Ouch. I wonder if I picked a bad time to try to make it as a freelancer.

This is frightening, and everyone should be talking about it. Maybe I'll Digg it, and see if it rises to the top.

Somehow, I doubt that it will.

Update, this was already Dugg, and so far stands at 39 Diggs. Pretty poor showing so far.

Allowing oneself to be utilized by the enemy is tantamount to treason. I think the mainstream media is flirting with it. Thanks to Instapundit for bringing this up.

On the one hand, I believe very strongly in self-defense, and teach my kids that should anyone try anything, it's okay to do whatever in stopping them. I this, I agree with Michelle Malkin.

On the other hand, I don't belive that our children should live their lives afraid, constantly expecting and preparing for the worst. Life is meant to be a pursuit of happiness, not fear. It's a fine line to walk, I think, and unfortunate that we need to walk it.

Thanks to Gottabemobile.com, here's a quick piece on the new Samsung Q1 Ultra. I would a UMPC: there are times when I'm out and about and need to make a note (or write a quick blog post, or defeat an evil overlord) when something like this would be mighty handy. My Treo's keyboard is just to small for anything other than a few words, I hate paper (having spent over six years consulting on how to get rid of it), and my Tablet PC's just too big to lug around everywhere I go.

Unfortunately, my eyes are getting old and that tiny little screen would be the death of me. And, I don't have $799 to blow. In fact, I don't have $799, period.

Update: The fine folks at Gottabemobile.com also touched on the OQO Model 2, which in addition to causing me to go blind even before I started using it, would also find me divorced due to its $1800+ pricetag.

Scientology is both funny and frightening, at the same time. They're obviously wackos, and yet they're wackos in very large numbers, and with money. You don't imagine them holed up in some gritty compound in Idaho or Utah, but rather imagine them at swank parties in glittering black buildings with walls of chrome.

From this Rolling Stone story, perhaps the defining quote (for me): "'Scientologists see themselves as possessors of doctrines and skills that can save the world, if not the galaxy,' says Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta, in Canada, who has extensively studied the group."

Thetans, unite!

My son is going to love this. Hell, I'm going to love this. I didn't grow up on the Transformers, but there's nevertheless something inherently cool about them.

Take a look.

Update: Oops. I think I originally linked to a not-so-legal site. This link's better, I think.

I don't know why they're "hacks," but this Digg story does list some interesting productivity tips, many of which I'm already using and some that I know I should be using. Worth a quick read...

Nothing better than Mac fanatics going after Ubuntu fanatics. This Digg's link isn't working for you, so I hope you have better luck. But, I can only imagine the rhetoric to be found there.

I still don't get it: Linux supports only a small subset of the hardware out there, has numerous well-documented driver issues, and requires constantly dropping to the command line to get many parts of the OS working (including, for me, wireless networking, although I'm sure the Ubuntu fanboys would blame me for that). How is it again that it's better than Windows (of any recent flavor) or OS X?

One might be tempted to accuse me of hating Digg. Nothing could be further from the truth. Digg is great when it deals with technical and purely factual information. It's not so good when it comes to opinion, because although it's great when a story like this about digital photography rises to the top, it's not so great when a story like this bubbles over.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 8788 Diggs, is cute. And that's about it.

Cox and Forkum, today's most rational cartoonists, honor the men and women of the US Armed Forces. As usual, they express things better than I could hope to do.

Let me just say: ditto!

This is nice, and reasonably priced. I'll take two.

As usual, the defender's of intellectual property rights do so using the argument of their opponents--that the real issue is "innovation," not the rights themselves. According to Ars Technica, the newly formed "Copyright Alliance" says it wants to "'balance those rights with the public good' and hopes to 'enrich our culture through incentives to create and disseminate new and innovative creative works'."

Both statements are codeword for a repudiation of individual rights, that says essentially the value of the individual is how he contributes to the betterment of society. Intellectual property won't be safe until the individual's right to control it is recognized, in principle, by its most vocal "defenders."

On a related note, I'm not surprised that Microsoft is a member of this group. The company has a long history of compromising on basic principles and sacrificing its own rights on an alter of collective guilt for its tremendous success. Bill Gates is legendary for spending billions on an effort to buy favor with those elements of society that consider him as evil for being wealthy.

If Digg and Technorati are any guides, Ron Paul is the darling of much of the activist IT world. This seems to fly in the face of my "IT is Leftist" argument, except that most of the agreement with his policies seems centered around his foreign policy views (particularly as they involved Iraq). Certainly, I can agree with his "Freedom Principles" as stated on his Web site, but his other views are typical libertarian--and I wonder why he doesn't simply join the Libertarian Party, outside of the fact that in doing so he'd be virtually assured of never winning another election.

If Wikipedia is to be believed, then Paul holds a mismash of views, in particular on social issues, and that (at this point) would be my biggest problem with him. I wonder if he has any consistent political philosophy, or just holds a laundry list of "values" as is the most important failure of today's libertarian (small "l") movement.

I'm not too sure of the veracity of this site, but if truthful, here's an interesting look into the attitudes of Vladimir Putin. I remain convinced that, second only to Islamic radicalism, Russia stands as America's most significant long-term threat.

I'm not sure where Michael Prescott remembers seeing Ayn Rand in bad light as an atheist. Her recorded public appearances are few and far apart, and I think I've seen most of them. She was a very cautious public presenter, and it was simply not in her nature to lose control of herself.

I challenge anyone to provide evidence of her representing atheism in any but the most rational light.

Celebrity Report: Dennis Miller has always struck me as a mixed bag. Sometimes I find him funny and on-point, at others, not so much. To see him describe himself as almost an Objectivist, though, is interesting and generally a positive (although I might debate him on how much of an Objectivist he really is). I didn't know he was even aware of Ayn Rand.

