I found this while searching for an iguana stew recipe. Curacao and peppery food - what could be better?

Via Wired - an article about how we're winning the hearts and minds of the community by protecting them from crime, putting the 'cops' out on the street, refusing to back down when confronted with bullshit excuses.

Sounds like what Giuliani did for New York City...

In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social — Not Electronic

His name is Joe Colabuno, and he's a sergeant who works in psychological operations — psyops, in military-speak. His job is to win the hearts-and-minds battle, and his tools are almost comically simple: posters drawn in Photoshop, loudspeaker and radio broadcasts pasted together with SonicStage and saved to MiniDiscs, the occasional newspaper article, and, above all, his own big mouth. Arab culture lives by its oral traditions; talk is often the most important weapon. "I find the right people to shape, and they shape the rest," Colabuno says.

Just as in Tarmiyah, troops in Fallujah are looking to recruit locals to keep tabs on their neighborhoods. Yesterday, on the west side of town, an alligator [alligators are watchmen who've come to be known in other towns as "alligators" for their light-blue Izod shirts] helped catch one of the Americans' top insurgent targets in Fallujah. After seeing a photograph, the watchman ID'd the guy as a neighbor, living just a few houses down the street.

But an alligator-recruiting drive yesterday in the Askeri district, in the northeastern corner of town, didn't go so well. The marines got less than half of the 125 they were looking for. So Colabuno hops into a Humvee to find out why.

We pull up to a narrow, unpaved street alongside the Askeri recruiting station. A group of seven men sit on the gravel, beneath a set of drying sheets. In the middle of the crowd, leaning on a cane, fingering prayer beads and dressed in white, is a rotund, bearded man. He's clearly the ringleader. Colabuno and his wire-thin interpreter, Leo, approach him. In every other district, they've recruited plenty of alligators. "Why not in Askeri?" Colabuno asks the ringleader.

The money's not good enough, he answers. An alligator makes only $50 a month; day laborers get $8 a day — when there's work, that is.

"That's the weakest argument ever," Colabuno says. The men looked stunned; Americans don't normally speak this directly — they're usually deferential to the point of looking weak, or just condescending.

"Do you remember Sheikh Hamsa?" Colabuno asks. Sure, sure, the men nod. The popular imam was killed more than a year ago by insurgents, but they're a bit surprised that Colabuno knows who he is. Most of the US troops here have been in town for just a few months. "Well, Sheikh Hamsa told me that weak faith protects only so much.'" The ringleader stares down at the ground and fingers his beads. Colabuno has hit a nerve. "You know, I looked in the Koran. I didn't see anything about Mohammed demanding a better salary before he'd do God's work," Colabuno says, jamming his forefinger into his palm...

A skinny man at the back of the pack speaks up, telling Colabuno that the Americans are just here to take Iraq's oil. "Yeah, you're right. We want your oil," Colabuno answers. Again eyes grow big with surprise. "We want to buy it. So you can pay for jobs, for water, for electricity. Make you rich." The men chuckle. Everyone shakes hands. Askeri's alligator quota is filled by the next morning.

...Or our State Department's simply pathetic existence

As Father Samir Khalil Al-Yasou'i said*:

There's no doubt that among the countries that violate human rights the most, one finds China and Saudi Arabia. This is well known. But this constitutes cowardice on the part of the Western world. They dare not say a word to Saudi Arabia, because they need the Saudi oil and money. So they keep quiet. This is cowardice.

That was one of many things they got right in "Lawrence of Arabia" The Arab fighters respected Lawrence, not just because he was an Arabist and a decent tactician. They also admired him because he was fearless, verging on reckless.

When Arab leaders and/or 'radicals' push us, we appease, we cajole and negotiate. "Deferential to the point of looking weak, or just condescending" has been the basis of our foreign policy in the Middle East for decades. No wonder they have so little respect for us.

Our diplomats are like the joggers in LA who get eaten by mountain lions. Yes, the West is at the top of the food chain, but we don't act the part. Instead of standing our ground, we run, acting like prey. Therefore, we're treated like prey.

Our military and men like Colabuno are doing their best to undo the damage that the idiots in the State Department have done for years.

Guess who gets paid more. As 'the people' who control what our government does and who pay their salaries, shouldn't we do something about that?

From Michael Yon's "Men of Valor":

To interpret events in al Basra, context is critical. When we invited the British to join us in this war in 2003, the U.S., with the bulk of troops and assets, was the senior partner. In essence, we were the driver of a bus filled with several dozen partners: Poland, Australia, Japan, Georgia, Korea, Albania and so on. Although several key countries had opted to stay home, no nation stepped up to the task like Great Britain, taking responsibility for southern Iraq. But they could not have not planned for the seemingly precipitous and arbitrary decisions made by the mostly American bus drivers in Washington and Baghdad, who took many turns without consulting an accurate map. Egos and strained competencies only magnified and compounded errors. Nobody paid more for these mistakes than Iraqis and Americans, but the Brits and others have also paid tolls for their seats.

Counterinsurgency experts cautioned Coalition members from the outset that military forces would have a limited shelf-life. There can be a finite expiration period during which popular perceptions shift, and liberators become viewed as occupiers, and eventually as malignant beings that must be expurgated. While the American shelf-life in some regions was measured in weeks and months, tolerance for the British was measured in years. But when American stewards made early and notable missteps that extended the war, the British outlived their welcome in the southern provinces...

....By 2007, when the U.S. military had made a rapid metamorphosis and was meeting the insurgency head-on, despite that the transformation was stunning in both speed and outcome, it came too late for the British, whose expiration date in Basra had passed. Increasing tensions in Basra between rival political factions were beginning to undermine an otherwise successful mission in that region. With fewer forces on hand at a time when the British might have been planning final withdrawals, Basra’s many feuding factions galvanized hostilities around a central target: the British.

But for the most part, the work of British soldiers in southern Iraq went largely unnoticed by the media and unappreciated by anyone else. On both trips with the British, I made a point of asking British soldiers how they were treated back in the United Kingdom. They said they are mostly ignored; occasionally expressing a muted desire to get the treatment they imagine American soldiers get. British soldiers seem to imagine our soldiers get big parades and so forth, and hugs from strangers at the airport. And to be sure, many do, especially in Texas, they say.

