A computer security expert says he’s considering switching from Windows to Mac because Microsoft’s security is so bad.

The Right Wing has been all in a tizzy over ANSWER sponsorhip of anti-war rallies. In short, the argument is that protesters are tacitly endorsing ANSWER’s leninist ideology by attending those rallies.

Well, in that case, VP Cheney endorses the Confederate Flag and thinks Janet Reno is a child butcher. [Daily Kos]

William Pfaff in the International Herald Tribune (emphasis mine):

American commentators like to think that the “Jacksonian” frontier spirit equips America to dominate, reform and democratize other civilizations. They do not appreciate that America’s indefatigable confidence comes largely from never having had anything very bad happen to it.

The worst American war was the Civil War, in which the nation, North and South, suffered 498,000 wartime deaths from all causes, or slightly more than 1.5 percent of a total population of 31.5 million.

The single battle of the Somme in World War I produced twice as many European casualties as the United States suffered, wounded included, during that entire war.

There were 407,000 American war deaths in World War II, out of a population of 132 million – less than a third of 1 percent. Considering this, Washington does not really possess the authority to explain, in condescending terms, that Europe’s reluctance to go to war is caused by a pusillanimous reluctance to confront the realities of a Hobbesian universe.

…

It cannot be emphasized too often that not one of the principal figures associated with the Bush White House’s foreign policy, with the exception of Colin Powell, has any actual experience of war, most of them having actively sought to avoid military service in Vietnam. Their inexperience and ignorance could not be better displayed than by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s recent comment that draftees have added “no value, no advantage really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time.” Who does he think fought World War II – the 174,000-man prewar regular army?

The American regular army has never been truly effective until large numbers of flexible, brainy and nonconformist wartime civilian soldiers were integrated into its command, staffs and ranks.

…

Germany’s current resistance to President George W. Bush’s war coincides with the re-emergence in Germany of articulated memories of exterminatory bombardment, pillage, population expulsions and mass rape, suffered in the final months of World War II. That devastating experience has for years been deliberately repressed in the German consciousness, in acknowledgment of Germany’s responsibility for the war and the crimes committed by German forces.

In recent months a series of books and articles have at last recalled what the Germans themselves call taboo subjects, at a time when the youngest generations of those who experienced these events are mostly still alive.

This has not been to argue the merits, justification and (minor) actual effect on the German war effort of allied saturation and firestorm bombing of German cities, but in order to establish a moral and aesthetic coming-to-terms with events that, together with the firebombing of Japan’s wooden cities, rank among the worst things ever done in or by Western civilization.

Go read James’s post about John Pilger’s column on our likely attack on Iraq. We are becoming a rogue nation, and it is laughable to pretend we are doing this in the interest of “democracy”.

We bought several works at the opening of the Cynthia Broan show, including work by Michelle Weinberg — ours is related to but smaller than the one on that page, Eric Stormes, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Tim Thyzel, and William Crow.

Also, head over to James’s site to look at an image of our latest work by Charles Goldman.

We wandered around without a plan in Chelsea today after having lunch with friends. Normally, James has a very planned itinerary, so it was nice to find things serendipitously.

Things I liked:

• Run, do not walk, to the $99 Bargain Store Show at Cynthia Broan (curated by Tim Thyzel)</p>
• Matthew Northridge at Gorney Bravin + Lee. I felt less strongly about some of the work in the main room, but the collages in the project room at the back were exquisite.
• Jan Dibbets at Barbara Gladstone. I love the way the works read as beautiful abstracts at a distance, while the individual elements are wonderful photographs on their own.
• “Air”, a group show, at James Cohan. For me the standout work was a video by Hiraki Sawa titled Dwelling — another still here — in which airplane models fly about an apartment. In an era when flying machines conjure negative thoughts, it was soothing to watch a happy, magical work with flying planes.

Rosso Gayardo: gay wine from Italy

Belgium legally recognizes gay marriage.

Günter Grass writes: No Beginning or End to War.

When I was at La Mama recently, I saw a flyer that mentioned a group called THAW – Theaters Against War. I see several groups I support — and I mean through donations, not just buying tickets — on the list of members, which makes me very happy.

They’re planning an event called “Thaw out for peace” on March 2.