Rusted Sky

The Space Race again.

RIA Novosti - Russia - Russia to send manned mission to the Moon by 2025 - space agency

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russia plans to send cosmonauts to the Moon by 2025 and establish a permanent manned base there in 2027-2032, the head of the space agency said Friday.
Anatoly Perminov said that in accordance with Russia's space program through 2040, a manned flight to Mars will be carried out after 2035.

He said that toward the end of this year, Russia will have 103 satellites in orbit, up from the current 95.

I wonder how long it'll be before they stop cooperating with NASA for Space Station supply shots?

J.

But the sheer stupidity of the spectators is astonishing.

Rule 1: If you've got a suspected bomb, GET AWAY before anyone opens it up! And WAIT for the EOD folks to arrive!

Rule 2: Before EOD folks work on something, GET AWAY, or if you just HAVE to watch, put in a remote camera and GET AWAY, preferably behind something heavy and blast-proof.

Rule 3. If all your buddies are crowding around to watch the EOD guy open up a suspected bomb, STAY AWAY!

After all, SOMEONE needs to tell their next of kin what happened.

J.

Let's see. If I were a dedicated Republican, I should be feeling... what?

The Associated Press: GOP Officials: Craig to Resign Saturday

Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig's decision to quit spares his party the embarrassment of an indefinitely prolonged scandal following his arrest during a sex sting in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.

Craig will announce his resignation, effective Sept. 30, at a news conference in Boise Saturday morning, GOP officials in Idaho and Washington told The Associated Press.

A good while back, I figured out that what goes on between two people (either of the same or opposite genders) in private is between THEM, and none of my business. Unless and until THEY decide to make it something that I have to pay attention to. Which is why I'm moderately bored and disgusted with celebrity shennanigans, and tired of sex scandals from both sides of the political board.

One thing I expect from an adult is the ability to refrain from impulsive, STUPID behavior. And also to show sufficient integrity to NOT indulge themselves in behavior that would discredit the work that they're attempting to do. If you're in a high-visibility position, you should act like you're being watched and judged 24/7/365, not go trolling in bathrooms for a quickie.

Now, if I were of a heavy political, moralistic bent, I suppose I should be up in arms about the actions of Sen. Craig. I should be so offended by his stupidity that I'd cross any Republican off my list of potential votes. This would mean, I suppose, that I'd either vote for one-off candidates from the Green or Libertarian or other No-Chance-In-Hell faction, which would give Democrats an advantage.

So, the Dems will make great political hay out of this to feed their Donkeys.

But I don't work that way. Sex scandal? Like I said - no biggie in my book. There are issues far more important to me than little bits and pieces of personal embarrasment. The issue which is of overwhelming, primary concern right now is the WoT. ALL else is of secondary importance. I'm not concerned with government support of stem cell research, I'm not obsessed with global warming and what the government should do about it, I'm not concerned about abortion or the morality and legality thereof - though after the little guy was born I'm seeing it much more as a sad thing, it's in the end a matter of personal choice.

I'm moderately concerned about a loss of freedoms - but those freedoms aren't the ones that liberals seem concerned with. I have no qualms about government tapping of suspected terrorists. I have no problems with profiling to help detect potential terrorists. I DO have a problem with the censorship of ideas - and it seems that the left (with their insistance that there be no potential cultural offense regarding Islam) is pushing hard on that.

A quick aside on that - have you noticed that there's been no real war movies in the last 5 years? It's hard to produce a war movie when you can't name the nationality, ethnicity or religion of the enemy you're fighting. After all, you don't want to offend anyone.

What the heck - this is stretching on a bit. May as well close with some song lyrics, that seem kind of relevant.

Steely Dan - Reeling In The Years

Your everlastin' summer, you can see it fadin' fast
So you grab a piece of somethin' that you think is gonna last
Well, you wouldn't even know a diamond if you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious I can't understand

(refrain)

Are you reelin' in the years, stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears, have you had enough of mine
Are you reelin' in the years, stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears, have you had enough of mine

You've been tellin' me you're a genius since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you, I still don't know what you mean
The weekend at the college didn't turn out like you planned
The things that pass for knowledge, I can't understand

(refrain)

I spent a lot of money and I spent a lot of time
The trip we made to Hollywood is still etched upon my mind
After all the things we've done and seen you find another man
The things you think are useless I can't understand

(refrain)

The things you think are precious I can't understand

The things you think are useless I can't understand

As a culture we've tossed out a lot of things in the last 40, 50 years. Perhaps we jettisoned a lot of useless baggage and outmoded ideas, maybe some of the things we tossed had a utility that we're starting to realize. The older I get, the more I realize that a lack of boundaries for acceptable public behavior isn't freedom, it's anarchy.

When you have no direction, any random way is good enough. And for a politician, polls provide at least SOME direction. The endless summer of the Dems is fading - they have nothing except polls to tell them which way to go. They follow those, get a brief spike in support, and then realize their polling hasn't done them much good. Even Reid is starting to backtrack on his "The War Is Lost!" meme, which will infuriate the 'Reality-based' crowd.

The Democrats' time is fading, as is big-L Liberalism and 'Progressive' thinking - which seems much more involved in keeping a status quo of victimhood than erasing differences.

Reality can only be ignored for so long. And I'm supposed to be offended by stupid actions by a Congressman looking for love in all the wrong places...

Yawn.

J.

U.S.: NKorea to Declare Nuclear Programs

GENEVA (AP) - North Korea agreed Sunday to account for and disable its atomic programs by the end of the year, offering its first timeline for a process long sought by nuclear negotiators, the chief U.S. envoy said.

Kim Gye Gwan, head of the North Korean delegation, said separately his country's willingness to cooperate was clear—in return for "political and economic compensation"—but he mentioned no dates.

Well, I've lost stuff in my closet too. Guess I shouldn't be too critical, eh?

I wonder how this'll play in thirty-forty years? Bush screwed things up completely? Or he called the play right, and the play in Iraq, also?

I'm starting to think Bush's critics ought to be seen as contrarian indicators. So far, he's called it right on the economy, and in my opinion the war on Iraq. (Yeah, there's been mistakes. It's a war. Mistakes happen. Expensive ones. It sucks. That's war.) When they're bitching, he's doing the right thing. When they STOP bitching - we'll be in trouble.

Like it or not, he's had ideas and plans. Whether they're right or not - that's as may be and the historians can fight it out for the next century. He's had the courage to act on his beliefs - which got plenty of derision. After all, what's more important - a vision for the future and the courage to act on it, or following the poll numbers and changing direction based on those?

There's two different, general groupings I can see politically at this time. The first are the theorists. They know what they want for the future, and they've got all sorts of great theories about how they'll get the things accomplished ... once they're in power and have control of the situation. They love their theories. Shining, pefect, glossy theories that are unsoiled by human variables, just waiting to be implemented. Who just can't understand why people could possibly be against their proposals - after all, they're for the good of all - and if they need to be forcibly implemented - well, it for everyone's good so why gripe about it?

The second are the realists (which aren't to be confused with 'reality based' by any stretch of the imagination) who understand it's real damn hard to get anything done in a country of 300 million individuals, all with their OWN ideas about how the country should be run. Who will accept incremental progress, who know that you cannot herd cats, but you can lead them. Who will, unfortunately, let themselves be derailed by the theorists on some issues (like Social Security Reform) and have communication skills that are decidedly below par when it comes to actually communicating what they're trying to accomplish and their reasoning for it.

I'll take the side that can actually deal with reality, flawed and imperfect as it may be, that will attempt to overcome problems that crop up by coming up with realistic solutions than a side which will attempt to implement flawed or unworkable theories and descend into political paralysis when they don't work as expected.

J.

Go VHERE you are told VEN you are told! It is vor your own GUUT!

Edwards backs mandatory preventive care - Yahoo! News

TIPTON, Iowa - Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans.

"The whole idea is a continuum of care, basically from birth to death," he said.

But we can end Bush's tax cuts. That'll pay for it! Soak the rich, and watch unemployment rise - so people will NEED their free health care!

Go back to your SUVs, Senator. We've had this proposed before, and the numbers didn't work then either. What did you do, dig into the archives and dust off HillaryCare?

Man, I just love the Dem's sense of humor. All we've got to do is put THEM in complete control of our lives, abdicate all choice, drive what they want us to drive, eat what they tell us, go to the doctors they tell us, and everyone will be happy and healthy and everything will be beautiful and clean and all will be equal.

Just remember, though, that next time Al Gore jets off to recommend to a crowd of synchophants that they dump their cars and ride bicycles that SOME animals are more equal than OTHERS...

J.

Give Up Your SUV -- And Other Nauseating Hypocrisy | Editorial Blog at Motor Trend

You can't make this stuff up, folks. Last week, during a speech to a labor group in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told the crowd: "One of the things [Americans] should be asked to do is drive more fuel-efficient vehicles." Asked if by saying that he was specifically telling Americans to give up their SUVs, Edwards replied, "Yes."

It's a wonder we Americans haven't choked to death on all the hypocrisy we've been force-fed of late. Naturally, Edwards owns and drives an SUV himself -- several, in fact. In Washington D.C. he often pilots his Cadillac SRX, while at his North Carolina spread -- a 28,000-square-foot manse more than ten times the size of the average American home -- one can easily spot several more those-aren't-Priuses (click to enlarge accompanying photo). Asked at the labor-group speech how he can reconcile asking other Americans to sacrifice while he's living so large, Edwards replied: "I have no apologies whatsoever for what I've done with my life. My entire life has been about the same cause, which is making sure wherever you come from, whatever your family is, whatever the color of your skin, you get a real chance to do something great in this country."

Translation: "I get to do something I call great (make millions off class-action lawsuits, buy a leviathan house and big cars for my family, and pamper my hair), but your 'real chance' ends with buying a transportation device that I've decided may affect the future of my precious spawn."

By the way, Motor Trend isn't exactly notable for their political bias. They DO tend, however to be critical of stuff that doesn't work. That's their job, after all.

J.

If Edwards gets elected (God forbid) and implements his 'health care' plan, will we see things like this?

Threat to take new-born over emotional abuse - Telegraph

A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of "emotional abuse", even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.

Social services' recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.

Hexham children's services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.

Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services' request for an emergency protection order - these are usually granted - will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day.

......

"The paediatrician has never met me," she said. "He is not a psychiatrist and cannot possibly make assertions about my current or future mental health. Yet his letter was the only one considered in the case conference on August 16 which lasted just 10 minutes."

Northumberland County Council insists that two highly experienced doctors - another consultant paediatrician and a medical consultant - attended the case conference.

The case adds to growing concern, highlighted in a series of articles in The Sunday Telegraph, over a huge rise in the number of babies under a year old being taken from parents. The figure was 2,000 last year, three times the number 10 years ago.

Critics say councils are taking more babies from parents to help them meet adoption "targets".

I know there's been black humor jokes about needing a license before you have kids - but this is just plain unbelieveable. She's already been condemned as an unfit parent, before the child is even born. Appeals are ongoing... but man, if this isn't a case of bureacratic overload, I don't know what is.

