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U.N. Spying and Evasions of American Journalism

Tony Blair and George W. Bush want the issue of spying at the United Nations to go away. That’s one of the reasons the Blair government ended its prosecution of whistleblower Katharine Gun on Wednesday (Feb. 25). But within 24 hours, the scandal of U.N. spying exploded further when one of Blair’s former cabinet ministers said that British spies closely monitored conversations of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq last year.

The new allegations, which have the ring of truth, are now coming from ex-secretary of international development Clare Short. “I have seen transcripts of Kofi Annan’s conversations,” she said in an interview with BBC Radio. “In fact I have had conversations with Kofi in the run-up to war thinking ‘Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this and people will see what he and I are saying.’” Short added that British intelligence had been explicitly directed to spy on Annan and other top U.N. officials.

Few can doubt that some major British news outlets will thoroughly dig below the surface of Short’s charges. But on the other side of the

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If I didn't run...

Slamming Entitlement

Franklin Delano Roosevelt must be turning in his grave. Entitlement programs, hogwash. Medicare, phooey. Medicaid, who the hell cares? After-school programs, let them take care of themselves. Social Security, let 'em cake. The New Deal is a dead deal, who cares about the little weasels?  

According to Federal Reserve guru, Alan Greenspan, who is obviously in touch with the man and woman on the street, in the ghetto, in the old-age home, in the nursing home, living hand to mouth, he proclaims the answer to our financial woes of an overly exuberant and financially-bankrupt administration is to cut from those who need it the most.  

Diebold and Fitrakis column

Hi,

Just thought I'd say that I worked on ATM systems at a major bank when I was younger. I was there until they changed out the old 910 models for the 911 ATMs. ATMs haven't changed much in the last 15 - 20 years. Remarkably little.

For what it's worth, I wrote a scenario for the bank showing how to remove all the money from an ATM with no record. You see, the ATMs would not print either a journal entry or a receipt without a command to do so, which was independent of the command to dispense bills. Not much happened as a result except some meetings.

So even if you have printed receipts, that isn't anywhere near enough to ensure electronic voting machines are honest. You can only know if they are honest if you can easily count and compare the hardcopy record with the electronic record. There is no reason to believe that the receipt corresponds to the journal or the journal agrees with the vote recorded. They won't agree unless someone makes sure they do.

Diebold and the Right Wing

Dr. Fitrakis,

I'm not sure this is your correct e-mail address, but in case it is, I wanted to briefly give you a few facts related to your portrayal of my company's role with the State of Maryland's voting system.

First, Bill Owens was never the CEO of SAIC and he has not been with the company for quite some time. There have only been two CEOs in the 35-year history of the company: Dr. J. Robert Beyster, our founder, and Kenneth Dahlberg, who took over on November 3, 2003. Neither man had any contact with the SAIC employees who conducted the Maryland study.

Second, our study for the State of Maryland on Diebold's system was relatively critical. That the state chose to proceed with the system was its prerogative. If you check the record, you will find that Professor Rubin of Johns Hopkins praised our report and believed that its findings were cause for the state to come to a different conclusion.

Freddie and Fannie

AUSTIN, Texas -- Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have gone and gotten themselves in big trouble. For those of you who do not follow the business pages, I only wish we were talking about pregnant teen-agers. Fannie and Freddie are the two government-sponsored mortgage companies that help most of us buy homes. Trouble is, they've run themselves into big-time debt -- they've doubled the amount they owe in just the last five years. When I say big-time, try $2 trillion. And guess who's on the hook if these things go under? Congratulations, taxpayers.

            This week, Alan Greenspan, the Great Pooh-Bah of the financial world, opined in his usual Delphic style before the Senate Banking Committee, "To fend off possible future systemic difficulties, which we assess as likely if the expansion continues unabated, preventive actions are required sooner rather than later." The Wall Street Journal helpfully translates this as, "Act quickly." Hard to tell with Greenspan: I yield to the Journal's long experience in Greenspan translation, but it could also mean, "Push the panic button now!"

Winning with Ralph Nader

Listening to Democrats screaming about Ralph Nader's entry into the presidential race I finally understand the mindset of those Communist dictatorships that used to take such trouble to ensure that the final count showed a 99 percent Yes vote for the CP candidate. It's a totalitarian logic. "Anybody But Bush," chorus the Democrats. But they don't mean that. They mean "Nobody But Kerry." And if John Edward wins big in the primaries next week, they'll start shouting, "Nobody But Edwards."

The strange collapse of building seven

If "Building Seven" says nothing to you, you have lots of company.  On 9/11 it caught fire and fell to the ground, all 47 stories.  Yet today, two and a half years later, no one knows why--that is, unless they are privy to some inside knowledge.  When World Trade Center Tower One (WTC 1) collapsed so inconceivably at 10:28 a.m., WTC 7, to its north, began sprouting fires that could be seen through windows, here and there.  Seven hours later it was a heap of smoking debris that looked exactly like a demolition by use of explosives, a pile of rubble within its own footprint.  

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