Nigerian Terrorists

We can detect explosives at airport security checkpoints, so the next step for the terrorists is to bring chemicals that can be mixed to produce explosives. On Friday a Nigerian terrorist tried to mix chemicals at his seat and just managed to burn himself. I'm not sure why he didn't do it in the lavatory. On Sunday another Nigerian on the same flight barricaded himself in the lavatory. Is it not obvious what is going on? They are experimenting. They want to know how long they have to work in the john. But all the news media are describing it as a false alarm.

I hope our homeland security people are smarter than our journalists.

Economic Growth

Politicians want you to believe that their favorite policies will promote economic growth. Perhaps they will, but it is almost always temporary. Look at it this way, the technology of 500 BC allowed for a certain per capita productivity. The technology of 1990 allowed for a greater per capita productivity. On average the growth rate in the intervening years is a direct consequence of advances in technology and population growth. The only sustainable ways to promote economic growth are to invest in technology and to encourage population growth. Seeing as population growth stinks (and is the root cause of global warming), that leaves technology.

Admittedly some politicians do promise to invest in technology. But most just call for measures that will boost consumer confidence, etc. As if getting people to send more money to China will help. Case in point, lowering interest rates. The Federal Reserve should not be in the business of trying to impose a 'natural' growth rate. Their job should be to insure a stable money supply. Bernanke has exactly the right idea with 'inflation targeting'. Short term actions to soften recessions are fine, if you know when to stop. Good luck with that. What politician would ask the Fed to stop boosting the economy when unemployment is in double digits?

The moral is: for economic growth, invest in universities, basic reasearch, and large scale projects with technology spinoffs.

ePatents

Microsoft just lost an appeal of a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Canada based i4i. Here's what the chairman of i4i said: "This is both a vindication for i4i and a war cry for talented inventors whose patents are infringed, ... The same guts and integrity that are needed to invent and go against the herd are at the heart of success in patent litigation against a behemoth like Microsoft."

So I looked up the patent. It addresses a standard problem in markup languages, namely, how do you separate the content from the markup. In HTML, a bold word might be represented as "One <bold>word</bold> in this sentence is bold."

But what if the content itself has tags in it. For example, to write the above paragraph I had to represent the 'bold' tags in a way that did not just make a word bold. So I had to write something like "One &lt;bold&gt;word&lt;/bold&gt; in this sentence is bold". Now imagine what the representation of that sentence is.

The patent in question solves this problem in a natural way. It simply removes all the special tags (the formatting instructions) into a separate part of the file. So our sentence would look like this (assuming it was the only thing in the file):

One word in this sentence is bold.
---- start formatting ---
<bold> at character 4
</bold> at character 8

The advantage is any tags that appear in the content are just content. If you think this solution should be obvious to any serious programmer, you're paying attention. I solve much more difficult problems than this every day at my job. This obviousness of course invalidates the patent. For this brilliant breakthrough, i4i was awarded almost $300 million.

The Business Card Drawing Scam

Ever been to a business show or conference and been asked to put your card into a glass bowl for a drawing? I was talking to a guy who worked an exhibit. He said they didn't give away their prize. Normally, they choose a card from someone who is likely to make a big purchase, but this time they did not find any good prospects, so they saved the prize for next time.

Iran's Medical Uranium

Next week Iran will meet with US, Russia, and France to discuss providing Iran with Uranium enriched to 20% for medical use. Iran currently enriches to a few percent as would be needed for power reactors. 80% is needed to build a decent bomb, although a crude weapon can be made with much lower percentages.

The negotiations should be interesting. The medical use is a total red herring. If the fuel is not provided, they would have a moral right to enrich to 20%, but the capacity to enrich to that level brings them closer to their admitted goal of becoming a 'virtual' nuclear weapons state.

