That is Racist

From what I can gather, the New Haven 20 is a group of 20 firefighters from New Haven, Connecticut. Recently, the group has won their case against their employer on the grounds of reverse racial discrimination. When the case reached the Supreme Court, the court voted 5-4 in favor of the New Haven 20.

So…the fire department held an exam to determine who was eligible for a promotion…and who was not. The fire department did not hold true to the purpose of the exam when it promoted employees with lower test scores above those with higher test scores (the New Haven 20). The reason? According to the allegation (and the ruling), the fire department had a minority quota to fill. This meant ignoring 14 exam scores, as six of them were found to be not eligible for promotion, regardless of the exam results.

In light of this event, there has been some buzz around cyberspace regarding the effectiveness/validity of affirmative action. There is no room for debate on this topic. Affirmative action has outlived its validity. If someone (not necessarily from a minority) does not get a job/promotion based on race or gender, that person has every right and reason to take the employer to court. If an employer does not want to be sued for discrimination, it should not apply “minority quotas” to prevent it, as this is out of fear of the law itself. Instead, the company should simply avoid discriminating…it is actually simple. Boeing is one such company employing the said quotas.

There is a columnist (Ruben Navarrette, Jr) who wrote an article regarding Americans’ laziness when it comes to competing for jobs. While his article (worth a read) addressed competition on a global scale, the competition aspect is still relevant. Interpretation of affirmative action laws mitigate domestic competition. If somebody discriminates against you, take whatever legal action necessary. But do NOT, under any circumstances, hide behind the color of your skin. If a person declares him- or herself a minority, he/she is merely looking for a handout of some kind.

I seriously thought that we, as a people, had finally moved past the whole issue of race, especially with the election of President Barack Obama. However, I was proven wrong 20 minutes after the votes were tallied when I heard several people exclaim, “my president is black”, without ever giving a thought to the fact that he is also half white…they only considered what they saw. There will always exist an ignorance-ridden population considering race a merit (or demerit). It is called human nature. Some suppress this fallacy, while others exhaust themselves finding ways to make themselves feel more important than the person standing next to them, whether it is the acquisition of wealth or ethnocentricity.

The U.N.’s New Climate Solution…Brilliant

Happy Thanksgiving, once again! I said I would post this amid the pangs of over-eating, so here it is…

Since the lack of the legislation in the U.S. is threatening to derail the Copenhagen Agreement (unless the developing countries manage to push it through), the U.N. is resorting to a rather odd solution to the climate problem. The report comes from Channel 4 News that women are the key to saving our climate!

Here is the gist of the article:

UNFPA executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said: “Poor women in poor countries are among the hardest hit by climate change, even though they contributed least to it”.

According to the UNFPA mission web page:

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity.

For another idea of what the UNFPA is all about, refer to this article regarding a Turkish soldier and his wedding night.

The Channel 4 News article is dated November 18, 2009, but many of you have undoubtedly seen the advertisements stating that President Obama wants mothers to go back to school (the advertisement clicks through to this page). These advertisements have been prominently shown since Obama signed the omnibus spending bill in 2009. Lucky for us college students, the bill was more of a success than Obama’s HOPE Act as a Senator in 2005. According to Govtrack.us, the HOPE Act has not been touched since October of 2005–a lifespan of six months.

If the Copenhagen Agreement becomes a reality, would the U.S. still be able to support its own citizens (both men AND women) in this capacity? Or would the all-knowing U.N. use our finances as a developed country to assist women in developing countries? As a college student, I can tell you that the foreign exchange student numbers (in this state, alone) reflect the eagerness of the U.S. to educate foreign students who wish to make the trip. In fact, this country is practically giving green cards away lottery-style. I stumbled across that website about a year ago (around the same time I found Mexico listed as a U.S. state while filling out my FAFSA). I am sure Mexico can still be viewed in the drop-down list of states while filling out the FAFSA on-line.

Regardless, it is nice to see the U.S. (specifically, President Obama) was ahead of the curve…four years ago.

Thank You, United States Senate

I have read/watched reports of a conspiracy afoot with the new Copenhagen Agreement. I am not saying that the agreement has no value, whatsoever; I am saying that the current agreement is unacceptable to anyone with respect towards the constitution of the United States of America.

For those of you not acquainted with the many conspiracy theories floating around cyberspace, there is one which may (if it is signed) threaten the veil of democracy many Americans hold dear. The man spearheading the conspiracy theory (and I use that phrase, “conspiracy theory”, lightly) is Lord Christopher Monckton. Lord Monckton advertises the Copenhagen Agreement as the end of the U.S.A. as we know it. A video can be found here.

The latest (to my knowledge) framework of the Copenhagen Agreement, in all of it’s 181-page glory, can be found here.

Page 18 of the framework draft clearly states:

“38. The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three basic pillars: government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism, and the basic organization of which will include the following:
(a) The government will be ruled by the COP with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies. The current Convention secretariat will operate as such, as appropriate”.

