See Medium last night? Apparently the (state) senator from Arizona with the long POW background turned out to be a murderer and a cannibal. McCainibal?
P.S. The title of the episode? "Aftertaste." Classy.
Was the theme music that one song by Barbara Streisand? You know the one, doncha? "People . . . . . . People who eat . . . People . . . Are the yuckiest people in the world . . . "
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2008 16:01 ||
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Does anyone besides the liberals even watch TV anymore?
In The Chinese Secret Services: from Mao to the Olympic Games, China expert Roger Faligot reveals that General Chen Xiaogong, the new coordinator of military intelligence, negotiated with al-Qaeda to prevent terrorist attacks during the Olympics.
#3
I can think of a lot of things China could provide in exchange that would keep AL Queda quiet. Semi-autonomy to the Xianjang region isn't gonna happen but it would certainly be a huge feather in Al Queda's cap. Political coverage in the UN to make life difficult for the West in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places.
If there really is a sucessfull truce I'm gonna have to wonder what the Chinese put on the table.
At the heart of the "NAFTA-quiddick" brouhaha is the divide between the Democratic party's base and its elites; it's a divide that's probably impossible to bridge, but the two contenders have to try anyway.
The party's elites believe that you cannot build prosperity with a policy that ensures that foreign products don't get onto your shelves and that you don't export anything to the rest of the world's consumers. They believe that trade with other countries is good, that technological innovation has cost more manufacturing jobs than any cheap foreign labor, and that if trade barriers could ensure prosperity, North Korea would be one of the world's richest nations.
The party's base believes that happy days would be here again if we would just get rid of the trade agreements with acronyms; that Americans would be better off if they would go back to driving the Dodge Dart and the Studebaker and stop buying products made in other countries. When Obama says, "I've talked to workers who have seen their plants shipped overseas as a consequence of bad trade deals like NAFTA, literally seeing equipment unbolted from the floors of factories and shipped to China," none of these voters question why a trade agreement with Mexico and Canada would result in equipment being shipped to China.
The base gets its views on trade from their guts and from anecdotes; they don't see drinking a six-pack of Corona as taking away jobs from American breweries. The elites get their views from statistics and reports; they can point to numbers that indicate how many jobs are created from exports, and how many consumers enjoy products from all around the world, but their arguments rarely stir the blood.
I also saw something in the WSJ either yesterday or over the weekend, to the effect that Ohio's largest export customers (in terms of sales $$) are Canada and Mexico. You think Ohio's manufacturing economy is bad now, just think of the fun if they abrogate NAFTA.
The base doesn't want to hear the counterargument; the elites are afraid to articulate their views too loudly, lest they be accused of insensitivity to the plight of the working man. But they don't want a dramatic backtracking on trade, like repealing NAFTA.
In a battle between the gut and the brain in the Democratic electorate, I wouldn't bet heavily on the synapses to win out.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2008 13:55 ||
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The same base shops at Walmart and the Dollar Store, full of cheap imports and excited to get a bargain. They also ususally have working class jobs connected to loading, unloading, hauling, or selling these same cheap goods across the country. They just don't want Mexican or Canadian trucks to do it!
For Dems, who agree with Limbaugh on Hillary. They want her around. ABC poll: Dems 2-1 want her to stay in if she wins just one Almost-Super Tuesday primary. If she loses both, they want her for veep. I dunno about you, but that sounds like a dream matchup* to me: Wide-eyed innocence and scaly cynicism all in one package. OK, it's Tuesday, I don't know about you but I've got a lot to do. Drive-up window:
* Either that or the start of a national nightmare, which at least will have endless entertainment value. Especially with Bill demoted to third fiddle. I'm pretty sure showing his face at Obama's state dinners is not what he had in mind.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2008 11:54 ||
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A blogger at Daily Kos contends that Hillary's recent ad "darkened" Barack Obama.
My favorite line from the blog post: "I'm not accusing Hillary of technically being a racist. But she is cynically exploiting racism to further her personal ambition, and it's part of a pattern. She's doing it to a fellow Democrat who's virtually certain to be the nominee."
