More Pro-Linux, anti-Microsoft propaganda

The collection of articles below is taken directly from this page at DesktopLinux.com. Yet more reasons to avoid Micro$oft whenever possible.

It's not just me, folks! The question is no longer why use Linux, it's why not use Linux.

Linux for average users is definitely here. It makes no sense to pay hundreds of dollars for Microsoft software, when there are free web browsers, email programs, office suites, and much, much more available for free.

Take a look at this screenshot, or this one, or this one, or this one, to see just how beautiful and configurable the Linux desktop is these days. You can even run these desktops (KDE and GNOME) on top of Mac OS X these days.

Please let me know if you need help giving Linux a try.

Here is the list of articles:

• MS licensing: Pay now or pay more later [ZDNet]
  
• Companies cringe at Microsoft licensing [USAToday]
  
• Schools Cry Bully Over Microsoft Licensing Fees [PCWorld]
  
• Microsoft pitches schools new licensing option [USAToday]
  
• U.S. allies pushing Open Source [NewsForge]
  
• Taiwan opens door to open source [CNET]
  
• IBM signs deal with Germany for Linux [DesktopLinux.com]
  
• Open-Source Fight Flares At Pentagon [Washington Post]
  
• An Interview with Peruvian Congressman Villanueva [LinuxToday]
  
• City of Munich plans migration from Windows [Heise Online]
  
• Linux contract treads on Microsoft turf [CNET]
  
• The penguin goes to school: Linux to debut in Goa, India [NewsForge]
  
• ANALYSIS: Microsoft vs. open source gets political [IDG.net]
  
• Linux operating system gains ground in China [ChinaDaily]
  
• E-México favors Windows over Linux [InfoWorld]
  
• Microsoft upgrade plan gets cold shoulder [CNET]
  
• Who gave Microsoft control of your IT costs? You did [ZDNet]

The Dancing Wu Li Masters

I've been re-reading Gary Zukav's 1979 book, The Dancing Wu Li Masters. For those of you who want to learn about modern physics, from quantum mechanics to relativity, but don't have the required grasp of advanced mathematics to dive in headfirst, this book is a must-read. I'm no physicist (obviously), but his book is enthralling and very interesting. It may be wildly inaccurate, but I applaud Zukav's effort to, in his words, write about physics for liberal arts people. At least now I have some useful understanding of physics, although I am a bit skeptical of his "new-agey" later writings. I haven't read them, but they look pretty watered-down, at least at first glance.

^ posted at 11:49 PM

The End of Pax Americana?

I just read an article by Immanuel Wallerstein called The Eagle Has Crash Landed that is very interesting. In some ways, he is claiming a similar thing that I am in the Information Age Will Kill America post below. But, as a well-known academic, his piece is much longer and more detailed. It's an interesting read, and has a theme I hadn't considered: America is already in decline.

^ posted at 11:38 PM

The RIAA, the music industry, and Janis Ian

Janis Ian has published an article called The Internet Debacle - An Alternative View that is a must-read. The biggest point of the article that I can see is one that needs to be hammered home to everyone who cares about music: The interests of the RIAA are not the same as the interests of the artists they claim to represent.

The most damning piece of evidence I know is that CD sales were hugely affected by Napster. When Napster was running full strength, the RIAA did their best to claim that they were losing money. But, in fact, their profits were up. As always.

But, in 2001, after they managed to shut down Napster, guess what. Their CD sales actually did go down.

I have personally decided to boycott the RIAA. I will not buy any CDs from major labels or in record stores. If I buy a CD these days, it is directly from the band or from a website run by a band. So there.

^ posted at 11:46 AM

This is a piece I wrote last November. I just re-read it, and now, 8 months later, I still stand by everything in it. The War On Terrorism is going nowhere.

The American Waging of "War"

As we all know, the United States is now involved in a war. The bombs are dropping in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the media is saturated with its coverage, and our political leaders are working overtime deciding how to present this "war" to the wider world. But what is the nature of this war? Is it, ethically speaking, defensible?

To begin to understand these questions, I turn to America's history of war and the United States government's use of the word "war" in the latter half of the 20th century and up until today. All of America's "wars," up to and including World War II, had several things in common that we normally associate with the word "war." First, they involved armed conflict between the soldiers of two or more countries, each defending the ideologies of their leadership. In each case, there were specific and relatively narrow disagreements between the parties involved. The objectives of each war were, more or less, clear. For example, in the Revolutionary War, the primary issue was legitimacy of government. From the American perspective, the British had forfeited their legitimacy to govern the colonies through their oppressive practices. From the British perspective, the Americans were colonies and subjects of the British Empire and therefore had no political legitimacy from which to declare independence. This fundamental disagreement could not be resolved, and war was the result. There was a decisive objective, and a decisive end to that war. In the Civil War, the issues and results were similarly clear.

