Archive for February, 2008

Michael Scheuer and Ron Paul

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

There may not be a better authority on Osama Bin Laden than Michael Scheuer. Intimately involved with the tracking down of bin Laden from at least 1996 to 2004, Scheuer has also written several books dealing with the handling of the Middle East by our government over the last 40 years or so. So when this man speaks on the Middle East and bin Laden, he speaks with authority that is unrivaled by most anyone else.

With that in mind, have a listen to an interview he gave recently (video was posted February 19th, 2008). Two things, among the many, that I found enlightening: first, Scheuer makes it clear that bin Laden and al Queda do not hate us for our freedoms, liberties, etc, as Bush, Guiliani, et al, have tried to ram into the conversation. It is about our involvement in the Middle East that bin Laden fights against. Second, of all the presidential candidates, Scheuer believes Ron Paul “gets it”.

Having a girlfriend invested in the green movement, I’d be remiss to comment on another bit of Scheuer’s interview and I’ll paraphrase my understanding of his remarks. When you look at the Middle East, what is there that is of interest to the US? Oil, obviously. Hmm… umm… gee… well… Not much else! So if our government were to get serious about investing in green energy and not using it to garner support while not producing results, we’d lose our interest in the Middle East, at least from a policy perspective. So using less oil = stopping the support of terrorism!

Here’s my beef for the current crop of Bush clones: they preach Christianity, family values, and all that. Fine, all well and good. However, it seems not a week goes by that a Bush supporter in the Congress doesn’t go down in flames with a scandal. But most important of Jesus’ teachings was the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Take a moment and think back to how mad, upset, fearful, irate, how incensed with anger you were on September 11th, 2001. Planes were high-jacked and rammed into the World Trade Center. Now imagine that level of violence occurring everyday. Now double it, and double that. You’re starting to get an approximation of what the average Iraqi goes through each day. Imagine having to cope with all of those emotions everyday. Imagine, upon waking, not knowing whether you’d live or die in some suicide blast or gun fight. A terrible world for anyone. And yet our government is subjecting a country to that everyday with their occupation.

I implore you, regardless of political affiliation, to investigate Michael Scheuer’s writings and interviews and see an expert talk about the situation. Then compare that to the view given by your favorite candidate.

More important than any other issue today is our foreign policy, including the economy. Our next president must understand what’s at stake with respect to the rest of the world, not with respect to a small part of it (namely the European Union countries).

The slim silver lining here is two-fold. Wean our economy and way of life off oil and we lose interest in the Middle East, and, support Ron Paul and bring a man into office that is knowledgeable in both foreign policy and the economy.

Join the REVOLUTION

Posted in News, Political, Research | 2 Comments »

Fibonacci stream

Monday, February 4th, 2008

The Fibonacci sequence: teacher of recursion for so many Computer Science students. But can it also teach us about streams? Yes! The function to build a stream (in Javascript):

var fib_stream_maker = function() {
  return (function() {
    var a = 0;
    var b = 0;
    var c = 1;
 
    return function() {
      a = b;
      b = c;
      c = a + b;
      return c;
    }
  })();
}

Let’s break this down so Ben can follow along. First, the inner most function:

return function() {
  a = b;
  b = c;
  c = a + b;
  return c;
}

This anonymous function returns the next number in the sequence. Looking one level of scope higher, we see the variables a, b, and c declared:

function() {
  var a = 0;
  var b = 0;
  var c = 1;
 
  return function() {
    a = b;
    b = c;
    c = a + b;
    return c;
  }
}

So we initialize the variables and then return a function that increments those variables, local to the inner function’s scope, so we can have multiple instances of the function running without collision of variables. To build the stream factory, we wrap the initialization function in parentheses, creating a continuation, and then execute the wrapped function, creating an initialized fib stream function. This is then set to return when the fib_stream_maker is called as a function.

var fib_stream = fib_stream_maker();
 
fib_stream(); // returns 1
fib_stream(); // returns 2
fib_stream(); // returns 3
fib_stream(); // returns 5
fib_stream(); // returns 8, etc...

This is only touching the surface of streams but I thought it was pretty cool that the Fibonacci sequence can be utilized to teach such important concepts as continuations and streams. Code on!

*Update*

While explaining the inner workings of the above code to CD, she asked a very astute question, one that Ben probably would not have, “What about going backwards in the stream?” A just question. Let’s look at a table of how the values of a, b, and c act as the stream goes forward first (this will help us design our algorithm later).

  a b c Returns
Creating fib_stream 0 0 1  
fib_stream(); 0 1 1 1
fib_stream(); 1 1 2 2
fib_stream(); 1 2 3 3
fib_stream(); 2 3 5 5

So to go backwards, what do we need to do to values of a, b, and c? We need to assign b’s value to c, a’s value to b, and the difference of c and b to a, and still return c. In code, this would look like:

c = b;
b = a;
a = c - b;
return c;

