Author: Jason

So there’s been a bit of an uproar lately over a new Google Toolbar feature that adds Auto-Links to websites, making titles of books happen to link to their Amazon listing, restaurants link to their addresses, stuff like that, whether the original author of the site meant for it to happen. And now there are scripts all about to kill this feature because, well, as a webdesigner you design and link as you see fit, who is Google to tweak your page?

EFF: Deep Links says bah and fooey on this hubub:

When I visit your website, and you send me a page in response, I should be able to do whatever I like to manipulate it on my end. Display it in purple, suppress images, block pop-ups, compare prices from other vendors, whatever. In the words of my colleague, Cory Doctorow, “it’s my screen, and I should be able to control it; companies like Google and individuals should be able to provide tools and services to let me control it.”

Of course, we have to make sure the butler doesn’t try to take over and act like a jail warden (i.e., monopolists forcing you to take a butler). And we don’t want the butler to sneak into your house when you’re not looking (i.e., spyware). But Google’s Toolbar seems to be a pretty good butler — it’s not like he hides his presence, and you can fire him anytime you like (it’s not as though Google’s leading position in search gives it much ability to force its butler on you; you can choose from lots of other “toolbar” apps that can submit searchs to Google).

And I kinda agree with this.

Now it’s one thing if folks start making money off your site when you don’t want them to, like in the case of the Amazon book links, but it is an added service to a potential reader. You’d probably be better off creating those kind of links yourself and using the associate feature Amazon offers. And getting to maps is pretty handy too.

But as the possibility of adding links to competitors exists, there should certainly be a way for websites to block Google, which there is.

I don’t think this is entirely EVIL of Google, nor do I think it was malicious. They think they are offering a great service to people using their toolbar and I have to agree. It might be a pretty handy feature to play with. Websites can opt out with the script, sure, but otherwise, let me the user play with what I have available. If that tweaks your site and makes it more accessable to me and my wants, awesome.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0503.carter.html
America can remain the world’s superpower. Or it can maintain its current all-volunteer military. It can’t do both.

…

In short, America’s all-volunteer military simply cannot deploy and sustain enough troops to succeed in places like Iraq while still deterring threats elsewhere in the world. Simply adding more soldiers to the active duty force, as some in Washington are now suggesting, may sound like a good solution. But it’s not, for sound operational and pragmatic reasons. America doesn’t need a bigger standing army; it needs a deep bench of trained soldiers held in reserve who can be mobilized to handle the unpredictable but inevitable wars and humanitarian interventions of the future. And while there are several ways the all-volunteer force can create some extra surge capacity, all of them are limited.

The only effective solution to the manpower crunch is the one America has turned to again and again in its history: the draft.* Not the mass combat mobilizations of World War II, nor the inequitable conscription of Vietnamfor just as threats change and war-fighting advances, so too must the draft. A modernized draft would demand that the privileged participate. It would give all who serve a choice over how they serve. And it would provide the military, on a just in time basis, large numbers of deployable ground troops, particularly the peacekeepers we’ll need to meet the security challenges of the 21st century.

America has a choice. It can be the world’s superpower, or it can maintain the current all-volunteer military, but it probably can’t do both.

* empahsis mine

Because a draft is guaranteed to create a completely capabable military, not a demoralized army of forced soldiers putting their asses on the line for something they did not ask or even volunteer to do. Part of what has made the American military so unique and effective over the last 150 years is it’s all volunteer status, the fact that everyone who is in there WANTS to be there on some level. Whether it’s because they believe in the military’s values, see it as a way to get an education or simply like the shiny guns, they are there because they want to be and fight because that’s what they signed up to do.

So what if, instead of instituting a draft and forcing people who don’t want to be in the military to serve, you create a system to where joining the military is more appealing?

Serve six years, your college education is free. Sure, you can get out, but you’re in the Reserves and can be called up, but you get FREE college. And better pay. And more.

