I'm a little more off the grid than I planned to be, so blogging will be light this week. Be back soon..

Frenchman poised for 'Great Leap,' a 40-kilometer-high adventure

He has spent two decades, and nearly $20 million, in a quest to fly up 40 kilometers to the upper reaches of the atmosphere using a helium balloon, just so he can jump back to Earth again. Now Michel Fournier says he's ready at last to make his "Great Leap."

Depending on weather conditions, Fournier, a 64-year-old retired French Army officer, will attempt what he has dubbed Le Grand Saut (The Great Leap) on Sunday over the plains of northern Saskatchewan, Canada. He will climb into the gondola of a helium balloon that when inflated resembles a giant jellyfish. A two-hour journey will take him to 130,000 feet - higher than any balloonist has been before.

At that altitude he will see the blackness of space on the horizon and the curvature of Earth below, and experience weightlessness. Then he plans to step out of his capsule wearing only a pressurized suit and a parachute, and plunge to Earth in a mere 15 minutes.

If successful, Fournier will fall longer, farther and faster than anyone has in history. Along the way he will accomplish other firsts, breaking the sound barrier and records that have stood for nearly 50 years.

So yes, there are old parachutists and bold parachutists, and there are old, bold parachutists. Godspeed Michel Fournier!

In Pajamas Media, he describes his battle for freedom of thought and expression:

Today a French court ruled that I did not defame France 2 when I said that its news report was a staged hoax. Because I refused to be brainwashed, I was sued for defamation.

Our victory today was a victory for freedom — the freedom to think and to speak one’s mind; the freedom to question what one is told; and the freedom to disbelieve the solemn pronouncements of others when the individual concludes that his reasoning is correct and that the state and the state-run media — and all of the institutions they represent — are wrong.

The al-Dura lie is an assault on our ability to think, to criticize, to evaluate, and finally to reject information — especially the right to reject information on which we base our most cherished assumptions. One of Europe’s most cherished assumptions is that Israel is a vicious Nazi-like entity that deliberately murders Palestinian Arab children. Moreover, polls conducted in Europe have identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, greater than Iran and North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. The al-Dura hoax is one of the pillars on which these assumptions rely.

It is ironic that I, a private individual, had to lecture one of France’s most influential TV stations in order to demonstrate that a child cannot move; lift his head, arm, and leg; stare at the camera; and still be considered “dead” a good 10 seconds after the newscaster tells us “the child is dead.” One need only look at France 2’s own footage to realize that the “death” scene was faked.

My only objective was to correct this error. However, on the part of the French media, it turned into a titanic battle against critical thinking and freedom of thought and expression...

Richard Landes and Fausta have more.

As expected, Charles Enderlin of France 2 is sticking to his story, and most of the media is ignoring Karsenty.

Michele Catalano is back, published in Pajamas Media, discussing the case of Lori Drew, the 49-year-old mother of two whose MySpace prank resulted in the suicide of a 13-year-old girl.

Lori Drew, the mother of Megan’s former best friend, created “Josh Evans” for the sole purpose of interfering in her daughter’s social life. Drew claims she started the charade just to see if Megan was saying anything about her daughter on MySpace. Why it became mean, cruel, and vicious is something only she knows. She has made excuses for her actions, but none that excuse the abhorrent behavior that literally crushed Megan’s spirit and led to her suicide. A grown woman posted messages as a teenage boy, saying hurtful, horrible things to a 13-year-old girl that she knew was suffering from depression to begin with. How did she know? Because Megan went on vacations with that family. They knew she took medication. She was the best friend of their daughter. And yet this mother decided to interfere in her daughter’s life to the extent that she became a part of, and a cause of, so much teenage drama.

There were immediate cries for justice and punishment. Someone needed to be held responsible for Megan’s death and the public outcry indicated that they wanted Lori Drew’s head. But did she commit a crime? While her actions were certainly despicable and vile, were they criminal?

I met someone like Lori Drew..

When I was about 10, my mother's co-worker and friend, Eileen*, a psychiatric nurse, invited me over her house to play with her daughter, Anna**, another only child.

While we were sitting in the basement den, watching reruns of "The Munsters," and eating white powdered donuts, Anna casually mentioned that she had a crazy aunt living in her attic. According to Anna, this aunt, her mother's sister, had to be locked up in the room upstairs, hidden away, for many years because she was cannibal who ate children. Anna told me how scared she was of the crazy aunt in the attic. The whole story started her crying, and I felt awfully sorry for her, having to live in a house with a cannibal upstairs. I asked her what they fed her cannibal aunt. She held up a donut and looked through the middle of it.

Anna's tears stopped and she smiled. "These" she said. "Want to help me feed her?"

"No" I said, partly because I was scared, and partly because the cannibal aunt story was sounding more than a little cheesy. First of all, Anna stopped crying pretty fast. Also, I'd listened to Eileen and my mom talking a few times, and she never mentioned a sister. Eileen might have some really good reasons not to mention her, but then I remembered that they'd just moved into their house. Some of the moving tags were still on the furniture. The aunt couldn't have been locked in the same upstairs for years.

In fact, I remembered that Eileen's family moved fairly often. It would take a lot of work to set up an attic prison for a cannibal aunt. Even if they did have a mobile cannibal aunt prison, it just didn't sound like something they could have kept secret after all those moves.

Anna's response to my expressed doubts was to say "You're chicken".

I was, but the story still sounded like b.s.

Anna said, "I'll prove it to you." She took me upstairs, past her mother, who was working in her office. Eileen waved as we walked by. I carried the donuts. Anna carried a note pad.

We reached the attic door. The upstairs was brightly lit and freshly carpeted. The door to the attic was painted a sunny yellow. But there was, inexplicably, a small slot cut into the bottom of the door.

We sat crouched beside the door, arms wrapped around our legs. Anna slid a donut through the slot, then giggled into her skinned knees. I heard sniffing, then slurping behind the door.

Anna was nearly exploding with giggles by then, the kind that come from trying not to laugh. I smelled dog breath and figured out her dumb trick.

"You jerk, that's just a dog" I said, but then I heard the wicked cackles behind the door. That was no dog.

There really was someone behind the door. Anna didn't have any brothers or sisters who would be playing a trick on me - she didn't even know any other kids in town, because she just moved there. So who was that?

"See, I told you." Anna said. She scribbled a note asking her aunt if she was hungry. She slid the note through the slot. After a few demonic laughs the same piece of paper came back out, covered with what looked like drool. Anna read, nearly weeping with laughter. She said, "my aunt writes that she smells fresh meat". There was something written on the paper, but I was too busy running away to read it.

Terrified, I stumbled downstairs and bolted for the front door. Eileen, the mother and the nurse, was running behind me. She was laughing, just like Anna.

