So the Twilight Zone is actually in England.

Something funny's going on in northern England. According to the BBC, people in Norfolk have been driving by the Royal Air Force Trimingham base and had things like car electrical failures and spinning speedometers. It's like something straight out of the Twilight Zone.

Now most of the time, when things like this happen, they end up being wild rumors that result in stories of hauntings, ghosts, weird extraterrestrial experiments, and just generally Things Humans Were Not Meant to Know. Sorry, dear readers, but it turns out it's nothing that cool.

The British Ministry of Defence has admitted that "a fault at a radar dome was responsible for causing electrical problems with dozens of cars" and it "will consider claims for compensation after an inquiry found the radar was 'out of alignment.'" So yeah, all of these problems people had were caused by radiation of one sort or another. It sort of makes you wonder what the radar is capable of doing if it is properly aligned...

Exercising Your Rights, Part 2

Well, elections are over, and some of the people I wanted to see in office made it, and some didn't. I wanted to do a rundown of some election issues I've been following, though, because they were of interest to me:

Washington and California had ballot initiatives that would require the states' largest electric companies to increase their use of renewable resources like wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and small hydro from less than 2 percent today to 15 to 25 percent in the coming years. California's Proposition 87 didn't pass, 45%-55%. Washington's Initiative Measure 937 did pass, though, 52%-47%.

In Missouri, Amendment 2 would allow stem cell research to be conducted. It passed, by a narrow margin of 51%-49%.

Colorado had a couple of interesting ones. They had Amendment 43, which bans same-sex marriage under Colorado law. That, unfortunately, passed. At the same time, Referendum I also didn't pass, which would have granted same-sex domestic partners spousal benefits. Amendment 44, which would have legalized the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults 21 and over, lost by a 60%-40% margin, an impressive showing for an initiative of its nature.

Nevada had an even more sweeping marijuana initiative. Question 7 would have not only legalized possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for adults 21 and older, but it would have created a system for cultivation, taxation and regulation that would have permitted it to be sold under certain conditions. That one also failed, 56%-44%.

A bunch of states banned same-sex marriage along with Colorado: Wisconsin (Referendum 1, 59%-41%), Virginia (Question 1, 57%-43%), Tennessee (Amendment 1, 81%-19%!), South Carolina (Amendment 1, 78%-22%), Idaho (Amendment 2, 63%-37%), and the results are still out for Arizona, because it's a pretty even split right now.

South Dakota also banned same-sex marriage (Amendment C, 52%-48%), as well as shot down a medical marijuana initiative (52%-48%). They did, however, fail to pass Referendum 6, which would have banned abortion (44%-56%).

Arizona also made English its official language (Proposition 103, 74%-26%).

I wonder about the banning same-sex marriage bills, since the Democratic party seems to have made a better-than average showing this election. Maybe the public is tired of Republicans running things, but you'd think with the Democrats gaining power a liberal idea would be more likely to stay...I dunno.

I never thought stem-cell research would fly in Missouri, but here we are. I also thought California would go for the energy bill, but at least Washington's did. Somebody is thinking a little more about the planet.

Pro drug-reform readers, take note, because here comes my disclaimer: while I really hoped the marijuana initiatives would all pass, I thought South Dakota's was the only one with a true chance...this time. The fact that the Colorado and Nevada initiatives garnered 40+ percent of the vote with really not much financial support, not to mention semi-legal (at best) moves by local, state and federal offices to halt them, says wonders for the people in those states. The tide is turning, my friends. Soon drug problems will really be a health issue, instead of a criminal one, and these might be the first places to leave responsible users alone instead of sending them to prison.

Exercising your rights

First off, I want to apologize because it's been so long, and the three of you who read this are probably wondering if I've abandoned the blog altogether. Well, no, but time has not been on my side lately to write in it. That, and some heavy personal things have been going on that have kept me from it. Well, I hope to write in it some more from now on.

I wanted to say a little something about all of the candidates in the voting race. To those of you who have focused on the issues instead of your opponents: thank you. You are unfortunately few.

To those of you who don't really have a platform except to tell us all the bad things your opponent did: shame on you. You're not telling us anything we didn't already know, or weren't able to find out. When intelligent people vote, we vote because we think that the candidate we choose will accurately represent our interests in public office. I know I didn't vote for one candidate for state senate in particular because I think he's a schmuck. Our house received two or three calls a week with a recorded message saying, "Hi. I'm calling with information about [name deleted, the other candidate]." Yeah, right. This candidate also spent most of his campaign money slandering his opponent, instead of really telling us what he was going to do. If you've got nothing better to get you into office than duping people into voting against the other guy, you're definitely not for me. I have yet to see a campaign where there wasn't at least one candidate who doesn't seem to have a position, except to bash the other guy. I think because we're non-affiliated, independent voters at our house (read free thinkers; wow!) we were inundated with political flyers. I guess in a way, it was a relief not to see as many bills, but it kind of sucks when most of your mail goes in the trash because it's all political flyers.

That's another thing: don't think a flashy flyer and campaign is going to win over intelligent voters. Some of us actually pay attention to the news, and listen to you when you make speeches. Still, some people think that getting their grandkid on the radio to talk about them will win via the cuteness factor, or that they can appear on a flyer with a nice suit and somebody will vote for them based on that. The sad thing is it really does work for average America. So figure out what you want in the tough issues. Watch the news. Listen to the radio and go to speeches. Think. Then vote.

Breakin' the Law, Breakin' the Law

Everybody believes what they will, and things that are taken as fact by some are taken as theory or pure conjecture by others. I myself don't believe plenty of things that others take for fact. Still, there are certain things most people don't argue on, like the laws of physics. Consider this example:

Would you argue with someone if they told you they could throw something up in the air and it wouldn't come down?

There are certain assumptions we have been making about the world around us for a very long time. Among the foremost assumptions we have had are the Laws of Thermodynamics:

The First Law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It just changes forms, so the universe is a closed system.

The Second Law states that putting energy into a system will always result in a loss in potential output, i.e., that no system can be 100% efficient.

Well, somebody would like us to disbelieve these laws. Steorn, an Irish technology company, claims to have invented a method of creating free energy with no emissions. According to their website, this technology is "based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows the production of clean, free and constant energy." They go a step further and state that this technology can be applied to pretty much any energy-consuming device, from cellular phones to cars.

So, debunking a couple of well-established laws of physics seems like either a huge boast or an enormous hoax. Or maybe a PR ploy designed to take advantage of the world's current oil shortage/renewable energy hysteria. Steorn is unfazed by public perception, though, and issued an ad in The Economist this week that will "attract the attention of the world’s leading scientists working in the field of experimental physics. From all the scientists who accept Steorn’s challenge, twelve will be invited to take part in a rigorous testing exercise to prove that Steorn’s technology creates free energy." Even though I wonder about the validity of the statement that says the company itself will pick who gets to evaluate their new technology, this is still a ballsy move, and implies that they really are onto something.

Assuming this is the real thing, Steorn plans to license the rights to its technology to energy companies worldwide, and allow royalty-free licensure for water and rural electrification projects in Third World countries.

Let me say that I'm not a bandwagon-rider in any way. I've been talking ceaselessly about renewable energy sources since I was a kid, and so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping this might be more than a PR hoax. I wouldn't mind having some of my assumptions about physics shaken a little if we can start using our abundant resources that don't kill the planet. Let's hope it's the beginning of a new, greener, world for all of us.

What's Your Freedom Worth?

We all see those MasterCard commercials that tell us those little moments in life are truly "Priceless." But the state of Illinois doesn't think so. They think all those little moments we can't replace are worth a grand total of (drum roll, please)...

