No Miranda Rights For You

Dvorak Uncensored lead me to another reason for me to hate most of our politicians. Senator Lindsey Graham wants to deny reading Miranda rights to “suspect terrorists.” This another one of those bills that may look acceptable on paper until you look at what Senator Graham views as a terrorist:

“The homeland is part of the battlefield. So this idea that you get to America, the rules dramatically change, to the benefit of the suspect – the terrorist – makes no sense,” he said.

Yes the suspect is a terrorist. Note that wording. The suspect is not a potential terrorist, he or she is a terrorist. I’ve often argued that terrorism is akin to child molestation in this country in that you are guilty upon accusation. In either of the two cases you are pretty much screwed because even if you are found guilty the stain of the accusation is permanent and is as good as being found guilty. I will note another thing here:

Graham told POLITICO he is working on legislation that would redefine the so-called “public safety exemption” to Miranda warnings. Under current law, police can question a suspect to obtain admissible evidence without informing them of their rights if they believe that there is an “exigent danger” – like a ticking time bomb — that another crime is about to be committed.

If the suspected terrorist is an immediate threat Miranda rights can be ignore. So why do we need another law? Oh that’s right because you could avoid having to inform detainees of their rights simply by accusing them of terrorism.

Now truth be told you’re an idiot if you don’t know your rights. I’m not saying having to read Miranda rights is a good or bad thing here (personally I think they’re a good thing). What I’m saying is we shouldn’t be making exceptions like these to laws. It’s a slippery slope to say the least. The next thing that would be up I believe would be an exemption to a fast and speedy trial for suspected terrorists holding an American citizenship caught within the United States.

Likewise Mr. Graham’s attitude that suspected terrorists are automatically guilty is disturbing. Nobody who is making laws should have this attitude.

Ubuntu 10.04

So the new version of Ubuntu was released a short while ago. It’s now at version 10.04 also called ludicrous lackey or something like that. Anyways I’m already fighting with it inside the confines of a virtual machine. Here’s a very quick bullet point of what I noticed:

  • The new theme is ugly as sin
  • Now that the window control buttons have been moved to the left side (think Mac OS) the left side of the window feels cluttered (window controls plus the menu bar on the same side)
  • The problem of installing Eclipse from Ubuntu’s software repositories not including several update URLs inside of Eclipse hasn’t been fixed

More to come as I experience it.

Hollywood Computers

We’ve all seen movies where the main star creates a computer virus by aligning three dimensional cubes on a 10 monitor display in order to create a super virus to destroy the bad guys’ computers. Hollywood believe computers are magic and I found a good list of Hollywood’s favorite computer sorcery. My pet peeve is on there:

3. You can zoom and enhance any footage

This has long been the staple of the lazy writer (particularly those working for CSI): a security camera or photo is put on a screen, someone asks for zone G4 to be zoomed and enhanced, then as if by magic stunning detail appears from nowhere and the criminal is identified.

For this system to work it either requires every camera and CCTV system to use Gigapixel resolutions, or such incredible computing technology that Hollywood could throw away all of its expensive HD cameras and shoot everything using £50 camcorders.

As we all know, all zooming into a poor-quality image would do is give a muddled blurry mess on the screen. This technique was recently brilliantly parried in Red Dwarf.

We’re Screwed

Bruce Schneier brings us some really bad news. According to a very prestigious news site the new age people have finally developed a homeopathic bomb:

Homeopathic bombs are comprised of 99.9% water but contain the merest trace element of explosive. The solution is then repeatedly diluted so as to leave only the memory of the explosive in the water molecules. According to the laws of homeopathy, the more that the water is diluted, the more powerful the bomb becomes.

We’re screwed!

If This is the Best They’ve Got

I’ve mentioned Tom Emmers on this site before. He got the nod from the G.O.P. to be their endorsed candidate for Minnesota governor. I have mixed feelings because overall Emmers is a pro-liberty guy. Sadly he recently stated Arizona’s new illegal immigration law was a good first step. I’ve mentioned my issues with that law but alas it is what it is.

On Facebook I have several hardcore D.F.L. friends. I see they are starting the mud slinging already now that Emmers has the nomination. Well this is the one they all posted yesterday:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULalnzQ6M5A&feature=fvw]

If that’s the best they have they’re in trouble. Frankly I think it’s hilarious and it makes me want to vote for the man. I’ve been through countless meetings in my life that made no sense and were boring as Hell. I’d have given anything for a CD player and easily concealed ear buds.

It’s videos like this that make me like Emmers because it shows three things: he’s not a politician, he likes to play things his own way (in other words he has a backbone), and he’s human. Seriously D.F.L.ers you’re going to need better mud to sling than this if you want to dirty Emmers’ image.

What is this Supposed to Be, Some Kind of Sick Joke

Hey want to know a secret? I hate the United Nations. Wait that’s not a secret at all. The U.N. is nothing more than a farce pretending to be an organization working for equal human rights. What they actually mean is equal human rights so long as they’re convenient to government power. That’s the joke of it all really, the U.N. is an organization made up entirely of world governments so you can guess their agenda is slightly slanted.

But this takes the cake:

High off its success in keeping Iran from joining the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, the U.S. appears to have missed its chance to object to Iran’s selection to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, which was affirmed during a so-called U.N. vote this week.

Yup Iran was elected to the Commission of the Status of Women. You know because Iran is so big on the rights of women and all.

Next Verion of WebOS Coming Soon

Well according to an e-mail I received today a new version of WebOS is probably on the horizion:

The next version of webOS is coming soon.

You will receive an email alert in early May announcing the availability of an SDK release candidate. Please be prepared to begin testing your apps right away.

Because the scope of the changes in this update is limited, we won’t be going through a full SDK beta cycle:

You will have approximately one week to report show-stopper bugs in webOS before it is released to carriers.

Once the build has been released to carriers, you will have another 2-3 weeks to address app-level bugs before the update lands on consumer devices.

It is especially important to test PDK apps against this release candidate. Developers of non-PDK apps should also test their apps to catch any unanticipated issues.

I wonder if it will have HP’s branding on it by then.

More On Arizona SB 1070

As I mentioned earlier I do not like Arizona’s new law on grounds that it’s vaguely written and ignores presumption of innocence. Of course with all the screaming, pissing, and moaning over this bill I’ve been trying to figure out why the Hell it was passed in the first place.

Like most issues this one is not black and white. I admit I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the crime rates of other states unless it comes up in an anti-gun article trying to use those rates to promote their campaign of disarmament. Looking further into SB 1070 the main argument appears to deal with the fact that Arizona has a slight crime problem. First and foremost Phoenix kidnapping capital of the country.

This seems to be the main justification for the passing of the bill, crime. But of course the issue isn’t black and white even with that information. See most of the kidnappings appear to be drug and gang related. But most importantly most of the crime committed by these illegal immigrants is against… illegal immigrants:

Police in the desert city say specialized kidnap rings are snatching suspected criminals and their families from their homes, running them off the roads and even grabbing them at shopping malls in a spiraling spate of abductions.

“Phoenix is ground zero for illegal narcotics smuggling and illegal human smuggling in the United States,” said Phil Roberts, a Phoenix Police Department detective.

“There’s a lot of illegal cash out there in the valley, and a lot of people want to get their hands on it.”

Last year alone, Phoenix police reported 357 extortion-related abductions — up by nearly half from 2005 — targeting individuals with ties to Mexican smuggling rings.

So now I have the justification of the new bill. By targeting illegal immigrants specifically Arizona could stand to dramatically lower their overall crime rate. The problem is the implementation still sucks as it’s vague and gives the police the authority to target individuals without anything more than reasonable suspension.