Daily Nonsense

I occasionally need a reminder about how great it is to live in America.

In Dubai this past summer, Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was kidnapped and raped by four men, three of which were Emirati and two of those were former convicts. After being threatened with knives he was driven to a dark area in the desert and sodomized multiple times in the back seat of a car.

The authorities not only tried to dissuade Alex from pressing charges but they also raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity. They also neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier.

It’s not bad enough that the life of a 15-year-old has been changed forever by a trio of Muslims, but the government wants to make the poor child the criminal rather than the victim.

This is a site that Alexandre’s mother set up that asks for moral and economic support.  Boycott Dubai

The NY Times has a good article about the issue:

In Rape Case, a French Youth Takes On Dubai

By THANASSIS CAMBANIS

Published: November 1, 2007

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 31 — Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was having a fine summer in this tourist paradise on the Persian Gulf. It was Bastille Day and he and a classmate had escaped the July heat at the beach for an air-conditioned arcade.

Just after sunset, Alex says he was rushing to meet his father for dinner when he bumped into an acquaintance, a 17-year-old, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off at home.

There were, in fact, three Emirati men in the car, including a pair of former convicts ages 35 and 18, according to Alex. He says they drove him past his house and into a dark patch of desert, between a row of new villas and a power plant, took away his cellphone, threatened him with a knife and a club, and told him they would kill his family if he ever reported them.

Then they stripped off his pants and one by one sodomized him in the back seat of the car. They dumped Alex across from one of Dubai’s luxury hotel towers.

Alex and his family were about to learn that despite Dubai’s status as the Arab world’s paragon of modernity and wealth, and its well-earned reputation for protecting foreign investors, its criminal legal system remains a perilous gantlet when it comes to homosexuality and protection of foreigners.

The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier.

“They tried to smother this story,” Alex said by phone from Switzerland, where he fled a month into his 10th-grade school year, fearing a jail term in Dubai if charged with homosexual activity. “Dubai, they say we build the highest towers, they have the best hotels. But all the news, they hide it. They don’t want the world to know that Dubai still lives in the Middle Ages.”

Alex and his parents say they chose to go public with his case in the hope that it would press the authorities to prosecute the men.

[Thanks, NY Times]

Here is an example of why we will never be able to work out peaceful resolutions in the Middle East. We just don’t think the same way about things.

Take the case of Gillian Gibbons, an English teacher working in Sudan. She was working on a project with her 7-year-old students that focused on animals. One of her students brought in a stuffed teddy bear. Gillian asked the students (remember, they are 7 year olds!) to pick a name for the toy and after some discussion they chose Muhammad.

The resulting brouhaha has made national news, strained the relations between Great Britain and Sudan and brought tens of thousands of protesters out into the streets. Armed with sticks, clubs and knives the protesters are demanding that Gillian be put to death….for allowing her students to use one of the most common mens names in the whole region on a class teddy bear.

I’ll repeat that for those of you who don’t get it…….. The protesters want Gillian put to death because they contend that she demeaned the prophet by allowing the use of his name for a teddy bear.

Whatever happened to religious tolerance (if the religion card can actually be played here)? What ever happened to basic human kindness?

Are these protesters serious? You decide:

All Google News stories related to the incident are here -> LINK

Selected reading:

• Sudanese call for teddy bear teacher’s death @ NY Daily News
• Teddy row protestors demand death @ The Guardian
• Sudanese protesters demand death for teddy teacher @ Reuters Canada

A small company based in Brooklyn, of all places, has teamed with some production partners in China and has introduced the Linux based miShare.  Designed to copy files (songs) from one iPod to another in as little as 10 seconds per song, the miShare works at the push of its single button.

The miShare has been designed to copy DRM protected content, but not to circumvent it.  This bodes well for their future here in the US where circumventing DRM is against the law (regardless of your rights to archive the content you purchased).

