Flu

I've come down with a nasty case of the flu which has incapacitated me since Monday night. I've been staying home mostly so I don't infect everyone else in the lab -- but if I went in to lab, I'd get nothing done there either.

The most-likely suspect for having infected me is, of course, Pants. She came home with something from work, and ended up staying home one day. She was slightly feverish, she tells me, but mostly, it seemed like a cold. When I finally contracted it, I skipped the cold symptoms and went straight for the chills. Fevers, sweats, malaise. It always happens that if she and I catch the same thing, it knocks me out 200% worse than it does her. Most of the time, I catch something and she never catches it from me.

The worst part about being home sick is that I feel totally unproductive. I wake up at night from work dreams and can't fall back asleep.

Hardware watchpoint in GDB

For some reason, the synatax for setting a hardware watchpoint in GDB is impossible to find in google. Or rather, there are misleading instructions on how to set the watchpoint. The instructions you'll find say "watch for when variable x gets changed by writing 'watch x'". But this never solves a memory corruption bug. At least for me.

This post is for my own purposes. I never want to waste 10 minutes searching for the proper syntax again.

Let's say I know that location 0xABCD1234 is getting corrupted.

Then the gdb command is:

> watch *((int*) 0xABCD1234)

Mukasey

The president of the Uninted States continues to violate the constitution he swore to uphold in torturing prisoners. He has asked congress to replace his former torture-enabler, the embattled Gonzales, with a new puppet, Robert Mukasey. When Mukasey went before the Senate, he would not say that waterboarding is torture. Waterboarding is torture. Mukasey has publicly expressed his willingness to allow Bush to continue torturing, to continue breaking international treatries in violation of the constitution.

Charles Schumer, a senior democrat, is now supporting Mukasey's confirmation based on a private conversation he had with Mukasey. What's his rationale? He says that Mukasey agreed with a hypothetical: if Congress were to pass legistation saying that waterboarding is torture, then it would not be out-of-line with its constitutionally granted powers and the President wouldn't have any recourse (except of course, to veto the bill).

The logic here is tortured. Schumer seems to think this consession is a hat-tip to the separation-of-powers provisions of the constitution. When did the constitution need consessions made to it?

Moreover, its a circuitous consession. It makes congress do much more work than it needs to! Congress does not need to say that waterboarding is torture. Legal precident and human decency defines it as torture. Worst of all, if congress were to legistlate that waterboarding is torture, then it effectively grants immunity to water-boarders up until this point: "Oh, I just water boarded that guy because it wasn't illegal at the time."

Schumer is doing a grave disservice to the anit-torture camp. Why is toture so hard to stand against?

Religion is evil

A catholic bishop makes up a story about how condoms give you AIDS. Does he have any proof for his claim? No. Of course not. But that's the thing. Religious authority has never been constrainted by the burden of proof, so people are used to just listening to whatever lunatic ideas they have.

This bishop has blood on his hands.

not surprised

The Post declares Putin's move a surprise. I disagree. He's always behaved like a dictator. Now he's just assuming the mantle.

Dead air

As we drove from North Dakota into Montana on Wednesday evening, the sun was setting and I was getting tired. We'd been driving since 9 that morning (central time) and it was almost 8 (mountain time). I scanned through the chanels on the truck's radio and stopped on a classic rock station which was finishing off some song I didn't recognize from the early 80's I figured. It went to a comercial break, but I stuck with the station because my other two options were a country station and an all-jesus-all-the-time station.

As the station returned from break, it went through its call sign

"One hundred point five. The rock."

< Dead silence >

I kept glancing down at the dial and started to chuckle to myself. They were broadcasting dead air; how embarassing. Thirty seconds passed. I was cracking up. These idiots clearly didn't have a very high value on their air time if they were letting thirty seconds go by without broadcasting anything. How unprofessional. A minute passed. I started to get a little peeved. The sun was setting into my eyes, so I adjusted the sun visor -- I was only able to see the road up to the horizon in front of me. Two minutes passed, still no music. Man, these guys seriously need work. I started to forget that I was listening to the radio. Five minutes passed. Then I finally hear

"One hundred point five. The rock"

< Dead silence >

Someone's clearly gone to take a shit after queueing up a whole bunch of music. The call signs keep coming but the music they've queued is not. Well surely their boss is listening to the radio and will jump into the booth and straighten the mess out. Five more minutes pass; my mind wanders and I start to get sleepy. Fortunately, the radio comes to its senses and I hear

"One hundred point five. The rock"

< Dead silence >

AAAAAAAAA. Play something goddamnit!

