Bruce Willis + Windmill = Must Post

Celebrity Report: Not much of a report, really, but one simply must mention a David Letterman visit by windmill-sporting Bruce Willis.

Celebrating Independence

Some required reading for July 4th.

Cox and Forkum on Muslim Protestations

It seems like there's never enough things to protest about in the Muslim street. Cox and Forkum capture that notion perfectly.

Looking to Buy a Corvette?

If you're in the market for a 2005 Corvette convertible, go here. It was owned by a great guy who recently passed away, and some of the proceeds of the sale will go to the Ayn Rand Institute, well worth the investment.

Here's the eBay link.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a modest 3691 Diggs, is about the baby on Nirvana's Nevermind album turning 17.

Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

China's Pipe Dream

I find little of value in this. China will either abandon its Communist principles or follow the Soviet Union into the dustbin of history. Already there are signs of resentment of the oppressive conformity of Chinese society, and it'll get nothing but worse.

China is utterly reliant on the US for its economic health. Were we to pull any significant amount of our business from the mainland, China's economy would collapse. And I think the US economy would hardly skip a beat; we'd just reduce our consumption a bit as the cost of some goods increased. People seem to forget that the Chinese GDP is about $2 trillion, while ours is about $13 trillion. That's orders of magnitude stronger and, I image, more resilient.

Also, it's inconceivable that increasing economic freedom in China won't translate to increasing pressure for political freedom. It's already happening, only it's so heavily censored that it takes one back to the Soviet Union, where the people were always happy and the economy was always on track--right up to the collapse.

I still consider China a threat, but mainly because I fear what will happen once the transition really starts.

Ahmadinejad's Butcher

And no, I'm not talking about a member of his intelligence agency. I'm talking about his actual butcher, the guy he buys meat from and from whom he gleans information about the state of the Iranian economy.

Really, I'd consider this guy nothing but a buffoon, if it weren't for the nuclear weapons.

Russian-Chinese War Games?

This surprises me, given what I've always assumed about Russian and Chinese animosities. For exactly which enemy will they be practicing against? The story says "counter-terrorism," but I wonder if this is on the right scale.

Resurrecting Stalin

There become fewer and fewer reasons to believe that Putin's goal is anything but a rivival of the Soviet Union.

Update: More here.

Russian Population Decline - Yikes!

This is pretty dramatic. Check out the chart lower on the page. Such things are speculative, but something even half as bad would be highly significant.

Russia Still a Threat

Proof that Russia remains a formidable military enemy, in spite of Bush's apparent skepticism on the topic.

Carter and Hamas - Hand in Hand

Jimmy Carter supports Hamas. I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

Ahmadinejad a Human Shield?

One can only dream.

Reducing Technology Transfers to China

I'd say this makes some sense, although it seems a little late in the game. China probably already has a lot of what it needs.

Bruce Willis on Drug Abuse?

Celebrity Report: Bruce Willis doesn't really make a great deal of sense here on the issue of drug abuse. I'm not sure, really, what he's advocating here, if it's not some sort of (necessarily massive) government mental health program. Nothing new there.

Of course, I would say to him: why does government have anything to do with drug abuse in any case? I know any number of people who abuse all sorts of substances that do just as much harm, including cigarettes (obviously), fatty foods, refined sugar, etc., etc. And, government doesn't have...

Oops, sorry. Government has plenty going on there, as well.

Cultural Reflections on War

A very good essay on the war and on our culture's reflection of it (among other things). I won't try to characterize it beyond that, because I'll just butcher it. So, go here and read it, by Edward Cline, whose stuff is always good.

Sharks Self-Reproduce?

I sometimes think (well, just now, actually) that if sharks were land animals, we'd be screwed. Those are some well-bred bastards.*

*I do recognize the subtle evolutionary irony in this post, thank you very much.

"Land Warrior" Program will Save American Lives

We must continue to invest in these sorts of technologies. Basic training remains paramount, of course; these sorts of gadgets do fail in the field. But the better our battleground awareness, the more lethal (and safe) our soldiers. If I were to take on any political cause, it would be the fight to maintain and increase funding for the "Land Warrior" program.

