In the 2004 January/February issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows writes about the planning that was done by US government prior to the Iraq occupation.#

There was a great deal of research done--but it was "willfully ignored by the people in charge. This inside story [is of] historic failure."

Douglas Feith, Wolfowitz's Wolfowitz, comments on the criticism that is generally lodged at the administration:

"This is an important point," he said, " because of this issue of What did we believe? ... The common line is, nobody planned for security because Ahmed Chalabi told us that everything was going to be swell." Chalabi, the exiled leader of the Iraqi National Congress, has often been blamed for making rosy predictions about the ease of governing post-war Iraq. "So we predicted that everything was going to be swell, and we didn't plan for things not being swell," Here Feith paused for a few seconds, raised his hands with both palms up, and put on a "Can you believe it?" expression. "I mean--one would really have to be a simpleton. And whatever people think of me, how can anybody think that Don Rumsfeld is that dumb? He's so evidently not that dumb, that how can people write things like that?" He sounded amazed rather than angry. [pg. 53]

The primary problem it seemed, was that the people in charge put such a great focus on the inability to predict the future that they did not trust any or investigate any prediction what so ever. Caution turned into carelessness.

And this problem was not resolved any easier with the Pentagon being in complete control of the operation. Here is a comment about its style, versus the traditional approach:

According to the standard military model, warfare unfolds through four phases: "deterrence and engagement," "seize the initiative," "decisive operations." and "post-conflict." Reality is never divided quite that neatly, of course, but the War College report stressed that Phase IV "post-conflict" planning absolutely had to start as early as possible, well before Phase III--"decisive operations"--the war itself. But neither the Army nor the other services moved very far past Phases III thinking. "All the A-Team guys wanted be in on Phase III, and the B-team guys were put on Phase IV," one man involved in Phase IV told me. Frederick Barton, of the Center for Strategic and INternational Studies, who was involved in postwar efforts in Haiti, Rwanda, and elsewhere, put it differently. "If you went to the Pentagon before the war, all the concentration was on the war," he said. "If you went there during the war, all the concentration was on the war. And if you went there after the war, they'd say, 'That's Jerry Bremer's job.'" Still, the War College report confirmed what the Army leadership already suspected: that its real challenges would begin when it took control of Baghdad. [pg. 68-69]

Kenneth Pollack on the details of the Iraqi WMD Bubble.#

Some defenders of the Administration have reportedly countered that all it did was make the best possible case for war, playing a role similar to that of a defense attorney who is charged with presenting the best possible case for a client (even if the client is guilty). That is a false analogy. A defense attorney is responsible for presenting only one side of a dispute. The President is responsible for serving the entire nation. Only the Administration has access to all the information available to various agencies of the U.S. government—and withholding or downplaying some of that information for its own purposes is a betrayal of that responsibility.

P. J. O'Rourke deconstructs the speeches of the various Democratic presidential candidates.#

Voters are not really expected to pay attention to the grandiloquence. And candidates are not really expected to produce it. That is, candidates--major candidates, anyways--don't write their own speeches. Custom dictates that others take no credit for doing so. And the candidates cannot be said to "give speeches," as that phrase was understood from the dawn of language until Roosevelt and Churchill. The public speaking skills of the presidential candidates (Al Sharpton always excepted) are such that orations are more discarded than given, delivered in the paper-boy-and-porch-roof manner, a kind of campaign litter. Still, it's important to check what the candidates are saying, as opposed to what commentators say the candidates are saying--and, indeed, as opposed to what the candidates say they are saying when they are called to account for what they say. Thus the printed transcripts of thirty-six speeches by ten candidates have been read. Analysis of the contents may provide a lesson in contemporary democracy, or ("What we need most immediately is a sense of immediacy"--Joe Lieberman) it may not. [pg. 95]

And later:

Reading the candidates' speeches, one's mind wanders. And one's mind is not alone in its meandering. The whole nation seems to have drifted away from the candidates. "I want my country back," says Howard Dean. "I'm running for President to turn America around," says John Kerry. [pg. 96]

The Binary Circumstance writes about measuring morals without a ruler and those who don't understand self-interest.#

The article also discusses rational-choice theory:

Rational-choice theory -- the hypothesis, popular in economics and political science, that we behave in ways that efficiently serve our self-interest -- can't explain such behavior ["cheating" or in general, not following morals -Je]. Nor can it explain why we make anonymous gifts to charity, return lost wallets to strangers, or choose to work for modest pay at socially useful jobs.

The problem is that they don't have a clear, objective definitions of what rational and self-interest are. To assume that it is rational to use material wealth and/or social status as the gold standard of rational behavior is an irrational premise to begin with. In and of themselves, wealth and status have no value, for the same reason that food has no value unless you are hungry and a car has no value unless you have a need to use it. Presumably, if a person gives to charity, returns a wallet or works for modest pay, he sees some payoff in it for himself, otherwise he would not do it.

Kuro5hin.org reports on Americans making it illegal to laugh.#

Samantha Marson, a 21 year old woman from Britain, was jailed in Miami after making a joke to an American customs official.

