Category: Main

I keep meaning to mention and support Bigwig’s fine idea, The Carnival of the Vanities, a weekly assemblage of bloggers self-selected best work.
Normally it’s over at Hraka, but this week, Lair is stepping in and hosting it at File 13.
Go forth and check it out, y’hear…

Wow. What do people find even more irritating than Michael Moore? Stark’s Salon interview of Michael Moore.
Since I’m in need of self-affirmation today (just finished filling out my unemployment application), I will fondly reflect on the fact that I got much nicer letters.
(I’m attractive, and smart, and gosh darn it, people like me…!)

Okay apropos of nothing, here’s a request to the peanut gallery:
Has anybody ever found a non-alcoholic beer that doesn’t taste like piss?
I enjoy good beer. I’d rather drink it than soda any evening. But often I have no interest in getting even a slight buzz; I just want a drink that tastes pleasant.
I’ve tried Kaliber, and St. Pauli Girl NA, and they suck, so don’t even bother suggesting them.
Am I chasing a nonexistent ideal here? Suggestions are highly desired…

For those of you who are interested in the more geeky side of the weblog world, the Weblog MetaData Initiative — formerly known as “BlogMD” — is looking for folks to help test out a preliminary, alpha-level specification for encoding metadata in weblogs.
All it takes is enough knowledge to know how to edit your weblog templates — we’re using HTML tags for this experiment, so it should be doable on any weblogging system, even Blogger.
If you’re interested, check out the announcement at the project’s new home — . Yes, we finally got a real domain!
And I certainly wouldn’t mind if folks spread the word on this — the more folks we can get as test cases using different weblog tools the more effective our effort will be, so please, make with the linky-linky thing if you would be so kind…
-NZB
Update: Several folks are now working on how to implement the tags on Blogger, and I’ve created a special test blog so they can hack away without munging up their real homepages. If you would like to join in the Blogger fun, drop me a message and I’ll add you as an administrator to the test blog…

Neat! Somebody TTLB for a Bloggy award for best design.
Flattered, I am. I think the voting is open until the end of the month, so go cast your ballots…

I attempted to send this to Kausguy via email, but he’s having mail troubles, so I guess I’ll just have to make a post of it. I’m sure Mickey is spending his emailless hours hitting the refresh button compulsively on TTLB, so he’ll see it right away anyway of course.
Sir Kaus continues to search for a last-minute, write-in candidate to swoop into the California governor’s election and claim the ABGDALAINBS (Anybody But Gray Davis As Long As It’s Not Bill Simon) spot. Kaus seems to think that such a spoiler would be a sure thing to win, or at the very least, ensure that he didn’t have to expend much actual work coming up with blog post ideas for a week or two.
His last for help came today:
Two late-breaking, obvious California gubernatorial nominees (of kf readers): Warren Beatty or Martin Sheen! … Should have thought of them myself. … Beatty made a funny political movie about just the kind of quixotic campaign that this last-minute write-in drive could be. … Sheen’s politically active and respected. Time for him to cash in before those West Wing ratings fall even more!… Either man would steal much of Gov. Gray Davis’ liberal support. … Neither will do it, of course, because they both have something to lose if they flop. .. No, we need someone with high-name recognition, but no respectability left whatsoever.
Two words, baby: Hugh Hefner !
Envied by the men; popular with the ladies (natch). How could he lose? And besides, his campaign staff would sure be easy on the eyes.
P.S. – In mentioning his fritzed email, Kaus also said something about looking for a Sicilian girlfriend with a 4-6 inch penis. Or something like that. So if that’s you, well, go help a brother out…

We’re in the midst of much “why are we talking about invading Iraq and not North Korea, since North Korea just admitted they’re working on nukes” nonsense right now.
So I figured I’d reach back into the good old archives and repost a simple set of rules I declared for when I believe the United States is justified in using military force. The orignal post is but to save you that extra click (we’re service oriented here at TTLB), here it is:
The United States should consider military action to effect a change of regime against a foreign power when:
1) That power has demonstrated that they are hostile to the U.S. and its citizens, either by directly attacking us; by threatening or planning such an attack, or by supporting other actors who have executed or have threatened such an attack.
or
2) All of the following are true:
a) We have the means to decisively execute such a military operation without significant casualities, to our own forces or to innocent civilians.
b) Deposing the regime is clearly in the best interest of its citizens, and our intention is to establish a democratic government upon completion of the operation.
c) Such an operation is in the selfish best interest of the United States (economically; politically, etc.).

