Mark Schmitt on "Conservatives"

Mark Schmitt writes about how Bush and most of the other "conservatives" are not really conserving anything. (Via Richard.)

The term radical was never even associated with conservatism until the late '60s, and referred to groups like the John Birch Society, which were as dedicated to the destruction of the existing order as the radical left-wing groups of the time like the Weather Underground. But in the sense that "radical" means a change down to the very roots of society, it may be more suited to Bush than conservative. It is exactly right to call the underlying vision of his tax policy, which is a system that taxes exclusively income from labor, and exempts income from investment, "the most radical idea since socialism," to quote John Edwards.

But in most other cases, and particularly when it comes to government spending, the administration and Congress are not operating from any deep principles of government, just seeing what they can get away with to benefit their friends and contributors, and figuring out how to win an election so they can keep doing it.

Many people (Matthew Stoller and Jonathon Delacour, above) are talking about how language and narratives are incredibly powerful forces in politics. They frame debates (George Lakoff) and issues while leading the voters and other politicians down strange roads.

My maxim: Politics are complex to confuse the populous and avoid the truth, not because they have to be.

On Human vs. Computer Tasks

Richard writes about when humans are better than machines.

I'm trying to avoid what seems to be an likely trend towards computers aggregating and filtering out weblogs based on relationships and other criteria, where having a human do it at least gives one a window into that human's personality. Eventually artificial intelligence will be indisguishable from human intelligence, but I'll always want nothin' but the real thing, baby.

I could not agree with this more. What is powerful, to me, about the Blogosphere is that ideas and stories will rise to the top because real people care about them. When enough people care about them and write about them personally you see them more often. Rather than a message automatically getting out and being seen as important because someone related to Mr. Popular said it, a message gets out when it's worth it to enough people. This, to me, is the difference between automatic and personal aggregation.

Not that I think such tools are completely worthless, but I think they should be thought of more like search engines or databases. You go to them occasionally when you don't know what you're looking for, but you don't open them up for every reading adventure.

Henry Lamb on the Commucrats

Curmudeonly and Skeptical links to Henry Lamb who says "When you log onto Democrats.org... you log onto COMMUNISM!"

Socialists believe that the marketplace should be controlled by government, to ensure the equal distribution of the earth's riches. Capitalists believe that individuals should be free to accumulate their own wealth without government confiscation and redistribution.

Socialists believe that people are empowered by government. Capitalists believe that government is empowered by the people.

Socialists believe that the entire world should be governed by the United Nations, through a system of selected "stakeholder councils" at the local, regional, national and international levels.

Virtually every Democratic presidential candidate says the U.S. should have gotten approval from the U.N. before removing Saddam Hussein. Virtually every presidential candidate, and the Democratic leadership in Congress, says the U.S. should submit to the Kyoto Protocol. Virtually every Democratic presidential candidate, as well as the Democratic leadership in Congress, denounce the Republicans' efforts to protect national sovereignty as inappropriate unilateral "cowboy swagger."

Notes... Protectionism is obviously not managing the economy, nor is denying certain countries access to Iraq's economy. Is it better for the world to be controlled by the UN or US? The Bush Administrations protects our own national sovereignty but does not respect other countries'. The article does suggest these things in a nonspecific manner by writing that it seems the Republican Party is "socialist-lite." Neither major party truly believes in liberty or capitalism.

John on PETA, Atkins, and Evolution

John on Dean Esmay's blog writes about evolution and vegetarians.

Agriculture and its concomitant boost in the food supply led to a lot of sweeping changes in the way humans developed as individuals. A better food supply means that people live longer, children have a better chance of surviving in to adulthood, and those same children can probably have more children with a better chance that they will survive as well. This isn't anything new in the way of theorizing, by the way, and it's all pretty general, but then so is evolution.

So for ten thousand years or so humans have been living within a food supply system that is unlike anything they have experienced previously. We eat tons of carbohydrates and processed sugars that simply were not a part of the diet as we evolved. The result is that a new evolutionary pressure is being placed on Man- we are slowly sorting out the species on the basis of who can easily handle a high carbohydrate diet, and who cannot.

In The Third Chimpanzee (link to my notes), Jared Diamond writes about how this isn't entirely true. Before agriculture, humans had small and very healthy tribes where they could live -- but afterwards they had very large and not as healthy tribes. Read about how Native Americans started to get terrible teeth and bones and start to have higher and higher infant mortality rates when they started to grow and consume corn.

The other comments John makes are very interesting... the idea seems to be that vegetarians are doomed to extinction because they are purposely going against evolution and not using all the resources available to them.

No population in a closed environment can expand forever and humans will eventually have to accept this somehow. Similarly, eventually the environment will be completely destroyed and we'll have to accept that as well. And there is also the concern that is an unethical life worth living?

I have only questions, no answers.

The Golden Elixir of Civilization

Dean Esmay on beer as the Golden Elixir of Civilization.

Buck leaned back in his chair and began to explain. It seems that the some of the oldest written words in history, a tablet from some 1800 BC, are a recipe for brewing beer. Not the pale pilsners that Americans seem fanatically hooked on for certain, but a brewed beverage designed to lighten the mood and elevate the spirit none-the-less. Most historians and archeologists agree that agriculture was one of the central building blocks of civilization, but why did ancient man, nominally a hunter/gatherer, suddenly take up the growing of grain?

"To increase the food supply, of course," I opined, my own second helping of Buck's Basement Brewery's bitter best loosening my tongue just a bit.

"Horse-shit! Wild grains and fruits were already being harvested and there was no real need to go to all that trouble just for food. Remember, we're talking about people who have not sat still in the same place since the dawn of time."

It seems that even that early, Man had discovered that certain fruits and grains, properly prepared, could yield a number of intoxicating beverages. Once those ancient wanderers got a taste they wanted more. But the food supply would not support much beer making, so in an example of the problem-solving skill that has elevated Man above all other land-dwelling primates, agriculture was born.

Jared Diamond thinks that the purpose of agriculture was not to increase the food supply for the same number of people, but to increase the food supply so that a tribe could support more people. Then they would be able to compete better with other tribes in war and reside the nomads from the steppes (the Huns.) I realize that Dean is writing about a joke, but I feel obligated.

Gina Smith and Ayn Rand

Gina Smith had her life changed by Ayn Rand.

I was a garden variety sorority girl (and English major) in undergraduate school when I was introduced to the novels and political philosophies of Ayn Rand. Whoa.

Within a month, I quit the sorority in the middle of the night to move in with my boyfriend. And I changed my major to chemistry and started preparing for medical school. (Which I later dropped out of, which is yet another story for yet another entry.)

Either way, my point is that Ayn's writing can do that to you -- especially if you're intellectually impressionable. As I was.

I like it a lot when an author makes me think about exactly what I believe in or feel about something. Often times it seems that you get into a slump of always reading the same types of books and need to mix it up a little. You don't want to get completely sucked into an echo chamber.

The nice thing about blogs is that there are all these other people writing about what they think and you can keep your ear to the sky a bit easier.

If This Is Really Me

Taegan Goddard links to The American Research Group on successful advertising guidelines. Taegan notes that most campaigns probably don't follow them, like most guidelines.

Leahy's Law states that if a thing is done wrong often enough, it becomes right, and as a result, volume becomes a defense to error. When political advertising fails to sway voters, most campaigns follow Leahy's Law by increasing the frequency of the advertising hoping that more of what is not working with voters will somehow work when voters are subjected to more of the same.

[...]

1. Does the ad tell a simple story, not just convey information?

A good story has a beginning where a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation, a middle where the character confronts and attempts to resolve the situation, and an end where the outcome is revealed. A good story does not interpret or explain the action in the story for the audience. Instead, a good story allows each member of the audience to interpret the story as he or she understands the action. This is why people find good stories so appealing and why they find advertising that simply conveys information so boring.

Norman Geras comments on FIFA's rule that clubs cannot go through ordinary courts of law for club related problems.

Having no legal knowledge of such matters, I see this as a rule appropriate to an organization of gangsters. On the face of it, it appears to be designed to protect the national footballing associations against having even the most outrageous decisions or policies challenged by their members. I asked my friend Matt Kramer for his view, and he replied as follows:

My thinking was exactly the same as yours when I heard about this rule against pursuing matters in the courts. On the one hand, someone can enter into a binding settlement of a matter under which he/she agrees not to pursue litigation. On the other hand, a rule disallowing litigation altogether (before a matter has even arisen) will surely not pass muster under the Human Rights Act.

Any further light anyone can throw on this would be welcome.

World O' Crap calls bullshit on Judson Cox who criticizes a school that allows kids to learn about Islam.

First, let's check in with Judson Cox, the young man who alerted us to the danger of those cloned pandas. He's writing about how the schools are forcing youngsters to commit blasphemy.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton has ruled that the Byron Union School district was not indoctrinating students by requiring them to wear Islamic garb, memorize verses from the Koran, pray to Allah and play "jihad games" as part of a simulation approach to Islamic studies. The curriculum required by the California State Board of Education utilizes the textbook "Across the Centuries," published by Houghton Mifflin, which prompts students to imagine they are Islamic soldiers and Muslims on a Mecca pilgrimage. The students are encouraged to use phrases such as "Allah Akbar," ("Allah is great,") and are required to fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

It is remarkable that our schools would teach such a course when America is fighting a war against Islamic terror and thousands of Americans lay dead at the hands of Islamic fascists. The doctrine of diversity trumps both reason and taste.

Except that nobody was "required" to do anything, since parents were given the option of having their kids not participate in the section. Oh, and the "jihad games" stuff is "a trivia board game in which students race to reach Mecca" (since Judson didn't got to public schools and so was never forced to learn about Islam, he apparently confuses "hajj" and "jihad"). The kids weren't "required to fast" during Ramadan, but instead were encouraged "give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during Ramadan." But we sure wouldn't want our kids doing something like THAT -- at least, not for educational purposes.

I like the assumption that "Terror" = "Islamic Terror."

Little Green Footballs doesn't think Bin Laden deserves a trial, but Howard Dean disagrees.

The Monitor asked: Where should Osama bin Laden be tried if he's caught? Dean said he didn't think it made any difference, and if he were president he would consult with his lawyers for advice on the subject.

But wouldn't most Americans feel strongly that bin Laden should be tried in America - and put to death?

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found," Dean said. "I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials. So I'm sure that is the correct sentiment of most Americans, but I do think if you're running for president, or if you are president, it's best to say that the full range of penalties should be available. But it's not so great to prejudge the judicial system."

The only people who deserve justice are people like me.

The Binary Circumstance on the recent terrorist attack in Iran.

In one of the most deadly acts of terror in recent years, a 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck the ancient Iranian city of Bam. No known terrorist organizations have claimed responsibility leaving officials to speculate that this diabolical act, which may have killed as many as 5,000-6,000 people and wounded another 30,000, is the handiwork of the Father of all terrorists, God, or as many know him in that part of the world, Allah.

N. Joseph Potts writes about "The Simple Life."

On Tuesday evenings at 8:30, Fox Television airs a remarkable half-hour series evidently aimed at teenagers and young adults in the idiom of "reality TV" whose popularity has grown ever since its first appearance in televised wrestling matches. Its theme might have been found entertaining at certain other times in history such as the height of the Roman Empire, but the fact that it apparently entertains today is a comment not only on the times, but on the fruits and other byproducts of the successes of private enterprise.

The Washington Post on Florida's new faith-based prison.

Gov. Jeb Bush told nearly 800 prisoners Wednesday that religion can help lead them to a better life as he dedicated the nation's first faith-based prison -- an institution officials hope will lead to fewer repeat offenders.

A little more than a month ago, inmates in this northern Florida prison were told that it was going to be converted to a faith-based institution and were given the option to transfer out. At the same time, prisoners elsewhere were told they could transfer in and take part in more intensive religious programs.

Amanda Butler comments on whether this violates the Establishment Clause as it would if the prisoners were given more books, liberty, or visitation than otherwise.

At the moment, faith-motivated prisoners can get more books than their Dostoevsky-motivated secular counterparts. This is part of the accomodations for religious practice mandated under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act -- to give the guy his Book of Common Prayer even if it puts him over his limit for books he can have in his cell. I'm not entirely sure how the particulars of this work, or how much it's been argued at this level, but it seems that if there's a one book limit, he can claim an exception to permit his first book (which I'll say is the the KJV) and the BCP. I'm not sure that if there's a two book limit and he's already got the KJV and the Grisham novel he's reading, whether he can get an exemption for the BCP, or if he must give up the secular work. I would think that he'd have to return the Grisham to prevent RLUIPA (or any program in a prison that was concientious about inmates' religious reading materials) from violating the Establishment Clause.

But who is to determine what's secular and what's religious? I could want to study the Bible as a literary work reflected in Paradise Lost. I could claim some novel by some sci-fi writer is my holy testament.

Tyler Cowen thinks it's kind of a good idea.

My take: Isn't this just yet another way to put the better-behaving inmates together in one place? I would expect that to improve human well-being, at least for the people I care about. But I would expect to get most of the practical benefits without the explicit introduction of religion. You do need some signal of good behavior, the question is whether religion is the only or the best option for such a signal.

Jim Moore comments on the Dean campaign's use of software.

Dean for America, it is our policy to purchase software rather than to make it, and to work with vendors large and small to help them be successful while also pursuing our own success as a grassroots-powered presidential campaign. We strongly support small businesses for a variety of reasons, including that they are the major contributors to employment growth in our nation.

Dean for America enjoys a good relationship with a number of innovative small businesses in software and services, including MeetUp.com for meeting software, Six Apart for blog software, Envision for message boards, and Convio for CMS, fundraising record keeping and FEC compliance. We use additional small business-provided software for voter file management, email, and list management. We also use software and services from large companies including Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft. We pay market prices for all software and services.

John Robb proposes that we "support our troops" better.

1. One years tax exempt pay for a soldier killed in theater.
2. Subsidized death or disability insurance equal to $1 m (this is less costly than it looks) with a strong COLA (cost of living increase). Options for more if paid for by soldier.
3. Free health care (no obtuse charges -- like the one charged for food while hospitalized) for injuries suffered in theater (even if discharged).
4. $1 k a month in combat pay.
5. Tax exemption of pay (state and federal) for spousal income while deployed.
6. Paid end-to-end travel to the home of record for soldiers on leave from a combat zone.

Lawrence Lessig in Wired on protectionism.

When America was poor, its citizens "stole." We took the intellectual property of Dickens and other foreign artists without paying for it. We didn't call it stealing, but they did. We called it a sensible way for a developing nation to develop. Eventually, we saw it was better to protect their rights as well as ours - better because we had rights to protect elsewhere, too. But we only imposed this burden on ourselves when it made sense to do so. Until 1891, we were a pirate nation.

Things have changed. Now that we're the world's leading exporter of intellectual property, we're also the most self-righteous about the importance of protecting it globally. Indeed, we can be vicious in our self-righteousness - threatening trade wars with developing nations for the crime of being just like us. Recently, through a series of trade agreements, we have demanded stricter protection for intellectual property internationally than US law would allow domestically. (Fair use, for example, is mandated by our constitution but invisible in these agreements.)

This push to protect intellectual property is defended as just one aspect of free trade - the aspect that benefits Hollywood. Since Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations, we've understood that borders are best when opened and when property from one country is respected in another.

The main problem is that "intellectual property" is not really property. It is a government granted privilege of monopoly over a certain sector.

Robert Scoble on Apple Stores.

Other things I noticed about the store: the aesthetics. The design. Let's start with the floor. It was large slats of unvarnished wood. Why is that important? Because computers tend to be cold. I'm sure that Steve Jobs and his crew spent a bit of time thinking about the floor. Wood is easy to clean, if someone spills. It wears well. It doesn't feel as hard on your feet, as say, slate. Plus, most people spend a lot of time staring at the floor. Might as well make sure that experience feels good.

Up from the floor (plenty of room to walk around, by the way, even on a crowded day after Christmas) you'll notice black wood shelves. Neatly arranged with software (almost all with the fronts of their boxes showing). Each shelf looked like a picture frame. The software was in the middle of the store. That's a big deal. Apple, in effect, was telling its customers "the Mac is about software."

The New York Times reports on Slobodan Milosevic.

It is symbolic of Serbia's increasingly nationalistic mood that Slobodan Milosevic, the former president who is on trial on war crimes charges in The Hague, is running in the parliamentary elections here on Sunday.

Polls suggest that the most seats will be won by the hard-line nationalist Radical Party led by Vojislav Seselj, now also a prisoner in The Hague and a partner in Mr. Milosevic's war-making in the 1990's. Nationalists also won recent parliamentary elections in Croatia, Serbia's archrival, where they have just formed a government.

Mr. Milosevic, who heads the list for the Serbian Socialist Party and is thus likely to win election, and Mr. Seselj are among four leading war crimes suspects who are running for office in elections on Sunday, even though they have been indicted by the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Netherlands.

[...]

Neither Mr. Milosevic nor Mr. Seselj would be able to take a seat in Parliament, and the two were banned by the Hague tribunal from taking any active role in the campaign after court officials learned the Serbian Socialist Party had used a tape-recorded telephone conversation with Mr. Milosevic calling on Serbs to vote for it.

Jessica comments on Illegally Downloading Literature.

If any of the rest of you want to illegally download books in order to bypass or protest the American publishing system, I recommend that you follow the librarian's advice and borrow your books for free from a library. Yes, indirectly you're still supporting the publishers, but you're also not participating in illegal activities by breaking copyright law. Take advantage of interlibrary loan programs, too. Your local library may not have all the of Philip K. Dick books, but a librarian could probably get all of them for you by borrowing them from other institutions.

Ryan Overbey cleverly notes that most American Buddhists probably wouldn't go for self-immolation.

As Buddhism comes to the West, it undergoes all sorts of changes. Buddhism becomes a kind of fashionable psychotherapy, a hippie adventure, an easy way to rebel against Judaism or Christianity. This isn't to say it isn't useful or beneficial for those involved- only that it is a very different beast from the kind of Buddhism you find in, say, Tang China, Heian Japan, or modern Thailand.

But check out this article about a recent self-immolation by a Vietnamese Buddhist in Charlotte. My gut feeling is that self-immolation is one of those native Buddhist practices that won't be very transferable to Americans. I'd certainly be amused if Zenheads on retreat in New Mexico or Insight Meditation folks in Cambridge started dumping gasoline on their heads and burning themselves alive in protest of the Bush regime's war in Iraq, but somehow I think their conviction in the reality of reincarnation is not sufficiently developed.

Lisa Williams writes up some blogging principles, presumably for the new year.

Kindness. I will strive to post as my best self, and to refrain from posting intemperately. I will try to remember that the people I am responding to are human beings who also have their good and bad days. If I post something that I feel is unfair or unneccessarily unkind, I will apologize and either take it down or make a new post, whichever is more appropriate. I do not intend to hide my mistakes or lapses but I will delete a post if I feel that leaving it up hurts others more than leaving up the evidence of my stupidity is worth.

Richard comments.

Lisa Williams has some blogging principles. It's important to have principles in these "post-modern" days, where supposedly everything goes. Instead of lecturing people on how or what to blog, she simply states what she's doing. People are free to follow her example, and disagreeing with her principles would be allowed, but would also be rather pointless, because, well, how would you feel if someone told you what principles to hold? Yeah, I thought so.

Larry McVoy pulls a Larry.

Licensed under the NWL - No Whining License.

You may use this, modify this, redistribute this provided you agree:

• not to whine about this product or any other products from BitMover, Inc.
• that there is no warranty of any kind.
• retain this copyright in full.

Tony Pierce is a blog-star.

if i cared what i looked like id spell check. id fact check. id write at night instead of during my government-mandated fifteen minute breaks. id use three dollar words like the edjumacated. id trade in my bus pass for a leased beemer. id wear abecrombie. id cut my hair. id dumb down and play fair. id simply talk about jesus. i wouldnt tear your shit up to peices.

if i cared what i looked like i wouldnt blog, id just write books. a guy can write a horrible book but he could at least call himself an author, not even pro assholes like your boy drudge wants to be called a blogger.

but i do cuz i am.

Philip Greenspun writes about the Lost Tribes of Israel on every continent.

Tudor Parfitt, an English academic, schlepped all over southern Africa trying to figure out whether or not the Lemba people were, as some of them claimed, in fact Jews. He wrote up his travels, circa 1990, in Journey to the Vanished City. This was no easy task due to the fact that the Lemba have been illiterate for many centuries (if not forever) and therefore all of their history had to be obtained in person-to-person interviews. There are some parallels between the situation with the Lemba in Africa and the Indians and Mormons in the U.S. According to the book, southern Africa was never inhabited by literate people and for the most part never inhabited by people who built any buildings more substantial than a grass hut. When whites came to southern Africa they encountered tribes living in grass huts but also an extensive ruined stone city called "Great Zimbabwe". They didn't want to believe that ancestors of the blacks whom they were oppressing had been capable of advanced civilization and therefore a popular explanation was that people from the Middle East had come down to southern Africa at some point, built Great Zimbabwe, and left. The theory made some sense in that Arab slave traders had been operating up and down Africa's east coast for many centuries and had colonized substantial parts of the Horn of Africa.

I'm a huge fan of ancient civilizations that died out... so fascinating. What will they say about us?

Sometimes I like to step back and think about how great technology is. Kaye Trammell does as well.

Who would have thought 50 years ago that we would be carrying around telephones in our pockets & purses then using them to make movies & do a little comparative shopping?

Halley Suitt's House Party

Halley Suitt is having a party. I am going. You should go too.

I have the remedy for that dreaded New Year's Eve problem. You know you HATE going out on New Year's Eve, so why not come to my Dean House Party the night before? Drop me email if you'd like to attend. You can get my email over here at Misbehaving.

I absolutely guarantee it will be a ton of fun. Even Republicans are invited. We serve koolaid and chips and dip.

BTW, this blog post is NOT at all endorsed by the Dean campaign, it's just my pathetic attempt to get this party started.

I am calling out all ladies to come and rock out, I don't want to be shamed and have to hire some escorts. (Actually that was Halley's idea but I'm horrible.)

Even though I'm not a Dean supporter I'm going. I don't think it matters. It's more than a political event, it's a party and plus the whole "echo chamber" thing is getting oooold."

I added the event to Exploit Boston! Maybe you haven't heard of it, it's "an independent guide to events and happenings around the Greater Boston area" from The Sooz.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Steve Crandall has a suspicion that maybe God Isn't A Right-Wing Zealot.

An interesting piece in Salon on a different sort of Christian... at least different from the decidedly Old Testament type that controls the airwaves.

Well, I'm not part of the evangelical right. I believe that God's spirit is inclusive, not exclusive. I believe that the public marketplace -- the place where ideas are exchanged and decisions are made -- is not to be monopolized by one religious point of view.

I believe that we are an open country with religious and even non-religious diversity, and that's a good thing, a democratic thing and very American.

And then I believe part of the appeal of the evangelical religion is for offering certainty, not faith. Certainty about what's doctrinally correct. I think one of the dangers of religion is to believe we've got God all buttoned down. And I believe just the opposite. I believe in the freedom and mystery of God that doesn't allow us to be certain but allows us to be loving.