Good for him. Maybe with a little study, he can become truly consistent.

I'm usually not all that interested in electoral politics, because I find both major parties essentially bankrupt and differing only in details. Here, though, Robert Tracinski does a good job of defining what's deeply wrong with the Republican party--or at least of outlining the pernicious and profound influence of the religious Right.

One can only hope that the Republican party will truly reclaim its roots in the next election, or many people like myself will be faced with a choice between voting for a dictatorship of the loony Left, the continued deadly moralizing of the religious Right, or nobody at all.

This MSNBC story talks about Israel's attack on Hamas in answer to their repeated rocket attacks against Israel. But, the subhead says, "10 killed in Gaza airstrikes as Israeli forces step into Hamas-Fatah conflict."

So which is it? Was Israel "step(ping) into the Hamas-Fatah conflict" or was it responding to Hamas rocket attacks?

Some people take this as a negative. I see it as a testament to our incredible productivity.

I didn't like the guy either, but does Boing Boing respond this harshly when a Leftist dies?

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 3964 Diggs, is a story about two "chatbots" (applications that are written to, well, chat) that "talk" to each other. Neither pass the Turing Test, I think. This conversation, called "existential" by some, seems rather like a bit of nonsense to me.

At first blush, this story about a toddler receiving a gun permit in Illinois seems like a funny little story about the incompetence of government. On further reflection, though, it makes an important point.

The Left would argue that it's a symptom of the insidiousness of America's "gun culture" that such a permit would be issued. After all, as the Illinois State Police say in the story, "There is nothing in the FOID Act or any of the rules that says anything about age restrictions." And so, the Left might say, here we have a 10-month-old child receiving a gun permit! Imagine the havoc to be wreaked by a child with a shotgun!

However, the more important point is: the permit application was completed and submitted by the boy's father. One would imagine that this same father would take responsibility for the child's actions, and that the child would, in fact, never have an opportunity to use the weapon without the father's direct involvement.

Is this story really about the issue of gun control, or is it about parental responsibility? If this child actually got his hands on the gun, would it be the State's responsibility or the father's? The Columbine killers, even at their ages, didn't exist in a vacuum.

Here's a fairly in-depth discussion of intellectual property that makes some sense of a very complex issue. It's essentially an expanded version of my shorter discussion a few days ago that made the point that, contrary to another argument I linked, the essential nature of intellectual property isn't its "scarcity (or lack thereof) but rather the fact that it must be produced by someone. I covered it in more detail in the comments.

Ed Cline (a fine writer and philosopher) discusses the concept of "hate crimes" in depth. This is an important topic, and Mr. Cline does a great job of discussing it in terms of fundamentals.

A must read.

Celebrity Report: This is a great interview with Jon Voight, where he discusses the Left, the war on terror, and his support for a strong America. Some excerpts:

You recently visited with wounded troops at Walter Reed. What were your impressions?
I was deeply impressed by them. Most I spoke to were young people, around 20 years old. And they were really very eloquent, very positive, very respectful. You have to be proud of the children we're turning out from looking at this group of people. For me, I would much rather hear from these guys than the people who are presenting the news on television on a daily basis.

As in the more general war on terror?
The war on terror is real. People would have you believe it's not real. This is not Vietnam. This particular situation is not the same wherein we can walk away and just leave destruction behind us. No, we can't. Anyone who has paid attention to what [Iranian President] Ahmadinejad is saying, what all the mullahs are saying in this country and in England, and in all of the Arab world, this is serious—they're calling for the destruction of America and all democracy and that's what's going on. We could lose this war.

That's just the beginning; there's much more good stuff there. Well worth the read.

Russia is heading in the wrong direction, in so many ways. It's sad, really. America could have done so many things to help create a free state of out the ashes of Communism. Although it wasn't our responsibility, it would have certainly been in our interest, and would have required little more than some rational education to help the Russian people understand what it means to be free.

I know from personal experience that the people of the former USSR are hard-working, resourceful folk, with one major failing: they yearn for security over freedom, and will accept any dictator who promises security no matter the cost. Putin is just such a dictator, and it remains to be seen just how bad he really is.

Digg Report: It's a slow day on Digg. #1, at 2634 Diggs, is, a list of Google's various tools. On one page, yet!

Instapundit links to a story about French intervention in Africa. If some shadowy group within the US government were to do something like this, it would be plastered on the front page of newspapers around the globe as another example of why the world hates America. Al Jazeera would issue a recording of bin Laden or Al-Zawahiri using it as another example to justify 9/11 and on-going calls for America's destruction.

But it's France, and so they get a pass.

Yet another example of how media coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a cesspool of bad ideas and misreporting. As the story points out, though, this won't be corrected, but will be added to the on-going litany of lies and distortions that makes the world hate Israel.

This essay by Bernard Lewis should be required reading. The Islamists understand only one thing: strength. They're like animals in this respect (among others), which can smell fear and react to it. If we fold now, we'll pay dearly later.

The only question is, how much later?

Really, I think this listing of Google's philosophy (and, interestingly, it is a list) is, in total, rather innocuous. The part that I find interesting is #6, "You can make money without doing evil." To me, that's self-evident: I see it done every day of my life. The US economy is over $13 trillion of not doing evil.

I suppose, though, that it all depends on one's definition of "evil." And, just how significant the statement is depends entirely on one's impression of business.

I want this. I'm a sucker for American muscle cars, having grown up just a little too late to enjoy them. The Mustang, the Camaro, the GTO, the Roadrunner, etc., etc.--there's just nothing like the low rumble of a big ol' V8.

