MICROSOFT WINDOWS UPDATE is spying on you. So is Windows Media Player.

Hmm. How much of that information can the government get, as part of the antitrust settlement?

TODAY is the tenth anniversary of the first WTC attack — the Technoptimist has some thoughts.

HERE’S MORE EVIDENCE (er, well, actually it’s just some evidence, since my snarky comments below don’t count) that antiwar protests actually increase support for war:

“Some people have their minds made up, but many people are still uninformed,” said Veronica Marks, a fourth-year sociology student and anti-war activist who attended the last two San Francisco demonstrations.

Marks protests to combat what she sees as a biased media and to let people know Bush is a “tyrant.”

But according to a study by political science graduate student Phil Gussin, the opinions of people who conditionally supported war changed toward favoring war when shown photographs of Bush and then of anti-war demonstrators.

“If anti-war demonstrators are trying to gather support by having their pictures shown, they are having the opposite effect,” Gussin said.

Subjects who were shown pictures of the president had a seven percent higher approval rating for Bush compared to those who were shown other, non-political pictures, Gussin said. Subjects shown pictures of Bush and anti-war photographs had a 15 percent higher approval rating than the control group, Gussin said.

I seem to recall Eric Alterman alluding to similar research from the Vietnam era, but I can’t find the link.

(Via Russell Wardlow).

UPDATE: I like this one though.

NPR IS GETTING A LOT OF FLAK from American Jews over its Middle East coverage.

(Via Romenesko).

IT’S PEOPLE LIKE THE ONES DESCRIBED IN THIS POST who give professors a bad name. Of course, I wasn’t there, but the story seems all too credible.

IRAQIS TO AMERICA: PLEASE DON’T BACK DOWN AGAIN!

“We want the Americans to come, and if they come tomorrow it will not be too soon,” said an unemployed 23-year old visiting from the southern Iraqi city of Basra. “People are nervous, people are afraid, we don’t want war. But do we want to change the government and we will welcome anyone who comes to get rid of Saddam.”

Well, that’s pretty much how I feel. And other Americans agree — here’s a Minnesota group that has given away over 5,000 “Liberate Iraq” signs in the past two weeks. They’ve got a cool informational video on the web, too. Just more of that grassroots pro-liberation activism that I’ve been writing about!

UPDATE: This article by Amir Taheri, on the anti-war movement’s unwillingness to listen to actual Iraqis, is worth reading, too. Excerpt:

“Are these people ignorant, or are they blinded by hatred of the United States?” Nasser the poet demanded.

The Iraqis would have had much to tell the “antiwar” marchers, had they had a chance to speak. Fadel Sultani, president of the National Association of Iraqi authors, would have told the marchers that their action would encourage Saddam to intensify his repression.

“I had a few questions for the marchers,” Sultani said. “Did they not realize that oppression, torture and massacre of innocent civilians are also forms of war? Are the antiwar marchers only against a war that would liberate Iraq, or do they also oppose the war Saddam has been waging against our people for a generation?”

Hey, those are the same questions that I’ve been asking!

UPDATE: Here’s more on the subject, from an Iraqi exile in the Christian Science Monitor.

BOTTOM-UP MEDIA: My TechCentralStation column for today is up.

BIG PROTESTS LAST WEEK. Growing support for war this week. Coincidence?

JOHN HOWARD EXPLAINS WHY we can’t contain Saddam.

Along the same lines, Stephen Green offers Nick Kristof a history lesson.

HUGO CHAVEZ UPDATE:

We know how Hugo Chavez treats Venezuelans who criticize him: He shoots them.

How does Chavez respond to criticism from abroad? Well, it looks as if we found out the other day.

On Monday, Colombia and Spain both issued strong statements critical of Chavez.

Early on Tuesday, large explosions occurred at both the Columbian and Spanish embassies in Venezuela.

Pure coincidence, no doubt. Go here and here for more. Meanwhile Chavez is blaming the opposition, of course.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT. Where’s Molly Ivins? Where’s “Reporters Without Borders?” Where’s Phil Donahue? Oh, right. . .

RAISE RUSH LIMBAUGH’S BLOOD PRESSURE — KEEP SALON ALIVE! So writes David Talbot, who I suspect is more of a threat to his creditors’ stress levels than to Limbaugh’s. Actually, of course, I’d like to see Salon survive, but I don’t really see how it can.

It’s Mickey Kaus who does (well, did) the “assignment desk” feature, but I’d like to see someone who really understands the economics of web publishing, and who can get insiders to dish, write a postmortem piece that clearly — and, probably, juicily — explains just how it’s possible to go through that much money publishing a web magazine.

FEBRUARY’S TRAFFIC has already passed the figure for all of January. Go figure.

ONE OF MY LEFTY READERS EMAILS:

You seem a talented fellow with a generous nature

too bad you use your skills for evil.

Me? Evil?

UPDATE: Just got myself tested:

How evil are you?

So there you have it.

AS A SLUG MIGHT CALL A BUTTERFLY “UGLY” — so Noam Chomsky calls Vaclav Havel “morally repugnant.”

THE VIEW FROM EAST TIMOR:

I still acutely remember the suffering and misery brought about by war. It would certainly be a better world if war were not necessary. Yet I also remember the desperation and anger I felt when the rest of the world chose to ignore the tragedy that was drowning my people. We begged a foreign power to free us from oppression, by force if necessary.

