Helena Cobban, like me, is impressed with the British reaction to the London Bombings. She writes in her recent post, Police work making a difference in London:

So anyway, this evening I want to say hats off to the British and their focus on massive and (with that one notable mistake) successful police work. And hats off to their ability to build new relations of apparently greater trust and mutual respect with people who formerly– and for various reasons, not all of them crazy– might have turned the condoner’s blind eye to the activities of the men of violence in their midst.

Calm, de-escalation, building relationships, and sticking to decent values of respect for everyone’s human rights… That, it seems to me, is the best way to contain and then end the scourge of terrorism. Globally, as well as within nations.

And no, it needn’t take decades to do this. Not if we start out, from the get-go, with a solid, values-based approach.

The fans of GWOT will tell you that only a weak kneed liberal would favor a police response over the more manly approach of taking the violence to them, fighting the “terrorists” in places like Iraq so we don’t have to fight them at home… But any thoughtful observer of recent events would have to see the fact that fighting in Iraq has not precluded their striking us on our soil. If anything, it inspires more and more Muslims to either volunteer to fight the US or, as Helena notes, be willing to condone and support those with violent intentions. Lastly, we see that a vigorous, thorough police response is invaluable and utterly appropriate. Police actions may not always prevent terrorist strikes, but its hard to argue that the ham-handed war in Iraq has done anything but increased the risks and likelihood of terrorism against the US and our allies.

Tags: London, terrorism, GWOT

A couple irresistable Boing Boing posts to share. One to sit back and admire. Another to check out this weekend with the kids.

I wish I was there for this SF minute: 100,000 bouncy balls dropped at once down a street. I want to see the video!

Must… go… see… this…Pirate (arrrr!) ship (arrr!) invasion

A slew of tall sailing ships cruise in to the San Francisco Bay this weekend. Rides, tours, and battle re-enactments will be offered. Stick an eyepatch on, stuff some bootleg DVDs in your pants, and join the pirates here.

breed ‘em and weep is my favorite new blog. Definitely the funniest right now. Check out all her recent posts, but if you only read one, try this: Jehovahlicious!

We’re in the kitchen. I am putting groceries away, Sophie’s happily munching on her chosen lunch: two slices of bologna and two slices of watermelon. All of a sudden, the dogs bolt for the front door, barking up a storm.

I peek from the kitchen to see what the fuss is about. My fears are confirmed: a stern, shirt-and-tie–wearing man and a well-groomed, determined-faced woman, standing on our porch, peering inside, assessing conversion prospects.

I try to shrink back into the safety of the kitchen. Too late—they’ve spotted me. Big smiles, big hopes. I am bespectacled fresh meat, possibly smart, but definitely a sinner. They’ve taken stock. There is no Jesus fish on our car, no half-shell bathtub Virgin Mary on the front lawn, no crucifix hanging from my neck. I am just what they are looking for.

I leave Sophie with her lunch and trudge to the door, preparing for the onslaught of Jehovahliciousness. The smiles get bigger.

I open the front door, then crack the screen door, allowing only six inches of preaching space. The dogs continue to make a commotion, woofing and shoving their muzzles through to get a whiff of the Holy Human Spam. If these people appeared in my inbox, I would delete them faster than Jerry Falwell can shout out an amen.

But they are on my porch, and they are hungry for my soul.

Tags: parenting, religion

The latest news on GWOT prisoner abuse is utterly chilling. Cheney and the Bush administration are threatening fellow Republicans, notably McCain, for considering an amendment to curb prisoner abuse. I guess its heartening that there are moral Republicans with the guts to stand up and object. But look at the Bushies’ reaction.

From the International Herald Tribune, Cheney leading effort to thwart legislation on detainees:

Vice President Dick Cheney is leading a high-level White House lobbying effort to block legislation offered by Republican senators that would regulate the detention, treatment and trials of detainees held by the U.S. military.

In an unusual, 30-minute private meeting on Capitol Hill on Thursday night, Cheney warned three senior Republican members of the Armed Services Committee that their proposed legislation would interfere with the president’s authority and ability to protect Americans against terrorist attacks.

