Category Archives: Technology

UPDATED : Feds Have No Right To Conscript APPLE (Big Gov. Guy Gates)

Business, Constitution, Jihad, Private Property, Technology, Terrorism

It’s one thing for the federal government to subpoena “the data on the iPhone 5C” of jihadi murderers Rizwan Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik. It’s quite another for the FBI and prosecutors to demand “Apple produce software that would give investigators access to the iPhone at issue.”

A warrant for the information of the killers is perfectly reasonable. For this, the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution provides:

The Fourth Amendment requires the government to present to a judge evidence of wrongdoing on the part of a specific target of the warrant, and it requires that the warrant specifically describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized. The whole purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to protect the right to be left alone — privacy — by preventing general warrants.

In the case of the Fockers, I mean the Farooks, there is ample probable cause.

Probable cause is a level of evidence sufficient to induce a neutral judge to conclude that it is more likely than not that the government will find what it is looking for in the place it wants to search, and that what it is looking for will be evidence of criminal behavior.

But for a magistrate to order that Apple make an application to assist the Feds in doing their work: That’s tantamount to conscripting the company to involuntarily work for the feds. There is no warrant in the Constitution for that!

In fact, the involuntary conscription of someone’s labor, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished in 1865.

This is why I get frustrated when people waffle about the need for someone to enforce the US Constitution. What Constitution? Surely it’s time to realize the Constitution is, for the most, a dead letter? Alas, in the fullness of time, a provision will be found for this new violation. Allusions will be made to our “changing, dangerous world.”

UPDATE (2/23):

The Fiorina Anti-Terrorism Algorithm

Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Republicans, Technology, Terrorism

Barely A Blog’s grumpy resident rocket scientist, Myron Robert Pauli, PhD, complains about the foolishness of the false choices set up by politicians.

The Fiorina Anti-Terrorism Algorithm
By Myron Pauli

Given a choice between “doing something stupid” and “doing nothing,” our messianic politicians and their voters will opt for stupid like passing another ‘Patriot Act.’ Where is the more benign Gerald Ford when you need him?

So after the traditional TSA nudie-scan, grope, and mass spectrometer scan at Denver Airport, on my way to another aircraft survivability meeting, I settled in my hotel room to watch a rerun of CNN’s “Republican debate” on how to survive San Bernardino. The politicians were angry about the immigrants Tsarnaevs granted asylum in America (despite warnings by Big Bad Vlad Putin that they were Chechen terrorists) under the “Brother of Jeb!” Bush administration. They were angry about Major Malik Nidal Hasan who was publicly ranting Jihad for years – e-mails from him to Anwar al-Awlaki under both the Bush and Obama administrations were read by the FBI, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Army, and Joint Terrorist Task Force did not even result in taking away his ID badge!

The shoe-bomber happened under Bush and the underwear bomber (who traveled from Nigeria to the US via Yemen and whose father warned the CIA he was a terrorist) was allowed to fly to the US under both the Bush and Obama administrations. Perhaps under Clinton or Cruz, we’ll get the necktie bomber. At least Gerald Ford would just have us wear a KAT (Kill All Terrorists) button to go with the WIN (Whip Inflation Now) button instead of eviscerating the Bill of Rights.

How to respond? “Moderates” like John Kasich want to punch Putin in the nose while Christie wants to shoot down Russian planes. World War III – oh goodie! “Moderate” Rubio attacks Cruz for being “soft on terrorism” by not wanting to monitor billions of e-mails and calls every year. Carly “high-tech” Fiorina, who got $100,000,000 for wrecking HP, calls for an “algorithm” from the “high-tech” community to spot terrorism!

So let’s “read” this “decrypted and translated” e-mail from “Abdul” to “Ishmael,” shall we?

My mother wants me to wear this hideous yellow sweater … I ate falafel, ful medames, and lamb shisk-kebab at Suleiman’s café last Wednesday … My cousin Fatima is marrying Yussef, who I know from 8th grade, in Hoboken on July 15th at 8 pm

As opposed to:

“My grandmother insists I wear this grotesque blue vest … I enjoyed beef shish-kebab, lentils, and tehina at Achmed’s bistro last Tuesday … My niece Jazmine is marrying Farouk, whom I went to school with in 6th grade, in Dearborn on June 11th at 4 pm”.

Do you honestly think that the people who can’t spot Hasan and Tsarnaevs and Underpantsabomber can understand how pre-arranged terrorist instructions can be translated by perfectly innocuous e-mails? Carly, you are a complete fraud!

