Fortune magazine recently ran a story describing a study conducted by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall for the Department of Defense.

Here is the public report of that study. (22 pages)

The purpose of this report is to imagine the unthinkable -- to push the boundaries of current research on climate change so we may better understand the potential implications on United States national security.

We have interviewed leading climate change scientists, conducted additional research, and reviewed several iterations of the scenario with these experts. The scientists support this project, but caution that the scenario depicted is extreme in two fundamental ways. First, they suggest the occurrences we outline would most likely happen in a few regions, rather than globally. Second, they say the magnitude of the event may be considerably smaller.

We have created a climate change scenario that although not the most likely, is plausible, and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately.

National Security Implications of Abrupt Climate Change [PDF]

] Viet Dinh has been called a "political pit bull" and "a
] foot soldier" for Attorney General John Ashcroft. But the
] 36-year-old author of the Patriot Act prefers to be
] called an "attendant of freedom."

I've read through the article, and I must say that although this guy is well-intentioned, I'm still skeptical. He says that we who oppose the Patriot Act need to back up our arguments with facts, but how can we do that when the U.S. government withholds the facts from us? An intriguing read.

Wired News: The Patriot Act Is Your Friend

] One balmy May evening back in 2000, Dudley was standing
] around minding his own business when all of a sudden, a
] policeman pulled-up and demanded that Dudley produce his
] ID. Dudley, having done nothing wrong, declined. He was
] arrested and charged with "failure to cooperate" for
] refusing to show ID on demand. And it's all on video.

An entertaining site about a supreme court case that will decide whether Police can demand ID for people stopped under "reasonable suspicion."

papersplease.org :: Hiibel

American Greetings Corp.

The black SpongeBob was a goof in printing, the card company says. Wal-Mart offers refunds but won't stop sales.

American Greetings Corp. calls it a regrettable printing error.

Somehow, boxes of SpongeBob SquarePants Valentine's Day cards are popping up in local Wal-Mart stores -- but the popular cartoon character found inside isn't his traditional yellow color...

AN UN-FUNNY VALENTINE: Greeting card picture evokes race stereotype

One of the teens from PhreakNIC, Michael Kozlowicz (you may know him as "The1"), filled me in on an event recently. In December, during a free period (flex block) at his high school in Carpentersville Illinois, another student asked him about web proxies. Michael explained to the other student how they worked.

A few weeks later, Michael got called in to the Principal's office, who asked him about the conversation. Michael felt he did nothing wrong, and explained in great detail what he'd said to the other student. He even put it in writing and signed his name.

To his surprise, he was then suspended from school, and eventually expelled.

He went up before a review board today, and read them a statement (linked below). After hearing the statement, the board then voted unanimously to make the expulsion permanent.

I have my own thoughts on the efficacy of the statement, but I'll leave it to you to make up your own minds.

Statement from Student Expelled for Recommending Web Proxy at School

DES MOINES, Iowa - In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of anti-war activists.

More bad news.

Feds Win Right to War Protesters' Records

] Could the recognition of our imperfect understanding
] serve to establish the open society as a desirable form
] of social organization? I believe it could, although
] there are formidable difficulties in the way. We must
] promote a belief in our own fallibility to the status
] that we normally confer on a belief in ultimate truth.

Decius's comments:

Wow, this might be the most important thing I've read since MemeStreams started. [ I agree 100% with Decius here. I was planning to respond directly to his comments and this article, however its going to have to come connected to something else. I just don't have the time right now. Way too much to go into and/or comment on. - nick ]

First off, despite the title, this is not an anti-capitalist screed. George Soros is an investment banker and the 38th richest man in the country. In fact, this article isn't really about capitalism. This article is about everything. The title is so poor that I almost changed it.

What Soros is saying about Capitalism is that there are people who accept the concept of free trade in a ideological way, in an absolutist way, and that is a problem. The problem with religious states, which requires the separation of church and state, is that when laws are the product of man, they are open to debate, but when laws are the product of God, to question is heresy. If you have a society in which the law cannot be questioned, you have a totalitarian society. It is only a matter of time.

