JSch is an LGPLed pure Java implementation of SSH2. [Hack the Planet]

I know this doesn't mean much to you non-programmers out there, but I can think of a hundred uses for a library like JSch. This makes cross-platform, encrypted communication extremely accessible to the average programmer.
10:36:51 PM    

Here's a playful and just a bit satirical take on just what it means to "dance on 2" [Salsa-UK].

Along with this kabalistic obsession with numbers come the mythical boasts: more spins can be slotted into the bar on two, it’s more expressive, more in-sync with the music, Bloch shoes are made for it, girls prefer their boys to be on it, web-sites are dedicated to it, babies crawl on it. Some say Frankie Martinez even farts on two, but so far this is uncorroborated hearsay.

I have nothing against on-2, but the idealistic fanaticism with which certain people approach the subject is stunning. Just go dance for heck sake!
4:14:26 PM    

As the Bush administration bandies about catch phrase after catch phrase in an attempt to hook the public and gain support for its agenda, Europe continues to oppose military action against Iraq. Paul W. Schroeder makes the case that unilateral military action against Iraq by the United States is imperialism and completely unjustified, and he's a conservative [The American Conservative].

...Europeans see the United States riding roughshod over many European interests in a critical area where they have more at stake than do the Americans. And if that holds for Europeans, it holds trebly for the countries of the Middle East itself, Israel excepted. Turkey and Iran, for example, are directly, vitally interested in avoiding a war in which Iraq might break up and the Kurds fight for their independence. No Arab leader, however opposed to Saddam Hussein, wants to see Iraq destroyed or another Arab state crushed and humiliated by a Western power. And of course no moderate or pro-Western Arab or Muslim regime, vulnerable precisely because it is pro-Western, wants to stoke the fires of radical dissent and revolution with more television pictures of more Arabs being killed and their country subjugated by the Great Satan, infidel America.

The stance of the U.S. is arrogant and ignorant. Military action against Iraq without the support of the international community will undermine the power and stability of a system that has taken centuries to erect. The short-term success of an armed campaign against Iraq could ultimately be undermined by long-term instability and distrust, not to mention the alarming precedent that would be set by a preemptive attack against a country when the threat posed by that country is clearly not imminent.
12:26:53 PM    

Janis Ian, who has been nominated for nine Grammies in her 37 year career, argues that the RIAA, despite its claims, is not protecting the artist [USA Today].

Many artists now benefit greatly from the free-download systems the RIAA seeks to destroy. These musicians, especially those without a major-label contract, can reach millions of new listeners with a downloadable song, enticing music fans to buy a CD or come to a concert of an artist they would have otherwise missed.

More and more artists are coming forward to contradict the RIAA. Few artists have come up in support of them. In reality, the number of artists helped by peer-to-peer file trading is greater than the number of artists that are hurt by it.
10:30:10 AM