June 24, 2004
Blair's daughter Kathryn
I have received some indications from London lately about the daughter of the UK premier. I checked it out, and came across this Indymedia (I know) article.
Suffice to say I will not discuss it in any real way - but I think Indymedia's line on it is a bit weird.
Belfast's broad horizons
After a long gap, a published piece in the New Statesman today.
I attended a roundtable discussion in Belfast last week, discussing the future of broadband in Northern Ireland. All very interesting - it is a region on the up and up.
I really have not been writing as much as I should, but writing lots on here for you people. Unfortunately it does not pay!
Trackback
After nearly a year, I have decided to turn Trackback back on. It is a handy enough tool I guess.
AOL worker arrested in spam scheme
Here is an interesting way of making money.
A software engineer at America Online was arrested Wednesday and charged with stealing AOL's subscriber list and selling it to someone sending spam e-mail, federal prosecutors in New York said.According to the criminal complaint, Jason Smathers of Harpers Ferry, W. Va., used his inside knowledge of AOL's computer system to steal a list of 92 million AOL customer account "screen names," and then sold them to Sean Dunaway, who is not an AOL employee.
Dunaway, of Las Vegas, NV., was accused of using the list to promote his own Internet gambling business and also sold the list to other spammers for $52,000, according to David Kelley, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Blogging: A Web Diary Tour
Dan Gillmor was on an NPR radio show the other day. You can listen to the show here. It also featured
Lev Grossman
*Staff writer for Timemagazine, author of recent article "Meet Joe Blog"
Steve Rubel
*Publishes the blog "Micro Persuasion"
*Vice-president of client services with Cooper-Katz, a public relations firm in New York
Ana Marie Cox
*Writes and edits blog wonkette.com, a political gossip blog on life in Washington
Dan believes "Critical mass is approaching, it seems.".
Blogging With The Boss's Blessing
Business Week has a good article on the increasing use of blogging in the workplace, using Microsoft as an example.
For now, though, many are running the risk. In an era of fragmented media, with companies struggling to get their message out any which way, blogs are becoming a kind of undercover megaphone. One way to think of them is as the latest guerrilla marketing tool, a new kind of brand bait.They'll likely backfire, though, if employers attempt to exert control. "Companies inevitably will try to co-opt blogs," says Dan Gillmor, author of We, the Media, a book about blogging due out next month.
Until then, happy reading.
June 23, 2004
'Star Wars': The sequel
The Boston Globe had a good editorial piece on the Star Wars project, worth a look.
Instead of directing finite resources toward protecting America against likely threats, he is lavishing billions of dollars on a system that has not been tested under the realistic conditions that would obtain in the unlikely event America came under attack from ballistic missiles launched by North Korea. Instead of funding research that might one day make possible an effective defense against ballistic missiles, Bush is spending $10.2 billion this year - the single biggest item in the defense budget - on a system whose flaws independent scientists regard as insurmountable.
Nicholas D. Kristof: Victims of Sudan's vicious purge
Nicholas Kristoff with another stirring article on the situation in Sudan. Go read it.
Perhaps Americans truly don't care about the hundreds of thousands of lives at stake - we have other problems, and Darfur is far away. But my hunch is that if we could just meet the victims, we would not be willing to acquiesce in genocide.
US admits rise in terror attacks
The BBC reports on the mistaken figures given by President Bush.
The US has more than doubled its estimation of the number of people killed by terrorism last year. The state department said 625 people were killed in 2003, compared with the 307 it claimed in April.
The Bush administration seized on the original report as proof that its "war on terror" was succeeding.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said there had been no attempt to deceive people, and blamed clerical and administrative errors.
A US official said the figure of 625 people killed worldwide was still lower than the previous year's 725 deaths.
'Anomalies' in first private spaceflight revealed
It appears that the first private space flight did not go as smoothly as we thought, but they did go into space afterall. Can't be perfect firs time round.
The flight of the first private astronaut was not as perfect as it first appeared – a number of glitches occurred during the flight, some potentially catastrophic.
The revelations were made by Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne, which on Monday became the world's first privately funded craft to enter space. Until the team fully understands exactly what went wrong during the flight, he said, they will not go ahead with the pair of flights needed to claim the $10 million Ansari X-Prize.
Electric Warship Heralds Evolution in Weapon Technologies
From Slashdot, looks like the US Navy has been busy, they plan to implement rail gun technology by 2011.
