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In 1996 the United Nations Development Programme reported that the assets of the world's 358 billionaires exceeded the combined incomes of 45 per cent of the world's population.Jeff Faux & Larry Mishel, Inequality and the Global Economy
There's a breath of fresh air concerning Bill Frist's alliance with fundamentalist extremists: the Presbyterian Church is coming out in opposition to him over his actions. One top official, Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, spoke about this on Thursday. He said:
"Elected officials should not be portraying public policies as being for or against people of faith."
Bill Frist is an active member of the Presbyterian Church.
I also want to mention the filibuster dispute. One of the seats over which a filibuster is threatened is the 5th Circuit. Why is the 5th Circuit seat open? It's been vacant for many years now. Clinton made two attempts to fill it, but the Republican majority in the Senate refused to have a committee hearing to even consider either of the two nominees.
Along that same line, let's make note of the fact that the Bush nominee (Patricia Owens) for the 5th Circuit was previously criticized by Atty General Alberto Gonzales for making activist decisions that ran completely contrary to the the letter and spirit of the law in cases where her personal beliefs conflicted with the law. Gonzales has recently attempted to temper those comments, but they were in the form of a written condemantion in public court records, so he can't actually deny them. The following comments were made by Gonzales while he and Ms. Owens were serving together on the Texas Supreme Court. Ms. Owens was one of the dissenter of whom Mr. Gonzales said:
The dissenting opinions suggest that the exceptions to the general rule of notification should be very rare and require a high standard of proof. I respectfully submit that these are policy decisions for the Legislature. And I find nothing in this statute to directly show that the Legislature intended such a narrow construction....Thus, to construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism.
Who plays dirty in when it comes to appointments? Who's trying to appoint activist judges? People living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...
Bill Frist must truly hate the Constitution and the nation we have built upon it. The Senate Majority Leader will be appearing on a telecast this weekend in support of the Family Research Council's efforts to seat federal judges that will use the Bible as the foundation to their decisions instead of of U.S. law. According to their website, the FRC:
Believing that God is the author of life, liberty, and the family, FRC promotes the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society.
This is the same bunch that believes Spongebob Squarepants to be a subversive figure designed to promote homosexuality -- and they should know since they keep a "homosexuality detection expert" on staff!
Yes, Frist will be using his speech to push an end to the Democratic filibuster threat, but you don't participate in rallies for those whose ideals you don't espouse. He has chosen the side on which he stands, and he has chosen not to stand for America but with religious extremists.
Is that where this country really wants to go? Replacing the Constitution and our democratically created laws with fundamentalist religious courts along the model of Iran and Saudia Arabia?
Do we want to replace Freedom of Religion with Fundamentalism for All?
Do we want sentences and verdicts to be based on Bible Law? Stoning anyone???
Do we want to END all pretense of equal rights for women?
Isn't government by religion a bad idea, or were we mistaken to overthrow the Taliban?
There's nothing Christian or decent about religious extremism in any guise. Name-dropping "Jesus" and sticking "Family" onto something doesn't change that. Extremists are extremists.
A desire to tear down the principles, ideals and foundations of our nation is one of the few things which can truly be said to be UnAmerican.
Bill Frist: UnAmerican Senator.
According to this article on The Register, Microsoft is looking for Black Hat hackers to work for them. In case you don't know a Black Hat is someone that specializes in illegal computer break-ins, i.e.: the Bad Guys. The job appears to consist of having access to the source code for new products before they ship. The "former" Bad Guy will then get paid to tell Microsoft about all the security flaws they find. Of course you can trust your for-hire Black Hat to honestly and completely reveal every single flaw to their corporate masters, right? Right?
It used to be that the Black Hat community had to run long grueling tests against Microsoft products with no "inside" knowledge of the code. Now they're being invited to just browse right through it.
I am flummoxed by this one. So much so that I went back to The Register to make sure I wasn't looking at a post on April 1 (I wasn't). This has to be one of the craziest notions I've come across for securing your products -- it's the equivalent of having burglars review your home security for you.
I'll be in the corner stuttering in disbelief if anyone needs me...
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.Lazarus Long (Robert Heinlein)
One of the rovers on Mars has become stuck after attempting to climb a slope in the area of Mars it was exploring. Although the rover has impressive abilities to handle the Martian terrain, it appears that engineers became overly confident of the rover's "4x4" capabilities. Engineers believe that the lander can be rescued via NASA's first-ever OSRO ("On Site Rescue Operation). The OSRO equipment was purchased "off-the-shelf" from a private vendor under the "faster, better, cheaper" NASA initiative. NASA estimates that an in-house attempt to build the equipment would have cost in excess of $500,000. Using off-the-shelf equipment the OSRO unit was purchased for approximately $20,000.
A really cool image of the rescue operation can be found
here . Great technology: Go NASA!
I run SETI@Home on any idle hardware I can find -- and as a network admin I can find quite a bit! I joined the project on April 7, 1999 (shortly BEFORE the project went "live" -- mmmm Beta Testing). Sometime over the last two weeks I moved from the number three spot in my registration class to number two in terms of the amount of data crunched. My sights are now firmly fixed on the number one slot.
Overall, I've also now made it into the top 0.25% of all users. No, that's not a typo: it IS 0.25% and not 25%! That's number 13,406 out of 5.39 million.
Happy day! :-)
Based on a discussion Elizabeth and I had earlier today I just wanted to send a little note to interior designers everywhere:
Don't paint the fireplace. Ever.
What is it with this fad on every home improvement show that requires the redecoration to include painting over a brick fireplace? Our houses are filled with electronics, plastics, veneers, artificial fibers, paints and coatings. Is that one little spot of warm, earthy natural brick just too much of an intrusion into dull plastic middle-class American architecture? It wouldn't be so bad if the process was easily reversible, but the only way to really fix it is to tear the whole thing out and start again. A fad that's going to come and go -- but whose effects are for all intents and purposes irreversible.
We have a brick fireplace. It's an earthy centerpoint in the middle of what otherwise would be a flat sea of painted wallboard. It anchors a modern house back to the Earth. It's the focus around which we socialize -- a warm, comfortable gathering point. Home and hearth: remember that phrase? Hearth is the center of the home -- not something to hide behind a few coats of latex semi-gloss.
Let's repeat this one more time: Don't paint the fireplace. Ever.
Okay, so this is the THIRD TIME I've set up my blog. Originally I built it on my Mac at work just to learn about the installation process since we were talking about using blogging software there to facilitate communications.
Well, I found out that I like having a blog. I didn't want it to be a test anymore, but didn't want to house a personal blog on a work computer, either. The best option seemed to be to move it to my personal web space provided by UNC. That actually works really well and is on an unbelievably fast server with an unbelievably big internet connection.
Then I mentioned to Elizabeth that we could buy web hosting space and get our own private domains. "How much?", she asked. When she heard that we could get our own space for only $10-$15 a month she wanted to know why we hadn't done it already.
The truth is, I thought I was just being too geeky for my own good. Fortunately, my wife's as good a geek as they come! So now we all (including my 4th grade daughter) have our own domains. Way cool...
Task one was to get my blog moved. Here it is!!! This time I hope it stays in one place for long time. I think I'm really going to enjoy having this on my own space where I don't have to think about whether or not I'm meticulously following the rules at work (i.e.: if I rave about my Powerbook, is that an ad for Apple?).
Besides, moving the darn thing is a Royal Pain!