Dangerous Logic

Chinese People's Liberation Army chief Gen. Chen Bingde is trying to convince us that China isn't a military threat. From Fox News via Defense Tech:

"Through my visit over the past couple of days in the United States, I am surprised by the sophistication of the U.S. military, including its weapons and equipment and doctrines and so on," People's Liberation Army leader General Chen Bingde said. "I can tell you that China does not have the capability to challenge the United States. As a matter of fact, the reconnaissance activities along China's coast by U.S. military aircraft and vessels are seen in China as deterrents."

For emphasis, the general added, "What I'm trying to say is that we do not have the capability to challenge the United States."

. . .

"As it is known to all, the United States is a super-power in the world today; how can China easily have the ability to challenge it? That is simply not part of Chinese culture and we do not have that capability. We would strive for world peace, civility and development and well being of the whole humankind...The United States has far more advanced weapons and equipment."

I... don't believe him. In fact, the first thing I thought of when I read this was the South Park season 3 episode called Chinpoko-mon, about a Japanese company that uses a Pokemon-like game to brainwash American youth to join a new Japanese-supremacist military. Specifically, this part (starting at 0:33), where company officials try to distract a concerned American toy shop owner from the threat of Chinpoko-mon:

"I am President Hirohito. And this is Mr. Osa."
"Pleased to meet you."
"We understand you have big concern about our fine product."
"Well, yes. Do you mind telling me what the hell this is about?" [activates Chinpoko-mon doll]
"The American Government lies to you. Join the fight for Japanese supremacy of the world. More to come!"
"Well?"
"That is so strange. I do not know how this could happen. But rest assured, I will make sure it does not happen again!"
"Well, now come on, I don't think that that quite satisfies my - "
"You are... American?"
"Yes."
"Oh! You must have very big penis!"
"Excuse me? I was just asking you what you're up to with these toys."
"Nothing. We are very simple people with very small penis. Mr. Osa penis is especially small."
"So small!"
"We cannot achieve much with so small penis. But you Americans... wow! Penis so big... so big penis!"
"Well, I guess it is a pretty good size."
...
"Well, it certainly was nice meeting you folks; I just wanted to bring that little malfunction to your attention. Bye-bye now."
"Thank you for stopping by with your gargantuan penis!"

Damn straight it is. And we intend to be the ONLY swinging dick in the Pacific.

Race Report: Flight 2 Fight Blood Cancer 10K, 2 APR 2011, Fort Wayne Metals / Fort Wayne International Airport

I wasn't originally planning on running this race, it being a week before the Mastodon Stomp which I planned to use to try to break my 5K PR. Then I heard they'd have beer. And that about 2/3 of the race was on FWA property. And about half of that was actually on one of the runways. So I figured I'd run it nice and easy as a LSR - add a mile to warm up and a mile to cool down, and that'd be the 8mi run my training plan called for that weekend anyway. Plus I'd get beer.

Which is how I found myself outside Fort Wayne Metals that 40-degree morning, in a strong westerly wind with occasional drizzle, contemplating not getting out of my car. So I offered myself a deal: cut the warmup short - it's just a training run, right? Jog out to the airport, futz around on the runways for a few miles revelling in the coolness of it all, jog back, jog a little more afterwards, drink beer. I held out until the 'drink beer' part, but I shook hands and got out of the car.

About the 'revelling in the coolness of it all' part - I love airports. I fly just often enough that the whole air travel experience hasn't lost its cool factor for me. Unless I'm in a real hurry to get where I'm going, or I'm trying to get home, I don't even mind being delayed; an airport of any real size offers world-class opportunities for people-watching, not to mention the logistical ballet of people, aircraft, ground vehicles, luggage, and cargo (and the phrase 'logistical ballet' obviously marks me as a transpo geek). So the opportunity to run halfway around an airport, with a couple of miles of that on the runway, appealed to me. And did I mention there was beer afterwards?

I planned to run-walk-run it, more or less Galloway-style: 11mm pace for 4min, then 50 yards or so of strides, then walk for 1min. Varying your speed that often is all well and good when you're by yourself on the Pufferbelly; it's a little more problematic when you're sharing one lane of Ardmore Road with 300 other people. I had to do some bob-and-weave the first couple cycles, then we hit the airport property at the 1mi mark, the 5K separated from the 10K, and we got both lanes of the access road to ourselves.

The access road ran parallel to the runway, curved around the end, then ran back along the other side. The curve, oddly enough for a road with a 25mph speed limit, was banked. And I could tell there were no NASCAR fans in the vicinity, because I said "Good thing this is banked, otherwise I'd have to get off the throttle and I wouldn't get a good run coming out of the corner" and nobody laughed.

