"NGC (Telewest) has entered into a consultancy service and technology transfer agreement exclusively with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Telewest is assigning five specialists from its ISP arm, blueyonder broadband, to the venture.

The venture hopes to create premium gaming services for PS2 broadband users, including:

• Leagues, ladders and tournaments for players
• The chance to play across all networks in Europe
• Moderation, buddy lists and server management functionality

745 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 11:27:59 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Digital Spy: Telewest starts up gaming consultancy

"Telewest Broadband has today unveiled a new self-install option for customers wanting to sign-up to broadband internet with the company.

Customers who take the company's digital TV service can opt to buy a self-install kit for £12.50 to hook their computer up to the digital TV set-top-box (STB) via an ethernet interface. The STBs already contain a cable modem, which is utilised for two-way interactive services.

After asking for the pack, customers should receive it within forty-eight hours. Both 512kbps and 1Mbps service levels are available through the STB."

744 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 11:21:03 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Digital Spy: Telewest STB broadband install price announced

My reply to the Guardian's leader

And in Iraq's nepotistic society, ruled be fear, where the ordinary citizen knows that one wrong word will be passed on by busy-bodies and will lead to death possibly death for the person's family too. In despotic cultures, there is no freedom, human rights, law, democracy, justice nor opportunity. If Arab cultures think it right that they should be ruled through a feudal system of absolute power, no wonder they look at the Western civilisation and think it obscene, just like any person looking on a neighbour who has everything and not a care in the world. Jealously, a primitive emotion has done bad things throughout history. This time it is us the rich, carefree neighbour who reverses the jealousy, we must bring good to the suffering, whether they want it or not. We have to stop the jealousy, show that they too can have what we have. As Mr Blair travels to Washington, only hours away perhaps from a final decision to wage war against Iraq, he might reflect that in politics, as in life, the very best of intentions can often produce the very worst of results. Once safely aboard his plane, Mr Blair might consider the thought that cherished aspirations and relentless, rough-hewn reality frequently collide. Iraq is one such case. In seeking fervently and sincerely to do right thing for Britain and the world, Mr Blair could not be more wrong. Whether or not his error, if consummated with George Bush at Camp David tomorrow, proves disastrous will thereafter be largely beyond his control. If he opts for war at this juncture, his quest for universal justice may trigger the very chaos he most fears. If, scorning reasonable alternatives, he decides that military means are the only way forward at this point, he will not only be mistaken. He may also undermine the admirable values and the moral authority by which he sets such store.

When a good man stays silent. Enough of this, poncing around. Sadam has pissed the UN around for 15 years. He'll keep on doing it, and he'll keep on showing those nascent terrorists that there is a way. Individual nations can stand up and defy the rest of the world. Right now, this war is wrong because it weakens the very democracy for which we are summoned to fight. If democracy's good health were the arbiter, Mr Blair would not be currently blocking out the roaring surge of opposition in Britain and around the globe. There would be a free, prior parliamentary vote on any proposal to send troops into combat. Right now, the country is deeply divided on this question, the armed forces under-prepared and equipped, the aims blurred and unconvincing, the likely consequences as incalculable as they are potentially dire, and the exit strategy remains unrevealed. Right now, for the people of Iraq, war promises a still avoidable but otherwise dreadful harvest of death, a bumper crop of the cruelly maimed, the orphaned, the displaced and the crazed. War will mean a prospective destruction far in excess of that wrought in Afghanistan in 2001.

It is not a roaring surge of opposition. It is fear of, for once, doing the right thing. Hey, why worry, it's so far over there, it's only Arabs who are suffering under Sadam's regime, suffering under sanctions. Anyway if we poke him in the eye, all his mates are going to get us. Let's stay quiet, and let him get on with his business. We need to inform the UK and world public, to remind them who Sadam and his henchmen really are. To show that this is for the good of that nation, and for the survival of our culture. The aims are simple. Oust Sadam. Reinstate democracy. With over overwhelming might it can be done, and it can be done quickly and hopefully without too much damage to the citizens. It is their war mongers inside Iraq that have the most to fear from the US/UK forces. But they also have to fear their own forces turning on them. And this is the easiest way out for the man in the street, speak up now. Right now the likely consequences of doing nothing is as incalculable as they are potentially dire. We will show weakness and this will allow the battle to come to us. This is a simple operation. We know that all of the Arab countries, although only the power brokers, and not the man in the street, and have been bribed and goaded by the US's might, but all are alongside our view that Sadam must be ousted. It is only Sadam and his henchmen that want to cling to power. War at this time is wrong because, given Iraq's currently unresolved, ambiguous circumstances, it is not a remotely justifiable or sensible way to conduct our affairs. Does anybody honestly believe that if Baghdad falls to US armour and Saddam is dethroned, that will be the end of the story? Those who enthusiastically support an attack may yet have their "victory day". But even as they turn away in tricked-out triumph, and turn away they surely will, as after the one-day wonder of Kabul's capitulation, the real problems will begin in earnest.

