chattr +a -V

Fallen astronaut's diary recovered, at msnbc.com:

A small heap of paper that survived the fiery disintegration of space shuttle Columbia, a 38-mile fall to Earth and two months of exposure to rain and sun in a Texas field has been painstakingly restored by forensic scientists, yielding the flight diary and notes of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon.Scientists used computer image-enhancement technology and infrared light to read the charred and tattered pages and pieced some of them together like jigsaw puzzles. ...

All together, 18 pages handwritten in Hebrew were recovered: Four sheets held Ramon's diary during the flight; six were technical classroom notes that had been made before launch; and eight were personal notes, also written before liftoff.

On some pages, the writing was washed out. Some sheets were tattered and torn, pocked with tiny irregular holes as if debris had ripped through them. Pieces were twisted into tightly crumpled wads smaller than a fingernail. Some pages were stuck tightly together and had to be delicately pried apart. ...

The diary, written in black ink and pencil, covers only the first six days of the 16-day mission. 'We don't know whether he just stopped writing, or ran out of paper, or other pages were destroyed,' Brown said.

HT to Fallen astronaut's diary recovered by Owen at Boots and Sabers.

The London Independent reports, in Hills are alive with sound of guilty silence, that for the first time, The Sound of Music, the musical set in Salzburg and about the Anschluss (when Austria entered the Third Reich in 1938), is being produced on stage there. Austrian film houses have never shown the movie. State-run television showed it only once.

If The Sound of Music were merely a Yankee fantasy about Middle Europe, the Austrians might have found it easier to laugh the thing off. But it is substantially based on fact. Maria Kutschera really was a postulant in a convent; Georg von Trapp was a real-life First World War Austrian war hero, whose submarine sank a French warship. Maria came to the family home to nurse his sickly daughter. The von Trapps all took up singing. And Kapitan von Trapp repeatedly and very courageously defied the Nazis after the Anschluss.

"Three times he refused the Nazis," said Renaud Doucet, the director of the show in Vienna. "Twice he refused to become the commander of a U-boat. And then he refused to sing at Hitler's birthday party. With that third refusal, the family realised they had to get out. They took a train and crossed into Italy, and at midnight on the same day, Hitler closed the borders."

Those who didn't flee, most of the country, of course, had to deal with the Nazis, and that meant a spectrum of positions. When everyday you had to live a double life, saying one thing in public and another in private, you learned not to believe in anything, to ignore others, to care only about oneself. And de-Nazification was aborted early on, like lustration in many Communist European satellites:

Yet Austria, unlike Germany, has never come to grips with its Nazi past. "The process of de-Nazification in Austria stopped in the early 1950s, because of the Cold War," said Tina Walzer, a historian of the period. The West needed Austria as a bulwark against the Warsaw Pact countries, and the pressure to purge society and politics of former Nazis and to restore the property of expropriated Jews was removed. It was only in the late 1980s, with the revelations of the UN secretary general Kurt Waldheim's past as a Nazi officer, that the degree to which Austria had failed to reform became clear. Even today the task remains undone. Rudolf Berger said: "The Social Democratic Party has just published a book lifting the lid on just how many former Nazis came into the party after the war. That was never talked about and now suddenly it's being talked about. And it's created pain and accusations. So there are a lot of things still to be done."

But in many cases it is far too late to do anything. Take the restitution of stolen property. Large swaths of Vienna were owned by Jews. After the Anschluss they were expropriated, but no compensation was paid. "Jews were not accepted as victims," Tina Walzer, the historian, said. "After the war, Austria described itself as 'the first victim' of the Nazis, so the Jews could not be victims, too. The real victims were the Austrian soldiers who died fighting for the Nazis, not the Jews who survived." ...

"In the Austrian view, the real enemy was the Allies who conquered and occupied the country from 1945 to 1955. For Austria, the war ends, not in 1945 but in 1955, when the last foreign soldier left Austrian soil. The day that happened, 26 October, is marked as Austria's National Day. That's when Austria regained its serenity."

In his first New Year's Address to the Nation, delivered on January 1, 1990, weeks after becoming president of a new, independent, democratic, and self-governing Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel said"

It would be very unreasonable to understand the sad legacy of the last forty years as something alien, which some distant relative bequeathed us. On the contrary, we have to accept this legacy as a sin we committed against ourselves. If we accept it as such, we will understand that it is up to us all, and up to us only, to do something about it. We cannot blame the previous rulers for everything, not only because it would be untrue but also because it could blunt the duty that each of us faces today, namely, the obligation to act independently, freely, reasonably, and quickly. Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. And it would also be wrong to expect a general remedy from them only. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all.

