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wotiwrote

Just getting a few things down.

Database terrorism

Sunday, October 10, 2004

A few points of interest I have gleaned from Jason Burke's excellent eponymous book on Al-Qaeda:

  1. The Arabaic term 'al-qaeda' means 'base' as in camp or home or foundation. The air base outside Kabul used by British and US troops is reported in Arabic newspapers as 'al-qaeda Bagram'.
  2. Terror suspects captured before the use of the term became widespread in the West were ignorant of any group with this name.
  3. Anothere definition of the term is 'database'.

The last fact will surely be siezed upon by Microsoft. What better way to make Access the database of choice for radical Islam than to rename it 'Microsoft Al-Qaeda'?
posted by Graham, 1:03 PM

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