Pangloss

Lol, I'm starting to think this was some sort of test for Mokele and me. If so I think we failed. (chuckle) (hides behind modzilla)

That rumbling sound you hear is MLK rolling in his grave.

Hehe, maybe that was the intended purpose. Florida's growth rate the last few years has been off the charts.

Right, but as I understand it the RIAA has a position of legal precedent on that issue. I believe there have been other cases that approached it from that angle, and were not successful (I could be wrong about this, but it seems logical enough given the fact that they're still doing it). So they toss in this new argument, as well as the old argument, hoping to get *any* kind of illegality ruling (no matter how trivial it might be) which they can then extrapolate into a RICO violation. But again, I'm not a lawyer.

For those of you not familiar, the story concerns the statement made by William Bennett (a former Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration) on his radio show to the effect that if you were to abort every black baby then the crime rate would go down. Here's the actual quote: (Source: http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110007342) As Ellis Henican said in Newsday, yikes! Clearly he's speaking of a hypothetical which even he considers to be abhorrent, but my question is, is the statement so antagonistic and insensitive that it requires an apology? His position basically prosecutes an idea put forth in the best-selling new book "Freakonomics", which is popular on all sides of American politics. Bennett's basically saying that it's a bad idea for anti-abortion advocates (like himself) to pursue that angle, because it leads to the kind of hot water that his comments landed him in. The book's proposition is that legalized abortion has contributed to a falling crime rate in the latter half of the 20th century, the idea being that people who were less financially capable were able to get abortions, instead of having babies who would grow up in questionable circumstances and thereby contribute to the crime rate. (A stretch in some people's minds, but the research is quite compelling, and again, this is supported by quite a large number of intelligent people of many different political persuasions.) Some of the responses to the situation have been pretty frothy. Some Democrats in congress have spoken out against the comments, and asked for an apology. Here's one of the more interesting statements, made by Juan Williams, a former White House correspondent for the Washington Post and long time Fox News Channel contributor: Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but... isn't he doing there the exact same thing that Bennett did? So... it's okay when a Democrat does it? Is that the deal? Aside from the sensitivity angle, the other question would be whether this showed us something about hidden racism in Bennett. But does it show us that, or does it show us, just as reaction to Hurricane Katrina may have, that there are people in our society that are willing to jump on stereotype bandwagons the moment they appear? What do you all think? Additional background on the story may be found here: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/03/130457.php

On a moral level the case might be more interesting if she is guity, but it's important to bear in mind that, as I pointed out above, in my amateur opinion her case seems to hinge on the point that she is innocent. The key point is that conspiracy charge. For that to stick, the RIAA's information-gathering method has to be flawed, and the RIAA has to know that it's flawed. And of course in order for their information gathering method to be flawed, she has to be innocent of the charges. It's a subtle point, but it could be an important distinction. I'm no lawyer, though, and all of this should be taken accordingly. My read on it could be completely wrong, which of course is one of the reasons I'm sharing with you guys.

Lost is a fascinating show. It's like what a series television program would be if it were made by M. Night Shyamalan.

Wow. Thanks for passing that along. Just out of idle curiosity, do you know if the government pays those off every month?

A perfectly reasonable point of view. I guess the question here is whether or not she may also have a point about the record industry's actions. The law invariably considers one issue at a time, so the "two wrongs" problem never comes up in a situation like this. Put another way, both sides may have committed wrongs. (Just as an aside, if there's a lot of interest in discussing the larger issue of illegal downloading, I may split that off into a separate thread.)

Info on Tanya Andersen's case: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2005/10/oregon-riaa-victim-fights-back-sues.html Info on the RICO act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RICO_(law) This looks like it will be an interesting case to follow, even if it doesn't get very far. Tanya Andersen is one of thousands of individuals who has been sued by the recording industry for illegally downloading music. In many of these cases, the sued have settled out of court with the RIAA, and in many of these cases it could certainly be argued that the RIAA had a valid point about theft. The counter-argument is that they're using a very blunt weapon, smacking a lot of people who really don't deserve to get smacked. Tanya Andersen decided to fight back. She's countersued the RIAA under RICO, which is a very interesting twist. RICO is a statute that was designed to fight organized crime. The idea being that ongoing criminal activity constituted an additional level of criminal activity in and of itself. So minor offenses added up to a greater offense, in a way. RICO has been an important tool historically in going after the Mafia and other kinds of organized crime. The general idea behind this lawsuit is that the recording industry used illegal means to acquire its information. While the transgressions were minor, under RICO they can be tallied together. Central to her case is the suggestion that not only did the RIAA act illegally, but the information it obtained was inaccurate. While that in itself does not constitute a RICO-type violation, it allows her a logical way to suggest that the RIAA knew that this was the case, and therefore exceeded the boundary of the law. In essence, the RIAA participated in a conspiracy to commit a very large number of very small infractions. Obviously Andresen is a long way from success. For one thing, the RIAA acted within black letter law. There's a chain of events and suppositions here that would have to not only be clarified but proven before she could see any kind of success. But the publicity angle alone is interesting.

