under whose god?

I've been reading some more about the Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow case, concerning the "under God" phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance, now being heard by the Supreme Court.

I myself waver between agnostic and atheistic views. I do think that mentions of God on our currency, in our courts, and in the Pledge are divisive, since they exclude those who explicitly do not believe in a higher power or being. Additionally, although the argument has been made that "God" does not necessarily refer to the Judeo-Christian God, I think it is implicit. Yes, Allah is just an Arabic word for God, but if I were Muslim, I might not necessarily accept that the "God" that the US government refers to is the same as my God. If I were Hindu or Daoist, I might wonder if monotheism were being thrust upon me.

That having been said, I was a little worried about this case. Earlier media coverage seemed to portray Dr. Newdow as a fanatic, who would not be capable of arguing the case rationally. When Dr. Newdow, an ER doctor who passed the bar exam 2 years ago, decided to argue the case himself, my fears seemed justified. A Reverend Lynn, director of an organization dedicated to the separation of church and state, asked to speak before the court, because he also feared that Dr. Newdow would not do an adequate job of presenting the case. Looks like we were all wrong.

According to law.com:

Newdow showed he had mastered the case and his emotions, making a forceful presentation that could teach veterans some new argument tactics.

Newdow, in a risky maneuver, had asked Scalia to recuse because of a speech he gave last year that appeared to tip his hand on the Pledge case. Without Scalia, who usually dominates questioning during oral argument, Newdow and the other advocates spoke for unusually long stretches of time without interruption.

"She does have a right not to participate," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said. Newdow quickly replied that in the 1992 graduation prayer case Lee v. Weisman, the Court had found the atmosphere in schools "coercive" for students who might otherwise not participate.

Newdow was also quick to respond when Rehnquist tried to counter his point that the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge was divisive. What was the vote in Congress in 1954 to include the words? Rehnquist asked. It was unanimous, said Newdow. "That doesn't sound divisive," Rehnquist said, and Newdow shot back, "That's only because no atheists can be elected to office."

I was a little confused by the last exchange, until I discovered that apparently, eight states still have laws barring atheists from holding office.

Sounds like Dr. Newdow just might know what he's doing. Unfortunately for him, and for us, it probably won't matter, given the right-wing tilt that this country has taken in the past few years.

don't take my CPA away

I filed my taxes yesterday. Well, more precisely, after looking through my already-prepared returns, I sent a piece of paper to my CPA to authorize her to e-file my taxes.

Since my dad is a CPA, I've never done my own taxes. Even though he's inactive, he still takes all my random tax-related forms and organizes and annotates them so that the CPA can do her thing. I wonder if we get a discount because she doesn't have to do as much work as with her other clients.

It was a bit harder to justify the CPA expenditure when I was a college student, but my taxes were actually fairly complicated this year, what with escrow papers, property taxes, rental income, capital gains and losses, etc. I wonder how the US compares with other countries, in terms of tax law complexity?

yay, we win! but will global entropy prevail?

President Chen has won re-election in Taiwan, by the slimmest of margins (~30,000 out of about 13 million votes). Of course, a la Florida, the opposition is demanding a recount. Apparently there were over 300,000 invalidated ballots, but the hypothesis is that they were due to a campaign which advised voters to go to the polls, but vote for neither of the candidates. Nevertheless, KMT supporters have stormed the election headquarters in Taichung. I was proud to hear that the Taiwanese people had remained calm during the voting process, even with the shooting one day before. It's too bad that yesterday's composure is being overshadowed by today's chaos, in the eyes of the world.

On an unrelated, and more depressing note, I was talking to a friend today about an article about a man who tried to extort $100,000 from Google using a computer program he had written as a threat.

She brought up an interesting point. The nature of crime has changed. Crimes are much more complex, making them harder to track down. I wonder how many financial scandals didn't happen because the perpetrators of the crimes were too smart and didn't get caught? It's possible to glorify Robin Hood and stealing to feed the poor, but how can you glorify the mutual funds scandal?

In fact, lots of things have changed. War is no longer the structured type of affair in which civilians are safe watching from the sidelines, and soldiers agree to break for the night. Authors love to write about medieval knights and chivalry, but will they want to write about atomic bombs and air-to-air missiles?

I read that a terrorist once said that the object of terrorism was to kill as few people as possible, as publicly as possible, in order to draw the most attention. The object of terrorism was a concrete goal, whether it be publicity for a particular cause, or the extraction of certain concessions. It often seems nowadays that there is no object to the terrorism; terrorists kill as many as possible, and they don't seem to want anything, except to kill, out of hatred.