Compatibility seems to exclude only a few models (from their FAQ):

Which iPods can miShare connect?
miShare works with all Mini, Nano, 3G, 4G, Video (5G), and Classic (6G) iPod models, and miShare’s own internal software can be updated with future downloads from mishare.com. miShare does not work with Shuffle models (or the original 1G and 2G iPods) since they lack the iPod’s standardized 30-pin dock connector. miShare does not currently work with the iPhone or iPod Touch—we are working on a firmware update to accommodate the different disk storage in these models.

For those of you not shackled to the iTunes DRM crippled format, this could be a great way to move your music around between all the iPods in your family.

• Sack o’ Scrap $5.95 + s/h @ Fruper
• Polaroid DVD Recorder with 160GB Hard Drive $99.99 + s/h @ Woot
• Black & Decker Power Driver $29.99 + Free s/h @ Amazon
• Sandisk 512MB Cruzer Micro Portable Storage @ J&R Music World

The common man has know for almost two terms just how contemptible the White House and its denizens really are.  But it appears as if the Senate might be poised to make it official.

The Senate Judiciary Committee and it’s chairman Patrick Leahy declared that certain members (both past and present) must begin to comply with subpoenas or risk the wrath of the committee and being held in contempt.

These subpoenas relate to the dismissal of 8 U.S. Attorneys from 8 different federal districts and the subsequent appointment by Alberto ‘I Don’t Recall’ Gonzales of 8 replacements.  It will be interesting to see how well the Senate Judiciary Committee makes its case against the likes of Karl Rove, Joshua Bolton, and former White House political director Sara Taylor.

Reprinted from The Swamp at The Baltimore Sun:

Leahy threatens White House with contempt

by James Oliphant

It’s a drama that still likely will never see its final act, but the confrontation between the Senate and the White House over last spring’s U.S. attorney controversy is inching ever so forward.

Today, Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, declared that several current and former White House must comply with committee subpoenas to testify and that their reasons for failing to do so were insufficient.

“I have given the White House’s claims of executive privilege and immunity careful consideration,” Leahy wrote in a formal ruling on the subpoenas. “I hereby rule that those claims are not legally valid to excuse current and former White House employees from appearing, testifying and producing documents related to this investigation."

[Thanks, Baltimore Sun]

Additional reading:

• Senate Committee Denies Executive Privilege @ NPR 
• Leahy: White House aides must comply with subpoenas @ CNN 
• Leahy Rules White House Cannot Ignore Subpoenas @ CBS News

It looks like the RIAA is losing favor with at least one of its corporate sponsors.  Recently EMI was purchased by the private equity firm Terra Firma and the new owners are finalizing plans to reduce its financial help to both the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

This type of corporate sponsorship is the only reason that the RIAA can stay in business and terrorize innocent individuals and families with frivolous lawsuits.  And it’s time that stopped.

EMI (Terra Firma) is referring to the pullback of finances as a cost cutting measure in the face of plummeting CD sales, but a quote from TechDirt might hold even more truth

If EMI lowers its funding of the RIAA and the IFPI it’s basically an (all too late) admission, that the strategies of those two organizations are not helping EMI achieve its long term goals.

The bigger issue at hand really is the ability of the music industry to cater to the needs of the music buyer.  iTunes comes very close in that you can easily find the music you want and purchase it a la carte.  The downside to that is the music is crippled in such a way that I can only use it on one portable music device, an iPod.

Maybe the real answer lies in the new MP3 store over at Amazon.  You can purchase a la carte and listen to that music on any computer you own, an iPod if you own one and any other brand of digital music player including regular phones and the new iPhone.

Google has introduced a new feature on its mobile versions of Google Maps.  It’s called My Location and it uses triangulation between cell towers to ‘pinpoint’ your location within 2200 meters.

I downloaded the beta version this morning and can verify that although it’s not really that accurate, it does work.  My Location puts me about 2 1/2 blocks east of where I really am, but that would be insignificant if I was really lost.

The My Location feature is available for many web-enabled mobile phones, including BlackBerry, Java, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices.  In my opinion it’s worth a look.