"We fooled you" they both laughed.

Anna said. "That was mom. She was just pretending"

Eileen, the 30+, respectable, employed adult, was apparently the mastermind of this plot. There was a fire escape that led from her office to the attic, and the previous owners had a pet door built in the door upstairs for a cat. She and her daughter came up with the cannibal aunt story and planned this all out before I arrived.

Their confession freaked me out more than the idea of a cannibal aunt. A mom plotting with her kid to scare the wits out of a 10 year old? My kid-brain couldn't process the idea that a mom would do something like that.

However, my brain could process the fact that Eileen was a psycho bitch, and there was no way I was spending another minute in that house.

My mother was upset that I walked home without telling her where I was, and she thought I over-reacted, but Eileen didn't come over much anymore. When she did, I'd leave the house. I didn't play with Anna anymore, but I did feel sorry for her, having a crazy mom.

So, yeah, shunning is the nicest thing we as a society can do for our Lori Drews.

* Not their real names

Todd Seavey on atheism and (not versus) faith:

And for all their rather mean-spirited insistence that we non-religious folk are myopic and self-absorbed (and nasty and hollow and what have you), it seems to me that religious people — aside from the gullible portion who believe sketchy reports of concrete miracles being observed throughout the world (bleeding statues and what have you), which would at least in principle constitute empirical evidence — tend to be the ones who think they can base plausible beliefs on little more than the deep internal wells of their own emotions and their own certitude. No scientist would be so arrogant and self-aggrandizing as to say "My theory must be true because it fills my heart with joy!"..

On the need to talk about these things:

...And so if one must probe a believer’s thinking — and I honestly don’t seek to do this as sport on a regular basis, but believers keep talking about the topic, and it would be unethical not to respond — one will usually find them implicitly or explicitly falling back on, essentially, a “Don’t make me sad” argument for continued belief. And no decent person wants to make anyone else sad...

...Just as it would be wrong to teach children that nothing that makes them sad (even in the short term) can be true, we are not helping to foster mental adulthood in our religious acquaintances by pretending that our desire to avoid saddening them is itself proof of the validity of their beliefs. I can happily stay off the topic if people don’t want to talk about it — and, wisely perhaps, most people don’t — but if they insist on doing so, they will not get my submissive pretense of assent. And even the most intellectually-sophisticated religious believers I’ve known (take for example Read Schuchardt, whose lecture on religious symbolism I’ll attend Thursday next week, 6:30, at the Albert Ellis Institute at 45 East 65th St.) have tended at some point to hint at believing out of fear of the imagined emotional alternatives: despair, loss of purpose, inability to make decisions, immoral impulses, etc.

Why not address such fears directly instead of clinging to something that wards them off at the price of abnegating one’s reason and skeptical faculties, like a child clutching a teddy bear? Not that one cruelly relishes being anti-teddy-bear, of course. (I like Pooh, who is not so unlike a Narnia character.)

More here and here...

People have been calling Bill O'Reilly's bit of temper here 'rage'.

They don't know their Irish. O'Reilly didn't leap over his desk, drop-kick the camera and throttle the teleprompt writer while swearing to salt his lands and bestow eternal vengeance upon his descendants.

That wasn't rage, it was hardly a hissy fit.

..featured in the New York Times:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Jane Novak, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother of two in New Jersey, has never been to Yemen. She speaks no Arabic, and freely admits that until a few years ago, she knew nothing about that strife-torn south Arabian country.

And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph — blond and smiling — is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or "the Zionist Novak."

The worst of her many offenses is her dogged campaign on behalf of a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, who incurred his government’s wrath by writing about a bloody rebellion in the far north of the country. He is on trial on sedition charges that could bring the death penalty, with a verdict expected Wednesday.

Ms. Novak, working from a laptop in her Monmouth County living room "while the kids are at school," has started an Internet petition to free Mr. Khaiwani...

...Nor does she have any background in Middle East studies. One of her opponents in Yemen accused her of being a Zionist member of Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. "I had to Google it," Ms. Novak said with a chuckle. "I didn’t know what it was."

It was after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that Ms. Novak, who used to work not far from the World Trade Center, first took an interest in the Arab world. "I thought it would be a good idea to write in the English-language Arabic press on subjects we could all agree on, freedom of the press, equality, stuff like that," she said.

In 2004, she started her blog, www.armiesofliberation.com, adorned with a Stars and Stripes logo, and soon wrote an article defending Mr. Khaiwani, who was in prison. He wrote her a letter of thanks, addressing it to "Jane Novak, the American journalist and political analyst."

More...

Sign the Petition to Protect Media Freedom in Yemen

Yemeni journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani

If Obama had any political skills at all, he would make the same point that the Wall Street Journal made:

A cardinal rule of presidential diplomacy is never to ask publicly for favors unless you know in advance they will be granted. The same request by Mr. Bush had already been rebuffed by the Saudis during his visit to Riyadh in January. This time around, the Saudi response was particularly blunt and condescending: "If you want more oil, you need to buy it," said Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister.

This second presidential humiliation comes even as the Administration is defending its decision to sell the House of Saud billions of dollars in advanced weapons, over the increasingly hectic objections of New York Senator Chuck Schumer. The Administration is also proposing to help the Saudis develop civilian nuclear reactors to provide for their energy needs. That may help the Kingdom export more oil by easing its domestic requirements. But we await the explanation for why the world needs another politically unstable Islamic theocracy in possession of radioactive fuel rods.

Okay, the WSJ's response wasn't harsh enough, but at least it was in the ballpark. Saudi Arabia isn't just another unstable Islamic theocracy, it's the worst unstable Islamic theocracy, the hub of world terrorism.

We're giving the sponsors of 9/11 cash, weapons and radioactive fuel rods.

That's our response to the 9/11 attacks. THAT's appeasement.

It's also stupidity on a most massive, nearly immeasurable scale.

However, I suspect that Obama didn't make this point because he's just as willing to appease the Saudis as Bush is. The Democrats and the Republicans have always agreed on our long standing policy of kissing Saudi ass. Which is why it's becoming obvious that politics in general are incapable of providing a solution to a problem like this.

They're incapable of providing a solution to the problem because they're spending all their time creating it.

The political solution to the oil crisis, which we've been warned about for years, is ethanol and appeasement. Hopefully, the market and scientific research will come up with better solutions.

Michael Totten: Lebanon will not become the next Gaza

Commenters both inside and outside the country compared Hezbollah's invasion of West Beirut last week to the Hamas takeover of Gaza last year, which is perhaps understandable: that's what it looked like. If Lebanon's mainstream Sunni-dominated party—Saad Hariri's Future Movement—has a militia that is able and willing to fight, it didn't make much of an appearance. Hezbollah seized the western half of the city in a walk. Most journalists focused on this portion of the conflict because West Beirut is where almost every journalist in Lebanon lives and where almost every hotel for visiting journalists is located.

