"It is time to stop treating the internet as if it was totally separate from the real world and accept that its importance comes from ways it is embedded in everyday life, because real people do not see the net as special.

Not having to make a connection every time they want to check e-mail or look up a website, and not having to worry about the connection dropping seems to change people's attitude.

People are more relaxed about being online They are more relaxed about using the net and will even interrupt what they are doing online to go and deal with other tasks like the ironing or making meals.

The research shows clearly that the comfort factor of broadband comes from not having to worry about cost, reliability or being knocked off the net in the middle of something. "

664 Also posted to: Broadband Britain . At: 11:49:14 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: What is broadband for?

"Mobile Universe presents exciting new technology in a durable, portable, fully automatic, two-way satellite system...the GoSat. GoSat enables those on the GO to get high-speed Internet access virtually anywhere!

Applications

663 Also posted to: Broadband Britain . At: 11:43:45 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Mobile GoSat Satellite Wireless Solutions for High Speed Internet

"The report said US efforts to curb terrorism financing are impeded "not only by a lack of institutional capacity abroad but by a lack of political will among our allies"."

662 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 11:34:19 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: Saudi's 'fail to curb al-Qaeda funding'

"An unnamed official, quoted by the Washington Post, said the United States would ask the Saudis to act on intelligence about terrorist financing and if they failed, the US would take unilateral action."

661 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 11:29:15 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: US urges Saudi action against terror

"They experienced less frustration when surfing, and were more relaxed. As a result, they spent more time online and achieved more, and their Internet experience became deeper. Some advertising campaigns have focused on broadband being fast and exciting, but perhaps the new message should be 'relax with broadband.'"

660 Also posted to: Broadband Britain . At: 11:14:57 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: ZDNet: Bandwidth talk turns off broadband late adopters

TELEPHONE MAN
(M. Wilson)
Meri Wilson - 1977


I rented my apartment on a Monday at one
Singin' doo-lolly-lolly, shakey-bum, shakey-bum
Started movin' in it on a Tuesday at two
Singin' doo-lolly-lolly, shakey-doo, shakey-doo
Wednesday at three I called the phone company, singin':
"Hey baby, put a phone in for me"
Thursday at four he came a-knockin' at my door, singin':

"Hey baby, I'm your telephone man
You just show me where you want it and I'll put it where I can
I can put it in the bedroom
I can put it in the hall
I can put it in the bathroom
I can hang it on the wall
You can have it with a buzz
You can have it with a ring
And if you really want it
You can have a ding-a-ling
Because, hey baby, I'm your telephone man"

Can you believe that? And then he says....

"Now when other fellahs call ya tell 'em how it all began"

Well... can you imagine?

My heart began a-thumpin'
And my mind began to fly
And I knew I wasn't dealing
With no ordinary guy
So while he was a-talkin'
I was thinking up my plan
Then my fingers did the walkin'
On the telephone man

Singin' hey-lolly-lolly
Hey-lolly-lolly
Hey-lolly-lolly
Get it anyway you can
Right... Ha, ha, ha... So...

I got it in the bedroom
And I got it in the hall
And I got it in the bathroom
And he hung it on the wall
I got it with a buzz
And I got it with a ring
And when he told me what my number was I got a ding-a-ling


Singin' hey-lolly-lolly
Hey-lolly-lolly
Hey-lolly-lolly
Just a-doin' my thing

Ha, ha... I never did anything like this before...

659 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 9:29:39 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story:

"Wednesday, 20 November, 2002, 18:29 GMT In pictures: Desert firepower Just miles from Kuwait's border with Iraq, American combat troops have been taking part in live-fire exercises, putting battle tanks and attack helicopters through their paces as Washington keeps up its warnings to Saddam Hussein. Patriot missiles are once again preparing to defend US forces and their allies from Iraqi rocket attack."

658 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 11:31:39 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: Desert firepower

""One of my jobs is to be provocative," he said. "Seriously, to provoke people into - to force decisions, and to make sure it's clear in everybody's mind where we're headed." . Did he ever explain what he was doing? "Of course not," he said. "I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." ."

So this is how democracy works. Sounds like he's a nutter, throwing wild remarks with no background, cognisance nor intellect. Everybody says he's of little brain.

657 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 11:01:54 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: IHT: Bush sets a course of 'confident action'

"al Qaeda's followers in the Saudi are becoming increasingly brazen. Of late, they have been seen in the streets of Riyadh in armed gangs...

And so it starts. Over the past few months everybody has been predicting that these unpopular kings, emirs, family dictators ships would be under attack from internal strife. And so it starts.

Saudi and Yemeni officers serving in the Qatari army had led a coup against the liberal emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. Gulf sources also reported that US special forces troops, some in civilian clothes, had helped the emir subdue the revolt...

I haven't seen this reported anywhere, not even via al Jazeera channels so suspect it only rumour. But where there's smoke... And even so, the rumour has a smell of plausibility in it.