J.

Down in Rusted Sky: Makes you wonder..., SueK makes the comment that we've got too many lawyers.

We're reaching the point in the US, I think, where the system has become a game with a lawyer's win is more important than society's stability. We have lawyers making laws that other lawyers then find ways to outwit - in fact, it seems as if those who make the laws deliberately make them with loopholes that they themselves can later use to their benefit.

They're the only ones who understand it - and they're the ones who interpret it - and is it much wonder that they're heavy into politics?

There's an old song by Tom Paxton...

Paxton Tom - One Million Lawyers Lyrics

ONE MILLION LAWYERS
by Tom Paxton

Humankind has survived some disasters, I'm sure.
Like locusts and flash floods and flu.
There's never a moment when we've been secure
From the ills that the flesh is heir to.
If it isn't a war, it's some gruesome disease.
If it isn't disease, then it's war.
But there's worse still to come, and I'm asking you please
How the world's gonna take any more?

(CHORUS:)

In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers,
One million lawyers, one million lawyers.
In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers.
How much can a poor nation stand?

The world shook with dread of Atilla the Hun
As he conquered with fire and steel,
And Genghis and Kubla and all of the Kahns
Ground a groaning world under the heel.
Disaster, disaster, so what else is new?
We've suffered the worst and then some.
So I'm sorry to tell you, my suffering friends,
Of the terrible scourge still to come.

(CHORUS)

(BREAK:)

Oh, a suffering world cries for mercy
As far as the eye can see.
Lawyers around every bend in the road,
Laywers in every tree,
Lawyers in restaurants, lawyers in clubs,
Lawyers behind every door,
Behind windows and potted plants, shade trees and shrubs,
Lawyers on pogo sticks, lawyers in politics!

(CHORUS)

In spring there's tornadoes and rampaging floods,
In summer it's heat stroke and draught.
There's Ivy League football to ruin the fall,
It's a terrible scourge, without doubt.
There are blizzards to batter the shivering plain.
There are dust storms that strike, but far worse
Is the threat of disaster to shrivel the brain,
It's the threat of implacable curse.

In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers,
One million lawyers, one million lawyers.
In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers.
How much can a poor nation stand?
How much can a poor nation stand

Maybe we've got too many. WAY too many.

J.

B-52 mistakenly carried nuclear warheads from N.D. to Louisiana

They were cruise missiles, heading for the breakers - but apparently nobody removed the warheads from them. (For what it's worth, the warhead is embedded in the cruise missile, and not right at the front - which is where the radar system is. Hey, it's five feet back from the front, travelling at 600+ MPH. If it goes off, you won't notice any real delay at all..)

Very sloppy work. If I were in that Wing, especially if I handled munitions, ESPECIALLY if I handled nukes, I'd be sweating like anything right now. You don't just misplace 5 warheads, unless the culture in that shop is exceedingly lax and careless. And where something big like this happens, there's a lot of smaller indicators leading up to it. Someone's head is going to roll for this.

But there's no possibility of the warheads being dropped and going off. Breaking apart is a possibility, but then you've got stuff scattered about that's easier to clean up than a lot of chemical spills. You might even have a low-order explosion, but you won't get a nuclear yeild. Nukes are hard enough to get to blow properly when EVERYTHING goes right - if the Permissive Action Link hasn't been properly set, it ain't gonna go off in an earth-shattering Ka-Boom.

But I'll bet ya that the folks in the shop that pulled those cruise missiles out of the secure area and passed them over without checking to see if the nukes were still installed are looking at the end of their careers. All the services take nuclear safety VERY seriously, and a careless screw-up like this is a career killer.

And it SHOULD be.

J.

Unfortunately, I'm observant on details on things I see in tv series. I've been watching Battlestar Galactica episodes, and enjoying them quite a bit... once you get past the idea that the alien culture they have somehow has a lot of things that could be found in our contemporary time. I've noticed US military field phones of various types and configurations, inflatable tents, a grasshopper oil pump and lots of antique electronics. In "Stargate - SG1" I've seen a fair amount of IKEA furniture, and in Stargate Atlantis it's surprising the amount of old TVs you find, as well as obsolete radio gear.

Now, I realize a lot of the hardware is pretty exotic to folks who haven't seen it before - and when your idea of something pretty neat is an IPhone then it's obvious that something pretty amazing and exotic must be in that large box with all the dials on it.

But occasionally I run across something that's just plain funny. In an episode of Battlestar Galactica, in a tense firefight scene, I briefly got a good glimpse of a scope mounted on top of a rifle. A little bit of searching - and it turns out it's an Elcan.. Okay, I'll accept the premise that these guys are humans, searching for the lost trible that moved to Earth. I'll accept the idea that technologies will develop to fit the need, and I'll even accept the idea that firearms are gonna look pretty similar. After all, there seem only so many ways you can develop something that chemically propells projectiles. (Um, that actually WORK. The Gyrojet was something different, but it just didn't work well enough.) And given human physiology, there's only so many ways you can configure handguns and rifles.

But you ain't gonna convince me that light-years away, they developed a company that produced a scope with the same name using the same model numbers. That's just stretching things TOO far!

J.

I'm gonna have to start paying her.

SueK points out in Part of the Problem that the emphasis in the legal system is on WINNING - not on actually making sure justice is done. In a story she points up at Newsmax concerning the Haditha trials, apparently the prosecution took 8 to 10 hours of drone coverage and edited it down to about one hour.

The Marine intelligence officer who monitored the Scan Eagle’s video transmissions throughout the day told NewsMax that there was continuous video feed from the Scan Eagle for 8 to 10 hours. Yet barely an hour of it was provided to the Marines' defense teams by the prosecution or the Naval Criminal Investigation Service.

“Someone, under the supervision of NCIS, screened this video feed, and made the conscious decision to preserve only four segments of approximately 15 minutes each – according to the defense attorneys who received it upon discovery release,” our intelligence source confided.

“This 8 to 10 hours, viewed in its entirety, shows men in black, with weapons, fleeing the neighborhood of houses 1, 2, 3 and 4 [the area where the civilians and eight of the insurgents were killed]. It follows their route as they meet up with other insurgents throughout the city. It clearly demonstrates the magnitude of the insurgents’ organization, skill, and timing in attacking Marines.”

The video, he recalled, “shows them parking, exiting the vehicle, and entering the housing complex. It shows Marines assaulting the building, insurgents fleeing out the back of the building, and Marines falling back from the assault as the insurgents defend the house.”

Finally, the intelligence officer revealed, the full, undoctored Scan Eagle video “shows an insurgent, at the end of the day, under continuous observation from the air and under continuous pursuit and fire, emerge from a family's home holding their children hostage, in order to protect himself from further air strikes.”

From this article, it looks like there was a hell of a lot of creative editing going on. The facts be damned, the truth is irrelevant. They were playing a game - the objective of which was to get as many convictions as possible. The consequences to the Marines involved didn't matter. The effect on morale, on how the US military was seen on the world stage, on whether their promotion of the 'Haditha Massacre' meme helped the bad guys - that wasn't important at all. The game was all.

I'm not saying we need a star chamber atmosphere, with everything hidden. If Marines do something wrong, they need to be accountable for it. But fighting a war isn't the same thing as fighting a bunch of bank robbers, and Marines aren't policemen who are going to try to keep innocents from being hurt even if it means the bad guys get away. War is NOT clean and sanitary and unambiguious. It never has been.

From a lot of evidence, the Marines did what they were trained to do, and what they should have done. To second-guess every move made in wartime and measure it against the standards of a peacetime military, that way lies madness.

When reporting issues like this, what we need is honesty and the complete story, not some carefully edited version that'll promote the prosecution's side of things. I guess it's too much to expect of the press that they'll be willing to give soldiers the benefit of the doubt, and see them as innocent until proven guilty. After all, how are they going to get good ratings unless there's sensational news to report? And what's better than the US military going bad?

As SueK says.. "...the focus has become one of the individual winning, not on justice" - and that's a real bad sign for all of us.

J.

American Thinker: When the Left Cares, and When It Doesn't

Left wing artists love to portray themselves as avatars of compassion, and are often praised by the media and cultural establishment for the humanity their political work supposedly demonstrates. But theirs is a highly selective compassion, often ignoring the victims of the groups they supported.

In 1979 William Shawcross' book Sideshow was published, subtitled "Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia," esentially blaming the U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia for Pol Pot's and the Khmer Rouge's "killing fields" slaughter in Cambodia, which claimed the lives of between one and three million Cambodians after the U.S. withdrawal. Shawcross had been an outspoken critic of the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. Shawcross, however, is an intellectually honest man, and wrote "Remember: for Cambodia, read Iraq" last March for The UK Times:

"...horror had engulfed all of Indo-China as a result of the US defeat in 1975.... Given the catastrophe of the communist victories, I have always thought that those like myself who were opposed to the American efforts in Indochina should be very humble.... I still believe the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was the correct thing to do - and it was something only the United States could have done. For all the horrors that extremist Sunnis and Shias are inflicting on each other today, the US rid the world of the Pol Pot of the Middle East. So long as the vile Saddam family regime remained in power there was no hope of progress in the region....

In Indo-China the majority of Western journalists (including myself) believed that the war could not or should not be won. Similarly today, for too many pundits hatred (and it really is that) of Bush and Blair dominates perceptions. Armchair editorialists love to dismiss the US effort in terms of Abu Ghraib or Haditha.

If Iraq collapses, such nihilist killing will spread far wider. As in Cambodia, bloody mass murder is the only alternative to what the US-led coalition is trying to achieve."

Fourteen years after 1975 and the Boat People and killing fields, De Palma made a fictional movie about American atrocities against the Vietnamese, and thirty two years later still invokes the anti-war mantras of the seventies, as though many millions had not suffered and died, brutally, because we didn't prevail in Southeast Asia. Where was and is his concern for those people; where is his movie about that, those graphic images?

Saying you 'care' is one thing. It's easy to 'care'. It's easy to be anti-war - hell, who wants war? I sure don't. I think war's a horrible thing, something to be avoided if at all possible... but not through giving whoever threatens war against you everything they want, even if you don't see a use for it. (After all, who really cared about Viet Nam and Cambodia anyway?)

You see a ghastly calculation performed on the left any more. Yes, it's at least somewhat, slightly acknowledged that Saddam was a bad guy - but his actions, his atrocities have been blamed on the US. And by ignoring all other aspects of the period - the threat from the USSR, the Iran-Iraq war, the tensions in the ME, Afghanistan's fall to the USSR and then descent into chaos when the Russians left, it's possible to paint Saddam as a victim of the eEvile US.

And once you're a victim, you bear no responsibility for your actions and choices. You're absolved of all evil, and painted with a saintly aspect that shields you from criticism.

