| Friday, October
19, 2001
Well I come back to find a way to get rich and go
to heaven too!
Subject: assist me
Dear brethren, Greetings in the name of the most
high god, This may come to you as a surprise, but kindly give me this
little attention, although I know how you may feel about this sudden
disturbance. I am Stephen Abdullmuaminu Dansoki the son of Alhaji Ibrahim
Dansoki the Emir of Zauzzaki of Zaki Islamic Emirate of Northern Nigeria.
But by the infinite mercy of Christ Jesus I am now a born again Christian,
working in the vineyard of the only living god through Jesus.
But due to my new found faith, because I am from the
ruling Islamic family in the north, non of my family members like it and
my father was so angry with me that, persecution arise against me and my
people wanted me dead at all cost because before my conversion, I
persuaded my father to give me my inheritance from the family asset and
business, which he did, and the funds I was using is promoting the work of
the lord till the new madness in the islamisation of Nigeria started in
the north. This led to their burning of my cattle farm my tin ore and
ammonium mining sites, which the fanatics burnt down and I was left with
nothing and the worst part was they have declared my death by the code of
Islamic conduct.
After the burning of the my investment, I sneak to
the site it was a pathos site all my toil and labor gone because of my
faith in the only true and living God, but fortunately enough the only
thing left was my safe were I keep my money because if was a fire proof
vault, but with the help of a brethren we took the fund and after
converting it to united states of American bills it was defaced for
identification and lodged in a security company for a possible claim by
you and my subsequent re-location to your country, for I am now under
hiding as I was declared the most wanted in the last Saturday 13th
massacre of Christians in the northern Nigeria, as the news was also on
CNN NEWS NETWORK and for more verification of the fact take your view to :
http//www.naijanet.com, regarding the latest killing of Christians in the
north. For I have declared to live and die in the vineyard of propagating
Christianity for Islam is barbaric, unethical and uncompromising religion.
May the name of the lord be praise?
Brethren I need your assistance to help me, claim
this fund from the security company as yours as I am being hunted by the
fanatic Islamic fundamentalists, who are in the ruling class that control
all means of livelihood herein Nigeria, this amount totaling
US$29,650.00,should be use in the propagation of Christ work on earth that
the infidel Muslim may be converted to the only true way to eternal life
through Christ Jesus, after you received the funds you will assist me come
down to your country ,you shall be duly compensated for your assistance.
For you will become the sole trustee of this fund but if I die before the
consignment gets to you. This is my will. That you shall take 15% of the
total fund, while 40%shall go to charity world wide, 30% shall be mapped
out for the christinisation of the Muslim northern Nigeria by the
missionary as you may deem fit, 5% to the missionary home in America the
remaining 10%(for me if I am alive but if death goes for the alleviation
of the plight of AIDS patients all over the world.)
I need you hear from you to enable me give you all
the detail of the consignment immediate, for I live now against my own
time.
Yours brother in Christ
Stephen Abdullmuaminu Dansoki
How can I resist? I mean how many total strangers
offer an opportunity like that!
Jerry,
When I was in grad school in 1971 fuel cells were
estimated to be 5 years away from commercial production. I decided to
specialize in communications engineeering instead of power conversion.
Now I read estimates that fuel cells are one year
away from commercial production. So we have managed to knock 4 years off
the old estimates over the last 30 years. So perhaps we will really see
them in about 2008 or so. But then the effects on project timelines of
Augustine's Laws might extend it anyway.
I wrote to Mr. Cheney asking that we include space
solar power satellites in the National Energy Policy, and I received a
letter from a Mr. (Mumble)the Executive Director of the National Energy
Policy Development Group thanking me for my insightful comments and
recommendations.
Perhaps we could get some action if we put it about
that Osama bin Laden is working on SSPS...jim dodd
jimdodd@bigfoot.com
I have a number of letters telling me that fuel
cells aren't batteries, they produce power. Which is true, but then that
is true of many rechargeable batteries. The point is that there are no
hydrogen and oxygen wells, so you need a source of electrical power in
order to produce the fuels for the fuel cells. So far as I am
concerned that is a storage device, transport device -- a battery.
Batteries are important. Fuel storage is one key
part of using steady sources of power. Solar power, nuclear power, all
work better if run at a constant output. But the most efficient means of
storing power now is pumping water up and down in reservoirs. That is not
only not very efficient (still best we have but not good) but it also
produces lakes not very useful for recreation or scenic beauty.
