Internet Is a Mixed Blessing for Politics

In Iowa, as I think has been the case building up to the caucus, is that however interesting novel uses of the Internet may be, the number of Facebook "friends" or the number of YouTube video views that campaigners have elicited, has not resulted in solid results. The candidates seem to be stuck in the same quandrey as businesses. They don't know how to effectively exploit the unbelievable amount of free time that people expend online into purchasing, or electoral support. The Web 2.0 world has been a mixed blessing for politicians.

A note on: Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Robert Pape

Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005; ISBN 1-4000-6317-5) by Robert Pape is a cogent analysis of suicide terrorism. Pape compiled a database at the University of Chicago where he directs the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism.

Pape claims to possess the world’s first “database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 — 315 attacks in all” (3).

He states: “what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland” (4).

It is imperative that Americans understand his point.

How can the U.S. respond? Pape has a few suggestions.

Victory should be defined as defeating the current crop of terrorists and preventing a new group arising.

He states: “the taproot is American military policy” (244).

Pape suggests a policy of “‘off-shore’ balancing”: establishing local alliances while maintaining the capacity for rapid deployment of military forces (247-50).

The local alliances, this is my point, Pape is not responsible for this, should be to increase the involvement of Middle Eastern states, the Russians, and Chindia.

Sears and Kmart Nabbed in Spyware Controversy

Graphic source: screen shot by Benjamin Googins

Sears and Kmart are old-time companies that do not grasp the implications of the technology that they are using. This is not to excuse what they did, as they have recently been embroiled in a spyware controversy but it is what it is.

This is unfortunate for Sears since I've been really been impressed recently with Sears' sensitivity and support for our military personnel but here they are in the midst of spyware.

How so? Apparently, customers who sign up for a new marketing program may be giving up more private information according to a leading anti-spyware researcher.

According to a story released by Computerworld, Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ben Edelman, Sears Holdings' My SHC Community program falls short of U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) standards by failing to notify users precisely what occurs once they download the company's marketing software. Sears does not tell customers that the software "tracks every site you go to, every search you make, every product you buy, and every product you look at but don't buy. It's just spooky."

CA senior engineer Benjamin
Googins wrote in a late December blog entry that criticized the software. The Sears software was written by VoiceFive, a subsidiary of Internet measurement firm ComScore.

In his blog, Googins states his conclusion:

Sears.com is pushing software with extensive user tracking capabilities and doing a very poor job of obtaining informed consent – if at all. After the proxy software is installed on the user’s system there is nothing on the user’s desktop to indicate their every move on the Internet is being collected and sent to a third party market research company, comScore.

Although the software was not written by Sears they are still clearly responsible for the content and application of the contracted software. Oops, it looks like the old-time companies who foster good customer relations need to work harder.

Graphic source: another screen shot by Benjamin Googins

Acceptable Costs of War?

There are those that would say there are acceptable costs associated with war. The key is of course that the current sentiment in America does not allow for complex answers, unspeakable horrors, and relentless warfare. This new type of American would be unrecognized by historical figures such as Washington, Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, et. al.

Islamofascists Testify

A recent video introduces us to some Islamofascists.

Considering a Hard-Drive Erasing?

Looking for a disk-wiping program, preferably one that meets the U.S. Department of Defense's standards for disk sanitation? The DOD suggests that a hard drive should be wiped clean seven times so these programs will overwrite your entire hard disk with data multiple times, ensuring that the original data can't be retrieved. I hope you can be patient because it can take several hours to wipe the hard disk.

One to consider is Darik's Boot and Nuke which is free down loadable software that creates a boot disk which wipes everything cleanly on the hard drive. It can be used with floppy disks, USB flash drives, as well as CDs and DVDs. A similar program is Eraser which I have not seen or used so at some point I may be able to compare the two.

FBI Abuses Biometrics

Graphic source: Bob Shaw For The Washington Post

The FBI is preparing to abuse a vast database of biometric data in a $1 billion project which includes images of irises and faces. The FBI has consistently had a truly abysmal IT record so I would not imagine this can be a good development.