But - what about the victims of the 'victim'? They're rendered irrelevant. The hundreds upon hundreds of thousands dead under Saddam, the excesses of his rule, the sheer humanitarian disaster that was Saddam's reign (and we won't talk about the ecological disaster caused by draining the swamps those damn rebellious Marsh Arabs lived in) are virtually ignored. A choice is made. They aren't important. What's important is making sure there's no war.

DePalma speaks of using graphic images found on the internet in his film. How many other such graphic images could he have found from Iraq, ones that did not relate to an isolated brutal crime committed by Americans but were of those committed by the Saddam Hussein regime? Might that have offered context? The mass graves, the amputees, the pictures of some of the thousands of dead Kurds in the villages attacked with nerve gas. How many graphic images might DePalma have found of mass executions, beheadings and atrocities committed routinely by Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgencies?

Last June the intrepid embedded blogger and former Special Forces soldier Michael Yon posted on his blogsite "Bless the Beasts and Children," about his experience with American and Iraqi troops coming across a lifeless village where the people and even the livestock had been slaughtered by Al Qaeda. Children had been beheaded. The big media has not picked up the story, though Yon even provides photographs. I doubt that DePalma will ever make a movie from those graphic images.

We understand that our troops in Iraq are seeking to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. What we don't seem to understand as well, though Yon and other milbloggers embedded in Iraq do and have reported on it, is that the Iraqi people have also been winning the hearts and minds of our soldiers. The feigned and opportunistic faux compassion of the anti-war left stands in stark contrast to the genuine compassion of the soldiers in Iraq.

Our soldiers in Iraq, men and women, are many of them hard, as they are trained to be hard. They are armed, and many and probably most will, should the need arise, kill without hesitation or perhaps minimal hesitation. They will aim a weapon at other human beings and pull a trigger.

Yet they will also put their own lives on the line by standing between terrorist killers and their intended Iraqi victims. They will smile at Iraqi children and receive smiles in return. They will see, in Iraqi families, children, mothers, father, and even young Iraqi soldiers, representations of those they have compassion for, and that compassion will and does grow to include those Iraqis, real people. When South Vietnam fell, there was no group of Americans more disheartened and crushed than the Vietnam Vets who clearly understood the horror that had befallen people whom they had come to know, and cared about.

There is more genuine compassion in the average American warrior than in a dozen Hollywood anti-war activists patting each other on the back for their "bravery" in dissenting from a war fought by truly brave men and women enduring hardship and separation from loved ones to protect our freedoms and our civilization, whose fruits are bestowed so lavishly on the likes of Brian DePalma.

Something which I've never posted here before...

Be Afraid. Because it or something as bad WILL come back eventually.

J.

Well, that's the condensed form.

The Local - Muslim ambassadors: 'Sweden needs to change its laws'

Ambassadors from Muslim countries have indicated that they intend to present the Swedish prime minister with a list of demands when they meet for talks on Friday.

Fredrik Reinfeldt invited the ambassadors from 20 Muslim countries to government offices on Friday following a wave of protests from Muslim countries after the publication of a caricature of Muhammad in local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda.

Reinfeldt's press secretary Oscar H�ll�n was unable to say which countries had confirmed their attendance.

Egyptian ambassador Mohamed Sotouhi told news agency TT that he and a group of fellow ambassadors had agreed on a list of measures Sweden needed to take if it was to secure a long-term solution to the Muhammad cartoon controversy.

According to Sotouhi, "comprehensive measures" were required if Sweden was to prevent some "amateur artist" from reawakening tensions every other month.

"We want to see action, not just nice words. We have to push for a change in the law," he said.

."In the long term the school curriculum has to convince pupils that if they want to express their opinion they should do so in such a way that it doesn't cause offence or hurt. This should also be part of journalism training," said Sotouhi.

But...

The Local - Muslim ambassadors 'made no demands'

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt met on Friday with ambassadors from 22 Muslim countries for talks surrounding the publication in a Swedish newspaper of a caricature of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

The envoys are not reported to have called for Sweden to change its laws to protect against the desecration of the Muslim prophet. After a meeting with his Muslim colleagues on Thursday, the Egyptian ambassador had indicated that the group wanted to see "action, not just nice words."

But Reinfeldt said that the ambassadors did not present a list of demands at government offices in Rosenbad.

I'll bet it was an interesting meeting!

J.

And they do seem to be blowing. Traditionally, there's little to nothing like a war to drive technological progress - and the WoT is no exception.

Winds of Change.NET: Military Transformation Uplink: September 2007

Militaries around the world are moving to modernize and transform themselves to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Our mission is to deliver a regular cross-section of relevant, on-target stories, news, and analysis that will help experts and interested laypeople alike stay up to speed on key military developments and issues. Stories are broken down by military category and presented as fast bullet points that orient you quickly, with accompanying links if you wish to pursue more in-depth treatments.

J.

From General Patraeus.

Interesting...

J.

Bush is under control of space aliens.

Could be worse, I guess. All the greys have is a penchant for anal probes. The Kzin, however, are looking for lunch and entertaining blood sport - not necessarily in that order.

Looks like the Men In Black are overworked these days...

/fnord

Amazon Mechanical Turk - Help Find Steve Fossett

Interesting concept - they've taken high-resolution scans of the area he might have crashed in, and cut them up into 85 meter blocks. Examine a block, if you see anything of interest (wreckage, a big HELP sign, or other anomalies) you flag it and note what you saw.

Heck - it's for a good cause. Got fifteen minutes free? Do a hundred or so, and you might save a life.

J.

At the bookstore, I ran across a Trek genre I hadn't seen before - the Starfleet Corps of Engineers series.

Anyone have any opinion on that set? The premise looks interesting, but the samples I've seen at Amazon make me think it's possibly an extended Mary-Sue type sort of series. Anyone out there tried 'em, and how did they taste to you?

J.

Only with more analysis.

The Gathering Storm

Again, pointed out by SueK.

It's interesting, though, the things that DON'T get reported, isn't it?

J.

Democrats make pre-emptive strike on Iraq reports - Print Version - International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON: Leading Democrats on Sunday preemptively assailed the expected findings on Iraq due this week from the top U.S. general in Iraq as "dead, flat wrong" and said that President George W. Bush's calls for continued patience there would simply extend an "unconscionable" and "completely unacceptable" policy.

The pointed comments from the Democrats, including Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential hopeful, and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, seemed designed to undercut the impact of the much-awaited reports from General David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad.

They've got an awful lot invested in US failure - and the returns they'll get will be bloody beyond their imagining.

J.

It may not be much longer - looks like the Times of London actually allowed a question to be asked that questions conventional wisdom regarding the means of making people safer in the UK.

Wouldn’t you feel safer with a gun? | Richard Munday - Times Online

Despite the recent spate of shootings on our streets, we pride ourselves on our strict gun laws. Every time an American gunman goes on a killing spree, we shake our heads in righteous disbelief at our poor benighted colonial cousins. Why is it, even after the Virginia Tech massacre, that Americans still resist calls for more gun controls?

The short answer is that “gun controls” do not work: they are indeed generally perverse in their effects. Virginia Tech, where 32 students were shot in April, had a strict gun ban policy and only last year successfully resisted a legal challenge that would have allowed the carrying of licensed defensive weapons on campus. It is with a measure of bitter irony that we recall Thomas Jefferson, founder of the University of Virginia, recording the words of Cesare Beccaria: “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

That's just nuts. And people are finally admitting it...

J.

I was listening to Wexler harangue Petraeus around 6 EST today ... and thought "Man, that sounds like a hellfire & brimstone preacher attempting to convince the faithful they're all going to Hell unless they get SAVED." I almost expected him to start speaking in tongues and shrieking they were all DOOOMED if we didn't withdraw now.

I listened off and on today, and it was easy to tell by the tone which were the Democrats and which were the Republicans asking the questions. The Republicans were going "We appreciate your service, and would like to ask your opinion on ...." while the Democrats were going "We appreciate your service, but your opinion on ... is directly opposite from the report on ... and we don't intend to call you a liar but it's impossible to reconcile the two, so we're going to believe the GAO and the Iraq Assessement reports over your testimony."

Gads. You know, it's kind of funny the emphasis I've noticed on the reliance on on the GAO and Iraq Assessments reports to prove Petraeus is wrong, Wrong, WRONG about what he's saying. It's like looking at two-month old stock market information to base your critiques of today's market activity.

The GAO report came out in June, and the compilation of data for that was cut off... when? I couldn't find any indication after looking quickly at the report - - so I'll estimate the cutoff date was at the beginning of May. That's roughly 120 days ago. And even if it were the beginning of June, it'd be 90 days out.

The Iraqi Benchmark Assessment report is dated 12 July. A quick read of it shows the following - "These combined operations -- named Operation Phantom Thunder -- were launched on June 15, 2007, after the total complement of surge forces arrived in Iraq. The full surge in this respect has only just begun." That's about the latest date I could find in it, so I'll take 5 days after that as the cutoff - or 20 June.

That's 80 days ago.

Conditions in a wartime theatre of operations aren't static. You can't take the information from 1 January and extrapolate the trends and events of that day out for a 90 day period and expect sensible results. You especially can't forecast with any accuracy if you're changing the parameters during that time, as Petraeus did with the Surge.

The Dems are trying hard to kill the messenger before he could speak, and they're trying like hell to discredit his message. I'm sure Move-On is REAL proud of this. (Might want to grab some screen shots - I don't expect it'll be up long.)

Petraeus was confirmed 81-0. And given a hard job to do - it'd be a heck of a lot more sensible for the Dems to actually LISTEN to what he's saying, instead of letting the little voices in their heads control the narrative. Because what they're saying and what Petraeus is saying are two different things.

J.

Surge a failure, Democrats tell general

Anti-war Senate Democrats bluntly told Iraq commander General David Petraeus Tuesday his troop surge strategy was an abject failure in its prime objective -- forging an Iraqi political settlement.

Several Senate Republicans also expressed unease with US war policy, as the general and US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker endured a roasting on a second day of high-stakes testimony to Congress.

Petraeus repeated his contention that the surge was working, and said US forces could gradually be reduced from their current 168,000 strength, to pre-surge levels of around 130,000 by mid 2008.

But committee chairman Senator Joseph Biden said: "we should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home."

And if we weren't spending money on this (which comes out to a small percentage of the budget, about 15% to fund the entire DOD, and a very small percentage of the GDP) the money wouldn't be spent on the pet causes of the left like education and the environment. Sinkholes you can throw a LOT of money into, and not worry at all about getting any return on the investment... whereas if we don't retreat, we'll gain a MAJOR ally in the ME.

I wonder which scares the anti-war folks more - that we'll succeed, or we'll fail? (I know which one scares me more, personally. We don't have time to go through that post-loss malaise period while nominally fighting Islamofascism.)

And I'm getting real tired of our elected representatives, who barely have an idea of which end of a rifle the bullet comes out of, acting like they're the experts on the subject of Iraq.

Republican Chuck Hagel, a fierce critic of war strategy, also chastised Crocker and Petraeus for what he said was an overly upbeat survey.

