Category: Personal

Thomas Friedman on the start of WWIII

Writing an op-ed piece in the NY Times, Thomas Friedman gives us an understanding of what may be ahead in a serious campaign against terrorists. Friedman has spent much of the last decade developing an understanding of the effects of economic and political globalization, much of which was published in the highly recommended (by me) The Lexus and the Olive Tree, and is a very credible voice; this piece was written in Jerusalem.

Friedman makes the point, which many others have as well, that these groups are incredibly difficult to infiltrate and track; this is largely possible only when local associates/rivals are willing to help. This is a factor in our government’s inability–not failure–to predict and prevent the attack.

Key quote:

“The people who planned Tuesday’s bombings combined world-class evil with world-class genius to devastating effect. And unless we are ready to put our best minds to work combating them–the World War III Manhattan project–in an equally daring, unconventional and unremitting fashion, we’re in trouble. Because while this may have been the first major battle of World War III, it may be the last one that involves only conventional, non-nuclear weapons.”

bin Laden Taliban commander-in-chief?

According to this UPI report from Aug. 30, the enemies of peace running Afghanistan within the last month appointed bin Laden as their military leader. This article covers a Russian Foreign Ministry official denouncing the action. “Bin Laden’s appointment confirmed that a center of international terrorism is being set up in Taliban-controlled territory.”

How we must respond

My answer: Hit quick, hit hard, accept that there will be unwanted casualties both on our side and among nearby civilians but that this is the price to begin a campaign to prevent as much as possible future events. Terrorists thrive on ambiguity and see hesitation as weakness. I am not willing to trade our safety for their demands.

Writing in the Jeruslam Post, Gerald M. Steinberg writes:

“In America and the other democracies around the world, as well as in Russia and China, the inhuman attacks in New York and Washington should leave no questions regarding the need for powerful and consistent action to uproot terrorism from its foundations. As the leader of the modern world civilization, and as a result, the primary terrorist target, the US is the only force that can lead the campaign to rid the world of this threat….No shelter for terrorism must be allowed to remain no quarter can be given, or the plague will resume with even greater fury.”

In the NY Times, William Safire writes:

“Lashing out on the basis of inadequate information is wrong, but in terror-wartime, waiting for absolute proof is dangerous. When we reasonably determine our attackers’ bases and camps, we must pulverize them–minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage–and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror’s national hosts.”

Morning after

By now, on a September morning, the Sun is ususally shining, the sky blue and bright. Today, though, as if in sympathy with our grief, the sky is grey and drab, as if tears could fall any moment. Branches on the trees a drooping, too sad to stand up.

Magnitude

During the Civil War, at the Battle of Antietem, over 23,000 Americans died in a single day. To my absolute horror, disbelief, and disgust, today may have been worse. I feel like I’ve been pummeled, punched in the stomach, and stomped on.

Giving Blood

One of the main things we can do as individuals is give blood, so I tried to make an appointment to go this afternoon. Many people feel the same way and so the response I received was there are no appointments until the end of the week. This is the kind of response we should make.

Tears

There are no words to express my sadness and anger at the animals who perpetrated this horror. A friend said:

“A lot of people in the world think that the US is effect and bourgeouis and isn’t willing to fight. They’re going to find out now, the hard way.

I’m sure that the Taliban has been told through diplomatic channels already that the US wants bin Laden, wants him NOW and wants no more excuses or delays. I suspect they’ve got 24 hours before bombing starts. There will be no negotiation, no half measures, no conditions, nothing less accepted.

We have B-52’s at Diego Garcia which could launch an attack with six hours notice, and after Iraq and Serbia, everyone in the world knows how devastating a US air campaign can be.”

We watched the first two episodes of Band of Brothers last night and I think this is one not to be missed. I am not one of those currently caught up in the ‘Great Generation’ crap (perhaps because my dad was a couple of years too young to fight) but I do appreciate good storytelling, good acting, and well-paced direction which this mini-series certainly has. Band tells the story of Easy Company, E Company of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, which saw WWII action from jumping in behind the German lines the night before D-Day through the end, the capture of Hilter’s bunker at Berchtesgarden.

Truly outstanding was the beginning scene of episode two showing the Company being flown to France and the parachute drops. While the Germans reportedly were taken by surprise on both timing and location, their troops did respond quickly and with lethal force, which Band shows unflinchingly. Highly reminiscent of the opening beach landing scene in Saving Private Ryan, which is not too surprising given that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, along with author Stephen Ambrose, were the driving forces behind both efforts; in fact, in this episode we see the other side of the landing when Easy Company attacks a German position that is pounding the beach.

Since HBO generally repeats episodes of its series several times during the week, I encourage you to catch this if you missed it.