Among the peoples under Communism, the Czechs and Slovaks were 'meek, humiliated, skeptical and seemingly cynical', and Havel asked 'Where did the young people who never knew another system get their desire for truth, their love of free thought, their political ideas, their civic courage and civic prudence? How did it happen that their parents -- the very generation that had been considered lost -- joined them? How is it that so many people immediately knew what to do and none needed any advice or instruction?' He answered:

I think there are two main reasons for the hopeful face of our present situation. First of all, people are never just a product of the external world; they are also able to relate themselves to something superior, however systematically the external world tries to kill that ability in them. Secondly, the humanistic and democratic traditions, about which there had been so much idle talk, did after all slumber in the unconsciousness of our nations and ethnic minorities, and were inconspicuously passed from one generation to another, so that each of us could discover them at the right time and transform them into deeds.

The Czech Republic has gone probably farther than the other former Communist satellites in lustration, seizing the opportunity early on and with greater determination and persistence than the others. Failing to follow through, failing to act with justice towards the victims (and understanding that '[n]one of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators'), warps society, producing the same humiliation, meekness, blindness and cynicism which flourished under the Communists). That The sound of Music has been absent from the Austrian stage until now, illustrates its failure to grasp and understand its and each of its citizens' responsibility for the totalitarian regime.

HT to The hills are just coming alive, by Nick at a fistful of euros.

Asia Times today reports some more details and speculation about the PRC's forcing the DPRK's Emperor casino, in China cashes in its N Korean casino chips, by Michael Rank, a former Reuters correspondent in China, now working in London:

The entire clientele of the Hong Kong-owned Emperor casino was Chinese ...

Pyongyang reacted to the ban by rushing the head of its state tourism bureau to Yanbian to talk to Chinese officials, but apparently in vain, and there is little sign that the casino will reopen in the near future, if ever. ...

The casino complex is owned by Hong Kong's Emperor Group, headed by controversial multi-millionaire Albert Yeung Sau Shing, who is said to have triad links, as well as close ties with the CCP. ...

Analysts say that China has major economic leverage over Korea - oil and grain deliveries, political support and such activities as the casino - and could exert pressure on Pyongyang to rejoin the six-party talks on persuading the North Korean regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program. ...

Some 50,000 Chinese are reported to have visited the $180 million Emperor each year. ... It has, or had before the closure, 575 employees, of whom 275 are North Korean while the rest are Chinese, with a few managers from Hong Kong.

The North Korean government takes 70% of the North Koreans' salary. ...

[T]here is a strict ban on bringing in cell phones and other electronic gadgets, reflecting North Korea's paranoia about foreign influences. ...

The casino is situated in the so-called Rajin-Sonbong Free Economic and Trade Zone, which was launched with much fanfare in 1991 as a magnet for foreign investors. But North Korean xenophobia and bureaucracy have ensured that investment has been minimal, and now it seems that the biggest project in the 746 square kilometer zone is set to die.

Previous blog entry PRC forces DPRK to close casino. While the effect of the closure isn't as immediate as cutting off oil or grain, losing this foreign exchange source is significant, especially since nothing whatsoever actually has to be produced to get the money.

The Korea Times gives a figure for the crowd size in NK Holds Large Rally in Pyongyang, and a little about the speeches and officials attending, but few details. Yonhap news had reported it, but the original link has expired. It may be accessible here, through moreover.com. Here is a photo from KCNA - Yonhap:

Closed the div tag opened in 'Dear Leader is entertained', which mistake had messed up the layout / display.

United States Marine corps casualty assistance calls officers wear blue dress uniforms when they notify next of kin that their Marine has been killed or wounded in the line of duty. The notifier's rank must be equal to or higher than that of the deceased -- unless the next of kin is also in the military. In that case, the notifier must be of a rank equal to or above the next of kin.

'It's the toughest thing I've ever done', says Maj. Eric A. Putman, the notifier for Pennsylvania from from Reading to Johnstown. He doesn't leave until a friend or relative arrives. ( This Marine's toughest duty is being the messenger).

Now, apparently, blue dress is out, and service 'A' uniforms are to be worn: Wearing of dress blues barred on casualty notification calls).

  

Blue Dress Uniform  Service 'A' Uniform

From "Song of the South" to go on sale in '06, via Metafilter, Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment is planning to re-release 'Song of the South' in the Fall of 2006, for the film's 60th anniversary.

Great news. I remember this film from when I was a kid, and loved the Joel Chandler Harris stories told by Uncle Remus.

The film tells the Brer Rabbit tales The Briar Patch, The Tar Baby and Brer Rabbit's Laughing Place, and has the well known song 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah'.

Songofthesouth.net is a wonderful site with much information about Harris, Uncle Remus, the stories and the film. This was the first Disney film with flesh-and-blood players. Walt said:

There is something endlessly appealing and satisfying in Joel Chandler Harris' droll fables of animals who behave like humans, and in the character who narrates them. ...

It is their timeless and living appeal; their magnificent pictoral quality; their rich and tolerant humor; their homely philosophy and cheerfulness, which made the Remus legends the top choice for our first production with flesh-and-blood players.

Source: RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., via Background [Walt Disney on the Appeal of the Theme] at songofthesouth.net.



