Saturday, December 25, 2004

Blog Power Rankings



Click here for AmazonThe December 25th Blog Power Rankings (computer-generated votes in parentheses):

December 25, 2004 Blog Power Rankings
1) Instapundit (41)
2) Buzzmachine (32)
3) Hugh Hewitt (30)
4) Daily Kos (24)
5) Boing Boing (15)
6) Talking Points Memo (13)
7) Powerline (7)
9) Little Green Footballs (6)
9) Tim Blair (6)
10) Belmont Club (5)
11) Eschaton (4)
11) Patterico (4)
11) Volokh Conspiracy (4)
14) Scrappleface (3)
14) Wizbang (3)
16) Talkleft (2)
17) Memepool (1)
17) Oxblog (1)
17) Polipundit (1)
17) Prestopundit (1)
17) The Truth Laid Bear (1)

How to Implement your own Google Suggest Interface



Click here for AmazonAre you wondering how you might implement your own Google Suggest-style web interface, which automatically populates a listbox based upon characters entered into a text-box? Okay, maybe you're not, but if you happen to be (a) a geek, (b) with nothing to do on Christmas afternoon, and (c) not otherwise engaged, you might have a look at the following.

From the JoelOnSoftware discussion board, Gavi Narra points to his own implementation of a dictionary application with a complete (and nicely done) description of how it was implemented in ASP.NET.

Update: Robert Plank points us to this PHP tutorial: Google Suggest with PHP.

Friday, December 24, 2004

Best of the Hughalanche



Hmmm... care to see the results of a "Hughalanche"? Yeah, I know, I've got a long way to go to reach even "third tier" status in the blogosphere, but...



...when Hugh Hewitt's blog (worth reading every day, BTW) posts a link to your site, you'll know it.

I first came across Mr. Hewitt on, I believe, Fox News. Interviewed in typical Fox "boxing match" fashion, with a Left-leaning pundit opposite him (it might have been Newsweek's Jon Meacham), Hewitt laid down an eviscerating rap that left his opponent -- literally -- speechless. It was a devastating victory in a difficult venue and one which doesn't often happen on television.

I was like, "who is that guy?". That led me to the Hewitt site and, of course, his Liberal-punishing daily missives that combine simile and historic perspective in concise, expansive, and often breathtaking fashion.

Hewitt on a Richard Stevenson article:

It isn't surprising that the New York Times intends to attack the president throughout his second term and to try and turn Iraq into Vietnam. What's surprising is the baldness of the tactics, and their lack of art. Peddling the same old story line with the same old tired sources isn't going to impress anyone outside of the fever swamp.


On Roger Ailes' comments on the MSM:

The anti-Americanism of many elite media is palpable, and increasingly resented by Americans of all backgrounds. Ailes knows this, and knows as well that any network that simply does not attack America on a nightly basis will be ahead of CNN.


On Time Magazine's naming a blog of the year:


Time has named a first-ever "blog of the year," and it is the very blog that not only nailed Rather, but also helped propel Christmas-Eve-not-in-Cambodia into the mainstream... Look a little closer and you'll find three extraordinarily credentialed legal professionals who have been writing on serious subjects for years... The Minneapolis Star Tribune ought to have locked these guys up a year ago, but the self-importance of the always-ignored editorial board has probably intimidated the time-servers there from raising the subject of the bloggers who have generated more news and sparks in one year than the Strib has in 50.

In short, Time has identified the hot blogger(s), and any media property looking for eyeballs ought to be beating a path to their collective door to try and sign the free agents.

Just a thought. A profitable, market-driven thought, so it will probably not occur to the dopes running CNN, to cite one example of legacy media trying very hard to reclaim audience.


On JP Blecksmith, a US Marine who died fighting terrorist insurgents in Fallujah.

"Good versus evil" I put those words in bold above because that is the only way to communicate the stakes --in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the Netherlands, in the Ukraine, in countless struggles across the globe. JP Blecksmith gave everything, including his life, for "the good," and as Lincoln said 141 years ago, we must agree "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain." That "we" means "us," and that means freedom for the Iraqis and the Afghanis, and nothing --nothing-- less for the children of the Netherlands. JP believed in "the good." That is why we honor and grieve his sacrifice, and pray for the comfort of his family.


