Even China ranks higher than the US in a 16 nation survey conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. While Americans score high as hardworking and inventive, we are also thought of as violent, greedy and immoral.
The magnitude of America's image problem is such that even popular U.S. policies have done little to repair it. President George W. Bush's calls for greater democracy in the Middle East and U.S. aid for tsunami victims in Asia have been well-received in many countries, but only in Indonesia, India and Russia has there been significant improvement in overall opinions of the U.S.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Head of Central Command Says Cheney Wrong on Iraq
While Rumsfeld was out supporting the contention that Iraq is not a quagmire, his own General was contradicting the rosy view of Iraq being painted by Vice President Cheney.
'During a tense Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Army Gen. John Abizaid, who as head of Central Command is the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, declined to endorse Vice President Dick Cheney's assessment that Iraq's insurgency was in its "last throes."
Abizaid said insurgents' strength had not diminished and that more foreign fighters were coming into Iraq than six months ago. "There's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency," Abizaid said, adding: "I'm sure you'll forgive me from criticizing the vice president."'
'During a tense Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Army Gen. John Abizaid, who as head of Central Command is the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, declined to endorse Vice President Dick Cheney's assessment that Iraq's insurgency was in its "last throes."
Abizaid said insurgents' strength had not diminished and that more foreign fighters were coming into Iraq than six months ago. "There's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency," Abizaid said, adding: "I'm sure you'll forgive me from criticizing the vice president."'
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Jack Kilby, inventor of integrated circuit, dead at 81 - Jun. 21, 2005
The man who made as big a contribution to American industry as Thomas Edison or Alexander Bell died on Tuesday. Too few people know his name.
"Kilby, 81, made the discovery 47 years ago, when, as a recently hired engineer at Texas Instruments Inc. (Research), he was left to work alone in a laboratory while most of his 7,500 colleagues were taking a company-wide summer vacation leave.
As a new hire, Kilby did not qualify to take a vacation in August 1958.
"It was a very quiet time and he got a lot done," said Pat Weber, 65, a long-time colleague and friend of Kilby's".
"Kilby, 81, made the discovery 47 years ago, when, as a recently hired engineer at Texas Instruments Inc. (Research), he was left to work alone in a laboratory while most of his 7,500 colleagues were taking a company-wide summer vacation leave.
As a new hire, Kilby did not qualify to take a vacation in August 1958.
"It was a very quiet time and he got a lot done," said Pat Weber, 65, a long-time colleague and friend of Kilby's".
If you are making DVD's, you're probably breaking at least one law.
Exerpt of a meeting between an Intel Exec (Whiteside) and Senate staffers that highlights how pernicious the Digit Millineum Copyright Act (DCMA)is. It makes criminals of us all.
Darknet: Story: The tech exec who broke federal law (and why the law is broken): "Whiteside explained how the homemade DVD came to be. His nine-year-old son Timmy played on a Pop Warner team called the Typhoons, and Whiteside spent the better part of a football season capturing images of the action with his digital camcorder. At long last Whiteside culled together the highlights, imported them into his PC, and began creating his digital masterpiece.
“I used a program to copy a few seconds from the DVD of the movie Rudy,” he said. “It’s the scene showing the final game of the Notre Dame season with Rudy’s family in the stands cheering wildly when he got to play. I then spliced in some snippets of pro players doing a touchdown dance from NFL Films, and I overlaid it with audio from ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’
'I stitched this all together with video of my son, and it turned out to be the piece of home video that gets watched the most in our house. When relatives or members of the football team come over, we pop it in and we just laugh. The added scenes and music really bring it all to life.”
There was just one problem. “It turns out to do this, I violated the DMCA. I used the DeCSS program to circumvent the encryption and access the movie clips on the DVD that I own,” Whiteside told the aides. “The end product is a DVD that I don’t sell or distribute but is considered a derivative work under copyright law.”
To their credit, none of the congressional aides flipped open their cell phones to call the attorney general. (When I described Whiteside’s home movie to Jack Valenti, he said, “He’s committing a violation of federal law.”)
DeCSS, software devised largely by fifteen-year-old Norwegian Jon Lech Johansen in 1999 to circumvent the digital locks on a DVD, has been widely popular since it first appeared on the Net. (He wrote the code so he could play a DVD movie on his Linux computer. Johansen tells me his original DeCSS code may have been downloaded a million times over the years, and related ripper programs millions more.)
