Today's links

+ Radio YourWay - cool looking little TiVo for Radio + voice/line-in recorder. The price point's not bad (200$), and you can offload files as mp3s to your computer. You can get the older one at Amazon with free shipping for 120. I'd impulse-buy it if I had 120$ ;-) You can add this functionality to my PDA/cell phone combo wish list.

+ Snow Triggers Avalanche in Colorado. Snow has been known to do that...

+ China Calls for Dialogue with Taiwan. See...China can rise peacefully...

+ I love ellipses!

+ The Pope and Schiavo

Apparently the pope approves of many life-extending practices, like feeding tubes, regarding them as normal treatment.

That's fine, but I sure wouldn't want to mandate it. I hope this isn't viewed as an ethical prescription by/for Catholics. I personally wouldn't want my life extended indefinitely with a feeding tube, especially if I were unconscious with slim hope of recovery.

+ 'We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.' This from the presidential commission on US intelligence.

I still find it impossible to believe (literally 'incredible') that President Bush did not 'hype the intelligence' he received or pre-influence the reports.

While no evidence of such influence was found and all of the analysts said they weren't influenced, the report stated, 'It is hard to deny the conclusion that intelligence analysts worked in an environment that did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom.'

+ Tom takes people to task for their position on China, including its involvement in Africa (scroll down to first bold section). If China does some good in Africa, relative to our practical inattention, I say bully for them!

+ I got lazy and neglected my own recommended practice of ctrl-a, ctrl-c before I post anything on Blogger and THOUGHT I'd lost a bunch of changes I made to my Barnett/Wired post. But I didn't, so it's all OK.

More smorgasbord

+ Inventive spam. This one looks like a misdrirected insider-tip. Bio-Warm is a legitimate business. Wonder how this tactic dovetails therewith...

Hey David,

I spoke to John yesterday and he confirmed that the stock I told you about over the weekend Bio-Warm (BOWC.OB) does indeed
have a military contract in the works. John doesn't know the exact number, but he said it was somewhere in the
75 to 100 million dollar range. When this hits the market, the stock won't be 15 cents anymore, it will soar over $7.00 just
like the Sirius Satelite ru -up he gave us last year. Give me a call tonight, and say hi to Linda for me.

Take Care,

William

+ Update. Then I got this additional message:

Hey David,

I spoke to John yesterday and he confirmed that the stock I told you about over the weekend Bio-Warm (BOWC.OB) does indeed
have a military contract in the works. John doesn't know the exact number, but he said it was somewhere in the
75 to 100 million dollar range. When this hits the market, the stock won't be 15 cents anymore, it will soar over $7.00 just
like the Sirius Satelite ru -up he gave us last year. Give me a call tonight, and say hi to Linda for me.

Take Care,

William

Even more insidious...

+ I work a stone's throw from West Columbia, SC, where some Panthers are alleged to have gotten banned steroids.

+ Entertainment lawyer sounds sorry that they can't go into homes and pull software off of computers. Duh and double duh. Matt's del.icio.us tag for this would be: a--hat/s . At least the Justices seem to be keeping the downside in mind:

In a lively hourlong debate, the court openly worried that new lawsuits could stunt the next iPod. Justices also wondered aloud whether lawsuits against manufacturers might have discouraged past inventions like copying machines, videocassette recorders and MP3 music players - which consumers can use to make illegal copies of documents, movies and songs.

Justice Antonin Scalia said a ruling for entertainment companies could mean that if "I'm a new inventor, I'm going to get sued right away."

Souter says if people can get music for free, they won't pay. iTunes has given the lie to that.

+ Speaking of Matt, he notes that del.icio.us is getting funding and Josh will be able to do it full time. That's cool. It's such a great service, not least for being a simple, elegant tool.

+ Keeping with the Matt obsession (and clearing out my Bloglines for him), notes from one of his talks at SXSW. My thoughts:

MetaFilter is not about high tech. It's fairly low tech. But it's a great interface, the best for these kinds of discussions, even better than conventional weblogs. Again, it's simple and elegant. The community was exactly what I was looking for for awhile, but then I migrated off of the Mother Ship and kept connections with people you see in my BlogRoll.

digg.com looks like a cool concept. I'd like to see it with regular news and not just tech news. It's kind of like user-moderated Google News.