As we came around the end of the runway, the headwind became a tailwind and the sun came out so it got a little warm. I took one of my two shirts off without blundering into the electrified fence or onto the runway, but I hit my stopwatch without realizing it for about :50. No biggie, since it's just a training run, right? We made the turn onto the actual runway for the first time, and I couldn't resist putting my arms out like wings and making airplane noises.

On and off for the next two miles. Irritated the hell out of everyone around me.

There were a lot of course marshals, as you might expect for a race at an (International!) airport. The last thing they wanted was for somebody to hide ten pounds of Semtex under their track suit and 'get lost' only to go all suicide bomber on a departing airliner later. All runners had to be off airport grounds (5mi mark) by 11AM; even with a 9:30 start I was pretty sure they wouldn't have to motivate me to pick up the pace via gunfire.

Then we turned back into that 25mph wind and I wasn't so sure anymore. That is just a shock and a half to turn from headwind to tailwind back to headwind, but no biggie, since it's just a training run, right? I eventually managed to clear the airport, and with one last remark to the deputy at the gate ("I always wanted to be able to do that without y'all chasing me" - His Officerness was NOT amused, btw) turned back onto Ardmore for the final mile. Then I realized I'd been playing tag with the same group of three people for the last two miles - I'd keep pace with them on the jogs, get close to them on the strides, fall back on the walks. No biggie, it's just a training run, right? Eff that. It's a RACE. I called down to the engine room for more power and began to chase.

Catching two of the three was anticlimactic - they slowed to a walk at the aid station and I didn't. I reeled the third one in about 1/4mi later; as far as I could tell he'd kept the same pace for the previous 3 miles. Maybe he really WAS on a training run. We turned dead into the wind for the final quarter-mile and I saw a couple about 50 yards ahead of me. I gave it my best shot, but I came up just short at the end. I found myself wishing the race had gone 50 yards more (and tell me THAT ain't weird); I think I would have had them.

The results? Well, it's a bit complicated:

• Officially, my gun time was 1:07:59.90.
• My net time (start line to finish line) was 1:07:40, give or take a second.
• When I crossed the finish line, my watch read 1:06:49 and 6.22 miles covered, not counting the :50ish seconds my watch was shut off (or whatever ground I covered during that time).

Naturally, I took the result most favorable to me and called it a 1:06:49 10K PR. Or at least I would have if it weren't just a training run.

Secret Manual Gives Glimpse of North Korean Military Tactics

A military manual, said to have been smuggled out of North Korea, reveals Pyongyang's concern about electronic warfare technology used by the United States and South Korea. The document also indicates North Korea's military uses radar-absorbing paint and other stealth tactics to conceal its weapons.

The five-year-old handbook gives instructions on how to make radar-absorbing paint to help conceal jets, warships and tanks. It also explains how to fabricate decoys, pave bogus runways and deceive the enemy by having stationary units mimic the characteristics of those on the move. Such tactics have long been used by Western militaries.

That's all well and good, but when they've finished painting everything in sight they're still going to have a bunch of freshly-painted MiG-21s and T-72s, and unless they figure out how to make them silent, cold, and not obsolete, I'm not going to lose any sleep over our ability to target them if the balloon goes up.

Walter Breuning, world's oldest man, nears 114

I always wondered what happened to that guy from the Six Flags commercials in 2004.

I think I broke my own record for getting a highlight reel out - I'm pretty sure it was less than an hour from final gun to availability on YouTube.

Sorry, only SD available right now. Hopefully, I'll be able to pull down an HD version and do a remix with audio from the Michigan Sports Network.

Tags: Michigan Football Denard Robinson Michael Shaw Darryl Stonum Jordan Kovacs

In The Matrix Trilogy, humans are biological generators wired into a power plant that provides some of the energy to keep the machines going.

In a research lab in France, a biological generator wired into a rat provides energy that could be used to power a machine. Implanted Fuel Cell Powered by Rat's Body Fluids:

A new fuel cell is putting a twist on alternative energy from biofuels: The implanted device draws power from chemicals in living animals.

Dubbed a glucose biofuel cell, the implant gets its juice from glucose--aka blood sugar--and oxygen, both of which are naturally present in the fluids between a body's cells.

In a recent study, researchers created a test version of their glucose biofuel cell and implanted it in a white lab rat named Ricky. The rat sported the device successfully for 11 days and suffered no ill effects.

Wires running from the fuel cell out of the rat's neck showed that the device was producing a significant amount of energy.

How far are we from being able to build our own little Matrix, with millions of rats wired into treadmills pumping out electricity? It'd be like a giant Kia Soul commercial.