"Where is this going to go?" Hagel asked.

"Are we going to continue to invest American blood and treasure at the same rate as we are now? For what?"

Petraeus replied: "my responsibility as I see it is not to give a good picture, it is to give an accurate picture."

J.

Odd line of reasoning there...

Disturbed anti-war protester can't find soldier, kills civilian with axe instead

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A U.S. citizen has confessed to using an axe to kill a Dutch student after failing to find a soldier to attack, his lawyer said Tuesday.

The suspect, Carlos Hartmann, 41, of Tecumseh, Mich., has confessed to the Sept. 8 killing on a train platform in the southern city of Roosendaal, defence lawyer Peter Gremmen said.

Gremmen said Hartmann wanted to punish the Netherlands for its support of the war in Iraq.

Hartmann appeared before a judge Tuesday and was ordered held for another two weeks for investigation.

"He hates soldiers, and says that the army kills people, so it would be legitimate if he were also to kill someone . . . from the American military - or from its NATO allies," Gremmen said in a telephone interview.

When he failed to find a soldier at the Roosendaal train station, "he got such a crazy, disturbed idea that he killed a civilian," Gremmen said.

Gremmen said Hartmann has lived in the Netherlands since 2002, supporting himself with English editing work for a Japanese company, which he could do by computer, and that he had no fixed address.

He said Hartmann had consented to undergo psychological testing, and was now "terribly sorry for his deed."

BN/De Stem quoted a witness who asked to remain anonymous as describing Hartmann as striking the victim in the back of the head with the axe. It also quoted an unidentified family member from the United States as saying Hartmann has suffered from emotional problems since his early 20s.

J.

FAA Plans 'Long Talk' With Pilot After Three Emergency Landings

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor says the agency will have a "long talk" with pilot William Supan after the 52-year-old Pleasanton, Calif. resident made three emergency landings in the same aircraft on the same day last Saturday. On the third landing his passenger Jinhua Lin had apparently had enough and jumped from the aircraft, breaking a leg and suffering abrasions. The plane was destroyed by fire on that landing and Supan suffered smoke inhalation, according to the Modesto Bee. Gregor said there are some questions about the pilot's judgment that will top the agenda when investigators sit down with him.

J.

Political Radar: Giuliani: Clinton Spewing 'Political Venom' on Iraq

When Army Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker came before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Clinton said that their claims of progress in Iraq require a "willing suspension of disbelief."

"Despite what I view is your rather extraordinary efforts in your testimony both yesterday and today," said Clinton, "I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief."

Giuliani accused Clinton of "playing into" a MoveOn.org ad that ran in the New York Times Monday that read: "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?"

As far as Hillary's statement goes... you need a 'willing suspension of disbelief' when listening to fantastic tales or fiction. The vote to confirm Petraeus was 81-0 - and they should have known at that time he wasn't going to tell them what they wanted to hear if conditions didn't warrant it.

As it is - the conditions don't match what Hillary believes - therefore Petraeus is lying... according to her. "Willing suspension of disbelief"... you know, that's what it'll take to convince me this woman's got what it takes to be President. Becuase I'm just not seeing any indication the woman can cope with reality when it doesn't match what she wants to see.

After co-host Spiff Carner said, "She's trying to tell us that she knows more about the whole situation than he does,” Giuliani shot back by saying, “Doesn’t it also sound like she’s also saying that he isn’t telling the truth?”

Hillary wants us, for whatever reason, to have a defeat in Iraq. It doesn't matter what the long-term effects of that defeat are - what's important is that it happen, and happen SOON, because if (Great Ghu forbid) she gets elected she doesn't want to have to deal with Iraq.

But just because you aren't interested in war doesn't mean war isn't interested in you. We're in a long war now - it's best to plan that way. Any President elected in 2008 will still have to fight it. The option to retreat is not available... indeed, it hasn't been since 9/11.

J.

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

We have some better advice for the Democratic presidential candidates:

First, if you don't want to deal with the Iraq problem, don't whine about how "unfair" it is. Instead, don't run for president. Just as we have an all-volunteer military, no one is forced to serve in the White House. The job of the president is to deal with the country's problems, and one of those problems right now is Iraq. If you're not up to it, the presidency is not the job for you. Al Gore, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel have all decided to forgo a presidential run, and there is no dishonor in doing so.

Second, if you do run for president and win, don't retreat from Iraq. Cole acts as if it is a foregone conclusion that the next (Democratic) president will quickly surrender, with results that even he says would be disastrous. In fact, the next president will have the option of acting wisely, and Hillary Clinton at least may even have it in her to do so. (Um, maybe. Don't think so, personally... ed.)

Third, don't promise to act unwisely if elected. The Democratic base wants an American retreat, and the presidential candidates will be tempted to promise it to them. But why set up expectations you can meet only at enormous cost to America's interests? (As I've said, they're not thinking of the cost long-term... ed.)

More generally--and this advice applies to all politicians of both parties--if the interests of your party conflict with the interests of the country, put the country first. (If you believe liberating Iraq was a mistake, think of how this advice might have applied to Democrats like Kerry and Mrs. Clinton who voted for it.) This may lead to the occasional election loss, but in the long run the country will thank you, and your party will be better off. Democrats may well be better off losing in 2008 than winning in the scenario Juan Cole envisions.

We are in a Long War. It would be well if the candidates were attempting to come up with scenarios that would indicate they have some interest in actually winning it - even it that victory doesn't occur on their watch.

J.

An odd thought the other day. What if the spectacle at the Petraeus hearings, what if the MoveOn ad, had nothing to do with objective reality - indeed, it necessarily denied objective reality - and was all about how the participants felt about what they were doing? They were posturing for the cameras because it made them feel big, MoveOn did the ad because they felt powerful BECAUSE of that ad. Never mind it could be self-destructive - the ad made them feel good, so it was the right thing to do.

There was a moment I couldn't believe they would be so shallow... then I remembered a section from Policy Review - Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology.

My first encounter with this particular kind of fantasy occurred when I was in college in the late sixties. A friend of mine and I got into a heated argument. Although we were both opposed to the Vietnam War, we discovered that we differed considerably on what counted as permissible forms of anti-war protest. To me the point of such protest was simple — to turn people against the war. Hence anything that was counterproductive to this purpose was politically irresponsible and should be severely censured. My friend thought otherwise; in fact, he was planning to join what by all accounts was to be a massively disruptive demonstration in Washington, and which in fact became one.

My friend did not disagree with me as to the likely counterproductive effects of such a demonstration. Instead, he argued that this simply did not matter. His answer was that even if it was counterproductive, even if it turned people against war protesters, indeed even if it made them more likely to support the continuation of the war, he would still participate in the demonstration and he would do so for one simple reason — because it was, in his words, good for his soul.

What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him.

And what it did for him was to provide him with a fantasy — a fantasy, namely, of taking part in the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. By participating in a violent anti-war demonstration, he was in no sense aiming at coercing conformity with his view — for that would still have been a political objective. Instead, he took his part in order to confirm his ideological fantasy of marching on the right side of history, of feeling himself among the elect few who stood with the angels of historical inevitability. Thus, when he lay down in front of hapless commuters on the bridges over the Potomac, he had no interest in changing the minds of these commuters, no concern over whether they became angry at the protesters or not. They were there merely as props, as so many supernumeraries in his private psychodrama. The protest for him was not politics, but theater; and the significance of his role lay not in the political ends his actions might achieve, but rather in their symbolic value as ritual. In short, he was acting out a fantasy.

And with Russia suddenly getting a bit... pushy... I'd really prefer to see the folks in Washington start acting like responsible, mature adults instead of folks who would block traffic 'for the good of their souls'.

J.

Challenge to Scientific Consensus on Global Warming: Analysis Finds Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global Warming Fears - Press Release

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun's irradiance. "This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850," said Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery.

Other researchers found evidence that 3) sea levels are failing to rise importantly; 4) that our storms and droughts are becoming fewer and milder with this warming as they did during previous global warmings; 5) that human deaths will be reduced with warming because cold kills twice as many people as heat; and 6) that corals, trees, birds, mammals, and butterflies are adapting well to the routine reality of changing climate.

Despite being published in such journals such as Science, Nature and Geophysical Review Letters, these scientists have gotten little media attention. "Not all of these researchers would describe themselves as global warming skeptics," said Avery, "but the evidence in their studies is there for all to see."

J.

YouTube - Pachelbel Bedtime

Hat tip - YetanotherJournal

J.

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Hillary Clinton, offering a new prescription for providing all Americans with health-care insurance, is seeking to avoid a repeat of her first, failed bid to revamp the system.
While Democratic presidential rivals John Edwards and Barack Obama released health-care plans several months ago, the issue is more complex for the senator from New York.

Clinton's previous effort gives her a voice of authority on health-care coverage now, with 65 percent of Americans in a July Gallup poll expressing ``a great deal'' or ``a fair amount'' of confidence in her on the issue. That's more than any other White House contender. At the same time, it evokes memories of the bureaucracy-laden, 1,342-page proposal that critics still call ``Hillarycare.''

Obama, 46, has proposed mandating health-care coverage only for children. Clinton, 59, will likely make coverage mandatory for everyone, said a campaign aide who declined to offer details because he didn't want to pre-empt her speech, scheduled for Sept. 17 at a medical center in Des Moines, Iowa.

Why do I have my doubts?

The plan Clinton devised after her husband, President Bill Clinton, named her to head the task force in 1993 would have mandated specific benefits and required employers to offer coverage or pay a tax.

The proposal proved so complex that it invited ridicule. An insurance industry group produced a series of television ads featuring ``Harry and Louise,'' a fictional couple struggling to understand the plan. Her proposal didn't make it out of committee even though Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress.

This time, Clinton is proceeding carefully. ``I've tangled with this issue before -- and I've got the scars to show for it,'' she has said repeatedly. ``But I learned some valuable lessons from that experience.''

``It's very tricky for her,'' said Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ``But she's not going to get elected president unless she can get through to people on health care,'' said Bob Laszewski, a Washington health policy analyst.

But we'll be expected to pour money into it until it does.

She's going to have a hell of a job convincing people on this, and I'm not willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. She's going to have a real hard sell on this.

J.

Flying car guru gets more down to Earth - MSNBC.com

Twenty years ago, the former engineering professor from the University of California at Davis created Moller International to make flying cars — but the company has never put a flying vehicle into production. Until now. Not terribly expensive, either - about $90k.

Well, not terribly expensive for something I'm not going to buy, that is. Still, it compares very favorably with in-production light aircraft - most of which are two-seaters, going for from $100k on up.

J.

Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’ - Times Online

IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.

At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.

Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.

Simple, isn't it? Yet out of such stupidity are movements made, out of such foolishness really bad things happen. Nuke Israel, and you won't be able to destroy the whole country... but what fallout occurs will spread across Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Thereby earning their thanks for saving those countries from having to spend money on nightlights...

