Misc. Ramblings

Mitchell, McCord, Sturgis, Ehrlichman, Colson, Dean, Haldeman, Liddy, Segretti, Hunt, Richard M. Nixon. Names from the past. But one of the long kept secrets of the Watergate scandal was the identity of the person known only as "Deep Throat." The confidential source helped the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein by pointing them in the right direction when they could have just as easily gone astray. The question? Did the scandal go all the way to the President?

The answer was yes, it did. Not only did it go to the White House, the President personally directed the operations, including the so called dirty tricks part of the Committee to Re-Elect the President. The President managed, approved, and funded multiple burglaries, forgeries, and as a chilling example of things to come from Republicans, whispering campaigns full of half-truths or downright lies.

In the end, President Nixon tried to cover his illegal acts by wrapping himself in the flag and declaring national security concerns. He declared that those who would hold him accountable to the Constitution were unwittingly aiding the Communists. That now was not the time to investigate the President because there was a war on and soldiers were getting killed. That it was unpatriotic and dangerous to be looking at his actions and, in any case, he was immune from prosecution.

Comes now news reports quoting a Vanity Fair interview with former FBI Assistant Director W. Mark Felt, now 91 and living in California, as saying he is the man called Deep Throat.

The Republican spinmeisters will probably say otherwise but, in my opinion, whoever is Deep Throat is a patriot and deserving of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Without his actions, one of the most corrupt, anti-democratic, imperial regimes of the last century would have gone unpunished.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 09:10 AM | Permalink

Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky.
Be with them always in the air,
In darkening storms or sunlight fair;
Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air!
Mary C. D. Hamilton (1915)

Eternal Father, grant, we pray,
To all Marines, both night and day,
The courage, honor, strength, and skill
Their land to serve, thy law fulfill;
Be thou the shield forevermore
From every peril to the Corps.
J. E. Seim (1966)

Lord, stand beside the men who build,
And give them courage, strength, and skill.
O grant them peace of heart and mind,
And comfort loved ones left behind.
Lord, hear our prayers for all Seabees,
Where'er they be on land or sea.
R. J. Dietrich (1960)

Lord God, our power evermore,
Whose arm doth reach the ocean floor,
Dive with our men beneath the sea;
Traverse the depths protectively.
O hear us when we pray, and keep
Them safe from peril in the deep.
David B. Miller (1965)

O God, protect the women who,
In service, faith in thee renew;
O guide devoted hands of skill
And bless their work within thy will;
Inspire their lives that they may be
Examples fair on land and sea.
Lines 1-4, Merle E. Strickland (1972) and
adapted by James D. Shannon (1973)
Lines 5-6, Beatrice M. Truitt (1948)

Eternal Father, Lord of hosts,
Watch o'er the men who guard our coasts.
Protect them from the raging seas
And give them light and life and peace.
Grant them from thy great throne above
The shield and shelter of thy love.
Author unknown

Eternal Father, King of birth,
Who didst create the heaven and earth,
And bid the planets and the sun
Their own appointed orbits run;
O hear us when we seek thy grace
For those who soar through outer space.
J. E. Volonte (1961)

Creator, Father, who first breathed
In us the life that we received,
By power of thy breath restore
The ill, and men with wounds of war.
Bless those who give their healing care,
That life and laughter all may share
. Galen H. Meyer (1969)
Adapted by James D. Shannon (1970)

Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
And those who on the ocean ply;
Be with our troops upon the land,
And all who for their country stand:
Be with these guardians day and night
And may their trust be in thy might.
Author Unknown (1955)

Have a Great Memorial Day, Everyone - Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 10:39 AM | Permalink

Speaking of putting things in ones knickers. I don't believe this one is real but I link to it as a public service. This site says they are selling women's underwear with a built-in transmitter that will tell you the location, heart rate, and temperature of the wearer. The transmitter is supposedly powerful enough, using only a watch battery, to send its signal to a satellite. From there, you can use the companies software called "pantyMap(r)" to locate your loved one...

Yah, right. If you believe that, I have some ocean front property on the Big Island that I'll sell for a substantial discount.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been using cell/mobile phones for about 15 years. Up to last Monday, I'd lost only one phone. That phone somehow slipped out of the plastic holster that was clipped to the waistband on my trousers. It happened while I was getting into my wife's car. This occurred outside the courthouse where I work and I never found the phone.

