Overseas Job Exodus.

I was thinking about yet another call I got today from yet another offshore outsourcing company. There has to be some way of stopping some of this flow of jobs, in the high tech industry.  Here's my thought -- drop any tax write-off for overseas services work.  That is, disallow as a business expense money given to overseas outsourcing shops.  I have no problem with a bunch of hard-working guys in India doing software.  How about they develop their own software economy, over there?  Figure out some products, design'em, build'em...it's not like they can't...lots of great companies.

We just need to find a way to stop the blood-flow of jobs.  What's happened in the manufacturing sector could happen in high-tech.  I think it's worth mentioning that the playing field isn't really level -- American companies must provide a lot of benefits to their workers (health care, etc)...the costs just aren't there overseas.  It's not really protectionism...

Maybe I'm really wrong-headed, here...

11:29:39 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Distracting You From Plame.

I've predicted that the Bush Administration would engineer some sort of distraction from the Valerie Plame affair, and I have been proven correct:

Gorilla escapes Boston zoo, injures toddler, teen

Look!  Monkey!!!

1:22:03 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

libruhlss!

Shorter Right-Wing Punditry's Reaction to the Valerie Plame Affair: An Internal Dialogue

"Why would master do this? Why he tricks us, and betrays us?"

1:04:09 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

The Texas Health Care Miracle.

Deep under everything, I'm sure there's a reason why Bush's policies seem not to have done too well in Texas.  It's just so darn hard to figure out.  I mean, chop taxes, cut back services...private industry for everything...should have worked, right?.  And look at the results!

One out of four Texans Lack Health Insurance

"One out of every four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest percentage of uninsured residents in any state in the nation, according to new Census Bureau figures.

The findings are part of a report that shows the ranks of the uninsured nationwide swelled by 2.4 million last year as insurance costs kept rising and more Americans lost their jobs and health care coverage."

I guess Bush can put that one up on the trophy shelf, next to the one labelled "Texas Education Miracle".

12:28:53 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

The Saddam-9/11 Challenge.

Donald Sensing challenged his left-leaning readers to come up with some sort of proof that the Bush Administration "actively led Americans to believe that Saddam and the 9/11 attacks were directly linked". Here is his post.

The great thing about the internet is that on the White House site, you've got all the speeches and press releases. I figured all I would have to do is just go back through some of the speeches and press briefings, and I'd find something. I didn't know that I would; I just figured it would be there.

I've just scanned over a few of the press briefings, radio addresses, and speeches; all I did to narrow my search was go to temporal cusps of important events. This is by no means a comprehensive list -- I seek only to give representative examples that connect Hussein and Terror.

Every American knows that Al Qaeda was responsible for September 11. By discussing terror, Al Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein at the same time, a direct link is being forged. Read these quotes and decide for yourself. I've provided links to the White House's own web site if you would like to verify. Sometimes I haven't been able to provide links directly to the quote -- you'll have to search on the page a little bit to find it.

Let the quotes speak for themselves. I find the last quote, the full text of a letter from Bush to the Speaker of the House, to be the most direct.

President Addresses the Nation, September 7, 2003:

"For a generation leading up to September the 11th, 2001, terrorists and their radical allies attacked innocent people in the Middle East and beyond, without facing a sustained and serious response. The terrorists became convinced that free nations were decadent and weak. And they grew bolder, believing that history was on their side. Since America put out the fires of September the 11th, and mourned our dead, and went to war, history has taken a different turn. We have carried the fight to the enemy. We are rolling back the terrorist threat to civilization, not on the fringes of its influence, but at the heart of its power.

This work continues. In Iraq, we are helping the long suffering people of that country to build a decent and democratic society at the center of the Middle East. Together we are transforming a place of torture chambers and mass graves into a nation of laws and free institutions. This undertaking is difficult and costly -- yet worthy of our country, and critical to our security. "

From Bush's "End of Combat" Speech, May 1, 2003:

"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -- the shock troops of a hateful ideology -- gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the "beginning of the end of America." By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed."

"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. (Applause.)

In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th -- the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got."

Fleischer Press Briefing, March 18, 2003:

"Q And one other question, which is, can the President present any show-and-tell evidence of ties to al Qaeda with Saddam, and also a nuclear potential immediately or imminently?

MR. FLEISCHER: You heard what Secretary Powell talked about when he went to the United Nations and has reiterated on a regular basis since then, as well as others in the administration, about the presence in Baghdad of al Qaeda operatives, about the involvement of al Qaeda trained in Iraq involved in the assassination of AID worker Foley in Jordan. So this has been something that has been discussed very publicly.

Q Why is the -- the CIA and FBI have never said that, backed that up.

MR. FLEISCHER: Don't think it would have been said if it hadn't been supported by them. "

Fleischer Press Briefing, March 19, 2003:

"Q Are the old ideas of containment and the other policies that we've seen since the Cold War, are they disregarded by this administration?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, indeed, they're not. But what you do have is -- containment was a very sound policy when you had a bipolar world involving the Soviet Union and the United States. And containment, indeed, did work in that world. What you have now in the post-communist era is a world of different types of threats to the United States, some of which can, indeed, be dealt with through containment. Others -- and Secretary Rumsfeld has referred this as asymmetrical threats -- do not apply.

Containment works when you're dealing with more of a rational nation-state, as opposed to terrorist organizations -- terrorist organizations that cannot be contained. Their use of weapons such as we saw on September 11th, flying airplanes into buildings -- you cannot contain al Qaeda. That's one of the reasons the President has engaged in this war on terrorism around the world and has conducted it the way he has. I don't think anybody would suggest al Qaeda could have been, or will be, or should have been contained. "

Fleischer Press Briefing, September 25, 3003:

"Q We can go back to that in a minute. I have another question. Yesterday in the briefing, you said that the information you have has said al Qaeda is operating in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked about linkages between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein this morning. He said very definitively that, yes, he believes there are. And then the President said, talking about al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the danger is that they work in concert. Is the President saying that they are working in concert, that there is a relationship? Do you have evidence that supports that?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, the President is saying that's the danger. The President has repeatedly said that the worst thing that could happen is for people -- the world's worst dictators with the world's worst weapons of mass destruction to work in concert with terrorists such as al Qaeda, who have shown an ability to attack the United States. And that's what the President has said.

Q So why -- when Rumsfeld was saying, yes, there is a linkage between the two, what is he talking about?

MR. FLEISCHER: Clearly, al Qaeda is operating inside Iraq. And the point is, in the shadowy world of terrorism, sometimes there is no precise way to have definitive information until it is too late. And we've seen that in the past. And so the risk is that al Qaeda operating in Iraq does present a security threat, and it's cause for concern. And I think it's very understandably so.

If you're searching, Campbell, again, for the smoking gun, again I say what Secretary Rumsfeld said -- the problem with smoking guns is they only smoke after they're fired. "

President's Radio Address, March 8, 2003:

"THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This has been an important week on two fronts of our war against terror. First, American and Pakistani authorities captured the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks against our country, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. This is a landmark achievement in disrupting the al Qaeda network, and we believe it will help us prevent future acts of terror. We are currently working with over 90 countries and have dealt with over 3,000 terrorists, who have been detained, arrested, or otherwise will not be a problem for the United States.

Second, the Chief United Nations Weapons Inspector reported yesterday to the Security Council on his efforts to verify Saddam Hussein's compliance with Resolution 1441. This resolution requires Iraq to fully and unconditionally disarm itself of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons materials, as well as the prohibited missiles that could be used to deliver them. Unfortunately, it is clear that Saddam Hussein is still violating the demands of the United Nations by refusing to disarm. "

"Saddam Hussein has a long history of reckless aggression and terrible crimes. He possesses weapons of terror. He provides funding and training and safe haven to terrorists who would willingly deliver weapons of mass destruction against America and other peace-loving countries.

The attacks of September the 11, 2001 showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terror states could do with weapons of mass destruction. We are determined to confront threats wherever they arise. And, as a last resort, we must be willing to use military force. We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm peacefully, he will be disarmed by force. "

President's Radio Address, September 8, 2002:

"The danger to our country is grave and it is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year."

President's Radio Address, February 8, 2003:

"One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases.

We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad. "

State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003:

"With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. (Applause.) "

Presidential Letter, March 18, 2003:

Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

9:06:45 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Back and Forth.

I like Dean's World -- the commentary is somewhat elevated above the usual "nuke the ragheads" crap you often see out there.

We were commenting on this article:

"The problem, Ross, is that you undercut your own credibility by referring to everyone who doubts your viewpoint as "Republicans" and paint it as "non-Republicans" who are on the other side. You undercut it further by citing a polemic editorial from left-wing political commentators who freely mix opinion and rumor with fact and make little effort to distinguish between them.

Your failure to acknowledge that, so far, we are within the pre-announced, non-hidden budget and the administration is simply asking for $7 billion more than what it said it might ask for undercuts your point still further.

Worst of all, you elide the point that so many critics are saying there was "no plan," which is what started this discussion. I mean, I thank you for acknowledging that there was a plan; now it would be nice to see you say something like, "Yes, the people who say there was no plan are idiots and they embarass me. There was a plan, I just think it was a bad plan." Or poorly implemented.

Acknowledging that only a few months post-invasion that the situation is going well by historical measures for any major occupation would also be nice, but I suppose that's asking too much.

Still, straightforward, blunt honesty would do a lot to elevate the debate. And to make it easier to take the administration's critics seriously. "

Dean, credibility is something that generally has to be earned, rather than assumed.  I find that particularly true today.  You slight my credibility because I have generalized somewhat about R and non-R positions.  Let me gather a few quotes from just this comment list:

"The majority of Democrats seeking the presidency have sold their souls to the devil"

"But even you admit there is a disconnect between reality and a lot of Democrats these days:

"Since a goodly portion of the Democrats seem to resolutely ignore this sort of thing, we have to put them down as unsensible thinkers"

Dean, at NO point in my comment did I say "no plan".  I said "shoddy financial planning", and "not according to plan".  Why do you use quotations to generate a statement I did not make?  There is a reason...there is a certain segment of the population (see how I do not generalize :) who, upon reading a piece with which they have disagreement, see things that aren't there.

Or maybe we've all just read so much of this stuff that it's hard to tell things apart. 

Your very first written sentence to me was to call me, in effect, something of a liar.  Is that not what credibility concerns?  Many would consider that to be a personal attack. 

In any case...the $87 billion follows an initial $80 billion allocated, making costs so far around $167 billion (although it varies)...and there will be at minimum of five years more of this.  Those five years will likely be at somewhat reduced cost, but we must retain a range of planning options.

In addition, over such a long time frame, we will see _dramatic_ reductions in the Reserves and National Guard, because being deployed for a year or two at a time, in a foreign, pre-emptive war, is not something that the part-timers signed up for.  They signed up to defend America, here. 

Many of us "lefties" can't help but genuinely wonder how much we could have done in the world with $10 billion in carrot, instead of several hundred billion in stick. 