China + Western Trade = End of Communism

As I've mentioned before, what happens to Communism in China as its people are a exposed more and more to (the remnants of) capitalism? I'd say, first, China will reduce as an "economic powerhouse" (which I don't really believe it is, since all it does is assemble goods made elsewhere, tedious work that people will eventually reject), and then it will slowly ascend as a (semi-)free society.

If that happens, then all predictions (mine included) of China as a future enemy go out the window.*

*This post has way too many parentheticals. Sorry.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 7170 Diggs, is a play on the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" theme song. Or something.

7170 Diggs. Amazing.

Cameron Diaz Rubs Salt in Wounds

Celebrity Report: I don't think ignorance of history (particularly such brutal butchery) is a very good excuse. Cameron Diaz should be both ashamed and educated.

Immigration: Trust, but Verify

I think people have all sorts of problems with immigration, legal or otherwise. There are those who mistakenly believe that immigrants take away their jobs, there are those who are merely nationalistic, and there are those (like me) who have nothing against immigrants themselves, but a great deal against the social programs that confiscate wealth for their benefit.

Then again, I don't like such social programs for bona fide American citizens, either. So, I guess that means I have no real issue with immigrants. As long as they're law abiding, and registered somewhere to ensure they're not terrorists, they're more than welcome.

Human Rights Movement for Everything but Humans

This doesn't represent a "shadow on the human rights movement," this represents the "human rights movement" today. Whether it's anti-semitism, pro-Islamism, anti-capitalist, or anti-globalization, the real goal of the human rights movement is to destroy Israel, establish a caliphate (among the Islamists, of course, who play a large role in "organized" human rights efforts such as at the UN), eliminate capitalism, and do something to globalization (which will never be identified, because what, exactly, is to be done?).

The human rights movement has no more to do with "human rights" than environmentalism has to do with saving the planet.

Thou Shalt Not Pimp One's Ride

So the Pope has written the "1o Commandments of Driving," or somesuch? I would think this is a joke, but something tells me it's not.

In any case, screw it. I'm going to enjoy driving my very quick sports sedan, and revelling in the fact that it's much faster than many other cars on the road.

Besides, I'm not a Catholic, so none of this applies to me anyways.

Chinese Collectivism in Concrete Form

This reminds me of some science fiction movie whose title I can't remember. I wonder about the underlying collectivism that such rigid working conditions represent. I can't remember seeing an American factory that was quite so confining, even the most cubiclized office space.

What happens to the Chinese machine when this beehive-like efficiency gives way to any kind of individualism? I think the Japanese are in the process of discovering this themselves.

CIA Releases Tons of Redactions

Zzzzzzzzzzzz. I've seen stuff like this, and there's more redaction than content.

"Privacy" vs. Intellectual Property

This all seems very complex to me, and I can see why the courts are having problems with such issues. Should a company be required to track every bit of information that passes through its servers and workstations? My kneejerk reaction is, no, it shouldn't. First, it would be virtually impossible to manage from a sheer storage perspective. Second, does the government have an inherent authority to require the maintenance of such information? Can it, in fact, force private organizations to do its own investigative work?

Note that I'm not a fan of "privacy" as a catch-all to mask all sorts of otherwise illegal activities. Consider that this particular case concerns Torrentspy, a site that makes it easier to locate and download pirated intellectual property. Furthermore, I don't believe that "privacy" is any sort of Constitutional right, nor can it really be found anywhere in the Constitution.

Rather, I believe we have privacy with regard to our own property, such as our homes, cars, bodies, computers, etc. Once we put information out on the Internet, all bets are off. But the linked story does raise some interesting questions.

Class Warfare: FaceBook vs. MySpace

I could be wrong, but couldn't the entire difference here be due to the fact that Facebook began as a college social network service, while MySpace has always been a free-for-all?

Dunno, but it sure seems to make more sense than the class divisions theme asserted here.

