text:
"We want to see suffering" 1
To listen to the barbaric chant which is the background music to the slow destruction of our civilization by savage hordes coming out of the Dark Ages, go here.
The words are in French not Arabic.
A translation:
We will not be beaten down
We wish to die for Allah
We will persist in fighting
And leave [this world] with a smile
Yes, Charlie Hebdo is dead, he mocked the prophets
Indeed we will kill without remorse those coming to provoke us
Why are you looking for a fight? You reap what you sow
For those with loaded weapons, it's time to revolt.
We must strike France
It is time for it to be humiliated
We want to see suffering
And deaths by the thousand
The battle has begun. The revenge will be terrible
Our soldiers are enraged. Your end will be horrible.
Islam will prevail, it will be spread by the sword
Those who want to oppose it will never know peace
We came to dominate and our enemies will perish
We will annihilate them and let their bodies rot.
The song is titled On Va Pas Se Laisser Abattre (We Will Not Let Ourselves Be Beaten Down). It was posted on Sunday March 15, 2015, by the Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL). The translation is by MEMRI.
The glamor of evil 4
With his usual perception and wit, Mark Steyn writes:
The Islamic State [IS] released a 22-minute video showing Flight Lieutenant Muath al-Kasasbeh of the Royal Jordanian Air Force being doused in petrol and burned to death. It is an horrific way to die, and Flt Lt al-Kasasbeh showed uncommon bravery, standing stiff and dignified as the flames consumed him. And then he toppled, and the ISIS cameras rolled on, until what was left was charred and shapeless and unrecognizable as human. …
Even by the standards of his usual rote cookie-cutter shoulder-to-shoulder shtick that follows every ISIS beheading of western captives, the President could barely conceal his boredom at having to discuss the immolation of Flt Lt al-Kasasbeh:
Aaand it, I think, will redouble [pause] the vigilance aaand determination on the part of our global coalition to, uh, make sure that they are degraded and ultimately defeated. Ummmm. [Adopting a whimsical look] It also just indicates the degree to which whatever ideology they're operating off of, it's bankrupt. [Suppressing a smirk, pivoting to a much more important subject.] We're here to talk about how to make people healthier and make their lives better.
The lack of passion – the bloodlessness – of Obama's reaction to atrocity is always striking. He can't even be bothered pretending that he means it. …
Given the general halfheartedness of Obama's "coalition", King Abdullah [of Jordan] could have been forgiven for also deciding to head for the exit.
Yet he understood the necessity of action. Obama, by contrast … does nothing. His war against ISIS was supposed to be one in which the US would not put "boots on the ground", but instead leave that to our allies. The allies have the boots, but they could use some weapons, too. Obama has failed to supply the Kurds or anybody else with what they need to defeat our enemies. It's becoming what they call a pattern of behavior. …
Obama cannot react to atrocities committed by jihadis because he is emotionally (we cannot say intellectually, because unlike his Democratic fans we do not think he has much of an intellect), on their side; which means that, whether he realizes it or not, he is on the side of evil.
Mark Steyn clearly sees that IS is evil. He goes on to consider why it is that tens of thousands of volunteers go eagerly to join its army and help it carry out its atrocities.
You'll recall Hannah Arendt's tired and misleading coinage "the banality of evil", derived from her observation of Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem.
We explain when and why she said it, and why it is misleading, in our post The cultivation of evil, the sickness of Europe, July 20, 2010.
Mark Steyn quotes an earlier article of his:
Hitler felt obliged to be somewhat coy about just how final the final solution was. As Eichmann testified at his trial, when typing up the minutes of the Wannsee conference, "How shall I put it? Certain over-plain talk and jargon expressions had to be rendered into office language by me." Even the Nazis were reluctant to spell it out.
The Germans didn't have social media, but they had newsreels, and Hitler knew enough not to make genocide available to Pathé or "The March of Time". He had considerations both domestic and foreign. Pre-Wannsee, in Poland and elsewhere, German troops had been ordered to shoot Jewish prisoners in cold blood, and their commanders reported back to Berlin that too many soldiers had found it sickening and demoralizing. So the purpose of "the final solution" was to make mass murder painless, at least for the perpetrators – more bureaucratic, removed, bloodless.
As for foreign considerations, Germany expected to be treated as a civilized power by its enemies, and that would not have been possible had they been boasting about genocide.
Seventy years on, the Islamic State has slipped free of even these minimal constraints. They advertize their barbarism to the world, because what's the downside? Let's say the guys who burned Flt Lt al-Kasasbeh are one day captured by Americans. They can look forward to a decade or two of a soft, pampering sojourn in the US justice system, represented by an A-list dream-team that'll string things along until the administration figures it'll cut its losses and ship them to Qatar in exchange for some worthless deserter.
As for the upside, "the banality of evil" may have its appeal for lower-middle-class Teuton bureaucrats, but the glamor of evil is a far more potent and universal brand. The Islamic State has come up with the ultimate social-media campaign: evil goes viral! At some level German conscripts needed to believe they were honorable soldiers in an honorable cause, no different from the British or Americans. But ISIS volunteers are signing up explicitly for the war crimes. The Islamic State burned Flt Lt al-Kasasbeh alive not only to kill him but to inspire the thousands of ISIS fanbois around the globe. …
For many of its beneficiaries, modern western life is bland, undemanding and vaguely unsatisfying. Some seek a greater cause, and turn to climate change or LGBTQWERTY rights. But others want something with a little more red meat to it. Jihad is primal in a way that the stodgy multiculti relativist mush peddled by Obama isn't. And what the Islamic State is offering is Jihad 2.0, cranking up the blood-lust and rape and sex slavery and head-chopping and depravity in ways that make Osama-era al-Qaeda look like a bunch of pantywaists.
Success breeds success. The success of evil breeds darker evil. And the glamorization of evil breeds ever more of those "recent Muslim converts" and "lone wolves" and "self-radicalized extremists" in the news. That's a Big Idea – a bigger idea, indeed, than Communism or Nazism.
Islam, as we know, means "submission". But Xtreme-Sports Hyper-Islam, blood-soaked and baying, is also wonderfully liberating, offering the chance for dull-witted, repressed young men to slip free of even the most basic societal restraints. And, when the charms of the open road in Headchoppistan wear thin, your British and Canadian and Australian and European welfare checks will still be waiting for you on the doormat back home. …
As the world burns, Obama, uh, redoubles his, uh, vigilance, uh uh uh… Whatever.
Mark Steyn reminds us that "civilization is a fragile and unnatural state of affairs". Its would-be destroyers now, in the early twenty-first century, are: the environmentalists; the world-government advocates and all the rest of the collectivists, whatever they call themselves – progressives or socialists or communists; and, above all, most dangerous, already destroying as much as they can of the heritage of civilization, and winning battle after battle, encountering no effective opposition – Islam.
Obama won't name it, not even by using the polite form of its name that most politicians and commentators use, "Islamism".
But be assured that against something or other, he is redoubling his vigilance.
The uses of Power 9
Is it America's moral duty to rescue victims of religious, ideological, racial, national, or tribal oppression, persecution, or genocide?
James Lewis writes at American Thinker:
Genocides happen when the civilized world shuts its eyes and does nothing while some gang of barbarians slaughters human beings by the thousands. Civilized silence promises safety to the killers and demoralizes their victims.
Samantha Power, Obama's U.N. ambassador, has made a career criticizing U.S. government passivity in the face of genocide. She has written Pulitzer Prize-winning books like A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.
Now [she is] U.N. ambassador – a major power position in the Obama administration, the most powerful political job she is ever likely to have to do what she wants.
What has Dr. Power done about genocide? What has she actually done to stop, or even to complain in public about, groups and regimes that thirst after genocide, like Iran, ISIS, the Taliban, the Wahhabi priesthood of Saudi Arabia, the mass killing rulers of the Sudan? What about Boko Haram killing, enslaving, and selling children in Nigeria? What about the Kenya massacres? What has she done?
Samuel Totten studies genocide as a disease of dysfunctional politics and has now written a report on Samantha Power's actions against genocide.
They are zero, just like her boss's achievements.
But let's be more modest. It may be hard to get things done in the real world. So let's just ask: what has Samantha Power even said in her highly public position as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations?
Has Power even spoken out, in private or public, against the horrors we can all see today?
Like Obama himself, Dr. Power refuses even to call the real thing by its proper name. Somehow, after a career of assaulting previous administrations for their moral failures to even name genocide, she is now struck deaf and dumb.
Samantha Power is symbolic of all the simple moral failures of the Obama years. She has sold her soul for a mess of pottage. Like her boss, Dr. Power talks a good game.
The Rwanda genocide happened because Kofi Annan, who was a U.N. "observer", knew all about it but never made a public fuss.
Well, that's not why it happened. It may have been why it wasn't stopped, or prevented from happening.
The Armenian genocide of 1.5 million Christians happened because ethnic and religious genocide is what the Turks did during the four centuries of the Ottoman Caliphate, and nobody in the more civilized world wanted to even publicize it. The same is true of the Holocaust and Stalin's Ukrainian starvation campaign. …
Again, the disregard of powerful nations by their governments and/or their newspapers was not a cause of those atrocities but – at most – a license to let them proceed.