You can go to www.google.com/gmm from you mobile web browser to download directly into your phone.  The installer is also smart enough to know if you have a previous version installed and performs an update flawlessly.

My Rating:

One of the biggest issues in the Blackwater case has to do with accountability. Can Blackwater and it’s homicidal employees be held accountable for the atrocities committed in Iraq.

There is a large debate going on right now as the U.S. Justice Department tussles with the basic issue of if and how we can hold the employees and the company accountable for the cold blooded murders of those innocent civilians in Nisoor Square and the three guards taken down by cold, calculated sniper fire that originated ironically enough, from the roof of the Iraqi Justice Ministry.

If nothing else, this is the opportunity for our 81st US Attorney General, Mikey Mukasey, to shine and put behind him all of the negative press for both his office and the US in general. All he has to do is prosecute, ask for the death penalty and televise the executions.

NPR reports:

Justice Department Grapples with Blackwater Case

by Dina Temple-Raston

From the moment the Blackwater shooting scandal first broke, legal experts have debated whether U.S. civilian contractors can stand trial for crimes they are accused of committing in Iraq. Now the Justice Department is tasked with finding an American law that applies to the incident.

Details of the Blackwater shooting in September are achingly familiar by now. A convoy of Blackwater vehicles entered a Baghdad traffic circle on Sept. 16 and, a short time later, shots rang out.

Blackwater has said its guards began firing into oncoming cars in self-defense. A subsequent FBI inquiry reportedly determined that the shootout was unprovoked. What everyone agrees on is that 17 Iraqis died in the incident.

[Thanks, NPR]

Many, many years ago I used a fantabulous site called The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software, much better known as TUCOWS. It was a repository of software that was at first Internet-centric, then slowly it became the destination for shareware, freeware and demo software. At it’s height of popularity it hosted in excess of 30,000 software titles, most aimed at Windows 3.1 & 3.11.

As I was searching for something earlier today I stumbled across one of the mirrors that allowed the traffic to be distributed across many world-wide sites. It sure did bring back some fond memories of manually tweaking Trumpet Winsock, the venerable Windows Socket API written by Peter and Gweneth Tattam, programmers from the University of Tasmania in Australia.

Way back when it wasn’t as easy as just clicking on the ‘Connect To’ button in the Start menu. You had to manually edit a plethora of variables that were dependent on many hardware and software configurations. It would take days to get just the right configuration so that your oh-so-expensive V.34 28.8 bits/s was actually operating somewhere in that neighborhood.

Those were the good old days……

• Pocket Laser Light Show $12.99 + $5 S/H @ DealSquared 
• Four 3D Visual Echo 500-Piece Puzzle Bundle $16.99 + S/H@ Tanga
• Full Color Security Camera with Audio $24.95 + S/H @ Fruper 
• Grundig Mini 300PE Shortwave Radio – Refurb $12.93 + S/H @ REI

A Federal grand Jury has started taking testimony this week in a civil suit against Blackwater.  The suit has been filed by family members of some of the 17 civilians brutally murdered in Nisoor Square this past September 16th.

Kenneth Kohl and Stephen Ponticiello, Justice Department national security prosecutors, both of whom are handling the Blackwater case, spent much of Tuesday afternoon in the grand jury room.  They were some of the first to be called to give testimony in what is sure to be an exciting and controversial suit.  Kudos to the families and lawyers who are pursuing this suit against Blackwater.

Lawsuit, Grand Jury Focus on Blackwater

By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal grand jury investigating Blackwater Worldwide heard witnesses Tuesday as a private lawsuit accused the government contractor’s bodyguards of ignoring orders and abandoning their posts shortly before taking part in a Baghdad shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

Filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, the civil complaint also accuses North Carolina-based Blackwater of failing to give drug tests to its guards in Baghdad — even though an estimated one in four of them was using steroids or other "judgment altering substances."

A Blackwater spokeswoman said Tuesday its employees are banned from using steroids or other enhancement drugs but declined to comment on the other charges detailed in the 18-page lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of five Iraqis who were killed and two who were injured during the Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The shootings enraged the Iraqi government, and the Justice Department is investigating whether it can bring criminal charges in the case, even though the State Department promised limited immunity to the Blackwater guards.

