ENIGMA CURRY

Nuclear weapons may soon be in Iran... Our own!

If you don't believe the writing on the wall put forth by Ron Paul earlier this week, then how about this: Seymour Hersh writes in the New Yorker Magazine that President Bush is in secret talks of how to attack Iran, one such plan even includes using Nuclear Bunker-Buster type weapons:

"One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites."

You can also read a shorter Yahoo! news synposis.

The Raw Story writes that it is assumed that the New York Times will release an article tomorrow that asserts that four anonymous Pentagon officials or other beaurocrats are refuting the story... well it's easy for someone to say it's untrue if your anonymous.

In the New Yorker story it even mentions that Bush is in the habit of calling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "a potential Adolf Hitler." --- The progoganda has already started.

Go to prison for thinking of illegal acts

In light of all the news of Department of Homeland Security Deputy Press Secretary Brian Doyle's arrest for "using a computer to seduce a child", Becky Ackers over at LewRockwell.com brings up an interesting point.. one that is easily obscured when deep emotions are involved:

Actually, regardless of the crimes Brian has committed against our freedom and the Constitution, he is innocent of the felonies for which he was arrested. He did nothing but email pornography to another, very willing adult, one who eagerly responded and who played on his emotions by pretending to have survived cancer. True, Brian "believed" the cop to be a 14-year-old girl, but only fascists prosecute a man for his thoughts.

Whether or not you approve of soliciting minors in sexual situations, technically, that is not what Mr. Doyle did. It may be difficult to see the corruption here because of how you may feel about the supposed issue, but take another look and you will see that the issue that most people are seeing is not really there.

This sounds like something out of a Phillip K. Dick novel... being apprehended for one's thoughts. Think about that for a while.

America needs a non-interventionist policy once again

I've been far too long away from this blog. Things are rapidly changing and I need to stay on top of it.

At lunch today, I had a nice heated discussion about individual sovereignty, what constitutes a "right", and why the income tax is evil. The key point I tried to make was as Thomas Jefferson said:

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.

Today, I read Ron Paul's speech before congress on Wednesday. This speech is powerful. It makes me angry. It makes me so fucking tired of all of the ignorance of this country (mine included!) and it's desire to forget and feel secure and cozy when it is so very close to falling down to it's deepest inhuman low. The United States has too quickly forgotten the false pretenses that we used to enter into a conflict with Iraq, for we are doing it again with Iran. Not only does Congress seem all too willing to add to the more than 100,000 deaths in the conflict with Iraq, it stands ready to subvert our Constitution and all reason, by allowing the executive branch to control the fate of our lives, possessions, and liberty.

I have so many times before "drawn the line", but I do it again: The Line is Drawn HERE.

No longer will I stand idly by, I will take action. I promise myself to do the following:

• Pledge the maximum contribution I can make by law to the Congressional campaign of Michael Badnarik before his election in November. Michael is the best hope we have to restore liberty (or at least keep it's destruction in check). It doesn't matter if you live in Texas district 10 or not, a contribution to Michael is the most important money I have ever spent. With the current political climate in Texas right now, he has an incredible chance of victory... a chance that may not come easily in the future if current trends continue.
• I admit that I am a fairly introverted individual. I have strong convictions, but I tend not to make, nor keep, friends easily. I will gently, but consitently, introduce people to my beliefs and concerns for this country. This includes introducing people to websites like: Lew Rockwell, Hammer of Truth and of course that of Michael Badnarik.
• And most importantly, I will blog here more often. Something that I have come to realize more and more is that Blogging, and the Internet in general, is probably the most important and powerful force in defence of our liberty. My Employer, and good friend, introduced me to an article today in a local newspaper that shows how powerful blogging has become, if from a different perspective: the local media has found blogs to be debasing it's authority and 'eminant' domain (I'm not 100% sure this is the one he was refering to, but the point is made).

I cannot compare myself to those that have fought or even died to aquire or protect our liberty, but I have a sincere desire to add my name, my pledge of "life, fortune, and sacred honor" to it's cause.

Python Reference

I started a reference section to the site today. I added some Python code snippets that I've found useful over the past few weeks. The reference button at the top of the page will take you there.

Python Type Checking

One of Python's strongest points is the fact that it is dynamically typed. That is, it does not force static type checking at compile time.

Take this simple, contrived, example written in Java, which is a statically typed language:

public Car getCar(File file) throws IOException

A lot of information is communicated in this statement. We know that it's public, what it returns (a Car object), that it requires a File object and that if it may raise an IOException exception if it fails. There is a lot to be said for being explicit like this. However, it is limiting as well. What if we wanted to get a Car from a string or from the network instead of from a File object? Well, we'd need to write another function. In addition to that, being that verbose takes a lot more time for me to write. Consider the alternative in python:

def getCar(input):

The second was a lot faster to write and will accept more inputs. For instance the input could be a file, the network, or a string, I just need to write different dispatching code depending on the input type. Most of the time, this means that I can spend less time jumbling with language semantics and get on with my life.

Then there are the other times. What happens when I pass the getCar function a new object that I haven't anticipated? In Java you'd never have this happen because when you compile your code it would realize that the object is not a File object. In Python though, the function takes ANY object and happily starts executing your function/method... that is until it does something to that object that it can't do. In Python you'll find the error at runtime whereas in Java you'll find the problem before it ever occurs, when you compile the program.

So, you can see why alot of Java and C/C++ programmers poo-poo Python. The question is, in the *real world* does this actually ever pose a problem? I really haven't seen an example of it.. Neither has Bruce Eckel. So if it isn't a problem in the real world, but only in hypothetical examples, does it really make sense for a language to force you to define your types Every.. Single.. Time.., thus making you spend more time on contingencies that most likely won't come up? I don't think so.

But... I have to sympathize somewhat with those programmers that DO think about those "hypothetical" examples where it really does matter, because I'm one of those programmers.

Python is all about liberty. Python will let you do things YOUR way. If you want to force people to only use a certain type of object in your functions, you can do it. Yesterday I found a very nice module that does exactly this: The typecheck module. Using this module you can have the best of both worlds. You can leave the menial task of type checking to only when you know you need it. If that's everytime for you, that's fine, the Python syntax isn't any more complex than Java syntax AND it's more flexible.

>>> from typecheck import accepts
>>> @accepts(int)
... def intFunction(a):
... print a
...
>>> intFunction(1)
1
>>> intFunction("something different")
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/PIL/__init__.py", line 1271, in fake_function

File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/PIL/__init__.py", line 1392, in __check_args

typecheck.TypeCheckError: Argument a: for something different, expected <type 'int'>, got <type 'str'>;
>>>

It's still not compile time type checking (you don't explicitly compile Python anyhow), but you do prevent the function from ever running if the function doesn't pass your accepts() filter.

The above example is only the most basic form of runtime type checking. The typecheck module has a lot more examples on their page and also excellent documentation and tutorials. I've also written my own test application using their module.

Type checking could be a powerful tool in finding bugs in programs. The really nice thing about using this as a module, instead of a language requirement, is that I can do my type checking almost as an afterthought. In no way does it impede my programming style or speed.