Slashdot Mirror

It is good enough and covers enough topics that I suspect you could probably get a GED and good college entrance scores just by reading it carefully all through high school. (OK, maybe a week or two memorizing those nicely useless facts that exam writers favor would help out a bit.)

If you like good analysis of current events with a liberal flavor, no one beats The New Yorker ' talk of the town'. You learn a lot about writing and argumentation just by reading their articles plus their cartoons have a well deserved fame. Too bad they almost never write about technology.

To follow current technological trends, you can turn to the MIT technology review is not as watered down as popular science but still is broad on coverage.

Finally, for bad algorithms and outdated programming techniques, you can waste your time with Dr. Dobbs Journal. I don't know if it's not what it used to be or if it has always been bad.

If you like good analysis of current events with a liberal flavor, no one beats The New Yorker ' talk of the town'. You learn a lot about writing and argumentation just by reading their articles plus their cartoons have a well deserved fame. Too bad they almost never write about technology.

To follow current technological trends, you can turn to the MIT technology review is not as watered down as popular science but still is broad on coverage.

Finally, for bad algorithms and outdated programming techniques, you can waste your time with Dr. Dobbs Journal. I don't know if it's not what it used to be or if it has always been bad.

Seymour writes some good stuff and he is pretty careful to check his facts, unlike Twirp. This a pretty good read on a view that suggests the Bush administration failed in the war on terrorism in the beginning and where it should have really been fought, in Afghanistan and Pakistan and not Iraq.

"A year and a half later, the Taliban are still a force in many parts of Afghanistan, and the country continues to provide safe haven for members of Al Qaeda. American troops, more than ten thousand of whom remain, are heavily deployed in the mountainous areas near Pakistan, still hunting for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-backed President, exercises little political control outside Kabul and is struggling to undercut the authority of local warlords, who effectively control the provinces. Heroin production is soaring, and, outside of Kabul and a few other cities, people are terrorized by violence and crime."

"Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Collins, a Pentagon expert on Afghanistan, acknowledged that it was only in the past several months that "significant money began to flow" into Afghanistan for reconstruction and security. "We found in the security area we were doing the right thing, but not fast enough," he told me. The resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Collins said, "did not begin until early last year. They began to realize at the end of 2003 that the key is not to fight our soldiers but U.N. officials and aid workers."

"In late 2002, the Defense Department's office of Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (solic) asked retired Army Colonel Hy Rothstein, a leading military expert in unconventional warfare, to examine the planning and execution of the war in Afghanistan, with an understanding that he would focus on Special Forces. As part of his research, Rothstein travelled to Afghanistan and interviewed many senior military officers, in both Special Forces and regular units. He also talked to dozens of junior Special Forces officers and enlisted men who fought there. His report was a devastating critique of the Administration?s strategy. He wrote that the bombing campaign was not the best way to hunt down Osama bin Laden and the rest of the Al Qaeda leadership, and that there was a failure to translate early tactical successes into strategic victory. In fact, he wrote, the victory in Afghanistan was not, in the long run, a victory at all."

"In the early summer of 2002, a military consultant, reflecting the views of several American Special Forces commanders in the field, provided the Pentagon with a briefing warning that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were adapting quickly to American tactics. "His decision loop has tightened, ours has widened," the briefing said, referring to the Taliban. "He can see us, but increasingly we no longer see him." Only a very few high-level generals listened, and the briefing, like Rothstein's report, changed nothing. By then, some of the most highly skilled Americans were being diverted from Afghanistan. Richard Clarke noted in his memoir, "The U.S. Special Forces who were trained to speak Arabic, the language of al Qaeda, had been pulled out of Afghanistan and sent to Iraq." Some C.I.A. paramilitary teams were also transferred to Iraq."

Sy Hersh did an excellent job debunking that hoax at the time.

Here are some links for you to look at:

Murder

Rape

Sodomy

You make it sound like the entire problem is just a few assholes. Guess again. The problem is systemic and goes all the way to the top (or at least near the top).

"If The Who was able to make Tommy 30 years ago and Pink Floyd The Wall 25 years ago, why hasn't the music industry progressed? The music industry has not moved forward, it has moved backwards."

