Procrastination

جمعرات 22 مئی 2008Thursday, May 22, 2008

Plagiarism

While plagiarism has been there forever, the Internet makes it really easy. At the same time, it makes it easy to find out if someone has copied and pasted your writing and passed it off as their own.

Recently, I found out that Paksir has copied my blog article about global gender attitudes without so much as a hint of where it came from. My comment on his blog to provide a link has gone unanswered for more than two weeks.

Let’s look at a more amusing example: Muhammad Imran Latif’s portfolio page. I was alerted to the similarities with my About Zack page last year. I tried contacting him, but got no reply. Since then, I have made some minor changes to my about page, so let’s compare his description of himself with mine from the wayback machine

Imran Latif	Me
My name is Muhammad Imran Latif. I am usually known as Pomy & Imran.	My name is Zakaria Ajmal. “Zakaria” is a biblical name and hence has different spellings and pronunciations in different languages. I don’t mind the different spellings that much, but to make it easy, I am usually known as Zack.
I am 27 years old and i am originally from Pakistan where I was born and raised. I was living in Daska, the beautiful city, before coming to the Islamabad. I am a Muslim.	I am 35 years old and am originally from Pakistan where I was born and raised. I was living in Islamabad, the capital city, before coming to the US. Like most of the Pakistani population (97% according to the CIA World Factbook), I am a Muslim.
I came to the Islamabad 1 years ago and am currently a Web designer and Network administrator Computer field.	I came to the US 9 years ago and am currently a graduate student in Electrical and Computer Engineering (research interests: computer vision and graphics/animation, video and image analysis, telepresence, etc.) at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA.
Other than research and teaching, I like to plants and gardening. I am also very much interested in economics, information technology teaching, social work, politics and national affairs.	Other than research and teaching, I like to camp and hike, travel and take photographs with my digital camera. I am also very much interested in science fiction, history, politics and international affairs.
I got married to Sofia (nickname: Bahaar) on September 5, 2005. We have had a lot of fun together and plan to live together happily ever after.	I got married to Ambrin (nickname: Amber) on December 1, 1994. We have had a lot of fun together and plan to live together happily ever after.
On August 29, 2006, a cute Michelle was born to Baahar and me. Nowadays, she is the center of our universe.	On August 12, 2004, a cute Michelle was born to Amber and me. Nowadays, she is the center of our universe. She has a weblog of her own on which we post her photographs, video clips and milestones etc. If you would like to read her blog, please email me.

How much do you want to bet that Imran’s daughter is not actually named Michelle?

For the record, here is my policy on copying stuff:

All original content, whether text, images or multimedia, on this weblog, Procrastination, is Copyright © Zakaria Ajmal, except for posts by other authors which belong to them.

You can excerpt the contents of this website anywhere else but you must attribute it to us and cite the location (URL) from which you are quoting. However, you are not allowed to copy our images without permission. Similarly, you are not allowed to hotlink to any of our photographs.

An exception to this policy pertains to the comments by visitors and readers, which belong to the commenters themselves.

Hat tip to the two readers who tipped me off about these two cases.

By Zack at 12:07 PM in Internet | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

پیر 19 مئی 2008Monday, May 19, 2008

Juno

Juno is a comedy about a young girl who gets pregnant and her travails during that time while she and her parents try to arrange an adoption.

It’s a fun film with the girl Juno, played by Ellen Page, and her dad, played by J. K. Simmons, doing great work and providing good comedic moments.

I would rate it 8/10.

By Zack at 2:13 PM in Movies | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

بدھ 14 مئی 2008Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Rendition and Torture

Extraordinary Rendition is defined as:

the extrajudicial transfer of an individual to a country where there is reasonable probability he will be tortured.

Mother Jones (hat tip: Desi Italiana) recounts the renditions carried out by the United States, including those before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In our research we have counted 67 known cases of extraordinary rendition by the United States since 1995. While the details are often incomplete, they help paint a more complete picture of this secretive and controversial Central Intelligence Agency program.

[…] Then-CIA director George Tenet testified before the 9/11 Commission that there were more than 80 renditions before September 11, 2001. We found information on 29 cases of extraordinary and ordinary rendition prior to 9/11. Of the 14 that qualify as extraordinary renditions, 12 were to Egypt.

