As this may indicate, the war bloggers are a hawkish bunch. Sure, Gabrielle Taylor's Moonfarmer presents a fairly catholic link collection with little commentary. Brian Lamb calls his Blowback a "link-bearer for alienated left-wing bloggers everywhere," and he's got the links to The Guardian to prove it.

Thanks for the hat-tip, Tim, even if you seem to think us warbloggers a tiny bit silly.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 11:03 PM

Mathematicians called in by the Metropolitan Police think they have worked out the best way to beat crime in the capital: NDb -(60% x Nc/Nt 40% x Dc/Dt) x 17,585.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 09:10 PM

Posted by at January 17, 2002 08:53 PM

Early reviews have been exultant, heralding Ambrose's ability to create verse that is at once unique and yet, somehow, instantly memorable, as in the book's first poem, "The Fall of the House of Usher":

Posted by at January 17, 2002 02:43 PM

Posted by at January 17, 2002 02:35 PM

When it's fully developed, the SoloTrek would fly at speeds up to 80 mph. The vehicle would run on gasoline and it might go 120 miles without refueling. To prevent the odd gust from crashing you into a tree, the vehicle comes equipped with a sophisticated gyroscopic stabilizing system, which Moshier said is one of the toughest parts of the vehicle to develop.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 01:44 PM

cursor.org's page on Enron. Includes copies of Enron email to employees.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 01:29 PM

Coded files stored on the al-Qaeda computer describe a planned mission to scout Israeli embassy buildings and obtain "preparatory devices for explosives from inside Canada."

Posted by at January 17, 2002 01:25 PM

Ottawa is setting an "extremely alarming" precedent by sending Canadian soldiers on a combat rather than a peace-keeping mission in Afghanistan, the NDP said Thursday.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 01:20 PM

The Truncheon or the Twat

They also tend to have certain ideological characteristics: to a man (and woman) they are as scathingly intolerant of any and all dissent on the War question as they are vehement in their contempt for Arabs °© all Arabs: that is, Arabs as such °© and support for the state of Israel. It's frightening, really, with so many sites °© there must be hundreds of these little war-bots spawned in cyberspace, springing out of the psychic ether like Myrdmidons and lunging at anyone who doesn't toe the Party Line.

On the other hand, I'm in favour of the war -- not because the US has a (comprehensible) vendetta against bin Laden but because the Taliban were a pack of disgusting evil sadists and needed to go. Their treatment of women, homosexuals, and anybody else they considered a deviant was appalling. They had to go, and they would have gone sooner or later anyhow. Not being psychic, I can't be sure that the body count in the US-Afghan conflict is lower than it would have been if Afghanistan had had another civil war, but it seems likely that overall this was the most humane method (which is like saying amputation is superior to death by gangrene).

It's rare that an anti-war commentator offers a better way of handling the Afghan problem -- or related issues like the rise of aggressive anti-Semitism in pre-WWII Germany, apartheid in South Africa, genocide in Rwanda, und so weiter. You can't eliminate a theocratic dictatorship or oligarchy by sanctions because one of the first tenets of virtually all ruling theocracies is "the hardship of this life is inversely proportionate to the pleasure of the next". So anyone with substantial convictions will only be, paradoxically, strengthened by your resistance, and those who are not hardcore are probably not in a position to accomplish anything.

A better solution is to disrupt the state, either by smashing it or subverting it. Smashing it is quicker, but produces more recoil, and must be followed up by the same tactics involved in subversion. Subverting is slower, but has more lasting effects, plus introduces a strategy that can be supported on the long term. Out of the mouths of babes and Dubyas came that 'hearts and minds' crap which, though true, is being completely disregarded in any meaningful sense. Dropping food packets, vacillating about leaving a permanent garrison, sucking the Canadians in to do your dirty work, and then letting warlords like Rostum run all over murdering and looting is not a good way to win anybody's heart (outside of the Bush clan, at least, I don't presume to know what works for him personally).