[Thanks, Google & AP]

The Blackwater issue keeps getting more and more convoluted.  They seem to be involved in more than one controversy in Washington.  Let’s see if I can remember all of the individual issues.

1. Illegally smuggling silencers into Iraq.
2. The murder of three state-funded Iraqi Media Network guards by Blackwater sniper fire.
3. The death of 14 civilians in Nisoor Square after a murderous Blackwater shooting spree.
4. Hiring Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard by Blackwater whose brother is State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard.  Howard was forced to recuse himself in the matter of that little investigation into Blackwater itself following the hire.
5. The blatant interference in the ongoing investigations by the White House and members of various US agencies.  Story follows:

Blackwater Probe Stifled by Conflicts

By RICHARD LARDNER – 23 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department’s acerbic top auditor wasn’t happy when Justice Department officials told one of his aides to leave the room so they could discuss a criminal investigation of Blackwater Worldwide, the contractor protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq.

The episode reveals the badly strained relationship between Bush administration officials over the probe into whether Blackwater smuggled weapons into Iraq that could have gotten into insurgents’ hands.

As a result of the bureaucratic crosscurrents between State’s top auditor and Justice, the investigation has been bogged down for months.

[Thanks, Google News & AP]

• Curious George T-Shirt $9.99 + Free s/h @ Dirt Cheap Shirt 
• StashCard- A secret drawer for your laptop! $7.33 +s/h @ EjectIT.com 
• 100 Pack 8X Double Sided DVD-R Blank Media $39.99 + Free s/h @ Meritline.com

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted this past week.  We spent most of our time in Conway, S.C. and I didn’t have easy Internet access most of the time.  But I’m back now and will post a couple of pics from the trip in the next day or so.

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Thanksgiving celebration. 

Well, here we are again. Me blogging from my BlackBerry as we head towards the airport for another trip. This time should be easier on everybody, as we only have to get on one airplane.

We’re 3 hours early for the flight, but we have to hook up with our friends Kevin & Bryce so they can take custody of Bowie. We’re pretty lucky to friends with whom we can swap off Doggie Sitting duties.

Kevin and Bryce are going to meet us at the Cell Phone Waiting Area at the airport and we’ll leave them with the Ka-ka-Ka-Kia and Bowie. That will leave us tons of time to check our baggage and find some dinner.

After that its just going to be a question of waiting around at the gate. I’ll keep you informed of our progress through the ordeal.

While appearing at a speaking engagement at the University of Florida, Alberto “I Don’t Recall” Gonzales was warmly welcomes by almost 730 students and community members. Chanting the words “criminal” and “liar” during his speech, the members of the audience let ‘Berto know just how close he was to their hearts.

Former AG Gonzales Speaks at U. of Fla.

By RON WORD – 10 hours ago

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endured screams of “criminal” and “liar” during a speech at the University of Florida on Monday evening.

About 730 students and community members listened to Gonzales defend his career as White House counsel and head of the Justice Department. He also spoke about immigration and terrorism.

“No one is perfect. What is important is that we identify our mistakes and correct them,” he said.

Gonzales’ appearance was the first by a high-profile speaker at the university since a student was Tasered on Sept. 17 at a speech by Sen. John Kerry. An investigation found that campus police acted appropriately, and charges were dropped against the student.

Gonzales resigned earlier this fall in the face of an uproar on Capitol Hill over the dismissals of a slew of federal prosecutors and in connection with the administration’s warrantless wiretap program.

Early in his speech, two people climbed on the stage in hoods. Gonzales stopped talking for a few minutes as police led them away without incident, though there were several outbursts from the crowd.

The hooded demonstrators were charged with interruption of a public event, said Steve Orlando, a university spokesman. Several other people were ejected for yelling, and more than a dozen people stood for most of Gonzeles’ hour-long speech with their backs toward him.