The basic procedural protocol and etiquette between our top two crime and espionage units, The Company, and the FBI, is so much more a cultural and organizational priority that I can see little good to come out of the new project. It also seems inherently flawed along Orwellian lines.

With the FBI possessing the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, I can envision a government with an unprecedented ability to monitor individuals in the United States and abroad.

Apparently, digital images of faces, fingerprints, and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement.

A 10-year contract will be announced soon that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information the FBI receives. World-wide policing will rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even individual characteristics and personal traits such as the unique way that people walk and talk will be included. At an employers request, the FBI will also retain the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees encounter the law.

The project has alarmed some, such as Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union because: "It's enabling the Always On Surveillance Society."

The system planned by the FBI is called Next Generation Identification and it looks like its here to stay.

The servers in the Appalachian underground facility which houses the project, the size of two football fields, receives a hit every second from somewhere in the United States or Canada, comparing a set of digital fingerprints against the FBI's database of 55 million sets of electronic fingerprints. A possible match is made--or ruled out--as many as 100,000 times a day.

If the system works well at all, the information would be collected from a wide variety of sources and would subsequently available to multiple agencies which increases the chances to catch criminals. This procedure was not done in 2001 which allowed the 9/11 hijackers to escape detection. The FBI will make both criminal and civilian data available to authorized users and there are now 900,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers who can query the fingerprint database.

Orwell, anyone?

Top Innovative Product of 2007: HP's TouchSmart IQ770

HP's TouchSmart IQ770 all-in-one PC is my choice as the top innovative product of the year. This is the first all-in-one PC on the market to boast a touch-screen display. I wouldn't be interested in an iPhone, thats just me, I don't do mobile handsets but the HP I wouldn't mind having.

The product is pricey at $1,650 but it is beautifully designed, and its touch screen makes it handy for just about anywhere which is a big selling point in my book.

Awakening Councils Making Their Mark

The Awakening Councils are making their mark in Iraq by cooperating with the U.S. military and they are annoying Bin Laden as evidenced by his expressed displeasure in his last video.

Lyrics, "Wake Up Everybody," Harold Melvin

Wake Up Everybody
Harold Melvin

Wake up everybody no more sleepin in bed
No more backward thinkin time for thinkin ahead
The world has changed so very much
From what it used to be so
there is so much hatred war an' poverty
Wake up all the teachers time to teach a new way
Maybe then they'll listen to whatcha have to say
Cause they're the ones who's coming up and the world is in their hands
when you teach the children teach em the very best you can.

Chorus
The world won't get no better if we just let it be
The world won't get no better we gotta change it yeah, just you and me.

Wake up all the doctors make the ol' people well
They're the ones who suffer an' who catch all the hell
But they don't have so very long before the Judgement Day
So won'tcha make them happy before they pass away.
Wake up all the builders time to build a new land
I know we can do it if we all lend a hand
The only thing we have to do is put it in our mind
Surely things will work out they do it every time.

Repeat Chorus.

All lyrics are the property and copyright of their respective owners. All lyrics provided for educational purposes and personal use only.

Hampton Sides, Blood and Thunder

Although there is little new in this volume Sides has done an admirable job of illustrating the broad landscape of the 19th-century Southwest. His prose convincingly portrays the historian's concern for accuracy with a pleasing presentation of a huge topic, Western expansion and Manifest Destiny. Sides's main aim is to demonstrate the almost complete decimation of the Navajo nation from the 1820s to the late 1860s. Sides focuses on Kit Carson—an illiterate trapper, soldier and scout who knew the Native Americans first hand, and who married two natives, yet, ultimately collaborated in the Indians' slaughter. The final draw was the doomed defense mounted by the Navajos in 1863 at Canyon de Chelly.

The description of the great Navaho headman, Narbona, should not be missed.

This work will find its rightful place next to Bernard De Voto's magisterial The Year of Decision 1846, the work Sides most closely resembles.