It's as depressing as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Is that what we're seeing, a kind of global entropy?

not cute at all

I was going to write a post about how Taiwan's President Chen has his own line of clothing and accessories, branded with a cute cartoon of his face, and how maybe that said something about the Asian take on democracy.



Then, I woke up to find this all over the AP news:

Taiwan's President, Vice President Wounded in Shooting
Both Were Released From Hospital Following Treatment

TAIPEI, Taiwan, Mar. 19 - Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian and his vice president were wounded Friday after at least one bullet was fired at them while campaigning on the eve of an election that has deeply divided the island and angered authorities in mainland China.

I'm deeply saddened. Taiwan does not have a history of gun violence, it would be a shame for one to be begun at this critical time.

Taiwan protests, too

It was pretty cool when Hong Kong staged a protest against Beijing-sponsored security legislation last year, and half a million people showed up.

It was even cooler when a few weeks ago in Taiwan, on the anniversary of the 2-28 massacre, supporters of President Chen (including my dad and my grandparents!) organized a human chain of over 1.2 million people, spanning the 500 km long island from north to south.

Events like these show the world that Asia can do democracy, in a big way. I hope the people of China are watching.

sucks to be gay, in this country at least

Blast from the past...I got an email today from a high school friend; apparently one of our classmates married his boyfriend last week at San Francisco City Hall.

I've always been in favor of gay marriage, in the abstract, but it feels really different when it involves someone you know (knew?) and you see his picture in the newspaper. Now I feel guilty, like I've been remiss, not being more vocal with my support. In the end, it really comes down to a civil rights issue, doesn't it?

Since I grew up in and around San Francisco, you'd think I wouldn't have seen many examples of injustices towards gay people. Unfortunately, even out here, we're still subject to whatever laws they decide to pass in DC.

From an outsider's perspective, things that suck for gay people, in this country:

- You can't donate blood, if you admit to being a gay man. I just don't get this one. Should the Red Cross also reject blood donations from people with multiple sex partners? If all the blood is tested anyway, it doesn't matter who's done what, right? Do we really have such wretched blood screening processes that we can't detect STDs? Doesn't that make people think twice about getting blood transfusions?

- You can't be gay and serve in the military, unless you're willing to hide your identity, and refrain from "participating in gay sexual activities." I can just imagine the government telling straight people to abstain from sexual activity while in the military. There is a reason foreign brothels staff up before US aircraft carriers dock. That aside, I understand that there homophobic people in the military, who don't want to serve with gay people. There are also racist and sexist people in this country. Are they allowed to refuse to serve with people of other races? Are they allowed to refuse to serve with members of the opposite sex? No, because we don't condone discrimination based on race or gender. Hmm...

- If you're gay and you form a "civil union" with your partner, you still can't sponsor him/her as a spouse for immigration purposes. In a country full of immigrants, this is a pretty big deal.

- If you're gay and you're dying, your partner does not have the legal right to say whether or not "heroic measures" should be taken to keep you alive as long as possible. What often happens is that a gay person's family ends up fighting with his/her life partner. Great situation for someone who's dying of a terminal illness, isn't it?

- If you're gay and you write a will that says you leave your money to your partner, you're not home free. Some states have forms that have to be filed to revoke the claims of the next-of-kin. Plus, it's always possible for your family to file a lawsuit to take your money away from your grieving partner.

I'm sure there are lots of other problems, but I can't list them off the top of my head. I'm beginning to wonder if this is why another one of my high school friends has been living in Europe for the past few years. Well, that and the hot Irish guys, of course.

"I voted touchscreen"

That's what the stickers that they're giving out at polling places say now. Frankly, as a software engineer, I'm a little skeptical about the whole touchscreen voting idea. I've never seen a software application that didn't have bugs and/or security issues; these translate to vulnerabilities for potential attackers.

Additionally, if we're going to have computers counting votes at all, the computers should run open source software, on an open source platform. I heard a rumor that a touchscreen voting machine in San Diego malfunctioned and booted to Windows (!!!) instead of loading the voting software.

I think we should keep the touchscreen voting interface, but the machine should print out a punchcard-like "receipt" for the voter to examine and verify. The receipts should then be locked up and otherwise treated like the old paper ballots, so they could potentially be used to do manual recounts.