This is a picture of West Point. The central feature of the campus is a narrow stretch across the Hudson. George Washington fortified this location with heavy guns and a thick chain just under the water to prevent the British, who controlled NYC, from moving north up the river and cutting New England off from the rest of the country. There is a Civil War memorial here at the point. Most of the battle commanders on both sides were alumni. They put cannons barrel first into the ground around the monument. Such a profound statement of frustration with the cost of conflict I have never seen.

I'm linking a speech from Gen. MacArthur that seems popular here.

The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

West Point

The bottom line: I have decided to shift my academic work, and soon, my activism, away from the issues that have consumed me for the last 10 years, towards a new set of issues. Why and what are explained in the extended entry below.

In Code Lessig makes a statement very early on that I found shocking, coming from a lawyer, particularly one of his stature, and particularly given that the statement was unexplained and unqualified. Unfortunately I don't have the book with me, but it was something to the effect that our government is completely unprepared to face the challenges ahead, that it is completely incapable of reaching the right policy answers. I highlighted the passage and had intended to write him about it at some point. Now I don't have to.

Lessig blog: Required Reading: the next 10 years

“Talk radio is running America,” Lott thundered from the floor of the Senate last week. “We have to deal with that problem.” “That problem” is that the Bush/Kennedy/McCain/Calderon amnesty bill got beaten like a cheap rug on the floor of the Senate last week. “That problem” is that prospects for its revival are dim, at best.

I don't know whether to laugh about the Republicans totally loosing control of their smear machine or cry at the prospect that so many in this country have been lead to such unrealistic expectations with regard to illegal immigration. I think this is going to get ugly.

Lott should just turn himself off - Opinion & Editorial - BostonHerald.com

By a wide margin, several polls show, voters want a Democrat to win -- yet when offered head-to-head contests of leading announced candidates, many switch allegiance to the Republican.

An entertaining collection of blog postings and stories. It looks like no one really has a candidate.

- Media Notes - washingtonpost.com

Some of you who say my talk at Phreaknic might recall my observation that the 4th Amendment doesn't apply on the Internet. Interestingly enough, an appeals court today decided that it does. The EFF is touting this as a big win. However:

On remand, therefore, the preliminary injunction shall allow seizures of e-mail in three situations: (1) if the government obtains a search warrant under the Fourth Amendment, based on probable cause and in compliance with the particularity requirement; (2) if the government provides notice to the account holder in seeking an SCA order, according him the same judicial review he would be allowed were he to be subpoenaed; or (3) if the government can show specific, articulable facts, demonstrating that an ISP or other entity has complete access to the e-mails in question and that it actually relies on and utilizes this access in the normal course of business, sufficient to establish that the user has waived his expectation of privacy with respect to that entity, in which case compelled disclosure may occur if that entity is afforded notice and an opportunity to be heard.

The later part is the kicker. I think any ISP can show that they use email headers to route messages. In reading the decision this might be insufficient for the judge. In that case it could be quite interesting.

Email 4th Amendment Ruling

I can tell you that in the first hour it works a little better than I thought, but I’m still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard.

The iphone looks really slick, but every time one of my friends says "you know, I think I'm going to get one" I caution them about the keyboard. I have a Sidekick. I do a LOT of chatting and texting on it. The reason is that the keyboard is big. Big enough to efficiently type with two fingers. Often I talk to people who say "Oh, I don't care, I don't do a lot of texting." Then I look at their phone. They have a 9 digit keypad. Of course they don't do a lot of texting. Texting on a 9 digit keypad is extremely tedious. If they had an efficient interface, they'd do more of it. Once you have an effective way to use it, it becomes a very valuable tool and you don't want to give it up. It is often very helpful to be able to send short, asynchronous messages to someone instead of bothering them with a call.

Now, sure Apple's phone might not be marketed at me. They might be going after the users who never have never had a real keyboard on their phone and don't know what they are missing. But Apple is a computer company, and their whole story is that their phone works great with the Internet. The Internet is about transmitting and not just receiving, and nothing "works great" with it if it doesn't have an efficient transmitter.

Add to this the prospect of downgrading your ipod hard drive or having your ipod hard drive size directly connected with phone upgrades, and I'm just not sure I see anything here that I really want. Sure, it looks slick, but it will make it harder to do what I need to do with my phone and my ipod.