Norman Geras profiles Jeff Jarvis.

Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? > Easy: War. I called myself a pacifist early in the age of Vietnam and did not change my mind until September 11. There's an old joke that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. A hawk is a pacifist in the foxhole. I saw on that day the moral imperative to protect our children from the threat of terrorism; I faced my generation's Hitler that day. My transformation occurred publicly, on my weblog.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > My brand of populism. As a critic, I defended the taste of the American people. As a blogger, I defend the wisdom of the people. For this is citizens' media. And I now firmly believe that if you do not essentially trust the taste, intelligence, and goodness of your fellow man, then you cannot be a democrat or an effective marketer or an artist or a reformed theologian or a decent teacher.

Felmming Funch on a better world.

I envision a time when most people have stopped having problems they don't need to have, and where they spend most of their time dealing with what is actually going on in their lives, what is right in front of them, what needs to be done. That is, people will stop acting and reacting based on a picture of reality they see on TV, or which comes out of their fears and biases and misunderstandings, and they will start taking action in more useful ways.

We live on a planet that is bountiful with resources, if we just use them in harmony with the cycles of nature. We have reached a stage of civilization where most people can live in peace. We have the technological means of having all of us live in comfort.

Most of what would be in the way of allowing the world to work for all of humanity is mental problems. It is when millions of people feel a need to be fearful and insecure when just a few people's dramatic misfortune is broadcast on TV. It is when many people believe that economics or politics dictate that some people HAVE to be hungry or without work, and the rest have to work themselves to threads in meaningless occupations. It is when people feel they are justified in harming others because they are different from themselves. It is when people think that life is about acting like most other people around them. It is when people believe that pessimism and cynicism about the future is the logical outcome from studying the past.

Adam Yoshida is frightening in the way he proposes America wages "economic thermonuclear war" with China.

Now, I'm not advocating that any of this take place at the present time. After all: it would probably, in the short term at least, cost a fair number of American jobs. However, it's good to have such a plan in America's back pocket: and for the Chinese to know of it. Moreover, I would greatly prefer to endure the short-term dislocations caused by such a strategy than I would live to see the Chinese become more powerful than the United States.

China is our enemy. It might suit our short term purposes to deal with them for the present time, but we must never forget: they are our enemies. Better to die a thousand deaths than live in a world ruled by the Chinese. If we must, someday, pay an economic price to destroy the Chinese threat: so be it.

Of course, I understate the difficulties of such a strategy. Anything which destroyed the Chinese economy would also severely damage the economies of most of China's neighbours. But that's a risk that I think is worth taking. If we cause damage elsewhere: neca eos omnes, deus suos agnoscet.

No American problem is so severe that it cannot be dealt with via appropriately harsh and brutal action. If the Chinese want to mess with America: let them. When they day is over, it shall not be America's blackened and distorted corpse that is rolled into a mass grave.

(My emphasis above.) I am reminded of George Washington's comment that nations should not have friends or enemies, only interests.

Adam Yoshida on who Dean really is.

The interesting thing about the ending of The American President (and, for that matter, those of other recent American political films) is the insight it provides into how liberals think. Consider it for a moment. What fictional political films have been produced in recent years? Rod Lurie's The Contender, Chris Rock's Head of State, and Warren Beatty's Bulworth (there's also Primary Colors, but I'm going to ignore that, as it was largely based on actual events). What is the theme of each of these films? To put it simply: the American people are all actually liberals, and the only thing preventing them from expressing their liberalism is the stubborn (and inexplicable) refusal of Democratic candidates to place themselves in the Michael Moore/Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democratic Party.

If Bill Clinton was the candidate of the actual people in Hollywood then Governor Dr. Howard Brush Dean III is the candidate of the images that Hollywood created. One thing that has gone almost totally unremarked upon (an internet search finds a reference by myself and exactly two other stories that even mention it) is that Dean's campaign slogan, "Dean for America" is obviously cribbed from a 2001 episode of the Aaron Sorkin-penned The West Wing, in which we find out that the campaign slogan of the fictional President Jed Bartlet was "Bartlet for America" (in fact, it's the title of the episode).

Now I realize that most people would dismiss this as insignificant. I disagree: it says a lot about who Howard Dean wants to be and how his followers see him. This is one of the reasons why the Dean campaign has proved so resilient to bad news: the Deaniacs are operating on the false premise that, if only Americans knew what liberals really believe, they would elect them by overwhelming majorities when, in fact, the truth is much closer to how Ann Coulter has put it in the past: if the American people knew the truth about what liberals believe, they'd probably boil them in oil.

Kenneth Quinnell on why, as an atheist, he celebrates Christmas.

The answers to that are pretty simple, too. The most obvious is that it's difficult not to. Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, everything you watch, Christmas is in the air or on the air. To avoid it is pretty difficult, especially if you are from a typical white lower class family like mine. My family is filled with semi- or pseudo-religious people and they celebrate Christmas, and I'm always invited to Christmas events. Not to mention Christmas parties and events where we exchange Christmas gifts. It's much easier just to celebrate it with everyone than it would be to explain to everyone why I "hate Jesus."

There are a lot of Christmas-related traditions that are pretty cool. There is some good music, the tree and decorating it, buying gifts for people you appreciate, the stockings, and, most importantly, the TV specials. What would Christmas be without Charlie Brown, Rudolph and Burl Ives? And I don't know how I could deprive my son (and future children) of the traditions of the holiday and the joy that we see in his face when he opens presents on the holiday. We aren't going to lie to him about Santa or avoid the reality of the origins of the holiday, but we're going to downplay the religious aspects, and make it more a holiday about celebrating family and showing your appreciation for those people that make your life better.

The Marmot claims that South Korean land should not be given to traitors of Korea.

Or more precisely, no land for the descendants of traitors. That's the message in today's Hankyoreh, in which we find an editorial castigating descendants of pro-Japanese figures during the colonial period for seeking to retake possession of certain pieces of property that will be freed up once USFK redeploys to bases south of the Han River. Apparently, a number of the descendants of pro-Japanese Koreans have submitted law suits against the state calling for the return of properties that were taken away from their families following Korea's 1945 liberation, and interestingly enough, some of those lawsuits were successful. The list of individuals reads like a veritable who's who of your favorite maegungno - we've got descendants of the late pre-colonial Prime Minister Lee Wan-yong, who was made a count by the Japanese Emperor for signing away the nation's independence in the Treaty of Annexation of 1910, and descendants of Song Byeong-jun, who was awarded a viscountship for his efforts to promote what we'll kindly refer to as "closer Japanese-Korean ties" as a minister in Lee's cabinet and later made a full count after he joined the Japanese colonial government as an adviser. Needless to say, the Hankyoreh is taking a dim view of these developments, especially since it's likely that Song's descendants will not only win their case, but then turn around and use their land to build apartments and/or move into the real-estate business. Anyway, the Hani calls for the court system to take a good look at itself and called for the National Assembly to pass a law that will open investigations into those who engaged in pro-Japanese and anti-Korean activities during the colonial period.

Elisabeth Riba praises the duel.

As Barbara Holland writes in her introduction:

There was much to like about the duel. It was a regulated way for one man to prevail over another when he felt the need to do so, and an improvement over the informal ambush, or sending out henchmen to break the enemy's skull by night on the highway. It had rules enforced by peer pressure that respectable men respected. Its gratifications were more immediate than the gratifications of successful lawsuits, which in early times could take years or decades to settle.

Of course, to really be effective, there needs to be a code of conduct for duels to ensure fairness. And I'm honestly not sure modern American society would be willing to follow one. Ian pointed out that just in his years of public schooling, he watched the playground rules for fist fights degrade from "fists only, no kicking" in elementary grades to "no-holds-barred, win at all costs" by the time he graduated high school. I can't help wondering how much the popular practice of enrolling children into martial arts self-defense classes may have accellerated that change. And of course, nowadays wronged schoolkids bring guns to school. Americans seem to pride ourselves on taking unfair advantage of one's foes.

So we may actually be too far gone by now for such a system to work. Which seems, weirdly enough, somehow sad.

Supafamous had a horrible Christmas.

Dude, where's my fucking Ferrari? Every year I ask for a few simple things and every year which of those things do I get? Bupkis. Shit all. Is it that hard for you to get me that Ferrari 360 Modena in Maranello Red that I've been asking for for years now? It's not like it hasn't been around for years now, it's way past the Tickle Me Elmo stage of popularity. God damn you you fucking cheapskate. It's not like it costs more than a house or anything.

Chris Winters writes that these people have no shame, none.

Thanks to one of the most egregious examples of muscle politics seen in Harrisburg recently, the day of reckoning is at hand -- for Gov. Ed Rendell, for the state constitution, for sexual assault victims, for Pennsylvania's environment and for the right of every township and borough to make and enforce its own laws.

It started with a legislative hijacking. Late at night, with no hearings and no notice, the Pennsylvania Senate made a stealth attack on a bill that changed sentencing laws for sexually violent offenders and drunken drivers. House Bill 1222 had universal support and had been sent to the Senate by the House for final agreement.

But instead of agreeing, late last Wednesday the Senate inserted language that strips local governments of all rights to protect citizens from the pollution caused by factory farms. Factory farms are large-scale, vertically integrated operations where hundreds or thousands of animals are confined in tight spaces, with little or no access to sunlight and with the manure sometimes posing a pollution problem.

Jane can be strong when we cannot.

Somewhere along the road of my life, I've failed to keep a family - or to make one. Somehow I've lost both my parents - carelessness! tsk tsk - and nearly lost my sister to bitterness the root of which I hardly remember. I've lost the comfort of several surrogate families, the warm and welcoming arms of my various boyfriends' homes. And I've failed to build my own - unwedded, unoffspringed.

It never matters any other time of year but tonight.

I allow myself a moment of indulgence in pathos. I have been "strong" all afternoon, reading and knitting and working and writing. But now as night falls and the rain begins and the cats leave, the house is quiet and I remember what is was like before, when I had my mother and father and sister around me.

Davezilla explains "Smoked Salmon."

Please

Do not drop your cigarette butts on the ground. The fish crawl out at night to smoke them and we are trying to get them to quit.

Anil Dash on the history of Christmas and tradition.

Tradition is something you can start, not just something you can observe.

New York City never looks more magical than when it's dressed up for the holidays. For a city purported to be peopled with cynics, I suspect no one here can resist the romance of the season, swathed in elegant scarves and ducking from the chill wind into a cab whisking off to another round of office holiday parties. I won't ever be able to claim that I believe in gods or messiahs, let alone one being born on a specific date or in a specific place, and it wouldn't be my right to try to celebrate that. But to be in the place where so much of a global celebration of goodwill and generosity was created, where the locals' unique ability to promote their ideas, and where people are so willing to expand a tradition to include everyone who would want to participate, I'm more than ready to make an annual tradition of celebrating that potential.

Dave Winer points to an anti-spam plan from Microsoft.

Microsoft has announced a unique approach to stopping spam. "For any piece of e-mail I send, it will take a small amount computing power of about 10 to 20 seconds. When you see that proof, you treat that message with more priority." Normal email senders won't notice the delay and filters on your mail client will be able to tell high priority mail from low priority spam. Very clever. I was briefed on it a few months ago, and as long as they are making the technique freely available I support it. If it's another patent gateway I'm afraid we're just trading the evil of spam for another evil. Which is lesser is a good question.

A strange side-effect of Microsoft's monopoly is that they could make it work, at least on the client-side. I see no real reason when Sendmail or qmail wouldn't be interested in supporting it, provided there are no patent issues as Dave notes.

Michael Feldman notes that Joe Lieberman is very approachable and seems to genuinely care.

Sen. Lieberman was astonishingly easy to approach. Basically, all the Dowbrigade had to do was sit down on the unoccupied bar stool to his left. The candidate immediately offered his hand and introduced himself. He asked where we were from and what we did for a living. He seemed genuinely interested, and was remarkably easy to talk to.

When he heard that the Dowbrigade is about to lose his job at Boston University due to the difficulties of foreign university students in obtaining visas to study in the US post 9/11, Lieberman said, "I will definitely do something about that after I am elected. The immigration authority in this country is in a shambles."

Ryan Overbey posts new pictures. My favourite.

Michael Feldman links to Howard Dean embracing religion for his new stump speeches in the South.

Dean, 55, who practices Congregationalism but does not often attend church and whose wife and children are Jewish, explained the move as a desire to share his beliefs with audiences willing to listen. In the Globe interview, Dean said that Jesus was an important influence in his life and that he would probably share with some voters the model Jesus has served for him.

He acknowledged that he was raised in the "Northeast" tradition of not discussing religious beliefs in public, and said he held back in New Hampshire, where that is the practice. But in other areas, such as the South, he said, he would discuss his beliefs more openly.

Moxie covers this amazingly.

Justin Hall refers to the Christmas Truce of 1914.

Although the popular memory of World War One is normally one of horrific casualties and 'wasted' life, the conflict does have tales of comradeship and peace. One of the most remarkable, and heavily mythologised, events concerns the 'Christmas Truce' of 1914, in which the soldiers of the Western Front laid down their arms on Christmas Day and met in No Man's Land, exchanging food and cigarettes, as well as playing football. The cessation of violence was entirely unofficial and there had been no prior discussion: troops acted spontaneously from goodwill, not orders. Not only did this truce actually happen, but the event was more widespread than commonly portrayed.

There are many accounts of the Christmas truce, the most famous of which concern the meeting of British and German forces; however, French and Belgium troops also took part. The unofficial nature of the truce meant that there was no one single cause or origin; some narratives tell of British troops hearing their German counterparts singing Christmas carols and joining in, while Frank Richards, a private in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, told of how both sides erected signs wishing the other a 'Merry Christmas'. From these small starts some men crossed the lines with their hands up, and troops from the opposing side went to meet them. By the time officers realised what was happening the initial meetings had been made, and most commanders either turned a blind eye or happily joined in.

Al3x writes about beauty, health, and women.

Normally I could give a damn about celebrities and, much less, people blogging about celebrities. But Jay linked to a side-by-side comparison of Renee Zellweger with and without a little extra weight for a role and the results are staggering, at least to these eyes. She's not normally one of the actresses I flip for, but with a good meal or two in her she looks positively luscious, radiant and glowing. I'd reconsider my tastes for yes-I'll-have-the-cheesecake Renee. Which I know she'll be glad to hear, international superstar playboy bachelor tastemaker that I am.

Al3x has great advice for online musicians.

1. Don't release your music in anything other than MP3 format. Fuck Ogg Vorbis, Shorten, or any other crazy-ass format. People use MP3s. Software uses MP3s. Hardware uses MP3s. Use MP3s.
2. If you're offering your music for full MP3 download, don't bother with a Real Audio preview. If you're offering nothing but a Real Audio preview, just don't bother.
3. #1 and #2 combined: don't be Tokyo Dawn, offering nothing but Real Audio and Ogg. Life's too short, guys, even if your music does get hella down.

Aaron Swartz on an odd movie.

Nothing So Strange is an excellent movie on numerous levels. On one level, its a straightforward documentary of one group's attempt to investigate the assassination of Bill Gates in MacArthur Park. The film pieces together newsreel footage, computer simulations, and police reports about the event to tell more of the story that you may have gotten from the traditional media.

The Two Beautiful Girls post amazing pictures.

Essay - Philosophy: Who Needs It, by Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand spoke to a group of West Point graduates about philosophy.

She defines philosophy as the solution to the questions that every person attempts to answer.

Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man's relationship to existence. As against the special sciences, which deal only with particular aspects, philosophy deals with those aspects of the universe which pertain to everything that exists. In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible.

Philosophy would not tell you, for instance, whether you are in New York City or in Zanzibar (though it would give you the means to find out). But here is what it would tell you: Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute--and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? Are the things you see around you real--or are they only an illusion? Do they exist independent of any observer--or are they created by the observer? Are they the object or the subject of man's consciousness? Are they what they are--or can they be changed by a mere act of your consciousness, such as a wish?

Next is the question of what ethics are...

Before you come to ethics, you must answer the questions posed by metaphysics and epistemology: Is man a rational being, able to deal with reality--or is he a helplessly blind misfit, a chip buffeted by the universal flux? Are achievement and enjoyment possible to man on earth--or is he doomed to failure and disaster? Depending on the answers, you can proceed to consider the questions posed by ethics: What is good or evil for man--and why? Should man's primary concern be a quest for joy--or an escape from suffering? Should man hold self-fulfillment--or self-destruction--as the goal of his life? Should man pursue his values--or should he place the interests of others above his own? Should man seek happiness--or self-sacrifice?

She points out that whether we want to be or not we are always influenced by philosophy because it is the science of life...

Now ask yourself: if you are not interested in abstract ideas, why do you (and all men) feel compelled to use them? The fact is that abstract ideas are conceptual integrations which subsume an incalculable number of concretes--and that without abstract ideas you would not be able to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems. You would be in the position of a newborn infant, to whom every object is a unique, unprecedented phenomenon. The difference between his mental state and yours lies in the number of conceptual integrations your mind has performed.

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles.

The opposite of logic and living a philosophy is to be controlled blindly by emotions.

A man who is run by emotions is like a man who is run by a computer whose print-outs he cannot read. He does not know whether its programming is true or false, right or wrong, whether it's set to lead him to success or destruction, whether it serves his goals or those of some evil, unknowable power. He is blind on two fronts: blind to the world around him and to his own inner world, unable to grasp reality or his own motives, and he is in chronic terror of both. Emotions are not tools of cognition. The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently: they are most helplessly in its power.

The West Point graduates are honoured greatly by these remarks:

You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service--it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality, the defense of one's country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as the conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic. This is an enormous virtue. Some of you may not be consciously aware of it. I want to help you to realize it.

The army of a free country has a great responsibility: the right to use force, but not as an instrument of compulsion and brute conquest--as the armies of other countries have done in their histories--only as an instrument of a free nation's self-defense, which means: the defense of a man's individual rights. The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right. The highest integrity and sense of honor are required for such a task. No other army in the world has achieved it. You have.

Note: This speech was given in 1974, the last year that Wesley Clark was an assistant professor at West Point. He was probably there? Rad.

Campaigns as Software Companies

Matt May on Dave Winer being against the campaigns becoming open source projects.

So, the only good protectionism is my protectionism. (See also: the only moral abortion is my abortion.)

This argument is so wrong-headed, I don't know where exactly to start. First off, how is a candidate going to go after the major media during the election cycle? I could swear that the point, at this stage, is to get elected to office. Nobody has the resources to create an alternative network and infiltrate cable carriers between now and when it's important, which makes this argument a red herring. What they do have, and what Dean and Clark have had for months now, is a steady supply of geeky supporters (and I say that with love, and a Palm clipped proudly to my pants).

Point 1: The point should not be to get elected to office. The point should be to be the person who the people want to be in office. Don't convince them, be their voice.

Point 2: A candidate could go against the media companies by refusing to participate in the corruption of our democracy and instead actually engage citizens rather than shout at them and try to propagandize them until they blindly support the candidate.

I think these are the important points that Dave was making, I don't think that he is saying that open-source software is anti-American or immoral, just that there are bigger and better industries that could embrace freedom.

Gregor has a reply to Dave on the point that free software doesn't provide incentives to developers to make their software usable.

dave is ranting about how free software cannot be user-oriented. i bought a license of manila, and tried radio for a while. verdict: Movable Type has a better user interface than both userland products, and costs.. $0

Aaron Swartz joins the fray and points to user-oriented free software.

No Wonder My Happy Heart Sings

Min Jung on words and Christmas.

It's Christmas Eve.

This morning, so far, I've had two Hindu and one Muslim co-worker say to me "Merry Christmas." The agnostic expresses "God bless you." and the lapsed Catholic, with a hug and smile shouts out "Jingle Mah Bells, Mutha Fuckah".

Perhaps it's because I work in a non-hypersensitve, non-uberPC, environment, folks aren't as afraid to have thier candy canes and tanenbaum's out.

Campaigns as Software Companies

AKMA on colour code systems and TERROR.

Let's just note for the record that although we have a security spectrum that ranges from blue through green, yellow, orange, to red, the Department of Homeland Security has actually used only yellow and orange through the twenty-one months since the Bush administration implemented the system. [...]

Question: What is the actual function of raising the Terror Threat Alert color under these circumstances, with these instructions to the public?

I resist cynicism, but the whole deal smells to me a great deal as though the Terror Threat Alert serves mostly to cover the posteriors of administrators in case a terrorist succeeds. That's why the Alert color can't go below yellow, and is unlikely to go above orange: letting the color slip below yellow constitutes too great a risk if a terrorist were to pull off an attack; letting the color rise above orange risks raising expectations that the administration disclose or foil an actual plot.

Edward Bilodeau links to Naomi Klein on what runs the White House. (Greed, not ideology.)

The Kissinger transcript proves that the US gave money and political encouragement to the generals' murderous campaign. And yet, despite its now irrefutable complicity in Argentina's tragedy, the US has opposed all attempts to cancel the country's debt. And Argentina is hardly exceptional. The US has used its power in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to block campaigns to cancel debts accumulated by apartheid South Africa, Marcos in the Philippines, Duvalier's brutal regime in Haiti and the dictatorship that sent Brazil's debt spiralling from $5.7bn in 1964 to $104bn in 1985.

The US position has been that wiping out debts would be a dangerous precedent (and rob Washington of the leverage it needs to push for investor-friendly economic reforms). So why is Bush so concerned that "the future of the Iraqi people should not be mortgaged to the enormous burden of debt"? Because it is taking money from "reconstruction", which could go to Halliburton, Bechtel, Exxon and Boeing.

Metafilter links to Economists on the deadweight loss of gift-giving just in time for Christmas!

Conventional economics teaches that gift giving is irrational. The satisfaction or "utility" a person derives from consumption is determined by their personal preferences. But no one understands your preferences as well as you do.

So when I give up $50 worth of utility to buy a present for you, the chances are high that you'll value it at less than $50. If so, there's been a mutual loss of utility. The transaction has been inefficient and "welfare reducing", thus making it irrational. As an economist would put it, "unless a gift that costs the giver p dollars exactly matches the way in which the recipient would have spent the p dollars, the gift is suboptimal".

This astonishing intellectual breakthrough was first formulated in 1993 by Joel Waldfogel, an economics professor now at the University of Pennsylvania, in his seminal paper, The Deadweight Loss of Christmas.

The difference between what givers pay for presents and the value the recipients put on those presents is the loss being referred to and, since it's equivalent to tearing up banknotes, economists call it a "deadweight" loss.

It follows from this insight that, if people must persist with gift giving, they should at least minimise the loss by giving money rather than items in kind.

Trouble is, were families to assemble on Christmas morning for an equal exchange of $50 cheques, the pointlessness of the exercise would quickly become apparent.

Via Gothamist is a skinny vs. healthy Reene Zellweger comparison.

Matt Stoller covers the technopolitical bubble.

