Friday, March 12, 2004

staes withdraw from security.. Posted here Friday, March 12, 2004 at 4:59:22 PM     On security.. Two More States Withdraw From Controversial Database Program By Mark Johnson Associated Press Writer Published: Mar 12, 2004 ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York and Wisconsin have joined the list of states that have pulled out of an anti-crime database program that civil libertarians say endangers citizens' privacy rights. Just five states now remain involved in Matrix out of more than a dozen that had signed up to share criminal, prison and vehicle information with one another and cross-reference the data with privately held databases. Questions over federal funding and the waning potential for benefit to law enforcement ultimately prompted New York's withdrawal, said Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the New York State Office of Public Security. ********

Should Middle East Initiative Not Come From Within? Posted here Friday, March 12, 2004 at 4:55:29 PM     On middle eastern reform from within, a good sign.. They have cited any number of reasons: Their Islamic identity, opposition to foreign intervention, Arab ways, their unique environment, and the Palestinian dispute. Many of these reasons won’t wash. Islam, cultural identity and the unresolved Palestinian question are no deterrents to the establishment of democracy and the rule of law in the region. The real problem lies in US unilateralism. There are two problems linked to this approach. First, it is seen as undermining the sovereignty of states already feeling the heat of an interventionist US which remains highly unpredictable in its “treatment” of the region after the invasion of Iraq. Secondly, given the US’s track record on subverting democracy and democratic forces in the region, its motives as a promoter of democracy must remain suspect. Washington must go back to a partnership approach, facilitating locally identified and reasonably paced reforms. Reforms in the Middle East are a key policy item for European and North American nations, as they are for the people of the region. Yet such efforts are also suspect and are viewed by many as deflecting pressure from Israeli atrocities and rejectionist positions on Palestine. Along with reform within the Middle East, the US needs to reform its own approach. It must reverse its policy of accepting only such “democratic” setups in the region that favors US interests. It has shown an ability to do it in Pakistan and Turkey. Similarly the US administration must develop the intellectual and political robustness to engage with nationalist leadership in the region that would inevitably be thrown up through genuine political reform. ********

Greenspan confusion - on purpose Posted here Friday, March 12, 2004 at 4:26:56 PM     Greenspan on the interplay between jobs and outsourcing Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Friday that efforts to stem the tide of overseas outsourcing could damage the U.S. economy instead of help protect American workers. Greenspan detailed his views on the politically charged topic at Boston College's Finance Conference 2004, where he was awarded an honorary degree by the school. Measures such as the U.S. Workers Protection Act might do more harm than good, he said. "In response to these strains and the dislocations (outsourcing could) cause, a new round of protectionist steps is being proposed," Greenspan said. "These alleged cures would make matters worse rather than better. They would do little to create jobs; and if foreigners were to retaliate, we would surely lose jobs." The problem is that when he says "hurts the US" he means capital owners, not the general welfare. The general welfare is likely to decline, and the distribution of its effects is the political issue being dodged here. ********

Camus on time Posted here Friday, March 12, 2004 at 3:52:59 PM     In slightly differnt territory, the problem of modern life is reducing it to a project in time. The idea that the better is in the future has been deeply analyzed as a critique of fascism in its various left and right forms. The best is always available in the moment. the best has to do with the quality fo eperience and insight. the reduction to time misses that the best moments are not in time but in touch with the essence of things, which is not time bound. We partricpate most, not in the future to which we will never arrive, but in achieved qualities here and now. From Camus's The Absurd Man What, in fact, is the Absurd Man? He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal. Not that nostalgia is foreign to him. But he prefers his courage and his reasoning. The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has; the second informs him of his limits. Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his mortal consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime. That is his field, that is his action, which he shields from any judgment but his own. ********

Outsourcing vs 911 Posted here Friday, March 12, 2004 at 3:44:18 PM     Trend, to downplay 911 an d see other issues that Bush distracted us from. This from Freidman So now I wonder: when they write the history of the world 20 years from now, and they cometo this chapter < Sept. 11, 2001, to March 2004 < what will they say was most important? The attack on the World Trade Center and the Iraq war? Or, as Mr. Rao suggests, the convergence of PC's, telecom and work-flow software into a tipping point that allowed India to become part of the global supply chain for services the way China had become for manufacturing < creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, India and China, and giving both nations a huge new stake in the success of globalization. I wonder? March 4, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004703/04/opinion/04FRIE.html ********

Monotheism vs polytheism Posted here Friday, March 12, 2004 at 3:32:00 PM     Here is a review of a book with an important theme. God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism, Jonathan Kirsch, Alexander the Great and his successors carried Hellenism and all its intellectual and cultural baggage into the land of the Jews. The Hellenic lifestyle was immensely seductive to Jews, as Kirsch explains, but even more insidious was the Hellenic worldview, which offered a rational, flattering and attractive < and still viable < alternative to the Jewish revelation, and later to the Christian and Muslim ones as well. This titanic, and ongoing, struggle between reason and revelation is ... What Kirsch is really interested in, and it takes up a well-merited two-thirds of his book, is, to put it somewhat baldly, Emperor Constantine's heavy-handed conversion in 313 of Christian monotheistic intolerance into the policy of the Roman empire, antiquity's "first totalitarian state." ********