I'm not saying it won't be successful. LOTS of people will be willing to sacrifice substance for form. I'm just saying those are not the kind of people that talk to me about purchasing an iphone.

Here is a telling quote:

The new phone may resonate with a new kind of mobile user, said Donald Norman, a product designer who is co-director of the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

"Apple says, 'We're not selling to the person who lives on his Blackberry, we're selling to the person who listens to music and surfs the Web,'" he said.

Apple, you don't understand the Internet.

Apple 2.0: Apple iPhone: All Eyes on the Keyboard (Or Lack Thereof)

Thanks to unmanaged for pointing out that tickets are already on sale for the new Hamilton NHL team. Here is more:

Two days into the campaign, the number of people putting deposits on season tickets for a potential National Hockey League team in Hamilton overtook the number of season-ticket holders of the Nashville Predators.

By early Friday afternoon, Jim Balsillie, who is trying to buy the Predators, sold almost 10,000 seats and luxury suites for Copps Coliseum, where the team will play if it is moved from Nashville. The Predators currently have just under 9,000 season-ticket holders.

Apparently if this effort isn't successful Leipold promises to scuttle the team.

If the Nashville Predators are not sold by June 30, which seems unlikely now, sources say club owner Craig Leipold is prepared to vastly trim his player payroll next season, even if it means dismantling a Stanley Cup contender.

The so-called scorched earth tactic, reminiscent of baseball's Florida Marlins, is designed to minimize financial losses next season, which will almost certainly approach US$10-million, and force the City of Nashville to buy more tickets if it wants to keep professional hockey in the Tennessee capital. It would also demonstrate to National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman, who doesn't want the team relocated to Hamilton, that Nashville is an unsustainable market, which Leipold has repeatedly said.

Basically Leipold has put a gun to the head of the Predators and told the NHL he'll pull the trigger if they won't let him have his money. It appears clear that Nashville is fucked unless local businesses actually buy the team out from Leipold. The ticket sales effort won't help. More...

It's not like Bettman can save hockey in Nashville. It would appear to be history, the vultures from other cities circling in numbers. There's said to be another lesser offer into Predators owner Craig Leipold to move the team to Kansas City, but he obviously would prefer to be able to sell to Balsillie for the much higher number -- more than $50 million higher.

Bettman would prefer to see the team stay in the U.S. with an eye to making the league a more saleable commodity to a major U.S. television network, so he would prefer to see the sale go through at these June meetings and then deal with the relocation issue later when the Preds can get out of the lease.

Burning the Predators

There is the most amazing collection of fantastic images in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections of Cornell University Library. You must check it out!

Double click through for a collection of fantastic images that sucked down about an hour of my time this morning.

Little Hokum Rag: Demons- like you have never seen before!

Spooky offers a free 71 minute mix. Grab it!

Brian Eno once famously remarked that the problem with computers is that there isn't enough Africa in them. I kind of think that its the opposite: they're bringing the ideals of Africa: after all, computers are about connectivity, shareware, a sense of global discussion about topics and issues, the relentless density of info overload, and above all the willingness to engage and discuss it all - that's something you could find on any street corner in Africa.

I just wanted to highlight the point: Digital Africa is here, and has been here for a while. This isn't "retro" - it's about the future.

Noteworthy says: There's some great stuff at around 57:00, in conjunction with Duke Ellington's "Afro-Euraasian Eclipse". I first heard these samples on DJ/rupture's album, Minesweeper Suite, which I've been meaning to recommend for a while now. From the emusic review:

Barcelona-based DJ/rupture shows off his formidable turntable skills (and frighteningly deep record collection) with a three-deck mix that spans dancehall reggae, Middle Eastern drumming, underground London breakcore and Hot 97-ready a cappellas. ... /rupture's knack for drilling holes through genres (mashing up Aaliyah's "Resolution" with apocalyptic drum 'n' bass, screwing hip-hop into psychedelic glitch-folk) threads a groove that could spin any pair of hips out onto the dancefloor. The form (beat-oriented fusion) and the content (any sound you can imagine, never deracinated but instead radically re-contextualized) make the perfect icebreaker to get trainspotters talking politics, and vice versa.

DJ SPOOKY: Venice Biennale 2007

Shots of the various self-made weapons seized by Russian army and police in Chechnya. There is even self-made machine gun.

Make magazine should do a special issue.

English Russia - Chechen Self-Made Weapons