ian andrew bell

Peace in the Middle East, Bush Family-Style.

The UN Security Council vetoed the invasion of Iraq and thus the UN did not support it, yet it realized its mandate and went into Iraq anyway hoping to help restore order…

Actually, the UN already had an envoy and an HQ in Iraq which went surprisingly unscathed for more than a decade, even during Clinton’s bombing of tactical targets and aggressive UN weapons inspections. This unprecedented act of violence further underscores the Bush Administration’s total failure to understand the backscatter effects of their actions.

They are losing the political war and they are losing it FAST.

-Ian.

—– http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cidW8&ncidW8&e=3&u=/nm/ 20030819/ts_nm/iraq_un_death_dc UN in Mourning as Baghdad Bombing Wreaks Heavy Toll 1 hour, 11 minutes ago By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The most devastating attack ever on a U.N. facility killed the chief U.N. envoy to Iraq ( news -web sites ) and at least 15 staff in Baghdad and stunned the global body at its headquarters on Tuesday with dazed staff roaming the corridors, some weeping.

Dazed staff wept as televisions displayed grim pictures of the Read More

So this is a somewhat deceiving article… I can’t tell what the real net is:

- Is AOL getting the right to offer Video and other advanced features, or - Is AOL no longer obligated to work toward allowing competitors to use their network? - Or both?

Frankly I have no problem with AOL innovating on top of their service.. I think it’s good for the industry and this limitation has caused them to lose market (such as it is) to other folks like EyeBallChat. But AOL, MSN, Yahoo et al should be mandated to interoperate as it benefits all parties to have a massive, interoperable network of networks.

The FCC shouldn’t have singled out AOL, but unfortunately AOL were the only guys who were merging at the time and this gave the FCC a lever.

-Ian.

—— http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cidX2&ncidX2&e=1&u=/nm/ 20030819/wr_nm/tech_aol_dc

Source: FCC to Lift AOL Instant Messaging Condition 2 hours, 7 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. regulators are expected to allow AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: AOL -news ) to offer advanced instant messaging ( news -web sites ) Read More

And so the fleecing or the Iraqi people begins…

-Ian.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Tom
> Date: Fri Aug 1, 2003 9:32:24 AM US/Pacific
> To: fork [at] xent [dot] com
> Subject: Can You Here Me Now
>
>> From http://www.arstechnica.com/
>
> Middle East mobile firm shut out in Iraq
>
> Posted 8/1/2003 - 2:09AM, by Fred “zAmboni” Locklear
> Getting a foot in the door can lead to opportunities, but it can also
> lead
> to some squashed toes. Using the confusion in a Iraq as a cover screen
> the
> Bahriani mobile firm Batelco spent $5 million setting up and beginning
> GSM
> service in Baghdad on July 22. One problem. Batelco had not obtained a
> license to start services and promptly told to cease service. The U.S.
> started seeking bids for three mobile phone licenses on Sunday, so
> Betelco
> could just apply, right? Watch out toes, here comes the crunch.
>
> Batelco was probably trying to get the jump on others since licensing
> rules had not been set up and there have been Read More

In the Bush administration’s latest breach of the Geneva Convention, US forces in IRAQ are now kidnapping the wives and families of suspected Ba’ath party collaborators and holding them hostage to force those Ba’athists to turn themselves in.

Sometimes I can’t believe what I read..

-Ian.

——— http://www.msnbc.com/news/944890.asp?0cl=cR&cp1=1

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 28 —  Over the past six weeks a small but intense war has been conducted in the mud-hut villages and lush palm groves along the Tigris River valley, fought with far different methods than those used in the campaign that toppled President Saddam Hussein.

AS IRAQI FIGHTERS launched guerrilla strikes, the U.S. Army adopted a more nimble approach against unseen adversaries, and found new ways to gather intelligence about them, according to dozens of soldiers and officers interviewed over the last week.        Thousands of suspected Iraqi fighters were detained over the six-week period, many temporarily, in hundreds of U.S. military raids, most of them conducted in the dead of night. In the expansive region north of Baghdad patrolled by the 4th Infantry Division, more than 300 Iraqi fighters were killed in combat operation, the military officials Read More

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Gregory Alan Bolcer
> Date: Thu Jul 31, 2003 11:24:16 AM US/Pacific
> To: FoRK
> Subject: DMCA
>
> I agree wrt due diligence and judicial oversight and
> privacy protections.
>
> Greg
>
>
> GOOD MORNING SILICON VALLEY
> By John Paczkowski
> Thursday, July 31, 2003
> E-mail John at jpaczkowski [at] knightridder [dot] com

AOL didn’t lose 846,000 subscribers. It never had them in the first place.

