News.NanoApex.com - Tiny 'test tubes' may aid pharmaceutical R&D

News.NanoApex.com - Tiny 'test tubes' may aid pharmaceutical R&D: "The artificial cells, called liposomes, are tiny spherical containers that self-assemble from natural fats (phospholipids and cholesterol). Measuring micrometers in diameter, the fluid-filled membranes are currently used in cosmetics and for drug delivery. "



They self assemble? Sweet!



This has got to be one of the most interesting things I've read in nanotechnology lately.



The process still is highly aided by human hands: "They used pairs of infared lasers ("optical tweezers") to bring two lipsomes into contact and a single ultra-violet laser pulse (the "optical scalpel") to fuse the two cellse together. Once fused, the contents of the two cells mix and react. One liposome in each pair contained flurescent dye, the other contained calcium ions. AFter the cells merged, fluorescence increased as a result of the reaction between the dye and the ions."



These testtubes are useful for quantitative studies of chemical reactions "involving samples in the quadrillionths of liters."



Rad!



/rizzn

Does virtual crime need real justice?

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3138456.stm
"The police in South Korea - a country as mad about gaming as the UK is about football - report that of the 40,000 or so cybercrimes reported in the first six months of 2003, more than half (22,000) had something to do with online gaming. "

Interesting article. Interesting in this case means "What in the @#%!?"

It's a bit ambiguous from the article as to whether or not South Korea is actually considering legislating online theivery laws. The article either indicates one of two things: 1) the whole world (or S. Korea) has gone daft, or 2) the writer is an idiot.

I've played online games. I was an alpha tester for Ultima Online. Sure it sucks when someone screws up your character or takes a valuable item. Every time a PK happens, are they going to start talking about death penalties, though?

We are talking about games here people. The images on the page are the most interesting, especially in light of the captions.

"Does might make right in online games?" says one.

"It might be tricky getting a witness statement from a yeti," advises another.

If this was in Oddly Enough or a humor newsletter, or the Onion, I'd shrug it off. But this was in the technology section of the BBC!

Good grief.

/rizzn

Rizzn Gives Gentoo a Thumbs Down!

Is it wrong to want to have an OS installed in less than 16 hours? I'm sure it didn't help that I had three sources of instructions competing with each other on being the "right" set of instructions a)ssz, b)strider, c)the fscking manual.

I'm sure it didn't help that windows reported one chipset on my laptop, and BIOS reported another, so I downloaded something close to both of their reccomendations.

I'm sure it didn't help that the instructions were 30 pages long.

I'm sure it didn't help that I wrote my lilo.conf by hand.

I'm sure it didn't help that I downloaded three versions of the kernel source.

I'm sure it didn't help that I'd been up 20 hours by the end of it.

None the less, I'm disgusted by Gentoo. I really wanted to be running a bleeding edge OS, I really did. But it's not in the card for me. I've got a really busy schedule to keep up with and I can't afford spending another day attempting to install a trendy OS.

I'm re-downloading the new release of Knoppix. It installs in five minutes. It copies to the hard drive in 30. Beat that.

/rizzn

Newsflash

Something feels funky in my upper back. Like it won't pop or something.

Ow.

In other news, what am I doing up so late/early? Well, busy as always. I'm burning more JAW tapes. I'm reading the Patriot Act. I'm writing my two articles I promised. And I'm installing Gentoo on the Laptop. Won't Rabbi be so happy.

Hyuk. Welp. Back to work with me. That's the update from Hollywood.

/rizzn

I'm working on several original news stories that I will be posting here soon. I look forward to comments, questions, criticism and other assundrous comments from the peanut galleries on them.

If you do a search on the web for Factbook or Cyberwar (and perhaps couple it with rizzn in the keywords), you will come up with links all over the place to a series of articles I did in 2001 strongly tied with the Terrorism Factbook I compiled and the interview series I did for John Batchelor and Paul Alexander on WABC. To save you the time searching them, they are all archived here.

I intend to do an update three years later on these programs and how they are affected by the new Patriot Acts (one and the proposed second one). This means I'll probably have to print out all one gazillion pages of the Patriot Act and actually read it top to bottom.

Furthermore, there's a war a brewin'!

I pretty much alluded to this sort of thing happening in many of my OSINT posts not long ago. I also posted something here similarly on topic. Basically, the motivation to write this article is to toot my own prognosticating horn and to bank on it and make some more predictions in this arena. Stay tooned.

/rizzn

This is some BULLCRAP
or
Trillian and Gaim won't work anymore!

[rizzn's note: I noticed my trillian stopped working. I don't know how I'm going to protest this, but you can damn sure bet that I'm not happy and I intend to do something about it. Yahoo's quality of service has been going steadily downhill, in my opinion, over the last year or so. They've stopped offering some of my favorite newsfeeds, they've gotten too crowded with ads, all their good free services are now paid, their search engine content is for shite, and they pretty much rely on google for all search results these days, making them completely useless (why go to Yahoo! if you can just Google it?).

I mean I was one of the last holdouts. I used to have a my.yahoo page set up and use it daily, but with all the crap I had to go thru setting up a yahoo wallet, and all the things they are cutting out and now this Trillian B.S., why would I continue to use Yahoo in any form now? I think we are beginning to see the death throes of the big content providers like AOL, Yahoo and the ilk. I think this is a good thing... it's time for some new blood.]

Yahoo has begun blocking Cerulean Studios' Trillian software from communicating with its own instant messaging software as part of its plan to limit third parties from piggybacking on its service.

On Thursday, some Trillian users began reporting an inability to communicate with their Yahoo Messenger contacts. A Yahoo spokeswoman on Friday morning confirmed that Trillian users' inability to access Yahoo Messenger was the result of recent policies put in place by the Web giant.

Yahoo last week announced that it would require people who use older versions of Yahoo Messenger to upgrade to more recent versions. Coinciding with the upgrade, Yahoo said it would likely disable access to outside IM services such as Trillian. Yahoo set a deadline of Wednesday for its forced upgrade and its intention to disconnect Trillian.

"If this has affected the way in which third parties interact with our service, it is merely a byproduct of our efforts to implement preventative measures to protect our users from potential spammers," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said.

A notice posted on Trillian's Web site informed users about "an issue that may cause a crash or invalid password when trying to autoconnect to Yahoo," the site read. Trillian users who reported the problem said they were unable to view their buddy lists when connecting to Yahoo.

"We are aware of the current connectivity issues with Trillian and the Yahoo network, brought on as a result of Yahoo's recent protocol upgrade," Scott Werndorfer, co-founder of Cerulean, said in an e-mail statement. "We are working hard on a solution and will update our Web site when more information becomes available."

Trillian software, produced by privately held, Connecticut-based Cerulean, allows people to combine various IM clients into one interface. Users can view buddy lists from various services, such as AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger, and exchange IM text messages with them.

The popularity of Trillian has risen, largely because popular IM services do not communicate with each other. As a result, people use different IM services simultaneously on their PCs to communicate with contacts who reside in different communities. These closed networks have helped incumbent leader AOL maintain its large market share while allowing rivals MSN and Yahoo to flourish alongside it.

What separates the Big Three IM services are features. AOL, MSN and Yahoo services each have distinct flavors and rely on these distinctions to maintain user loyalty. Trillian strips all clients of their differences and allows people to exchange IMs through its own look and feel.

A day after last week's Yahoo announcement, Trillian released software patches that were aimed at allowing it to continue accessing Yahoo and MSN buddy lists. But as of this week, those patches do not appear to be working.

Coded email triggers capture of al-Qaeda suspects in Internet cafe
Friday, 26-Sep-2003 9:20AM

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Sept 26 (AFP) - Two al-Qaeda suspects were arrested in an Internet cafe in Pakistan's northwest in a dramatic swoop by officers, security officials and witnesses said Friday.

The arrest was triggered when one of the suspects sat down in an Internet cafe in the wild frontier city Peshawar Thursday morning and sent an apparently coded email inviting an Arab man to meet him, witnesses said.

"Two al-Qaeda suspects have been arrested on Thursday. We are interrogating them," a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The first man, who gave his name as Habib, had entered the City Net Cafe, Peshawar's latest and most modern Internet club, at around 10:30 am, cafe employee Shaukat told AFP.

He was whispering furtively into his mobile phone in the Pashtu language, unaware of the six plainclothes intelligence agents posing as net browsers in the cafe.

Habib logged on at one of the 20 terminals and sent a message through Yahoo messenger which read "I am waiting for you in net cafe. I have mother with me and we will go to village", Shaukat recounted.

But he was not accompanied by any woman. "I think the email was a coded message," Shaukat said.

Shortly after, a bearded Arab man entered the cafe and approached the Pashtu-speaker.

At that point the intelligence agents jumped up from their terminals and pounced on the two men.

Habib took out a pistol but was overpowered before he could fire it, Shaukat said.

Uniformed anti-terrorist commandos then arrived at the cafe in jeeps. Some 15 commandos blindfolded Habib, tied the hands and feet of the Arab man and bundled the pair into the waiting jeeps and drove off.

A joint team of investigators from Pakistan's police and military intelligence agencies is interrogating the pair, the security official said.

Their exact identities and nationalities were not revealed.

The Daily Pakistan Urdu-language newspaper reported that one of the men was a Yemeni national, identified as Khalid.

