teh good

The Arrogant Empire by Fareed Zakaria

] In the open-ended war on terror -- with its infinitely
] flexible definitions of "enemy" and "field of battle" --
] the decision puts incredible power in the hands of the
] U.S military. Under the ruling, U.S. Special Forces could
] secretly kidnap, say, a British editorial writer who
] opposes the war on Iraq. And so long as they took him to
] someplace like Guantánamo -- rather than to a military
] prison in the United States itself -- they could keep him
] there forever if they wished. A U.S. court could do
] absolutely nothing about it.

Salon.com News |

A View from the other side.

] And on the Fifth Day, the Picture Was Reversed in Favor of the Iraqi Resistance

] "In the process if they (the Iraqis) actually fight, and
] that's one of the assumptions, clearly it's going to be
] brutal, dangerous work and we could take, bluntly, a
] couple to 3,000 casualties," said McCaffrey who became
] one of the most senior ranking members of the U.S.
] military following the 1991 war.
]
] "So if they (the Americans and British) are unwilling to
] face up to that, we may have a difficult time of it
] taking down Baghdad and Tikrit up to the north west."
]
] McCaffrey said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had
] misjudged the nature of the conflict. Asked if Rumsfeld
] made a mistake by not sending more troops to start the
] offensive, McCaffrey replied: "Yes, sure. I think
] everybody told him that."

Barry McCaffrey: 3,000 casualties to Baghdad

] A tasteless powder of antibodies could be sprinkled on
] suspect food to destroy any dangerous bacteria, according
] to the researcher who has produced the powder. An
] alternative use would be as a spray for meat carcasses,
] to ensure hygiene in abattoirs.
]
] Contaminated food kills 5000 people a year in the US
] alone. Although antibodies are already fed to livestock
] to prevent diarrhoea, the powdered "anti-bacterial spice"
] announced at the American Chemical Society conference in
] New Orleans is the first antibody compound developed for
] human food.

New Scientist

] The Arabic satellite television channel Al Jazeera, which
] on Sunday broadcast controversial footage of US soldiers
] captured by Iraqi forces, has blamed computer hackers for
] crashing its online news service on Monday.
]
] The station's web site, which carried still images of the
] footage, was inaccessible on Monday morning. A
] spokeswoman for Al Jazeera told New Scientist: "We have a
] problem. I believe there are some hackers, some attack,
] but I don't know exactly."

New Scientist

] A microchip that uses chemicals instead of pulses of
] electricity to stimulate neurons has been created. It
] could open the way to implants that interact with our
] nervous system in a far more subtle way than is possible
] now.

New Scientist

Excellent peice by Paul Berman on Sayyid Qutb, the man whom islamist extremeist philosophy can directly be attributed to.

This is a must read article. Long (10 pages), but completely worth it. Filled with insight and background on the collision of islamist and liberal culture..

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror

] What does it say about American culture if Venice
] filmmaker Tim Sullivan can't get financing for a remake
] of the 1964 splatter classic "2000 Maniacs"?
]
] What it said to Sullivan is that raising funds for
] low-budget independent movies -- never easy -- has gotten
] tougher since Wall Street laid an egg.
]
] At 38, Sullivan is a 20-year horror veteran. His first
] break came in his hometown of Metuchen, N.J., on 1983's
] forgotten "Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn."
] Sullivan's job, wielding a Black & Decker hand pump
] behind the scenes, was to make sure the blood gushed on
] cue and on budget.

Tim is also my cousin, so meme/blog this around and get my kin some attention..

] The plot: Confederate zombies take revenge on
] present-day Yankee tourists.

Whole bunch of folks in the southeast on MemeStreams.. If this dosen't get you going, what will?

] A couple of characters will be dropped and some action
] sequences trimmed. However, there are some compromises
] he won't make. The script said eight murders, and eight
] murders there will be.
]
] "If I have to choose between a decapitation and a
] motorcycle chase," Sullivan said, "I'm going with the
] decapitation."

Right on..

Movie Industry Screwed! Economy Screwed! Rattle's cousin screwed out of financing for '2000 Maniacs' remake!

] You will probably not hear about the roughly 400,000
] Iraqis we killed during that bully outing. You will almost
] certainly not hear about the retreating column of almost 50,000
] Iraqi soldiers that were incinerated on the highway from Kuwait
] on the orders of war criminal-turned-Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey.

More good stuff from Barlow. But he kinda idealizes Brazil here... I think he missed seeing the millions of people stuck in the favela?

JPB offers a (mostly) reasonable critique