pineappletown

Web Site SMS with Community Builder --- Clickatell Bulk SMS Gateway

2003-08-08T22:38:00.000+10:00

Web Site SMS with Community Builder --- Clickatell Bulk SMS Gateway: "Clickatell Community Builder will assist you to build an on-line database of visitors to your web site, and enable you to send SMS or Speedmail (high-speed e-mail) messages to this database!"

We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information

2003-08-08T19:45:00.000+10:00

We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information: "We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information "

O Frabjous Day! Calloo, callay!

2003-08-01T14:06:00.000+10:00

Poindexter Will Be Quitting Over Terrorism Betting Plan: "John M. Poindexter, a retired rear admiral who was President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, is stepping down 'within a few weeks,' the defense official said, after the disclosure of a proposal that outraged lawmakers and embarrassed senior Pentagon officials. The plan was to create an online trading parlor that would have rewarded investors who forecast terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups."

Wolfowitz in the spotlight

2003-08-01T13:43:00.000+10:00

Wolfowitz committee instructed White House to use Iraq/uranium reference in State of the Union speech: "WASHINGTON, July 16, 2003—A Pentagon committee led by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, advised George W. Bush to include a reference in his January State of the Union address about Iraq trying to purchase 500 tons of uranium from Niger to bolster the case for war in Iraq, despite the fact that the CIA warned Wolfowitz's committee that the information was unreliable, according to a CIA intelligence official and four members of the Senate's intelligence committee who have been investigating the issue. "

Boston Globe Online / City & Region / 'Blogs' shake the political discourse

2003-07-30T22:06:00.000+10:00

Boston Globe Online / City & Region / 'Blogs' shake the political discourse: "And as the presidential campaign gains speed, many politically oriented blogs are thick with news from the trail -- and some people have set up unofficial blogs to support particular candidates. Nearly all of them operate outside the official campaign structure, the work of ordinary voters who hawk their candidates with sarcasm and passion. And most are free from the talking-point tendencies of contemporary political rhetoric, railing gleefully on enemies in every direction. ''They call themselves the Green Party,'' Willis wrote in his blog this week. ''We call them poor, deluded souls.''
Whether this is a useful addition to the political process is subject to question. But the most fervent blog proponents have been talking like apostles. Blogs, they predict, are harbingers of a new, interactive culture that will change the way democracy works, turning voters into active participants rather than passive consumers, limiting the traditional media's role as gatekeeper, and giving the rank-and-file voter unparalleled influence."

Fight Barrick Gold Mine at Lake Cowal

2003-07-30T21:43:00.000+10:00

Rainforest Info.org's Lake Cowal Campaign:

Australian IT - Greens battle Microsoft (Simon Hayes, JULY 29, 2003)

2003-07-29T20:51:00.000+10:00

Australian IT - Greens battle Microsoft (Simon Hayes, JULY 29, 2003): "THE Greens have signalled they are willing to lend their political muscle to Democrat moves to introduce open source preference legislation.

Greens hold key parliamentary seats in several states where the Democrats are introducing the Bills, and are politically sympathetic to laws that challenge the power of big business.
Describing Microsoft founder Bill Gates as 'a bit of a robber baron', NSW Greens MLC Lee Rhiannon warned the legislation would anger US trade lobby groups. "

Project HAARP

2003-07-24T10:18:00.000+10:00

Psycho Warfare by James Ridgeway with Ariston-Lizabeth Anderson: What with all the talk about Australia ducking under the so-called US "missile shield" formerly known as Star Wars, it's important for Australians who have ignored the debate going on the in the USA over SDI so far be brought up to speed.

Here's a Village Voice article from two years ago, for example, about another far out weapon proposal for SDI that we have heard nothing about from Howard or PorkChop Hill as they continue their softening up job....

"Project HAARP builds on military research projects originating in the 1950s. The closest the government comes to plain-speak is a report from the air force's scientific advisory board on weapons for the 21st century. Unearthed by independent investigator Nick Begich, the report states: 'One can envision the development of electromagnetic energy sources, the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, that can couple with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent voluntary muscular movements, control emotions with both short-term and long-term memory, produce an experience set, and delete an experience set.' What's more, the technology may be able to create high-fidelity speech in humans, 'raising the possibility of covert suggestion and psychological direction.' It may be possible to 'talk' to selected adversaries 'in a fashion that would be most disturbing to them.' "

Follow the Yellowcake Road

2003-07-22T23:57:00.000+10:00

How Google Shook the World: "“Within two hours they figured out they [the Niger documents] were forgeries,” one IAEA official told NEWSWEEK. How did they do it? “Google,” said the official. The IAEA ran the name of the Niger foreign minister through the Internet search engine and discovered that he was not in office at the time the document was signed. "

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bush in new threat to Iran and Syria

2003-07-22T13:06:00.000+10:00

A Chicken Lunch: "Before sitting down to a chicken lunch at the ranch, Mr Bush said: 'Defending freedom requires cost and sacrifice. The United States is grateful for Italy's willingness to bear the burdens with us.' "

Queensland Greens lambast ALP State MP Ken Hayward

2003-07-22T10:06:00.000+10:00

'Hayward on the Nose in Narangba'

Residents in Ken Hayward's seat of Kallangur are entitled to feel that
their concerns about certain local hazardous industrial activities are not
being impartially addressed. This is the message touted by Caboolture
Greens spokesperson, Philip Kimmet, in the fallout from the Hayward affair.

Mr Kimmet, who is currently revising his PhD thesis on good governance, is
confident that the Crimes and Misconduct Commission will deliver a fair
ruling in the case. "The CMC certainly doesn't need advice from me" Mr
Kimmet says, "however I would point out that the member's family interests
have clear implications for his constituency."

"Residents are disillusioned with the Beattie Government's heavy handed
approach to development in the area. Heated issues such as the
determination of a heavy haulage route and support for the nuclear
irradiation plant in the Narangba Industrial Estate are still simmering
away. Many will now link these issues, rightly or wrongly, with Hayward's
chemical plant connections" Mr Kimmet points out. "Concerns that he has
been juggling business with ministerial and member duties for many years
will not simply be erased if the CMC finds in his favour".

Mr Kimmet claims that health issues are not being factored in to the
industrial development equation, and is proposing an enquiry into air
quality in the Narangba Industrial Estate environs. "This is an area of
enormous residential development, and I've experienced first hand the
affects of emissions from the estate. Anyone who has driven down Deception
Bay Road in the evening will verify the metallic taste which is left in
your mouth. I lived on the other side of Deception Bay during 2001 and
2002, but when a southerly breeze was blowing the stench was nauseating. My
partner contracted pneumonia and pleurisy while we lived there, which was
triggered by a severe asthma attack, something she had not experienced
since she was a child. Her recovery was rapid after moving to the
Caboolture area, and the children are no longer dogged by respiratory
complaints. Every parent we met at Deception Bay had similar anecdotal
evidence damning the air quality of the area" Mr Kimmet said.

