Democracy Is Not Built in a Day

Peter Kenney of Denver relates his experience of building local democracy in Baghdad.

Do you think freedom is free?

China Not "Red" Anymore

The adventure with the Chinese-made lamp looks like it has taken China out of the red and into the black. So far, the replacement lamp is doing fine. The low cost is the attraction and the website, Made in China, demonstrates the wide variety of goods available. Differences between manufacturing standards predominates, but the Food and Drug Administration is working with Chinese officials to address issues of quality. The consumer activist, Ralph Nader, weighs in with his opinion.

The OLPC: Should Not a Controversy Be

On 23 July 2007 eWeek ran a story that has been controversial for too long. The story discussed the ongoing battle about the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project which is ambitious, has potential benefits for many computer users across the board, and is timely. The project should garnish a great deal of attention but this really should not be contentious. The project though gained attention not only for its humanitarian goals and the groundbreaking technologies it's introducing but also negativity is connected to it for the wrong reasons, a fixation on product pricing, and assumptions about capabilities.

The OLPC and its founder, MIT iconoclast Nicholas Negroponte was in a segment of "60 Minutes." The segment unduly focused on the OLPC's XO laptop (more commonly although not completely accurately known as the $100 laptop) and the organization's goal to provide inexpensive computing resources to children in the developing world.

First Intel and then Dell has taken potshots at the project. Intel has since gotten on board.

The XO system is close to its final release state and although on paper the posted specifications of the XO seem underpowered: a midrange AMD processor, 256MB of RAM, and a small, flash-based drive. The XO is actually a powerful system.

The display technology is innovative and is readable even in bright sunlight, and its environmentally conscious power management and provision capabilities to its wireless mesh capabilities allow an entire village of children to connect. The XO will have a huge impact on the lives of the children who use it. I know countless kids who could use it now.

The compact laptop technology is ahead of the curve which should usher in a competitive wave of more efficient and capable mobile systems.

The laptop is a helpful marriage of Linux-based Sugar software that runs on the XO laptop. The basic programs in Sugar are simplified versions of ordinary desktop tools such as word processors, including though a collaboration environment.

Graphic source: OLPC

This is a product that looks like a toy but it is not. In the hands of impoverished children, this can be an effective digital tool that helps to close the digital divide. Hopefully, Dell's objection is not only that OLPC is a competitor of theirs.

Graphic source: Wikipedia, showing the mesh mode in Sugar software which makes it possible to interact with other users and systems on the XO's wire mesh network.

Is Aunt Betty on MySpace These Days?

Spock.com is a new people-focused search engine that aims to compile profiles based on info from social networking sites. I'm looking for Aunt Betty but I don't think she's on MySpace.

CEO Jaideep Singh claims the search will include every person in the world within the next nine months. A search will provide biographical information including age, city of residence and job title as well as tagged descriptions and images aimed at providing a complete picture of a person. It ranks search results based on the amount and relevance of information.

Come to think of it, maybe that's how we can find Osama.

Is a USB Port Good for Anything Other Than a Massage?

Computerworld ran an interesting survey on USB ports and their accessories. A USB port is handy even if you don't need a massage or a beverage heater, or cooler. All three devices are available though if you would like.

Hello? Is this Johnny's Teacher?

Source: Center For the Digital Future

According to the Center For the Digital Future, teachers have embraced newer ways of communicating with constituents. More so than government officials and health care professionals, teachers in K-12 situations use electronic means of communication. Before the Internet, teachers rarely had telephones in their classrooms, and most communication between teachers and parents occurred through infrequent conferences or notes carried by the student.

Today over half (50.3%) of all Internet users have used email to communicate directly with teachers.

Reach out and a teacher will be there.

Another Blow to Microsoft and Digital Rights

Computerworld ran a story from the IDG News Service about a hacker who released a way to strip DRM (Digital Rights Management) from streaming Netflix Inc. movies. This is another blow to Microsoft's technology designed to prevent people from saving the content. Many hackers object to the design of DRM which limits how music and movies can be used. Netflix's Watch Now service allows people to watch movies and TV shows immediately on their computer. Users can watch a certain number of hours of streamed content per month depending on their subscription.

However, hacker Dizzie wrote on the Rorta hacking forum against Netflix and words of his exploit made the rounds of various blogs and Web sites.

The exploit is not for the unitiated since it is a detailed 14-step process that uses FairUse4WM, a program created by another hacker, to remove Microsoft's DRM from the content. The involved process removing the DRM may take several attempts, and the process does not remove the time limit imposed by Netflix on viewing the content.

Microsoft revised its DRM technology twice before to block the threat of FairUse4WM but last month hackers on the Doom9.org forum announced they defeated Microsoft's DRM again.