+ Ranking my BlogRoll by number of Bloglines subscribers:

4631 - kottke (all hail)
1054 - del.icio.us/popular
378 - defective yeti
279 - Matt's a.whole
50 - Tom Barnett
21 - Laputan Logic
5 - (the erstwhile) Archipelapogo
4 - Byzantium's Shores
3 - blog.boydston.us
3 - Finches' Wings
2 - A Blog of His Own (me and Jaq?)
2 - Streams of Consciousness (me and Jaq?)
1 - Stokes Kith and Kin
1 - View from the bench

And, incidentally, I've got 3 subscribers (Jaq, Scott, and Eric?), for whatever that's worth.

+ Iraqi resistance begins to crack after elections. Amen. May it indeed be so. (via Stokes)

+ Brad Bird interview

Send your stuff to your heroes, befriend someone who gets your work, and beware of middle managers.

+ Moneyball for the NBA. And, apparently, the Mavs are dipping in (see end of article). (via kottke)

+ Riding the world's fastest maglev in China (via, you know, kottke)

Wired/Barnett mashup

Update: Wired is posting some of the articles, so I'm going to move this back to the top again.

Wherein I institute a new feature, posting my thoughts on reading Wired through the grid of Thomas Barnett's view of the world. The new, April Wired is edition 13.04. When Wired puts up the URLs, I will link them. But if you're interested in Wired at all, you ought to just subscribe. The introductory offer is 10$/yr, and the renewal rate is only 12$.

+ The Outsourcing Myth

We actually insource many more foreign service jobs than we outsource. It makes a lot of sense once you think about it. But you don't hear about it, and you certainly don't hear us complaining. So if we get all protectionist when it comes to international outsourcing, the net result will be very negative.

+ China's Next Cultural Revolution

• The demand for oil is rising faster than its price.
• Pollution-related illness will suck as much as 15% of the GDP by 2030.
  
• These kinds of pollution statistics are highly debatable, but this is a big number that's worth thinking about.
• Beijing mandated some of the world's toughest fuel-efficiency standards in 2003. They plan to convert all public buses to compressed natural gas by the 2008 Olympics.
• Lack of gasoline infrastructure might allow China to leap-frog the internal combustion engine.
• The advantage of central planning: they could mandate, say, no internal combustion engines in Beijing.
• Population will reach almost 1.3B by 2030. Only way to forestall economic calamity is 25 consecutive years of high GDP growth. That will require huge amounts of energy. China will have to double its oil imports by 2020.
• This is something Tom harps on: the realities of China's growing energy needs and economy. They will be huge determiners of China's foreign policy in years to come. They already are.
• Assertion in the article that dependence on foreign oil inevitably leads to war featuring a Mandarin pun: 'If you pump for oil, you have to fight wars for it,' where 'pump' and 'fight' sound similar in Mandarin.
• The hope is to use alternative energy to replace 10% of China's energy demand by 2010 and 12% by 2020, up from 1% today.
• That 2020 goal seems low, unless it's another 12%. The article isn't clear.
• Pollution in China will make alternative energy necessary. 18 of the worlds's 25 most polluted cities according to the World Bank.
• The goal is to mass produce hydrogen fuel cells by 2020.
• In developing a strategy for their auto industry, they knew they couldn't compete with the West on the internal combustion engine.
• If they beat us on hydrogen, goodbye Detroit. Of course, we can probably say goodbye to the power of Detroit in twenty years anyway.
• Another assertion in the article, which I agree with from my reading of the previous article, is that hybrid auto technology will probably prove to be longer lasting than just a transition to hydrogen.
• Significant hybrid development and market roll-out in China will require startup infrastructure, niche technology companies, and venture capital. But that's what Foreign Direct Investment is for.

+ La Vida Robot

• Four undocumented Latino high school students won an underwater robotics contest, beating the likes of MIT. The tragedy here is that they have very few future options. One of them was in ROTC and wanted to join the military, but couldn't. One of them's a genius, but would have to pay out-of-state tuition.
• We've got to get educations for these kids and all of those like them. Here's a modest proposal: Let them pay in-state for two years of community college if they graduate from high school with a C average. Give them two more years at in-state rates at a four-year school if they earn an Associates Degree. Think about the economic payback on a little investment like this. We need more workers people! Not to mention out need for soldiers.

