March 2002 Archives

Well, believe it or not, Hamas has a website. After reading their communique, I was struck by two things.

It's hard to delude yourself into believing Arafat mattered to them when they include lines like these in their communiques.

Third: our operation, which coincided with the Arab summit in Beirut, is a clear message to our Arab rulers that our Mujahid people have chosen their road and known how to regain lands and rights in full depending on Allah only. Our people do not accept other than Jihad and resistance as the main path to regain usurped rights.

Fourth: the Qassam Brigades affirm continuation of all kinds of Jihad and resistance employing all available means at the opportune time and place without paying attention to the inharmonious voices that call for halting our blessed intifada.

And secondly, this is the first time I've felt physically ill after reading a website.

Even though I've been feeling like crap, I've managed to keep up on the news from the Middle East. I think Stephen Green explains how I feel as well as anyone could. It's time for Israel to finish this nonsense off, and I think everyone knows it.

Stephen's post got me thinking about something else, though. I wonder if bloggers are, in their own small way, helping shape Israel's response. Pretty much everyone, including the mainstream media, realizes that popular bloggers like Glenn and Stephen have the views of the "man on the street". Their on-site, unedited, feedback supports that notion -- there's far more supporting comments than dissenting comments. And on the Israeli issue, the people who admit they would normally dissent even agree.

Any intelligence agency worth it's salt monitors foreign media outlets to guage how their enemies and allies will react to events. And I think it goes without question that the Mossad is worth it's salt. The big question is: have they started monitoring the major bloggers to estimate US sentiments? They would have to, wouldn't they? Now that Fox has started featuring bloggers on their site, it couldn't have escaped their notice. And with a little coding, it would be easier to monitor than regular news casts.

So are people like Stephen and Glenn helping shape Israeli response?

Well, I've been swamped with stuff to do, and suffering from some sort of sinus/throat cold. Hopeful the usual routine of updates will restart in a few days.

There's an online petition organized to oppose the SSSCA. This bill would require every digital device to have government mandated copy protection, and would make it a felony (5 years/$500,000) to tamper with the protection mechanisms. Visit the site for more info.

In a move that's long overdue, VP Cheney announced that he had no intention of meeting with Arafat until Yassir gets a handle on the violence caused by Palestinians. Arafat has repeated proven that he is either incapable of or unwilling to provide what he promises, especially related to controlling Palestinian attacks on Israel.

"If in fact Arafat will do what he in the past has said he will do, if he will actually deliver on the Tenet plan, if he'll move to put a lid on the violence and do what's required," Cheney said, "for example, sharing of intelligence information, take responsibility for securing their own areas so attacks can't be launched against the Israelis and vice versa -- if in fact those steps are actually implemented, then at that point I'll be prepared to meet with Mr. Arafat.

"To date, that hasn't happened, and therefore has been no meeting currently scheduled."

I've been thinking about money and investments, a process I go through about once every two months or so. Back when I was in high school (early 90s), the tech sector was an obvious winner. I don't think it is now, although apparently not everyone agrees. I'm sure that technology companies still have growth left, but I can't imagine a recurrence of the growth during the tech bubble over the last 12 years.

From my perspective, the driving factor behind the tech boom was the wide-spread adoption of technology solutions by brick and mortar industries. In a period that seems almost over-night, companies adopted e-mail, web services, and networked architectures. This allowed huge growth rates in revenue for tech companies as they fought to keep up with demand. But the situation now is different. Most companies already have some sort of working technology infrastructure. The market for technology products is essentially saturated. To me, it's inconceivable that demand for technology products will continue to grow at the rates we saw in the 90s.

When I briefly studied economics in college, we learned about a product life-cycle: development & innovation, growth production & marketing (supply was less than the market for the product), market saturation point, followed by sustained sales until product death or new development. TVs were the example used in class, as I recall. When the TV was first developed, they faced an introduction period, followed by a huge surge in growth. Any company making TVs could pretty much count on selling them all, because there were lots of people who wanted TVs and didn't own one yet. Now, of course, TVs are a saturated market -- practically everyone in America owns one (or two or three). TVs are still sold, but no one expects to see 20% increases in unit sales, because there's no one to buy that many TVs. TVs have avoided the product death phase by innovating: black & white -> color -> digital -> HDTV. Each of these innovations motivated some segment of the population to replace a TV before it broke, thus increasing the sales of TVs above what you would expect for mere maintenance purposes.

