September 10, 2002

The real root causes of the conflict which has become known as the War on Terror are the failures of Arab and Islamic elites. No Arab nation is a democracy, none enjoys a free press or speech. None can guarantee basic human rights, whether it be respect for property, life or conscience. Whether they are oil-rich or resource poor, they prefer to keep their people in ignorance and poverty. In the wider Islamic world there are related problems. Few Islamic nations, perhaps only Turkey and Malaysia, have made any halfway satisfactory progress into the modern age. [ The Times Online ] 1:22:26 PM

From: Middle East Realities "There's no free speech for hate speech," said Palestinian activist [that is Canadian PC parlance for terrorist or supporting-terrorist] David Battistuzzi. Hahahahahaha!!! Palestinians who teach their children to kill from the time they are babies, who have made terrorism part of their elementary school curriculum, who dance on the street when their terro-buddies kill and maim, who listen to "scholars" and "clerics" pass fatwas to kills Jews and Americans wherever they are....these a**holes now have the audacity to silence anyone who disagrees with their savagery because that is "hate speech"? I don't freaking think so! Shame on the Quebec police for canceling the event rather than busting these fascists and carting them to jail where they belong. Once again, the terrorists have won by managing to have the event canceled. I wonder if a speech by Landry (the separatist Premier of Quebec) would have been canceled if demonstrators had been there...yeah...the sticks would have been hitting, the pepper sprays would have been working overtime and the handcuffs would have been everywhere. But because this is Netanyahu and because it is Concordiarabia, terrorists roam freely and own this disgraceful place which masquerades as a University. 11:55:38 AM

How effective have the Israelis been in disrupting the terror network of Hamas, the militant group responsible for most of the bomb attacks in Israel this year? Quite effective, it appears. Israeli intelligence officials tell TIME that since the start last spring of the West Bank offensive known as Operation Defensive Shield, 98% of the members of Hamas' military wing who are known to them in the area have been killed or arrested — a total of 70 men. 11:37:06 AM

Al-Jazeera seems to think so. "A slip of the tongue by one of Osama bin Laden's top henchmen seems to have betrayed al-Qaeda's most potent secret: its charismatic leader is dead," the Times of London reports. In an interview with the Qatar-based satellite network, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "referred to bin Laden, who has not been seen since the fall of Afghanistan's Taleban regime, in the past tense. The reporter Yosri Fouda, London bureau chief for al-Jazeera, concluded that bin Laden is now likely to be dead." Mohammed also told Fouda that, in the Times' words, "the target of the fourth, thwarted hijack attack in Washington was Congress, not the White House; the original plan was to crash aircraft into atomic power stations; and the plotters used simple codes to keep in touch by internet." "opinionjournal" 11:30:28 AM

Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to abandon a speaking engagement at Concordia University after what organizers billed as "a peaceful information picket" broke into a riot at the downtown Montreal campus. "The intention of this demonstration is to stop Netanyahu from speaking," said a terse notice posted in the on-line Montreal Muslim News last month. [ NationalPost ] 8:05:44 AM

Rare deal for Microsoft. Nintendo second-party becomes Xbox first-party British developer Rare, the legendary studio founded by the Stamper brothers, is thought to have been bought by Microsoft in a deal worth between £250 million and £350 million – with an official announcement expected at X02 in Seville later this month.  [The Register] 8:01:43 AM