August 2006 Archives

Sarah Chayes, formerly an NPR correspondent who was reporting from Afghanistan during the US invasion, moved to Kandahar to be part of the rebuilding and revival of the country. She reported on stories like the raid on the Kandahar airport, and other such events. Turns out those raids were lies. In a recent interview on NPR's All Things Considered Ms. Chayes commented that those stories told to her by Afghani warlords were fabricated. These stories came from US handlers so they could be fed to reporters in order to make it appear that there was a groundswell Afghani rebellion against the Taliban.

That report made me wonder what really happened during the raid on the mountains of Tora Bora where Afghani warlords were supposedly fighting the forces of Bin Laden but let Bin Laden slip away.

Ms. Chayes also has some interesting things to say about how the US is giving Pakistan a free pass on training and harboring terrorists, which President Bush said we would not tolerate.

Frankly I don't know why this isn't bigger news, but it was jaw-dropping to me. I'm not shocked that the president tried to manipulate the media, but just that no one else has raised this question of what really happened in Afghanistan.

Two interesting stories via Sepia Mutiny that point to some disturbing trends:

A cable provider in New York was arrested for providing broadcasts of Al-Manr, the TV station of Hezbollah. The reasoning is that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization (which it is) and therefore showing the broadcast somehow provides material support. I don't follow the reasoning with that. Certainly the KKK has killed a lot of people and blown up buildings and the like, but they have the freedom of speech. Is this because it's a broadcast instead of a magazine or a public gathering? Either way, I don't see how he violated any laws by providing the rebroadcast, even as repugnant as I find Hezbollah. (Link)

Secondly, two men, a father and son, of Pakistani origin, but both Americans were detained at the Hong Kong Airport and told there was trouble with their passports. When they were apart from the crowds they were informed they'd have to fly back to Pakistan and submit to an interrogation by the FBI in Pakistan (a country known to torture during interrogations) before being allowed to continue to the US. They're crime? None. They're just related to a guy in California who is charged with providing material support to terrorists. The kicker, after finally agreeing to fly back to Pakistan, they were told the US wouldn't pay for them to fly back because they're already on the No-Fly List, so they had to foot the bill for their own flight back to their own interrogation in a country known to disregard human rights.

The big issue here is that they're american citizenz. They have rights that are guaranteed to them that they should be protected by, but the US government is basically asking them to waive their rights before they can re-enter the country. That's crazy. (Link)

Hat tip to Sepia Mutiny for highlighting the two stories.

It surely is a sign of the times that several South Asians on a flight to Mumbai, which shouldn't be surprising, Indians flying to India, wow, were arrested for passing around their cellphones and ignoring the flight attendants, but a white kid flying in from Argentina with DYNAMITE in his luggage, plus blasting caps, ammonium nitrate, and a detonator is cleared of any possibility of terrorism.

Link to the CNN story or or the MSNBC story if you like

I know I've been spending a lot of time talking about South Asians (hey guys, thanks for visiting!) and terrorists (I doubt they visit) and I wanted to take a moment to highlight some good old American police abuses:

Emiliano Gonzalez was pulled over in Nebraska while driving a rented car. He had a cooler in the backseat which contained $124,700 in cash, but nothing else. Suspecting drugs, the officers called in a drug-sniffing dog, which barked at the money, so the police took the money. They didn't charge Mr. Gonzalez, there was no proof that he'd been involved in a drug deal, but they got the keep the money. In this country, if the police so much as suspect that the property, including money, is somehow involved in a drug deal, they get to seize the property. Mr. Gonzalez went to court to get his money back and the Federal Court of Appeals decided against him. Link

But it's not just the money that police feel like they get to seize and use. Two Philadelphia police officers raped scores of women over the last few years because they were prostitutes and exotic dancers. The real kicker is that even though they've done this to many women who have testified against them and there's enough evidence to convict, these two shitheads aren't going to jail. In fact, they think they're the victims. Link

Bruce Schneier has an interesting article on fighting terror with anti-terror: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/what_the_terror.html

There's one point that I'd like to highlight from his piece:

“Imagine for a moment what would have happened if [the London plotters] had blown up 10 planes. There would be canceled flights, chaos at airports, bans on carry-on luggage, world leaders talking tough new security measures, political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people panicked. To a lesser degree, that's basically what's happening right now.”