I switched to the country station.

Putin shutters Journalist Group over $2500

The head of the Educated Media Foundation is facing charges of 5 years in jail for accidentally walking through customs without declaring $2500 over the legal limit of $10000.

The foundation has been shut down, its computers seized, its accounts frozen.

Over $2500.

Putin is an enemy of the world.

GHWB (41)

Bigot

Rove To Abramoff: It's safe to break the law now

An uncovered email from Rove's secretary to Abramoff's secretary:

"I now have an RNC BlackBerry, which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH e-mail."

Willing violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978 by Bush's #2. (And yes, I do mean to imply Rove is a little shit.)

Impeach!

Sensitivity toward Islam

Pakistan is threatening to cut its ties with Britain over the knighting of the author of a literary work of fiction.

This work of fiction inflames Islamists and is insensitive toward moderates. Everyone knows that offending a great religion is blasphemy and punishable by death. Surely the British should have been more sensitive than to give any praise for a man who has lived under threat of death for 20 years. Moderates agree that he should be murdered, and if the moderates agree, then Britain is offensive in not carrying out the execution themselves!

In the name of world peace and sensitivity, murder the author!

Tanks and Students

Magnum photos is presenting 31 pictures that moved the world.

#27 is my vote for the most moving.

Star Wars

The evil emporer squelches the vote by positioning his Storm Troopers outside polling stations in areas of great unrest.

Cheney's hatred for America

He wages war on the principles that founded this country. His weapon: calling the Constitution a rallying point for pussies and terrorists.

That's the Republican party. A bunch of fascists.

Can we afford a Giuliani presidency? He's clearly in the Cheney camp when it comes to reckless disreguard for the Constitution.

Goodling had something to hide

For Gonzales, the shit hit the fan today. I can't see him remaining in office another week.

Goodling testified that McNulty lied to congress and that hiring inside the Justice department for *career positions* was politically motivated.

Goodline stalled the hiring of a layer from Harvard law specifically because of his political leanings.

The hiring of career layers and the appointments to political positions fall under different categories. Bush and Gonzales have presided over the worst politicization of the US govenerment ever.

Both should be tried for treason. They intentionally sought to violate the constitution they swore to uphold.

Wolfowitz's statement

Hitchens summary of this non-event is spot on.

Here's Wolfowitz's statement to the World Bank.

Wolfowitz non-scandal

I'm disappointed in the media for neglecting all facts surrounding the Wolfowitz case in their reporting of it. All that gets reported are the accuasations of a scandal. "The europeans are upset over a promotion of Wolfowitz's girlfriend" is all that gets reported. Since that's all that gets reported, it seems like that's all there is to the case and anyone can draw the conclusion that Wolfowitz has acted inapporpiately. This is a terrible sin of omission.

Again, I have to admire Hitchens for taking a firm stand when no one else will: Wolfowitz has been more than open with the world bank about his relationship with Riza, and the World Bank's decision to promote Riza so as to alleviate any conflict of interest is now being portrayed as Wolfowitz's decision based on nepotism or something even less seemly -- showering a girlfriend with money.

Hitchens has two articles that should be read.

From when the "controversy" first emerged: here

and from today: here.

I have no love lost for Wolfowitz. But men should only be convicted for crimes they commit. The press's attempt to try him the court of public opinion while not presenting any facts is shameful.

Kasparov Jailed For Disagreeing with Putin

Putin is an enemy of the modern world which holds as its most important principle the free flow of ideas.

Today, he jailed chess champion Gary Kasparov for demonstrating against his regime.

Karsparov had seen ahead a few moves; he knew Putin would come after him.

Vonnegut

I will miss him.

I've stolen another link from Sullivan's website: here's an exerpt from "A Man Without a Country"

march on washington

Seriously; the errosion of habeas corpus demands a response from the US citizenry. The stance this administration has consistently taken is that they don't have to follow any of the laws/constitutions that were written before they came to power. They can imprisson whomever for whatever reason for however long and be accountable to no one.

I'm not much of an organizer, but I'll march on DC if/when a civil liberties march gets organized.

