My thoughts and prayers extend to all victims of the aggression in the Middle East — Americans, Iraqis, Saudis, Israelites, Arabs; men, women, and children; those in uniform and those merely trying to survive this chaos; those with whom I agree and those with whom I disagree.
In the end, we are all human, and our compassion should not be limited to our friends and peers. Until we can learn from our mistakes and value the lives and rights of everyone, we will not achieve real progress.
Apparently, some Republicans are so annoyed with the French that they decided to rename French fries to “Freedom Fries” in U.S. Capitol restaurants. The French embassy had no comment save that the fries are actually Belgian.
Since my earlier article on Fred Rogers, A Lesson on Influencing Adults, more people have been doing stories on Fred and his impact (or not) to people.
One of the best was Diane Rehm’s interview with Fred Rogers last December (direct link to RealAudio file here). It was a very touching hour of radio.
Kuro5hin carries an article with Fred Rogers’ theory on corporate corruption, and sparks decidedly mixed reviews from readers. There’s even a link to Paul Harvey on Fred Rogers. Just goes to show you that a commentator I normally can’t stand (Harvey) can occasionally have something interesting to say.
According to a recent Register article, judges in two separate cases detected FBI perjury on sworn affidavits used in support of warrants. This happened to be a case Ashcroft took a personal interest in. Yikes.
The Democratic members of the House Appropriations committee have created a webpage cross-referencing Bush speech quotes with his legislative proposals, and it ain’t lookin’ good for W.
However, the wacky trenchcoat graphics and huge typeface, along with the page’s title — “The Photographic History of the Bush Administration Putting Its Mouth Where Its Money Isn’t” makes me wonder whether this should better be in the Humor category. Not just that, but we don’t know if the speech info is taken out of conext. So take it with a grain of salt. (Yes, that URL does reside on house.gov)
A scathing article at BuzzFlash points out that Bush’s recent press-conference was a heavily scripted event, where the reporters and possibly questions were known in advance. It proceeds to draw some more shaky conclusions from that premise, but the premise itself is interesting.
419 scammers take US con artist for $750,000 – Thick doesn’t even begin to describe this one [The Register]
David Weinberger highlights a Danial Berninger armageddon essay. Interesting read. Concludes with “Peace will remain eulsive as long as we accept the suffering of others as the price of American democracy.”
In an interesting memo apparently leaked to the British newspaper Observer, a senior US NSA official is seen asking British (and, presumably, other) intelligence agencies to spy on U.S. allies to try to bolster the U.S. negotiating position over Iraq. This is seen by many as a Nixon-like dirty tricks.
Understandably, this has created a huge stir in Britain. What is even more surprising is how quiet this has been in the U.S. Has the American press lost all sense of journalistic independence from the government?
The Register has an article analyzing the authenticity of the memo.
The World of Ends has been getting a lot of attention lately. It’s an article about how we think about the Internet, and mistakes that keep getting made because of the wrong paradigm. Of course, there are also people disputing the claims made there. Well worth a read even if you disagree.