Rock operas aren't much in fashion any more. The teens who bought Pink Floyd and The Who back in the 70's are buying hip hop now. Some sub-genres have managed to last decades, but the era of the rock opera was short-lived. Popular taste moved on. That's progress for you.

Those who state that the music of this generation is not as good as music of some previous generation should understand that middle-aged people in the 1920s were pining for a return to the music of the 1890's -- now that was music. And twenty years from now, your children will be waxing romantically on the era of Outkast and Kanye West, who (to the disagreement Who/Pink Floyd fans) are damn good musicians. Outkast and Kanye West have as much visceral, emotional appeal to today's generation as Pink Floyd and the Who did to children of your generation. As Alex Ross put it, all music becomes classical in the end.

Each and every one of us will get off of that pop culture bus at one point or another. Some of us will insist that good music stopped with The Who or Pink Floyd or The Beatles or Duran Duran or Glenn Miller or Elvis or the Smashing Pumpkins or what have you, and equate our dislike of current music with the lack of "progress" in the music industry. And so it goes.

...to a slap on the wrist, considering his crime. (Not to mention the cost to the entire nation of his crime.)

You are morally blind if you can't see the difference.

And you are morally blind if you think that making excuses for our people's behavior in Iraq is anything other than despicable.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Right now, the U.S. has to do a lot more walking the walk and a lot less talking the talk before we will have any credibility on this front. Facing up to the fact that our guys failed in a major element of their mission, big time, very likely with the support of higher-ups, would be a good start. Refusing to face facts ain't gonna help much.

Less on the physics than the effects of that physics, from the New Yorker last week; here's a general audience article on knuckleball physics, an interview with Robert K. Adair, and finally, another physicist, Joel Hollander, who works on baseball: if you look at the master's theses list, you'll see one on the physics of pitching.

I keep hearing this. I guess you're the thousandth person to have said it or something, because you're the lucky winner of my response.

1. Bags over the prisoners' heads was the least of it. Prisoners at Abu Ghraib were attacked by dogs, isolated for long periods of time, and tortured to death. So let's not pretend the torture at Abu Ghraib was some minor infraction of niggling rules.
2. You cannot justify, excuse, or mitigate the torture of prisoners by pointing out the barbaric acts of an unrelated group of people.
3. You cannot justify, excuse, or mitigate the torture of prisoners with events that happened after the torture occurred.
4. You cannot justify, excuse, or mitigate torture.
5. Judging the unquestionably barbaric actions of one group relative to the unquestionably barbaric acts of another is a really shitty way to go about morality.

6. Call me a "radical leftist", I guess.

Get a look at this Newyorker article. It says not only Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice knew, Rumsfeld ordered it.

I hope you are right about the Iraqi mind-set. I just don't see much evidence for it. The Iraqi blogs that I can read are in English and the authors fairly westernized. Of course the handful blogs are not representative but it is reasonable to assume that they are more US friendly then your average Iraqi. That is why it doesn't bode well that you've lost them. . Riverbend ] for instance wrote in the past of her fear of a civil war. That was one of her rationales for keeping US troops in her country. The photos changed all this. In her last entry she wrote:

I sometimes get emails asking me to propose solutions or make suggestions. Fine. Today's lesson: don't rape, don't torture, don't kill and get out while you can- while it still looks like you have a choice... Chaos? Civil war? Bloodshed? We'll take our chances- just take your Puppets, your tanks, your smart weapons, your dumb politicians, your lies, your empty promises, your rapists, your sadistic torturers and go.

I also hope that you are right that only some few bad apples conducted torture. But that does not seem to be what Iraqis believe. Unfortunately the USA didn't have much credibility in Arab eyes to begin with - now they are of course inclined to believe the worst. It doesn't help that there are some really worrisome reports that these kind of maltreatments might be indeed much more systemic. From Seymor Hersh's article who originaly broke this news:

In his report, Taguba strongly suggested that there was a link between the interrogation process in Afghanistan and the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Given the devastating public relation record (remember 57% of all Iraqis already wanted the US to leave immediately before the Fallujah battles and the torture scandal) the Washington Post reports that senior officer of the US military seem to share my opinion that there is nothing left to gain for your country in this war.

At this point I think fairness demands that Bush is reelected. No other president deserves to have to cope with such an ugly legacy that won't bring any good.

