The clowd

Seth Godin coined a clever word.

GreenGraffiti

What an interesting idea. GreenGraffiti, a Dutch advertising company, creates signs by selectively spray-washing dirt off sidewalks and walls.

Support Wesley Clark

On Sunday, General Wesley Clark spoke honestly and bluntly about what it takes to be Commander in Chief. He said that while Senator John McCain's service made him a hero to millions, including Clark himself, McCain's experience doesn't trump the poor judgment that he's shown on some of the most important issues in recent years.

General Clark is right, but the media's been twisting his words and accusing him of saying things he didn't say.

When the media distorts the facts on important issues like this, it has serious consequences. Can you sign the petition supporting General Clark and tell the media to stop distorting his comments?

A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to major news media outlets.

You can sign the petition in support of Wesley Clark here.

FOX smears Obama

FOX's smears against Obama are out of control. I just signed a petition telling FOX that their use of racism and prejudice is not okay. Would be great if you signed too.

First, a paid FOX commentator accidentally confused 'Obama' with 'Osama' and then joked on the air about killing Obama. Next, a FOX anchor said a playful fist pound by Barack and Michelle Obama could be a 'terrorist fist jab.' (Seriously!) And then, FOX called Michelle Obama 'Obama's baby mama'—slang used to describe the unmarried mother of a man's child.

Nearly 100,000 folks have signed a petition that will be delivered to FOX. You can sign here.

Help defend what's left of the gun laws

Annals of University Bureaucracy

The complete text of an email—that included no links—from the CSULA administration to the entire campus.

from Office of the Vice President of Administration and Finance and CFO
to
date Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 11:59 AM
subject Administrative Procedure 430
mailed-by cslanet.calstatela.edu


Campus-wide email – Do not reply





The following Interim Administrative Procedure has been uploaded to the CSULA web site:



AP 430, Interim University Regulatory Training Requirements, effective date 06/19/08



Please update your department manuals accordingly.

Jig-saw puzzle: to recognize vs. to do

In the Meno, Socrates spoke of the apparent paradox that we can recognize something that we have a harder time creating. In computer science this is often thought of as the P =? NP problem. There are many problems for which one can tell in Polynomial time whether a proposed solution is actually a solution but for which no one knows of a way to solve a typical instance of the problem in less than exponential (non-deterministic polynomial) time. The prototypical example is to find a set of values for Boolean variables that cause a Boolean expression to evaluate to true. Given a proposed set of values, it is trivial to determine whether the expression evaluates to true. But in general it is very time-consuming to find such a set of values or to determine that no such set exists.

That was brought to mind when a common-place intuitive example of this sort of problem occurred to me: a jig-saw puzzle. It's easy to tell whether a given configuration of jig-saw puzzle pieces is the correct one. But given a box full of pieces it may be a very time-consuming task to put them together correctly.

Yahoo! ! diversity

A New York Times story included the following paragraph listing executives who recently left Yahoo!

"Today’s news is that three more of Yahoo’s best executives are leaving the company: Qi Lu, Brad Garlinghouse and Vish Makhijani. That follows the departure of two executive vice presidents, Jeff Weiner and Usama Fayyad. …

Hilary Schneider is expected to take some of Mr. Weiner’s responsibility.

I find the diversity of the names heartwarming—although it's too bad only one woman was mentioned. There are some things this country does well—and benefits from it.

The wheels of bureaucracy …

Sen Carl Levin (D. Mich) is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. His opening statement at the June 17, 2008 hearing describes the history of the use of interrogation techniques by the US DoD. It's quite amazing.

One particularly striking feature is how bureaucratic it all was. The proposed techniques were passed up and down a number of chains of command. It's a good thing that so many people were involved in reviewing the policies. Many had the courage to object.

The account makes it clear, though, how far the military moved away from treating people like people. It was only at the end of Levin's statement when he quoted a statement by Gen. Petraeus that there was any mention at all of treating people humanely. Most of the discussion was about legal issues, as if the concern was not whether it's right to inflict pain but only whether it's legal. There was no discussion at all about the subjective experience of the prisoners, no attempt to understand what it must feel like to be treated this way, only whether the techniques would be legal and effective. It was like listening to two guards discussing the relative merits of different makes of thumb screws. Should we buy Brand A because it's cheaper or Brand B because it's more sturdy? A study is needed to assess the comparative ROIs and make the right purchase decision.

Political Play: No show hands of hands, please

Great AP story.

CHICAGO (AP) — It's a cardinal rule in politics: Know your audience.

Democrat Barack Obama, speaking in a high school gymnasium this week in Kaukauna, Wis., said nearly a quarter of Republican John McCain's proposed tax cuts would go "to households making over $2.8 million every year."

He asked for a show of hands from those in that category. Not one went up in the crowd of more than 1,000.

A few hours later, at a $28,500 per person fundraiser at the opulent Chicago home of Sara and James Star, Obama took the same jab at McCain's tax plan. This time, however, he wisely skipped a show of hands from his 60 donors.

Compiled by Charles Babington