I've tried Ubuntu, and it won't connect to my wireless network. I've configured the security settings correctly, its sees the network, but it just won't connect. This is with two different routers, and I've tried both WPA and WPA2, with no luck.

As I research how to fix things in Ubuntu, I still find all sorts of references to dropping to the command line and entering various Linux arcana. It's not much of a challenge for me, really; I've made things work in Linux before. But, it's certainly not ready to replace Windows for the vast majority of the computer-using world, for whom the command line is a foreign concept.

And so, when I read articles like this about someone who's made the switch to Linux because Vista is so hard to work with, I get a bit of a chuckle. It's one thing to claim Linux works for a computer professional who doesn't work in a corporate environment; it's another thing to claim that it's easier to use than Vista for a computer novice, or that it's an acceptable option in a corporate environment that relies heavily on Microsoft server-side products.

Linux, including Ubuntu, has a long way to go before it can replace any version of Windows. Assertions to the contrary, I'm convinced, are just another form of Microsoft-bashing.

Here's a story I found on Digg about the "Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007." Now, my definition of "censorship" is government prohibition of speech, and so for these to be truly "censored" would mean that government somehow stopped their publication, which didn't happen. I remember reading something about each and every one of these stories, and so if our government had tried to censor them, we have a long way to go before it achieves Orwellian proportions.

Certainly, the mainstream media didn't "censor" these stories. I find it simply impossible to believe that the AP, Reuters, NBC, ABC, CBS, et. al., are pro-Bush administration, and would bury a story to protect it.

Ultimately, many (most, all? it's a bit hard to read through all of it) of the stories are typical old Leftist saws, and I find many of the sources listed here to be suspect. In other words, it's typical Digg, and just as disturbing.

This is outstanding, and pithy. Here, Fred Thompson responds to Michael Moore, apparently something about a debate challenge.

I like it.

As usual, Digg comments are fascinating in their own right. No comment necessary.

Regarding the Dugg story, it's opinion, and I'll leave it at that. Not worth the time.

Whatever works. I like it.

I remain torn on Giuliani, as I always do political candidates in our mixed economy/society, but I like his stance on a few issues. Apparently, how to stop another attack on the US is one of them.

I'm not sure which is worse, that kids were subjected to such psychological torture, or that they were told merely to hide under their desks. Can't our school administrators come up with a better answer to mass murder than instilling in our children such a passive response to evil?

I wonder how Boing Boing would respond to a Web page that offered lessons on how to rob banks and get away with it? Or homes? Or to copy their Web site and publish it? Would it be the same as their response to a Web site that offers hints on how to pirate (i.e., steal) intellectual property?

Would they link to such a page? Call it a "great little beginner's guide"? One wonders.

Here's an interesting article on Digg and other social news sites. Are they ruled by the mob? You decide.

Thanks, as usual, to Little Green Footballs for this tidbit. Here are some Daily Kos comments where they think gassing Joe Lieberman would be just dandy. I'm recording this for future reference, should there be any controversy regarding comments on this or any other site.

The Left is more virulent and deadly than anyone on to the right of them (and if anyone hasn't figured it out by now, I'm not exactly to the right or left of anyone). This serves as further proof.

The Pope is dead, long live the Pope.

One of the most common arguments used to justify the theft of intellectual property (IP) is the doctrine of "fair use." This doctrine is used, erroneously, to support the general notion that we as consumers have a right to utilize the IP that we "purchase"* however we want, such as ripping to CDs, copying to portable devices, etc. I've even seen it used to justify downloading music via P2P technology like Bittorrent, although that's clearly not within any rational person's definition of "fair use."

Just what does "fair use" mean, though? Does it provide the right to rip music to a CD, and to copy digital versions of IP to any number of devices? Does it give us the right to use software to strip off the DRM applied by any of the various vendors of digital media, such as iTunes?

According to the U.S. Copyright Office, "fair use" has a much more limited definition. It means, essentially, that one has the right to utilize parts of a copyrighted work for very specific, noncommercial uses such as research, news reporting, teaching, etc. Even then, one cannot utilize an entire work, although it's left up to the court to decide what's acceptable in any given context. Clearly, though, this definition does not allow the consumer any rights to copy a given piece of IP.

Other court decisions and case law have been used to justify copying IP, and in some cases might even be reasonable absent other considerations. For example, DVD's do get damaged, and it might seem perfectly reasonable to make backup copies. However, in reviewing a few DVD's that I've purchased, I've found that each states clearly on the label that unauthorized copying is prohibited. Therefore, my only options regarding those DVD's is to refuse to purchase them, or to abide by those terms.

In any case, I do not have a "fair use" right to copy those DVD's. Any other interpretation would appear to be an urban legend, and a dangerous one at that.

*Note that I put "purchase" in quotes, although I continue to use the word throughout the post. It's a topic for another discussion, but I believe it's more accurate to say that we license intellectual property rather than purchase it. And, we do so, in many cases, according to very specific terms. It might be that those terms need to be better communicated, as with software where the licensing terms are inside the box, but nevertheless those terms apply. Only if we destroy the concept of free, voluntary trade can we feel free to violate the terms of our own agreements.

What a shocker: Iran has increased its uranium enrichment. This is a confusing story, really a mismash of disjointed facts. Iran has improved its enrichment capabilities and violated its agreements, but probably can't sustain their efforts, unless they can, in which case something should probably be done, but nobody knows what. Pretty common stuff for the mainstream media.

The one most important fact, though, is that Iran has stated its desire to destroy Israel and the United States (and the West, and Disneyland, and women with their powerful hair), which should be enough. How they mean to do so really isn't all that important to me.

Certainly, I'm no fan of the World Bank in general, and I don't think that anyone should utilize their authority to violate the terms of their agreements. But, the story about Paul Wolfowitz and his "ethics violations" is astounding for how much press it's receiving.

