This is a mirror of Phil Agre’s war-related links. “…neatly-organized,” commented the prolific Mr. Agre. And here his recent pointers to non-attack-related issues.

Newest twist in web advertising: make ’em view the ads before they can get the content. CNet

White House whitewashers: “Bush staffers chastise NBC for a Clinton interview, Fleischer whacks Maher and the Bush-was-in-danger story falls apart. Tension mounts between the White House and the media.” Salon

In related comments:

“Yeah, yeah, I know what everybody’s thinking: Who cares about a talk-show host who makes millions of dollars a year? But if (Bill) Maher can’t say what he wants, how can you, lowly citizen? And what’s the White House doing editing transcripts? Also, editorial writers have been fired from papers in Oregon and Texas for writing criticism of George W. Bush. Can you say blacklist, anyone?” randomWalks

Teleportation a step closer. Quantum entanglement is demonstrated on a macroscopic scale for the first time. Reuters

Recall, I’d been curious about whether any attention was bing paid to the African American reaction to the terrorist attacks. AlterNet observes: Old Glory’s New Appeal to Blacks — “For a younger generation of African Americans like Jones, now may be the first time they have felt such a level of identification and belonging in their national homeland. In the absence of national conflict, younger blacks have often felt like outsiders in America as they have had to deal with America’s history of racial oppression and remnants of racial discrimination that are an everyday reality.

But the terrorist attacks, which killed people of all racial backgrounds, religions and nationalities, have forced many African Americans to come to grips with their Americanness.”

Many of today’s blinks courtesy of Phil Agre’s Red Rock Eaters list. Sadly, here’s what Agre has to say today:

This is the last of these encyclopedic collections of URL’s about the

attack and war that I am going to put together. It’s too much work.

Besides, I feel like the fever broke today. The war talk has suddenly

calmed down, having finally confronted the reality that there’s no

single place to drop a bomb. The whole world has now shifted into

some weird new configuration, and we’re going forward from there.

I’d rather have the old world, obviously, but this new world has some

real advantages. I am struck that American culture, amidst all of

the bad feelings that anyone would have, is more thoughtful and less

absorbed with trivia than it was last month. Maybe the rageaholics

will even lose their grip on our political system. We’ll have to see.

We’re going to have civil liberties controversies in this new world,

that’s for sure, and I’ll certainly be covering those. And please

do keep sending URL’s that represent, say, the top 5% most important

URL’s reporting information that people aren’t going to come across

by reading the major papers. I hope that everyone has been introduced

to some new information sources by these reader-contributed URL’s; I

know I have.

If anybody wants to take over the job of collating URL’s related to the

war, let me know. I’m not sure how that would work, exactly. Maybe

I would simply announce your address to the whole list and ask people

to send the stuff to you. Then you can filter and arrange them however

you want.

Grasping Ruins: Todd Gitlin’s meditation on various aspects of the attack and its aftermath: “We had better inquire deeply into this hatred because terrorists are neither gods nor animals who massacre and ruin and call their acts godly. Others, possibly already in place, may be consecrated to their furious cause, ready to murder again, even with joy in their hearts. To stop terrorism will require more than military self?defense, more than police and courts. Can there be any doubt, to thoughtful people of all persuasions and nations, that there is an urgent need for some disciplined curiosity?”

The people who resolve to do whatever necessary to destroy their Great Satan of choice devote themselves to years of planning. Their lives become the planning and they disappear into their tasks. He who signs up for such schemes convinces himself that there is a devil responsible for his and his people?s wounds; that his hatred is love?for his people or his God? and that he must regenerate himself as pure righteousness and fling himself against absolute evil. As a man, he does not matter. He melts himself down into a symbol, a symbol at war with symbols. Deploying himself against the heart of American capitalism and its chief military citadel, he will overcome earthly limits.

Violence is crucial in his scheme. Violence is at once his break from yesterday, his link to a glorious past and his door to the luminous future. Claiming ancient vindication and denying his modernity, except when it comes to techniques, he struggles to fuse the glorious past with a glorious future and burns up the present between them. To such a man, there can be no civilians. His pure totality is at war against the enemy?s impure totality. Of this, sacred men assure him. If the dead matter at all, it is as symbols themselves, symbols of the raw power, he believes, that has brought him and his people low. Their deaths will stand for his rectitude, inspirations to those who will come along behind him, inspired by his martyrdom.

Open Democracy

Airport security guard arrested for asking police officer for ID Globe and Mail

Obscure Team Scans Systems To See Where Enemy May Hit. ‘The eclectic, low-profile researchers — among them, a college physics

professor, a nuclear engineer and a veteran of the federal government’s Y2K

preparations — are working in near-obscurity at the Commerce Department.

