========================================

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/5498573.htm

Richard Perle, one of the architects of the U.S. war on Iraq, resigned on Thursday from his post as chairman of the influential Defense Policy Board amid calls from Congress for a probe of his business dealings... Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense, sent a brief letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld saying he would quit as chairman because he could not "quickly or easily quell the criticism." ...As chair of the Defense Policy Board, Perle sat with more than a dozen other former government officials to offer advice on planning and "major matters of defense policy." Among those on the board are former national security advisers Henry Kissinger and Richard Allen, former defense secretaries Harold Brown and James Schlesinger, former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and former CIA Director James Woolsey... They call for aggressive use of pre-emptive military action to defend U.S. national interests, and to change regimes that may threaten the United States.

==================================

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/03/27/national1724EST0768.DTL

Turkey's government "didn't quite know what it was doing" in failing to win parliamentary approval to allow U.S. troops the right to use its territory to invade Iraq, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Thursday. Wolfowitz described Turkey's decision as a "big, big mistake."

=========================================

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030326/D7Q11H0G0.html

Saddam Hussein donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Detroit church and received a key to the city more than two decades ago, soon after he became president of Iraq... The attack Saddam's regime is now facing from a U.S.-led coalition reflect[s] his changed relationship with the United States since Washington helped Saddam covertly in his 1980-88 war with Iran.

Saddam's bond with Detroit started in 1979, when the Rev. Jacob Yasso of Chaldean Sacred Heart congratulated Saddam on his presidency. In return, Yasso said, his church received $250,000... "He's very kind to Christians," Yasso said.

...Yasso called Saddam an American puppet. "The job the United States trusted to him is done; now he's no good," he said.

===========================================

http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/okeefe032603.html

Two leading evangelical Christian missionary organizations said Tuesday that they have teams of workers poised to enter Iraq... The Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant denomination, and the Rev. Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse said workers are near the Iraq border in Jordan and are ready to go in as soon as it is safe... Both Graham and the Southern Baptist Convention have been at the heart of controversial evangelical denunciations of Islam, the world's second largest religion.

Both organizations said their priority will be to provide food, shelter and other needs to Iraqis ravaged by recent war and years of neglect. But if the situation presents itself, they will also share their Christian faith... Mark Kelly, a spokesman for the Southern Baptists' International Mission Board, said $250,000 has already been spent to provide immediate needs, such as blankets and baby formula. Much more will follow, along with a more overt spiritual emphasis.

...Graham, the son of legendary evangelist Billy Graham, has been less diplomatic about Islam than his father has been. Two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Franklin Graham called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion" during an interview on NBC... The Rev. Jerry Vines, a former denomination president, told several thousand [Baptist] delegates that Islam's Allah is not the same as the God worshipped by Christians. "...Jehovah's not going to turn you into a terrorist," Vines said.

... [Court-appointed 'President'] Bush, an evangelical Christian himself, has close ties to both Franklin Graham, who gave a prayer at his inauguration, and Southern Baptists, who are among his most loyal political supporters.

...Southern Baptists, representing a denomination of 16 million members, have workers in Jordan waiting to help refugees. But so far, few refugees have arrived.

======================================

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Mar/03262003/iraq/41844.asp

With more than 3,500 Utah National Guard soldiers on alert or mobilized in the war with Iraq, the state no longer has the personnel to cope with a major natural disaster or civil disturbance... Utah leads the nation in the number of its troops mobilized or deployed, at 88 percent, said [Col. George] Becker, Utah's military support officer... Becker said along with high mobilization, Utah also is losing equipment that could be used in a natural disaster, such as heavy trucks and earth-moving equipment, along with the trained personnel to operate them.

...The Utah Guard helped on 11 forest fires the past two seasons... "Right now, I'm most concerned about fires," Becker said.

===================================

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=War%20UN%20Iraq

The U.N. Security Council agreed on a draft resolution Thursday... giving Secretary-General Kofi Annan control for 45 days over the oil-for-food program.