This and that

+ Matt's crazy about Odeo 1 2. When I saw that it was invitation only, I emailed Odeo to see if I could get one. And who should email me back but the Big Blogger/Odeo-n himself! Guess that's how startups work. Said he'll put me on the list. Yes, sir.

+ Did you notice that I cleaned up my list of weblogs I read a little bit?

+ 59 American Ex-Diplomats Oppose Bolton. Wow. That's a lot of opposition to our (proposed new) man in New York.

+ Data theft is getting out of hand.

+ I'm going to start using Metacritic more (via kottke). Movies to add to my watchlist based thereon: The Aviator, Ray, Finding Neverland, In Good Company, Donnie Darko, Ladder 49. Comments?

+ We watched The Bourne Supremacy tonight for the first time and liked it. Tomorrow night: Spartan.

+ Jaq says (sung to the tune of Jane Says):

Thomas Barnett is really just some guy who sits at the end of the bar that Sean visits every day after work for a few beers before going home to the twins.

I told him he says the sweetest things.

+ Brad has a great quote from one of the past luminaries of our denomination about communion:

Some say if baptism is a means of grace, it would follow that everyone who is baptized would be saved. The gospel is also a means of grace, but it certainly does not follow that everyone who hears or reads the gospel will be saved. The means saves through faith, but where unfaith steps in, the means serves no purpose... Bread is a means of nourishment, but it does not follow that one who has bread cannot starve. He will starve, if he does not eat.

PP Waldenström (1838-1917)

+ This story's been saved in Bloglines for quite a while: Matt got on a plane with some stinky people, but the flight attendant saved them with coffee.

+ I didn't read the whole thing, but I still liked the comparison between Micro$oft and the Ring of Power

One OS to rule them all
One OS to find them
One OS to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them...

(via Bill H).

That's just one of 8 chapters, 2 appendices, and an Introduction/Abstract.

100 favourite fictional characters

The 100 favourite fictional characters...as chosen by 100 literary luminaries (via kottke)

This ended up being a really fun article for me to read. Thoughts below:

So many Jane Austen characters chosen. In fact, she is the most-represented author. She is surely one of our greatest characterizers. Elizabeth Bennett is wonderful. So is Emma Woodhouse. But I prefer Anne Elliot. She is truly wonderful: good without being moralistic and smart without being brash. Elinor Dashwood is too wooden for me. And I can't stand Mrs Norris.

Gandalf is great, but nearly infallible, so I wouldn't put him in this list, nor Aragorn.

I really liked Stephen Daedalus, Quentin (The Sound and the Fury), and Hamlet when I was in high school. You can see my depressive, tragical teenage years.

Someone I really like these days is Hazel from Watership Down. He needs his friends and warrenmates, but he's the one with leadership and decisiveness who holds them together. He's not the strongest and smartest and most vituous, like Aragorn. This is more like real leadership to me, and, indeed, everyone gets to participate. I see later in the articles that someone else chose Bigwig. A great book.

Ah yes, Anne Shirley of Green Gables. A good character and, indeed, very passionate.

These reviews make me want to check out Philip Marlowe, Macaulay's Horatius, Vanity Fair, and The Magic Mountain. Any seconds? How about you?

Regurge

Here's the stuff I've been saving up all week, waiting for a chance to post (in addition to the last two below):

+ Hobbit in waiting. Wonder if this thing will actually come to pass...

+ I first saw over on Tom's weblog that Amazon is now searching 'statistically improbable phrases' for certain books and linking them. kottke linked a post on this, too. Interesting.

+ Did you hear the one about the Google employee who was putting her underwear in the washer at work (which is totally in-bounds at Google. It's a perk.) and got walked in on by Colin Powell. He played it pretty cool...

+ There was an article in The Economist on March 10th called 'A spiritual connection' (you have to subscribe to get it online :-( about the ways cell phones are used relative to spirituality. The important takeaway, to me, is that cellphone usage (not the phone itself (which, to be clear, the article does not suggest), is very personal to people. Very few people fetishize their phone, but they're very attached to using it. This tells us something about the deployment of technology - eg, that cell phones will continue to sport new features much faster than, say PDAs, at a lower price-point, because of the demand and volume. Myself, I'd rather have a PDA with phone-like functions, but it's clear to me that the trend is phones morphing slowly toward some PDA functionality. Maybe with the way mp3 players are selling we'll get some decent instances of phones merging with mp3 players. That'd be a place to start. I'd want to see at least 512MB of storage (iPod Shuffle level) for starters.