While a long term, intelligent, and completely shameless subversion strategy would obviously be best, nobody has the realpolitik cold blood necessary. Positioning a hundred free-to-those-who-wash-their-hands porta-falafel-stands in the Tora Bora hills (though clear the mines first, wouldja boys) and, say, a thousand give-an-orgasm-get-an-orgasm prostitutes (protected by at least an equal number of SEALs or Marines) would've done more to win 'hearts and minds' than a thousand dumbass smart bombs. Sadly, I don't see anybody signing up to Whore For Peace (even though whoredom was a respected profession before you men were let in charge).

The real nature of this war was, and continues to be, about freedom versus repression. Whether the US gov't intended to serve freedom by booting the Taliban is irrelevant; they did a good thing by booting them. Human freedom is worth paying lives for -- if that's how it has to be got, which it is, because there is no government on the planet sane enough, or feminine enough, to win with the twat instead of the truncheon. Whoring for peace may not sound as nice as bombing for peace, but there's a much greater chance of physical love (even commercial, bought-and-paid-for-love) turning into emotional love -- than, say, a bullet in the head turning into emotional love. Isn't love what all this fighting's about?

However, solving global problems by ineffective sanctions or questionably effective violence is the order du jour -- while something better would be nice, one has to be intelligent about one's odds and take the best thing available (while continuing to agitate, of course). One has to keep one's eye on the goal and do anything that furthers that end. Any more fastidious attitude is egotistical and doomed -- the biggest problem with the left is that it predominantly wants what it wants and it wants it in a very specific and stylized sort of way. Sure, it would be nicer if the Taliban could be peacefully replaced with a democratically and gender-balanced set of wise elders. But put that way, doesn't it sound... unlikely?

So get over yourselves, warbloggers, and don't be so sure you can control the debate: there are some of us who just won't be "disciplined" all that easily.

Nobody controls the debate. Nobody can control the debate. The internet is live, global, and pervasive. I don't watch news on teevee because it is controlled; some idiot is deciding what's going to be interesting to me for the next half hour to an hour interspersed with commercials for stuff I don't want. I can get the same amount of information off the net in five minutes or my pizza's free. If I go to a website and it bores or otherwise doesn't impress, I click away. Everybody (with some exceptions in countries foolish enough to think they can control the internet, hoc etiam transibit) can do that.

With hundreds of millions of people online (some of us who have been blogging even longer than Mister Raimondo -- now now, I won't be like that) what's the point in flipping out about a few people who get excited enough to, on their own dime and time, do their own extended dance remix of the world news? Isn't it more amazing that, not only is it possible and cheap to do so, but that people care enough to get involved? This isn't high school, this is the world. There's room for more than one group of Cool People.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 12:52 PM

"If we find ourselves in a situation of conflict ° it's a hypothesis ° of war, of confrontation, we wouldn't make threats, we'd act," said Villeneuve.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 11:26 AM

Robinson says most legal experts disagree with Washington's view that the fighters are illegal combatants and therefore not protected by the Geneva Conventions.

Duh.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 11:24 AM

The NORAD home page declares its mission to include "the detection, validation, and warning of attack against North America whether by aircraft, missiles, or space vehicles." It may seem ungallant to say the obvious, but since no one else has, I will: At the aircraft part of this mission, NORAD sucks.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 11:11 AM

If Harris and his cabinet didn't hear the plainly sounded alarms, it was because they didn't want to, and didn't want the public to either, the report suggests.
With the government determined to slash red tape, even worried scientists and other officials felt powerless to push for tighter rules, the report concludes.
The result was long-lasting confusion in the protocol for reporting bad water that kept health officials in the dark and allowed Stan Koebel to keep quiet when he learned Walkerton's water was contaminated.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 11:00 AM

No one knows whether the original thief came back for Perron's car after police left, said lawyer Cathie St-Germain, who represents General Accident.
Maybe a new thief took advantage of an opportunity upon noticing the Acura's steering column was broken and the ignition forced with a screwdriver, she added.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 10:57 AM

In Montreal, Haouari's former lawyer said the U.S. criminal justice system made an example of his client with the harsh sentence. Joseph Elfassy said Haouari might have received a lighter punishment in Canada. He added that the sentence probably would have been reduced if Haouari had co-operated with authorities from the moment of his arrest.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 10:54 AM

"The law allows (a person) to come to the door naked. It just doesn't let him go outside," said Pelote, D-Savannah. "I don't even want him coming to the door naked."

