Daniel Kruger offers a defense of neo-colonialism and an interesting parallel between Britian's fight against slavery and ours against religion-fueled terror.

A new doctrine of international order is emerging, of which the imminent war is a crucial outing. It is the doctrine of humanitarian intervention — or, to give it its proper name, neo-colonialism. This doctrine is driven by the firm belief — uncluttered by relativist self-loathing — in the universal principles of liberty and justice. It gives expression to our sense that everyone, not just the West, has a right to live in a decent country — and that the West has a duty to help them do so. In particular, it gives substance to the vacuities of the ‘ethical foreign policy’.

Clinton again comes out in support of the war.

As Blair has said, in war there will be civilian was well as military casualties. There is, too, as both Britain and America agree, some risk of Saddam using or transferring his weapons to terrorists. There is as well the possibility that more angry young Muslims can be recruited to terrorism. But if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam.

David Friedman joins the world of blogging.

Interesting ideas about media bias. Wired writes that foreign websites are seeing an influx of US visitors, presumably because they can read ideas, reporting, and commentary through a lens other than the American media's. But in the "give us what we want to hear not what we need to know" category, the man charged with ensuring NPR's "balance" acknowledges that they lean heavily to one side. Even going so far as to say that when NPR interviewed Colin Powell they received e-mails by the score, all asking: "NPR! How could you?" towards the end of his mea culpa he states, As an audio companion, NPR needs to remain recognizable to its listeners; but as a news service, it needs to present a range of opinions that reflects reality -- no matter how uncomfortable that reality may be.

Good piece from MSNBC about why America is so feared, distrusted, and often disliked by "the World".

From mandatory seatbelt laws to the Patriot Act...Eugene Volokh & David Newman offer a reasoned defense of the slippery slope.

Today the SF Chronicle reports on a new philosophy class at U.C. Berkeley, "Simpsons and Philosophy". While not the first school to offer courses of this sort, its certainly one of the most prestigious.

A word of advice to all of those doubting academic highbrows out there.... This actually is an academically rigorous class, not a dumbing down of either philosophy or "The Simpsons."

Obviously the relationship between the Simpsons and pop-culture is well established, and the deeper meanings of the show have been plumbed. ("Can Nietzsche's rejection of traditional morality justify Bart's bad behavior?") I wonder, what insights have you gained from this show? Has it enlightened you? Made you reaffirm or question your faith ? Or is this all po-mo crap fueled by slackers looking for an excuse to get stoned and watch TV? Or maybe the weary nihilism of Homer Simpson sums it up best, "How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"

That's the tricky thing about free will vs. determinism on the layman front (make that the secular-layman front). On the one hand, we believe scientific and material causes play out in predictable and usually necessary ways. On the other hand, we believe - and almost all the world's diverse systems of moral and legal responsibility assume - that people remain free to make both deeply deliberative and quirky, spontaneous decisions, and bear responsibility for them unless acting under "compulsion" - i.e., stripped of their freedom.

A discussion of free will and Daniel Dennett's new book, Freedom Evolves, from the Philly Inquirer.

Dennett, by contrast, argues that despite living in a deterministic world, humans enjoy cerebral freedom, an "evolved creation of human activity and beliefs," that amounts to a back-formation from human language and its unique communicative capacities. It's generated by our adaptive ability to bring self-reflective, deliberative attention to options before us, to talk with ourselves, and that's a perfectly respectable definition of free will in a scientific age. To Dennett's evolved mind, a definition of freedom as "the capacity to achieve what is of value in a range of circumstances" is "as good a short definition of freedom as could be."

As the enormity of what path we are about to embark upon (or more correctly, have already been thrust towards) I take some solace and a certain amount dread in the notion of free will. The choices we make today seem magnified by their significance. Let’s hope that free will turns out to be a gift rather than a curse.

Invading terrorism-sponsoring states, before they have formally attacked us - violates the basic principles of the international order we have understandably come to cherish. So we have a profound - and new - conflict between security and sovereignty, between a catastrophe-free world and international law.--The uneasy words of Andrew Sullivan after reading Lee Harris' essay on Our World-Historical Gamble. I've linked to it before, but the feedback has been so amazing that I'd point my readers to it again.

Slate offers a snarky but insightful guide to the pundits who chime in regularily on Iraq.

Christopher Allbritton is going directly to Iraq and reporting on the war via his blog. They always claim bloggers don't have reporters on the ground. We've got at least one following the kurds.

Recently there has been a great deal of lip service paid to accounting irregularities and the importance of transparency to a healthy democracy and functioning economy. A few months ago our President said "It is time to reaffirm the basic principles and rules that make capitalism work: truthful books and honest people".

There is little doubt that an erosion of trust in corporate accounting practices is a major factor in the continued decline of the US economy. Our first President with an MBA, Bush has promised to run government like a business. Apparently his drug czar didn’t get the memo.

After Sept. 11th we were told that law enforcement, most notably the FBI, would be shifting resources to focus on the War on Terror. At first glance it appears that this change in priorities is reflected in the numbers. Last year congress spent $19 billion fighting drugs, and this year just over $11 billion. Paul Armentano explains that this is mostly due to accounting changes that were hardly noticed but widely felt.

