a person who loves his or her country.

Who among you loves your country so much that you have come here today to raise your voice out of deep concern for our nation - and for our world?

And who among you loves your country so much that you insist that our nation's leaders tell us the truth?

Let's hear it: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"

Let no one deny we are patriots. We love our country, we hold dear the values upon which our nation was founded, and we are distressed at what our President, his administration, and our Congress are doing to, and in the name of, our great nation.

Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.

A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president.

Read the rest of the transcript here.

Man, I don't about anyone else, but I personally cannot wait for these guys to open a can of whup-ass :D Graaaaaawr (I really mean that)!!

The schedule can be found on the Team USA subsection of NBA.com.

I'm really looking forward to this team play as it should be some fast paced, exciting basketball.

The USA has been around for a little more than a mere two centuries. Admittedly, there isn't much history to be had in such a short span of time, at least relative to Old World countries in Europe or the empires in the East which have millennia of history.

But none-the-less, in these two-plus centuries, I'd like to think we've made a name for ourselves, particularly in the fronts of industrial and technical innovation and engineering.

The light bulb, controlled nuclear reactions, mass produced automobiles, microwave ovens, the telephone, and the cell phone to name a few, are all innovations that came out of the US. These are historical advances in the course of mankind that will have a lasting impact for decades to come.

Should we not, then, protect the sites where such innovations originated? Then  should we not place a value on these sites as a sort of historical monument to ingenuity and weave them into the fabric of our history?  These are our Colosseums, our Leaning Towers, our Pyramids; these are historical monuments at  their birth.  Protecting these sites is the logical thing to do as, indeed, the history of the US is one of industrial and technical achievement.

So it is quite sad to find out that the legendary Bell Labs Holmdel facility (right in my backyard) is going to be razed for a new office complex.

If such a legendary landmark is razed for new office complexes, it would be quite a shame as it has indeed generated an enormous wealth of technologies and innovations in the 5 or so decades it was in operation.

Wow.  Just wow.

Bush Blames Iraq's Instability on Hussein

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government.

What?!?  Is he for real?

Generally speaking, I like to keep my political leanings out of my postings, but I'll make a special exception today

Via TheStar.com:

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.

The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding.

So, which were you and what affiliation are you today?

I'd say that I wasn't very whiny; mostly quiet and introverted all along.  Today, I'm left of middle, not by choice, mind you (I don't go out to label myself).  It's more that my beliefs fall in line with more moderate "liberals".

For those that aren't familiar, Nate is the "vertically challenged" rookie point gaurd on the New York Knicks basketball team.

Yesterday, this 5 foot, 7 inch human spring won the slam dunk contest in the unlikeliest twist of events.  Just when it looked like Andre Iguodala was about to coast to a victory in the slam dunk contest, Nate pulled out one of the most flawlessly awesome dunks, EVAR. I absolutely exploded off my chair when he performed the dunk with Spud Webb and completed it on the first try.  Absolutely amazing.  Scared the crap out my wife and cats when I started screaming like a mad man.

I think what's more amazing is Nate's physical and mental toughness.  On that first point, the man exerts a ton of energy to be able to be able to propel himself vertically as high as he does against the laws of gravity (I'm not about to bust out the physics equations).  I give the man a great amount of credit for that as he failed to connect, try after try, on several of his dunks.  And yet, there was no quit in his body; there was no way he was going to give up and settle.  You could tell that this man willed his body to do this bidding.  Absolutely amazing.  On the second point, some people would be mentally frazzled by the failure of the first 10 attempts and accept that it was not meant to be.  On the contrary, you could sense that the thought of failure and accepting said failure never crossed Nate's mind; you could see the determination in his eyes, try after try.

Such determination and physical toughness was electrifying to watch.  I was simply captivated by this slam dunk contest.  The very best that I can recall ever having witnessed and one that will be memorable for generations to come, I think.

I haven't been following the riots in France with any particular interest, but a blog post by a journalist in France caught my attention.   A little snippet, if I may:

The rebellion is spreading spontaneously -- driven especially by racist police conduct that is the daily lot of these youths. It's incredible the level of police racism -- these young are arrested or controlled by the police, shaken down, pushed around, and have their papers checked simply because they have dark sins, and the police are verbally brutal, calling them 'bougnoules' [a racist insult, something like the American "towel-heads", only worse], 'dirty Arabs' and more. The police bark, 'Lower your eyes! Lower your eyes!' as if they had no right even to look a policeman in the face. It's utterly dehumanizing. No wonder these kids feel so divorced from authority.

