Rusted Sky

Now he won't shut up.

Second message from bin Laden - International Terrorism - MSNBC.com

CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden endorsed the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq in an Internet posting Saturday, and he warned Shiites there against collaborating with the United States in its fight against Sunni insurgents.

In his fifth audio message this year and his second in two days, bin Laden also warned nations not to send troops to Somalia, where Islamic militants have taken control of the capital and much of the south.

Saturday’s message came as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, started a regional tour seeking support from Sunni Arab countries for his national reconciliation plan that contains a conditional amnesty for insurgents excluding al-Qaida members.

Iraq was the closest that Osama had come to a Caliphate - though I'm thinking Saddam was being more expidient and pragmatic (in going for holier-than-thou status, what with his donating blood to write a copy of the Koran and all... tell you what, let's give him that chance again, a print run of a thousand, printed in his own blood, and if you'll just lay over here on the table and let us tap you for a couple of gallons...) in his support of Fundamentalist Islam than anything else. Let's face it - Iran's rapidly getting pretty squirrely, Somalia's not exactly going to turn into an Islamic Paradise anytime soon (and if it did, judging by what condition it's in now an Islamic Paradise is a pretty close approximation of a variety of Hells) and the more Fundamentalist Islamics blow up potential supporters, the less support they're going to see from the world community.

So come on, Osama - talk all you want. All you're doing is showing just what the sickness you're trying to spread is made of...

J.

Oh, it's been a good weekend...

Saturday we had a 'Games Night' - where a bunch of us get together and the women play games while the men talk (or watch cheesy movies - had a Cheesy Movie night once and the worst movie brought got a block of cheese) and Sue snuck a 50th birthday party into the mix. (I was pretty sure something was up when the ice makes mysteriously 'broke' right before the party and I had to go get a couple of bags at Quick Trip.

When I got back, the black balloons, inflatable walker and so on were ready. AAAGH! 5-0! NOOO!!!!

John & Betty B. gave me a contractor-grade, 750 watt halogen 'nightlight'. Thanks! It'll be useful, though not quite for the 'nightlight' function! Juanita passed a generic gift card (which has already been used at MicroCenter...) and James and Linda Y. gave me a Rocketmen game set. It was quite a party, with some pretty spectacular fireworks! (The brand of fireworks was TNT, by the way. Some samples of a competing brand, Phantom, were bought on Monday - review on those later.)

Sunday I boogied over to Frye's while the rest of the family went to see 'Hoot' (which I had no interest in) and thence to MicroCenter where I got some more hardware for Big Blue. (Two more WD 250 GB drives.) And then, while installing the things where the late, lamented Samsung drive was previously, I found a small wave-solder resistor. Looking around on the circuit board on the Samsung, there was a spot where something that size could have dropped off (leaving behind a cold solder joint) and I figured "What the hell?"

At Christmas, the little guy gave me one of those "ColdHeat" soldering irons - powered by a couple of AA batteries. It's basically worthless for any real soldering, but it turned out to be JUST the thing for this. I tacked it down, plugged it in... and it spun up and read like a champ. (So I take back some of the things I said about Samsung hard drives.) Needless to say, I copied the stuff off it ASAP. Noting vital, but I'm not going to entrust it with anything important. So now, I've got near onto a terabyte of storage.

Moday the little guy and I had breakfast at KrispyKreme, then got emissions checked (and wasn't THAT a thrill!) and got the tag renewed on my car. After that, we went over to Frye's again - which has some pretty interesting stuff in their housewares department. (Anyone want a microwave with a built-in toaster? For $25, I could get a combination toaster-oven/frying pan/coffee maker. Perfect for the small apartment, but unfortunately not available on-line...) It's quite intriguing to see the various things folks have come up with...

After Frye's, we stopped at a Phantom Fireworks stand and got some odd items - a climbing-panda set and a dozen small tanks that were supposed to roll and shoot sparks. The pandas spun but didn't climb, the tanks tended to flip over (if they moved at all) and sparked in a rather desultory fashion. We won't be buying any more fireworks with the Phantom label on them. Their web site is considerably better than their products. You might also want to check out TNT Fireworks - you DO get more bang for your buck from them.

There was a church nearby which was having a fireworks display - they did a VERY good job of it, but not so good a job of getting the traffic out of their parking lots afterward. Well, it was free - you can't complain much about that.

Then yesterday we watched the Shuttle Launch, and afterwards went over to James and Linda's for a 4th of July party and then we tried to find a good vantage point for fireworks watching. The top deck of one of the hospitals Sue works at turned out to be a pretty decent vantage poiint, and we got home about 11. I'd LOVE to see a shuttle launch in person, by the way - though it's getting pretty unlikely I'll ever see one, since there's not too many shots left in that system.

And today, it's back to work. Boo, hiss.

J.

But you might find it interesting.

Sodium Party

Personally, I'd be a bit uninclined to do this - but it's pretty cool to watch.

J.

And that looks to be just like what North Korea's doing. After yesterday's missile tests (now we know where Phantom Fireworks gets their stocks...) and all the attention THEY'RE getting, this little story comes as little to no surprise.

Korea - Strategy Page

July 5, 2006: While everyone's attention was focused on North Korean missiles, the real story is the North Korean economy. It continues to fall apart, and more North Koreans are unhappy about that. Worse yet, more North Koreans are finding out how badly they have been screwed by their leaders. Meanwhile, North Korean officials engage in even more bizarre behavior. For example, food and fuel supplies sent to North Korea have been halted, not to force North Korea to stop missile tests or participate in peace talks, but to return the Chinese trains the aid was carried in on. In the last few weeks, the North Koreans have just kept the trains, sending the Chinese crews back across the border. North Korea just ignores Chinese demands that the trains be returned, and insists that the trains are part of the aid program.

The Chinese have tried to talk the North Koreans out of these pointless fantasies, and for their trouble they have their trains stolen. How do you negotiate under these conditions? No one knows.

And it should. How long will China be willing to send trains one-way before they start asking (in the politest of terms, no doubt) for their property back?

J.

While the UN dithers. Here's a bit of info on the mess.

My Way News - China, Russia Resist North Korea Sanctions

I can actually understand why Russia and China are a bit... hesitant. Kim Jong-il doesn't exactly seem to be playing with a full deck, but in mitigation of his stance his daddy wasn't exactly a great role model and didn't do much of a job teaching junior how to actually run a country. When you don't start with a full deck it's hard to recover. And it looks like Kim Jong-il is trying to get respect the same way a kid on a playground would - by trying to bully others into giving him what he wants. As it is, if he didn't have nukes NK would be a third-world hellhole... (wait - it already is...) without a viable economy (wait - it already is...) and a kleptocratic government (wait, it's already got one) and pretty much no prospects.

And the people look to the south and see what they could have had if it weren't for Kim Jong-il and his insistence on Korean-flavored Communism and juche... I wonder how much longer they'll be forced to endure the insistence on guns over butter, especially considering that no country neighboring it even wants to invade? (Look at it from China and Russia's point of view. What the hell would they GAIN by taking over NK? A decaying infrastructure, a subjugated, malnourished and poorly educated people - no upside and plenty of down. Hell, an invasion would likely be the best thing that could happen to the majority of the people there - especially if the invaders brought food.)

Just goes to show - you get obsessed about playing with your Dong(s) and all sorts of bad things happem.

J.

VERY low and very fast.

YouTube - fly

South African A.F. recruitment video, I think.

Enjoy!

J.

THIS one will likely work.

My Way News

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan plans to test-fire a missile capable of hitting China, alarming the island's main ally, the United States, a cable news network said on Thursday.

The Hsiung Feng III, developed by Taiwan's Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, has a range of 600 km (360 miles) and is accurate to within half a meter, the online edition of cable news network ETTV (http://www.ettoday.com) said, quoting unnamed military sources.

China and Taiwan have been baring their fangs at each other for years now - sooner or later China's going to realize it will cost more to take Taiwan than they'll get from it, both in international prestige and the damge they'd have to accept (both on the mainland and in destroyed Taiwan infrastructure, and the casualties they'd take from a Taiwanese people who DO NOT want to live under Communist rule) - and I think they might already have realized that. Yes, they make noise about reunification to save face - but that reunification's not going to happen without force, and force would destroy what they want to gain.

J.

It sucks. But not in a bad way. And there are things that would suck significantly worse, and not in a good way. I've got my health, I've got all my limbs and all but 8 of my teeth, and fairly good vision. That's a start.

What I think is best, actually, is that along the way I've gained enough perspective to learn just how much I don't know. When you're 20, you know everything, you're sure of everything, and the world would be a GREAT place if folks would just LISTEN to you and implement your ideas.

When you're 30, if you're smart and have been watching how the world works, you start to realize that maybe you're not as smart as you thought you were.

When you're 40, and observant, you start to realize that a lot of the things you thought were great at 20 weren't so hot in retrospect.

And at 50, with perspective, you realize a lot of the things you took as gospel on how the world should work in your twenties and thirties would actually have been severely troublesome if implemented.

(Extreme case in point - all the folks who flirt with the nihilistic idea of taking apart the government and rebuilding it into some "People's Revolutionary Council". Look at France. They've tried it several times, to no great effect. And the liking I had at the time for Randian notions isn't all that much better, or my thinking that the UN could actually solve major world conflicts.)

With age comes wisdom? Perhaps - but it depends on what you'd call 'wisdom', I guess. At this point in my life I realize that it's pretty unlikely I'll ever do something really 'great' - (though Rodin and Picasso were certainly productive in their latter years, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright) - but there's a lot of small things I can do that'll make small impacts, and doing those will end up being whatever legacy I might leave to the world. Being a good husband, being a good father - they're what's important long-term. I'll not be remembered for anything by most of the world a fifty or a hundred years hence, but my son and his children should.

Along the way I've developed a twin sense of both gratitude and regret regarding family and friendship. Unfortunately, certain traumatic experiences I had in high school seem to have somewhat stunted my ability to form new friendships. (I look at Aaron and envy his ability to just connect with someone else his own age - five minutes and it's like they've been friends for life.) It takes time, and a lot of effort to bring myself to a point where I can open up to folks, and as poorly as I do it now I was a lot worse 20, 25 years back. (Many thanks to the folks of Myriad - who've let me open up at my own rate.)

As far as family goes... I'm so grateful to my lovely bride Sue, who sees good things in me that I have no ability to see in myself. (She often says I'm my own worst critic, without justifiable cause. And when she points out to me I'm being irrationally critical, I can then deflect or defuse it.) And many thanks to her wonderful family, who've shown me just how important family actually IS. (My own parents? And brother? Eh. We're getting along a lot better than we were, but nowhere near like Sue's.)

And then there's the little guy. The unconditional love of a child is an amazing, healing thing. I've made mistakes, I've been impatient, but he still loves me and at the end of the day he knows I love him with all my heart.

You know the old Beatles song, "All you need is love"? Well, you need a bit more than that, but without it you warp. But with time and love, you can get straightened out again.

What would I have done differently? Oh, there's a lot. The biggest problem I've had... is fear of various kinds. Hard to recognize, hard to deal with sometimes. Fear keeps you from doing a lot of things you'd like to do. Then there's the things I wanted to do but haven't (for whatever reason) such as learn to fly. But there's always something else that's had priority... And you can probably guess some of the other things from the above paragraphs. I'd also have started saving aggressively for retirement a lot earlier than I did.

But hey - your bad choices are always 20-20 in hindsight.

And if you haven't learned that by the time you hit 50, you're not trying.

J.

(Lord, I'm glad this isn't the 70's. Just think of the bad jokes and puns...) Anyway, you can tell a lot from a little bit of trajectory info (and a lot of ELINT data...) and apparently the US military had eyes and ears open on this launch...

N. Korea missile aimed at area off Hawaii - report

Looks like it's about 4500-5000 miles from NK to Hawaii. That's well within the range of a
Minuteman III missile. I think Jong's not just waving his Dong - if he can make and mate a nuclear warhead, I think the SOB would try it.

Of course, considering the failures so far I'd be worried if I were under the flight path of the missile. And I wonder how many of the scientists he had working on the project were found guilty of crimes against the state and executed today, because the missile launches failed?

Or did they actually fail? Did they learn enough to make sure the next ones won't? Or were they blown intentionally to put us at ease?

Guess we'll see. But aiming the missiles at open ocean is one thing - aiming them at Hawaii is something else again. Things could rapidly change from "Damn, what a clown" to "Damn - there goes Hawaii."

J.

Apparently it doesn't.

The RCP Blog - The Bush Boom - Larry Kudlow

The thought here is very simple: Low tax rates on capital benefit both businesses and consumers. In fact, a combination of record low taxes and record high profits is the key to understanding our current economic boom, which is the greatest story never told.

Just take a look at today's factory orders report for May. It shows that order backlogs are surging at a 13 percent rate. This is yet another indicator of the business boom.

Moreover, the ADP jobs report hints at a much stronger than expected jobs gain in Friday's report--368,000 new jobs in June, compared to street consensus of only 160,000. (This is the largest monthly increase in employment since the ADP index was created five years ago.)

