Month: July 2007

Beautiful Code (no, not mine)

Beautiful Code is a new book from O’Reilly that illustrates how programmers solves problems: thinking about it, computers are really fast calculators or adding machines, so how do programmers make them edit photographs or run web servers?

Perhaps the rest of the book covers that, but Tim Bray’s chapter on search is available for download and I took a look at his examples. Hey, I actually learned something.

Continue reading “Beautiful Code (no, not mine)”

Disgraced and dishonored, yes. Uncomfortable, not so much.

The Phil Nugent Experience: Gabba Gabba:

But whatever happens, how will Libby be disgraced? Is Oliver North disgraced? Elliot Abrams? Richard Perle? I’d kill to be disgraced at their income level. The whole idea that they could be disgraced is based on an earlier time, in a world where morality trumped partisan politics. As long as he lives, Libby will never have to face another human being who disapproves of what he’s done; he lives at a level where people can cherry-pick their friends and connections, and the terrible future he faces will consist of a forced march through think tanks, well-paid speaking engagements, and maybe his own TV or radio show, all of them carefully arranged so that he’ll be playing to audiences who’ll think he’s the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl. Now that his time performing for juries is behind him, he’s probably laid eyes on the last person he’ll ever meet who even has the equipment to understand by what standard he could have done something wrong, himself included. His natural habitat is the company of people who will tell you that while they respect the justice system and the jury’s decision and rakka-rakka-rakka, he committed “no underlying crime,” by which they mean that because he’s a Republican, in their eyes he cannot be a criminal.

Yes, for the hand-wringing about how tragic it is for such a dedicated public servant to have his reputation tarnished, it won’t make a whole lot of difference. His $250K fine will be paid from his $5MM defense trust, and he’ll start working for AEI or some other wingnut welfare establishment as soon as he feels like it. I suspect he won’t be able to write a book, at least not one that has a shred of real information in it, but he’ll be secure all the same. As Phil says, if that’s disgrace, I’ll take some.

links for 2007-07-03

philanthropy on the cheap

I’ll have to forego aphereris donations this summer, for lack of time, but whole blood is easy. I just got this from my local blood center.

Summer is a challenging time for Puget Sound Blood Center to sustain adequate blood supplies. We lose access to nearly 20% of our donor base: people who donate blood at our region’s high schools. Furthermore, many donors take vacations during the summer as well.

Unfortunately, the need for blood does not take a vacation. On any given day, Puget Sound Blood Center needs to collect blood from 800-900 volunteers in order to support patients undergoing medical care. By sharing your good health, you provide hope and a vital tool that can help patients regain their health. Furthermore, blood donors provide some peace of mind and hope to the families supporting their loved on during their time of crisis.

Please help us by making the effort to donate blood this summer. Please help us further by sharing this information with a friend or co-worker: the primary reason why people do not donate blood is because they were not asked by someone they respect.

For further questions about blood donation, please contact me, or Puget Sound Blood Center’s Clinical Nurses at clinicalprogram@psbc.org or call 206-292-2543.

Interesting how Gmail parses these things and offers to create calendar events for you.

can’t add a thing

just a note::

There’s a queasy appropriateness about the fact that the Libby pardon came down on Bring ’em on day.

Soldiers can be maimed or die and their families decimated for Bush’s bravado, but Scooter Libby can’t be asked to go to jail for destroying an intelligence network because it might upset Mary Matalin’s kids?

Even if you voted for these people, you didn’t vote for this. Please remember it a year from now.

But the nub of it is this:

Bush: Screw The Law:

UPDATE: Emptywheel makes an important point (emphasis added):
“He commuted Libby’s sentence, guaranteeing not only that Libby wouldn’t talk, but retaining Libby’s right to invoke the Fifth.”

So there it is: he’s free to do anything but rat out the people who set him up. Remember LBJ’s old axiom: I never trust a man unless I’ve got his pecker in my pocket.

being an American

Howard Zinn, Idiot [Oliver Willis: Like Kryptonite To Stupid]:

The author of “People’s History of the United States” (which should be retitled “A Revisionist History Of The United States, As Told By Socialists, Anarchists, and Other Members Of The Fringe”), says that we should put away flags on Independence Day because nationalism is “one of the great evils of our time”. What a maroon.

My comments:

i have to agree with the commenters above that Zinn’s premise is not anti-American, at least not opposed to the America of the Founders. But he makes a good case that a lot has been done in the name of America that is not necessarily in tune with those ideals. The examples he cites — wars in Mexico, Cuba, the Phillipines, all the in the name of saving those people from themselves — do not ring true to Washington’s words about avoiding foreign entanglements.

The founding of the US was seen as a repudiation of the politics of empire, of kings, and of institutionalized inequalities. Barring slavery’s long run, it worked pretty well for the first hundred years. And I don’t disagree with the need to America to act in the World Wars. But the Spanish American War? Vietnam? Iraq? Grenada? Panama?

Do you really see those actions and the rise of the corporate state as consistent with the Founders ideals?

I see no advantage based on where you were born or whose passport you carry. What does claiming “my tribe is better” do for you? Better to reflect on what America has done and can do to make the world better than just claiming that “this is the best place in the world and if you don’t agree you suck/are an idiot/hate America.”

This is one reason I oppose naturalization at birth and think everyone should be tested before being granted citizenship.

I dunno, half the people in this country are quick to claim Irish or Italian or German ancestry all the while chanting USA!!11! USA!11!

A little conflicted, dontchathink?