The Ministry of Minor Perfidy

Ministers

Commandant, Vast Right Wing Conspiracy 21st Armchair Brigade

The fourth estate's fifth wheel

Master of the art of equivocation, sort of

Second Cousin Once Removed of Soul

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President, Buckwheat Fan Club

Minister Emeritus

Windy City Mike
social democrat, ca. 1930 trade-unionist, and professor of alleged history

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Friday, August 29, 2003

Big Brother, seriously

My response to Trish’s fears in my recent big brother post was lighthearted. But when I think about the real problems of increasing surveillance, out of control federal agencies, the erosion of civil liberties and the prospect of ubiquitous law enforcement I oscilate between long periods of complacency punctuated my moments of extreme paranoia.

On the one hand, the traditions of the republic are still strong, as witnessed by the consensual freak out when poindexter revealed the TIA with its ubercreepy eye-in-the-pyramid logo. There are well funded organizations that fight the good fight in our stead, like for example the EFF.

Libertarians and others fear that the erosion of liberty is a ratchett effect, where there is an ever tightening grip of law and regulation and surveillance, and that every liberty lost is nearly impossible to regain. I have sympathy for this position - for example, the RICO statutes have proved impossible to remove, despite their manifold flaws, and their frequent abuse.

More Perfidious Goodness...

There are legitimate security considerations to be weighed - we should not ignore reasonable measures for the sake of protecting against a minor infringement. Its hard to enjoy liberty when you’re dead.

I think that we should in the interest of protecting liberty use the following criteria to evaluate any new security legislation:

How easy would it be to abuse this law/police power - to use it for purposes other than those intended? Like the RAVE act, for example, or the RICO statutes.
Does this power actually mirror some older power? (For example, the cell phone taps in the Patriot act just extend the traditional wiretap power into the world of modern telecommunications - it allows the police to tap the person, even if he is rapidly switching phones. This is reasonable, and only technically an extension of police powers.)
Does it effect citizens or non-citizens, and how easy would it be to blur the line? Increasing surveillance of non citizens is not a problem for me. Inspections on entry, tracking them while here, etc. Non citizens are a potential threat, and they have far less claim to privacy protections than citizens. (Sorry, Ross.)
Does it create new enforcement agencies? I am of mixed mind about this. On the one hand, a thousand competing LE agencies would probably help us, as it would be less effective. On the other, it would be less effective. But the idea that every federal agency has its own paramilitary special forces style swat team is unnerving, and completely unnecessary. The only agencies that should have them are the Secret Service, the FBI and maybe the DEA. No one else, period.
How much does it actually restrict our freedom, as opposed to how much does it invade our privacy? Both are bad, but the first is more important. We are not going to escape record keeping. That is out of the bag, and won’t be put back. What we need to be careful of now is how that information is used, and who can use it. Problematical, I know, but a government file does not infringe my right to say what I want, believe what I want, live where I want, etc. Even if that file makes me nervous.

Anyway, something to think about over your holiday weekend.

I am an optimist though, and think that if we could repeal Prohibition, we can unpass some laws.
Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Buckethead on 08/29/03 at 05:19 PM
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Geeks in space

This article about John Carmack (developer of Doom and Castle Wolfenstein) and his efforts to get into space hits at one of the key problems we’ve had in space development over the last forty years:

Testing is key for Carmack, who doesn’t want to work for months only to find out a rocket doesn’t work. He believes the more testing done, the faster the crew can work out any kinks.

“Some people have commented that I am trying very hard to make aerospace like software, and that’s the truth,” he says. “If we looked at what we do in software, if we could only compile and test our program once a year, we’d never get anything done. But that’s the mode of aerospace.”

Only one space program since the end of Apollo has used a rapid development process, and that was the DCX. Typical NASA programs involve millions of dollars and years of testing before there is even an attempt to cut tin and actually construct a prototype. Aerospace engineering is not so cut and dried that we can make a perfect design on the computer, build it, and expect that it will fly.