9:39:53 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

Krugman Truth Squad Truth Squad.

Donald Luskin's whole life revolves around pulling apart every sentence that Paul Krugman writes.  In light of recent developments regarding the Plame situation, it's useful to review his bug-wing dissection of a Krugman article that was, in retrospect, dead on.  And early in the game too.

This is, of course, the "post edited" version of his article, where he inserts furious, backpedalling commentary.  Perhaps he can pick a new color for newer, even more furious backpedalling.

A sample:

 Now on to the fifth sentence: "Think about that: if their characterization of Mr. Wilson's wife is true (he refuses to confirm or deny it), Bush administration officials have exposed the identity of a covert operative." Huh?! When did "their characterization" of Plame go from being an "operative" (per Novak) or an "official" (per Time) to being a "covert operative"? That's Krugman's characterization. That's not reporting. That's not commentary. It's just plain old making stuff up.

*** This is the heart of the matter: Did Krugman have reasonable grounds to make the leap from "operative" and "official" to "covert operative"? Maybe Ms. Plame is, in fact, exactly that -- but one thing's for certain: nothing in his Times column provides grounds for saying so. The fact is that in his column he offers no source beyond Novak and Time, and those two sources simply don't justify what Krugman said.

Another interesting point of view: Donald Sensing met Ambassador Wilson (Plame's husband years back, who publicly criticized the administration on the Niger uranium issue).  Here's a relevant quote:

Wilson was the ambassador to Iraq who immediately preceded the hapless Amb. April Glaspie, who has been blamed for inavertantly giving Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait in 1990. (She didn't, but that's another story.) I happen to have been a seminar attendee in 1993 in which Wilson was a speaker one day. There were only about two dozen attendees, some of us military and others civilian government factotums from all branches of government. So we had very informal and engaging discussions with the daily speakers.

I found Wilson to be expertly knowledgeable on the Middle East and quite sober-minded. I rate his credibility extremely high, so I find the charges he has made very credible and very disturbing.

Finally, the relevant law:

TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 15 > Sec. 421.

Sec. 421. - Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources

(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent

Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information

Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents

Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual's classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(d) Imposition of consecutive sentences

A term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be consecutive to any other sentence of imprisonment

11:50:53 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

The Bush Plan.

Esmay: It's not about "the plan", per se.  It's whether the justifications for war match the reality, and whether the expectations of the Administration match reality.  From the perspective of non-Republicans, the goods don't match the sales pitch.  Republicans writing here generally do so from an "us smart guys knew it would be hard" standpoint.  This is NOT the image that was conveyed to the public.  Remember Mitch Daniels?  $50 billion for the war, he said.  Lawrence Lindsey was fired from the White House for saying it would cost $200 billion.

The White has played down the costs of this war very actively, particularly in the decision stage.  If things are "going according to plan", as many of you seem to feel, then why have the costs spiralled upwards?  This war may end up costing, in the long run (ten years), half a trillion dollars.  If the Iraq situation IS going according to plan, cost estimates early on were inaccurate at best, and potentially deliberately misleading.

It is perhaps true that the planners in the administration knew roughly where we'd be at this point, and that we're on one of their contingency lines.  Accurate financial information was not provided to the decision makers (Congress).  In addition, faulty intelligence was used to make the decision.  The continuing argument of the administration is that virtually all intelligence prior to the war had Hussein in possession of WMD...to the extent that we are able to verify it, there are no WMD.

Sometimes when you make a huge mistake, you pay a price.  I can't think of a much bigger mistake than leading a country into a war with shoddy financial planning, incorrect intelligence, and having kicked sand in the face of the rest of the world.  Even if Bush did this with good intentions, it's a sufficiently huge mistake, either in process or result, that his removal would be sensible.

It's up to the voters to decide.

11:05:27 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Plame Again.

This one doesn't look too good for the Bush folks.  There's ample coverage out there at the moment...try CalPundit, Daniel Dreznor, Josh Marshall, Atrios, the Washington Post.  The first thing to remember is that the Novak story came out three months ago.  That means that this story has been buried for three months, and I would guess that whoever decided to bury it was pretty happy.  Until yesterday, when somebody got pissed off (a "senior administration official"), and coughed up a part of the truth.

I would like to think that Bush didn't know.  This is probably the political arm of the White House, operating independently, overstepping their bounds.  But there is this: Plame was outed months ago, and the White House has done nothing publicly to go after the perpetrator(s).  There are two scenarios: Either Bush was told that it wasn't true (somebody lied to him), or he made the decision to wait it out.  If no further facts had come out, the "wait it out" strategy would have worked.

It is also possible that Bush was never briefed on this issue, and never made a decision...it could have been handled entirely at the political level.

Condi Rice didn't look too happy this morning as she was answering questions; she indicated that the Justice Department was looking into it.  We have a problem, there -- since the demise of the Independent Counsel statute, there isn't any way to get an unbiased look inside the White House.  We will have John Ashcroft's people doing the work.  That doesn't seem like a very good way to get at the truth.

Plame was outed because there's something else that they didn't want coming out.  Someone else was the recipient of this message, someone who might have said something even more damaging.

Right now it looks to me that there are two Administration officials who are likely to be charged criminally, if the DoJ actually investigates...now that this has been "turned over", there is the distinct possibility that it could be buried again.  If I was Robert Novak I wouldn't be too happy either -- he deliberately, as a part of a White House political move, outed a covert agent.  Somebody posted the statute somewhere, earlier, and I didn't see any exemption in there for reporters.  At least five other reporters were called by the outers, and did not print the story.  It seems to me that they just kept calling until somebody bit and was willing to take the risk and print the story...that somebody is Novak.

5:16:53 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Josh Marshall Rules.

If you're not already reading Talking Points Memo, you should be.  Josh has a real insider's grasp of Washington Politics, and is easily one of the most thought-provoking reads around.  He just gets news faster, and does the work better.

1:14:08 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Now It's All Making Sense.

You know, I don't know exactly how to take this piece from the Washington Post:

"I was a little surprised, but I knew right away it was a wise choice," she said, recalling that afternoon nine years ago, when she and Muhammad were 22. "It is safer to marry a cousin than a stranger."

Her reaction was typical in a country where nearly half of marriages are between first or second cousins, a statistic that is one of the more important and least understood differences between Iraq and America. The extraordinarily strong family bonds complicate virtually everything Americans are trying to do here, from finding Saddam Hussein to changing women's status to creating a liberal democracy.

"Americans just don't understand what a different world Iraq is because of these highly unusual cousin marriages," said Robin Fox of Rutgers University, the author of "Kinship and Marriage," a widely used anthropology textbook. "Liberal democracy is based on the Western idea of autonomous individuals committed to a public good, but that's not how members of these tight and bounded kin groups see the world. Their world is divided into two groups: kin and strangers."

They're all marrying their cousins over there?  Eep.  Maybe all of this crazy Middle Eastern stuff is starting to make some sense.  ;) 

UPDATE:

Riverbend provides some insight into Iraqi family structures.  I take back my stupid joke. 

8:02:07 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Huge National Breakup!

Here's a funny bit in the Globe; Paul Lewis jokes about having the democrats join Canada.  I say, why not!  Go for it!  Blue Staters can just be a part of Canada and get the medical system, political neutrality, and easy access to MJ they've always wanted.  Red Staters can continue to flog themselves with leather bibles, cut their taxes to negative zero, watch their Satanic Public Education Institutions fall into disrepair (or just get right in there and wreck'em).

The best news for us Blue Staters is, WE WON'T HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR BULLSHIT ANYMORE!  That's right!  No more wealth transfer to support Welfare Moralists.

I knew there was an answer! Love this chart:

3:33:49 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Bush's Extra Helpful Secret Service.

There's some good discussion on this one floating around: Volokh has two pieces on it.  It's fairly well known that the Secret Service is doing this, has been doing this.  Protesters have ended up almost a half mile away from Bush, in some cases, and they have been put there based on their viewpoint.  I've learned all kinds of neat new phrases lately -- viewpoint-neutrality is one of them.

In any case, check out the "justification" Volokh makes the egregious error of giving air time (I permit myself the same error because nobody reads what I write :) :

How about this -- anti - Bush demonstrators are largely the hard left, with a history of violence. Witness: the anti-globalism demonstrations in Seattle. Left demonstrators, usually union thugs, often attacked and beat up peaceful anti-Clinton protestors. The violent and extreme left, including various communist organizations is suffused with hate-Bush attitudes, and regularly makes accusations that would seem to justify violence, and sometimes even calls for it.

So, while generally I would agree that viewpoint discrimination is unfair, it may at times be justified. How about a throng of pro-Al Qaeda demonstrators dressed in voluminous robes that could conceal weapons or bombs wanting to get up close to the President?

So according to this little gem, people on the Left are thugs, and violent.  But let's not stop there!  Goodness no!  Let's also convey that they're communist, suffused with hate, apologists for violence, and more or less members of Al Qaeda.  Wow!  That's quite a list.  I think there are going to be a lot of people out there on the left who are going to be quite intimidated by a list like that.  It's just way too much to try and get done in one day, and hold down a job at the same time.  It's like you'd have to go after it full time or something...really try and turn yourself into an archetypical RNC nemesis.

I can't believe an author as well-read (in the the personal and blog sense) as Eugene Volokh would even bother responding to such a steaming pile of crap.

3:20:27 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Pointless, Deceptive Generalization.

Via The Ministry, we see yet another example of the cheap, easy way out of political discourse.  It boils down to, "See, folks?  Since that one guy over there hates X, that means everybody on their side does!  Woohoo!  We win!"  Pass the mustard.

I truly don't mind saying that I think of this: It's fucking idiotic writing.  That being said, I am quite sure that if I go back through the ten months of archives on my site, I'm going to find the same damn kind of thing.  Grr.  I hate being a hypocrit.  Or maybe I'm not.  Full text search to the rescue!

3:07:15 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Twenty More Questions.