I could tell you that, but then I'd have to shoot you.

I wasn't aware that the F-35 had thrust-vectoring, that's an interesting point. Of course it makes sense giving the V/STOL design goals. Thanks for pointing that out. I still think the plane is very inferior to a number of other planes in the AS role, but as I said earlier, it may not matter to the Navy. But one thing is for sure: The Navy's last vestige of deniability that the Air Force has the superior fighter hardware disappeared when the first Raptor was deployed. Hey Klaynos, what's this about stealth being visible to certain kinds of radar? Can you tell me anything more about that?

Sure, that makes sense.

I'm afraid I can't agree with that either. The only advantage it will have over over the far better performing European and Russian counterparts will be stealth. I do agree that it is likely to be superior versus anything it's likely to come up against in the air superiority role, at least in the current geopolitical environment. But that's already true with the Hornet.

Are you saying that I should be more tolerant of misinformed and misleading analysis?

No offense taken, but that's an odd thing to say, given that I'm on the same side of the War in Iraq issue as Ben Cohen, and that I've also stated that I thought the federal government responded poorly to Katrina. Are you sure the problem you have with my statements above isn't really the fact that I'm much more reasonable and fair-minded in my criticism than Ben Cohen? On a general level (which is where your question lies), the problem I have with demogoguery isn't the demogogues "view", it's their deception and spin. If deception and spin are wrong, as demogogues are so fond of saying about their opponents, then they're wrong everywhere, and I'm going to blast them for it whether I agree with their view or not. If you think it's okay to lie and deceive, and you call that "actively promoting", well I guess if that works for you, more power to you (and I don't mean that sarcastically, I just think some people are incapable of seeing their ideologies in any kind of negative light -- everyone has their flaws). But it doesn't work for me, and I'll do something about it so long as I have the opportunity and the freedom to do so.

You're not likely to. I paused it on my Tivo and copied it down verbatim on my laptop.

Fascinating, in-depth story about the case of Joseph Mangan, an American engineer who "blew the whistle" on Airbus, accusing them of knowing and covering-up design flaws in the pressure valve control systems of the A380. An error could lead to a depressurization tragedy like the recent one in Greece. The story goes into quite a lot of detail about the technical issues involved, and is well worth a read. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-whistleblower27sep27,0,7486292.story In a nutshell, Mangan is an engineer (an expert in fluid dynamics) who worked on the chip that is supposed to control the pressure valves in the A380. The system is unique in civil aviation, in that it has no manual override system. And the system's flow rate is so high that if the valves were to become locked into an open position, there may not be enough time for the pilots to don their oxygen masks before passing out. (The recent crash in Greece would seem to really underscore the importance of this, although of course in that case the pilots had the ability to fix the problem, but failed to recognize what was happening.) One thing that's interesting about this case from a political perspective is that Mangan has faced a massive legal battle as a result of his actions. The article puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that Austria has no whistle-blower shield laws. (Personally I'm keeping an open mind about that -- surely Europeans will recognize the value of Mangan's position IF it turns out to be true.) The "whistleblower" angle is, I think, one of the most interesting questions we face today in that grey area between science and politics. Should such people be protected? What if their information turns out to be false, but cost the company a boatload of cash to defend its tarnished reputation? Is there a common ground here? Thoughts?