Here is a link to some. I don't know if it's all of them.
(self)censorship seems to be rampant; I can't even find the original photos. Why should we trust the media when they won't even provide access to the origianal, undoctored pictures? I mean, that's the main evidence, why not give the public acces to it so they can draw their own conculsions?

It;s probably worth pointing out that P. and Britney are making the recording industry a hellova lot more than you are.

"Of thirty thousand CDs that the industry released last year in the United States, only four hundred and four sold more than a hundred thousand copies, while twenty-five thousand releases sold fewer than a thousand copies apiece. No one seems to be able to predict which those four hundred and four big sellers will be."
- source: The Money Note, by John Seabrook

RIAA execs don't lie awake in bed worrying that in 10 years times, sales will have been cut in half by P2P.

Unless their cluelessness approaches nearly mystical levels[1], recording industry executives know that digital distribution is inevitable. Sure, they're probably a bunch of old white guys who never heard of the internet before 2001, but that was three years ago, and you'd better bet they have *some* smart people working for them. Fact: digital distribution of music is more efficient than physical distribution - i can download a much wider selection of songs, at any time of the day or night, than i can get at the record store, and i live in a capital city. Imagine if you live in Armpit, Ar.

But gearing up for digital distribution is going to take a) time and b) money. Time because not everybody has broadband yet - especially when you figure that, to these guys, the market is worldwide. Money because somebody has to invest in the infrastructure to make all this possible. Ask Apple how much they spent on their music store. On the other hand, the infrastructure for doing business in the bricks and mortar world is pretty much paid off and the profit margins are fat.

The recording industry is squeezing every last cent of profit out of their current way of doing business before they switch to digital delivery and start all over. What keeps them awake at night is the idea that by the time they get there, sharing on p2p will have changed people's value perception of music: that they will think of it as something you get for free on the net.

They instead lie awake in bed worrying that in 10 years time, artists will deliver their music straight from the recording studio in their attic, through the server in the basement, to their Internet based community of fans.
In any market with many producers and many consumers, middlemen will always emerge. Over time, seeking to maximize profits by reducing inefficiency, these middlemen will be reduced to a few big players. Once this happens, these big players will start to exhibit monopolistic/oligopolistic behaviour - they will think of the market as "their market", not in terms of the market they compete in, but in terms of the market they own, like a private club. Eventually, this behaviour will distort the market and decrease the gains to the producers and consumers - thus providing incentive for somebody to offer an alternative. If that alternative proves profitable, copycats emerge and the power of the old middlemen diminishes until they are driven out of business (in their current form: they usually become just another copycat, vis. Barnes & Noble) and the market is governed by the new middlemen. Over time, seeking to maximize profits by reducing inefficiency, these new middlemen will be reduced to a few big players....

Of course: i could be full of shit. "Professional" musicians have existed for thousands of years, whereas the recording industry hasn't. Then again, how many troubadours in the middle ages lived in castles? Only the ones who worked for the king.

[1]"No one in this world ...has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."
-- H.L. Mencken

I couldn't read the premium content over at The Economist. Re: the WMD, you ought to read Seymour Hersch's article in The New Yorker.

I'd love to read #1 if you feel like posting the text.

Finally, here are Wesley Clark's words in a different New Yorker article: "They made the decision to attack Iraq sometime soon after 9/11. So, rather than searching for a solutions to a problem, they had the solution, and their difficulty was to make it appear as though it were in response to a problem."

From what I read leading up to the war (my subscription ended with 2002), The Economist did a bang-up job of making Iraq look like the problem.

You could also argue that Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians are NOT acts of terrorism, on the grounds that they are not really civilians so much as an `occupying force`.

Specifically targeting civilians is most certainly an act of terrorism. I'm not talking collateral damage here; that happens, and it sucks, but it is not intentional. When you walk into a cafe with the intent of blowing up people to use as a bargaining chip in a dispute with their government, that is an act of terrorism.

Besides, I would take exception to calling civilians an "occupying force." Their government may be an occupying force--and for the record, I am not making specific comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here, nor taking sides in it--but civilians are not agents of their government.

