Failsafe

I just sent the following letter to the Boston Globe after reading Elaine Scarry’s excellent piece Failsafe!: Congratulations on having the bravery to publish Elaine Scarry’s “Failsafe”. She is right to point out that distributed threats require distributed countermeasures. She is right to point out that centralized defense of the U.S. massively failed us. She… Continue reading Failsafe

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Imperialists by necessity?

Steven den Beste wrote a long, intelligent and insightful essay on who the enemy is. I think he is right to see Afghanistan, Iraq, and the suppression of Al-Qaeda as phases of longer, wider war — a clash of civilizations driven by the failure of Islamic/Arab culture (though I would stress the problem of the… Continue reading Imperialists by necessity?

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Categorized as Terror

Living With Microsoft

In today’s episode of the Microsoft follies, we learned that Media Player 9 is un-uninstallable. Deliberately. A A Microsoft spokesthing confirmed that Media Player 9 is so deeply integrated into the operating system that it cannot be removed without doing a `system restore’. Which, incidentally, will wipe out your Office installation. It’s at times like… Continue reading Living With Microsoft