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Monday, March 3, 2003
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Iranian Brigades Deploy in Kurdish Iraq [AP World News]
The fighters say they are Iraqi patriots who came to Kurdish northern Iraq to fight off foreign invaders -- but the green telephone at their camp has a sticker identifying it as the property of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
They drive the beige Nissan Patrols favored by the Iranian military and speak Farsi, the language of Iran. They are Shiite warriors of the Badr Brigades -- the military wing of an Iraqi opposition group based in Iran and supported by that country's Islamist leadership. And their presence is further complicating an already dangerous ethnic and military mix in Iraq's volatile north.
It looks like the Iranians are hoping to "liberate" a chunk of Iraq for themselves, rather than leave it all for the US and UK.
11:35:19 PM 
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Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war. The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.
Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer.
The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input. [The Observer]
Although the article doesn't come out and say so, it seems obvious that the foreign country involved is Britain. It will be interesting to see how the delegates react--it's well known the the NSA spies on people all over the world, but I'm sure the bigshots at the UN view being spied on themselves very differently from the peasants being spied on.
10:09:16 PM
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Al Qaeda Crackdown. The suspected mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, has been captured and is being interrogated by US intelligence.... [Hit & Run]
He was captured in Pakistan by a "joint operation" of the Pakistani intelligence service and the CIA--I haven't yet seen any word on who really did the work. This is bad news for the Pro-Osama crowd, which has been working hard to divert attention towards their proposed holy war against the entire Middle East.
6:51:47 PM
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Imperial muddle. After World War I, the British attempted to bring self-rule and political stability to the people of Iraq. The lessons for the United States are far from encouraging. [The Boston Globe]
An account of Britain's experience with Iraq when they ruled it after World War One. After reading it, I think it's fairly likely that the Us experience will be much the same. The only likely difference is that instead of setting up a monarchy, the US will set up a fake democracy.
6:37:15 PM
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Jack W. Boone at The Creative Foot Dragger -
Neither R nor D - why Mr. Boone will never again vote for a
Democrat or a Republican. [survivalarts]
L. Neil Smith proposes that the two parties are identical, and should
be known as one, the Boot on Your Neck (BOYN) party. I contend that
they are still two, like two street gangs, for instance the Crips and
the Bloods, but the effect is the same. To support either will have
the same effect, control by street gangs with little care for our
welfare. Neither have any ideology other than to oppose each other,
fight their turf wars, and get votes by saying something different
than the other gang does.
[End the War on Freedom]
An interesting comparison, although I think it's rather unfair to the Crips and the Bloods.
12:31:11 PM
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My PowerBook G3/500, also known as a Pismo, has once again returned to Apple for repairs. This is the third time I've had the same problem with a Pismo. The problem lies in the Pismo's design, which places the CPU on a daughter card that plugs into the motherboard. When carried around in a laptop bag every day, the normal movement the Pismo experiences causes the connection to gradually loosen.
Once this happens, the Pismo's CPU daughter card will come unplugged every time the computer is moved a significant distance--such as to or from work. This can be fixed easily enough by opening it up and pushing down on the daughter card to re-seat it, but its still pretty annoying. If the problem is left unrepaired, the connection will eventually get so loose that even lifting the Pismo off a table and moving it a few feet is enough to make the CPU come loose.
It can be hard to get this problem fixed, because of the way the Pismo is designed. Any sort of service requires that the heat sink over the daughter card be removed, and replaced when the technician is finished. Unfortunately, regardless of what else may have been done, pushing down on the heat sink when it's replaced will push the daughter card back in. As a result, it's common for technicians to try whatever their favorite first solution is, and when they close the computer up and try it they believe that they've fixed the problem. However, when the computer is shipped back to me the CPU promptly comes loose again. I've had to return the same computer for repair up to seven times in the past.
So far I've sent the Pismo back twice during the current round of repairs. The first time it arrived after spending the weekend at Apple's repair place, and was dead on arrival. The usual solution worked, but unfortunately the repair technicians had actually made the problem worse--now it would die if it was moved on a desk, or sometimes for no apparent reason. I was on the phone with Apple requesting another box to send it back again within 30 minutes of receiving it.
When I was arranging for the second box, I suggested that the tech support person add a note to the technician in their database with a recommended diagnostic exercise. After repairing my Pismo, the technician should put it in a laptop bag or backpack and go run around the parking lot with it--if it still worked after that, the problem would really be fixed. Unfortunately the tech support person made it clear from his reaction that he wasn't going to pass that recommendation along.
From what the various Apple tech support people have told me, Pismo owners rarely encounter this problem--I find that odd, since I've had it with two different Pismos. My best guess for the reason is that most owners of portable computers simply don't "port" them very much. I carry my Pismo primarily to and from bus stops for my daily commute, for a total distance of perhaps one mile per day. That's really not very much!
12:11:17 PM
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© Copyright
2005
Ken Hagler.
Last update:
3/9/2005; 2:48:48 PM.
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