Hezbollah launching rockets into Israel out of Kfar-Qana

Business as usual.

The propaganda machine is falling apart

IDF: Qana building fell hours after strike

IDF continuing to check difficult incident at Qana village, and attempting to account for strange gap between time of the strike on the building – midnight – and eight in the morning, when the building collapsed

Hanan Greenberg

An IDF investigation has found that the building in Qana struck by the Air Force fell around eight hours after being hit by the IDF.

"The attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear," Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters told journalists at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, following the incidents at Qana.

FROM yNET

*EDIT*

PowerLine is raising some questions about a banner that was hoisted only a few hours after the attack.

What seems odd about this is that the banner was unfurled within hours after the Qana attack took place. The building where the civilians died was bombed on Sunday morning, and the demonstration took place during daylight hours, later the same day. I have no idea what kind of facility it takes to produce a 30-foot-high banner like this one. It is obviously professionally done. It would be interesting to know where this banner was produced; who designed and paid for it; and how its production was expedited so that it was ready for use, on the street, within hours after the event being protested. For example, was the image of Rice produced in advance, awaiting a pretext for its use, with only the script added at the last minute? I've often been curious about the logistics of pro-terrorist demonstrations, and this seems like an especially curious example.

Crossers burying border in garbage

After three years of cleanups, the federal government has achieved no better than a 1 percent solution for the problem of trash left in Southern Arizona by illegal border-crossers.

Cleanup crews from various agencies, volunteer groups and the Tohono O'odham Nation hauled about 250,000 pounds of trash from thousands of acres of federal, state and private land across Southern Arizona in 2002 to 2005, says the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

But that's only a fraction of the nearly 25 million pounds of trash thought to be out there.

Authorities estimate the 3.2 million-plus entrants caught by the Border Patrol dropped that much garbage in the Southern Arizona desert from July 1999 through June 2005. The figure assumes that each illegal entrant discards 8 pounds of trash, the weight of some abandoned backpacks found in the desert.



The trash is piling up faster than it can be cleaned up. Considering that the Border Patrol apprehended more than 577,000 entrants in 2004-05 alone, the BLM figures that those people left almost 4 million pounds of trash in that same year.

That's 16 times what was picked up in three years. And that doesn't include the unknown amounts of garbage left by border-crossers who don't get caught.

http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/metro/140004

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says there will be no cease-fire.

It seems the 48 hour cease-fire has gone the way of the Do-do as Israeli starts up a new air campaign. Honestly, I think a cease-fire would be a mistake, the Hezbollah battle plan has these cease-fires built into it. That is when all the terrorists escape into surrounding towns to start up new offensives against the Israeli civilians.


IDF Response to Events in Qana

Sunday 30/07/2006 21:53

Following the incident that occurred yesterday morning, Sunday, July 30, 2006, in Qana, the IDF reiterates that the attack was carried out as a result of the continuation over the last few days of rocket fire from the targeted area against Israeli communities. Residents of all villages in the vicinity, including Qana, were warned in advance to stay out of areas from which rockets are launched against Israel.

"IDF acted tonight against terror targets in the village of Qana. Qana has been used since the beginning of these events as a hideout and the place from which approximately 150 rockets have been fired at the territory of the State of Israel, in 30 salvos, some of which struck Haifa and points north," said Major General Gadi Eizenkot, head of the Operations Branch, today.

IDF is distressed by all harm done to uninvolved civilians, despite the fact that it comes as a direct result of the Hezbollah terror organization's criminal exploitation of Lebanese civilians as human shields. "Even after this tragic event, the circumstances of which are still being investigated, we appeal to the residents of southern Lebanon to distance themselves from terrorists, to distance themselves from launch areas, for their own safety," said Major General Eizenkot.

"We are focusing on significant terror targets," said the Air Force Chief of Staff Brigadier General Amir Eshel. "The terror makes cynical use of uninvolved civilians as human shield, it lives among them and attacks from among them, and we are making efforts to avoid harming uninvolved civilians."

