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Showing posts from July 16, 2006
The YouTube War . An interesting article about the war and how YouTube and other Web 2.0 tools are changing the landscape. The author seems to be drawing inferences where they may not exist. To wit; the soldier is annoyed that he's guarding a truck full of cheescake. Sure. I would be to. Bottom line, he's guarding it not because it's full of cheesecake, but because it's US property and we dont' want it to disappear. Cox hints that this discontentment can be extrapolated to include the entire mission. I don't think so. Soldiers like to fight. It's why they train and often a big part of why the joined. They didn't join for the exciting opportunity to guard a truck filled with cheesecake. As in any large organization, morale is a fluid thing. Doing something you think has value to the organization and its mission and doing it well can spike morale very quickly. The petty and annoying crap that needs to be done can kill it just as quickly. How
World's Most Expensive Whiskies . Because people are idiots.
The Big Pharaoh hits the nail on the head. Bombings in Iraq are boring now. Old news. Give us a new war! We need ratings!
Extreme ironing because people are idiots.
Here is another example of the Army of Davids . Retired and amateur imagery analysts band together to review Google Earth and find all sorts of nifty things. If this is the imagery available for free, I shudder to think at the resoultion the boys at NRO have. Here again, North Korea's isolationism bites them in the ass. I suspect they'll make a request to hide much (if not all) of their crappy nation from Google's prying eyes. It's not probably too late. The interesting upside: Will the public be able to see future sites the President talks about having this program or that facility? Imagine if Colin Powell's presentation to the UN was shown online with links go Google Earth showing the facilities with appropriate indicators for what we are looking at. I'm certain future targets (Syria, Iran) will request Google pull the imagery off their site. Why they comply is beyond me. These are totalitarian regimes and its unlikely they'll be losing market sh
Here is another example of the Army of Davids . Retired and amateur imagery analysts band together to review Google Earth and find all sorts of nifty things. If this is the imagery available for free, I shudder to think at the resoultion the boys at NRO have. Here again, North Korea's isolationism bites them in the ass. I suspect they'll make a request to hide much (if not all) of their crappy nation from Google's prying eyes. It's not probably too late. The interesting upside: Will the public be able to see future sites the President talks about having this program or that facility? Imagine if Colin Powell's presentation to the UN was shown online with links go Google Earth showing the facilities with appropriate indicators for what we are looking at. I'm certain future targets (Syria, Iran) will request Google pull the imagery off their site. Why they comply is beyond me. These are totalitarian regimes and its unlikely they'll be losing market sh
Read this and be amazed. It's something out of Ripley's Believe It, or Not. (lighter fare today, I'm busy)
Read this and be amazed. It's something out of Ripley's Believe It, or Not. (lighter fare today, I'm busy)
Real life Space Invaders, with humans instead of pixels. Very clever. A bit too long but worth seeing.
Annavenger has an interesting link to a story about weight gain and cancer . Fascinating. I had no idea that fatty tissue was responsble for estrogen levels.
Bush blocked probe into spying . Well, yes. I'm not surprised by this. That doesn't mean I'm happy about it either. I've written previously about the program and others like it. I criticized the MSM for publishing details of these programs as they are legal and reviewed by oversight committees and courts. The article listed above, despite its bombastic headline, is thin on content. Presidents naturally resist opening secret programs any more than absolutely necessary. As it should be. Donviti asks "call me crazy but I come from the school of thought (logic) that if you have nothing to hide, why hide it. Keep believing everything is fine...." I call strawman. "Hiding" something doesn't mean it is illegal. You don't put your valueables in plain sight unsecured if you want to keep them. Why, I would ask, does Donviti "hide" his money in his wallet? Why not leave it on your doorstep when you go to work in the morning? If h
States stepping up to tackle immigration laws . It's about friggin time. It seems Georgia and Colorado have found the 10th Amendment. The feds have no intention of fixing this problem at the national level. Bush thinks he can garner more Hispanic voters by pandering to them and the Democrats know they are the party of illegal immigrants. Small business owners don't want this either. They love cheap labor who can't complain for fear of being fired or turned in to ICE. (That might be tricky as they might ask how he came to employ said illegal worker in the first place). This is exactly the right approach. Put the states to work to solve the problem. California is not, and never will be serious about the problem. However, Colorado and Georgia (?) are. I didn't realize there was such a serious problem with illegal immigration in Georgia. Colorado has been miffed about this and making noise about it for nearly a decade now. Will Tejas and Nueva Mexico follow sui
Join Us Tomorrow (actually today) Too many leftists overlook or dismiss with a wave the evil we are facing. A plurality (if not a majority) of the Muslim world sees these images as justice. In the West, we recoil in horror. Even the most hardened "Christianist" (as Sullivan calls them) do not want the spectre of gallows for gays. Indeed, Allah's sharp sword would be very busy indeed if we lose this war.