On Monday, while getting into my wife's car, which was parked outside the courthouse where I work, my cell phone slipped out of the plastic...well, you know what comes next. Sigh. Two phones. Same place.

So that evening, I went to Cingular and bought the Motorola Razr V3. The price for this phone has dropped to as low as $100 from Amazon.com but, I think, that's after mail-in rebates and you all know what I think about mail-in rebates.

So far, I like the fact that is thin and light. But for my large fingers, what I like more is that it is relatively wide. When I was shopping for a new phone, many of the phones had tiny little keys. I have no idea how anyone is supposed to use them much less a six-foot tall Hawaiian with large hands.

Now that I have a new phone, I can begin getting accessories for it! My first is a leather case so that I can keep its anodized aluminum case scratch free. My second is a scratch resistant film called the Martin Fields Overlay Plus. Hopefully, this will keep the 2.2 inch color display from getting scratched or covered with visible fingerprints. My next accessory is the Motorola PhoneTools and USB cable.

This software allows me to, among other things, transfer wallpaper images and ring tones to my phone from my PC. This saves me money since I don't have to pay nearly $2USD per wallpaper or ring tone. I can also download to my PC photos that I've taken with the phone's camera. It also provides for easy creation and backing up of my address book and can sync with my calendar.

The only problem I've had isn't with the phone itself. It's with the Cingular voicemail. I don't use voicemail because I don't use my phone that often so I had Cingular turn that feature off. But with it off, and my phone off, people get the strangest message when they try to call my cell. What they here is a recording saying to enter the 10-digit phone number they are trying to reach. If they do that, what they'll get is a recording saying the number doesn't exist.

What doesn't exist is a voicemail box but the recording doesn't say that. It says the number doesn't exist. Not a GoodThing.

But that's a problem with Cingular, not the phone. The bottom line is I am very happy with my new toy valuable communication device. Now I need to see what other accessories I can buy for it.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 09:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

NASA has an interesting application called World Wind 1.3 (not to be confused with Whirled Peas 3.1 - ed.). Using a 3D engine, the application utilizes high resolution satellite images to create maps that you can "fly" though.

The 180MB application's system requirements are: Windows 2000 and above, Pentium 3/AMD Athlon, 256MB RAM, 3D graphics card, broadband connection and 2GB of storage.

Posted by DanS at 08:50 AM | Permalink

Republicans have been successful in making the word "liberal" have negative connotations. The next word to take a hit seems to be the word "progressive." For example, this column is from someone who says he is "leaving the left" because he can "no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives." In this two part post called Sanctuary, another writer echoes the call to abandon being progressive.

I have to ask, is being retrogressive a GoodThing? Isn't the root word of progressive: progress (from the Latin word for advance)? Isn't progress or advancement what most of us want? I mean, if you aren't trying to improve things, what are you trying to do? Make them worse? Is this what these people who look down on progressives want?

Further, what does it mean to leave the left? Does that mean you are joining the right? Or does it mean you are part of the majority who abhor the extreme rhetoric of both the far left and the far right?

I dunno. I agree that the far left, seemingly full of Socialists, is not where I find myself. But neither does it mean I agree with the far right tyrannical policies of expanding government's power over the individual citizen. Whether the bullet to the head comes from a faith-based black helicopter or a Socialist's AK-47, matters not to me.

What matters to me is the attitude that being progressive, that is reform minded, is a BadThing. I can't speak for anyone else, but as for me, I want to live in a world that is rational, forward looking, and open to accepting progressive reform.

If the these columnists want something else, then I want no part of their world.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Register is reporting a story about a woman in the UK who fainted while shopping. She apparently fell and hit her head in the process and was subsequently rushed to the hospital. Upon reaching there, the hospital personnel heard a buzzing sound coming from, ahem, somewhere between her legs.

During the pelvic examination, it was discovered the woman was wearing a pair of "vibrating knickers" called "Passion Pants." The panties feature a 2.5 inch vibrator, which the hapless, but happy and satisfied, women had *cough*, inserted where you would expect to insert such a device.

Posted by DanS at 08:35 AM | Permalink

Japan's Mainichi Dailey News is reporting some very racy stories from cab drivers. It seems that some women passengers are willing to trade sexual favors for free rides in the cabs. According to the article, 18 of 50 cab drivers reported getting propositioned while on duty.