18 Israeli civilians killed by rockets from Lebanon
To date, 18 Israeli citizens have been killed and hundreds wounded as a result of rocket fire against the State of Israel. All responsibility for any and all harm done to Lebanese civilians in these areas lies on the shoulders of the Hezbollah terror organization, which abuses civilians as human shields, and on the Lebanese government which fails to prevent this.


Israeli cities struck by rockets from Qana. Graphic: IDF Spokesperson

Muslim man walks into butcher shop and cuts his own hand off in front of customers, claiming he did if for Allah.

Man cuts off hand in butcher shop

In a surreal scene, police said a man purposely cut off one of his hands in a Springfield butcher shop Saturday evening. The grisly incident occurred in Super Halal Meat along the 7000 block of Spring Garden Drive, which bisects Brookfield Plaza, home to numerous Asian, Indian and Middle Eastern eateries and markets.

"I'm still numb talking about it," said Vikas Sinsunwal, who saw the man after he severed his hand.

Sinsunwal said he was outside his parents store, Niralla Sweets, when the man, announcing "I did this for Allah," approached his parents' shop lifting his bloody left arm into the air. "I could actually see bone in his wrist," he said.

He said after staring through the front window of his parents' store for several seconds, Sinsunwal said the man then walked toward traffic on busy Backlick Road as people poured out from surrounding businesses. He said police eventually arrived and grabbed the man as he attempted to evade the officers.

Mary Mulrenan, a spokeswoman with the Fairfax County Police Department, said officers were called to the scene for a person brandishing a weapon, but instead found "a man missing a hand."

After securing the man, she said police then called paramedics who transported him to Inova Fairfax Hospital for medical treatment and psychological evaluation.

Mulrenan would not say how the man, who was not identified, amputated his hand.

However, local NBC 4 News reported the man, while waiting on his order of goat meat, walked behind the butcher shop's counter and sliced off his hand presumably with an electric meat cutter. His teenage son was with him at the time.

Police said no criminal charges will be filed.

-FROM-

Quick, someone call Al Gore

Researchers suggest that the recent increase in Hurricane strength has less to do with global warming and more to do with more accurate modern methods of measuring storm strength

CAPE CANAVERAL - Studies that link a spike in hurricane intensity with global warming are spotting "artificial upward trends" because they rely on bad historical data, a paper suggested today in the journal Science.

Hurricane intensity is measured by the storms' surface winds. Sometimes those winds are estimated by looking at satellite pictures, using a subjective technique invented in 1972. Better technology since then, including greater satellite coverage, has led inevitably to higher wind-speed estimates for more recent storms, the authors suggest.

"The resulting higher resolution images and more direct overhead views of tropical cyclones result in greater and more accurate intensity estimates in recent years when using the Dvorak Technique," according to authors Christopher Landsea of the National Hurricane Center, Bruce Harper, Karl Hoarau and John Knaff.

<-MORE-

Wash Post: Hezbollah leader said to be hiding in Iranian Embassy

Intelligence reports indicate the leader of Hezbollah is hiding in a foreign mission in Beirut, possibly the Iranian Embassy, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

Israeli military and intelligence forces are continuing to hunt for Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary-general, who fled his headquarters in Beirut shortly before Israeli jets bombed the building last week.

"We think he is in an embassy," said one U.S. official with access to the intelligence reports, while Israeli intelligence speculates Sheik Nasrallah is hiding in the Iranian Embassy.

Does this surprise anyone? Not me.

U.N., Hezbollah. Hezbollah, U.N. PART 2

The lines between these two group seem to blur more and more as the days and battle continues.




Great analysis over at the Belmont Club:

A Knife-Thrower at the Carnival
A Knife-Thrower at the Carnival 2

U.N., Hezbollah. Hezbollah, U.N.