You know, it strikes me that if you're a small country (smaller than India or Pakistan, I think physically, or Japan fiscally) it's darn stupid to work for a nuke. They're expensive, and of very limited utility. You can threaten with it, but if you ever have to USE it you'll be in for a world of hurt from the big countries who do NOT want to see a screwball idly tossing nukes around.

J.

Typically, it's being spun as a neo-con Washington plot by some, but some things aren't adding up.

Israel Matzav: Answering the conspiracy theorists on Syria

Let me add a few more reasons not to buy into the conspiracy theory. First, as Lichfield points out, Israel would not have (apparently) risked pilots' (let alone ground troops if some of the accounts are to be believed) lives to lend credibility to a neocon claim about nuclear weapons or to prevent US - Syria dialogue.

Second, Israel has its own intelligence sources that are independent of the US, including the Ofek 7 satellite with which Israel likely verified for itself what was going on in northeastern Syria.

Third, the Israeli media is muzzled (and yes, the military censor is likely active here) because they don't want to put the Syrians, the Iranians or the North Koreans in a position where they have to respond. Israel is still hoping that the Syrians will realize that they're not going to gain much by starting a war over this.

Fourth, I have said that I don't believe the target was nuclear - I believe it was chemical. The only piece of the puzzle that seemed not to fit with my theory was the North Korean condemnation. But North Korea also has chemical weapons that could have been supplied to Syria, and if the target was nuclear the lack of fallout is still odd. If I am right, then neocon claims about North Korean distribution of nuclear weapons are irrelevant.

Fifth, I am very suspicious of conspiracy theories involving neocons that originate in the mainstream media!

Fourth - if it were a chem stockpile, it'd be pretty noticeable downwind. Moreso than a nuclear material stockpile - you might get some hot dust going a couple of miles, but you're very unlikely to get fatalities from it, while chem weapons would keep going until they were too dilute to have an effect. You get fallout downwind IF you have a high-order detonation that sucks up a lot of dirt and debris and turns it radioactive. By all accounts I've been able to find, that didn't happen. (It's pretty hard to ignore when it does...)

Third - Plausible deniability. It gives the fools in the area a chance to quietly go "Uh, that wasn't us" and clean things up. But then again, they're not worried too much about what the world thinks, it seems.

Second - I'm pretty sure Israel knew what it was they were hitting. And that there's no indication from Syria that the IDF jets hit a wedding or a market or some other bit of propaganda fodder makes me think they hit something pretty valuable to Syria, and the Syrians don't want anyone to know what it was. You have to wonder just why that would be...

First - Israel's got their own agenda, and that puts survival of Israel at the top of the list. There was apparently a high-value target there. We might, eventually, find what it was.

But I'm willing to bet it was something pretty nasty.

J.

Due to certain events (which I won't detail here, at least not until things shake out and we get some clarity) I'm seriously considering enrolling Aaron in martial arts/self-defense classes. Any opinions on what he should take re karate, judo, Aikido, tai-kwan-do or the like?

(Nope, he ain't been beat up, to clarify. But there's been a 'situtation' arise that shouldn't have happened at all, and I think it's time to be proactive.)

J.

Or do you just look for the (D) or the (R) after the name and vote that way?

PREVIEW: Defeat at Any Price

(Concerning the Petraeus hearings...)

Again this message was bad news for leading Democrats. But their reaction was just what it should've been, given that President Bush is the enemy--and, like the man said, politics ain't beanbag. Surely it's only natural for leading Democrats in Congress and the presidential campaign, and their vicious lap dogs on the web, to hope for the president's policies to fail.

Americans are so accustomed (or inured) to this attitude that they rarely step back and ask, What the hell is going on here?

WHY would they prefer that?

The speculations why are laid out pretty clearly, and I can't say they're inaccurate. Looking at them, it's pretty easy to follow the dots of the Democratic Leadership thinking , and the destination isn't anything I'd want to arrive at.

The article closes:

More likely, America's political spectrum a decade or more in the future will be defined by two parties both born of today's GOP after a natural and painless mitosis. There's at least as much distance between a Rudy Giuliani and a Mike Huckabee as there ever was between JFK and Nixon, or even Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower. Americans traditionally like their two opposing parties to differ on domestic affairs but agree on basic foreign policy--not because things are nicer that way; rather because foreign-policy arguments are good for our enemies, bad for our friends, and hugely dangerous to ourselves--especially in an age when swarms of maniac, murderous jihadists blacken the Middle East like toxic locusts.

Listen to what the Democrats are really saying. Consider what they actually want. And pray God they never get it.

But look at what that's gotten. Pelosi. Reid. MoveOn.Org pulling the strings.

That's not a good plan any more.

J.

I paid $3 for a 15' USB A to A cable on the 8th of September. The shipping on it ran to $6.

It was shipped from Hong Kong on the 9th of September. It arrived today.

Incredible.

About 30 years back, I ordered a jacket from Barbour, a British outdoor wear company. I remember writing for a catalog, then waiting. It was a number of weeks getting the catalog - then I picked what I wanted, sent the order off, and it was a number of weeks to get the jacket. And the thing never was comfortable... I pretty much wasted my money on it.

The other day my folks ordered some curtains from J.C.Penny by phone. They expected to get them in a couple of weeks.

They got them in two days.

Global Commerce. What a concept! We've gotten to the point where if I were to order something from the other side of the country I'd be upset if it took more than a week to arrive. If it comes from the other side of the world, I expect it in two weeks, maybe less. (I recall selling some DVDs to a shop in Australia - it took less than a week to get them there.)

We've got one heck of an informational and transportation infrastructure built up. Think we'll be able to keep it going for the next 50 years or so?

If not, what do you think is going to happen?

J.

Down in Rusted Sky: Quick question for all and sundry... I got some VERY good replies. Thank you, all, for those.

John C - I've been a bit interested in Aikido for a while, but it's hard finding someone over in this neck of the woods that has classes. You live a heck of a lot closer to Ga Tech than we do!

Now, I've pretty much narrowed the school choices down to the following, for the following reasons:

Tommy Cho Karate - http://www.tommycho.com/ - because I talked to two parents in the parking lot who were pretty enthusiastic about their children going there. (And the kids were mugging like crazy during it - nodding and grinning like madmen...) The website is kind of shoddy, though, and doesn't give much in the way of info.

Choi Kwan Do is another option - http://www.choikwangdo.com/ - though the web site give almost too much info about things I don't consider central to the decision to enroll the little guy there. After talking with a parent, it seems they've got a six-month 'trial' period, and then there's a bit of an urge to get into a 2-year black belt course. He thought it did his daughter good.

The final option (bear in mind I'm looking for easily accesible schools, so my range is a bit limited - (although the schools Jessie and Colin are going to are great, they're too far out of the way) - is a place called Moohan Martial Arts Academy - http://www.mymoohan.com/junior.html. I didn't ask a parent, instead I watched for a few minutes. There were small kids having a fine time trying to kick a target, other kids of various ages practicing... I'm ambivalent about them at this point.

The next step will be to go in and actually see what the costs are, the philosophies, and see what pressures would be put on to commit for a 1 to 2 year program. I don't know how long I'd be wanting the little guy to take this, and I don't want him to take what he learns and go out to beat up on people. (Not that he's of a temperment to do so in the first place...)

John B, could I get you to talk to Master Betty Amadeo and get her thoughts on the three places I've mentioned?

Ron, could I get you to do likewise with the teachers at Colin's school, if it wouldn't be too much trouble?

Thanks again, folks, for the advice. We'll keep you posted...

J.

Michael J. Totten: Anbar Awakens Part II: Hell is Over

Ramadi has changed so drastically from the terrorist-infested pit that it was as recently as April 2007 that I could hardly believe what I saw was real. The sheer joy on the faces of these Iraqis was unmistakable. They weren’t sullen in the least, and it was pretty obvious that they were not just pretending to be friendly or going through the hospitality motions.

....

“It was nothing we did,” said Marine Lieutenant Colonel Drew Crane who was visiting for the day from Fallujah. “The people here just couldn’t take it anymore.”

What he said next surprised me even more than what I was seeing.

“You know what I like most about this place?” he said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“We don’t need to wear body armor or helmets,” he said.

I was poleaxed. Without even realizing it, I had taken off my body armor and helmet. I took my gear off as casually as I do when I take it off after returning to the safety of the base after patrolling. We were not in the safety of the base and the wire. We were safe because we were in Ramadi.

What changed? Al Quaeda came in, and showed just what they'd do if they had the change. The murderous rampages, the enforced Shari'a law, the widepread killings for not being 'Islamic' enough, amputation of fingers for smoking - they showed the people what they really were.

And then we came back and drove them out. Now, they've got a chance to rebuild. To remake their city. To breath again, after Al Quaeda's boot on their throat. They're not going to forget what their 'brothers in Islam' were willing to do to them. And the people rejected it.

It's often been said that the role of the military is to break things and kill people. It's rather true, but you've got to be specific in your definitions of people to be killed.

It might be more accurate to describe the role of the military in counterinsurgency operations like in Iraq as that of firemen battling wind-driven wildfires. They fight the fire with all the means at their disposal - and give the people a chance to rebuild.

The fires aren't all out, but they're really knocked down. It wouldn't be wise to pull all the firemen out - there's still plenty of embers that would gladly leap to life and burn down what was rebuilt - but the reconstruction is beginning now without the folks who would burn it all down again being able to do anything.

Al Quaeda is on the run.

That doesn’t mean they can’t operate at all, but it does mean they can’t control territory, work out in the open, or oppress others from above. They are hunted now and must spend an enormous amount of energy avoiding detection instead of stirring up trouble. The former would-be “liberators” have become hated fiends who lurk in the shadows and lash out in rage at the society that has rejected them. Victory for them, in this place, is all but impossible now.

“Having the Arabic press note that AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] is rejected by Sunni Arab Iraqis is better than any message we could ever put out,” Major Lee Peters said.

“We have one Iraqi lieutenant here who speaks pretty good English,” Marine Lieutenant Jonathan Welch told me. “You should talk to him. He has a sarcastic sense of humor and a really interesting point of view.”

“That would be terrific,” I said. “Can you introduce me to him?”

He went to find the lieutenant, but came back with bad news.

“He won’t talk to you,” he said. “Apparently some reporters recently spent a few days with him and his men. They wrote an agenda-driven story with a few quotes yanked out of context. He said the story was a total lie and that he refuses to have anything to do with the media.”

I heard complaints of that sort about the media every day from American Soldiers and Marines, but this was the first time I had heard it, albeit indirectly, from an Arab Iraqi.

Anbar was written off. Yet we won.

Write off Iraq while we're winning? Yeah - that makes sense... if you're on the side of the fire.

J.

OpinionJournal - Global View has more information about what happened in Syria. The funny thing is, there's damn near no information available.

We're talking SEVERE hush on this - tight mil-spec grade censorship instead of the normal leaky civilian 'censorship' which seems designed to spray information to the wind.