Pakistan has arrested more than 500 al-Qaeda suspects since joining the war on terrorism in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States. The majority have been handed over to the US.

str/sz/bc/mmc

Pakistan-attacks-Qaeda

My IQ
craw 5: yo
craw 5: take the iq test on xxxxxx
craw 5: and tell me what you get
RznDoUrdn: :)
craw 5: the whole thing shoud take around 20 minutes or so
craw 5: takes awhile though to complete
RznDoUrdn: 151 - The way you think about things makes you a Creative Theorist. This means you are a highly intelligent, complex person. You are able to process information of nearly every kind with ease, using both creativity and analysis to make sense of the world. Compared to others you also have a very rich imagination.
Only 6 out of 1,000 people have this rare combination of abilities.

[Listening to: Millenium Twist - Shy Cookie, DJ Luck & Spee - www.garage.isonfire.com (05:52)]

FlyDLUX Update

I recieved an email from one of our clients/limited partners today through the website. I'm going to post it here because I feel I have nothing to hide. The company should be a glass house, although I must admit I'm getting nervous that since the site is recieiving so much attention due to the company that I might be getting attention eventually from the President and other investors. So I feel its time for a full update and such on company news. But first, the letter .. my response to that will help illuminate a lot of things. It has been edited to protect the identity of people involved.

SEPTEMBER 24, 2003

DEAR [Rizzn],
SOMEONE ACCIDENTALLY STUMBLED ON YOUR WEBSIITE, AND READ YOUR TAKE ON THE FLY DLUX SCHEME, WHICH YOU EXPLAINED WAS NOT INTENTIONAL. [Rizzn], YOU KNOW ME AS XXXX FROM XXXXX XXXXX. YOU KNOW THE INVESTMENTS WE MADE WITH THE COMPANY, AND HOWEVER YOU EXPLAIN IT, YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT [The President], WHO TOLD US TO WIRE HIM MONES, A BUNCH, DID NOT SIMULTANEOUSLY KNOW THAT IN FACT HE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PRODUCE THE TICKETS.

IN FACT, YOU SENT ME CONFIRMATIONS, AND CONSTANT E MAILS WITH THE RESERVATION DETAILS, AND THERE WERE NO ACTUAL RESERVATIONS MADE.
[the President] TOLD US TO WORK WITH TONY, AND IF HE IS NOW SAYING, THAT TONY, AN AGENT OF FLY DLUX, I KNOW NOT AN OFFICER, AND CERTAINLY NOT A GENTLEMAN, RAN OFF WITH THE MONIES, THAN WHY DID [The President] TELL ME TO WORK WITH HIM.

WHY DID [the President] CONTACT A CLIENT OF MINE, MR. XXXXXXXXX AND CONVINCE HIM TO WIRE 25,000 DOLLARS, AND HE WILL GET TICKETS, AND OF COURSE HE TOLD XXXXXXXX TO WIRE THE MONIES DIRECTLY TO TONY OR LIDA, WHAT WAS UP WITH THAT, WHEN AT THAT POINT, NO ONE WAS GETTING ANY TICKETS.
WHAT IS THE TRUE STORY WITH THESE NONEXISTANT VOUCHERS, HOW CAN YOU IN TRUTH SELL 3000 VOUCHERS/TICKETS.

WHERE , IF YOU USE LIDA TO ISSUE YOUR TICKETS THROUGH C&H INTERNATIONAL- A CONSOLIDATOR, FOR WHICH TICKETS YOU GUYS HAD TO PAY, AT LEAST 700-1000 DOLLARS, SO WHERE IS YOUR MONEYMAKING DEAL IF YOU ARE SELLING THESE TICKETS FOR 150-400. WHO IS THE BUSINESS BRAIN BEHIND THIS GREAT SCHEME. CAN WE DEDUCT, THAT AFTER SIMON HODSON PUT IN 248,000 DOLLARS, [The President] ANTICIPATED ON RUNNING OFF WITH THE MONEY, BUT I AM SURE THAT SIMON DID GET HIS TICKETS.

[Riizzn], I UNDERSTAND YOU ARE A WHIZ KID, WHY AND HOW DO YOU FIT IN THIS SCHEME OF THINGS.? I CAN ASSURE YOU, THAT NONE OF US, ALL THE PEOPLE WHO THOUGHT THEY WERE BUYING A LEGITIIMATE PRODUCT, STARTING FROM MR. XXXX XXXXX, XXXXX XXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXX ETC. ARE COMPLETELY STUPID, AND ONCE THE BALL OF PAYBACK STARTS TO ROLL, THERE IS NO SAYING WHO WILL BE FALLING DOWN.

BUT I AM PRETTY SURE OF ONE THING, THERE WILL BE NO TURNING BACK. AND BY THE WAY, THERE WAS ONE NAME NOT MENTIONED IN YOUR BLURB ON YOUR WEB-SITE, MR. [RK], WHO IS NOW SUPPOSED TO BE A CEO OF FLYDLUX. I AM SURE YOU PROBABLY KNOW WHO I AM BY NOW, AND I AM NOT TRYING TO HIDE IT, BUT BECAUSE OF FLY DLUX, AND THE WRITTEN CONTRACT THAT WE HAVE FROM [the President], WITH A PERSONAL GUARANTTEE, HE NOW OWES US IN THE VICINITY OF 57,000-60,000 THOUSAND DOLLARS.

PLEASE ANSWER THIS, IT CAN BE OFF THE RECORD. THAT IS WHY I AM NOT EMAILING YOU AT FLY DLUX.I WOULD BE VERY INTERESTED IN THE TRUE ANSWERS TO MY QUESTIONS.

Dear Ms. X,

Like I've said before, I was always under the impression that FlyDLUX was a legitimate operation. One of the biggest reasons I believed it was legitimate was that the President was always making suching a convincing case for its legitimacy. It was as if he really believed it. After having lived and worked in such close quarters with him for so long I have come to believe, no, scratch that, know that he also believed that it was a valid business. He has personally staked every connection, family member, and business associate on this. If this business turns out to be a big scam, the President is the one with everything to lose.

That there is the biggest and most definitive argument to the fact that FlyDLUX is not a scam. Everyone involved in this office has gone into debt trying to keep this company alive. I myself owe vendors that are personal business connections of mine as well as dear friends money that I can't pay them for services rendered, Rick has a family back in Texas that is hocking everything they have to keep us here. The other partners that have come into business ownership here are staking some very personal things to them to get the money to keep us alive. The President himself faces some very stern repercussions from very dear people to himself if this thing fails. These are not the actions of scam artists. These are the actions of people who desparately believe that there is a way to keep this company afloat. That is why we continue to do so.

To address each of your points specifically --

We know only what Tony tells us as far as the validity of these tickets. Here's what we do know about them: We know that for the first four months of the company's life, everybody who booked a ticket and paid the low price we offer flew without a hitch (which is to say, Tony does have a positive track record). We know the theory behind how we get these low prices, and while that is something i cannot disclose on this site, I can say that it is a perfectly plausible and valid way to get those low prices (which is to say that there is not a completely transparent lie behind the explanation of these tickets existence -- to the contrary, there is a valid line of explanation that they exist). We know that things started getting fubared when Tony started selling tickets on the side (which is to say that all our money troubles could be due to Tony not being able to balance a checkbook).

So in answer to "YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT [The President], WHO TOLD US TO WIRE HIM MONES, A BUNCH, DID NOT SIMULTANEOUSLY KNOW THAT IN FACT HE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PRODUCE THE TICKETS..." I can in fact make that statement in complete honesty. There is a reason why we allowed Tony to string us along, and those reasons are outlined in the previous paragraph.

Like I said, Tony didn't "run off with the monies" per se. There certainly is a lot of money missing, and neither we nor Tony can account for where it went. Our books show that we paid nearly a million dollars for something that should be no more than $300,000, or at best $750,000. There certainly is a deficit there. Due to the disorganisation in the office before I got here (i.e. no accounting to speak of, horribly bad flight tracking), no one really seemed to notice until I did a surgical audit of the company (which, incidently is how I was cursed awarded the title of CFO).

How did I come into this? Where I fit into this is simple: I have been friends of the President's family for a very very long time. The President has two twin sons that I love dearly and will do anything for, and when one of them asked me to come and help whip this company into shape, I came down here and obliged.

It's shakey for me to make the claim that the people you mentioned were buying what I'd consider a legitimate product, especially in hindsite. Obviously we haven't been able to deliver on the product we promised. Did we know that at the time? No, not really. I mean, Tony had been screwing things up for a while at that point, but we were pumping money like crazy into his accounts with the ticket vendors, so we figured money would fix things. We were doing everything in our power to fix things. Granted, in hindsite again, we weren't doing the right things to fix the problem, but we were doing more than a lot.

"CAN WE DEDUCT, THAT AFTER SIMON HODSON PUT IN 248,000 DOLLARS, [The President] ANTICIPATED ON RUNNING OFF WITH THE MONEY, BUT I AM SURE THAT SIMON DID GET HIS TICKETS. " You accurately deduce that Simon got his tickets. Simon is a whole other story... I choose not to go into it right now. There might be a time, but honestly those negotiations should have ended with our company being solvent and running, theoretically, but since I'm answering emails like this one, you can see that those negotiations did not end properly (and to be honest, I'm not sure they are over, I don't generally stick my nose into the Hodson Negotiation Circus much anymore). But what happenned to the Simon Hodson investment? I'm not sure. I know where the money was wired. I know how much we supposedly owed at that point. The investment should have taken care of it. Obviously it didn't. Why? These are the subjects we are now puruing with Tony et. al.