Paul Miller wonders about Iraq, and he's got 20 tough questions to prove it.  Let's look at some more:

1. What percentage of money going to American contractors goes to Iraqi companies, who actually do the work?
2. Where can we find accurate estimates of exactly how many people were being killed under Saddam?  It's probably in the same filing cabinet as the WMD info.
3. How does the civilian death count in Iraq compare to, say, 9/11, which was the Administration's implied reason for going in?
4. How many civilians have been victims of crime since the "end of major combat"?  How many have been murdered?
5. How many hours per day of electricity do we have in Baghdad? 
6. Did the Bush administration intend to attract foreign combatants to Iraq?
7. What constitutes permissible criticism of the Administration's approach in Iraq?  There seems to be some sort of line, painted somewhere.
8. How has the health care situation changed, from before the war, to now?
9. Have we established a picture of the political movement underlying the guerrilla war?
10. What actions are being taken against the religious extremists who are beginning to police the lives of women, denying their freedom?
11. What is the percentage level of coverage for assets needing security, given the troop levels in the country?
12. What is an average day in Iraq like for a young woman?
13. Are there caps on the "cut" of the gross that an American corporation can take when sub-contracting rebuilding to an Iraqi company?
14. Has Allbaugh's company arranged any of the contracts in Iraq?
15. At what point will the books be laid open, so that third parties can audit the finances of the reconstruction effort in Iraq?
16. What are the total projected costs of this action, over a five year period?
17. What is the current best guess for how long large troop deployments (over 100,000) are going to be required?
18. Since Mitch Daniels (former White House Budget Director) estimated the total cost of this war to be $50 to $60 Billion, significant revisions in the White House's budget plans must have occurred.  What are they?
19. Why is the security around the Iraqi Council so weak?  Were Al Hashemi's security guards actually her brothers and family members?
20. How long is the widely-discussed $87 Billion supposed to last, in budget terms?  What percentage goes to troops, and what percentage goes to American corporations rebuilding?
21. How have the revenue estimates from Iraqi oil evolved over the past two years?
22. What specific actions are being taken to ensure women's rights in Iraq, and prevent a repressive theocracy-simula from rising there?

1:49:59 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

The Shakeout Is Over.

Talking Points has, as usual, good insight on the debate.  Let's put it bluntly -- it's time for the vanity candidates to get out of the race.  How many times do we have to listen to each candidate say roughly the same thing as the others, over and over?  Right now we have to listen to each anti-Bush remark about ten times. 

The message is starting to become diluted.  Kucinich, Graham, Moseley-Braun, Sharpton, and Edwards need to get the heck out of there.  We should probably include Gephardt and Lieberman on that list too...the early race is done, and there are frontrunners now.  We have three of them.  That's enough.  With Bush's $200 million, the DNC is going to need to focus every single resource it has on what's ahead.  Frittering away cash and focus at this stage in the game is foolish. 

The DNC needs to do a pre-primary, and turf the vanity folks out.

1:30:17 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Meme Initiation.

Let's get busy on two new memes..things that need to be said, things that need to get into the collective consciousness of this country.

1. "Bush is Out Of Touch".  Bush is insulated, surrounded by his Wormtongue advisors, unable to evaluate the facts on his own, and simply, plainly, out of touch with the reality of his policies.  He's on autopilot, blindly implementing what he's told to, by those who have other motives.
2. "The Republican Elite".  The word "elite" has been used to death by the Right.  We need to take it back.  The citizens of this country need to start recognizing that there is a Star Chamber-like aspect to the policy drive at the top...these policies are designed to advance the goals and aspirations of a very few people.  Moderation is absent...there are only risky policies, being driven by those who are extraordinarily well insulated from the negative effects of those policies.

My personal tin foil hat theory -- it's all about owning the paper.  What I mean by that is that there is a small group of people in this country who are driving the deficit up dramatically...who ends up owning this paper?  This future debt servicing is going to have to go somewhere...somebody is going to end up owning paper that gets a significant cut of this country's GDP.  We need to look very carefully at who that somebody is...

12:36:36 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

This Dude Can Write.

Just check out AccordionGuy.  I suck at wording together put backwards ass suckage compared to this guy.

11:36:12 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

When the Adults Are Away...

David Adesnik might be out of his league, guest blogging on Volokh this week.  Setting aside the spelling errors we'll assume are typos, he proceeds with this quote:

David on Volokh:  In a heartening display of unity, the NYT also made it sound as if Annan had nothing good to say about US foreign policy. But what about the following quote from his speech? As Annan said, there is an

urgent need for the [Security] Council to regain the confidence of states and of world public opinion, both by demonstrating its ability to deal effectively with the most difficult issues and by becoming more broadly representative of the international community as a whole, as well as the geopolitical realities of today. The Council needs to consider how it will deal with the possibility that individual states may use force preemptively against perceived threats. Its members may need to begin a discussion on the criteria for an early authorization of coercive measures to address certain types of threats; for instance, terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction.

Wo-wo-whoa! Is Kofi Annan saying that the Security Council should consider authorizing pre-emptive action in certain cases? Sounds like it to me.

You can also read it exactly the other way -- the Council needs to figure out how it's going to deal with individual states that use force preemptively.  Period.  There is nothing surprising about this: The Council can and has authorized the use of force in many situations.  Iraq's situation does not constitute pure preemption, either...the UN's been in there heavily for some time, and past offenses are well known.  Annan's point is that the Council needs to agree on use of preemptive force, and that to avoid a train wreck in the future (like the current situation), criteria need to be in place so the discussion doesn't degenerate or be unilaterally avoided by a member state's leadership (The Bush).

5:45:52 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Motives.

THE HATRED SWELLS: "Please tell me, Andrew: why are you keeping track of Bush hatred? Are you on the administration’s payroll? Do you report those who are critical, make sure they don’t work in this town (America) ever again? There's nothing lower than a lapdog anyway, but a lapdog for the moral cretins that are the Bushies is a gutter-level low. Disgusting and pathetic. Yes, many of us "hate" Bush and company, and for precisely the reasons Susan Lenfesty mentions. We are on a metaphorical flight into a metaphorical building – and yes, somebody besides Bush can analogize 9/11 (although Bush doesn’t analogize 9/11, he explicitly cites it, and for political gain).

It's absolutely repulsive the way people like you lay curled at the feet of this wanna-be dictator (his own words, bespeaking dreams) and bark at the ones who question him and his policies. Don't even begin to think that American casualties in Iraq keep any of them up at night. For these monsters, it's a harvest of souls...or, monster food."

ALRIGHTY THEN: This email is not atypical of many I get about Bush. (And, of course, I've been plenty critical of some aspects of this administration, especially on fiscal and cultural matters). I just don't think Bush is maliciously intent on destroying the fabric of the country. In fact, I think the president has done a pretty good job of responding boldly to some of the gravest crises the country has ever faced. But the intensity of the desire to see him defeated - by whatever means and whoever benefits - is a real phenomenon. It's stronger and more widespread than the antipathy to Clinton in, say, 1996. It will propel the coming electoral cycle.

I don't really think Bush is maliciously intent on destroying this country.  I think he is blindly, incompetently implementing policies designed by others that may result in that destruction.  I do not perceive him to be a strong leader.  I haven't seen a single speech, a single appearance, or a single document written by Bush that persuades me of his abilities.  We're supposed to take Bush's competence on faith, on the word of those who surround him.  They tell us he's really plugged in, that he really knows what's going on, and then they wrap themselves very quickly in the flag. 

Bush's promotional appearance on Fox was fairly typical -- they spent a half hour playing up Bush's "regular guy" image, and succeeded brilliantly.  He's a regular guy, and spectacularly underequipped for the job.

Bush's character should be driving the next election cycle.  The evidence out there right now is pretty bad -- when Clinton was in the re-election cycle, he was in a great economy, and things were going pretty well for the average guy.  Now they're not.  If the election cycle wasn't being driven by these issues, I'd be surprised.  With Clinton the Right went after him for "moral outrage", more or less.  In this election cycle, it's "economic outrage".  And baby, we all know that it's the Economy, Stupid.

Bush is surrounded by people who either think the American population is too dumb to understand what they're doing, or they're being deliberately deceitful about their true motives.  Bush is responsible for his subordinates -- if they're doing it, he has to take the fall.  This is going to be a real tough election cycle for him.  He may win it, but it's going to be very bruising.  His Presidency is in tatters -- downward spiralling economy, pariah status in the international sphere, deep mistrust of him and his policies, and helping him through all this, when he needs the clearest advice he could possibly be getting, are people who, to a man (and woman), know that they are the ones really running the country. 

I still remember the dinner I had before the 2000 election...there was a Republican election strategist there, day job running campaigns.  A few glasses of wine later, he said that he and his colleagues knew that Bush wasn't qualified, that he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.  But he was their knife.

He sure is.

2:21:17 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Fixing Electronic Voting.

Interesting article on Slashdot about Electronic Voting...read through the links, especially this one.   It strikes me as incredible that the "technical" people writing these emails are engaged in such Mickey Mouse chatter, and so interested in just cranking out something, anything that will work.  I just don't see how electronic voting is really all that hard to engage in...as long as you have your priorities straight.

There are two primary things we want to accomplish with EVotes -- first, we want to make the voting process easier to engage in.  Second, we want to make the counting process more efficient (less costly).  We would also like to reduce the error rate, to the extent that we are able.

A touch screen voting interface, big and clear and nice, is exactly what we need to help walk people through the process.  We can't, though, rely on the software in these machines.  One read through the memos above should convince you as to why -- these people just have no idea what they're doing.  Basic?  Access databases?  Windows?  My god. 

What this says to me is that we simply cannot get away from paper.  So what we want is a system that makes paper easier to use, leaves a paper trail for auditing and verification purposes, and provides ample opportunity for error checking by the voter and by election officials.

We use the touch screen to answer questions.  At the end of the voting session, the system prints a "vote" and electronically tabulates the results.  The voter verifies that his printed vote matches what's on the tabulation screen.  The voter then folds his paper vote and deposits it with election officials in a good old fashioned ballot box.

We can then use the electronic tabulation to check quickly on the results -- this is quite efficient.  We will also engage in a substantial amount of verification, by counting the paper votes by hand and verifying this against totals learned electronically.  The paper always wins, in this system.  We do not necessarily need to count all of the paper votes -- we can use random sampling.

It seems like a win in both directions, for me.  Risks include unacceptable printout quality (printer wear), and insufficient random verification.

11:14:50 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

H1-B Visa Cut.

It doesn't affect me because I'm on a different visa as a Canadian, but it's interesting nonetheless.  The Washington Post is reporting that the number of H1-B visas is going to be cut from 195,000 to 65,000.  I know a fair number of people who have been out of work (although a lot of them have found jobs now), so I can certainly sympathize with this.  What I am worried about, though, is that we're just going to drive companies into overseas outsourcing.  In my position, two years ago I might have gotten one call a year asking me if I wanted to outsource.  Now I get at least two or three a month...outsourcing has become huge.  Sending those dollars overseas is the kind of thing that just might be contributing to our "jobless" recovery at the moment.

In the long run, the only thing that has value in our business is change.  Get used to it.  You need to be able to efficiently do those changes.  As a domestic worker, you have serious advantages over the competition.  Your communication loop is tight.  You have a better cultural fit.  You can be a known quantity.  You can provide references.  Some of these advantages are going to fade over time, so you need to keep them up.

Something that can't be outsourced, though, is raw creativity.  If you come up with something that hasn't been done before, it's your idea.  Creativity builds markets, companies, jobs, and wealth...it's something that this country does incredibly well, and can't be outsourced.

9:03:04 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

I'll Pay for This Tomorrow.

• vodka has other motives
• post-flood conversations are monothematical
• too many people are getting married
• even people you don't know
• because the ones you do already are
• i once resigned via haiku
• i wonder where that is
• i liked it better with four feet of water over everything
• am i old yet?
• don't mix drinks; stick to martinis and you'll be fine
• i am not fine
• but i made it home
• strategic pedestrianism
• boil some water, drink it
• i'll pay for this tomorrow

1:13:20 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

Technical Notes.

