Pangloss

Yeah I totally blew it above using the word "circumstantial". Can we get past that please? I think I'm asking a really important question here. Is it worth it to toss objectivity out the window specifically because other evidence is lacking? Why is it okay to dismiss tainted evidence, but not obviously tainted testimony? It's okay just because "they are otherwise untouchable"? How can that be the answer in a system that touts "equal justice under the law"? Not trying to blast on Phi -- his opinion seems to be a very common one, and he seems to be applying it in a reasonable and even-handed manner (i.e. I assume he would also apply it to a drug dealer from a poor neighborhood who couldn't be convicted on other evidence) -- I just can't figure out why it would ever be okay to set aside the concept of blind justice.

The AMD 64-bit twin-core processors are starting to look like the mainstream performance sweet spot for 2005/2006. It finally brings AMD fully into the multi-threaded world for mainstream desktops, a place Intel has dominated with the hyperthreaded processors, and maintains those performance advantages which AMD currently has (e.g. games). One thing that I think is going to be interesting over the next year is going to be the question of whether gaming will continue to drive mainstream desktop development, or fall by the wayside as console games (Xbox 360, PS3, etc) pick up momentum. This is supposed to be "the year of HDTV" (which the gaming consoles support much better than desktop PCs), and I'm thinking it will also turn into "the year of computers in home theater environments" (I know, not very catchy). If that happens, it may be that we will see a return to non-gaming computers leading the way in mainstream desktop sales. More emphasis on multi-threaded applications, more emphasis on information technology and convenience software, home automation, and home media server. But most interesting about this is that the end of the home computer for gaming may spell the end of AMD's perceived performance advantage over Intel. ("A blade server in every home! Woot!")

So it's okay to convict someone based solely on the testimony of plea-bargained witnesses, so long as it's the only way to get that conviction?

So it's okay to convict someone on circumstantial evidence, so long as it's the only way to get that conviction?

The CFOs were stock recipients, so there's your motive. I think the question of why the CEO didn't know is a good one. But you're basically trying to prove a negative there. It's a good reason to suspect him, but (IMO) not a good reason to convict him. It seems to me that they need some kind of evidence. I'm not really interested in defending this guy, I'm sure he's a scum bag and hopefully they do have some other evidence. Mostly I just think the evident hypocrisy here is interesting.

Simple question: Should the testimony of convicted criminals who have been offered a plea bargain in exchange for their testimony be sufficient on its own for the prosecution of a third party, given the absence of any other evidence? 60 Minutes did a piece last night about Richard M. Scrushy, the CEO of HealthSouth who is currently on trial for fraud after his company apparently cooked the books. The jury is deliberating today. The evidence against Scrushy consisted entirely of the testimony of five HealthSouth CFOs, all of whom plead guilty in plea bargain arrangements to testify against Scrushy, who claims ignorance of their deception. This of course follows on the heels of public outrage over the collapse of the Internet bubble, the high salaries and stock options paid to CEOs, and the corruption cases against other major corporations. Mike Wallace did something really evil in the interview. He hit Scrushy with statements from the CFOs one at a time, in sequence. Nasty. The wierd thing of it is that, if I remember correctly, 60 Minutes just did a story a few weeks ago about how plea bargain deals are hurting the justice system. Of course their example that time was a poor black man who claims innocence. Oddly, they didn't hit him with the statements of his accusers. Gee.

Actually I don't have a problem with our support for the mujahadin in the 1980s in order to oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan. The difference there being that opposition to foreign invasion of an ally is very different from opposition to a foreign dictator who's not externally aggressive. We had some international support for our Afghanistan policy as well, and we could respectably defend that position on moral grounds in the UN. It wasn't a perfect situation (leading to our support for the Saudi regime, for example), but it was a tenable one. The reason I feel that that kind of thinking is why we're in Iraq today is because of our support for Saddam Hussein just because he opposed Iran, which was not externally aggressive at the time (it was Iraq who attacked Iran in that war). I don't like islamofascists any more than the next guy, but I think what we've learned from the Iraq situation is that invasion is not justified by internal differences (e.g. suppression of human rights). If we continue to take positions like that then we're making a unilateral moral decision that other countries have unworthy governments, and it's understandable that that would make people nervous. We should continue to diplomatically and economically oppose dictators, but military actions should come only with international support and general agreement (so long as those dictators stay within their borders and don't threaten us or our allies). That is the mistake I feel we need to learn from, and it's what I feel that I have personally learned from Iraq.

