[Quote:]

After 18 hours of waiting for the airport to open, passengers on the first flight out of the Maldives into Singapore landed at Changi Airport at 12.30 am on Tuesday.

The Maldives government has declared a state of emergency after Sunday’s tsunami waves covered two-thirds of the capital in water.

An idyllic holiday turned into a living nightmare for the Devlin family when tsunami waves more than a metre high swept through the resort where they were staying.

“It looked like a tornado had hit. The entire area around the pool had been completely destroyed, and buildings, walls had been knocked down,” Michael Devlin, a Singapore permanent resident, told Channel NewsAsia.

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“The water just came behind the third wave, full power. Everyone was running; the whole deck around the pool was lifted off; you couldn’t see anyone at the pool who was originally there. I ran out and tried to get my kids but I couldn’t see them. I had no idea where everyone had gone, everyone had just been washed off the pool house.”

Said 11-year-old Tyler Devlin, “My friend was behind me and he was screaming and it sounded as if I was never ever going to see him again. I got upstairs and my dad was still downstairs and he thought that we were all swept out to sea; then my friend’s dad, he told us we were all safe.”

Fortunately for the Devlin family, they found each other shortly after the third tsunami wave receded.

“We feel really really lucky because we saw some of the devastation and my heart really goes out to them,” said Mr Devlin’s wife, Crys Won.

But for some in the Maldives, the fate of their loved ones remains a mystery.

Most of the houses that line the Maldives’ beaches are built on stilts; when the powerful waves came, those houses just collapsed.

[Quote:]

Het college van Opta, de Onafhankelijke Post en Telecommunicatie Autoriteit, heeft de eerste boetes opgelegd aan verzenders van spamberichten. Het gaat om spam verzonden per email en per sms. De hoogste boete is in totaal EURO 42.500. Naast de bestrijding van Nederlandse spam heeft Opta de afgelopen maanden ook het initiatief genomen de samenwerking met Europese toezichthouders te verbeteren.

De thans beboete spammers zijn natuurlijke personen en kleine ondernemingen, waarvan Opta verder geen persoonsgegevens verstrekt. In de meeste gevallen bestaan de totale boetes uit afzonderlijke boetes voor de overtreding van het versturen van spam, het achterwege laten van de juiste (adres)gegevens van de verzender van het bericht en het niet opnemen van een afmeldingsmogelijkheid. Opta is in actie gekomen op basis van klachten die zijn ingediend op de website www.spamklacht.nl. Naast elektronisch en juridisch onderzoek heeft Opta een tweetal invallen gedaan om gegevens en apparatuur te vorderen.

[Quote:]

In separate events Monday that clouded prospects for next month’s Iraqi elections, a car bomber killed 15 people in an attack against the main Shiite Muslim party and the most prominent Sunni Muslim party said it was dropping out of the race.

The suicide bomb exploded outside the Baghdad residence of a key Shiite political leader, Abdul Aziz Hakim, according to a U.S. military spokesman.

Hakim is the first candidate listed on the United Iraqi Coalition, the slate that consolidates electoral hopes for the country’s Shiite majority for the Jan. 30 election.

He has headed the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq since his older brother, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, was killed by a car bomb in August 2003.

Shortly after the blast, the largest Sunni Muslim political party in the country announced that it was withdrawing from the ballot, citing lack of security. Party Secretary-General Tarek al-Hashemi acknowledged the withdrawal will leave minority Sunnis underrepresented in the elected assembly but added, “We believe when a house is on fire, you should first put out the fire before working on decorating and arranging it.”

[Quote:]

But voter registration in Sunni areas has lagged far behind registration in other parts of Iraq, according to Iraq’s top election official, Hussain Hindawi. Voters have not been able to register at all in Anbar province, home to the restive cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. Candidates have proved scarce as well: The 41 openings on Anbar’s proposed provincial council have drawn only 50 candidates.

