Reference:
A reckoning of what belongs to the American people is a first step to recovering control of common assets and protecting them for public purposes. When we argue for the American commons, we assert the right to public control over public resources, without necessarily triggering the familiar dichotomy of free markets ("good") versus regulation ("bad").
Boston Review

Notes:
A good read on updating the concept of Commons. But Bollier talks about the American Commons. Can his proscriptions also be used as the basis for formulating a foreign policy approach that counters the bully-ism of Georgie and friends?

Reference:
The glitch causes some Opera surfers trying to visit MSN to encounter a server error that says busy traffic is preventing them from accessing the site. Opera users have taken to the browser company's message boards, scratching their heads over the apparent MSN lockout, speculating on its connection to prior Opera-MSN problems and pointing out other problems associated with accessing Microsoft's Xbox gaming Web site.
news.com

Notes:
I got into a discussion with a guy today about the super-DMCA bills being enacted at the state level. My beef about the bills is that they include a new legal entity in the Internet connection game, at that's called an access device; and, by absence of specific definition, cede to the telecomms the first move in coming up with a definition of what, exactly, is an access device.

If AOL and MSN start not agreeing on what constitutes the protocol of a connection device, then the universality of the Internet falls apart. That would never happen.

Reference:
Intel's vision is that the motes will get smaller and cheaper, as the technology evolves, so that they can be sewn into clothing, hidden in homes, attached to crops, put into all kinds of machines and industrial settings and even scattered by armies on battlefields as so-called "smart dust."

The wireless vineyard is an important step toward realizing this vision, according to Mr. Beckwith, because it is the most extensive sensor network to be deployed outside the research lab in a real-world situation.
GlobalMail

Notes:
I understand the surveillance capability, such as in the vineyard of this story. I don't understand a non-nefarious use in clothing. Or is this an extension of RFID, so that clothing can keep track of it's own inventory on a store shelf?

Reference:
Oxford's cameras (they are actually called Camputers) are different. Each has a digital sensor like the one in your new DV camcorder, and that sensor is connected to one of Oxford's A436 Video Processor chips. The network connection is Ethernet, and all video is compressed before it goes across the network and is eventually stored in that compressed state to save hard disk space on a central storage system.

The cameras can, for example, be told to look for a particular face, a particular behavior, a sound (gunfire?), or even to look for a unique biometric measure like the iris of a criminal's eye. Iris patterns stabilize around the first year of age and don't change again. Morton's system can identify iris patterns through dark glasses or contact lenses and can do so almost instantly for thousands of people passing through airport metal detectors or subway turnstiles.
Cringley

Notes:

Reference:
Independent human rights groups estimate that there are more than 600 politically motivated arrests a year in Uzbekistan, and 6,500 political prisoners, some tortured to death. According to a forensic report commissioned by the British embassy, in August two prisoners were even boiled to death.

The US condemned this repression for many years. But since September 11 rewrote America's strategic interests in central Asia, the government of President Islam Karimov has become Washington's new best friend in the region.
Guardian

Notes:
The final "justification" falls -- it's Saddam all over again. The ugly business of supporting a brutal dictator while using dictatorial oppression as an excuse on the other.

Reference:
Alex Wijeratna from ActionAid, a known opponent of GM technology, told CNN that GM food could actually be a "threat" to the survival of Africa's poor and hungry. He said ActionAid had studied scientific evidence which it claimed proved that GM crops did not produce a greater yield.
....
But ActionAid said the development of "terminator technology" to produce sterile seeds, would prevent farmers from following their traditional practice of saving seeds from one harvest to the next.
CNN

Notes:

Reference:
President Bush said last week that Europe's opposition to genetically altered crops was a threat to efforts to end world hunger.

But even many critics of Europe's stance say that the president's argument does not stand up and that the dispute needs to be understood for what it is: a multibillion-dollar cross-Atlantic battle over agricultural trade.
....
Nearly 100 million acres of farmland in the United States are now planted with genetically altered crops, and agriculture officials say farmers have lost at least $1 billion over the last five years because they have been unable to export some biotechnology crops to Europe.

"We've been very patient with the Europeans, but their use of this ban as a trade barrier sets a precedent for countries around the world," said Mary Kay Thatcher, director of public policy at the American Farm Bureau Federation.
....
"The main problems in Africa have to do with soil fertility," he said. "Until you solve the soil problems, it doesn't matter whether you use conventional or genetically modified seeds."
....
(Peter Pringle) writes in his study of biotechnology, "while the industry claimed that their products would save the world from malnutrition, seed companies created only crops that made money for themselves and the wealthier farmers who could afford the premiums."
NYT

Notes:

Reference:
Under the proposal, 18 states would receive less money annually, and New York would suffer the largest decline, the report says. Connecticut would lose $163 million a year, and New Jersey would gain $57.2 million. The biggest increases would go to California, $162 million, and Texas, $119 million.
....
In large part, the report seeks to quantify the way that the presence of a huge city, New York, with a large mass transit system, distorts the way the State of New York is treated under the current method of apportioning transportation funds. For example, the report notes, the state collects relatively little in gasoline taxes per person because so many people ride the subway.
....
A spokesman for Mr. DeLay, Jonathan Grella, said that the proposal was "about equity."
NYT

Notes:
If the states get back what they put in, why spend the overhead of maintaining the system? Because it was supposed to be a national allocation for national problems.

One would think that mass transit would be on the national agenda. But DeLay and crowd has never suffered from a broad, non-parochial horizon.

Reference:
In the months before the Iraq war the Pentagon ignored repeated warnings that it would need a substantial military police force ready to deploy after the invasion to provide law and order in the postwar chaos, US government advisers and analysts said yesterday.
....
The deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, rejected the criticism, saying the fighting in Iraq was not over.
Guardian

Notes:
1. The fighting is not over because there is no constabulary to maintain civil peace.
2. It would undermine the blitzkreig strategy because large numbers would be required after the initial "shock and awe".

Reference:
After another attack that killed a U.S. soldier, the commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq declared today that "the war has not ended" and signaled the start of a new military phase to root out what he described as die-hard supporters of fallen president Saddam Hussein.
....
"These are not criminal activities, they are combat activities,"
Washington Post

Notes:
First, it is curious that the general is publicly contradicting the Commander in Chief.

Secondly, on wonders if a proper civil control contingent had been brought in at the outset to mitigate the looting and unrest whether this armed resistance would continue. Does the presence of warriors, rather than peace-keepers, exacerbate the situation?