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My first question is this: How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction? And there can hardly be a comedy-club third-rater or MoveOn.org activist in the entire country who hasn't stated with sarcastic certainty that the whole WMD fuss was a way of lying the American people into war. So now what? Maybe we should have taken Saddam's propaganda seriously, when his newspaper proudly described Iraq's physicists as "our nuclear mujahideen."
My second question is: What's all this about "looting"? The word is used throughout the long report, but here's what it's used to describe. "In four weeks from mid-April to mid-May of 2003 … teams with flatbed trucks and other heavy equipment moved systematically from site to site. … 'The first wave came for the machines,' Dr Araji said. 'The second wave, cables and cranes.' " Perhaps hedging the bet, the Times authors at this point refer to "organized looting."
But obviously, what we are reading about is a carefully planned military operation. The participants were not panicked or greedy civilians helping themselves—which is the customary definition of a "looter," especially in wartime. They were mechanized and mobile and under orders, and acting in a concerted fashion. Thus, if the story is factually correct—which we have no reason at all to doubt—then Saddam's Iraq was a fairly highly-evolved WMD state, with a contingency plan for further concealment and distribution of the weaponry in case of attack or discovery.
4:20:35 PM
Corrie's Parents Sue Israel.
Their daughter purposefully injected herself into a war zone, on the
wrong side, and stupidly got herself killed by jumping in front of an
Israeli armored bulldozer. Pro-terrorist groups around the world then
seized on her death like ghoulish leeches and milked it for every ounce
of propaganda they could squeeze out.
Now, in the inevitable conclusion to this tawdry affair, Rachel Corrie’s worthless parents are suing Israel.
The family of Rachel Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist killed by an
Israel Defense Forces bulldozer in Rafah two years ago, sued the State
of Israel and the IDF for damages in the Haifa District Court on
Tuesday.
The 24-year-old Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003 when she tried
to block an IDF bulldozer from destroying a Palestinian house near the
Philadelphi Route, the strip of land in the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt.
An IDF investigation ruled the incident was an accident and that the
driver did not see Corrie, and the military prosecutor’s office decided
not to press charges in connection with Corrie’s death.
Corrie’s parents, brother, and sister, who are represented by Umm
al-Fahm attorney Hussein Abu-Hussein, argue Corrie was killed despite
the fact that she was wearing bright clothing and had identified
herself as an activist with the pro-Palestinian International
Solidarity Movement.
Ontario bill targets 'gender-based pricing' CBC - Haircuts, dry cleaning and clothes could soon cost the same for men and women in Ontario if a bill currently before the legislature passes.
Liberal Lorenzo Berardinetti, who is pushing the bill to outlaw what he calls "gender-based pricing," says there is no good reason why men and women should pay different prices for similar products and services.
"It's a form of discrimination ... that should have been removed a long time ago," Berardinetti told the Toronto Star.
1:21:46 PM
WorldCom Ex-CEO Found Guilty Reuters - Bernard Ebbers, the former chief executive of WorldCom Inc., was found guilty by a federal jury on Tuesday of fraud charges related to the $11 billion accounting scandal at the telecommunications company.
With the Ontario government expected to decide shortly on whether to allow the Islamic legal code, known as sharia, to be applied to settle family disputes among Muslims, Liberal and Parti Quebecois MNAs warned yesterday that using sharia would lead to blatant violations of women's rights.
"I think all political parties in Quebec must say loud and clear that not only do we not want it in Quebec, we don't want it in Ontario and we don't want it in Canada," International Relations Minister Monique Gagnon-Tremblay said at a conference.
1:06:17 PM
The law in question is available for reading here.
It seems that advocating killing a whole identifiable group is not "Hate Propaganda", if the group is Israeli's (jews).
Saying Israelis are 'legitimate targets' not a hate crime National Post - Police have decided not to charge a controversial Muslim leader under Canada's hate-crime laws for suggesting on a television talk show last fall that all adult Israelis are "legitimate targets" for Palestinian terrorists.
Investigators with Halton Region police said that while the comments by Dr. Mohamed Elmasry "were described by many as [a] hate crime," they did not meet the legal definition.
Dr. Elmasry, a University of Waterloo professor and president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, drew widespread public condemnation last October for telling a television panel discussion that all Israelis over the age of 18 could be targets for attacks by Palestinians because they are all members of the country's army.
10:56:03 AM
Philippines braces for retaliation Globe and Mail - Manila, Philippines — The Philippines braced for retaliatory attacks after some of the country's most hardened terror suspects were killed in a failed prison uprising that left 28 people dead, most of them inmates killed in a barrage of bullets as hundreds of police stormed the maximum security facility.
The dead included three leaders and a fourth member of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf, a group notorious for deadly attacks and ransom kidnappings in which hostages have been beheaded.