What's beyond question is that something big went down on Sept. 6. Israeli sources had been telling me for months that their air force was intensively war-gaming attack scenarios against Syria; I assumed this was in anticipation of a second round of fighting with Hezbollah. On the morning of the raid, Israeli combat brigades in the northern Golan Heights went on high alert, reinforced by elite Maglan commando units. Most telling has been Israel's blanket censorship of the story--unprecedented in the experience of even the most veteran Israeli reporters--which has also been extended to its ordinarily hypertalkative politicians. In a country of open secrets, this is, for once, a closed one.

The censorship helps dispose of at least one theory of the case. According to CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Israel's target was a cache of Iranian weapons destined for Hezbollah. But if that were the case, Israel would have every reason to advertise Damascus's ongoing violations of Lebanese sovereignty, particularly on the eve of Lebanon's crucial presidential election. Following the January 2002 Karine-A incident--in which Israeli frogmen intercepted an Iranian weapons shipment bound for Gaza--the government of Ariel Sharon wasted no time inviting reporters to inspect the captured merchandise. Had Orchard had a similar target, with similar results, it's doubtful the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert--which badly needs to erase the blot of last year's failed war--could have resisted turning it into a propaganda coup.

The only people that can provide real answers are in Jerusalem and Damascus, and for the most part they are preserving an abnormal silence. In the Middle East, that only happens when the interests of prudence and the demands of shame happen to coincide. Could we have just lived through a partial reprise of the 1981 Israeli attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor? On current evidence, it is the least unlikely possibility.

J.

AP Interview: Clinton on health care - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care but she rejected the notion of punitive measures to force individuals into the health care system.

"At this point, we don't have anything punitive that we have proposed," the presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're providing incentives and tax credits which we think will be very attractive to the vast majority of Americans."

The bill for it never gets smaller.

Of course, there'll be no coercion on this... not YET at any rate.

She said she could envision a day when "you have to show proof to your employer that you're insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination," but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.

If you're going to let the government give you everything, then be prepared to be government property.

Hey, a tattoo's better than an ear tag!

Better still - let's not go the 'government does everything' route, okay? So, I'll vote for this... when the Democrats force me.

J.

Arrr!

J.

Who needs toothpaste? | Certain ideas of Europe | Economist.com

ONE OF the tired cliches about Europe is that its inhabitants all have mossy teeth, and have limited enthusiasm for matters of personal hygiene. This is a deporable generalisation, and not a serious subject for discussion. That said... crikey there is a jaw-dropping piece in today's Le Figaro, tucked away in the health pages (alas, not seemingly available on the internet).

The article quotes a pair of dentists, one from a Paris teaching hospital and one from the French dentistry association, and offers the following statistics (without citing sources).

- one million French citizens never brush their teeth

- half of all French do not brush their teeth in the evening

- 57% of French children under five have never brushed their teeth

- the average French citizen uses between one and two toothbrushes in a year

Hmm. This sounds like a situation in need of radical change. Has anyone told Mr Sarkozy?

Wow. (Shudders.)

J.

Senate Condemns "General Betray Us" Ad

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate voted Thursday to condemn an advertisement by the liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org that accused the top military commander in Iraq of betrayal.

The 72-25 vote condemned the full-page ad that appeared in The New York Times last week as Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, testified on Capitol Hill. The ad was headlined: "General Petraeus or General Betray Us? Cooking the books for the White House."

In a news conference, President Bush denounced the ad as "disgusting" and criticized Democrats for not immediately condemning it.

"And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org, or more afraid of irritating them, then they are of irritating the United States military," Bush said Thursday.

Eli Pariser, executive director of the liberal group, responded: "What's disgusting is that the president has more interest in political attacks than developing an exit strategy to get our troops out of Iraq and end this awful war."

We are six years into the Long War. We're doing pretty well in Iraq, if you actually bother to read the reporters who are there in-country. We're winning.

So it makes perfect sense that the call to retreat NOW, and damn the consequences, should be so loud and strident from the Democrats.

But as I've said before - they're not at all interested in what will happen AFTER The fact if we should pull out. They're ignoring what happened in Viet Nam and Cambodia, sure that the little narrative they're telling themselves, that WE are the cause of all the violence (instead of bastards who are as kill-crazy) is the right one, and all we've got to do is leave and it'll be all sunshine and flowers in that area.

Well, blood does make the flowers grow...

J.

I'm starting to wonder.

I noticed a story on Digg, that the dudes who 'blew the whistle' on the B-52 nuke misloading had been killed. They counted the same guy twice - a newbie SP in a job that likely wouldn't have had him guarding nukes, one death was in Louisiana, one guy died in July in a motorcycle accident in Tennessee, One was from Florida, on leave in Washington. (Haven't figured out what his connection to Minot was.) And one was just identified as a 'Minot Airman' killed in a crash, a passenger when the driver failed to make a curve.

Looks to me like the author of the post just dragged out Google and looked for dead Air Force members around that period. If they died, it must be a conspiracy! Right? Well... no.

'Progressives'... seem to be quite willing to accept the most unlikely scenarios, and put complete faith in them. I can't quite figure out why this should be. God knows they're skeptical about damn near everything else...

But anyway - someone in the 'Progressive' community (who'd gotten burned on something called 'Ameros') actually thought it might be too good to be true, and checked up on it! Yay for them!

The Story That Never Was: The "Silencing" of the B-52 "Whistleblowers"

It seems like somebody is throwing misinformation out to the Progressive community either to discredit us or to have us chase phony stories around that in effect, waste our time. I recently received information, and I see that many of us did, about the supposedly “dead” soldiers that helped to “out” the story on that B-52 that carried nuclear weapons from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB. I heard about it from an e-mail that was sent by a good friend. Since I had just been burned by the “Amero” coin story in which I received information that the Denver mint had begun making “Amero’s”, I was suspicious and asked my friend to check his sources. Sure enough, my friend wrote that he had been duped again. The worst part of this saga is that he traced the story back to the same source that had released misinformation on the Amero!

My source that I believe would rather be left nameless traced the original story that he got to another source. He actually called that source to find out where he got that information and it traced back to Hal Turner. The original article that wrote about the so-called “deaths” was on the Military Times website. Since Michael Hoffman wrote the article I called him today. Mr. Hoffman was very forthcoming and told me that he had two sources that told him about the story, and when he investigated it, he found that the two servicemen that perished, but that they had no connection whatsoever with the bomb-laden B-52.

It seems like somebody is throwing misinformation out to the Progressive community either to discredit us or to have us chase phony stories around that in effect, waste our time.

I guess the thinking is based on 'If it's true, I've got a scoop! If it's false, no one will remember!' Or maybe the 'Fake but Accurate' school of journalistic integrity... I'm not sure which.

But even in admitting they made a mistake, they can't accept that they were fooled or tricked. There is ALWAYS some malign intent behind the story, some deliberate and deep conspiracy...

This could have been a counter intelligence program designed to make anyone repeating this story look ridiculous. This isn’t an isolated case. People that write articles should be very careful to check their sources, if at least two impeccable sources can’t verify a story, that story should remain out of print until a second source has been verified.

That’s the way I see it.

And if you continually get burned by latching onto wierd stories that prove you're 'right', you might want to reconsider the type of journalism you're trying to do. Because something's amiss - and it might well be your perception of reality.

J,

I don't think there IS such a thing, when it's about a subject you're interested in. As John B (writing as OTPU) posted down in Global Commerce...

Suek:

I don't know if you've been reading Jerry's blog for very long but as far as this little group is concerned TMI is a oxymoron.

Thanks for the info.

otpu

Anyhow - I was a bit curious about something. I've been looking for a while at LED bulbs - but commercially they just aren't there yet. And SueK mentioned she's in the lighting business (psst, SueK - if you've got a website, I'll be glad to put it in the sidebar as an ad for ya...) so...

Got a quick question for you, SueK, since you're in the lighting business...

What do you think the chances/timeline are for useable LED home lighting? I've got a darn bright LED flashlight, but haven't seen any commercially viable LED light bulbs. We're using a mix of flourescent and incandescent lights now, but being the technojunkie I am, I'd like to try LED.

Any advice?

My experience is the same as yours. We have one rep in particular that keeps wanting to sell us on the various LED lights - her manufacturer is now producing them in standard lightbulb form, and in fluorescent tubular form (meaning they could be used in standard fl fixtures). She's brought in mr16s and par lamps for us to try, but the light output just doesn't match the equivalent incandescent/halogen output. Maybe they could substitute for the fluorescent reflectors, but the colors are so cold, that until they start using a softer white, I doubt even that's going to fly. And they're outrageously expensive...whether it's an mr16 or a par lamp, it runs about $30-40. Start getting into that range, and people will be taking their lightbulbs with them when they move!

The LEDs are supposed to have a 25,000 to 100,000 hour lifetime...but they also require a driver - similar to a ballast in my mind ... I don't understand exactly what either one is, but I know they need them. So...is the life of the driver the same as the LEDs themselves? I don't know the answer. Also don't know how you'd replace the driver if you needed one. I don't even like them in the solar yard lights - though I like the idea. They look to me like jars of light...there just isn't any projection of light. And I don't like the color. I think they'd make _great_ landing lights, though. They make LED Christmas tree lights now - did you know that? Pretty cheap in the usual outlet stores, but still in the old sort of large configuration - nightlight size. Different color bulbs, though, with faceted glass/plastic (?) to get better sparkle.

I have no doubt that many of the problems will eventually be overcome, but my guess is that it will be in the 5 year range before they get really competitive. Advice? wait. Mix and match according to the particular requirements of each bulb/lamp. Lighting a prized painting has a different requirement than lighting the kitchen. Lighting a walkway is different from lighting up a tree. Dimming fluorescents are _very_ expensive - but obtainable. Electronically ballasted fluorescents come in different shades of white - which one you choose depends on the job and your taste. Daylight is good in the garage but cold in the TV room. Sometimes only an incandescent will do the job or is practical - just remember to turn them off when you don't need them.

Probably more than you wanted to know...sorry...!

Posted by: suek

I've gotten a couple of LED desk lamps - but I think the manufacturer went for brightness over durability. One which I had on solid for several months is much dimmer now than the other of the same brand and type. I'd be a bit concerned about fading in the long run, considering the state of the art on LED lighting at this time. Even IKEA's getting into the LED lighting field - but their contributions aren't terribly bright - and they're too expensive (IMO).

3 to 5 years? Well, I can wait that long...

By the way, SueK, I think the 'driver' you're describing is most likely a step-down transformer or some other way of limiting the voltage to the LED. Most can't handle over about 3 volts and being diodes work best with DC instead of AC... so putting 110v AC through them would likely make them very bright for a very short time! Properly designed, they should last pretty much forever... but it's pretty easy to misdesign one of those...

Again, thanks for the info!

J.

U.S., France agree on new sanctions against Iran: Rice

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner spoke Friday of a common front against Iran's nuclear program that included support for new sanctions against Tehran.
During a joint press conference with Kouchner in Washington, Rice said the United States and France agree on how to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

"I think that there's, essentially, no difference in the way that we see the situation in Iran and what the international community must do," Rice told reporters.