...U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte walked out of the council Thursday after Iraq's envoy accused Washington of planning the military assault for years... "I did sit through quite a long part of what he had to say, but I think that I'd heard enough," Negroponte said.

==========================================

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=542&e=84&u=/ap/20030327/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/war_diplomat_resigns_2

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - A senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia has resigned in protest over Washington's decision to wage war in Iraq and U.S. policy toward the Middle East and North Korea... Ann Wright, who as deputy chief of mission was the embassy's second-in-command, also criticized the "unnecessary curtailment of civil rights" in the United States since Sept. 11. "I believe the administration's policies are making the world a more dangerous, not a safer, place," she said in a resignation letter addressed to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

...Wright, 56, is at least the second American diplomat to resign in protest over policy toward Iraq. John Brady Kiesling, a political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, stepped down March 7.

=====================================

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20030327/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_reporter_expelled_2

BOSTON - A reporter for The Christian Science Monitor has been ordered out of Iraq after the Pentagon said he revealed the location of a Marine unit during a television interview... Monitor Editor Paul Van Slambrouck wrote in an editorial posted on the newspaper's Web site Thursday that Smucker did not reveal any information not already available. "We have read the transcript of the CNN interview and it does not appear to us that he disclosed anything that wasn't already widely available in maps and in U.S. and British radio, newspaper, and television reports in that same news cycle," Van Slambrouck wrote.

=========================================

archived from june 4th, 2002

http://thebigstory.org/other/applause.html

Those who read Philip Smucker of the Christian Science Monitor know the most about the failed U.S. campaign to capture Osama bin Laden - more than what the U.S. government and major news organizations have told readers so far.

While the Pentagon was telling the American public it had no idea where bin Laden went, Smucker found out. [article proceeds to tell you just where. here's the original: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/02/23/wbin223.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/02/23/ixnewstop.html --mrs. h]

...Smucker's articles also showed how local warlords and militias cut deals to help Al Qaeda fighters escape, how they didn't effectively attack Tora Bora, and how the United States might have caught bin Laden had it sealed the border with Pakistan in November.

...By the way, Smucker only has a freelance job with the Monitor.

==========================================

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,924172,00.html

BBC news chiefs have... reinforced the message to correspondents that they must clearly attribute information to the military when it has not been backed up by another source... On nearly every day of the war so far there have been reports that could be seen as favourable to coalition forces, which have later turned out to be inaccurate... By last Sunday the southern Iraqi seaport of Umm Qasr had been reported "taken" nine times, while reports of the discovery of a chemical weapons factory in An Najaf have not been confirmed - just two more examples of the confusion over what is coming out of military sources. "We're absolutely sick and tired of putting things out and finding they're not true," said a senior BBC news source.

=====================================

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/28/sprj.irq.bush.media/index.html

President Bush has "some level of frustration with the press corps" for accounts questioning the U.S. and coalition war plan in Iraq, and he finds it "silly" that such skepticism and questions were being raised just days into a conflict he says is going quite well, according to a senior administration official.

...Bush appeared somewhat exasperated Thursday when... a reporter asked whether the war would take months, as opposed to weeks. "However long it takes," Bush said, repeating that line as the reporter pressed him on the matter. "That's the answer to your question, and that's what you got to know. This isn't a matter of timetable, it's a matter of victory."

=======================================

http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=363572003&tid=518

President George W Bush today refused to rule out the prospect of US forces using nuclear weapons... Speaking at a joint press conference with Tony Blair at Camp David, the US president was asked whether, if coalition forces were subjected to a chemical weapons attack by Saddam Hussein, the US would use its nuclear capability. Mr Bush replied: "If he uses weapons of mass destruction, it will just prove our case. And we will deal with it... We will achieve victory."

=====================================

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2892979.stm

President George W Bush has promised that the so-called road map for peace between Israel and the Palestinians will be published "soon".