If Mr Hayward is forced to resign, and a by-election is held, Labor will be
faced with a back-lash. Mr Kimmet points out that "Michael Organ's success
in the recent Federal seat of Cunningham proved that the Greens can be a
major force at by-elections, where voters are aware their vote will not
help determine who forms Government. Even if Mr Hayward manages to hold on
until the elections next year, the Greens will make significant inroads
into the Labor vote. We will be putting forward a strong candidate who has
a vision for the local area, not for their family trust" Mr Kimmet said.

Terrafarming the Globe

2003-07-21T09:21:00.000+10:00

CNN.com - Satellite-driven tractors may save sick soil - Jul. 18, 2003: "The world's over-farmed soil is sick and has been rapidly getting sicker, but scientists say space-age, satellite-driven tractors are coming to the rescue.
Heavy modern farm equipment is killing the soil through repeated compaction and tilling, which in turn worsens salinity that kills crops.
But a new world of automatically steered tractors, guided by satellites, will allow them to run on pre-determined tracks and lessen their impact on the soil.
'It will revolutionize agriculture, I believe,' said Jeff Tullberg, a University of Queensland academic and president of the International Soil Tillage Research Organization (ISTRO). "

ABC News - 28/10/99 : Hot rocks could generate nation's energy: researcher

2003-07-21T01:06:00.000+10:00

ABC News - 28/10/99 : Hot rocks could generate nation's energy: researcher: "Hot rocks could generate nation's energy: researcher
Western Queensland could become the site of an innovative experiment to use heat from hot dry rocks to generate renewable energy.

The Outback Revival group this week met experts from the Australian National University (ANU) to discuss the feasibility of western Queensland being the site of the first production project for the green energy.

ANU researcher Dr Prame Chopra says the concept is based on harnessing the tremendous heat in the ground, by drilling into rock hotter than 200 degrees.

He says the Charleville area alone has the potential to produce the nations total energy needs for the next two decades.

'The hot granite that we know about there, which is about two kilometres below the surface, have got enough energy to supply all of Australia's energy needs for at least 20 years, and we're talking about everything.

'The figure we've been playing with is the total energy consumption of the country,' he said. "

Hot, dry rocks to power Australia

2003-07-21T01:01:00.000+10:00

Geodynamics Limited: "
Fossil Fuel Alternatives
The expansion of the nuclear power industry appears to be socially unacceptable. Solar and wind power cannot replace fossil fuels, just augment them and they are limited in scope, intermittent, and unreliable. Large-scale hydroelectric projects are now rejected on environmental grounds. Hot dry rock has the potential, worldwide, to significantly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."

Tuscany's secret geothermal powerhouse

2003-07-21T00:46:00.000+10:00

TIME Europe Magazine: Steaming Forward -- June 16, 2003 | Vol. 161 No. 24: "Five unshaven men with blackened work boots and thick gloves move toward the giant, greasy drill that has just emerged from beneath the ground. Once the drill is unhinged and swings freely, the crew encircles it and locks onto it a 9.5-m extension that will take this subterranean search for the mother lode even deeper into the earth. It is a rugged if familiar ballet of industrial labor, repeated daily from a perch halfway up a 65-m-high steel tower.

But this time the familiar scene is not taking place on a North Sea rig or in a dusty patch of Saudi desert. Instead, the 2,600-m-long steel drill is boring deep into a picturesque corner of Tuscany, fabled land of Renaissance frescoes and Chianti Classico. And the search is not for crude oil, but for boiling underground wells that can produce clean steam energy. "

Iran armed with latest Russian war toys

2003-07-21T00:09:00.000+10:00

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "Iran said on Sunday its Revolutionary Guards had been armed with a new medium-range missile, which analysts say could hit Israel or U.S. bases in the Middle East, after successful tests of the weapon.
The deployment of the Shahab-3 missile, announced by state television, comes as Iran faces mounting scrutiny about a nuclear energy program which Washington says may be a front for a covert bid to make atomic arms.
State television showed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who heads Iran's Islamic power structure, attending a military parade where at least one Shahab-3 was on display.
Iran announced earlier this month it had successfully completed tests on the Shahab-3, which analysts say is based on the North Korean Nodong-1 missile but has been improved with Russian technology. Its range is about 1,300 km (800 miles).
Russian-built Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot close support aircraft, attack and transport helicopters were also handed over on Sunday to the Revolutionary Guards, which is separate from Iran's regular army and reports directly to Khamenei."

Why A Special Prosecutor's Investigation Is Needed To Sort Out the Niger Uranium And Related WMDs Mess

2003-07-18T23:49:00.000+10:00

FindLaw's Writ - John Dean: Bush misleads American People: "What I found, in critically examining Bush's evidence, is not pretty. The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems, and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons was false, fabricated, exaggerated, or phony.
Bush repeatedly, in his State of the Union, presented beliefs, estimates, and educated guesses as established fact. Genuine facts are truths that can be known or are observable, and the distance between fact and belief is uncertainty, which can be infinite. Authentic facts are not based on hopes or wishes or even probabilities. Now it is little wonder that none of these purported WMDs has been discovered in Iraq.
So egregious and serious are Bush's misrepresentations that they appear to be a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the public. "

Labour Ally Brown attacks "psychotic" Blair

2003-07-18T22:58:00.000+10:00

Chancellor launches stinging attack on Labour leader: "Another article in the magazine is headed 'What is the point of Tony Blair?', while a third declares: 'The question of Tony Blair's sanity can no longer be avoided.'
It quotes Sidney Crown, a former consultant psychotherapist at the Royal London Hospital, as saying that Mr Blair 'does not exist' and compares him with an actor. He adds that Alastair Campbell, Downing Street's director of communications and strategy, is 'very much represented in Mr Blair's dark side, which is why they like each other ... the psychopathic personality is very quick to pick things up and shift and move about'.
Dr Crown suggests that Mr Blair did not decide to lie about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but had been 'highly selective' over intelligence material, seeing the material that appealed to him. 'With all forms of psychotics, if you ask people about the consequences of what they've done they can't tell you, because they've no ability to see the future.'"

More historical revisionists

2003-07-18T18:03:00.000+10:00

Chinese Muslim discovered America: "The British submarine engineer and historian Gavin Menzies gave an astounding seminar on March 15, 2002 to the Royal Geographical Society in London, with evidence to support his theory that Zheng He, a Chinese Muslim navigator in the Ming dynasty, beat Columbus by more than 70 years in discovering America.
Using evidence from maps drawn dated before Columbus' trip that clearly showed America, and astronomical maps traced back to Zheng He's time, Menzies is confident that the Zheng He should be honored as the first discoverer of America."

Another "Secret Team" up to some "Dirty Tricks" in the basement of the White House

2003-07-18T17:43:00.000+10:00

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The spies who pushed for war: "According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency.
The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney. "

Revolution of the Mind

2003-07-17T22:07:00.000+10:00

Revolution of the Mind || Mission Statement: "RevolutionOfTheMind.org is a community of pragmatists who like to explore this question. This is a site for people who want to discuss the nature of the bodies, minds, and dimensions they find themselves inhabiting. It's a site for people who’ve got one foot in the grounded modern world and the other foot god knows where!"

