9/11 Panel Casts Doubt on Iraq-al-Qaida Link

June 16, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Politics

(... at least Voice of America found this newsworthy)
Independent investigators said Wednesday they have found no evidence that Saddam Hussein cooperated with al-Qaida terrorists to target the United States. The conclusion came in a report released by the independent commission probing the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
The bipartisan, independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks said Osama bin Laden met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Sudan in 1994.
But the commission report released Wednesday cast fresh doubt on the alleged links between al-Qaida and Iraq prior to the 2001 terrorist attacks.

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No al Qaeda, Iraq cooperation

June 16, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Politics

(... although CNN has listed this only as a sub topic of the original article. I suppose it wasn't very important to hear that Cheney is fibbing)
The panel said it found "no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."
The report contradicts statements from the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda.
In response, a senior administration official traveling with President Bush in Tampa, Florida, said, "We stand by what Powell and Tenet have said," referring to previous statements by Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tenet that described such links.
Bush and Vice President Cheney have made comments in recent days alleging such ties.

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Tornado Golf

June 15, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Local

Was thinking of hitting the driving range yesterday after work, but the weather started getting rough. I drove along Northfield...

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Bug causes Linux to crash

June 15, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Hacking

Running a simple C program crashes the Linux kernel. It does not require root access, but shell access is required. It affects both 2.4.2x and 2.6.x kernels on the x86 architecture
The flaw was by accident discovered by Stian Skjelstad while he was doing some code tests. He was quite surprised when I discovered that the code he was trying froze his machine. He reported it to the Linux-kernel mailing list and the gcc bugzilla 2004-06-09.

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Moore fights “Fahrenheit 9/11” rating

June 15, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Film

Filmmaker Michael Moore and distributors of his anti-Iraq War documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" are contesting the restrictive rating it received from the Motion Picture Association of America because of its strong language and violence.
The MPAA, which represents major studios and administers its classification system, gave the film an R rating due to "violent and disturbing images and for language", a spokesman for the Washington-based organisation said on Monday.
An "R" rating prohibits anyone under 17 years of age from seeing the film unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.
Moore's film, a scathing critique of U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy and the U.S. war in Iraq, is slated for U.S. commercial release on June 25 in 500 to 1,000 cinemas, making it one of the biggest openings ever for a documentary.

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Cheney claims ties between Saddam, al Qaeda

June 15, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Politics

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Saddam Hussein had "long-established ties" with al Qaeda, an assertion that has been repeatedly challenged by some policy experts and lawmakers.
The vice president offered no details backing up his claim of a link between Saddam and al Qaida.
...
The State Department said last week it was wrong in stating that terrorism declined worldwide last year in a report that the Bush administration initially cited as evidence it was succeeding against terrorism, Graham noted. Both the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply, the department acknowledged.

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Squid NTLM Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

June 15, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Hacking

Remote exploitation of a buffer overflow vulnerability in Squid Web Proxy Cache could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code. Squid Web Proxy Cache supports Basic, Digest and NTLM authentication.
A remote attacker can compromise a target system if Squid Proxy is configured to use the NTLM authentication helper. The attacker can send an overly long password to overflow the buffer and execute arbitrary code.

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Good kite-flying weather

June 14, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Personal

Hot and sunny today, but really windy, and it looks like another storm is on its way in. Good kite-flying...

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Bratt ‘wasn’t white enough for Troy’

June 14, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Film

Benjamin Bratt is not happy with British actors after being rejected for the film Troy because he wasn't white enough.
"About a year and a half ago, I read a wonderful script called Troy and, though the leads were set, even the tertiary roles, smaller in size, were of interest to me. I succeeded in getting a meeting, but was told that I was 'too brown'.

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Scientists devise perfect joke formula

June 14, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Humour

The mathematical equation for the perfect joke has been revealed by scientists.
The formula - c=(m+nO)/p - was worked out by Helen Pilcher and Timandra Harkness.
As well as being scientists, the pair are also stand-up comedians who make up the Comedy Research Project. They run this in collaboration with the Science Museum's Dana Centre in London.

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