Cost overruns, failed expectations and cancelled programs are the result of this design centric philosophy. The key to success is to build early, test early. Lessons are learned quicker, and applied easier through a regime of rapid prototyping and testing. Just like in software development. In a matter of months, the DCX team went from a standing start to a 1/3 scale flying prototype. And spent a fraction of the money that was ultimately spent on the X-33 which replaced it, and which never once flew.

The growing provate space industry is largely funded, if not actually run by successful software magnates. They seem to be applying the lessons they learned in developing other technologies to the problems of space. They are expending effort where it does the most good - gaining experience in building spacecraft. Even if the first, second, third attempts fail, at the end they will have a wealth of experience that NASA has lost in the days since Apollo. NASA has not designed a new working vehicle in almost thirty years. They have forgotten how it was done in the golden age, for what was the sequence of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo but a series of prototypes and testbeds to gain the practical engineering skills to reach the moon? Test early, test often.

What would have happened if NASA had spent the period between the launch of Yuri Gagarin and Apollo 8 designing, redesigning - on paper - the perfect launch vehicle? A giant explosion, most likely. And that is why I am certain that of the twenty teams now competing for the X-Prize, at least several will have successful flights by the end of next year.

Posted by Buckethead on 08/29/03 at 05:04 PM
That Buck Rogers Stuff • (1) Trackbacks • Permalink

Tackling Big Brother head-on

Loyal Reader #0008, Trish, emails with concerns over the growth of big brother and the erosion of liberty in this nation. Perfidy is nothing if not responsive to its readers, so after some googling and random clicking on the interweb, we have found some solutions.

Here we have a counter-tips program, where we the free citizens of the republic can keep track of nosy neighbors, narcs and informants.

Here we see the efforts of RSA Labs to develop RFID blockers to keep big brother out of our undersclothes.

Enjoy Protection Services Incorporated’s Hospitality Weekend, where you can learn to defend yourself with a wide range of firearms, and learn about guarding against surveillance.

The Big Brother Awards keep track of what bad people are doing to our privacy. Naturally enough, Poindexter’s TIA won this year. Here is the award:

Big Brother Award

To fight back, and set up your own surveillance networks, you can go to spyville.com.

For some background on the surveillance and freedom arguments, these articles are good places to start.

For those who need more fuel for their paranoia, this story about MIT’s efforts to develop a RFID tag replacement for the barcodes in current use will help. A barcode could handle different codes for different brands of rice. A 96 bit code, this new development could have a unique code for every songle grain of rice on the planet.

Finally, when nothing else seems to work, there is always the tin foil hat.

Posted by Buckethead on 08/29/03 at 04:04 PM
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Won’t Somebody Please Think Of The Children!

Slate is reporting that the news from California’s schools isn’t so good. Two-thirds of the state’s public schools have just been deemed deficient under California educational standards. You might say, “California, who cares!”, but in reality this is bad news to the rest of us because California’s school-standards criteria closely track those of No Child Left Behind, implying that some 66% of the nation’s schools could potentially recieve failing grades next year when the first round of grades and sanctions hit.

I’m of the opinion that No Child Left Behind is full of holes anyway, and fails to take into account the full collateral effects and implications its policies and mandates could produce. For example, see this paper by economist David Figlio. Although the conclusions and conjectures are ultimately a bit more polemical than I might wish, Figlio uses data from Florida schools to suggest that the schools at greatest risk for year-to-year Federal sanctions are the very schools whose operating budgets most depend (in dollars and in percentage terms) on Federal funding to remain open. This means that when the Federal government withholds money from such a school, as a part of NCLB sanctions, the school sinks further into a spiral of debt and failure. Where’s the justice in that?

Even if 66% of the nation’s schools don’t “fail” next year any number even in that neighborhood is cause for concern that the standards are badly out of whack. What good is school choice if all the other schools in the area are deemed failures too? What good are waivers if transportation is not financially feasible for districts and private schools accepting transfers?

Finally, Figlio paper listed above also observes that school reputation plays a significant role in property valuation-- if more schools are deemed failures, this could have effects on the real estate markets in many communities, reducing the property taxes and hence local-level public school funding accordingly. Again, this has its greatest impact on those communities and school districts that most need help.

