Moving onward - 17 January 2008

Wow, late night tonight - although the Friends of the Library meeting was a potluck and gathering, too, so that’s why it took so long. Consider this entry part of “hurry-up” mode. Today, however, is the birthday of Joshua A. Norton, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Hail Norton!

My professional self likes CNN's "Nine Bookstores worth a tourist stop". Of course, the public libraries in those systems are probably also worth having a look at, too.

Pete Hegseth thinks that the Iraqi parliament passing de-Baathification laws is a sign that the surge has worked. So it’s easier for former government members to get back to work. Violence has fallen. Pete acknowledges that there’s a lot more to go, but thinks that everyone should jump on the pro-war bandwagon now, because it’s obvious we’re winning. I’m still waiting to see if the house that Bush built is a good house or a house of cards. And the only way I think we’ll really know is to withdraw our forces and see if the new Iraqi government can stand on its own feet. And having rebuilt what we knocked down still does not absolve us of the wrong that was done to lead the American people into the war in the first place.

A lesson for extremists and terrorists - if you do too well at what you do, it will attract attention. The success of a British al-Qaeda agent’s web operations brought him to the attention of the police forces, and he was arrested. Additionally, a former Michigan congressperson was charged with conspiracy, money laundering, and obstructing justice for his role in helping to funnel money to a charity with known ties to terrorist persons and groups. You get too good at what you do, the police and the government start noticing.

In domestic politics, Paultards tried to get a prize fighter to sport a Ron Paul tattoo in his last bout, offering him $50,000 for the space between his shoulder blades. It’s nontraditional thinking, for sure, but $50,000 isn’t nearly enough to offer. The offer was turned down for other reasons, officially. Also, the General reacts to the Swift-Boat style slam put against John McCain.

Possibly good science news - human blastocysts have been created from adult cells. If those blastocysts can be developed into embyros, then there’s stem-cell research possibilities. Of course, with the federal guidelines and such, it’s still probably not eligible for government funding. In other science, robots may be mixing up our chemotherapy. Considering the toxic nature of chemotherapy, a robot that can mix and administer chemotherapy correctly would make effective treatment much more possible. In other sciences, more possibilities for extending the human lifespan to very long years. If I can live to be eight hundred, I’d take that. It would mean doing a lot more working time in my life, sure, but that would mean I could work, retire, go back to work, retire again, go back to school, get new degrees, work in different areas... 800 years might be enough time to actually get most of what I want to do done. By the end of that, they might figure out how to do Time Lord-like regenerations. Or we’d have FTL and could start the process of slowly expanding out into space.

Practical joke, ahoy - a $425 pill that's 24 karat gold leaf dipped in gold. Ingesting it is supposed to “increase your self worth”, and there’s a possibility that it might make your poo sparkle, but that’s about all it does. Something that’s not a joke is that children are not very fond of clowns at all. Clowns are scary. Something that might turn out to be a joke is A&W attempting to put the flavor of a root beer float in a bottle. And something that makes us laugh is a Texas creationist museum auctioning off a mastodon skull to keep itself open. Guess the admission revenues haven’t been as good as they were hoping. On the flip side, a dominionist group is attempting to inflate the attendance numbers for the film "Expelled" by offering cash incentives to schools that take their children to see the movie and send in the ticket stubs. The language says that the best way to do things is to have the students make mandatory field trips out to the theaters to see the movie. That’s just the tip of things, but the dominionist ties run all the way down. At least the attempts by the Institute for Creation Research to have an accredited Master's program in Texas are running into inquiries from the Higher Education Coordinating Board. It’s not a “hell, no”, but it is at least asking questions about what’s going on.

And finally, things that make you angry, or shake your head in disbelief. A North Dakota man has been convicted of computer crimes, apparently including the finding and usage of publicly available DNS and WHOIS data. Public information, accessed on a public server, configured to provide that information to whomever asks it. That’s apparently criminal behavior according to the judge.

A bigger pile of steaming excrement is the national intelligence director of the United States saying on the record that harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists by the CIA was both legal and successful. The United States does not torture, he maintains, in addition to saying that the decision to destroy the interrogation tapes was legal and ordered by someone with the authority to do so.

In matters of our minds, Eric G. Wilson laments the loss of melancholy in American culture. He finds it a problem that we pursue our happiness to the point of not wanting to be sad at all, and don’t appreciate our happy because we lack the sadness that puts it in perspective. And that melancholy drives us to seek real happiness and change, rather than packaged happy.

A glurge of dubious quality and origin, reproduced here to be shredded by all who wish’t. 12 Rules for Raising Delinquent Children, which entail “spoil them, fulfill their every wish, always side with them” for the most part.

Art time! Pink Tentacle shows off some choice high dynamic range photos of the Japanese landscape. I love HDR because of the color combinations it can produce, and the very vivid pictures that appear. There’s more of those kinds of images available at Japan HDR's Flickr page.

Lasties for tonight are Ass-Kicking Women of Mythology. No dainty girls waiting for their princes here, these women all went out and got what they wanted. If you want to make your own power myth, might we recommend the Mondo Spider? And there’s further evidence in favor of girl power - since the Roe v. Wade decision, the abortion rate is now at its lowest point. Huh. Safe sex education, combined with contraception of regular and emergency kinds, even in the halting and nonsystematic way that it is being provided in the United States, is having an effect. The other side of the fence is claiming that by putting more obstacles in the way of getting an abortion, that the numbers are going down, not because of any education program. They might be right, because anti-choice movements have been remarkably successful at preventing education.

Anyway, bed time. Must get good sleep.

