Via Electrolite: the Army has kicked out six Arabic experts because they’re gay. The obvious bit of irony is that we refuse to accept the assistance of homosexuals in fighting a war against the forces of ignorance, hatred, and bigotry. Maybe the fundamentalist morons who are eager to attack the United States will lay off if we can just show them that we’re as intolerant as they are.

Drug companies suck. Jason Levine explains exactly how. (Actually, to be fair, I should say that drug companies are for-profit enterprises that as part of their duty to their shareholders are concerned with maximizing profits and little else.)

OSAF is filling out its staff nicely. You already know that Mitch Kapor and Andy Hertzfeld were on the job. Now they’ve signed on Mitchell Baker (from the Mozilla project) and David McCusker as well. Perhaps my quest for the ultimate email client will finally be complete when Chandler is released.

If you want to see the Leonid meteor shower at its best in your lifetime, stay up late (or get up early) and check them out tonight. I’ve been putting off making an effort to see the meteors for years, and now it looks like it’s make or break this time. I hope I have the self discipline to get up and see them.

Did you ever wonder why Keith Olbermann left ESPN? He issues an apology and an explanation in his Salon column today. I’m glad he had somewhere to publish it.

I’ve mentioned here any number of times that at heart, Amazon has always been a software company. Last week, the company hired a former computer science professor as its chief algorithm officer (link spotted at Medley).

Of all the arguments in The Threatening Storm, Kenneth Pollack’s book arguing in favor of invading Iraq with a massive force, the most convincing one is that the so-called “Afghan Approach” advocated by many in the pro-war camp as a way to get rid of Saddam on the cheap is doomed to failure. I just read an article in the New York Times that helps expain why. It quotes a Kurdish leader from Northern Iraq saying that Kurdish forces intend to march on Baghdad if the US invades.

If the US sends in a small force and lots of air support and relies on rebels to help us finish off Saddam’s regime, then those forces get to carve up the country when Saddam is out of power (that is, if they succeed, which is probably unlikely). If we leave Iraq to the Shiites, Sunni, and Kurds to carve up or fight over, then we’re going to be left with a big gaping black hole of infighting and crap in the middle of the Persian Gulf region that also happens to control a pretty good sized chunk of the world’s oil. There’s little doubt that countries like Iran, Syria, and Turkey would use the situation to their advantage to take what they want from the morass that Iraq becomes as well. If we’re going to go to war with Iraq (it seems inevitable at this point), then we ought to send in a massive force that can get the thing over as rapidly as possible (thus inflicting less casualties than we would in a protracted fight and guaranteeing stability once the fighting stops).

If we leave it to the Iraqis to take out Saddam, the worst case scenario is that they lose (again, just like they have every single time they’ve tried to unseat him). At that point, Saddam goes on yet another killing spree against the rebel forces and their supporters, which means a whole crapload of killings and deprivation. Saddam has already used chemical weapons against the Kurds in the past, killing them en masse, and he had his army destroy plenty of Shiite villages after putting down the insurgency that followed the Persial Gulf war. Furthermore, the Shiites have suffered more under the sanctions than any other group, because Saddam has no real interest in feeding them. If we’re going to fight this war, then let’s go in as strong as we can, and put an end to Saddam’s regime as quickly as possible. I remain puzzled that the most ardent supporters of the war are often in favor of a half assed approach.

Today Ha’aretz ran an article which basically stated what I’ve been thinking about the battle in Hebron in which 12 Israeli soldiers were killed, which is that it wasn’t terrorism. It was awful and senseless, but it looks to me like the casualties on both sides were soldiers. I call that combat. I don’t think anyone in Israel would claim that the Hebron is not disputed territory, the fact that the Israeli army is dominant notwithstanding. Of course, just to prove how wrongheaded Islamic Jihad is, all this will lead to is more settlements in Hebron, under the theory that the Israeli settlers can be better protected if there are more of them. My point here is that calling everything terrorism simply devalues the word. If we could somehow reach a point where the only people terrorists attacked were soldiers of governments they have a beef with, well, then there wouldn’t be any more terrorism. As ghastly as it sounds, if I have to choose, I’ll take terrorists attacking our troops stationed in Kuwait or Israeli soldiers on patrol over them flying planes into buildings or blowing themselves up on crowded buses anytime.

Have you heard about the new advertisements that will parody the government ads linking drug use to financing international terrorism by linking driving an SUV to the same thing? I think it’s kind of a shame that they’re targetting SUV owners in particular, because it weakens the message of the ads. I think that it’s important for Americans to learn things like the fact that the Saudi Arabians have spent literally millions of dollars over the past few decades to destroy all schools of Islamic scholarship other than the Wahabbi school, and that some percentage of the money we pour into Saudi Arabia’s economy is used to finance terrorism.

Instead, what we get is yet another big laugh at the expense of SUV drivers. Is the objective here to educate people about how things really work, or is it to get a good belly laugh at the expense of those troglodyte suburban SUV drivers? Those are the people these messages most need to reach, and who Democrats desperately need votes from in 2004. Picking on them and causing them to circle the wagons and vote for the Republicans isn’t really helping anybody, is it?

Here’s something you won’t read too often at rc3.org: Congress fixed something. They passed legislation that improves upon the stupid fees that the Copyright Office imposed on webcasters earlier this year. It’s assumed that President Bush will sign the bill.