The bottom line is simply this: if you're not reading Hewitt, you should be.

Instrumenting Code



Here's an example of how I've instrumented code in the past. The main focus of this logic is to provide peer-to-peer services for the BadBlue software. The server can listen for connection requests, which can come in either of two formats: HTTP or Gnutella. HTTP requests are dispatched to web services processing, not covered here.

Gnutella protocol requests are dispatched to, among other places, the snippet of code, below. Each request operates in its own thread (this is Win32, which uses a threading model - not the forked process model of Unix/Linux). Multiple threads are thus connected to multiple peers, simultaneously, all exchanging messages, relaying query results, performing discoveries, etc.

The net result can be a system of some complexity. In order to debug this code -- and to get a glimpse into activities of a running production box -- a tunable logging system was added.

The beginning of the snippet notes that we are initializing, with a logging level of 7. This means that if the administrator has "turned up the instrumentation dial" to 7 or above, this message will be sent to the system log.

A little bit further down, we report errors: a bad port number (logging level of 7, we really don't care too much during normal operations) and an attempt to connect to a restricted IP address (which we always want to report as a noteworthy error).

Note that rather than throwing exceptions, the code breaks out. This enables us to dispense with the overhead of exception processing and provide inline instrumentation of any noteworthy events and errors. But exceptions could be thrown just as easily once the instrumentation has done its job. In C++, there appears to be some overhead for using exceptions (and they're forbidden in certain types of real-time or mission-critical systems), so I trap for miscellaneous exceptions - but don't rely upon them for normal error-handling activities.

The log method, below, provides tunable logging consistent with what I've already described.

I suppose the key point here is not whether you're returning error-codes or throwing exceptions; it is, instead, to have sufficient discipline to provide paranoid levels of error-checking and instrumentation so that you can always determine what kinds of things are happening in your code. Even if you think things are hunky-dory.

	// beginning of snippet...

//
do { try {

// Mark initialization.
//
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Thread initializing",
m_hThread
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 7);

// Initialize our socket.
//
if (!m_sockID) {

// Do we need to connect ourselves?
//
if (!m_strConnectAddress.IsEmpty()) {
if ((nCursor = m_strConnectAddress.Find(':')) >= 0) {
i = atoi(m_strConnectAddress.Mid(nCursor + 1));
strTemp = m_strConnectAddress.Left(nCursor);
if (!i || (UINT) i > 0x7FFF) {
//
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Error, bad port (%s)",
m_hThread, m_strConnectAddress
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 7);
//
break;
}
if (!m_pEXTObject->CheckIP(strTemp)) {
//
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Connection forbidden: IP address %s",
m_hThread, m_strConnectAddress
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 0);
//
break;
}
} else {
strTemp = m_strConnectAddress;
i = DEF_HTTP_PORT;
}
// ...

// ...end structured processing.
//
} catch (...) {
rc = BBX_MISC_EXCEPTION;
} } while (0);
m_bTerminating = TRUE;
m_dTerminateStarted = COleDateTime::GetCurrentTime();
if (m_bBaseThread) {
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] BT: Error %d, base thread closing",
m_hThread, rc
);
m_pEXTObject->LogEvent(rc, EVT_WARNING, strLog);
} else {
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Thread closing (%d)",
m_hThread, rc
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 3);
}
if (m_SocketID != INVALID_SOCKET && m_SocketID != 0) {
// SD_SEND, don't allow any more sends
m_Thunk_p->shutdown(m_SocketID, 1);
m_Thunk_p->closesocket(m_SocketID);
m_SocketID = INVALID_SOCKET;
m_hFile = (UINT) CFile::hFileNull;
}
//
// Array locking should not be necessary (terminating flag)...
//
for (i = 0; i < m_cpaOutboundQueue.GetSize(); i++) {
pcbaTemp = (CByteArray*) m_cpaOutboundQueue.GetAt(i);
if (pcbaTemp != NULL) {
delete pcbaTemp;
}
}
//
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Thread closed",
m_hThread
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 7); //

