The Al Qaeda are mosquitoes. The idea is not to mutate them into some other more palatable species. The idea is not to reform them. They are a few thousand in number. Isolate them. Penetrate their organizations. Use human intel. Engage in surgical military operations as necessary. Decapitate, isolate their leaderships wherever possible. Strengthen homeland security. Take precautions. Think a few steps ahead. Fight smart and hard, not blunt. Fight lean and mean, not loud and scattered.
But the best way to get rid of mosquitoes is to drain the swamp. The Bush gameplan has been to add floodwaters to the swamp and then indiscriminately shower the area with DDT, and keep doing both again and again. Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. The DDT has claimed lives of plants that are above water, and many species in the water that we should not want to get rid of. And the mosquitoes keep multiplying, because they have more water to play with now, and they mutate, DDT stays the same.
But the Bush propaganda machine will tell you if you are anti-DDT, you must be pro-mosquito.
If Bush will have his way, America will have spent a trillion dollars in Iraq, and the fight will still not have concluded.
The Obama gameplan is to suggest there is no military solution in Iraq. The primary challenge is political. The solution is political. Iraq is a case study of how not to spread democracy in a country that is not democratic. For one, it is too costly.
The prescription is Nepal's April Revolution. That is the prescription for Burma, for Zimbabwe. The people are sufficient unto themselves. They can rise up, they will rise up. They will come in unceasing waves. But organizational work has to be done. Political parties have to form a coalition. There has to be leadership. There has to be a gameplan. The diaspora has to get organized. The international community has to take an active, informed interest.
In Iraq's case, you slowly withdraw troops, on a definite timetable, and you fill up the resultant military space with Iraqi military and all round political grunt work. All the factions in Iraq are going to have to learn to do business with each other the democratic way. Hold dialogue, cut deals, move the ball.
But the swamp does not begin and end in Iraq. There has to be a mass movement for democracy in every single Arab country. Such can be engineered. Such can be timetabled almost. It is not like calling a muse. It is like doing homework. If we do it right, autocracies in the Arab world can start falling one after the other like in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s.
Regime after regime in the Arab countries are offensive. In a democracy you know who to blame. You voted for someone, and if they don't deliver, you vote them out. But in dictatorships like the Arab countries are, the easy slogan becomes Death To America. The distant Satan is the source of all your ills.
Bush's way of spreading democracy has been racist, quite frankly. It has been about disrespecting the Arab masses. That is not how you want to present democracy.
Democracy has to be a grassroots rallying cry. And that can be fuelled, the process can be expedited with external help.
In The NewsAnalysis: Rove Under Scrutiny Again Washington Post
Nepal govt postpones Constituent Assembly polls Hindu
Rudy Giuliani rivals Mitt Romney in Cash for 2008 Presidential Race Point-Spreads.com
Laden's CD with Invitation to Terrorism Appears in Bihar Patna Daily asks the Muslims to join the 'freedom fighters' in Kashmir to wage war against
India .... The police are analyzing the content of the CD with the help of language experts in
the hope of getting identifying Al Qaeda operatives in Bihar .... The CDs containing Al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden's speeches urging Muslims to join the 'Jehad' (holy war) have
surfaced in the rural pockets of Patna and adjoining Bhojpur districts in Bihar.
India demands new IMF quota formula Earthtimes.org a new 'simple and transparent' International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota
formula ... if GDP is computed entirely on the purchasing power parity (PPP)
basis ..... 'No halfway house of blending GDP at market exchange rates with GDP on PPP
would meet these twin objectives,' said Rakesh Mohan, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank
of India (RBI), representing Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka. ..... The continued
expansion in world GDP in 2006, with growth crossing the 5 percent mark, points to the
emergence of a new phase - one that is more diversified with most regions posting higher
growth than in the previous year ..... the new robust phase is driven by emerging market
economies with China and India continuing to contribute substantially to the global growth
momentum.' ..... The increasing integration of China and India into the global production
stream has significantly altered the efficiency of the global production process ..... risks
emanating from the behaviour of oil prices, adverse developments in the US housing market,
persistence of global imbalances, large leveraged positions in financial markets and possible
emergence of inflationary pressures. ...... policy makers should be ready to respond to
emerging challenges promptly and effectively
Obama Compares Rappers to Imus ABC News
Obama Returns Lobbyists’ Donations New York Times
The Clinton question: electability Concord Monitor
CBS Poll: Giuliani, Clinton Pad Leads CBS News Giuliani's lead over McCain is now 23 points, 52 percent to 29 percent ..... Giuliani comes in at 47 percent, followed by McCain at 25 percent and Romney at 10 percent. ..... — multiple marriages (Giuliani has been married three times) and age (McCain is 70) — ..... GOP primary voters are most likely to think Giuliani will be the party's eventual nominee. ...... Democratic primary voters continue to favor Clinton and expect her to be the party's nominee. ...... Clinton leads Obama by 15 points and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards by 18. Last month, Clinton's lead over Obama was 8 points. ..... Opinions about Obama have become slightly less positive among Democratic voters in recent weeks. ..... a majority believe the political stalemate between the White House and Congress over a war funding bill is having a negative impact on the morale of U.S. troops in Iraq. .... Americans overall continue to believe that the war is going badly, that the troop increase is not helping and that the prospects for success in Iraq are dim. ..... A record number cite the war as the country's most important problem.