Mr Bluebird on Uncle Remus' shoulder, at songofthesouth.net

Times Company to Buy About.com for $410 Million.

About.com operates a network of nearly 500 guides who create sites on thousands of topics from personal finance to consumer electronics.

about.com's menagerie of authors cover an enormous range of subjects.

Dan Gillmor thinks they paid too much, but what's the value of fact checkers? They're recognizing that the Times' readership collectively knows more about anything and everything than their staff.

That's in line with Andrew Goodman's suggestions in Great or Ho-Hum? A Wish List for NYT's About.com, some of which can be summarized as: make about.com more like a blogger community.

Paidcontent's interview with Martin Nisenholtz, the Times' senior vice president for Digital Operations, points out 'In some respects, the Times is now the largest blogging company in the world.'

Fred Wilson, in Blogging 1.0 (continued) thinks the Times made a smart buy, and looks for the synergy of combining 'a network where creativity and advertising happens on the edges' (about.com) with 'a traditional centralized network, you get something even more powerful. The two can feed each other and create even more value.'

Like ... AT&T and NCR? AT&T and Olivetti? AOL and Time-Warner? Enron and broadband?

'Where is Jimmy Stewart when we need him ?' asked Steve Lovelady. In Towards a Journalism of Reality, he wrote:

For our part, we are, and will continue to be, on the side of those increasingly unheralded journalists on the ground who deal in the currency of hard-won facts -- the coin of the realm of the shrinking "reality-based community."

It looks as if the Baby 81 story was made up.

Did nine mothers claim the child? No. Lost in Translation:

"Since the start, there has been only this couple claiming the baby as theirs," Judge Moahaidein said in his 22-page order handing the child over to the Jeyarajahs on Wednesday. "There have been no nine couples as reported by the media."

That, despite Somini Sengupta's article For Tsunami Orphan, No Name but Many Parents, datelined Kalmunai, Sri Lanka, January 25:

So far, nine couples have claimed him as their own son. Some among them have threatened suicide if the baby is not delivered into their arms. ... The national newspapers have carried almost daily narratives about his fate. The hospital has been so mobbed that for a while, the staff hid the baby in the operating theater every night for his own protection.

Wizbang has the story: New York Times Crying Over "Baby 81".

[Hillary] Clinton: Insurgency in Iraq Is Failing. Clinton is with a delegation of Senatethings in Baghdad.

Today, security is so bad that none of the senators dared drive through Baghdad's streets, even in armored cars. Aside from the Green Zone, their only glimpse of the capital came from the relative safety of U.S. military helicopters that ferried them from the airport.

"It's regrettable that the security needs have increased so much. On the other hand, I think you can look at the country as a whole and see that there are many parts of Iraq that are functioning quite well," Clinton said.

She also said 'The concerted effort to disrupt the elections was an abject failure. ... he fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure.'

Poorly planned trip, if she didn't visit at least some troops.

Ronald Carter is a 'conversation expert and professor of English Language at Nottingham University ... [with] more than 20 books and 100 papers on different aspects of spoken language', says Amelia Hill in Why chattering classes have nothing to say, in today's Observer.

According to a survey of more than 2,000 adults, almost two-thirds of us [Britons] admit to indulging in shallow chit-chat at the expense of weighty dialogue - even though we secretly long for more meaningful exchanges.

'Brits have lost the skill of conversation,' said Ronald Carter .... 'Considered communication has been the first casualty of our rushed, modern lives.

'We can't exchange thoughts and opinions reflectively when we're in a hurry and so we resort to banal banter ...'

It's more than 'our rushed, modern lives', it's many more things: television, poor reading habits, poor grammar skills leading to inability to comprehend complex thoughts and presentations, three-minute or less music, amnesia (by which I mean the idea that all valuable ideas and significant persons and events occurred within the past ten years or so, or at least within one's lifetime), people moving and changing jobs frequently ... Guardian writers summarizing Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Devils as 'about a group of terrorists' ineffectual struggle to bring down the tyrannical Tsarist regime' (Burning Bush brandishes Dostoevsky).

Wheeler Lipes was a WWII 23 year-old pharmacists' mate in the Pacific aboard the USS Seadragon when Darrel Dean Rector needed his appendix removed. Lipes performed the emergency appendectomy and saved the sailor's life. Today, Sunday, February 20, he will receive the Navy Commendation Medal at Camp Lejeune Hospital.

Performing the operation in adverse conditions -- on a dining table -- was remarkable. The patient was longer than the table, so a nearby cabinet drawer was opened and Lipes put the patient's feet in the drawer. Also, the table was bolted to the floor, so Lipes had to stand with knees bent during the two-hour operation.

He used makeshift instruments -- bent spoons for retractors, alcohol from torpedoes for sterilization and hemostats for knife handles to hold the operation blades. He and the assisting sailor wore sterilized pajamas for operating room gowns.