George Bush is a very dangerous man. I agree. What disturbs me most is that he may have plans on also changing or toppling the governments of Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Iran and Sudan. The article I derive this from is right here. It is primarily an article about democratic presidential candidate (and former NATO SACEUR) Wesley Clark. The pertinent quote reads:

He [Clark] then told me--as he has told others--how he came to learn of a secret war scheme within the Bush Administration, of which Iraq was just one piece.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Clark said, he visited the Pentagon, where an old colleague, a three-star general, confided to him that the civilian authorities running the Pentagon--Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his team--planned to use the September 11th attacks as a pretext for going to war against Iraq. "They made the decision to attack Iraq sometime soon after 9/11," Clark said. "So, rather than searching for a solution to a problem, they had the solution, and their difficulty was to make it appear as though it were in response to a problem." Clark visited the Pentagon a couple of months later, and the same general told him that the Bush team, unable or unwilling to fight the actual terrorists responsible for the attacks, had devised a five-year plan to topple the regimes in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Iran, and Sudan.

Very little specific detail is given as to their plan and Clark later admits that he is "not sure [he] can prove this yet." True or untrue, it's a scary thought.

What are online revolts and revolutions? They are the resolution to a paradox of a society that encourages and rewards individualism, but at the very same time generalizes, stereotypes, and also rewards conformity. In other words, we tell individuals that they are important, but at the same time, thanks to the proliferatino of mass media, Americans now have a greater perception of those around them than anyone else at any time in history. Prior to this, the world was contained to largely a town, or section of a city. Now, however, Americans are individuals, yes, so we are told. But we also feel terribly small when we realize that we play such a small role in the perceived world around us (the world that mass media presents us with). We are made to believe that individuals are of the highest importance. The paradox, though, is why do our actions mean so little? If we, as individuals, are as important as the American idealogy would have us believe, why then are our actions meaningless as individuals? Why is the mass media more concerned with seeminlgy everything around us, except ourselves? The paradox? Individuals are important. But individuals are also ignored. If I am important, why can I not apply this level of importance to the world around me? If the individual is penultimate in American society, why am I completely ignored by society when I want lower taxes? Why can I not change and control the environment, if I am as important as everyone tells me? The people in this online games have realized, either on a conscious level or otherwise, that if they cannot change the immediate environment around them, if their individual actions do not mean anything in the immediate world, all that is required is to switch environments, change worlds. It is in online games that their importance as individuals is recognized alongside the importance of their actions. They are both individual and impacting. It's important to note that American society has always moved in this direction; gangs, cliques, etc, are all manifestations of this. But online games give the illusion of incredible impact. They match the importance of individualism with the importance of impact. The players in Second Life are creating a revolt! A revolt! How is that possible within the confines of the real world? What does a nude sit-in in the real world accomplish? A novelty at best, and nothing at worst. But a nude sit-in in Britannia? That accomplish something. I believe that what is now on the absolute fringe of society will gradually make its way into mainstream. They are the perfect solution to the American paradox of individuals and impact, they manage to squeeze by both and integrate these two elements into a world where an individual's personhood and their actions are as important.

Well, I submited this, but the periodical referenced didn't have enough geek cred. Nonetheless, the article actually has a lot of technical detail. Check it out.

So PAL is sufficiently distasteful that it must be shut down, even if decision markets are generally really useful predictors of future events (and the fact that the U.S. intelligence community could probably use the help), while invading other countries based on faulty (or falsified) intelligence and wishful-thinking "domino-theory" premises about mideast relations, and despite the inevitable civilian and military casualties and potential terrorist reprisals is a "Sacred Duty". Blows my mind.

You might want to read this New Yorker piece on the effectiveness of information markets.

Given that the PAM only allows 1000 people a day to sign up, it'd take just under 3 years for even one million people to sign up. I don't think that the economic impact of the PAM will have any statistical significance. There's a really good piece on information markets on the New Yorker's website.

Given that the PAM only allows 1000 people a day to sign up, it'd take just under 3 years for even one million people to sign up. I don't think that the economic impact of the PAM will have any statistical significance. There's a really good piece on information markets on the New Yorker's website.

The truth is, unfortunately, is that it is certain that innocent Iraqis will die. The only question will be whether they die in a war to liberate their countrymen or, for example, in machine designed to shred plastic, or with their son's limbs in the jaws of wild dogs. Sorry for the harsh language but if you can't distinguish this as evil, the problem is with you.