But perhaps James Lewis means that if the civilized powers made it constantly known, by interfering even in small incidents of persecution when they occurred anywhere in the world – and so demonstrating that they would not allow such things ever to happen – the big events, the starving of millions, the attempts at genocide would not happen because interference would be expected and feared.
He argues that the "civilized world" should at least speak up against the evil that states and rebel armies do.
The civilized world is not obligated to sacrifice precious lives, even for a profoundly moral cause. We are not infinitely powerful. But we have an elementary right and duty to tell the truth, and to act on it when we can. Obama's abandonment of millions and millions of people is a cruel defeat for elementary morality. Those who don't get that are sociopaths, and those who twist it are liars. Abandoning Afghanistan is not, as the delusional left will say, some sort of victory. The rise of barbarian sadistic regimes, those who routinely oppress all women and girls because they can, is not – repeat: not – a wonderful moral victory.
But Obama and his media lackeys will try to paint it that way.
Today we don't even allow ourselves to think that the Cold War was a noble and civilizing effort by the United States and its allies against the kind of barbarism that we see today being practiced by ISIS – and we know about ISIS only because social media make it impossible for the left to censor it. The left cares only about power, and the resulting millions of dead and wounded are simply the price to pay for Progress. …
Now Obama is willingly – maybe joyously – retreating from lands where we made a difference. We gave and sacrificed precious lives and treasure in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and elsewhere. It was the right thing to do after 9/11/01 for our national security, and it was the moral thing to do. Today Obama is turning Afghanistan over to the barbaric Taliban, just as we seem to be turning Iraq over to ISIS and an Iranian proxy regime in Baghdad.
Obama is knowingly running away from the worst war ideology in the world: war-making Islam.
But why? Could it be because he thinks it is the best ideology in the world? There have been many signs that he loves Islam. And not, we suspect, because he is deluded into thinking it other than it is, but because it is as it is.
Since he is constitutionally unable to tell the truth, he has to lie about it. Suddenly the Wahhabi torture theology of ISIS – identical to that of the Taliban – no longer makes for a "terrorist" gang. No, they are an "indigenous insurgency," following the most shameful lie of the left today, the corrupt idea that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter. We should have realized that when Obama allowed the young people's Green Revolution in Tehran to be killed and tortured into silence at the very beginning of this administration.
We have lost our moral bearings, and the left likes it that way.
Obama is a typical leftist horror story, just as merciless as Lenin, Chávez, and Pol Pot. Since we've exhausted the English vocabulary for describing him and his gang, I suggest we borrow his own lies to describe him.
He is Obama the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Servant of the most ruthless war theology in history.
He is not my president, and in a moral sense, he is not an American president at all.
But say we did have a president who would tell the truth and speak out against Islam, its ruthlessly destructive ideology, its unjust law, its cruelty to women, its extreme bigotry in allowing no apostasy – would the Taliban or ISIS be deterred?
And if not, would most Americans say they must be stopped by force – American military force?
Samantha Power has a highly selective bleeding heart. She and Hillary Clinton worked passionately to get American bombs falling on Libya; ostensibly to protect the people from massacre by the tyrant Qaddafi when they knew he was not actually threatening them – only to stand back when he was killed as a result of their interference, and let real massacres rip; including the one at Benghazi of the US ambassador and three other Americans.
Perhaps Dr. Power's silence since then could be read as a sign that she learnt a lesson about "the responsibility to protect" which she had invoked in the case of Libya. That would give her the benefit of any doubt about her character and intelligence. But whether her silence on the daily atrocities being carried out, in the name of Allah, in Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, the Congo, and now the Cameroons – is the result of painfully acquired wisdom or merely conformity to Obama's "policy" of complaisance, we cannot know.
The giggling dictator 6
Jonathan Tepperman, Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs, reports on his interview with Bashar Assad. Fascinating!
The best comes near the end.
More scenes of Muslim savagery 2
Leaders of the Western world, including Obama talking from his behind, want us to believe that Islam is a beautiful and peaceful religion.
Here are scenes, pictured or described, showing how beautiful and peaceful Islam really is. -
Musicians punished for making music. Wonderfully made musical instruments smashed to pieces.
Boys killed for watching football.
Men killed for breeding pigeons.
Homosexuals hurled from the top of tall buildings.
The words and pictures come from the Daily Mail:
Islamic State religious police have been filmed beating musicians and destroying their instruments as punishment for playing an "un-Islamic" keyboard.
The men were pictured being hit across the back and legs with a wooden stick in a public square after ISIS's fanatical Islamic enforcers ruled the electric keyboard was "offensive to Muslims".
Another picture shows two keyboards and what appears to be a lute smashed to pieces after raids thought to have taken place in Bujaq, a few miles to the east of Aleppo in Syria.
Musicians in Syria were given 90 lashes each after they were caught by the Islamic State's religious police playing an electric keyboard …
Pictures show the men being beaten on their backs and legs by tribal elders in a public square believed to be in Bujaq, a town to the north east of Aleppo. …
The men were apparently caught playing electronic keyboards, and what appears to be a lute, instruments that were deemed to be "un-Islamic" by ISIS's fanatical religious police …
Earlier today, it was reported that at least 15 pigeon breeders in eastern Iraq were rounded up after ISIS ruled the sport distracted them from praising Allah.
Three of those held by the group in the eastern province of Diyala have reportedly been killed, according to a security official.
Abu Abdullah, a farmer, said a total of six gunmen barged into his home earlier this week and dragged away his 21-year-old son. Mr Abdullah's son is just one of the 15 young men – all aged between 16 and 22 – who have reportedly been captured in the province for breeding birds.
Yesterday it was reported that 13 youngsters were killed by firing squad in Iraq's second city of Mosul for watching an Asian Cup football match between Iraq and Jordan.
Activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which operates out of Syria, reported that the teenagers were shot in public and their bodies left there as their parents are too afraid to go and get them.
The boys' 'crime' – breaking religious laws by watching football – was read out on a loudspeaker before their executions.
It came just days after ISIS released a video showing two men being thrown off the top of a tower block in Raqqa, Syria, for being gay.
A masked Islamic State fighter announced the charges against the accused using a small handheld radio, before declaring them guilty of engaging in homosexual activities.
He said they should be punished by death, in accordance with Islamic State's radical interpretation of Sharia law.
The men were then bound and blindfolded before being pushed off the 100ft tower block to their death.
ISIS and the stones of history 1
ISIS is blowing up Shi'a mosques and shrines, and other ancient monuments, the heritage of mankind.
From the Assyrian International News Agency:
ISIS is planning to destroy the walls of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire and one of the most important archaeological sites in Iraq. Nineveh was sacked in 612 B.C. when the Assyrian Empire was overthrown.
Residents of the Bab Nergal area of Mosul said ISIS has informed them that it will blow up the walls of Nineveh with the start of operations to liberate Mosul by the Iraqi army.
In the last month ISIS has seized the content of the cultural museum in Mosul as well as destroyed Assyrian monuments in the city, which ISIS claims "distort Islam".
Assyrians are the the only indigenous people of Iraq, going back to 4750 B.C. In 2003, just before the U.S. invasion, there were 1.5 million Assyrians living in Iraq. Today there are about 500,000 remaining. A sustained, low grade genocide perpetrated by Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds drove hundreds of thousands of Assyrians into exile in Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.
On August 7 of 2014, ISIS moved into the Nineveh Plain, the last stronghold of Assyrians in Iraq, forcing nearly 200,000 Assyrians to flee their homes and villages, where they now live as refugees in the Dohuk and Arbel areas.
The remains of the walls of Nineveh in north Iraq
Less to be regretted is that ISIS also plans to blow up the Kaaba, if it manages to capture Saudi Arabia, and if this report – of which we're somewhat skeptical since ISIS is a Sunni organization and the Kaaba is a Sunni shrine – is true:
Representatives of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) stated that they will ruin the Kaaba after capturing Saudi Arabia. …
ISIS member Abu Turab Al Mugaddasi said that they would destroy the Kaaba in Mecca: "If Allah wills, we will kill those who worship stones in Mecca and destroy the Kaaba. People go to Mecca to touch the stones, not for Allah."
The mercy of Muslims 1
Today the number of lethal terrorist attacks by Muslims since 9/11, as tallied by (deliberately ironically named) "The Religion of Peace", reached 24,700.
The daily number is reflected in our margin. And from time to time we reproduce the 6 latest attacks recorded by the same website.
Here is today's snapshot of Islamic atrocities:
Islam's Latest Contributions to Peace
"Mohammed is God's apostle. Those who follow him are harsh
to the unbelievers but merciful to one another" Quran 48:29
2014.12.29 (Taji, Iraq) – A Shahid suicide bomber dismantles eleven Shiite mourners at a funeral tent. 2014.12.28 (Aleppo, Syria) – Two children are among six souls sent to Allah by a caliphate car bomb. 2014.12.27 (Mozogo, Cameroon) – Boko Haram burn down a village and slaughter at least thirty residents. 2014.12.27 (Bhiri Sha Rehman, Pakistan) – An Ahmadi is shot in the head shortly after a TV preacher rails against the religious minority. 2014.12.26 (Nad-e-Ali, Afghanistan) – A woman and child are among three killed by a Religion of Peace IED. 2014.12.25 (Ndalya, DRC) – ADF terrorists hack ten villagers to death in the middle of the night.
