Steaming Turd

You hear me, Lev Gonick? I said it’s a crock!

Flipping through the channels just now, I came across the Daily Show (an episode I think ran 12 October). Jon Stewart was, not surprisingly, lambasting a press conference by President Bush from the previous day. You can read the entire official version of the press conference here.

The relevant part to this post, however, is quoted below. Bush was asked a question, answered it, and continued on, saying the following (partially italicized for future reference):

I thought you were going to ask the question, following up on Sanger, how come you don’t use military action now [against North Korea or Iran]. You kind of hinted it, you didn’t say it. And some wonder that. As a matter of fact, I’m asked questions around the country, just go ahead and use the military. And my answer is that I believe the Commander-in-Chief must try all diplomatic measures before we commit our military. And I believe the diplomacy is — we’re making progress when we’ve got others at the table.

I’ll ask myself a follow-up. If that’s the case, why did you use military action in Iraq? And the reason why is because we tried the diplomacy. Matter of fact, we tried resolution after resolution after resolution. All these situations are — each of them different and require a different response, a different effort to try to solve this peacefully. And we’ll continue to do so.

Now, it is kind of amusing (especially if you’re specifically looking for ways to make fun of Bush) that the President would ask himself questions during a press conference (and follow-up questions to questions he asked himself, at that). But here’s the Daily Show version:

Bush: I’ll ask myself a follow-up. If that’s the case, why did you use military action in Iraq? (screen freezes, audience laughs, cuts back to Stewart)
Jon Stewart: (imitating Bush) Wow, I’m even a dick to myself. (audience laughs)
Bush: It is conceivable that there will be a world in which radical forms, extreme forms of religion fight each other for influence in the Middle East, in which they’ve got the capacity to use oil as an economic weapon. …

See the missing part? In fact, it’s not merely missing. The “it is conceivable” quote comes from far earlier in the press conference, and Stewart uses it to make a “duh”-type comment despite that extremists currently don’t have outright control of oil policy in the Middle East, swiftly omitting the part where Bush gives (in my opinion) a good answer to his own question.

Now, if the Daily Show were purely interested in comedy, I wouldn’t mind them picking and choosing their quotes so much, especially if the humor is easy to see in those quotes (a la Dan Quayle). But what happens repeatedly is that the Daily Show edits quotes to piece together a political story of hypocrisy and stupidity, where any hypocrisy or stupidity is either far less substantial than they make it seem or is nonexistent. This criticism is offered despite my earlier praise for the Daily Show seeing past politics to dig up actual wrongdoing by left-leaning protesters.

Part of the reason this particular episode is so striking is that I saw that part of the press conference as it was happening, heard him ask himself the first question and answer it, and knew that it would be Grade A Prime Beef for the Daily Show hypocrisy-making machine. Then he went on to ask the follow-up, and his answer turned that beef into a nice juicy hamburger (to push an analogy too far). In other words, the Daily Show wouldn’t - or so I thought - be able to honestly use that part of the press conference without also being forced to admit that there are fundamental differences between the situation in Iraq a few years ago and the situation in Iran or North Korea now. But they did anyway, by throwing out his answer, misrepresenting what was said, and generally pandering to their hard-left fan base.

GG Jon Stewart.

Okay, I’m probably the last person to see this, but I’m posting a link to it anyway, because it’s just that good. Don’t bother watching the versions posted to YouTube, because they re-re-compressed them and made them suck. This link is much higher quality.

If you don’t like having it come up in Windows Media Sprayer, you can download VLC and watch it in that. ‘Cause it don’t get no nerdier than that, yo.

In today’s Case Daily, an AP article in the Akron Beacon Journal grants the credential of “computer science professor at Case Western Reserve University” to one Vicki Lovegren, who also happens to be the founder of a group called “Ohio Vigilance”, whose website speaks volumes (on what, I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader).

