Make Pomegranate Juice, Not Drug War

(with the sudden rush of posts today, all five of you reading my blog can tell that I'm playing catchup, right? And I'm playing to win.)

Want to Win the War in Afghanistan? Forget Guns - Think Pomegranates

In 2007, [James] Brett was invited to Kabul to talk to farmers from various regions of Afghanistan about growing pomegranates. He flew to Peshawar and drove through the Khyber Pass heading to Kabul While driving through the Nangarhar Province, he noticed a farmer in a field of opium poppies. After the seminar in Kabul, Brett bought a large piece of card and a blue marker pen, and wrote 'Pomegranate is the Answer'. On his return drive back to Peshawar, he saw the same farmer again in the field, jumped out of the car and ran toward the farmer with his makeshift sign. His horrified translator chased after this mad ginger-haired Brit, yelling, 'Don't go in there, you could be shot!' Undetered, Brett talked to the bewildered farmer through his translator, about the farmer's life, his family, his children, how he lived and why he grew opium, about Brett's own addiction to drugs. Brett explained that pomegranate was not only the best option as an alternative crop to opium poppies, but was the only feasible one for the Afghan climate and growing conditions, and promised to return to the farmer's land a couple months later with pomegranate saplings. He went home and set up a charity called Pom354.

Brett followed through on his promise, returning a few months later to find the farmer had discussed this idea with sixteen other families with land around his own; all of them wanted to become involved. From there, the plan snowballed – in January, 2008, Afghanistan Television interviewed him, and other farmers asked him for help in changing their fields from poppies to pomegranates. The local member of Parliament and a respected Elder in the Tribal system wanted to know more. A tribal meeting covering the entire Nangarhar Province was called, and 200 Tribal elders invited.

Passion. Persistence. Pomegranates. I'm all for it. Put Afghanistan pomegranates and pom juice on the market, and I'll buy them, happily.

"Man in the Middle" Attacks - in WWII

This is just fascinating, a man-in-the-middle attack performed in World War II.

Aspidistra is described over at Schneier on Security, a blog everyone should keep an eye on.

Aspidistra was a World War II man-in-the-middle attack. The vulnerability that made it possible was that German broadcast stations were mostly broadcasting the same content from a central source; but during air raids, transmitters in the target area were switched off to prevent them being used for radio direction-finding of the target.

The exploit involved the very powerful (500KW) Aspidistra transmitter, coupled to a directional antenna farm. With that power, they could make it sound like a local station in the target area.

With a staff of fake announcers, a fake German band, and recordings of recent speeches from high-ranking Nazis, they would smoothly switch from merely relaying the German network to emulating it with their own staff. They could then make modifications to news broadcasts, occasionally creating panic and confusion.

Honestly, some days I think there really is nothing new under the sun.

In other news...

I've been awash in work this week but am feeling pretty good about it.

Planets outside our solar system!

Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star

Woot!!

Using MMOGs to Test 'Costs' of Environmental Laws

How nifty!

MMOGs as Social Experiments: the Case of Environmental Laws
Authors: Joost Broekens
(Submitted on 5 Nov 2008)

Abstract: In this paper we argue that Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), also known as Large Games are an interesting research tool for policy experimentation. One of the major problems with lawmaking is that testing the laws is a difficult enterprise. Here we show that the concept of an MMOG can be used to experiment with environmental laws on a large scale, provided that the MMOG is a real game, i.e., it is fun, addictive, presents challenges that last, etc.. We present a detailed game concept as an initial step.

Subjects: Computers and Society (cs.CY)
Cite as: arXiv:0811.0709v1 [cs.CY]

Full paper: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0811.0709v1

I voted and hope you did, too.

I've been so thrilled to see so many people coming out to exercise their sacred duty and their true power. This has been an amazing election. Let us all promise ourselves, and those who come after us, that it is not a fluke, and let us promise ourselves and the world, that we will relight the torch of the true American dream: equality, opportunity, and justice. We are Americans, together.