IED = improvised explosive device.
ADF stands for the laughably named Allied Democratic Forces, a coalition of Islamic terrorist groups in the also laughably named Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The wasted lives of Muslim women 4
The Independent reports: "ISIS executes 150 women for refusing to marry militants and buries them in mass graves."
We're not sure if this picture of a barren field, used by the Independent to illustrate its story, is the actual graveyard. But the picture seems to us to convey a feeling of the sad, bleak, lonely, hopeless life of a middle eastern Muslim woman, living her life – long or short – in a black bag.
At any moment, at the whim of their savage men, such women are likely to be killed – for his "honor", for her disobedience, or just for their fun.
Thousands of Syrians brought to the US 2
Quotation from an announcement, in the form of a letter, posted on the website of the US Department of State:
U.S. Plans To Lead in Resettling Syrian Refugees
Anne C. Richard
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
Geneva, Switzerland
December 9, 2014
… Only a small fraction of those who want to be resettled can be – only about one hundred thousand refugees per year, worldwide. There are more than six times that many Syrian refugees in Jordan alone. …
We applaud the 25 countries that have agreed to resettle Syrian refugees, including some who will be accepting UNHCR refugee referrals for the first time. The United States accepts the majority of all UNHCR referrals from around the world. Last year, we reached our goal of resettling nearly 70,000 refugees from nearly 70 countries. And we plan to lead in resettling Syrians as well. We are reviewing some 9,000 recent UNHCR referrals from Syria. We are receiving roughly a thousand new ones each month, and we expect admissions from Syria to surge in 2015 and beyond.
Like most other refugees resettled in the United States, they will get help from the International Organization for Migration with medical exams and transportation to the United States. Once they arrive, networks of resettlement agencies, charities, churches, civic organizations and local volunteers will welcome them. These groups work in 180 communities across the country and make sure refugees have homes, furniture, clothes, English classes, job training, health care and help enrolling their children in school. They are now preparing key contacts in American communities to welcome Syrians.
I am inspired both by the resilience of refugees we resettle, and the compassion of those who help them. Resettlement cannot replace what refugees have lost or erase what they have endured. But it can renew hope and help restart lives. That can make all the difference.
Thank you.
So thousands of Syrians are about to be brought into the United States. They are likely to be only the first wave of refugees from the mainly Muslim Middle East.
Refugee Resettlement Watch lists the states where nearly 10,000 mostly Muslim refugees were resettled in the first two months of the current fiscal year.
Once settled here, they can bring their relations to join them.
Under the Obama administration, the Muslim population of America is increasing constantly by immigration. They do not need amnesty. They start receiving "entitlements" immediately on arrival.
But the UN won't allow Western countries to decide which refugees they'll accept.
Canada wants to accept Christians and Yazidis, not Muslims with their incompatible law and ideology. But the UN won't allow Canada to do that.
This is from Front Page by Daniel Greenfield:
The UN's refugee agenda has an agenda and it's not refugees, it's Islamic invasion.
The federal government is seeking to resettle more Syrian refugees, but only from the country's religious minorities, according to sources close to discussions around Canada's position on refugees from the war-torn nation.
Sources close to the discussions say Canada is seeking to resettle only refugees from Syria's religious minorities, something that would likely be difficult for the UN's refugee agency to accept.
The UNHCR's policy on refugees says a resettlement state determines the "size and composition" of who and how many refugees it accepts, and "therefore has full control with respect to decisions on individual cases".
"Nevertheless, UNHCR urges all states to be guided by the agency's internationally recognized criteria on eligibility, global needs and priorities", the policy says.
As far as global needs go, the Middle East has plenty of safe refuges for Sunni and Shiite Muslims, it has none for Christians and Yazidis. It only makes sense that the West should fill the need for safe refuges that don't exist in the Muslim world for non-Muslims, while the Muslim world takes in its own refugees.
Such as the "Palestinians"? The policy of the Arab states has always been NOT to accept refugees for settlement and integration – especially not Arabs from the Palestine region, sentenced by their fellow Arabs to suffer as much as possible as a reproach to the world for allowing Israel to exist.
ISIS in Gaza 7
After World War I, the Gaza Strip, which for centuries had been part of the Ottoman Empire, came under a British mandate. From 1949 to 1959, it was governed by Egypt, ostensibly under the authority of the Arab League. In 1959, the Strip was incorporated by Egypt, though the population was not granted Egyptian citizenship.
In 1967, the territory was occupied by Israel in the course of its defensive Six-Day War. Thousands of Israelis settled in the Strip and established industries there. But in 1993, by the tragically misconceived Oslo Accords, Gaza came under the administration of a "Palestine National Authority" (PNA). In its perpetual pursuit of peace with the Arabs, Israel agreed to remove the settlers. They resisted, and the Israeli government had them removed by force. They left acres of excellently functioning and highly lucrative greenhouses to the Arabs – who promptly destroyed them.
So it was that a Judenrein Gaza Strip became an autonomous "Palestinian" region, officially administered by the PNA.
In 2007, the terrorist organization Hamas, after an internecine struggle with the PNA, seized control of the Strip and proceeded to launch attacks on Israel with suicide bombers and rocket fire. Israel dealt with the suicide bombers by putting up a protective fence, and from time to time responds to the rocket fire with bombing raids. The world thinks Israel is not being fair to the Palestinians by taking these measures.
The world, chiefly the Western powers, has chosen to keep the population of Gaza as a perpetual beggar nation, dependent on aid. The children of Gaza are taught in schools run by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) – created specially for the purpose of keeping generations of Palestinians as "refugees' – and under its tutelage are raised to be Israel-haters and terrorists. The result is the perpetuation of intense hostility, which makes a mockery of the pretense of those same Western powers to be honest brokers of peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Now the Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL) has infiltrated the Strip and is threatening to take over control of it from its fellow Sunni-Muslim terrorists, Hamas.
This is from an article by Khaled Abu Toameh at Gatestone:
It is always dreamlike to see one Islamist terror group accuse the other of being too "lenient" when it comes to enforcing sharia laws. But it is not dreamlike when a terrorist group starts threatening writers and women.
That is what is happening these days in the Gaza Strip, where supporters of the Islamic State are accusing Hamas of failing to impose strict Islamic laws on the Palestinian population — as if Hamas has thus far endorsed a liberal and open-minded approach toward those who violate sharia laws.
Now, however, almost everyone is talking about the Islamic State threats against poets, writers and women.Until this week, the only topic Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were talking about was how to rebuild homes and buildings that were destroyed during the last war between Hamas and Israel.
It is no secret that the Islamic State has a presence in the Gaza Strip. According to sources there, many disgruntled members of Hamas and other radical salafi-jihadi groups have already joined the Islamic State, with some fighting together with ISIS groups in Syria and Iraq.
Earlier this year, it was revealed here that Islamic State has already begun operating inside the Gaza Strip – much to the dismay of Hamas.
Hamas, nevertheless, continues to deny any presence of Islamic State inside the Gaza Strip. "There are no members of Islamic State in the Gaza Strip," said Eyad al-Bazam, spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
Many Palestinians, however, do not seem to take Hamas's denials seriously, and remain unconvinced.
Over the past few days, two separate leaflets signed by Islamic State threatened to target Palestinian poets and writers for their "wantonness" and "atheism." The leaflets mention the poets and writers by name – a move that created panic among many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The leaflets also included an ultimatum to Palestinian women to abide by Islamic attire or face the Islamic State style of punishment — presumably being stoned to death. The threat leaves one with the false impression that, under Hamas, women can wear swimming suits at the beach and walk around the streets of Gaza City in mini-skirts.
But this is what happens when one fundamentalist group believes that the other is not radical enough.
"We warn the writers and poets of their wanton sayings and atheist deeds," one of the leaflets reads. "We give the apostates three days to retract their apostasy and wantonness and enter the religion of Islam anew."
The threats issued by Islamic State have drawn strong condemnations from many Palestinians. This is the first time that such threats have been made against poets and writers or women.
Although Hamas has denied any connection to the threats, Fatah officials [aka the PNA] in the West Bank were quick to accuse the Islamist movement — which has been in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007 — of being behind the leaflets. …
Palestinians point out that the two leaflets were not the only sign of the presence of Islamic State inside the Gaza Strip. They say that Islamic State flags can be seen in many parts of the Gaza Strip, especially at football stadiums and public buildings. In addition, Islamic State stickers can be seen on the windshields of many vehicles.
More recently … families have begun attaching the Islamic State emblem to wedding invitations sent out to friends and relatives. Photos of Palestinians who were killed while fighting with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria appear in many places, especially mosques and educational centers.
Of course, all of this is taking place while Hamas continues to insist that the Islamic State is not operating in Gaza.
Those who are taking the threats seriously are the women and writers whose names appeared in the leaflets.
Amal Hamad, a member of the Palestinian Women's Union, expressed deep concern about the threats made by Islamic State. "We are headed toward the worst in the Gaza Strip," she complained. "We hold the Hamas security forces responsible for the leaflets of intimidation and terror." She and a large group of women in the Gaza Strip held an emergency meeting to discuss the repercussions of the threats.
