] Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring
] from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really
] Want to Give You One

Ten reasons why you should never accept a diamond ring

] Jerusalem used to be the direction in which the prophet
] Muhammad and the first Muslims turned to pray. In time,
] Muhammad changed the direction, or qibla, and Muslims
] began to pray facing Mecca, as they do today. All the
] Bush White House did was change the qibla of American
] Middle East policy from Jerusalem to Baghdad. While the
] present clique of White House ideologues assumed that a
] safe, stable, and democratic Iraq would reshape the
] region, Zinni, Brzezinski, and company still maintain
] that the peace process is the key. They don't know more
] about the Middle East than the Bush White House; they're
] just angry that someone replaced their absurd reductive
] paradigm with another, equally absurd reductive paradigm.

Good article.

Palestine Policy Paralysis - Face it: There is no -key- to Middle East peace.

] In terms of the power he now claims, without significant
] challenge, George W. Bush is now the closest thing in a
] long time to dictator of the world. He claims to see the
] future as clearly as the past. Let's hope he's right.

Its amazing to see something like this from someone like Kinsley. Even the right is moving left in response to this... That last sentence bothers me. "Let's hope he's right" is a wimpy finish. Fuck that.

A. He is obviously "wrong" in a moral sense. Thats the whole point. He is being an imperialistic bastard on purpose in hopes of scaring various people into getting rid of our enemies.

B. Even if it works, its going to cost a fortune.

C. It had better fucking work, but there is no way that anyone can know for sure. This is a grim business we engage in and there really is no room for error.

D. Protesting this, if you oppose it, is only useful to the extent that it convinces people that they should vote against these people in the next election.

E. If there is an interest by the liberals in countering this strategy they must provide a clear counter strategy which enables us to deal with Al'Q. So far I haven't seen it. Daschle? Hello??

We are now too powerful to simply avoid voting out of apathy. Your votes don't just impact us. They impact everyone in the world. People must vote, and they must vote with an international perspective. To continue to apathetically not participate in the electoral process in this country, as most of us do, is no longer acceptable. Our votes are the only thing that can ultimately prevent an empire of good intentions from becoming, years from now, exactly the sort of ruthless international dictatorship that such power usually produces.

Sovereign authority - By Michael Kinsley - Slate.com

] "This is something you have on the shelf," said
] Hoofnagle. "You wait for an opportune moment, like going
] to war, to introduce it. They call this a draft, but this
] bill is definitely close to final and gives a good road
] map of what the Justice Department wants."

I wonder how long the patriot act was on the shelf before September 11th. This is fairly reasonable evidence that these acts are a general effort at widening powers rather then a specific effort to enable the investigation of specific crimes.

Wired News: A Chilly Response to 'Patriot II'

"The fact that we're having this discussion at all is a symptom of the polarizing effect that Bush and his top dogs have had on the United States since assuming office and even more so in the hard-right free-for-all that followed the Sept. 11 attacks."

Ted Rall IS the mainstream voice of American communism, and as with all political extremes, unsubstantiated paranoid conspiracy theories are par for the course on ANY day, regardless of any "polarizing effect" offered by the current environment. The radical left is almost indistinguishable from the radical right, especially in this regard.

Having said that, I *LOVE* paranoid conspiracy theories, and this is a particularily GOOD one. A political link to the Ron Brown plane crash! A missing black box! This is the stuff that the Art Bell show is made of! So, I heartily recommend this one. Imagine if its true! What can we expect come 2004? Oh, the drama!

Yahoo! News - THE (POSSIBLE) ASSASSINATION OF PAUL WELLSTONE

I have an answer: movie buffs. "

Thank you Captain Obvious. Why the hell is it that Kevin Kelly gets published in the New York Times for pointing out something so plain that one wonders what Mr. Valenti was thinking when he said it. Is it because he is rich and famous, or is it simply because he bothered to write them? I think its the former more then that later.

I might ask Mr. Valenti if he owns a fork. And if so, if the company that made his fork has a patent on forks, and if not, why said company went to the expense of producing and distributing forks without having a patent to prevent competition.

Making My Own Music