American soldiers get care packages from people they do not even know, and those packages are morale boosters. American soldiers get cards from kindergartens from sea to sea, and the soldiers paste the cards all over the walls of their headquarters and hospitals. I don’t know what it is about those homemade cards, with their squiggly letters, stick figures and smiley-faced suns, but whenever I am in hospitals in Iraq, those cards from the kids greatly lift my spirits. I’ve seen the British get cards and packages like this, but nothing like the quantity, variety and frequency of what American soldiers get. And, of course, not everyone was indifferent to British efforts in Iraq. As for the British fighting, the enemy was always present in the background, but it was not until Telics 9 and 10 that the enemy truly came alive...

Men of Valor I

Men of Valor II

Men of Valor III

We sit outside and argue all night long
About a god we've never seen
But never fails to side with me

- Primitive Radio Gods

Rosemary Esmay on Faith or Proof

You don't want to believe in a higher being? Fine don't. But don't fool yourself into thinking that you don't because you require proof. You don't require proof, you don't want proof. You choose not to believe out of fear. It's easier to live your life however you please, if you don't have to answer for it in the end. Cowardice is what that is, not higher critical thinking.

Willow has A Question for Atheists

Or former atheists, or anyone who has an answer they like. Every so often I like to see how far one of my fundamental beliefs can be stretched by intelligent opposition. Today I want you to try to convince me there is no God, WITHOUT referencing "the problem of evil." ...Nothing you say will offend me, except perhaps artistically, unless you flat out call me or any other theist retarded.

Hobbits/elves/brownies/little people could be based on this recently discovered humanoid species.

So, there could be a 'God' as defined by Christianity, or Islam or Judaism. There could be a Vishnu, a Great Spirit and a Sky Woman. Stories of dragons are told by many cultures - like fairies, aliens and monotheism, there is probably a factual basis for a belief in their existence.

As Arnold Harris says:

As for "universe", I'm finding serious discussions that there are likely to be multiple universes. Maybe each one would have its own little god. Sort of a caporegime or sub-boss, the way the Five Families of New York had things organized.

Since I don't really have a dog in this fight, what I really don't get is - people who believe in God (usually a God defined by religion) usually like to accuse the other side (atheists) of being 'cowards'. Atheists usually accuse the religiously faithful of not being logical or reasonable, 'retarded'. Why are these slurs used, and why are both sides so offended by them? Anyone who has ever met atheists or believers in real life knows that these generalizations don't apply.

Via My Fox NY:*

A single-engine plane with landing gear problems touched down safely Thursday at Morristown Municipal Airport.

The pilot report problems with his landing gear around 11:30 a.m.; the plane landed shortly after noon.

* Link thanks to Bruce

Michael Totten reports from Fallujah:

Fallujah is so close to Baghdad it is almost a suburb, though technically it belongs to Anbar Province. Even so, I have heard almost nothing about the Anbar Awakening here. I've always thought of Fallujah as a place unto itself. The locals and the Marines think of it that way, as well. Ramadi is the real city of Anbar. Fallujah is Fallujah.

Whatever else you might say about Fallujah, it's an original. For decades it has been the infamous bad boy city in Iraq.

Author Bing West describes the place this way in No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah. "Ask Iraqis about Fallujah, and they roll their eyes: Fallujah is strange, sullen, wild-eyed, badass, and just plain mean. Fallujans don’t like strangers, which includes anyone not homebred. Wear lipstick or Western-style long hair, sip a beer or listen to an American CD, and you risk the whip or a beating."

"Saddam rewarded Fallujah with money and recruited his secret police and fedayeen from here," Lieutenant Edwards said. “Now it is powerless.” It was also the backbone of the insurgency before it slagged off. Ramadi was the capital of Al Qaeda's so-called “Islamic State in Iraq. But Fallujah was, as the lieutenant put it, Al Qaeda's first club house.

It isn't nearly as dangerous anymore. I would be foolish to say it is safe. You would not want to come here on vacation even if the Iraqi Police would let you inside its walls – and they won't if you don't live here and have the proper ID...

"My number one concern remains security" Colonel Dowling told me. "My number two concern is education. I want the schools to be filled with kids. I want the schoolhouse teaching good information."

"Is anybody monitoring the content of their education?" I said.

"No," he said..

..."I make sure that my chaplain is out talking to the imams," he continued. "He goes out once a week and sits and talks to them about religion, values, orphanges, things like that. They see a different perspective from him than they do from the typical Marine. They see that we're very quick to help the poor, and that we'll readily give the shirt off our backs, particularly the Marines. And we back it up. I go to a school once a week just to see what's going on, and I've never heard any anti-coalition messages or anything like that. My Marines have never heard anything bad coming from the loudspeakers of the mosques. They either say coaltition forces are helpful, or a proverb, a direction on how to lead your life, or Thank God for the Iraqi Police. I prefer to hear a proverb and just erase or eliminate discussing anything about coalition forces, either good or bad."

Aid for mosques is dependent on imams pitching jihad over the side, but the Marines don't force a point of view on the Iraqis. Still, the colonel's preference for no pro-coalition messages was counter-intuitive.

"Why would you not want the imams saying something good?" I said.

"They can do it inside the mosque,"” he said, "but I don't need them to announce it. I would rather have normalcy added back to their lives, so they can go back to the way they were 20 years ago or 40 years ago. That's what I'd like to see..."

I've had emails from three people who claim to be - and who almost certainly are- Iraqi former employees of the British Government. All three say that they and their former colleagues are still at risk of death for their 'collaboration'.

We'll call the first man Employee One. He worked for the British for three years: 'I started in the beginning of the war with Commandos (in 30 of March 2003) then continued with 23 Pioneer Regt, and in 08 / 07 / 2003 I have joined the Labour Support Unit (LSU)'. His British friends knew him as Chris.

The British Government has announced that he can apply for help if he can transport himself to the British base outside Basra, or to the Embassies in Syria or Jordan. It doesn't seem to occur to anyone that there might be problems with this.