...He did not give a specific date for publication.

===================================

from an interview transcript.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june03/cols_3-26.html

Air Force operations planner Sam Gardiner... COLONEL SAMUEL GARDINER: ...Yesterday a very important thing happened. Two retired four-star generals, Wes Clark and Barry McCaffrey, who was a division commander in the first Gulf War, said we don't have enough force. Whether they are right or not, the leadership of the United States has a problem. And that is, if we go to Baghdad with two divisions and there are losses, that's regime change kind of stuff. And I don't mean Baghdad regime change... That's a very serious thing.

===========================================

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/03/27/cdnsoldiers030327

OTTAWA - Ottawa now admits that some Canadian soldiers are in Iraq, even though Canada refused to join the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein. Thirty-one Canadians are with U.S. and British troops in the Gulf... some of the Canadians are in combat... Prime Minister Chrétien says Canada isn't at war with Iraq. But he conceded that some Canadian soldiers could be [there]..."It's possible," he said... The federal government is apparently prepared to accept the risk that some of its soldiers could be killed or captured, in a war that Canada refused to join.

=======================================

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/03/28/pm_wash_visit030328B

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Jean Chrétien won't go to Washington next month to receive an award. The U.S. National Parks Conservation Association had invited Chrétien to the U.S. capital to get an award on April 9. The award is being presented to recognize an expansion of Canada's national parks system announced last fall. The Prime Minister's Office says Chrétien believes it would be inappropriate at a time of war to accept an award for personal achievement.

================================

har!

http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035780008763&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037

U.S. colleges are warning their students studying abroad to avoid demonstrations, street corner debates on U.S. foreign policy and clothes that identify them as Americans... Some students are passing themselves off as Canadian.

===================================

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/29/1048653868288.html

Iraqi forces fired mortar bombs near about 1,000 civilians waiting to cross a bridge leading out of the southern Iraqi city of Basra, a British officer said last night.

==============================================

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=391459

The blasts that killed at least 14 civilians in a Baghdad market on Wednesday were probably caused by an errant Iraqi weapon, not US missiles, American commanders said yesterday. Brigadier General Vince Brooks said exhaustive checks on all sorties flown by Anglo-American jets that day had shown that all released bombs and missiles had hit their intended targets... The general suggested the attack may also have been the deliberate work of Iraqi security forces trying to score a propaganda coup.

=================================

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2467871

Arabic-language television stations said that more than 50 Iraqis had been killed in... a marketplace in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Friday. Al-Jazeera's correspondent said 51 Iraqis had been killed and 49 injured... "An Iraqi official told us that the search is still going on for those trapped under the rubble," he said and showed pictures of bodies, including those of two children.

================================

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12783717&method=full&siteid=50143

ALLIED troops renewed their drive towards Baghdad yesterday, pledging: "Our job now is killing." ...More than 600 bombing sorties were launched. A 10-mile convoy of Iraqi military vehicles was pounded "into oblivion" outside Najaf, about 60 miles south of Baghdad... There is little sign of Iraqis welcoming their "saviours"... There were unconfirmed reports of children firing on coalition forces.

======================================

http://www.phxnews.com/fullstory.php?article=4107

Congressman Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., is accusing U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq of killing civilian women and children... "I just don't believe that you bomb women and children in order to enforce [the U.N. resolution on Iraq]," the Harlem Democrat told Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" Thursday night. When challenged on his claim that U.S. forces were killing Iraqi children, Rangel said sarcastically, "You're right. They're shooting themselves. They just don't know they're being liberated."

...Rangel then slammed President Bush... "With all due respect to the president, I don't think he has the experience for me to be listening to him on how the war's going or what we should be doing," the left-wing Democrat and Hillary Clinton ally complained.

==========================================

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=4901

[Iraqi military spokesperson Hazim] al-Rawi said reports that US troops were wounded by "friendly fire" near the southern city of Nasiriyah were false and that Iraqi forces had inflicted the casualties.

