] In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had
] revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up
] a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing
] deadly ricin and cyanide.
]
] The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp
] with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the
] White House, where, according to U.S. government sources,
] the plan was debated to death in the National Security
] Council.
]
] "Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a
] country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties
] after 9/11 and we still didn't do it," said Michael
] O'Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings
] Institution.
]
] Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was
] planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.
]
] The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White
] House again killed it. By then the administration had
] set its course for war with Iraq.
]
] "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition
] to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's
] policy of preemption against terrorists," according to
] terrorism expert and former National Security Council
] member Roger Cressey.

I'm not a fan of the kos, but I'm going to rerecommend this version anyway because in this case the spin isn't coming for the kos, but from the original story at MSNBC... Now its possible that Bush simply calculated that Saddam was a bigger threat then this guy, but in highsight, obviously they should have taken this opportunity. I find the fact that they didn't a little hard to compute.

Bush gave terrorist a pass

] The Pinellas school system is ready to approve a new
] technology that uses student fingerprints to keep track
] of who is riding school buses.

Children who grow up accustomed to this kind of surveillance on a daily basis will not question it when they are asked to do it as adults.

Tampabay: Have your thumb ready to ride the bus

The WSJ requires that you pay them to access their articles online. For the most part that makes them irrelevant in the blogosphere. However, occaisonally a copy lands in your lap anyway.

In today's WSJ George Gilder Blames the Telecom Act of 1996 for all of the present economic problems in the US. He claims that because of the unbundling regulations, RBOCS have no profit motive to deploy advanced services. As a result, they've stopped investing, which has led to a 95% drop in the Market Capitalization of the Telecom Equipment industry, and various effects reverberating through the economy. Gilder even goes as far as to blame offshoring on this.

I don't buy it. I think his argument is over the top. In 1992 I needed more bandwidth, and my friends needed more bandwidth. I would spend all night downloading files off of BBSes. And the RBOC would show up at the PSC and argue that nobody wants ISDN. There is no market for all this digital stuff, blah, blah, blah... The telecom act of 1996 is what forced the RBOC to make ATM circuits available to my DSL provider so that my apartment can be connected to the internet. And I don't need more bandwidth. If my computer was downloading movies all night I'd be demanding better services. But its not and I'm not, and this has nothing to do with the RBOCs.

The telecom equipment market has slowed because the infrastructure was built out ahead of demand. Building more infrastructure isn't going to fix the problem. Korea has more broadband penetration because their urban social structure finds more use for it (in particular, online gaming). If we think we need more bandwidth we need to prove it with applications first. And we can't, and the reason is the content industry. The people who produce things like movies aren't shuffling them down the pipe because they are afraid, and not because there isn't a market. Of course, this isn't going to start with universal studios. Where are the independents? Why can't I download the latest Sundance winner? There ought to be a lot of pent up demand for that as good documentaries can be very hard to find IRL. Same thing for cult films. But, of course, even if this stuff was available its unlikely that it would be sufficiently cheaper then just flat out buying a DVD that it would be an attractive alternative to netflix.

So thats where we sit. I don't think the rbocs are gunning to setup fiber in my loop. I'm just not stressing the DSL that I have. People looking to generate business in the telecom industry should be focued on applications, and not policy. This isn't a constant. I've been significantly on the other side of this debate in the past. This is a reality of the present. In the future things will be different. Nortel and Lucent ought to invest in things that people use the internet for, like consumer VOIP. They ought to be working on generating the demand that will ultimately resucitate their core businesses.

] It's official: Stewie Griffin's plans for world domination
] shall continue!
]

Sweet!

Eh, or rather...

Alllll Riiiight....

Yahoo! News - Family Guy coming back to the air

] The press that didn't understand what the campaign was,
] now sees itself qualified to judge if its a success or
] not. Broadcast politics has failed us miserably. No
] debate about the Patriot Act. DMCA isn't being discussed
] during the mainstream media. Its all on the Internet.

I previously memed two different text versions of this, both of which had various gaps. Here is the actual audio. Stream it. This is 46 minutes of incredible stuff. Furthermore, this site has tons of other very good Etech talks archived. If you find something particularly notable please meme it.

I want to clearly explain what this talk is about. Trippi is a dull public speaker. However, his content is worth his monotone. This isn't about Dean. This isn't really about the democratic party. Obviously the democrats have a problem, in that the Republicans do a much better job a actually mobilizing grass roots support, and Trippi discusses that. Obviously Trippi is a democrat first and a dean supporter as well. However, and Trippi makes this clear, this is about who the political constituency is.

In working with EFGA in the mid nineties I dealt directly with the political system first hand, and I learned one thing primarily. Politics is about power. Unless you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the issue you are concerned with is of clear strategic importance to the viable operation of the country, or has unquestionable implications for established Constitutional law, you win or loose based on how powerful you are.

When I say power I mean real power. People usually operate on the naive belief that things like petitions and protests are effective at changing political decisions. This is wrong. No one cares what you think unless they are trying to keep the matter out of the press. If they don't have an interest in keeping the issue off the media radar, then they only care about your money, or your vote. If you want to influence the situation, you need to provide actual financial or direct voting assistance to a particular politician who will do what you want.

Most people just don't get that. They think the government ought to do what they want simply because this is a democracy and thats how democracy works. Wrong. The government does what you want because it does not have a choice. If you can't put the government in that position, you will not get what you want. That is what democracy is all about. Giving the people the ability to put the government in a position where it cannot operate in a manner contrary to their interests.

This talk is about who actually has the power. This talk is about who the political constituency is. Is the constituency built of the ruling class, that controls the party system and funds the campaigns, or is the constituency built of the actual people. Do we really have democratic institutions?

My wording their sounds conspiratoria... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Joe Trippi (Dean's Campaign Manager) at Etech

] Civility, reason, and evidence are what
] distinguish the public sphere - the free and open
] discourse among citizens that provides the foundation for
] democracy - from the emotion-charged, ignorant,
] slogan-slinging online combat that sometimes drowns out
] political debate.

Howard Rheingold on OhMyNews

] It is now 10:30 pm, and I have been up since 5 a.m. this
] morning. Today, I served as an election judge in the
] primary election, and I am writing down my experience
] now, despite being extremely tired, as everything is
] fresh in my mind, and this was one of the most incredible
] days in my life.

My day as an election judge - Avi Rubin

] The fact that this modem connection is used to provide an
] unofficial tally is of little solace given that, from what I've
] read, the memory card with the official tally is plugged into
] the machine when it places the phone call.

Hey, I got one on Politech. Of course, there is a typo...

[Politech] Replies over electronic voting machines, Diebold, and security

] Tiger Woods has driven off from the most unusual tee-box
] in the world - a helicopter landing pad 1000ft up a Dubai
] hotel.

Ananova - Tiger Woods tees-off 1000ft up Dubai hotel

Opportunity's Microscopic Imager found this intriguing object, looking more like Rotini pasta. Its odd shape has stirred up Mars researchers, both inside and outside of the NASA Mars Rover Exploration team. Whether or not this object is related to biology has prompted a variety of views.

Main Story:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/opportunity_news_040302.html

Martian Pasta