Panic In Iran

I have a long post about what the recent Israeli attack on Syria portends for Iran.


The short version: if America and/or Israel is going to attack Iran the attack will probably happen in the next two months or so.

Women Of The Israeli Army

A really nice piece in the Grateful Dead style. I wish I knew Hebrew better. I'd like to be able to converse with some of the lovelies. Women who pack heat turn me on.

Music by Vlado Kreslin

More Women of the Israeli Army
Some More Women of the Israeli Army

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Too Much Liberty

Thomas Jefferson: "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

Camille Paglia: "Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist."

Camille Paglia: "The only thing that will be remembered about my enemies after they're dead is the nasty things I've said about them”.

Camille Paglia: "It is capitalist America that produced the modern independent woman. Never in history have women had more freedom of choice in regard to dress, behavior, career, and sexual orientation."

From Samizdata

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

The Elements

The Elements. A song by Tom Lehrer.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

Jena - Searching For Facts

This is way longer than the usual post on The Astute Bloggers. However, I think it is important to let the people of Jena speak for themselves.

My search for facts was prompted by this post by my friend Eric at Classical Values. I have found a few.

First off let me say that of all the main stream reporters so far Jason Whitlock has actually done his homework.

Now we love Mychal Bell, the star of the 2006 Jena (La.) High School football team, the teenage boy who has sat in jail since December for his role in a six-on-one beatdown of a fellow student.

Thursday, thousands of us, proud African-Americans, expressed our devotion to and desire to see justice for the “Jena Six,” the half-dozen black students who knocked unconscious, kicked and stomped a white classmate.

Jesse Jackson compared Thursday’s rallies in Jena to the protests and marches that used to take place in cities like Selma, Ala., in the 1960s. Al Sharpton claimed Thursday’s peaceful demonstrations were to highlight racial inequities in the criminal justice system.

Jesse and Al, as they’re prone to do, served a kernel of truth stacked on a mountain of lies.

There are undeniable racial and economic inequities in our criminal justice system, and from afar the “Jena Six” rallies certainly looked and felt like the righteous protests of the 1960s.

But the reality is Thursday’s protests are just another sign that we remain deeply locked in denial about the path we need to travel today for true American liberation, equality and power in the new millennium.

He has way more. RTWT.

Althouse complains that she can't seem to get a straight story from the Big Liars Media. Yep. The Narrative has taken over and there is not much truth to be found.

So let me start with the nooses that are supposed to be an ignored hate crime. This seems like a credible report from a local:

The square at Jena High School has been known for the center of school spirit and/or pranks for many years. I've seen everything from "funerals" of opponent football teams to the tree and surrounding area covered with toilet tissue. Jena High School is known for themed activities surrounding football games. This particular week, JHS was playing a team in which the mascot is Cowboys! Hence, the nooses in the tree..."hang'em high!" Not for one moment did the thought of racism cross my mind or the majority of the others. It was football season. We were playing the cowboys. The kids, girls and boys, wore boots to school and had a western themed pep rally! Nooses = cowboys and horse theives in my world. Maybe I've watched too much Gunsmoke, but racism was not even a thought. Due to the reaction of ADULTS in the black community, not the kids at the school, the boys were suspended. The entire punishment for those boys was never published because of the confidentiality of the issue. However, the boys were suspended. They and
their families were required to go to counseling. The boys had hours of community service. The boys and their families continue to receive threatening phone calls, but yet no one has addressed that issue.

It seems like an excessive punishment for excessive school spirit. There is more. RTWT

Eddie Thompson, a pastor in Jena, seems to have been ambushed by the drive by media.

The truth is no longer important. Jena is officially the poster child for prejudice and bigotry in the south. America found a perfect, flawless lamb to be offered on its national altar of racism. Practically drooling with anticipation, reporters and professional race-crusaders poured into the small southern town of Jena, where the country accents are as thick as the pines that cover the rolling hills of central Louisiana. With such severe charges placed upon the six black students known as the “Jena Six,” the logical conclusion was “racism.” Any inconvenient facts that contradict that conclusion have been dismissed in an Orwellian attempt to shape this story into “Mississippi Burning” revisited. The “Jena Six” can thank their lucky stars that it was a white student and not a bulldog they are accused of beating then stomping on December 4, 2006. Otherwise, PETA and the national media may have pounced on them with the same vitriol afforded Michael Vick. Instead, Jena certainly has a color problem now: black and white and yellow—prejudice, bigotry, and slanted journalism.

