Pascale Soleil: futureHistory

Some Words for the Day

Tue, 05 Nov 2002 06:10:33 GMT

Beware of partisan politics.

Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty. Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

Be careful of fixed enmities or alliances:

Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices? In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.

Who said it? George Washington, September 19, 1796
He was declining to run for re-election, and this was his Farewell Address.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man, who views it in the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations; I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

Now go vote.

November 5th is around the corner

Mon, 04 Nov 2002 07:40:47 GMT

I agree with Steve about this:

I was talking to a friend the other day, and during the course of our conversation, he admitted to me that he doesn't vote. My reply to him was that my estimation of him immediately tumbled a substantial amount. This is a smart person in a lot of ways, but for some reason has decided to take himself out of the process. I just told him that in future discussions, his opinion of any political issues didn't matter to me, as they obviously didn't matter to him enough for him to express them.

Don't sit on the sidelines and complain. Participate, and then complain ~ at least your complaints will have some standing.

Defending US

Sat, 02 Nov 2002 00:54:21 GMT

I've lived overseas (England, the Continent, Asia). It's a valuable and tricky experience being an expatriate. You see your country from an entirely different perspective, and if you're an American with any degree of sensitivity you're like to find yourself constantly apologizing for its behavior, and distancing yourself from the power elites and the swarming masses in equal measure. You feel the burden of being a sterling representative of your homeland. Right up until the point when you get really, really annoyed with all the inappropriately self-righteous fingerpointing being done by the insular myopic Europeans (or whomever) you encounter. Right up until you realize that you love your country despite its flaws and arrogance and ignorance. Power has consequences. Noblesse oblige. No doubt there's so much we can do better, especially right now. But when I read Russell Beattie's patriotic screed I wanted to stand up and salute, sing the notoriously unsingable national anthem, and in general wave the flag.

You learn something every day...

Tue, 22 Oct 2002 05:33:22 GMT

...but it's not every day that I learn something from my late local news. WJLA (Channel 7 here in the DC area) just reported on Rome's first official gay marriage. Typical late-night news fluff. But why "official"? Well, apparently it's a legal marriage because one of the men is French, and France recognizes same sex marriages. Did you know that? I sure didn't. Vive la France!

Sniper Theory Redux

Mon, 21 Oct 2002 18:10:52 GMT

In light of the fact that Wired has chosen to delve into the snarky world of the sniper-blog, and that it apparently remains impossible to have a social gathering here in DC where the topic remains unplumbed, I am revisiting my version (originally posted at "For the Record, My Theory"). I don't know whether I find the Michaels Crafts store connection as compelling any more, although I still think it may have provided the first impetus of anger. If this weekend's shooting is connected ~ and I have no reason to doubt that it is ~ then my guess is that this weekend was the first where shooter-guy didn't have the kids (or, even creepier, he went out after putting them to bed, which would suggest that he lives near Ashland). The police have not released any information yet about the race or occupation of the man shot behind the Ponderosa (or his spouse). The latest intrigue centers around the request for an individual to call the phone number left "at the Ponderosa" and, more recently, the police saying they will respond to the message they've received. It's been my suspicion from early on that the police have more information than they have released (which is perfectly reasonable, by the way), and that the apparent randomness of these shooting is more apparent than truly random. I was particularly struck that, after the Ashland shooting, the authorities swiftly threw up two major roadblocks on Connecticut and Wisconsin Avenues in Northwest Washington ~ stopping and searching every single vehicle. Bear in mind that the shooting was 80 miles away. I've heard no cogent explanation for this action, which only makes sense if they are operating with significantly more information than they are releasing. A grace note ~ as reported on CNN's website, the Ashland victim's wife released a statement including these words:

I would like to thank people of Richmond and Ashland for their caring and prayers. They have been a bright ray of hope and comfort. This has been a frightening and difficult time where I feared for the loss of my husband, friend and soul mate. Please pray also for the attacker and that no one else is hurt.

