Thesaur's Ramblings

Yesterday I received a call for papers that was distributed on the Corpus Linguistics email list.

The American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) will hold a symposium on blogs at Stanford University next spring (March 27-29). The title is "Computational Approaches to Analysing Weblogs" and will cover everything from symantic processing to political science:

[01] AI methods for ethnographic analysis through blogs.
[02] Blogosphere vs. mediasphere; measuring the influence of blogs on the media.
[03] Centrality/influence of bloggers/blogs; ranking/relevance of blogs; web pages ranking based on blogs.
[04] Crawling/spidering and indexing.
[05] Human Computer Interaction; blogging tools; navigation.
[06] Multimedia; audio/visual blogs processing; aggregating information from different modalities.
[07] Semantic analysis; cross-blog name tracking; named relations and fact extraction; discourse analysis; summarization.
[08] Semantic Web; semantic blogging; unstructured knowledge management.
[09] Sentiment analysis; polarity/opinion identification and extraction.
[10] Social Network Analysis; communities identification; expertise discovery; collaborative filtering.
[11] Text categorization; gender/age identification; spam filtering.
[12] Time Series Forecasting; measuring predictability of phenomena based on blogs.
[13] Trend identification/tracking.

If NZ Bear would like to submit a paper on relationships between blogs and all that, I'm sure he would do very well

I might see about submitting a paper on one of the above topics, though I've not decided if I find time.

As some of you may know, I run a forum for alumni of the PHC Teencamps. There is a very fun game we play there: Forum mafia. It's got rules and all, and of course, it takes much longer than a regular mafia game.

In the current round, my veracity has been questioned. I'm stating here to all the world that if I am indeed a member of the mafia (and not a police officer), I will give each person who votes to kill my opponent a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate (or alternatively cash). In addition, if the doctor decides to save me, and I turn out to be mafia, the doctor will get an additional $25 Amazon.com gift certificate. If I am indeed mafia, and I don't pay out, I promise not to delete any comments on this post regarding this matter that will malign my character. As indeed I'd not be worth a plug nickle if I didn't pay up.

So there, guys, you have it. A real-life promise of real-life money if I am lying. Welcome to hard-ball forum mafia

Over at the German-language version (Medienkritik Online) of Davids Medienkritik, Paul13 (of nobloodforsauerkraut) posted recently on
third-world development and referenced the Live-8 concert. Specifically, he echoed the concerns of Kenyan economist James Shikwati that economic aid to African countries ends up in the hands of officials. Surprisingly, he for once believes a Spiegel-Online interview.

As Capitain Ed liveblogged a conference call with Sir Bob Geldorf, I think this should allay some fears that Paul had, especially in regard to the money getting into the wrong hands. Of course, it seems logical that the money goes to pay for the beaurocracies and corrupt officials in poor countries when we speak of normal aid, but if it would be possible to ensure a proper distribution, I think we could see some real progress. Whether anyone under Geldorf actually gets the point (read the paragraph about Dr. Chavis) is a whole 'nother issue.

Now, here's a possible sinister twist to the whole thing. Germany and the Eurozone are quickly running out of funds. Is it possible that Kanzler Schröder and his cronies want to cut foreign aid in favor of spending the money nationally? In this case, the interview in Spiegel may make more sense. The left is preparing the people for Schröders latest attempt to save the economy (and win reelection). It would make it that much harder for his opponent (Angela Merkel of the CDU) to win votes in the upcoming election. Since Schröder called the election early, opposition parties and candidates don't have as much time to talk to the people. We'll see how things work out, but I fear we're doomed to another term of SPD/Greens/PDS. With the dollar gaining strength, it will once again kill the Eurozone. Perhaps the only thing that can save it will be a return to capitalism (instead of socialism/very controlled capitalism), conservative politics (in the American sense), a decline in political apathy and the destruction of the welfare state.

Here the full text of the concession speech in English. Please pardon any mistakes. I am not fluent in French, so I have based my translation on the bablefish translation and my intuition as a linguist, plus comparison with the original French text. Admittedly, it's a bit rough. If someone else can offer a more accurate translation, I would be happy to post it.

My dear compatriots of the cities, overseas and abroad,

France has democratically expressed itself. A majority of you has rejected the European Constitution. It is your sovereign decision. I take note of it.

In spite of this, our interests and our ambitions are deeply related to Europe. France, a founding member of the Union remains, naturally, in the Union. I make a point of saying to you, to our European partners and to all the people of Europe that France will continue to maintain it's place in the regard to its engagements. I will take care of it.

Processes of ratification are currently underway all of the Convention countries. So far, nine countries have already decided in favor. Our other partners will express themselves in their turn. Until then, the European Union will continue to function on the basis of current treaty.

