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Thursday, February 13, 2003
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The Real but Unspoken Reasons for the Iraq War. Although completely suppressed in the U.S. media, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking. The upcoming war in Iraq is actually an OIL CURRENCY war. The Real Reason for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further OPEC momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. (This is a long essay) [Los Angeles Independent Media Center]
An interesting variation on the leftist nonsense about "war for oil." Unlike that notion, this theory might actually have something to it. However, the source is not exactly credible--the Indymedia sites are full of socialist propaganda.
10:19:37 PM 
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Time for War, Right?. This piece from Pacific News Service takes a reasonably well-informed look at divisions on the war question in what is... [Hit & Run]
"Realists" like Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to the first President Bush, Lawrence Eagleburger, former secretary of state, and business leaders who ran "A Republican Dissent on Iraq" in the Wall Street Journal this January, drew attention with their warning that a hasty war could set the entire region on fire. Less well known are objections from conservatives driven by a strict reading of the Constitution and distaste for the "welfare-warfare state."
"Opposition to an unjust war is a conservative tradition," insists Jon B. Utley, the Robert A. Taft fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala. "War of conquest encourages the growth of state power and burdensome taxation." With war in Iraq, Utley fears that America is forging a world alliance against itself. "We'll all be soft targets."
8:34:36 PM
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Revolt of the Spooks. There's a fair amount of rehashing of old stuff in here, but this article from the Brit Independent is a... [Hit & Run]
Britain and America's spies believe that they are being politicised: that the intelligence they provide is being selectively applied to lead to the opposite conclusion from the one they have drawn, which is that Iraq is much less of a threat than their political masters claim. Worse, when the intelligence agencies fail to do the job, the politicians will not stop at plagiarism to make their case, even "tweaking" the plagiarised material to ensure a better fit.
3:21:42 PM
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Latest terror alert is proof of government failure, Libertarians say. The heightened terror alert is actually a "Government Incompetence Alert," Libertarians say, because the government is admitting that it cannot perform its most basic function: national defense.
"What's truly alarming is that a government that will confiscate $2.2 trillion from its citizens this year is powerless to protect them," said Libertarian Party Chair Geoffrey Neale. "And that should make Americans more angry than afraid." [Libertarian Party]
10:17:53 AM
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U.S. Tries E-Mail to Charm Iraqis. The United States has long used the tactic of dropping leaflets on potential military targets in an attempt to win the people's hearts and minds. In a twist on that practice, the U.S. military sends e-mail to Iraqis -- which Iraq promptly blocks. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News]
Given the ongoing "spam wars," it's kind of ironic that the US government is using spam itself. Also of interest in this article is the quoting of Salam's weblog.
9:41:09 AM
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Some Pilots Oppose Gun Rules. An airline pilots group said yesterday that the federal agency in charge of air security is setting unacceptable requirements for pilots to qualify to carry guns during flights.
In a message to its members, the Airline Pilots' Security Alliance said the requirements proposed by the Transportation Security Administration, including exhaustive psychological evaluations, were 'intrusive' and 'obscene.' The group said the TSA wants each pilot who wants to carry a gun to submit to a wide-ranging background investigation, including interviews with neighbors, relatives, friends and co-workers, an interview with a TSA psychiatrist, a second government psychological exam and a medical evaluation. [FirearmNews.com]
Given that the Bush Administration was so opposed to arming pilots in the first place, and only gave in under enormous pressure, it's hardly surprising that they would quietly set up requirements which are as unpleasant and unreasonable as possible.
9:34:56 AM
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Mail’s spam filters starting to fall down. It looks like spammers are getting smart—the super spam filter that comes with Apple’s Mail app is starting to miss stuff. I’m seeing like 15 or so spams a day now, up from about two or three.
Nuts!
Doing a view-source on the spam shows that it’s HTML mail. It contains a bunch of do-nothing comments or tags that break up the words.
The fix is obvious, I think—the spam filters should filter on the visible words, rather than just the raw text.
I seriously hope there’s an update soon. I’ve been so spoiled and I don’t want to go back to a spam-ful world. [inessential.com]
This particular problem could be avoided if mail clients allowed users to automatically filter out HTML mail. That's something I'd like to do even in the rare cases where HTML mail isn't spam.
6:34:16 AM
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© Copyright
2005
Ken Hagler.
Last update:
3/9/2005; 2:46:33 PM.
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