Cats do not like it when you change the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.

Well, actually, they really wouldn’t mind it if I didn’t also test each one after inserting the new battery.

WHOOSH.

Update: Turns out this was post number 3000 since we went Wordpress. Not 3000 by me. By me and my cobloggers. I’ve only written 2,559 of them.

This one is to discuss something from the end of the April 23rd episode.

(more…)

I am, frankly, on the side of the HD-DVD consortium on this. I am a firm believer in copyright protection and have refused numerous times to accept illegal copies of expensive software. Yeah, I’d like to have the software. But I grew up a while back, and realized that it’s wrong to steal. There’s a big difference between fair use (for example, using music clips in my podcast) and outright theft.

Michael Malone has a great article on the Diggers trying to subvert copyright law.

But the biggest problem with Digg is not the business itself, which is an impressive creation, but its community. One of the things we’re learning about the Web 2.0 world is that all communities aren’t alike; when you let millions of anonymous users design your product, you also let them determine your fate. And Digg has put itself in the hands of an army of postadolescents with too much education and too much free time, the age cohort that gets its news from “The Colbert Report” and holds the anarchistic view that all information should be, in fact, “wants to be,” free.

Nothing wrong with that. Indeed, been there, done that. But now, in my gray-haired middle-age I’ve come to realize that if you are going to create a venue for children to play, someone has to be the grown-up. And that is where Digg blew it.

[...] In other words, Digg was willing to block porn and hate sites, but was perfectly willing to violate trade secrets if its users said so.

It was a breathtaking abrogation of responsibility by a person in a position of authority. If you sign up to be sheriff, and are rewarded handsomely for doing so, then your job when the howling mob shows up outside the jail is defend the prisoner under attack, even if you despise him. At the very least, you run away and accept the shame of your cowardice. But the one thing you don’t ever do is join the mob knocking down the jailhouse door.

And that is exactly what Kevin Rose did. Rather than maturely endure the momentary anger of his community, he instead caved in the most craven manner possible. With a certain justice, all that this gutless move managed to do was earn Rose even more contempt for being two-faced and spineless.

Read it all.

Update: Background on the Digg revolution that the article above misses.

While it’s obvious why the creator of a movie or a song might deserve some special claim over the use of their creation, it’s hard to see why anyone should be able to pick a number at random and unilaterally declare ownership of it. There is nothing creative about this number — indeed, it was chosen by a method designed to ensure that the resulting number was in no way special. It’s just a number they picked out of a hat. And now they own it?

As if that’s not weird enough, there are actually millions of other numbers (other keys used in AACS) that AACS LA claims to own, and we don’t know what they are. When I wrote the thirty-digit number that appears above, I carefully avoided writing the real 09F9 number, so as to avoid the possibility of mind-bending lawsuits over integer ownership. But there is still a nonzero probability that AACS LA thinks it owns the number I wrote.

Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?
I wasn’t in Richmond to look at the queen.

Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you there?
It’s not worth the effort. Or did you not hear?

Pussycat, Pussycat, but she’s a queen!
We fought a war here to get rid of that sheen.

Pussycat, Pussycat, you’re rather mean
Not nearly as mean as most royals have been.

Pussycat, Pussycat, that is old news.
Oh yeah? Her great-greats are the ones tossed the Jews.

You know that Israeli Double Standard Time I’m always mentioning? It’s worse than I thought.

The Israeli government crisis should not be allowed to undermine efforts to revive the Middle East peace process, European Union president Germany said on Thursday.

[...] “A situation like this, in which the Israeli government … is under pressure, should not be allowed to lead to the abandoning of our
joint efforts to strengthen the peace process,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters after meeting his counterpart from New Zealand.

Steinmeier said the efforts of the Middle East Quartet of peace negotiators needed to be complemented by efforts in the region, above all by closer contact between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

“I hope that despite the present difficulties in Israel after the submission of the report, the efforts will continue,” he said. “I especially hope the bilateral talks between Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian President (Mahmoud) Abbas will continue … and that the timetable is adhered to.”

I believe in Yiddish terminology that is what’s known as chutzpah.

Wow. Just when you think the world can’t get any worse in its attitude towards Israel, out comes the president of the EU telling Israel to forget about its worst leadership crisis since Ariel Sharon was stricken, and its worst military crisis since the Yom Kippur War, and hey, don’t let either of those minor problems stop what’s really important: Peace with the murderers who on a daily basis attempt to lob rockets, shoot, stab, and bomb Israel. Because after all, peace between Israel and the Palestinians is far more important than Israel being able to protect herself from her enemies.

Really. When you think the world can’t sink any lower in their disregard for Jews, they do.

Nine years ago today, I quit smoking.

And yes, I still miss it.

That is one hard-to-kick habit/addiction. But I’ve made it through nine years without going back, no matter what the world has thrown at me, so I think it’s safe to say I’ve beat it.