Some of the stories appear rather far out there but I guess stranger things have happened. Note: don't follow the link if you are offended by strong sexual content [NSFW].

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, I'm back here at work and am under an avalanche of email. I want to get started on that as soon as possible so there won't be a post today (other than this one).

It would be helpful if I could access our email server from anywhere on the Internet, but due to security concerns from our Information Technology people, this is not possible. To get around this, I gave people my home email address but only a few actually used it.

I guess I shouldn't complain because I'm not supposed to do work from home, anyway. That said, I checked my phone mail on a daily basis and returned messages as needed.

Perhaps someday our IT people will hire a consultant to setup a secure mail server. Until then, access is restricted to only those on our Intraweb.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

All tools can be used for good or ill. It is the human being holding the tool that decides how it is used.

Such is the case with science. According to this CNN article, President Bush is unhappy that Congress would expand public funding for embryonic stem cell research.

In 2001, the President decreed that federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells be limited to cell lines already in existence. However, scientists have noted that many of the existing stem cell lines were contaminated and thus, unusable.

Conversely, many conservatives equate stem cell research with abortion and are therefore categorically opposed to it. While there have been notable exceptions, such as former First Lady Nancy Reagan, many conservatives still have strong concerns.

In this instance, the President is threatening to veto any legislation that expands stem cell research. The question before Congress is whether to expand our knowledge through science or let other countries lead the way while we metaphorically stick our heads in the sand and hope the whole subject will just go away.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sorry, no post today.

Posted by DanS at 01:40 PM | Permalink

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to Hate. Hate leads to suffering and the end of the Republic. Even as these words are being written, the Imperial Senate is debating the right of the majority to bring tyranny to all and to end over 200 years of freedom.

The majority Republicans, full of hate towards the Judiciary (insert disclaimer here), is trying to pack the courts with faith-based judges. In this case, faith-based is a code phrase for Jesus Christ centered judges.

Although I am a Christian, I do not want judges to reflect only one religion nor do I want them to make decisions based solely on their Christian faith. Either we are a country of laws or we are a country of priests.

One would have thought that we would have learned one of the great lessons of history: priests should minister to their fellow believers, not try to run countries. But I guess not.

I don't know if history will record a single event that will mark the end of the Republic of these United States, but this well could be it.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 09:41 AM | Permalink

Did you know that the worst sulfur dioxide air pollution site in the US is a volcano? Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawai'i to be exact. In fact, when the lava flows into the sea, a cloud of, among other things, hydrochloric acid is produced (you can read more about this from Yahoo! News here).

Now, before we go too far, you potential visitors out there don't need to go running and screaming like the Japanese in fear of Godzilla. It's mostly something residents of the Big Island need to be aware of. Ongoing studies are being done to determine just how bad this toxic mix is to residents (visitors don't need to worry too much because they aren't exposed long enough to have long-term, ill-effects. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here). But it is well known that the state of Hawai'i has the highest asthma death rate in the country.

Although, here on O'ahu, we are usually too far from the Big Island to have any problems, it does reach us when the winds are from that direction. When it is, we have what we call "vog", short for volcanic smog. But when the trade-winds return, all is blown out to sea.

Posted by DanS at 10:10 AM | Permalink

Speaking of smoke. With a hot, dry Summer fast approaching, it's brush fire season here. The latest is a fire in the Nanakuli area on the island of O'ahu. The fire has come close to burning some homes but so far, the fire fighters have been able to literally beat back the flames.

And, to coin a phrase, where there's fire, there's smoke. This story from KHON-tv tells of school closings due to the negative health effects of the thick smoke coming from the fires.

Posted by DanS at 10:08 AM | Permalink

For you Foodies out there, comes the UK Guardian Unlimited's The top 50 things every foodie should do. Some examples are: dismember a chicken (is that legal everywhere? -ed), eat lunch at Le Grand Véfour, slurp udon noodles in Takamatsu, and squeeze a fresh pineapple on the island of Lana'i.

Posted by DanS at 10:07 AM | Permalink

I may be able to do a lot of things, but learning different languages is not one of them. The US version of English is about all I can mangle manage so it should not come as a surprise that learning computer programming languages is not something that comes naturally to me.

