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What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon�s latest approach is being called “the Salvador option”�and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. “What everyone agrees is that we can�t just go on as we are,” one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. “We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing.” Last November�s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking “the back” of the insurgency�as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time�than in spreading it out.

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration�s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported “nationalist” forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success�despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)

Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called “snatch” operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.

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North Korea has launched an intensive media assault on its latest arch enemy – the wrong haircut.

A campaign exhorting men to get a proper short-back-and-sides has been aired by state-run Pyongyang television.

The series is entitled Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle.

While the campaign has been carried out primarily on television, reports have appeared in North Korean press and radio, urging tidy hairstyles and proper attire.

It is the strongest media campaign against men’s sloppy appearances mounted in the reclusive and impoverished Communist state in recent years.

The propaganda drive on grooming standards has gone a stage further than previous attempts. This time television identifies specific individuals deemed too shoddy.

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In October 1946, just a year after the defeat of the Nazis, the Vatican weighed in on one of the most painful episodes of the postwar era: the refusal to allow Jewish children who had been sheltered by Catholics during the war to return to their own families and communities.

A newly disclosed directive on the this subject provides written confirmation of well-known church policy and practices at the time, particularly toward Jewish children who had been baptized, often to save them from perishing at the hands of the Nazis. Its tone is cold and impersonal, and it makes no mention of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Its disclosure has reopened a raw debate on the World War II role of the Catholic Church and of Pope Pius XII, a candidate for sainthood who has been excoriated by his critics as a heartless anti-Semite who maintained a public silence on the Nazi death camps and praised by his supporters as a savior of Jewish lives.

The one-page, typewritten directive, dated Oct. 23, 1946, was discovered in a French church archive outside Paris and made available to The New York Times on the condition that the source would not be disclosed. It is a list of instructions for French authorities on how to deal with demands from Jewish officials who want to reclaim Jewish children.

“Children who have been baptized must not be entrusted to institutions that would not be in a position to guarantee their Christian upbringing,” the directive says.

It also contains an order not to allow Jewish children who had been baptized Catholic to go home to their own parents. “If the children have been turned over by their parents, and if the parents reclaim them now, providing that the children have not received baptism, they can be given back,” it says.

Meanwhile, the current Catholic Church is trying to promote Pius XII to sainthood.

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The team collecting private donations to finance President Bush’s inaugural festivities has taken in $18 million, putting it nearly halfway to its goal of at least $40 million.

Mr. Bush’s inaugural committee raised about $4.5 million of that total over the last week, according to information posted Friday on its Web site.

Those donating $250,000 become inaugural “underwriters” and receive tickets to inaugural week events featuring the president and Laura Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne.

The new underwriters include AT&T; Bank of America; the pharmaceutical manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb; the energy company Cinergy; United Parcel Service; Alex G. Spanos, the owner of the San Diego Chargers; the American Financial Group of Cincinnati and one of its top executives, Carl H. Lindner; the New Energy Corporation, of South Bend, Ind.; Thomas Stephenson, a partner in Sequoia Capital in Atherton, Calif.; and the Strongbow Technologies Corporation, based in Maryland.

Several new contributors gave $100,000 to become inaugural “sponsors,” a level of giving that also includes tickets to events leading up to and including the inauguration at the Capitol on Jan. 20.

Those include Pepsi-Cola; Tyson Foods; the Goldman-Sachs Group; the California Farm Bureau Federation; Titus Electrical Contracting, of Austin, Tex.; the Hunting Engineering Company, of Bridgeton, Mo.; Intervest Construction, of Daytona Beach, Fla.; and Computer Associates International, of Islandia, N.Y.

Mr. Bush’s inaugural committee can accept contributions in any amount and from almost any source, including corporations. Only foreign money is prohibited.

If these companies donated “out of the goodness of their hearts” they would donate to another cause. So it’s fairly safe to say they’ll expect something in return. Keep an eye out on those companies the coming years…

Gay George goes into the doctor’s office and has some tests run. The doctor comes back and says “George, I am not going to beat around the bush. You have AIDS.” George is devastated. “Doc, what can I do?”

The doctor says “I want you to go home and eat 5 pounds of spicy sausage, a head of cabbage, 20 un-peeled carrots drenched in hot sauce, 10 Jalapeno peppers, 40 walnuts and 40 peanuts, 1/2 box of All Bran cereal, and top it off with a gallon of prune juice.” George asks, “Will that cure me, Doc?”

“No, but it should leave you with a better understanding of what your asshole is for.”

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Blogs and message forums buzzed this week with the discovery that a pair of simple Google searches permits access to well over 1,000 unprotected surveillance cameras around the world – apparently without their owners’ knowledge.

Searching on certain strings within a URL sniffs out networked cameras that have Web interfaces permitting their owners to view them remotely, and even direct the cameras’ motorized pan-and-tilt mechanisms from the comfort of their own desktop.

Video surfers are using this knowledge to peek in on office and restaurant interiors, a Japanese barnyard, women doing laundry, the interior of an Internet collocation facility, and a cage full of rodents, among other things, in locales scattered around the world.

News of the panoptical search queries apparently began on a community web forum, then spread to the widely-read BoingBoing weblog Wednesday and Thursday.

In the past, geeks wanting to peek in on surveillance cams have driven around with receivers and special antenna rigs to pick up signals from wireless cameras.