If you apply these principles to Baghdad and Pyongyang, I think it becomes rapidly clear why we’re not considering an assault on North Korea as a valid option (hint: it gets clearer if you’re a resident of Seoul).

TTLB is a public-service oriented kinda blog, and in that spirit, I offer the following words of wisdom from Sean Penn, from an advertisement he placed in the Washington Post today opposing war against Iraq:
says:
In an open letter to Bush taking up most of a page in the main section of the daily newspaper, the Oscar-nominated star of I Am Sam and Dead Man Walking, urged the President to stop a cycle where “bombing is answered by bombing, mutilation by mutilation, killing by killing”.
“I beg you, help save America before yours is a legacy of shame and horror,” Penn wrote, echoing voices of caution from around the world that have called for a measured response to allegations Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction.
The letter was signed “Sincerely, Sean Penn, San Francisco, California”. A spokesman for The Washington Post confirmed that it was placed by the Hollywood celebrity who has starred in more than 40 movies.
Quoting Bush’s declaration that the world was either “with us or against us” in the war on terrorism launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Penn, 42, said Bush was marginalising critics, manipulating the media and promoting fear.
Those actions and “your administration’s deconstruction of civil liberties all contradict the very core of the patriotism you claim”, wrote Penn, who is married to actress Robin Wright Penn, and was formerly married to pop star Madonna.
“Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented preemptive attack on a separate sovereign nation may well prove itself a most temporary medicine,” he said…
Why is this a public service? Because Tony Pierce was getting extremely agitated — irked, even — that nobody on the pro-war side of the Blogosphere had paid due note to Mr. Penn’s remarks.
Because you see, I — like many — don’t give too much of a damn what Sean Penn thinks. But if Tony is upset — well then that just won’t do.
PS – Sorry Tony, looked for a full transcript, couldn’t find one. But I’ll link to it if somebody tells me where it is!
*All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I’m fine.

Eric S. Raymond is back, and has penned an Manifesto.
I agree with most of Eric’s sentiments; while there are a few points where I might quibble the overall core is sound.
My concern, however, is that while the Manifesto is a fine statement of principles, it is sorely lacking in action. It is all fine and good to declare that “we shall fight the barbarians and fanatics, and we shall defeat them.”
But the fact is, I’m not going to fight the barbarians and fanatics; nor are 99% of those who read and sign Eric’s manifesto. At least, not directly. The fine men and women of my nation’s armed forces and law enforcement entities are the ones who will do the fighting, not I: only the most shameless poseur would pretend otherwise.
So what can I, and we, do? In the spirit of that question, I offer the following additions to Eric’s Manifesto:
WE SHALL study closely the statements and actions of our elected officials and candidates. Recognizing that this conflict is the defining crisis of our age and a danger which renders all other issues secondary, we shall judge our politicians first and foremost by their stance on this war. We pledge to cast our ballots for those leaders who we believe are best suited to guide our civilization through this crisis, regardless of disagreements we may hold with them on other issues.
WE SHALL seek the hard reality of facts to guide us in our judgements throughout this war, and will strive to spread truth wherever we shall find it. As webloggers, we have but one true power: to share information. Whether we reach a single reader or thousands, we each pledge to shine our own light into the dark corners of the web, the media, and the world. Where truth has been overlooked, we shall find it; where lies are piled high obscuring facts, we will sweep them away.
WE SHALL apply our powers of persuasion to the fight; pouring our passion into our writings and striving to convince those who still doubt. We pledge to argue not for the beauty of our own rhetoric; not for the applause and admiration of our colleagues, but to lend clarity to the critical debates that face our civilization. We shall strive to ensure that our conviction does not overwhelm our own humility, and will remember that sometimes, the path we initially believe is right will be proved wrong. Some questions which face us now present obvious solutions; with others, the course is less clear. Through honest, open, and impassioned debate, we will provide the heat — and light — in which our civilization’s decisions may be forged.
WE SHALL watch. We shall consider carefully, and argue wisely, to the best of our abilities. We will exercise the very rights which our enemies would see taken from us: to speak freely, and to choose leaders who will represent and defend us.
And it is those freedoms with which we will do our part to ensure the safety of our civilization, and the defeat of our enemies.