Yes, I can usually learn enough of a language to be dangerous get the job done, but it's a struggle I don't look forward to.

For those of you who are aces at programming, you may be interested to know that Free Pascal 2.0 is on the wire. After five years in development the new Pascal compiler:

has excellent compatibility with TP 7.0 as well as with most versions of Delphi (classes, rtti, exceptions, ansistrings, widestrings, interfaces). A Mac Pascal compatibility mode is also provided to assist Apple users. Furthermore Free Pascal supports function overloading, operator overloading, global properties and other such features.

I assume the above description has meaning to you. As for me, other than the reference to, I think, Turbo Pascal (which I learned a long time ago in a ga...never mind), it's all Greek to me. In any case, go Forth and be fruitful.

unit testman;
interface
type
  myobject = object
    constructor init;
    procedure mymethod;
  end;
  
implementation
  constructor myobject.init;
  begin
  end;
  
  procedure myobject.mymethod;
  begin
  end;
  
  function myfunc: pointer;
  begin
  end;
  
  procedure myprocedure(var x: integer; y: longint; z : pchar);
  begin
  end;
  
end.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 10:06 AM | Permalink

The Microsoft spin meisters are at it again. Noted columnist Brian Livingston quotes a Microsoft IE product manager who said Firefox had had (at the time of the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), held in Seattle April 25-27)

"three major releases," she said, while Internet Explorer 6.0 had had none. This statement was presented as though a lack of upgrades to IE was a benefit.

In fact, Microsoft has released at least 20 major security patches for Windows or Internet Explorer since November 2004. Most of these patches were rated "Critical," Microsoft's most severe security alert level.

The evidence I've seen so far indicates that Firefox remains much more secure than IE.

Read Livingston's full report here. The bottom line is the only way to be completely safe on the web is to not surf at all. But for many people, the benefits of web surfing outweigh the cost. If you want to surf the web, you can reduce, but no eliminate, your exposure by turning off Java and Javascript/ASP/.Net (for e-mail, don't open attachments!). Without these enhancements, most security breaches cannot infect your system. YMMV. Use at your own risk. Don't try this at home. The door is a jar. Insert disclaimer here.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 10:46 AM | Permalink

Sorry, no post today.

Posted by DanS at 10:37 AM | Permalink

Many people realize that stopping e-mail spam at the source, while effective, is not easy. This TechWeb article on the state of Massachusetts' efforts to stop just one spam ring is illustrative of the problems.

For example, they are trying to catch a Russian, living in Boston, using domains registered in Monaco, Australia and France, and servers in China, Korea, Brazil and Taiwan.

All I can say is good luck.

In the mean time, use spam filters such as, but not limited to, SpamAssassin, PopFile, or Clam Anti-Virus and you should be able to catch 98 percent of the spam before it makes it to your in box.

Posted by DanS at 10:09 AM | Permalink

Speaking of the month of May, the Indianapolis 500 race is this month. I caught some of the practice runs on TV and am amazed at the huge cajones courage of these drivers. I mean, who in their right mind would drive a race car in excess of 225 mph around a 2.5 mile loop just inches from the outside wall? A split second of inattention will ruin your whole day...

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Congress is at it again. Once again, Congress is choosing the police state over freedom by grabbing power from the states and centralizing it in Washington. In this case, we're talking about a national ID card called Real ID.

In the name of security, Congress is mandating, among other things, state driver's licenses to include a "common machine-readable technology", RFID chips, and no post office box addresses. Each has real life costs higher than the imaginary benefits.

The author of the article states that the common machine readable technology will facilitate ID theft. Rather than having to deal with 50 different variations, organized crime and terrorists will be able to rely on one single point of failure in stealing your identity. Crack that one method and you are home free across the nation. What could possibly go wrong?

Secondly, RFID, with a transmission range of over 90 ft (see the Wikipedia article here) also facilitates ID theft. Unlike most magnetic stripe cards, which require third-parties to physically run the card through a reader, RFID merely needs to be within range of an electronic scanner. The information exchange occurs without user notification, knowledge, or consent. Your information is there for the taking by anyone with a reader within range of the chip. What could possibly go wrong?

Lastly, millions of people use post office boxes rather than street addresses. For some, it's a business convenience or physical necessity (there being no mail box). For others, it shields them from stalkers and terrorists intent on killing them. In any case, why does the federal government think it is any of its business to require me to tell them what street address I live at? What could possibly go wrong?

