Recursion

[[ MemeStreams ]]

] Scientists have been boggled by the 40-foot-long mass of
] gray, gelatinous flesh that was first spotted over a week
] ago near Puerto Montt, about 600 miles south of the
] capital, Santiago.
]
] Whale conservationists went to see it last Sunday,
] thinking it was a beached whale, but quickly concluded it
] was an invertebrate, appealing to international experts
] for help.

Whale, giant octopus, squid, or something new?

Reuters: Unidentified Sea Creature Washes up in Chile

] The XBOX Dashboard is what appears when you turn the XBOX
] on without a disc in the DVD drive. It will let you
] adjust system settings, manage your save games, play and
] rip audio CDs and configure your XBOX Live account. It is
] the heart of the XBOX and its most vulnerable point,
] because it lacks several security restrictions which are
] enforced on games. This includes the lack of the
] reboot-on-eject-button "feature", which is obligatory for
] all games.

] The existance of an exploitable vulnerability
] within the dashboard could totally compromises the XBOX
] security system. It will make the box independent from
] Microsoft signed code and therefore this information is
] released to the public now on the 4th of July 2003, the
] day of the XBOX Independence.

From the Full Disclosure mailing list.

XBOX Dashboard local vulnerability

My favorite part?

"Mr Putin's first victims were the media moguls Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky. "

The shiner is including Gusinsky here, as though Putin was doing the Russian people a great "reformation" service. When in fact, he went after Gusinsky because he had the [b]last[/b] independant national network in Russia, effectively [b]ending[/b] freedom of the press. Now everytime Putin doesn't like the way something is covered (i.e. Nord Ost), he threatens to end freedom of the press, to crackdown on "abuses" of the press... and the press get together and censor themselves. The print media has more autonomy... but no one really reads or relies on print media in Russia, because most papers are "yellow papers", used to attack the enemies of X organization/oligarch.

Berezovsky had a large part in putting him in power, and then he exiles Berezovsky. I don't take issue with that part of the sentence, because Berezovsky is a real thieving bastard. Things like the All Russian Automobile Alliance, where he issued "stock" to form a corporation... and then never did anything with it. Just took all the money. Many millions of dollars from the Russian people that were struggling with hyperinflation. Put simply, Berezovsky is a motherfucker, but even he was expelled because he was simply too powerful, because he posed competition... and because he had MOCT media, which could criticize the president.

I just find it hard to believe the way the Western Press covers Russia sometimes. X Oligarch getting sacked is not reform if he is replaced by an FSB official that is just as bad (the state still has shares in most large enterprises), who will continue to steal, and has the added job qualification of having committed crimes against the Russian people as a KGB agent.

Oh well, they do mention Putin's political motivation in questioning Xodorkovsky at the end.

BBC NEWS | Business | Prosecutors quiz Russia's richest man

] The United States is now clearly involved in a guerrilla
] war in the Sunni regions of Iraq. As a result, U.S.
] forces are engaging in counterinsurgency operations,
] which historically have proven most difficult and trying
] -- for both American forces and American politics.
] Suppressing a guerrilla operation without alienating the
] indigenous population represents an extreme challenge to
] the United States that at this point does not appear
] avoidable -- and the seriousness of which does not appear
] to be broadly understood.

While the US media is so confident that the US won the Iraq war that the subject has become passe, it turns out that the capitulation of troops was part of a deliberate strategy. Hussein may in fact still be in control of his military. The war is not over. The US has not won.

Iraq war actually isn't over.

] "There are so many cartoons where press people are saying
] 'Is it Vietnam yet?' hoping it is, and wondering if it
] is, and it isn't," Rumsfeld told reporters at the
] Pentagon. "It's a different time, it's a different era,
] it's a different place."

Wow Mr Rumsfeld, thank you for the clarification on that! You’re right. Iraq ISN’T Vietnam - I see now by my atlas that Vietnam is actually a small country in the orient thousands of miles away - no where near the Middle East!

I'm so glad we have government officials with your caliber of reasoning and deduction of logic to point out stuff that might other wise confuse us helpless sheep.

Laughing Boy

Support for Iraq war slipping

] Japanese bookstores are set to launch a national campaign
] to stop so-called "digital shoplifting" by customers
] using the lastest camera-equipped mobile phones.
]
] The Japanese Magazine Publishers Association says the
] practice is "information theft" and it wants it stopped.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Japan's 'digital shoplifting' plague

] WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday
] suspended military assistance to nearly 50 countries,
] including Colombia and six nations seeking NATO
] membership, because they have supported the International
] Criminal Court and failed to exempt Americans from
] possible prosecution.

Hmmm... I suppose those countries will start buying more weapons from Russia, France and China now?

US Suspends all military aid to 50 countries

] A blur of platted hair, arms and legs dives into the pile
] of dirt and rocks, searching for hidden treasures.
]
] It takes only seconds before the first high-pitched voice
] screams, "I found one!"
]
] "Hey, here's another one," cries out a young girl. "I'm
] finding lots of them."
]
] Within minutes, plastic freezer bags are stuffed with
] chunks of gray rock containing trilobites, brachiopods
] and horn corals -- Devonian-era fossils from creatures
] that inhabited the Earth 350 million years ago.
]
] Fossil Park, which has been built in an abandoned 5-acre
] (2-hectare) quarry about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from
] downtown Toledo, is open for its second full season this
] summer.
]
] And visitors can keep what they find.

Cool!

Finding trilobites by the bucket, for free

This link is basically slashdotted right now... I don't think these people really understand exactly how much people do not like telemarketing... Anyway, hopefully it will clear up in a few hours and we can get registered...

National Do Not Call List Online