Still, it's clear that regardless of whether the new campaigning style influences Dean's administration, it certainly creates new constituency groups and reduces the power of centralized money. I am reminded of Dick Morris's interview, that the era of participatory politics is upon us. I can tell you that on the local level in Massachusetts, there is absolutely NO internet influence on policy as of yet, but new internet influenced constituency groups are emerging to take on the centralized Democratic Party apparatus. The political fights will need to be fought before the policy changes, but think tank fellowships aside, it doesn't seem like you can separate politics from policy for very long.

Essentially, the Dean community is a new source of political power. As such, it doesn't write policy, but then, neither did unions or party bosses, but they certainly shaped policy, and the political realities that undergird it. The process of electoral politics enables effective governance, and should Dean eschew a two-way dialogue on policy-making, he would find that at least one component of his political power dramatically weaker. Does this mean that commenters write his trade papers? No, but it certainly means that he'll pay attention to them, or suffer the consequences of not doing so with a weaker political base.

The Yeti comments on The Winds of Change and the reality of the war on Terror.

If you're not following this - and actively seeking out information from those actually involved in making these decisions, then you're listening to blowhards. If Iran is actively working with Al Qaeda, and you have the information now, then the cries of Imperialism if we invade Iran don't pass muster.

This is very serious stuff. The main argument is if we suffer a major terrorist action that costs 10,000 American lives - nukes can very well start flying. At the very least, we will see major military action again - this time without allies and without discussion.

WoC also makes the point that if several small terrorist actions like car bombings or gas station explosions take place, it signifies an extreme degradation of the capabilities of Al Qaeda. Counter-intuitive, but small attacks means we've thwarted their major attempts.

Jay Rosen posts a must-read memorial of Sander Thoenes. I want to quote every line.

On the day he was killed, Sander Thoenes was a Dutchman, educated in the United States, employed In England, published in America, theUK and Holland, stationed in Jakarta, reporting from East Timor. He was fluent in Dutch, English, Russian, and Bahasa, the main language of Indonesia. He also spoke spotty French. He had lived in Moscow and Kazakhstan. He had friends all over the world; and there have been memorial services for him in Australia, Holland, Indonesia, England and now the U.S. The White House, the Secretary General of the U.N.,the Dutch Foreign Minister, officials of the World Bank-- all made statements condemning his death.

That is part of what I mean by a citizen of the world. But it goes deeper. As a matter of law, there is no such thing as world citizenship. Legally speaking, you're a citizen of a particular country, perhaps two, never the globe. But Sander knew how to live anywhere. He could talk to people, anywhere. He could have fun wherever he was. If he found a way to hook up his computer, play his piano, phone his friends, he was home. As a traveler, the opposite of a tourist. He had no fear of the foreign, and no felt need for protection against it. Maybe it's true that he had a gift for learning languages. As likely, he saw other languages as a gift to him.

[...]

One reason Sander got on that motorbike on the day he got shot, then, was that he didn't need to find a translator in East Timor, just a driver. Others had to wait. Another reason: he wasn't willing to parachute in. He wanted to see for himself the damage caused by arrogant men with guns. Maybe it's embellished, maybe not. But they say when his body was found, there was a reporter's notebook next to it.

Sander was doing his job, but the point to remember is how he defined his job: citizen of the world tries to tell the world what goes on in the struggle for an open society. If he looked for the facts on the ground, he lived by some abstract and universal values. To understand his story, you have to see the poetry in that. Feet on the ground, eyes on the horizon.

Joi Ito writes about talking to someone versus about them.

I've recently had the experience of receiving inbound links from people who write very personal diaries. I struggled when trying to decide whether I should comment, link to them or otherwise shed attention on a conversation or monolog that appeared to be directed at someone other than me or my audience. A lot of people will say at this point that posting on the "world wide web" is publishing to the public and information wants to be free, yada yada... I would disagree. The tools are just not good enough yet. Live Journal has a feature that allows you to post entries that only your friends can see. I would love to be able to add special comments interspersed in my blog posts for only my close friends.

Kristin is too much.

the christmas break has given me lots of extra time to focus on my two favorite fall/winter sports: football and shopping. because *MY* football team won't be taking the field until january 4th, i've been forced to spend the majority of my break indulging in my second favorite pastime. i can honestly say i've seen the inside of a mall each and every day of christmas break, and while the massive, churning holiday crowds would deter or at least dishearten any other shopper, i only gain strength from the mall's magical powers.

The Road To Serfdom (Condensed), by F.A. Hayek

F.A. Hayek writes a warning about letting socialism lead one down the path to tyranny and fascism.

The character of the danger is, if possible, even less understood here than it was in Germany. The supreme tragedy is still not seen that in Germany it was largely people of good will, who, by their socialist policies, prepared the way for the forces which stand for everything they detest. Few recognize that the rise of fascism and Nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies. Yet it is significant that many of the leaders of these movements, from Mussolini down (and including Laval and Quisling) began as socialists and ended as fascists or Nazis. In the democracies at present, many who sincerely hate all of Nazism's manifestations are working for ideals whose realization would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny. Most of the people whose views influence developments are in some measure socialists. They believe that our economic life should be "consciously directed," that we should substitute "economic planning" for the competitive system. Yet is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavor consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?

The problem is that socialism requires a highly effective and terribly powerful planning committee that is able to be corrupted. The strength of democracy has always been, and will always be, it's ability to disperse power and coercion in addition to decrease the total amount available.

In every real sense a badly paid unskilled workman in [the United States] has more freedom to shape his life than many an employer in Germany or a much better paid engineer or manager in Russia. If he wants to change his job or the place where he lives, if he wants to profess certain views or spend his leisure in a particular way, he faces no absolute impediments. There are no dangers to bodily security and freedom that confine him by brute force to the task and environment to which a superior has assigned him. Our generation has forgotten that the system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom.

To gain power and support, the socialists first did the things that many are disgusted with the Nazis for,

By the time Hitler came to power, liberalism was dead in Germany. And it was socialism that had killed it. To many who have watched the transition from socialism to fascism at close quarters the connection between the two systems has become increasingly obvious, but in the democracies the majority of people still believe that socialism and freedom can be combined. They do not realize that democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable but that to strive for it produces something utterly different - the very destruction of freedom itself. As has been aptly said: "What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven."

He clarifies the liberal position on planning,

The liberal argument does not advocate leaving things just as they are; it favors making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of coordinating human efforts. It is based on the conviction that, where effective competition can be created, it is a better way of guiding individual efforts than any other. It emphasizes that in order to make competition work beneficially a carefully thought-out legal framework is required, and that neither the past nor the existing legal rules are free from grave defects. Liberalism is opposed, however, to supplanting competition by inferior methods of guiding economic activity. And it regards competition as superior not only because in most circumstances it is the most efficient method known but because it is the only method which does not require the coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority.

The de Tocqueville reference:

Nobody saw more clearly than the great political thinker de Tocqueville that democracy stands in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: "Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom," he said. "Democracy attaches all possible value to each man," he said in 1848, "while socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

Why planning, even when compartmentalized in a democracy, will always lead to dictatorship.

To draw up an economic plan in this fashion is even less possible than, for instance, successfully to plan a military campaign by democratic procedure. As in strategy it would become inevitable to delegate the task to experts. And even if, by this expedient, a democracy should succeed in planning every sector of economic activity, it would still have to face the problem of integrating these separate plans into a unitary whole. There will be a stronger and stronger demand that some board or some single individual should be given power to act on their own responsibility. The cry for an economic dictator is a characteristic stage in the movement toward planning. Thus the legislative body will be reduced to choosing the persons who are to have practically absolute power. The whole system will tend toward that kind of dictatorship in which the head of the government is position by popular vote, but where he has all the powers at his command to make certain that the vote will go in the direction he desires. Planning leads to dictatorship because dictatorship is the most effective instrument of coercion and, as such, essential if central planning on a large scale is to be possible. There is no justification for the widespread belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary; it is not the source of power which prevents it from being arbitrary; to be free from dictatorial qualities, the power must also be limited. A true "dictatorship of the proletariat," even if democratic in form, if it undertook centrally to direct the economic system, would probably destroy personal freedom as completely as any autocracy has ever done.

And why socialism and dictatorships will always do wrong even if they propose and claim to be for an honourable cause,

Advancement within a totalitarian group or party depends largely on a willingness to do immoral things. The principle that the end justifies the means, which in individualist ethics is regarded as the denial of all morals, in collectivist ethics becomes necessarily the supreme rule. There is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves "the good of the whole," because that is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done. Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarianism which horrify us follow of necessity

Similarly, this means that lying will become second-natured and essential,

A further point should be made here: Collectivism means the end of truth. To make a totalitarian system function efficiently, it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the ends selected by those in control; it is essential that the people should come to regard these ends as their own. This is brought about by propaganda and by complete control of all sources of information.

Throw away the old lies and build a better future.

TO BUILD a better world, we must have the courage to make a new start. We must clear away the obstacles with which human folly has recently encumbered our path and release the creative energy of individuals; We must create conditions favorable to progress rather than "planning progress. " It is not those who cry for more "planning" who show the necessary courage, nor those who preach a "New Order," which is no more than a continuation of the tendencies of the past 40 years; and who can think of nothing better than to imitate Hitler. It is, indeed, those who cry loudest for a planned economy who are most completely under the sway of the ideas which have created this war and most of the evils from which we suffer. The guiding principle in any attempt to create a world of free men must be this: A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy.

A Theory of Learning and Memory, by Edmund Furse

Edmund Furse writes about trying to understand learning and memory, particularly of the mathematical variety.

The problem with human learning, is that so much that we learn is in terms of what we already know. This makes obvious sense. For example, we learn that Paris is the capital of France, but could not really learn this if we did not have some previous idea of what a capital city was, or a country. This, so called learning of facts, is known by psychologists as "declarative learning" to distinguish it from "procedural learning", a distinction made by amongst others the American Cognitive Psychologist, John Anderson.

Anderson built a large model of human learning, memory and problem solving known as ACT (Adaptive Character of Thought), and it has had many different versions. But, he models the way we improve our learning, and do tasks faster, namely how the things we know become proceduralised. For example, when you first learn someone's telephone number, you dial it very deliberatively, one digit at a time. But with practice, this gets faster, until the skill is completely automatic (automatized is the technical term), and then when you think of the name, you can immediately recall the number and dial it.

Defining things based on past experience leads to a very interesting problem...

The difficult problem in trying to understand the nature of the learning of facts, is how can one possibly learn something new? This is a very old problem going back to the Greeks. Meno's paradox, the 'learning paradox' derives from the ancient Greek sophists who argued that truly novel learning was impossible in that "novel knowledge cannot be derived completely from old knowledge, or it would not be new. Yet the transcending part of it cannot be completely new either, for then it could never be understood."

Also, many smart people seem to acknowledge this when they talk of trying to find the right metaphor to describe what something does or what a particularly situation is like. Many times we look at something and it seems unfamiliar but if someone can impress a particularly model of it on it seems to merge with the rest of your second natures.

So the problem that many AI programs have is that they imbue a few core concepts to the memory system and that drastically restricts what is able to emerge. Furse has a better solution though...

This model of learning and memory, the Contextual Memory System, (CMS), starts with no features and no items in memory. It thus starts as a complete tabula rasa. However, it does have built in perceptual MECHANISMS which given an object in the outside world, it can build very large numbers of features of the object. Thus, the ACTUAL features that are built are purely a function of the objects that the agent encounters in the world. If the agent spends a lot of time looking at birds and rabbits, then he will naturally acquire many features relevant to birds and rabbits. In contrast, if he spends his time studying the business news, then he will build many financial features.

So, you get the question of whether when human minds are born, are they completely blank slates or do we inherent a bit of classification? This model suggests that we don't.

The article then talks about the progress that Furse has made with systems to understand mathematics.

The conclusion!

Learning is vital to understanding the human condition. Freud believed that dreams were the royal road to understanding the unconscious. Furse argues that understanding the nature of human learning is the new scientific road to the understanding of the mind. This understanding will, in time, encompass a broad range of human experience, from the mundane to the sublime.

Christopher Lydon and Gore Vidal

Christopher Lydon interviews Gore Vidal.

Gore Vidal can't be taken straight, but it's hard as well to shake his scathing contempt. His heroes in conversation turn out to be General U. S. Grant--for writing in his celebrated memoirs that our Civil War was God's judgment and retribution for the cruel folly of our war on Mexico; Benjamin Franklin--for forseeing the corruption of the people; and John Quincy Adams--for the Munroe Doctrine and his warning not to "seek out monsters to destroy" in the world.

Of the living, Vidal speaks nothing but evil. "The cheerleader from Andover" is the worst of a very bad lot. Howard Dean "assessed the unpopularity of the war, but you can't just do anger at the war. For a second act, why not restore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Take your stand on the recovery of our liberties." Wesley Clark's resume is too long: "I don't like these men of great accomplishment who've accomplished nothing, and who mean nothing." Of Dennis Kucinich: "The hair is deplorable... but it's the only negative thing I can say about him."

The sum of it all is the vanity of Marlowe's Tamburlaine. "I think: 'Is it not passing brave to be a king, and ride in triumph through Persepolis?' This is what you're up against. It's just ambition. King-of-the-Castle is what they're playing. Well, I want a better castle, suitable for a better king. So this system isn't going to give it to us."

He refers to some great quotes of the forefathers of the nation. I think this one was one of the Adams.

America is not a Paladin to go fight for causes across the glober - if it did it would lose its soul and become a dictator of the world.

And George Washington,

Nations should not have friends or enemies, only interests, and they should be concerned with protecting them.

Vidal says some amazing things about the candidates for 2004,

The men don't matter themselves, it is where they got their money that matters.

The Pro-War Left and the Anti-War Right, by Ken MacLeod

Henry Farrell links to Ken MacLeod on various factions and the war.

The stage,

The pro-war left is smaller and more isolated than it has been in some recent wars, but it exists. What follows is an argument with a (literally) synthetic pro-war left position. No one person puts forward all these points. There are dangers in this, of posing strawman arguments, but I've included enough links for my sceptical readers (most, I hope) to check out for themselves.

The first argument of the pro-ware left is that of the variety, "My enemy's enemy is my friend" and while you may not like Bush or Blair, you probably dislike them a lot less than you dislike Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden. Ken encourages these liberals to look deeper and have more reasonable priorities. And the past problems of justification are now irrelevant,

There are no torture chambers operating in Iraq today (though, I would interject, there are still political prisoners; and torture, albeit much less barbaric, goes on). There are independent political parties, trade unions, and a vastly freer press. Beside the enormous reality of this liberation, all the lies and half-truths brought forward by governments to justify the war - imminent threat, WMD, etc - fade into irrelevance. Bringing freedom and democracy or - at a minimum - regime change to Iraq is, and all along should have been, the justification of the war.

Similar to this is another example of closing your eyes, ears, and minds to past when referring to the US's past sponsorship of tyrants:

Yes, they'll freely admit, back then, during the Cold War, the US and UK ruling classes had anobjective material interest in supporting any dictator or insurgent, any tyrant or terrorist no matter how vile, who supported capitalism against Communism or who - if a Communist - supported the Western alliance against the Soviet bloc, or could be used by the former to weaken the latter, no matter what the cost to the populations concerned. But now, things have changed. Imperialism - yes, comrades, we're still calling it that, if it makes you happy - has anobjective material interest in ending tyrannies like Iraq and anarchies like Afghanistan, because bitter experience if nothing else has taught even the thickest right-wingers that tyrannies and anarchies are sponsors of, or havens for, terrorists who can bring the world down about our ears. And democracies, you know, generally speaking, are not.

Another argument and explanation he indicates is that Iraq is only about American supremacy and nothing more.

As some intransigiently anti-Baathist and anti-Islamic leftists from the region point out:

The US war is not about Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction as supporters claim, nor is it for the sake of the liberation of the Iraqi people from the yoke of a despotic regime or to establish freedom and justice in Iraq as defenders claim. Nor is it primarily about oil, as some 'anti-American' protesters repeat. Instead it displays the need and greed of the far-right Bush administration to impose, by military means, US supremacy on the world and to make US military intervention everywhere into the "norm" of future international relations. It is a sharp warning to Europe, Japan, Russia and China that after the Cold War the US will no longer allow a bi-polar or multi-polar world order. It will have the last word. Other powers, whether or not they have been "convinced" in the UN Security Council, have to be subordinate to the US as the lone super-power for the years or even decades ahead.

The strengthening of imperialism, of the New World Order, is no small thing. It is to enhance the moral authority and material power of a force that has been, and will be, used against far more hopeful and progressive uprisings, movement and states than those it is now deployed to crush. In even the opposition to it in Europe and Russia, we can see the heat lightning of worse storms to come; of, in the words of Gabriel Kolko, another century of war.

This thought is extended to talk about how era of the Cold War with the US being on top of the pile of Western states is what is trying to be recreated and continued with the New World Order and the assurance of US hegemony.

The final words...

This is why no argument so far presented could convince me to take the position of the pro-war left. I admit to being one of those boring old ex-Trots whose thinking on war and peace was shaped, not only by the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, but by the oft-invoked historical memory of the 4th of August 1914, when the War to End All Wars began, and a world ended. As my oldest surviving uncle once said: 'I haven't believed in God since the First World War.' Most of the left, Marxist and liberal and anarchist, backed one side or another in that war too.

'And the flood came, and destroyed them all.'

Dr. Robert Cialdini on Influence

I'm reading an interview with Robert Cialdini on his study of influence and cults.

Right up front, the way that Cialdini assembled his theory is very interesting:

I began to infiltrate as many of the training programs of these professions as I could possibly get access to, because it seemed to me that it was in those training programs that the accumulated wisdom of the people who really knew what moved individuals in their particular domains would be concentrated and would be passed on to succeeding generations of influence professionals. So, I took training in as many of these training programs as I could possibly access. I learned how to sell automobiles from a lot, I learned how to sell insurance from an office, I learned how to sell portrait photography over the phone, I was the guy from Olan Mills, I was that guy, and I didn't stop there. I infiltrated some advertising agencies. What do the advertising copywriters do that produces a successful ad that moves people. I interviewed charity organizations to see what the fund raisers did to get people to say yes. I did the same thing with a public relations firm - how do they get people to move in their direction? I even interviewed recruiters, armed service recruiters. I even interviewed cult recruiters - what do the cults do that so powerfully brings people in and holds them there?

He talks about how influence is a tool that can be used for good or bad and it is important to keep the work you do with it inside an ethical framework.

Remember the term puric victories where you throw an army at something and you win a particular battle and in doing so decimates your ranks so undercuts your resources to wage the next battle, that you lose the war. And that's what precisely what I think happens with the unethical use of these principles. They're dynamite - you can use them like explosives for good or ill. And the problem is the short term success is so seductive that they can get people to use them. These principles can invite us to use them even when they are not in the long term interests of ourselves or our clients.

In talking about how to apply some of his principles, like scarcity, Cialdini makes a gem:

First of all, we have to think about what it is that's unique, that's uncommon about what we have to offer that our clients, our customers, our vendors, our distributors, whoever it is we're trying to influence can't get if they don't move in our direction. What is it that we give them that they lose if they don't say yes to us? And the reason that I'm emphasizing this word lose is that the evidence is very clear now, people are more motivated by the idea of losing something than of gaining that very same thing.

Cialdini talks a great deal about the way you present the same information - the context. Often times people are both working towards the same goal but refuse to recognize it and do not cooperate.

Cooperation. We like those people who we cooperate with toward common goals. I just saw a research study that showed that people who have genuine cooperative interests in a situation, in fifty to sixty percent of the time, they don't recognize that they have genuinely cooperative interests in the situation, they only see the differences of opinion. And what comes to prominence under those circumstances is the conflict. What needs to be researched, understood, brought to the surface is the dimensions of commonality and cooperative mutuality. We have the same goals here, let's bring those to the surface, let's make everything occur in the context of a cooperative set of goals at the outset and, again, it changes everything. The context is different, it goes from conflict cooperation we like the people we are cooperating with and, once again, when two people like each other, they find a way to make good things happen.

In talking about how to win someone's trust whom you know nothing about Cialdini talks about letters of introduction and acknowledging problems.

We're number two, but we try harder. We're L'Oreal, we're expensive, but we're worth it. We're the Peace Corps, it's the toughest job you'll ever love. Listerine - it's the taste you hate thee times a day. I mean, you get the idea. And every one of those successful commercials, before the strongest argument, they set the context of credibility and now the barriers are down and people will believe the stronger argument. We have this tendency to want to lead with our strong segments, getting people leaning in our direction and then we slip in the negatives to be truthful about the whole package. It's human but it's wrong headed. Before the strongest argument, you have to mention a weakness if these people don't know you as trustworthy ahead of time.

The second article is specifically about cults and manipulation.

The theme is to describe how each of the principles of influence can be exploited.

Reciprocity

the rule applies even to uninvited first favors, thereby reducing our ability to decide whom we wish to owe and putting the choice in the hands of others;

Consistency and Commitment

The key to using consistency pressures for profit is the initial commitment: after making a commitment (that is taking a stand or position), people are more willing to agree to requests that are in keeping with the prior commitment. Many compliance professionals try to induce people to take an initial position that is consistent with a behavior they will later request from these people.

Social Proof

The principle of social proof can be used to stimulate a person's compliance with a request by informing the person that many other individuals (the more, the better, the more "famous" the better) are or have been complying with it. This weapon of influence provides us with a shortcut for determining how to behave, but, as the same time, makes one who uses the shortcut vulnerable to the attacks of profiteers who lie in wait along its path (introduction seminars or guest dinners, retreats to recruit cult members--provide the models of the behavior the group wants to produce in the new recruit)

Authority

It is possible to defend ourselves against the detrimental effects of authority influence by asking two questions: Is this authority truly an expert? How truthful can we expect this expert to be here? The first question directs our attention away from symbols and toward evidence for authority status. The second advises us to consider not just the expert's knowledge in the situation but also his or her trustworthiness.

Scarcity

In addition to its effect on the valuation of commodities, the scarcity principle also applies to the way that information is evaluated. Research indicates that the act of limiting access to a message causes individuals to want to receive it more and to become more favorable to it. The latter of these findings--that limited information is more persuasive--seems the more interesting. In the case of censorship, this effect occurs even when the message has not been received. When a message has been received, it is more effective if it is perceived as consisting of exclusive information. ("We" have the truth....we have special knowledge)

New Number Order: Twenty Three, Thirty, Fourteen

Stirling Newberry on the lesson learned from Iraq and Saddam.

The capture of Saddam is not even a boost for international justice, since the high profile apprehension of one criminal, while leaving others on the streets, promotes the sense that Saddam's crimes were not in liquidating his enemies, gaining weapons of mass destruction - since Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, India and South Africa all have, or have had atomic weapons, and Iran is openly pursuing them - but in annoying the Bush family. The situation is far more analogous to one drug dealer gunning down another, than to some kind of orderly process of justice - since the selection of the target was hardly objective, and the cost of the process makes it unlikely it will be repeated. Dictators around the world can sleep more easily, knowing that it is simply too expensive to deal with them under the model the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan present - with their indefinite commitment of US troops and high levels of danger for uncertain reward.