Yet, the demand-siders continue their doom and gloom. They've predicted four or five growth pauses in the last three years, as the economy shrugged off their pessimism and roared ahead. They have been wrong over and over again. And all signs suggest they will continue to be wrong.

Funny - you'd think something like that would be noteworthy.

J.

... that during the initial run into Iraq there were a number of reports of many drums of 'insecticide' in various ammo dumps, and then the topic just kind of disappeared.

And then, 'no WMDs were found'.

Well, here's an odd idea to toss out for discussion - what if the military DID find WMD stockpiles - yet kept it as tight a secret as the Manhattan project, despite the criticism and shit-storming and posturing of politicians who used the supposed absence of WMDs to trash Bush?

DefenseLINK News: Munitions Found in Iraq Meet WMD Criteria, Official Says

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today.

"These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.

First and foremost, it's been established that Saddam had numerous weapons caches hidden around the country for use by 'freedom fighters' to resist the 'infidel occupier'. I'm going to make a wild-assed assumption here, but would the common knowledge that there were stockpiles of sarin and mustard shells (or drums of the stuff) have helped or hindered the operations in Iraq? Figure that anything put in the news is going to get back to the folks we DON'T want to see get their hands on this stuff. Can you imagine a car bomb attack on a mosque, but instead of explosives they used mustard gas? THAT would have been a terror weapon indeed.

Top News Article | Reuters.com | US forces have found some old Iraqi WMD, says general

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has found more Iraqi weapons in recent months, in addition to the 500 chemical munitions recently reported by the Pentagon, a top defense intelligence official said on Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, did not specify if the newly found weapons were also chemical munitions. But he said he expected more.

Document Details WMD Recovered In Iraq, Santorum Says -- 06/21/2006

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced Wednesday the discovery of more than 500 munitions or weapons of mass destruction, specifically "sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles," in Iraq.

Reading from unclassified portions of a document developed by the U.S. intelligence community, Santorum said, "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

A ten year old 155mm shell containing Sarin may not be 'safe' to fire out of a cannon, but it'd be useful in an urban IED situation.

BREITBART.COM - Hundreds of chemical weapons found in Iraq: US intelligence

US-led coalition forces in Iraq have found some 500 chemical weapons since the March 2003 invasion, Republican lawmakers said, citing an intelligence report.

"Since 2003, Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent," said an overview of the report unveiled by Senator Rick Santorum and Peter Hoekstra, head of the intelligence committee of the House of Representatives.

"Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf war chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf war chemical munitions are assessed to still exist," it says.

The lawmakers cited the report as validation of the US rationale for the war, and stressed the ongoing danger they pose.

"This is an incredibly -- in my mind -- significant finding. The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction, is in fact false," Santorum said.

Or, they'll just ignore them completely, or find experts who say these aren't the WMDs we were looking for. Apparently they're too old to count. (Never mind that Saddam didn't disclose them, in violation of numerous requirements.) That seems to be the MSM way any more. A lot of folks have a lot invested in not finding them. And 10-20 year old sarin is still deadly.

J.

More and more evidence appears showing that Saddam wasn't sitting back and being a good little dictator re WMDs. Or helping the Taliban, for that matter.

Captain's Quarters has a lot you might find interesting.

Spreading bioweapons

Russian Assistance (and I can understand why the delay on translating someting like this...)

Anthrax program personnel

WMD Research

Nuclear, Biological and Chemical staffing.

Al Quaeda Assistance

It's all one big jigsaw puzzle, and it's starting to come together faster and faster. You might have an idea of the shape of it, but getting everything together properly can be a pretty big chore. But it's pretty clear that the picutre isn't of a couple of cute kittens frolicking with butterflies, but of an open mouth of one of Geiger's Aliens, about to feed.

Captain's Quarters has lots'o'good stuff - including a discussion on those 'hydrogen-generating' trailers. Turns out they'd be singularly ill-suited to the task. Could there have been a cover up for some reason?

J.

Very detailed, and worth your time.

Gates of Vienna: Putting the Pieces Together

Before the jetliners made their fateful rendezvous with the World Trade Center, like most Americans I was relatively ignorant about Islam. I knew Muslims had a Book and considered themselves “children of Abraham”. I knew they prayed towards Mecca, and worshipped in mosques. I knew their Prophet was called Mohammed. I remembered that Malcolm X was a Muslim, and that the Crusades were initiated to liberate Jerusalem from Islam during the Middle Ages. I knew that Islamic fundamentalists had taken over the government of Afghanistan in the 1990s. But that was about it.

I’ve learned a lot about Islam since September 11th, 2001.

J.

And I'm... well, start with 'flabbergasted' and work on from there. Over at Captain's Quarters, it looks like UNMOVIC found proof pre-2003 that Saddam was starting up ricin extraction again.

Continuing my review of the many documents released from the DocEx files over the last two days, I found yet another interesting piece of information regarding Saddam Hussein's pursuit of WMD. In a summary of a larger document, the translators found that Iraq had restarted its processing of castor-bean extraction, from which ricin can be developed -- and that UNMOVIC discovered it in December 2002.

From CMPC-2003-003766-HT.pdf, with line breaks and emphases mine:

Ricin toxin is found in the bean of the castor plant. UNMOVIC inspections since December 2002 have verified that the bombed caster oil extraction plant at Fallujah III has been reconstructed on a larger scale.

So here we have confirmation that Iraq continued to work on WMD, and that the new UNMOVIC inspections verified that. We had previously heard from the mainstream media that UNMOVIC only found that the Iraqis still refused to cooperate fully with the inspections, but this puts a little different light on the situation as the UN found it as they debated how to deal with Iraq. Even with Saddam actively pursuing WMD, as it turns out, they refused to take any action except to propose extended inspections.

The documents are coming from the Foreign Military Studies Office, Joint Reserve Intelligence Center. With the following disclaimer.

FMSO DOC-EX

At the request of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the US Army Foreign Military Studies Office has created this portal to provide the general public with access to unclassified documents and media captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, when available. The ODNI press release and public affairs contact information is available at http://www.odni.gov/

Damn. I'm ...

Disclaimer - I don't read Arabic. I can't translate this stuff. For all I know, the document in question could be a uniform inventory or a book report. I've GOT to take someone else's word on the contents. You can read it here, but it looks like hen scratches to me.

If this pans out - the UN credibility's going to be shattered. (At least as far as I'm concerned...)

J.

Not surprising, really - considering how the UN was ignoring stuff they found in Iraq. Now this guy was getting on the nerves of the Iranian nuke program folks - so he had to go.

A Daily Briefing on Iran: Atomic secrets: The man, who knew too much

You know, this REALLY doesn't do much for the UN's credibility.

(Not like they care, right? It makes you wonder what sort of under-the-table payments are going to the UN from Iran. We've already established that if you want a pass fromt he UN on damn near anything you've got to provide either sex or cash...)

J.

Building collapses in N.Y. City - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com

NEW YORK - A three-story building collapsed Monday in midtown Manhattan after an explosion and fire at the site, fire officials said.

Smoke rose high above the building, located on 62nd Street between Park and Madison avenues.

Fire crews were trying to douse the flames before entering the structure to search for victims.

My first thought is that someone was wiring up something (like to knock a hole in a tunnel) and didn't have the battery disconnected. But there's other things it COULD be.

(Update: Like a gas leak, apparently. Move along, nothing to see...)

J.

You might find this site interesting.

911Myths

I know there's a lot of garbage posted on the internet about 9/11 - but this pulls together and debunks a LOT of it.

The web is full of sites covering various conspiracy theories. Many seem well-researched, and appear to have plenty of detailed documentation to prove their claims. But are they really true?

We don’t know, but one good way to start is by checking a few claims for yourself. We tried that with a number of 9/11 sites, with surprising results. Many of the “facts” we read were distorted, or simply wrong. Quotes were routinely taken out of context. Relevant information was often ignored. And much of this could be discovered with a minimum of online research.

Whatever you believe about 9/11, the spreading of false claims helps no-one, and we’d like to play a small part in revealing some of them. We’re not about debunking entire conspiracies, then, but will use this site to zoom in on what we think are the more dubious stories, revealing the misquotes, the distortions, the inaccuracies that are so common online.

J.

KILL, DON'T CAPTURE By RALPH PETERS - New York Post Online Edition: Postopinion

July 10, 2006 -- THE British military defines experience as the ability to recognize a mistake the second time you make it. By that standard, we should be very experienced in dealing with captured terrorists, since we've made the same mistake again and again.

Violent Islamist extremists must be killed on the battlefield. Only in the rarest cases should they be taken prisoner. Few have serious intelligence value. And, once captured, there's no way to dispose of them.

Killing terrorists during a conflict isn't barbaric or immoral - or even illegal. We've imposed rules upon ourselves that have no historical or judicial precedent. We haven't been stymied by others, but by ourselves.

Also, honorable combatants aren't supposed to kill members of the opposing forces if taken prisoner.

The oft-cited, seldom-read Geneva and Hague Conventions define legal combatants as those who visibly identify themselves by wearing uniforms or distinguishing insignia (the latter provision covers honorable partisans - but no badges or armbands, no protection). Those who wear civilian clothes to ambush soldiers or collect intelligence are assassins and spies - beyond the pale of law.

Traditionally, those who masquerade as civilians in order to kill legal combatants have been executed promptly, without trial. Severity, not sloppy leftist pandering, kept warfare within some decent bounds at least part of the time. But we have reached a point at which the rules apply only to us, while our enemies are permitted unrestricted freedom.

The present situation encourages our enemies to behave wantonly, while crippling our attempts to deal with terror.

Consider today's norm: A terrorist in civilian clothes can explode an IED, killing and maiming American troops or innocent civilians, then demand humane treatment if captured - and the media will step in as his champion. A disguised insurgent can shoot his rockets, throw his grenades, empty his magazines, kill and wound our troops, then, out of ammo, raise his hands and demand three hots and a cot while he invents tales of abuse.

The solution is simple.

Take no prisoners.

No - it doesn't drag us down to their level. Their level would be around the 'Behead one of our soldiers, we round up 1000 Iraqi and kill them.' level. Or the "Implant an IED and blow one of our soldiers up, and we'll kill everyone in every building for 250 yards around" level.

We have been zealous in our efforts to NOT target civilians. To avoid at all costs accidental deaths. To behave honorably BY OUR STANDARDS when dealing with the Iraqi people. To the point where, after three+ years you've got a mere handful of incidents like Abu Grabass, and Haditha. Damn. Panties on the heads of our prisoners! Egads!

And each and every one of them is blown up to be MUCH worse than THIS. (Warning - not for the squeamish. Decapitation of American soldiers - yeah, the two that got taken by Michael Moore's 'Freedom Fighters'.)

So you know something? I'm not at all against summary execution at this point. We fight and behave by the rules and well beyond. Al Quaeda's taken advantage of that, while enjoying a peculiar freedom from the rules themselves. So - it's time to drop back and JUST abide by the rules.

To the letter - and not one bit more. Yeah, we'll abide by the Geneva protocols... but you probably won't like the result one damn bit.

Oddly enough - after reviewing the above I'm reminded of the initial bombing campaigns over Germany in WW2. Great care (at least for the time) was taken to avoid hitting civilians and to target industrial infrastructure only. But as the war went on, less and less care was taken and eventually civilian targets were considered fair game. After the Blitz, when Germany targeted London (which could by no stretch of the imagination be considered fair game under the Geneva protocols, being packed with civilians and all) then it was considered rather foolish to abide by rules that the other side had already discarded and after a while the prohibition against targeting civilians was set aside by Spaatz, with Doolittle objecting. The precedent's been established.

But I'm pretty sure we won't act on it.

J.

Who pointed me over to the Ray Robison blog, a VERY nice compendium of information and documents re Iraq and the WoT.

AJacksonian's blog - Dumb Looks Still Free is also very read-worthy. The man has a VERY high signal to noise ratio in his posts - much higher than mine, I think. As he put it in the comment that alerted me to this blog -

If you want the lowdown on translated documents Ray Robison is the one to see. The man is not only a retired Intel Analyst but was on some of the inspection teams that got thrown out by Saddam. Even though he could grind axes, he, instead, just wants to show that what he saw was really there as he told about it and *not* made up. And gives the world first-hand and top-notch Intel Analysis to boot... for free! He has done most of the cross-reading and coordinating on the Army of Translators, and continues to be the 'go-to' man for the Saddam document analyses.

Damn. Those are some HARDCORE folks.

Fire and Ice: An Air Force Colonel's View of Marines

Dear Dad, If I ever hear airmen griping and complaining, I jump into them pretty quickly, now. Most people over here have nothing to gripe about compared to Marines. Marines are different. They have a different outlook on life. One Marine Private was here for several days because he was a lower priority evacuation patient. He insisted on coming to attention and displaying proper military courtesy every morning when I came through on rounds. He was in a great deal of pain, and it was a stressful to watch him work his way off the bed and onto his crutches. I told him he was excused and did not have to come to attention while he was a patient,and he informed me that he was a good Marine and would address "Air Force Colonels standing on my feet, Sir." I had to turn away so he would not see the tear in my eye. He did not have "feet" because we amputated his right leg below the knee on the first night he came in.