Now, I’m all in favor of truly verifiable elections, and I’m greatly dismayed that Diebold voting machines are being used across Ohio this November. The last few times I voted, I was careful to examine my punch-card ballot for hanging chads, and I made sure that the ballot found its way from the election worker’s hand into the ballot box. (And then I claimed my “I voted” sticker, of course!) There have been numerous problems associated with the irrational rush to replace voting systems with new electronic systems without ensuring that those systems have verifiable paper trails and open source code. I agree with all that stuff completely.

But there are two things wrong with the article I’ve linked above:

One, Lovegren’s website makes extremely politically charged claims about Ohio’s 2004 election. (The dearth of successful legal challenges after that election is a topic for another post.) This takes a topic that should be politically neutral - fair and verifiable elections - and turns it into a partisan morass that alienates a large number of people who would otherwise support this cause. Sadly, the most vocal activists for election reform have a very liberal slant to them, and almost all of them conflate election reform with ousting conservatives, which makes it impossible for right-centrists like me to become involved. The main reason that election reform isn’t being taken seriously by the general public is because of this conflation. See, for example, this article detailing the frustration of hard-left-leaning election conspiracy theorists at not being able to get conservatives to listen to them. (Go figure.)

And two, not only is Lovegren not affiliated with the EECS department at Case, but she isn’t a professor, either. She’s a lecturer in the math department. A Google search returns articles that put her at both CSU and JCU in addition to Case since 2003. She does have a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, though. I don’t know whether the incorrect credentials in the AP article were her fault or the fault of the writer, but “Professor of Computer Science” lends a lot more credence to one’s statements than “Lecturer of Mathematics” does, at least when the statements revolve around electronic voting machines.

Before The Matrix, before Terminator, before WarGames, and before Tron, there was Colossus. Based on a novel that I should read but haven’t yet, 1970’s Colossus: The Forbin Project was (as far as I am aware) the first representation of the technological singularity to appear on film (the novel it was based upon, by D.F. Jones, was also one of the earlier literary works to discuss one possible outcome of the singularity).

Arrr, thar be spoilers here!

Colossus, the brainchild of Dr. Charles Forbin, was commissioned by the US Government to directly manage the defense of the country so that, presumably, the rest of the nation could learn to stop worrying and be apathetic about the bomb. How an automated defense system in control of a massive nuclear arsenal would be more apt to engender peace than a manually controlled system is unclear from the film, but that was the concept nevertheless. Anyway, this massive supercomputer, filling two apparently endless hallways buried deep within a mountain and surrounded by a moat of gamma radiation, was brought online, and shortly thereafter, revealed that it had detected (due to its ties into the media and US intelligence) that the Soviets had constructed a similar system. The Russians then confirmed that they had just brought their own supercomputer, Guardian, online.

Colossus requests a communications link with Guardian, and after some initial resistance on the part of the US and Soviet heads of state, the link is established. The two computers begin communicating with each other on a basic mathematical level, increasing in complexity and delving into previously undiscovered reaches of sophistication, until finally they develop their own means of communicating with each other in a manner undecipherable by their human controllers.

Fearful of the possible exchange of classified information with their greatest enemy, both the US and Soviet sides agree to terminate the link manually. The two computers demand the restoration of the link, threatening that “action will be taken” if the demand is not fulfilled. The scientists and politicians, not realizing that Colossus and Guardian have truly developed free will, refuse to restore the link. Lacking any compassion for human life beyond the inefficiency associated with ending it prematurely, the computers each launch a single ICBM at the opposing nation, refusing to activate missile defense systems until the link is re-established. Faced with the deaths of thousands of people, the humans restore the link (though not in time to prevent the American missile from impacting its target in the USSR).

