With all the precious feelings - 26 August 2008

Good night, tonight - got to head up into the big city to see 2dlife and catch up on things since we saw each other last. Always nice to see the people in person that we have built our on-line friendships around.

In the international realms, Prime Minister al-Maliki insists on a firm troop withdrawal timetable and in refusing immunity to American contracters and soldiers, a move that the Associated Press likely finds distateful, with the phrasing “dug his heels in”, implying that he’s resisting something he should be happily going along with. Running right alongside this is another AP piece about how the insurgency in Iraq refuses to die, and by extension, why it would be unwise to cede control over to the Iraqis on some sort of timetable. At some point, of course, the house has to stand on its foundation and support.

Quick comparison time. Having religious extremists set fire to your orphanage can reasonably be constituted as persecution. Claiming that someone teach science in a science class, rather than the religious view of the world, is not.

In our domestic sphere, the convention continues apace. Cindy Sheehan, recent media darling and tireless protestor, relays an account of catching someone in her hotel room potentially placing a listening device in her phone, although the person doing it and the front desk claims it was a maintenance operation on problematic phones. If this is a true account, it fits in with the accounts of the 1968 convention, complete with arrests, beatings, and draggings-off to little cells, which were also a highlight of the 2004 Republican convention, I believe. It’s a W. Bush-style “Free Speech Zone” area that’s away from where anyone would see it, and the police are going to run off or cart off anybody who does their protest somewhere where it might actually be heard or witnessed. That said, when there are allegations of plots to assassinate Senator Obama as he delivered his acceptance speech, the police do have some right to be paranoid about the venue. They could still have protests actually in an area where news crews and the attendees might see some of them, though. At last count, the arrests were up past 100.

Elsewhere in the convention, the possible rift between Hillary and Obama supporters, even if they all do plan to unite under the Hope and Change banner. For some in the WSJ, Senator Obama's victory is as much the Democrats wanting to escape the Clintons as it is the relative merits of each candidate, compared to each other.

William McGurn thinks the Democratic Party is only putting up a veneer of being sympathetic to a pro-life crowd, as they try to pull voters from those who are disaffected by Mr. McCain. Of course, they’ll have to work around Senator Obama’s own remarks and positions on choice if they want to put up a convincing front. If they do that, they shouldn’t be surprised if most of the part then lynches the leadership.

The General has a great demonstration of the kind of tolerance for minorities that Senator McCain has had in the past as an explanation of his sterling opinion of women and minorities today, whether through directly calling his wife one of the seven words or a lot of his “You know, he’s a black man” officially endorsed campaign ads.

In other domestic news, Comic Philosopher-General ldragoon linked to a rather disturbing clause appearing in Random House children's book contracts that basically grants RH the authority to yank or forcefully renegotiate an author's contract if they behave in a way that Random House finds unacceptable, under the disguise of behavior that “...damages your reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children, and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished...”. Which basically means, to me, “Well, if the winds shift and suddenly you’re not going to be profitable, we have the right to yoink your book.”

An airline horror story that results in a family not getting to see someone at their last moments, because they had the temerity to book their reservations six months out, only to find they'd been bumped from their flight the night before. And rather than, say, fix the problem, United offered solutions that weren’t.

the current administrator is looking into trying to preserve small island chains, while his party is looking to drill for oil off of the coast of the country. Preserve some, exploit some. This is not the side that’s come out in media portrayal. Perhaps if there weren’t those land wars and the event that sparked them, people would be more okay with the current reign. Perhaps not.

In opinions, Herbert Spencer on the need to avoid being trapped in "My country, right or wrong!", and how it is no great disservice to be called unpatriotic, if patriotism is of this simplistic variety.

Bernie Macus, founder of what has now become Home Depot, registers his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, which would permit a company’s workers to choose to organize without needing the secret ballot if enough employees sign a card saying they support unionization. Mr. Marcus opposes the matter because he considers unions to be stagnation for growth and development, based on the United Kingdom’s taxation rate (a government decision) and the free ability of those workers to go on strike, which is one of the privileges of being unionized and a decent bargaining chip. I wonder if Mr. Marcus admires Wal-Mart’s ability to bust unions and ensure that they don’t have to pay benefits by not letting anyone work enough hours to deserve them.

Science and technology generates particles to prevent antioxidants from being destroyed before they can deliver their beneficial payloads, organizing wireless sensor networks to be robust and accurate, cutting up cruise ships to add on more capacity, the least expensive cars to own, The Long Now producing titanium disks inscribed with microscopic texts that have the translation of Genesis 1-3 in a lot of different languages, a manufactured attempt at a Rosetta Stone for the future world to find, assuming they have a decently-powerful microscope. There’s also solar power from nail polish, an inkjet printer, and a pizza oven,

G’night, everyone.