I asked a Marine Lance Corporal if there was anything I could get him as I was making rounds one morning. He was an above the knee amputation after an IED blast, and he surprised me when he asked for a trigonometry book. "You enjoy math do you?" He replied, "Not particularly, Sir. I was never good at it, but I need to get good at it, now." "Are you planning on going back to school?" I asked. "No sir, I am planning on shooting artillery. I will slow an infantry platoon down with just one good leg, but I am going to get good at math and learn how to shoot artillery".

J.

Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex

Safe for work, unless you've got folks around you who detest it when you sit there snickering...

Assume a mating between Superman and a human woman designated LL for convenience.

Either Superman has gone completely schizo and believes himself to be Clark Kent; or he knows what he's doing, but no longer gives a damn. Thirty-one years is a long time. For Superman it has been even longer. He has X-ray vision; he knows just what he's missing. (*One should not think of Superman as a Peeping Tom. A biological ability must be used. As a child Superman may never have known that things had surfaces, until he learned to suppress his X-ray vision. If millions of people tend shamelessly to wear clothing with no lead in the weave, that is hardly Superman's fault.*)

J.

My heart just bleeds for her.

Political Affairs Magazine - Troops Home Fast: Day 6 - Cindy Sheehan

I find traveling out of the country very challenging being on a fast. When I was on a layover in Madrid on my way to Venice, Italy yesterday, the closest thing I could find to a smoothie to get a little protein was a coffee with vanilla ice cream in it. Traveling for 22 hours is very taxing under normal circumstances--but then again, when have we had normal circumstances since the 2000 and 2004 successful coup attempts that have brought BushCo into power?

I traveled from Venice to the frontier of Italy to the province of Udine which is right at the foot of the pre-Alps. I am here for a huge youth festival which includes many elements of social justice and peace work. It is beautiful and the air feels different from other places that I have travelled. It is strangely soft and gentle as is the natural light. However, there is not a Jamba Juice on every corner, so blended juice drinks with protein powder are impossible to find.

I have also received so many emails from worried, wonderful, and well-meaning friends and supporters in the US who are concerned about me and all of the others who are fasting. I don't like being on this fast, trust me,

To quote Inigo Montoya from "The Princess Bride": "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

J.

EA betting big on quirky Spore - Forbes.com - MSNBC.com

I might have to get a copy of that when it comes out...

J.

I've been pretty unimpressed by the whole Plame incident - it seemed to me there was a lot of screaming and shouting about pretty much nothing. And as far as who 'leaked the name'...

Defining "News" For the Mainstream Media - Wizbang

1. Novak inadvertently learned Wilson's wife sent him to Africa from a still unnamed source.

2. Novak learned Plame's name from Joe Wilson's own entry in Who's Who.

3. When Novak asked Rove, he obliquely confirmed Plame's identity.

4. Bill Harlow of the CIA also confirmed Plame's identity when asked.

5. We learned various bits and pieces about Novak's legal entanglements that don't add to the bigger story.

But it's kind of funny. Over on Metafilter, which has been EAGERLY following the Plame controversy, sure this would bring down Rove, Cheney and Bush, there's not going to be a Fitzmas - instead, it's sour grapes time.

(And I'm sure you know the fable that phrase comes from.)

I almost feel sorry for them.

J.

Not that I'd want one of these - but if you're a fan of the Godfather movies, it might have a certain appeal.

Horse head pillow

Wow.

J.

I'm bumping this to the top. New info in - check at the bottom.

The Corner on National Review Online

Castro Dead? [Jonah Goldberg]

Two e-friends working on Wall Street say rumors are running around that he's bought the big one. I find nothing on the wires.
Posted at 2:33 PM

Update: False alarm, darn it. He's still alive, and the people of Cuba are still screwed.

Update again: Over at The Jawa Report, apparently Fidel Castro is Rumored Dead....Again

And there's a bit more over at Elephants in Academia

Reports of Castro's death are so eagerly awaited that it takes little more than a bad telephone connection to start the rumor mill up and going. After all, people hear what they want to hear. But this particular round of collective wishful thinking feels a little funny to me because of the very silence from Havana. Usually there's lots of talk, then a stout denial. On this one there's nothing. So we shall see what we shall see. One thing's for certain: no matter what Castro's doctors say, it will happen one day.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the people of Cuba. May they be free of the damn bastard that's ridden on their backs and sucked their blood for almost 50 years.

J.

Well, there go the oil prices again.

Pajamas Media: Israel Army Enters Into Lebanon After Hezbollah Kidnaps Two Soldiers

Israel Army Enters Into Lebanon After Hezbollah Kidnaps Two Soldiers

(Yeah, like I think THAT will ever happen.)

Now Hezbollah is getting into the act. I think they're about to find out that this whole hostage thing's a pretty bad idea. Isreal seems to be thinking that it's time to really clean out a lot of the problems they've been dealing with for the last 50+ years, and I think they're right to do so.

I think when Israel returned the Gaza Strip, that was a test of sorts. When they elected Hamas into leadership, that was another. When they started firing rockets from Gaza into Israel, that was an indication that the goodwill they attempted to show by returning the Gaza Strip wasn't exactly reciprocated. Israel's bent over backwards trying to 'accomodate' the Palestinians - (who, you will notice, even EGYPT won't let onto their territory - we won't talk about how Saudi won't allow them in at all and how Jordan had to kick them out...) and all they get for it is trouble in large doses.

So it looks like Israel's had enough of pretending they can make nice with the Palestinians, no matter the provocation. About all I can say is - good on them, and good luck. Looks like it's time to kick ass and take names.

J.

Might be a little of both.

WP: Army to end exclusive Halliburton deal - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

The Army is discontinuing a controversial multibillion-dollar deal with oil services giant Halliburton Co. to provide logistical support to U.S. troops worldwide, a decision that could cut deeply into the firm's dominance of government contracting in Iraq.

And now they're going to try to find three. I wish them luck.

J.

Marine Corps News -> Marines thwart insurgents’ attempt to destroy new Iraqi school for girls

KARABILAH, Iraq (July 7, 2006) -- Thanks to the work of Marines and Iraqi Security Forces, 800 elementary-aged girls will now have a school to attend this fall.

Marines from 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment unveiled a brand-new grade school in this city of about 30,000 on the Iraq-Syria border in western Al Anbar Province July 7.

About one week before its opening, insurgents planted an improvised explosive device inside the school which would have leveled a good portion of the building, destroying nearly three months of work by Marines and locals, said Gunnery Sgt. Joseph S. Mallicoat, team leader for the civil affairs team here.

“The bomb had the potential of taking down both wings of the building and the school would have been unable to open by September,” said Capt. Rick Bernier, commanding officer of C Company – the Marines responsible for providing security alongside Iraqis in this city.

The Marines discovered the bomb and immediately secured the building leaving Iraqi Security Forces to provide 24-hour security to prevent further attacks.

God. 'Freedom Fighters' who are targeting GIRLS. How pathetic.

J.

World leaders urge restraint after deadly Middle East flare-up - Yahoo! News

PARIS (AFP) - World powers have pleaded for restraint to stop the fiercest Israeli-Lebanese clashes in a decade slipping into all-out war.
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US President George W. Bush blamed "terrorists who want to stop the advance of peace", while fellow UN Security Council members Russia and France condemned Israel's "disproportionate" use of force.
"Hezbollah doesn't want there to be peace, the militant arm of Hamas doesn't want there to be peace, and those of us who do want peace will continue to work together to encourage peace," Bush said.

And this caught my eye:

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli jets bombed the Palestinian foreign ministry, wounding 10 children and increasing pressure on the Hamas government over another soldier abducted last month.

But leave it to Hamas to make sure the daycare center at a prime target is fully occupied.

Tell me again just WHY I should care about the Palestinians? Because right now, as you can see, the CARE meter's pegging to the left.

Comments closed due to spam

J.

Because there's a hell of a lot of serious stuff going on today...

Enjoy!

(This could be used as a metaphor for ME diplomacy, too..)

J.

WP: U.S. has limited options in Mideast - washingtonpost.com

NOW he should be unilateral.

Bush Must Act on Mideast - Newsweek Michael Hirsh - MSNBC.com

World reaction to Mideast crisis - MSNBC.com

Briefly - EU doesn't like it. US says Israel has right to defend itself. UN is sending a three-person team (that'll help...) while Germany's saying both sides aresomewhat at fault but the Palestinians have a lot more responsibility.

Too much fun...

J.

For late-breaking news on the war in the ME.

Pajamas Media: The Israel-Hezbollah War

17:32 PDT: Canadian PM Stephen Harper called Israel’s incursion into Lebanon and strikes on Gaza “measured self-defence”, according to Reuters.

17:00 PDT: Hezbollah, not Israel started the war, according to Australian Prime Minister John Howard according to the Herald Sun.

16:16 PDT: Reuters is reporting that “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday an Israeli strike on Syria would be considered an attack on the whole Islamic world that would bring a ‘fierce response’”.

16:15 PDT JerusalemOnline.com’s video wrap-up of today’s events in Israel in English. “A rocket struck her balcony where she was having breakfast.”

15:06 PDT: Ynet reports the Lebanese Army affirms “Hizbullah has a right to resist Israeli aggression”.

15:59 PDT “Saudi Arabia on Thursday blamed ‘elements’ inside Lebanon for the violence with Israel, in unusually frank language directed at guerrilla group Hizbollah and its Iranian backers.”

The UN had a security council meeting, where Qatar put forth a resolution condeming Israel. The US voted no on it, along with Britain, Denmark, Slovakia and... Peru? Hmm.

But I'm glad to see John Bolton vetoing the right things. (You might not think it's a good move, of course.)

As I posted to Jason down in Rusted Sky: "Freedom Fighters" set bomb in girl's school.

The old status quo throughout the ME was pretty fragile and wasn't supportable long-term, and realistically was heading toward a conflagration. I think this shakeup, as violent and worrisome as it is, and as bad as it's going to get, is the best chance to avoid all out nuclear war in that area.

I don't doubt for a moment that Amajackass would use an Iranian nuke if he had one ready. And reports are coming in that he's having the soldiers captured by Hezbollah transferred to Iran. If that isn't putting a "I'm responsible" sign up and drawing a big red bull's eye target on it I don't know what would qualify.

FWIW, I think this is going to buy us some time. Maybe ten, maybe twenty years, like a bunch of 5.9 magnitude earthquakes can release the stress that would otherwise pop off a 8.5 or 9.0 city-wrecker earthquake.

And maybe what we're going to see will be scary enough so the governments in that area get over the idea that promoting radical Islam and projecting all their internal troubles onto Israel is a good way to go.

J.

on the terrorism taking place in the ME, the complete breakdown of adherence to international law by many of the countries there, and how the apologizers for the actions of thereof have enabled the destruction that's going on...

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred: An SC&A Refresher Course On The Middle East, Part Two

We are still working on the premise that we in the west and the Israelis are somehow contributory to the problems of the Middle East. Well, here's a reality pill. If there were free and democratic governments in the region, the problems they face would have been long since overcome. The problems remain because those despots and tyrannical regimes want those problems to remain, to deflect attention away from their own evil.

We- and the Israelis- have allowed ourselves to be 'dumbed down,' in an attempt to negotiate a way out of an impossible situation.

Sooner or later, we're going to have to deal with reality and deal with the problem clearly and substantively-- and we're not going to be able to talk our way out it. Until the Arab community deals with the reality that we and the Israelis and our support for Israel are not their biggest problem they face, they cannot possibly contribute or achieve their own salvation and redemption.

With each passing day, the distance between the Arab world and universal laws of decency and behavior, grows greater.

Why are they mad at us? Because for decades they've been screwed by their governments. By petty tyrants and dictators who were more concerned with riding around in fancy cars and building dozens of palaces than addressing the problems of taking countries that were essentially technologically illiterate and socially barely one step above nomadic goat-herders and trying to raise them into the 20th century, and by erstwhile theologians who felt the 7th century was much less threatening to their religion and livelyhood. You DON'T change a good thing, when you're taking advantage of it.

And their governments and mullahs have fed off that anger and fanned it for years, teaching hatred of the West in their schools, knowing that we had a certain core element that would gladly deflect attention from the real causes of the problems in the ME in favor of self-flagellating theories about how the West was so evil and the poor Islamics were so noble and pure and beyond reproach that they have no choice but to do what they do - even if they did force women into burquas and practice FGM, and keep them in conditions that any Western Feminist would have screamed bloody hell about. In the world of PC multiculturalism, it was all good, and all excusable.

Since 9/11, we've been forced to take a long and hard look at what we've been excusing. And a lot of it's been pretty repellent and abhorrent. Sure, with the advent of the Internet and easy global communication there's growing internal pressures for governments in the ME to modernize, to liberalize their structures - but the pressures that change governments are not taken well by the mullahs who have the ultimate say. THEY do not want change, and they will gladly kill to keep it from occuring.

