Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds, the 1841 classic on such things as the South Sea Bubble and the Dutch Tulip Mania. Good reading for the post-dotcom bubble world. Better reading for the pre-dotcom bubble world, but it's just a little bit too late for that. [via GirlHacker's Random Log]
Why This Blog Bores People About Space Stuff: Rand at Transterrestrial Musings, which just got dropped onto my regular surf list, explains one reason why expanding our space program is so important, but one you won't hear NASA using to defend its budget requests. A few hundred years ago the founders of America walked away from an oppressive government they could no longer tolerate. Where will the refugees go if (I won't be so cynical as to say "when") the U.S. goes down that path? [via little green footballs]
Reflections on Modern Terrorism: George Holton on the history, future, and types of terrorism.
There has been an historic transition in which Type I terrorism and Type II terrorism are being combined. Type I terrorism consists of acts by individuals or small groups that aim to impose terror on other individuals and groups, and through them indirectly on their governments. Type II terrorism is the imposition by a government on groups of local or foreign populations. The new type of terrorism -- Type III -- is carried out by a substantially larger group of individuals, is aimed directly at a national population, and has all the components for success. The article deals with how this new terrorism, at very little psychic cost on the perpetrators, disrupts personal and historic memory through large-scale catastrophe organized for that purpose. Type III terrorism is made easier by the ready availability of high-level technology. Target nations will not have open to them the conventional responses, and will have to devise new, preventive measures.
This classification of the types of terrorism is not something I think I've seen until recently, in particular the distinction of government action against populations. That was also discussed in an NPR interview with Caleb Carr, discussing his book The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians. Why It Has Always Failed And Why It Will Fail Again, on Saturday. One thing that caught my ear in that interview was Carr's mention that the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II met the definition of state conducted terror.
John Walker has been indicted in Virginia on 10 counts, including six in addition to the original charges brought.