The 20th century saw the United States get involved with war away from American soil for the first time. American involvement in World War I, or the "Great War to End All Wars" as it was called at the time, was tinged with notions of going "over there" to rescue Europe, bringing a swift and just end to a horrific bloodbath. Barely 20 years later, World War II was underway, with the prime goal of halting the aggression and atrocities of the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese in Asia. Many Americans believe that World War II was the last "just" war that America has been involved in. Certainly, putting a stop to the Holocaust was an ethically justified objective by almost any measure. The Holocaust also represents one of the most vivid examples of the grey area between the notions of "war" and "crime"---an ambiguity we are still struggling with today.

But since World War II, the use of the word "war" by the United States government has become complex, confused, and problematic. This was the era when the "Cold War" began, when the word "war" was used to describe not outright combat, but opposing ideologies and detente between nations wielding enough destructive firepower to destroy the planet. The word "war" now referred to the possibility of war, a semantic maneuver that began to close off the possibility of serious debate over the role of "war" in the nuclear age. As time passed, the "Cold War" tensions erupted into violence in Asia. By almost any measure, the "conflicts" in Korea and Vietnam were wars. After all, there were disputes between political entities which could not be resolved, resulting in armed combat. But there was never a formal declaration of war; from the perspective of the U.S. government, they were not wars.

As the "conflict" in Vietnam was simmering---which the Johnson administration continued to insist was not a war---a new "war" was declared by the U.S. government. In his 1964 State of the Union Address, President Johnson told the American people that "this administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America." In words eerily familiar to those of us who have listened to George W. Bush's recent speeches, he also noted that "it will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won." So for the first time, the word "war" was used as a metaphor by the U.S. government, without referring to even the possibility of armed combat between soldiers. Instead, the "War on Poverty" meant that the Johnson administration intended to expend its significant power and resources on reducing the effects of poverty on poor Americans.

"War" as a metaphor has been used by the U.S. government several times since. Beginning with the Nixon administration, and familiar to any student of the D.A.R.E. program, the U.S. government has been waging a "War on Drugs." "War" is, in this case, still being used as a metaphor, but in a very different way than the "War on Poverty." The "War on Poverty" did not target poor people, but the "War on Drugs" has indeed targeted those involved with drugs, either as users or addicts or as dealers. So like more traditional uses of the word "war," the "War on Drugs" has been a war where people have been killed and lives have been destroyed, disguised under the abstraction of a metaphor. But even this metaphor is flawed. The "War on Drugs" is more accurately a "War on Some Drugs," and still more accurately a "War On Some People Who Use Or Sell Some Drugs." The objectives of this "war" are less than clear. Presumably, it is a goal of the U.S. Government to protect its people from the dangers of drug addiction.

But this "War on Drugs" has not gone well, and at a very large cost to humanity as a whole. As a result of this war, violence has been perpetuated as the network of drug dealers from top to bottom have armed themselves in response to the heavily-armed DEA. Families have been torn apart as addicts, whom most in the medical community regard as "sick" and not as "criminal," have been incarcerated by the hundreds of thousands. As a result of this criminalization of addicts in the "War on Drugs," the United States now operates the largest prison system on the planet, with an overall incarceration rate 6 times that of the nearest western nation. Billions of dollars have been spent, thousands have been killed, countless lives have been destroyed, and drug use is today more popular than ever. Clearly, this "War on Drugs" has been an abysmal failure, a conclusion shared by nearly every vigorous, independent study conducted on it.

In recent weeks, George W. Bush has declared a "War on Terrorism." This war is beset with many of the same difficulties as the "War on Drugs." A "War On Terrorism" is more accurately described as a "War on Some Terrorism" and even more accurately as a "War on Some Terrorists." But there are additional problems. A "drug" is relatively easy to define as a substance that, when ingested into a human body, produces specific and measurable physiological changes in that body. "Terrorism," however, is not as concrete. I doubt many would disagree that the atrocities of 9/11 were acts of terrorism. But what are the limits of terrorism? If we look to the attack on the World Trade Center as a clear example of terrorism, we find the following characteristics: 1. a building was attacked with a bomb (in this case airplane fuel); 2. many innocent people were killed, either directly in the attack or in its aftermath (the collapse of the buildings); 3. the motivation for the attacks seems to be political in nature; and 4. the violence was not waged between two or more armies, but rather consisted of a premeditated, surprise attack on civilians.

In August 1998, there was another incident that can, by the above description of "terrorism," be described as a terrorist attack. A pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan was destroyed by a bomb; thousands of innocent people were killed either directly in the attack or in its aftermath (the subsequent lack of medicine in the Sudan); the attackers had a political motivation; and the violence was not waged between two or more armies but rather consisted of a premeditated, surprise attack on civilians. This act of "terrorism," however, was ordered not by Osama bin Laden, but by President Bill Clinton. It was carried out not by radical, fundamentalist Muslims, but by American soldiers. The bomb was not a hijacked airplane, but a cruise missile. My point is not to compare President Clinton to Osama bin Laden or to characterize U.S. soldiers as terrorists, but to point out that producing a precise definition of "terrorism" is, at best, a daunting task. Subsequently, a "War on Terrorism" is beset with several ambiguities. The U.S. government's use of the word "war" is problematic, and the notion of "terrorism" is problematic. With such complexities and ambiguities involved in the "War on Terrorism," I submit than an ethical justification of this "war" is impossible, simply because there is no clear definition of what a "War on Terrorism" is; there is no clear point of departure for an ethical investigation.

