Blog moved

If you've ended up at this blog, you're probably looking for Greg's 42.

Fun with Dreamhost, Google Apps for your Domain, and DNS records

I'm attempting to set up nifty domain name stuff for my blog. Let's see if this works right.

Freaky Data Mining

I know I haven't been updating my blog much lately, but this one I just had to scream about. The New York Times has published an article describing a project funded by the Department of Homeland Security that aims to develop software capable of interpreting the attitude of a newspaper article towards the United States. The headline is somewhat misleading as legally the program couldn't be used within the USA at all, but the mere existence of such software would frighten me...I'm not real big on the datamining capabilities our government has as it is.

Politics: Israel & Hezbollah Fuck up the Middle East even more

Everybody should have heard by now that Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed several more several days ago; Hezbollah attempted to trade the soldiers for a number of prisoners, a number of them women and children. Since then, Israel has bombed Lebanon's airport and other targets, killing ~80 civilians. Israel has commenced a campaign against Syria. Hezbollah has fired more rockets into Israel, killing an unknown number of civilians. See Google News (specifically this) for up-to-the-minute info.

Recent News

• Aljazeera.net-"Gaza Braces for Drastic Shortages"
  Gas and electricity have become very scarce in the Gaza Strip, thanks to Israel's isolating it as they work on getting a kidnapped soldier back. The UN Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) is worried about getting supplies if logisitical lines don't open soon.
• The New York Times-"Detainees May Test Reach of Guantanamo Ruling"
  The Supreme Court has extended the coverage terrorist suspects at Guantanamo receive under the Geneva Conventions. Different people speculate on the impact this will have on other prisons, torture, and higher-level suspects.
• The Los Angeles Times-"4 Soldiers Accused of Iraq Rape, Killings"
  Yet more disturbing news from Iraq. It's a war zone, after all; what do people expect? We'll be able to leave someday...
• Reuters UK-Bin Laden warns U.S.
  A tape (probably from Bin Laden) warns Shi'ites not to attack Sunnis in Iraq, and tells the USA to stay out of Somalia.
• Bloomberg.com-"Venezuelan President Chavez Urges Africa to Boost Oil Taxes"
  I know Chavez isn't very popular in the States, but I've got to admit I like this. Africa's been screwed enough as it is.
• Forbes.com, courtesy The AP-"Budget Impasse Shuts Down N.J. Government"
  The state governor wants a sales tax increase, and the Democrats in the legislature don't. From what I've seen, shame on all of them for taking it this far. Especial shame to the casinos for trying to get state casino monitors declared "essential employees" so they can stay open.
• ScrippsNews-"Church official strives to find common ground"
  The Archbishop of Canterbury is trying to maintain the unity of the Anglican/Episcopal church (remember the debate over homosexuality and the tensions between the American and global church)...and it looks like the only way he's found to do it is to split it apart.
• Space.com-"Hubble's Main Camera Successfully Switched to Backup Power"
  A temporarily offline camera is operating again. I love our space program.

Technorati Tags: [Politics] [Space] [Palestine] [Israel] [Geneva Conventions] [Guantanamo] [Iraq] [Osama Bin Laden] [Chavez] [New Jersey] [Government shutdown] [Episcopal Church]

Politics: Flag-burning

There's been another attempt to ban the burning of the American flag; presumably by Republicans trying to mobilize voters. It passed the House a year ago, and was a vote short (66-34) in the Senate yesterday. Disgusting.
Granting some small bit of, er, "hope" to those of us who take our rights seriously, Time magazine says that as many as a dozen supporting senators would have voted "nay" if they thought the bill was going to pass.
Being from Michigan, I'm particularly disappointed in Senator Stabenow, who voted for it. And don't let Hillary Clinton's "nay" vote sway you -- she (again) tried to straddle both sides of the fence by proposing a bill that would ban flag-burning by law rather than Constitutionally.
Check the Senate rollcall here and the House rollcall from last year here.
Thanks to The Tech Report's Religion & Politics forum for this issue and links. Technorati Tags: [Politics] [Flag] [Amendment] [Constitution]

Greg's 42 will come back, I promise

I've been getting reports* that people have been checking here and becoming frustrated when they didn't see any updates. So I offer an apology and explanation: Since ~May 15th, I've been in my college's "Summer Math" program. One takes all of sophomore math (6 units) in 6 weeks. It's intense. Intense to the point that one of my professors told us point-blank that 10 hours of homework/night sounded about right (that's on top of the three hours of class).

So I've been doing lots of schoolwork, and have been tired a lot. I won't say that I haven't had the time to make posts...but I have been far too tired to research or write anything worth learning about. And the time it takes to write posts about my life is currently better spent actually having a little bit of a life.

Nonetheless, the last test is on June 23rd. So look for the return of Greg's 42 sometime around that day!
(*): My mother told me.