The presidential campaign veteran who brought this to my attention noted, "The difference just isnt that stark, and its hard to see how that would actually help her - certainly not when compared with the potential backlash. Im not terribly familiar with video production, but Id bet it was just made to fit the overall color pattern or perhaps came from a copy that wasnt as good as the original. That seems more plausible... That said, had this ad come from a Republican, it would have been called transparently racist and no argument would have been allowed. While I would prefer the Left stop the race-baiting and paranoia, Ill take some slight pleasure in the meantime watching the Democrats tripping on their own culture of paranoia and identity politics. They are hoist by their own dogwhistle."
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2008 10:59 ||
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It'll never dawn on the truly faithful, that its all Freudian Projection. They are as unclean [if not more so] as those they routinely taint with the pejorative.
#2
LOL - like the "3am call" ad, some focussed on the letters "NIG" on the kids blanket. RACIST!!
So what if it was part of "GOOD NIGHT"?
Projection and paranoia combined ain't pretty
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2008 11:26 Comments ||
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#3
Proof once again that context is everything, except when it's not...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/04/2008 11:43 Comments ||
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I'm not accusing Hillary of technically being a racist. But she is cynically exploiting racism to further her personal ambition, and it's part of a pattern.
So I guess she's not that racist. Just a little bit...
#8
I am not saying that KOSkids are retarded racists. I am just saying everything they say makes them sound like they are racists and statistically racists are retarded.
. . . With the evidence we have so far, Obama appears to be in a difficult position. At first, his campaign denied that there was any contact with the Canadian government. Then, when it was forced to concede that there had been contact, it insisted that it had nothing to do with softening Obamas position on NAFTA. And then, when the newly-released memo suggested that it had been about just that, Team Obama simply stuck with its story.
After talking with people knowledgeable about these events, its possible to come to a few early conclusions. One, there was a meeting. Two, the DeMora memo was a good-faith effort to record what went on at that meeting. Three, the conversation did touch on NAFTA. Four, the Canadian governments statement was a carefully worded, diplomatic message that did not shed any light on whether the key accusation against the Obama campaign that it privately hedged its position on NAFTA and then misled the public about it is true. And five, the Canadian statement did say outright that Goolsbee was contacted because he was involved in the Obama campaign, not as Plouffe claimed because he was a university professor.
So its not likely that the story will go away, given the Obama campaigns inaccurate and misleading statements about it and the Clinton campaigns interest in keeping the controversy alive. The only question is whether it will do Obama any significant damage and Clinton any significant benefit.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2008 10:46 ||
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"It was political rhetoric in order to capture votes but in no way is how he will actually behave when (if) elected."
Now if it were me giving sworn testimony in court I would be found in contempt and fined+jailed.
. . . Politics, or at least the democratic kind of politics, are supposed to be hard, messy, chaotic. Herding cats is the essence of democratic politics. But for the past few decades, the bipartisan political establishment has been trying to rationalize the process, to reduce the electorate to a bunch of discrete, digitized elements reachable through targeted and tailored advertising. If they did a remake of The Graduate today, the one-word advice from a political consultant would be "microtargeting." Are you a 27-year-old male in Tallahassee who subscribes to Field & Stream, leaves the toilet seat up and thinks Bill O'Reilly should part his hair on the left? Well, you'll get an e-mail just for you! And, miraculously, the candidate writing you will agree with you on everything!
Campaign-finance reform was part of this larger effort to take the mess out of politics. Many politicians think they have an absolute right to control the political conversation. . . . Similarly, self-important newspaper editors think they have a special license to opine on politics but are horrified when mere rubes with a checkbook want to do the same thing. Thus came the rush to regulate political speech during campaign season the time of year when political speech is the most influential and, hence, the most important. . . .
