http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2505563/Edinburgh-Zoo-visitors-see-human-penguin-performance.html

Larisa Alexandrovna comments:
http://www.atlargely.com/2008/08/more-terrorism.html.

She links to a contemporary story (Oct. 23, 2001) from the Washington Post including these words:

On the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House Medical Office dispensed Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David, and told them it was "a precaution," according to one person directly involved.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011023/aponline201158_000.htm.

Her concluding paragraph:

Is this conspiracy theory? No. This is a criminal conspiracy, period. The two questions that remain are a). who is part of this conspiracy and b). what is the nature of this conspiracy (to politicize a bio-terrorism attack vs. ordering a bio-terrorism attack)? These questions will continue to remain unsolved, I think, for a good long time. Do I have my suspicions? Yes. But right now, it is best to simply look at all of the evidence and ask ourselves some very painful questions. Of course this is just my opinion and entirely based on historical information and public statements by government officials. I could be entirely wrong that this was not some lone psycho and it surely would not be the first time I was wrong. But I do think we have to look at all of the evidence before we pin all of this on a single, conveniently dead, American terrorist working for a government bio-weapons lab.

The apparent death by suicide of Bruce Ivins raises enormous questions.

Glenn Greenwald's Salon article discusses some of them. Not the least of these is: if he was behind the anthrax letters, what were his motives? More importantly, who was spreading the disinformation that there was a connection to Iraq? And why were certain people advised to take Cipro (anthrax antidote) before the anthrax letters were sent (as described by Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, quoted in Greenwald's article).

The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it.

In the light of this it is very plausible that, as alleged by Judicial Watch, that White House staff were taking Cipro from September 11th 2001 onwards:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/1967.shtml
http://www.judicialwatch.org/2953.shtml.

See:
http://www.slate.com/id/2186766/

See also:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/01/anthrax.terrorism
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/01/anthrax_suicide/
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2265
http://www.nightmareworld.org.uk/20070130.html
http://disruptive.org.uk/2005/09/26/anthrax.html.

I've recently undergone a profound conversion experience. I've started using Org-mode. It's an emacs mode that provides tremendous way of keeping notes, to-do lists and reminders, all in a plain text file, but with enormous power to view the information in several different useful ways. Its power derives from the combination of folding (outlining), timestamps and TODO items. You can view the file as a timeline, as an agenda, as a list of TODO items, or just as a list of folded top level headings that you can open individually. Try it. (It helps if you're used to emacs.)

Some photos taken last Sunday are here.

Just got back from LugRadio Live where Andrew Wafaa and I represented Novell and openSUSE.

Photos.

Highlights: march of the geekos, cruel and unusual punishment, Andrew giving his openSUSE talk (sorry about the bad photo).

A good time was had by all. Truly smuvelious in fact.

See also:
http://disruptive.org.uk/2007/07/09/lug_radio_live.html.

A very smuvelious weekend. Look who's here.

And spot the santoor.

All photos.

IMSLP is back (on schedule):
http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page.

An interview with Hersh here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/30/hersh_congress_agreed_to_bush_request.

There is a new article by Hersh on American policy towards Iran:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh.

In it he discusses the "Presidential Finding" under which the US administration is (with the knowledge of congressional leaders) sponsoring terrorist activities inside Iran.

A very smuvelious day.

Photo.

The Register also reports:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/19/ooxml_ukuug_high_court/.

The Inquirer is quick to comment: "Judge was baffled by OOXML files, beardies claim".

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/19/judge-glazed-ooxml-files.

Reports on Sunday's events:
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=656&Itemid=1
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/401236.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026738/Bush-demo-police-branded-blood-hungry-protesters.html.

UKUUG has issued a press release on the case today.

UKUUG appeals the initial court decision on BSI's OOXML action

The High Court has rejected the UKUUG's application for a Judicial Review of BSI's actions in voting 'yes' to the fast-tracking of the Microsoft sponsored DIS29500 (OOXML) in April 2008. UKUUG is appealing that decision since it believes that the judge was wrong in his reading of the papers. The matter will now be heard in open court.

The full press release is at
http://www.ukuug.org/ooxml/.