Taxpayers prop up Big Brother

2003-07-17T16:29:00.000+10:00

"Peter....Leave the House, Now!" - Big Brother: "Queensland taxpayers subsidised the first three Big Brother television series for more than $700,000, the State Government revealed today.

Arts Minister Matt Foley today told a state budget estimates committee hearing that each of the Network Ten reality-TV series, filmed at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast, had received $100,000 in cast and crew rebates. "

Smart Mobs - Sydney Smart Flocks on "Ken Park"

2003-07-17T12:23:00.000+10:00

Smart Mobs -: "Anti-Censorship Smart Mobs in Oz"

Howard Reingold posted my link to a SMH article about smart flocks in Sydney organised around the film "Ken Park", which has been banned by the Australian government for a scene depicting auto asphyxiation style masturbation.

Spies grow spines over Bushawks' Syrian WMD claims

2003-07-17T12:15:00.000+10:00

Hearing delayed as CIA revolts over claims on Syrian threat - smh.com.au: "The CIA objected to a Bush Administration assessment of the threat posed by Syria's alleged weapons of mass destruction that was to be presented to Congress.
After the objections, Tuesday's planned testimony by an undersecretary of state, John Bolton, a leading Administration hawk, was delayed until September.
US officials said Mr Bolton had planned to tell a House of Representatives international relations subcommittee that Syria's development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons had progressed to a point where they posed a threat to stability in the region. The CIA and other intelligence agencies said the assessment was exaggerated. "

Digging for Googleholes

2003-07-17T12:09:00.000+10:00

Digging for Googleholes - Google may be our new god, but it's not omnipotent: "But the oracle—recently described as 'a little bit like God' in the New York Times—is not perfect," writes Stephen Johnson in Slate. Just read it.

Pineapplehead Big Kev may go Multinational

2003-07-16T11:05:00.000+10:00

"People's Float" cleaning products entrepreneur and Gold Coast businessman is trying to keep his company afloat and angry shareholders at bay with a Gold Coast shopping centre land deal: "Other options include working on more 'niche products' using 'the expertise of very smart industrial chemists I have working for me' and allowing local businesses to use the Big Kev name. 'I don't want to sound like a smart arse but the name is fairly well known,' he said.
There is one hitch. Mr McQuay, a passionate supporter of 'Australian made', has admitted he might introduce overseas products if things get worse.
'If we can't develop niche products the only way we can compete with the multinationals is to look overseas,' he said. 'It's not something we are thinking about straight away.'"

Howard's "Bring 'em on" to Kim Jong il

2003-07-16T10:59:00.000+10:00

Nuclear chill stirs China to action - smh.com.au: "Mr Howard, on an Asian tour, said Kim Myong-Chol - seen by some observers as a mouthpiece for the North Korean regime - 'doesn't have a lot of credibility'. He had made similar threats before and Australian was not going 'to react to rhetoric of that kind'.

Mr Howard added:
'I don't think North Korea has any functioning weaponry, if I can put it that way, that's capable of delivering it.'"

Country Music Superstar lashes Team Bush over Iraq

2003-07-16T10:53:00.000+10:00

Los Angeles Times: Not at peace with events: "Politicians do all the talking

Soldiers pay the dues

Suddenly the war is over

That's the news.

'I'm the 'fightin side of me,' ' Haggard said. 'I'm gung-ho about everything our armed forces do. God bless them. They are over there and we ought to be proud. I hope they still have some over here, protecting us. We seem to be spreading ourselves too thin. We are talking about going into some other country, going to liberate somebody else.

'What is this? Are we just sort of stumbling around in the dark? Is there any long-term plan at all or are we just running our own wars as we go?'

Asked if he feels there is any contradiction between the questioning of 'That's the News' and the flag-waving of songs such as 'Okie From Muskogee' and 'The Fightin' Side of Me,' Haggard looked surprised.

'I think the guy who wrote 'Fightin' Side of Me' was a patriotic American and I think the guy who wrote this new song is also a patriotic American,' he said."

Springer's campaign ticks off Hicksville

2003-07-15T09:54:00.000+10:00

Jerr-ree! Jerr-ree!: "Residents of Hicksville aren't too happy that Jerry Springer is using the northwest Ohio village as a symbol for his U.S. Senate campaign.
Springer, 59, is raising money for his campaign by charging $100 for autographed photos of himself pointing to a Hicksville corporation-limit sign. The photo is shown on his Web site, www.runjerryrun.com.
Springer, a Democrat, is not expected to formally announce whether he will run for the Senate seat held by Republican George Voinovich until later this month.
The photos are superimposed with words that commentator Jonah Goldberg uttered on a CNN politics program this year: 'If Jerry Springer shows up, he'll bring all these new people to the polls. They will be slack-jawed yokels, hicks, weirdos, pervs and whatnot.' "

Parliament goes wireless for bloggers' summit

2003-07-15T00:15:00.000+10:00

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | : "Mr Watson, the blogging Labour MP, sees the advent of the blog as a better way of engaging young people in politics, pointing out that while 500 of the great and the good may have turned out for Peter Mandelson's Progressive Governance conference at the weekend, the 120 bloggers who have turned up at little more than a week's notice for tonight's event will probably be younger and less party-political."

Forbes.com: Korea's Weird Wired World

2003-07-14T19:06:00.000+10:00

Korean Net Addiction Growing Rapidly: "South Korea has gone gaga over broadband. This nation of 46 million people, packed into an area smaller than Virginia, has quickly become the world's most wired nation. "

Digital Biology

2003-07-12T21:45:00.000+10:00

Turning nature into zeros and ones may free science from time's straitjacket - smh.com.au: "Breeding plants and crops takes time. It can take months or years of breeding to get the right strain of wheat, for example, that will thrive in an area.
But what if you could model the plant in a computer and conduct 'virtual breeding' in just hours? Countless genetic variations could be tested in the computer without having to experiment in the field. "

Perle's Autonomy To Acquire Video-Management Software Vendor with FBI customer

2003-07-11T17:47:00.000+10:00

InformationWeek > Buyout > Autonomy To Acquire Virage > July 10, 2003: "...the acquisition also brings to Autonomy Virage's extensive customer base, including Coca-Cola, General Electric, Citigroup, and the FBI. Virage is especially prevalent in government and entertainment markets. "

Scientists Discover Planetary Patriarch (washingtonpost.com)

2003-07-11T17:43:00.000+10:00

Life may have evolved billions of years earlier than once suspected(washingtonpost.com): "Astronomers have detected the Methuselah of planets, a world many times older than any other known, a remarkable survivor formed in a violent, primordial setting where planets were not thought to exist."

Australian Greens - Bob Brown's Media Releases

2003-07-11T01:31:00.000+10:00

PM Used ONA to Deceive Australia: "10 July 2003

The secondary question is why did ONA not tell the Prime Minister, Greens Senator Bob Brown said today.

“The primary question is why did the PM not ask ONA, his special advisory unit?” Senator Brown said

“This is a cover up. ONA’s statement is timed to pre-empt obvious questioning by the Joint House Parliamentary Committee to whom submissions are due this month.