By now the argument against campaign-finance reform is familiar to anyone who cares and boring to everyone else. So let's leave that for another time and instead look at one of the main reasons this election season has been so exciting: The polls haven't mattered as much as they normally do. If the old rules of thumb about success in the polls held true, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton would have wrapped up the nomination long ago. Then again, if the pollsters had been right, Obama would have won New Hampshire handily and probably California, too, which means he would have been the nominee. In other words, uncertainty has been the order of the day, and uncertainty is good because, among other things, it gives people the sense that voting matters and that all these things aren't decided by a system that doesn't include them.
So here's an old idea that might have new salience. Citizens should refuse to talk to pollsters, social surveyors and private census takers. What would happen? Well, fairly quickly the micro-targeting would get pretty macro. Rather than treating Americans like customers-who-are-always-right, politicians would increasingly have to state their convictions rather than restate what some focus group told them to say. Without knowing who was in the lead until votes were actually cast, candidates might actually campaign on conviction. Rather than telling people what they already believe, politicians might actually try to educate voters on what citizens should know first.
Obviously, this would make our politics messier and annoy a political class that is desperate to take the uncertainty out of their career paths. But that's really not our problem. The uncertainty principle makes things more difficult for physicists. Uncertainty makes things difficult for politicians, too. But it might actually yield more principle.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2008 09:46 ||
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Citizens should refuse to talk to pollsters.
Election polling should be restricted through, at cost, the local county clerk's office. Anyone participating will be making full and open disclosure of their vote. Your choice - secret or public ballot. See how many participate then. That they called you or knocked on your door implies your identity is known, so this is not about privacy when you participate.
#4
I've always thought that the polls reflect whatever the person paying for them wants them to reflect. How else can you explain that they always favor the person whom the MSM pundits are telling us that we favor? That is they always do until about 48 hours before the actual election where they suddenly swing dramatically toward reality.
#5
Remember the late, great Mike Royko, of various Chicago newspapers over 35 years, who advised his readers to always lie to exit pollsters, for the pleasure of watching all the returns projections "go crazy."
My conspiracy-theory analysis: The Clinton campaign did not release that ad for the sake of Clinton 2008. It is to defeat Obama, for sure. But not now.
Hillary knows she's going down. They issued that ad because they want McCain to win. She thinks she can be a star in the Senate, leader of the Democratic party when he loses. So the commercial is her gift to John McCain. She's got her eye on 2012.
Could Hillary possibly be that cynical, manipulative, and selfish?
Is the sky blue? Are ducks waterproof? Yes, she can!
(Apologies to Dave Matthews for the headline.)
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2008 08:42 ||
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Mike,
I thought that was Matchbox 20. Anyhow, I'm waiting for a "Daisy" ad.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
03/04/2008 9:04 Comments ||
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You're right. Apologies to Rob Thomas and Matchbox 20 for getting it wrong.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2008 9:32 Comments ||
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interesting theory. I don't know if that is her motive for releasing the ad, but it certainly makes sense that if Clinton realizes that she can't get the nomination this year that she would set her sights on the next election. It would be face saving for her and it would be the only way that she could psychologically get on with her life.
It makes me sad because what it means is that we are probably going to be stuck with her the same we have been stuck with Fat Teddy all these years.
#4
Unfortunately, a lingering prob wid Year 2012 for the US GOP-DEM NPE is that IMO RADICAL ISLAM MAY BE UNABLE TO WAIT THAT LONG TO ACHIEVE ANY KIND OF "MODERATE" RAPPROCHEMENT = PROACTIVE ENGAGEMENT WID ITS ENEMIES + EFFEC SALVAGE ITS GLOBAL JIHADIST-ISLAMIST OWG AGENDA. Again, for the US-Allies to finally decisively defeat or destroy Radical Islamism as a basis/foundation of Terror, it may in be [inevitably]necessary for US = Coalition to discredit important or significant QURANIC/SUTRIC TEACHINGS + PRECEPTS COMMON TO BOTH RADICALIST AND NON-RADICALIST ISLAM, AND TO DO SO TO SHORTEN THE WOT AND DESPITE POTEN VIOLENT/DESTRUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES.
