July 2, 2002

MyFreePress joined Joe Jennet's Radio Randomizer project.  It works much like a webring.  Just click on this icon  (the one you see just like it at the top right of this page) to visit a random Radio weblog that has joined the ring. 11:48:30 PM

Dr. Sari Nuseibeh, President of Jerusalem University, responded through Albawaba.com to the accusations against him for signing along with others on a statement calling for the halt of suicide bombings inside Israel. 3:46:10 PM

Chanting "we are not beggars," thousands of unemployed Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza City on Monday to accuse Yasser Arafat's governing authority of corruption and failing to provide them with jobs. Several demonstrators held up empty plates. Others accused officials of embezzling foreign aid. "Where is the money we see donated by Arab nations on our TV screens? We get nothing," a man shouted. "It was stolen," others responded.  [ Reuters ] I think it was blown up.  Guns or butter is the economic reality being ignored. 3:27:19 PM

A US man is planning to run his pet dog as an opponent to Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris in her bid to reach US Congress.  In one of the country's more unusual political protests, Percy, a border-collie mixed breed, will be Ms Harris's opponent in the Republican race to obtain a seat in the US House of Representatives - the lower house of Congress.  Ms Harris is perhaps best known as one of the key players in the controversial US presidential elections in 2000.  [ BBC ] 2:14:26 PM

Is there really a cyberspace full of “cybercitizens” who need only be accountable to their own “cyberlaws”? A loose-knit group of law professors is bucking one of the big fads in the legal field by calling that whole idea cybersilly. [ MSNBC ] 9:25:44 AM

Airport checkpoint screeners prevented a drunk America West crew from piloting a flight to Phoenix on Monday, police said. The two pilots, arrested minutes before they were to take off, were confronted by screeners when the men tried to carry cups of coffee through a checkpoint in violation of security rules. When the pilots began to argue, the screeners smelled alcohol on them and called police. [ USA Today ] 7:55:59 AM

Has anyone noticed that Israel is in the midst of antiterrorist military operation in the Palestinian territories, and, unlike the last time this happened, no one seems very bothered by it?  (Earlier this week) Israel killed Muhanad Taher, head of Hamas's military wing in Nablus. "According to Israeli security sources, Taher was directly involved in dozens of terror attacks in which more than 100 Israelis were killed," Ha'aretz reports. Earlier, Israel blew up the Palestinian Authority's headquarters in Hebron, where it believed 15 Palestinian terrorists were holed up. If this had happened during the spring, there would have been squeals of horror from European and Arab officials and America's fringe left. Instead, the Associated Press reports that Denmark's Prime Minster Anders Fogh Rasmussen--whose country assumed the European Union's rotating presidency yesterday--says "he agrees with the US call that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat needs to be replaced." The Christian Science Monitor reports from Amman that "Jordanian officials say popular anger at perceived US support for Israel's onslaught against the Palestinians and America's active role in isolating Iraq has turned to helpless resignation." And in Washington Saturday, we spotted a group marching up 15th Street, carrying Palestinian flags and shouting anti-Israel slogans. There could not have been more than 100 marchers, and the protest was so small it doesn't appear to have drawn any news coverage. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that "thousands of unemployed Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza City on Monday to accuse Yasser Arafat's governing authority of corruption and failing to provide them with jobs." Could President Bush's call for democracy in the Muslim world already be bearing fruit? Of course, the protest organizer, Mohammad Dahman, is quick to say that he still hates the Jewish state: "Israel is the cause of all miseries, but the Palestinian Authority has a duty to protect its citizens from hunger," he tells the wire service. Writing in the Washington Post, Eyad Sarraj of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights makes clear how much of a departure Bush's embrace of democracy is from the Clinton administration: One of my earliest and greatest shocks was when U.S. Vice President Al Gore, during a mid-1990s visit to Jericho, publicly approved the establishment of military courts by the Palestinian Authority. These courts have sentenced people to death in summary trials where the accused have no attorney and no right to appeal. In 1996, I dared to say that the regime was corrupt and oppressive. For this, I was arrested, beaten and thrown into solitary confinement. [ OpinionJournal ] 7:52:58 AM

Court Sees Appeal in Sex.com Case. The case of sex.com is slated to go before a federal appeals court, which will hear arguments from an accused con man, a porn-site operator and the largest domain-name registry. By Joanna Glasner. [Wired News] 7:47:49 AM

Staggering AIDS Report From U.N.. The AIDS epidemic is worse than was ever considered possible and isn't close to being controlled, a report from the United Nations says. Jordan Lite reports from New York. [Wired News] 7:46:43 AM