And sadly, there's still a lot of people who refuse to look at it objectively - still clinging to the idea that multi-culturalism was the only way the world can possibly work.

Well, that's a nice dream. Problem is, on 9/11 the alarm went off. And although a lot of folks keep hitting the snooze button, in the end it's only prolonging the agony.

A long time back I mentioned that what was happening was the battle between civilization and chaos. Between good and evil. Sure, it'd be nice to go 'Oh, there's no evil, just misunderstandings between cultures!' - but such a view is foolish. FGM is not a moral equivalent of ear piercing, nor is a mullah urging his flock to kill the unbeliever a moral equivalent of a Baptist preacher spouting fire and brimstone theology. (It is, however, pretty much the moral equivalent of the bastardized Christianty spouted by the adherents of the Aryan Nations and KKK, where it's perfectly justifiable to kill off anyone who isn't white.) There is evil - and though some might think it good (I'm pretty sure someone in the KKK doesn't think it's wrong) it is still evil.

And international law is supposed to be a framework (he said, stupidly idealistic and optimistic) to reduce evil, not protect it. However, it seems more like it's a club that is used to beat on the US, and never applied elsewhere.

In the ME, you see the perfect storm that happens when all the elements are brought together. We'll see what happens - but there's a lot the wind needs to scour clean over there.

J.

Don't know whether it's a feeling that's prevalent or not, but it's a small sign of hope and rationality.

To my Arab brothers: The War with Israel Is Over — and they won. Now let's finally move forward

With Israel entering its fourth week of an incursion into the same Gaza Strip it voluntarily evacuated a few months ago, a sense of reality among Arabs is spreading through commentary by Arab pundits, letters to the editor, and political talk shows on Arabic-language TV networks. The new views are stunning both in their maturity and in their realism. The best way I can think of to convey them is in the form of a letter to the Palestinian Arabs from their Arab friends:

Dear Palestinian Arab brethren:

The war with Israel is over.

You have lost. Surrender and negotiate to secure a future for your children.

We, your Arab brothers, may say until we are blue in the face that we stand by you, but the wise among you and most of us know that we are moving on, away from the tired old idea of the Palestinian Arab cause and the "eternal struggle" with Israel.

Dear friends, you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. Struggle means less land and more misery and utter loneliness.

At the moment, brothers, you would be lucky to secure a semblance of a state in that Gaza Strip into which you have all crowded, and a small part of the West Bank of the Jordan. It isn't going to get better. Time is running out even for this much land, so here are some facts, figures, and sound advice, friends.

You hold keys, which you drag out for television interviews, to houses that do not exist or are inhabited by Israelis who have no intention of leaving Jaffa, Haifa, Tel Aviv, or West Jerusalem. You shoot old guns at modern Israeli tanks and American-made fighter jets, doing virtually no harm to Israel while bringing the wrath of its mighty army down upon you. You fire ridiculously inept Kassam rockets that cause little destruction and delude yourselves into thinking this is a war of liberation. Your government, your social institutions, your schools, and your economy are all in ruins.

Your young people are growing up illiterate, ill, and bent on rites of death and suicide, while you, in effect, are living on the kindness of foreigners, including America and the United Nations. Every day your officials must beg for your daily bread, dependent on relief trucks that carry food and medicine into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, while your criminal Muslim fundamentalist Hamas government continues to fan the flames of a war it can neither fight nor hope to win.

In other words, brothers, you are down, out, and alone in a burnt-out landscape that is shrinking by the day.

What kind of struggle is this? Is it worth waging at all? More important, what kind of miserable future does it portend for your children, the fourth or fifth generation of the Arab world's have-nots?

We, your Arab brothers, have moved on.

Those of us who have oil money are busy accumulating wealth and building housing, luxury developments, state-of-the-art universities and schools, and new highways and byways. Those of us who share borders with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan, have signed a peace treaty with it and are not going to war for you any time soon. Those of us who are far away, in places like North Africa and Iraq, frankly could not care less about what happens to you.

Only Syria continues to feed your fantasies that someday it will join you in liberating Palestine, even though a huge chunk of its territory, the entire Golan Heights, was taken by Israel in 1967 and annexed. The Syrians, my friends, will gladly fight down to the last Palestinian Arab.

Before you got stuck with this Hamas crowd, another cheating, conniving, leader of yours, Yasser Arafat, sold you a rotten bill of goods — more pain, greater corruption, and millions stolen by his relatives — while your children played in the sewers of Gaza.

The war is over. Why not let a new future begin?

I think the saddest part of it all is this... Your young people are growing up illiterate, ill, and bent on rites of death and suicide, while you, in effect, are living on the kindness of foreigners, including America and the United Nations.

They HAVE lost.

J.

Hezbollah pledges ‘open war’ - Mideast/N. Africa - MSNBC.com

Hezbollah pledges ‘open war’ against Israel

Speaking in an audiotape aired on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television, Nasrallah addressed himself to Israelis, saying: "You wanted an open war and we are ready for an open war."

"Look at the warship that has attacked Beirut, while it burns and sinks before your very eyes," Nasrallah said. It was not clear whether he meant that the warship had been attacked. He also hinted of attacking Israel "beyond Haifa," a town about 30 miles south of Lebanon.

Hezbollah guerrillas hit an Israeli naval vessel off Beirut with two rockets on Friday, Lebanese security sources said. Israeli television reported that an Israeli naval ship off Lebanon's coast suffered slight damage, but that there were no casualties.

J.

Was watching a DVD of 'Andromeda', and the boot drive gave up right in the last five minutes. System rebooted, kept rebooting - then it couldn't find the OS.

I may have to swap it over to Linux. I want to keep it XP (and some of you may be wondering just why I'd want to do that - most of the business world runs on XP, and my apps run on XP, so I'm going to need to keep it XP.

But man, this is aggravating. My copy of XP pro was an upgrade from Win98, and I can't find my Win98 disk to start all over again. I may have to bite the bullet and buy a copy of XP home (Or XP Pro - cheapest I can find a full copy is $84 online.

Aaargh. Computers - they're making my hair turn grey.

Update: It wasn't the OS - though the things I did to try to remedy the situation thinking it WAS an OS problem likely didn't help matters one bit. Instead, it looks like a bad stick of memory. Passed the bios tests - but when put under load - 'click' and a reboot.

Very aggravating. Hardware's solid enough so that any more when something goes bust I automatically suspect Windows. I need to watch that.

So now I need to copy over an old drive onto my boot drive, and then start adding components again. Quite aggravating, but at least I don't have to buy a copy of XP yet.
J.

Note to self:

Periodic backups by putting a new main drive in and copying everything to it with the utility software provided with the new drive and then archiving safely the old drive works nicely. Doing so on an annual basis is a good idea. (And saved having to rebuild the system from scratch. Still had to reauthenticate WinXP with Microsoft - too many hardware changes and you have to call in to do it.)

And don't mistake a hardware problem (bad RAM) for an OS problem - even though WinXP's got it's own share of wierdnesses, hardware DOES go bad.

So it wasn't a total loss. Went to MicroCenter, got a 1GB stick of ram (And I am SO damn tired of their rebated prices - I have little to no luck with rebates from there) and the system's been running fine. (And there is a MASSIVE difference in processing speed between 256mb and 1 gb ram. WinXP REALLY likes having enough elbow room to work.) The rebate is claimable on-line (supposedly) through a company called OnRebate.com. I registered for it, and it offered me a 'quick rebate' for a $4.50 processing fee with the money going to my paypal account. Aargh. Just take the money off up-front, give it to Microcenter so they'll drop the price to begin with, and lets be done with this foolishness, okay? And I STILL have to send in the UPC and a copy of the receipt. Damn.

Well, enough on that. Things are back up and running.

J.

Day by Day nails it. Day by Day Cartoon by Chris Muir - Sunday, July 17

Yup, that pretty well sums up my opinion of the Murtha crowd at the present time. I don't have much sympathy for the appeasement crowd - throwing the occasional sacrifice to the crocodiles, and hoping they'll be eaten last...

J.

340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 new web addresses created by internet chiefs . . . so we won’t run out of space soon, then - World - Times Online

TO THE lay observer it seems like an infinite network of computers, servers and cables stretching around the globe.
But the worldwide web is filling up. So quickly, it turns out, that programmers have had to devise a new one.

Of the internet addresses available, more than three quarters are already in use, and the remainder are expected to be assigned by 2009. So, what will happen as more people in developing countries come online? The answer is IPv6, a new internet protocol that has more spaces than the old one: 340,282,366,920,938,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000 spaces, in fact.

Either that or the hot tech item is an automatic GPS enabled Mecca-pointer...

Oops. LG Canada beat me to it.

LG Canada :: PR Archives

Specially designed for Middle East customers by equipping it with compasses and direction-pointer program, the company's Mecca-pointer mobile phone (model: LG-G5300) was featured in the recent New York Times issue; thus reinforcing its position not only in the CDMA market but also in the GSM mobile phone market.

J.

Looks like he apparently played to the Fundi crowd.

So much for the theory that Al Q wouldn't have anything to do with him because he was 'secular'.

World Threats

Below is additional commentary from Ayad Rahim, translator of the Iraqi intelligence report discussed above by Ms. Mylroie:

ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING THINGS in this document for Iraqis is the openness with which the Iraqi regime acknowledged that it engaged in terrorism, and particularly in its embassies. Iraqis have long considered the Baath regime a terrorist organization, the intelligence services its external terrorist arm, and the embassies as posts for the intelligence services (the dreaded mukhabarat). When an Iraqi came anywhere near an Iraqi embassy, he shuddered with fear. And God help you, if you actually had business to conduct in an embassy. You fretted about it for weeks, dared not go alone, posted friends outside, in case you lingered too long, then recovered from the humiliation. Since the fall of the regime, machine guns, weapons-silencers and torture implements have been found in abandoned embassy safes.

The document is also a reminder of how a gang of thugs took over a rich country, yet saw themselves as a legitimate enterprise, and conducting themselves accordingly. They addressed each other with honorifics and had a code of conduct and a core of beliefs, such as the myth of an Arab nation, with sections, ultimately to be united. They put together delineated reports about their doings, sent them up the line of command, and wrote in flowery language -- albeit not very elegant.

An amusing phenomenon suggested in this document is Saddam's Iraq granting people political asylum. While Iraqis fled the country in droves, seeking legitimate asylum elsewhere (an estimated four to five million ended up abroad, more than a million of them, forcibly driven out), the regime went searching far and wide, inviting "Arabs," purely for their terrorist utility. Meanwhile, as actual Iraqis feared going to Iraq and had the doors of Iraqi embassies and consulates literally and figuratively slammed in their faces, their Arab "brothers" were being lavished with scholarships, the royal treatment and exorbitant sums of money, at their expense.

Finally, to Iraqis, the notion that Saddam wouldn't deal with Islamists, because he was "secular," is laughable. Iraqis, who witnessed on television Saddam's dealings with any and all terrorists, have considered him the world's biggest terrorist and have seen him ride whichever wind would prevail for him. During his war with Iran, he "became" Shi'a -- among other things, posters of Muhammad's family tree were circulated showing Saddam and his sons as descendents of the Prophet. In the '90s, he had a revelation, and called for "a campaign of faithfulness," putting the country on a fundamentalist track. Alcohol was banned, extreme tribal ways were advocated for dealing with women, and hundreds of women were beheaded in public (allegedly for prostitution, but actually for dissent), and their heads posted in front of their homes. Then there was his constant championing of "the Palestinian cause" and pan-Arabism, while hosting and sponsoring terrorist groups and conferences of every stripe and flavor -- with, as we see in this document, a process of give-and-take, in the mix.

As more and more comes out, the picture keeps changing. Isn't that odd...

J.

YouTube - Natural Hallucinogen

Follow the instructions. Very wierd effect!

J.

YouTube - Space Invaders real

One theater, a bunch of volunteers, and a stop-motion camera.

Cool!

J.

Israel's had enough, and will take no more.

Olmert: We'll fight on until attacks end, soldiers returned - Haaretz - Israel News

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reiterated his conditions for an end to the military operation in Lebanon on Monday evening, saying that only when those three demands are met will Israel consider a cease-fire.

In his first public address since the start of Israel's offensive in Lebanon last week, Olmert said a cease-fire would first require the return of the two soldiers whose abduction sparked the current conflict, an end to Hezbollah rocket attacks and the deployment of the Lebanese army along the shared border.

"Citizens of Israel, there are moments in the life of a nation, when it is compelled to look directly into the face of reality and say: no more," he said.

"And I say to everyone: no more. Israel will not be held hostage - not by terror gangs or by a terrorist authority or by any sovereign state,"

"There is nothing we want more than peace on all of our borders," Olmert told the Knesset. But he said, "Israel will not agree to live with rockets fired on its citizens, he added. "Only a nation that can protect its freedom deserves it," he stated.

