Wednesday 11 August, 2004 at 10:49AM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (10)  ::  trackbacks (1)

It's time I had a rant. Political Correctness, also known as 'PC'. In my mind, a little PC can be interpreted as simple respect for others, and that in my books is a good thing. Unfortunately it seems that Political Correctness has got way out of hand in the US, to the point where common sense is left floundering in the dark much of the time. Political Correctness is a powerful enough tool that it has even rendered the all-powerful Patriot Act ineffective in some cases.

I'm not particularly fond of some of the basic rights that have allegedly been ignored when the Patriot Act has been utilized in the past, but when used as intended, I believe the Act is actually a good thing when faced with the threat of terrorism as we are right now. In other words, I'm not against the Patriot Act as such under the current circumstances, just against the abuse of it.

There are a number of cases where the Patriot Act would appear to have been abused, one of the more relevant to me personally being a while back where a website was shut down and the owner jailed. The site itself was intelligent and factual and often brought to light many controversial issues in the US that the average citizen would not have been aware of otherwise, although it also allegedly was an anarchist site and contained some pretty heavy anti-establishment ranting. I can only speculate that the increasing attention this site was getting (since it was not just the rantings of some nut on a crusade) was being perceived as a threat to some of the powers that be. A comment posted on the site by a visitor months earlier apparently discussed the making of draino bombs (or something relatively harmless like that), and it was the comment that was used to justify the arrest. It seems that it was viewed as a threat to national security and hence the site was shut down using the Patriot Act as a means of achieving it. To me it appears to have been an excuse to shut the author up because too many ordinary citizens were starting to sit up and take notice of what their government was up to, be it good or bad.

The stupid thing is, the increasing Political Correctness that seems to be prevalent in the US appears to be making the legitimate use of the Patriot Act (fighting terrorism) almost ineffective in some cases.

Only legally being allowed to search a maximum of two people of middle-eastern descent per flight at any airport in the US is a classic example of how Political Correctness is endangering lives and negating the effectiveness of the Patriot Act. Yes, racial profiling is controversial and questionable under many circumstances, but hell, if a spree of bank robberies are being committed by a 6-foot tall white guy with an anarchy symbol tattooed on his forehead, you don't expect the authorities to go around investigating 5-foot tall 90-year-old grandmas do you? Reality check. It's only common sense that they would target their investigation towards 6-foot tall white males with tattoos on their forehead. Political Correctness says that the authorities are not allowed to do this. How much sense does that make?

You just know that the same bunch of people who demand this Political Correctness will be the very first and loudest to yell and blame the authorities for not catching terrorists if they successfully strike the US again (and to be honest, I think it's a matter of when, not if they strike). It was apparently this same Political Correctness that meant the Air Mashals on board a recent flight (detailed here) could not act when a group of middle-eastern musicians started acting highly suspiciously during the flight.

To make matters worse, the Department of Transportation Secretary, Norm Mineta, was himself a victim of racial profiling when he was a young boy. Being Japanese-American, during WWII he was relocated to a kind of detention center because of his racial heritage. It is no surprise that he is now one of the Bush Administration's most ardent foes of racial profiling. Now while I can understand his motivations, is it really a good idea having someone in this position within the TSA being able to influence security procedures when it's quite likely that they have a personal bias against racial profiling which in turn influences their decisions? (TSA conducts nearly all airport passenger screenings and security in the US).

Personally I don't like the idea of racial profiling, but when you're investigating a crime, race of the perpetrator is just another factor in narrowing down the suspects, no more racist than concentrating on (for example) left-handed people if the crime under investigation was committed by a left-handed person. It's just plain common sense and deductive reasoning.

To those who promote this level of PC, it's time to pull your heads in - your cause is endangering the lives of innocent people. The US simply cannot afford to adhere strictly to your ideals in these troubled times, no matter how noble they may be. If the general profile of a possible terrorist also includes their race, then that should be part of the focus. Racism is not the motivator, keeping the US and your ass safe from harm is. If more people are killed as a result of your PC-enforced laws, then I will be blaming YOU for their deaths, at least in part.

exams over

      Tuesday 10 August, 2004 at 3:15PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (0)

Placement exams that is. YAY! The two English exams were easy and I think I'll get pretty high marks for those ..I think. The maths exam was a different kettle of fish - it was a lot shorter than I expected (considering the amount of material they could have covered) and it wasn't as hard as I was expecting either ..unfortunately that is not to say that I found it easy. I'm not confident that I achieved the mark I need (70 or 75% I think), I'll be very lucky if I do imho. If they apply scaling to it then I have no idea what the result will be.