Flipping through the radio the other day, I came across a brief snippet of a quote that fascinated me. I never got the context; so I present it here in its splendid isolation:
“…this rush to war for the past year…”
Now it’s of course leaping to conclusions to conclude, well, anything without some semblence of the surrounding statement.
But isn’t it a beautifully concise summary of (one of) the inherent contradiction(s) of the anti-war crowd nonetheless?
*DR. DOLEN: Oh, was dying for years.
FLETCH: Sure, but the end was so sudden.
DR. DOLEN: He was in intensive care for eight weeks.
FLETCH: Yes, but the very end, when he actually died, that was extremely sudden.

Since I seem to be in consumer protection mode this week, might as well go with that feeling.
The website of the day here at TTLB is It provides a simple service, but one I’ve rapidly grown addicted to: identifying sales, discounts, and rebates on common products at retail (brick-and-mortar) stores in a given local area.
So you can tell it you’re looking for, say, utilities software in California, and you’ll get this list. Or you want a 2.4 Ghz cordless phone in New Jersey, and you get this one.
An especially neat feature is a per-state page that identifies what’s “free” after rebates that week. This week in California, for instance, SalesCircular tells me I can get a 50-pack of CD-R disks at Office Max for $15, with $15 worth of rebates. Or the “Nicotrol Step 1” smoking control kit for $29.99 with a $29.99 rebate at Walgreens.
Neat stuff. A word of caution, though: make sure you check the rebates carefully, as SalesCircular appears to simply rely on stores’ advertising and occasionally you’ll see listings that have too many rebates totalled up. And also beware that there is a habit of including comptetitive rebates in the final prices, which you can’t use unless you already have a competitors product.
Used carefully, though, I’ve found it to be a mighty handy tool, so give it a shot…

Scott Wickstein is blog designs. No rating for TTLB though, which of course I will interpret to mean that my design is perfect.