Fuel cells can make solar power systems a lot
more economical. In that sense they are very important. But they are not a
lot of use without primary power generation sources.
And yes, I am aware that I can take methane and
run that through a converter to get hydrogen and then convert that. The
efficiency is lousy, and this is the kind of Mickey Mouse stuff that
Greens seem to love because they hate central power systems; or so it
seems to me.
Fuel cells are a good energy storage system. For
some purposes they work well as an energy source from, say, methane; but
if I have methane I can burn it a lot more efficiently in other ways and
places.
However, I have this:
You noted that you don't know of any wells where we
can get hydrogen and oxygen. That's true, but we don't need them: we now
have fuel cells that can run off hydrocarbons.
A recent development in fuel cell technology is a
membrane that can strip hydrogen off of natural gas, and operate a fuel
cell with the hydrogen. The exhaust gases are no worse than running a
generator with the natural gas, and efficiency is better. The membrane
doesn't last forever but it does last a long time. Here are two useful
URLs:
http://www.gepower.com/dhtml/distributed_power/en_us/index.jsp
http://www.plugpower.com/
I am really, really excited by the potential of the
GE HomeGen systems. Using a natural-gas fuel cell to make power for your
house means no transmission losses, and I believe the efficiency is thus
actually better than even a very large central power plant. Future
versions could have an integrated hot water heater that uses the waste
heat from power generation to heat your water! If you use the waste heat
for water heating, and perhaps heating your home in winter, the efficiency
should be wonderful.
Cars are going to be built using this technology,
too. Prototypes are already driving around. You can use natural gas for
the cars, or methanol. It is even possible to use gasoline, but it isn't
as good as natural gas or methanol. Electric cars haven't really caught
on: the batteries are very heavy compared to their power output so the
cars aren't peppy, they don't store enough power for a really long driving
range, when they do run out of power they take hours to recharge, and you
need to replace batteries every few years which is expensive. Cars based
on fuel cells have none of these problems; these new fuel cells could
possibly end up obsoleting the internal combustion engine for cars! Here
is a link to a CNet page about fuel-cell cars:
http://www.cnet.com/electronics/0-1577332-7-3816992.html
The armed forces are looking into this technology,
too. Individual soldiers may have tiny methanol fuel cell units to power
their electronic gadgets:
http://www.pnl.gov/news/2001/01-13.htm
I don't expect to see hydrogen in common use within
the next decade, but the hydrocarbon-based fuel cells probably will be!
Stay well. -- Steve R. Hastings "Vita est"
steve@hastings.org http://www.blarg.net/~steveha
I cannot imagine that the efficiency of methane
without the carbon is higher than with it, but perhaps I have missed
something.
But so far as I can see, I will get a lot more
electricity out of natural gas burned in a normal power plant than trying
to strip it into hydrogen and then running it into a fuel cell. I
also wonder what happens to the carbon?
Batteries have been the great barrier to electric
cars. Better and more efficient batteries with lower weight can change
that. You still need the Kilowatts.
Military systems do not have economic efficiency
as a major goal. Nor should they.
I would have to look into the supply side for
natural gas. The notion of every household generating its own electricity
was part of the speculation about the Hydrogen Economy. Twenty years ago
when I looked into that the problem was that we can't easily distribute
hydrogen. Finding an efficient way to make a methane or propane economy
might be interesting, provided that we have the supplies of methane and
propane. I am not convinced there is enough to run the nation that way:
which means we would have to make fuels.
There are certainly transmission losses to
electricity, and they are fairly high compared to pipeline losses. Whether
sending natural gas in pipes to individual homes where electricity is made
in some kind of fuel cell unit (and I still don't know what happens to the
carbon; I hope it's not a fine dust that has to be disposed of by
householders) -- whether that is a more efficient process than using solar
cells to generate power in space and transmitting that is another story.
Obviously there are a lot of power losses from space to your house, but
the question is what has it cost to get you the KW you need? Compared to
other methods, which may include the cost of the military to get you oil.
I'll have to follow those links, but none of this
is obvious to me. I fear I still regard fuels cells as interesting and
important storage devices rather than a primary way to generate power.
