tcpip | One Thesis, Two New Domains, The One True Language, Many Natural Languages... and the "War on Terror

One Thesis, Two New Domains, The One True Language, Many Natural Languages... and the "War on Terror

This week my thesis has moved at a rate of the allied advance into Italy during the second world war - bogged down in mud. I think I've managed to contribute a mere 2,500 words on the subject. Good words mind you, damn good words as I've been pondering and researching the complex (and contradictory ideas) of (a) the influence of the Internet in the global political and economic order and (b) the cultural parallel with the history of the telegraph. With is a mere (estimated) 7,500 words to go before completion I'm hoping to have it done by the end of next week.

In the meantime I have allowed myself to be distracted productively. Putting ideas developed into the thesis into practise I've registered two new domains; isocracy.org and mimesispublishing.net. The idea of the former is a social and political theory and news site. The idea of the latter is a publishing co-operative for graduates which produces both ebooks and the dead-tree versions. I've been investigating several hosting options and co-operative regulations which are invariably the best business model.

Every couple of years I force myself to review my programming skills. No, I don't mean static coding such as xhtml/css, or even bits of javascript (which I personally loathe, but clients love) or shellscript, which are the sort of things I do on a daily basis anyway. Rather I mean getting one's teeth into the one true programming language, C++. Now I haven't done any C/C++ programming for about 2 years at least. But what is making me grin from ear to ear is not just how much of it I'm remembering, but how much I'm enjoying it.

Part of this is of course to assist in the translation program that I'm working on with Peter Gossner and Cromwell Hooper. Recently we've discovered a very handy little resource, the Natural Language Toolkit, which will assist us greatly in over coming the problems of contextual semantics normally associated with machine translation.

Next Tuesday I have another interview with Australian Volunteers International. Well been an interesting and pleasant six months back in Australia. I suppose I'd better start learning Vietnamese....

Last Sunday had Andrew Rowe, CEO of the Victorian Local Governance Association, speaking on community involvement in the development of a Bill of Rights. He made some poignant comments about how many people feel distant from our state and federal governments are turning to local government to reconnect and engage as citizens. He cited the role of local government in the Australian republic debate as an example. Next time I see him I must quiz him more on the Jefferson notion of highly decentralized "natural republics". I suspect he'll like it.

Something for members of the Victorian Labor Party to ponder on. Item 1 and Item 2

Nerds and IT business heads only. Beagl has offered this gem which the aforementioned people will understand. Also in the realm of extremely practical nerdsville (particularly appropriate to those IT workers who like living it rough like myself) latest Swiss Army knife comes with a USB HD.

Everyone is getting into it. Even Noam Chomsky has a blog. Although I think "Turning The Tide" is the wrong title for someone who considers himself a progressive.

The good Jay Bulworth once again raises the idea of "odious debt" in the latest issue of Overland in the article Strategic policy alternatives for Australia.

The Richard Clarke affair is going to be big, very big. After all, it's not often that you get a conservative establishment figure picked by four presidents to advise them on security concerns. This blog provides an excellent summary of what is going down. The key point: There's a serious chance 9/11 could have been stopped. Bush wanted to invade Iraq instead. Clarke explains more in this Guardian interview.

In a sense, Clarke's White House critics are right. He has timed this very carefully, right in time for the 9/11 congessional hearings. I do suspect he is politically motivated to "get" Bush as well, although he is certainly no liberal. One can bet their bottom dollar that he hasn't played all his cards yet and over the next few months more and more will be revealed.

To finish off on a related issue, Rilian provides a link to these annoying questions.

April 4 is World Rat Day, whereas Unitarians in New Zealand have apparently called it "All Heretics Day". Anything but Easter I suppose.

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===It looks like incompetence got them again.

===Clarke apparently turned in the manuscript to the government for them to go over, and they held it for 3 months. It comes out now because they took so long. (Clarke had to turn it in to make sure that information that was classified did not get accidentaly mentioned....)

===I am amused.

Hmmm.. I don't know how far one can push the "incompetence line". Sure, the work isn't easy but from the people who I know who do this sort of thing the international networking is pretty good. I suspect the reason Clark's report was held up was for political reasons.

We certainly see the same sort of thing happening here. And of course, as The Pentagon Papers pointed out, there's a long history of ignoring intelligence which doesn't suit politicians.

It's good to see Clarke's information getting some proper attention. Shortly after 9/11 I remember reading an article which observed that one of the first things Bush asked was: "Can we blame this on Iraq?" I also remember reading before the bombing that shortly after he was elected he was already looking for excuses to invade Iraq. As this information never received any real play in the major media, it makes me happy to see it finally come back to bite him.

It's amazing what is picked up and what is completely forgotten.

I remember during the lead-up to gulf war II debating the relative issues and having to remind someone - who was otherwise claiming to be very knowledgeable about Hussein's regime and links with terror - about the incubator babies incident.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.htm

(From that erudite journal, The Christian Science Monitor. A likeable religion, and a damn good journal)

I do suspect he is politically motivated to "get" Bush as well, although he is certainly no liberal.

And the Republicans really shot themselves in the collective foot by insinuating that Clarke was a Kerry sympathiser. They'd have done better just to shut up and hope for people to forget about it, or find a more convincing smear tactic, instead of pulling out one that was very obviously bunk. (Nice move by Clarke, BTW, swearing under oath that he wouldn't accept a position from Kerry.)

So all they've got left is "book to sell" or "personal grudge", neither of which are that convincing. You don't have to be a liberal to dislike Bush any more; I know quite a few conservatives who are aghast at his sheer incompetence.