Today's Shocker: Diplomat Abuses Parking System!

Boing Boing sometimes posts the silliest little stories. The same sort of thing could be said about every diplomat everywhere in the world. Let's see Boing Bong do some research on British diplomats in the US, and see how many unpaid parking tickets they have.

One day we'll defeat the alien technology that defocuses and distorts all known human means for recording visual evidence. I mean, come on: it's been decades, and we still don't have a single clear, in-focus, recognizable photo or video of our extraterrestrial overlords.

Someday.

I can't say that I agree with this list of the top 100 sci-fi movies at Rotten Tomatoes, but it's decent enough as such lists go. I've definitely already noticed a few I haven't seen and probably should, and a few I should see again.

I was disappointed to find Serenity at number 48, though. There are plenty of clearly inferior flicks in front of it. I would have had it in the top 15, at least.

Update: In fairness, this is based on overall reviews (not sure if just on Rotten Tomatoes or elsewhere), and so it's not per se someone's judgement about where any given film should appear.

This doesn't happen every day.

War is a terrible thing, I don't think any rational person denies this. Civilized people have serious problems with it, on an abstract level at the very least. Make it concrete to them, by inundating them with pictures and video of the utter human devastation of war, and it could cause them to lose their will to support war even when necessary.

Refraining from showing the slaughter is therefore the responsible thing to do, because the only point to showing it to people who are perfectly aware of the evil of war would be to help bring about its end regardless of victory or loss. In short, there's a reason why the American media doesn't show an American soldier being blown to pieces by a roadside bomb, while a terrorist organization posts it on the Internet.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a whopping 7394 Diggs, is, I'm sure, some sort of urban legend about misleading the police to get an emergency response to what is likely not an emergency situation.

Typical.

Beautiful.

I can't think of a story that has taken more statistics out of context and used them to draw a more sensationalist and ludicrous conclusion. I'm not sure what kind of site this is (some homeopathic bullshit, mabe), but man, does it suck.

And, it's not even worth a rebuttal. I can't stomach spending any more time on it.

There seems to be alot of this lately, or at least it's making the news more often. Maybe people are becoming less and less wary of nature, which ultimately couldn't give a rat's ass about us Homo Sapiens. And without our technology, we're really pretty helpless in the wild (and, there's a much bigger message there, as well, if you care to think about it).

And a note to those who haven't picked up the clue phone: bears aren't really our friends.

I wouldn't hang him, I'd lock him in a room full of sarin gas. Cruel and unusual? Cruel, certainly. But not unusual for him.

We should put some real meaning behind the nickname "Chemical Ali."

The problem with these sorts of "educational" issues lies within the nature of the public educational system itself which--in addition to the rest of its inherent failures--is necessarily political. Were this a private school, then such an issue would be trivial: simply do what the parents demand, and if you don't, you'll lose paying customers.

And thus is demonstrated the insane perversity of government confiscating its citizens' wealth to produce entertainment (or, even, news, but no matter). Boing Boing wouldn't see that as the problem, however, but rather efforts to use DRM to protect that government-funded material from being copied against the governm...

Oh, Hell, it's not worth trying to figure out. Just suffice it to say that Boing Boing has no problem with government's involvement in this sort of thing, but rather the story just elicits their usual kneejerk reaction to DRM.

My definition of American-Iranian normalization? Iran as a parking lot and, after the glow is gone, us parked right on top of them.

I have a seven-year-old son. This story almost brought me to tears.

Literally.

And these "Freedom Fighters," as Michael Moore would like us to think of them, are fighting not for freedom from an oppressive regime, but rather the freedom to oppress.

I hold to my position that we should only fight wars that are in our direct interests. But as long as we're fighting people like this, I say we turn each and every last one of them inside out.

Literally.

Courtesy of Little Green Footballs, a story that should turn your stomach. Hamas is not our friend, and yet we give them money that they turn into weapons (of course; I almost feel silly simply writing that sentence).

To me, it's tantamount to treason.