After nearly two hours, the appendix was not in the accustomed place. But, Lipes felt around and discovered the poisoned appendix behind the caecum.

Lipes removed a massive, five-inch appendix which had several inches of blackened tissue.

"I always thought he was the guy who had the courage," Lipes said of the young sailor. "I've asked myself would I have gotten up on that table and let someone do the same thing to me. He was one of the most courageous people I've ever met."

More at Former submariner will finally be recognized in the Sun-Journal of New Bern, North Carolina.

There hasn't been much coming out of Russia lately about North Korea, but N. Korea's Kim Jong-Il Visits Russian Dancing Girls makes up for the hiatus, with humor:

Kim went for a show put on by the Russian Beriozka Dancing Troupe, where the girls presented the reclusive leader, whose two-month absence from the public eye sparked speculations of a coup, with flowers, Reuters reported, citing the KCNA.

"Put on the stage were such colorful pieces as female group dances, ... and mixed group dances in memory of defenders of the motherland," KCNA said. ...

"The performance raised the curtain with the chorus 'Song of General Kim Jong Il'. Its repertoire included the mixed group dance 'Vast Plain', the female group dance 'Chains', male group dance 'Coachmen', the comic dance 'Seeing each other with a view to marriage' representing the optimistic life and national customs of the Russians," the state-run news agency reported.

Back on Feb 7, China official who gambled away funds in N. Korea surrenders to authorities in the PRC.

Today, N. Korean Casino Shuts Under Chinese Pressure:

Chinese tourists were the primary clientele of the Emperor Hotel's casino, but with Chinese authorities launching a sweeping crackdown on gambling that included restrictions on tourism to Rajin-Sonbong, the hotel saw its business dwindle.

Less foreign exchange, meaning more tightening of the screws on the North Korean economy, and therefore, the regime.

Recently, South Korea and Japan announced curtailing of economic activities in the North.

Not much detail (I'm not a paid subscriber), but Catholic World News is reporting

A sarcophagus which may contain the remains of St. Paul was identified in the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, reports Giorgio Filippi, a archeology specialist with the Vatican Museums. The sarcophagus was discovered during the excavations carried out in 2002 and 2003 around the basilica, which is located in the south of Rome. Having reached what they believe is a positive identification of the tomb, Vatican experts will soon make a public announcement of their discovery.

Archeologists discover St. Paul's tomb.

More information is at Cathnews.com, in Australia:

"The tomb that we discovered is the one that the popes and the Emperor Theodosius (379- 395) saved and presented to the whole world as being the tomb of the apostle," [Giorgio] Filippi [a archeology specialist with the Vatican Museums] reports. ...

The excavation effort was guided by 19th-century plans for the basilica, which was largely rebuilt after a devastating fire in 1823.

An initial survey enabled archeologists to reconstruct the shape of the original basilica, built early in the 4th century. A second excavation, under the main altar of the basilica, brought the Vatican team to the sarcophagus, which was located on what would have been ground level for the original 4th-century building.

Officials will fly photographs of the restored 'The Adoration of the Christ Child' to Krakow, to compare a fingerprint found on the painting with a fingerprint found on a da Vinci in the Polish city, the BBC reports.

'Lady With an Ermine' has one of the master's fingerprints.

'The Adoration of the Christ Child' has been attributed to Fra Bartolomeo (a Dominican), Raphael, Ghirlandaio, and Lorenzo di Credi.

The Blessed Virgin in the painting hanging in Rome's Galleria Borghese has large, masculine hands, something of a hallmark of da Vinci, along with wild primroses and blue veronica flowers, which symbolize the Resurrection and Mary's eyes, respectively.

The restoration also exposed a hazy edge around some objects, called 'sfumato', which da Vinci and others used.

Click on 'The Adoration of the Christ Child' to enlarge.

La Shawn Barber has a roundup of comments on Josh Howard's trying to get CBS to 'retract Mr. Moonves' remarks, correct its official story line and ultimately clear his name', and asks for opinions.

Well, if Howard thinks he wasn't treated fairly and that he wants his reputation restored, on what is there to opine? It's a fight between him and CBS, and I don't have a dog in that fight. Neither do bloggers.

Howard isn't going to take some stand above the fray, on his own, though. He's interested in restoring his reputation, and that set isn't a 100% overlap with a full, 'real', investigation of Rathergate / Memogate / whatever. Decisions Howard made about the investigation, or decisions about the 60 Minutes II segment, might have no relevance to Mary Mapes' relationship to the Kerry campaign, for example, or relevance to how Bill Burkett acquired the papers.

I'll repeat my suggestion from earlier today: Howard should start blogging on his involvement and his efforts to move CBS. So far, his tactic is to hire lawyers, but that won't produce anything for quite some time. His lawyers will press CBS, but their strength would be multiplied by Howard blogging. (Yes, I understand that there's likely to be restrictions on what he can put on the 'net, and I understand that his lawyers will likely advise him not to publish some stuff. But lawyers want discovery of the other side's documents, for example, and ofetn have to rely on court orders to enforce discovery demands. Blogs' pressure would telescope the time before CBS produces the material.)

