The Kuwaitis may have just saved GWB’s reputation. The Hindustan Times is reporting that a bunch of chemical and biological weapons have been seized coming out of Iraq towards an undisclosed European country (France? This could be a neocon’s wet dream…)
Here’s an interesting article about a(n apparently fairly unscientific) study done a t a University comparing a gasoline car fire to a hydrogen fuel car fire.
while the gasoline fire started as the result of a simple, small hole in the fuel line, for the hydrogen fire to occur, it would have taken the catastrophic failure of four separate safety systems, all at the same time, a highly unlikely occurrence
The Guardian hardly a right-wing rag, has an article on Afghan President Karzi’s speech to the Labor Party (probably in an effort to help embattled Tony Blair )
“The result of that cooperation today for Afghanistan is that we have now had a government for two years. We are liberated. We have political freedom. We have freedom of the media. We have, only in Kabul, 80 newspapers printing and all critical of us.”
More than two million refugees had returned to the country and 4.2 million children were now going to school, he added.
Mr Karzai conceded that civil disorder and drugs were still major problems in Afghanistan, adding: “Terrorism and extremism is still challenging our life.”
But he said: “The end result of the cooperation of civilisations for Afghanistan will be democracy, prosperity, peace and dignity for our people and by extension for the region and, by extension, peace for the rest of the world. We are sure that help from the rest of the world, the UK as well, will continue to be with us. We supported the operation in Iraq because we want exactly the same thing for the Iraqi people. We want the Iraqis to be free from oppression, from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and his regime.”
A follow-up to cynthia’s post about the fed’s use of the Patriot Act against non-terrorists. Adrian Lamo is not considered a saint by many in the IT security world, but I haven’t heard of him doing any direct damage to any site that he’s hacked. As best I can tell, he’s just a really bright kid who has never found his place in the business world and made a bad choice to publish data after companies have ignored his warnings about thier lax secuirty. The FBI have decided to violate some of the cardinal precepts of American justice by using the Patriot Act to get information on Lamo from journalists.
I got a call from Gordo Gibson (Occasional contributor on the porch) yesterday as I drove home. There’s a decent chance that he and Candi will be parents sometime today, as her OB has decided to induce delivery about a week early for non-life threatening issues. Regardless, here’s hope for a safe and eventless delivery, and fond wishes for the start of a happy family.
My advice was to sleep now and stock up on coffee, as the kiddo isn’t going to have any appreciation for day or night until about Christmas.
(That’s the sound of a dead horse being beaten)
NRO, bless their souls, doesn’t want to let this new-found respect for security go un-noticed, so they’re dragging up a couple of older cases which have gone un-punished.
Read more!I’ve gone on about this dude before, and I’ll do it again, but Dr. Leinhard over at the Engines of our Ingenuity strikes a similar nerve today as Grieder did the other day.
He observes that political power, which once flowed vertically, now flows horizontally, and the growth of mass media has been a major force in bringing this state of affairs about … Today, we look to our peers for the signposts that guide our actions. We tell one another that any of us can make a difference and that any child can grow up to be president. … (The automobile) represents the good in us — efficacy, physical beauty, and a kind of buoyancy of spirit. It represents the bad as well — pollution, danger, congestion… But (it) is also emblematic of our ability to create and build… And so … a part of our modern horizontalness is that we no longer wait upon kings and satraps to build a better world. We expect no less from one another.
Leinhard references The Horizontal Society by Lawrence Friedman. It’s available as an e-book from both the Harris County Public Library and the Houston Public Library. (Pretty cool service in it’s own right)
Caught this over at Wired
Since the week ending June 29, traffic to Kazaa has fallen 41 percent to about 3.9 million unique visitors from 6.5 million in the week ending September 21. … Traffic to Morpheus fell to 261,000 unique visitors in the week ending September 21 from 272,000 in the week ending June 29.
Sure, it’s heavy handed on the part of the RIAA, but suits appear to be working.
So I’m driving into work today, going down a major 4 lanes each way w/ a suicide lane road. There’s a bunch of traffic, but it’s moving decently, as opposed to the interstates around here which were their usual parking lots. I look over into the minivan next to me and the CRAZY LADY driving it is DOING NEEDLEPOINT ON THE STEERING WHEEL! Dear God, how is this woman able to have a driver’s license? And, of course, she’s driving a larger vehicle, most likely so she’ll be safe in the event of an accident…
What the hell is wrong with folks? My dear mother, who was already known to be a couple of cups short of a keg, was leaving our house the other weekend to head back to the Pit. I was putting her stuff into the trunk of her car, and she told me to leave some papers on the front seat. I asked her if she was going to stop for lunch and read, and she answered “No, sometimes I read while I’m driving.” My jaw hit the ground. I begged her not to, explained a little bit about momentum and reaction time, but none of it seemed to sink in.
So, when my dear mom, or the lady doing needlepoint, wraps her car around a tree, or ends up in a ditch, or (God forbid) kills a family of four as she drifts over the center lane, I’m going to find it hard to find an ounce of compassion in my heart, as it’s their own darn fault.