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Note on the below — “NetNewsWire”: already produces OPML that tags feeds as type “rss”. Reverse compatibility nearly requires others to follow suit; I’m sure NetNewsWire is not the only application that does this. However, the more I think about it, the more I think it’s a good idea to distinguish between multiple feed types. I would like to know if a feed is Atom or RSS before I grab it. Saves time, saves CPU on both ends of the transaction, saves network, and so forth. ...

According to the usual anonymous sources… Bush administration officials say regime change in Iraq had been U.S. policy since 1998, when President Clinton was in office, and insist removing Saddam by force was a last resort. This will come as a surprise to John Bolton, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz — some of whom, I believe, have a role in the Bush administration. They may even be Bush administration officials. If they are to be trusted, Clinton “failed to provide sound leadership” and was “unwilling either to adopt policies that would remove Saddam or sustain the credibility of its own policy of containment.” In fact, he “placed us on a path that will inevitably free Saddam Hussein from all effective constraints.”

Obscure technical quibble of the day follows. Warning: technogeeking ahead. Dave Winer’s OPML sharing guidelines (original) are a little wonky. Point 1 says: If an element is pointing to a feed, set its type to “rss”. Do this even if it’s not an RSS feed. Nope. Set the type to “rss” if it’s an RSS feed. Set it to “atom” if it’s an Atom feed. If you want a generic type name for a feed, I’d suggest “feed”.

The killer combo is the War College report on the foolhardiness of war on Iraq plus the unsurprising revelation that Bush wanted to go to war with Iraq from day one. The first story confirms that Iraq is a distraction from the dangers of Al Qaeda. The second story explains why Bush would allow himself to be distracted. It’s time to give up on the claim that Bush knows things we don’t about Iraq’s danger to the United States. ...

I’m not a big reality show guy, although I watched the first couple seasons of Tough Enough. However, my TiVo enables all kinds of degenerate behavior, including reality TV addiction, so I figured I’d watch a couple of episodes of The Apprentice. The basic setup is simple; Donald Trump brings in 8 men and 8 women to compete for a job with him. They split up into two teams, men versus women, and every week they have a different competition. At the end of each show, Trump fires someone from the losing team. ...

For your contemplation, I offer a letter from a soldier in Iraq (original).

Say what you will about Dean’s mythical temper (Real Video, will likely go away soonish), but I can’t see how he was out of line here. You get up at a Democrat’s stump speech, you call the candidate pompous and mean-mouthed, and then you try to interrupt him when he responds to you — perhaps just maybe you ought to expect to be told to sit down.

L’il Bolt’s training is coming along nicely, but I fear he lacks the fire necessary to — Oh, sorry, wrong kind of sidekick. I’m still pretty happy with this Sidekick, with some caveats. The software bugs which prevent it from ringing when Keyguard is enabled are annoying. The battery life is short enough so that I have to recharge it every night without fail. Also, my thumb wheel broke and I had to get the entire unit replaced. All in all, I’d say it’s about 85% of the way there and I still recommend it for people like me who don’t mind being early adopters. Danger is currently claiming that a software update to address known bugs will show up sometime in March, but that’s not a firm date.

For our pleasantly palindromic mashup number 22, we’ll keep on plumbing the depths (or heights) of the 80s with The Lost Boys, the second best vampire movie of 1987. (The best one will no doubt turn up in this meme at a later date.) The setup is nice and simple; a normal family moves someplace and finds an evil both ancient and tempting. There’s not a lot of vampiric angst, although there’s a smidgen of romantic angst, but really it’s an action flick with fangs. Trivia du jour: that railway trestle is something like six feet or so above the earth. Camera angles can work marvels. On with the mashup.

Coming this fall: TiVo to computer functionality (original). It’s not what I’d like, since you don’t get full functionality — it’s some encrypted video format. Mind you, DRM is generally broken… but in any case, it’s more than we had before. I would very much like to be able to easily copy programs from my TiVo to a DVD. Cory Doctorow, bless him, is up in arms (original). However, I think his analogies suck. While TiVo is a disruptive technology business, it is not much like steam engines. It’s a different delivery mechanism rather than a new media form. ...