So I follow with some consternation the debate on Iraq in the United Nations Security Council and in NATO. I am unimpressed by the grandstanding of certain European leaders. Their actions undermine the only truly effective means of pressure on the Iraqi dictator: the threat of the use of force. . . .

Abandoning such a threat would be perilous. Yes, the antiwar movement would be able to claim its own victory in preventing a war. But it would have to accept that it also helped keep a ruthless dictator in power and explain itself to the tens of thousands of his victims.

History has shown that the use of force is often the necessary price of liberation. A respected Kosovar intellectual once told me how he felt when the world finally interceded in his country: “I am a pacifist. But I was happy, I felt liberated, when I saw NATO bombs falling.”

Me, I’m pro-liberation.

HERE’S A REPORT on the spread of radical Islam in prisons. Something to worry about, especially as the government seems to be more or less encouraging it.

MICHAEL TOTTEN WRITES:

The oil companies want stability. It makes no difference to them who owns the oil wells. It could be Satan or Uncle Sam; their profits will not change. The one thing they don’t want is upheaval and war.

For these reasons, the oil companies have been lobbying for peace with Saddam. Everyone who was paying attention to Iraq before September 11 knows this is true.

The radical left is right about one thing. The oil companies have a nefarious agenda in the Middle East. They want to keep all the nasty dictators in place. It is good for business. That, folks, is blood for oil.

The radical left used to be against this sort of thing. I liked the radical left then. I do not like them anymore.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Will Allen emails:

Glenn, an ever-growing group of people have come to realize that the forces of reaction are just as strong, if not stronger, on the left as on the right. As a radical advocate of human freedom (wanna overthrow a dictator? fine by me!) , this is encouraging, in that many people will be more hesitant to automatically assign concern for the well being of the masses (a term of condecension if there ever was one) to those who label themselves as being of the left.

I think that realization is spreading.

RICHARD BUTLER says that “Iraq is toast.”

DONAHUE’S TV SHOW IS HISTORY: His last show featured Rosie O’Donnell speaking against war.

TEACHERS PICKING ON SOLDIERS’ KIDS: I was skeptical of these reports at first, but Joe Katzman offers evidence that it’s real. And Trent Telenko has more on the subject.

It’s a disgrace, of course.

UPDATE: Naval reader Mike Martin emails:

Our son’s high school (Catholic) recently sent home a flyer with the monthly notices about homework help, teen mood swings and current fund raisers titled “War Causes Hunger”. It had a generic blurb, if not targeting the current administration then quite coincidentally timed, declaring that war causes hunger and hunger is bad. I had an urge to write to the principal to ask when they would send the notices home about dictators causing hunger and dictators are bad. I didn’t, but I still might.

Let me know what response you get. . . .

YEAH, NOT MUCH POSTING TODAY: I’ve been busy with meetings and classes. But go read more about the burgeoning pro-war — or, I guess I should say, “pro-liberation” — movement, over at GlennReynolds.com where there’s a brand-new post up.

UPDATE: Dick Aubrey emails:

If the pro-war folks are going to be called “pro-liberation”, then I guess the anti-war folks should be called, “anti-liberation.”

Well, if the shoe fits. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Randy Paul emails that the above is unfair to antiwar people. But as Jose Ramos-Horta writes in the New York Times op-ed I quote here, “History has shown that the use of force is often the necessary price of liberation.” And as he notes, the anti-war movement (which he characterizes as noble) needs to accept that keeping Saddam in power means preventing the liberation of Iraqis.

One of my problems with the “peace” movement as it’s currently constructed is that it’s not willing to admit that its positions can have dreadful consequences, and that being for “peace” is potentially as risky, and as deadly, as being for “war.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Randy responds.

HOMELAND SECURITY IS STILL A JOKE:

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico — There are no armed guards to knock out. No sensors to deactivate. No surveillance cameras to cripple. To sneak into Los Alamos National Laboratory, the world’s most important nuclear research facility, all you do is step over a few strands of rusted, calf-high barbed wire.

I should know. On Saturday morning, I slipped into and out of a top-secret area of the lab while guards sat, unaware, less than a hundred yards away.

Not quite as James Bondian as it might sound, but bad enough. Noah Shachtman, who wrote the story, has more on his blog, DefenseTech.

BROOKLYN COLLEGE TENURE BATTLE UPDATE:

February 25, 2003 — The CUNY trustees yesterday granted tenure to a Brooklyn College history professor who ripped the school’s post-9/11 forum for promoting hatred against America – overruling the college’s appointments panel, which sparked outrage by passing him over.

In a rare reversal on a personnel matter, City University Chancellor Matthew Goldstein and the policy board concluded that Assistant Professor Robert “KC” Johnson is a nationally renowned scholar who should not have been denied promotion and tenure.

Interesting. Erin O’Connor has more, naturally.

RESPONDING TO AN EMAILED CHALLENGE FROM A CNN PRODUCER (c’mon, Juan, tell us his name) Juan Paxety points out that we’re not talking about a second UN resolution, but a nineteenth resolution — and he lists them all.

“Rush to war,” my ass.