I hope it is not the end of the story, and, this time it won't. 9/11 has woken us up to the stupidity of ignoring the rest of the world. Turn away from all that oil? All those Muslim schools teaching hatred? I doubt it. War cannot and should not always be avoided. Here is no argument for a blanket pacifism; this newspaper supported the Kosovo intervention and the 1991 Gulf conflict. But war must be a means of last resort, when all else fails. That moment has not yet come. It may never do so. War, as in Mr Bush's careless hands, must not be an option of choice, dubiously decreed, pre-emptively and partially prosecuted, and electorally exploited. Have we learned nothing from the past? Did history somehow stop on September 11? Are we, the British people, so vicariously panicked by the Bush administration's global fright that we forget the lessons of reconciliation, humility, tolerance and common sense belatedly grasped at the close of our own imperial era? This is not to be "anti-American". It is to be pro-American in that country's best, egalitarian tradition.

The lessons of reconciliation, humility, tolerance and common sense tell that to the North African terrorists. What grudge do they have? None, other than the usual fashionable hatred of all things non-Muslim. As he speeds across mid-Atlantic skies, pondering perhaps the "special relationship" that brought us to this pass, there are alternative state of the union messages that Mr Blair himself might deliver to his host. This policy is impolitic - because Britain's home and future lies within a unifying Europe, not with the US alone. This administration's multi-faceted importunity could yet force that long-avoided choice. It is inept - given the intensified Muslim anti-western resentment and retaliation that will surely result. It is foolish - in that it will at least delay and may wholly derail British and other efforts to achieve a more vital, pivotal settlement in Palestine.

The anti-western resentment is deep and well routed, already. Nothing we can do except crush it, and crush it hard. We need to ensure that 'it' never happens; no dirty bombs, no small scale gas attacks, or one mad man wandering around an airport with infected with smallpox. The US and ourselves need to be world policemen. Guaranteeing that this pandora's box is never opened wider. Hopefully one day we too will be able to put our weapons away. There will never be peace in Isreal while the Palestinians hold out hope that they can win the media with violence. While Sadam pays the families of 'martyrs.' While the situation in the middle east is so unstable. Even as he touches down, Mr Blair's journey will not be over. The prime minister should think again. This crisis is not primarily about Iraqi weapons of mass death, with which many more powerful, less circumscribed states are better armed. It is not primarily about fighting terrorism, despite the alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaida. But terrorists, our far deadlier foe, will doubtless make of it a new casus belli. For some sceptics, it is about oil, about dreams of American empire and a remade Middle East of Pentagon protectorates. But official hyperbole now rings as hollow as an Iraqi warhead. This war is not primarily about democracy or freedom, much as the Iraqi people deserve both. And it will most certainly not deliver justice for all. It is, fundamentally, about the wilful exercise of unrestrained global power, unfazed by considerations of international law, the principles of collective UN security, and the consequences for everyman. Iraq will form an awesome precedent for what Gerhard Schršder calls the "law of the jungle". Iraq is just the beginning.

The law of the jungle started with 9/11. For sure this will turn into a new crusade, it will have to, and in some ways it will be what Osama's gang always wanted. For the US to attack blindly, angering the rest of the Muslim world to take up arms. Good. Hopefully they'll gather together to fight, all the easier to wipe out. If they don't and fight an asymmetric war, a terrorist war, then we'll take up the style of the Israelis to defeat them, total, bloody recriminations. When Mr Blair finally arrives at Camp David, his choice is plain. Like Mr Smith, he can cling to his endangering, ideal vision of a world forcibly, imperiously and imperviously improved. Or, at last gasp, he can banish illusion. Britain should back the UN route of inspections, containment and diplomacy. It should withhold support for unilateral US action. It's the right thing to do. Or else, at home as well as overseas, chaos threatens.

