!= != != != != != != != != != != != != != !=

Xe: The joint audit by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and the United State Department of State Inspector General released yesterday does not, as some press reports have suggested, allege that Blackwater was ever complicit in overbilling the United States government for work it performed in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. The audit [...]

CRN (Macpherson, “Safety first for IT executives in China,” 16 Sep ’09) quotes Mark Bregman, Symantec’s CTO: “I don’t let my IT department near my laptop.” Also noteworthy: “I was advised by people in three-letter agencies in the US Government to weigh the machine before I left and when I got back [from China].” (Q: [...]

Stalder the critic (“Analysis Without Analysis,” Metamute, 28 Jul ’08): Tussle over copyright? Reading Shirky, you wouldn’t know there is one. This is probably the most glaring absence. Number of entries for copyright in the index of the book? Zero! In my view, this is inexcusable because it cuts right to the core of why [...]

No Google street view for West 44th St (and sometimes 45th St too), between 7th and 8th Aves, in Manhattan: Viacom?

Andrew Sullivan points to “new McCain POW footage,” but the film is a longer cut (and much better ‘print’) of the footage included here. The longer cut shows much more clearly the degree of mobility in McCain’s neck, shoulder, and left arm (for example, when he tips his ash at 3:17). At 1:07, the interviewer [...]

How the North Vietnamese exploited McCain’s nicotine habit for propaganda purposes, and how, since then, McCain—and everyone else—can’t see the forest for the tobacco plantation Hugh E. Scott, the maintainer and registrant of unfitmccain.com, offers “eight reasons for voting against” McCain, most of which are mainstays of leftish commentary. But one reason treads on a [...]

(Note the expiration date.) [Begin update: And that date was optimistic. What a difference a few short months makes. From thisiszimbabwe.com: End update.] At the request of the German government, Giesecke and Devrient GmbH (motto: “Creating confidence”) has been supplying currency-quality paper to Zimbabwe. According to the AP’s (so sue me!) Matt Moore, G and [...]

Title: Fairchild/Silicon Valley Genealogy Chart Author: Don Hoefler, Harry Smallwood, and James E. Vincler Created: 1977 Publisher: SEMI Donated By: James E. Vincler Filename: doc-45ff3e214d9ea.pdf (Size: 656 KB) Pages: 1 Description: The first published version of the Silicon Valley Genealogy chart that traced the lineage of 66 semiconductor companies founded between 1959 and 1976 back [...]

Stuart Hill, an older gent who lives in the Shetland Isles, says he’s stumbled onto “a scheme that threatens our fundamental freedoms”: “the new ‘National Entitlement Card’ that provides access to free travel for the elderly and disabled, in fact marks the introduction of ID Cards by the back door.” He’s written up his research [...]