Darwin's Theories - Politics category

Wheeling and Dealing for raw Beltway Power

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:48:00 GMT

Glenn Greenwald calls our attention to the apparent slimeball tactics of U.S. politician Steny Hoyer, who pays lip service to opposing immunity for the lawbreaking US Telecoms Companies who willingly gave the U.S. government unlimited access to private domestic traffic. While he claims to oppose it, he's actually working in favor of it. Why would anybody do such a thing, unless hoping to gain political power?

There is a fundraising drive to help fund publicity to shine the light on this very very dark spot; please help if you can.

Quoted Without Comment

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:50:00 GMT

"The line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the junior senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly.... We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

"We will not walk in fear, one of another.... We are not descended from fearful men -- not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.... We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

-- Edward R. Murrow, See It Now [March 9, 1954]

Murrow's quote applies as much to Canada's mockery of justice "Human Rights" Tribunals as to Bush's multiple mockeries of justice.

The Pentaganda Scandal

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:18:00 GMT

News continues to filter out of the US mainstream media. Bits of news, that is. But mostly bafflegab lead by the Pentagon and the Administration. If you think there's a grain of truth in US news coverage, you should read what the NY Times has to say. And here's Citizen Greenwald's reaction to it over at Salon, commenting on how disgraceful it is that CNN et. al. have not even responded to the NYTimes' criticism, let alone done anything about it.

Gee, I'm so glad I live in Canada; OUR government would never do such a thing; OUR government enjoys such a wonderful working relationship with the press. Or not :-)

Bit o' good news, The real 'An Enemy of the State', etc.

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:45:00 GMT

In the U.S. Congress, the House Democrats finally stood up to be counted, voting through their own bill which does not provide a unilateral amnesty for all the law-breaking that went on after 2001-09-11 by the big telecoms violating everybody's privacy. Although this bill is rather unlikely to get signed into law, it's a big baby step forward for a Democratic majority that was voted in, in large measure, to oppose Bush's crushing of the constitution.

The title "An Enemy of the State" is most often associated with a popular 1998 Will Smith movie. But it was used several times before that. The most relevant one for me is Justin Raimondo's 1992 biography of Murray Rothbard, entitled of course An Enemy of the State. Lew Rockwell has finally done this book justice with a detailed review, entitled "Still the State's Greatest Living Enemy".

I also note that Benedict D. LaRosa has written a gun control article that's worth reading. Written shortly after the Virginia Tech murders, this article lays the blame squarely on the University Administration and the state government, but brings in other American examples. It could be read in conjunction with this UK information (UK government lied about gun crime to try to make the populace think that their draconian gun control was "working"). And this Canadian item that shows gun homicides actually on the decline, which also points out that criminals don't obey gun laws any more than any other - they are criminals, after all.

Speaking of lies, this article notes that the US Government was using prohibited weapons in Iraq and lying about it. But that should surprise nobody who's got an IQ greater than that of a wheat germ.

To end on a lighter note, here's a piece entitled The REAL Reason We Use Linux, which applies just as much to BSD.

RepRap and The End of Want

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:40:00 GMT

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series, one of the most pervasive inventions was the "replicator", a device that could magically create any object, including a mug filled with "Earl Grey Tea, hot". This device ended poverty on planet Earth and on all planets that were allowed access to "Federation" technology. Need food? Just ask for what you want. The replicator has post-WiMax access to vast databases with the molecular formulae for every known food and drink, as well as every known object. It also apparently ended economics and economies, since the study of economics has as its deepest basis, its most secret heart of hearts, one person's need voluntarily to trade with another for something of value. If one can replicate anything one needs, why trade?

We are a years (if not centuries) away from being able to create such a replicator. But the first steps are being taken, and some of them with the same communal attitude that pervades ST:TNG's discussions of economics. RepRap is a project that is building simple "3D printer" replicators today. The project's web site has a subtitle of "Wealth without money..." These replicators can make small objects by a process known as fused deposition modelling (FDM for short). Commercial FDM machines cost around $30,000; the RepRap "Darwin" would cost about 1% of that, around $300-500 depending on how much you buy and how much you build.

The brainchild of Adrian Bowyer of the University of Bath in the UK, the RepRap project is not only building simple replicators, but giving away all the technology to make them, and even encouraging everybody who builds one to build the key parts for two more and pass them on. All the plans are freely downloadable, so you could build one without spending a nickle with the project. Though you'll find that their buying-in-bulk policy will save you money over buying some of the components directly. All the software, similarly, is freely downloadable from SourceForge. Written in Java so that it can run on almost any computer, the main driver software is covered by the GNU Public License which allows anyone to use it freely, and prevents it, or software based on it, from being re-sold in proprietary form. A far cry from patenting the ideas and charging license fees. Although, given today's idiotic patent system, I have encouraged Bowyer to patent any key innovations and either dedidate them to the public domain or assign them to a free-patent trust. But in fact the original idea for the replicator is neither from Bowyen nor from TNG. As the RepRap web site honestly points out, the general idea seems to have been invented by famed computer science pioneer John Van Neumann, under the name "Universal Constructor". I like "replicator" better.

To be really useful, this project needs a way of creating the computer files that describe objects. There are many CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) programs around that can be used, but this is time-consuming. What if you break a cup and want to replicate one to keep a set (relatively) intact? What you want for that is a "3D Scanner." Such things exist, at around the cost of a good computer server; see this 3D Scanner advertised at US$2,500 (web site is dysfunctional without some proprietary plugin). Presumably, the cost of these will come down, or mayhap some worthy RepRapper will publish a low-cost design for one that can be built on your existing RepRap replicator.

There are, of course, many other projects going down similar paths to openness. Open Source has been around for thirty years (long before Stallman). Open Hardware is clearly similar to early Ham Radio and do-it-yourself computers (there was even a home-made PBX). Asterisk is open-source software that lets you more easily turn a PC into a PBX. The OpenMoko cell phone project which I have written about here and here) has always made its software available under the GPL, and recently released the CAD files for all the mechanical (e.g., case and mounting) components of their cell phones.

Keep in mind, though, that today's replicator is to the ST:TNG replicator as, say, Leonardo da Vinci's glider is to the Space Shuttle. While TNG's replicator works at the molecular level, today's RepRap is purely an electro-mechanical "3D printer", recognizably a direct descendant of the "numerical-controlled machine tool" works of the 1960's and the inkjet printers of the 1980's. The first version (named after me, or more likely, one of my more famous distant relatives) can only make things out of thermal plastic. And a given object is likely to be all the same color. It cannot even deposit metal, thus, it cannot make circuit boards, and cannot be called "self-replicating", one test of Von Newumann's "Universal Constructor" (another key test is self-assembly). In short, RepRap could make the tea-cup (in about a quarter hour), but not the tea. In fact, it has made shot glasses that hold whiskey, though I haven't even started building a RepRap yet, so I don't know if the particular plastic used imparts any taste to the beverage. That said, it has made many of its own parts. And never forget that the US Space Shuttle is "recognizably a direct descendant" of da Vinci's glider. Nor, that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.