Posted by at January 17, 2002 10:22 AM

The researchers isolated the neutrons from the three other forces in a specially designed detector. They were able to show the slow-moving, uncharged particles fall under the influence of gravity as predicted. The particles jumped from one height to another.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 10:22 AM

Dear Doctor Rude,
I think I understand what a "platonic kiss" is, but could you explain to me the difference between the following kisses?
1. Aristotelian kiss
2. Hegelian kiss
3. Wittgensteinian kiss
4. Godelian kiss
Signed,
Flummoxed in Florida

Posted by at January 17, 2002 09:53 AM

Getting to the bottom of Enron's 3,000 or so partnerships and subsidiaries, nearly 900 of which are offshore, will not be easy. What is known is that the dealings between Enron and the various partnerships were not conducted at arm's length, as the company contended until questions arose last fall. In some partnerships, Enron's shareholders were responsible for partnership debts even though they did not benefit from the entities.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 09:44 AM

°ƒDefeating terrorism is going to require undermining the ends-justify-the-means amorality of terrorism, and the only way to do that is to reaffirm human rights as particular suspects are pursued,°± executive director Kenneth Roth said in an interview.
°ƒOtherwise, you may end up capturing a particular terrorist but you reaffirm the logic of terrorism ° the view that anything goes in the name of a cause,°± he said.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 09:42 AM

The South Korean court said it ruled against him because he neither attended trials nor appointed an attorney to defend himself -- equivalent to a confession under South Korean laws.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 09:40 AM

"What can we do? We are hungry. We have no food in our homes. We have to dig up these things and sell them," Mohammad said. "We don't worry about our history. We just think of our hunger."

Posted by at January 17, 2002 09:37 AM

The 75-year-old queen is described as caring more about dogs and horses than her subjects and damned as a failed mother whose negligence towards her dysfunctional family has damaged Britain's 1,000-year-old monarchy.

The British monarchy has such a history of family unity -- hardly ever beheaded any ex-wives.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 08:31 AM

PW: I like to think of this as the Napster recession. If you plot the stock markets before September 11th, you can see that the crucial court rulings are almost like hinge points where the market bends up or down. The stock prices go up after a favorable ruling for Napster and drop afterwards. It's probably a bit silly to ascribe all of the market's zeitgeist to one company, but the end of Napster is really the biggest roadblock for the personal computer. Until Napster crashed, everyone kept predicting more, bigger and better things for the humming space heaters under the desks.

LL: This is an important and under discussed point. We have seen a dramatic crash in the market. Why? Most attribute it exclusively to "irrational expectations." But meanwhile there has been a very dramatic change in the legal environment within which the take-off occurred. This change must have had an effect.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 08:22 AM

The Confederation took the step to avoid presenting a "third-world image" during the most high-profile tournament on the continent.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 08:20 AM

"This is the new sex, or certainly the new safe sex," Weintrob says. "People are more willing to be sexually open when they don't have to touch each other. Now they can see and hear one another -- and someday they'll maybe even be able to feel each other -- without any actual human contact."

Posted by at January 17, 2002 08:03 AM

I SHOPPED AT the Audible.com site to find out exactly how much it would cost me to get the Otis player. By purchasing a 12-month Basic Listener subscription for $12.95 a month--which includes one audio book and a one-month subscription to the content program of your choice--I could get the Otis player for $74.90 ($49 for the player, $12.95 for the first month, plus $12.95 shipping and handling to my New York address). For an extra $3 a month, I could get a Premium Listener subscription, which includes two audio books a month instead.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 06:47 AM

Nick Park has set into production 12 exciting new Wallace and Gromit films all to be released later this year, free of charge with the help of the internet. Each film features one of Wallace's unique new inventions and runs for approximately 1 minute.

Posted by at January 17, 2002 06:33 AM