You know, when you’re one of the most powerful companies in the world, your employees shouldn’t feel compelled to astroturf online polls so that your products win. Microsoft really needs to grow up.

The LA Times has an article about a high ranking al-Qaeda member who goes by the alias Abu Zubeida and generally has operational authority over al-Qaeda actions. For some reason, this is the first time I’ve ever seen him mentioned in the media.

You know what, both President Bush and Senator Daschle are full of crap. Spinsanity says so, too.

You know, the problem with keeping secrets is that people assume you’re doing so because you have something to hide. For some reason, Dick Cheney refused to disclose who he consulted with on his energy policy recommendations, and now it’s kind of blowing up in his face. It turns out that Cheney and his aides met with Enron executives a total of 6 times last year to discuss energy policy and the energy crisis in California. I have no idea whether anything inappropriate occurred, but Enron certainly had good access to the White House (they paid enough for it).

WebObjects 5.1 enables you to deploy WebObjects applications under other Java application servers, like Tomcat or WebLogic. That’s really, really cool. It almost makes me want to go back and take a look at it again.

Yesterday I was listening to the news on NPR on the way home from work, and thought I heard President Bush refer to Pakistanis as “Pakis”. According to this Times of India story, I was right. (Link via Dangerousmeta.) What I didn’t know is that the term is actually offensive — I doubt Bush knew it, either.

Salon Premium has snagged an interview with the infamous Rashid Dostum, who’s notorious for switching sides repeatedly and for having one of his men strapped to the treads of a tank and crushed for some violation. I heard he once shot a man for snoring too loud … anyway, the interviewer asks him directly about the tank incident:

You are notorious for your toughness. I read that one day you punished one of your men by tying him to tank tracks and crushing him.

Someone from CNN asked me about the same story. It must be in a book. This is absolutely untrue. I respect human dignity and don’t remember punishing anyone that way. I love my soldiers and they love me. We’re willing to die for each other every day. But reporters here multiply everything, even jokes. I have heard on Al-Jazeera many times that I had died or was badly wounded. One day I just called them up to complain. Even with different ethnic groups here, I have a good reputation. No one blames me for cruelty.

Dostum on women’s rights:

Women are half the soul of a society. My belief is to treat them as equals to men. That’s why I allowed ladies to work and go to university. Education is not only for men. That’s what we had in Mazar-e Sharif in the past and that’s what we’ll have in the future. I have already announced that women who used to work in offices can now go back to work. Registration at the university has just started. During the negotiations in Bonn, they asked us to name an Uzbek delegation to join the interim government. Out of the six people, there is one lady [I named]. A group of women came to see me the other day wanting to get back to work. During our meeting, I asked them to immediately establish a council that could advise us on these issues and elect a representative who can become my deputy. I’ll listen to their advice.

Chris Byron savages the outcome of the Time Warner/AOL merger for MSNBC (link via Media News).

Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe is providing a great illustration of the difference between democracy and “democracy.” He has proposed new laws which will basically eliminate any sort of free press (and political opposition to his regime) in Zimbabwe.

NYRB: Manual for a ‘Raid’. This is a detailed analysis of the documents carried by the hijackers on September 11.