The joke: "Hey be careful, I have three bombs in here," she quipped, as her carry-on luggage was screened.

Unfortunately, officials asked her to repeat herself twice and promptly had her arrested. She was released from Miami-Dade County Jail, but only with a $5,000 bond.

See also: Faré on "Our Ultimate Weapon: Laughter."

Rob Lawson doesn't think that America is an Empire, or trying to become one.#

When a nation builds empires and wish to conqueror other lands, they usually start with nations which share a border and/or close to their region. See: Hitler, WW2. In the end, strategy overwhelms greed.

So, why hasn't America conquered Canada or Mexico yet? We have the ability, the army, the technology, and enough money to make Microsoft top-dog Bill Gates jealous. Here's a better question: Why do we keep sending foreign aid to small, puny, third world nations? In the long run, taking over the country itself would save us billions of dollars. As I said: In the end, strategy overwhelms greed. The sheer will of the American people will never allow our government to dominate countries which do not pose a threat to us or our allies. The left uses this "America is an empire" canard so much because they hate America, Americans, and our way of life.

Apparently ALL empires are evil and must do exactly the same things in the course of their development.

Lisa Williams wonders about what Fascism really is.#

I hear the term "fascist" being thrown around a lot lately, but I have to confess although I get the idea I still don't have a clear conception of what "fascism" is, really. Most other "isms" in politics have a clear connection to the process of identifying leaders (democracy = leader chosen by people; monarchy = leader identified by heredity, etc.) but "fascism" doesn't really fit this mold. It turns out that fascism isn't really built on ideas or a "platform" or program that's expressed in written documents (such as the Communist Manifesto for communism or the Federalist/Antifederalist papers and of course the Constitution for US democracy) but is instead a sort of individual gut response to insecurity that can be whipped up into a mania.

MNOT writes about the funny subtleties of United States law.#

As alluded to before, you're taking on legal risk when you allow people to say things to you. Yes, this is crazy, but hey, it's the US legal system. Go figure.

For Weblogs, this means copyright on comments. Specifically, if you reproduce something that someone else has created without a license from them, you open yourself to copyright violation lawsuits. Now, sane people know that comments are meant to be reproduced, and I'd be willing to bet reasonably large amounts of money that a court would say that if you submit a comment to a blog, you know the consequences. In many ways, it's like sending mail to a mailing list; if there's a reasonable expectation that people know how mailing lists work, you'd likely be said to have given up your copyright when you post.

Tibor R. Machan writes about the fallacy of market failures.#

The first case of alleged market failure is no such thing because it assumes that some alternative method for providing the goods or services could be more efficient. Yet, as public choice theory has shown, what occurs instead is that political failures replace the so-called market failures, ones that are far more severe and lasting than the supposed wasteful duplications of free markets. Mill was wrong, also, because he failed to notice that nearly all competitive production can be faulted for producing supposedly wasteful duplication — ten competing shoe manufacturers all need to have the equipment, overhead, and delivery systems to get their shoes to market, so why not fuss about that duplication? (Indeed, it is Karl Marx who regarded the market anarchic and irrational for, among other things, just such duplications.) But Mill also failed to appreciate that once one places the provision of anything whatever into the purview of coercive government, all the ills of politics will beset the process. Graft, special interest favoritism, pork and similar "inefficiencies," not to mention violations of justice, will make for a far greater mess than a little duplication ever would.

This is explored in greater depth by François-René Rideau in Public Goods Fallacies.

Pete Guither at Drug War Rant writes about effective means of quelling addictions.#

If you're going to read one article this week to gain a new perspective on the drug war, you must read this one by Dan Gardner in today's Edmonton Journal.

It's about one of those notions in the drug war that has been so ingrained into our consciousness by the drug warriors that we have a hard time wrapping our minds around the most effective reform.

My friends will tell me, "OK, I can see what you're saying regarding legalizing marijuana, but what about the hard drugs? What are you going to do about heroin?" My response: "Give it away for free" is meant to shock them. However, it's also the truth. It is, in fact, the only approach for some heroin addicts that has historically been shown to be effective. In some cases, it is the best approach to reduce crime, increase the life-span of addicts, reduce new addictions, and eliminate the profit incentive for dealers.

Richard Tallent's church is getting the WiFi hookup and all it brings to services.#

Let's face it: we Americans are addicted to caffeine, artificial lighting, amplified music and speech, air conditioning and heating, carbohydrates, polished communication, visual stimulation, constant doses of humor, large portions of food, casual clothing, and padding under our big fat American butts. As a church, at some point you have to choose your battles and learn to recognize the difference between the state of someone's soul and our modern society's conditioning of their mind and body. Spirituality is certainly grown through discipline, but like Jesus feeding the hungry crowds and stating that he came to help the sick, not the healthy, churches should focus first on ministering to those who have firmer attachments to personal comfort than to their spiritual life, not only to those who would still attend if they had to crawl in on a bed of glass, and certainly not to those who would claim that anything less than glass-crawling is unworthy of Divine Grace.