// ...end of snippet

// Gnutella logging.
// Multi-threaded tunable logging facility.
//
VOID CExtExtension::Log(
LPCTSTR pMessage,
DWORD dwLoggingLevel,
BOOL bFlush
) {

// SP...
//
CTime timeTemp;
CString strLogEntry;
do {

// Not available? Forget it.
//
if (m_fileLog.m_hFile == CFile::hFileNull) {
break;
}

// Logging level not sufficient? Forget it.
//
if (dwLoggingLevel > m_dwLoggingLevel) {
break;
}

// Get our timestamp.
//
timeTemp = CTime::GetCurrentTime();

// Format a log entry.
//
strLogEntry.Format(
"%s %s\r\n"
,
timeTemp.Format("%y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"),
pMessage
);
m_ccsLog.Lock();
m_strLog += strLogEntry;
if (bFlush || m_strLog.GetLength() > MAX_LOG_CACHE_BYTES) {
m_fileLog.Write(m_strLog.GetBuffer(0), m_strLog.GetLength());
m_strLog = "";
m_fileLog.Flush();
}
m_ccsLog.Unlock();

// ...end SP.
//
} while (0);
}

2004 Joseph Goebbels Awards



Click here for Amazon...This year's Joseph Goebbels award goes by a narrow but decisive margin to CBS News anchorman Dan Rather for his planned broadcast on "60 Minutes" -- just days before the election -- to discredit President Bush's National Guard service 30 years earlier. Leave aside for the moment the fact that discrepancies in the documents he relied on have convinced experts and many others that they were forgeries. Why was what George W. Bush did or didn't do 30 years earlier "news" in 2004?

It was news by Dr. Goebbels' standard -- something that could lead to desired political reactions by the audience. Waiting until it would have been virtually impossible for an effective answer to be made before election day was in the same Goebbels spirit. Had the documents been real, Dan Rather would still have been a strong contender for the award. The fact that virtually everyone, with the notable exception of Mr. Rather, now regards those documents as fake -- instead of simply "not authenticated" -- makes Dan Rather the clear winner of the Joseph Goebbels award for 2004...


Thomas Sowell: 2004 Joseph Goebbels Awards

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Leave Rumsfeld Be



Click here for Amazon...Have we forgotten what Mr. Rumsfeld did right? Not just plenty, but plenty of things that almost anyone else would not have done. Does anyone think the now-defunct Crusader artillery platform would have saved lives in Iraq or helped to lower our profile in the streets of Baghdad? How did it happen that our forces in Iraq are the first army in our history to wear practicable body armor? And why are over 95 percent of our wounded suddenly surviving — at miraculous rates that far exceeded even those in the first Gulf War? If the secretary of Defense is to be blamed for renegade roguery at Abu Ghraib or delays in up-arming Humvees, is he to be praised for the system of getting a mangled Marine to Walter Reed in 36 hours?

And who pushed to re-deploy thousands of troops out of Europe, and to re-station others in Korea? Or were we to keep ossified bases in perpetuity in the logic of the Cold War while triangulating allies grew ever-more appeasing to our enemies and more gnarly to us, their complacent protectors?

The blame with this war falls not with Donald Rumsfeld. We are more often the problem — our mercurial mood swings and demands for instant perfection devoid of historical perspective about the tragic nature of god-awful war. Our military has waged two brilliant campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. There has been an even more inspired postwar success in Afghanistan where elections were held in a country deemed a hopeless Dark-Age relic. A thousand brave Americans gave their lives in combat to ensure that the most wicked nation in the Middle East might soon be the best, and the odds are that those remarkable dead, not the columnists in New York, will be proven right — no thanks to post-facto harping from thousands of American academics and insiders in chorus with that continent of appeasement Europe.

Out of the ashes of September 11, a workable war exegesis emerged because of students of war like Don Rumsfeld: Terrorists do not operate alone, but only through the aid of rogue states; Islamicists hate us for who we are, not the alleged grievances outlined in successive and always-metamorphosing loony fatwas; the temper of bin Laden’s infomercials hinges only on how bad he is doing; and multilateralism is not necessarily moral, but often an amoral excuse either to do nothing or to do bad — ask the U.N. that watched Rwanda and the Balkans die or the dozens of profiteering nations who in concert robbed Iraq and enriched Saddam.