+ Steven Johnson writes that he doesn't weblog when he's writing (via kottke). That's fine. Neal Stephenson obviously wouldn't either. Cory Doctorow, on the other hand, does. And after that brief survey of the people I have linked recently we draw a simple conclusion: different writers have different working styles. Anyone who proposes a universal is full of baloney.

+ Speaking of cell phones and mp3 convergence, I'd like to request a website where I can go in and pre-select podcasts or radio that I want to subscribe to, then I can call in and listen to them on my cell phone, especially with night and weekend minutes.

+ Speaking of cellphones again, here's a concept I'd love to have. It's not on the drawing board, just someone's idea of a good idea: a cell phone i Pod. Awfully close to earning the name 'cephaloPod', no? Maybe 'celphoPod'...

+ Favorite Southern Expression of the Week: 'Do what?' I was talking to a customer on the phone today and he said 'I'll be by tomorrow to pick it up.' and I said 'No don't because we're off for Easter.' and he said 'Do what?'. I have heard this phrase used similarly in different contexts, usually those of great shock. Future installment: 'or either'.

The Schiavo case

I'm a little surprised at how big the Schiavo case has become. I miscalculated the political importance this would take on.

One little-discussed issue, relative to the headline media coverage, is the role of states' rights over against the role of the Federal Governement. My default position would be: let the states and their courts handle the case. Maybe this case is important enough to take on at the national level. I guess politics and public opinion are saying so.

Something I haven't heard much about is the length of time Schiavo has been on a feeding tube: 15 years. To me, there's not a material difference between 'life support' and a feeding tube at the 15 year mark.

Having heard an interview with the doctor for the state of Florida who diagnosed Schiavo as 'persistently vegetative', I find his diagnosis compelling.

There was an interesting article yesterday morning that one poll finds most Evangelicals, who support the 'right to life', oppose federal intervention in the Schiavo case.

There's lots of irony in this case. We Evangelicals fight for the 'right to life', and I believe we should (though of course I often disagree with the tactics, rhetoric, and spirit employed). However, we also profess life after death. We have the most reason of anyone to not hold life too tightly. There are fates worse than death.

We say God ultimately decides when a person dies (medical treatment and technology notwithstanding), and that that decision should not be usurped by people. That's what Evangelicals are fighting for, on abortion and euthanasia and life support.

Another irony in this case, as Daniel Shore pointed out on NPR, is that many of the same people who are arguing to extend Schiavo's care are those who want to cut Medicare and bemoan a looming Social Security crisis. How do we pay for years of this kind of care?

I talked to my brother about this case last night on the phone. He sent me a link to an article on an alternative Catholic view (caveat: Catholic difference of opinion is sometimes pretty hard to sort out: who speaks for the pope?). Overall, I tend to agree with Rev Paris' opinions expressed in this article, obviously including the 'limited goodness' - from a Christian perspective - of life.

[T]he pope's 1980 Declaration on Euthanasia...says that one need not use disproportionately burdensome measures to sustain life. Even if the treatment is in place, if it proves burdensome it can be removed.

The Pope's own health, about which Eric comments, factors into an overall perspective here. While I agree with Eric that the pope's suffering is 'an act of service, faith and love' and that his courage is inspirational, I think the post would best serve by moving into an 'emeritus' role. He would still be a much beloved spiritual leader while his important administrative responsibilites could be picked up by someone in better health.

My friend Carol and I have been discussing this case. She pointed me to law professor Ann Althouse, who has two good posts on this case relative to federalism and the rule of law (expressed mostly regarding 'activist' judges).

Carol also linked (in this discussion thread) this post evaluating some of the principles involved in this case.

I agree with Bainbridge on these four values as important principles: culture of life, limited government, federalism, and the rule of law. But I don't agree with him in application. I don't apply 'culture of life' the way he does. I tend to think the federal government should not intervene in this case. I don't think 'failing' to step in and protect Schiavo is a failure of government. I don't think federalism should be interrupted here. And, while agreeing that Schiavo's husband has a conflict of interest and that the chronology of his actions is distressing, I don't think that the appeals court judge compromised himself by assuming inconsistent roles. I think he was showing acceptable bias for federalism and the rule of law.

At the end of the day it may be the case that protecting life trumps limited government, federalism, and the rule of law. But I'm not convinced, so far, that this is the case that should do it.

