Monday, August 28, 2006

Guy Kawasaki interviews the CEO of MySQL


Guy Kawasaki has a fascinating interview with Marten Mickos, who has served as MySQL's CEO since 2001. The company is now the "second largest open-source software company" (behind RedHat, one supposes... and omitting Novell, which still sells proprietary software along with SUSE Linux) and is the fastest-growing database vendor in the world:

Question: What’s the biggest MySQL DB?

That’s like asking what’s the biggest Ferrari! What counts is performance and scalability. Omniture runs over 250 billion transactions per quarter on a farm of MySQL servers. Google uses MySQL for AdSense and AdWords. Other large installations include Wikipedia, Travelocity, Weather.com, etc. The databases can be hundreds of gigabytes. Sites run on hundreds of servers, some on thousands...

...Even the Oracle FAQ runs on MySQL...

Guy Kawasaki: Ten Questions with Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL

Your First Bit of Cake (CakePHP, that is)


In the unceasing quest to bring order to PHP's inherently unstructured landscape, various frameworks have cropped up. One of the latest attempts tries to emulate Ruby on Rails, which has received a great deal of attention for its structure and rapid web development characteristics. The latest such environment for PHP is called CakePHP and SitePoint has a good, quick introduction:

...In recent years, PHP has re-invented itself, allowing Object Oriented Programming (OOP) to enter the scene with a plethora of new rules and functionality, all of which are ingrained in more mainstream programming languages like C++ and Java. Gradually, more and more PHP developers have embraced this new philosophy and started developing frameworks, drawing their inspiration from other more-established languages in the pursuit of creating a structure for an inherently unstructured language.

Many frameworks are available on the Internet, each with its own specific set of rules and conventions, achievements and failures. Some degenerate into unusable and intricate collections of pre-built libraries and tools that enslave developers into complex and truly unusable programming methodologies; others do not.

Ruby on Rails has definitely played a key role in inspiring the quest for the perfect web framework in programming languages other than Ruby. Thanks to the Rails phenomenon, more frameworks have appeared on the scene, offering functionality that's very similar to Ruby on Rails. These frameworks are often labeled Rails Clones.

Some of the frameworks' developers have openly admitted that they tried to port Rails to other languages, but often they overlook the fact that Ruby on Rails was built in Ruby for a reason: Ruby has features that no other programming language offers. At the same time, at least one person gave up on the idea of totally cloning Rails in PHP, but instead, decided to borrow its structure and basic concepts to make PHP more organized...

SitePoint: Your First Bit of Cake (CakePHP, that is)

Sunday, August 27, 2006

"...Man learns nothing from History..."


On August 23rd, the bipartisan House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released its Report on Iran (PDF). It makes for ominous reading. I've culled out a few of the more foreboding bits for your review:

“The annihilation of the Zionist regime will come... Israel must be wiped off the map... And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism”

“They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets.”

“I officially announce that Iran has joined countries with nuclear technology.”

-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

...Threats against the United States and Israel by Iranian President Ahmadinejad - coupled with advances in the Iranian nuclear weapons program, support for terror, and resistance to international negotiations on its nuclear program - demonstrate that Iran is a security threat to our nation...

- Iran has conducted a clandestine uranium enrichment program for nearly two decades in violation of its International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreement, and despite its claims to the contrary, Iran is seeking nuclear weapons...

- Iran likely has an offensive chemical weapons research and development capability...

- Iran probably has an offensive biological weapons program...

- Iran has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. The U.S. Intelligence Community has raised the concern that Tehran may integrate nuclear weapons into its ballistic missiles...

- Iran provides funding, training, weapons, rockets, and other material support to terrorist groups in Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, and elsewhere...

- Elements of the Iranian national security apparatus are actively supporting the insurgency in Iraq...

...The IAEA reported on February 27, 2006 that Iran has produced approximately 85 tons of uranium hexafluoride (UF6).20 If enriched through centrifuges to weapons-grade material - a capability Iran is working hard to master - this would be enough for 12 nuclear bombs...

Iran is currently enriching uranium to weapons grade using a 164-machine centrifuge cascade at this facility in Natanz. Iran claims it will have 3,000 centrifuges at this site by next spring...