Singularity News

John Robb, CEO of UserLand Software, has started Singularity, a weblog with news and information on the Singularity. I’ve briefly touched on this before. Vernor Vinge, the idea’s originator, and Ray Kurzweil explain it as “the idea that accelerating technology will lead to superhuman machine intelligence that will soon exceed human intelligence, probably by the year 2030. The results on the other side of the “event horizon” are unpredictable.” I expect this will be a very interesting weblog if Robb gives it much attention.

Kurzweil’s site has a number of interesting articles on this topic such as Robin Hanson’s detailed, math-filled economic analysis of the Singularity; John Smart’s What is the Singularity?, which surveys the history, thinkers, and development of the concept; and a video preview of Kurzweil’s next book The Singularity is Near.

Little things to do for your love

Don’t forget:

to leave little love notes in surprise locations

to make a bag lunch for her once in a while (with a note)

to bring her flowers for no reason

to plant a tree for your love

to light candles nightly

to tell her she will always be beautiful

to hold her when she cries

two tickets to paradise, once a year; and

a tennis bracelet!!!!

Courtesy of a wonderful friend

And so did I

09 Sep 01

You had six months of affection

Flowers and phone calls

Kisses, dinners, happiness

And so did I

The white hot blaze burned us

Touched us with the magic wand

Then you questioned happiness

And so did I

We ran an amazing race together

Almost making the finish line

You hesitated and stumbled

And so did I

The passion had us running

The days and nights blurring

You lost the magic ring

And so did I

We bounced and bounded together

Climbing the hills of love

You fell down and broke your crown

And so did I

I gave you my heart too easily

Then took it away too soon

Remember the beauty of the fire

And so will I

The problem of pleasure

Philosophers have for centuries (and ordinary folk for millenia) been wondering why, if there is a God, suffering exists in the world. Sin alone cannot be the answer since large events (such as hurricanes) can have the same effect on large groups, all of whom cannot have committed the same ‘quantity’ of sin. But the opposite question is rarely explored. Steven DenBeste, writing in his USS Clueless weblog says pleasure is easily explained in mechanistic terms: “We enjoy things because creatures who enjoy the right things are differentially better adapted to survive and breed. It’s as simple as that.” Read the whole essay, it’s worth it. Steven was writing in response to Sean’s post, so I guess I’m just adding a link in the chain.

Green tea: not just for Chinese restaurants

Ivanhoe’s Medical Breakthroughs reports on the Benefits of Green Tea as reported by two UCLA medical researchers. Regular drinking of green tea has been shown to lower the risk of breast cancer, gastritis, and stomach cancer but Drs. Zuo-Feng Zhang and Mai Nguyen believe further studies will show similar benefits for several other types of cancers. A key differentiation between green and other teas is that green tea is not fermented, a process that destroys the anti-oxidents that are naturally part of all teas.

MTV President Judy McGrath is wanted for the murder of music

Matt Drudge is a man with opinions and he’s never been afraid to let them out. But this time he really let’s loose on Judy McGrath. My only comment is that I don’t watch MTV and haven’t for awhile except for the occasional Celebrity Deathmatch; shows like TRL and Jackass are just over my head. Sample quotes from Drudge:

“Long after we rip out the infected pierced stud in our tongues and wash off all our tats and forget we ever witnessed three-and-a-half-hours of something called The Eighteenth Annual MTV Video Music Awards… we’ll possibly be able to look at ourselves in the mirror again.”

“THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO THOUGHT WE WOULD MAKE GOOD WHORES.”

“McGrath, a star in the VIACOMCBS family, knew she had hit the Zeitgeist with promos for the “Music Awards” which featured host Jamie Foxx simulating intercourse with a live sheep. You could almost hear McGrath applaud, cheer and order heavy rotation as Foxx gyrated his pelvis into the sheep.”

Drudge is not the only one catching on… Eric Boehlert in Salon gives us Rock stars for sale! and Adam Curry, original VJ and now Web entrepreneur, is always good for a gut shot.

Linux guys need laughs too

Another case of a smartass with too much time on his hands–O’Really & Associates, a parody of O’Reilly & Associates with “computer book parodies, not much else.” But they did make t-shirts out of some of the book covers and, me being easily amused, I ordered some.

Could MS do HomeStation if it was split up?

PC Format, a UK home computing magazine, has a world scoop on the Microsoft HomeStation. And Flangy, an MS employee, appears to confirm. What is HomeStation? Microsoft’s idea of a home entertainment hub, a combination XBox/PC, with heavy duty graphics and sound. You’ll hook it up to your TV, cable modem or DSL connection, digital camera, PDA, and telephone. It will include personal video recorder functionality. It will be able to play XBox and PC games and run on WindowsXP. And it will make heavy use of Microsoft’s .NET servers and services.

Curiously, David Banks in Breaking Windows is quite clear that one of Bill Gates’ most fundamental principles is the separation of hardware and software and now he’s going to break that a second time. Has the world changed that much?