As Jed Babbin writes:

The U.N.'s years-long record on the Israel-Lebanon border makes mockery of the term "peacekeeping." On page 155 of my book, "Inside the Asylum," is a picture of a U.N. outpost on that border. The U.N. flag and the Hezbollah flag fly side by side. Observers told me the U.N. and Hezbollah personnel share water and telephones and and that the U.N. presence serves as a shield against Israeli strikes against the terrorists.

The picture above is all you need to know about the utterly sickening moral posture at the UN.


via Elder of Ziyon

Medieval book of psalms unearthed

First millennium manuscript, open to Psalm 83, found in Irish mud

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Irish archaeologists Tuesday heralded the discovery of an ancient book of psalms by a construction worker while driving the shovel of his backhoe into a bog.

The approximately 20-page book has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries.

This is what's weird.

The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations' attempts to wipe out the name of Israel.

From CNN.com

HOW TO SOLVE OUR PRISONER PROBLEM

KILL, DON'T CAPTURE

HOW TO SOLVE OUR PRISONER PROBLEM

-Ralph Peters (New York Post)

July 10, 2006 -- THE British military defines experience as the ability to recognize a mistake the second time you make it. By that standard, we should be very experienced in dealing with captured terrorists, since we've made the same mistake again and again.

Violent Islamist extremists must be killed on the battlefield. Only in the rarest cases should they be taken prisoner. Few have serious intelligence value. And, once captured, there's no way to dispose of them.

Killing terrorists during a conflict isn't barbaric or immoral - or even illegal. We've imposed rules upon ourselves that have no historical or judicial precedent. We haven't been stymied by others, but by ourselves.

The oft-cited, seldom-read Geneva and Hague Conventions define legal combatants as those who visibly identify themselves by wearing uniforms or distinguishing insignia (the latter provision covers honorable partisans - but no badges or armbands, no protection). Those who wear civilian clothes to ambush soldiers or collect intelligence are assassins and spies - beyond the pale of law.

Traditionally, those who masquerade as civilians in order to kill legal combatants have been executed promptly, without trial. Severity, not sloppy leftist pandering, kept warfare within some decent bounds at least part of the time. But we have reached a point at which the rules apply only to us, while our enemies are permitted unrestricted freedom.

The present situation encourages our enemies to behave wantonly, while crippling our attempts to deal with terror.

Consider today's norm: A terrorist in civilian clothes can explode an IED, killing and maiming American troops or innocent civilians, then demand humane treatment if captured - and the media will step in as his champion. A disguised insurgent can shoot his rockets, throw his grenades, empty his magazines, kill and wound our troops, then, out of ammo, raise his hands and demand three hots and a cot while he invents tales of abuse.

MORE-


Great stuff, well worth the read.

Omar Bakri Muhammed told to talk to the hand

Banned cleric bids to flee Beirut

Controversial Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was banned from the UK, has attempted to board a ship evacuating Britons from Lebanon.

Mr Bakri Mohammed argued he should be allowed back to see his children but was turned away by British officials.

The former leader of the al-Muhajiroun group was banned from the UK in August last year because his presence "was not conducive to the public good".

The Royal Navy is evacuating thousands of Britons from the crisis region.

From the BBC-


It amazes me, these loons act all tuff and hardcore until the going gets rough. He sat in the UK, protected by freedom of speech for 20 years. Finally he gets shipped back to his "people" and the moment things get a little crazy, he want's to run back to the UK (which he called for the destruction of) where things are safe. What an idiot. He's right where he needs to be. Dude, go find a bomb shelter and ride this F'er out like the rest of the peeps.

Dick Gregory more mainstream than some want to believe

Comedian, activist, and onetime presidential candidate Dick Gregory Dick Gregory told this week's NAACP convention that white racists are turning blacks into criminals — by poisoning their food and water. Gregory said, "They convince you that I'm just a heathen... [but] I murder because something's in my food, something's in my water." He didn't say whom he meant by "they."

