September 2004

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | SpaceShipOne rolls to first mark Rutan’s space ship has another successful trip to space.

An Iraqi National Guard commander, an ex-general in the ex-evil forces of the ex-regime, has been caught working for the other side. “Lieutenant General Talib Abd Ghayib al-Lahibi led three Iraqi National Guard battalions in Diyala province, the volatile region north of Baghdad that includes the insurgent strongholds of Baquba and Samarra. The US military…

….about Iraq. They care about being nasty to asylum seekers, and dog dirt. Everyone knows that, especially Labour’s candidate for the Hartlepool by-election, Iain Wright. ““I’ve met more than 4,000 people by now, and do you know?” Wright said. “Only two have even mentioned it. It’s local issues people care about; that’s why they want…

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | X-Prize craft begins space shot Good luck.

One of British Gulf’s Antonov 12s, registration EX-161, serial number 5343305 was photographed in Kabul on the 16th of July, 2003. Close examination of the photo gives the impression that the registration and titles were newly added. What significance the aircraft’s name, “Fatima” (signwritten on the nose) has is currently unknown. Click Here to view…

Back, back, way back when, I did some research following up reports in the Financial Times and Le Monde that the US Government had been putting pressure on the UK to help keep gun-runner Viktor Bout off a UN asset freeze list, apparently because he had done the state some service in Iraq. It only…

Four men have been arrested on terrorism charges apparently after they were induced to attempted to buy so-called “red mercury” from a man who turned out to be Mahzer Mahmood, the News of the World‘s “investigations editor”. The NOTW broke this story today under the headline “Dirty Bomb Foiled by News of the World“. BBC…

….and unsurprisingly, they show it’s not very good. Allawi told Washington Post reporters and editors on Friday that “for now the only place which is not really that safe is Fallujah, downtown Fallujah. The rest, there are varying degrees. Some — most — of the provinces are really quite safe.” The Kroll reports are based…

Which Nigerian spammer are You? Taken it several times, but can’t get Viktor out of it yet…mind you, the code for the result doesn’t work but still pushes my sidebar out. So fuckem.

One little-publicised problem for the investigation of hostage-takings in Iraq may have been created by a lack of Internet security awareness among Western businesses operating in Baghdad. Although videos issued by the al-Zarqawi group tend to be uploaded to the websites they appear on at round about the same time of day – a regularity…