All news in this entry comes from Fark.

Excitement

The New York Post reports that radio shock-jocks Opie and Anthony will be returning to terrestrial radio to replace David Lee Roth, whose show has been receiving terrible ratings. Opie and Anthony were fired back in 2002 after a couple was arrested for having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral for an Opie and Anthony contest. The duo langoured for a while and were then picked up by XM Satellite Radio.

Anger

Royal Philips Electronics, makers of "Philips"-branded electronics, filed a U.S. patent for a system that prohibits viewers from skipping through commercials with their digital video recorders (DVRs). Philips cautioned, however, that "the anti-channel-changing technology might not sit well with consumers and suggested in its patent filing consumers be allowed to avoid the feature if they paid broadcasters a fee." Here's a great business model: take away rights that consumers are permitted by law, and then charge them to get those rights back. I think one of the big reasons that people like TiVo and other DVR services is that they can skip commercials. Already, other DVR providers are offering systems that don't respect stupid DRM flags inserted by content providers to prevent you from "time shifting" or "content shifting," which are your rights under the law (cf. Sony v. Universal, 464 U.S. 417 [1984]).

Posted by Mark at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In an attempt to make it appear as though policy will change and that there is some kind of accountability, the Bush administration has announced some staffing changes. They began a while ago by replacing White house Chief of Staff Andrew Card with Josh Bolten.

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation.

Whaa! It looks like ethics have finally gotten to McClellan, who has spent two years either outright lying to members of the Press Corps or trying to spin statements made by Bush, cabinet members, or former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Perhaps his conscience -- which we thought shared the same metaphysical standing as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Tooth Fairy -- really exists after all.

McClellan is so good at spinning the truth that he was even able to put a positive spin on his own resignation:

The White House is going through a time of transition. Change can be helpful. This is a good time and a good position to help bring about change. I'm ready to move on. I've been in this position a long time and my wife and I are excited about beginning the next chapter in our life together.

It goes without saying that McClellan did not resign of his own volition; rather, the administration and McClellan probably agreed that he should be replaced in an effort to make it appear that the administration is being all shook up. Several generals are calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and instead, Bush gives them Scott McClellan and ... what's this? Karl Rove?

Karl Rove isn't being fired; he's just being given a different job. The White House Sleazeball-in-Chief -- who probably leaked Valerie Plame's name to Bob Novak, suggested that democrats wanted to coddle our enemies after September 11, and spread rumors in South Carolina that John McCain had adopted "a black baby" -- will "will no longer focus on policy but will be involved in long-term strategic planning as a deputy chief of staff and a senior adviser," says CNN.

Nevertheless, even though a few administration officials are getting fired or moved around -- and Fox News watchers will insist that Bush is really, really shaking things up, here, so baby-killing liberals should stop making a fuss -- there is little change happening. Rove continues to be the little voice in Bush's ear; Rumsfeld continues to be in charge of the military; the Project for a New American Century continues to be in control of national policy.

And, based on Pentagon testing in Nevada, it looks like we're going to nuke Iran. While Iran's dictator is clearly crazy, there is the same pressing, immediate threat there that there was in Iraq three years ago -- which is to say, none. Iran is, according to nuclear scientists, several years from developing a nuclear weapon. The number of centrifuges they have (a small number) combined with the size of aluminum tubes they have signals exactly what they've been saying all along: that they're trying to develop nuclear power, which is their right under the law. And if they're lying? Then let nuclear inspectors determine that, not a trigger-happy U.S. president.

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Today marks the one hundredth anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. At 5:12 AM this morning, the time of the quake one hundred years ago, city officials and spectators celebrated the anniversary of the single most devastating event to befall the city.

For a few minutes 100 years ago, the San Andreas fault moved and shifted (as much as twenty feet in some places), causing a quake that would probably be rated a 7.5 on today's scales. While the quake itself was devastating -- especially to the unreinforced masonry structures which made up most of the city -- the fires afterward were worse. Tremendous fires started, burning both south of Market Street and north. The North Beach area, which today houses the city's Italian neighborhood, was completely leveled by fire. Only a few buildings -- notably the Ferry Building and the Flood Building -- survived the quake and the subsequent fires.

Read more about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake at Wikipedia.

