] President George W. Bush's chief of staff yesterday
] dismissed as "a moot point" any lingering question about
] whether Bush relied on faulty intelligence to justify the
] invasion of Iraq.

well, of course it's moot... we're doing such a bang up job, and haven't even pissed off any other countries, not to mention that we finally capped saddam.

curse.

says Card :
] "Intelligence is a collection of dots, and then an
] analysis on how those dots might be connected.

well, at least i believe that our president may well have been playing a game of connect-the-dots in the oval office, but i'm pretty sure he'd've been trying to draw the horsie.

Newsday.com - Aide Defends Bush on Iraq

] Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said yesterday that
] the Bush administration has gone "off a cliff" in postwar
] Iraq and that "the White House has to get a grip on
] this."

that bush, man, he doesn't even need the support of his own party leaders, he's so right! only, wait, no, no he's fucking himself, that's right.

also
] [Senator Hillary] Clinton dismissed complaints that she
] should not have criticized President Bush while in Iraq
] and blamed a "right-wing apparatus." Clinton said she
] was merely responding to questions from U.S. troops.
] "I'm not going to lie to an American soldier," she said
] on CBS.

good. they may not like to hear it, but they're adults, and should be able to make their own decisions about the efficacy and propriety of what they're doing in iraq. supporting the troops and supporting the war (and it's attendant policies, lapses in judgement and mishandling) are two different things.

U.S. Gone 'Off a Cliff' In Iraq, Gingrich Says (washingtonpost.com)

the economist discusses the rise of biometrics for security...

] Even John Siedlarz, who co-founded the International
] Biometrics Industry Association to promote the sale
] and use of the technology, says that “recent
] congressional requirements are premature in my view.”

another choice quote :
] It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the
] chief motivation for deploying biometrics is not
] so much to provide security, but to provide the
] appearance of security.

indeed.

Economist.com | BIOMETRICS

] So we were stupid to expect this thing to work as
] planned. Except that as far as I can tell, there wasn't
] really a plan. Here's what I think happened. This is,
] unfortunately, far too common in the IT world. After the
] last presidential election, there was a government outcry
] for an electronic voting system. Firms like Diebold who
] make ATMs, check out systems and kiosk systems said,
] "Hey, we can make a voting machine out of one of our
] products." That was probably the total extent of
] thinking and requirements put together by the government
] agencies and the vendors.
]
] In the case of this voting fiasco, there was a wonderful
] confluence of events. There was a vague product
] requirement coming from an agency that doesn't really
] understand technology (the U.S. Congress), foisting a
] system on other government agencies that may not have
] asked for it. There was a relatively small time frame
] for development and a lot of money. Finally, the
] government did not allow for even the notion of failure.
] By 2004, darn it, we'd all have touch screen voting.

cringley weighs in...

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column

Grand. We need more nukes, because they're a good option...

] "I'm totally offended by this administration," said Rep.
] Curt Weldon, R- Pa., a onetime White House ally on
] nuclear issues, and vice chairman of the House Armed
] Services Committee. "I happen to think they're out of
] bounds on this. There's an important sea change in the
] world, and we have no idea what our policy is.

that about sums up my feelings.

A new era of nuclear weapons / Bush's buildup begins with little debate in Congress

who's surprised? anyone?

Telegraph | News | Iraqis using US cash to attack the coalition

arthur c clarke usually has good things to say...

OneWorld South Asia - Humanity will survive information deluge – Sir Arthur C Clarke

] A computer system gone amok combined with intensely
] competitive stock markets and indecision by Nasdaq
] officials to create wild trading in a single stock
] yesterday. As a result, some traders were left with big
] losses even though they had bought low and sold high.

all our eggs in one proverbial basket

Computer Mishap Sends a Stock on a Wild Ride

] The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday over
] whether the federal government should reimburse
] individuals whose sensitive data was disclosed illegally,
] even if no harm can be proven.
]
]
] At issue before the court, according to privacy
] advocates, is how valuable privacy really is.

this'll be a good one to follow

Wired News: How Much Is Privacy Worth?

] Under Yahoo's new architecture, a system sending an
] e-mail message would embed a secure, private key in a
] message header. The receiving system would check the
] Internet's Domain Name System for the public key
] registered to the sending domain.

Yahoo Spam PKI