My name is Eddie Thompson. I am the white pastor referenced by Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune in his article that forced the story of the “Jena Six” onto the national stage. On December 8, 2006, when I wrote my article concerning racism in Jena Louisiana I believed that perhaps the biggest obstacle to our town’s prosperous future was the ignorance of prejudice and bigotry. I am now convinced that the biggest enemy to our future as a whole community has become the misinformation, lies, and prejudice of a national media that refuses to seek out the truth concerning the events of last fall. My evolution forces me to voice the concerns of the majority of our town who believe that any interview or statement given to the media will simply be twisted and mangled to support the forgone conclusion that we are nothing but country hicks, rednecks, who have no compassion on the minorities in our community. Most of the white community would not be content with me being such a mouthpiece for their perspective, but since they won’t speak, I’ll do my best to speak for them. The following are questions and statements I’ve heard privately from the white community:

Yep. The Narrative has taken over.

Eddie also had this to say about athletic privilege:

The “Jena Six” have repeatedly been held up as heroes by much of the race-based community and called “innocent students” by the national media. Some of these students have reputations in Jena for intimidating and sometimes beating other students. They have vandalized and destroyed both school property and community property. Some of the Jena Six have been involved in crimes not only in LaSalle Parish but also in surrounding parishes. For the most part, coaches and other adults have prevented them from being held accountable for the reign of terror they have presided over in Jena. Despite intervention by adults wanting to give them chances due their athletic potential, most of the Jena Six have extensive juvenile records. Yet their parents keep insisting that their children have never been in trouble before. These boys did not receive prejudicial treatment but received preferential treatment until things got out of hand.

He has more. Much more. RTWT.

Here is a time line that gives the barest outline of events. They seem to be missing a lot of nuance. I have already provided some. I'm probably missing things. However, we are at least getting a little closer to the "truth" which is ultimately unknowable. A complete dissertation on epistemology is for another day.

The Naked Emperor, a former resident of Jena has a few words. Among them:

Was charging the alleged assailants racist? I find no evidence of it. If a victim chooses to press charges, and there is sufficient evidence to support those charges, it is the duty of the District Attorney to file said charges. That is a matter of law.

At one point, the alleged assailants were charged with attempted murder. Even a cursatory glance at the situation shows those charges to be unwarranted, and they were not pressed. But there does seem to be enough evidence to bring the current charges.

And are the alleged assailants guilty? I have no clue. That's a matter of fact, not law, for a jury to decide.

And while we are on the subject of the jury, one of the assailants has already been tried. Much has been made of the fact that the jury was all white. But of the 150 people receiving jury summons, only 50 showed up, and there were no blacks in that number. Sorry, but lack of performance of civic duty is not the DA's fault.

Man The Narrative is just falling apart. I hate it when that happens.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

Gabrielli

ART. Because not everything is science, war, or politics. Here is a short piece (about 40 seconds) of some Gabrielli. I was not able to track down which of the Gabriellis wrote this (Som Metal - is the name of the ensemble) so if any one has a clue leave a comment. Was it Giovanni Gabrielli (the most likely choice)? Domenico Gabrielli? Or one of the other members of that illustrious family?

From the comments at Classical Values Eric Blair says that Som Metal is the name of the ensemble. George-NJ says it is Giovanni Gabrielli and beginning of "O Magnum Mysterium" - a Christmas piece. Thanks.

Michael Totten On The Anbar Awakening

Michael Totten visited Ramadi in Anbar and reports.

“It was nothing we did,” said Marine Lieutenant Colonel Drew Crane who was visiting for the day from Fallujah. “The people here just couldn’t take it anymore.”

What he said next surprised me even more than what I was seeing.