Far less attention has been paid to Hezbollah's military and strategic failure in the Chouf mountains southeast of Beirut where Lebanon's Druze community lives. Hezbollah picked a major fight there and lost. After three days of pitched battles, its gunmen were unable to conquer a single village—even when they brought out mortars and heavy artillery.

The Druze are among the fiercest of warriors, and everyone in Lebanon knows it.

More..

The New York Times tells us to clean our plates for the poor, starving food rioters abroad...

...then they waste a ton of fruit and vegetables for this photo-op for Eurokitchens.

Like any bad parent, the Times' motto is "do as I say, not as I do."

Spring was one step ahead of the organizers of today's Al-Nakbah rally in Dag Hammarskjold Park. High winds and pouring rain drenched the few supporters who showed for this well-publicized gathering. But the weather can't take all the blame.

I've been to other rallies in this park, some held in the dead of winter, yet I've never seen a more poorly-attended rally.

According to this poll, only 9 percent of Americans consider themselves to be "supporters of the Palestinians." Americans know that Iran, the Gulf Arabs and many other Arab nationalist states are currently using the Palestinian cause as a weapon to wage war against Israel. Some Americans know about plans to apply Sharia law in the Palestinian constitution, Hamas’s use of children’s shows to recruit toddler-martyrs, the significant Palestinian suffering caused by Hamas’s mismanagement and Palestinian infighting, and the massive ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab/Muslim areas of the Middle East. It's strange that any Americans would support this cause, but, since 7% of Americans think Elvis is still alive and 10% would eat a rat or an insect on a "reality" TV show, it's not too surprising.

I arrived at about 1:30 in the afternoon, and missed the noontime march. Pamela of Atlas Shrugs was there. She noted that it consisted mostly of female schoolchildren who were bussed in. She took some great photos, and a video.

By the time I arrived most of the kids had packed up and left. They left their signs out in the rain...

...melting in the dark

..all that sweet green paint flowing down. So went the 60th anniversary of Nakba. The organizers will never have that recipe again.

Standing in front of a garbage can full of expensively-produced signs, organizer Charlotte Kates, spokesperson for New Jersey Solidarity, supporter of suicide bombing and former scientologist seemed to be taking it pretty well. Maybe her sunny umbrella cheered her up.

Former Congresswomen Cynthia McKinney, who became infamous in New York for begging Saudi Prince Talal for the ten-million dollar check Rudy Giuliani turned down, stood up to speak. Representing the Green party, she mostly described the reasons she hated America, the Democrats and the Republicans. No one seemed to be listening. Most of the press were trying to hide from the bad weather inside the coffee shop. They'd dart out and to take pictures, then they're run inside to finish their lattes.

Some sign carriers..

..and supporters remained...

..including a hostile looking fellow handing out copies of Worker's World News. I took one and used it to keep my camera dry.

The Neturei Karta were there, with plastic bags on their heads

A few people read their signs.

A woman carrying a sign demanding the end of the occupation "by any means necessary"...

..cried "Goody, Palestinian flags!"

Signs echoing Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar's demand for 'Palestine from river to sea' were popular.

One organizer told the crowd that the heavens were sympathizing with them, crying tears and blowing winds of outrage. That message didn't spread much cheer.

During an intermission, I headed west, looking for the pro-Israel demonstration that Pamela had organized. On the way, I saw this man standing across the street from the rally, holding this sign in the rain. I asked him what the sign said. It was a quote from the Babylonian Talmud concerning Sephardi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews. Check out my website, he said. Click on the exploding nuke and everything will be explained. I clicked and I still don't understand.

I found Pamela's group and took a few shots...

..as I crossed the street to get closer, my Nikon D70 flew out of my hands and crashed to the ground. The detached lens rolled on the sidewalk, the camera body lay open to the rain. A bicycle messenger shouted, "Oh, crap!" as he sped past the mess. I ducked under a canopy, dried the camera off, re-attached the lens and hoped that it wasn't dead.

After a few error messages, the LCD came back to life, and I was able to take this shot of C., happily standing out in the rain. But then it was time to go home.

All in all, this 60 years of Nakba rally at Hammarskjold Park was very similar to the last Charolotte Kates production I attended. Her New Jersey Solidarity: Activists for the Liberation of Palestine organization held a pro-Hezbollah teach-in in a dank church basement. Like Nakba, it was attended by alienated marxists and a smattering of Palestinians and their youthful supporters.

Like Kates' fan rally for Hamas, her Hezbollah fans saw themselves as lone idealists facing a hostile world. They hated the United States, but they also hated the United Nations. They hated the Republicans and the Democrats.

There was a lot of hate in that little Nakba rally.

UPDATE: Sam at Yid With Lid was there earlier. He took some great photos - go visit!

Like me, he also wonders what this drawing, which was on most of the signs, was supposed to represent..?

Chaim was also there earlier. He experienced a nasty Jew hating incident, which he describes here.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

Pamela H. was there too, and she's posted photos of:

The Nakba Youth and their Leftist advisors

The Nakba adults, signs and non-muslim Leftist supporters

the Pro-Israel and U.S. supporters

Dusty, commenting at Sol's, says:

Even the lure of live hip hop music and unbridled hate couldn't fill San Francisco's Civic Center's Nakba 60 rally. And they can't blame it on the glorious California weather...

Fausta has had it up to here with politics and the election process:

You can say that, at least for today, I'm "up to here" with all the bs.

Look at it: The 2-year long Presidential campaign is a thudding bore. No matter the facts, the media is intent on bringing about Obamatopia (Ed came up with Obamatopia). Hillary's not throwing the towel until there's blood on the Convention floor. McCain's embraced global warming. Worst yet, there's an excruciating five and a half more months of this stuff to endure, and then the politicians will start on the 2012 campaign.

Peachy, isn't it? Just thinking about it makes you warm all over, doesn't it?

Jon Stewart calls this media circus "the Long, Flat, Seemingly Endless Bataan Death March To The White House." Of course, that doesn't stop him from talking about it every night.

Other countries have election processes that last about a month. Our elections are a neverending series, a play that never closes, a black hole of a non-event, a 700 pound media hog that can never get enough rubber chicken and corn dogs.

If we ignore this media circus, can we make it go away?

Charles Malik from Lebanese Political Journal describes Hezbollah's attempts to intimidate opponents and the media on his blog and in this interview on BBC Radio 5).