A wonderful Friday - 18 January 2008

Half-day of training today, on the very important matter of Intellectual Freedom, that thing that Librarians fight tooth, nail, and claw for to make sure that you can read what you want, view what you want, and that the government can’t just arbitrarily summon your records for no reason at all, among other things. Although they’re trying to do plenty of other things, like link the databases of the United States and the United Kingdom into a shared terror-fighting fingerprint and biometrics database. Soon enough, we’ll have a worldwide linking service, I’m sure, so that nobody can hide from anyone if the government decides they’re wanted or a terrorist.

My professional self also raises an eyebrow at research by CIBER that says everyone is adopting the Google mindset in their research behavior, including having zero patience and wanting everything to be online. The CIBER research recommends that libraries follow the trend and provide their material on-line, in addition to training people on information literacy and tooting their own horns as a place where reputable information can be gathered. In short, what librarians have decided they need to do for a while now.

Chess champion and Grand Master Bobby Fischer has passed away at 64 years of age.

In the matter of Iraq and Afghanistan, members of the armed services who were not fit for active duty were sent into Iraq anyway. Supposedly, those service members would be going in for light duties in places where medical services were available, but taking the injured back, along with the continued attempts to cheat veterans out of their proper services makes me wonder how anyone can say the current Administration actually supports the troops, as they claim to.

Furthermore, this following news from the Independent sounds very familiar. Opium fields spread across Iraq as farmers try to make ends meet. I seem to recall similar concern about opium in Afghanistan. Opium and the drug trade follow instability and then have to be rooted out or otherwise channeled. Is this one of the results of having one’s government knocked over?

Osama bin Laden's son wants to ride across North Africa for peace. The son doesn’t renounce the father, understanding that Osama truly believes he’s doing good, even if the West is less than fond of his methods and results.

In domestic politics, Red Rabbit isn't fond of Obama's admiration of Reagan and opposition to the 60s. For as much as he’s a darling candidate of the Democrats, Obama has his own laundry/skeletons in the closet. I still think that everyone is playing relatively nice right now, because the candidates are not yet decided. Once that’s finished, the gloves will be coming off. We might be seeing the beginnings of that with a Obama-supporting advertisement that says "Hillary Clinton is shameless", among other things, and Vogue's Anna Wintour calling Senator Clinton a "mannish" coward for not gracing Vogue with her presence.

Cristopher Hitchens wants humans to transcend small things like "race" or gender when selecting candidates and Presidents. To do what everyone should be doing - weighing the candidates’ positions on the issues, and voting for the one that will follow their positions on those issues.

On the Republican side, Debra Saunders questions the Republican will to win because of their lack of total support for John McCain, the Republican most likely to be electable. That lack of support includes radio ads attacking McCain and Romney for their lack of support for the Confederate flag and calls that repeat accusations first heard in his 2000 campaign.

I thought this to be a uniquely Catholic practice, but it appears the idea of booting people out of a church because of their unrepentant transgressions seems to be spreading to the Protestant churches too. Tolerate no dissent, I guess. I can only wonder what the congregations will start looking like after a generation or two of these expulsions.

In other materials, Ron Rosenbaum tries to work out whether Vladamir Nabokov's last work, currently unread and in a manuscript form, should be destroyed per Nabokov's wishes. The decision rests ultimately with Dmitri, his son. Dmitri has read the material in question and finds it excellent. Does the world deserve to see it, even though it goes against the author’s intended wishes?

Kotaku gives all those who want to do costume play as the currently-deceased Mike from College Roomies From Hell!!! hope by pointing to where one can find an arm-tentacle.

In other science, when combined with nano-scale iron oxide particles, magnetic fields can be used to induce cells to take in drugs or hormones with a fine grain of control. Specific dosing ability through magnetic fields - there’s an interesting thought. Although with as many electromagnetic fields as we are exposed to in our daily lives, would that run the risk of accidentally activating medicines at improper times?

It probably evolved in us for some sort of reason, but research shows that aggression for agression's sake can induce a craving, because it's processed along the same pathways as rewards are. It feels good for us to beat the tar out of something. Somehow, this explains a lot of behavior, including chest-thumping, dueling-penises contests, and other sorts of aggressive-for-their-own-sakes acts.

Potentially weird science, taking an idea that’s been at least done once by Gary Larson, Hungarian researchers are working on a program that intends to explain the meaning of dog barks. Weirder science involves electric circuits and lights have been implanted into contact lenses to provide a display. With those, playing real-street Pac-Man would get a whole lot easier.

In much the same way that the United States Army created and released an FPS, NASA is looking into creating an MMO to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. Maybe in a few years, we’ll be able to virtually run missions in space.

Feministing alerts us to a tactic by anti-choice advocates that claims men are victims of abortions and suffer a "post-abortion syndrome". Now, some men might suffer this, but the tactic is a way of furthering the idea that men should have some sort of ultimate authority on what women do with their bodies and that everyone is harmed by abortions. I would hope that most women communicate with their partners and come to consensus about what to do with an unplanned pregnancy, but for those whose partners won’t communicate, or insist that the child be carried to term without also having the assurances that the child will be well cared-for, ultimate authority still rests with the woman carrying the child. We should respect that.

Last for tonight, in the war between MediaDefender and the copyright holders and the pirates and crackers, the pirates are winning. The pirates have even hacked MediaDefender a few times. Solutions to the problems of file-sharing that don’t involve some manner in which all file-sharing becomes legal are not going to last long, I suspect. Technology will be hacked, DRM will be scrubbed, and suits won’t scare everyone. We will survive this. Eventually.

Anyway, night, night, people, and all that.