2006-07-31

Apple iPhone?

Something completely different. I need a respite from the carnage 10 time zones away.

Some monitoring future offerings from Apple have divined the possiblity of a phone in the product pipeline by examining code from the latest iPod firmware update. Check out a blurb about the findings here and the forum post listing all the interesting iPod-OS applets here.

For reasons discussed in detail at the links, these applets are not related to the Motorola iTunes phone.

A speculative design is offered below.



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2006-07-28

Adding Ecological Insult to Bodily Injury

You have no doubt by now heard that Israel's overzealous crippling of Lebanon's infrastructure has lead to a major oil spill, with an estimated 110,000 barrels of crude oil lapping at Lebanon's shores. For comparison, the Exxon Valdez spilled about 257,000 barrels of oil in 1989 (source: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council)

Above you can see what Ramlet el-Beida now looks like. The name of this Beirut beach translates to the White Beach.

The power plant is located 20km south of Beirut. I found it on google earth and have highlighted it for you at right. You can make out Beirut's airport and Beirut beyond that at the top of the satellite pic.

International assistance is ready and waiting, but unable to reach the affected area because of Israel's maritime and air blockade, and disruption of ground transportation infrastructure.

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2006-07-26

Shame on the Times

The New York Times published an article today entitled "Israel Suffers Bloodiest Day of Fight With Hezbollah." In fact Israeli soldiers incurred between 8 and 14 casualties while fighting "house to house, and village to village" in southern Lebanon. The Israeli border was not breached by Hezbollah. No Lebanese or Hezbollah casualties are reported in the article.

Can you say "journalistic bias"?

ADDENDUM: The Times changed the title of this story to "Israel Battles Militants in Conflict's Deadliest Day." Hezbollah casualties were vaguely described as numbering in the dozens. A new photograph was substituted for the original. The deaths of 23 Palestinians were added for good measure.

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2006-07-25

Worse Than Damn Lies

Vancouver newspaper The Province reported today that Estratest, a combination hormone therapy for severe menopausal symptoms, increases the risk of breast cancer. The article cites a Nurses Health Study, with the report authored by lead researcher Rulla Tamimi.

The newspaper headline blares "Risk goes up 250% with drug". This is not actually true.

The text of the article accurately reports that the risk of developing breast cancer in post-menopausal women using the drug is nearly 2.5 times higher than the baseline risk, an assertion I confirmed in the original article appearing in the Archives of Internal Medicine. This translates into a risk increase of 150%, a still alarming risk increase, but not 250%.

This provides further evidence of the need to be skeptical of what you read, and go to the source material where you can if the information is consequential.

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2006-07-21

Parse The Truth

I gave some advice to a friend recently who was having a crisis of confidence in the media:

I had read an article in Harper's a few years ago titled "The Numbing of the American Mind" that enunciated the many levels of reality, virtual reality, and flat out artifice that now coexist in our experience. Reality TV is more TV than reality, and news--depending on the media outlet--can reside more or less close to ends of a spectrum ranging from veracity to entertainment.

With such impressive simulacra of reality out there, it is difficult to trust even your senses. News is niche marketed.

We are left to parse out truth as a kind of probabilistic estimate based on numerous sources. Most people don't bother because the effort is too great and the rewards too meager.

I agree that it is important to be skeptical. It is the duty of a citizen to be skeptical of those who govern and inform him. But you should not allow your skepticism to be so psychically crushing that you cut yourself off from all the world, and sit moaning at your dinette, rocking back and forth and doing sudoku puzzles.

He told me about the Jewish tradition of the minyan, a communal worship with a quorum of at least ten, "making sure there were at least ten people arguing the truth together, just so that no one begins to mistake his perspective for reality."

I'll parse your truth if you parse mine.

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Half Empty Glass

Looks like the optimism I expressed in the last post was misguided. Israel has expanded the scope of their attacks to include suspected Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut (see picture) and are preparing for a ground offensive in Southern Lebanon to occupy the area as a buffer zone.

As I noted in my last post, these territories were vacated by Barak in 2000, and Hezbollah moved in within 12 months to establish missile launch posts there. It's hard to blame Israel for wanting to re-occupy that territory. However, they demonstrate no regard for multilateralism, proportionality, or collateral damage, and that makes it hard to sympathize.

