View 98 April 24 - 30, 2000

THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

VIEW April 24 - 30, 2000

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Highlights this week:

A Security Alert in Red Hat 6.2

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Monday 24 April 2000

The Congress has subpoenaed all documents relating to warrants and the Miami raid, so we will presumably learn precisely what happened: I have too many conflicting stories about warrants and lack of warrants to have any real right to an opinion. The Congress is the Grand Inquest of the Nation and this is the proper place to determine what actually happened. There is an interesting article in the Washington Post on The Photograph. See

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1898-2000Apr23.html

I have a copy of Richard Newman's article from US News and World Reports; no URL sent to me. This is on lessons learned from Viet Nam and now being forgotten, and it is excellent. If the topic interests you, it is worth finding to read it.

Jerry:

I read the print issue this afternoon. It was a good article. I tracked

the URL for the online version for your readers.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/000501/military.htm

Cheers.

Michael Crapser

mcrapser@juno.com

Also see

http://www.drudgereport.com/noonan.htm

For Peggy Noonan.

On background.

And

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/novak24.html

I am packing up for a long trip, and reconfiguring a NEW LAPTOP; this is a delight in that it's a great little machine, but it is Hell for getting all the details right. Sigh.

Note that this site will not be updated for a bit more than a week after Wednesday. Refer emergencies to Robert Bruce Thompson [thompson@ttgnet.com] but I don't in fact expect there to be any.

ALERT:

A security hole in Red Hat 6.2 Piranha package:

If you have Pirhana on your system, you need to download the update NOW.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/399125.asp

Roland Dobbins <mordant@gothik.org>

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall,

one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

-- Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontent,

1770

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Tuesday, April 25, 2000

Much to do getting ready for trips.

A good place to play:

Thought you might find this web site of interest. (BTW, I am an "old time" reader.)

http://sodaplay.com/index.htm

Neil Steik

Thanks. We've mentioned this place before. You can waste much time there...

A long and busy day.

To those who think that the important thing about the raid was that no one was hurt, we can agree. To those who believe force majeur was the best way to accomplish that, you may be right. My concern is simply that I grew up in a Republic that would not have contemplated actions like that, among law enforcement people who would not have dreamed of such actions. I may have lived too long. What happened in Miami was certainly competently done, a neat Imperial action. It was not appropriate for a Republic, or at least not the Republic I grew up in.

Routinely treating the people as potential terrorists and rebels is not the way of Republics; and yes, self government can lead to some bad consequences. Freedom usually does have consequences, and not all are good. Empires begin as benign, with the purpose of protecting the common people from the aristocrats and the rich and the powerful -- Augustus Caesar was leader of the populares, as was his uncle Julius, as was Julius's uncle Marius. Their enemies were the optimates. The early empire was arguably more friendly to the people than the late Republic.

All of which history was known to those in that hot summer in Philadelphia in 1787; their hope was to create a Republic more friendly to the people but which would not become an Empire; for however Empires begin, they soon are not much like Republics. It was not all that long between Augustus and Caligula, or between Claudius and Septimius Severus.

And I expect my views are colored by growing up in a nation that still thought good government was self government for all its faults. And perhaps we can't afford that any longer: perhaps we have no choice but to treat all those who oppose Federal decrees as potential terrorists. And perhaps it will all be as well. But permit a few of us with long memories to mourn.

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Wednesday,

I AM GONE UNTIL AT LEAST May 5

Travel to Paris

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This week:

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Sunday