Who is kept at Guantánamo Bay?

More scary stuff about our evil government from the New York Times:

The judge, Joyce Hens Green of the Federal District Court in Washington, asked [Justice Department official Brian Boyle] a series of hypothetical questions about who may be detained [in Guantánamo Bay] as an enemy combatant under the government's definition.

What about "a little old lady in Switzerland who writes checks to what she thinks is a charitable organization that helps orphans in Afghanistan but really is a front to finance Al Qaeda activities?" she asked.

And what about a resident of Dublin "who teaches English to the son of a person the C.I.A. knows to be a member of Al Qaeda?"

And "what about a Wall Street Journal reporter, working in Afghanistan, who knows the exact location of Osama bin Laden but does not reveal it to the United States government in order to protect her source?"

Mr. Boyle said the military had the power to detain all three people as enemy combatants.

Welcome Back

In a surprise move, Israel's Labor party elected Mr. Kotter as their new leader.* Ok, his actual name is Amir Peretz (also known as "Amir Who?"). He'll be running for president soon against Ariel Sharon. Now, I don't know how it works in Israel, but in America, there is no way such a goofy-looking guy could get elected. My gosh, I've never seen a mustache quite as bushy as that! He should be holding up a tall glass and saying, "Got Sasquatch?"* And who cuts his hair? It looks removeable, like those little lego people.* This guy looks like one of those optical illusion pictures where you turn it upside down and see a different face.* Peaceniks don't have a chance.

I'm reminded of that famous Irish* (I think) expression: "Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone."

Buddhabrot

I have been spending much of today looking at another way to depict the Mandelbrot set, which looks amazingly like a picture of Hindu gods. Click on it to see the full size. Zoom in on different parts. It's so like real images, it's eerie. But it isn't art, it is a graph derived from a very simple mathematical equation. It has been dubbed "Buddhabrot."
The Mandelbrot set is probably the most famous fractal. Fractals are things that are infinitely complex, and are called "fractals" because they are not 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional but have a fractional dimension somewhere in between. I recommend taking a look at the Mandelbrot set, which is amazingly beautiful. Don't just look at the main image, click on "To the next image" below, and zoom in step by step until it's magnified 60 billion times, and gets no less beautiful. The set is infinitely complex, so you could keep zooming in forever and it never gets any less beautiful. (This one is my desktop background.) (To zoom in on a different part of the image with a very different look, try here, though it's a smaller image and the colors aren't as pretty.)

The math is so simple, let me explain it. It's all just this very easy equation: z²+c. The picture is just a graph of all the points c. The way they pick which color to give the point is they just start with z=0 and plug it in. Of course, 0²+c equals c. So then you plug in z=c. You get c²+c. So then you plug in that number for z. And you keep repeating this again and again. A lot of times the numbers just bounce around and don't go anywhere. If that happens, you make the point c black. But other times the number will just get bigger and bigger until it's obviously going to infinity. You can't keep doing it to infinity, but you can say if it gets bigger than, say 50,000, you're pretty sure it's going to inifity. Then you give the point c a color, depending how fast it gets there. If you do the equation 10 times and get to 50,000, you give the point c one color. If it takes you 20 times, you give it another color. If it takes you 30 times, you give it a third color. And so on. Voila! Just do it for every point on the graph. Anyone could do this. But it would take you forever unless you have a computer to do it for you.

The Buddhabrot is a little different. Every time you plug in your number and get another number, you go to your graph and color that point white. Then you plug that number in and get another number, find that number on the graph and color it white. So you can watch it bounce around. You keep doing that for a long time, with lots of different numbers for c, and you get this amazing image, based on the same equation.

I think the Mandelbrot set is itself a compelling argument against the case of "intelligent design". They say, look at how complicated the universe is, and how complicated living things are, it doesn't make sense to say it could happen based on mere natural laws, there must be some intelligent designer behind it. But this shows how infinite complexity and beauty can arise from even the simplest and most straightforward of equations -- infinite complexity. How much more can happen based on the far more intricate laws of physics! (As a corollary, this also shows how terrible common sense is at figuring out the universe. Common sense told us that the sun goes around the earth, that the earth must be flat or Australians would fall off, that things cannot be in two places at the same time -- you'd think we'd have caught on by now that common sense has a pretty miserable track record compared to the rigors of science!)

(By the way, if you're wondering how can numbers be graphed in a 2-dimensional picture--after all, it's a number line, not a number plane--that's because these are complex numbers. Remember, the square root of -1 is the imaginary number i? Combinations of real and imaginary numbers, like 2-3i, are called "complex" numbers. You probaby learned this in high school and forgot it.)

