Three explosive devices found in a courtyard between two Georgia Tech dormitories on the East Campus Monday morning were part of a "terrorist act," an Atlanta police official said.

"It is a terrorist act at this point and depending on the outcome of the investigation it potentially could become a federal violation as well," said Major C.W. Moss of the Atlanta Police Department.

"It will be a joint investigation between the Atlanta Police Department, the Georgia Tech Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Every possible lead will be followed," said Major Moss.

Ok... So this gets classified as a terrorist act right away, while the sooner boomer situation in Oklahoma gets downplayed and dismissed as a mere suicide.

There is very little in the news about this right now. I expect this story to develop.

11Alive.com: Atlanta News - Explosives Found Near Tech Dorms

The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded Monday to a pair of American and Israeli researchers who defined chess-like strategies in politics and business that can be applied to arms races, price wars and actual warfare.

Game Theorists Win Nobel Prize for Economics

I've been incredibly curious about the dominance of New York Times editorial contributors and their columns being listed in the Technorati Top 10. This has been the trend ever since reading editorials on NYtimes.com has become a premium service.

That's and easy one to explain. Since the NYT has put up the subscription wall, people are looking for commentary on the columns that are no longer accessible to them. No one is willing to pay for access to a very small number of people, even if one of them is Thomas Friedman. Web 2.0 type people should take note this.

Another interesting aside: "Bush Defrocked" is printed on the nytimes homepage... but the article (and headline) itself does not include the phrase "Bush Defrocked."

Leery here... not tryingn to spark some controversy involving the Times... that would just be, ahem, unheard of!

That may explain something. There is a Frank Rich column that has "Defrocked" in its title and "Bush" in its body. That would imply there is a significant number of people searching for commentary on that column. It's about the Miers nomination, so that may be plausible. Almost...

It's still very strange that this search term came up at the same time as "Impeach Bush" went away. The top search term manipulation issue is still a concern. That type of thing is very dangerous, regardless of what ideology its used to push forward.

If anything, its a wake-up call for the New York Times. People clearly want access to content they have, but are unwilling to pay for it. Let's hope they do not hit the snooze button. The loser is the marketplace of ideas. We can't have that.

New York Times subscription wall has created vaccum?

Technorati's current top search term is "Bush Defrocked". It appears they have become a victim, or perpetrator, of an effort to manipulate people into having a false view of what the public is interested in. There are no blog posts coming up for that search term, no news taking place which would make it a "hot topic", and other blog search engines are not showing results either.

I'm guessing their list of top search terms is based on the number of queries they receive for any given term, rather than the number of posts in their index for a given term. That would make it pretty easy for an external entity to manipulate.

At the time of this posting, these were the other terms:

2. "Web 2.0"
3. Earthquake
4. "Paul Krugman"
5. "David Brooks"
6. "John Tierney"
7. "Grand Challenge"
8. Flock
9. "Leo Laporte"
10. Serenity

Lately, "Impeach Bush" had been one of the top terms. I always though that was kind of strange. That term's absence in the presence of this one leads me to theorize that their entire top term index is being manipulated, and the party behind it just changed the term they push.

But then again, who knows.. Technorati is known to exercise editorial control over their index. Nothing would lead me to believe they do not exercise it elsewhere. A number of popular blogs are omitted from the Top 100 Blogs List, for as best as anyone can tell, "bloggy" political reasons. Slashdot and Scripting News are examples. I'm sure there are more.

I don't really trust Technocrat. Not to mention, they are exactly the type of company I worry about someone buying with a history of using media to manipulate people for political purposes. This "Bush Defrocked" thing is proof that there are people who want to do just that. I'd like to know who is behind it. I worry about situations where things will happen that people can't see coming. Significant manipulation of public perception over specific issues can be carried out with a high degree of subtlety.

This is a good example of some of the issues we have to be concerned about in regard to the design of social web tools. I'll be talking about this stuff at the "Information Warfare for The People" talk at PhreakNIC later this month. There is also a possibility that Industrial Memetics will be sponsoring the hotel's conference TV channel and providing content.

Update: "Bush Defrocked" has disappeared from Technorati's top search terms. Looks like they took notice ..

Technorati top search terms are manipulated

The University of Michigan Law School has put together a collection of writings by Harriet Miers. I don't have any comments yet. I have not had a chance to read anything over.

University of Michigan Law Library. Hot Topic: Harriet Miers

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.

