Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, contemplates the possibility that the next theater of operation in the WoT could be Somalia again. Guardian UK

Pentagon Plans New Command For U.S.: “The Pentagon has decided to ask the White House for approval to set up a new four-star command to coordinate federal troops used to defend North America, part of an intensified effort to bolster homeland security, defense officials said.

” Washington Post

And:
another way to make your head disappear.

The definitive guide to ALT texts in IMGs, which grapples with the essential distniction between content and metacontent in HTML. “The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon,” as the Buddhist truism goes…

“Don’t we run drug tests on interns?” — Bill Gates Virus Responsible for Gates Security Memo: ‘An embarrassed Bill Gates admitted today that a memo outlining Microsoft’s new focus on security called Trustworthy Computing was sent out in error when an idealistic intern sent him the fanciful, pie in the sky report in a virus infected e-mail.

“I forgot to patch my Outlook Express and it went out to my entire address book,” said Gates. “You would think that if anything were to get us to focus on security in our software that it would be a gaffe like this. To ensure security in all our software, however, would mean dropping half of our product lines and I have a fiscal responsibility to shareholders.” ‘ BBSpot [thanks, David!]

Register as a Patriot Now!

“As part of the Bush Administration’s ongoing efforts to obliterate all traces of terrorism in the United States, the Department of Justice has commenced registration of each and every American Patriot. By registering all non-terrorists within our borders, it is our intention to make use of the process of elimination to identify the evil ones who walk among us. If you are a non-terrorist (American Patriot), your participation is required. Please register below.

– John Ashcroft

United States Attorney General”

Union Spies

Suppose that on Monday, January 7, President George W. Bush had branded hundreds of Justice Department employees as potential security risks because they were union members?

Might we have expected a question or two at next day’s White House press briefing? Would the networks, perhaps, have been at least mildly interested? Or the newspapers?

Apparently not, because on January 7 President Bush did exactly that to some five hundred labor union members who work in United States Attorneys’ offices, Interpol’s U.S. branch, the Criminal Division, the National Drug Intelligence Center, and the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review.

Mr. Bush’s order said that since these offices “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work,” the presence of unionized workers would not be “consistent with national security requirements and considerations.” Bad Attitudes

Human For Sale – How much are you worth? Have you been thinking about putting yourself up for sale lately? Ever wonder how much money you could get on the open human market? HumanForSale.com will attempt to place a value on your life using a variety of criteria in 4 basic facets of life (physical, mental, lifestyle, personality). This is obviously a very subjective matter and is not intended and does not claim to be scientifically accurate. The more honestly you answer the questions, the more realistic the dollar value returned will be.

Addendum: Graham Leuschke writes: “Humans for Sale is almost certainly a data-collecting mechanism – it’s been around since August, and mentioned at the following places (that I know about):

• http://www.leuschke.org/log/archives/00000119.html
  

• http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/9392
  

• http://www.kottke.org/notes/0108.html#010806“

As Leuschke posted, here’s, allegedly, a site that lets you opt-out and get your data expunged after you’ve gotten sucked into this ingenious strategy for harvesting your provate demographic information, as I did.

Vigilante justice at the hands of an angry net-mob Chicago Tribune

John Grohol: Psychology of Weblogs

The most popular weblogs are those spearheaded by strong personalities, by dynamic individuals who have something to say. Not just about some random link, but about an ongoing theme in their lives that is displayed in a dozen different and unique ways every week, or even every day. These individuals (or groups of individuals) have opinions and you are going to hear them. In a social setting, face-to-face, they may be nothing like their online persona. Some are shy, ingratiating. Others are just as anarchic as their online writing is. But they gain a following for taking a stand, for sharing their innermost thoughts, not because they always take a popular stand or point of view, but because they take a point of view at all. They take one, over and over, day in and day out. The more controversial a person is, the more noteworthy (and often famous) they become. Look at Howard Stern, Dr. Laura, or Jerry Springer in the offline world.

The best weblogs and online journals, however, are not always the most popular. The most popular fall into the same trap as nearly anything driven by popularity – the need to outdo oneself, to remain on top. That pressure affects the writing, and it affects the mission of the person’s site (or in offline terms, the quality of their show). For proof of this, just look into the archives of any old popular weblog or online journal and see how the writing has changed. The subjects that were once original and thought-provoking often become stale, dry, and overwrought. The authors turn to commenting on the mundane, or take up meaningless causes, or rattle on about any old thing in their lives. They become more melodramatic in their writing, and start talking back to their foes. Instead of originality, they become self-referencing, circular, and ultimately, boring.