DD(X) is in development by the Navy, Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and other firms. When the new ship arrives in service it will be armed with very advanced, but conventional weaponry, including two United Defense 155mm Advanced Gun System cannons and an 80-cell vertical launch system for various guided missiles. But these systems are stepping stones to greater capabilities, according to Michael Collins, Navy IPS/electric drive program manager. “This technology opens the door” to advanced weapons, he said.
A report on Rail Gun technology can be read here. (PDF)
US, EU reach final accord in satellites row
The United States and the European Union have reached a final accord on resolving a transatlantic row over rival satellite positioning systems and will seal the deal at the US-EU summit this week in Ireland, officials from both sides said Monday.
At one point, Washington suggested that the Galileo was an unnecessary rival to GPS that merely duplicated the US system.
Despite the US reservations, Europe forged ahead with the project and Galileo is set to be operational by 2008 with 30 satellites encircling the globe in medium orbit.
Late last year, the Europeans agreed to modify the modulation of Galileo signals intended for government use so they would not disrupt encrypted GPS signals to be used by the US military and NATO.
Under the terms of the agreement, the two sides agreed on key points including:
- a common signal structure for so-called "open" services, and a suitable signal structure for the Galileo Public Regulated Service (PRS).
- a process allowing improvements, either jointly or individually, of the baseline signal structures in order to further improve performances.
- confirmation of inter-operable time and standards to facilitate the joint use of GPS and Galileo.
June 22, 2004
Holding his Footnotes to the Fire
Peter is having a great time having a bash at George Monbiot and his book, the Age of Consent.
He concludes, with some mirth I imagine:
That doesn't alter the fact that Monbiot has written something directly contradicting his sources. At least Jayson Blair could blame booze and coke and Philip Glass had a vivid imagination, but why should this bullshit be published? I suppose that a profession willing to give Andrew Gilligan a second chance doesn't hold itself to very high ethical standards. Or maybe it's just another British craft industry like coal-mining or ship-building where the workers won't take any responsibility for their output.
Watch out Monbiot, Peter is watching you.
Five Days in Fallujah
Unfortunately Robert Kaplans excellent article on his time in Fallujah is not available on the Internet. But I will try and do something on it soon.
I Agree with Me
PJ O'Rourke has an entertaining article on right wing politics in the US. He poses the question I have often asked myself...When was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?
He likes Rush Limbaugh? Apparently so, but he still is not all that right:
Me. I am a little to the right of ... Why is the Attila comparison used? Fifth-century Hunnish depredations on the Roman Empire were the work of an overpowerful executive pursuing a policy of economic redistribution in an atmosphere of permissive social mores. I am a little to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I'm so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New Hampshire's recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.
He is critical of the right, for usually being just too extreme. And of the left he asks :
Do some liberals feel as if they're guarding the net while their teammates make a furious rush at their own goal? NPR seems more whiny than hectoring, except at fundraising time.
A funny piece.
Plan of Attack: Bruce Hoffman
And we move on to Bruce Hoffman's piece where he suggests that the insurgency currently in Iraq might come under a definition called "netwar". This is a concept thought up by RAND analysts John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt in 1992. Defined as:
Unconventional warfare involving flat, segmented networks instead of the pyramidal hierarchies and command-and-control systems (no matter how primitive) that have governed traditional insurgent organizations.
Hoffman suggests the solution:
It is a battlefield situation that a conventional military often cannot cope with, and we must learn to adapt. We must build effective indigenous intelligence capabilities so that we can identify the signs of an incipient insurgency; establish, train, and forge close cooperative relations with a functioning and capable police force; improve the safety, security, and living conditions of the local population, thereby gaining their confidence; and take advantage of the training capabilities, language skills, and cultural awareness and sensitivities of American special-operations forces, whose mission specifically includes the training of foreign militaries. In the end, however, no matter how sophisticated a response we develop, and no matter how new the insurgents' strategies are, a simple lesson that has been learned and forgotten again and again still applies: Don't let insurgencies get started in the first place.
Sounds like the first rule of invading countries.
The Indulgence Effect
Just remember that if you make donations to the Church, the bigger the donation the more likely you are not to go to Church at all...
A recent study by an MIT economist finds that, on average, for every one percent increase in a household's donations to religious groups, participation in faith-related activities, including attendance at services, declines by one percent. Economists have long wondered whether religious participation and religious giving tend to rise in tandem, or whether people view giving as a substitute for participation. For every religious denomination studied, the latter seemed to be true: write a bigger check, it appears, and you'll feel better about shirking services on Sunday (or Friday night, or Saturday, depending on your faith). This indulgence effect, as one might call it, was least pronounced among conservative Protestants (who were only half as likely as the average to supplant churchgoing with donations), followed by Roman Catholics, who appear to have left "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory springs" back in the sixteenth century.