I can email and telephone this man: so can any Foreign Office official. It should not be impossible to verify his story and then send him the funds he needs to get to a less unsafe Arab country. But that is not happening.

Here's an email exchange we had the other day. My questions are in italics.

1) Are you still in Iraq? 'Yes, I'm still hidden in somewhere in the hell of Basra.'

2) Is there any reason you cannot travel to the British Army base at Basra Airbase to ask for asylum? 'Of course, we cannot travel to BIA (Basra International Airbase) due to the militia keep watched all the ways to BIA and they got their own fake check points there although, we claimed for asylum through the internet (we sent our application to the claim office at BIA) . But we afraid that the British are going to take a long time to process our claims also we are very worried if they will offer just some money instead of asylum, please sir inform all the British people that we looking for asylum and just the asylum will save our lives, also we can't travel to Syria anymore to claim for asylum there as the Syrian government issued new conditions for Iraqis who want to travel to their country.'

British Major General Graham Binns has proudly declared that said that since the UK disengaged in Basra, attacks on UK forces are down 90%.

Steve Schippert at Threat Watch says:

Applying this logic, attacks on British forces would be down an amazing 100% if they withdrew from Iraq entirely. Achieving a zero-attack level on forces is not the mission - in Basra or elsewhere.

From the TIME Magazine interview with Saudi Foreign minister Saud al-Faisal the questions they left out*:

What if Ehud Olmert disguises himself as a Mexican and tries to shake hands with you?
The hair-weave and mustache may fool me, but the hook-nose and tourist-quality sombrero would be a dead giveaway.

According to some medical journals, Israeli researchers have perfected limb-grafting and transplantation. What if Ehud Olmert grafted an Arab hand to his wrist and offered to shake hands with you?
I would demand the return of the stolen Arab hand and for Olmert to return to the 1967 borders...

...What if Ehud Olmert refuses to shake hands with you?
What?

What if he reaches out to you in a crowd, sticks his hand out, you reach for it, and he pulls it back and yells GOTCHA! or something?
I refused to shake hands with him first! Arabs refused to shake first long before Jews refused to shake first!

Maybe he sticks his arm through the arm of someone else and...
No, really. Cut it out. Do you want me to raise the price of oil, Infidel?

How do you respond to the accusation that you're not acting as negotiators when you make a proposal and then refuse to discuss its terms with the party it is being offered to?
That's as absurd as the accusation that 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Muslim Arabs. Everybody knows that Saudis never do an honest day's work in their life. That's what foreign workers are for...

* Link thanks to Ron at Likelihood of Success

At the end of this article [link thanks to Boker Tov Boulder] about the British schoolteacher who was arrested in Sudan for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad, the Beeb specifically requests responses from the Rage Boy crowd, asking:

"Are you in Sudan? Do you feel offended by what the teacher did? Should she be punished? Send us your views using the form below"

The Beeb hallucinates a Wall St meltdown [Link thanks to Irwin]:

The history of Newsnight's nightly markets update has not always been a happy one. On Thursday we reported that in New York the "Dow Jones was substantially down amidst more credit crunch fears". That's odd, many of you told us, as - being Thanksgiving - Wall Street's finest were on a day-off. Our economics editor Stephanie Flanders was mortified - "unforgivable and embarrassing" was her verdict.

This is, I am ashamed to say, not the first time we have made such a mistake...

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

* UPDATE: Well, this is weird. The Beeb has now removed their request for input from the Sudan from their webpage. (However, just to prove that I'm not making stuff up, here's a screen clip of the cached request via Google)

They took down the request, then they posted "Reader responses", with this statement at the top of the page:

BBC News website readers, as well as readers of BBCArabic.com, have been sending their reaction to this story.

Why was the Beeb trolling for outraged Muslims?

Via CNN:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Soldiers manning a checkpoint near Baghdad stopped a wedding convoy to find that the purported bride and groom were wanted terror suspects, an Iraqi Defense Ministry official said Monday.

...the people in the car seemed nervous and the groom refused to lift his bride's veil when soldiers asked him to, according to the official.

Soldiers ordered everyone out of the car, the official said.

Upon inspecting the convoy, soldiers found a stubbly-faced man, Haider al-Bahadli, decked out in a white bride's dress and veil.

Bahadli was wanted on terror-related charges, as was his groom, Abbas al-Dobbi, the official said.

..I finally tried poutine, a local delicacy made from french fries, gravy and cheddar cheese curds. I liked it, but I also like cheese fries. If you're in a carbo-loading mood, give it a try.

I do wish that it was a little spicier, though. Diners in the states usually have tabasco sauce or red pepper flakes that you can add on. Those are hard to find north of the border.

If we pay attention to history, common sense and most rules of human behavior, we would realize that the upcoming summit in Annapolis is, at best, a waste of time.

More reason for doubt. Our 'strong' ally, Saudi Arabia, gave its 'crucial' nod to the summit in Annapolis.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal may attend.

However, like his countrymen, our ally the Prince refuses to shake hands with a Jew*:

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said that while he was going to Annapolis, he would not join in any Arab-Israeli handshakes like those stage-managed by U.S. officials at past conferences, such as the one between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993.

"We are not prepared to take part in a theatrical show, in handshakes and meetings that don't express political positions. We are going with seriousness and we work on the same seriousness and credibility," he said after the meeting.

Here, a Saudi reporter asks the Wahhabi on the street if he/she, as "human being", would be willing to shake hands with a Jew. The response:

Respondent 1:

"Of course I wouldn't be willing to shake hands with a Jew, for religious reasons and because of what is happening now in Palestine, and for many reasons that don't allow me to shake a Jew's hand."

Respondent 2:

"No. Because the Jews are eternal enemies. The murderous Jews violate all agreements. I can't shake hands with someone who I know is full of hatred towards me."

Respondent 3:

"No, the Jew is an enemy. How can I shake my enemy's hand?"

Interviewer: "Would you refuse to shake hands with a Jew?"

Respondent 4:

"Of course, so I wouldn't have to consider amputating my hand afterwards."

Interviewer: 'If a Child Asks You Who 'Who are the Jews,' What Would You Answer?'