$6000 a year.

According to the Chicago Tribune yesterday, Michael Evans was compensated a grand total of $162,000 for the 27 years he was imprisoned, before being exonerated by DNA evidence in 2003. He had been arrested at 17, and thus spent every day of his adult life in prison for rape and murder. His conviction rested largely on the questionable credibility of one witness' testimony. In 2003, after DNA evidence showed someone else had sexually assaulted the victim, he was released...and that's it. No apology. No help with work, education, health benefits, nothing. It actually took him two years of fighting and a governor's pardon just to get the $6000 a year that his award amounts to. Gee, I hope he has to file income taxes on it, because that yearly amount is exempt! Finally he gets to screw the state back a little. Last Tuesday he lost a $60 Million civil suit against ten former Chicago police officers he accused of conspiring to manipulate evidence and coerce an eyewitness in his criminal trial. Wouldn't somebody make more than $6000 a year working in a fast-food joint? I'm pretty sure I made almost that much in a summer during college in a warehouse...it's nice to know that Illinois is so apologetic and interested in righting its wrongs.

Let's look at some statistics, which the article was kind enough to provide. According to California's Life After Exoneration Project,:

More than 90 percent of the people who have been released after a false conviction have lost all their assets, including cars, savings and homes.

Of those who land a job, 43 percent earn less than they did prior to imprisonment, 39 percent find work at similar pay, and only 17 percent are paid more than they did before prison.

Twenty-one states, the District of Columbia and the federal government have laws governing compensation. Many states require that the person get a pardon, which can be difficult to obtain, or proof of innocence, which can be nearly impossible in cases that don't involve DNA evidence.

Other states are far kinder on compensation than Illinois, too.

Massachusetts has a cap on the reimbursement at $500,000, but also offers social services and education.

New Jersey pays $20,000 for each year spent in prison or twice the income made in the year before incarceration, whichever is greater.

Pennsylvania does pretty well; it pays $50,000 for each year spent on Death Row. The state also provides health care coverage for up to 10 years after release. It also compensates for services to help reintegrate into the work world.

Californians, though, have it the best. California pays $100 for each day spent behind bars. Federal prisoners are entitled to $50,000 a year; $100,000 for each year on Death Row.

DNA evidence is really changing the way some of these things work now. I saw a statistic somewhere recently that said as many as 25% of the people we put to death in the US before DNA testing could have been innocent of their crimes. That's really scary, both because it means we've killed innocent people and because it means the guilty could still be out there.

I'm all for the idea of punishment fitting the crime, so in some cases I do support the death penalty. But it sure makes you think twice about wanting to flip the switch, doesn't it?

Wait, HE said THIS?

I don't like to quote Ronnie Ray that often, but I came across something interesting today, and thought I'd share it. It seems at once surprisingly prophetic and incredibly ironic that this was said by Ronald Reagan, the guy who made ketchup a vegetable in school lunches, who supported George H.W. Bush's election, and whose party supported Our President's election...twice. Anyway, here goes:

"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."

Geez, I've never said it that well myself.

A Couple of Items of Note

Both of these come to us courtesy of the good folks at Reuters:

A Japanese man was arrested this week after making 37,760 silent calls to directory inquiries because he "wanted to listen to the 'kind' voices of female telephone operators." On its website, the daily paper Mainichi Shimbun says the 44-year old has plead guilty to obstructing the operations of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation...it turns out he made up to 905 calls a day from his mobile phone. He says, "When I made a complaint call once, the operator dealt with it very kindly, so I wanted to hear these women's voices."
Police allege that he caused psychological distress to more than 100 telephone operators between March and July of this year.

The part I don't get is, we're talking about the phone company. They know who's calling, because they see your number when you call. Caller ID isn't a new thing at all; it's just new to the masses. Companies have had it for years, particularly the phone company. You'd think they'd have blocked his number, or gone after him a little sooner, wouldn't you? Over 900 calls a day also makes me think this guy may have other problems besides an obsession with telephone operators...like maybe unemployment.

Okay, story two: A retiree just made history in Arizona in one of the bigger seizures border police have seen. An 81-year old man was arrested on Tuesday while crossing from Mexico into Nogales, Arizona with 80 kilos of cocaine stuffed into his car. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Brian Levin said, "It is pretty much the limit of what I have seen. I don't remember encountering someone quite this old trying to smuggle drugs into this country ... and he was driving an unusually large amount of cocaine." The man is a resident of Nogales, and this place is a big entry point into the U.S. for many Mexican drug cartels. Levin said border police rarely see loads of more than 70 to 80 pounds (32 to 36 kg) of cocaine in passenger cars.

Well, if we've got to pay old folks to smuggle drugs into the country, obviously there's a problem. Maybe we should think of another way to handle them, instead of having to deal with smugglers. Then we might make money off of them, instead of having to pay police to pretend they can stop the flow...

The Patch for Alzheimer's

The Associated Press reports that testing has begun on a patch to treat Alzheimer's Disease symptoms. (Ok, the picture is a birth control patch, but I needed a pic.)

The article explains that Alzheimer's disease is essentially like plaque build-up in your brain. (Well, it's actually a protein.) Ewww....well, they have found that the patch, which disperses the drug Exelon straight into the bloodstream, causes fewer side effects (nausea and vomiting) than the pill form of the drug, which naturally has to go through the gastrointestinal tract first. Many Alzheimer's patients may have difficulty swallowing pills, so this is also a benefit.

So, umm...anybody see any down sides to this? I do. Even though the article didn't report this, I bet it's like every other patch out there, and carries a risk of blood clots or stroke. Maybe it causes less nausea, but let's remember that we're delivering a massive dose of medication through the skin. We're not toads...we don't really work that way. There are class action suits going on now for some of those birth control patches and nicotine patches, because they've caused some serious problems. I think there needs to be a little more done on the whole delivery system in general before we start marketing these things to everyone. Besides, if Alzheimer's causes forgetfulness, what if you put one on, forget you did it, and add another?

Suspended Animation: Coming soon to a freezer near you?

According to Wired News, suspended animation may not be as far away as we once thought. Suspended animation tests have been successfully carried out on pigs, and we may be as little as two years away from clinical trials on humans. Mike Duggan, a veterinary surgeon, and Hasan Alam, a trauma surgeon from the Massachusetts General Hospital, have cryogenically frozen 200 pigs for an hour each, and they are getting up to two hours now. They say it's great for surgeries, since it buys them a lot of extra time for a procedure.

We have long had the ability to freeze people. There are people in California right now wrapped in aluminum foil and frozen, waiting for cures for their currently terminal diseases to be found. The problem is the unfreezing process. You know how when you freeze, say, a strawberry and it looks great frozen, but turns into a mushy mess when you thaw it? That's what happens to cells when we unfreeze them...so far. They take on too much water and burst. So until they figure out how to safely thaw the popsicle people, they're staying right where they are, even if they do find a cure for the diseases.

ONDCP: I'm not listening!

For the second time in as many years, a report has been issued by the Washington D.C.-based think tank Citizens Against Government Waste that casts another light on the statistics the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)keeps feeding us. Their report suggests that ONDCP has wasted billions of taxpayers' dollars since its formation in 1988 on ineffective and counter-productive policies that fail to meet the agency's core objectives. According to the report, "The federal government and the ONDCP have chosen to ignore evidence suggesting that the methods being used in the war on drugs are not effective...the federal government has become so obsessed with marijuana use that it is spending money unwisely."

