Transcendent Vision

2005-05-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

The Possible End of Judicial Review

Does the Real-ID Act Contain a Constitution Busting Trojan Horse

Excepting the various laws designed to protect the minors, it is rare indeed that my favored tech sites feature commentary on the nature and status of law. Other than Groklaw, very few tech oriented sites concern themselves primarily with matters of law or politics. Thus, I was rather surprised to see the above editorial posted on Ars Technica.

Nevertheless, it speaks volumes of the current state of American politics when the technophiles are picking up on the sweeping federalization of the Three-Headed Giant. While others, such as Vox Day have commented on the Devil's Own, it's almost heartwarming to see the technophiles picking up on the vary real threats of current Federal governance in the United States.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of American jurisprudence and Constitutional history should realize that judicial review in the United States is a construct of the Court. While it may be arguably too powerful, the construct arrives at its current state from a series of critical judiciary decisions that begin with Marbury v. Madison and culminates in The United States v. Nixon. The decision in Nixon effective gives the Court jurisdiction over matters of Executive Order, as well as other pseudo-legislative Executive Authority. To a degree, I think the provisions of the Real-ID Act attempting to circumvent judicial authority are designed with this precedent in mind.

The Legislature and Executive both recognize the danger of judicial fiat, but removing it entirely might very well be a Bad Thing (tm) at this point. The United States Supreme Court, while certainly not exempt from bad decisions, has been functionally emasculated by the Bush Administration as it is. The Executive stands in continued defiance of Court order on both the Guantanamo and Hamdi issues. Due process of law has taken a back seat. Removing the Court from matters of law would simply be the icing on the cake.

2005-05-04T04:55:00.000-07:00

Utah Figured It Out

Utah Governor Snubs "No Child" Requirements

I believe this makes Utah the first state to officially reject George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. While not exactly in line with my goal of privatized or home schooled education for all children in the United States, it is comforting to see that at least one state executive has a clue. However, they aren't going far enough. The entire benchmark suite and yearly progress accounting needs to be negated as well.

An acquaitance relates:

In order for a school to pass AYP (Annual Yearly Progress), only 1% of your total population can be exempt from the annual test. Total population includes all children in a school, including all special needs students. Deaf, blind, MR, LD, ADHD, resource, autistic, ED, you name it. One percent in our school works out to exactly one child. Out of 250.

I was a little curious as to how the Federal Department of Education arrived as a number of 1 to represent 1% of 250 students. He didn't have a satisfactory explanation, just the documentation from the Federal Department of Education, which confirmed his statement. Incidentally, his small, rural public school has more "Special Needs" children than they have exemptions.

2005-05-03T05:19:00.000-07:00

Blair, Bush, and Saddam Hussein

This should be a dead issue. Bush and Blair both commit themselves and their administrations firmly to the waffle. Neither admits any wrong doing, intentional misdirection or misinformation. The supporters of the current coalition (read that as U.S. strong-armed) military action in Iraq, the regime change, and the puppet-state building, are doing all of the legwork for defending the missteps and mischaracterizations of these two executives.

In the United States, no manner of evidence (even the findings of our own Senate Intelligence Committee) has been able to properly locate blame for misinformation from the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate Whitepapers. The Administration has censured and ignored the findings of our check on his administration, all while making cries of a distinctly liberal media. Yet, there's no lack of information or quoting of Lord Butler's Report. The legislative oversight of the United States is overlooked, in fact consciously ignored, because the published opinion of British parliamentarian supports the party line: Hussein had WMDs.

Yet, no intelligence group in the world actually presents intelligence or evidence to support the claims of an imminent threat. A friend in England has this to say:

Jack Straw was foreign secretary, John Scarlet was head of the intel briefings and has now been promoted to head of MI6 here. Anyway, the core point of this is UK context missed in the article; Jack, and others, publically stated the case for war was strong, and required, and we were under imminnent threat. They stated this repeatedly.

As for 'imminent' .. in the UK the WMD dossier explicitly claimed weapons to be deployed within 45 minutes. There was also strong implication, and uncorrected open press interpretation, that these weapons could reach Cyprus, where we have a military base.

Despite that the original source has been shown to be a single Iraqi source, uncorroborated, with many many caveats about the quality of info inside the intelligence service suppressed from consideration by the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee), and those that remained then excised from the public report.

And this is precisely the problem here in the United States. The findings of our own Senate Intelligence Committee is being ignored, both here and abroad, just like the findings of Britain's oversight groups based on the interpretation of a single source: Lord Butler. The validity of the Cake Uranium claims are still questionable (after all, they cost a CIA Field Agent her cover).

The party line is that war was necessary. It's shifted from WMDs to preconceived nation building. The recent leaks discussed in the Times indicate that Blair was privy to the pre-planning Condoleeza Rice hinted at during her Senate testimony. As more time passes, it's seems to me that it is becoming increasingly evident that Bush and his supporters, both foreign and domestic, were determined to invade Iraq, through whatever meants necessary.

2005-05-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

Software Libre v. Microsoft, Valve, et al.

Valve has seen the future, and that future is Steam

You Own Nothing

Linspire's Michael Robertson is a little over the top. Valve has some legitimate complaints with Vivendi (I won't dredge up the Half-Life 2 fiasco). However, there is a disturbing trend in the world of retail software and pre-packaged hardware in the computer industry: your purchases are single fee leases with restricted End User License Agreements and Terms of Use. The intellectual property cartels, first through the DMCA and later the Uniform Computer Information and Transaction Act, have created a society where the consumer does not own their computer or the software they use.

This disturbs me.