Gonzales repeatedly defended the Bush administration’s treatment of foreign prisoners.

“We don’t condone torture,” he said.

Students were not allowed to ask questions directly, as they were at the Kerry event. Instead questions were submitted and read by a university law professor. One question asked about Gonzales’ views on immigration.

“Because of 9-11, we have to get this right. We have to know who is in this country,” he said.

Gonzales also said it was perfectly appropriate to replace U.S. attorneys, because they are political appointees.

University officials said it was Gonzales’ first appearance at a university since he left office in late August. He was paid $40,000 for his speech.

A few protesters carried signs protesting the appearance.

“It is abhorrent that they would spend that amount of money. This man is a criminal,” said Glenda Allen, of Jacksonville.

[Thanks, Associated Press & Google News]

I just wonder how much he would have gotten paid if he had been forced to collect money at the door rather than have the Student Union misappropriate the funds they used to pay him?

Additional Reading:

• Protesters arrested at Gonzales speech @ The Alligator
• Gonzales faces hecklers; two students arrested @ Ocala.com
• UF protesters arrested during Gonzales speech @ Tampa Bays 10
• Alberto Gonzales Heckled At University Of Florida Speech @ Think Progress

• It’s a TANGATHON @ Tanga.com 
• All County Team Cow Tipping T-Shirt $9.99 @ Dirt Cheap Shirt 
• Ron Paul Is My Homeboy T-Shirt $13.83 @ Shirt A Day 
• The Right Type Of Woman T-Shirt $10.00 @ Uneetee

With the Iowa Primary Election only 54 some odd days away the leading Democratic candidates have started taking pot-shots at each other regarding the issue of experience. If you want my opinion, neither one of them should be criticizing the other on that particular count. Neither of them has any more ’real’ experience than the other. I say that because I’m not going to count Hillary’s tenure as wife of a former president. And we all know that Obama has nothing more than a couple of years in the Senate.

Clinton, Obama clash over experience

Campaigning in Iowa, the Democratic contenders argue over how important it is in a future president and what sort is most valuable.

By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 20, 2007 FORT DODGE, IOWA — Amid new polling that points to a shift in momentum in this crucial state, Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama made arguments Monday that electing the other would prove a costly mistake.

In a morning campaign stop, the New York senator suggested that her colleague from Illinois was not fit to oversee a U.S. economy where more families are struggling to keep their homes and pay medical bills.She avoided mentioning Obama by name, but her campaign staff later confirmed that she was talking about him when she said: "Every day spent learning the ropes is another day of rising costs, mounting deficits, and growing anxiety for our families."

Speaking in Knoxville, Iowa, Clinton added: "We need a president who understands the magnitude and complexity of the challenges we face and has the strength and experience to address them from Day One."

Obama,who is halfway through his first Senate term, sounded a feisty note when asked to reply at a news conference here later in the morning.

"If Sen. Clinton or her campaign spin team asks me the question" about his level of experience, "my response is to say that our economic plan and our approach on these issues, I think, has been superior to hers," he said. "And that’s part of the reason I’m running for office."

He also questioned whether Clinton, a former first lady, had done anything in life to make her a better option for voters worried about an economic slump. By comparison, Obama said he learned firsthand about personal hardship as a community organizer, attorney, law professor and elected official.

"I am happy to compare my experience to hers when it comes to the economy," Obama said. "My understanding was she wasn’t Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. I don’t know exactly what experience she’s claiming."

The quarrel came as anew poll showed that Clinton, despite her large national lead, had yetto pull ahead in Iowa, the first test in the 2008 campaign. Iowa’s caucuses are scheduled for Jan. 3.

A Washington Post/ABC Newspoll showed a tight three-way race, with Obama supported by 30% of likely caucus-goers, Clinton by 26%, and former North Carolina Sen.John Edwards by 22%. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In July, a Post/ABC poll showed Obama with 27%, compared with 26% each for Clinton and Edwards.

With the state up for grabs, the campaigning here is ceaseless. Clinton made four appearances on Monday and is scheduled to make two more today,along with a visit to a shelter in Des Moines.