Naturally, I trust President Hillary Clinton with reading my e-mails! She would NEVER NEVER NEVER turn this on her political enemies! (Sure!) Just as the government rounded up grave threats like Clement Vallandigham (Lincoln), Eugene Debs (Wilson), and Fred Korematsu (FDR), Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio can spot the terrorists with the Fiorina algorithm.

Perhaps Fiorina’s “algorithm” can connect Muslim sounding names with lethal things like “gunfire” or poisonous chemicals like arsenic. Aha, I can envisage the peer-reviewed journal article soon to be workable technology (NOT):

“Infrared Detection and Geolocation of Gunfire and Ordnance Events from Ground and Air Platforms” By the Turkish-born Mehmet Ertem and Myron Pauli. Further investigation may discover Iranian-born Manijeh Razeghi working with Myron Pauli on InAsSb photodetectors. Find the common name and we can spot the terrorist mastermind – me!

******
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.

Immigrants Who Accept Judaism

IMMIGRATION, Israel, Judaism & Jews, Technology

Four minutes and 40 seconds into this rather good video about Israeli and Jewish innovation, an entrepreneur speaks up for the contribution of immigrants who come to Israel. The camera pans out to show North African Jews lovingly carrying the Torah and Japanese Jews deep in prayer. To see Japanese Jews praying at the Wailing Wall is certainly moving. Who would have imagined!


But the distinctly American narrator thinks his Jewish viewers are dumb not to notice that all Israel’s diverse-looking immigrants are wearing kippot (yarmulkes), praying to the same G-d, and holding the same ancient Scriptures close to their hearts.

Do you think this cultural and religious cohesion might have something to do with these immigrants’ love of country and joy of assimilation? Indeed, Israel: Don’t give us the diversity crap: you welcome Jews and Jews only to the Jewish State.

Personally, I wish Israelis would assemble a book of Israeli jokes:

Here’s what a Jewish mother says to a Jewish child aged 7, to spur him to better things:

“After all I’ve done for you, is asking for one Nobel Prize really too much?”

UPDATED: On When To Use The Dr. Honorific & On The Insufferable ‘Dr. Jill Biden’

Affirmative Action, Education, English, Intelligence, Technology

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She’s a lowly community college instructor. She holds a PhD in education, one of the most intellectually debased, easy subject matters in academia. When you can’t do much else, intellectually, you go into education. One of the reasons America’s kids are so dumb: Unionized educators. Yet the moron media insist on appending the honorific “Dr” to Jill Biden’s name whenever they mention her taxpayer-sponsored existence.

You know just how insufferable Jill Biden is when even the La Times and Washington Post language experts recoil at Mrs. Biden’s unwarranted airs and graces:

“Ordinarily when someone goes by doctor and they are a PhD, not an MD, I find it a little bit obnoxious,” Sullivan said. …
… Newspapers, including The Times, generally do not use the honorific “Dr.” unless the person in question has a medical degree.
“My feeling is if you can’t heal the sick, we don’t call you doctor,” said Bill Walsh, copy desk chief for the Washington Post’s A section and the author of two language books.

Aren’t you grateful her husband, Joe Not-A-Doctor Biden, is not running for office again? Do you know how often you’d hear the undeserved honorific “Dr” before this pestilence’s name?

This writer’s spouse won’t like it, but in the US we don’t call PhD’s doctors (apostrophe is warranted in the plural usage of an abbreviation, I believe). It’s considered the height of pomposity. Granted, a PhD in electrical engineering, conferred at the age of 25, is certainly incomparable intellectually to a PhD in fluff like education.

Moreover, one has to consider, too, the original definition of a PhD:

“Doctor of Philosophy: a doctorate awarded for original contributions to knowledge [in the field].”

Most PhD’s today, even in the cerebral, demanding field of applied science, do not quite meet the requirement of an original contributions to knowledge in their field. And they are practically given away to women in technology.

Check out the “academic” profile of “a public-spirited ditz named Danah Boyd,” who is “Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research, and a Research Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.”

It’s a disgrace.

Jokes like Jill Biden and Microsoft’s Danah Boyd abound. They are not statistical outliers.

UPDATE: Fun on Facebook. Join us:

Jim Ostrowski: “I often call myself doctor cuz I have a JD. But I make it optional for others.”

Ilana Mercer: “Jim Ostrowski, You’re brilliant. The best lawyers are. Like philosophy, law is the application of abstract principles to facts and reality. Philosophy is thinking about thinking. Electrical engineering is applying the laws of physics to make things that work. Education is … dumb-assery.”