Seriously - I don't think they expected near this level of response, and they expected the Arab League to support them. And that support is not there. World condemnation isn't there. There's no calvary riding in to save them. They've pushed and they've pushed, figuring they could bully Isreal as usual, and they'd be supported.

They were wrong. And I don't think they realized just how wrong.

Re the soldiers - if they were still alive, I would imagine they'd have been returned by now.

May God grant them peace and hold them in the light everlasting...

J.

"Live Action" Space Invaders, here's a little flash game - Notepad Invaders by Rob Manuel .

Enjoy!

J.

The inflatable habitat put up by Bigelow Aerospace is working without a hitch. Click on the above for some pics of it.

Very cool idea - and one that Disney and NASA had decades back. But then they decided to go with tin cans... and you know the rest of the story.

J.

I'll admit I'm expecting the worst. A chem or bio weapon release, perhaps a nuke going off somewhere. It's a bit on the obsessive-compulsive side, and I realize that my viewing or not won't make a difference, but there you go...

We're at kind of a wierd crux in the WoT. I really believe that Hamas and Hezbollah hadn't planned on the response they got. The problem is now, however, trying to figure what course those two organizations are going to take. Because they're caught between a rock and a number of hard places. In order to maintain their crediblity in the Arabic world, they've GOT to hit hard against Israel. And they're out of luck there - that one missile that got the patrol boat may have been a freebie sample from Iran or it might not - but the other rockets they're using are pretty low-tech stuff. And although they do damage, they don't do a lot of it. And the IDF Air Force (IAF hereafter) controls the skies. They took to heart USAF doctrine - you control the skies, and you control the land under you. It looks like they've been making the most of their control, too.

The difficult part will be what comes afterward. The ant pile has been kicked. Lebanon would love to see Syrian-backed Hezbollah gone. For that matter, it's looking like most of the governments in the ME have withdrawn support from Hamas and Hezbollah. Their only major supporters are Syria and Iran - and let's be honest and admit that Syria will be long on rhetoric but a bit lacking when it comes time to pick up the check and commit troops. (Or so I think, judging by the state of their military. Run it up against the IDF, and it's like running a hot dog through a meat grinder. There won't be much resistance at all.) Iran MIGHT want to do something - but how? Air's right out, and you can bet any freighter out of Iran will be searched from top to bilges, and you might as well forget air transport. Land is RIGHT out - there's no reason for Turkey to grant them transit, and Iraq would sic the US on them if they tried a crossing of Iraqi territory. This doesn't leave much in the way of options for reinforcement.

And without reinforcement and resupply, they're screwed. (Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch, I might add.)

One of the reasons why the US military's so effectiveis because we've got logistics down to a science. We can get pretty much anything anywhere it needs to be, from tanks to toilet paper. Beans and bullets aren't a problem. But other countries don't have it so good, and in the case of terrorist organizations, they're entirely dependent on whatever 'charity' they get for supplies, and smugglers to get them what they ordered. (It's not like going on-line to Amazon.com and ordering a few gross cases of hand grenades and a quarter million rounds of 7.62x39 with two-day delivery.)

We'll see what happens - but my gut feeling is that it'll last about four more days, then peter out again. Hamaz and Hezbollah will have literally shot off all the weapons they coud come up with, and then it'll be time to hunker down in the bunkers until the world community pulls back Israel.

J.

Now all Hezbollah has to do is hunker down for a week.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | United States to Israel: you have one more week to blast Hizbullah

The US is giving Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to British, European and Israeli sources.

The Bush administration, backed by Britain, has blocked efforts for an immediate halt to the fighting initiated at the UN security council, the G8 summit in St Petersburg and the European foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

We should have kept quiet. Let Hezbollah think that there wasn't ANYONE who was going to ride to the rescue. Now all they have to do is survive, and they can claim it as a win.

J.

Life (Briefly) Near A Supernova and Biological Effects of Stellar Collapse Neutrinos

"And the results, to put it mildly, are impressive."

Wow.

J.

Click the Colour (and not the word) by Rob Manuel [B3TA : WE LOVE THE WEB]

I made it to 5, and level 2 on my third attempt. It helps if you don't have sound.

GAAAH!

BTW, check out some of those other games. Some are pretty basic, but there's some humor to them...

J.

Anyone want to invoke a Geneva Accords condemnation? By the laws of civilized warfare (Yes, I know, an oxymoron) a combatant is specifically prohibited from doing the following.

IDF: Hizbullah preventing civilians from leaving villages in southern Lebanon... - News from Israel, Ynetnews

The IDF has found that Hizbullah is preventing civilians from leaving villages in southern Lebanon. Roadblocks have been set up outside some of the villages to prevent residents from leaving, while in other villages Hizbullah is preventing UN representatives from entering, who are trying to help residents leave. In two villages, exchanges of fire between residents and Hizbullah have broken out. (Hanan Greenberg)

Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, 75 U.N.T.S. 287, entered into force Oct. 21, 1950.

Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to theProtection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 1125 U.N.T.S. 3, entered into force Dec. 7, 1978.

PART IV
CIVILIAN POPULATION
SECTION I.-GENERAL PROTECTION AGAINST EFFECTS OF HOSTILITIES
CHAPTER 1.-BASIC RULE AND FIELD OF APPLICATION
Article 48.-Basic rule
In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.

Article 51, Section 7

7. The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.

Only one reason to prevent refugees from leaving - to serve as shields. As 'martyrs'. Kill enough civilians, and the world will condemn Israel, right? (Of course, they can kill Israeli civilians all day long, that's friggin' acceptable.) But it's hard to get the enemy to kill your own civilians if the damn fool civilians won't stay around!

J.

Damn.

Cosmic Log : Greatest date in space

Today marks two crowning achievements of the space program: the 37th anniversary of the first moon landing, and the 30th anniversary of America's first successful landing on Mars.

Oh, there were all sorts of reasons for it - but in the end, none of them made any real sense. "The money was being wasted" - as if we were loading up Saturn 5's with gold and shooting them off into space. "We needed the money to fight the War on Poverty" - as if giving people money will suddenly make them prosperous. As it was, with the Carter recession and the economic malaise that followed the Viet Nam war... we might as well have just loaded up Saturn 5's with the money and shot them into space for all the good it did.

"We needed to pay attention to problems here at home" - as if Disco didn't keep people's mind off that...

History is full of lost opportunities, only seen in hindsight by later generations. I wonder if, a hundred years from now, this will be seen as one of those? Or if it will be just seen as a technological curiosity... or forgotten completely.

37 years. Damn, that's a bummer.

J.

The Kuba Komet

They don't make 'em like THAT any more!

J.

Contact WHICHEVER news service Helen Thomas is supposedly working for and tell them she needs to be urged to retire? Because she's just plain off the deep end. Take a look at the video here... Snow To Thomas: “Thank You For The Hezbollah View” (Video) ? Outside The Beltway | OTB and tell me she actually has a handle on what's really going on in the world.

She's accusing the US of vetoing a cease fire resolution - which hasn't even come up in the UN. She's a reporter, for pete's sake, in one of the greatest positions of importance in the news heirarchy, and she doesn't have sufficient background to formulate an intelligent question? (And that reminds me - she's not asking questions so much as she's lecturing. Shouldn't a reporter ask a question and then SHUT UP to listen to the answer?)

J.

In other portions of the world, apparently Castro is still getting around. Metabolic functioning isn't exactly assured, however.

Babalu Blog: fidel castro Death Watch: Starsky and Hutch Edition

We linked to a report this morning that fidel castro will be attending the Mercosur summit in Argentina today. Sources inform me that the bearded dictator is supposed to be departing from Cuba this afternoon and arriving in Argentina sometime around 6 pm. There's a chance, however, that if castro does show up in Argentina, he might not be getting off the plane.

Get Michael Moore to do the screenplay, and there won't be a dry eye in the theater.

J.

Annan calls for halt to Mideast violence - Mideast/N. Africa - MSNBC.com

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Thursday for an immediate halt to the escalating conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia but said there were “serious obstacles to reaching a cease-fire.”

Hate to say it - but the time the UN could have been effective was about 40 years back. They could have gone "Okay, Israel's here. We created it. We're going to protect it. Get over it." But instead...

Well. Now the UN wants a cease fire. What possible authority could they have to even request one at this point?

J.

Nasrallah speaks, vows surprises | Jerusalem Post

Hizbullah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, spoke for the first Thursday since the beginning of the week, saying Hizbullah's entire infrastructure and leadership hierarchy were still intact and functional.

"I can confirm without exaggerating or using psychological warfare, that we have not been harmed," he said, referring to the strike.

Al-Jazeera, which aired only excerpts of the interview, said it was taped earlier Thursday. The interviewer said the interview took place amid tight security precautions but did not say where.

Nasrallah said that, "even if the entire world will demand it," the kidnapped Israeli soldiers would only be released for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails through negotiations.

He did not offer any information regarding the condition of the soldiers.

J.

As the saying goes, you might just get it. And... when you do,

Cleric tries to join evacuation | PerthNow

EXILED Islamist preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed tried but failed to join the naval evacuation of British nationals from Lebanon's capital Beirut, it was reported today.

Bakri attempted to join evacuees boarding a Royal Navy vessel on Wednesday, but was rebuffed "at the harbour gates by sharp-eyed officials", The Sun said in a front page "exclusive".

A Ministry of Defence spokesman in London could not confirm the report, but said: "Our understanding is that's not true, and we've told The Sun that".

The Sun also reported that Syrian-born Bakri has written to the British embassy in Beirut, asking to be readmitted to Britain on "humanitarian grounds".

Which is strange, because he really liked the Jihadi concept once upon a time, according to the Sun. So much so that he got himself booted out of the UK.

All of a sudden, up close and personal, it's not quite so appealing.

J.

Simply shameful.

lgf: The Terrorist and the UN Leader

Oh, you mean it doesn't prove anything? What about all those pictures of Saddam and Rumsfeld? Don't they PROVE we wanted Saddam do to everything he did? Like invade Kuwait? Gas Kurds? Slaughter the Marsh Arabs? Lay waste to hundreds of square miles of ecologically sensitive wetlands? Get into a wasting war against Iran? That's PROOF, they said, PROOF!

So - it's pretty clear from THIS then that the UN is on Hezbollah's side.

Found at Al Ahrham Weekly, I'd say that's proof positive that everything Hezbollah does is authorized by the UN.

(And yes, I realize it doesn't mean any such thing.)

J.

Then either you need your eyes or your morality checked.

The RCP Blog - Worth 10,000 words.

Palestinians, Hezbollah, Hamas have always been less than scrupulous about their targeting. I find the cartoon to be quite revealing about the mindsets of both countries.

J.

I WAS kind of joking a bit with the post below about the UN and Hezbollah cooperating, then I ran across this. It might not technically rise to the Geneva Convention definitions of perfidy, but how is this different from a beat cop taking a bribe to be elsewhere when someone commits a crime?

The Volokh Conspiracy - United Nations an Accomplice in Hezbollah Kidnapping:

United Nations an Accomplice in Hezbollah Kidnapping:
After Hezbollah's kidnapping of a pair of Israeli soldiers spurred an Israeli counter-attack, many critics of Israel actions have suggested that the United Nations can serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah. To the contrary, the United Nations has a well-established record of collaboration with Hezbollah in the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been deployed since 1978, not long after Israel first entered Lebanon in pursuit of PLO terrorists. UNIFIL was created pursuant to Security Council Resolution 425, for the purpose of "confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area." Quite obviously UNFIL has utterly failed to achieve the Security Council's objectives, either before or after Israel's 2000 complete withdrawal from Lebanon. One reason is that UNIFIL does not interdict Hezbollah attacks on Israel. Instead, UNIFIL allows Hezbollah to set up positions next to UNFIL units, in effect using UNIFIL as human shields against Israeli counterstrikes. (Aluf Benn, Israel accuses UN of collaborating with Hezbollah," Haaretz, Sept. 11, 2005.)

UNIFIL's most notorious collaboration with terrorists involved the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli soldiers, and the subsequent cover-up.

On October 7, 2000, Hezbollah terrorists entered Israel, attacked three Israeli soldiers on Mount Dov, and abducted them Lebanon. The kidnapping was witnessed by several dozen UNIFIL soldiers who stood idle. One of the soldier witnesses described the kidnapping: the terrorists set of an explosive which stunned the Israeli soldiers. Clad in UN uniforms, the terrorists called out, "Come, come, we’ll help you."

The Israeli soldiers approached the men in UN uniforms. Then, a Hezbollah bomb detonated—-apparently prematurely. It wounded the disguised Hezbollah commander, and three Israeli soldiers.

Two other terrorists in U.N. uniforms dragged their Hezbollah commander and the three wounded soldiers into a getaway car.

According an Indian solider in UNIFIL who witnessed the kidnapping, "By this stage, there was a big commotion and dozens of UN soldiers from the Indian brigade came around." The witness stated that the brigade knew that the kidnappers in UN uniform were Hezbollah. One soldiers said that the brigade should arrest the Hezbollah, but the brigade did nothing.

