2006-12-05

Here’s a piece about spoofed websites. You may have seen them, or you may have gotten official-looking e-mails warning you that something is drastically wrong with your account somewhere.  They may be fake.

You click a link on a page or in an email you have received.  And why not?  The email is from the bank, [...]

2006-12-04

From a letter in the Wall Street Journal:
The only correct way of comparing the relative amounts of carbon dioxide produced by combustion of ethanol against gasoline as the automotive fuel is the one based on the relative calorific values of the two fuels and also after taking into account the amount of carbon dioxide emitted when [...]

This article in the Washington Post examines the direction the Fort Myers News-Press is moving in the Internet Age.
Myron, 27, is a reporter for the Fort Myers News-Press and one of its fleet of mobile journalists, or “mojos.” The mojos have high-tech tools — ThinkPads, digital audio recorders, digital still and video cameras — but [...]

2006-11-17

From The Guardian: The British government has issued at least 3 million “secure” passports to its citizens. Their “security” derives from an embedded chip which contains the passport holder’s data. It can be read using a RFID readere, and it’s supposed to be secure because the data is encrypted. Steve Boggan, Phil [...]

2006-11-01

…Stop Digging!
By now, everyone and his dog has heard John Kerry’s description of the fate that awaits those who don’t study hard and do their homework.  Major gaffe, there.
Any reasonable person would know that he has a habit of slamming President Bush as stupid and incompetant, and the Republicans as stupid and corrupt.  Any remark [...]

2006-10-16

Actually, taken away.  And it was only one rock.
(link)
The rock in question was a geological specimen, being carried by a geologist on his way to a conference.
My banded chunk of the Hebron Gneiss (pronounced “nice”) resembled a broken slice of layer cake composed of licorice and cream cheese.
Apparently, a rock counts as a “dual-use item”, [...]

…At least not yet.
Fans of Star Trek may recall the nifty little gadget called a “cortical stimulator”.  In the fourth movie, Dr. McCoy pulled one out of his kit and used it to repair the brain damage Chekhov had suffered in a fall.
Now, the Washington Post has an article on the use of electronic stimulation [...]

Anti-poverty programs that hand money to poor people often don’t work.  The trick is to equip people to create, or at least increase, their own incomes. The best approach to poverty is to make people self-reliant, and not dependent on a handout.
An article in today’s Washington Post describes how inexpensive cell phones are making a [...]

2006-10-05

Arnold Kling offers this thought to “Libertarian Democrats” at Tech Central Station — let’s join forces and run some experiments.
What I propose is that Democrats promise to support one major libertarian experiment. In exchange for Democrats agreeing to support this experiment, libertarians would agree to vote for Democrats.
What does he mean by “experiment”?  Well…
Experimentalism is [...]

2006-10-04

The “reverend” Fred Phelps is at it again.  Apparently, he and his group is planning to picket the funerals of the Amish girls killed in that shooting.
I’d love to see his group protest at a Muslim funeral.

Betsy Newmark has a post where she offers her guesses as to which worthy individual or group will be awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
I suspect this year’s Prize will go to Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah in Lebanon, for his efforts to rein in Israeli agression.
Any other guesses / nominations?

2006-10-02

To me, the argument over whether or not to stay in Iraq boils down to one issue.  One side thinks the war is optional, the other side doesn’t.
Indeed, going to war in Iraq may have been optional, but at this point, that’s not the question.  The question is whether staying in Iraq is optional.
William Kristol [...]

2006-09-28

Although he considers the techniques used on terrorists to be “forms of torture”, nonetheless, he declares:
Those who would use abuses at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay to accuse America of being no different than the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or Sadaam’s regime have lost all sense of moral clarity.
America is different because your citizens can [...]

2006-09-27

One of the people I keep tabs on at Live Journal has been on a tear about torture. From reading his journal, I’ve seen that he has very strong feelings about torture – indeed, he hates it. I’ve also seen that he seems to lose his ability to read for content when he gets worked [...]

Glenn Reynolds has an article up at TCS on the latest thing in nuclear reactors — the pebble bed modular reactor.
As a recent survey article in Popular Mechanics magazine makes clear, there are new approaches to nuclear power in the offing that promise cleaner and more efficient power production with far less risk of “all-out” [...]

Canadian churches are starting to urge their members to boycott bottled water, and a few have considered banning it from their premises.
According to this article, many churches consider bottled water morally tainted.  Many express concerns over the high markup, the environmental impact of extracting the water from wells and springs, the plastic bottles, and the [...]

2006-09-26

…What responsibility does the bearer hold?
In a way, this is the question addressed by Lee Harris’ essay at TCS today.  He observes where Madeleine Bunting,  writing in The Guardian, chooses to lay blame:
“An elderly Catholic nun has already been killed in Somalia, perhaps in retaliation for the pope’s remarks; churches have been attacked in the [...]

2006-09-24

This article was discussed at great length on the Dennis Prager show. It looks at why the left spends so much of its energy bashing America, and why it’s willing to ally itself with groups like Al Qaeda which shares with the Left only the desire to destroy America.
The problem:
America-bashing is anti-Americanism at its most [...]

2006-09-23

You’ve probably heard of intercessory prayer. How about imprecatory prayer?
Doug Giles has an essay on imprecatory prayer, and recommends it as one of the steps Christians should take against the terrorist wing of Islam.
What is an imprecatory prayer?
It is a prayer asking God to crush a clear enemy of His, an enemy which is an [...]

2006-09-22

On Fox News, Bill O’Reilly interviewed Brian Ross on the subject of “coercive interrogation” techniques.
I couldn’t find a transcript online, so here’s one I put together, just for my own reference.  Maybe you’ll find it useful, too.
(After the introductions)
Bill O’Reilly (O): Now I have to start with — you used mostly anonymous sources for these [...]