Captain Ed writes about Mel Gibson's history of historical accuracy with regards to The Passion.#

In his later epic The Patriot, Gibson took even more dramatic licence with history, this time with the American Revolution. Among the more egregious errors Gibson allowed were a fictional account of the British burning down a church full of civilians as a reprisal for his character's commando raids on the British. Not only is this libelous to the British, who on the whole conducted themselves honorably during the Revolution, but it steals an actual Nazi atrocity from WWII. Also, slavery seemed to be miraculously scrubbed from The Patriot; the African-American characters are freed men in South Carolina, where freed Negroes were illegal right through to the Civil War. While the film was entertaining, its history was appallingly bad -- a great example of how Hollywood can't be trusted with truth.

Which brings us to Gibson's latest effort. I trust Hugh, as he is a well-read man with extensive historical knowledge, so I am greatly relieved to hear that Gibson's depiction of the Gospels improves on his track record. However, I do not blame people for being nervous about possible anti-Semitic biases or departures from the Gospels, given that track record. It demonstrates the wisdom of actually seeing a film before attacking it -- or defending it.

Correction writes about discovering God... at least Part One.#

So you would be excused for assuming that this was the day I began to believe in God. You'd be wrong, though. I didn't believe in God when I was twelve and it would be another fourteen years before I took the matter up seriously at all. Other things had to happen first: I would have to encounter a dead man in an elevator and I would have to go crazy, although not at the same time. I would have to experience something as terrible as grieving with my family over the loss of a child and I would have to do nothing more than read a book. Any of these things can lead a person to believe in God, or to lose faith in God. I don't know why they led me to God, or how they led me to a place where I could experience the reality of God's presence firsthand, and in a shower. This is just how it happened. What the pattern is, if any, remains to be seen.

Richard writes about something I said about Sin, doing wrong, and being "normal."#

Jay is wise to note, in the last sentence quoted, the he has the right to remind people of their past convictions. If, say, he were reminding me of my past convictions, I would probably be comfortable so long as he doesn't expect consistency for consistency's sake and is an information provider (or an information reminder, because people sometimes forget what they were once like) instead of someone who tells me what to do (e.g. "you used to do it differently" is okay, because that way I can provide counter information or agree with it, but "you used to be this way, so you should be this way now" is not okay) because adequate information is not always available when one is making a decision or has an opinion. When someone provides enough information to make it an adequate amount, then the other is better equiped to come to the right decision on their own.

It's not so much that I feel I have the right to remind people of their convictions. It is that it seems to me that the reason we tell other people what our values and beliefs are is so that they will remind us of them in the case of our departure from them. Why? Well, what good are your morals to me? Not much because I have my own, therefore the only goal to me seems to be in making a public statement--increasing accountability.

This is why I said "If you tell em what's wrong for you, I'll trust you." I will never invent my own interpretation of your values and tell you what you believe (or should believe.) All I can do is turn your words back at you, but if you just say, "Well Jay, that was then and this is now." The most I'll do is ask you why, an attempt to get you to justify your switch (using your own morals) so that you make it clear you actually know why you change opinions.

Reminding someone of their own words is not judging or being normative, in my opinion, it is being a volunteer watchdog for someone else. (Also note: I don't think Richard thought I was saying otherwise, but his reply is a convenient place to put an elaboration.)

The Revealer on being crazy for crosses.#

McCormack uses the poppy, perky prose of secular magazines such as Seventeen andCosmoGirl! to tell the story of 19-year-old Becky Hicks, who literally followed her dream -- she considered it a set of instructions from God -- to spend a year lugging a cross on her back around 3/4 of America's perimeter.

As journalism, there isn't much here; but as an artifact of a worldview even most evangelical Christians would consider marginal, it's fascinating. All the more so because Hicks undertook her journey with a handful of other teenagers and the staunch support of her parents and her church.

The trip took place some years ago, but The Revealer wonders what Hicks has accomplished since then. "I want to do crazy things for God," she told McCormack. At the time of writing, she planned to "take" the inner cities with a walking campaign she compared to the book of Joshua. Of course, Joshua pretty much killed everyone in the cities he "took," but we think we know what she means.

David Weinberger points to an interesting survey of What [American] Jews Think.#

76% of us think caring about Israel is a very important part of being a Jew. Only 5% are more positive this year than last about the chance for peace. 81% of us think ""The goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel," but 54% support the creation of a Palestinian state. 69% support dismantling at least some of the West Bank settlements. 60% support the current handling of relations with the Palestinian Authority. 63% think American Jews ought to support Israel even when we disagree with it. 76% believe 9/11 does not reflect the true teachings of Islam.

