Another Labour bod, this time a local councillor starts blogging, about local issues: "when opposition councillors start realising what he is writing about them, they will set up weblogs of their own - but only if they can master the technology. "

And a prophesy: "within the next 18 months he reckons 200 councillors will have started a their own weblog, and within five years the numbers will have "snowballed" to 5,000. "

More power to Monday's Houses of Parliament blogging conference.

1141 Also posted to: cyberSaps . At: 5:09:21 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Blogging for better bins, councillor blogs

"...If they had been presented to me in a way which didn't irritate or annoy me then I might well have looked at them properly."

Only ads I use are Google ads. When I'm searching for something, they can be quite useful. But now they've spread elsewhere, and I don't find them useful at all. They're not in context, nor am I looking for further linkage.

1140 Also posted to: cyberSaps . At: 4:59:07 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Why online ads do not work

"The new finding means not only that planets may be more abundant than expected throughout space, but that life may have started far earlier - and had more of a chance to spread - than had been thought possible. "This means that 13 billion years ago, life could have arisen and then died out" on this distant planet." I don't like it being called "Methuselah" after the biblical patriarch who lived to the grand old age of 969. I'd prefer it had nothing to do with the bible. I'd like those crazy religious people who are causing so much trouble to be shown this sort of information, to prove that there cannot be a 'god.'

"At the moment, U.S. forces in Iraq are straining every nerve to find, capture or kill Saddam Hussein."

The UK and US sexed up the reasons to invade Iraq. Bush and Blair were wrong to do that. Sure he's a tyrant, murderer, and I'm glad he's gone, but to have cheated to do it leaves me with a bad taste. We need to show lesser developed countries that we are a source for good, and just. Good it may have done (that's yet to be decided), just it certainly wasn't.

1138 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 4:29:31 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Find Saddam, dust him down and apologise

BBC: Senator Joseph Lieberman, another Democratic presidential hopeful, said the controversy "breaks the basic bond of trust we must have with our leaders in times of war and terrorism".

BBC (10 July): ex-Prime Minister John Major: "We are in the middle of the war against terror and nobody knows what our troops may be asked to do next.
"It is essential that the word of government and the intelligence services is readily accepted by Parliament and the public."

BBC (11 July): Former cabinet minister Clare Short said the prime minister had seen himself as "a kind of higher mortal than the rest of us" and had decided it was acceptable to "slightly fool" the public in making decisions over Iraq.
He had been guilty of "half-truths, slight deceptions, exaggeration" in the run-up to the war.

1137 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 4:06:22 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Pointing the finger at high lies

John Pilger (June 3): "Such a high crime does not, and will not, melt away; the facts cannot be changed. Tony Blair took Britain to war against Iraq illegally. He mounted an unprovoked attack on a country that offered no threat, and he helped cause the deaths of thousands of innocent people. The judges at the Nuremberg Tribunal following world war two, who inspired much of international law, called this "the gravest of all war crimes"."

Today the Iraqi civilian body count has risen past 6,000 despite the smart, precision weapons.

Sure, Saddam was killing thousands too, but that wasn't the reason I supported the war.

1136 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 3:59:33 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: WMD will be on Blair's political headstone

Remember the second, so called dodgy dossier in February 2003? The one that was plagiarised for a student's thesis in the internet? Well, this is a about the first September 2002 dossier...

"The plagiarised documents in the first dossier included mention of ballistic missiles, unmanned drones, nuclear programmes, "dual use" of civil material, maps showing how British bases in Cyprus were within range of Iraqi missiles and Saddam's supposed plan for regional domination."

All lifted for the internet and two years old.

I could retch, I'm so pissed off with Blair. He's really fucked up. Bye bye Blair, too clever for your own good. Thinking he could lie to the UK (and the world, and me) and get away with it. If we want to keep the Labour Government in, which I do, he has to go as Clair Short says, "Quit before it gets nasty."

1135 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 3:32:46 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Revealed: first dossier also dodgy

"...The Office of National Assessments -- Australia's top intelligence analysis agency which reports directly to the prime minister -- said it knew of doubts over the claims Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, but had not told Howard. "

Australia's dragged into it too. When are we going to hear from Spain and Italy?

1134 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 2:33:38 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Howard: I Didn't Mislead Australia on Iraq

BBC: In his January address, Bush said: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." From Tenet's full text... "In the fall of 2002, our British colleagues told us they were planning to publish an unclassified dossier that mentioned reports of Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa. Because we viewed the reporting on such acquisition attempts to be inconclusive, we expressed reservations about its inclusion, but our colleagues said they were confident in their reports and left it in their document... " "...From what we know now, agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct, i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. This should not have been the test for clearing a presidential address. This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and CIA should have ensured that it was removed." Newsday.com: ...The CIA had tried unsuccessfully for months to substantiate the British allegation on which the claim was based Bush considers the matter closed, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "The president has moved on," he said. BBC: Tenet apparently singled out to be the fall guy. And via dailykos: CIA directors make poor fall guys.

1133 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 2:28:24 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Tenet's complete statement on uranium claim