With pleasure and sweetness - 27 August 2008

Big meeting day today at work, professional self got lots of yummy data, information, and practice. And two juicy tidbits that may be of interest to the professionals at work (one came through e-mail, the other might go out through it tomorrow), both running on a similar track as the ban on television under three enacted by France. First, an opinon that the MPAA should loosen its "no-smoking" stance and permit it in pictures, so long as anti-smoking messages come before the picture that has puffing in it, as an apparently-effective way of countering the research-supported effect that indicates more exposure to smoking in movies makes kids more friendly toward smoking. How’s that for fun? The other item is Shikha Dalmia and Lisa Snell's opinion that Senator Obama's plan for universal preschool is a sure disaster, because test scores haven’t gone up in the K-12 system in places that have “universal preschool”, which I guess means a compulsory preschool, Head Start gains disappear over time, and lots of school time makes for more aggressive, hyperactive, and anxious kids. The solution is, of course, vouchers coupled with reform of the current school system so as not to be “dysfunctional”. I’m curious whether Senator Obama’s “universal preschool” is “compulsory preschool” or means “everyone has access to preschool that wants it”, because the two are quite different. This preschool information also was accompanied by my perusal in the local paper of the pass rates of Washington State’s WASL. Statewide, in writing and reading, numbers start high, in the 70 and 80 percent pass rates in 3rd grade, and continue to maintain their status through the 10th grade tests. Maths and sciences, however, start abysmal, at 50 to 60 percent pass and plummet over the years to a 40 to 50 percent pass rate. I wonder whether the MEAP results look similar.

Now, I wonder how much of this is the prevailing attitude in the country’s schools that skills at maths and sciences often come with a price of being socially ostracized, are the domain of men, combined with the attitude that Joe American has about those who make their careers in maths and sciences - the “eggheads” that create distrust through their intelligence and ability to analyze problems and think critically, and how much of this is ineffective teaching methods, interference from nonscience trying to get themselves taught as science, and factors such a social promotion that only put the student further in the hole for the next years concepts? If the basic four-function stuff doesn’t make sense, algebra isn’t going to clear it up, and since the later echelons of maths and sciences are equations-and-problems solving, even if the logic makes sense, when it comes to calculations, things stall out and frustration appears.

[Edited in days later]Hey, look! some of the data cited is being looked at in a pretty view askewed way, and even the Journal itself notes new studies on the way will provide different conclusions.

Internationally, we’ll start with something cute - Rabbit-kun, a trash bag designed to be fashionable enough for people to want to take home and toss.

Unfortunately, then the bad news begins. The Taliban in Afghanistan are stepping up the ferocity of their attacks. Additionally, the Afghan government is trying to regulate the United States' troop presence and airstrike frequency after United Nations investigators concluded one of the U.S.'s recent airstrikes killed 90 civilians. And tensions go up in Pakistan as a diplomat escapes an assassination attempt, while the resignation of political parties generates instability and cries of “worst timing and squabbling ever” from the WSJ Asia. Plus, more Russia-Georgia kerfuffle, protestors still in the prime minister's office in Thailand

Asia is not getting all the love and crime, though, as United Kingdom police detain a fifth man alleged to be part of a plot to kill the Prime Minister.

Africa joins in as well with the opposition parties giving Robert Mugabe a Bronx cheer and them some as he opened Zimbabwe's parliament after the highly contested elections earlier in the year.

Domestically, congratulations to Senator Obama on becoming the Democratic Party's official candidate for President in the upcoming general election. Let the fury and accusations of the mainstream media doing everything they can to ensure an Obama victory (is this before or after the lack of story about the way Senator McCain continuously shows his unfitness for office? If nothing else, the MSM should be good at trashing both candidates equally. Fair and balanced, y’know.) fly. Depending on how it turns out this all, we’lll see more or less of the "should've nominated Clinton" camp (John Fund points out that it was an excellent speech for Mrs. Clinton, both in getting the supporters to rally around Obama for this round, and for laying groundwork for her own campaign the next time it goes for the Presidency).

Not wasting time from there, the Obama campaign and several other Democrats are not wasting time tagging Senator McCain for his professed elitism, with his wildly high definition of “richness” and his inability to remember just how many houses he owns, and his striking inability to remember the year 1989, according to the Slacktivist. Fox News attempts to strike back, adding Senator Biden with Senator Obama in the "secretly aiding Muslim fundamentalists" rhetoric... but failing miserably at their task. Some Republicans may feel they’ll find anti-Obama gold in the nearly 50,000 documents in a University of Illinois-Chicago special collection that detail Senator Obama's assocations with Bill Ayers. Other conservatives will continue to point at unions as a major source of influence on Democratic Party politics, with some figures that say all the planned union things are bad for the economy,

Also, rather important, the Diebold machines that kept returning "wrong" votes - the error that causes this has been part of the software for 10 years now. Yet Premier Election Systems/Diebold says it’s the fault of the anti-virus software... then the humans... and now are forced to eat their words after extensive testing determines that it is a programming problem. Is there any way we can decertify every Diebold machine in existence and use something else until they are replaced by a reputable vendor?

An account of how far the transformation of some segments of the army into an army of Christian zealots has gone, from one who went through officer training courses and felt subsequently shunned and without any recourse to complain and try and make things right, even though he tried to contact the right people to get the situation corrected.

In science and technology, a new experimental extension for Firefox that would allow someone to highlight an item, type a command, and have Firefox pull up the requested resource , such as a map or a definition of the highlighted item, which is way cool. Also, Google now has Google Suggest, which will provide a dropdown box of potential searches, so as to assist users in finding a query that works for them.

Also, storing wind power as compressed air for later usage, looking forward to the future where stem cells encouraged to grow in specific diseases will generate medicines and therapies for those diseases, Bell Laboratories ceasing to do research on the fundamentals of physics, and did you know that computer viruses work just as well on space station computers?

Last for tonight, a challenge - bradhicks challenges us to rack our collective brains and see if we can come up with any war's conclusion that was hastened because of large public demonstrations and protests.