Mexico puts their stamp on racism (or is it the other way around?)

Mexico has issued a new stamp that depicts a "beloved" cartoon character from the 1940s named Memin Pinguin. However, the character is "a classic 'pickaninny' -- a black child, oafish and with apelike features." Take a look for yourself:


Was the Mexican Postal Service (or whatever) trying to one-up their president after he said that Mexican migrants in the United States work jobs that "even blacks don't want"? Or did they simply lose their minds?

Congrats, Keaven!

I meant to put this up yesterday:
My friend Keaven has been published in print! Check out his letter to the editor (the third one on the page) in The Washington Examiner. Way to go!

Felony 'hacking' charges for high school students

I saw this story on Attack of the Show (the mediocre successor to the great 'The Screensavers') this evening, and thought I should post a comment:
Apparently, some students got hold of an administrator password for their school-issued laptops and now face felony charges.

Thirteen Kutztown Area High School students are facing felony charges for tampering with district-issued laptop computers.
According to parent testimony and confirmed by an otherwise vaguely-worded letter from the Kutztown Police Department, students got hold of the system's secret administrative password and reconfigured their computers to achieve greater Internet and network access.

Do you want to know the 'secret' password? It was 50Trexler, the street address of the school. Such solid security those iBooks had. (Small dig at Apple.) Now, I might understand some punishment from the school if there was any damage done to or even a security breach of the school's server. However:

[School board Superintendent Brenda] Winkler agreed that the server, where grades and other private records are stored, was never threatened.

Third degree felonies seem a bit harsh for downloading some mp3s or a little pr0n, as expounded upon by a slashdot commenter:

Oh I know ... the teachers and administrators in this case probably feel the need to "send a message" to the student body. They think that message is "respect the law!", when the actual message is "the law doesn't respect you, so why should you respect the law?" All this kind of treatment will do is create more Kevin Mitnicks.
[Ellipsis and emphasis in original.]

I'm not sure about the Mitnick bit, but it certainly isn't far off the mark.

Post-It Mosaic

Although I list it in the Links section to the right (over there under my Webshots albums), I just wanted to draw attention to the MAKE: Blog. MAKE is a magazine that is a kind of techie DIY publication, and their blog links to all sorts of crazy things that people are making. Today I noticed a post about a guy who made a Post-It note mosaic of Elvis on a wall of a conference room at his work.


Pretty cool, eh?

MGM v. Grokster

As almost everyone knows by now, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. et al. v. Grokster, Ltd., et al. which some hoped would clarify the "Betamax" decision for newer technologies. Once I get the chance to read the full decision (including both concurring opinions), I will write a more detailed opinion probably in the next few days. In the meantime I thought I would address the chorus of handwringers in the tech world decrying the decision as the death knell of innovation. Put simply, the decision merely sent the case back to lower courts to be heard in full. The Court unanimously held that the lower courts were in error when they dismissed the case based on the 1984 "Betamax" decision which created what has been dubbed the Sony rule. The Sony rule states that just because a technology can be used to infringe on copyrights does not mean the providers of that technology should be held liable for those infringements. The Court instead found that this case was markedly different from "Betamax" since there was "evidence that from the moment Grokster and StreamCast began to distribute their free software, each one clearly voiced the objective that recipients use it to download copyrighted works." Since there is this evidence, the case needs to be heard in full by the lower court.

Some in the tech community believe this decision will give anyone the right to sue manufacturers or distributors of a technology simply because they object to the technology thus stifling innovation for fear of lawsuits. This is not so. In my opinion it merely draws attention to the fact that a company cannot make money off of a product that they expressly tout as being able to commit a crime, namely copyright infringement. It might be analogous to a photocopier manufacturer saying: "Our copiers are so great that you can make copies of all your favorite books to hand out for free to strangers!" While the copier technology on its own would be acceptable according to the Sony rule, the marketing of the product would open the manufacturer up to liability lawsuits. Now, I'm not saying that this is what Grokster and StreamCast did, and in fact neither is the Court (at least not explicitly according to what I have read so far). They are simply saying that MGM should be given the opportunity to present evidence of this at a full trial. To be continued...

In case you are interested, here is the full opinion on FindLaw.

Geek pic of the week

Courtesy of Kevin Pereira via Kevin Rose:

And you thought the Patriot Act went too far...

On the front page of today's Washington Post, there is a story about how the Pentagon is working with a private firm to collect personal information on high school students as young as 16 to find potential recruits.

The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.

One of the more disturbing parts of the story cites a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act that requires school systems to provide personal information on students to the Pentagon or risk losing federal funding. Also-

According to the Federal Register notice, the data will be open to "those who require the records in the performance of their official duties." It said the data would be protected by passwords.
The system also gives the Pentagon the right, without notifying citizens, to share the data for numerous uses outside the military, including with law enforcement, state tax authorities and Congress.

And a quote from a privacy expert:

"It's just typical of how voracious government is when it comes to personal information," said James W. Harper, a privacy expert with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "Defense is an area where government has a legitimate responsibility . . . but there are a lot of data fields they don't need and shouldn't be keeping. Ethnicity strikes me as particularly inappropriate."

Chip's Dad dies

The Washington Post did an 'Appreciation' piece on Jack Kilby, winner of the Nobel Prize for his invention of the microchip. It's a very nice tribute to a very important man in all of our lives, even if you've never heard his name. My favorite quote is this:

Whenever people would mention that Kilby was responsible for the entire modern digital world, he liked to tell the story of the beaver and the rabbit sitting in the woods near Hoover Dam. "Did you build that one?" the rabbit asked. "No, but it was based on an idea of mine," the beaver replied.

