One response I’ve seen to these examinations of U.S. foreign policy is this letter in the Newsday:

<q>…Sheryl McCarthy and Jerry Falwell both agree that the United States brought disaster on itself. While Falwell says this is a punishment from God for our having become so secular, thus making the murderers agaents of God’s will, McCarthy sees this as the inevitable retribution for our national hubris and for having a foreign policy that is in our own best interests. This type of fuzzy... [More]

There’s been a bit of a back and forth on the privacy issue in the last few days. JonKatz of Slashdot published an article that’s a complete turnaround from any of his past positions. It’s an interesting read in that it advocates avoiding ‘kneejerk’ reactions to protect privacy. I think that’s good. Kneejerk reactions are never good, it does everyone good to think about their positions and come up with cogent arguments.

However, I still think that this immediate jump to abrogating privacy in... [More]

Looks like things are unfolding pretty much as they can be expected to. Troops are massing, reserves are called up. Osama Bin Laden goes from someone with a history of terrorism, to a possible suspect to the prime suspect to wanted dead or alive, all in a matter of days.

The President has pledged to rid the world of evil-doers and rout out terrorists and countries that harbor terrorists. The U.S. and its foreign policy is arguably the biggest evil-doer around and also happens to harbor the... [More]

Those are the questions we have to ask. It’s not seditious to wonder whether the U.S. courted danger. Sedition is a word hopefully left buried in the past for this country. In order to prevent such things from happening again, we must try to understand why they happened.

The New York Newsday has a good overview of Afghanistan’s history and current situation.

For those at all curious on what could incite the attack on the WTC, go here for an interview with Osama Bin Laden.

Israelis and... [More]

It’s times like these that make ‘cynic’ seem to be synonymous with ‘realist’. No sooner can you start to worry about civil rights infringement than you find more cases of it being proposed than you can count.

How is it that the notion of preventing honest citizens from using encryption somehow increases our freedom from attack? Does Congress truly believe that terrorists who will stop at nothing will make sure to use only legal, government-sanctioned software with backdoors neatly in place? I... [More]

Why did the tower collapse? How did it manage to collapse so neatly? Was it a lucky hit?

Read More

The New Scientist also weighs in.

In the wake of the WTC attack, it is unfortunate to see the stirrings of government agencies that see this as an opportunity to legalize infringements of basic rights on Americans too shellshocked and/or frightened to resist.

Already, on Tuesday afternoon, the FBI was shopping their home-grown packet-sniffer, dubbed ‘Carnivore’, around to all the major ISPs again. This is a blatant, crude move that will likely work for many ISPs who don’t want to be seen as uncooperative or harboring terrorist... [More]

Domestic Spying and other wonderful stuff.

Read more

The FBI has already started to push its Carnivore strategy again. Now that the nation is properly ‘terrified’, they figure we’re a much easier target for intruding on our rights of privacy. For most ISPs, the FBI was right.

Read more

The FBI has been granted protection under the Classified Information Procedures Act. They don’t have to explain how a key-logging program was placed onto a private machine.

Check the Register for more information.

“I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense — I deserve it.”

Jean Louis Gassèe

See also an article on Byte on boot loaders.

From their article titled “AMD allies with Transmeta”

http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/05/25/technology/amd_transmeta/

“Most of today’s microprocessors are “32-bit,” which means they process data 32 bits at a time. It also refers to the size of the “pointer,” which determines how much data the processor can address directly. Current 32-bit processors can address 4 gigabytes of data.“

“The industry has been gradually moving toward a 64-bit architecture, which multiplies the amount of data the... [More]

http://www.seanbaby.com/news/col-lawsuit.htm
 

A look at what ‘big media’ is trying to get away with these days…
http://www.suck.com/daily/2001/05/11/

http://www.theonion.com/onion3713/wdyt_3713.html

This is an interesting article focussing child suicide rates and why they are ignored in favor of reporting child murder rates.

Another pick-me-up article:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/2½018208&mode=nocomment

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10560

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/17319.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/15382.html

Want to get rid of it? Not so fast…

http://www.avagara.com/e_c/reference/00012001.htm

Dan Bricklin has weighed in on the usability of the Palm Beach voting ballot. He’s one of the inventors of Visicalc (the first spreadsheet program) and a proponent of usable interfaces for software.

http://danbricklin.com/log/ballotusability.htm

From our friends across the pond at the Register:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13962.html

Nike now lets you personalize your shoes by submitting a word or phrase which they will stitch onto your shoes, under the swoosh.  So Jonah Peretti filled out the form and sent them $50 to stitch “sweatshop” onto his shoes.

Here’s the responses he got… fun and games with Nike…

From: “Personalize, NIKE iD” <nikeid_personalize@nike.com>
To: “‘Jonah H. Peretti’” <peretti@media.mit.edu>
Subject: RE: Your NIKE  iD order o16468000

Your NIKE iD order was cancelled for one or more of
the... [More]

There he is. I can see him through the car window. He’s trying out the roof of City Hall this time. Rudolph Giuliani always is a little man in search of a balcony.

We pull up to what was once the public entrance to the plaza and steps of City Hall in New York City, a lovely old building where once they held a wake for Abraham Lincoln and a wonderful, shrieking celebration for Charles A. Lindbergh.

And now they have black iron picket fences and gates stopping any car from going in without a... [More]