Look… I know that America’s public schools are in the shitter. I also know that many parties are at fault. I simply remain totally unconvinced that a national initiative which is based on withholding funding from schools is the way to do it. Especially such a sweeping initiative whose mandates will come into effect in 2004, long before a sufficient amount of data is collected to make reasonable decisions about what schools have what problems and how best to address them.

Posted by Johno on 08/29/03 at 03:44 PM
Lead Pipe Cruelty • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Levity

For your health, I recommend you go read somethingawful.com‘s ripping-off-Conan-O’Brien Photoshop Phriday, and especially enjoy the last image on the last page. I nearly died of amusement.

Also for your health, I do not recommend using img tags to link directly to images on SA’s site. That is, unless you LIKE obese transvestite pornography. Consider yourself warned.

Posted by Johno on 08/29/03 at 02:42 PM
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James Lileks: Worthy of Ministry Plaudits

He’s so good, we stole our name from his idea.
Today’s bleat:

Why not nuke North Korea’s nuke test? They’ve said they’re going to have a test; I presume we know where that will be. So we nuke it the day before. There’s a big explosion, a mushroom cloud; they blame us. We say what are you talking about? You said you were going to light one off. And you did. No! You did it! Right. We nuked your nuke test. And that makes sense . . . how, exactly? It would certainly keep them off their game. And just after we nuke the test - and every subsequent test, of course - we put a call to Li’l Kim’s cellphone, and someone with a Texas accent says oh, I’m sorry, wrong number. I was tryin’ to reach a live man.

Posted by Johno on 08/29/03 at 12:49 PM
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Thursday, August 28, 2003

Hey… Yeah!!

Via GeekPress I find this post, which raises a really damn good question.

Ya know, with all the bombings and destruction in Iraq, especially with the attacks on the infrastructure, like the oil lines, the electricity, the water…

Where the fuck are the human shields? I thought they went there to make sure this kinda crap didn’t happen. Where are the granola eating turdburgers who went bravely to pre-war Iraq and placed their bodies in harm’s way so that a stray incoming round would hit them, rather than the baby milk factory?

I guess they just up and left, when they all survived the war. They need to turn right around, get their collective asses back, because someone’s blowing up the water pipes and people are going thirsty. The infrastructure of Iraq is being destroyed! It’s killing the chilllllllldren! Hundreds of thousands of innocents are at risk! DOn’t you CARE about the suffering of the Iraqi people rom indiscriminant bombing and ruthless attacks? Come back! You are needed!

Bah.

The real reason is, of course, that they stand a greater risk of getting whacked by some crazed thug than getting hit by US military fire....but they knew that going in, didn’t they?

Bam! Pow! Zing!

Yeah, where the hell are all those goody-two-shoes human shields? Are they still there? Have they buggered off before they could actually do some GOOD? I tell ya… sometimes it’s hard to stay a ditherer.

Posted by Johno on 08/28/03 at 08:13 PM
Lead Pipe Cruelty • (1) Trackbacks • Permalink

David Versus Stupid

Via slashdot, I see that a coalition of 198 webcasters are suing the RIAA for monopolistic practices and restraint of trade. It’s the latest chapter in a continuing saga of perfidy, plutocracy, and shitty, shitty business practices.

The complaint is here.

I hope they make it hurt.

Posted by Johno on 08/28/03 at 07:31 PM
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Original Intent v. Original Meaning-- Round One: Fight!

Randy Barnett of the Volokh coalition has been posting some very interesting observations about the Constitution, in particular illuminating the tension between “original intent” and “original meaning, and the debate over whether the Constitution is static until expressly changed via established process.

I’m turning into a bit of a wonk for this stuff (of course I am. I have wonk nature like a dog has dog nature), but I find Barnett’s work strangely gripping.

Original post on the value of a written Constitution here.

Followup is in a den-Beste sized post here.

Professor Barnett’s SSRN paper arguing that judicial review IS in the Constitution, if you look at it right, is here, and speaking as a layperson it’s a bit of a mind-blower.

Another SSRN paper on originalism is here.

Posted by Johno on 08/28/03 at 06:54 PM
Just So You Know • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Nutbag to test Nukes

The AP is reporting that North Korea has announced to the six nation conference that

“it has nuclear weapons and has plans to test one, a U.S. official said Thursday. However, other participants said delegates agreed on the need for a second round of talks. The remarks by North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il set a negative tone at the conference and raised questions about the success of the negotiations”

Well, no shit.