In another troubling sign, Western diplomats noted that preliminary indicators of voter participation nationwide are markedly lower than expected, judging by the sluggish early rate at which Iraqis have offered corrections to voter rolls.

[Quote:]

The CIA is refusing to disclose any information about abuse of detainees in Afghanistan and at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, invoking a legal precedent that involved a secret project by billionaire Howard Hughes to recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine in the 1970s.

The CIA allegedly oversaw interrogations of top-level detainees, and some investigators think the agency’s tactics are at the heart of the question of whether the Bush administration has authorized torture. But nearly all the disclosures concerning abuses have come from other agencies, including the Pentagon and the FBI.

The CIA traditionally has invoked special protections aimed at shielding its intelligence-gathering operations, but the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing to obtain the records, and some independent observers think the agency’s insistence on secrecy is inappropriate in this instance.

Megan Lewis, a lawyer for the ACLU, said she would file an objection in early January to the CIA’s efforts to avoid scrutiny.

The CIA asserts that it is protected according to the submarine case, in which a judge allowed the agency to neither confirm nor deny that it possessed records of a deep-sea mining project thought to be a front to recover a sunken Soviet submarine. The CIA has refused to acknowledge whether it has documents and photographs related to abuse of detainees.

[Quote:]

I can make it so secure that it doesn’t work, or I can have 100 percent compatibility.

It’s difficult to describe what’s wrong with this picture. I mean, I could simply say Microsoft is living by the “Tyranny of the ‘or’”. We can have security OR compatability. We can have low prices OR product quality… etc.. which is Bullshit if you have Vision. But then I’d get the comment that with Windows being the way it is, these guys had no other choice, and there would be some truth in that. But Microsoft spent too spent too much time trying to tie-up market-share, instead of architecting and designing their products to help clients. By (inadvertently) harming their clients like that, they’ve built a monster, and now, short of scrapping most of their work, there is no way they will ever deliver anything robust and secure.

And this article, to me, illustrates this will never happen. As I said, it’s difficult to describe why other than just saying “mindset!” and leaving it at that. The article offers an interesting insight into the Microsoft development process.

Oh, and one more thing. I distinctly remember Bill Gates stating “the entire company” was working on security, while this article says SP2 was just 15 guys. Hmm…

[Quote:]

The devastating megathrust earthquake of December 26th, 2004 occurred on the interface of the India and Burma plates and was cause by the release of stresses that develop as the India plate subducts beneath the overriding Burma plate. The India plate begins its decent into the mantle at the Sunda trench which lies to the west of the earthquake’s epicenter. The trench is the surface expression of the India-Burma plate interface.

The tectonics of the region is complex and involves the interaction of the Australian, Sunda and Eurasian plates in addition to the India and Burma plate. The India and Australia plates move northeastwards at a rate of about 6 cm/year relative to the Burma plate. This results in oblique convergence at the Sunda trench. Some of this oblique motion is accommodated on the right-lateral transform faults and rifts that separate the Burma and Sunda plates.

Preliminary locations of larger aftershocks following the megathrust earthquake show that approximately 1000 km of the plate boundary slipped as a result of the earthquake. Aftershocks are distributed along much of the shallow plate interface and primarily extend northwards of the epicenter to the Andaman Islands.

The worlds largest recorded earthquakes were all megathrust events and occur where one tectonic plate subducts beneath another. These include: the magnitude 9.5 1960 Chile earthquake, the magnitude 9.2 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake, the magnitude 9.1 1957 Andreanof, Alaska earthquake, and the magnitude 9.0 1952 Kamchatka earthquake. As with the recent event, megathrust earthquakes often generate large tsunamis that can cause damage over a much wider area than is directly effected by ground shaking near the earthquake’s rupture.

