Posts from — August 2006

When you read this CNN headline, Machete-wielding woman outside White House, what is the vision in your mind? The Rwanda massacres? The Moro running amok in the Philippines? A crazed woman running towards the gates of the White House with a machete raised over her head?

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The movies lately have been pretty pathetic, I think it’s time to remake a classic: Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

I’m not sure about the other roles but Joe Lieberman would be a wonderful fit for Senator Joseph Harrison Paine and Karl Rove is an obvious choice for Jim Taylor.

EDB at Anecdotes from a Banana Republic celebrates the end of the first month of the conflict and the Escalatory ceasefire. Apparently not enough people were wounded or killed during the month, so there is a push to up the rate before they have to pretend there’s a peace.

Pierre also notes the Cease-Fire Fantasies of everyone not actually on the killing fields of Lebanon.

I’m still wondering how anyone can claim that Hezbollah is targeting civilians when it kills 2 Israeli military for every Israeli civilian with unguided weapons, while the Israelis are killing at least 3 Lebanese civilians for every 2 Hezbollah military with guided “smart” weapons.

There is something that the Israelis need to understand: after an extended period of terror people run out of adrenalin and can no longer sustain the feeling. They tend to divide into two camps – apathy and anger. The anger is generally directed towards those that terrorized them.

A less generalized and more targeted campaign could have been successful in driving a wedge between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanon, but the generalized, civilian targeted campaign Israel conducted welded Hezbollah to the rest of Lebanon as the only force striking back.

1. Yogi Berra – American philosopher and sportsman.

John McKay has uncovered the new strategy by the city of Phoenix, Arizona to deal with the homeless: blowing them up!

So there’s this item, let’s say a TracFone® prepaid wireless cellphone, for example. Now poor people living in the inner city can’t afford the regular wired telephone, so they use these prepaid phones.

The phones and the cards you have to buy for airtime minutes are available in the convenience stores that actually exist in the inner city, but the big stores, let’s say Wal-Mart, for example, sell a package that costs $50 in a convenience store for $38.

You’re an intelligent guy/girl and you have access to a car, unlike your neighbors, so you drive to the nearest Wal-Mart, which is nowhere near any inner city, to buy these packages to sell back in the city for $43.

If your name is Park Lee, you are a free market entrepreneur living the American dream.

If your name is Osama Abulhassan or Maruan Muhareb, you are a terrorist.

Amazing how that works.

Update: FBI: No terror threat to Michigan bridge. The three guys from Texas with the 1000 TracFones, bought them to re-sell them and had pictures of the bridge because it’s an amazing sight for people from Texas, according to the FBI.

Ron Suskind has a piece in the nest issue of Time, How to Stay One Step Ahead, in which he writes:

Here’s another lesson from London. Human intelligence routinely trumps fancy and often legally problematic surveillance techniques. The key to discovering the plot was apparently a citizen from Britain’s diverse Islamic community who, in the days after last summer’s bombings in London, overheard something troubling. He contacted authorities. An investigation took root. Imagine: a Muslim man sitting across from a British intelligence official at a cafe, off hours. They have little in common. Some would say they are natural opponents. But a thread of shared interest leads to the passing of information and, a year later, to saving grace.

The U.S. intelligence community is in a poor position to replicate that. Concerned citizens in the Muslim world who are close enough to radicals to see or hear something pertinent seem less inclined than ever to sit down with an American. “They see us right now as an angry, reckless giant supporting the bombing of kids in Lebanon,” says a top U.S. terrorism official. “If they were to see something troubling nowadays, they’d be more inclined than ever to simply look the other way. It’s their inaction-on a vast scale-that’ll kill us.”

It does no good to hoover up phone conversations: there is too much data. A single tip from a person can point to a “thread” that can be traced, and if “pulled gently” can unravel the entire plot.

Shock and Awe™ ^{The Shrubbery Inc.} didn’t work in Iraq or Lebanon, and can’t work in the GWOT™ ^{The Shrubbery Inc.}.

Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

The people in charge are a bunch of sniveling cowards who shouldn’t be in charge of anything more dangerous than a cotton ball.

Pierre provides an erudite version in his post, When Terror Is the Foil, but John Rogers at the Kung Fu Monkey lays it out, down and dirty, in his post, “Wait, Aren’t You Scared?”.

They couldn’t rescue people in New Orleans until the “security situation was stabilized,” because military chopper pilots who dropped through hell to hit a hot LZ for a med evac would be too intimidated to chance the possibility of a gun shot!?! If they hadn’t blocked them, there were dozens of “good ol’ boys” from the bayous with their jon boats ready to help, and if you shot at them you better duck, because they would shoot back.

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I have actually used these explosives…as a child. We called them “Poppers” and they were little gray pebbles that “exploded” when you threw them on the sidewalk. That should give you some idea of how unstable TATP is.

The pertinacious penguin, Badtux, is annoyed with the idiotic screening process at airports: Beware the Shampoo of Mass Destruction!

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BBC reports that Hezbollah ‘will observe UN truce’. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said, “We will not be an obstacle to any decision taken by the Lebanese government.”

He also said that Hezbollah would continue fighting as long as Israeli soldiers remained in Lebanon and that includes the Shebaa Farms area, which means that he hasn’t actually changed his position. If Israel stops attacking Lebanon, he won’t send rockets into Israel, but he will still attack any Israelis in Lebanon.

Israel is about to change governments and there will be major changes in the IDF as a result of this invasion. Nasrallah has all of the cards, as the Likud and supporters will find out if and when they talk to the military. If they attack again they will probably finally meet the real Hezbollah army, which will come as a nasty shock, followed by finding out how effective the Kornet missile system is against helicopters.

One loss against Hezbollah is bad, but a second loss would be disastrous for the state of Israel. Hezbollah has slowed its rocket attacks to get ready for the attack it knows is coming after the next Israeli election. The Likud and their allies will want to recoup their pride and that will be a fatally stupid move.

CNN is reporting: Security Council passes resolution to end conflict in Lebanon. Israel won’t vote on the measure until Sunday because of the Sabbath.

No word yet on whether Hezbollah is willing to accept the deal.

Everything I’m hearing and reading indicates that not long after the fighting stops, Likud will force a no confidence vote and call for elections to replace Kadima and Olmert. There will probably be a major purge in the IDF staff.

The reason is that people are upset that the IDF couldn’t roll into Beirut in 48 hours, like the last invasion.

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In addition to John at archy, now Watertiger at Dependable Renegade want hits before her birthday on Monday.

It would be nice if people with nothing else to do dropped by.

At the beginning of a segment of Day to Day with Juan Williams titled: Lieberman’s Loss Sparks Iraq War Debate , Madeleine Brand noted that people were using the UK terrorist arrests for political purposes, and she specifically pointed to Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney.

I may be wrong, but the media might be beginning to understand the difference between reality and spin.

It didn’t occur to me, but the airline security regulations are going to cause chaos for the arts: Cabin baggage ban hits musicians.

The baggage holds are unheated and the baggage handlers are not known for delicacy. Insurance companies won’t cover instruments that are put in the hold. Most musicians buy a separate ticket for their instrument so that it has its own seat, so even if they buy a special case to protect the instrument, they are uninsured and the airlines are going to lose that second ticket.

Ships and trains may come back in vogue.