U.S. officials say they believe North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons, and experts believe it could produce five to six more in a few months.

While I have been saying on this blog that we should wait, and let them collapse - if they test a nuke we might want to step it up a little.

The psychotic regime in Pyongyang is a threat to everyone.

Posted by Buckethead on 08/28/03 at 06:51 PM
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Driving to work

I have just recently read two comments on the coming lack of attention to the anniversary of one of the worst days in American history. I commented on Robert Prather’s Insults Unpunished that I want to remember what happened that day. Johno’s post hit me, and reminded me about why we should be remembering.

I want to be reminded of the shock of the planes hitting the towers. I want to remember the horror I felt when I realized people were jumping from the top of the towers. I want that for many reasons.

But the reason I can never forget is that for months after the Eleventh, I drove by this every day on my way to work and back:

Pentagon

Every day I would turn the corner on Rt 27 and see that, and every day I’d get a knot in my throat.

More Perfidious Goodness...

I felt anger, and one of the few bright spots in the days right after the attack was the point-counterpoint article in the Onion - should we retaliate with blind rage or measured, focused rage? It helped a little to put it in perspective.

On the day, I was in my office a block from the White House and blissfully unaware of events. I walked by the conference room and saw everyone gathered around a 3” B&W TV. The first tower had been hit. As I watched, the second plane hit.

Astonishment, disbelief. Fifty thousand people work in those buildings. Over the next hour, we heard that the Pentagon was hit, and rumors that there was a bomb at the State Department. Six planes were unaccounted for. Eventually someone did the math, and the decision to evacuate was made. Everyone was kicked out of the government offices downtown. Everyone figured that one of the missing planes was coming for the White House or for the Capitol.

The metro had already closed, and the streets were gridlocked with federal workers and cars. The cell networks had crashed - but I had managed to get a hold of my dad at the Air and Space Museum on a landline before we were told to leave.

I started walking toward the mall. Every few feet I’d see someone dial a number on their cell phone, hold it to their ear, then say, “Shit.” Cars were barely moving.

Ten blocks later, I got to the mall. I was never so relieved as when I looked to my right and saw the Washington Monument, and to the left and saw the Capitol. Both were still standing. Except for the panic, it was as beautiful a day as you ever get in swampy DC.

I got to the museum, which had never opened, and sweet talked my way in. Dad and I watched the news on a small tv in the library for a couple hours. When we emerged, the city was deserted. No cars, no pedestrians. It was the eeriest thing I have ever seen. Bright, sunny, clear day in DC, and not a tourist in sight.

I finally boarded the reopened metro, and when we came above ground just before National Airport we all turned back and saw the plume of smoke from the Pentagon. It was still smoking when they reopened some of the roads around the Pentagon.

Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Buckethead on 08/28/03 at 05:32 PM
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The Piano Lounge on the 108th Floor

So the decision has been made: network television is going to treat September 11th, 2003 like just another day, mostly. Well, I might just be a hick, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t particularly want to forgive or forget what happened two Septembers ago. The shock might have faded but the memory should not.

I know this is a leetle early, but forgive me. My anniversary, the goodwife’s birthday, and several other happy occasions fall on or near the eleventh, so if I’m going to bicker an’ argue about ‘oo killed ‘oo, I’ll get it out of the way now.

When I lived in New York, I used to travel from Queens to Jersey City every Sunday to play music with my friends Darrell and Bruce. It was the best part of my week. When I made it to the World Trade Center subway station, I always felt a little better because fun was just a PATH ride away. The WTC station was nifty too-- the underground mall, the half-attractive artsy inlays, the rumble of the downtown A going by. The Commuter Bar, entirely decorated in beige naugahyde and aged winos. Loved it, loved it.

Well, look what some assholes went and did.

More Perfidious Goodness...

Oddly enough, the World Trade Center was one of my favorite places in New York. It was how I oriented myself walking around the city. It gave balance and heft to the southern end of Manhattan. You could see it for miles, driving in on the Jersey Pike or I-95. It was like a huge, ungainly guardian watching over my city.

