Lessons of history: 1.3 (F)

dafydd found this editorial, by Doug Saunders of the Globe and Mail, in which he discusses interviewing Robert McNamara, who says that the United States (specifically, the Bush administration) learned nothing from Vietnam and is making the same set of critical mistakes all over again.

You know, I really don't want us to end up setting the entire Middle East ablaze.

Oh, yeah, find dafydd's original post here.

On a more cheerful note, micheinnz found this article about a Danish biotech company that has developed a genetically-modified cress plant that changes color when growing in proximity to buried explosives.  Think "clearing land mines", folks.

Eek!

Look, people, this can't be said enough . . . . if you must run Windows, fer gawdsake just don't use MSIE, OK?  This appears to be a facet of the same vulnerability Georgi Guninski discovered three years ago, which strongly argues that Microsoft can't fix it.  With the combination of this and December's MSIE Hole of the Month, a hostile site can lie to you both about what web site you're on and what you're downloading from it.

Remember, anything that's just a wrapper around MSIE (Avant, to name but one) is just as vulnerable.  Unless there's something on a known, trusted site that you MUST use MSIE for, do yourself a favor and install Mozilla, Firebird, Netscape or Opera instead.  And when you must use MSIE, don't click untrusted links, type the URL in yourself.  That'll help keep you from being 0wn3d.

Bits

( Some notable bits from New Scientist )