Gregory went on to claim that white-owned beer companies spike malt liquor with manganese, saying, "Once you get so much manganese in you, you will kill your momma."

He also claimed the FBI has secret documents "on the relationship between lead exposure and homicide," and that "polluted water can cause brain damage that turns ordinary people into violent criminals."


Some think this type of thinking is only in the fringe, from experiene, I think it's more main stream than some want to believe. What's more mainstream than the NAACP?

Brit Hume's right on target

Hamas and Hezbollah Find Support in an Unexpected Place

With even the Arab League blaming Hezbollah and Hamas for the violence in the
Middle East, it seems the terrorist organizations' last bastions of support are
Iran, Syria — and parts of California. Left-wing protesters chanting their
support for the two groups in front of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco
had to be separated from pro-Israel demonstrators by police the other day. Many
protesters waved Palestinian flags, while some mask-wearing demonstrators wore t-shirts advocating violence against Jews.

And in a op-ed today, UCLA literature professor Saree Makdisi says Israel, not Hezbollah, is the true terrorist group, writing that the country has killed "whole families," and is engaged in "collective punishment of the entire Lebanese population."

Links-

1. China says Genghis Khan catalyst for Renaissance
2. U.S. Marines move Americans out of Lebanon
3. U.S.: Iranians witnessed N. Korea missile test

This can't be good.

A Palestinian woman from the Popular Resistance Committees movement holds a Rocket Propelled Grenade during a demonstration in Gaza City to protest against daily Israeli incursions in the Gaza Strip. (AFP Photo)

Lou, the mother ship will be here soon to pick you up.

His bias against the Bush administration is showing again. I can just picture him as he wrote this weeks op-ed piece about the current crisis in the middle east. Red-faced, knocking back gin and tonics while poping geritol and pain killers. Lou Dobbs is old school, but he has seems to have drifted out of touch. Maybe he's always been this way and I just never paid any attention.

Lou: "President Harry Truman took about 20 minutes to recognize the state of Israel when it declared independence in 1948. Since then, more than 58 years of war, terrorism and blood-letting have led to the events of the past week."

In 1939 Truman said: "Today, not tomorrow, we must do all that is humanly possible to provide a haven for all those who can be grasped from the hands of Nazi butchers. Free lands must be opened to them."

The United States didn't recognized Israel as a state until May 14th 1948. Margaret Truman said it was the most difficult decision Harry Truman ever faced as president.

Danial Pipes, in reviewing Michael T. Benson's book Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel makes these observations about Truman's decision:

Everyone knows that Harry Truman provided help to the Zionists because he could count votes, and there were few Arab votes in 1948. That, anyway, is the thesis developed by John Snetsinger in 1974 and since repeated ad nauseum. Well, it turns out not to be true. In a masterful and exciting presentation, Benson proves that Truman's policies resulted not from nose-counting but from deeply-held beliefs. His pro-Israel outlook "was based primarily on humanitarian, moral, and sentimental grounds, many of which were an outgrowth of the president's religious upbringing and his familiarity with the Bible." Extensive research into Truman's biography and earlier career shows his impressive consistency. Benson, of the University of Utah, establishes Truman as a studious child and deeply religious young man who, when he unexpectedly found himself in the Oval Office, lived faithfully by his precepts. In the case at hand, he expressed sympathy for Zionism as early as 1939 and reiterated his views many times subsequently.


Truman's determination had great importance; of the many momentous issues in his presidency, he personally involved himself most directly with what he called the "puzzle of Palestine." In Benson's words, these personal interventions against the entirety of the American foreign policy establishment "constantly rescued" the Jews from defeat. The author concludes that the standard account of Truman risking U.S. security interests for cheap political advantage is deeply unfair to this most moral and honorable of American presidents.