According to the Indian soldier, the UNFIL brigade in the area "could have prevented the kidnapping."

"I’m very sorry about what happened, because we saw what happened," he said. Hezbollah "were wearing our uniforms and it was too bad we didn’t stop them."

It appears that at least four of the UNIFIL "peacekeepers," all from India, has received bribes from Hezbollah in order to assist the kidnapping by helping them get to the kidnapping spot and find the Israeli soldiers. Some of the bribery involved alcohol and Lebanese women.

The Indian brigade later had a bitter internal argument, as some members complained that the brigade had betrayed its peacekeeping mandate. An Indian government investigation sternly criticized the brigade's conduct.

Lebanon's The Daily Star reported the story told by a former officer of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), which is part of the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). ("UN 'destroyed' evidence after abduction of 3 Israeli troops," The Daily Star, July 20, 2001.)

A few hours after the kidnapping, UNTSO learned that two abandoned cars had been discovered. One was a white Nissan Pathfinder with fake UN insignia; it had hit an embankment because it was being driven so fast that the driver missed a turn. The other was a Range Rover; it was missing a tire rim, and was still running when it was discovered.

Rather than using the very-recently-abandoned vehicles as clues to rescue the kidnap victims, the UN initiated a cover-up. The next morning, eighteen hours after the kidnapping, a team of OGL and the Indian UNIFIL began removing the contents of the cars.

The Range Rover was soaked with blood. Among the contents of the vehicles may have been a cell phone belonging to the terrorists. The UNTSO officer confirmed that the cars contained "extremely sensitive" items which included "current and relevant information that could have been easily linked to the incident."

A UNIFIL peacekeeper videotaped the removal of the contents, and attempted to tow one of the cars. According to a much-later U.N. report, there were fifty items taken from the car, seven of them blood-stained. (Report of the fact-finding investigation relating to the abduction of three Israeli soldiers on 7 October 2000 and subsequent relevant events, Aug. 2, 2001.)

The end of the UNIFIL videotape featured armed Lebanese men confronting the UN forces, and taking the cars away from the UN. The UN personnel did not resist, because, they later claimed, the cars did not belong to the UN anyway.

Man - I'm just plain fed up with this idea that the UN is somehow an organization with virtues not found in governments. Seems to me like our own Army, with it's faults and foibles, has a hell of a lot more moral integrity and principles than the UN does. I'm all for pulling them out wherever they are and disbanding it completely. It has utterly failed, as far as I'm concerned, in everything from humanitarian relief to preventing conflict. It's devolved into a toothless, corrupt debating society.

More myths about the UN in the ME here.

J.

Had an old NEC Multisync 75 monitor - replaced by an LCD screen - and we were trying to get rid of it. Didn't just want to toss it away, it still had plenty of life left.

So I heard about a site called Freecycle.Org, to pass on stuff you're no longer using. Turns out there's a local Freecycle list on Yahoo - and it was picked up 45 minutes after I put it up on-line.

That won't be the last time I use them, I think...

J.

Well, that's appropriate, considering what he was doing with the money that was supposed to be going to the CHILDREN of Iraq under the Oil for Food program.

Associated Press Pop-up Link

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Saddam Hussein was hospitalized Sunday on the 17th day of a hunger strike and being fed with a tube, the chief prosecutor said as the former Iraqi leader's trial nears a verdict that could lead to his hanging.

Jaafar al-Moussawi said he visited the prison Sunday where Saddam and the seven other co-defendants are held and was told that the ex-president's health "is unstable because of the hunger strike."

"We took him to hospital and he is being currently fed by a tube," al-Moussawi told The Associated Press. He refused to identify the hospital.

Perhaps he figures if he's not hale and healthy he won't be killed. Somehow, I don't think it'd make any difference.

J.

At Pajamas Media: MidEast War: XXXIII. The caption reads... "Dividing along old lines … in Beirut, a man attacks a car displaying a picture of Hezbollah’s leader as a mob from a Christian militia moves in. "

It's looking like Hezbollah's getting a fair bit of blame for the current situation. And well they should be blamed - since they're the ones who've caused it.

I expect their support will continue to dwindle...

J.

You might want to send a pizza or burgers or something else to some soldiers of the IDF.

Pizza, Soda and Ice Cream, Hot & Cold Soup for our Israeli Soldiers -- and Burgers too!!!

On behalf of the soldiers of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), we wish to thank the many, many people the world over who have sent Pizza, Burgers and a variety of other treats, and especially thank you to those who have sent pizza and encouraging messages of support and gratitude during the current campaign.

During the last four years we have delivered many thousands of pizza pies and other gifts to thousands of soldiers. It is hard to describe how happy they are to receive your "special treats" -- it goes well beyond getting a hot pizza late at night at a lonely post. It is as tremendous an experience for us to give them out on your behalf as it is for the soldiers to receive them. They love to know that people everywhere support and care for them.

I happen to believe that Israel is doing the right thing. Your mileage may vary, of course, but if it varied much it's pretty unlikely I'd be on your list of sites to visit often. (And truth be told, If you're so morally bankrupt you can't tell the difference between Hezbollah and the IDF, I refer you to Dr. Sanity's eye test.) (You might also want to check out her post on what Pacifism is Good For. On second thought, let me give you a taste of it...

If the peace movement really were a peace movement, its members would be denouncing the true threats to peace and trying their damndest to disarm and neutralize the likes of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. etc. Instead, they champion these groups, demand cease-fires with them (never acknowledging that there is no way to hold them to account when they break the ceasefire, as they inevitably do) and say little about their standard operational policies that deliberately target the innocent. But our brave peace activists march in solidarity with these foul groups; and proudly wear the latest "hate couture", thinking it shows how tolerant and compassionate and virtuous they are; not even appreciating that it serves instead to demonstrate the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their pacifist ideology.

In today's world, where evil knows it can get away with practically any horror; that there will always be a large cadre of dupes who are willing to rationalize, excuse, or minimize any atrocity; the only thing pacifism is good for is to enable and support evil.

If you'd prefer to not send pizza, there's also a way to send burgers.

If you're looking to donate for general relief, check out the United Methodist Committe on Relief. They're trying to determine the best way to bring relief into the affected areas. The Red Cross could use your money, as well as a pint of blood if you could spare it. Also, the International Red Cross could use a few bucks.

Your call, of course, to donate or not as you feel like it. But in case you do, I believe all the above organizations are worth your money..

J.

And it did take a bit longer than I thought it would, but the 'we're not going to take any sort of responsibility for anything' 'reality-based' crowd are running from reality once again.

The Blog | Sheldon Drobny: Liberal/Progressive Anti-Semitism | The Huffington Post

My brother warned me that the liberal blogs were becoming very anti-Israel and some were so violently critical of Israel that there was a tone of anti-Semitism in that criticism. Since I generally do not read the blogs, I was surprised that liberals and progressives would treat the Israel/Palestine issue in such a shortsighted approach. Most objective people understand that it takes two to make an argument and that an informed group would understand that the Israel/Palestine problem has historical roots where plenty of blame can be shared. And my experience with liberals and progressives is that they view the world in shades of gray as compared to the right wing black and white approach.

But, to my surprise, I got 67 comments from my last post that were mostly hostile to me and the ones that supported my analysis. Many of the other posts I had made got criticism from clearly right wing readers. The difference I observed with this subject had brought out what I thought was unlike my experiences with thoughtful progressives who could disagree rationally with different points of view. And many progressives do criticize Israel for their inhumane treatment of innocent civilians including Jewish progressives. But, in the context of criticism, there has to be some balance about the subject.

So my conclusion is that the bloggers who violently hate Israel and see it in black and white terms are not really liberals. They may even be anti-Semites, but they are not representative of the liberal community that was so active in achieving racial and ethnic equality. It is a contradiction for a true liberal to be an anti-Semite. Furthermore, I would not put it past the right wing to flood the liberal blogs with hateful criticisms of Israel to advance a perception that liberals are anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. And I see Karl Rove's fingerprints all over this.

Of course they are. Because REAL progressives don't know how to hate. In fact, I'm sure Kos and DU are on the Republican payroll.

(Shakes head.) Idiot.

UPDATE: More love and tolerance and compassion from the Left. It's obvious that Rove has sleeper cells all through the 'reality based' community.

Kos, Hezbollah, and Israel

WHEN THE BOMBS began to fall in the Middle East, the Daily Kos had a problem. And the Daily Kos's problem could soon be the Democratic party's problem.

On the one hand, one of the most solid blocks of support for the Democratic party is America's Jewish community. Not only do America's Jews tend to vote for Democrats, they tend to actively campaign and raise funds for politicians on the left. But for many American Jews, even the most liberal, Israel's welfare is a going concern. Politicians who enter the Democratic party (and for that matter the Republican party) usually make a conspicuous show of the fact that they are "right on Israel."

The vast majority of American political sentiment supports Israel while it is engaged in a shooting war with Hezbollah.

(snip)

On the other hand, there is the Daily Kos community.

(snip)

The miracle of the Kossacks is that they are tens of thousands of like-minded people who have used the site to find one another. Although they differ on many details, they tend to monolithically detest George W. Bush and American conservatives. They also tend to distrust or loathe anything or anyone that winds up in Bush's literal or metaphorical embrace. Like Joe Lieberman. Or Israel.

(snip)

Perhaps sensing that this issue could highlight just how far removed the Kos community is from the American mainstream, Moulitsas and his other front-page bloggers have opted to ignore Israel's war. Combined, the half dozen front-pagers have written exactly one post on the subject. And that post, authored by Moulitsas, simply declared that he wouldn't write anything further on the subject.

(snip)

Nothing wrong with that; it's their prerogative to blog about whatever they like.

But inside the Kos diaries, it's been a different story. The conversation in the diaries has been overwhelmingly anti-Israel--and potentially disastrous for the Democratic party.

One diarist labeled Israel "a destabilizing force in the region" and saw "no difference between Iran's support of Hezbollah and Hamas in the form of finances and even arms and The United States' financial support of Israel." Before modifying this diary into a more moderate form, the author opened his essay with the declaration, "Israel is showing the entire world why the Iranian President was absolutely right to suggest that Israel cease being a sovereign state as is."

Echoing the themes of moral equivalence and hostility towards the Jewish state, another diarist observed that, "War is nothing but terrorist attacks. Call it what you will, whatever rhetoric you want to use . . . when it comes down to it, that's all it is. Israel committed terrorism today. And we helped to fund that terrorism." [Ellipsis in original.]

So, is Kos infested with roving Rovian Anti-Semetic sleepers, waiting for the right moment to spring out and spew their bile, thereby discrediting the Democratic Party? Or could it be that the hate was there all the time, just under a thin coat of PC paint?

I leave it for you to decide.

J.

Gateway Pundit: Update: St. Louis Crisis- 570,000 without Power!

Used to live in St. Lousi, and by the map available it looks like the suburb we were in is currently without power.

It makes me wonder, sometimes - are we reaching limits on our electrical infrastructure? Is it getting too complex to support easily?

Just a thought, got no way to test it...

J.

Due to cumulative wear and tear, in order to get a good night's sleep I usually take something right before going to bed. OTC painkillers are readily available, and pretty effective - but the aftereffects can be a bit odd.

Of course, the most desired effect is relief of the pain. And everything (except aspirin) seems to do a good job. Aspirin just doesn't seem to hit the back pain I've got, at least in doses that won't tear my gut up. Ibuprofen and acetomenaphen are both fairly effective by themselves, but taking a normal dose of each right before going to bed gets me a good night's sleep. I get up, stagger to the bathroom and start the day. I'm usually pretty well-rested, feel pretty good and cheerful, and I'm patient with the little guy.

Aleve (naproxen sodium) is effective also - though when I take it before going to sleep I have a night of wierd-ass dreams. The next morning, I'm feeling quite energized. There's no pain when I hobble to the bathroom to start the morning - but about an hour later I feel quite tired. I find I'm much more... negative. Almost angry. Short-tempered in a way that I'm not with the other pain medications.

There's a third OTC painkiller I've used, "Orudis KT" - ketoprofen - and that did a pretty good job but it seems to be no longer carried by most pharmacies. (It's even difficult to order on-line in the 12.5 mg size.) I don't know why it was discontinued, but it did okay.

BTW, don't mix Aleve or Ketoprofens with other painkillers. That's not good for you, and can (I understand) cause liver damage. I figure 24 hours or so is sufficient to get the majority of one type out before I use a different one. But that's just me. And for heaven's sake, pay ATTENTION to the dosing schedule recommended by the manufacturer!

Yeah, I know, too much information. But I don't know anyone who hasn't taken some sort of OTC pain remedy at one point or another, and just wanted to give you something to think about before YOU do.

Why is iit that every little dipshit country that wants to take out the Jews seems to think airing their underarms is a fantastic way to do it? Or is there some mass release of pheremones to ensure solidarity? Or maybe BO?

TIME: Inside Hizballah

Wonder where they got all the Woodland Camo?

J.

Could it be that FINALLY the UN is getting a clue?

