Author Archives: Karl

Millions Protest Prospect of War in Iraq

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Read about it in the Washington Post. I still don’t know what to think. Saddam must go, but does all out war need to be the answer? This fellow says we’re losing the propaganda war in a big way.

Update: It was one of the largest peace demonstrations in Philadelphia history. Protestors and anti-protestors, peaceful activism. What an amazing global event.

“God bless us all… . Be safe, stay connected and we will win.” Only by coming together can change happen. That runs against what many believe. Yesterday – people came together on both sides of the fence to be heard.

Both the US and UK are toning down their stands on Iraq in response. The protestors made a difference. That and the inspector’s report of course.

Can a person with the more nuanced views of Jonathon Delacour, like myself, be heard in the din? I believe Saddam has got to go. Unlike so many protestors, I recognize this is about more then oil. Far more. But I have issues with how, when, and what happens afterwards. I get pissed when people oversimplify the threats and causes. I get mad at the creeping anti-semitism (oh it’s there alright, read about it at Yourish.com), and the anti-Americanism. I’m proud of this country. I’m blessed to live here. I’m frustrated and confused at hearing new Bin Laden tapes being released. Why isn’t he dead? Why isn’t his organization wiped from the face of the earth? Why?!?! I tend to think people with Jonathon’s beliefs are in the majority – worldwide. They are amoungst many I know. Other webloggers who doesn’t shy from posting complex views are Oliver Willis and Dave Winer. Gotta participate in one of these protests to find out.

BTW, contrary to popular belief, Clinton was good for our armed forces. Thank you, yet again, President Clinton. We miss you.

What does it take to be a person?

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Prof. Peter Singer, often called — and not just by his book publicist — the most influential philosopher of our time. He is the man who wants me dead. No, that’s not at all fair. He wants to legalize the killing of certain babies who might come to be like me if allowed to live. He also says he believes that it should be lawful under some circumstances to kill, at any age, individuals with cognitive impairments so severe that he doesn’t consider them ”persons.” What does it take to be a person?

NYTimes: Unspeakable Conversations. via dangerousmeta. A discussion on Eugenics. No really. And is a professor at Princeton? The esteem I held for the university is gone. Gone. Gone!

What if the 90s were a replay of the roaring twenties? Then this conversation – one that truely would have been unspeakable after WWII, is taking place right on time. An article in Wired almost predicted the reappearance of discussions such as this.

Man oh man. The further away we go from WWII the more we are willing to forget it’s lessons.

Happy Valentines Day

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Vincent James, in his 30s, a man who left a good job as a software engineer at Boeing, a man with four children, has thrown his career and paycheck to the wind. He is determined to make a living writing and singing love songs. His heart is filled with them. He believes the world needs them. To draw attention to himself, to show his resolve, he vowed to perform 100 times between New Year’s Day and Valentine’s Day.

Read the rest in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Flowers are nice. Candy is, too. But nothing makes a heart melt like words and a simple tune.” Yep. Read the rest in the CSMonitor.

For something light hearted today, check out Peter David’s weblog and his review of the latest Buffy and Angel. It’s great to see a sci-fi writer doing a weblog. It’s been done before, but this guy is actually posting some interesting things. Check out his comments threads! I may try a book of his.

And hey – you’d be completely justified in hating this day. We should always let our loved ones know we love them, not just on designated holidays! I have flashbacks to sixth grade almost every Valentine’s day. It was the year I was at my geekiest. It was one of the longest days in my, then, very short life. Seeing the cards the other kids were getting and feeling down because my couple just didn’t stack up. Pathetic ehh? I learned soon after that you should never judge your life by how well you think others may have it. The grass ain’t greener no matter what your heart maybe saying. This year I’m blessed, so it’s easy for me to have clarity of thought. But I don’t forget where I came from, and I recognize how blessed I am everyday. You hate Valentine’s? Good for you! I can’t blame ya one little bit. Grrrr arg.

one for the history books, the morons are in control, and google is the big bad, but abc has some good news, Matt Murdock’s words of wisdom

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“Senator Robert Byrd gave a floor speech yesterday that’s one for the history books.” That’s what Rafe had to say about Senator Robert Byrd’s floor speech. Read it. You will agree. The Senate seems asleep at the wheel.

Well at least Congress caught the Administration’s screw-up forgetting to give Afghanistan Aid. via Oliver Willis. Just a little oversight right? Pftt.

“Each one of us for one reason or another dreams of America, and America is everywhere.” That’s Italian commentator Alain Elkann in this NYTimes piece on how some European commentators see the growing rift between us. via dangerousmeta.com

Disable your cookies. Get a personal proxy (well I gotta do that one!). Google may win the Big Brother of the year award. A must read. via Scripting News. Gotta point you to Phoenix, the browser I use when I’m off the clock. Simple to use cookie management.

