This week's Free Will Astrology

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):I predict that some night this week you will dream of a secret garden. From a distance, you'll spy it below you as you're walking alone in a hilly wilderness. As you approach, you'll be filled with dazzled thoughts like, "Wow! That's exactly how I'd create a secret garden if I ever had the chance! It's got everything I love!" When you finally arrive at the gate to the garden, you'll find it bears a sign with your name on it, and when you slip your hand in your pocket you'll find a golden key that fits the gate's lock perfectly. As you stride in, you'll realize this is in fact your very own secret garden: You created it long ago, but forgot about it until now.

Go, Helen!

An excerpt from the Jan. 6 White House press briefing by Ari Fleischer:

Ari Fleischer: Good afternoon and happy new year to everybody. The president began his day with an intelligence briefing, followed by an FBI briefing. Then he had a series of policy briefings. And this afternoon, the president will look forward to a Cabinet meeting where the president will discuss with members of his Cabinet his agenda for the year. The president is going to focus on economic growth, making America a more compassionate country, and providing for the security of our nation abroad and on the home front.

And with that, I'm more than happy to take your questions. Helen.

Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers: At the earlier briefing, Ari, you said that the president deplored the taking of innocent lives. Does that apply to all innocent lives in the world? And I have a follow-up.

Fleischer: I refer specifically to a horrible terrorist attack on Tel Aviv that killed scores and wounded hundreds. And the president, as he said in his statement yesterday, deplores in the strongest terms the taking of those lives and the wounding of those people, innocents in Israel.

Thomas: My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis?

Fleischer: Helen, the question is how to protect Americans, and our allies and friends --

Thomas: They're not attacking you.

Fleischer: -- from a country --

Thomas: Have they laid the glove on you or on the United States, the Iraqis, in 11 years?

Fleischer: I guess you have forgotten about the Americans who were killed in the first Gulf War as a result of Saddam Hussein's aggression then.

Thomas: Is this revenge, 11 years of revenge?

Fleischer: Helen, I think you know very well that the president's position is that he wants to avert war, and that the president has asked the United Nations to go into Iraq to help with the purpose of averting war.

Thomas: Would the president attack innocent Iraqi lives?

Fleischer: The president wants to make certain that he can defend our country, defend our interests, defend the region, and make certain that American lives are not lost.

Thomas: And he thinks they are a threat to us?

Fleischer:There is no question that the president thinks that Iraq is a threat to the United States.

Thomas: The Iraqi people?

Fleischer: The Iraqi people are represented by their government. If there was regime change, the Iraqi --

Thomas:So they will be vulnerable?

Fleischer: Actually, the president has made it very clear that he has no dispute with the people of Iraq. That's why the American policy remains a policy of regime change. There is no question the people of Iraq --

Thomas: That's a decision for them to make, isn't it? It's their country.

Fleischer: Helen, if you think that the people of Iraq are in a position to dictate who their dictator is, I don't think that has been what history has shown.

Thomas: I think many countries don't have -- people don't have the decision -- including us.

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As our troops head for Iraq, there is still no connection between that country and Sept. 11. It is as if a year and a half after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we attacked Brazil.

Bush implies that we know where Iraqi weapons are, so why doesn't he tell U.N. inspector Blix? The official response: "Then everyone will know!" (Not made up.)

- Mark Russell

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OS X for x86 architecture- there is hope!

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Too true:

A poll, sort of

From the StarTribune:

The Utne Reader, Twin Cities-based and always lively, conducts a weekly poll (not statistically valid, mind you) on its Web site (http://www.utne.com).A recent question and results are amusing, if not illuminating:

WEEK OF DEC. 30 POLL: North Korea's got the nukes, but Bush says Iraq's the bigger threat. Who really poses the greatest danger to America?

Al-Qaida = 13 percent

Iraq = 2 percent

North Korea = 6 percent

Pakistan = 1 percent

Saudi Arabia = 3 percent

John Ashcroft = 62 percent

Other = 12 percent