Lyrics to "My God" by Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull, "My God" - Album: Aqualung

People -- what have you done --
locked Him in His golden cage.
Made Him bend to your religion --
Him resurrected from the grave.
He is the god of nothing --
if that's all that you can see.
You are the god of everything --
He's inside you and me.
So lean upon Him gently
and don't call on Him to save you
from your social graces
and the sins you used to waive.
The bloody Church of England --
in chains of history --
requests your earthly presence at
the vicarage for tea.
And the graven image you-know-who --
with His plastic crucifix --
he's got him fixed --
confuses me as to who and where and why --
as to how he gets his kicks.
Confessing to the endless sin --
the endless whining sounds.
You'll be praying till next Thursday to
all the gods that you can count.

All lyrics are the property and copyright of their respective owners. All lyrics provided for educational purposes and personal use only.

Max Wall Biography

Kramer on "Seinfeld" looks like he has been influenced by Max Wall. Wall notably toured with the 1972 Mott The Hoople Rock 'n' Roll Circus tour. Below follows a brief biography from YouTube.

Max Wall (12 March 1908--21 May 1990) was the stage name of British comedian Maxwell Lorimer. His performing career covered theatre, films and television.
Wall was a son of the successful music-hall entertainer Jack (Jock) Lorimer and his wife Stella. He was born near The Oval, in London. In 1918, during World War I, Wall was saved from death by his cast iron bed-frame, but both his younger brother and their were killed by a bomb from a German Zeppelin that destroyed their house.
Wall made his stage début at the age of 14 as an acrobatic dancer in a pantomime, but is best remembered for his ludicrously attired and hilariously strutting Professor Wallofski. This creation notably influenced John Cleese, who has acknowledged Max Wall's influence on the creation of his own Ministry of Silly Walks sketch for Monty Python. After appearing in many musicals and stage comedies in the 1930s, Wall's career went into decline, and he was reduced to working in obscure nightclubs. He then joined the RAF during WW2 and served for 3 years until he was invalided out in 1943.

Wall re-emerged when producers and directors rediscovered his comic talents, along with the expressive power of his tragic clown face and the distinctive sad falling cadences of his voice. He secured television appearances, and having attracted Beckett's attention, he won parts in Waiting for Godot and Krapp's Last Tape. In 1966 he appeared as Père Ubu in Jarry's Ubu Roi, and in 1972 he toured with Mott the Hoople on their "Rock n' Roll Circus tour", gaining a new audience. His straight acting gained him this review in 1974:

"Max Wall makes Olivier look like an amateur in The Entertainer at Greenwich Theatre..." (The Guardian, 27 November 1974)

He also appeared in Crossroads, Coronation Street and what was then Emmerdale Farm. He also played an ex-con in Minder, with George Cole.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Wall occasionally performed a one-man stage show, An Evening with Max Wall, in which he recaptured the humour of old-time music-hall theatre.

His last film appearance was in the 12-minute movie A Fear of Silence, a dark tale of a man who drives a stranger to a confession of murder by answering only Yes or No to his questions; those two words, repeated, were his only dialogue. The film won a gold award in the New York Film and TV Festival.

American Jihad, a Disservice

Emerson poorly documents the clandestine activities of Islamic terrorist groups in the U.S.

I wish he had done a better job of explaining the ideological motives of the global Islamic Jihad movements. I do believe that Jihadists exploit the freedoms in the U.S. as they recruit and finance their organizations. A definitive work needs to be written but this is not it.

Bush Against Defense?

This is a surprise to me but Bush is not expected to approve the Defense Authorization Bill. There are several reasons being mentioned now as to why he would do such a thing.

Al-Jazeera Believes, Just a Bit?

Al-Jazeera has a non-scientific poll on their web site asking: "Do you believe that the security situation in Iraq improved as U.S. generals claim?"

The majority say no but I think it significant that almost 30% said yes. Most Al-Jazeera readers don't agree much at all with an American position but they are somewhat in this instance.

This is a sign that insurgent activity is waning: Petraeus has exercised classic counter-insurgency measures and it has paid off.

