A Fitting End to Nobel Aspirations

DNA – World – Arafat’s Peace Prize stolen in month of Nobel thefts – Daily News & Analysis

The man, Arafat, squandered unprecedented opportunity for peace. His legacy is one of a shattered, a deeply fragmented and a hopelessly confused Palestinian people. Once they had hope in fighting for themselves. Now, they don’t know who that “self” is. Hence, there is nothing left for which to fight. They are a people born of an artificial identity foisted upon them by the West, and now, the reality of this ersatz identity is manifesting itself with spectacular violence.

And, nothing captures the Palestinian hopelessness better than the purloining of the Nobel Prize Arafat was awarded for attempting a political solution with Israel. Of course, the Nobel committee members who elected to resign rather than to award Arafat the prize are now completely vindicated: they said that Arafat’s attempt was not sincere, and now they have been proven right, irrevocably. The man’s reputation as a thief, an incorrigible power monger and a selfish brute is now indisputably established by the nightmare of his legacy.

To be sure, Hamas will blame Israel for everything, but the evidence, for those sane enough to read it, condemns nobody except Palestinians themselves.

No Nobel prize. No hope.

If you don’t trust Indian sources, here are over 5,000 others that Google News cited.

On the Correlation between Number of American Troops and Iraqi Casualty Rate

No Drop in Iraq Violence Seen Since Troop Buildup – washingtonpost.com

This may be true, but there is something to be said for that warm fuzzy feeling you get every time you say the words “troop surge” or “surge in troops”.

At this moment, the nation is given no greater rationale for the escalation than a “warm fuzzy feeling”.

Nutty British Judges

Update  Senior judge cleared of flashing | BBC UK

Alas, this story has no juicy ending. Faced with “he said, she said”, the presiding judge elected to throw the charges out.

Flashing stranger on train was top judge, woman says | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited

Perhaps flashing is the ultimate means of relieving the tension accumulated from overseeing the trial of a Brazilian who was mistaken for a suicide bomber and shot dead. In this instance, at least, pints of Boddington do not seem to have supplied sufficient relief.

Designer Blood Colors

Patient oozes green blood | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Ok, it’s only one color, but if you’re tired of having red blood, try sumatriptan! It will turn your blood from a visceral red to a verdant green, so that you will feel as healthy as the autotrophs that sustain the food chain.

Political Evolution in the Twenty First Century: Strength vs. Cunning

Putin suggests new missile defence site | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

This is perhaps the final chapter, the climax, the coup de grace of post cold war political evolution. The US has survived by sheer economic power and unchallenged military might, and its rivals have survived by becoming supremely cunning, as demonstrated by Baathists in Iraq, by Iran in Lebanon and Iraq, and today, by Vladimir Putin in Germany.

The Iraqi war displayed America’s military might yet again. The aftermath of the war, however, has showed America’s impotence in the face of clever propaganda perpetrated by Iran and guerrilla warfare being executed to perfection by Baathists that the Coalition Provisional Authority foolishly disenfranchised. By developing incredible cunning, the Baathists, the Taliban and Iran have engineered a spectacular opposition to the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The US did indeed win the battle on the ground, but the opposition has thus far made a spectacular showing in the fight for the hearts and minds of the people in the middle east. We can claim no political victories there. Not in Iraq, not in Iran, not in Afghanistan, not in Syria and not even in Lebanon, who was humiliated by a brazen war started and effectively won by a rogue faction, Hezbollah, i.e., Iran and Syria.

Similarly, just when George W Bush’s White House was thinking that it had succeeded in its campaign to place a “missile defense shield” in Poland and the Czech Republic unilaterally, without soliciting any reaction from Russia, Putin responds with the most cunning, the most devilishly clever of retorts: Russia wants to suckle on America’s teat, too. Coupled with Russia’s posturing of the previous weeks–that it will target its missiles at Europe if this shield is deployed in Eastern Europe–Putin has completely neutralized the American argument, and he has entangled Bush with the absurdity of Bush’s assertions that it is an America at peace with a defeated Russia that desires to protect Europe from “rogue regimes”.

By accepting this proposition on face value, Putin has flipped this argument on its head. First, Putin asserts the US is the victor. Second, he posits the obvious fact that Azerbaijan is a better geographic location from which the US may intercept missiles from Bush’s favorite rogue regimes. Third, the US will be protecting Europe by preventing Russia from targeting European cities. It is the trifecta that the US has been salivating to get, and Russia takes home the purse!

Germany’s influence is expanding at an unbelievable pace. Iran exercises near hegemony in the middle east. Now, Russia is hanging George W Bush with Bush’s own arguments. In the face of such cunning, one must wonder if evolution is favoring the US.

Any Consideration for IEDs?

Danger Room – Wired Blogs

The military is a notoriously conservative and slow beast, but the speed with which it reacted to the information that IED (improvised explosive device) resistant transporters exist is indeed embarrassing.

Nevertheless, it’s good that they plan to replace all humvees.

Whom do you love? Whom do you trust?

Wired Magazine: Which ISPs Are Spying on You?

It is reassuring to know that some big Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are taking these questions seriously enough to attempt to answer them honestly. It is scary to think that the prospect of these gross invasions of privacy by the government just became routine, and even more frightening to think that many big ISPs don’t respect their clients enough to comment on matters of great import to their clients.

Boy, oh boy, if there were ever a time where the average consumer needed competition in the marketplace, this era is positively it.