In a little publicized announcement last year, officials from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (a.k.a. the Drug Czar's office) revealed that they had developed a "new methodology" for reporting the federal drug budget—which had grown from less than $2 billion annually in 1982 to $18.8 billion last year. Under this scheme, only funding for agencies involved in so-called "primary" drug war activities is now tabulated in the national anti-drug budget. As a result, more than two-thirds of the agencies included in past years' budgets are conspicuously missing from this year's financial totals...To make matters even more confusing, the 2003 "National Drug Control Strategy" makes virtually no reference to the White House's new accounting procedures, and manipulates past years' budgets to retroactively reflect the Feds' latest "fuzzy math". As a result, the White House is now claiming that America's war on drugs has never cost more than $11 billion per year, even though the office itself previously recorded surpassing that spending milestone in 1991!

There are many possible explanations for this Eronesque maneuver. The War on Drugs has steadily been losing support in America. It's a policy that has had diminishing results under a number of administrations and dwindling support of the American people. This may be a way to continue to throw good money after bad while avoiding the growing dismay of the people. Perhaps the administration thinks no one is paying attention to the spending and growing deficit . Perhaps the ethics of business accounting don’t apply to the White House. Regardless, it’s shameful coming from the “CEO” of an administration that a few months ago proclaimed, “We're moving corporate accounting out of the shadows, so the investing public will have a true and fair and timely picture of assets and liabilities and income of publicly traded companies.” Some shadows linger longer than others.

Interesting read about the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Big time money, Echelon, and the work of the Pakistani intelligence agency.

The SFPD is having a rough few weeks . The obstruction of justice case against high level police officers seems to be unravelling but they now have another PR problem. Documents obtained from the Sunshine Ordinance has shown that the police have been spying on anti-war protestors.

They've been monitoring sf.indymedia.org, a leftist web site that advocates radical "black bloc" tactics. Furthermore, they've had undercover officers videotaping protestors. Apparently the order to surveil the protestors wasn't authorized by the Chief of Police, which is mandated by a decades-old guidelines.

The videotaped surveillance conducted at the anti-war demonstrations Oct. 26, Jan. 18 and Feb. 16 was done by five plainclothes officers -- including one wearing a pin of the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara in his hat.

The police claim this is standard procedure for large events where the threat of violence exists. Others see it as an ominous indication that dissent is frowned upon and possibly even an intimidation tactic.

The Violent Crimes Task Force usually investigates gang killings but now is working the protests. The head of the task force, Lt. Kit Crenshaw described "First Amendment activities" as a "guise" used by some radical groups to "conduct their contemptuous acts against corporate and government structures."

Standard operating procedure for the police, or a chilling sign of another erosion of our rights? Either way the Boys in Blue in San Francisco are losing the PR battle.

Chris Pirillo has pics from the Google Blooger party.

I can't handle it. So if you make your own power (i.e. solar) you may get charged by the California PUC. They are considering the fees in order to recoup some of the losses they've suffered the past few years. I swear, you think you've heard every stupid idea and they just keep coming.

Lee Harris writes about the "historical gamble" facing us today. Its long, nerve-racking, but worth reading every word.

The war with Iraq will constitute one of those momentous turning points of history in which one nation under the guidance of a strong-willed, self-confident leader undertakes to alter the fundamental state of the world. It is, to use the language of Hegel, an event that is world-historical in its significance and scope. And it will be world-historical, no matter what the outcome may be.

Pacific Gas and Electric, one of the largest combination natural gas and electric utilities in the United States, is currently under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Their frontline workers, which make up roughly 2/3 of all employees, are currently operating without a contract, California just suffered through a summer of rolling black-outs, and the general perception of the utility is one of mistrust. A company in deep trouble and with no cash. David Lazarus of the San Franciso Chronicle found out they may have more cash than thought.

(PG&E) paid $57.4 million in bonuses to managers and other nonunion employees as part of its "performance incentive plan."

"Even Enron would be jealous of such brazen behavior," said Ross Mirkarimi, who served as spokesman for the Yes on Prop. D (Public Power) campaign.

Lazarus acquired the internal document of bonus payouts that including $323,250 for CEO Gordon Smith, the man who lead the company into Chapter 11. It makes one wonder if anyone believes in compensation in line with performance anymore? Is there a model for utilities that actually works? In the end it seems the rate payers are the real losers.

Andrew Sullivan faces the grim truth (e.g. super-empowered individuals, radical hatred for Western ideas and ideals). The new set of world realities leaves us between a rock and a hard place.
Which leaves us with very few good options. But the obvious one is pro-active pre-emption: going in and getting rid of such regimes and entities, destroying them, or occupying them. But doing so - invading terrorism-sponsoring states, before they have formally attacked us - violates the basic principles of the international order we have understandably come to cherish. So we have a profound - and new - conflict between security and sovereignty, between a catastrophe-free world and international law.

So the White House Office of Management and Budget wants to do cost/benefit analysis on new anti-civil rights legislation. Interesting idea but I believe the biggest obstacle is mentioned in the article, how do you quantify the value of "liberty"? Frankly, you can't. Its the most subjective of notions and they would be best served by keeping it a purely dollars and sense exercise. I don't know if I am heartened by the idea that they are seriously considering doing this or disgusted by the apparent fact that they didn't do this before they passed Patriot Act I.