also promotes its national Internet as a cost-saving measure for consumers and as a way to uphold Islamic moral codes. In February, as pro-democracy protests spread rapidly across the Middle East and North Africa, Reza Bagheri Asl, director of the telecommunication ministry's research institute, told an Iranian news agency that soon 60% of the nation's homes and businesses would be on the new, internal network. Within two years it would extend to the entire country, he said. The unusual initiative appears part of a broader effort to confront what the regime now considers a major threat: an online invasion of Western ideas, culture and influence, primarily originating from the U.S. In recent speeches, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials have called this emerging conflict the "soft war." On Friday, new reports emerged in the local press that Iran also intends to roll out its own computer operating system in coming months to replace Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. The development, which couldn't be independently confirmed, was attributed to Reza Taghipour, Iran's communication minister. Iran's national Internet will be "a genuinely halal network, aimed atnal.FanSnap, a U.S.-based website that allows users to search several reselling websites, says the average ticket price for the Vancouver games is currently about $1,900 and in Boston it's roughly $1,100.Online reseller StubHub says tickets in Vancouver are selling for an average of $970, and spokeswoman Joellen Ferrer says prices are the highest her site has seen in a Stanley Cup final in its 10-year history.Ferrer says tickets for last year's Chicago-Philadelphia series were about $150 less than what tickets are selling for now.The Canucks plan to release details of their general ticket sales today, while the Bruins plan to start sales on Tuesday. Relatedss in Texas and yet we run it like it was a soda water stand -- or a barbecue stand," Clements said shortly before turning over the chief executive's job to Democrat Mark White, who upset his re-election bid in 1982. White, a lawyer, was part owner of a barbecue firm in the Central Texas town of Valley Mills. Clements came back four years later to defeat White. "I think that what happened in the last four years is without a doubt a new page in our Texas history in the management of our state government," Clements said at the end of his first term. Clements' second term was marred from the beginning by his involvement in a pay-for-play football scandal at Southern Methodist University, which led the NCAA to suspend the football program for two years. Clements was chairman of the school's governing board between his terms as governor and acknowledged participating in the decision to let the payments continue. Tragedy struck the Clements family last year when his son, B. Gill Clements, was found shot to death and buried in a shallow grave behind a home adjacent to the Clements' East Texas ranch. B. Gill Clements was apparently shot by a neighbor who was known for using an assault weapon to guard his property. Authorities shot and killed the neighbor. William Perry Clements Jr. was born and reared in Dallas, attending Highland Park High School where he was an all-state football lineman. He turned down athletic scholarship offers from several colleges to work in South Texas oil fields when his father, a real estate man and farmer, found the Depression tough going. After eight years as an oil roughneck and driller, he graduated from Southern Methodist in 1939. In 1947, he and I.P. Larue launched SEDCO Inc. with borrowed funds and two old drilling rigs. He bought out Larue in 1955 for $1.2 million. SEDCO, an oil and gas drilling company, operated throughout the world with several subsidiaries. SEDCO merged with Schlumberger Limited in 1984 and Clements retired as chairman a year later. The multimillionaire Dallas oilman turned back early attempts of Texas Republicans to recruit him for statewide political races but worked actively in the party. He also was active in civic and professional posts, including membership on the board of governors of SMU and the national executive board of the Boy Scouts of America. After heading Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign in Texas, Clements served as deputy secretary of defense for the U.S. Department of Defense from 1973 to 1977. At the urging of his wife, Rita, a former national GOP committeewoman he called his "secret weapon," Clements decided to campaign for governor in 1978. First he swamped Ray Hutchinson of Dallas, former state GOP chairman, in the party primary. Then he defeated Democrat John Hill by 16,900 votes in November 1978. Clements warned Texas lawmakers about what he called their "letter to Santa Claus" attitude toward state revenues based largely on oil and gas taxes