Judging from reactions, it is clear that many Palestinians – including Hamas – are extremely worried about Islamic State's presence in the Gaza Strip. Even if the terror group still does not have many fighters in the Gaza Strip, it already has countless followers and admirers.
It is also clear that if and when the Hamas regime collapses, the Gaza Strip will not fall into the hands of less-radical Palestinians.
The Gaza Strip has already been turned into an "Islamist Emirate" that is run by Hamas and other radical groups such as Islamic Jihad.
While Islamic State may have succeeded in infiltrating the Gaza Strip, its chances of entering the West Bank are zero. This is thanks to the presence of the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas are well aware that without the Israeli security presence in the West Bank, the area would easily fall into the hands of Hamas or Islamic State.
It is important to keep in mind that the countries in Europe now voting for a Palestinian state may effectively be paving the way for a takeover by Islamic State.
We wonder how many people living in Gaza secretly wish the alleged Israeli "occupation" were real, and are nostalgic for the days when it was. Their lives were better, and more secure, under Israel than under the PNA or Hamas.
Now they – especially writers, poets, and women it seems – must dread the prospect of life under the rule of the Islamic State.
But if the Islamic State does absorb Gaza, its population will be stateless no longer. As citizens of the Caliphate they may be miserable, but they will no longer be "refugees".
No more UNWRA. No more exploitation of the Palestinians by the Arab States as "victims" of Israel.
Of course, the attacks on Israel will not stop. They will very likely intensify. Will the world object as much to Israel defending itself against the Islamic State as it does to Israel defending itself against Hamas?
Time may tell.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State is taking possession of the minds of millions of Muslims all over the world. If it is not growing territorially at this moment, it is certainly growing as an ideal.
An ideal of savage cruelty and enslavement! Islam triumphant.
The Egyptian Goddess Isis
(just for decoration)


text:
OP Member
Thanks Meter: 4
58 posts
Join Date:Joined: Sep 2010
Now the keyboard keeps flashing along with that, I can't "charge" it with my other Motorola charger and it won't turn on otherwise if I take out the battery or anything. Sometimes I stick the USB cable back in and it doesn't do anything.
I'm trying to discover the cause but I can't figure it out. It couldn't be from sleeping on it as I keep it underneath my pillow....
Maybe just another case of a premature battery death? It would be great if someone could help me out here.

subset: commoncrawl


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List your top three short, mid, and long-term requests for the game
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Archived Post
Lt. Commander
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 120
# 999
short term:
1) add sort functions to the various things like exchange, boff powers store etc
2) fix the wayfinding of the boffs on ALL the Ground Missions
3) fix the Borg cubes, probes, spheres and all the other ships hanging in asteroids or other things
mid term:
1) deep space encounters: implement some kind of safe zone or staging area.
2) the purple elite wepons should be really better than the rest and sold at higher costs
3) make the sector maps accessible as soon as you explored that particular sector. we have a stellar cartography station on each ship :-)
long term:
1) a crafting system worth its salt. maybe possibilty to craft your own kind of guns or equipment
2) A pvp system like the Titan Mode in BF 2142
3) full loot in pvp :-)


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A method and system are presented for the semantic analysis of software. The method includes semantically analyzing one or more software compositions to define an attribute list of such software via said taxonomy, and storing each attribute list in a database or case library. In preferred exemplary embodiments the method further comprises defining a taxonomy against whose categories the results of the semantic analysis are mapped. An exemplary system embodiment of the invention includes a taxonomy, defined linguistic rules, and a semantic analyzer, where the semantic analyzer uses the linguistic rules to parse information from software.
1. A method of semantic software analysis, comprising:
inputting software;
performing a semantic analysis on the software; and
outputting a profile of the software.
2. The method of
3. The method of
4. The method of
5. The method of
6. The method of
7. The method of
8. A method of creating an attribute list for software, comprising:
defining a taxonomy;
semantically analyzing software to define an attribute list of said software via said taxonomy; and
storing each attribute list.
9. The method of
10. The method of
11. The method of
12. A method of populating a searchable software profile library, comprising:
accessing two or more software compositions;
performing a semantic analysis on each software composition;
outputting a profile of each software composition; and
storing the profiles in a library.
13. The method of
14. The method of
15. The method of
16. The method of
17. A system for semantically analyzing software, comprising:
a taxonomy;
defined linguistic rules; and
a semantic analyzer which can access the taxonomy and the defined linguistic rules, wherein the semantic analyzer uses the linguistic rules to parse information from software.
18. The system of
19. The system of
20. The system of
21. The system of
22. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied therein, the computer readable program code means in said computer program product comprising means for causing a computer to:
access a software composition;
perform a semantic analysis on the software composition; and
output a profile of the software composition.
23. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied therein, the computer readable program code means in said computer program product comprising means for causing a computer to:
access two or more software compositions;
perform a semantic analysis on each software composition;
output a profile of each software composition; and
store the profiles in a library.
[0001] The present invention relates to the application of artificial intelligence techniques to software development. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for the semantic analysis of software, such that it can be classified, organized, and archived for easy access and re-use.
[0002] Software development plays a significant role in the global economy. Large companies in the business of, for example, providing enterprise computing services and solutions generally have software application development programs that are highly valuable, often involving the expenditure of several billion dollars annually. Notwithstanding the significant resources devoted to it, certain problems continue to plague software development. Such problems are well known, and include, for example, cost overruns, delays, bugs and errors, and maintenance, to name a few.
[0003] Many attempts have been made to address the problems associated with software development, and thus improve the software development process and it efficiency, such as, for example, the System Life Cycle initiative of Electronic Data Systems (�EDS�), of Plano Tex., as well as the Software Engineering Institute�Capability Maturity Model (SEI-CMM) undertaken at the industry level. One problem that has not been fully addressed, however, is redundancy.
[0004] A better understanding of existing software can aid in the development of future software. In fact, a large amount of existing software can be used as analogues or models for solving a related or similar problem in new software. Moreover, many lines of existing code can be used as-is, or with minor additions, as part of new software applications. Traditionally, software developers spend much of their time documenting their code and systems. These documents, as well as the code itself, can often provide much insight into the purpose, design, and characteristics of the software. However, manually reading existing software and associated documentation is often prohibitively time consuming and therefore not attempted on a large scale.
[0005] Thus, although software development entities could utilize the vast resources hidden in already written code maintained in their organization, they can rarely find it. While such code is found in current or past applications, or residing on one or more files on a given software developer's or computer engineer's computer within the organization, the conventional method currently used to exploit these hidden resources is extremely low-tech: word-of-mouth.
[0006] For example, assume that a software developer and/or computer engineer has an application which she is working on. She desires to write some code to implement a given functionality within that application. She is generally aware that, although some of the inputs and outputs may be different, the general functionality she desires to implement is very similar, if not identical to, functionalities that have been implemented in similar code by her present and former colleagues. Such old code may be, for example, in a different coding language but doing the same thing, or the old code may assume a 16 bit FAT as opposed to the desired 32 bit FAT, or be a computer diagnostic tool for reading and processing digital radiological images which is specific to an older modality as opposed to a desired newer one. In each of these examples, simply adapting pre-existing old code could supply the current software coding requirement.
[0007] Nonetheless, in the example discussed above, since there is neither a central search mechanism nor a central archive in which all software within her organization is automatically categorized and archived for easy retrieval, the software developer probably either (a) queries her current colleagues �Do you have any code that would do XYZ? or (b) sends an email querying her department or the overall company seeking the same information. If one of her colleagues happens to recall similar code, he or she may so inform our developer by word of mouth or email.
[0008] Generally, however, there is simply no intelligence that bridges the gap between someone who needs the code at a given moment and someone who happens to have the code sitting on their hard drive. Few, if any, of her colleagues will take the time to thoroughly search even their own files, let alone undertake a departmental or company-wide search. Thus, left with few remaining choices�she simply takes the path of least resistance and re-invents the wheel.
[0009] While there are a few websites which maintain modest software libraries, the contents of these libraries tends to be very limited, and the software is only accessible by browsing. Such websites simply do not contain enough code to be generally useful, and offer no intelligence to a user trying to locate a particular kind of software to accomplish certain defined functionalities. It is simply inefficient to browse through code online trying to find a particular function in a codestack.
[0010] The notion of �software reuse� has been discussed for many years, in connection with software components, class libraries or objects. However, despite all such efforts, a comprehensive technical solution does not exist to assist with the efficient reuse of software. As a result, many existing software components are unnecessarily re-developed and re-tested, resulting in wasted time and money as well as risking quality problems. This is because, for example, if new software is written in an independent development, it may contain errors and bugs which a re-testing process may not catch, or which do not emerge until the new software has been used for some time.
[0011] What is needed in the art is a system and method which facilitates the large scale mining of information from pre-existing software.
