Posts from — February 2006

I looked back at the time, and have been tracking it ever since, and it is a clear pattern. Under the Republicans the military budget is designed to help defense contractors, while the real benefits increases come from the Democrats.

As this Army Times article and post from the Bad Tux show, that trend continues.

We have all of this new, unproven hardware in the pipeline and based on the design specifications, not actual performance, proven systems are being retired. They are cutting people to pay for this at a time when we are short-handed.

Anyone dropping by should know this because it may color something that I write. Governments that have attacked me, or my associates in the reconnaissance business, while we were engaged in non-hostile activities in or over international waters will never be my friends.

I have no problem with those involved in the unpleasantness in Southeast Asia, because we were doing our jobs and it wasn’t personal. It was a war and you are required to be hostile to the “enemy”.

The governments of North Korea, China, Israel, and Libya were not at war with the United States at the time of the attacks and I see no reason to excuse them for their actions. The aircraft and vessels were clearly marked, were outside their territorial waters, and they chose to attack.

Many are probably unaware of the majority of these attacks, but I lost friends or was severely inconvenienced by evasive maneuvers, so I don’t intend to forget or forgive, no matter what my government decides to do.

I don’t mind playing the game, although I have a shoulder that gives me a bit of trouble from a block I threw playing for my squadron in Germany that resulted in a brutal sacking of the opposing quarterback. If I’m not playing, I couldn’t care less.

ARRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!

Use: Tom Delay’s gerrymangling has resulted in a district that will not vote for him.

The “Hammer” has managed to forge his own nemesis with the hubris of his mid-census period re-districting.

She lays out a lot of good ideas, indicating that she has been storing up and refining her principles while away from the keyboard.

Go. Read. Enjoy.

In his piece on the bill, Len has an opinion from a judge in a case under the new law which explains to the people filing for bankruptcy why he is required to screw them, even though he, the judge, knows it is wrong.

Also, diplomats say Egypt made a proposal to include a reference to making the Middle East a nuclear weapon free zone.

This was rejected by the US, which saw it as an attack on Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

But diplomats told AP news agency that Washington eventually agreed to the clause after it received overwhelming backing from European allies.

Which never seem to make it into the reports from CNN. But then CNN gets quotes from Americans like:

U.S. Sen John McCain, R-Arizona, said military action is the last option for resolving the crisis, but it can’t be ruled out if all diplomatic efforts fail.

McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that if Iran gained nuclear weapons, it would destabilize the entire Middle East, especially since Ahmadinejad’s recent comments that Israel should be wiped off the map indicate that Iran is “dedicated to the extinction of their neighbor.”

“It’s a very bad option. It’s the worst of all options except for allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons,” McCain said. “We will exhaust all possible options before seriously considering the military option, but it cannot be taken off the table.”

First, John, look at a freaking map. Did Iraq and Jordan slip your mind? Do you really want to bring up the record of countries who have conducted preemptive attacks on other countries in the region?

The real problems in the area all go back to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nothing anyone does means anything until that core problem is resolved. There is little point in trying to deal with symptoms while avoiding the cause.

At a minimum they should put Blogger status on a totally different service so you could find out what’s going on with the site. Hint: if the site is down you can’t tell people what’s happening. The concept is called redundancy and was one of the reasons the military was interested in the concept that led to the Internet.

Bob only knows when the problem will be resolved.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Exodus – Chapter 20, Verse 4 [KJV]

What you have to understand is that Muslims really believe this.

MSNBC has Why Muslims are mad over prophet cartoons written by a Cairo correspondent, and the BBC has Q&A: Depicting the Prophet Muhammad, a more formal explanation.

While European newspapers are rushing to show solidarity on the free speech front, it was difficult to find the offending cartoons on the ‘Net. Fortunately, Jeff at Speedkill was able to track them down in English.

In the BBC article, Muslims urge new cartoon protests, there is a timeline of major events:

30 Sept: Danish paper publishes cartoons
20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors complain to Danish PM
10 Jan: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons
26 Jan: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador
30 Jan: Gunmen raid EU’s Gaza office demanding apology
31 Jan: Danish paper apologises
1 Feb: Papers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain reprint cartoons

Many people dismiss this as peculiar to Islam, but Christianity has been over this ground more than once. Idolatry is a charge often used by some fundamentalist Christians to describe Catholics.

The Danes had every right to publish the cartoons, just like they have the right to deny the Holocaust took place, that Hitler should have won World War II, that the Soviet system was good for Eastern Europe, that slavery was good for American blacks. Of course, no one would protest those things, right?

The only thing those cartoonists had to do was not explicitly label the individual depicted as Muhammad. Everyone would have gotten the point, but all of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world wouldn’t have a religious obligation to be angry at Denmark. The Islamic fundamentalists have been handed a golden opportunity to promote hate against the West and every Westerner is now in danger in Islamic countries.

I congratulate the Danish cartoonists. The US needed a clueless cabal of neonitwits, the expenditure of billions of dollars, and the invasion of an Islamic country to create this kind of hatred.

™ ^{[Kevin Drum]}

The Dinner Crowd

Oh, good it’s the pink stuff.
Soylent Green is better.
Maybe tomorrow.

[Editor: Ringo’s Dad, Tonto, Lone Ranger, Scooter’s Mom, and Scooter down front. Oh, the greenery in the white planter is supposed to be catnip according to the seed packet.]

Friday Ark

An example of the kind of coverage they provide was their trip to Bethlehem to talk to Palestinian Christians about the impact of living under the rule of the Muslim fundamentalist Hamas. The American media don’t seem to understand about the fundamentalism of Hamas, and probably forgot about the native Christian community in the area.

The picture you get from the coverage is that most “pundits” missed the level of dissatisfaction with the corrupt rule of Fatah. Many people, who were expected to vote against Hamas, supported them in the belief that if the corruption weren’t brought under control, the Palestinian Authority would lose the international funding it needs to continue.

The current problem was exacerbated by the international community insisting on the transfer of authority from the President of the Authority to the Prime Minister. This was caused by the refusal of Sharon to deal with Arafat. Now there is a moderate President, Mahmoud Abbas, but the Prime Minister will come from Hamas, proving once again that you should be careful what you wish for.

The BBC has interviewed Hamas officials and they make some obvious points: Why should we recognize Israel when Israel refuses to recognize Palestine? More Palestinians have died as a result of Israeli raids, than Israelis have died as a result of Palestinian raids. When will Israel return to the 1967 borders as mandated by the UN Security Council?

Israel says that these things have to be negotiated, but before there are negotiations, Hamas must recognize Israel and denounce violence.

Most governments say they would not give money to a Hamas government because Hamas is designated as a terrorist group.

CNN has an interview with Jimmy Carter that covers some of his views, but he was much more eloquent in his BBC interview when he reminded people that Menachem Begin’s career ran from the King David Hotel to the Camp David Accords.

Menachem Begin was the leader of Irgun when they blew up the King David Hotel. Even the founding government of Israel considered many of the actions of Irgun to be terrorism. And, yet, he went to become a founding member of the Likud Party, a Prime Minister of Israel, and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for joining Anwar Saddat at Camp David and taking the steps that resulted in peace between Egypt and Israel.

Carter believes that Hamas should be given to the chance to move along the path to becoming a political party, although he doesn’t recommend direct payments to them. Carter has a track record on bringing peace to the Middle East and he has credibility with both sides. He can, and does speak to people on both sides.

The reality is that the voters had Fatah and Hamas to choose from, and they rejected Fatah. If you refuse to deal with the winners of the election, you can’t really claim to support democracy.