June 21, 2002

AlltheWeb versus Google. Does size really matter? And what exactly is a "document?" Guest columnist Rich Wiggins investigates AlltheWeb's claim to have indexed more documents than Google. From the WebReference Update. 0621 [WebReference News] 4:08:48 PM

"Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center sharply criticized South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Thursday over an opinion piece in which the Nobel peace laureate called for divestment from Israel to protest Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip," Reuters reports. The piece appeared a week ago in the International Herald Tribune. So let's see if we have this straight: Tutu is calling for a boycott of Israel because he doesn't think Jews should be allowed to live in certain places. Didn't he use to be against apartheid? Tutu won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. [ Opinion Journal ] 3:11:27 PM

More than 50 Palestinians took out a full-page newspaper ad Wednesday condemning suicide bombings, a move that sparked debate at a time when most Palestinians support the attacks as an effective way to strike at Israel. The ad in al-Quds, a leading Palestinian daily, appeared a day after a suicide bomber killed 19 Israelis and himself on a Jerusalem bus and hours before a second bomber killed at least seven people at a bus stop this evening. In the ad, the Palestinians urged the militant groups behind deadly assaults on Israeli civilians to "stop sending our young people to carry out such attacks." The signatories included Hanan Ashrawi, a leading Palestinian spokeswoman and legislator, and the Palestinians' senior official in Jerusalem, Sari Nusseibeh, along with other prominent figures regarded as moderates. The ad urged other Palestinians to join them. [ Washington Post ] Palestinian intellectuals condemn attacks against Israeli civilians - Albawaba News 9:40:53 AM

Campus Klansmen and Cowards In his FoxNews.com piece, Glenn "InstaPundit" Reynolds noted that: "...If it is not addressed, last week’s riot may be next week’s — or next year’s — politically motivated murder. Such may seem unthinkable to Americans, but we saw such behavior on college campuses thirty-five years ago, and we’re seeing such behavior in Europe now. The tolerance of smaller-scale violence and illegality by university administrators has laid the foundation for worse in the future, unless swift action establishes an example that such acts are not tolerated." So far, the reaction continues to be cowardly at best, evil at worst. More to come about this on Monday, but meanwhile let me draw your attention to a few recent incidents and posts: SFSU: More bad faith from the university administration. It is becoming clearer by the day that they'd rather let their longstanding problem with hatred on their campus fester... it's easier that way.Mac's Temporary Blog has the details. Berkeley: Amygdala dissects anti-semitism there, adding yet more weight to the case that anti-semitism has become a staple of the radical left. UCal San Diego: Instapundit chimes in yet again, and asks me to "take it away..." Gladly. Basically, what we have here is a Hispanic equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan at the University of California San Diego. Which is just fine with the university's administration, who are happy not only to tolerate them on campus, but to subsidize them as well. SFSU has a similar situation ongoing. In my opinion, Erin O'Connor of Cant Watch is the best campus issues blogger out there. She's doing up a piece for publication on Monday. I've given a lot of thought to what it will take to change these campus dynamics, and come to some conclusions. Sharing those in full will be a post for another day, but here are 3 insights: The structure of the campaign for fixing our campuses looks a lot like our model for victory in Afghanistan. The demographic window dictates our time frame and operational tempo. Alumni will be the conflict's center of gravity. Perhaps the winds are not now in our favour, but we may have faith that winds of change shall come. Victory is not in sight, yet it is not beyond our power to see. That we should lose this battle, in our very citadels of reason and enquiry, is incomprehensible to the spirit of a free people. That spirit will be called upon in the coming years. Should it truly wake, the winds will come at last - and not one brick shall be left of the rotten and corrupt edifices that the merchants of cowardice and hate have built on our campuses. [ The Winds Of Change ] 9:21:33 AM

An asteroid the size of a soccer field whizzed by Earth at a distance much nearer than the Moon, the biggest such space rock in decades to get this close, scientists said on Thursday. "It's a good thing it missed the Earth, because we never saw it coming," Steve Maran of the American Astronomical Society said in a telephone interview. "The asteroid wasn't discovered until three days after it passed its closest approach to our planet." 9:17:07 AM

Arafat Said Ready to Accept Plan. (AP World News) Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is prepared to accept a Mideast peace plan put forward by then-U.S. President Bill Clinton in December 2000, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Friday. [Palestine & Israel News] 8:39:14 AM