[0012] A method and system are presented for semantic analysis of software. The method includes semantically analyzing one or more software compositions (e.g., software programs and any associated file information, comments and textual descriptions) to define an attribute list of such software compositions via a taxonomy, and storing each attribute list in a database or case library. In preferred exemplary embodiments, the method further comprises defining a taxonomy against whose categories the results of the semantic analysis are mapped. An exemplary system embodiment of the present invention includes a taxonomy, defined linguistic rules, and a semantic analyzer, where the semantic analyzer uses the linguistic rules to parse information from software and associated documentation to automatically create profiles (e.g., attribute lists) of existing software.
[0013]FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary software taxonomy according to an embodiment of the present invention;
[0014]FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary method for the semantic analysis of software according to an embodiment of the present invention; and
[0015]FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary modular software program implementing an embodiment of the method of the present invention.
[0016] The present invention facilitates classification, organization and archiving of existing software. In so doing, a system and method are presented for mining information from existing software and, if available, associated documentation, so as to automatically create a profile or attribute list for a given program or portion of a program embodied in such code.
[0017] In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, software code and any associated file information and documentation is accessed, automatically read line by line, and subjected to a semantic analysis to determine its form and function and categorize it according to a classification system. The output of such semantic analysis is a software profile. A set of such software profiles can be stored in a database. A software developer (or other user) can then create, using the same data structure as found in the set of software profiles, a new profile which describes the attributes of a desired software program. By searching against the database of existing software profiles, the system can find profiles most similar to the new profile and provide the developer with existing software that may be suitable for use in the new program. The existing software, representing the closest examples in the database to the desired software, makes the user's programming task easier, if not moot.
[0018] Content Based Searching
[0019] One functionality contemplated by exemplary embodiments of the present invention is facilitating software retrieval using content based searching. In such searching, what is searched is not each line of code or text with a real time �content searcher� algorithm every time a developer desires to find useful existing code, but rather a profile of each software component which can be created once and stored by the system. Such profiles can �encode� certain key information about a software program. Searching against a collection of such profiles is much less computationally intensive, as well as much more efficient, than searching the actual software and associated documentation in real time.
[0020] Thus, suppose an organization desires to make use of its collective output of software. The first step is cataloguing and indexing the software. A large amount of software already in existence at the organization would present a very time consuming and expensive task if human software analysts were engaged to read, analyze and create a profile for all of the software in the organization's products and files. To improve the efficiency and cost of such a process, the present invention contemplates automatically analyzing the extant software and creating a searchable set of software profiles.
[0021] While the output of the present invention is contemplated to be used in a searchable database, the present invention primarily addresses the �encoding� side of such a system, e.g., the creation of profiles for existing software. The �decoding� side, e.g., searching a software profile library and identifying relevant existing code, is described in a copending patent application filed concurrently, having the same applicants, and being under common assignment herewith, entitled �SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SOFTWARE REUSE,� the disclosure of which is hereby fully incorporated herein by reference.
[0022] Textual Data Mining
[0023] Recent advances in textual analysis have provided sophisticated tools and algorithms for data mining of textual data. Inasmuch as software is a form of textual data, it can therefore be mined for the information buried within it. Specialized linguistic rules can be developed to extract specific as well as general information from software, such as its language, arguments, author, design purpose, key constructs, modules called, return values and types, etc.
[0024] For ease of illustration herein, the term �software� is understood to include file names, actual software code, inline comments, as well as any supplemental and/or additional documentation. An individual �piece� of software, such as a program or a portion thereof (including, as above, file names, actual software code, inline comments, as well as any supplemental and/or additional documentation), will be referred to herein as a software �composition.� In exemplary embodiments, linguistic rules can be based on a software �taxonomy� and thus used to search for corresponding software attributes. As is known in the art, a taxonomy is a system of classification that facilitates a conceptual analysis or characterization of objects. A software taxonomy thus allows for the characterization of software.
[0025] Software Taxonomy�A Set of Descriptive Categories
[0026] Thus, as a first step in automatically analyzing existing software, a software taxonomy should be developed. A taxonomy provides a set of criteria by which software programs can be compared with each other. Using a taxonomy, software can be assigned a value for each category in the taxonomy that is applicable to it, as described more fully below. For ease of illustration herein, a taxonomy is spoken of as containing �categories.� When these categories are presented in a software profile, they are generally referred to as �fields,� where each field has an associated �value.� For example �Type� and �Programming Language� could be exemplary taxonomical categories, and their respective values in a software profile could be, for example, �Scientific� and �Fortran.�
[0027] In preferred exemplary embodiments a software taxonomy can be flexible, allowing its categories to be changed or renamed over time. Software profiles created using a flexible taxonomy may thus have non-identical but semantically similar fields, and thus search rules for comparing two software profiles whose fields are different but similar would need to be implemented. Profiles created using a flexible taxonomy are said to be �non-rigid.� Rigid profiles assume that only an element by element comparison is valid. Thus, rigid profiles are considered as dissimilar unless each and every field for which one has a value is valued in the other. Non-rigid, or flexible, software profiles can be compared, and a mutual similarity score calculated, based upon semantic equivalence between fields with different names, as described below.
[0028] In exemplary embodiments of the invention, a taxonomy such as that provided in Table A below could be utilized.
[0029] The exemplary taxonomy presented in Table A illustrates software taxonomies. In general, a given exemplary embodiment will utilize one or more taxonomies that allow software to be characterized. This is because taxonomies are often domain specific, and one set of categories that accurately describes one type of software, e.g., embedded systems for controlling household appliances, may have little applicability to another type, such as, e.g., a web browser.
[0030] While an exemplary highly detailed taxonomy can be used that defines a software composition absolutely uniquely, it is often not necessary to use so much detail in a taxonomy that each software program is described in an exhaustive and absolutely unique way. Thus, it may be sufficient to describe software by general form and function, such that the semantic analysis of two or more software programs may, for example, output a similar or identical software profile. A software taxonomy should be detailed enough to allow someone searching against a set of software profiles to locate a manageable number of similar software programs.
[0031] As can be seen with reference to Table A, there are 13 major headings in an exemplary taxonomy, each of which is further divided into two or more subcategories. Therefore, a given software composition can be categorized using the criteria of this exemplary taxonomy, as shall be described below.
[0032] In some cases sub-categories are further divided into sub-subcategories. This three-tiered hierarchical structure can be seen, for example, with reference to the top level category �General Attributes,� appearing in the third row and second column of Table A. Under the �General Attributes� top level category there appear eight subcategories, comprising �Date,��Version,� �Ownership,� �Cost,� �Type,� �Digital Signature,� �Size,� and �Authoring Language.� Within each of the subcategories �Type� and �Authoring Language,� there are four sub-subcategories, respectively.
[0033] In Table A, the �Type� subcategory of the �General Attributes� top level category is further divided into sub-subcategories of �Freeware,� �Shareware,� �Internal,� and �Purchase.� The �Authoring Language� subcategory of the �General Attributes� top level category also has four sub-subcategories, namely �English,� �Russian,� �German,� and �French.�
[0034] To illustrate some of the design choices in constructing taxonomies, an alternative exemplary software taxonomy is depicted in FIG. 1. This taxonomy has somewhat more detail than that of Table A. With reference to FIG. 1, eleven top level categories are shown, including General Attributes 100, Other 110, Industry 120, High-Level Function 130, Low-Level Function 140, Complexity 150, Environment 160, Container 170, Component Type 180, Arguments 190 and Return Value 195. Contrasted with the exemplary taxonomy of Table A, it is noted that the top level categories of Language, Tool Type, Operating System and Application Server, which were high-level categories in the exemplary taxonomy of Table A, are now subcategories of a new top-level category Environment 160 in the exemplary taxonomy of FIG. 1. Additionally, a new top-level category, Other 110 has been added, itself divided into numerous subcategories and sub-subcategories.
[0035] As noted above, since software can have domain specific attributes, domain specific taxonomies can be used. However, even within a specific software domain, numerous design choices are available. For example, the exemplary taxonomies of FIG. 1 and Table A reflect a tradeoff between level of detail and computing resources required to create software profiles using the taxonomy. The more detailed a taxonomy is, the more profile fields that are needed to be populated using a semantic analysis. Thus, where the number of software components is small to moderate, a lower resolution may be sufficient, and a slightly less detailed and less complex taxonomy can be used, such as, for example, that of Table A. Alternatively, where there are a large number of software components to classify and mutually distinguish, a larger resolution may be desired, and a more detailed taxonomy, such as for example that depicted in FIG. 1, may be used.
[0036] An Exemplary Software Composition
[0037] Table B contains an exemplary software program that can be analyzed according to a method of the present invention. Because the example program of Table B is a simple one, its semantic analysis will be illustrated using the exemplary taxonomy presented in Table A (the less detailed taxonomy). The exemplary program consists of a simple C program which has one section, which defines no functions and which simply adds a sequence of integers from one to �LAST�, where LAST is a global variable representing the final number in the sequence. Thus, if LAST is defined as 10, the program will calculate and print out the sum of the numbers from 1 through 10 inclusive and then return a value of zero. The program has, besides the C code, a header comment and in-line comments which explain the program and what it does.
[0038] As is known in the art, real world software programs are generally considerably more lengthy and complex than the exemplary software program of Table B. However, for purposes of illustration herein, the exemplary software program presented in Table B (hereinafter sometimes referred to as �add.c�) will be utilized to illustrate semantic analysis of a software program according to a method of the present invention.