...To produce plutonium, Iran has built a heavy water production plant and is constructing a large, heavy water-moderated reactor whose technical characteristics are well-suited for the production of weapons-grade plutonium. In support of this effort, Iran admitted in October 2003 to secretly producing small quantities of plutonium without notifying the IAEA, a violation of its treaty obligations...

And for those slow "progressives" in the audience, it's crystal clear that Iran has been simply lying its collective buns off regarding the purpose of its nuclear program:

...there is no rational reason for Iran to pursue a peaceful nuclear program in secret and risk international sanctions when the International Atomic Energy Agency encourages and assists peaceful nuclear programs. If Iran sincerely wanted a peaceful nuclear program, the IAEA would have helped it develop one...

...One of the most disturbing aspects of the Iranian WMD program is its determined effort to construct ballistic missiles that will enable Tehran to deliver conventional or, potentially, chemical, biological, or nuclear warheads against its neighbors in the region and beyond. Iran claimed last fall that its Shahab-3 missile can currently strike targets at distances up to 2,000 km (1,200 miles), including Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and southeastern Europe... It is believed that Iran's Shahab-4 will have a range of 4,000 km (2,400 miles), enabling Iran to strike Germany, Italy, and Moscow...

Allowing Iran to continue its pursuit of nuclear weapons is akin to the appeasement of Hitler in 1938. That year, Hitler's forces marched unimpeded into Austria and the Sudetenland while Britain's Neville Chamberland proclaimed, "I believe it is peace for our time." After the latter incursion, Hitler announced the formative stages of a thousand-year Reich and stated, "Thus we begin our march into the great German future."

With little media fanfare, Ahmadinejad -- like Hitler -- has plainly announced his intentions. His stated goals include the destruction of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. His agenda includes the acquisition of nuclear and biological capabilities along with ballistic missiles to deliver them.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's words -- "History teaches us that man learns nothing from history" -- remain as true today as the day they were written.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

I know where you've been


Jesse Ezell has discovered a very clever trick to determine which websites visitors to his blog have already visited. Jesse uses a predetermined list of sites that he's interested in testing for and then checks the style of the hyperlink to determine whether its been visited!

Suffice it to say it's a damn neat trick.

Jesse Ezell Blog: Stealing History

Friday, August 25, 2006

NewsBlaze' Top 5 People-powered news sites


Newsblaze has offered up its top five people-powered news sites. The winners are:

#1 Digg
#2 Reddit
#3 Care2 News Network
#4 Shoutwire
#5 Netscape

I've never visited #2 or #3, so I guess now is the time to start.

One thing I noticed about that list: perhaps the first general "democratic" news sites was Newsvine. And far from dying on the vine, as I truthfully expected, it appears to be much improved and far more active than when I first looked at it in '05. It's definitely worth a look-see.

NewsBlaze: The five most popular people-powered news sites

'Ahmadinejad would sacrifice half of Iran to wipe out Israel'


The JPost has a pulse-quickening story (hat tip: NewsVine) about leadership succession in Iran. It contemplates the Mullahs handing over full control to President AhmadinnerJacket Ahmadinejad, the psychopath with "divine dancing ability."

Iran's president routinely urges listeners to imagine a "world without America or Zionism" and exhorts his audiences to chant "Death to America." A while back, after listening to this rhetoric for months, Mark Steyn asked whether we should, "wait 'til we we've got absolute definitive 100% proof that [Iran's] got WMD - the absolute definitive 100% proof being a smoking crater where Tel Aviv used to be, or maybe London."

But I guess this story still isn't big enough for the likes of the New York Times.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel," Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

At present, Eiland stressed, the ultimate decision maker in Iran was Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 67, whom he said was "more reasonable." But, Eiland went on, "if Ahmadinejad were to succeed him - and he has a reasonable chance of doing so - then we'd be in a highly dangerous situation..."