But the blogs have shown how great pressure can be applied on institutions, whether it's the White House press office, CNN, the Senate Majority leader, etc.

How quickly does Howard want a resolution? Wouldn't the irony be truly delicious if Howard turns the blogs again on CBS? Old Media would have an example of cooperative action between it and the blogs, not hindrance, though it would be undermining and in opposition. Howard's goals and blogs' goals do overlap, and Howard can ally himself with the blogs for added pressure, and the blogs with Howard to achieve goals Howard wouldn't push hard or at all for.

In today's New York Times ( Laurels for Giving the Internet Its Language), Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn get the recognition they deserve for the protocol permitting widely different computers to communicate with each other: TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol), the Turing Award. It's the first Turing for networking.

Fortuitously, they made no intellectual property claim to the idea.

HT to Cerf and Kahn Win Turing Award at GrokLaw.

The article is very sketchy, but Bloomberg is reporting that 'South Korea's government won't agree to any significant economic initiatives with North Korea until the issue over its nuclear weapons is resolved, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki Moon said in Seoul [on Feb 16].' South Korea Won't Cooperate Economically With North (Update3).

the article points out that the ROK is developing several large projects in the North, but doesn't say whether work on them will be suspended:

South Korea has an engagement policy toward North Korea, which has resulted in inter-Korean road and rail links for the first time in half a century, construction of an industrial complex in North Korea's Gaesong city, just 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Seoul, as well as an eight-year-old tourism complex in Mt. Geumgang on North Korea's east coast.

An ROK presidential spokesman is quoted:

"North Korea must return to the negotiations and say what it wants to say and resolve this problem rationally through in-depth discussions," presidential spokesman Kim Jong Min quoted Roh as saying at a meeting with his security ministers and advisers today in Seoul.

Nothing on whether the Unification Ministry was represented at the meeting. Ban Ki Moon denied discussing sanctions with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington.

The coordinated responses by the US, ROK and Japan (are the PRC and Russia next?) are of much greater importance than Josh Howard, Eason Jordan, Michael Jackson or Jeff Gannon.

What in heaven's name is it that people run to a judge if they've got a gripe? Does someone have to hit Josh Howard with the clueless bat before he gets the idea that a blog is the way to compel CBS to retract the 60 Miinutes II Bush-ANG memos story?

From Drudge:

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER will report tomorrow: 'Former 60 Minutes Wednesday executive editor Josh Howard has told colleagues that before he resigns, the 23-year CBS News veteran will demand that the network retract remarks by CBS president Leslie Moonves, correct its official story line and ultimately clear his name'...

In the event of a lawsuit, Mr. Howard has told associates that he would like to see Moonves put under oath to talk about his own roles in the network's stubborn, hapless defense of the flawed segment on President Bush's National Guard service.

Howard has also indicated to colleagues that he would subpoena specific CBS documents, including the e-mails of top executives.

Developing...

Lots of mention of the story: Kevin Aylward at Rathergate - Act II, Lorie Byrd at This Could Get Really Interesting, LGF at CBS News Melting Down?, RatherBiased.com at CBS Producer Howard Threatens Wrongful Termination Lawsuit, W. T. Quick at Coverup About To Be Uncovered, Bill Ardolino at The Story That Keeps on Going and Kevin Connors at CBS Producer Threatens Suit To Get Memogate Retraction.

The Observer story is The CBS Three Won't Slink Off; Hiring Lawyers.

Years ago, I read a (daily?) comic strip called 'There Ought to be a Law', before people became enamored of the courts setting society straight.

There ought to be a blog. If you want something done, Josh Howard, do it yourself.

According to Democratic senators said cool to pushing inquiry into disgraced reporter, the dirt dug up by the Kossacks and americablog turned Senate Democrats away from pushing the White House on the story:

Democratic senators have cooled to an inquiry into the disgraced reporter with ties to prostitution who may have been given classified information relating to CIA agent, RAW STORY has learned.

Part of the reason, Senate aides say, was the revelation that the reporter who wrote under the pseudonym Jeff Gannon had in fact sought to prostitute himself online. Democratic senators seem more reticent above delving into a scandal colored by sexual allegations.

One senator, Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), may still join the push by Democratic members in the House who are calling for all records relating to how the conservative reporter got such apparent high-level access to the White House, the president and information relating to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

It figures it'd be Lautenberg, since he seems to have no scruples, or morality, for that matter.

Seoul's Dong-a Ilbo reports ( North Korea Secretly Hoarding and Selling Ryongchon Relief Supplies):

[Tokyo newspaper] Sankei Shimbun reported on February 15 that relief goods such as medical supplies and food aid were being traded within North Korean markets. The goods had been sent to the North by the international community including the World Food Programme (WFP), South Korea, the U.S., and Japan, after the explosion of the Ryongchon train station in North Pyongan Province last April.

