Tuesday, October 22, 2002

Bush Sr. Defends Record on Hussein (washingtonpost.com). We thought Saddam Hussein would leave power," Bush told a mortgage banking conference.  [Blog Left: Critical Interventions] To me, the weird thing is that he's saying this at a mortgage banking conference. Was he taking questions? Do ex-presidents off sucking at the corporate teat just start volunteering information like this? More ex-presidents need to be like Jimmy Carter.

7:19:41 PM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

US warning over Iraq delays. The White House says its patience with the United Nations is running out¸ as Russia and France object to a new draft resolution on Iraq. [BBC News | WORLD] Oh crap! We're going to have to invade New York to inflict proper regime change on the UN, then, won't we? Do I overdo it on the sarcasm? I know, it's not all that witty or interesting - but the world is so bizarre and frightening that I don't know a better way to respond to a lot of it.

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Cool factoid just learned from TV - the very first animated film ever, Gertie The Dinosaur, was the brainchild of Windsor McKay, the brilliant cartoonist behind the amazing Little Nemo In Slumberland strip. Never knew this. Cool.
7:07:23 PM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Been playing with Dave Winer's RSS Explorer tool for Radio - great...even more feeds for me to subscribe to. =)
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So that's Jesus' brother's bone box. Or something. Story here at CNN. The name of the story in the URL is "jesus.box". The box has "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" carved on it in Aramaic, and while historians estimate that there may have been up to 200 men named James with a father named Joseph and a brother named Jesus during that time, it's rare for a brother to be so important that his name got carved into his brother's burial box. Or something. I'm mildly confused, but this is still kinda cool.

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Police Investigate New Shooting in Maryland. Police put a widespread dragnet into place after a man was shot today. Authorities said it was too early to tell if the shooting was connected to the serial sniper case. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: National] This'll up the terror level - this guy was shot while sitting in a bus, possibly in the driver's seat. I'll give the sniper this - he sure knows how to scare the shit out of people.

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Wire Service Says Reporter It Fired Invented His Sources. The Associated Press said on Monday that it could not verify the existence of more than 45 people and a dozen organizations cited in articles by Christopher Newton. By Felicity Barringer. [New York Times: Business] Now THAT is ballsy.
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Bush Declares U.S. Is Using Diplomacy to Disarm Hussein. President Bush suggested on Monday that if Saddam Hussein complied with every United Nations mandate, it would "signal the regime has changed." By David E. Sanger. [New York Times: Politics] Uh, what the hell? The US policy is "regime change" - which we all know is just a nice way to say "overthrowing Saddam". Now Bush is saying that if they do everything we say, that counts as "regime change"? I'm so lost - I don't have a clue what's going on...

8:18:48 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

U.S. Refines Plan for War in Cities. The American military is polishing a plan for attacking Baghdad that calls for isolating the city and then taking control of it while avoiding house-to-house combat. By Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker. [New York Times: Politics] And everyone knows how accurately plans like these work out in practice... How the hell do you take control of the city WITHOUT house-to-house combat? I mean, you can leave them 'til after you've taken control of the major arteries, communications facilities, command centers, etc... but there'll still be pockets of Iraqi soldiers throughout the city, and you've got to deal with them.

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