Why is the political party that supposedly hates centralized power so intent on becoming a centralized police state much like the former Soviet Union? Why do they think becoming a police state will make us safer? Why do they think shredding the Constitution and grinding it into the dirt under the jack boot of a federal bureaucracy is a GoodThing?

Posted by DanS at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For you WordPress users out there, version 1.5.1 went gold yesterday. The changes include bug fixes, enhancements, and an important security fix.

If it's the month of May, it must be National Masturbation Month [those easily offended, please exit here]. I kid you not. Of course, the sponsor of this event sells, among other things, sex toys. You know, vibrators, dildoes, and pumps/sleeves/rings. But I'm sure that has nothing to do with their sponsorship.

Their, ahem, handy shopping guides "serve as a resource for quality products and information..." I will say no more.

And finally, having solved all the other more pressing public policy problems of the solar system, this university has figured out the best angle to skip stones across the pond.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sorry, no post today.

Posted by DanS at 08:58 AM | Permalink

Almost any GoodThing, taken to extremes, can become a BadThing. [insert disclaimer here]

For example, many Republicans talk about abhorring judicial flexibility. That is, they seem to feel that judges shouldn't be allowed to use much, if any, discreation.

Many refer to judges that they don't agree with as so called "activist judges." These activist judges interpret, rather than strictly follow the wording of laws. According to this argument, using one's good judgment goes beyond what should be authorized under the law.

To a certain extent, this is true. Judges should not be making the law. Making laws, under our Constitution, is given to the Legislative branch. The Judiciary, according to these people, should only settle disputes and mete out punishments without regard to the circumstances surround the situation. Otherwise, they say, the law has no meaning.

Those who are strict readers of the law talk about mandatory sentencing or "zero tolerance" when it comes to most, if not all crimes. While this does solve the problem of activist judges, it soon runs afoul of either the Constitution or common sense.

One real world example of what happens when you blindly follow a rule without taking into account the circumstances surrounding the problem is this one.

It seems, like many schools, the school in Georgia has a ban on students using cell phones at school. Usually, such bans are in place to maintain discipline and order in the classroom. This is a GoodThing. I think we would all agree that the classroom is a place for learning, not talking on your cell phone.

Violate that ban and you should expect negative consequences.

However, in this instance, things are a little more complicated than that. First, the student was on his lunch break, not in a classroom. Second, the call that came in was from his mother. His mother is a soldier. In Iraq. There is a time difference between Georgia and Iraq. If they are to speak, sometimes the calls will be during the students lunch break.

The undisputed fact is, the student did break the ban on cell phone calls. Other than that, everything is in dispute. I don't know, but he may have sworn at the teacher that ordered him to end his conversation with his mother because he was violating the ban. And the teacher may not have known the student was talking with his mother.

Regardless of the particulars, the principal of the school enforced the ban and suspended the student for 10 days. The rule is clear, there are no exceptions. There is no room for dealing with specific circumstances. The rules are the rules. There is zero tolerance. Period.

Until, of course, the story hit the national news and common sense arrived in the form of a storm of derision falling on the school. Of course these are special circumstances. Of course you should be able to take into account the totality of the situation. And of course, in the interest of justice, which is what the rule is supposed to serve, the punishment should be tailored to the crime.

The punishment was revised to the two days he had already been suspended. Perhaps this is justified under the circumstances and therefore well and good. But the lesson for the school should be that not everything is so cut and dried. People who have to judge other people need some flexibility in applying the rule and its punishment. Otherwise, following the rules leads to injustice.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 10:52 AM | Permalink

What with the last of the Star Wars(tm) movies set to debut in a couple of weeks, you didn't think I would let that pass without some kind of mention.

Well, the folks over at HowStuffWorks have created a series on how the lightsaber works and some common household uses for one. You can read the article here.

It slices your morning bagel...

...and warms your coffee.

It also trims your hedges.

So versatile. So now.

Posted by DanS at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The description of this Firefox bug has been one of my personal bêtes noires. The problem involves using the Firefox "Forward" and "Back" buttons. Although using the buttons retrieves the already visited webpage from your cache, rather than the Internet, Firefox, for some reason, rebuilds the page again. This rebuilding process takes a looooong time. Sometimes I think it would be faster if it just went out to the Internet and got the page again. I've noticed this behavior especially in the Linux version but it affects all platforms.