Oh, by the way: show me the Iraqis in your anti-war protests. Better yet, listen to this Iraqi on the subject. And while you're at it, show me the other country that has ever pledged to avoid civilian casualties at all turns. China? Russia? And while I'm at it, imagine a world in which either of those lovely fellows dominate the world. Having trouble? Ask a Tibetan or Hungarian (that thought courtesy of John Derbyshire).

Finally, you are factually incorrect about no consensus in the U.N. We absolutely have a consensus; it is simply that there are countries that oppose us and possess veto power.

Why do you cry only now, when Hussein's regime has caused the death of more than 2 million Iraqis? Note sadly the innocents that will die in this conflict, and then weep with joy at the lives they will be free to live when this is over.

Such as Seymour Hersh, for example. One of the pillars of what remains of US investigative journalism, his exposé in last week's New Yorker examined how Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle -- the architect of the war on Iraq -- stands to personally profit from the war through business dealings. Nice work if you can get it! Asked about this matter last weekend on CNN, Perle went berserk and told Wolf Blitzer that Hersh is "the closest thing in US journalism to a terrorist."

It should go without saying that real terrorism is a vile and deplorable act of violence against the innocent, and that muddying or diluting the definition makes the word (and, in fact, the world) less honest. Orwell explained all this to us more than fifty years ago.

But such is our present discourse, dragged into the gutter of constant, effortless accusation by the right wing, that the term is being debased and distorted when our future very well may depend upon our being clear, honest and just today. The new McCarthyism has shown its willingness to brand anyone who crosses the wishes of the Bush regime (or its flunkies) as a terrorist or terrorist ally. In such a climate, can you blame industry hacks at the MPAA or Microsoft for merely cashing in on the reigning ignorance? You, for instance. You, running that DRM-free PC -- why, you...terrorist!

Chronology of Events

Seymour Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker:
A Hawk's Business: Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?

Richard Perle, on Wolf Blitzer's show, calls Seymour Hersh a terrorist

Read the interesting comments with historical comparisons at Talkingpointsmemo.com

More details available at:ENOUGH IS ENOUGH:
Richard Perle brands journalist Seymour Hersh a "terrorist"

Jack Shafer at Slate calls Richard N. Perle a pantywaist

Cheers,
W00t

From the CNN transcript:

There's an article in the New Yorker magazine by
Seymour Hersh that's just coming out today in which he makes a serious accusation against you that you have a conflict of interest in this because you're involved in some business that deals with homeland security, you potentially could make some money if, in fact, there is this kind of climate that he accuses you of proposing. Let me read a quote from the New Yorker article, the March 17th issue, just out now. "There is no question that Perle believes that removing Saddam from power is the right thing to do. At the same time, he has set up a company that may gain from a war."

PERLE: I don't believe that a company would gain
from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the
successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've
said this over and over again, will diminish the
threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about
is investments in homeland defense, which I think
are vital and are necessary. Look, Sy Hersh is the
closest thing American journalism has to a
terrorist, frankly.

BLITZER: Well, on the basis of -- why do you say
that? A terrorist?

PERLE: Because he's widely irresponsible. If you
read the article, it's first of all, impossible
to find any consistent theme in it. But the
suggestion that my views are somehow related for
the potential for investments in homeland
defense is complete nonsense.

BLITZER: But I don't understand. Why do you
accuse him of being a terrorist?

PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he
will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever
distortion he can -- look, he hasn't written a
serious piece since Maylie (ph).

BLITZER: All right. We're going to leave it right there

Get Your Unilateral War On Iraq On

Chronology of Events

Seymour Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker:
A Hawk's Business: Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?

Ricard Perle, on Wolf Blitzer's show, calls Seymour Hersh a terrorist

Read the interesting comments with historical comparisons at Talkingpointsmemo.com

More details available at: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH:
Richard Perle brands journalist Seymour Hersh a "terrorist"

Jack Shafer at Slate calls Richard N. Perle a pantywaist

Cheers,
W00t

There's an article in the New Yorker magazine by
Seymour Hersh that's just coming out today in which
he makes a serious accusation against you that you
have a conflict of interest in this because you're
involved in some business that deals with homeland
security, you potentially could make some money if,
in fact, there is this kind of climate that he
accuses you of proposing. Let me read a quote from
the New Yorker article, the March 17th issue, just
out now. "There is no question that Perle believes
that removing Saddam from power is the right thing
to do. At the same time, he has set up a company
that may gain from a war."