“It is political stage management to protect the PM from either his inexcusable failure to ask ONA about facts on Hussein’s WMD before committing Australians to war or outright deception of the Australian people.

“We are asked to believe that ONA, which used newspaper clippings to advise Mr Howard that children were thrown overboard, denies the PM State Department advice that doubts claims on Saddam Hussein’s nuclear preparedness.

“This behaviour - and it is Mr Howard’s responsibility - is unacceptably duplicitous, if it is believable.

“The Prime Minister has used ONA to deceive the Australian people on matters of life and death. It is reprehensible,” Senator Brown said.

Further information: Ben Oquist 02 6277 3170 or 0419 70 40 95
Category:Senate Office
Author:Ben Oquist"

Good onya Ben. At least the Greens can figure it out, so now everyone else can as well. No more excuses, Australians!

Explosive Report to Slam MalAdministration by Shrub over 9-11 Alert

2003-07-11T01:27:00.000+10:00

Bush's 9-11 Watergate Looms: "A long-awaited final report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will be released in the next two weeks, containing new information about U.S. government mistakes and Saudi financing of terrorists.
Former Rep. Tim Roemer, who served on the House Intelligence Committee and who has read the report, said it will be ''highly explosive'' when it becomes public."

Earth Institute at Columbia University Points out Bush Hypocrisy on African Aids Pledge

2003-07-11T00:55:00.000+10:00

Hard Facts Don't Match Shrub's Altered Sense of Time and Space: "President Bush's current tour of Africa includes visits to Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Botswana, and South Africa. Prior to this trip, Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs, Global Fund Board Member Milly Katana, and Dr. Ibrahim Atta, who is Co-Founder and Technical Advisor to the Civil Society Consultative Group on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria held a conference with journalists.

They presented the hard facts on the massive and preventable disease crisis claiming the lives of 6 to 8 million Africans annually. They also highlighted the fact that the President has yet to deliver on his $15 billion pledge to combat the global AIDS pandemic and to provide $1 billion for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in 2004 as part of his promise, authorized in important legislation passed this year, of $3 billion overall. "

Big Pineapple goes troppo over Cairns Canal Estate

2003-07-09T18:52:00.000+10:00

BEATTIE SET TO RUBBISH EPA OVER CAIRNS CANAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT

The Beattie government now seems set to overturn the EPA's decision to refuse permission for Bluewater development company, Consolidated Properties, to dredge within the Marine Park zone around Half Moon Creek north of Cairns.

The development would include a canal estate and marina. Mr Beattie intends excising an area from the marine park to enable the dredging to occur.

Mr Beattie is due to fly to Cairns in the next couple of days to make an announcement on the development.

Queensland Greens spokesperson, Drew Hutton, said the implications of such a decision for the EPA were frightening.

"EPA officers on the spot made a correct decision based on sound legal considerations and good science to refuse this application because it required dredging in a marine park," Mr Hutton said.

"How can we ever expect EPA officers to do their jobs properly, including occasionally saying 'no' to a developer, when they receive the sort of rubbishing they have been given in Cairns over the last few days, culminating in an overturning of their decision by the Premier himself?"

Mr Hutton said the whole Queensland coastline was now being threatened by a new wave of 'white shoe' developers with powerful links to government who knew how to accompany their proposals with such meaningless statements as "our development is environmentally sensitive, sustainable and enhancing."

A huge 1100 person resort development at False Cape, the magnificent headland across Trinity Inlet, will be the next one for Cairns.

Administration Blackout on Renewable Energy Continues at Natural Gas Summit

2003-07-09T15:30:00.000+10:00

One sided discussion ignores renewable solutions to the energy crisis: "The Union of Concerned Scientists today criticized the Bush administration for stacking its summit on natural gas prices with representatives from the fossil fuel industry and ignoring wind, solar and other renewable energy sources as an important solution to the natural gas crisis. Not a single renewable energy industry representative, analyst or advocate was invited to speak at the Department of Energy/National Petroleum Council Natural Gas Summit.

“The Department of Energy’s own Energy Information Administration has found that increasing our use of renewable energy resources will displace large quantities of natural gas and lower natural gas prices,” said Marchant Wentworth, Washington Representative for Energy at UCS. “Increasing our use of renewable energy from two percent today to 20 percent by 2020 would save enough gas to meet the current needs of three-quarters of all U.S. households.”"

'Racist' Queensland cops in firing line

2003-07-08T16:05:00.000+10:00

Cops use photos of Aborigines as target practice: "Australian police have been forced into a humiliating climbdown after admitting that they had been using mug shots of criminal suspects, including Aborigines, for target practice.

Officers in Queensland initially defended the use of the photographs in training exercises by the state's elite counter-terrorism squad.

But after an uproar and accusations of racism, the police commissioner, Bob Atkinson, apologised, and yesterday he said the procedure would be abandoned."

Blogging: The Emerging Sixth Estate?

2003-07-08T12:34:00.000+10:00

Microdoc News: "An emerging sixth estate in Global governance and influence is arising - the blogosphere. In this article I argue that case for the blgosophere being an emerging sixth estate rather than being an extension of the fourth estate - mass media. Some of you are perhaps sniggering and questioning 'Blogs a power? Those personal journals that contain personal thoughts, journals about looking after kids, and personal biased crap?' Yes, these personal journals are becoming a real influence in global governance. "

Bring them home!

2003-07-07T19:23:00.000+10:00

Troop morale in Iraq hits 'rock bottom' | csmonitor.com: "US troops facing extended deployments amid the danger, heat, and uncertainty of an Iraq occupation are suffering from low morale that has in some cases hit 'rock bottom.'
Even as President Bush speaks of a 'massive and long-term' undertaking in rebuilding Iraq, that effort, as well as the high tempo of US military operations around the globe, is taking its toll on individual troops."

Hung Jury in Irish Ploughshares case

2003-07-07T18:04:00.000+10:00

RTÉ News: No verdict in Shannon aircraft case: "A Circuit Court jury in Kilrush has failed reach a verdict in the case in which anti-war activist,Mary Kelly, was charged with damaging a US naval aircraft at Shannon airport.

The US claimed €1.5m worth of damage was done to the Boeing C-140 aircraft which was refuelling at Shannon, six weeks before the outbreak of the Iraq war. "

Signs and Wonders

2003-07-05T09:57:00.000+10:00

Beam Collapses, Narrowly Missing Sandra Day O'Connor: "PHILADELPHIA — What was to have been a spectacular opening of the National Constitution Center (search) was marred Friday when a huge wood and steel frame collapsed on the stage, injuring several people and narrowly missing Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor."

Rural News - 12/06/2003: Paradise dam costs too pricey for irrigators?

2003-07-02T18:07:00.000+10:00

Rural News - 12/06/2003: Paradise dam costs too pricey for irrigators?: "A new study suggests water from Queensland's Paradise Dam, which is under construction near Bundaberg, may be too expensive for drought-affected irrigators.

Over $60 million was allocated towards the construction of the dam in the recent Queensland state budget.