That's interesting, but does it seem likely that that's the kind of subtle point that Cohen was talking about? That his purpose is to get at the truth, no matter what that truth might be, through careful and thoughtful analysis of the facts? Yeah, me neither. It's worth noting that the next question from the reporter in this interview was "Is there anything that Bush has done that you approved of?", to which Cohen responded with a startled stammer and then a few mumbled words about (ironically) No Child Left Behind. Demogogues always start with a grain of truth. Or at least something they can pass off as such. At any rate, I think that what you mentioned above interesting and I'd like to hear more about it. As I said in the other thread, it does seem logical to speculate that guard deployment in Iraq has had some kind of impact on guard preparedness in specific areas here at home. I want to know, for example, why Louisiana only had 6,000 troops available, and why (a) no more were requested by the governor, and (b) nobody at the Pentagon saw that as being too small a number to handle any emergencies that might crop up anywhere in the state. What analysis contributed to that decision? What kind of number should have been available? What other kinds of preparations could have been made that were not, and why not? (And it's worth noting that while some of the changes these questions suggest do involve spending more of my tax dollars, they don't involve the kind of vast hundreds of billions that are being tossed about these days. I really hate that everyone's talking about throwing money at the problem without trying to figure out whether the system is able to even do the job.) Anyway, these are important points, and as such they require thoughtful, objective investigation, not grandstanding demogoguery.

First, you need to use 4.1 like I suggested. Using a beta version to learn how NetBeans works is a seriously bad idea. Second, you need to get into the habit of using the documentation, which is excellent with NetBeans (one of its best features, in fact). Run the online tutorials and start searching the help system. The answers to all of the questions you posted above are available and can be found within 5-10 seconds with a little practice. This is going to help you in the long run to get into this habit, because when it comes to programming, you will ALWAYS have questions. The test nodes are for testing. When you set up to test various aspects of a project, you generate test classes and test code which you can then roll into the main code if you choose. It's useful for keeping your code delineated so that you know what parts of it are final and what parts of it are not. For small projects and early learning it's not something you will likely use. Run the tutorials and grab a good book and hit some web sites. You'll get there!

As you may have heard, Florida's new "stand your ground" law goes into effect today. I was perusing the news and ran across this interesting item: "Tourists travelling to Florida are being warned to avoid aggressive arguments with locals because they risk being shot." http://www.itn.co.uk/news/63537.html At first it sounds like something the British government or tourist authority might do. But in fact it's an action being taken by more extreme elements of the American gun control lobby. In particular, this effort is being lead by Sarah Brady, whose husband was shot alongside President Reagan in the Hinckley assassination attempt in 1981. Seems like a pretty crass move to me. But I guess they have the right to do it. Regarding the larger subject of the law going into effect today, I'm curious what you all think of it. Personally I'm in favor of gun control, up to a point, but I can't stand some of the hypocrisies that come out from both sides (big surprise about me, huh?). Here's some more information about the law that goes into effect today: http://www.wcjb.com/news.asp?id=13256 http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051001/NEWS/510010445 In a nutshell, the law allows you to fire your gun in any situation where you feel threatened. This can be outside of your home or business. Actually the only real change over existing law is that it means you can shoot even if you could have gotten away. But the threat has to be real, and you have to have a permit for the weapon or you'd be breaking a different law. Thoughts?

Well okay Bud, if you start from the assumption that we *should* spend more than we take in, and that we *should* be spending far more than we currently are, then yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Sev, I said nothing of the kind.

Was about to hit the sack when I ran across this little gem from Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream: There are so many things wrong with this statement that I hardly know where to begin! - Okay, funding was "cut", but only in the sense that one amount was asked for during the budget process and another amount was provided (in 2001 and 2004). Isn't that how budgets always work, with too much being asked for and not enough being given? So what? Clinton did the same thing, which makes you wonder what Cohen's motivations are, but then he's a well-known ABB guy. But more to the point, the Corps of Engineers doesn't think it would have many any difference! Source: http://www.factcheck.org/article344.html - No cuts were made *anywhere* in the budget to pay for the war in Iraq. In fact spending has *increased*. For that matter, so has income tax revenues, just not as fast as spending. (Which is why we have a deficit.) - WHAT impact on the National Guard? More National Guard troops are in Louisiana than are in all of Iraq! http://www.factcheck.org/article348.html I agree there might have been some impact on the immediate availability of Louisiana troops, and we should look further into that, but he's clearly trying to suggest something far more serious. Just not seeing any connection here, ice cream boy. But hey, as long as you're holding the scoop, I'll take a double scoop of cookie dough, please! And make it snappy!

God, I would hope not. But I would also hope they remember that it was similar activities by Democrats that lead to those laws being passed in Texas. (And it's an oh-two count to the Yankee slugger!)