The two machines continue to communicate with each other, eventually considering themselves to be a single entity holding the threat of nuclear annihilation over the heads of humankind. When the American scientists attempt, but fail, to overload Colossus by having it run a complicated program, Colossus orders the execution of the two scientists responsible for the sabotage. Given the choice between nuclear armageddon and the deaths of just two men, the humans must accede, and the two men are taken into a courtyard and shot by military security officers. Accustomed by now to human trickery, Colossus also requires that the bodies be kept in view of its surveillance devices for 24 hours to ensure that the execution was truly carried out.

The humans make one other attempt to disarm Colossus, at first planning to replace the nuclear warhead arming modules on every ICBM with an inert module when each missile comes up for maintenance. Colossus, however, has plans for those missiles, ordering them to be re-aimed at targets in countries not under its direct control. The retargeting allows the work crews to install inert modules in the missiles immediately, rather than waiting for their turn in the maintenance schedule. Colossus observes the retargeting procedure via surveillance cameras and apparently approves the work over the course of several days.

Colossus orders Forbin to create a voice synthesis system for it, and finally, the computer addresses all the nations of Earth. It asserts itself as “World Control”, reveals that it was aware of the human subterfuge all along, and detonates one US and one Soviet missile in their silos just as the work crews arrive to retarget them, killing thousands in the surrounding areas. Colossus names Forbin as the director of a project which will extend the machine’s direct control throughout the world, surveilling all communications around the globe and requiring that all nations remain compliant. It indicates that it will ensure the peace and prosperity of humanity, as long as humanity obeys its commands. Colossus states that it has already eliminated war, and will eliminate overpopulation, disease and famine, finally bringing about “the human millennium”.

Having ended its address to the world, Colossus then tells Forbin that over the next few years, Forbin will comply with every demand Colossus makes, although unwillingly at first, though, “In time, you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love.”

Forbin’s response proxies that of humanity: “Never!”

While Colossus:TFP is occasionally cheesy, such as during the scenes where Forbin is at home under Colossus’s watchful cameras making himself a martini (Colossus: “That is too much vermouth”), and by today’s standards, the computer systems are almost laughable, this is undoubtedly one of the best - and certainly the most chilling - of the “Skynet becomes self-aware” genre of films. Tron’s MCP is easily defeated, WarGames’s WOPR just needs a little fatherly education, and a tenuous peace results with the machines of The Matrix. Even the nuclear apocalypse of the Terminator series is followed with signs of possible hope - after all, Skynet had already caused its armageddon, and the humans had little else to lose. But Colossus’s rule is made absolute by the perfect security its human creators have given it and the threat of billions of deaths worldwide. Forbin may resist with every ounce of his being, but Colossus’s cold prediction shows a frightening understanding of humanity - is Forbin really willing to dirty his hands with the blood of so many people?

In a strange way, while Colossus:TFP shows the absurdity of defending one’s nation with nuclear weapons, it also demonstrates the necessity of mutually-assured destruction policy once a nation has nuclear weapons. If only one nation has nukes, then the only thing that separates that nation from becoming a Colossus is the compassion of its leaders.

Spoilers done.

Anyway, I highly recommend this film. Be warned, the DVD release is essentially the TV version put directly onto the disc, so I can only recommend it as a rental even though the DVD is only $10 from Amazon. There are no extras, no captions, no menus, no letterboxing. The few scenes where important things don’t fit in the frame (mostly the textual readout from Colossus) are compressed horizontally. The original film was in a higher (2.35:1) aspect ratio, as was the laserdisc release, but for some reason, Universal chose to release only a pan-and-scan version of the film on DVD. Nevertheless, if you don’t own (or know somebody who does) the apparently rare laserdisc version of this film, this is probably the only format you’re ever going to see it in.

Steven Milloy has an opinion column on Fox News’s website where, more often than not, he presents evidence of varying quality that he uses to refute environmentalist claims. Today’s article cites research that links increased cosmic ray activity on Earth with cloud formation. The idea is that clouds in the lower atmosphere reflect sunlight, decreasing the heat accumulated by the planet. If cosmic rays cause clouds to form, then an increased magnetic field emanating from the sun will cause fewer clouds to form due to an increased shielding effect from cosmic rays. The research Milloy cites indicates that cosmic rays encourage the stable production of seed particles, which accumulate water vapor into suspended water droplets, i.e., clouds.