Trackback is now enabled (I think) for this Radio Userland -powered blog.  I've been playing a bit with Movable Type and may switch, but for now...we'll proceed with this.  The pictures in the previous entry might look a little better if you expand your browser window.

I wrote a quick Java program to read in my 1MB+ source images (from my Canon S50 camera)...It uses the 1.4 SE imaging API.  I've done a lot of image work in the past, and I don't mind telling you that the imaging API is, on the face of it, pretty crappy.  You simply have to do too much work to do some simple things, and there are way too many formats and options on most of the classes.  Some of it is infrastructure that's dedicated to handling asynchronous image work and I understand the complexities of it are necessary, but for God's sake, provide simple ways to do the simple things.

Resizing an image turns out to be a pain in the ass.  You can easily load your image in with ImageIO, which provides you with a BufferedImage.  BufferedImage inherits a getScaled-type call, which looks like exactly what you need, until you realize that it returns an Image.  If you check the class of the image, it's some weird AWT thing.  In order to use ImageIO's writing, you need a RenderedImage (of which BufferedImage is one).  So how do you get there?  The answer is, you can't.

What I ended up doing is creating a new BufferedImage, getting a Graphics2D from it, then rendering the source image onto the target.  I set the rendering hints, but frankly the image quality absolutely sucks.  I'll need to go back and tack on the interpolation hint directly and see if that makes a difference.

The main reason I ended up writing a little program to do this is that the batch resizing program I have (Adobe Photoshop Elements) is just plumb stupid about portrait vs. landscape images.  There's no way to convince it to do the right thing.

2:53:42 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

The Flood.

My building was surrounded by the flood in Old Town Alexandria...check it out! I got lucky and had power the whole time; people in surrounding neighborhoods didn't. Note the kayak; I was ready, baby.

2:36:27 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Retraction.

Because I shouldn't have the luxury of editing what I've said in the past, I want to point out that my "Mythical Leftists" post unfairly started with something of a smear towards the Right.  As my good friend Steve points out, correctly, it had no place in this dialog.  I apologize for that; particularly because Steve is on the Right, and is one hell of a good writer himself.  My frustration had no place in that article.  I decided to strike out that portion, but leave it in to remind myself not to do it again, in that context.

Steve's written on the piece as well.

8:23:29 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Scott Harris Responds.

Scott has kindly responded to me, and at his request I am publishing his well-reasoned response below, interleaved with my note.   Scott's commentary is italicized; my original document is in plaintext, indented.

Ross,

Thanks for taking the time to present a counter argument to my statement. I have interspersed comments below which better explain my position, and I hope you will be kind enough to post my response to your comments. Having done that, I also want to say this:

My family was firmly in the Democratic Party up until the 1972 election. Although from the South, it was not the Civil Rights movement that drove us to the other side of the aisle. It was the cowardice and anti-American hatred of the new left in the early 70's. This change was hardened by Roe v. Wade. While on a religious level, my family found this decision horrid, on a political level, we believe that the issue of abortion was better solved on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis in a legislative context.

Scott : I am pleased to find a right-winger who can actually spell, can correctly construct sentences, and who actually takes the time to lay out his arguments and beliefs. Well done, sir. That being said, I respectfully disagree.

The single most common thing done by almost all essayists on the right is to construct some entirely mythical "leftist", who more or less is an anti-religion, godless, business-hating, state-loving, valueless, welfare king or queen. It just isn't so. The very vast majority of commenters on this blog (and most Democrat-leaning voters, for that matter) are people who do NOT trust government very much, and do not want it to intrude into their lives very much.

It is difficult to contruct an argument against a position without making some generalizations about your opponents position. I realize that the views of left and right are not binary; rather, they exist on a continuum. It might surprise many on the left and right how much we have in common. There are fundamental values differerences, but even when we do agree, it seems difficult to solve the issue of establishing priorities.

This is why we don't like things like the Patriot Act.

This would fall under the category of choosing the lesser of two evils. There are many on the right who are very suspicious of the Patriot Act. But it is dishonest to assert this is a right wing power grab. It is more a governmental bureaucracy power grab and would have passed just as easily under a Democratic administration, and be enforced with just as much vigor under a Democratic President as well. This is an prime example of government bureaucracy using crisis to obtain and consolidate power. I wonder how many on the left would be honest enough to admit that they would be slower to condemn the administration if it was Democratic rather than Republican even if the actual enforcement actions were identical. I know I personally would give a Democratic President some slack here, but I also will acknowledge that I know some fellow right wingers who wouldn't.

Most of us feel, like you, that government should just pretty much get the hell out of our lives. What you and I disagree on is those areas where government should play a role.

I agree in part with your assertion, but I would add the issue of Federalism to this conversation. There are many things I would support on a local level that I think the Federal government has no business in. I would argue that local jurisdictions should have more power to define what I'll call "Societal Standards" than the Federal government. Prior to the Warren court, this was the rule, not the exception. This concept of local control created a pluralistic society where some things (like gun control) might be tolerated in some jurisdictions, but not others. This is acceptable to me.

But what has happened is that when some leftward arguments proved unpersuasive to the masses, the left found a receptive ear in the unelected judiciary. They bypassed the deliberative political process of building consensus, and acquiring support for legislative change and took the less strenuous path of judicial fiat. They simultaneously showed no respect for the law (riots, protests, etc.) and took advantage of the majority's moral code of honoring the law by using the courts to impose or invalidate laws willy-nilly without subjecting those changes to popular judgement. The Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment has been wholly abused by the court system to violate local standards and impose a rigid national moral code. And those on the left refuse to acknowledge that they are imposing their own brand of morality on the Society. They have replaced pluralism with multiculturalism.

Pluralism allows for local society to play a role in determining standards and causes a plethora of moral choices. If you disagree, you can form your own local society of like minded people and we all can exist together on the points where we do agree. Multi-culturalism divides people along the artificial lines of race and heritage, and establishes these differences as opposing political camps competing in a zero-sum game for a finite pool of resources.

A lot of people on your team think that the government belongs in a person's bedroom. Most of us think that's wrong.

Very few of us really believe that religion should be completely banished from public forums. We do believe that symbols of a particular religion should not be prominently displayed in our common grounds, which should be secular. It would be helpful if you were able to recognize that in many circumstances, prosecuting the tenets of one's religion may not be entirely appropriate. If your direct supervisor is Muslim, should he be able to continuously attempt to convert you? Perhaps. Should he be able to implicitly tie your promotion to said attempt? I think not, and I suspect you agree. In fact, there is probably a great deal that we agree on.

I would argue that this happens silently anyway, and it is almost impossible to eradicate. People will form associations with others they agree with, and will tend to be more comfortable with said people. This is why Hollywood and the national media find so few members of the religious right in their midst. The prevailing value sets in these two industries are at odds with the value system of the religious right and two things happen. 1) Those right wingers who do work in these industries find themselves effectively ostracized, and 2) those who may have chosen to enter these industries in a more welcoming environment opt-out for other fields where they find people with whom they have more commonality.

Its easy for those on the left to raise the artificial spector of religious oppression - like the Robert Duvall movie "A Handmaid's Tale" - but they will not acknowledge the fact that they treat those who hold deep religious beliefs as if they have some mental disease. Just in the recent Alabama Ten Commandments flap (which I personally found ridiculous), there was serious consideration on the left to trying to declare the judge unfit for office on the grounds of mental instability. I personally agree that he is a demagogue, but if Al Sharpton can run for President, how can you find Judge Roy Moore mentally insane?

The other thing this reveals is a total lack of understanding of the actual beliefs of those on the religious right. I will readily acknowledge that some religious wackos exist on the right. But the vast portion of those who style themselve that way find their religious heritage in Protestant Evangelical tradition specifically against central control of religion. The history of throwing off central control of the Pope, and the history of coming to America to practice religious freedom flies in the face of those who solemnly declare that any expression of religious symbols in the public square is equal to establishing a state religion. This is foolishness.

We probably agree that a free market society is a damn good thing to have. We agree that this is one of the better countries in the world to live in (although we might disagree on how it can be improved).

Let me take on a few of your points. First, the "modern left idea of banishing religion from the public forum". Once again, I have trouble figuring out who you're talking about. You embed a lot of codewords into your sentences -- "modern", "left", and "banish". I am sure that you believe, as I do, that it is absolutely correct and right for good men and women to freely associate and advance their religion. But if we move into a classroom setting, with a group of young children, do you also feel that it is right for the entire class, save one or two children, to be led in prayer by a teacher? I think it is not right. Does the prayer truly reflect an appropriate religious choice for each child, and for the parents? What about children who know they do not wish to participate, but feel ostracized? The reason that most of us on the "left" believe that religion should have a minimal role (not "be banished") in public life is that we fundamentally believe that religion is _private_, and should stay that way. Religion should not be a _requirement_ to participate in public life. We achieve this by setting an example, by minimizing the role of religion in our public institutions. If John Ashcroft leads prayer groups in his office and ALL of his senior staff are participants, do you feel that has maintained an appropriate distinction between church and state? Perhaps you do.

The real issue in the school system is control. If the State is to control the public education system, then I agree with you. But...

The right to inculcate our personal value sytems in our own children in the process of overall education, and the right to shield our children from being taught values we oppose should be a fundamental right of parents. So the local public school should be in the control of the local parents. The Federalization of the public school system is a national crime. Almost all funds collected to build and operate local schools are locally collected. The attempt by the left - in the form of the educational bureaucracy and the teachers unions - to wrench control of what and how our children are taught is a violation of the individual rights of each member of society to control the upbringing of their children.

This goes back to the argument that Thomas Paine made of Society vs. Government. Society is a force for good. Government is a force to restrain evil. Government is given coercive power in order to enable it to accomplish its mission - security. When you marry coercive power with Society goals, you get a recipe for disaster. A local government vs. a cental federal government is more responsive to the local society. Government control, by necessity must seek the lowest common denominator to ensure "fairness." If, as a local society, we see the value in universal education, and decide to pool our resources to provide that education, then steps must be taken to ensure the primacy of parental prerogative.

This can be accomplished in the current environment by making the funding of education portable, and placing the decision on location and type of education in the hands of the parents. To Social Engineers, this proposal could have multiple good effects:

1) It would create options for those trapped in underperforming schools

2) It would cause the parents to be fully engaged in the education of their children - the lack of such involvement being the number one cited reason for student failure.

3) It would eradicate the need for dubious practices like social promotion, and put the onus on the parents to either acknowledge the basic lack of intelligence in their child and find appropriate means to overcome that lack, or cause them to seek a better educational environment for children who are not being properly served by the educational system in which they find themselves.

4) It would create incentives to reward excellence in the field of professional education, resulting in a skyrocketing of salaries for teachers, and create incentives for talented individuals currently outside the field to join the educational system. It would also help rid the system of lazy, underperforming teachers and bureaucrats.

