Once again, the shit has hit the fan and is being slung all over the place.
Israeli tanks fire on Arafat headquarters
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters came under “heavy tank fire” by Israel on Friday. Meanwhile, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — the military wing of Arafat’s Fatah movement — claimed responsibility for a Friday suicide bombing that killed a supermarket security guard in Jerusalem.
Arafat: ‘I hope I will be a martyr’
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, his headquarters surrounded by Israeli tanks, said Friday that he hopes the ongoing Israeli operation will make him into a martyr.
“They either want to kill me, or capture me, or expel me,” Arafat said, speaking by telephone to Al Jazeera television from his Ramallah headquarters. “I hope I will be a martyr in the Holy Land. I have chosen this path and if I fall, one day a Palestinian child will raise the Palestinian flag above our mosques and churches.”
Bomb carnage in Jerusalem mall
A Palestinian suicide bomber has carried out an attack on a Jewish neighbourhood of West Jerusalem, as Israeli forces launch an attack on Yasser Arafat’s compound in the West Bank.
Mideast conflict on the brink
Hopes for peace in the 18-month-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict were all but extinguished Friday as violence engulfed the region and the two sides stood on the brink of all-out war. Israel declared Yasser Arafat “an enemy” and sent troops into the Palestinian leader’s West Bank headquarters, triggering gunbattles that killed five people. In Jerusalem, dozens were injured when a female suicide bomber blew herself up in a supermarket.
Israeli Police Storm Temple Mount
Israeli police on Friday stormed into the most sensitive religious site in the Holy Land, throwing stun grenades at Palestinian rock-throwers, police said.
Text of Israeli Cabinet’s Statement
Here is the text of the Israeli Cabinet decision released Friday morning after an all-night session to decide on a response to a string of Palestinian attacks:
“The Cabinet convened in special session tonight against the background of a serious escalation in Palestinian terrorism.“The Cabinet approved the principles of a wide-ranging plan of action against Palestinian terrorism.
“Israel will work to defeat the Palestinian terror infrastructure in all its parts and ingredients, and to that end it will conduct a wide-ranging operation to achieve that goal.
“[Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat, who set up a coalition of terror against Israel, is an enemy and at this stage will be isolated.
“The Cabinet approved mobilization of army reserves as a result of the operational requirements.”
And now back to the fun stuff to help you forget…
Drugs Now Legal If User Is Employed
Seeking to “narrow the focus of the drug war to the true enemy,” Congress passed a bill legalizing drug use for the gainfully employed Monday.
“Stockbrokers, lawyers, English professors… you’re not the problem here,” said DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson at a White House press conference. “If you are paying taxes and keeping your yard tidy, we’re not going to hassle you if you come home from a hard day of work and want to enjoy a little pot or blow. But if, on the other hand, you’re one of these lazy, shiftless types hanging out on the street all day looking for your next high, we’re coming after you.”
And what better thing could you be doing this Easter weekend than smiting your subjects?
Another Punch for Copy Protection
A political brawl over mandatory copy protection is about to spread to the U.S. House of Representatives.
A Democratic legislator from the home of the Walt Disney and Warner Bros. studios is drafting a bill to reduce online piracy by implanting strict copy controls in digital devices.
But wait, there’s hope yet!
Ruling bolsters file-traders’ prospects
In a surprise decision, an appeals court in the Netherlands overturned a lower court ruling that had held file-trading company Kazaa BV liable for copyright infringement, saying Kazaa is not responsible for the illegal actions of people using its software. That decision–which still can be appealed to a higher court–was the first anywhere to protect a file-swapping company against copyright liability.
Lecturer takes hammer to corpse exhibit
A university lecturer was so outraged by an exhibition featuring preserved human corpses that he smashed one of the exhibits with a claw hammer.
Geoff Lee, 51, repeatedly hit the exhibit, The Organ Donor, which shows a man holding a liver, after seeing a father showing his five-year-old daughter around the Body Worlds show at the Atlantis Gallery in East London.
The attack follows another on Saturday, just a few hours after the exhibition opened, when a man threw paint on the floor of the gallery and put a blanket over the preserved body of a pregnant woman whose open womb shows an eight-month-old foetus.
Don’t Confuse Fans With Pirates
This year, Universal’s music division plans to use a new copy-protection scheme that excludes its discs from being played at all on “Macs, DVD players, and CD-compatible video game consoles.” This according to Peter Cohen of MacCentral, who also reports that the plan will block discs from being copied to other CDs or being saved to the hard drives of most PCs in the MP3 format. The first disc to get this treatment is More Fast and Furious: Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture, a title that will live in infamy.
HR256
Encourage the purchase of a submarine to patrol the waters of the Commonwealth and search and destroy all casino riverboats.
Eric Weisstein’s World of Mathematics
The Pimp Institute from Harvard?
Taleban ‘preparing for spring attacks’
The Taleban are reportedly preparing a spring offensive against American forces in Afghanistan, with 300 suicide bombers ready to attack installations.
Among the Reasons God May Temporarily Be Unavailable to Bless America
It does not seem to occur to our suddenly devout nation that the universal prayer for blessing appearing on lawn signs, bumper stickers and shop windows might be theologically offensive, and offensive not just to thoughtful believers but to the One who is being addressed. Herewith, then, some reasons why God may not choose to grant America’s petition…