Donald Rumsfeld is no Les Aspin or William Cohen, but a rare sort of secretary of the caliber of George Marshall. I wish he were more media-savvy and could ape Bill Clinton’s lip-biting and furrowed brow. He should, but, alas, cannot. Nevertheless, we will regret it immediately if we drive this proud and honest-speaking visionary out of office, even as his hard work and insight are bringing us ever closer to victory.


Victor Davis Hanson (hat tip: LGF): Leave Rumsfeld Be

"Dying can't be as bad as living"



Click here for AmazonHas there been a tragicomic character in recent memory as simultaneously compelling, disturbing, and paradoxical as Mike Tyson? If you haven't been tracking the escapades of the former heavyweight champion and ex-con, he recently lost two bouts in a row. The latter, against journeyman Danny Williams, was specifically designed to catapult him back into the ranks of contending heavyweights.

Instead, it has relegated Tyson into a state of semi-retirement and shattered his dreams of rebuilding his wealth, once valued at around $400 million. He now lives in a $100,000 house in Arizona, contemplating his fall from grace... and a new life.

...The last time I'd met Tyson was more than a year ago, after Frank Bruno was taken to hospital to help him deal with his own demons.

Tyson says he cried for his old foe at the time and is glad when I tell him Frank is on the mend.

"That makes me happy," he says. "The worst thing that can happen to you is for you to lose your mental powers, especially when you've got a wife and kids."

And he should know. Muttering something about a boxer's biggest fight coming after he leaves the ring, Tyson then comes over all philosophical.

"Dying can't be as bad as living," he muses. "There's no way that dying can be as bad as living. But while you're living you have to live.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I just live, I guess, get some food. But I don't cook. I go to restaurants every night." Asked how he fills his days, he replies: "I don't do anything. My life sucks." ...


The Mirror: Dying can't be as bad as living

Islamist Intentions for the U.S.



Click here for AmazonDaniel Pipes:

I frequently meet with disbelief when I explain that the Islamist goal is to take over the United States and replace the Constitution with the Koran. Well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and here is that picture, culled from "The American Muslim" website:



The Arabic written across the United States is the basmalah, usually translated into English as "In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate." This Koranic invocation, the authoritative Encyclopaedia of Islam (vol. 1, p. 1084) informs us, "at the beginning of every important act, calls down the divine blessing on this act and consecrates it."

It also bears noting that "The American Muslim" website portrays itself as "providing a balanced, moderate, alternative voice focusing on the spiritual, dimension of Islam rather than the more often heard voice of extreme political Islamism." Sounds great, yet this website includes precisely such voices of "extreme political Islamism" in the form of Yahiya Emerick and Ibrahim Hooper. In keeping with the above graphic, Emerick is author of an essay titled "How to Make America an Islamic Nation" and Hooper has stated "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future..."


Daniel Pipes: Islamist Intentions for the United States

DESPERATE MEASURES



Click here for Amazon...The key point of this attack — and indeed of a number of recent attacks against U.S. soldiers, Iraqi police and military and, most significantly, Iraqi civilians — is that the insurgents are taking fewer and fewer personal risks.

Devastated by American assaults, demoralized by the stubborn determination of Iraqis to participate in upcoming elections and to return to a normal and newly democratic life, the radical Islamists are desperate. Their perverted dream of a medieval society dominated by terror is evaporating before their very eyes. The Iraqi people are winning. Thus the terrorists pursue any desperate ploy to disrupt, to delay to terrorize the Iraqi population.

You'll notice that I did not refer to the population as "their fellow Iraqis" because a great many of the terrorists are now foreigners — Syrians, Palestinians, Saudis, Iranians — the enemy has had to draw from disaffected radicals throughout the region.

They're fighting a losing battle...

Frederick J. Chiaventone is a novelist, screenwriter and a retired Army officer who taught counterinsurgency at the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College.


NY Post: Desperate Measures

Prime Minister Allawi: Ballots more powerful than bullets



Click here for Amazon...In just over one month's time, the citizens of Iraq will be presented with a unique opportunity to close a chapter of decades of tyrannical rule and take their first steps to shape their own future by participating in the first free and fair elections in generations...