If you’re poor, the GOP wants to tell you it loves you with it’s compassionate conservative embrace.

Local and certainly not connected – viruses run rampant at schools. A stomach virus is shutting schools down.

What will happen at the UN today?

Finally some good news, from ABC: Terror Alert Partly Based on Fabricated Information.

Comic books. Store houses of wisdom they are. I’ll be seeing Daredevil over the weekend. A quote to heart right now:

“The measure of a man is not in how he gets knocked to the mat, it is in how he gets up.”

Depressing memos, Dante and the death penalty, and more

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InternalMemos.com: A Clear Channel radio station prepares to for war.

CityJournal: How I Joined Teach for America ?and Got Sued for $20 Million. Man oh man.

PolicyReview: From Sarajevo to September 11. “…the world could rejoice in 60 years of extraordinary peace and progress. The first great age of globalization had made the world seem an infinitely smaller place. So great were the twin powers of technology and ideology intellectuals prophesied the end of all wars. Yet on that summer?s day, one act of terrorism in Sarajevo ? the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife by a Serbian fanatic called Gavrilo Princip ? set off a sickening train of events. The world plunged into the most horrific war in history, and even after the killing had stopped, countries everywhere renounced their previous openness, fortifying their borders to limit the movement of goods, people, and even ideas.” A few edits there… but you get the point.

The Moscow Times (yes you read that right) Most Righteous War of All: A supportive (yes supportive) essay from Russia. You can almost here the snicker at the thought of how France and Germany are acting. via dangerousmeta.

Sen. McCain Address to 39th Annual Wehrkunde Conference. There are leaders out there! A Republican I would vote for. In a split second. via dangerousmeta.

BBC: Japan warns N. Korea.

Legal Affairs: Dante and the Death Penalty. A must read. Thought provoking.

Are developers programmers or engineers?

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An interesting InfoWorld story on project management. Quotes:

…”The act of constructing software is, in fact, not an engineering process,” Cooper said. “Engineering to me is problem-solving, which is very different from solution implementations, which is what programmers [do].” Title inflation is endemic to the industry, he said. “Web designers are called programmers, programmers are called engineers, and engineers are called architects, and architects don’t seem to ever get called,” Cooper exclaimed.

…Software, said Cooper, is dominated by people who like to create things as opposed to those who like to serve other people.

via Dane Carlson.

Speaking of serving a need, MeanDean blogs about e-Sword free bible study software. Looks interesting.

A Chilly Response to ‘Patriot II’ and other fun stories

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Read about the pre-emptive response growing at Wired News. Websites can make a difference… at least to those that read them. Will this get shared in media off the web I wonder?

In other related news… BBC News has posted the entire text of the latest so-called Bin Laden message.

The WashingtonPost, among others, attempts to scare the shit out of us.

While we are being told, how this time, to prepare for the worst.

I bet the Pres isn’t so happy now he kept Greenspan on considering what he had to say about the tax plan. Then again, a whole slew of economists agree with with him.

And thanks to kowgirl who shared a BusinessWeek link that confirms your worst fears about your career in information systems. That is, of course, if you live in the US. Hint.. your job is going the way of the factory jobs that went before them.

Of course, it could be worst. You could be held hostage by ferocious rabbits. Seriously!

Is Net Surfing A Dying Sport?

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… “People are treating the Web like a library and going to the card catalog rather than searching through all the books,”

…”After a while you get tired of flipping through the channels and just turn to the programs you like,” he said.

Read the rest over at Yahoo!.

Semi-related: Clay Shirky’s Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality, Dave Winer’s and Shelley Powers’s. responses. Shelley’s post is home to a great conversation and I highly recommend it. Jason Kottke adds some good linkage as well.

Birds of a feather flock virtually together, that’s what I always say 🙂

In the end, I think Mark Pilgrim says it best, “All the friendships I?ve developed in the past 2 years?starting long before I was in the Technorati Top 10?grew out of connections I made through writing this weblog and reading others. This month I?ll get 1 million hits on my weblog, and have lunch with 10 friends I met through my weblog. Guess which I care about more.”

Well damn straight.

Chloe in a related BlogRoots thread says,

“What I wonder is why this is being treated as “news”…I’ve noticed this pattern in society from the time I started pre-school.”

Yep, she’s absolutely right. This isn’t news. It’s the same old news. In fact – I wrote a piece, some may recall, a long, long, long time ago, about the power of the link and how some weblogs actually wield more “power” then others. This is old news. If I posted about it – it must be old news!

Information technology usually doesn’t change what we do – just how we do it.

A question though – without idealists like Shelley and Dave (even if they are in the top 20) – would we end up with, instead of an 80/20 “power” (we need a better word) distribution, a 95/5? Think about it. And the play goes on…

Update: They are having a good debate at Slashdot on the Clay Shirky piece.