Respondent 5:

"The enemies of Allah and His Prophet."

Respondent 7:

"The murderers of prophets. Our eternal enemies, of course."

Respondent 8:

"Allah's wrath is upon them, as the Koran says. Allah's wrath is upon them and they all stray from the path of righteousness. They are the filthiest people on the face of this earth because they care only about themselves - not the Christians, not the Muslims, nor any other religion.

"The solution is clear, not only to me but to everyone. If only [the Muslims] declared Jihad, we would see who stays home. We have a few countries… There is one country with a population of over 60-70 million people. If we let them only march, with no weapons even, they would completely trample the Jews, they would turn them into rotten carcasses under their feet. There is another country that donated money, saying, 'I am behind you, I'll support you with weapons, just wage [ Jihad ].'

"But the cowardice inside us, deep within our hearts, was instilled by the Arab leaders, may Allah forgive them. They breast-fed us with it from the day we were born to this very day it has grown with us."

Which is about what Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said when he claimed that our policies in the Middle East were responsible for the attacks.

"While the U.N. passed clear resolutions numbered 242 and 338 calling for the Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip decades ago, our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis while the world turns the other cheek,"

These Saudis (or, "human beings") are responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Saudi Arabia is acknowledged to be "the hub of world terror". Yet our State Department and our president are begging these 'strong allies' to come to Annapolis.

To say the least, this is not reasonable behavior.

Why is our government so unreasonable? Father Samir Khalil Al-Yasou'i, a Catholic priest in Lebanon, had a theory*:

There's no doubt that among the countries that violate human rights the most, one finds China and Saudi Arabia. This is well known. But this constitutes cowardice on the part of the Western world. They dare not say a word to Saudi Arabia, because they need the Saudi oil and money. So they keep quiet. This is cowardice.

Cowardice isn't a reasonable state of mind. As someone said (Swift?) "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."

This explains our government's actions and this latest peace process.

* Links thanks to Solomonia, and LGF

Off to Montreal for a few days. Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Redacted, like Lions for Lambs, is bombing at the box office. No wonder. The 'anti-war' theme has been done and redone for decades. It's a minor industry in Hollywood.

A failing industry.

Discussing Iran's nuclear threat at Dean's World, Aziz P. says:

...the simple truth is that a nuclear Iran is far less a threat to Israel's existence, let alone ours, than the Soviets were during the Cold War. And recall the rhetoric of that age:

At some point amidst the amiability and the inability to reach every agreement, Khrushchev broke out in one of his flights of rocket rhetoric. "Technicians make me laugh," he said, "when they argue over the question of whether five or maybe six rockets armed with thermonuclear warheads might be needed to demolish Great Britain. We have at least twelve already pointed at that target." And then, looking at his guest, Khrushchev remarked that Italy, with its allied missile bases, could expect its share. "This is not a threat," he added with a straight face, "just a warning."

Deter that! oh wait, we did. We buried them.

Khrushchev's 'warning' was issued in 1961, about a year before the Cuban Missile crisis and Kennedy's 'make my day' response made the Russians blink. Those were the good old days, when US leadership was willing to accept the risks that went along with a nuclear arsenal.

Things are different now. Now, our leadership freaks out whenever some little dictator jumps up and says "I want nukes and I hate America". Sometimes we give the dictators bribes (Libya), sometimes we wage war against them (Iraq) but in both cases, we panic when confronted with the threat of WMDs. Panic is the worst response.

Now, our problems are still with the Russians. Iran couldn't build anything without their help. The Russians have observed how panicky we are and they're taking advantage of it. They want to see what kind of idiotic response they can provoke. If we start another economy-draining war against Iran, Putin wins. If we 'talk' to Iran and offer them pointless bribes, we look weak and Putin wins. Ahmadinejad does too. So does the next proto-nuke-armed little dictator.

If we followed Kennedy's example, if we just acknowledged that Iran is weak and not worth our time, and if we directly confronted Russia, we would win. But we won't do that, because we're not willing to accept the risks that we accepted during the early days of the nuclear age. Yes, we're gambling with billions of lives. In the age of nuclear armaments, we gamble with billions of lives every day - we've been doing that for decades. It's about time we remembered how to win.

According to Fausta, the King of Spain's famous shut up Hugo moment is a huge hit in Latin America. There's even a ringtone...

The "Por que no te callas?" fallout continues. While the story went mostly ignored here in the USA, it was the story of the week in Latin America and parts of the USA: there's even a ringtone:
The king's on the phone, and he says: 'shut up!'

To give an idea of how much attention the king's five-word outburst has received, consider the numbers on YouTube.com. Three YouTube postings with the exchange have been viewed almost 800,000 times.

By comparison, the first part of the YouTube/CNN Democratic debate received about 73,000 hits, according to YouTube.

In his essay describing Condi Rice's current efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, Staticidal Zealotry* Frank J. Gaffney, Jr says:

Condi Rice is nonetheless demanding that Israel now relinquish the West Bank and East Jerusalem to yet another terrorist organization: Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah. To be sure, the Secretary of State would have us believe that Fatah is no such thing. In fact, the entire Annapolis house of cards is built on the fraudulent foundation that the Palestinian faction established by Abbas’ mentor, Yasser Arafat, is a reliable partner for peace and effective counterweight to Hamas, which now controls the Gaza Strip.

In diplo-speak, we must support moderate "effective counterweights" because if we don't the terrorists will take over.

Yes "effective counterweights" do commit acts that look suspiciously like terrorism. They also employ paramilitary groups that are ‘out of control’, ‘militants’ and ‘rogue elements’ that look suspiciously like, you know, terrorists. But they can’t be terrorists because they’re ‘out of control’, ‘militants’ and ‘rogue elements’.

..and they're employed by moderate, effective counterweights.

It’s a stunningly obvious, bumbleheaded sleight of hand that, for some odd reason, fools 100% of the politicians 100% of the time. Personally, I think they want to be fooled, because no one could be that stupid.

In related news, Abbas' Fatah/Al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade has claimed credit for murdering an Israeli civilian who was minding his own business, driving his car.

We know Abbas is repsonsible and we know that this will have no effect on the peace process.