In particular, this year's report spotlights the huge spending and counterproductiveness of both the ONDCP's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and the Justice Department's decision to prosecute medicinal cannabis patients and their caregivers. The report states that "The government has thrown more than $1 billion at a campaign that has only succeeded in increasing the number of teenage marijuana users," since reviews of the media campaign have found that it often has the opposite effect, and encourages, rather than discourages, cannabis use among young viewers. The Justice Department's campaign was talked about in similarly useless terms, saying "It is useless to throw millions of dollars into attacking patients that are simply trying to find the most effectual medicine possible. ... [S]tates must be given the right to create and enforce these [medical marijuana] laws within their jurisdiction." This report comes in the wake of yet another Congressional decision (259-163) to continue punishing medicinal marijuana patients even when they are authorized to cultivate and use the drug within their own state laws.

The CAGW report also rebukes the "Gateway Theory" yet again, saying policies aimed specifically at reducing marijuana availability are unlikely to make a dent in the use and availability of harder drugs. If all kids ever hear about is marijuana, will they know how to react when they are offered something else? If the ONDCP keeps creating ads that make kids more likely to use marijuana, aren't they just keeping themselves in work?

Aha, maybe that's it. They know, deep down, that the whole taxation-regulation of drugs issue makes sense. We've had whole committees of economists, long-term studies, and years and years of paperwork going back to the Nixon administration to support taxation and regulation, particularly of marijuana. But they're not going to hear it, because if there's no one to prosecute and fight, they've got nothing to do. It keeps them working to be obsessed with eradicating a drug that they probably admit between closed doors that they can't. If their ads create more drug users, cool. More people to bust.

Maybe they should be thinking about a realistic policy to address drug use among kids, instead of sending more people to jail...it's not working. Still, they keep standing there firmly like a kid with his hands over his ears, shouting, "La la la la....I'm not hearing this!"

Sony, what were you thinking?

Does this ad make you want to go out and buy yourself a PSP? Sony apparently thinks it does. This ad ran first on billboards in the Netherlands, and can still be seen on the official Dutch PSP site. It has been produced in support of the new launch of a white PSP (as opposed to the regular black one), and is drawing an awful lot of flak in the US as well. It is important to note that the billboards have thus far only appeared in Amsterdam, where racial tensions are perhaps a little less overtly charged. The ads were created by TBWA, a company that specializes in "disruptive marketing." Their website says that "Disruption is the art of asking better questions, challenging conventional wisdom and overturning assumptions and prejudices that get in the way of imagining new possibilities and visionary ideas."

Wait. Hold on...let me get this straight. Did Sony just pay somebody to challenge the idea that racism is bad? What exactly are we supposed to infer from this sort of statement? I guess it does generate press for Sony, but this doesn't exactly seem like a smart move ever, not to mention one for a company who's currently facing some flagging fan support because of all the wrangling over the PS3. Yes, we've had some racially charged sorts of sentiments appearing in ads before, but the last ones I can remember were for Cross Colours, and that one promoted a vision of unity, not domination.

I hope Sony's just looking at this now and shaking their heads, because that's what the rest of the world is doing too. I join them in asking, "Sony, what were you thinking?"

UPDATE: Sony did in fact pull the billboard campaign on Tuesday, July 11, and apologized to critics of the campaign. That's better. Whether it's overt or covert, and whether it's supposed to make you think or not, it's still racism...

This guy eats what you won't.

I used to think I'd eaten some nasty stuff in my day, but I've only eaten ONE of the things Steve has. In his blog, aptly named Steve, Don't Eat It!, Steve eats unspeakable things and lives to tell about them. It's not really so much a gross-out type of thing as it is hilarious to read, because the prose he writes is so vivid that you really can taste the stuff he eats. Steve eats things from pickled pork rinds to potted meat to...well, you should just go see for yourself.

As Steve says, "Join me in saying F You to my taste buds..."

So this is what really goes on at the White House...

Ok, here's something I came across that was amusing, and seemed pretty a propos to most of the things I'm usually spouting about here. Presented for your viewing pleasure,

My United States of Whateva

Who's Listening to You? Part II: Online

Just in case you thought you were safer online than on the phone, once again our rulers are giving us reason to doubt. According to CNET news, the FBI is in the middle of drafting legislation that would require ISPs to provide wiretapping hubs for police surveillance operations and makers of networking products to build in backdoors that would allow eavesdropping. This bill would do a number of downright creepy things:

• Require any manufacturer of "routing" and "addressing" hardware to offer upgrades or other "modifications" that are needed to support Internet wiretapping.

In other words, this means that they want manufacturers to dupe unsuspecting customers by offering them "upgrades" for their software, when really all it's going to do is open the machine's back door to somebody else.

• Authorize the expansion of wiretapping requirements to "commercial" Internet services including instant messaging if the FCC deems it to be in the "public interest." This privilege would likely include in-game chats offered by Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming system as well.

So, they get to listen to your instant messages too.

• Force Internet service providers to sift through their customers' communications to identify, for instance, only VoIP calls. (The language requires companies to adhere to "processing or filtering methods or procedures applied by a law enforcement agency.") That means police could simply ask broadband providers like AT&T, Comcast or Verizon for wiretap info--instead of having to figure out what VoIP service was being used.

Your phone records wouldn't be private either, since they would be able to just ask for them, without any real cause or reason, because the law says they can. Don't we have principles about a "warrantless search"?

• Eliminate the current legal requirement saying the Justice Department must publish a public "notice of the actual number of communications interceptions" every year. That notice currently also must disclose the "maximum capacity" required to accommodate all of the legally authorized taps that government agencies will "conduct and use simultaneously."

In other words, they'd like to eliminate that bothersome clause that says they have to report when and how often they wiretap and how much capacity they use for these wiretaps. Wait, doesn't this amount to a warrantless search?

"People expect their information to be private unless the government meets certain legal standards," says Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute and member of a Homeland Security advisory board. "Right now the Department of Justice is pushing the wrong way on all this." Harper also said the proposal would "have a negative impact on Internet users' privacy."

This is a really serious problem lately. In the interest of rooting out supposed terrorists and continuing Bush's War on A Word, it is becoming increasingly possible for the privacy and rights of innocent Americans to be infringed upon in the name of "safety" and "national security." The FBI claims that it is necessary to expand the provisions of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) because criminals have now turned to using other sophisticated technologies like VoIP and instant messenging.

I've got serious problems with this. I support keeping Americans safe, just like anyone else does, but I don't support it at the expense of the Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment proclaims the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Allowing all of these people in the back of our computers and onto our networks is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Don't tell me that you have to get into everyone's business just to root out terrorists. We're catching plenty without these measures in place. We've worried more about terrorism in the past five years than ever before in the history of this country, and things happened every year. Remember back a decade or so ago when there would be a hijacking story on the news? It was just a little blurb about some extremists, usually from a Middle Eastern nation, who hijacked a flight. It would be a 30-second blip, and that's it. Now they're all major news items, since every single one is assumed to be a serious threat to "Homeland Security" and every one is assumed to have some connection to Al-Qaeda. Well, I've got a little theory here. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but it seems that the current administration (not just the guy in charge, but Our Government in general) has done an awful lot of work on bringing us all "under control", and things like a terrorist attack served as some great little ways to pass legislation that wouldn't fly otherwise. This place is increasingly running like a totalitarian dictatorship, although it's all passing under our radar because it's being disguised as "safety measures." Dictators rule through fear; so does Our Government. If they can keep us scared of something (big bad terrorists, nukes in Iraq and Iran, etc.), they can pass whatever they want if they can convince the American sheeple that they need this stuff to be safe.