The Madpony Sisters are often in a quarrel.#

a long, long time ago, in the land before high speed DSL, our family shared one little computer with a dialup 2400 baud modem and AOL 1.75. at first, this was perfectly fine. lauren didn't type, mom didn't care, and dad was less than internet savvy. which left me with plenty of time to explore the oh-so-colorful world of AOL chat rooms (LOL BRB ROTF OMG A/S/L?) then, one fateful day, lauren discovered the wonder of interneting. and then, the full scale battles began. the polite asking for one's turn to get online, the less than polite screaming that followed, the hair-pulling confrontation, the crying, the running for mom, and the eventual unplugging of the modem cord which inevitably led to Round Two of madpony full contact wrestling mania.

Michael at 2blowhards.com writes about the deep differences between Western and Middle Eastern cultures.#

Dig this: some Saudi Grand Mufti or other has actually said, "Allowing women to mix with men is the root of every evil and catastrophe." And he said it not in private but at an international-finance get-together. The Financial Times reports here. These people do have trouble with the modern world, don't they?

Which reminds me of something that bugs me about media coverage of mideastern affairs. It seems to me that 'way too little is made of how, er, nonmodern these people are. Many Westerners seem to be under the impression that mideasterners can be talked to and bargained with as though, under the robes and behind the dark spectacles, they're just like us.

Joi Ito talked to Shekhar Kapur about directing movies.#

He talked about being asked to direct "Long Walk to Freedom" about the life of Nelson Mandela. He said he turned it down. He understood about inequality and prejudice from his experiences in India and being Indian, but that he didn't think he would ever truly understand the extreme conditions of apartheid. He would never truly understand the rage of being treated as a completely different class of human being by the white man.

Later, in Hollywood, in the office of an important studio exec, Shekhar explained that he had turned down the offer to direct "Long Walk to Freedom". The exec told Shekhar that he thought that it was a good idea since people weren't interested in a story about the struggles of a black man.

The Black Saint reminds us of a Richard Pryor comment after a cop killed an unarmed teen on Saturday.#

"I mean, they just shoot niggers accidentally all the time. And you can't shoot a nigger accidentally that much. 'My gun just fell out, just went crazy, and shot him six times.' And they get in court and they get away with justifiable homicide and all that old shit. And the judge be talking about, 'Yes, I quite understand it was an accident -- even though the colored fellow was blind.'"

Ethan Zuckerman wonders why so many at Davos are interested in blogging.#

It's not clear to me why Davos folks are so interested in the blog phenomenon. [...]

But clearly something about blogging captures people's attention. I'm wondering if it's a reflection of a Davos attitude towards media. Media are pretty clearly treated like second-class citizens here. Working journalists have brown badges, which prevent them from getting into most sessions and some areas. My guess is that most of the folks here are so important, they're well beyond courting media and expect, instead to be courted.

So perhaps Davos folks are interested in blogging because they're willing to overturn the media establishment.

Next Sunday some other people from Berkman, including myself, are going to Grasshopper in Allston. C'est deliceaux.#

The Binary Circumstance writes of the trials of publishing his book and wonders about self-publishing and how the blogosphere changes things.#

Getting the book into print is one thing, getting people to buy it and read it is another. Promotion! This is where I think that blogs will play a major role in snatching control of publishing from the big guys. I have my blog to promote the book and I have a growing number of connections who have blogs. This is a HUGE asset. If a book is good, it will sell largely by word-of-mouth anyway. Blogs are highspeed word-of-mouth. In addition, many bloggers are Amazon.com Associates; they can earn a 5% commission by putting a link to buy the book from Amazon on their site.

So the possibility is there and the whole idea of self-publishing is starting to look a lot more appealing than going the traditional route. At this point, the ability to create hype seems to be the major publishers' greatest asset. It's no small advantage either; but it also requires a book that is hype-friendly.

I've been on the edge of my seat waiting for it since I heard about it. Hopefully things will come together for BC.

Grant Henninger writes about The Transformation.#

The transformation of politics and of broadcasting, because they can't be separated, was never going to be complete. There will always be a place for a broadcast message. Many bloggers think that they will be able to replace broadcast media and broadcast messages. They think that the one-to-many era is over and people will turn on any politician or company that tries to broadcast their message. Bloggers think that once people get use to a conversation in the marketplace they will accept nothing less from everybody. This isn't true, there will always be a place for broadcast messages. One-to-many broadcasts and many-to-many conversations will live together, the only major change is that the conversations will keep the broadcasts more honest.

Tom Coates writes about an article on how string quartets stay together and talks about the lessons it teaches to social software architects.#

In the Guardian article Four's a crowd, cellist David Waterman talks about how to keep a string quartet together over many years without the interpersonal relationships forcing the group apart. I love articles like this - articles that don't seem to have an overt relationship to how we build social software but nonetheless remind us of core lessons about the nature of groups. Lesson one: the thing that keeps groups together can be a mutual passion, but a mutual activity will bring them together even more strongly. Lesson two: that intensively creative groups seem to be necessarily relatively small. And that's because - lesson three - there will always be tensions and forces within groups that will try to push them apart from one another. And here's where social software comes in to the fore - because lesson four is that those tensions can almost always be ameliorated or even totally removed by the careful implementation of mechanisms that institute some form of process, some kind of system - or even some kind of politics. That's how we can operate in a macro-social way, because we have instituted a system / structure within which we all operate.