I doubt that video games are actually more popular than music. They're just more expensive per unit, and they're harder to pirate. I admit to not reading the linked story that closely, and I might be missing their point entirely. But, that was my first reaction, and I went with it.

And here, I'd say, is the real power and value of the Internet. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogger, Flickr, del.icio.us, and for God's sake, Digg, etc., mean nothing--and, actually, less than nothing--in the face of instantaneously accessing the works of Leonardo Da Vinci.

In this age of digital photography and video, why, oh why, can't anyone EVER get a clear picture of a UFO? I mean, seriously, how will we EVER prove this stuff with nothing but grainy photos of non-descript shining blobs?

And, please tell me: why are airline pilots supposed to necessarily make such credible witnesses?

This may save your life someday.

I love Mythbusters. If only there were more of them.

Note to federal authorities: I'm not calling for a revolution here. But, the Founders were right, I think, in thinking that a little revolution is good for a nation every now and then. Because this stinks to high heaven, and as I stated earlier, I have no doubt that others, including Clinton, have been guilty of precisely the same sort of things. They're just not publicized so, ahem, often.

Now's a good time for my obligatory "I hate politics" statement...

I'd say, this is the brightest Digg yet. And, it doesn't just describe the average Diggster, it describes Digg itself.

Dugg!!!

Uh, yeah, this site's credible. But I will say: I hope it's true that we plan to use nukes against Iran. I can think of no simpler way to resolve the tension in the Middle East than to show the radical Islamists that we really, really, really mean business, and that even if they get one or two nuclear weapons--well, golly, we have thousands.

They could possibly hurt us, maybe even badly, but we could make it as if they never even existed. Except for the glow, of course.

I have a unique idea: if you tell your boss you're going to work from home, how about actually, well, working?

I highly doubt that this is the only area where Noam Chomsky is dead wrong.

Our government has become so large, so bloated, so powerful, and so corrupt that the layman cannot possibly make heads nor tales of this sort of thing. I fear that our media can't, either, and so they draw their conclusions based on whatever their political leanings might happen to be. Since they tend to be Leftist (and I'd require a significant treatise to convince me otherwise), this sort of this will be ascribed to Bushitler and Cheney far more quickly than it ever was to Clinton. And in my mind, Clinton was by far the more treacherous.

Ultimately, who can really blame the average American, with families to take care of, bills to pay, and, yes, in general, lives to live, for not spending the hours, days, weeks, or months it would require to unravel even a single issue like this one. In writing this blog, I spend far more time than most people on such issues, and I often (almost always, really) feel like I'm just getting sucked farther down the rabbit hole.

I have no idea of the veracity of this, and it's a helluva long read for someone who might want to quickly compare it to other Jefferson writings, but if you want to see what Jefferson (might have) thought about Jesus and the New Testament, take a quick read here. Or not so quick, maybe.

Get some Creationist propaganda with your kid's grilled cheese sandwich.

It's good to know that the up-and-coming generation has at least some ingenuity. Call me a curmudgeon, but I'm not terribly optimistic.

And here might be the only case where I can imagine intellectual property piracy being a good thing. The less money that goes to Michael Moore, the better.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 6432 Diggs, is a complaint about the new Digg comment system. Of which, of course, I was completely unaware, and uncaring, unlike many of the commenters who obviously take things like this personally.

Yawn.

Another light blogging day. Much in the way of personal things to get done. More tomorrow.

Cox and Forkum on Sir Salman Rushdie. Hee hee, in a sick sort of today's reality way.

And in the meantime, Iran's Imajihadist, or whatever the Hell his name is, gets away free as a bird.

Incidentally, I can think of a few uses for the butter knife.

The ten most hated words on the Internet. They seem rather innocuous to me, but whatever.

Another good article from Capitalism Magazine, this one on the shift from "global warming" to "climate change" as today's environmentalist mantra. I'd noticed this myself, but only peripherally. This story makes the point explicit.