See Kofi Annan's comments of yesterday here: press release.
"Hizbollah’s actions, which it portrays as defending Palestinian and Lebanese interests, in fact, do neither. On the contrary, they hold an entire nation hostage, set back prospects for negotiation of a comprehensive Middle East peace."

"Israel has confirmed that its operation in Lebanon has wider and more far-reaching goals than the return of its captured soldiers, and that its aim is to end the threat posed by Hizbollah. The mission was informed that the operation is not yet approaching the achievement of this objective.

"Israel states that it has no quarrel with the Government or the people of Lebanon, and that it is taking extreme precautions to avoid harm to them. Yet, a number of its actions have hurt and killed Lebanese civilians and military personnel, and caused great damage to infrastructure. While Hizbollah’s actions are deplorable and, as I’ve said, Israel has a right to defend itself, the excessive use of force is to be condemned."
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2006-07-20

Fixing Blame

I have to confess that I have been quick to point out Israel's aggression and have been emphatic about denouncing it, while I have nearly omitted mention of Hezbollah in my posts.

Newsweek recently posted an article to their web site after Bush and Blair were caught conversing frankly within earshot of an open mic at the G8 summit this week. Michael Hirsh's commentary reprimands Bush for not re-opening dialogue with Syria, especially in light of Bush's candid acknowledgment of Syria's influence on Hezbollah: "See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."

Hirsh speculates about who "they" might be, possibly Annan and the UN Security Council. He states that the Security Council "officially demanded that Syria stop its interference with Lebanon, including its support of Hizbullah." That's not exactly true. The resolution he cites, number 1559, names neither Syria nor Hezbollah. While I acknowledge that this was the intent of the resolution, the text of the resolution is not specific. This embellishment leads me to question some of Hirsh's other assertions about al-Assad's relationship with Washington, with Ahmedinejad, and with Hezbollah.

I agree that Hezbollah should be disarmed and disbanded within Lebanon. I acknowledge that the events of the last couple of weeks were instigated by reckless attacks on Israel by Hezbollah. I don't pretend to know why. I do know that Israel has injured and killed many that have no part in this conflict, and it has deliberately crippled infrastructure in Southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has a stockpile of about 13,000 missiles (according to Israeli military intelligence). The Fajr-3 missile is manufactured in Iran. The Katyusha is manufactured in Russia while the C-802 cruise missile is manfactured by China. These too are allegedly supplied by Iran. All were used in the recent attacks on Northern Israel, including a cruise missile attack on an Israeli warship.

These missile launch locations had been occupied by Israel until May 24, 2000, when Ehud Barak began a withdrawal of Israeli occupation of the area. Within 12 months, Hezbollah had reportedly erected a belt of mobile rocket launchers and truck mounted missiles.

Hezbollah is likewise responsible for reckless attacks on Israeli civilian targets in addition to military targets, though the consequent loss of life and damage to infrastructure is far lower than that incurred in Lebanon.

I think it's interesting that Bush and Blair, in their conversation, do see a way forward. Blair envisions preparing the region to accept a multinational stabilizing force, with Condoleeza Rice coming in after him to announce specifics about such an approach. Bush is not dismissive of Annan's role, but seems to view Annan as a useful conduit to Damascus to discreetly persuade al-Assad to use his influence on Hezbollah. Perhaps Hezbollah is even acting on directives from Syria, as implied in Bush's remarks. Iran is certainly not mentioned.

Hopefully, Lebanon can regain her footing after the recent attacks, and will receive assistance to put its heavily damaged infrastrutcture right again. I am guardedly optimistic that a de-escalation will be achieved.

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Albert Camus' The Outsider

On July 7, the Pharos Book Club met at the Bean Scene to discuss Albert Camus' The Outsider.

The novella is widely hailed as a manifesto of existentialism and a polemic against capital punishment. It appeared on a survey of men's "milestone fiction" commissioned by the Orange Prize for Fiction and conducted by Lisa Jardine and Anne Watkins. Interestingly, our book club has now read the top two books on this list (The Catcher in the Rye occupies second place), and five of the top twenty books.