2005-04-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

Let's Try This Again

It's been quite some time since I've posted to my blog. In fact, I've been downright delinquent in considering this space since last September. I won't bore anyone with the details, but I should now be able to find more time to blog. Look for regular updates starting Monday.

K.

2004-09-10T06:01:00.000-07:00

Willful Ignorance

I have noticed a trend among the more rabid George W. Bush supporters I encounter in my daily travels: they are all willfully ignorant. I recently had a rather large argument with a friend of mine who believes Bush is the greatest president the nation has ever seen. She is quite adamant in her support of Bush. In fact, she is so adamant in said support that she refuses to read anything that might possibly cast Bush in a negative light, as it is "just the bitter commentary of the liberal media." There exists no fact, information, or truth that could convince her Bush should not be re-elected.

Concurrently, I am reminded of a discussion I have had with an individual concerning the electability of Bush. Quite simple, he refuses to vote for anyone but a Republican, feels that Republican Party backing is indication enough that Bush is the superior candidate, and likewise refuses to entertain any information, fact, or evidence otherwise, because it must be "the lies of the world." In both cases, they find it insulting that anyone would ask them to defend their choice, much less provide evidence to support their position or consider evidence that might alter it.

In the case of the second invidual, he once said, "I could not possibly vote for John McCain, in good faith, because he is America's greatest threat to free speech. By helping to author the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, he has done us all a great disservice." I pressed him, rather pointedly on this issue by pointing out:

1. George W. Bush signed it into law after promising to veto it on his campaign trail.
2. George W. Bush could have vetoed the law, which would not have survived a post veto vote in Congress.
3. George W. Bush has invoked the law directly against 527 groups, used the RNC to pressure broadcasters airing ads from 527 groups with this law, and is now seeking to make it stronger in an attempt to silence 527 groups and other "third party" anti-campaigners.

Despite all of this, the second individual says it would be hypocritical to not vote for bush, even in light of his previous statement that the BCFRA is a great threat to free speech.

This morning, while enjoying my usual breakfast as a Mom & Pop diner, I was approached by an individual who handed me a button and a bumper stick. He said, "Vote Bush/Cheney in 2004." I asked him to defend his position and he simply said the Democrats won't know how to fight the War on Terror. When questioned about the validity of said War, the individual could not provide any factual or meaningful information.

In almost every encounter, the people I meet supporting George W. Bush's re-election campaign are ill informed, intentionally misinformed, and incapable of providing material defense for their candidate selection. They are willfully ignorant of the truth, dismissing facts and evidence as the rantings of the liberal media, regardless of the opposing source.

2004-06-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

Review Incoming

Viewsonic P70f

I've spent the last several weeks shopping for a CRT. I've read reviews, both professional and consumer, until my eyes felt like bleeding and the eyestrain was miserable. This is pretty hard to do, considering I use an LCD most of the time. However, after much consideration, deliberation, and debate, I finally decided on the Viewsonic P70f 17" CRT. As this is to be my new gaming monitor, the considerations for its purchase were demanding.

The criteria I used to judge this monitor were numerous, but refresh rate, resolution, and display type were definitely primary criteria. The monitor uses a .24mm stripe pitch Diamondtron aperture grille, which provides exceptional color clarity and image consistency. Unlike Trinitron apterture grilles, the Diamondstron variant doesn't have a fanning phosphor pitch. This means better geometry, less distortion, and more consistent physical display.

In any case, the monitor should arrive today and I will post my initial opinion of the device in practice tomorrow.

2004-06-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

Bush vs. Civil Liberties

Since when is the President of the United States and the Department of Justice above the law? Instead of executing the law as they should, the Bush Administration is ignoring Constitutional law, U.S. jurisprudence, and U.S. Legal Code with wreckless abandon.

Yesterday, the White House authorized a DoJ press conference concerning Jose Padilla. In the conference, Padilla was portrayed as a conspirator with Al Qaeda and held responsible for several unquantifiable non-crimes that have not occurred. In fact, they complete waffled away from the dirty-bomb agenda.

As it stands, he has been held, without counsel for over a year and subsequently without indictment or criminal charges. The White House and Department of Justice are ignoring court orders to charge or release him, and ignoring the Federal Court decision that he cannot be labelled as an enemy combatant.

There are no quanitifable or qualifiable crimes attributed to his activities.

More to the point, the White House officially negated any chance the man has at a fair trial or an impartial jury with yesterday's announcements. More to the point, it is a Federal Crime to attribute a unsubstantiated crime to a U.S. citizen prior to indictment in the United States. When the highest executives of law in the United States are breaking it, where do we turn?

2004-05-25T06:07:00.000-07:00

40 Days and 40 Nights
Comcast Considers Blocking SMTP

We all have to deal with it every day. Somehow our email address gets circulated, sold, or spidered by every jackass with half a brain and a personal computer. As a result, we are subject to an epic downpour of SPAM. Sadly, it has none of the makings of the Monty Python classic.

The biggest problem with spam isn't necessarily the proliferation of useless emails bogging down traffic, cluttering inboxes and creating a general quagmire of frustration and exasperation. The vehicle for malware delivery and installation targetted at the uninformed user is the real danger. In some ways, this is a Good Thing (tm). It will force the casual user to achieve higher levels of understanding and operation if we want to defeat the clandestine distribution of malicious software (malware), as well as the obvious theft of processing power and computer resources.

2004-05-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Apologies

I apologize for the complete lack of entries over the last month. As I am sure some of you can understand, there have been real issues prohibiting me from posting to my blog. The insanity of my politics, observation, and thoughts will continue, beginning Monday, 24 May 2004.

Peace be with you all.