We also know that our Arab partners in peace are supporting the militants, rogue elements, effective counterweights and insurgents who are currently waging war against Israel. Still, the peace process will go on as planned.

As Omri of Mere Rhetoric says, "anyone else get the feeling that something other than level-headed analysis is driving the push to get Israel to give away land?"

Saudi Horrors at Dean's World

Falling Out [Charles Johnson vs. Gate of Vienna, and Brussels Journal] at Fresh Bilge

Karol at Alarming News asks What's a movie of questionable quality that you have to watch every time it's on?

I tried this Japanese hot pot dish for the first time at Pho 32 & Shabu in Little Korea.

This Korean place also serves a decent Vietnamese Pho.

If you've never tried Shabu shabu, I'd recommend this place, but I wouldn't recommend that you start out with the seafood, as I did. It's hard to judge cooking times when you're just starting out, and with shrimp, you want to know that it's done. I may have overcooked it.

Beef is probably best to start out with.

Little Korea used to offer a good selection of traditional food, but a lot of new, trendier places have popped up. Pho 32 is a fun place that offers quick, yummy food with Korean pop music. It reminded me of one of my long lost favorite places, Dosanko's.

Don't know how I'd missed it for so long.

My favorite discussions so far -

It's a Wild World with William Hartung and Lee Smith

Skyping at the Watergate with Matt Yglesias and Megan McArdle

..Like a ship without an anchor
Like a slave without a chain
Just the thought of those sweet ladies
Sends a shiver through my veins

And I will go on shining
Shining like brand new
Ill never look behind me
My troubles will be few

- Supertramp, "Goodbye Stranger"

The Times wonders if old age and senility will bring back free love:

In one of the few cultural examples exploring old love — the film “Away From Her,” based on an Alice Munro short story and released in the spring — the starting point is similar to the O’Connors’ story. A man who cannot imagine life without his sparkling wife of some decades watches her slip into Alzheimer’s and then a romance with another patient in a nursing home. In the fictional example, the spousal devotion is such that he arranges for her new boyfriend to return to the nursing home after seeing how crushed she is when the man moves away.

But the story is more complex. The husband had a series of affairs years earlier, so what seems like devotion is also a desire to pay her back and to ease his own remorse.

For Olympia Dukakis, whose mother had Alzheimer’s and who played the wife of the other man in the film, that wrinkle explains the resonance of Ms. Munro’s story.

“She was very aware that contradictory things live together,” Ms. Dukakis said. “You can’t look at it and say he did it purely for love. It’s a complicated issue, because there’s a lot of life that has been lived. It’s not going to be simple.”

Still, for all those kinds of complications, those who study aging can only smile at young lovers who say they never want to become like an old married couple. Despite the popular preference for young love, the O’Connors’ example suggests that we should all aspire to old love, for better and for worse.

"Young love is very privileged, and as a culture that may be a mistake," Dr. Pipher said. "If you want a communal culture where people make sacrifices for each other and work for the common good, you would have a culture that privileges the stories of older people."

..not the same malware, but something very close to it. Beware..

[Link thanks to Charles at LGF]

At Winds of Change, Armed Liberal discusses the issue of waterboarding:

Patterico is a friend, and a smart guy, and someone who would make me cringe in fear if he were ever to prosecute me. And a wonderful husband and dad, I'm sure. I'm saying this in no small part because he took on a challenging hypothetical about torture, and I don't think he's a bad guy for asking the question.

His hypothetical is this:

His hypothetical is this:

Let’s assume the following hypothetical facts are true. U.S. officials have KSM in custody. They know he planned 9/11 and therefore have a solid basis to believe he has other deadly plots in the works. They try various noncoercive techniques to learn the details of those plots. Nothing works.

They then waterboard him for two and one half minutes.

During this session KSM feels panicky and unable to breathe. Even though he can breathe, he has the sensation that he is drowning. So he gives up information - reliable information - that stops a plot involving people flying planes into buildings.

My simple question is this: based on these hypothetical facts, was the waterboarding session worth it?

I'll reply that a Chinese Wall (as we used to say in banking) between what we do to foreign terrorists and our own citizens is certainly going to get breached when we confront equally serious domestic ones. And we have the pesky problem of defining who, exactly is a terrorist, and who is a political opponent.

So we're back to the idea that the foundation of our society isn't loyalty freely given, but fear of transgressing, and fear not of social ostracism, but of the torturer and the bullet in the back of the head.

There are societies built like that.

We're fighting them...

...Not treating KSM with kid gloves isn't torture. Reacting to abuse or bad behavior from him - even sometimes violence - isn't torture.

Calmly sitting him down and saying you'll put him into excruciating pain unless he talks to you is. Because you are denying him his ownership of himself, in some moral way.

A society that readily accepts torture reduces those who live in it to meat. It dehumanizes them. It dehumanizes those who do it. And it makes the societies in which those nonhumans live something other than the kind of human society we want to live in.

KSM isn't a part of our society, he's an enemy combatant. If we made a reasonable evaluation of what makes up our enemies' military infrastructure, KSM, the organization he represents, the bankers and politicians who pay his bills, and the people who are employed by them are enemies, not subject to any protection under any civil law, no matter what citizenship they hold.

However, since terrorism's military/political infrastructure includes many of our most trusted allies in the war against terrorism, our government is not willing to make a reasonable evaluation. We hold hands with the leaders of "the societies in which those nonhumans live". We arm them. We send them billions of dollars. We're not fighting them.

In standard warfare, the troops are easily identified. They wear uniforms, they're out in the battlefield. Their job is to protect the politicians and the financiers who direct them. But the politicians/financiers are also, legally, 'the enemy'. In a standard war, harming the enemy's economy, countering their propaganda and destroying their military forces are all equally important.

Terrorist 'troops' are not easily identified. Their identities are protected by their politicians and the financiers, who are in turn protected by nothing but implausible deniability, smoke and mirrors. These politicans and financiers are also 'the enemy'.

Right now, our government refuses to harm the enemy's economy, partly because they're profiting from it. The most important part of the enemy's propaganda is their implausible deniability. We never counter that. We don't treat the financiers of terrorism as enemy combatants, we give them the full protection of our civil laws. We give the Saudi sponsors of terror diplomatic immunity.