A commenter provides an unverifiable -- yet ominous -- postscript:

Israel's response to Iran's nuclear pursuit has already been formulated. Either Iran backs down or there will be a strike the likes of which world has never seen. Plans already made to divide Iran into sectors for strike by each of the coalition. Advanced weapon systems (including tactical nuclear munitions) have already been transferred to coalition states. Strategy and gaming have been underway a year. Ahmadinejad and regime's days are numbered. Only thing that will stop attack is Iran's acceptance to complete and verifiable halt to UF6 enrichment. As world will soon see, Iran is defenseless against oncoming onslaught. Initial attack will cut communications & GCI rendering Tehran blind. Iranian aircraft taking flight will be downed well before leaving its airspace. Larger missile silos/bases will be targeted in initial strike, leaving only mobile launched missile threat. Israel has decided to absorb sizeable conventional missile attack....


JPost: 'Ahmadinejad would sacrifice half of Iran to wipe out Israel'

Thursday, August 24, 2006

New York Times Op-Ed Page Explained


CNet reported yesterday that Thomson Financial has turned to computers to write business stories. Software (CNet terms it "robo-reporters") will be used to crank out earnings stories.

In fact, a company spokeperson announced that computers will be used to write increasing numbers of business stories for Thomson. It makes sense, since a program can punch out an earnings story in less than half a second after results are released.

The author of this article -- the JournalistPro 6000 Series (just kidding, it's actually Greg Sandoval) -- is perhaps embittered by the outsourcing of his profession to a small, air-cooled box. He tosses in the following sneer at the end of his piece:

What's unclear is how a PC will stand up to accusations of a liberal bias.

At last! Finally, we have a suitable explanation for the New York Times op-ed page! Or, as I like to call it, the Axis of Ignorance: Maureen Dowd, Bob Herbert, and Frank Rich.

I mean, what other explanation is there for the axis' 156 stories in a row, all pillorying the Bush administration? That's right, of 156 stories, each and everyone took a negative view of the administration.

Consider the DowdHerbertRich algorithm: throw in some references to "Bushie" and "Rummy". Toss in a a few random phrases such as "Abu Graib" and "Halliburton." Ignore 9/11 and the ever-expanding war on terror (and, of course, fake stories like Al Qaqaa that have outlived their usefulness). And finish off the piece with a reference to Daddy (Bush 41) and rich kids.

Damn, it all makes sense now! Maybe that's why we've never seen Maureen Dowd and the New York Times' P-Series in the same place at the same time!

Thought for the day


The JPost reports on an Israeli defense deal that comes on the same day Iran rejected calls to cease uranium enrichment (hat tip: Best of the Web):

Israel signed a contract with Germany last month to buy two Dolphin-class submarines that will, according to foreign reports, provide superior second-strike nuclear capabilities...

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Purge of the New York Times Archives falls short


Siccing James Taranto on the New York Times is roughly equivalent to unleashing a rottweiler on a pound of grilled hamburger. There's so much exposed meat... so much fat... well, it reminds me of that sequence from White Men Can't Jump:

S***. That's just too easy!

No. that s*** is too easy!

It's too easy!

No. that s*** is... too easy!

F*** it.

I don't want to play no more.

We won't play no more.

It's just too easy to pick on the Times. But, daggone it, it's still fun!

Two papers in one!


Taranto features an ongoing series entitled Two papers in one!. The latest entry deals with the ACLU's judge-shopping exercise that ended up in Michigan and one Anna Diggs Taylor, an appointee of (yes, you guessed it) Jimmah Carter.

Just to refresh your memory, the ACLU wanted to find a federal district or judge that would look favorably on its case regarding the NSA's warrantless wiretaps of international calls. It therefore avoided any circuits that had already looked favorably upon warrantless surveillance by the executive branch. Instead, it found the Sixth Circuit and Judge Anna Diggs Taylor -- a '79 Carter appointee described by the local paper as, "a liberal with Democratic roots."

To demonstrate how clueless her decision was, consider warrantless international wiretaps and their physical equivalent: entering or leaving the country. Without a warrant, Customs can search and question you. They can physically go through every one of your belongings, rip apart your suitcases, strip-search you, detain you for a period of time, intensely interview you... all without a warrant. That's what Customs does.