A significant irony here for HILLARY is that to prove to MAINSTREAM AMERICA INCLUD MANY AMER WOMEN VOTERS that her and their female gender can be POTUS = en effective POTUS, AND OF A GLOBAL SUPER/HYPERPOWER, THE ULTIMATE GREATEST TEST FOR HER IN SAME IS FOR ANY ISLAMIST "AMER HIROSHIMA" SCHEMES TO ACTUALLY OCCUR INSIDE AMERICA. The alternate would be a GREAT POWER(S) CONFRONTATION(S) IN ME ANDOR THE PACIFIC, OR BOTH.
Year 2008 -2010 > "Make or Break" vv OWG-NWO -ISMS for both the USA and Radical Islam/Islam???
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
Zahra Maladan is an educated woman who edits a women's magazine in Lebanon. She is also a mother, who undoubtedly loves her son. She has ambitions for him, but they are different from those of most mothers in the West. She wants her son to become a suicide bomber.
At the recent funeral for the assassinated Hezbollah terrorist Imad Moughnaya -- the mass murderer responsible for killing 241 marines in 1983 and more than 100 women, children and men in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 -- Ms. Maladan was quoted in the New York Times giving the following warning to her son: "if you're not going to follow the steps of the Islamic resistance martyrs, then I don't want you."
Zahra Maladan represents a dramatic shift in the way we must fight to protect our citizens against enemies who are sworn to kill them by killing themselves. The traditional paradigm was that mothers who love their children want them to live in peace, marry and produce grandchildren. Women in general, and mothers in particular, were seen as a counterweight to male belligerence. The picture of the mother weeping as her son is led off to battle -- even a just battle -- has been a constant and powerful image.
Now there is a new image of mothers urging their children to die, and then celebrating the martyrdom of their suicidal sons and daughters by distributing sweets and singing wedding songs. More and more young women -- some married with infant children -- are strapping bombs to their (sometimes pregnant) bellies, because they have been taught to love death rather than life. Look at what is being preached by some influential Islamic leaders:
"We are going to win, because they love life and we love death," said Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. He has also said: "[E]ach of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah." Shortly after 9/11, Osama bin Laden told a reporter: "We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us."
"The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death," explained Afghani al Qaeda operative Maulana Inyadullah. Sheik Feiz Mohammed, leader of the Global Islamic Youth Center in Sydney, Australia, preached: "We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech: "It is the zenith of honor for a man, a young person, boy or girl, to be prepared to sacrifice his life in order to serve the interests of his nation and his religion."
How should Western democracies fight against an enemy whose leaders preach a preference for death?
The two basic premises of conventional warfare have long been that soldiers and civilians prefer living to dying and can thus be deterred from killing by the fear of being killed; and that combatants (soldiers) can easily be distinguished from noncombatants (women, children, the elderly, the infirm and other ordinary citizens). These premises are being challenged by women like Zahra Maladan. Neither she nor her son -- if he listens to his mother -- can be deterred from killing by the fear of being killed. They must be prevented from succeeding in their ghoulish quest for martyrdom. Prevention, however, carries a high risk of error. The woman walking toward the group of soldiers or civilians might well be an innocent civilian. A moment's hesitation may cost innocent lives. But a failure to hesitate may also have a price.
Late last month, a young female bomber was shot as she approached some shops in central Baghdad. The Iraqi soldier who drew his gun hesitated as the bomber, hands raised, insisted that she wasn't armed. The soldier and a shop owner finally opened fire as she dashed for the stores; she was knocked to the ground but still managed to detonate the bomb, killing three and wounding eight. Had the soldier and other bystanders not called out a warning to others -- and had they not shot her before she could enter the shops -- the death toll certainly would have been higher. Had he not hesitated, it might have been lower.
As more women and children are recruited by their mothers and their religious leaders to become suicide bombers, more women and children will be shot at -- some mistakenly. That too is part of the grand plan of our enemies. They want us to kill their civilians, who they also consider martyrs, because when we accidentally kill a civilian, they win in the court of public opinion. One Western diplomat called this the "harsh arithmetic of pain," whereby civilian casualties on both sides "play in their favor." Democracies lose, both politically and emotionally, when they kill civilians, even inadvertently. As Golda Meir once put it: "We can perhaps someday forgive you for killing our children, but we cannot forgive you for making us kill your children."