Rupert Quinlan from the Queensland Conservation Council says it confirms previous research showing the water will be unable to find a buyer due to high costs. 'He's looked at their profit margins, looked at the cost of the water and said, this is how much they'll buy. But it still leaves 50 per cent. Where are the people who're going to buy that water? You're talking about 87,000 megalitres per annum. The economics just don't add up.'

Meanwhile, Queensland Development Minster Tom Barton says the study is 'a nonsense'. He says the government remains confident the dam will supply canegrowers in the Wide Bay region with up to 130,000 megalitres per year."

This is the latest Queensland "big picture" project that could be dropped faster than a bundle of Australian Magnesium shares, with cane a rapidly dying industry.

Big blob baffles boffins - theage.com.au

2003-07-02T11:58:00.000+10:00

Big blob baffles boffins - theage.com.au: "Chilean scientists were baffled today by a huge, gelatinous sea creature found washed up on the southern Pacific coast and were seeking international help identifying the mystery specimen.
The dead creature was mistaken for a beached whale when first reported about a week ago, but experts who went to see it said the 40-foot-long (12-metre) mass of decomposing lumpy grey flesh apparently was an invertebrate. "

Dunno...Kim Beazley?

China's ID Card Law Passed

2003-06-30T22:12:00.000+10:00

China's ID Card Law Passed: "China's top legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), passed overwhelmingly the law of citizen identification card on Saturday.
The law, compared with the resident ID card regulations adopted in 1985, focused more on safeguarding the citizens' rights, said Ying Songnian, a member of the Committee for Internal and Judicial Affairs of the NPC and law professor with the National School of Administration. "

The law shows more concern for citizens' rights while removing their right to be unchipped in China.

Video Chat Software Reviewed

2003-06-28T13:19:00.000+10:00

Video Chat Software Reviewed: "Audio chatting, too, opens up a new application: leaving the line open for hours as you and a distant buddy share an experience. You can make periodic wisecracks as you watch the same game or movie on TV, ask occasional questions as you review documents, and so on. If you stifle the instinct to hang up as soon as possible - a decades-old impulse from the pay-by-the-minute telephone era - audio chat offers a comfortable, inexpensive, unrushed form of telepresence."

The Sunday Mail QLD: Cost of war and peace [22jun03]

2003-06-27T14:11:00.000+10:00

The Sunday Mail QLD: Cost of war and peace [22jun03]: "THE Brisbane parents of a peace activist are proud of their son but worried he may be facing a jail term in Ireland."

Been Brown so Long, It Looked Like Green to Me : The Politics of Nature

2003-06-27T13:56:00.000+10:00

Amazon.com: Books: Been Brown so Long, It Looked Like Green to Me : The Politics of Nature: "From the co-founder of CounterPunch, 'America’s best political newsletter' (Out of Bounds Magazine) comes a comprehensive seven-part reader on environmental politics. Covering everything from toxics to electric power plays, St. Clair gives you a shocking view of how money and power determine the state of our environment."

Looks good to me.

The COWs are not coming home

2003-06-27T09:54:00.000+10:00

The COWs are not coming home from Iraq, or anywhere else very soon.

In fact they are now starting to lose more men in Iraq during this false peace than they did in the war.

In part, this is due to the more formidably-armed and determined Shiite resistance forces in the south. Yesterday two US soldiers were killed in seperate ambush attacks, one day after six British M.P.s, organising a new police force, were killed by an enraged Shiite mob. 2 soldiers are missing. http://www.msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?0cv=CB10

What explains this sudden increase in tensions, with the Brits now yanking off their soft berets and buckling up their Kevlar vests and helmets this week?

The Coaltion forces are now combating the obvious influx of Mujahaadeen fighters from outside Iraq keen to tangle with the Yankee infidel and thwart the Bush/Sharon pacification strategy for the Middle East.

Cultural misunderstandings and aggressive house to house searching have antagonised some former neutral Iraqi civilians into supporting these bolder shows of poltitical defiance led by determined, battle-hardened partisans, such as the mass demonstrations recently witnessed in Bagdahd and in the south.

The results of further armed suppression of the population's apparent political will is not pleasant to contemplate. The COW risks touching off a tipping point of political instability, where legitimate and moderate-held grievances over cuts in basic services and seeming inaction by COW on handing over power to Iraqi nationals slips into outright armed militancy and support for insurgent movements,

The Bushistas at least doesn't seem to be aware of this, or don't think that tipping point is anywhere near. They are on a march of folly.

With WMDs nowhere in sight and elections growing closer, Bush, Blair and Howard's need to find a fig leaf and a mandate for their actions is growing.

Dangerously for the American people, they trust that diversionary therepy will keep the public's eye off their own behaviour.

Like a bad flashback, the public still paying attention to war news are witnessing a bizarre combination of West Bank Occupied Territories (which Donald Rumsfield constantly calls the "so-called occupied territories") and Vietnam.

The perfect way to highjack the 2004 elections is to be fighting a war, preferably several wars, as indeed we are - now in the Solomons too. We have witnessed egregious assaults on truth in government in the deliberate twisting of intelligence by the political arm, yet the electorate seems not to care that it has been told lies. We must stop the cancer of the "failed state", they are told, pretend that the fact that we own the systems that have brought such distress to these former S Pacific tropical paradises is of no consequence to anyone.

I read yesterday that Howard could choose September 11 2004 as the date for his increasingly likely double dissolution. A portion of the population is waking up to what's going on, but more need to do so soon!

Wired News: Support for Nanobots Shrinking

2003-06-27T01:57:00.000+10:00

Wired News: Support for Nanobots Shrinking: "'I don't rule out anything that might happen in the 22nd or 23rd century,' said Kevin Ausman, executive director of Rice University's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology. But Drexler's itty-bitty robotics 'isn't nanotechnology that anyone is working on experimentally, or even has the beginning of a coherent plan to achieve.' "

The cyrogenics thing leaves Drexler more vulnerable to the science fiction claims, methinks.

Another Coalition solider KIA in Iraq as Shiite Rebels step up pace of attacks on occupying US forces

2003-06-27T00:00:00.000+10:00

Are we entering a terrifying quaqmire in Iraq and a fast deteriorating global security situation? We are in a declared war in the middle of a Middle East war against Islam by Christian U.S. fundamentalists. Everyone is in denial that this is the case.

And now that we are in the poo above our johdpurs so to speak, we are along for the ride with Dick and George's posse of righteousness whether we like it or not.

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist

2003-06-26T23:38:00.000+10:00

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist: "Top 10 Gaining Queries
Week Ending June 24, 2003
1. harry potter
2. wimbledon
3. real madrid
4. hulk
5. jackie titone
6. mega millions
7. ssc results
8. laura sadler
9. new york daily news
10. benton harbor"

2003-06-23T22:57:00.000+10:00

"We call it the 'Hybrot' because it is a hybrid of living and robotic components," the designer of the Hybrot rat brain computer. "We hope to learn how living neural networks may be applied to the artificial computing systems of tomorrow. We also hope that our findings may help cases in which learning, memory, and information processing go awry in humans."

2003-06-23T00:36:00.000+10:00

Australian, US and British special forces took control of a quarter of Iraq before the war was officially launched on March 20, allied forces commander General Tommy Franks said yesterday.