The thing that Soros is saying here is that any absolutist ideology can be abused in this manner. It doesn't matter if your ideology is based on the Bible, or the writings of Marx, or the writings of Adam Smith. If you have a nation of people who believe that their principals are beyond question, ultimately you have a totalitarianism. It is only a matter of time before the inconsistencies your absolutism forces you to ignore cause fissures which break your society down.

Reading this essay caused me to think back across many of the discussions that I've had on this site over the past two years. My instinct that Fukuyama's belief in an ultimate solution was flawed. Being able to see great tragedies of history reflected in the idea of pre-emptive military action and being unable to demonstrate that its not "ok" if you're doing it for Democracy. In our worries about the state of the IT industry. In my various discussions about politics with people from various perspectives.

I've had a really hard time deciding where I fit in the political spectrum. I know what the tests tell me, but somehow I'm never comfortable with the answers. When I talk to conservatives they think I'm a liberal. When I talk to liberals they thing I'm a conservative (or at the least that I've been duped by them). One thing I've come away from years and years of these conversations with is the idea that people usually i... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

The Capitalist Threat - George Soros

What accounts for the persistent belief that trade with poor countries will make us worse off? Recently, it occurred to me that evolutionary psychology might provide the answer. Anthropologist Alan Fiske has pointed out that there are four ways in which humans transact: on the basis of authority; on the basis of communal sharing; on the basis of equality matching; and on the basis of market pricing. In the era of small hunter-gatherer tribes in which our brains evolved, only the first three were needed. Market pricing is required once you start to interact with strangers.

Taking Advantage

Jeremy wrote:
] George Soros wonders why Americans got quite so
] upset about September 11.
]
] He seems positively obsessed with the Project for a New
] American Century.
]
] In his book, he veers close to what has become the
] left's equivalent of black-helicopter paranoia.
]
] "I am distressed," he writes, "that the public is not as
] alarmed as I am."

Wow. The writer of this article seems to think the War on Terror is a hell of a good thing. Apparently he has an odd notion of paranoia, as everything predicted seems to be going along schedule. How is spending money to alarm people that their civil liberties already have been taken away dangerous or paranoid? This writer is an idiot. If he is unable to explain what is wrong with an opinion and only complain that it is crazy and dangerous, he is probably too stupid to write.

RE: A Conspiracy So Vast

] By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's capture, Bush
] effectively consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA
] Patriot Act to a mere footnote. Consequently, while most
] Americans watched as Hussein was probed for head lice,
] few were aware that the FBI had just obtained the power
] to probe their financial records, even if the feds don't
] suspect their involvement in crime or terrorism.

] The Senate passed it with a voice vote to avoid
] individual accountability. While broadening the
] definition of "financial institution," the Bush
] administration is ramping up provisions within the 2001
] USA Patriot Act, which granted the FBI the authority to
] obtain client records from banks by merely requesting the
] records in a "National Security Letter." To get the
] records, the FBI doesn't have to appear before a judge,
] nor demonstrate "probable cause" - reason to believe that
] the targeted client is involved in criminal or terrorist
] activity. Moreover, the National Security Letters are
] attached with a gag order, preventing any financial
] institution from informing its clients that their records
] have been surrendered to the FBI. If a financial
] institution breaches the gag order, it faces criminal
] penalties. And finally, the FBI will no longer be
] required to report to Congress how often they have used
] the National Security Letters.

How the hell was this able to happen without public discourse and debate!?!?!?!

This is the first I have heard of this. We can't let our government tinker with laws that effect our civil liberties without pubic discourse. This is really, really, really, serious. Something needs to be done! This is a _BIG_ problem! The laws that protect our rights are being changed, and great lengths are being gone through to keep it secret!

If this can happen without a hitch, then anything can happen without a hitch. I think we can officially declare now, that we have lost control of our country to this current Administration, and they are in the process of destroying what has made America powerful and great, our openness. If this type of "governing" is allowed to continue, we might as well give this country a new name and flag, because its changed.

I don't believe I'm hearing about this FIFTEEN DAYS after its been signed into law.

Patriot II was signed into law under our noses...