Obama fails vocabulary test, note sent home to parents

So, apparently democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama doesn't understand the meaning of 'grave', 'breech' and 'intentional'. To the back of the class, Mr. Obama.

In this article from the International Herald-Tribune, says,

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama laid out list of political shortcomings he sees in the Bush administration but said he opposes impeachment for either President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney.

...

"I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president's authority," he said.

Excuse me?

Also, what about the horrible violations of the Geneva Convention? All the human rights abuses and torture and all that? Dunno, seems like those might be reasonable grounds for impeachment and/or execution for war crimes. I'm just sayin'.

It's just as well, though, since he didn't really stand a chance anyway.

GPLv3 released

And, it's done. Version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3) has been released.

IMSLP: Viola Sonata, Op.49 (Rubinstein, Anton)

Hidey-ho, neighborinos!

Yesterday, I uploaded Anton Rubinstein's Viola Sonata, Op. 49. There are two files: the piano score (34pg, 2.8MB), and the viola part (9pg, 705KB). Enjoy!

"Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace"

danah boyd (web site http://www.danah.org/) presents an interesting discussion of American class divisions, their effect on social networking site usage, and vice-versa. "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace".

Lawrence Lessig Changes Direction

In a recent blog post, Lawrence Lessig announced that he will be shifting his focus away from "IP" ('Intellectual Property', better called 'Intellectual Monopoly' or 'Intellectual Privilege') towards fighting the corruption endemic in the system of government. Best of luck to him.

You should also read Lessig's blog (added to the blogroll) because he's really that awesome. :-)

A Note to Speaker Pelosi

Not that I actually believe it will make any difference, but on the off-chance that it does, I sent the following message to Speaker Pelosi today.

Speaker Pelosi,

It is far beyond time to impeach. The continuing disregard that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, their staffs and others in the administration show for not only human rights, common decency and the Geneva Convention but also the Constitution of this Union indicate that they are unfit for service. They should be handed to the Hague for war crimes, but instead they are allowed to flout their power while the Congress stands by and makes idle threats to remove funding and more and more evidence of the horrors they have enacted is revealed.

Stop playing games, Speaker Pelosi. Stop playing politics. Every day wasted is an affront to humanity, yours and mine and everyone else's.

Sincerely,

Geoffrey Lehr

Interesting New Yorker article on Linguistics

Here's an interesting article from the New Yorker. It's about a remote Amazonian tribe and how different their language is from other known languages.

"Interpreter"

David Morgan-Mar's Comments on Atheism and Morality

Over at Irregular Webcomic, David Morgan-Mar has, with today's strip, a rather insightful bit of commentary on morality and atheism, and the difference (he supposes) between reasoned morality, that is, a moral code reached through introspection and thought, and authoritative morality, that is handed down from some authority, generally a deity.

Blog Rating

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Mingle² - Online Dating

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This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
queer (8x) gay (2x) abortion (1x)

IMSLP: Cello Concerto No.2, Op.104 (Dvořák, Antonín Leopold)

Yesterday, I posted Dvořák's Cello Concerto No.2, Op.104 (Complete score, ~7MB, 76 pages) to the IMSLP.

Wil Wheaton on Gene Roddenberry and Sci-fi

I've got nothing substantial to say about this, but Wil Wheaton hits the nail on the head with his latest Geek in Review: Gene Roddenberry: Boldly Going Where No One Had Gone Before (warning: suicide girls is generally considered not safe for work...).