Ah, but Carter and Glastris proposed a half assed effort at this:

A better solution would fix the weaknesses of the all-volunteer force without undermining its strengths. Here’s how such a plan might work. Instead of a lottery, the federal government would impose a requirement that no four-year college or university be allowed to accept a student, male or female, unless and until that student had completed a 12-month to two-year term of service. Unlike an old-fashioned draft, this 21st-century service requirement would provide a vital element of personal choice. Students could choose to fulfill their obligations in any of three ways: in national service programs like AmeriCorps (tutoring disadvantaged children), in homeland security assignments (guarding ports), or in the military. Those who chose the latter could serve as military police officers, truck drivers, or other non-combat specialists requiring only modest levels of training. (It should be noted that the Army currently offers two-year enlistments for all of these jobs, as well as for the infantry.) They would be deployed as needed for peacekeeping or nation-building missions. They would serve for 12-months to two years, with modest follow-on reserve obligations.

Whichever option they choose, all who serve would receive modest stipends and GI Bill-type college grants. Those who sign up for lengthier and riskier duty, however, would receive higher pay and larger college grants. Most would no doubt pick the less dangerous options. But some would certainly select the militaryout of patriotism, a sense of adventure, or to test their mettle. Even if only 10 percent of the one-million young people who annually start at four-year colleges and universities were to choose the military option, the armed forces would receive 100,000 fresh recruits every year. These would be motivated recruits, having chosen the military over other, less demanding forms of service. And because they would all be college-grade and college-bound, they would haveto a greater extent than your average volunteer recruitthe savvy and inclination to pick up foreign languages and other skills that are often the key to effective peacekeeping work.

Require service to go to college and thereby better enhance your chances of success in the world? Or you could opt not to join the military and be limited to flipping burgers or working retail the rest of your life. Thanks, guys, way to make that military more appealing.

This does NOTHING to solve the issue of morale or avoid anyone joining feeling like they are forced to be there. “I’m just here for a year and then I’m out, so I’m going to do the bare minimum to get by,” is not the mentality we need our armed forces to have.

There was a time when serving in the military meant something. If you served you were practically guaranteed a job when you were done. But that is no longer the case, society and business needs have moved beyond that the military teaches, leaving many that serve behind those that simply go to college instead.

Fix that and you might have yourself a larger all-volunteer force.

CNN’s saying:

Pope John Paul II has been given the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church as his health deteriorates, a Vatican source tells CNN.

UPDATE: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/03/31/pope1/index.html

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050301/D88I8SPO1.html

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Constitution forbids the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes, ending a practice used in 19 states.

The 5-4 decision throws out the death sentences of about 70 juvenile murderers and bars states from seeking to execute minors for future crimes.

The executions, the court said, were unconstitutionally cruel.

It was the second major defeat at the high court in three years for supporters of the death penalty. Justices in 2002 banned the execution of the mentally retarded, also citing the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

The court had already outlawed executions for those who were 15 and younger when they committed their crimes.

Tuesday’s ruling prevents states from making 16- and 17-year-olds eligible for execution.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, noted that most states don’t allow the execution of juvenile killers and those that do use the penalty infrequently. The trend, he noted, was to abolish the practice.

“Our society views juveniles … as categorically less culpable than the average criminal,” Kennedy wrote.

…

In a dissent, Scalia decried the decision, arguing that there has been no clear trend of declining juvenile executions to justify a growing consensus against the practice.

“The court says in so many words that what our people’s laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: ‘In the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty,’ he wrote in a 24-page dissent.

“The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation’s moral standards,” Scalia wrote.

– Bruce Campbell: comic book writer!

– Make $100,000 just for lovin’ and livin’ The Dukes of Hazard

– Trying to halt global warming with one giant leap. Interesting, though something makes me think it ain’t gonna work. Just a feeling I have.

– Have you played with Google Maps yet? Pretty sweet if you ask me. And you should.

– IGN announces the top ten must own games for the Game Cube and I own none of them.