Her husband,former President Clinton, will be appearing in Iowa "quite frequently"in the run-up to the caucuses, said Mark Daley, a campaign spokesman.

"If you remember the phrase used at the beginning of the Iraq war — ’shock and awe’ — that’s the way her campaign is approaching this apparent threat," said Dennis Goldford, politics professor at Drake University in Des Moines. "They’re just trying to hit it with an overwhelming response. In politics, appearance is reality, and they don’t want the perception to get out that she’s slipping or is weak or could well lose this. So what they’ll be trying to do is head that off as quickly as possible."

As they crisscrossed Iowa in separate campaign stops,Obama seldom mentioned Clinton’s name, and Clinton avoided his. Yet it seemed the two were holding an argument with one another across an expanse of hundreds of miles.

At issue was the question of experience — how important it is in a future president and what sortis most valuable. Clinton contends that Obama is too unseasoned to be trusted with the presidency, and Obama maintains that a Washington insider is not what the nation needs.

Even in her delivery,Clinton tries to underscore her point. At a late afternoon rally in Vinton, she talked about her "strength and experience," hitting the last word with special emphasis.

Obama sought to parry the charge by painting Clinton as part of a Washington establishment incapable of ushering in real change.

He also described his unorthodox biography as a plus: As a child he lived abroad, and he still has relatives in Kenya, he told an audience at one of his campaign stops.

"Probably the strongest experience I have in foreign relations is the fact that I spent four years living overseas when I was a child in southeast Asia," said Obama, who lived in Indonesia from age 6 to age 10.

"So a lot of my knowledge about foreign affairs isn’t just what I studied in school. It’s not just the work that I do on Senate Foreign Relations [Committee]. It’s actually having the knowledge of how ordinary people in these other countries live," he said.

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

[Thanks, LATimes]

I enjoy checking out some of the deal-a-day sites each morning and aggregating some of the better deals in my Daily Internet Bargains segment.  For the most part (but not in every case) I have purchased at least one thing from the sites that I list and have been happy with the experience.

Today I’m posting about a site which will not only never get listed in my bargains segment, but will never get my business again.

The story starts on October 19th (exactly one month ago today) when I ordered two Eleca Foldable Acoustic or Electric Guitar Stands from goingTODAY.com (AKA WrightWay Music Products).  The price was right ($5.99 each + $5.00 s/h) and I really could use these.  So, I place the order and pay via PayPal.  I promptly get a receipt from PayPal, saying that I had paid goingTODAY.com the total of $16.98.

That was the last prompt thing about this transaction.  Let’s fast forward to November 1 when I send an e-mail to the address as stated in my receipt from PayPal.  The result of that carefully crafted missive?  Nada, not a Frikkin’ thing.  Not from goingTODAY or PayPal.  Again, let’s move forward to November 2.  I send a second e-mail, this time to the ’sales’ address listed on their single page web site.  The response from that e-mail?  More of the same being ignored.

So, now it’s November 5 and I decide I’ve had enough of this particular brand of piss-poor customer service.  I go to PayPal and lodge a formal complaint against goingTODAY.

And then, magically, I get an e-mail from goingTODAY on November 6.  and what do they say?

Hello Bob,
The boxes designated for shipping that product were substandard – we are waiting for our box supplier to send a better product.  Estimated time on new boxes = 2 more days.
Estimated time to ship your 2 Eleca foldable stands = by end of this week.
I apologize for your wait.  Let me know if there is anything else that I can do for you in the interim.

It takes them 18 days and a formal complaint through PayPal to make someone want to contact me and feed me some story about a sub-standard shipping container?  And do they even bother to mention the PayPal complaint?  Hell no.

So, here’s the message.  There are a lot of companies out there selling inexpensive stuff.  Many of them can offer a pleasant shopping experience.  goingTODAY (AKA WrightWay Music Products) is not one of those, They suck from a customer service standpoint.  And I guess I should know, it’s what I do for a living.