This clause proves Lord Monckton partially correct–as far as saying that a world “government” will be established. As for the allegations regarding total submission to the aforementioned governing COP…

Page 85:

“68. The proposed Financial and Technology Mechanism on Mitigation shall be governed by the following principles and guiding criteria:
[...]
(b) Operate under the authority and guidance of, and be fully accountable to, the COP (Conference of Parties)”.

Clause 68 (above) proves that the governing body (COP) will have control over the finances of the U.S., should President Obama actually sign it.

Yes, the main focus of the Copenhagen Agreement is to utilize the wealth of “developed countries” (such as the U.S. and Australia) to modernize the economies of “developing countries” under the guise of capping excessive CO2 emissions. Perhaps, if we left the rain forests alone, the trees would absorb all of it, eh? I learned in Biology that the environmental problem was methane gas…where the hell did the CO2 thing come from?

Luckily…none of it matters…for now. That is correct. Our Senate does not have any plans to commit to any climate-related framework (unlike the House of Representatives). It is because of this lack of action that the success of the Copenhagen Agreement has been cast into doubt. After all, when one of the leading contributors to the new economic policy does not play along, that pretty much puts a kink the system.

Another lucky (VERY lucky, if not political) distraction is President Obama’s accepting his Nobel Peace Prize. CNN reported that he will attend a portion of the summit despite the minor schedule conflict.

I came across an interesting article regarding the U.N. and its newly-discovered key to climate control. I will post about it later while I am recuperating. Differing from the Copenhagen Agreement, “mitigation” shall have no place at the table today! Have a great Thanksgiving.

Cheers, Firefox

Matt posted here that yesterday (Nov. 9) was Mozilla Firefox’s fifth birthday. When I first tried Firefox about four years ago, it only took a few minutes to see that it was of higher quality than Internet Explorer…not saying that was/is an extremely difficult task.

Sadly, I no longer use Mozilla Firefox. My discontinued use was not due to (nor did it result in) hard feelings towards Mozilla. I switched to Opera (which I did not see on Matt’s latest browser stats) because I read that it outscored, both, Firefox and IE for security in an independent trial, so I tried it. That was probably three years ago…and I still use it.

As a sign of good faith, I still use Mozilla Thunderbird as my email application. Happy (belated) Birthday, Firefox.

Video Game Virus…Sounds Fun

So I created this site about a week ago, but I have not been able to sit down and belt out a couple blogs. Here goes everything.

I was browsing the internet, and stumbled upon what appeared to be a blog authored by Stephen Totilo. The article, entitled “The Dangerous Video Game You Weren’t Supposed to Play”, described how Zach Gage created a variant of the arcade game Space Invaders. So it was a puff piece for a new version of an old game–no big deal. However, this delightful version has a different game mode–”Lose/Lose“. The effect is exactly as the name implies in that the player loses however the game is played. During play, each alien represents a file on the player’s hard drive. If an alien is destroyed (which is the point of the game), a corresponding file on the player’s hard drive (or his friend victim’s hard drive) is deleted. Already, winning equates losing. But what happens when you actually lose the game? The game deletes itself.

A mention of Symantec’s deeming of his game as a trojan added the modicum dose of conflict. Zach Gage displays the warning on the game’s download page, but he claims the disclaimer clears his program of the term “malware”. Back in reality:

1. The game is software.
2. The player can interact and, knowingly, wreak havoc on whichever hard drive the game is installed.

To appear sympathetic to the plight of anti-virus companies, Gage seemed to understand why his program attracted some mal-attention. Then…he bombed. He suggested the more lighthearted terminology “dangerous software” to distinguish his game from programs specifically meant to harm computer files. He must have forgotten the hours he spent programming the game to DELETE FILES when a user kills an alien.

Sub7 is a popular trojan delivery/control tool that performs no task until the user clicks a button. Perhaps the dreaded Sub7 is actually a misunderstood piece of dangerous software. Redundant?

So this dangerous program can delete files. Seems simple enough, right? There is more to it–there should not be, but there is. Gage then attempted to transform his program into a piece of art centered around the real consequences virtual violence within the realm of Space Invaders can have. He is correct in this regard (about the consequences, not art). He then tries to use the game to compare how people consider virtual possessions differently. The game makes no statement related to virtual property. There is nothing virtual about deleting data off a hard drive…it is actual. Do not get me wrong, I felt compelled to backup my laptop and try the game. Did that make a social statement? No. Why? I was too lazy to backup my files, play the game, then re-install everything. Being able to replace everything would also nullify the social experiment since value is often directly related to scarcity. There are some files on my computer that I value more than others, but that would not change if I had a filing cabinet rather than a laptop. Experiment over.

Programming requires talent, so I am not saying Mr. Gage is not talented. He has a website showcasing his many works, both technical and “artistic”. I am, however, implying that he is not an artist. If I absolutely had to consider him as an artist, his work would probably be comparable to such gems as “Lobster Telephone”.