Coin-operated CD duplicating vending machines, on the model of photocopiers, are starting to appear, at least in Australia, according to this news clipping. Like photocopiers, too, the burden of not violating copyright law is on the user; the machines are fitted with software to defeat the copy-protection schemes found on some CDs. [via boing boing]

Happy second blogday to Booknotes, Craig. You’re indispensible…

Robert Fisk: A Speech Laced With Obsessions and Little Else:

‘Ariel Sharon could not have done better. The heaping of blame upon an occupied people, the obsessive use of the word terror – by my rough count there were 50 references in just 10 minutes – and the brief, frightened remarks about “occupation” and (one mention only) to Jewish settlements and the need for Israeli “compassion” at the end were proof enough that President Bush had totally failed to understand the tragedy he is supposedly trying to solve.’ Common Dreams

American Samizdat pointed me to this essay, What the American Flag Stands For, by Charlotte Aldebron, a 12 year-old Maine student:

The American flag stands for the fact that cloth can be very important. It is against the law to let the flag touch the ground or to leave the flag flying when the weather is bad. The flag has to be treated with respect. You can tell just how important this cloth is because when you compare it to people, it gets much better treatment. Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain.

School children have to pledge loyalty to this piece of cloth every morning. No one has to pledge loyalty to justice and equality and human decency. No one has to promise that people will get a fair wage, or enough food to eat, or affordable medicine, or clean water, or air free of harmful chemicals. But we all have to promise to love a rectangle of red, white, and blue cloth.

Betsy Ross would be quite surprised to see how successful her creation has become. But Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to see how little of the flag’s real meaning remains.

“The Kansas legislature passed a bill Wednesday for the creation of “Choose Life” license plates. Proceeds from the sale of these specialized tags would go toward a fund of the anti-choice group Kansans for Life, and would be distributed among 60 crisis pregnancy centers throughout the state.” If you have problems with this state intrusion into a woman’s right to choose, the link will take you to a site where you can register your objection. [via Bitter Shack]

I’m glad to find that this article by Dr Jerome Groopman, which I read in the hardcopy of the latest New Yorker, is online for me to blink to. A Knife in the Back should be read by anyone with chronic back pain before they make a decision about whether to have surgery. This is a blunt and disturbing exploration of the ways in which the comfort of the familiar, the power of paradigms to withstand accumulating counter-evidence, market forces and just plain greed and ignorance conspire to maintain a steady stream of referrals for procedures that are not likely to be of help and can easily make things worse. Except that he is a sufferer from chronic back pain himself, Dr Groopman appears to have no vested interests in writing this beyond alerting the public to a widespread travesty of medical practice.

“The real pro-Israel forces are those willing to push Israel to change its policies.” Violence and Excuses in the Mideast:

Bush and the Saudis would like to set up negotiations, restoring the image of calm while the United States pursues its Iraq adventure, meanwhile allowing Bush to weigh in on the side of peace and rational discourse. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will appear to be making a major concession to his Labor party allies by sitting in negotiations. Meanwhile, he will block any concessions that weaken Israel’s hold over a substantial part of the West Bank. And Bush can then have his war.

Israel has become increasingly polarized, between a large group (now close to 46 percent) who favor ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (the polite word being used is transfer) and a growing minority (now close to 25 percent) who sympathize with the Israeli Defense Force Reservists refusing to serve in the West Bank and Gaza. The peace forces have been betrayed by a Labor Party that remains part of Sharon’s government, so Israelis who seek to restore the moral coherence and spiritual health of the Jewish people are increasingly turning to civil disobedience and direct action.

Many Americans have been intimidated into silence by the forces of Jewish-establishment political correctness. They fear they will be labeled either anti-Semitic Christians or self-hating Jews should they say aloud what they feel privately: that Israel is behaving immorally and at times even savagely.

From interesting writing partners — Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun and Harvard professor of African American Studies, Cornel West. AlterNet