So the west wants to provide the fuel, and Iran wants the talks to fail. Here's how the private conversation might go:

Iran: Can we get the fuel?
West: What concessions can we get?
Iran: We will only require you to agree to allow us to build our [bomb factory] under the mountains at Qom.
West: Ummm, how about we just provide the fuel with no strings attached?
Iran: No, your conditions are unreasonable. We will make a public statement that you hold our children's health hostage to make us give up our rights under the NPT. Then we will start enriching to 20%.

If western leaders had any sense at all, they would make public statements before the talks even start that they will provide the fuel with no strings attached. But I suspect they will fat finger this one.

Investing in Genocide

I got a proxy form the other day from my mutual fund. One of the issues up for vote was submitted by shareholders. It asked that the fund divest from companies whose activities contribute to genocide. Seems like a no-brainer, but the board advised against it. Some of their arguments:

• Staying engaged is a better way to exert influence


• Divestiture harms the target economy, and that hurts those we are trying to help.

So the board recommends continuing with the current policy: "Human rights ... are among the factors that can affect companies' long-term prospects for success."

In other words, we should fund genocide only if it is profitable.

I find this pretty sick. It was not unreasonable to make this argument during the Apartheid era. But it's quite a different matter with slaughtering and raping civilians. The shareholders are particularly offended by the fund's investment in PetroChina, whose parent company more or less funds genocide in Darfur.

If someone came to you and told you about a great oil opportunity. We could make lots of money, but we would have to murder a few hundred thousand natives to get it. Would you invest in his project?

It would be very educational to see an order of magnitude calculation of how much you would have to invest in one of these mutual funds to be responsible for one death, or one rape. I made a few very rough assumptions and got $200k/death.

Bin Laden's Tape

I just read the latest transcript from Bin Laden. This one seems completely different from the others. Makes me think it wasn't him. The biggest difference to me is the way he asks people to consider both sides, as if the issues are worthy of debate. To a fundamentalist audience, truth is god given and debate is not accomodated as it implies uncertainty. I wonder if someone there understands American culture and is hoping to recruit Americans.

The other interesting thing is he claims the issue all along was Palestine. Of course this is not consistent with previous messages. It used to be American troops in Saudi Arabia, until we removed them. Then it was getting American troops out of Iraq. Now we are removing them. No wonder they claim to be winning. This latest crusade should not require them to shift their goal so often.

Settlements

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Permanent settlements in occupied territory are a crime against humanity. They are not a bargaining chip. Now in the spectrum of international crimes they are not high. They are not genocide, or even ethnic cleansing. They are sort of ethnic cleansing's ugly little brother.

Unfortunately there is not a good word to describe the phenomenon. Forced immigration is accurate, but not very catchy. There are some medical analogies for unwanted foreign organisms (use your imagination) that are accurate, but they sound extreme, and are not helpful.

Furthermore the issue is somewhat abstract. In a neighborhood where survival depends on a reputation for brutality, abstract considerations get lost easily.

Obama had it right when he pointed out that Israel could have all the natural growth it wanted once it negotiated final borders. It is reasonable to hold this negotiation with the PA, in exclusion of Hamas, since only the West Bank border is in dispute. It is entirely possible that an Israel under an imposed constraint of this nature would finally find it in its own economic interest to negotiate. What other motivation does it have? The desire to avoid suicide bombers? The US should impose such a constraint.

At the least, we should not oppose a unilateral UN resolution deploring settlements. In the past we have opposed resolutions on the grounds that unilateral was inappropriate. This time it seems appropriate. If we do not deplore crimes against humanity, we are facilitators and bear responsibility.

If we wish more Muslim leaders would stand up and declare terrorism to be immoral, we as supporters of Israel should stand up and declare settlements immoral.

Iranian Revolution?

