This should come as a real shock (please note the sarcasm! ;-). When you take away the oversight built into our government’s spying/wiretapping programs to expedite the ‘war on terror’, no one will abuse the system, right? No, never!
FBI Tried to Cover Patriot Act Abuses With Flawed, Retroactive Subpoenas, Audit Finds
This is exactly why the FISA act created the appropriate oversight courts, and why a warrant is required for this type of activity. If the system isn’t fast enough, buy better technology, get more courts created with people who have clearance, etc. Don’t just bypass the system!
Dana at Apophenia summarizes best why I’m not a huge fan of Wal-mart. While they do try to do things for the community and have become more eco-friendly, they still benefit from outsourcing production to overseas in sometimes questionable work environments, and they destroy local businesses when they move in. Plus, you can drive around and see empty Wal-mart building all over the place, leaving an eyesore in their wake.
But the larger point Dana’s making is valid: cultural sustainability. I’m thrilled environmental sustainability has become a focus of late, and hopefully it continues (I think actually it will). But we need to think long term about the ramifications of our actions on society & culture. To me, it blends with social responsibility. Just because you can do something (as a corporation), doesn’t mean you should. We’re all responsible for the world we live in, in terms of society, the environment, and much more. People, schools, corporations, the media, the government. Every entity contributes and every entity should be held to responsible standards.
Anyone who considers waterboarding to not be torture should be waterboarded. Let’s see if it changes their minds then. I’ll be glad to be the one to hold ol’ Bushie down during the procedure. 
The ethics of torture to me, are much like conflict of interest. If you think there might be a conflict of interest, there is. It doesn’t matter if you really, absolutely feel there is one or not. That’s the general standard that’s used. If a reasonable person suspects a certain action could be construed as a conflict of interest, it usually is considered to be one.
If a particular action seems like torture, and some think it might be torture, then for all practical purposes it IS torture. Torture isn’t something with a solid black line that you can step right up to and feel clean about. There’s a grey area. Waterboarding is eitehr grey, or black in this analogy. I seriously doubt anyone considers it “white”. The intent of the Geneva Convention was not to say “don’t do something to a prisoner that every person on Earth considers torture”, its purpose is to outlaw governments from doing anything to prisoners that is ethically wrong. Even if that’s not in the wording, it’s what is meant. What are we if we result to torturing people to feel safe? How can we sleep at night knowing what we’ve done? On top of it all, torture has very low accuracy in its results. Under torture, people talk. They’ll say anything. So what are we really accomplishing doing this? I am ashamed of this government for continuing these horrific acts in the name of protecting America.
Well, we’ve reached a significant milestone in the adoption process. After months of paperwork and expenses, we are approved by the agency. They have copies of our birthmother letter to send out, and our site is linked from their website. Now comes the waiting game! It could be tomorrow, it could be a year from now. While the number of steps to this point has sometimes been daunting, there’s at least been a next small step. “Ok, I submitted that form, now let me get this form done”. There’s nothing left for us to do at this point besides wait. Well, we can “network” as they call it. And, we could go ahead and start shuffling rooms around. So I guess there’s a little to do to keep me busy!
Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons & Dragons, the seminal tabletop roleplaying game passed away today at 69. I didn’t play D&D but for a few years in middle school (and loved it!), but it lead soon to GURPS, another roleplaying system. No matter what the system, Mr. Gygax created an entire genre of entertainment. One I have enjoyed very much over the years, and for that I thank him.
Tabletop roleplaying is an in person experience, and as such it stimulates conversation, social skills, and more. Being a game, it teaches about competition, leadership, and cooperation. And being an open-ended format as opposed to a book or boardgame, it inspires the imagination. Skinny teenage geeks who didn’t feel like they felt in growing up could (and still can) find an escape in the fantastical adventures roleplaying proposes. Swords and sorcerors, dungeons and dragons, the imagination could run wild.
Wil Wheaton of course summarized much the same more eloquently than I could, read his homage to Mr. Gygax here.