PERLE: I don't believe that a company would gain
from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the
successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've
said this over and over again, will diminish the
threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about
is investments in homeland defense, which I think
are vital and are necessary. Look, Sy Hersh is the
closest thing American journalism has to a
terrorist, frankly.

BLITZER: Well, on the basis of -- why do you say
that? A terrorist?

PERLE: Because he's widely irresponsible. If you
read the article, it's first of all, impossible
to find any consistent theme in it. But the
suggestion that my views are somehow related for
the potential for investments in homeland
defense is complete nonsense.

BLITZER: But I don't understand. Why do you
accuse him of being a terrorist?

PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he
will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever
distortion he can -- look, he hasn't written a
serious piece since Maylie (ph).

BLITZER: All right. We're going to leave it right there

Get Your Unilateral War On Iraq On

Chronology of Events

Seymour Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker:
A Hawk's Business: Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?

Ricard Perle, on Wolf Blitzer's, show calls Seymour Hersh a terrorist

Read the interesting comments with historical comparisons at Talkingpointsmemo.com

More details available at: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH:
Richard Perle brands journalist Seymour Hersh a "terrorist"

Cheers,
W00t

From the CNN transcript:

There's an article in the New Yorker magazine by
Seymour Hersh that's just coming out today in which
he makes a serious accusation against you that you
have a conflict of interest in this because you're
involved in some business that deals with homeland
security, you potentially could make some money if,
in fact, there is this kind of climate that he
accuses you of proposing. Let me read a quote from
the New Yorker article, the March 17th issue, just
out now. "There is no question that Perle believes
that removing Saddam from power is the right thing
to do. At the same time, he has set up a company
that may gain from a war."

PERLE: I don't believe that a company would gain
from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the
successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've
said this over and over again, will diminish the
threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about
is investments in homeland defense, which I think
are vital and are necessary. Look, Sy Hersh is the
closest thing American journalism has to a
terrorist, frankly.

BLITZER: Well, on the basis of -- why do you say
that? A terrorist?

PERLE: Because he's widely irresponsible. If you
read the article, it's first of all, impossible
to find any consistent theme in it. But the
suggestion that my views are somehow related for
the potential for investments in homeland
defense is complete nonsense.

BLITZER: But I don't understand. Why do you
accuse him of being a terrorist?

PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he
will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever
distortion he can -- look, he hasn't written a
serious piece since Maylie (ph).

BLITZER: All right. We're going to leave it right there

Get Your Unilateral War On Iraq On

Chronology of Events

Seymour Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker:
A Hawk's Business: Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?

Ricard Perle, on Wolf Blitzer's, show calls Seymour Hersh a terrorist

Read the interesting comments with historical comparisons at Talkingpointsmemo.com

More details available at: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH:
Richard Perle brands journalist Seymour Hersh a "terrorist"

Cheers,
W00t

There's an article in the New Yorker magazine by
Seymour Hersh that's just coming out today in which
he makes a serious accusation against you that you
have a conflict of interest in this because you're
involved in some business that deals with homeland
security, you potentially could make some money if,
in fact, there is this kind of climate that he
accuses you of proposing. Let me read a quote from
the New Yorker article, the March 17th issue, just
out now. "There is no question that Perle believes
that removing Saddam from power is the right thing
to do. At the same time, he has set up a company
that may gain from a war."

PERLE: I don't believe that a company would gain
from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the
successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've
said this over and over again, will diminish the
threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about
is investments in homeland defense, which I think
are vital and are necessary. Look, Sy Hersh is the
closest thing American journalism has to a
terrorist, frankly.

BLITZER: Well, on the basis of -- why do you say
that? A terrorist?

PERLE: Because he's widely irresponsible. If you
read the article, it's first of all, impossible
to find any consistent theme in it. But the
suggestion that my views are somehow related for
the potential for investments in homeland
defense is complete nonsense.

