] With the burgeoning Sars epidemic spreading fear among
] travellers worldwide, the Hong Kong tourist board must be
] ruing the day it commissioned a series of magazine ads
] telling readers a visit to the city will "take your
] breath away".

Hong Kong in hot flush over ad blunder

] The colonel in charge of the tank that fired said they
] had reacted after seeing enemy "binoculars" being used in
] the hotel.

Decius replied:
I didn't really think that was realistic until I saw the pentagon press conference yesterday, which I felt was rather "spinny." Instead of being matter of fact about it they went to alot of effort to talk about how Americans are really good guys and they avoided directly answering questions about the incident other then to say that "war zones are dangerous."

My own take on the press conference was that the Pentagon spokespeople were well aware what a messy situation this is, and that they just didn't have enough information themselves yet to know what had really happened, so they were being deliberately vague.

Personally, I sincerely doubt that the hit was any kind of "directive from the top: make it look like an accident or justified response" attack. Unfortunately though, I *do* think it's possible that a rogue commander or gunner who was pissed off at Al Jazeera over the POW situation might indeed have taken the shot deliberately. We've got thousands of troops there, and though it would be nice to say that every single one of them was clear-headed, well-informed, emotionally stable and never made a mistake of judgment, I know that's just not true. Mistakes have been made, and I'm sure that more mistakes will continue to be made. So far though, the Pentagon seems to have a pretty good track record of owning up to its mistakes. There have been plenty of "friendly fire" casualties of our own troops (and of at least one reporter) that have been acknowledged as what they were: Screw-ups. As for the reasons behind the Palestine Hotel shooting and the Al Jazeera bombing (and as screw-ups go, these are both huge -- those places should have both been labeled as sacred as mosques), I'm relatively confident that if the truth *can* be known, that it will be reported -- Error in entering coordinates, a disgruntled soldier, bad intelligence, technical glitch, battlefield misjudgment, or whatever it turns out to be.

I've got another rant brewing about the screw-ups that I've seen in the recent press reporting about other occupation issues in Baghdad, but I'll save that for another meme . . .

Straw to seek explanation for press deaths

] Many of Iraq's military tunnels are believed to have been
] built by Aeroinzenjering, a Serbian engineering firm once
] run by the military of the former Yugoslavia. Hussein
] maintained a close relationship with Communist leader
] Tito (Josip Broz), and with Slobodan Milosevic, whose
] underground tunnels and bunkers bedeviled U.S. and NATO
] commanders during the 1999 Kosovo air war.
 . . .
] A batch of technological innovations is allowing the U.S.
] government to better understand what's below the surface.
 . . .
] Among them are seismic devices akin to big hammers that
] pound the ground and bounce back a signature like radar.
] Experts also use gravimeters, which measure the variations
] in the gravitational field between two or more points to
] help pinpoint underground installations. Special high-flying
] spy cameras that measure thermal energy and chemical releases
] are used to find clues that may indicate the presence of
] underground activity.

As things settle down in Baghdad, I look forward to learning more about the tunnels. In February, "60 Minutes" reported that some of these tunnels were designed by "a Pasadena firm," and that the blueprints were now "in the hands of government officials," but I've never been able to find out *which* firm (one would hope that they kept their own copies of the blueprints, rather than handing over all copies to the government). More info on the 60 Minutes story is here:

 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/21/60minutes/main541565.shtml

Closing In on Baghdad Will Push War Underground

] The Secret Of Psalm 46 was first presented on 23 March 2002
] at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose,
] California. It was accompanied by a digital video of a
] total solar eclipse, synchronized to a harpsichord
] recording of JS Bach's Art Of Fugue.

Brian Moriarty is a brilliantly-gifted speaker (and a heck of a game designer). This talk that he gave at GDC 2002 was a work of art. Inspiring, moving, and thought-provoking, and I will never forget it. I'm glad that a transcript is on the web, though I don't think that reading this can even come close to the "performance art" that was the talk itself.

I'm also meme-ing this because he spoke of some codes and messages hidden in music. If you're interested in cryptography, or conspiracies, or the history of the game industry, this is worth a read.

Brian Moriarty | Lectures | The Secret Of Psalm 46 (2002)

Multiple opinions are presented in this article. Most of them are basically: "The Americans deliberately targeted journalists in order to suppress the truth about civilian massacres."

The other two types of opinions are:

- Journalists were caught in the crossfire just as other civilians are being caught in the crossfire, but weren't being specifically targeted by the Americans.

- The Iraqi regime deliberately set things up to provoke retaliatory action towards areas where journalists were located, in order to cause journalist casualties and thereby discredit the U.S. in the international media.

