dan flies

Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog: How much longer can we focus almost exclusively on funding the Leviathan while starving the SysAdmin force?: “Fighting now with F-15s we get catastrophic victories. What will we be shooting for with the F/A-22s? Absolutely pyrrhic ones?”

Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog: Bush is easily the most radical president since LBJ: This is a book-hawking op-ed from those two great Economist writers (“The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America”), and it’s a good one (they are both brilliant analysts). They call Bush’s first administration the equivalent of most presidents’ two administrations: not only did he remake American policy, he remade American conservatism.

From the terrorists: We are not feeling any strategic despair in Iraq—you are!: “This is the judgment from a pair of terrorism/Internet experts: when you track the chatter of the terror groups on the Web today, it’s clear that:

There has been a drastic shift in mood in the last two years. Radicals who were downcast and perplexed in 2002 about the rapid defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan now feel exuberant about the global situation and, above all, the events in Iraq.

LITITZ, Pa., Oct. 27 — The disappearance of nearly 400 tons of explosives in Iraq dominated the presidential race for a third straight day on Wednesday, as Democratic nominee John F. Kerry accused President Bush of evading responsibility and the Republican said Kerry was making unsubstantiated charges.

Missing Munitions Become Focus of Presidential Race (washingtonpost.com)

An excellent rescource for Tuesday, Nov. 2.

NYTimes.com 2004 Election Guide

This is a great election status guide. It will show some of the latest numbers throughout the country. click and see what is going on in House, Senate and the Presidental race.

NYTimes.com 2004 Election Guide

Business 2.0 – Microsoft’s Worst Nightmare: Blake Ross is lounging at his parents’ Florida Keys condo, thinking ahead to his first day back at Stanford. His goal for his sophomore year: nothing less than to ‘take back the Web’ from Microsoft (MSFT).

You might think the shy 19-year-old is outmatched. Think again. Ross, a software prodigy who interned at Netscape at age 14, is the lead architect behind Mozilla’s Firefox — a revolutionary new browser that’s catching on the way Mosaic did in 1993. In beta for the past four months, Firefox version 1.0 is set to be released in November. With that, Ross will issue the first truly formidable challenge to Internet Explorer that the world has seen in seven years.

PhysicsWeb – Physics World – The greatest equations ever (October 2004): “Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism and the Euler equation top a poll to find the greatest equations of all time. Robert P Crease discusses the results of his reader survey”

WASHINGTON – When hundreds of prisoners arrived at the American naval base in Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, in early 2002, the Bush administration laid out a straightforward plan: once the men were interrogated, the worst of the lot would be prosecuted before special military tribunals devised to bring terrorists to justice quickly.

A year later, with no trials yet in sight, some officials at the highest levels of the Bush administration began privately venting their frustration about both the slow pace of the Pentagon’s new courts and the soundness of their rules. Attorney General John Ashcroft was especially vocal.

‘Timothy McVeigh was one of the worst killers in U.S. history,’ Mr. Ashcroft said at one meeting of senior officials, according to two of those present. ‘But at least we had fair procedures for him.’

link to story:

NYTimes > Administration Officials Split Over Stalled Military Tribunals:

The New York Times > Week in Review > Jon Stewart Gets Serious: If You Interview Kissinger, Are You Still a Comedian?: “S Jon Stewart being coy?

In a recent dust-up with Tucker Carlson on CNN’s ‘Crossfire,’ Mr. Stewart defended a soft interview he conducted with John Kerry. He wasn’t a commentator on CNN, like Mr. Carlson, he said, but a host on ‘The Daily Show,’ which is on Comedy Central.

‘The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls,’ he said.

Whether he likes it or not, Mr. Stewart’s mix of news and satire has become so successful that the comedian is suddenly being criticized for not questioning his guests with Tim Russert-like intensity. (It has been that kind of campaign.)”

From the KQRS morning show, a new film from a Twin Cities film maker takes on Michael Moore and the movies he has made. The permier was last night and opens at 6 Mann Theatres in the Twin Cities. Check it out.

Michael Moore Hates America – A film by Michael Wilson

Here is the Page 2 story from ESPN with a small excerpt. Check it out. Go Sox!

ESPN.com: Page 2 – Losing baggage in the Bronx: “What can you say? What can you say about Curt Schilling? How many words are enough? 500? 2,000? 10,000? This wasn’t just an ankle sprain. His right sock was covered in blood, thanks to three sutures (!?!?!?!) holding together his dislocated ankle tendon. In Game 1, that same tendon was popping. This time it was leaking blood. He didn’t care. The team needed him.”