Sarcasmo comments on freezing light.

The Speed of Light: Now Less Constant Than Ever: Some scientists have managed to make light stand still (for a very short period of time, but you know, pretty fantastic), and maintain it's energy. The article claims this may someday help in the production of so-called Super Computers.

Is it just me, or does Matthew Bigelow's calling this feat "very clever" strike anyone else as the scientific community's way of saying "That's nice, dear...but can it do my dishes?"

My friend's band Air Hockey Champion has posted MP3s.

TWO MP3's AVAILABLE NOW!
Air Hockey Champion would like to give you a little present for the holiday season, two mp3's from the February release of their yet to be titled enhanced CD. The first song is "Diane Court" which you may recognize from the first show, it was the opening song. Ever have a crush on someone so much that your palms are sweaty and you have to work up the nerve to call that person? There was this guy Lloyd Dobler who felt that way and the girl was Diane Court, but everyone has had those feelings, so you can probably relate.

To help celebrate the release of the new Lord of the Rings movie "Return of the King", Air Hockey Champion decided to show their appreciation by playing a completely rocked out medley of themes from the trilogy. The combination of AHC and LOTR can not go more hand in hand, this mp3 will be sure to pump you up into a frenzy.

It's encouraged you burn these mp3's to a CD-R and play them loud through your home or car stereo. Rock music was meant to be played loud! Make sure you purchase the CD in February, which will include more songs!

Jakob Nielsen lists the top ten web design mistakes of 2003.

2. New URLs for Archived Content
Archives add substantial value to a site with very little extra effort. Although more and more sites are archiving old content, most sites still fail to maintain good archives. Some sites treat archives as a separate site area, assigning pages new URLs when they move them from the main area into the archive.

Changing the URL when archiving content causes linkrot. It also makes other sites reluctant to link to you. Although sites might consider linking to a current article, if they've been burned by linkrot in the past, they'll often pass you by because they don't want to bother with having to update their own pages when you move yours.

8. Products Sorted Only by Brand
Sites that offer many items ought to provide winnowing and sorting, which is a highly useful way to deal with lists and is fortunately fairly common. Unfortunately, many sites only let users sort items by brand. So you can find, say, all Armani products, but not all red sweaters. To support sorting by attributes of interest to users, the obvious first question is "What attributes do users value?" The answers will differ by product category, but user research can help you discover them, as can a good sales person.

Joshua Koenig writes some strong preaching in favour of a better future.

This movement is about the redistribution of power. Centralization of authority is not helping us solve our problems. It's not making the country any more safe or any less racist. It's not creating meaningful jobs that pay a living wage. It's not making education more educational or affordable. It's not helping to unite the world to combat disease, systemic poverty and terrorism. It's not cleaning up the environment. It's not giving us something better to pass along to our children. These are things we care about, and we're tired of waiting, wishing and hoping for people in decision-making positions to spontaneously begin caring about them as well. At the very best, the people in power seem content with the status quo.

We can have any kind of future we want; all we need to do is realize that the ultimate power -- whether it's how we spend our dollars, use our time, or cast our votes -- is in our hands. The country is beginning to wake up, beginning to realize that waiting for someone else to fix things itsn't really getting the job done. And the joy of a free society is that change is imminently possible. The world will be better if you choose for it to be.

Jay Rosen writes on Everett Erlich's "three-party" meta-narrative on the 2004 campaign, theory in journalism, and Jeff Jarvis on Howard Dean.

The three-party meta-narrative can be summarized as: Dean is creating a new party to hijack the prestige and history of the Democratic party and he really represents a "threat" separate from both the GOP and the "old" Democratic party. Jay doesn't necessarily subscribe to this, but he think it is important to consider how journalists react to it...

How does campaign reporting by the national press--let's say at the Washington Post--absorb this possibility? Covering a three-sided race is different, more complicated. It demands a different deployment of people and use of news space. And yet it might be a more accurate picture--a savvier read on the situation--which means it would produce better coverage.

But this would require acceptance of a thesis, Erlich's thesis. The trouble there is the press does not ordinarily choose between one thesis and another in setting its sights for campaign coverage. It has a third choice, which is to say: "Thesis? What thesis? We don't do that. No sir. Our job is to report the campaign, not to theorize about it." I said this was a choice, but it might also be a style of decision-making that is common in journalism. Not recognizing an issue can be an effective way of handling it.

Later, Jay reports Jeff Jarvis' thoughts on Dean. (Buzzmachine currently crashes my browser so I don't read it directly.)

Meanwhile, Jeff Jarvis wants to cool down some of the passions for Dean's distributed model of campaigning and its "two way" features. He's in a contrarianmood about it. His three theses:

1. In terms of policy and substance, presidential campaign weblogs are not two-way. They are necessarily one-way. 2. In terms of policy and substance, presidential campaign weblogs must be essentially propagandistic. 3. In terms of organization, presidential campaign weblogs and community effectively exploit their participants.

He also says there is nothing scandalous about this, it's just the reality of trying to win. Now you have to watch journalists--well, everyone, but especially journalists-when they set out to debunk. Not always but very often, the debunker will first inflate the claim, and then write 800 words about how ridiculously inflated the claim is.

Christopher Lydon interviewed Larry Lessig recently about Creative Commons and the "New" politics.

On Creative Commons and his "Free Culture" movement I like this point that he makes:

Not about being better, about being Free. We're not promising competition Hollywood, we're promising freedom.

CC is working for something greater than just the satisfaction and satiation of people, it is pointing out that while right now there is a short-term benefit in betraying everyone else that will slowly turn into a large problem. If we embrace the great ideal of freedom now, the end result will be best and not fraught with coercive government influence.

On the blogosphere and the Internet with relation to politics, Lessig has some strong preaching. He talks about how what is most important is the essential ingredient of democracy being reinvigorated: participation.

Blogs worry about the truth, not the hipness and ripeness of an idea or story. When you criticize and think you become a better citizen.

What's important is that people participate in the creation of the political structure around them.

In talking about how Dean will be able to win and what the problems facing the country today are, he says:

Can Dean characterize the money of Bush and the rest of the political system as a corruption of democracy. The idea that the one with the money wins is blood boiling to a real believer in democrats.

I'm a capitalist, but the idea that our government is control by those with money is completely ridiculous to any semblance of a belief in democracy.

Reclaim democracy from the Enrons.

Our children will ask, who were we to allow our system to become corrupt in this way.

And all though Larry is a profession pessimist, the following he thinks should be clear:

"I'm a pessimist who wants to be proven wrong!"

Pull It Out of My

Shelley explains the deal with license plates here in Massachusetts.

Now, if you're not from Massachusetts originally, you're surely wondering why anyone would keep a freaking license plate "in the family." I mean, it's a license plate for Pete's sake. Right? Well, those of you who are natives of MA probably know a little something about the low number plate obsession around here. For the uninitiated, in Massachusetts (and possibly elsewhere?) a "low number" plate is one which is neither in the usual state plate format (in MA that being either three numbers space three letters or the more recent 4 numbers space 2 letters, e.g., "123 ABC" or "6789 YZ"), nor is it a vanity plate. So-called low number plates in MA can be any combination of numbers and letters from "1" and "Q" to "123456" and "W 123" and everything in between.

Most people here know that we have an annual state lottery in which people can vie for the opportunity to get one of these plates which, historically, were only available to politicos and, therefore, via patronage. Somehow or other, Grampy Ju probably rubbed elbows with some muckety-muck (or that guy's crony) in the Massachusetts legislature or Boston city government who passed him a plate in the "W 123" category a billion years ago.

Ben Adida refers to Bill Clinton on why the US and Europe need each other and looking beyond the sensationalism of the headlines.

The trend line is, we are growing more interdependent. We cannot escape each other. We reap enormous benefits and assume greater risks. Your job, as a citizen of this country or some other, as a citizen of the world, is to spread the benefits and reduce the risks, to move us from an age of interdependence to a global community where we share values and benefits and responsibilities. That is the trend line.

[...]

Because the trend line is toward cooperation. Did you know that there are only two groups of soldiers in Afghanistan today, where the people live who caused September 11, who are training the new Afghanistan army -- French soldiers and American soldiers, working side by side. That is the trend line.

Geoffery wonders where the true Libertarians have gone.

Look at all the Liberal assjockeys that post here. Not one or two of them, but ALL of them. They spew the same old Democrap bullshit. They run the same crap up the flagpole the rest of the Liberals do. They bash Bush and other prominent Republicans, but then when you turn it around and ask why it's ok for some Liberal/Demoshit to get away with the same thing, suddenly you get the "WHOA, I'm a Libertarian" response. Face it. The Libertarian Party has become the safe haven for Democraps to distance themselves from the joke of the Clinton administration

It's not even subtle. All you fucks are Liberal. Just go look through your lame Liberal arguments in half the threads here. Sorry, but you can label yourself what you like. It doesn't change who you are.

And latter writes about their advancement and growth.

The Libertarian webpage claims there are 37 public offices currently held by Libertarians in MA. Wow, that's more than I would have guessed. I dug a little deeper, and found that those 37 offices are held by 28 people. Some hold more than one office. They are pretty impressive, though. The offices held include: Plymouth Town Meeting Member, Tewksbury Sidewalk Committee, and the Swansea Recreation Commission, just to name a few. I guess that's a start.

No wonder there aren't any major scandels in this party. There aren't many major politicians. While I'll admit the GOP is far from perfect, don't go comparing the ethics of your party to mine until the big party news is something more than who's running for trash commissioner.

Xutopia posts a little bit of history about every day things.

Clinking of glasses at a toast

Another food related, or rather a drink related anecdote is that of the clinking of glasses. In middle ages adding poison to someone'd drink was an easy way of assassinating them. It left no marks and wine was not only strong enough a drink to mask the taste it also had the right color to hide the poison. The easiest way to prevent this was by pouring some of your drink in the other person's glass and vice versa. If one tried poisoning the other both would now die. The good measure stayed and people now still cling glasses though without mixing contents.

The Japanese and photography

Today Japan has a very strong culture of tourism photography. Some jokes are even made about the Japanese taking pictures of almost everything they see. Some say that the reason for this photographic enthusiasm has to do with a law that was passed by a fearful government about one hundred years ago. The law ordered that anyone leaving the country was to bring back pictures proving he had been to the aforementioned place. The pictures being brought back to show the government proof were also shown to friends and family and the culture of photography was born.

Kieran Healy writes about Jennifer Roback Morse's thoughts on sex and marriage.

Jennifer Roback Morse's views on sex and marriage are worth reading if you are interested in what happens when natural law theory, evolutionary psychology and conservative family values are stewed together and left to simmer in a base of visceral disgust toward homosexuals. I leave it to legal scholars to explain what's wrong with arguments from "what nature intended." Feminists can take Morse's complaint that "we have already redefined the social context of marriage in the name of equality for women" and invite her to pine for the days before the Married Women's Property Act. And the political theorists amongst us can discuss how Morse manages to get from the premise "Sexual activity and childrearing take place inside the private spaces of the home, far outside the reach of the public-enforcement power of the state," to the conclusion that it's "utterly reasonable" for the law to ban homosexual unions.

John Quiggin has his opinion changed about Jefferson, Washington, and Thurmond.

One of the most striking historical facts I've learned this year is that George Washington freed all his slaves in his will despite opposition from his family, including his wife Martha. It's surprising and revealing that this fact has never been part of the standard account of Washington's life.

It is also one of the facts leading me to an increasingly negative view of Thomas Jefferson. The parallel between Jefferson's unacknowledged slave children by Sally Hemings and the more recent case of Strom Thurmond, on which Kieran has recently posted, is striking. (Jefferson was, quite literally, the first Southern Democrat). Until now, I've tended to vaguely excuse Jefferson's actions here as a case of personal inability to resist the thinking of the times, but Washington's example undermines this.

Michael Williams on the myth of "protecting democracy."

Democratic power is primarily established by the right to keep and bear arms, and secondarily by the rights to private property, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of association, &c. These rights are the foundation of a liberal democratic society, and they don't need any external management to protect them. Naturally, the self-styled "elite" would like to administrate these rights -- for the benefit of all! -- but top-down interference actually ends up making democracy and freedomless secure, rather than more. The "elite" are well-aware of this fact, and they seek to make us all less free so as to accumulate power for themselves. It's fine that they try (that's the essence of competition), but it doesn't mean they're right or that we should let them succeed.

Real Live Preacher posts part seven.

Second, the angel told them about a savior, or a messiah, or a king, or at least someone very important. There was heated debate on the details of this message, but they did agree that this important person had been born in Bethlehem that very night. For reasons not made clear by the angel, this child was lying in a sheep trough somewhere in town. There was complete agreement on this last point.

Third, a choir of angels sang heavenly songs to close out the evening. The sheer beauty of this singing had reduced them all to blubbering idiots.

Kos at the Daily Kos calls on the Democrats to close ranks.

The implication is clear -- Europe is evil. And Clark was in Europe. Therefore he is evil. Pretty lame, but indicative of how far the administration will go to smear our guys. Clark was testifying against a brutal dictator, in coordination with the Bush state department, and his campaign uses it to smear the general. Damn.

It just goes to show that neither Clark nor Dean will be immune from the smear attempts from the Right. Either will get hit (as would any of the other Dems if they somehow pulled a nomination out of their ---). That's why we have to fight back collectively.

The Bush fundraising letter also brings up the spectre of the evil foreigners corrupting our elections:

Jason Marshall on creating a programming language.

The second issue is one of how far you wish to go from the beaten path. While this dictates how much work you'll have to do during the bootstrapping phase, it's really a matter of picking your battles. It takes a certain amount of hubris to believe that your ideas are compelling enough to require that someone (you) create a new language, but don't let it go to your head. You do not need to invent a novel solution to every problem in order to build a better language. Adoption requires comprehension, and you are not a member of a misunderstood elite simply because nobody can grasp what you're doing. The right solution to a problem is the one that is self-evident, the one to which people react with a "Well, OF COURSE you'd do it that way!" after you present it to them (in contrast with the obvious solution, which they can offer spontaneously). The solution that leaves people scratching their heads, or demands that they learn a whole new way to thinking, speaks less to your status as a visionary, than it does to your incompetence as a problem solver, and a teacher. I think that a lot of the antisocial behavior you see in the language community can be traced to people discounting these issues.

Erin Judge is pretty darn funny.

I love the zany morning radio gang at my local hip-hop station, WJMN, JAM'N 94.5.

And there's one thing about them that I love most of all -- something they handle flawlessly, with penache, comic timing, and a tone that makes me laugh every time.

You see, it's clear that the stuffy overfed white guys in button-down shirts who write advertising copy have....ideas about the listening populous of the hip hop station. And they write ads accordingly, which the gang at Jammin' sometimes has the occasion to read aloud.

Brad Edmonds writes about abolishing government and road privatization.

There are other benefits that would follow road privatization. The private roads that exist now have fewer accidents than public roads, probably in part because they're better maintained: If private road builders let potholes remain, get reputations for high accident rates, or do repairs during rush hour, they have to deal with complaints and with people choosing other roads.

Pollution and pollution controls on automobiles would be handled by road privatization. If auto pollution gets high, people living near the offending roads would sue the biggest, most obvious target: The road owner. Road owners would therefore charge higher fees for cars without up-to-date inspection stickers. Auto manufacturers would build pollution-control equipment into cars, and advertise how clean they run, as Honda and Toyota already do. They all do this already, but with government mandating pollution levels and what kind of pollution controls manufacturers use. Without government interference, engineers would be free to compete to provide different technologies to reduce costs and improve horsepower while providing cleaner burning engines. With the inspection stickers being coded to your automobile's age, manufacturer, and model, there might be a separate pollution rider on your monthly statement. Drivers of new Hondas might see a discount, while drivers of old belchers would pay fees that might be bigger than the road tolls themselves.

Cats Try to Eat Incapacitated Owner

LOS ANGELES - A group of hungry cats began to eat their 86-year-old owner after she suffered an apparent stroke and couldn't get up for nearly a week, officials said Thursday.

Mae Lowrie, who lives with seven cats, was discovered unconscious and riddled with bite marks Wednesday night at her Panorama City apartment, Fire Department and hospital officials said.

She was listed in fair condition at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, said hospital spokeswoman Lisa Kort.

"The cats were trying to survive in the conditions that they were in, faced with the outcome they had. They did what they had to do to survive," animal control Officer Ernesto Poblano told KABC-TV. "The cats were all emaciated, very, very emaciated."

The secret behind President Bush is revealed...

Fucking Brilliant, by Lance Arthur

Fucking Brilliant, by Lance Arthur

Go buy this book now. No really. If you like Lance Arthur's blog, then you will love his book. It has many more stories than his blog and a few classics that you can now show off to people more easily.

Lance's style is so amazing, I can scarcely think of any author similar at all. There is a bit of Nick Hornby mixed with some Clare Naylor all lanced together with the quirkiness of Chuck Palahniuk but with the undeniable intensity and hilarity of LANCE.

A little sampling of one of my favourite parts...

Some of the best parts, that I enjoyed reading the most, were when Lance wrote about his strange childhood...

So it happened that I was roller-skating up and down my winding driveway when I stopped at the bottom and looked over, discovering that my head was at the exact same height as the mailbox. And even more remarkably, it seemed to me that my head was the exact same size as the mailbox.

I will pause here to remark on the stupidity of children. Children aren't curious. They aren't ignorant, either. They're just stupid. They do stupid things, and when they aren't caught, they do them again to see if they were as stupid as they seemed the first time.

With my head inside the mailbox, I noticed that I could hear myself breathing exceptionally loudly. And if I then spoke, my voice reverberated back at me like an echo. A very loud, very tinny echo. And in fact I had discovered--having inserted my huge melon-shaped noggin in the mailbox--that my head was, just as I had observed, a perfect fit.

The other part that caught my eye on the second reading was a bit from The Gay Agenda, Part 3 about Tolerance.

If you ignore everything else I have said to you today, and I urge you to do so, please reflect on these words and take them to heart, because I mean them sincerely and believe in them with every shiny black shard of my soul. Treat everyone with kindness, love, and understanding.

From here forward, it doesn't matter how you've been treated, or what names you've been called, or how much anger you've managed to swallow under a sugary coating of tolerance. Tolerance is an ugly, horrid, hateful word. Tolerance means, "I tolerate you." It means that I am allowed to continue to believe the wrong, ignorant, backwards lies I have always been told about you but that I can manage to sit here across the table from you and not take my steak knife and plunge it into your heart. It's been said that tolerance is the most we can ever hope for, and we should be glad of it where we find it.

Do not accept it, ladies and gentlemen. And do not spread it like the plague that it is. Stop tolerating, and start understanding. Ask questions, and listen to the answers. Explain yourself, and listen to explanations. And avoid the simple, gated, picket-fenced sidewalk of tolerance and move down the rocky, shaky, strenuous path of understa

Invictus, by William Ernest Henley

A friend of mine was talking about the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley, so I decided to read about it and post my thoughts.

The poem is fairly short so I'll just past the whole thing...

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

To me this can have two very different interpretations, both based on my current Divine Comedy and Libertarian kick. The first as an anthem for the self determination and free will of every person. And the second, the selfish withdrawal from life and choice of a sinner in Hell.

From the words "unconquerable soul" to the "master of my fate" and "captain of my soul" shouts the message that we are in control of our own lives and by extension our happiness and harmoniousness with the world. My life is owned by me and because of that no one can really hurt me or make me feel bad because they do not control my. My head may be bloody but I hold it high and remember that this pain and embarrassment is only temporary - because I know I have been righteous and thus will be honoured in the future. The fierce pride and solidarity of the single man screams with the words, "I have not winced nor cried aloud." You may be hurt occasionally but if you would rather not give your enemies the satisfaction of your torment, it is yours to control and revoke whenever you will it. But does it cross the barrier between selfish Pride and honourable Free Will and Self-Control?

I find it unlikely that it would intended to be a message from the self-concerned sinner simply because I know very nothing about the author or the collection of poems it appeared. But, I can interpret it that way if I choose. ;)

One of the fundamental theories of Hell to me is that it is a soul's own decision where it shall lie. And that decision is often influenced by the selfishness and pride that comes along with being given a free choice, it seems very common for people to think that because they are able to make their own decision that means the decision of anyone else is immediately out of the question. In this context, to someone of this mindset, it would be more important to be self-satisfied in Hell then give up your freedom in Heaven (which is not actually the case, but we're talking about what a given person fears, not what actually occurs.) The soul is in Hell, rather than Purgatory, because it can never repent and it believes that "it matters not [...] how charged the punishments [...] I am the master of my fate." It would be a sign of humility to deny this pride and admit that one was not right and deserving of the punishment. It is at the point of confession that the punishment becomes desirable because it represents repair not reciprocity of pain.

On the basis of the words I think there is a bit of acknowledgment of this theory... the first stanza refers to "the Pit" and the soul. The second stanza to the symbol of pride - the head held high. The third stanza mentions the Horror and the eternity of Hell with the "Finds, and shall find." And finally we have the gate of Hell, the scroll being symbolic of the ancientness of the Revelation, and then pride once again.

As a side note, CNN.com reported that this poem was Timothy McVeigh's final written statement before his execution. I think it is obvious why he would choose it, but I wonder which definition he is siding with? Is he saying that he was righteous and this execution is unjust? Is he saying that while he may have wronged, God is his only judge? Or is it a self-conscious prideful last stand against the rest of man?

I'm not sure. And I must mention my opposition to the death penalty that President Bush sums up nice for me,

President Bush: "The matter is concluded ... for the survivors of the crime and for the families of the dead, the pain goes on."

State sponsored murder does make pain go away or create justice as Bush admits. Keep this in mind with the upcoming trial for Saddam Hussein.

"An eye for an eye leaves the world blind." - Gandhi.

Almost Famous, by Edward Cone

I've just read Almost Famous by Ed Cone, an article that was in Wired in 2001 about Dave Winer.

It's very interesting reading about a person you see almost every week and are not completely familiar with the history of. And this seems to be a very objective look at Dave.

One of my favourite things about Dave is how long he's seen the Web as a place for real people and a tool for real change. It's not just hype for him...

Winer's distinctive voice combines knowledge and neuroses; he writes out of a compulsion to be heard, to outline the world in a way that makes sense to him, and in so doing he has re-created himself as a narrowcast icon for a tiny but influential worldwide audience. The way he sees it, the medium has allowed him to graft something meaningful onto the material success that left him unfulfilled. "People should have their own Web sites," he says, sitting amid junk food wrappers, software manuals, and wires that clutter his work space. "To me, the Web is not about getting rich. It's about users, designers, stories, and pictures. It's a writing environment."

Even in 2001 before (as far as I can tell) the focus on blogs ability to effect and influence politics, you hear the echoes of the future of modern society in his words about them...

