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6. mai 2006
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The New York Times comes to the defence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been cruelly mocked by the US military over his inability to handle a machine gun.
The American military, which said it captured the videotapes in a recent raid, released selected outtakes in an effort to undermine Mr. Zarqawi's image as leader of the Council of Holy Warriors, formerly Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and suggested that his fighting talents and experience were less than his propaganda portrays. But several veterans of wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, as well as active-duty officers, said in telephone interviews yesterday that the clips of Mr. Zarqawi's supposed martial incompetence were unconvincing.
The weapon in question is complicated to master, and American soldiers and marines undergo many days of training to achieve the most basic competence with it. Moreover, the weapon in Mr. Zarqawi's hands was an older variant, which makes its malfunctioning unsurprising. The veterans said Mr. Zarqawi, who had spent his years as a terrorist surrounded by simpler weapons of Soviet design, could hardly have been expected to know how to handle it.
Hold it there. Zarqawi himself chose how to portray himself as the big tough guy in his own propaganda video. He chose the weapon, and the whole theme of the video. Maybe he could have done better with some more familiar weapon. He should, in case, have chosen that weapon instead.
Somehow I think that if some video footage showed President Bush being inept at something or other, we'd not find the NYT step up to defend him.
9:34:43 PM 
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CIA Director Porter Goss' rapid resignation is due, many papers say, to growing allegations of his being tied to some juicy scandals.
CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.
Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, could soon be indicted in a widening FBI investigation of the parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham, law enforcement sources said.
A CIA spokeswoman said Foggo went to the lavish weekly hospitality-suite parties at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels but "just for poker."
Intelligence and law enforcement sources said solid evidence had yet to emerge that Goss also went to the parties, but Goss and Foggo share a fondness for poker and expensive cigars, and the FBI investigation was continuing.
Well, it's a relief to know he wasn't fired over the CIA's dismal performance. If the CIA fired people for incompetence, there would be no end to it.
9:27:30 PM
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I have a few virtual disks on my PC, and some of those I tend to fill up completely, triggering that annoying "You are running very low on disk space" blah blah blah balloon in the tray icon area. Every time you close it, Windows XP seriously believes this is a message to nag you again in two minutes. It must think it's my mother!
I kept looking around in the "reclaim space" thingy as well as the disk manager for some setting to turn this off, and was a bit surprised to find there isn't such a thing. Microsoft can't imagine there are people who don't like being nagged every minute about low disk space on an unimportant virtual disk! But, at least they have told us the secret about removing the low disk notification balloon. It requires hacking the registry. That, to many casual Windows users, is about as scary as juggling chainsaws, but in reality it's quite, quite safe, like juggling copies of "The Satanic Verses" on a public market in Tehran.
My registry now has an entry in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
saying
NoLowDiskSpaceChecks=1
Now all I have to do is make Windows actually notice the change! Oh well. Probably after next reboot.
PS: What I would like to have is a low disk warning on the important disk drives, like C:, and not on my quickly mounted Z: drive. Alas, it's an all-or-nothing package, as far as I can tell. Either you get no disk space warnings at all, or it will nag you till the end of time about all your writable drives.
5:52:26 PM
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Shakeup at spy central:
Porter J. Goss was forced to step down yesterday as CIA director, ending a turbulent 18-month tenure marked by an exodus of some of the agency's top talent and growing White House dissatisfaction with his leadership during a time of war.
The likely successor to Goss is Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency and now deputy to Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, senior administration officials said. He could be named as soon as Monday.
Could be an interesting confirmation process.
12:33:00 PM
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Tonight's concert with Iggy Pop and the Stooges here in Bergen was an absolutely brilliant performance. The man is 59, and bears some marks to prove it, but he's second to none in sheer energy on the stage. Just amazing. He's not satisifed with being a funding rock artist who has influenced heavy, punk and virtually every other genre; he can still pack a lot of punch and deliver a startling live performance.
1:50:10 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.06.2006; 21:15:25.
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