Here’s a couple more things you should be reading, instead of this blousy log…

• Slashdot has a book review of The Naked Corporation. The premise is pretty compelling: since companies are at constant risk of having their inner workings exposed (thanks to snazzy new internet technologies), the best defense is to… get this… actually run their businesses with, like, integrity and stuff. I’m tellin’ you, man; this transparency thing may just be our saving grace.

• Atrios links to a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed on journalistic integrity, which I won’t link to ‘cause I’m annoyed at their stupid registration page, (BugMeNot.com notwithstanding). Read the clipping at Eschaton, though, to get the flava.

• Oy. Oy, oy, oy. Iraqi Insurgency Growing Larger, More Effective. (DeLong)

• More on the picture of the crying Iraqi girl from Sid the Fish. It’s worse than we thought, and I second Sid’s sentiment. (Update: Here’s the link to Sid’s entry.)

More stuff you should be reading, if you know what’s good for you…

• Juan Cole reviews the President’s commitment to the Constitution and finds it wanting.

• I wish I could write as well as James Wolcott rambles. Here he bangs his head against the wall over Democratic jellyfish.

• Tim Dunlop catches Richard Armitage in a moment of regret.

More stuff you should be reading instead of this lousy blog…

• No, you weren’t listening when I changed my answer. Sadaam was a homosexual who was planning to abort his fetus in the third trimester. Al Qaeda was coming after your Social Security benefits. Don’t you get it? (First Draft)

• Holden stays on top of the story, apparently now confirmed, that Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi “killed six men in cold blood a few days before the ‘transfer of sovereignty’ at the end of June.”

• Damn. G’wan, Senator Dodd. Tell it like it is.

• Why is this child crying?

• I need to read this article on procrastination. Later.

• Remember “You Don’t Know Jack?” Go to the Jellyvision site and click on ICI Design, then Jack Principles. These are some good tips on how to create the feeling of a conversation with your software users.

Here’s some more stuff you should be reading instead of this lousy blog…

• This short post at First Draft about our failure in Iraq is depressing as hell, and for my money, Juan Cole makes the real point: “When your helmsman won’t correct course, you as passenger are in big trouble. That is where the US now stands.”

• Speaking of which, Sy Hersh claims they’re at it again...

• Via Josh Marshall, we find this article in the New York Times Magazine on Social Security. It’s a long article, but a must-read for anyone who wants both a history of the program and a clear-eyed look at the current debate. Here are some questions that came to me as I was reading the article: For those who think that Social Security needs to be scrapped, what happens if private accounts fail? Does the government have any responsibility or role in securing the welfare of seniors? Widows? The disabled? You know, the “General Welfare” that our constitution went on about? What’s the backup plan? And what are you planning to do about your own retirement? What would you want to happen to your wife and children if, god forbid, something should happen to you before you had a chance to put a nest egg in place? What benefit accrues to our society if we don’t provide for the basic security of our citizens?

• I’d really like an accounting of where the money for Homeland Security is actually going. First the Bush administration tells the District of Columbia to take money to pay for the inauguration festivities out of its DHS budget. Now, Sid the Fish points us to an AP article about a couple of DHS agents purporting to get involved with a spurious trademark infringement issue.

• I love my Mac. So does this writer for the Orlando Sentinel.

• I’m always interested in articles about good management, having suffered under my share of the opposite. Here’s the transcript of a Podcast from XplanaRadio that talks about creating Great Learning Spaces.

• Ars Technica reviews the latest iteration of my beloved Amiga.

Here’s more stuff you should be reading, instead of looking here for enlightenment…

• The idea of building a “visual Google”—a searchable visual database—is not only intriguing, it’s a vital next step in the growth of the internet. Via Boing Boing, here’s an interview with a guy who’s working on just such a thing.

• Professor Cline brings it on... rhetorically speaking, of course. What did President Bush mean when he issued his challenge to America’s enemies?

• Via The Poor Man, Frank Rich sniffs the air around the Armstrong Williams scandal. His verdict? It stinks!

• The party’s over (WaPo). Adam Felber brings the President’s 2003 State of the Union Address up to date.

• At The Poor Man: Rathergate vs. Saddam’s WMD – A Quantitative Comparison. Brilliant.

Sure, snappy and incisive commentary would add value to your blog-reading experience, but you can get that anywhere, can’t you? The way we do it here is to deal in VOLUME, VOLUME, VOLUME!