[…] We found information on 117 renditions that have occurred since September 11, 2001. When we excluded renditions to Afghanistan, CIA secret prisons (or “black sites”), Guantanamo, or American custody, we found 53 cases of extraordinary rendition. All individuals for whom the rendition destination is known were sent to countries that have been criticized by the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which document “torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Of these 53 prisoners, more than one quarter have explicitly claimed that they were tortured while in foreign custody; four claim they were tortured while passing through American custody either en route to or following foreign custody. Four others may have been tortured while in foreign custody based on secondhand accounts or vague descriptions of treatment in prisons in their destination countries. Sixteen of the 53 individuals have been released after extraordinary renditions, and half of them claimed they were tortured while in foreign custody; two claim they were tortured while in American custody.

These renditions, which started in the Clinton era, resulted in torture by states that were well-known to use torture in their interrogations.

For hours, the words come pouring out of Abu Omar as he describes his years of torture at the hands of Egypt’s security services. Spreading his arms in a crucifixion position, he demonstrates how he was tied to a metal door as shocks were administered to his nipples and genitals. His legs tremble as he describes how he was twice raped. He mentions, almost casually, the hearing loss in his left ear from the beatings, and how he still wakes up at night screaming, takes tranquilizers, finds it hard to concentrate, and has unspecified “problems with my wife at home.” He is, in short, a broken man.

Torture is not just something we have outsourced to countries like Egypt. Instead, after the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration has issued legal opinions declaring torture okay. John Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel wrote a memo in August 2002 and another one in March 2003, basically declaring an imperial Presidency that had the power to declare torture legal if it felt like it.

Torture was discussed and approved at the highest levels of the government.

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

[…] The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed – down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

And Bush approved of these torture policies.

In a stunning admission to ABC news Friday night, President Bush declared that he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details of the CIA’s use of torture. Bush reportedly told ABC, “I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.” Bush also defended the use of waterboarding.

ACLU suggests that we should demand accountability from Congress and I urge you to send a letter to your Congressman right now.

The Bush administration is still using the euphemism of “enhanced interrogation techniques” for torture and claiming that the CIA is allowed to use these methods.

The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law.

The legal interpretation, outlined in recent letters, sheds new light on the still-secret rules for interrogations by the Central Intelligence Agency. It shows that the administration is arguing that the boundaries for interrogations should be subject to some latitude, even under an executive order issued last summer that President Bush said meant that the C.I.A. would comply with international strictures against harsh treatment of detainees.

While the Geneva Conventions prohibit “outrages upon personal dignity,” a letter sent by the Justice Department to Congress on March 5 makes clear that the administration has not drawn a precise line in deciding which interrogation methods would violate that standard, and is reserving the right to make case-by-case judgments.

“The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act,” said Brian A. Benczkowski, a deputy assistant attorney general, in the letter, which had not previously been made public.

The rot in the state is widespread. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia likes to excuse torture for the purpose of thwarting terrorist attacks and Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain, while an opponent of tortute, voted against prohibiting torture by the CIA, despite the fact that he was tortured by using stress positions by the North Vietnamese when he was a prisoner of war.

May be Congress can get the 7,000 documents relating to torture and rendition that the CIA is unwilling to release and make them public and the next administration can untie the hands of the FBI and get it to investigate these abuses.

By Zack at 2:55 PM in Civil Liberties | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

جمعہ 9 مئی 2008Friday, May 09, 2008

Seven

Se7en is a movie about a serial killer who is inspired by the seven deadly sins which are:

Greed
Gluttony
Sloth
Lust
Pride
Envy
Wrath

It’s a good movie in which Kevin Spacey as the killer and Morgan Freeman as the retiring police detective are very good. Brad Pitt as the new detective is okay.

I rate the movie 8/10 despite the fact that I had a good idea how it was ending.

By Zack at 11:43 AM in Movies | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

اتوار 4 مئی 2008Sunday, May 04, 2008

Why GPS is Better Than a Wife

Here are some reasons:

A GPS does not act all grumpy when asked to navigate.
A GPS receiver does not take 30 minutes to tell you where you were half an hour ago.
A GPS does not get directionally confused by the highway loop around the city.
A GPS does not skip one page in the directions you printed out from Mapquest.
A GPS does not refuse to navigate when you don’t take the route it recommended.
A wife does not cheerfully recalculate a new route to your destination when you don’t take a turn.
On the other hand, a wife will not suggest you cross a river. Instead, she’ll force you to stop.