The team is trying to map the government’s electronic underbelly to identify

the systems and services whose failure or disruption by a hacker or foreign

enemy could cripple the U.S. military or economy or threaten public health,

and to determine how those systems are linked with, or “cascade” upon,

others.’ Wall Street Journal via lists.jammed.com

Editorial: Take the broad view— “This umbrage over presumed US rejection doesn’t behove (sic) us. Members of the cabinet, among others, are still apparently smarting from the perceived US rejection of India?s offer of bases and logistic support. When the US published a list of terrorist and other organisations whose assets were frozen, the cry went up that India?s concerns were ignored. All this unhappiness is absurd and unnecessary and comes from looking at the global fight against terrorism through the prism of India-Pakistan rivalry.” The Indian Express

Happy New Year: It’s 1984. “Seventeen years later than expected, 1984 has arrived. In his address to Congress Thursday, George Bush effectively declared permanent war — war without temporal or geographic limits; war without clear goals; war against a vaguely defined and constantly shifting enemy.” Common Dreams

Berlusconi: The West must conquer Islam: “Breaking ranks with allies reaching out to the Muslim world, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday said Western civilization is superior to Islam. He also said he hopes the West conquers Islamic civilization.

The conservative billionaire’s remarks were instantly disavowed by more moderate politicians in Italy, who called them both ill-timed and offensive.” Salon

White House Drops Claim of Threat to Bush: “The Bush administration appeared to back away yesterday from its claim that a threat was lodged against Air Force One on the day terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.” Doubts about the original ‘spin’ the White House put on Bush’s limited visibility for most of Sept. 11th; are you surprised? Washington Post

Most victims male; many were parents. “A portrait of the people the terrorists murdered Sept. 11 is slowly emerging…” USA Today

When I walked into my local Starbucks yesterday, they were prominently displaying a tally of how much money Starbucks has donated to the relief effort. Now for something completely different — the Guardian UK reports that Starbucks charged rescuers for water: “A branch of the coffee chain Starbucks charged New York rescue workers for water to treat victims of the suicide attack on the World Trade Centre, it emerged today.

Ambulance workers were forced to scramble in their pockets for money to pay a $130 (£88) bill for three cases of water used to treat victims for shock after the twin towers collapsed.”

Architects don’t foresee skyscraper’s demise — “…while skyscrapers may be a painful reminder to some of the September 11 destruction, it’s unlikely they’ll stop sprouting on the urban landscape in the wake of the attacks, architectural experts say.” CNN

Amygdala’s Inner Workings: “The amygdala, an almond-sized and -shaped brain structure, has long been linked with a person’s mental and emotional state. But thanks to scientific advances, researchers have recently grasped how important this 1-inch-long structure really is. Associated with a range of mental conditions from normalcy to depression to even autism, the amygdala has become the focal point of numerous research projects.” The Scientist

“There is no time, there will be time…” A 1998 Forbes magazine essay by Peggy Noonan “devoted to the subject of time–how we experience time, how modern men and women relate to it in ways that might be different from our predecessors. Ms. Noonan has received many requests for reprints since the events in New York the past week.” Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal

Jon Cohen, a writer for Science: Vax Populi: “A viable anthrax vaccine exists. Why aren’t we making it and other defensive vaccines available to the public?” Scroll down for an excellent compilation of links to bioterrorism resources. Slate

Kiss and make up: “Like animals, humans can transcend their capacity for violence…

Humans might be forgiven a little despair now as the warplanes gather and terrorists hide. But in the animal world, giving in completely to the dark side is out of the question.” San Francisco Chronicle

Girls giggle and guys grunt. New Scientist

Response displays kindness of strangers: “Help selflessly offered in emergency situations differs somewhat from everyday acts of kindness, according to psychologist John Dovidio of Colgate University in New York.

In non-emergency situations, people are more selective about who they help and consider the potential costs and benefits of lending a helping hand.” Times-Dispatch

Rouse yourself! Sit up!

Resolutely train yourself to attain peace.

Do not let the king of death, seeing you are careless,

lead you astray and dominate you.

–Sutta Nipata II, 10

Daily Words of the Buddha

An Open Letter to the Peace Movement, a letter to the editor of the Willamette Week Online from Portland playwright Charles Deemer: ‘…(T)here has not been a single military action by the United States that I’ve supported as an adult. Not one.

Over the years, however, I’ve expressed the view that, if the U.S. were under attack, I would support a military response. And I believe that is the case now, which is why I am leaving your ranks.

I am writing to share my steps in deciding to leave the peace movement; to challenge you to do your work in a way that is constructive rather than divisive (as I believe your early responses have been); and to urge you to avoid easy analogies, such as Vietnam, and to find radical new ways to “wage peace.” ‘ [via Ed Fitzgerald]

Mr. Putin’s Choice: “On Monday, Mr. Putin gave Chechnya’s rebels a 72-hour deadline to begin talks on disarmament with his envoy in the region, and he demanded that they “halt all contacts with terrorists and their international organizations.” The statement suggested the possible onset of a major new Russian offensive against the Chechens, which Mr. Putin would insist be accepted on the grounds that some allies of Osama bin Laden allegedly have joined the Chechen resistance.” Washington Post editorial

George Will’s style of yellow journalism and saber rattling, in the Washington Post. There’s no such thing as a war against an abstraction, so we’d better get about the business of Taking Down Enemy Territory. ‘Soon, on campuses, in the media and in Congress (where, in 1991, 47 senators opposed using force to reverse Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait), there will be familiar calls to confine the war to minor objectives. But those objectives would mock the president’s calculated and correct use of the word “war.” When advocates of merely minor objectives are praised as “cooler heads,” the pertinent attribute may be cold feet.’