5) The current system is biased toward a particular skill set. Alternative schools could be created whose function would better fit the skills of underperforming students. So for example, a young boy with excellent coordination skills, but rudimentary academic skills could be enrolled in a school which valued his skills. Basic fundamental lessons would still be taught, but other skills could also be developed simultaneously. This has a corollary benefit of destroying the status of certain academic professions that like to elevate themselves to a higher status on the sole basis of mental dexterity.

6) Special schools specifically designed to meet the needs of specific needs challenged children could be created and funded at a higher level based on some objective criteria.

7) Sex specific schools could be created without running afoul of the equal protection clause. Separate and unequal would not be an issue because the desire of parents to create the best possible future for their children would create a brutal atmosphere of accountability for those schools and teachers who failed to measure up.

8) Prayer, religious instruction, morality, etc. would cease to be divisive issues. Moral instruction or the lack thereof would be totally controlled by the parents.

9) Special schools for the gifted could be created allowing prodigies in all fields to get a head start on learning. The creative minds of the young could be harnessed to a purpose when their creativity is at its peak. These special schools would eventually be established in virtually every field of human endeavor. Parents would be required to pay closer attention to the interest and skills of each of their children and design an educational experience ideally suited to achieve the greatest possible rewards for their child and by extension, the society at large.

10) Other schools specializing in specific subjects, such as chemistry, could be created as "subcontractor schools" which serve as central facilities accessed by other "general educational" schools for subjects which require special training and equipment. This could lead to greater efficiency in the system obviating the need for duplicate facilities that go unused the majority of the time.

11) Low wage mothers of young children could be taught how to effectively home school their children and this educational stipend would allow them to stay home with their children without being labelled "welfare queens." This might reduce the pool of available employees, which would simultaneously reduce unemployment, drive up wages, and reduce welfare roles by employing mothers in a beneficial role of primary education. These mothers, once their children grew older, could form a pool of experienced teachers from which to draw professional educators in traditional schools.

12) The creativity of educators, parents and children will be set loose to create a hundred, a thousand other variations of educational experience that one can only imagine now.

This proposal assumes that you trust the parents to have the best interest of their children at heart and act appropriately. Of course, you would find some students that are ill-served by this system, but the current system is no better. Overall, I trust interested parents to guard the welfare and quality of their children more than disinterested educational bureaucrats. If you believe this is a recipe for disaster, then I dare you to go back 100 years and take some of the tests given to 8th graders when education was controlled primarily by parents. I'll bet you couldn't pass them.

The fear on the left that this would result in government funding of religion is absurd. I can teach my children religion. I understandably don't want the school contradicting me when I teach my values. But the overriding goal of parents is and will be to give their children the best possible educational experience to prepare them for life. If this can be accomplished in a parochial school, then who cares. But if a parochial schools begins to lag behind, you can bet the farm that the vast majority of parents will abandon that school faster than a cock roach runs from the light.

"Others on the modern left recognize no higher authority than the individual." As far as authority goes, we can recognize the individual, the state, or God. You seem to feel that God is the only acceptable answer to "higher authority". I'm inclined to side with you on that one, but I will absolutely defend the right of someone else to make a different choice. And while you and I might agree on the authority of God, we would not likely agree on religion, which I fairly firmly believe has nothing to do with God. I would caution you to separate your arguments into two components: Belief in God, and belief in Religion. They are enormously distinct.

Trying to distinguish between God and religion is a game of semantics. It depends on your personal definition. The point was that the founding fathers explicitly based their right to defy government on the design of a Creator. This belief in a Creator and individual rights given by such a Creator was a fundamental value in America. It has been rejected by the new left. You can argue that this is a good thing or not, but the fact remains that things have changed.

"And insofar as the modern left does acknowledge mankind's shortcomings, they see government as a tool to perfect mankind". I think you and I would both agree that the optimal role for government is to damp down the most destructive aspects of individualism, and provide a mechanism for achieving certain limited goals related to the common good. We can trot out the usuals here -- defense, trade, and so forth. There's plenty of agreement there. Us lefties like to add the environment to the list, because we really, truly believe that there are some very scary things that could happen to ALL of us if we aren't very careful. And you know what? I'll freely admit that we really don't know whether the environment is truly getting screwed over. Most of us have had the realization, though, that we just don't want to take the chance. The stakes are too high. Individuals and corporations (and governments, for that matter), will often do things that are very damaging to society as a whole. There's a river near where I grew up -- one that's been used as a channel for boats, for a long time (a century or more). There's a guy on that river who's a golf player. He decided that he wanted the golf hole on his property to be a little bigger, so he had a few hundred truckloads of earth dumped into the river, extending his property. His new golf hole went almost three quarters of the way across the river, effectively blocking the channel.

Are these the kind of property rights that you want to defend? Probably not. The thing is, we (lefties again) interpret some property owner's actions as destructive to the commons. But that's a very long argument in itself.

There are many on the right who also acknowledge a responsibility to safeguard the environment, and are appreciative of those who diligently watch for deterioration caused by the selfishness of mankind. But there are some on the left who worship the environment and elevate environmental "integrity" above the welfare of society.

An example is the whole ANWAR debate. Alaska is huge. And because of its harsh climate, there is no danger of its vast open spaces being overrun by man. To suggest that a few oil wells in an area 1/3 the size of the continental USA is going to destroy the environment is not reasonable. Preserving the "pristine quality" of ANWAR is not a rational position - it is a religious one. It is based on the idea that man's presence spoils the natural order of nature, as if we somehow exist outside of nature. And it steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the triumphs of the environmental movement and the constructive effects it has had on how corporations operate. Finally, it refuses to acknowledge the adaptability of nature.

I would add OSHA, the FDA, and other regulatory agencies that safeguard our health and welfare as desirable and necessary for a modern society.

"we see the values that were cast off: individual accountability, the recognition of the evilness of mankind, the definition of government as a necessary evil, the idea that government powers are derived from the people." Neither you nor I believe in absolute individual accountability. It is foolish of you to pretend that you do. You and I are both highly dependent on the society we live in, for education, for medical care, and for our livelihoods. To pretend that you are solely responsible for every event in your life simply makes no sense. Some times bad things really do happen to good people. Some times bad things happen to bad people. What we lefties would like to see is some minimal safety net out there, something that can help out when things get to their worst. You believe in the same thing, but you call it a Church and a Community. We think there is a role for a secular government to play in this regard.

Thomas Paine goes to great lengths to discuss the desirability of Society - where we rely on each other for our mutual benefit. Also, having been raised in a family that voted for FDR, Truman, Adlai Stevenson, JFK, LBJ and Hubert Humphrey, I do not disagree that a basic societal security net is desirable. I personally believe the Social Security system has encouraged entreprenurialism and risk taking precisely because it provides a safety net in case of failure.

I refuse to recognize mankind as fundamentally evil. This is a value judgement that you make, one that stems directly from your personal religion. It has no place in our shared value set.

Again, this was a concept accepted by the founders and a belief held by the majority of society. Again, you can argue the desirability of this change, but you cannot reasonably deny that a change has taken place.

I do not define government as a necessary evil, and you don't either. Combining "necessary" with "evil" is simple wordplay so you can feel good as you finger-point at aspects of government you don't like. It's a complex process. It's necessary, and it's also not evil. Would you describe the Bush Administration as "evil"? I suspect not. I don't either.

The key in my mind is to adopt the attitude of trying to do as little as possible to adequately protect ourselves and society so we don't unnecessarily inhibit our freedoms.

I specifically am NOT a Libertarian. I think there are some things government does better than private entities. For this reason, I am very suspicious of public utility deregulation, and absolutely oppose the privatization of the highway system.

And as far as powers being derived from the people, please try and find one serious person on the left (or middle, or right) who doesn't believe that should be the case.

As long as we're on the subject of values, let me tell you what I think matters: Freedom. A large intellectual commons. The right to be let alone. Fiscal sanity. Honesty. Tolerance. Any of these things ring with you? I bet they do.

Lastly, you state that "if you are a typical leftist, you see the government as a tool to accomplish whatever your ideas of good are". Government action is a consensus, achieved by all of us, on every part of the spectrum. In this manner we attempt to find a path, to use the powers of government for sensible ends. The Administration is very vigorously using the "coercive power of government" to accomplish its "ideas of good", at the moment. Government should also make use of its power in moderation, which is something you seem to agree with. Most of us on the left feel that moderation has left the building, and won't be back for a while.

There's a big spectrum of thought out there on the right, and I try recognize that. You're a "Religious Values" conservative, and at least you're honest (see my values above) and open about why you think the way you do. I hope you can respect the fact that a short list of fundamental values can differ between two reasonable persons, in this country. And there is no higher value than this: This country was intended to be the best place on Earth for persons of differing values to coexist. The sum of our values drives the direction and governance of this country.

The primary concern of the religious right is a runaway judiciary which, as my comments stated, acknowledges no accountability, and imposes its own perception of right on the country at large, leaving no room for variation. We feel like we have been assaulted and continue to be assaulted, and when we resist that assualt, we are accused of being the aggressor.

For example, if Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion would not be outlawed in the USA. There are too many who want that option available. But right now, we cannot argue our case in the public forum. The imposition of the judiciary in this issue polarized it. Only the extreme fanatics on either side get any hearing. The left is correct is assuming that the voices they hear on the right concerning this issue want abortion totally outlawed. What they are missing is that there are many on the right who are not so ready to label these women as murderers, and who have very nuanced views on the subject. These nuanced views ceased to matter the moment Roe v. Wade was decided.

What we on the right do agree on is this: We want the courts to go back to adjudicating the law, not creating it. And we want to roll back the laws they created by judicial fiat. Yes, there are some noisy loud citizens on the hard right who wish to impose their own beliefs using the example set by the hard left - judicial fait accompli. But the majority of us just want the opportunity to make our case in the proper political forum without being silenced by unelected judges. Once this occures, then we can muzzle the extremists and begin to have a reasonable conversation.

8:18:14 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Mythical Leftists.

CalPundit's interview with Paul Krugman has generated a lot of debate (well, some of it is debate).  Scott Harris wrote this, and I felt like responding.

The concept that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed is fundamental to America. But what is even more fundamental was the justification given for this idea. The phrase "all men are created equal" is easy to prove wrong. I do not have the skill of Michael Jordan, or the wealth of Bill Gates progeny. The point of this statement is that we are all equal before God and that our authority is derived from him - "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights..."

The founders based their right to cast off the authority of England on the premise that each man is individually and directly accountable to God. Governments derive their authority from men who derive their authority from God. The key nugget of the American idea is that it was not so important to the founders what particular God you personally felt the need to be accountable to, but that the right to cast off the English authority was given by a higher power that each individual was accountable to, and that accountability was direct.

This idea is in direct conflict with the modern left idea of banishing religion from the public forum. The founders - and a great many modern day Americans - believe that the morality imposed by religion is healthy in so far as it requires a personal responsibility of the individual to give an account for his actions.

