According to a report, a nation has been experimenting with chemical weapons in Sudan. And no, it’s not Iraq:

Syria tested chemical weapons on civilians in Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region in June and killed dozens of people.
The German daily Die Welt newspaper, in an advance release of its Wednesday edition, citing unnamed western security sources, said that injuries apparently caused by chemical arms were found on the bodies of the victims.
It said that witnesses quoted by an Arabic news website called ILAF in an article on August 2 had said that several frozen bodies arrived suddenly at the “Al-Fashr Hospital” in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in June.
Die Welt said the sources had indicated that the weapons tests were undertaken following a military exercise between Syria and Sudan.

One might note that in addition to its weapons of mass destruction program-related activities, Syria has also been involved in state sponsorship of terrorism-related program activities. But it should not be confused with the “axis of evil.”
Via The Moderate Voice.

A woman claims she was fired for having a bumper sticker on her car:

“We were going back to work from break, and my manager told me that Phil said to remove the sticker off my car or I was fired,” she said. “I told him that Phil couldn’t tell me who to vote for. He said, ‘Go tell him.’ ”
She went to Gaddis’ office, knocked on the door and entered on his orders.
“Phil and another man who works there were there,” she said. “I asked him if he said to remove the sticker and he said, ‘Yes, I did.’ I told him he couldn’t tell me who to vote for. When I told him that, he told me, ‘I own this place.’ I told him he still couldn’t tell me who to vote for.”
Gobbell said Gaddis told her to “get out of here.”
“I asked him if I was fired and he told me he was thinking about it,” she said. “I said, ‘Well, am I fired?’ He hollered and said, ‘Get out of here and shut the door.’ ”
She said her manager was standing in another room and she asked him if that meant for her to go back to work or go home. The manager told her to go back to work, but he came back a few minutes later and said, ” ‘I reckon you’re fired. You could either work for him or John Kerry,’ ” Gobbell said.

So one of the freedoms we’re always being reminded of in America is the freedom to be fired for displaying a bumber sticker on your own vehicle.
UPDATE: Senator Kerry called the woman and offered her a job.

What does “99.9% Up Time” from a web hosting service mean? It means at some point there will be 0.1% down time. And that’s what’s happened here recently as the web hosting provider has experience some sort of hard disk problem.
The company is currently in the process of bringing files back on line. But I see that the last few posts and comments have disappeared. Not sure if they will be restored or not.
UPDATE: Technical support says about two day’s worth of blog-related activities has vanished from the server. Alas.

Elsewhere in the “Axis of Evil“:

President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence.
While the indications were viewed as serious enough to warrant a warning to the White House, American intelligence agencies appear divided about the significance of the new North Korean actions, much as they were about the evidence concerning Iraq’s alleged weapons stockpiles.

Given the recent track record of American intelligence, there’s plenty of room for doubt as to whether or not the North Koreans will actually conduct a test. But there’s no doubt regarding their nuclear intentions. And how has the administration responded?

On the other hand, the divisions within the administration over how to deal with North Korea mirrors some of the old debate about Iraq. Hard-liners in the Pentagon and the vice president’s office have largely opposed making concessions of any kind in negotiations, and Vice President Dick Cheney has warned that “time is not on our side” to deal with the question. The State Department has pressed the case for negotiation, and for offering the North a face-saving way out. While the State Department has won the argument in recent times, how to deal with the North is a constant battle inside the administration.
. . .
Mr. Bush, while declaring he would not “tolerate” a nuclear North Korea, has insisted that his approach of involving China, Russia, Japan and South Korea in a new round of talks with the North is the only reasonable way to force the country to disarm. He has refused to set the kind of deadline for disarmament that he set for Saddam Hussein.
When asked in an interview with The New York Times two weeks ago to define what he meant by “tolerate,” he said: “I don’t think you give timelines to dictators and tyrants. I think it’s important for us to continue to lead coalitions that are firm and strong, in sending messages to both the North Koreans and the Iranians.”

So for all the Bush/Cheney ’04 bluster about indecisiveness being a sign of weakness in the “war on terror,” our North Korean policy has been drifting along without a rudder for three years as the evildoers ramp up their nuclear program.
But hey, we took care of Saddam’s aerial drones, didn’t we?

The New York Times has an anniversary page with archived articles, interactive features, and other remembrances. I flashed back by glancing at a few articles published in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. They still echo the shock and uncertain fear which compounded the terror. A more recent article looks back at the people who jumped from the World Trade Center. To me, the jumpers, more then anything else, encapsulate the horror of that day.
Elsewhere, South Knox Bubba remembers the victims.