] The benchmarks listed below would be criteria for Iraq to
] follow within a week or 10 days if it wanted to avoid war,
] by showing it was fully complying with U.N. disarmament
] obligations.

Summarizing for brevity:

(1) Saddam would have to make a public, broadcasted statement, in Arabic, that Iraq has made a strategic decision not to produce or retain Weapons of Mass Destruction, and he should further publicly encourage all Iraqis to come forward if they have any such info, disregarding any orders that they might have received in the past to hide such information.

(2) At least 30 Iraqi scientists selected by UN Inspectors must be made available for private interviews, with their families, outside of Iraq.

(3) All remaining anthrax or anthrax production capability must be either surrendered, or credible evidence must be provided to account for the whereabouts or destruction of known past stockpiles.

(4) All remaining Al-Samoud missiles must be destroyed.

(5) Credible evidence on the purpose of the unmanned or remote-piloted vehicles must be provided, along with a full accounting of the organizations and technology involved.

(6) (wording still being worked on) Iraq must give up all mobile biological production labs for destruction.

I especially like #1. Clear, unambiguous, and attainable, and it's been one of the clear omissions in the current disarmament issue.

British Draft List of Iraqi Tasks

] Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic - a key leader of
] the revolt that toppled former President Slobodan
] Milosevic in October 2000 - was assassinated Wednesday by
] gunmen who ambushed him outside the government complex,
] police sources said.

Sadness. :(

Serbian Prime Minister Assassinated (washingtonpost.com)

] In any case, we shall continue our work at the
] waitingforthewebcaminiraq so that you could organize the
] projections at the walls and screens of your towns. Also,
] journalist Antonio Baquero is going to try to send us a
] usual everyday photo from a Baghdadi street that we would
] like to film.

Baghdad Webcam update. Evidently technical and licensing problems are preventing the installation of the webcams themselves so far, though there is a journalist who is sending out daily photos which are being posted on this site at http://www.webcaminiraq.org.

There also seems to be information and pics at the following domain:
http://www.waitingforthewebcaminiraq.org

And an explanation of some of the difficulties in obtaining a "webcam license" from the Baghdad authorities, who are evidently indicating some suspicion about the use of the webcam, here:
http://www.webcaminiraq.org/estado_english.htm

The WebCamInIraq site seems to be posted by Spanish journalists, with text in either Spanish or (moderately understandable) English. At least it's a daily pic update though!

Thanks to Mr. Kobeissi of Asharq Al-Awsat for the info and links!

Webcam in Iraq Project

Rattle wrote:
] The only way things could get more surreal these days is if
] SETI@Home finds aliens.
]
] I just had another one of those "what the hell is going on?!"
] frenzies. This time, it was brought on by the end of Lou
] Dobbs Moneyline on CNN. I had mostly been ignoring the TV, I
] picked up on things here and there durring the commentary..
] It was going into how the UN is useless, Libia and Iraq
] heading counsels, France, etc, etc. What you'd expect.. Then
] right after, it broke to a musical molment.. A country singer
] was doing some tune that I think was called "Did You Forget",
] while video was going of Sept 11th's greatest hits, broken up
] by shots of troops getting on planes, walling thru the desert,
] helicopters buzzing around, etc.. The country song is what
] really did it to me though.. I could get over the Bush'ness
] of it all. I wish I could like a video or mp3 of this.

Yeah, I ran across that on TV last night too. *Really* strange, and it made me very uncomfortable. Especially one line in the song like, "If after 9/11 they think we're looking for a fight, well, I guess they're right." I'm completely against any idea that we should attack Iraq as some kind of "payback" for 9/11. Regardless of whether there's any Iraq-Al Qaeda link (and I don't think there's any strong one), the "payback" idea is not where I'm coming from at all!

RE: Propaganda Moment

Despite my relative fame or standing in the current game industry, there are still a few game developers out there whose names can still turn me into a gibbering fan-girl. :)

One of those, is Cliff Johnson, who designed some long-ago puzzle games for the Macintosh, such as "Fool's Errand" and "3 in Three", both of which I spent *many* ecstatic hours playing.

Cliff is someone that I've always wanted to meet at a game industry conference, but he just never seemed to attend any of them. Periodically though I'd do a web search to see if I could find out any new info about him and his projects. Today, I was delighted to find out that as of last month, he has (finally) set up a personal webpage and blog, and, thrill of thrills, he has a new game coming out this year, "The Fool and His Money"! Plus he's got some sort of a web puzzle treasure hunt starting on April 1st (of course).

I look forward to seeing what he comes up with! Hi Cliff, glad to see you're still in the industry!