Sounds like he’s got a grudge against some popular webloggers… Grohol, by the way, is a Psy.D., not an MD, to whose online persona I long ago took an instant dislike after observing that he always insists on referring to himself in print as “Dr John Grohol”. Sure, Ph.D. and Psy.D. psychologists have earned a doctorate, but in a medical environment someone’s claim that by referring to themselves as a doctor they didn’t intend to create the misconception that they were a medical doctor is pure disingenuousness. He’s jockeyed for position as the world’s leading cyberpsychologist for at least a decade, but his Mental Health Page does have some merit. His online biography lets us know, among other things, what car he drives, the name of his pet, and (because he’s sure his readers are passionately interested?) his marital status.

Grohol’s name struck a chord with another weblogger who sent me this pointer to a search of references to him on MetaFilter, especially this thread, the gist of which relate to the fact that he was probably the anonymous author of deadat32, a pathetic attention-getting web project to which I paid little attention, as did few others, in which the writer wrote of his conviction that he would be, yes, dead at 32. (He pulled the plug before his 33rd birthday scheduled for September, 2001.) Grohol denied, rather unconvincingly in the face of a cabal of MetaFilter websleuths, that he was the deadat32 guy.

Fascinating little glimpse of web sociology and individual dynamics seemingly by a guy who studies them in others, and if true a warning to us all about the sordid little axes people grind in private behind their public faces.

How to tell if your ass is too small

Googlewhacking: The Search for The One. Can you find a Google query that’ll return only one result? Opine Bovine (“just another silly cow with an opinion about everything”), I noticed, has come up with a few, e.g “uvula + television” and “faux + beverage”. What does it all mean that these things generate any hits at all??

Fairvue Central >> Features >> Second Annual Weblog Awards: time to vote. One of the new treasures I discovered browsing the nominees is Dollarshort. Among other things, this is a visually understated and gorgeous Movable Type weblog.

Arafat: ‘I’m Like George Washington’

“Did you ever accept the British occupation of the United States,” Arafat asked. “Didn’t George Washington fight, along with his people, until they freed the United States?”

Arafat made his statements one day after the Palestinian cabinet called on all Palestinian factions to abide by the PA’s cease-fire orders of December 16.

Arafat’s vow yesterday to continue the “struggle until victory” was no contradiction to the cabinet’s call for a cease-fire, and was not in defiance of the American demand that he do more, Bassam Abu Sharif, a special adviser to the Palestinian leader told The Jerusalem Post. The Jerusalem Post

Apparently, Arafat has been encouraging this simile for awhile now. It provoked this response in December from Detroit News columnist Nolan Finley:

Incredibly, when the tide began shifting last week, some in our community attempted to rally support by comparing Arafat and his suicide bombers to George Washington and the heroes of the American Revolution. Nice try.

Washington raised an army of patriots willing to die for liberty and used conventional military tactics to defeat a superior foe. Arafat fights with pitiful fanatics who are brainwashed into believing that by murdering innocents they’ll gain a greater heavenly reward.

Washington was a freedom fighter. Arafat is a terrorist.

(…)

It took three months longer than it should have, but the moral equivalency argument was at last blown to pieces in the suicide bombings that killed 26 Israeli civilians last weekend.

The Bush administration finally understands there is no equating the intentional slaughter of children on a family outing with the occupation of Palestinian territories, or the accidental deaths that result from subduing terrorism.

The only moral equivalency that can be drawn today is between the death and destruction inflicted on the United States on Sept. 11 and the daily torment suffered by Israelis.

If only George W. Bush had seen that sooner. Perhaps the dozens of Israelis murdered in recent months might have been spared.

The similarlties, however, may be more apt than his detractors would acknowledge — but turned on their head. Couldn’t you imagine the Founding Fathers targeting British civilians for terrorist attacks if they had had access?

“Don’t we run drug tests on interns?” — Bill Gates Virus Responsible for Gates Security Memo: ‘An embarrassed Bill Gates admitted today that a memo outlining Microsoft’s new focus on security called Trustworthy Computing was sent out in error when an idealistic intern sent him the fanciful, pie in the sky report in a virus infected e-mail.

“I forgot to patch my Outlook Express and it went out to my entire address book,” said Gates. “You would think that if anything were to get us to focus on security in our software that it would be a gaffe like this. To ensure security in all our software, however, would mean dropping half of our product lines and I have a fiscal responsibility to shareholders.” ‘ BBSpot [thanks, David!]