...US officers on Thursday said that a number of US marines were wounded in a "friendly fire" incident when two groups fired at each other... A total of 37 marines were wounded, the officers said... al-Rawi said the friendly fire claims were "lies just like the allegations of aircraft accidents."

...Al-Rawi denied reports from US commanders that it had lost around 1,000 men in fighting in and around the Shiite pilgrimage centre of Najaf. "It's totally baseless," Iraqi armed forces spokesman said. "If it was true, why don't the enemies show pictures of the dead on their televisions?" he asked.

=====================================

pictures of the [anglo-american] dead are available at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/index.html

...updated daily. i say a little prayer for you, cops of the world.

=========================================

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s818147.htm

Discoveries of chemical protection suits and nerve gas antidotes are not necessarily evidence Iraq is set to use chemical weapons, says United Nations chief weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix... "Most countries import these things and have them, and we also have chemical weapons protection suits, so I don't think that's conclusive evidence that they have the weapons," he said.

===========================================

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/277955.html

Syria is granting free passage across its border with Iraq to volunteers who wish to join the fight against the U.S. and British forces. Thus far, dozens of volunteers, primarily Palestinians from the refugee camps in Lebanon, have crossed over into Iraq through Syrian-controlled border posts. The passage of volunteers with Damascus's consent has given rise to the theory that the U.S.-fired missile that struck a Syrian bus traveling in Iraq was an intentional attack on a busload of such volunteers. The bus left Damascus on Sunday and was hit by the missile some 50 kilometers inside Iraqi territory.

========================================

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=391483

Small teams of US, and possibly British, special forces are operating in western Iraq out of Jordan... The Jordanian government has admitted there are 6,000 US troops here, but says they are only here to protect Jordan from Iraqi missile attack and train Jordanian troops. But reporters have seen US army Jeeps speeding towards the Iraqi border.

...The possibility that American soldiers are in the base at Jafr is certainly infuriating the people of Maan... Sheikh Adi Mohamid, one of the Bedouin tribal chiefs who control Maan society, says... "The government of Jordan made a shameful decision to participate in this war by allowing these troops to go to Iraq." He also claims he saw tanks being driven to Jafr on trucks. And he names Jordanian companies contracted to provide facilities for US soldiers at the base. The protest is called "the march of the coffins", he says, because "this is a message that we are ready to die, to condemn the government".

========================================

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=391417&host=3&dir=75

Wednesday 19 March: I was not meant to be here. If all had gone according to plan, by now I should have been sipping a large gin and tonic at the bar of the Intercontinental in Amman. But yesterday, at 6am, myself and a group of other journalists were arrested by Iraqi officials at the Jordanian border for attempting to take our dollars out of the country.

...I am carrying $7,000. Ciaran McQuillan, a producer with Associated Press Television News (APTN) has $50,000 on him. He and I are taken off to be questioned. It is as if the Mukhabarat are fishermen, and we are the fish. The catches keep coming in – Spanish television, Mexican radio, a Norwegian church worker, another $50,000.

...After a night spent on the floor we are told that we will be taken back to Baghdad. But Neyra Moncavo of Radio 13 in Mexico... must stay behind, they say... She cries as we leave, promising her that we will take up the matter later...

Thursday 20 March: We spent much of last night waiting for the bombs to fall, but by the early hours, most of us had fallen asleep. At 5.57am I am woken in my hotel room by the sound of the first US bomb to explode in Baghdad – a dull thud in the distance. Two more follow in quick succession. All around me are the sounds of doors slamming as journalists, who occupy most rooms in the Palestine Hotel, rush to secure a vantage point.

...Later, we receive a summons from the Ministry of Information, which offers to take us to the areas that have been hit... Several homes have been hit and the residents' anger is palpable. "What have we done, why should they do this to us?'' an elderly woman in a black chador weeps, beating her hand on her thigh. Her husband leads her away, staring at us accusingly... As we leave I remember that just a week before I had visited this same street. Then, I was greeted with smiles...