And what security measures would we be forced to compromise in order to be further "protected" from terrorists? Wouldn't making it easier for the Feds to browse our networks also make it easier for hackers and wardrivers? Seems to me that making it easier for one to get in just makes it easier for all, and then we've got a circle that just made it easier for "terrorists" to do what they were supposed to be prevented from doing in the first place.

Currently, this legislation is a little late in the timeline to make it in this year, but some version of it could be seen as early as next year. This is said to be a "top congressional priority" for 2007. The FBI is showing it to industry reps, hoping something will happen. So just in case you've been wondering who's breathing heavy on the other end of your phone, it could be Your Government. It could also be them breathing heavily on the other end of your ISP connection.

Your Government Isn't Special.

I came across a little info recently that I'd like to share with all (any?) of you who read this blog.  The e-mail it was sent in bore the title,

NBA or NFL?

and asked me to decide, based on the information given, which professional organization it was talking about.  So here are the statistics.  You decide...

36 have been accused of spousal abuse.  
7 have been arrested for fraud.  
19 have been accused of writing bad checks.  
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses.  
3 have done time for assault.  
71, I repeat, 71, cannot get a credit card due to bad credit.  
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges.  
8 have been arrested for shoplifting.  
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits,
and 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year.

Can you guess which organization this is?

Actually, it's neither.  It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.  Guess they're not as special as they want us to believe...

As Fabulous as He Wants to Be?

When a man is getting dressed up for a formal occasion, everything has to be in order. Shoes, hair, jewelry...and the dress?

Now maybe this isn't my choice of formalwear for an evening, but it is for Gary, IN teen Kevin Logan. According to the Associated Press, he was turned away from the West Side High School prom on May 19th because he showed up in a dress, high heels, hair extensions, makeup and manicured nails. He said, "I have no formal pictures, no memories, nothing. You only have one prom." This could have been a simple case that would be difficult for him to fight, since the school's dress code does in fact prohibit the wearing of dresses by men. However, he has been dressing as a woman all year long. If this was a problem, why did they wait until the end of the year, and arguably one of high school's most memorable occasions, to tell him he couldn't? The school was quick to mention that it was about the violation of school policy and not his homosexuality, which it probably isn't, but really, if the kid wants to wear a dress, who cares? Are they worried that it will disrupt the learning of others? Gee, maybe there would be an honest, open-minded discussion on homosexuality and cross-dressing for once. But it seems the school would rather keep all of those things hidden from public view.

It's a little hard to go back on your word when it's something you've been allowing for some time...so Kevin is considering filing a complaint with the ACLU of Indiana against the school. So, if there are any other guys at West Side High who want to feel pretty too, he's going to make it possible for you. Go Kevin.

The Sourcebook for a Future Generation of Hippie Parents

* Wow. This is an unbelievable book. Ricardo Cortes has written and illustrated a book for parents to teach their children about marijuana. A little girl walks in on her parents smoking a joint after bedtime one night, and asks them what it's all about. Mom takes her on a journey the next day through all of the things that marijuana is and is not.

It's Just a Plant is an honest and frank look at marijuana without the anti-drug hysteria we normally see in most publications for young people. All the bases are covered, from its food and medicinal uses to its more commonly known function. The illegality issue is addressed, although it's in a non-threatening way, and the book stresses several times that it's not for kids, as well as mentioning the potential for abuse. Mom mentions "driving a car or drinking a glass of wine" as things adults do, and this is one of them too. In fact, some people get busted for possession in the middle of the book, and the cop lets them go with a warning, saying that it's not up to the cops whether it should be legal or not, but the cops are there to enforce the rules. He then adds that if you think a law is a mistake, maybe you should work to change it...

This book was blasted by the The House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Drug Policy as a promotion of drug use by and for children, when it explicitly states that it isn't, and that it can be abused. There are also people who choose not to use it, which is fair as well. A number of prominent magazines, newspapers and television personalities have come out both for and against the book.

So what do I think? Well, let's think about the first issue...is it a pro-legalization book? I think it is, whether it might say so or not explicitly. But everybody knows I support that idea, for the simple fact that it will generate tax revenues and make it harder for kids to get. I like the fact that the book includes people who don't use it too, so the reader can see there is a choice involved, instead of a huge legion of happy-go-lucky stoners. It does the movement no good to show everyone using, because that's just as biased a view as the DARE crowd has. I like the fact that it presents facts without the overt bias that is often present (even though there's obviously a little pro-marijuana bias in there). I think this book is fantastic, actually. Kids are going to learn about drugs somewhere, whether it's on the street or from catching their folks doing it, and they're learning younger all the time. Most drug education sounds like Mr. Mackie from South Park: "Drugs are bad, mmmkay?" Kids only get more curious if they aren't actually educated to the effects, and drugs become forbidden fruit, instead of, "Oh, yeah, my folks and their friends do that sometimes." Something that addresses the fact that lots of people use it, and that it hasn't turned them into horrible, unproductive people, has been a long time coming, I think.

Frank Zappa said once that "A drug is neither moral nor immoral - it's a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary license to act like an asshole." It's Just a Plant presents a side of the issue for young people that has been noticeably absent so far. But you can make that decision for yourself.

http://www.justaplant.com/
*Thanks to justaplant.com for the picture.

Whew...Close Call on the PS3

I and many other people worldwide are now breathing a collective sigh of relief due to an announcement posted today on Engadget.com . There has been a rumor floating around for some time about the possibility of creating copy-protected discs that would be playable only on the initial machine. In other words, once you played the game on your PS3, it would be unplayable on any other person's machine. This could possibly be the stupidest thing possible for any company to do, since it would effectively kill any used games market, as well as make it impossible for a kid (or adult) to simply take the game to someone else's house to play it together. It would almost certainly sink the Playstation as a contender in the video game machine market, because who wants to buy a system when you can't share and sell its games? What if you buy a game and hate it? You'd be stuck with it, because you wouldn't be able to sell it...

This rumor started mainly because the word got out that Sony has been working on technology to make this single-system copy protection possible. With the launch date for the PS3 looming nearer and nearer, someone made the leap in logic that this process was going to be used on the PS3. I first saw it in Game Informer magazine, so it really did have a lot of people scared, even in the gaming industry.

Swing and a miss, though, because Sony has now officially confirmed that this isn't going to happen, at least not on the PS3...my guess is they're working on it to copy protect DVDs, or something like that, in an effort to halt piracy. Still, it's something I hope we won't see, because sharing multimedia is half the fun of having it.

Update: Who's Listening to You?

This afternoon on CNN's Situation Room, good ol' Wolf reported to us that Verizon and BellSouth have responded to the allegations that they have entered into contracts with the NSA to supply their database with phone records, insisting that they have done no such thing. This news comes at the same time as news of class-action lawsuits filed in New Jersey and the District of Columbia by customers of the two companies.

So...let's sort out the facts.
1. Verizon and BellSouth deny allegations that they have entered into contracts with the NSA.
2. Not much is coming from AT&T right now.
3. Lots of people are suing the two companies who have responded to the allegations.

My suppositions?
Maybe the two didn't in fact enter into actual contracts...but c'mon, when the NSA tells you to do something, you pretty much better listen. Maybe they only asked once for the records, and haven't yet made an enduring agreement. At the risk of sounding a bit paranoid, AT&T's relative lack of communication on the matter almost seems like an admission of guilt. I'm sure the actual truth of the matter is somewhere in the middle of all of this. It's probably not quite as bad as it looks, but considering the fact that our government likes to do things that it tells us only other countries do when we're not looking, nothing's impossible.

Who's Listening to You?