So where does this leave the tech industry? While the market for computers and telecom equipment isn't necessarily saturated, practically everyone I know of that would like to own a computer, already does. Businesses, the other driving force behind computer sales, have already made the huge purchases associated with rolling out a new technology. Now, they are only making purchases for maintence and upgrade reasons.

I'm not entirely sure what (if anything) is poised for 90s style growth this decade. It seems that medical (especially genomics) companies could be poised for dramatic growth if the final break-throughs in areas like cloning and gene therapy are made. Security related sectors may also see a surge, given new concerns over terrorism. But there's nothing so obvious that I'd feel comfortable sinking money into it yet. So, instead, I'm just sticking with an index fund. That way I'm pretty much guaranteed to get a slice of any sector that sky-rockets, and I don't even have to think about it.

Wahoos being University of Virginia alumni, of course. According to Sand in the Gears, Charlottesville has been seized in a fit of liberal stupidity.

Glad I'm a Hokie.

Anthony Woodlief's Sand in the Gears is a great blend of humor and commentary. The first post I read had me laughing out loud. Check it out.

Orson Scott Card, one of my favorite writers, is also quite willing to wade in and tell Geraldo Rivera what he missed in his interview with Arafat.

In case you'd forgotten (and I hope you haven't), here's a movie to remind you what we're fighting for.

Courtesy of Megan at Live from the WTC, an explanation of why, exactly, drugs cost so much less in the EU. It's far more interesting than you'd probably think, and written for the layman, as Megan usually does w/ these economic issues.

Lefties in America have been screaming about this for years – screaming, that is, that we are allowing our evil Pharmaceutical Giants to charge outrageous prices for their products, when prices in Europe show that the actual price of the product is really much lower.

If you haven’t picked out the problem with this argument already, it’s that the lefties have forgotten one little thing: the ENORMOUS cost of developing drugs. The average drug has to make $500 million to earn back all the R&D costs, not only for itself but for the 999 other compounds that didn’t work.

That's just the intro though, she explains much more in the full version.

Dan Gillmor's article in ComputerWorld explains why we're suddenly hearing that privacy and security cannot co-exist. And it's not just because of the government.

But corporate America has never been a friend of privacy. Building dossiers on customers and regulating their behavior has always been something of a Holy Grail for businesses.

You should check out HokiePundit, ifyou haven't already. He's a smart kid with some great insights into religion and the world. And I think it's quaint that he can't bring himself to type words like "penis", hehe.

While announcing new foreign aid initiatives, President Bush tied aid to policies which encourage free trade and political freedoms. During his speech to the U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development, Bush said "By one estimate, a new global trade pact could lift 300 million lives out of poverty. When trade advances, there is no question about the fact that poverty retreats." He also noted that "Pouring money into a failed status quo does little to help the poor."

From this, can we assume that the recent steel tariffs were designed to keep steel workers poor?

A friend of mine recently implied that I knew how to pick locks. While I continue to disclaim all knowledge of such things, I'll point out that you can learn the basics right here on the Internet.

Her fantasy $7,000 portfolio rose 5.8 percent, while the one selected by analyst Mark Goodson lost 46.2 percent over the year. Astrologer Christeen Skinner's portfolio dropped 6.2 percent.

What more can you say? Even the astrologer beat him, hehe.

"And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." When Mark Twain spoke those lines, he could have easily been referring to Congressman Nick Smith. The Honorable Mr. Smith wants to reinstitute the draft -- not because we need soldiers, but because he thinks it would be a jolly good idea for young people.

Smith drafted the bill because of his childhood as a farm boy and his Air Force experience, he said.

"My thought is that it would be good for young people to have the same kind of experiences," he said. "Growing up on the farm, I had to have the discipline of getting up at 5:30 in the morning, making my bed and making sure my clothes were pressed — that type of boot camp atmosphere."

[Quote from an article which is no longer online.]

Well, bad news buddy, I happen to enjoy going to sleep at 2am, getting up at 11am and make a pretty decent living doing it. Fortunately, the Sarge performs the requisite take-down quite beautifully. Be sure and write your Congresscritters to let them know how stupid this new bill is.