Chaos is already at our door step with much more to come. It would be nice to bring the UN along with us, but once battle is joined it won't matter.

743 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 10:45:14 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Guardian: Speak for this nation

A "walk in the park," area

I've won new cards. Lots of them. "Special, valuable these are," we are told. I spend a day there, everybody wants it, none can have it.

At first, I wonder if the juiciest section of my cards, are these blocks. Typical! Eleven, count them, I've never seen anything like them, eleven 'first name never nevers' as we call them. I put rectangles around mine, with big asterisks. Eleven out of eighteen. I get one every four sheets usually. Sometimes two on one sheet. Usually means they've applied and were turned down for some reason, usually stupid mistakes, bad credit.

After a while I speak to a solitary passer-by; he lived there, thinks one is still there some 'old harry' I think he said. "Waiting a bungalow. Not going anywhere else."

The place is simply amazing. Just about each flat has at least one window broken. I count them, to see if there is at least one door I'm able to knock. Eleven 'first name never nevers, and another four on the next sheet.

Passer-by told me the way up. I saunter past it and wonder what would be "up the steps, round the outside."

I wander around the back looking for numbers. There's more of the same the other side, another block. More. I see over one side, a workman carrying boards for windows talking to someone. Later two geezers with dark coats, tight hair cuts, striding my way. On a mission, no doubt. I see big white letters in place of the white handkerchief, "COURTS." We smile, I think, "I'm cool - I've got a badge." They're not after me. "Amazing," I say. They nod. We look around in awe at the wastefulness, and depravity of mankind. I share the spectacle for a minute with the knuckleheads. "Amazing," I says, "I gotta knock these." Chuckles and giggles and guffaws. "Nobody here, any more, mate. Nobody, nomore" I read out the street name on my sheet, "that's over there, the houses." Oh, good. More of same the people who still live around here, I say. And head off, once more about my business. Knock, knock. From Telewest, can I come in a minute? Cheers. Sniff.

I discover the remnants of... the people who once lived in the flats. Here, a door which has had several letters stapled to it.

Courts, I had in my mind. Drugs says Amanda. I wonder, a price list? :-)

I wonder, this could be a door to hell.

I swap the cards today. One day's enough, lots would want them, they're special.

Scut for knobs, anybody, get 'em while they're hot.

I do well today, all triple plays, credit cards, direct debits - good customers, nice people, in four hours, knocking bungalows and semis. Missed the rain and home in time for the family, back from their cousins' Christening.

742 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 1:26:14 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story:

A walk in the park

I take Bradley to the park with a loaf of bread, he walks down the grass, "Ack-acks... ack-acks-o... 'read." And patting his legs. I've got my back to the lake - I'm taking the pix. As we get close, they start heading our way, I don't notice, till one's at my legs, across the pond, getting out of the water, on the grass in front of us, we walk straight into a sea of geese. All geese point our way. "WhaAAAA." Shouts Bradley, at the top of his voice, hands, holding bread above his arms. Pick him up, and boot a path through the geese, to the other side of the lake, behind the fence. Got to watch your back there though, they sneak up behind you from around the side of the fence. As Bradley is keen to keep an eye out for, and squeals the alert, several times. This day a little boy, hanging around the entrance to the skittles shoos them away for us. And we give a few slices away to others there, gathered for the display.

Sometimes as I look down on Bradley, and think to when he stands at my height. He's so small. A tiny little man. Shaving, driving cars, climbing mountains. Amazing to be able to see someone grow up.

I think the first time Bradley takes the escalators up to Debinhams toy dept.

He finds the organ, and in the few moments before this shot, was lightly tapping the keys with one finger on each hand, looked like he was in a musical, about to start the intro to a song. And he sings into the mic too. Well, kinda doo-dooo-oooo.
Sorta musical even.
In a parental, dull-as-fuck way.

I have a MPEG off the camera too. Must sort these out, gonna need some more web space soon. The curse of broadband :-)

741 Also posted to: personal . At: 12:29:10 AM  . .
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Stu Knight, not in my team but another big hitter. Must get a shot of him smiling, looks like he's going to nut me in this pic. Again Abdul is in the background, how does he do that?

