I talked to my Mom today.  She said my 'blog is getting boring, too much technical stuff and not enough politics.  Of course when I write about politics people tell me they don't care about that, they read for the technical stuff.  I guess I'll just have to write whatever I want, that's easiest anyway :)

So, I see where Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad have jointly declared a ceasefire .  I can't help but be cynical about this; they have a long list of demands from Israel.  As soon as it becomes obvious that the demands are not going to be met - and there is no political way they will be - it will give the terrorists an excuse to go back to violence.

I think President Bush has the right idea: U.S. Cautious about Palestinian Truce.  "The White House on Sunday called a three-month suspension of attacks by Palestinian militant groups a step in the right direction but said the Palestinian Authority must still dismantle 'terrorist infrastructures.'"  Yep.

Steven Den Beste is running a betting pool: how long till the next suicide bombing?  He thinks less than four days...

What happens when a government systematically denies the truth?  In a medical situation with extreme implications for the populace?  South Africans rape children as the cure for AIDS .  Apparently people believe that having sex with virgins will cure AIDS, mostly because they lack for real medical information.  Unbelievable.

I just got the latest issue of Fortune magazine.  Not good.  On the cover: Krispy Kreme is "America's hottest brand"; inside you can find The Hole Story.  Well I read it and I must say it shed no light whatsoever, even though the story is full of holes (sorry).  This could have been an interesting story about what makes a successful consumer brand, and how such a thing as a donut "tips", but no...  Also inside, a story about "the 50 best companies for minorities".  There are accompanying articles on "diversity", with the theme echoed by a lot of ads. 

C'mon, people, this is 2003.  Focusing on race is so 1900s.  Any differential treatment based on skin color is discrimination!  Do we run articles about "the 50 best companies for blondes"?  How about "the 50 best companies for short people"?  Or even "the 50 best companies for Italians"?  Perhaps because I've been a technologist in an industry like software which is highly integrated, but it seems people really don't pay attention to race any more.  I've worked with people from all over the world and from every race, and it just doesn't matter.  Companies hire and promote the best possible people for a position regardless of race because they must to be competitive.  I think articles like this one are a step backward; Fortune needs to wake up.

The NYTimes considers the implications of the success of Harry Potter and the bootlegged Hulk movie: Harry crushes the Hulk.  The point seems to be that kids like Harry Potter so they bought the new book, whereas they don't like the Hulk so they "pirated" it by downloading the bootleg.  Huh?  This is totally incorrect.  People paid for the book because they couldn't get the content any other way.  Imagine an e-book environment where reading was pleasurable (a really thin flexible tablet, or something like that), and imagine e-books were available on Kazaa (as they surely will be, someday); does anyone seriously doubt many many people and not just kids would have downloaded Harry?  The big difference - indeed the only meaningful difference - between books and movies at this point in time is the technology.  And that will change.

Tim Bray continues his series on search technology: Squirmy Words.  Yeah, "squirmy" is a technical term :)

A lot of reaction to Dave's taking down Scripting News for a day...  see The Scobleizer for links.

Don Park: My Take on Echo's Future.  "I don't think the chance of Echo replacing RSS is very good."  Don was an early supporter of Echo.

Dave Winer: Okay I think I've made my point.

Hey, Dr. GUI has a blog!  Warning this is for geeks only.  Dr. GUI is a mythical character from Microsoft's Developer Network newsletters; he basically does Q&A on highly technical issues posed by developers.  (GUI is an acronym for Graphical User Interface.)  One thing for sure, the good doctor is always "in".

Intellitoast.  Pretty cool for being a hot use of Flash :)