What I’d like to know is how some obscure British pub had this story before the major tech sources?

Today’s book: Potshot

I’m a big Robert B. Parker fan–I even read his crappy western Gunman’s Rhapsody–so of course I was eager to get to the latest Spenser novel, Potshot. In this volume, Spenser is asked to solve a murder the local police in the desert town of Potshot, Arizona, are ignoring and, while he’s at it, to clean out a gang that’s extorting protection money. He takes Hawk, of course, and rounds up a bunch of tough guys from past adventures/novels (Vinny, Tedy Sapp, Bernard J. Fortunato, Chollo, and Bobby Horse) to help him as the gang has about 40 tough guys of its own.

I enjoyed this one a lot, it is better than the last five novels Parker’s written. He does spend a lot of the ink on characterization and dialog and less effort on plot but after writing about these guys for all these years I understand. And there is enough plot to make it work. Oddly, Spenser spends very little time writing about the food, especially food preparation, which is usually a staple of his books; poetry features much larger here: “The grave’s a fine and private place,” I said, “but none I think do there embrace.”

Last night’s movie: American Pie 2

After reading and writing up yesterday’s anti-movie rant by Sacramento Bee movie reviewer Joe Baltake, I decided I had to go out and see American Pie 2 for myself. Short answer: he was wrong. The movie is funny and I was laughing thoughout. Yes, the filmmakers depend on sex and gross out humor for the bulk of their jokes but what teen comedy except for American Grafitti didn’t? Sure, the “Are they lesbians?,” superglue, and peeing off the balcony scenes go further than, say, Animal House did or could 20 years ago, but that’s also just a sign of our changing cultural values. Pong was a lot less violent than Quake, too. I think screenwriter Adam Herz, who also wrote the original, does a good job with the story, keeping a lot of the concepts and characterizations from AP1 but finding new ways to express them. Good example is Finch’s obsession over Steiffler’s mom (and therefore Tantra) throughout the movie and the way Oz (the ever-improving Chris Klein) and Heather (Mena Suvari) can’t quite get together even though they want to badly.

And did the producers hire every large breasted actress between 17 and 21 in Hollywood? It sure looks that way on screen. But none of them can compare to Shannon Elizabeth (whose personal website is poorly designed, IMO, but does have lots of photos), back as sex goddess/exchange student Nadia. Getting smart, Elizabeth put a no nudity (not even topless) clause in her contract although she looks awesome in anything and does one great bikini scene. Always on the lookout for titillation, I would suggest Stekson’s Shannon Elizabeth Picture Page as a good place to look.

Pauline Kael

On the other hand, Pauline Kael recently passed away. Kael was probably the most prominent and important film critic of the last half century and, had she deigned to review this film, would undoubtedly have not gotten past the opening scene–the sequel’s version of dad walking in on Jim. Louis Menand wrote an excellent appreciation of Kael for the NY Review of Books several years ago when a huge collection of Kael’s reviews and columns were published in For Keeps.

Eric Clapton Royally sucks ass

An ongoing series, Behind The Music That Sucks tears Eric Clapton to shreds in a new episode. In this excellent use of Flash director Andy Smith, writer Conor Lynch, and music composer Jared Gutstadt use a Clockwork Orange framework (“Hello, my droogies”), Mick Jagger leads the first brainwashing forcing Clapton watch hours and hours of American Bandstand to switch to his soft rock crap (then Clapton goes on Oprah, who we see in panties with her curly hairs showing) Barbra Streisand and James Taylor doing a second brainwashing forcing Clapton to watch streams of Full House episodes, and what appears to be a third brainwashing by blues masters including B.B. King but turns out to be just a serious ass kicking. A good bit of very funny original parody music is featured. Other musicians/groups featured in past episodes include Brittney (I watched this episode and it’s damn funny too), J. Lo, Garth Brooks, Glenn Miller, William Shatner, and Guns N Roses.

Trekkers are wonderful people

Star Trek fans do all kinds of fun stuff–heck, GalaxyQuest was a whole movie spoofing Trek fans–but I have to say that Brian Connors has probably taken things beyond any reasonable semblance of a line with How do Klingons compute? He’s actually devised a programming language based on how Star Trek’s Klingons would look at programming, and describes it as “the bastard child of a back-room tryst between PostScript and Lisp after a Star Trek convention.” And, de rigeur in this age, the language is open source and freeware. As best I can tell, you can actually write programs in var’aq although it is far from being a complete competitor to, say, Perl (which it’s written in) or Java. But wacko-way cool!

Update: I wrote a note to Brian telling him of this entry and he answered back. “<horntoot>I do take a sort of pride in the possibility that of all geeky things, this very likely might be one of the geekiest in existence. And the amusing part is that there are far greater geeks than I in the world, and yet I cooked up this and they didn’t, yes?</horntoot>”