The newspaper reported this fact, quoting a member of RENK, a Japanese civil group, from video clips and voice recordings taken in Chongjin last July.

The video shows sacks of rice and corn on display in stands at the Soonam market in Chongjin. Some of them have the words, "gift from the U.S.," in Korean and the Stars and Stripes printed on them.

Greed, desperation, or both. Note the Japanese aid: the public there is already concerned about the DPRK's kidnapping of Japanese citizens and the stonewalling and deceptive responses by the North to demands for information as to their whereabouts.

Mary Cheney ... Jeff Gannon ... tried with Ken Mehlman. It seems as if the left figures the 'nice career, wouldn't want anything to happen to it' angle's worth repeating.

The message, in case it isn't obvious: 'How much is it worth? It's your choice. And by the way, Clarence Thomas for Chief Justice? I don't think so ...'

Paul of Wizbang, at How *NOT* to Build a Majority Party #2 wants them to get the point:

If you want to make the case that yours is the tolerant party and the Republicans are intolerant, spending a week in a gay bashing free for all probably is not the best way to make the point.

But they are making their point, even if they don't get it.

Update: corrected link about Ken Mehlman.

I know it's the Independent, but Rupert Cornwell, their Washington correspondent, has a real hooter today, US accused of plan to muzzle al-Jazeera through privatisation.

America and its key ally Saudi Arabia are being accused of quietly seeking to muzzle al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite news station that has often incurred Washington's ire for its coverage of Iraq and President George Bush's "war on terror".

Accused by administration sources? Staff on the Hill? Saudi officials? Independent observers? Al-Jazeera employees? NGO contacts? Terrorists? Georgetown party-goers? Men in black?

There's not one word in the article indicating from where this story comes. In fact, there's no further mention of the charges, except for two sentences: 'US officials reject all charges of meddling. Nonetheless, such suspicions are inevitable.'

Here we go again: throwing out charges with nothing to back them up, as Capt. Ed describes it. This time, 'salivating morons' might fit, Cornwell, that is.

Ace has it right: 'Reporters are supposed to report verifiable, or at least confirmed, facts. They are not supposed to traffic in ludicrous Al Jazeera level conspiracy theories ...' (Let's Be Honest: We're All A Bunch of "Salivating Morons").

David W. Packard, son of H-P's co-founder, is backing excavation of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, a site which may have thousands of ancient scrolls, perhaps including 'lost works by Aristotle, Livy and Sappho' (Millionaire to fund dig for lost Roman library in The Times of London).

I previously blogged about the Villa at "Can you see anything?" ... "Yes, wonderful things."

HT again to Rare Book News blog, at H-P Computer Guy to Fund Dig for Lost Roman Library.

1974: Russian author charged with treason:

The Soviet authorities have formally charged Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn with treason one day after expelling him from the country.

The writer, 55, was deported to West Germany yesterday and stripped of his Russian citizenship.

Two days ago, Mr Solzhenitsyn was arrested in his wife's Moscow flat and taken away for questioning by the Soviet secret police, the KGB.

His charge, under Article 64 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code, can be punishable with death by firing squad or a minimum of ten years in prison along with confiscation of property.

He has been under investigation for six weeks after his novel Gulag Archipelago depicting life in the labour camps was published in the West.

While there was enough evidence of the Communists' brutality before 1974, when a Soviet citizen, well-known and acclaimed for his moral stands, presented that evidence to Western audiences, the moral veneer of Marxism began to crack.

Again from the Chosun Ilbo, Korean Banknotes to Get All-New Look:

Korea's banknotes will get a radical overhaul to curb rising forgery. The central bank plans to incorporate high-tech anti-forgery features including holograms, Bank of Korea officials announced Monday. In the process, the bills will also get smaller and feature new faces from the nation's history. The central bank is to discuss details of the proposed changes with the Finance and Economy Ministry soon.

One consequence is tightening the screws on the North.

From Seoul's Chosun Ilbo: Time magazine mentions increasing private enterprise and ownership in the DPRK, especially in the northwestern town of Hoeryong, on the Chinese border ( Time Sees Winds of Capitalism Blow in North Korea):

Time said all over North Korea, privately run bakeries, clothing stores and gas stations were flourishing, while in border areas residents could buy Chinese-made mobile phones. Quoting defectors in South Korea and China, the magazine said the capitalism had its strongest foothold in Hoeryong, where everything is available from rice, corn, apples, bananas, and tangerines to beef, pork, Japanese TVs and VRCs [sic], South Korean cosmetics and Chinese sports apparel.

It said some ordinary North Koreans owned private cars, once the exclusive domain of the privileged class, and some have been able to purchase homes.