Part II of my series on privacy tools; see I if you’re searching for ways to foil spammers of the telephone type.
E-mail spam is, of course, evil, and must, of course, be destroyed. After years of mostly ignoring it, I finally reached a point recently where I decided to do something about it, and, in typical Bear fashion, went on a hunt for the picks, axes, and implements of destruction that might aide me in my task.
I am sad to say that I was not impressed with the crop of spam-filtering software I encountered; at least, not with the ones I wouldn’t have to pay for. Unlike other product categories (say, firewalls) there didn’t seem to be a clear freeware tool that was widely recognized as robust and complete.
But I did encounter one commercial tool that integrates with Microsoft Outlook that struck my fancy, and which I’ve been trying under a 30-day demo. It’s called ValiMail, and it solves spam problems by avoiding entirely the idea of “filters”.
Instead, it takes the draconian approach of assuming that anybody you haven’t explicitly told it to accept mail from is a potential spammer, who must be stopped. If you get an email from a new, unidentified source, the mail is intercepted as it hits your Outlook inbox. ValiMail hides it from your view, and sends the source a preformatted message that gives the instructions on how to request permission to send you email (the instructions include a special step designed to ensure they cannot be completed by a machine).
If the source decides to comply, you get a request in your Valimail toolbar (which sits up on the Outlook bar) from them to be approved. You can either accept, or decide to block them entirely (both steps you can also take in advance right when you received the message, if you choose).
It’s fairly spiffy stuff, and I like the concept a lot. It is, however, fairly new, and that shows in a few limitations. Notably, if you are protecting multiple E-mail accounts, you need to make sure that your default Outlook mail account is OK for all your mail correspondents to receive notifications from — because that’s the one ValiMail uses to send its messages for all accounts. This is a problem for me, for instance, because I have my real-life personal mail, and my N.Z. Bear mail, and I don’t want the two to mix. And also: it’s Microsoft Outlook only; which I know makes it useless for many folks.
So, for the moment, ValiMail is protecting my personal mail, not my Bearmail. But I didn’t want to leave BearMail completely exposed — and I’ve got that nice big fat target of a mail link right below my picture on the front page here.
So I finally got around to checking out my friend Mean Dean’s Anti-Spam E-Mail Address Obfuscator . Dean provides a nice discussion of email masking techniques, and then shows his own tool: a handy little web form that generates an “a href=” link for your E-mail address suitable for use on a web page that, in theory, will confuse the devil out of any spambots searching for new victims. (If you want to go straight to Dean’s tool, use this link).
I just implemented it last night, so can’t vouch for its efficacy firsthand yet, but I figure Dean’s got friends in high places, so that will count for something.
I’d welcome more suggestions on folks’ favorite tools — I’m still particularly interested in any solid freeware antispam solutions. Look forward to hearing from y’all…
Update 10/16: Dean points out an interesting tool for those of you who don’t just want to stop spam — but want to hunt it back to its source…

VodkaGuy has provided guide for online advertisers, which reminded me of my recent efforts to protect my own privacy from those who would attempt to harass, annoy, and cudgle me into partaking of their products.
First, telemarketers. I am convinced that my primary mistake was to actually donate to my local police officer’s association. Bless the cops hearts, really, but whoever runs their charity should be locked up: they sold my name and number to everybody.
So what to do? Well, Pacific Bell is offering a promotion currently to its “best customers” — hint, I’ll bet you’re one of them too — to try out their Privacy Manager service for three months for free. (Other telcos have similar services). It combines Caller ID with a screening function: anybody who blocks their CallerID is presented with the voicemail equivalent of a big burly guy who says “Identify yourself, or You Shall Not Pass!” Folks can either unblock their CallerID, record their name, or go away. And all this happens before the phone even rings.
I then get to hear the name recorded, if that was their choice, and can either accept the call, hit “2” to say go away nicely, or hit “4” to give a formal (and legally binding), Go Away You TeleMarketing Slime and Take Me Off Your Damned List.
Only had it for a few days; unfortunately, not all telemarketers block their ID’s, so some are slipping through. So, further measures are necessary.
Enter Private Citizen, a group dedicated to fighting the good fight against telemarketing evil wherever they may find it. Sign up with them for $25 a year, and they send you a formal declaration to sign which gives them the power to request to have your name removed from a telemarketing company’s list. They then proceed to send it out in a mass mailing to 16,000 companies.
The fun part is that you may be thinking, well, companies will just ignore it. And indeed they might. But allegedly, if they do, they’re violating the law, and you can take them to small claims court. And Private Citizen’s mailing gives your case a little extra boost: rather than telling companies simply “Don’t Call”, they say: Call if you like. But you are hereby notified that from now on, my time is not free to you; but I will rent it at the price of $500 per call. You may signify your acceptance of this agreement by calling.
Fun, eh?
Anyway, I’m still waiting for the forms to go through, so I can’t vouch for Private Citizen’s actual effectiveness yet. But we shall see.
But lastly, what to do about those telemarketers that do actually make it through my telephonic barbed wire and electrified fences? They will have to deal with The Phone Butler.
A small gizmo that sells for about $30, it plugs into your phone line and sits there, lying in wait for the next unsuspecting telemarketing fool to wander into your lair. And when one does, all you need do is press “*” on your phone while the telemarketbeast is prattling away.
The Phone Butler cuts off the call, declaring — in a snooty English butler voice, natch — that he’s terribly sorry, but he must inform the telemarketer to go away, and by the way, please remove this number from your list.
Mine’s in the mail, so again, can’t vouch for how well it works, but it sure sounds like a lot of fun.
For more privacy-related info, check out AntiTelemarketer.com, which has lots of links and resources for folks who want to rid themselves of these electronic gnats.
Next post: E-mail spam, and an interesting tool for avoiding it without relying on the flaky logic of filters…