On a totally different note, you can watch a 4-dimensional cube rotate in the fourth dimension! (Of course, this is a projection into our 3D world, I can't really show you a 4D object. In fact, even the 3D objects have to be projected onto the 2D screen so that you can see it in this blog! Like any cube, all the sides have equal length -- some of them look smaller only because they're farther away in the fourth dimension, but as they rotate closer you will see them appear longer again.)

Religious people are scary

"In my opinion," says Rabbi Moshe Botschko, head of the Heichal Eliyahu hesder yeshiva, "a creature born through genetic duplication is not considered human - It is clear beyond all doubt that the life form created in some scientific institution will be an animal that walks on two feet, no more." According to Botschko, a highly respected rabbi in the French-speaking community, the reason for this is that the Creator only gives man a soul at the moment when sperm meets ovum. But the cloning process involves no sperm. The implications of Botschko's conclusion are far-reaching: "Anyone who kills a creature of this type will not be indicted, because he has not killed a man," he says.

Is a human child born from the womb of a surrogate cow, a man, or a cow? Rabbi J. David Bleich writes, "A creature resembles a man and is born from a beast. If it is born to a kosher beast, the Gemara asks if it is permissible to slaughter the offspring." He notes, "This question indicates that the Gemara does not consider such a creature to be human." Bleich himself says, "If a fetus is cloned from a human and implanted in the womb of a monkey, despite the fact that the newborn has a human genotype and phenotype, it is doubtful that it would be considered halakhically human."

Id

I don’t feel too good. I have been so irresponsible, and felt it every step of the day. Playing piano, unpacking my room, reading the news, even eating cereal, the whole time the little angel on my shoulder has been saying “no, no” but my id is in control. Down with the id. Right now, isn’t this self-exposition an example of id? Shouldn’t I be focusing on my work? I can hear the little devil looking for excuses. Fair enough, the path is clear...

Now I am sitting in the lobby of the Mariott in Times Square. It is among my favorite places to hang and chill. The ceiling is some fifty floors above, and futuristic elevators glide up the cylindrical tube to the rotating restaurant at the top. The water drips down the glass next to me in beautiful sheaths. The bar is lit up is iridescent colors. If I look behind me, I can see the lights of Times Square through the bay window. Wouldn’t it be great to design a place like this, and then see it happen? They’re playing Kelly Clarkson’s one famous song. I can’t focus on my work. Even though it’s long overdue, and it’s so important -- an article in USA Today! -- I just can’t... think... I just want to sleep, or something. I’m hopeless. The little devil on my shoulder is winning...

Sweetie Pie Dumplings

Yum! I'm at Dumpling Man again, a little dumpling place in the East Village where you can watch the old chinese ladies making dumplings in front of you, eating their new "seasonal" dumplings with pumpkin and goosberries and covered with cinnimon. So good! I'm here working, of course...

Much better than being at my new apartment, where I am less and less happy. Last night was cold so I closed the windows, and with the windows closed I could smell the cigarette stench left from the previous tenant. Gross. Can I really live with this? I need to research odor-fighting options. Yesterday I had to take a cold shower because there was no hot water (though my roommates say I must be doing it wrong, so maybe there's hope). And don't get me started on the kitchen...

But with yummy dumplings, everything falls into place :)

TORTURE ALERT

Guantánamo Desperation Seen in Suicide Attempts

This article describes a detanee who committed suicide in in the bathroom when his lawyer visited, clearly timed so that someone in the outside would know. Fortunately, he was found and revived. He has been in solitary confinement for two years with nothing but a koran and legal papers. His lawyer recounts, "In March, he looked at me in the eye and said, 'How can I keep myself from going crazy?'" The detainee says he was abused in many ways, and threatened with being sent to countries where he will be tortured.

Two dozen Guantánamo Bay detainees are currently being force-fed in response to a lengthy hunger strike, and the detainees' lawyers estimate there are dozens more who have not eaten since August. The U.N. complains that they have been refused access.

Remember, no one in Guantánamo Bay has ever been charged with any crime. For years they were granted no rights at all, including no accss to lawyers or to hearings, not even the chance to prove their innocence, until the Supreme Court said that was illegal. Now the U.S. is trying to ship them to other countries where they can continue to be imprisoned without any rights.

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons

This article is about the CIA's network of secret prisons to which people are sent with absolutely no rights, no oversight, no one--including U.S. government officials--is allowed to check on the treatment of detainees, who are allowed no contact with anyone besides their interrogators, and where torture is allowed. It's not just al-Qaeda leaders, let me quote: The original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was lowered or ignored, [CIA personnel] said. "They've got many, many more who don't reach any threshold," one intelligence official said.

Prisoner Accounts Suggest Detention At Secret Facilities

This article is about three people apparently held in CIA secret facilities. Although they were only questioned about their involvement with blacklisted charities, and 15 months later released, this shows that these secret detentions are not only for high-level terrorists. Their families were told they were dead, and they were kept essentially in solitary confinement the entire stay. This is out of control.