There is a debate raging on the previously mentioned FreeRepublic in response to Jonah Goldberg’s column on Libertarianism and the Right — or rather, Harry Browne’s response to Goldberg’s column. Most of it seems pretty insipid, and is quickly focusing on hot-button issues such as Church/state and abortion. But it’s always interesting to see schismatic fights at work (well, interesting to me anyway…).

Not to be self-referential or anything, but Slate is running an article on blogging. Unfortunately, while mentioning several community blogs such as Slashdot, they neglect one of the most successful community-participation sites of all, the Independent Media Center. Or, on the other side of the political arena, Free Republic. These political sites are totally revolutionizing the way people in political movements network, get news, and organize actions. Slashdot … reviews computer books. Oh well.

Some people on indymedia.org just posted a fantastic article called Stick it to the Manarchy, which criticizes male supremacist posturing within the anarchist movement.

In international news, war criminal and genocidal maniac Ariel Sharon has been officially approved as Prime Minister of Israel. The New York Times notes that, In a speech to the Knesset, Sharon said his coalition would be ready for painful compromises toward peace with the Palestinians, but not under the pressure of violence and terror. Indeed, the pressure of violence and terror would be an excellent thing to remove from the process; for example, dug-in Israeli blockades around Palestinian ghettoes that prevent innocent civilians from receiving medical care. Not to mention continuing assassinations of Palestinian leaders and attacks on Palestinian children…

The most outrageous thing about the whole affair is, of course, that Sharon has succeeded in getting exactly what he aimed to: he started the current Intifadah with his incindiery visit to the al-Aqsa (accompanied by a crowd of heavily armed security troops) mosque at a time of high tension in the peace process. Why? In order to incite conflict and weaken Barak’s already-tenuous hold on office. Now, with hundreds of Palestinians slaughtered by Israeli military and riots by Jewish settlers, he has gotten his way. Congratulations Arik.

UPS, bless their hearts, just delivered me the copy of Memoirs of My Nervous Illness that I ordered from bn.com. The book is a German Judge, Daniel Paul Schreber’s account of his own psychotic delusions while imprisoned in an asylum, and is one of the most celebrated cases of psychosis in the literature (through the memoirs, Schreber was analyzed by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Jacques Lacan, Thomas Szasz, and many others). The book was also a major source of inspiration for Alex Proyas’s stunning movie Dark City (Kiefer Sutherland’s character is named Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber) and it will be very interesting to re-read the movie in light of Schreber’s madness. Sadly, there is very little on the web that takes any notice of this link, which is probably partly due to Proyas not having mentioned it in interviews. There is apparently an article in the Times Literary Supplement which explores the connection, but I’ve been unable to find anything more than some excerpts online. Sigh.