Friday 21 March: I first met Khalid and Samira three years ago... We discuss the imminent crossing of coalition troops into Iraq. Samira is enthusiastic and optimistic – at one stage she dances around the room holding their beautiful seven-month-old daughter, Jenan. Khalid is more wary. He does not trust the Americans.

On the way back to the hotel my driver and I stop to buy some last-minute provisions from one of the very few stores left open. The shopkeeper and his customers ask me how long the bombing will last... They are scared... We journalists are scared, too.

...Tonight's bombing begins at 9.28pm... When six TV crews set up their cameras on the roof to film the night's bombing, officials throw them off and the crews are beaten and kicked...

Saturday 22 March: We are taken on a tour of a hospital, al-Yamoukh, to meet injured children... The first bomb of the night lands at 8.58pm... The bombardment lasts through the night and most of the following day. Parts of the cityscape I know disappear in front of my eyes. The journalists, at last, have their "shock and awe".

Sunday 23 March: ...This afternoon, a rumour sweeps through the city that two pilots, possibly British, have parachuted into the river Tigris from a stricken aircraft. I go to investigate, and find the banks of the river packed with soldiers and civilians. Bullrushes are set alight in an attempt to flush the airmen out. Soldiers fire into the water. Teenagers strip off their shirts to wade in the shallows with machetes...

Monday 24 March: Darkness at noon, as the smoke from burning oil in ditches around the city combines with unseasonably cloudy weather to blot out the sun. I am filled with a sense of foreboding...

Tuesday 25 March: The day dawns with a dark, oily sky, and gradually a furious sandstorm develops. I meet up with two young men I have known for some time – "Selim" (not his real name) and his brother. They are from Saddam City, a vast, poor and violent suburban slum half an hour's drive from the centre of Baghdad... How do they feel now, as the Americans and the British draw closer and closer to Baghdad?

"The British and Americans have been killing a lot of innocent people with their bombing," says Selim. "And they cannot stay here as occupiers. This is Iraq and we are Iraqis. If they want to take our oil, then we shall fight them. And, anyway, we cannot trust them. Maybe they do a deal even now with the government, get half the oil and go away. We shall watch and see what happens."

Wednesday 26 March: It is 11.45am when we hear the news: two missiles have slammed into a non-military area of homes and shops six miles from the centre of Baghdad. As I arrive, crowds of men are still retrieving body parts. A hand has been found 100 yards from where I'm standing, a foot just a little nearer. The explosions and the subsequent fireball have turned many of the buildings on both sides of the road into charnel houses. There is twisted metal and rubble everywhere. The rest is just ashes.

...The journalists follow as the injured are taken to Al-Khindi hospital. Here a little boy whose arm has been amputated stares at the television cameras, and asks for some water. One of the hospital officials asks us: "Do you think he will ever forget, or forgive?" I step outside, into the dark brown rain. The bombing has started again.

===========================================

http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/030328/72/39i6o.html

Internet sabotage and vandalism have taken on a new tenor and fervor since the invasion of Iraq. Experts say reported incidents of Web hacking - ranging from site-shutting attacks to site defacements and graffiti - have leapt as much as tenfold, to between 3,000 and 5,000 every day. Much of this activity is directed at poorly secured home pages hosted by tiny providers, often in far-flung countries.

Antiwar hackers are dominating the assault, although pro-war activists have staged some notable hits -- such as the shutdown of the al-Jazeera TV station's English-language site... U.S. authorities have taken little action... The European Union, fearful of rising attacks in that continent, yesterday moved to crack down on hackers by creating a new cyberagency to act as an early warning system and unify antihacking efforts among the EU's 15 nations.

...In the U.S., federal, state and local government sites... were hit with antiwar slogans, epithets directed at President Bush and, in one case, a mocking image of the president and a chimpanzee.

...Security experts say the fierce sentiments that the war has aroused have emboldened some tech sophisticates to cross the line to hacking.