I suppose I should finish with the obligatory RPG reference. So, Gary, may 3d10+2 angels carry thee to thy rest.
I’ve always enjoyed Irish/Celtic music anywhere from traditional Celtic style ballads to Irish drinking songs & jigs. While I do like a lot of the genre, there’s a number of artists and songs that I don’t care for either. I particularly have to hunt to find an artist or band who I like most of their songs. That group for me used to be Clandestine until they broke up.
Well this weekend I went to the North Texas Irish Festival with my parents down at Fair Park. It’s a gathering for Irish (and Scottish) music, food, and more. The food side was a bit disappointing. One Irish pub downtown had a booth with good corned beef and cabbage, otherwise it was typical fair fare. There were a few interesting booths with celtic knot pendants and such, and a lot of booths that only barely had anything to do with the theme (Harry Potter hats, candle shops, etc.).
All in all though it was a nice day for it and I heard some good music. In particular I found a new band I really like. Surprisingly, they’re available on iTunes. The Town Pants are from Vancouver and have a great upbeat sound to them. So far everything I’m hearing sounds good, so maybe they’re that new Irish group for me. If you like this style of music, check them out!
My glue for my model train buildings dried up several months ago and it took me forever to get around to buying some more. Well I finally did and finished painting and assembling the latest building, a factory. According to the signs that come with it, a beer factory.
I also put in a field for the farm. They sell long wheat like strands for field grass. It’s actually for a much larger scale. I cut it down and glued in clumps into Woodland Scenics soil landscape material.
I’ve also added a passenger car imported from Japan (thanks Marcia!), and some new figures. Once I get the next building done (another traditional downtown style building) I’ll post some more pics of the overall set.
If you’re a space buff check out the article as it talks about a galaxy cluster the Hubble telescope captured recently and whether it’s an amalgamation of other galaxies or always been bright and alone. (Quick sidenote, didn’t the Hubble get retired? That thing has truly been amazing!)
If you’re not into such details, just click through on the thumbnail to see the picture. Each of those gems in the picture is a galaxy. Not a star system, but a friggin’ galaxy with millions if not hundreds of millions of stars. There are endless possibilities out there. The universe is a huge, majestic place.
Dana at Apophenia has a great post about exposing people’s information from social networks in an API-friendly manner. While her thoughts are great about the specific topic at hand, she makes a very valid broader point: just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Science and technology have an obligation to be responsible and think ahead about the ramifications of choices made in the ivory tower.
When I buy music these days, it’s usually in a batch of mp3s. It used to be from iTunes, but now I go first to Amazon for DRM-free mp3s. If I can’t find it there, then iTunes. If not there, then the torrents for a free copy. I at least try to be legal! 
Often my music shopping starts with a song I hear on a tv show or movie soundtrack. Usually it’s some new catchy emo tune (yeah, I’m willing to admit I like sappy rock from cute preppy guys!). Sometimes it’s an old 90’s tune from my high school years. It’s funny how you strongly associate songs with certain times, places or memories. Like SoundGarden’s Black Hole Sun is forever ingrained on my brain associated with my friend Jacob Titus’ house playing Magic. Somebody put the song on repeat because they liked it, and forgot about it. We all forgot about it as we got busy playing, and hours later we all wondered why the song was seared into our minds.
But I digress! Lately I’ve realized a number of songs I loved in the 90s I don’t have now for whatever reason. They didn’t survive the conversion from CDs to mp3s, or didn’t survive hopping from one PC to another. I finally went and searched for a list of top 90s songs and came across this list which is fairly good. I had most of them, but found a few I’d forgotten about. And a couple, like Sponge’s Plowed, I thought, who is that and what song is that? And the moment it began, I went “Oh yeah! I really like this song!”. I’ve recalled a few of the songs which I might describe as more eclectic, like Butthole Surfer’s Pepper, and the Jim Carroll Band’s People Who Died.