Julie Leung has a great idea about how to get home-schooled kids to socialize as much.#

And I thought to myself - hey, this would solve the classic homeschooling socialization dilemma - let's put Elisabeth and all our kids on Orkut! I can see it already, her cute baby face in a square there with the others..."female, single.." :-)

[...]

And as I've experienced this week from joining some homeschooling yahoogroups, many moms out there are seeking friends for their kids via on-line communities and relationships. Plus our kids are already wanting to write emails to people, and blog too: it seems second nature to them, 'cause they see mommy and daddy do it all the time. Through blogging I've met a few others with children, and it'd be fun to arrange on-line playdates of sorts for our little geeks oops, ones :-) Kids also socialize on-line and an Orkut for Children could facilitate more connections .

Nova Spivack writes about "social overload."#

The premise of many social networking systems is that they inject added trust to interactions -- the concept being that a message that comes to me via someone I know is somehow more worth my time and more reliable. But in fact, in practice I find that I have not once denied someone's request to forward a message on their behalf in LinkedIn for example. Why should I deny someone whom I don't know the right to contact someone else whom I don't know? Since I really don't know the originator or recipient of the message, how am I able to judge the appropriateness and relevance of that message? Therefore I just always say "yes" and forward the message along. I think many other people do this as well. There is an unwritten social code that it is simply "rude" to not forward a message. Because of this, social networking services actually result in the opposite of what they set out to do -- they increase the number of irrelevant messages that their participants receive.

Xian at Edgewise surveys that memes about Dean that are circulating the blogosphere.#

Maybe this "angry red face" meme had to be exploded in a big way, and maybe Dean needed more of a narrative than "raised the most money via the Internet." For all the meme junkies out there, Dianne Sawyer even showed the Gennifer portrait. A key failing or weakness nearly bring our protagonist low but he grows through the adversity. Better story than "geez, he really is nuts" or "don't they understand broadcast media at all?"

I'm not saying Trippi (by which I mean the whole team around and including the candidate) didn't make a serious mistake in how they handled the TV moment. They did let Dean be Dean" and since that moment of misjudgement about how something would read to practiced TV watchers (something the Dean household is not) cannot be recalled, as you cannot unring a bell, the best way to deal with a raging bull is to seize it by the horns and leap over it like a Minoan.

Adam Curry, international rock star and playboy, writes about the Dean battle-cry.#

From where I stand (about 5 thousand miles away) this 'incident' is being misused by the media to crush the Dean campaign. Witness the Diane Sawyer interview, where Sawyer blatently predicts this will hurt the campaign.

Huh? Are American voters viewers that easy to manipulate?

A writer at Kuro5hin.org fact-checks and cuts the crap with "FileGate."#

In a statement on the matter, Sen. Hatch said, "I am mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch." A Republican staff member who read the memos claims, however, that there was "no hacking, no stealing, and no violation of any Senate rule".

It seems clear that the Democrat's IT services in the US Senate need to be more methodical about protecting their party's documents. Nevertheless, modern computer security laws say that it's wrong to access data to which you have no permission, regardless of whether there is protection on the data or not. The fact that the data was accessed from an unsecured shared fileserver which is used by members of the bi-partisan judiciary committee is irrelevant.

Jessica writes about her visit to New Hampshire to see John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, and Joe Lieberman. I was with her for the last two.#

After he arrived, Kucinich walked around to greet people and shake hands. He's the first presidential politician to have shaken my hand this campaign (and maybe ever). He begins his talk by thanking the host and praises the white, upright piano. He doesn't seem focused when he begins to speak, then he announced that five more troops have died today, bringing the total number of dead to 512. He remembers how during the Vietnam War, he became accostumed to seeing the count every day. He worked as a copy boy at the Cleveland Plain Dealer for a while and told a story about getting a photo of a deceased soldier from a family during that war. He relaxed a little more as he talked about waiting as they went through their photographs (his story implied that someone else from the newspaper had already contacted the family to request a photo and he just went to pick it up) and how they finally selected the photo of a proud, young soldier in uniform from the top of the television and asked if they could have it back in time for the funeral so they could display it on his coffin.

He continued his thoughts on the current conflict in Iraq by reminding us of the 512 soldiers who have given their lives to this cause, the thousands more who have been injured, and all the Iraqis who have died or been injured also. Bush wants to run for re-election based on a lie, he claimed. Terror and fear embrace our every day lives. He stated that some of the candidates aren't in touch with this reality.

Michael Feldman posts a picture of Dick Gephardt's closed down office in Nashua, NH. (Michael mistakenly credits it to Manchester--but I know better, it's right outside my office window.)#

Michael at 2blowhards.com asks: "Is Bush a Conservative?"#

What exactly is conservative about George W. Bush? The question seems to be in the air. John Leo scratches his head here. Jonah Goldberg,here, points out that under Bush, "overall spending from 2001 to 2003 grew at 16 percent and discretionary spending went up 27 percent. That's double Bill Clinton's rate."

