Not So Much with the Looting

This story has been collecting steam for a few weeks, and WaPo finally put it all in one place. The looted Iraqi National Museum of Antiquities isn't missing 170,000 artifacts, which would be their entire collection. It's not missing the 3,000 artifacts estimated by this Saturday's initial report from the State Department and the Customs Service. It's actually missing only 33. Still bad, but not the "rape of civilization" as one archeologist described it. The confusion apparently came from some hyperbole from the museum's respected director, Donny George. He has since apologized for the alarmist remarks.

Brooklyn Eagle

The Brooklyn Eagle archives are now online:

Founded in 1841 by Isaac Van Anden and Henry Cruse Murphy, the Eagle was published as a daily newspaper for 114 consecutive years without missing a single edition. The newspaper, which was originally conceived as a temporary political forum for the 1842 election, ironically lived the longest and absorbed all other Brooklyn daily papers except the Brooklyn Citizen. At one point the Eagle actually became the nation's most widely read afternoon newspaper. Unusual among major metropolitan daily newspapers of that time period, the Eagle chronicled national and international affairs as well as local news and daily life in Brooklyn. As a result the Brooklyn Daily Eagle provides a window into Brooklyn's past, as well as documentation of national and international events that shaped history. The Eagle played a vital role in the community of Brooklyn's self-identification as separate and even better than Manhattan. Brooklyn existed as an independent city until the consolidation with New York City in 1898. Conceiving and promoting the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Eagle took an active role in developing the bridge a symbol of Brooklyn's pride. The paper also coined the phrase describing Brooklyn as "the borough of homes and churches." With offices in Brooklyn, New York, Washington, Paris and London, the Eagle became one of the borough's greatest institutions. Distinguished editors of the Eagle included Walt Whitman, Thomas Kinsella, St. Clair McKelway, Cleveland Rogers, and Frank D. Schroth. The rise and fall of the Eagle coincided with the economic development in Brooklyn. The paper folded in 1955 because of a prolonged strike called by the New York Newspaper Guild. At the time it closed it employed 681 people and did an annual business in the sum of approximately $6 million.

Demzilla

The DNC is currently trying to roll out Demzilla, a piece of software that will collect state and interest group voter lists into a single 150 million-member database that can be used for fundraising efforts. The project, run by QRS New Media and based on software from Plus Three, Alterian and Market Zone, is failing, according to Roll Call, for all of the usual reasons: overengineering, bad or incomplete data, and a lamentable lack of involvement from the intended users during development. The result is that some searches now take weeks to complete. This is, of course, absurd, and Demzilla is basically unusable at this stage -- just when the DNC needs it for the 2004 elections. We could write a book about software development disasters like this, but it would be boring -- these are all rookie mistakes. The real story, though, is not that the DNC can't deploy a by-the-book piece of software. That's only embarrassing. What should really concern Democrats is that the National Committee could not muster support for the Demzilla project from groups that are ostensibly their closest allies. The DNC claims that 40 state committees will participate, but the reception has been lukewarm to hostile. This could be explained, in part, by the interest groups' and state committees' reluctance to share their voter lists with the national committee. The DNC is asking for their bread and butter, so this is probably the case. Surely they could have been made to see the benefits of a single, unified collection of this information? Couldn't the DNC have used a trusted third party to broker the information? Was their no middle ground? Did the DNC really sink millions of dollars into this project and expect the states to participate under duress? Exactly how well-managed is the DNC?

OnePeople 2004 Federal Budget Wrapup, Part I

The United States' Federal Budget is where politics, theory and rhetoric collide with harsh reality. In its 2,866 pages is encoded an immensely complex set of priorities, commitments and compromises which together will keep the United States operating for an entire year. The 2004 budget is especially interesting (relatively) because it was designed by a strongly ideological White House who has the unusual advantage of controlling Congress. This means that the approved budget is a much less about the compromises and more about the priorities of the Republican party. For that reason, this year's budget is immensely instructive. OnePeople obviously has nothing better to do, so we're going to walk you through this year's budget, highlighting areas of interest that you could easily have skimmed over in your favorite periodicals. Since we're almost as lazy as you are, we haven't actually read the budget -- we're relying on a number of different sources, which we'll refer you to when the opportunity presents itself. We'll begin the series with some high-level analysis, turning our perceptive gaze towards the summary prose that precedes the tables and line-items of the budget proper. As it does each year, the Administration uses this prose to explain, justify and illustrate its own fiscal policy. It makes for an awfully big target.

SimSyndicate

The Sims Online is a multiplayer online world where participants shepherd their virtual "Sims" through life. They need to get jobs, fall in love, go to the bathroom, and get along with the Sims around them. It's just like your real life, but you can do it from your chair. One of the operating principles of the virtual world is that there is no established government or police force -- the Sims have to keep themselves honest. Inevitably, some players decided to rob and steal. This makes the game more interesting, but the law-abiding Sims had to form a response. The most popular Sim, Mia Wallace, organized the Sim Shadow Government. With about 160 other players, they made sure that the other Sims operated under the rule of law. Students of political science know what happened next. The Shadow Government devolved into corrupt syndicate, extorting other players and running protection rackets. Competing syndicates have been formed. The full story is at the Mercury News. The assassination euphemisms are particularly fun to read about. Some SimRICO statutes should appear soon.

Globalization for Dummies

It's likely that you missed the excellent PBS series on the history of 20th Century economics, Commanding Heights. Fortunately, the series is also available online, in one of the best uses of broadband we've seen in a while. The series takes an impossibly complex set of problems, and lays them out in an accessible and valuable way. Spend some time with this series before you get comfortable with your ideas about globalization and its consequences. As an added bonus, it's narrated by David Ogden Stiers whose dulcet tones graced Rick Burns' New York series.

Wolfowitz: Iraq War Was About Oil

Well, so much for those of us who thought there was more to it an that. The Guardian quotes Paul "Bombers" Wolfowitz as: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil." http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,970334,00.html Update Thu Jun 5 10:53:51 EDT 2003: From the gulfwar-2 list:

...Guardian appears to have yanked the story - and for good reason. What Wolfowitz actually said, available via the transcript at DefenseLink, is substantively different: "Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq. The problems in both cases have some similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the circumstances which are very different."
What makes The Guardian's actions even worse is that they ran the AP version days earlier:
"The primary difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options in Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil,'' he said."

“The Run” Trailer Available

The Official Dog Run of OnePeople has its very own documentary film. The trailer's now available.

3 JUNE 2003 WEB SITE LAUNCH http://www.the-run.com Dear All, Siren Documentaries has been working on a feature length film that looks at East Village community through the window of the Tompkins Square Park dog run. The film will be completed by fall 2003. In the meantime, we've built a web site (www.the-run.com) to get everyone interested. The site includes goodies like our trailer, links to press and a brief overview of the film. Check it out, spread the word and please, let us know what you think. Thanks to all of you who have participated and supported us along the way. THE SIRENS Erica Isaac Joanne Denyeau Heather Malin Cristina Moracho Eric Miranda Jake Cohen Meg Viola Kristen Schultz Terry Dollard