“It’s not widely known that I actually own a patent which covers the whole patenting process, and so every patent really belongs to me…”. From a comment in Quentin’s weblog on the increasing absurdity of the patenting process.

Thomas Friedman is a great columnist, but sometimes his logic baffles me. In this column, for example, he argues that one of the great merits of the Bush regime is that many of its members are nuts. You think I jest? Well, read on…

“The Europeans don’t favour any military action against Iraq, Iran or North Korea. Neither do I. But what is their alternative? To wait until Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday, who’s a bigger psychopath than his father, has bio-weapons and missiles that can hit Paris?

No, the axis-of-evil idea isn’t thought through – but that’s what I like about it. It says to these countries and their terrorist pals: “We know what you’re cooking in your bathtubs. We don’t know exactly what we’re going to do about it, but if you think we are going to just sit back and take another dose from you, you’re wrong. Meet Don Rumsfeld – he’s even crazier than you are.”

There is a lot about the Bush team’s foreign policy I don’t like, but their willingness to restore our deterrence, and to be as crazy as some of our enemies, is one thing they have right.”

Following a link about Mark Taylor’s new book, I came on his latest venture — Global Education Network. It’s mission is “to work with leading professors, colleges, and universities to offer our students the highest-quality online liberal arts courses in the world.”

The only journalist I would ever trust on anything related to the Middle East is Robert Fisk. In today’s Independent, he is his usual forthright, perceptive self.

“Mr Bush knows, and certainly his secretary of state, Colin Powell, does, that there is an intimate link between the crimes against humanity of 11 September and the Middle East. After all, the killers were all Arabs, they wrote and spoke Arabic, they came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon. This much we are allowed to reflect upon.

But the moment anyone takes the next logical step and looks at the Arab world itself, we step on forbidden territory. For any analysis of the current Middle East will encounter injustice and violence and death, often the result — directly or indirectly — of the policies of the United States and its regional allies (Arab as well as Israeli).”

Radio UserLand 8.0.5 is available for download.  [Scripting News]

Microsoft Must Show Source
From Dan Gillmor’s Weblog

Reuters: Judge says Microsoft must give states Windows code. Microsoft had tried to argue that the states’ request for the code, made Tuesday, came too late before hearings due to begin next month on whether additional sanctions should apply to the company for violating U.S. antitrust laws.

The judge did the right thing. Microsoft insists that removing IE from Windows would irrevocably screw up the OS. Without access to the source, who can tell?

Microsoft could have made IE in a way that plugged into the operating system. It chose to mingle the code to ensure that IE was “an integral part” of the OS. Maybe we’ll find out, one of these days, how good a job the company did in its anticompetitive act.

Dave Winer on how “things are really weird in Silicon Valley. The Good Earth in Palo Alto, one of the icons of our culture, shut down. That’s where I had dinner with Doug Engelbart, and lots of other cool people who call this place home. Up and down University Ave, the main commercial street of Palo Alto and Stanford University, are For Lease signs. Niehaus-Ryan, one of the highest flying PR firms of the Dotcom Boom, shut down last week. I read Nick Denton’s essay on what a stinky place this is, and while I share some of his snobbish attitude (I’m from NY) I look forward to the day when the carpetbaggers who came here seeking unearned fortune, go home. They fucked this place bigtime. Even as they leave they fuck us. Poor manners. I can’t afford to be so cavalier, because I am invested, with a company that’s based here, and I own a house and some land. “[Scripting News]

Simon Hoggart, writing in today’s Guardian, brings up the old joke about Herbert Morrison, Peter Mandleson’s grandfather and a Labour BigFoot in the immediate post-war years. Overhearing someone say that Morrison was ‘his own worst enemy’, Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary in the Atlee government, snapped: “Not while I’m alive, he isn’t”.

What’s this? An Internet IPO that doesn’t bomb? Shurely shome mishtake?

Not at all. PayPal went public this week and the stock went through the roof.

Snooping costs could put UK ISPs out of business
BBC Online story.

“Extensive snooping laws could put internet service providers out of business, an expert has warned.

Tim Snape, an influential member of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), said the law would drive up costs.

He was speaking at ISPCON, a conference for the internet industry held in London this week.”