Passing of a Pioneer

Patsy Takemoto Mink, sitting U.S. House of Representative from Hawai'i, died this past Saturday due to complications from pneumonia. Rep. Mink lived in a time much different from today and to a great extent, she is at least partially responsible for the changes. To her, discrimination was not a abstract construct, it was personal.

When she went to the mainland for college, she was put in a "coloreds only" dormitory because she was of Asian descent. She led the fight that abolished the racial segregation at the school.

When she graduated, Rep. Mink applied to medical school but was turned down by all. Not because she didn't have the grades, but because she was a woman. So, instead, she went to law school.

Upon graduating she came home to Hawai'i but could not get a position with any of the law firms here, which were all white and male. So she started her own law office.

But Rep. Mink was consumed with making the promise of equal opportunity in America a reality. She got into politics breaking through the closed door that was the territorial legislature - becoming the first female member of Asian descent.

Later, Rep. Mink ran for the U.S. Congress and broke through yet another barrier becoming the first woman of Asian descent to be so elected.

While there, she co-authored what became Title IX, which provided for equal access to college academics and athletics - breaking down the barriers for all women to follow. Every woman going to graduate school, every girl participating in soccer, basketball, track, or any sport owes a debt to Rep. Mink.

Services are tentatively set for this Friday at the State Capitol where she will be only the third person in state history to be so honored.

Rep. Mink was diminutive in stature, but a giant in equity, access, and opportunity for all.

Aloha Oe

Black Clouds

It's October 1st and the stores are already decked out in their Christmas livery, TV ads for Christmas music CDs are running, and it's only a matter of time before "It's a Wonderful Life" begins hitting screens. But what kind of Christmas season, economically speaking, will we have this year?

First, be clear that I am not saying foreign policy should necessarily be tied to economic policy. Secondly, no one can perfectly predict the future all the time so take what everyone has to say with a grain of salt. But what I am saying is there are effects and costs to all actions or inactions.

Right now, there is a West coast dock workers lockout on the part of employers. If this continues for more than a coupe of weeks, Hawaii's economy, which has been slowly recovering from the September 11 attacks on the mainland will come to a standstill. Should war with Iraq begin, as some say it will before the end of the year, we will see many businesses shut down throwing thousands out of work.

Again, I'm not saying foreign policy should always take into account economic policy. But we should be aware of the costs and always balancing them against the benefits.

Big Air

And so it begins, the waters off of New Zealand are seeing a fierce battle of another kind. The Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series that is. The series winner will challenge the current America's Cup holder - New Zealand.

The first day's matches found some exciting yacht racing with Team Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes barely squeaking out a 20-second victory over Great Britain's GBR Challenge Wight Lightening (yes, that's the spelling).

In other action, Oracle BMW Racing USA-76 beat the Italian Prada Challenge Luna Rossa boat by 42-seconds. And the Seattle Yacht Club's OneWorld Challenge overcame the Italian Mascalzone Latino team by 5 minutes and 43 seconds. See the round-up here.

Hot Air

Every once in awhile I take a look at what kinds of anti-snooping software there are out there. So when I happened to be reading an article recently about employer's spying on their employees I decided to take a look at what new software I could find that might detect such monitoring.

One that I found is called anti-keylogger. It purports to be able to detect key logging programs that are used to track what you are typing in at your keyboard. However, I can not recommend this program for several reasons.

First, it gives what appear to be false alarms. It scanned my hard drive and said two files were actually spyware key logging files. But after I took a look at the files and did a Google search on them I discovered they were normal system files, both from Microsoft - system.alt and cim.rec. While it is certainly possible that a key logging program could use these common filenames for its own purposes, that does not appear to be occurring here.

Secondly, when you try to uninstall anti-keylogger, it gives an error message about closing a window first. Unfortunately, there is no window open so none can be closed and neither can you uninstall. This is very shoddy workmanship. If the uninstall needs to close a window, then it should close it by itself, or ask permission to do so. If it doesn't, why is it saying to do so? In the end, I manually deleted the directory and scanned the registry to remove its keys.