May God bless her for her ability to speak the language of peace while carrying such a heavy personal burden. I'd like nothing better than for my theory that these shootings are motivated by white-supremacist, anti-government sentiment to be wrong (if my divorced/separated theory is right, then I wonder too whether the wife may not have left him for a person of color). At the moment, I certainly don't have enough information to either modify my thoughts or to reinforce them. In any case, I hope I'm wrong wrong wrong. We don't need more egregious evidence of our internal divisions and failings as a society. From my perspective, the "best" possible outcome of this would be for it to be proven to be foreign terrorism. But I think that's very unlikely. It's also true that the last thing this region needs is another reason for people not to visit. Our tourist economy took a huge hit after September 11th, and still has not properly recovered. Do the patriotic thing and come visit me in our nation's capital! [Update: So I've clearly been wrong about a bunch of things. The Tarot card apparently WAS left by the sniper, as the Ponderosa letter made mention of additional messages on the card that have not been reported in the media. The thing that has me the most baffled at present is reports that the Ponderosa letter includes a demand for money ~ 10 million dollars, according to some sources. That makes no sense to me. Also, I'm trying to figure out why Chief Moose would report the postscript threatening children. How is anything improved by going public with that? I'm going to stop speculating for now because I truly believe that the public has only inadequate and misleading information to work with.]

And I-i-i-i-i-ay-i-i...

Tue, 15 Oct 2002 18:46:53 GMT

I am not making this up. It's not enough that the voters have no choice on the ballot in the upcoming Iraqi election. Or that, despite the trappings of privacy at the "polling" places, each ballot can be traced to an individual voter's identity. No. There is no end to this madman's cruelty.

[Saddam Hussein's] campaign song, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," has been getting lots of airtime.

This insanity must stop. I now feel that we must invade immediately.

Here's an idea...

Sat, 28 Sep 2002 04:54:30 GMT

I was talking with my brother and his wife about impending war with Iraq. They live in Geneva, and both work in diplomatic circles. Of course they know more about policy than I do, so it's hard to have a debate. At least for me, since if they state something as factual I have no recourse. After all, what do I know? So we're discussing inspections and deployments and timing. And my brother suggests, jokingly, that maybe the best way for the US to proceed is just to announce: "If the UN requests to inspect a facility and Iraq refuses, the US will just bomb it." Actually, this sounds like a pretty good idea to me. It's a little bit like the protocol kids use to ensure that everyone gets a fair slice of pie ~ you cut, I pick. You deny, I destroy. Neither of us gets what we originally wanted, but it's sort of fair. And it provides an incentive to NOT impede inspections. I won't be holding my breath expecting this to be taken up in official policy, however.

If it sounds too good to be true...

Tue, 17 Sep 2002 04:27:30 GMT

Scientists are people too, and so like any of the rest of us they sometimes get derailed by the temptations of fame, money, and personal ambition. Even lay people wanted cold fusion to be real. And physicists really wanted Bell Labs' Hendrik Schön"s work on superconductivity to be true. PhD students have staked their careers on his published results (90 papers in peer reviewed journals in three years).

Many physicists now wonder about Schön's incredible productivity. "I am guilty of extreme gullibility," says Nobel laureate Philip Anderson. "I have to confess it. We should all have been suspicious of the data almost immediately." Ramirez of Los Alamos says, "I find it hard to even read that many papers, much less write the them"

As with every other human endeavor, science ultimately depends upon the integrity of those who practice it for its success.

"Science is scientists," said William Wallace, teacher and head of the science department at Washington's Georgetown Day School. "It's a human activity." Still, Wallace concedes that "A little trust is chipped away every time something like this happens." Pointing to the "heroes I had growing up" -- like Richard Feynman, the maverick Nobel prize winner who inspired generations of physics students -- Wallace notes that now "there's an incredible amount of pressure on young and midcareer scientists. They always need to know where the next grant is coming from." The result is "careerism," not heroism or pursuit of the truth. And that leaves the teacher with a question: "In the end, if there isn't respect for scientific truth, then what have you got?"

Read the whole Salon article.

What Price Survival?