[Quote:]

Although waves swamped parts of the Sumatran coast and nearby islands within minutes, there would have been time to alert more distant communities if the Indian Ocean had a warning network like that in the Pacific, said Dr. Tad Murty, an expert on the region’s tsunamis who is affiliated with the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

Within 15 minutes of the earthquake, in fact, scientists running the existing tsunami warning system for the Pacific, where such waves are far more common, sent an alert from their Honolulu hub to 26 participating countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, that destructive waves might be generated by the Sumatra tremors.

But there was no way to convey that information speedily to countries or communities an ocean away, said Dr. Laura S. L. Kong, a Commerce Department seismologist and director of the International Tsunami Information Center, an office run under the auspices of the United Nations.

Phone calls were hurriedly made to countries in the Indian Ocean danger zone, she said, but not with the speed that comes from pre-established emergency planning.

Video grab shows a tidal wave in Penang after tsunami waves hit southern Asia on Sunday in this amateur video footage taken December 26, 2004. REUTERS/Amateur Video Grab

[Quote:]

In the Maldives a British tourist died of a heart attack when tidal waves struck the island paradise, flooding the capital, Male, and shutting the airport.

The unidentified tourist collapsed as the waves crashed into his resort, sweeping away 50 water cabanas built on stilts, an official said.

The Maldivian Government said in a statement there were several casualties, but gave no details. The situation of tens of thousands of tourists was not immediately known.

Two-thirds of Male, home to about a third of the country’s 330,000 population, was under about 1.2m of water.

“From about 9am (local time), the capital, Male, and other parts of the country have been flooded by the tsunami caused by the earthquakes in the eastern Indian Ocean,” the government statement said.

Maldives is a cluster of 1192 coral islands scattered 800km across the Equator and is vulnerable to any rise in sea levels.

[Quote:]

Per 1 januari 2005 geldt in Nederland een algemene identificatieplicht. Elke burger moet zich voortaan legitimeren zodra een politieambtenaar daar om vraagt. Daar moet zo’n politieambtenaar dan wel een goede reden voor hebben, maar ‘het handhaven van de openbare orde’ is, volgens de nieuwe wet, reden genoeg. En dat is een erg ruim begrip.

De politie is niet altijd je beste vriend. In landen waar al langer een algemene identificatieplicht geldt, worden mensen met een kleurtje en ‘alternatieve’ jongeren opvallend vaak staande gehouden. Het is hinderlijk en vernederend als je telkens je papieren moet tonen, alleen maar omdat je uit een ander deel van de wereld komt of er een andere levensstijl op nahoudt.

We moeten voorkomen dat ook in Nederland ‘overijverige’ dienders misbruik gaan maken van hun nieuwe bevoegdheden. De nieuwe wet kunnen we voorlopig niet ongedaan maken, maar we kunnen wel iets anders doen.

Ook politiemensen zijn wettelijk verplicht zich te legitimeren… als jij daar om vraagt.

Dat recht heb je.

[Quote:]

Following inquiries by ABC News, the Pentagon has dropped plans to force a severely wounded U.S. soldier to repay his enlistment bonus after injuries had forced him out of the service.

Army Spc. Tyson Johnson III of Mobile, Ala., who lost a kidney in a mortar attack last year in Iraq, was still recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he received notice from the Pentagon’s own collection agency that he owed more than $2,700 because he could not fulfill his full 36-month tour of duty.

Johnson said the Pentagon listed the bonus on his credit report as an unpaid government loan, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment or obtain credit cards.

“Oh man, I felt betrayed,” Johnson said. “I felt, like, oh, my heart dropped.”

Pentagon officials said they were unaware of the case until it was brought to their attention by ABC News. “Some faceless bureaucrat” was responsible for Johnson’s predicament, said Gen. Franklin “Buster” Hagenbeck, a three-star general and the Army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel.

“It’s absolutely unacceptable. It’s intolerable,” said Hagenbeck. “I mean, I’m incredulous when I hear those kinds of things. I just can’t believe that we allow that to happen. And we’re not going to let it happen.”

[..]