Got any more?

By Zack at 12:02 AM in Humor , Science and Technology | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

منگل 29 اپریل 2008Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Charlie Wilson's War

We watched Charlie Wilson’s War in the theater. It is a movie about the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion and how Congressman Charlie Wilson and how he and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos helped the Afghan Mujahideen.

It is a good movie, but it does focus more on the flamboyant and scandalous than the nitty gritty details of congressional funding. Also, Om Puri did the worst impression of Pakistani dictator General Zia ul Haq that I have ever seen.

While I liked the movie, these deficiencies mean I can rate it only 7/10.

Watching the movie reminded me that I still hadn’t read the book Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times by George Crile that the movie is based on. So I got it from the library.

It’s a great book and I finished it as fast as I could. It reminded me more of fiction than of reality. And it scared me. The book includes a lot of details about how the Afghan war was funded and details the way Congress and its committees work behind the scenes. As someone very interested in politics, it was a bit scary to realize how something of the scale of the US funding of the Afghan war could happen with just the personal connections and chit-calling and no open debate in Congress.

My conflicted feelings towards the Afghan war don’t help matters. I was and am a fervent anticommunist and hence did support the fight against the Soviets. At the same time, those Mujahideen groups, including Ahmad Shah Massoud, were not exactly good for Afghanistan. And the Afghan war (and Zia) is a major reason for why Pakistan is in such bad shape today.

If you are interested in the Cold War, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the war on terror, CIA, or US foreign policy, Charlie Wilson’s War is a must read.

By Zack at 1:47 PM in Books , International Affairs , Movies , Pakistan | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

جمعرات 24 اپریل 2008Thursday, April 24, 2008

Terror of School Districts

Laws giving more power of surveillance to the state are often justified in terms of their use against terrorists, pedophiles and other such criminals, but such laws can and will be used for such purposes as finding deadbeat dads or even checking if families reside in a specific school district.

A council has admitted spying on a family using laws to track criminals and terrorists to find out if they were really living in a school catchment.

A couple and their three children were put under surveillance without their knowledge by Poole Borough Council for more than two weeks.

The council admitted using powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) on six occasions in total.

Three of those were for suspected fraudulent school place applications.

It said two offers of school places were withdrawn as a consequence.

[…] RIPA legislation allows councils to carry out surveillance if it suspects criminal activity.

On its website, the Home Office says: “The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) legislates for using methods of surveillance and information gathering to help the prevention of crime, including terrorism.”

It goes on to say the act allows the interception of communications, carrying out of surveillance and the use of covert human intelligence sources.

Poole council said it used the legislation to watch a family at home and in their daily movements because it wanted to know if they lived in the catchment area for a school, which they wanted their three-year-old daughter to attend.

Also, in the past, these kind of laws have been used against political opponents, as the Church Committee reports show. It is quite probable that they will be used similarly again.

By Zack at 2:42 PM in Civil Liberties | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

ہفتہ 19 اپریل 2008Saturday, April 19, 2008

There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood is a movie about an oil prospector. It is set in the early 20th century.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays the role of a ruthless oil prospector who uses his adopted son to show himself off as a family man. While he discovers oil and grows rich, his paranoia and meanness morphs into a sort of madness.

It’s a good movie that I liked very much. However, Amber found it only okay. I rate it 8/10.

By Zack at 1:45 AM in Movies | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

پیر 14 اپریل 2008Monday, April 14, 2008

Atlanta Zoo

Some time ago, we went to Atlanta Zoo. Michelle was so excited to be there. She was running from one animal enclosure to the next, trying to see all the animals. It was a great trip. I myself spent a lot of time on the gorillas and took lots of photos.

I am hoping next time I’ll have the 70-300mm lens for closeups.

By Zack at 5:12 PM in Parenthood , Photography | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

بدھ 9 اپریل 2008Wednesday, April 09, 2008

The Lives of Others

Das Leben der Anderen or The Lives of Others is a German movie about the totalitarian state of East Germany.

A playwright in East Berlin is being spied upon by the Stasi ostensibly for Western sympathies but really because a Minister is attracted to the playwright’s girlfriend. As the spying continues, the agent gets more sympathetic to the playwright and his girlfriend. Meanwhile, the playwright decides to write an article in the West German press about the high suicide rates in East Germany.