One of the Google search strings circulating summons a list of nearly 1,000 installed network cameras made by Swedish-based Axis Communications, the other turns up about 500 cameras sold by Panasonic. Neither company could be reached after hours Friday.

Maldivian National Security Service personnel attempt to clear the carcass of a blue whale which washed ashore at the Full Moon Resort. The whale added to the huge problem of cleaning up the pristine Maldivian beaches after the tsunami destruction(AFP/Sena Vidanagama)

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An audit of the state’s spending of nearly $600 million in federal anti-terrorism funds found that some of the money was spent improperly, including to buy a trailer that was used to haul lawn mowers to “lawn mower drag races.”

The state auditor’s office pointed out several cases in which poor monitoring by the Texas Engineering Extension Service may have allowed abuse.

One county bought 18 radios and other communication equipment from a company owned by one of its county commissioners, according to the report released Thursday.

[..]

The extension service said it agreed with many of the auditor’s recommendations but that overall it had done an excellent job overseeing grants. It has begun requiring some grant recipients to report how they use equipment.

You know, that last bit triggered me to back to an unrelated article I read ealier, because this behaviour fits the pattern. Let me quote:

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By now, you’ve probably heard about Armstrong Williams, the black commentator the Bush administration greased with $240,000 to effectively “promote” their NCLB legislation, hoping to increase support among the black community. But what I find interesting is the reaction by Williams to being exposed for a lapse in journalistic ethics so eggregious that it allowed Tribune Media Services to axe his syndicated contract in a decision that “wasn’t even close” for the managing editors.

To quote Inigo Montoya, “Allow me to sum up:”

The Secret Action:
Williams, a prominent commentator, is paid $240,000 to promote No Child Left Behind in his national television show in obvious violation of journalistic ethics.

When Caught:
Williams says it was a poor choice and showed bad judgment, but that he “believed” in NCLB.

The Actions:
Williams refuses to return the taxpayer money, noting that “he earned it.”

Funny. This behavior looks strangely familiar. I have a nearly 4-year old daughter. I recognize this pattern of statements and actions. Any parent should.

It goes like this:

The Secret Action:
Swipe a cookie before dinner even though mom and dad said you couldn’t have one.

When Caught:
In a round about way, admit you did something bad, but that you were really hungry.

The Actions:
Eat the cookie anyway, then go play.

From a little kid’s perspective, parents can be easily manipulated and any action easily justified no matter how wrong it might have been. All you have to do is rationalize your actions and say what the parent wants to hear. The concept of consequences never enter this thought process. The idea is to filibuster the consequences and live to swipe another cookie another day.

Funny how the Bush administration thinks this way. Case in point, Alberto Gonzales:

The Secret Action:
As Bush’s chief council, Gonzales justifies legal use of torture, ignoring the Geneva Conventions, and promotes the War President as being above any law he sees fit to violate.

When Caught:
During his confirmation hearings for appointment to Attorney General, Gonzales states he believes deeply in the rule of law and is against torture in any form.

The Action:
Gonzales is most likely to be confirmed as the next Attorney General of the United States.

You and I could play this game all day, just pick a Bush administration official. But what is important is to see the pattern so brilliantly played out in child like fashion by the Bush administration. It’s so simple it’s child’s play to them. And just like any child, they fully expect that when they put on that sad puppy dog face and say all the things we as parents want to hear them say that we, being overly forgiving and gullible parents, will indeed forgive. But more importantly, that we will forgive and forget the consequences.

Any parent knows what will happen when consequences are forgotten. The bad behavior only gets bigger and the excuses greater.

It’s time for some consequences again.

In this photo released by the US Navy the attack submarine USS San Francisco (SSN 711) is escorted by two harbor tugs returns to Apra Harbor, Guam, after a five-month deployment June 4, 2004. The USS San Francisco ran aground about 350 miles south of Guam, injuring several sailors, one of them critically, the Navy said late Friday Jan. 7, 2005. (AP Photo/US Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Mark A. Leonesio)

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De president van De Nederlandsche Bank, Nout Wellink, heeft er alle vertrouwen in dat de consumentenuitgaven weer zullen toenemen. In een vraaggesprek met het Algemeen Dagblad van zaterdag zei hij dat er voldoende signalen zijn die wijzen op herstel van de economie.

[..]

Wellink klaagde bij eerdere interviews over de somberheid die bij de Nederlandse consumenten leeft. Ondanks een goed gevulde spaarpot en de aantrekkende economie houden zij de hand op de knip en kijken ze negatiever tegen de economische ontwikkeling aan dan de inwoners van de buurlanden.

“Ons gevoel is dat de Nederlander negatiever is. Over het waarom breek ik me al jaren het hoofd. Misschien is het een tegenreactie op het enorme optimisme in de jaren negentig. Toen sloegen we te ver door. Nu slaan we weer door”, zegt Welling in het AD.

Ofwel Wellink loopt bewust te liegen, ofwel hij leest het nieuws niet. Maar ja, zijn kennissenkring zal van dat nieuws wel weinig last hebben.

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I have no idea how legit it is, but someone has posted pictures of a headless iMac, called the iHome. They’re grainy and naturally suspect, but there’s even a video and it looks surprisingly real.

Probably fake – the backside has, from left to right, connectors that look like modem, ethernet, two firewire, two USB, and unknown plug, and audio.

Now that unknown plug looks like the video-out on my iBook, but why would Apple require an extra cable to convert to DVI or VGA?

We’ll know for sure on tuesday.