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| Friday, March 21, 2003 |
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Channel conflict 
Newsgator
| | It's pretty amazing stuff, as well as real darn handy — whether you're a warblogger, a peaceblogger, neither or both. Check it out. |
| | [Later...] On the phone with David, who's explaining the differences betwen Technorati and indexes like Daypop, Blogdex and Popdex: |
| | There are three: 1) The number of blogs we watch — what in the search world we call "completeness". 2) Freshness — indexing as often as possible, which in our case is in thirty minutes or sixty at the most, for any weblog. Plus we update every fifteen minutes. We also only track links made in the last two hours. So we have a lot more churn. 3) Context. We have as many different contexts as there are weblogs. We also put them together on the same page. In current events we have three links, and they're all as authoritative as possible, over the last two hours. If Glenn Reynolds posted about the same link a day ago, it doesn't show. |
| | So there ya go. Good shit: He just added This is a rectal thermometer in the blogosphere. |
Now what were we blogging about?
| | The girls are all cute, by the way. As Tony says, we have a lot to learn from the cam girls. |
Blogologue
| | As long as we believe the lesser evil of war is the only way to eliminate the greater evils of oppression, genocide, mass cruelty and threats of mass destruction, we will continue to have all those things. |
| | I also believe the world has made enormous moral progress since World War II. Much as I dislike the current war, I must acknowledge the important differences between its intentions and methods and those during earlier wars. This is a war that seeks not just to disarm a threatening regime, but to release the people of Iraq from that regime's opression. I believe the President and his advisors are sincere when they state those intentions. |
| | Sixty years ago we might have said "Surrender or lose Baghdad." Civilized countries don't do that anymore. I count this as progress. I don't count as progress the willingness of my country to wage this war without the full backing of the United Nations. I am also saddened by the almost complete lack of debate in our own Congress as we headed into this war. Before the last Gulf War, the debate was intense and eloquent. That war was demontrably a result of a far more democratic process than this one. On the other hand, evidence so far suggests we are taking a far more kind approach toward Iraq's sure-to-be-defeated armed forces than we did in the last Gulf war. This is progress too. |
| | Lewis Mumford found in war an expression of our ancient yet persistent urge to human sacrifice. He also said "the balance of mechanized power seems to have fallen on the side of destruction". I believe both statements rause unwelcome about my country's obsession with military technology and world domination, however benevolent our conscious intentions may be. |
| | I also believe this obsession will appear increasingly sick and anachonistic, regardless of whatever relative evils it reduces, as the world's civilization matures. |
Incoming
| | I work in an outbuilding behind my house. It has plenty of windows, but the roof is opaque, and so is the wall facing the jungle between it and the stone wall holding up the lot next door and the rest of the hill above. |
| | Animals come and go from the jungle. They go pitty-pat across my roof and into the magnolia tree on the other side. Huge seed pods that look like hand grenades drop from altitudes up to thirty feet above the roof, making the roof vibrate like a drum. |
| | I know some of the animals are cats. Others are racoons. Others... I have no idea. They just sound strange. Probably more raccoons. |
| | The latest visitors are a swarm of subterranean termites that the landlord promises to exterminate while I'm gone next week. Meanwhile I have their portals blocked with shipping tape. |
| | Working in the wee hours , I love it all. Among all the places I've worked, this is my favorite. Nature outside (and sometimes in) and the Net inside (and sometimes out, thanks to wi-fi). |
Peace coverage
| | KCRW in Los Angeles has suspended much of its normal programming to air rolling coverage not just from NPR, but also from BBC and CNN. I can get them over the air here (from one of their secondary transmitters), but they also stream live in several formats on the Web. |
| | WUNC in Chapel Hill is doing the same. Also KUOW in Seattle. |
| | Unrelated: It annoys me that KPCC doesn't webcast. Their signal is a whopping 600 watts. Compare that with KPFK's 110,000 watts, from roughly the same location. Even though they're up on Mt. Wilson, their signal is stopped by a shingle, meaning this map far overstates the real-world case. And unlike KCRW and KPFK, they don't have translator or satellite (repeater) stations. But they're a good station. If they'd webcast, I'd send them money. |
| | By the way, KPFK and other Pacifica stations can be heard live via links here. Pacifica's coverage was highly important during the Vietnam war. Not so sure about this war, but if you're looking for a Left edge angle on things, Pacifica is a good place to start. |
| | Rick Ellis of All Your TV ("Covering the Networks Who Cover the War") has launched The Loyal Opposition ("the Official Program Guide For a Liberal TV Talk Show that Isn't on the Air"). The latter is a blog. So is Rick on TV. He tells me more is planned. Stay tuned. |
| | I love San Francisco. I really do. I love San Francisco because we're a little wacky. A lot different. But there are times when I'm sad for my city. |
| | For example, when my fellow citizens put red food dye in milk, drink it, and then go to the financial district and vomit on the steps of buildings where ordinary people are trying to go to work, that makes me sad. |
| | And yes, oh yes, they are feeding the capitalist machine, those people. I know. I went to college, too. But we're not talking about the capitalist machine today, class. We're talking about one moron head of state dropping bombs on another moron head of state because he can. Preemptively. |
| | bad americans keep their mouths shut. bad americans let their presidents break the law, bypass the constitution, the un, and common sense for their own agendas. |
| | good americans raise their fists next to the two-gallon mayonaise and excersize their freedom of speech. |
| | bad americans send teens to a desert to kill at will. |
| | frisco you epitomized today what makes this nation great and i will never forget you for it. |
| | i dont care that your streets smell of piss, i dont care how much it costs to cross the golden gate bridge, i dont care that most of my friends couldnt afford to live there any more. |
| | i care that on any given day you are the most enlightened city on the globe, and today you validated what everyone already knew. |
| | and thank you for letting the cubs have dusty baker. |
| | ...while I am pro-war, I think our military has it all wrong. Think Baywatch meets the 101st Airborne Division. |
| | If you want to collapse Saddam's regime....send in the dancers from Spearmint Rhino, naked Playboy Bunnies and female porn stars. That alone would give the phrase "Patriot Missiles" a whole new meaning. |
Department of Corrections
| | The first day of a war is a great one to get your ass fact-checked, gently but firmly, by a bunch of peacebloggers. That's what happend to me yesterday. |
| | Thanks also to Greg for pointage to Michael Kinsley, who says "George W. Bush is now the closest thing in a long time to dictator of the world." Seems new blogger Brian W. Carver agrees. |
discuss
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