Sun, 15 Sep 2002 05:01:25 GMT

Alan Dershowitz has written a book called Why Terrorism Works. In it, he proposes that we devise a new legal instrument, the torture warrant, in order to legalize the torture of certain prisoners in order to obtain information to track down and prevent terrorism.

Dershowitz reports on a 1995 incident in the Philippines, where a terrorist was tortured for 67 days until he provided information that may have prevented the crash of 11 commercial airliners. How many Americans would regret that the man wasn't read his Miranda rights? Dershowitz answers this question. When he asks audiences if they would support the use of nonlethal torture in a ticking-bomb case, ''virtually every hand is raised.'' He concludes that the real issue ''is not whether some torture would or would not be used in the ticking-bomb case -- it would. The question is whether it would be done openly, pursuant to a previously established legal procedure, or whether it would be done secretly, in violation of existing law.'' Dershowitz argues for torture warrants issued by courts to limit the practice and make it part of the public record.

What's next, public flogging for adulterers and medical hand amputation for thieves? And once you've decided "non-lethal" torture is okay, what's to keep you from claiming that potentially lethal torture may be necessary due to exigency? Sure, the "consitution is not a suicide pact." But when do the differences between us and our enemies become meaningless? Right about the time we decide torture should be legalized, in my opinion. I'd rather die civilized than become the barbarian who kills me. [via The New York Times]

Giant Earth Fart: Party Prank Gone Horribly Wrong?

Tue, 10 Sep 2002 02:58:24 GMT

On June 30, 1908, a large segment of the Tunguska forest in Siberia experienced some kind of spectacular explosion. Trees were flattened, and there was a major conflagration. The force has been estimated as the equivalent of a 50 megaton hydrogen bomb. The most popular scientific explanation has been a meteorite impact. (Other theories include aliens and so forth.) Now, in charmingly imperfect English, we read a Siberian scientist's alternate theory.

The scientist assumes that the gases associated with the oil deposits, and methane produced in the depths of coal beds were accumulated under a thick cover of basalts and then they broke free one day.... The gas kick started nine days prior to the major explosion, a narrow jet of gases rushed up southbound. The fluid jet from under the earth was accompanied by dust, and the wind carried the dust to the west. In the upper layers of atmosphere a layer of aerosols was formed. This layer charged with electricity could have produced the fatal 'sparkle'. It put on fire the top of the liquid jet, and the fire ball rushed towards the Earth. In the oxygen saturated layer of atmosphere the fire ball exploded, the blast wave stirred up the ground, and the gas discharge ceased.

[via Dozer Online]

As September 11th Approaches

Thu, 29 Aug 2002 08:04:41 GMT

We'll see more and more topical items appearing in the news, and spreading throughout Blogaria. Here are a few items I found interesting. Fear. A poem by C. K. Williams. [New York Times] Michiko Kakutani writes about how The Information Age Processes a Tragedy without mentioning weblogs. [New York Times] A review of Among the Heroes, also in the New York Times:

What you end up thinking most about is what it might have felt like that day ~ and what it has felt like at less dramatic moments in our own lives ~ to be faced with a moment of such profound and clear requirements to act for the good of others. It is almost a necessary feature of placid and prosperous lives that moments of such supreme moral clarity are kept to a minimum. And while all of us want peace and prosperity, we still long for such moments; we need them, in order to learn in the deepest sense who we are and what our relatively brief time on the planet might actually be intended to accomplish. The heroes of Flight 93 at least were given the answer to those questions.

Sometimes we have to hear from individual people to appreciate the magnitude of a tragedy. September 11: An Oral History" [New York Times] People I knew died on September 11. With ties to Boston (where three of the planes originated) and New York as well as DC, I suspect that I was in a prime demographic to be affected. Many people I know suffered devasting losses. We are not done with the accounting. I've just signed up for another jewelry class which begins on September 11 (in the evening). I haven't decided yet whether I'll attend the first class, or go to a memorial service being held at my church. I'd like to keep living my life... but I also know it will never be the same.