Civilian casualties also increase when terrorists operate from within civilian enclaves and hide behind human shields. This relatively new phenomenon undercuts the second basic premise of conventional warfare: Combatants can easily be distinguished from noncombatants. Has Zahra Maladan become a combatant by urging her son to blow himself up? Have the religious leaders who preach a culture of death lost their status as noncombatants? What about "civilians" who willingly allow themselves to be used as human shields? Or their homes as launching pads for terrorist rockets?
The traditional sharp distinction between soldiers in uniform and civilians in nonmilitary garb has given way to a continuum. At the more civilian end are babies and true noncombatants; at the more military end are the religious leaders who incite mass murder; in the middle are ordinary citizens who facilitate, finance or encourage terrorism. There are no hard and fast lines of demarcation, and mistakes are inevitable -- as the terrorists well understand.
We need new rules, strategies and tactics to deal effectively and fairly with these dangerous new realities. We cannot simply wait until the son of Zahra Maladan -- and the sons and daughters of hundreds of others like her -- decide to follow his mother's demand. We must stop them before they export their sick and dangerous culture of death to our shores.
#2
"Has Zahra Maladan become a combatant by urging her son to blow himself up? Have the religious leaders who preach a culture of death lost their status as noncombatants?" Decisions, decisions
#5
Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius
Translation: Kill them [all]! surely the Lord will claim his own!
Sometimes, in my darker moments....
Posted by: N guard ||
03/04/2008 16:26 Comments ||
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I have frequent conversation with a young man in Canada his proposition, just nuke the whole middle east and be done with it. This is from a Pot smoking, liberal Canadian kid. It appears the real Youth of the west are rapidly losing patience with the religion of Islam. He keeps asking me why we (the USA) don't just glass Mecca instead of accumulating trillions of dollars in debt. He may have a point, I haven't made up my mind about that but the trillions in debt is pissing me off a bit.
#1
ELECTIONS at the district and provincial levels currently followed the "closed party list" system in which candidates running for office had to be chosen from lists provided by political parties. The system was designed during the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom by UN advisers who ruled out voting by geographical location for a variety of technical and political reasons.
So that's the source of our biggest structural failure in Iraq. I wonder what Donald Trump would charge to level that eyesore on Turtle Bay?
Posted by: ed ||
03/04/2008 16:13 Comments ||
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By CAROLINE GLICK
The Olmert-Livni-Barak government's latest exercise in saber-rattling has ended with customary haste.
Sunday Palestinian terror forces maintained their rocket and missile offensive against Israel, shooting 40 rockets, including upgraded Katyusha missiles at Sderot, Ashkelon, Netivot and surrounding areas. Whereas in 2005, 25,000 Israelis lived within Palestinian rocket and missile range from Gaza, the past week has shown that the number has expanded at least tenfold since then.
Monday morning, the limited IDF ground component that was deployed in Gaza on Saturday abruptly suspended operations and pulled out. The pullout came just hours after senior IDF officials announced that the forces in Gaza were about to be augmented by additional forces and Defense Minister Ehud Barak told senior military commanders, "The time has come for action. Hamas is responsible and will pay a price."
IT IS obvious that in suspending Operation "Hot Winter" in Gaza, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government essentially crumpled in the face of pressure from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President George W. Bush. Sunday night the White House issued a press release demanding that Israel end its operations in Gaza and return to the negotiating table with Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas.
FOR THEIR part, Abbas and his Fatah underlings have been outspoken in their support for Hamas's missile and rocket offensive against Israel. Sunday they organized joint Fatah-Hamas rallies in Hebron and Ramallah where rioters called for Israel's destruction, burned Israeli and American flags and then attacked IDF patrols and the security fence.