What did the guy do, exactly? As far as I can tell, he put his girlfriend in a cushy job. Horrors! That's certainly front page news.

Of course, taking millions of dollars in bribes from Saddam Hussein in administering the "Oil for Food" program, and contributing to starvation among the Iraqi population, has hardly warranted any negative coverage of the United Nations since the story first broke years ago. Here we have verified, documented corruption of the worst kind, in an organization that threatens the very sovereignty of the United States, and there's relatively little about it in the mainstream media.

Note that I'm not saying that there was no coverage, but that the story warranted Monica Lewinsky, O.J. Simpson, Paris Hilton coverage, and it received nothing even close to that.

This highly Digged story is interesting mainly for the comments. It's amazing how so many people are so willing to equivocate when it comes to stealing someone else's work.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 6522 Diggs (wow!) show another Digg tendency: some stories just never go away. I can remember this basic theme, "The cancer cure that (Big Pharma, the Government, Nobody) cares about" on more than a couple of occasions in reference to the drug dichloroacetate.

Certainly, I'd be as happy as anyone about a cure for cancer. But the notion that such a cure could be found and scientifically verified, and then somehow remain hidden, is ludicrous. Businesspeople aren't idiots--if they saw a cure for cancer, they'd jump all over it, because somebody would make money from it. And, they'd stop wasting as much of their money on finding other cures.

Update: I was thinking more about this, and I wonder: is this story so popular because it has some scientific importance? Or, is it popular because it plays on the Digg Leftist mentality that "big business" is somehow responsible for keeping such a medical advance from the rest of us?

I think Condi is entirely correct when she says we're not in a new Cold War with Russia. A "Cold War" implies that a "Hot War" is the alternative, and I certainly hope we're not that far gone. With the Soviet Union, the Cold War was the alternative to mutual destruction; all of the global brinksmanship, proxy wars, espionage, etc., for all of its horror, was fundamentally more attractive than a shooting war between countries with thousands of nuclear weapons.*

Rather, I think the next Cold War could be with Iran. And, while the Communists weren't rational, they still wanted to live. We can't say the same about the religious.


*I'm not equating the Soviet Union and the United States here. The USSR was fundamentally evil, the United States was not. One deserved to survive, the other did not. But, the fact was, had things devolved to a hot war, I for one don't believe that things would have gone well.

Two points struck me from this story about Microsoft's recent open letter about open source violations of its patents.

First, there's "...Microsoft's business is very much, maybe all, about legal contracts." I find this a fascinating comment, because I can't imagine what business in a free market isn't about legal contracts. Every legitimate transaction in a free society is based upon the notion of at least an implied contract between the parties. Otherwise, there would be no way to seek redress in the courts when one side is in breach.

Next is, "The contractual approach underlines a fundamental philosophical attitude about ownership: If I create it, it's mine." I struggle to imagine another attitude about ownership. Could it be, "If I don't create it, it's mine"? No, of course not. Or, "If I create it, it's not mine"? Hardly, at least in a rational society. "It doesn't matter whether or not I create it, it's still mine"? Ditto.

The issue of Microsoft's approach to combatting open source software is much more complex, and deserves its own rational treatment. Perhaps such a treatment will show up on this blog. But, the concept of "ownership" is definitely central, and these two statements are fascinating mainly in how they bring into question concepts of business and ownership that I would have imagined were self-evident.

Apparently, I was wrong.

I don't agree that Americans like a monarch. I didn't care for Bush Sr., despised Bill Clinton, can't stand Bush Jr., and might commit hari-kari if Hillary is elected, but I don't think this is a tendency toward a secret yearning for royalty.

I think it does, though, show a certain complacency (to which the article does allude). And, it shows how vitally important it is that we avoid democracy at all costs, and that we somehow reinstate the founding republican principles (the article says this, as well). Limited government is the only way to avoid allowing complacency (and today's Internet-fueld mob-rule mentality) to create an oppressive majority rule.

Hopefully this Ali Asgari guy is singing like a canary about now. If he has negative things to say about our enemies, though, I'm sure he'll have no credibility with the mainstream media.

Mr. Vice President, of course Arab "leaders" are mostly in support of stabilizing Iraq. Nobody likes a civil war, the Middle East is full of sectarian and religious conlict irrespective of America's involvement, and they'd be happy to have us spend American money and lives to clean up their messes for them.

I don't know if we have any choice but finish things in Iraq, but I hardly think that Arabian support should count in our calculations.

Celebrity Report: Bruce is at it again. Or, this might be part of the chat I previously linked. In any case, he makes the point: celebrities aren't particularly qualified to comment on current topics simply because their celebrities. In another context, I might be embarassed to make such a self-evident point, but given the penchant of actors to make inance political comments it's a point that needs to be made.

Over and over. Of course, Bruce himself could benefit from some speechwriting. Are you listening, Bruce? I'm available, and I'm affordable.

Michael Moore is at the top of my list of anti-American scum. He's not particularly more heinous than many others, but he's much more vocal and manipulative than most. He'll do anything, no matter how despicable, distasteful, or downright evil, to make a point--and his points are often multi-faceted in their intellectual atrocity.

Take his most recent affair, the trip to Cuba for healthcare. If he had been genuinely concerned about the 9/11 "heroes" (as he calls them here; I'm sure he calls them something else, elsewhere), he would have taken them to a place where healthcare was at least first-world. Taking them to Cuba, where healthcare is, in general, less than human, is disgusting; giving the Cuban dictatorship a highly-visible opportunity to showcase the decent healthcare that they reserve for themselves--as if it's the Cuban standard--is evil.

Cuba doesn't need any additional propaganda from the Left. And if Michael Moore looks in a full-length mirror, he'll see his character looking back at him.