A 'green' revolution in Iran is certainly something to hope for, but it seems unlikely. A crucial ingredient of a peaceful revolution is indifference by the military. If the security services have family members and associates sympathetic to protesters or participating, they will prefer change to bloodshed. But the opposite is true in Iran. Not only are the Revolutionary Guard fanatical, but there are a large population of basiji, paramilitary volunteers. The fanatic and progressive communities are too disjoint and unsympathetic to allow a peaceful transition. The only remaining hope is that a violent confrontation would threaten the Revolutionary Guard's economic interests (The BBC reports they control up to 1/3 of the economy). Money overrules religion anywhere.

Ahmedinejad and Manson

When Ahmedinejad was elected President of Iran, someone dug up a photo of an embassy hostage taker that resembled him.

It seemed unlikely that an ambitious political extremist who was the right age at the time would miss the opportunity to participate in the embassy takeover. But the intelligence photo analysts said it was not him, and I believed it, not because I believe the analysts, but because Ahmedinejad has weak looking facial bone structure and the embassy guy had prominent cheekbones.

Well, now I'm not so sure. Apparently age can change a lot. Look at what it did to another guy. Any similarities in temperament or philosophy are purely coincidental :-)

Right to Die

Europe recently had it's version of the Terri Schiavo case. A brain dead patient was removed from life support after a very publicized litigation. Some claim that these patients are internally conscious, while most doctors claim otherwise. I tend to think the doctors are right, but the evidence is not compelling.

Given that there is not a consensus, the method used to terminate the patients life, withholding food and water, is potentially cruel. Dying of hunger is not painful, but dying of thirst is. Unfortunatley, dying of hunger takes a long time, and is therefore much more expensive.

Seems to me the cost should not enter the equation, and the current method should be discontinued as potentially inhumane.

So Much for 'Post Racial'

Eric Holder, the US attorney general, came under fire for this quote:

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards."

Rush Limbaugh, displaying his usual keen intellect, called these comments 'inexcusable', and in the very same show said, "People are scared to death to talk about race in this country, Mr. Attorney General, for fear of what's going to be said about them."

Ummm... Rush, if it's inexcusable, why did you say the same thing???

Meanwhile the reason for racial cowardice was amply demonstrated by the reaction to the New York Post, whose political cartoon depicted the recent shooting of a chimp by police, with the caption, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

Given that the stimulus bill was written by a bunch of white males, it is hard to imagine this as a racial comment. But emotions are not always rational, and since lots of people are easily manipulated, the opportunists are out in force.

Al Sharpton can be expected to participate. He dances on the logical tightrope necessary to reach an audience that understands the original intention of the cartoon: "Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama and has become synonymous with him, it is not a reach to wonder: Are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"

But I am disappointed in the NAACP, whose chairman said, "It seemed to me, an invitation to assassination of the President of the United States, told in the crudest, most ugly way,". The only thing being assassinated here is the credibility of the NAACP, and that is very sad.

Proportionality

Critics have been complaining that Israel's attacks in Gaza violate the principle of proportionality. The same complaint was made during the Lebanon war of 2006. Now, I'm not a big fan of Israeli policies. Settlements in occupied territory are a crime against humanity, for example. But the principle of proportionality is not applicable in Gaza.

Think of it this way. Someone who hates you comes up to you and offers to let you cut off his pinky if he can cut off yours. Of course you refuse. Quick as a wink he pulls out a cleaver and lopps your finger off. When the police show up they say you have the right to cut off his finger, and no more. Somehow this proportionality principle is making your enemy pretty happy. Tomorrow he will come take another finger.

A better way to justify how much force is acceptable is the principle of minimal deterrence. You should retaliate with the least force which will deter future aggression and no more. In many cases the retaliation can be less that the original attack and still provide a sufficient deterrent. Nuclear weapons among civilized nations fall into this category.

But against Palestinian militants, 1 to 1 is certainly not a sufficient deterrent. They would be thrilled to have such a ratio and would gladly sacrifice martyr after martyr for the opportunity to kill Israeli civilians.

Hopefully the minimal ratio is not too large.