Unsurprisingly, people are clamoring for more and more feed splicing on the part of FeedBurner. Given that “feed splicing” is really just a form of presenting multiple RSS feeds, it’s looking like the difference between Bloglines and FeedBurner is one of degree rather than kind. They’re both services that monitor feeds and then present them in different ways. I’d think that Bloglines could be in the feed splicing business next week if they so chose. What this really all points to is how compelling the idea of publishing your content in a machine readable format really is. I’m not sure if this is what people were talking about when they were harping on the semantic web, but it might as well have been.

Christopher Albritton has written up his thoughts on Moqtada al-Sadr, and some speculation about what might happen if we mishandle the crisis in Najaf. When you read about the spot we’re in and ponder our limited options in addressing it, you really wonder what sort of idiot would voluntarily place us in a situation where Iraq might descend into chaos and take a few of its neighbors down with it. Oh yeah.

Since last night, I’ve been thinking more about the Phil Agre essay What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It? After giving it some thought, I’ve realized that the essay is fundamentally flawed in that Agre saddles conservativism with thousands of years of history, but he puts forth a form of liberalism that means something very specific to him, and compares that to conservatism. But if you’re going to take an expansive view of conservativism, you have to do the same thing to liberalism if you’re going to be honest about things. Defined most basically, conservatism favors the status quo, and liberalism opposes the status quo.

Agre is right that liberalism is basically a movement of conscience. The idea of liberalism is that we can build a society that is more just, more egalitarian, more compassionate, more whatever than society as it exists. The basic conservative argument is that when liberals try to do this, they just screw things up. If you’re going to make conservatism accountable for its full history, you have to do the same for liberalism, and liberals have shown poor judgement in the past when it comes to putting their trust in people and institutions that promise to shake up the status quo. If we’re going to pin the pharaohs on the conservatives, we have to pin communism and socialism on liberals. There have been plenty of other revolutionary concepts that liberal people have supported out of conscience that really have turned out to screw things up. Conscience is never enough. Agre knows this, as he factors it into his personal definition of liberalism, but that doesn’t exonerate liberalism in the larger definition.

The other problem I had with the essay is that it doesn’t really make it very clear which conservatives are dupes and which are knowing supporters of the aristocracy. As Agre points out repeatedly, nobody wants to come out and say that they’re a shill for the aristocracy, and he also makes the point that many conservatives don’t even know what conservativism is really about. So which ones do? And what is the nature of that knowledge? I find it impossible to believe that even big name conservatives would define themselves as supporters of the aristocracy, so while it seems clear that conservatism does perpetuate the aristocracy that Agre describes, I find it hard to believe that very many people accept that as a goal. I do think that conservatism does more openly embrace the idea of preserving society’s current institutions, some of which are undervalued by liberals. Anyway, this whole argument strikes me as sophistry. If people are unknowingly supporting the aristocracy, then shouldn’t he address what it is that they do knowingly support rather than dismissing them as willing dupes?

UCLA professor Phil Agre has been writing erudite and provocative essays and emailing them around for years, usually via his Red Rock Eater mailing list. His latest essay concerns the modern practice of conservatism and its history, and it’s a must read for, well, everyone. It’s wide ranging and as I read it, I felt the particles of thoughts I’ve had on politics for years coalescing into crystals. Agre’s thesis is, in short, that conservatism exists solely to perpetuate the aristocracy, and I’d advise you to read it and think about it before dismissing it.

Update: One thing that’s worth noting about Agre’s essay is that he has his own definitions of conservatism and liberalism. (He’s not talking about Republicans and Democrats, or, say, free marketeers and socialists, for example.) Given that, conservatism means exactly what he says it means. In fact, the more I think about the piece, the more I find myself disagreeing with it in places and finding it incomplete in places. It’s definitely a conversation starter rather than a conversation ender, but I think the conversation is one worth having. I think a similar piece on “liberalism” would be an interesting read as well.

Andy Oram has a book report on a book about pirates (the “arr matey” kind) that argues that they were freedom fighters rather than terrorists. All I know is that Sid Meier’s remake of the classic computer game Pirates is scheduled for release in November. I can’t wait.

I just got spam from the “World Hongming Foundation” requesting that I send donations for hurricane Charley relief to their organization at the address supplied. I hope that these scumbags get prosecuted for fraud post haste. Oddly, the foundation has a Web site.

An Iranian judo wrestler, Arash Miresmaeili, failed to make his weight today and thus forfeited his match. Miresmaeili isn’t an also ran, either, he’s the defending world champion, and carried Iran’s flag in the opening ceremony. Unfortunately, he failed to make weight for political reasons — he was supposed to wrestle an Israeli. I’m not opposed to people using the Olympics or sports in general to make political statements, but there’s a good chance that it wasn’t his decision in the first place, and even if it was, it seems to me to be rooted in bigotry rather than justice. The Guardian has more.

DVD Jon has cracked the Airport Express, and now anybody can write software that streams music to the device.

Juan Cole has a very informative op-ed in the Washington Post on Iraqi Shiites. Seems to me Juan Cole is the perfect example of how an academic can build their reputation by blogging.

Update: you might also be interested in the cemetery where much of the fighting between Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and US and Iraq forces are taking place. Kevin Drum reports that it’s probably the largest cemetary in the world. There are 260,000 people buried at Arlington (which seems beyond huge to me) — it’s estimated that 5 million are buried at Wadi al-Salam. (You can get an idea of its size from this satellite photo.)

Julia Child, rest in peace. She was a role model for anyone interested in living well.