====================================

thanks ivo for pointing me to this story.

http://www.democracynow.org/franti.htm

Amy Goodman, 'Democracy Now!' host: For nearly a decade hip-hop artist and activist Michael Franti has been a leading progressive voice in music... His most recent musical project is the musical collective “Spearhead” begun in 1994 and he’s used his music to push social boundaries, speaks out against sexual violence, encourages his community to prevent the spread of HIV and has been very vocal in his opposition to war... Can you talk about what’s been happening as you’ve been touring the country with songs like “Bomb da World.”

Michael Franti: ...What’s happened most recently is that we performed at a rally on March 15th in San Francisco and the next day on the 16th... on the East Coast, a band member of mine who prefers to go unnamed, his mother received a visit from two plainclothesmen from the military, and this band member of mine has a sibling who is in the Gulf. And they came in and talked to her, and said, "You have a child who’s in the Gulf, and you have a child who’s in this band Spearhead, who’s part of the “resistance,” in their words, and they had pictures of us performing the day before, at the rally... They had his flight records for the past several months, they had the names of everybody who works in my office, our management office “Guerilla Management”. They had his checking account records.

They asked his mother a lot of questions about where he was, what he was doing in this place, why he was going here. They confiscated his sibling’s CD collection that they had brought over to listen to while they were in the Gulf, and basically were intimidating—- told her which members of the press she could talk to and which members of the press she should not speak to.

...Basically what this signals to me is that... there’s a lot of us who are now making a blip on the radar.

...Last week our label received a letter, a mass e-mail from MTV instructing the fact that no videos could be shown that mentioned the word bombing or war. No videos could be shown that had protesters in it... Meanwhile, our song “Bomb Da World,” which we just put out, is now in heavy rotation on a top youth radio station in Australia and in Denmark, and it’s expected to get added to a lot of stations in other countries.

...It’s incredible, it’s outrageous and I think it’s something that we all need to be aware of and need to support the art, you know, whether it’s music, whether it’s films, whether it’s dance performances or whatever... where these voices are being heard.

=================================

HEADLINE NEWS susan sarandon is older than mrs. henry! perhaps it is not too late to ask for a date.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/03/27/TampaBay/Charity_calls_off_eve.shtml

The United Way of Tampa Bay canceled an upcoming event featuring Susan Sarandon after getting three dozen complaints from donors and others

...Sarandon, the 56-year-old Academy Award winner, was to be the keynote speaker at the April 11 daylong event sponsored by the United Way's women's leadership group... A day after Sarandon flashed the peace sign at the Oscars, her sister-in-law, Kanika Tomalin, was notified that United Way was pulling out of the event.

==========================================

not "the" enquirer, but the cinicinnati enquirer.

http://enquirer.com/editions/2003/03/26/loc_trucker26.html

Truck driver James "Jim" Watters said Tuesday he never intended to hit any war protestors when he drove his tractor-trailer rig up onto a sidewalk Monday in the West End... "I was doing it for the boys overseas." His rig stopped about 10 feet shy of the group, which included a man in a wheelchair.

Watters, 49, was arrested Monday... He was released after relatives posted a $240 cash bond.

He said his 24-year-old son is a Marine sergeant serving in Kuwait... "We've got soldiers over there in harm's way. We should back them. Be American. Back your president. Don't support Saddam Hussein. That's what they're doing."

=============================================

news from asheville, Home of Jo.

http://cgi.citizen-times.com/cgi-bin/story/31501

ASHEVILLE - The city Wednesday barred anyone from gathering at the Vance Monument, a city park... The city set up orange barricades and "No Trespassing" signs around the monument. In the past few weeks, increasing numbers of demonstrators for and against the U.S.-led war in Iraq have chanted slogans, jeered at one another and held candlelight vigils. Asheville Police Department Chief Will Annarino said he was concerned for the safety of people crossing the street between the two groups and drivers-by who got distracted by the protests... "It looks like suppression," anti-war demonstrator Debralee Acs said... Vance Monument is closed to the public indefinitely.

