Why Everything Sucks.
Ξ July 27th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Humor, Interesting |
Funny, but more true than humorous. Via Jonah Goldberg:
What passes as a legal loophole in Iran
Ξ July 19th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Politics |
You know, it’s cliche to say that the Iranian regime is “evil”, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. While this story from the Jerusalem Post relies on anonymous sources, given that the regime is willing to stone women to death because they’ve been raped it doesn’t take much of a leap of faith to believe it:
Compendium Of Rarely Used Cliches
Ξ July 16th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Interesting |
From the “random site I found from Stumble Upon” file:
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~rclark/gorn.html
Why didn’t Obama nominate the best?
Ξ July 16th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Politics |
The supreme court is one of the most powerful positions in American government, and the decisions made there resonate not only throughout the rest of government, but history as well. That makes it seemingly obvious that when an opening occurs, you would want to nominate the best possible candidate to fill it.
Now, Democrats and Republicans are going to argue as to whose the best based on judicial philosophy, that’s a given. One side holds up Ginsburg as a model and the other, Scalia. But, given those differences, it’s clear that some candidates are better than others. That’s why there was such an outcry when Bush the Younger nominated Harriet Meiers – outcry from conservatives. They knew she wasn’t the best that was available – her resume was tiny compared to others.
To be honest, the absolute best person for the job (from the conservative perspective) wasn’t nominated by Bush for either openings, but Robert Bork is a special case. For Obama, however, the choice seems much more obvious: Laurence Tribe. He’s the Dean of the Harvard Law School, taught Obama and is an Obama supporter, and is considered one of the most influential voices in liberal judicial thought.
So why wasn’t he nominated?
Viable Statistical Attack on Social Security Numbers
Ξ July 6th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Technology |
Wired has the writeup:
By analyzing a public data set called the “Death Master File,” which contains SSNs and birth information for people who have died, computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University discovered distinct patterns in how the numbers are assigned. In many cases, knowing the date and state of an individual’s birth was enough to predict a person’s SSN.
“With just two attempts, the researchers correctly guessed the first five digits of SSNs for 60 percent of deceased Americans born between 1989 and 2003. With fewer than 1,000 attempts, they could identify the entire nine digits for 8.5 percent of the group.”
“A botnet can be programmed to try variations of a Social Security number to apply for an instant credit card,” Acquisti said. “In 60 seconds, these services tell you whether you are approved or not, so they can be abused to tell whether you’ve hit the right social security number.”
It also turns out that some SSNs are easier to predict than others. Because of the way numbers are assigned, younger people and those born in less populated states are more at risk, Acquisti said. Before 1988, many people didn’t apply for an SSN until they left for college or got their first job. But thanks to an anti-fraud effort in 1988 called the “Enumeration at Birth” initiative, parents started applying for their child’s number at birth, making it much easier to predict based on a person’s birthday.
Living with First-Person Shooter Disease
Ξ July 6th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Games, Humor |
Via LikeCOOL
Palin
Ξ July 5th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Politics |
So, after reading a couple days worth of punditry on Sarah Palin’s departure, I’m still not sure what she’s up to. Here’s my guess.
Ever since she was nominated to be VP, she’s been under pretty persistent attack by Democratic activists in Alaska (not to mention David Letterman, who went after her family), mainly through ethics complaints. Most of them have been thrown out as frivolous, and the one that wasn’t she was found to have not violated any ethics. However, she had racked up a pretty impressive personal legal bill. I suspect because the ethics complaints were frequently about improper use of state resources for personal purposes, she had to have two sets of lawyers – one for her family and one for her as governor. Naturally, I’d assume the state would pick up the tab for “as-governor” lawyer, but she’d be expected to pickup her family’s personal lawyer. If her $500k figure is accurate, that’s a pretty impressive fee that she had to pretty much burden alone (plus whatever she had raised via her defense fund). Considering the cost of raising a family of her size, not to mention that several of her kids are at college age, money is probably pretty tight.
Local politics can be just about the nastiest there are, and Alaska has a pretty small community. Additionally, give Palin’s stature and bright political future, I would bet that the Democrats would be doing everything in their power to bring her down before she turned into a serious Presidential threat. As much as I hate to admit it, dirty politics *is* politics, and both parties play by the same rules. Political races are frequently a matter of momentum, and tripping up a candidate with momentum early on is seen as being better than facing them in an election. Republicans look back to the ‘04 Illinois Senate race as a massive missed opportunity (until the Republican candidate imploded, it looked like he might beat Obama in the race), and were privately glad that Elliot Spitzer went down in flames before he was able to mount a Presidetial run. Given all that, I didn’t see an end to the attacks on Palin. Politics can be vicious, but it’s how the game is played.
Which brings me to the problem for Palin. While she might have freed herself from the immediate problem, she’s made it nearly impossible to run for President or VP again until she can answer the question “If you couldn’t take the pressure of being the governor of Alaska for even a single term, how can you possibly handle the pressure of being President?” I don’t see her as being able to answer that by 2012.
It does, however, free her up to go on the lecture circuit. A popular speaker can make a lot of money there, and she’s free of having to defend herself from the ethics complaints, being a private citizen. Additionally, she’ll be able to raise her family and get the polish that she needs to make a serious run. By 2016 or even 2020, she’ll still be young enough (and the way she keeps in shape, good looking enough) to make a run. By then, people might not care quite so much about what happened seven or eleven years ago, especially if she can talk policy.
In the mean time, the path is clear for Mitt Romney’s 2012 run.