SCOTUS, originalism, and the Constitution

Macon links a transcript of a Justice Scalia speech that sure makes for interesting reading. Without having done a lot of study, I'm biased toward originalism, and 'conservative' interpretation generally, be it Scripture, literature, or the Constitution. Let's start with what it says and with what it meant in its original context. Then, if we're making a change, let's be honest about it, but not try to say 'this is really contained within the intent of the text' or the authority of the text, or whatever.

The Bill of Rights is devised to protect you and me against, who do you think? The majority. My most important function on the Supreme Court is to tell the majority to take a walk.

Just a few quick things

+ Tom had an hour-long interview on WHYY (in which he gets caught logging the show while on the show). Standard Pentagon's New Map stuff, but if you haven't heard it, it'd be a good intro.

+ I've also been throwing a lot of stuff into my del.icio.us lately, so you might want to check it out.

+ The rumor that Yahoo's acquiring Flickr was true. Makes sense and good for them. I hope they make a billion (like Mark Cuban).

+ I'm doing pretty bad in my NCAA picks.

Today's odds and ends

+ Like Eric, I thought Wolfofitz was a bad choice. But I'm not as surprised as he was that Tom Barnett likes Wolfofitz. I was curious to see what Tom would say, though, so I'm glad he wrote about it.

+ kottke links a good, longish article on Google, focusing on their business iconoclasm.

+ O'Reillynet interview with Cory Doctorow

I have to smirk when people say 'I identify so much with Ender!' Give me a break. You're not that smart. You can't be. It's a glorification of childhood genius as military mastermind.

Interesting stuff about his writing process.

+ I'm trying to clean out the posts I've saved in Bloglines. I was doing pretty well, too. Then Firefox spontaneously shut down and I lost some of the stuff I was working on. Blast! Oh well, if it had been important it wouldn't have sat in there for weeks.

Various and sundry

+ Dude, want to learn more about del.icio.us power use?

+ All Things Considered had a good interview on tonight with a law prof from Georgetown that was critical of the Congressional Hearings on steroids. He made some good points about hearings being a bad place to question people (there's no judge to object to, how hearings like this bring out the worst in Congress and the American people (and, I add, the media).

+ Have you seen Batman: New Times? Animation based on LEGOs. Very cool. It's a long-loading stream: beware if you're bandwidth-challenged. Apparently it was inspired by The Peril of Doc Ock, stop-motion LEGO animation.

And a few other loose threads

+ Speaking of kottke, Jason noted once that now he doesn't link to his sources as much because he reads things in tabs. I forget if he mentioned feed readers, but that's certainly how I read these days. The consolation for both of us is that we link our most common sources in our sidebars. If
even kottke admits such behavior, it must be alright, right? ;-)

+ It's obvious to me that Google should revamp its Gmail labels a little bit to function more like tags. Then I could just enter a new one without having to Create A New Label.

+ Did you hear the story of Brad Kasal on NPR last week? I thought it was very moving:

An Iowa Marine is receiving widespread praise for his bravery after leading a daring rescue mission in Iraq last fall.

Sgt. Brad Kasal, of Afton, said he learned three fellow Marines were wounded inside an enemy-controlled house during house-to-house battles with insurgents in Fallujah on Nov. 13. source

Afton is west of Osceola (which is west of Chariton (home of Hy-Vee)) and east of Creston.

+ I respect the pope a lot. But it's time for him to resign.

+ Why I'm not worried about social security: NPR profiled 3 solutions i could live with. That leaves me hopeful that there are decent solutions out there. Hopefully we'll get to one in the next 20 years.

+ All three major universities in Iowa have a team in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, along with Iowa State's women.

+ However, '42 of the 65 teams playing in the men's NCAA tournament graduated less than 50 percent of their players' source. I can't allow myself to enjoy anything unreservedly. Always have to see the down side. Anyway, there's one.

+ Hard to believe picking Wolfowitz to helm the World Bank is a diplomatic gesture towards our European allies. Add to that a journalist from Texas heading up public diplomacy at State and re-nominating judges who were already refused by the Congress and I Just Don't Get It. That's not even accounting for this unmandated Social Security push. Our president is committing political suicide, in my humble opinion.

Neal Stephenson

I've been wanting to check out the Reason interview that kottke linked for a long time. I must say, I came out of it even more favorably disposed toward Mr Stephenson.

