Britt Blaser:

“Every warrior knows that perfect safety is a fool’s paradise. The premise of the current war on terror is that we can entertain our way out of the terrorist threat. It’s entertainment to feel an illusory omnipotence that will hunt down every evil-doer and infidel–a kind of adolescent road rage, really. The old heads in your squadron know to protect such greenhorns from their enthusiasms, at least until they learn or die. “There are old pilots and bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots.”

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Michael Jackson has created his own, highly dignified Web site:

I have set up this website to serve as a source of official communications on my case. Any statement that does not appear on this website must be considered unauthorized.

The three links on the page lead to statements that say nothing more than that it’s all lies. Maybe as the rumors get more specific, the rebuttals will become more worth reading. So far, though, the site is yet more evidence that the more authorized a site is, the less interesting it is, which you may take as a backhanded, unsupportable and unfair jibe at digital ID and the Semantic Web.

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IowaPolitics.com has links to the text of all the candidates’ ads running in Iowa.

Meanwhile, you might want to take a look at Flat Howard, an odd bit of highly informal video from CBS. For me the best part is that Flat Howard is doing what our 12-year-old considers to be Dean’s signature finger stance. (You’ll need the Real Player unfortunately.)

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In Heidegger’s Children, Richard Wolin quotes Hans Jonas on why he should have seen Heidegger’s Nazism earlier: it’s embedded in Heidegger’s talk of “resoluteness” and “decisiveness.” Says Jonas, whereas Heidegger accused idealist philosophy of being a step removed from the world,

one could accuse him of something much more serious: the absolute formalism of his decisionism, where decision as such becomes the highest virtue.” (132)

If this is right (and it’s been too long since I read Being and Time to be sure), it means Heidegger gives us no way of distinguishing a “resolute decision” to support the worst of German nationalism from a decision to work in a refugee camp or to definitely go on the Atkins diet next year.

I seem to recall this Cluetrain book that talks about the importance of passion. And in that it’s echoing Tom Peters’ call for passionate commitment to serving one’s customers. (I like Peters’ new book, Re-Imagine, btw.) Isn’t Cluetrain guilty of the same content-free call for a form of commitment?

Granted, we’re not talking about Nazism here, but what do you do with a pointy-haired boss who is passionate about creating a truly oppressive, soul-less business environment for the people who report to him? It’d be foollish to deny that PHB’s can ever be passionate. There are Taylorist guys with stopwatches dedicated to squeezing the life out of an organization who are completely committed to what they’re doing: They spend their spare time reading about it, they can’t wait to tell you about it, and they sleep well at night convinced that every day they’re making the world a little better.

So, no, passion isn’t enough. Passionate oppression is no better than dispassionate oppression. (It might be worse. I don’t know.) But decisiveness is often the opposite of passion. It wants to end the suspense and take an act, any act. It doesn’t like the doubt and uncertainty that is built into passion because decisiveness doesn’t like possibility. It wants the future to be nailed down, and the decision is the first bang of the hammer. Decisiveness is essentially disengaged from the openness that is the future. Passion is the embrace of that openness. Just think about the difference between a manager who is overly-decisive and one who is passionate about the company’s reason for existence.

Passion by itself isn’t enough: Some of them Nazis were pretty damn passionate. But pound for pound, I’ll take passion over decisiveness any day.

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Edward Castronova is looking for a university dean who wants to house a Center for the Study of Synthetic Worlds. If you wonder whether there’s useful academic work to be done by such a center, check the Terranova group blog.

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[RFH= Request for Help]

I bought a big, fat Sony lithium-ion battery (NP-FS21) for my digital video camera two years ago. Now, after fairly minimal use, it’s dead, Jim. When I plug it into the recharger, the charge light comes on for about 15 seconds. The thing just doesn’t take a charge.

Any ideas about how to regenerate it?

Failing that, does anyone have any recommendations for offbrand batteries that actually work from vendors who don’t suck?

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Has everyone already seen this photo of Kurt Wenner’s street paintings? Well, then you can just see them again…

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Hello! That’s me, the 107,356th person back, just to the left of that nice old man in the green baseball cap. Helloooo!

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Wired’s on a roll. In the October issue, they ran a page by Rebecca Harper that puts the effect of music sharing into perspective: The labels have released 14% fewer new CDs since 1999 and they’ve raised the prices 16% since 1997 (after adjusting for inflation). Yes, she says, file sharing has cost the industry money. “But what the RIAA doesn’t want to admit is that the CD is reaching the end of its life cycle…”

Then in the December issue (the one with Uma on the cover), they devote a part of a page to step-by-step instructions on how to make a copy of DVD.

And while we’re on the topic(s):

1. Don’t miss Larry Lessig’s Wired piece on user-owned fiber to the home.

2. LOCA is a new music label that’s trying to do it right: the music is free but the CD’s gonna cost you. Worth a look, a listen and maybe some bucks.

3. I’m off to buy the latest Dixie Chicks CD. I first listened to them because of The Controversy. Turns out I like them.

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Dennis Kucinich has posted the memos that Diebold claims we may not be post because Diebold doesn’t want us talking about possible vulnerabilities in its electronic voting machines. Nice move, DK! (And good blogging by Donna at Copyfight.)

Correction: According to Dan Gillmor, DK’s page has links to sites with copies of the Diebold memos, not the memos themselves.

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