Today, it begins to turn grim: Battles rage in Iraqi cities; bodies litter desert: SOUTHERN IRAQ (Reuters) - Charred Iraqi corpses smolder in burned-out trucks. Black smoke hangs over bombed cities where U.S. troops battle Iraqi soldiers. Youths greet British tanks with smiles, then sneer when they have passed.
10:30:40 PM  #   your two cents []

Oops: "The White House is vowing a strong retaliatory response after the BBC aired live video of President Bush getting his hair coiffed in the Oval Office as he squirmed in his chair and practiced on the teleprompter minutes before Wednesday night's speech announcing the launch of military operations against Saddam Hussein. The British network broadcast 1 minute and 37 seconds of presidential primping to hundreds of millions of viewers in 200 countries around the world."

5:30:47 PM  #   your two cents []

Presumably the drugs will help counteract the brewer's droop effect of the alcohol. Sheesh. Surely we don't need even more drunk people dealing with the consequences of dimly-remembered sex with long-forgotten parters... Brewers to seduce young drinkers with 'Viagra pops'. Libido-boosting drinks will flood into bars this summer as young clubbers are targeted with a potent range of products. [Guardian Unlimited]
1:48:04 PM  #   your two cents []

'We are risking a gulf between the West and the Islamic world'. Robin Cook, in his first major interview since resigning, tells why he had to go. [Guardian Unlimited]
1:47:30 PM  #   your two cents []

Albert Einstein. "The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one." [Quotes of the Day]
1:46:48 PM  #   your two cents []

One of the more bizarre elements of the war in Iraq so far is that the majority of the reported deaths on the US/British side have been due to mistakes and mishaps occuring within and even between the two sides themselves, rather than combat -- crashes and collisions of helicoptors; a US soldier throwing grenades into the tent of his own side, killing one and injuring a dozen; a US patriot missile launched at a British plane; and then, the British apparently firing on and killing a carload of veteran British journalists (with a cameraman who survived noting that the Iraqis nearby, whom the British were targetting, apparently were surrendering and weren't returning fire).

1:43:33 PM  #   your two cents []

From the New York Times on the Saturday marches:

More than 10,000 people protested against the war in towns and cities across Ireland. In Dublin, at least 5,000 people lay down on main streets outside Trinity College to simulate casualties of war.

In London, the police said more than 200,000 demonstrators took to the streets in an anti-war protest, far fewer than the approximately one million who protested last month but double the initial police forecast.

2:28:06 AM  #   your two cents []

From Boing Boing Blog: Dog bites AIBO.

Many people love showering attention on their Aibos, pretending they're real. But what about actual dogs? Are they fooled? To find out, a bunch of French scientists recently had a few real dogs interact with some Aibos. It all went quite peacefully, until the scientists decided to put a piece of meat in the room and have an Aibo and a dog compete over it. Go to their site and you enjoy what is surely a first in scientific history: Live video of a snarling dog kicking the living shit out of a hapless robot.

The best part is the explanatory note by the scientists: "The horrible screams that you hear at the end of this film were made by the experimenters, who were startled to see the dog attack the AIBO ... we strongly advise you not to try anything similar with your AIBO." Link

2:22:54 AM  #   your two cents []

Get Your War On.  [Boing Boing Blog]
2:20:46 AM  #   your two cents []

Bush is an idiot, but he was right about Saddam. Paul Berman, one of the most provocative thinkers on the left, has a message for the antiwar movement: Stop marching and start fighting to spread liberal values in the Middle East. [Salon.com]
2:16:44 AM  #   your two cents []

War blows £12bn hole in Budget. War in Iraq means Chancellor Gordon Brown's April Budget will show Britain plunging up to £12 billion further into the red. [Guardian Unlimited]
2:16:17 AM  #   your two cents []

Tablet PCs: Ready for Prime Time. "PC Magazine has reviewed a bunch of the first wave of Tablet PCs and, perhaps surprisingly, finds them Ready for Prime Time . Battery life varies and machines with Transmeta Crusoe processors are dog slow ("The PIII-M ULV machines outpaced the TM5800-powered tablets by up to 83 percent on Business Winstone"). But even if you are mad keen on the idea, there doesn't seem much point in buying a Tablet PC until you can get one with a Centrino chip set and software with pen support, if only a copy of OneNote from the next version of Microsoft Office." [onlineblog.com]
2:15:02 AM  #   your two cents []

Cyberjournalist: Weblogs and Diaries from Embedded Journalists. [Scripting News]
2:13:18 AM  #   your two cents []

CNN Shuts Down Correspondent's Warblog. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]
2:12:09 AM  #   your two cents []

From Reuters:

US forces in Iraq have yet to find any evidence of the suspected chemical or biological weapons that prompted the invasion, a US general said last night.

General Stanley McChrystal, vice director for operations on the US military's Joint Staff, also told a briefing that none of the missiles fired by Iraq so far in the war had been a Scud.

Scud missiles, along with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, are among the arms that Iraq was barred from possessing by UN resolutions after the 1991 Gulf War.

President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair accuse Iraq of having violated the resolutions and say President Saddam Hussein could provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

Asked if any Scuds had been found by the US-British forces that have invaded Iraq, General McChrystal said: "To my knowledge, we have not discovered any to this point," adding: "So far there have been no Scuds launched, which is very positive today."

Asked if any signs of chemical or biological weapons had been found, the general replied: "We have found no caches of weapons of mass destruction to date."

2:08:56 AM  #   your two cents []