As usual, I think we're not getting all the story.

J.

My Way News - Florida Dems to Keep Jan. 29 Primary

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Florida Democratic Party will stick with a Jan. 29 presidential primary even if it means losing all its nominating convention delegates, a party source said Saturday.

The Democratic National Committee gave the state party until Sept. 29 to come up with an alternative delegate selection plan to stay within party rules, such as caucuses or a vote-by-mail primary, but party leadership has rejected that idea.

State party Chairman Karen Thurman, members of the congressional delegation and state legislative leaders were scheduling a news conference Sunday to announce their position. State party staff has been polling executive committee members and determined at least 75 percent support for the early primary, the source said. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because executive committee members were still be notified.

And it looks like the ultimatum by the DNC didn't quite cause the Florida Democrats to pull back. I think that might be a bit troublesome for the Dems in the long run - after all, no breaks in party loyalty are allowable, lest they start thinking for themselves.

J.

Do you think they'd listen to the soldiers?

If the narrative is correct. And this one... isn't.

American Thinker Blog: Tales from the NRA convention (updated)

As they maneuvered their vehicle (I believe he said he was on the gun in the turret) they got blown up. He described the sensation of heat, not just on his skin but in him. He struggled to pull himself from the vehicle. He looked down and saw his leg hanging by mere flesh, the bone splintered out into the sand. He got out, couldn't breathe and then felt a pop which eased his airway constriction. That pop was his abdominal lining bursting. He watched as his intestines began to leak from the stomach wounds.

Others came to his aid and they beat out the flames on his body. Disoriented, he began fighting the man who was hitting him. As they hovered over him to administer aid he felt the sting of what he thought was biting insects but soon realized was actually sand spitting up from the bullets hitting all around them. He said he "owed those men a debt he can never repay". I thought, no sir, it is us who owe them that debt. It is us who can never repay them for bringing you home to tell your story.

The sergeant said his plan if he got hit in combat was "to die". It never occurred to him he might live. He went from a Special Forces soldier to "a man who could not wipe his own butt" he said, apologizing for the graphic detail. No apology was needed of course.

......

He talked about his recovery, the year he spent in the hospital, only recently getting out. He said that what sustained him was his faith in God, his incredible wife, the amazing military medical professionals who rebuilt him, and something that surprised me, the wonderful assistance of the NRA and corporate partners that took a personal involvement in his recovery.

....

The young NCO didn't talk about politics, the war on terror, the war protesters, although he berated the Move On "Betray us" ad. He just said, or rather asked, paraphrasing: that the next time a soldier, someone who has on the ground knowledge, who has sacrificed for our freedom, please listen to what they have to say.

I doubt his message will breach the tin ears of the antiwar left. But his courage, his love of his family, country and freedom pushes me to write. I ask the antiwar left, and I urge others to ask, listen to the soldiers.

Right now, the overwhelming majority of them find value in their mission to fight terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. I agree. If I ever get the sense from them, the genuine belief that they don't support the mission I will be the first to stand up and say bring them home immediately. Until then can you on the left stop "supporting them" by insisting you know more than they do about the work they are doing?

If they tell us they are fighting al Qaeda can the MSM please stop writing articles about how they are not really fighting al Qaeda? Can Michael Ware please refrain from making hyperventilating statements like "the streets were rivers of blood" as he did a few days ago on CNN? Can you at the New York Times and Time magazine just take a few moments to rethink the de-legitimization of our brave soldiers strategy your are employing when you call them uneducated, unemployable, untrained, too afraid to speak up against the president "cooking the book" stooges of George Bush?

Maybe he knows better than the folks who are so anxious to have all of our soldiers pulled out, and surrender to the enemy we're beating.

J.

Perhaps a bit like this...

Back Talk: Background Violence in Iraq is Way Down

When you are running an experiment, you usually don't watch the data as the numbers come in. It's a waste of time because apparent trends based on small samples of data are meaningless (but, if you continuously watch the numbers, you can't help but assign meaning to the random noise). This rule applies to tracking casualties in Iraq. At a minimum, you need to wait until an entire month's worth of casualty figures are in to get a sense of what is happening. I know that, but I am going to take an early look at the September figures anyway. The reason is that we are now 1 week into Ramadan, and I had expected an explosion of violence in Iraq. But 3 weeks into September and 1 week into Ramadan, casualty figures in Iraq are astonishingly low. I have no doubt that al Qaeda will stage a spectacular mass casualty attack in the remaining days of the month, but casualties will still be comparatively low even if al Qaeda replicates its record-setting 500-casualty attack against the Yazidis in August.

Background violence in Iraq -- that is, everything other than suicide bombs and car bombs -- is way down. You might think of this background violence as the much-cherished "civil war" in Iraq, whereas the violence caused by al Qaeda's foreign suicide bombers represents attempts to incite civil war in Iraq (and to demoralize Americans and embolden Democrats). Because violence by al Qaeda has been almost non-existent so far in September, we can get a clearer-than-usual reading on the magnitude of the "civil war." Based on the numbers at Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, here is what the casualty chart at the end of September will look like if that violence continues at its current pace and al Qaeda fails to stage any mass-casualty attacks...

Out of over 20 million people.

I'm not sure, but I'd imagine traffic accidents per month would claim about that many...

As I've said before, I don't believe we're getting the whole story from the MSM. Folks like Michael Totten and Michael Yon are doing Pyle-esque work getting the story out - but the medis keeps ignoring it if it doesn't fit the narrative.

J.

OPEN SOURCE GOD: 480 Open Source Applications

Enjoy!

J.

Swallowing the Camel

The World's Weirdest/Stupidest Conspiracy Theories

But check over at DKos and Digg. They'll be featured any day now.

(Funniest one? The Middle Ages didn't happen, and we're in the 1700s now...)

J.

I hate that phrase. It's been used so many times by so many advocates to usually promote some lame ideology that whenever anyone says they're 'speaking truth to power' I figure they're bloviating to someone else who doesn't give a darn.

But today... I heard an example of someone actually speaking truth... to power.

To be precise, I heard Columbia President Lee Bollinger speaking very critically to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. One advantage radio has over TV is that you tend to concentrate on the words used, not the visuals - and the President of Columbia University wasn't at ALL kind to Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia - Focus on Iran - MSNBC.com

NEW YORK - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the official version of the Sept. 11 attacks and defended the right to cast doubt on the Holocaust in a tense appearance Monday at Columbia University, whose president accused the hard-line leader of behaving like “a petty and cruel dictator.”

Columbia President Lee Bollinger and audience members took Ahmadinejad to task over Iran’s human-rights record and foreign policy, as well as Ahmadinejad’s statements denying the Holocaust and calling for the disappearance of Israel.

But here we had someone speaking truth... to power.

Well done, sir. Well done.

J.

Down in Rusted Sky: What would victory in Iraq look like?, AJacksonian said...

Iraq will not look like a Western Nation. It will not even look like Turkey because of the history and ethnicities inside Iraq. The British, for good and ill, left a respect for public institutions that was nearly ground out of existance by Saddam... nearly, but not entirely. And representative democracy if based on tribes and clans in provinces working with provincial government... is that something so very strange to us that we cannot recognize it *as* democracy adapting to culture?

So it falls to the sheiks to get things organized, and it looks like they're managing to be effective where the central Iraq govermnet couldn't. I'm probably out of my gourd here, but I'm thinking of the original 13 colonies... and how from that came the United States of America.

Wouldn't it be interesting if, in ten years, we referred to Iraq as "The United States of Iraq"?

Because it's starting to look like that's a workable model, where trying to establish an overall top-down government isn't working so hot.

J.

You've got a Flight Simulator. How cool is that!

Flight Simulator Keyboard Controls - Google Earth User Guide

The controls are a tad squirrelly and the response time is atrocious. Still, it's got GREAT landscape, and it's free!

J.

Ogle Earth: Which installation did the Israeli bombing raid in Syria target?

Hmm. You can fly an F-16 over Syria. Watch out for flak, though...

Well, that's it for tonight. Enjoy!

J.

But due to a MASSIVE influx of comment spam I'm restricting postings that contain 'blogspot' links. They'll be held for approval, and I'll approve them as soon as I notice them.

You know, I understand that supposedly comment spam increases the Google ranking of the site in the spam - but some of the stuff's just plain been nuts. Spam for department stores at blogspot.com? And we won't even go into the pharmacuticals, or certain acts which are pretty much illegal in the US. Increasing the page ranking for a site nobody in their right mind would go visit? What's the point?

Ah, it's a crazy world we live in...

J.

Well, that's a given. I blog, right?

This is unrelated to blogging, however. I posted a while back that a situation had occurred that made me want to put the little guy in a self-defense course. I won't go into names - but after a Cub Scout Den meeting, while the parents were talking, the guys were getting a bit rowdy. Two of them (who I've been concerned about in the past, and decided to delay the Whittling Chip training for the full Den until I felt they could do it safely) decided it would be a great deal of fun to chase the smallest scout around. This was rather enjoyable, it seemed - until they decided it would be even more fun to get him down on the ground and hit and kick him.

We learned about this after the fact. To give the little guy credit, he came and told us about the 'chasing game' before it progressed to the damaging part. And there wasn't much damage done - no blood or broken bones and barely some bruising... but I was appalled when I heard about it. That Cubs would attack another Cub in their Den this way...

The two Cubs have been moved out of the Den and a new Den started. (The father of one didn't want his kid to be in a den with the other - but that's as may be.) There were enough Cubs coming into the Pack to warrant the creation of a new Den anyway, so we're getting some of the new ones and the other Den is getting the rest of them. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Anyway - that's why I started seriously thinking about self-defense courses for the little guy, AND his friend, the smallest scout. I talked with his mother - and unless something odd happens, they'll be taking their first lesson together on Thursday.

But more to the point, our Den (correction - "Patrol" now they're in WEBELOS) is in need of an assistant Den Leader. And I must be nuts, because I'm thinking about applying for it. I'll talk with the Den Leader about it - and we'll see what's what.

Shoot. I didn't even make it through a year of Cub Scouts myself. I must be crazy!

J.

Pretty amazing stuff...

Power Line: Back From Iraq

Congressman John Kline has just returned from a quick trip to Iraq and Afghanistan; the visit to Iraq was his fifth. Kline, one of the few Congressman professionally qualified to evaluate events in Iraq--he is a retired Marine Colonel--was impressed by what he saw there. Here, he talks about Ramadi:

"The security situation there is just truly amazing. Just amazing," he said in a telephone interview. Kline said the Marine battalion commander there told the lawmakers that violence is way down.

"One of the great advantages of going is you can look and get a sense of what the atmosphere is," Kline said. "People are going about their business, the shops are open, they're walking around the street."

Kline said the lawmakers were greeted by children who laughed, teased and asked for money. Adults smiled and gave the thumbs up.
"Just a sense of normalcy — people getting on with their lives," he said.