As to [RK], I don't mention names that don't want to be mentioned on my website. FlyDLUX is something I feel I have sweat equity in and I can talk about it. I feel I have that license, whether or not other company priciples feel I have that right or not. Honestly, I'm risking a lot of stake in this project by talking as freely as I am. But a) I'm always careful about what I say and b) I protect the identities of people involved and don't use names without permission. I believe that by being honest on this site and telling it like it is we will be protected in a worst case scenario, and vindicated in a best case. If this company does pull through, then believe you me, we have a lot of payback to accomplish, and thanks to my personal accounting skills, we have everyone's name and addresses to send the checks to. But if we don't pull through, it is also my duty to pull everyone we owe money to because of this into a group and ensure that the proper people accept responsibility for this. I'm willing to accept responsibility for the parts I'm actually responsible for. But I also want it known that we all fully believed in this company and because of the actions of a few, many have sufferred, and many more will suffer if we don't figure out a way to save this.

On a personal note, that is why I stick around. As you stated, I am a 'whiz-kid' I suppose. I could be making around 150k a year working for the man, or I could be working full time on any other number of the projects that listed on my website. But I choose to work on this. I am not living high on the hog from this project (neither is anyone else in this company, by the way). I have been working on subsistence pay since June. So has the President, and so has Rick. Our employees get paid once every three weeks on average, which is no way to run a company (not to mention no way to live), but these are all part of the sacrifices we have made to keep this thing afloat.

Removal of the JAW Tapes
I have removed the place to download the James Anthony Wimmer tapes for a couple reasons. First of all, I was advised by a friend of mine exactly how they were a liability and how their posting was self-destructive. I agreed begrudgingly. Secondly, my aim was to have copies floating around in the ether to pull down in case something drastic like a raid happenned here for whatever reason and my harddrives were seized. That goal is accomplished, they are stored online in non-disclosed locations now, and if something is to happen to me or the company, I will make them available again. As long as the company is operating under the assumption that we are going to make it, they will be unavailable as they are a liability. If that status changes, they will become available again. We have enough enemies to our success within the company, I don't need to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as well.

Final Note
I encourage anyone that's here because of FlyDLUX to write me and ask me questions. I will address them fully and honestly. I honestly believe that the truth will set us free on this. And I still do believe that the company has something more than a snowball's chance in Texas at survival. We can make this work. The legitimacy of the tickets and the company shouldn't be at question, it's the honesty of a certain individual in the company at question. Once we have a gun to his back, a carrot in front of him, and someone alongside him to keep him on track we should be able to make this work.

As always, stay tuned to the site for the inside track.

[rizzn's note: the market is really starting to open up for UAV's. Look at this article out of Japan!]

Agency to develop unmanned aircraft
The Asahi Shimbun

The Self-Defense Forces will also be equipped with `smart' bombs in fiscal 2004.

The Defense Agency in fiscal 2004 will start full-scale development of an unmanned surveillance aircraft and introduce satellite-guided ``smart'' bombs on Air Self-Defense Force fighters, officials said.

The multipurpose unmanned jet and the smart bombs made possible by the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) system were extensively used by the U.S. military in the Afghan and Iraq wars.

``Japan must also respond to the great leap in the advancement of military technology worldwide,'' a Defense Agency official said.

The unmanned jet will be deployed in fiscal 2009, according to the officials. Total development costs are estimated at 9 billion yen, and the agency is seeking 300 million yen in next year's budget.

A prototype has already been completed at the agency's Technical Research and Development Institute.

The unmanned aircraft, about 5 meters in length, will be launched in midair from an F-15 fighter. It will have a cruising range of several hundred kilometers at an altitude of 10,000 meters.

The agency plans to use the aircraft in surveillance missions over the Sea of Japan to spot and trace suspicious ships.

The unmanned jet will contain high-resolution reconnaissance imagery equipment, but could also be equipped with radio-jamming or attack capabilities-a point of potential contention in connection with Japan's ``defense-only'' policy.

In the Iraq war, the U.S. Air Force deployed the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle carrying infrared cameras and the Predator system that can carry and fire missiles.

Such aircraft do not require the safety features needed for manned missions.

The JDAM system will be loaded on F-2 fighters, featuring 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs equipped with a U.S.-developed guidance system.

Once released, the bomb is guided to its target by the U.S. military's global positioning system.

Agency officials have requested 1.2 billion yen in the fiscal 2004 budget for the JDAM system, saying such bombs would be needed to attack the front lines of an invading enemy.

The necessity of the system, however, will likely be questioned because this year's defense white paper rated the possibility of Japan being invaded as low.(IHT/Asahi: September 23,2003)

Go jump in a lake!
or
The Culmination of My Discontent

That is all.

/rizzn

[rizzn's note: It always seems that these Pakistani and India rivalry hacking/cracking/virus writing contest things they have always end up showing the ineptitude of the hax0rs involved. I don't know why that is. All I can offer is that every person from Pakistan and India in hacking chatrooms and mailing lists are always asking me for advice on how to hack hotmail and yahoo mail, which should give you some idea of the intellect at work. If it doesn't, all I can say is it's a hax0r thing, you wouldn't get it.]

Politically motivated worm fails to spread

Reuters - September 23, 2003, 09:00 BST
The latest in a string of Yaha worms created by rival hackers from both India and Pakistan has been released

Hackers claiming to be from India have launched their latest strike in a cyber-spat with Pakistan by unleashing a new variant of the "Yaha" Internet email worm, antivirus firm Sophos says.

The worm, written by a group calling itself the Indian Snakes, does not appear to be spreading or causing any damage, said Chris Wraight, a technical consultant at UK-based Sophos.

The Yaha-Q worm, the latest in a string of Yaha worms released by hackers from both countries since December, leaves a back-door on an infected machine and sends itself to people listed in the email address book, Wraight said.

It also tries to disable anti-virus software and commands the computer to launch a denial-of-service attack on five Pakistani Web sites, he said. Such an attack is designed to shut down a Web site by sending so many repeat requests to the Web server that it becomes overloaded.

The Pakistan Web sites it tries to attack are those of the main government Web site, the government's Computer Bureau, a community "portal" site, Internet service provider Comsats and the Karachi Stock Exchange, according to Sophos.

Yaha-Q arrives in an email attachment but also can spread via shared network drives, such as at corporations. It tries to sneak past firewalls and other security software to get onto Web servers directly, Wraight said.

In addition to storing taunting messages against Pakistan on the computer, it sends messages to Roger Thompson, technical director of malicious code research at TruSecure in Herndon, Virginia, and to a female virus writer known as "Gigabyte," Sophos said.

Gigabyte wrote a virus in January to counter an earlier version of Yaha that was designed to attack her Web site.

"I do not plan on writing a new 'counter attack' or getting further involved with these people in any way," she wrote in an email.

Thompson said he has commented in the past that previous versions of Yaha were politically motivated.

The worm is not spreading because it is being blocked by antivirus and other security software, and because people are becoming more suspicious of email and not clicking on mysterious attachments, Wraight said.

wet machines

candy coated

sick corroded world

when all the lies told become unfurled

i want to vomit on the nameless, faceless

that left me so unsure,

insecure

now crushed beneath the pressure of insanity

this hollow pearl that was given me

leaves distorted

a vision once so clean

of how this life could be

" fuck you, a marvelous creation of god you are not'

these voices haunt me

"i will call in the powers that be and you will rot"

i've been feeling sickly

no, it can't be

i think, i see.

i feel, i smell, i taste.

i can't be

just a smear in time and space

what are we

this plague, this human race

born in a dream?

just a figment...

a stream of memories?

an idea,

forgotten or replaced?

wet machines

built to entertain.

Why isn't Liberia in the news more often?
[rizzn's note: I have an odd habit. Okay, I have more than one odd habit, but one of the odd habits I have is I monitor the news out of Africa. For one reason or another, this year, the news out of Liberia has given me pause. I've been paying special attention to it lately, and lots of interesting things have been happening. Liberia isn't much different from most other places in Africa: medicine and food in short supply, armed conflicts all the time, and government as unstable as hell. Those that remember history, though, know that Liberia was a colony set up by America, and was founded primarily with freed American slaves. I can't be sure, but given that history, I think it is why America (and by virtue of that, the U.N.) chooses to get involved with Liberia so much. With the possible exception Burundi and Botswana, Liberia has been dominating the UN Newswire this year, and they just announced a few minutes ago that the UN Sec. Council approved the usage of peacekeepers. What this means is American troops are going to be going to Africa to stabilize another country's government. I say that we should pay attention now, before we're blindsided by another group of U.S. soldiers being drug through the streets like they were in Mogudishu. So listen up, y'all. I'll try to keep you updated through my website if something pertinent comes along.]

LIBERIA: Security Council approves 16,000 peacekeepers

ABIDJAN, 19 September (IRIN) - The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the creation of a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force for Liberia to take over from a much smaller West African force which is currently stuggling to impose peace and security after 14 years of civil war.

The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) will be formally created on October 1, two weeks before a new broad-based transitional government takes power in Monrovia to guide the country to fresh elections in October 2005.

UN officials reckon it will take about six months to work up to full strength.

UNMIL was given an initial mandate of 12 months to enforce an 18 August peace agreement between the Liberian government and two rebel movements. The Security Council also charged it with helping the new transitional government to assert its authority throughout the country.

The peacekeepers will be backed up by an international force of 1,115 civilian police officers.

Retired US air force general, Jacques Paul Klein was appointed head of UNMIL, which will be the second largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world after the one sent to neighbouring Sierra Leone three years ago.