“You know what I like most about this place?” he said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“We don’t need to wear body armor or helmets,” he said.

I was poleaxed. Without even realizing it, I had taken off my body armor and helmet. I took my gear off as casually as I do when I take it off after returning to the safety of the base after patrolling. We were not in the safety of the base and the wire. We were safe because we were in Ramadi.

It is quite long. You should read the whole thing. Lots of pictures. Happy smiling faces.

What happened? It seems like living under Islamic fascism is not as popular in practice as it is in theory.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

Fred Hochberg and Norman Hsu - Joined At Birth?

Gateway Pundit has an explosive bit of news on the Hsu scandal.

Ever since Hsu became a major fundraiser, there have been notable similarities between his and Hochberg/Lillian Vernon's contributions that strain the limits of coincidence. Not only is there significant overlap among several far-flung candidates who wouldn't typically be of much interest to New York businessmen, but the size and timing of many of the transactions further suggest the efforts are coordinated...

Yes, Fred Hochberg, a dean at the school where Hsu served as a trustee, one of Hsu's fellow HillRaisers, CEO of the company that officially bundled at least one of Hsu's direct contributions as recently as this summer, and the apparent architect of Hsu's favored candidate slate, was installed as one of the country's senior-most federal policymakers by Bill Clinton.

Fred Hochberg and his life partner Tom Healy hosted a fundraising event at their home in New York with Hillary for Minnesota senatorial candidate Amy Klobuchar in 2006.

A culture of corruption?

If this sinks Hillary who else do the Dems have besides Nation of Islam friendly Obama?

Who is Fred Hochberg?

From 1998 through 2000, he served as deputy then acting administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA), an agency elevated to cabinet rank by President Bill Clinton, with more than 4,000 employees and 100 offices across the country.

So you can buy a cabinet seat with enough money? Evidently.

Update: See Suitably Flip who has done the heavy lifting.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

UPDATE - FROM RELIAPUNDIT : DOUG ROSS SAYS HILLARY IS IN DEEP HSIT.

What climate change and fusion tell us about orthodoxies versus dissent in sceince and religion

Over at Climate Audit they are discussing “Miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis”.

Let me relate this to my current field of study - Nuclear Fusion.

The big money is going into projects like ITER (the US is spending something like $200 to $400 mil a year on this project). All the scientists involved say we are at least 30 years away from a net power reactor delivering watts to the grid. When that net power device is built it will be too big 17GW (most power plants built today are under 100MW and the largest are in the 1 GW range), too expensive (at 20X to 30X the current cost of electricity), and too late. All this is inherent in trying to get fusion by heating things up. And yet funding rolls on. Grant money is relatively easy if there is an ITER angle.

Contrast this with IEC fusion. In the US there are 5 to 10 projects going on at a funding rate that is probably on the order of $20 million or less total. The thing about IEC Fusion is that instead of heating up a mass of gas to get fusion in the high energy tail, particles are accelerated directly to fusion speeds. This makes the devices much smaller, less costly, and quicker to develop. So who is doing IEC Fusion? Basically a bunch of old cranks who see ITER and the Tokamaks as useless except as science fair projects. Let me quote Plasma Physicist Dr. Nicholas Krall who said, "We spent $15 billion dollars studying tokamaks and what we learned about them is that they are no damn good."

And yet the money rolls on.

If I was in charge of science I would see that in any discipline 70% went to mainstream and 30% to dissenters. That would tend to keep everyone honest. Does it mean some money would go for stupidity? Sure. As Murray Gell-Mann says - there is a reason most new stuff ought not get funded, most of it is flat wrong. However, if we do not encourage dissent from orthodoxy we will never learn anything new.

Our current ratios are out of balance.

Let me add that a significant part of the 30% should go towards replication by dissenters.

If we are really going to do good science we must encourage a climate of dissent and replication.

Let me add that we see this in Cold Fusion. The mainstream derided it because at first replication was difficult. Now at least the laboratory aspects are better under control and replication is the norm. We still do not understand what is happening or why. However, finally progress is being made. So far it seems to be a low energy process. Heat is created. Just not enough to even boil the water (actually D2O) in the experimental apparatus. It is being researched. We will find out why. We lost 10 years of useful work because of clinging to orthodoxy.

