Doug Ross @ Journal

WMD Breakthrough

Today's Wall Street Journal has an exceptional op-ed column on WMDs. The Iraq war threw a massive monkey-wrench into the Islamabad-Pyongyang-Tehran-Tripoli nuclear parts network. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear program, described the network in his tell-all interview on Pakistani television.

Further, the Journal points out that President Bush's post-9/11 Proliferation Security Initiative (much ridiculed by Clinton-era "experts") resulted in the interception of centrifuge parts destined for Libya. Shortly thereafter, Gadhafi cried "uncle" and Iran's leadership invited the IAEA in for inspections.

"All of this anti-WMD progress contrasts dramatically with what took place during the late 1990's, when the U.S was supposedly just as worried about nuclear proliferation. We now know that those were the years when Mr. Khan spread his nuclear wares, when Gadhafi gathered his centrifuges, when Iraq kick out U.N. inspectors, and Iran deceived the world, and when North Korea was preparing to enrich uranium even while it negotiated new new 'disarmament' deals with the Clinton Administration. One obvious conlusion is that none of these proliferators believed the U.S. or U.N. were serious about confronting them. And at the time they were right."

(Emphasis ours). I would love to see an Albright, Feinstein, Gore, Schumer or other apologist for Clinton's failed (and some would say deadly) policies to address this op-ed piece... point-by-point.

Stephen Thaler's Creativity Machine

"T" pointed me to an exceptional article on mod'ed neural nets and the startling inventive breakthroughs that resulted. This amazing technology points to a radically improved strategy for artificial intelligence and, frankly, scares the heck out of some folks. Imagine Terminator III-style intelligence.

"Technically, Stephen Thaler has written more music than any composer in the world. He also invented the Oral-B CrossAction toothbrush and devices that search the Internet for messages from terrorists. He has discovered substances harder than diamonds, coined 1.5 million new English words, and trained robotic cockroaches. Technically.

Thaler, the president and chief executive of Imagination Engines Inc. in Maryland Heights, Mo., gets credit for all those things, but he's really just ``the man behind the curtain,'' he said. The real inventor is a computer program called a Creativity Machine."

Stephen Thaler's Creativity Machine

Google Adwords, Chapter 33

"When business turned south last year at Corrugated Metals in Chicago, it turned to Google, the Internet's No. 1 search site. Co-owners Ken and Tom Carlton spent $200 a month to get an ad for their business to pop up when someone searched for "roll forming," a process that turns metal into different shapes.

"Within days," says Ken Carlton, the ad "generated millions and millions of dollars in sales. ... I shudder to think of where we'd be ... without Google." Sales for the 26-employee firm are up 35%."

For Google, many retailers eagerly jump through hoops