In an extraordinary statement that suggests Australians were engaged in the war prior to Prime Minister John Howard officially committing troops, General Franks said more than 50 12-member special forces units secretly entered the Iraqi desert before hostilities began.

2003-06-20T12:45:00.000+10:00

Tim Dunlop has the political blog scene pegged today: the public intellectual as inspired punk rocker. Political bloggers are exposed as closet sons and daughters of "Garageland", amateur public intellectualism with a point, yet more often with an individual impact resembling that of a bit of inspired air guitar in one's bedroom.

Says our Tim, who penned this peice for the prestigious Labor-associated think tank the Evatt Foundation:

Just as punk rock shook a fist at the pretentious, bloated "progressive" thing that rock music had become, and found a way for anybody with the guts, the inclination and something to say to pick up a guitar and command an audience, so blogging has risen up to challenge the soundbitten, amnesiac, pale little thing that PR-spun democratic politics has become.

But if all this public intellectualism isn't channeled into a political party or political action, what use is it ultimately? Do we want to just blog the world, or to help change it?

2003-06-20T11:37:00.000+10:00

Remember the erstwhile Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who suggested this week that people who download music from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed?

Wired reports the discovery of an unemployed systems administrator who was enraged by his comments. It seems Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which would qualify his web site as fit to be destroyed under his own mooted law.

How very Republican, Senator!

2003-06-19T11:33:00.000+10:00

Carnegie Mellon University's "Virtual Agora Project" researchers say that we are on the cusp of major breakthroughs in both the form and content of online deliberative democracy.

According to the blurb for their latest seminar, "Advances in broadband enable high telepresence and maturing experience with HCI principles leads to more functionality in online conversations." This will lead to greater citizen involvement, so they say.

2003-06-17T19:42:00.000+10:00

When Bishops Go Bad

Phoenix Archbishop Thomas O'Brien has been a very naughty boy. First he was forced to relinquish some of his authority in an agreement with prosecutors that prevented certain indictment for protecting priests who had molested children.

Now, he's been arrested for killing 43-year-old Jim Reed, who died after he was struck by the Bishop's car and another vehicle while crossing the street.

Diocese spokesman Jose Robles said Bishop O'Brien ''was very exhausted.''

2003-06-17T18:20:00.000+10:00

"The most disturbing betrayal of our own laws has been the automatic, unreviewable, long-term detention of child asylum seekers," according for former Federal Court Justice Marcus Enfeld said a couple of weeks back in Sydney at the release of Chilout's report on children asylum seekers.

Most of the world would simply have no idea that currently Australia has locked up 315 kids in the desert, and that both major parties support this odious and inhumane policy. Philip Ruddock MP escorts assorted bastards from Banladesh and Qatar, allowing them to roam freely as "genuine refugees" after paying generous baksheesh to the Australian Liberal Party.

"There can be no excuse or valid explanation for the adoption by both of the major political parties in this country of this policy," says Enfiled at the all but ignored release of this damning report.

Time for Mr Crean to do the right thing and change Labor's policies towards refugees now.

2003-06-16T14:38:00.000+10:00

The District Court in Brisbane has ruled that the aptly named Sunshine Coast businessman Rob Purvis was guilty of stalking Maroochy mayor Alison Grosse.

Judge Tony Skoein ordered Purvis to pay $178,000 in damages together with interest.

2003-06-16T14:34:00.000+10:00

U.S. Forces Mix Carrots and Sticks

Link

"The idea is to demonstrate that there are certain bad guys that we are targeting, with all the force necessary, but that we are also prepared to use every asset we have to provide assistance for the Iraqi people," a military spokesman, Sgt. Brian Thomas, said in Baghdad.

Second Lt. Kevin Siegrist of the 10th Combat Engineers put it more succinctly: "The message I want to give them is, hey, we're just building a soccer field, okay? So don't keep shooting at us."

Update: guess that strategy didn't work.

2003-06-16T11:16:00.000+10:00

Robert Manne's vitriolic piece takes on new meaning today, as a former ONA Analyst for the Commonwealth is asked to witness for the inquiry into British intelligence handling on Iraq's WMDs.

Writes Manne in todays SMH, "It is gradually becoming transparent that the endlessly repeated claim used to justify the invasion of Iraq - that Saddam Hussein possessed a vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction - was false."

Manne calls it one of the "greatest foreign policy scandals involving Western governments since 1945. "

2003-06-15T22:10:00.000+10:00

The Sydney Morning Herald tells us that "Sugar Zafar", a corrupt former prime minister of Bangladesh who was convicted of "stealing food from his flood-ravaged people and selling it" in absentia after he fled the country, was recently granted refugee status by the Howard Government.

Kazi Zafar Ahmed is living in Sydney with his family and drawing a disability support pension.

2003-06-15T21:48:00.000+10:00

These carbon fibres are "tougher than any natural or synthetic fibre described so far," says this article on a new invention. Coolest bit: They have already spun the fibres into cloth, making supercapacitors — devices that store electricity.

"Promising electronic-textile applications for these fibres, which are easy to weave and sew, include distributed sensors, electronic interconnects, electromagnetic shields, antennas and batteries," the authors write.

2003-06-15T19:56:00.000+10:00

A hydrogen economy could create bigger, longer-lasting ozone holes over the polar regions, according to new research published in the journal Science. The results imply that hydrogen might not be quite the perfect green fuel it is sometimes made out to be.

2003-06-13T15:05:00.000+10:00

Open Source Applications Foundation

Chandler - Product Roadmap

2003-06-13T09:38:00.000+10:00

Navy may join Korea blockade - theage.com.au

Mr Howard said there was "a very direct interest to Australia" to confront North Korea's refusal to comply with the international community's demand that it dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
He said Australia was urging China and several other countries to become involved and warned it would be "risky" to do nothing about North Korea.
"The idea of being involved in such an interdiction is something that we've looked at in a very proactive fashion," Mr Howard told ABC TV's Lateline.

All the way with GWB

2003-06-13T09:32:00.000+10:00

smh.com.au - The Sydney Morning Herald

The family of Queensland's jailed chief magistrate, Di Fingleton, pictured, has called for an investigation by the State's Crime and Misconduct Commission into a letter signed by 51 of Queensland's 73 magistrates calling for her dismissal.
Her brother, Ron Fingleton, said it was inappropriate that magistrates were plotting against his sister while she was on trial.
"Some of these people can't stand the fact that my sister was appointed to organise what others have described as the rabble that was the Queensland magistracy," he said.

Queensland's Chief Pineapple of the Legal System is behind bars, in case you haven't been keeping up with news from the Smart State lately.

2003-06-13T08:09:00.000+10:00

Calls to ban head stapling (June 13, 2003)

THE Australian Rugby League has taken steps to ensure there is not a repeat of Wednesday night's gruesome State of Origin head stapling incident.

NSW winger Michael De Vere had 14 staples inserted into a head gash by Blues medical officer John Orchard on the sideline in the first half.

This is proof that Ausrtralian Rugby players really are stoopid iron men.

