Robert Reich’s latest column in the American Prospect attempts to outline a pragmatic approach to fighting terrorism (reader-submitted link). Here’s a juicy quote, taking both the left and right to task for their hardline positions:
Here’s where America’s political and intellectual left and right seem incapable of reasoned debate. Much of the left is still [...]
So, one thing I didn’t realize at first is that Microsoft attempted to justify MSN’s blockage of non-IE browsers by saying that those browsers were not standards compliant. As Edd Dumbill points out in his weblog, that’s a bunch of crap. Dan Gillmor also has a brief Q&A with Tim Berners-Lee about Microsoft’s decision [...]
If you’ve been out of town for a few days like me, this Economist rundown of what’s going on right now in Afghanistan should get you up to speed.
Joel Spolsky: Working on CityDesk, Part Four
I heard a news item on the BBC this morning stating that the US was broadcasting a radio message in Afghanistan explaining how to tell bomblets from cluster bombs and food aid packages apart. Apparently both of them are yellow, and we’ve been dropping them in close enough proximity that people might blow themselves [...]
Over at Slate, Robert Wright has written an excellent article on the issue of whether or not Islam can reconcile itself with modernity. Here’s one of the key points in the article:
I’m not saying that Islam is irrelevant to what happened on Sept. 11. In fact, I buy much of Sullivan’s argument-that understanding contemporary [...]
Lots of stuff happened while I was gone. For one thing, I had about 500 unread emails in my inbox, and I’m still catching up. In other news:
Microsoft launched Windows XP. Microsoft redesigned MSN, and as part of the redesign, intentionally locked out browsers other than Internet Explorer. I had about 5 billion [...]
I’m going out of town for a few days, so things will likely be quiet around here until I get back next Monday.
Keep an eye on this: a US military spokesman says that the Taliban is planning to poison food aid and blame the United States for it. There’s no chance the United States is planning to poison food going into Afghanistan, but my cynical side says that this could be one of those things said [...]
Mark Goldblatt was shocked to learn that Microsoft has removed words deemed offensive from the thesaurus in Office 2000 (and, I assume, XP). That just totally sucks. I’ve tried to overcome the burning hatred I once felt for Microsoft, but they keep doing things that rekindle it. (Link from Flutterby.)