Speedkill

Yep, it’s voting time for TTLB&’s showcase&. This week it’s American Amnesia with Insurgency in Iraq. Read and learn.

In all likelihood, you won’t notice. However, there were some slight template changes, just to make the html and CSS better organized. For those on resolutions that are not 1024×768, you’ll see a difference. The columns on the side are hard coded, so only the middle grows and shrinks when changing resolutions. It looks kinda strange on 800×600 (I can’t check 640×480, and I don’t want to.) and 1600×1200, but it’s still easily readable. If you don’t like it (but really, are any of you going to care?), you can go here: http://www.speedkill.org/alternate.html. That’s the old template, and everything but the blogroll will be current.

UPDATE: Fixed some color weirdness in IE that didn’t show up on Mozilla Firebird.

Damn, I typed “behaviour” first, instead of “behavior.” Stupid English spellings.

From Juan Cole, Gangsters operate own prisons as kidnapping soars in Iraq

Colonel Feisal Ali, a veteran Baghdad policeman, said: “Criminals who used to steal gold and jewellery now specialise in kidnapping because it is easier and more profitable. Some actually maintain their own private prisons.”

The campaign against organised crime in Iraq is largely supervised by the US. American military police officers could be seen stomping in and out of police offices at Amariyah. At one moment, a thick American accent could be heard bellowing angrily on the other side of a partition wall, shouting: “Don’t you realise we are working our arses off for you!” An Iraqi policeman, giggling slightly, confided later that the relative of a kidnap victim had told the American officer that Iraq was better off under Saddam, precipitating the outburst.

But it’s safer than New York. And stupid fucking ungrateful Iraqis. Sheesh.

Braun to Drop Presidential Bid, Back Dean

DES MOINES, Iowa – Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (news – web sites), whose Democratic presidential campaign never got off the ground, will drop out of the race and endorse front-runner Howard Dean (news – web sites), campaign officials said Wednesday.

Not surprising; she was in the bottom 3 in every poll, basically. Seemed like a good candidate, though I don’t know much about her.

And I should win the award for fastest response to an article: appeared “1 minute ago” when I started this entry.

First day of classes for the new semester. This semester I have the pleasure of experiencing Computer Science IV, Applied Engineering Data Analysis (glorified stats class), General and Modern Physics II, and Intro to International Relations.

International Relations might be something you’d expect me, from reading the blog, to be taking. But alas, I am a Computer Science major, and I am completely out of place in the class. And the teacher made a joke about there probably being an engineering student in the class that thinks there’s a right answer to the question (with regards to the essay we were assigned). Anyway, he’s an entertaining teacher, though he tries too hard to be funny sometimes.

It shall be an interesting semester.

Nader and the Newmanites

What in the world is Ralph Nader doing in bed with the ultrasectarian cult-racket formerly known as the New Alliance Party?

Newman controls his followers through a brainwashing scheme–which he baptized “Social Therapy”–that has been described by one deprogrammed former member of his group as a “sophisticated indoctrination methodology which impairs critical thinking skills and which uses repression, dependency and guilt-inducing techniques to control and lure patients into political activity and, ultimately, into blind allegiance to Newman.”

Err, huh? Brainwashing? Lyndon LaRouche? Mr. Nader has really gone off the deep end (assuming he wasn’t dumb enough not to know who he was speaking to).

Bush tax cut tactics spread to Democrats and beyond

During last Tuesday’s radio debate among the Democratic candidates, for example, Senator Joseph Lieberman, D-CT, claimed that Dean “would repeal the middle class tax cuts. That would cost middle-class families in New Hampshire, [an] average family, $2,000 a year that they worked so hard for. He would take it back.” (Lieberman also told reporters that Dean’s plan “would take back $2,000 from the average family in New Hampshire” during a conference call on December 18, 2003.) The Connecticut senator made a nearly identical claim in a January 4 debate, stating that, “here in Iowa, [an] average family of four saved $1,800 a year under those tax cuts.” Nor is Lieberman the only Democratic candidate to make such assertions. Senator John Edwards, D-NC, said on December 29 that Democrats “cannot say to the average family of four in Iowa: your taxes are going up by more than $1,700.”

These statements appear to calculate the benefit to the “average” family either by dividing the total amount of the tax cut by the number of families receiving a cut, or by calculating the benefits of the cuts to specific hypothetical families. However, such methods often exaggerate the benefits of the tax cut for those with incomes in the middle of the income distribution – either because the arithmetic mean is skewed upward by the incomes of the wealthiest Americans, or because calculations are based on hypothetical families which benefit disproportionately. According to calculations by the left-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), for instance, the average reduction in taxes for Iowa residents with incomes in the middle 20% of the income distribution resulting from the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts is actually $908 for 2004, not $1,700-$1,800 as the Democrats quoted above claim. Likewise, CTJ notes that the average cut for New Hampshire residents with incomes in the middle 20 percent of the state’s income distribution is $1,110 in 2004, not $2,000. [click on article link for sources - Jeff]

I’m not as anti-Lieberman as some Democrats, but things like this make me move closer to that position. Maybe someone should look up Lieberman’s comments during the debate over the cut.

Green Party “Terrorists”

Writing about his no-fly nightmare in the Fairfield County Weekly, art dealer Doug Stuber, who had run Ralph Nader’s Green Party presidential campaign in North Carolina in 2000, was pulled out of a boarding line and grounded. He was about to make an important trip to Prague to gather artists for Henry James Art in Raleigh, N.C., when he was told (with ticket in hand) that he was not allowed to fly out that day.

Stuber said he could only conclude that the Greens, whose values include nonviolence, social justice, etc., are now labeled terrorists by the Ashcroft-led Justice Department.

So the Flight Simulator stuff is just a warmup?

Over at Steve Gilliard’s blog, I noticed this story:

A mother’s enquiry about buying Microsoft Flight Simulator for her ten-year-old son prompted a night-time visit to her home from a state trooper.

Olearcek is a regular Staples customer and schools her son at home. The Staples manager simply explained that staff were obeying advice. Shortly before Christmas, the FBI issued a terror alert to beware of drivers with maps, or reference books.

I was content to laugh at the FBI warnings for people carrying reference materials, but this is scary. But, I’d say more of the blame goes on the clerk than the FBI. Microsoft Flight Simulator? As Steve notes, it’s one of the better products Microsoft has ever created. Are we really this paranoid? Are we going to investigate the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) who have bought the product?

In any case, I say we investigate anyone playing Counter Strike, because you can play as a terrorist. You can CHOOSE to be a terrorist. So, you have this game and FS, you have the ideology and training to be a terrorist hijacker. And you need to be stopped.