Literary quotations for nine-eleven The Sun

Astonishing conclusion from conservative columnist Cal Thomas: George McGovern Was Right

A staggering 58,000 Americans are dead because Johnson would not listen to his inner voice, revealed on the tapes, or the voices of McGovern, Hatfield, Gruening and Morse, who many conservatives at the time labeled un-American.

Among the many lessons of Vietnam, which, as Beschloss notes, can teach us something about present and future conflicts, is that no president should have exclusive power when it comes to committing so many American lives and resources to a war.

The Johnson tapes should also teach conservatives a lesson. Many anti-war activists love this country as much as those who supported the Vietnam War. Just because someone is of a different party or persuasion does not necessarily mean they are wrong.

The Private Business of Public Radio

: “NPR’s Ratings, Revenue and Reputation Are All Surging. But with Rate Hikes Coming and Foes in Congress, Management Is Touchy about NPR’s Being Seen for What It Really Is: A Pretty Darn Good Business… The fact is that underneath its quirky, bohemian image, NPR – which by its own estimation is the biggest producer of news, information and cultural programming in radio – subtly has evolved into something that in many ways resembles a well-run, aggressively entrepreneurial company.” Washington Business Forward

“This is the year for people to go out and see the event…” Coming Soon: Prime View of a Meteor Shower — ‘On Sunday morning, well before sunrise, astronomers expect the skies to be streaked with light in what could be the most impressive Leonid meteor shower in three and a half decades.

The ebb and flow of this year’s Leonid shower will offer a multi- part spectacle across the globe. The opening act is predicted to peak around 5 a.m. Eastern time on Nov. 18, with the East Coast of North America getting the prime view.’ NY Times

The Road to Baghdad: ‘In 1998, a group of 40 conservatives wrote an open letter to President Clinton calling for the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today many of the signers of that letter hold important government posts, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his chief deputy Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. Together with right-wing activists in the private sector, they see the post-September 11 military campaign as the perfect opportunity to achieve their goal of toppling the Iraqi leader.’ The American Prospect

Bioterrorism-Related Inhalational Anthrax: The First 10 Cases Reported in the United States CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases

Are ObL nuclear weapons fears a hoax? Declan McCullagh, in his mailing list, has done alot of footwork on this issue; I’m retracing his steps:

As I noted below, The Times of London reported last week that partly burnt documents in a hastily abandoned

safe house indicated that al Qaeda could have nuclear weapons.

Quite bizarrely, rotten.com after analysis of photos of the documents claims that at least one is a well-known geek-driven spoof which originally appeared in 1979 in the wonderful, and now defunct (but succeeded by the Annals of Improbable Research) Journal of Irreproducible Results:

The project will cost between $5,000 and $30,000, depending on how

fancy you want the final product to be. Since last week’s column,

“Let’s Make a Time Machine”, was received so well in the new

step-by-step format, this month’s column will follow the same

format.

Did al Qaeda not recognize the tongue-in-cheek nature of the article? Did they recognize it and think they could deceive US intelligence? Did someone else plant the documents in order to attribute them falsely to the terrorists?

US Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge conceded the information could

have been found on the internet but administration sources remain concerned. Among those who follow the nuclear threat, there’s pretty much a consensus that your average college physics major could make a bomb, given the materials.

Interestingly enough, the United States government conducted a

controlled experiment called the Nth Country Experiment to see how

much effort was actually required to develop a viable fission weapon

design starting from nothing. In this experiment, which ended on 10

April 1967, three newly graduated physics students were given the task

of developing a detailed weapon design using only public domain

information. The project reached a successful conclusion, that is,

they did develop a viable design (detailed in the classified report

UCRL-50248) after expending only three man-years of effort over two

and a half calendar years. In the years since, much more information

has entered the public domain so that the level of effort required has

obviously dropped further.

Fun with spammers and more fun with spammers, as the situation escalates. Michael Fraase

Software to connect iPod to PCs Wired

Taliban: Bin Laden Has Left Afghanistan

Taliban: Bin Laden is Still in Afghanistan The Boston Channel

A Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions: “The humanitarian disaster resulting from sanctions against Iraq has been frequently cited as a factor that motivated the September 11 terrorist attacks. Osama bin Laden himself mentioned the Iraq sanctions in a recent tirade against the United States. Critics of US policy in Iraq claim that sanctions have killed more than a million people, many of them children. Saddam Hussein puts the death toll at one and a half million. The actual numbers are lower than that, although still horrifying.

Changing American policy in Iraq is an urgent priority, both for humanitarian reasons and as a means of addressing an intensely felt political grievance against the United States. An opportunity for such a change may come soon, as the UN Security Council considers a “smart sanctions” plan to ease civilian sanctions. As we work to change US policy and relieve the pain of the Iraqi people, it is important that we use accurate figures and acknowledge the shifting pattern of responsibility for the continuing crisis.” The Nation

Kennedy historian Joseph Palermo: A new twist on editing history: conservatives are now touting R.F.K. Tompaine.com [“Senator…, I knew RFK. RFK was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no RFK.”]

What will become of freedom? Dave Winer starts a new directory to track the erosion of liberty in these United States, and hopes it won’t keep growing [ the naif… ].

Urban Legend Machine: make your own urban legend. “When you’re finished, e-mail it to everyone you know and see how long it takes to come back to you. Remember, when you’re connected to the Internet it’s important to believe everything that you read.”