The latest episode of the BBC Radio 4 podcast Thinking Allowed discusses hate crimes. Presenter Laurie Taylor interviewed Sylvia Lancaster, whose daughter Sophie was attacked and murdered by a group of teenage thugs in August of 2007 because she and her partner Robert Maltby were dressed as Goths (Maltby was also attacked and severely injured, and as of October of 2008 had not completely recovered). The five teenagers responsible were convicted and given sentences ranging from four to sixteen years in prison.

As a result of this, Lancaster is leading the fight to expand Britain's hate crimes law to include

. . .attacks on people from sub cultures to be classified as a hate crime, allowing judges the power to issue tougher penalties.

Taylor explores the question "What is a subculture?" in his interview with Lancaster and Jon Garland, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Leicester:

TAYLOR: It's an odd question to have to ask, but how distinctive do they have to be in order to constitute a group who could be said to be the object of a hate crime?

GARLAND: Now I think that's, that's a very good question. I think one of the things that makes, say, alternative people, people from alternative subcultures something different is becuase they have got a history and also perhaps a sense of identity and community. So they are actually rather than just being sort of individuals that are targeted, they're part of this quite close-knit community that has a strong identity and an established history. I think that's one of the important things in this case.

But it's clear, to them at least, that not all subcultures are created equal:

TAYLOR: [what about] attacks on neo-Nazi groups, for example?

GARLAND: Yes, then we are on thorny territory, I think -

LANCASTER: But they've not got the same norms and values, have they?

TAYLOR: Well, neo-Nazi groups might say they share, you know, values, they share certain ways of dressing, the crew cuts, the heavy boots, or whatever, you know, that they have a distinctive thing, if they're attacked by the Socialist Labor League and flattened, presumably we want to invoke 'hate crime' in court there, do we?

GARLAND: Well, I wouldn't necessarily advocate that myself -

LANCASTER: No.

GARLAND: - I see the point you're making, it's where to draw the line, and this surrounds all of this hate crime debate, you know, it's regarding legislation, how we treat victims, who is a victim. And so far, at the moment, we're drawing the line in a certain place, and I think, you know, the great work Sylvia's done, is raising awareness that this line is more permeable than we thought. This boundary isn't as solid.

So, in the end, who gets to decide whether someone can have a hate crime committed against them, and what standard do they use? Until those questions get answered to my satisfaction, I'll have a problem with hate crime laws.

Tags: hate crime Thinking Allowed Laurie Taylor Jon Garland Sylvia Lancaster

So some numbnuts Thumper wants to burn the Quran:

The pastor of a small Florida church who has pledged to incinerate copies of the Quran on Sept. 11 said Wednesday he would press ahead with the plan, despite pleas from the Obama administration, U.S. military officials, the Vatican and religious leaders around the world.

"As of right now, we are not convinced that backing down is the right thing," said Terry Jones, pastor of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla.

No, that's not a typo. Some church with *50* members calls itself the 'Dove World Outreach Center.' I figure with 50 people, they can reach as far as Orlando. Tampa at the outside. But I digress. Naturally, this has pissed off everybody you would expect to be pissed off by it, and they're reacting pretty much how you'd expect them to (never mind that the aforementioned Quran burning hasn't even happened yet):

KABUL, Afghanistan - Hundreds of angry Afghans burned a U.S. flag and chanted "Death to the Christians" on Thursday to protest plans by a small American church to torch copies of the Muslim holy book on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

. . .

Local officials in Mahmud Raqi, the capital of Afghanistan's Kapisa province, estimated that up to 4,000 people took part in Thursday's demonstration. But NATO spokesman James Judge said the protesters numbered between 500 to 700.

It seems that the 'appropriate' reaction to this would be to burn some Bibles. Except that there aren't really any local-language Bibles in Afghanistan - the Army took care of that!

(CNN) -- Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday.

The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops of any religion from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt. Col. Mark Wright said.

Tags: Terry Jones Dove World Outreach Center

I'm a big fan of Steve Gibson's Security Now! podcast. I've learned more about computer security from a year of listening to SN than I did in TWO security/networking classes I took in college. Cost me a lot less, too.

But I'm really disappointed in something he said in last week's podcast about a privacy threat that you wouldn't normally think about: nonconsensual user tracking. This is a euphemism for "tracking your movement across the Web without your knowledge or consent, without using cookies." By collecting the headers that every web browser provides to every web site it connects to (e.g., user agent header, accept header, accept-language header), a site can eventually identify a given user to a disturbing degree of accuracy. The part of the show where Gibson talks about it is after the break (assuming I can figure out how to do a break in my spiffy new Movable Type 4 setup).

I like remixing stats in my head, especially when I can emphasize how bad something is. So I'm surprised that it took me so long to realize that my two favorite football teams are a combined 10-46 over the 2008-2009 seasons.

Tags: Michigan football Detroit Lions