At the IETF, I officially work on authoring and instant messaging protocols. I've also been getting interested in some of the more general notification (including instant messaging and presence notification) architecture challenges. Instant messaging and presence are so useful in themselves that people are willing to have an account on a buddy list server, start a separate client and hold open a connection to the server. However, there are many other kinds of notifications users might be interested in getting on their computer or on various devices, and it's not going to be feasible to do them all with new client software, new protocols, new servers and services, and still be managable.
I have finally documented some of the notification architecture issues in a requirements draft for server-to-server notification aggregation.

Brian pointed out this gem of a quote from Ashcroft (ref):

"Quite simply, the illegal drug paraphernalia industry has invaded the homes of families across the country without their knowledge."

Were you worried about an invasion by the drug paraphernalia industry? I wasn't. The article goes on:

"Organizations advocating the legalization of marijuana accused Ashcroft of grandstanding."

I don't think you have to be pro-marijuana to find that grandstanding. Last quote:

"Surely he has something better to do with his time."

Like, have a smoke, and relax, Ashcroft.

Today's NYTimes editorial by Kenneth M. Pollack scares me.

Saddam Hussein believes that once he has acquired nuclear weapons it is the United States that will be deterred. He apparently believes that America will be so terrified of getting into a nuclear confrontation that it would not dare to stop him should he decide to invade, threaten or blackmail his neighbors.

America has never encountered a country that saw nuclear weapons as a tool for aggression. During the cold war we feared that the Russians thought this way, but we eventually learned that they were far more conservative. [...] Only Saddam Hussein sees these weapons as offensive — as enabling aggression.

It's the uncertainty that's so difficult. What's really going on? Does Saddam truly threaten my life and the lives of those like me in Western countries? Are we in greater or less danger if US invades Iraq? What are the costs in human lives on both sides if US does invade Iraq? With so many lives hanging in the balance, it's depressing that we either do not have experts that know the answers, or they're not getting through. So many reasonable-sounding people have such divergent opinions.

One last post for today's prolific blogging: my polygeek percentage. I think my stupid alliteration in the previous post should count extra points for geekistry, but oh well.

You are 50% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

One big X-factor in the different outlook towards US invasion of Iraq, among people I've discussed it with, is the prognoses for US soldiers and Iraqi civilians (few people mention Iraqi conscripts). On the one hand, we've got articles calling an invasion a "cakewalk". On the other side, articles predicting a million deaths. I wonder about cause and effect, too. Do people's preferences for peace affect the pessimism of their prognoses? Or does opting for an offensive arise from optimism toward the outcome?

Microsoft is shipping a new IM product called Threedegrees (link via Ditherati). The name alone, not to mention some of its functionality, reminds me of the six degrees of separation web site based on the sociological theory of the same name outlined for one in the movie of the same name and related to the game of the same name (and there's even six degrees of "blogeration"). Does anybody else remember the six degrees site? A bunch of my friends entered their info into that site about five years ago, it linked us all together and to some people we didn't know, it didn't do anything useful for us, and it seems to have died.

Anyway, MS threedegrees uses peer-to-peer and IM to get people together online together more. It comes from a team developing products "aimed at the "Net generation," or young people between the ages of about 13 and 24". I'm hurt. I'd like to think I'm the Net generation but I'm not in that range (one guess which end). I was BBSing in 1988, wasn't I? I had my own personal Web page in 1992. I mudded extensively in 1991. I know the Net, damnit! Ok, end rant. Fine, so there's a generation with statistically noticable comfort levels using the Net for more communication. Apparently "the computing habits of the age group [...] is radically different from people who did not grow up with the Internet". Pretty interesting.

The Straight Dope message board has a thread on "shrinklits" of movies. OK, well they're not rhyming like the original and excellent shrinklets. But they can still be funny.

IMHO, the shorter the better. Here's one of the shorter ones:

LEAVING LAS VEGAS

HE: I'm going to drink myself to death.
SHE: Okay.

The End.

And another:

American Pie

High School Senior Guys: Hey, we should all try to get laid before graduation!

*guys get laid*

So true.

Dan Simon posts a very complex blog entry today on anti-Israel feelings linked to anti-Iraq-war. Today's NYT editorials has Amos Oz on the same subject: "My objection to the war on Iraq is severely tested each time I hear these loathsome voices."

