Day: June 25, 2002

Wanted: Beta testers for new site design

Folks –

Yes, I’m getting real serious about this site redesign. And yes, I’m equally serious about trying to ensure the design works well for all users. Therefore, I’m looking for folks to volunteer to check out the new design and verify that it looks passable on your platform/browser combo.

I’m running Windows on all my machines, and have IE5, IE6, and Mozilla 1.0 covered for browsers.

If you are running anything else (particularly Netscape on anything, and Linux with any browser) and are willing to spend a few brief minutes poking around the new site pre-launch, me an email and I’ll point you at the URL.

Beta-time will likely be later this week; it’s close but not quite soup yet.

Thanks all…

-NZB

In case anybody had any doubts remaining that Colin got his hat handed to him with Bush’s speech last night, here’s a revealing quote from Raghida Dergham, senior diplomatic correspondent for the Arab newspaper Al Hayat, during her appearance on WBUR radio’s The Connection this morning (RealAudio style=”margin-left: 25″>”Instead of listening to his Secretary of State, Colin Powell who actually — two weeks ago I guess it was when I interviewed him — I sat with him for a half hour and he had a very extensive discussion with me on what should we be expecting of the American strategic policy. And everything he said — practically almost everything has been reversed by the President. That is quite embarassing and its an insult to our Secretary of State too for the President to just send him out on a limb and then [come] out with this so-called strategic policy and side with the Prime Minister of Israel.”

Yeah, I doubt Colin’s having too good a day today.

Paging Tim Noah: The O’Neil Death Watch never quite worked out: is it time for a Powell Watch ?

(To be clear: although Ms. Dergham works for Al-Hayat, a pan-Arab, Arabic language newspaper, her bio indicates that she is an American, so the “our Secretary of State” comment is not the Arab Freudian slip that it might appear to be).

PS – Unfortunately, WBUR doesn’t appear to have a transcript for the program posted, so you’ll have to rely on the RealAudio. The quoted comment is at about nineteen minutes in.

It has been pointed out to me (not that I didn’t know it already) that as we add more and more blogs to the Ecosystem, the ratio between the microbes vs. the elite non-microbes is growing increasingly large.

So, at some point, it would seem logical to either increase the size of the higher levels of the food chain, or add more levels.

So (2): Any suggestions for new levels we could insert? They must of course fit the theme, even though the existing names already Meryl grumpy (she’s just a big meanie anyway).

Send your ideas here …

I Have a Dream… Set My Pixels Free!

Significant progress being made on the site redesign. It is now becoming actively painful for me to look at the current site, given how lousy it looks, and how nice the new version is turning out.

Patience, friends! Soon your eyeballs shall no longer be assaulted with this miserable excuse for a design!

Cool! John over at Right Wing News has a roundup of the ” Best ‘Unknown’ Political Bloggers“.

I know a few folks on the list (and agree they’re good ‘uns); others are new to me. Go check ’em out for yourself.

And note: John indicates he’s using the Ecosystem list to identify bloggers not getting enough attention — which as I’ve noted, is exactly one purpose I hoped folks would use it for.

Above and beyond the narcististic self-referential enjoyment quotient of it, of course.

Kofi doesn’t get it:

“Reacting to a speech today by United States President George Bush, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the US leader’s reaffirmation that the outcome of the Middle East peace process should be the establishment of a viable and credible State of Palestine – based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 – and security for Israel.”

Actually, I suspect Kofi got it just fine; he’s a bright guy. But I don’t think he quite knows how to deal with the “it” of an American administration that refuses to play by the usual Middle East Rules: i.e., treating murderers like negotiating partners.

At the risk of stepping on (extremely competent) toes, I draw your attention to MEMRI’s translation of the Palestinian “open letter” regarding attacks on civlians within Israel.

This feels slightly like old news this week, but I recommend it nonetheless, as MEMRI provides some additional detail and background on the two versions of the communique that were issued — and the reasons for changes that appeared in the second version. According to MEMRI, the second version of the letter was published on June 21st, it included a new statement at the end:

“Needless to say, all the signatories to this communiqu

If you are looking for a downright amusing attempt to spin Bush’s speech yesterday into a positive endorsement of Palestinian policy, check out RealAudio interview yesterday with Palestinian representative Hassan Abdel Rahman, in which even mild-mannered Robert Siegel appears to be struggling to contain the urge to giggle as Rahman whirls round and round and round.

Mr. Rahman clearly had his reality-distortion generator cranking at full blast when he listened to Bush’s speech; individual quotes don’t do him justice, so go listen to the whole thing…

(whoops, there’s one of those nasty links again…)

All you radio scanner freaks out there: beware! Your kind ain’t welcome in the Queen’s Kingdom.

news reports:

The safety of the Royal Family and top politicians is at risk because classified security details are being published on the internet, it has been revealed.

Radio scanning enthusiast Paul Wey is intercepting Special Branch and other communications and publishing their details on internet news groups, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme has learned.

Apparently, Wey has a scanner and has found some of the interesting frequencies used by police and emergency services in Britain, and is publishing information on them on the Internet.

The gov’ment doesn’t take to kindly to this:

An intelligence source said Mr Wey was a “menace”, whose actions could help terrorists commit atrocities and may have already been used to counter police operations.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes said the government must consider banning radio scanners, which are currently illegal to use but not to own…

The intelligence source said Mr Wey and his website were “a severe danger to the public and to national security”. ..The source called for the site to be closed down, as well as for scanners to be made illegal. She said: “They can only be used for illegal activity. It’s similar to saying to somebody: ‘It’s OK to have a gun, as long as you don’t put bullets in it’.”

Hmmmm.

Point The First: Ms Unnamed Intelligence Source may want to rethink her classification of dangers to public and national security. I would submit to her that the danger to public and national security is that the Special Branch is using open frequencies to transmit sensitive information. Mr. Wey makes this point himself: “Mr Wey suggested that his activities could prompt the authorities to take better care of security – for instance by ensuring that Special Branch’s radio equipment was updated as it should be.” Well, uh, yeah.

Point The Second: Scanners can only be used for illegal activity, you say? Well, tell that to the good folks over at Pinecam.com, and the many citizens of Colorado who are reading Pinecam’s summaries of emergency service scanner transmissions to stay informed of the Hayman Fire’s progress, and now, are even listening into those same scanner transmissions via a dedicated RealAudio stream.

You may conclude that Pinecam’s zeal to inform the Colorado public is — well, overzealous — but I don’t think anyone for a second would accuse them of any nefarious intent.

Oh, and if you’re looking for a link to Mr. Wey’s site on the BBC site, don’t bother — it’s not there. Apparently he’s got some deep-linking policy that prohibits anyone linking to his site without prior written permission…no, wait, I’m confusing him with someone else…