Friday, September 26, 2003

New Bridge Strategies, LLC is a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Its activities will seek to expedite the creation of free and fair markets and new economic growth in Iraq, consistent with the policies of the Bush Administration. The opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C. and on the ground in Iraq.

A 'unique company'? You could say that. Who's the Chairman and Director of New Bridge? That would be Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's longtime right-hand-man and until about six months ago his head of FEMA. Before that of course he was the president's chief of staff when he was governor of Texas and campaign manager for Bush-Cheney 2000.

Allbaugh was part of the president's so-called 'Iron Triangle' -- the other two being Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. And now Allbaugh's running an outfit that helps your company get the sweetest contracts in Iraq? That sound right to you? Think he'll have any special pull?

9:12 PM |

10:57 AM |

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer of network security services firm Counterpane Internet Security and a co-author of the report, said the situation illustrates the power Microsoft has to silence critics.

He said, "I was really surprised how many researchers said they could never be on the record as saying that. We saw this during (Microsoft's) anti-trust trial. Many companies that privately talked about Microsoft's strong-arm tactics wouldn't dare get on the witness stand and say it for fear of reprisal."

7:49 PM |

Just yesterday, Democrats seized on comments by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell -- still posted on the State Department's official Web site -- from Feb. 24, 2001, in which he told reporters during a trip to Egypt about the success of decade-old economic sanctions in containing Iraq. In his remarks, which were unearthed by an Australian journalist and broadcast on the BBC in Britain, Powell said Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

1:51 PM |

Edward Said, the world-renowned scholar, writer and critic has died aged 67, it was announced today.

Said died at a New York hospital, his editor Shelly Wanger said. He had suffered from leukaemia since the early 1990s.

1:44 PM |

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Dolf Pasker and Gert Kasteel are just like any other married couple two years on, settling into the mundane routine of daily life together. They finish each other's sentences. They laugh at each other's jokes. When one goes to make the coffee, the other playfully teases about whose job it is to work in the kitchen. The only thing that makes their marriage unusual is that they are both men.

While the United States fiercely debates the issue of allowing same-sex marriage, marriage for gay men and lesbians in the Netherlands has become so commonplace that today, two years after being legalized, it is hardly recognized as different.

4:50 PM |

"The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself."�Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 29, 2003

2:18 PM |

I'm rubber, you're glue: Trying once again to turn the tables on the entertainment industry, Sharman Networks, which distributes the Kazaa file-sharing software, is suing major record labels and movie studios for copyright infringement -- specifically, that they went pirate hunting on the network using an unauthorized, ad-free version of Kazaa. The suits also resurrect Sharman's antitrust claims that the industry is trying to drive it out of business in order to lock up the digital distribution business. By way of reply, a representative of the Recording Industry Association of America made scoffing noises. Showing remarkable coordination, the RIAA managed to make those noises while quickly backpedaling away from one of its 261 pending anti-piracy lawsuits. In an apparent and unexplained case of mistaken identity, the association had sued 66-year-old Sarah Seabury Ward, a Boston-area sculptor who had never installed Kazaa (she's a Mac user), much less made publicly available 2,000-some copyrighted tunes, including "I'm a Thug" by rapper Trick Daddy.

1:53 PM |

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Has an American president ever delivered such a bafflingly impertinent speech before the General Assembly as the one George W. Bush gave this morning?

8:36 PM |

In late April, two teen-age students in Oakland, California, got an unwelcome, real-life lesson in civics. During a heated class discussion at Oakland High School about politics and President Bush, the boys made comments the exact nature of which are in dispute, but which their teacher believed constituted a threat toward the president. The teacher went to the FBI.