– Tiny Mix Tapes is a neat site where you submit a topic and someone might give you a play list to soundtrack it.

– Star Wars Episode 3 spoilers if you’re interested. And I do mean SPOILERS.

Screaming “GET OFF MY LAWN”, anal self righteous blogger chases children off his site by throwing empty cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and incoherently muttering about the government

So it seems a class has found me enjoyable. Or, rather, useful. Like cutting through my lawn they have used my site as a way to an “easy A-“. Well I’m gonna make them earn that there A- and wear it on their chest all red and glaring and such. Like in that book, Brave New World.

I wrote this thing about a week ago concerning those recorded conversations an author had with the President where said President alluded to possibly, maybe, kinda inhaling or something like that back in the day (“good ol’ days” as they are probably called).

Well the first critter came across my property and decided that I was a crazy ol’ coot in my rantin’. Which I was. But that’s not the point. That they called me on it, THAT’S the point.

Not really.

The point is that instead of considering my actual discussion about whether CNN handled the story appropriately, the discussion became as to whether or not admitting drug use was a valid approach to the topic and the consensus seems to have been yes. Now, everyone’s opinion gets twisted in the retelling so I’ll forgive the first critter, despite being called left leaning when I mentioned something about a “liberal media”.

But it seems this critter has friends.

This one felt my post was entirely opinion and cited no credible sources. Okay, maybe CNN’s fluff at times, but not credible? It seemed more likely that they didn’t realize that CNN had been cited (nevermind that I did cite it and their first friend also cited it and their dog was doing that cute barking that sounds like words in the background going “CNN! CNN! CNN! I RUV RU!”)

So, in a fit of overweening pride and hubristic arrogance I stripped to my wife beater, grabbed that there fly swatter and waddled to the front lines of battle on my front porch.

I put them there young’uns in their place (here and here).

In hindsight I feel like an ass.

The teacher’s probably going to spank me by e-mail for even bothering to defend my virtual honor by correcting their students. Which is fine.

Now, what I really think happened was that the first person did not realize that in blockquoting and italicizing words I’m citing the article verbatim, not just spouting crap out like I normally do (see above). Had she read the article she would have noticed this. Or accused me of plagarism. Either way, we’re good. Her pal, the second poster, apparently never even saw my post. Or ____________ (I’m tired, insert your own funny comment, it’s kinda like a MadLib).

What also happened was that the President’s stance was taken for my opinion whereas my analysis was overlooked. Do I agree with the President’s view, that any admission of drug use does not serve to prevent drug use? Somewhat. We all mock that “From YOU, alright? I learned it by watching YOU!” commercial, many while high. Thanks, Faux TV-Dad.

More importantly though was the President’s opinion that such stuff shouldn’t matter and that he would refuse to answer it. Instead of agreeing with the President, CNN decided that this MUST be an admission and that is a bad thing! THAT is what I was criticizing. Not the President, whether he did drugs or not, but that in the President’s careful consideration on how to handle his personal past, CNN threw out the “PRESIDENT IS A DAMN DIRTY HIPPIE DRUGGIE!” headlines. And that wasn’t entirely accurate. Not entirely.

So to the class that’s being made to do these blogs to enhance their critical reading skills, good luck folks. Please please please take more than five minutes to do those posts. You can’t critically evaluate something with just one quick read. You have to follow links, really look into what’s being said, and then think about it. Give your writing a good, oh, ten minutes. And maybe proofread it, make sure it sounds pretty, then share it with the world. Because you’re on the web with these things. You’re not just being graded by your teacher but you’re going to be graded by anyone in the general public that stumbles across your site, including us ego surfers that just love to find our names in the weirdest of places (though bathroom stalls are generally bad).

Tounge-In-Chic: Paris Hilton’s Confessions of an Heiress

Who wouldn’t want to read the life story of the 22 year old eventual multi-millionare?

Velveeta Fudge? Uh…