OA images and videos for classicists. The Stoa Consortium, an OA portal for the field of classics, has launched the Stoa Image Gallery, a collection of OA images and videos related to classics, classical archaeology, and the classical tradition. The organizers urge submitters to distributed their images and videos under Creative Commons licenses. [Open Access News]

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very good, handy, and worth doing….

e-Government in Europe: Good Practice Cases. This database of eGovernment cases has become a component of the Good Practice Framework launched by the European Commission on April 20, 2004. The Framework uses a set of assessment criteria for evaluating practice examples, which include quality, benefits and… [InternetPolicy.net]

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this is a good bit of info to digest if you are interested in this topic.

Highwire to host Oxford journals. Starting in January 2005, Highwire Press will host the entire line of Oxford journals. This will not affect the access policies of the journals. For details see today's press release. [Open Access News]

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well this is good new….

A Word on Word. We advocates of free software don't have many friends, particularly among those fine people that would likely be our nearest and dearest save for that one fatal point of contention; we “get” open-source, free software, the importance of not only supporting this vital and progressive movement but actually learning to use the damn stuff. Our good neighbors “get” only what they pay for, and not many of our fine and noble administrators who dole out hundreds of thousands of the tax papers' hard-earned dollars want to think heretical thoughts against Microsoft, aka digital catholocism (I'll never endanger my soul by speaking ill of Pope Gates, the infallible). Microsoft must be doing something right, even if it's ensuring that the rest of us do something wrong. [Kairosnews - A Weblog for Discussing Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy]

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word wasn't microsofts invention, it was bought, so it wasn't with gates from the beginning…..

The correct way to argue with Milton Friedman.

I’m pretty sure that it was JK Galbraith (with an outside chance that it was Bhagwati) who noted that there is one and only one successful tactic to use, should you happen to get into an argument with Milton Friedman about economics. That is, you listen out for the words “Let us assume” or “Let’s suppose” and immediately jump in and say “No, let’s not assume that”. The point being that if you give away the starting assumptions, Friedman’s reasoning will almost always carry you away to the conclusion he wants to reach with no further opportunities to object, but that if you examine the assumptions carefully, there’s usually one of them which provides the function of a great big rug under which all the points you might want to make have been pre-swept.

A few CT mates appear to be floundering badly over this Law & Economics post at Marginal Revolution on the subject of why it’s a bad idea to have minimum standards for rented accommodation. (Atrios is doing a bit better). So I thought I’d use it as an object lesson in applying the Milton Friedman technique.

[Crooked Timber]

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actually, i've found that denying any economists first principles and/or assumptions pretty much ends the conversation. if you can't agree with their assumptions about human nature or society, then everything they've modeled based on those, or argued based on those, fail miserably, as they generally do in the face of the broad body of empirical evidence in the world except in the most general cases.

Republic or Empire.

Gary Hart: The New Caesars. The United States cannot be simultaneously republic and empire. For evidence, see Rome (circa 65 B.C.). We salute the flag of the United States of America “and the Republic for which it stands.” Since the time of the Greek city-states, republics have shared certain immutable qualities: civic virtue or citizen participation, popular sovereignty, resistance to corruption (by special interests) and a sense of the common good. Empires consolidate power in the hands of the few; seek expanded influence, by force if necessary; export centralized administrations to foreign lands; dictate terms to lesser powers, and manage foreign occupied peoples for their own political and commercial advantage.

[Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

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more people should read thucydides…. i've taught thucydides 4 times, and i have to say, more and more people should realize that empire is antagonistic toward democracy, and thucydides makes this argument pretty clearly in his representations of certain dialogues (go look em up, you'll find em).