Two quotes:

Speaking as an observer who has many friends with libertarian instincts, I would point out that terrorism is a much more formidable opponent of political liberty than government. Government acts almost as a recruiting station for libertarians. Anyone who pays taxes or has to fill out government paperwork develops libertarian impulses almost as a knee-jerk reaction. But terrorism acts as a recruiting station for statists. So it looks to me as though we are headed for a triangular system in which libertarians and statists and terrorists interact with each other in a way that I?m afraid might turn out to be quite stable.

and

It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from all of this. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; the depiction of technical sorts in popular culture has been overwhelmingly negative for at least a generation now. More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn?t care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don?t belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture.

Now I'm not sure about this second quote. Sure, there's some distrust, but when science crosses over into business, like the iPod, or Google, we like science pretty well (It's the economy, stupid.). I think this is a little alarmist because Stephenson is someone who loves science. In addition, technology will be our best way of making money in the future. It won't be manufacturing (unless it's orbital ;-) and even some service jobs are now going overseas.

Reading the interview makes me more open to reading the Baroque Cycle. i've been resisting thinking i would like his pure SF more.

Stephenson seems interestingly open to metaphysics (in the classical, philosophical and not the fruity, Barnes and Noble section sense) and Christianity, much more so than your average born-again-rationalist Reason reader (which he sort of alludes to).

This reading sent me over to nealstephenson.com. Some wisdom therefrom (on writing and time management):

Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four. If I know that I am going to be interrupted, I can't concentrate, and if I suspect that I might be interrupted, I can't do anything at all. Likewise, several consecutive days with four-hour time-slabs in them give me a stretch of time in which I can write a decent book chapter, but the same number of hours spread out across a few weeks, with interruptions in between them, are nearly useless...

Another factor in this choice is that writing fiction every day seems to be an essential component in my sustaining good mental health. If I get blocked from writing fiction, I rapidly become depressed, and extremely unpleasant to be around. As long as I keep writing it, though, I am fit to be around other people. So all of the incentives point in the direction of devoting all available hours to fiction writing.

Must. Post. Something.

Even if it kills me ;-)

Brad Johnson might come back to the Vikings. Sounds good to me.

Chris was wondering what my thoughts are on the Moss trade. I've cut Randy a lot of slack regarding my opinion because he was OUR miscreant. Now I'm okay with him leaving. He has become a distraction. Let him go play for the Raiders. We haven't been able to break through to the other side. Let's miz things up: new owner, bringing in some guys who can play defense. We've got some great running talent and a good O-line. Could be good.

Jeff Bezos is planning a spaceport. Sounds good to me.

The Hawkeyes played themselves into the Big Dance with a strong showing in the Big Ten Tournament. If they'd have played a little better they could have beaten Wisconsin, too, and earned the right to be beaten by Illinois. I don't have them winning out of the round of 32, but, hey, it's fun. All three major Iowa schools are in the Tournament this year. That's fun.

Remind me why the Georgia killer needs a trial. Everyone saw it. He was already charged with a heinous crime. My gut reaction that doesn't seem to be fading away is: dispatch him as quickly as possible.

Matt had an idea for a Tom Barnett bumper sticker (scroll to bottom). Macon found it and emailed me. I emailed Tom. He liked it and posted it. More to come!

Speaking of Macon - I know him, and he knows the Amplifier guys, and they won a big award at SXSW. My cool number is 2.

That should about do it for tonight.

audiopost: Coming back to the weblog

Today's links

Did you see the cards you can print and cut out to hand people who are talking obnoxiously on their cell phones?

Dare we hope that peace might break out in the Middle East? Israel freed 500 prisoners as a show of support for Abbas. Syria might pull out of Lebanon. All of this following on a successful election in Iraq. I'm one of the biggest cynics around, don't worry. But I try to be open to hope. Here's hoping...

Who was the greatest president? Lincoln or Reagan, according to two recent polls. I don't feel educated enough to make such a decision. My own views seem based on who history has pushed (Lincoln, FDR, Washington, Jefferson) or my own bias (anti-Reagan). I have positive feelings about what I've learned about Madison, but I couldn't back it up from fact right now. What do you think?

A few more links

Steven Johnson details his research and retrieval system which, frankly, is pretty amazing. You could do this to a smaller degree with a weblog, as Tom has done with his in the writing of the latest book.