To integrate this into the above example, we need to pass a boolean parameter to the inner-most lamda function and test to see whether to forward or reverse the stream. Let’s see the inner-lamda now:

return function(go_forward) {
  if ( go_forward ) {
    a = b;
    b = c;
    c = a + b;
  } else {
    c = b;
    b = a;
    a = c - b;
  }
 
  return c;
}

We may want to put an additional test to see if we are at the beginning of the stream again:

return function(go_forward) {
  if ( go_forward ) {
    a = b;
    b = c;
    c = a + b;
  } else if ( a == 0 && b == 0 ) {
    ; // do nothing
  } else {
    c = b;
    b = a;
    a = c - b;
  }
 
  return c;
}

Let’s see it all as one big fun function:

var fib_stream_maker = function() {
  return (function() {
    var a = 0;
    var b = 0;
    var c = 1;
 
    return function(go_forward) {
      if ( go_forward ) {
        a = b;
        b = c;
        c = a + b;
      } else if ( a == 0 && b == 0 ) {
        ; // do nothing
      } else {
        c = b;
        b = a;
        a = c - b;
      }
      return c;
    }
  })();
}

And there you have it. Thanks CD for bringing up this interesting idea! What a nerd!

Posted in Geekdom, Research | 2 Comments »

Save the Tongass

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Add your name to the list of those that want to save the Tongass (read more here).

Call (202-205-1661), write, or email Abigail Kimbell of the US Forest Service and let her know your disapproval. The form email sent from the NRDC site is:

Chief Abigail Kimbell, U.S. Forest Service
1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20250-0003

Dear Forest Service Chief Kimbell ,

I strongly urge you to protect all remaining roadless areas in
the Tongass National Forest and to direct Forest Service
officials not to increase costly road-building or logging in
this precious national treasure. Roadless areas comprise our
last wild places and they should not be made vulnerable to
logging, drilling or other development. As a nation, we must
continue to safeguard the heart of our national forest legacy by
protecting the ecological health, wildlife habitat, drinking
water and recreational value of those few American forests still
unspoiled by roads.

It makes no sense to use taxpayer subsidies to destroy the
Tongass, America’s great rainforest and one of the crown jewels
of the national forest system, and jeopardize all that it offers
for local hunting, fishing, recreation, tourism and subsistence
use.

Time and again, citizens like me from around the country have
called upon you and the administration to protect the Tongass.
It’s time to heed this overwhelming public sentiment by
preserving, not destroying, the remaining wild stretches of this
truly unique part of our natural heritage.

Sincerely,

YOU!!!

Posted in Green Living, News | No Comments »

Save $150 Billion Much?

Friday, February 1st, 2008

It’s a sad state of affairs that we as voters must wade through so much posturing and pandering by the presidential candidates. Particularly hard is when we find out after they are elected that their words were vaporous and meaningless. What’s a voter to do?

A study released January 29th of this year by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation helps tax payers cut through the facade and see the real truth, expressed in hard numbers. Keep in mind that the United States has trillions of dollars ($9,200,874,834,693.13) in debt, is spending close to $1 trillion a year on Iraq and Afghanistan, and is facing the housing market implosion. Now, with all this economic unrest, which candidates actually want to do something about it and save some dough?

The four respective frontrunners in the two parties (John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama), proposed overall fiscal policy agendas whose net effect would raise annual federal outlays between $6.9 billion and $287.0 billion.

The top-tier GOP candidates often portrayed as “conservative” (Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee) actually called for significantly larger spending hikes ($19.5 billion and $54.2 billion, respectively), than the so-called “moderate conservative” (John McCain, $6.9 billion).

Among Democrats, Barack Obama, often described as ideologically more “moderate” than Hillary Clinton, actually has the larger agenda of the two ($287.0 billion vs. $218.2 billion).

Defense-related spending items received the highest proposed spending increases among Republican candidates. Huckabee and Romney, for example, offered $67.2 billion and $40.6 billion, respectively. Among Democrats, Clinton’s biggest boost goes toward health care ($113.6 billion) and Obama’s for economy, transportation, and infrastructure ($105.0 billion).

Two of the eight candidates proposed sufficient spending cuts that more than offset their new spending plans: Rudy Giuliani (-$1.4 billion) and Ron Paul (-$150.1 billion).

Taking into account that Rudy Giuliani has dropped out, this makes Ron Paul the only candidate that actually wants to save the country some money, and he wants to do it on a large scale. Why are we pouring in so much money in taxes, to support a government that doesn’t represent us? Why would you support a candidate that wants that trend to continue? Where is this money going to come from?

Would you rather not pay income taxes? I know I would. What if you got to keep an extra third of your income? Don’t you think that’s a bigger chunk than a proposed $300 tax rebate Congress is now considering to “stimulate” the economy? I know it is significantly more for me. I would rather spend the money that I earned than some small rebate the government gives me. We don’t know the source of that rebate either. The administration is currently engaged in deficit spending, racking up more debt to pass on to future generations. How long until China calls in those debts?

It’s time to make the government stop spending, and the only way to do that is by electing Ron Paul, the only candidate left that is 100% for real about cutting spending and saving US citizens their hard-earned income. Read his views, compare them with an open mind to the other candidates, and you’ll see Dr. Paul is truly about getting our country back on track.

Join the REVOLUTION

Posted in News, Research | No Comments »