2004-04-16T05:07:00.000-07:00

Government 1 People 0

Welcome to the Defeated States of America! Actually, defeated might be too kind a word. As November and the 2004 General Election approaches, it becomes more apparent exactly how defeated the United States truly is. Of course, I'm also not talking about the War on Terror. In fact, I'm not talking about the War in Iraq or the War on Drugs or even the War on Pornography. Normally, I'd wax eloquent on the nature of the boot in the face of American people, but I'll leave that George, as he seems to do a good job of it.

One of the ultimate signifiers of defeat is the increasing rhetoric that any third-party vote is a wasted vote. The public education system teaches that dogma with basic citizenship classes: America is a two party sytem. The governmental status quo is indoctrinated into the minds and hearts of future Americans as a method of perpetuating the state. History is intentionally misreported, as the obfuscation of myth and legend supplant factual accounting of events. Of course, history is just stories the winners write to preserve their exploits and perception of the truth. Incidentally, the socialization of primary education in the United States has allowed the government to shape, form, and design the history that its children are taught. The history of the "winner."

It's a particularly poignant facet of the Orwellian nightmare to consider that our children (in the collective sense) are being indoctrinated and acculturated from an early age as rabid followers of a two party super state. Their rights and responsibilities are less than significant when compared with the proactive self-perpetuation of a government that controls the primary means of education.

I sit here writing this after a long debate with friends on the virtues of a libertarian society. JP, my fiesty fiery locked friend from Montreal, questions the sanctity of individual sovereignty and personal property: "Libertarian ideology would be fine if you changed the economic model it requires." She went on to further explain that energy would be the ideal currency and that personal accumulation of wealth creates a widening Rich/Poor gap. She felt that everyone should have equal wealth, accumulatory ability and opportunity, and that it is the State's responsibility to provide health care, education, and basic staple services. And when I called her a socialist, she recoiled...

On the flip side, L suggested that creating a more competitive and representative government in America would be detrimental to the people. L even went so far as to suggest that a single party system might be preferrable to the current model, but that any expansion of representation would be negative.

And the only thing that could come to mind is ... "War is Peace."

2004-04-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

Intel's New Memory Proposal
FB-DIMMs 1
FB-DIMMs 2
FB-DIMMs 3

It could work. It's not a bad idea.

2004-04-08T05:08:00.000-07:00

The Government is Truth. Peace is War.
Administration Wages War on Pornography

Are we still thinking George W. Bush is the greatest president since sliced bread? The facts are in on Clinton's policy and the truth is, it wasn't bad. But G.W. Bush has taken his Bible to the Oval Office and is apparently seeking divine intervention in the management of this country. After all, we're off in the Middle East creating democracies out of Islamic fundamentalist dictatorships, working on codifying anti-homosexual discrimination into the Constitution, trying to hamstring the Federal Courts with legislation, and now he's taking on free speech and individual freedom in other ways.

The expanion of the Federal Government since the Bush administration took office has been terrifying. Sadly, there's no proof that the opposition will make it any smaller. We've lost. We, the American people, have been defeated by the bureaucracy. It was evident to me in 2000 that we'd lost. After all, the world got to see a man the majority of the population did not vote for go into the White House. Individual freedom was the Holy Grail of the United States. Unfortunately, freedom is slavery.

2004-04-05T05:42:00.000-07:00

T-Minus 10 Days and Counting
Why Your Tax Cut Doesn't Add Up...
Ominous Lies

People keeping telling me that the American public elected George W. Bush. What's really amusing is that when you refute the notion that G.W. won the populat vote in the last election using official election statistics, they tell it is just government spin to make Al Gore look better. Well, November is coming and it's 10 days from 15 April 2004, so I figured some insight into the U.S. economy might be helpful. Of course, not wanting to resist a good jab at the President, I figured some insight into current tax code would be helpful as well...

Vox is almost always on the money when it comes to financial matters. His understanding of economics is solid enough that he knows who to look to for information and analysis that cuts through the Keynesian bullshit of the U.S. government. When reading over his column, you should note the real indicators of inflation and price indexing (Gold, Silver, and securities) as opposed the numbers that the Federal government and all of its economic indicators are espousing on a daily basis.

Of course, what's more fun is when you look at the mainstream media's explanation of how the tax breaks don't exactly work as pitched to the public. More over, it's even more fun when you look at proposed changes to the tax plan that include minimum alternative taxes and a shift from capital gains taxation to a salary based tax economy. The amount of revenue the Federal government needs is only going to increase. Under Bush's plan to shift tax burden from investment gains to salary gains, economic mobility will become greatly hamstringed as well as marginal income.

So, as I've already filed all of my tax documents and gotten my returns this year, which were less on less income than last year, I wonder how many of you will find that you're paying more money out after the tax cuts than before ...

2004-04-01T05:21:00.000-08:00

A Long and Winding Road
Those wily rangers!

The United States is headed a slippery slope with an increasing grade. What's scary is not the insensitive, elitist vanity of some comments, but rather, the terrifying closeness of their posts to the truth. I have said before that genocide is the only viable end for the current path of American policy in Iraq and towards Al Qaeda.

In this thread, we have people advocating nuclear strikes, outright genocide, and patently dehumanizing other human beings. The United States is suffering for inconsistent and ineffective policies regarding the Middle East for the last 60 years. When coupled with the growing resentment of intellectual and industrial decline of the Arabic world, the religious disputes between the West and Middle East are magnified. Whether rational or not, the religious zealots draw connections between the imperialism of Christendom and the decline of the Arabic/Islamic world.

