Alec Saunders SquawkBox

January 31, 1 month after new years eve.  5.5 lbs down, and 24% BF.  Only 20 more lbs to go.  When I look back at the fat meter chart, though, I am just back to where I was in November before the Christmas excess.  I’m exercising a lot more, eating moderately, and avoiding alcohol, which might be a factor in driving down the body fat number. 

Blogs open doors for developers. Business software developers are learning what game makers have long known: Using Web logs and online tools to gather feedback can help strengthen products–and pull in customers. By David Becker, Staff Writer, CNET News.com.

To me, this is just intuitively obvious.  I’ve been online since the mid-1980’s beginning with the old BBS world, and later FIDO bulletin boards, Compuserve, and the early AOL.  The formation of virtual communities in (what we called then) cyberspace, was one of the most exhilarating phases of the early internet. One of my jobs in 1994 was to use these networks as an ad-hoc marketing vehicle for Windows 95 (then called Chicago), and to build grassroots customer support for the product.  At one point, I ran the largest opt-in mailing list on the web, with nearly 900,000 subscribers, for the purposes of telling people nothing more than the latest info on what we were building in the Chicago project.   As a customer relations and marketing tool, an interactive online presence (as opposed to a web page, which more often than not is just a digital glossy brochure), beats everything else hands down.

Guilty until proven innocent.  Marcus Gee writes that Saddam is not entitled to the standard we apply in most cases — Innocent until proven guilty — because he is, in essence, on parole.  He was convicted, given a light sentence in 1991 by the UN, and has been breaking parole ever since. 

Last night the House of Commons debated the Iraqi situation. The Government stands firm that the correct way to help this come to a close is through the UN.  The Alliance wants to back the US firmly, and the other three parties are in favour of UN action.  One wonders, though, just how relevant this country’s support is.  We have no military assets in the area, no forward bases, and little intelligence to contribute. 

The Citizen this morning reports that Powell will show photographs of Iraqi non-compliance next week.

Powell is expected to produce aerial photographs as evidence Iraq has been hiding its weapons programs from UN inspectors. The photographs will show activity at suspect sites just before the inspectors’ arrival and will be part of a package of evidence the White House is in the process of declassifying.

David Warren reaches predictable conclusions in No Ambiguity. 

Toronto Sun columnist Linda Williamson: No one is suggesting Canada shouldn’t take its own position on Iraq as a sovereign nation. The trouble is that we don’t have a position, period.

It looks a little better in this Toronto Star story titled “Canada wants proof“.  Resolution 1441 is not a paper tiger, says Bill Graham.