The Sound of Things to Come: "Norris is demonstrating something called HyperSonic Sound (HSS). The aluminum plate is connected to a CD player and an odd amplifier -- actually, a very odd and very new amplifier -- that directs sound much as a laser beam directs light. Over the past few years, mainly in secret, he has shown the device to more than 300 major companies, and it has slackened a lot of jaws. In December, the editors of Popular Science magazine bestowed upon HSS its grand prize for new inventions of 2002, choosing it over the ferociously hyped Segway scooter. It is no exaggeration to say that HSS represents the first revolution in acoustics since the loudspeaker was invented 78 years ago -- and perhaps only the second since pilgrims used 'whispering tubes' to convey their dour messages."

Dave Winer stopped in Winnemucca on his trip to the east coast!

Three and a half-year old SETI@home project identifies candidate radio signals from space, heads for Arecibo to take second look: "After more than a million years of computation by more than 4 million computers worldwide, the SETI@home screensaver that crunches data in search of intelligent signals from space has produced a list of candidate radio sources that deserve a second look."

The Pentagon's New Map: "Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been trying to come up with an operating theory of the world-and a military strategy to accompany it. Now there's a leading contender. It involves identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them. Since September 11, 2001, the author, a professor of warfare analysis, has been advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense and giving this briefing continually at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community. Now he gives it to you."

Test post from FM RadioStation.  Hmm.

Libertarianism in the Age of Empire:

"There is no place in the libertarian movement for the War Party and its minions. The Libertarian Party must take decisive action against any "Libertarian" candidate or spokesperson who endorses this war. Equivocation on this question is equally impermissible. Nor do we want any kind of a "debate." What some people refuse to recognize is that some questions are already settled: libertarians do not "debate," year after year, the primacy or utility of economic and political liberty. We don't re-argue the case for and against capitalism, as opposed to, say, anarcho-communism. Every time a drug lord shoots someone down in the streets in broad daylight, we don't revisit the drug question. We don't reconsider the gun control question every time some nutso teenager kills half his classmates with a rifle. Why tear up the very roots of the libertarian ethic now that George W. Bush has decided to ignore Osama bin Laden and go after the tinpot dictator of a decimated country? It's an outrage, and I have just one message to any alleged libertarians, party members or not, who support this rotten war: stop calling yourself a libertarian. Get out of the movement, quit the party, and don't call us because we won't be calling you."

North Korean Missile Warhead Found in Alaska: "The warhead of a long-range missile test-fired by North Korea was found in the U.S. state of Alaska, a report to the National Assembly revealed yesterday."

The Thirty Year Itch: "If you were to spin the globe and look for real estate critical to building an American empire, your first stop would have to be the Persian Gulf. The desert sands of this region hold two of every three barrels of oil in the world -- Iraq's reserves alone are equal, by some estimates, to those of Russia, the United States, China, and Mexico combined. For the past 30 years, the Gulf has been in the crosshairs of an influential group of Washington foreign-policy strategists, who believe that in order to ensure its global dominance, the United States must seize control of the region and its oil. Born during the energy crisis of the 1970s and refined since then by a generation of policymakers, this approach is finding its boldest expression yet in the Bush administration -- which, with its plan to invade Iraq and install a regime beholden to Washington, has moved closer than any of its predecessors to transforming the Gulf into an American protectorate."

The Present Farce: "Louis Bonaparte was no Napoleon. And when the pathetic nephew came to power in France aping his tyrannical uncle, Karl Marx in 1851 dismissed the silly charade with the famous line, "History always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, and the second as farce." Marx was stealing from Hegel and Engels, as he often did; but the truth of that dictum has never been more evident than in the recent sad spectacle surrounding the pygmy tyrant Saddam Hussein and the echoes of 1930s Western appeasement."

Sympathy For The Devil: Interesting profile of Cheney from Interesting People