My own opinion is that the truth is one of, or a combination of, the latter two explanations. The first idea, even though it seems to be widely held in the Arab media, seems to me to be patently absurd, since if anything, killing journalists is guaranteed to bring *more* attention to the killing of non-combatants, not less. Then again, I have to take into account their frame of reference, which is that many of them are coming from countries where unfavorable journalism *is* routinely dealt with via violent tactics and/or "disappearing" journalists.

ArabNews: Exclusive: Outrage at Killing of Journalists

Andy wrote:
] Bob Barr states:
] ] Some of you may think that I have always been in
] ] politics, but I haven't. There was a time in the
] ] distant past, in a land far, far ago, where I actually
] ] worked as a professional. Came to a job every day. Was
] ] held to certain standards, where I had actual job
] ] evaluations and had to get raises and so forth, and I
] ] actually enjoyed it. It was at the CIA. I spent close to
] ] eight years at the Agency back in the 1970's. Having
] ] the opportunity this weekend to visit with Jim Woolsey
] ] and have the honor of introducing him here today really
] ] is wonderful.

Phew! That was one of the extreme right-wingers' gatherings. Looks like there were about 50 attendees, including Rush Limbaugh and an NRA bigshot.

Here's some more info on "Restoration Weekend" where Woolsey issued that particular speech. He had a few good points, but overall I think he came off sounding pretty damn racist and anti-Islam:

 http://rogerailes.blogspot.com/2002_11_17_rogerailes_archive.html (scroll down to 11/17/2002)

RE: World War IV

] Al-Sahhaf's aura of confidence, along with the surprising
] resilience of Iraqi fighters in the first weeks of the war,
] have become an unlikely source of pride for an Arab world that
] has watched the invasion in impotent anger.
]
] "He's the comic relief of the war," said Salwa, a 59-year-old
] Egyptian teacher. "At the same time, he's the voice of victory
] that we want to believe."
 . . .
] By Monday, U.S. troops were occupying the Baghdad parade
] grounds and one of the main presidential palaces and calmly
] chatting live on TV with a Fox News reporter. Meanwhile,
] a few hundred yards away on the eastern bank of the Tigris
] River, al-Sahhaf stood on the roof of the Palestine Hotel
] telling reporters that U.S. troops had been taught "a lesson
] that will not be forgotten in history" and were "committing
] suicide against the walls of Baghdad."
 . . .
] Indeed, it seems like the only appropriate ending for
] this televised point-counterpoint (with al-Sahhaf on one
] side and reality on the other) would be for a U.S. tank
] to roll by in the background of one of al-Sahhaf's news
] conferences with a soldier holding up a "Hi, Mom" sign.

Iraqi information chief unshakable as Baghdad falls around him

] Rival satellite station Abu Dhabi TV announced its
] Baghdad bureau had also been hit and broadcast a live
] report showing its camera position under attack.
]
] As they filmed the arrival of two US tanks on a major
] bridge in central Baghdad close to their offices
] overlooking the river, what appeared to be Iraqi
] machinegun fire clattered out from just beneath the
] camera position.

I was watching this one live on TV. The Abu Dhabi camera crew was filming two M-1 tanks attempting to cross a bridge over the Tigris river, and then there were puffs of dust which looked like machine gun fire around the camera, which was then knocked off its stand until it came to rest pointing at a stairwell. It was righted (or maybe they switched to another camera) a few moments later, and the translator of the Arabic broadcast said the Abu Dhabi crew were shouting, "Why are they attacking us? We're just trying to show the truth?!"

I meme this because it was very clear to me that the firing was coming from the Iraqis, and not from the Americans. Even this Middle East Online article agrees. It was the Iraqis firing at the camera crew. If the Americans would have wanted to take the TV crew out, the tank had a direct line on them (heck, we were practically staring right down the gun barrel of the tank).

I'm still not sure what to think about the tank that was firing at the Palestine Hotel, but in this particular case, it was very clear who was doing the firing, and what they were aiming at.

Iraqis Shooting at Abu Dhabi TV Crew

] The correspondent, Shaker Hamed, issued the call for help
] on Abu Dhabi TV saying that "25 journalists and
] technicians belonging to Abu Dhabi television and Qatari
] satellite television channel Al-Jazeera are surrounded in
] the offices of Abu Dhabi TV in Baghdad".

Baghdad reporter issues SOS (April 09, 2003)

] But Fox News Channel reported that coalition forces were
] guided to the site after breaking into Saddam's coded
] communication system, known as a Jaguar security
] encryption system.

(unconfirmed) Saddam's Bunker Located via Cracked Jaguar Encryption