We have in front of us important deadlines. On June 16, the European Council will meet in Brussels. I will defend the position of our country there by transmitting the message of the French women and men.

But let us not deceive ourselves, the decision of France inevitably creates a difficult context for the defense of our interests in Europe. We will have to answer it by uniting around a common purpose, that of the national interest.

My dear compatriots,

During this debate, you also also expressed your concerns and your expectations. I intend to answer them by giving a new and strong impulse to official action. I will let you know in the next days of my decisions concerning the government and the priorities of it's action.

source: Le Monde

As I write, ballots are still being counted. However, exit polling has made it clear that Chirac probably doesn't have a chance of winning. How he's taking the loss tells us a lot about the man.

According to the CNN story, Chirac has signaled defeat. Le Monde has published the full text of the concession speech.

Why does this guy give up before the votes are counted? Because he was afraid that the real numbers were worse than the exit polls? Perhaps. However, basing your concession on exit polls is rather wimpy by my book. According to the current version of the CNN article,

With 92 percent of votes counted, the treaty was rejected by 56.14 percent of voters, France's Interior Ministry said, according to The Associated Press. It was supported by 43.86 percent.

So indeed this appears to have been his tactic. Several commenters on this LGF post seem to agree with me.

In addition, it is interesting to note that apparently they're going to rerun the "no" referendums until they get a "yes". That's the really great thing about the EU - they work off peer pressure. </sarcasm> It's like a kindergarten class. They are about as effective as the UN, which they try to hard to please.

In all fairness, it must be said that US history also records a failed attempt to unify the colonies - well, failed in that it was scrapped in favor of something better - the Articles of Confederation. In a sense, the EU is at that stage right now. The constitution is supposed to better this, but don't believe it. All it does is create a top-heavy beaurocratic beast that answers to no one. You can see evidence of this in the fact that even though the European Parliament has rejected software patents, the European Council and European Commission are trying to ignore the voice of the only democratically elected body. (More details can be found on FFII's software patents website.) Whether or not you agree with software patents (as an open source developer I violently disagree), the attempt to ignore the voice of the people is typical of dictatorships.

As a parting thought, the French are now on their fifth republic. With such an unstable democracy supposed to lead Europe, can we wonder that things aren't working out? Can the EU ever be a stable democracy? I doubt it. Only time will tell.

UPDATE: Le Monde is saying that the numbers have gotten slightly better for our friend Chirac: 55,18 % of the votes are opposed, versus 44,82 % for the measure. The turnout was a little less than 70 %. This is a pretty high number, when you consider that many EU elections only have a turnout of about 25%.

Captain Ed posted today about the upcoming referendum on the EU constitution that will be held in France on Sunday. It looks like it will be a strong non. As a German-American living in Europe, this is not really troubling, but perhaps I can shed some light on it.

A substantial number of Frenchies have actually read the constitution. It's 265 pages of garble that is virtually impossible to understand. The conservatives hate it because it will let Turkey in. What's the big deal, really? France has a very high Moslem population. They don't need Turkey to turn Europe Moslem. The socialists are against it because it would force a free economy. It seems that both sides will shoot it down.

George Irvin, a research fellow at the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, wrote an opinion piece for the EU Observer in which he opines that it is a matter of economics:

Economists may agree the Eurozone’s record has been dire, but they disagree about why. The orthodox explanation, popular amongst many US-trained economists and often echoed by the OECD, is that Europe suffers from bloated budgets, inflexible labour markets and high taxes. Remove the welfare state everyone will get back to work. The alternative explanation, favoured by post-Keynesians, is that the balanced budget corset imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) is paralysing the Eurozone.

In contrast to Britain and the US where growth is fuelled by rising asset prices, private debt and public spending, in Germany, France and Italy, both government and household savings have risen over the past decade. Public and private frugality not only depresses aggregate demand, but under conditions of very low inflation it leads to ‘deflationary expectations’; ie, the darker the economic climate, the more one must save for a rainy day. In short, the Eurozone suffers from deficient aggregate demand. A devalued dollar, enabling the US to postpone its adjustment, makes European prospects even bleaker.

The article is thoughtful. Go ahead and read all of it. It presents the economic arguments against the EU constitution even while Irvin himself thinks a defeat of the constitution would be a disaster. Additionally, it seems that Irvin aligns himself with the infamous NYT economist, Paul Krugman, if the links on his site are to be believed. However, what he says in this article seems to make sense - at least as to why the left isn't supporting the constitution.

There are more opinion pieces on the EU Observer website from people on different sides of the political spectrum. A visit may be enlightening.

No matter whether you consider the EU constitution worth adopting or not, I don't think there's a chance that the constitution will be approved by the French electorate. Which leaves Chirac with a quandry: either he ignores the vote (which isn't unthinkable) and calls for a revote or simply approves it like many other countries, without another referendum, or they'll need to rewrite the whole thing. I think they could do worse than condensing it down to maybe 20 very consise and readable pages.