Britain braced for record high temperature? Bah! It's that hot here and not all that unusual. Friggin Euroweenies fall apart every time the mercury starts to rise. Hell in France, they die by the thousands. It will be interesting to see if the English grandparents start dropping like the elderly French did. Even more telling will be if the family members will cancel their vacations to pick up Grandmum's body from the morgue.
File under Blue on blue : Bernie Goldberg Slams Ann Coulter . He now says he should have included her on the list of 100 people who are "screwing up America". I wonder if his book was published overseas and if so, what kind of reaction it received. Have to see if I can find anything on that one.
I found the following quote on line but lost the link somehow. I know it was a comment posted by "Heather" on another blog (I will update if I find the link). It is a very good explanation for the statement issued by the Holy See regarding the war in Israel: "In Benedict's defense, this is a statement that stinks heavily of Sodano and his little crowd of appeasers. Benedict has replaced the famously friendly to Islam Sodano but the change in office has not come yet. Benedict himself has acted in the selection of Bertone to replace John Paul's Sodano and has sent a cery clear message about how he feels about the previous direction of the Vatican towards Islam by not only NOT giving the long-expected red hat to arch-appeaser Michael Fitzgerald (the man formely in charge of the Vatican's iterreligious dialogue office and a disciple of the Sodano dhimmis) but sending him to Cairo. An appointment as apostolic pro-nuncio to a heavily non-Catholic, Islamic hotspot
The great unanswered question
I saw two weirdly compelling documentaries this weekend. Capturing the Friedmans and Reversal of Fortune . The former is about convicted pedo__philes(sic) Jesse and his father Arnold. It was odd and compelling. The family was dysfunctional is a way that is hard to describe. The parents are prototypical Post War Long Islanders. They live a quiet, modest life until Arnold is arrested for ch_ild pr0nografy (sic). He orders a magazine from Holland and it gets him in trouble. From there, things get progressively worse very quickly. Participants tell conflicting stories and the film leaves it up to the viewer to decide what actually happened. I'm not spoiling anything by telling you I think Arnold while a pedo__phile probably never assaulted the kids who accused him. As his son points out, there is no physical evidence. The assaults were supposed to be so brutal and frequent yet not one child complained or ever tried to get out of going. I know children are eager to please a
Hey Hube! You may want to read this . IIRC, you're in the education racket...uh...field and would likely have something to say after reading it. I've only read the prologue but if it has an nuggets in there, I'll let you, dear reader, know.
Mark Steyn, in his on inimitable way, gives us the lowdown on brokering a Middle East peace. The "Great Man of History" theory isn't one I suscribe to. Putting two (or more) "Great Men" in a room isn't enough to solve things unless those men happen to be in the mold of Stalin or Kim Jong-Il who are totalitarian dictators. Such men didn't get to be where they are by being compromising so negotiations between autocrats tend to go sideways very quickly. Yesterday I was in negotiations with my 4 year old. He told me that if I didn't let him play on the computer then he wasn't going to play with any of his other toys. I said that was fine with me and he was genuinely puzzled. This is the same line of logic employed by Iran. "Iran will resume uranium enrichment if the European Union does not recognize its right to do so, two Iranian nuclear negotiators said in an interview published Thursday." If we don't let Iran go nuclear, they&#
A World Without America This one is a bit dated but worth reading. What if there were no US? What would the world look like? Love us or hate us, the world would be a lot nastier if we weren't around.