--------------

On the 108th floor of the World Trade Center’s north tower, there was a little conference room/ lounge area with a baby grand piano. I discovered this by accident one night in February of 2000.

I was at the Windows On The World on the 110th floor to see a rockabilly band managed by a co-worker’s boyfriend, and Samir and Bruce were kinda late, because they got lost. (Even after I moved away from New York, I’d occasionally get calls from Samir.... “Johno… I’m on Park Avenue and 25th Street. How do I get to Grand Central Station from here?")

In the midst of getting lost, Samir and Bruce managed to give the World Trade Center elevator operators the slip and got off on the wrong floor… the 108th to be exact, where they found the piano lounge.

After we had our fill of rockabilly and high-up views of Staten Island, we went back down to the 108th floor, and hung out for a couple hours, playing the piano and staring out at the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from one of the darkened grottoes. It was one of the best nights I had in New York. Later, Bruce would take his future wife there on a crucial and historic date.

--------------

As I sat in a bar in Massachusetts downstairs from the office, watching the television play images of the assault on New York, my mind was occupied like most people’s was, trying to cut through the shock and disbelief, choking back horror and confused rage. I was a mess.

As the north tower of the World Trade Center fell impossibly slowly into its own rising cloud of dust, I started to cover my eyes, then stopped, and stared dumbly. I couldn’t process what was happening. I didn’t understand thousands dead. I didn’t understand how the world was changing, even though I knew it had. Everyone had theories, but we were all in shock.

My mind was reeling, and the one sharp, tiny realization that stabbed me in the heart and made it all real was how much it TOTALLY SUCKED that my Secret New York Piano Lounge was gone-- I could never play the piano in the World Trade Center again.

Then I went back upstairs to see if all my friends were still alive.

Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Johno on 08/28/03 at 04:52 PM
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Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Compare and Contrast

Exhibit A: The US Army is seriously considering doubling up tours of duty for soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Exhibit B: Rumsfeld: Army has troops in Iraq in numbers “appropriate at the present time for the tasks that [it] has”.

Oooh!! A paradox!

Posted by Johno on 08/27/03 at 07:40 PM
Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

What’s goin on

David Warren, after a month long absence, is back with a wonderful essay on where we stand in Iraq and the war on terrah. This article does a good job of explaining what the administration seems unable to do - why we are where we are.

It should be obvious to everyone why we are fighting the war on terror. That this is a necessary conflict should be clear to even the most blinkered of liberals. As I stated in the comments to one of Johno’s earlier posts, the first steps of the war were the obvious ones. Al Qaida hits us. They are in Afghanistan. We hit Afghanistan. Straightforward.

After Afghanistan, we entered the area where reasonable people might differ on how to prosecute the war on terror. However, most of the opposition was predicated not on the basis of “Iraq is not the right target” but on “No war for oil” and similar idiocies. The protracted argument over the invasion of Iraq was fueled by the administration’s lack of clarity and inability to articulate what is to be done, and why.

More Perfidious Goodness...

Part of this muddle was due to the decision to go to the United Nations. This forced the administration to lean its arguments in one direction - WMD - and slight the other arguments for moving on Iraq. This gave further ammunition to those who opposed the war on terror.

Steven den Beste has argued that the administration cannot tell us what the plan is, because revealing the plan would spoil it. This is true on the small scale, but not the large. We should not reveal the exact timetables and plans for an invasion. That is not only stupid but treasonous. But the larger plan, the geopolitical master scheme should be open and above board.

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that the administration is making a serious error in not taking the larger case to the public here in the US, and to the rest of the world. Various people, including Clueless and Trent Telenko over at Winds of Change have analyzed the minutia of reports from around the world, and concluded that see the signs of the master plan. I agree, and have talked about that plan here.

The American public can be trusted with this information. In fact, it must be. If we reveal that the heart of our strategy in the War on Terror is to remake the Middle East and transform North Korea, to set a real precedent that any nation that supports terror is responsible for it, and will suffer the consequences at the hands of the civilized world, what have we given away? Nothing. If we make the case, clearly and repeatedly that those who support terrorism will be put up against the wall, it will not allow our enemies to resist our actions any better than currently.