-- Of the Radio 5 interview, Malik says:

If you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I never used the term coup d'etat. Someone passed him incorrect notes, it seems, as he also gets the name of the blog wrong (although their website lists it correctly).

Jeha at Jeha's Nail describes Nasrallah's Divine stupidity

Beirut Spring quotes two American "Liberal Neocons", who both ask if Iran is being smart while America is being dumb.

..and the blogger at I Hate Lebanon offers this not-so-unique point of view.

More updates at michaeltotten.com

A message from Doctors without Borders:

In many locations throughout the delta we are the only aid group present. As Juli Niebuhr, Deputy Country Manager for Myanmar told us today, "At the moment our main concern is to get the essentials to people through the most effective means possible."

Led by highly experienced local field staff, the teams started our emergency response with the supplies we had in stock, including rice, canned fish, shelter material, and medicines. The infusion of relief supplies flown in by Doctors Without Borders over the past two days will help the 22 medical teams now doing consultations, distributing food, and shelter materials. The teams now have 8 boats to facilitate distribution of supplies to those most in need.

But we are frustrated by the limitations Myanmar's government has placed on international staff. International aid workers already in the country are so far being prevented from reaching some of the most affected areas. International staff, particularly those with expertise in water and sanitation, are desperately needed but visa approvals have been exceedingly slow.

While the challenges are great, we are determined to do more to help the people affected by the cyclone. We have a fourth and fifth cargo plane on the way to Myanmar and will continue to press for permission to send in the dozens of international staff on stand by.

The longstanding support of donors like you has been critical to our quick response to disasters such as the Myanmar cyclone, the South Asian Tsunami, and the Pakistani earthquake. Please consider helping us provide medical assistance in Myanmar and in nearly 60 other countries around the world.

New York City, the crazy, happening town that just might melt off the map.

To say nothing of the bedbugs on the subway. No wonder people are so stressed out.

Ron Coleman explores the paradox of Mr. Spock

I took a drive down to Belmar yesterday, walked along the shore and watched the surfers. They don't just come out on warm sunny days. Down in Cape May, they're in the water all year.

Surfing in the cold Jersey waves never really appealed to me before, but for some reason, it looks more do-able now. Maybe that's because I finally have a wet suit. Or maybe it's because some of the surfers had boogie boards. Surfing on a long board takes skills I know I'll never have, but it would be fun (and good exercise) to paddle around on a boogie board.

You can rent boogie boards cheap down there. Surf's up!

Charles Malik reports from Beirut

Beirut is dead.

At 11pm, Gemmayze, one of Beirut's central night neighborhoods, closed up shop.

The late night places in Hamra, like De Prague, Barometre, Regusto (formerly, Chez Andre) and Evergreen, closed as well.

This is not the Beirut I know.

Alan Sullivan asks:

Our government resembles a seven-hundred pound invalid. Why do we keep feeding it corn dogs?

Dean Esmay, who is not a libertarian any more, also believes that eating less and exercising more does not necessarily cause a person to lose weight.

Mary, you’re correct that modernity is part of the problem with people’s inability to see the problem; we see people being fatter today, and we therefore assume that it’s something to do with laziness, lack of discipline, etc, because hey any moron can see that if you eat less you lose weight.

The real problem is that this is childishly simple reasoning. Your fat cells are not gas tanks that fill up when you eat and get emptied as you move. Even if they did work that simply, it would be hazardous to assume you could control your weight by simple calories in/calories out measuring, because there are multiple complicating factors.

The fact of the matter is that underfeeding causes bad health. It causes negative physical and mental symptoms consistent with starvation. You get these symptoms whether you’re overweight or not. There is substantial evidence, indeed, that fat people can actually pretty much starve, with all the same symptoms that a famine victim or a prisoner in a concentration camp goes through, all while swimming in their own fat.

At MJT's, Lee Smith conveys a report from a friend and colleague in Lebanon, Elie Fawaz, who says:

The War for Lebanon has not even begun yet in earnest and Hezbollah's “victory” in Beirut is not all it seems:

“So, we know that Hezbollah's well-trained fighters are in control of most of west Beirut. The decision taken by Walid Jumblat and Saad al-Hariri not to fight back in Beirut, but rather hand most of their positions to the army ended any illusion regarding the sanctity of the “resistance” – that it would never turn its weapons inward, for now its hands are dripping with the blood of innocent Lebanese. But it's different in the Chouf where Jumblatt's forces bloodied Hezbollah.

However, according to Associated Press reporter Bassem Mroue, Hezbollah's show of force in Beirut was only temporarily marred by fighting between "government supporters and opponents in Lebanon"

Near Beirut, paramedics said at least 16 people were killed in fighting Sunday in the mountains overlooking the capital. More than 20 people were wounded, they said, also on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

The fighting in the town of Chouweifat calmed late Sunday after Druse leader Walid Jumblatt called on his Druse opponents, who are allied with Hezbollah, to mediate a cease-fire and hand over the region to Lebanese troops.

Iran's state-run Press TV reported on its Web site that 17 opposition fighters were killed in the mountain clashes. It did not elaborate, and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia refused to comment.

Officials could not immediately provide casualty figures from other mountain towns where fighting also raged a day earlier. But the latest deaths pushed to 54 the number of people killed since violence erupted Wednesday, in the worst internal clashes since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

The AP report features this photograph and caption, which give the impression that Jumblatt's forces lost the battle.

A Druse woman, Yessra Halawi, reacts after her house burned Sunday during clashes between pro-government supporters of Druse leader Walid Jumblatt and Shiite gunmen and their allies in Chouweifat, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday May 12, 2008. Lebanese soldiers deployed across mountains overlooking the Lebanese capital Monday after at least 11 people were killed in fierce clashes between pro-Syrian gunmen and government supporters entrenched in the hilly plateau, security officials and paramedics said. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

But Fawaz reports that:

“The Chouf is calm now after fighting over the weekend in which forces belonging to Talal Arslan, part of the Hezbollah-led opposition, jumped sides and joined alongside Jumblatt's men. As the Progressive Socialist Party website reports: 'The free people of the Shouf roll back an attack by the Iranian militias causing severe casualties in lives and equipment.'..

..“After taking over West Beirut, Hezbollah tried to move to the Shouf, where there are two Shiite towns, Kayfoun and Qmatiyye. Hezbollah is trying to link them up to the Dahieh through the Karameh road, which links Dahieh to Choueifat-Aramoun-Doha-Deir Qoubel-Aytat-Kayfoun and Qmatiye, so that it can make encroachments, maintain access routes and not allow the Druze to surround the two Shiite towns.

“That was the plan, but Hezbollah got a severe beating in the Shouf. They were not able to penetrate anything, relying instead – for the first time in the current fighting – on artillery/mortar fire. To no avail. Yesterday alone we heard that seven Hezbollah fighters who tried to infiltrate got killed.