The most effective thing terrorists could do now is further isolate the Muslim and Southern Asian communities in the West. I'd pointed at this in my article Is Bin Laden Important Anymore?. By isolating those communities and putting them under a cloud of permanent suspicion it creates a culture where

1. More terrorists grow organically in their host countries
2. More people in non-Muslim nations distrust all Muslims
3. And we adopt all of the markings of a truly violent conflict between Islam and non-Islamic cultures

The recent acts that Schneier highlights of people refusing to fly with South Asians, with people hyper-ventilating on planes out of fear of blowing up, points to a ratcheting up of people's suspicions, suspicions which will only drive communities further apart. Conspiracy theories would abound on both sides of the cultural divide, further increasing the distrust. Angry young men, desperate, and feeling hopeless, will organize themselves into active, undirected but dedicated cells, and the cycle of real violence will continue. I believe this to be bin Laden's primary goal, and I think we're 30 - 40% of the way there.

Keeping these ideas in mind, Rich Harlos and I ran through some mental exercises recently where we identified one tactic, one which I think we'll see used soon, if it hasn’t been already:
Handlers in another country would create several cells in Western communities, and are given plans for several different acts to carry out. A month or two before the terrorist plans are to be carried out, those same handlers who organized the cells would leak information about the plans so that the information is intercepted by Western intelligence. The information is quickly analyzed and used to send the police to arrest the cells. The arrests of more cells causes further panic, distrust, and tighter security measures. Politicians would call for even tighter immigration controls, more limits on people’s freedoms, and broader police powers. And people would, for the most part, give in.

To add one further wrinkle though, if I were planning this whole affair, the leaked information would contain details for twice as many cells as really existed. The threat of ghost cells never found would make police and intelligence forces twist in the wind and arrest scores of innocent people in the hope of snaring terrorists that never existed in the first place.

The psychological toll taken on the Western nations would be immeasurable. I’d be inclined to think that hate crimes against Muslims and Indians would be almost tolerated, and people would almost certainly protest for all South Asians to leave the country, causing irreparable harm to our economy and culture. In fact, I think this constant culture of fear and panic is already destroying our culture.

In light of that, I think Schneier's point, and mine previously, about not over-reacting to this information, and to acts of terrorism in general is crucial to not letting the terrorists win.

Word is, when they do the sequel to Snakes on a Plane, probably next year sometime, they're going to forego snakes and other creepy crawlies all together in favor of South Asians, because that's what really seems to scare the shit out of white people these days:
"Everybody Listen! We have to put a barrier between US and the BROWN PEOPLE Brown People on the MuthaFuckin Plane".

Luckily an air marshal was on the plane to stop the brown people (who were suspiciously traveling to Mumbai, what's with all the brown people in Mumbai? It's like they live there or something) from settling in for the 18 hour flight by playing video games on their cellphones and getting drinks out of their bags. (CNN Link)

I wanted to take a moment to point to the Josh Wolf blog: http://www.joshwolf.net/blog/. Josh Wolf is a citizen journalist and blogger who was arrested recently for refusing to hand over some video from a G8 protest. He claims that he's a journalist and his materials, like video, are protected by the same laws newspapers and other such organizations use to protect their journalists.

The Federal government countered that because a police car was torched during the process, the DHS spent money on that police car, it constitutes destruction of Federal property and they've thrown him into jail for it. Very squirrely logic. Time Magazine has a much better right up about the whole affair here.

It's a bullshit detention and one that shouldn't be happening, and people (such as myself), are starting to speak out against the whole thing. BoingBoing has a breakdown of the whole thing here.

Read and be amazed about the government abuses.

We've heard many times in the last few years about the jihadi videos being found in the homes of suspected and actual terrorists, usually containing stirring music, rhetoric from bin Laden, and scenes of Westerners and Israelis dying. Why do young Muslim terrorists keep showing up with these videos?

They're pornography. More directly, it's terrorist pornography. No, there's no jiggling boobs or acts of lust in the videos. But it's purpose is the same. It was made to titillate and excite and arouse the viewer. In some Muslim households it would probably be worse for the person to be found with a copy of Battered Buttholes 8 than bin Laden's latest tape. Hmmm, now that I've said that, I wonder how true it is.