The point of the first amendment is not so much to erect a wall between church and state as to ensure that government would not try (as in the case of theocracy and monarchy) to place itself between a man and his God. Yet this is exactly what modern leftists attempt. They demand that any public discourse be barren of religious influence, and a public man must denounce his fealty to his God, and give it rather to the State.

For some on the modern left, they recognizes no higher authority than the State itself. These do not say, "The constitution prohibits the government;" they say, "The constitution gives us the right to..." But this construct is openly denounced by the founders. The government does not have the power or the authority to give us anything. Rather, they say that Governments are instituted amoung men to SECURE the rights that are GIVEN by God.

Others on the modern left recognize no higher authority than the individual. These are the amoral anarchists who refuse to be held accountable for any act, and by extension, do not recognize the general society judgement.

The second quotation, from Thomas Paine, defines 1) the difference between Society and Government, and 2) the purpose of Government - Security.

Implicit in Paine's justification for government is the idea that 1) unfortunately, men are evil, 2) Government is insituted among men to protect the larger society from the evil of individual men who refuse to be held accountable to their conscience, and 3) men voluntarily form governments and give a part of their wealth for the express purpose of protecting the greater portion of their wealth and their general well being from the individual evil of other men. The modern leftist, far from seeing government as a force to moderate the evil of men, refuses to even acknowledge good and evil as objective qualities.

And insofar as the modern left does acknowledge mankind's shortcomings, they see government as a tool to perfect mankind. Paine, on the other hand asserts that government is "at best, a necessary evil." And he provides the logic for the phrase "the government which governs best is that one which governs least."

Also, Paine describes government as a uniformly negative requirement, and defines Society as that coming together of individuals for mutual benefit. Modern leftists confuse Society and government and therefore see government not as a necessary cost, but as a tool to accomplish their goals of reshaping the world according to their own agenda.

So, we see the values that were cast off: individual accountability, the recognition of the evilness of mankind, the definition of government as a necessary evil, the idea that government powers are derived from the people.

And we see the modern leftists replacements, state accountability for personal failings, the elevation of the State to the position of God - that is, the giver of rights, the rejection of God and the concept of higher authority, seeing mankind as perfectable, seeing government as the instrument to achieve that perfect status, the elevation of rights without the corresponding recognition of responsibilities, the merging of sometimes worthwhile Society goals with the coercive power of government.

This is my answer David. I have visited your website, and I know you don't believe in God. But the more important issue is whether you recognize a higher authority than the individual or the State. And if you are a typical leftist, you see the government as a tool to accomplish whatever your ideas of good are, rather than a necessary evil to be limited to only the most basic duties that will ensure individual liberty and freedom. And if you are a typical leftist, you want to use the coercive power of government to trump the values of Socitey.

Scott : I am pleased to find a right-winger who can actually spell, can correctly construct sentences, and who actually takes the time to lay out his arguments and beliefs.  Well done, sir.  That being said, I respectfully disagree.

The single most common thing done by almost all essayists on the right is to construct some entirely mythical "leftist", who more or less is an anti-religion, godless, business-hating, state-loving, valueless, welfare king or queen.  It just isn't so.  The very vast majority of commenters on this blog (and most Democrat-leaning voters, for that matter) are people who do NOT trust government very much, and do not want it to intrude into their lives very much.

This is why we don't like things like the Patriot Act.

Most of us feel, like you, that government should just pretty much get the hell out of our lives.  What you and I disagree on is those areas where government should play a role. 

A lot of people on your team think that the government belongs in a person's bedroom.  Most of us think that's wrong.

Very few of us really believe that religion should be completely banished from public forums.  We do believe that symbols of a particular religion should not be prominently displayed in our common grounds, which should be secular.  It would be helpful if you were able to recognize that in many circumstances, prosecuting the tenets of one's religion may not be entirely appropriate.  If your direct supervisor is Muslim, should he be able to continuously attempt to convert you?  Perhaps.  Should he be able to implicitly tie your promotion to said attempt?  I think not, and I suspect you agree.  In fact, there is probably a great deal that we agree on.

We probably agree that a free market society is a damn good thing to have.  We agree that this is one of the better countries in the world to live in (although we might disagree on how it can be improved). 

Let me take on a few of your points.  First, the "modern left idea of banishing religion from the public forum".  Once again, I have trouble figuring out who you're talking about.  You embed a lot of codewords into your sentences -- "modern", "left", and "banish".  I am sure that you believe, as I do, that it is absolutely correct and right for good men and women to freely associate and advance their religion.  But if we move into a classroom setting, with a group of young children, do you also feel that it is right for the entire class, save one or two children, to be led in prayer by a teacher?  I think it is not right.  Does the prayer truly reflect an appropriate religious choice for each child, and for the parents?  What about children who know they do not wish to participate, but feel ostracized?  The reason that most of us on the "left" believe that religion should have a minimal  role (not "be banished") in public life is that we fundamentally believe that religion is _private_, and should stay that way.  Religion should not be a _requirement_ to participate in public life.  We achieve this by setting an example, by minimizing the role of religion in our public institutions.  If John Ashcroft leads prayer groups in his office and ALL of his senior staff are participants, do you feel that has maintained an appropriate distinction between church and state?  Perhaps you do.

"Others on the modern left recognize no higher authority than the individual."  As far as authority goes, we can recognize the individual, the state, or God.  You seem to feel that God is the only acceptable answer to "higher authority".  I'm inclined to side with you on that one, but I will absolutely defend the right of someone else to make a different choice.  And while you and I might agree on the authority of God, we would not likely agree on religion, which I fairly firmly believe has nothing to do with God.  I would caution you to separate your arguments into two components: Belief in God, and belief in Religion.  They are enormously distinct.

"And insofar as the modern left does acknowledge mankind's shortcomings, they see government as a tool to perfect mankind".  I think you and I would both agree that the optimal role for government is to damp down the most destructive aspects of individualism, and provide a mechanism for achieving certain limited goals related to the common good.  We can trot out the usuals here -- defense, trade, and so forth.  There's plenty of agreement there.  Us lefties like to add the environment to the list, because we really, truly believe that there are some very scary things that could happen to ALL of us if we aren't very careful.  And you know what?  I'll freely admit that we really don't know whether the environment is truly getting screwed over.  Most of us have had the realization, though, that we just don't want to take the chance.  The stakes are too high.  Individuals and corporations (and governments, for that matter), will often do things that are very damaging to society as a whole.  There's a river near where I grew up -- one that's been used as a channel for boats, for a long time (a century or more).  There's a guy on that river who's a golf player.  He decided that he wanted the golf hole on his property to be a little bigger, so he had a few hundred truckloads of earth dumped into the river, extending his property.  His new golf hole went almost three quarters of the way across the river, effectively blocking the channel. 

Are these the kind of property rights that you want to defend?  Probably not.  The thing is, we (lefties again) interpret some property owner's actions as destructive to the commons.  But that's a very long argument in itself.

"we see the values that were cast off: individual accountability, the recognition of the evilness of mankind, the definition of government as a necessary evil, the idea that government powers are derived from the people."  Neither you nor I believe in absolute individual accountability.  It is foolish of you to pretend that you do.  You and I are both highly dependent on the society we live in, for education, for medical care, and for our livelihoods. To pretend that you are solely responsible for every event in your life simply makes no sense.  Some times bad things really do happen to good people.  Some times bad things happen to bad people.  What we lefties would like to see is some minimal safety net out there, something that can help out when things get to their worst.  You believe in the same thing, but you call it a Church and a Community.  We think there is a role for a secular government to play in this regard.

I refuse to recognize mankind as fundamentally evil.  This is a value judgement that you make, one that stems directly from your personal religion.  It has no place in our shared value set.

I do not define government as a necessary evil, and you don't either.  Combining "necessary" with "evil" is simple wordplay so you can feel good as you finger-point at aspects of government you don't like.  It's a complex process.  It's necessary, and it's also not evil.  Would you describe the Bush Administration as "evil"?  I suspect not.  I don't either. 

And as far as powers being derived from the people, please try and find one serious person on the left (or middle, or right) who doesn't believe that should be the case.

As long as we're on the subject of values, let me tell you what I think matters: Freedom.  A large intellectual commons.  The right to be let alone.  Fiscal sanity.  Honesty.  Tolerance.  Any of these things ring with you?  I bet they do.

Lastly, you state that "if you are a typical leftist, you see the government as a tool to accomplish whatever your ideas of good are".  Government action is a consensus, achieved by all of us, on every part of the spectrum.  In this manner we attempt to find a path, to use the powers of government for sensible ends.  The Administration is very vigorously using the "coercive power of government" to accomplish its "ideas of good", at the moment.  Government should also make use of its power in moderation, which is something you seem to agree with.  Most of us on the left feel that moderation has left the building, and won't be back for a while.

There's a big spectrum of thought out there on the right, and I try recognize that.  You're a "Religious Values" conservative, and at least you're honest (see my values above) and open about why you think the way you do.  I hope you can respect the fact that a short list of fundamental values can differ between two reasonable persons, in this country.  And there is no higher value than this: This country was intended to be the best place on Earth for persons of differing values to coexist.  The sum of our values drives the direction and governance of this country.

2:55:47 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

Standard, Dumb-Ass Answers. 

Are you a team player Republican, responding to an article or criticism? Please feel free to write a substantive answer, but try not to include any of the following standard, dumb-ass Republican answers:

1. If it's so bad in the US, why does everybody want to come here?
2. If you don't like it, why don't you just MOVE to another country?
3. France Sucks!
4. We'll just have to disagree, and you are too stupid to understand why you are wrong.
5. Take the average tax cut! See how the average American gets $1003 back?
6. The free market is the only thing that makes this country great.
7. By criticizing the President, you are unpatriotic. You do not support the troops. Therefore you are also guilty of treason.
8. If we DIDN'T have a tax cut, we'd have lost 1.4 million MORE jobs.
9. Halliburton is a fine company.
10. Nobody can prove global warming exists, so it doesn't.
11. Tax Cut! I don't know why!
12. Everybody knows that when you cut taxes, you can solve anything!

I'm not going to accuse the administration of lying. I will accuse them of being deceptive. Do you believe they've been forthcoming and honest on the war issue, for example? If not, were they justified in some of their deception? Maybe there's a case to be made that some deception was necessary.

I am also pretty damn tired of seeing right-wing bloggers retrofit unstated, secret, and probably non-existent policies to current realities (the flypaper theory). So many are jumping on the flypaper bandwagon -- do they not think that perhaps this sets up a worse credibility problem? No "flypaper" theory was ever announced in the run-up to war.

1:49:43 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

Mad World.

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tommorow, no tommorow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
’cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

It's by Roland Orzabal.  Find the Gary Jules version -- it's the best.  Sometimes I feel it creeping in...it's hard to make sense of everything that's going on around us.  So much media, so many things that are so hard to pay attention to.  What's important?  What do I need to know?  What should I really know? 

