Ken Brill: An Energy Paradox, ITConversations, MP3

Technometria, Remaking DNS, ITConversations (MP3)

Basically, you use their DNS instead of the DNS provided by your ISP to get a faster resolving DNS service (i.e. your web pages will load faster). You are not obliged to create an account to use their service. But, if you do get an account, you will get some features like anti-phishing, typo correction in the domain names, filtering of adult sites, and stats. All these options are opt-in.

After using the DNS from OpenDNS, I have the feeling that my web pages load faster. Where clearly OpenDNS makes a tremendous difference is with SafariMobile on my iPod Touch when I’m home and using my wireless network.

OpenDNS use a very interesting business plan to makes money. Listen to the podcast to see how. They have Ray Ozzie as their principal investor, which is not a bad reference. They are already profitable.

I strongly recommend that you try the DNS provided by OpenDNS. It’s free, and if you just want to use their DNS, you are not obliged to sign for an account. What more can you ask for?

First an interview of Charles Ferguson (with some excerpts from the movie) which is the director and Producer of No End in Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq.

It seems that for almost two years, the President Bush was completely disengaged from Iraq and the whole show was run by a very small group composed of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bremer and Wolfowitz. Some decisions where made without consulting the US military, and against their will (like the disbanding of the Iraq army). One of the theory that emerges is that the US lost the peace at the beginning of the occupation when the US army let the looting out of control.

No End in Sight, On Point, guest host Jane Clayson.

The second podcast involve peoples that were in charge of the invasion. General Richard Myers seems less dumb that what I though. But doesn’t really come clean. The others, General William Wallace and General Jack Keane are more interesting. What is fascinating is how the BBC journalist, Owen Bennett-Jones, can ask direct questions, without spinning and reverence to these generals. I wish it could be possible to have such an interview in the US.

The Generals Debate Iraq, Documentary Archive , BBC World Service (mp3)

Technometria: Mac OS X Internals, ITConversations.com (mp3)

If you install MacFuse, you should get MacFusion, which is a nice front end GUI for MacFuse. [via Infinite Loop]

Leon Theremin [Vincinnati / Flickr]

Open Source with Christopher Lydon, Passion: The Theremin (mp3)

On Point with Tom Ashbrook, Thomas Ricks on Iraq Today (mp3)

I must say that sometimes I find Sy Hersh sounding too much like if he was revealing a plot with black helicopters hovering over it, that his analysis are too much based on individuals but, overall, he presents solid arguments on how the US administration is misguided and improvising regarding its Middle-East policies.

Open Source, Making the Rounds with Seymour Hersh (mp3)

This is not the nation’s largest minority, but it is apparently the most persecuted. Testimony by Palestinian refugees to journalists and human rights organizations paints a very grave picture: Iraqi gangs break into Palestinian homes at night and demand the residents leave within 24 hours. In isolated cases, Palestinians have been kidnapped on the street or at work, and their bodies have been found several days later, in ditches or garbage cans.

Unlike the 2 million Iraqi refugees who have left their homeland, Palestinians usually carry no documents bearing witness to their Iraqi citizenship, or anything that would permit them entry into neighboring Arab states, like Jordan or Syria.

Zvi Bar’el, Refugees, twice over, Haaretz.com

Palestinians are also part of a larger trend as Patrick Cockburn shows in The Independent:

Iraq’s minorities, some of the oldest communities in the world, are being driven from the country by a wave of violence against them because they are identified with the occupation and easy targets for kidnappers and death squads. A « huge exodus » is now taking place, according to a report by Minority Rights Group International.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says 30 per cent of the 1.8 million Iraqis who have fled to Jordan, Syria and elsewhere come from the minorities.

Patrick Cockburn, ‘Exodus’ of Iraq’s ancient minorities, The Independent

Meanwhile, Rami G. Khouri is predicting that the Arab world is at a historic crossroad and that the current modern Arab state order that was created by the Europeans in circa 1920 has started to break down, in what we might perhaps call the Great Arab Unraveling. He adds that the way the US is pursuing its policy in the Midlle-East produce a murky picture.

The pervasive incoherence of this bizarre picture makes it perfectly routine for Arab monarchies to support Salafist terrorists, for Western democracies to ignore the results of Arab free elections, for Iranians and Arabs, and Shiites and Sunnis, to work hand in hand while also fighting bitter wars, for Islamists and secular Arabs to join forces, for freedom lovers in London and Washington to support seasoned Arab autocrats, for Western and Arab rule-of-law advocates to sponsor militias, and for Israel and the US to perpetuate Israeli policies that exacerbate rather than calm security threats and vulnerabilities in the region.

Rami G. Khouri, Prepare for the Great Arab Unraveling, The Daily Star

There’s an excellent introduction on Shiism by Mike Shuster of NPR available as a podcast.

Mike Shuster, The Partisans of Ali: A Series Overview, NPR (mp3)

See also the reading list.