If you hear heavy breathing on the other end of your phone line, it just might be your government "protecting your interests." The Reuters news service reported today that the NSA is collecting phone records of domestic telephone calls from the big three telephone companies, AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp., in an effort to build a database of calls to track and locate terrorists. The NSA insists that the program does not include listening to or recording conversations.

President Bush and his officials have defended the actions of the NSA, saying that it "aims to uncover links between international terrorists and their domestic collaborators and only targets communications between a person inside the United States and a person overseas." This is a patently false statement, since phone records from any of those three companies will obviously include billions of domestic calls that terminate domestically as well. This is the largest database in the world, with a goal of collecting all the phone calls made in the United States. The records don't necessarily contain name and address information, but come on, it's the NSA. They can get that information easily any time they want it by checking other databases.

Only Qwest Communications International has refused to help the NSA with its program. According to USA Today, Qwest, with 14 million customers in the Western United States, was "uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants."

Now I'm all for catching terrorists. But at what point does the "War on Terror" become an exercise in stealing our civil rights from us?

Stickin' it to the Oil Companies a Reality?

Dateline NBC reports on May 7th that the end of dependence on foreign oil could be well in sight, and the end of these exorbitant gas prices as well.

I'm complaining about the gas prices all of the time, and I live in an agricultural state, where the gas is 20 cents cheaper a gallon than in good ol' Chicagoland for mid-grade, because it's 10% ethanol. All those vegetable products produce enough sugars that could be fermented and used to run cars instead of petroleum products. There has long been an assertion among conspiracy theorists that "the Man" is working with the oil companies and car companies to keep gas mileage down and prices high. I'm sure something like that really does exist; however, the President has to put gas in his car too, and so he was quoted on April 25th saying, “Ethanol will replace gasoline consumption. Ethanol is good for the whole country.” Whether Big Oil will see it the same way is another matter, although it is interesting that in the last three years BP has relabeled itself as an energy company, not just an oil company, and is doing research into alternate and renewable energy sources.

The Dateline report focused on Brazil, who last month announced that it no longer has to import oil from anywhere, but is now self-sustaining. That is mainly due to ethanol, which is being produced from harvests of its sugarcane fields. Brazil has been committed to ethanol for 30 years now, and 90 days from now every car sold there will be a flex-fuel model, meaning it can run on either gasoline or ethanol. The Dateline report mainly consists of an interview with Vinod Khosla, a self-made multibillionaire who was a founder of Sun Microsystems, and is himself a biomedical engineer. He's spent the last three years working on alternative fuels, and says that he could envision the United States eliminating its dependence on foreign oil by switching to ethanol inside of five years. He admits that the gas mileage is slightly less with ethanol (read very slightly), but adds that the price could be more like 70 cents to a dollar a gallon, since production costs are so little and there would be no import taxes.

Best of all, it's far more environmentally conscious. It's a renewable resource, that in fact is nontoxic (Khosla sampled the byproduct straight from the production tank), and can be produced from almost any plant that is fermentable, since ethanol production facilities are in essence just big moonshine stills. Khosla asks us to imagine ethanol plants next to paper mills and orange juice factories, taking the leftover byproduct and turning it into usable fuel.

Sustainability. I can't wait. Maybe we will turn into an environmentally responsible nation...after the next election, of course.

...if it weren't for you meddling Americans!

We just can't keep our hands out of the world's business, can we? Last Tuesday, there was word from Mexico (via AP newswire) that a drug decriminalization bill would be passing, and that Presidente Vicente Fox had pledged to sign it. The bill, aimed at reducing organized crime instead of targeting users (way to go, Mexico!) would eliminate criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of drugs. Any drugs. The measure passed through Mexico's Congress the Friday before.

That is, until the next day. On Tuesday, a spokesman for Fox called the bill “an advance,” but on Wednesday, his office issued a different statement. “Without underestimating the progress made on the issue, and with sensitivity toward the opinions expressed by various sectors of society, the administration has decided to suggest changes.” Fox said he will "ask Congress to make the needed corrections to make it absolutely clear in our country, the possession of drugs and their consumption are, and will continue to be, a criminal offense.”

So what happened? We did. Once again, we stuck our fingers into somebody else's pie. The United States weighed in with criticism of the measure. According to a statement by US Embassy Spokeswoman Judith Bryan, “U.S. officials ... urged Mexican representatives to review the legislation urgently, to avoid the perception that drug use would be tolerated in Mexico, and to prevent drug tourism.” So we're worried that drug use might increase among border visitors and tourists. College spring break might take on a whole new flavor. Would it increase drug use? Probably a little, for a little while. But I still don't understand the reason we had to get involved. We're so busy trying to keep drugs out or pretend they don't exist...what, are we jealous now that our friend to the south was going to allow them? Are we so intent on locking up drug users that we don't want anyone else to take the privilege from us? And do they think that there aren't already other places in the world for drug users to go to on vacation?

"If I don't have them, you don't get to have them either." The picture above pretty much sums up what happens in North America, and most of the rest of the world, for that matter. "Here, Vicente, why dontcha change that part right there, ok? Sign here, initial here."

End result: Hours after the US statement was issued, Fox refused to sign the bill. His office did not mention the statement from the US government in its reasoning. But come on, why else would he change his mind about something like that in a few hours?

This happens every time somebody tries to be progressive. When are we going to stop bullying the rest of the world into doing our bidding and actually listen to them? We're one of the younger nations in the world, and some of our older siblings might have a bit more wisdom in some areas than we do. Still, because we have the biggest guns, we think that makes it okay to push everyone else around, and insist on our way. Did you know that the US has DEA offices in Canada? Why do we need offices that can only enforce American policies on American citizens on Canadian soil, unless we were looking for a way to push Canadians around too? Oh wait, that's already happened with Marc Emery. (He's another story for another post.)

Mexico is pissed. Canada is pissed. Most of the world hates us, because we think we have a duty to tell the rest of the world what to do. Countries like England had great monarchies rise and fall before a bunch of dirty colonists spoke of freedom. China and India have histories thousands of years older than we do, yet we still think it's ok to push international policy our way. The thing we've failed to recognize for a long time is that the world isn't just a big schoolyard. Might doesn't make right, and just because you can make someone do something doesn't mean they do so willingly, or that they will like you for it. We have spent decades creating resentment between us and the rest of the world. If we don't start to get along soon, we're going to find ourselves on the uncomfortable end of the same sharp stick, although this time it'll be held at our backs.

Laptops in the Classroom: Okay or No Way?

The Associated Press reported May 3rd that professors at a number of universities are working to ban laptops in the classroom campus-wide. They already prohibit them in their own classes. These professors have found, with good reason, that numerous students are doing other things on their laptops besides typing neat notes. As most colleges and universities of any size now sport WiFi networks covering almost every inch of campus, it is just as possible for a student to read e-mail and play online games in class as in a dorm room. Proponents of the bans point out that they make students more like stenographers, who will then miss out on discussion and social interaction with the class. Professor Charles Mooney at the University of Pennsylvania banned them two years ago for these reasons, and then this year, he allowed them back in as an experiment. His conclusion has been to continue the ban.

This does happen. I've found students in my own classes trying to pretend they're interested, when really they're bidding for something on eBay or playing solitaire. However, I've had just as many, and probably a lot more, students who actually are using the computer for its intended purpose in my classes. Being an Instructional Technology guy, I'm in the middle on the issue. I can see the point about limiting discussion by staring at a screen, since it is definitely true that the students who seem to talk the least are the ones who are looking over a laptop screen. The act of typing out notes does take some involvement from the class. I can also see the point about students playing games, chatting or surfing the web during class, because I've seen my classmates in my doctoral classes doing it, so it's not just eighteen-year-old greenhorns doing it either. I'm up in the air on whether to ban them because of the supposed interference with classroom discussion...sometimes I wish I had a little more cash, so I could have one myself. I can't read some of the notes I take sometimes, and typing them might help. Whether or not I would notice myself being removed from discussion by the act of typing is debatable...probably something I could study at a later date. I'd like to see the studies on this one before I try to make a decision.