Secret Service agents showed up at the high school the next day to interview the boys, both 16. The school principal sat in for an hour and a half as agents interviewed each student individually, without their parents� knowledge or consent. �He asked us questions like was I a good shooter ... was I a good sniper ... am I good dealing with guns, and what are my thoughts on the president,� one of the boys told San Francisco Bayview. �I was very scared. I was crying because of what they said to us.�

The FBI has followed up on thousands of �tips� since the attacks of 9/11. In June, Atlanta bookstore employee Marc Schultz found himself visited by FBI agents after someone spotted him reading an article titled �Weapons of Mass Stupidity� at a local coffee shop. Schultz has dark hair and a beard, and the combination was apparently enough to make someone call the FBI. Schultz says the agents told him: �There�s no problem. We�d just like to get to the bottom of this. Now, if we can�t, then you may have a problem. And you don�t want that.�

8:24 PM |

Critical Ass is like Critical Mass except no one is wearing any pants. Just as with the Mass, the Ass does not have a set agenda. People ride together in their underwear for all sorts of reasons. Perhaps your motives are traditional Critical Mass ideas like cleaner air, less oil usage, bike unity, and safer streets. But since this IS Critical ASS some may ride for sexual expression, freaky fun, and uhhhh... cleaner air too. Come and have a good time. There will be a party to follow.

3:42 PM |

The Monroe plant is one of the worst polluters in the country: In 2001, it sent 102,700 tons of sulfur dioxide, the leading cause of acid rain, into the atmosphere, along with 45,900 tons of nitrogen oxide, 810 pounds of mercury and 17.6 million tons of carbon dioxide. A study done in 2000 by ABT Associates, which the Environmental Protection Agency has used to measure the health effects of pollution, says the plant annually causes 293 premature deaths, 5,740 asthma attacks and 50,298 lost work days.

Under Clear Skies (these people are going to kill irony), the plant will continue to shed this gentle beneficence on us all for the next 17 years. According to environmental groups, the administration's relaxation of clean air rules, known as the "new source review," will allow the plant to increase its emissions by more than 30,000 tons a year, a 56 percent increase.

The EPA estimates 30,000 Americans a year, 10 times as many were killed on Sept. 11, die each year because the Clean Air standards on coal-fired power plants have not been enforced.

3:12 PM |

In the past two years, 500 export assembly factories have shut down in Mexico, throwing 218,000 workers on to the street. Their crime was the $1.26-an-hour base wage they were paid by companies such as Alcoa Fujikura to produce auto parts for export to the US. Those wages are now "too high" in the global economy.

Never mind that the Alcoa workers in Acuna live in makeshift cardboard huts that lack potable water. Never mind that many of the workers in nearby Piedras Negras were selling their blood plasma twice a week to Baxter International for $30 in order to survive. Those same auto parts are now being made in Honduras by workers earning 59 cents an hour, in Nicaragua for 40 cents an hour and in China for 27 cents an hour.

10:25 AM |

Monday, September 22, 2003

RIAA stirs subpoena envy among law enforcement, criminals: The recording and telecommunications industries have promised to cooperate in the fight against music piracy, and Wednesday they cooperated in a rhetorical knife fight in a Senate hearing room. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback called the session to air concerns over the special subpoena power the Recording Industry Association of America is using to compel Internet service providers to disclose the names of suspected file traders -- subpoenas that can be had, without a judge's review, for $25 and a one-page assertion that copyright violations might be taking place. James Ellis, general counsel for SBC Communications, voiced Brownback's fear that such subpoenas could be abused by people even less savory than the RIAA: "I believe it will be inevitable that the Internet stalker, the child molester, the abusive spouse or some other wacko who uses the Internet is going to use the same approach" to pry out private data. RIAA President Cary Sherman declared that argument "a deep scarlet herring," and accused the ISPs of promoting and profiting from illegal file trading, causing Verizon General Counsel William Barr to snort in derision at the association's "jihad against 12-year-old girls" and its unwillingness to embrace new technology.

1:55 PM |

GAO grim on deficit outlook

By MARILYN GEEWAX
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON -- The federal government's budget is in far worse shape than most Americans realize, and the fiscal hole is deepening, the head of Congress' nonpartisan watchdog agency said Wednesday.

"Our projected budget deficits are not manageable without significant changes" in taxes or spending, U.S. Comptroller General David Walker said in a speech to the National Press Club. "We cannot simply grow our way out of this problem.

8:48 AM |