When our government is willing to legitimize, empower and tiptoe through the tulips with the leaders of terror supporting nations, the issue of torture is relatively small. We might be able to prevent one terrorist attack by waterboarding KSM. We could probably prevent hundreds of attacks by imprisoning the politicians and financiers who support him. For those politicians and financiers, one day without room service is torture. They're easier to deal with and easier to catch.

In related news, 10,000th attack by Islamic terrorists and militants since 9/11 occurred. These attacks are responsible for approximately 60,000 dead and 90,000 injured. How many of those attacks can be traced to the petrodollar-fueled Muslim Brotherhood, or to Saudi financed madrassas? I'd guess close to 75%.

If our govenrment stopped empowering terror supporting states, if we enforced our own laws, they could prevent tens of thousands of attacks.

So, should we torture? Of course we shouldn't. We didn't need to use torture during WWII because we were directly and honestly confronting the enemy. This time, we're fighting a very small percentage of the enemy. The rest of the enemy forces out there are being appeased. Or we call them allies. Torture is a symptom, a sign that our entire strategy in this war is diseased. You can't win a war when you're allied with the enemy.

Ali Eteraz - Pakistan is Political Darwinism on Crack:

There is a reason for this vast disparity of opinions about Pakistan: it is perhaps the most honestly-Darwinian political system we have encountered in recent times. It is not Iran (with its oligarchy), nor North Korea (with its god-king), or Ba'athist Iraq (with its genocidal-lord), nor Egypt (with its Arab strongman), nor Burma (with its junta). Pakistan is, basically, disorder unplugged; political pluralism on complete and utter crack.

The guiding principle in Pakistani politics is that there are no principles.

And the National Geographic

If there is an address, an exact location for the rift tearing Pakistan apart, and possibly the world, it is a spot 17 miles (28 kilometers) west of Islamabad called the Margalla Pass. Here, at a limestone cliff in the middle of Pakistan, the mountainous west meets the Indus River Valley, and two ancient, and very different, civilizations collide. To the southeast, unfurled to the horizon, lie the fertile lowlands of the Indian subcontinent, realm of peasant farmers on steamy plots of land, bright with colors and the splash of serendipitous gods. To the west and north stretch the harsh, windswept mountains of Central Asia, land of herders and raiders on horseback, where man fears one God and takes no prisoners.

This is also where two conflicting forms of Islam meet: the relatively relaxed and tolerant Islam of India, versus the rigid fundamentalism of the Afghan frontier. Beneath the surface of Pakistan, these opposing forces grind against each other like two vast geologic plates, rattling teacups from Lahore to London, Karachi to New York. The clash between moderates and extremists in Pakistan today reflects this rift, and can be seen as a microcosm for a larger struggle among Muslims everywhere. So when the earth trembles in Pakistan, the world pays attention.

Animal rights fanatics talk amongst themselves when a birder admits killing a cat:

The case has prompted emotional commentary on the Internet. Cat enthusiast blogs have called Mr. Stevenson a “murderous fascist” and a “diabolical monster.” Birding blogs have defended his right to dispense with a “terrible menace” and have set up funds to help pay for his defense.

I love Bollywood, and the Bolly theaters here in Jersey that serve Samosas and popcorn.

This * is interesting twist..

[*link thanks to City of Brass]

Richard Landes describes his thoughts before the viewing of the France 2 al Dura tapes:

The viewing of the tapes at this afternoon’s trial has created a good deal of excitement, at least in the small corner of the news world that cares about things like Pallywood and Al Durah. At least five journalists have come to Paris for this event, including Stephane Juffa from Metulla, and Esther Schapira from Frankfurt, both of whom made the first documentaries on the story, Melanie Phillips and Tom Gross. Journalists have started taking an interest and making calls.

But we don’t know what will happen tomorrow, nor how what happens effects not only the case (February 27), but the direction of this entire affair. So let me present some of the issues I think relevant.

1) It’s not obvious to everyone that the staged scenes are staged.

As one commenter noted here, when first viewing the rushes I’ve put up, it’s not clear what I mean by Pallywood. It takes a practiced eye. Only after viewing the material several times and keeping certain facts in mind (position of the Israelis relative to the scene), and overcoming a certain predisposition to believe that what you’re seeing is true, can you begin to realize what’s afoot. (For material to work with, go here.)

It takes getting used to what’s happening because everything you see defies your expectations until you realize it’s being staged. So people who view it are torn between imposing their expectations on reality and absorbing what’s going on — the modus operandi of Pallywood. That is, someone fakes an injury, others pick him up and run him to an ambulance, past cameramen like Talal, and then everyone goes home in the evening to see if they got on TV.

I'm not getting much work done today because my system was infected by a trojan vundo, a nasty bit of spyware that was slowing my machine down with annoying popups and misspelled demands to install a phony anti-spyware program.

My securities expert and beloved spouse is currently working on the problem. He said that there were a lot of recent complaints about vundo attacks. If anyone out there knows where the point of infection could be, please let me know.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Magic Muslim beloved by US presidents and university administrators alike, who will always be too sexy for his mustache, is exploring new heights of bad taste and self-indulgence:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - In the annals of excess, it could be a new high: a more than $300 million, super-sized luxury airplane, bought and outfitted solely for the private comfort of a Saudi Arabian billionaire.

Once done, the Airbus A380, the world’s biggest passenger plane, will be a “flying palace” for Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the manufacturer announced Monday.

Airbus SAS would not give a specific price tag for the VIP double-decker jet, with its football field-length wings, saying only that it would cost more than the aircraft’s list price of $320 million

At 83, less than a year after having hip replacement surgery, former President Bush, celebrating the grand reopening of his presidential museum in College Station, Texas.

His first parachute jump was in 1944 when his plane was shot down over the Pacific island of Chi Chi Jima

Last week I went to an Obama rally at North Carolina Central U. in Durham with my son and his friends.

Big news coverage. We bought tickets to the rally online. The purchase was recorded as a donation to Obama's campaign. When my husband saw the credit card record, (knowing what a Giuliani fan I am) he thought someone must have stolen my card.

