Looks like the old partners.nytimes.com trick for getting around the authentication at the New York Times web site has been turned off. I’ll have to come up with something new for linking to them.

Here’s Phil Agre’s latest set of attack-related links. By the way, I added a bunch of stuff this weekend that may be worth checking out.

The Gartner Group is recommending that companies ditch IIS. That’s a pretty amazing recommendation, when you think about it.

Meet the Press: Colin Powell and the Congressional leadership were guests on Meet the Press today. Here’s a pointer to the transcript. Powell said some things that I was hoping to hear:

SEC’Y POWELL: Well, let’s not assume there will be a large-scale war. I don’t know that we should even consider a large-scale war of the conventional type. But it’s more interesting to note that Egypt and Saudi Arabia and most of the countries in that part of the world have come to our support. They have recognized that terrorism is a threat, not only against the United States, against them. They have suffered from terrorism, as well. And they recognize that this is not consistent with Islamic teachings. It is absolutely inconsistent with Islamic teachings. And so I think they understand the domestic pressures they are under, and they understand what they have committed themselves to. And when you even have countries such as Syria and, to some extent even Iran, indicating that they sense the problem associated with this kind of attack, it gives us something to explore, something to work with. And what we should be looking at, really, is the solid support we have received from Arab nations.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you what the president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, had to say and give you a chance to talk about it a little bit: “‘If you launch an attack against Afghanistan or another country on your list of rogue states, you will kill many innocent people, just as the terrorists killed many of your people,’ he [Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak] said in the interview. ‘Don’t play the game of your enemy. They want your reprisals to bring forth, from the blood and ruins or your bombing, a new generation of militants who will cry for revenge against the United States.'”

SEC’Y POWELL: We’re very sensitive to that. One has to be careful that in your reaction, you don’t give the enemy exactly what the enemy would like to have, a new cause celebre. And so we will be very sensitive to that, and I know that my colleagues in the Pentagon are sensitive to that, as they consider the various options that are available to them.

I met a Pakistani man today whose brother worked in the World Trade Center until it was destroyed. He normally went to work at about 9, but that morning he arrived half an hour late because his wife had made breakfast and told him that if he didn’t eat it, she’d never make breakfast again. I’ve heard such stories many times on the news, but it was eerie to hear one first hand.

Here’s Phil Agre’s latest set of links concerning the 9/11 attack.

Stories that we were planning on attacking Afghanistan this month even before 9/11 don’t seem to be going away. This one says that the Taliban and bin Laden knew of our plans up to two months ago, and that the 9/11 attacks could have been preemptive strikes in anticipation of this attack.

I’ve added a couple of links to the Contribute box in the right column. One is for the Red Cross. The other is for Médecins Sans Frontières. If and when we start bombing third world countries for supporting terrorism, they’re the guys who are going to go in there and provide medical care to the innocent bystanders who are caught in the crossfire.

I’m taking a quick stroll through the CIA World Factbook’s file on Afghanistan. Some interesting facts: 12% of the land is arable, 0% is farmland. It has roughly 27,000,000 citizens. The life expectancy is 46.24 years. The literacy rate among women is 15% (and, since women are not allowed to get an education, it’s going down). Among men it’s only 47%. The number one agricultural product is the opium poppy. Afghanistan encompases 674,000 square kilometers of land, none of it is water. There are 26 kilometers of railroad tracks in the country, and 2800km of paved roads. The GDP per capita is $800 a year. Considering that the major staple of their economy is opium sales, I doubt that the median income is anywhere near $800 a year. Just thought you might want to know.

Vinicius’ Emacs page: several Emacs toys, including some enhanced printing packages that are of particular interest to me.