I wonder why Iran's state-run Press TV and Hezbollah militia didn't want to go into the details...

AP reporter Mroue boasts that:

...Hezbollah's show of force in Beirut served a blow to Washington. The U.S. has long considered Hezbollah a terrorist group and condemned its ties to Syria and Iran. The Bush administration has been a strong supporter of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's government and its army for the last three years.

In contrast, Fawaz concludes:

“And so, the Party of God has achieved the 'great victory' of conquering a few Beiruti streets, terminating the credibility of the army, hastening the prospect of its disintegration, and damaging beyond repair for the foreseeable future, the Shiites' ties to the Lebanese social fabric.”

Fawaz does not claim to be presenting the news from a completely unbiased point of view. But AP does. Thousands of media outlets present these AP reports to their readers, as if they were written and photographed by unbiased journalists. They're not.

It's no secret that Hezbollah has a history of orchestrating and blatantly staging media reports. Looks like they're doing it again. I wouldn't be surprised if Flat Fatima is getting a call from her agent right now.

Brian Ledbetter at Snapped Shot has been keeping track of Hezbollah's media manipulations. He says:

One wonders why Hezbullah feels it needs to even bother with censorship of the press, considering how friendly to the group the media already are.

In an insightful article written for Reason Magazine, Michael Young says:

“Writers and scholars, particularly Westerners, who lay claim to Hezbollah sources, are regarded as special for penetrating so closed a society. That’s why their writing is often edited with minimal rigor.”

If Western journalists are telling their editors that Hezbollah sources are 'closed', or hard to reach, they're telling more tall tales. I traveled to Beirut in Dec. 2006 (when Hezbollah was just threatening to take over the airport). I had never been to the Middle East before, it was my first hour there, and I looked every bit like the American soccer mom I am. Although I told the taxi driver who took me to my hotel I was a tourist, he told me that I was a reporter and he offered to take me on a guided tour of the Hezbollah-controlled areas in the south.

When we drove past a poster of Nasrallah, the taxi driver proudly said ‘there’s the man’. I assumed he was working with, or at least friendly to, Hezbollah. I didn't go on his tour, partly because he overcharged me for the ride to my hotel.

In my experience, Hezbollah is about as ‘closed’ to western reporters as City Line double decker tours are to tourists arriving in New York City. Check it out, check it out.

Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal writes:

Lebanon to West: Wake Up Fast!

...What Spain was in 1936; Lebanon is today.

Does anyone remember the Spanish Civil War? Briefly, a fascist revolt took place against the democratic government. The rebels were motivated by several factors, including anger that their religion had not been given enough respect and regional grievances, but essentially they sought to put their ideology and themselves into power. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy backed the rebels with money and guns. The Western democracies stood by and did nothing.

>Guess who won? And guess whether that outcome led to peace or world war.

Funny, I thought September 11 changed everything.

Why should Lebanese Sunni, Druze, and Christians risk their lives when the West doesn't help them? Every Israeli speaking nonsense about Syria making peace; every American claiming Damascus might split from Tehran; every European preaching appeasement has in fact been engaged in confidence-breaking measures.

Hizballah doesn't need to win a military victory but only to show it can win one, using that position of strength to try to force its demands on the moderate government. . The government has already accepted Michel Suleiman, Syria's candidate for president. But Hizballah and the rest say this is not enough: they want veto power over everything.

The goal of Hizballah, and its Syrian and Iranian backers at present is not the full conquest of Lebanon--something beyond their means--but to control the government so it does nothing they dislike: no strong relations with the West, no ability to stop war against Israel, no disarming Hizballah's militias or countering that group's control over large parts of the country, and certainly no investigation of Syrian involvement in terrorism there.

Why, three years after Damascus ordered the murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri do investigators dawdle, having edited out the names of top Syrian officials they blamed for the killing in their initial report?...

Israel bombed a nuclear reactor being built in Syria. Rice reportedly opposed the action. The world yawned...

...The battle isn't over, which is all the more reason for real--not just verbal--international action. Hizballah has made its point for the moment, that it is the most powerful and to it every knee must bend. Yet without serious political and diplomatic support for Lebanon's government and real costs inflicted on Syria and Iran, the battle will be lost eventually.

For all those in the West who don't like Israel, then at least help the people you pretend to like. Back the Lebanese government with real power and aid, covertly or overtly, those battling the radical forces in Lebanon.

Noah Pollak at Commentary:

What does the crisis in Lebanon teach us about Hezbollah? It teaches us the same lesson we learned from Hamas when it took Gaza: Islamic supremacist groups, despite their claims to the contrary, cannot be integrated into states or democratic political systems...

..The one thing Hezbollah has lost this week is the credibility of its claims to being a Lebanese “resistance” movement. Hezbollah has always countered concerns about its military buildup with the promise that it would never turn its weapons inward. The mask has fallen, and now it will never be restored. But it really doesn’t matter, and in some ways this fact might actually free Hezbollah’s hand — the group no longer need maintain any kind of charade at all that it has Lebanon’s interests at heart.

How is this situation going to play out in the coming days and weeks? That depends on a number of things, first among them being the question of how far Hezbollah wants to push its assault. The Druze, Christians, and Sunnis can field their own militias, and if open warfare comes to Lebanon there is a serious risk of outside intervention — that is, Syrian intervention, under the guise of a peacekeeping or stabilizing force. The Cedar Revolution will have been rolled back, only this time with an emboldened Hezbollah working in the service of a Syrian-Iranian alliance whose interests are more indistinguishable than ever.

Beirut Spring recommends against letting the Saudis/al Qaeda deal with the problem:

As Hezbollah moved into (Sunni) west Beirut and took on the moderate Future Movement, many will be tempted to portray this as a defeat for Lebanon’s Sunnis. That would be bad ideas whose repercussions will affect all parties in the country.

Unleashing the sectarian monster can seem like a good idea to Islamists allied with the Future Movement and to the Saudis, but they had better think twice before letting that genie out of the bottle. All parties, including the Future movement should actively portray this as a security and political situation, not a sectarian one.

Because before we know it, extreme elements can manipulate the sense of victimhood some Sunnis would have and target Shiaa symbols with terrorist operations that would unleash the same god-forsaken death spiral that exists in Iraq.

We don’t have to go through all what Iraq has suffered to realize that Al-Quaeda is not really what the Sunnis want for their protection.

Charles Chuman describes Lebanese reaction to Hezbollah's actions at Pajamas Media:

Shop owner Ali Amin contends, “We had no prior warning. There are always clashes in mixed areas during protests, but we had no idea that it would escalate when things started on Wednesday. I went to work on Thursday, and got trapped in my shop.”