2003-06-12T23:37:00.000+10:00

The Salt Lake Tribune -- Monkeypox Brings Rodent Embargo

Wednesday's sales ban could be a blow to a small clan of Texas prairie-dog harvesters.
An estimated 20,000 prairie dogs are sold from Texas each year, said John Herron, chief of the wildlife diversity program at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which tracks the number of non-game wildlife sales.
The social, pudgy cousins of the ground squirrel, prairie dogs live in large colonies, or "towns," across Western sections of North America. But Texas' large swaths of private land and relatively loose wildlife restrictions makes the state a fertile harvesting ground.
"There's a lot of dogs down there, and they want to get rid of them," said J.W. Vanderpool, a dealer from Meade, Kan.

2003-06-12T09:23:00.000+10:00

Dissipative structures - Wikipedia

Dissipative structures are highly ordered, stable systems operating far from equilibrium. They are characterized by the appearance of stability, but are continually changing. A simple example is a whirlpool. While a similar shape is maintained water is continually moving through. More complex examples include lasers, Bénard cells, and even life itself. The term dissipative structures was coined by Ilya Prigogine.

Vale, Illya! Who died on 28 May.

2003-06-11T11:54:00.000+10:00

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Sami Mikhael Amin Al Shammas, 69

Here is what happened. It was the night of April 7; no electricity as usual and heavy shelling around our neighbourhood. Dad heard a very loud explosion next door and ran to see what was happening. He found that our house had some damage and called my mother to see. She found a candle and went outside to the front porch. She kept calling my dad but there was no answer. She started to cry and a neighbour came to help. They found my dad on the ground close to our driveway. He had been hit by a piece of a cluster bomb - one of many falling in the area in the last few days of war.

2003-06-11T11:52:00.000+10:00

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | One last warning from the man who made an enemy of Bush

Mr Blix is worried about the future, expressing "nervousness" at the US adminstration's belief in pre-emptive strikes. "Obviously it raises the need for solid evidence and quality intelligence," he says, adding that intelligence material was treated in "a lighthearted way" by the US and Britain.
He insists the UN has a role, despite it being seen as an "alien power" by some within the US administration who "would not care if it sinks into the East river".
So does he feel that it was worth the personal pain, that he was effective?
"Oh yes," he says without hesitation. "We proved beyond a doubt and under immense pressure that independent, impartial, objective monitoring can be achieved. We were in nobody's pocket. Every day I get letters from inspectors who would like to work again. We're immensely proud of what Unmovic achieved."

Blix' swan song is a poke in Bush's eye.

2003-06-10T09:45:00.000+10:00

mbox: [HUMOR] prairie-dog vacuum

"You can feel when he's fighting back," Honaker yells over the roar of the
powerful suction. "He's got a good hold, and then he loses it."

Just then, the hose jolts, and with a rumbling whoosh, the rodent shoots up
the hose.

"One!" Honaker mouths, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

A moment later, another whoosh. "Two!"

2003-06-09T23:14:00.000+10:00

The Courier Mail: 'Townsville kiss' livens up conference [09jun03]

IT was meat worker versus academic at Labor's state conference at the weekend when the Brisbane meeting deteriorated into an old-fashioned stoush between two party members.

In a "rigorous policy debate" meatworkers' union delegate Russell Carr allegedly headbutted MLA and former academic Mike Reynolds on Saturday.

2003-06-09T23:07:00.000+10:00

New Scientist

Inspired by the population studies that found a link between smoking and lung cancer, reef scientists have compiled what could be the most compelling evidence yet that farming is harming the Great Barrier Reef.

2003-06-09T22:47:00.000+10:00

Minor parties dismiss 'power grab' Senate plan. 09/06/2003. ABC News Online

Greens leader Bob Brown says Mr Howard's proposal is an "arrogant' grab for power, and describes Labor's position as a "cop-out".
"Any day of the week in Parliament, the Opposition of the day can support the Government to put through legislation, so if Labor is really worried about the GST being initially imposed then it should have supported it," he said.
"If it's really worried about the Howard Government bringing in legislation to privatise health and education, then Labor should support it and see how its voters think about that."

2003-06-09T19:56:00.000+10:00

Prairie Dogs as "Pets"

Most prairie dog "pets" are pulled from their homes and separated from their families in the wild before being forced into artificial environments in human homes. Methods of "collection" include trapping, vacuuming, and flushing. All are traumatic.

2003-06-09T19:45:00.000+10:00

Monkeypox could be used as bioweapon

The Russians worked with monkeypox virus, a close cousin to smallpox, in their bioweapons program and it is possible terrorists could use it in a biological attack against the United States, scientists and former United Nations weapons inspectors told United Press International.
Although some biological weapons experts are concerned with the possibility of terrorists using another smallpox-related virus called camelpox, which Iraq has admitted to researching, Mark Buller, a biologist at Saint Louis University who conducts research on smallpox vaccines, said he is more concerned about monkeypox.
Buller's concern stems from the fact that monkeypox, unlike camelpox, causes mortality in humans and the incidence of human infection is on the rise in central and western Africa.
In addition, the Russian biowarfare experts are known to have worked with the virus in the Soviet Union's biological weapons program.

Hmm..this is from last September (UPI)

2003-06-09T19:42:00.000+10:00

Praire Dog-African Rat link to Monkeypox outbreak in USA

MADISON -- Tests have confirmed that four people in Wisconsin contracted the monkeypox virus after coming into close contact with pet prairie dogs, marking the first time the disease has been discovered in the Western Hemisphere, health officials said Sunday.
The findings at least partially confirm that monkeypox has caused an outbreak of rashes, fevers and chills in people across the upper Midwest since early May. Monkeypox is a viral infection that is related to smallpox.

2003-06-08T21:41:00.000+10:00

FindLaw's Writ - Dean: Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction

President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false.

2003-06-08T21:25:00.000+10:00

Boston Globe Online / Nation | World / Expanding role of Defense Department spurs concerns

Some specialists worry that as the military is used, other traditional instruments of foreign policy can suffer and atrophy. The State Department, they fear, could be undercut, and the intelligence community could become distorted and politicized.
''You've got many different tools of national power, and if you've got one that is very muscular and well developed, and you have others that in comparison are a bit more anemic . . . you have a tendency to use the one that's well-developed,'' said Clark Murdock, a former defense official who works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

That's called "sticking to your strategic advantage" in the corporate world.

2003-06-08T01:27:00.000+10:00

ClickZ Weblog Business Strategies, June 9-10, 2003 - Boston, MA

ClickZ Weblog Business Strategies 2003 Conference & Expo is the first business-oriented forum to address the recent emergence of Weblogs into the business world and their rising importance as a medium of communication. This conference will bring together Webloggers who are pioneers, experts, and technologists. Together, they will present the latest developments, strategies, and success stories behind what is now becoming known as the Business Blog, or B-Blog for short.