Klein was appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as his Special Representative in Liberia in July. He was formerly head of the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Klein told the Security Council on Tuesday: "We have an obligation to assist in putting an end to a cycle of brutality, violence, corruption and instability that has destroyed the social fabric of Liberian society and has spilled over the borders of Liberia and profoundly affected the region."

He said the UN had received offers of troops for Liberia from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Namibia and Ireland.

UNMIL will monitor the implementation of the ceasefire between the Liberian government, which was headed until last month by warlord Charles Taylor, and two rebel groups; Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL).

The UN force will assist in the disarmament, demobilization, reintegration, and repatriation of thousands of fighters roaming the villages of Liberia. It will also and provide security at key government installations such as ports and airports, and protect UN staff, facilities and civilians.

UNMIL will also assist in humanitarian work and will help to enforce respect for human rights "with particular attention to vulnerable groups including refugees, returning refugees and internally displaced persons, women, children, and demobilized child soldiers," the UN said.

It will help the transitional government restructure the police force and create a new professional army.

The transitional government is headed by businessman Gyude Bryant, who was chosen by the signatories to last month's peace agreement. It will replace an interim administration led by Moses Blah. He took over the reins of power on 11 August when Taylor was forced by international pressure to step down and go into exile in Nigeria.

The Security Council resolution mandates UNMIL to help Bryant's administration to rebuild the structure of government in Liberia. The country's hospitals and schools are in ruins, its courts have ceased to function and its civil servants have been unpaid for years.

UNMIL will to develop a new system of courts and prisons and will assist the government to reestablish the proper administration of natural resources. The country is rich in timber, rubber, diamonds and iron ore and is believed to have offshore oil waiting to be developed.

The Security Council demanded that all parties cease hostilities throughout Liberia and fulfill their obligations under the peace and ceasefire agreements signed in Accra. It also demanded that they cooperate with UNMIL and ensure the safety, security and freedom of movement of UN personnel throughout the country.

UNMIL will also help to coordinate the voluntary return of hundreds of thousands of refugees in neighbouring countries and internally displaced persons within Liberia.

In a report to the Council on Tuesday, Annan said: "With the recent political and military developments in Monrovia, the security situation in the country continues to improve. Liberia remains highly unstable, however, as armed groups, militia and criminal elements operate throughout the country."

Annan said the Liberian conflict had unleashed armed groups and criminal gangs which had destabilised the entire sub-region.

"The armed conflict in Liberia resulted in serious abuses of human rights and humanitarian law, including deliberate and arbitrary killings, disappearances, torture, widespread rape and sexual violence, arbitrary arrests, forced conscription, use of child soldiers, systematic and forced displacement and indiscriminate targeting of civilians," Annan said.

Some 250,000 people are believed to have died in war-related circumstances in Liberia since 1989 - about one in 12 of the country's three million population. At least half were civilian non-combatants.

Meanwhile the UN is increasing its emergency appeal for Liberia from US $69 million to $100 million to meet increased relief needs, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

Initially, the UN had asked for $69 million, but raised only half of it. The extra funds were needed because relief agencies were now able to reach areas of the country under rebel-control that had previously been inaccessible, OCHA said.
[ENDS]

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[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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www.rizzn.com

Ahh, so that's why cocaine is so high these days...
[Excerpt: Three other American contractors on a surveillance mission were captured Feb. 4 by the FARC when their plane crash landed after experiencing engine trouble. The rebels executed a fourth American and a Colombian soldier aboard the Cessna plane.]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030921_1460.html

U.S. Drug-Spraying Crop Duster Crashes in Eastern Colombia, Where Rebels Fighting for Control
The Associated Press
BOGOTA, Colombia Sept. 21 —
A U.S. plane crashed while fumigating cocaine-producing crops in volatile northern Colombia, killing the American pilot, the army said.

Sunday's crash in Catatumbo, an area filled with coca crops, appeared to be an accident and not a rebel attack, as officials had believed earlier.

"Initially, there was talk of the plane being hit, but then those who went to the site said there were no (bullet holes)," Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez told reporters. "We are not sure what caused the accident."

Army Gen. Jairo Duvan Pineda told RCN Television the weather was bad at the time of the crash.

The pilot was a U.S. citizen originally from Costa Rica. Officials did not release his identity or say where he lived.

Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are fighting for control of Catatumbo against the army, another rebel group and outlawed paramilitary fighters.

Colombia is the world's biggest producer of cocaine, and the coca crops generate huge profits for the illegal groups.

The U.S. government has given billions of dollars in aid and training to the Colombian military to support its nearly four-decade war against leftist rebels and to wipe out cocaine and heroin production.

Other contract workers have been killed while participating in Colombia's war against drugs. On April 7, another U.S. State Department drug-fumigation plane crashed in southwest Colombia, killing the American pilot.

Three other American contractors on a surveillance mission were captured Feb. 4 by the FARC when their plane crash landed after experiencing engine trouble. The rebels executed a fourth American and a Colombian soldier aboard the Cessna plane.

Three other Americans were killed when their plane crashed and burned in southern Colombia on March 25 while searching for the captured trio.

Crop-dusting planes fumigate the coca crops with herbicide. The planes must fly 100 feet above ground to effectively fumigate, making them vulnerable to rebel fire. Military helicopters generally accompany the drug-spraying missions.

The massive U.S.-financed fumigation campaign of coca has hit Colombia's illicit drug industry hard, cutting coca crop land by one-third in seven months, according to a recent U.N. report.

XBOX
I beat every game (except Morrowind -- that includes Xmen, SegaGT, JSRF, MechAssault and a couple other minor piddly games) that we have for the XboX right now. I found out that XboX Live costs money, so I am now trying to hack the box itself, to see what fun things can be done with it. These are the sites I've found and I'm looking into them. If you have any better resources, let me know.

http://www.xbox-scene.com/
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/

I'm really interested in making an Xbox server farm by installing Linux on them. I've heard that Gentoo goes on real easy to the bawks, and ssz has been extolling the virtues of gentoo lately. More updates as the story develops. I'm tired and the sun is coming up.

/rizzn

Dioxin Research
[rizzn's note: This is mostly a personal note. I'm doing research into Dioxin contamination for a project I'm working on. Likely I'll not ever use the scientific data, as my side of the project relates more to the business side, but it's always good to do your homework.]

Hybrizyme
People throughout the world need and want a clean environment and a safe food supply. It is our hope that the research we do and the products that we sell help achieve that end.

Hybrizyme is developing an inexpensive test that measures the levels of dioxin-like chemicals. Currently, dioxin analysis costs range from $900 to $1,800 per sample and can only be performed in highly specialized laboratories. During a recent dioxin crisis in Belgium where citizens were exposed to dioxin-tainted meat, the need for low cost health assessment studies and environmental monitoring was clearly demonstrated. A cost-effective test also would enable scientists to expand research efforts to study the health effects of dioxins.

Dioxin is an unintended byproduct of a variety of processes including forms of chemical manufacturing, incineration of municipal garbage and medical waste, open burning and the manufacture of chlorine-bleached paper products. Exposure to certain dioxins in animals and humans has been associated with biochemical and toxicological effects. The EPA is currently conducting a major reassessment of dioxin service. EPA scientists are providing much of the
data needed to assist in the risk assessment.

Hybrizyme's technology measures levels of dioxin compounds in a sample using a recombinant Ah receptor. The Ah receptor present in humans and animals mediates most, if not all, of the harmful effects associated with exposure to these compounds. Once in the body, dioxin-like compounds bind to Ah receptors and initiate a cascade of biochemical effects leading to toxicological consequences. How tightly or loosely these compounds bind to the Ah receptor is one of the determining factors of their toxicity.

www.dixonins.nl
Since the Belgian dioxin-chicken crisis in 1999, the kaolinitic clay contamination with dioxins and the citrus pulp contamination with dioxins, consumers’ concern exists about the safety of food. The key-contaminants causing the concerns in these crises were dioxins and PCBs.

These accidents revealed a need for continuous monitoring of the quality and safety of our food. However, currently there is not enough capacity within the European Union (EU) to measure dioxins in food and feed which is being fed to animals for agricultural products. Besides, the quality of the data produced by food control laboratories is sometimes limited due to the absence of a broad range of certified reference materials to check the quality of the data.

The DIFFERENCE project (Dioxins in Food and Feed – Reference Methods and New Certified Reference Materials) will focus on the development, optimisation and validation of alternative (screening) techniques for analysis. These techniques should allow a reliable, simple and low-cost determination of dioxins and PCBs in order to guarantee a widespread implementation throughout the EU.

Furthermore, the DIFFERENCE project aims at the production and testing of five candidate certified reference materials (milk product, meat, fish, fish oil and feed) which allow laboratories to improve the quality of the produced data.
The project has started at 1 February 2002 and will last for 36 months. The objectives of this project are outlined on this website as well as a glimpse on the obtained results. The website also covers background information (related info), relevant literature and possibilities to get in contact with the coordinator for more information.

DEFINITONS
recombinant
An organism or cell in which genetic recombination has taken place or material produced by genetic engineering.

Ah Receptor
See this page or my copy.

[Listening to: (hackers)_11_(eyes,lips,body)_ramshackle - - (01:05)]

I'm having one of the best conversations I've had in ages, with swordsaintzero. It's one of those conversations you can only have with someone you've known for years and years. It's peppered with references we know about each other and people we mutually know. It's about how he was published in slashdot and I was published in 2600. It's about our takes on transhumanism. It's about becoming foglets. It's about gentoo. It's about being rich and being poor. Its about robots. It's about the Matrix.