...despite all the pessimism by the skeptics, we see encouraging signs as Iraqis enthusiastically register to vote, and thousands of candidates from across the political spectrum put themselves forward for election. The cowardly targeting of voter registration centers by terrorists demonstrates their fear of the coming fulfillment of Iraq's aspirations for democracy and freedom...

...The elections next month will be transparent and competitive, supervised across the country by the thousands of brave workers of the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq, and by international organizations including the U.N. Iraqis will have over 250 different parties and political entities from which to choose--a far cry from the farcical referendum with Saddam as the single candidate who received 100% of the vote...

...Though... attacks may escalate in the coming weeks as we approach the elections, they cannot and will not be allowed to achieve their destructive aims. As Iraqis, we will refuse to be divided and cowed into fear by such criminals. We will stand firm.

Ballots will prove far more powerful than bullets in the end, and the will of the peaceful majority of Iraqis will triumph over the terror tactics of a hateful few... A free and secure Iraq will be a victory for all peace-loving people, and we Iraqis face a historic opportunity that we shall not squander.


AYAD ALLAWI: A Historic Moment for All Iraqis

Interview with Steven Vincent



Click here for AmazonThis interview with Steven Vincent, author of In the Red Zone, is enlightening. Vincent is a former art critic turned war journalist by the events of 9/11. His book covers his experiences during two separate trips to Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

...Jeff Harrell: When, after all the planning and the long journey, you finally made it to Baghdad, were you disappointed by what you found? Your descriptions of the city in In the Red Zone are unsentimental: It’s an unlovely city, you say, choked with smog and littered with garbage. What was it like to arrive in such a place?

Steven Vincent: Actually, I was pleasantly surprised. I’d packed mosquito netting, water purification tablets, protein bars and a set of silverware, all sorts of survival equipment, as if I were heading to Mogadishu. What I found was a bustling city with markets overflowing with food and bottled water, not to mention countless restaurants and “kabob stands.” (Iraq has never in its history suffered famine.) The harshness of the environment — the “unloveliness” of the smog and garbage (and, I must say, many Iraqi people) — didn’t affect me until the novelty of simply being there faded.

To be in a place like Baghdad — or perhaps any storied place — is to experience the microcosmic and macrocosmic of life simultaneously. By that I mean every detail, even the smallest, is fascinating — the architecture, the way people look and talk, the taxi cabs and heat, trying to speak Arabic and learn what to order on the menu. Then there is the overwhelming sense of the past and present. I remember walking at twilight down a busy shopping street just as the lights switched on and a muezzin began calling from a mosque. Right at that moment, two American Humvees rumbled past, each with a soldier standing and surveying the scene. They passed a grove of palms, and the mixture of the light, the crowds, the muezzin’s call and the military vehicles transfixed me. This is significant, something told me. For good or ill, this is history...

Steven Vincent: ...I’m frequently asked, how can a nation cobbled together by Winston Churchill from disparate religious and ethnic groups possibly form a democracy? In response, I mention the 13 colonies before the Revolution. In retrospect, they strike us as rather homogenous — aside, of course, from the issue of slavery. But to the colonies themselves, they were wildly different, split by religious, regional and economic interests. Somehow they pulled it together. And in fact, a pluralistic society like Iraq is probably the most suited for democracy. Within the limitations of a constitution, various parties of Shia and Sunnis and Kurds must dicker and horse-trade and compromise among themselves. Because of these conflicting interests, no one party can accumulate total power — a system of checks and balances, in other words...

Steven Vincent: ...Say a foreign power invades a nation, topples a heinous dictator and attempts to midwife the first democracy this nation has ever had. Are they "occupiers" or "liberators?" Are they "occupying" the country, or “reconstructing” it? Are they "imposing" democracy, or "assisting its birth?"...

