Month: November 2006

Qaeda Leaders Losing Sway Over Militants

Qaeda Leaders Losing Sway Over Militants, Study Finds – New York Times
“The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely and more anonymously in the Internet age, raising the likelihood of surprise attacks by unknown groups whose members and supporters may be difficult to pinpoint,” concluded a National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism completed this year.

The report found that radical Islam, sometimes called Salafism, is so deeply embedded in the Arab world that Salafis now constitute a “majority or significant portion” of the Muslim population in the Middle East and North Africa.

The study found that the scholarly work of a group of Saudi and Jordanian clerics — most notably Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, (photo) a Jordanian — seems more likely to influence the next generation of Islamic militants.

“Western governments have neither the local credibility nor the cultural expertise necessary to diminish the popularity of Salafism,” the study found.

The report said most Salafis are not jihadis who are committed to violence, and some outside experts said the spread of radical ideology in cyberspace could lead to opportunities for Western efforts to exploit divisions within the movement.

The very Internet, which was developed to help us to survive a Cold War nuclear attack, is now the platform-of-choice for waging this new global Holy War against us.

600′ Mega-Tsunami?

Did an Asteroid Impact Cause an Ancient Tsunami? – New York Times
A large asteroid or comet, the kind that could kill a quarter of the world’s population, smashed into the Indian Ocean 4,800 years ago, producing a tsunami at least 600 feet high, about 13 times as big as the one that inundated Indonesia nearly two years ago.

Bruce Masse, an environmental archaeologist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He thinks he can say precisely when the comet fell: on the morning of May 10, 2807 B.C.

Dr. Masse analyzed 175 flood myths from around the world, and tried to relate them to known and accurately dated natural events like solar eclipses and volcanic eruptions. Among other evidence, he said, 14 flood myths specifically mention a full solar eclipse, which could have been the one that occurred in May 2807 B.C.

Half the myths talk of a torrential downpour, Dr. Masse said. A third talk of a tsunami. Worldwide they describe hurricane force winds and darkness during the storm. All of these could come from a mega-tsunami.

Of course, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, Dr. Masse said, “and we’re not there yet.”

Wanted in 2008: child of ’60s shaped by ’70s

Scripps Howard News Service
Barack Obama should run for president in 2008 for all the tactical reasons cited by pundits, but primarily because the baby boomers need serious competition from “below” on the vision thing. It’s unhealthy to have so much of our political and strategic discourse dominated by the ’60s generation.

Let me tell you why.

Morris Massey, an expert on conflict between generations, pioneered the argument that “what you are is where you were when …,” meaning all of us reach a point in life where we discover a world larger than ourselves. At that point, we become cognizant of the morals we’ve developed across our early years, and those morals _ or worldview _ tend to persist across our adult years.

For most people, that fateful transition occurs in the teenage years, which explains our tendency to stick with the popular music of those years throughout adulthood. Admit it … you stayed cool enough across your 20s and maybe you faked it deep into your 30s, but then you woke up in your 40s and realized you absolutely hate your kids’ music!

Don’t worry. It happens to everyone.

Dubai Swats Pests Ogling Beach Beauties

Dubai Swats Pests Ogling Beach Beauties – New York Times
As winter arrives in this Persian Gulf city, the masses are thronging by the tens of thousands to its white sandy beaches, wearing, in an unlikely exercise in maritime coexistence, everything from black flowing abayas to slinky bikinis.

Thronging right alongside them are Dubai’s “beach pests,” the gangs of men who trudge through the sand, fully dressed, to ogle the women.

Mostly laborers at the front lines of Dubai’s building boom — toiling on manmade islands, innumerable high-rises, even a dome in the desert for the world’s largest indoor snow park — they flood the beaches every weekend to leer at women, photograph them and occasionally try to grope them in the water.

First Muslim in Congress is reluctant trailblazer

First Muslim in Congress is reluctant trailblazer
“I’m not a Muslim leader,” the incoming Democratic congressman said Thursday in a radio interview. “I’m a politician who happens to be a Muslim.”

Elected Tuesday night as the representative from Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, Ellison, 43, becomes not just the first Muslim in Congress but also the first black congressman ever in Minnesota. Running in the deeply Democratic district, which includes Minneapolis and several inner-ring suburbs, Ellison focused not on his religion but on a progressive agenda that included calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and universal health coverage.

Mr. Ellison’s success was front-page news in several of the Arab world’s largest newspapers and high in the lineup on television news programs. (Video of his victory speech)

Giant Sucking Sound: Perot Systems Outsources to Mexico

Giant Sucking Sound: Perot Systems Outsources to Mexico – Management News by InformationWeek
When billionaire H. Ross Perot ran for president in 1992, he warned that the torrent of American jobs headed south of the border as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement would create “a giant sucking sound.” On Friday, the outsourcing company founded by Perot, where he serves as chairman emeritus, disclosed that it’s opening a new service center in Mexico.

Outsourcing critics will be quick to point out the irony in Perot outsourcing jobs to Mexico, while advocates of so-called global sourcing would surely argue that U.S. business investment in Mexico will help to relieve the strain of illegal cross-border immigration as more Mexicans are able to find work at home.

What’s with all this Spam?

networkworld.com/news/2006/110806-image-spam
This spike in spam levels is a result of a new generation of viruses and zombies that can infect PCs more quickly and are harder to get rid of. In its October report, messaging security vendor MessageLabs says the spike is largely due to two Trojan programs, Warezov and SpamThru.

Others say a new breed of spam messages called image spam — messages with text embedded in an image file that evade spam filters, which can’t recognize the words inside the image — is responsible.

At North Shore-LIJ Heath System, a network of hospitals based in Great Neck, N.Y., with about 12,000 e-mail users, there’s been an 80% increase in spam received in the last 45 days, says system architect Steve Young, and most of it is image spam.

“On a scale of one to 10, I would rate image spam as an 8” in terms of how troublesome it is, says Paul Judge, CTO of Secure Computing. “This is because spammers have leapfrogged from hiding text within other text to now moving it to a place that is unreachable by most antispam systems.”

Wave-powered ‘ducks’ could purify seawater

Wave-powered ‘ducks’ could purify seawater – tech – 07 November 2006 – New Scientist Tech
Ocean waves could provide an energy-efficient way to desalinate seawater, say UK researchers. While conventional purification plants have high energy demands, the rocking motion of floating buoys could be used to drive a pump system for desalination.

The hollow core of each duck is half-filled with freshwater, to avoid corrosion and act as ballast, with the air above divided by a central section. To start working, the ballast water must be pre-heated to about 100°C but the whole system is insulated so that it only gradually loses heat and only needs to be refilled about once a month.

In Ancient Fossils, Seeds of a New Debate on Warming

In Ancient Fossils, Seeds of a New Debate on Warming – New York Times
The Phanerozoic dispute, fought mainly in scholarly journals and scientific meetings, has occurred in isolation from the public debate on global warming. Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth” makes no mention of it. Highlighting the gap, the two sides clash on how much the Earth would warm today if carbon dioxide concentrations double from preindustrial levels, as scientists expect. Many climatologists see an increase of as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit. The skeptics, drawing on Phanerozoic data, tend to see far less, perhaps 2 or 3 degrees.