BLITZER: But I don't understand. Why do you
accuse him of being a terrorist?

PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he
will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever
distortion he can -- look, he hasn't written a
serious piece since Maylie (ph).

BLITZER: All right. We're going to leave it right there

Get Your Unilateral War On Iraq On

Seymour Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker:
A Hawk's Business: Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?

Ricard Perle, on Wolf Blitzer's, show calls Seymour Hersh a terrorist

Read the interesting comments with historical comparisons at
Talkingpointsmemo.com

More details available at: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH:
Richard Perle brands journalist Seymour Hersh a "terrorist"

Cheers,
W00t

Here is a copy of the CNN interview:

There's an article in the New Yorker magazine by
Seymour Hersh that's just coming out today in which
he makes a serious accusation against you that you
have a conflict of interest in this because you're
involved in some business that deals with homeland
security, you potentially could make some money if,
in fact, there is this kind of climate that he
accuses you of proposing. Let me read a quote from
the New Yorker article, the March 17th issue, just
out now. "There is no question that Perle believes
that removing Saddam from power is the right thing
to do. At the same time, he has set up a company
that may gain from a war."

PERLE: I don't believe that a company would gain
from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the
successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've
said this over and over again, will diminish the
threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about
is investments in homeland defense, which I think
are vital and are necessary. Look, Sy Hersh is the
closest thing American journalism has to a
terrorist, frankly.

BLITZER: Well, on the basis of -- why do you say
that? A terrorist?

PERLE: Because he's widely irresponsible. If you
read the article, it's first of all, impossible
to find any consistent theme in it. But the
suggestion that my views are somehow related for
the potential for investments in homeland
defense is complete nonsense.

BLITZER: But I don't understand. Why do you
accuse him of being a terrorist?

PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he
will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever
distortion he can -- look, he hasn't written a
serious piece since Maylie (ph).

BLITZER: All right. We're going to leave it right there

Get Your Unilateral War On Iraq On

Here's a New Yorker book review with more information on Rosalind Franklin.

Dead you may not kill them

With lines like this, they could have just reused Yoda's CGI character instead of creating Gollum's.

BTW, Here's a great review of LoTR 2.

Malcom Gladwell of the New Yorker recently wrote an article about some of the problems with "World Class" management teams, and in general, certain myths revolving around the concept of "talent". It's an excellent read.

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If anyone wants a sample, there's a Murakami short story over at the New Yorker.

I don't worry so much about fingerprints, you're right. But that is because fingerprints have not been widely deployed as a "primary key" for identification. And will never be, because fingerprinting is an inherently "analog" art, and there is no way to accurately and consistently reduce a print to a sequence of bits. Definitively identifying a fingerprint match requires a highly skilled human being to scrutinize the prints, and even then there is a significant margin of error. (See the recent New Yorker article, "Do Fingerprints Lie?" Hence, they're not usuable to key data to.

And you boldly state that you can't fake an eyeball. Who knows? It's that kind of confidence in the infallability of the system that can cause fraud victims a lot of grief in the future...

Even if there is no data intrinsic to the metric, its potential to be a perfect, perpetual, and inescapable key to all the data that *is* known about an individual is rather frightening.

But even if it isn't so perfect, if, as was argued in the New Yorker a couple weeks back, fingerprints (for example) can in fact "lie", there are still some chilling possibilities. The article may be describing a failure of the method rather than the theory, but it has already ruined countless (and perhaps uncountable) lives...With newer biometric technology, especially in a mass-market implementation where the hardware might not be top quality, and operators might not be the most highly-skilled, there is plenty of room for error. With consequences that could range from the simply embarassing to the really rather awful...

The New Yorker article says that Farnsworth finally got his TV "invention" working on 7th September 1927.

This Canadian article says that Scotsman John Logie Baird officially demonstrated working TV on 26th January 1926 (and actually had it working 4 months earlier than that).

Nice to see that Americans like to believe they invented TV - it was actually the Scots ! This makes the entire "Myth of the Lone Inventor" stuff rather tainted - Farnsworth did *not* invent TV ! Shamefully, most of America has been brought up on this lie - I visited a Science Museum in the US and was shocked to see no mention of Baird in its "inventor of TV" section.