The regime must know about importing, transporting and distribution of such consumer goods, and display of items like apparel, and based on communist history, it's likely they're encouraging it, both for its members' benefit and to damp down resentment. The regime can't be pleased, though, with foreign currency going for these items, especially with the South planning currency design changes to curb forgery.

A couple of recent articles:

U.S. Wants Seoul to Stop Fertilizer Aid to North:

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has asked South Korea to suspend fertilizer aid to Pyongyang , the New York Times (NYT) reported Saturday. ...

Cheney said if South Korea wanted to help North Korea choose between nuclear weapons and deeper isolation, it had to act in concert with other nations trying to disarm the North and refuse Pyongyang's request for several hundred thousand tons of fertilizer. ...

However, the NYT reported some officials as saying the U.S. was considering fresh economic pressure on North Korea. One high-ranking White House official said the U.S. government could seek new ways to stop the flow of money into North Korea.

WFP Suspends Food Aid in N.K. Regions Where Access Is Banned:

The World Food Program (WFP) said Saturday it was suspending aid distribution to an area in North Korea where the Pyongyang government denies the aid organization's monitors access.

In a report, WFP said North Korea notified the WFP office in Pyongyang in early February that WFP monitors were to no longer enjoy access to Kowon County, North Hamgyeong Province.

Japanese Finance Ministry figures from 2003 show Remittances to North Korea way down, by 34.5% compared with 2002, the latest years for which figures are available.

Lastly, according to U.S. Position on North Korea Hardening, 'a leaked dossier from the [South Korea's] National Security Council confirms that the chief of the Chinese Foreign Ministry?s North America bureau warned North Korea in January that unless there was progress in the six-party talks within the next two or three months, the U.S. might push for a military solution.'

Michael Barone's latest column, Blogosphere politics is up. He looks at what the leftist blogs target from their 'electoral cul de sac' (French for 'dead end', or 'bottom of the bag' according to google): Bush, from farther and farther on the feverish left. The rightwing blogs pant after Old Media.

Both sides wind up helping Bush: the right by discrediting the networks and major newspapers, the left by coming across as more and more deranged and irrelevant.

Barone discusses the 60 Minutes II Bush-ANG Memos story, but doesn't mention the tackling of Jordan Eason and CNN. Too bad: he could have contrasted the rightwingers swarming of Eason versus the leftists lifting up of Dean.

Vouchers proposed for students, Those attending poorly performing schools would qualify (annoying free registration or bugmenot bypass).

The 70 schools that would be affected by the program if it existed today are mostly in major Ohio cities -- 20 in Cincinnati, 14 in Columbus, the 13 in Dayton, eight in Youngstown, six in Toledo and five in Akron.

The program would provide $3,500 each to 2,600 students, Taft said. Susan Bodary, a [Gov Bob] Taft aide, said details still are being worked out but that students probably would be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis.

None in Cleveland, which is a real shame.

HT to Nix guy.

Right wing bloggers got Eason Jordan to resign.

Left wing bloggers got Howard Dean to run the Democrats.

All facts are not created equal.

The New York Times reports Eason Jordan's resignation in the Arts and the Business / Media & Advertising sections.

While the Associated Press story their site carries (CNN News Executive Eason Jordan Quits, same article in both sections), refers to a 'furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month', this one article is all that's returned by searching the Times for "CNN" "Eason".

Times readers would wonder 'what furor?'

Bush speaks about Social Security in Raleigh.

Rumsfeld tours Iraq.

Republicans in the Senate pass class action reform.

Republicans in the House push through a uniform drivers license bill.

Democrat Senator Frank R. Lautenberg requests the White House release documents about James D. Guckert, a.k.a. "Jeff Gannon.".

Senate Democrats want Bush to stop attacking Harry Reid.

Al Franken won't run for Senate in '06.

Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich, delays Chertoff for Homeland Security post vote over a secret FBI memo on terror suspect interrogations.

Howard Dean will make a great party chair for Dems, Candid Vermont governor is GOP's worst nightmare. Ed Schultz called Dean a 'Truman Democrat' yesterday. If Harry were alive today, he'd drop a piano on the 'King of Progressive Talk Radio'.

The Scotsman and the Irish Examiner today carry the same story, apparently out of Seoul: North Korea 'executed 70 defectors':

North Korea has executed 70 defectors who were captured in China and sent home to discourage its citizens from fleeing the Stalinist country, a Seoul-based group [the private Commission to Help North Korean Refugees] alleged today.

...

About eight or nine defectors were executed last month in public in Chongjin, a city on North Korea's east coast, and at least 60 others were put to death in other parts of the country, the group said in a statement.

North Korea is seeking to set an "example" for its people by executing dozens of defectors, said Kim Bum-soo, a spokesman for the group. The number of people fleeing North Korea decreased drastically following the executions, he said.

The Voice of America's Kurt Achin reported from Seoul on Feb 9

Every year since 1999, South Korea has supplied its impoverished rival with 300,000 metric tons of fertilizer. But this year, North Korea has asked for an unprecedented 500,000 tons.