I couldn't agree more with this Capitalism Magazine story. By whatever means, the Iranian regime needs to be removed and, as in Germany and Japan, a constitutional republic imposed whether the Islamists like it or not. And, we should do so at their expense, and not for their benefit but for ours. We can't have vacuums in the Middle East for terrorists and radical Islamists to step in and control, but our goal isn't to make their lives better.

It's to make our lives more secure. If the Iranians want to avoid such actions, then they need to stand up and remove the current regime from power themselves, and demonstrate that they hold no ill-will toward America. In that case, I'm sure we'd be happy to help out.

Thus demonstrating one of the reasons why America is not a democracy. The Founders feared oppression of a minority by the majority just as much as of the majority by a minority. I can only imagine what they would have thought of oppression by the stupid.

This is awesome, and I want one. Hell, I want two. I'm just not sure what I'd do with them. I don't have any proteins that need folding at the moment.

People have often predicted that we'll have supercomputers on our desks (probably, in our hip pockets, or in our hips). By some measures, we're already there. The Singularity looms large, and I for one am looking forward to it.

Google. Do no evil. Compete on the strength of their own products.

Right.

And the CCA would do this, because every DVD sold clearly states that unauthorized copying is not allowed. If people really wanted to change things, they'd simply boycott CDs and DVDs until the distributors came up with better ways of dealing with things.

Oh, silly me. A boycott wouldn't work, because the people who really care about this issue don't buy CDs and DVDs in the first place--they just pirate them off of Bittorrent.

RealTechNews kind of misses the point here. It's not population per se that dictates CO2 emissions, it's industrial output, automobile use, etc. At least, so the theory goes as I understand it.

What this really shows is that the more advanced the industrial society, the more technology it can bring to bear on the issue. China is much more heavily reliant on burning dirty coal, hence their #1 ranking. One should also remember that the Chinese economy is still only about a fifth (or maybe a bit less) the size of the American economy, and so their CO2 emissions are even more egregious. Where the US to be as backwards in energy use as the Chinese, our own CO2 emissions would be stratospheric (no pun intended).

That is, to the extent that one believes any of it's meaningful in any sense.

I'd think that this might be a surprisingly pro-American post by Boing Boing, except I remember that Boing Boing doesn't really think making money is a good thing.

And how exactly does Boing Boing propose that government keep us secure, since they're basically against government doing anything?

The government's evil and bad and has the Patriot Act and Bushitler and Cheney and Halliburton and all sorts of eavesdropping equipment that can track our every move and we Leftist bloggers are the only safeguards against attempts to take away our freedoms and freely traded MP3's that some of us paid for and everything!

But boy, those government agencies sure have ineffective computer systems, and should fix them pronto! Incompetent dolts, using contractors, even!

Something about this is just simply unappealing. Maybe it's European hygiene.*

*That was a lame attempt at humor. I actually don't know that European hygiene is any worse than American hygiene, except anecdotally. Well, there is that thing about European women and shaving, but I'm not sure if that's the same.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 4366 Diggs, is another story about some poor fool roughed up "unnecessarily" by the police. It's one side of the story, of course, which is bound to make the police officers look bad. Who knows, maybe it's a legitimate complaint.

But this is Digg, y'know?

And I suppose all this Internet traffic is the trading and/or viewing of perfectly legal, non-infringing personal content.

And here's an area where I agree completely with Techdirt: government has no legitimate authority to censor (except perhaps--perhaps--in times of national emergency and war, and then only to protect direct threats to national security). Indeed, censorship is one of the keystones of oppression. From what I can tell, though, Brits are used to this sort of thing.

I maintain my position: mixes and mashups are not original, "innovative" works. They're entirely derivative. They might be "creative," but that's not the same thing. I also don't believe that they constitute any sort of "fair use," and so they're common theft and should be treated accordingly.

It's interesting how the "artist" in this Techdirt story talks about how much his albums would cost if he were required to pay royalties to all the copyright holders he steals from. Interesting concept.