I thought folks here might find this quote amusing, given our recent discussion on the straw man fallacy: "You are a pyromaniac in a field of straw men!" George Will said that to Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation this morning on "This Week". Vanden Heuvel was sitting right next to him at the time, waxing on about the hypocrisy of the far right on the subject of stem cell research. When I realized what he said I 'bout fell out of my chair.

Are you asking my opinion? If so, the answer to your question is "no". IMO that kind of thinking is why we're in Iraq today. The concept of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is an inferior one. Something to be falled back upon only in the direst of need.

Just to follow up on this, it looks like at week's end that the exile community has generally not embraced Carriles. No demonstrations on his behalf, no public outpouring of sympathy, no hue and cry at all really. One local political commentator noted that this was in sharp contrast to what happened when Orlando Bosch, who was implicated in the same airliner bombing as Carriles, came to South Florida and was pardoned by the first President Bush. (Note that Bosch admitted participating in the hijacking, his famous quote being "All of Castro's planes are warplanes.") Bosch was welcomed warmly by the exiles. The commentator went on to say that this would seem to be indicative of the changes that have taken place in this post-9/11 world. He would seem to have a point.

That's a nice list. We should sticky it somewhere.

Okay, but isn't it possible that they're focused on making money AND miscomprehending the input that viewers are giving them?

And Peter Jennings did a report a couple of months ago about UFOs. (sigh) Maybe it's ratings they're pandering to rather than the red states per se.

ABC News is running an episode of 20/20 tonight. That in itself is not unusual, of course. Here's what is: - It's in HDTV. News programming in HDTV is an unheard-of rarity. Not one news program or cable news network is running in HD yet. The *only* news program in this country that runs regularly in HD is a 30-minute weekly news magazine on Mark Cuban's HDNet network. (They had the only HD footage of the pope's funeral a few weeks ago, which was kinda interesting.) - They spent a lot of money on this episode of 20/20. Flying all over the country. Interviewing experts. Setting up reenactments. Flying off to the Middle East and shooting a bunch of expensive HD footage over there. So what's so newsworthy about this episode of 20/20? Has a new whistleblower stepped forward to tell us about the sins of corporate America? Is it some new travesty of justice -- an innocent man on death row? A poor family being evicted from their run-down house which is being paved over to make a new freeway for rich people only, at taxpayer expense? No...... It's about... get this... the ressurection of Christ! You know, I don't mind the subject at all, by all means I hope it's interesting. I'm Tivo'ing it. But I'm really starting to wonder about these news media types. It's not just this, mind you -- this has been happening a lot. It seems like every week there's some story about religious people. I never remember seeing anything like that number of stories about religious people prior to the election. I watch every night, and it's very much a new thing with ABC News. It's bizarre. Do they really think this is the answer to charges of liberal bias in the media? I'm a big believer in avoiding logical fallacies so I'm not stating this as fact. I'm just saying that it seems mighty peculiar to me, and it really makes me wonder. It worries me, because if they really are that clueless then it means that we're in for worse times rather than better. Where are the stories about the successes of free enterprise? Where are the stories about cutting government spending? Not wasting it -- CUTTING it. Where are the stories about outrageously BAD government entitlement programs? Where are the stories about government entitlement programs that help people but should be cut because they're inefficient? I hope I'm wrong, but I fear I'm right.

