Monday, October 30, 2000

October 30, 2000 455pm CST Top Five Surprises found in stolen Windows source code: Written entirely in Basic Complex "ScrewCompetitorsSoftware" routines Even more complex "WasteProcessorCycles" routines Comment lines including the phrase "Presented to Professor J. T. Wormley, CPSC 112, Fundamentals of Computer Programming" "This source code copyright 1984 Apple Computer, Inc." 4:55:28 PM    comment []

October 30, 2000 1122am CST Grr... More politics. Those of us who live in republics are cursed to share power with people with whom we disagree. While it may ensure that we do not become a fanatical state, it is sure frustrating this time of year. I believe that the principal purpose of a government is to protect our liberty and our lives, not to minimize social problems. Even if liberty causes a few adverse social problems, it is still important to have liberty. For example, the second amendment guarantees individuals the right to keep and bear arms. Now, this is not because we can use guns to hunt game to our hearts content, but because citizen armament is necessary to the security of any free state. Arms are used to defend ourselves, not only from violent attackers, but from the government when they usurp our rights. Even if the idea of the citizenry overthrowing the current U.S. government in an armed rebellion is ridiculous, the fact that the government would take away the citizens' right to bear arms is tyranny. Now, gun control advocates are in the mainstream, and organizations like the NRA are painted as reactionary monsters. Nota bene - Just because an idea is popular doesn't mean it isn't tyranny. If we elect to give up our right to bear arms, we have committed an act of tyranny against ourselves. While we are talking about rights, I have to mention education again. There is a Bush ad in which he says "Reading is a civil right." I can not disagree more. While the ability to read is no doubt important, it should never be considered a civil right. To consider it so would be to cheapen our real rights. Our rights are fundamental; as the Declaration of Independence says, "We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..." The ability to read is not given us by our Creator at the time of our birth. It is a learned skill, and no matter how valuable it is, reading can never be given the legal priority of a fundamental right. It is my right to say whatever I want, and I was given that right simply because I am human. Illiterate people have this right, too. They can exercise their right to free speech because they are endowed with that right from the time of their birth, and the U.S. Constitution protects of that right. No such protections are guaranteed to literacy, nor should they be. Americans who can not read are citizens every bit as much as I am. They have all of the same rights that I do. 11:23:48 AM    comment []