The solution? Instructors need more control over their classroom environments. WiFi has made it easy for people to get online virtually anywhere. Heck, with a $50 hotspotter and a WiFi-equipped computer, you can log onto somebody else's network just by being close enough. So we need to be able to let students use computers for notetaking if they choose to, yet limit the internet availability. Simple. Just shut off the network locally. Chances are, it's probably not more than three Wireless Access Points (WAPs) serving even the largest classrooms. If instructors have the power to shut them off just before class, they won't need to worry that a student is more interested in Yahoo! Mail than notetaking, because the computer won't be good for much else. Sure, a student could still play a game loaded on the computer, but at that point, they're paying good money to sit in a lecture hall and play solitaire, which is just stupid. Universities not wanting to give instructors that kind of technical control could just have instructors choose certain hours of the day to have the WAPs shut off by their IT people. This would still make it possible for technology classes to have WiFi access, but not other classes. For example, there could be 'dead time' from 3:00 to 4:00 pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for English Comp I, but the network would be back on in the classroom at 4:00 for Mechanical Engineering 101. This is most definitely possible, because our home wireless router has this option. I think it's meant to limit kids' internet surfing, but that's what we're mostly talking about anyway, isn't it?

Shine on, you crazy diamond...

In the category of "Wow, I'd totally do like that guy" goes this one: Jason Niccum of Longmont, CO was arrested after using a device to cut his commuting time. He picked up an Opticon, one of those devices that the cops and ambulances use to change traffic lights, off of eBay and started using it. The cops noticed a pattern of disturbances at specific intersections at specific times of the day, and busted him.

Yes, he was, according to the letter of the law, impersonating an emergency vehicle, and is thus subject to arrest/prosecution. He lucked out with only a $50 fine, though. He's pretty lighthearted about it, saying, "I guess in the two years I had it, that thing paid for itself." Longmont is now going to change the frequency their traffic lights use so this won't happen again.

Come on now, who hasn't wanted to change the light in his/her favor while sitting at a red at 3 am with no one else around?

I know I would...

Flushing our children's privacy

A Houston-area school district just got an enormous amount of money to implement district-wide random drug testing on its students. According to click2houston.com, the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, which enrolls 87,000 students, got nearly $1 Million in Department of Education grant money, the largest of 55 similar grants in the nation. It should be noted that this isn't just in sports. This includes all extracurricular activities, including things like band, academic clubs and 4-H. If you want to do something other than simply attend class, you have to take a test.Yes, the US Supreme Court's 2002 ruling says that school districts do have the right to require these tests, since extracurricular activities are elective, but one wonders whether this is a right worth exercising.

This is not by any means the first time something like this has happened, but this is the biggest one yet.

"Texas has always been at the forefront," said Roy Garcia, assistant superintendent for secondary school administration in the Cypress-Fairbanks district. "It will be a positive way for students to find yet another reason to simply say 'No."'

People in support of this measure seem to think that this will give kids an excuse not to give in to peer pressure. "I've got to take a drug test for sports, so I can't." They must think kids are pretty dumb, too, to go in for that. If given a test at the beginning of a season, any kid knows they've got the rest of the season when they aren't being tested to indulge. They also know that if you lay off for a while, your body will get rid of what would show up. And these tests don't necessarily show everything anyway. Unless a student has drunk alcohol in the last few hours, for example, it won't show up on a test; things like LSD and Ecstasy are difficult if not impossible to detect unless the student is currently under the influence. I guess the assumption is that once a kid has to face the reality of a drug test, s/he will stop wanting to experiment. Bullshit. A kid who likes drugs is going to learn how to beat the test, plain and simple.

I have to interject at this point. The idea of Random Drug Testing is a lie. There is no such thing as random drug testing, because the tests cost too much to administer completely at random. They don't test you unless they think they have a reasonable chance of finding something to justify the expense. Cypress-Fairbanks is planning on testing about 40% of its 11,500 high school students who participate in extracurricular activities. Hmm, 4600 students sounds like a pretty focused group to me.

In the neighboring town of Tomball last week, the school board approved random drug testing for extracurricular students as well. Responding to concerns from parents, the board officials have stressed that the results won't be part of students' permanent records.

Yes, it's legal to do this. I'm not arguing that fact, but the idea that these tests can be required of any student at any time amounts to an invasion of privacy. Besides, under the aegis of "random" testing, they will mostly be targeting certain students who appear under the influence from time to time. Will they catch some students? Sure. But they may also embarrass themselves by testing a lot of students negative and spending lots of taxpayer money to do it.

Another issue raised is where this information will go. Suppose, for example, a student is undergoing treatment for depression and is taking medication. This also shows up on a drug test, when the student and student's family may feel it's none of the school's business to know. Drug tests may reveal things about students that the students are not normally obligated to share, and will force the issue and "let the cat out of the bag," so to speak. It's impossible to deny information like that, even if the school looks the other way, once it has come up in the first place.

Many adults have fought pre-employment drug screens on the grounds that they were unconstitutional. I just hope that kids can do the same. Making private information public doesn't do anyone any real good.

Boot Camp Triple?

Ah, dear readers, it seems I'm guilty of a gaffe. No sooner than I made a post about Apple's Boot Camp being used to dual-boot a Mactel, it seems someone else has one-upped it. OnMac.net, the home of narf and blanka's infamous solution, has created a new hack that allows a triple boot.

Well, ok, it's only really a two-and-a-half boot. They hacked the Windows loader instead of fooling with Boot Camp, so you still get the OSX or XP choice at the beginning, but picking XP gets you to a second set of choices between XP and Linux (they used gentoo).

Still, it's pretty cool. I haven't figured out yet who would need to use all three on a regular enough basis to warrant having them all installed, even if said person was a software developer. Any suggestions?

Ooh! Ooh...well, maybe not.

If you're like me, you've been fascinated by the whole UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) thing that a bunch of manufacturers have been working on. Something even smaller than a Tablet PC that's a full-function computer, with a touch screen and virtual keyboard. Cool. Most of the companies working on UMPC projects gave them really cryptic names to boost the hype a little: Microsoft's project is called Origami, and this one right here from Samsung is the Q1. I was really excited to hear some details about them in the podcasts and blog feeds from the trade shows that happen every spring. That is, until I found out about this one...

Seems the Samsung Q1 has a few bugs to be worked out. The company held a huge press conference at Seoul's Grand InterContinental Hotel last week, with the VP of Samsung, Intel Korea's President, and Microsoft Korea's President all set to do demo spots during the conference to show off their great new toy. Then all three of them had "technical difficulties," including a failed battery, an on-screen keyboard that wouldn't appear for a PowerPoint presentation, and another presentation that went into rapid slideshow mode on its own.

On the upside, I'm sure some of the tech support staff who were repeatedly called up onto the stage to help out their bosses might have appreciated the face time. I'm sure the investors weren't so pleased, though, because if anyone should have been able to make one of these products work, it should have been these three guys. Maybe I'll let somebody else buy one first...

Good guys don't always win.