Instead, he devoted himself to Scripting News and DaveNet, and to advancing the cause of the blog. Anybody can start one by going to UserLand's EditThisPage site (www.editthispage.com) or by using free software from competitor Pyra's Blogger (www.blogger.com) to publish directly onto the Web. Winer says there are now about 15,000 weblogs on UserLand's servers; there are more than 70,000 on Blogger and thousands more scattered across the Web. Internet publishing, Winer contends, can be more powerful than print journalism, given its immediacy and lack of corporate or governmental filters. "I hope in the next war there are people with weblogs to let the world know what's really happening. It should be like a militia, like the Second Amendment. You can't beat the US government with handguns, but you can with information."

Fact-check their asses and don't let a story die if you're not ready for it to die. Once the media monarchy is dethroned, no longer can the State dictate what we can and cannot see. That's the power of free and open writing on the Internet, but it won't stay alive if we don't protect it. Protecting it is what getting people like Dean and the like to have an actual policy toward the medium that made them possible.

The most important part about technology is not at all the technology itself, it is not the code or the architectures we 'elegantly' design. Instead, what will be remembered in the future is the social shifts and changes that it made possible.

Winer's fluency in software built his career and his fortune, and even earned him a paragraph in the history of the personal-computing era. But intent as he is on making UserLand fly, he is clearly most invested in the much more commonly understood code of words, ideas, and emotions. "I'm a software designer - that's what I do. But as a writer, I want to leave a legacy."

Contrast this attitude with the one reveal by this comment,

Less charitable is Patrick Giagnocavo, part of the Zaphod collective. "The guy's ego is so large and his ego-dystonic state seems so obvious," he says. "Here's a closed software developer who thinks he's a journalist. Here's a guy who believes he has some special insights into the world of Internet development. Here's a guy who runs a site called Scripting News yet rarely talks about scripting. It's self-promotion at its finest. The guy who likes to name-drop whenever he can, because he thinks he's a lot more important than he is."

The message here is that you can only be a software developer, or a journalist, not both at the same time. There these experts and those experts and if we let either of them take even a little bit more power than we lose, so just shut up! More negatively still is the suggestion that seems to say that there are either no insights in the Internet or they have nothing to do with real people and real events. Then we get a quick reminder that being human is not allowed in the technology world and that every person should cut themselves down to honour the software and the company.

I think that a people-centric ideology that makes computing a tool in great social movements is much more important than the latest XML and Dave will be in my history book as one of the people who helped me realize that.

Nine Story Lines For a New Campaign Narrative, by Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen writes about the Nine Stories of The New Campaign.

The Dean campaign, most agree, is the most different, taking the biggest departures from the standard model. This is primarily visible in the influence of the Internet on his entire candidacy, but the influence of the Net is not confined to the Net anymore. That's a big story, most of which has not been filled in.

Here are nine threads in a revised public narrative. Anyone can follow them to find vital stories that show us there is something happening in presidential politics, but not in the pattern we had grown to expect. And I do mean anyone willing to do such reporting, whether the title is citizen, student, weblogger, journalist, writer, linker, amateur, pro...

Each of his nine stories seems to take a new aspect of the campaigns and show how that aspect is different than the old system and leads to new requirements on the people that must populate a campaign - or that a campaign must grow from.

The moral here is that when the floodgates are let open it may be a bit difficult at first to get things done because it is so different, but then it becomes clear that when you have (and need) many more people doing something it means a higher quality politics. Because, being that politics is about people - the more people who are involved in something the more honest and true to democracy it CAN be.

(Insert disclaimer about what happens when people seek to get together and form a nice new echo chamber where they can plot against others and form new, more grotesque lies about the opposite side.)

The line on the story is - people out there are being part of the new system not because the system is necessarily getting larger, but because it is getting more open and willing to accept those who desire a voice.

It's pretty short.

Look at the Berkman Thursday's Wiki page before tonight.

Alex Tabarrok wonders if professors are obsolete.

We economics professors like to point out - or at least I do - that downsizing is a good thing. Aren't you glad that blacksmiths were downsized because of the automobile? But we don't like it when this argument is turned on us. Steve Pearlstein writes:

Every year... there are thousands of college professors who twice or three times a week offer what is largely the same basic lecture course in a subject like molecular biology or Shakespeare comedies. A few of these professors offer the kind of brilliant lectures that fill auditoriums and provide the kind of educational experience that students remember all their lives. Many of the rest offer something that ranges from mediocre to awful....why don't we identify these extraordinary lecturers, put their lectures on CDs, and sell them to universities that could supplement them with faculty-led tutorials or discussions?

Pearlstein points out that Mark Taylor, a Williams College philosophy professor, and Herb Allen, a Wall Street financier, tried to do just this at Williams College but not surprisingly the faculty resisted and vehemently voted the idea down.

Real Live Preacher posts part six.

John Palfrey announces a new discussion.

Are citizens really re-engaged in the political process? And if so, what would a president elected by a citizen-powered groundswell do once elected to govern in a manner consistent with how s/he was elected? Participate in a discussion ongoing here; it's free and experimental and it's only going to work if lots of us dig in. You'll just have to sign up with a simple form, join the project called "Internet and Society" and reply to the question posted by Jim Moore and Kelly Nuxoll. (We at the Berkman Center don't support any candidate, but we do support citizen engagement in the political process using Internet technologies.)

Jim Moore writes about it as well...

The question speaks for itself (I hope--Kelly Nuxoll and I wrote it), but here is something to mull over:

Perhaps Howard Dean is not running for the same presidency as George Bush. That is, perhaps in an era of online communication, combined with grassroots community organizing, we need a new form of presidency that itself encourages more peer-to-peer problem solving across our society. Perhaps we need a movement to reverse the consolidation of presidential and legislative and judicial power at the center, because this consolidation of power makes it harder for the society to solve its most critical problems.

Amy Skurt posts some amazing pictures.

The Grand Inquisitor, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I was talking to a friend about The Grand Inquisitor, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the other day and was reminded that I had not read it for quite sometime, so I decided I would read it today.

The premise of the story is that Jesus has come back for his Second Coming during the worst years of the Spanish Inquisition. Because of His peace and compassion, people immediately recognize Him as something wonderful when He walks through Seville...

"He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, everyone recognised Him. That might be one of the best passages in the poem. I mean, why they recognised Him. The people are irresistibly drawn to Him, they surround Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He moves silently in their midst with a gentle smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love burns in His heart, and power shine from His eyes, and their radiance, shed on the people, stirs their hearts with responsive love. He holds out His hands to them, blesses them, and a healing virtue comes from contact with Him, even with His garments. An old man in the crowd, blind from childhood, cries out, 'O Lord, heal me and I shall see Thee!' and, as it were, scales fall from his eyes and the blind man sees Him. The crowd weeps and kisses the earth under His feet.

Then the cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor, sees what it is going on and throws Him into jail...

"There are cries, sobs, confusion among the people, and at that moment the cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the cathedral. He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken eyes, in which there is still a gleam of light. He is not dressed in his gorgeous cardinal's robes, as he was the day before, when he was burning the enemies of the Roman Church -- at this moment he is wearing his coarse, old, monk's cassock. At a distance behind him come his gloomy assistants and slaves and the 'holy guard.' He stops at the sight of the crowd and watches it from a distance. He sees everything; he sees them set the coffin down at His feet, sees the child rise up, and his face darkens. He knits his thick grey brows and his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He holds out his finger and bids the guards take Him. And such is his power, so completely are the people cowed into submission and trembling obedience to him, that the crowd immediately makes way for the guards, and in the midst of deathlike silence they lay hands on Him and lead him away. The crowd instantly bows down to the earth, like one man, before the old Inquisitor. He blesses the people in silence and passes on' The guards lead their prisoner to the close, gloomy vaulted prison- in the ancient palace of the Holy, inquisition and shut him in it. The day passes and is followed by the dark, burning, 'breathless' night of Seville. The air is 'fragrant with laurel and lemon.' In the pitch darkness the iron door of the prison is suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor himself comes in with a light in his hand. He is alone; the door is closed at once behind him. He stands in the doorway and for a minute or two gazes into His face. At last he goes up slowly, sets the light on the table and speaks.

Once they are alone, the Inquisitor talks to Him about why he feels that he has to burned him like other heretics. The G.I. believes that because He will not demand that the people worship him, that He actually values their freedom and gives it to them as a true gift, then He is a threat to the authority of the Church. And the G.I. feels that the Church, not the teachings or Man's kindness by Free Will, is what makes the world work.

Here the G.I. says that if He would only perform miracles to get the people to worship him then everything would be easier, but because He does not do that He is a heretic.

"Thou wouldst go into the world, and art going with empty hands, with some promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natural unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dread -- for nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. But seest Thou these stones in this parched and barren wilderness? Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after Thee like a flock of sheep, grateful and obedient, though for ever trembling, lest Thou withdraw Thy hand and deny them Thy bread." But Thou wouldst not deprive man of freedom and didst reject the offer, thinking, what is that freedom worth if obedience is bought with bread? Thou didst reply that man lives not by bread alone. But dost Thou know that for the sake of that earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against Thee and will strive with Thee and overcome Thee, and all will follow him, crying, "Who can compare with this beast? He has given us fire from heaven!" Dost Thou know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger? "Feed men, and then ask of them virtue!"

The assumption is that authority is something that Man craves with more power than the unwavering Love that God offers.

"'This is the significance of the first question in the wilderness, and this is what Thou hast rejected for the sake of that freedom which Thou hast exalted above everything. Yet in this question lies hid the great secret of this world. Choosing "bread," Thou wouldst have satisfied the universal and everlasting craving of humanity -- to find someone to worship. So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it.

But it is only an offer of Love, He will not force it into the hands of those who demand it and because of that will not honour any kind of authority that attempts to coerce Man.

Instead of taking men's freedom from them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil? Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. And behold, instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest for ever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and enigmatic; Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond the strength of men, acting as though Thou didst not love them at all -- Thou who didst come to give Thy life for them! Instead of taking possession of men's freedom, Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom of mankind with its sufferings for ever.

Liberty and Free Will is the essential gift of God and the entire premise of Christianity, and life at all. To establish authority to coerce yourself (or others) would be to attempt to deny that gift and replace it with slavery and servitude. The only authority is the authority that rests within ourselves, Love. The true goal of a Church or spiritual community should be to give each other strength and guidance in each other's quests, not to coerce one another into succumbing to the will of some temporal law that has no meaning beyond the world of the flesh.

The Divine Comedy: Purgatory: Introduction

I've just finished reading The Divine Comedy, Part 2: Purgatory by Dante Alighieri (Translated by Dorothy L. Sayers) and I want to write my thoughts about it down like I did in the past with The Inferno.

The Purgatorio is very different from the Inferno in that it focuses more on ideas and deep meaning as opposed to the detail and mythology of the Inferno. Dorothy talks about how many people view it in the opening pages of the Introduction of the book.

There is another reason why we may not approve of what Dante is doing in the Purgatory - a reason succinctly phrased by one critic in the poignant cry: "Then the sermons begin." There are long passages which can only be classed as didactic poetry - versified statements of plain theological or scientific fact; these are more numerous in the Purgatorio than in the Inferno, and still more numerous in the Paradiso. The inhabitants of hell are not remarkable for any great interest in morals or divinity - naturally enough, since they have "lost the good of the intellect"; the pass their eternity in a bustle of purposeless activity and have no use for thinking. And since there are twenty-four circles to be hastened through, over a very rough road amid a perpetual and distracting clamour, Dante and Virgil themselves have but little leisure for improving conversation. This, after all, is as it should be. It is not while undergoing the foretaste of damnation that one can engage in abstract speculation; it is much if one can endure and come through unscathed. Only when one has squeezed out from Hell's suffocating bottle-neck to "look once more upon the stars" can the mind resume its discursive and contemplative functions, and the vast intellectual movement of the Commedia begin to be unfolded in direct speech with a figure. [pg. 11]

I think this is a very accurate characterization of what happens on Mount Purgatory and it was important to know this up front so I could pay more careful attention to what was being said while on the Mount. The Divine Comedy is more than an adventure through Hell and Heaven to find a lost love, it makes you wonder about the nature of those places and how to better live on Earth.

A major problem that Dorothy says that Dante must have faced was in organizing Purgatory and making sure it was not too symmetric to Hell. That it was not so repetitious to the point of inflicting boredom. Of course it has to be slightly similar as they are both concerned with the same Sins. Dante succeeds in this by his categorization and understanding of the two places' nature.

It has the further great advantage that the use of two distinct systems of classification emphasizes the essential distinction between Hell and Purgatory: in the former, acts of sin produce their cumulative effects, the soul remaining at the lowest point of degradation to which it has unrepentantly willed to descend; in the later, the stain of sinfulness is cleansed, the penitent soul shedding off successively all those imperfections which cling to it against its better will. Hell is concerned with the fruits, but Purgatory with the roots, of sin.

In any case, whether the arrangement of the Inferno as we have it was the offspring of first or second thoughts, we are still brought up against the problem with which we started; the Purgatorio must again exhibit souls who are suffering the penalty for sin, and the poet must somehow contrive to avoid a mere repetition of his effects. [pg. 15]

This was the first inkling for me about the difference between Hell and Purgatory... although they seem on the surface to be very similar (the nature of the punishments are the same) there is something very different about them. The souls in Hell have essentially given up, although they don't feel that they've given up because they are where they want to be. And the souls in Purgatory are still on the quest for repentance because they are not satisfied with the temptations and imperfects that still lie inside them. One is eternal and distraught, and the other is temporal and filled with hope of someday-salvation.

It has been well said by a great saint [St. Catherine of Genoa] that the fire of Hell is simply the light of God as experienced by those who reject it; to those, that is, who hold fast to their darling illusion of sin, the burning reality of holiness is a thing unbearable. To the penitent, that reality is a torment so long and only so long as any vestige of illusion remains to hamper their assent to it: they welcome the torment, as a sick man welcomes the pains of surgery, in order that the last crippling illusion may be burned away. The whole operation of Purgatory is directed to the freeing of the judgment and the will. Hell is the fleeing deeper into the iron-bound prison of the self - for the damned also, after their manner, seek their own torment. [pg. 16]

And said again elsewhere in reference to how the toils of Purgatory cannot be understand by any soul in Hell because they are a state of mind:

That is the mark of Purgatory, the thing which Hell cannot understand, and which turns to folly earth's fumbling attempts to discriminate between retributive and remedial punishment. Their desire is turned to the torment as aforetime to the sin; the suffer no coercion but their own unwavering will: "my heart is fixed, O Lord, my heart is fixed." [pg. 21]

One of my favourite parts of the Commedia as I've so far read is how Beatrice is the perhaps the one thing that keeps Dante going when he is faced with a wall of Fire or a ride on a demon's back. Without ever hearing here described before the final Cantos of the Purgatorio you have the intense feeling that she is beyond beautiful.

And there, beneath her veil, beyond the stream,
Her former self, methought, she more outshone
Than here, with others, she once outshone them

Her unveiled beauty passes the wits of poets to communicate; and as it rises from sphere to sphere of Heaven it glows with an ever more radiant splendour. So Dante says: if he says it, it is because he means us to believe it, and our refusal does him no honour. [pg. 29]

I think that we all have our own Beatrice, the one for whom the Sun rises each day to compete with bringing it's sun rises and sun sets to challenge and forever being defeated by the slight smile that grows across her face when your eyes meet. You know who mine is. Who's yours?

Dorothy talks a great deal in the introduction about the nature of Dante's Love for Beatrice and how it enters into his philosophy of the Divine, whether he seeming "worship" interferes with his beliefs.

We must come, then, to Beatrice with an open mind, prepared to see what the poet chooses to show, and to accept as his "real" intention that which he has backed with the whole power of his art, and the labour of a lifetime. Of all the loves he had known - [...] and he had known love in many kinds [...] - this is the one which, with will and judgement assenting, he declares to be a revelation of divine truth. [...] It is a love who joy - and therefore its fulfillment - consists in the worshipful contemplation of that which stands over and above the worshipper. True to its origins in courtly love, it finds its entire happiness in being allowed to do homage to its acknowledged superior. [pg. 43]

This seems to be similar to the opinion that I have grown that the truest form of Love is the unveiling of Truth and the realization that happiness lies within sharing happiness and homage with the center of your Truth and Love.

The Beatific Vision is the eternalizing of that moment in the contemplation of that Perfection beyond which nothing greater can be conceived for desiring. [pg. 44]

So before we impart into Purgatory, remember that the purpose of Purgatory is to improve the soul so that it is deserving of the privilege to share in the Divine Love and Truth that awaits it in Paradise. It is the process that the soul goes through to properly give homage to its Love, because muddy hands cannot clean and care at the side of the pristine.

So long as there remains in the soul the least trace of consent to sin, this clouding and coarsening remain to fetter the will and judgement. Only when the clear sight and tender conscience are restored is the soul set free to stand before the unveiled light of the presence of God, which otherwise it could not endure. It is this which underlies Dante's great statement, that when the soul feels itself free, it is free. Purgatory is not a system of Divine book-keeping - so many years for so much sin - but a process of spiritual improvement which is completed precisely when it is complete. "God is satisfied when we are satisfied." [pg. 58]

And secondly, that the heart of everything that Man is capable of is Love, the gift imparted by God.

His argument rests upon the great Augustinian premiss that evil in itself is nothing and can originate nothing positive - not even sin. It can only be a parasite upon the good which God has created. Man has a natural impulse to love that which pleases him. This impulse, which is the root of all virtue, can be perverted, weakened, or misdirected to become the root of all sin. Thus, all the Capital Sins are shown to derive from love for some good, either falsely perceived, or inadequately or excessively pursued. [pg. 66]

The Nightmare Stops

Glenn Reynolds has an interesting opinion of Saddam's capture.

THE LESSON: Saddam's capture also shows the importance of patience, and of ignoring the kvetching of the Coalition Of The Pissy. While people bitched, the military just kept gathering intelligence and keeping Saddam on the run until he slipped and they caught him. And looking at the TV images, he seems docile, exhausted, and ready to be caught. That's the fruit not just of a single lucky break, but of the sustained campaign of keeping him moving.

Those who, frankly, would just as soon see the entire war as a failure, are ready to call anything short of perfection a failure. But persistence pays off. It's worth keeping in mind on other subjects.

Dave Winer is leading a discussion on what to do with him.

Now that Saddam is in custody, where should he stand trial, Iraq, the US, somewhere else?

If you could decide his fate, would you put him in jail for life like Noriega, or put him to death, or create a special punishment for him, one that fits his crimes?

How do you feel now that something is over? Or is it? Could Saddam yet resume power in Iraq or has Murphy met his match?

Moxie thinks about the punishment he deserves.

While the details of the trial haven't been decided, I am decided that though the death penalty sounds apt, a sterile injection just doesn't match up to the crimes he committed. With the big DP he still might qualify as a martyr and death in the long run is so much less painful than say, a weekly bikini wax.

Perhaps he could be assigned the role of Dennis Kucinich'sCampaign Information Minister. Why kill someone when you can subject him to round-the-clock music of The Backstreet Boys and N'synch? Maybe Al Gore can put Saddam in his lock box and explain ad nauseum how the Republicans stole the last election not to mention that he invented the internet.

Matthew Gross posts Howard Dean's statement on Hussein.

WEST PALM BEACH-- Governor Dean issued the following statement this morning:

"This is a great day for the Iraqi people, the US, and the international community.

"Our troops are to be congratulated on carrying out this mission with the skill and dedication we have come to know of them.

"This development provides an enormous opportunity to set a new course and take the American label off the war. We must do everything possible to bring the UN, NATO, and other members of the international community back into this effort.

"Now that the dictator is captured, we must also accelerate the transition from occupation to full Iraqi sovereignty."

Doug Miller ponders on the security of Saddam's hideout.

Interesting. CNN just mentioned that there was no perimeter security surrounding Hussein when he was captured. That makes me wonder how critical the Iraqi resistance regards him. Of course, it could also have been a means of trying not to attract too much attention to him.

Charlie Stross has a very interesting opinion of the capture.

While shedding no tears for the beast of Baghdad -- who climbed to the top of the Ba'ath party of Iraq over a pile of corpses, by way of the secret police -- I can't help wondering whether this is a good thing for the west. I suspect his being at liberty may have been a restraining factor on the various Iraqi factions jockeying for power -- and taking pot-shots at the occupiers. Now he's out of the way, the spectre of a revived Ba'athist dictatorship has lifted from the followers of al-Sadr and the various other Shi'ite factions and the communists and the nationalists and the just plain pissed-off that their country has been invaded. The factions who suffered under Saddam no longer have to worry about that stuff: we may just have released the brakes on the armed resistance. Moreover, if Saddam is smart enough (and I hope he isn't) and the military authorities stupid enough (and after Gantanemo Bay I fear that they are), he may use a trial as an opportunity to wrap himself in the flag of Iraqi nationalism and turn himself into a martyr to the anti-American cause.

Adam Yoshida can't wait for blood.

Nearly one hundred and thirty-nine years ago, to the day, General William Temesech Sherman and his Army of Georgia captured the City of Savannah. General Sherman then telegraphed the President, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and also about 25,000 bales of cotton." For some reason, today's capture of Saddam Hussein calls to mind that long-ago event. Whatever some will try to say, this is a great victory for the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, for the members of the Coalition, for the President and his Administration, and for those people everywhere who supported the liberation of Iraq. It is not, however, as some have tried to claim a victory for everyone.

Howard Dean's supporters (those, at least, who are not admitting that they are crying in despair as a result of the capture of Saddam) and the crowd at Democratic Underground are trying to assert that this is, "everyone's victory." To which, I must reply: a victory yes, but one in which no credit it due to you. Now that we are successful in Iraq, everyone will probably try and jump on the bandwagon once more. We should not let them. If Howard Dean was the President today Saddam Hussein would still be in command in Baghdad, still be dealing with terrorists, still murdering his own people, and still dealing with terrorists. The same goes for most of the other Democratic Presidential candidates, who would not have had the courage or fortitude to lead us into this war of their own volition.

[...]

We now have the execution of Saddam to look forward to. Mark it on your calendar. Hopefully we'll get a public hanging, seeing as he's going to be tried by the Iraqi people. Frankly, I don't imagine they'll be in what can exactly be called a 'charitable' mood.

Matthew Stoller has the best sentence yet...

Look at how quickly Hussein has been trivialized as a symbol...

Tacitus writes about what it will mean to Iraqis and about the trial.

I'll lay money that he'll in time be turned over to the judgment of his peers.

And when he is, remember this. Remember it when you troll throught the web archives of the usual suspects and read the dark musings of how Uday and Qusay were purposefully "silenced" to protect Bu$hco. Remember it when the well-fed unfortunates of Guantanamo, with their quality medical care and free Korans, are held up as examples of the utter rot of American ideals. Remember what we did in this moment. And remember that 25 million Iraqis sleep a bit more soundly tonight, free of the tyrant who has haunted their days and nights for decades, it will be because of us -- and the much-maligned but very real Coalition of the Willing.