[0039] Add.c can be categorized using the exemplary taxonomy of Table A. It is noted that an automatic system contemplated by embodiments of the present invention would read every line of an exemplary program including both code and comments. It would also read any purely descriptive documentation provided with the program. There are various ways that such a system could access and read such software. In exemplary embodiments there could be, for example, a scraper program that automatically extracts all software code and documentation from all computers in an organization. Alternatively, in other exemplary embodiments, developers could manually save all their source code and descriptive documentation in a central directory. The system could go to such a directory, access all files stored thereon and subject them to a semantic software analysis.
[0040] Linguistic Analysis: Syntactic and Semantic Analyses
[0041] Add.c may, for example, be linguistically analyzed according to known techniques. Linguistic analysis, as used herein, comprises two stages. Syntactic (or syntax) analysis and semantic analysis. Syntax analysis, as is known in the art, involves recognizing the tokens (e.g., words and numbers) in a text through the detection and use of characters such as spaces, commas, tabs etc. Thus, for example, first, after a syntactical analysis of a software composition, a system according to the present invention would have acquired a sequential list of the tokens present in the software. Second, for example, syntax analysis would then be implemented to inspect the tokens and compare them against known rules to recognize (a) the programming language used (e.g., C++, Visual Basic, Java) and (b) the key constructs (e.g., comments, functions, and/or classes) comprising the code and any associated documentation.
[0042] Third, for example, given the basic constructs recognized as described above, semantic analysis rules could be applied to further analyze the software. Such semantic analysis rules, for example, look for keywords as well as concepts and relations, such as, for example, author's names, the industry for which the software was written, major function(s) of the software, and other categories as are listed in a software taxonomy.
[0043] Fourth, for example, the results of the three processes described above are used to create a software profile. When the processes above described are applied to a plurality of software, a library of software profiles can be created. Such profiles could be in a variety of formats as are known in the art, such as, for example, cases for use in a case library of a case based-reasoning system, semantic vectors, etc. The fields of the software profiles would be defined, as above, by an exemplary software taxonomy. When, for example, the software profiles are in a format that can be interpreted and processed by a data processing device, large scale automatic searching of the software profiles of an entire company can be accomplished.
[0044] Thus, in exemplary embodiments, a software dictionary as well as syntactic rules, can be initially used to parse information from software and its accompanying documentation. Subsequently, linguistic rules could be applied that consider much more than simply the key words and syntax themselves by performing shallow or deep parsing of the text and code, and considering the relationships among the software constructs and their positional factors. In addition, terms appearing in the software could be looked up in a thesaurus for potential synonyms, and even antonyms or other linguistic conditions can be considered as well.
[0045] Such linguistic rules essentially perform a semantic analysis of the software. The outcome of such a semantic analysis of software could be presented in multiple forms, including (a) the development of software in class libraries, or (b) summaries of software assets. The outputs of a semantic analysis could also be used for supporting training and communications, or even for generating system documentation. Using the results of a semantic analysis, similar programs and systems can be identified for consolidations.
[0046] Exemplary Software Profile Population
[0047] Using the exemplary taxonomy of Table A as applied to the software program of Table B, a partial population of a software profile will be next described. Such population involves automatically assigning values to the various fields of the software profile. Referring to the exemplary taxonomy of Table A, the �Language� field would have a value �C/C++.� This is because a linguistic analysis of the �add.c� program of Table B would learn that the program was written in C. This information is available in the file extension of the program, i.e., �______.c�, and can also be gleaned, using known rules for programming language recognition, from the first line of the header as well as from the C programming language tokens and symbols contained in the program itself. A �General Attributes/Date� field would be filled in with �Dec. 3, 2002� and a �Version� field with �1.3.�
[0048] A �Low Level Function� field could have an �arithmetic� value. The programming language of add.c is obviously C, therefore the sub-category �C/C++� would be chosen as the value of a �Language� field. For a �Tool Type� field add.c's profile would be valued with �Application,� or perhaps �Add-in.� The value for �High Level Function� would need to be determined by more information than is provided in Table B, but theoretically any number of the subcategories provided under High Level Function in Table A could be chosen. An �Ownership� field would be valued with �Educational Programming, Inc.� �Type� could be valued as �Internal,� and there would be no �Digital Signature� value. �Size� could state the size in bytes of the program, and �Authoring Language� would have �English.� The categorization could be completed in similar fashion.
[0049] It is noted that in the exemplary taxonomy of Table A most low level subcategories (e.g., �C/C++� or �Java�) or sub-subcategories (e.g., �English� or �Shareware�) are specific enough to serve as values of fields in a software profile which are defined by their respective subsuming category (e.g., �Language�) or subcategory (e.g., �Authoring Language� or �Type�). A few low level subcategories (e.g., �Date� or �Version�) are more general and thus take a specific value (e.g., �Dec. 3, 2002� or �1.3�) which must be obtained from the linguistic analysis of a given software composition, and which is not available from the taxonomy itself.
[0050] As noted above, real world software generally has considerably more detail than add.c. Thus, a real world software profile would have values for a substantial portion of the available fields provided by a given taxonomy.
[0051] Software Profile Format
[0052] I. Semantic Vectors
[0053] As noted, there are various ways of expressing a software profile according to an embodiment of the present invention. The format chosen can be a function of how the software profiles are to be used. In exemplary embodiments software profiles can be used for automatic searching, as noted above. Thus, in exemplary embodiments, a software profile can be considered as a semantic vector. The components of the vector can be, for example, fields from the taxonomy. Thus, an exemplary taxonomy with N general categories and subcategories could map to a N�1 semantic vector. Every component of the vector (i.e., field of the software profile) could have a value obtained form the linguistic analysis of software as described above.
[0054] Thus, add.c could have a software profile, for example, expressed as a semantic vector with twenty components corresponding to the twenty general categories and subcategories of the example taxonomy of Table A, comprising {Industry, Complexity, Operating System, Low-Level Function, Language, Tool Type, High-Level Function, Date, Version, Ownership, Cost, Type, Digital Signature, Size, Authoring Language, Component Type, Application Server, Container, Arguments, and Return Value}.
[0055] II. CBR Cases
[0056] As another example, a linguistic analysis using an exemplary taxonomy (one not identical to that of Table A) could be applied to add.c resulting in an exemplary output expressed using the format (Category=Value), as follows:
[0057] Filename=add.c
[0058] Programming Language=C
[0059] Author=Sheila Stone
[0060] Date=Dec. 3, 2002
[0061] Company=Educational Programming, Inc.
[0062] Construct=function
[0063] Construct Name=main
[0064] Complexity=Arithmetic
[0065] Arguments=None
[0066] Return Value Type=None
[0067] According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the output of such an exemplary linguistic analysis can be used to create a software profile for add.c in the form of a �case,� to be stored in a �case library.� As is known in the art, case libraries are used in connection with �case-based reasoning� systems. Case-based reasoning (�CBR�) systems are artificial intelligence systems seeking to emulate human experiential recall in problem solving. They utilize libraries of known �cases� where each such case comprises a �problem description� and a �solution.� Case based reasoning is one manner of implementing expert systems.
[0068] For example, an expert system can be built to store the accumulated knowledge of a team of plastic surgeons. Each case could comprise a real world problem that a team member had experienced as well as the solution she implemented. A system user, such as, for example, a young resident in plastic surgery faced with a plastic surgery problem, could query the case library to find a case reciting a similar problem to the one currently faced, much like how a human when trying to solve a given problem is reminded of a similar situation he once dealt with and the actions he took at that time. The case's solution could be relevant and useful to the young resident's current situation, thus passing on the �accumulated experience� embedded in the CBR system to her. To query the case library a user must formulate her �input problem� in a format that can be readily searched against the problem descriptions contained in the case library. Thus, a problem formulation needs to map the input problem to certain categories, preferably the same categories (supplied by a common taxonomy) used in mapping the real world problems to their �problem descriptions� in the case library.
[0069] In a similar manner, CBR can be used to search software profiles created according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. To do this, software profiles created by a semantic analysis of software need to be formatted as cases. In an exemplary CBR system, a software profile would correspond to the �problem description� and the software itself to the �solution� of a case. Case creation can be achieved by populating appropriate fields with the values extracted from semantic analysis of a software composition according to the present invention, as illustrated above. Cases have fields corresponding to a taxonomy. Such a taxonomy can be similar to, but in robust systems need not be identical to, a taxonomy used in the linguistic analysis of the software, as described below. This allows for interoperability of the respective CBR and semantic software analysis systems while ongoing development and flux in their respective taxonomies occurs. Thus, a partial case for add.c may, for example, resemble the following case excerpt presented in Table C:
[0070] In this example the File Name, Operating System, and Component Type fields of the CBR case were not populated, because the taxonomy used for the exemplary semantic analysis (whose categories appear in the exemplary output, provided above) and that used in the creation of the exemplary case library were not identical. Upon application of synonyms, as described above, �File name� for example, could be mapped to �Filename,� and �Component Type� mapped to �Construct.� An Operating System value was not extracted from the software, and therefore remains unpopulated in the case. Parameters such as �Construct Name� do not map to the exemplary taxonomy used to populate the case library (such as that depicted in FIG. 1), and therefore may be ignored, or stored elsewhere for future use. Thus, after all processing, the software profile case could be, for example, that presented in Table D:
[0071] To be robust, semantic analysis based upon a given taxonomy must have some capability for handling synonyms. For example, a given taxonomy may be used to encode a self described arithmetic program into a software profile, where the taxonomy being used to classify the program does not have an �arithmetic� field, but rather only a �mathematical� field. In analyzing such an example program synonyms for taxonomy categories and subcategories (and thus for software profile fields and values) can also be considered and the �arithmetic� of the program interpreted as the �mathematical� of the taxonomy and software profile. For example, a �Low-Level Function �field of an exemplary software profile based upon such a taxonomy would be valued as �Mathematical� even though the program only uses the word �Arithmetic.� Alternatively, if neither the word �arithmetic� nor any direct synonym for it appears in a software composition, the semantic analysis would need to associate words which do appear in the program and which indicate an �arithmetic� quality, such as, for example, �adds,� �numbers,� �integers,� and �sum,� with an arithmetical function, and return a value of �Arithmetic� for a �Low Level Function� field.
