While I have grown fond of TNR and through it liberalism, it is because of smart, intelligent articles from the likes of authors like Gregg Easterbrook–not the works of short-sighted thinkers Joseph Braude.

If, as Braude suggests, we need to engage Arabs and Muslims by speaking their local vernaculars, why is Al Jazeera so popular? They seem to be plenty influential despite using a mix of the fussha (which the US backed network uses) and local dialects.

At the very least his article should be framed as congratulatory towards the vaillant US efforts thus far. The Al Hurra network is the only way besides the scarred, gun-toting troops stationed in Iraq we have to communicate directly with Arabs. Braude is right that we should do more to encourage other, more local groups. But given his attitutde, I worry that Braude probably just wants more funding…

From the company goes overboard with lawsuits department (also know as the Apple Desk): ArsTechnica is reporting on a a couple people being sued for mistakenly having the upcoming Tiger OS leaked onto public BitTorrent sites. Apple is suing the pants off a college student who has around $200 in his bank account. He basically says he was sorry and that he only thought it would be distributed to five or six friends in the invite-only MacTKA community. Perhaps he is being dishonest, but he clearly has a poor understanding of what p2p networks will do with hot networks (distribute them everywhere).

Still, as half the Mac development community (including Apple co-founder Wozniak) has testified, Apple is doing more harm than is deserved to this student–and their reputation. A good company would realize the honest confession of his actions as well as the stress he has endured is more than enough for putting a file up for distribution for an hour. Especially given the fact that Apple’s recent stock gains are entirely contributed to illegal downloads of music files. How many 40GB iPods has Apple sold? Far more than the number of people who have purchased 500 albums on CD and MP3. Can Apple honestly say that 8.2 million people own the rights to 60, 120, 250 or 500 albums? They need to be more considerate towards pirates given that they make up the majority of the iPod user (and therefore the Apple financial) base.

I know that this is just shamelessly propagating spam, BUT I mention it because my students have mentioned applying for it: the green card lottery. Apparently every year the US draws a few names of people they will give free green cards too. Anyone can apply for the lottery. Essentially all of my students would love to live and work in the USA–an amazing fact–but sadly cannot since it is so difficult to get a work visa in this country (especially an unsponsored one).

This website (a mix of Japanese and English) helps you apply for the lottery. They even give you a free ticket to the US if you win. How they profit from it I do not know…

Speaking of Japan, why is the possibility of the throne passing to an Empress being reported on Drudge? First, that is a way old news story. Second, who cares? It mostly just illuminates Japan’s complicated male-female power arrangement. Also, prior to the arrival of Buddhism and Chinese influence, I have heard people tell me that Japan was a matriarchal society.

\^/!7# 7#3 $uy0u . r3m3m63r, 4$ 63ph0r3, y0u

For unknown reasons, I despised the whole concept of the Lord of the Rings. I think it was just too over-hyped for me. Most people spend much of their lives making fun of nerds who read fantasy books like Lord of the Rings. It becomes a motion picture and suddenly half the world is dying to see the movie and read about the book?! Hey look, I wrote about LOTR almost exactly one year ago!

At any rate, one of the best songs I have heard in a long time is “Concerning Hobbits”. Howard Shore was the best thing about that trilogy.

It seems that Japan is taking advantage of being one of the few developed countries publicly supporting Bush by flexing their muscles on the subject of Taiwan and also by threatening North Korea. Interestingly, my students tell me that if it was not for the United States, Japan would invade North (and probably South since they hardly differentiate between the two) Korea.

As a side note, I read somewhere that Korea is spelled with a K because after Japan conquered the country they wanted to make sure it came after Japan when alphabetized. Historically it was Corea. Koreans don’t like Japan and wanted to express this and their independence when they reverted back to this historical norm in the 2002 soccer World Cup.

I have cleated a monstel! The Reft Light keyboald! Fol you Mac OS X usels, simpry downroad the fire, and move it to youl /Riblaly/Keyboald Rayouts/ fordel. Then open up System Plefelences->Intelnationar->Input Menu and rook fol “ReftLight”. Crick the checkbox to the reft of the “ReftLight” icon to serect it, and then serect the “Show input menu in menu bal” option down berow. Tada! You can now easiry switch between legural mode and Kim-Jong-Ir Farararara mode!

Downroad Reft Light (crick me sexy rady)

One of my first (visual basic) programs was a little app where you typed in a sentence, and it outputted an equivalent sentence in l33t$p34k. It totally r0x0rd.

Unfortunately that program has been consumed by the format gods long ago, but you can still accomplish a similar effect by learning the ways of l33t$p34k from Microsoft’s support center. Enjoy!

The newsletter described workers at a factory in Chinatown suing an employer for back-wages after enduring conditions so grueling that they had to send their babies back to China to be raised.

That is horrible! To think that any hard working person has to migrate their family back to their (communist, authoritarian) homeland after spending all the effort getting here is just not right.

Why do some people wind up working 11 hours a day without breaks for pennies while others find a cushy desk job making millions shuffling papers? I do not understand the asymmetry.

This just in! American spies have infiltrated the Italian communication network. Americans leakers suggest the targets were access to new communication channels.

In unrelated news, American-Australian relations have recently improved after direct, bilateral talks started between the two nations. Rumors have it the secret, after hours negotiations have proven very fruitful.