...To describe the Coalition as "occupiers" legitimizes those who take up arms against them. We oppose the “Nazi occupation” of France, and admire the "French resistance" — while those who assist the Germans become "collaborators." "Guerillas" are brave fighters risking their lives to overthrow imperialism in the name of national liberation; "paramilitaries" are terrorists seeking to re-establish a right-wing tyranny. One side constellates images of resourceful rebels — from the colonial Minutemen to the Viet Cong to Star Wars’ "Rebel forces" — the other conjures imperialist oppressors, storm troopers, Darth Vader’s minions. Somehow, we have allowed the press and academia to reverse the definition, permitting them to call fascists and criminal thugs "freedom fighters" while the true Iraqi resistance become members of the "American-backed government"...

Here’s a question I’d like to put to Ted Rall and Michael Moore: could you stand in front of the families of the election workers killed in Baghdad and tell them that their loved ones were "collaborators" killed by the "Iraqi resistance?" ...


Shape of Days: Interview with Steven Vincent

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Neo-Mecha: NMX04-1



Click here for AmazonInteresting... but I would think there would more compelling and profitable uses for 'mechs' than 21st century jousting matches.

The NMX04-1A is the first attempt by Neogentronyx to create a fully functional mech. At 18ft tall it is a biped (walks upright on two legs), and has two arms, it is humanoid in appearance. Walking as we do it will be able to walk much faster due mainly to the distance between its strides, it is not intended for use in the civilian world as such machines would pose a danger to those around them as well as the risk already taken on by the pilots themselves.

Initially our mechs will be used for entertainment purposes and will eventually be fitted to fight in a large arena designed to accommodate these great machines. This is of course after prototype testing has proven that such a thing is feasible which we believe it will.

The pilot control is a special system called mech interface manual integration control (mimic) system, designed specifically to allow the mech to emulate any movement done by the controlling pilot of the mecha. Safety features include a pilot harness, helmet, suspension backboard, shock absorption, external sensors, and force-back pads, so the pilot can feel what the mecha would feel were it capable of feeling anything at all, a completely encompassing steel cage which will protect against falls and plating which will protect against any possible penetration into the pilot control area.

In an arena setting there will be several blunt weapons designed for the mecha to be able to wield against opposition. No sharp penetrating weapons will be allowed in the arena as death and injury are not to be a part of the sport. The only thing being damaged and disabled will be the mechs. That makes for a rather expensive sport, but entertaining nonetheless...


Neo-Mecha: NMX04-1

Epic



Click here for AmazonEpic 2014: The Future of the Media

Emergency Shutdown Procedures Activated



Click here for AmazonT has another entertaining step-by-step breakdown of an accident that he narrowly avoided during the white death blizzard of 2004 recent snowstorm. The only question I have is, 'why do these things always happen to him?'.

Emergency Shutdown Procedures Activated

Iowahawk Industries 2004 Annual Report



Click here for AmazonOne year ago today, Iowahawk was founded on a core strategic business vision: to drive value to online information consumers, through the creation of strategic information products, and also to get really, really loaded. This key value-vision remains at the heart of the Iowahawk mission-thing.

In reviewing the financial performance of Iowahawk for its first fiscal year, it is critical that investors remember this important long-term value chain, and not get all freaked out about the details of highly misleading statistics like "revenue" or "profit." While Iowahawk fell somewhat short of achieving its initial income forecast of US$4.7 bazillionty, it did so in the midst of a challenging worldwide economic climate.

Specific financial challenges included US currency devaluation. It was thought that this would be offset by an increase in Euro-based revenues, but foreign advertising sales may have been adversely impacted after a June editorial in which Iowahawk referred to France as a "festering gallic mime-hole" and suggested the US resume carpet bombing of Germany...


Iowahawk Industries 2004 Annual Report

The Associated (Jazeera) Press Reports!



Click here for AmazonI was surprised -- but not shocked -- to read the following paragraph in the AP news story regarding the rocket attack on US troops in Mosul. Slobodan Lekic reports:

...A radical Sunni Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility for the attack — the latest in a week of deadly strikes across Iraq that highlighted the unwavering power of the insurgents in the run-up to the Jan. 30 national elections...


The unwavering power of the insurgents? What happened to the 1,500 insurgents that were in Fallujah with hundreds of weapons caches as recently as a few weeks ago? Did their "unwavering power" prevent the US Marines from flattening them?