Marc Nozell saw John Edwards in Merrimack, NH.#

The girls had colored some homemade 'Go, John, Go!' signs and were in their pretty dresses, but the spent most of the time on our shoulders. We ran into a video crew from Germany and a photographer from Switzerland. There were a few college boys from Union College from outside Albany who were up for the weekend and another college girl from NYC said there were about 150 from her school up helping with campaigns (didn't catch which college or if they were only for Edwards.)

On the way out I chatted up a reporter from the Boston Globe about how the media seems to be covering NH as a Kerry/Dean horse race with no real coverage of Edwards or Lieberman and just a little of Clark. With Edwards surprise 2nd place showing in Iowa and Liebermans make or break in NH I'd think there should be more coverage of that.

ScrappleFace writes about Wesley Clark and Michael Moore.#

During the recent Democrat debate, Mr. Clark defended Mr. Moore's right to call the Commander-in-Chief a "deserter."

But today Mr. Clark said, "I thought Michael called the president a desserter -- you know, one who enjoys dessert after dinner. This, coming from Michael Moore, is a term of endearment. Like most people, there's nothing Michael likes better than dessert. I can assure you he meant no insult to the president. Michael is a patriot. He's as American as apple pie."

Dave Winer writes about Alice's Restaurant.#

Since the candidates have to avoid saying anything on TV, or showing any human qualities, they might as well go all the way and act crazy too. The challenge wouldn't be (only) to sound presidential or seem avuncular, or friendly, or dignified, or whatever it is the press values in a presidential candidate, but to mock the system so the voters know to go to your website to find out what you really think, what you really have to say. If all the candidates do it, or all the candidates who get votes, we've then reclaimed our political system. Could it really be that simple? Is it really such a wacky idea? Any wackier than the world we live in today?

The Left Coaster learns that Al Sharpton is being advised by someone who has supported and worked with George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Richard M. Nixon.#

I have respect for genuine differences of opinion among the candidates, but this action of Sharpton's is completely self-serving. Sharpton's desire for power shows that he is willing to play into the hands of the people he claims to oppose in an effort to "rise to the prize" - even if it means the defeat of the party of which he claims to be a member. To be sure, that defeat is certainly the goal of the Rovian Confederate Fascists and their slathering Greedy Oligarchy Party.

In an effort to maintain the vast power this cabal has attained while the American people slept, the GOP has amply demonstrated that there is no trick too low, no person above being used, no principle that is inviolate. And Rev. Sharpton, blinded by his own ambition, equal in nature and intensity to George Warmonger Bush's desire for the appearance of a legitimate electoral victory, now demonstrates that he is willing to debase himself in his quest, which makes him just like they are.

Jessica went to see John Edwards and Wesley Clark.#

See didn't actually see Edwards:

After he finished, I noticed the press mobbing him as he was leaving the room. I walked up to try to get a glimpse of him, but all I saw was the back of his head as he walked out the back door.

I'm trying not to let my negative experience at the event color my thoughts of him, but I'm afraid my notes may reflect the disappointment I feel at how things were handled. I know nothing about Edwards and was hoping to learn something substantive about him as a candidate at this event. All I know is that he isn't happy with how the country is currently being run and that he thinks certain things are problems. He didn't talk about fixing anything or what he would like to do as president in the seven minutes he addressed us. I didn't see any campaign literature, either.

Michael Feldman deconstructs John Kerry.#

Will Middle America buy a preppy jock as President? Don't we already have a preppy jock as president? Good questions, both.

There are some eerie similarities between Sen. Kerry and the man he wants to replace. Indeed, outside the JFK Arena was a charmingly eccentric political activist in a huge sandwich-board sign on which was written "Bush and Kerry: Secret Fraternity Brothers in a Blood Pact to Defraud America" and making multiple references to the myriad connections between the Bush and Kerry families and the shadowy Skull and Bones bond they do share.

Richard links to Jonathan Quince who writes about some amazing woman.#

This one has declared herself untouchable to men. Suitors may beg a whispering or a kiss, but they are rebuffed by stolid wall of casual indifference. The man who has all the attributes of perfection, such that he may be desirable to every one of femalekind, is not of this world; and we shall speak not of him. Yet without that mythical sublime power of the universal alpha seductor, what chance have mere mortal men against her armor of disinterest? They had best close their eyes to her beauty, for her very nature rejects them.

Andy Budd writes about statements of intent in web design and what's "good enough."#

Building to a site to a set of accessibility guidelines is an indication of intent. It says that you have an understanding about the issues and you're doing something positive about them. These days, for most commercial sites I build, I suggest people have an accessibility statement outlining their policy and the guidelines they are aiming for (something that's also on the todo list for this site). The important thing to note is the word "intent". Very few sites get built that reach the guidelines 100% on each page, and fewer stay that way once they are live. An accessibility statement (and bobby rating) says "this is the level we're aiming for, but if you encounter any problems, let us know and we'll endeavour to fix them".

