Figuring Out the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act

I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on teh innertubes. But recently, H.R. 2826 was introduced (you can search for it at thomas.loc.gov). Dubbed the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act, it’s been all over the leftosphere, so I figured I should try to figure out what it’s all about.

Summary: the preamble pretty much says it all:

A BILL

To amend titles 28 and 10, United States Code, to restore habeas corpus for individuals detained by the United States at Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for other purposes.

Note that habeas corpus is pretty much all that the bill restores (AFAICT).

(Update, Sep. 19: I guess this is mostly moot, since the bill has been defeated.)

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Calculating My Tastes

One thing you can do in iTunes is to give songs a rating from 1 to 5 stars. It also has an option to play highly-rated songs more often during shuffle play, but frankly, I can’t be bothered to go through my collection rating songs by hand. And besides, the metadata that iTunes stores for each song includes things like the number of times it was played, the last time it was played, the number of times it was skipped, the last time it was skipped, and the time when it was added to the library. It seems that from this, it should be possible to figure out what I like and what I don’t like. Specifically, it should be possible to write an AppleScript script that goes through the library and computes ratings.

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Fun With Playlists

One thing I like about iTunes is its “smart playlists”, which are not simply lists of songs, but are defined by certain criteria. For instance, I have one called “80s Music”, with the single rule

  • Year is in the range 1980 to 1898

which, obviously, contains all music from the 1980s, and is automatically updated when I add or remove songs.

Recent versions have added a number of other features and criteria, which make various interesting lists possible. Read More

Lack of Evidence for God Is Evidence of God, Says Pope

Quoth the NY Daily News:

“All believers know about the silence of God,” he said in unprepared remarks in Italy. “Even Mother Teresa, with all her charity and force of faith, suffered from the silence of God.”

He said believers sometimes had to withstand the silence of God to understand the situation of people who do not believe.

So God doesn’t actually, like, make himself known to people because he wants believers to sympathize with atheists? And maybe the fact that I can’t fly is a gift from Superman to help me sympathize with the residents of Smallville. I gather that “unprepared remarks” is code for “pulling lame excuses out of his ass.”

(HT Olly’s Onions via Jesus and Mo.)

Six Years Since 9/11

…so can someone please give me a good reason why the pigfucker behind it still hasn’t been caught?

Octogenarian Sex

By now, I think everyone’s heard the news that older people are having a lot more sex than one might think. But am I the only one who thought “good for them!” rather than “ewwww!”?

No, a random sixty- or seventy-year-old woman doesn’t fire up my libido, but:

a) No one’s making you look at photos of naked grandparents. And if you don’t like the mental image, think of something else, get over it, and move on.

b) In the majority of cases, I’m sure we’re not talking about random people. Most of these people are in a relationship, either marriage or friendship or something. If you think it’s normal for a boyfriend and girlfriend to have sex, why should that change just because they’re in their sixties or beyond? And yes, this is personal: my grandmother found a boyfriend after my grandfather died, and they were good for each other. If they wanted to get it on, who am I to say they shouldn’t? Sex is fun. Why shouldn’t grandma get some? Hell, I don’t care if she’s into leather and butt-plugs.

c) I hope to grow old some day (it sure beats the alternative), and I don’t plan on giving a rat’s ass what anyone thinks about my sex life.

The real news in the report, from my point of view, was that the sex drive doesn’t diminish as rapidly as I (and probably many others) had thought. If this grosses you out, get over it. Oh, and your parents had sex, too. Once again, get over it.

Why Is Faith Considered A Virtue?

Because without it, people wouldn’t believe in God.

As far as I can tell, it really is that simple.

A Number of Playlists

Albums

  • 7, Apoptygma Berzerk
  • 18, Moby
  • 154, Wire
  • 90125, Yes

Songs of the Year

  • 1921, The Who
  • ’39, Queen
  • 1959, The Sisters of Mercy
  • 1963, New Order
  • 1981, Public Image Ltd.
  • 1984, New Model Army
  • 2000, Tuxedomoon

Others

  • 13, They Might Be Giants
  • 18, Moby
  • 39, The Cure
  • 40, U2
  • 9-9, R.E.M.
  • 107, Orgy
  • 225, New Model Army
  • 5 8 6, New Order
  • 1010, Ministry
  • 6794700, Birmingham 6
  • 6060-842, B-52s
  • 8675309, Tommy Tutone

Update, Sep. 10, 2007:

Not sure whether it qualifies

  • M, The Cure
Sony Learns Nothing From Its Mistakes

Remember back in 2005, when Sony decided it would be a smashingly brill idea to include a rootkit on one of their CDs? Well, now they’re selling USB keychain drives with built-in fingerprint scanners, and they figured it’d be totally rad to include a rootkit with that as well.

As the old saying goes, subvert my security to prevent the inevitable release of your IP onto the net by 15 minutes, shame on you; subvert my security etc. twice, shame on you still, dumbass.

The Further Adventures of Ted “Completely Heterosexual” Haggard

Remember Ted Haggard, the right-wing preacher who got busted for having sex with a male prostitute, and buying meth from him?

If Bonnie Goldstein at Slate is right, he might be entering the lucrative field of financial shenanigans (a career for which his experience as a preacher prepared him well) (maybe he can share a cell with Kent Hovind).

The nutshell version: he doesn’t have his old salary, and in the current housing market, he can’t sell his $700,000 house, so he sent out a letter asking people to donate to Families With A Mission, which will pass on 90% of donations to Haggard, and keep 10% for administrative expenses.

However, it appears that Families With A Mission was dissolved in February 2007. And its registered agent was a sex offender.

So something funny’s going on.