Robert John Cusack, when stopped at customs with four endangered songbirds and 50 illegal orchids, and asked if he had anything else: “Yes, I’ve got monkeys in my pants.” Quoted in News of the Weird.

“An indoor mall next to the [Camp Doha, Kuwait] finance office includes the Pamas Souvenir Shop, with carved wooden camels and T-shirts displaying a mushroom cloud with the caption, “Weather Forecast: Baghdad 32,000 Degrees and Partly Cloudy.” Other shops offer Iranian carpets, custom engraved wedding bands and Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200s. Enormous lines form at the Subway, Hardee’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken counters.” Rick Atkinson, writing in the Washington Post.

In today’s Washington Post: 100 people protested at the mall where a guy was arrested for wearing an antiwar t-shirt, as I mentioned yesterday.

There’s an interesting two-way radio network being set up in Washington for use in the event of a terrorist attack or other emergency (such as, around here, a 1/2 inch of snow).

CBS News had three translators for the Dan Rather interview with Saddam Hussein, but then had a fourth guy do the on-air translation, who had a nice Arab-sounding accent to add authenticity to the whole thing. That fourth guy was Steve Winfield, member of the Screen Actors Guild, who also does Spanish, French, Italian, Portugese, and German authentic accents.

There’s a new PayPal scam arriving by email. Reminder: never click on an email-supplied link to go to a financial site; they can take you to a spoof site instead with the goal of getting your account details and draining your account.

Update, 3/7/03: more news, including a copy of the offending letter for comparison to what’s showing up in your mailbox.

internetnews.com has more information about the CAPPS program to monitor airline passengers, currently being rolled out in test phase on Delta Airlines. PrivacyActivism is a coalition against this “massive secret database.”

“The closer you get to war, the less practical it is to write a balanced story. While traveling with a Marine patrol, you can’t get comments from Iraqi troops. It’s not journalism at its finest.” Glenn Garvin, Miami Herald, in a Slate article on the impossibility of objective war reporting.

Slate runs a fascinating article on super-vision and how science might make this something we pick up at the local doctor’s office. Part of a 5-part superman series, starting today.

The argument for why Colin Powell should resign.

“We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of the American people, since the war in Vietnam. Until this administration, it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president, I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.” John Brady Kiesling in his resignation letter from the US Foreign Service, quoted in Salon. Complete letter available here.

Bush bribes Americans $300 for war support. Well, not really.

“Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion.” Jed Babbin, former (Bush I) Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, from snopes.com

And this just in from today’s Washington Post: $300 million in tax breaks on a new spending bill stems from a GOP invitation to add a wish list of pork for favored lobbyists. Among the breaks: it’ll be cheaper for Canadians to bet on US horses. Meanwhile, the price of the newest Bush tax cut has gone up $35 billion. New cost: $726 billion.

Can you guess which incident resulted in the indictments of 10 members of the SFPD? More brilliance from the K Chronicles.

A boycott is up and running against Delta Airlines over their test run of the CAPPS system which will make sure that you’re not a terrorist. How? Credit checks, running you through secret government databases, that sort of thing. Fail the check, and you won’t be able to fly for 50 years.

“”If you want to take down a website but simply confiscate the servers, operators can always buy other servers. But if they take the domain name away, then they’ve put the person out of business.” Michael Overly on DoJ confiscations of domain names in recent drug paraphernalia cases, quoted in Wired News

The next version of Windows in early alpha has “leaked” onto the Net. Leak? No mention of lawsuits in the article, so I’m guessing that this was a strategic play for media. Anyway, if you want to see what you’ll be forced to use in 2004, here are details.

Toshiba has a working laptop fuel cell that runs on methanol. Still not quite laptop-battery size, still a few years away from end-use, but looks pretty peachy. Someday you’ll walk into your local bar and say, “A Guinness for me, and top off my PowerBook.”

Yet another arrest for wearing the wrong T-shirt at the wrong time. The subversive message: “Give peace a chance.”