I recently watched The Power of Nightmares: The Shadows in the Cave, a BBC documentary.  Some of its findings are contested, but I consider it startling even if only half of it is true:

• It may be that al-Qaeda is no more formal an organization than the average businessperson's professional network.
• The "dirty" part of dirty bombs apparently causes virtually no harm.
• Counter-terrorism prosecutors have used lack of criminal activity as evidence of "sleepers" and claim to have found secret messages in ordinary-looking home videos and doodles.

I'm not sure if I agree with the documentary's emphasis on neoconservatists being the driving force behind American counter-terrorism.  Regardless of the political philosophy, I recall the first 12-18 months of reactions following 9/11 were widely supported across all parts of society.

I ran across an interesting nugget in Google Analytics today.  Apparently someone in Many, Lousiana went to my website yesterday, generated 226 pageviews, clicked an ad, returned, and generated another 383 pageviews.  It's odd, but I'm not sure that its worth looking into further.

It's nice to see Spreadshirt in the news.

I think this article is short-sighted.  It's a long article, and I won't debate all of it.  And I won't ridicule the whole thing like BoingBoing.  However, I think they're overlooking at least one wonderful aspect of the Internet and blogs: the emergence of the Internet and blogs has greatly increased the awareness of minority opinions and private realities.  While there are plenty of blogs that say steretypical things like "I love Brittney Spears" and "iPods are cool," there are plenty other that say rarely talked about things like "I have a balloon fetish" and "feel tired after my chemo" and "pastor to flirt at church".  With the Internet, many people who previously thought they were alone in the world can discover that there are thousands or millions of other people who are like them in a particular aspect.  Without the Internet, we would only know about these things if they happened among our relatively small circles of direct contact or if they were in the media.  Stopping blogs is not a good solution; it would be wrong to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  In response to the many Bible verses cited in the article, I would like to respond with "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

• Cabriolet.s.c - my lovely convertible
• English Works - what else would I do with old papers?
• Jackson, Michigan links - local sites
• Northwest - or view links to students and alumni
• Miscellaneous - including Bill Gates