This will be the first in a number of articles meant to express my opinion on common topics. Often I find I can’t explain my view concisely without feeling I’m cheating someone out of part of the story. Referrals to this page should obviate the need to make editorial decisions that deny people information - decisions I justifiably hate making.

Today’s topic: the attacks of 11 September 2001.

The September 11 attacks were not faked or perpetrated by individuals under the direction of the White House, George W. Bush or his staff, the CIA, the FBI or any government group. The common argument runs, roughly:

1. There is no way the terrorists could have eluded customs, the intelligence community, the police, airport security, etc.
2. The Bush Administration wanted to make war on Afghanistan/Iraq, and views ‘common American people’ as expenable.
3. Certain analyses of video, audio and photographs of the attack show phenomena irreconcilable with the appearance/sound of normal jetliners.
4. Therefore, the attacks were engineered by non-terrorists using prepared jets, so that Al-Qaeda could be blamed and Afghanistan invaded.

Sadly this line of ‘reasoning’ subscribes to a different species of the very paranoia the administration fosters. Some remarks:

1. There is a way the terrorists could have entered the U.S. To believe in an airtight Customs system, the omnicognizance of the U.S. intelligence services or the omnipotence of the military machine is to put blind faith in a number of deeply flawed systems. My impression of American government is one of a bureaucracy that views itself as something to be circumvented, with the result that nothing is well-coordinated (despite the largely unsung efforts of a small number of honest people). In any case, the porousness of borders and international transporation is real, and due more to poor and incomplete execution of current systems than the absence of The Next Big Fix.

2. I’ll agree that the current White House team is a blundering, corrupt, shoot-from-the-hip group of ignorant warmongers. This is precisely why this propostion is laughable. The level of sophistication, coordination and indirection required to plan an event like 9/11 is entirely beyond them. There’s no doubt there were plans to invade Afghanistan, Iraq or even Iran on file before 9/11; I’m sure senior members of the administration plan wars like the rest of us play Risk, and view it as just as harmless. They were definitely quick out of the gate when the (flimsy) excuse presented itself, but they couldn’t have conceived of anything as clever as faking a terrorist attack to justify an invasion.

3. These arguments resemble the arguments of unscientific types convinced that UFOs are alien spacecraft. Beware the bullying line of “It’s right there in front of your eyes - can’t you see it? I see it… everyone else sees it. Are you stupid?”, beware armchair aerostructures and demolition experts, beware conveniently selected reference photos of ordinance mounted on much smaller aircraft. I’m particularly annoyed by the “That little bit of jet fuel couldn’t have taken down the Twin Towers” argument. Many people are clearly unaware of what jet fuel is and how tall buildings are constructed. This is another example of the ‘America Is Invincible’ hypothesis, whose proponents would expect the Statue of Liberty to withstand a direct meteorite strike. Ridiculous.

4. Logic fails completely here.

In general the whole thing can be dismissed via Occam’s Razor, by stacking “Surprisingly, Arabs can also fly airplanes, and knives are sharp,” against volumes of conspiracy theories. People need to have the sophistication to find the intelligent middle ground between blind faith and the unconstructive, combative ‘question everything’ approach. Listen more, preach less.

A few ideas have crystallized for me as I've read about the ongoing furor over the Danish and other European newspapers publishing offensive cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. Without repeating too much common knowledge, certain Islamic scriptures forbid realistic depictions of the prophets, but depictions of that sort have been made for centuries. Various newspapers are reprinting the cartoons, citing freedom of the press, and the images are not only in violation of this particular scripture, but also offensive (see the above link).

I've also read this opinion by a 'Muslim dissident', which says, amongst other things:

A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.
Unless, we show some solidarity, unashamed, noisy, public solidarity with the Danish cartoonists, then the forces that are trying to impose on the Free West a totalitarian ideology will have won; the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest. Do not apologize.