The violation of rights is clearly wrong but a large deal of the problem is the murkiness and inapplicability of current copyright law. The various less proprietary and more open copyright options that have emerged, are a step in the direction.

The shakeout is far from clear. Universal Music Group, the world's largest music label, sells songs DRM-free.

Challenge to FedEx and DHL, File Transmittal Services

It must be that setting up an FTP server on your home/work computers and providing your intended recipient with log-in information is really beyond the grasp of most computer users.

As a challenge then to the big mailing companies, FedEx or DHL, some companies have an online alternative for the really big, or digital files.

In contrast, file transmittal services all let users send files of up to 100MB for free, and many will go higher. Driveway, whose motto is "Size really does matter," lets users send files up to 500MB for free. Pando has a 1GB limit for nonsubscribers, while Civil Netizen is currently the most generous, with a 4GB limit.

Iran's Blood for Oil

What Tehran and Baghdad have in common is trading for oil. Tehran and Baghdad are expected to agree on a deal on a pipeline soon to transfer crude oil to refineries in Iran from oilfields in Iraq.

I take it Iran is willing to trade blood for oil.

Meanwhile, many Iranian young people, especially women strive for their freedom.

You Can Trust Al-Jazeera . . . To Be Al-Jazeera

"Kidnapped workers building U.S. embassy in Baghdad" screams the Al-Jazeera headline so let us have a look at this shocking story. The story by Ahmed Abdullah states:

"An American civilian contractor revealed shocking evidence about how Filipino construction workers were tricked last year into building the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, according to an article on The Times Online. The 51 men were originally told that they’d travel to Dubai to construct hotels there, but instead found themselves in a Baghdad-bound plane!"

The story is based on the statement of Rory Mayberry testifying before a congressional committee.

The Filipinos were reportedly upset at being deceived but their protests were quelled by: "a gun-toting air steward [not named, emphasis mine] ordered them to sit down. . . . [and a] security guy [not named, emphasis mine] working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 [sub-machinegun] in the air that people settled down."

On the other hand, the same story ran on the AP by Teresa Cerojano, Associated Press Writer. The gun-toting enforcers are not mentioned and a reasonable person would conclude that the guns are a complete fabrication.

The upshot of the story is that a Philippine special envoy is traveling to the Middle East to investigate allegations that a Kuwaiti contractor took Filipino workers to Iraq without their knowledge to build the U.S. Embassy. The meat of the story is that Filipinos, contracted by the First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co., thought they were going to work in Dubai and ended up in Baghdad instead.

The story really involves the Filipoino workers and a Kuwaiti company.

You don't get that impression from Al-Jazeera with the shock tactic of the U.S. kidnapping people.

People believe what they want to believe. In fact, jobs in Iraq have been a boon for many Filipino workers.

Chatting with Alexander the Great

If you could chat with Alexander the Great, what would you say? We need more protection for those auxiliary troops don't you think? What is it with this hoplite innovation?

That possibility was not possible of course but a newly launched site allows front-line soldiers to submit combat technology ideas. TroopIdeas.com allows anyone in the U.S. military to detail their need for combat tools.

The troop ideas are then evaluated by Gestalt, the technology consulting firm and government contractor that operates the site. Gestalt will either work to develop the tool itself or route the information to the best suited areas within the U.S. Department of Defense, stated William Loftus, Gestalt's president and CEO, in a story carried yesterday by Computerworld.

The Wisdom of "George" on War

George Kennan (1904-2005)

The roots of American involvement in the Middle East go back so much deeper than the current contentious debates about "George," actually, the American people should be talking about George, but George Kennan, not Bush. Kennan is a key figure in the development of U.S. Cold War policy as the "father of containment" in the newly founded CIA in 1948.

Kennan saw a new type of warfare for Americans in the Post-War period.

The Problem

The inauguration of organized political warfare.

Analysis

1. Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz's doctrine in time of peace. In broadest definition, political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures (as ERP--the Marshall Plan), and "white" propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of "friendly" foreign elements, "black" psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.

2. The creation, success, and survival of the British Empire has been due in part to the British understanding and application of the principles of political warfare. Lenin so synthesized the teachings of Marx and Clausewitz that the Kremlin's conduct of political warfare has become the most refined and effective of any in history. We have been handicapped however by a popular attachment to the concept of a basic difference between peace and war, by a tendency to view war as a sort of sporting context outside of all political context, by a national tendency to seek for a political cure-all, and by a reluctance to recognize the realities of international relations--the perpetual rhythm of struggle, in and out of war.