Why should it be any surprise that the Soviet Un... er, Russia... is getting away with committing acts of war against another nation? Iran has been committing acts of war against the United States since 1979 (if not before), with nary a scratch to show for it. It continues in Iraq, of course, thus demonstrating that far from being warmongering, we're actually peaceful to a deadly fault.

I maintain my position that the war in Iraq (and, by extention, in Afghanistan) is wrong only because Iran should have been our first target.

Will Warming Chill the Global Economy? That's Businessweek's question, and I think the answer's obvious. Of course it will, and the effects will be even more egregious given the uncertaintly about global warming (as readers of this blog will come to know, I believe it's all a lot of, ahem, hot air). It's one thing to spend money on an insurance policy, it's another to do so at the point of a gun, i.e., through taxation.

And to think it's the likes of Al Gore who are responsible. Yeesh.

Boing Boing's at it again, advertising a method for breaking Apple's DRM and thus for violating the terms of one's purchase agreement. Nobody has any excuse at this point for failing to understand that a song bought from iTunes has certain restrictions attached.

If one doesn't like those restrictions, then one buys his music from another source or buys the CD and rips it.

Celebrity Report: Okay, my Google alerts are going crazy, and since it's what I'm working on at the moment, I have yet another Celebrity Report. I mentioned Jon Voigt earlier, and here he is going off on the Left. Here he is again, on video. And here's a decent interview.

Gotta love it.

Celebrity Report: At the risk of turning this nascent blog into a celebrity rag, here's a fictional account about conversations with Jon Voigt and Frank Miller in a surprisingly non-Lefty Malibu venue. I've read some encouraging stuff about Voigt, but I'd always imagined that Miller was a Lefty. I'll have to keep my eye out.

Celebrity Report: It's Bruce Willis again, this time his denying ever offering a reward for finding Saddam Hussein. Funny, but I remember watching an interview where he said something suspiciously like that, and so I'm surprised that he's saying this. I can't find the interview, but I'm still looking.

Why is everything a "hack" today? What we used to call tips, advice, suggestions, recommendations, better ways of doing thing, etc., are now called "hacks". This is ridiculous.

"Exercise Hacks"?!? The Internet is good for many things, but it has a very bad tendency to take intellectual trendiness to a ridiculous degree.

It's cheap humor, to be sure, and probably only funny in it's English translation, but is there really a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdullah?

Oops, my bad. Actually, there only used to be a Mullah Abdullah. Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the story.

Do we have our Resident President to thank? (My apologies: that was really bad...)

Update: Was this guy Abdullah or Dadullah? Either way, it still works (or not, either way).

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. Light posting today while I take care of the mother in my life.

I've been remiss in failing to mention James Lilek's dismissal. I know little to none of the story, and don't really find it necessary to research it. Suffice to say that he's a tremendous talent and I look forward to reading more of his stuff. I never did read his column, concentrating on his Bleat (maybe the best original-thought blog out there), and so I'll likely not miss much.

I'll not insult him with any of the typical platitudes. He's a far more successful writer than am I, and my words of encouragement really wouldn't mean much.

Update: Here's his farewell column. Again, much good stuff to be found at his Web site, so it's not as if he's going away.

Digg Report: Speaking of Digg, today's #1 Digg, at 3864 Diggs, is a post about a college student who scored a perfect failing grade on a True/False test. The professor's (admittedly valid) response is also posted. Relevance, please?

I may need to revise my position on Digg. It may not only be dominated by Leftists, but it may also be a relatively pure indication of what happens when collectivism replaces the individual in the arena of ideas.

This is a good story, as far as it goes, in the Los Angeles Times on how the mainstream media is altering its news coverage to meet the edicts of Internet popularity. I would take it a step further: social networking sites, Digg, and other Internet phenomena represent a sort of mob rule mentality, where mere popularity is equated with importance, relevance, and truth. The fact that the mainstream media is following along shoud be surprising to noone.

Another example of this is Twitter, where one judges oneself based on how many "friends" are watching the most often boring and trivial aspects of one's life. It doesn't matter who those friends are, or how inane the messages might be; just the fact that hundreds or thousands of people are listening is the exclusive measure. I struggle (but not really) to understand how someone can measure oneself based on such an anti-value.

I think I believe in much of what this story says about open source. It's written in that MTV style that tends not to focus on one thing for too long (defined as long enough for one to think about), but it seems to make some sense. At least, I agree with the very ending, which talks about open source developers tearing apart the very industry that pays for their living and allows them to write software "for free."

I don't find it to be a very "cynical" position, however, at least in the sense that "cynic" is used as a pejorative term. To me, it just makes some good sense.

I find this story about global warming to be interesting, although it also tends to confirm that climate is no longer a science. At least, it's not one that the layman can research, analyze, and draw conclusions from with any clarity. There's just too much there to muddle through, in even a single article.

How can someone come to a rational conclusion when so much is so unclear? Theories that contradict each other, computer simulations that are no longer valid but still referenced as definitive, constantly shifting positions held by proponents of one side or another... They all conspire to make the entire issue unintelligible.

And yet, the economies (and thus standards of living) of the world (or at least, the Western world) are held hostage to it all. One would think that all of the uncertainty would count for something.

Celebrity Report: For my inaugural Celebrity Report, which highlights a rational celebrity who doesn't spend his time bashing the United States, I start with the grandaddy: Bruce Willis. Here, he can be found taking part in a chat (intelligently, I think) on his movies and such. Nothing political here (except a very brief allusion to loving one's country, which for some is probably "political"), and that's the point of this segment.

Celebrities are not necessarily particularly intelligent or well-informed (although many of them are). They have no special knowledge by virtue of being famous, nor from being influential because of their celebrity status. In short, they're not really doctors, although they may play one on TV.