Overall, it’s a good movie which presents the main characters (playwright, his girlfriend and the stasi agent) as very human. It also shows the detailed spying that the East German state did on its citizens.

I rate the movie 9/10.

By Zack at 12:36 PM in Movies | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

جمعہ 4 اپریل 2008Friday, April 04, 2008

Midnight's Children

Midnight’s Children is an award-winning novel by Salman Rushdie, though Rushdie is known more for the protests and death threats against him due to his Satanic Verses.

The main character in Midnight’s Children is Saleem Sinai who’s born at the same instant as India becomes independent on August 15, 1947. His life story follows the twists and turns of national events. He even shows up in Pakistan for Ayub Khan’s martial law declaration and then later when his family is killed in a bombing raid during the 1965 war. The story then moves to the suppression of Bangladeshis by Pakistan’s security forces in 1971 and then to India again for Indira Gandhi’s emergency in 1975. Of course, Saleem Sinai plays a role in all these events.

Overall, the story is fun and covers the post-Independence history of the region. But at times Rushdie’s writing style gets annoyingly ethnic. I enjoyed the novel but wasn’t much impressed by it.

By Zack at 3:18 PM in Books | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

ہفتہ 29 مارچ 2008Saturday, March 29, 2008

Life of Brian

Monty Python’s Life of Brian is a great comedy about Brian who’s born at the same time as Jesus and is mistaken as the Messiah. There are lots of fun moments in the movie and I loved the religious satire.

Amber had some problem with the accent/speaking style especially since we were watching it late at night with the volume really low to avoid waking up Michelle.

I loved the movie and would rate it 8/10 only because the DVD production wasn’t so good.

By Zack at 12:42 AM in Movies | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

پیر 24 مارچ 2008Monday, March 24, 2008

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani

Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani of Pakistan Peoples Party has been elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Mr Gillani won the parliamentary vote by 264 votes to the 42 of Musharraf ally Chaudhry Pervez Elahi.

Who is Yusuf Raza Gillani? He belongs to a prominent feudal-spiritual family in the south Punjab city of Multan. His family has been active in politics in the area since the early 20th century. Mr Gilani was first elected chairman of the Union Council, Multan in the 1983 local bodies elections during Zia rule. Then he joined Junejo’s government as a minister of housing and railways. He parted ways with the Junejo Muslim League and joined Benazir Bhutto’s PPP around the time Junejo’s government was dismissed in 1988 by Zia.

In 1993, during the second Benazir Bhutto government, he was elected Speaker of the National Assembly. In 1995, Mr Gillani, as Speaker, issued instructions for the release of parliamentarians detained by his own PPP government. When the interior ministry refused to oblige, he had the matter brought on record.

He, like most PPP candidates in Punjab, lost the 1997 election when Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N(Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz Group) swept the province. Then, during Musharraf’s martial law in 2001, Gillani was convicted over illegal government appointments when he was Speaker. He spent the next five years in jail, being released in late 2006 on a court order.

After being elected Prime Minister, Gillani made a speech in Parliament (video here).

In a maiden speech on the floor of National Assembly after he was elected as Prime Minister, he said, “I request the national assembly as my first job to pass a resolution for UN probe into the assassination of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto.”

Elaborating the top priorities of the new government, the newly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani vowed to take all out efforts for the supremacy of parliament.

He also said the National Assembly should pass another resolution to apologize to the nation for hanging of Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto.

Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani also said that he would issue the immediate directives for release of the held judges.

Gillani also vowed to take efforts for the resolution of multiple problems of people, saying, “ We realize that the people of the country confront several problems including shortage of electrify.”

“Today, democracy has been restored thanks to the great sacrifice of Benazir Bhutto,” the 55-year-old Gilani, wearing a dark suit and tie, said in his first speech to parliament.

“I invite all political forces to join us because the country is facing such a crisis that a single man cannot save it,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chief Justice deposed by Musharraf’s “emergency” last year and under house arrest since then came out of his house and was greeted by supporters.

Deposed chief justice, Chaudhry Iftikhar Muhammad Chuadhry along with his family members came out of his house Monday evening, marking an end to his and his family’s more than five month long detention.

People who gathered outside Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s residence warmly welcomed him when he came out with his family members.

