MEMRI www.memri.org , the Middle East Media Research Institute, has since 1998 essentially been a one—stop shopping center for obtaining translated media content originating in the Middle East, whether it's from the Arab states, Iran or Turkey. As their tag line says, they are 'Bridging the language gap between the Middle East and the West.' Their latest spanning is a forty—three minute documentary, available online, about the 9/11 conspiracy theories that have been seriously asserted as explanations of those events by both private and official government sources in the Middle East. If you think Death of a President is pornographic, just wait until you learn about the entertainment and educational offerings in Arabic, Turkish and Farsi.

One might think that the U.S. Government should have been doing this yeoman's work since, well... whenever. But that would probably have had diplomatic repercussions and we'd be faced with a bit of official censorship of what was translated and published. Not so with MEMRI. Their juicy content is not reconstituted from frozen translations by others. It's brought to you directly from the Middle East media orchards by the translators themselves.

Count MEMRI as one of the premier benefits of cyberspace freedom. Let's just be sure to keep it free and uncensored — no matter what any of our noble Senators might otherwise think.

Hat tip: Power Line

Dennis Sevakis 09 12 06