Most celebrities don't understand this. Bruce Willis strikes me as one who does.

I just realized that Blogger has been apparently posting according to Central time, which is how my Google account was originally established before I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. So, I've changed that, and this is a test to see if I'm now posting at the right time. At the very least, my Digg Report posts are off by two hours, which makes them a bit confusing.

Update: Still not correct. Looks like I'll have to do some digging. This is embarassing; Blogger is hardly complex software.

Update 2: Found the setting, and can't seem to find Pacific Standard Time. So, I'm selecting "Pacific Daylight Time" to see if it does the trick.

As I continue to ponder the concept of DRM, which is to say, intellectual property, I'm often struck by how bankrupt are the arguments presented by those on the other side. This one posits that intellectual property, "ideas," does not constitute a "scarce" resource, and thus economic law cannot be applied to it.

I'm fascinated by this perspective. The writer even goes so far as to compare "ideas" to "air," as in, there's so much of them that "we don't need a market to efficiently allocate it." And so it was said as they were sent to the gulag.

Of course, "ideas" are created by people. There are a lot of us, certainly, but I don't think our "abundance" means that our efforts can be so freely distributed.

What's worst about this story is that it's true. I'm not in favor of spending American lives and resources on nation-building, but we certainly gain nothing by breaking our promises like this. A little gunship support after the first Gulf war might have been enough to bring about regime change in Iraq without spilling much, if any, American blood.

And, in that case, we'd probably be invading Iran today from American military bases built and supported by the Iraqi people. Perhaps an even more pronounced chain reaction would have occurred: unfettered access to Iraqi oil might have reduced our reliance on Saudi Arabia, thus reducing their ability to sponsor groups like Al Qaida and saving the World Trade Center.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg (at 1:47pm PST) at 3750 Diggs is a story about a woman who drives into a suprisingly deep puddle. Huh.

This is an example of another Digg trait: stories about stupidity often jump to the top. Nothing nefarious there. Sometimes the stories are even humorous. IT folk do tend to have a sense of humor.

In what will likely be a recurring theme here at DT, let me say: I dislike Boing Boing. In particular, I dislike their take on "digital rights management" or DRM (a misnomer if I've ever seen one, more to come on this topic). For example, the controversy surrounding publication of the HD AACS code is getting on my nerves, while Boing Boing continues to find new and innovative ways to milk the issue for all it's worth.

The $100 notebook project bothers me, as do all feel-good Lefty efforts at making people's lives better in spite of themselves. 100 million dead Communists last century are a testament to the good intentions that pave the road to Hell, and in my mind the $100 notebook is another example.

Will access to information help a starving, tribally oppressed African child? If so, will this happen before or after he is conscripted into some genocidal warlord's militia and she is sent off to some faraway village as a sex slave? The Internet is a great thing, no doubt about it, but it can't alter the underlying philosophical abyss that is the tribal collectivism of Africa.

From this story, it looks like the project is having difficulty getting traction. Probably, the warlords and dictators haven't yet figured out how to use the notebooks to their favor. They'd rather see charity in the form of money and food, that they can funnel away from the intended targets and toward their bands of thugs.

This should get the Iranian's attention. Cheney says good stuff here, within the context of two carrier strike groups (a fair bit of firepower, I must say), but will they listen?

I doubt it. We already have sufficient reason to use those carriers, and haven't, so why should Iran worry about such saber rattling now? Bush isn't just lame, he's castrated.

A quickie for tonight, and a comment. The DT is likely to evolve, and in addition to the two new items just added, I'll not promise to keep the Daily Topic to a single one. There might be multiple topics in a given day, or in odd cases not a single one. But, I digress.

This story struck me as fascinating, not for the fact that some significant number of soldiers in Iraq support their own efforts as valid and important. That's no surprise. Rather, it strikes me for what it says about the mainstream media, although that, too, is no surprise.

Power Line says it best, and so I won't be redundant. Just read it.

As a test, I've checked out Digg.com to see what's #1 (at app. 9:10pm PST). Interestingly, it's a story about Kevin Rose, founder of Digg. That's too narcissistic to count, I think, and even somewhat perverted, and so I'm selecting #2.

At 2778 Diggs (which I'm assuming makes it rather popular), the #2 most popular story is about impeaching Bush. What a shocker.

Not much to say here, really, except that it's almost poetic that such a story presents itself for the inaugural Daily Topic Digg report. I don't like Bush myself, but an impeachment, in today's day and age, is about as partisan as it can get. I haven't read the story, and I won't, because I can guess what it's all about. "Bush lied, people died," or something like that, I wager.

Note: I'm assuming that the number of Diggs will increase over time, and that an article's ranking will change. And, a promise: I'm going to select the articles in as random a fashion as possible, defined as whenever I get an opportunity to post a report. I will not wait for a Leftist story to percolate to the top; if I'm wrong in my hypothesis, and Digg isn't a bellwhether for the Leftist leanings of the IT industry, then I'll stop wasting my time.

Two new regular items will be kicked off soon for the ol' DT. First, I'll be scouring the 'net for celebrities who do not attack America, industry, business, Bush, Cheney, or anyone else not closely affliated with the Left. Second, I'll be selecting the top Digg.com story (at whatever time I have a chance to select it, and so there will be some pseudo-randomness to it) and evaluating it for whether it's political and, if it is, in which direction it bends.

So, keep an eye out for them (oh ye non-existent readers)...

Well, it's been awhile. The "Daily Topic" has been anything but. It's not been daily, nor has it been particularly topical. However, given a recent sea-change in my employment situation, I'm going to devote more time to this blog and make a run at the whole full-time writer gig. The worst that can happen is I'll fail miserably and my family will end up out on the street.