From Sullivan's website, I got this link to a Harpers story about an imprissoned Pullizer-prize winning photojournalist. He's been imprissoned for a year. No charges have been filed against him.

Redacted

Big Brother Bush tortured a confession out of a suspected terrorist, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. What did that torture buy us? What he confessed can't be trusted or believed. Bush has tainted America's good standing in the world and emboldened totalitarians like Putin and Ahmadinejad.

Nashiri described his torture. Bush redacted the transcript.

ISP

Google announced a new broadband service.

I don't think it will work for me, though.

Gag

Under Gonzale's watch, the FBI abused its power to issue National Security Letters. These abuses have not come to light because of the gag order that the letters bring with them: people issued the letters must lie under threat of prosecution about having ever been given one.

One man speaks out. Annonymously.

The patriot act would not have become permanent if the gag order rule were not in place.

It's time we got rid of this insideous peice of legistlation.

Ongoing investigation

Duke Cunningham was brought down by one of the prosecutors that got fired. Her name is Lam. She was in the process of investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis when she got canned.

This scandal is obscene, and yet so very expected.

Every time the President has fought for more power, he has abused it.

Or did his wife send him out on a junket?

Libby hand wrote notes in the margins of Wilson's NYT op-ed. He asks

"Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Ambas to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us?

Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

I'm sure it must have come up in the course of the trial when it was that Libby wrote these notes, but my bet is that he wrote them the day the op-ed hit the stands. If he wrote this note before he talked to Russert, then he lied.

Libby Documents

Sullivan posted this link to the website where the National Security Archive has posted all of the declasified documents that were part of the Libby investigation.

I'm going to rumage through them later.

Today, Pants and I painted the kitchen. The kitchen gets the afternoon sun, and the deep orange had faded to an orangish yellow -- except the parts of the walls covered by pictures. Those were still deep orange. We bought some organish yellow paint yesterday at Sears. It took two coats to cover the dark orange areas and one coat where the faded paint matched the new paint.

Krauthammer's Complicity

The Plame case is too important to let Krauthammer whitewash it as just some prosecutor going bananas over a simple memory failure.

The picture that Krauthammer paints of Libby is of a powerful man deftly handling dozens of issues simultaneously, who has forgotten a minor detail on a minor issue. The minor issue is Ambassador Wilson's op-ed blasting the State of the Union claim that Iraq was close to going nuclear. The minor detail was when Libby learned that Wilson's wife was at the CIA. This is Krauthammer's first deception: "minor" does not describe either the issue or the detail.

Krauthammer's second deception is in painting Russert's testimony as the only detail of the case that actually pinned Libby as a liar. In so doing, he treats the case as a simple he-said-she-said disagreement. The jury looks awfully culpable if they sided with Russert over Libby when all they had to go on was their testimony.

But that blame-the-jury stance is itself deceptive... Libby didn't take the stand at his trial. "He-said-she-said" doesn't work if only one person is couragous enough to say anything!

But lets get back to that second deception before I blast the first.

Krauthammer is ignoring the testimony from Cheney's press aid, Cathie Martin. Martin testified that Libby and Cheney had discussed how to handle the mess over Wilson's op-ed at great length, and had talked about Wilson's wife and her possition at the CIA as being key towards painting Wilson as a bumbling idiot who only got to where he was through nepotism. If your boss is super worried about one man and how to discredit him, do you forget?

FUCK NO!

This now is getting to the Krauthammer's first deception. The downplaying of the importance of Wilson's (AMBASSADOR WILSON's) courageous disagreement with the executive office. In Cheney's world there could be no dissent or everything would unravel.

Krauthammer is ignoring everything that Fitzgerald's suppeneas revealed about the climate of the vice-president's office. Cheney was obssesed with connecting Sadam with Nukes. Anything that could derail that opinon was locked-on for destruction: character assasination (e.g. Paul O'Niel), "expert" disagreement (e.g. Steven Hadley) -- whatever it took.

We know now that Cheney was criminally wrong. Criminally. He was resonsible for the Plame leak. He gave the order. Libby lied to protect his boss from a criminal indictment. That is a crime. You go to jail for crimes. For Krauthammer to argue Libby disserves a pardon requires he ignore the majority of the facts unearthed in Fitzgerald's ivestigation.