[0072] As can be seen therefore, it is not enough to simply develop a taxonomy; rather, an exemplary system according to an embodiment of the present invention must also have a set of rules by which it is determined how the taxonomy is used to encode�e.g., semantically analyze and produce a software profile for�the content and attributes of each software component desired to be analyzed.
[0073] From the above discussion it can be seen that there are a number of issues relating to how a particular taxonomy is constructed, as well as to how an exemplary software program is analyzed in light of such taxonomy. Such processing depends upon defining certain linguistic rules, including, for example, syntactic rules and semantic rules, as described below, as are generally known in the art in the fields of artificial intelligence, data mining, and semantic analysis.
[0074] An exemplary process of the present invention is depicted in FIG. 2. The process depicted in FIG. 2 can be implemented in either hardware, software, or any desired combination of the two. The process depicted in FIG. 2 is a logical one and, in any given software and/or hardware implementation, one or more of the depicted modules could be combined with one or more other modules.
[0075] With reference to FIG. 2, the inputs to the depicted software analysis system are software documentation 210, the software code itself 211, the embedded comments in the software code 212, such as those seen in the exemplary program of Table B, and software file attributes 213. Such file attributes could include, for example, File Extensions, File Structure, Path, Archived, Not-archived, Size (in Kb), Operating System, Creation Date, Last Modification Date, Server, etc.
[0076] Continuing with reference to FIG. 2, it can be seen that a taxonomy manager 201 provides a given software taxonomy 202, which will be used in analyzing the software. The taxonomy manager 201 allows, via an interface as known in the art, a system administrator or user to manually change or modify the taxonomy, such as, for example, when experience with a given system grows. Additionally, a taxonomy manager may be automated, using, for example, some type of genetic algorithm in conjunction with a scoring algorithm, causing the taxonomy to be automatically refined in response to user feedback from retrieval searches. Thus, in such exemplary embodiments, an exemplary system such as is depicted in FIG. 2 can become more efficient with use, inasmuch as the taxonomy used in semantic analysis can achieve a more and more optimal division of the �semantic plane� into various categories and subcategories, adding detail where necessary and discarding redundant categories or subcategories.
[0077] Since, as noted above, optimal taxonomies can be domain specific, a taxonomy manager 201 can store a plurality of taxonomies 202, each adapted to the analysis of a particular type of software. Such types could include, for example, business/economic, engineering/scientific, etc.
[0078] Continuing with reference to FIG. 2, a software dictionary 240 and syntax rules 220 are used to process the input software 210-213 by initially performing syntactic software analysis and parsing 221. The results of such processing at 221 are fed to the semantic software analysis module 231, which, using semantic rules 230 and a software taxonomy 202, performs shallow or deep parsing of the text and code, considering the relationships among the software constructs, as well as their positional factors. The semantic software analysis module 231 may in its processing access a thesaurus to look up synonyms, or even consider antonyms as well as other linguistic conditions.
[0079] With reference to FIG. 2, and the exemplary program of Table B, the following are exemplary outputs from an exemplary application of Syntax Rules 220 and Semantic Rules 230 to line 15 of the code, where the words �int main( )� appear:
[0080] Output of Syntactic Analysis 220:
[0081] 1�Space detected in position 4
[0082] 2�End of sentence detected in position 11
[0083] 3�First token is �int� at position 1
[0084] 4�Second token is �main( )� in position 5
[0085] 5��int� as the first token in a sentence implies a an integer return value
[0086] 6��main( )� implies a function with no argument
[0087] Output of Semantic Analysis 231, Assuming a Complete Syntactic Analysis 221 as Exemplified Above:
[0088] 1�The programming language is C (e.g., with reference to the comment in the second line)
[0089] 2�The construct is a function (e.g., with reference to the presence of �int main( )�)
[0090] 3�The industry is Education (e.g., with reference to the comment in line 10)
[0091] As can be seen from these examples, a syntactic analysis is more literal, searching for characteristic markers such as spaces and end of sentences, as well as certain tokens. Syntactic analysis can detect these objects, but cannot discern much meaning from the totality of objects found. Semantic analysis takes as inputs all of the objects located by the syntactic analysis and applies semantic rules to discern meaning.
[0092] Again with reference to FIG. 2, modules 221 and 231 are the functions that apply the syntax rules 220 and semantic rules 230, respectively, to the software composition under semantic analysis. These functions implement such rules, apply them to the software being analyzed, generate the output, and store the output (in, for example, database or memory) for subsequent use by other modules.
[0093] The output of the exemplary semantic software analysis depicted in FIG. 2 is threefold. This output comprises, for example, Software Attributes 260, Software Summarization 261 and Software Characteristics 262. The various outputs 260, 261 and 262 need not all be desired in exemplary embodiments. They represent possible outputs that an exemplary system can produce. They differ with respect to the format the output data is presented in, but not in its the content. In exemplary embodiments, one or more of such possible outputs may be desired. For example, Software Attributes 260 are software profiles, generally presented in tabular form, that can be used to populate a software retrieval library, and can, in exemplary embodiments, be similar to the exemplary case excerpt of Table D, above. Such output lists, for example, a number of fields (e.g., the categories from the taxonomy) and the corresponding values for each field that a particular software component was found to have.
[0094] Alternatively, output formatted as Software Summarization 261 or Software Characteristics 262 is generally not used to populate searchable libraries of software profiles. Rather, these latter output types are generally used by humans. Software Summarization 261 represents a narrative summary of the tabular information presented by a Software Attributes 260 exemplary table, such as, for example, the case of Table D. Such a narrative is preferably in well written complete sentences, and describes, for example, the various categories and their values in human readable form. In exemplary preferred embodiments, such narrative can be automatically generated using known artificial intelligence techniques.
[0095] Software Characteristics 262 represents yet another exemplary output format, typologically falling somewhere in between that of the other two formats discussed above. As with Software Summarization 261, its intended use is not the population of software profile libraries. Also, it does not require a narrative in full sentences or compliance with the formalities that are used in a typical Software Summarization 261 output. This is because the intended use of a Software Characteristics 262 output is more in the nature of internal reporting, and is less formal. Software Characteristics 262 is an output format used, for example, to report the software production of a given department or project team during a certain business period to, for example, a manager or other reviewer. Such output can be used, for example, to collectively describe a number of software components for purposes of various analyses, such as, for example, the true cost of a software development program.
[0096] The system and methods of the present invention offer numerous benefits to those entities in the business of software development for internal and external use. The system and methods of the present invention offer a reduction in the software development cycle. This, in turn, results in significant savings of time, quality, and costs. Specific benefits are, for example, (a) effective management of software assets at a large scale; (b) support for large-scale software reuse; (c) reduction in application development costs and time; (d) better positioning of software development companies in highly developed industrial economies for competition with offshore software development concerns; (e) reduction in software documentation; and (f) industry-level/international though leadership in software development.
[0097] Not only could a software development enterprise use the methods and system of the present invention to support the large-scale deployment of software re-use within its own enterprise, but an exemplary system, such as that contemplated by the present invention, could be commercialized. Such a system would offer the capability as a web service to clients involved with software development.
[0098]FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary modular software program of instructions which may be executed by an appropriate data processor as is known in the art, to implement an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The exemplary software may be stored, for example, on a hard drive, flash memory, memory stick, optical storage medium, or such other data storage device or devices as are known in the art. When the software is accessed by the CPU of an appropriate data processor and run, it performs, according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method of semantic software analysis. The exemplary software program has, for example, four modules, corresponding to four functionalities associated with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0099] The first module is, for example, a Software Access Module 301, which can access a software composition for analysis. A second module is, for example, a Semantic Analysis Module 302, which, using a high level computer language software implementation of the functionalities described above, performs a semantic analysis of the software. Module 302 accesses syntax rules and semantic rules, as well as linguistic data such as, for example, thesauri and dictionaries, from a third module, for example, a Syntax and Semantic Rules and Linguistic Data Management Module 310.
[0100] Finally, the Semantic Analysis Module 302 outputs the results of its analysis to a fourth module, for example, a Software Attribute Output Module 303, which may format the semantic analysis results in one or more formats or data structures, for storage in, for example, a database or case library.
