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Google Deletes Own Blog

Official Google Blog: And we’re back

The Google Blog was unavailable for a short time tonight. We quickly learned from our initial investigation that there was no systemwide vulnerability for Blogger. We’ll let you know more about what did happen once we finish looking into it.

Update: We’ve determined the cause of tonight’s outage. The blog was mistakenly deleted by us (d’oh!) which allowed the blog address to be temporarily claimed by another user. This was not a hack, and nobody guessed our password. Our bad.

This is inspiring.

articles about hoodia gordonii

Articles about Hoodia Gordonii from Google News:


Harry Potter stories I’m reading …

via Google Reader:


Lego arena

Via an article at Ezprezzo.

lego arena

I love this stuff.

ABC News: Did Russian Ambassador Give Saddam the U.S. War Plan?

Why aren’t these documents headline news?

ABC News: Did Russian Ambassador Give Saddam the U.S. War Plan?
March 23, 2006 — Following are the ABC News Investigative Unit’s summaries of seven documents from Saddam Hussein’s government, which the U.S. government has released.

The documents discuss Osama bin Laden, weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda and more.

The full documents can be found on the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office Web site: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm.

For example:

The first document (CMPC-2003-001950) is a handwritten account of a meeting with the Russian ambassador that details his description of the composition, size, location and type of U.S. military forces arrayed in the Gulf and Jordan. The document includes the exact numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, different types of aircraft, missiles, helicopters, aircraft carriers, and other forces, and also includes their exact locations. The ambassador also described the positions of two Special Forces units.

Document dated March 25, 2003

The second document (CMPC-2004-001117) is a typed account, signed by Deputy Foreign Minister Hammam Abdel Khaleq, that states that the Russian ambassador has told the Iraqis that the United States was planning to deploy its force into Iraq from Basra in the South and up the Euphrates, and would avoid entering major cities on the way to Baghdad, which is, in fact what happened. The documents also state “Americans are also planning on taking control of the oil fields in Kirkuk.” The information was obtained by the Russians from “sources at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar,” according to the document.

Slate on Dan Brown

slate: Dan Brown as Mona Lisa

A good article in Slate about Dan Brown’s court filing in his “Da Vinci Code” copyright case in London.

Lego Aircraft Carrier

Lego aircraft carrier

Very cool!

“The Affect” Dialect Spreads Like Crabgrass

NYO – News Story 2

Many linguists said that women tend to be innovators of language. One widely held theory is that women are most sensitive to social capital and are the gatekeepers of the language, scolding children when they pronounce words incorrectly. The time may not be far off when mothers will be reprimanding their children for not inserting a “like” before an adjective.

Like, argh.

U.S. Intelligence and the French Nuclear Weapons Program

U.S. Intelligence and the French Nuclear Weapons Program
The U.S. Intelligence Community devoted significant effort to the collection and analysis of intelligence concerning the French nuclear weapons program beginning in the early days of the Cold War through the mid-1970s, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and archival research and posted on the Web today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

[Well, duh. No story here: they were doing their job.]

The documents also indicate that new technological improvements in U.S. nuclear intelligence gathering were used to closely monitor the French program. The collection effort included the use of overhead reconnaissance systems (including satellites and U-2 aircraft), drones, communications intercepts systems, aircraft to gather debris and signatures from French nuclear tests, and specially-equipped ships stationed near the French Pacific test site.

[Now this is more interesting. Off the top of my head, I wouldn't have guessed that the French program was a technology driver for us.]

Mayor Nagin: let’s not learn from our mistakes

CNN.com – Nagin rejects limits on rebuilding in New Orleans – Mar 21, 2006

All New Orleans residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina should be allowed to rebuild if they choose, and the city will not stand in the way of reconstruction in areas considered vulnerable to flooding in future storms, Mayor Ray Nagin announced Monday.

What this means: less Federal assistance now (Congress won’t take New Orleans seriously) and less Federal assistance in the future.