There are a lot of pro-peace activists who take reasoned positions. But those who do not (not just the ones who link in anti-Israel positions but also ANSWER) really make the movement look bad.

Drezner's blog entry on French and German attempts to dominate the EU foreign policy goes farther than I did. Drezner wonders whether their aggressive behaviour will destroy the EU.

Drezner summarizes the arguments that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) doesn't know how to do economics. That's important, because their predictions on global output are an important part of their calculations of global warming to 2100.

Actually, I'm finding Knowledge Problem has a wealth of links and information about oil and the war, including sources from Tech Central Station to Asian Times to Canada's National Post. I like it.

This table from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics is pretty amazing.

TABLE 1
World Reserves and Cumulative Production of Selected Minerals: 1950-1980 (millions of metric tons of metal content)
Mineral	1950 Reserves	Production 1950-1980	1980 Reserves
Aluminum	1,400	1,346	5,200
Copper	100	156	494
Iron	19,000	11,040	93,466
Lead	40	85	127
SOURCE: Repetto, p. 23.

So that's what "known reserves" means, huh? That we have no clue how much aluminum, copper, iron and lead really exists? I wonder about oil?

So which countries' positions on the war are "all about oil"?

It would, of course, be nice to have Germany and France and Russia and China with us. But these nations have their own interests, and we certainly shouldn't give them a veto over U.S. policy. It's telling that anti-warniks who are so ready to infer dark U.S. motives in our clash with Saddam -- oil! -- don't mention the real interests that might explain the German and French stands. Oil and other lucrative contracts -- yes, weapons deals -- as well as their large Islamic populations.

This pieceis from David Reinhard, in The Oregonian. Link via Knowledge Problem.

Steve Mallet posted an interesting piece on the limits of community: <=150 people. I played around with this number, wondering what relationship it might have to the well-known six degrees of separation. If I know 150 people and each of those know another 100 that I don't know, and so on, does that "explain" six degrees of separation?

Of course, these are stupid silly numbers, but I calculated that if about 62% of my contacts' contacts are people not already on my contact list, then within six degrees of separation I've got the whole world covered.

BBC World News last night mentioned briefly that US congress members were calling for various punishments against France and Germany, such as boycotting the Paris air show, in revenge for those countries leadership not supporting the US position.

I'd already noticed a bunch of bloggers and others showing their displeasure by not buying French wine or cheese (1, 2, 3 and 4, for example). That's freedom of choice, or expressing your freedom of speech through consumer decisions. It even seems reasonable to me for one individual boycotter to suggest to others to boycott as well. But it seems childish, peevish and petulant for US lawmakers to call for sanctions on French water or wine. Shouldn't it be OK for your allies to disagree with you? When I invite friends over for dinner and they disagree with my views on religion or politics, I don't withhold dessert.

Today's Friedman NYTimes editorial claims that if the US invades Iraq, US must remain to clean it up.

Let's start with the Bush hawks. The first rule of any Iraq invasion is the pottery store rule: You break it, you own it. We break Iraq, we own Iraq — and we own the primary responsibility for rebuilding a country of 23 million people that has more in common with Yugoslavia than with any other Arab nation. I am among those who believe this is a job worth doing, both for what it could do to liberate Iraqis from a terrible tyranny and to stimulate reform elsewhere in the Arab world. But it is worth doing only if we can do it right. And the only way we can do it right is if we can see it through, which will take years. And the only way we can see it through is if we have the maximum allies and U.N. legitimacy.

Why is this necessarily so? Why not take a large job and split it up according to an efficient and effective division of labor, among volunteers who have different skills and assets? Invading a country, stabilizing it and rebuilding it are very different tasks. The US Marines and Air Force may be best at the first, but not at the second or third. In fact, the best people to rebuild Iraq are more likely to be non-American than American. Iraqis themselves probably distrust the US more than, for example, Canada or Britain. It's a good cop, bad cop routine.

I'm a big fan of full follow-through, if there must be a war in Iraq. However, if this is indeed an international effort, then other countries besides the US must be involved in the follow-through. To be fair, Friedman's article is all about gathering a broad coalition to rebuild Iraq. I only question the assumption that rebuilding must be "owned" by US.

