Pacific Views

Saturday Reading

Stars and Stripes is being "privatized" because the Pentagon doesn't believe they need to fund the soldiers' press. (Tip from The Sideshow.) Also do read Avedon Carol's essay about why the Right Wing Fundamentalists don't seem to practice Christianity, but rather they are practicing thanaticists.

Allen Brill's post on the Bible (the one the fundamentalists call inerrant) adds some good info about why you might have to pick and choose what you believe.

One of the better articles about the mounting problems in Iraq can be found here. Professor Hunsinger does a very nice job of pulling together why it is important to have the American public start to care about this problem and soon.

Riverbend is worrying about elections in Iraq.

I'm torn on the topic of elections. While I want elections because it's the 'democratic' thing to do, I'm afraid of the outcome. All the signs lead one to believe that elections will lead to a theocracy (which I dread). The current GC is *not* representative of the Iraqi people- neither Sunnis nor Shi'a approve of them… but will elections bring about a more representative group of would-be leaders? Furthermore, what if the Iraqi 'majority' *do* want a theocracy like the one in Iran? If the choice boils down to a democracy styled like the one in America or a theocracy styled like the one in Iran, how do you think a Muslim country is going to choose?

John Dean discusses the cases the Supreme Court will be deciding that will either fully affirm Bush's power grab or will set it back. Dean believes that Bush has outstripped Nixon in the attempt to consolidate power soley to the presidency.

Four little reported stories are the topic of this post on How to Save The World. The last story is about anti-immigration activists trying to take over the Sierra Club. As someone who has been a member and a supporter of the Sierra Club, I have to say I would hate to have this group take over the club. I've also worried about the effects of population on our country (and our world), but supporting inherently racist policies is not the way to solve the population problem. Frankly the biggest threat to our population right now is Bush and his right wing fundamentalist backers. The best way to deal with the population problems is to use education so people voluntarily reduce the number of children they have (educated and empowered women all over the world show this works) and to try to create a more fair world so people can support themselves and their families. Let's hope that the Sierra Club doesn't let demagogues take over.

How can you have a recommended reading piece without recommending at least one or two of Billmon's pieces? Today he's written a fascinating piece about Cheney's speech at Davos with an excellent summary of the questions and answers. (Cheney who is still convinced that only he has the real truth. Perhaps God tells him personally?) Also don't miss his great take on why the Republicans are getting away with their crap. Hint: it's the lack of DNA evidence.

Have you noticed how much the blogging world is contributing to the story these days? A number of excellent blog posts are reporting their own stories which is greatly enriching our insight onto the topics and zeitgeist of the day. Daily Kos will continue to be one of my regular reads because there is so much immediate news and insight found there. Certainly the media is beginning to recognize the impact of blogs.

Send a prayer for Steve Guillard who is facing surgery this week. Steve's insight combined with his prolific and gifted writing is something I've appreciated ever since he started to educate us during the lead up to the war last year.

Lisa English provides an update on her life and has asked Eric Brunner, Jack K and Stephen S to pinch hit for her.

Now for a completely non-political read. I read this story years ago while studying Computer Science at school and it just gets better as technology marches forward.

Real Programmers write in FORTRAN.

Maybe they do now, in this decadent era of Lite beer, hand calculators, and "user-friendly" software but back in the Good Old Days, when the term "software" sounded funny and Real Computers were made out of drums and vacuum tubes, Real Programmers wrote in machine code.
Not FORTRAN. Not RATFOR. Not, even, assembly language.

Machine Code.

Raw, unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers.

Directly.

Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. More