Iraq strike ‘would open hell’s gates’. Foreign ministers of the Arab League warn that a military strike on Iraq would lead to major instability in the region. [BBC News | WORLD]

Microsoft unveils Windows Media 9. The software goliath reveals its long-awaited digital media software in an effort to establish dominance for its operating system in distributing high-quality digital content. [CNET News.com]

Protesters Interrupt Powell Speech as U.N. Talks End. Demonstrators in Johannesburg jeered Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Wednesday to protest the administration’s environmental and foreign aid policies. By James Dao. [New York Times: Politics]

MS patches bogus certificate hole on NT, XP. The rest of you, Mac users too, will have to wait [The Register]
What the register has forgotten is that this vuln affects everything that uses certs for trust, which is a lot of crap across the microsoft infrastructure. Therefore you might have been a bit better via using mozilla, but will still be vuln to the issue in all the other ways.

DNS vulnerability ‘critical’. Fix available – at a price [The Register]

Novell intros cheaper licenses for Web services. New Deal [The Register]

No Action on Iraq Until Congress Approves, Bush Says. President Bush assured Congressional leaders today that he would take no military action against Iraq without getting formal approval from Congress. By Alison Mitchell and David E. Sanger. [New York Times: Politics]

MS Pushes New Tablet on Students. Tablet PCs are just around the corner for some schools. The wealthier schools, that is. Regardless, Microsoft believes they’ll replace the laptop in no time. By Elisa Batista. [Wired News]

Bush by the Numbers, as Told by a Diligent Scorekeeper [Washington Post]
Bush has spent a whopping total of 250 days of his presidency at Camp David (123 days), Kennebunkport (12) and his Texas ranch (115). That means Bush has spent 42 percent of his term so far at one of his three leisure destinations.

The more colorful critiques from Zagat [lnk.to]