Washington Rejected

Wed, 28 Aug 2002 04:23:29 GMT

Okay, I'm officially pissed. From the Washington Post: the US Olympic Committee has eliminated DC-Baltimore from consideration. Why?

"Washington did not fall down," Moore said. ". . . It was very close -- very, very close. We did not make a decision just on raw scoring. We were looking for the city that could win the international competition. . . . "We felt Washington made an outstanding candidate. . . . On the other hand, it does take that anti-American [sentiment]. [Congress] brought Mr. Samaranch in and grilled him quite a bit. You could say some of that lingers. . . . Washington did all the right things . . . but you have to look at both sides of that coin with how we perceive the IOC."

Because it's the US capital, and some of our international friends on the IOC might reject it just for that reason.

A source from within the Washington-Baltimore bid team said Knise and Morton were frustrated that the USOC site evaluation team had never discussed with them the USOC's political concerns regarding Washington as the nation's capital. "At some point, I would like to know what the deficiencies were, and what we could have done better," Knise said. Washington's bid effort began six years ago, survived a rocky leadership change and cost nearly $10 million. Knise and Morton said they would spend the coming days trying to figure out how to close down the bid group's operations while leaving a legacy to the community -- aside from the legacy of community cooperation they believe the bid effort brought, uniting Baltimore and Washington in a way many once thought impossible.

San Francisco and New York survive in the bid process. Why?

San Francisco, which like Washington put forward a revised bid this spring, apparently profited not only by its bid revision but also by the perception that it's a city on the fringe of America, far away from the seat of power that proved a problem for the Washington-Baltimore bid. New York, meantime, benefited from its undisputed international status and the fact that members compared the cities with an eye to the future, which mitigated the high-cost construction projects that had troubled several site selection team members.

Oh, I see. New York has international status. That's why terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center, right? And I suppose I should be pleased that San Francisco's famous "fringiness" is now working in its favor (although I wonder how some of the more conservative nations will feel about that). Yup, makes perfect sense. Sorry, this isn't a coherent response. I'm just pissed.

A Loss of Innocence

Mon, 26 Aug 2002 18:39:49 GMT

I used to love to travel by airplane. The magic of flight delighted me. The mystery and possibility of airports and the myriad exotic destinations to which they were the gateway enchanted me. The patterns of civilization or nature seen from above appealed to me both for both their beauty and their meaning. These pleasures have been significantly diminished since September 11 of last year. I'm writing this on my shuttle flight back to DC. As we boarded, I found myself giving my fellow passengers the once-over. Hmm, there's a blond young man in a yellow t-shirt with Hebrew lettering on it. Hmm, there's a young Muslim woman, covered, with a huge black backpack. Say, why does that tall guy in the olive shirt keep getting up and going to the back of the plane? And what's up with the man with the French/Algerian accent who boarded the plane at the last minute after swapping his ticket? I hate looking at other people with suspicion. I hate wondering which would be more damaging, an explosion in the back of the plane or over the midsection by the wings, where I'm sitting. As I was browsing in the bookstore before boarding, the news on the radio informed us that many baggage checkers in airports had a total of 15 minutes of training, and that the FBI had just taken a woman into custody in Texas who had completed one leg of her travels with a loaded .375 magnum in her carry-on luggage. Well, isn't that special! Is that man who waited and watched us all line up and get on the plane an air marshall? I hope so, because if he isn't, his scrutiny was hardly welcome. It's not fun anymore.