Apparently Anna Diggs Taylor doesn't know that. Of course, the Times had not one but two views on Taylor's decision:

"With a careful, thoroughly grounded opinion, one judge in Michigan has done what 535 members of Congress have so abysmally failed to do. She has reasserted the rule of law over a lawless administration." --editorial, New York Times, Aug. 18

"Even legal experts who agreed with a federal judge's conclusion on Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program is unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision's reasoning and rhetoric yesterday. They said the opinion overlooked important precedents, failed to engage the government's major arguments, used circular reasoning, substituted passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own conclusions. Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal, said Howard J. Bashman . . ." --news story, New York Times, Aug. 19

Purge of the Times Archive fails


Taranto also points to a Times op-ed that notes Saddam Hussein's new trial for a campaign, code-named Anfal ("Spoils of War"), designed to exterminate Iraq's Kurdish population:

...Over six months in 1988, at least 50,000 Kurds were killed, many of them victims of the mustard and nerve gas rained down by Iraqi planes. Tens of thousands more were tortured or saw their villages turned to rubble, their fields and rivers and newborn infants poisoned by the chemical attacks...

Those would be the same weapons of mass destruction that Saddam never had. Taranto points out that the Times -- true to form -- pins the genocide on (who else?) Ronald Reagan:

...Mr. Hussein was America's ally of convenience against Iran, and it was easier for the Reagan White House to look the other way...

Of course, the Times hasn't censored their archives the way they tend to censor their news reporters (heard about the 500 WMDs found in Iraq since 2003? Or Al Qaqaa since election day 2004? Didn't think so...). So they forgot to purge this 1988 op-ed that pilloried the Reagan administration not for siding with Iraq but instead for urging a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq war:

...Credit the State Department at least for condemning Iraq's ''abhorrent and unjustifiable'' use of poison gas. The department has rightly ignored Administration officials who seem to believe that saying anything might complicate the gulf war [i.e., Iran-Iraq war] cease-fire talks...

Can you say 'revisionism'?

Meanwhile, if we fast-forward to today's op-ed, the Times trots out the so-tired-its-expired Abu Graib soundbite along with a fascinating addition:

...One of the biggest tragedies of the Bush administration's gross mishandling of the occupation of Iraq--the lack of basic security and jobs, the shame and horror of Abu Ghraib, the thousands of civilian deaths--is that the rest of Iraq will likely not take the time to mourn the victims of Anfal...

As Taranto notes, "The Iraqis aren't mourning and it's Bush's fault!"

The paper fails to recognize the unintentional irony that, had the U.S. steered to the Times' preferred course, Saddam Hussein would still be in power and mass genocide would remain the order of the day*.

If there's a 2006 Pulitzer for Hypocrisy, the Times is a slam-dunk lock for this year's award. Come to think of it, there might be an award for a decade in there somewhere.

*Along with those WMDs that "never existed", uranium from Niger that Iraq tried to purchase in 1999, etc.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

FTC chief critiques Net neutrality


The head of the FTC just weighed in on net neutrality and the news ain't good, McGee.

The head of the Federal Trade Commission on Monday expressed sharp skepticism toward proposed laws that would levy extensive Net neutrality regulations on broadband providers... Deborah Platt Majoras, the FTC's... chairman, said extensive Net neutrality legislation currently pending in the U.S. Senate is unnecessary...

"I ask myself whether consumers will stand for an Internet that suddenly imposes restrictions on their ability to freely explore the Internet or does not provide for the choices they want..."

Hmmm. Let's do the math: 98% of consumers have between zero and two choices for broadband. The competitive landscape for high-speed access isn't exactly trench warfare for the carriers.

BellWest's new Internet Service Tiers - click to expandThus, the straw-man argument that consumers won't "stand for" a restricted Internet is weaker than a scarecrow on muscle relaxants.

Consumers have no voice to protest. What would you do if your friendly, neighborhood telco decided to offer its own search engine (and, in the process, also chose to slow down Google, Yahoo and MSN to make its own offering more competitive)?

Some folks might choose dialup... but most would probably shrug their shoulders and put up with the inconvenience.

And things could be expected to get worse as time went by.