Most of the crowd was herded to one side of a stadium. Only about 1/8 of the available seating was made available to the crowd. The rest of us had to stand. Since most of the crowd was pretty young, they didn't seem to mind.
My son and his friends had been to a John Edwards rally a few weeks before. They noted that the Edwards rally was not as well attended. And, unlike Obama, Edwards looked unhappy and 'sweaty'.

Some people were allowed to take these extra seats, but we weren't.

We had about a half hour before Obama was scheduled to arrive, so I took some pictures of the press...

A few minutes before Obama arrived, a campaign guy came up to us and told us that we were among the special 30 people chosen to stand in a cordoned-off section near Obama. We wondered whether we were chosen because we were very special, very desperate, or very attractive. We decided on 'attractive' and allowed ourselves to be herded closer to the platform.

When the mike was turned on, we found out why we were chosen. We looked gullible enough to accept places next to the biggest amplifiers. Most of us listened to the speech with fingers in our ears.

Obama with the Mayor of Durham, who endorsed Obama's candidacy. (an additional dis against John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who lives a few miles away)

My view through most of the speech.

Obama's speech covered most Democrat talking points; let's end the war in Iraq; lets fix the mess that Bush and Cheney have made, let's win back the respect of the world; He made a joke about his "cousin", Dick Cheney, the black sheep of the family.

He talked about fixing the health care system, a point that was a major hit with this young, under-insured crowd.

My son and his friends have seen Obama on TV a few times, and they noted that he said the same things with a few additions and subtractions here and there.

It was nothing new, but his delivery played well with the crowd. He gained a few fans that day (but I'm still a Giuliani girl)

Here's a Fox News reporter filing a report that may have led to this "little girl crying" controversy?

Shrinkwrapped: On Suppressed Rage

What I said: Karol at Alarming News vs. the Truthers

At Likelihood of Success, Small-hell Libertarians

Queen of all Evil: Two Peas in a Pod: Pat Robertson endorses Rudy Giuliani.

Via Peter Tatchell:

Despite six decades of Pakistani military occupation, the Baluch people have never given up their quest for independence. A recent Baluch grand jirga, or assembly, decided to approach the International Court of Justice at The Hague to force Pakistan to honour its autonomy commitments under the 1948 Instruments of Accession. Their legal case is strong but realpolitik may deny the Baluch the justice they deserve.

The West’s attitude towards Baluchistan’s quest for the resumption of its brief 1947-48 sovereignty has been less than honourable. Because Britain and the United States want Pakistan as an ally in the so-called “war on terror,” they have armed Pakistan and acquiesced with its suppression of the Baluch.

This is short-sighted political manoeuvring. Pakistan’s war against Baluchistan is strengthening the position of the Taliban, who have exploited the unstable, strife-ridden situation to establish bases and influence in the region. From these bases, the Taliban terrorise the more liberal and secular Baluch people and seek to enforce the Talibanisation of Baluchistan. The Pakistani government tolerates the Taliban, on the grounds that its presence acts as a second force to crush the Baluch people and weaken their struggle for independence.

The Taliban bases in Baluchistan are also hide-outs from which they mount military operations to overthrow the imperfect but democratically elected government of Afghanistan. This campaign to usurp power in Kabul and reimpose a fundamentalist regime seems to be taking place with the tacit collusion of key figures in the Pakistani government, military and intelligence services. The Pakistanis are talking no serious action to stop the Taliban using Baluchistan as a base for its war against Afghan democracy and human rights.

Cool app: A visual dictionary, thanks to Tatyana

Via ABC News: Danger in the Sky: Underfueled Planes *

As oil prices soar, it may mean that some airlines may soon not be. United Airlines has announced it may have to ground 100 planes because gas has become so expensive.

An investigation by WABC-NY reporter Jim Hoffer found that some airlines might be trying to cut costs by lightening the load and flying with less fuel. But that has put some flights and passengers at risk.

An examination of thousands of airport operational logs, air traffic tapes and interviews with pilots and controllers reveal airlines may be pushing the margin of safety by cutting back on the amount of fuel per flight.

At Newark Liberty International Airport, just five flights landed under minimum or low-fuel conditions over a six-month period in 2005. In a similar period this year, 73 flights came into the same airport with minimum fuel.

Perhaps most disturbing, an additional 10 flights had to declare the more serious emergency fuel situation - meaning they needed to land immediately or they risked running out of gas.

Air traffic controller Ray Adams says in the last two years he's noticed an astounding increase in the number of flights coming into Newark under minimum or emergency fuel conditions.

"When aircraft come into our airport at Newark with a minimum fuel state, they become a priority for us and it's an extra focus of attention on that aircraft, which increases the complexity of your already complex operation," Adams said.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires airlines to carry additional fuel in case of unexpected delays, but pilots who spoke to WABC said some airlines are putting pressure on them to cut back on this fuel safety cushion to save money.

at:

marypmadigan.wordpress.com

I hope to post at least one bit of photo news or a picture there every day.

Vinnie at Insignificant Thoughts recommended Wordpress, and so far it's been a pretty handy way to get a site up quickly without excessive geeking.

I've tested the page out on a couple of browsers, but if you see anything freaky on yours, please let me know.

Thousands of Palestinians apply for Israeli citizenship:*

Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem calling to set up an appointment with the Interior Ministry to apply for an Israeli citizenship will discover the next available interview date is only in April.

In the months leading up to the upcoming Annapolis peace conference talk of a future division of the city has prompted a staggering increase in nationalization requests by Palestinians seeking to escape life under the Palestinian Authority...

The 240,000 non-naturalized Palestinians in the city currently hold the status of permanent residents. As Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem they were also eligible to participate in the elections held by the Palestinian Authority.

As accepting Israeli citizenship was viewed by many within the community as tantamount to treason, most Palestinians opted to remain permanent residents and enjoy the benefits of living under Israeli sovereignty – full welfare rights, municipal voting rights and unrestricted movement - without putting their loyalty to the Palestinian Authority into question. The average Palestinian family in East Jerusalem currently receives a $770 monthly stipend from Israel.