Like many observers, Kline credits our change of tactics more than the increased number of troops for the success we've seen in recent months.

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi think our efforts in Iraq are doomed and we should give up. It isn't clear, though, why their assessment is entitled to any particular weight. John Kline, on the other hand, flew helicopters in Vietnam--so skillfully that he was chosen to fly Marine One.

I would imagine Pelosi and Reid will be screaming even harder for immediate surrender. After all, they've staked darn near everything on making sure the US doesn't win. And since we can either win or lose (Or stalemate, which isn't likely in thi situation) it isn't difficult to figure out that a retreat, a withdrawl of our forces, is functionally equivallent to a surrender.

It's interesting the news we don't get from the MSM.

J.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Manchester | Police defend drowning death case

Police chiefs have defended two community support officers (PCSOs) who did not enter the water as a 10-year-old boy drowned in a pond.

Jordon Lyon leapt into the water in Wigan, Greater Manchester, after his eight-year-old stepsister Bethany got into difficulties on 3 May.

Two anglers jumped in and saved Bethany but Jordon became submerged.

The inquest into his death heard the PCSOs did not rescue him as they were not trained to deal with the incident.

In a statement after the hearing, Det Ch Insp Phil Owen, of Wigan CID, who led the investigation into Jordon's death, said: "PCSOs are not trained to deal with major incidents such as this.

"Both ourselves and the fire brigade regularly warn the public of the dangers of going into unknown stretches of water so it would have been inappropriate for PCSOs, who are not trained in water rescue, to enter the pond.

"This was a tragic incident where a young boy lost his life and we would once again want to pass on our heartfelt condolences to Jordon's family."

J.

My Way News - Alabama City Reopening Fallout Shelters

You don't think of Huntsville as being a target, or being downwind of a major target...

But they're thinking ahead. Doing the right thing, or just wasting money... what's your opinion?

J.

Man, I'm not even in the "Your blog isn't worth two cents category!" I'm BELOW that!

(Guess this means this must be a hobby. Sucks up free time, costs money, no discernable product... yep! It's a hobby!)

Guess if that's the case, I'll go get some sleep.

J.

Clinton: $5,000 for Every U.S. Baby

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 "baby bond" from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home.

Clinton, her party's front-runner in the 2008 race, made the suggestion during a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus.

"I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that downpayment on their first home," she said.

"I think it's a wonderful idea," said Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, an Ohio Democrat who attended the event and has already endorsed Clinton. "Every child born in the United States today owes $27,000 on the national debt, why not let them come get $5,000 to grow until their 18?"

Let's use ING's current rate of 4.5%. First year - $5225. Second - $5460. Third... $5705. Ten years out, they're at $7764. At 18, they'll have $11,042 in their savings account if they stay with ING direct. At 28 - $17,148. At 40, $29,081. At 50, $45,163. At 62, they'd have $76,591 in their accounts... assuming the government doesn't tap it for capital gains or other such silliness.

If you use the current 0.5% that Bank of America's paying... you get the magnificent sum of $5469 at age 18.

I'm sure Hillary's going to come up with something that has a higher yeild. After all - when you can write unlimited overdrafts and defer payment for a couple of decades, you can do all sorts of creative financing. (It may well be she's been getting the same sort of snail-mail spam my father's been getting, and she's got a good line on some Nigerian investments...)

One way of building a stronger economy, she said, is "more savings, starting with the so-called baby bonds idea where every person born in this country would be given that kind of account because we want to make an investment in America's young people."

But what the heck - it's from taxes - so it's free money!

(Tell ya what, Hil - push hard and get the FairTax enacted in the next year, without crossing your fingers, and I'll seriously consider voting for you. Of course, I also expect a herd of flying pigs to roost in the trees near the house, good flying bacon is SO hard to catch!)

Seriously - whenever someone in the government talks about GIVING you something - better grab onto your wallet. That money will come from somewhere - and the program will NEVER go away or get smaller.

J.

Silence in Syria, Panic in Iran

"Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing,' he reports. 'No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over and over again, 'Do you think the Americans will attack us?' 'When will the Americans attack us?' 'Will the Americans attack us in a joint operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and on, endlessly. The Iranians are in a state of total panic.'

And that was before September 6. Since then, it's panic-squared in Tehran. The mullahs are freaking out in fear. Why? Because of the silence in Syria. On September 6, Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted a devastating attack on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr az-Zawr. Israel's military censors have muzzled the Israeli media, enforcing an extraordinary silence about the identity of the targets. Massive speculation in the world press has followed, such as Brett Stephens' Osirak II? in yesterday's (9/18) Wall St. Journal. Stephens and most everyone else have missed the real story. It is not Israel's silence that 'speaks volumes' as he claims, but Syria's.

Could be Iran and Syria are about to find out.

J.

Hydrogen Hybrid Toyota drives from Osaka to Tokyo on one tank - Autoblog

Technically this Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle made the 560km journey on four tanks of hydrogen, as that's how many high pressure pods are hidden away under the Toyota Kluger's rear seats. But the big news is that this car, and a back up sibling, managed to drive 350 miles from the hydrogen fueling station by the Osaka Prefectural Government Office to Toyota's Mega Web theme park in Toyota without needing to stop for more, err, gas. The car even had 30-percent of its fuel left -- running its A/C the entire time -- which mathematically gives it a 480-mile range. That's double the range of most current fuel-cell vehicles.

Thanks to improvements to the car's fuel cells and the management system that controls the hybrid's charging and discharging, the FCHVs used today are 25% more efficient than their predecessors, which have been roaming Japan's streets since 2001 undergoing testing. New stronger tanks that can hold hydrogen at twice the pressure of the old ones also helped the car reach such an impressive range.

The Kluger? Um. That ain't gonna fly if you're trying to sell this to technophiles.

A kludge (or, alternatively, kluge) is a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem or difficulty. In engineering, a kludge is a workaround, typically using unrelated parts cobbled together. Especially in computer programs, a kludge is often used to fix an unanticipated problem in an earlier kludge; this is essentially a kind of cruft. Those illustrating the tenor of the term often say that it takes a skilled craftsman intimate with the task, the material at hand, and the operating environment to construct a workaround clunky enough to be called a kludge.

A kludge is similar to the chiefly-British bodge.

Seriously, though - good job. It makes me think that the hydrogen stuff might have a chance after all.

J.

US military deaths in Iraq lowest in 14 months

US military losses in Iraq for September stood at 70 on Sunday, the lowest monthly figure since July last year, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

J.

As detailed down in "I Must Be Nuts", I'd come to the conclusion that I needed to volunteer for the position of Assistant Den Leader. Now, having been in the military too long, I realized that this was a situation where I would HAVE to volunteer (thereby breaking rule #1 - Never Volunteer) but I have a rather diverse background and have been looking at old Cub Scout and Den Leader manuals for the last three years or so. If I didn't do it, who would?

You know, when you take on a job you 're not sure you want (or can do) - you can do it one of two ways. First - you can do a half-way job of it, just enough to get by, and hope nobody notices. And then, later, bow out gracefully. Or - you can go in and do the best job you can, knowing it's a temporary thing, and realizing that on-the-job training will make the difference between success and failure. In this job - I didn't see failure as a goal, or just getting by.

Having talked to the Den Leader, she was all for it. Paperwork will need to be filled out, uniforms gotten (and I'll have to pay for those, of course - this is a VOLUNTARY position, after all...) and so forth. Time was short - the first meeting of the new Den was to be 1 October. At 3 PM.

So yesterday I travelled to the local Scout Shop and picked up a uniform. It was odd buying one again - the last time I had to get any uniform items for myself must be a good six or seven years back when I was still in the AF Reserve. But whether military or Scout based, the principle is the same.

What you need won't be there in the size you need it. Or if it IS there, it's going to be misfiled, mislabeled, or 'still in the back - let me find one for you'.

Mixed in with a batch of XXXL pants was a single pair of XL-32s. They were a bit wide in the waist (thereby keeping up the old tradition - large was too small, extra large was too large) but the length was just right. Murphy must have been looking the other way momentarily, but he still had a chance because now I had to get a shirt.

Small- you have to be kidding. Medium? Nah. That won't do. Maybe if I were 21 again and 160 lbs.. but that's 30 years and a lot of good meals ago. Loads of those sizes on the rack. And then there were the Extra Large shirts. And larger. Much larger.

Sigh. Well, you get what they got, and adapt. I tried on an XL shirt... I ain't at that point yet, thankfully. Omar the Tentmaker must have had a sale on khaki fabric, because those were a LOT larger than I expected XL to be.

I figured if need be I could take in an XL shirt enough to get through today's meeting, then get it professionally altered. (Thought about returning it - but after getting patches and such on the shirt, I didn't see any way I could do that.) Murphy must have taken a coffee break then - because one of the sales staff came out with a handful of hangared men's shirts - and one of them was a Large. It is just a TRIFLE snug - but I've been meaning to lose a bit of weight anyway, and this will provide more of an incentive.

Summing things up - I got pants that were too big, and a shirt that's just BARELY a bit too small. This left other things - like socks. (Yes, the uniform code goes down to sock level. At least in the military all I had to worry about was making sure the exposed portion of the sock was black!) And NATURALLY, they were out of the issue socks in my size. But never fear! There were other, aftermarket options available. I ended up with a pair of "Woolrich X-Static socks. And they even had the size I needed... but it was mismarked. As usual.

Ah, it felt like the good old days.

(A note to ladies on men's socks... the shoe size that the sock is supposedly labeled for is wrong. If you buy socks for your guy based on it, the socks will invariably be too small. Say your guy has a size 11 1/2 shoe. If you buy him Large socks, based on the theory that the 'Large' will fit from 11 to 13 as is printed on it, the socks will be too tight and probably too short. Always buy the next size up, and he'll be comfortable every time.)

There were sufficient badges, numerals and other things, including stuff I didn't need and will be returning. All in all. the cost wasn't astronomical for a single uniform - but it was rather surprising when everything was rung up. (I guess I really didn't need the 'Den Leader' training kit, but figure I'll need all the education I can get on this job.) In the end, I didn't pay as much for this as I would for a new system board and processor...

But I'm getting a bit far off field here.

Today I did a bit more prepwork - getting ropes ready, doing up a board with Den Info and Rules on it, getting a couple more posters ready. And getting my uniform ready, putting on patches and numbers and insignia... I had that ironed and ready a good 20 minutes before it was time to leave. Didn't iron the pants, though. I wouldn't EVEN try to put a crease in them!

The rules? I read the guys were supposed to come up with their own, so I had some starters for them to discuss.

1. No Nosepicking.
2. No Farting.
3. No Wedgies.
4. Be Polite.

Yes, I wanted them to laugh, and then think. We ended up with... well, you'll have to wait until tomorrow for that. This is stretching on a bit, and it's about time to hit the sack. Tomorrow evening, I try to detail out what happened at the Den Meeting.

I was surprised.

VERY surprised.

And, oddly enough, nepotism works in certain cases.

J.