licentious radio

Sunday, February 9, 2003
[10:24:03 PM]

"I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" -- Bush

"Would you let this moron paint your porch?" -- BartCop

[1:31:09 PM]
Rating links [technorati.com] to Shirky's article on weblogs.

Top links right now: Scripting News 1490, Boing Boing Blog 1085, Instapundit.com 609. Megnut is #6 with 267. licentious radio is #21 with 16. (That's the number of "inbound blogs".) We presume licentious radio's rank will fall as more websites link to the article. It's interesting how easy it is to find evidence of Shirky's point.

[12:45:52 PM]
Poor Colin. He made it through his UN speech with a straight face, but everything has fallen apart since.

Let's see. The Iraq-Saddam link has been exposed as phony. The poison factory has been exposed as a not-terrifying kitchen. The chorus immediately suggested *bombing* the evil terror training centers and leaving the apartment buildings in Baghdad alone.

Colin touted a British document on Iraq that turned out to be plagiarized from some guy's 90s term paper, and the guy has since offered to send updated information.

Stealing the guy's term paper was only necessary because the intelligence services in the US and Britain continue to refuse *direct* *orders* to prove the link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Worse yet, they've taken to leaking like cumulo-nimbus clouds that there is *no* link.

Most of Colin's other evidence has been mocked -- translations of a phone call that Colin's translators say mentioned "nerve agents" are supposed to be reason for laying waste to Iraq? Even worse, the guy who propagandized about the Soviet Union shooting down the Korean airliner (way back when) resurfaced with his expose that the translation books were cooked back then. Why not now, you might ask, and in fact a poll just came out that most people would expect the Bush people to lie in order to take us to war.

Even Schwarzkopf came out publicly against the war until Rove put a lid on him.

And if all of that wasn't bad enough, even though they draperized the Guernica tapestry, even the Corporate Media has let slip the irony of arguing for the "shock-and-awe"-ing of Baghdad whilst standing in front of a mural of the horrors of state-sponsored, air-delivered terrorism against civilians. ("Shock and Awe" is intended to terrorize civilians and soldiers into giving up the fight, exactly like the terror-bombing of Guernica.)

Of course -- like in the Emperor's Clothes -- a lot of *competent* people have pretended to think Colin presented a powerful case. But that's not news. The same people pretend in public that Bush tax cuts would help the economy, despite the massive deficits.

The only good news for Colin -- since he's probably not *personally* excited to go to war --, is that Rummy's meds-out-of-whack campaign to lose friends and stiffen the opposition could work wonders for the peace movement. Our generals can tell Rumsfeld is a psycho, and are looking for ways not to follow his power-mad plans.

[11:01:52 AM]
Powell doesn't know who he is up against [observer.co.uk]: To grasp the truth about al-Zarqawi, and thus the truth about contemporary Muslim militancy, a major revision of the conventional wisdom is needed. Powell, like many strategists, seems to think he is fighting a war against a single enemy or an identifiable group. He is not. He is fighting a war against a political religion. ... Al-Zarqawi is not an al-Qaeda operative. If there is a link between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein he is not it. His story is the story of modern Islamic militancy.

[10:50:27 AM]
Next weekend: February 15/16 may be the largest anti-war demonstration in the history of the planet, and even more unique because it is pre-emptive -- seeking to prevent the conquest before the invasion begins in earnest.

Even more interesting, it has some chance of success. We believe the January 18 protests -- particularly in the US -- enabled French and German political leaders to make their stronger stand against war. The breadth and depth of the demonstrations provide legitimacy to the military, intelligence, and political leadership as they seek ways to prevent or stall the invasion. More directly, the huge marches counter-act the incessant Republican Corporate Media propaganda in favor of Bush and war.

The Bush media-masters have intentionally promoted the absolute *lie* that Saddam was behind September 11, when in fact it is clear from their own memos that they immediately saw September 11 could give them the political power to invade Iraq. Saddam may be dangerous, but their case for war is phony.

We're clearly in a race. There's more to invasion than a single order. Given time, pressure against the war could force Bush to stand down. February 15/16 could provide the political strength to change the course of events.

[10:26:56 AM]
"Republicans see only five (out of 49) Democratic senators backing Estrada, so the 60 senators needed for cloture seem unattainable." -- Novak

That's good news, if true.

cloture [senate.gov] - The only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. Under the cloture rule (Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes.

[10:15:34 AM]
I read El Stupido himself signed off on the Condition Orange order. El Stupido is the same Boffo that signed off on the media terrorism campaign over "five Arab-looking men" who they claimed snuck into the US from Canada (back in December). Back then, *everyone* else in government was smart enough not to touch the probably-bogus rumor. Only El Stupido insisted on going forward. And, of course, it turned out to be bogus. Did Mad King George do a "my bad"? No. He just deployed another 15,000 soldiers to the Persian Gulf. That's Our Beloved Leader.

[10:07:39 AM]
DaveNet Dave points to Shirkey on weblogs. I don't quite get Dave's point. Shirky says weblog readership is a "power law" deal, where very few weblogs get huge readership, and almost all weblogs get very little readership, with many weblogs in between. I guess Dave is saying that weblogs are more niche-oriented. But I thought that's what Shirky was saying, too.

[9:41:11 AM]
Interesting claim on the Opera/MSN story.... They suggest MSN tweaked a stylesheet to work better with Opera 6. When Opera 7 came out, the tweaked stylesheet broke the layout, because of changes in the browser. I haven't tested this, but it sounds plausible (slashdot comment).

First, make your browser follow the standards. Second, when browser-sniffing, be aware that new versions will come out eventually, and the new versions will be specifically *different* than the current version. So limit your targeting to known versions. When Opera 7 comes out, give it some generic stylesheet until you take the time to figure out what you need to do to support it.

[9:12:33 AM]
I guess that makes it official, then. I am the Anti-zeldman [google.com]. (ha ha)