Excellent peice by Paul Berman on Sayyid Qutb, the man whom islamist extremeist philosophy can directly be attributed to.

This is a must read article. Long (10 pages), but completely worth it. Filled with insight and background on the collision of islamist and liberal culture..

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror

] The argument put forward by Berman, who is one of the
] most elegant and provocative thinkers to emerge from
] America's New Left, will both infuriate and engage
] those on all sides of the political spectrum. In a
] recent interview with Salon, Berman insisted that
] while he does not support the Bush administration
] -- actually, he detests how President Bush has handled
] the case for war and warns "we will pay for it" -- he
] thinks it was also dangerous for the antiwar movement
] to ignore the threat that was posed by a ruthless Iraqi
] regime that killed a million people and threatened the
] stability of the world.
]
] We spoke with Berman in New York, before and after
] bombs started falling on Baghdad.

p2. Osama is no Hitler -- or is he?
p3. Trying to save the world, Bush terrifies it
p4. We are all Noam Chomsky

Salon.com Books | Bush is an idiot, but he was right about Saddam

] Web logs -- hence the geekish contraction "blogs" --
] began as cyberspatial diaries on which writers posted
] snippets of whatever came to mind or to their attention.
] Narcissism and tedious anarchy were the order of the day.
] Over time, the blogs began to take on many of the
] characteristics of privately printed 19th century
] pamphlets -- places where overlooked or simply eccentric
] preoccupations could be aired.
]
] But as the form's potential to reach a global readership
] almost instantaneously became clearer, it has become a
] favored medium for political commentators and opinion
] journalists with a desire to make their case with more
] urgency and timeliness than print -- or even television
] -- will permit.
]
] The run-up to this second Gulf War has been an
] exhilarating period for the latter class of bloggers. In
] fact, the uncertain character of these past few months
] has seemed tailor-made for a medium that puts a premium
] on opinion, debate and the digestion of provocative
] information from more sources than anyone with a day job
] has waking moments to handle.

Los Angeles Times: Online commentators are seizing the moment

quoted:

As we shiver in the shadow of war, waiting to be shocked and awed by the malevolent magnificence of militarism in action, some in the antiwar movement are calling for "direct action." What this amounts to is what happened the other day in downtown San Francisco, when about 200 people marched to the Pacific Stock Exchange, and a few dozen of these sat down on the steps, refusing to move, while their brethren disrupted traffic and tied up the downtown area for hours. Why did they do it? Let Warren Langley, former president of the Pacific Stock Exchange, and newly converted to antiwar activism, explain it in his own words:

"It's my history and my lifetime. This war seems very wrong for the entire world. I decided I was willing to do whatever it takes to show a strong stand against it."

Me, me, me, it's all about Me! Langley's narcissism is embarrassingly apparent. Like someone standing there with his fly wide-open, happily unaware, he perfectly embodies the unabashed self-absorption of the "direct action" movement. In nominating themselves for sainthood, the direct-actionists are acting out their personal fantasies on the political stage. In their little morality play they are the stars, moral paragons who, by the sheer power of their goodness and bravery, will shut down the war machine.

This Isn't About You, by Justin Raimondo

Deborah Branscum's weblog. Good oped on media matters.

] I'm a former contributing editor to Newsweek. I've also
] reported or edited for InfoWorld, Macworld, The New York
] Times, Fortune Small Business, Wired, PC World and other
] publications. I wrote the "Valley Talk" column for
] Fortune.com between December 2000 and February 2002.

Official Sources Say... buzz.weblogs.com

] In the run up to a conflict in Iraq, foreign news websites
] are seeing large volumes of traffic from America, as U.S.
] citizens increasingly seek news coverage about the coming
] war.
]
] "Given how timid most U.S. news organizations have been
] in challenging the White House position on Iraq, I'm not
] surprised if Americans are turning to foreign news services
] for a perspective on the conflict that goes beyond freedom
] fries," said Deborah Branscom, a Newsweek contributing
] editor, who keeps a weblog devoted to media issues.

] Dennis charged that, unlike much of the American press,
] the Guardian site presents both pro- and anti-war
] positions. In addition, the Guardian encourages its
] readers to debate the issues, through the site's talk
] boards and interactive features like live interviews with
] various experts.
]
] The only debate in the U.S. media is on the Web, Dennis
] said. "Weblogs are doing all the work that the U.S. media
] did in the past," he said. "That's an interesting
] development."
]
] In fact, a lot of the Guardian's U.S. traffic is referred
] by weblogs, especially Matt Drudge's Drudge Report, said
] Nielsen's Goosey.

Wired News: Media Watchdogs Caught Napping

This approach also enables the identification of leadership roles within the communities.

Email as Spectroscopy [PDF]

The "files" will open up the secret history of the Middle East like a field of sunflowers.

Could this be the reason why some nations so vehemently oppose military action, or seek to postpone it indefinitely?

The Man Who Would Be President

We have a long way to go in developing a real intellectual, social, and legal infrastructure that balances opportunities and threats. We, as technologists and entrepreneurs, really have no choice but to be involved.

Memestreamers will not really be surprised by anything in this article, but I blog it as yet another sign that people are taking notice of the situation.

The Social Risks of New Technologies

] "My goal was to say farewell to 20th-century Korean
] journalism, with the concept that every citizen is a
] reporter," said Mr. Oh, a wiry, intense man whose mobile
] phone never stops ringing.

Oh my the South Koreans are blowing the American's doors off. They rocketed from Agrarian to Industrial culture in about 20 years, and they haven't slowed down. If you want to know what MemeStreams will become, this is it.

Online Newspaper Shakes Up Korean Politics