2004-03-25T06:56:00.000-08:00

Is the Pledge a Prayer?
MSNBC: Protest and Prayer

Is the Pledge of Allegiance a prayer? That's the heart of this issue, but it appears the Supreme Court might side step it all together. To be honest, I can see the merit in both cases, but the phrase "under the Constitution" is certainly preferrable to "under God." I'm a huge proponent of a streamlined, religiously neutral government. References to any deity structure have little place in our government, because no endorsement implicit or explicit for any faith based value system belongs in what is necessarily a secular establishment.

2004-03-24T06:34:00.000-08:00

Speedy Little Penguins
Gentoo Linux

Currently, I am SSHed into my home desktop from work and installing Gentoo Linux on it. The bootstrapping went quite well and the system construction is underway. In fact, everything should go well until it's time to reboot, which won't be problematic because all of the actual system hardware works. I can even get X to initialize and work properly in most cases. Where I will suffer is mouse support.

My mouse works from the LiveCD boot, even in console mode, but I fear I will have great difficulty configuring it myself after I reboot the box, which will require moving a CAT5 connection to my Marvell Yukon Gigabit Lanport (which isn't supported from LiveCD but works just fine after I boot from my own Kernel).

All in all, this should be an interesting project given the success of my last Linux project - configuring an antiquated laptop as a router.

2004-03-22T11:57:00.000-08:00

Linux: The Resurrection

As of Saturday, my Lil Linux Laptop of Much Grooviness is behaving wonderfully. My Compaq Presario 1610 laptop is now happily emulating the life of a "$40.00 piece of hardware from Best Buy." The Linux Kernel, through iptables, allows for effective NAT, gateway services and routing.

2004-03-22T05:27:00.000-08:00

All Things Microsoft
All Eyes on Google

It's a web phenomenon. It's mathematical entropy in motion. And it's the most used search engine on the planet. And, Microsoft wants a piece of the pie. Google is an incredible tool. It's simple, efficient and the front end is pretty tame. Unlike any of a number of other search engines, the search interface on Google is intuitive and clean. It's a standard HTML text box with a couple of buttons. Of course, they make their money through advertising and click-throughs, but even the results pages are spartan when compared to their competitors.

What makes Google great? Part of it is the closely guarded search algorithms that provide levels of relevancy greater than all of their competitors combined. It works on every browser you can imagine. I spend a lot of time using text-based console browsers such as Links-2. But mostly, it's the intuitive, powerful, and expansive search interface using a variety of code-like methods for increased accuracy and relevance.

Why is Microsoft interested? Google is a billion dollar industry. It makes money. It diverts funds from Microsoft's own web-based initiatives and represents a major market for advertising and retail front sellthrough.

2004-03-18T05:57:00.000-08:00

Speedy Little Penguins

I have this pet project. It involves Gentoo and an antiquated laptop.

Compaq Presario 1610 Notebook

Pentium 150 MMX CPU

96 MB PC100 Memory SODIMMs

1.6 GB HDD

10x CD-ROM

NeoMagic 2160 2MB 128-bit Graphics

Currently, the box is running the 2.4.22 Linux Kernel and happily chugging along with working PCMCIA, USB, and framebuffer support. Because of compile space, it doesn't have a GUI, but the 800x600 console is pretty spiffy and in full color. ircii works quite nicely, as well as tiny figure, and hopefully in a day or two, I will tackle the mystery of PPPoA connections. Console based web browsing is handled by Links-2, while TeX and nano handle word processing needs.

The install is lean, fast, and feature rich for a command line only box.

2004-03-17T05:20:00.000-08:00

What America Really Needs ...

It wouldn't be horribly inaccurate to say that America has failed at democracy. Of course, this requires the knowledge that America is not, nor ever has been, a true democracy and that the federalist republic defined the Constitution is a check on the tyranny of the majority.

While it is cliche to talk about individual responsibility, the lack thereof is fundamentally detrimental to Americana and this nation. Silently, it has pervaded every aspect of American life from child-rearing to work ethic, economics to politics. The source of declining accountability and individual responsibility is not, however, occurring in a vacuum. In fact, it is a biproduct of the increasing socialization of the American state. It is the result of increasing government control and domination.

Even as the 1960s are lauded as an era of radical protest and liberal expansion threatening American values, the real threat was masked in the obvious beginnings of the pseudo-socialist American government that rules this country today. As the government takes more responsibility for the micro-management of daily American lives, government dependence and invididual responsibility take on an inversely proportional relationship. Self-sufficiency and personal accountability decline in direct response to increasing government control.

As more and more aspects of American life fall under the auspices of the federal government, fewer and fewer Americans possess the desire and ability to understand and impact the world around them, much less hold themselves accountable for their own actions and decisions. Quite simply, the masses are beginning to believe it is the government's job to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, instead of learning to take care of themselves. We see this in everything from tort congestion to voter apathy.

2004-03-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

The World's Smallest Hard Drive
Toshiba's Mini HDD

A full-fledged HDD at less than 2 cm^2? Amazing.

2004-03-16T05:40:00.000-08:00

A Policy of Appeasement

D writes: [Appeasement is]the policy of granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace.

D's definition of appeasement is not uncommon, but it is highly problematic. Implicit in the statement is the United States is the universal arbiter of right and wrong . Of course, that induction requires the knowledge that D is a vehemently pro-Bush hawk who thinks that aggressive, sustained military is the only viable solution to the terrorist problem.

The problem we face with terrorism is the same problem the rest of the world has faced since the Algerian revolution and the creation of the Israeli state - the threat of an unidentifiable, unquantifiable, and uncontainable militant group seeking reparations for sustained perceptions of wrong.

