21 Jan 2004
NBC Offered Jackson Deal to Pre-empt Documentary Criticizing Him

Subtitle: How to Lose All Credibility as a News Organization

Hoping to trump Fox in a network bidding war last year, an NBC executive offered to kill an episode of "Dateline" called "Michael Jackson Unmasked."

(link) [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

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No Foolproof Way Is Seen to Contain Altered Genes

This is the real problem with genetic engineering.

A new report suggests that it will be difficult to completely prevent genetically engineered plants and animals from having unintended environmental and public health effects.

(link) [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Intimate Mementos

Another entry for the "you can find anything on the 'Net" department ...
Intimate Mementos

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

They know what's important ...

From Reuters comes this tale of an attempted daring rescue:

Russia has sent in the army to bolster a week-long struggle to rescue 10 tons of beer trapped under Siberian ice, Itar-Tass news agency said Tuesday. A lorry carrying the beer sank when trying to cross the frozen Irtysh river, and a rescue team of six divers, 10 workers and a modified T-72 tank from the emergencies ministry have so far failed to save the load.

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Bush immigration plan could affect techies

This is simply unbelieveable. What in the world are these folks thinking?

... in a speech last week at the Cato Institute, an administration official indicated the program could extend to highly skilled positions as well. Margaret Spellings, assistant to the president for domestic policy, said details of the program have yet to be worked out. But she said the program will be "non-sector specific" and mentioned nurses and teachers as possible workers covered by the program.

Nursing and teaching are relatively skilled job categories, which suggests that programmers or other tech professionals could be affected as well.

I have tech friends who've followed the latest advice to the jobless: get into teaching or medicine, under the theory that they can't export those jobs, as face to face contact is generally required.

Looks like the Republocrats (or is it the Demilcans?) are bound and determined to cut out that loophole that would prevent us all from becoming burger flippers... if they can't ship the jobs overseas, they'll bring the low wage workers over here!

I'm well aware that the immigration "system" is broken. But could I simply suggest that we enforce the law? If you get here without a visa and get caught, you get deported. Immediately. No questions. If you were employed, your employer should be fined at least two years of prevailing wages for the job you held illegally. Then that fine should be trebled, under the provisions of the antitrust laws. No exemptions, exceptions or special cases. To avoid the fines, don't hire illegal, undocumented workers. It's gotta be that simple.

I don't want to be anti-immigrant - I've always favored open borders. But in a world that's closed off to Americans moving abroad to work, it's nothing short of insane to invite the world to come here. It has got to be a two way street.

And there's also a huge difference between a poverty stricken worker moving himself and his family to better his condition (as was the case with most immigration throughout American history) and a multinational corporation literally importing temporary workers, who have no family or investment in this country or our society at all.

Although details remain fuzzy, the president's plan to tackle illegal immigration could create a new way for tech employers to bring in foreign workers.

(link) [CNET News.com - Front Door]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Template changes...

I made a number of very minor changes to the templates here tonight. I'd noticed that sometimes an initial load of the blog wouldn't render correctly: the left index column was very wide, pushing the main body of text off the screen to the right.

This seemed to happen more often with Gecko based browsers (Mozilla, Firebird, Camino) than with others. I finally found the problem - a failure to close a table cell. That seems to have straightened things up nicely.

But in the course of my futzing around, I noticed how different the popular browsers can render a page. For example, in Internet Explorer for Mac, the left most column is always wider than in any other browser. Safari puts a border around the outer edge of the main table (not the cells). Firebird (my personal default browser regardless of platform) renders the top menu slightly to the right of where the other browsers render it, even those based on the same rendering engine!

I also took the opportunity to add a new "category" - musings. This is actually the catch all place where things that don't fit elsewhere end up. It's in the "Home" directory, which is how it shows up in the permalink and breadcrumb traces, but I didn't want to call it "Home" for fear of confusion with the whole blog. Call it a holdover from my Radio days ...

Hopefully nobody reading this has seen these artifacts: I don't think they've ever shown up here in IE, and that's by far and away the most popular browser out there. But let me know if you do encounter rendering anomolies: I want to get this silly thing up to speed and validate it, someday.

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Ban urged for child executions

I must say that I'm generally not in favor of capital punishment, but for reasons other than those proposed in the report by Amnesty here. This does not mean that I oppose this kind of sentence in all cases: I don't. It does mean that the ultimate punishment should not be meted out willy-nilly for every petty crime. It means that I would only support it's imposition in absolutely the most heinous of proven crimes.

I also think that the bar needs to be lower than 18 here: there's a huge difference between a six year old who kills a playmate with whatever malice or motive, and a 17 year old convicted of his third "drive-by" shooting murder in three years.

But more disturbingly, I think this report shows the backside of sentencing guideline: as it too would deprive a judge (or jury) of their right to impose a sentence based on individual circumstances and issues. This has always been a cornerstone of democracy, and it disturbs me greatly to see it being whittled away from whatever angle.

Amnesty International pushes for a ban on the execution of child offenders in the US and worldwide.

(link) [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link