Rania, a student at the American University of Beirut, notes, “My mother went to watch [Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan] Nasrallah’s speech at a friend’s house in [the Christian area of] Ashrafieh. The fighting started immediately after, and she had to stay there. My younger brother was at home all by himself. I got stuck at my boyfriend’s place, which was really awkward.”

A local pub owner spent Thursday night in his pub eating steak, watching TV, and listening to the Hezbollah, Amal, and Syrian Social Nationalist Party gunmen fire at opponents in the street. He says, “I was doubly trapped. There was fighting around my pub, and there was fighting in the area around my house. I had no choice.”

The Lebanese Army and the Internal Security Forces (ISF) did not participate in the fighting. Hezbollah faced little opposition to its takeover of the city. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt publicly declared that he put his faith in the Lebanese government, and would not allow Hezbollah’s militia to force private citizens and political parties, including his well-armed Progressive Socialist Party, into a clash.

Hezbollah militiamen and their allies from the Shia Amal Movement and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) now patrol the streets of West Beirut. One Hamra resident, observes, “Militia guys are all over the place, every couple a meters. The SSNP is putting up their flag everywhere, and I saw a couple new posters of [Syrian President] Assad.”

From the Lebanese Political Journal

Hezbollah has taken control of the media in Lebanon, and their propaganda campaign has already begun. They are currently presenting themselves as liberators of Lebanon, and allies of the Lebanese Army against a corrupt government supported by pro-government snipers and brigrands.

Hezbollah's militant takeover of Beirut and its systematic destruction of the authority of the state and freedom of the press suggests a sophisticated and planned campaign to take power. There is no hiding the violence Hezbollah used to seize Beirut and cut it off from the rest of the country. But as their media campaign is already showing, Hezbollah is employing subtle and sophisticated mechanisms to take over the rest of Lebanon. All news which could be construed as negative behaviors, such as the blatant destruction and corruption of Lebanese institutions, is hidden beneath a Hezbollah-dominated media blackout....

Targeting the Lebanese Christians

Hezbollah seems to be making a concerted effort to placate the Christian population. Ashrafieh was not attacked, and life is relatively normal in the Christian suburbs north of Beirut.

Al Jazeera is claiming that Hezbollah has made a "concession" by opening the airport road. As was told to me by a veteran Lebanese reporter, all of the journalists and news agencies reporting right now have been vetted by Hezbollah. Even if the news is true, it is written to present Hezbollah's actions as gracious.

Michel Aoun just gave an interview claiming that the crisis will be over soon. He even noted that the illegal occupation of Beirut's downtown by opposition militants will end soon. Many who watched his interview are happy to hear this news, despite it coming from a politician who appears to be Hezbollah's Christian spokesman. Once again, this sounds like propaganda that no other Lebanese faction is in a position to challenge...

..Depressing Conclusion

At the moment, it feels a bit like fall 2004 when the Syrians bullied all Lebanese factions into voting for a three year extension of Emile Lahoud's term in office. Rafiq al-Hariri resigned from office, and Lebanese parliamentarians and democratic activists kept their mouths shut while Syria appointed a government made up of its Lebanese cronies. When Lebanese politicians began to stir a bit, Druze parliamentarian Marwan Hamade was targetted for assassination, and barely survived.

According to NOW Lebanon online newspaper, pro-government websites are being attacked. So, we'll see what happens to this blog. The government's telecommunications company has probably been fully overrun by Hezbollah, and all of our calls and internet traffic could be monitored. A source in the pro-Hezbollah Syrian Social Nationalist Party claims that everything is being monitored right now. Good luck getting reliable news from Lebanon.

(Hopefully) more at NOW Lebanon

Analysis of the situation at Michael Totten's

..and Kouchner says France will not passively watch Lebanon go to war

Isn't that what we just did?

UPDATE: Jeha at Pajamas Media writes:

Second, in political terms, it is a victory that will have essentially destroyed the last shreds of Lebanon as a state. All Nasrallah’s eloquence will not hide the fact that Hezb has become no different from the Syrian army of old: an arrogant occupier with a birthright complex. The presidency will remain vacant even if the seat is filled; General Suleiman has proven himself to be unworthy of the presidency he has been longing after.

Third, in simple economic terms, Hezbo* is taking over an economy they are ill-equipped to control. When the parasite takes over the host, it kills the host and dies with it. While the thugs were taking over their positions, people were changing their Lebanese liras back to dollars.

Finally, in simple national terms, the defeat of the government would represent a defeat of the UN. With no chance of being implemented, UN resolution 1559 will wither away and Hezbo will keep their cherished weapons. But Resolution 1559 is now part of 1701, which also links the resolution to the armistice agreement with Israel and, more importantly, to Lebanon’s border demarcation. So Nasrallah will get to keep his weapons, and the Israelis will get to “redefine” the border.

As a result, we Lebanese may end up with a resistance without a people, an economy, or a land.

What are we fighting about, then?

* Jeha lives in Beirut and blogs at Jeha’s Nail. He refers to Hezbollah as “Hezbo” because he doesn’t believe in a “Party of God.”

Charles Malik posts today from Ras Beirut:

The bullets and RPGs are flying, again. There are sustained bursts, then quiet.

The RPGs make an interesting suction sound as they are fired.

It's dark. Oddly enough, many people in Hamra have their drapes open and lights on. That is surprising, but I guess shows that the situation is either not horribly bad, or that these people are just a bit ignorant.

Two separate friends both within two separate blocks in opposite directions just invited me to come over. Both assured me that the half a block in front of them are safe, but could not say anything about the rest of the journey.

It sounds like an RPG just landed on my street, though.

According to Yahoo:

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Security officials say that two civilians were killed in clashes between Shiite Hezbollah supporters and the government's Sunni backers.

The officials say the mother and her son died when a rocket-propelled grenade hit their apartment in Beirut's neighborhood of Ras el-Nabeh during Thursday's fighting.

Via Ya Libnan

Hezbollah holding an entire nation hostage:

Other unconfirmed reports indicated Hezbollah was planning to set up tents near Beirut airport, like they did in downtown Beirut on December 1, 2006, when they blocked the road near the governmental palace. The camp is still in downtown Beirut.

"Hezbollah is invading the city, by doing this," said majority MP Wael Abu Faour.

Hezbollah followers were seen patrolling on motorcycles in most areas near Beirut airport and their security men were seen standing with walkie-talkies.

Opposition sources close to Hezbollah told dpa that House Speaker Nabih Berri and officials in Hezbollah told the government the airport road would be reopened when the government reinstated the pro-Hezbollah airport security chief, Wafiq Choukair.