“Guys I’ve met, talking to people, they’d be better off financially for their families if they had died as opposed to coming back maimed,” said Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly, who served as a civil affairs specialist for the Army while in Iraq.

On July 14, 2003, the Abilene, Texas, native had been on his way to a meeting about rebuilding schools in Iraq when his unarmored Humvee was blown up. A piece of shrapnel the size of a TV remote took his right leg off, below the knee, almost completely, Kelly said.

Kelly attests to receiving excellent medical care at Ward 57, the amputee section of Walter Reed, but said he quickly realized that the military had no real plan for the injured soldiers. Many had to borrow money or depend on charities just to have relatives visit at Walter Reed, Kelly said.

“It’s not what I expected to see when I got here,” he said. “These guys having to, you know, basically panhandle for money to afford things.”

[Quote:]

French journalists held hostage for four months in Iraq said their militant captors told them they wanted President Bush to win re-election.

In a four-page account of their ordeal, one of the reporters, Georges Malbrunot, also wrote that they saw several other hostages who were later decapitated. The journalists said their captors viewed foreign businessmen working in Iraq as their enemies.

One of the captors from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said Bush’s re-election would boost their cause, Malbrunot wrote in Friday’s edition of Le Figaro, the French daily he works for.

“We want Bush because with him the American troops will stay in Iraq and that way we will be able to develop,” Malbrunot cited the captor as saying.

[Quote:]

When the Argentine economy collapsed in December 2001, doomsday predictions abounded. Unless it adopted orthodox economic policies and quickly cut a deal with its foreign creditors, hyperinflation would surely follow, the peso would become worthless, investment and foreign reserves would vanish and any prospect of growth would be strangled.

But three years after Argentina declared a record debt default of more than $100 billion, the largest in history, the apocalypse has not arrived. Instead, the economy has grown by 8 percent for two consecutive years, exports have zoomed, the currency is stable, investors are gradually returning and unemployment has eased from record highs – all without a debt settlement or the standard measures required by the International Monetary Fund for its approval.

Argentina’s recovery has been undeniable, and it has been achieved at least in part by ignoring and even defying economic and political orthodoxy. Rather than moving to immediately satisfy bondholders, private banks and the I.M.F., as other developing countries have done in less severe crises, the Peronist-led government chose to stimulate internal consumption first and told creditors to get in line with everyone else.

“This is a remarkable historical event, one that challenges 25 years of failed policies,” said Mark Weisbrot, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal research group in Washington. “While other countries are just limping along, Argentina is experiencing very healthy growth with no sign that it is unsustainable, and they’ve done it without having to make any concessions to get foreign capital inflows.”

[..]

“The return to these encouraging numbers has been helped a lot by a fiscal discipline that is almost unprecedented by Argentine standards,” said John Dodsworth, the senior I.M.F. representative here. “We’ve had a primary surplus which has increased steadily over these past few years at both the central and provincial levels, and that has been the main anchor on the economic side.”

But some of that record budget surplus has come from a pair of levies on exports and financial transactions that orthodox economists at the I.M.F. and elsewhere want to see repealed. About a third of government revenues are now raised by those taxes, which have surged.

“The I.M.F. wants these taxes to be eliminated, but on the other hand they also want Argentina to improve its offer to creditors and also pay back the fund so it can reduce its own exposure here,” said Alan Cibils, an Argentine economist associated with the independent Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Public Policy here. “In other words, they are saying, ‘You have to pay out more and take in less,’ which is a sure prescription for another crisis.”

[Quote:]

The US is contemplating incursions into Syrian territory in an attempt to kill or capture Iraqi Ba’athists who, it believes, are directing at least part of the attacks against US targets in Iraq, a senior administration official told The Jerusalem Post.

The official said that fresh sanctions are likely to be implemented, but added that the US needs to be more “aggressive” after Tuesday’s deadly attack on a US base in Mosul. The comment suggested that the US believes the attack on the mess tent, in which 22 people were killed, may have been coordinated from inside Syrian territory.