'Patna should be within 5 hrs reach from rest of bihar' Business Standard We are spending Rs 150 crore on roads just in Patna ...... Our next priority for the capital is flyovers all over the city. ..... road building is going on all over Bihar. We aim to spend Rs 3,000 crore on building roads. This does not include the Prime Minister’s Gram Sadak Yojana. .... your colleague at the Centre, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh says he keeps giving you money for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) that Bihar is unable to spend .....defining minimum wages: we have revised it from Rs 67 earlier to Rs 77 now ..... We need land for roads, flyovers, bridges… So we have started a land bank: land over which there is no dispute. ...... Power plants take time to build. .... the national average per capita consumption of power is 600 units. Bihar consumes 74 units per capita. ...... The main thing is the visible, demonstrable punishment for corruption through fast track courts.
Bihar criminal justice on a fast track Hindustan Times
India tests nuclear capable missile ABC Online
India is just doing what great powers do Hamilton Spectator
Russian police swoop on protest, arrest Kasparov New Straits Times
Suicide bombs hit US center in Morocco Houston Chronicle
China To Launch New Crackdown On Net Porn All Headline News
The banker, his lover and her pay rise of $80000 Sydney Morning Herald startling pay rises given by the development lender to his Libyan-born girlfriend, Shaha Riza ...... a day after Mr Wolfowitz was booed in a meeting with World Bank staff who were demanding his resignation, US President George Bush stood firm behind an old colleague who was one of the architects of the war in Iraq. ....... on Mr Wolfowitz's personal direction, Ms Riza was given pay rises that took her annual package to nearly $US200,000 ($241,706) when she was reassigned from the World Bank's Middle East press office to the US State Department ...... This was a rise from $US132,660 and was tax-free because of her status as a diplomat. ...... an August 2005 memorandum in which Mr Wolfowitz ordered the bank's human resources division to award Ms Riza a series of extraordinary promotions and pay increases.
Paulson seeks 'even keel' in trade relations with China Channel News Asia
China to go on buying spree in US cities Financial Times
Google's Biggest Acquisition: DoubleClick, for $3.1 Billion Playfuls.com a whopping $3.1 billion in cash ...... a provider of digital marketing technology and services ...... the display ad company ...... Acquisition-happy Google, which expects the purchase to close this year, had a stunning $11.2 billion in cash at the end of 2006. DoubleClick has also recently introduced a Nasdaq-like exchange for online ads ...... make Internet advertising better - less intrusive, more effective, and more useful. Together with DoubleClick, Google will make the Internet more efficient for end users, advertisers, and publishers ....... "This was a hotly contested asset," said analyst Jordan Rohan, to Bloomberg. "Clearly Google was willing to pay what it took to keep this away from Microsoft." ..... Headquartered in New York, and with 17 offices and development hubs and 15 data centers worldwide, the company employs more than 1200 people and delivers billions of digital communications every day. ... DoubleClick, which was founded in 1996, provides display ads on Web sites like MySpace, The Wall Street Journal and America Online as well as software to help those sites maximize ad revenue.
Google out of the traps in pay service race ic Newcastle.co.uk Google's dominance of the search market has led it to revenues of US$7.1bn in 2006 - not to mention the evolution of its name into a synonym for internet searches.