I recommend non-action, not inaction. A non-action policy would involve tightening immigration controls, improving extranational screening protocols for those seeking entrance into the United States, and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the American intelligence community.

And yes, the only end to current American policy is genocide. Official U.S. positioning continues down the slippery slope of generalized anti-Islamic sentiment. All followers of Islam are now viewed as a potential enemy by the U.S. government, military, and a growing segment of the U.S. general population.

The enemy in the case of the War on Terror is unquantifiable. It is decentralized, elusive, uncontainable, and unidentifiable by conventional police and modern intelligence methods. Even were the United States to re-empower the appropriate intelligence methods and channels, it will still take at least a decade to rebuild the necessary infrastructure to effectively gather reliable and concrete intelligence of thise enemy.

All the while, overt and direct military action will do nothing but increase the number of anti-American Muslims willing to join Al Qaeda and other terror groups with the funding, intelligence, and drive to create catastrophic human tragedies. The martyr complex inherent to these groups makes victories of our progress. The decentralized, indirect nature of their contact and distribution puts them well below the envelope of current information gathering techniques. Signals Intelligence while perhaps a necessary evil, does little to provide effective informational nets.

There are measures that can be taken to increase security and minimize the threat of future terrorist activities without overt military aggression. Unfortunately, you do not understand that administrative restriction of American civil liberties and overt aggression are exactly the response Al Qaeda wanted from the 9 September 2001 attacks. Current policy is exactly the concession this enemy wanted.

As I have said, military action by the United States only validates terrorist violences against the United States, its allies, and its people in international positions - past, present, and future.

2004-03-12T05:18:00.000-08:00

Terrorist Attacks in Spain: 11 March 2004
Purported Al Qaeda Letter Claims Spain Bombins
Thirteen Bombs in Spain Attacks

I refrained from posting these yesterday, mostly because I was curious as to who was actually responsible. Some Spanish officials hold the Basque affiliated group ETA, while the United States and British governments have been quick to issue blame to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The most concerete declaration of claim is this:

The London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper faxed to Reuters' Dubai bureau a copy of a letter purporting to come from the "Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades." The group aligns itself to al Qaeda, blamed by Washington for September 2001 attacks on the United States.

I'm not sure what to make of these attacks, other to acknowledge that there is a great human tragedy with over 200 dead and rising injury counts. I'm not sure to make of the reports of responsibility and the level of suspicion.

2004-03-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Vox Day

Vox Day, columnist and Christian Libertarian, has been kind of enough to link my blog in his reader blogroll. As well, I have linked both his weekly column at World Net Daily and his daily blog Vox Popoli in the section at the upper right of this blog.

Give him a read. I think you will find his commentary sharp, generally eloquent, and well conceived.

2004-03-11T08:33:00.000-08:00

Where do we go from here?
AB writes: I have to agree. Having worked in the public school system, I am horrified at how it has changed within the past 15 years or so (probably less). Now that I'm a mother, I am worried about sending my child to public school. Not only has it become a daycare for children (I use that term for all grade levels) but teachers are not even allowed to properly teach. No wonder the students do not want to learn.

Teachers are bombarded with politics and administration requirements. They have to be careful not to offend because you wouldn't believe how many parents have threatened to sue (because little Johnny got a bad grade, or was sent to the principal). I had two high school students get in a fight in my class. In the process, they slammed a desk into me. I had to report them. I don't know how many times I had to talk to the administration because of the parents going to them and complaining about me.

Also, teachers are required to do all the career planning for students now. If a student is in your homeroom, that teacher has to decide what classes the child needs to take to graduate. That includes considering what the student wants to do after school. Say you have an English teacher as homeroom. Not only does that teacher have to figure out what English classes this student must take before graduation, but also all the math, sciences and arts. What used to be the job of counselors is now put to teachers who have no idea what must go on in the other subjects.

Now the counselors are "too busy". It's sickening. How can a teacher teach with all the other things that go on, and how can a child want to learn when a teacher can not inspire like they once could. I fear the public school system is only going to go down hill. I fear for my son and his generation. Thankfully, public school isn't the only option for my family, but for some, that is all that's available.

What more is there to say?

2004-03-11T07:46:00.000-08:00

National Security and Microsoft
MS Cites National Security to Justify Closed Source

It was recently reported in eWeek that "A senior Microsoft Corp. executive told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed." (Emphasis added.) The follow up from Microsoft is even better: As a result of the flaws, Microsoft has asked the court to allow a "national security" carve-out from the requirement that any code or API's be made public. Microsoft has therefore taken the position that their code is so bad that it must kept secret to keep people from being killed by it. Windows - the Pinto of the 21st century.

As a proponent of Linux and the Open Source movement, I find these comments interesting. In fact, I find them out right amusing. The empricial evidence shows that the Open Source community, through GNU and Linux, has allowed for the deployment and development of a highly efficient, stable, and customizable operating system with program extensions that bring control and security back to the end user.

In more tangible terms, GNU/Linux allows corporations to deploy proprietary network systems based on collectively developed standards that can be tailored to their individual needs. The closer software comes to commodity status, the more effective the Linux paradigm becomes. Peer review and selective code inclusion with concurrent development allows for the inclusion of only the best code for any given function. As Linux grows in both community and deployment, it inherently gains more developers both on the OS side and the application side, leading a commodity level software environment that can do nothing but benefit the user base.