The Fed will meet on Tuesday, and it's expected that they'll shift to a neutral stance on the economy -- away from the fears of weakness which prompted rate cuts last year. More and more, economic indicators are looking up, and now economists are predicting 4% growth over the next quarter or two (if not the entire year).

I'll be especially happy when this new round of growth finally increases demand for IT services. It hasn't been fun to watch the industry contract, and I'll sleep better at night when I know that there's real cash flow available in our sector of the economy.

It occurred to me today, that I hadn't heard anything about the tensions between India and Pakistan for a couple of weeks (or more). So, I pulled up Google News and searched on India, just to see what was going on. Turns out, there's been in a pleasant lull in the border fighting for about a month. Unfortunately, it's over. A return of border hostilities, combined with the attitudes expressed by one influencial Pakistani, makes me just that much more nervous about the world.

Business 2.0 provides their take on the 101 worst moments in business throughout 2001. Proof that capitalism, while pretty damn good, just isn't perfect.

Dale Amon gives a quick review of a recent physics paper about generating gravitational pulses. In his words, it "finally moved from physics grad student's pub time what-if to verifiable laboratory manipulation of gravity".

In other words, anti-gravity may have just become a real-life (albeit years down the road) possibility.

People have made a big stink over the recent review of US nuclear deployment plans. But I continue to be more worried about Pakistan and India than about our own arsenal. The vast majority of people in the US agree that using nukes isn't an appealing option, but that doesn't appear to be the case in Pakistan. And that's scary.

Once again, the Saudis have pulled a new off a new, and totally revolting, low. Apparently, female modesty is so important to the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice that they would rather 15 school girls burn to death than run outside without their abaya. "Abaya", by the way, is Saudi speak for the Afghani burqua. And you might remember the "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" from the Afghani police organization of the same name.

This is so far over the line that even some Saudis are disgusted by it. I can appreciate the fact that Saudi Arabia is an important ally, but we need to start pressuring them on this one.

The North Koreans who stormed past guards in Beijing and made it into the Spanish Embassy have been granted permission to travel to South Korea. While I'm glad to hear they'll get to escape their repressive homeland, I had to wonder at these paragraphs from the article:

The group of 25 North Koreans had threatened suicide if they were sent back to the Stalinist state, which has suffered years of drought, floods and fierce winters.

. . . . .

Beijing has quietly given North Korea food to help stave off famine that has stalked the country since the mid-1990s.

It's amazing how CNN makes it sound like all of North Korea's troubles are from external forces of nature. Doesn't anyone over there realize that "hard-line" "Stalinist" government is destroying the country from the inside out? It doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize that South Korea is on the same peninsula, yet is surviving quite well.

I took a day out of my time off last weekend to visit AR Fabrication. It turns out this place is only about 30 minutes away from my hometown. And they really know their stuff! My friend was getting a front mount intercooler installed in her Eclipse GSX, so I drove down there to check out the shop while they worked on her car. It was a blast! Everything that I saw in the shop was top of the line, and they had some incredible cars in for work. Their website claims that "we're a team with a winning attitude", and every word is true. I ended up talking with the guys there for over an hour. Even though I went down there to just look around, I ended up contracting for some work on my Eclipse (which will probably be done around the end of April). If you ever need some performance parts and you're near D.C., look these guys up.

Well, it's been a long couple of days, and I've been quite negligent in my web presence. Don't worry, I'm playing catch-up as we speak. Here's some interesting stuff found via VodkaPundit:

A short letter by Tim O'Reilly (of O'Reilly Publishing) about how the RIAA and music industry is off it's rocker.

An incredible article set to appear in Dissent magazine about the failures of the liberal philosphy in America, and what they need to do to fix it (from a liberal's viewpoint).

The announcement of the new Big BLU, the next generation conventional bomb which will make the BLU-118 thermobaric bomb look tiny. As a side note, the article doesn't say, but I assume the new Big BLU isn't a thermobaric bomb. The Big BLU is slated to be a 30,000 lb. convention warhead, which would be twice the size of the current US Air Force record holder -- the 15,000 BLU-82B, aka Daisy Cutter.