Well, we had a show last night in Des Moines at a place I'm not going to name. It was a good show...we really played a tight, focused three sets. Problem was, after the show we ran into a problem with the owner. Our sound guy had noticed a bad cable in the monitor setup and pulled it out to show him, and replaced it with one of our own (we always carry enough for our setup). Well, the owner was looking around for this monitor cable, which was nowhere to be found. He insisted that he had done inventory on all his stuff the previous Saturday when another band had played, and that it had been in the setup when he set everything up before we came.

Not wanting to look like jerks, we went through all of our stuff. Three times. We did find one cord in our bags that wasn't ours...it was the bad cable that Chad had pulled out of the setup before the beginning of the gig. The owner insisted that it wasn't his, and we sure knew it wasn't ours. We offered him the cable, knowing full well that it didn't work, but it was the only thing we could do to show him that we weren't trying to rip him off. His next statement was, "I believe that you don't have it, and I know I don't, so I just need the cable by the time you leave, that's all."

Ok, so we had pretty much stripped our vehicles down and gone through everything, and it was now 2:30 am, when Riemann Music would certainly not be open. So facing the prospect of being blacklisted in the area by this guy, who is pretty connected, we had to buy him a new cable. Stan made sure to mention this whole thing at Riemann this morning, and the head sales guy, who knows this owner pretty well, said that he's a great guy, but that if he gets an idea in his head, he's not changing his mind for anybody. So here's what we think actually happened:

Last Saturday, this band switched in one of their cables into the setup, and accidentally took one of his cables. Since they're friends of his, he didn't think to check the cables to make sure. This Friday, when he set up, he didn't think to look at the cables, since he himself took them down the previous week. This week, he thought of it because he lent a microphone to us for our show, so Eric wouldn't have to sing into an instrument mic. When we gave him back his mic, he checked the cable, and lo and behold, it didn't match...so there we were at 2 am, watching his security tapes with him. Yeah, there's a cable you can see on the screen before we set up, but I don't think it's the cable he thinks it is. The thing vanished, plain and simple. I don't think there was any malice or sneaky dealings on anyone's part, including the band last week, but I bet if he has them go through their stuff, he'll find his missing cable.

It just stinks that we've gotta buy him a new cable, when we've proven we don't have it. In the interest of peace, and in not being called a bunch of crooks in public, and losing the good rep we're building, it had to be done. Next time, though, we're whipping out our union cards.

Has the War on Drugs done any good at all?

Well, it's been about thirty-five years, give or take a little, since the War on Drugs was launched. In that time, it has been an abysmal failure. Have we rounded up lots of drug dealers? Yes. Have we caught some drug traffickers? Yes. Have we caught a lot of people using drugs? Resoundingly, yes. So it might be time to ask, is all of this doing any good?

Well, people still use drugs...that hasn't gone away. The rates of drug use are roughly the same as in the 1970s, accounting for population increases, etc., even though we are locking up lots more people. The DARE program has been eliminated in lots of places because it actually made kids more likely to use drugs. According to the statistics, we lock up about 750,000 people a year since 2004 for possesssion of marijuana. Note that I'm just talking about simple possession, not dealing, trafficking, or cultivation. This figure of course leaves out the numbers of people convicted for other drugs...meth is really popular lately, especially where I live, and crack isn't going away. Add to that heroin, plain old cocaine, etc. etc., and you begin to wonder if the War on Drugs is doing any good at all. The United States spends billions of dollars a year trying to pretend that we can stop drugs from existing in this country when people just want them...and it's just like flushing money down the toilet.

I do not either condone nor condemn drug use by adults. I do not feel it is appropriate for young people to use them, but if we as adults can vote, drink alcohol, go to war, and otherwise exercise our rights, I think that people who choose to use drugs responsibly maybe shouldn't have to go to prison. It's worth mentioning that the majority of those convicted in the 750,000 statistic I mentioned earlier were not people with long criminal records; they didn't do anything else wrong besides choose a different method to relax than going to a bar. The continued prohibition of drugs in this country is doing us more harm than good. Maybe we really could win the War on Drugs...but it'd be a pyrrhic victory, and that's worthless when there might be another way.

So here's my idea. I know I'm not the first by any means to say this, but maybe eventually if enough of us say it someone will listen.

Legalize them. All of them. Tax and regulate them.

Some people reading this are probably going to say, "Oh my god, rampant drug use will abound...it'll sink the country!" Well, they said that about alcohol just before prohibition too. Yes, I agree, there will probably be a temporary spike in drug usage as it's a new thing, but by and large, the people who use drugs now will continue to do so...they will just make the numbers seem bigger because they're not afraid of getting caught anymore. Some people will try new things and like them, and some will try new things and they won't. Some people won't care either way, because they're just not interested in drugs. All of these are great choices for some people.

A legally taxed and regulated market has a number of distinct advantages.
First, it gets them off the streets. Drug dealers will sell to anyone who can pay, whether it's you, someone older than you, or the third-grader down the street. Now some dealers, I'm sure, do operate under some ethical code about not selling to kids...but not all of them by any means. A regulated market means having to show ID and prove you're an adult before you can get your hands on it. Do kids get alcohol when they're not supposed to? Sure they do. But it's a lot harder than if it was illegal, when someone looking to make a few bucks would sell to anyone interested. I fully agree, drugs are not for kids. But selling them behind a counter by someone who has to be licensed to sell would make them an awful lot harder for kids to get than the way things are now.

Second, taxation in a market produces local and state money. We tax alcohol and tobacco. Why not cocaine or marijuana? Instead of locking up peaceful, responsible people who only are guilty of possession, we could make money off of them by selling them a service.

Third, laws can be easier to enforce on legal substances. Make new laws about public conduct to encompass these drugs. If you shouldn't drink and drive, you shouldn't smoke and drive, etc.; drinking from an open bottle in public, except for certain specially designated areas, is illegal, so make it that way for other things. Properly created and enforced laws will keep all of these things either in bars (or you can read specially designated areas) or at home and off the streets.

Fourth, there are an awful lot of dangerous and life-threatening things we can do to ourselves that could possibly have negative consequences, but no one would think twice about telling us not to do them- "It's our right." The information out there on most drugs is pretty accurate. Someone choosing to do drugs has a wealth of information available about his/her drug of choice. If any of you have seen one of those Faces of Meth displays, you know that anyone who does something dangerous like that deserves what they get.

Finally, the Law of Supply and Demand says that if people want it, someone will supply it. Let's spend the money on treatment programs for people who develop drug problems, or more police to go deal with rapes, murders, robberies and real crimes. Most people who get arrested for drugs aren't doing anything wrong other than having something they're not supposed to. Did you know that you can get a life sentence just for possession of drugs in certain quantities? Not selling them to anyone or smuggling them (although that's what the law says you're doing with a large quantity, probably a safe assumption in most cases), but just having them. I don't think that drug use is necessarily drug abuse. I believe that for those who choose to do so, responsible use is possible, and that if we are truly a leader in the world, we should take a page from many other countries and re-evaluate our stance on drugs. I like to drink beer sometimes. Does that make me an alcoholic? No, but that's exactly the kind of statement that we're making to anyone who uses drugs. "You use them, so you have a problem."

Let's review the definition of addiction. Dictionary.com says:

1.Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance

2.The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.

Any addiction can be harmful, whether it's to money, cars, sex, alcohol, video games, drugs, the internet or anything else; it's something that interferes with your normal life functions and makes it harder to deal with the real world. I know loads of people who go out and drink themselves stupid on weekends and then drive themselves home (and sometimes they, their passengers or other motorists/pedestrians don't make it). Given the choice, I'd much rather hang out with some people who got slightly stoned and stayed home safely.

