] A German soldier, right, of International Security
] Assistance Force (ISAF) and an Afghan security police
] stand guard below a poster of President Hamid Karzai in
] downtown Kabul.

Don't like Clear Channel putting up Billboards of George Bush which say "Our Leader?" What if it was the high tech cellphone company that showed up after a foreign government took out the local christian conservatives by force. What if the sign was in a foreign language?

As much as I totally support what we're doing in Afghanistan I still gotta say these billboards are creepy.

Hamid Karzai - Our Leader

Dolemite wrote:
] ] "It means that really a tiny minority with a very
] ] focused political agenda is trying to censor American
] ] television and radio," said Jonathan Rintels,
] ]
] ] PTC officials disagree.
] ]
] ] "I wish we had that much power," said Lara
] ] Mahaney

Damn right she does.

Its a well established fact that right wing activist groups drive decency laws and enforcement of those laws. But Mahaney is right that they don't have "that much power." These campaigns aren't any more common place then they were 10 years ago. The difference is that Powell is paying attention to them. This is what you are buying when you vote Republican.

RE: Activists Dominate Content Complaints

] The ability to have a presence should of course be
] available to anyone; but the ability to act in cyberspace
] - for example, to collect someone's personal
] information or their money - should be accompanied
] by some accountability.

Esther Dyson's take on how to solve the fishing problems. I am suspicious of this proposal, and stated as much, because it would create official communities in the internet that have certain membership restrictions that are controlled by ICANN. Unfortunately, I don't have a great alternative for her...

The Accountable Net: Who Should Be Accountable?

] ICANN has significantly shaped and restricted the scope
] of that competition and innovation by imposing
] requirement after requirement on the kinds of products
] that registries can offer to registrars and that
] registrars can offer to the public.

Karl Auerbach supports Sitefinder!?!?!?!

Are We Attending the Right ICANN Meeting?

] If there were a Luther for the internet, he might post
] (presumably on his blog, rather than on a church door)
] some set of theses that seemed to him self-evident but
] that few involved in the church of the day were
] previously prepared to utter. With apologies to the real
] Luther, they might look something like the following:
]
] In the Name of Jon Postel.

Verisign (I assume) has anonymously posted an essay calling for ICANN to be destroyed.

Susan Crawford blog :: Time for Reformation of the Internet

] If the problem is that people are using domain names to
] commit frauds and other crimes, it seems to me that icann
] or a registrar is not the right type of authority to take
] action! so i asked, "why can't you go to law
] enforcement?". and the answer was, "they are not
] efficient and it will take 20-40 days to get the site
] shut down, and perhaps even longer if it's a
] cross-national situation".
]
] and, boy, this is exactly the point that scares me: it
] seems to me that the gnso is trying to exert the
] authority of global law enforcement system and turning
] icann into a global police of the internet, that takes
] care (and is thus responsible) for crimes that are
] committed through the internet.
]
] moreover, it scares me that all the architecture of
] national and international legal due process that
] humanity has been building for the last thousand years
] can be suddenly thrown into the trashcan by a handful of
] people in a room.

Lots of crazy stuff going on with ICANN right now. I'll start with this post. I strongly agree. I made comments privately to some of you about how to better deal with domain name dispute resolution, but I now I realize that I was totally wrong. This whole approach is totally wrong. The fact that Law Enforcement hasn't managed to come up with a reasonable way of dealing with petty crimes over international lines does not justify the creation of an independent system of law enforcement by ICANN! The answer is to ask the legitimate governments to develop ways of coordinating to resolve the matter. ICANN does not have the legitimacy to do the things that it is trying to do!

Because of the way this guy's blog is designed, this url will change the next time he posts. Read it now.

hacking the united nations [0E] (((accurate obsession)))

Fun animated gif...

Mantasoft.co.uk Animation: Original Recursive

The New York Times mocks you, Cobb County.

This book details how God created humans. However, some people insist we are descended from aliens. The reader is advised to keep an open mind, and to stay alert.

Nice cryptoschwa.

The Descent of Dissent

Crazy cultists are building an anti-science museum in Kentucky. You can take a virtual walkthrough. Some choice quotes:

] Peer back into the deepest recesses of the heavens,
] and discover that the latest images of the stars
] confirm an all powerful Creator, not a random bang!

] The Bible is true. No doubt about it! Paul explains
] God's authoritative Word, and everyone who rejects
] His history-including six-day creation and Noah's
] Flood-is ‘willfully’ ignorant.

] Everywhere you turn, science confirms the biblical account!

] The first man walked with dinosaurs and named them all!

] God’s Word is true, or evolution is true. No millions of
] years. There’s no room for compromise.

] The only way to cover our sin is the horrific death of
] an innocent substitute.

] Mingle with the unsuspecting people of Noah’s day,
] ‘eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.’
] Why listen to that crazy preacher who warns of coming
] judgment?

Of course, they won't tell you when they plan to open it cause they want to carrot the openning date to raise more money. I'd almost suggest a road trip when it opens but I'm afraid they'd kick me out, or worse, serve koolaid.

Creation Museum | Walk-through

The leading corporations divest themselves of their productive capacity, as this is no longer a source of power. Their power lies in monopolising intellectual property - patents and brands - and the means of reproducing their value - the vectors of communication.

This is very interesting. Rare is it that I find someone who understands the distinction between scarce resources and resources that are not scarce and can consider whether resources that are not scarce ought to be treated as if they were. In addition, this author manages to unify the interest of creators in "open source" and remixable work with their simultaneous conflicts over intellectual property rights with their employers.

Unfortunately, all of this gets cast in a marxist light. The idea of classes is discredited in America. Artificial scarcity is inefficient, and that is where the arguments ought to hinge. Silicon Valley works better because its non-competes are unenforceable and its IP agreements don't stretch into the garage.

In any event, the language is not really relevant. There IS a group of people in this country who mostly create and another group of people who mostly own, and they are quite at odds with eachother over questions such as what sort of copyright system actually benefits innovation. So much can be read directly from Lessig's most recent court case.

Apparently the author has written a book on this subject. There may be things to learn here. I'll post more later...

A(nother) Hacker's Manifesto[PDF]