I'll get my results in the mail in 4-6 weeks, although I'll find out before then what I scored since registration is only 3 weeks or so away. With a bit of luck I might be able to get some part-time work on campus as well - the pay is crap, but the convenience would be worth it so at least I'd have a few dollars more than what I've got now (which is none). Oh, I got a government (well, state) grant too, which should cover most of my fees I hope. Kewl huh?

I've become so used to full-on study recently that as soon as I got home I pulled out my books to continue study.. DOH! ..which reminds me, I have to return all these maths books to the library tomorrow. I'll be needing them again though, for sure.

..update : ended up with 100% for English written, 93% for English comprehension, and 93% for the mathematics. Nice.

huge surf

      Saturday 7 August, 2004 at 12:38PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (0)

If you're into checking out big surf, you've gotta check this out. From the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards come these videos (via mavsurfer.com). The winner, Pete Cabrinha, rode a world record 70foot wave at Jaws (Maui, Hawaii) on January 10th, 2004, to take out the title. That is a friggin' monster of a wave. The videos are in quicktime (.mov) format; if you don't currently have the quicktime player, there is a link to download it when you go to view the movies. If you're on a dialup connection it may take a while for the movies to load. The first video is the wave that got Pete the title, the second video is from the same day of Pete riding a couple of other monsters. Go for it (just click the little vidcam icons).

Pete Cabrinha's 70 foot monster ride at Jaws, Maui, Jan 10th 2004 (1.9MB)

Pete Cabrinha surfing Jaws, Maui, Jan 10th 2004 (hosted on youtube.com)

Insane or what? I'd be filling my wetsuit on a wave like that.

near miss by asteroid 2004 od4

      Thursday 5 August, 2004 at 10:44PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (1)  ::  trackbacks (1)

I was just checking out NASA's Near Earth Object Program website and realized we has a pretty close call recently. On 16th July an asteroid of up to 25m (82feet) in diameter traveling at about 32,000kmh (20,000mph) sped past earth at a distance of 0.4LD. The LD is an abbreviation for a measurement called Lunar Distance, which is the equivalent of about 384,000km. That may sound like a lot, but here's a relativity check; the moon is about 384,000km from earth (which is I clearly how the LD measurement came about), so this asteroid was a whole lot closer to the earth than the moon is. Hrmm. The name of the asteroid was '2004 OD4'.

On 29th September there's another one coming relatively close, and it's a big sucker. Named '4179 Toutatis', this asteroid is up to 5.2km (3¼miles) in diameter and traveling at a speed of nearly 40,000kmh (25,000mph), and will apparently come within 4LD from earth. The impact of an asteroid of that magnitude could quite likely wipe us out for good.

To give you some idea of consequences, I found the following info from this website after a quick search:

• Asteroids under 100feet (diameter):
  Don't always make it to earth but instead explode in the atmosphere. If they do, the damage is localized.
• 150 to 200feet:
  Severe local damage; a city could be flattened. The Tunguska event was caused by an object of around 200 feet. The energy released was in the order of 10 megatons of TNT. Trees flattened up to 20 km away from the blast wave, fires.
• 200 to 1000feet:
  Progressively increasing area of damage. A region or entire state could be affected. Could leave a crater 3-10 miles in diameter.
• 1000feet to 1mile:
  Continent killers. Energy release of 10,000 to 1 million megatons of TNT. Although the scale of destruction is huge, they would probably not produce catastrophic global effects.
• 1mile to 10miles:
  These huge objects can cause global catastrophe. The dust cloud would block out sunlight, leading to falling temperatures, failed crops, mass starvation, etc. More severe impacts cause mass extinctions. At the upper end of this range was the Chicxulub event, in the Yucatan region of Mexico. This was caused by an object of about 10km in diameter impacting the earth, and probably led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. The energy has been estimated at 100 million megatons of TNT.
• Over 10miles diameter:
  These events are so rare that it's hard to find direct evidence of them on earth. The Chicxulub event left a crater about 180km accross. Larger craters have been found, possibly caused by objects in the 10-15 mile range. Objects that are much larger are not known to have impacted earth, but it's possible to guess what would happen. The impact energy would raise the surface temperature, boil off the oceans, sterilize the earth. The earth's surface might revert to a molten state. Volcanism and earthquakes would shift and fracture the continental plates, the earth would be quite unrecognizable. There are not many objects in the solar system that could do this, and currently none are known that have a chance of impacting earth in the foreseeable future.