This is not some peculiarly Muslim institution. In the US we've got the "Turner Diaries" and "Hunter", which in book format are essentially the same thing.

Heather and I were driving home tonight after her doctor’s appointment. It had been a long day of taking the train into Philly, sitting in the doctor’s office from The View all the way through the end of All My Children and then rushing back to 30th Street Station, only to miss the train by a minute. We’d run down the platform shouting at the conductor, our long overdue Taco Bell lunches in hand, until she gave us a wry grin, shook her head, and hollered back “Sorry, you’ll have to catch the next train to Harrisburg”.

Great, only another 90 minutes to wait. I sat and people-watched at the station while Heather slept against me. I sat for a while and watched the condensation collect and drip down the sides of my soda. We waited and waited and waited. Waited for the train to board. Waited for the train to go. Waited for the train to finally get to Harrisburg.

Finally at the end of the longest 10 mile drive home from the train station, we were stopped at a light to pull down the street into our development and we sat behind a guy in this 20-year old Bimmer convertible. It looked like one of those vials the lead for mechanical pencils come in, not curved and sleek. The guy behind the wheel had a bald spot that reflected back pink from the red traffic light above him. So I looked closer at him to try and guess his age. His ears were sagging and the skin behind it was starting to wrinkle just a little. He gesticulated wildly in the air and yelled into his cellphone; a gun-metal-gray cellphone the size of a loaf of Wonder Bread. His black Members Only jacket matched his Bimmer. I closed my eyes for a moment and heard strains of “Boys of Summer” running through my head.

I laughed when I pointed him out to Heather and I’m still giggling a little bit, I feel a lot of empathy for that man. He was having a great time, in this late summer day, and not hurting anyone. I thought about if for a moment, but I don’t know why he’d not grown with the times. Maybe he just enjoyed the 80’s that much that he didn’t want to move on. Sometimes it feels nice to go back to the times when that stuff was new and dazzling. Or maybe he just drove through some rip in the time-space continuum, and he was on his way to see Dr. Emmett Brown or Buckaroo Banzai before all hell broke loose. Either way, I wish him good luck and Godspeed.

I don’t think Bin Laden’s important any more. Certainly not as important as he was 5 years ago, or 10 years ago. There’s certainly a bump in the amount of terrorism and suspected terrorism going on around the world right now, but I think his, and Al-Qaeda’s role is vastly overstated. Let me explain:

Bin Laden’s never been shy about his intentions: to drive a wedge between Western culture and Muslims, to preserve the strict form of Islam he practices, and to start a world-wide holy war between Islam, and non-Muslim powers. He clearly believes that in that jihad, Islam will come out the victor and will overtake the world.

Pre-9/11, Bin Laden worked with Muslims, through Al-Qaeda, to prepare for this war. But it didn’t prepare for war like a standing army or citizen militias like Hamas and the IRA. Al-Qaeda was meant to return to their countries and wait. They didn’t have to wait long.

The attacks of 9/11 were a wake-up call to the world. Governments around the world realized they were all at risk from Muslim extremists, and reacted immediately. For a while all Muslims became suspect. Even Sikhs from India were killed in the US because people thought they were somehow part of Al-Qaeda. The Muslim community pulled inward, isolating itself in countries, and living in fear of their own governments, of other people, and created the exact kind of environment that nurtures homegrown cells.

These homegrown cells, only loosely directed by the Al-Qaeda organization, led by the ranks of people trained in the years before 9/11 have taken off, planning and executing attacks through Europe, the Middle East, India, and Asia.

Bin Laden doesn’t need to call the shots any more. The young disaffected Muslims in countries feel persecuted, singled out, and put upon. Worse yet they see American and European foreign policies that support what they see as the further persecution of Muslims in places like Israel, Iraq, Chechnya, and Kashmir. This perceived feeling of persecution (interestingly enough the same kind of perceived persecution that leads Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity to claim that Christmas is under attack) feeds their rage and helps to propel them to action. Bin Laden’s only role in this is to make video tapes and audio tapes urging them to action.

But I don’t think capturing Bin Laden will have much effect at this point, other than satisfying the desire for justice in the US. He’s not in charge any more.

