I’m astonished to learn that the US has not until now put a government spokesman on Arabic TV speaking Arabic. According to this piece on Salon premium (subscription required) “At the end of 1998 there were only 30 Level 4 [fluent] Arabic speakers” on the payroll of the US foreign service (!)canada loans equity 0 consolidationpayday 10 14 check loan12 credit payday 18 loan besthome loan 1st loan refinance homepersonal loan 24 7 unsecuredloan 24 paydayonline 40 find payday loan 282nd va loan mortgageprice 6 payday 4 loanloan 40 loan 58 payday cash

It appears that UK online usage may be reaching its peak – this quarter, the percentage of households reporting they are connected to the Internet declined slightly from 40% to 39%. If we want to encourage a broader range of people to use this medium the government needs to get its finger out and 1) create relevant public sector content (which to their credit they are doing) 2) organize some kind of campaign to drive awareness that the Internet is about more than home shopping and 3) drive down the cost of broadband.score 700 creditcard california account credit online merchantcard rate credit account merchant washingtoncards credit rewards airlineaccountant business accreditedonline accredited school highregion accreditationadult card credit processing Map

Something a lot of you have been waiting for… the first trailer for the new Star Wars film – Attack of the Clones. The bad news is that it lasts for only about 25 seconds (plus credits) and tells you very little – not for nothing is it called a “teaser”. Still it does look good – and I am sure many people reading will feel obliged to take a look anyway. Hang on in there until May 2002!

An absolutely brilliant idea – the Singapore government (with help from Nokia and MobileOne) is taking in peoples’ old SMS (short message)-capable phones and recycling them by distributing them to needy deaf people, giving them 500 free text messages a month for six months.

Of course with my cynic’s hat on I wonder if this isn’t also a cynical ploy by the telcos to get people who hadn’t previously thought of using mobiles hooked on text messaging. And it won’t be long before we have complete saturation of mobile phones, in Europe anyway, so this may not be necessary in a few years. But in the meantime this is an example we should be urging our governments and telcos to follow. Even better – the telcos should offer the deaf a special low-cost flat rate for SMS…

Wayne Grytting’s American Newspeak is always worth a look – it is an irregular email newsletter bringing a well-written dissection of (usually) corporate misdeeds and the PR waffle used to cover it up. As it is one man’s view it may not always be 100% accurate or fair but it never ceases to be an interesting read. The latest newsletter is (rightly) scathing about the way in which big corporations are using the September 11th attacks to get government handouts:

“The naked centerpiece of the stimulus bill is the repeal of the corporate minimum tax, a gift of $25 billion. This tax minimum was originally designed to see that U.S. mult-nationals did not use their tax shelters to pay zero taxes. Back then, that was considered a national embarrassment. Arguing that such a tax is now unfair, the authors drew the obvious conclusion. Not only should it be removed from the books, but all payers of it should get refunds on taxes paid — all the way back to 1986.

Remember the $300 tax rebate you received this year? All the rebates added together are approximately one-half of what Republicans are offering to 100 corporations. Taxpayers will be handing IBM $1.4 billion, Ford $1.0 billion, General Motors $832 million, not for any new investments in America but for having invested their money outside our borders or in tax shelters…

Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Ca): … We mustn’t lose sight of the fact, he said, that ‘businesses are America’s employers. They’re the hardware store, the diner down the street, the gas station on the corner.’ Take a wild guess how much the corner diner will be receiving. Meanwhile, where was I? It’s $241 million for Phillips Petroleum…”

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Public wireless Internet hits Manchester. Of course, contrary to what the article was saying there have been plenty of public wireless Internet access points scattered around the world before now – particularly in the USA. This will probably be one of the first to use Bluetooth when the first 70 sites launch in September, but since Bluetooth is extremely rare at present its impact may be limited. You can buy Bluetooth PCMCIA cards for your laptop for around £125 if you are interested…

Access points are being placed in restaurants, pubs and coffee shops – so you will have to at least buy a coffee to use it. I would love to see it provided in public libraries etc…

Salon argues (in an article that may require you to subscribe to read it, alas) that the US is being very careful to avoid civilian casualties and its main problem is one of PR. The story claims that civilian casualties of the bombing in the Gulf war were around 3000 and in Kosovo were around 500 – both figures sound low to me.

A military analyst notes, “Nine percent of the air weapons used in the Gulf War were precision weapons, partially because only a certain number of planes could utilize them. In Kosovo about 30 percent of the air weapons used were precision-guided. By 1999 all planes could carry precision-guided weapons. And the cost of those weapons has gone down, which has led to a greater willingness to use them.” Does that mean that perhaps 50% of munitions might be precision this time around? What of the other 50%?

And none of this addresses the main problem which is people dying of starvation, not bombing. You could argue that if the bombing speeds the introduction of a regime which would make it easier to get supplies into the country, a large number of civilian bombing casualties would be justifiable (given the much greater numbers who are in danger because of the winter famine).ringtone free samsung a630rd accident barrington5450 lg ringtone6015i ringtonealltel ringtone real freenokia 3595 ringtone free modelphone free nokia ringtone allteladkins trace free ringtone Map

New Scientist, the leading weekly science magazine (whose site I launched), has produced a nifty guide to bioterrorism. I hope it helps defuse a bit of the panic around (though articles like this one written years ago talking about how skilled terrorists could kill millions may not be too helpful in this respect).

People across Ireland are trying to create informal public access wireless Internet networks. Here in the UK such networks could be considered illegal but apparently the government is looking at liberalising the telecommunications regimes to permit such schemes.check home loan 07 uploan mortgage agent andno 5 check credit loan1 hour day pay loansinc american home loanbankruptcy unsecured after personal credit loanloans mortgage 2nd ratebad credit loan 1000mortgage refinance home loan 1stservicing accounting loan system

The US military exhibits truly incredible stupidity (NYT registration required) – missing a Red Cross warehouse and hitting a civilian area, then returning, despite warnings, to strike the warehouse again!fantasy hentai final moviesfree movie sites adultmovies free sample analfree bi moviesjobs movies blow freemovie free gallery blowjobmovies free blowjobssex free brazilian moviesfree defloration moviesenema movie clips free