Then we got to talking about how we are getting old. He tells me about his granpa's and gramma's passing, his little sister getting married.

"A lot's changed," he said.

"No kidding. We're growing up, buddy," I replied.

"I dont want to. It's like the whole 21 to 23 thing -- I'm 25 now." He sighed. "Fucking old man, my body hurts all the time, I think about things like insurance, I have a kid."

"I'm only a year behind you," I said. "I found a grey patch in my beard the other day."

"I am fucking salt and pepper. My whole head." I imagine he shakes his head in disbelief. "I feel silly when i go in hottopic! I feel like th old creepy guy. How fucked up is that?"

"I know!" I exclaim. Because I do. "Lord.. what happenned?"

"Our cron jobs are fscked up. I swear to god I want to change to a slower distro -- 70+ years and a permanent reboot are not cool, man."

You know that strange nostalgic feeling you get sometimes? Maybe? Do you get that? Or is that just me? Anyways, I'm permeated by it right now. I miss a lot of my friends from Texas, and right now, I am missing the days that swordsaintzero and I used to share. What's sad is that now we're both in places that'll never lead back to that time. We'll always be friends, and I presume that evn if he or I strike it big, we'll never be too big for our britches to talk to each other. But it'll never be like it was back in the day, sitting on the steps outside the apt on University. It won't be like us just wandering aimlessly in downtown Dallas half-assed looking for trouble, but really there to talk about geeky things.

I'm sure the future holds bigger and better things. Much bigger and better things. And some of those include things that ssz and I will share together, I'm sure. And when those come along, I might think they are better than back in the day.

But right now I'm enjoying the feeling of missing being in the constant company of an old dear friend.

/rizzn

[Listening to: (hackers)_04_(open_up)_leftfield - - (06:53)]

April42089: back
April42089: did ya miss me?!
Unclespam21: yay!!
Unclespam21: yep;-)
rzndourdn: i cried.
April42089: :-Dgood
rzndourdn: because you were gone
April42089: im sure
Unclespam21: no he did
Unclespam21: he actualy wants 2 marry u
rzndourdn: it's true
April42089: ok
April42089: i already have 5 husbands, whats 1 more?
Unclespam21: a hell of a honey moon
rzndourdn: Wow.
April42089: heh
Unclespam21: ha
rzndourdn: is unclespam one of your husbands?
April42089: yea
Unclespam21: :-!
Unclespam21: i thoght was only me and adina
April42089: nope, u were wrong
rzndourdn: so one of your husbands is a girl?
April42089: no, shes my wife
rzndourdn: oh!
April42089: got like 4 wives
rzndourdn: sweet sweet polygamy
April42089: lol
Unclespam21: ha whos the bitch?
Unclespam21: haha
rzndourdn: so do you ever get together with all of them and have orgies?
April42089: of course
April42089: sqeek
rzndourdn: *oils april's hinge*
April42089: n english my teacher said not to talk and rite b4 that i said sqeek, so she looked at me and said...no squeeking ether
April42089: uh...my hinge doesnt need oiling thank u very much
rzndourdn: oh.
rzndourdn: i figured it did
rzndourdn: you were squeeking
April42089: no, no, no
/rizzn

[Listening to: (hackers)_04_(open_up)_leftfield - - (06:53)]

FlyDLUX Update

I am starting to get hits on my hits on my website with the words FlyDLUX and FRAUD coming from Google. As an insider in the company, let me just put forth that FlyDLUX was always intended to be a legitimate company and if it continues to survive still intends to be a legitimate company. It has the unique opportunity to provide the public with a low cost alternative to international and first class air fare. The problems with the company and the reason we were unable to fulfill our duties to our customers is soley the fault of bad management, simply put. Key people within the company, already discussed on this website, were integral in the near demise of this company (and we aren't out of the woods yet).

Strict management of time and funds is what is needed by diligent members of the management in this company (something I and Rick hope to oversee personally) to keep its nose clean and afloat.

Let me repeat - the management of FlyDLUX and it's staff -- to be specific: Mark Hopkins, Richard Rice, Lawrence Finkelstein, Barry Falber, Matthew Finkelstein, Krystin Lewis, and any other or employee contractor under this office's employ -- never intended to defraud anyone of their money. Any failure to deliver services was due to our strategic partner's negligence, someone who technically has no ownership in the company, but has continually misappropriated funds we've paid him to purchase bulks of airline tickets.

Presuming our company is able to financially move forward this week, this person (previously discussed in this blog) has agreed to personally repay the monies to people that have been affected by his actions.

More on this news as it develops.

/rizzn

[Listening to: (hackers)_04_(open_up)_leftfield - - (06:53)]

[Excerpt: It was the latest in a string of attacks on figures perceived to be collaborating with Iraq's American occupiers. Fighters believed to be loyal to Saddam Hussein are trying to disrupt the U.S.-sponsored political process that envisages a new constitution and a democratically elected government before the end of next year.]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030920_304.html

Member of Iraq's Governing Council Shot, Critically Wounded in Assassination Bid in Baghdad
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq Sept. 20 —

Aquila al-Hashimi, a member of Iraq's Governing Council, was shot and critically wounded Saturday in an assassination attempt outside her home in western Baghdad, police and doctors said.

Also Saturday, U.S. soldiers guarding the Palestine Hotel in central Baghdad opened fire as a green car tried to race through a military checkpoint. The car was stopped, and the driver was dragged out and made to lay face down in the roadway.

Much of the foreign journalist corps lives in the Palestine and the adjacent Sheraton Hotel. Also, Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary doing million of dollars of reconstruction and other work for the U.S.-led coalition, occupies a total of 9 floors in the two buildings.

An American tank always sits at the entrance to the hotel complex, and about a dozen soldiers were quickly on the scene when the car refused to stop at the checkpoint.

The Governing Council member, Al-Hashimi, was in critical condition with abdominal wounds, a doctor at al-Yarmouk hospital said on condition of anonymity. After surgery she was moved to an unspecified location in a convoy of American armored vehicles and military ambulances.

Three of her bodyguards also were injured, said Mohammed Abdul Ghany, a security official at the al-Yarmouk hospital.

Members of al-Hashimi's security detail said the attack was carried out by men in two new SUVs. They fired rocket-propelled grenades that missed her car, then opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

A neighbor, Khola Ibrahim, said she was in her kitchen when she "heard shooting, very heavy shooting."

Another neighbor, Saba Adel, said al-Hashimi's brother who acted as one of her bodyguards knocked on her door crying out "My sister, my sister!"

Saba Adel said she saw another bodyguard lying on the sidewalk wounded in the arm and leg.

"He looked in terrible condition," she said.

An Iraqi security official said al-Hashimi was brought to the hospital at about 10:30 a.m. and immediately was taken to surgery for a bullet wound in the left side of her abdomen.

She was then taken to an unknown location in a U.S. military ambulance while still unconscious, said the official, who would not give his name.

"We will catch those responsible for this vicious crime," Ghany said.

Al-Hashimi is one of three women on the 25-member council. She was preparing to leave for New York as part of an Iraqi delegation that will attempt to assume Iraq's seat at the U.N. General Assembly.

Al-Hashimi is a Shiite Muslim and a career diplomat who led the Iraqi delegation to a donors' conference in New York this summer. She holds a degree in law and a doctorate in modern literature.

It was the latest in a string of attacks on figures perceived to be collaborating with Iraq's American occupiers. Fighters believed to be loyal to Saddam Hussein are trying to disrupt the U.S.-sponsored political process that envisages a new constitution and a democratically elected government before the end of next year.

Late last month, a Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim was assassinated in a bomb blast in the holy city of Najaf south of Baghdad. The attack, widely thought to be the work of Saddam's supporters, killed at least 85 people.

Al-Hakim's Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the biggest anti-Saddam opposition group, was represented on the Governing Council.

U.S. troops have been trying to track down pro-Saddam fighters who have launched near-daily attacks on U.S. troops, including an ambush and gunbattle that killed three soldiers and wounded two on Thursday night near Tikrit.

U.S. tanks and armored fighting vehicles rumbled through Tikrit early Saturday in a show of force meant to discourage more attacks and flush out armed resistance.

"We took a tank company and a Bradley (armored vehicle) company," Lt. Col. Steve Russell, the 1st Battalion commander of the 4th Infantry Division's 22nd Infantry Regiment, told The Associated Press. "We wanted to send a message."

Fifty-eight Iraqis were captured after the attacks on Thursday, described as some of the fiercest and best-planned resistance in months. U.S. troops seized a considerable number of weapons from a minivan fleeing the area, the military said.

During Saturday's patrol, tanks swept through residential areas, occasionally dismounting to set up security points, to check cars and people leaving Tikrit after the city's 11 p.m. curfew.

The patrol ended without incident.

"We wanted to make contact with the enemy," Russell said. "If they want, we'll surely oblige him."

[Listening to: (hackers)_01_(original_bedroom_rockers)_hruder_&_dorfmeister - - (06:06)]

Israelis are sitting ducks in war against terrorism
September 19, 2003

BY ANNE BAYEFSKY

http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-bayef19.html

According to the United Nations Charter, every U.N. member state has ''the inherent right of . . . self-defense if an armed attack occurs against'' it.

However, as the discussion in the Security Council this week makes clear, Israel has become the only U.N. member state excluded from the charter's guarantee.

