Month: July 2007

greatest hits

The reason I had to deal with all that mess with busted rewrite rules yesterday was so I could bring you [fanfare, please]: a crank’s progress » greatest hits.

Yeah, a lot of sites do this but they’re run by smarter people who can figure out how to mine their log files more easily than I can.

This will update daily. Dunno who will look at it besides me, but that’s a big enough audience for more of this stuff.

[resolved] busted WordPress install

Hmph. For some reason, permalinks no longer work as they used to. No idea why.

If anyone knows how permalinks work and how they are managed by WordPress, let me know or add your wisdom here. I’m not convinced that the magic “just happens” on. It has to be stored somewhere and I have no idea where.

So if you read this tripe in a feed reader, all is well. But if you browse or arrive via a search query, you’re outta luck.

[resolved]: the rewrite rules that make those pretty permalinks weren’t being flushed from the database where it is stored (in the table crank_options). Wiping out the value there and forcing WP to repopulate it did the trick. Details here.

links for 2007-07-10

someone hasn’t been paying attention

Rain Dance:

it could get to the point here in America, not far down the line, when a desperate public will beg some political leader to push them around, to tell them what to do, to direct their behavior in some purposeful way to save their asses.

Not far down the line? How about the midterms elections of 2002 and the general election in 2004? And to use the phrase “corn pone American fascist” in the next sentence without a hint of awareness is a bit much.

Kunstler’s jeremiads get tedious sometimes. Worse than a self-styled prophet is one who thinks no one is listening and shouts all the louder.

Colin Powell was wrong on some things but My Lai? not on his watch

Colin Powell Is Full Of Crap [Oliver Willis: Like Kryptonite To Stupid]:

Powell was directly involved in the Army cover-up of the My Lai massacre during Viet Nam.

I never knew he was anywhere near it: WikiPedia has more.

Initial investigations of the My Lai incident were undertaken by the 11th Light Infantry Brigade’s Commanding Officer, Colonel Oran Henderson, under orders from Americal Division Assistant Commanding Officer, Brigadier General Young. Henderson interviewed several soldiers involved in the incident, then issued a written report in late April claiming that approximately 22 civilians were inadvertently killed during the military operation in My Lai. The army at this time was still describing the event as a military victory resulting in the deaths of 128 enemies.

Six months later, a 21 year old soldier of the 11th Light Infantry named Tom Glen wrote a letter accusing the Americal Division (and other entire units of the US military, not just individuals) of routine brutality against Vietnamese civilians; the letter was detailed, its allegations horrifying, and its contents echoed complaints received from other soldiers. Colin Powell, then a young US Army Major, was charged with investigating the letter, which did not specifically reference My Lai (Glen had no knowledge of the events there). Powell wrote: “In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.” Later, Powell’s refutation would be called an act of “white-washing” the news of My Lai, and questions would continue to remain undisclosed to the public. On 4 May 2004, Powell, then United States Secretary of State, said to Larry King, “I mean, I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored.”[7]

The carnage at My Lai might have gone unknown to history if not for another soldier, Ron Ridenhour, who, independent of Glen, sent a letter to President Nixon, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and numerous members of Congress. The copies of this letter were sent in March 1969, a full year after the event. Most recipients of Ridenhour’s letter ignored it, with the notable exception of Rep Morris Udall. Ridenhour learned about the events at My Lai secondhand, by talking to members of Charlie Company while he was still enlisted.

I don’t see a cover-up. It took a while for the news to get out, but I don’t see that as a cover-up so much as how news travels from the front-line to mainstream media an ocean away.

collision

iPhone’s AJAX SDK: No, thank you.:

As I said, the iPhone is a great device. I’m not going to start some crusade about the SDK; I’ll love the iPhone even if it never has a real SDK, but I’ll also be keeping an eye out for a device from another company that lets *me* be creative, and not just Apple’s chosen few engineers.

OpenMoko: Linux-based $300 open smartphone:

The OpenMoko is a $300, Linux-based open smartphone. Unlike the iPhone, it doesn’t come locked to any provider (and certainly not to the crooks at AT&T), it doesn’t come with DRM, and it allows you to install any third party app you like, even if Steve Jobs worries that it might spoil your experience. It’s still in “developer preview,” but this might just be my next phone.

I’m pretty confident Wil has seen this already: it remains to be seen if the OpenMoko crew can get Cocoa on their device.