Betting on Bankruptcy
Third on the list are some truly staggering figures:
Every year Americans lose as much money on legal gambling as they spend on movies, amusement parks, spectator sports, and video games combined—which is one reason that opponents of legalized casinos claim that gambling leads to financial ruin for many Americans.
Now that is alot of money. The full report is available here.
Iraq by the Numbers
Second on the list is Iraq, with a report from the Brookings Institution. It provides some telling contradictions of the official US line on post war reconstruction, and on the status of the Iraqi army. It also provides some details of the progress being made in education and health.
For instance, whereas Defense and State contend that there are now more Iraqi security forces than coalition forces protecting the citizenry, Brookings finds that only 65 percent of the 196,766-person indigenous security force is "partially or fully trained." (Tellingly, training levels are at 100 percent for those Iraqis tasked with guarding oil and electricity installations and serving as drivers and interpreters for coalition forces.) Moreover, Brookings reports, the nascent Iraqi army has fewer than 3,000 men, and 480 of the 900 Iraqis in the first new army battalion resigned shortly after being put on active duty. The State Department claims that the current violence in Iraq is due in large part to "foreign terrorists." The Brookings report notes, however, that fewer than two percent of the 8,500 "anti-coalition suspects" detained in Iraq are foreign nationals. The State Department also says that electrical-power levels "exceeded pre-war capacity" in the fall of 2003. This is technically true: on a single day last fall electrical-power levels exceeded pre-war capacity. The monthly average for electricity production, however, has yet to reach pre-war levels. Meanwhile, potable water is available to only two thirds of the population. There is some good news in these reports: the value of the Iraqi dinar is rising; oil revenues have passed $5 billion; all hospitals in Iraq are open, with 90 percent operating at pre-war levels; and the unemployment rate has decreased from 60 percent in June of 2003 to 45 percent earlier this year. Perhaps the brightest spot is education: more than 2,300 schools have been rehabilitated by USAID, millions of new textbooks have been printed and distributed, and teachers' salaries are far higher than under the former regime.
Pigs at the Trough
The Atlantic finally popped through the door so I can point to all the interesting pieces in this months issue. Some of the material is available online, but I prefer reading the hardcopy issue, and then linking to the stories.
First up is Primary Sources, always one of the most interesting parts of the Atlantic.
The first story details how much Congress spends on projects tacked onto appropriations bills. It seems fiscal year 2004 was a record, with 10, 656 such projects. The Pig Book can be found here.
Among others:
Choice slices of pork listed in the Pig Book include $50 million to build the world's largest indoor rain forest in Coralville, Iowa; hundreds of thousands of dollars for "poultry litter composting" and "berry research"; and $5 million for the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which was originally designed to "capture energy from the aurora borealis" and now aims to "heat the ionosphere to improve military communications." It's no coincidence that HAARP, which has absorbed nearly a hundred million federal dollars since 1995, is an Alaska-based project: the state's senior senator, the Republican Ted Stevens, chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee—and Alaska procured more pork per capita than any other state in 2004, with $524 million in appropriations.
Capture energy from the aurora borealis? Not heard that one before.
South Korean hostage 'beheaded'
After the tragedies of Nick Berg and Paul Johnson, it appears Kim Sun-il is the latest hostage to be beheaded. His corpse has apparently been found in Iraq. No doubt there will be another deluge of people on the Internet seeking pictures of Kim Sun-il, though it appears his beheading was not recorded.
June 21, 2004
June 20, 2004
Eminem and Kim viewed by each other
The press has spilled a lot of ink about Marshall and Kim’s story, the media have constantly displayed lots of details about their privacy, but probably the most objective and honest sentences can be found in Marshall and Kim’s own statements when they both talk about each other.
Eminem tells us that his relationship to Kim has been far from easy:
June 19, 2004
Eminem 'Stan' - Irish style
This is only my second post on Eminem - but this must be one of the funniest take-offs I have ever heard. It sounds like Pat Shortt but not quite sure who it is. It's a 7:27 minute MP3 of non-stop hilarity.
I think for alot of it, you might have to be Irish to understand it - but everyone should find the lyrics hilarious.
