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Does man have an inalienable right to rebel against his own government? Thomas Jefferson once said famously "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing." He was speaking about the Shay's Rebellion, a revolt by farmers in Western Massachusetts against the court system being used by rich landowners and banks to lock smaller landowners in debtor's prisons. Most people only ever hear that quick blurb from Jefferson, usually quoted by libertarians justifying their more shocking statements in favor of anarchy. Historians sometimes trot it out when they wish to paint Jefferson in a light of slight lunacy, but he goes on in his letter to explain himself: "I hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governments so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not ot discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."

So what does it mean to be complete? When a project manager asks a software engineer if they are done with an item on the project plan, what does that mean? To one engineer, that means they’ve coded their page, but they’re not done testing, but, hey, things are done. To another engineer, done means they’ve completed coding and testing and they’re in the process of documenting everything before handing if off. Some even just say it’s done to get the project manager to go away. So how does a PM really know the true state of the application?

In light of the actions taken by the Mayor of San Francisco, and the current uproar on the Christian Right to take the Mayor to court, I thought it was important to discuss something called 'Jury Nullification'.

I promised more information on Brian Douglas Wells, the pizza delivery guy from Erie, PA that robbed the bank while wearing the collar-bomb and blew up while surrounded by the State Police.

The FBI has put up the following page seeking more information. It looks like, from the evidence they've released, and the information they're seeking that Mr. Wells was indeed coerced into committing the crime, and was not acting on his own.

Also, the cane gun that he was carrying was provided to him by the same person who placed the bomb around his neck.

There is a plague that is enveloping IT, and has for many years now, fed, in part by the .COM boom. It affects every project, and every firm that I have dealt with. The industry has it’s paradigm upside down, and whether this is because the IT industry suffers from some inferiority complex or it’s just been taught that this is how you do business, it’s going to continue to sink projects and destroy firms unless something changes. The plague is the fact that companies let their customers run their projects and make IT decisions, even if the customers are not informed or educated about IT. We let the customer make decisions about coding standards, features to add, delivery dates, layout, etc.

Many people see a President trying to make people's lives better and help them out. Other people see a president trying to cut through a morass of laws and set up some clear laws for dealing first with privacy, and now spam.

Whether this was done intentionally or not, (though I have my reasons to believe that it was done intentionally), what I see is Bush is setting up a dangerous legal precedent to strip all powers from the States. I'm not the only one echoing these fears. Both of the articles I linked above note that the laws passed by Dubya overrule stricter state laws. How does that protect the consumer?

So, this has very little to do with the ticket I just got (59 mph in a 35). I have been thinking for a while about speed limits, both on regular roads, on the PA Turnpike.

These two ideas are not really related, though they could be I suppose:

1. I think that the speed limit on the Turnpike should be raised to 100 mph. Then what happens is, every mph over the normal speed limit (65) I go, I would pay a little extra when I exit the Turnpike. So for example, I go between 75-85, I pay an extra $0.15 when I exit.

The extra money would be a windfall for the State, and it would be a great benefit for the drivers because we could drive safely at a speed we're comfortable at, without running the risk of getting caught, or having to slam on our brakes everytime we see a cop.

Let's face it. Many cars and drivers can safely go faster than 65, and on the Turnpike, or some other mostly straight stretch of road, 65 seems SOOOOOO slow. It's natural for you to want to go faster. So we should let people pay for the privilege.

2. On the other hand, perhaps we should abolish the speed limit and create a speed advisory system again. Look at it like this. There are times that you need to go faster, and there are times that you want to go faster. That should be a choice you as an adult should be allowed to make. But some roads certainly should provide some guidance to the driver. So they post a 'Speed Advisory' saying 'Recommended Speed: 45'. You have the choice of driving 75 on the road and not get in trouble. You can drive 80 on the road, and pass by a cop, and not get in trouble.

But if you're going above the advised speed and you get into an accident due to your own negligence, there could be additional penalities if it goes to trial. If you're going above the advised speed and you get into a terrible accident, your insurance company may not pay all of the expenses.