Elonka :)

Website of Game Designer Cliff Johnson

] Kamal Qubeisi reported that Iraq has been showing
] mounting interest in public opinion following the
] anti-war demonstrations in various cities around the
] world. Therefore, Iraq started as of February 18, 2003
] "to implement a project called 'WebCam in Iraq' which
] places cameras in various areas in Baghdad to transmit,
] via the Internet to millions of viewers in five
] continents, scenes of everyday life in the Iraqi capital.

I'd love to see this webcam, but haven't had any luck in finding a link to it! If anyone else knows the URL, please post it?

I also poked around to find out who or what "Kamal Qubeisi" is. My guess is that it's "Kamal Kobeissi", a reporter for the London-based Arabic-language paper "Asharq Al-Awsat". I'm also going to try writing to him, to see if he can offer any assistance!
His pic and (Arabic language) info is here:

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/pcstatic/02staff/0editors/kobeisi.html

Baghdad Webcam?

] TERRIFIED Iraqi soldiers have crossed the Kuwait border
] and tried to surrender to British forces - because they
] thought the war had already started.
]
] The motley band of a dozen troops waved the white flag as
] British paratroopers tested their weapons during a
] routine exercise.
]
] The stunned Paras from 16 Air Assault Brigade were forced
] to tell the Iraqis they were not firing at them, and
] ordered them back to their home country telling them it
] was too early to surrender.
]
] The drama unfolded last Monday as the Para batallion
] tested mortars and artillery weapons to make sure they
] were working properly.

Saddam's Soldiers Surrender

] Some world leaders and strategists have proposed five
] options for dealing with what they claim is a clear and
] present danger to their vital national interest in the
] Persian Gulf.

This is a review of the book "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq", by Kenneth Pollack, an Iraq specialist.

The options for dealing with Iraq basically boil down to:

(1) Containment
(2) Deterrence
(3) Covert Action
(4) The "Afghan" approach (encouraging local groups to take over)
(5) Invasion

When I'm talking to people offline about the Iraq situation, I often hear the anti-war folks say things like, "Well, war is just bad." "We shouldn't attack." "Innocent people will die." "Saddam might attack other countries if we do anything." "If we attack Iraq, then terrorists might set off attacks here in the U.S." To which I respond, "Okay, you say that invasion is a bad idea, I hear you. But, what *should* we do? Is Saddam an innocent peace-loving individual here? If we don't attack or find some other way of getting rid of Saddam, will the problem go away?" And more often than not, I'm greeted with a blank look or a confused expression. In other words, many people seem to be jumping on the anti-war bandwagon for no other reason than because of a gut feeling that "war is bad," but they're not thinking about the potentially even more serious consequences of inaction.

This book "The Threatening Storm", does an excellent job, IMHO, of carefully discussing each of the 5 options, pro and con. It's got a ton of hard data and analysis about the Iraq situation, and I recommend it highly.

The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq

] "Afghanistan is officially planting its flag in
] cyberspace, gaining full legal and technical control of
] the '.af' Internet domain," the organization said.
]
] "For Afghanistan, this is like reclaiming part of our
] sovereignty," Communications Minister Mohammad Moassom
] Stanakzai said in a statement on Sunday.

Congrats to Afghanistan! Welcome to international cyberspace. :)

Wired News: Afghan Internet Domain Launches

Game of the Year went to "Metroid Prime". Check the link to see the list of the other games that won.

I'm still not entirely happy with the award categories, since they're very much skewed towards shelf-based games. The longrunning online games (disclaimer: my own included) are almost never eligible, since there's a core requirement in the award categories, which is that they can only go to games which were released over the last year.

Though I can see the wisdom in that requirement for some categories, I also think that it's equivalent to saying that television's Emmy Awards could only be awarded to shows which premiered over the last year, and that all series which had been running for more than one year would be ineligible -- the paradox is obvious: TV shows which were popular enough to keep going for more than one year, would be ineligible for prizes because they'd been running for too long??

I'm still not sure what the ideal solution to the problem is. The IGDA board has discussed it extensively, but not come to any agreement. Since I'm on the "Online Games" steering committee of the International Game Developers Association though, it's something that I do have the power to try and address.

One suggested solution is that there be a new category added, for something like "Excellence in Online Game Design", which wouldn't have the "new this year" requirement. Another possibility is to change the existing category rules such that online games are exempt from the "newness" requirement, or perhaps re-word the rules so that newness would apply to development within the game, but not to the game title itself.

If any Memestreams members have other suggestions on how to address the problem, I'm listening!

Elonka

IGDA Awards - And the Winners Are . . .