China harvesting Falun Gong organs . I wonder if those prisoners would rather be at Gitmo? Where is the outrage from the "world community"?
The Holy See has condemned the Israelis for attacking southern Lebanon. As and asided the Pope also condemned Hezbollah as well. That's nice I guess, but let's keep our eye on things shall we? I don't fault the Pope. He's in the peace, love and forgiveness business (usually) and war is none of those things. However, I find it troubling that the statement makes more hay about Israel's actions than the terrorists. It pains me that the leader of my faith does not cast his lot with them. If he wants to condemn their response, that's fine but let's make note of how this started and who can end it immediately. I have no problem leaving decision making on matters theological (mostly) to the Magesterium but in matters temporal, the Holy See manages to annoy me more often than not. In fact, they are, in my opinion, on the wrong side quite often. As New Sisyphus points out, there was a mass with John Paul II and Tariq Azziz for "peace". How can
Donviti needs to stop drinking while posting. How else to explain So I am watching CNN . An incoherent rant about how Jews are presented as sympathetic in the media while Iraqis are not. In De La Where land there is no difference between intentional and accidental civilan deaths. There is no difference between terrorists shooting rockets at apartment buildings and housing developments and the use of GPS weapons with 1 meter accuracy that go awry. I have no words.
Thank you for delaying my flight says Varifrank. He makes some points to remember when travelling. What I think he omits is the chicanery that airlines engage in. Oversold flights, blaming delays on "weather" when it's 70 and sunny at the departure, destination and all points in between. I don't yell at front line people. Almost never. Unless they are the ones being obstinate pricks. As he noted, the ticket agent/gate staff didn't break the plane, don't blame them. Also, they're much less likely to help you if you abuse them. I have no problem with a cancelled flight due to an actual safety concern but in my opinion, it becomes a "cry wolf" thing. Too many flights are cancelled when they only have a few passengers and the next flight has room on it. It's happened to me a number of times. My connecting flight only had 8 or so people on it. It was cancelled due to "maintenance problems" and I was reticketed for the late
OmniNerd talks about Fueling a Lifestyle . That is, he attaches his laptop to his Jeep to get the lowdown on how his engine performs and under what conditions. It's exhaustive and the summation gives some rather sensible conclusions.
Classical Values is, more or less, a local guy and worth reading. He has a posted called Kick him in the head -- but in which direction? It's about Philadelphia Daily News vs. Michael Smerconish . Two things: 1. Smerconish is center-right. He's socially liberal and hawkish 2. Yes, he's bucking for a national spot and IMNHO he's softened to make that more marketable.
In a fit of prescience, OPFOR says Israel is Prepping the Battlespace shortly after reading it this morning, I saw this . Not bad pontificating. Look for this to get much worse before it gets better. Wrechard points to WaPo which contains this quote : "It seems like we will go to the end now," said Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon. "We will not go part way and be held hostage again. We'll have to go for the kill -- Hezbollah neutralization." Let's hope so. I don't relish the fighting or the inevitable innocents who will suffer but this problem needs to be addressed now before Iran starts putting down roots where Syria used to be. I hold with those who are calling for a bombing run to destroy Assads palace. He needs to get the message. He's the only one who can pull Hezbollah back.
Delaware's Pride, America's Joy: Why Biden, and only Biden, is mediocre enough to lead the Democrats in '08 . The author isn't really serious. He posits this is only possible because Joe is so consistently unintelligible and the rest of the Democrats are so awful and unelectable. In truth, the Kos Kidz will come out in force against Biden like they did with Lieberman. Biden has zero chance of winning the Democrats nomination. None. He won't even get a VP nod and there's not a cabinet post I can think he could fill. He'll be a Senator until he dies.
2006 Holden VE Commodore revealed in Australia . I predict the chassis and possibly drivetrain are coming this way. I don't know if the powerplant will make it (would anyone buy a 6.0L engine?). Be sure the version we see will be a watered down gas sipper. Such a shame. Australia has the most exciting automotive products in Asia and is very close to American sensibilities.