The poll, by the numbers, states:

Yes
(29.52%)

No
(64.51%)
Maybe
(5.96%)
Total Voters: 1409

Dialogue With a Palestinian

Dialogue:
Me, limited to the brief comments allowed by the medium but attempting not to be inane (as reflected by "Terrorist Death Watch"):

The Iraqi people have turned on AQI because it overreached trying to impose an alien and harsh practice of Islam inconsistent with the more moderate practices of the Sunni minority. (16% of the population.) The foreign jihadist elements in AQI (with their enormous hatred of what they view as the apostate Shia) have alienated the nationalism of the broader Iraqi population. Foreign intervention across the Syrian frontier has dropped substantially.

"palestinianryder"

Name: Mujahid
Country: Gaza Strip

Thanks for being polite in your comments, other anti-Mujahideen comments I've had to delete because swear words, not their opinion. But it would be fair to say some Iraqi's have turned on AQI because of their harshness, but you are also forgetting the occupation has brought many hardships, and the 300$ a month, security gurantees, and amnesty the US offers to "awakening council" members is a much bigger contributing factor.

Reply:

Your welcome. Saddam hardly brought peace and prosperity. The coalition is very interested in leaving soon. We leave for only one or two reasons: 1) complete defeat of insurgents; 2) all insurgents lay down their arms. This is the choice of the insurgents. We are much more accustomed to watching Muslims slaughter their brother Muslims mercilessly as before.

IT Concerned About Iraq

I find it interesting that a recent poll of 600 tech workers by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) identified the war in Iraq as the top political issue in the U.S.

The fact that most polled were white and high paid is not surprising since that is reflective of the IT field in general, but Iraq?

Over half of the polled, 54%, stated that they make more than $75,000 per year, with 32% earning over $100,000. Only 13% have annual incomes of less than $40,000.

They were nonetheless politically independent, the largest category--39%--selected "other" as their political affiliation while 35% identified themselves as Republicans and 26% said they were Democrats.

When the IT workers were asked what is the most important issue that the next president will face, their top three responses mirrored similar surveys of the general population in the U.S. Twenty-nine percent picked the war in Iraq as the top issue, followed by 22% citing terrorism and 19% pointing to the economy.

On the issue of free trade, 48% said that it helps the U.S. economy, while 37% said that it hurts. Asked whether the U.S. should "regulate the Internet as it does telephone and television," 82% opposed the notion.

Full Tilt Boogie

Graphic source: Gizmodo

AT and T Tilt (also known as the HTC 8925) may have enough features to interest me in time for Santa to get for me.

The Windows Mobile device can be held in your hands or rest comfortably on a surface.

The device has a hinged display designed to accommodate various viewing positions but when it is open the roomy adjustable screen provides the look of a tiny laptop which is attractive to me.

A tiny laptop is something which I find it intriguing from the days of PDAs but without the communication ability. The Tilt is also a Windows Mobile 6 device, a fully quad-band GSM world phone compatible with EDGE/GPRS and with high-speed 3G UMTS and HSDPA broadband networks.

It has sufficient ROM, 256MB, and memory, 128MB, for what I would need it for. The display is a spacious 2.8 inches, with 320 by 240 resolution, and 64,000 colors. The processor is 400 MHz, with a Qualcomm MSM7200.

It is supposed to be available for up to four hours of talk time and up to eight days of standby time. I'd always wait to see how this would work under my battle conditions.

The items has up to six Bluetooth pairings simultaneously since it can combine a Bluetooth headset and an external keyboard at the very least.

I'm a sucker for a QWERTY keyboard so since it has one this is another big plus in my book.

The 3-megapixel camera is not important to me but it may be for some users.

The big items for me are admittedly what I am interested in with such a device. Top on my list is the handiness of a full-featured mobile computer, in particular the mobile versions of Microsoft Word and Excel. The multimedia playback (via syncing with Windows Media 10 on your desktop) is a nice feature but not a deal breaker. I also would be interested in having the built-in GPS for use with the TeleNav GPS Navigator (an extra-cost service priced at $10 a month for unlimited routes). This is generally what Santa might want to think about stuffing in my sock this Christmas.

Worthwhile Firefox Hacks Thanks to Computerworld

Graphic source: Computerworld

Those great folks, at Computerworld, show how to tweak, hack, and bend Firefox to the user's will.

There are good tips to read: worthwhile reading.

Cf. Computerworld.