Google Earth edges into global politics Ithaca Journal
Darfur Crisis Comes To Google Earth InformationWeek
Museum, Google Zoom In on Darfur Washington Post Elie Wiesel conceived of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, he envisioned a "living memorial" that would not only chronicle the crimes of the past but also take on issues of contemporary genocide ........ "A memorial unresponsive to the future would violate the memory of the past" ....... the genocide unfolding in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where government-backed militias and nomadic tribesmen have burned huts and villages to drive sedentary farmers from their homes. ....... accompanying video footage, photographs and eyewitness testimony explain what happened in each case. ...... women accompanying attacking tribesmen while singing songs and lashing out with racist slurs. "The blood of the Blacks runs like water, we take their goods and we chase them from our area and our cattle will be on our land," he quoted the women as telling some of the farmers under attack. ........ the credibility gap that Holocaust survivors once faced: how to provide concrete evidence that the most unspeakable atrocities are actually occurring. ........ the story of Jan Karski, a young Pole who came to America in 1943 and attempted to describe to a skeptical Justice Felix Frankfurter, himself a Jew, what he had seen in the Warsaw ghetto and a Nazi death camp. ........ After asking technical questions, pacing back and forth and then quietly sitting down, the judge told the Pole, "I am unable to believe you." ........ a viewership of 200 million and growing ...... "No one can any longer say they don't know. This tool will bring a spotlight to a very dark corner of the earth, a torch that will indirectly help protect the victims," said John Prendergast, a senior adviser to the International Crisis Group. "It is David versus Goliath, and Google Earth just gave David a stone for his slingshot."
Sprint plans WiMax network The Grand Rapids Press Some low-income households could pay $9.95 a month. .....The city hopes the service will be available this year, making it one of the first cities in the nation with WiMax service. ....... there's a reason fast-food restaurants often are built across the street from each other ...... Technology to put a WiMax receiver into a card that could be used with laptops still is being developed. ....... Sprint earlier announced it would introduce its WiMax service in Chicago and the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area by the end of this year. ..... the network would spread to other cities, from Boston to Grand Rapids to Seattle.
Taking wireless to the WiMax Chicago Tribune Chicago soon will become one of the first cities in the country to have access to the next generation of computer communication, in which people will keep connected to the Internet wherever they go. ....... envelop the region in a digital signal as powerful as the broadband service ...... a $3 billion national bet by Sprint ...... will provide competition to Internet connections offered by Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. ...... a mobile Internet will spawn totally different services, such as cheap radio tags for airport luggage that would assure an end to lost bags. Or billboards that change their messages to appeal to the age and gender of people walking by them. ....... "Low-cost chips and pervasive wireless will change everything" ........ Chicago, Washington and Baltimore, are the first cities to get Sprint's new high-speed wireless service, which will spread to other cities next year. Sprint said it will take three years to build the new network. By the end of 2008, Sprint hopes to have coverage available to 100 million Americans. Sprint has enlisted help from Motorola, Intel Corp., Nokia Corp., Samsung and other equipment vendors to create a wireless network that is open to innovation, much like today's wired Internet........... Nearly all new laptop computers come equipped with Wi-Fi chips at no extra charge. Intel and other chipmakers intend to do the same for WiMax, making it inexpensive and widespread. ...... Sprint's commitment to build the nation's first commercial WiMax network has really focused industry efforts to get WiMax products to market ..... They've talked about $40 to $50 a month ..... It will be about three times faster than so-called 3G data services available from cell phone carriers. ..... The goal of Motorola and other vendors, said Mitoraj, is "to make WiMax so inexpensive that it's a no-brainer for devicemakers to put the chipset into their products." ...... the really interesting devices equipped to use WiMax probably won't be available until 2009 .... about 200,000 cards enabling laptop computers to use WiMax may be shipped this year. ...... Sprint is leading the way in WiMax, he said, because it has a supply of radio spectrum sitting idle. ...... Sprint's decision has caused a buzz across the industry.
Amitabh Bachchan pleads for privacy Apun Ka Choice “My son’s wedding is a very private solemn and precious moment for me and my family. Surely, we’re entitled to our privacy if and when we need it.” ..... none of the Khans have been invited and the reason cited by the Bachchans is the illness of Bachchan's mother Teji Bachchan. The Bachchans don’t wish to have a grand wedding out of respect to Teji Bachchan. .... rumours that Salim Khan who has written several successful scripts for Bachchan during his career earlier was invited, but Salim Khan too claims that this is untrue. ....... Salman too has not been invited obviously due to his past friction with Ash. ...... lovebirds Ash and Abhishek seem to be spending quality time together in London and are enjoying every bit of their rare time together. ...... The only ones who have so far received an invitation are Karan Johar , Sanjay Dutt , Ajay Devgan and Kajol and Sunil Shetty .