Steven Spielburg makes some great movies, but I have to admit that I don't agree with his politics. And, now that E.T. is going to be re-released, Stevie took the opportunity to digitally edit some of the things he objects to out of his film. (Why he didn't just leave them out to begin with is beyond me.) Of course, if he wants to upgrade E.T. to be politically correct, what should we do with his other films?

Blogs thrive on links, as most of those who write them know. Here's an applet called Picture of Weblogs that displays the links between weblogs. Quite interesting. I think I would have sorted the entries so that those with more links were at the inside of the spiral. I'm not sure that would have been an improvement, but it would seem to be better than the pseudo-random distribution used.

KickIdle.com is listed, you can find it using the search box.

I suspect there's a whole slew of interesting topological information about weblog interconnectedness. For example, if you partition them according to political views, I would expect to see high intereconnectedness in each partition and weak cross-partion linking. It would also be interesting to partition them according to what back-end software is used. Do blogs which use Blogger tend to link to blogs that also use Blogger? Is there any group of software users that tend to link inside their partition or outside their partition? How about partitioning the set based on sex? Based on group blogs v. individual blogs?

You could create a directed graph with each edge being the reverse direction of a link (i.e. if I link to InstaPundit, then there's an edge from Instapundit to KickIdle.) Then map the flows in the graph and blogs which are sources may tend to introduce new information into the blogosphere, while blogs which are sinks (or unconnected) are not responsible for propogating new ideas.

Well, you get the idea. Unfortunately, I'm sure that would require much more information than included in the xml file the applet uses.

Sounds like a good thesis for a sociology/computer science degree though. Really, blogs are like a specialized society ripe for sociological study. We (blog authors) tend to publicly declare our affiliations and publicly attribute our ideas and attitudes. I'd imagine that makes our interactions much easier to study than a society which operates in private or semi-public (as most real-life "meat" societies would).

Here's an interesting little post about the plans to run the "secret" shadow government. This facility isn't secret by any stretch of the imagination, a large percentage of the people in the area know exactly what it's there for. I've been there myself on a few occassions (in the early 90s).

I hope this makes sense if translated into English, but given some of the other products of Japanese culture, I doubt it would.

Hollings has also adopted the industry's basic stance, that copying is primarily about piracy and only rarely about honest fair use, at one point calling the Internet "a haven for thievery."

Yes, that's right, this whole Internet thing is just an excuse to steal stuff. Ironically, here I am creating content for free* while the RIAA rips off consumers and music artists at the same time. Hollings, by the way, isn't the president of the RIAA or a lawyer for Metallica, he's a US Senator from South Carolina. What the hell does South Carolina care about the RIAA, you ask? Good question. I can tell you why Senator Hollings cares though. The entertainment industry was the second largest contributor to his 1998 campaign; lawyers being the only ones to give more. (As a matter of fact, only two other Senators got more from the entertainment industry -- and they were from NY and CA.)

Enron doesn't manage to buy enough influence, and it's headlines for weeks. The RIAA has their own Senatorial Lapdog, and no one seems to notice. As mad as that makes me, I can't say I'm suprised.

[*] Well, it actually costs me, since I'm paying for hosting.

Well, it's a shame Blogger's perma-links are screwed right now -- I can't link directly to the Sarge's latest post. But look at this page, under March 2, 2002, for the title "We might as well use them for something".

Update: Looks like Blogger's working ok after all. Either that or Blogger Pro didn't have a problem today. Here's the direct link.

There's nothing harder than saving money when you don't really want to. It's only made harder by the fact that the government likes to tax our savings. Fortunately, we have IRAs, 401(k)s, and 403(b)s to help us avoid taxes when saving for retirement. But another big expense most people face is college tuition (not to mention books, room & board, and beer money) for their children. There's the Education IRA, which allowed you to save $500 a year towards a child's education (now up to $2000 a year, thanks to new tax laws). But $500 a year isn't much, especially considering that many people are only saving for 10 years or less before their child is enrolled and the bills start arriving.

