inkbluesky

leaves and gutter 1280×1024

Normalizing the Fight Against Terrorism

We have much to learn from this more sober, but no less serious and determined response to the threat of terrorism. The several British speakers, all too aware of the manifest threat of terrorism, were especially impressive in their measured approach to the problem.

Our government’s response to 9/11 was to come out with guns blazing and a “whatever it takes” attitude that too often saw the law as a hindrance. But the law is one of our great strengths. It is time to draw on this strength and normalize the fight against terrorism.

Way before the so-called war on terror, the Patriot Act and a certain elite frat boy from Connecticut historians and sociologists looked at Nazi Germany and Stalin’s purge’s and asked how people could be so easily manipulated. Like every other American it is as if I was born with a built in level of cynicism about the human race, but even with that cynicism I thought we had learned from history and not even a lite version of German or Soviet tyranny could happen here. Much of history is literally littered with bodies, proof of man’s inhumanity toward his fellow man. Yet not long after 9-11 even I was shocked at the sky is falling mentality that seemed to infect so many people. Even as the new National Intelligence Estimate shows that Bush has created more terrorists enemies for the U.S. most of us will probably die from an auto accident or natural causes rather then from fundie nuts with box cutters and dreams of heaven. Fear or rather panic laced with nationalism are much stronger motivators then I ever thought they were.

Censorship is one of my pet peeves, They Laugh at Us for Our Freedoms

Thank God for Peter in Germany, who casts an anthropologist’s eye on the United States of Repression for we who dwell inside the bubble. He sends this from The Independent:

One of Germany’s best-selling children’s authors is embroiled in an extraordinary transatlantic row about nudity after a U.S. publisher refused to accept one of her books because it contained naive sketches of an art gallery with works depicting naked bodies …

Just to follow up on this post. Hackers make the iPhone pay-as-you-go

Late on Tuesday the iPhone hackers on IRC channel — channel #iphone, server fusion.osx86.hu — released a new tool called iASign, the full scope of which only becomes clear when you read Erica Sadun’s fantastic post over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog. The upshot is this: iASign lets you pay for your phone with a prepaid card (as low as $10), meaning that you no longer have to sign a two-year AT&T contract to use the iPhone.

As a commenter notes the hackers haven’t done anyone much of a favor as you’re prepaid usage will likely cost a little more then the two year contract plus you run the risk of ruining your phone and either Apple or At&T shutting your phone down.