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I'd like to return, at this time, to President Bush's UN address of September 12th, 2002.

The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?

He also gave a speech at Naval Station Mayport on February 13th, 2003.

The decision is this for the United Nations: When you say something does it mean anything? You've got to decide, if you lay down a resolution, does it mean anything? The United Nations Security Council can now decide whether or not it has the resolve to enforce it's resolutions.

I'm optimistic that the U.N. Security Council will rise to its responsibilities, and this time ensure enforcement of what it told Saddam Hussein he must do. See, I believe when it's all said and done, free nations will not allow the United Nations to fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant debating society. (Applause.) I'm optimistic that free nations will show backbone and courage in the face of true threats to peace and freedom.

The message of 2002 and 2003 was quite clear. If the UN refused to authorize war against Iraq, it would become irrelevant.

Yesterday, Bush gave another speech.

The United Nations Special Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is now consulting with a broad spectrum of Iraqis to determine the composition of this interim government. The special envoy intends to put forward the names of interim government officials this week. In addition to a president, two vice presidents, and a prime minister, 26 Iraqi ministers will oversee government departments, from health to justice to defense. This new government will be advised by a national council, which will be chosen in July by Iraqis representing their country's diversity. This interim government will exercise full sovereignty until national elections are held. America fully supports Mr. Brahimi's efforts, and I have instructed the Coalition Provisional Authority to assist him in every way possible.

The United Nations has, apparently, remained fairly relevant despite refusing to support Bush's war.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

This is probably the final post on the draft rumors.

First, I looked a little deeper into the way Congress.org works. The original draft rumor was a Soapbox Alert, not an Action Alert. Action Alerts are associated with the organization that produced them; Soapbox Alerts have no attribution.

Turns out anyone can post a Soapbox Alert. Anyone at all. There's no way to tell who posted it and there seems to be no filter before a Soapbox Alert hits the site. I.e., there is no more accountability behind the original rumor than there would be from a message board posting on some random message board.

Second, how do I know IDI owns Congress.org? I did a whois on the domain to look up the owner of record. Survey says:

Registrant Name: Issue Dynamics Inc.
Registrant Organization: Issue Dynamics Inc.
Registrant Street1: 919 18th Street, NW 10th Floor
Registrant City: Washington
Registrant State/Province: DC
Registrant Postal Code: 20006
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Email: deutsch@IDI.NET

This matches the registration info for idi.net, although they used a different domain registrar for that one. But it's clearly the same people using the same nameservers, etc.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

Current Gmail users have a couple of invites to the beta to give away. This has resulted in many offers of firstborn. In order to organize these offers, a clever person invented gmail swap, where people can post offers and the lucky few with gmail invites can pick the cream of the crop.

For the record, this one is the cream of the crop. But only if you're an Asheron's Call player who's easily amused.