Army War College blasts ‘War on Terror’

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Wow.

A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration’s handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an “unnecessary” war in Iraq and pursuing an “unrealistic” quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat.

The report, by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is “near the breaking point.”

It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the “global war on terrorism” and instead focusing on the narrower threat posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network.

“[T]he global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious, and accordingly . . . its parameters should be readjusted,” Record writes. Currently, he adds, the anti-terrorism campaign “is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security.”

The full 56-page report can be found on the Strategic Studies Institute website.

(via Al-Muhajabah)

iTunes: “Memories of the Future” by Edge of Motion from the album Essential Chillout (2000, 13:02).

Hey!

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Hey!

On its face, that expression is neither offensive nor disturbing. “Hey!” is an informal way to say hello. It indicates kindness, simple courtesy and an economy of words.

But a 13-year-old boy at Richland Middle School in Richland Hills was suspended for three days in December because he sent that simple message to every computer in the school using an archaic form of instant messaging. The software was created years ago in the old disk operating system used in earlier versions of personal computers.

This story has been making the rounds on the ‘net for the past few days (see MetaFilter, /.). It’s got all the hallmarks of something bound to catch the interest of a lot of geeks: a kid exploring and discovering how his computer actually works beyond simple point-and-clicking, an innocent mistake when demonstrating capabilities to friends, and an overbearing school administration. It might not have raised as much of a ruckus as it did, except that in the course of writing his article about the events, the columnist received an e-mail from one of the school administrators involved in the incident questioning the right of anyone not involved directly in the school system to criticize teaching and discipline techniques.

Too often, people who do not know the real world of public education feel that they are the ‘experts’ who have all the solutions and that their opinions are as valuable as those who live in this world daily.

…

I invite you, parents, our state representatives, and anyone else that thinks they know how a teacher or a district should react to ANY situation to come live with us for a while — be a substitute teacher for a few weeks and learn the real world of public education.

…more troubling is the notion that Sweeney does not believe that the rest of us have any right to question the decisions made by public educators.

Remember, we pay the salaries of the teachers and staff. We buy the computers. We pay for the buildings in which they are used. As long as public school is public, the Beverly Sweeneys of the world need to know that it is our right and duty to look over their shoulders and question what they do.

In this case, the punishment of Carl Grimmer was overkill, but the response of the school’s computer liaison shows that public education really does demand greater oversight from us outsiders, certainly not less.

Many of the discussions spurred by this event and the various responses from the people involved have been very interesting to read. It turns out that the kid and his parents have put up a page detailing their view of the events and the responses to them. It’s an entertaining read — everyone (except the school) seems to be handling everything quite reasonably.

iTunes: “Go” by Moby from the album Hackers 2 (1997, 3:59).

Kevin and Emily, sitting in a tree…

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…K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first come love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage!

A few days ago, I got word that my brother and his fianceé had just discovered that they’re going to be having a baby, due to show up in early August. Yesterday parents let me know that the long-awaited wedding has been scheduled — for next month!

This has been an exciting week! Kev & Emily are getting married Feb 15, with the baby due early August.

The wedding will be at a botanical garden in Memphis, outdoors if the weather is good, or indoors if necessary.

That’s about all I know. They didn’t want any fuss, but Emily’s aunt convinced her today that a small family wedding would be ok, so they “booked a place” then came home and told Kevin!

We’ll be there, of course.

I’ll be there too — I fired off an e-mail to my manager last night, and got confirmation this morning that I’ll be able to get a few days off to head down there. Tennessee, here I come: my lil’ brother’s getting married!

Of course, given that the wedding was announced after the baby was announced, and the ceremony is going to be in Tennessee…well, one has to wonder whether I’ll come back with wedding pictures featuring a shotgun-wielding father in the background…;)

Why I’ve missed IRC

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Pertinent parts of a #joiito conversation just after I walked in…

Tantek: Clinton did pay down the debt with budget surplus.
rojisan: of course he did. during the clinton administration, blowjobs were FREE
michaelh: sounds good to me
michaelh: get that boy back in office
Tantek: term limits
michaelh: details, Tantek — if he can debate the meaning of “is”, I’m sure he can debate “term limits” ;)
adamhill: or surplus or blow job ;)
michaelh: he’s a master debater, he is
adamhill: <rimshot/ >
adamhill: michaelh, he’ll be here all week, try the prime rib
michaelh: don’t forget to tip the waitresses
michaelh pushes a waitress over
rojisan: try the waitresses? tip the prime rib?
rojisan: sorry. clinton flashback

iTunes: “Get Down, Make Love” by Nine Inch Nails from the album Sin (1990, 4:19).

Bandwidth

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Confidential to T-Mobile: NASA is downloading 36 MB TIFFs from Mars and I only get 2 bars of signal on my cell phone inside my house. Please look into upgrading.

— stevenf, via BoingBoing (who also point out an incredible full-screen Quicktime VR of Mars from the Spirit rover)

iTunes: “Djvd” by Nitzer Ebb from the album Ebbhead (1991, 4:20).

Who’s the pervert? ;)

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Last August, one of Anil‘s “Daily Links” was to a story about the Olsen Twins somewhat risqué Rolling Stone photo shoot. When he linked to it, the tooltip he put on the link was, “298 days, you pervert”.