Look forward also to the forthcoming criticisms of the Iraqi court that will try and sentence Saddam Hussein. There will be complaints that it does not conform to "international" law or standards. There will be griping because no -- or too few -- transnational bureaucrats are employed, consulted or heeded. There will be mutterings that the whole process is managed by American puppeteers. Think I'm wrong? It has already begun. But a court of Iraqis is precisely the right thing to do. The sad, unremarked fact of international tribunals post-Nuremburg is that they are too often unjust and unfair. The Yugoslav tribunal, for example, will never, ever call or convict a single cutthroat bandit of the KLA; and the Rwanda tribunal is thoroughly detested by most Rwandans for its ineffectiveness and indeed hostile attitude toward the post-genocide Rwandan state. These things do not bring closure to those who need it most: they impart judgment from abroad and on high, geographically and politically removed from the scenes of the crimes. An Iraqi court in Iraq -- that will make a real difference in a way that the self-anointed human rights/internationalist lobby does not understand or acknowledge. And why would they? It's their employment on the line, after all.

Allah is not too happy about it.

*RRRING* "Yes, hello? No, Allah has not turned on the TV yet. He just woke up. Why? Saddam is on TV? Glorious! Did he make a new video? No? Well, why else would he be on tele--- ALLAH WILL CALL YOU BACK."

Let Allah just boot up his computer here. Okay, deep breaths. Perhaps, perhaps he has become a shahid in a glorious martyrdom operation, yes? Let us go to the Jew Fox News site--OH NO. NO, FUCK. Okay, okay. Maybe--maybe he looked proud and defiant as they captured him. Yeah! Maybe he had on hismujahid army uniform and that fruity little black beret and OH JESUS FUCK, NO. Okay, all right, Allah has to keep it together here. He can handle this. Just so long as there is no gloating by the Jew. Allah can swallow any infidel bullshit except gloOH GOD, WHY? WHY MUST ALLAH SUFFER SO?

Okay, well, it's been greating knowing you, kufr. Allah has to go take care of something now. Have a great life!

Dick Morris and Christopher Lydon

Christopher Lydon interviews Dick Morris on the transformation of modern politics.

Dick Morris actually trumps Joe Trippi with Internet bullishness. "The essence of the Internet," he said, "is not that it provides a new set of eyes and ears, but that it gives the voters a mouth, which they've never had in the media. The impact of that is absolutely historic."

But Morris makes it a mighty Republican tool in 2004, especially in the hands of Karl Rove, a direct-mail master. With email, Rove simply saves the postage. "Let's remember," Morris observed, "that the Internet is more male than female, more right-wing than left-wing, more upscale than downscale." The vast right-wing conspiracy which grew up outside the mainstream media is savvy now about spontaneous on-line community building. Not all the grassroots on the right are Astroturf. "The Republican base is seething with activity," Morris said. "Also, c'mon, you can't think of any community that is better connected, and better wired to itself, than the religious community. There are all kinds of prayer groups around the country, and the fact is that people who attend church regularly vote Republican by 2 to 1, and those who don't vote Democratic by 2 to 1. The gay marriage issue is going to accentuate that divide. So I think this kind of viral bottom-up growth (which is what the Internet is all about) will be as much Republican as Democratic."

It was a great interview, Dick is a smart guy who covers all the bases and believes that this is a transformation but is still honest about the possibility that this will just form a new oligarchy on the Internet if we don't pay attention to how the change happens.

Via David Weinberger is Britt Blaser who comments on the interview...

Dick Morris is another visionary and Bill Clinton's indispensable political guide until he was forced out of the White House by his own Clintonesque scandal, got religion, went on Fox News and started vote.com. As you'd expect from a Clinton confidante, he understands the detailed history of what works and fails in Presidential politics. In the current Chris Lydon interview, Morris tells us that the Internet is bigger than we have imagined in politics as in everything else, and that the Dean campaign has changed politics forever by routing around the cynical mechanisms the DNC designed into the primary system this cycle...

...and that Howard Dean is dead meat.

She used to say, "I like you SO much!"

Adam Yoshida writes about Dean supporters and his campaign.

The latest national polls give Governor Dean the support of less than a quarter of Democratic voters nationwide. All of this, I might add, despite the massive river of fawning media attention received by Dean and the generally uninspiring campaigns run by the other Democratic candidates. All of this despite the fact that Dean is running the best-organized primary campaign in memory, with many hard-working and fanatical supporters.

At this time four years ago, about a month before the start of the 2000 Primary Season, George W. Bush had the support of 64% of Republican voters in a CNN/Gallup Poll. Now, I realize that some have said that national polls will matter only when there is a national primary, but I respectfully disagree. Given all of the coverage he's received, given the lacklustre and divided field of remaining Democratic candidates: given all of this, he should be far higher in national polls. The low national poll numbers for Dean suggest that the appeal of his candidacy is, in many respects, limited to the activist wing of the Democratic Party. He is not drawing much support from the party as a whole- but what support he has is being magnified by the adulation of the media and the fanaticism of those supporters he has.

The most striking feature of the Dean campaign is this: I have yet to meet a single 'normal person' who strongly supports Howard Dean for President. His appeal seems limited to small minority groups which simply happen to be placed in such a position as to have their voices amplified. Forgetting the politics of his supporters for a second, one is struck by the fact that the campaign seems to be staffed largely by laid-off tech workers of dubious mental stability. This isn't a Presidential campaign to them: it's some sort of journey of personal healing. Presidential politics isn't therapy: a point which I suspect we will have further illuminated for us during the campaign.

Bill Barnwell writes about our friend, the government.

Ok, back to reality. While caricatures, this sadly represents what a lot of people on the Left and Right actually believe. There is much more we could delve into. The unending faith in the terrible and costly "war on drugs," the unfailing trust in the government school system, the bizarre belief that nothing has official and legitimate sanction unless it's blessed by the government (It's the government document, not God and the church, which blesses and legitimizes a marriage between two people and makes it official and holy. It's the government "certification" which makes you qualified for your job, not your actual knowledge or skills). The average American can act like they don't like or trust the government all they want, but their actions show that when push comes to shove, they love Leviathan and treat anyone who talks about true reform (not the phony GOP brand) as a heretic or a fool.

Will people wake up anytime soon? Hopefully, but it doesn't appear to be very forthcoming. Every election cycle, people get mobilized and geared up to "take back their country." The means of doing that is always tied to a politician, a political cause or some other sort of big government reform. People will continually act like they don't like the size of government, don't trust politicians, and want to restore values and power to their community, but they still can't get out of this mindset that nothing can be accomplished aside from with the help of the state. So expect more of the same drivel from both sides in the upcoming Presidential election and expect the masses to continually support and encourage politicians in their deceit, looting, and false hope. And always remember, the government is our friend!

Ingrid links a great story about the ISS.

This week, in a UK television interview via satellite, British-born astronaut Michael Foale said his heart did not "lurch" and he kept his cool when he thought the International Space Station (ISS) in which he is orbiting the Earth at 17,000 mph, had been hit. He heard a metallic crushing sound, apparently from the rear of the Zvezda living module, as he was having breakfast. He said it was a "good day" if neither the American side nor the Russian side are angry with each other, and that on days such as this one, it is difficult for each partner to see the point of view of the other. The sound is now believed to have come from equipment inside the ISS.

Cdr Foale is spending six months on the ISS with only Russian cosmonaut Sasha Kaleri for company. They wake up at 0700 GMT and go to bed at 2300 GMT. Their day is spent completing tasks set by both Houston and Moscow. Tasks include experiments on how zero gravity affects the development of cancer cells and the crystallisation of metals. They try to find the time to share lunch, enjoy an afternoon tea break together and send e-mails home.

Kevin on the ironies of blogging.

One of the paradoxes I have learned is that the more I surf blogs the less I want to blog myself. [...]

What I have decided is that what makes me want to blog is reading a wide variety of content. Most blogs, mine included, are reactionary. They take information and react to it. If I read a lot of reaction eventually I have less and less content to react to myself. Occasionally, bloggers reactions and statements cause me to react but more often they don't. So I end up with a lot of random surfing and little satisfaction. So what I think I will do is get back to reading content, online and off, and offering my thoughts and ideas as they come. I think this will give me more satisfaction as it will involve thinking and wrestling with meatier issues. Instead of looking for just the right angle in any hot topic I plan to blog about what I find interesting and important.

Kaye was "at" the Berkman meeting on Thursday. The Internet is soooo great.

Tyler Cowen links to Chris Rangel on how to impress men and women.

How to impress a woman;
Wine her, Dine her, Call her, Hug her, Support her, Hold her, Surprise her, Compliment her, Smile at her, Listen to her, Laugh with her, Cry with her, Romance her, Encourage her, Believe in her, Pray with her, Pray for her, Cuddle with her, Shop with her, Give her jewelry, Buy her flowers, Hold her hand, Write love letters to her, Go to the end of the Earth and back again for her.

How to impress a man;
Show up naked... Bring food... Don't block the TV.

Dean Esmay on Howard Dean

Dean Esmay writes up some predictions for the 2004 Election and his thoughts on Howard Dean.

Something that has been obvious to me for a while is that if certain candidates hope to get ahead, they need to sharply differentiate themselves from Howard Dean, and to attack him. This has also been something I've hoped for, since Dean has always disturbed me. Alas, the other candidates have all, until very recently, held their ammo and treated him with kid gloves. This bothers me because, win or lose the Presidency, I believe Howard Dean is an unhealthy force.

I suppose some will suggest that I only say all this because I think Dean will topple Bush. Uh, no. At least four of the current Democratic candidates have at least as good a chance of that, if not better. If I had to choose who I wanted, it would be Lieberman, because I think he would make a good President, and is the only one who's still talking anything like good sense about the war. My problem is that I believe the Dean campaign is more of a cult than a political movement, and he's on the wrong side of too many issues.

One of the big problems that Esmay has with Dean, that I agree with, it the focus on the money and that this is something that can and should be praised:

Here's a free tip, guys: it's ideas that win campaigns, not money. People don't follow the guy with the money; money follows the guy with the people. You need enough money to be credible. Then, if what you're saying catches people's imaginaton, and you look like you could win, more money will flow to you naturally.

I would argue that money should not matter, but that it unfortunately does so that the only money that should matter is that money with real people behind it. It is the votes and the people who matter, not your fundraising prowess, regardless of how that money can be used to coerce people into 'supporting' you.

Esmay believes that Dean is not really the person many people see him as. This is an example of a the cult-think of the Deanniacs.

However, Sullivan misses a key point. So do many others, who continually think of Howard Dean as a bleeding heart lefty. While Dean has done much to embrace those people, he isn't really one of them. If he sews up the nomination early, he's got literally months and months to redefine himself.

I suspect that he will, if given the opportunity, make a Nixon-style pivot, and drive hard to the right for the remainder of his campaign. Given that his following is so cultlike, he would not lose most of them by doing so. A few would walk away, shattered and disillusioned, but most will either not notice, or will find some way to rationalize it.

Esmay then goes on to illustrate what sort of things Dean will do to secure the presidency, rather than support the people who are propping him up.

Is God a Taoist? by Raymond M. Smullyan

Raymond Smullyan writes up a discussion between God and Mortal with the heading, "Is God a Taoist?"

God is talking to a Mortal who wishes to be rid of free will so he will stop sinning and an interesting discussion ensues...

God: Hm! So let me get this absolutely straight. I take it you no longer wish me to remove your free will.

Mortal (reluctantly): No, I guess not.

God: All right, I agree not to. But I am still not exactly clear as to why you now no longer wish to be rid of your free will. Please tell me again.

Mortal: Because, as you have told me, without free will I would sin even more than I do now.

God: But I have already told you that without free will you cannot sin.

Mortal: But if I choose now to be rid of free will, then all my subsequent evil actions will be sins, not of the future, but of the present moment in which I choose not to have free will.

God: Sounds like you are pretty badly trapped, doesn't it?

Mortal: Of course I am trapped! You have placed me in a hideous double bind! Now whatever I do is wrong. If I retain free will, I will continue to sin, and if I abandon free will (with your help, of course) I will now be sinning in so doing.

God: But by the same token, you place me in a double bind. I am willing to leave you free will or remove it as you choose, but neither alternative satisfies you. I wish to help you, but it seems I cannot.

God talks about people's misunderstanding of "him"...

God: Fortunately, I have not been exposed to the tirades of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Few sermons have ever been preached which are more misleading. The very title "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" tells its own tale. In the first place, I am never angry. In the second place, I do not think at all in terms of "sin." In the third place, I have no enemies.

Mortal: By that do you mean that there are no people whom you hate, or that there are no people who hate you?

God: I meant the former although the latter also happens to be true.

Mortal: Oh come now, I know people who have openly claimed to have hated you. At times I have hated you!

God: You mean you have hated your image of me. That is not the same thing as hating me as I really am.

In the discussion of why humans were given free will, God talks about supposed angels, sinners, and saints.

Mortal: Well now, I once asked this question of an Orthodox rabbi. He told me that the way we are constituted, it is simply not possible for us to enjoy salvation unless we feel we have earned it. And to earn it, we of course need free will.

God: That explanation is indeed much nicer than your former but still is far from correct. According to Orthodox Judaism, I created angels, and they have no free will. They are in actual sight of me and are so completely attracted by goodness that they never have even the slightest temptation toward evil. They really have no choice in the matter. Yet they are eternally happy even though they have never earned it. So if your rabbi's explanation were correct, why wouldn't I have simply created only angels rather than mortals?

Mortal: Beats me! Why didn't you?

God: Because the explanation is simply not correct. In the first place, I have never created any ready-made angels. All sentient beings ultimately approach the state which might be called "angelhood." But just as the race of human beings is in a certain stage of biologic evolution, so angels are simply the end result of a process of Cosmic Evolution. The only difference between the so-called saint and the so-called sinner is that the former is vastly older than the latter. Unfortunately it takes countless life cycles to learn what is perhaps the most important fact of the universe -- evil is simply painful. All the arguments of the moralists -- all the alleged reasons why people shouldn't commit evil acts -- simply pale into insignificance in light of the one basic truth that evil is suffering.

All I Worship, And Adore

Remember: Tomorrow's Berkman meeting will be webcast!

Dave Winer reminds us...

We're going to webcast tomorrow night's meeting too, Murphy-willing, and I'll bring my Rhomba and will try recording it that way too.

Jim Moore writes about the Dean campaign and new politics.

Winning the election is not the only important thing. Dave pointed out something to me: The important thing is winning in a way that sets up the conditions that make it possible for the president to ask the American people to accept sacrifice, collaborate and share, and innovate and create in order to make a better world.

A president who wins the campaign by using a cynical $200 million dollar TV campaign, and promising to send men to the moon, is not connected to the people. Bush has no ability to ask Americans to stop smoking, exercise, control guns, drive safer cars, or create more cohesive and emotionally open families in order to reduce health care costs. And yet these are the emergent movements that are most important to health, and to reducing medical costs.

Most of our serious problems do not require technical fixes, they requre cooperative social change. Education, health care, jobs, personal safety, and freedom from racism, sexism and ethnocentrism, all require social commitment. Bush does not have the trust or the connection to the nation to ask for real behavior change--unless he compells it. So he takes military action, conscripts citizens to fight in his wars, and reduces civil liberties. This is the only way he can act, at all.

Seth Gordon writes about the Bible referring to God in a terrifying way.

From the various other places where the word is used, it doesn't seem unreasonable to translatepachad Yitzchak as "the mind-numbing terror of Isaac". Isaac is the only person who is paired with the word pachad in this way to refer to God. Of course, Isaac is the only person who came within a hair's breadth of being sacrificed to God by his own father, so I suppose it's understandable that his relationship with God, and nobody else's, would be described in these terms.

Strange Women Lying in Ponds links to some interesting new research by those crazy scientists.

Physicists say they have brought light to a complete halt for a fraction of a second and then sent it on its way, an achievement that could someday help scientists develop powerful new computers.

[...]

Harvard University researchers have now topped that feat by truly holding light and its energy in its tracks - if only for a few hundred-thousandths of a second. "We have succeeded in holding a light pulse still without taking all the energy away from it," said Mikhail D. Lukin, a Harvard physicis

Dean Esmay links to a very important message from Chief Wiggles in Iraq.

Today in the course of what was to be a very normal day, a man knocked on my door with a very special request. At first he was obviously a little uneasy, not sure if he should enter through the large double doors into the spaciousness of my office. As he reluctantly stepped in he looked around to see if anyone else was in the office. It was already late in the day, the others having left much earlier; I was alone to receive the man's inquiry.

I motioned for him to sit down, puzzled by the mans late arrival. I was curious of the man's intentions at such a late hour and anxiously asked if I could help him. He said he had a very serious matter to discuss and a very big favor to ask of me. As I usually do I responded with an affirmative "yes, please continue and we will see what I can do." By his words it appeared he had spoken with others regarding my humanitarian efforts for the Children of Iraq.

Jeremey Bowers writes about ends and means.

The standard question "Do the ends justify the means?" can be broken down into two parts: "How much evil can be justified if the end result is good?", and "Is the goodness of an action determine by its result, or the nature of the action itself?" They're interrelated but first is concerned with "collateral damage" and assumes the goodness and evilness of actions are known, where the second is concerned about how one determines whether actions are good or evil. For this section, we concern ourselves with the latter: How do we determine whether an action is good or evil, by the nature of the action itself or the results?

This is only an interesting question when the results are quite uncertain, which is very often.

Many people, including myself, would say that the nature of the action should figure in very heavily if the outcome is fairly uncertain. In rational terms, morality and common sense provide time-tested heuristics that have the net result of preventing disasterous outcomes, and ignoring this wisdom is just arrogance. Thus, if someone makes a moral or common-sense decision, we would still say in the abstract that that was the right decision.

Kevin Drum links to Maher Arar's story.

I describe my cell in Syria as a grave because it was just 3 feet wide, 6 feet long, 7 feet high and unlit. While I was there I sometimes felt on the verge of death after beatings with a black electrical cable about two inches thick. They mostly aimed for my palms but sometimes missed and hit my wrists. Other times, I was left alone in a special "waiting room" within earshot of others' screams. At the end of the day, they would tell me that tomorrow would be worse. In those 10 1/2 months I lost about 40 pounds. I never saw, but only heard, the agony of my fellow prisoners.

I am sympathetic to the fact that we will sometimes make mistakes and arrest the wrong people. I am not sympathetic to the fact that we refuse to back up serious accusations with evidence. And I'm decidedly not sympathetic to the fact that we ship people off to brutal dictatorships to be tortured.

The war on terror does not require us to behave like animals. After all, if we descend to their level, what's the point of the fight? The government owes both Arar and Canada an explanation for what happened here.

John writes about Mandy Moore's cover cd.

This will wreck my street credibility, but I have to say that the more I listen to Mandy Moore's Coverage, the more I like it. It's an album of covers, which is generally never a good thing for your pop star types -- they're usually lazy contractual obligation-fillers that make you aware how disposable pop stars actually are -- but in this case I think this is arguably the most ambitious album made by someone in this current generation of squealy pop divettes. Faint praise? Perhaps. But regardless, it's good.

A lot of this estimation comes from the fact that the songs Moore covers are actually songs worth covering, that have not been already covered to death, including XTC's "Senses Working Overtime," the Waterboys' "Whole of the Moon" and Joan Armatrading's "Drop the Pilot." The idea that Moore (or her producer, whoever) might actually try to slip in tunes created somewhat close to the time Moore was actually born is, for this sort of album, a stunning development. It's also heartening that these songs are passed on. It would be nice if your average 14-year-old girl listened to XTC or the Waterboys on her own, but she doesn't, and it's a bit much to expect her to. This is the next best thing.

I think Mandy Moore is fairly amazing. I've been watching "How To Deal" like a madman since yesterday.

Kevin Werbach is one of the many who is amazed at the most recent move by the RIAA.

Fox News: "Bradley A. Buckles, who served ATF for 30 years and was named director in 1999, will come head of the Anti-Piracy Unit of the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group announced Tuesday. [...]"

ATF is the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The symbolism here is just surreal. Listening to music you didn't pay for is apparently in the same category as shooting someone, using an addictive drug, or drunk driving. Come on. The latter three result in hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths each year.

Atrios comments on Christopher Hitchens and other Right-Wingers who are opposed to past American foreign policy.

But, of course, if I had written (and I wouldn't) something like "I am only slightly embarrassed to tell you that this was a feeling of exhilaration. Here we are then, I was thinking that finally an event had happened which cause America to rethink its foreign policy and fight on the side of good," I would have been condemned as an evil American-hating Lefty. But, of course, what I just wrote in quotes (mostly stolen from Hitchens) isn't saying something which is a sort of Lefty parody of what Hitchens said, it essentially is exactly what Hitchens is saying. I didn't specify which of our foreign policies was at fault, nor why, nor what it would mean to fight on the side of good. What our imagined American-hating Lefty and Hitchens are both saying is, "good, now we can get down to business and do what I think we should have been doing." The confirms their world-view (right or wrong), and all is well. For some reason, saying "Our foreign policy has been wrong and has led to this horrible event!" is okay as long as it's followed by "We must start kicking the shit out of more people!" but isn't if it's followed by "We should stop kicking the shit out of so many people!" Aside from the merits of either statement, both are blaming America's foreign policy for what happened. Why does Hitchens hate America?

Amy Skurt gave me some advice last night about Krystal. She's a nice girl.

Henry Farrell writes about Brian Leiter's defense of Noam Chomsky.

As I read Leiter, he's claiming that politics and foreign relations are trivia - they present no serious problems for someone like Chomsky, who has a really first rate intellect. Nor even for someone with a decent undergraduate education in a serious subject; Leiter has already informed us that "a BA in philosophy apparently puts you well ahead of a PhD in political science."

Leiter isn't noted for his belief in civil discourse, and I've no desire to start a flame-war. Nor do I want to tip-toe delicately around the fact that he's talking complete smack. In his posts, Leiter gives us the (perhaps inadvertent) impression that there's no problem in politics so vexing that a crack squad of linguists and philosophers couldn't sort it out. Even if this isn't what he's trying to say, his claim that politics presents only modest intellectual demands is stuff and nonsense. Politics is complicated and messy; there aren't any easy answers, and as a consequence it is an intellectually demanding subject matter. Perhaps too demanding; I'm the first to admit that scholars of politics haven't provided good answers to most of the important questions. But I'm profoundly unconvinced that philosophers of Leiter's particular bent are likely to do any better. Or linguists for that matter; Chomsky's unwillingness to grapple with the complexities of politics is perhaps the reason why he's a first rate linguistic theorist, a second rate polemicist, and a fifth rate political scientist. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and on the evidence to date, there ain't much eating there.

Chris Bertram questions the ethics of paying more attention to your own children when you are watching other's children.

I confess that I never thought of anything beyond which kid would fit best and separating the ones most likely to fight if seated adjacently to one another myself. [The discussion was based on where to seat kids in a car.] But Cohen's reasoning here is entirely wrongheaded. Sure, there are times when it is right to put your own children first (such as reading bedtime stories), but when you are in loco parentis for other people's the duty is, if anything, when it comes to avoiding real harms, to take special care of theirs. And beyond that, duties of justice quite generally don't permit us to favour those close to us over strangers (there isn't a stronger duty to repay a debt to a close relation than to a distant one or to an non-relative).

Jane writes about game censorship and the power of truth in video games.