If you're in the city and you like photographs and art museums, visit the Palace of the Legion of Honor, where a special exhibit "rephotographs" old photographs of earthquake devastation by placing photos of destroyed places alongside modern photos of those same places. Hurry! The exhibit closes May 28!

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Last week, many retired generals and admirals -- some former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (an advisory committee composed of the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marines) -- signed letters asking President Bush to fire Secretary of Defense Donald "Duck" Rumsfeld.

Making Light has a round-up of the comments that military brass have been making this week. Some stand-out names include Gen. Anthony Zinni of U.S. Central Command and Lt. Gen. Anthony Newbold, Director of Operations to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military's complaint with Rumsfeld is that he is tactically incompetent and lacks integrity. Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, in charge of training the new Iraq army, said, "He has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq." NYT has more on this story.

How will the Bush admnistration smear these people? Hard to say. They've managed to smear grieving mothers, ambassadors, CIA operatives, distinguished servicemen from their own party, and whistle-blowers (can you guess who these people are? Scroll down to see if you were right!) Can the administration say that this group of generals doesn't know what's going on down there, that they're not in the heat of battle? Nope; some of these criticisms are coming from people in the heat of battle. Can the administration claim that these people hate America? Come on; they're generals. Also, they're not against the War on Terr', either. They're against the way it's being fought, and while I disagree with the whole War on Terr' concept, I think the generals and I can agree that, putting the war itself aside, it's been fought pretty crappily.

But at least the administration has a stranglehold on the minds of America's youth, what with maniacs like David Horowitz out there. Wait a minute: could it be that there are West Point graduates out there who are against the war? Turns out there are!

Once you get past the 1997-style design, West Point Graduates Against the War indicts Bush and Rumsfeld for failing to live up to the codes of honor and integrity that they were taught as students. If military cadets have a higher level of integrity than the Commander-in-Chief or the Secretary of Defense, then something is very wrong.

The website takes a lot of cues from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former president and, before that, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II. Eisenhower became a liberal favorite at the end of his presidency when he warned of "the military-industrial complex" in his farewell address. It's a shame it took him until the last day of his presidency to realize the dangers that happen when the government and defense contractors sleep together, but his warning is still well-taken:

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peace time, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence, economic, political, even spiritual, is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Eisenhower isn't entirely correct in saying that there was no armaments industry before World War II. Winchester, Colt, and the Springfield Repeating Arms Co. certainly weren't going hungry, but neither were they producing arms on such a massive scale, both in terms of quantity and sheer size of armaments before World War II.

The scary thing about the military-industrial complex is that, to military contractors, it doesn't matter who the enemy is, as long as there's an enemy. War becomes devoid of meaning -- it's not war for a particular purpose, it's war for war's sake, because the revenues of companies like United Defense depend on there being war. No war, no need to make tanks. No tanks, no sales. No sales, no revenue. But if war were perpetual, then comapnies in the business of war would always be guaranteed a customer. It's no surprise, then, considering that members of the administration come from defense companies, that we are nearing a state of perpetual war. It's to their advantage to go to war, as it increases the shares of company stock that they received as part of their severance packages. (To this day, Dick Cheney receives income from Halliburton as part of his severance package.)

The more incompetent the Secretary of Defense, the longer war can go on. And the more money Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld will make in the process.

Answers to Smears

"Grieving Mother": Cindy Sheehan was portrayed by the Republican Spin Machine as a puppet of George Soros at the least, and treasonous at the most.

"Ambassadors": Former Ambassador Joe Wilson went to Niger to investigate whether or not Iraq had tried to purchase uranium there. He concluded that they hadn't. The Republican Spin Machine went all out to discredit Wilson, suggesting that he spent his trip to Niger sipping green tea by a pool. In June, 2003, Bob Novak revealed that his wife was a CIA operative, most likely in an administration attempt to punish him for writing a NYT op-ed criticizing the administration's suggestion in the State of the Union speech that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger.

"CIA operative": Valerie Wilson, alias Valerie Plame, wife of Joe Wilson, was an undercover operative outed by Bob Novak, apparently on orders by someone in the administration. Novak also outed Brewster Jennings, the CIA front company Plame used when talking with international arms dealers.

"Distinguished servicemen from their own party": Karl Rove spread rumors through South Carolina that John McCain had adopted "a black baby." McCain lost the Republican primary in South Carolina. McCain fought in Vietnam -- something that Bush, Cheney, Rove, or Rumsfeld ever did -- and spent six years as a POW at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton."