[There are spoilers ahead. Read on if you don't mind]

The Outsider begins memorably with: "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know." The protagonist, a young man known only as Meursault, attends his mother's funeral as an unengaged spectator, overwhelmed not by grief but only by torpor and Algeria's heat. He is conscious of being judged by those around him. Meursault, however, does not judge, he merely observes. Over the next few days, he seems like a passenger on a ride, distanced from a sense of responsibility or connectedness to others. Ultimately, he drifts into a dissociative state induced by heat and anxiety, and shoots a nameless Arab armed with a knife, pumping four more lethal shots into his immobile body.



Meursault spends this first half of the story looking outward. Once he is apprehended and imprisoned, trapped in his cell, the scope of the novella changes dramatically, and Meursault is left to look inward, perhaps for the first time in his life. The remainder of the story focuses on Meursault's trial, the flaws of the justice system, and Meursault's epiphany about his insignificance.

The story was quite provocative for our group. We were eventually kicked out of the Bean Scene at closing time three hours after we began our discussion.

Included in the Penguin Modern Classics edition pictured above is an afterword written by Camus. I recoiled at Camus' veneration of Meursault, saying The Outsider is "the story of a man who [...] agrees to die for the truth," because "he doesn't play the game." He goes on to claim "I tried to make my character represent the only Christ that we deserve." We tried to tease out what Camus meant by this statement. Did Meursault die for our sins of projecting falsehoods on the truth to suit our social morés? Did Meursault die not for our sins, but only for his own, as it should be?

Camus appears to indict society more than Meursault. Camus lauds Meursault for seeking sensual pleasure, for not judging those around him, and for an unfailing allegiance to fact. In contrast, the justice system distorts fact. The people in the jury box—like people on a tram, like mourners at the mother's funeral—are quick to judge despite their imperfect knowledge of events. Society condemns the taking of life, yet it takes life itself based on the machinations of a faulty system. At one point, the prosecutor proclaims, "I ask you for this man's head, and I do so with an easy mind." Surely such a demand should never be made with an easy mind, if at all.

Meursault comes to recognize his insignificance, and "the benign indifference of the world":

"...everbody knows that life isn't worth living. And when it came down to it, I wasn't unaware of the fact that it doesn't matter very much whether you die at thirty or at seventy since in either case, other men and women will naturally go on living, for thousands of years even." [p 109]

I fixed far more responsibility on Meursault than others were prepared to, including Camus. Meursault recognizes, as he approaches the reclining Arab, before either weapon is drawn, that all he has to do is walk away and a lethal escalation could be avoided. He shows no remorse for his action and no regard for his victim. He blames the sun, but never himself. It is he who allied himself with a pimp who beat the Arab's sister; who placed the gun in his pocket as a precaution when returning to where the Arab was seen; who emptied the gun into the Arab after the first shot disabled him. Until Meursault understands that he chose this course—it was not fated—he will never accept his culpability.

Perhaps it is because I too am an Arab, while no one else at the table was (four other ethnicities represented), that I was an outlier in this segment of our discussion. I was less able to abstract Meursault's actions as a logical framework upon which we might examine nihilism, absurdity, existentialism, capital punishment—seeing it instead as a murder. While Meursault could have "played the game" and possibly avoided the guillotine, he does not feign remorse, he does not embrace God and beg forgiveness, he does not claim self-defense or mental anguish, he in no way distorts the facts. The prosecution does play the game, manipulating and distorting the facts, painting a portrait of more than a killer—a sociopath—persuading the jury to decapitate Meursault. Meursault's murder of the Arab is just as capricious, arbitrary, and immoral as his execution.

In his long essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus notes:
"The most important question is whether life is worth living. Everything else follows afterward. Galileo's inquiry of whether the Earth revolves around the sun or the sun revolves around the Earth is not a dilemma that causes nearly as much suffering or loss of life as the despair felt by some that their lives are not worth living."
As a secular humanist (a label I am sometimes willing to accept), I feel that life is worth living because life is all there is. I don't have an everlasting soul, a nirvana seeking spirit, a karmically-challenged id. This is it. And while I agree with Meursault about the benign indifference of the physical world—the mountains, lakes, deserts and oceans—that indifference does not diminish how precious life is, how jealously we should guard it, and how wrongly we squander it.

It is this sentiment which is challenging to reconcile with the notion of capital punishment. If someone wantonly takes a life, especially repeatedly, remorselessly, and unrepentantly, should their lives be ended as well? I would not be among the throng that greets Meursault at the guillotine with cries of hatred. But I can't decide whether I would want every killer spared.