I think it's pretty clear that there is a massive, and willful, misunderstanding here. The game does not urge players of the game to kill Haitians. It's improbable that the game developers have a grudge against ethnic minorities in the United States. What's happening here is that game is engaging in very dark satire of American racism and race politics. Imagine a character in a movie saying this line - it's entirely dependent on context whether or not you believe the director or writer of the film actually agrees with such a statement. More often, they use the medium to point out how fucked up the world really is, that there can be characters in it who act and believe in this way.

The thing is, the Haitian community in the United States is discriminated against, sometimes violently, as are so many ethnic minorities. I would argue that the game exposes this blatantly, and that's what's scary to people. In post-Affirmative Action America, we don't like to have our deep-seated racial tensions thrown in our faces like that. We'd rather have a game - which after all is only entertainment, it's not supposed to make you uncomfortable or, god forbid, make you think - that presents that world as a less violent, less racist place than it really is.

Christopher Lydon writes about the success of the Internet with regards to the Dean campaign.

It would be nice if the New York Times would say it--at least say it now. Are they trying to stretch out a story that has suddenly died in Dean's premature victory? Or are they unable to face that fact that the old trials, the old media inquiries and Establishment hurdles, have all been swept aside. It's a new day, and we are not going back to the pre-Internet rules. The larger divide of understanding is wider than ever, it seems to me. That is, Matt Stoller's understanding of "space" as the issue in 2004--the freedom to create identity and make connections in the world--is closer than ever to the real point. All the other framings of the Dean challenge seem to me wrong-headed. He's not McGovern. He's not Goldwater. He's not in any fundamental way the candidate of anger. He is a very capable creature of the vastness of Internet imagination. He snapped his fingers and found that he owned the Democratic nomination. So what do we and the Internet have to do to win the presidency?

Moxie has an alternative opinion of Gore's endorsement.

Mom:
Did you hear what that creep Al Gore did?

Moxie:
You betcha

Mom:
Lieberman really handled it well, he's too classy to be associated with Gore.

Moxie:
I'm not sure why Gore did that but having an endorsement from the loser of the last Presidential election isn't exactly like getting a gold star

Mom:
That's all they've got

Tony Pierce doesn't like the bias of Drudge.

heres the problem with drudge. he's not interested in news unless it will be beneficial to his political point of veiw, his boss's political point of view, his sexual preferences, and his views on race.

people, smart people, go to his web site to find out news. even journalists go to his site to try to find out the latest breaking news. but all he presents are items that agree with his agenda.

Tony Pierce captures the horror that his staff of monkeys felt because of Average Joe.

ast night two men remained: the final average joe, and the last handsome dude.

the monkeys complained that it was obvious that the former cheerleader was going to pick the average joe, especially once it became known to her that he was a self made millionaire and was loved by all his friends and family and coworkers.

they screeched that like duh she was gonna pick the funny, sincere, normal one instead of the prettyboy who lived at home who became her bitch immediately while they ate their jerk chicken next to the sea.

[...]

then when we least expected it she picked the pretty boy and youve never seen such pissed off primates.

Tony Pierce is on a super roll recently. He writes about "fucking kwanzaa."

one thing black people can do well is praise jesus. we do it better than anyone in the world. the music we make when we do it might be the most magical of all music, the preachers we have might be the best there ever were, and the clothes we wear to church are the sharpest.

then on the flip side we have our brothers and sisters who are muslim, and watch them pray. they win at praying. they win at pilgrimiging. they win at letting their spirituality become a solid and regular part of their lives.

with those two options, theres no need for any damn kwanza. some watered down bullshit made up strip mall phony holiday so you can wear a koofi? fuck that shit. we need to focus up on the biggest birthday of the year. we dont need no stinkin kwanza getting in the way.

Welcome, Mr. Thief.

Michael Feldman announces his endorsement of Howard Dean.

After prolonged consideration, and barring the appearance of a modern day Cincinnatus, the Dowbrigade has decided to endorse Howard Dean for President. Although we doubt he will ever return to private practice, at least the man knows what it's like to work for a living, having lived a rather full and regular life before becoming a politician. Most of the rest of this sorry lot appear to have decided to run for President in the 1st grade.

Of course, astute pundits and prognosticators should note that historically the endorsement of the Dowbrigade is the presidential kiss of death. Quite frankly, we haven't backed a winner since Jimmy Carter, and we all know how THAT turned out. In the past three elections we have backed Dr. John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party, an MIT physics professor who claims he can solve all of humanities problems if every person on the planet will kick in 10 cents and practice an hour of Transcendental Meditation every day.

Richard quotes Willian Tyndale:

Willian Tyndale, p. 174: "he that bindeth himself to the Pope and have lever have his life and soul rule by the Pope's will than by the will of God and by the Pope's word than by the word of God, is a fool. And he that had lever be bond than free is not wise. And he that will not abide in the freedom wherein Christ hath set us, is also mad. And he that maketh deadly sin where none is and seeketh causes of hatred between him and God is not in his right wits. Furthermore no man can bind himself further than he hath power over himself. He that is under the power of another man cannot bind himself without licence, as son, daughter, wife, servant and subject. Neither can thou give God that which is not in thy power. Chastity canst thou not give God further than God lendeth it thee: if thou cannot live chaste thou art bound to marry or to be damned. Last of all what purpose thou bindest thyself must bee seen. If thou do it to obtain thereby that which Christ hath purchased for thee freely, so are thou an infidel and hast no part with Christ and so forth."

The Origins of the Military Coup of 2012, by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.

Metafilter links to an article in Parameters from Charles J. Dunlap, Jr, The Origins of the Military Coup of 2012 from 1992.

(Note: When reading this it is strange to have to remember that when Charles refers to the 'Second Gulf War' he is talking about something he thought would not ever really happen.)

An introduction into the setting of the letter,

The letter that follows takes us on a darkly imagined excursion into the future. A military coup has taken place in the United States--the year is 2012--and General Thomas E. T. Brutus, Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces of the United States, now occupies the White House as permanent Military Plenipotentiary. His position has been ratified by a national referendum, though scattered disorders still prevail and arrests for acts of sedition are underway. A senior retired officer of the Unified Armed Forces, known here simply as Prisoner 222305759, is one of those arrested, having been convicted by court-martial for opposing the coup. Prior to his execution, he is able to smuggle out of prison a letter to an old War College classmate discussing the "Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." In it, he argues that the coup was the outgrowth of trends visible as far back as 1992. These trends were the massive diversion of military forces to civilian uses, the monolithic unification of the armed forces, and the insularity of the military community. His letter survives and is here presented verbatim.

The central problem that was seeded in 1992 for Prisoner 222305759 was the increasing domain of the military and the disillusionment of the American public with the effectiveness of the democratic process.

Americans became exasperated with democracy. We were disillusioned with the apparent inability of elected government to solve the nation's dilemmas. We were looking for someone or something that could produce workable answers. The one institution of government in which the people retained faith was the military. Buoyed by the military's obvious competence in the First Gulf War, the public increasingly turned to it for solutions to the country's problems. Americans called for an acceleration of trends begun in the 1980s: tasking the military with a variety of new, nontraditional missions, and vastly escalating its commitment to formerly ancillary duties.

The most important defense against a coup d'etat is a populace that supports the current government, sadly that trust of the government continued to erode in the years after 1992.

For over two centuries that vigilance was rewarded, and most Americans came to consider the very notion of a military coup preposterous. Historian Andrew Janos captured the conventional view of the latter half of the 20th century in this clipping I saved:

A coup d'etat in the United States would be too fantastic to contemplate, not only because few would actually entertain the idea, but also because the bulk of the people are strongly attached to the prevailing political system and would rise in defense of a political leader even though they might not like him. The environment most hospitable to coups d'etat is one in which political apathy prevails as the dominant style.[7]

However, when Janos wrote that back in 1964, 61.9 percent of the electorate voted. Since then voter participation has steadily declined. By 1988 only 50.1 percent of the eligible voters cast a ballot.[8] Simple extrapolation of those numbers to last spring's Referendum would have predicted almost exactly the turnout. It was precisely reversed from that of 1964: 61.9 percent of the electorate did not vote.

So, the military was tasked with more responsibilities and additional, non-traditional missions such as humanitarian aid and nation building.

The revised charter for the armed forces was not confined to domestic enterprises. Overseas humanitarian and nation-building assignments proliferated.[45] Though these projects have always been performed by the military on an ad hoc basis, in 1986 Congress formalized that process. It declared overseas humanitarian and civic assistance activities to be "valid military missions" and specifically authorized them by law.[46] Fueled by favorable press for operations in Iraq, Bangladesh, and the Philippines during the early 1990s, humanitarian missions were touted as the military's "model for the future."[47] That prediction came true. When several African governments collapsed under AIDS epidemics and famines around the turn of the century, US troops--first introduced to the continent in the 1990s--were called upon to restore basic services. They never left.[48] Now the US military constitutes the de facto government in many of those areas. Once again, the first whisperings of such duties could be heard in 1992.[49]

The problem was that the anti-democratic nature of the military was extended into an increasingly large number of sectors of American life and American presence world wide. This put more and more power into unelected hands.

Not only this but these things caused the military's role as being able and willing to wage wars when necessary to decrease and become less effective. (I think this section of the paper has less to do with the Coup, and more to do with the author's sense of what should be changed about the military. If the military lost all its firepower and training then it would not be as deadly or effective in a Coup. It would still be dangerous because of the authoritarian style of operation.)

Humanitarian missions likewise undermined the military's sense of itself. As one Navy officer gushed during the 1991 Bangladesh relief operation, "It's great to be here doing the opposite of a soldier."[89] While no true soldier relishes war, the fact remains that the essence of the military is warfighting and preparation for the same. What journalist Barton Gellman has said of the Army can be extrapolated to the military as a whole: it is an "organization whose fighting spirit depends . . . heavily on tradition."[90] If that tradition becomes imbued with a preference for "doing the opposite of a soldier," fighting spirit is bound to suffer. When we first heard editorial calls to "pacify the military" by involving it in civic projects,[91] we should have given them the forceful rebuke they deserved.

At the end are some interesting bullet points about what could have been changed in the military's operation to avoid the unfortunate Coup of 2012.

Demand that the armed forces focus exclusively on indisputably military duties. We must not diffuse our energies away from our fundamental responsibility for warfighting. To send ill-trained troops into combat makes us accomplices to murder.

Acknowledge that national security does have economic, social, educational, and environmental dimensions, but insist that this doesn't necessarily mean the problems in those areas are the responsibility of the military to correct. Stylishly designating efforts to solve national ills as "wars" doesn't convert them into something appropriate for the employment of military forces.

Readily cede budgetary resources to those agencies whose business it is to address the non-military issues the armed forces are presently asked to fix. We are not the DEA, EPA, Peace Corps, Department of Education, or Red Cross--nor should we be. It has never been easy to give up resources, but in the long term we--and the nation--will be better served by a smaller but appropriately focused military.

Divest the defense budget of perception-skewing expenses. Narcotics interdiction, environmental cleanup, humanitarian relief, and other costs tangential to actual combat capability should be assigned to the budgets of DEA, EPA, State, and so forth. As long as these expensive programs are hidden in the defense budget, the taxpayer understandably--but mistakenly--will continue to believe he's buying military readiness.

The final remarks about democracy are essential for every citizen to read:

Democracy is a fragile institution that must be continuously nurtured and scrupulously protected. I would also tell them that they must speak out when they see the institution threatened; indeed, it is their duty to do so.

A Theology of Robots, by Edmund Furse

Edmund Furse wrote a paper about "The Theology of Robots."

Furse, a devout Christian, believes that when intelligent robots (computers with strong AI) are created they will be capable of having religious lives and will be likely to want to take up Christianity.

He talks about arguments for and against the possibility of strong AI with occasional emphasis on the religious opposition:

The fifth argument against strong AI is that God created humans as intelligent persons,

and He made no other such beings. In this view, humans are unique among creation being made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore we will always be different to any artefacts made by us. There are a number of responses to this argument. First of all a distinction needs to be made between humans and persons. Humans are the species homo sapiens on the planet earth; we might also consider other species as humans, e.g. homo erectus. A person is an autonomous agent who is capable of intelligent communication, for example, a human, a Martian, an angel in heaven, and I would argue, an intelligent robot. A number of religious writers in science fiction, for example C.S. Lewis and James Bligh SJ, have suggested that there may be intelligent life forms on other planets - persons in my terminology - and further that these persons will have a religious dimension to their lives. Thus it can be argued that the gospel should be preached on Mars, and throughout the universe. Thus, by considering aliens we can escape the anthropocentric view of persons as only being homo sapiens. Just as when a child is brought up we want it to come to know God, the same argument applies to robots. Why should God not desire the salvation of robots?

He writes about why a robot may want to believe in God and how that would occur,

Clearly, a robot on reading the world's religious literature can come to believe that many humans believe in a divine being known as God. Humans believe that God is all knowing, that He created the universe, and that He loves humanity. Will the robot continue to sit on the agnostic fence talking about the God that people believe in, without attempting to communicate with God himself?

[...]

Let us assume that the robot does believe that God might exist. The next question is why should a robot WANT to believe in God? "See how they love one another" was how the early Christian community was seen by others. Perhaps if the robot had Christian friends, and he had personal experience of their life of love and care, he might want to have something of what they have. Certainly, if the robot had experienced his own failure in attempting to love others, then he might be more predisposed to want to experience this Christian life. But, of course, if all the robots' Christian friends were indistinguishable in their lives from non-Christians, this argument will not cut much ice.

And finally, Edmund wonders if when robots do many things that humans currently do this will create a struggle for employment and a confusion about the nature of meaning for many humans who currently think of their lives as revolving around their jobs.

Meaning and purpose then will have to come from elsewhere than from our employment.

[...]

But there are less ephemeral sources of meaning and purpose. First, and most obviously is prayer and adoration. If there is nothing for us to do, then we can always worship God. Indeed this is the picture we have of our future lives in heaven. But we might get bored with a 10 hour day of praising God. Second then, there would also be plenty of scope for personal development and education. Given a lifetime of 150 years according to the latest scientific research, this would give us plenty of time to visit all sorts of places, to study many cultures and subjects. Of course, this would mean real education, a love of learning for its own sake, rather than in order to achieve wealth or fame. Third, there would be plenty of scope to learn to be better at loving our neighbours, at caring for our families and friends. In a sense love does make the world go round, and it is no accident that stories of self sacrifice for others such as that of Schindler or Jesus himself move us greatly and form an important part of our culture. Jesus taught according to St.Paul that it is better to give than to receive, and loving other people can give a very deep meaning to one's life. And, of course, this would mean in this future society, loving both humans and robots.

My Life of Love: Should We Love Others?

(This is a part of my pondering about the nature of my love for Krystal.)

Should We Love Others?

At first glance it seems like this is a silly question. Who would doubt that "love is all you need"? Or that love is something great that every person needs. But I do feel that there is a debate of the merit of love. I feel that this debate is rooted in the idea of dependence as well as the perceived difference between Islamo-Judeo-Christian religions and Eastern religions based on Buddhism. (I am uneducated in other religions so excuse their exclusive. And I must disclaim that I don't suppose myself an expert on any other religion either.)

The premise of the dependence debate is this: If we say that a particular person is who makes us happy then we are saying that we are incapable of being happy on our own and that another person controls a part of our life. This is seen as vile because of the relinquishing of control and the lack of self-reliance. We'll see in a minute whether these ideas have any weight.

How I think the (perceived) difference between religions enters into this is as follows: Religions of the Book are founded on the idea of dependence on God as the Creator of the World, the arbiter of Justice, and the sole source of happiness and Truth. In Christianity particularly, this God is the embodiment of Love and is good to us because she loves us. We are to submit to God's Will. In the Buddhist tradition there is the idea of impermanence. Pain and suffering is caused by trying to control a world where change is intrinsic and fundamental. So by not being dependent on anything in the outside world (that is beyond your control) you can guarantee happiness for yourself through self-reliance.

I feel that the problem is that people on the side of those that oppose Love do not really understand what romantics like us mean by Love. Those we love do not 'create' our happiness, they enabled it. We do not give up control to those we love, we identify that they already have a piece of it. The other fallacies here are claiming that Buddhism proposes some idea that it does not and asserting that the myth of self-reliance is actually fact.

There seems to be the assumption that those of us in love are suggesting that our lovers are the source of our happiness, meaning that they create it. I think this is a poor model to use. Without Love we could not create our own happiness because happiness is defined as having love for something and having it love you in return. When you love something it does not decide what makes you happy and what does not, instead it enables you to have anything make you happy at all. Love is not coercion, it is the gift of the seed of happiness that you can use in anything. But like any seed, it needs nurturing and cannot be fruitfully be planted in things like hate and jealousy. In this regard, Love does not create happiness, it enables it.

Following from the aforementioned point, is that Love somehow constricts what we can feel and do. But because Love is an embrace and a gift of freedom and happiness this is nonsensical. Only Jealousy or Envy, perversions of Love, attempt to constrict what we do. There is not even reason to desire control because those who love each other need not worry about hurt because their love connects what benefits one with the other. If I love you, I don't want to do anything that would hurt so I have not lost any choice I would otherwise prefer. (This is not to suggest that you can't hurt someone you love, but you never choose to.) So, Love is not about giving someone else control, it is about identifying that you really want to honor your love by not hurting them.

To deal with a misinterpretation of Buddhism's notion of attachment, I paraphrase Robert Allen in Zen Reflections: Buddhists do not strive to be detached from the world, but instead non-attached to idols and objects. This is the difference between suggesting that you should drift through not caring about anyone and going through life accepting the fragility of it and seeing everyone as special and important. (p. 35) I feel that this is sufficient to say that Buddhism does not discourage Love, it only discourages the perversion of Love that is idolatry of another person. But I also feel that this shows that Buddhism encourages Love: You should accept the world as it is and that means that when you love someone and find that your happiness is aligned with theirs you should embrace it as much as your soul requires of you. (But just because Buddhism seems to recommend something doesn't make it right. I'm simply saying that if you find that to be an important source of wisdom then it does not oppose belief in Love.)

Together, these things lead us to the crux of the opposition to Love: self-reliance. Self-Reliance is that idea the the ability to live freely, Liberty, is not enough, you must always been completely free from outside intervention and particularly not dependent on others. As we have seen, Love is not dependence on another for happiness - it is a way to turn anything and everything into happiness, rather than having each thing prove itself. Love is not giving up control of yourself to another - it is caring about another like you care about yourself and having a desire for your actions and decisions to be mutually beneficial. These things mean that Love is not in opposition to self-reliance. Love is the realization that you are not a single self, but a part of a slightly large self. Our actions and emotions are tied together by choice as a result of the intermingling of our souls. We do not want to do things to hurt one another and this includes constriction of Liberty.

Love is the way that we are part of something greater while continuing to be ourselves. Love is having your actions benefit your piece of the entire world, not just your body. It is the way the way that we can be forgiving and accommodating. It is the way we appreciation the beauty of our life and the incredible gift we have been granting upon our birth. There is not question whether we Should want Love - We do and that is what drives us to live.

My Life of Love: Introduction

Have I ever mentioned how amazing Krystal is? For as long as it takes I will try to describe in words the infinitude of why this is so but I can assure you that this is an impossible task and any attempt will be completely pale in comparison to experiencing the real thing.

I am incredibly intimidated by a survey of past attempts at this sort of effort. Dante had to frame his description of how wonderful Beatrice was to him as a soul's struggle through Hell, repenting through Purgatory, and finally exploring Heaven. And I try to do it through in a series of Internet posts? Very unlikely it will be any semblance of accuracy but it will be one of the first steps in my life's quest: Describing how I feel about the person I care most about.

Topics

Should We Love Others?

How I Learned To Stop Being Afraid Of Love

How Do You Identify And Practice Love?

How Do You Find Love?

Will I Ever Love Again?

Coercion Versus Choice

Processing Processing, from Paul Ford

Sarque links to Paul Ford, who writes a late-night essay about Domain-Specific Languages, Web Publishing, and better understanding a medium.

An interesting definition of domain specific languages...

There is a great deal to learn from such a language; it represents a very focused attempt to identify a creative grammar that is constrained by three things: (1) the computer's power to effectively manipulate only certain kinds of data; (2) the language-developers' biases and understanding of their chosen discipline, and (3) the willingness of regular programmers to work within the limits of (1) and (2). What I'm suggesting is not that everyone learn these languages, but that if, like me, you were interested in understanding what computers can do with media, and the cultural factors that go into building tools that create media on computers, these languages are fascinating objects to study.

The goal is to create something that can be easily used initially but is a part of a greater system that gives you access to it's features when you need them.

Paul wonders why there is not a good domain language and system for coherently creating web sites like there are for books (TeX), sound (CSound), and images (Processing).

I think part of the problem is that the Web folks are still riding high on the new economy hubris, believing that they have some special genius, some deep wisdom that transcends every thought process that came before, that they are the fulfillment of the Macluhanist prophecy. Except there are an awful lot of amazingly smart people who never gave a fuck about Cascading Style Sheets, working for non-profits, selling things, building things. And many of them, unlike many of us, still have jobs doing what they love. You have to wonder how great the Web really is, if so many of its staunchest advocates can't make a living working to improve it. I think it's time to step back and say, "is all this really worth all the fuss?" Ofcourse you can guess my answer,[3] but I think it's still an important question to ask.

Technologists, it seems, are high on themselves and in doing something that is complicated. Dave Winer will sometimes refer to this as when technologists tell users that they "needn't worry their little head."

While I agree with this, I don't think it completely captures the situation. There are many attempts at creating a consistent environment that is easy to understand and work with - but no one agrees on either: the right way to do it, or what to do. So we're at an early time where we are experimenting on new types of media, and it's understandable that there will be some lemons, but in general we're going in the right direction.

On key symptom of what Paul Ford sees as the web community's fundamental flaw is a peculiar form of "Not-Invented-Here Syndrome" (Pro NIH and Con NIH.) Where the technologists don't want to continue any of the work that has been done in typography over time. Paul Ford gives a few examples...

Why is emph better than i? When I'm publishing content from 1901 and it's in italics, it's in italics, not emphasized. Typography has a semantics that is subtle, changing, and deeply informed by history. The current state of web ignores this more or less completely, and repeatedly seeks to encode typographic standards and ideas into tree-based data structures, like in a <q> (quote) tag.

A possible defensive here is that web media is fundamentally different from traditional media and by using the ideas of typography in any systematic or formal manner will inhibit the experimentation that is possible. If a framework is adopted rather than evolved we may "lock" ourselves out of particular ideas.

Part of what Paul Ford sees as the future of web publishing is having many ways of viewing the same information.

The one thing that might be fun for others is that I'm going to distribute the entire site (edging on 1,000,000 words before long) in a straight RDF format, with an attached fact base of quotes, events, and suchlike culled from the content. This way, if anyone wants to browse Ftrain (or an Ftrain-like site) in some other format, they can simply write the best interface for themselves.

