Razib, at Gene Expression, is skeptical of claims of 40,000 year old foot prints in Mexico

I have long been interested in pre-history in the Western Hemisphere. It was only relatively recently that I had understood that Thor Heyerdahl had been trying to prove that in ancient times that people had crossed the Pacific to South America. There is some evidence to believe that in the last 6,000 years that people had landed on the west coast of South America, in Chile. We do know that there were people in the Western Hemisphere 12-14,000 years ago. They played a role in the Science Fiction series about the "Time Traders". Razib doesn't believe in the "Polynesian island hopping" theory. Razib writes:

40,000-year-old footprint of first Americans. I don't really believe it, and the "island hopping" thesis via Polynesia seems ludicrous to me (if such a thing occurred phylogeneticists should find a previous extinction or bottleneck event prior to the arrival of Polynesians for many species I would think). But that this research gets any play is an indicator as to the unsettled nature of New World paleoanthropology. Nature has some voices of skeptics in their article....

Ed Morrissey writes about how Iraqis are fighting the insurgents

The "insurgents" under Zarqawi, at least, have so angered the local Iraqis that they are organizing to fight Zarqawi and his type. Ed Morrissey writes about the what is happening:

The London Telegraph reports this morning that Iraqis have increasingly become so disenchanted with the insurgents -- both foreign and domestic -- that the tribal leaders have organized their own counterinsurgencies in areas like Qaim. These clan-based factions have turned on those who attempted to impose their own Taliban-like rules on communities:

Tribal leaders in Husaybah are attacking followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist who established the town as an entry point for al-Qa'eda jihadists being smuggled into the country.

The reason, the US military believes, is frustration at the heavy-handed approach of the foreigners, who have kidnapped and assassinated local leaders and imposed a strict Islamic code. ...

I did some exploring of the Boekwinkeltjes website

For those of us interested in books about Dutch naval history, we are always looking for new places to look. Mr. Carl Stapel pointed out the WWW.BOEKWINKELTJES.NL website. You can browse a particular bookseller's wares from the site. I looked at the list for Wonderbook, from Amsterdam. I have not been through the entire list, but Mr. Stapel found some bargains there. There are bookfairs in various cities. Dordrecht has one that Wonderbook attended. I am actually looking for a copy of S. P. l'Honore Naber's book that has Witte de With's letters.

Orin Hatch's advice to President Clinton

Paul, at the Powerline blog, tells the story of Orin Hatch's advice to President Clinton on a supreme court nominee. Orin Hatch expected that President Clinton would rightly want to nominate a liberal. Orin Hatch didn't think it was his place to argue otherwise. He just wanted to see someone nominated who was a strong candidate:

In arguing that President Bush should/must seek and give serious consideration to the advice of Senate Democrats when it comes to filling the Supreme Court vacancy, some liberals and MSM members are relying on an excerpt from Senator Orrin Hatch's autobiography regarding his talks with President Clinton about filling Supreme Court vacancies. Here's the excerpt:

President Clinton indicated he was leaning toward nominating Bruce Babbitt, his Secretary of the Interior, a name that had been bouncing around in the press. Bruce, a well-known western Democrat, had been the governor of Arizona and a candidate for president in 1988. Although he had been a state attorney general back during the 1970s, he was known far more for his activities as a politician than as a jurist. Clinton asked for my reaction. I told him that confirmation would not be easy. At least one Democrat would probably vote against Bruce, and there would be a great deal of resistance from the Republican side. I explained to the President that although he might prevail in the end, he should consider whether he wanted a tough, political battle over his first appointment to the Court.

I'm slow on the uptake: Jerry Brown got married and I hadn't noticed

Congratulations, belatedly, for Jerry Brown and his bride. He looks well-turned out in the picture, belying his now usual casual style. He has been doing good work in Oakland, and we can only hope that things go well for him in his new marriage.

I was interested in what Dr. Z wrote about functions being first class objects, with a type

I took what Dr. Z wrote about functions as types to mean that they are first class objects. This almost expands upon what we are familiar with in the Scheme world. Dr Z wrote:

Z++ specification language regards a function to have a type. This view, at least theoretically, makes function overloading seem trivial. Z++ software development language provides an intuitive mechanism for defining a function type. Consider the following definition.

function int MyFunctionType(long, double); The term function is type constructor, followed by a function prototype. The identifier MyFunctionType is the name of function type being defined.

One can now declare instances of MyFunctionType and pass them as arguments to function calls. The receiving function can then invoke the function that was passed to it.

Dr. Z points out the fallacy of pseudo code as a notation

I have found this to be true, myself, that pseudo code is not helpful as a notation for describing software. What is needed is code. Dr. Z writes about his experience in teaching calculus and the analogy to describing algorithms in pseudocode, rather than actual code. He writes:

For almost three decades I taught calculus, semester after semester. Here and there I would draw some graphs. Nevertheless, the actual solutions were presented in correct mathematical statements. Imagine teaching the techniques of transformation in symbolic integration using pseudo-code of some sort.

Any actual software development language is considered a medium for encoding the abstractions presented in pseudo-code, quite justifiably so. However, in other articles I have argued that there is a big difference between programming a device and developing application software. An application is specified in terms of its functionality rather than its dependence upon the platforms on which it will run. It is therefore possible to achieve an abstract language for developing application software.

The shortcomings in expressiveness of recent platform independent languages have brought along more dismay towards the likelihood of a future abstract language. The progress feels like less than moving up to Roman numerals, with no sign of positional notation.

A coworker reports that you can wait to see "War of the Worlds" on DVD

A coworker says that "War of the Worlds" "is a little slow" and that you can profitably wait to see it on DVD, rather than pay the higher price at the theater.

Power politics in Minnesota

The Democrats (AKA DFL) in the Minnesota Senate walked off the job, thereby shutting down the state government. To some degree, it was a petulant reaction to the ascendency of Governor Tim Pawlenty. John Hinderaker writes about the situation:

That prediction became a reality last night, when Senate Democrats, who have a small majority in that chamber, walked off the job, which will cause a temporary layoff of some state government employees and cessation of some nonessential services. The Democrats' walkout took everyone by surprise; Governor Pawlenty called the Democrats' walkout "irresponsible and bizarre behavior, the likes of which I don't think I've ever seen before. ... The Democrats punched out before their shift ended."

Will the Democrats' stratagem succeed? I doubt it. The Minneapolis Star Tribune article linked to above is surprisingly even-handed, and even the head of Minnesota's public employees' union didn't blame the Republicans for the Democrats' walking off the job.

Bill Dyer (BeldarBlog) doesn't think much of Bill Safire's column on journalists and sources

Bill Dyer, writing at BeldarBlog, says that William Safire is wrong in his defense of Judith Miller and Matt Cooper and protecting confidential sources.:

It's one thing to argue that Congress should consider passing some sort of federal shield law. That's an argument I don't agree with, but I certainly would agree that it can be made in good faith by serious people (although I continue to think that this case is an incredibly, laughably weak example to advance in support of the need for such legislation). But when you argue that Judith Miller transcends the law, that she's entitled to ignore it, and that her personal beliefs allow her to do any damn thing she pleases in the holy name of journalism, lest she be subjected to "coercive" and "possibly dangerous" time in a federal pokey — well, that's not an argument that can be made in good faith by a serious person.

If you're consistently that disconnected from the real world, the docs tend to conclude that you're psychotic. And as much as I admire and respect Bill Safire, I have to conclude that on this issue, in this particular op-ed, he is psychotic. Fortunately, the only danger is to Mr. Safire's reputation. Still, I genuinely wish him a prompt and thorough recovery.