] Legal reference for the "Guy Arrested in Mall with Peace
] T-Shirt".. looks like the US Supreme Court is on his side.
] Basic summary is they rule that shopping centers are public
] forums and that people have a right to petition people
] politically within them. Wow, whoda thunk it.

And a quick check at some of the major link tracking sites confirms this story is all over the place.

Leads to a number of funny jokes, doesn't it?

"Look Sir, you don't understand.. We are the peace officers.. We keep the peace here. Not you. Us. Peace. Us. Get it? Take off your shirt or we are taking you downtown.."

Or maybe..

"This is not a peace mall.. No peace in this mall. No peace. You hear me? .... I don't want to hear your hippy crap.. No chance. No peace.. No shirt. ... That's it! Your going to the station."

Hrm.. I'm sure the talk show folks will have a blast with this.

Pruneyard Shopping Center vs Robins

] For instance, a colony of ants can collectively find out
] where the nearest and richest food source is located,
] without any individual ant knowing it. In experiments, a
] food source is separated from the nest by a bridge with
] two branches, one of which is longer. The shorter branch
] is most likely to be selected by the colony. This is
] because the ants lay and follow chemical trails:
] individual ants lay a chemical substance, a pheromone,
] which attracts other ants. The first ants returning to
] the nest from the food source are those that take the
] shorter path twice (from the nest to the source and
] back). Nest mates are recruited toward the shorter
] branch, which is the first to be marked with pheromone.

Its common for different people to come to the same rough conclusions at the same time. This is largely due to shared circumstance and information sources. What is truly amazing to me, is at this point in time, we can see each other coming to these conclusions better then ever before, and feed off each other's ideas as we go along in a very effective mannor. This, if in no other way, is how Information Technology is really changing things.

OpenP2P.com: Swarm Intelligence: An Interview with Eric Bonabeau [Feb. 21, 2003]

] Academics do need to pay more attention to the role of
] religious belief in American public life, not only in the
] past, but also today. Without close attention to the
] prophetic scenario embraced by millions of American
] citizens, the current political climate in the United
] States cannot be fully understood.
]
] Leaders have always invoked God's blessing on their wars,
] and, in this respect, the Bush administration is simply
] carrying on a familiar tradition. But when our born-again
] president describes the nation's foreign-policy objective
] in theological terms as a global struggle against
] "evildoers," and when, in his recent State of the Union
] address, he casts Saddam Hussein as a demonic,
] quasi-supernatural figure who could unleash "a day of
] horror like none we have ever known," he is not only
] playing upon our still-raw memories of 9/11. He is also
] invoking a powerful and ancient apocalyptic vocabulary
] that for millions of prophecy believers conveys a
] specific and thrilling message of an approaching end - not
] just of Saddam, but of human history as we know it.

Quick! Take a drug, get laied, go skydiving, drive your car real fast, write a novel, climb Mt. Everest, learn to swim, code that program, ask her out, run a marathon, get that peircing, write that song, go to that club, move to a city, move to the woods, eat sushi, do whatever the hell you gotta do, because the end times are here and George Bush is driving..

Umm.. Yeah.

AlterNet: When U.S. Foreign Policy Meets Biblical Prophecy

Wait a minute.. It wasn't a fad?

Survey: Web use trends ever upward

] Walters, the U.S. drug czar, says he has talked with his
] Canadian counterparts about the pitfalls of pot
] legalization and harboring of American drug fugitives.
] "If Canada wants to become the locus for that kind of
] activity," he says, "they're likely to pay a heavy
] price."

This is a really good article. I would not be suprised if Canada legalized pot. If they did, then this will segway with current conservative anger about the open border (thank you Bill "no spin (yeah, right)" O'Reilly). The result will be a very strange border situation, with major hassles involved in crossing one direction, but little trouble crossing the other direction... If this impacts the rate of trade, or if there are trade restrictions, then both sides will feel this in their wallets and their markets. The US may try to screw with the trade situation betting that it will hurt Canada more then the US. Of course, the US will have to contend with domestic pressures, both from the pot brigade, but also from corporate america and wall street...

So basically, this is worth paying attention to because it is certainly possible that there is a situation developing here that could have serious economic and policy implications. If this situation worsens rapidly this could prolong the recession.

The Drug War Refugees

If you agree with Thompson's perspective on America, and you're looking for a worst case scenario, you could do worse then to read this book. Its a psycho analysis of the reasons that people establish totalitarian states. This is what fear does to societies.

Amazon.com: Books: Escape from Freedom

] The godfather of gonzo says 9/11 caused a "nationwide
] nervous breakdown" -- and let the Bush crowd loot the
] country and savage American democracy.

Salon.com News | Hunter S. Thompson

] Dystopian visions of the future explore the power of
] virtual communities.
]
] Most cultures preserve their traditions and transmit
] values by telling stories about their past. Americans
] used to do the same, back when the Western was perhaps
] our most popular genre. Yet, somewhere around the
] mid-twentieth century, we began to examine our most
] cherished values and deepest questions through exploring
] the future.
]
] Science fiction is a genre about discontinuities rather
] than continuities, change rather than tradition, and
] about open questions rather than tried-and-true wisdom.
] It could only emerge at the moment when cycles of
] cultural and technological change could be viewed within
] a single lifetime. Today, the rate of change has
] accelerated to the point where we only need to go "twenty
] minutes from now" to envision radical cultural shifts
] and extraordinary technological advances.

MIT Technology Review - Science Fiction and Smart Mobs

] WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 %u2014 After a weekend of antiwar
] protests that many participants say signaled an expansion
] of public opposition to military action against Iraq,
] some organizers are facing criticism, much of it from
] within the movement, about the role played by their
] group, International Answer.

] Attendance at rallies in Washington and San Francisco
] last Saturday was in the tens of thousands, and reflected
] a mix of views that spanned the social and political
] spectrums. Many protest organizers say the presence of
] labor unions, religious groups, business people and
] soccer moms showed a growing mainstream opposition to the
] war.

Complex issues lend themselves to having more then two sides. Of course an anti-war protest is going to bring out elements that are not necessary in line with the bulk of the populus with anti-war sentiment. This should not suprise anyone.

My gut tells me that the "this is just anti-american" angle will be played out in order to diminish the impact of any anti-war movement. Its just too easy to drive that line. Dosen't make it true though..

Peace is patriotic also. Part of your duty as a citizen is to keep your government in check. I think that most people with anti-war sentiment are much like myself. They are not opposed to an Iraq war because of reasons other then the core issues pertaining to the Iraq war, but rather they oppose the war because they don't feel a good enough case has been made yet, or that we should have the support of the global community in any actions we take. I also feel that most people in this category have not been very vocal thus far. As we get closer to the point where the war machine really gets rolling, we will see things heat up. Right now, everyone is just taking in the news, the retoric, and trying to make up their minds.

My mind isn't made up yet. The support of the gobal community makes a big difference with me. I see the reasons for ousting Saddam and I feel they are valid. Yet something is missing. Consensus.

Some War Protesters Uneasy With Others

Despite the dotcom boom and bust, the computer and telecommunications revolution has barely begun. Over the next few decades, the internet and related technologies really will profoundly transform society

Finally, someone who gets it.

We've only just begun