He was dismissed by a government decision on Tuesday after being accused of helping Hezbollah install cameras to monitor planes landing at Beirut International Airport.

"This is not an economic protest. This is an attempt to overthrow the government," said Salwa Baltagi 20, a supporter of the government.

In this article, written on Tuesday, resident of Beirut Charles Malik predicted that trouble was coming to the city

I'm heading to bed later than usual, tonight. This is because I doubt that I will need to be at work on time tomorrow.

A few opposition affiliated Lebanese unions are striking tomorrow. The last few times opposition affiliated organizations have protested it has meant attacks on those affiliated with the government and clashes with the Lebanese Army. This time, please allow me to assume that this protest is a disingenuous attempt to attack the Lebanese government and Army. I may be wrong, but actions speak louder than words (pardon the cliche).

I understand that the oppositiong is piping mad. The Lebanese Cabinet, which the opposition unconstitutionally claims is illegitimate, ruled yesterday that Hezbollah should not be allowed to have its own telephone network.

Hezbollah counters claiming that their network is needed to combat the Israelis, however the Lebanese government points out that Hezbollah is profiting significantly from their scheme. Often, when I receive calls from friends in the United States I see the country code +98, which is the country code for Iran. Often, it also has a 2 or a 31 after the +98, which indicates that the call was routed through either Tehran or Isfahan...

...Hezbollah also chooses to subvert state security by installing its own security network throughout Lebanon. They claim that the Lebanese network is insecure because it is vulnerable to penetration by Israelis, but if the Lebanese press and security analysts know about Hezbollah's radar system and spy cameras at the airport, how secure can they be?

More on Wednesday's crisis in Lebanon and the various events that led up to it at Malik's Lebanese Political Journal

I attended this conference featuring lectures by Joseph Massad, Gil Anidjar, Noha Radwan and Lila Abu-Lughod on a dark and stormy evening last week. Columbia's non-tenured Joseph Massad, whose manner and delivery reminded me of Vincent Price in his later films, stole the show, but many students in the audience were quietly unimpressed.

As Israelis look towards the future in their celebration of the nation’s 60th birthday, some Palestinians cling to the past by commemorating what they call the "Nakba" or "the catastrophe." A faculty panel discussion held at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) last month and titled, "60 Years of Nakba—The Catastrophe of Palestine 1948-2008," was one of many similar lamentations held worldwide.

The tone from the outset was grim. Speakers acknowledged that another "Nakba" anniversary was confirmation that combined Palestinian and Arab attempts to eliminate the Jewish state have not succeeded.

Despite this, Columbia's controversial associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history, Joseph Massad, was upbeat. According to Massad, the Israelis have won military victories, but the "Palestinian resistance" has successfully rebranded them. Through 60 years of tireless propaganda efforts, the Palestinian term, "Nakba," has replaced "Israel’s war of independence"; "apartheid" has replaced "Jewish sovereignty"; the "plight of the Palestinians" has replaced “the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland"; the "Palestinians" has replaced "the non-Jewish community of Palestine." And even in the culinary world, Massad claimed, "Palestinian Maftool" has replaced "Israeli couscous." (Like many of Massad’s claims, the couscous issue is debatable. A recent visit to Whole Foods Market proved that Israeli couscous is still the preferred nomenclature.)

Massad’s concept of victory reframed the event. It was no longer a dirge-like recitation of perpetual victimization, but rather a showcase—a preview of new trends in “resistance” propagandizing.

So what’s "in" this season? Using the "renaming" strategy to make the destruction of Israel more palatable to the West was the faculty panel’s primary theme. Portraying the only democratic state in the Middle East as a brutal, non-democratic "Jewish supremacist and racist state," as Massad once put it, was the secondary theme.

Read the rest at FrontPage

Michael Young on the clashes in Lebanon *

...Once we accept that this week's alleged labor unrest was only the latest phase in Hizbullah's war against the Lebanese state, will we understand what actually took place yesterday. And once we realize that cutting the airport road was a calculated effort by Hizbullah to reverse the Siniora government's transfer of the airport security chief, Wafiq Shouqair, will we understand what may take place in the coming days.

Since last January, when Hizbullah and Amal used the pretense of social dissatisfaction to obstruct roads in and around Beirut, the opposition has, quite openly, shown itself to be limited to Hizbullah. Michel Aoun, once a useful fig leaf to lend cross-communal diversity to the opposition, has since become an afterthought with hardly any pull in Christian streets.

Long ago we learned that Hizbullah could not, in any real sense, allow the emergence of a Lebanese state free from Syrian control...

...Outside areas under direct Hizbullah control, no one respected the call for a strike. The labor unions were not even able to march through mainly Sunni neighborhoods, for fear of street fights. The only real weapon Hizbullah has is to hold the airport hostage by closing all access roads. But all sides can close roads. How such action can possibly be in the interest of the Shiite community is beyond comprehension. Isolating the airport amounts to thuggery, underlining that Hizbullah now has few means other than to collectively punish all Lebanese to advance its exclusivist agenda...

The Lebanese state cannot live side by side with a Hizbullah state. This theorem is becoming more evident by the day, as the party's actions in the past three years have been, by definition, directed against the state, the government, the army and the security forces, institutions of national representation, the economy, and more fundamentally the rules of the Lebanese communal game. We've reached the point where Hizbullah, and more importantly the Shiite community, must choose. Will it persist in favoring a Hizbullah-led parallel state that will surely continue to clash with the recognized state? Or will Shiites try to find a new arrangement with their countrymen that forces Hizbullah to surrender its weapons?

More..

* Link thanks to Michael Totten

Via AP

An opposition protester holds a gazoline bottle
as he stands near a burning car during a protest called by
labor unions in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, May 7, 2008.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanon's long-simmering political crisis erupted into gunfire and explosions Wednesday when a labor strike devolved into clashes between rival Hezbollah and government supporters.

Demonstrators supported by militant Hezbollah protested the U.S.-backed government's economic policies and paralyzed much of Beirut with roadblocks of burning tires. The strike turned violent when both sides began throwing stones at each other, and gunfire and explosions rang out in some areas for brief periods.

The cause of the explosions was not immediately known. There were a few injuries reported, mostly from the stone throwing.

The clashes threatened to degenerate into an all-out sectarian conflict. Shiite Hezbollah seized the offices of a major Sunni group and the fighting spread to several mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods.

More...

There are a lot of them out there...

For some reason, adults who lived through the summer of love, and/or the disco beat and/or generation x are fretting about kids today and their questionable values. The Anchoress sighs:

All of the old social safeguards are no longer in place; instead of communities wherein live several generations of families and friends, everyone is transient and most of us have only a nodding acquaintance with our neighbors.