There's another option, which I just happened into today -- the 529 plan. 529 plans are like a 401(k) for college expenses. They grow tax-deferred until withdrawn, and are then taxed at the rate of the student (typically the lowest bracket). Because these are state plans, you can get excellent tax advantages at the state and local level, as well as the advantages on federal taxes. Other advantages include having a much larger contribution ceiling (over $100,000 in some states) and asset allocation plans that allow you to mitigate some investment risks. You can even create 529 accounts for children you're not directly related to -- or yourself, if you plan on returning to school someday. Another benefit is that you can have rebates on purchases deposited directly into a 529 account through Upromise.

As with any investment decision, you should review all the available information carefully before opening a 529 account. I found a CNN/Money article, a Motley Fool article, and the SavingForCollege website during my brief research.

I've just discovered The Note, a summary of political news from ABC News. It's a concise review of the current stories and actors in the US scene, updated daily, and includes a calendar of upcoming events. While I'm not one to trust some of their editorializing, this is far more convenient than gleaning everything out of a huge collection of stories.

While I'll occasionally take these online "What .... are you?" polls, I don't normally post the results. But this one is just too amusing. Those of you who know my tastes in firearms will no doubt agree.

Which Firearm are you? brought to you byStan Ryker

I was kinda hoping for the H&K G11, but this actually seems more appropriate.

James' latest Screed takes on a moronic Euro-weenie editorial written in an Alabama Olive Garden. Read it, then link it.

To quote this article:

In cased you missed it, the Office of National Drug Control Policy spent $3.5 million dollars on Super Bowl commercials earlier this month. The ad campaign will continue into the months ahead.

. . . . .

That leaves cocaine — and Colombia. Indeed, virtually all of the research and statistics tying drug use to terrorism in the Super Bowl ads and on the campaign's accompanying Web site center around Latin America and Mexico.

. . . . .

The problem is that Colombian military officials have long been in cahoots with right-wing paramilitary groups responsible for the murder, kidnapping and mass slaughter of Colombian citizens. They aren't as bad as the drug traffickers themselves, but they're bad enough.

The carnage got so bad that in 1999, Congress required the president to assure congressional leaders that Colombia had taken significant and convincing steps to eradicate ties between its military officials and terrorist paramilitary groups before any further disbursement of aid. But the situation has not improved much since.

Read it all. After all, this is your money at work.

Charles Paul Freund explores the role of crass consumerism in liberating people from authoritarian societies in this article on Reason Online. The people of post-Taliban Afghanistan sought out haircuts, clean chins, and Western-style movies, much to the distaste of some Western elitists. Freund shows why we should be glad to see them making such choices. Popular culture is all about meaning, expressing your self and your view of the world. The West isn't victimizing Afghanis with it's popular culture -- as Freund explains it:

Because you can’t export meaning the way you can export anti-aircraft Stingers.

Everytime we find underground "counter-culture" groups resisting an authoritarian regime, we've found a people who are capable of freeing themselves from that regime.

Febuary was the second month of serious work on KickIdle.com - Blog. It was also a month of astounding growth. There were over 1700 page views and 516 visits. While I know it's nothing compared to the likes of Glenn or the Samizdata, it's still a wonderful feeling. Thanks to all those who've visited, and a warm "Hello" to the international visitors from Canada, UK, Thailand, Germany, Brazil, Austria, France, Finland, Mexico, Japan, and Spain. Thanks are also owed to the Samizdata and HokiePundit for the perma-links and ensuing referrals.

I remember the ride at Epcot Center in Disneyland (or Disneyworld? Whichever is in Florida) where the little automated children from around the globe sang "It's a small world after all..." as a testament to how we're all alike, despite our differences. But I still have a really hard time understanding the mindset of someone like Turkish Health Minister Osman Durmus:

Turkey has overturned a controversial law that forced schoolgirls suspected of having premarital sex to undergo virginity tests.

The government issued a decree banning forced virginity tests after five schoolgirls tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison.

. . . . .

Durmus also caused controversy when he rejected foreign blood donations after the devastating earthquake that shook north-western Turkey in August, 1999, killing more than 20,000 people.

He claimed the donations would "pollute" the victims.

Durmus also refused to send Turkish blood samples for a proposed international blood bank for leukaemia victims, saying "foreigners will unravel our genetic codes."

That last bit about the blood and genetic codes makes me think of the rogue Air Force General Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove:

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I-- no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.
General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.