This is an age where armed attacks take many forms, including suicide bombing. Wars are fought with combatants who make no effort to distinguish themselves from civilians. Nevertheless, according to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, joining the war against terrorism is a club not open to the Jewish state. In fact, while the terrorists take aim at Israelis, the U.N. role has been to pin the victims' arms behind their backs.

On Sept. 8, the secretary-general ''condemn[ed] [the] attempt by Israel to assassinate the Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin.''

On Sept. 10, a few hours after Israelis were butchered in a Jerusalem cafe in a suicide bombing perpetrated by Hamas, Israel attempted to kill senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar. U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Terje Roed-Larsen, said he ''deplores Israel's bombing of a Hamas leader's house in a densely populated Gaza neighborhood, which killed three and injured at least 30.''

On Aug. 21, one day after Hamas massacred 23 people and mutilated 115 others on the streets of Israel's capital, Israel killed Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab. Annan said: ''Israel does not have the right to resort to extra-judicial measures, as it used today in the Gaza Strip....''

Israel targeted Yassin, al-Zahar and Shanab because they were a central part of the command and control structure of a terrorist organization. They were combatants in a war. They were therefore not entitled to a judicial process before an attempt to kill them.

Each case is examined individually. In these cases, Israel was unable to arrest them and the Palestinian Authority made it clear it had no intention of doing so. In such circumstances, international law makes them legitimate targets.

The U.N.'s denial of the necessities of self-defense when it comes to Israel takes another form. The key international rule governing the use of force against terrorists is the requirement of proportionality. The Geneva Conventions say an attack on a military target ''which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life'' is prohibited if ''excessive.'' Only in Israel's case does the U.N. apply this rule to mean zero civilian deaths.

On Sept. 9, Israel targeted and killed two senior Hamas military wing terrorists in Hebron. At the time the two were planning suicide attacks in Israel in the very short term. Weapons and ammunition were found on their bodies.

The response from the U.N.? Roed-Larsen ''expressed serious alarm over the latest violence in the Middle East . . . after an Israeli operation yesterday in Hebron, in which a 12-year-old boy was killed. . . . Israel has an obligation under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and refrain from the use of disproportionate force.''

It is the Palestinian Authority that violates international humanitarian law by putting civilians, deliberately and directly, in harm's way. Permitting killers to live, socialize and plot freely in densely populated civilian neighborhoods is the violation of international law. The U.N.'s refusal to deplore the Palestinian Authority's cold-blooded complicity in the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields encourages terrorism.

As for the kingpin, Yasser Arafat, the Security Council convened immediately in response to Israel's suggestion that Arafat is a terrorist deserving of concomitant treatment. On Sept. 16, the United States was forced to exercise its veto, as 11 of 15 members voted in favor of the draft resolution that expressed grave concern about ''extra-judicial executions and suicide bombing,'' objected to any threat to remove Arafat, and made no mention of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and company.

The Israelis have long given the hard evidence: The Karine A arms shipment from Iran to the Palestinian Authority; the checks for the Palestinian Preventive Security Services' terrorist weapons manufacturing operations; the speeches in Arabic encouraging martyrdom. But at the U.N., in Israel's case, smoking guns do not a terrorist make.

Arafat's return from Tunisia to the territories in 1994 was predicated on an exchange of letters between him and Rabin. Arafat wrote in his letter of Sept. 9, 1993: ''The PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators.'' Why keep promises when you have the U.N.?

Anne Bayefsky is an international lawyer and a member of the governing board of Geneva-based UN Watch, www.unwatch.org

[Listening to: 14-Opening_Titles-David_Arnold - - (02:43)]

The Grammar of Time-Travel
Karl Jahn: "Further specification with respect to relative time can be made by the terms paster 'farther in one's own past' and forwarder 'farther in one's own future'. These are opposed to 'before' and 'after' in the absolutive aspect: cf. "the year 1914 was before the year 1915," "I was in 1914 forwarder than 1915" (i.e., by timejumping backwards). " The wackiest thing I've read all day.

[Listening to: 12-Out_There-Fuzzbubble - - (02:49)]

I took a brief moment to assess my environment this afternoon ...
It's very beautiful here recently. The crowds have died down over the past couple weeks on the beach here. I suppose that means summer is officially over.

I just observed the reflections of the sun setting over the ocean. Even though I face the Atlantic, I can still see very beautiful sunset reflections of all different colors. Reds, purples. It is something to behold.

We are getting fairly large waves as a result of the Hurricane Isabel, although no rain to speak of. The tide around 11pm or so comes in much much higher than usual .. only about 6 or 8 feet from the Lifeguard stations. The weather is just right, too. The humidity gets swept off into the ocean by it's wind, and the warmth of the sun is tempered by the shade, so all in all it's generally quite comfortable.

/rizzn

Global Economy
20 SEPT 2003
Poorer nations celebrate trade talks failure
By Anil Netto


[rizzn's note: i know this goes over a lot of heads and just plain goes around most of the others. The truth is that despite all protestations to the contrary, there is a lot of conspiracy that surrounds the World Trade Organisation, and I can't help but think it's a Good Thing that the talks broke down. There is something scary when the whole of the world's developed nations can get to the same table with the worlds 'developing nations' as they call them and shove an agenda consistently down their throat. This is not a goverment body, and this is not a government organisation. At best it is a quassi-government organisation. These people determining how you and I interatct and trade with countries outside our own are not elected individuals. They are appointed. Sure, they vote on concensus on the issues, but it's kept under lock and key how exactly that voting process works. I will not cry for this organisations demise, if it comes to this. By the way, if you want to hear about the WTO from the horses mouth, you should go here. ]

PENANG, Malaysia - The collapse of the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Cancun, Mexico, last week may signal a dramatic change in the way the world's trade rules are being formulated. It could also spell the beginning of the end of the WTO as a negotiating forum for world trade unless new impetus gets underway to change the situation.

The failure of the talks is regarded by the developing nations in Africa and Asia as a signal of their arrival as a new force to be reckoned with in the global economic stakes. The collapse of the talks follows a similar breakdown in 1999 in Seattle, Washington and of a later meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Bangkok.

But there is a growing danger that the WTO will recede into the background, regarded by the developed nations as an irrelevant talking-shop for protesters, even as they negotiate the real business of international trade under divide-and-rule tactics to cut even more lopsided bilateral deals than in the past. There is already serious and growing concern about the tendency of developed nations to negotiate bilateral trade treaties with poorer countries of their choosing, at the time of their choosing, to their advantage.

The Cancun meetings collapsed when the world's poorer countries closed ranks and refused to discuss new issues until some basic issues such as agricultural reforms had been tackled. They refused to accept a proposal
that would have meant only small cuts in developed nations' agricultural subsidies and that too only if developing nations agreed to open up on the new issues to allow foreign firms easier access into developing markets.

For now, the developing nations are celebrating their ability to stop the powerful European Union-United States-Japan juggernaut in its tracks. Countries such as Brazil, China and India flexed their muscle to draw impressive support from other developing nations, which represent more than half the world's population. Backed by vociferous campaigners and protestors outside, delegates argued that stalling the talks was a far better option for developing nations than reaching a lopsided agreement stacked in favor of developed nations.

The talks collapsed when a "Green Room" of 33 countries failed to agree on contentious "Singapore issues" that the rich countries wanted discussed, dealing with investment, competition, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement. That prompted the chair of the ministerial to declare an end to the conference. The proposals created far deeper disquiet than the disputes over agriculture.

The impasse came despite concessions from EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, who agreed that the negotiations should treat the four issues separately in Cancun. The developing-countries bloc flatly rejected these issues, arguing that there was no clear understanding that the Doha Declaration required negotiations on these new issues.

This solidarity among developing nations was in sharp contrast to the past when similar groupings cracked under pressure from developed nations, which customarily have dominated the direction of previous negotiations under a veil of secrecy.

Certainly, the developing nations' success in blocking Cancun is a severe blow not only for the WTO but also for other regional multilateral trade agreements. Some analysts worry that the very future of rules-based multilateral trading as exemplified by the WTO is now at stake. Proponents of the old order complain that the influx of poorer nations into the WTO's privileged ranks has transformed the once-focused trade body into a 148-member mishmash of conflicting players who are more interested in "pontificating and not negotiating".

Those against the existing setup regard Cancun as a huge victory for the united power of developing countries to stand up to arm-twisting by the US and the EU. This process, they argue, is vital in creating a more democratic setting for world trade negotiations that would go a long way in promoting real economic justice globally. These critics say the developed nations should stop trying to pin the blame for the Cancun failure on developing nations and instead examine how they have been trying to protect their own economic interests.

Certainly, these economic dislocations are serious. According to the World Bank's 2004 report on Global Economic Prospects, published in early September in advance of the Cancun meeting, protectionism hits all of the world's developing nations hard. Protection facing developing nation-exporters in agriculture is four to seven times higher than against manufactures in the north, and two to three times higher in developing countries. Tariff peaks are particularly high in rich countries against the products of poor countries. Hefty specific duties are particularly common in rich countries.

In fact, US subsidies to cotton growers - a staple of African agricultural production - totaled US$3.7 billion in 2002, three times total US foreign aid to Africa. Those cotton subsidies depress world cotton prices by an estimated 10 to 20 percent, reducing the income of thousands of poor farmers across the globe. In West Africa alone, according to the World Bank, where cotton is a critical cash crop for many small-scale and near-subsistence farmers, these US cotton subsidies cost them about $250 million a year.