He didn’t direct the angry protests, riots, and murders that came from the Danish Mohammed cartoons. The rose spontaneously out of those same feelings that Bin Laden sought to engender. He didn’t have to direct someone to put bombs on German trains (that thankfully didn’t go off): http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2139974,00.html. Homegrown Muslims felt their own furor at the Israeli bombing of Lebanon and acted. Homegrown Muslims in India blew up trains in Mumbai to protest their lack of involvement in the political process. Local Muslims in England blew themselves up on 7/7, and more recently a different group were at least discussing doing something new.

And this is why I don’t think Bin Laden’s important any more. He doesn’t direct anything anymore, in any tangible sense anyway. Instead he probably sits in some house in Peshawar watching the events of the world unfold and makes policy statements, like an elder statesman of terror. He drove a big wedge between cultures, or if you believe some, shone a spotlight on an existing gulf between cultures, and making that separation hurt.

Capturing Bin Laden would certainly soothe our desire for justice and for a time probably make the world feel safer, but if anything I think that it would increase the general sense of persecution and rage in some Muslim circles. And things would probably, for a time, get much worse from there.

I got a phishing email a few minutes ago, this one purporting to be from Western Union, which in an of itself is nothing new. I get at least 5 phishing emails a day, and average at least one "from" Western Union a week. But the thing that interested me in the email was that they included the phone number for Western Union's customer service number. Probably nothing new (I'm tired, it's late) but a thought occurred to me: "What if that's not the real number? What if that forwards to some phishers?" and I thought about it some more. It wouldn't be that hard or cost that much for someone overseas to set up a call center and route calls that are supposed to be going to Western Union or Citibank, etc to the call center where people's information can be stolen. I think that we'll start to see this more. The downside is, of course, the extra people that need to get paid and the extra people that can help the authorities if the phishers get caught...which limits the effectiveness of this attack, but there's another, more interesting alternative: VoIP URLs. Skype already offers the ability to use a skype:// or call-to:// URL structure, which should activate Skype and place the call.

Imagine a world where more people are using VoIP and get these phishing emails which encourage people to call up and it all routes to one person on a cellphone through Skype? Low cost, low risk, easy to implement...it's going to come people, the only question is when.

I had written a day or two ago that I doubt the evidence collected on the Pakistani side because Pakistan has a history of torture. Now, Craig Murray, former British Ambassador, writer, broadcaster, and exposer of human rights abuses, has a brief article that fills in a lot of information about the plot that's been missing from the news, and raises some important questions. Read it here: http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html)

I'm glad to know that others are holding the same amount of skepticism that I am about the whole affair. Andrew Sullivan's also picked up on the same Craig Murray article and is running with it: http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html.

In case you haven't heard, and you might not have, Sen. George Allen, while on the campaign trail, pointed out a staffer from his opponent's campaign and called him "Makaka". The problem? The staffer is from India of Indian descent, and Makaka is a racial slur, on par with calling someone a monkey.

So basically, Sen. George Allen stood in front of voters and used an outright racial slur. What a classy guy. For more breakdown on the whole event, visit here and here.

This is not the first time George Allen's raised some ire over his actions and statements on race. More on that here.

The terrorism arrests in London pose a particular problem for me. There's been a lot of evidence that shows that torture DOES NOT WORK. If you torture a person long enough he'll admit to and tell you whatever it is he thinks you want to hear so you'll stop torturing him. Now, while the British have said for some time that they've been watching this group of young Muslims, the big break came when two people were arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of working with bin Laden. (source: http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-08-11T151934Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-263229-6.xml) Soon after the arrests, Pakistan notified the UK and the US about the plot and the people were arrested. Now, some in the UK said that investigators were not planning to arrest these folks for a while, but were pressured by the US (source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452/)
based on the Pakistani intelligence. What if these suspected jihadists was tortured for information, and that was what set this whole chain of events into motion?

Pakistan is known to torture prisoners, even sometimes with the help and approval of the United States. (source: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/05/24/pakist11005.htm)

Does that still mean it's a victory against terrorism? Was the plot as serious as it was made out to be? Or was it made to be more than thought due solely to the information provided from the dark corners of the Pakistani interrogation rooms?