Let's hope not, shall we?

I need to invest some additional time in the topic of "free" municipal WiFi. A few of the possible principles involved:

1. Will such networks turn into government-granted monopolies along the lines of cable TV and telecom? It's possible, perhaps even likely, particularly as terms such as "public utility" continue to be attached to the concept

2. It definitely provides a "free" (in some cases, tax-supported) service that will be good enough, I predict, for a significant slice of the market, thus reducing the incentive for creating the next generation of ubiquitous broadband Internet access.

Again, though, this topic requires more thought. It bugs me on a fundamental level; I'll need to do some digging before I can identify precisely why...

What the Hell is "quantum information"? Is the universe really organized into something akin to the bits I'm using now to write this post? If so, are there bytes to go along with it?

The more I read about quantum physics (as a layman), the more I find it to be the result of mysticism making its nasty way into science. It's all manipulation of mathematics that have nothing to do with reality, and indeed in many cases seems a direct attempt to do away with reality itself as something involving identity and causality.

The sad thing is, it's so difficult to delve into and make sense of, because it's so twisted. I'd say, "Who cares?", except we all should. Today's physics is tomorrows most basic technological advances, and if it's built on vapor...

Well, here I am again, having let days go by without posting to the Daily Topic. I should change the blog's title to "A Topic Every Now and Then." That would be more honest and, perhaps, more sustainable given my schedule. It would also relieve me of the pressure of writing something every day.

Of course, that's the point, and so I'm going to maintain the title and recommit myself to posting something on a daily basis. And, currently, this blog hasn't been read by a single soul other than myself, as far as I know, and so fretting over my consistency borders on the pathological.

So, one more try. Let's see if we can do something this time...

Update: Just read the post. Actually, it's been almost two months since I last posted, not merely days. Meaning, I suck. The positive is: I have nowhere to go but up.

This article on Slate posits the question, "Do the Poor Deserve Life Support?" Consider what this question presumes.

First, there must be some universal equation by which a person is measured against a material good (in this case life support) to which a person might have access. This equation necessarily has some moral component, given the use of the word "deserve," that measures a person based on some criteria tied to a person's economic status--it's implicit in the question that a poor person might not have a moral right to something by virtue of his economic status.

Second, there's someone with the authority (perhaps the responsibility) to make such a determination, which is, whether or not a given person should be given access, in this case, to life support. This someone must be other than the person himself, because otherwise the question is simply nonsensical.

The article itself discusses the poor with the assumption that something will be done for them. That is, the question isn't really whether or not money will be spent on the poor, but rather how such necessarily economic decisions should be made. There's some consideration of how the poor would spend such money, or perhaps what the preferences of the poor might be--perhaps spending money on insurance for life support wouldn't meet any particular poor person's daily considerations, e.g., no poor person would spend the money on such insurance if he needed shoes.

Of course, in practice, whether or not a person has access to any material good is certainly determined by their economic status. A wealthier person has access to more material goods than a poorer person. In a truly free society, whether or not a poor person had access to and would purchase any particular good would be determined by his own productive efforts and by his own decisions.

What's truly disturbing about this article, then, is not that it lacks compassion in considering something so important as life support on economic grounds, which would be the common complaint. Rather, it's disturbing that poor people, or any people, should be considered by others according to such criteria.

My answer to the question would be, "The poor deserve whatever they can buy," which is to say, whatever their productive efforts allow them to trade for with others.

It's entirely implausible, of course, but check this out. If current theories in longevity bear fruit, we'll not only live a long, long time, but we'll be able to go just about anywhere. I figure, if someone is alive and in decent health in 25 years, he'll be enjoying life for centuries.

I'm not in favor of the Iraq war, likely for different reasons than many. But, how can anyone oppose the war in consideration of the "insurgency," when it's capable of acts like this? Were I a Leftist, I would be forced by virtue of common decency to just keep my trap shut about the whole thing.

Welcome to 2006. Due to a number of personal and professional events, most of which would bore the socks off of any rational person, the "Daily" Topic was anything but in 2005. I'm going to make an effort to make it so in 2006, though. We'll see.

Happy New Year!

As usual, these guys say it better than I can. In general, though, the thing that kills me is this: what's the difference between 1999 and 2000? The answer: nothing. 2000 has no more significance than 1999. To the brave men and women fighting in Iraq, of course, and as it should be to all Americans, there's no difference between one and 2000.

Someone, please, tell me why the federal government is dictating (let alone subsidizing) a migration to digital TV.

Anyone?

The UN, Saddam, and Al Qaida, all nice and cozy... It doesn't surprise me a bit. This is a complicated read, and shows how convoluted is international financing in general and money laundering specifically. It also points out that removing Saddam Hussein from power was a necessary action, in spite of the Left's rabid and disingenuous disapproval.

Now, the nation-building business is a little more suspect.

Everyone who makes a purchase at Wal-Mart does so voluntarily. Everyone who works there does so of their own free will. The only potentially coercive element in Wal-Mart's business practices are the various "packages" put together by state and local governments to entice Wal-Mart to build stores, which are paid for by taxpayers (and, that's very presumptive on my part; I actually don't know if any such packages are routinely extended).

Anyone who attacks Wal-Mart for paying low wages, utilizing part-time employees, not offering healthcare benefits, driving out smaller businesses, etc., etc. is attacking the very essence of a free society. That is, they attack the ability for individuals to make decisions for themselves--to shop at Wal-Mart and to work there. In doing so, they attack the concept of individual rights at its roots.

