Another Iceberg Sighting
Dan Gillmor, from his perch up in the crow's nest, sees it too:

It's called the European Technology Rountable Exhibition, but a significant portion of the discussion here has been about the awakened giant to the east. Again and again, the conversation has turned to the opportunities -- and, to many, the threats -- China represents for the technology community.

I'm not feeling threatened, mind you. But I think this is a very interesting phenomena that bears watching. Communism won't ever succeed, anywhere. But who says China has to remain Communist?

Self-Absorbed Stupidity
Ok, I'm reading Instapundit - always a mix of the interesting and the ideological - and I come across this bit:

INSTAPUNDIT SHUT DOWN BY AL QAEDA? That's the report -- actually saying that the DoS attack that shut me down, along with some others, last night was aimed at someone else, but came from Al Qaeda-affiliated websites.

This was quickly debunked by someone from HostingMatters, the affected hosting service. The "report" mentioned in the quote comes from a site called Little Green Footballs, one of more moronic ideo-blogues I've come across. (and no, I can't be bothered to link to it).

Sheesh. Can you get any more self-absorbed than that? Of course, these are the guys who are always railing about loony liberal conspiracy theories. Now, it is possible that Internet Haganah, the site in question - which apparently specializes in identifying and working to shut down sites that support Islamic extremism - may be undergoing a DoS attack because of its mission. And it's possible that the attack is sponsored by Islamic extremists, because, let's face it, any idiot of any stripe can be a script kiddie. Or it could actually be a bored script kiddie in Illinois. Or Finland. Or China. Or someone else entirely.

But the real story - the one that's actually worth talking about - is that this particular site appears to be under attack. Not "Al Quaeda is going after all us God-fearing, patriotic right-wing sites because we're so important and so dangerous to their cause". This is just another example of the bloated self-congratulation/triumphalism that's become an increasingly annoying meme in the blogging subculture in the past year or so. It's awfully similar to a similar meme running around just a few years back - you know, the one where the VC's/entrepreneurs/techies/visionaries were running around congratulating themselves on inventing the "new economy".

Yes, blogging is interesting and important. But it's still a relatively small phenomenom in a very large and diverse culture. So get over yourselves. And please try to say something interesting (hint: more navel-gazing about blogging does not fall into the "interesting" category. Nor does describing positions or policies you don't agree with as "near-treasonous". Going all Ann Coulter tends to preclude intelligent discussion on just about any topic).

But, of course, they won't get over themselves. Clay Shirky was right when he wrote that “The Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy”.

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Globalization - Another tip of the iceberg
China Puts Man Into Space (via Instapundit).

Now, I don't believe any Communist government will ever succeed over the long term, and China has lots of problems, not the least of which is circa-1964 Brezhnev-style government corruption. But what if the Chinese someday decide that the Mandate of Heaven demands some form of representative democracy?

What if India during this same time got its own problems with corruption under control, deep-sixed the caste system, reduced poverty, and starting educating most or all of its people?

And what if we decided to avoid dealing with the corruption of our own political system, stifle innovation, pursue economic policies that result in economic inequality, and spend our money maintaining the legions at the edges of the empire?