That the Democrats were supine in letting the FISA (Wiretap) bill rush through with minimal scrutiny is clear. What the bill does, though, I haven't quite figured out to my satisfaction.
It's another couple of degrees towards boiled frog; no, it's mostly sensible; no, it's a blank check for the executive, with meaningless oversight.
It's for six months — or is that a year? — and will, I predict be renewed once.
As part of my now nearly complete service on the ICANN Nomcom, I had to think about what skills make for a good member of the ICANN Board of Directors. It seemed to me one way to think about it was that skills should be defined by what I wished the Board did; but that another way to think about it was that that skills should be defined by what the Board actually does.
But what does the ICANN Board actually do? I decided to find out. Or rather, I made my research assistant find out. The results surprised me, and I've posted them now at ICANNWatch, under the title What Does the ICANN Board Do?.
Here's the first paragraph:
In an effort to identify the skill set that would best serve future Board members, we conducted a quick and crude analysis of the most visible evidence available of what the ICANN Board actually does: the ICANN Board meetings. We recognize that this is perhaps not the best evidence imaginable: much of what the Board does is done in secret, and Board meetings have been criticized as somewhat scripted. Nevertheless, many Board members reject these critiques, and even if it were true that meetings are scripted, they remain important events and do memorialize many of the most important things that ICANN does. Besides, one has to start somewhere.
As a long-time Francophile married to a Brit I am of course appalled at this display of European stereotypes that is making the rounds by email. But it's funny anyway.
Terrorism Alert!
The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings and have raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” Londoners have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940, when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been recategorized from “Tiresome” to a “Bloody Nuisance.”The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was during the great fire of 1666.
Also, the French Government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Surrender” and “Collaborate.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military capability.
It's not only the English and French that are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”
The Germans also increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.” They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose.”
Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday, as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.
Actually, I'm only publishing this because I believe in affirmative action for pan-European jokes that include smaller countries.
I'm not at YearlyKOS (although I wish I were); and I'm not at Defcon either. I've never been able to justify going to Defcon, although it sounds fun. This year in addition to the program, the Defcon ID badge looks really interesting.
Last year's badge was a fine piece of round circuit board with the DEFCON SmileSkull and Crossbones cut into it, a bunch of circuitry, two lit LED eyes, a single watch battery, and a toggle switch to make the eyes blink in sequence. If you were really clever, you could hack the code in the badge to blink out your own secret messages …
…The sucker has a Freescale MC9S08QG8 microcontroller and contains a 5 column by 19 row matrix of LEDs to allow user-customizable scrolling text messages. The default message is I (heart) DEFCON 15. Power source is a pair of lithium coin cell batteries.
Touch the top SmileSkull icon and it turns things on. It’s not a clicky switch, it’s a touch switch – major improvement from last year. A second touch control under the rotary dial symbol (and there’s one to explain to your kids about) allows one to type in a customized message.
If that wasn’t enough, the LEDs are also programmed to deliver a persistence-of-vision (POV) secret message if you trigger the proper mode then wave it around in front of your eyes in one direction, kinda like those hand-held trick LED signs people were having fun with a few years ago.
So many conferences, so little time (& money…)
Dreamhost is unveiling a new service with an unusual pricing model. DreamHost Private Servers will provide CPU and RAM a la carte. $1.00/month for each 10 MB RAM and 10 MhZ CPU, protected, on a shared server (there's also a burst mode, but it's not guaranteed). Unfortunately, you buy them together (I need CPU more than RAM).
So, how much is enough to run a blog?
I haven't seen David Saltzman in years, maybe not since shortly after college, although I'd hear about him from mutual friends from time to time. We've exchanged the occasional email, which I suppose put me in his address book.
Then, a while back, I started to get cc's of general emails. They were sober stuff: cancer. Bad cancer.
Not today.
Dear Friends,
This week has been filled by tests at Johns Hopkins confirming that my cancer has, at least temporarily, gone into nearly complete remission! This is the best news I have had since being diagnosed in late 2006 with malignant bile duct cancer (metastatic cholangiocarcinoma), a disease that kills half its victims within three months. After seven months of grueling chemotherapy and a larger number of surgical and endoscopic procedures, the images taken by PET, CT, X-ray and MRI are all in accord that the tumors have shrunk to a “subradiographic” point where they are smaller than grains of rice, though still present. The doctors can't find the cancer because there aren't enough tumor cells left in one place or in total.
…
In equally good news, I can finally breathe deeply without pain or coughing. You cannot imagine what a relief this is after six months of ever-shallower, more desperate breathing. …
My symptoms at this point stem entirely from the chemotherapy, not the cancer. I continue to find this oddly liberating, because I choose to undergo chemo and I can reason with an oncologist… but not with a cancer. Since chemotherapy agents are designed on purpose to be as poisonous as possible without quite killing the patient, and I encouraged my oncologist to cut it very close, the symptoms have been brutal.
…
The chemo has left me a smashed shipwreck of a body: battered, scarred, impossibly drained, and barely holding together. Until a few days ago, just climbing a flight of stairs took me to the limit of my endurance. Some months I spend more time at Johns Hopkins than at home. At least the nurses have stopped wearing burkhas around me. The face masks, gowns and gloves were a bit unnerving.
…
The sky now looks bright again. Admittedly, this respite is likely to be just the eye of the hurricane before the cancer comes blasting back, but for some time ahead the weather looks to be spectacularly and undeservedly clear.
There is a good illustration of the concept if you search for “routine procedure” at cartoonbank.com
Please understand that this is just a temporary victory. Chemotherapy cannot cure me of metastatic cholangiocarcinoma, since the survival charts taper to zero by twenty-four months. Facing no prospect of therapies beyond toxic chemicals is crushing. I wish there were some way to connect this rare cancer to the most modern forefronts of medicine, perhaps as a genetics problem or an opportunity for an immunotherapy (cancer vaccine), but there isn't any evident path on a timeframe available to me.
Nevertheless, this remarkable degree of remission has reset the clock to one helluva good starting point for that inevitable day when one of the cancer's stem cells evolves resistance to the chemotherapy's toxic charms and starts proliferating wildly. Then my oncologist will try out a new chemo recipe and the battle will be rejoined. Unless he runs out of chemo bullets first, I will survive to fight a third round. And so on for a fourth round.
Which brings us to the present. Today's news sets a new high-water mark for the fight against this cancer, though my health is terrible. Seven months of intensive chemo have left me riddled by nausea, with pathetic endurance, poor short-term memory and a miniscule attention span, but I am finally free from pain, and day by day I am starting to get stronger.
In other words, I can now fight this disease from a position of microscopic tumor volume, negligible cancer pain, and increasing stamina (aside from the chemo's horrific side effects). This is the right place to be starting the next round of battle against a malignancy biding its time as it accumulates mutations, waiting to evade the chemo agents and start proliferating wildly.
I plan to enjoy every day of the improving health, spending cherished time with my family and friends …
Winning this first victorious battle in an ultimately losing war has been the hardest time of my life so far, with only family and strong friendships keeping me above water. I am told that my loopiness from pain killers made dealing with me a tribulation at times, hard though that may be to believe. Beth and I appreciate the support and understanding more than words can convey. As for Joel and Michael, they are thrilled to have their father starting, however slowly, to get back onto his feet.
Consequently, Beth and I have decided take the boys to Israel Sunday, leaving anything work-related behind. We needed to do something dramatic. From the questions I get interrogated with, one would think that airlines and hotels had never encountered somebody making arrangements precipitously, at the last minute. They should see my cooking.
Let's hope the news will always be this good.
Let's.
Jotwell Blenderlaw