"Whistle-blowers": Former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke was smeared in 2004 after he wrote a book suggeting that the administration ignored obvious signs that al-Qaeda was planning to attack the United States. Dick Cheney publicly said that Clarke was nothing more than a disgruntled former employee with a book to sell.

Posted by Mark at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While Google is attempting to fight government interference in its business by refusing to give in to government subpoenas for its search results, other companies are bowing readily to the government. One of these companies is AT&T.

Wired magazine reports:

AT&T built a secret room in its San Francisco switching station that funnels internet traffic data from AT&T Worldnet dialup customers and traffic from AT&T's massive internet backbone to the NSA, according to a statement from [former AT&T technician Mark] Klein.

Wired magazine also reports that the company, Narus, that manufactures the NSA's data-mining software boasts that "ts equipment can scan billions of bits of internet traffic per second, including analyzing the contents of e-mails and e-mail attachments and even allowing playback of internet phone calls."

Klein, an AT&T technician for 22 years, leaked confidential AT&T documents to the Electronic Frontier Foundation last week, causing EFF to file a lawsuit against AT&T for violating state and federal law by voluntarily aiding the NSA in its illegal, poorly justified, warrantless wiretapping program. (For more information, please read EFF's amended complaint against AT&T.)

Things get troubling here because customers have no say in whether or not AT&T transmits their personal data to the NSA. Also troubling is the fact that, after many mergers and acquisitions (most recently in November by SBC), AT&T is on its way to becoming a telecommunications monopoly ... again! In 1984, the government broke up the subsidiary Bell operating companies of AT&T, creating a variety of smaller companies: Lucent, Verizon, Sprint, MCI, and so on. Now, the companies are buying each other, creating a monopoly again. At what point will you no longer be able to obtain telephone service from any company but AT&T, with the knowledge that AT&T can and will give up personal information about you? It's not like you would be able to choose a phone company that didn't narc on you; there would be no "other" phone companies!

Pro-business Republicans, do you see why monopolies are bad for civil liberties?

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It hasn't stopped raining in San Francisco since March. Reportedly, it was the rainiest March in the city's history, with 26 days of rain. Apparently, this all happened because the Seattle weather system got pushed southward, so we had Seattle's weather for a month.

If you live in Seattle, good for you. I lived in Seattle for a month, and it sucked. It's still raining off and on here. The good news is that the rain will let up. The bad news is that we're not quite sure when that will be.

This entry was created using ecto, a really cool application for Mac or Windows that allows you to post to your blog without logging in via web browser.

Posted by Mark at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last Thursday, indicted former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a grand jury that it was President Bush himself who authorized the leak of Valerie Plame's name in 2003. Plame, you'll recall, was an undercover CIA operative. Her husband, Joseph Wilson, was a former U.S. ambassador sent to Niger to investigate whether or not Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium there. Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times indicating that Iraq had not tried to purchase uranium from Niger and the administration was incorrect in asserting that it had. A few months later, Plame's identity surfaced, leading many to believe that the administration was somehow "punishing" Wilson for criticizing the administration.

For months, President Bush said that he didn't know who the leaker was, but if anyone in the White House was involved in the leak, they would be "dealt with." Last summer, when U.S. prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation moved closer to the White House, Bush broguht his standard of evidence up to a person who was convicted of wrongdoing. Shortly thereafter, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan refused to "comment on an ongoing investigation."

Hmmm.

The White House's response? McClellan finally came out of the cave of "ongoing investigation" and offered the White House's opinion on the matter: it wasn't illegal.

On Friday, the White House responded to the allegations by noting that Bush declassified a national intelligence estimate so that the public could have access to the same intelligence legislators had when they voted to authorize force against Iraq. The national intelligence declassification apparently included mentioning Plame, and thus what the administration did was not illegal, since the information about her identity was no longer classified.

McClellan on Friday proceeded to make a tortured (no pun intended) analogy between intelligence the benefits the public (which apparently includes outing an undercover CIA operative) and intelligence that threatens national security (such as when someone in the administration lets the American people know about illegal, warrantless, poorly justified wiretaps on Americans. Did I mention that the wiretaps are illegal and that no law professor at even the most podunk, two-bit law school would ever accept Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' legal reasoning in support of this program?).