3. This Government has, of course, in part consciously and in part unconsciously, been conducting political warfare. Aggressive Soviet political warfare has driven us overtly first to the Truman Doctrine, next to ERP, then to sponsorship of Western Union [1-1/2 lines of source text not declassified]. This was all political warfare and should be recognized as such.

4. Understanding the concept of political warfare, we should also recognize that there are two major types of political warfare--one overt and the other covert. Both, from their basic nature, should be directed and coordinated by the Department of State. Overt operations are, of course, the traditional policy activities of any foreign office enjoying positive leadership, whether or not they are recognized as political warfare. Covert operations are traditional in many European chancelleries but are relatively unfamiliar to this Government.

5. Having assumed greater international responsibilities than ever before in our history and having been engaged by the full might of the Kremlin's political warfare, we cannot afford to leave unmobilized our resources for covert political warfare. We cannot afford in the future, in perhaps more serious political crises, to scramble into impromptu covert operations [1 line of source text not declassified]. . . .

What is proposed here is an operation in the traditional American form: organized public support of resistance to tyranny in foreign countries. . . . Our proposal is that this tradition be revived specifically to further American national interests in the present crisis. . . .

d. Preventive Direct Action in Free Countries.

Purpose: Only in cases of critical necessity, to resort to direct action to prevent vital installations, other material, or personnel from being (1) sabotaged or liquidated or (2) captured intact by Kremlin agents or agencies.

Description: This covert operation involves, for example, (1) control over anti-sabotage activities in the Venezuelan oil fields, (2) American sabotage of Near Eastern oil installations on the verge of Soviet capture . . . .

Long before Bush, and years before the formulation of the overt Eisenhower Doctrine, the U.S. was in the Middle East in a new type of warfare in the Post-War period. Although the faces of the enemy may change, we are not facing the Soviets anymore, but the geographical area of contention, the Middle East, and the product, oil, is now a part of political warfare in American life. The troublesome aspect for Americans seems to lie in the fact that this warfare is overt, as opposed to George's covert operations in 1948. But the present George is following the broad outlines of American foreign policy that is decades old by this point.

Reference:
269. Policy Planning Staff Memorandum

Washington, May 4, 1948.

Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, NSC 10/2. Top Secret. No drafting information appears on the source text. An earlier, similar version, April 30, is ibid., RG 59, Records of the Department of State, Policy Planning Staff Files 1944-47: Lot 64 D 563, Box
11. The Policy Planning Staff minutes for May 3 state: "There was a discussion of the Planning Staff Memorandum of April 30, 1948 on the inauguration of organized political warfare. This paper was generally approved and Mr. Kennan will present it tomorrow for discussion at a meeting of NSC consultants." (Ibid., Box 32)

Upcoming Attraction! See it now! History Made Dumber! "War Made Easy"

History Made Dumber is not the name of War Made Easy--a film which "reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq"--but perhaps it should be.

Based on the book by Norman Solomon, you may look in vain for any mention or sound bite of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, or Ford but you will not see them or hear any references to them in this film. If I'm not mistaken they were American Presidents of the past 50 years. Nonetheless, bad boys LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton all have their cameos but the real targets are the Bushes, father and son.

As an attempt to review the past 50 years of American warmaking it fails miserably. It is tolerable if you like the sort of presentation that claims to be an expose of recent wars under the Bushes and to a lesser extent, Clinton. As a competitor to the Michael Moore style of film making it has the obligatory repetition of key quips, and quotes thought to be particularly germane and cutting.

One of the typical refrains is about the lack of WMDs as is to be expected. No reference is made to the other popular refrain at the time which was "No Blood for Oil," you don't hear that old canard much any more. And, the lack of expression is for good reason. Gas prices hit the highest level in American history. And, judging by the number of filmgoers who used cars, trucks, and SUVs to attend the same screening as I, the insatiable American thirst for oil is not abating.

If Americans were truly sincere about getting the U.S. out of Iraq, then they should sell their cars, and the next likely event to occur is that American politicians will stop the war drumbeats. In the meantime, as any president Republican or Democrat is bound by the Constitution, they will continue on the war course mapped out. Americans are tied to their inefficient internal combustion engines and American politicians are acting in the national interest, that is, keeping the flow of oil to the U.S.

In the film history is reviewed in the person of Senator Wayne Morse (D-Oregon) who is acclaimed as one of few American lawmakers who was brave enough to oppose the war in Vietnam. He makes a particularly embarrassing point about the President simply being "an administrator of the people's foreign policy."

God bless you Senator but not in my Constitution.

The film is on a bit better ground as an analysis of how the corporate media has echoed Washington's drumbeats during Persian Gulf I and II. The struggling print media, newspapers, are in dire straits and they are being eclipsed by digital communications, infotainment, the internet, and other new media. The new media is not directly as a result of government control but recent administrations have been savvy enough to adjust their message catered to the new media.