2004-03-11T05:51:00.000-08:00

Swinging for the Fences

In a few weeks, the official first pitch will be thrown as the professional baseball season begins. And with that, summer creeps closer. Normally, I gear up for the baseball season with much delight and anticipation. Yet, last night while discussing baseball and little league a friend and his mother, it occurred to me that summer is no longer the time of carefree childhood frolicks. My friend's mother is an elementary school teacher and the day she retires is rapidly approaching. In the last decade, I've seen her looking forward to summer with great anticipation and relief, as if she was happy to be free of the children she's made her life educating; and that is a great departure from the way she was when my friend and I were younger. After more than 40 years of dedication to her profession, she's feels her job has gone from educating to day care.

She's a phenomenal teacher. My younger brother went through her classroom when he was in the 4th grade. He watched his grades and language skills increase, he found understanding and clarity in basic social sciences, and most importantly, he started reading just to read. That was almost 20 years ago. I remember him being excited to goto school because he had a teacher who cared. He was excited to open his books and do his homework because she knew how to reach the children. I asked her what has happened since the days she had my little brother in her classroom. Her answer shocked me:

"The kids today aren't there to learn. They don't respect their parents, the school, education, or anything else. We can't discipline them. We can't reign them in. Education in America has become glorified day care from the ages of 5 - 18."

2004-03-10T05:17:00.000-08:00

An Odd Consideration

JP writes: It's always been my view that hackers and virus writers are the lowest type of scum, the parasites of the virtual world, the most evil of evil netizens. However I was sitting here drinking alchohol and eating and vegetating after getting home from work, and I had a sudden epiphany on the nature of the connected human being.

It started when I checked my hotmail account. Understand, I never use my hotmail account, I often forget I have it. The reason I have it is so my copy of Trillian can connect to MSN Messenger, which requires a ".net" hotmail account. So it always comes as a surprise to me when Trillian informs me I have new mail.

So I curiously check my generally empty Hotmail account (except for Corolinth sending me lewd suggestions and soft pr0n by just about every method he can think of...actually, that's what I was expecting, so I was disappointed by what I found), and I find two messages from "Mail Delivery Subsystem" entitled "Returned mail: undeliverable." Both had .pif attachments, and apparently were undeliverable, because the user was unknown. The fun thing was, the user was unknown to me as well, I never send email through hotmail.

As I deleted the stupid virus-laden emails, I started thinking about how the idjits who sent me those viruses must think I'm pretty stupid. Then, reflecting further, I realized that the people who directly sent me those viruses were probably other users who actually were that stupid, people I know; people who keep me employed by f00king up their computers. The virus writers know that us techies will never fall for crap like that, but we aren't their targets, we aren't their prey. So, suddenly viewing the hackers who malevolently preyed on our Lusers in a different light, I started revising my view of the hacker or virus writer as a "parasite."

They aren't really parasites at all. They are symbiotic life forms. I need them, they need me. They cause sh!t, I fix sh!t. The Lusers are just the poor cattle who suffer for it. And in fact, not only do people like these hackers give me job security, but they also, if I'm careful, provide me with a big valueadd to my lifestyle...they provide me with all sorts of 'warez' which some people use as "productivity" software (I just toy with it to learn what it does), and other apps that I'd normally have to pay for or not use. Yes, hackers are symbiotes. They aren't particularly pleasant symbiotes, but they are in a symbiotic relationship with those of us that actually have to fix people's problems. They are like the bacteria in one's colon, rather disgusting when you are forced to think about them, but entirely necessary for a pleasant existence.

Carrying this analogy further, one gets to a revised opinion of Microsoft.

Is windows a security nightmare? Yes. How wonderful...

That's an interesting take on the relationship between administrators and computer deviants. I'm not sure I completely agree with it, but JP has some good thoughts.

2004-03-09T07:04:00.000-08:00

Where do you want to go today?
Command Line is Your Friend

It is refreshing to see an educated and well documented perspective on the robust and feature filled nature of Command Line Interfaces (CLI). The entry level computer user has a far more recognizable and enjoyable experience with the streamlined and unconfused operating level that a CLI provides.

2004-03-08T05:14:00.000-08:00

Changing Standards

There are rumblings among the rumor mills and third-party component manufacturers that Intel is going to make a push to move to the BTX standard for mainboards, add-on components and enclosures with the LGA770 CPU packaging.

In some ways, this is highly problematic. On paper, the BTX standard should allow for quieter, cooler machines with less physical conflicts between components and peripherals. It will allow for a less obstruction from internal cabling and create easier internal access. On the other hand, add-on card manufacturers will have to redesign their components. Case makers will have to convert tooling from the ATX standard to the BTX standard and design enclosures that accommodate a wide variety of changes. Intel needs this for the Prescotts to be viable and scale to the speeds they are projecting. Intel needs this to facilitate more user lock down among primary distribution channels.

The customer doesn't need it, yet.

2004-03-04T05:44:00.000-08:00

Libertarians are Liberals

My political position is pretty simple. I'm a Conservative. I am not a Republican. I am not a Democrat. I am certainly not a Neo-Conservative. This, however, does not stop people from calling me a bleeding heart liberal more often than not. In this day and age, politicization, media positioning, and cognitive framing are continually used to implant misunderstanding and confusion about what is "good" and what is "bad."

George W. Bush is currently championed as the poster-child of conservative American values and politics. In fact, now that the primary candidates have been finalized, I am certain we will spend the next 8 months listening to all the glory of his Conservative positioning. Nevermind the fact that "Dubya" has increased spending an average of 8.2% per year (adjust for inflation) in each of his first three years in office. We'll ignore the fact that the 04 budget he approved was at 10.4% before incidental military and discretionary spending. We'll even ignore the notion that "Dubya" is aware of his ability to veto bills, because he hasn't vetoed one yet.