When did these social safeguards ever exist in America? This is a country mostly made up of immigrants, many of whom were willing to give up everything they had to get the hell out of "communities wherein live several generations of families and friends." For the most part, their descendants are very grateful to them for doing so.

When did Americans stop encouraging our youth to seek the frontier "breaking the bonds of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities." Instead, kids are supposed to seek "social safeguards." Nanny-state leftists want the state to make us safe from everything from hurtful language to fatty foods. Family values conservatives want the state to encourage family ties and standard relationships - and to discourage breaking the bonds of custom.

For some people a life tied to marriage, community and family is heaven. For others, it’s not. Living the way you want and letting others do the same isn't isolationism, it's individualism. If you think that's alienating, you've never talked to quaint European villagers who call a family that's been in their town for only 200 years "the foreigners"

Via the New York Post

I've visited over a dozen Muslim countries and many more that have significant Muslim minorities. In every case, I've found the Saudis funding evil.

From Thailand to the United States, the Saudi goal is to prevent Muslims from integrating into their host societies. In poor countries, such as Kenya, they pay families to pull their children out of state schools and send them to madrassahs - where they learn to recite the Koran, but no career skills.

The Saudis don't mind if Muslims live in poverty and squalor - as long as Muslims don't identify with the societies around them. They want strict religious and cultural apartheid.

So here's another easy thing Congress can do: Prohibit foreign funding, direct or indirect, of US religious institutions and schools by the government or citizens of any state that denies religious freedom to its own residents. No churches in Saudi Arabia? OK, no Saudi-controlled madrassahs in Virginia.

And when referring to Islamist terrorists or the Saudi royal family that nurtured them for so long, let's stop using the term "Islamo-fascists." As horrid as Italian or Spanish fascists could be, they were enlightened humanitarians compared to either al Qaeda or our Saudi "friends." Let's just call fanatics "fanatics."

The greatest modern tragedy for the Arab world wasn't European imperialism. It was who got the oil money: inbred desert barbarians with a zero-sum mentality about heaven and earth. The stunningly hypocritical Saudis (they could teach Eliot Spitzer plenty about top-flight hookers) have used their wealth to cut out Islam's heart. The faith of Mohammed, peace be upon him, has no greater enemies.

In this fight, we Americans, and Muslims around the world who cherish their faith, should stand united against the Saudis.

In the heat of the moment, Iran appears to many to be our worst enemy in the Middle East. While the nut house government in Tehran is a deadly problem, it's ultimately one of lesser scale. Our greatest enemy, anywhere, is Saudi Arabia, the cradle of terror.

Five years ago, I supported removing Saddam Hussein on moral and geopolitical grounds. I'm beginning to suspect we invaded the wrong country.

He's right, but "beginning to suspect"..? I was thinking the same thing back in October 2001.

Alan Sullivan describes the damage:

From a Daily Mail article, the side by side images show the Irrawaddy delta immediately before and after the passage of cyclone Nargis. Look closely. The red box marks Rangoon. Notice the brown areas south and southwest of the capitol in the “before” shot. These are probably expanses of rice paddy awaiting the seasonal rains. Now they are flooded blue with salt water that has not returned to the sea....Because the storm moved from west to east, the delta was hit with onshore wind immediately in advance of the eye. It was a perfect worst-case scenario, as though Katrina had come directly ashore on the Mississippi Delta and driven straight over New Orleans. That too could have killed 60,000. But looking at the scale of the floods, and considering the density of the Burmese population, I wonder whether the casualty estimate might still be low.

More here..

On April 16, the body of teacher and activist Riad Hamad was spotted floating in Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. Witnesses said the man’s body had been “wrapped with duct tape.” According to News Radio 590, the police were not sure if foul play was involved. When Hamad was reported missing, the family mentioned that he was experiencing suicidal thoughts.

According to a later police report, “tape was found around [Hamad’s] eyes, and the hands and legs were loosely bound. The bindings of his hands and legs and placement of the tape were consistent with Hamad having done this to himself. Detectives know that Hamad walked from his vehicle to the water on his own based on evidence retrieved from the scene.”

The news about Hamad’s death was mostly reported in the local news, but it was spread worldwide due to a carefully orchestrated mass mailing through internet “activist” lists. Blogger Martin Solomon of Solomonia.com, who posted on Riad Hamad’s death on April 17, said, “People reading these comments should know that emails have gone out on various activist lists advising people of the death and telling people to go out proactively and make sure that Hamad is remembered as a man of peace, not a hatemonger. They’ve been advised to do it even before any stories appear so that if he is written about, that’s the view of him that’s portrayed. In fact, that’s how I found out.”

Many of the letters, articles, and blog posts that immediately appeared after these activist orders were sent out dutifully stressed Riad Hamad’s non-violent nature. Blogger Juan Cole received a letter from “Riad’s friend,” which Cole published verbatim without comment. It began: “Call me suspicious. Bound bodies found floating in a lake just don’t seem to me very likely to be the victims of suicide.” Cole followed this quoted message with an appeal to send money to the Palestinians.

Solomon posted the news, but he didn’t follow the activists’ orders...

More on Pajamas Media

Viewed when Fausta and I went to see MoMAs "Design and the Elastic Mind" - a lovely day and a great show.

Why do some people ally with the enemy?

Of all the incomprehensible things about the incestuous life and times of the man they call the Tyrant of Amstetten, none is more alien to logical thinking than the assertion that Rosemarie Fritzl knew nothing of her husband's debauchery in the cellar of their own home.

How was he capable of abducting his own daughter, fathering seven children by her and keeping the whole unhealthy ménage a secret from his wife for an incredible 24 years?

What chronic lack of maternal curiosity stopped her from investigating her daughter Elisabeth's disappearance? Or wanting to find out whether the three babies allegedly left on her doorstep – three – were really her own grandchildren? ..

...What sort of a woman is she?

The same question might have been asked of Primrose Shipman, who calmly handed chocolates round at her husband's trial for multiple murder. Despite his drug addiction and constant bullying, she stood by Harold throughout his trial and imprisonment and beyond his suicide in 2005...

...Whatever turns out to be the truth of Rosemarie Fritzl's role in this horror story, it demonstrates the peculiar nature of marital dependency and the lengths to which some women may go to preserve a facade. Misplaced loyalty, fear or self-deception allow all kinds of women – from battered wives to partners of paedophiles – to suspend disbelief. In effect, not to question.

Maybe the battered wives who cling to the 'security' of their husbands and the partners of pedophiles ignore reality for the same reason their spouses do what they do - because they want to and because they can.

IFR through a white cloud

I've been trying to avoid Obama vs. McCain blogging, but this is funny (and true)