While you’re waiting for me to get off my ursine butt and post something intelligent, check out The Agonist’s site, where he’s rather publicly declaring the reason for his — well, agony.
Seems the State Department in its finite wisdom is delaying his fianc

Rumors of my demise have been completely fabricated.
All is well; I’ve simply been swamped in the triple terrors of refinancing my mortgage, jobsearch, and rearchitecting my home LAN.
If you want more TTLB goodness a little faster, you could always encourage the process and buy some stuff, sign up to advertise on TTLB, or better yet, offer me a job.
And if anybody cares to offer me a good mortgage rate or a new PC, then that would be nice too.

Tom Friedman’s got the quote of the day from interview on today’s The Connection radio program from WBUR:
“Yes, the Internet can make you smarter faster than any technology we’ve seen in history. But it can also make you dumber faster…it is an open sewer of unfiltered, untreated information…”
There’s a new motto for the Blogosphere in there, I think…

This morning’s Google News Headlines:
Funniest Joke Revealed
Microsoft now serious about bugs, says Ballmer
Ahem.

Rosenberg points out a “hypothetical conversation” which blogger Bill Spotz has between himself and a hypothetical “right-winger” regarding Iraq (“Assuming there exists such a person who wouldn’t resort to personal attacks or outright lies”, as Spotz says).
It is not a bad piece, arguing the case against war reasonably coherently. But I found myself noticing that throughout the piece, Spotz throws out alleged facts left and right, without even once offering a single hyperlink or source to back them up.
I extracted a list of them, which I present below. Note that I don’t necessarily believe each of these are false (some I’m fairly sure are indeed correct), but I do think its worth pointing out when assertions are made without evidence. And this is an observation that applies just as readily to some pro-war arguments as the anti-war ones. (And an observation I’ll attempt to remember myself; I’m sure I’ve thrown out an assertion or two without evidence now and again).
I’d welcome followup from Bill; if he’d like to respond and flesh out these statements with evidence, I’d be happy to include that information here.
Update: Bill responds, and provides a few sources here.
Assertions in “A Hypothetical Conversation”:
1) Given the Gulf War, the weapons inspectors and the embargo, any weapons that Hussein might have are of little threat to us.
2) [North Korea or Iran’s] weapons of mass destruction capabilities are far advanced over Iraq
3) [Saddam Hussein] is not a threat to America. His missile range is limited to 400 miles.
4) All [Bush] has given us is out-of-date reports and satellite photographs that don’t demonstrate what he says they do.
5) Hussein hates al Qaida, and the feeling is mutual.
6) In Iraq, if you follow the particular brand of fundamentalist Islam that al Qaida follows, you can be put to death.
7) To the terrorists, Hussein is as evil an infidel as we are.
8) [B]etween 1991 and 1998, UN weapons inspectors destroyed 95% of his chemical and biological weapons stores, along with the infrastructure to manufacture more.
9) [I]f elections were held [in Iraq] today, the Shiites would win with about 60% of the vote.

