Rattle wrote:
] ] SADDAM Hussein's senior bodyguard has fled with details
] ] of Iraq's secret arsenal.
] ]
] ] His revelations have supported US President George W.
] ] Bush's claim there is enough evidence from UN inspectors
] ] to justify going to war.
] ]
] ] Abu Hamdi Mahmoud has provided Israeli intelligence with
] ] a list of sites that the inspectors have not visited.
] ]
] ] They include:
] ]
] ] AN underground chemical weapons facility at the southern
] ] end of the Jadray Peninsula in Baghdad;
] ]
] ] A SCUD assembly area near Ramadi. The missiles come from
] ] North Korea;
] ]
] ] TWO underground bunkers in Iraq's Western Desert. These
] ] contain biological weapons.
]
] Something about this does not seem right. Why is this public
] right now? If this is true, wouldn't it be best to keep it
] secret from everyone other then the weapon inspectors? They
] are the ones who need this information right now. If this is
] true, and its not acted on quickly by the inspectors, then
] when they get there they will find only burned out facilities.

Agreed, something doesn't smell right. I searched around at google.com/news, and everything just seems to come back to the above story in a Melbourne paper. It doesn't seem to be off one of the trusted "wires", so may be being squashed for other reasons. Maybe it's false, maybe it's supposed to be secret, maybe it's flat out propaganda, and maybe it's just that the wires won't pick it up until they can verify it from multiple or verifiable sources.

I did find some related stuff at a site called Debka, which referred to Saddam's chief bodyguard as "Hamdi Hamouda" (close to the Melbourne paper's spelling of "Abu Hamdi Mahmoud"). I can't rate the Debka site's reliability very high, but that article is here:

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=245

There's also reference to a "sacked" bodyguard named Jassem Abdullah, who's been claiming to know the location of secret caches for the last few weeks. That article (again, I can't rate it highly for reliability) is here:

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=247

One very frustrating thing about researching Arabic news, is the fluidity of how names are spelled and arranged. Sometimes a name might be spelled "Binalshibh" and sometimes "bin al'shib", and so forth. So there may be more information about Jassem/Hamdi/Hamouda and others, that I just haven't found yet. I definitely think it's a lead worth following though!

RE: Herald Sun: Saddam's bodyguard warns of secret arsenal [02feb03]

] Losses at Microsoft Corp.'s Home and Entertainment segment,
] includes the Xbox game console, nearly doubled in the last three
] months of 2002, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing
] Friday.

Xbox losses widen

Darwin wrote:

] As a die-hard Constitutionalist, I believe that we still have
] an absolute, unfettered, God-given right to travel from point
] A to point B without permission from the state -- in the air,
] as well as on land. This Nazi procedure of "your papers,
] please" has never been appropriate for our country. I have had
] occasion to travel a good deal in the last several months, and
] on those trips I decided to research and test this issue about
] the necessity for producing identification. I have talked with
] agents, and their supervisors, of several major airlines in
] cities across America, and have gradually pieced together a
] rather complete picture of the real legal situation regarding
] our right to travel.

I also have the occasion to travel quite often, and am a close observer of airport security measures. Over the last 20 years, I have kept a journal of each airport I pass through, and jotted down notes about all kinds of miscellany, such as what type of aircraft that I fly on, how many other passengers there are, what kind of safety briefing takes place (on Cathay Pacific the stewardesses do a kind of choreographed "aloha" dance while they're demonstrating the oxygen masks), what kinds of special security I had to go through at the airport, and other miscellany.

Let me say up front that personally, I don't have a problem with showing my ID. But I have found it fascinating to see how different airports across the country have adopted different variations of security procedures since September 11th. Even when traveling through different airports on the same day, I'd run into vastly different "federal requirements" in each location. For example, in one airport I'd be required to take off my shoes, in another I wouldn't. On one route, if I was traveling in one direction I'd be required to pass through a metal detector and have my bags checked with the new "chemical pad" detector, but traveling in the other direction I didn't even have to pass through a metal detector to board the aircraft, and so forth.

Most recently (last week) I observed that Chicago O'Hare and St. Louis Lambert airports were stating that ID did *not* need to be shown to board an aircraft, but in Syracuse Airport, it was still a requirement. And *all* airports that I passed through last week still required that ID be shown to pass through the initial security checkpoint where the carry-ons are x-rayed. Interestingly, at St. Louis Lambert airport, I had to show ID not once but *twice* at the same security checkpoint -- Once when I first got into line, and again at the *end* of the line, right before I went through the detectors (there were only 3 people in line, too). But at that same airport, I *didn't* have to show ID as I boarded the aircraft -- I just needed to give them my boarding pass.