740 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 9:04:50 PM  . .
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"Saddam, 65, is a master of deception who has managed to elude the world and internal coup plots through his 24-year reign. "Saddam knows what America would like to do to him, so he rules from the shadows," said Wafiq al-Sammarai, a former chief of Iraq's military intelligence who defected in 1994. "He is one of the most paranoid, but also one of the best-defended, leaders in the world. He will make it hard, maybe even impossible, for America to get him." "

739 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:26:32 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: U.S. units ready to hunt and possibly kill Saddam

" Iraq will provide supplementary data to the 12,000-page arms declaration presented to the UN Security Council on Dec. 7. Baghdad candidly admits by this point that it flouted Resolution 1441demanding a full and truthful account of its forbidden weapons. That declaration was termed at the time Saddamâs last chance to comply with the resolution and avoid military action. On Monday, the UN inspectors rewarded Saddam with one more last chance in the lengthening series of last chances.

All these points cover a variety of commitments by Baghdad, barring one: to disclose and hand over its arsenal of unconventional weapons. "

738 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 10:54:06 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: DEBKAfile: Blix, ElBaradei Unravel Resolution 1441

Some pix of the geezers at work. Here's Bal (left in the right picture) the big hitter with Abdul. Then we've got the big board, with me at number 4, I was once at number two. And another of Edward and Abdul.

737 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 12:11:09 AM  . .
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Every time we go we've been taking a picture next to the giraffe measurement board. The oldest is to the left, taken September 8th 2002. And the furthest right is, from Sun, May 4, 2003 Must find the first, Bradley's first birthday - October 2001, and scan it in.

I think Bradley has grown the most over these last nearly 5 months. 4 inches over Esme's 2 inches?

Esme's brave enough to go inside and Bradley kept shaking his head when I was asking him to come in.

So, Bradley stands on the pushchair and shouts at the baby giraffes who come out. Esme and I stay inside and shout to the giraffes inside. I forget how tall these things are, and the size of their heads - wow.

736 Also posted to: personal . At: 10:56:25 PM  . .
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A couple of nice pix. Bradley's standing within a window frame inches from hundreds of fish, swimming past his nose. The tank is as tall as he and 10 feet deep. It looks good top me and I'm sure it looks good to him, particularly the depth perception of the tank at the edges of your vision.

735 Also posted to: personal . At: 10:53:26 PM  . .
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They like it in the chimp house. I tell Esme that the one sitting in front of us is the biggest and oldest. Why? She asks. And translates it into "why is he the badest?" He's been chasing and ooo-oooing at the others.

This baboon, or is it mandril, well this caused the biggest story with Esme. I was trying to take this very picture, as usual the camera takes some time to warm up. I ask Esme to turn around, she does, just before I squeeze the shutter, Esme jumps out of he skin. She's been standing inches away from this beast, separated by the glass, and the beast taps the glass, quite hard.

People in the crowd also jump. Someone says that it maybe because she had her back to him. Later as we go over the incident for the fifteenth time I say that perhaps it was because the monkey thought it maybe funny to say 'boo' to Esme. Another fifteen times later, 'why did the monkey make me jump? Maybe, I say, it was because you were rude, maybe it was because the monkey thought it was funny. Finally, she decides that it was because it was funny, not that she was rude.

We just missed the penguins getting fed. They see some whizzing past, as in the picture. And as I try to get more pix, they begin to pretend their on horses, and gallop around the enclosure. Bradley like this the most, as Esme disappears off to see the sea lions being fed, he gallops more, and shout to me for something, I wish I could understand what.

734 Also posted to: personal . At: 10:52:46 PM  . .
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We arrive late, takes ages, as usual to get Esme dressed. 48 miles to Chester Zoo, we've been before. We dive straight into the cafe to get some chips. And I keep pinching chips off Esme's plate, she get wise after a while. Bradley drops each of his three chicken fingers on the floor, and has one of Esme's. It's good fun, we laugh, and laugh. I wonder if everybody else in the cafe thinks I'd a divorced dad.

On the way out we take another ritual picture on the brass envelope.

