O (b LOG N)

Too Cool for IE

Firefox Moves Farther Ahead of the Hunt

The browser that finally broke Microsoft’s monopoly just got its first major update. If you haven’t switched from Internet Explorer yet, consider Firefox 1.5 your invitation to do so.

Living in a Police State

Agents’ visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called “The Little Red Book.”
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library’s interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand’s class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

I have a copy of this book somewhere. Does this make me an enemy of our new police state?

Purposely Misleading the American People

Pre-War information was clearly distorted, hyped and fabricated. Here are just a few points that plainly illustrate this:

Point: 10 days after 9/11 the President’s Daily Security Briefing stated there was: “few credible links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Later CIA reports said the same thing. Yet, for three years after receiving the initial President’s Daily Security Briefing the administration officials continued to say that there were important connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda to the point where nearly half the country believed it.

Point: Mohammed Atta never met in Prague with Iraq officials — he was in fact in Virginia Beach at the time. In fact, the CIA and FBI told the Bush administration most certainly did not take place. Yet, Dick Cheney frequently claimed this as a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda for years after being debriefed to the contrary.

Point: Iraq never sought fissile material in Africa, or as far as we know anywhere else during the Bush Administration. Yet, Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration, including G.W., continued to proclaim the truth of this for more than a year after Ambassador Joseph Wilson proved this to be untrue. Oddly enough, it was the Vice-President’s office who asked this to be validated and had sent Ambassador Wilson to Africa and received for validation: “absolutely untrue, provably so.” However, in speeches throughout the country the administration continued to claim it to be true. They even included this outright lie in the State of the Union Address.

Point: The administration continued to assert the Iraqis had mobile factories that could make biological weapons long after they knew this not to be the case. The Iraqi defector codenamed: ‘Curveball’ was discredited and this was known by the Whitehouse, as is corroborated in writing.

Point: The Whitehouse continued to claim Iraq had provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training even after they knew this to be untrue. The Defense Intillegence Agency informed the Whitehouse that the source of that information was almost certainly lying.

Need I go on? Dishonest and reprehensible indeed Dick.