Dang furriners, keep out!

Dang furriners, keep out!

Well, well. I’ve just tried to access Dubya’s official re-election website, www.georgewbush.com. I get an Access Denied You don’t have permission to access “http://www.georgewbush.com/” on this server message. And, according to the BBC, this is deliberate. “Surfers outside the US have been unable to visit the official re-election site of President George W Bush. The blocking of browsers sited outside the US began in the early hours of Monday morning. Since then people outside the US trying to browse the site get a message saying they are not authorised to view it. The blocking does not appear to be due to an attack by vandals or malicious hackers, but as a result of a policy decision by the Bush camp.”

John Kerry’s website, however, still welcomes furriners.

Update: The Bush camp claims the lockout is for ‘security’ reasons. An interesting thought is whether US soldiers serving in Iraq, or devout Bush supporters living outside the US, are likewise excluded from access to the site. If they are then the poor dears may find what they’re looking for at this address.

The new iPod…

The new iPod…

… does indeed — as the rumours predicted — handle images as well as music.

Quote from NYT story:

“SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 26 – Apple Computer introduced on Tuesday its next generation iPod music player, which has the ability to display digital images as well as play songs.

The new iPod Photo, priced at $499 and $599, will be able to store up to 25,000 wallet-size digital images and display them on a television via a cable. It comes with 40-gigabyte or 60-gigabyte disk storage, capable of storing up to 15,000 songs.”

Footnote: At today’s exchange rate, (USD) 499 translates into (GBP) 272. So guess how much the 40GB model costs at the UK Apple store? Why (GBP) 359. What a racket.