It's 70 degrees. I slept in late. I'm missing the alleycat (unsanctioned bicycle street race) that Frank invited me to in DUMBO. I'm drinking some coffee and some OJ and thinking about how much work I should try to get done and when I should call the Belle du Mois.

I'm thinking about getting started painting my room, because even if I bail out of here at the end of May I still want to do it. It'll make it a nicer room, and it's something I've wanted to do, and I already bought the paint and everything. (Update: I did it!)

I'm wondering when my generation is going to start getting its shit together. Probably not for another four or five years, but there's lots and lots of groundwork to be laid in the mean time. Thinkin' about that old tyme corpulent populism. Thinkin' about how spreading the internet all over the planet in the next 50 years could be the key to lasting world peace: when people can connect directly, it makes it a lot harder to gin up the war fever.

I'm thinkin' about the summer of Jefferson.

Among other things, I've been thinking about that idea for having pr0n support "The Foundation."

It's vitally important that as many aspects of what we do are independently and sustainably funded. It's also true that from a political perspective, straight white males are the backbone of almost everything evil. I've been thinking there's synergy here.

So:

1) Prontrepreneurial site lets anyone run their own porno operation, keep the legal rights to their content and the lions share of the net profits. Has all the functionality of your standard 3rd-wave stuff (community/networking, memebers-only torrents, etc). Some small portion (10%?) goes to funding projects and other stuff. The goodstorm business model, but with smut.

2) One of the projects will be an attempt to push some of the best and most tasteful content onto politically impressionable young white males, but packaged within the context of a "lifestyle" website which espouses our own social values. Like playboy in its heyday. Kind of non-misogynist-consumer-zombie version of Maxim, but we show nipples.

3) The magazine (which I like to call "Corpulent Populism") also becomes a showcase for other Foundation Funded projects.

And now I want to go outside and tune up my bike. So I will.

Apropos the post below about the (in)ability of debate to do anything to alter our nation's course towards or away from war with Iran, I'm still going to post about it. If you want some good background, listen to this bit from Sy Hersh on Fresh Air. Chock full of facts.

Out here on the internets, some think it's hip to compare the president of Iran to Hitler. The impetus is that a few neo-nazis in Germany are rallying in support of Iran, but really I think it is about ginning up support for a war. I think that's stupid.

Granted, it's not quite as moronic as comparing Howard Dean to Der Feurer, which happened last December after he put forward the view (now conventional wisdom) that we can no longer "win" in Iraq. No, it's smarter than that. Unfortunately, it is also more dangerous.

Let's nip this shit in the bud. Let's keep it real. What real fucking significance is there to a few asshole skinheads in Germany doing their usual crap? Zero. That doesn't make invoking WWII and the Holocaust apt, it makes it crass.

Wot-wot? Goodmin's Law, sucka. We gots to stop the hating.

Given the total worldwide costs and consequences of an aggressive attack on Iran -- which would be massive, just think about it -- the idea seems like a loosing proposition even through the most steely realpolitik, especially considering that there is not even any immediacy to the threat.

There are plenty of players who have skin in the game. Perhaps when we have a head of state capable of, you know, conducting diplomacy, progress might be made. There's still plenty of time.

Do people really think that Iran would give up it's existence in order to nuke Israel? Ahmadinejad may be many things, but he's not crazy. He's not even Kim-Jong-cooky. He's a populist head of state who's well connected and has no desire to kill himself or cause his nation and people to be annihilated.

But suppose diplomacy really is useless. If nothing changes, in 5 to 10 years, Iran may have a nuclear weapon, which they'd be pretty unlikely to use offensively. The far more likely logic for acquiring nuclear arms for these smaller nations is deterrence against conventional attack from a superior external force.

Let's not feed that paranoia any more, eh?

New version of Democracy, the internet TV app from those revolutionaries in Worcester. It should work great for getting a lot of interesting indie content, and if you feel like it's your right to watch regular TV online (like I do) there are lots of torrentfeeds around for your electronic civil disobediencing pleasure.

Good to see these things are coming along.

Telecom reform moves forward / House panel OKs measure favored by phone companies:

A House subcommittee handed phone companies a victory Wednesday by voting 27-4 to advance a bill that would make it easier for them to deliver television service over the Internet and clearing the way for all Internet carriers to charge more for speedier delivery.

The lopsided vote was a defeat for Internet and technology firms like Google and Microsoft, which had hoped to amend the bill to enforce a principle called network neutrality and preserve the status quo under which all Internet traffic is treated equally

This was last week. Looks like the internet is on its way to losing this one. Suxxors. No word on this from any of the players I know of. I have a creeping suspicion that business as usual will bear down. Until Google, Yahoo, and some kind of aggregator of internet participants start handing out big checks, I don't think many Congresspeople will take the time to "get it."

Maybe I'm just in a cynical mood.