Well, that was comforting reading..

jeff crowe the wandering golfer

      Tuesday 3 August, 2004 at 5:51PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (2)  ::  trackbacks (2)

An email from fellow Kiwi and personal friend Yvonne bought this to my attention. New Zealand cricketer Jeff Crowe is in line for winning his dream job in USA hosting a golf tour programme, but can only win the job via votes. Obviously he isn't as well known in the US as the three other contenders so he needs all the help he can get. All you Kiwis out there already know who he is and know he's a top-notch international-level sportsman and a great entertainer (not to mention he has a golf handicap of 3), so get in and vote! Tell your friends and workmates to do the same. For those reading this that aren't Kiwis, trust me, he's the man for the job for sure. Please go give him some much-deserved support and vote ..and yes, he is related to actor Russell Crowe. To vote, click on this link, the voting panel is on the right hand side of the article - click the radio button next to his name & photo, then hit the submit button below the photos. Thanks.

new al qaeda threats on nyc

      Sunday 1 August, 2004 at 11:15AM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (11)

News items published on ABC News as well as CNN.com state that federal and New York City officials have received [new] credible intelligence that al Qaeda has been plotting to carry out suicide attacks on corporations based in the city.

Sources at several law enforcement agencies tell ABC News that an "overseas source" has provided the information about the threat to New York and that it is more significant than the usual "chatter" intercepted from likely terrorists that has prompted warnings in the past.

The alert level for New York City remains unchanged at 'orange' or 'high'. Although NYC has long been known as a primary target for terrorist attacks, this latest report seems to emphasize that an attempted attack is imminent, particularly in light of the November elections which are drawing ever closer. New York is already on heightened alert for the Republican National Convention, which meets at Madison Square Garden in a month and will bring scores of high government officials into the city.

The sources tell ABC News that Wall Street firms may be among the targeted U.S. corporations based in New York City, however which corporations or how many may be targeted has not been revealed obviously. Particularly disturbing to authorities were the intelligence reports that the attack may involve one or more suicide truck bombings, a tactic widely used by terrorists in recent times. In a worrying and [possibly] related incident, the 44-foot gas tanker stolen from a New Jersey parking lot two months ago is still missing.

A chilling reminder of Al Qaeda's intentions published on another site:

Al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith has said, "We have the right to kill 4 million Americans - 2 million of them children - and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons, so as to afflict them with the fatal maladies that have afflicted the Muslims because of the [Americans'] chemical and biological weapons."

Psycho. News agencies also report that intelligence sources say al Qaeda plans to move non-Arab terrorists across the border with Mexico. This appears to be supported by the recent arrest of Farida Goolam Mahomed Ahmed, a South African woman picked up in Texas about two weeks ago who 'may turn out to be a key, high-level al-Qaida operative'.

Further supporting this is an item from the Tombstone Tumbleweed which reports that a flood of middle-eastern males have been caught entering the country illegally east of Douglas, Arizona. While a Border Patrol information officer publicly denied the reports, another agent told the publication that "the men were suspected to be Iranian or possibly Syrian nationals."

Quoting from the publication;

On or about the early morning hours of June 13, 2004, Border patrol agents from the Willcox station encountered a large group of suspected illegal border crossers, estimated to be around 158, just east of the Sanders Ranch near the foothills of the Chiricauha Mountains. 71 suspected illegal aliens were apprehended; among them were 53 males of middle-eastern descent. According to a Border Patrol field agent, the men were suspected to be Iranian or possibly Syrian nationals.

"One thing's for sure: these guys didn't speak Spanish and after we questioned them harder we discovered they spoke poor English with a middle-eastern accent; then we caught them speaking to each other in Arabic - this is ridiculous that we don't take this more seriously, and we're told not to say a thing to the media, but I have to", said the agent."

On or about the evening of June 21, 2004, agents from the Willcox Border Patrol station apprehended 24 members of a larger group of Arabic speaking males located just east of the Pierce/Sunsites area of Cochise County. At least half of the males escaped capture and disappeared into the United States.

Call that Homeland Security? I sure don't - I guess they're too busy harassing US citizens at the airports.

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