Christopher Yoo's paper (critiqued here) is held up by the carriers as academic "proof" that net neutrality isn't needed. Suffice it to say that Yoo points to a future where the Internet has been transformed into cable television. Where the carriers control the content. And pay-per-view toll roads rule the day.

Sound desirable? Hitch a ride on over to Save the Internet now and take action.

News.com: FTC chief critiques Net neutrality

Quote of the Day: Declare Victory, Get Out


James Taranto is today's honoree. His award consists of a laminated certificate and two free tickets to Cirque de Soleil when it next visits Tulsa, Oklahoma.

...They said they would be greeted as liberators for toppling the old regime. Instead, they find themselves caught in a quagmire--a vicious, unwinnable civil war with incalculable costs in both resources and prestige.

We refer, of course, to the Democrats in Connecticut...

Taranto's Best of the Web

How Future Combat Systems (FCS) will work


HowStuffWorks provides an informative view of the armed forces' Future Combat Systems (FCS) programs. FCS is a combined forces platform -- linking air, land, and sea warfare -- and emphasizes speed and lethality over heft and mass.

Just as the Internet is a "network of networks", FCS is a "system of systems." Eighteen systems make up FCS and each represents a type of combat or support platform (e.g., a manned tank or an unmanned aerial vehicle).

The four principles of FCS are good lessons for software designers everywhere. Modularity, efficiency, and agility appear to be the key tenets:

- Improve strategic agility - An Army with large, inflexible units that take months to deploy can't react quickly enough or deal with all of the problems at hand. Some military analysts refer to this as "having a pocket full of $20 bills and a lot of $5 problems..."

- Decrease the logistics footprint - The logistics footprint represents the support crews, fuel, parts and ammunition needed to keep a unit operational. Long supply chains, large refueling vehicles and the need to set up large maintenance depots work against agility and makes the forces that they're attached to more vulnerable.

- Reduce operating and maintenance costs - Creating multiple units based on the same basic structures allows for exchangeable parts and gives maintenance personnel the ability to repair a wider range of units with the same amount of training. This also contributes to a smaller logistics footprint and greater agility... The Army is focusing on smaller, lighter vehicles that are faster and more maneuverable. Instead of heavy armor, units will use stealth strategies and smaller profiles to reduce casualties. Lighter vehicles are also easier to transport and use less fuel. The Army will combine its efforts with other military branches and other nations. This makes the ability to communicate with coalition forces a vital facet of future warfare.

- Increase battlefield lethality and survivability - Tomorrow's soldiers need to destroy their targets and survive attacks a greater percentage of the time. This reduces the number of units needed in any particular engagement, reduces the need for extensive reinforcements and eases the burden on medical and repair units.

HowStuffWorks: How Future Combat Systems (FCS) will work

Monday, August 21, 2006

The failure of Digg-style general news sites


Though websites like Digg are incredibly successful for vertical topics like technology, it's increasingly clear that general news can't be treated quite so cavalierly. For that, simple collaboration sites are rife for abuse.

As I discussed in January, general news is a special breed of animal. Any collaboration sites for these topics will have to account for the political leaning of its authors and readers. That's because each news article and op-ed piece could be treated as if it has a certain "spin."

A general news site that doesn’t account for this will lose at least half of its audience as one side polarizes the other.

And there's ample evidence that this phenomenon has already occurred on Digg. In a recent front-page post ("Introduction to socially driven political news"), the author noted the following abuses:

Users are... allegedly organizing themselves in groups that support articles with specific agendas... many users consider [this a way] of gaming the system.

At the time of writing this, 10 of the last 30 stories promoted to the front page of Digg from the Political News topic have been marked as possibly inaccurate by the community. 11 of the last 30 stories promoted from the Political Opinion topic have been marked likewise. What does this mean? If one were to take this at face value, one would think that either Digg is an exceptionally bad source of political stories, with more than 33% of them being inaccurate, or the burying feature on Digg is being grossly abused.

Reading through the comments on these submissions reveals that it is the latter...

Commenter Helix400 notes:

...The author left out a major abuse of a small band of left wing diggers going through the upcoming stories and burying any right leaning submission out of the list altogether. In one thread, for example, 5 diggers actively worked together to mark a story as spam. Once it was off the upcoming stories (even though it was clearly headed for the main page), other posters continued to make comments in that thread because they previousy dugg the story.

