You may have noticed that I’ve really stopped commenting on the Israel/Palestinian situation. The reason for that is that back then I thought I understood the situation better than I actually did, and because my hope for some kind of settlement acceptable to both sides got me carried away. What I can say is that I have great respect for Israel, even though I don’t agree with most aspects of the occupation, and that I have respect for Palestinians, but I desperately wish that they would reject terrorism and more importantly those leaders who refuse to accept the legitimacy of Israel. Anyway, if you’re interested in this conflict, you may benefit by reading this Benny Morris book review from The New Republic (link via Dangerousmeta). Dr. Morris is an Israeli history professor who made big news by abandoning the peace camp awhile back. I found the article quite educational.

Does anyone doubt that if Donald Rumsfeld were born in Nasiriyah, he could have just as easily grown up to play for Saddam Hussein’s team instead of ours? Man that guy makes my blood run cold.

Danny O’Brien talks about the denizens of the hinternet today. Who have you converted to a popup blocking alternative browser like Mozilla lately? I’ve been a total failure in that regard. I should at least set up SpamAssassin for my parents … they’re modem users so I can’t in good conscience encourage them to download Mozilla.

Don’t fall in love with the name Firebird yet. Now that Mozilla changed the name of Phoenix to Firebird due to trademark issues, the makers of an open source database called Firebird are complaining. I’m thinking maybe they’re going to have to go with an unpronouncable symbol as the name of the stripped down browser. Or perhaps Mozlkahdjfya.

I think a reporter from the estimable Charleston Post and Courier was had:

Throughout the morning, law enforcement officers stood on the perimeter of the five-acre field. At no point did the protest turn violent, though officers escorted Heywood Jablome away after he held up a sign directly in front of Burk that read “Make me dinner” before shouting “Oprah rules.”

A quick review of Google News seems to indicate that only James Scott got the name of Mr. Jablome before he was taken away by police.

Lately, even Brad DeLong has jumped on the trash Robert Fisk bandwagon. Every time I go to read a Robert Fisk dispatch, I expect to howl with outrage. Fisk, after all, has a reputation among many as everything from an al-Qaeda sympathizer, to a hater of the United States and the United Kingdom. To some people, he’s an antisemite, and to others he’s the archetypical Westerner, seeing Arabs as noble savages. And yet when I read a Robert Fisk article, I never find outrage rising up my esophogus. I don’t always agree with everything I read, in terms of analysis or sensibility, but I appreciate him for what he is.

I’m not going to dissuade those people who find Robert Fisk utterly revolting, that would be impossible, and boring as well. There’s no question that Fisk is relentlessly negative, and that he never gives America the benefit of the doubt or a shred of credit, even when we deserve it. Fisk’s problems are well known, the issue is that his merits are often ignored.

I’m always disarmed by what a good writer Robert Fisk is. I’d go so far as to say that the best writer of any journalist I’ve ever read, at least among those who operate under the deadlines that he does. His erudition, ability to weave the fabric of history into his pieces, and descriptive powers amaze. For that reason alone, Fisk is impossible to dismiss.

Equally impressive to me, though, is the fact that Robert Fisk has been working the Middle East beat since before Saddam Hussein took power in Iraq. If Fisk is cynical about the prospects for peace in the Middle East and seems world weary, it’s because he’s earned it. After all, he’s been showing up on the scenes of human tragedy for almost as long as I’ve been alive, and telling the story as he sees it.

It shocks me to see people assume that Fisk is a liar when his reporting is limited almost exclusively to first hand accounts. If you read nothing but weblogs, you might be surprised to learn that Fisk is probably the UK’s best regarded foreign correspondent. Nearly all of the arguments against the facts he reports are based on the fact that the arguer is in disbelief, rather than materially disproving things he’s written. He often makes claims that fall apart when they are placed within a larger context, but that’s an outgrowth of simply reporting what he sees first hand. When he says the Americans aren’t at a particular place, it’s because he went there and they weren’t there, not because the Iraqi information minister told him so or because he heard it in a Centcom briefing.

One of the best things about the coverage of the Gulf War (Cont.) has been the dispatches from embedded journalists. Even though they operate under (reasonable) constraints, most of the important stories to emerge during the conflict have been reported by people on the front lines alongside US troops. That’s been a refreshing change considering that most newspapers tend to report on things that were said at press conferences or provided on a not for attribution basis by people looking to advance their agenda. Fisk is operating on his own in Baghdad during this war (and doesn’t seem to be sucking up to the Saddamites a la Peter Arnett), and that’s hardly a surprise. The guy seems to have no fear in going wherever the story is and telling what he sees.

I wouldn’t recommend reading Robert Fisk as your sole source of news of the Middle East — I wouldn’t recommend reading any one writer or publication for all your news on anything. However, I feel like he always has something to add. If nothing else, you’re getting a well written a first hand account of something that’s happening on the ground where the news is happening. Fisk also provides a counterweight to the triumphalism that all too often pervades some other media outlets. Maybe Fisk’s perspective is too much for some people to withstand, I can understand that, but that doesn’t make him a bad journalist, nor does it make him a liar. If the only thing you know about Fisk is what you read in certain weblogs, I urge you to read a few articles he’s written on your own. Chances are he’s not what you think he is.

I’ve been using SharpReader for a little while now, but it took me until yesterday to find a mode of usage that really works for me. To open an item in my external browser of choice (Mozilla), all I have to do is hit “enter” in the list of articles, as opposed to clicking on a link down in the item detail section. This enables me to both open pages in the right browser and never remove focus from the pane where I can delete items. The application could still stand some tweaks, but it’s working better for me now.

It’s through the regulation process that we learn just how much most businesses hate the idea of competing on price and service. I offer as proof the dogged resistance of cellular carriers to number portability.

The current New York Review of Books includes Ian Buruma’s review of Paul Berman’s Terror and Liberalism. The great thing about the NYRB is that often after reading their review of a nonfiction book (especially a book written to make an argument), I don’t need to read the book itself.

If you’re going to destroy the national museum, why not do the same to the national library?