On the other hand, Libertarians who are toeing a party line of governmental social abstinence and bureaucratic minimalism are being touted as dangerous liberals. So, while Bush continues to indoctrinate his new Conservatism based on discrimination, the erosion of civil liberties, and fiscal treason, I'll be trying to find a candidate with the staying power, moral authority, and intelligence to understand that this is the United States and not some theocratic pseudo-police state.

2004-03-02T05:55:00.000-08:00

A Falling Out Among Friends
MSNBC: A Falling Out Among Friends

When the top officials of the GOP start abandoning the President, it's time to take a serious look what he's doing wrong. In this case, he is disenfranchising his own platform advisors. The recent amendment proposing a ban on gay marriage is pushing the Gay Right to adopt an anyone but Bush position.

2004-02-26T09:59:00.000-08:00

Where Innovation and Semiconductors Collide

Motorola's New G4: Because We're Designing Processors, Not Space Heaters

The math on Intel's latest processor core works out to very grim news. The 90nm Prescott core Pentium 4E 3.2 GHz processors are both slower and hotter than their 130nm Northwood predecessors. At 4.8 GHz, the 90nm Prescotts will dissipate over 190w of power per clock under heavy load. That's about 40w per clock higher than the point where not even nitrogen cooling can prevent transistor burn out.

The article above details innovation in the field of process design and fabrication engineering, as well as the continuing need to improve semiconductor performance. Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS) is in the process of being spun off under the name Freescale according to a few sources. Curiously enough, SPS has licensed their 90nm and 65nm processes to both IBM and AMD.

2004-02-25T08:22:00.000-08:00

How to Protect Marriage

The real threat from codifying marriage as a purely heterosexual institution is in Congress is the concurrent codification of inequality and discrimination based on the violation of separation of Church and State. The rampant politicization of gay partnership rights by the Christian Right politicians, not to be confused with practicing Christian conservative citizenry, has taken an issue of partnership equality and opened the floodgates of Constitutional and libertine abuse.

If the American citizenship allows this political agenda to stand, then it will be open itself up for the further erosion and decline of the freedoms that have made this country great. The issue doesn't require people to accept or endorse an issue they oppose, it simply requires the rational protection of the libery to feel the way they do about the issue.

2004-02-25T07:12:00.000-08:00

Consistency

It occurs to me, that in all things government, some level of consistency must be achieved and maintained, else the government becomes an ineffectual and pointless burueacracy counter-intuitive to the needs of its people and the charge of its stations. In the scope of all foreign and domestic policy, the United States government is baking a new brand of waffle that threatens the sanctity of Belgian waffle supremacy.

2004-02-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

The Prescott Is Not Hot, It Only Runs That Way

From JP in the mailbox:

In his article on the Prescott CPU, Gordon Mah Ung neglects to explain the serious reservations most people in the tech industry have regarding Intel’s long pipeline “hack” for increasing CPU speed. Basically, it is a hack. It is not a technological improvement such as the “assembly line” analogy that they use for it; it is a way of artificially increasing clock speed without increasing overall performance. While it’s true if one can increase clock speed far enough, it would end up being faster than a slower clocked, short-pipeline processor, they will never be able to pump it that much faster than their competition (including their own Pentium-M processor) to make up for the longer pipeline.

Here’s the problem:

Assuming there are zero branch mispredictions (which doesn’t happen, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt), a 31 stage pipeline must run 310% faster than a 10 stage pipeline to get the same result. Branch mispredictions (which will always be common) skew this even further in favor of the shorter pipeline.

Now, due to other architectural considerations, Intel will not need to run 3.1x faster than the Athlon64 to get the same result, but in reality, it’s not going to end up running ANY faster. The Athlon64 is also set to scale as far as 5GHz, soon switching to a 0.65micron process. The Prescott is also having serious heat problems, running far hotter than the Northwood P4c’s do, begging the question of whether Intel will be able to push the actual clockspeed of the Prescott even close to their plans. (Rumor has it Intel is seriously pushing water-cooling to become more mainstream.)

I used to be an Intel "Fangirl," only using Intel processors. Since the introduction of the long pipeline P4 (a serious step BACKWARD in technology from the P3), I have been avoiding them. If Intel had improved on the P4 instead of taking 2 steps backward, they'd be far ahead of where they are now. With the P4c they had only just recovered from that backward step, and now with Prescott they've taken another one. With Pentium-M starting to make inroads in the desktop market, I have to think Prescott will be facing performance competition, not only from AMD (who will continue to obliterate them in overall performance), but from their own mobile processor line. The Pentium-M is a good little processor. But I won't touch a Prescott with the proverbial 10 foot pole. (It runs so hot, it'd probably give me 3rd degree burns from that distance anyway.)

That just about says it all.

2004-02-20T08:20:00.000-08:00

To All Good Things

I've just recently finished Zen and the Art of Motorocyle maintenance for the fourth time. I highly recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read it. It is a truly wonderful allegory on the growth of human identity and the process of self-actualization.

2004-02-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

On the Future of Semiconductors

Currently, AMD is fighting tooth and nail to gain ground against the CPU hegemon Intel. In December 2003, AMD posted its first profitable quarter in nearly 2 years. Sales were hedged up by an expansive and effective 64-bit x86 compatible CPU line based on their Hammer Core Technologies, as well as an increasingly competitive and quickly growing flash memory initiative with Fujitsu. Just recently, Intel released the Prescott core Pentium 4E series CPUs and announced that they will have an AMD64 compatible x86-64 CPU in production by Q3 2004.