He acknowledged the welcoming slogans of the people by waving his hands.

President Supreme Court Bar Association, Aitezaz Ahsan and Justice (Retd.) Tariq Mehmood and others accompanied Chaudhry Iftikhar Chaudhry.

The lawyers movement’s demands, including the restoration of the large number of superior court judges, would probably be the first important task for this government. President Musharraf has claimed that it is not constitutionally possible to bring the judges back, but then Musharraf’s action itself wasn’t constitutional.

There has been lots of speculation about why Yusuf Raza Gilani was chosen for the Prime Ministerial slot. In my opinion, there are a number of factors. First, Zardari wanted someone who did not have power on his own and was dependent on Zardari. The election of Fehmida Mirza as Speaker was also part of the same process, as she and her husband MPA Zulfiqar Mirza are close to Asif Zardari.

Second, both Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif probably wanted someone who had remained completely loyal and had not had any kind of relationship with Musharraf.

Third, Zardari would like to be able to have the option to remove the current Prime Minister for another or even for himself later as well as keep his kingmaker role now with a lot of behind the scenes power. A somewhat weak Prime Minister would fit right in for that strategy. Yusuf Raza Gillani’s statement after being nominated about staying as PM only as long as the party wants him to is suggestive in this regard.

Fourth, once the idea of a Prime Minister from Punjab was floated, it was in Nawaz Sharif’s interest for the PPP to select someone from the southern feudal families since such a choice wouldn’t encroach on the PML-N’s stronghold in the more urban central and northern Punjab.

I, on the other hand, would have preferred Zardari himself as Prime Minister because that would be a much more transparent system with fewer power centers.

By Zack at 12:08 PM in Pakistan , Politics | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

جمعہ 21 مارچ 2008Friday, March 21, 2008

Nikon D80

As I mentioned earlier, I had been looking for a digital SLR camera. And look here it is:

My old camera, Sony Cybershot DSC-F707, has given good results for more than 5 years. But I was outgrowing it and there was also the delay in taking a shot after pressing the button which resulted in missed photos of the always-on-the-move 3 year old.

I bought Nikon D80 with the 18-135mm lens from B&H.

I liked the extra features in the D80 as compared to the entry level DSLRs (Nikon D40x and Canon Rebel XTi). And when one is buying an SLR, the lenses are more important than the camera body. Looking at the Nikon and Canon lenses, it seemed to me that Nikon has better consumer lenses. Canon has good pro lenses but I don’t think I can afford those.

I thought about the different lenses to buy and then chose the 18-135mm. With the 1.5x factor due to the smaller sensor, this lens is equivalent to a 27-205mm lens on a 35mm camera. This lens has decent performance and has enough zoom capability that most of the time I can make do with just one lens and don’t have to switch lenses.

In the near future, I plan to buy the following in order of priority:

Nikon SB-600 Speedlight Flash
Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens which would be a perfect, fast portrait lens
Nikon 70-300mm VR Zoom Nikkor Lens for nature photography

I have been very pleased with the results of the D80.

By Zack at 4:48 PM in Photography | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

اتوار 16 مارچ 2008Sunday, March 16, 2008

Enchanted

On December 28, we went to watch Michelle’s first movie in a movie theater. The movie we chose was Enchanted since Michelle is into fairy tales nowadays.

We have a decent collection of kids’ movies on DVD at home. Also, Michelle has been to a few puppet shows. Then there was the Deepo’s Undersea 3D Wondershow at the 4D theater at the aquarium. The special effects (throwing of water on us, etc) scared Michelle.

Anyway, Michelle was excited about watching a movie at the theater. We decided to go to an early afternoon show. When we went in, Michelle got on her seat and started watching the big screen attentively. I told her the movie hadn’t started yet, but she asked me to be quiet.

Amber brought some popcorns, chocolate and soda for us and we watched the movie while snacking. Michelle was so engrossed in the movie that she wouldn’t even look away.

Then near the end, Michelle decided to go explore. She went and sat in the empty seats in the front.

Michelle did get a little scared when the dragon showed up, but otherwise she enjoyed the movie a lot. We were surprised at her perseverance as she usually doesn’t watch complete movies at home. All of us had a good time.

Enchanted is a good movie for kids who like fairy tales and princesses. I rate it 7/10.

By Zack at 7:07 PM in Movies , Parenthood | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)