In many ways the institutional science world is like the institutional religious world: Woe be unto him who strays from the canon.

Interestingly enough the US Navy is funding IEC Fusion and Cold Fusion. Why? They don't look at it from a right/wrong basis. It is all about risk vs reward. They are not crazy. They do require at least a minimum of results before funding. They come at it from: "we don't know everything" and "mathematics can be helpful but is not definitive. Only real world results count".

Why not more dependence on math? Because with math - if you pick the right assumptions - you can prove anything.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

No Price To Pay

The New York Sun reports that a prominent Saudi cleric, Salman al-Awdah, once praised by Osama has turned against him. Howerver, that is not the most interesing point of the article.

Mr. al-Awdah asks, "Have we reduced Islam to a bullet or a rifle? Has the means become an end?"

The editor of an Arabic International Daily, Asharq Alawsat, Tariq Alhomayed, suggested the letter was published too late.

"Sheikh Salman al Ouda's distancing himself from Bin Laden at a time when those absolving themselves of Al Qaeda's leader have nothing to lose and no price to pay." Mr. Alhomayed wrote in an editorial published yesterday. "This comes at a time when no one is shedding any tears for the leader of Al Qaeda organization."

It seems Osama is no longer the hero he once was and the cleric has joined the bandwagon.

The big deal of course is the bandwagon. Osama is no longer driving it. In fact he appears to have been thrown under the wheels.

H/T Insatpundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

The Northwest Passage

The melting of Arctic sea ice has caused the North West Passage to open up again.

The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America via the waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and the Canadian mainland by a series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwest Passages or Northwestern Passages.

Sought by explorers for centuries as a possible trade route, it was first navigated by Roald Amundsen in 1903-6.

How about some other voyages:

1940 Canadian RCMP officer Henry Larsen
1957 the United States Coast Guard cutter Storis
1977 sailor Willy de Roos
2005 47 ft aluminium sailboat, Northabout, built and captained by Jarlath Cunnane

I blame it on man made global warming. Except for 1903-06, 1940, 1957, and 1977.

Fortunately The BBC knows the real truth.

The most direct shipping route from Europe to Asia is fully clear of ice for the first time since records began, the European Space Agency (Esa) says.

Historically, the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has been ice-bound through the year.

But the agency says ice cover has been steadily shrinking, and this summer's reduction has made the route navigable.

The findings, based on satellite images, raised concerns about the speed of global warming.

The Northwest Passage is one of the most fabled sea routes in the world - a short cut from Europe to Asia through the Canadian Arctic.

Recent years have seen a marked shrinkage in its ice cover, but this year it was extreme, Esa says.

It says this made the passage "fully navigable" for the first time since monitoring began in 1978.

I guess no one was monitoring it in 1903-06,1940, 1957, and 1977. Too bad. They might have seen some interesting things about.

Update: 16 Sept 007 1321z

Evidently this is not the first time in the 21st Centiry the BBC has found an opening.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

Che Is Dead

From: The Victory Caucus - A Gathering of Eagles. The url on the poster leads you to The People's Cube. A most amusing site.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Nazi Porn In Hebrew

That's right. There is Nazi S&M porn in Hebrew. Written by Jews. In lurid comic book style.

Read under the table by a generation of pubescent Israelis, often the children of survivors, the Stalags were named for the World War II prisoner-of-war camps in which they were set. The books told perverse tales of captured American or British pilots being abused by sadistic female SS officers outfitted with whips and boots. The plot usually ended with the male protagonists taking revenge, by raping and killing their tormentors.

The most famous Stalag, “I Was Colonel Schultz’s Private Bitch,” was deemed to have crossed all the lines of acceptability, prompting the police to try to hunt every copy down.

Some nice pictures of the cover art at the above site. If you are into that sort of thing. For research purposes. Heh.

In America we tend to do popular culture S&M in True Detective type pulp fiction. A matter of taste and culture I suppose.

