All those topics that i wish i had time to pursue more earnestly.

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).

as explained by red vs blue.

don't miss… you could hit this…

Sigh…. Everything I know about schools and “education” was already common knowledge to Leo Tolstoy…

…when it has been decided somewhere that such and such a subject has an educational value, and the teacher is instructed to teach, and the students to listen — the teaching accomplishes the very opposite results: the … By Julia (mailto:spamthis@youidiots.com). [Flailing in the Surf!]

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this is why it is called classic literature, to prevent people from reading it, so they don't realize that they will learn from reading it. tolstoy knew about education, and it is why i don't teach, but i create, as best as a i can, a structured learning environment, where i allow students to find the answers they want, with me providing guidance, when needed.

Service Providers Put Up Their Guards. Worms, viruses, spam, denial of service attacks. Addressing the litany of network security issues these days is scarier than watching the local news. So service providers increasingly are stepping in to help „?ustomers figure out how to best guard themselves… [InternetPolicy.net]

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well, this is good, they do have a responsibility to their users, but also to the larger community of users. the more that realize this, the better.

i like them, and i read them, and people wonder why i know wierd things.

“Science and Citizenship in a Global Context”. “Political and economic changes are altering the contexts, spaces and ways that people perceive and act on citizenship rights, as are scientific and technological changes and the new risks and opportunities they present… In this paper we begin to explore… [InternetPolicy.net]

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worth the read, i think.

Frustrating the man. How to herd cats: tie a small bright object to a string; place it in the peripheral vision of the cat; and then pull it around a corner out of sight.
Ben Laurie’s been trying to entice me to pounce on tor. … I pounced yesterday morning.
Tor helps to frustrate the man in the middle’s attempt to monitor your internet usage patterns. For example every time you send mail to Joe the man can see that your talking to Joe. This lets the man draw social network drawings that are both static and dynamic. Even if your mail’s encrypted.
Tor frustrates by mixing your traffic up with that of other tor users. Picking your traffic out of the crowd’s traffic is harder. The traffic of the tor users is bounced around the internet thru tor router nodes run by volunteers.
On my Mac this was really easy to set up; well in the usual geek sense of easy: download; build; install; cleanup; run it.

curl -o f.tgz http://freehaven.net/tor/dist/tor-0.0.8pre3.tar.gz
tar zxt f.tgz
cd tor*
./configure; make; sudo make install
Password: …
F=`pwd`; cd ..; rm -rf $F f.tgz
tor

But you should proably follow the directions.
Then you need to adjust your Network Preferences to use it. Each interface has settings for proxies; you need to set the ‘Socks Proxy’ to use 127.0.0.1 (i.e. your own machine) and port 9050.
If this get’s popular then I suspect the hive mind will cough up a Mac disk image and some GUI facade for running it.
I had having trouble with reaching things on my local private network; until the nice folks in the tor community tapped me with the clue stick and pointed out that you can write domain names to not route thru the proxy – it’s right there on the same page where you turn on the proxy – duh. [Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm]

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handy bit of technology, bound to tick off someone though.

Here's your fucking latte, sir.

I looked this one up for an argument in comments to Belle’s post below, and I’ve been laughing and crying ever since. It’s a useful way to think about the extent to which “trickle down” economics has worked for the poorest in society. As we all know because people who know we’ve read Rawls keep telling us, the poorest benefit from economic growth. How much do they benefit?

[Crooked Timber]

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real economic policy….. someday they will be able to afford another cup of coffee….

Where's Mine!!??!! . Half a Man”Single women won't have to sleep alone much longer,” writes Sheila Halloran in The Boston Herald. “Women in Japan are wrapping themselves in the arms of a new alternative bed-mate. …The Boyfriend Arm Pillow, a realistic version of the real thing, features a squeezable upper body of … By Julia (mailto:spamthis@youidiots.com). [Flailing in the Surf!]

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ummm, why would you want one? seems like something that would be better if it were real.