Kevin Jones writes to a private list:

Talked with a friend last night who is business manager of chanticleer, an acapella men’s singing group, multiple grammy winner, etc. the March 4 event they were scheduled to sing for at the White House; presentation of congressional medals to jessie norman and others, has been cancelled. Their contact at the national endowment of the arts told him that all cultural and social events at the White House “in that window” had been cancelled.

Inference drawn: bush will be in the war room and they don’t want to appear to be sipping champagne while …..

(Quoted with permission.)

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Jonathan Peterson has some strong words about Patriot II.

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Eric is applying what we should start calling Norlin’s Law (although Norlin’s Lawlin is more euphonious) — “The Net moves everything toward the public domain” — to the question of identity. While I’ve been arguing (if whining counts) that anonymity should stay the default on the Internet, Norlin thinks he’s got me in a logical cleft stick from which there is no escape: the Net moves identity towards the public domain, too. To support this he points out that as I post stuff about, say, “how crazy the RIAA is” (hey, Eric, I’m not letting them plead insanity!), I’m “simultaneously losing the very thing he thinks the net provides him with — anonymity.” His “bottom line” is: “You can’t have it both ways.”

Oh yeah?

Since Eric and I and every sane person of stout heart believes that individuals ought to control their own IDs, the “it” I can’t have both ways can’t be being able to be anonymous and identified. I can have both of those by sometimes identifying myself and sometimes not.

It’s a question of defaults. I want anonymity to be not only under my control but also to be the normal, usual, default behavior. That doesn’t mean that I always and only want anonymity. My anxiety about the large-scale digital ID systems now under construction is that they’ll flip the default because it’s in the interest of vendors and governments to have me narrowly identified. They’ll apply market and legal pressure to make anonymity look like a choice only for crooks and cowards.

If we’re talking about defaults, I can have my cake and eat it, too…and either publicly identify myself as a cake-eater or not.

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Public Conversations is a remarkable group, enabling and facilitating conversations among people across high and emotional fences. Here are eleven questions they suggest as ways to start a real conversation about Iraq:

1) As you reflect on the state of the world and recent and emerging US policies and actions, what are your biggest concerns?

2) What  troubles  you most about  the course of international events and the role the US has been  playing?  What  do you find reassuring?

3) What are your hopes and fears regarding the outcome of US and/or UN military interventions in Iraq?

4) Can you tell us something about your life experience that will help us understand your views and primary concerns?

5) What is the heart of your concerns related to the situation in the world and possible US responses?

6) Are you aware of any dilemmas, mixed feelings, value conflicts, or uncertainties within your current views?

7) What experience or credible information might shift your current views?

8) What specific events or changes have altered your sense of individual, national, and international “security?” In what way do you feel more “secure?” Less “secure?” What are some specific actions our leaders could take that might increase your sense of security at home and abroad?

9) What actions could the US take that would fit your assessment of risks and your hopes and values?

10) What could the US do regarding Iraq that would make you feel proud to be an American citizen (or to live here)?

11) If you had a half-hour with President Bush, what real (non-rhetorical or loaded) question would you want to ask him?  Why would you pick that question?

You can listen to an NPR piece on Public Conversations here.

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Larry Lessig’s conference on Open Spectrum in Stanford, CA, March 1-2, will feature a moot court case arguing the issues in front of Michael Powell, Chair of the FCC. There will be a live feed.

I wish I could go to the live event. It sounds fantastic.

You can watch a debate over the “broadcast flag” copy-protection proposal. The debate on Feb. 5 featured: Fritz Attaway, Motion Picture Association of America; Jim Burger, Dow, Lohnes & Albertson; Mike Godwin, Public Knowledge; and Andy Setos, Fox Entertainment Group. (I haven’t watched it yet.)

(Note: It requires Real video. If you haven’t installed Real before, be warned that it is sneakily and persistently opt-out.)

By the way, for background on Open Spectrum here’s a paper and a FAQ I wrote a few weeks ago on the basis of information and ideas from Dewayne Hendricks, David Reed, and Jock Gill.

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Lots of intellectual foment goin’ on over at DigitalID World. Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter. (Hint: When the registration form requires that you give your real name, don’t use Bogus McBogusman. That’s mine.)

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300,000,000 cars will be built before hydrogen fuel cells are ready. That’s today’s sound bite from candidate John Kerry.

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Vergil Iliescu points us to two resources for those who want to keep up with what Gore Vidal is saying these days. Here’s a resource site. And here’s the essay on the subject of the radio interview with Vidal that I still haven’t listened to.

I found the essay disappointing. In the course of its explanation of 9/11 and our government’s reaction to it, the essay presents just about every conspiracy theory without discriminating among them: pipelines, US sponsorship, previous knowledge, unscrambled jets. It thus comes across as loopy and possibly loony, even though I actually believe in some of the theories he presents. (For example, the Afghan “pipeline is a go-project thanks to the junta’s installation of a Unocal employee (John J Maresca) as US envoy to the newly born democracy whose president, Hamid Karzai, is also, according to Le Monde, a former employee of a Unocal subsidiary. Conspiracy? Coincidence!”) Not up to his usual snuff. Lots of ideas and uncomfortable facts, though.

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Jock Gill at GreaterDemocracy has a good strategic overview of the conservative willingness to place “big bets” that are inherently risky.

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Sarah Lai Stirland has started a new blog called Connected: Nodes & Networks over at Corante:

This Weblog is meant to be an accompaniment to my work as a journalist. It?s also meant as a discussion forum between myself and people whom San Jose Mercury News columnist Dan Gillmor calls the “former audience.” As Gillmor puts it, the media world has evolved from Old Media to New Media to ?We Media,? or to Journalism 3.0. The term refers to the fact that ?readers? can now participate in the journalistic process through online publishing and the use of digital devices.

It’s off to a promising start. (Here’s an interesting article by Sarah on the difficulty of putting things into the public domain.)

William Du Bois has written an article on a possible conservative bias in the Encyclopedia Britannica. I didn’t find the article entirely convincing, but it was thought-provoking.

Mark Hurst of Good Experience, an intelligent site about the online experience, is putting on his first ever Live version of his newsletter, May 2, in NYC.

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