This is an interesting science-and-politics story. It's not getting much reporting right now because there are much bigger stories out there, but it's worth considering and I thought our angle here on SFN my be particularly valuable. The National Weather Service is in the process of upgrading its web site and otherwise expanding its services to the public. Streaming media and RSS/XML type data services and a big media push with a lot more appearances by their forecasters on TV, radio and in newspapers. Traditionally these guys have been pretty laid back (in fact there's an old joke about meteorologists who don't look good enough for local TV going to work for the NWS). But that's all changing. Generally speaking this has been viewed as a good thing, because it means better reporting for emergency weather events. The local guys lack access to national resources and atmospheric and oceanographic science data -- stuff that NOAA and NWS have in spades (not to mention access to NASA resources). For the most part these expansions have focused on the data aspects of things, trying to make the information taxpayers have paid for more readily available to them. This really doesn't harm a local forecaster, so nobody saw a problem. But apparently there is a competition issue with a number of companies that are very unhappy about the expansion of NWS. AccuWeather is primary amongst them, and apparntly some of the local weatherman types have gotten on board as well. Pennsylvania apparently hosts a number of weather-oriented companies (companies that either make weather-related equipment for the commercial market, like dopplar radar) and AccuWeather. And so apparently Senator Rick Santorum has introduced a bill that would limit access to this information by the public. Bear in mind that this is information that we paid for with tax dollars. Santorum says that emergency information would not be restricted, but it's very unclear exactly what would happen. Some critics say that the bill is so vague that it could result in the NWS web site itself being completely shut down. That's a site that, as Florida Senator Bill Nelson points out, received over nine billion hits during the four-strikes-on-Florida hurricane season last year. My general inclination is that this is a bad bill. But I think Santorum and AccuWeather have a valid point -- the government should not compete with private industry using tax dollars. It's not fair. So how can we resolve this thing? Any ideas? Some additional background here: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=773123&page=1 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/225022_wexed.asp http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1116590102250770.xml&coll=2 http://washingtontimes.com/business/20050517-093720-1956r.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/18/business/18space.html?hp Apparently the US Air Force is asking for a Presidential National Security Directive to develop satellite weaponry which could be used to take out satellites of other countries. Weapons in space time. I dunno, I guess I can understand both sides of it, but it does seem like it will guarantee a space weapons race, whereas before we at least had a chance to prevent it.

Maybe it's one of those Cthulu-like invocation deals.

Yes, as you say I think the difference that this time was that it was alleged to be confirmed by a credible source. In the past it was always just reported as a rumor. But I see your point. It's not the sort of subtle distinction one would expect from the proverbial "angry mob".

Interesting case. He was arrested yesterday here in Miami, which I think is a clear indication that he won't be granted asylum. Some background here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/11672193.htm In brief, he's an anti-Castro terrorist. Even if we take him at his word and ignore the Cuban conviction regarding the airplane hijacking that resulted in 73 deaths, he's admitted participating in hotel bombings in Havana in the late 1990s. Unfortunately the fact that he can't get a fair trial in Cuba complicates matters. Our own laws prohibit us from extradicting him to Cuba for that reason. I think what will likely happen is that we'll extradict him to another country (probably not Venezuela, though, for obvious reasons). The real story here, though, is the impact on the Cuban community here in South Florida. A lot of them feel he's a patriot and should be protected. If he's deported, expect to see pictures of demonstrations on the news. Just don't be fooled by the newscasts. IMO the majority down here think he's a terrorist.

One interesting aspect of this is the gradual shifting of gaming development away from PCs and over to the next generation of console games, like XBox and PlayStation. HDTV support, more complex types of games, and low hardware cost all drive users in that direction. Most users pick an OS because of compatibility and familiarity. But it does seem to me that the shift in gaming emphasis from PC to console will assist a lot of power users and geeks in weening themselves of the Microsoft teat. Ironic, in that case, that Microsoft is helping to fuel that very change.

Agreed. That reminds me, I saw something recently on TV about how a company had come up with a new device that allowed the user to control a computer using their brain waves. The user could simply will the pointer to move, and it would do so. Even though it's not actually "mind reading", the Matrix-like implications of this are astounding.

If they'd found that the overall advantage was to men, I wonder if Scientific American would have published the article. That rag becomes more politically correct by the issue, and is getting to the point where I'm becoming embarassed to be a subscriber.

It's a subjective term. I don't view China as a "superpower" at this time because (and this is based entirely my own definition) they cannot yet project military force outside of their region, their economy is too dependent on foreign participation in several key areas (particularly their energy infrastructure, e.g. their reliance on foreign oil), and they have a vast labor pool that's still living in the pre-industrial age. But there's really nothing standing in their way from fixing all of those problems over a relatively brief period of time. But it must also be said that China is completely re-writing the way in which we perceive power, and may redefine the very notion of a superpower before they are through.

Lately I've been using the phrase "Librarian Illuminati" in debate over the issue of control of information in public libraries. It's a bit of a humorous nod to Steve Jackson Games, which I use to make the point that the far left can have an agenda that's every bit as morality-based as the far right.

If you don't believe in god then what difference does it make? How can it hurt to make your mom happy?