The Null Device
2001/9/25
News has emerged that in the early 70s, Australia's hip soft-lefty PM Gough Whitlam asked Burt Bacharach to write a new national anthem for Australia. Whitlam was a fan of Bacharach, who penned a great many hits of the Swingin' 60s, and asked him to enter a contest to write a new Australian national anthem, half in jest. Bacharach declined.
An article on the naming of military operations, from WW1 to the spin-conscious present day. (via Rebecca's Pocket)
An article claiming that terrorists had stolen the identities of Western-educated Arabs who were murdered in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion, and destroyed or modified all record of their existence:
Their homes were not looted, but carefully ransacked to eliminate any personal trace that they had been there. Passports vanished, along with driving licences and bank books. Nobody thought it suspicious at the time that there were no photographs left of the victims nor books with their names inscribed on the cover. Security chiefs now fear they were erased so somebody else could take their place.
(via one.point.zero)