Reference:
Who profits from the destruction of the whole infrastructure of the Iraqi state? Who profits from the destruction of Iraq's invaluable cultural wealth? And why are Americans soldiers just blank-stared, gum-chewing spectators of all this pyromania?
Asia Times

Notes:

Reference:
It is hard to say, but if I was Microsoft that's how I would compete with Open Source, by subverting it. Microsoft can't compete on quality or price. And subversion -- since it is subverting a not-for-profit venture -- breaks no laws, nasty as it is.

So Open Source is not especially altruistic, just ego-driven. It can be hijacked and it can be subverted. And a concerted effort at subversion taking advantage of developer fatigue could be devastating. This hardly seems a movement, then, that can be relied on, yet millions do.
Cringley

Notes:
Cringley's usually prescient. His point strengthens any argument for enforcing open standards and protocols in information exchange.

Reference:
The public may get more and better news programming if federal regulations are changed to allow newspapers to own radio and television stations, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell said Monday.
Salon

Notes:
This flies in the face of the recent speech by Barry Diller condemning the concentration of media ownership, what Diller calls an oligarichical system.

The disenginuity is that Powell talks about newspapers owning tv and radio, but the probable reality is that radio, i.e. Clear Channel, will buy up newspapers in order to drive advertising and control editorials.

It seems that few media owners truly care about news anymore. Let's hope the Internet can stay uncontrolled.

Reference:
The accord (with the People's Mujahedeen) is apparently the first between the United States military — which in early April was bombing the group's Iraqi camps — and a terrorist organization, and it raises questions about how consistently the Bush administration intends to apply a policy that had vowed to crack down on terrorist groups worldwide.
NYTimes

Notes:
Well, obviously if they are using irregular tactics against a non-complying state, it's not terrorism. It's guerilla insurgency, which is ok.

It's hard not to be snide with these guys. The problem is not the making of the deal. The problem is the broad brush of brandishing everything that moves funny as "terrorist". John Ashcroft, for instance.

Reference:
"In two years' time, this nation has experienced war, a recession, and a national emergency, which has caused our government to run a deficit," George W. Bush said in the White House Rose Garden last week. "The best way to reduce the deficit is with more growth in our economy." The deficit is no longer an issue for him or for most other Republicans. They've gone over to the supply side.
AEI

Notes:
70% of our country's economic activity comes from consumer spending. As far as I can see, there's not a whole lot more that consumers need or can afford in this country. Where is the growth coming from?

Reference:
That's no coincidence -- the Pax Americana was made possible by a currency as good as gold, just as the Pax Brittanica had been a century earlier.
Donald Luskin

Notes:
Except now more people think the Euro should be the standard, not the dollar. [shucks, can't find the link I ran across 15 minutes ago.]

Reference:
Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSX), an advanced technology development company, today announced that it has developed and successfully field tested a working prototype of what the company believes is the first-ever subdermal GPS “personal location device” (PLD).
Appliced Digital Solutions

Notes:
Can the spoofing of a data stream be punishable under the DMCA? For instance, if and when such devices become ubiquitous as a means for controlling access, could the use of a digital signal to allow access be considered theft?

Reference:
Analysis of data from five ocean basins reveals a dramatic decline in numbers of large predatory fish (tuna, blue marlins, swordfish and others) since the advent of industrialized fishing.
Nature

Notes:

Reference:
Looking back, it was the conservatives who kept us out of the bloodletting in France until 1918, out of the League of Nations entanglements and commitments, out of World War II until Hitler turned on Stalin and the bloody partners tore each other to pieces long before the Americans arrived on the coast of France in 1944.
The American Conservative

Notes:
No wonder the Democrats are so ineffectual recently. The two major foreign policy positions are both being staked out by the Republicans.

On one side are the interventionist/activist neocons. On the other are the traditional isolationist conservatives. Bush is in the luxurious position of being able to wrap himself in either mantle, whichever serves his purpose at the time.

What real, vital position can the Dems carve out and will this position be appealing to voters?

Reference:
The plan would also eliminate or phase out more than a hundred reports that now tell Congress, for instance, which Defense contractors support the Arab boycott of Israel and when U.S. special forces train foreign soldiers, as well as many studies of program costs.
SFGate

Notes:
Rummy apparently wants to turn the whole Department into a covert Special Ops organization with no reporting or accountability out, only Top Secret missions determined by ...