Goodbye Andreas

1946-2006

"If I take a lamp and shine it toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth... for understanding. Too often, we assume that the light on the wall is God, but the light is not the goal of the search, it is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it. Similarly, someone who does not search - who does not bring a lantern - sees nothing. What we perceive as God is the by-product of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light... pure and unblemished... not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe - God looks astonishingly like we do - or we turn to look at our shadow and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose, which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty and in all its flaws; and in so doing, better understand the world around us."

Watch more

Get Happy

kitty is pissed

Does the gun still have smoke?

Saddam said West faced WMD attack

Saddam Hussein told his aides that terrorists would attack the West using weapons of mass destruction - but said Iraq would not be involved.

According to hours of tape recordings made about 10 years ago and aired by ABC News, the Iraqi dictator was also briefed on how his country was defying United Nations resolutions by hiding its own WMD.

Saddam is heard saying: "Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans a long time before August 2 [a probable reference to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait] and told the British as well... that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction."

These would be hard to prevent, he said. "In the future, what would prevent a booby-trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or a chemical one?"

"This is coming, this story is coming but not from Iraq."

Tariq Aziz, a senior henchman, then chipped in with some supportive thoughts of his own.

"Sir, the biological is very easy to make. It's so simple that any biologist can make a bottle of germs and drop it into a water tower and kill 100,000. This is not done by a state. No need to accuse a state. An individual can do it."

The recordings were captured by the Americans and handed to the FBI for translation.

They were made public by one of the interpreters. American officials confirmed that the leaked material was genuine.

There are also details on the well-established campaign to mislead the UN over Saddam's WMD programmes.

In a tape dating from April or May 1995, Saddam is briefed on Iraq's biological weapons programme. The regime had always denied that any such scheme existed.

Charles Duelfer, who led the post-invasion weapons hunt, said the tapes backed his findings that Saddam was preparing to resume WMD production once international pressure dissipated.

article

ESB

I hear they use old people's pills for fuel...

I'm tired of this story already, but it deserves one shot

Russian MP Says Muslim Riots Were US Provocation

Echoing the comments of Liberal Democrats leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, another Russian MP has gone public with his contention that the recent Muslim riots were a staged US provocation in order to swing public opinion in Europe beind supporting an attack on Iran.

Gennady Zyuganov told a news conference that the publication of the offensive cartoons was a "well thought-out major provocation using newspapers and magazines to aggravate the situation, the relationship between the European countries and the Muslim world.”

Zyuganov (pictured below) said that the riots could only benefit the US and that they were "not advantageous for Europe but those who have raised this hysteria, insulted religious feelings of one and a half billion of Muslims, are pushing Europe into the arms of the American military clique.”

more...

TSA: Passenger Security Check Program Scrapped

WASHINGTON — An ambitious program to check every domestic airline passenger's name against government terrorist watch lists may not be immune from hackers, a congressional investigator said Thursday.

And because of security concerns, the government is going back to the drawing board with the program called Secure Flight after spending nearly four years and $150 million on it, the Senate Commerce Committee was told.

Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley did not say whether any security breaches had been discovered. An agency spokeswoman, Amy von Valter, told reporters, "We don't believe any passenger information has been compromised."

Cathleen Berrick, the investigator for the Government Accountability Office, said in written testimony that "TSA may not have proper controls in place to protect sensitive information."

More...

Ah. intolerance

Doesn't the white guy look a bit like opie from O&A?

Ticklish

click here

'Grandpa Munster' Al Lewis Dies

NEW YORK -- Al Lewis, the cigar-chomping patriarch of "The Munsters" whose work as a basketball scout, restaurateur and political candidate never eclipsed his role as Grandpa from the television sitcom, died after years of failing health. He was 82.

The actor was widely reported to have been born in 1910, but his son Ted Lewis said Saturday that his father was born in 1923.

Lewis, with his wife at his bedside, passed away Friday night, said Bernard White, program director at WBAI-FM, where the actor hosted a weekly radio program. White made the announcement on the air during the Saturday slot where Lewis usually appeared.

"To say that we will miss his generous, cantankerous, engaging spirit is a profound understatement," White said.

More...

Sad to see him go. He was the definative New Yorker. Now I have to change my death list. this guy's been on it for 5 years now.