"Falsehoods ranging from exaggeration to plain untruth were used to make the case for war. More lies are being used in the aftermath."

Disgusting. Bush's ratings are dropping, Blair is looking more like the poodle everyday. Both will be gone soon, I'm sure.

1149 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 12:49:42 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: 20 Lies About the War

"About 2,000 professional astronomers from around the world are gathering in Australia for two weeks of debate about the state of the universe."

This should be on every TV screen around the world. Maybe it'll prove that there is no god to some.

"The "blogosphere" may never be the same after America Online releases free blog-publishing software to its 34 million members this summer."

1147 Also posted to: cyberSaps . At: 12:15:32 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: 'AOL Journals' To Bring Blogs To Millions

" The MIT folks are building a system which will collate all publicly available information about all public officials in the US.

We could do the same for the UK. Imagine a site that would automatically collate information about MPs' financial interests, voting behaviour, Commons attendance, speeches, publications, campaign literature, friends, attentiveness to constituents etc and make it available on the web? Later we could extend it to cover corporate bosses and the quangocracy. "

Sounds a pretty bloody boring site. You still need journalists and bloggers to sift through that stuff to give it, life.

1146 Also posted to: cyberSaps , warBlog . At: 11:58:05 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Don't get mad, get political

Wired Oct 2001: Osama has a new friend

"Abdullah Azzam, the chief ideologue of the non-Afghan militants and a spiritual mentor of bin Laden, used 'al qaeda' to describe the role he envisaged the most committed of the Muslim volunteers who had fought the Soviets playing once the war in Afghanistan was over. In 1987 he wrote: "Every principle needs a vanguard to carry it forward and to put up with heavy tasks and enormous sacrifices. This vanguard constitutes the strong foundation (al qaeda al-sulbah) for the expected society."" It's a deeper concept, than the simple, foreign nickname we call it. ""England is your favourite team and you are about to blow yourself up in the jihad against kufr (unbelievers)?" "Politics is one thing. Football is something else."" The interview with the captured suicide bomber is revealing, of how he is indoctrinated. Out of a Kurdish teenager's lack of direction, comes a believer in paradise. "...The "war on terror" has so far done nothing to eradicate the reasons for the volunteers wanting to travel to the training camps or to deal with the grievances..." This is true from my view point. There are no TV programmes explaining the Muslim world and how they view themselves while watching the latest Hollywood block buster. (Further reading: The Impact of Western Hegemony on Muslim Thought.) I wish the world was freed of the tyranny of religion. "...Increasingly, and this is a trend that is accelerating, the extremists are no longer perceived as the "lunatic fringe". Instead they are seen as the standard bearers. And their language is now the dominant discourse in modern Islamic activism. Their debased, violent, nihilisitic, anti-rational millenarianism has become the standard ideology aspired to by angry young Muslim men. This is the genuine victory of bin Laden and our greatest defeat in the "war on terror"." Blair's cock up in invading Iraq with no real justification has lost us the moral higher ground, now we are no better than the terrorists.

1145 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 11:15:56 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: What is al-Qaeda?

"American forces have launched a fourth major offensive against insurgents in central Iraq to blunt expected attacks against U.S. soldiers during upcoming holidays marking historical events of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, military officials said." That's where DebkaFile (below) says Saddam' s hiding in 'vast underground cities.'

Map used by Rumsfield in his recent testimony before the Senate.

1144 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 10:50:21 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: U.S. Forces Launch Operation Ivy Serpent

"It is estimated that between 12,000 and 14,000 men have begun drawing salaries against Saddam's account. "Since the underground complexes contain vast amounts of military equipment and munitions - enough to sustain months of fighting - it must be admitted that some of the elite units we thought had scattered may be under arms again," said the source."

I don't know who or what to believe anymore.

1143 Also posted to: warBlog . At: 10:44:34 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Saddam Hussein in Iraq - more than a taped voice