2003-06-06T14:34:00.000+10:00

OpenP2P.com: Swarm Intelligence: An Interview with Eric Bonabeau [Feb. 21, 2003]

Eric Bonabeau, Ph.D, a keynote speaker at the upcoming Emerging Technology conference, is a leader in the field of swarm intelligence and has focused on applying these concepts to real world problems such as factory scheduling and telecommunications routing. The concept itself is borrowed from nature; in this interview, that's where the conversation begins, with ants and other social insects. Dr. Bonabeau takes us from his childhood nightmares of carnivorous wasps to applying the theories of swarm intelligence to solving real problems in the business world.

2003-06-06T11:39:00.000+10:00

Anarchismo: Learn From Ants

Proof that figuring out networks behave following precise mathematical rules is a major breakthrough. Ants are really computers...or maybe just simulations inside a giant computer, like Martin Rhees says is what the Universe may in fact be? The point is, "by discovering the shortest path to a food source, the ants collectively solve an optimization problem using emergent computation."

a colony of ants can collectively find out where the nearest and richest food source is located, without any individual ant knowing it. In experiments, a food source is separated from the nest by a bridge with two branches, one of which is longer. The shorter branch is most likely to be selected by the colony. This is because the ants lay and follow chemical trails: individual ants lay a chemical substance, a pheromone, which attracts other ants. The first ants returning to the nest from the food source are those that take the shorter path twice (from the nest to the source and back). Nest mates are recruited toward the shorter branch, which is the first to be marked with pheromone.

2003-06-05T21:58:00.000+10:00

The Ivan Illich Archive -- Consitution for Cultural Revolution

We need an alternative program, an alternative both to development and to merely political revolution. Let me call this alternative program either institutional or cultural revolution, because its aim is the transformation of both public and personal reality. The political revolutionary wants to improve existing institutions - their productivity and the quality and distribution of their products. His vision of what is desirable and possible is based on consumption habits developed during the last hundred years. The cultural revolutionary believes that these habits have radically distorted our view of what human beings can have and want. He questions the reality that others take for granted, a reality that, in his view, is the artificial by-product of contemporary institutions, created and reinforced by them in pursuit of their short-term ends. The political revolutionary concentrates on schooling and tooling for the environment that the rich countries, socialist or capitalist, have engineered. The cultural revolutionary risks the future on the educability of man.

Vale Ivan Illich -- who died last December, but I only heard about his death now. He was 76.

2003-06-05T21:29:00.000+10:00

Guardian Unlimited | Life | A walk on the dorky side

Bill Bryson, author of a string of awesomely successful travelogues, has written a serious book about science. So what happened?

2003-06-05T08:28:00.000+10:00

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | US 'has frontier mentality' on oceans

Every eight months, nearly 11 million gallons of oil run off our streets and driveways into our waters - the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill

New report from the Pew Oceans Commission slams U.S. marine policy.

2003-06-04T22:38:00.000+10:00

The Greens - Victoria : Media Releases : Smart Card – Stupid idea - (26 May 2003)

Victorian Greens Transport Spokesperson, Dr Richard Di Natale, called the state government’s plan to invest hundreds of millions of dollars on a Smart Card system for the Melbourne public transport system “just another waste of tax payer dollars.”

Dr Di Natale identifies two areas where the Smart Card money could be better spent with greater benefit to public transport users and the community.
“Vast improvements need to be made to staffing levels on train station platforms and trams, also service frequency across the system. These grassroots issues must be resolved before the introduction of glamorous and largely redundant technology,” said Richard Di Natale.

2003-06-04T20:52:00.000+10:00

Parecon: Life After Capitalism -- by Michael Albert

How can we replace the economics of exploitation and greed with an economics of equitable cooperation and solidarity? How can we put people in charge of their own economic life, rather than being controlled by corporations and markets? How can we foster economic well-being that benefits the whole society, rather than engorgement of the few?
In this highly praised book, attracting worldwide attention and support, Michael Albert provides an answer: Participatory Economics, called parecon for short, is a new economy beyond capitalism. Parecon celebrates solidarity, equity, diversity, and people democratically controlling their own lives. To attain these values, it utilizes original institutions for production, consumption, and allocation, described throughout the book. .

2003-06-04T19:23:00.000+10:00

NEWS.com.au | Iraq issue 'like children overboard' (June 4, 2003)

THE Federal Government's refusal to investigate its pre-war intelligence on Iraq smacked of the children overboard affair, Labor's foreign spokesman Kevin Rudd said today.

The United States and Britain had each launched two inquiries into intelligence that suggested Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but the Federal Government had so far refused calls to follow suit.

2003-06-04T10:06:00.000+10:00

The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- Stacking the deck

For instance, the Ruckus Society, an Oakland activist organization, turned the card tables on the U.S. government, replacing "most wanted" Iraqis with a deck of "war profiteers." It points fingers at members of the Bush administration and corporate executives alike for making money off the conflict. President Bush is relegated to the joker card -- except it's called "the Jerk."

2003-06-03T17:40:00.000+10:00

BBC - Radio 4 - Reith Lectures 2003 - The Emerging Mind

Scientists need no longer be afraid to ask the big questions about what it means to be human with empirical evidence now answering ancient philosophical questions about meaning and existence.

Professor Ramachandran shows how phenomena such as Capgras' delusion illuminate fundamental aspects of our minds such as body image, emotions and the evolution of humor.

2003-06-03T13:59:00.000+10:00

The Tao of Democracy

How can we generate the collective wisdom to creatively address our 21st century problems, opportunities and dreams? The Tao of Democracy offers hundreds of ideas and tools to heal and transform the world.

2003-06-03T13:33:00.000+10:00

The Memory Hole > Documents from the Phoenix Program
Documents from the Phoenix Program, supplied and introduced by Douglas Valentine, author of The Phoenix Program

2003-06-03T10:38:00.000+10:00

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Transcripts raise alarm across Nato

The "Waldorf transcripts" document being distributed among Nato capitals raises new questions about Mr Straw's denials. It is being circulated amid a flurry of leaks in Washington about Mr Powell's concerns about how intelligence was being used to try to persuade reluctant Nato allies - notably France and Germany - to sanction an attack on Iraq.

2003-06-03T10:31:00.000+10:00

Salam Pax Is Real - How do I know Baghdad's famous blogger exists? He worked for me. By Peter Maass

My inner journalist tells me to draw back at this moment and write about the larger significance of my encounter with Salam Pax. That working alongside—no, employing—a star of the World Wide Web and being blissfully unaware of it is a lesson about the murkiness of today's Iraq, a netherland of obscurity in which you cannot know who was a Baathist and who was not, or whether the man in the middle of the street with a gun is going to shoot you or not, or whether the country is spiraling out of control or just having teething problems before becoming a normal nation. My inner blogger, however, tells me to skip the What This Means stuff and write about my life with Salam Pax.

2003-06-03T10:27:00.000+10:00

'Gecko tape' has researchers climbing the walls. 03/06/2003. ABC News Online

Move over Spider-Man, mere mortals may soon be coming to a ceiling near you thanks to researchers at the University of Manchester.
They say they have cracked the secret of one of the reptile world's greatest climbers, the gecko, and produced a sticky tape that can mimic the lizard's gravity-defying abilities.
Soon, people could walk on walls like comic-book superhero Spider-Man, the university said in a statement.