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.”

More extensions of the DMCA.
Wired story.

“The DMCA was intended to protect copyright owners who took technical steps to ‘lock up’ their content,” said von Lohmann. “But Sony PlayStation 1 games are not locked up. There is no encryption on these game CDs. That’s not stopping Sony from invoking the DMCA against PlayStation 1 mod chips. I guess when you’ve got the big hammer of the DMCA, everything starts looking like a nail.”

John Casey, writing in the Daily Telegraph about the late Princess Margaret, says: “There have been no really juicy royal scandals since the early 19th century and George IV, which is why the press has had to make what it could out of marriage break-ups – experienced by about a third of the married population anyway – occasional gaffes, and a few cases of minor royals exploiting their status to earn an honest thousand or two.”
Seems that the good Dr. Casey somehow missed out the Abdication of a reigning monarch in the 1930s, not to mention said ex-monarch’s infatuation with the Nazis.

Henry Jenkins of MIT has a good piece in Technology Review on the Blogging phenomenon.