There are alternatives: turn off the TV, read bloggers, watch clips on YouTube, read foreign newspapers, catch Al-Jazeera, this works for me and I stay informed thusly.

The film is for the liberal choir exclusively so they can hum along to the old gospel song that gained some popularity during the Vietnam era, "Down by the Riverside," whose chorus echoes a heart-felt desire of people:

"I ain't gonna study war no more
I ain't gonna study war no more
Study war no more…"

C++ for Anyone from MIT

C++ is not exclusively for adult programmers but MIT has released programming for anyone through MIT's Media Lab. Researchers in the Lab's "Lifelong Kindergarten Group" created a program called Scratch, a graphical programming language geared to be programming learners, including children and teens.

A good introduction can be seen on how to create interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art with Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu).

Google Educational Offerings

Campus Technology today released a story that Google is offering researchers a closer look at their search capabilities. Two new services are offered to the individauls in higher education--access to Web search and machine translations--as part of Google's University Research Programs effort. The program for investigation, "the University Research Program for Google Search," has merit if it can unleash the incredible data hidden via the web, and certainly Google is one company that has revealed the resources of the web more than any other entity.

The second service, Google Translate, seems less promising although I have not taken it for a spin just yet. I still have to get over my bad experience with DragonDictate, c. 1998, when I spent an inordinate amount of time teaching a recalcitrant program and computer how to talk like me. Come to think of it, that may have been the problem.

"I Wanna' Be Like Osama"

The 60th Edinburgh Festival Fringe is featuring "Osama the Musical" which is a:
"Sensational new musical comedy set to incite violent applause and a new cult following featuring insightful satirical sequences including "I Wanna' Be Like Osama. The West shall not be won (again) so long as we have a high-kicking chorus line!"

Those Irresistible Nerds

Graph source: Source: Robert Half Technology, May 2007

Mary Brandel published a story in the 6 August 2007 issue of Computerworld reviewing what technology skills are in short supply. The list of skills follow below: Machine learning, Mobile applications, Wireless networking, Project management, General networking, Network convergence, Open-source programming, Business intelligence, and Embedded security.

Nothing "GNU" (New) in China

Wikipedia representatives have stated that Baidu.com Inc., the largest search engine in China, may be their worst copyright violator. Baidu plagiarizes Wikipedia without attribution or honoring the GNU license.

The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. has never sued a copyright violator and the Foundation has no plans to sue Baidu but this looks like an attempt to shame the company into compliance. All Wikipedia needs is the company to respect its copyright license by simply attributing Wikipedia entries on Baidu Baike, the company's Chinese-language Web encyclopedia.

"They do not respect the license at all," said Florence Nibart-Devouard, chairman of the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Pentagon Describes How to Combat IEDs

Speaking of worthwhile blogs to read, The Danger Room in fact carried a story about an excellent research paper--AN ASYMMETRIC THREAT INVOKES STRATEGIC LEADER INITIATIVE: THE JOINT IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE DEFEAT ORGANIZATION by WILLIAM G. ADAMSON, COL, USA, that is worthwhile reading.

The report has some good news and some bad news. The Pentagon is praised for its "resilience, learning and adapting to the IED threat." It credits JIEDDO's chief, retired General Montgommery Meigs, with "vision [and] leadership." And the paper notes that "casualty rates per IED attack are down, indicating that the cumulative effort of training, better protective equipment, and improved intelligence [have] had a positive effect."

On the other hand, what we hear in American journalism is true as well. The paper states that the American effort against improvised bombs has been an "unsatisfactory performance [with] an incomplete strategy." What's more, the JIEDDO-led struggle against the hand-made explosives has a "strategic flaw" that may keep the U.S. from ever gaining the upper hand on the bombers, Adamson notes: The lack of authority to knock bureaucratic heads. He recommends instead establishing a separate, Executive Branch agency with a "laser-like concentration on the hostile use of IEDs."

I'd like to be knocking some bureaucratic heads and it would be helpful if journalists would be carrying stories that reveal how insurgents can be effectively met, and defeated.

A List of the Second Best Blogs in the World

I know you are enthralled to stay here at Blog Smith but are there any other cool places to go? A 6 August story from Computerworld noted the top Geek Blog Sites. In no particular order the list is:

Hack a Day

Lifehacker

IT Toolbox Blogs

Danger Room

O’Reilly Radar

Techdirt

Feedster

Rough Type

The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Elliott Back’s blog

4sysops

Go ahead, check them out, I won't be offended if you read the second best blogs in the world.