LimeWire
John J. Miller and Stephen Moore at Cato Institute - A National ID System: Big Brother's Solution to Illegal Immigration - in an alleged attempt to prevent illegal immigrants form getting jobs, our congress critters are moving quickly towards a national ID system that would require all employers to get government permission before hiring anyone. It won't accomplish the alleged purpose, but will do a fine job of accomplishing its real purpose, increasing the power of the tyrants in Washinton. [zero]
Hamid Mir at The Friday Times - My last question to Osama bin Laden - interesting perspective on bin Laden from a man who interviewed him and wrote a biography. [unknown]
Roblimo at Slashdot -
Philip Zimmermann and 'Guilt' Over PGP - Roblimo posts a letter
form the creator of Pretty Good Privacy. Apparently, the Washington
Post misquoted Mr. Zimmerman in their
article 
last week. He still thinks that PGP was a good idea. I
agree with him 110%. [script]
In the interview six days after the attack, we talked about the fact that I had cried over the heartbreaking tragedy, as everyone else did. But the tears were not because of guilt over the fact that I developed PGP, they were over the human tragedy of it all. I also told her about some hate mail I received that blamed me for developing a technology that could be used by terrorists. I told her that I felt bad about the possibility of terrorists using PGP, but that I also felt that this was outweighed by the fact that PGP was a tool for human rights around the world, which was my original intent in developing it ten years ago. It appears that this nuance of reasoning was lost on someone at the Washington Post. I imagine this may be caused by this newspaper's staff being stretched to their limits last week.
In these emotional times, we in the crypto community find ourselves having to defend our technology from well-intentioned but misguided efforts by politicians to impose new regulations on the use of strong cryptography. I do not want to give ammunition to these efforts by appearing to cave in on my principles. I think the article correctly showed that I'm not an ideologue when faced with a tragedy of this magnitude. Did I re-examine my principles in the wake of this tragedy? Of course I did. But the outcome of this re-examination was the same as it was during the years of public debate, that strong cryptography does more good for a democratic society than harm, even if it can be used by terrorists. Read my lips: I have no regrets about developing PGP.
...
It is noteworthy that I had only received a single piece of hate mail on this subject. Because of all the press interviews I was dealing with, I did not have time to quietly compose a carefully worded reply to the hate mail, so I did not send a reply at all. After the article appeared, I received hundreds of supportive emails, flooding in at two or three per minute on the day of the article.
J.J. Johnson at Sierra Times - Dear Sons of Arabia: An Open Letter to the Arab World - a perspective that I'm afraid may be shared by lots of Americans. [sierra]
Since your recent actions have proven that you can't control your own zealots, it is our opinion that you have forfeited your rights to live among civilized people. Since most of the profits from these assaults come from oil, many will be advocating that we just take over the production, transportation and profits from that industry in your area. You may of course, challenge us on this. That's what the warships are for. After this profit incentive is removed, those of you that are left may go back to raising sheep, peacefullyworshipping Allah. But we'd prefer you not have any access to the outside world for awhile.
...
Or we could simply destroy all the oil fields, and get it from somewhere else. Believe it or not, we don't want to kill all of you (it would only take three submarines), but we are finding it more and more difficult to trust any of you anymore.
Don "Jet-Eye" Loucks at AllSouthwest News - Great Speech! Just one, teensy problem - good article about Amerika's new gestapo. [kaba]
President Bush gave a wonderful speech -- his very best. The crisis of the attack on on American brought out the best in him. It made me feel proud, strong and warm, until he announced the creation of yet another federal bureaucracy: The Office of Homeland Defense.
SaveOurGuns.com - Bin Laden and Schumer: Two Peas in a Pod - A poster. Schmucky disarms us so that neverBeenLaden can kill us. Hehe. [kaba]
Kevin Southwick at LewRockwell.com - A Citizen's Air Marshall Program - Airline Carry. Now. [kaba]
CNN - Union wants armed pilots in cockpits - Hopefully, the f.b.i. isn't so incredibly stupid that they'll veto this idea. [kaba]
The world's oldest and largest pilots' union is seeking congressional approval for it members to carry firearms into airline cockpits and be granted arrest authority.
Rachael Anne Fajardo at anti-state.com - Through the Eyes of a Child - a Florida college student doesn't understand war fever. I wish there were more like her. [anti-state]
I suppose I ought to make something clear: I am not a terrorist. I do not support terrorism. I do not agree with terrorist action. I do understand why the United States is hated and feared, and I do believe that the attacks were not motivated by hatred for our (somewhat) free market or democracy. It has a heck of a lot more to do with the government's invasive and controlling foreign policy. I want to see those responsible punished mercilessly, and I want to see the end of the American Empire. I'm not excusing anyone. I just find it highly ironic that the arguments I hear for retaliation must sound a hell of a lot like an average discussion between the terrorists that planned those attacks.
"We have to let their government know that we won't stand to be treated like this. They can't kill innocents and get away with it. This isn't right, it isn't just, and we must take action. From this point on, anything we do is retaliatory action, a proper and necessary measure."
Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - What Should Government Do for the Airlines? - remunerate them for losses caused by government regulations and no more. Then get out of the way and let the airlines do their own security.
I would never support government subsidies or bailouts for any industry simply because its companies could not survive in the marketplace. However, the airlines do have a valid claim for compensation for lost profits from the government-imposed shutdown in the days following the attacks.
...
There are steps the government can take immediately to enhance airline security. It should undo regulations that have in effect disarmed pilots, and create a clear policy that permits airlines to establish their own rules regarding the arming of flight crews. Many commercial pilots once carried firearms, but federal rules now require that airlines go through a process of FAA-administered training classes that literally have never been conducted.
Arianna Huffington - Land Of The Free? - good article on the "tempest in a teapot" over Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect".
When the country just learned with such penetrating anguish what real terror is, how can the corporate logo polishers fear Bill Maher? Particularly when the point he was making was such an important one.
So what, exactly, was his point?
In response to guest Dinesh D'Souza's assertion that people who are willing to die in service to their cause, whatever else they may be, are not "cowards," Maher said: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly."
I was sitting next to Bill when he said this. And not only did I not object, I wholeheartedly agreed. In fact, in the past, I've made much the same criticism of a foreign policy that obliges our military to fight at great remove from the theater of battle. It was a mistake when we bombed a pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan, and it was a mistake when we killed the very Albanian refugees we were trying to protect with our indiscriminate carpet-bombing of Kosovo.
LimeWire, a Java Gnutella client, has gone open source. The Windows installer didn't work for me, some permissions problem, so I built it from source. Looks nice. Works good. Lots of content out there. I got hits for "Beatles", "ZZ Top", "Zeppelin", "Wishbone Ash", "Robin Trower". Don't know how it compares to Napster in its heyday, since I didn't use that, but it's not bad. [cafe]
