A great hoax is being perpetrated on the world, the hoax of negotiations as an untried method to "solve" the "Iranian problem." In fact, we have been negotiating with the mullahs ever since-indeed even before-the 1979 revolution that deposed the Shah and brought to power the Islamic Fascist regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In the intervening 28 years, we have participated in countless face-to-face encounters, myriad "demarches" sent through diplomatic channels, and meetings-some on the fringes of international conferences-involving "unofficial" representatives of one government or the other.

The lack of any tangible result is obvious, yet the chatterers, led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, and cheered on by intellectuals, editorialists, and instant experts on Iran, act as if none of this ever happened.

Sophisticated net surfers will have noticed that, despite my proclamations that "It can't be done," there is a plethora of commercial movies - the kind you buy on DVD - that are available for download on the various "pirate" services, of which Kazaa is (was) the most well known.

Actually, when I say "can't," I mean "shouldn't" - but there is technology, both hardware and software that allows intrepid souls to "rip" (copy) DVDs off the disk and onto their computers.

You don't have to be police lineup material to use the methods described below to copy DVDs. Maybe you want to make backups or copies of a wedding or Bar-mitzvah DVD to send to family and friends abroad.

So how do they - and we - do it?

The headline on the top of the front page of the New York Times yesterday, May 26, was: "FBI told of Koran abuses." The wording of the headline and the prominence of the display give the casual reader the impression the story -- written by Neil Lewis -- was new, and that the story was true. Neither is so.

Lewis' story was based on reports of interrogations by FBI agents of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and 2003. He noted in his third paragraph that "they are accounts of unsubstantiated allegations made by the prisoners under interrogation."

The New York Times didn't mention that an al Qaeda training manual, captured a couple of years ago by British police, instructs detainees to make false charges against their captors.

So why is so much of the media giving so much prominence to a recycled story of unsubstantiated charges made by America's enemies who have been told to make false accusations if captured?

There is so much wonderful nervousness in Tehran right now. Ayatollah Khamenei probably knows he's going to die without any of the great victories he has pursued:  Lebanese democracy has not yielded, there is no Islamic Republic in Iraq, and Israel is still there.

Indeed, our recent adjustment to his agents' behavior in Iraq - arrests of Iranians, exposure of their weapons supply - must send chills through his malignant body, since it shatters the great lie in which he and his followers had so passionately believed: that America has no stomach for war, and will break and run when attacked systematically.

Other wonderful news is that physical attacks against the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij-the prime instruments of repression-are taking place all over Iran.  See Jack Wheeler's Pelosi's Primrose Path for details.

All this adds to the intensity of the War of  Persian Succession, the fierce power struggle within the regime for the succession to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.  The political war between the two men who fancy themselves the logical tyrants of the Islamic Republic-Rafsanjani and Ahmadi-Nezhad-is heating up by the hour.

This is Dennis “The Wizard” Turner’s initial Science column for To The Point. In addition to his weekly column on computers, we hope this is the first of many. ---JW


Dark matter is usually thought of as something ‘out there.’ But we will never truly understand it unless we can bring down to earth.

If we could see dark matter, the Milky Way galaxy would look like a much different place. The familiar spiral disk, where most of the stars reside, would be shrouded by a dense haze of dark matter particles. Astronomers think the dark haze is 10 times as massive as the disk and nearly 10 times as big in diameter.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist's health is so poor he likely soon will be called to the Great Appellate Bench in the Sky. On NBC's "Meet the Press" program last month, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev), said he could support the elevation of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia to chief justice, but not Justice Clarence Thomas.

Angela Onwuachi-Willig, a liberal Democrat who is black, said Reid's erroneous attack on Thomas appeared to be motivated by racism.

"It is the black justice who cannot write opinions, articulate independent thoughts, or perform his job well," she said, writing in the Chicago Tribune. "The exact same comments were made about the late Justice Thurgood Marshall."