Photographers = Security Concern?

Last week, NPR did a great piece on photographers being harassed by law enforcement. Check it out. The story references a flyer created by an attorney (found here) that clearly and succinctly explains your rights as a photographer. In additon, it has some tips in case you get confronted while taking photographs while on public property.

Which theologian are you?

I took this quiz (that was linked on peregrinato.com), and here are my results:

You scored as Augustine. You have a big view of God and also take human sin and depravity very seriously. Predestination is important for you.

Augustine 100% Anselm 100% Jürgen Moltmann 67% John Calvin 67% Karl Barth 67% Charles Finney 67% Friedrich Schleiermacher 67% Martin Luther 33% Jonathan Edwards 33% Paul Tillich 0% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

These are the results of the second time I took the quiz taking my friend Keaven's advice and answering each question either 'Agree' or 'Disagree'. The results (while slightly different in the percentages from the first time) certainly show one thing: Boy, am I Catholic or what?

Speedos would be a step up

A Yahoo news story from AFP declares that "Americans are starting to flock to beaches and country parks reserved for nudists." Now here's something I don't understand. In order to be on vacation, some people apparently need to be naked and need to be around other people who are naked. Um, why? Check this quote out:

"People are looking for a more relaxed way to spend their vacation," according to Carolyn Hawkins, public relations coordinator for the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR).

"They find visiting a nudist resort, they can travel more and pack less."

What?! Is it just so they can pack a week's worth of stuff into a sandwich baggie? And exactly how is it more relaxing to be naked? Apart from the obvious physical vulnerabilities, I would think there are other concerns:

• Where do I keep my wallet, cell phone, handkerchief, etc.? (OK, slight rip-off of Seinfeld, but you get my point.)
  
• What SPF sunscreen do you use on the tender bits?
  
• What about beach chair rentals? That's practically like having loaner pairs of tighty-whiteys.
  
• How big are the napkins at the restaurants? I'm sorry but if I'm a 'naturist' eating anything that's been heated or is in a sauce, I'm wrapping myself in the tablecloth. ("No, sir; I don't know why the Benihana franchise didn't do well at the nude resort.")
  
• Good--no tanlines. Bad--showing your dermatologist the irregular blotches on your hoo-ha.

I think you get the picture.

File Under "Postings Not Found on craigslist"

-"Will trade goat for crack."

Four men were ordered to stand trial in the theft and butchering of a pet pygmy goat, allegedly so its meat could be traded for crack cocaine or money.

James W. Albright, 37, Gilbert W. Fisch, 38, Charles W. Smith Sr., 48, and Charles W. Smith Jr., 20, all of Connellsville, were held on theft, cruelty to animals and related charges yesterday.

So this turns into a heart-warming Father's Day story. Dad and son spending quality time together chopping up a stolen goat for drugs. Just brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it?

-"Will trade chicken for sex."

KEENE, N.H. -- A door-to-door meat salesman from Maine is accused of assaulting a potential customer after she turned down his offer of chicken in exchange for sex.

I'm sorry. A "door-to-door meat salesman"? Do they not have butchers or supermarkets in New Hampshire? And do you want to buy meat from a guy who drove from somewhere in Maine with a couple of slabs of beef and some ice packs in a beer cooler in his trunk?

(Sorry if you've seen these on Drudge this morning, but they were too good to pass up.)

No Kids? No Kidding.

Here's a startling revelation from Neverland:

Michael Jackson's lawyer said yesterday that the pop star is going to be more careful from now on and not let children into his bed anymore because "it makes him vulnerable to false charges."

But then the rhetoric gets more like the Jacko we know:

[Jackson's] Internet site triumphantly ranked his acquittal alongside the birth of Martin Luther King Jr., the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the release of Nelson Mandela.

Retire, already. Sheesh.

After news that Andre Agassi has pulled out of Wimbledon this year, I just have to state the inevitable: RETIRE! Although my friend Tanja probably doesn't want to hear it, Agassi really needs to hang up the racket. I realize he won the Auatralian Open two years ago, but come on. He should just pull a Sampras and bow out gracefully in Flushing Meadows. The U.S. Open crowd will eat it up and give him the send-off he deserves.

CSI: Jerusalem

It seems that scientists have determined what killed Jesus.

Dr Benjamin Brenner from Rambam Medical Centre... believes Jesus developed a deep vein thrombosis in his legs while nailed to the cross, which then travelled from his legs to his lungs and killed him.

I think the more relevant issue is given by the Bible scholar:

Stephen Pfann, a Bible scholar in Jerusalem, said: "What they are doing is an autopsy of the physical body which is always interesting from an academic standpoint.

"But if people concentrate on that part of the event alone they are missing the most important part, which is the spiritual suffering.

"The major trauma for the son of God is spiritual trauma, the loneliness feeling the rejection of God and the shame of the world that came upon him at that point."

"We eat ham and jam and Spam a lot..."

When adding the Spamalot cast album to my Amazon wishlist, I found a great tie-in from Hormel (the makers of Spam). It seems they have a limited edition Spam flavor and packaging to honor the show that references their "holy grail of canned meats." Amazing.

Check out my pictures from Guatemala, etc.

My first real post to my blog... I feel so 21st Century. Anyway, take a look at some pictures I just posted to my Webshots site.