One Last October Surprise: Sadaam Claims Iraq Accepted the Ultimatum Before the War

It is amazing how many people are trying to influence the USA election this year. Now a ex-Sadaam official is claiming that Iraq accepted the U.N. Ultimatum before the war, but the Marines cut the phone cord never let the announcement out.

Couple of hours before the expiration of the Bush ultimatum, Saddam ordered Colonel Amer, his strongman, to facilitate Shaltout's broadcast of the communique. Colonel Amer ordered Allaa Mecky, the head of the Iraqi Channel 2 television, to accompany Shaltout and help him broadcast the communique."
It was very late at night and CNN in Baghdad was closed. So they went to al-Jazeera, and Shaltout told al-Jazeera Washington correspondent Hafez Almirazy on the air that he had the Iraqi government's official reply to the Bush ultimatum. Moments after Mirazy asked him for a brief, the plug was pulled on the transmission. Shaltout has a copy of that interrupted broadcast.
Shaltout said that when the Americans arrived in Baghdad, he offered his assistance to U.S. military officials. Instead he was arrested by Marines who went to his hotel suite taking his documents.

I guess 8 PM on October 31 still counts as an "October Surprise." Thing is, even if true it won't change any minds. Sadaam had run out of chances years previously.

More voting machine madness

Texas is the next site of voting bugs and conspiracy theorists.

Early voting runs through Friday, November 3rd.
KFDM continues to get complaints from Jefferson County voters who say the electronic voting machines are not registering their votes correctly.
Friday night, KFDM reported about people who had cast straight Democratic ticket ballots, but the touch-screen machines indicated they had voted a straight Republican ticket.
Some of those voters including Lamar University professor, Dr. Bruce Drury, believe the problem is a programming error.

Yes, it is going to be an interesting week until November 7 is over.

Finding Joy in All Days

I might actually buy a tablet PC when it can do this!

This is a fascinating little video on the future of interface design. It is a bit like the interface from the movie "Minority Report", but realized in a non-Hollywood form. I suspect that we'll be seeing a Mac with this interface sooner than you might expect, because it does "Just work".

And so it begins...

Florida is having problems with their voting machines already. If you thought the 2000 election was "fun", wait to see what the conspiracy theorists come up with this time. Here's hoping the issues really are "rare" and "scattered" and no one really has cause to challenge the results. Otherwise, we are in for trouble and a nation which feels democracy itself is broken.

Giving the lunch lady the finger

When I was in college I frequently was the guy responsible for making sure everybody swiped their ID card to go up to the cafeteria. This would have made my life way easier. Finger print scanners have been around for a while, but I've not heard of using them in this way. Having your finger print attached to an account in order to pay for your lunch is an ingenious use of the technology. I can understand how it would help with the rush - as well as the number of people that will always forget their ID cards.

Honesty gets Bill into trouble again

Bill, Cosby that is, has stepped into hot water yet again for speaking the truth about race relations - - particularly the education of black students. Cosby has been on the war path as of late about how black culture has let down blacks. He seems to be of the opinion that it's not white's responsibility to make sure black students grow up to be profitable members of society - in fact it's the parents responsibility (woah, what a concept). He's obviously stepping on a lot of toes, particularly the affirmative action types, which will always get a person into trouble.

Interestingly there are several prominent blacks that are criticizing the black community within America for squandering the benefits brought by the civil rights movements. Another theme, from the same people, is how white (read liberal) guilt has handicapped the black community from reaching the heights that they have the potential to reach. It's very interesting that there seems to be a quite conservative core within the black community developing. I hope they succeed, because I think that would be really a good thing for the community.