Listen to it. LISTEN TO IT! (The lyrics are pretty graphic, but only to people not from Ireland)
Emineire.mp3 (3MB)
June 18, 2004
Senate votes to add 20,000 troops to Army
Defying the Bush administration, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to add 20,000 troops to an Army stretched thin by the war in Iraq and other commitments around the world.The 93-4 vote in the Republican-led Senate -- following a similar action by the House -- reflected the anxieties lawmakers have been hearing from families of service personnel whose tours in Iraq keep getting extended and whose return to civilian life is repeatedly postponed.
Oil chief: my fears for planet
The head of one of the world's biggest oil companies has admitted that the threat of climate change makes him "really very worried for the planet". In an interview in today's Guardian Life section, Ron Oxburgh, chairman of Shell, says we urgently need to capture emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which scientists think contribute to global warming, and store them underground - a technique called carbon sequestration.
Paul Johnson beheaded
The deadline has passed, and reports indicate that the US captive has been beheaded in the style of Nick Berg. Shall we also see a video of Johnson's beheading?
Update: My website has been deluged with people looking for a video of Johnson. 2,500 people so far today. Strangely I rank number one on the Google for 'islamist website johnson', higher even, than the BBC.
Ogrish.com are seeking a copy of any video of Paul Johnson. They also have copies of the Nick Berg and Robert Jacob videos.
Update: Ogrish have posted the pictures. I have linked to them -
Eminem's divorce
Marshall and Kim have known each other since the time they were teenagers. Moreover, Kim grew up at Debbie’s home as his foster sister.
Continue reading "Eminem's divorce"June 17, 2004
Census Bureau D12
The song “Census Bureau” from DJ Kay Slay’s album”The Streetsweeper” Vol.2 features D12. This less known song, featuring D12, could have been entitled “Death Index” as well when we think about the numerous references to people who get killed at 7 Mile Road, Runyan Ave during the whole song; dramas are followed by dramas. You entered into a hellhole.
Continue reading "Census Bureau D12"June 16, 2004
Rapper Eminem's ex-wife arrested at Weber's Inn
Kimberly Mathers reportedly missed drug treatment
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1087397184256860.xml
Continue reading "Rapper Eminem's ex-wife arrested at Weber's Inn "Free wireless nearly gone
Well Ireland stops being the President of Europe soon, so I presume the free wireless access I'm using in Cork airport will also stop. It is a great facility and not something that EsatBT should be charging such high rates for.
Growing up at 7 Mile Road: Kon Artis talks about his childhood
* Source: Bravo Magazine
(Credit to Bavariangirl 2003 who posted the info on the Kon Artis yahoo group)
Irish blogger bash venue
Myself and Dick have been discussing possible venues for July 10th in Dublin. We came up with :
The Pembroke, Pembroke Street, off Baggot Street.
Dakota, South William Street.
Market Bar, off Georges Street.
Sosume, Georges Street.
The Mercantile, Dame Street.
Or maybe even upstairs in Oliver Goldsmiths, Trinity Arch Hotel, opposite the Mercantile.
Please make suggestions as to possible venues. Or make a comment on the ones listed.
We are thinking of an afternoon start, perhaps around 2 or 3pm? If this does not suit we can put it later at 5 or 6pm.
Colombia Three freed
News just out, the three lads who were 'on holidays' in Colombia, on false passports, have been released.
Phoebe taken by Cassini
Spectacular photos of Phoebe are coming from Cassini. Lots more to look forward to in the coming years. I especially look forward to more Titan photos.
Invisibility Cloak?
The BBC with the story on a cloak that makes people invisible, well kind of. Exciting technology though.
New DSL technology designed for video, voice
Now its 'UDSL'. When will there be enough of this high-bandwidth content to take advantage of all this speed?
The Uni-DSL technology, which is backward-compatible with standardized variations of DSL, including asynchronous DSL (ADSL) and very high-speed DSL (VDSL), will allow carriers to boost their bandwidth to 200mbps (megabits per second), said Pete Chow, Texas Instruments' chief technology officer for DSL technology.
And we are going to need 400GB hard drives to store all this stuff.
June 15, 2004
Canada's spam king apologizes
Here's a new one on me:
A Canadian man accused of being one of the biggest spammers in the world by Yahoo Inc. has agreed to stop sending unwanted e-mails and plans to help educate children about the dangers of the Internet.In March, Yahoo sued Eric Head and his father and brother as part of an industry crackdown on unsolicited e-mail, or spam. Yahoo alleged the Heads ran a huge spamming operation and sent more than 94 million e-mails in one month alone to users of Yahoo's e-mail service.
Great that Yahoo are taking on these guys.
