] Two decades of fighting have created a nation dominated
] by warlords that is ruled not by law, but by the gun.
]
] "Afghanistan has never had any problem writing
] constitutions," Manawi said. "The problem has always been
] implementing them."

Afghans Debate New Constitution, Government

] Tiny molecular daggers that latch onto fibres stab and
] destroy microbes have been created, meaning "killer
] clothes" may soon be available. Anti-fungal socks could
] take on athlete's foot while, on a more serious note,
] military uniforms could kill anthrax.

Somehow I get the feeling that there might be useful microbes that would also be killed...

Clothing that kills microbes...

] The Iraqi Information Ministry told Al-Jazeera office in
] Baghdad its decision to ban Diar al-Omari, Al-Jazeera's
] Baghdad correspondent, from practicing his journalistic
] duties.

Iraq bans Al'J, too...

CNN.com - Al-Jazeera suspends correspondents' work in Iraq - Apr. 3, 2003

] One of Wall Street's leading economists is predicting a
] global recession this year, prompted in large part by
] fears surrounding Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
] (SARS), the "mystery illness" with cold-like symptoms
] that is blamed for 78 deaths in 15 countries, CNNfn has
] learned.
]
] Morgan Stanley's chief economist in the United States,
] Stephen Roach, will formally advise clients Friday that
] he's forecasting a world recession in 2003. His previous
] forecast was for an annual growth rate of 2.5 percent.

A long, tough war causes moderate Islamists to join radicals, Russians to renew their distrust of the west (anyone else notice they are moving their navy into the Arabic Sea?), increasingly common terrorist incidents, instablility in the UN and NATO systems... Throw in a plauge... Decreased travel, deaths...

Uncertainty.

Prolonged uncertainty keeps money in shoe boxes.

No new investment means no new jobs, which cuts consumer spending. Uncertainty becomes self fulfilling... Weakness... Depression... Poverty...

Economist predicts recession, partly linked to SARS - Apr. 2, 2003

] But the real success story is the Contras, or rather
] their modern successor: al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden's crew
] is a band of government-funded anticommunist
] counterrevolutionaries who grew up and cut the apron
] strings. These new-model Contras don't need state support
] from Washington, Moscow, or any Accessory of Evil. Like
] Project Democracy, they've got independent financing: oil
] money, charity money, arms money, and a collection plate
] wherever a junkie shoots up in an alley. Instead of
] merely ignoring and subverting governments for a higher
] cause, as Poindexter did, al Qaeda tries to destroy them
] outright. Suicide bombers blew the Chechnyan provisional
] puppet government sky high. Cars packed with explosives
] nearly leveled the Indian Parliament. We all know what
] happened to the Pentagon.
]
] The next Iran-Contra is waiting, because the
] contradictions that created the first have never been
] resolved. Iran-Contra wasn't about eager American
] intelligence networks spreading dirty money in distant
] lands; it was about the gap between old, legitimate,
] land-based governments ruled by voters and the new,
] stateless, globalized predation. The next scandal will
] erupt when someone as molten, self-righteous, and
] frustrated as John Poindexter uses stateless power for
] domestic advantage. That's the breaking point in American
] politics: not when you call in the plumbers, but when you
] turn them loose on the opposition party. Then the Empire
] roils in a lather of sudden, indignant fury and strikes
] back against its own.

Wired 11.04: The Secret War Machine (Bruce Sterling)

] Things will not be necessarily continuous.
] The fact that they are something other than perfectly
] continuous
] Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
] There will be some things that people will see.
] There will be some things that people won't see.
] And life goes on.

The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld - Recent works by the secretary of defense.

] On Thursday, March 20, 2003, our friend and colleague
] Maher (Mike) Hawash was arrested ("detained") as a
] "material witness" by the FBI and the Joint Terrorism
] Task Force in the parking lot of Intel Corp's Hawthorne
] Farms parking lot.

This case is interesting on a number of levels.

1. The obvious ... the government can spirit you away without charging you with a crime. They can hold you arbitrarily. We ought to demand that when the government takes people they explain why and for how long. "Material Witness" rules were not meant to be a loophole in the requirement that the government have reasons for holding people. If this is the Patriot act at work then this is definately not acceptable.

2. The fact that you know about this. Over the course of two weeks this website has gotten a lot of coverage in blogistan. This story has not really been covered in the mainstream press (do a google news search).

I'm posting this because I want to see more information.

Free Mike Hawash

] The audio files for most of the talks presented at
] CodeCon '03 are available via BitTorrent.

Wish bit torrent worked under osx...

Codecon '03 Audio Download

] Firewalls, packet filters, intrusion detection systems,
] and the like often have difficulty distinguishing between
] packets that have malicious intent and those that are
] merely unusual. We define a security flag in the IPv4
] header as a means of distinguishing the two cases.

:)

Who knows the evil that lurks in the buffers of men? The Stack knows!

ahhh.... the days of BBS's and Mondo2000.

The Way We Were