Mad World.

1:43:54 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

Off to NY.

Enjoy the weekend!  Rain means museums and fun indoor stuff!

4:36:13 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Seeing-Eye Tongue.

Clive Thompson finds the damndest things.  Who woulda thunk it?  I can't see any particular need for a yucky thing in your mouth, though -- why not just have a headband that divides the space around you into quadrants (or finer).  Tingle the appropriate quadrant of the with a strength roughly approximating distance (via ultrasonic bounce) from obstacles in that direction.

That way we can have blind people who will have "eyes" in the back of their head.

4:20:23 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Takedown.

One of our clients had a good chunk of their network taken down by one of the trojan emails today -- probably blaster or something like that.  Let's look at the simple equation:

C + Unrestricted Access + Buffer Overflow = You Will Never Be Secure.

Windows machines are fundamentally flawed, at the core.  It can never be fixed.  You either need a VM (which provides a relatively secure environment), or an operating system that uses a variety of techniques to prevent a process from doing anything it's not supposed to do.

COM and ActiveX were built on the notion that by certifying something, you assure that it is secure.  Today's additional DCOM patch, and the worms that are out there, show us otherwise.  This isn't the last one.  There will never be a "last one", because new code keeps landing on machines, and it's all vulnerable.

It's time for a do-over, people.

My weekend reading: Bruce Schneier's Beyond Fear.  I hope to come out educated.

12:08:14 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

My Tax Dollars At Work.

Yeah, well YOUR stupid government doesn't have anything like Robocow, does it? 

2:43:54 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

Chapter 1.

I have been writing (and there's a lot to do):

This is not a book of answers.  It’s a book full of questions – hard-won observations about enterprise-class software and its implementation.  My intent is to put some new thinking in front of you, the reader.  I would never claim to have invented many of the techniques that you will read about, but I do hope that this book is bringing some of them together for the first time.

The set of keywords I used professionally used to include reliability, encapsulation, normalization¸ and so forth.  These are still great words!  We need what they imply.  But there are more words that are important – resilience, partial information, self-repair, aspects, deployment…enterprise-class software needs these. 

I’ve spent 20 years following the winding evolution of programming.  Like most programmers my age, I began my learning process playing with early microcomputers like the Apple II and the Atari 800.  We have come a long way since POKE 101, 25.  Computer languages have sparked and grown in an ecosphere full of needs.  Assembly language still has its place today, but for most usages, there are easier and more appropriate dialects to work in.  We’ve seen evolution from assembly to procedural languages, structural to object-oriented, and a myriad of functional and logical languages.  Each has its place, its strengths and weaknesses.

As of 2003, most applications are constructed with an object-oriented basis.  A number of mature methodologies exist for creating object models; they have produced some excellent results.  One of the noted strengths of good object-oriented design is the ease with which change can be accommodated by altering the model.  Change is at the heart of almost every software enterprise.  Any software that is actually used has constantly evolving requirements. 

We also find a growing trend towards special purposes interfaces.  Rarely is software constructed in a vacuum: We code to the reality of the internet, to the sharing of data, and to many users.  With such a myriad of information available, we often wish to focus the information available to a particular class of user.  Specialized interfaces meet this need, deployed against particular platforms such as web browsers, Java, or a traditional client.  We also see hybrid user interfaces gaining in popularity, where the best of traditional user interfaces design is coupled with web capabilities.

The only constant in all of this is change.  New methodologies, generally referred to as Agile Development, have arisen to help manage change within the development process.   Object-orientation in general is capable of doing a good job of handling change at the design level.  We can refactor a design to handle new tasks, achieve better organization, expand on capabilities, and so forth.  This represents a significant evolution from the early days of programming, where applications were excessively brittle and hard to evolve once written.

Modern object-oriented programming environments make it easier to deploy these applications.  The various incarnations of the Java platform and of Microsoft’s .NET architecture are prime examples.  These systems come with vast libraries of functionality, and many tools to effect the sophisticated deployment of applications.  Java achieves a high level of portability as well.

For all this coding and development flexibility, we have made little progress in creating applications that are flexible at runtime.  We need applications that can evolve, adapt, and even reason.  We need to structure our information in a way that allows this complex processing to take place.  At the same time, we don’t want to lose the structuring capability that a traditional object model provides.  Object models still give us a good mechanism for dealing with some of the real world things we want to model, and achieving comprehension of the result.

What we want to create is a blend of conventional application design and techniques from the worlds of knowledge management and artificial intelligence.  We want a common way of expressing this information, of transforming it, of querying it, and displaying it.  Aha! You may think at this point…this sounds like XML!  XML is an interesting way of expressing information, but is difficult to work with and not really appropriate for the kinds of applications we want to construct.  XML has problems with scale and querying, as the specifications stand – very few tools can really deal with large amounts of XML (say, gigabytes worth). 

There’s something more fundamental than XML’s tree of information.

Instead, we want to break things down to the basics.  Statements (or facts) are at the base of the information pyramid in computer science.  We can construct complex entities by binding together statements.  Consider the following:

Ross has a last name of Judson.

Here we indicate that a person named Ross has a certain last name.  If we decide to be a little more “computery” about this, we might rephrase as follows:

Ross has_last_name Judson.

There are three symbols involved here: Ross, has_last_name, and Judson.  Symbols are extremely useful; we’ll be delving into them extensively later on, and talking about efficient ways to implement them and work with them.  Our symbol-based example doesn’t quite express what we want, though.  Let’s add the following:

Ross is_a Person.

Now we know that Ross has a last name of Judson, and Ross is a person.  The examples given so far are in a triple form.  Triples are very useful things; they form the basis of RDF, an important standard we will discuss later.  A triple is a special form of a tuple.

These atomic statements can be used to construct just about anything.  Consider:

Employee subclass_of Person.

Here we have declared that employee is a subclass of person.  In a conventional object language, we might do something like the following:

class Person {

      String name;

}

class Employee extends Person {

      String department;

}

What I am trying to convey here is that for any given object-oriented program, we can encode both the data and metadata of that program in simple statements.  There can be any number of such encodings; RDFS is one example that we will discuss at length later.  Symbols and other identifiers can be used to join the statements together into a complex model.  Concepts such as generalization, aggregation, and association can easily be mapped into statements.  Once we have done this, we have created a fully fluid meta-model.  A fluid meta-model easily copes with change at runtime by altering the statements that control the metamodel.  This characteristic is key to the flexible applications we seek to develop.

Conventional object-oriented languages execute a compilation phase that creates a runtime version of the application’s metamodel.  This information is sometimes available, at least in part, to programs written in the language.  A Java program can, for example, elicit a good deal of information about itself from the runtime system.  Most C++ programs cannot, though – the C++ runtime type standard is primitive at best.  A C++ program is not privy to the information the compiler has about it.

Instead of creating an object model, we create a knowledge base.  We structure the knowledge base with statements that correspond to object-oriented concepts.  Knowledge bases are highly amenable to logic processing with systems such as Prolog (for backward chaining) and CLIPS (for forward chaining).  Using these tools we can easily react to change in our knowledge base (run rules), and also perform a significant level of ad-hoc querying.  Because we are expressing our data and metamodel in the same way, we can easily react to changes in our metamodel, as well as changes in the data.

As important as a flexible metamodel is, it is equally important to be able to distribute that knowledge and work with it in applications that span large areas, geographically or otherwise.  When we condense our metamodel and model down into statements, we only need to develop mechanisms that can distribute the statement information.  Once we have successfully done that, all our knowledge and metamodels are easily transferred.  Distributed propagation of a complex object model is very difficult and error prone.  Numerous point mechanisms are usually constructed and the “hidden corners” are what bites back in the deployment of such a system.  We choose instead to propagate our statements, and the edits to those statements.  This is a substantially easier problem, as a quick recitation of Linda tuplespace history will show (covered later).

Finally, straightforward mappings of knowledge to XML are available (RDF is one such mapping).  Once the knowledge base has been queried and transformed into XML, a whole host of capabilities become available for generating pages and other kinds of displays that can be presented to a user (in XUL, HTML or XHTML form).

We do not need to transform into XML before presenting to a user, though – we can create widgets that are able, through adapters, to interoperate directly with the knowledge base the application contains.  When a user works with the application, we make appropriate changes to the knowledge base.  Our rules engines and other user interfaces react appropriately.

Ted Nelson (of hypertext fame) said this:

``Intertwingularity is not generally acknowledged -- people keep pretending they can make things deeply hierarchical, categorizable and sequential when they can't. Everything is deeply intertwingled.''

I can’t vouch for the presence of the word intertwingularity in a dictionary, but it should be there!  What I am trying to do in this book is describe are some of the ways of creating this intertwingularity and working with it to create real applications.  At the least, I hope to change the way you view object models, and open your mind to the simpler and more powerful techniques that pure knowledge representations offer.

In other words, everything you know is wrong.  Well, not everything, but enough of it that I hope you will have at least a few lightning bolts strike in your mind as you engage it on what follows…I know that as I learned of these ideas for the first time a few brain cells were singed.

2:13:08 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

LGF.

If you want to go right into the heart of Israeli anger, Little Green Footballs is the place to do it.  Here's a very representative quote:

bigel 9/10/2003 03:29PM PST I have no shame in saying that the death of a Palestinian child is not evil. The Palis, from birth to death, are sick, psychotic, genocidal Nazis bent on killing every last Jew, proudly proclaiming their hate and celebrating it. They RAISE their kids to be genocidal killers. They are probably the sickest society ever created in human history, after the Nazis, and these Islamonazi animals are doing everything they can to climb into first place. It is a battle to the death. Us or them. It has to be them. This descent into moral depravity was their choice. And I will not lose one minute of sleep if Gaza or Damascus or Mecca or Aswan are hit with nuclear weapons, and if I see films of dead and suffering Arabs, my thought will be "You got what you f**king deserved." If that bothers your morally handicapped leftist mind, frankly I don't give a sh*t.

I've been thinking about the conflict extensively for the last day or two, and I've decided that I just don't have enough evidence to decide one way or the other.  I've been critical of Israel in the past, but let's face it -- it's armchair, arms-length criticism.  I really don't have any idea about the reality on the ground.  Read the web and you'll find two polar opposites.  Does the truth lie in the middle?  On one extreme or the other?  I have no idea. 

An optimist belief in human nature compels me to believe that there is good on all sides, that the average man is good and wishes for peace.  Under this scenario I can find some of the Palestinian responses to be human in nature; a man who's child is killed will never forgive.  Likewise, we can apply the same logic to an Israeli father -- if a daughter dies, he will never forgive, never forget.  And the Jewish people have a long history of sacrifice and pain.

As I look across the Arab world, I see a great deal of sacrifice and pain there, too.  I see failed leaders, forgotten children, wars in the desert, the tears of mothers disappearing into the sand, following blood that has already disappeared.  All the weaknesses of man are on display, for us to learn from. 

