Friday, 21 February

ACCIDENTAL PRIVACY SPILLS: On his links sidebar, Anil Dash pointed to a notable entry posted on Yale's LawMeme by James Grimmelmann about writer Laurie Garrett, Davos, Metafilter and more. It's not a quick snip.

NO GHOST IN THIS MACHINE: Also highlighted there by Grimmelmann was a recent NY Times editorial, The Trouble With Corporate Radio, that contained the following anecdote:

When a media giant swallows a [radio] station, it typically fires the staff and pipes in music along with something that resembles news via satellite. To make the local public think that things have remained the same, the voice track system sometimes includes references to local matters sprinkled into the broadcast.

Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, had a potential disaster in his district when a freight train carrying anhydrous ammonia derailed, releasing a deadly cloud over the city of Minot. When the emergency alert system failed, the police called the town radio stations, six of which are owned by the corporate giant Clear Channel. According to news accounts, no one answered the phone at the stations for more than an hour and a half. Three hundred people were hospitalized, some partially blinded by the ammonia. Pets and livestock were killed.

Friday, 21 February

BAGHDAD SNAPSHOT ACTION: Two activists have been arrested for posting photos of Baghdad residents in NYC where there are laws against posting handbills and other such things.

The Iraqi snapshots form a creepy echo to the snapshots of the 9/11 victims that appeared in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center and the thousands people who perished in those office buildings.

On February 13, 2003, teams of artists and activists postered New York City with thousands of copies of snapshots from Baghdad. Quiet and casual, the snapshots show a part of Baghdad we rarely see: the part with people in it.

But why, you may ask, do we so rarely see the people of Baghdad? Because Iraq is a ''captive nation'' being held hostage by a dictator whose hobbies include amassing a collection of poisons. And he has already exterminated an entire village in the northern area of his country.

The implied equation of the snapshot collection of hostage residents of Baghdad with the snapshot collection of victims of the 9/11 bombing demonstrates a devastating disorientation on the part of the young would-be activists.

In their commendable quest to live a committed life, they have naively confused the causes and effects of the current conflict, leaving them in a nihilistic morass. The United States is not engaged in a war against the hostage population of Iraq. The Administration wants to remove the Iraqi dictator. And the NYC victims of 9/11 were not being held hostage by the American Government.

Friday, 21 February

E-BOMB: From the Wall Street Journal via Defense Tech Blog comes this item:

[Pentagon officials] are concerned its use could alienate the Iraqi populace by crippling Baghdad's phone and electrical systems and, hence, the city's hospital and emergency-services infrastructure. Because of the permanent nature of the damage it causes, it would significantly raise the financial cost of rebuilding Iraq's economy once a conflict is over.

First, when they dreamt up this concept and worked out the technical means to accomplish it, they probably didn't consider that they were going to have to repair or reinstall the wrecked system. On second thought, when they did mull it over, they probably realized that they don't know how long it would take to set things right.

But what interests me even more about this issue is that it seems to indicate just how much all these things like telephones, TV, and the internet have become integrated into our modern lives. Cutting people off from these things makes them feel isolated and is almost a kind of solitary confinement which is a violation of human rights.

Friday, 21 February

''Hellooo! Is anybody there?'' Imshin asked during the past few days. ''Has this got something to do with the blizzard?'' Yep. I had to go out to shovel the entrance to my driveway this afternoon and then collapsed exhausted for a long nap. When the snowplow clears the street, it often dumps more snow to block the entrance to the driveway.

Wednesday, 19 February

BLOGGER DOWN: Blogger was down since late last night into this morning until at least noon or so. As a result, I couldn't post my accumulated entries. I believe Google gave Ev the additional servers he wanted, and he was busy doing technical things related to this issue. It was very frustrating. This afternoon, like many other people, I was shovelling snow, cleaning up the rest of the blizzard, clearing snow away from my roof's drainpipes, etc..

MEANWHILE . . . Carnival of the Vanities #22 for this week has been posted at The People's Republic of Seabrook. I haven't been able to read any of them yet, but there are at least a few that have piqued my interest.

POINT / COUNTER-POINT: A cute GO-SEE that has been brought to my attention is San Francisco Protest / Counter-Protest Photos, in which some antic dissenters infiltrated a protest march with their own zany counter-spin.

Tuesday, 18 February

TOUCH-AND-GO UNCERTAINTIES: Over the weekend 'Salam Pax' in Baghdad posted a long entry that covered a lot of territory. Among other things, it appeared that he and his mother were preparing to flee the city. I redacted the following excerpt by somewhat standardizing the punctuation because he is a non-native speaker of the language, the original text might not be an affected style by choice, and because not everyone is a veteran e.e.cummings fan:

Instead of getting trapped in one of the streets they have closed for the demos, I stayed home and helped my mother pack things. We have not decided to leave Baghdad if "it" happens, but just in case we absolutely have to. We are very efficient packers, me and my mom. The worst packers are the emotional ones: the 'oh-let's-remember-when-I-bought-this-thing' packers. We just do it in cold blood; we have done this quite often; we are serial packers. Grrrrrrrr.

It is not so easy to flee a place like that. In addition to the route, and possibly having to bribe someone on the border to let you through, there are currency problems. Gypsies use their golden earrings for liquid currency. Some people have used diamonds hidden in their clothes or personal effects. Bedouins sometimes use Rolex watches. Maybe the 'Pax' family has some kind of international credit cards or keeps an emergency stash in a Swiss bank. If they try to go, I wish them a good and successful journey. But, at the same time, it makes me wonder who will be left there to rebuild Iraq.

Tuesday, 18 February

EXISTENTIAL ANGST (LOL): ''You put Blogger in my Google! You put Google in my Blogger!''-- cute GO-SEE, courtesy of The Shifted Librarian earlier on Monday. I tried to post it earlier but there was some kind of technical glitch here, so was unable to. On Sunday, I tried to post a second entry, after the L.A. item, but was unable to accomplish that either. Hope everything is straightened out now.

Sunday, 16 February

LIVE FROM THE (L.A.) BLOGOSPHERE: Over the weekend I 'attended' a blog meet or blogfest in Los Angeles even though I was physically located on the East Coast at the time. The audio of the symposium was sent over the internet, and I listened via RealPlayer on my computer. Xeni Jardin was the moderator and did a very effective job of eliciting interesting responses from the participants. Ev Williams of Pyra Labs (Blogger) made a surprise announcement that Google was purchasing his company. The discussion about this new combination is all over the net. For the Burning Bird thread on this subject, Google + Blogger = What?, click on this link.