Dr. Pournelle,
Yes, fuel cells are just "batteries" in
the sense that they directly convert chemical potential energy into
electrical energy without a mechanical intermediate step. However, your
premise that you have to "charge" the battery is somewhat
mistaken. Traditional fuel cells such as those used in the space program
ran on O2 and H2, but the new generation cells do not need hydrogen gas to
operate. Most of the cells under development can use hydrocarbons such as
methane and ethane as their reducing source (cathode) and air for their
oxidant (as opposed to pure oxygen gas). I have read that there are even
some prototype cells that can use methanol. These are all potentially
renewable resources. Also, the energy efficiency of fuel cells is not just
how much of the potential energy is converted into electricity but
electricity and useable heat (cogeneration). Since these plants can be
small, relatively non-polluting, and safe it should be possible to place
them in neighborhoods with savings in transmission costs and less lead
time for expanding production. I think the car manufacturers are still
planning on using H2 and air, but production, storage and transmission of
hydrogen is a relatively easy engineering matter.
Sincerely, Doug Lewis
I still wonder where the carbon goes. But perhaps
this works, and I have fallen behind the times. I'll have a look when I
get a few hours.
From: Stephen M. St. Onge saintonge@hotmail.com
Subject: error
Dear Jerry:
Mine, that is. After perusing
http://newyorker.com/FACT/?011001fa_FACT2
, I've come to the conclusion you were right -- the security agencies
messed up royal.
And for some interesting thoughts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52091-2001Oct1.html
Best, Stephen
Thanks.
Dr. Pournelle: Here is the expected buildup for
solar, with the hangup being launch costs (as you predicted).
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/solar_power_sats_011017-1.html
Thanks. Every study I have ever seen shows
that space based solar becomes economical with low costs to orbit. Now
before.
Of course there are other advantages to low cost
to orbit.
I bet the pilots dodging AAA over Afghanistan were
really favorably impressed by the House's decision to bug out this week.
Did the British Parliament hold sessions during the
Blitz?
Wade Scholine
I would bet money Newt Gingrich would have been
in the Speaker's chair. Or Sam Rayburn. The truth is you are more likely
to die falling in your bathtub in Washington DC than from anthrax.
For some time, Jude Wanniski has been urging that we
spend our country's energies working in our own hemisphere instead of
developing an Empire so we can continue to suck oil from beneath Middle
East deserts. His column today hits on that again. Below is the text from http://polyconomics.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=1678
--Regards, Chuck ======= Polyconomics, Inc.
Memo on the Margin October 15, 2001 Relying on
Middle East Oil
Memo To: NYTimes Sunday Business From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Oil Supplies at Risk
The lead story in your Sunday “Money&Business”
section by Neela Banerjee, “Fears, Again, of Oil Supplies at Risk,”
suggests several scenarios where terrorism or war in the Middle East could
drive the price of oil sky-high. This is because two-thirds of the world’s
known reserves are there, 649 billion barrels, while the U.S. has only 3%
of known reserves, 22 billion bbl.
< snip>.
Well it seems a more efficient use of resources
to me...
Your simplistic definition of ownership:
Which, I should note, I share. I should be able to
use my Office disks for third base if I want.
You wrote, regarding CD Anywhere:
"Clearly this can be used in violation of
copyright and license agreements, so one needs to be careful. My view is
that software should be like a book: only one licensed copy in use at any
given time. That may or may not cover the legal situation but it seems
ethical to me."
It isn't legal.
At the least, I believe WPA is contrived to subvert
this particular method of copyright violation. For some interesting
speculations in this line, see the Infoworld column at:
<http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/09/17/010917opfoster.xml
>
where we find:
" . . .let me throw in a term one alert reader
just spotted in the license for FrontPage 2002. 'You may not use the
Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN,
MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services ... ' the license reads in
part."
I seem to recall that you are a Frontpage user . . .
. .
Paul J. Camp College of Computing Georgia Institute
of Technology Atlanta, Georgia 30332 404-385-0159
The beauty of the universe consists not only of
unity in variety but also of variety in unity.
--Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
I don't use FP 2002. I doubt I ever will.
Dear Jerry:
Good point about what air power can do for a ground
force -- particularly with modern targeting capacity.
The way the Northern Alliance's fortunes have turned
around in only a few days is an illustration; the Taliban's military is
now paralyzed. They can't move or react, so their opponents can
concentrate and destroy them in detail.
It should be emphasized that the Taliban is not a
guerilla force; it's a conventional army that fights for territory. A
rather primitive conventional army, but one nonetheless. Most of the
ex-guerilla Mujahadeen are on the other side.