Today, he linked to a story about the Olsen Twins going to NYU. The tooltip he used this time was, “the answer is 152 days, you pervert”.

If it weren’t for Anil so kindly keeping track of things like this, I’d never know just when the twins were due to turn 18.

I’m not sayin’.

I’m just sayin’.

iTunes: “Happiness (Dub)” by Front 242 from the album Mut\@ge.Mix\@ge (1995, 6:10).

Apple gaining ground in enterprise markets

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It’s so nice to live in a time when every news article about Apple doesn’t involve some form of doom and gloom predictions. Not only have the “Apple is doomed” proclamations died down, things just keep getting better — even in markets historically far outside of Apple’s domain.

What’s stunning isn’t that Apple Computer Inc.’s engineers can, say, design a server with two 2-GHz G5 processors, 1GB of memory, storage capacity of 80 to 750GB and loads of other goodies all in a slim 1U package (a mere 1.75-in. thick). No, what’s stunning is that Apple’s marketers will price the Xserve system at \$3,999. That makes the long-reputed price-gouging Macintosh maker the price leader for dual-CPU servers by a couple of bucks. But when you add in Windows per-client pricing, the savings become huge. Apple sells its systemswith no per-client fees for Mac OS X. In contrast, a 25-user enterprise license for Windows adds \$2,495 to the price of a dual-processor PowerEdge 1750 server from Dell Inc.

(via MacSlash)

iTunes: “God Part II” by U2 from the album Rattle and Hum (1988, 3:15).

Apple Computers? Pshaw…try Potato Processing!

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This has got to be one of the most inventive (and stupid) ways I’ve heard of yet to try to score some free computer parts:

German police are investigating after an angry man returned a computer he had just bought saying it was packed with small potatoes instead of computer parts.

The store replaced the computer free of charge but became suspicious when he returned a short time later with another potato-filled computer casing, police in the western city of Kaiserslautern said on Monday.

“The second time he said he didn’t need a computer any more and asked for his money back in cash,” a police spokesman said.

Police are now investigating the man for fraud.

(via Neil Gaiman)

iTunes: “Voodoo People” by Prodigy, The from the album Hackers (1994, 4:08).

Restaurant vs. Bar

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Tim’s got a handy list of ways to tell whether you’re at a restaurant or a bar:

If your napkin feels like linen, it’s a restaurant. If your napkin feels like the Yellow Pages, it’s a bar.

If you need reservations, it’s a restaurant. If you have reservations about admitting where you were till 2 a.m., it’s a bar.

Good thing, too, I’m constantly getting confused.

iTunes: “Brain Washers” by Blackalicious feat. Harper, Ben from the album Blazing Arrow (2002, 6:22).

All I want to do is go back to bed.

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I’m exhausted this morning, for no particular reason whatsoever that I can think of. Slapped the alarm for about an hour after it went off, and it was still a chore to drag myself out of bed.

The weekend was fairly uneventful — mostly just kicking back here at home, bouncing around the ‘net and importing a ton of CDs back into the computer. Nothing really overly stressful. I think this is just “one of those mornings.”

Hit the Vogue Saturday and Sunday night. The more Sundays I go, the more I think I prefer them over Saturdays.

Saturdays (and Fridays) are a mix of 80’s, 90’s and modern new-wave, gothic, and industrial, and Sundays are the club’s “Fetish Night”, with similar but slightly darker music. The biggest difference is that Fridays and Saturdays are more “tourist friendly” — there are definitely the regulars each night, but there are also a lot of the people who either just come by occasionally or are “straights” coming to get a taste of the scene. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that at all — most of the time the “tourists” aren’t too bad, it’s rare that they get overly obnoxious or offensive, and some of them actually seem to really get a kick out of the atmosphere and the music, even if it’s all new to them. It’s just that the club often gets incredibly hot and crowded. I’m usually not overly tweaked by crowds, especially in dance clubs, but I ended up leaving early on Saturday when it got to be too much for me.

Sundays, as the “Fetish Night,” are rapidly becoming my favorite night. It’s not nearly as crowded, which is probably due to a combination of it being a Sunday night (and many people have to be up early on Mondays to get to work) and the theme itself. The music is a bit darker and outfits tend to be a bit more extreme — it’s not at all rare to see people (men and women both) in little more than chaps and leather studded g-strings, “schoolgirl” outfits, bondage gear, etc. — which can be seen as extreme enough that it doesn’t lend itself to a “tourist” atmosphere. I’ve never had a problem with things like this, myself, while I don’t have any outfits along those lines in my wardrobe (I tend to neither be that flashy nor have the budget to indulge in outfits like that), I often enjoy the look of them, and many of the clubgoers are wonderful to watch (whether it be because of their personal attractiveness, their style of dress, the way they dance, or any combination of those). All in all, it’s a more relaxed night, and I’m enjoying it more each time I go.

I’ll likely not entirely cease hitting the Vogue on Saturday nights, as there are definitely times I like the busier, bustling atmosphere of a weekend night, and the slightly “pop”-ier music gets some songs in that I like dancing to that are less likey to show up on a Sunday night. However, if I had to choose just one night to hit the club on any given week, Sundays would definitely be my choice.

iTunes: “Godhead” by Nitzer Ebb from the album Ebbhead (1991, 4:29).