In the last round of mainstream CPUs, Intel narrowly edged AMD's best Athlon XPs with a slightly faster frontside bus and markedly higher clock speeds. Unfortunately, Intel's performance was hindered by inefficiencies associated with longer pipelines and artificially increasing clock speed over work load. With the Prescott core, Intel has doubled the instruction pipeline to allow even higher scalability. This seriously concerns me. While AMD has been forced to make architecturally superior products to compete in the past, I think Intel is moving in the wrong direction. Increasing the instruction pipeline, when faced with the inefficiency problems of the last processor group, seems counter-intuitive.

Right now, I am torn. As a generally loyal AMD customer, I am concerned that Intel's apathy towards innovation and improvement might extend through the PC semiconductor industry in general. We've already seen NVidia take a beating in the GPU arena because of complacency. What happens when the CPU industry moves the same way? In the GPU market, ATi took its chance to dominate the DirectX driven gaming market. But Intel's stranglehold on the primary distribution channels might not allow AMD to gain substantive marketshare even if the Prescott initiative proves to be a failure.

2004-02-19T05:19:00.000-08:00

The Unemployment Line

10 days ago the Whitehouse issued a prediction of 2.6 million news jobs for the 2004 calendar year. As of yesterday, the Bush Whitehouse is already equivocating on their own prediction. This resounds quite disturbingly in light of the current jobless recovery. It is, however, indicative of the continuing socialization of the United States.

What makes Marxism scary is not empirical evidence of coerced Socialist and Communist failure, but the almost textbook migration of the United States from a bastion of free-trade capitalism to an increasingly Socialist state. By all indicators, as the manufacturing sector declines and the sustainability of American working class qualify of life decline, the transformation to a de facto Socialist republic is imminent. And while I know that some people will react more than negatively to that statement, what baffles me even is more how the population of the United States continues to allow policy makers to disempower the American worker.

Companies are outsourcing work and production to cheap labor sources. In this manufacturing sector, this has been going on for decades, but recently it has become almost pandemic in the service industry that has been the staple of the American economy through the late 80s and 90s. Dependence on government entitlements and subsidies increases as the ability of the American citizenry to sustain itself economically decreases. Government control of the means of production rises and the middle class is disenfranchised by a collective oligarchy of the financial elite.

The current jobless recovery is not part of a cyclical recession, but more indicative of the problematic flight of American wage dollars off shore to cheaper labor sources.

2004-02-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

Kirec on Microsoft

A fellow Linux advocate had this to say about Microsoft:

I used to be a rather big Microsoft fan, but over time I saw how they stilfed competition, killed off many great products, stole ideas and marketed them as their own, and strongarmed their way to the top in various software markets only by virtue of the fact that they had a monopoly in the operating system market, not by virtue of the fact that they had superior software; indeed, many Microsoft products are inferior but used because they are convenient. They have bred a dangerous security situation, which by their own admission represents a national security risk (unless they simply lied in court to preserve their monopoly, which is likely). Microsoft's success is more a result of marketing and monopoly abuse than a result of technical superiority. In other words, Microsoft's success is due to consumer ignorance and laziness.

I use Microsoft products, but I stay educated and aware of the benefits and drawbacks of doing so, just like I do with any other product I use. The same people who criticize Wal-Mart for being a disgusting capitalist mistake blindly support the considerably slimier Microsoft because it is convenient to do so.

So how does [Microsoft] have all the customers?

They used to have a product best suited to customers' tastes, but it has declined in quality relative to the needs of the current market; and the superiority of one product does not ensure the superiority of any others, particularly when monopoly power is leveraged to ensure the success of those other products.

In essence, he is absolutely correct. Microsoft's degree of user-lockdown is fueled both by ignorance and the consumer inertia. Linux offers competitive and innovative replacements for every aspect of the casual users computer experience. The only barrier left is gaming. Here's to hoping for headway with OGL.

2004-02-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

Somewhere between limbo and lust.

www.nogaymarriage.com

When it comes to the issue of gay marriage, the reasonability and rationality of the American citizenry and its law makers regresses in spectacular fashion. This issue is inundated with negative politicization and cognitive framing, such that the real question is whether or not the American people enjoy the freedom from religion in government policy concurrently with their freedom of religion. Sadly, the moralist Christian political agenda has so far removed from this issue from reality, that any hope of partnership rights for the Gay and Lesbian community faces daunting opposition. A segment of the American population faces Constitutional marginalization at the hands and tyranny of the majority. President Bush speaks with great criticism of the recent decisions in the Massachusetts Supreme Court and the activities of the San Francicso mayor's office. In both cases, the protection of freedom has overridden the vanity of Christian moralist positioning.

Ultimately, I think Christian moralist vanity is a grave threat to the freedoms and liberties of the American citizenry. The current push to invalidate, through both statute and Constitutional provisions, the choice of homosexuality reflects a deep and ingrained lack of human compassion. The responsibilities and rights granted and protected by the social contract of marriage are being denied American citizens based on nothing but subjective adversion to difference.

The United States has struggled with such marginalization before and now seeks to make a blatant and deliberate act of unconstitutional discrimination - the Defense of Marriage Act* - a constitutional provision. I hope that citizens and Courts keep the sanctity of the Constitution in mind as they approach this issue, because the shift to a Christian moralist plurality will simply erode all of the freedoms that made America.

*"No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian
tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or
judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe
respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is
treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory,
possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such
relationship." from the Defense of Marriage Act

*Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. from Article IV Section 1 of the United States Constitution

*As a point of respect to practicing Christians that I know and cherish, I should mention that the comments above reflect only my opinion on the legislative agenda of the Christian moralist lobbying groups. My issue is not with those who believe, but rather, those who choose to use belief as a method of abridging rights.