Donna Wentworth is blogging a conference on spectrum policy. She has complete notes of Larry Lessig interviewing Yochai Benckler. She points out that it’s also being webcast.

[I'm on the road again today. Light blogging ahead.]

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Operation Irate Fatwa
Operation Thin-skinned Privet Bush
Operation Very Hungry Beaver
Operation Choleric Hajj
Operation Cowboy Bird of Prey
Operation Trigger-happy Girlfriend
Operation Wrathful Button
Operation Sexually Ambiguous Griffin
Operation Platinum Centaur
Operation Spitting Uniform
Operation Infuriated Justice
Operation Brave Wombat
Operation Leather Tension
Operation Famous Sucker Punch
Operation Wild Republican Administration
Operation Wraithlike Typhoon
Operation Destructive Rottweiler
Operation Smite the Gecko
Operation Humane Crusade
Operation Screaming Cannon

These are from a random US Operation name generator. (Pointed out by Gary Stock.)

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Michael d’Cruftbox has posted an exceptionally clear “How To” for Trackback newbies.

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Robert Fisk of the UK’s The Independent reports on civilian casualties from a Baghdad hospital.

If a war is justified, then the inevitable and inadvertent killing of children is also justified. And pointing to a hurt child by itself isn’t an argument against a war. I know that. Nevertheless, these children are facts just like the other sorts of facts we’re being shown 24/7: the government buildings on fire, the incoming missiles shot down, the ring of fire lit around the city.

We don’t have to linger on these particular little facts. They don’t have to change our minds. But they should at least remind us not to cheer when we see the Baghdad night lit up.

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On Wednesday, 7 of us – my wife and two children, my in-laws and my sister-in-law – will be going to Venice and Florence for a week. That is, 3.5 days in each. I’ve been to Venice and Florence a few times, but if you have favorite places other than the Big Tourist Spots, want to let me know? (If you recommend restaurants, keep in mind that 4 of us are vegetarians and don’t eat fish.)

TIA, which used to mean Thanks In Advance before it meant Total Information Awareness.

By the way, I’ll be blogging it for the Boston Globe. Details soon.

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Anil Dash has written some notes on TrackBack for Dummies (i.e., me and Doc). He gives some idea of the power of TB beyond just noting who’s linked to a blog entry, capabilities AKMA reports Ben and Mena Trott also tout. Very helpful.

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This morning I woke up once again hoping to hear that Hussein is dead.

I am disturbed by my callousness. Up through my ‘twenties, I would have reminded myself that all life is precious and would have dredged up some sympathy for Hussein. I could probably still do it. I could get there by thinking about how his children would — will — react to his death. But it’d be a real effort. And it no longer seems helpful or important.

In fact, in hoping that Hussein is dead, I’m also acknowledging that I’d be willing to kill him. That’s not to say that I can imagine sneaking through Baghdad and pulling a trigger. But, I’d take my failure to kill him if given the opportunity to be moral weakness.

So, here’s my question: When I was in my ‘twenties, I’d have to work myself into feeling sympathy for someone like Hussein. Now I have to work myself into feeling bad about not feeling sympathy for someone like him. Is my callousness a sign that I’m making moral progress or that I’m slipping into the comfortable certitude of middle age?

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MoveOn.org is recommending that we give to Oxfam to help rebuild what we are at this instant destroying – although, of course, what most needs to be rebuilt never can be.

Oxfam is at the top of my family’s giving list. We give every month automatically, and when I once upon a time made some money at a dot-com, we tithed to Oxfam. It’s a good group doing good works.

MoveOn writes:

The Bush administration has shown that it has a very short attention span on post-conflict humanitarian efforts. The White House didn’t request a single dollar for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan in this year’s budget — Congress had to take the unusual step of adding in $300 million.

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It’s beginning. I feel I am going to puke. I am keeping a trash bin next to me as I type this.

Why should we Americans even have to contemplate the possibility that a massive crime is being carried out in our name?

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