========================================

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40057-2003Mar27.html

...Come to the aid of [your] country's war. That is the message pushed by broadcast news consultants... "Get the following production pieces in the studio NOW-- Patriotic music that makes you cry, salute, get cold chills! Go for the emotion," advised McVay Media, a Cleveland-based consultant, in a "War Manual" memo to its station clients. "Air the National Anthem at a specified time each day as long as the USA is at war."

...McVay sells its expertise to dozens of radio stations that offer such formats as Christian music, rock, country music, and news and talk... "I think there's just political correctness to waving the flag right now," said Holland Cooke, a McVay news-talk specialist. "If you were the upstart station in town, you might conceivably come at this from a peacenik angle... But we find it appropriate to wave the flag where I happen to be."

==========================================

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1850208

...[Here] is a list of stories that have been widely misreported or poorly reported so far:

1. Saddam may well have been killed in the first night's surprise attack (March 20).

2. Even if he wasn't killed, Iraqi command and control was no doubt "decapitated" (March 22).

3. Umm Qasr has been taken (March 22).

4. Most Iraqis soldiers will not fight for Saddam and instead are surrendering in droves (March 22).

5. Iraqi citizens are greeting Americans as liberators (March 22).

6. An entire division of 8,000 Iraqi soldiers surrendered en masse near Basra (March 23).

7. Several Scud missiles, banned weapons, have been launched against U.S. forces in Kuwait (March 23).

8. Saddam's Fedayeen militia are few in number and do not pose a serious threat (March 23).

9. Basra has been taken (March 23).

10. Umm Qasr has been taken (March 23).

11. A captured chemical plant likely produced chemical weapons (March 23).

12. Nassiriya has been taken (March 23).

13. Umm Qasr has been taken (March 24).

14. The Iraqi government faces a "major rebellion" of anti-Saddam citizens in Basra (March 24).

15. A convoy of 1,000 Iraqi vehicles and Republican Guards are speeding south from Baghdad to engage U.S. troops (March 25).

===================================

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030328/1/39iie.html

Lawmakers passed a resolution urging the president to set aside a day of fasting and prayer for divine protection of US troops in Iraq and a population threatened by terrorists. "A day of fasting and prayer is needed to secure the blessings and protection of Providence..." read the text of the resolution. The House of Representatives passed the resolution by a vote of 346 for, 49 against and 23 abstentions. The Senate passed a similar measure on March 17.

===================================

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030327/4997169s.htm

Extensive coverage of the first week of war lured more people to their TV sets -- overall viewership increased 20% last Thursday -- but as the conflict continues, many are returning to routine media use... American Idol, the Miss USA Pageant and Tuesday's Celine Dion concert drew substantial audiences.

...[However,] web traffic also jumped 20% to 50% for major news sites.

=============================

from wednesday march 26th, 2003

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000336.html

The states of Massachusetts and Texas are preparing to consider bills that apparently are intended to extend the national Digital Millennium Copyright Act. [links provided in original-- mrs.h] The bills are obviously related to each other... They are textually similar... Both bills would flatly ban the possession, sale, or use of technologies that "conceal from a communication service provider... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication". Your ISP is a communication service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with no exceptions.

If you send or receive your email via an encrypted connection, you're in violation, because the "To" and "From" lines of the emails are concealed from your ISP by encryption... Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the "from" and "to" fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security "firewalls" use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation.

If you have a home DSL router, or if you use the "Internet Connection Sharing" feature of your favorite operating system product, you're in violation because these connection sharing technologies use NAT. Most operating system products (including every version of Windows introduced in the last five years, and virtually all versions of Linux) would also apparently be banned, because they support connection sharing via NAT.

...UPDATE (6:35 PM): It's worse than I thought. Similar bills are on the table in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alaska, Tennessee, and Colorado.