Marxist quotations

Today’s leader (that’s “editorial” for you Americans) in the Guardian begins as follows:
Shortly before being elected US president, George Bush wasn’t able to name the president of Pakistan when asked in a televised interview. Yet, according to his national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, in the months leading up to September 11, President Bush was fully briefed and supported a detailed plan to help General Musharraf cut off support to al-Qaida in Afghanistan. As Groucho Marx once asked: “Who do you believe – me, or the evidence of your own eyes?”
Precisely.

Not always an early adopter

Those who know me as a geek par excellence, owner of lots of hand-held computers (including two different models running Linux – is that geeky enough?) may be surprised that until now I’ve never purchased a camcorder. In part, this is because I mistrust electromechanical devices – the mechanical bits tend to fail – and I’m well aware that I am unlikely to use the device very often. I’m not the kind of guy that has boxes of family photos and videotapes of “precious moments” stored in order to be used as unconventional weapons against unsuspecting visitors. I tend to scurry around looking for a camera right before I head off on vacation, and if I haven’t transferred all of the pictures to my computer the day I get home they’re likely to languish in the camera in the closet until next time.
But enough of that. Inspired by a crude video that my son-in-law took at my father-in-law’s 80th birthday bash, I have acquired a Mini-DV camcorder, a Panasonic PVGS9.It cost $349, plus a FireWire cable and some tapes. Circuit City threw in a tripod and a camera bag. The tripod is nice (but will I remember where I put it when I need it?), the camera bag is useless. It was designed for the last generation of camcorders but one; this baby is tiny (3.38 x 2.75 x 4.38 inches). It would be lost in the bag.

While charging the battery, I read the manual. There are dozens of weird and wonderful effects built in, none of which I will ever use. I plan to suck the video straight into my PowerBook and edit it using iMovie (which has wonderful effects and simple drag-and-drop composition, editing, sound track addition, transitions, and so forth). Then I’ll burn it to DVD using iDVD, which will allow me to do the titling, menus, etc. A simple test suggests that I should be able to edit, title, and render a simple 30 minute video in around an hour, which feels like the right input-output ratio. The camera did its job really well: nothing unexpected happened, it just worked. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Didn't want to imply….

My last post about Iraq might have given the wrong impression about the troops over there. Just because things are fraying at the edges doesn’t mean everybody’s cracked. I’ve been reading A View from a Broad to get a soldier’s perspective. Most eye-opening comment: about the poor XXXXXXXXX troops:
If you want to take some of the time and attention you’ve been giving to me, you might want to think about the XXXXXXXXX soldiers who provided help, support, and first aid to our lost soldier. They have been stranded here without pay for six months, and lack even phone cards to call home to rectify the situation. They helped a dying man at the scene of the accident, and now it would be nice to return the favor. Some of the toiletries various people have been nice enough to send will be going to them.
Edited: The original poster has just deleted the nationalities of the soldiers involved for “security reasons. I’ll do the same, although deleting stuff from the web is a pointless exercise.

"We didn't realise that he didn't care"

This afternoon my wife was sitting in her doctor’s waiting room. She was reading Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies; the only other patient, a man, was reading Ron Suskind’s book on Paul O’Neill, The Price of Loyalty. They started talking, and the man said that he was reading the book because a friend had told him to do so, saying [approximately] “I voted for Bush last time, but after reading this I could never vote for him again.” My wife asked if the book was having the same effect on him. “Yes,” he replied, “we knew that Bush wasn’t very smart, but we didn’t realise that he didn’t care.”

Understanding Iraq

Watching the news about what’s happening in Iraq, I am struck by two things: they only talk about the number of Americans killed (or perhaps “Coalition forces”), and they do not even try to answer the question “Why now?” There are fatuous references to the weather, as though we were talking about a bunch of crips in the ‘hood on a hot summer night. Why? In the grand scheme of things, I am not surprised, and I want to say “I told you so”, but even so…. Why?
I turn to Salon, and read Andrew Cockburn’s piece. It reminds us of history, of how things unfolded just like this in 1920, and it mentions the unmentionable: the way some American troops are turning on the civilian population, robbing them during searches, the naive young men and women brutalized by their situation, just like in Vietnam.
But why now? Ask the Iraqis. I have an Iraqi colleague at work who insists, angrily, that things are not as bad as they seem, but his perspective seems distorted. So I turn to Baghdad Burning, and read what River has posted from the city itself. If you care about what’s happening over there, you should read her journal.
Continue reading “Understanding Iraq”

Thoughts on the Tyco mistrial and the jury system

So another multi-million dollar trial collapses because of a mistrial related to the jury system. Can anyone give me any good reason – other than “tradition” [cue Fiddler On The Roof music] – for requiring unanimity in juries? For most (?all) trials in the UK, they moved to a 10-2 majority requirement years ago. Requiring 12-0 means that you are at the mercy of jury tampering or the wacko who wants to play Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men. It’s much harder to intimidate or bribe three jurors than one…..
I’ll make an exception for capital cases, although since I’m opposed to capital punishment on principle, this exception is more tactical than anything else.
Legislate 10-2 juries in every state and at the Federal level; those who vote against it can pay for the mistrials!

Blogspamming

OK, I’ve been blogspammed. I’ve now had three comments added to my blog which advertised spectacular medical opportunities. I know the IP address of each (e.g. 62.99.209.54), but I haven’t yet done the spelunking required to find out if its coming from a business or (more likely) from a compromised PC somewhere.
The obvious fix would be to fix the “add comment” module of MT to require interactive validation to enter a comment. (E.g. type back a code displayed as a JPEG.) I’m going to investigate what’s online at Blogspam and I’ll report back.