KQED public radio’s Forum program had a discussion on the infamous “School of the Americas” yesterday, which you can find archived online in RealAudio format from program page (the air date was 10/1/02). Listening to the discussion on this one tiny aspect of U.S. military and foreign relations, I was struck by the way it represented much of the debate surrounding America’s role in the world more broadly.
First, terminology. In 2000, the School of the Americas officially closed, and was soon replaced by a “new” school, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), which happens to be in the same location at Fort Benning, GA. Depending on who you ask, this was either a fundamental change in the mission of the facility, or a cosmetic filing-off of the serial numbers to confuse the clueless.
Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of School of the Americas Watch and one of the guests on the program, would definitely suggest the latter. And did, repeatedly. On the other side of the argument were two U.S. Army officers, one from the Pentagon (Colonel Marc Morgan, Division Chief for the Regional Politico-Military Affairs Division of the U.S. Army) and the director of the school itself (Colonel Richard Downie).
The battle lines were simple, and stark. Father Bourgeois and his organization want the school, whatever it is called, closed. Period. He believes with all his heart that graduates of the school are some of the worst human rights abusers Latin America has ever seen, and are responsible for a significant part of the mayhem that region has been subjected to over the past few decades.
Without claiming to be an expert on Latin American history and the United States’ rather significant involvement in it during the Cold War, I’m inclined to believe him on this charge. We did some nasty things and supported some nasty characters during that period, and my limited knowledge suggests that the old SOA was indeed one of the spots where the deeds were done. (On this point, I’d have to say I found the Army representatives to be less than completely candid.)
But… does that justify closing the school now? Is it really still the same old awful source of thugs and murderers?
Father Bourgeois’ answer was simple: it doesn’t matter. Some places and institutions are simply too awful to redeem; they can only be closed.
And that’s where I veered wildly off the Father’s course.
The central argument for the school’s existence seems fairly clear to me. In a nutshell, there are military and police personnel significantly involved in keeping the peace and protecting the citizenry of Latin America. We have a choice: we can help train them to be competent professionals who respect civil rights, the rule of law and civilian oversight, or we can just ignore them and hope it all turns out ok.
But, again: Does the current WHINSEC do that? Or does it train killers in torture methods?
Impossible to know for sure what goes on in a military facility from the outside, of course. But WHINSEC certainly looks like its doing the right things. They’ve published their course list on their website, and a fairly innocuous sounding list it is. “Civil Military Operations Course” might be a euphemism for Advanced Thumbnail Removal, “Human Rights Instructor Course” might describe how to instruct human rights protestors that it would really be best if they not protest anymore, and “International Operational Law Course” might be about how to get around it.
But frankly, it seems unlikely. Given the massive attention the old SOA drew upon itself, and the scrutiny that the new school is under, it would be the height of foolishness to allow even the slightest civil-rights-abusing shenanigans to take place at WHINSEC. To take a very cynical view: it is entirely possible some part of our government and military is still training nasty people in how to do nasty things. But I suspect that Fort Benning, GA is the exact last place you should look to find them. And if you’re still not convinced, they invite you to visit in person — -an offer which Colonel Downie repeated to Father Bourgeois during the discussion yesterday, the frustration clear in his voice, and an offer which the Father refused outright (again).
But even if he accepted that the school had changed its ways, it seems Father Bourgeois would still want it shut down. It has done evil things, and cannot possibly be redeemed.
A rather un-Christian view to take, if you think about it. And one that to me, sums up all too well the attitude of many on the left who oppose military action in Iraq, or the way we are prosecuting the war against terrorism more generally.
For people like Father Bourgeois, the United States is a sinner. We’ve committed crimes against the world; there is blood on our hands. But their solution is not for the U.S. to recognize the errors it has made, and actively work in the world to both fix past wrongs and do better next time.
It is to withdraw; to shut down, to simply accept that our crimes are too great to ever permit us to try to act for the good ever again. So it must be with the School of the Americas; so it must be with America itself.
I try my best to not ignore the crimes that America has committed in the past. I’ve written of some of them on this weblog, and will continue to do so.
But for me, the crimes of the past should not be used as a convenient excuse for inaction in the present. The world is out there; history happens every instant of every day and the future we will live in is being created all across the planet at this very moment. As it is with training Latin American military officers, it is with engaging the world as a whole: we can either learn from our past mistakes and try to do better, or we can just ignore them and hope it all turns out ok.
I choose the active course. It is the one with the greatest chance of sinning again; but it is also the only one that truly offers a chance at redemption.