George Soros on American over-confidence
He was writing in the Straits Times but its archives are for subscribers only, so I can’t point to the online source, but here’s an excerpt:

“I see parallels between the Bush administration’s pursuit of American supremacy and a boom-bust process or bubble in the stock market. Bubbles do not arise out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but misconception distorts reality. Here, the dominant position of the US is the reality, the pursuit of American supremacy the misconception. For a while, reality reinforces the misconception, but eventually the gap between reality and its false interpretation becomes unsustainable.”

It’s not the war itself we should worry about, but the aftermath, Soros argues: “Rapid victory in Iraq with little loss of life could bring about a dramatic change in the overall situation. Oil prices could fall, stock markets could celebrate, consumers could resume spending, and business could step up capital expenditures. America would end its dependency on Saudi oil, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could become more tractable and negotiations could start with North Korea without loss of face. That is what Mr Bush counts on. But military victory in Iraq is the easy part. It is what comes after that gives pause. In a boom-bust process, passing an early test tends to reinforce the misconception which gave rise to it. That is to be feared here.”

The Information Society Directive

Useful overview in GigaLaw. And Bernt Hugenholtz’s critique is here.

David Reed goes back to first principles

Our broadcasting systems are based on a fundamental assumption — that spectrum is a finite resource, rather like land, to be allocated by governments to selected beneficiaries, i.e. broadcasters, mobile phone companies, etc. But what if that assumption is wrong? In a fascinating Salon article, The myth of interference, David Weinberger outlines Internet architect David Reed’s argument that the idea of ‘finite’ spectrum is really a consequence of bad engineering, not physical principles. Since Reed is one of the great engineers of our time, this is something one has to take seriously. Doubt if the FCC or our national treasuries will though. As societies, we have too deep an investment in the original misconception.

End-to-end Arguments in System Design

The classic paper on the underlying architecture of the Net by Saltzer, Reed and Clark.

Press Freedom — what freedom?

From Karlin Lillington’s weblog…

Gavin’s link to Tom McGurk’s amazing conversation last Sunday with venerable BBC correspondent Katie Adie, on the US censorship of how journalists present the situation in Iraq, has been picked up by Megnut, so imagine this will get a good and needed airing in the US. Basically, the Pentagon has told journalists they may well be fired upon as they try to upload information back to networks (presumably because the signals may be confused — obviously not because the journalists are considered hostile to the US POV – but really, this is a shocking sort of threat even as it stands). There’s a link to the show transcript as well. Unfortunately, Megnut seems to doubt this could be true because the US media isn’t reporting on it [mirthless laughter]. As an American journalist living abroad, who’s been back several times to the US in recent weeks, I can tell ya, folks: the US MEDIA DOESN’T REPORT a whole heck of a lot of perspectives/stories/breaking news/background that would conflict with the Bush admin position and what it does report is done so as if reporting on the home team at a football match. I noted Dan Gillmor’s wholly correct take on this recently; Gavin also links to it here. The worst perpetrators are Fox and CNN — CNN of course also being the main source of many American’s news on the pending war. What has become of this once-pioneering network? It is just a yapping lapdog these days.

Small worlds and networks

I’ve been reading Barabasi’s book Linked: the New Science of Networks, which is not the world’s greatest read but very interesting nonetheless. It’s clear that there’s a lot of intriguing mileage in the notion that the principles underpinning networks span both technical and social systems. Then I came across Steven Johnson’s article about social network mapping software, which in turn reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Cat’s Cradle and Howard Rheingold’s new book, Smart Mobs, which I’ve ordered and Amazon have just told me in an email is being delivered tomorrow. I’ve also had a look at the MIT work in this area. And all without leaving my study. No wonder people love the Web.

Paranoia and chips

According to Today’s Specials: Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast, Congressman Bob Ney (R-Ohio) ordered the cafeterias in the House of Representatives to remove the word “French” from all menus. Now being served: Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast. Wonder if this is true. [Thanks to: Boing Boing Blog]

Why are the US media so supine?

Scarifying analysis of Dubya’s press conference and of the way the White House Press Corps has lost whatever bottle it once had. It’s pathetic. Where is the Fourth Estate when the country really needs it?

Auden on war

W.H. Auden’s poem “September 1, 1939”

“All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police
We must love one another or die.”

A plague on all (pro- and anti-) war houses

Thoughtful London Review of Books piece by Perry Anderson which manages to take everyone’s position apart. Confirms my feeling that there are no morally unambiguous stances to be had on this issue.