The problem in Cancun was that the draft text did not call for serious reforms in domestic support for agriculture within the EU, the United States and Japan, while developing nations were told to decrease their tariffs sharply. Developing countries led by China, Brazil, India, South Africa and Argentina, under the newly formed Group of 22 (G22), were not impressed. Little was given to developing countries in the way of concessions on strategic products and safeguard mechanisms, they argued.

Crucially, the draft had insisted on at least two new issues at the start of negotiations: government procurement and trade facilitation. It also attempted to impose a deadline for reaching agreement on the mode of negotiations on the equally contentious competition and investment issues. Negotiations hit an impasse, with some 90 developing countries opposing the launch of negotiations on the Singapore issues.

The developing countries complained that they simply did not have the capacity to handle these new issues on top of the existing WTO negotiations. They also said that agreements on these new issues would have further restricted their domestic economic policy options and jeopardized domestic industries.

Despite the impasse in Cancun, many ministers have indicated that they are still committed to carrying on with the Doha Round in some form, raising hopes for what they regards as a more democratic, transparent
and participatory WTO to emerge from the ashes.

Loud Berating Voice in my Head.
by Rizzn
I found this somewhere in the deep recesses of my collection of text files. I can only imagine it was some poetry I wrote while I was engaged to my ex a year or so ago. I dunno, it's fairly cheesy, but I figured it was good for a laugh or two.

You always have the wrong decision
Waiting to be made
At just the right time.

If you could stop worrying about timing
And start worrying about the results of your actions,
Perhaps you would be more happy in life.

How could you even let yourself
Fall for him?
What sort of person lets themself
Cheat in their heart
When we were as serious as we were?

Quit making me sick in my helmet.

Maybe I should quit making myself sick.

Quit expecting love,
Unconditional, unbreakable,
Unswerving.

Don't expect,
Won't dissappoint.

That's how it works, chief.
Get with the program.
Get on board for the big loss.

[Listening to: One Angry Dwarf - Ben Folds Five - mix (03:53)]

JetBlue Shared Passenger Data
Thu Sep 18 @ 21:12 (Reads: 31)
Source: Wired
JetBlue Airways confirmed on Thursday that in September 2002, it provided 5 million passenger itineraries to a defense contractor for proof-of-concept testing of a Pentagon project unrelated to airline security -- with help from the Transportation Security Administration. The contractor, Torch Concepts, then augmented that data with Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information, including income level, to develop what looks to be a study of whether passenger-profiling systems such as CAPPS II are feasible. The study (PDF), titled "Homeland Security -- Airline Passenger Risk Assessment," which JetBlue says was based on an unauthorized use of its data, was presented at a February technology conference. Privacy activist Bill Scannell, who runs the Don't Spy On.Us website, had scathing words for JetBlue's revelation. "JetBlue has assaulted the privacy of 5 million of its customers," said Scannell. "Anyone who flew JetBlue before September 2002 should be aware and very scared that there is a dossier on them." Torch Concepts acquired the data by contacting the Transportation Security Administration, which says it facilitated the transfer of the data from JetBlue to Torch Concepts, according to TSA spokesman Brian Turmail. The TSA says the study was for a Pentagon proof-of-concept program related to improving security on military bases. Torch Concept's lawyer, Richard Marsden, says the study was authorized and was related to "a science and technology study on the feasibility of enhancing the structure of the Army." It remains unclear how an airline passenger-screening feasibility study without any references to the military relates to an Army feasibility study, though Marsden said he could not reveal any more information because of a confidentiality agreement.

[Listening to: Jackson Cannery - Ben Fold's Five - mix (03:24)]

RIP Harry Goz
"Harry Goz, the voice of Captain Murphy, passed away this week. A message from Adam Reed and Matt Thompson, co-creators of "Sealab 2021," follows:

"We are devastated by the loss of our good friend, Harry Goz. Working with him was always sheer joy, and his talent was beyond compare. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, and we shall all miss him dearly." "

Another post by an editor of the show mentions that he succumbed to cancer.

No word just yet on how/if Sealab continues, but a replacement actor would not likely be well-received by the show's fans.
Sources for information here and here and here.

/rizzn

The Art of the Saber

Though it is obvious that the movie is an indy lowbudget (only because of the lack of a steadycam), the production, music, and background words on this as well as the choreography makes this short film moving. Fan of the Star Wars movies or no, I definately suggest this download. Very inspiring. Rizzn gives it two thumbs up.

The Art of the Saber

/rizzn

[Listening to: WierdAl-AlternativePolka - - (04:51)]

From: Bob Martin [bob-martin@sbcglobal.net]
To: OSINT
Subject: [osint] No Words

http://www.nowords.org/_/b.asp


/rizzn

[Listening to: Aphex Twin - Ghost in the Shell - - (08:51)]

SBC Won't Name Names in File-Sharing Cases
Read about it here (my copy)

"We are going to challenge every single one of these that they file until we are told that our position is wrong as a matter of law," James D. Ellis, general counsel for SBC, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Bravo, SBC. And savor that bravo -- I don't very often do that to a Bell of any kind, be it Pac, Ma, Sou, or any other variation, spinoff, or deviation thereof. You will forever get a cool point in my book for this, though.

[Listening to: Aphex Twin - Ghost in the Shell - - (08:51)]

Nanotechnology is finally getting noticed

See article. (my copy)

"Within 15 years, experts predict, it will drive progress in virtually every field, from computing to medicine, manufacturing, energy and the environment. They envision factories that build things atom by atom, materials with properties we can't imagine today, sensors that can be scattered like dust and microscopic robots that cruise the bloodstream to deliver drugs or root out cancer."

I'm glad to see nanotechnology starting to get recognized in things other than Ray Kurzweil books and science fiction. It wouldn't be mainstream media, though, if they didn't point out the 'inherent dangers' of the new technology before they extolled its virtues.

"In his 1986 book ``Engines of Creation,'' Palo Alto theorist K. Eric Drexler popularized the notion of building things atom by atom, using tiny, self-replicating machines. At the same time, he warned that these ``molecular assemblers'' could multiply out of control, forming a gray goo that destroys life on the planet."

"Three years ago, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy breathed new life into that notion with an essay in Wired magazine. He suggested that the world faces an unprecedented threat from a trio of technologies -- nanotechnology, biotechnology and robotics -- that have one thing in common: They are capable of producing things that make copies of themselves, and thus could evolve to become more powerful than humans."

Nonetheless, the takeover of nanotechnology is inevitable, therefore it's good that it's notice is being taken, and it will only be a few short years before it moves out of the science section into the mainstream. I see that is a good thing, and I will be first in line to be turned into a foglet

/rizzn.

[Listening to: Ghost in the Shell - ORM - Only Real Music - (08:50)]

I'm allowing myself to be brought down to this, yes.

The following comments were made in response to my entry here, that was posted 5:23 PM Sunday, September 14, 2003.


You wouldn't need to "make peace with" me if you'd just give a quick phone call at the appropriate time. bear in mind that people ARE disappointed by your ditching them, regardless as to what your true self-opinion may proclaim.

this is twice in a row i've invited you over, & twice in a row you've neither followed through nor called to cancel/reschedule. it's disrespectful, mark.

the fact that you posted to your website instead of mailing me is insult to injury.
lish, 09.14.2003, 4:07 pm

gee things really seem to be heating up between the two of you
matthew the unhumbled, 09.15.2003, 11:30 pm

Nothing like drama to drive up the hitcounter.
rizzn, 09.16.2003, 2:21 am

well, since you still haven't written or at LEAST said something briefly apologetic on irc, i'll just presume that drama & a vaguely fatter hit counter are more important to you than actual human interaction with friends. neat! see you around.
lish, 09.17.2003, 12:05 pm


To address why I haven't written or at least said something briefly apologetic on IRC, perhaps it is because I take offense to your words. Do you not find it somewhat challenging to your core when someone insults your self-opinion? I might've written something in good time to apologize, but you waited only a scant hour before you decided to insult and berate me on my own website. Your modus operandi is not appreciated, and neither is your tone. One or the other isolated, I might've been able to tolerate, but the two combined added to the fact that you knew from reading the circumstances just prior to your response as to why I was unable to call prior to the "ditching" is what makes your pious reprimands come off ridiculous.

I spent too much time on this already. I've got better things to do with my life than make apologies for a situation that was not preventable nor my fault to ungrateful ears in response to a rebuking tongue.

[Listening to: The Ending of the Beginning - T Miura, H Anze & S Kasahara - Biohazard Code Veronica OST (02:14)]

Google Code Jam

I'm going to enter the new google code jam thingy.

It's pretty cool. The top 25 finishers get at least $250 and as much as $25,000. Should be some quick easy cash.

Full Details Here

I went a whole day without doing anything productive.
I'm trying to figure out how to do the title tag with this editor, but I think I will give up and just go to sleep. Just when I think I'm starting to get tired on a regular schedule, Krystin had to go and buy Meet Joe Black tonight, so we watched that mostrously long movie this evening.

Today, I did no work. I went and got some sun on the beach, played in the water, came in, played a new video game (Seige of Avalon -- I'm in chapter two right now, and so far I give it only one thumb up, simply because it's an RPG). Then Assaf Koubi came by. I helped him spell his client's names right and then he went home. Watched Meet Joe Black. Typed a few replies in my comment box (yippee... it's getting used now). And then I typed this and now I'm going to sleep. Good night.

