"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865 as part of the conclusion of the Civil War.
The inmates of Gitmo are not criminals, they are enemy soldiers, captured upon the battlefields of Afghanistan. They have not been duly convicted of anything. An overpaid army of lawyers, working their cases since 2001, has been unable to convince an American court or court-martial to convict them. Under American law bearing arms against the United States is not a crime.
And under the 13th Amendment, if they ain't convicted, we cannot hold them in jail.
The Bush Administration understood this, and decided to put these people in Gitmo, in the hopes that being off shore, US judges would be less likely to order the prisoners released.
And today, Obama engaging in some favorite magical thinking, wants to close Gitmo and transfer the remaining inmates to somewhere inside the US.
He is gonna encounter a good deal of resistance.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
" The US Economy is in Good Shape"?
Oh Really? Thus sayeth a Wall St Journal Op-Ed. By Martin Feldstein. I've heard of him, although I cannot place him just sitting there. The WSJ calls him Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan. That sounds good, he has been around for a good long while and he worked in a rational Republican administration. It goes on to call him a professor at Harvard University. Uh-oh, downcheck, he hangs out with Harvard lefties.
Martin starts off by cherry picking the good economic stats, and doesn't say anything about GNP growth of a measly 0.7% last quarter. He gives a glass half full summary.
If this economy is in such good shape why did youngest son have to go all the way to North Dakota to find work?
Martin starts off by cherry picking the good economic stats, and doesn't say anything about GNP growth of a measly 0.7% last quarter. He gives a glass half full summary.
If this economy is in such good shape why did youngest son have to go all the way to North Dakota to find work?
Monday, February 22, 2016
TV newsies calling Trump the nominee
I'll grant that The Donald is looking strong. But he only has 67 delegates, out of 1200 and change needed to clinch the nomination. I think we have a few more primaries to go before we declare a winner.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Another favorite store goes down hill
The Good Will Store on old US Rte 1 used to have a lot of decent used clothes. I used to hit the place every month or so and score some nice shirts and slacks. You could go down the row of men's shirts and just feel them, the one with a good feel you took out of the rack and inspected. I'd find a first class maker's tag, L.L. Bean or Hathaway, or suchlike, on a nice shirt.
Not anymore. I stopped in yesterday, and huge row of men's shirts were all plain white or plain blue uniform shirts, the sort of thing McDonald's issues to their help. And I wouldn't wear anyplace. And the small kitchen appliances are gone and the stereo components are gone. My home stereo, speakers and all, cam from that store in years past.
I probably won't stop there again.
Not anymore. I stopped in yesterday, and huge row of men's shirts were all plain white or plain blue uniform shirts, the sort of thing McDonald's issues to their help. And I wouldn't wear anyplace. And the small kitchen appliances are gone and the stereo components are gone. My home stereo, speakers and all, cam from that store in years past.
I probably won't stop there again.
Marketing fail: Testor's DullCote
DullCote is a clear matte spray finish. Testors has been selling the stuff to model makers, like me, since forever, at least 50 years that I can think of. Well known brand name. I stopped at the biggest hobby shop in Boston, Charles Ro, and bought a can of it. Surprise. The new labels that someone in marketing dreamed up, no longer have the DullCote name, instead the label calls itself Clear Lacquer in both English and Spanish. I wasn't sure if I had the right stuff. Only after turning the can over and over and upside down did I find a small sticky label that said " DullCote".
Probably the same marketeers who have decided not to put the maker's name onto new automobiles.
Probably the same marketeers who have decided not to put the maker's name onto new automobiles.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
So does anyone have the right to keep secrets?
Uncle is leaning on Apple to crack a smartphone used by the San Bernardino killers. Apple is refusing, saying that once they do, it will crack encryption on all Apple smart phones.
The Apply phone is probably crackable. Like Windows, Apple must need to patch the code in the phones. Once you allow the phone to patch itself, change the code inside it, all bets are off, you can load code to do anything you want. But, Apple is probably the only one who can pull this off. They have the programmers who wrote the code, they have the source code, they have development stations that allow a programmer to single step thru the code and watch what it is doing. Without this information and equipment, nobody outside of Apple has a snowball's chance in Hell of pulling it off.
Apple clearly fears that if they crack this phone, they will be on the hook to crack any phone in the future, and their customers, knowing that Uncle can snoop their Apple smart phone, will go to a more secure smart phone. Samsung for example.
I like the idea of being able to keep secrets. Fourth Amendment, unreasonable search and seizure. Fifth Amendment, protection against self incrimination. Uncle has so many ways of snooping that I like the idea of some limitations. In this case, appalling as it is, I kinda doubt that the cell phone in question will tell investigators much, if anything, if it gets cracked. NSA already has all the phone numbers that the San Bernadino killers called with thqt phone, and they can jolly well get agents out to interview every one of 'em.
The Apply phone is probably crackable. Like Windows, Apple must need to patch the code in the phones. Once you allow the phone to patch itself, change the code inside it, all bets are off, you can load code to do anything you want. But, Apple is probably the only one who can pull this off. They have the programmers who wrote the code, they have the source code, they have development stations that allow a programmer to single step thru the code and watch what it is doing. Without this information and equipment, nobody outside of Apple has a snowball's chance in Hell of pulling it off.
Apple clearly fears that if they crack this phone, they will be on the hook to crack any phone in the future, and their customers, knowing that Uncle can snoop their Apple smart phone, will go to a more secure smart phone. Samsung for example.
I like the idea of being able to keep secrets. Fourth Amendment, unreasonable search and seizure. Fifth Amendment, protection against self incrimination. Uncle has so many ways of snooping that I like the idea of some limitations. In this case, appalling as it is, I kinda doubt that the cell phone in question will tell investigators much, if anything, if it gets cracked. NSA already has all the phone numbers that the San Bernadino killers called with thqt phone, and they can jolly well get agents out to interview every one of 'em.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Einstein and gravity waves.
Gravity waves are not new, Einstein predicted their existance a hundred years ago. My sophmore physics course (50 years ago) covered them.
Gravity is a very weak force compared to the electromagnetic force or the strong nuclear force. Which makes gravitational waves hard to detect. Indeed, the detectors only managed to detect the most violent event imaginable, the collision of two black holes.
The unscientific newsies have failed to report on a bunch of interesting questions. Such as how do you figure the distance of the gravity wave source? It's been reported that the two colliding black holes are billions of light years away. I wonder how they figure that?
What is the signal to noise ratio from the detectors? Detectors of anything, including gravity wave detectors, tend to output low level random noise all the time. Signals have to be stronger than the noise to be detected. How much stronger than the noise was this event? What causes the noise and could it be reduced in an advanced detector somehow?
Do gravity waves propagate at the speed of light? We all kind of assume that they do, but it would be nice to have some measurements to confirm our ideas.
Gravity is a very weak force compared to the electromagnetic force or the strong nuclear force. Which makes gravitational waves hard to detect. Indeed, the detectors only managed to detect the most violent event imaginable, the collision of two black holes.
The unscientific newsies have failed to report on a bunch of interesting questions. Such as how do you figure the distance of the gravity wave source? It's been reported that the two colliding black holes are billions of light years away. I wonder how they figure that?
What is the signal to noise ratio from the detectors? Detectors of anything, including gravity wave detectors, tend to output low level random noise all the time. Signals have to be stronger than the noise to be detected. How much stronger than the noise was this event? What causes the noise and could it be reduced in an advanced detector somehow?
Do gravity waves propagate at the speed of light? We all kind of assume that they do, but it would be nice to have some measurements to confirm our ideas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)