Altered HIV Attacks Mice Tumors. This headline blows my mind. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could use AIDS to battle cancer?

Kottke links a blank keyboard. I know from when I switched to Dvorak keyboard that the best way to learn to touch type is to do so on a keyboard that doesn't help you. Even now my QWERTY typing could certainly use such polishing. Course, you don't have to go all the way to a keyboard. You can just get stickers for $14.95. Heck, you could just cut up labels or something and make your own stickers. I will definitely utilize this trick when it's time for the twins to learn touch typing. That is, if we don't have a better technology by then. Here's hoping...

Need to get your email under control? 5 tips.

[all the ideas for these paragraphs came from kottke's remaindered links that i had saved up in Bloglines]

That should do it for today.

It gets worse...

Did you see that the guy who caused the train derailment in LA may have been trying to get his estranged wife's attention? Ugh.

[random news source was the first one that came up in my Google News search]

Bush on Social Security

Question: Why is President Bush so intent on changing Social Security? Politically, it's going to be a tough sell. The crisis point is years in the future. Can he really get it done? Can he gain from this?

Some people will say it's because he believes it,so he's doing it, even if it's going to be politically tough. Alright, but just because he believe is doesn't mean I have to agree with him that we have a crisis or that his plan is the way to deal with it.

More Patriots news

First of all, best wishes to Tedy Bruschi and his family in the wake of his stroke. I wonder if this is football related, like a development from a concussion or something like that.

Second, did you see that the Sports Illustrated NFL Player of the Year was Tom Brady? Sorry Jaq. The article was by Peter King. Not sure how they decided.

Postal Service foray

Uh oh. I'm sure liking the new (to me) Postal Service tracks I've been listening to today. Try out 'Such great heights' (scroll down to the last mp3 in the multimedia column).

Welcome, Barnett readers

Yes, I'm Tom's proof-reader. I'm grateful he put up the link to my weblog. I was reading everything he wrote anyway. I figured I could make myself useful by catching a typo here and there.

So, let me give you some Barnett-esque content: NPR's three-part series on the Web in China:

First episode - China's Businesses Thrive on the Web

The government's offer after Tjiannenmen: stay out of politics and you can do anything else, especially get rich. The Internet brings better B2B to Chinese businesses.

Second episode - Urban China Embraces Web; Rural Regions Lag

This one was about the changes the Internet is producing in social life in Chinese cities, from MMUDs to dating to gay connections to sex to weblogs. Political activity on the web is strictly forbidden. But all of this connectivity in the social sphere, as Tom teaches, will spill over into other area. Another certain one is business (which the next segment is about). China's economic connectivity is moving ahead of its political connectivity right now, but that's OK. We don't need both right now. One will lead to the other. We watched a similar situation peacefully take down the USSR. In fact, a One-party, Capitalist China will almost certainly outstrip Russia. We just need to be a little patient with China, join them where we can, stand up to them when we need to (can't think of anything right off hand).

Third episode - Internet Tests Chinese Political Controls

The Communist Party can censor some sites for now, but capitalism and the Internet will eventually take it down.

More links

Listen to four tracks from New Order's new 'Waiting for the siren's call' album (as well as 'Love will tear us apart again'). I like the first single, 'Krafty'.

I didn't really say enough in my previous post about why I think Eddie Fowler's going to be a better owner for the Vikings. Red McCombs has treated them mostly like a business while he's owned them and not enough like he wanted to win. It seems like Fowler wants to win.

Then the story broke that he misrepresented himself on a resume. To his credit, he has come clean about the discrepancies, though I wouldn't say he took full responsiblity. Still, all people want these days, most times, is an apology. I'm still hopeful that this can be a good situation.

Napoleon Dynamite soundboards

Found a Napoleon Dynamite soundboard in popular del.icio.us, with a master list of ND soundboards by the author. I was really looking for the two 'numchucks' quotes. This board has the first one 'can't fit my numchucks in there anymore' and the start of the second one 'Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. You know, like numchuck skills,
bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills.' Enjoy. And remember - Pedro for president (and I ain't talkin' Martinez, though I know there's such a shirt).

More from Barnett

Tom writes: 'As I explore in the PNM Blueprint for Action, shrinking the Gap is one big exercise in successfully bringing the population from rural to urban, connecting these people to larger opportunities in the process.'

