Politics

You know, I’m getting a little weary of hearing people tell me what the war on Iraq is about. It’s not about the oil. If this were all a big plot to ensure Bush’s friends get their hands on oil, there are better places to go. There’s a crisis in Venezuela at the moment (link subject to change with time), and that’s in our hemisphere. Venezuela produces as much oil as Iraq. If it were about oil, we’d be heading down to South America to clean up that issue. ...

I’ve written earlier about the new mission for US Special Ops forces, so since Rumsfeld held a briefing yesterday regarding the U.S. Special Operations Command (original), I figure hey, may as well talk about it some more. Let’s see. They’re increasing the budget, which strikes me as a rational step, particularly given these criticisms. He’s giving Special Operations Command a supported command role, which means “the Special Operations Command will have the tools it will need to plan and execute missions in support of the global war on terror.” The Washington Times claims (original) that this implies authority to plan their own assassinations, but that’s kind of unclear to me; if it’s true, then any command in a supported command role had that authority previously. Mind you, I’m still of the opinion that even Bush shouldn’t be authorizing assassinations as an instrument of US policy, but that’s me. ...

Oliver Willis has AIM alerts going now (original). Slick. He mentions in email to me that he’s working on other messaging systems as well; I’d forgotten MSN Messenger as a player in cell phone messaging, but I shouldn’t, since Microsoft wants to be a player in the cell phone OS market. I’m wondering if anyone’s going to pick up on this for the local elections in 2004. 2002 saw very little Internet action on the election front, even if you count Tara Sue Grubb’s weblog. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more proactive uses of the technology; looks like Tara Sue will as well. ...

Glenn Reynolds slips into the surreal, saying it’s a good thing the South didn’t win the Civil War because then the United States would look like Europe. Yeah, and I seem to recall there was some other issue involved, too. Can’t put my finger on it, though.

Annnnnnd it’s more on the Confederate flag issue (original). It’s an important article to read for two reasons. First, it describes how white supremacists have hijacked the Sons of Confederate Veterans (original). These days, the SCV is into talking about how much blacks enjoyed fighting for segregation (original). This is real. This is not a random accusation from the left wing. This is a major, important Southern organization being coopted by virulent racism. ...

Oliver Willis ( blogging maniac) is already pushing the SMS thang, in his unofficial John Edwards weblog. Mind you, it’s one guy, but one guy can have a lot of leverage these days. Looks like he’s using Upoc to do mass SMS messaging. I guess it’s a start, but he’s going to need to get email and AIM into the mix, too. The legendary Randomness observes, in response to my thoughts earlier today, that “there just isn’t the SMS culture in the States that there is in South Korea, Japan, or Europe.” Truth. But I think it’s gonna be email and AIM on mobile devices that makes it happen in the US. ...

If South Korean elections (original) can be swung by smart mobs, what’s that say about US politics? Mind you, the voter turnout was a mere 70%, which is the lowest ever for a South Korean presidental election. Conventional wisdom says that Roh Moo-hyun benefited from text messaging because it helped him get out the vote, but the low turnout seems to contraindicate that. Possibly the turnout would have been slimmer if not for the smart mobs? Hard to say. ...

Gephardt’s in, which is somehow deeply unexciting news. Ah, bah; it’s good to have a traditionally Democratic candidate in the field. In theory, I’d like to see candidates in both sets of primaries from all over the political maps. I must try and be less cynical. Course, that means I’d rather see Bernie Sanders than Howard Dean as the candidate from Vermont.

Eric Raymond’s just published another internal memo from Microsoft. (Hint: the fisking doesn’t improve your credibility, Eric.) I recommend skipping over the snide commentary, because it’s actually neither that clever or that interesting. Read it for what it says about Microsoft’s belief about where it stands vis a vis nation states, and perhaps reread this post of mine in which I discuss the role of NGOs in the new world order.

Josh Marshall has been writing a lot of good stuff on North Korea lately. I have some comments on this post (original). In it, he discusses the administration’s claim that North Korea is already a nuclear power, and thus it’s not a huge concern if they get more nukes. One might well argue that the administration is correct in this. If North Korea has had nukes for several years and hasn’t used them, then maybe there isn’t so much urgency after all. The sense of urgency around North Korea’s nuclear program is predicated on the idea that if North Korea has nukes, something bad will happen. If North Korea has had nukes and nothing bad’s happened, what’s a few more? ...