SemiAntics

So, I read in the news today that President Bush is lobbying for more surveillance legislation. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments would protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits over the monitoring of suspected terrorists’ phone calls and emails done without a warrant. The bill passed in the Senate but is hung up in the House. Bush says that the bill is an “urgent priority.” He says it’s dangerous for the legislation to be delayed.

Now, why does Bush think anyone is going to believe anything he says? His credibility is shot from all those WMD’s that were an imminent threat to our security turned out to be non-existent. I think it’s rather absurd that the Bush administration continues to seriously advise us on what is and is not a threat to our security. It appears to me that the biggest threat to our security is the Bush administration itself and all those members of Congress that continue to revoke our civil liberties. I don’t see why Bush wants the permission to wiretap without a warrant. Warrants really aren’t that hard to get…

Bush also seemed to indicate that the bill would prevent trial lawyers from getting rich off of frivolous lawsuits against the telecom companies. Hmmm..which sounds scarier, a couple of rich trial lawyers or the possibility of having your phone tapped and your email read by the government without due process of the law?

The bill passed the Senate 68-29 on February 12th. McCain voted for it. Clinton and Obama didn’t vote. Both Warner and Webb voted yea.

Go here to see how your senators voted.

For those who have wide screen laptops, here is one that will hopefully fit without needing resizing.

All wallpaper images posted on this site are subject to the Creative Commons Attribution – ShareAlike license.

Note: I created this with the Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program). The Gimp is a full featured photo and image editor with similar plugins and features to what you may find in Adobe Photoshop (R). There is a nice tutorial on how to create these nice fractals provided by the Gentoo GNU/Linux community.

Here is a wallpaper if you’re bored with the one you have. Maybe you’ll get bored of this one too, but maybe I’ll post another by the time that happens!

All wallpaper images posted on this site are subject to the Creative Commons Attribution – ShareAlike license.

Note: I created this with the Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program). The Gimp is a full featured photo and image editor with similar plugins and features to what you may find in Adobe Photoshop (R). There is a nice tutorial on how to create these nice fractals provided by the Gentoo GNU/Linux community.

Clearly Dilbert is a genius amongst idiots, morons, thieves and imbeciles. So, my question is, why is he still working there? I mean, if he goes to work each and every day feeling like his efforts are futile, he never satisfies his boss, he is ruled by an evil cat in human resources, etc (the list goes on).

So, I have a list of ten reasons he might stay working for his company.

1. He has been there for years, and he would lose precious vacation time if he left.
2. He is in love with Wally.
3. He is about to retire.
4. The Elbonians threaten him with slave labour if he leaves.
5. Pointy-haired boss has dirt on him.
6. He is busy cultivating his protege, Asok.
7. He knows that Carol would follow him where ever he goes just to make him suffer.
8. Another company would make him straighten his tie.
9. Absolutely nothing would get done if he left. (Even less than nothing).
10. There is a magnetic vortex holding him there.

If you don’t like my top ten reasons, well you just go ahead and find better ones. I’ll consider updating my list if yours are better.

George W. Bush knows that he is going out in a cloud of smoke instead of a blaze of glory. This may be his last attempt to save face, but he’ll only do harm in the process. To a lot of people, a little “free” money will be nice. Who doesn’t like money? That is why Americans will buy into it, and it is a sad day for our country.

What’s the real problem with our economy? I’m no economist; that’s one class I didn’t like in college, but I am willing to bet that spending untold billions of dollars on a fake war in Iraq is probably part of the problem. All that has done is to transfer money from tax payers to those who can afford to avoid taxes, and to those that benefit from war. Not to mention that a lot of money was wasted.

No, there would be no economic problem if Bush hadn’t turned the biggest surplus into the biggest deficit that this country has ever known. Well, I don’t have those facts, but I’ve heard that said (don’t quote me on it!)

I guess I’ll be an American, because I’ll probably get one of those checks. But you can bet I won’t be gloating when I get it. I’ll be sad because I know that once again, Americans have been duped by a total idiot and his pack of thieves. (Did I mention that the Democrats seem to be strong supporters of said bill?)

In conclusion, there are only two people that I think (at this point) are worth voting for in the next Presidential election. I think that both Mike Gravel and Ron Paul are honest hard-working, uncompromising people, and we should consider them as candidates (regardless of who gets the nominations!)

I just got the call tonight from the North Carolina State University Math department. They wanted to tell me that I will be accepted into their Ph.D. program in Mathematics, as well as to offer me a teaching assistantship. This is just what I was hoping to hear! I’ll be going down to visit in February for the recruitment weekend.

At slightly more than 30,000 students, NC-State University is just about the same size as VCU. But if you compare campus size, NCSU has a much larger campus. It’s also a lot greener, (as in grassy, with trees) and much more pleasant. NC-State has a good reputation with science, engineering, math, etc.

Wish me luck!

Here is my summary of years of studying mathematics:

1. When a book or a professor writes a proof and the proof contains the word “clearly”, it means that the fact is anything but clear. Usually it means that it would take up time and space to write it, therefore it is best to just write the word “clearly” and leave the verification “as an exercise to the student.”
2. When a student writes the word “clearly” in a proof or problem, it means the student is too lazy to write the full proof, or she doesn’t really understand it. Minus 5 points!

The moral of the story? Don’t ever use the word “clearly.” If you think something is clear, then it probably is, and you surely don’t need to insult your professor by pointing it out. If in doubt, write it out!

Sometimes there is a temptation to connect every step of a proof explicitly. In some cases it is best to leave obvious steps out, or simply state why it is true.