News – Nature’s a Bitch

Nature is a fickle, strange thing. Giving, yet always potentially snappish. You never know where you stand with her, which is why you have to pay deference and always be wary of her.

Several states in the Central US have been hit by tornados. There are at least 22 fatalities divided amongst Missouri, Kansas and Tennessee. Kansas and Missouri are understates of emergency. Not to forget the damaged and destroyed residential and commercial areas.

Heads up Iraq watchers. Mid-May is the target date for the first Iraq interim authority. They apparently had Iraq’s first post-Saddam election in Mosul and this elected group is going to be a US point of contact. Just how that works out in the real world will be something to observe. Meanwhile there’s been another accident, details unspecified, save that a 14 year old boy was shot and killed and a British Soldier was involved.

Should we build Iraq’s civil society before democratizing it?

The UNs International atomic Energy Agency wants in to Iraq to investigate reports of looting at Iraq’s nuclear facilities. No response yet. Note, these reports come after IAEA asked the US to make sure the facilities in question were secure and they were assured they would be.

Rummy is confident Saddam will be found if alive. Sure. Like Bush was that he’d track down Osama. Any bets on how long until he’s saying something like, “This is bigger than one man”? Or some evasion such as that, which 80% of Americans will simply accept and eat up. And the WMD count? Still at zero.

So what is to be done about American power? This article explores that after some insightful summation of the core of what has been going wrong as of late.

Some think Bush is pushing too hard for his tax cuts. An interesting comparison is that he’s making this into a theology rather than an economic policy. A matter of opinion, but considering Bush, I can see it happening. He’s too much into theology.

There is talk of a possible meeting between Sharon and Abbas, the new Palestinian PM. Unsure at the moment if it’s true, but we can only hope it is. Those two need to have a chat.

Nuala O’Connor Kelly is being made chief privacy officer at the Department for Homeland Security. This woman was part of the team that DoubleClick pulled in to clean up after being taken to task for their lack of privacy policies. Now privacy advocates are cautiously siozing her up to see if she will really work to keep the DHS from infringing or if she’s a glorified PR and damage control person.

Some violence is starting to flare up in China as they continue to contain SARS. Meanwhile WHO reports that the virus appears to remain active and viable for days in human waste, which suggests that it was sewage that started the outbreak in Hong Kong. There are also a few other interesting tidbits of information, including that standard disinfectants such as bleach kill the virus within 5 minutes.

Here we have a look at some interesting parts of the recent democratic debate between the candidates. Things are getting a little nasty in there.

Today’s Papers is a medley of generally disquieting topics. From a US official concluding we may not be able to stop N Korea from making nukes to the potential of congress protecting the gun makers from future lawsuits, there’s plenty to wonder and worry about. And about Iraq? It’s hard to tell if we’re really in full control, considering that some Iraqis continue to run around and more or less do whatever the heck they want.

Funny Pictures!

Bush Figurine

He should

Calm like a bomb

Take your pick

You have no chance to survive, make your time