Bradley gets close up to some lizards, I tell him their like dinosaurs.

733 Also posted to: personal . At: 10:52:18 PM  . .
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A little bit of artwork from Esme's school. She explained who everybody was, Bradley, Daddy, Mummy and herself. But there were other figures, and my curiosity confused her over who was who.

The blue at the top isn't the sky, "it's the deep blue sea."

732 Also posted to: personal . At: 1:41:08 AM  . .
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"Officials said the interior ministers plan to explore ways to end Islamic propaganda for the recruitment of insurgents and planning of attacks. The plan would also cover sermons given in mosques during after Friday prayers as well as Islamic fundamentalist literature distributed in and around mosques. "

Maybe they'll do something about the hate taught in schools, after all. Maybe.

731 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 1:37:30 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: List One News Item

"A huge popular march will be organized tomorrow ,Saturday in Damascus to protest the American aggression on Iraq and to express support to the Palestinian heroic Intifada."

And in 76 other Arab States, apparently, while we here in the West march for peace

730 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 1:23:02 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Syria: Damascus, Jan.17

""It took us 4 1/2 years against a concealment mechanism to find the hard evidence of an offensive biological weapons program," says Terry Taylor, a British senior UN weapons inspector from 1993 to 1997. "The Iraqis have learned a lot from that process, and are more adept than they were at hiding things from the inspectors.""

Also, about the intelligence they're (not) receiving from the US/UK. I'd guess the real intelligence is so scant but well placed that it's more likely to be a top placed exec saying, "yeah, we got stuff but no fucker knows where it's hidden. Nobody alive."

As they're definitely hiding the stuff, why? They're willing to use some terrible stuff to keep Sadam alive for as long as possible.

729 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 1:14:38 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: csmonitor: Inspectors, US part ways on Iraq

" A police officer attempts to save a man jumping from a balcony at a highrise apartment building in downtown Philadelphia, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2003. The Hopkinson House in the Washington Square neighborhood was partially evacuated Wednesday after fire engulfed at least two units on the upper floors. Police said a man arguing with his girlfriend set fire to an apartment in the downtown highrise that engulfed at least two units on the upper floors before he plunged from a 24th-floor balcony to his death,police said Wednesday."

"Division sends out carefully aimed rays of greed at passing Londoners who will remain infected for up to 30 years. The ductwork here was completely renewed by The Omelette Dog during the Second World War and features the same tin tubing that can be found at Slartisfgh. Satan was retrieved via Division when he suffered his second hernia."

"The cast-iron doors of Abracadansler were melted by the Great Fire of Middlesbrough in 1771 and will be replaced when Coros the Jackdaw returns from Betelgeuse in March 2534. It is this entrance which sucks in coldness for use during ice-ages. David Keeble was reassembled here."

This is a scary one!

"Vowo mi is the delivery point for the devils honey supply. The beehives of England have for centuries organised thrice-monthly deposits of best honey here in return for being allowed to live without satanic interference. The connection to the core is a simple plastic tube, 12cm in diameter. Scientists working for the government of Harold Wilson released a tiny survey vehicle into Vowo mi in 1961 almost immediately losing radio contact with the probe's passenger the spider-monkey Kiki. Kiki is now the devil's osteopath and can speak fluent Karatakak. Vowo mi has a good vibe and a pleasing aspect."

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. There's 56 entrances to hell on the front page. I spent hours at this site, and will try and add some that I know about.

"Britain's Hunt for Child Pornography Users Nets Hundreds Besides Pete Townshend. More than 1,300 people have been arrested in Britain in the past 10 months as part of a nationwide hunt for users of child Internet pornography."

And they should have their knackers cut off.

 Source: New York Times: International; 15/01/03; 9:15:25 pm.
724  At: 11:57:41 PM  . .
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"CNX - which offers a mix of anime, live action programming and films - will be added to Telewest's Supreme digital cable package, which is taken by around 450,000 of Telewest's 829,000 digital cable customers."

I saw it on my TV today.

723 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 11:55:51 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Digital Spy: CNX launch on Telewest confirmed

"The Voynich Manuscript. The most mysterious manuscript in the world. The Voynich Manuscript is 235 page manuscript written in a cipher that has yet to be decoded. The manuscript includes many images. Almost all pages of the manuscript are available online. There have also been several books (1,2)written claiming to solve the manuscript. You can also follow the modern day progress of deciphering the Voynich manuscript."