A view from a helicopter of the damage caused by a tsunami in Phuket

People walk through debris of their houses destroyed in tidal waves on the coastal areas in Colombo, Sri Lanka

[Quote:]

An 8.5-magnitude earthquake that may rank among the 10 strongest in the past century struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra, unleashing tsunami waves that killed hundreds of people across India and Southeast Asia.

Six aftershocks measuring between 5.8 and 6.1 struck in the Bay of Bengal between Thailand and India, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on its Web site. Tsunami waves killed at least 214 people in Sri Lanka and left more than 10 people dead and 200 injured around the popular Thai resort of Phuket, Agence France- Presse said.

`’My mother was in the sea when the giant wave came and she escaped with only a minor bruises, thanks to help from other people,” said Francois Goret, a French resident of Phuket whose house is on Karon beach. ”On Karon, water came at least 50 meters inland. Chairs on the beach were washed away.”

[Quote:]

Huge tidal waves struck southern Thailand’s popular resort island of Phuket, sweeping at least four foreign tourists out to sea, sinking boats and forcing the evacuation of hotels, officials said on state radio.

“As of now there are four foreign tourists missing and we are conducting a search,” deputy Phuket governor Pongpao Ketthong said.

Phuket’s major beach town, Patong, was flooded and extensive damage had been reported from a series of two-metre (6.5-foot) high waves that slammed the tropical island’s west coast at about 8:30 am (0130 GMT), a rescue worker said.

“Many tourists were swept into the sea” but exact numbers were not known, the rescue worker, Mongkol Ketsunthorn, said on the radio.

You do business with the buzzwords you have, not the buzzwords you’d like to have..

[Quote:]

Plans to air a television game show in which an adopted woman picks out her father from a panel of impostors have thousands of people deluging Fox TV with letters and e-mails to get the show shelved.

The “Who’s Your Daddy?” show, in which a young woman given up for adoption as a child gets a $100,000 prize for picking out her biological father from a line-up, is the latest in America’s obsession with reality TV programming.

News of the show sparked both a grass-roots campaign among adoptive parents and protests from national adoption organizations who called the idea offensive, voyeuristic and exploitative. Six episodes have been filmed but so far only one has been scheduled for broadcast, on Jan. 3.

So that’s why I don’t bother with TV any more…

About 250 messages in about a day and a half because of this posting.

Folks, you really need to get rid of Explorer!

If you want evidence that Hollywood has lost all creativity, look no further.

[Quote:]

The euro hit a new record against the unravelling dollar, surging to 1.3549, with some analysts seeing 1.40 dollars as a potential trigger level for European Central Bank intervention.

The single European currency jumped to its new record at mid-morning before slipping back to 1.3529, against 1.3506 late Thursday in New York.

Against the yen the dollar was trading at 103.54, down from 103.61 on Thursday.

Trading was quiet ahead of the Christmas holiday.

“The euro/dollar rate has moved to a new life-time high as underlying lack of enthusiasm for the dollar remains firmly intact,” said Daragh Maher, currency analyst at CALYON.

After reaching record lows against the euro Thursday, the dollar plunged still further on Friday after comments by Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm that the euro continued to trade within an acceptable range against the US currency.

In an interview with the French newspaper La Croix, Zalm, whose country currently chairs the EU presidency, said: “If one remembers that the euro, when launched, was worth about 1.20 dollars, the rise of the European currency is no more than 10 percent. So the euro is moving within a range which is still acceptable.”

“Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est.”

Somebody had way too much time…

[Quote:]

Dt 13:13-15
‘If you hear that in one of the towns, there are men who are telling people to go and worship other gods, it is your duty to look into the matter and examine it.’

[Quote:]

Dt 13:13-16
‘If it is proved and confirmed, you must put the inhabitants of that town to the sword.’

[Quote:]

Dt 13:16
‘You must lay the town under the curse of destruction, the town and everything in it.’