Truth be told, the US may have done Israel a favor preventing the escalation of operations. This is not because an offensive against Hamas's Iranian built war machine in Gaza is not vital. This is so because Operation "Hot Winter" was bereft of operational logic. Its strategic ends were unclear and, to the extent they were enunciated at all by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Barak, they bore no connection to the operations on the ground which were so limited in scope that they were incapable of achieving any long-term objective.
In one form or another, Olmert, Livni and Barak all said that the goal of Operation Hot Winter was to end the Palestinians' missile and rocket campaign against the Western Negev generally and against Ashkelon in particular. They intimated as well that the strategic objective of the campaign was to overthrow the Hamas regime in Gaza, and reinstall a Fatah government. Beyond that they said that they sought to kill or capture Hamas's leadership.
But the Olmert-Livni-Barak government gave the IDF insufficient tools to achieve these grandiose plans. They only allowed the IDF to deploy one infantry brigade and two partial tank battalions. They refused to expand the operation to a divisional sized force, which would still have been too small to achieve any significant or long-lasting results. The limited geographical scope of the IDF operation - in a 2-3 kilometer zone in northern Gaza - had no impact of Hamas's ability to continue to shoot off rockets and missiles whose ranges run from 5-25 kilometers. In short, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government enunciated operational and strategic objectives that it clearly had no intention of achieving.
TODAY THE Gaza Strip is a terror state run by an Iranian proxy. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in September 2005, Hamas and its terror partners in Fatah and Islamic Jihad have built terror armies along the model of Hizbullah. Hamas forces have received training in Iran, Syria and Lebanon. They have built up formidable arsenals of Katyusha and Kassam rockets as well as anti-tank missiles. And, according to Fatah and other sources, they have been augmented not only by Iranian, Syrian and Hizbullah operatives. Al-Qaida has also built up a presence in the area.
This combined force successfully overwhelmed Egyptian forces along Gaza's border with Egypt in January. Its current capacity has rendered extensive portions of southern Israel exposed to missile and mortar attacks. And unless it is routed militarily, its capabilities will only grow.
Israel has limited options to contend with the present and growing threat. For the Olmert-Livni-Barak government, the easiest solution would be to have someone else fight Hamas and its allies for Israel. But no such proxy force exists. Both the Americans and the Olmert-Livni-Barak government operate under the assumption that Fatah is a reasonable proxy. But experience has shown that this is not the case. From September 2005 when Israel withdrew its forces until June 2007 when Hamas ousted Fatah from power, Abbas and his US-trained forces did nothing to curb Hamas's growing power or limit Iran's growing control over Hamas. Confronted by Hamas forces last June, Fatah forces cut and ran rather than fight and those who remained were largely integrated into Hamas's burgeoning army. Since June, Fatah has shown no willingness to confront Hamas. And over the past week of Hamas's escalated missile offensive, Fatah stood foursquare with Hamas against Israel.
THEN TOO, the notion that an international force could be deployed in Gaza to protect Israel from the growing terror army at its doorstep similarly lacks credibility. At no time has any international force - whatever its composition - ever been interested or capable of defending Israel against Arab terror or military offensives - whether from Gaza, from Lebanon or indeed from Egypt or Syria. And there is no reason to believe that this historic state of affairs will change significantly in the future.
In the absence of proxies, Israel has two options going forward. First, it can incapacitate Hamas and second it can try to deter Hamas. To incapacitate Hamas, Israel must launch an operation aimed at cutting off Hamas's logisitical supply lines through the border with Egypt. It must fight Hamas forces on the ground with the aim of defeating them, and it must kill or capture Hamas's senior and mid-level leadership. Given that like Hizbullah, Hamas and its state-sponsors will seek to regenerate any diminished capacities by rearming and promoting new leaders, these operations must be continuous. Consequently, to incapacitate Hamas, and so secure southern Israel, Israel requires a continuous military presence in the Gaza Strip.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2008 00:00 ||
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Would someone please explain the inner-workings of Israeli politics that allows Olmert/Livni/Barak to remain in power.
Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab Al-Youm reported today, through sources that an American message leaked by Egypt to Syria shows that the United States is ready to launch a broad military operation against Syria if it insists on its position on the Lebanese crisis and this is the real reason behind the deployment of USS Cole in front of the Syrian - Lebanese waters
The source said that the official announced reason of Condoleezza Rices visit to Egypt is to push the Palestinian - Israeli peace process forward but the real reason is to explain the American military actions and the presence of the American ships to the Egyptian leadership.
#2
See also REDDIT > BUSH'S EFFORT TO INSTIGATE PALESTINIAN, LEBANESE CIVIL WAR vv alleged manipulation of the PA, and arming, supporting FATAH to destroy HAMAS???
#3
Senior VP SPOD: since all the regulars know you're trolling on a favored regular's name - shouldn't you show the grace and good sense to pick a new nym? I assure you that your response weighs heavily on whether we read/acknowledge you comments hence. Pick a nym of your own.
Frank
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2008 22:31 Comments ||
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There are more signs of a wider regional war as Tears for Lebanon (TFL) and Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) are reporting Army Commander General Michel Suleiman has ordered his officers to "achieve high combat readiness of their units to confront all expected possibilities, especially defending the southern land, maintain domestic security and stability."
General Suleiman was issuing the directives to his senior commanders of Lebanon's most important units from his headquarters at Yarze a suburb east of Beirut.
This is definitely within the time-table of Tehran as most of Lebanon's military has close relations with Damascus-Hezbollah.
He said the army's "basic duty is to prevent the Israeli enemy from occupying Lebanese territories or attempting to use them as a passage to launch an aggression against Arab brethren."
Though Lebanese units in the south began to assist Hezbollah during the 2006 war the rest of the military in the north began to realize they should cooperate with Tehran during the three month fighting last year against the suicide unit Fatah al-Islam at the Palestinian refugee camp city Nahr al-Bared near Tripoli.
Fatah al-Islam was sent by Tehran for just that purpose. Almost the day after that conflict finally ended last August General Suleiman stated publicly Lebanon can now turn its weapons against its main enemy-Israel.
Now Iran wants them to go into action and I suspect Tehran has helped re-arm Lebanon's army just as Iran has re-supplied Hezbollah. Suleiman also stated yesterday, "The army's determination is backed by the people and the resistance to confront any new Israeli aggression with all available means and capability.
Defending the land is a sacred right consolidated by international charters; it is a national priority that deserves unifying resources and efforts." He concluded by pledging the army will not fall back "if the enemy decided to occupy the south because abandoning this territory means abandoning the whole of Lebanon."
Though Lebanon has the weakest army in the region they will still be an obstacle to Israel's security in their north as Hezbollah will no longer have to face Israel by itself and Syria will also be active in the area perhaps re-entering the country not as an invader but as a military axis partner with Lebanon and Palestinian groups.
I watched most of Beowulf over the weekend, and it was a technically marvelous disappointment. The portion where Beowulf fights Grendel in the buff is amusing Lo, the strategically placed weenie-blockers they had in Danish halls in those day. . . . The story contruded mightily with the original plot, too. The Christ-god has made men martyrs, full of fear and shame, says Beowulf.
"Hark what is that? I hear yonder hoofbeats of revisionist authors over the ridge, my liege. What shall we do?"
"Casheth the check, Hmerlthsgird, and return unto Mal-A-Bue, where maidens and mead doth await, dothily."
It was like that throughout the movie, and I can well imagine the first story conference: Gentlemen, we have one of the oldest legends of our civilization here, a tale full of robust heroism, a frank raw tale of a brave man against the dark forces of a demon-cursed land. Obviously we cant have any of that. It brings to mind this story about the lack of heroes in movies nowadays, and as regular readers probably know, Ive been banging that gong for years. If theyd made the original Star Wars in the current day Luke would have found out that the Rebellion was a false-flag operation set up by the Empire, and he would have renounced the Force, moved back home and sold pots. I fear the next Indiana Jones movie, in a way; its possible he will spend the fourth movie apologizing for the first three, and do his best to battle the forces of English imperialism as he seeks to return the Elgin Marbles.