I saw this news story yesterday on the wire: Two LeT Men Arrested In Delhi. Two members of LeT were travelling through Delhi carrying 2 kilos of RDX (a plastic explosive) and detonators.

This came just before an advisory to Americans in India, particularly in Delhi and Mumbai, to be on alert for potential terrorist attacks. It's interesting to me that the Indian government would then say that that advisory is "innocuous". It definitely seems that there are major terrorist activities afoot, this month (10 year anniversary of Al-Qaeda declaring war on the US) and I think that Al-Qaeda is looking to strike on or near 9/11 again. They have this thing for anniversaries and symbolism.

In other thoughts, I was thinking about bin Laden, and how they claim that he's in Pakistan, hiding in the hills near Peshawar. But I always remain skeptical. And thinking laterally, I keep thinking about where I would hide if I were bin Laden, and I think of places like Miami Beach or the Catskills ("This is my new friend Benny Bin Laden") but then a thought occurred to me:

What if bin Laden were hiding in Venezeula? Stay with me for a moment. Hugo Chavez has repeatedly rattled sabers with the US and has no love for us. What if bin Laden asked him for refuge? I think he'd offer it. Speaking only partially glibly, they'd sit around and laugh at how much they both hate Bush, and how the US has troops marching all over eastern Afghanistan looking for bin Laden and Al-Qaeda when in truth they're hanging out in the jungles of South America. I don't think it'd actually happen, in part because there are so many Americans running around Venezeula, and there are still lots of people in that country who like the US, and more importantly, our military runs narcotics enforcement surveillance operations in the country, but it's an interesting idea. I propose it to get other people to think about other places where bin Laden might be hiding that's not Pakistan.

I am looking for the original source, which I'll link to, but did anyone else here that announcement from Michael Chertoff about new airline security regulations:

"Starting next week, all luggage will have to be checked. No carry-on luggage will be allowed on planes at all. Furthermore, to prevent the danger of suicide bombers, people will not be able to leave their seats during flights for any reason. In addition, more invasive searching of people and their possessions will be required. In order to make these changes possible, we're implementing the following regulations:
1. All infants will need to be checked at the luggage counter. A special nursery section will be added to the holds of airplanes that will most likely be pressurized for the entire trip.
2. Once seated, the flight attendants of the airplanes will come by and shackle you to your seats. We're going to leave people's feet unshackled for now and only shackle people's arms.
3. Each person will be fitted with a catheter before flight which will be hooked up to airplane's liquid waste removal system. Men will have the option of an internal or external catheter. The process of catheterization will also include a body cavity search.
4. All people flying on airplanes will now fly naked. We have had reports of people sewing explosive threads into their clothes, which could detonate on command. All clothes will be shreded at the airport prior to take off. You will be issued a government jumpsuit at your destination to wear while collecting your luggage.
5. All people will be shaved from head to toe prior to entering the plane. We must ensure the safety of all people on the plane, and with reports of explosive shampoo, we don't want someone's pompadour igniting.
6. There will no longer be any assigned seating. Upon boarding the plane, naked, shaved, and catheterized, you will be directed to a seat by a flight attendant. Families may no longer sit together, and all people who look similar will be separated.
7. During the flight, every person will be outfitted with a sterilized ball gag, which they will wear for the entire flight. This will prevent people from spontaneously expelling explosives they're previously swallowed.
8. Upon exiting the plane, all passengers will be shackled together at the hands and led by armed guards to the baggage claim.

We think this strikes a good balance between people's rights and the safety of everyone. Thank you."

Once I find a clip or the original text online I'll post a link.

I stood in the dark of my garage, balancing on two leftover pieces of banister. My father-in-law stood on a large piece of wood painted white that doubled as a work bench. I was holding a flashlight in one hand and long 2x4 in the other while he worked in the fuse box. I could smell my son's dirty diapers from across the garage and mosquitos picked mercilessly at my feet and ankles.

A little old grandma in Ohio has had a licence plate for 10 years which commerates her family's tree farm, the Naplewood Tree Farm, as NWTF. Now, the Ohio DMV, using their "socially and ethically diverse" board of censors has declared her license plate obscene and wants it gone. Which of course, prompts me to say "Now what the fuck?" (Link)

I had the absolutely worst nightmare I've ever had last night. I was stuck in a prison camp with my kids and some other people and we were free to walk around the building we were in, which smelled of sawdust and fire but we couldn't leave. The building was filled with power tools and industrial equipment, and some of the walls were lined with old wood paneling.