"They've weighed the pros and cons of life under the Palestinian Authority and those under Israel and they've chosen," said residents in East Jerusalem of their naturalization-seeking neighbors...

"I don't know what the future holds. There's talk of the Palestinian Authority coming to Jerusalem. Personally, I don't think that will happen. But only God knows what will happen. I work as a mechanic for an Israeli company, I have both Jewish and Arab friends. I speak Hebrew and go out to Tel Aviv and Akko in the evenings. I just want a better future," he said.

..than under the kind of government that produces terrorism and sewage tsunamis?

Who knew?

* Link thanks to Steve D., who asks "I wonder how many people know that most Arabs in Jerusalem receive stipends from the Israeli government?"

I didn't..

No, not the Paulie Walnuts kind.

Well, maybe Paulie Walnuts with a BlackBerry.

Hyperpeople reports on a web development session by Mark Pesce:

..Fishermen form a tight-knit community; while they might be secretive about their favorite spots to fish, they all trade technique with one another, and – within a very short period of time – all the other Kerala fishermen had learned of the power of the GSM handset, and each of them brought their own handset to sea, made calls to the markets, and sold their catch for a tidy profit. Today, the fish markets in Kerala are only rarely oversupplied with fish, and are almost never undersupplied. The network of fish sellers and fishermen have created their own bourse, a marketplace which grows organically out of an emergent web of SMS and voice calls which distribute the catch efficiently across the market. The customers are happy – there’s always fish for sale. The fish sellers are happy – they always have fish to sell, and at a good price. And the fisherman are happy – and earning so much more, these days, that a GSM handset pays for itself in two months’ time.

None of this was predicted. None of this was expected. None of this was anything but shocking to the legion of economists who are now studying this unprecedented phenomenon. To our Western eyes this doesn’t even make much sense. We think of mobile phones as a bit of bling, a technological googaw that makes our lives a bit easier..

..Except they’re not.

Study after study is confirming something that many were already beginning to suspect: the very poorest people on Earth – the five billion of us who earn less than a few thousand dollars a year – can benefit enormously from pervasive wireless communications. It seems counterintuitive – why would a subsistence farmer in Kenya need a mobile phone? As it turns out, that farmer – and farmers in Nigeria, and Bangladesh and Peru – will phone ahead to the markets, and learn where their produce will bring the best price. Left to their own devices, human beings with things to trade will create their own markets. When mobile communications enter the mix, their ability to trade effectively increases enormously.

Those who serve the poor – microfinance institutions like Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank – have real experience of the power of mobiles to help the poor. So many of Grameen Bank’s loans went to finance mobile handsets that they recently founded their own telecoms firm – Grameen Phone – to provide services to the poor. None of this is charity work – all of these are profit-making enterprises; but it turns out that helping the poor to communicate is one of the most effective ways to help them to improve their economic effectiveness.

That, too, wasn’t predicted by anyone...

the network, in every form, is anathema to hierarchy. The network represents the other form of organization, not a contradiction of hierarchy, but, rather, a counterpoint to it. I’ve rewritten Gilmore’s Law to reflect this:

“The net regards hierarchy as a failure, and routes around it.”

For the fifty-five hundred years of human civilization, hierarchy has always had the upper hand. Now the network, amplified by all those wires and routers, is stronger than hierarchy, and battle has been joined. But this isn’t going to be some full-on Armageddon, a battle between the Empire and the Alliance; this is the Death of a Thousand Cuts. The network is simply kicking the legs out from under hierarchies, everywhere they exist, for as long as they exist, until they find themselves unable to rise again. What it really come down to is this: we are assuming management of our own affairs, because we are now empowered to do so. It doesn’t matter if you’re a maize farmer in Kenya or a video producer in Queensland; these mob rules apply to us mob...

...In a future which looks increasingly like the present, there is no center anywhere, no locus of authority, no controlling power ordering our daily lives. There are no governments, no institutions, no businesses that look anything like the limited liability enterprises born in the Netherlands five hundred years ago. Instead, there are groupings, networks within the network, that come together around a project or ideology, a shared sense of salience – meaning – for that group. The product of that network could be Wikipedia – or it could be al Qaeda. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

Since it was portable, and since cell phones were everywhere, that power would belong to the mobs, the masses, the people.

Or the hackers. In a code-based world, hackers with the proper kung-fu could bring governments and media outlets to their knees armed solely with Hot Pockets and a few lines of C ++. The net was power.

The 9/11 attacks destroyed that illusion. Even the best coding kung-fu couldn't reach the hairy-assed 'masterminds' of the attack in their Afghan caves. In those dark days, we needed the old hierarchy, with its organization, its defense capabilities, the kind of immediately updated news that only CNN, Aaron Brown and other talking heads could give. The old hierarchy was back in style.

But then the old hierarchy gave us their old solutions - more biased news, more "peace" plans, a realpolitik war, more pointless partisan fights. More of the same - the only difference was, the new mob was aware of it. We learned that the old hierarchy was not as effective as we hoped they'd be. We also learned that the perpetrators of 9/11 and their ilk rely on the same code we do. Similar strengths, similar vulnerabilities.

The mobs are getting restless again....

* Link thanks to Alan Sullivan

Ben L., who gets all the best views, sends this photo of a resident Upper West Side Liberal Hawk:

Ben says:

Okay, so technically it is a Peregrine Falcon, not a Hawk.

I am only assuming it's Liberal because it lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

But this little beast has been making itself at home in our scaffolding at the Riverside Church, terrorizing workmen. (they call it... "THE BIRD") It already tore up one man's jacket.

I've been spending the past few weeks traveling around the northeast, visiting friends and family, taking pictures of autumn leaves.

I also discovered (and rediscovered) some excellent blogs, like Tim Newman's White Sun of the Desert (recommended by Tatyana)

At Meryl's Bat Mitzvah, Judith and I met Omri of Mere Rhetoric, Anne of Boker Tov, Boulder and Lynn B. of In Context. They were just as wise, intelligent and witty in real life as in their blogs.

In Washington, Judith and I had a few dinners in the Adams/Morgan district, where all the cool kids are hanging out lately. Over fine French food and wine, we discussed random and great things with writers