The move to bring back the Afghan king overthrown in
1973 (he has a grandson in his 20's, by the way) is also apparently
gathering momentum. Most Afghans who can remember it consider the period
before '73 to be something of a golden age.
To be sure, Afghanistan was a 3rd-World country
then, but it was making steady progress. Yet another crime to be laid at
the door of the USSR.
Yours, Steve Stirling
King and country...
Dear Jerry:
Apropos of your comment that the US needs a base in
the area, Uzbekistan seems interested in a long-term relationship with the
US, and it is extremely well placed strategically.
Of course, that assumes Russia is on-side as well,
since it's landlocked.
I've seen speculation that Putin is becoming more
friendly because he's worried about the long-term problem of China, as
well as Islamicist terrorism and irredentism. Russia's population is
shrinking at over 1% a year, after all, and the Far Eastern provinces are
thinly populated to begin with and losing residents to Russia-in-Europe.
If Russia were to eventually join NATO -- and Putin
has dropped his opposition to NATO expansion, even into the Baltic
Republics -- it would put NATO's defense perimeter on the Amur River and
the northern frontier of Kazakhstan, as well as offering other benefits.
Even the drastically reduced level of military spending Russia is at now
is a strain she can't afford.
All this would assume the Russians relinquished most
of their ambitions in the 'near abroad', of course, or perhaps only in the
European part of it.
Incidentally, the current war has illustrated that
even with the bone-deep spending cuts post-1989, the US armed forces still
have a unique global reach. It's only taken a month to have substantial
force available quite literally on the other side of the globe, in the
remotest part of Eurasia, and to sustain continuous operations.
Campaigning in Afghanistan and establishing bases in
Central Asia is about as difficult a piece of power-projection as one
could imagine, but the overworked American armed forces seem to have
carried it off with smooth professionalism to date. No other country could
even approach such a capacity. Very impressive.
Yours, Steve Stirling
Oh we do this sort of thing well if we have to.
But one wonders if we have to, and if we have the stomach for what else
this kind of imperialism requires. We may have no choice of course.
Jerry,
I don't know if you've seen these columns in
InfoWorld?
http://www2.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml
/01/10/08/011008oplivingston.xml?Template=/storypages/printfriendly.html
http://www2.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/10/15/
011015oplivingston.xml?Template=/storypages/printfriendly.html
Brian Livingston, the author of the 1024-page
"Windows 3.1 Secrets", "More Windows 3.1 Secrets",
"Windows 95 Secrets", and so on, for every version of Windows
since then, up to the current 1520 page "Windows ME Secrets",
says that he will not be writing "Windows XP Secrets" and that
he is recommending against anyone using Windows XP.
This is "Mr. Windows Guru", himself, the
man who has the inside connections in Microsoft so he can tell us the
secret registry switches, the secret keystroke combinations to fix Windows
problems and make it work better. He has been earning his living for at
least the past decade by writing columns and books about Windows, by
giving talks and appearing on panels about Windows, by helping people use
Windows.
He is clearly burning his bridges to Microsoft with
this column and for him to repudiate Windows XP is a damning repudiation of
Microsoft, itself.
Interesting and no I have not seen this.
Thought you'd like to know:
http://www.theinquirer.net/18100109.htm
--------- excerpt from article
----------------------- A NUMBER OF INTEL MOBOS jave recently shuffled off
to spend their retirement in Madeira, unnoticed, unloved and now
unavailable.
A whole batch of 815-based boards caught the senior
citizen bus to the airport, including the catchily named BOXD815EEA2L, the
BLKD815EEA2L, the BOXD815EEA2, the BLK815EEA2, the BOXD815EPEA2, the
BLKD815EPEA2, the BOXD815EFVL, and the BLKD815EFVL.
And on the 1st of November, these venerable old
boards will be joined in their retirement home by another batch of 815s.
The last order date will be the 1st of December and the last delivery date
will be the first of February next year.
So watch out if you're being sold any of the first
lot, and be aware that this little lot are near to the end of their active
working life.
Say farewell then to the BOXD815EPFVL, the
BLKD815EPFVL, the BOXD815EPFV, and the BLK815EPFV.
------------------------------------------------------
Martin Dempsey
Jerry,
I thought you should be made aware of this
information I saw at The Inquirer ( www.theinquirer.net
:
http://www.theinquirer.net/18100109.htm
Especially since you recommend these board
frequently to your readers. I'm not sure what Intel's model to replace
these are as of yet. I will have to go hunting in their product roadmap to
see. Hope all is well with you!