Lou goes on to say: "While the United States provides about $2.5 billion in military and economic aid to Israel each year, U.S. aid to Lebanon amounts to no more than $40 million. This despite the fact that the per capita GDP of Israel is among the highest in the world at $24,600, nearly four times as high as Lebanon's GDP per capita of $6,200."

It's obvious Lou thinks we should be giving a state that provides support to Hezbollah and Hamas more money. They have been making some good moves, but as long as Hezbollah is allowed to run around untouch, we should limit the money given to them. Lou's "not enough money theory" is a lame excuse for the violence anyway. Using his logic if a panhandler attacks you in the street for not giving him/her any money, it's your fault for not giving them money. See below.

Lous says: Lebanon's lack of wealth is matched by the Palestinians -- three out of every four Palestinians live below the poverty line. Yet the vast majority of our giving in the region flows to Israel. This kind of geopolitical inconsistency and shortsightedness has contributed to the Arab-Israeli conflict that the Western world seems content to allow to perpetuate endlessly.

EVIL AMERICANS. YOU ONLY GIVE US $40 MILLION A YEAR! SO WE BLOW YOU AND YOU JEWISH FRIENDS UP UNTIL YOU GIVE US MORE!!!!!!!

Until these left wing weirdos get in touch with reality, we'll never have any type of decent debate on the issue.

CIA WORLD FACTBOOK on Lebanon: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/le.html

Hezbollah in the United States?

A protest was staged by a few left-wing groups in San Francisco on Thursday, July 13th to protest the fighting in and around Israel and Lebanon.

"The pro Palestinian and left-wing groups staged the protest in front of the Israeli Consulate in the city's Financial District. An equal number of pro-Israel counter-protesters showed up to make their voices heard as well, and from the start the two sides were battling it out with a war of words and symbols."

The protest was organized by Al-Awda (a group devoted to dismantling Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian state), A.N.S.W.E.R. (a communist group) and a coalition of other Islamic and socialist organizations.

From: http://zombietime.com

Beer and iPods. iPods and Beer.

Audit: Beer, iPods Among Homeland Security Emergency Expenses Post-Katrina

WASHINGTON — Wielding government-issued credit cards, Homeland Security employees racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in unjustified expenses last year, including booties for rescue dogs, iPods, designer rain jackets and beer-making equipment, according to a congressional audit released Wednesday.

Poor training, lax oversight and rampant confusion over what employees are
allowed to buy with government-issued credit cards "allowed potentially
fraudulent, improper, abusive, or questionable transactions to go undetected," Government Accountability Office investigator Gregory D. Kutz told a hearing by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

He estimated that 45 percent of department purchases with the cards —
reviewed from June to November 2005 — were deemed improper.

Among the expenses investigators described as abusive or questionable:

1. More than 2,000 sets of dog booties, costing $68,442, that have sat unused in storage since emergency responders decided they were not suited for canines assisting in Gulf Coast recovery efforts.
2. Three portable shower units for $71,170 from a contractor who investigators said overcharged the government. Customs and Border Protection agents could have gotten similar showers for nearly a third of the price — and faster.
3. 12 Apple iPod Nanos and 42 iPod Shuffles, priced at $7,000, for Secret Service "training and data storage." Because the Shuffles cost less than $300, the Secret Service said they were not required to track them to ensure they were used properly.
4. 37 black Helly Hansen designer rain jackets, costing nearly $2,500, for use in a firing range that the Customs and Border Protection purchaser later acknowledged shuts down when it's raining.
5. Conference and hotel rooms at a golf and tennis resort at St. Simons Island in Georgia, worth $2,395, for training 32 newly hired attorneys when they could have used a nearby federal law enforcement training center.
6. A beer brewing kit and ingredients for more than $1,000 for a Coast Guard official to brew alcohol while on duty as a social organizer for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. "The estimated price for a six-pack of USCG beer was $12," the investigators noted, adding: "Given that the six-pack cost of most beers is far less than $12, it is difficult to demonstrate that the Academy is achieving cost savings by brewing its own beer."