Michael Feldman reports that M & M's Mom Carjacked in Detroit.#

The mother of rapper Eminem was reportedly carjacked Thursday night in metro Detroit.

Debbie Mathers was sitting in her car while pumping gas at the BP gas station located at Eight Mile and Coolidge roads around 11:30 p.m. She was approached by a man with a silver handgun who demanded her car and threatened to kill her if she did not get out of the car, according to Oak Park police.

Jay Rosen writes about his trip to Davos.#

When I visualized it this way, the event made a little more sense. In the town of Davos, the sensibility is provincial. Within the City of Davos, it's cosmopolitan. And at the symbolic center, Davos the gathering aspires to a global sensibility, just as it welcomes the globe-striding elite. I was surprised, then, that none of the Congress Center's public spaces has a globe sculpture in it, an actual sphere to gather around. As in... "Meet me at the globe in 20 minutes." "Oh, I saw him, he was hanging around the globe a while ago." "The prime minister will be holding a press briefing in front of the globe at 14:00."

Inside the town, a world city. Inside the world city, a focus on the globe. But outside the town and surrounding everything here are the mountains, the Alps, nature--and nature's winter--with its huge indifference to "worldly" events. Walking through the town, on my way to the city, for reflections on the globe, I tried to keep my eyes fixed on those mountains. They, in fact, made the most sense.

Moxie was in pain from wisdom teef. Ouch.#

Doctor who was kind enough to see me: Oh you are a joker! You are 23.

Moxie: You are moving in the wrong direction Dr. I'm 32 years old.

Doctor who was kind enough to see me: Well that IS strange but you really don't look a day over 24.

It was at this point I fell madly in love with him.

A day later I spent hours crying over the unrelenting pain. You see, no matter how young you look one must schedule the removal of impacted wisdom teeth. And it's always a few more days than you can tolerate.

(If you don't know yet, Moxie is fantastically beautiful.)

Great pictures at Seedlings and Sprouts.#

Great pictures of a completely different nature at Utterly Boring.#

A petition has gone through and the Freaks & Geeks Limited Edition DVD Set is now available. Yesh.#

Oliver Willis has breaking news from Mars.#

MARS - Remulon 6432, the Supreme Commander of Mars issued a proclamation today decrying the invasion of the red planet by "earth bound imperialists". Mars has been the subject of two robot landings in the past month, with the Opportunity lander due to arrive late Saturday night.

Julie Leung writes about her wedding... it was her anniversary the other day.#

Looking back at my wedding, I don't know why I did what I did. [...]

What I'd change the most though would be me. I remember how I hurt people in the process. How I tortured my poor bridemaids who were trying to surprise me with a shower. How I had a hard time seeing beyond myself in certain moments of stress. I wish I could go back and be me with more maturity.

But I wouldn't change the groom. He's the one thing I'd keep above all else. While I wasn't sure whether I wanted a wedding, what I did want was to be married to Ted.

Ted Leung writes about it as well:

It takes more than being in love. A lot more. It takes friendship, respect, vulnerability, the ability to say "I was wrong", and a whole host of other qualities. So when I look back at the Song of Solomon, I understand that the love being written about is not just the heat and passion of being in love, but it is all those other qualities as well. [...]

So thank you, Julie for 12 years of sharing joy, happiness, pain, and suffering. I don't think I really understood what I was getting into, and I think I realize now that I still don't fully grasp it, but I'm looking forward to continuing to discover it with you.

They're tooooo cute.

The Binary Circumstance has the scoop on Hilary Clinton's flight regulations that Philip Greenspun reported on and I linked to.#

No doubt Senator Clinton's desire for tighter regulations is also due in part to the recent crash of her own light plane. The National Transportation Safety Board officials concluded that Senator Clinton's crash last month was the result of pilot error. It was also determined that her ultra-light aircraft did not meet existing safety standards and was not properly licensed. As part of its official report, the NTSB released this photo of Senator Clinton's crash site.

Jeremy Zawodny writes about giving up TV for 30 days.#

I can't really remember the last time I really watched TV. I live with others so sometimes it's on, but I just walk past. I do, however, watch movies a lot. I wonder if there would be an good in not watching movies for a month? Last year I went without music for about a month.

Joel Spolsky advises on how to get your résumé read by Fog Creek.#

Don't tell me about one of the requirements of the position and then tell me that you don't want to follow it. "One of the requirements for Summer Internship says that you need to interview in person in New York City. I am interested in the position but I stay in East Nowhere, TN." OK, that's nice, hon, you stay there. Another PS, I thought we said in the requirements "Excellent command of written and spoken English." Oh, yes, indeed, that was our first requirement. So at least do yourself a favor and get someone to check your cover letter for obvious mistakes. Like I said, don't give me an excuse to throw your résumé in the trash.

Jane Tsunami illustrates once again why she is one of the coolest girls in the world.#

Saturday was D&D day. My new sword KICKS ASS. A flaming longsword +1, which means d8+1 damage PLUS d6 fire damage. I am so fucking badass with this thing. It makes me hot just to think of it.

