Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I think the flowchart below will be “version one” of the IAM voice tie-in… It's fairly basic, but it'll let you do the two things that I think are important “on the road” — you'll be able to send and receive messages (ie. IMs can be read to you, and you can send audio replies), as well as making audio updates to your page which people can hear as MP3 files.

Anyway, the contract to develop that will be solidified this week I hope (I'll do just the server-end, with most likely Derek tackling the client-end), meaning we'll have something up for BBQ season I hope. It'll probably start as a one line system, but will be designed to scale up should we need to.

Common quick questions:

• Will this be on a 1-800 number? No… It'll most likely be on a 416 area-code number to start. If it becomes popular we'll probably place the server or a second server in the US as well. Putting it on a toll-free number would be very expensive — just buy a phone card.
• Will I need a special internet cell phone? No… This isn't a WAP or wireless system. It's 100% voice and touch-tone driven and will work from any standard phone (even crappy payphones). There are some vague plans to add WAP features, but this is entirely unrelated.
• Will this cost anything to use? The hope is that it will be free to use (for active members). Assuming people don't abuse it, the costs of maintaining it shouldn't be that high; realistic estimates put it at about $2000 a year I think.

Anyway, I will of course keep everyone updated.

Getting hatemail about anti-murder views has become a part of my life (and many of yours as well I'm sure)… When I mentioned that yesterday I got flooded with messages urging me to keep making news posts, so, thank you to all the wonderful compassionate people out there that wrote me about it, and I will do my best.

For all you folks that think I'm just some crazy Canadian, German, Belizian, whatever, that's making anti-American statements (which is total bunk), don't worry… The US is now threatening Canada as well (more). Whatever you do, don't click the “more” links — they'll just make it harder for you to pretend you're right.

I'd first like to point out a couple stories that are just getting back page mention but I believe may be very important. First of all, Kim Jong II is missing and has not been seen in public for 44 days now. There's nothing to suggest that he's dead, but his recent missing of parliament implies something very big is up… War preparations being the most likely (North Korea has been told by the US that it's “next”, among others).

The other story set that deserves attention is that the US has again confirmed that Russia will be cut out of the massive oil profits in post-war Iraq. That is, all the oil contracts will go to US firms, and any existing Russian contracts will be terminated and not honored (more), in effect putting the US in a position of committing international piracy. At a press conference two days ago, Bush refused to rule out nuclear strikes on Iraq, and not long after, Russia test-launched one of its ICBM's… A missile with no purpose other than a massive thermonuclear strike on the US (more). China is continuing work on its own similar programs, preparing offenses for what can only be used in the conversion of America into the world's largest gravel pit.

Still loving war?

Don't worry, at least you can still enjoy French's Mustard (more)… After all, “There's nothing French about French's Mustard… An American Icon.” I know it's been commented on to death, but why does no one notice the irony in naming “French” fries “freedom” fries? Why not “traitor” fries? You see, I thought “freedom” was a good thing, not an insult… But I guess if you're part of the Bush camp, you see freedom as an insult.

It goes along way to explain why “Iraqi freedom” comes in the form of JDAMs.

And as you know, in a few days, maybe more, maybe less, the big JDAM bombs start dropping on Baghdad. Baghdad is not a collection of troops hiding in mud huts in the desert. Baghdad is a civilian metropolis that looks pretty much just like Miami. Each B-2 bomber carries 16 of these bombs, and when they explode, they kill everyone within about 400 feet, and injure people up to 3500 feet away. (more)… And if the Iraqis really are using cheap GPS blockers, these bombs will not be dropping accurately (how-to). Even if you support this war, do you support it at this cost?

Syria, Iran, and North Korea have all been told they're next, especially since some of them may be at least mildly assisting Iraq (more). Now, as much as everyone is very impressed at just how much resistance Iraq is putting up, and while there's a great deal of debate as to how long it will take (and how costly and how bloody as well), there is not much doubt that Iraq will eventually be defeated by the US invaders.

However… The side effect of the resistance is that Saddam has been successfully rebranded from moderate dictator to genuine Arab hero (more), and sympathies are so high in the other Arab nations that guerrilla troops have been flowing across the border to fight to defend Iraq (more). While Syria and Iraq got only a very watered down pledge of support from the League of Arab Nations (more), support is growing quickly. Pretend this is all just a game for a moment. If you were those nations, next in line for attack, what would your strategy be? Let the US pick you off one-by-one, or stand together and defend the region? What happens if those nations do decide to stand together?