U.N. exec blames Hezbollah for deaths - Yahoo! News

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The U.N. humanitarian chief accused Hezbollah on Monday of "cowardly blending" in among Lebanese civilians and causing the deaths of hundreds during two weeks of cross-border violence with Israel.

(There were, of course, the traditional UN condemnations of Israel... but...)

On Monday, he had strong words for Hezbollah, which crossed into Israel, captured two soldiers and killed eight others on July 12, triggering fierce fighting.

"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," he said. "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

But hey, THAT's only bad if the US or Israel does it.

J.

Darn.

But apparently he let a TV journalist a little too close, and didn't have his handlers censor things afterward.

Get the details at Babalu Blog: How to piss off a dictator

Looks like the link to the video is busted - but poke around at The Real Cuba's site. There's just nothing like Communism for taking a country and running it into the ground. (Especially telling is the 'Medical' link, when compared with the 'Before Castro' conditions.)

The worst thing that ever happened to Cuba was Castro. (And Communism, but it could be argued that without the charismatic Castro at the lead, things may well have not gotten so bad.)

J.

Honda Worldwide | HondaJet

I'd heard they were developing one... but mounting the engines like THAT?

Kind of odd looking...

J.

IDF kills Hizbullah's Maroun al-Ras regional commander | Jerusalem Post

As fighting in Maroun al-Ras continued on Tuesday, IDF troops killed five Hizbullah gunmen, including the movement's regional commander. Three IDF soldiers were lightly wounded when they came under attack by Hizbullah mortar fire. The three were evacuated to a Hospital inside Israel.

Earlier, Brigadier General of Division 91, Commander Gal Hirsch, revealed that troops operating in Bint Jbeil discovered war rooms with eavesdropping and surveillance equipment made by Iran, being used by Hizbullah against Israel.

They also found large cache of weapons and communications devices.

Sweeeeeeet. That could be the keys to the whole com network. Good going, IDF!

(Hat tip - CaptainsQuarters)

J.

Looks like he's got a new book ready to come out.

Eject! Eject! Eject!: CHAPTER ONE
THE WEB OF TRUST

There was a time – and being born in 1959, I am old enough to remember it – when the idea of Civilization needed no explanation or defense. Everybody knew what it meant. Civilization was tied to another term, now likewise mocked, and that term is Progress.

Progress was the idea that society was moving forward, upward, toward higher goals – better medicine, faster transportation, the brutality of hard labor replaced by stronger, then smarter machines; abundant energy, increased wealth and leisure: all of these things were greatly desired, and society was proud to provide them, proud to show them off in World Fairs and Expos and in the mythology of the movies.

Now “progress” and “civilization” are ironic terms, in sneer quotes, muttered with that pathetic, bored tone of cynical nihilism started by the narcissistic brats that I have been ten years behind for my entire life. Today, I try to exercise and watch my weight only so that I may live long enough to see the last of these radical hippies die in their sleep.

Damn, but that man can write.

J.

When I was a kid, a number of SF stories used Johnston Island as the location for manned spaceflight attempts.

However, it was first turned into a storage depot for chemical weapons, also a launch pad for missiles, and listening posts for Russian missile launches. Now it's been turned into a wildlife sanctuary. They've taken a functional base... and leveled it completely. About all that's left are the docks.

Aloha from Johnston Island has some pictures.

Man, I hate to see something like that torn down. The Island even had an outdoor theater. Temperatures moderate, and pretty dry... looks like an Island Paradise to me. Then they tore it down...

Guess this means there won't be any private space shots going off Johnston Island..

J.

It would seem that there were some UN personnel that got hit in Lebanon. I'd be a bit distressed at this, except for a few things.

First, it's the already-known propensity for Hezbollah to embed themselves in groups which would normally be protected otherwise. (IE Civilians)

Second, the UN hasn't exactly been neutral when it comes to supporting one side over the other, and has 'assisted' Hezbollah in operations before.

Third, the UN hasn't exactly been too scrupulous about observing human rights in the past. So, my sympathy meter's barely twitching here. Not that these guys deserved to die, but I blame the UN much more than Israel here.

Michael I. Krauss on Mideast & United Nations on National Review Online

One incident we encountered during our visit to Israel last year illustrates this sad fact. In January 2005, Hezbollah planted five camouflaged “improvised explosive devices” (IEDs), inches on the Israeli side of the border near Zarit, 15 mountainous miles inland from the Mediterranean coast. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) detected these IEDs and, following procedure, notified UNIFIL. A French UNIFIL engineer duly certified that the devices were indeed IEDs, then “requested” that Hezbollah remove them. Hezbollah, not denying it had planted them, flatly refused, stating that since the mines were (just barely) inside the “Zionist” border, it was up to the “Zionists” to remove them. So the IDF sent in a large armored bulldozer to carry the mines off for disposal. This task required making a sharp 90-degree right turn from an Israeli road onto the narrow border trail where the IEDs were located. Making this sharp right turn, the left front corner of the bulldozer inevitably occupied, for a couple of seconds, about a meter of land on the Lebanese side. During those seconds a Hezbollah fighter directed an anti-tank missile at the narrow, unguarded windshield of the bulldozer. The pinpoint strike, which our Israeli sources have admitted required extraordinary training and skill, killed the bulldozer’s driver, Sgt. Maj. Jan Rotzanski, a 21-year-old Russian immigrant from Herzliya. The cynical cruelty of this murder, which Hezbollah proceeded to widely celebrate across Lebanon, speaks volumes not only about Hezbollah, but also about UNIFIL.

Nor has the situation changed much now that the conflict is “hot.” UNIFIL’s only apparent action this past week has been to voice concerns that its troops might get hit in the crossfire. This is indeed a risk — because UNIFIL has long permitted Hezbollah to locate its forces, including its missile batteries, in the very shadow of installations belonging to the “peacekeepers.” UNIFIL has thus turned into a very convenient and high-profile human shield for terrorists.

Update: The Belmont Club: A Knife-Thrower at the Carnival has more info on UN actions in the war zone. They REALLY need to get the hell out of there. Perhaps it's a willingness to assist the 'perceived underdog' or something, but what they're doing is not helping and likely extending the conflict. Perhaps they've received orders to assist - but all the Palestinian fighters are going to do is use them as human shields.

And over at WILLisms.com: The Devil Hath Power to Assume a Pleasing Shape, Jay Tea points out that at this point, Hezbollah has all the trappings of a nation. As such, it should be accorded all the responsibilities of one under the Geneva Convention.

I believe we should consider treating certain non-state entities as the equivalent of states. When an organization reaches a certain point of activity and prominence, it is essentially a state in all but name. While others may reject the notion of granting these groups the status and legitimacy of statehood, the advantages of holding them to that level of accountability are numerous.

The first is that acts of war could be answered with declarations of war. In the current example of Israel vs. Hezbollah, Israel could simply declare that a state of war exists between the two, and it intends to do war upon Hezbollah until it is destroyed or surrenders. Hezbollah has repeatedly stated that it considers itself at war with Israel, so the concept of Israel simply returning the animus is not so great an extrapolation.

As a de facto state, further, Hezbollah could be held accountable to higher international standards. It can be argued that Hezbollah has taken over a portion of Lebanon and is the rightful successor to the Lebanese government – and as such, is bound by the international agreements and covenants the Lebanese government has signed.

J.

Opinion: Praying for Hummus, Getting Hamas - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

In the 1990s, Israelis sincerely thought that peace was just around the corner. Now, the Middle East is torn apart by war. A former Israeli peace activist explains why he has laid down his olive branch and is prepared to grab for his rifle.

Every time war footage from Lebanon flickers across the flat screen television in my apartment on the 30th floor of a high-rise in mid-town Manhattan, I am overwhelmed by a deep feeling of sadness. When I scan through the news on the Internet each morning, I'm overtaken by anger. The result is confusion: I go to sleep at night thinking I am a dove and wake up in the morning to find out I am a hawk.

The anger, though, is not far behind. When the rockets from Gaza began falling on southern Israel, my former peace activism became but a distant memory. The recent killings and kidnappings of soldiers on the Gaza and Lebanese borders sent us back to our past and into our closets: Once again, we Israelis are looking for our uniforms.

Today, I am convinced that Israel is fighting a justified war. Far from being an "optional war," this conflict was forced upon us. There is a feeling that every positive step taken in recent years has been answered by punishment. Now we are prepared to do whatever it takes to turn Israel into a safe place, even if this means invading Lebanon once again. We also want to sip coffee and play backgammon. We've had enough of rockets from the north and south and suicide bombers from everywhere. We also want to lead a normal life, just like the people in New York, Berlin or Rome who don't have to look up every time a stranger enters their favorite cafe.

I too am turning back the clock. Eighteen years after finishing my military service -- almost two decades after swearing that I would never again wear a uniform -- I called the Israeli consulate in New York and gave them my phone number. If the army needed me, I told them, I would be the first on a plane back to Israel. And Sharon, of course, has still not woken from his coma. But I miss him.

Zeev Avrahami is a 37-year-old freelance journalist who lives in New York City and writes for the Israeli daily Haaretz. Of Iranian descent, he was born on the Sinai Peninsula before his family was expelled.

J.

Artillery's accurate, but not THAT accurate. Take a look at the photo here.

Michelle Malkin: HEZBOLLAH AND THE U.N.

The amazing thing isn't that some UN folks have been killed by accident, but that MORE haven't been killed.

J.

On the UN observers who were killed.

CTV.ca | A Canadian soldier's report from South Lebanon
With the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, Major Hess-von Kruedener was the only Canadian serving as a United Nations Military Observer in Lebanon. He was stationed at the UN base about 10 kilometres from where the Syrian, Lebanese and Israeli borders meet. The UN's mission there is to report ceasefire violations.
On July 25, that base came under fire from Israeli artillery and was struck by a precision-guided aerial bomb. Four UN observers died. On July 26, the federal government said Hess-von Kruedener was missing and presumed dead.

Here is his full email, written July 18, with background on the mission and the current situation:

We have had a brief "tactical pause" in the action here, so I am taking this opportunity to provide you some information on the situation here in south Lebanon. At the outset, I will provide you with a brief background on who I am, What the Org and Mission is here and then answer some of the bank of questions you provided.

Background

My name is Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, and I am an Infantry Officer with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, of the Canadian Forces. I was sent to this Mission (United Nations Truce and Supervision Organization -UNTSO) last October 05, and am currently serving as an unarmed Military Observer. I have now been stationed here in south Lebanon for Approximately nine months.

(Further bits and pieces - but the kicker is in the last two paragraphs.)

This is all the information of a non-tactical nature that I can provide you. I cannot give you any info on Hezbollah position, proximity or the amount of or types of sorties the IAF is currently flying. Suffice to say that the activity levels and operational tempo of both parties is currently very high and continuous, with short breaks or pauses. Please understand the nature of my job here is to be impartial and to report violations from both sides without bias. As an Unarmed Military Observer, this is my raison d'etre.

What I can tell you is this: we have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both artillery and aerial bombing. The closest artillery has landed within 2 meters of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 meters from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity.

Instead, it looks to me like Hezbollah was using the OP as a shield. So, Major Hess-von Kruedener, I'm afraid the people you were trying to 'observe' were the cause of your death.

J.

From: And you thought YOU were cranky?

My sister sent me this from her friend Juan in California:

I used to have a Labrador retriever & I was buying a large bag of Purina at Wal-Mart and was in line to check out. A woman behind me asked if I had a dog(?). On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry & that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a tall guy who was behind her.

Horrified, she asked if I'd been poisoned. I told her no; I'd been sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.

Sorry, but my children bore me to death! | the Daily Mail

The woman actually sounds proud of her disconnect with her kids. Maybe she's being defensive - but if I were this unattached to my son, I sure as hell wouldn't be putting it up on-line and sound happy about it.

Gaah. When the kids fly the coop, they won't be looking back. And when she needs them later - they'll remember how she found anybody she could so she wouldn't have to be there for them.

J.

Sluggy Freelance

Heh.

J.

This is just friggin' great.

Pajamas Media: The Chavista Years

From monitoring El Universal, A.M. Mora y Leon @ Publius Pundit surmises “that the U.S. needs to prepare for an oil cutoff from Venezuela” due to the “socialization” of that country’s oil industry, courtesy of Hugo Chavez: “[T]he country [is] running its oil industry into the ground with fires and accidents, something that’s never occurred until these Chavista years, a result of the firing and blacklisting of all of Venezuela’s talented and dedicated engineers and managers - who have since been replaced by Chavista operatives known for their political loyalty and not their expertise…”

Now, according to M.K.Ham, we're seeing Atlas Shrugged play out in Venezuela. Expect oil shortages - if we lose 12% of the supply through Chavez's screwup, then prices are going to rise.

NOW can we drill in ANWR and off the coasts? (Silly me. Of course we can't, not until there's a Democratic President!)

Hat tip - M.K.Ham

J.

Take a midair collision, and a pilot that doesn't know how badly his plane's damaged... and flies it anyway.