One of the other prisoners, someone I had become friends with, wanted to rebel, and I was tacitly encouraging him to, even though I was more focused on my kids. So he went into the other room and smashed one of the machines. The minute he did it I became horrified, as did the rest of the group we were captured with.

The lady that was running the building came in to find out who had smashed one of the machines but couldn't figure it out. She would swivel her head left to right looking at all of us and we all stood in silence looking at her. I held my kids close. Finally she grabbed my son Owen and dragged him into the next room. He dropped the little orange feather he had been playing with, this only thing that had been his toy in this camp. I quickly picked it and scooped up my daughter and starting talking in her ear so she wouldn't focus on them taking her baby brother and I was twirling the feather in my fingers trying to interest her in it: "Owen wants you to have this honey. He said you could play with this for a little while..." over and over again and I pressed my other hand against her ear so she wouldn't hear him scream when they killed him. And I cried and cried and cried. I heard one of the power tools start up and I woke up just as he was screaming while they killed him.

I woke up crying. There were tears running down my face and I felt weak all over. I went and found Owen and just held him for a while and cried in the middle of the night. I've never had a nightmare so horrible as that before.

I'm sure that, by now, you've seen part or all of the Girls Gone Wild article from Claire Hoffman, staff reporter from the LA Times. In it, she follows around Joe Francis from Mantra Entertainment, the company that produces Girls Gone Wild, and at one point gets physically roughed up by Joe, as he pins her to a car and almost breaks her arm until she gets free and punches him in the face.

The article is entirely negative to Joe and his enterprising ambitions, and I'm always interested in getting the other side of the story, so I called Joe Francis and he had this to say:

Look, I gave Sweet Tits Hoffman all our killer swag, the trucker hat, the thong, and the shirt, and she still wouldn't show me her tits. I kept sweet talking her, asking her if the carpets matched the drapes, did she shave her cooch, did she like it in the pooper, all the sure-fire lines I've used on the ladies, and none of it was working. NONE OF IT. So I did what I had to do. Just like when those 14-year-old girls in Bangkok wouldn't give it up...."

I think my client has said enough...

...that bitch wanted my baloney pony, she was just playing hard to get. I'm a stallion and she's just jealous I got tired of her. When I pinned her to that car I bet her panties were drip...

That's when his attorney terminated the call.

Well, there you have it folks. Just another day in the life of Joe Francis, at Girls Gone Wild. I feel edified, don't you?

Imagine a law, originally crafted to fight global hacking and virus writing, but would also allow the Chinese or the North Koreans or the Iranians to employ the FBI to muzzle dissidents and dissenters who employ websites in the US anonymously to speak out. Imagine a law that would allow foreign countries to use American law enforcement to uncover the identities of citizens in the US who are critical of their policies. Pure hypothetical bullshit you say?

No, it's not: The Convention on Cybercrime is a treaty that would allow other countries, most of which have many more restrictions placed on freedom of speech, to force American law enforcement to act against people who violate another country's laws. Consider, for example, someone who's family still lives in Cuba, but they live in the US and are vocal online against Castro. This law would permit the Cubans to get the identity of the person speaking in the US and commit reprisals against the person's family. Consider people in China who use the internet to get unfiltered information and to spread unfiltered information to the rest of the world. The Chinese government could use this law to find those people and jail them.

And in both cases, the FBI would be helping.

I find this repugnant and terrible, and I'm abhorred that our president would be advocating this bill. There is a provision in the treaty that would allow countries to refuse to enforce a law unless it was a crime in both countries (called dual criminality), which is fine, because it would then only pertain to things like real crimes.