One of the strangest things about this war, that I've seen pretty much no one in the mainstream media mention is “where is Saddam's air force?” (more). There are US claims that the pilots have simply refused to fly, but given that every other US claim along those lines have turned out to be false (and are based on thirty year out of date intelligence), I wouldn't consider that a “done deal”. It's very hard to guess exactly what Saddam has, but the best estimate is that he has at least a half dozen bombers, about three hundred fighters and ground attack jets, along with assorted recon planes, choppers, transports, and training jets (more). They're likely too old (twenty year old Migs, etc.) to provide serious resistance to American jets (twenty year old F-series jets, although with modern electronics), but they will be able to massacre US troops with them given the right kind of surprise.

Anyway, will Baghdad be easy? We were told on day one that Basra fell without resistance and was almost immediately under US control, and on the whole the US media has continued to toe that line. But according to the British media, “Basra is 'clearly nowhere near' under Allied forces' control” (more), nor are the other “small” targets. It's becoming clear that because of the nature of the fighting going on that these targets aren't getting taken without massive civilian casualties. I realize that warmongers will claim that it's “Saddam's fault” because he's using dirty tactics, but the fact is the the US is an invading force with at least thousands of times the military assets of Iraq, leaving Saddam with little other options.

Getting back to Baghdad, Iraq has promised the “mother of all battles” and Bush is threatening an attack that will “kill the very Iraqis [they] hope to liberate” (more). Reuters reports that the UK believes that the US simply does not have the strength to launch a street-level fight in Baghdad (more), meaning that air attacks will be needed. I understand that sometimes a “precision bomb” will kill innocent people, such as the 50 people killed yesterday in a Baghdad market (more), causing grieving parents who formerly had no problems with the US to curse America and pledge themselves to its downfall (more), but….

…like I said, I understand when a precision bomb is off by a hundred meters. You could probably even convince me it was “normal” if it was off by a half-mile… But realize that these “precision” strikes are missing their targets by hundreds of miles, often landing in the wrong country. Recent strikes on Iraq have “accidentally” blown up a mall in Kuwait (more) and now a second missile has fallen into Turkey (more). These nations are all powder-kegs — dropping cruise missiles on them is going to make the US long-game in the area almost impossible. Also, it's not just the missiles that aren't getting to their targets — critical supplies needed by the troops aren't getting to them either (more). Remember, if you're a guerrilla force, you don't attack the main fronts. You attack the supply lines, starving the fronts, and supplying yourselves in the process.

Anyway, on reading stories like these, you need to ask yourself about the quality of the media coming out of Iraq since we keep getting told about victories that never happened… I understand that the “victor writes the history” but I'm pretty sure you do that after the war, not before (how many times has Umm Qasr been taken and un-taken now? Ten?). The BBC has issued a warning to its staff because of the misinformation being given to them by the US military (more) and seem to be getting tired of being played as pawns in a propaganda game. One senior BBC official said,

"We're absolutely sick and tired of putting things out and finding they're not true. The misinformation in this war is far and away worse than any conflict I've covered, including the first Gulf war and Kosovo," said a senior BBC news source. On Saturday we were told they'd taken Basra and Nassiriya and then subsequently found out neither were true. We're getting more truth out of Baghdad than the Pentagon at the moment. Not because Baghdad is putting out pure and morally correct information but because they're less savvy about it, I think."

[Imagine the war has ended]. The people of Iraq are waiting, and beginning to chafe under American occupation. Across the border, in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, our conquering presence has brought street protests and escalating violence. The United Nations and NATO are in disarray, so America is pretty much on its own. Hemmed in by budget deficits at home and limited financial assistance from allies, the Bush administration is talking again about tapping Iraq's oil reserves to offset some of the costs of the American presence -- talk that is further inflaming the region.

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence has discovered fresh evidence that, prior to the war, Saddam moved quantities of biological and chemical weapons to Syria. When Syria denies having such weapons, the administration starts massing troops on the Syrian border. But as they begin to move, there is an explosion: Hezbollah terrorists from southern Lebanon blow themselves up in a Baghdad restaurant, killing dozens of Western aid workers and journalists. Knowing that Hezbollah has cells in America, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge puts the nation back on Orange Alert. FBI agents start sweeping through mosques, with a new round of arrests of Saudis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, and Yemenis.

To most Americans, this would sound like a frightening state of affairs, the kind that would lead them to wonder how and why we had got ourselves into this mess in the first place. But to the Bush administration hawks who are guiding American foreign policy, this isn't the nightmare scenario. It's everything going as anticipated.