April 26, 2003

Could paying Chinese farmers in Guangzhou province to not raise ducks and pigs on the same farms be an effective way of stopping killer diseases? 11:33:48 PM

An unexpected Canadian contribution to the US case for the war Iraq might be the discovery by a Canadian journalist of documents in the Iraqi Mukhabarat intelligence service in Baghdad that establish the first clear link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization. Mitch Potter of the Toronto Star reports that his translater found bin Laden’s name – hidden under whiteout on documents found in the Mukhabarat’s Baghdad headquarters. 11:33:28 PM

P2P programs don’t copy music, people using P2P programs do Two recent US court decision have shown that while the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) And Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) cannot go after the companies that make file sharing software it has the right to demand that ISPs provide them the information they need to go after the people doing the sharing. This could lead to more legal action against the individual file sharers. While the legalising file sharing software is a blow it does not impact the music and movie industry anymore then the continued presence of companies such as Kazaa that are outside of US jurisdiction. The ruling that Verizon had to provide the name of a subscriber that offered music for download over Kazaa could be more important. Running Grokster and Morpheus might be legal but the threat of facing legal action if you share copyrighted files has now been made greater by the Verizon ruling. 11:22:59 PM

Iraqi Loot The Iraqis breaking into offices to steal office furniture probably wish they had spent more time searching the grounds of Baath officials’ homes. So far $780 million in US bills has been found in makeshift vaults in a complex that housed senior government officials. On a more serous note, if as some claim the looting of Iraq museums was an organized affair by Iraqi officials they must not have been associated with the group that hid this money. Money is a lot easier to transport than stone artifacts. 11:08:23 PM