News – Start the Week with Updates (2/2)

Big one today, time for part two of the week’s start.

Speaking of the budget, hopes are slim for an economic boom after the war. Without confidence, our companies and people will continue to be hard hit. Me, I’m pretty secure, so I do spend at about my normal level. But not everyone has that luxury and it isn’t one I take for granted.

The House Government Reform Committee is calling into question Bush’s Project BioShield plan to spur private companies to develop new vaccines and drugs. In part as R&D against bio-terrorism. They say it removes too much oversight of government contracts and leaves out the public infrastructure needed to distribute the fruits of the plan. The article goes on to outline things in greater detail. Generally I agree.. while we must entice businesses to get with the program and start making what this country needs to survive, we can’t rush into it and give them too much leeway. Rather than panic like we did after 9/11 we need to plan better and prepare for the long term, not the short term.

This is an interesting bit, noting that a website thought to be Al Queda’s primary outlet has been moving about the web like a parasite as it is continually tracked and shut down. The term parasite is used as the maintainers of it embed their site within the servers of other webmasters. It’s still up at its current location, you can have a look.

Think those picture phones are neat? Well, they’re starting to become a banned item. Amusing. 😉

A 7 year old Kurdish boy is brought up to like war. The war casualties mount, Iraqi fighters die and surgeons seek to reveal the dirty truth of this sanitized war.

Read it if you can stomach it. You won’t see anything like is described on CNN or Fox. Or ABC or NBC or CBS. Only here on the Internet. The last true bastion of the gritty reality of the world.

Long may it be so.

Be well.