New leaders = new ideas?

On her heavily anticipated first interview, Governor Palin said about the Bush doctrine:

"I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made, and with new leadership, and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better."  (emphasis mine)

Now, if this is truly her stance and not a misspeaking or other error, I'm even more afraid of her than ever.

The implication that the ability to change one's approach to a problem is not possible and that such a change requires replacement of a leader is ludicrous.  It's idealogy as its worst.  A blind path towards a goal that is known to be wrong, simply because it was the one started with.

Clark on McCain

So it has finally been said.

What I had been whispering to close friends and family for months is finally in the media. I didn't foresee how it would happen, but I am pleasantly surprised by this turn of events.

Retired General Wesley Clark has finally said the thing that he singularly, as a prominent member Democratic party, could say: McCain does not have the experience to be Commander in Chief. Full interview on CNN here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0D1hX9YXtd0 . Note the many admiring words Clark has for McCain, which I agree are well deserved.

The Republican response was textbook. They got an Admiral to say: "If Barack Obama wants to question John McCain's service to his country, he should have the guts to do it himself and not hide behind his campaign surrogates." Nice. Bring the Admiral to counter a General. Then ignore content and demote the General to a mere "surrogate", calling on Obama to say what he can only be branded un-American (yet again) for saying. What's wrong with McCain answering this, if surrogates are so unworthy of commenting? Afraid he can't make commanding a squadron at peace time sound experienced enough?

I just thank God that Clark's middle name isn't Mustafa (I can't believe the Hussein thing still gets mentioned constantly on Fox News).


My only criticism of Clark is minor and off topic. Still as a scientist, fighting for better public understanding, I'd like to add the following.

I certainly don't appreciate his comparing statement of developing a strategy for Iraq as being more difficult than "some guy writing on a blackboard E=MC²"*. He'd be right if he meant it's a terrible analogy, since that equation is a well known solution to an well-defined problem. On the other hand Iraq is a complex issue that has never been solved and due to its immensely complex and uncontrolled (read "non-scientific") nature could never have been solved before. Yet if he's referring to the developer of that equation (yes, it was Einstein) there's a gross understatement here of the experience, academic groundwork, dedication and time required, not to mention intellectual brilliance. The way I see it- both jobs require all of the above.

I find it hard to believe that he still uses that equation, especially considering the grief its mention gave him in 2004. True, most people aren't familiar with the form x=vt (which everyone actually knows as miles-travelled = miles-per-hour * hours) or understand what F=ma (Newton's second Law of Motion) means, but he could have omitted the equation itself and said "an equation on a blackboard." While still a poor portrayal of science, I expect the target audience mostly still has such a limited understanding of plugging numbers into equations.

235 is the loneliest number

Crazy Steve is at it again, which puts me into my ramble and rage mode- get out of the way, or put on a pair of steel-toed boots.

Ballmer: Linux infringes on 235 patents!
Sane person: Which patents are those?
Ballmer: Well there's 42 in the kernel, "graphical user interfaces" have 65, OpenOffice infringes on 45, e-mail programs 15, and 68 other transgressions"
Sane person: Yes, yes- but which specific patents are you talking about?
Ballmer: We will enforce our intellectual property! Resistance is futile!

Steve-o's empty words remind me of another great dictator... Forgive me, I meant President and his minions. Sure Ballmer will tell us what's infringing, just as SCO's lawyers told the judge which code was copied into Linux. Do you recall this doozie: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." "Somewhat"? Don't you love how much we value precision these day, especially when it comes to the collection of intelligence and its use in dictating global policy? It's as if we don't care for truth anymore, or do we?

The reason for being so forthcoming? If he presents evidence, the Open Source has the chance to refute it, or invalidate his obvious and unoriginal patents. But keep them secret, and you can sell those coupons and keep the Windows monopoly for another year or two. It's a brilliant strategy- rant about how you're being attacked and violated, and nobody will doubt your sincerity.

As usual the financial media are clueless when it comes to anything out of the ordinary tedium of stock price fluctuation, record Dow figures, management shuffling, and their stupid unending and almost universally wrong forecasts. The piece I linked to at the start of this article isn't bad compared to the general coverage of Linux and related issues, even if it does include jokes it assumes its readers don't understand. But most of the article is fluff, unnecessary, and providing little of actually-necessary context. Here's one small example of incompetence appearing at the core of the issue at hand...

Assclown... um... I mean, Fortune Magazine senior editor, Roger Parloff writes: "Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez sat down with Fortune recently to map out their strategy for getting FOSS users to pay royalties. Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents." (emphases added). Tell me Mr. Parloff- how is "no fewer than" a "precise figure?"

Why is it that Ballmer's image is now that of a politician, and why does Parloff allow him to get away with it? Maybe Parloff just doesn't want to upset Microsoft's PR division. Is it related to how spineless and corporate news media has become? That is what put Parloff's CNN only slightly below Fox News on my list of things to think about during my daily two minutes of hate.

Campbel's Stitch'n Soup

Every once in a while, while viewing my the BBC's "Live bookmarks" that come pre-configured in Firefox, I open an article even though I really do know better.

Today it was an article about model Naomi Campbell, who has been sentenced to do some dirty work (and pay medical expenses, but that doesn't help get her in the tabloids).

I don't about these so-called "famous" people. Their accomplishments are often mediocre at best. Many of them who are followed because of their looks, are often unappealing to me- take Paris Hilton for example: Yuck!

But back to my original chain of thought. So once in a while, I actually get something out of the articles written about these empty, shallow creatures. Honest.

In this case, I was given a fascinating question to ponder. No, not what is Campbell going to wear when she's mopping the floor. What I'm wondering with all my mental might is how on Earth does throwing a cellphone at somebody give them four stitches???

I don't get it. I mean, did she slingshot it around her head, thereby providing it with the kind of heat you only get from a major-league star pitcher? Did it have a spike collar accessory? Did the woman already have stitches in the exact point of impact, which were broken, thus requiring re-stitching? What is the statistical likelihood of that happening? How many more semesters of physics would I need to calculate the airspeed velocity of an European cellphone if one were throwing it by the husk? Is Naomi Campbell an ex-pitcher in a major league and how does that affect above statistics?