I transferred the last domain I had that was still registered with Network Solutions, and they sent me a cheery little form letter telling me how sorry they were to see me go and that I could transfer back any time. It was actually well written enough that I felt a little pang of guilt for dumping them. That is, until I remembered that they are evil, influence purchasing, customer hating, monopolistic scumbags who deserve to be run out of business as rapidly as possible.

The Mono Project dumped the GPL for the obscure X11 license to make it easier for corporations to contribute code.

A British commission has recommended that the government change the way agricultural subsidies are dispensed, moving away from simply paying farmers for growing stuff or raising animals and toward paying them for changing their production methods to protect the environment. We’d do well to examine this report in the United States as well. It would change the system from simply benefitting farmers to benefitting everyone – a healthy environment is a common good, whereas having a bunch of farmers using pesticides to keep their government dole checks rolling in keeps them going but does little for the non-farmers who make up the vast majority of the population.

Hamid Karzai came to America to ask for help, and he’s not getting much for his trouble. President Bush has ruled out using US forces to expand the peacekeeping effort in Afghanistan, despite the fact that Karzai wants a larger peacekeeping force so that peacekeepers can be deployed beyond Kabul, and the “man on the street” interviews I read from Afghanistan all seem to be with people in favor of more foreign troops. One thing we are going to do is help them establish a real military and system of law enforcement, which is good.

What really irks me is this Bush quote: ““The United States is committed to playing a leading role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.” Wouldn’t a leading role involve actually putting up the cash that Afghanistan needs to rebuild? We shouldn’t let Bush have it both ways. You can’t jibe playing a leading role with the “we paid for the war, somebody else has to pay for the peace” sentiment that has been widely expressed by the Bush administration.

Bush State of the Union address, I didn’t watch it and haven’t read it yet.