I also found this article in an Arab press outlet that framed it a little differently, as you might expect. White House Opposes Ban on Detainee Mistreatment

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said after meeting this week at the Capitol with Vice President Dick Cheney that he still intended to offer amendments next week “on the standard of treatment of prisoners.”

Cheney told McCain, and two other senior Republican members on the Senate Armed Services Committee, that legislating these issues would interfere with the President.

I suppose the good news is that Cheney et al are consistent. They feel no shame about their proclivity for torture. They feel immune from Congressional oversight. We can expect more erosion of our moral authority in the world and more scandals as a result. Stay the course, indeed.

Tags: cheney, torture

Katha Pollitt takes on an idea that it might be best if Roe V. Wade was wiped off the books. The theory being that Roe was a “weak” ruling that is not that firmly grounded in the law, and that the court decision short-circuited the political process which had been trending toward expanded abortion rights. If Roe goes away, the theory goes, it will energize the pro-choice side and eventually lead to more firmly established privacy rights.

But, as Katha points out in Is it time for Roe vs. Wade to go away?:

A national consensus on abortion might or might not develop over time, but any such agreement would not likely be as permissive as Roe. Meanwhile—and possibly permanently—fortunate women in anti-choice states would fly to New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, and the less lucky—the poor, the young, the trapped—would have dangerous, illegal procedures or unwanted children. It would be a repeat of 1970-73, when women who could get to New York—but only they—could have a safe, legal version of the operation that was killing and maiming their poorer sisters back home.

The blatant class and racial unfairness of this disparity, in fact, was one of the arguments that pushed the court to declare abortion a constitutional right. If Roe goes, that same disparity will reappear, relabeled as local democracy.[…]

If Roe goes, whoever has political power will determine the most basic, intimate, life-changing and life-threatening decision women—and only women—confront. We will have a country in which the same legislature that can’t prevent some clod from burning a flag will be able to force a woman to bear a child under whatever circumstances it sees fit. It is hard to imagine how that woman would be a free or equal citizen of our constitutional republic.

I have to admit that I did entertain the merits of this idea. But Katha’s set me straight. The prospect of Roe’s demise is, of course, very real. We may have to see if it energizes progressives and has a positive impact. But it does not change the fact that it will have a terrible impact on real people, especially the poor.

Tags: abortion, roe v wade

Once again Aftergood’s Secrecy News brings news of new and ever more stupid attempts by GWOT nimrods to kill our economy by strangling academia. The latest idiocy involves an attempt to prevent furrenners from working on contracts involving export controlled technology:

Dod Proposes to Tighten Rules on Foreign Scientists The Department of Defense is proposing to tighten its contracting rules to restrict access by foreign nationals working in U.S. labs to information and technology that is export-controlled, a move that could wreak havoc in university research centers and elsewhere.

“Any access to export-controlled information or technology by a foreign national or a foreign person anywhere in the world, including the United States, is considered an export to the home country of the foreign national or foreign person,” the proposed rule states. Accordingly, any such access must be restricted, or licensed, DoD contends.

What idiots. This must have been written by someone that has no idea about the role of foreign students in scientific research in this country. This will drive more foreign students to find a more accommodating country to study in.

University administrators and others say the export control requirements, strictly interpreted, would be so onerous as to cripple many DoD-funded university research programs, where foreign nationals make up a large fraction of working scientists.

Just what we need to win the battle against islamofacists. Yeah right.

Tags: secrecy, academia

Beware, before visiting this page make sure you have a few hours to spare. Once you start you’re not going to stop: play Planarity. I’ve reached level 10 a few times. Some folks at work have gone to level 18, which I find really hard to believe…

Update:Looks like this game does not play on Mac. Oh well. You Mac users are spared. Me? I’m playing way too much. Would you believe level 19?

Steve Clemons at The Washington Note has an interesting angle on the Roberts nomination

But despite the efforts underway by Dems to figure out how to place their marker in the coming confirmation debate about Supreme Court Associate Justice nominee John Roberts, I think it is clear that the battle over John Bolton — still happily unresolved and withering on the vine — may have chastened the White House (finally) to be more cautious.