There would be benefits for doing this. By clearly stating the our specific aims, and in broad terms our methods, we build support domestically, and co-opt or isolate opponents. The opponents of the war on terror have two choices - argue against specific decisions on grounds of whether or not that action would advance the cause (which could only help the effort, as constructive criticism is always useful) or continue as they are, and make clear that they are against the war on terror in general.

Internationally, we would not have to make the kind of tortured arguments that many have criticized. We would not need to justify an invasion on WMD, or any other single criteria. We need merely fall back on the original justification for the war on terror - and explain how whatever nation is in our crosshairs will serve the cause of peace by ceasing to exist.

The argument for Iraq is much stronger when you add in all the other reasons besides WMD. The coherence offered by stating our strategy would reassure our allies and make clear who are opponents are, while forcing our opponents to be clearer about their motives.

But the best reason for doing so is because we are a republic, and the citizens of this republic have a right to be informed and to participate in the decision making in an informed manner. The columnists and bloggers who are speculating on America’s strategy are doing their best to justify the individual decisions in the war on terror, but properly, this isn’t their job - it is the job of our leadership.

Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Buckethead on 08/27/03 at 06:56 PM
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More Columbia report money quotes

The Columbia report is justly critical of NASA. Here are some interesting quotes from the report.

“The measure of NASA’s success became how much costs were reduced and how efficiently the schedule was met. But the space shuttle is not now, nor has it ever been, an operational vehicle. We cannot explore space on a fixed-cost basis.”

NASA’s most remarkable achievement is not the moon mission, or the construction of the space station. It is the transformation of something as remarkable and romantic as exploration in space into something as boring as a discovery channel documentary on public transportation. The shuttle was never a space truck. It was not that mature a technology. In aviation terms, it was more like the Wright Flyer. Only when we have actually built, tested and flown regularly many types of advanced reusable launch vehicles will we be in a position to operate in space as we do in the air. The shuttle never was and still isn’t more than an awkwardly designed experimental vehicle.

“The organizational causes of this accident are rooted in the space shuttle program’s history and culture, including the original compromises that were required to gain approval for the shuttle, subsequent years of resource constraints, fluctuating priorities, schedule pressures, mischaracterization of the shuttle as operational rather than developmental, and lack of agreed national vision for human space flight.”

I talked a lot about mission and goals in my last shuttle post. But we should know better than to expect operational efficiency from a government program. (Not that it’s impossible… just rare.)

“Perhaps most striking is the fact that management . . . displayed no interest in understanding a problem and its implications.

Sheesh.

“It is tempting to conclude that replacing them will solve NASA’s problems… However, solving NASA’s problems are not quite so easily achieved. People’s actions are influenced by the organizations in which they work, shaping their choices in directions that even they may not realize.”

Which is why we should kill NASA. The scapegoat is not the managers, but the system. It’s like the old joke about the Federal Reserve - if Jesus and the Twelve Apostles were appointed to the Board of the Fed - and not allowed to change the rules - it would still be an abomination.

“We believe another vehicle, whether to complement or replace the shuttle, is very, very high priority. We criticize the U.S. for finding ourselves in the position we are in now where we don’t even have a design on the drawing board.”

Thanks to indecisive lawmakers and unpredictable funding. And NASA leaders who don’t seem to appreciate the need for something to replace the shuttle - which has never been as cheap to fly as promised, let alone as cheap as they claim it is now. Too much ego is invested in the shuttle, “the most sophisticated and complex artifact ever designed by man.” Would you fly an airliner that had been described that way?

On these longer term recommendations, the report sounds a sobering note: “Based on NASA’s history of ignoring external recommendations, or making improvements that atrophy with time, the Board has no confidence that the Space Shuttle can be safely operated for more than a few years based solely on renewed post-accident vigilance.”

And even if the board’s recommendations are adopted, we will likely have another catastrophic failure if we continue to use the shuttle for another ten years. Accidents will be more, not less likely as the shuttles age.

Posted by Buckethead on 08/27/03 at 06:20 PM
That Buck Rogers Stuff • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

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