The text of the bill can be found here: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/185.htm

I never stop learning. I'm constantly reading books to challenge myself, and seeking out different experiences to learn new things. Sometimes I think I should just write down everything I'm learning so I can look back on it later. So that's what I'm doing. Here's a collection of a few things I didn't know until the last month:

1. My Nissan Sentra doesn't have a distributor cap. It has coil-on-wire ignition. I spent several hours trying to find the distributor cap before I asked someone at Auto Zone where to find it, and they showed me the coil-on-wire assembly.
2. Installing railings in your house is a job for a skilled carpenter. Heather and I were going to do the work ourselves in our house, but decided in the end to go with a carpenter, in part for time constraints, but also because of the difficulty level. Maybe a few years down the road I'd try it myself, but not right now.
3. An ASP.Net TreeView control will not fire the SelectedNodeChanged event if you're using the TreeView in Navigation Mode. I had some events I wanted to occur when someone navigated away from a page, and tried to wire those events up to the TreeView control, as it seemed the logical place, but it won't work. I think that's a poor choice.
4. DirecTV can give me my local channels, but not my localized Weather Channel. I just assumed that they would have the localized Weather Channel, but no dice.

Well, that's all that occurs to me right now, but there's more. As I come across stuff that's surprising and interesting to me, I'll post it here.

In a crime that could only make Michelle Malkin happy, a Sikh in Northern California was stabbed in the neck with a steak knife because his attacker wanted to kill a member of the Taliban.

Never mind the fact that just because the victim, Iqbal Singh is a Sikh, not a Muslim, and had nothing to do with 9/11, he was obviously wearing a turban and had brown skin, so he must have been involved. So goes the logic.

Having worked with so many Indians now, I know the trouble they go through, especially the Sikhs, who do traditionally wear turbans. In Philadelphia, one guy that I worked with was routinely addressed as a Muslim, especially by members of the Nation of Islam (the radical religion purporting to be Islam but something totally FUBAR). Eventually he worked to educate people, and especially the police in Philadelphia so there wouldn't be as many mixups.

I keep thinking I should do the same thing here in Harrisburg.

Sepia Mutiny has a great writeup about the whole affair here.

When the shooting occurred at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, a majority of the right-leaning pundits leaped upon the fact that the shooter Naveed Afzal Haq looks Arab and has a Muslim sounding name. Chief in laying the case was our own "Lady of the Death Camps" Michelle Malkin, who posted "evidence" that he was Muslim and his attack was against the center because apparently all Muslims don't like Israel, or something like that.

Except he's not Muslim. He converted to Christianity last year, and his attack was more about Israel's bombing of Lebanese civilians and the US foreign policy in Iraq. He's apparently a very unstable person, and this was a tragedy that unfolded from that instability.

Rather than be deterred by her incorrectness, Malkin added a link across the top of her post which points to 'a random gallery of "lone" shooters' ( quotes hers, I guess implying that they're working together as part of some larger network, or maybe that Allah told them to do it, whaterver ). This is meant to demonstrate to us how there are all these muslims acting out their aggression through violence on civilians. This is her munificent proof, ladies and gentleman, that Muslims are EVIL and should be locked up in concentration camps.

So let us turn our attention for a second to Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh. Good Christian boys, like Bobby Frank Cherry, recently convicted for involvement in the bombing of churches in Birmingham, AL. Maybe we should round up the Christians of certain fundamentalist demoninations and throw them camps as well.

You think she'd go for that? Of course not. She wouldn't want to advocate anything radical.

I've been reading Trailing Technology lately, a blog by Scott Carney, a freelance writer who has written for magazines like Wired, etc before.

It's of interest to me personally because he lives in India, and it's fun to get his "outsider's view" on India, and current events in India. Always good stuff.

I'm also reading Sepia Mutiny recently too, for similar reasons.

I'm also very busy on working on the new house, which is why I've been so silent. Yesterday I was up until 23:45 installing blinds in my kids' rooms. We still haven't painted the windows in their rooms so the hardware's sitting in little yellow cups on the window sills. The heat outside creeps into the rooms during the day and makes the upstairs unbearable. Putting up blinds to keep the heat out will help, and my wife and I did that, drilling the posts and shims into the window frame, hanging the blinds, shortening them, and cursing the nimble fingers of the assemblers to tied the intricate knots in the bottom of each button holding the lift cords. But by this morning you could feel a noticable difference in each of their rooms, so it was all worth it.

Tonight I'm hanging the blinds in my room so I'm not flashing the neighbors while I get dressed, and assembling dressers. The house is coming together slowly, but I'm having a great time. I've wanted a house I could work on for a while, and I got what I wanted.