I doubt they are chastened. If the Rove storm blows over they will happily get back to their nefarious ways. But happily, it looks like the Rove storm continues to intensify. The Senate will take their sweet time getting around to Roberts. Bolton is going nowhere unless Bush bypasses Congress with a recess appointment—which will cost Bush more political capital when he does it.

And Rove continues to get boiled alive! Rushing Roberts to the lectern didn’t deflect all that much attention. Check out Koz’s posts The dam is about to break and Precedent where he quotes John Dean on Rove’s real perjury troubles.

I generally don’t comment here on my professional life, nor on my other long term gig: Sfschools@YahooGroups.com. I like it that way. Its not like I have any privacy here that would allow me to say anything here I wouldn’t want to say at work or on the list. And if I have to be inhibited about some topic, why bother blogging about it?

So I’ll proceed to make an exception here.
continue reading…

Been a few days between posts. With the family away, you’d think I would have more time than ever for this. But no, I’ve been busy.

I got obsessed with a home-brew programming project. Felt good to spend all day Sunday getting into it. Starting it and (nearly) finishing it in a day. Of course, I’ve spent plenty of time since then refining it and starting another.

So what is it? A Google Maps hack: SFUSD School Info Google Map Hack I place a marker on the map of SF for every school. Click on the school and get some info. Nothing too breathtakingly useful—like some of the other map hacks I’ve seen on this blog, Google Maps Mania— but it was fun to do. I want to add some more bells and whistles to it, like displaying school stats on the map as circles centered on each school. It might be fun to look at school data like school population, student demographics, test scores, etc. on a map. The current map API is pretty lame in some key ways (unless I’m missing something) that its not possible to do polished, professional work. But, but, but,… what they have is so damned cool.

I’ve been obsessing on Google Earth too. Its just so fun to fly around the globe. Anywhere. My mind is blown.

After Google Maps and Google Earth, when I saw a note about Google Moon I immediately surfed my way there. And was totally unimpressed. Nice idea. But you Googleans have set the bar so high that, I’m sorry, you shouldn’t put out anything so lame.

Tags: Google Maps, Map Hacks

I offer you these links to some famous photos of the Trinity blast, and I invite you to consider where we have come in the intervening 60 years.

These photos were taken 0.025, 0.090, and 7 seconds after ignition. That’s about where the world is right now in solving the problem of living with nuclear waste. We’re still just starting to see the dimensions of the problem, which properly lie on a geologic time scale that we have barely begun to traverse.

Since Trinity, in weapons programs and in commercial nuclear reactors, the world has generated hundreds of tons of Plutonium and orders of magnitude more tons of high level uranium wastes. We don’t know what to do with all of this. We have not demonstrated any ability to deal with the long term ramifications of this explosion–not politically, not economically, and not even technically. There are many ingenious ideas being researched by many brilliant minds. But there are no demonstrated solutions—and most proposed solutions are stop gap measures that pale in comparison to the size and importance of the problem. The scope and magnitude of the problem, like the Trinity blast wave above, is still expanding practically unchecked.

While we stand in awe of Trinity, lets also bear humble witness to the unfolding story of humankind’s nuclear legacy.

If you want to read more, let me recommend the Nuclear Threat Insitute’s article on U.S. Plutonium Disposition and Russian Plutonium Disposition. A best-case scenario has the US and Russia “disposing” of 50 tons of plutonium by “burning” MOX fuels in convention light water reactors. There is a risky, rocky road that lies ahead. Vigilance, and possible radical new solutions, will be needed. Also, check out the Federation of American Scientist’s page on Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century and in particular, check out their Bomb-A-City Calculator

Peace,
KC

Rounding out a night of Big Name bloggers, TalkLeft weighs in with Keeping an Eye on Fitzgerald’s Big Picture

I’m glad to see Waas stay on the subject of Fitzgerald’s investigation. I think that those who are fixating on trying to figure out whether reporters told Rove or Rove told reporters about Plame’s status are falling for the Republican talking points.

Whether Karl Rove was only a ‘confirming source’ or learned about Plame from reporters is immaterial to Fitzgerald at this point.