This is one of the reasons I said earlier that Opera was much, much faster in rendering pages than Firefox. Fortunately, one of the nightly builds has finally, finally, tried to fix this. I guess the fix will be in a yet to be released version. I can't wait.

A programming note: for i= 1 to 14: n = 14 - 1: next i:

Actually, I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks. Posts will be done when I can and not necessarily each day.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ExtremeTech has a head-to-head review between the new dual core chips from AMD and Intel. According to them, the AMD blows the Intel offering away in almost all benchmarks. The downside is both these chips cost so dang much.

In any case, it'll be awhile before I have the money to purchase either of them so it is academic to me.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is yet another tweak guide for Mozilla Firefox. It seems everyone and their Aunt Minnie has a guide to tweaking Firefox. Maybe it's because Firefox provides so many user customizations? The trade-off is a browser perhaps more complex than it should be and not as streamlined or fast as it could be.

That said, I take Firefox over Internet Explorer everyday. But I also use Opera, which is faster and more standards compliant than either of them. The "problem" with Opera is that it refuses to implement extensions to HTML that Microsoft rammed through so as to screw the competition create a "better user experience." This means many websites are unusable as their HTML doesn't render correctly in Opera.

But you know what, I don't care about sites that are clueless about making money. If they don't know enough to know how to code standards compliant HTML so that all of their customers can spend their money why should I care about them?

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 08:42 AM | Permalink

For you women out there who want that oh so sexy look of hard, fake boobs, there's now this bra. The makers of the Evolution Bra(r) "features a sculpted, graduated cup 'specially designed to mimic the appearance of cosmetic breast implants.'" Oh. My. [insert here your diety of choice - ed.].

I dunno. I guess it's not bad enough that you want to appear to have bigger boobs. But now you want your false bigger boobs to look fake? You won't be happy until your high hooters look hard? Where did the US education system go wrong? Don't answer that.

Speaking of educational systems, this is an update on the take-over of the University of Hawai'i President's office from yesterday's post. Michael Moore's website is now linking to a live feed from within the office.

While I'm sure the old saying that any publicity is good publicity is correct, I don't know if the President appreciates this kind of notoriety. This kind of tactic tends to harden extreme positions rather than lead to artful compromise. But, I guess, kids will be kids.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

George Bernard Shaw is oft quoted as having said that youth is wasted on the young. Perhaps this has some meaning as you read this story about college students.

The University of Hawaii (UH) is trying to work with the U.S. Navy to create what is known as a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC). While I can find examples of various UARCs I can't find anything that defines what a UARC is supposed to be.

In any case, the UH UARC would do classified research for the Navy and would bring to Hawai'i around $50 million USD in federal funds over the next five years.

This is where the students come in. Some have been making claims about how UH would be developing weapons of mass destruction. Of course, the UH doesn't exactly have expertise nor resources in that area but I guess that is irrelevant to some students. As a practical matter, it is difficult to develop weapons of mass destruction on $10 million a year. That kind of money is spent by weapons developers on junkets to the Virgin Islands, not Universities developing WMD.

The administration of UH insists the research would be in the areas of oceanography, astrophysics, optics, and development of sensors. Areas in which the UH does have expertise. But then, who do believe?

Notwithstanding that, the student protestors decided to take action. So they occupied the UH President's office last week and haven't left. The protestors are saying they will not leave until the UH changes their mind about the UARC or they (the students) get arrested.

I have to give full marks for patience to the UH President as he, so far, has let the students occupy his offices. He has also offered to meet individually with the students to discuss the situation. However, the students, who apparently distrust the President, would have none of that.

Actually, I also have to give full marks to the students because at least they are active rather than passive consumers of what they've learned in school. And, so far, they've not damaged the offices or the equipment therein. Some of them even appear to have an open mind and are willing to discuss the matter with the President.

That said, I don't know what good will come of this [insert disclaimer here]. I hope the sides, and there are more than two sides to this story, can come to an understanding of how to humbly and peacefully proceed. I hope the sides can create a mechanism whereby trust can be built and transparency in decisions (for all sides) are the rule, rather than the exception. I don't know how that is going to happen but one can hope.

Aloha!

Posted by DanS at 10:43 AM | Permalink