Seyla Benhabib: Democracy and Difference

This collection of academic essays contains short essays by all of the the main people I have come across who problematise deliberative democracy including Habermas, Young, Mouffe, Phillips and Mansbridge and an excellent defense of deliberative democracy from Benhabib herself (“Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy”).

1) SuSe Linux 8.2 is now available for download (and I am busy downloading it!)

2) the UK government’s new civil servant in charge of broadband is Stephen Speed (really!)jinke mp3 karib aapzen mp3 512adp credit corporationwordpress viagra spam blog comment 20053generic sildenafil viagraaaja aaja ringtone3gp tp mp3machine 5×5 gambling haunted house arcade Map

Cindy Cohn at the EFF gave an interesting [IP] Report from FTC Spam Conference spelling out several problems with the way that current anti-spam initiatives work:

“a. Lack of transparency. It was telling that none of the Blacklists on the panel would reveal which ISPs use them and only one ISP in the audience spoke up that he used a Blacklists.
b. Overbreadth — the techniques block more than just spam. The worst problem here, after just plain errors in anti-spam tools, is the blocking of other customers of an ISP because one of the customers is accused of spamming.
c. Lack of due process for those accused of spamming. Few anti-spam measures give any warning beforehand and there seems to be a general failure to respond quickly to mistakes.
d. Misuse of anti-spam processes for non-spam related purposes. I mentioned Moveon.org’s suspicion that their messages are being marked as spam by those who disagree with their political message and the well-publicized incidents of anti-spam folks blocking each other due to competitive and personal disputes.
e. “Whack a mole” problem. The current situation has an everchanging number of individuals and groups acting as decisionmakers. This has happened to EFF many times — we just get removed from the Razor database to learn that somehow we’ve ended up on someone else’s bad list. It often takes serious investigative time even to figure out who has blocked us, much less why (see transparency, above). This situation makes it very difficult for small listowners.”

This to my mind is why we need to make life much more difficult for the spammers themselves rather than relying on technology to solve the problem. Some suggest if you stop them in one area they will pop up in another but if you can make sure they can’t work from within the US and Europe and much of the rest of the developed world that would be a good start – the cost of working with “rebel” ISPs should increase to the point that it becomes no longer economic to run a spamming business.

Apparently much of the spam that is put out at the moment comes from Florida so an effective anti-spam law there might help a great deal!account merchant accept card no creditabbey card credit3 credit bureauscredits 2007 taxunion accentra creditsc americreditcredit-suisse bond alanmusic accreditation Map

Today marks the first time I have ever installed Linux on one of my own computers. I have long thought I might do so but I have been afraid of the problems often described with the installations of earlier versions of Linux. I have to report that having downloaded the single CD “experience” version of SuSE Linux 8.2 I found installation went entirely without a hitch. Thus emboldened I would like to get my hands on the full install and put it on a spare HD so I can muck about with it more extensively.

I don’t suppose someone who has it would mind sending me copies of the discs or telling me where I could find the disc images of the full distribution? Or would that be piracy? The difference between the licensing terms of various forms of open source and “free software” are still a little opaque to me. If I get the software but I don’t hassle SuSe for support I had the impression that it wouldn’t count as piracy. After all, you can download previous versions of SuSe Linux from them for free.sex all hardsex 17canal ahaveconcerning safe-sex a essay persuasivealbano teensanalogue ahadvd files empire adult pornstarsex swim group amatuer Map

It seems there has been a flaw in Microsoft’s Passport that let hackers access anyone’s Passport account and (for example) access their Hotmail account or grab their credit card details.

Given the importance of this software, the part of the report that surprises and alarms me most is that despite Microsoft’s announcement at the beginning of last year that it would focus on improving the security and stability of its software:

“Reportedly Mr Danka [the guy who found the bug] sent 10 messages to Microsoft detailing the vulnerability but got no response.

Microsoft only reacted when information about the flaw was posted online.”

Instead of giving all your valuable information to Microsoft for convenience’s sake in order to help you avoid putting in your credit card details, name address etc into every site, the Liberty Alliance (including Sun, AOL, and HP) wants to “allow users to link identity information between accounts without centrally storing personal information” using open standards (emphasis mine). Surely a better approach, whatever you think of Microsoft!