One of the more specious arguments against Wal-Mart is that, by not offering healthcare benefits, they push workers into public healthcare. It's fascinating how it is only in this context that so many people discuss the fact that such healthcare is paid for by the rest of us; usually, this fact is ignored when the same folks call for expanding government-provided benefits like healthcare. Of course, in a truly free society, everyone would be responsible for their own healthcare, but such a discussion is beyond the scope of today's post.

A more valid argument could be levied against Wal-Mart for its practice of purchasing so many producs from China. Even this, though, isn't clearly negative. First, the economic impact for the US is positive--we're able to purchase goods at much lower prices, thus freeing up resources for spending in other areas. Second, ultimately, such trade chips away at communism, and improves the standard of living of the Chinese people. Eventually, Chinese wages will rise as their economic conditions improve and their expectations increase, and China will no longer be competing purely on the basis of lower wages.

The attacks against Wal-Mart are a fascinating look into the Left's attack on capitalism in general. Unfortunately, such attacks seem to be getting more common and more aggressive. The Left seems to be more confident for some reason, and that concerns me a bit.

One fascinating aspect of such Internet phenomenons as blogging and podcasting is how blogs and podcasts are consumed by discussions about blogging and podcasting. At least, so it seems to me, and it seems true of some of the more popular examples in both genres.

Over time, I suppose things will settle down, and the content will matter more than the media. I certainly hope so, because frankly I grow weary of hearing, from bloggers and podcasters, how important blogging and podcasting is supposed to be.

I wonder if there was this much discussion when the horse and buggy made way for the automobile. I suppose there wasn't, simply because blogging and podcasting didn't exist then.

If anyone doubts that environmentalism is a collectivist ploy to dispose of capitalism in favor of primitive collectives, or maybe that they're really that anti-human, this should shore things up a bit. It may seem a stretch to some, but how else can one account for attacks on wind power as ecologically destructive? Today, they're upset that some birds are killed; next, it'll be microbes.

After all, who are we humans to hold ourselves as more important than bacteria?

If the UN gains control of the Internet, we can expect our little experiment in instant communications to die an ignoble death. Nice and pithy, this explains why.

Also, it's ironic that the UN would express concern that the US would abuse its power (not having done so in 35 years) in maintaining control over such aspects of the Internet infrastructure as the root DNS, when already many UN members manipulate the Internet inside their borders for political reasons. Consider that China and Iran belong to the working group calling for UN control, two nations that have demonstrated numerous times in the past their abiding love for freedom.

The US created the Internet, and the rest of the world has gone along for the ride for decades now. Let's leave it that way.

Here's one of the more intelligent discussions I've read in awhile on the war on terror. I'm not sure yet whether I agree with it 100%, but it seems to make a good deal of sense.

There's a great deal of buzz surrounding the "oil-for-food" scandal at the UN. Recently, the talk surrounds the issue of Kofi Annan's direct involvement in the scandal. Certainly, this is an important story, particularly as it impacts the UN's reluctance to support the removal of Saddam Hussein.

However, the scandal is ultimately detrimental even to the anti-UN cause, because it serves to obfuscate the fundamental corruption of the UN: by including any and all nations and governments among its members, the UN is necessarily and irredemebly corrupt. It's corrupt on a deeply moral basis, placing dictators and totalitarian regimes on equal footing with free nations (or, as free as exist today). The UN represents moral equivalence on a global scale, and it's a corrupt organization in spite of any specific scandals involving the UN's administrative personnel.

Nevertheless, the scandal does reinforce my opinion that the US should pull out of the UN immediately, ceasing all financial contributions and forcibly removing the organization from our soil. The UN does nothing for us, except place us at the mercy of those very groups that want to destroy us. Only our sanction of the UN, and them along with it, makes such a deplorable situation possible.

The trend toward "municipal Wi-Fi" is disturbing, from a number of perspectives. First, it represents yet another distribution of wealth from those who produce it to those who don't. Second, and in a sense more disturbing, it will chill the private development of alternative and potentially superior solutions.

Certainly, there are those who don't currently utilize the Internet who will, once it's free. There are also those who are currently paying for Internet access, who will switch to the free offering. Companies that have made investments in providing wireless Internet access will lose money, and will pull out of that space. They and other companies will also forego investing money in newer and better technologies, both because of the potential for government to render their investments worthless and the lack of penetration due to those people who will stay with the inferior but free alternative.

Note that this discussion does not apply to the efforts of private (i.e., non-government) companies to offer access, such as Google's project in San Francisco. A private company invests its own money (or that of its investors) with the intention of gaining a return. Either they have a good business plan, and will succeed, or a bad business plan, and will fail. In either case, it's their money that they're investing, and they do so based on free choices with specific return-on-investment objectives.

Government, on the other hand, has no such limitations. Government can spend any amount of money, for any length of time, for any level of service, based on any technology provided by any contracted organization. All decisions are made not based on a desire for profit, but based on fiat. That means, decisions are based not on the desires of paying customers, i.e., those willing and able to spend their money on the service, but rather on some committee's definition of what people "need." It's difficult to imagine a more capricious decision-making model.

Ultimately, we'll all suffer from such activities. Some higher-speed, more efficient, ultimately less expensive technology will be delayed or, possibly, will never be developed because no company will be willing to invest in it. And, given the possibility that government will offer a competitive, "free" service, or at best will sanction a single provider, one can't blame them.

Certainly, a capitalist would disagree vehemently with such programs. But everyone who loves technology, and who recognizes its potential for improving man's life, should be just as opposed to it. Likely, many won't, however, because they simply can't turn down an offer of a free lunch.

There was a time, though, when everyone knew there's no such thing.

Short topic tonight. Basically, this. Did Bush really tell Syria to be a "good neighbor"?!? I suppose he did... Next, he'll be asking Iran if we can all just get along.

At times, things seem just a little surreal.