I think this editorial from the San Jose Mercury News, September 26, 2002, frames the issue very well.
Why war? Why now?
Bush hasn’t spelled out the risks or made the case; an attack on Saddam won’t make the world safer
THE Dow’s at a four-year low. Median incomes are falling and the poverty rate’s up. Airports [...]
Since Google adding the News tab has the network-mind thinking about world news right now, let me say that reading news around the world and in other languages is one of the things I really love about the web, and something I think everyone should do to expand their horizons.
Newspapers are an easy way to [...]
Today’s PR trivia: Google for “al qaeda”, and along with the results you get one of two ads:
“Saudi Arabia offers you an opportunity to understand our fight against terrorism. www.aboutsaudiarabia.net”
“Saudi Arabia revoked Osama bin Laden’s citizenship in 1994 and invites you to learn more. www.aboutsaudiarabia.net”
Thomas Friedman is much more afraid of young Arab-Muslim men on the wrong side of the dignity gap than he is of Saddam Hussein — and he thinks most Americans feel the same way.
You can get the peak (but not the total energy) of an optical or electrical pulse to move faster than the speed of light. Last year, Alain Haché and Louis Poirier demonstrated superluminal propagation over more than 100 meters using a “coaxial photonic crystal”. Jeremy Munday and Bill Robertson have recently demonstrated superluminal [...]
US Department of Commerce Undersecretary Nancy Victory expects to extend the agreement granting ICANN’s authority to manage the DNS.
“Victory said that the ICANN ‘experiment’ needs more time to succeed, adding that while she is pleased with ICANN’s reform efforts thus far, but she is not yet fully satisfied.”
Not that the public discussion is rational anyway, but if you’re looking for some fairly reasonable talking points about why we shouldn’t go to war with Iraq, these ain’t bad:
The Economic Costs of Going To War With Iraq
Seven Reasons to Oppose a U.S. Invasion of Iraq
The Sunday Herald claims Bush planned a regime change in Iraq even before he was in office (from Chip via David). I think they’re a little overwrought, but certainly, the report they refer to, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century, by Project for the New American Century, is a [...]
“September Deadline: Can The ICANN Model Be Revised?” is an article by Ronda Hauben about the expiration on September 30, 2002 of the Memorandum of Understanding between the US Department of Commerce and ICANN. The MOU outlined the intention of the DOC to assess with ICANN whether “the private sector has the capability and [...]
links around Eric Hanson:
AquaMetaWiki, a place to brainstorm about information structures.
direct democracy, teledemocracy, edemocracy links. See also Networked Intelligence.
ShouldExist, combining “good ideas, donations from the public and people willing to work as volunteers or for living wage towards building prototypes of things that would make the world a better place.”
infoAnarchy, organizing around fighting “fight [...]