After dispatching some shadow hounds, I had to run.

Michael Lucas-Smith writes about the good old days of bad ass computer viruses.#

Back in my day what I'd just done would have been impossible. Viruses would insert themselves at the start of other executables, in to system configurations, the boot sector, stay memory resident no matter what.. all sorts of things. Today's viruses are just horny rabbits, not deadly vipers.

"Back in my day" my friend David got a virus called TwoHalves. This was a very dangerous virus because it slowly encrypted your hard disk from the back to the front. What was truely innovative about this virus was that it intercepted attempts to read from the disk and decrypted the encrypted information on the fly.

That's right, remove TwoHalves and you lose a heap of your data. But wait, it gets worse - once it has finished it 'forgets' the encryption key, leaving you with a harddisk full of gibberish. The sooner you remove this virus the better off you are.. if you can call it that.

David Wiggins defeated the US Army, and you can too.#

King Khalid Military City is an expanse of flat, scrubby desert on the Saudi Arabian border with Iraq. There is a point where two main roads entering the base converge to form one road leading to Iraq. That intersection was always busy with convoys of armored vehicles and supplies heading towards the border. The day after Congress "authorized the use of force" for operation Desert Storm, I walked to the center of the intersection and stood facing the vehicles coming from the Saudi side. A deuce and a half (2 1/2 ton) truck approached belching diesel fumes. I looked past the military hardware, beyond the driver's Battle Dress Uniform, and into his eyes. The truck stopped in the center of the intersection blocking both approaching roads. I removed my uniform, and standing there in my polypropylene long underwear, I finally, irreversibly quit the Army. Traffic backed up quickly. Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, various artillery pieces, assorted supply trucks, Hummers, and countless other vehicles sat motionless. I held my outstretched hand against the traffic. My first act as a free man was to do what I could to stop that useless and unnecessary war.

Jorrit Wiersma's daughter is learning to speak.#

Silke is really learning to speak now. She is starting to form small sentences and always asking us to tell her what things are called. We also have a small book about the how children learn to speak (by Maaike Verrips). As the book mentions Silke is pronouncing many words wrong because she uses a restricted set of syllables and she tries to construct all words with only those syllables that she knows. She also makes some wrong generalizations, of course. For example in the car she suddenly started shouting "plahpluup," which is her word for umbrella (paraplu in Dutch). It turned out she was pointing at the transmission stick.

Carolyn McCarron writes in Communication Arts about "changing world perception through corporate branding."#

The premise of the article is that the rest of the world sees America as vile, evil, and greedy. This is not good for international relations, nor for business both abroad and at home. And how do you fix it? Find a better way to sell companies to people based on the supposed values that a company has. So, this branding-biz article defines the problem, proposes solutions, and asks ethical questions about supporting "unethical" firms.

Here a choice quote, to get a feel for the style:

Corporations and their branding communications will continue to exist with or without us. Don't abandon them for strictly nonprofit and cultural work because it seems more politically correct. We should stay in the game and help guide these brands to a better place in the world. We can motivate American businesses and consumers alike to be good world citizens, to create and buy products that are sustainable and services that contribute real value to people's lives. Show clients the potential to be more successful in the global marketplace by emphasizing international human and environmental issues along with their bottom line. Company executives will always want to communicate positive values in the media, of course, but their internal and external actions around the globe may already be communicating something else. The values they endorse through their behavior must be in alignment with the visual image they want to project to the world. Help them to understand why.

There seems to a few assumptions at the core of this article and the context of groups that are against the free market (the hobgoblin word is 'globalization' - "[...] eliminating the gap between the "haves" and "have nots" that has been deepened by globalization."); those assumptions:

• Corporations must care about more than profits.
• Corporations that don't are "unethical."
• The corporations are responsible, not their customers.
• Thus, the corporations should change because they are evil.
• And, that some corporations have been changing means they realize this.

Blaming corporations for the world's problems is a great way for middle-class suburban kids to wipe their hands clean of the blood and environmental destruction that they, or their peers, support.

Corporations exist for one reason: To make money for their investors.

If it will make a corporation money to be "ethical" then they will do it. If it will not, they will not.

You are responsible for the choices of the companies you finance, not them; because you did not choice to buy from an "ethical" company.

If you really want to have more ethical business practices, do this:

• Stop buying products from "unethical" businesses--indirectly as well as directly.
• Start buying products from "ethical" businesses--indirectly as well as directly.
• If alternatives do not exist, start companies to provide them.

If other people really care about the same ethics as you, then this behaviour will spread and we'll have an ethical world. If they don't then your ethics are not other peoples. If you do not accept this, then you support coercing others into believe what you believe, rather than making their own decisions.

And a note on the specific angle of the article: branding. Branding seems to be, like most marketing schemes, an attempt to fool customers into believing something that honesty does not reveal as true. A company that did have values (or, rather that had customers who required it to) would probably benefit more by being open about their processes and the effects of their choices--rather than trying to create a closed up, compact image that dilutes the true effects of their actions.