And here, Techdirt misses the point: Madison was talking about government-granted monopolies in the general sense, that is, one company being granted the legal right to control all production and sale of a given product, service, or raw material (e.g., a government-granted cable monopoly), as being evil things. And indeed, such monopolies, when granted by government, are evil things, because they infringe on the rights of any individual who may desire to do business in such property.

Protecting the right to control one's own intellectual property, which does not infringe on anyone's right to sell theirs or any other property, is not the same sort of monopoly. After all, we all have "monopolies" on the uses of our time and energy, for example Michael Jordon could always have withheld his preeminent basketball skills--to the detriment of us all--and been entirely within his rights. The same can be said of an author, artist, musician, etc.

Indeed, I'd guess that upon reflection, Madison would rather not have used the term "monopoly" at all with regard to intellectual property. He might rather have used the term "priviledge," which at the time meant the same as "right" today, as something that government should protect. As usual when considering what the Founders said about some issue, one must be careful to consider their use of the language and how it differs from ours.

Read the story to which Techdirt links. It's a bit different than Techdirt's version. I also concede that my reading might not be precisely the Volokh Conspiracy's, but then I'm not making entirely the same point.

This is ominous. But, no profiling!

I suppose that spending five years in a warzone would have an affect on a person. Doing so with no discernible, rational philosophy would probably be a sort of personal, self-inflicted hell. I read as much of this account as I could, but the nihilism and naturalism was too much to bear.

It sort of felt like looking at birdshit on the crumbling facade of a post-modern office building made to look like it had been through an earthquake. If you know what I mean.

Wow, another free Wi-Fi scheme. I'm sure it'll be secure and reliable.

Why is it that IT folks will go to such ridiculous lengths to get something for free? It's not like they're historically underpaid, or anything.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a high (for the topic) 6489 Diggs, is a list of countries that haven't yet converted to the metric system. Yes, the US is one of them. And yes, the rest of the world can kiss our American asses. The cost of conversion here would be far more than elsewhere, and, well, we just don't want to. And the rest of the world will continue to work with our quaint, antiquated English system because they must.

So all you Diggsters can just sit and spin.

As I've hinted before, the lack of intellectual property protections will drive things underground.* Companies will stop patenting things, and start treating them as trade secrets. The result will be essentially the same as if there were adequate IP protections--companies and invidividuals would be required to come up with truly innovate works, not just derivatives--but the timeframe would be extended beyond the patent's inherently limited scope.

Note that this applies to patents. Copyrights, on the other hand, remain a mess. Perhaps someone will come up with unbreakable encryption that can be applied to copyrighted material, including software, that will render digital copyright infringement almost impossible. That'll do away with physical distribution in a heartbeat, of course, leaving only the computer-equipped able to enjoy music, video and other, non-physical art.

And those who oppose intellectual property rights will only have themselves to blame.

*Note: I'm not sure if this is exactly what the linked story is saying. It's my take on the issue, however.

"Arabs Unwilling to Accept Responsibility." Today's obvious recurring theme. I believe thas has been the case for, oh, about a century or so?

Boing Boing calls this purchase agreement from the early 1900's "abusive." How can one be "abused" when one freely agrees with the terms of a license? When one gives up one's right to make agreements, no matter how onerous they may appear, one gives up the right to control one's existence.

Of course. Boing Boing wants the opposite: to be able to do whatever one damn well pleases if one is a "consumer." If one's a producer, on the other hand, all bets are off. I imagine Boing Boing consumers like Steven King's Lanoliers, all gaping maws eating up whatever's left at the end of time. You'll have to watch the B-movie to get the full effect.

In general, this just shows the long history of recorded intellectual property being licensed, not purchased, giving the lie to those who say that they've "purchased" their music and video and should be able to do whatever they want with it. Again, all I can say is: read the label, and if you don't like the terms, don't buy it. Engaging in theft is not a legitimate alternative.

Go here for a short history of the Middle East as it pertains to Israel and the Palestinians. I'm sure some will call this Zionist propaganda, and so be it. From everything I've read, it's entirely accurate.