It’s a good thing I didn’t move here when I was still smoking. I’m in the heart of Phillip Morris country. They’re only just now getting around to banning smoking in many public areas. And their cigarette prices are only now reaching the price of cigarettes in NJ when I quit. (That part boggles my mind, how cheap tobacco still is around here.)

I figure by now, the money I’ve saved by not smoking has paid for my entire Jeep. Maybe more.

Well, let’s see. There’s the “Gilad Shalit deal is imminent” stuff. Nope. I don’t bother writing about that, because it’s crap. Israeli reporters know it’s crap, too. Get a load of this lede:

A prisoner exchange deal for the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is expected within two to three weeks’ time, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas told reporters Wednesday.

It should be noted that Abbas has made similar statements in the past, but he appears to have very little influence on the negotiations on this deal.

Even the reporters are dissing Abbas.

I won’t be writing about yet another Jewish author slamming Israel in another alternate history, and pretending that he’s a good little boy for not having any attachment to the land of his ancestors.

Thinking about what the world would look like without the state of Israel was “one of the motivating impulses of writing the book,” he says. “How mad it seems that this tiny little scrap of land” should be at the center of global conflicts. “I have a very strong feeling of complete ambivalence about a world without Israel,” Mr. Chabon says. “I didn’t come in with a point to prove or an agenda.”

And I’m not really writing about French anti-Semitic attacks these days. They’re becoming too depressingly common.

A 45-year-old Jewish man was stabbed in front of a kosher restaurant in the city of Villeurbanne, southern France on Tuesday in what authorities believe to be the latest in a series of anti-Semitic attacks in the country.

The victim, who is only being identified as “Eric”, was rushed to hospital in the neary city of Lyon after suffering injuries on his left shoulder.

The attack occured around lunch time as he parked the car while his family went into the restaurant.

A few minutes later he entered the restaurant covered with blood, saying he had been stabbed by a young man on a bicycle.

Gee. I wonder what religion that “young man” is from?

That’s why I start writing about the weather. Waste of my time to write about the above.

So of course, Bishara is falling back on the typical Arab response to Israeli facts: He says they’re lies.

Former MK Azmi Bishara accused Israel of fabricating recent allegations against him, in order to undermine the credibility of Arab leaders.

In an interview with the Lebanon based Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is affiliated with Hizbullah, Bishara said, “The claims against me are fabricated and dangerous. They want to turn me into an informant instead of a political leader.”

Please note that he is being quoted in a Hizbullah newspaper. That would be the people who paid him to spy on Israel.

His supporters are falling back on the old standard and say he’s being scapegoated.

There is a general call to turn Dr. Azmi Bishara into a scapegoat as revenge for failures in the Lebanon war,” MK Jamal Zahalka told Ynet after Wednesday’s publication of the allegations made against former MK Azmi Bishara.

[...] “There is a line between democracy and freedom of expression, and treason. Israel must sharpen the line between what is criticism, and what is treason, particularly with Israel’s Arabs, and with the general population,” he explained.

And oh yeah—they’re claiming racism.

“There is a mix of opportunism and racism here, and fascist conceptions by small politicians trying to gain cheap popularity amongst the public. This is an attempt to try and scare the Arab public into changing its political stances, but it will not work.

So what proof has the Shin Bet got against Bishara?

His own words.

The case was built using wiretappings conducted by the Shin Bet during the Second Lebanon War.

[...] In one of the conversations Bishara was asked an unusually direct question by his Hizbullah contact who wanted to know how Israel would respond if it were hit by long range missiles which would reach beyond the city of Haifa. Bishara mumbled and admonished his contact, hinting that the conversation may be monitored, but after a short while his aspirations got the best of him and he told the Hizbullah man that such an action would serve Hizbullah’s goals. Several days later rockets began hitting targets south of Haifa.

I think we should start calling Bishara “Bullshitya” from now on.

So far, the media have not jumped on Israel about this, but I notice that neither have that the media have picked up the story. Mordechai Vanunu’s conviction for breaking his gag order is bigger news.

Because it’s far more important than a member of the Israeli Knesset—her governing body—helping her enemy during wartime.

In one of the conversations Bishara was asked an unusually direct question by his Hizbullah contact who wanted to know how Israel would respond if it were hit by long range missiles which would reach beyond the city of Haifa. Bishara mumbled and admonished his contact, hinting that the conversation may be monitored, but after a short while his aspirations got the best of him and he told the Hizbullah man that such an action would serve Hizbullah’s goals. Several days later rockets began hitting targets south of Haifa.

Bishara also provided his contacts with detailed explanations of optimal targets for their rockets and which towns should be avoided. Hizbullah put a great deal of trust in Bishara’s situation assessments and apparently operated according to a lot of the information he provided. In addition to the monetary compensation for this information Hizbullah apparently spared no efforts at making Bishara feel important in an attempt to boost his motivation to help them.

Unbelievable. No wonder he fled the country.