There are so many things wrong with these two paragraphs I despair of getting to my actual point, but I'd like to point out that:

• There is no freedom to insult and offend. Insult and offense are an unavoidable consequence of the rights of freedom of expression and opinion, whose purpose is to encourage open and inclusive dialogue. For said purpose, it is always desirable to exercise the freedoms so as to minimize insult and offense, for these are unconstructive.
• A number of stereotypes about Islam are cited. These are accurate in some ways but mainly reinforce misconceptions. Islam is not, as far as I can tell, designed to stifle anything; the fault lies with fundamentalists. Similar rhetoric could be applied against Christianity, and most would agree that only evangelicals and Christian fundamentalists would gladly silence others.
• The Islamization of Europe is apparently a negative process. I seem to have missed when this started occurring, or was decided to be harmful.
• Only righteous pricks (pardon my French) refuse to apologize.

My general feeling is two-fold. Firstly, the newspapers were out of order printing the cartoons, but excusably so. Re-printing, however, was deliberately confrontational. Journalists, of all people, should expect by now that when Muslim sensibilities are offended, there are polar and often violent reactions. The fact that these are excessive is not a reason for like retaliation; such infantile bickering over the 'last word' has created the problems we see today in Israel and Palestine.

Secondly and more broadly, democracy and Islam are not incompatible. The Western and Middle-Eastern worlds are not incompatible. Stranger partnerships and cooperations have occurred. However, reform must come from within -- this, I think, is apparent from the reactions to provocation and pressure that populate today's world news. The proposed approach is preposterous, and even the most moderate, gentle and kindly program of 'education' on the part of the West could be viewed as massively arrogant. Consider the many social, ethnic and cultural inequalities in America. While I agree that democracy is an excellent form of government, it can hardly be argued that any one Western state is flawlessly exemplary of the form. For any nation or coalition to presume to rapidly install already-imperfect Western democracy in a region accustomed to theocracy is not only folly, but hubris of the highest degree.

Returning to the issue at hand, the lack of an apology of any sort points to a press that is more self-important than truly concerned with free expression. If governments are unwilling to take such miscreants in hand and reprimand them for what amounts to racist taunts, then efforts toward East-West conciliation and negotiation are doomed to be derailed over and over.

Now Playing: Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman - 04 - Behind The Wall

I make frequent attempts at humour. Often they fail, because most of my jokes are referential. I depend on lateral thinking to insert the unexpected or (seemingly) unrelated into a situation or a conversation. The humour is created either by the juxtapositon of the two items, or, more commonly, poached outright from the thing I'm referencing.

Either way I rely on a whole lexicon of stock phrases, quotations, tidbits and so on to execute this sort of joke. What follows is an informal guide to the most common of these. For the most part the humour isn't explained -- because any explanation will ruin a joke -- only the phrase(s) and a link to the source are provided. I plan to continue updating it as things come to mind.

Keep in mind many of these are offensive to varying degrees. Reader discretion is advised.

Together / Oil / Are you talking about my vagina?
Sexual harassment training video parody

I'm still crying.
'emo', Urban Dictionary

The Ugly One! / I have a crush on EVERY BOY! / ARROWED / Ow! My skin! / MSG'D / Ow! My stomach lining! / GRASPED! / CHILDREN! / SAILING MISHAP / CEREBELLUM'D / LATE-360 SHOVE IT TO BONELESS'D / TWO'D / Wave O'Babies / How do you be so short? / FLOOR TOMMED / TWELVE SIDED DIED / Corn (chips) is (are) no place for a might warrior / There like shareware / Makey outy / CABER TOSSED / LATHE'D / Get it on like Diddy Kong
Teen Girl Squad, homestarrunner.com

Damn you Salazar!
Matt LeBlanc in Charlie's Angels

Eat the pig and then together we burn! Burn! / Come with me! You belong with me! Burn! etc.
Adam Sandler in Dirty Work

Hokay, so / Shit guys, ze missiles are coming, fire our shit / (But) I am le tired / WTF, mate? / 'Bout that time, eh chaps? Righto / Ahh MOTHERLAND! / Shfifty-five / Shiggity-shiggity-shwa / I want to play it / They look so goddamn like the same person / They are twins, that is why / I would say to them "Do you want ice cream cone?" Both of them say yes! / Testiclites
The End of the World, Mario Twins and other Group X audio and video

BOOM, HEADSHOT! / Uber micro / I could dance all day
Pure Pwnage

Ha! Ha! (Not to scale!, 'Rassment'!, Loins!, Dangly parts!) / ... in my pants / MINDTAKING! / Stick with the kid! / Caliente / MANY others
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

Numerous quotes from the popular movies and cartoons:

• Napoleon Dynamite
• Anchorman
• Family Guy
• The Simpsons
• Futurama
• American Dad

That's right. Nothing original is said in this post, but a post it is. The following are PDF versions of the MIE374 lecture notes:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• "Week 5 Supplement" Chapter 5?