Authorities have brandished the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as a club, threatening to use it against anyone who uses, distributes, or even links to a program like DeCSS. First-time offenders are subject to civil fines of up to $2,500, with penalties of up to five years in prison and a $500,000 fine if the violation was willful and for profit. Whiteside said he didn’t know he was violating the law at the time and hasn’t done it since.
The point of his demonstration, Whiteside said, was not a mea culpa, but a real-world example of how Washington’s penchant for legislative solutions can hobble a new, flowering marketplace of innovation.
“This is precisely the kind of exciting consumer creativity that should be enabled,” he said. “I don’t claim to have all the answers. Should I have to go clear rights to use ten seconds from Rudy in my son’s video, or does it fall under fair use? Should I have to pay pennies for every second of a snippet? I don’t know. But I do know that we have to figure out a way for consumers to do something creative without breaking the law."
Darknet: Story: The tech exec who broke federal law (and why the law is broken): "Whiteside explained how the homemade DVD came to be. His nine-year-old son Timmy played on a Pop Warner team called the Typhoons, and Whiteside spent the better part of a football season capturing images of the action with his digital camcorder. At long last Whiteside culled together the highlights, imported them into his PC, and began creating his digital masterpiece.
“I used a program to copy a few seconds from the DVD of the movie Rudy,” he said. “It’s the scene showing the final game of the Notre Dame season with Rudy’s family in the stands cheering wildly when he got to play. I then spliced in some snippets of pro players doing a touchdown dance from NFL Films, and I overlaid it with audio from ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’
'I stitched this all together with video of my son, and it turned out to be the piece of home video that gets watched the most in our house. When relatives or members of the football team come over, we pop it in and we just laugh. The added scenes and music really bring it all to life.”
There was just one problem. “It turns out to do this, I violated the DMCA. I used the DeCSS program to circumvent the encryption and access the movie clips on the DVD that I own,” Whiteside told the aides. “The end product is a DVD that I don’t sell or distribute but is considered a derivative work under copyright law.”
To their credit, none of the congressional aides flipped open their cell phones to call the attorney general. (When I described Whiteside’s home movie to Jack Valenti, he said, “He’s committing a violation of federal law.”)
DeCSS, software devised largely by fifteen-year-old Norwegian Jon Lech Johansen in 1999 to circumvent the digital locks on a DVD, has been widely popular since it first appeared on the Net. (He wrote the code so he could play a DVD movie on his Linux computer. Johansen tells me his original DeCSS code may have been downloaded a million times over the years, and related ripper programs millions more.)
Authorities have brandished the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as a club, threatening to use it against anyone who uses, distributes, or even links to a program like DeCSS. First-time offenders are subject to civil fines of up to $2,500, with penalties of up to five years in prison and a $500,000 fine if the violation was willful and for profit. Whiteside said he didn’t know he was violating the law at the time and hasn’t done it since.
The point of his demonstration, Whiteside said, was not a mea culpa, but a real-world example of how Washington’s penchant for legislative solutions can hobble a new, flowering marketplace of innovation.
“This is precisely the kind of exciting consumer creativity that should be enabled,” he said. “I don’t claim to have all the answers. Should I have to go clear rights to use ten seconds from Rudy in my son’s video, or does it fall under fair use? Should I have to pay pennies for every second of a snippet? I don’t know. But I do know that we have to figure out a way for consumers to do something creative without breaking the law."
Friday, June 10, 2005
The Harris Poll - Partisanship is Not What Most of the American Public Desires
Sizable majorities of U.S. adults favor both moderate and Independent candidates for office and also believe that todays' politicians are more corrupt than those of 10 years ago.
"Regardless of ideology, when asked if they favor or oppose candidates who are conservative, moderate or liberal, over three-quarters (79%) of U.S. adults favor moderate candidates while only 48 percent favor conservative candidates and 41 percent favor liberal candidates."
"When examined by party ID, half or more of each party believes members of Congress are more corrupt today than they were 10 years ago – (50% of Republicans, 60% of Democrats and 55% of Independents)."
"Regardless of ideology, when asked if they favor or oppose candidates who are conservative, moderate or liberal, over three-quarters (79%) of U.S. adults favor moderate candidates while only 48 percent favor conservative candidates and 41 percent favor liberal candidates."
"When examined by party ID, half or more of each party believes members of Congress are more corrupt today than they were 10 years ago – (50% of Republicans, 60% of Democrats and 55% of Independents)."
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