By some odd coincidence thats the theme of this weeks comic book cover three Liberty Scouts hitting Nazis in the face with fists, and doing so with relish. In the olden times grown men didnt read comics; they read pulps and Astonishing Tales and Lurid Yarns and Fevered Jollies and other mags that presumed a certain amount of literacy. The comics were strictly kid-stuff, wish-fulfillment. I was lucky enough to come in at the end of the bad-guy era; it was okay to have evil Commies as the villains, even if they were from Unnamed Countries with chunky consonant pile-ups at the end of their name.
What happened? Intellectual isolationism; a parochial fascination with American deficiencies; the elevation of trans-national ideas that seemed grounded in sensible non-ideological concerns (save the planet! Stop world poverty!) but were quickly bent to an agenda that viewed capitalism and American power as the problem, and defined freedom down to a specific set of personal actions and attributes that not only neglected to include Property, but managed to make Property part of the problem. He said, enjoying his rank overgeneralizations. Chalk it up to the late boomers, and the generation that never really felt proud of America, and almost regarded the concept as something greasy and false.
Yes, yes, the usual parade of strawmen. But imagine a story conference for the Beowulf movie: you know, I see modern parallels here not surprising, given the timelessness of the epic. But the Mead Hall is civilization itself, an outpost constructed against the elements, and Grendel is the raging force that hates the song they sing-
They hate us for our singing! Knowing chuckles around the table.
No seriously, he does hate them for their singing. Thats the point. He hates what theyve built, what theyve done, how they live their lives.
Maybe he has reason. Thats the interesting angle. What drives Grendel?
Yes, youre right. Youre absolutely right. No ones ever taken the side of the demon in the entire history of literature, especially the last 40 years. By all means, let us craft an elaborate backstory for the guy who breaks down the door and chews the heads of the townsfolk, that we may better understand how we came to this point.
The difference between these films and, say, Pixar? (G)Nat is so excited to see Wall-E based on two short trailers that she built a robot in Girl Scouts tonight and named it Wall-E and speaks for it in the Wall-E voice.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2008 06:26 ||
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#1
My ex-fiance saw Beowulf in the theater. After it was over, she sent me a text message: "Saw Beowulf. Putrid"
Mind you, she's got two degrees in English and is a huge Tolkien fan. She probably read Beowulf in the Old English, or at the least in a side-by-side translation.
I feel sorry for anyone involved with that movie if they should cross her path.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/04/2008 8:00 Comments ||
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#2
Oh, and if anyone's tempted to see "Pathfinder", don't. God, that movie sucked, despite having some promise -- a story about a Viking child orphaned in Vinland? Interesting!
Except, it wasn't. It was cliched and ham-handed. The Vikings were straight off a heavy metal album cover -- horned helmets, Games Workshop armor. They brought horses to the New World, and actually had cavalry. There was a scene where the hero stole a shield and rode it down a snowy mountainside, with Vikings following him the same way. I swear, one of them hit him half a dozen times with a mace, and it did NOTHING.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/04/2008 8:03 Comments ||
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#3
Hollywood throwing their millions into educating the rubes only to find out that no one really cares what they think or say anymore. The whole Hollywood scene reminds me of a fading silent-movie star. They still believe in their own greatness and the rest of the world could care less.
#4
Ah guys, the fight with the dragon was worth the price of admission. Those of us who had to read Beowulf in the original (Hwaet! We Gar-Dena in geardagum.....)just take it as another Hollywood "inspired by" remake.
#5
I might watch it for the Sci-Fi and CGI animation (and the Dragon fight) but not for the 'story'.
How many people saw the 'Beowulf and Grendle' movie from a few years ago? That had Grendle as just another misunderstood misfit who was 'wronged' when the [bigoted] villagers killed his father. And of coure it had the hapless (and powerless) christian preacher.
And your right, Pathfinder was horribly bad and stupid.
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