When anybody questioned why the story was buried, their comments were within a few minutes buried to -4. Hmm…pretty suspicious for a story already off the upcoming stories list. The user gronne was one of these people, and admitted to burying right leaning submissions as “Spam”. Here is one of these threads....

This fundamental flaw in the Digg-approach to general news is worth pointing out: some users -- on both sides of the political spectrum -- will abuse the collaboration tools in order to push their own side's agenda.

Some new sites like Spinr attempt to address the problem. So far, though, none of the sites has it mastered. The first collaborative news site that comes up with this magic formula will do extraordinarily well.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Steorn: the Free Energy Challenge & PR Campaign


Disappointed that we don't have cold fusion-based blenders yet? Still haven't gotten your fill of perpetual motion machines? Steorn -- an Irish company -- set off a firestorm of controversy last week with its claim of a magnetic machine that manufactures energy. Notwithstanding the minor stumbling block facing all such inventions -- the first law of thermodynamics -- Steorn was able to gain incredible amounts of publicity by taking out a full-page ad in The Economist. The ad threw down the gauntlet to scientists, researchers, and engineers:

...During 2005 Steorn embarked on a process of independent validation and approached a wide selection of academic institutions. The vast majority of these institutions refused to even look at the technology, however several did. Those who were prepared to complete testing have all confirmed our claims; however none will publicly go on record.

In early 2006 Steorn decided to seek validation from the scientific community in a more public forum, and as a result have published the challenge in The Economist. The company is seeking a jury of twelve qualified experimental physicists to define the tests required, the test centres to be used, monitor the analysis and then publish the results.

In 2003 Steorn undertook a project to develop more efficient micro generators. Early into this project the company developed certain generator configurations that appeared to be over 100% efficient. Further investigation and development has led to the company’s current technology, a technology that produces free energy. The technology is patent pending...

An incredible scientific breakthrough? Or a fantastic marketing experiment? I tend to think it's the latter.

With a YouTube marketing video, a serious company website, and some interesting viral marketing efforts, Steorn's PR is worthy of Snakes on a Plane, m#&$*%rf$&*%#r.

Doug's Top 20 Political Blogs


Lots of folks have asked me, "Doug, what are your favorite political blogs?" Well, actually, no one has asked me that, but I'm prepared to answer the question anyhow. As of mid-2006, my top twenty political blogs are:
1) Little Green Footballs
2) PowerLine
3) Hugh Hewitt
4) James Taranto's Best of the Web
5) Michelle Malkin
6) Captain's Quarters
7) PoliPundit
8) Real Clear Politics
9) Gates of Vienna
10) CounterTerrorism Blog
11) Neil Boortz
12) Right Wing News
13) Right Wing Nut House
14) Belmont Club
15) Blame Bush
16) BlackFive
17) DefenseTech
18) Gateway Pundit
19) Wizbang Blog
20) HedgeHog Blog

Money quote of the day


Walter E. Williams is today's award-winner. His quote appeared in a column on Academia's communist sympathizers, the on-campus leftists attracted by ideas and not deeds.

...From 1917 to its collapse in 1991, the Soviet Union murdered about 62 million of its own people. During Mao Zedong's reign, 35,236,000, possibly more, Chinese citizens were murdered. By comparison, Hitler's Nazis managed to murder 21 million of its citizens and citizens in nations they conquered...

...Often, when people evaluate capitalism, they evaluate a system that exists on Earth. When they evaluate communism, they are talking about a non-existent Utopia...

...Rank nations according to whether they are closer to the capitalism end or the communism end of the economic spectrum. Then rank nations according to human rights protections. Finally, rank nations according to per capita income. Without question, citizens of those nations closer to capitalism enjoy a higher standard of living and a far greater measure of liberty than those in nations closer to communism.

Walter E. Williams: Are academic elites communists?

Saturday, August 19, 2006

The Worst cars ever Made


The brilliantly-named AutoMotoPortal (doesn't that roll trippingly off the tongue?) has an intriguing list of the worst cars ever made. Among them:

* Yugo: this very, very inexpensive tin-can compact car was plagued by every type of maintenance problem imaginable. Good news: it only exploded on very rare occasions.