The idea is to let the driver decide how fast they feel like driving without having to worry about getting caught, or getting in trouble, and if anything goes wrong the responsibility returns to the driver.

This system I find much more agreeable to the proposed English solution that would monitor your speed and automatically issue you a ticket if you exceed the limit. What if you're driving to the hospital because your wife is giving birth? Oooo, that's going to cost you extra. What if you're going to a very important client meeting, and you're late? Too bad for you.

Would either of these systems work? Well, sure! We're all adults, or some reasonable facsimle thereof. Many roads in Germany do not have a speed limit, and they do not suffer from more, or more tragic, traffic accidents. There are roads out west in the US that do not have speed limits and they also do not suffer from greater or more tragic accidents.

I'm always in favor of systems that allow people to act on their own best judgement with a minmum of interference.

I know that can sometimes be scary, but I think once you got used to it, you'd like it too.

You know, George Carlin once said "There's a bigot in every house on every block in America" and I laughed when he said it. His statement echoed similar statements from other people like Malcolm X. But I never really thought it true.

But thinking about it, I realized that I am indeed a bigot. I'm not a bigot ala David Duke, or Archie Bunker. I've got black friends, and Indian friends, and friends of many other colors. But I'm still a bigot.

I grew up in a neighborhood full of people from all around the world. My mom's from Europe, and my baby-sitter during the day while my parents worked was a kind old black lady named Mrs. Jackson. (She eventually moved away from Virginia to join her family in Jacksonville, FL, which to me as a kid was the coolest thing ever. I wanted to live in Reevesville. I even asked my mom one time if they named the town after her, I idolized that woman that much.) But I'm still a bigot. Yes, still a bigot even though I regularly go to lunch with my Indian co-workers at the local Tandoori grill, and hang out with the Chinese people at my office.

How am I still a bigot?

I can't stand poor white people, specifically, those known as 'white trash'. I have an immediate, rabid reaction to "white trash". I don't even know why, but it's automatic. I can't go to Wal-Mart (there seems to be a higher concentration of white trash in my local Wal-Marts than you find elsewhere) without breaking out in hives. It's not a reaction against the South. I love the South. It's not against poor people in general. I've been poor in the past, and I'm not rubbing elbows with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. It's not even country music, or fans of country music. See, I can't even plant my finger on the exact combination of characteristics that bother me, but I know it when I see it.

I'm not happy with being a bigot. I'd like to think that I judge each person on their own merits, and give everyone a chance, and I guess I do, though "white trash" has a much harder time convincing me.

This is something I've felt since I was a kid! I remember mocking my cousin because he had a thick Southern accent, and was an overall-wearing, shoeless, backwoods, countrified white-boy, and it drove me crazy then.

So, what's the cure then? Go to a bunch of county fairs and get in touch with my white roots? Meet the kissing cousins, and go catch me a greased pig? Hop on the John Deere and drive down to a John Michael Montgomery concert, wearing my nicest Skoal cap? More importantly, how do I make sure that I don't transmit this down to my own children.

Maybe Carlin, Malcolm X, and the rest are right after all, and our bigotry isn't just confined to other races or genders, but can be applied to any group, by anyone.

I'd want to sue my senators, representatives, members of Bush's administration, and George Bush himself for breach of contract.

"What contract?" I hear you mutter. Why, their oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" which they took when they were sworn into office. An oath is an oral contract, one that the swearer is bound to follow or suffer the consequences. A good example would be the oath witnesses take in court to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth", which, if they violate, they are arrested for perjury. Or how about the oath that members of the military take to follow orders and defend the Constitution, which if they violate, they are subject to imprisonment on a raft of charges. In some states, someone can be charged with adultery if they break their wedding vows!

So back to the matter at hand. What have these collected politicians done to qualify them to face such a suit?

On Sept. 3rd, Marketplace, a daily business news radio show broadcast on NPR, had author and consumer advocate Jamie Court on to discuss who he viewed as the real culprit of August's East Coast blackout. He squarely placed the blame on deregulation and called for more government oversight and control of the grid and energy companies.

However, Mr. Court did not consider, or mention two things:

A story came across the newswires about a man that was forced to rob a bank.