YouTube - One-Winged F-15

One tough bird there...

J.

Anti-Mullah: UN SPYING FOR HEZBOLLAH?

Apparently they're in the habit of giving armed fighters rides in ambulances.

Wonder how much they charge per mile? Just go down to the video for a great example of their pickup-dropoff service.

By the way, more and more reporting is coming out how the UN's been 'observing' for the last few decades in that area. I'm just curious - WHY are they observing? They haven't been disarming combatants, they haven't been peacekeeping, and they haven't been impartial. So what, aside from a sqishy do-good sort of purpose, ARE they supposed to be doing with their 'observing'?

Heck, a security camera in a convenience store 'observes' - but it doesn't do much to stop a robbery. And it's cold comfort to a murdered clerk that his killer will be identified - but we already know the identity of those who would do the slaughter between Israel and Jordan. So what's the point?

J.

I've been browsing the job listings lately, seeing what's out there. I found this little bit on Craigslist.

My space provides exceptional businesses solutions to small, medium and Fortune 500 companies in the technology, communication, retail and hospitality industry.

Through our integrated service technologies and our expertise in process operations, we deliver a higher quality of service and offer more affordable pricing.

We are committed to provide world class services to our customers for :

we insure 100% disaster recovery for business continuity .

My space is the brainchild of a bunch of dedicated Telecom and Management industry professionals with a passion to bring fundamental and radical changes in the way companies can become more profitable

We are committed to provide world class services to our customers for :

Data Entry/Data Capture
Typesetting
Document Processing Services
Form Processing
E-Publishing
Coding and Indexing
Transactions Processing
Electronic Data Recovery
Tagging Services
Back Office Services
Data Conversion
Graphic Design And Artwork
Document Scanning

And Many More....

We look forward to build up long-term business relationships.
Contact xxxxxxx@xxxxxx.com

Compensation: 7-8$/hr

J.

Ow. Two cars, flipped.

Memo to self - never drive in back of a 747 when the engines are at full throttle.

J.

I never thought I'd see THIS happen.

DenverPost.com - Military to put Cheyenne Mountain on standby

Colorado Springs - The military is relegating its newly renovated airspace and missile defense complex in Cheyenne Mountain to standby status - clouding the future of a Cold War nerve center touted as the most secure spot in America.

The green-jumpsuited sentries who electronically scan the skies from deep inside this granite cocoon southwest of Colorado Springs - built in the 1960s to withstand Soviet nuclear blasts - now are to blend into broader homeland defense operations under prairie skies at nearby Peterson Air Force Base.

I guess all the aliens and secret projects like Stargate will have room to expand now!

I wonder if they'll turn it into a tourist attraction someday...

J.

Or maybe the '90s? Is Nasrallah pulling a Noriega, hiding in an Embassy?

Hezbollah leader said to be hiding in Iranian Embassy - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Intelligence reports indicate the leader of Hezbollah is hiding in a foreign mission in Beirut, possibly the Iranian Embassy, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

Israeli military and intelligence forces are continuing to hunt for Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary-general, who fled his headquarters in Beirut shortly before Israeli jets bombed the building last week.

"We think he is in an embassy," said one U.S. official with access to the intelligence reports, while Israeli intelligence speculates Sheik Nasrallah is hiding in the Iranian Embassy.

If confirmed, the reports could lead to an Israeli air strike on the embassy, possibly leading to a widening of the conflict, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Foreign embassies are sovereign territory and an attack on an embassy could be considered an act of war.

Or they could just kick his ass out the gates and let the IDF deal with him.

Interesting times, aren't they? I keep getting the feeling I've seen this movie before...

J.

THIS gives me hope for the upcoming generation.

kevan gilbert: penguins vs. lemurs

And he's going for a degree in media communications. Good luck, man. Call 'em like you see 'em, but see 'em as they really are, and you'll make a name for yourself.

J.

There's a certain 'art' to writing a good ad or product description. You've got to get attention, but you don't want to go too far. And this little thing goes JUST far enough.

USB Beverage Chiller

When you are thirsty, there is nothing like a nice cool refreshing beverage. Now imagine you are at a LAN party and all that you crave is a nice big swig of your favorite caffeine beverage. You reach down to get your carefully pre-chilled drink, but all you find are hot and sweaty Bawls in your hand!

Try reading THAT after drinking an oilcan of Fosters (my bimonthly beer - I fall back to that when I can't find Red Hook Rye) and not giggling a bit.

I'll admit it. I'm a cheap drunk.

J.

Compare and review flip phones

Do you think cell phones would ever have come about if it hadn't been for the influence of Star Treck in the '60s on a couple of generations of communications engineers?

A whole lot of technology had to be invented, a whole lot of money invested in infrastructure - and all so you or I could have a phone we could carry around. Pretty powerful dream, I'd say...

We live in an age of wonders, and so MANY of us take them for granted.

J.

No positive response from Hezbollah on Israeli prisoners: ICRC - Yahoo! News

GENEVA (AFP) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had not received agreement so far to its request to visit two Israeli soldiers abducted by Hezbollah guerrillas.

"To this day we have not received a positive response," said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations at the ICRC.

The approach to the Lebanese Shiite group was first when the soldiers were seized during a border attack on July 12, he told reporters.

The Geneva-based humanitarian agency carries out visits to detainees captured in conflicts worldwide, including in Israel, to ensure they are treated humanely.

"Owner: No no! 'E's pining!

Mr. Praline: 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e
rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the
bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!"

Which is why Hezbollah hasn't returned them yet, I think. If they were still alive, I'd think Hezbollah would have put them up as a "Damn, stop shooting at us and we'll give you the soldiers back!" sort of offering. That they haven't... well, the guys may be pretty metabolically challenged at this point. And if they are, may God hold them in the light eternal...

If I'm wrong, and I sure hope I am, then I sure hope they'll trade the guys for a cease fire.

J.

I thought they just took care of folks bugging out on the rent.

Power Line: WMD Shipments to Syria Described

This is an unofficial translation of Document Number ISGQ-2005-00022470, released as part of Project Harmony. It is a memo dated July 13, probably 2003; the author is an Iraqi opposition source located in Syria.

Subject: we have information about the location of Mass Destruction Weapons

On Moharram 10th (Arabic calendar), prior to US/allied invasion to Iraq, fifty (50) Iraqi trucks entered Syria as convoys (or groups), I met some the drivers of those trucks, they got no idea about the content of their trucks.

The loads basically came from some where in Baghdad, Iraqi intelligence were escorting the loads. During their tripe, those truck drivers were stopped and asked frequently by the intelligence officers about whether or not they got any idea about the content of their loads, the divers replied “we have no idea," then the officers would say “thank you."

Sure seems like there was a lot they wanted hidden in Syria. You think it was all stuff for Saddam's bugout, or could it have been something a little more potent?

J.

Over at the Civic Center.

Last time I went to one (a year or two back) the three balconies were full of exhibitors, and the floor of the auditorium was packed.

This time... not so much. The balconies were empty. The floor had a noticeable number of empty tables. There were six tables taken up with folks wearing 'Geek Squad' t-shirts, and stuff piled on the tables looked like Best Buy returns. Oddly enough, no prices were marked, and I wasn't about to interrupt their chatting amongst themselves to ask what the cost of something might be. I hate to break into conversations for something so paltry as a possible sale.

One vendor I talked to said it was just barely profitable - and the high cost of even getting into the show tended to discourage folks from coming. The competition for Frye's and the other computer vendors on the web was too much.

So I guess the local computer show will be going the way of ComDex. It's a shame, really - but understandable. Things are changing in the computer world just as they are elsewhere..

J.

But just remember, they can do that because they're the GOOD guys. Target kids? Fine! Noncombatants? Go right ahead! Shoot rockets from churches, schools, mosques and hospitals? Of course! They're the ones we're supposed to feel sorry for, in the media metanarrative. However - the bastards are gleefully killing their own countrymen (oh, wait - they're just Lebanese, they don't matter) to get in the MSM's good graces with plenty of bodies and blood.

Free Ain Ebel From Hezbollah invasion at The Ouwet Front: A Lebanese Forces Blog

The situation in Ain Ebel is unbearable. Thousands of civilians have fled to the village from nearby villages and more than 1000 rockets have hit the village, there is no more food neither clean water and diseases r spreading.

Now here comes the most sickening part:

Hezbollah has been firing rockets from the village since Day 1 hiding behind innocent people’s places and even CHURCHES. No one is allowed to argue with the Hezbollah gunmen who wont hesitate to shoot you and i ve heard about more than one shooting incident including young men from the village and Hezbollah.

Urgent appeals have been done through phone calls from terrified people who wouldnt give out their name fearing Hezbollah might harm or even eliminate them.

This is the true image of our brave Islamic Resistance, putting the civilians and their homes as body shields to the Israeli bombardements.

Let the message spread and let those criminals move out of the village once and for all.

Free Ain Ebel from the terrorists !

J.

Good thing he's got a team of photographers with him.

EU Referendum - Milking it?

Shame their cameras are set to different times. I'm SURE these pictures were all taken in the space of a couple of minutes. Because nobody but a damn ghoul with a complete lack of respect for the dead would pose children for the camera so.

More and more I'm rooting for the Israelis. I don't give a damn if the Palestinians say they have an excuse or not - this shows they're lacking in damn near every human decency, from using civilians as human shields to parading corpses around to tittilate the media. I won't go so far as to say they deserve to die, but forget them getting their own state, and I'd love to see Lebanon and Israel make a pact to drive out Hezbollah to Syria - and then bomb the shit out of Syria.

J.

Because from where I'm looking, it sure seems like Hezbollah isn't exactly on the side of the angels here. First they kidnap soldiers, then they fire from civilian areas, don't allow the civilians to escape, and then parade the casualties in front of the MSM.

And more and more of that's coming to light. The blameless, stainless Palestinians of Hezbollah seem determined to fight to the last Lebanese man, woman and child.

Bastards.

Yeah, this torques me off something fierce. Casualties are a result of war, but the ideology behind the rules of war requires every reasonable effort be made to spare the civilian population of a country from harm.

Hezbollah isn't even making a damn pretense of that.

How Hezbollah hides in civilian buildings at The Ouwet Front: A Lebanese Forces Blog

May Hezbollah and Nasrallah rot in hell for what they are doing. If Israelis were war criminals, Hezbollah are ruthless killers. [Video]

This is assuming Hezbollah manages to survive, which is not exactly a given.

More and more questions are being raised about Hezbollah's actions. Not that it'll do much good. They're not exactly too worried about world opinion.

Hezbolla Launched Missiles from QANA !! at The Ouwet Front: A Lebanese Forces Blog

Here is another video provided by the Israeli army showing missiles being launched from Kfar Qana. I heard it was shown in the UN yesterday.

Can any of HA’s minister or Mr.Nasrallah explain whats going on??

I ve received more than 4 videos so far concerning Hezbollah launching sites behind and inside civilian houses, not to mention that reports in Qana explain that there were major explosions in Qana that caused the huge damage referring to weapons and rockets hidden. [Qana]

J.

Mandated modesty in France? Uh, oh.

IOL: Tanning in the nude banned in Paris

Paris - Parisian sunbathers will no longer be allowed to go nude or wear g-strings on the capital's artificial beaches and risk a fine if they are caught baring their breasts or buttocks.

City hall has issued a decree banning indecent clothing to preserve the tranquillity of the sandy beaches created on the banks of the River Seine every summer since 2001.

"People must behave according to good standards to maintain tranquillity, security and public order," the decree said, according to Saturday's edition of Le Parisien. "Notably indecent attire (nude sunbathing, g-strings and toplessness etc) is forbidden."

Defending the decree, city hall sports official Pascal Cherki told Le Parisien that indecent clothing "could have led to temptations and dangerous behaviour on the banks of the river."

Topless sunbathing and g-strings are common on real beaches around France in the summer.

J.

Nobody can say that the Hezbollah ghouls don't have a fine sense of theater. They've worked hard to give the MSM a GOOD show, one with the requisite amount of blood and dead bodies... except the blood is missing, and the bodies have been dead a bit longer than they should be based on the rigor-mortis seen.

And there were no apparent survivors. This in a building that 'collapsed' seven or eight hours after an attack.

And there's no indication on most of them of what you'd expect in a bombed-building collapse - not much in the way of dust, bodies whole, and the rescuers were able to stay very clean in their rescue attempts.

(Which is a marvel, considering how even a little bit of concrete dust will quickly turn a pair of black pants gray.)

I think the Israelies weren't killing enough civilians. So Hezbollah went out and bagged their quota, and staged this. As one of the comments over at Confederate Yankee: Were the Qana Bodies Staged? said....

This appears to have been an exquisitely stage managed, made-for-tv-audience gruesome display. The more I see and here about it, the less makes sense. Especially given that Israel can account for all the missles/bombs striking other buildings. And not this one.

Look, war is bad enough without bastards like Hezbollah screwing around and upping THEIR SIDE's body count intentionally. That they're apparently manufacturing 'atrocities' is about what I'd expect from them.

J.