Saw a program about this, so this is just for my memory... I think it's a fake from 500 years ago, but I could be worng... Spooky.

 Source: MetaFilter; 15/01/03; 9:16:33 pm.
722  At: 11:48:15 PM  . .
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Hidden ad-skipping feature found in TiVo. "A specific pattern of keystrokes on a remote control for TiVo digital video recorders enables subscribers to activate a feature making it easier to skip through ads".

 Source: CNET News.com; 15/01/03; 9:16:57 pm.
721 Also posted to: Broadband Britain . At: 11:33:15 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story:

"Telewest has reached agreement on a new £2.15bn bank overdraft as the cable giant inches towards completing the overhaul of its debt-laden balance sheet."

720 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 11:31:33 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Guardian: Telewest secures £2bn overdraft

"Q Ari, another question on the timing. How can there not be a timetable? How can time be running out if there's not a timetable? I don't get it.

MR. FLEISCHER: Because as you repeatedly asked me in the past, what exactly is the timetable? And I've said in the past, that's something Saddam Hussein will have to figure out.

Q Right, but now you say that time is running out.

MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct."

719 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 11:18:41 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Whitehouse: Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer

Now that's red hair! Esme Gorgeous!
And Bradley' sense of dress, look at those wellies, and why is he wearing his hat like that? I don't know kids these days. I came home for some dinner and find them out in the garden, Esme needing to find the spades so she can dig up worms and Bradley tagging along waiting for trouble to happen.

718 Also posted to: personal . At: 10:33:22 PM  . .
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"But if there is no Mitzna separation, by 2010 there will be more Palestinians than Jews living in Israel and the occupied territories. Then Israel will have three options: The Israelis will control this whole area by apartheid, or they will control it by expelling Palestinians, or they will grant Palestinians the right to vote and it will no longer be a Jewish state. Whichever way it goes, it will mean the end of Israel as a Jewish democracy."

Interesting article. With no answers, and none that I can see either, except the inevitable: grant Palestinians the right to vote -- no longer a Jewish state.

717 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 9:27:38 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: The New Math

"CNX - part of the Turner Broadcasting bouquet - will launch in the Supreme package on channel 148 on January 15.

Other channels launching on that date are FTN, from Telewest's content division, Flextech - on channel 123 in the Starter pack, and UK Bright Ideas, from the UKTV stable of channels - a joint venture between Flextech and BBC Worldwide - on channel 263 in the Starter pack."

716 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 7:37:57 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Digital Spy: New channels head to Telewest

Jason our new FSM, is being plagued by bald men. Nick's in the foreground and young Shaun has his back to the camera.

715 Also posted to: Telewest backgrounder . At: 12:07:44 AM  . .
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That was then... I've got myself a scanner, and over the next weeks I'll be adding some old pix to this site. This was from October 31st 2000, now Bradley's two and two months. See the postings from the actual date of the birth.

Some people I work with have been shocked by these pix, can't see why myself. Nope, not at all.

714 Also posted to: personal . At: 12:07:44 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Bradley's birth

" The Sunday Times said the secure rooms encased in 18-inch-thick steel walls would provide shelter for the royal family from bombings, gas attacks, assassination attempts -- and even a direct hit by a light aircraft.

The rooms, which the paper said were ordered after a security review after last year's Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, would be equipped with secure communications, and everything needed to survive for at least a week."

Oh goody! (Sarcasm.) At least Londoners will know she's safe when they're all dead.

713 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 10:16:45 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Yahoo! News - Panic Rooms to Protect British Royals -- and Dogs

"Only later did it become clear that the president already had made up his mind. In July 2002, the State Department's director of policy planning, Richard N. Haass, held a regular meeting with Rice and asked whether they should talk about the pros and cons of confronting Iraq.

Don't bother, Rice replied: The president has made a decision."

A good background of the history of the ouster for Iraq. But looking further back than 9/11 is pointless.

Good thing about warblogging, is that I can look back into July 2002, into what was being released (I called it then 'testing public reaction') into the news UK: we will use nukes first:

"Mr Hoon said then: "There has been no change in the essential rules we follow on the use of nuclear weapons. They would be used in only what are described as extreme conditions of self-defence ... proportionately and consistently with our obligations in international law."
Mr Hoon caused anger this year when he said Britain would be ready to use its long range nuclear weapons against Iraq."

