World Chess Championship part 2

Today (Thursday) is a rest day. Kramnik won game 2 in a more exciting game, and games 3-4 were drawn. So Kramnik is up 3.0-1.0. If this were a 20 game match or so like past matches, Topalov would have plenty of time to catch up. But now, Topalov finds himself down 2 points with 8 games left to go against someone who's traditionally very difficult to beat. Topalov has time, but he needs to be aggressive and try to turn this match around quickly, or what time he has may run out.

Now, about the allegations of cheating. As I understand it, Topalov has been accused of having a chip implanted into his brain and Kramnik was accused of going to the bathroom 50+ times a game during the match. I don't take the chip implant allegation serious at all. He's losing pretty badly right now and obviously making some mistakes. Not only that, I don't believe anyone has the kind of technology to have a computer chip interact directly with the brain. As far as Kramnik is concerned, it seems like a reasonable request to have players somewhat limited to the number of times they go to the bathroom, and have an arbiter accompany them to it.

Anyways.. you can go to the Susan Polgar Chess Blog if you want updates on the World Championship match, no reason for me to analyze anything when you have grandmasters doing the dirty work. We should see some exciting games in the next week from both participants.

2006 World Chess Championship

Going on now currently between Bulgarian Veselin Topalov and Russian Vladimir Kramnik in Elista, Kalmykia, which is a republic of Russia. To be honest, I'm personally rooting for Topalov. His play in San Luis 2005 against the top players in the world was phenomenal. The fact that Kramnik has a dry, boring playing style really isn't the reason I'm rooting against him, it's a little more of the fact that he seems to be a little arrogant. Check out http://www.kramnik.com/ to see what I mean. An expert in the art of living? That seems like a pretty extraordinary statement to me. Anyways, Game 1 Kramnik had white against Topalov. About 3 times it looked like Topalov would have been allowed to draw by repetition, but instead he declined and ended up blundering a pawn late in the game and losing. The game itself was mildly interesting, about as much as you can expect from the Queen's Gambit Accepted. But if I know Topalov, he'll come back fighting and we'll get to see some real chess. I might even do a little of my own commentary and analysis if I feel inclined.

For the official website, visit http://www.worldchess2006.com/.

EU and US deadlocked over passenger data

By Paul Meller, IDG News Service
September 11, 2006


European and U.S. security officials were locked in talks in Brussels Monday to replace a passenger data sharing agreement that was outlawed by a European court in May.

The screening of airline passengers entering the U.S. became standard security procedure after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. five years ago. An agreement was struck with the European Union in 2003 permitting airlines carrying passengers to the U.S. to pass over 34 pieces of European citizens' private data to U.S. immigration officials without breaching strict European data protection laws.

The rest can be read here.


Now let me say first, I really don't consider myself a Democrat nor a Republican. Overall, I tend to lean more liberal, especially on economic and foreign issues, but I can go either way as far as social issues. I do think that the United States is not doing enough to secure good foreign relations with other countries. When the US decided they wanted to go after Iraq for "Weapons of Mass Destruction", they appealed to the United Nations to get support to invade and take them out. The UN did what one would expect and sent troops over to Iraq to see if these accusations proved true. When there was nothing found, the US president made a rash decision to invade Iraq anyways without UN support, and in doing so helped to further cast away relations between the US and the rest of the world.

What does this have to do with the above article? It's an example of the United States' foreign policy that carries on to other issues such as this. If the US had appealed to the UN in the first place when these terror attacks started, we'd have full international support in identifying and taking down these regimes, and our foreign relations would be much better as a result. It would also make issues with the European Union such as this much easier with a way of thinking agreed upon and adopted by all the nations of the world.

Back to my thoughts on the issue. If the EU gave in and agreed to what the US demanded, it would allow the current administration to label any EU citizens that arrive in the US as "possible terrorists". After they've identified these people as such, for whatever reason they deem, they aim to wiretap and intrude on privacy further, until they get just cause to (secretly) apprehend them as prisoners of war, where all their rights are stripped and they're at the discretion of the US Army. The EU has perfect cause to want to uphold their laws in foreign countries as much as is reasonable, and in this case I hope they can come to an agreement which will protect their citizens.

With a new president in 2008, the US will have a chance to clean up their relations with other countries and hopefully decisions like this will be a little more trivial.

First post!

Welcome everyone. My name is Sean and you'll be able to find out more about me in my profile. I decided to set up a blog in order to post my own thoughts about various things, from news and events around the world to politics to chess to computer/internet security. Pretty much anything I feel like talking about. I'm pretty opinionated, you're welcome to agree or disagree, but my goal is to make my blog reflect this. With that being said, I'll go ahead and post some things on here shortly:)