In addition there's a one-file version (2.9 MB) and a 4-up version (1.7 MB) for easy printing on ECF.

Computers make us more productive. Yeah, right. Lifehacker recommends the downloads, web sites and shortcuts that actually save time. Don't live to geek; geek to live.
Lifehacker.com

I'm not sure why I haven't read this site before, but it's definitely on my reading list now. It's an admirable message that I sympathize with. Computers, the Internet and the software and data on them are wonderfully powerful tools; but they're just that: tools. There's no point owning a massive industrial lathe when all you need is a Dremel tool.

I'll use Lifehacker for suggestions from here on out. In terms of my absurdly extensive computer experience, the truly valuable yield has been the knowledge of what works easily and intuitively, and what doesn't. I know in many cases the wrong way to do things, mainly because there are many wrong ways and I've tried them all. I also know there's no 'right' way; just the thing that's currently suited for me.

On my software page I've linked the current bests. Some choices: I use Firefox and Thunderbird because they're lightweight and secure; I only use the Windows Firewall because I don't have any real requirement for traffic shaping or extra security; I use the free University of Toronto Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition0 but disable auto-protect because it taxes my harddrives too much while file sharing. With a combination of these and what I prefer to call 'not doing stupid shit' I haven't had a virus infection in years.

I use GAIM for instant messaging because it handles MSN, ICQ, AIM and Jabber (including Google Talk). I still have to switch to actual MSN to view webcams, but that feature should be part of GAIM soon. This would be a bad option for those fond of custom smileys and all the other features of MSN that I personally find annoying. GAIM also tabs message windows much like Firefox tabs webpages; this prevents six conversations from filling my taskbar.

The list goes on - my point is that all software choices should be motivated by certain knowledge:

• What needs the user (you, someone asking for a recommendation) has.
• What the available software options are.
• What the features of each option are.
• How simple your most common tasks are in each option.

For example, I use FileZilla for FTP and Programmer's Notepad for editing. To do most of my PHP/MySQL coding I'll download one file at a time from the server. FileZilla automatically opens the file in Programmer's Notepad; when I'm done, I save and exit (Programmer's Notepad does this very quickly) and then FileZilla prompts me to automatically upload the modified file. Because the PN interface is clean and helpful, this is a better option than hacking about with command-line editors stuff via SSH; however I do keep PuTTY around for some tasks.

I use a five-button trackball scroll mouse; the outside buttons are configured as Back (left) and Minimize All (right); clicking the scroll wheel opens Windows Explorer. I've got a Logitech keyboard with Media (Opens/Shows/Minimizes to system tray Winamp), Play/Pause, Mute, E-mail and WWW quick keys. I use a custom Visual Style from deviantART that's easier on the eyes than the Windows default. I've got a number of helpful keyboard shortcuts memorized (Ctrl-E in Firefox moves the cursor to the Quick Search box; Ctrl-Tab switches between tabs and Ctrl-W closes them).

The curious result of all this is that I find I can accomplish most routine tasks with only a few clicks or keystrokes, but a lot of people find my computer hard to use. This is fine; I'm not trying to run a kiosk machine. In an ideal world computers would be simple to use out of the box; regardless of what arguments you might make about Macs vs. PCs, they're generally not. The right choice of software can go a long way towards ultimate ease-of-use - ask me if you're ever wondering what the right choice is, and accept that if I give you a technical answer, I do it because it's the simplest you can get.

Now Playing: 30 Seconds To Mars - A Beautiful Lie - 07 - From Yesterday