Awesome title of this legal reference

Nomothetes, the Interpreter, Containing the Genuine Signification of Such Obscure Words and Terms Used Either in the Common or Statute Lawes of This Realm, First Compiled by the Learned Dr. Cowel, and Now Enlarged from the Collections of All Others Who Have Written in This Kind with an Addition of Many Words Omitted by All Former Writers, and Pertinent to This Matter, with Their Etymologies as Often as They Occur, as also Tenures Whether Jocular, or Others Statues and Records, Wherein the Alterations Are Expressed, and Their Agreement or Dissonancy, with the Law at Present Declared: Whereto Is Subjoyned an Appendix, Containing the Ancient Names of Places Here in England, Very Necessary for the Use of All Young Students, Who Intend to Converse with Old Records, Deeds or Charters

1 v. London: Printed by the assigns of Richard Atkins and Sir Edward Atkins for H. Twyford, Tho. Basset, J. Place, and H. Sawbridge, 1684.
Cowel, John
Manley, Thomas (Editor)


Dang. The things you find when looking for something on HeinOnline.

Am in a state of crogglement

They actually convicted Senator Ted Stevens.

Holy fucking cow*.


Ted Stevens' conviction the crowning blow in bad year for GOP senators

Dang. I mean, I never, NEVER, thought he'd be convicted. Hell, I was surprised there was a trial. There's this dichotomy in Alaska, see? Two belief systems, two mythos, chafing at one another. Pro-development and pure-frontier are probably the most straightforward labels. Palin is pro-development with an evangelical twist, for the record. Stevens, like most in politics in Alaska, just made sure everyone knew the state was open for business.

[*] Bear in mind, I try to restrict dropping the f-bomb these days, as its considered unlawyerly and all that. I shrieked out loud when I saw the headline.

Don't think of it as voting, think of it as hiring if you must

So, here's the deal:

The company's down the shitter. People have lost jobs, and we've become seen as the assholes of the industry.

You've been interviewing these guys for the CEO slot for a while, now it's time to make a hiring decision.

Now, last time, we hired a schlub - or maybe the board of directors made us - who, sure, is fun at a barbecue, but has a mean sense of humor and is not really qualified for the job. Super-nice wife, though. I mean, dang, she is just *nice*. Real sweetheart.

Anyway, this time, there's this really bright guy applying, who has a good track record. Might even be overqualified. Plus? Genuinely nice guy. Helps people out wherever he can. Walks the talk, when you get down to it. Family man.

And then there's this guy who had a rep about 20 years ago, but has been sitting on his laurels in a lot of ways ever since. Plus, he's been sick, and during an interview you really wonder did he just have a transient ischemic attack right in front of you, and you think to yourself that this job could kill him --

He's got a bad temper. And, he's been saying some really nasty shit. Really nasty.

And so has his hanger-on, who seems to think if you're smart you can't be trusted with things that require brains. Who made that rule up? It makes no sense, really.

Now, the bright guy is at the top of his game. Seriously. This might be a once-in-a-lifetime moment when the right man for the job shows up, at the right time. And you actually know it. When's the last time that happened? Never?

Yeah, probably never.

So which guy do you hire?

I know which one I want to hire.

Connecticut Recognizes Same-Sex Marriages

Connecticut Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage

What pisses me off is the constant misunderstanding of a court's role evidenced in the following remark of Connecticut Governor Rell:

The Supreme Court has spoken. I do not believe their voice reflects the majority of the people of Connecticut. However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision – either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution – will not meet with success. I will therefore abide by the ruling.”

The job of a court is not to speak "with the voice of the majority." The job of a court is to interpret the law.

Legislatures pass laws, Executives execute them, and Judiciaries interpret them. Got it? Good.

Taxes, Palin, and Oil Dependency

Palin’s Kind of Patriotism

I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.

The Truth from Alaska

Sarah Palin: The view from Alaska @ Salon.

Affectations aside, there’s plenty about Palin we Alaskans do recognize, and all too well. She’s already proven to us that her promises of transparent government, attendant to the will of the people, are bear pucky. We know about her private e-mail accounts and her systematic obstruction of the Alaska Legislature’s investigation of the so-called Troopergate scandal. But let’s turn to her environmental record, where a similar pattern of obfuscation continues.

This is too familiar. The folks who call her George W. Palin are right.

First, Palin pushed hard, along with sport hunting and guiding interests, to help defeat a ballot initiative that would have stopped the state’s current aerial wolf control program, which had been criticized by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council for flawed science. Now her administration has pointedly refused to respond to repeated public information requests (I’m one of the petitioners, and a potential litigant), regarding the apparently illegal killing of 14 wolf pups at their dens on the Alaska Peninsula this spring by state personnel, including two high-level Department of Fish and Game administrators. A biologist at the scene admitted to an independent wolf scientist that the 6-week-old pups were held down and shot in the head, one by one. This inhumane practice, known as “denning,” has been illegal for 40 years. But a simple request for information on the details of this operation, including to what extent the governor was involved in the decision, has resulted in a typical Palinesque roadblock and a string of untruths.