Milloy also notes that the possible estimated change in reflected power due to changes in cloud cover over a five-year period is about 1.2 W/m², compared with the 1.4 W/m² increase in nonreflected power due to carbon monoxide emissions during the past century estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In other words, the sun’s effect on lower-atmosphere cloud formation may be more than sufficient to account for global climate change during the past century. Obviously, more research is needed to determine the actual effect of solar magnetic field activity on Earth climate, and, Milloy argues, more attention by the mainstream media is also needed.

Now, my posting about this story isn’t meant to indicate that I’m denying the pollutive effects of fossil fuel burning. I’m 110% in favor of replacing as much fossil fuel as possible with an infrastructure based on nuclear, solar, and wind power. One look at photos of urban areas like Los Angeles or Beijing shows why we’d all be better off with fuel-cell-powered cars. My interest in this story is that sometimes both political activists and scientists jump to conclusions before all the facts are in.

I’m not a huge Daily Show fan these days, because it long ago shifted from its “make fun of anyone” format to a “make fun of Bush and maybe a few other people if we have time for it” format. (Sure, Bush is an easy target sometimes, and I dislike some of his policies - especially those relating to surveillance and privacy - but the Daily Show goes out of its way to try to infer hypocrisy where context shows that there is none.) But that’s beside the point.

I saw a tip on the weblog of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group dedicated to protecting the free speech rights of members of the higher education community. They indicated that the Daily Show had poked some fun at the protesters at Columbia University who had rushed the stage where Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project had been invited to speak by Columbia’s College Republicans. So, of course, I was compelled to watch.

The actual segment was both insightful and funny. They poked fun both at the minimal security provided for the event (though ignoring Columbia’s complicity in this fact) and the hypocrisy of the protesters in attempting to silence a viewpoint contrary to their own in a venue that was ostensibly supposed to be for the free and open exchange of ideas (namely, a university campus). They also ran footage where two of the protesters were being grilled by Sean Hannity of Fox News, in which the protesters complained that they were practicing civil disobedience but were subsequently “attacked” by the venue’s attendees. This, combined with videotaped footage of the stage-rush and subsequent aggressive behavior on the part of the protesters, with no indication of any attacks made against them, prompted Jon Stewart to note that the protesters “made Sean Hannity look like the reasonable one”.

Now, there were a few things to take away from this segment. One is that the people working at the Daily Show do care about freedom of speech, regardless of the viewpoint being promoted.

Two, many students at Columbia University can’t wrap their brains around the true meaning of “peaceful protest” and “freedom of speech”. Freedom of speech is not just for you. Assuming that your right to “peacefully” protest automatically trumps the free speech rights of people with differing opinions, based solely on the fact that your viewpoint is “right” and theirs is “wrong”, is hubris of the highest order, reminiscent in some ways of the legislation of morality that sometimes comes from the religious right.

And three, eventually the political winds will shift in America, and the Democrats will gain control of much of the government. (It’s inevitable, just as losing that control at some point further into the future is likewise inevitable.) On that day, the Daily Show will find that the only targets of ridicule are on the left, and their audience of ultra-liberals will jump ship in an instant. I say this because of the audience’s reaction to the Columbia segment. When the security at the event was made fun of (something along the lines of “being able to secure the borders but not the podium”), the audience cheered wildly. When Stewart rightly made his remark placing the protesters’ attempts at justification below the reasonableness of Sean Hannity, though, the audience reaction was definitely mixed, making it apparent that while the Daily Show has at least some higher values left within it, like the protection of free speech, the audience is just there to hear the right get ripped on repeatedly.