Here are some nice pictures of Israeli women who may have qualified with heavy weapons. From Maxim NSFW. It is only tangentially related to to the subject at hand. But you know. I. Just. Couldn't. Resist.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

9/11/01

Because I was attacked that day.

Zell Miller at the Republican National Convention 2004
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Democrats Not Following Orders

It seems a new Osama tape has surfaced and bin Laden is really pissed with the Democrats.

"People of America: the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq, for people have recently come to know that, after several years of tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning. On the contrary, they continue to agree to the spending of tens of billions to continue the killing and war there."

Well my Democrat friends, are you going to follow bin Laden's orders or not?

Don Surber says not.

After a month-long vacation, Democrats returned to the nation’s capital this week, an army in disarray. They left in August confident that Republicans would go home, get chewed out about the war, and raise the white flag. Instead, the Surge worked and the Democrats are losing it.

S.A. Miller at the Washington Times reported:

Rank-and-file Democrats in Congress are criticizing the party’s leaders for allowing the White House to sap momentum from the antiwar movement during the August recess.

“The White House is taking great advantage of the Democrats not pushing back,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, California Democrat and co-founder of the antiwar Out of Iraq Caucus.

“We need bolder steps from the Democrats,” she said. “The people of this country are waiting for some leadership — some bold leadership — from the people that they elected to be the majority of the House and the Senate.”

It appears that Osama is waiting for that same kind of leadership.

I think it is well past time that the Democrats made up their collective minds and decide whose side are they on.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

Patton On Iraq

This one is just too good to provide just as a link (post below) so I'm front paging it:

Death From Above - Afghanistan

This is an AC-130 gunship - first used in Vietnam - taking out a terrorist base. It gives you a much different view of the war than you get from newspapers or even TV news.

If you would like to watch an enlarged version here is the YouTube address: Targeting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

I have had the honor of working to a very limited extent on some of our earlier infrared targeting pods. The video uses a FLIR camera to take the images. In many ways this is not dissimilar to stomping on ants. For the most part the ants do not have a chance.

I like Patton's version of how to treat the enemy.

"We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts."

Here is George C. Scott doing the Patton speech with most of Patton's most colorful language censored. Here is an updated version with Iraq as the theme.

HT Joe Katzman at Winds of Change

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Tell Fred What You Think

Fred Thompson is in the race for President.

He has a real life blog up at his site where you can Ask Fred Questions.

If there is something you want to ask the Next President Of The United States, now is a very good time.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

Global Warming Causes.....

We hear all the time that global warming causes this and global warming causes that. So what does a scientist have to say on the matter? Michael Schirber, a staff writer at Live Science reports.

Since the late 1960s, much of the North Atlantic Ocean has become less salty, in part due to increases in fresh water runoff induced by global warming, scientists say. Now for the first time researchers have quantified this fresh water influx, allowing them to predict the long-term effects on a "conveyor belt" of ocean currents.

Climate changes in the Northern Hemisphere have melted glaciers and brought more rain, dumping more fresh water into the oceans, according to the analysis.

That is not all that global warming causes. Let us look at another report from Catherine Brahic a writer at New Scientist.

Tim Boyer of the US National Oceanographic Data Center and colleagues compiled salinity data gathered by fisheries, navy and research ships travelling across the North Atlantic between 1955 and 2006. They found that during this time, the layer of water that makes up the top 400 metres has gradually become saltier.

The seawater is probably becoming saltier due to global warming, Boyer says.

So there you have it. Global warming is the cause if oceans get saltier and global warming is the cause if the oceans are becoming less saline.

I think this proves the science is settled. Any change in the environment is caused by global warming. You may now give Al Gore all your money.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

H/T Commenter Mark R at Climate Audit

Greenpeace Knocks Wind Out Of Ted Kennedy's Sails

Wind is not the answer to all our energy problems. However, when it is blowing it serves as a substitute for natural gas fired electrical plants. Which currently cost more per Kwh in America than wind power electricity. Note that offshore wind is one of the most reliable wind sources.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

H/T Instapundit