Not a lot was said against it, possibly because most thought it would never happen.

712 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 9:08:48 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Washington Post: U.S. Decision On Iraq Has Puzzling Past

"Xbox officials are promising a raft of new games in the coming year to rival the best titles currently on sale.

Microsoft is investing millions into fostering a network of gamers across the world, playing against each other on the Xbox.

Xbox Live was launched in the US on 15 November. It launches in Japan on 16 January and in Europe on 14 March.

Figures released this week by Microsoft showed that more than 250,000 starter kits have been sold in the US, selling out in many stores.

Officials say Xbox Live has boosted the sales of games which can be played online, like MechAssault, Unreal Championship and Ghost Recon."

711 Also posted to: Broadband Britain . At: 8:16:08 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: Microsoft talks up online gaming

""Thanks to broadband, hardware and content will integrate in a new way."

Mr Ando showed off Sony's Cocoon, a device about the size of a DVD player that hooked up the TV to the internet by broadband.

The machine runs on Linux and has a hard disc that can record 100 hours of video. It is already gone on sale in Japan.

"Cocoon will transform TV into an interactive, intelligent experience," said Mr Ando."

710 Also posted to: Broadband Britain . At: 8:05:26 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: Sony offers vision of 'reborn TV'

I came home from work to see a mini nurse in the kitchen and a bigger fairy in the living room. Then, out from hiding appeared the pirate. Must get a photo of this, I thought. They're covered in chocolate spread, the most 'orrible food going - IMO. Esme has, in her hand, a piece of toast with this gunk on.

Francis is only 8 months older than Esme, but she's a giant. And getting chubby.

709 Also posted to: personal . At: 10:23:59 AM  . .
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Amy's Birthday. I didn't go, But Amanda said that Bradley took off to a quiet corner for a few minutes, she thought that he was going to fall asleep, and took this pix.

708 Also posted to: personal . At: 10:23:34 AM  . .
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"In current theory, after its creation in the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago, the expanding universe cooled down and became opaque. No light could beam through the omnipresent neutral hydrogen. Sometime during that dark age-- the timing is one of cosmology's big mysteries -- stars and galaxies began forming and their ultraviolet light eventually cleared away the neutral hydrogen and the opacity. It was the beginning of a universe of starry nights."

"A new federal terrorism insurance law signed late last year by President Bush requires companies to begin offering coverage for potentially catastrophic losses by Feb. 24. The federal government agreed to cover 90 percent of damages in excess of $10 billion, up to $100 billion.

But while the law mandates coverage, pricing remains a problem for major cities such as Washington because there is little experience with terrorist attacks, yet the cost is potentially astronomical."

Once again the US is leading the way. Here we are told that terrorism is like an act of god and won't be paid on.

706 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 11:07:45 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: D.C. Disputes Insurance Study Raising Rates For Terrorism (washingtonpost.com)

This was funny. Standing near the lake on the monument in Telford Town Park, the kids were feeding the ducks, well, the geese. But there were thousands of them. Well, it seems like tousands. Bradley can be seen terrified with his hands in the air so that the geese can't peck them.

Everytime one jumped on to the platform, of course, I'd push it off, accompanied with a tonne of screaming from the two of them.

705 Also posted to: personal . At: 4:36:53 PM  . .
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Got some nice video of the two of them cracking the ice on puddles with their heels. But these are nice pics of the two throwing stones and sticks onto the ice on the lake in Dawley.

704 Also posted to: personal . At: 4:35:56 PM  . .
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Another long walk to the shops in Dawley. Something that would take me minutes in my own, can take hours with the kids.

This trip was on a bright, crisp, frosty morning. Later, Esme would surprise me by saying, "Daddy, I was looking at that tree." A huge tree on the way, green and bare, caught in sunlight against a cloudless blue sky, looked truly spectacular.

703 Also posted to: personal . At: 4:33:27 PM  . .
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"Intelligence sources report mounting fears within US and Israeli counter-terrorism agencies that al Qaedaâs three command centers are preparing mega-terror attacks for US and Israeli targets."

"They be