The Associated Press: US Signs Maritime Pact With Mongolia

The Associated Press: US Signs Maritime Pact With Mongolia: "US Signs Maritime Pact With Mongolia By MATTHEW LEE – 1 day ago WASHINGTON (AP) — Somebody should have looked at a map.

The State Department with great fanfare on Tuesday signed an agreement with landlocked Mongolia that will allow Mongolian ships to be boarded and searched if they are suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction.

This despite the fact that Mongolia — a vast land that's home to the Gobi Desert, windswept steppes and largely populated by nomadic yak herders — has no navy at all and lies thousands of miles from open waters.

Still, its tiny merchant marine is recognized as one of 32 'flag of convenience' countries by international maritime authorities.

The U.S.-Mongolia shipboarding pact, the eighth signed between the United States and usually coastal or island nations, is designed to cover those Mongolian-flagged ships in international waters that might be used by other countries, notably North Korea, to disguise cargos of illegal weaponry, U.S. officials said.

Asked what Washington hoped to achieve with the agreement, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said 'I'll have to check,' but stressed it was a key part of the 'Proliferation Security Initiative' that aims to halt trade in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Although Mongolia has only 62 ships registered under the "flag" program, according to the latest edition of the CIA World Factbook, officials said it is important to sign up as many countries as possible no matter how modest their fleet.

The seven countries that have signed agreements before Tuesday account for nearly 10,000 registered ships and include the top three "flag of convenience" nations — Panama, Liberia and Malta — as well as Cyprus and the Marshall Islands, which are both in the top 10, according to the State Department.

Taking a Whack Against Comcast - washingtonpost.com

By Neely Tucker Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 18, 2007

Sometimes truly American virtues arise in outlaws who -- by dint of heroic but questionable endeavors -- display the mettle of the national character.

For instance: The Dillinger Gang, robbing banks (and destroying mortgages) when banks were foreclosing on the poor. Stephanie St. Clair, matron of the numbers racket during the Harlem Renaissance, striking a (dubious) blow for both gender and racial equality. Junior Johnson bootlegging liquor during Prohibition (the benefits of which were self-evident).

Fear not, fellow Americans! In these dark days of war, pestilence and Paris Hilton, a new hero has arisen. She is none other than 75-year-old Mona "The Hammer" Shaw, who took the aforementioned implement to her local Comcast office in Manassas to settle a score, and boy, did she!

Comcast Blocking extends past Torrents.

In the wake of several reports showing that Comcast is targeting BitTorrent traffic with forged TCP reset packets, new evidence demonstrates that Comcast is targeting Gnutella and Lotus Notes, too. Wait... Lotus Notes?

read more | digg story

Revenge of the Smart Playlist

Revenge of the Smart Playlist: 5 tricks for packrats & power users

Merlin Mann | Nov 10 2006

The success of yesterday's post on the basics of Smart Playlists makes me think you might enjoy seeing a few more. So, today I want to show you how to get control of a very large iTunes library — to save space by getting rid of stuff you're not enjoying or listening to, as well as bubble up stuff you may not even realize you like.

If you are an iTunes packrat but feel overwhelmed by your collection (or are simply running out of drive space), try these recipes for Smart Playlists to help you get it together.

http://www.43folders.com/2006/11/10/smart-playlists-for-packrats

White House Doesn't Return Sanchez's Fire

ABCNews -- Faced with sharp criticism from a former U.S. commander in Iraq, the White House has chosen not to return fire.
Responding to accusations from retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, Kate Starr, spokeswoman for the National Security Council said, "We appreciate his service to the country."

Speaking Friday to the Military Reporters and Editors' Conference just a few miles from the Pentagon, Sanchez, who commanded American forces in Iraq for a year after the March 2003 invasion, lashed out at the administration's strategy and competence. He called the Bush plan for war "catastrophically flawed." "There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders," Sanchez said

Gore hopes Nobel win aids global warming fight

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Former Vice President Al Gore, newly named co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, said day he hopes the honor will "elevate global consciousness" about the challenges of global warming.

Gore, whose documentary An Inconvenient Truth, won an Academy Award earlier this year, was awarded the prize earlier in the day along with an international network of scientists for spreading awareness of man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting it.