Investigators also noted that Customs and Border Protection wasted up to $464,586 by buying meals-ready-to-eat over the Internet instead of contracting through the Pentagon, as is standard procedure. And they found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot locate 22 printers and two GPS units worth $170,000, as well as 12 of 20 boats the agency bought for $208,000.

I love it when tax dollars get spent this way. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Iran's Hizbollah says ready to attack US, Israel

"We have 2,000 volunteers who have registered since last year," said
Iranian Hizbollah's spokesman Mojtaba Bigdeli, speaking by telephone from the central seminary city of Qom.

"They have been trained and they can become fully armed. We are ready to dispatch them to every corner of the world to jeopardise Israel and America's interests. We are only waiting for the Supreme Leader's green light to take action. If America wants to ignite World War Three ... we welcome it," he said.

That ain't cool.

When President Bush says sh*t, it's front page news.

Umm, he's a frat boy from Texas. That's what they do.

Iranian FM arrives, to meet Al-Assad

DAMASCUS, July 17 (KUNA) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Manoushehr Mottaki arrived here Monday and headed straight from the airport to the presidential palace to meet President Bashar Al-Assad and discuss developments on the Israeli assault on Lebanon.Iranian official sources told KUNA Mottaki is also bearing a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Al-Assad on this issue.According to the sources, the talks would cover developments in Lebanon and coordination between the two leaderships on this point as well as international efforts to bring halt to the confrontations.

Weird. I wonder what these two have to talk about?

Israeli boots on the ground in south Lebanon

Israeli planes struck outposts in south Lebanon said to be controled by the Hezbollah militant group. The fighting between Hezbollah militants and Israeli soldiers left two civilains dead as well as seven Isreali solders.

Israel's PM Ehud Olmert is calling the attack was an "act of war" by Lebanon.

"The Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a part, is trying to shake regional stability," he says Olmert at a press conference in Jerusalem.

"We are already responding with great strength," he said.

Side note: Hezbollah captured three Israeli soldiers in 2000. They died during the operation, but four years later, the group was able to exchange their bodies for 430 Palestinians and Lebanese held in Israeli jails.


I think this is the part where all hell breaks loose.

Speaking of Sterotypes

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13560066/

I read an AP article titled: "Surviving ‘stressful process’ of being black male (African-American men quietly combat negative stereotypes about them)" today. It seems the writer is basing this all on hearsay and cherry-picked statistics. I find it odd the writer (who's name is nowhere to be found - I wouldn't claim this piece of race-baiting rubbish either) tries to prove the negative stereo-types against black males in America by using negative stereo types of whites in America. Here are a few items I found absurd.

“Someone who is tall and muscular will learn to come into a meeting and sit down quickly,” she said. “They’re trying to lower the big barrier of resistance, one that’s fear-based and born of
stereotypes.”

Now isn't that a stereotype. I'm no more afraid of a tall muscular African American than I am a tall muscular Russian American.

Here's another gem:

“If you’re a black man who doesn’t smile a lot, they (whites) get really nervous,” he said. “There are black people I run across all the time and they’re always smiling particularly when they’re around white people. A lot of white people find that very comforting.”

Now for the cherry-picking:

"Black men’s median wages are barely three-fourths those of whites; nearly 1 in 3
black men will spend time behind bars during his life; and, on average, black
men die six years earlier than whites."

According to www.census.gov in 2004:

"Among races, Asians had the highest proportion of college graduates at 50 percent. About 30 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 17 percent of blacks had a least a bachelor’s degree. In 1993, 24 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12 percent of blacks were college graduates."

Hmm. I wonder if this has anything to with the income disparity. For some reason the race-baiters only conclusions is racism when they see disparity in anything.

Q: Why are blacks under represented in baseball?
A: Racism

Q: Why are blacks over represented in prisons?
A: Racism

The story is getting old; people are getting tired of it. It's time we all stood up and were responsible for ourselves and our actions.