Wow.  Certainly, there are better ways to voice your dissatisfaction with goverment policy, but I can't blame the youth if the picture is really as dark as the blog paints it to be.

For me, I think the most distrubing thing is that I don't see how an resolution can be reached easily as the core issues are not ones that can be changed overnight or through words alone.  I simply cannot answer what the proper course of action is on behalf of the goverment as there is no central figure with whom to negotiate terms of peace.  Further martial action will surely only be met by more resistence and increased unrest amoung the youth.

Could we be seeing the early stages of a modern day revolution?

Perhaps what's most frightening is that, for the most part, none of the current activity has been organized on any large scale.  I think everyone would fear the invovlment of an organized Islamic uprising which may draw upon the vast network of European Islamic extremists.  Aye, this is a Jihadist's dream in the making.

Good news for us CS (computer science) graduates!  Well, at least according to Mr. Gates:

"Gates addressed University of Michigan students Wednesday in kicking off a three-day college tour aimed at getting young people interested in computer science and related fields.

Gates said the global market has greatly expanded the need for technology and innovations and needs young people to create them. Although many computer science jobs are being created overseas, there still are plenty of opportunities in the United States, Gates said."

For anyone that may be interested in CS, stay tuned.  I composed a little mini-map of the CS field (at least according to my knowledge of it) that I think is helpful for those of you thinking of getting into CS.  I think I'll work on that this weekend (if I can find my map (I have a habit of writing random things on random pieces of scrap paper that either end up being recycled by someone or lost in a pile somewhere)).

On a sidenote, I encountered this lovely error message (twice!) yesterday while working on a project:

Yes, not once, but twice yesterday!  Luckily, my computer didn't explode and, to my amazement, the Earth still exists.  Whew!  Here I was hoping for the worst, too.  I started laughing as soon as I saw it and just had to take a screenshot and share

I'm kinda puzzled by the nomination of Harriet Miers for the seat left open by Sandra Day O'Connor.

What has me confused is Miers' background, according to CNN:

"Miers, who has never been a judge, was the first woman to serve as president of the Texas State Bar and the Dallas Bar Association. She also served on the Dallas City Council."

Hmmm.  While I have no idea what the president of the Texas State Bar does, I'm quite certain that the job is entirely different from that of a judge.  Analogously, I certainly wouldn't expect that our CTO be "nominated" as the lead architect on a new software project.

Is it a coincidence that she's from Texas?

I guess that's why I'm not in politics...none of this makes any sense to me at all.

I recently read through an article in Time that asked "How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?"  It will shock you how many people, in key positions, are lacking in real credentials and experience for the leadership roles that they're in.  One has to wonder whether the correct question to ask today is "How many more Mike Browns are going to be appointed?".

Stumbling across news of JetBlue flight 292, I found it difficult to contain my emotions. It's simply mindboggling to imagine what those passenger were going through in those moments. I started tearing up just reading the article.

Luckily, everyone made it out unscathed thanks in part to the excellent skills of the pilot who makes a beautiful and otherwise uneventful landing (if you can ignore the sparks and flames shooting out from the front wheel landig gear).

Perhaps the most interesting part of this whole ordeal was that many (if not all) of the passengers aboard were watching their own fate via DirectTV satellite feeds (which they shut off 10 minutes before touchdown).

It's quite interesting as it underscores the pervasiveness of information that exists today; not only were they watching their own potential demise, the passengers were texting their relatives and calling their friends. Much like with the firsthand cameraphone accounts of the London tube bombings, we move ever closer to the collective mind of the Borg

Amazing times that we live in.

Took me a while to figure out how I wanted to set up my site.  After dabbling in a little home made CMS and evaluating several other open source CMS/portal solutions, I finally decided on dasBlog.

So far so good.  Setup is a breeze, just copy the files to your webserver and make some minor changes to your configuration XML files and you're all set to go.  Templating is also very flexible, however, there is no UI for doing it at the moment (no UI to select a macro and insert into an HTML template).  Currently, everything has to be done by hand in a text editor, which is sure to turn certain people off to this application.

On the downside, the list of available macros is somewhat limited beyond the standard blog/item macros.  Not only that, the list is poorly documented.  I can't seem to find a complete and up-to-date list of macros.

Well, in any case, I still have lots of work to do in terms of skinning and working on the CSS files.  All of the links at the top are dead for the moment, but I plan on filling them in (eventually).