Microsoft took a public file server offline Tuesday after Internet users discovered that the system contained scores of internal Microsoft documents, including a huge customer database with millions of entries.

Microsoft Spills Customer Data

] "Word got around the department that I was a good Arabic
] translator who did a great Saddam imitation," recalls the
] Harvard grad student. "Eventually, someone phoned me
] asking if I wanted to help change the course of Iraq
] policy." So twice a week, for $3000 a month, the Iraqi
] student tells the Voice on condition of anonymity, he
] took a taxi from his campus apartment to a Boston-area
] recording studio rented by the Rendon Group, a D.C.-based
] public relations firm with close ties to the U.S.
] government. His job: Translate and dub spoofed Saddam
] Hussein speeches and tongue-in-cheek newscasts for
] broadcast throughout Iraq.

Another article about the antics of the PR agencies Rendon Group and Hill & Knowlton.

The Village Voice: Broadcast Ruse

] Some 2,500 university students rallied in Tehran again on
] Wednesday in what has become the largest show of
] political protest in the Islamic Republic for more than
] three years.
]
] The demonstrations come at a critical time for Iran with
] pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami engaged in a
] last-ditch legal effort to break the grip on power of
] hard-liners entrenched in the judiciary and unelected
] state bodies.
]
] The protests, which have mushroomed in size and intensity
] since Saturday, began in reaction to a hard-line court's
] verdict last week that reformist history teacher Hashem
] Aghajari be hanged for blasphemy after he questioned
] clerical rule in Iran.
]
] "If, using the excuse of Islamic laws, you are going to
] hang someone for his opinions, then we don't want that
] kind of Islam," said Mohammad Namnabat, one of the rally
] organizers. "Our protests will not finish with Aghajari's
] freedom."

Reuters: Students in Iran protest over history professor's death sentence

Youngsters are risking death by climbing up lamp posts, breaking the light open and sniffing the gas. Kids believe the neon-filled bulbs will give them a buzz, but the inert gas has no effect. Instead, they run the risk of lights exploding in their faces. Youngsters in Dundee have already targeted nearly 300 lamp posts in several city housing schemes.

Probably the Stupidest Kids' Craze in the World

The big hysteria causing story in the NYC/NJ news today is the return of the infamous Bubonic Plague. It is currently reported to have been brought to town by a visiting couple from Mexico City. Sorry to let you down, no terrorist ties seem to exist at this point. The plague does not spread from person to person, so it is unlikely this will turn into a bigger problem. It is also extremely unlikely that these two cases could lead to the NYC rat population becoming infected, the primary carriers of the disease.

Between Anthrax and West Nile, it really does not take much to get people in this area on edge...

Black Blague pops up in NYC

Ilsundal: The newest drug to hit California's underground club scene is sweet, colourful - and deadly. The drug, a form of methamphetamine called ya ba, a Thai name meaning "crazy drug," has made its way into raves and is said to be significantly more powerful and dangerous than the current club drug of choice, ecstasy.

Rattle: This drug is a big problem in Thailand. With about the same frequency as highway car chases are televised in LA, hostage situations involving children and crazed people on ya ba are televised in Bangkok.

Thai Drug Hits California Rave Scene

Petri Gerdt's name was circulating on the Net well before police released it to the media

By Kari A. Hintikka and Ossi Leander The after-shocks of the bombing at a Vantaa shopping mall on Friday 11th October have rocked the Internet, with calls for closer surveillance of message boards and counter- claims that the Net itself is not to blame, and in any event it is largely unpoliceable.

Less has been written about the way in which Internet-users carried out their own detective work in the hours and minutes following the fatal explosion. Message board members and chatroom users on IRC (Internet Relay Chat - see attached article for an explanation), operating under online aliases, put together crumbs of information and arrived at the name of the culprit well before either the police or the media was in a position to go public. This is the story of how it happened.

HS Home 22.10.2002 - Myyrmanni: Net detectives found the bomber by themselves

Hijexx wrote:
] Interesting analysis of news stories from 10 different media
] outlets. Passages are quoted from 1998 and 2002. All of
] these passages relate to the big lie that UN weapons
] inspectors were expelled from Iraq in 1998. It's a bold
] faced lie being propagated by the following
] culprits:
]
] ABC News
] NBC News
] Associated Press, The
] Los Angeles Times, The
] National Public Radio
] Cable News Network
] USA Today
] New York Times, The
] Washington Post, The
] Newsday
]
] Not terribly shocking given the corporate media consolidation
] in the last decade (what are we down to now, like 4 or 5 major
] holding corporations?) but I've never seen it laid out in such
] a clear, concise before and after format.
]
] Kill your television. Kill your radio. Free the internet.

What is shocking is that most people when confronted with this kind of information usually blow it off as an isolated incident.

Wake up people. You should question everything the mainstream media tells you.

RE: History, recovered

The first clue came during Christmas, when low-grade uranium-238 was discovered in tunnels near a former al Qaeda base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. ... That the retreating fighters from al Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban regime chose to leave this behind when they took to the mountains fueled suspicion that their nuclear crown jewels went with them. ... One former Soviet GRU (military intelligence) agent says he knows for certain that al Qaeda possesses small atomic warheads. ... "Mossad [Israeli intelligence] reported that bin Laden bought tactical nuclear weapons from some former Soviet republics," he said. "They are not the suitcase-type bombs that people often refer to, but more the warhead-type munitions. These are the payloads of short-range missiles, torpedoes, and the like." He declined to elaborate.

Feel the Terror...

At least if they nuke New York I'll be able to see the mushroom cloud from where I live if its a clear day. TV just ain't the same, I'm sure..

Intelligence says Al Qaeda nukes are reality

Abe Lincoln:

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose - - and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you 'be silent; I see it, if you don't.'

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood."

What I'm linking here is Barlow's thoughts on the matter. You are reading Tom Cross quoting John Barlow quoting Sen. Robert Byrd quoting Abe Lincoln. How is THAT for a memestream? The thing you want to do now is click on the word 'recommend.'

BarlowFriendz 8.8: Pox Americana