This is simply another opinion piece wrapped in what purports to be a news story. And, that's nothing new for the Associated (Jazeera) Press.

The Associated (Jazeera) Press reports!

Dallas Morning News: Khomeini Tribute is a Disgrace



Click here for AmazonThe Dallas Morning News finally weighs in on the appalling display of support from Muslim groups for an enemy of the United States, with an excellent, non-nuanced editorial: Unworthy of Honor: Khomeini’s tribute is a disgrace.

Most Americans remember the Ayatollah Khomeini. He was one of the great villains of the 20th century, who bequeathed his patrimony of fanaticism and hatred to the 21st.

Khomeini led the 1979 Iranian revolution that overthrew the corrupt shah and replaced the government with a brutal Islamic theocracy that today is locked in battle with reformers seeking to end a quarter century of repression. Khomeini preached worldwide violent Islamic revolution, thundering that "those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world."

"Why do you only read the Quranic verses of mercy and do not read the verses of killing?" Khomeini challenged fellow clerics in a 1981 speech. "Qu’ran says: kill, imprison! Why are you only clinging to the part that talks about mercy? Mercy is against God." The tyrant also exhorted his followers to "kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all."

That’s some vision. Yet a Muslim group based in Irving [Texas] hosted a seminar earlier this month paying "tribute to the great Islamic visionary." It’s chilling to think that any local Muslim would be willing to honor such a man, especially with the United States under the threat of attack by Islamic terrorists.

Dismayingly, the list of speakers at the Irving event included some of North Texas’ best-known mainstream Islamic figures...

...If Muslim leaders want to be perceived by the broader community as men of good will and moderation, they need to make clear what they consider radical and extreme and treat it accordingly.

Pockets of Islamic radicalism exist in North Texas. We don’t believe — and this is important to get straight — that they characterize most Muslims in the Dallas area. But these elements are here, and we cannot afford to ignore them. Neither can the Muslim community avoid the responsibility for policing itself.

As former FBI counterterrorism chief and Rowlett resident Oliver “Buck” Revell tells us, "If we continue to be deaf, dumb and blind to what’s plainly in front of us, we have no one to blame but ourselves."



Dallas Morning News (via LGF): Khomeini Tribute is a Disgrace

Firsthand from Mosul



Click here for AmazonBy the time I got back to our compound it was all over the news. It seemed like the thing had just happened when in reality I had been neck deep in it for several hours. And there it was on TV. Frankly, it's kind of a blur.

The day began early as I didn't sleep very well last night. Once I was awake I decided not to just lay there and stare at the darkness so I got up, got dressed, shaved and headed into the TOC, the heart of what goes on. In the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) they monitor several different radio nets to keep abreast of what is happing in the area. It's the place to be if you want up to the minute information. When I arrived it was fairly calm. I made small talk with the guys there and sipped that first cup of morning coffee. The day was clear and there was very little going on, or so it seemed. A very short while later we received the initial reports. In this area there are several "camps" or "posts" that house the various combat and support units that do the day to day fighting and working around here. The first report said that a mortar had just hit one of the nearby chow halls during the middle of lunch (I'm on GMT so my morning is actually the middle of the day). It's called a MASCAL or Mass Casualty event and it's where the rubber meets the road in military ministry. They said there were approximately 10 casualties. That was the extent of it so I kind of filed it away in the back of my mind and continued to sip my coffee. The next report wasn't so good. 10 dead and approximately 50 wounded. They were being transported to the Combat Surgical Hospital down the street. The Chaplain at the CSH is a good guy and I knew he'd be in need of help so I woke my assistant and we rushed to the hospital. I didn't expect what I saw.

The scene was little more than controlled chaos. Helicopters landing, people shouting, wounded screaming, bodies everywhere. As the staff began to triage the dead and wounded I found the chaplain and offered my assistance. He directed me to where he needed me and I dove in. I would be hard pressed to write about every person I had the opportunity to pray with today but I will try to relate a few.

I found "Betty" on a stretcher being tended by nurses. I introduced myself and held her hand. She looked up at me and said, "Chaplain, am I going to be alright?" I said that she was despite the fact that I could see she had a long road to recovery ahead of her. Most of her hair had been singed off. Her face was burnt fairly badly, although it didn't look like the kind of burns that will scar. What I do know is that it was painful enough to hurt just by being in the sun. I prayed with Betty and moved on.