From what I've heard, the Netherlands will reject it, as will the UK. Since all countries must accept it for it to be valid, I think you'll see the whole thing implode or stop being a democracy. The latter is more likely than the former. But let's wait and see.

Yesterday Helgi and I gave a workshop on RAD with PHP. The central project was an example forum that Helgi and I threw together. Helgi had the backend working, while I only had a few basic templates done. Unfortunately this crossed somewhat with my studies, so I didn't have as much time as I wanted to prepare the frontend. However, I think the backend and theory were good enough to present our topic.

I'll try to recap the entire session and provide a link to the appropriate code here later.

Some attendees of yesterday's workshop indicated further interest in the presented example project. As a result, Helgi and I will be continuing to develop it. It currently is under GPL, but considerations will be made to license it otherwise on specific request.

Wow! Our friends at Llamabutchers seem to have made it into a comic strip, too. Except this one is widely available. And it's negative.

Rudy Park (April 2, 2005):


Background: Rudy has become a Republican (which is evidenced by his new short hair) and has decided to become a capitalist, to the dismay of his Uncle Mort. In this installment, we see that life as a conservative isn't easy. Why the Llamas have to be colicky, I'm not sure. But it seems to stand to reason, that there is at least a reference to the colicky Llamabutchers. Hope they recover soon.

QandO has almost got it right - Google knows the first hate sentence Ted Rall attributed to bloggers ("Ted Rall should be beat to within an inch of life with a baseball bat."), but believe me, it wasn't easy to find it. It takes real googling skills. Or maybe Ted Rall frequents that forum.

This google search will find the comment. Currently it's fourth place, but after the column, I doubt that will remain there long. The original source comment can be found here. The source is a comment posted on Dec. 15, 2003 by user "Domh" on the "Global Affair" forum in response to this cartoon (ucomics subscription required - for a nonsubscription link, try this). Domh went on to say the following (exerpt only):

Those people desperately need to spend a year living in the mideast building schools, roads, digging wells, and getting a smack upside the head... but NOOOO - cant bring them out of their little fantasy world can we?

This is the mentality of the HOWARD DEAN set... in a nutshell. I know. I grew up with it, went to school with it learned everything I need to know about it to reject it intelligently. This is the mindset that my own stepfather is still firmly entrenched in as he approaches 60 years old.

Looking at this, it is clear that it is not a personal threat (and not even hateful), but an expression of disgust at the way certain liberals insult the US armed forces.

However, in spite of the quote existing, it exists on a forum, not a blog. My registration for that forum has not yet been activated (since this was the first time I visited it), so I cannot say whether Domh has a link to his blog in his personal profile (personal profiles are only visible to registered users). Maybe Mr. Rall could do some accurate research for once. However, seeing that he's got a track record for being free with facts, maybe he specializes in "fictionalized journalism", just like Hunter S. Thompson.

(Note: I've attempted to contact Domh and will update this post if I get a response.)

(Hat tip: Captain Ed)

Update: Domh responds:

Fascinating!

No I am not a blogger, never have been. The quote was made in the forum thread you noted and nowhere else.

Rall? Shoddy Journalism? Imagine my shock and surprise, and please note my severe sarcasm. [...] Rall is a hack [...] with no morals or ethics whatsoever. He is a shock-jockey with pen and ink. He is a junior-Michael-Moore, biting at the teat that feeds him to force out more milk-money.

Thanks for pointing this out. I wonder when the death threats from the the 'peaceniks' will start flooding my inbox!

Cheers,

Domh

Look, children, at the excellent example of McCarthyism that Ted Rall displays. It's not the blogsphere, but the MSM journalists who are the biggots today and make free with the facts. (Update updated to clarify meaning - and remove expletives.)

Update 2:
Domh started a thread on the topic on the Global Affairs forum. That said, does anyone have a copy of the original cartoon? I don't subscribe to ucomics, else I would have posted it here.

Update 3: The harmless cartoon that sparked it all.
You can find the editorial cartoon that sparked Domh's wrath here. I've modified my original text to add this link, too. Be careful - you might spew your lunch.

Update 4:
My hunch about the Rall-Thompson connection turns out to have been right. Upon looking through Rall's blog, I came across a post in which Rall states that "I wouldn't be able to do what I do if it hadn't been for Dr. Thompson." That says it all.

... you just hate Microsoft! Really!

This is one of them. After backing up and reinstalling Windows on what used to be my main machine, I discovered that all the emails stored on it were lost. I have always archived all my emails since the beginning of time (or whatever you call the beginning of your internet career) and now I have lost two full years of emails dating from April 2002 to February 2004 (my most active period). Basically, I have to start over from scratch.

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