/rizzn

[Listening to: Basket Case (acapella) - Rockapella - (03:19)]

Quoted from SlashDot:Justice Department Proud of Patriot Act Slippery Slope
Posted by michael on Sunday September 14, @05:25PM
from the first-they-came-for-the-people-different-from-me dept.
frank_adrian314159 writes "Yahoo News is reporting that the DoJ has been using its increased powers under the US PATRIOT Act to pursue common criminals. DoJ Officials have been holding seminars on how to use increased wiretap powers against (non-terrorist) money launderers and drug dealers. One example in the article is the guy running a meth lab who's now up for a life sentence for 'manufacturing chemical weapons' instead of the much shorter sentence he would have been facing under the current drug laws. Wonderful, huh? Who didn't see this coming? Of course, you're a law-abiding citizen, so you have nothing to worry about, right?" Patriot Act II will allow any Federal agent to demand records from anyone who interacts with you, with no judicial oversight whatsoever.

This really concerns me. Listen to this: I have a friend in jail right now. He had his house raided up in NY because the police suspected him of running a meth lab out of his house. He was on probation for two years for a prior, but he had cleaned his life up as far as that went. When they raided his house, they took all his computers, they took anything that might be remotely used for cybercrimes, drug manufacturing, or anything at all they thought they might like to take home to the missus.

When it was all said and done, according to both my friend, the state police, and the sheriff's department, there was nothing they could hold him for in jail except that he had some prescription medicine (Adavan) out of it's bottle and in one of those Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday pill sorter things. Which technically is a felony. So they are holding him on a $30,000 cash bond since they heard on his wiretapped phones he might be moving down here to Florida soon, and considered him a flight risk.

As of this moment, he sits in jail in Albany, divorced (because of the ordeal and other personal issues), abandoned, and helpless.

This really concerns me.

/rizzn

[Listening to: 11 - The Arrogant Worms - Carrot Juice Is Murder - - (04:01)]

Okay, I'm going to try the w.Bloggar test again. And I'll put some real content here, since I know it works.

I'm going to have to make peace with Lish again. Rabbi kept Strider and I out from 8:45pm until 2:00am doing absolutely nothing! We were going out under the auspices of grabbing a bite to eat from Burger King, and we have to stop at three different grocery stores for an hour a piece, plus the restaurant we end up at is called AleHouse, so it's another hour and a half until food comes.

I swear, I'm never going out with Rabbi. Ever. Again.

2:00 AM!

Which means I was behind on my computer work schedule and was completely brain fried to begin with, so I completely forget what that I'm supposed to be hanging out with Lish and I work until like 8:00 am (stopping only to watch a beautiful sunrise come up over the ocean). And then I crashed until about 3pm.

I'm gathering my wits still. Cafepress is being a bitch. Everytime I try to upload one of these large files, it times out the session and forgets I uploaded it. It's annoying.

/rizzn

[Listening to: Over and Over - Morcheeba - Big Calm (02:21)]

JAW Tapes Set 1-5 Online Version

I am now making available for download the first five cds in the James Anthony Wimmer (the company embezzler) Phone Conversations.



I'm not done uploading the MP3 versions, and I've not gotten the Cafepress uploading done yet either, so I'm going to wait on the descriptions.



But if you want a good five + hours of enjoyment (if you are a sick voyeuristic/investigative journalist type), go ahead and click down here for a listen.



The link the world has been waiting for.



/rizzn

Bush Seeks to Expand Access to Private Data AKA What is this scary stuff?

This scares me to death. Read this article.



Bush Seeks to Expand Access to Private Data

By ERIC LICHTBLAU



WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 — For months, President Bush's advisers have assured a skittish public that law-abiding Americans have no reason to fear the long reach of the antiterrorism law known as the Patriot Act because its most intrusive measures would require a judge's sign-off.



But in a plan announced this week to expand counterterrorism powers, President Bush adopted a very different tack. In a three-point presidential plan that critics are already dubbing Patriot Act II, Mr. Bush is seeking broad new authority to allow federal agents — without the approval of a judge or even a federal prosecutor — to demand private records and compel testimony.



Mr. Bush also wants to expand the use of the death penalty in crimes like terrorist financing, and he wants to make it tougher for defendants in such cases to be freed on bail before trial. These proposals are also sure to prompt sharp debate, even among Republicans.



Opponents say that the proposal to allow federal agents to issue subpoenas without the approval of a judge or grand jury will significantly expand the law enforcement powers granted by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And they say it will also allow the Justice Department — after months of growing friction with some judges — to limit the role of the judiciary still further in terrorism cases.



Indeed, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who is sponsoring the measure to broaden the death penalty, said in an interview that he was troubled by the other elements of Mr. Bush's plan. He said he wanted to hold hearings on the president's call for strengthening the Justice Department's subpoena power "because I'm concerned that it may be too sweeping." The no-bail proposal concerns him too, the senator said, because "the Justice Department has gone too far. You have to have a reason to detain."



But administration officials defended Mr. Bush's plan. Even though the administration is confident that the United States is winning the war on terrorism, they said, they have run into legal obstacles that need to be addressed.



"We don't want to tie the hands of prosecutors behind their backs," said Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, "and it's our responsibility when we find weaknesses in the law to make suggestions to Congress on how to fix them."



In announcing his plan on Wednesday, Mr. Bush said one way to give authorities stronger tools to fight terrorists was to let agents demand records through what are known as administrative subpoenas, in order to move more quickly without waiting for a judge.



The president noted that the government already had the power to use such subpoenas without a judge's consent to catch "crooked doctors" in health care fraud cases and other investigations.



The analogy was accurate as far as it went, but what Mr. Bush did not mention, legal experts said, was that administrative subpoenas are authorized in health care investigations because they often begin as civil cases, where grand jury subpoenas cannot be issued.



The Justice Department used administrative subpoenas more than 3,900 times in a variety of cases in 2001, the last year for which data was available. The subpoenas are already authorized in more than 300 kinds of investigations, Mr. Corallo said.



"It's just common sense that we should be able to use this tool against terrorists too," he said. "It's not a matter of more power. It's the fact that time is of the essence and we may need to act quickly when a judge or a grand jury may not be available."



Officials could not cite specific examples in which difficulties in obtaining a subpoena had slowed a terrorism investigation.



But Mr. Corallo gave a hypothetical example in which the F.B.I. received a tip in the middle of the night that an unidentified terrorist had traveled to Boston. Under Mr. Bush's plan, the F.B.I., rather than waiting for a judicial order, could subpoena all the Boston hotels to get registries for each of their guests, then run those names against a terrorist database for a match, he said.





Bush Seeks to Expand Access to Private Data

(Page 2 of 2)



Attorney General John Ashcroft and other senior officials, defending the Patriot Act in recent speeches and interviews, have emphasized that judges must sign off on the investigative tools that have caused the most public protest, like searching library records or executing warrants without immediately notifying the target.



One section of the Justice Department's new Patriot Act Web site, lifeandliberty.gov, for instance, says the law "allows federal agents to ask a court for an order to obtain business records in national security terrorism cases."













The administration sought to expand the use of administrative subpoenas in the original Patriot Act in 2001, but Democrats protested and succeeded in killing it.



Civil rights lawyers, defense advocates and some former prosecutors say they see no need to broaden the Justice Department's powers so markedly. Under current law, they say, terrorism investigators can typically get a subpoena in a matter of hours or minutes by going through a judge or a grand jury.



"The fundamental issue here," Nicholas M. Gess, a former federal prosecutor and a senior aide to the former attorney general Janet Reno, said, "is that at a time of such concern over civil liberties, there's good reason to have a judge looking over the government's shoulder."



Mr. Bush's proposal, he said, "means that there are no effective checks and balances. It's very worrisome."



A second proposal by Mr. Bush would strengthen the government's hand in keeping defendants charged with terrorism-related crimes in jail pending trial.



But critics like Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said they believed the idea also posed risks of limiting the discretion of federal judges and giving the Justice Department too much power.



Mr. Bush's proposal would require judges to presume that defendants in terrorism-related offenses should not be allowed out on bail, unless the defense can persuade the judge otherwise. The proposal defines terrorism to mean acts like murder, kidnapping or computer attacks intended to "influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct."



Such no-bail restrictions, which effectively shift the burden of proof from prosecutors to the defense in determining whether a defendant should be locked up, are already in place for certain narcotics trafficking offenses and other charges.



"A suspected terrorist could be released, free to leave the country, or worse, before the trial," Mr. Bush said. "This disparity in the law makes no sense. If dangerous drug dealers can be held without bail in this way, Congress should allow for the same treatment for accused terrorists."



Justice Department officials were angered this summer when judges in Alexandria, Va., freed on bail four men who were charged with supporting Kashmir terrorists. The judges said they were not persuaded the men posed a clear danger or a flight risk.



Despite Mr. Bush's concerns, Justice Department officials said they knew of no specific instances in which a person charged in a terrorism case had fled after being granted bail. And critics said they were unconvinced the current laws needed fixing.



The third element of Mr. Bush's plan would expand the list of terrorism-related crimes eligible for death.



Suspects like Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of taking part in the 9/11 conspiracy, already face the prospect of the death penalty for the most serious terrorist offenses.



But Mr. Specter, who said he had worked on the issue for months before the White House asked him to sponsor legislation, said his measure would allow execution for "gateway" crimes like terrorist financing, even if the defendant does not carry out the attack.



"The financiers are really the principal culprits," he said.



The proposal would also extend the death penalty to a number of other criminal activities, including sabotage of a defense installation or a nuclear facility.