Month: March 2004

Do I Hate Jews ?

Well, I just got the following email from some guy:

You know, for someone so obsessed by hating Jews, you should be more
careful to not quote them approvingly. There are web sites that’ll list
Jews for you, so you don’t have to contaminate your web site with their
quotes. I am sure you already know all the web sites that list Jews and
tell the real truth about how they are all out controlling the world
through their conspiracies and giving special sex-gum to Egyptian women
and poison wells and… well, I am not up to date on the latest lies
people like you enjoy spreading, but I am sure you can come up with
something.

Anyway, I just wanted to warn you to be more careful — you know Jews
can see through walls, right?

Well, this guy is very mistaken. I do not hate jews.

If you check through my whole blog, you’ll never find me even hinting to hating jews. Because i simply do not.

On the other hand, I hate Zionists.
And there’s a very big difference.

All over the world there are Jews who dissaprove of what Zionists and Israelis are doing, and who want an end to the terrorism and violence they are causing.
All over the world there are Jews who live peacefully side by side with Muslims like brothers.
In fact, right here in Tunisia, we have an important Jewish minority who are living in great harmony with Muslims.

So, I’m not against Jews in any way, and I think it’s more than normal for me to quote a Jewish person if I feel like it and agree with what they have to say.

Anyway, it seems that just because I write some stuff against Israel, all of a sudden I’m being branded anti-Jewish, or no, that other fancy word: Anti-Semetic.

Well, sorry to dissapoint, but I’m really not !

As for the lies part: whatever !

Israel fabricated child-bomber story

Israel is being accused of fabricating a story about a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who planned to blow himself up.

The Israeli army said he was caught wearing an explosive belt at an army roadblock in the northern West Bank and that he disclosed to interrogators that an anonymous person had promised him 100 shekels if he blew himself up in the midst of Israeli soldiers.

The armed wing of Fatah, the Aqsa Martyrs? Brigades, has denied any involvement in the incident, accusing Israel of “concocting the whole story for the purpose of justifying the killing of more Palestinian children”.

Al Jazeera asked the Israeli army spokesman in Tel Aviv to explain why Abdu would accept 100 shekels to get blown up and what good the money could possibly do?

The army was also asked to explain why it had TV cameras ready at the roadblock more than two hours before the event.

The army failed to provide an answer.

A similar story took place a few weeks ago, when another boy from Nablus, Muhammad Kuraan, made headlines when the Israeli army presented him to the media as a child who had been dispatched to blow himself up at an Israeli roadblock.

However, when the boy returned home, he reportedly told his family and relatives “Jews told me to do this or else they would kill me.”

Dirty Liars !

[More: Al Jazeera]

Resolution to condemn Yassin killing vetoed

As usual, whenever a resolution against Israel is brought up in the joke called the UN Security Council, you can always count on the US veto to save the day.

I don’t know why other countries even bother anymore !
It’s obvious the US would veto any resolution against Israel even if it were for an attack against the US itself.

Anyway, the veto this time was against the resolution condemning Israel’s assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
Why ?
Because the US demand that the measure also condemn violence by Hamas and other militant groups by name.

The resolution “is silent about the terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas,” U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said before the vote. He called the measure “unbalanced, one-sided.”

Well, here’s what I think, the only thing that is unbalanced and one-sided is the US and it’s policies !
Hamas’ activities are only a tiny fraction of the terrorism the Israeli state is involved in.

Zen Quote of the Day

If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it
You turn away from it all the more.

– Linji (d. 867)

Eastern Standard Tribe

I just downloaded Cory Doctorow’s book Eastern Standard Tribe yesterday, and started reading it late last night and early this morning.

Even though I’m still in the first pages of the book, It’s really caught my attention, and I can’t wait to read more.
I like the style it’s written in, and the flow it’s going through.

It’s supposed to be a sort of futuristic fiction about a new kind of social group emerging that chooses to abandon its local standard time to live and work in stop with another more desirable one.
I didn’t think that was interesting really when I read it, but when I gave the book a chance and read the first few pages, the style it’s written in captured me.

I will most probably blog again about this when I get deeper into it.

Local File Search from HotBot Toolbar

Terra Lycos’ HotBot search site launched a search toolbar that includes the ability to search local hard-drive content and to read RSS feeds, reports eWeek.

The local-content search feature supports e-mail files from Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, Microsoft Office files, PDFs and most text-based file formats. The toolbar also lets users index their Web-page browsing history so they can search content from those sites.

Eventually, this is a space everyone in the search business will be trying to break into.
Microsoft will have a plus over the rest when Longhorn is released with search being a major point for them. But still Google have been making in-roads to the desktop with their Google Deskbar, which can in the foreseeable future turn to searching local files as well as online destinations.

Who actually wins the battles in the end depends on how good their technology is. But obviously with Windows being their own, Microsoft has the best chances, I think.

[via Online Blog]

Opera Voice Browser

Opera Software is developing a new Internet browser that allows users to talk to their computers.

The new browser incorporates IBM’s ViaVoice technology, enabling the computer to ask what the user wants and “listen” to the request.

No release date has been set yet as the browser is still in it’s development phase.

Even though this is cool technology, but still I’m not all that excited by it.
First of all, I don’t want to talk to my computer.
In fact, I wish I didn’t have to talk to people either and that they’d have some sort of computerized interface for me to go through, lol…

Secondly, voice technology is still far from efficient nowadays, so using voice commands for a computer will be even more nerve-wrecking and frustrating than if we had to code every command in Perl.

Anyway, it’s good to see new stuff like this coming out from Opera. They’re really leading the way in innovating browsers.

But voice browsing is not for me, I just like to kick back, relax, forget about talking, and tap away at my laptop.