And here is where Krauthammer's motives should be examined. I think he feels he needs to get Libby off the hook, or else his own complicity in decieving the country into an unjustified war might land him in jail... well, I doubt jail, but he will find himself fired.

Blame Game

Now is the time to play the blame game. Not six months from now when Libby's appeal has been rejected and he begins his 2 year sentence. Now.

The White House's continued policy of ignoring the Plame case (or as they put it, of not commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation) is absurd at this, the 25th hour.

Libby was convicted. Bush can no longer hide behind his managed media stance of ignoring the bad stuff.

When Katrina hit, the talking point was that it wasn't yet time for the blame game. He said it over and over. He sent out his deputies and they said it over and over. And then people got bored and turned to other issues.

We must not let Bush off the hook. We must fervently reject the managed media stance this administration has taken. They are accountable and we are entitled to an accounting. If they will not give it to us the first time we request it, then we must ask again and again and again. We must not get bored.

Froomkin hits the nail on the head.

Do NOT follow that link

CNN's 4th most popular story was too much for me.

You got the balls for a quagmire?

Froomkin disects Cheney's interview with Jonathan Karl.

In 1991, Cheney predicted invading Iraq would guarantee a quagmire. Karl asked Cheney what it was like to be so right. Cheney answered.

Froomkin asks:

"So if I read this correctly, Cheney is saying: Yes, it's a quagmire. But after 9/11 we needed to prove that we weren't weak. Is that now the official White House position?"

Mini Speakers

There's a TV at the gym hanging from the wall when you enter. A 40" flat-panel. It's not viewable from any part of the gym except the front desk. I would suppose that the bored staff watch it, except that every time I walk by it, there's this same commercial playing.

The setting is a downtown area. People are walking around listening to their iPods. They are wearing big old fish bowls on their heads, to symbolize how the iPods are disconnecting them from their surroundings. It's subtle. Some people are just waiting for the bus, but one couple is trying to make out. Of course, the fish bowls are preventing them from actually kissing. Then one guy suddenly is holding a different form of an MP3 player: one with little speakers on it. He takes the fishbowl off his head, smells the fresh air of the city, and triumphantly smashes the fish bowl on the ground. He thrusts his tiny speakers up into the air over his head and everyone around him looks up amazed. They remove their fish bowls and cast them aside, removing their iPods as they do so. The couple that was trying to make out remove their fish bowls, too, and finally kiss. Awwww. Everyone in the city starts dancing in the streets as the camera pulls back and the screen fades to black.

This is the dumbest commercial I have ever seen. If people wanted to listen to their music through tiny little speakers, they would be doing so already. Really, though, if people wanted to listen to their music out loud, they wouldn't use tiny little speakers, they would use big old boom boxes. And people did used to do bring their boom boxes everywhere they went -- but because they weren't keeping their music to themselves that everyone else in the world pressured them to stop doing it. Why would tiny speakers be any different? Other people's music is annoying. Ever ride the bus and hear a guy with headphones turned up too high? I tap that guy on the shoulder and tell him to turn it down. Now imagine that guy with little speakers, bobbing his head in satisfaction as he spreads his perfect taste in music with total strangers. Death metal, without the base, with the screetching sound of the symbols and the upper notes of the guitar, and a singer's unintelligable voice.

Painting

Yesterday, Pants and I painted one of the two small bedrooms in our house. The old color was this bright yellow. Because we're putting the house on the market in a few months, we want to repaint everything in a neutral color. We've been using this one paint color called "bone." It's off-white, kinda greyish. When I rolled the first patch of paint onto the yellow wall, my eyes played a trick on me. Against the old yellow paint, the new grey paint looked purple. One of those color-wheel things: yellow is the oposite of purple. It wasn't until the whole room was painted that we finally realized we'd been using purple paint.

Bet

A friend of mine recently won a bet he had with himself. The loser had to cut a 1" square of skin from a part of his body, and the winner was free to do whatever he wanted with it. He's been under a lot of stress you see. I guess that ended. Currently, he's having a piece of skin grafted over a recent wound. It's convenient the patch is exactly the right size for the wound; it's unfortunate that to commemorate his victory, he had the patched tanned first.

Kagan

I read through several pages of reader comments in response to a recent editorial by Kagan on Bush's proposed 20K troop increase in Iraq. On the second page, there was one post which could have been read to either say "I disagree with Kagan" or "I agree with Kagan." I couldn't quite tell. All of the others were from very angry readers who wanted to see Kagan's fat lips wrapped around an apple while he roasts on a spit.