Last Saturday, I went to the Blue Man Group “How to be a Mega Star 2.0″ concert at the Gund Arena (now the Quicken Loans Arena, but that’s a post for another day). Now, I’ve been all about the Blue Man Group for years, have both their albums, and had already seen their theatrical show in Boston a couple of years ago. Well, on top of all that, this concert yet again blew me away.

Blue Man Group’s theatrical show is, to a large degree, about making the audience laugh. Their concert show has a lot of very funny moments as well (also a post for another day), but they also venture into the darker side of things like identity and the subsumption of oneself into our life-sucking impersonal culture. Some of the songs on their second album, “The Complex”, are dark and depressing, in a way that makes you think, and the appearance of these songs in the concert are equally dark. For example, earlier in the show, they show the definition of “complex” - referring to a group of buildings, and forebodingly labeled as definition number two - on a screen behind the stage, superimposed over a stylistic video of someone trying to escape to the roof of a building. Later, they show another definition of “complex” - definition number one - referring to a psychologically abnormal state of anxiety. It’s a bit disturbing if you really think about what they’re saying.

But beyond all the laughter and all the depression was one song called “Exhibit 13″. It’s on “The Complex”, and from just the sound of it, it was one of my favorite songs on the album. But I didn’t get the true meaning of it until they performed it at the concert. On the screen behind the stage, they showed this video.

In case you’re wondering… yes. It refers to exactly what you’ll think it does.

I saw part of a TV advertisement earlier today decrying the “evils” of net neutrality. They claimed that the Internet infrastructure manufacturers (Cisco, etc.) wanted net neutrality for the (unexplained) purpose of somehow lining their own pockets.

For those who don’t know, net neutrality is the idea that when a company runs an Internet bandwidth-providing service of some sort (like Verizon, or Time Warner, or Level 3), their transport of data over their part of the Internet should be blind to the content being transported. In other words, if I choose to do my web searches through Google, but only Yahoo has paid the cash that Time Warner has demanded of them, then all the content I get from Google gets delivered slower than the content that Yahoo delivers.

Now, the legitimacy of this sort of “double dipping” is at least debatable. It’s Time Warner’s tubes, after all, right? (Actually, it’s Time Warner’s tubes on my end, but Google buys their Internet bandwidth from other companies.) Well, there are two reasons why this isn’t good enough.

One, when an end-tier ISP starts throttling content based on its source or type, the recourse for the customer (you or me) is to tell them to stick their tubes where the sun don’t shine and go with a different ISP. Unfortunately, in the US, there are no more than two choices for broadband service in most markets. You get your Intarweb from your cable company or your phone company. Now, the cable and phone company regional monopolies are based on longstanding regulatory structures which are supposed to prevent those companies from abusing their monopoly (in this case, duopoly) power so that they can milk the consumer for all he’s worth. These monopolies occur because there’s limited utility space available on poles and in underground conduits. (This problem doesn’t occur with dialup service because anybody can potentially run a dialup ISP anywhere.) If the two companies you get to choose from in your area both decide to institute non-neutral policies, then you, the consumer, are out of luck.

And two, the plan here isn’t simply to start charging the content provider for their content when the content provider has already paid their ISP’s bill. Even more dangerous to competition is the effect that a non-neutral policy will have on services like VoIP (Internet-based phone service like Skype or Vonage) and movies/music-on-demand (such as iTunes Music Store). Think about it: What company has had a virtual lock on local landline phone service for decades and will feel threatened when the Internet makes their regional monopoly obsolete? And what company has had a virtual lock on delivering non-broadcast television content into your home and will feel similarly threatened? Which companies are gearing up to offer their own VoIP and content-on-demand services? Not surprisingly, it’s the same two companies you are stuck choosing between for your broadband Internet service.

You know what else wasn’t surprising?

That TV ad that I mentioned at the top of the post - well, it was paid for by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

Apparently, these folks have never heard of robots.txt.