It's important for all Americans to watch, to understand the stakes and how such otherwise unfathomable actions in place like Iraq can make some strategic (albeit utterly evil) sense.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a healthy 6084 Diggs, is a good public service announcement. One shouldn't publish other people's private information, including that of suspected criminals. Suspected criminals. Or, maybe even convicted criminals.

We sort of have laws against vigilante justice in this country, and for good reason. Many Diggsters, judging from the comments, don't seem to recognize this. On the other hand, there are a fair number of reasonable comments, and so that's something of a positive.

Overall, a rather lame #1, and not a good return for the Digg Report after a few days' absence.

And does Boing Boing and the rest of the looney Left realize what this means about American justice? The very fact that a court can require the release of such information (rightly or wrongly), in the face of Bushitler and the Neocons, demonstrates that plenty of checks remain against legislation like the Patriot Act.

Looks like the conspiracy buffs will need to return to the days of tin hats and lizardroids.

More on Chavez's efforts to buy goodwill in Latin America through cheap PCs. This would bother me, if I weren't so sure it's bound to be a miserable failure.

Update: They're not even that cheap. This guy's a real wacko. That, or crazy like a fox: maybe he'll make PCs just good enough to drive out other private Latin American competition (to the extent that it exists), and then just nationalize the government-supported Chinese "partner."

Once again, a government is organizing (or offering, depending on one's point of view) a service that private companies would provide if they could make a profit doing so. In all likelihood, if even marginaly "successful" (by whatever bureaucratic definition of success used), municipal Wi-Fi will drive out future, better technologies by offering just enough service for the typical user at just low enough of a price. And, once in place, government will have a vested interest in making sure "its" service is successful, up to and including making it prohibitively expensive for competition.

Mark my words. Things like this will set back better technologies, like WiMAX, for years to come.

"Bush says he’ll veto excessive spending bills." When I first read that headline, I figured it must be from The Onion. There's simply no way that Bush can seriously be saying this so late in the game.

I know the American public has a short memory, but it's not that short. And this is just the sort of thing that the Left will go ballistic over. Bush has yet to veto a spending bill; what could possibly be the benefit of starting now except in a fruitless attempt to win back fiscal conservatives?

As I believe I've mentioned, I hate politics.

And so it starts, and when Israel responds, as it must, it will be blamed for "escalating" violence that has been raging for months. Probably, it will also be blamed for ending some truce that's been violently raging for weeks.

And, as expected, government causes dislocations in the economy. And, also as expected, this will inevitably be blamed on "Big Oil."

Frank Lloyd Wright is turning in his grave right about now. Is there any function in this form?

Cindy Sheehan had some powerful friends. Too bad they were among the enemy.

Those silly pranksters.

It's amazing how Boing Boing goes out of its way to show that terrorism is impossible and thus our guarding against terrorist acts must be the height of both stupidity and oppression. While I wrote just previously about the wrongness of a bunker mentality, I do believe (naturally) in using investigative efforts to locate those who might be inclined to commit acts of terror.

The fact that the particular folks mentioned in the linked story were fools (and, I don't necessarily take one "security guru"'s word on that) doesn't mean that they weren't ripe for the picking by someone with better knowledge on how to commit mass murder. Finding them and incarcerating them, thus removing them from the field of play, seems like a good enough objective on its own.

And as usual, Boing Boing attacks, but it provides no real alternatives.

To me, this is precisely what must happen when a nation assumes a bunker mentality to external threats, rather than removing those threats directly. The Left laments these sorts of things, while simultaneously refusing to allow us to go over those who are directly and indirectly responsible for the threats we face.

If we removed the state sponsors of terrorism, then the terrorists would be that much easier to find, capture, and execute. We haven't found bin Laden because we can't go into Pakistan to look for him, and that's just one example.

The twisted logic in this is impossible to unravel, which is why dealing rationally with the Islamic world is inherently impossible. Salman Rushdie receives Knighthood, which necessarily means that Muslims should commit attacks against... well, non-Muslims, obviously.

An insult can't go unpunished, right?