The basic gist of Kagan's article, if you don't feel like reading it, is that the Dems are wrong to criticize the surge/escalation because they don't have a better plan for winning in Iraq. Implied in Kagan's editorial, but deftly unsaid, was that the surge would accomplish what Bush has promised: stability in Bagdahd. Many of the responders noted that we had been trying for stability in Bagdahd for some time and that little has changed to suggest that this year we'll get it.

It's funny to me: Kagan criticized Hillary for proposing a cap at the current level of 137K troops because he sees that number as arbitrary and lacking a justification. Kagan doesn't take up the responsibility, however, of justifying an expansion by 20K troops that to me seems just as arbitrary and without justification. Does that feel intellectually dishonest to anyone else?

The other thing that bothers me is that Kagan acts as if an anti-escalation stance is somehow just Politics with a capital P because its evil. Dems feel like they can gain power by pressing the Iraq issue. But wait. That's exactly what happened. They gained office because the public voted on the Iraq issue! The current congress better reflects the will of the American public. Who the fuck is Kagan to suggest that their anti-war agenda is impure? Its called Democracy.

It's fitting that he included the word "Delusion" in his title.

Spring Shed

More old pics from my cell phone. This is my siberian husky in spring; this picture was taken after I pulled fur off of him for 10 minutes. I wasn't feeling very attached to the fur, so I just let it fall on the ground. He didn't mind me pulling hair off. He does this every year.

Same species

I took this pic on my cell phone two years ago while crossing campus. These animals could have grandchildren together.

csh

I stumbled onto a cool little page giving examples of fun things you can do with csh. I wish I'd found it years ago.

Three unneccessary judges

Last night the wife and I watched Tuesday's American Idol -- it was TiVo'd. This is the beginning of the season, so they're auditioning tens of thousands of singers. They were in Minnisota so the usual 3 judges were joined by Jewel, making a panel of four. Of the thousands of auditioners, many many of them are terrible and have no hope of winning. There are some who have no hope for anything. Many sing out of key, meekly, and in a narrow range. (Interesting note: 9 times out of 10 a guy who can only sing in falseto but lacks a mid-range and a bass, or a girl who can only sing deeply but lacks a mid-range and a saprano will describe themselves as having a great range.)

They're reactions to being told they should not be singing are mixed; some have set their hopes on winning this competition and becoming rich and famous and I assume loved, so that when they get cut they shatter.

There are also several whose reactions border on violence. They debate the judges, tell them "you only heard one song," and leave the room yelling obscenities.

This is the part everyone tunes into, of course, the "drama" that surrounds these whirling tazmanian devils of failure. Of course the producers know this and edit the shows to include the dramatic failures and exclude those who solemnly and gracefully accept that they will not win the contest. But since these people never make it into the show, we can only assume they exist; we can be certain that there are many vith violent delusions of grandeur.

There was something I noticed in watching last night that makes this explitive-flinging croud all the more amusing: the judges always agree. There was never a case of a border-line singer being given two thumbs up and one thumb down. In fact, of those given the golden ticket to Holywood, I was iffy on half of them, thinking they were pitchy or their voice went thin in the high notes... I would have expected the judges to be split.

But not once was their dissent amongst the judges. Their bar was low but way higher than most could get to. And the judges agreed on exactly where that bar belonged.

So effectively, there was a single judge up there, and three unneccessary ones. Why? Why hire 3 judges? Why go the next step further to hire a fourth guest judge?

I think it's because of the delusionals who protest and yell and scream and shake their fists at the judges. If there were only one judge telling a delusional that their voice is made for the deaf, then the bodyguards in wings (we never get to see them, but you know they are there) would have to step in and break up dozens of fights. The unneccessary judges are there to provide saftey; saftey in numbers. I could probably take Simon, but I don't think I could take Simon and Randy, and certainly not if Paula were there scratching at me. I'm not sure the presence or absence of Jewel would make much of a difference for me. She probably knows how to fight, but she's only 100 pounds.

White Whale

Garrison Keiler had a funny article on Salon. (To read, you have to obtain a "site pass" by watching an ad.)

Power

Slate has a good article on Bush's power trip. I read it yesterday while surfing Sullivan's website, but I would have read it on my own anyways...