"[It's] just like having drugs," said Al-Shalchi of his dependence on e-mail and Web access.

Despite not even getting access to the internet until 2000, their geeks are just as addicted to a "net fix" as we are. Interesting article on the current state of connectivity in Iraq and the seemingly ludicrous idea that they could wage a cyber-war against us.

Unleashing the dogs of cyber-war on Iraq!

I read this book several years ago and enjoyed it, but with the current political situation and the "threat of terror" that we are reminded of on a daily basis, I thought I'd recommend this to others. It's fiction, of course, but close enough to reality to make us all think twice about it. Here's a snippet from the review.

This particular jaunt into "mainstream, commercial, technothriller-type fiction" takes us back to the days leading up to the Gulf War, when Saddam was our friend basically because he wasn't Iranian. And the plot revolves around -- don't worry, I'm not giving away anything you won't get from the marketing text on the dust jacket -- Iraqi scientists using student visa's to get access to leading American educational institutions, where they can work on biological weapons which they then plan to use on us and our allies. Nasty. But then again, that is why we went to war with them.

The main characters are Clyde Banks, a small town deputy sheriff who's campaigning to replace his boss in an upcoming election (and who has a pregnant wife in the National Guard destined to go guess where), and dowdy CIA analyst Betsy Vandeventer. The small town the sheriff lives in also happens to be home to Eastern Iowa University which, sitting square in the American heartland as it does, specializes in agricultural science, a veritable magnet for Iraqi biological weapons specialists.

The SF Site Featured Review: The Cobweb by Stephen Bury

Things that make you go "hmmmm":

Its provisions allow for secret arrests of persons in certain terrorist-related cases until indictments have been handed down and there is no time limitation for this process. America has never permitted secret arrests for indefinite time periods. In addition, Patriot II provides that these terrorist arrests may be under "no bail" conditions and that any federal employee who discloses the identity of someone who has been secretly detained may be imprisoned for up to five years.

The bill mandates that government authorities are entitled to have ex parte (one- on-one, without defense counsel or a public record) and in camera (private) - meetings with judges without opposing counsel or defendants even being notified to secure rulings on search warrants, admissibility of evidence and investigative procedures. In certain cases where naturalized American citizens are found to be working with foreign governments, or making donations to foreign based charities later found to be supporting terrorist causes, the Attorney General will have the right to revoke U.S. citizenship and extradite those charged to any country in the world, whether there is an extradition treaty in place or not.

There has been some debate, encouraged by inaccurate and extremely irresponsible reporting by some "alternative" journalists and radio talk show hosts indicating that the bill provides the government with the ability to strip native-born U.S. citizens of their citizenship for seemingly trivial offenses. This is patently untrue. The actual truth is bad enough.

Section 501 of Patriot II amends section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1481) pertaining to the citizenship status of those who have acquired U.S. citizenship. It states that those who have entered into the armed forces of a foreign government (when such forces are engaged in hostilities against the US), or have joined or provided material support "to a terrorist organization... if the organization is engaged in hostilities against the United States, its people, or its national security interests" will be deemed to have made a prima facie (apparent on its face) statement that they intend to relinquish their citizenship.

Lewis and Moyers were correct in their interpretation of this section in that a naturalized American who makes a donation to an Islamic charity later alleged to have been giving money to a terrorist organization could be stripped of their citizenship and deported anywhere without it ever having been established that he or she even knew how the charity was distributing its money.

The act broadens the scope of activities that qualify for the loose-to-non-existent guidelines for eavesdropping and surveillance under Patriot I and allows law enforcement personnel to obtain "national" search warrants for domestic and foreign terrorism investigations. As discussed in previous FTW stories, under Patriot I the definition... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

Patriot II

All Hugh Loebner wanted to do was become world famous, eliminate all human toil, and get laid a lot. And he was willing to put up lots of good money to do so. He's a generous, fun-loving soul who likes to laugh, especially at himself. So why does everybody dislike him so much? Why does everybody give him such a hard time?

This is a really good article (part 1 of 2) on Hugh Loebner, the founder of the annual Loebner Prize in AI. It's interesting to read about his motivation for it - he doesn't care about science, really, he just wants to sit around and be lazy and let machines do all the work!

Dolemite

Artificial stupidity

Why did the South get this most unwanted distinction? There are a lot of demographic reasons. We have the highest concentration of the group most likely to be infected: African-Americans. We have the highest concentration of another group most likely to be infected: poor people. We also have the highest concentration of the group most likely to stop effective AIDS prevention efforts: Bible Belters. But there's something more. A context that amplifies these demographic factors: the southern culture of politeness and indirectness.

Eek! A little tongue in cheek, I think, but a good article to read, none the less.

Killing with kindness

"If you take the electricity from the current energy mix in the U.S., then in fact it doubles the CO2 [produced] per mile," says John Turner, a principal scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

Wow. I knew that there had to be some kind of catch to Dubya's endorsement of Hydrogen Fuel-Cell vehicles, but I figured it was along the lines of ADM producing lots of genetically engineered corn to create ethanol. The idea that it will be produced through electrolysis is much worse, since he also rolled back the requirement that power plant add-ons are exempt from clean air laws.

Not-so-clean cars

Israeli scientists have devised a computer that can perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC. The secret: It runs on DNA.

A year ago, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, unveiled a programmable molecular computing machine composed of enzymes and DNA molecules instead of silicon microchips. Now the team has gone one step further. In the new device, the single DNA molecule that provides the computer with the input data also provides all the necessary fuel.

Computer Made from DNA and Enzymes

Those crazy Canadians.

Yahoo! News - Naked Kidnap Fantasy Has Police Scrambling

The facts Harris and others lay out ought to give many election officials pause. Touch-screen voting machines aren't especially reliable; there are documented cases in which they have frozen, broken down and tabulated incorrectly during actual, binding elections. They're also not immune to hacks. Though voting companies will confidently tell you about their myriad security policies, the fact is that these machines run software, and software can be tampered with: An election result could be changed without anyone being the wiser. And perhaps worst of all, the machines and the companies that make them are shrouded in secrecy. What really happens in a touch-screen machine when you select your candidate? In most cases, everything probably goes as it should -- but there is no way to know for sure.

Perhaps a little leaning towards conspiracy theory, but overall a good look at the problems with purely electronic voting machines - meaning those with no audit trail.

Hacking democracy

Nope -- now the heat is coming from other media company executives and Beltway lobbyists. They are dismayed that Clear Channel is doing what many might have thought impossible. In an era when Republicans control the government and big business generally gets what it wants, Clear Channel is making deregulation look bad.

Man, the sad thing is that I don't know whether to call this a good thing or a bad thing. It's good that the other media industries are still being regulated from owning too large of a percentage of the market. However, is sucks that throughout America there is hardly any good radio left. You can certainly tell the Clear Channel stations, though, since they all have the same playlist. It doesn't seem to have changed in the past 4 years...

Clear Channel's big, stinking deregulation mess