How can you force someone to rob a bank, you ask. 46-year-old Brian Douglas Wells, a pizza delivery guy, went to a remote location outside of his home town of Erie, PA to deliver a pizza, and showed up an hour later at the local PNC bank with a "sophisticated" bomb strapped around his neck and a note demanding money. He successfully got out of the bank with the loot, but was stopped soon after by the State Police. Once stopped, he pleaded with the police that they had to remove the bomb because it was going to go off soon. He then told them his story: of going to deliver the pizza, being forced to wear the bomb, and rob the bank. The police listened, but did not remove the bomb, and it exploded, killing him.

The movie industry has announced that their own inability to make a decent movie is not to blame for declining movie revenues at the theatres. It's the fault of people with cellphones texting their friends telling them the movie sucks!

This is like blaming the butler because he brought you out a shitty meal instead of the cook in the kitchen.

Honestly, if the movie industry was not intent on trying to make us suffer through such shlock like 'Gigli', 'T3', 'The Hulk', '2 Fast 2 Furious', and 'Freaky Friday' and actually gave us something worth watching, their revenues would increase.

That would seem to be common sense, but when have you heard about the MPAA acting with common sense lately?

What scares me even worse is that this will add weight to the people saying that they should ban all cellphones from theatres, and put shielding in the walls of theatres to block cellphone signals. I'm not saying I like to gab in the theatre while a movie is playing, but as a parent, I'd like to be able to get a phone call from the babysitter if something happens.

Honestly, if free speech and word of mouth are such a detriment to your sales because people hear how badly your product sucks then MAKE A BETTER PRODUCT!

Honestly, can you imagine if Ford went around in the early 80's and said "If people would stop telling each other that their Pinto's exploded when tapped from behind, we wouldn't have any trouble selling them!"

Recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that New York City will indicting begin indicting the DNA of unknown sexual offenders to circumvent the statute of limitations on these crimes.

Typically, a crime has a statute of limitations of about 10-20 years, and if in that time, the criminal is not caught, the authorities are not able to charge the guilty party with that crime. However, if the criminal is known, and they have enough evidence to get an indictment, it stands forever until the criminal is officially brought in and tried in a court of law. This way, if the criminal leaves the country, they can still charge him later for that crime, as long as he's already been indicted. The statute of limitations is in place for several reasons: people do crazy things when they’re young, and it shouldn’t be possible to convict them in their 50’s for something they did in their 20’s. Furthermore, it makes sure that a crime is prosecuted when the evidence is available and in good condition.
So here's the goofy thing.

Instead of indicting the actual person, New York City will now indict your DNA profile. Now, the dictionary defines an indictment as a formal written statement framed by a prosecuting authority and found by a jury (as a grand jury) charging a person with an offense (source www.m-w.com). A person. The target of an indictment might be a company, though it is most often a person. So how can your DNA be indicted? DNA is not a person, it’s part of who makes you what you are, but you’re more than just your DNA. A dead person is a pile of DNA, but they’re not committing acts of murder. Hair clippings on the floor at your barbershop are DNA, but it’s not involved in criminal activities. DNA didn't commit the offense, the person did. Indicting DNA is like indicting the car driven in a hit-and-run, or the gun used in the murder.

IT MAKES NO SENSE.

But the lunacy of indicting DNA is no the only problem. This raises a whole set of issues: If you’re the actor in a crime, and your DNA gets indicted, could your children be help culpable for your crime? How specific does the DNA match have to be? What if you were at the scene of the crime, but had nothing to do with it, and your DNA's all over the place? Say you've got an incessant drooling problem, and you drip like a Great Dane everywhere you go. If you drip your saliva all over a crime scene, are you going to get put in jail?

How far does this go? Has anyone thought this through?

Honestly, if DNA can be indicted, and otherwise treated as a human, does this suddenly mean a fetus can be declared a person? Or can anything be indicted: my cats, my lamp, my computer?

If the voters of New York really view the statute of limitations as such an onerous burden, they should do away with it, rather than this murky and frightening end-run around the law. Even if the intentions of the city are good, the execution of this law leaves a bad taste in my mouth.