-Dan
Sigh. Good enough is good enough, and better is
the enemy of good...
Space.com article on space-based power: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/solar_power_sats_011017-1.html
Robert Rocansky
Thanks
It doesn't look like the FBI will be issuing letters
of marque any time soon. Who does issue such letters, anyway? http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/strikes_hacker_yihat_011015.html
Oct. 15 —— A group of self-proclaimed hackers
led by a wealthy and flamboyant German businessman says it is taking a
vigilante approach to the war on terrorism by bringing together hackers
worldwide to track down terrorist finances and resources online.
They claim to have 34 people in 10 countries who
have hacked the computer systems of banks they say may be linked to
accused terrorist Osama bin Laden. They also say they've shared
information with the FBI.
But the FBI refuses to comment, the banks have not
noted any disruption of their services, and other hackers say the team is
really just a bunch of self-promoters.
Whether they've done any damage at all —— or
whether they even exist —— they have touched off a debate online about
the propriety of what the group's leader, Kim Schmitz, says it is trying
to do.
YIHAT's Their Name
The group, which calls itself YIHAT, for Young
Intelligent Hackers Against Terror, says that last week a team of
U.K.-based members gained access to accounts at the Sudanese AlShamal
Islamic Bank worth as much as $50 million belonging to bin Laden and the
al Qaeda organization he heads. Schmitz said no harm was done to the
accounts and said the group passed on the information to the FBI.
Tuesday, the group claimed to have hacked the Arab
National Bank in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but said that no information on
suspected terrorists had been found. A hacker calling himself Splices told
ABCNEWS.com that he gained access to the bank's records and "had
access to anything we wanted: corporate profiles, stock deals, financial
statements, customer bank accounts."
Splices provided ABCNEWS.com with copies of some of
those files, which appeared to contain financial information associated
with Arabic names, but could not be further verified as belonging to
actual customers or even the bank.
When asked why he targeted the Arab National Bank,
Splices replied, "It has been confirmed that terrorists had done
banking there in the past. We don't just choose targets at random."
Splices would not say whether the names on any of
the accounts appear on the recently released list of 22 terrorists most
wanted by the FBI, but he did say the information he found had been turned
over to U.S. law enforcement.
Neither bank is on a U.S. list of 27 groups whose
assets have been frozen for alleged links to bin Laden.
An FBI spokesman refused to comment on whether it
had received information from YIHAT, but did say the FBI would not condone
efforts to acquire information related to terrorism that fall outside the
law.
The strategy of announcing that you have hacked a
specific target and told the FBI about it doesn't make sense to me. If the
bank is guilty, the files will be purged before any authorized search can
be made. If the bank is not guilty, then the hacker either didn't really
hack or fabricated the evidence. That, in turn, leads me to be skeptical
of the initial claim to have hacked into the bank(s?).
Carey Gage
Congress can issue letters of marque and
reprisal. Whether or not they would do so it another story.
But I suspect if you can steal bin Laden's money
the law would be the least of your problems.
It appears that a fatwa condemning the World Trade
Center bombing was issued on Monday 17 Sep 2001.
http://www.fatwa-online.com/news/0010917_1.htm
See also:
http://www.fatwa-online.com/news/0010914_1.htm
and:
http://www.fatwa-online.com/news/0011015_2.htm
This one is significant. It clarifies a position from a previous fatwa,
that was issued BEFORE the World Trade Center attack, that called for
Muslims to support the Taliban. (However, I can't find the text of the
previous fatwa, so take it with a grain of salt.)
There are a few fataawa (plural of fatwa, it says
here) on the subject of suicide bombings, suicide, and hijacking. They all
agree that these are very bad things for Muslims to do. Suicide, even in
the course of a suicide bombing, condemns a Muslim to burn in Hell.
And look at the main site:
http://www.fatwa-online.com
Summary: There are fataawa that make it clear that
Osama bin Laden's bully boys are not good Muslims, contrary to the belief
of the Taliban and certain other individuals. They just don't get the
press that the more extreme, pro-Taliban posturings do.
John Strohm
Interesting. Haven't been back long enough to
look into it.
I wonder if in retrospect, whatever historians there
are will see 1988-2001 as being something like 1931-39 or 1946-49, i.e. a
period when a little would have done a lot, and a lot wasn't done.