[al Jazeera] brings the Palestinian Intifada live into Arab living rooms which has the potential of triggering stormy demonstrations from Morocco to the Gulf, causing unrest in Cairo and Saudi cities...

It's certainly a powerful tool. If the CIA could start to feed it the correct stuff... There seems to be only one voice of freedom coming out of the area, one station, imagne if there were many.

[On al Jazeera] the Egyptian fundamentalist sheikh Yousef Qaradawi on one of its most popular programs 'The Sharia (Muslim ritual law) and Life' a two-hour show broadcast every Sunday. Qaradawi's message is regarded as the most blatant exposure enjoyed by Bin Laden's fundamentalist Wahhabi brand of Islam on any Arab platform. Qaradawi openly calls for a global jihad against the morally bankrupt, degenerate and corrupt West, which is moreover accused of waging a crusade against Islam. "

I'm sure the Muslim world needs, desires more information. We need to educate, inform, hope that we can show more. I hope they're open minded and we can do it without mass loss of life on both sides, but I fear the pandora's box is open. And there's every chance that I too, may die.

656 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:45:39 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: DEBKAfile - Al Jazeera is Pulled into Saudi Royal Squabble

"The huge amount of material which has now been gathered by the counter-terrorist services across Europe has also pointed to strong links between al-Qaeda and the Algerian terrorist groups the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) and the GSPC (Salafist Group for Call and Combat)."

655 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:17:05 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Times: Al-Qaeda cells spread across Europe

"Telewest has announced that customers are continuing to abandon their cable TV service, while at the same time delivering the news that it hopes to have financial restructuring complete by early next year.

Subscriptions in the three months leading to September fell by five per cent, but this trend was reversed in October. "

654 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 1:28:27 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Europemedia: Customers desert Telewest while it re-finances operations

"Colin Powell, the American Secretary of State, told CNN: "We're not going to wait until February to see whether Iraq is co-operating or not.''

"

653 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:59:00 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Independent: US warns war on Iraq may start before Christmas

"Jordan's King Abdullah II is vulnerable. Iraq is Jordan's top trading partner and the source of $600 million in U.N.-approved oil a year. Jordanian companies also do about $400 million a year in business under the U.N. oil-for-food program. But the U.S. is Jordan's No. 2 trading partner and provides the government with about $400 million in aid a year."

652 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:53:28 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Iraq Fights Back With Commerce

"Hamas... rejects the idea of a two state solution; it still wants to liberate all of British mandate Palestine, which encompasses what is now recognised as the state of Israel.

A Fatah official at the talks has said Hamas has refused to budge from that position."

651 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:24:13 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: Palestinians discuss bombing truce

Steve Bell on the gloom at Guildhall

650 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:17:46 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Guardian: Be very afraid

"...The French and the Americans are now delivering the same hardline message to Iraq - which may surprise some who saw them argue over the resolution line by line for several weeks."

649 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:07:31 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: France threatens force against Iraq

"It further transpired that all these agents had been given tasks for execution immediately upon the launch of the American offensive against Iraq. They were to sabotage Aqaba harbor installations to render the port unusable for taking delivery of reinforcements and supplies destined for the Americans and Jordanians fighting on the western front; to blow up key transport junctions, roads and bridges going north out of Aqaba and to stir up popular riots, if possible rebellion."

Zealots, apparently. Do or die.

648 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:00:05 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: DEBKAfile: Saddam Uses Palestinian Terror Proxies for Jordan

"The Register reports that during the summer, 39,000 new customers subscribed to Telewest broadband taking the cable company's overall subscriber base to 216,000 at the end of September.

Around one in ten of Telewest subscribers opted for the ISPs 1Mb service which was launched in June, with the remainder connected to its 512Kb service.

Unlike NTL, Telewest says all of its broadband subscribers receive connection speeds in excess of 500Kb/s.

That said, the number of punters leaving the service -or "churn", in industry argot - rose marginally in the past quarter to 11.7 per cent from 9.5 per cent. In total, Telewest has more than half a million Internet customers - with four out of ten of those opting for broadband.

The cableco also claims that where people have a choice between cable broadband and ADSL, eight out of ten opt for the cable service.

In a statement Gavin Patterson, MD, consumer division, said: "We are continuing to demonstrate our broadband leadership, with eight out of ten consumers opting for cable over ADSL where the technologies compete head to head.

"Our blueyonder broadband internet service is the real McCoy at 512 kb/s and indeed, one in ten of our customers now enjoys twenty times the speed of dial-up with 1 Mb/s.

"And with our figures we're not talking about wholesale, retail or resale, what you see is what you get - 235,000 households getting end to end broadband internet from one provider," he said.

Total turnover for the whole of the Telewest group for the nine months to the end of September grew four per cent to £1.01bn, up from £973m during the same period last year.

According to the report however, BTopenworld is not far behind Telewest with a substantial 213,000 broadband subscriber base at the end of September, so it may not be long before the telco is overtaking its cable rival. "

647 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 12:07:55 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BTopenworld Catching Up To Telewest Subscriber Numbers

Bacon sandwich anybody?