* Ford Pinto: well, this car actually did explode with frightening regularity. The location of its gas-tank was the primary culprit. I could be mistaken, but if memory serves, the gas-tank was cleverly secreted within the rear bumper.

* Chevy Vega: many believe this car was constructed with shaped rust. You don't see many of these on the road anymore for the same reasons you don't see snowmen in the summer. These cars would disintegrate as you drove them.

I'll add a few more:

* Buick Century: GM made the brilliant decision to keep manufacturing the exact same car for about 25 years straight. I'd call the design dated and horrifically ugly, but that overstates how attractive it looked.

* Merkur XR4Ti: I don't know what XR4Ti stands for, but it easily could have been labeled X-cruciatingly ugly. The X came from the school of design that said, "Hey! If one spoiler doesn't cut it, try two!"

Iraq blocks missile resupply of Hezbollah by Iran


The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah could have exploded into something far worse... had U.S. forces not been positioned in Iraq. USA Today reports:

The United States blocked an Iranian cargo plane's flight to Syria last month after intelligence analysts concluded it was carrying sophisticated missiles and launchers to resupply Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, two U.S. intelligence officials say.

Eight days after Hezbollah's war with Israel began, U.S. diplomats persuaded Turkey and Iraq to deny the plane permission to cross their territory to Damascus, a transfer point for arms to Hezbollah, the officials said.

...Their account illustrates the quiet support the United States gave Israel during the 34-day war, even enlisting help from Muslim nations where acting on Israel's behalf is politically anathema...

Of course, don't look for this news in the New York Times. Like so many other stories, it's been censored.

USA Today: Officials: U.S. blocked missiles to Hezbollah

Friday, August 18, 2006

The Politics of Newsweek


It's been a while since I last visited the Newsweek site. What with its bogus Koran-in-the-toilet scandal, anti-administration pundits like Howard Fineman, and story lines utterly consistent with Democratic talking points, I could always get pretty much the same content by reading Howard Dean's blog.

Take Fineman for example. Newsweek's Fineman Archive is nothing less than a feeble collection of Democratic Party press releases disguised as analyses. Take a gander:

• To Win, Dems Must Forget D.C.
• If Not Hillary, then Who?
• How Enron Tarnishes Bush Era
• Gore as Selfless Oracle
• The Political Unpopularity Contest
• Rove's 'Nightmare' Election Strategy
• Carville Test-Markets a Hillary Message
• Fineman: Four Challenges for Tony Snow
• Bush Shuffles Staff, But Policy Unchanged
• Iran's New Hostages Are Bush and the GOP
• White House Shuffle Isn't a Shake-Up
• White House Calls in Script Doctors
• Is Hillary Taking a Page From Bush's Playbook?
• Port Deal Highlights Bush's 'Explanation' Problem
• Winners and Losers in Abramoff Saga

Rather than demonstrate even a scintilla of balance, literally every article in the Fineman Archive is uncanny in its ability to: (a) demean the Bush administration (that's right, Bush has done absolutely nothing right over the last six years); and (b) pump up the minority party's ostensible presidential candidates.

Consider this thinly-disguised infomercial for Hillary Fineman penned in May:

...It’s true that Hillary Health Care was a political disaster. Still, the pitch will go, she knows how to get things done...

...She’s the one who kept her family together—its finances, its marriage, most of its parenting function—and that is the role she will cast herself in as she tries to win the White House. After eight years of what she will call the perhaps worthy but disastrously administered dreams of George Bush, it’s time to restore some discipline. Think of the iron-willed mom in “Malcolm in the Middle...”

Yes, that's exactly what most of want in a war-time President: not Teddy Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, no -- not them, we want the iron-willed Mom from Malcolm in the Middle.

If we need a poster-child for the unseriousness of the Democratic Party, one need look no further than the feeble Fineman.

Given all that, the last time I linked to a Newsweek article, Herbert Hoover occupied the White House, Betty Crocker had her own radio show, and Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champ. Despite all that, Michael Gerson's "How 9/11 Changed Bush" is well worth delving into.

