] At first, said Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and
] started bashing the hell out of it.
]
] "Another thing they were interested in was in defecating
] and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips, who
] runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and
] Technologies.
]
] Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe
] and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily
] of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept
] in.

LOL! Well, I guess it was worth a shot just to get the data. :)

Typing Monkeys Don't Write Shakespeare

From the "World Socialist Web Site", I actually found the most thorough summary of the news concerning the Tuwaitha contamination. If you'd like a brief summary of what's been discovered thus far, this is a good article to read. They also editorialize a bit, but I have to say that I'm starting to agree with some of the sharper criticisms:

] Thus far, the Bush administration has stonewalled the IAEA,
] maintaining that it will "eventually" allow its inspectors back
] in, but that there is no immediate plan to grant them a role in
] Iraq. It is carrying out this exclusion despite the fact that
] the UN inspectors are the only ones who have a detailed knowledge
] of what was stored at the looted sites and therefore are able to
] confirm what has been taken. This seemingly irrational refusal to
] allow the inspectors to carry out this urgent task is bound up
] with Washington's determination to prevent any international
] interference in the US installation of its own hand-picked Iraqi
] puppet regime.
]
] The US media has paid scant attention to these "disturbing"
] reports [about Tuwaitha radioactive contamination]. It has
] focused instead on unsubstantiated claims by the Bush
] administration that US occupation troops have found a truck in
] northern Iraq that "could have been used" as a mobile
] biological weapons lab. The Pentagon admits that thus far it has
] found no trace of biological agents on the vehicle.
]
] The relative indifference to what may soon prove the worst
] nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986 underscores
] the predatory character of the US war and occupation.

Tuwaitha may be 'the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl meltdown'

] by typing a specific Web address that included the phrase
] "emailpwdreset," he could seize any person's Passport
] account and change the password associated with it.

Salon.com Technology | Microsoft admits Internet Passport was vulnerable

Charts and data showing how prevalent various "Plug in" Players are. One chart shows penetration of Macromedia Flash (98%) as compared to QuickTime (37%). Another chart shows penetration of the different versions of Flash player, by geographical area (for example, Asia is less likely to have Flash Player 6 than other areas).

Flash and Shockwave Players Usage Statistics

For those of my friends and associates who have been asking me questions about how to get started on Memestreams (and for anyone else who finds this of use), here's the four-step QuickStart:

 (1) Create a Memestreams account
 (2) Create a "Recommend" button on your browser Links bar
 (3) Recommend something
 (4) Check how it looks by going to your own Memestreams page

Here's more info on each of the above:

 (1) Create a Memestreams account by clicking on "Create an Account" on the lefthand toolbar (or go here: http://www.memestreams.net/registration/ )

 (2) This is the trickiest part: Add a "Recommend" button to your browser. Depending on which web browser you use, you can probably do this by dragging the "Recommend" link from the following page to your Links bar. Go to this page, find the "Recommend" hyperlink, click, hold, and drag up to your Links bar to have it automatically make the button for you:
 http://www.memestreams.net/introduction.thml

If you don't see a Links bar or have a nonstandard browser, read the instructions on the above page, or ask for help. Email/IM me and I'll walk you through it.

 (3) Recommend a link as follows:

    (a) Go to a URL that you find of interest (a news story or favorite website)
    (b) (optional) Highlight a couple sentences on the page, as some type of reference quote
    (c) Click on the new "Recommend" button you have (if you're blocking popups, you may need to hold down the CTRL key too).
    (d) A popup box will appear with info already filled in such as your quoted text, the page's URL, title, a category dropdown menu, and a text box. You can add in any additional comments that you want to, and click on "Submit"

 (4) That's it! If you want to check how your link showed up, go to your Memestreams page at http://www.memestreams.net/users/YOURACCOUNTNAME to see what it looks like. If you don't like how it looks, you can always click on "Edit" at the bottom of the link, to change it.

After you've recommended a few links, you can start playing with more advanced features such as tweaking categories, reviewing/replying to threads, recommending other people's links, and diddling the "Reputation Agent" to get it to recommend other links to you that you may find interesting. To start though, the above 4 steps should get you up and running!

Let me know if you have any questions,

Elonka :)

Memestreams QuickStart

] When Saddam Hussein's regime fell, the guards disappeared
] and looters poured in.
]
] Employees say the thieves emptied barrels containing
] low-grade uranium on the ground and then made off to use
] them to store food and water.
]
] Workers at the site say they then buried the uranium.
]
] One of the facilities chief engineers told the BBC he was
] concerned about the damage that had already been done.
]
] "The people inside this village, they may die in four
] months. We need the special teams of radiation, radiation
] decontamination, decontamination of the area, my
] village."

More information about "Iraq's Chernobyl", the looted Tuwaitha site.

Appeal for help at looted Iraq nuclear site (Tuwaitha)

] The lawsuit accused the US division of the videogame
] giant of copying her look (knee-high boots, short skirts
] and a pink ponytail) for a character named "Ulala" in its
] 2000 videogame adventure, Space Channel 5.

This is one of my favorite games, and I've played it all the way through several times. Looking at the pic here, yes, there's a clear resemblance.

Sega sued by Dee-Lite frontwoman for character in 'Space Channel 5'

] BAGHDAD - Former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi, tipped
] for a key role in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, insisted
] Wednesday he will only take part in an interim government
] if he is elected.
]
] Pachachi, who returned to Iraq on Tuesday after 33 years
] in exile, turned down a seat on a US-sanctioned
] leadership council of opposition leaders that is taking a
] lead role in forming the new government.
]
] "What is important now is not the leadership council but
] the interim government which has to be elected and not
] nominated by someone else," the octogenarian told a
] packed Baghdad press conference.

I agree with Salam Pax -- I'm liking Pachachi. :)

Middle East Online - Pachachi declines seat on Iraq Council

] Severe destruction of the Al-tuwaitha site took place
] during the bombing compaign in 1991 within the desert
] storm operation. Destroyed were the Tammuz-2 mini
] reactor, the cooling tower, the LAMMA, and the waste
] treatment facility. Destroyed also was the Russian
] reactor, where the reactor pool can be seen in open air.
] Chernobyl-like severe radioactive contamination all over
] the region including excessive radioactive exposure of
] the public could result if the highly radioactive reactor
] fuel were hit during the bombing. Complete damage is
] evident. The state of the empty site after 10 years of
] sanctions and embargo with ruins everywhere resembles
] that of Chernobyl site in Ukraine.

With the recent reports of the looting of material from Tuwaitha, this could mean that this area is now one of the biggest radioactive disasters in the history of mankind, up there on the list with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Reports are still coming in and being confirmed about the extent of the contamination, but the potential is huge.

2001 Report: Tuwaitha has the potential to be as huge a disaster as Chernobyl

] Ali Ghanem, a driver, said three people died last week in
] the town, just southeast of Baghdad, after being
] contaminated by something stolen from the Al-Tuwaitha
] site.
]
] "They were buried with the material in the village of
] Wardieh," he said.

I'm suspicious of this report because for there to be deaths, there would also have to be other signs of radioactive poisoning. For example, someone exposed to high levels of radiation would probably begin vomiting within about an hour. But I'm extremely concerned that there are going to be other serious health consequences (increased cancer rates and birth defects) from the contamination -- we just don't know the extent of it yet.

(Unconfirmed) Three deaths from radioactive contamination at looted Tuwaitha site in Iraq