Critical Section


Monday,  04/07/03  02:15 AM

Daylight saving time - spring forward.  As Shirley says, losing an hour is "not helpful".

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf is daily exploring new territory in blatant lying.  While U.S. forces occupied the presidential palace in the center of Baghdad, al-Sahhaf denied his city had been stormed.  "Clouds of dust blew past and sirens could be heard as he spoke."  Why is he doing this?  His audience is the millions of people who are getting war news through corrupt and biased channels, like al-Jazeera.

Al-Jazeera is presently featuring a photograph of a U.S. tank which experienced mechanical trouble and was purposely destroyed by coalition forces.  According to Mr. al-Sahhaf, eight other U.S. tanks were also "captured" and the division they were a part of was "decimated".

Peking Duck posted an interesting note about how the war news is being carried in China.  Amazing.  From my own experience, there is a huge gap in understanding and perspective between sophisticated Chinese businesspeople and the average peasant.  My guess is that reactions to the CCTV "spin" range from unblinking acceptance to total rejection.

Christopher Albritton tells the fascinating story about his reentry into Iraq.  You'll remember he's the former AP reporter who raised money from his blog readers to send him into Northern Iraq; you can follow his reports at Back in Iraq 2.0.

The Nando Times is shutting its online doors; it was one of the very first online news and information sites.  With virtually every print publication now updating their websites 24x7, there is no longer demand for a distinct online-only news source.  I can definitely remember when Nando had everything first.  { In addition to the increased competition, I think a contributing factor in their demise might have been a too-strict registration system. }

Steven Pinker is moving from MIT to Harvard!  Here's his MIT website, visit it while you can.  (Steven is the author of The Blank Slate, and one of very few real authors who have deigned to give me advice on my book.)

Adobe updates Acrobat for the XML Era.  This seems important; I don't know anything about it yet, but I'll learn more - stay tuned!

Nerds with too much time dept: the floppy drive RAID.  Why?  Why not?  { After you get tired of waiting for your floppy RAID to seek, turn it into the starship enterprise. }

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