[0101] Modifications and substitutions by one of ordinary skill in the art are considered to be within the scope of the present invention, which is not to be limited except by the following claims.
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Love the look of Walnut...
But I'm afraid of it being too soft. Would an engineered Walnut be stronger than a solid Walnut?
The only American walnut flooring to consider would be acrylic impregnated walnut...IF it is still being produced by anyone.
I used to have the sentiment that if you liked a particular wood but discovered it didnt "perform" well then you shouldnt bother. But i guess now i tend to lean to the notion that if you expect prestine and will have a meltdown if anything is not prestine, then maybe hardwood flooring isnt healthy for those people.
Is walnut soft? Sure is. But you like it. Does red and white oak not dent or scratch? Yep they sure do. Every wood has its "flaws". Question you should consider is if i have an accident and the wood gets a ding am i going to be able to live with.
The other posters arent wrong and im not disagreeing with them but if you like walnut id say get it and not stress trying to find someone who claims to be able to stain oak to look Just like walnut. Nothing looks close to walnut like walnut does.
The Armstrong Performance Plus line is not what Hartco produced, unfortunately. Armstrong bought Hartco and added a hard and glossy finish to the product.
Nydree bought Permagrain and produces Walnut acrylic impregnated flooring, but I bet it costs a fortune. But, it's worth a look!
Here is a link that might be useful: Nydree flooring...
It's a case of learn to love the dents, dings and other patina that the floor WILL have with normal wear (much less abusive wear) or spend some pretty spendy bucks to get something more durable from the same species. Or, maybe look at doing one of the more expensive laminate imitations with a better quality sound pad under it. Laminate has come a long way when it comes to how realistic it can appear and it does tend to look "perfect" longer than real wood. Just remember that damage to it can only be disguised, not "refinished".
I don't want to add to the debates that abound about it, but also consider becoming a no shoes in the house household.
Thanks everyone. I was having a 'moment'. I am having brain overload with all the information I am gathering for wood floors in our house it's just overwhelming and I go back to the look I love.
Now I'm looking at hickory and acacia again. I know I won't quite get to that walnut stain, but I should get pretty close. =)
I can not agree with gregmills more on the following statement.
"Nothing looks close to walnut like walnut does."
I do believe the walnut flooring will hold up well in a residential use. There isn't big enough Janka difference between Oak and Walnut to worry about. In Edina, MN, there is a high end furniture store, called Room and Board. Black Walnut flooring is installed all through their first floor showroom. With high traffic in a commercial, there will be some dings and dangs for sure. Every time I stopped by that place, their floor is just as attractive as any other times before. Hand Scraped Acacia can be a good option too since newly added dents can be just more characters of your walnut flooring. Attached is a picture of scraped black walnut.
I am designing a new home and also love walnut. Like the OP, I have been somewhat concerned about the hardness and wear resistance. Nevertheless, I have decided to go forward with installing the walnut.
First, we are going with solid 3/4" planks and having them site finished. Going to use Rubio Monocoat, which has a very flat finish with little sheen. Low sheen finishes are great at concealing scratches. If any scratches are overly annoying, we can sand the board and simply reapply the Rubio.
Second, as pointed out above, walnut is softer than oak, but not by a lot (1290 vs. 1010 janka). Walnut is slightly harder than cherry, and many people have cherry flooring (995 janka).
Third, I have Santos Mahogany in my current house (janka 2200). Despite the hardness, it has nevertheless accumulated numerous scratches and dents over the years. These are fairly visible due to the semi-gloss oxide finish. The point being, even high hardness floors are going to get slightly banged up with normal usage.
American Walnut has a Janka rating of 1010
Teak, which is used for ships decks, has a Janka rating of 1155
Northern Red Oak only has a Janka rating of 1290 and no one worries about oak floors. My chair is on a floor that's been in the house since 1895.
Yes, Actually you are true the walnut is soft but however looks very natural and beautiful when installed in the floors of your bedroom or living room.
Walnut is highly light sensitive. It has a tendency to get darker in color and become rich in color if exposed to UV-rays which adds to the beauty of the wood.
Walnut is suitable for room which are most of the time free of pets and children.
Stacy that is so pretty! I wouldn't mind at all if it was just my husband and I. But we have a couple of dogs that sometimes rip around the house and despite the tempting posts on this thread I'm concerned I'd regret my choice.
Also, we have to get engineered because I like the wider plank look and the flooring specialists in my area say our weather is too hard on solid 4" or 5" widths. Unless we install a humidifier we would get cupping and bowing.
I'm excited about a sample I'm waiting for from Kentwood. It's hickory engineered at a 5" width. I hope this is "the" one! =) We've been looking for a long time.
Good Choice!
In fact the hickory floors are considered to be the most durable wood flooring after mesquite wood. Since you have couple of dogs, the floors can be protected from simple scratches of your pets since the wood resists natural wear and tear.
Hickory woods are really hard and difficult to install but you are installing it from Kentwood. So, no doubt professional would be there to install it.
However, negligence in cutting and installing the wood in your floor may result some irregular shapes in the floor. So make sure that only the professional do the work of cutting and installing the hickory floor.
Anyways, I like your choice of hickory flooring.
Good Luck!
Have a look at the blog of the URL below.
and you will get some facts and figures of Hickory flooring. In-fact I personally knew this since one of my friend had installed it in her house recently and she is loving it.
Here is a link that might be useful: Hickory flooring facts and figures
No where does it say anything about hickory being the most durable nor natural resistant to wear n tear.
Fact is hickorys strong and dense but there are plenty that are stronger secondly it doesnt matter what type of species you have. It will scratch. And it will get beat up with use.
Its totally fine to hype up a species but lets be honest and truthful about information we give.
And lets get our facts from reliable sources not a website thats attempting to sell you their services.
American Walnut is fairly soft and in general, that would be the case regardless of whether it is solid or engineered. The one exception I have seen is Armstrong's Performance Plus line which is impregnated with acrylic making it harder - for the whole line including walnut, cherry, oak, maple and birch.
We installed 5" Walnut unstained in our new home. They have two coats of Bona Traffic HD, which I hoped would at least mitigate any scratching. The problem is more of a DENTING. We have a very large golden retriever who has already done a wonderful job of "aging" the floors where he hangs out, getting up down and excited when we come home. We have tried dremelling his nail, which only mildly helps, putting tips on his nails, which come off, and booties, which come off and when they are on look ridiculous. The floors are gorgeous, but if you have large pets, or are bothered by denting/scratching, I would not recommend. Makes me so very sad, since I do love them. But love the dog, too. :(
Bumping this thread up...does anyone else have like/dislike their American/Black walnut floors? thank you!


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Federal Computer Week begins accepting nominations for the Federal 100 awards program this week. The deadline is Dec. 21, so don't delay.
The Federal 100 awards recognize government and industry employees who have played pivotal roles in the federal information technology community. Each year, we receive hundreds of nominations that our panel of judges must sift through and sort. Many people are deserving, but we recognize only 100. Here are a few tips for writing a winning nomination:
n Get personal. Nominate an individual, not a project or a team. Federal 100 winners are people who go above and beyond their daily responsibilities. They bring uncommon dedication or unique vision to their jobs. Projects are often successful because of several individuals' contributions, so why should this one person be recognized?
n Think about impact. Many people do good work, but the award is not only for a job well done. It is for people who made a difference in how technology was bought, managed or used in 2005. If you are nominating someone for a successful program, describe the impact the nominee had on that program and the impact that program had on an agency or a community at large.
n Don't get nostalgic. The Federal 100 is not a hall-of-fame award but a most-valuable-player award. It recognizes work accomplished, to a great extent, during a specific year. Given how long some government programs run, it can be difficult to decide when someone warrants an award. The biggest factor is impact. In some cases, an individual's major accomplishment is simply getting a procurement under way. In other cases, the impact comes once a project is complete.
n Don't get sentimental. This is not a popularity contest. Occasionally, a person makes a big impact by pushing an unpopular agenda or by questioning conventional wisdom. People might not perceive their impact as positive, but it is felt all the same.
Again, the deadline will be here before you realize it. Nominate early and often. Find the specifics and submit nominations at www.fcw.com/fed100.
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Meet 100 women and men who are doing great things in federal IT.
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Unisys Federal Systems' Venkatapathi Puvvada, this year's Eagle award winner for industry, stresses the importance of community.
Experts tell committee that business models, not technology, are the main obstacle to better sharing across systems.
Protests have delayed SEWP V, but industry experts say the contract vehicle offers agencies service and value that are hard to find.
The power of the individual informs FCW's coverage each and every day, but with the Federal 100, we take time to really spotlight and celebrate it. Get to know each of this year's winners.
The latest version of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act purportedly protects companies from liability and individuals from government intrusion.
Popular CIO is headed for the private sector.
The Census Bureau hasn't established a time frame for its cloud computing plans, including testing for scalability, security, and privacy protection, as well as determining a budget for cloud services.
President Obama's proposal to boost government coordination with the private sector got a warm welcome in the House Homeland Security Committee.
The spy agency wants to better integrate cybersecurity into its traditional human intelligence operations.
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