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Extracting Canadians: Who Foots the Bill?

I listened to comments this morning from journalists and the public about covering the cost of evacuating Canadians from Southern Lebanon as a consequence of Israel's disproportionate and crippling retaliation. Some reports describe these Canadians as 'Lebanese Canadians', as though the distinction is important.


Lebanese Canadians are grateful for the evacuation effort and for the unflinching official response of the government (see a letter of thanks to Stephen Harper from six organizations representing Lebanese Canadians).

Many Canadians resent being asked evacuate people who have placed themselves in harm's way by travelling to the Middle East. I wonder if they would feel similarly callous about rescuing hikers, mountaineers, fishermen, etc who have similarly placed themselves in harm's way. But who are almost all white Canadians.

I don't like having to pay for someone's passage from Lebanon when they have decided to live there instead of Canada, and have done so for years. My mother is a dual citizen of Canada and Egypt. She lived here for twenty-five years before returning to Egypt in 1994. I was thinking about what it would be reasonable for her to expect from Canada if she were in a similar predicament.

I think a distinction can be made between two classes of Canadian citizens, and there is a precedent for it under the law: Canadian tax law. If you are a Canadian citizen, you have a right to expect Canada's assistance to extract you from a region where war breaks out. If you claim Canada as your primary residence, spending at least six months plus one day in Canada per year, you can further expect that Canada will pay for your safe conduct out of harm's way. But if you claim another country as your primary residence, then you or your country of residence should bear the cost of your evacuation.

Someone who resides in Lebanon and has done so for years should conceivably be able to draw upon local resources—financial, means of transport, their friends and family, familiar local authorities, employers—that non-residents would have far more difficulty accessing. I think the distinction is intuitive, meaningful, justifiable.

I also expect that for the most part it will be difficult to recover the costs from evacuees. Nevertheless, Canadians should understand that there are limits to the privilege that citizenship confers.

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2006-07-18

Candid Bush

That's not the name of an upskirt porn site. That is a description of Bush II as he chatted up leaders at the G8 summit while his comments were picked up surreptitiously by a live mic. I was enthralled when I saw this yesterday, glimpsing the Wizard behind the curtain, hearing a candid assessment of the forces driving the latest Mid-East crisis.

Here is the transcript posted at MSNBC:

Bush [to Putin]: I gotta leave by 2:15. They want me out of town so they can free up your security forces.
No, just going to make it up. I'm not going to talk too long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long.
Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight. How about you? Where are you going home? This is your neighborhood doesn't take you long to get home.
[to China's Hu Jintao] You eight hours? Me too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country. [to Putin] Takes him eight hours to fly home.

[to wait staff] Not Coke, diet Coke.
[to Putin] Russia’s big and so is China.
Yo, Blair. What are you doing? Are you leaving?

Blair: No, not yet. On this trade thing…

Bush: Yeah, I told that to (inaudible). If you want me to. I just want some movement. Yesterday I didn't see much movement. The desire to move.

Blair: It may be that it’s impossible.

Bush: I'll be glad to say. Who's introducing me?

Blair: Angela

Bush: Well tell her to call on it. Well, tell her to put me on the spot.
Thanks for the sweater [a recent 60th birthday gift]; it was awfully thoughtful of you. I know you picked it out yourself.

Blair: Oh, absolutely!
What about Kofi Annan? I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically cease-fire and everything else happens. I think the thing that is really difficult is you can’t stop this unless you get this international presence agreed.

Bush: She's going. I think Condi's going to go pretty soon.

Blair: Well that's all that matters. If you see, it will take some time to get out of there. But at least it gives people…

Bush: It's a process I agree. I told her your offer too.

Blair: Well it's only…or if she's gonna or if she needs the ground prepared as it were. See if she goes out, she's got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk.

Bush: See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.

Blair: Because I think this is all part of the same thing. What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if he gets a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way, he's done it. That's what this whole things about. It's the same with Iran.

Bush: I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen. We're not blaming Israel and we're not blaming the Lebanese government.

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2006-07-17

Time's Up, Israel

I am absolutely disgusted by the vastly disproportionate and indiscriminate response Israel has meted out against Lebanon in retaliation for the abduction of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. Israel will tell you that it has a right to assert its sovereignty and defend itself and its citizens from attack. Apparently, this right also extends to the inadvertent slaughter of vacationers in Aitaroun, including seven Canadians.