US Security? ::snicker::

Stuff like this just chills me. We spend so much time swaggering around like we're the greatest, most powerful nation in the world, and that we should be feared respected by everyone in the world. What we keep forgetting is that the bigger we are, the less we can keep to ourselves, and the dumber that strength makes us. Case in point:

According to the BBC News this morning, it is possible to buy flash drives containing classified US Air Force materials in Afghanistan. Shopkeepers in a market next to the Bagram base outside Kabul (which we have occupied since we invaded) have been selling stolen American military property like unfiroms and binoculars as well as the drives. The drives were said by members of the LA Times and the Associated press to contain things like:

Names of corrupt Afghan officials
Reports on enemy targets and details about US defenses
Confidential information about US soldiers.
A description of the type of training a group of soldiers had received.
A manual for flying the Chinook helicopter
Information that could put the lives of several informants and sources at risk, including pictures, phone numbers, and even the names of their family members
Intelligence gathering strategies
Photos of classified portions of the base

With all this really secret stuff on them, you'd think they'd encrypt or password protect this stuff, right?

Nope, not most of it.

Many Afghani citizens work inside the boundaries of the base. This is not a problem in itself at all, but some of this kind of stuff isn't exactly something we should be leaving lying around in a sensitive area! A shopkeeper told the Associated Press that he wasn't interested in what was on the drives, but was selling them for their value as hardware. He said they were stolen from offices on base and that he gets them all the time.

Ok, maybe. And maybe he really is selling them for the hardware value on the street. But if the wrong person happened by his shop that day, they might end up with more than they bargained for.

Or maybe exactly what they bargained for.

Decisions, decisions...

I'm really torn. For a while now I've been nickel-and-diming myself to buy a new instrument of sorts. I've been playing guitar for 18 years now and bass for 16, and for a while I've been looking for a way to do both at the same time. Well, lo and behold, I have two options:

The Chapman Stick



or the Novax CH8 8-String Guitar .
I've known about one of these two instruments since high school, and the other since college. There is no question that I will own both of them someday, but which one to go for first...that's the question. Also, I don't nearly have enough cash to do so at the moment, so I'm on the verge of asking my entire family, "Hey, don't get me any presents for the next two or three years. Just chip in on this if you want to buy me anything."

I figure the best way to go about this is to list some pros and cons...I'm particularly interested in commentary from players of these instruments, because while it may not make my final decision, it could certainly help guide it.

Stick pros:
1. Costs about a third as much (reconditioned) as the CH8
2. Greater low range
3. Potential for musical expression and usage in different styles might ultimately be greater
4. Melody strings tuned in fourths just like my basses; easy to learn that side.
5. All tapping: new, interesting sounds

Stick cons:
1. Reversed bass strings on bass side (lowest in the middle) means a serious learning curve, and some serious practicing will be needed before I can comfortably gig with it.
2.Different tuning than I am used to on my other instruments; will need to learn.
3. New technique of the instrument means parts will have to be slightly different than standard bass or guitar parts.
4. Have to get on a waiting list to get one, that could take a year to get one at all, not even specifically the wood, etc. I'd like

CH8 pros:
1. 3 bass strings, 5 guitar strings; standard tuning I'm already used to.
2. Technique very similar to instruments I'm already familiar with; could probably gig with it after a month of practice.
3.Novax Guitars has one in the shop right now in exactly the wood, finish, etc. I want. Novax usually takes a year to get you a guitar when you order. This one's ready to ship.

CH8 cons:
1. Would the fact that I can only play as many things as five fingers of my right hand will allow ultimately limit what I could do contrapuntally?
2. Costs 3 times as much as a Chapman Stick

I don't know what to do here. I'm looking for the next big leap in my musical life, and it's one of these. I just can't figure out which one...

Bush slips another one under the radar

Ah, the Patriot Act. That well-thought-out piece of legislative irony that makes it so much easier for Americans to spy on Americans. Not only did we use it for its first term, but we reauthorized it for a second one. Way to go, America.

It should be pointed out that I am in no way trivializing the loss of life that occurred during the World Trade Center disaster in 2001. We lost nearly 3,000 American lives, and the lives of those from many other nations as well. It was a horrific series of events that should not ever be repeated.

That said, the Patriot Act makes it very easy for the FBI, CIA, NSA and any other governmental agencies that use surveillance to eavesdrop, search and seize without a warrant those that it suspects of "Un-American activities." Has this netted any real terrorists? Probably it really has. But the expansion of power that it grants to law enforcement, especially without a warrant, basically on suspicion, really rings to me of McCarthyism. While the renewal of the Act does include 30 new "Civil Liberties Safeguards," it makes one wonder what kinds of other people they're picking up with this thing, since it basically authorizes them to listen to and spy on anyone just because they think they might find something.

The scary part, though, is Bush's signing statement about the Patriot Act's renewal. He signed the bill at a White House ceremony on March 9th, saying it was ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people."

But wait, there's more. After all the guests and the press had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement." For those who might not know, a signing statement is an official document in which a President lays out his interpretation of the law. He said, ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

So basically, he's saying that he doesn't consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers are used, and even though the new provisions say he's supposed to, he can withhold information if he decides that it would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

This is just another in a series of moves by the President to expand Executive power at the expense of the other branches. Yeah, the three branches have checks and balances. But they're really starting to balance heavily at one end.

Apple's Boot Camp reawakens the PC vs. Mac debate

Ever since March 16th, there has been a new wave of debate in the age-old PC vs. Mac fight. The idea was that supporters would pledge money to be given to the first person who posted the solution to make an Intel Mac dual-booting (that is, to offer a choice of XP or OSX at startup. Two guys named narf and blanka posted the solution that day, won $13,000, and went down in history.

That is, until Apple announced something else new on its 30th birthday. It released a public beta version of Boot Camp, which basically will do what narf and blanka's maybe slightly less elegant solution would also do. It also mentioned that Boot Camp will come standard with the release of OSX 10.5 Leopard.

Yes, it has been proven since it was released that Boot Camp is not without its bugs (it's beta, after all), but you'd better believe that Apple will have worked those out by the time Leopard is released. I'm not surprised, though, that Mac would run Windows before Windows would run Mac (At least well. Anybody remember MacinDos? Bleccchhhh). They've also proven that it'll run the beta version of Windows Vista, so it's not just a "right now" thing.

Personally, I think it's just another part of the reason I'm already leaning toward a Mac for my next computer. Don't get me wrong, I'm a lifelong PC guy, but I'm getting tired of having to do every little trick I know just to install something that I can simply plug into a Mac and have work flawlessly. With a dual boot option (and hopefully a later option that will let me run both OSs at once and transfer files between them), it means that I could use one computer for everything instead of having two. Nice.

My question is this: Does this spell trouble for the PC community and a big win for Apple? Or does it mean that Apple is going to be selling Macs with Windows someday and the PC community is recognizing Apple's defeat?

Welcome!

Hello to all,

This is a little corner on the Web I'm choosing to call my own. (Does the Web have corners?) I'm going to put up items I find interesting from my own daily life, the news, philosophy, etc. I'm particularly interested in technology, education and music, so there will be plenty of things along those lines, but as most of my thoughts occur randomly, I can't say for sure what will appear here just yet.

One important note: While I encourage the participation of everyone interested, and I expect and even invite some of you to disagree with me, I want to make it very clear that flaming will not be tolerated here. Anyone who posts personal attacks against me or anyone else who comments here, or who feels it necessary to call names, will find that their comments mysteriously disappear from the blog. This place is for free exchange of ideas, debate and discussion, not badmouthing and childishness. If you want to discuss, feel free. If you want to point fingers and call names, this is not the place for you.

That bit of ugliness aside, I'm glad to see you here. Enjoy.