It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation in American television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" on television. To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen.

Read this entire thing.

All the points Al makes here speak right to the heart of what Decius and I are trying to do with MemeStreams. I do share the belief that the Marketplace of Ideas is in danger, and the Meritocracy of Ideas is mostly dead. I also see the Internet as the thing that is going to save it. We need to increase our intellectual production capacity. Ideas evolve through dialogue, and a dialogue does not exist in a broadcast environment. The meritocracy that we assume to exist, which is key to the whole process, is being strangled to death by the hands of people like my arch-nemisis, Rupert Murdoch.

I badly want to get Al to speak at MTSU about these issues. Last year he gave a talk about the environment, and it was a good talk, but it was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear this.

I think I'm going to bounce around some email and see what I can make happen.

Al Gore tells it like it is

I blogged about the Norman, Oklahoma bomber a few days ago. The story only seems to get thicker. I am not drawing any conclusions, but I am paying attention. There may be something here.

First, let me establish one point which I'm basing my continued interest in this on. If this was in fact an act of terrorism that just didn't work out as planned, the best course of action would be to downplay it. If it was made a big deal of by the authorities and the media, it might as well have been a successful terrorist attack. As it stands right now, this is being downplayed. If that's because there is nothing there, then I'm just wasting words. If not, then I'm glad I'm taking note of this all. Either way, going on a journey of thought is never that bad of an idea, and useful in either case. Its not that hindsight is 20/20 and nothing else is, its that hindsight is always sharper. Always.. [rattle adjusts his glasses]

I'll skip over the preamble of facts pointing to this situation being a individual suicide, because I don't see many of them. I'll note them as I go along.. Everything seems to point to a larger scheme. If you take the Occam's Razor approach, its a stretch to come up with anything other than someone committing suicide in a manor that harkened to some kind of suicide bomber romance, or a botched terrorist attack. But I do feel it important to acknowledge the fact that this may be nothing. Don't go crazy screaming "cover-up" yet..

When it comes to breaking down the situation, this post on Tapscott's Copy Desk does a good job, so I'll start there and use that as a structural base. Here is a summary of his main points, click thru for the full context:

First, The Daily Oklahoman is reporting authorities found a large cache of bomb-making materials in Hinrichs' apartment.
Second, the proximity to the stadium suggests Hinrichs' target was the crowd, perhaps as people were leaving the game.
Third, why was Boren sufficiently familiar with Hinrichs to so quickly issue an opinion about his motive in the bombing?
Fourth, in one of the photos appearing in the media, Hinrichs appears to have a fresh beard, which is characteristic of new Muslim male converts.

Each has supporting points in the original post. Let me add my own special sauce...

His first point can go either way... If he was just some guy committing suicide in a manor inspired by some suicide bomber romance, this would play right into it. Sure his apartment would have a stock of bomb making materials on hand. I can envision him sit... [ Read More (1.1k in body) ]

The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative caucus yesterday called on the public to write to Google to protest its listing of Taiwan as a "province of China" on its Google Maps service.

In addition to sending its own letter of protest to the US search-engine giant, the caucus asked the government to lodge a formal protest and request Google to clearly define Taiwan as "an independent state."

By listing Taiwan as a province of China, Google Maps is clearly succumbing to pressure from China to distort the international community's perception of the cross-strait situation, Huang said.

"The public should condemn Google for belittling the nation's sovereignty. We simply cannot remain idle, because the nation's sovereignty is bound to be eroded inch by inch if we fail to take heed of China's petty political maneuverings in cases like this," Tseng said.

Taipei Times - Taiwan not a province of China, TSU tells Google

"This is inevitable -- Wi-Fi. It is long overdue," [mayor] Newsom told a news conference at San Francisco's City Hall. "It is to me a fundamental right to have access universally to information," he said.

I love San Francisco. Only there, could free WiFi be considered a natural right.

Wanted: A picture of a homeless person on Market Street with an Apple Powerbook, smiling at the camera.

"Fuck food and shelter, I got WiFi!!"

Reuters | Newsom sees wireless service as basic right

If it wasn't for the animal court thing, Joseph Wapner would be a better candidate for the high court of the people than Harriet Miers. This action might inspire adults to laugh, but it would also inspire children who normally want to be firemen, to be lawyers. (Which is just what the world needs...)

Judge Wapner for the Supreme Court