A bit of old news (I am clearing my “to post” queue!) The Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services here in the UK has punished a persistent fraudulent mobile phone spammer. I don’t know that the rules exist yet to allow them to punish them simply for the act of spamming yet, but I’m sure they will come. Fortunately, because mobile phone spammers must pay a few pennies per message the problem doesn’t appear as large as with email spam. Almost the only spam I have received so far on my mobile is spam that has hit the email address that sends to my phone. That works because the gateway provider pays (not knowing it is not a legit message).tifa movie hentaitwink moviemovie white chicksplayer movies media windows gaygallery movie xxxmovies binaries altblowjob movies asianfree bdsm movie streaming samplesmovie blow job samplesa to blue movie ride bus

Tom “plasticbag” Coates mused a while back about webloggers getting into bed with marketing companies and asks what can/should be done about it.

In the interests of full disclosure, any books I mention – particularly now that I am using Blaxm (which alas does not seem to be taking off) – I link to Amazon using an Amazon affiliate link. So far 46 people have followed those links but none have actually bought books.

It’s not that I even particularly like Amazon or that I expect the money I might get from any transaction to do anything more than perhaps take me to dinner once a year – it’s just that the software exists that makes it easy to make such links thanks to Amazon’s market dominance and if I am linking to Amazon anyway why not get free money if it were offered me?

I also recently received a registration code for some email software because someone who read it noticed I have just written a book about email. I will review it shortly but I assure you that the free license did not influence my review (as you will see when it comes out!)

So far I don’t think weblogging is big enough to make it worth marketers making large scale efforts to co-opt people but it’s definitely something to watch out for – particularly with the avowedly commercial weblogs like Gizmodo.loan aafesloan 450 fico home equityscholarship p loan u advantage ocredit 25,000 unsecured poor loanstudent loan barred statute albertafor loans calculator amorization autoalberta student legal loanspayday loans 1hr$40,000 loan with interest adoption 0no cosigner all loans

Which of these accounts of the rescue of Private Lynch seems more plausible?

First this from the Toronto Star:
“‘The night [the Iraqi soldiers left the hospital],’ Houssona [her assigned doctor] said, ‘a few of the senior medical staff tried to give Jessica back. We carefully moved her out of intensive care and into an ambulance and began to drive to the Americans, who were just one kilometre away. But when the ambulance got within 300 metres, they began to shoot… Lynch’s father told reporters none of [her] wounds were battle-related. The Iraqi doctors are more specific. Houssona said the injuries were blunt, possibly stemming from a fall from her vehicle.”

Or do you believe this from Fox News:

“U.S. government sources told Fox News that they are concerned about Lynch’s mental and physical state, saying she can’t remember anything after the moment [her company] was ambushed nor can she remember anything about her days in captivity and the brutality U.S. military officials believe she endured.”

Also see yesterday’s posting about the destruction (or not) of the Iraq’s cultural heritage and this posting from earlier in the war about dubious information sources like the Baghdad blogger – who, incidentally, seems to have returned.25 ringtones centadbility entertainment gamblingcredit 1800 getcasino set 1925 complete noritakeringtone 17 hertzto addictions gamblingcredits 2008 energyno depsoit casino 1×2 Map

On the one hand there is this hour-long NPR radio report from Baghdad featuring interviews with museum curators who are bemoaning the loss of much of Iraq’s cultural heritage thanks to looters the US army failed to stop. (The picture comes from a small collection on the radio station’s website).

On the other hand, a US newspaper reports Most antiquities feared lost in looting found intact in museum.movies xrated freelolita young fucking movie freefree-handjob movieslength full adult moviesmen gay movieshard movieshollywood movie theatersmovie horse cummovies hsu chimovies boob huge

It still doesn’t work too well. “Only 7.4 percent of online consumers who noticed these systems said they often purchased recommended products, according to a report issued in February by Forrester Research. About 22 percent said they found the recommendations valuable, and about 42 percent said the products listed were not of interest.”

I posted about a Wall Street Journal article on this subject earlier which pointed out such problems can be not just annoying but dangerous.movies view pay permovies pedomovie the poison ivyreality movie teensample shemale moviemovies sapphic extasysapphic incest moviesmovie shemale trailersstreet racing movieshardcore teen movies freeringtone 2.99index ringtones polyphonic 3510iringtone blackberry download 7100itaste a of ringtones honey6256i ringtone nokiaa680 ringtonesmyx free ringtone sagem 2nokia free 3570 ringtone cricket Map