[Quote:]

Dt 13:17
‘You must pile up all its loot in the public square and burn the town and all its loot.”

[Quote:]

Dt 13:17
‘That town is to be a ruin for all time, and never rebuilt.”

[Quote:]

Christmas is knocking the doors, So I�m going to talk about Christmas in Iraq. Christians in Iraq usually celebrate Xmas and have a two day holiday which is 25th and 26th of Dec. their traditions is very similar to our Eid with few differences. they have Christmas tree with the usual decoration, they go to church for prayers and then start their Eid similar to us. Muslims and Christians visit each other in Eid (by the way the Christians called their Christmas, Eid too). Me and my husband usually visit our friends in Christmas and they visit us in our Eid too. they serve also our traditional Kulaicha besides some pastries just like us. my daughter have her share of gifts in Xmas too, and she always asks me why Santa doesn�t come to our house too? and I don�t know what to tell her, so I usually say that Santa brings your gifts and put them in our friends house so you can take them from there. For us we buy presents to our Christian friends when we visit them.
The Iraqis have strong bonds between them, in spite of religion or ethnic differences, we all work together, have neighbors from other religions, visit each other and respect our differences. my neighbors are shias, my best friends are Christians and Kurds and I�m Sunni, but we all have good relations between us. I�m afraid of those who are trying hard to tear us a part, for me I don�t think they will succeed but I�m sure they are from outside Iraq, and they want Iraq to separate into several parts or maybe drag it to civil war. In Iraq�s history for the few past hundreds of years we had no problems with each other so I think those terrorists will lose.
Even in our holly book, the Quran clearly states that Christians, Jews, and us Muslims we all worship the same God (which in Arabic we call Allah), and believing in Jesus and Moses is one of the basic conditions of being a Muslim. The Quran also asks us to live in peace with them and work and eat their food and even allows Muslim men to get married from them so his children will be Muslims but his wife can stay on her religion. We have unfortunately many ignorant people that know nothing about Islam and talk in his name, and destroy Islam�s reputation to others. I quote an ayah from the Quran :

�Lo! those who believe (in that which is revealed unto thee, Muhammad), and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabaeans whoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve.� (albakara-62 )
Today I went to my parents house and I took my daughter to their neighbor�s house because they have a daughter in her age and she likes to play with her, the neighbors are Christians and they are the best neighbor a person can have. I asked the mother if they will go to church in Christmas as they used to go every year, she said no with sorrow. She is afraid from attacking the churches in Christmas, but she said I know many will go what ever will happen since they will go to the house of God. I really hated myself at this moment and I did not know what to tell her, I told her that not only you are targeted, look what they had done in Najaf and Karbala two days ago, they are trying hard to tear us apart, but I don�t know who are they. I felt so silly that moment.
also today, my father told me that he is afraid from a civil war, he said that those who are doing these things they know exactly what they are doing. I tried to tell him it�s impossible but he said no, they will succeed in making a civil war and then divide Iraq to peaces. I still don�t believe in this, The US will not allow this to happen because it will mean that they have failed in everything they fought for.
Well, this subject is supposed to be on Christmas but I want to clear few things to you, I don�t know how much you know about us. Merry Xmas to you all, and I wish you a nice Xmas always.

[Quote:]

Aw, just in time for the holidays the good ol� VM comes through for ya: a Chilean psychic, Ricardo Gonzales, claims he�s been receiving MMS messages from Ms. Mary herself. Talk about spreading the Christmas cheer. Apparently the latest image was of an �angel waving,� and �After much study and analysis Mr Gonzales claimed the images and messages said that God exists and that there is life after death.� Well, guess that settles that.

Isn’t it great that someone has finally started to use MMS?

But it’ll be just as much of a miracle if the rest of us work out how to use it successfully.

[Quote:]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to mounting criticism even from fellow Republicans, said on Wednesday he was “truly saddened” anyone could think he was not laboring to protect U.S. combat troops.

Damn! Don’t they realize “it’s hard work!”