-Ian.

—– http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid04&ncids8&e=6&u=/ washpost/20030724/tc_washpost/a32817_2003jul23 AOL Subscribers Down by 846,000 Thu Jul 24,12:23 AM ET

Add Technology - washingtonpost.com to My Yahoo!

By David A. Vise, Washington Post Staff Writer

America Online’s subscriber base plunged by 846,000 in the second quarter, as hundreds of thousands left for cheaper or faster Internet connections and a similar number were dropped because they had been mistakenly counted in the past, AOL Time Warner Inc. disclosed yesterday.

In addition, new disclosures about a federal investigation into improper accounting at Northern Virginia-based America Online Inc. showed that the division’s legal problems are hurting other parts of the AOL Time Warner media empire.

AOL Time Warner said yesterday that the Securities and Exchange Commission ( news -web sites ) would not allow it to spin off a portion of its cable television unit until it resolves a dispute over how to account for hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable revenue from a complex deal with German media firm Bertelsmann AG ( news -web sites ).

AOL Read More

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketscience-03zj1.html The End Of US Manned Spaceflight Looms Ever Closer The US manned space program has at best only a few more years of missions left in it, until its cost, complexity and design flaws results in another failure that grounds all US manned launches until a new transport system is designed and built.

by Jeffrey F. Bell Honolulu - Jul 10, 2003

Once again, NASA has proposed to develop a replacement for the troubled Space Shuttle. This year’s project goes by the ungrammatical moniker “Orbital Space Plane”. An interim version of OSP called the CRV (Crew Rescue Vehicle) to be developed by 2010 will take over the International Space Station lifeboat task now done by Soyuz.

An improved OSP called the CTV (Crew Transfer Vehicle) will assume the ISS crew exchange task now done by Shuttle in 2012. To minimize development costs, the OSP will be launched on one of the new EELV family of expendable boosters, Delta 4 or Atlas V.

Sound familiar? It should. The OSP is only the latest of many “Shuttle replacement” programs that have all failed dismally. A close look at OSP shows that this program Read More

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/features/story.jsp?storyB4841 Publication Date: 16 July 2003

The victims of Ulster’s new bigotry David McKittrick on a disturbing trend in Northern Ireland By Features Editor email:  featureseditor [at] belfasttelegraph.co [dot] uk

PAUL, one of a growing number of Africans in Belfast, was so shocked to know there was a bomb at his house he cannot remember whether it was his wife or police who told him they had to leave.

They grabbed their two sons and were hurried to safety by police, leaving the Army to deal with the pipe bomb beside their oil tank.

Paul is from the Sudan; his sons, who are twins, were nine weeks old when the bombers came. He talked of that night as though it were a dream.

“I was in a deep sleep, then they are telling me, ‘There’s a bomb at your house’. We were in the police station about four hours, then we went to our cousin’s place; but she was also being attacked that night.

“We were just so scared, so scared. In Sudan I lost my family. My family was killed in a house, like the way they Read More

http://www.techvibes.com/events/event_details.asp?idp6&date=7/15/ 2003&city=1

geekmail.cc @ Techvibes Networking event

Tuesday, July 15th @ the Urban Well, Downtown Vancouver

Come and learn about geekmail.cc ’s industry-leading anti-spam technologies, find out how it can protect your email…

And when we’re done with all that serious stuff? Enjoy the festivities with food, drink, and the tunes and tones of Vancouver’s finest celtic band, The Town Pants with special guest Johnny Leroux…

Warning: The content and video in this story may be offensive to viewers.

(July 10) — It’s a new form of adult entertainment, and men are paying thousands of dollars to shoot naked women with paint ball guns. They’re coming to Las Vegas to do it. This bizarre new sport has captured the attention of people around the world, but Channel 8 Eyewitness News reporter LuAnne Sorrell is the only person who has interviewed the game’s founder.

George Evanthes has never been hunting. “Originally I’m from New York. What am I going to hunt? Squirrels? Someone’s cats. Someone’s dogs? I don’t think so,” said Evanthes. Now that he’s living in Las Vegas , he’s finally getting his chance to put on his camouflage, grab a rifle and pull the trigger, but what’s in his scope may surprise you. He’s not hunting ducks or even deer. He’s hunting woman. Naked women.

“I’ve done this three times,” says Nicole, one of the three women allowing themselves to be shot at. “I’ve done this seven times,” says Skyler, another woman participating. “I’ve done it seven times,” says Gidget the third woman.

Hunting for Bambi is the Read More