Once you've done that, you can ruralize a little bit. People can move to less-urban areas and still remain connected. You get people tele-commuting, consulting, etc.

The challenge on the developing world is: can we get them connected up quicker and easier than we connected up? Can we skip certain technological developments that we went through. We're seeing landlines get skipped by cell phones. Great. Can we get wireless internet going well in these places? Can developing nations skip over polluting, degrading developments like coal?

Some of the problems are social: can developing nations (like China, for instance), skip more quicly over sweatshops and child labor and danger to workers, etc?

Tom's got a post entitled Europe's right across the board. The issues he's citing are: negotiate with Iran; rethink the transatlantic relationship (letting Europe decide more); forgive more Gap debt; do more on CO2 emissions; lighten up on China and let EU sell them arms; and be more patient with Russia. That kind of galls, but I don't disagree.

While I'm quoting Tom, I'll throw up this one. He writes that more and more countries are pushing English as the dominant second language. 'And what have we done since 9/11? We’ve made this country a much less friendly place. Why? Out of fear and misplaced attention. We don’t need interdiction, we need identification.'

An SDI rocket launch failed this week. What a waste of money!

If Pakistan can have nukes, why not Iran? Tom snarks.

Tom's going to be involved in some wargaming tailored to PNM. Cool. If I were more industrious I'd do versions of Civilization tailored to both PNM and 'Guns, Germs, and Steel'. But I'm not.

Thoughts

The new Vikings owner should be better for our team. Here's hoping...

The Grammys and Oscars (et al.) are sorely limited. They can reward excellence. But too often you get someone who hasn't received one of the statues get a de facto Lifetime Achievement Award for a lesser work. Paul Newman's win for 'Nobody's Fool' is one example. Brian Wilson's win for an instrumental is another. Rod Stewart should never get any award.

Wil made the following analogy tonight when we were cleaning out his nose: 'Googs are kind of like daddy penguins. The googs and the germs are like the daddy penguins and the penguin eggs.' SAT format: Googs:germs::daddy penguins:penguin eggs. The intelligence of my children amazes me.

Big find in Kansas. Could relate to the Topper site I logged before. Cue jokes from evolutionists that Kansas doesn't deserve such a cool find because of their stance on evolution in textbooks.

Morning Edition had an interesting piece about the rising cost of college and how to cut it. Short paraphrase: give less taxpayer money to colleges, the same amount or more to students, and let the market work on the problem. I'll buy that. Prediction: my kids do some time in community college (the best value around. Want to chime in, Jason? :-).

That should do ya' for now.

audiopost: Driving down to Georgia

Backlog

I've been thinking about a lot of things to post, just haven't got around to doing it. Now I'm fighting a savage sinus infection. Ugh. So we'll see what comes out here. ;-)

Blogger has a new comment system that's a big improvement over their previous one which shows current comments and you can set to pop up.

In the meantime, I've thought up the end-all for me to keep up with comments. All we need is a little box on the comment page that you check for 'email me subsequent comments to this thread'. Then the email comes, with a link to the comment, and we all keep up better. So, now I release you, my minions, to go lobby your comment system to comply with this new standard. I will take a modest 10% commission. ;-)

Like Barnett (maybe b/c of), I think the Bush Ad. is taking too hard a line on Iran. Tom thinks we should co-opt them.

My gut reaction on the Sunnis in Iraq: they've got some marginalization coming, because of their years of minority rule over the Shiites and their calls for boycotts. Wah! I got to thinking that the insurgency was probably being fought by more-conservative-than Shiite-s, but this article says it's being mainly fought by Sunnis. Now the political 'horse-trading' begins. It's familiar, but there's plenty of that often un-principled compromise that I don't like.

My audioscrobbler page. Man, I've got some great music (especially shown in the 'Top Tracks' (scroll down))! ;-) Mainlining a lot of Xian stuff today since I didn't take my infection to church. Bring your comments.

Lots of interesting Google-stuff going down: the new Maps function, an offer to host some Wikimedia pages, fired one of their staff for logging, switched to getting their definitions from answers.com. Their stock is going through the roof.

Sad the NFL season is over. Funny that both All-Star games are this weekend. Oh well, I'm starting the transition to NCAA basketball in preparation for March Madness. There sure are a lot of Patriot-haters out there, which is fine. I still like'em.

That's enough for now.

audiopost: Save Hubble!

audiopost: The Patriots, pre-Super Bowl