Our I-love-Alaska governor was also instrumental in defeating a ballot initiative to stop development of a gargantuan open-pit mine incongruously known as Pebble near the headwaters of the most productive salmon watershed in the state, Bristol Bay. The current mine design calls for building the world’s largest earthen dam to hold back an enormous lake of toxic waste — this in a known earthquake zone. Crazy stuff, yet Palin openly opposed the initiative, in lock step with international mining corporations that invested millions of dollars in a misinformation campaign.

But Palin’s certified anti-environmental whopper is her lawsuit against the Bush administration (of all outfits) for listing polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. She claimed Alaska’s own experts had completed a review of the federal data and concluded that the listing was uncalled for. The truth was, state biologists had come to the opposite conclusion. But that report was never released, and her researchers had a gag clamped on them. Palin simply didn’t want anything to get in the way of offshore oil drilling in moving pack ice — where there is no way to contain, let alone clean up, catastrophic spills.

Oh, and look, lying about what the experts say. That's familiar too.

And then there's the dead lake -- all style and no substance:

Sarah Palin’s dead lake

Every morning she’s at home here, Sarah Palin wakes up to a postcard view from her lakeside home. Out the windows of her two-story wood-framed house stretch the serene, birch-lined waters of Lake Lucille. Ducks go gliding by the red-and-white Piper Cub floatplane docked outside. With the snow-frosted Chugach and Talkeetna mountains looming in the distance, the scene seems to define the Alaska that Palin celebrates: rugged, majestic, unspoiled.

And, yet, the lake Sarah Palin lives on is dead.

“Lake Lucille is basically a dead lake — it can’t support a fish population,” said Michelle Church, a Mat-Su Valley borough assembly member and environmentalist. “It’s a runway for floatplanes.”

Palin recently told the New Yorker magazine that Alaskans “have such a love, a respect for our environment, for our lands, for our wildlife, for our clean water and our clean air. We know what we’ve got up here and we want to protect that, so we’re gonna make sure that our developments up here do not adversely affect that environment at all. I don’t want development if there’s going to be that threat to harming our environment.”

But as mayor of her hometown, say many local critics, Palin showed no such stewardship.

Proof's in the pudding, folks.

Ambien, Amnesia, and a McCain Presidency

Holy crap.

An Ambien amnesia presidency

So why does McCain taking Ambien matter? Lots of people take sleeping medication. It's prescribed by a doctor, so it must be okay.

Sure, but lots of people don't have to worry about being drugged up on Ambien and getting a call at 3AM that affects the lives of 300+ million people.

. . . .

More disturbingly, in a crisis, how is the White House staff supposed to know if the President is truly aware of what's going on or not? Whether he's under an Ambien haze or truly himself? I've had a couple of experiences with people in exactly this situation, under the influence of sleeping pills, and the reality is you can't tell that they're under the influence. I've had a face-to-face conversation with someone who had taken Ambien and not fallen asleep - the next day they didn't remember any of the hour long discussion. The scary part? I had no idea that I was speaking to someone who wasn't fully conscious. To me, it was like having a regular conversation and I had no idea the person across from me was completely out of it. The prospect of a President "sleep-driving" the country on Ambien is terrifying.

So let's not elect him.

Sympathetic but Miffed

You know, I understand how it can be on the IT side when customer's email or some other service doesn't work. I've been there, staring at a computer program (more often than not, in my area, rather than a server) that steadfastly refuses to work FOR NO REASON. Literally. You're standing there saying to yourself, "well, sh**, it worked yesterday. What changed?"

But. My personal email has been out for 2? 3? days? Possibly since Monday. My work accounts are fine, but that's not where I get the bulk of my email. What this means is my personal interaction is being reduced to near-zero, and I can't tell anyone except by posting on this blog.[*]

It's strange, too, realizing I've moved from one "firefighting" profession to another. in IT, you put out fires, and, if you're really lucky, maybe prevent some. Lawyers, yeah, it's mostly fires. IT people mostly get ignored until something breaks. And they get pizza, sometimes. Lawyers? Well, we get to be the butts of jokes about how it would be great if we were all dead. This is not a step up.

Sigh.

I do have to say, about this election

There is the fun of shocking the unwary with "Sarah Palin is from my hometown."