Gerson offers an utterly clear-eyed view of the war on terror; he thereby grabs the rare and coveted linkage from this site. Money-quote:

...the promotion of democracy in the Middle East is messy, difficult, but no one has a better idea... We may have limited time to take the side of democratic forces—not merely as an act of altruism, but as an act of self-defense...

Gerson's piece, though, is an anomaly.

Let's review some of yesterday's headlines from Newsweek's august (or shrill, take your pick) "Politics" section:

• Could Terror Help Lieberman? - The politics of terror may just keep Joe Lieberman in office
• Congress: A Gang Under Siege
• Clift: Holding Pattern on Iraq
• U.S. Plans for Post-Fidel Cuba
• How Bush Handled Mideast Crisis
• Congress: Leveraging the 'Corruption Issue'
• Is the U.S. Screwing Up the World?
• Hirsh: How U.S. Makes Enemies

Detecting a theme in those last two?

• Wolffe and Bailey: Karl Rove Tries to Shore Up GOP in Ohio
• A New Crackdown on Immigrants
• Politics: A Test for Stem Cells—And for Senator Talent
• Clift: Stem-Cell Veto Will Factor in Close Races

My theme-detector just went off again...

• Samuelson: Washington Has No Shame About Unbalanced Budgets
• Bush Unscripted: What It Means
• The Gitmo Fallout
• Wolffe: Bush’s Mideast Balancing Act
• Clift: How Far Will Israel Go?
• Bush Must Act on Mideast

Ditto.

• Wolffe and Bailey: Will Gitmo Reversal Help Bush in Europe?

I just knew Gitmo had to be in here somewhere.

• Can the United States Trust Russia’s Putin?
• Can Daily Kos Control Dems?
• Right Marries Talk Radio, Web
• Alter: How to Beat 'Cut and Run'

Try 'Stand and Fight'?

• Bush’s Cautious Response to N. Korea
• Clift: Behind the GOP Media Bashing
• Rove on the Warpath
• Clift: Profit and War Debate in D.C.
• America’s Bad Rep in Europe

And my favorite (from Newsweek's partner site), MSNBC:

• Do Democrats need an Iraq plan?

Hey, it's 2006, the Dems have plenty of time!

Bottom line: If you're looking for an exceptional collection of Democratic Party press releases, look no farther than the pages of Newsweek. It's Dem-tastic!

Thursday, August 17, 2006

An open-source platform for real-time Democracy


In the age of wikis, community-based news sites like Digg, discussion forums and blogs, is it natural to expect a change in how Democracies operate sometime soon?

Consider our current form of Representative Democracy. Here in the U.S., we elect Congressional proxies who ostensibly vote on our behalf. But one downside of this approach is the centralization of power in the hands of a very few parties. This power can be abused -- one could point to William J. Jefferson of Louisiana or Tom Delay of Texas as examples.

In the U.S., the mitigating means to control the potential for corruption is a Constitutional Democracy, which layers a set of institutions -- the Executive and Judicial Branches of Government -- onto the Legislative Arm as checks and balances.

With the advent of the Internet, could a Direct Democracy be in the offing?

A comment in this TechDirt article (entitled, "Isn't Competition Supposed To Lower Rates? on the topic of net neutrality) sparked the thought:

...People knock democracy as an impossible concept. Even the Greeks gave up on it. Everybody likes to point out how we don't actually live in a democracy but rather an oligarchy... [This] oligarchy has a kind of stability built in to it, usually just a slowly reciprocating slide between left, right, and back to left again over a few decades.

A truly dynamic democracy abandons all notion of the two part see-saw. Maybe there is still hope for true democracy. If the Diebold voting machines weren't rigged [Ed: Ha!] and there was really a credible method for massive quickfire referenda on a number of... issues can you imagine how dynamic and interesting participatory democracy in real time might be?

I would happily give it a shot over the current system of special interests paying for laws behind closed doors...

Would there ever be room for an "Open-source Platform for Democratic Government": an Internet-enabled direct Democracy that would transfer power to the people in a way never envisioned by the Framers?

Somehow I doubt it, but it's interesting to contemplate.