There's No Time

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 01:12:21 GMT

Literally. Maybe. Follow the analogy of all possible triangles in Platonia, from this interview with Julian Barbour. Now juxtapose that with the calculated universe of Wolfram or Casey or whomever. From here, it looks like they dovetail quite nicely. God, I wish I had the chops to really understand this stuff. I get fuzzy general ideas about it, but have no tools to really dig in. [Update: Check out this summary of Alfred Korzybski's theory, which describes human beings as "time-binders." via Interconnected, but using the URL of the updated site]

Fear of 9/11

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 23:35:25 GMT

I know it's irrational. I know it doesn't do any good. But as time goes by I find myself getting more and more anxious about the anniversary. I think most of the country has no idea of the impact that day had on Washington, DC. People were (understandably) more focused on the Twin Towers ~ certainly the images coming out of NYC were much more dramatic, and the loss of life was greater. But here in DC, we were hit in the gut too: the greatest symbol of military superiority we have burned for 10 days. Our airport was the last in the nation to reopen. And the anthrax attacks took a much greater toll on productivity and lives here than anywhere else. If I were a terrorist, I would be planning to smack us again, and smack us hard, on September 11. What better way to convey the message that we haven't achieved any lasting victory over terrorism? I had dinner with an ex-boyfriend who's been consulting heavily with the military in the last year (he's a scientist). He tried to assure me that the true poop is that Al-Qaeda is all washed up, routed, dismantled, destroyed. They couldn't possibly mount an attack on the scale of the World Trade Center now, he claims. My immediate cynical response was to then question why we've got this monstrous civil-rights-devouring Homeland Security juggernaut in place... to which he gave me an equally cynical raised eyebrow. But despite my belief that he was telling me what he thinks is the truth, I don't accept that there's no organization out there capable of delivering another mighty wallop to our self-image, our confidence, and our economy. Not to mention global political stability. I've got a pretty lively imagination, and I can think of plenty of profoundly disruptive things that could be implemented with remarkably little overhead in materiel or personnel. And I'm not in the slightest bit motivated to do so. (Quite the contrary, of course.) For a motivated person or group, I'm having a hard time seeing what the real barriers are. Granted, it's not going to be planes. But that's hardly the only option. I'm unhappy with myself for being so gloomy and frightened. And I hope I'm wrong wrong wrong. [Update: Oh goody. Nothing like throwing gasoline on the fire. You be the judge ~ is the timing of the discovery of these tapes coincidental?]

Weird Science

Tue, 30 Jul 2002 22:03:07 GMT

If this article hadn't been written by a guy who also publishes in Jane's Defence Weekly, I would have written it off as a parody. I mean, seriously, anti-gravity? a division of Boeing called Phantom Works? Cavorite? It gets better:

Using a strong electrical discharge source and a superconducting "emitter", the equipment has produced a "gravity impulse", Mr Podkletnov says, "that is very short in time and propagates with great speed (practically instantaneously) along the line of discharge, passing through different objects without any observable loss of energy". The result, he maintains, is a repulsive action on any object the beam hits, that is proportional to its mass. When fitted to a laser pointing device, Mr Podkletnov says, his laboratory installation has already demonstrated its ability to knock over objects more than a kilometre away. The same installation, he maintains, could hit objects up to 200km away with the same power. It was Mr Podkletnov's work with his impulse gravity generator that grabbed the attention of Boeing. In the Grasp briefing document, Boeing describes how the 4in beam shot from the device is reportedly immune to all electro-magnetic shielding and that it goes through anything that gets between it and the target.

Can anyone explain to me how the beam both "goes through anything" AND yet manages to "knock over objects"? In other news, apparently in small doses you can get order out of disorder. I imagine this would be right up Stephen Wolfram's alley ~ as I think it demonstrates that rules-based behavior can demonstrate emerging order in local areas of a more random system.

Here, have a little Armageddon with your future.

Wed, 24 Jul 2002 17:44:05 GMT

Amply hedged with caveats, maybes and we're-not-sures, comes this cheerful report about a very large rock headed for Earth, and due in February 2019. Who says April is the cruelest month?

The Battle of the Sexes, Drugs in the Countryside, and Bad French

Tue, 23 Jul 2002 05:41:11 GMT

This is a remarkably mundane series of entries from the Wayback Journal in which I comment on my abilities to hex our own side in soccer, announce that my new friend H is not only French, but without obvious personal flaw, and find yet another reason not to practice the flute (and *surprise* I watch TV instead). It's amazing to realize what a huge hyped deal the Billie Jean King v. Bobby Riggs match was. It managed to attain a level of cultural significance that was utterly out of proportion to a mediocre tennis match.