Here’s more stuff you should have been reading over the last week or so…

• The Medium Lobster reads from the Book of Alberto Gonzales. I say, verily, he scares the holy shit out of me. (Fafblog) (More breakdown of Gonzales’ testimony here. (Slate))

• Michael Bérubé was watching when Colin Powell said (of Abu Ghraib) “Watch America. Watch how we deal with this. Watch how America will do the right thing.” Still watching.

• A while ago I noted the Seven Rules of Bad Science. The Crackpot Index is another fun way to catch the bastards at it.

• Thanks to the Seattle Times for giving us a bit of good news from the Tsunami. (Reason Hit & Run)

• Ah, those conservative moral values. (News Hounds)

• More conservative values. (Hullabaloo; America Blog)

• Wolfodamus. (Brad DeLong) (Nostrawitz?)

• Brad DeLong lays out the party line on Social Security.

• Via Atrios, via Ben Wikler, the inside scoop reportedly is that the President doesn’t want to hear bad news.

• Digby figures that Bush supporters follow the same dictate.

• Is America turning facist? (MaxSpeak)

• Torture: Holden’s Obsession. Bush shredding the Constitution. Let’s stand up for the Constitution. (Both from Hullabaloo)

I have a lot of friends working in the entertainment industry and sometimes they show up in the most surprising places. I got a charge out of seeing my friend Matt Young pop up in this picture on coolgov.com.

That’s Matt in the middle, waiting for the elevator door to open. CoolGov also has the link to the public service announcement that the still came from. If you’re in LA, check out Matt’s band, Captain Genius.

I wish I’d had something like this when I first moved to Seattle. Check out the Starbucks Drinks Simplified page. Think of it like an Starbucks/English dictionary. (via BoingBoing)

It’s inventory clearance time here at Stumax.com. These links didn’t get out before the end of the year, so my accountant says they’ve gotta go. My loss is your gain. So here’s a bunch of stuff you should have been reading last year…

• Andrew Cline at Rhetorica.net has been beating the drum about structural bias in the news biz for some time. In Call a Ph.D…., he notes a good recent example of the fairness bias at work.

• Cory Doctorow goes off on the editor of Wired for said editor’s dimwitted take on DRM.

• There’s a killer Flash animation at JPL that takes a look at the past year in Mars exploration.

• Choose the Blue helps you support companies based on their political contributions.

• A commenter to Juan Cole’s Informed Comment thinks that maybe war just doesn’t work anymore. James Wolcott provides more evidence.

• This reported exchange between a congressional delegation and representatives of the Indian government is pretty chilling. The US represents only about 5 percent of the world’s population. Is it so hard to imagine that if the world wanted to avoid doing business with us, we might not have much say in the matter? (Road to Surfdom)

• Are we really willing to become a nation that commits war crimes? (Washington Post, registration) What are we doing, for cryin’ out loud. (Washington Monthly) I mean, really, is this the United States of America? Land of the free, defenders of truth and justice? (Sid’s Fishbowl)

• I think Digby’s right. The way to whup the Republicans next time is to call them on their shit.

Ah, yes. I’m slowly getting back into this blogging thing. It feels good. Here’s more stuff you should have been reading this week…

• When Digby says “Wish I’d Said That,” it must be good. And it is. Avedon at The Sideshow—get this—reads the Constitution and discovers that—get this—it has a few things to say about what it means to be an American. And what it means to be an American—according to our founding document, now—is—get this—not really indistinguishable from what it means to be a liberal. Funny, that.
• It must suck to be an ex-president in this day and age, but it sounds like Clinton is still finding ways to duke it out constructively with Republicans. (First Draft)
• Speaking of duking it out, check out David Brock taking the fight to O’Reilly. Now, that’s the way we do it uptown, sucka. (via Eschaton)
• Note to self: When the Sherlock Holmes radio broadcasts come back online, grab ‘em!
• I love As The Apple Turns, and especially look forward to each Friday’s “Wildly Off-Topic Microsoft-Bashing Day.” This weeks was a doozy: Microsoft just bought a company that makes anti-spyware software, and plans to release the program to users of the MS OS for the price of “initially free.” A good deal, right? Microsoft sells you an operating system that leaks like a sieve and their solution is not to patch the holes in their own stuff, but to procure a software package that supposedly patches Microsoft’s own buggy software! And they leave the door open to the possibility that one day, they might charge you for the software to fix the software they originally sold you. The only thing bigger than the size of Microsoft’s bank account is the size of their balls.
• Don’t hate MS enough yet? Read this open letter. The Money Quote: “The Windows platform is not just insecure – it’s patently, blatantly, and unashamedly insecure by design.” (via Slashdot)