Team accepts Imus's apology Boston Globe a national debate on race, gender, and power spurred by derogatory comments by radio host Don Imus ...... we are in the process of forgiving ...... "We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget" ....... The team met with Imus for three hours on Thursday night at the governor's mansion in Princeton, shortly after Imus was fired from his radio show by CBS. ..... emotions ran high, with tears on both sides ...... Imus did not shed any, but his wife, Deirdre, did, according to the person at the meeting, and she hugged each of the players individually. ...... the team voted on whether or not to accept Imus's apology. ...... a culture that "has produced language that has denigrated women." ....... CBS fired him from the radio show that he has hosted for nearly 30 years. ....... was once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine. ...... Governor Jon S. Corzine was critically injured in a car crash while heading to the governor's mansion in Princeton for the Thursday meeting. ...... comments Imus made April 4 when he called the Rutgers players -- eight of whom are black -- "nappy-headed hos."
Study says CO2 emissions in US rose 18% during1990-2004 period Earthtimes.org
G-7 Predicts Strong Global Economy ABC News
Lilly again the Hub of US soccer team Boston Herald
Rumor: Dell to Buy Palm, Enter Smartphone Market Mobile Magazine moving away from standalone PDAs and into smartphones that combine the functionality of a personal organizer with the calling features of a cell phone. ..... Before Dell can finish the deal, they'll have to fend off other potential buyers. Earlier this month, there was a rumor floating around that Nokia was interested in buying Palm too.
Dell dumps handheld business IT Week Dell appears to have quietly ended its presence in the Pocket PC market with the removal of its Axim x51 handheld from the company’s web site. .... the decline of the unconnected handheld market as customers switch to either smartphones or PDAs with cellular connections. ..... while the Dell handheld range could have incorporated cellular technology into existing handsets this would demand a fundamental shift in the company’s business model.
Gene Variant Linked to Obesity, Diabetes Forbes
Common gene causes obesity, says study Financial Times
Human Bone Marrow Used to Create Early Stage Sperm Cells Forbes For the first time, scientists have used human bone marrow to create early stage sperm cells
Women to self-create Daily Telegraph
Command sent to wrong computer address led to loss of Mars probe Los Angeles Times
Apple's Leopard delay may signal deeper problems San Jose Mercury News Apple's ambition may be starting to get ahead of the company's ability to achieve it. ...... The problem Apple is running into is that it's a relatively small company compared to tech giants such as Hewlett-Packard or IBM ...... Apple had about 18,000 full-time employees, compared to 156,000 for H-P ...... Apple is "broadening their product offering, and they have only so many engineering resources to go around." ...... the company is favoring an unproven product that will compete in a very challenging industry ....... they'll have to be more careful with spreading themselves too thin ....... Leopard, which promises a number of new features, including a new backup program called Time Machine and advanced 3-D animation features. ....... a reality check for investors and analysts who have been expecting big things from Apple. ...... many have been salivating at the thought that the iPhone or Apple TV may become as big a hit as the company's iPods. ....... the company has updated its iPod lineup regularly, adding new models and completely revamping older ones.
Imus' Wife Hosts The Show For A Day KUTV
Author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Dies Voice of America
'So It Goes': Looking Back At Kurt Vonnegut's Big-Screen Impact MTV.com
Astronaut will run in marathon from space Central Maine Morning Sentinel the U.S. Navy commander will run the equivalent distance on a treadmill -- 210 miles above Earth, and tethered to her track by bungee cords so she doesn't float away. ...... "Boston Marathon in Iraq" ...... She is pioneering a new frontier in running and in sports with her run, which will truly be out of this world ....... three months with little gravity takes a toll on a human, and NASA requires all members of a station crew to exercise on the treadmill, a stationary bike and a resistance machine to maintain bone density and muscle mass ....... A "vibration isolation system" built by a NASA engineer will keep her from shaking the entire space station as she runs, but the machinery puts a strain on the runner's hips and shoulders. She also has to be ready to abort her mission.
Movie Review: Perfect Stranger Seattle Post Intelligencer It's a shame when such good actors come together and make such an absolutely horrible and pointless movie. .... the cyber sex chats weren't necessary for the story and took up a lot of screen time
Stern sues Anna Nicole Smith's mother's lawyer CNN
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