Taking a step back from all of it though, I have to say that I really don't... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

How to fly without ID!

All you need is a GPS, a car, and a printout, and it's off to treasure-hunting you go!

Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site

] BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Major Iraqi newspapers reported the
] space shuttle Columbia tragedy on their front pages on
] Sunday, but it appeared at the bottom, overshadowed by
] one of Saddam Hussein's almost-nightly meetings with
] military commanders.
]
] Although no official Iraqi government statement was
] issued, individual Baghdad officials expressed sympathy
] for the American people, despite the tense confrontation
] between the United States and Iraq.

I'm sorry to hear that Saddam can't even release a formalized "condolences" message about the tragedy. On the other hand, I find it encouraging that at least there are *some* officials in the Iraqi regime who were able to react as human beings.

Shuttle Tragedy Played Lower in Baghdad

Decius wrote:
[[Please read and rerecommend. I want this to get as much coverage on the site as possible, and I want feedback. ]]

And Rattle wrote:
[[We want to be good bartenders, so be sure to tell us how our drinks taste. ]]

And my reply is:

Well, I'm not *entirely* sure that I understand what you're asking, but I'll try to give feedback...

(1) I agree that I want privacy concerning what kinds of stuff that I am reading. I don't believe it's anybody's business to know every web page that I surf to on a given day, or which articles I spent time reading thoroughly, and which ones I just skimmed through, or which links I opened up because somebody sent me a funny URL, etc.

(2) In terms of what I recommend, meaning it shows up on my Memestream Page, I see that information as public. If I care enough to recommend a link and say something new about it, I've already accepted that my recommendation, and my comments about that recommendation, are public.

(3) In terms of what I *click* on, I don't believe that that information should be public. I classify that as stuff that I read, which is okay for sysops to know if they really want, but I don't really want it all publicly available to be analyzed and criticized ("Hey, did you see that Elonka went to the yahoo.com search engine 10 times today? What, Google isn't g00d enough for her anymore?")

(3) In terms of which of the existing Memestreams articles that I recommend, and *whose* stuff I recommend, like If I recommend 10 links by person A, 6 links by person B, 3 by C, etc., I don't mind if that information is public, nor do I mind if it's displayed in a quantifiable chart format.

(4) I would like to be able to see the "recommend" tree on an article if I want. Like to display all the different people that recommended a given link, and when, and what they said about that article (or if they recommended it, but didn't say anything new about it).

Decius & Rattle, I hope that answers your questions. If not, please re-ask?

Elonka :)

An important privacy question

Has hundreds of links to news and information about over 20 different Middle Eastern countries. You can tab to a list of links about a specific country that you're interested in, read news headlines, and toggle between pages in English or Arabic.

albawaba.com: middle east news information

Rattle wrote:
] If you follow this, I don't think you will be able to make it
] to the end of the speech without getting alcohol poisoning.

Heck, all you need to do is take a drink every time Congress applauds, and that's alcohol poisoning right there. ;)

BTW, anyone taking bets on which member of the Cabinet will be stashed in a bunker during the speech?

RE: The State of the Union Drinking Game 2003

] I finally saw the new "Lord of the Rings" movie, which
] is entitled "Lord of the Rings II: A LOT More Stuff Happens."

Including Barry's "Simplified Screenplay" version. ;)

Dave Barry Reviews TTT

] As I [Blix] reported to the council on the 19th of December last
] year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some
] 650 kilos or bacterial growth media, which was
] acknowledged as reported in Iraq's submission to the
] Almarim panel in February 1999. As a part of its 7
] December, 2002, declaration Iraq resubmitted the Almarim
] panel document but the table showing this
] particular import of media was not included. The absence
] of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages
] of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

This is the raw text of Chief U.N. Inspector Blix's report to the U.N. this morning. I watched it live, and wish that the transcript could convey the dry sarcasm that I detected in Blix's voice when he read this part. Paraphrasing: In one of its declarations in 1999, Iraq mentioned 650 kilos of "growth media" which could potentially be used for the creation of biological weapons. In the December 2002 declaration however, the same report was submitted, but the chart mentioning those 650 kilos was absent, and "the absence of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered."

Iraq is hiding some nasty nasty stuff, I'm certain of it. As to what should be *done* about it, I'm not as certain. But I'm 100% positive that they're lying about what they have.

Blix Delivers Report to U.N.