If View A is best for users of type X then they should not be forced to use View B. By making our information more available it can be used in new innovative ways we have not thought of. This is an "anti-monopoly of data" movement. This is an idea that was discussed at last night's meeting and Michael Feldman feels is particular important for the new Channel Z system to support.

In the closing, Paul Ford identifies that this is a very young form of media and we're still experimenting. This is essential to believe. No one of us has the answer or will have the answer but by experimenting and trying our own things the cream will rise.

That is what is most painful about a new medium, is how much the work is about the medium itself. Weblogs are a pure example: there is a significant percentage of weblogging that is about weblogging, as people figure out what to do with the new forms, much as when people, faced with a microphone, will say "I am talking into the microphone, hello, on the microphone, me, hey, microphone. Microphone. Hey. Me. I'm here. Talking. Hi there, on the microphone. That's me, talking. Please check out my blog." As any toddler's parents will tell you, narcissistic self-consciousness is a part of early growth, and it will take years before we get it out of our collective systems, but eventually people will realize the value of saying something besides saying "I am saying something," and we can go from there. The medium may be the message, but themessage is also the message.

Decide What To Do

Peter Merholz writes about political machines and the rising Greens of America.

Among the most interesting election processes I've ever witnessed is currently taking place across the bay in San Francisco. Gavin Newsom and Matt Gonzalez are vying for the mayoralty in a hotly contested run-off.

[...]

It's important to understand that the latest polls, for what they're worth, show the run-off to be a dead heat. This surprises locals, as Gavin had a resounding lead in the initial election (41% to Gonzalez' 20%). Gonzalez has been able to gain support from people who originally voted for others.

Perhaps the crux of the matter is political party affiliation. Gavin Newsom is the Democratic Party Candidate. Matt Gonzalez, represents the only other viable party in San Francisco-- the Green Party. (Political Fun Fact: currently president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Gonzalez might currently be the highest ranking Green in the U.S. Another Political Fun Fact: In the 2002 Gubernatorial Election, the Green candidate, Peter Camejo, outpolled the Republican candidate in San Francisco.)

wKen writes about giving his daughter freedom.

I just don't see her feeling the same way about this tattoo when she is 40 as she does now at 19. I also can't help but imagine how big that pony will become if she is pregnant someday (hopefully a long time from now). Maybe I'll be proved wrong. Anyway, it's her body and her decision. I love her the same, regardless of whether we agree on everything. She'll always be daddy's little girl.

Noeleen Heyzer writes about the new Constitution of Afghanistan with regardst o Women's Rights.

The international community must rally behind the women seeking to enshrine their rights in the country's constitution. When every member of the Supreme Court, under the new constitution, must take an oath "to support judicial justice and righteousness in accord with the provisions of the sacred religion of Islam," there must be clear language securing women's equality as a requisite counterbalance against extreme interpretation of Islamic law.

The new constitution should state clearly that women have full and equal rights with men before the law.

She also makes this very interesting comment:

Two years ago, when Afghanistan was liberated from Taliban rule, the world realized that global security is inextricably linked to the protection and rights of women in society, and there was an international commitment to supporting Afghan women on the path to securing these rights. Today, we have a narrow window in which to make good on this commitment. The international community must direct its efforts to ensure that the constitution reflects the needs of the women we promised to help.

Wrong! Global Security in inextricable linked to the protection and rights of PEOPLE in society. Not just women, not just Afghan women, not just white people, but people. Everywhere and of any race, nationality, ethnicity, opinion, persuasion, or age.

Will R. comments on Jay Rosen on White House Journalism.

This is just another example of how mainstream journalists are failing us in their willingness to compromise the intergrity required of the profession. As long as we report on all that is staged, might not just about everything be staged? I wonder what my journalists would say...

Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber writes about the German Internet Cannibalism Trial.

Nasty stuff, but philosophically untroubling for those of us who are sufficiently paternalistic to think the law ought to place limits on what adults may consent to have done to them. Our libertarian friends , on the other hand, may find it more difficult to come up with principled objections.

Interesting comments about whether all contracts should be enforced by law and how to prove that someone REALLY agreed to be killed by another person.

One particularly interesting comment from "Tom T":

U.S. law generally permits a person to consent to be battered (else tattoo parlors and professional hockey would not exist), but does not permit a person to consent to be killed (which is why Kevorkian is in jail).

Historically, I believe there was a notion at least in English law that, on some fundamental level, a person's life belonged to the community. Hence, the land and property of a man who committed suicide were forfeited to the Crown rather than passing to his heirs. Nowadays, I imagine that laws forbidding consent to one's own murder would be justified on the sort of utilitarian, proof-related grounds that Keith cites. Rea is probably also correct that the law might infer a lack of capacity. Failed suicides often get committed to psych hospitals, after all; the desire for death is clearly perceived in some circumstances as evidence of mental instability. A desire to have a member amputated is a semi-officially recognized fetish (apotemnophila), and I imagine that it could be found to amount to mental illness in some circumstances as well.

Jonathan Ichikawa writes up some very funny Logic jokes.

MP: Descartes is sitting at a bar, and the bartender asks him if he'll have another drink. "Yes, I think I will," says Descartes. Suddenly, he continues to exist.

MT: Descartes is sitting at a bar, and the bartender asks him if he'll have another drink. Descartes suddenly disappears. "Well, I guess I'll take that as an 'I think not'," says the bartender.

AC: Descartes is sitting at a bar, and the bartender asks him if he'll have another drink. Descartes both says "yes" and does not say "yes". Suddenly, everything happens.

Jane poses the best question ever about the 2nd Century Roman d20.

The catalog entry notes: "Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used. "

Well, I think *we* all know what game it was used for! But my question is, before the fantasy Middle Ages, in what setting did the Romans play D&D? Ancient Egypt? Biblical times? Babylonian?

Clive Thompson at Collision Detection writes about this as well.

This is the weirdest thing I've seen all week. Over at Christie's, there's a 20-sided die for sale -- that dates back to the 2nd century A.D. (It's pictured above.) These days, of course, the 20-side die is best known as a central element in any game of Dungeons and Dragons; it's the original generator of randomness in geek culture. But what in hell were the Romans doing with these things?

In Clive's comments, Robin writes:

I am totally grooving on the idea of a bunch of dorky Romans playing a game of Advanced Greeks & Gods, Second Edition...

But it makes me wonder: What (& when) was the world's first RPG? I'm thinking of a concrete game, with rules and an unpredictable outcome, not just an group story.

Bowler at Game+Girl=Advance, writes about the Death of a Hobby and knowing "too much."

I'm afraid that I've killed my only remaining hobby.

This happened to me years ago when I started working in traditional TV and film animation (paper, pencil, Saturday morning, etc.). I stopped drawing in my spare time (which was the love of my life) because I was doing over 80 drawings a day sometimes, and I no longer cared to draw after that kind of workload, especially if I wasn't getting paid to do it.

Now I work in videogames. I've been making them for a living for three years now. I know the ins and outs of a game engine, at least as far as gameplay is concerned. When I play other people's games, I start only seeing the flaws in the system: animations that could have looked better, interpolation systems that are too linear, poorly weighted models and ineffective approaches to game balancing. Clumsy non-intuitive interfaces. Tired level design. Pointless hoop-jumping game mechanics. I hate this attitude. I want to go back to the blissful ignorance of sitting down and enjoying the gaming experience. This is like seeing the most mind-blowing magic trick ever, and then having someone explain the trick after you've demanded to know how it's done. It's a very deflating experience.

Cory Doctorow links to Mack White's comic about "The CIA Assassination of John Lennon."

Jason Kottke on "The Simple Life."

Did anyone else watch The Simple Life? I just got done with it, and it wasn't half bad. There's debate about how real it actually is (did Paris really not know what Wal-Mart was or was she just kidding around?), but I don't think that actually matters too much. Either way Paris and Nicole will do whatever they want, setting up a "conflict" between the girls and the family: those who can and will do anything without fear of consequences vs. people who can't because of the consequences. Class clash, culture clash.

dowingba in a comment:

My bet is that she was told to pretend she didn't know what Wal Mart is because the whole point of the show is for rich people to look like idiots so poor people can laugh at them.

The Black Saint discusses this as well:

The most repugnant moment was when Hilton and Richie went grocery shopping -- presumably for the first time in their benighted lives. They were given $50 but the bill came to a little more than $65. Richie asks, "Can we just have it?"

Well, no Nicole, because in tough economic times -- well, even during good ones, actually -- groceries stores don't give away food to customers. Chances are that the people in line behind them probably couldn't afford everything they needed, either (emphasis on "need" not "want") -- and not just groceries. They probably have trouble making rent and providing health insurance for their kids. Apparently, Hilton and Richie have slept through the past three years.

Andrew Grumet on the Dean campaign and wasting spending donated money on television ads.

On the walk over, I listened to parts one and two of Christopher Lydon's interview of Joe Trippi. As I listened something occurred to me about the significance of money in the Dean campaign. While the campaign is proud of its ability to match big donor funding with lots of little contributions, many in the weblog community are critical of the need for big money at all. The Internet is cheaper than television and in many ways better than television. Why raise lots of money on the Internet, only to spend it on TV advertising? But there's another angle to consider: the donor's. Contributions provide a way of keeping score that's hard to fake. Rapid feedback on each contribution, that enables the little guys to see themselves matching big donor contributions, is empowering. That empowerment is an important part of the story, regardless of what the money is spent on. Personally, I'd prefer more wallet-friendly forms of empowerment, or at least to see the money spent on something other than TV advertising. Say, our national debt.

Richard links to an interesting blog post about spanking and BDSM.

Need not say, "I am a submissive woman." But instead merely say, "I am a woman."

Then there are the views hammered into women by the feminazis, (who take the wholly amazing standpoint of saying a woman can be anything she wants to be [which is true], but only as long she wishes to be what we dictate she should want to be), that submission is inherently bad. That reliance upon a male is irrevocably weak. (Never minding the fact that a male in a wholly intimate union with a woman is just as reliant upon her, albeit in a different manner, as different as masculine and feminine.) Such a view inspired by both a fear of masculinity, and the natural bond femininity creates as it merges with it, along with the dogmatic psychosis of lesbianism, has permeated society, albeit in a less shrill, strident form.

And yet a woman who is truly dominated, truly owned by a man, is not weak. Indeed she knows her greatest strength. Loved and supported, cherished. She is in a position to realise all her dreams. To be all that she can be. Wholly secure in her femininity, in her self worth. For that is what nurturing masculine dominance desires above all else.

Oh man...

No one owns your life but you. No one has higher claim to your life than yourself.

Warren Ellis links The New Scientist on Mini-Blackholes.

Are mini black holes raining down through the Earth's atmosphere? It is possible, says a team of physicists. They think this could explain mysterious observations from mountain-top experiments over the past 30 years.

Ordinary black holes form when stars explode at the end of their lives. The heavy stellar core can collapse into a superdense "singularity" whose gravity is so strong that nothing - not even light - can escape.

If some of physicists' favourite theories about extra dimensions are correct, it would also be possible for high-energy cosmic-ray particles from space to create black holes when they collide with molecules in the Earth's atmosphere. These black holes would be invisibly small, with a mass of only 10 micrograms or so. And they would be so unstable that they would explode in a burst of particles within around a billion-billion-billionth of a second...

Michael at 2Blowhards, writes about The Economist and how awful the rest of the world can be.

But one of the main reasons I continue to enjoy the magazine is that it's far more honest than most American publications are about how awful life in some parts of the globe can be. A few examples from recent issues:

[...]

* Kenya's legal system has long been a joke, even to Kenyans. In the late 1980s, a chief justice "took his trousers off, balanced a shoe on his head and goose-stepped around the high-court car park chanting pro-government slogans." Justice comes at a literal price: "$250 to escape a rape charge, and $500 for murder." One investigation concluded that "only three of the country's 310 judges were neither corrupt nor incompetent."

Reading passages like these, horrifying though they are, never fails to brighten my day. Reminds me to be grateful for whatever peace, calm, tranquillity, fairness and health we enjoy, of course. But perhaps the real reason I'm fond of reading about this kind of thing is because it makes life in NYC seem more rational and humane than it often does. The cable guy who showed up hours late? Annoying, yes. But by comparison to Canaan Banana, let alone mice-in-the-vagina? For a moment at least, I've got things in perspective.

Chris Winters on why "The Right Tool for the Job" is stupid.

It's total crap, normally said by people arguing the benefits of one framework over another (or all others) in such an abstract terms as to be meaningless. And it's meaningless in two enormous ways.

First, take the "right tool" part of the phrase. This sets up a false comparison between 'right' and 'wrong' off the bat. Have you ever seen a nontrivial application where only one solution was right? Of course not. Everything has trade-offs, some of which are more painful than others. [...]

Second, "for the job." Like a pattern, a solution for a job (which itself is a slippery term) must be evaluated in a context, something rarely done when this phrase is brought up. [...]

Leslie thinks about relationships - how they form and how they die.

There is a part of me that says relationships can't be analyzed, and trying to do so would go against Waffle House philosophy: "You don't order grits. Grits just come." It's true. You don't really have control over who comes into your life and who doesn't. They just show up. But there has to be a happy medium between just letting good things happen and preventing miscommunication. I'm sure if I think about it long enough, the answers will come... but tonight I will just spend time meditating about the questions, and the questions that result from asking them.

Atrios warns that you should consider people's politics on a whole, rather than picking and choosing what general statements you want to support.

I know being a fan of somebody who, well, thinks you're evil is nothing new to you, but before lovingly quoting Orson Scott Card, you should really look into his views on homosexuality...

Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.

Nova Spivack links to The Guardian reporting on new animal research. (Note: They mean animals other than humans.)

Monkeys can manage mathematics. Dolphins can be decisive. But US psychologists have broken new ground in the animal intelligence challenge. They have proved that animals are also smart enough to join the "don't-knows".

It means that animals, like humans, may be capable not just of thinking, but of thinking about thinking, of knowing that they don't know. Psychologists call this "metacognition", evidence of sophisticated cognitive self-awareness. Ordinary mortals know it as "dithering".

Nova Spivack writes about what he wants from a leader.

As far as I'm concerned all politicians are incompetent until proven competent. I believe that people should only be allowed to govern if they are (a) highly educated, (b) have a lot of life experience, (c) have traveled and lived around the world extensively on a low budget, (d) have personally witnessed the horrors of war, (e) have no commercial conflicts of interest, (f) are not partial to any particular religious or ethnic group, (g) have extensive training in leadership and government as well as economics and political science, (h) have a proven track record of building collaboration and solving international problems peacefully, (i) are genuinely good-hearted people who are truly trying to make the world better for all people, (j) are willing to fight to protect the downtrodden and to protect the principles that our Nation stands for, (k) have the guts to do what's right rather than just what's most popular or least controversial, (l) are not motivated by ego, (m) want to sacrifice their own benefit for the greater good.

So who is like that? Nobody that I know! Basically, my standards are so high that there are few if any people alive who I would judge as "fit to govern."

Politics has always been tainted -- that's the nature of the game; it's ultimately about power and money. So many people go into politics with high ideals and come out with bad karma. It's sad. I think America needs great visionary leaders -- actually the whole world does -- leaders who really want to improve the world for everyone (not just for their administrations, their citizens, their cronies, their supporters, their species, etc.). There are just so few leaders who are really like that. Maybe they just have to sell out so many times to get high up in the hierarchy that by the time they become actual "leaders" they are no longer good people.

Michael Feldman said something similar in early November.

The problem with the American political system has become the essential nature of those it calls to service. Fundamentally, they are individuals drawn to the acquisition and exercise of power. They are super-straight, type A alpha males, and in my opinion this is not the kind of person I want making decisions for me. Compounding this perverted prerequisite is the political process itself, which guarantees that even should some truly righteous person feel the call to public service, by the time they reach the top their souls are so deeply mortgaged that they have lost their moral compasses.

The 13th Guy Illusion.

Jon Buscall writes about comment systems and inventing your own blog type.

I started blogging as an extension of my regular notebooks. It's more of an ongoing collection of notes that relate to my life, my writing and the subjects I engage with on a daily basis. In a way, I like the eclectic approach. Niche blogs have their place, but The Grey Notebook goes where I want it to go. I am not aiming to create a "specific community discussion"

The Black Saint writes about about the sign language "speaking" gorilla, Koko.

Remember Koko? You konw, Koko, the lowland gorilla who was raised in captivity by a blonde lady named Penny. This very same woman taught Koko how to use sign language for communication. How can you not love a gorilla who can talk, albeit, somewhat incoherently. Her other claim to fame, of course, is her love of kittens.

Well, as it turns out, Koko is still alive and well. As is Penny.

Si writes about Hitler and the nature of Judgement.

It got me thinking: it's generally accepted that Hitler went to hell. Especially in entertainment media, Hitler is a fixture in hell. In Little Nicky, Hitler is portrayed as the Devil's favorite sadistic plaything. And it probably gives a sense of security, that the Bad Guys go to hell and the Good Guys go to heaven. But it's just not that simple. Didn't Jesus take on the sins of humanity so that we wouldn't HAVE to endure hell? [...]

Eternal torment for one fairly directly responsible for several million people's deaths and torture. Sounds like a fair deal, right? Well, maybe, apart from two key points: one, we are not the ones to make that decision, and two, God's forgiveness is available to ALL who seek it, including those with bad P.R. Just as we can be forgiven for our own (somewhat smaller-scale, I hope) sins and offenses, so can Hitler and others who have committed various atrocities, if they and we simply ask.

I'm a believer in the idea that God does not "judge" us and then put us in Heaven (by way of Purgatory) or Hell. Instead, as we enter the after life (something that we are doing our whole mortal life) we make a decision about where we want to be. If we chose to embrace accept God and His Way than our after life is pleasant because we with Him. If we chose to not honor God and embrace His Way than His Love becomes torment for us. (And we cleanse our Sins in Purgatory to feel good enough to honor Him.)

The essential gift that God gave to Man was Freedom. With that Freedom comes Responsibility and that extends into the after life as well as this life.

(Disclaimer: I'm not sure I actually believe in God, but if I did this is how I would believe in God.)

Sofia writes about wanting what you have, rather than getting what you want.

I figured it was about time this whole cliche of glamour and wealth and fame should be squashed! Don't get me wrong I would love to be rich and famous, but let's get real here people 99.99999% of us never will be rich or famous, or live in some fancy city apartment and drink expensive champange with lunch. Television is constantly flashing images of things like that. It is about time for those who are(believe it or not) happy living in a small town and happy and proud to be a hard worker and take pride in their life! I live in a small town and I love the fact that I can't here the highway at all times, I can drink water from a random stream and bend over and pick blueberries in the summer and stuff myself full of the yummy little things!

Steven Johnson writes about ridiculous "safety" warnings on planes.

On today's flight, for some reason, I started thinking about what would happen if you had safety advisories more in synch with the real odds of something going wrong on the flight. Terrorism aside, you're much more likely to have some nut flip out or drink himself to into an insane fury, which means they'd be better off teaching us how to administer a sedative than use our seat cushion as a flotation device. ("In the event that an intoxicated bond trader climbs on the drinks cart and starts defecating on it, please remain seated while the flight attendants locate the stun gun.")

What if other modes of transportation delivered similar safety speeches about equally improbable events? Your average commuter train is much more likely to derail than a plane to land on water, and yet they don't even give you seat belts on trains, much less teach you how to fasten them. Maybe every time you get on a bus, they should advise you what to do if someone plants a bomb onboard that will go off if the bus goes below 50 MPH. (I know, I know -- that was just a movie. But still.) I don't think it's preposterous to suggest that they'd actually save more lives over a ten year period if every flight used the flotation device instruction time to teach a crash course in CPR or the Heimlich maneuver instead. I'm sure you're much more likely to be sitting next to a guy who has a heart attack then you are to be crash landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Drug War Rant:

In Kansas, Stephen Fletcher tried to grow some psychedelic mushrooms in his apartment. Also in Kansas, Tremain V. Scott shot a man 18 times at close range, killing him. Both men are in their 20's with little or no criminal conviction record.

Scott is facing 4-6 years. Fletcher is facing at least 11 1/2 years.

Yep, that's the criminal justice system.

Alex Halavais on the Abercrombie Catalog.

I would love to teach a class on the social impacts of advertising, but given that this is such a dreamy job track for many in the department, I know that the students would hate anything that was remotely critical of the role of advertising.

On the other hand, how can anyone who has ever seen an advertisement think that it is really about the product. If they were to say "We sell cheaply made preppy standards" they would go out of business. The supreme irony is that A&F used to sell high quality, well-designed basics at a reasonable price. It was only by tarting up their image, and pulling down (the quality of) their pants, that they can now be a profit center. Harrrumf, I say.

Steve Koppelman on technology "improvements" with phones.

Is direct-dialing an improvement on the way phones used to work? Sure, now we can call most countries in the world with no human intervention, but what about the user interface? Which is easier: looking up and dialing 11 digits yourself, or picking up a receiver and saying "connect me with Mel's Diner, please". Aren't cellphone companies charging millions of eager customers $5 a month for much more rudimentary voice dialing that people have to train themselves?

The old system required no training. It didn't misinterpret requests. It understood any name you gave it, and would even search for the best-fit if you weren't sure of the name of the party you wanted to reach. There's no Mel's Diner, ma'am, but there is a Mel's Bistro on First Street. Would you like me to connect you to them?

Now we have massive phonebooks with thousands of pages even in small cities. We have a dozen or so phone number lookup websites, eleven of which are woefully out of date. Because numbers have no security on them and anyone can dial them, millions of people leave their numbers unlisted and try to make themselves impossible to find. Self-service dialing also opened the gates to telemarketers, which we're trying to chop away at through law after law. Direct dialing makes some thing easier, but makes other things a pain in the ass.

Jane Pinckard writes about the silliness behind The Last Samurai.

But we can all expect more silliness along these lines as we count down to the opening of Tom Cruise's new movie, The Last Samurai. I will go see it, of course. It's my bicultural duty.

But also, it's always interesting to me how Japan is portrayed in the West, even after all this time, all this scholarship, and all these attempts for cross-cultural communication. Some myths are too big to be taken down, some archetypes endure. And from an artistic standpoint, why shouldn't they? Movies aren't about life - they are about the epic, the mythic, the larger-than-life.

Mitch Ratcliffe writes about democracy and emergence.

What comes first, democracy or discussion? How does a society reach the point where it can make informed and timely decisions? Many of the mainstream ideas about democracy argue a nation has to achieve a certain order or level of prosperity to enable democratic deliberation. If you look, however, at the history of economic development, the most successful countries have always embraced investment in education before they reached prosperity -- and education is a keystone of democracy, as well, if it is directed toward the growth of rationality and critical thinking. They rise together, that in totalitarian states, discussion started in small groups, who learn from one another and also learn to share control, to debate and vote and accept the rule of a majority that constantly shifts in its composition. They co-evolve or perish.

[...]

But the real challenge in changing the political system is first understanding what needs to be changed before the change can happen. This challenge exists on two levels: Understanding what can be improved in democratic societies where big money and big media currently dominate the communication of ideas, and; Understanding the consequences of choices made when designing and applying new tools to human processes.

Left Blank is a spartan blog.