Another indication of shoddy programming is that when the scanner runs, about a quarter of the programs display is cut off. I have no idea why this is so and why I couldn't resize it to show the entire screen.

I am sure there are good anti-snooping software out there, but anti-keylogger does not appear to be one of them. YMMV.

Aloha!

House Work

I guess it's been awhile since I've updated everyone on the renovations to the back house. Right now I've finished cleaning the first floor, replaced all the broken blinds (broken by the previous renters) and installed the bathroom medicine cabinet and lights above it. Next up is cleaning the second floor, installing new blinds, and installing new lights above the medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom.

I then need to schedule in the movers to get the furniture moved from the front house to the back, and get the phone and cable service sorted out.

All told, I'm looking at about two more weeks of work to finish things and get moved in (fingers crossed). Of course, once we are in the back, we need to complete the renovations to the front house (drywall and painting) so we are not done yet.

Gator to be Garrotted

UPS is suing pop-up ad company Gator saying that Gator's ads appear when customers come to the UPS site, even though UPS does not accept outside advertising. UPS is suing for the proverbial unspecified damages and a player to be named later. See the story here.

Enriched Irony

It has been said that the first casualty of war is the truth. Well, we haven't even started shooting yet and we get this non-story about "weapons grade" uranium seized near the Syrian border. The first report was that 35 pounds (~16kg) of enriched uranium had been found by Turkish authorities on a tip that terrorists were trying to purchase the uranium.

Then it dribbles out that it's not 35lbs. but instead only 5 ounces (~140 grams). Then later, the material is not uranium, enriched or not. Rather, its harmless zinc, iron, zirconium and manganese.

What's really hilarious is that a local radio personality, who happens to be a Republican who believes in conspiracies [Gasp! I'm shocked! - ed.] declared on the radio last week, before the truth came out, that the story was being sat on by the elite Eastern liberal establishment press. That the reason the story wasn't hitting the front pages across the world was because liberals did not want any information contrary to their views to be published.

While I'm sure all papers, liberal and conservative, filter the news to fit their world view, I think the reason the mainstream press didn't go with this story is that it didn't pass the nose test. That is, if it smells like sh*t, looks like sh*t, and gathers flies like sh*t, it probably is sh*t.

This is not the first time that this kind of story has come up and one wonders how many "terrorists" have spent how many millions of dollars only to be left holding a bag of zinc or depleted uranium? Having said that, it only takes one disgruntled or greedy employee somewhere to actually obtain the real thing. And it's probably only a matter of when, not if, it will happen. But when that happens, the first thing the press will report is a bright flash of light...See the story here.

Aloha!

Short Shrift Mode

I have a meeting first thing this morning and a bunch of other stuff to do before the day is done so I gotta go.

Mail Call

From: Jan Swijsen
To: Dan Seto
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 9:04 PM
Subject: Enriched irony

<quote>
And it's probably only a matter of when, not if, it will happen
</quote>

It has happened. I recently say an 'in depth' report on TV about a Russian (Ukrain?) employee who had been caught trying to sell (non-military grade) enriched uranium. He admitted he had sold the same stuff on previous occasions.

Regards,
Svenson.

Aloha!

It's Friday!

View from Abroad

The Economist published a list (see it here) of what it calls the best and worst cities of the world for expatriates, and one would assume anyone else also, to live. The criteria include "health and safety, culture and environment, and infrastructure." Without further ado, the top spots are:

1. (tie) Melbourne, Australia and Vancouver, Canada
3. Perth, Australia
4. (tie) Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland; Vienna, Austria; and Toronto, Canada

The highest rated U.S. city is, drum roll please, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.

Yacht Sea

After being postponed for two days due to heavy winds, the Louis Vutton Challenger yacht racing series started up again and saw Seattle's OneWorld Challenge (backed by Craig McCaw and Paul Allen) beat Switzerland's Alinghi by 10 seconds and New York City's Stars and Strips beat Italy's (Prada) Luna Rossa by 35 seconds. Also winning was Oracle BMW over Mascalzone Latino XII. See the story here.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!