Only when people die...

Fri, 12 Jul 2002 22:49:02 GMT

...and even then, not so much. The FBI doesn't seem to be on the stick here. This article in the New York Times outlines some intriguing precursors to last Fall's anthrax letters. The only possible positive spin on this is that, perhaps, whomever perpetrated these hoaxes was trying to draw attention to the lack of preparedness for biological terrorism. When related ~ but fake ~ substances failed to get the attention of the authorities, maybe he rode the coattails of September 11th by using the real thing. A hideous crime, I hasten to add, which killed five people and made many others very sick.

The Oracle Speaks

Mon, 08 Jul 2002 18:57:55 GMT

More Wolfram. The man has no lack of hubris. I'm still plowing through A New Kind of Science. It's a strange mixture of profound taxonomy and obsessive numerology.

I want to live another 50 years...

Fri, 05 Jul 2002 05:20:45 GMT

... because I want to live long enough to see Strong AI become a reality, and because I want to see whether the Singularity happens or not. (I think that Kurzweil severely underestimates the difficulty of reverse-engineering the human brain/mind.) Nevertheless, given our difficulties in comprehending the humanity of other human beings different from ourselves, or accommodating the sentience of other species with whom we share the planet, what are the odds that we will treat our new siblings, the Strong AIs, with the love and respect they'll be due?

It's a start.

Wed, 03 Jul 2002 07:59:33 GMT

A New York Federal judge decided that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it's impossible to guarantee that an innnocent person won't be convicted. The New York Times opines that this is a good thing: The Death of Innocents. I believe that the state has no business putting people to death. I am outraged that people are killed in my name ~ it is done in secrecy and an antiseptic atmosphere like that of a medical procedure (did you know that they swab the convict's arm with alchohol before putting in the needle? why? so he won't get an infection?). The state has no business putting people to death. Protect me from criminals, by all means ~ lock 'em up and throw away the key if that's the only way we can prevent them from harming us. But the state should only kill in self-defence (justifiable warfare), and never when the threat has been definitively eliminated. State-sponsored killing does not serve as a deterent. The only purpose that executions truly serve is revenge. And while I can easily empathize with the desire for revenge ~ it's an entirely human emotion ~ I don't think my government should be in the vengeance business. The civilized society doesn't seek revenge, it seeks to eliminate the need for revenge. A civilized society doesn't advocate an eye for an eye, but rather the golden rule. A civilized society recognizes that there's no honorable motive for murder. So the Supreme Court says we shouldn't execute mentally handicapped persons, and one Judge Jed Rakoff says we're bound to violate someone's constitutional rights if we keep on executing people. If the only way to stop the death penalty is by increments here and there, well, I guess I should be glad for these first steps.

I wish I could do math...

Tue, 02 Jul 2002 05:26:52 GMT

I'm reading Stephen Wolfram, and the Riemann hypothesis was mentioned in it. I was intrigued. Now I come across this. I can't really account for why this stuff fascinates me so. Perhaps I was a mathematician in a previous lifetime. But I have the strong feeling that we'll see some fabulous doors opening when these problems begin to be solved.

The Two Cultures Become One

Mon, 24 Jun 2002 23:40:20 GMT

Forget science v. the arts. Proof positive that news and entertainment have finally consummated their long mutual seduction: David Letterman is appearing on Nightline. Okay, not the traditional Nightline, but a new half-hour offspring to replace the so-Politically-Incorrect-he-got-axed Bill Maher ~ Nightline: Up Close. It's only supposed to be a placeholder until we're treated to yet another comedian-hosted talk-show in the Fall. So Ted and Dave will have a mutual love fest. It should be pretty darn good TV.

A Miss is as Good as a Mile

Sun, 23 Jun 2002 19:12:15 GMT

Or 75,000 miles. Which, as big a distance as it may seem, is only a third of the way to the moon. In other words, we very nearly got hit. But the sky's not falling. At least not today.