Islamist website shows Paul Johnson
It is reported that Paul Johnson, the US citizen kidnapped in Saudi Arabia, has been shown on video. He appears blindfolded, giving his name. The video has been shown on CNN apparently.
Update: Indeed it has. It appears now that demands have been made:
A masked man armed with an automatic weapon also spoke on the video, identifying himself as Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the self-proclaimed military leader of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. His identity has not been independently verified.The masked man, speaking on behalf of a group called the Falluja Squadron that claims to have ties to al Qaeda, demanded that Saudi Arabia free al Qaeda prisoners it was holding and that Westerners leave the Arabian Peninsula. If the demands aren't met within 72 hours, Johnson will be killed, the militant said.
The gunman also claimed that at the time of Johnson's kidnapping, one of the American's colleagues was killed. On Saturday, when Johnson went missing in Riyadh, another American, Kenneth Scroggs, was found slain.
Update: It appears Paul Johnson has been beheaded. CNN are saying that three photographs appear on an Islamist website depicting Johnson's decapitated corpse.
Update: The pictures are available here. I urge extreme caution in viewing these images. They are extremely graphic. There are three pictures. And a picture of the website itself.
Attacks cripple Iraq oil exports
Thamir Ghadhban said blasts on Monday and Tuesday had damaged a pipeline from the southern oilfields - severing the flow to the Basra oil terminal.It was the second attack on the Basra terminal - one of the few operational outlets - in just over a month.
It comes two weeks before the US-led coalition is due to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government.
Sounds like the insurgents will be welcoming the new administration with a bang.
Clive nominated for New Statesman Media Award
Clive Soley has been nominated in the New Statesman New Media Awards - along with party colleague and blogger, Tom Watson. Great to see Clive getting recognition for his blog, but Tom is now an old hand at it! :)
UK CALL FOR A "NO FLY" ZONE OVER DARFUR
Ingrid is still tirelessly working on the Sudan story - I read her news every day, if I only I blogged about it a bit more. But for more information please go there -
In the Line of Fire
Jon points to an interview in the Atlantic with Robert Kaplan, who joined US Marines as they stormed Fallujah.
I still await the print edition to pop through my door. Patience is a virtue.
Bono apparently reads this blog
John has some interesting news from Newstalk 106, apparently Bono reads Irish Eagle. Now there is a scoop, if only Newstalk had an archive section!
Less known facts about Kim Mathers and her twin sister
On January the 9th 1975, Kathleen Sluck (Kim’s mother) gave birth to twins: Kim and Dawn.
June 14, 2004
Saudi Arabia created the monster now devouring it
Far more than the secular Ba'athist regimes targeted by the Washington neo-cons, the Saudis have turned the face of Islam against the west. The war on Iraq has only provided a rallying cry for al-Qaida supporters. The country that has played by far the greatest role in advancing global Islamist militancy was never listed in Bush's "axis of evil" speech, and is a major US ally. Indeed George Bush Snr continues openly to lobby for the Saudis and to take a salary from the Carlyle Group, a multi-billion dollar corporation channelling US investment into Saudi Arabia.The ultimate irony is that Saudi money comes from the west as oil revenues and investment: in the end it is we who are funding the export of Wahhabi intolerance. If the Saudi regime is now crumbling, we have only ourselves to blame.
June 13, 2004
Meet Joe Blog
Time have a good lengthy article on the world of weblogging. A world that so many of us have been a part of for a number of years now. It is strange to read about the rise of blogging these days - and yet so many people still don't know what they are.
Moon-to-Mars Commission Recommends Major Changes at NASA
A commission chartered by U.S. President George W. Bush to advise him on implementing a broad new space exploration vision is recommending streamlining the NASA bureaucracy, relying more heavily on the private sector, and maintaining more oversight of the nation’s space program at the White House.
An Oil Enigma: Production Falls Even as Reserves Rise
For six consecutive years, ChevronTexaco has had good news for anyone worried that the world is running out of oil: the company has found more oil and natural gas than it has produced. Over that time, ChevronTexaco's proven oil and gas reserves have risen 14 percent, more than one billion barrels.
'Electric armour' vaporises anti-tank grenades and shells
An electric "force field" for armoured vehicles that vaporises anti-tank grenades and shells on impact has been developed by scientists at the Ministry of Defence.
Fame makes his life a living hell
Many people don’t realize it, but fame sometimes leaves a sour aftertaste. People usually only see the glory and the money that goes with fame, but they don’t see the numerous disadvantages of being a celebrity.
Continue reading "Fame makes his life a living hell"