Fox News published an article by Wendy McElroy (link via Rob). The article is also published on ifeminists.com. McElroy implies most other feminist groups are apologists for Saddam Hussein. Three groups are mentioned: the Feminist Majority, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and Women's ENews.

It's a little hypocritical to ignore a set of outrages because it isn't convenient for your political position, but that doesn't make Feminist Majority into apologists for Saddam. It seems they have a button for "Help Afghan Women" because they have resources in Afghanistan, several programs in place to rebuild there. That's not wrong. It's true they have 6 articles on Afghanistan in recent global news and one article covering an anti-war mission to Iraq -- nowhere mentioning the rights of women in Iraq. But just because a group decries one crime doesn't mean they condone another. It may be hypocritical, but not evil.

On the other hand, I have a harder time forgiving NOW for this press release:

A U.S. invasion of Iraq will likely entail similar dangers to the safety and rights of Iraqi women—who currently enjoy more rights and freedoms than women in other Gulf nations, such as Saudi Arabia.

But I will point out that's four months old -- the Fox anti-feminist article should have dug up recent material or given up. The more recent press releases from NOW are somewhat more sane, opposing war because of domestic economic costs, for fear it will increase terrorism, and fearing "devastation of cities, towns, villages in Iraq, the loss of lives, the effect on the environment" (this is from their only press release press release since Jan 1 mentioning Iraq). It seems enough information has come out in the last four months about women in Iraq so that groups are no longer claiming they're better where they are

The third group criticized by McElroy was Women's ENews for publishing this article by Yasmine Bahrani. It's much more balanced than McElroy lets on. E.g.

"Thus, while many Iraqi women long for the basic rights that are denied them under Saddam, they have reason to be wary of the future as well... Iraqi women's concerns about the future regime are not theoretical. In fact, they have reason to mistrust Iraq's "opposition" movements, such as the Iraqi National Congress, because they have failed to include women members in key positions."

Really, it seems to me McElroy's article was written last November or December (only one article referenced was written after Oct 31 and none after Dec 31 2002), and held back until now. Perhaps McElroy waited until support for the war had grown enough to make this article seem reasonable?

To be clear, I'm happy to take potshots at both sides here. Both McElroy and the NOW press releases in particular paint the world in exaggerated black and white.

I'm not the only one who thinks Germany and France incompetently managed their opposition to US involvement in Iraq. John Bono (link via Instapundit) points out that they've even alienated Greece. The numbers in Spain suggest that if Germany and France had made Aznar feel loved, he might have gone along with them and with his own people in opposing US intervention. Instead, Germany and France made Spanish leaders feel irrelevant, with predictable results.

Spain's leaders may be on the side of the US in going to war on Iraq, but the Spanish people, or at least 74% of them, are not. I looked this up wondering what general public opinion was like in Europe, given that the EU country leaders differ so greatly. I also tried to look up polls of Italians, but couldn't find numbers.

There's no way Germany should have been surprised that other Euro nations weren't following their anti-American-intervention lead. It's natural for any regime to most fear the country that most threatens their sovereignty:

• Clearly Germany and France (G/F) fear US imperialism as the force that most threatens their influence and power. They don't fear each other greatly today, because of the potential to cooperate and magnify their power (particularly if they can speak for the EU). Furthermore, neither country is so much bigger than the other that one can dominate the other.
• Smaller Euro countries don't fear American intervention in Iraq as much as G/F do. Instead, these smaller Euro countries are more likely to fear G/F because the foreign policy sovereignty of each of these small countries is threatened most by G/F attempting to speak for the European Union.
• China unsurprisingly does fear US intervention in Iraq at least as much as G/F (more so since China can realistically fear that it may one day be invaded to liberate downtrodden subjects). G/F should have looked to China as an anti-American ally, rather than being embarrassed by attempting to speak for other Euros.
• We can even look on Germany's opposition as a "regime", one whose power is most threatened, obviously, by Schröder's party. No wonder Angela Merkel is more annoyed at Schröder's party speaking for all Germans, than by US threat (see linked editorial for quote by Merkel). Again, Germany's ruling party should not have been surprised.

Update: Steve sees even more in this - EU leaders jockeying for position ruling the EU eventually.