I think that the Western democracies need to acknowledge that the Israeli experiment was a horrible mistake. The US provides Israel with direct foreign aid of $3 billion, amounting to nearly 20% of the government's revenues (see my post Must There Be Foreign Aid To Israel?). Israel can only continue to act so belligerently because it is allowed to, and enabled to, by the US.

When I was young, I was fascinated by maps. I memorized the world's geography as fully as I could, and I thought the world was immutable. I didn't realize that nations could reunite (like East and West Germany), that they could splinter apart (like the former Yugoslavia), or that whole bodies of water could simply evaporate (the Aral Sea) or be created (Lake Nasser) if men willed it.

What about a world without Israel, as we know it today? A world where the wall is torn down and a new nation is created in its place, integrating Palestinians and Israeli Jews? Would that be worth protecting? Would that nation be more accommodating of and acceptable to its neighbours? Would that nation be truly democratic, rather than denying the vote to Israeli Arabs in Israel, or leaving governing to the farce of Palestine? What if the religious zealots were completely circumvented, so that a secular constitutional democracy was created? Wouldn't that be a better world?

With the bombing of Lebanon's airport, Israel effectively severed the most efficient way for foreign countries to secure their citizens trapped in Lebanon. Now they are all subject to the nightmare of being in Israel's gunsights.
Change can't happen when 'leaders' like PM Stephen Harper say things like "We don't intend to single out Israel" while Israel kills innocent Canadians. It can't happen when bloodthirsty Moslems unleash their venom on what they perceive as Israeli vermin. It can't happen when billions in 'foreign aid' pour into Israeli coffers without restriction. Millions are under threat everyday. The region is in a constant state of unrest. The stability of the world is undermined with every embargo, blockade, missile test, bombing and helicopter attack.
I think Israel's time is up. It's a do-over. Enough blood has been spilt.

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2006-07-10

ZZ Blows Top

Zinedine Zidane closed his illustrious career in high drama yesterday. The French midfielder and captain who dominated the elimination round of this year's World Cup was sent off after head-butting the Italian player Materazzi in the waning minutes of extra time in yesterday's final.

At 110 minutes, with only 10 minutes remaining in extra time and the teams deadlocked at 1-1, Zidane turned to Materazzi and drove his head into the Italian's chest, dropping him to the pitch. At first, play was going to continue as the referee hadn't seen the infraction. While officials are not allowed to make video-assisted rulings, the incident was replayed in the stadium possibly forming the basis for the fourth official's confirmation of the attack and Zidane's red card.

Zizou left his team in the lurch with Vieira, Ribery, and Henry already subbed out. Zidane is his team's place kick specialist, scoring earlier in the game on a penalty kick for a foul awarded to Malouda, and scoring another penalty kick goal to eliminate Portugal. It was his free kick cross to Henry that eliminated Brazil. Only a couple of minutes before his dismissal, Zidane powered an impressive header at the Italian net that Buffon only narrowly directed to safety. Instead of leading his team into the penalty shootout, he left them short-handed with minutes to go.

One British tabloid noted Materazzi could be "clearly seen twisting the Frenchman's nipple," and he allegedly followed that up by calling him a terrorist. Who knows. All I know is while Zidane may explain what he did, he can't excuse it. Materazzi's actions, whatever they were, were calculated to bounce Zidane from the game, and Zidane stupidly, selfishly cooperated.

By this time, the voting for the tournament's MVP had closed. Zidane was awarded the Golden Ball while he sulked ignominiously in his locker room.

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2006-07-07

warming.ppt

An Inconvenient Truth is essentially the lecture on global warming Gore has delivered for years, "probably more than a thousand times." As a result, the presentation is polished, thorough, approachable, and compelling.

Gore, the self-described "Former Next President of the United States," aims to raise awareness of the problem of global warming. The globe is addicted to an unsustainable lifestyle, and as we've heard with other addictions, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. But as the evidence accumulates, so too do the greenhouse gases. The solutions offered in the closing credits give small comfort. And rather than Melissa Etheridge's "I Need To Wake Up," perhaps REM's "It's The End of the World As We Know It" is more apt.

Which isn't to say it's the End of the World. But the world will change, and drastically. What remains to be seen is if those changes will anticipate the trends we're observing today, or simply react to the damage yet to be done.

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