Analysts say the request is the latest sign that the North is still unable to produce enough food and that its dependence on donors is increasing at a time when it shows little sign of resolving major differences with the outside world. For a decade, North Korea has needed foreign aid to feed its people, as natural disaster and years of economic mismanagement have eroded crop production.

South Korean officials have said they will consider the request, but only after North Korea returns to six-nation talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

In a further sign of food shortages, the United Nations World Food Program says North Korea recently cut daily food rations to 250 grams of rice or cereal per person, per day. Brenda Barton, a spokeswoman at WFP headquarters in Rome, says that is insufficient.

...

The U.N. agency has a "no access, no food" policy and WFP officials say they have been forced to stop food distribution in areas they cannot visit. There is evidence that those the agency cannot now reach are suffering.

...

Pyongyang's attempts to fix the situation appear to have backfired. North Korea has introduced limited market reforms and ended price controls in the past few years, in a bid to boost food production after years of near-famine conditions. But most people cannot afford the higher prices.

Evidence Indicates North Korean Food Situation May be Worsening.

The United States, Japan and other countries will provide food, but only after verifying that the DPRK has ended its nuclear weapons programs. Just the other day, the North publicly admitted for the first time that it has nuclear weapons. Given its history, in the event of food riots and an internal threat to the regime, atomic extortion of Japan isn't out of the question, and the United States has about 30,000 troops on the peninsula, and South Korea has some 560,000 in its army.

WFMU, which used to be out of Upsala College, East Orange, New Jersey, when there was an Upsala College, has Beware of the blog.

Love their shows Antique Phonograph Music Program (old 78s and cylinders, some from the nearby Thomas Edison museum), and Laura Cantrell's Radio Thrift Shop.

Waaayyy down on the long tail.

Living near Camp Kilmer, we had some kids of 56ers in our public schools. ('56ers' refers to those who escaped the Soviet's crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.) So, I read some blogs in English from Hungary.

pestiside.hu is one of them. (Pest, as in one of the two cities on opposite sides of the Danube merged to form Budapest, get it?)

Today's bizarre story is of an email from Klaudia Kovacs, a Hollywood actress/journalist/producer, working on a documentary about 1956.

She's looking for folks in the AVO/AVH in 1956. AVO (or AVH, depending on the time in question) were the Hungarian version of the KGB, Stasi, Secuiritate, UB ...

Just a short time after the Wildstein List, 240,000 names of former agents of the secret service police, covert informers and proven victims of Poland's UB got posted on the internet.

HMS Scott, the United Kingdom's Royal Navy hydrographic survey ship has been using sonar to map the seabed where the Boxing Day, Dec 26 earthquake hit. It is the first time this area has been mapped in detail, and some of the images are now available here and here.

Rocks along a 1200 km line were displaced by the magnitude 9.3 earthquake 30 km below the seabed.

Apparently, she's been at sea since Dec 27, except to dock at Singapore to take on supplies and civilian scientists from the British Geological Survey and Southampton Oceanography Centre.

Jon Schaff at Close the gate wants an end to the naming of scandals by appending 'gate', remarking that Watergate was a building, and not an actual gate: 'There is no actual gate. The -gate means nothing.'

Didn't this suffix come from the Viking 'gata', 'meaning simply "street", so the original meaning was actually 'Water Street'? The building is close to the Potomac and Rock Creek.

Howard Dean got 18% of the Democrats' caucus vote in Iowa and 26% of the primary vote in New Hampshire. ( Democratic Presidential Primary Results). He dropped out of the race Feb 19, 2004. He spent close to $53 million on his campaign, and didn't win a single primary.

Now, he's the odds on favorite to be the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, which gets filled Feb 12, 2005, one week shy of his withdrawal's anniversary. Kos declared the race over today. Chris Bowers, touting the netroots which catapulted Dean out of the race, is excited again, Dean being the exciting candidate.

You'd think that after the 'electability' pig in a poke, they'd hesitate before climbing on a bandwagon: the last time they did, they almost took down the whole distillery.

Aside from 'enervating' part of the base without turning out actual voters, what exactly has Dean accomplished?

Iraq hero joins hallowed group, from the St Petersburg Times:

Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, who spent his boyhood in Tampa, became a man in the Army and died outside Baghdad defending his outnumbered soldiers from an Iraqi attack, will receive America's highest award for bravery.

President Bush will present the Medal of Honor to Smith's wife, Birgit, and their children Jessica, 18, and David, 10, at a ceremony at the White House, possibly in March.

The official announcement will come soon, but the Pentagon called Mrs. Smith with the news Tuesday afternoon.

Since there's no official announcement yet, the citation isn't on line.

Comments by his mother, family, comrades and others are at Fallen Heroes of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

A lengthy account of the battle in which SFC Smith gave his life to save those of his comrades is at The last full measure of devotion.

Hat tip to Blackfive.