I think you're right about Clarke. The "book to sell" line isn't going to work. It should be completely obvious that this person doesn't need any further public recognition and I'd be really surprised if he was short of a penny.

Which leaves the "personal grudge" line. Well, I'd say that Clarke has a grude, that's for sure. But it ain't personal - it's national!

I'm not feeling particularly political today ... we all knew Bush was itching to bomb something!!! Frustrated man.

However the rat site is amusing and the "Unitarian Universalists come from a long line of heretics" line was just too much - this is a very interesting tactic of self promotion! Inspiring :))

Unitarians like to describe themselves as "the first [Christian] heretics" - in reference to their support for Arius, who denied the special divinity of Jesus.

World Rat Day is the better option..... World Heretics Day would have been better for the following weekend IMHO

Well, I've found out why and where the All Heretics Day notion comes from - a Rev. Dick Weston-Jones mentions it here...

http://www.geocities.com/anzua_2000/sermons/martin_luther_king.htm

And one could argue that every day is rat day. Especially for certain fancy rats.

But yes, you're right. Easter would be amusingly appropriate for an All Heretics Day.

Doesn't explain why they chose that date though instead of say, Easter.

And what rat, or rabbit for that matter, doesn't deserve to be spoilt?

He has turned off the comments option!!! I wondered if he would do that, since he is such a great believer in free speech. But last time I looked there were 194 comments on his latest entry and most of them (99%) consisted of somebody writing the word 'jews' about 5000 times or a 'dictionary of sexual reference' which was unbelievably misogynist repeated 3-4 times and other equally shitty stuff. I've never seen anything like it. The guy is a stirrer, but there are people out there who really, really hate him and have just tried to spam up his bandwidth with hate-speak. I have to say, I found it quite shocking. I live in such an ivory tower environment, full of tolerant and open-minded people. I was just stunned by the sheer quantity of stupidity and bile.

Herein lies the advantage of livejournal. The posting options give a person a great deal of control over who posts to their blogs and offensive commenst can just be deleted.

Of course, it has led to some problems in communities where people have started (for example) a discussion thread, not liked where the discussion has headed, and deleted the whole lot.

Maybe I'll send him an email suggesting that LJ may be more his style. After all, it's web accessible as well.

I was just stunned by the sheer quantity of stupidity and bile.

Ahh, from an old timer on aus.politics nothing surprises me. What does surprise me is that anti-discrimination organizations aren't collecting the data on people who engage in such behaviour for legal cases.

I'm all in favour of free speech, but to quote an old judge "that doesn't mean you can shout 'fire!' in a crowded theatre". Speech that threatens individuals and groups with a clear and present danger silences them.

Dear Professor Chomsky,

Despite having your email address for several years I have managed not to send you any missives. I'm sure you receive enough "academic fan mail" as it is.

I have noticed however that you have turned off the comments option on your "Turning the Tide" website. This is quite understandable following the recent tirade from those small and poisoned minds who, in lieu of lack anything serious to contribute, engage in childish abuse. It is unfortunate however for those who do take your comments seriously and wish to contribute, in a proper manner, to the sharing of information and discussion.

May I suggest then, that you either establish a site at www.livejournal.com or that zmag.org use the open-source software available at that site. It provides significant control over posting and commenting features which ensures that speech is both free _and_ responsible.

Yours in solidarity,

Lev Lafayette

I suspect that in America you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre!

No you can't. That's actually one of their most famous limitations on free speech as causing a "clear and present danger".

Although the circumstances of how it came about are interesting.

http://www.iath.virginia.edu/seminar/unit10/supreme.htm

several years ago i worked on a victoria-wide project focusing on civic rights and community empowerment. VLGA was one of the six partner organisations involved. i'm not sure what's happening with it now, but about 6 years ago we were able to mobilise thousands to collectively come up with a 'log of claims' for state government... thought you might be interested in checking out the site.

I remember the Purple Sage project very fondly. I was involved in several community organizations at the time - the North Carlton Association, the Carlton/Fitzroy Financial Counselling Service, the Carlton Neighbourhood House - it was a great idea and I'm amazed by how the organizers managed to get the entire state involved on a community level.

It really would be great if governments behaved that way. You know, before making a decision on an important issue they actually bothered to consult in a wide-ranging manner rather than just the elite players.

PS: I also know how it got its name ;-)

wasn't it the cafe where they came up the idea? :)

The cafe was called "Red Sage". But they thought that might be perceived as a little politically biased...

I love being a heretic. I agree with earlier comments. Having it on Easter Sunday would be amazingly appropriate.

Of course, the problem with Easter Sunday is that a (ahem) significant number of Unitarians have doubts with the idea that a dead person got up, walked around, chatted to a few people and then levitated to the heavens.

Perhaps "Good Friday" would be best. Yeah, nailed to a tree for suggesting that people be nice to each other. That fits the Unitarian tradition.

Hmmm.. Just found this, quite nice..

http://www.cuups.org/content/liturgy/sunday/hereticsprint.html

You know, I find it interesting that the most "spiritual" of Unitarians (in the worshipping sense) are the pagan-nature worshipping variety.

Hmmm. Good Friday. I want to go to a Catholic Service on Good Friday this year. I may be a glutton for punishment.

That is very, very interesting. Thanks for sharing it.

I am a member of CUUPS ar my fellowship, but I don't consider myself truly "pagan" - more along the lines of "earth-aware."

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One Thesis, Two New Domains, The One True Language, Many Natural Languages... and the "War on Terror

Actually...

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Conservatives against Bush

politics and heretics

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the chomsky blog

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purple sage...

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Heretics Rock!

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