It's reasonable to hope DoD has been offering Bush
more options than are discussed in public. And it's still possible that
they're using anthrax because that's what they've got -- of weaponizable
diseases it's one of the easier lab preps, apparently. Certainly as a pure
terror weapon a mass attack with the stuff would have been more effective
-- blow the powdered form off a skyscraper roof with a fan at lunch hour,
or something -- and far more likely to swamp the medical system, which
means either they weren't out to kill a lot of people this time, or they
couldn't (maybe they were successfully blocked from the crop dusters soon
enough?)
But one place where I definitely agree with Tom is
that their tactics are becoming gradually more inexplicable. Is it a
simple mistake (like the way the Germans used gas, or the British used
tanks, in WWI)? Is it a pre-panicker, as Tom suggests -- basically to get
everyone's nerves rattled before doing something big? It seems unlikely
that it's purely a directed attack -- simple letter bombs would do that
more reliably, and after all it wouldn't be hard to shoot a couple of
reporters, they go everywhere and they're not guarded. Anyone else feel
like speculating morbidly?
John Barnes
I haven't been back long enough to figure
anything. But I suspect we will do as little as possible until we have to
do something big. And I think Iraq is next.
Greetings, There is some very interesting reading
here. Basically a call to modern day Muslims to rethink their religion.
I'm sure it wouldn't go over well with the 'proles', but perhaps an
enlightenment for the more educated members would be in order and could
'trickle down'.
http://www.secularislam.org/call.htm
Take care, Lee W. Plaisted Skeptical Maine-iac
Subj: view from an American Muslim
Dr. Pournelle,
Found a very interesting post from an American who
converted to Islam about 15 years ago, mainly to practice Sufism. He
discusses some ideas on how the the world ended up in the mess we're in
WRT Afganistan, etc... http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?
s=e252e073007444e5ee12314d48abe5f1&postid=1411594#post1411594
Yeah, it's a long URL - but it'll take you right to
the specific posting in a rather long thread of messages :)
Best regards,
David P. Huff |
"Giving money and power to government david@dhuff.org | is like
giving whiskey and car keys | to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke
Thanks
Direct Methanol Fuel Cells. These cells are similar
to the PEM cells in that they both use a polymer membrane as the
electrolyte. However, in the DMFC, the anode catalyst itself draws the
hydrogen from the liquid methanol, eliminating the need for a fuel
reformer. Efficiencies of about 40% are expected with this type of fuel
cell, which would typically operate at a temperature between 120-190
degrees F. Higher efficiencies are achieved at higher temperatures. http://www.fuelcells.org/fctypes.htm#dmfc
It's true there are more efficient ways to use
methanol, but most of them have much higher emission levels. Methanol is
certainly versatile tho, isn't it?
Andy
Indeed.
And we saw some of the idiocy over in View. Here
is more:
From http://OpinionJournal.com
'Harassment' at San Diego State http://www.dailyaztec.com/Archive/Fall-2001/10-17-01/city/city01.html
The Daily Aztec, the student newspaper at San Diego
State University, reports that an SDSU student was accused of "verbal
harassment" after he criticized four Saudi students who were
celebrating the Sept. 11 atrocity. Zewdalem Kebede, a native Ethiopian and
naturalized American citizen, says he overheard the conversation in
Arabic. "With that action they were very pleased," he says.
"They were happy. And they were regretting of missing the 'Big House'
"--presumably the White House.
Kebede says he approached the Saudis and said to
them, in Arabic: "Guys, what you are talking is unfair. How do you
feel happy when those 5,000 to 6,000 people are buried in two or three
buildings? They are under the rubble or they became ash. And you are
talking about the action of bin Laden and his group. You are proud of
them. You should have to feel shame."
The Saudis, who aren't named because they are
"victims," filed a police complaint for harassment, and Kebede
was summoned to the Center for Student Rights http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/srr/
. After giving his side of the story, Kebede got a letter from the center
warning him "that future involvement in 'confronting members of the
campus community in a manner that is found to be aggressive or abusive'
will result in severe disciplinary sanctions."
"What have I done to these Arab guys?"
Kebede says. "I have done nothing. How can they be happy when
innocent people just perished? Vanished by the cruel actions of their own
brothers. It's sad, that's what I told them. Of this am I going to be
charged and penalized with a warning or a probation or expelling from
school? No, damn. No one would do that. I haven't committed any
wrong."
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