Since the U.S. government's use of the word "war" has become generic, vague, and confusing, the United States' success at waging war, literally or metaphorically, has been disastrous. With the possible exception of the "Cold War," America has not decisively "won" a single "war" it has been involved in since World War II. The Korean War ended in truce. Vietnam was a disaster. The Persian Gulf War seems to still be going on as we continue to regularly bomb Iraq. Anyone spending time in an inner city will tell you that the "War on Poverty" has failed. The "War on Drugs" has been an utterly tragic failure. With this evidence in mind, it is no fantastic leap to conclude that this new "War on Terrorism" is also doomed to fail.

The Information Age will kill America

I was listening to a report on NPR this morning about America's reaction to terrorism. One of the interviewees expressed concern about information available on the Internet that would make America vulnerable. For example, the government recently removed a webpage that tracked shipments of toxic waste material between states. Apparently, someone decided that it would be too easy for a Terrorist(tm) to use that information to wreak a certain amount of havoc.

It seems to me that the restriction of information is, at best, a futile way to combat terrorism. As an example, the NPR interviewer pointed out that nuclear power plants are also highly visible targets and very vulnerable to air attacks. Information of this type is so widely available that it is logistically impossible to restrict. But apart from the basic "Information wants to be free" argument (actually I prefer the old hacker epithet that "The Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it."), the problem lies in the fact that it is impossible to restrict enough information to effectively prevent terrorist attacks. Additionally, if one seeks to restrict the flow of information, then one will inevitably begin to restrict freedom. This assertion is basically an extension of Sir Francis Bacon's adage that "knowledge is power." If knowledge is power, and if knowledge (or information) is restricted, then power politics is at work. If that happens, then the idealized America where everyone is free and protected by the Constitution will be dead.

As I've maintained since 9/11, the only way to combat terrorism is to remove any motivation to attack America. Force will not work; for every village bombed, for every apartment building in the Gaza strip with children inside that gets hosed, for every Arab killed by American bullets, there will be loved ones left behind with a profound reason to hate America. America, and The American Way(tm), is for so many an abstract idea that is used to sustain the overwhelming economic privilege for Americans and the systematic oppression of non-Americans, particularly in the so-called "Third World" nations where corporate America has effectively taken over.

In my experience, most Americans, particularly those without education in the humanities, remain largely ignorant of and isolated from the facts behind this inequitable social structure. In America, even the poorest people generally have more access to food than the poorest of the world.

But as the Information Age unfolds, more and more Americans will become aware that The American Way(tm) is having dire consequences for the vast majority of humans. The environment is moving steadily towards uninhabitability; millions of people starve to death each year; there is an endless cycle of war, the new War On Terrorism(tm) being but the latest incarnation as the oppressed fight for survival in the only way they can; and the herd, slave-like conditions in America's inner cities (and beyond) have created the most violent society in the world, chock full of Nietzschean ressentiment.

And to top it off, The American Way(tm) is now beginning to prey upon the very people they are, at least in theory and on the surface, sworn to protect: the American people themselves. I urge everyone to look carefully at the rhetoric coming out of Washington. The contradictions are numerous and damning: "You are either with us, or you're with The Terrorists(tm)"; "In order to protect your freedoms, we must take them away"; "Killing is wrong, so if you are convicted of killing, we will kill you"; etc., etc., ad nauseum.

The Information Age thus threatens to expose more and more of these contradictions, and will increasingly confront the American people with an ethical choice: will Americans continue to believe and participate in a system that privileges Americans at the expense of everyone else, while particularly privileging a very few Americans, the elite of the elite, a system that is based on corruption, exploitation, and is riddled with contradictions; or will Americans come together and create a new, more harmonious America for the mutual benefit of everyone, American and non-American alike?

As an aside, if the latter is chosen, how many terrorists will be out to get America?

^ posted at 12:52 AM

Of course, as free Americans, we must be ever vigilant. The new office of homeland security has issued another vague warning that a terrorist attack could happen today. I, like every intelligent person I have spoken to, without exception, wonder what exactly this means. We should be vigilant, and report suspicious behaviors?

CNN.com has a story called "Suspicious? What's That?" But I disagree with their notion of what qualifies as suspicious. Rather, to me it is suspicious that these vague, meaningless terrorist alerts are issued in the first place. What exactly are they trying to accomplish? Anyone stupid enough to defend the practice by claiming that they are just trying to save lives needs to let go of their fear of terrorists, and put it in the right place. Even if they truly did want to save lives from terrorists, this action would not be a way to go about it. Incidentally, Michael Moore, bless him, has put together his new Mike's Office of Homeland Security that contains much more salient and meaningful alerts.

Finally, in an attempt to honor the greatest of American traditions, I'm going to go put in a few hours of work today, and sell my attention for a few hours so that I'll be able to make some money. Sometimes I just feel unclean.

^ posted at 2:58 PM