More interesting, I think, is the ever-thoughtful Malcolm Gladwell's review of two books about Philo T. Farnsworth. Contrary to the expected take of how small genius inventors are destroyed by large credit-stealing corporations, Gladwell argues that corporations are the safest and sanest way to let genius inventors concentrate on inventing. Worth reading.

mahlen

"In Trash Tango, the human race has become so feeble that the alien invasion of Earth occurs by means of a memo." -- Steve Aylett, _slaughtermatic_

OK, how's this piece from the New Yorker for a start? Anyone who has any doubt that the word `evil' applies to Saddam Husseing should read this article.

I think you'll be needing the Printer Freindly version of the article to start with...

(See this commentary in the New Yorker and this one in Salon for calls to treat this as a police action.)

I suggest that the best analogy for what we need to do is treat this like the Italian struggle against the Mafia. The crucial step is a cultural change, from the situation where the CD party treated the Mafia as a necessary evil that was just part of the political landscape, to where all of Italian society turned against the Mafia, and magistrates and judges were willing to risk their lives to rid Italy of Mafia control. The Mafia still exists, no doubt, but it no longer has the same insidious grip on the political system.

Here, the crucial step is getting the Arab and Muslim countries to stop treating their radical Islamists as necessary evils who, since they can mobilize the poor, and can kill dissenters, must be tolerated and accepted. Many countries, such as Iran and Syria, have used these groups to fight proxy wars for political control over the Middle East. The best thing that can come out of this tragedy is an alignment of Arab and Muslim contries against their radical elements, and a change in the culture there to stop accepting bloody attacks against civilians as acceptable political tactics.

That's why bombing Kabul, for example, is likely to be counter-productive. As much as we want the Taliban to be out of Afganistan and replaced by some more acceptible government, the likelihood that we will succeed is low, and the likelihood that we will simply piss off the very countries we need to align against these guys is high.

I suspect that what Rumsfeld et al. are talking about by "new kind of war" is making their point on asymetric warfare: the notion that we have gotten so good at fighting conventional wars that no one will send armies and navies against us, but will instead fight with more "terrorist-like" actions. My guess is that internal in the Pentagon this is being used as an "I told you so/wake up call".

I have seen enough and will never forget the destruction of the building which I last touched on Saturday 09/08/2001. After reading The New Yorker article detailing the construction of the foundation, I have become very interested in a video or documentary on its construciton. Anyone know what can be found, bought, watched?

WANTED A video of the World Trade Center Construction.

I have seen enough and will never forget the destruction of the building which I last touched on Saturday 09/08/2001. After reading The New Yorker article detailing the construction of the foundation, I have become very interested in a video or documentary on its construciton. Anyone know what can be found, bought, watched?

WANTED A video of the World Trade Center Construction.

A much more insightful review can be found at the New Yorker web site.

Mike

Nearly a quarter of a million people subscribe, and each player logs an average of thirteen hours a week, meaning that in the course of a year Ultima absorbs more than a hundred and sixty million man-hours.

1. If the player is looking at several "things" during every second of his/her online experience and
2. viewing all the items in your field of vision is worth 50 cents an hour from combined advertising, while
3. "Ultima absorbs more than a hundred and sixty million man-hours."
   Then, logically,
4. Ultima wastes $80,000,000 dollars a year by not advertising.

Under the resource system, players could gather raw materials, like ore, and make them into finished goods, like armor, which, once used, would begin to break down and reënter the pool as raw materials. Players, it turned out, liked to make things--they were turning out hundreds, and even thousands, of swords and shields and gauntlets--but instead of using them, or throwing them out, which would have had the same effect, they hoarded them. One player reportedly had a collection of ten thousand identical shirts. The result was that there were hardly any materials available to replenish the pool, which deepened the environmental crisis. [Bold emphasis mine.]

Viewers of reruns of the crime drama "Law and Order,"[...]could see sponsored imagery interpolated where it had not been before as a result of an agreement in principle to allow the insertion of computer-generated make-believe items like cans, bottles, signs and logos into scenes.

Honestly, I find Mike Myers pretty annoying in that he's too scared to use his own voice in *anything* and is still stuck in that improv schtick.

And the other, by Roger Ebert who gave it 4 stars.

I'll wait for the video.