Shucks, thanks, Dad
– Christian Science Monitor reports that bin Laden fled Tora Bora 10 days ago and left his 19-year-old son in charge to take the American bombs. Slimeball. This from a Saudi financier who was in the caves. “He says that most Al Qaeda members do not leave their elaborate cave complex unless they have to relieve themselves.”
Tacky Taliban decorating
– Reporters take tours of Mullah Omar’s former home: a chandelier over his bed; Formica installed on walls to look like wood; bizarre plastic statues; pink tile; his & hers toilets. Says the Independent: “Mullah Omar’s house resembles nothing so much as a seventies motel.”
Hello, new readers: Scroll down
– If you’re looking for the piece to which there were lots of kind links, scroll down to the day below. Hearty thanks to Matt Welch, Charles Johnson, Reid Stott, turboblogger, Glenn Reynolds, Ken Layne, Kathy Shaidle, and Tim Blair for nice words and links to my look at life three months later. Thanks, I needed that.
– Radio this a.m. said Afghans told a Pakistani paper that bin Laden and Omar are dead. I don’t believe it yet. I’ll wait to see what happens when Drudge wakes up.
ClusterBomb.com
– Went to Internet World yesterday. Looked like Tora Bora: dark and deserted. Blame it on Internet pffft. But also blame it on 9/11, for the show had to be postponed and in its delayed, afraid-of-travel, depth-of-recession form, it was small and sparsely populated. Sad. Damn those fundamentalist freaks; they are ruining so much. Yet at the same show, Bob Pittman, COO of AOL Time Warner, delivered a convincing argument that the real Internet boom is just upon us, that apart from advertising — which is cyclical — online is growing. Broadband, new entertainment devices, home networks, and mostly smarter, better online services will mean huge business growth. He’s right. But that requires us to get our guts back as an industry, an economy, and a country; we have to innovate again and take the risks that come with that. On the convention floor, we still looked scared. That has to end. We’ve won the war, damnit.