"Ilena" (a made up name. She spoke very softly and had a thick accent so I couldn't really hear her) had been hit by a piece of shrapnel just above her left breast causing a classic sucking chest wound. The doctors said she had a hemothorax (I think that's what they called it) which basically meant her left lung was filling with blood and she was having a very hard time breathing. For the next 20 minutes I held her hand while a doctor made an incision in her left side, inserted most of his hand and some kind of medical instrument and then a tube to alleviate the pressure caused by the pooling blood. It was probably the most medieval procedure I have ever been privy to. In the end she was taken to ICU and will be OK...


Chaplain Lewis: Firsthand from Mosul

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Learning From Accidents and a Terrorist Attack



Click here for AmazonThe always insightful Dan Bricklin (co-inventor of the spreadsheet with Bob Frankston) recently wrote an essay analyzing major accidents (e.g., Three Mile Island) and the catastrophic terrorist attack on the WTC. Read the whole thing. But if you don't have time, the summary is excellent advice for all who create systems upon which the population depends... and software developers especially.

I want to point out one bullet-item specifically, which I have bolded (below). Bricklin advocates instrumenting subsystems and components. This ensures that, in addition to errors, any noteworthy events are logged and surfaced to an appropriate level. This will allow administrators or monitoring processes to react to changes to the system.

I made a similar point a while back when arguing that developers should strive to use return-codes rather than exceptions. The reason? We can instrument our code, whether it succeeds or fails, in its appropriate home venue (method, function, etc.). I know of no easy way to force exceptions into this model.

I am paranoid. I want full instrumentation. It sounds like Dan Bricklin does too.

There are principles that may be gleaned by looking at Normal Accident Theory and the 9/11 Commission Report that are helpful for software development.

This essay covers a wide range of topics. It introduces "Normal Accident Theory", looks at some of the aspects of a major terrorist attack, and proposes some areas for design that are suggested by the results of that attack. The original goal, though, was to come up with some principles that could be applied to making software that fits with the long-term needs of society. Here are some of those principles:

Instrument the sub-systems and components so that failures can be detected and so that behavior can be monitored when there are changes. There is a need to know "what is going on".

Examine failures and share what is found with others so that there is learning.

Try to keep sub-systems loosely coupled, the interfaces understandable, and the intermediate steps comprehensible.

Allow for, and anticipate, improvisation. The design of instrumentation and the coupling of sub-systems can make improvisation easier or harder.

Those who deal with changes may not be the ones for whom the designers planned nor who were pre-trained to deal with those changes. This affects the design of instrumentation, coupling, and documentation.

Generic, "global" resources help and should be able to be used as part of instrumentation and improvisation.


Dan Bricklin: Learning From Accidents and a Terrorist Attack

How does the walkie-talkie feature on a Nextel phone work?



Click here for Amazon...Nextel is unique among service providers because it has an entirely separate special cellular network that has its own frequencies and equipment in addition to the normal cell network shared with other providers. This network is based on Motorola's Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) and makes Direct Connect possible. It uses the 800 MHz portion of the radio spectrum assigned to specialized mobile radio (SMR) service. Nextel has purchased a large segment of these frequencies in a significant number of the national and international cellular service markets...

...When you make a Direct Connect call to someone, here's what happens:

* You hit the Direct Connect button, which is configured with the number(s) of the person (or group) you are calling.
* Your phone establishes a session with the Nextel iDEN-based network.
* The network determines that this is a dispatch call (Direct Connect) instead of an interconnect call (a normal cell phone call).
* The network then determines if it is a one-to-one or a group call. If it is a group call, the network duplicates the digital voice packets for each phone in the group.
* The network routes the packets to the phone (or phones) of the person (or group) you are calling.
* Their phone alerts them that they have a Direct Connect call.
* They answer the call by pressing the Talk button. Whoever is pushing the button, whether a one-to-one or group call, is the speaker.
* The call is completed and everyone disconnects...


How does the walkie-talkie feature on a Nextel phone work?