I read what Bigel wrote and I say this: Find a path back to your humanity.  Do the Jews alive today truly want the death of millions to be their responsibility?  They do not.  You have lost your way.  Nothing I say or write can matter to someone who cannot acknowledge the essential humanity and innocence of a child.  Your monstrous words, written in anger, will lend strength to arguments that will retract American assistance to Israel.  And that will have an effect. 

To those "Islamists" marching with guns and bandannas in funerals of terrorists: You will never succeed.  There will never be peace for you, only slow pain and death.  And truly, the pain you cause your families and people will be multiplied and given back to you, in the afterlife.  The saddest part of our world are those who can see no other path.

See?  I just want it all to work out.  And I don't think it ever will.  Time has to heal this, and time is the enemy.

11:11:27 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

The Perspective of Dead People.

Ole Eichorn writes:

I can't even believe this, France Heat Wave Death Toll at 15,000.  Wow.  "The heat wave brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 Fahrenheit in the first two weeks of August in a country where air conditioning is rare.  The high death toll has triggered an angry debate in France over shortcomings of the health system.  The French lifestyle has also come under scrutiny, since some of the elderly victims died alone in their homes while families were away on lengthy August vacations."

I don't mean to make light of this, at all, but it sure puts the 337 American military deaths in Iraq in perspective.

Also for comparison, SARS killed about 800 people worldwide.  (And on that front, get ready for round two...)

And finally, about 2,800 people died in the World Trade Center attacks.

And, lest we forget, something over 8,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed so far in Iraq (decidely not including military).  But who's counting!  Right, Ole?

How many Afghans?  Probably quite a few. 

At least 800 Israelis.  And probably upwards of 2,000 Palestinians. 

It's important that we maintain proper perspective on dead people.

9:44:26 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

On CAPPS II.

CalPundit writes a bit on CAPPS II.  I respond to one particular commenter:

It doesn't make sense to use that 200 million when multiplying out the percentages because it says 1-2% of "passengers" will not be permitted to board. So, considering I am reasonably positive that I am among the ninety nine percent of the passengers who will be permitted to board, I consider this to be prudent. At the worst an individual might get arrested for something they are unaware they are wanted for. Actually now thinking about the 200 million adults, if they are in the red, they probably know it and possibly think twice before booking flights anyway!

Posted by Jack Murray at September 9, 2003 11:32 AM

Jack Murray's comment is absolutely typical for the right on this issue. It boils down to this: Yes, this is going to suck for a certain number of people. Yes, it's going to screw with their lives. But who cares? We're fighting terrorism! As long as it doesn't happen to ME, everything is GREAT!

No Republican will ever volunteer his daughter's life (or himself) as a sacrifice when the innocent child of another is killed through a misapplied death penalty. No Republican will ever volunteer to take the place of a foreign-looking guy who's "tagged" by one of these systems for further inspection.

This probability-driven approach to life is reminiscent of the worst of Stalin's, or Saddam Hussein's, society...your welfare depends on staying out of sight, avoiding being noticed. Perhaps Jack feels that he is sufficiently similar to everyone else that he isn't in any danger of being singled out.

The point is this: We create a country out of a constitution and laws that are designed to do the right thing. The most important thing in this country is for honest men and women to live in freedom. There is no higher goal.

If you ask me, everybody should get the hell off of the safety bandwagon. There is no such thing. None of the "counter-terrorism" efforts currently being made amount to anything.

Jack thinks it's acceptable to inconvenience, annoy, harass, and even arrest MILLIONS of people, in the name of "safety", when those procedures have little to do with guaranteeing any of that.

He'll think it's acceptable right up until one of his neighbors gets into a fight with him and takes revenge by reporting him to the FBI, whereupon he finds himself to be a lifelong member of the "Red Travel Club", without appeal. Welcome to bus life, Jack! Just like in Russia!

What's my solution? Ditch this entire stupid CAPPS program. Ditch requiring ID to fly. X-Ray the damn bags, and put marshals on most flights, anonymously. Arm the pilots, if they want to be. Stop harassing innocent people.

Stop pretending that some guy in Boise needs to be just as paranoid about security as a guy in NY. Stop making the guy in Boise PAY for security he doesn't need, and will never need.

10:13:44 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Interdependency vs. Reuse.

The proliferation of pseudo-standard Java libraries, such as the various commons libraries, has me a bit nervous.  On one hand we've got some extraordinarily useful stuff out there -- byte code engineering libraries, XML handling, mathematics, you name it.  We Java programmers have riches that no other environment has, right now.  We even have handy tools like maven, which are designed to have a look at what's being built and automatically download dependent libraries.  I've never personally used Maven other than to build someone else's project; I'm not really a command line kind of guy, on a day-to-day basis.  In my day job, we use an ant build system for the baseline and release builds, but nobody uses it incrementally (we all use Eclipse, except for this one guy who insists on using JEdit, and we all laugh at him but he's really good so we don't laugh too much).

It's just way too easy to pluck one or two bits of functionality out of a huge library, and drag a huge mess of dependencies and the accompanying work into the VM.  Most of the time those .class files are going to sit there out of reach and you won't have to worry about them -- the VM isn't going to be doing much extra work.  But are you sure?  Have you watched the classloader to see what it is doing? 

The internal dependencies of libraries are a funny thing.  You never really know what you're going to be bringing in, when you touch something that you think it quite simple and quite isolated.  Back in the Day, we used to have these funny things called linkers.  You old guys know what I mean.  You'd compile your stuff down into object files, link with library files, and voila, you'd have your nice tight executable.  All is well.  The thing is, the main function of a linker is the throw away the things you don't need (well, there are other things too, but it's still a main point).  When the compiler and linker know what's being used, there's a lot of optimization that can take place.

Java, with its dynamic linking capability, is another story.  You never really know what's going to be used.  We have optimizers (like yGuard) that can do some of this optimization for us, throwing away some of what we need.  Still, it's an uncomfortable thing.  Too much gets dragged in; things just get too complicated.

The bottom line is, you've got a huge library of base functionality sitting there in J2SE.  Consider using it as much as you can.  Logging?  Unless you have some pretty specific requirements, just use what's in there.  Same goes for XML, regular expressions, collections, and so forth.  Come up with a damn good reason before going outside the base kit.

Second, before pulling in something huge, evaluate your level of usage.  Do you really need the whole thing?  Can you just pull out a small part of it and use that?  Seriously consider a little cut-and-paste reuse.  You might just be able to get by quickly and easily, and not create additional dependency problems.

Third, be sparse in your use of code from another library.  Restrict yourself to the smallest set of interfaces, and the smallest set of methods that you possibly can.  Cutting these dependencies will pay dividends later, when that library morphs in a way you didn't expect, which happens with distressing frequency.  I don't begrudge library authors their right to change; they can and should.  It's simply a matter of balancing the cost of the various methods of adapting, copying, or reusing library code. 

Keep in mind all three methods, and make conscious decisions.

9:52:29 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Questions for a Real Economist.

Brad -- really enjoy reading your blog; you make the numbers accessible!  I have a couple of questions, if you have the time...

First, is there a straightforward percentage of growth in the economy that will cover the deficits being projected right now, including the war expenses?  I gather that the idea behind these deficits is that they help grow the economy.  A bigger economy means more tax receipts, and hence the deficit goes away.  This makes a certain amount of sense; I'm just curious about what the growth number is that will be needed to "cover" the bet.

Second, if we were to replace income tax with a national VAT, what would that VAT be, in percentage terms?  I suspect it would be pretty high.  Is this just income tax receipt/GDP, more or less? 

11:30:53 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

On Checked Exceptions.

Significant disagreement in the blogosphere -- what a surprise! I've read a number of entries disagreeing with my approach to checked exceptions. Let's look at a few of the objections:

1. An exception subclass doesn't tell you what's wrong. Last time I checked, every exception supports the getMessage() call. There's nothing stopping people from implementing that and ensuring that good, accurate messages are present in string form. In fact, it's pretty much a requirement that they be there. So if you have a subclass you're able to divert control based on being a subclass, but also able to simply deal with a more general case of having a string-based error message.

2. It's all just a goto. I don't think it is. Exceptions do a whole bunch of things that goto simply doesn't do. Yes, we could simulate them. No, we shouldn't do that. The whole point behind checked exceptions is to ensure that things are cleaned up correctly when something goes wrong.

The main point is this: It is very rare that we actually care what has gone wrong. We just know that something has. What we really care about are the categories of responses we can make to a given kind of error. I think there is a significant case to be made for throwing separate exception families for a given response category. For example -- if you are iterating through a loop that is performing remote calls and you encounter a remote communications error, you probably want to exit the loop. You're not going to be getting anywhere further, and more calls aren't necessary. You need to engage a certain logic pathway to deal with that. If your iteration call encounters some kind of localized, "I can't deal with this object" error, then you might want to skip over that specific object and move on to the next one.

There are various forms of error response, each divided by category. One size does NOT fit all. And in many cases, we want to ensure that the appropriate handling has take place. Checked exceptions are really the only static way to get at this problem. On projects of any significant size, static methods are the only way to succeed. Putting an app into production and then hoping you have all your RuntimeExceptions caught is a guaranteed way to fail.

I use RuntimeExceptions for one thing -- a problem that should NEVER happen in a production run. Sometimes we will choose to ignore the problem and move on, but it signifies a bug in the software.

Checked exceptions are for everything else -- a RARE event, something that the developer acknowledges COULD happen in a normal production run. These are preferably categorized (via subclassing or some other mechanism) by essential response characteristic.

3:28:08 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

Error 404.

Funny!  Google "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and choose "I'm feeling lucky".  You'll get this.

1:06:07 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

Bureaucracy and Politics.

On USS Clueless you'll find this essay, on the relationship between the White House and State.  It's well written, but suffers from a couple of fatal flaws.  Den Beste makes the argument that the State Dept is responsible for implementing policy that comes down from the President and his staff.  That's true.  But he takes it to an extreme: He says that the State Dept shouldn't be executing any form of independent thought, that they should be implementing policy no matter what.  This is simply patently false.  There is a balance of power between a bureaucracy and a political entity, such as the White House.  It is imperative that this balance of power exist.  The collective experience of the State Dept must not be lost, but it must not be allowed to simply do what it wants.

The basic mechanism is the resignation.  If there are men and women of good character in the State who disagree sufficiently with the administration, they will resign rather than do what they know or feel to be wrong.  The White House isn't going to want to take too many actions that will cause resignations of staff at State. 

It seems that the current tension that exists between State and the White House is normal and in fact very healthy.  There are those within the State that feel that the current policy is wrong-headed and other paths should be followed.  To silence these honestly held views is foolish beyond belief. Why Den Beste is advocating some sort of blind allegiance is beyond me, unless we are looking at it from the standpoint of partisan power demands.  It then becomes quite understandable; you don't want those nasty, professional disagreements to make their way into public view.

11:46:16 PM     | comment [] | trackback []