So, it's okay for the administration to out a CIA operative, because that's in the public interest. But it's not in the public interest to let the American people know that their president is wantonly and flagrantly breaking the law? Apparently all presidents are equal, but some presidents are more equal than others.

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By Richard D. Erlich

To outrun my data a bit -- the supporters of Intelligent Design (ID) are operating in bad faith, and so are most of the Darwinists opposing them.

ID is an inelegant theory in the same way all theories of "demiurges," local creators, are inelegant: they all invite the question, "But who created the local creator?" And that gets you either into an infinite regress of creators or back to God, the source and ground of Being, with no question of who created God. (Unless we humans did by making up gods and God, but that is a different issue.)

Creationism, on the other hand, is for theists a very elegant theory: The universe is as it is because that's how God created it, right down to every last organism, organ, and organelle like a bacterial flagellum.

The only reason, then, to prefer ID to Creationism is that ID doesn't raise quite so obvious First Amendment issues. So, I'll assert again, more carefully this time, that those who push ID are probably Creationists acting in bad faith.

Darwinist bad faith comes in two forms. The first is when people say that only Neo-Darwinist theory should be taught because that's what one should teach in science classes. This is sometimes followed by the rhetorical question, "Would you teach flat-Earth theory?"

That rhetorical question should be answered, and the answer should be "Damn straight, I would: flat-Earth theory is a good place to introduce people to real science."

If science has historically been grounded in empiricism, why did educated people in the past -- and why should anyone nowadays -- reject the sense evidence that the Earth may be lumpy but basically is flat? Going further, why reject the obvious point that the Earth is the center of the universe, with the sun, moon, and stars revolving around us?

Why aside from "Teacher says" should we go over to some theory of a roundish Earth revolving around the sun in an elliptical orbit, with the sun itself just a star among billions in a galaxy among billions? Certainly not on the basis of my senses!

Flat-Earth theory is a good place to teach the history of science and the method of science: how and why (logically as well as historically) one paradigm gets replaced by another.

Studying and continuing the debate over the origin of species is an excellent way to teach science, including testing a Creationist hypothesis against Neo-Darwinism and seeing which one more elegantly explains the data.

Creationism is highly elegant, except that it requires the huge assumption of the existence of God and soon gets into some problems if that God directly and personally designed, say, the ichneumon wasp, which is like the Alien from Alien on a small scale. Can Neo-Darwinism usefully organize a mass of data within the usual scientific limits of natural explanations? Can it do so without getting us into the Problem of Evil?

Scientists and science teachers can make a good argument for Darwin and should be willing to argue, not insist that their students accept "scientific" views on the basis of authority.

But there is another area of scientific bad faith.

Why should there be any argument for Creationism if naturalistic explanations explain things quite nicely, thank you, without "the God hypothesis"?

The answer to that question includes the fact that eliminating the God hypothesis and accepting a rigorous materialism leaves human beings in awkward positions: a species that arose by chance and will die out, on the edge of an unremarkable galaxy, in a universe that is itself probably doomed to extinction, a species without particular purpose or special value, one that must muddle our own way to rules of behavior.

Such issues, we're often told, are for philosophy, anthropology, and/or theology classes, not science classes. Uh-huh, right: like US public high school students will get serious classes in philosophy or theology! As a practical matter, science classes generally and Darwinist biology classes more particularly eliminate the need for a God hypothesis without helping students work through the implications of that threat to religious belief.

That's bad faith and ethically irresponsible. Or it assumes, arrogantly, if mostly correctly, that few students learn enough, or care enough about what they learn in school to have their belief system challenged at all. (Note the expression "cram and regurgitate" for preparing for exams: once "regurgitated," that education poison is out of one's system and won't be a bother.)

Actually teaching scientific method and the history of science, and using an anthropological approach to look at competing creation myths, might make the little punks care. In any event, acting in good faith is an ethical responsibility for teachers.

Kids are pretty resilient, and older teens can handle logic, if forced to. Let's give them some serious controversies to study.

Richard D. Erlich is a professor in English at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; his undergraduate education stressed the life sciences.

Posted by Mark at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

My first week at Interpublic went swimmingly. On Monday, they had me build my own machine, which is apparently a challenge for some people. By "build," I mean they hand me a dual 500 MHz Macintosh G4 tower, a hard drive, some memory, and tell me to make it work. Then Darrin, the person whom I'm replacing, showed me how to use NetRestore to copy a disk image to my new Mac. I'm going to be making a lot of disk images.

