Joel on Software is offering up an excellent article on Microsoft, programming languages, and the future of applications. If you're a nerd you'll probably enjoy it.

Comments: 2 Posted by david on 17 June 2004 at 8:44 AM

If you are considering voting for President Bush in the upcoming election, I urge you to read this article from the Washington Post. I didn't even make it half-way through before I found myself seething with rage at the current administration. The president and/or his advisers have decided that, for better or for worse, that their need to wage a "war on terror" (don't even get me started on the oxymoronic nature of that phrase) trumps all other legal barriers. Yes, the terrorists killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. However, according to some websites approximately 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since our war in Iraq began. How much is one American life worth? And how do we factor in the torture?

Here's the paragraph that really got me:

A U.S. law enacted in 1994 bars torture by U.S. military personnel anywhere in the world. But the Pentagon group's report, prepared under the supervision of General Counsel William J. Haynes II, said that "in order to respect the President's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign . . . [the prohibition against torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority."

Presidents have always taken liberties during times of war. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, but that wasn't entirely legal. Further, our "war on terror" isn't a war in the strictly legal sense or in a practical sense. I would argue that a war needs to have a definite enemy and a definite objective. The current "war" has neither and looks more like an on-going and perpetual struggle. Is it really possible to win the "war on terror?" If not, we cannot have a president who is willing to take and expand war-time powers to their utmost limits. Its all about checks and balances, something that Mr. Bush doesn't seem to understand.

Also, for those of you who weren't swayed by the article linked above, try this one and this one on for size. The deputy solicitor general told the Supreme Court justices that the possibility of abuse (in response to a question about torture) didn't justify "judicial micromanagement" and that the current executive didn't approve of torture. Its a bit of a no-win situation for President Bush here. Either he didn't know about any torture by Americans, in which case he's not in control of the government he's supposed to be leading, or he did know and approved of the torture. Neither option is all that good for us as a country, but I hope its the former. I'm just not that comfortable with having Torquemada as my president.

(I'll leave the comments on until things get abusive and ugly. Any bets on how long that'll take?)

Comments: 3 Posted by david on 8 June 2004 at 5:12 PM