This is the transcript of a wide-ranging interview between NBC's Tom Brokaw and President Bush. Subjects covered range from Iraq to the Palestinian-Israeli situation to the economy to al-Sahaf and the Dixie Chicks.

I found the interview very interesting, not just for the policy stuff, but also to hear in Bush's own words what it was like to give the order at the beginning of the war, and what the decision-making process was like as last-minute changes were made in the war plan. I recommend this link highly for a better understanding of how decisions are made at his level.

President Bush Interview: April 24, 2003

jfeil wrote:
] This is an interesting article on Salon:
]
] [quote]Who killed Miss Norway?
] Five years ago, the news that a beauty pageant participant had
] died in a car crash stunned her virtual world friends. But was
] it really an accident?[/quote]
]
] link:
] http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/04/14/who_killed_miss_norway/
]
] requires Salon subscription (or viewing of ad for 15 seconds)
] too read the whole thing.

That's some nice investigating! Reminds me of the process that I went through to track down one of my own customers who faked his own death after the September 11th tragedy:
 http://www.freetimes.com/issues/1017/features-coverstory.php3

RE: Who Killed Miss Norway?

] Customers at the Sky Port diner near Schenectady came up
] with the idea of a creating a fish sling after Dick the
] goldfish fell ill in November and had difficulty swimming.
 . . .
] To remedy Dick's swimming problem, several customers
] devised a sling made up of fishing bobbers, drinking
] straws, gauze and string. When the 8-inch-long fish is
] placed in the sling, he's able to swim like normal.

Okay, *now* I've heard everything.

Newsday.com - Goldfish Is Placed in Sling

] One cleverly concealed map scheme elicited the help of
] the U.S. Playing Card Company of Cincinnati, Ohio.
] Workers inserted numbered segments of a large escape
] route map into a full deck of cards for reassembly at the
] stalag. Each map segment replaced the card's opaque,
] black center layer, which prevents light from penetrating
] the card and divulging a backlit hand to an opposing
] player. The company printed an entire map onto a block of
] fifty-two cards, two jokers, and two company cards prior
] to cutting, a method that ensured a close fit of map
] segments. Workers affixed the face of the card with a
] water-soluble rubber-based adhesive that could either be
] peeled or soaked apart.

Picture of one of the cards here, under "P.O.W. Playing Cards"
 http://www.loc.gov/preserv/bachbase/bbcmaps.html

World War II -- Map Concealment in Deck of Cards

] During World War II, United States Playing Card provided
] war-related playing cards that were mailed to U.S.
] soldiers in German prison camps.
]
] The cards were specially designed to conceal maps
] detailing escape routes. The maps were revealed when the
] cards were moistened.

Now that's a type of steganography that I hadn't heard of yet. :)

WWII Maps Hidden Inside Playing Cards

] The Defense Intelligence Agency originally produced 200
] decks to help U.S. troops identify Iraqi government
] officials for capture. The privately held U.S. Playing
] Card, owner of the Hoyle and Bicycle brands, saw the
] interest and made a 500,000-deck batch for sale at $5.95
] each through the Internet by licensed partner
] GreatUSAFlags.com, of Chicago.

Over 500,000 'Iraqi Deck of Death' cards sold

] The lack of competition harms the U.S.'s claim to be Iraq's
] liberator. Rather than championing justice, the U.S. appears to
] be engaged in the colonial enterprise of propping up domestic
] industry through foreign engagements.
 . . .
] In addition, the United States Agency for International
] Development (USAID) awarded what will probably be the largest
] contract of all - the main Iraqi reconstruction contract - to the
] San Francisco firm Bechtel, a company with deep Republican ties.
] The award was the result of secret bidding among only a few
] American companies that had been invited to participate. Many
] (perhaps all) of the bidders had given significant campaign
] contributions in recent years, the bulk of which went to
] Republican candidates. The contract was for an initial
] $34.6 million, but could grow up to $680 million over the
] next 18 months.
]
] The result of these compromised processes is likely that U.S.
] taxpayers paid too much, and Iraqis will not receive the best
] reconstruction services possible. After all, firms with extensive
] experience in Iraqi construction (including European and Egyptian
] firms) were shut out of the process. And it will appear to many
] that cronyism, rather than ability, seems to have been the
] decisive factor when it comes to the Halliburton and Bechtel
] contracts.

It is my hope that the current "selective bidding" process is temporary, with the main advantage of speed in getting the ball rolling rather than requiring a lengthy review process with a large number of bids from different countries -- In other words, I believe it's more important to go in there and get things started rapidly, since many services are currently in a shambles and we just don't have the luxury of sifting through for the "perfect" contract while people are suffering in the short-term. As things stabilize though, I do believe it would be prudent to allow more international involvement in the Iraqi reconstruction process, and especially to ensure that the longterm (or permanent) contracts are not all exclusively American.

FindLaw - Secrets and Lies: How Secret Bidding and the Shut-Out of Foreign Corporations in Iraqi Reconstruction Violates International Trade Principles

] PhreakNIC 7 dates have been set for October 24-26, 2003!

PhreakNIC 7 :: Nashville, TN

Good translation resource. This page has input boxes for multiple different translation utilities around the web, so you can quickly check to see if they have the language(s) that you're looking for. It also has links to a couple neat "guess the language" resources, so you can paste in some text that you're not sure about, and it'll display a chart plotting the likelihood that it's one of several different possible languages.

For example, I found this site very useful when translating a page I found via a Copenhagen News site. I'd tried to translate the Copenhagen page from Danish to English with very little success, but after analyzing it, I learned that the language on the page was more likely in Swedish or Norwegian, so when I tried those translation utilities, I got a much more understandable output. Very useful stuff!

Language Translation -- English, French, German, Danish, Spanish, Finnish, Czech, Italian & Portuguese

] Weapons scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory said
] Tuesday that they had built a plutonium pit for a W-88
] warhead for a Trident nuclear missile. The production
] took eight years and ultimately will cost $1.5 billion
] when the pit is fully certified by the Energy Department
] in 2007, Los Alamos officials said.
]
] "It is a sign that after a long period of decline, the
] weapons complex is back and growing," said Jon Wolfsthal,
] deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment for
] International Peace and a former Energy Department
] weapons expert. "To the average U.S. citizen, it would be
] accurate to say we have restarted the production of
] nuclear weapons.

And we need them why?

U.S. restarts production of plutonium parts for bombs