I built some more machines this week, sometimes without very much success (I gave a new print producer what's called the "creative" image -- filled with QuarkXPress and the Adobe Creative Suite -- when I wasn't supposed to. Oops!), but often with great success.

Interpublic is a strange company to work for. It's a holding company for a lot of other advertising, PR, and marketing agencies, so things get weird. At the building in which I work, there are three Interpublic companies: McCann-Erickson, FCB, and Zibatoni. The subsidiary I work for is called GIS, which I believe stands for "Global Information Systems." It's the internal name they give the Interpublic IT department.

I work in a building that is connected to another building by a bridge. The side of the building I work on is devoted to McCann-Erickson and Marketing Drive, which is another Interpublic company. On the other side, which requires a key to get into, is an ad agency called FCB (Foote, Cone, & Belding). Though I'm not an FCB employee, I have an FCB email address and an FCB ID card that gets me into the FCB employee cafeteria in Levi's Plaza on Battery Street. And I pretty much spend most of my day with FCB and Marketing Drive; I don't think I've helped a single McCann employee with anything. I also don't report to the local McCann human resources department; if I need something, I have to call New York.

But the people are really cool, and on some Fridays (like this past one), the IT department -- which encompasses the four people at 1160 Battery Street and the seven people at 600 Battery Street -- goes to the San Francisco Brewing Company on Columbus and Pacific for lunch. This past Friday, we celebrated one Mark leaving and another Mark joining the company (the latter is me; the former is a guy who's been with the company for a while but hates the two-hour commute from Petaluma every day). I'm surrounded by Star Wars geeks and people who love XBox. The IT department tries to go to the San Francisco Brewfest every year (Apr. 28 -- mark your calendars!), where, for $50, you get unlimited samples of 200 kinds of beer as well as unlimited free food. Either bring a friend or take a cab home. (Jared and I like beer, but Elizabeth doesn't; however, she does like free food. This all points to "a ride home.")

I don't have an iota of free time while I'm at work. If I'm not building a machine for a new hire, then I'm away from my desk, helping someone with something. But my co-workers are great people and they have no qualms about helping me out with something difficult.

But enough about me. What's been happening in the world?

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 05-184 (oral argument transcript). At issue was whether or not the president has the authority to prescribe guidelines for military tribunals, given the fact that the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention both already provide guidelines for the administration of military tribunals. President Bush has created "military commissions" to try suspected terrorists, but some suspects allege that the commissions are unconstitutional and in violation of several international treaties.

Chief Justice Roberts recused himself from the case, as he had ruled it as an appellate judge on the D.C. Circuit Court. There were calls for Justice Scalia to recuse himself, as well, as Scalia had given a talk at the University of Freiburg (Switzerland) in which he "dismissed the idea that the detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions, adding he was 'astounded' at the 'hypocritical' reaction in Europe to Gitmo" (source). In a letter to the court, five retired generals and admirals -- who also filed an amicus brief on behalf of petitioner Hamdan -- suggested that Scalia should recuse himself, as he may have violated the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. In particular, in making the remarks he did at the University of Freiburg, Scalia may have violated Canon 3-A(6), which says, "A judge should avoid public comment on the merits of a pending or impending action, requiring similar restraint by court personnel subject to the judge's direction and control." Since Scalia made "public comment" regarding the rights of enemy combatants, and the rights of enemy combatants is one of the issues faced in Hamdan, then Scalia should recuse himself from the case, since his continued participation after making those comments would be unethical. Also, since Scalia clearly has "a personal bias or prejudice" regarding enemy combantats, he must disqualify himself from the case under Canon 3-C(1)(a).

I didn't plan this war in advance, honest, I didn't!

A recently leaked memo suggests that President Bush was going to war with Iraq whether or not there was a legitimate reason.

In a Jan. 31, 2003 meeting, Bush "made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons." Bush even went so far as to suggest that he might provoke Hussein into making the first move by painting a U.S. surveillance plane with U.N. colors. Gulf of Tonkin, anyone?

This is a blow to Bush's credibility. Bush had always maintained -- even after he himself withdrew weapons inspectors and then blamed the withdrawal on Hussein -- that war was the only viable option, since all diplomatic means had been exhausted. This five-page memo starkly reveals that the Bush administration was determined to go to war no matter what.

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