5. oktober 2003

Virtual Occoquan #41 A new issue of the Occoquan Inquirer, containing some of the best material of the last week or so (!) in Salon blogs, is out. Make sure you have a look! Mark has combined a few of my blog stories into an article called crime and punishment. He saw a trend there I didn't. 9:42:07 PM    comment []  trackback []

Israel attacks targets in Syria Following the suicide bombing of a Haifa restaurant, Israel responded as expected against targets in the occupied territories. But today's airstrike against an alleged Islamic Jihad training base in Syria was quite unexpected, and has brought home the reality that Israel is willing to escalate the Palestnian-Israel conflict by targeting its neighbouring countries. While Israel was most careful in emphasising that it targeted a terrorist base and not Syria itself, the message is clear: Israel is willing to take drastic measures against the Arab countries that support the terrorist networks, and Syria is top of that list. Israel's military simultanously made an explicit mention of Iran as the director and financer of Islamic Jihad, a point which will not be missed in Tehran Syria may well huff and puff about this incident, and they have already brought the case to the UN Security Council, where any condemnation of Israel's action will predictably be stopped by a US veto. Fact is, Syria is very short of friends, and its significant armed forces are technically and tactically inferior to Israel's. Even if the Bush administration will express concerns, even protest, at this action, I suspect at least parts of it is secretly pleased, having its own problems with Syria. The bombing had little or no military value, even if the target was a real operative IJ terrorist base (denied, again predictably, by Syria). It was a strong and forceful political message delivered from warplanes, and the message is that Israel is desperate to stop the terrorist attacks in Israel, and will escalate the conflict to wherever it takes to put an end to it. Israel will hold the Arab countries who fund the terror directly responsible, and may respond militarily. 9:29:45 PM    comment []  trackback []

Welcome to the jungle The police in Harlem, New York, is used to all kinds of criminals and challenges, but it is luckily not every day they are told about a wild 350 pound bengal tiger in the middle of the city. After some careful scouting, the police were able to identify the predator and a sniper shot it with tranquiliser darts through an open fifth-floor window. It will now be taken from the asphalt jungle of Harlem to a concervancy in Ohio. One of the neighbours expressed some concern for its change of environment: "My concern is that the city cat won't make it in the country," said Lynnette Braxton, 49. "He's going to have no jazz, no hip-hop. He's going to miss the Harlem Renaissance."  The picture shows the "prisoner" being taken away after being tranquilised. Look at those paws! 4:41:07 PM    comment []  trackback []

Poland backs off from French missile allegation Poland has regretted mistakenly saying new French Roland anti-aircraft missiles were discovered in Iraq, after fuming complaints from Chirac's government. The controversy arose from the markings on the Roland-type missiles discovered last week near Hilla, south of Baghdad. In photographs released in Warsaw, the markings included the coding: 07-01 KND 2003. Polish forces apparently took this to indicate the date of manufacture, but France insisted that it has produced no Roland missiles since 1993. Defence officials said the significance of the code was not immediately clear, and a Pentagon official said the style of markings did not correspond to those usually used by France. Obviously these Polish soldiers had no experience with French cars. Then they would know that nothing at all about French products resemble how things look like in the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the missiles were destroyed, so it is a bit unclear where they actually originated. 8:35:19 AM    comment []  trackback []

Pope warns against gay priests The frail John Pope II is apparently using some of his last bigoted breath to warn that the relationship between the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches is endangered by the issue of gay priests. 7:39:46 AM    comment []  trackback []

Downtime Sorry about the downtime, folks. The server hosting the blog apparently crashed, and those incompetent weasels at Radio Userland were totally ignorant about it for 24+ hours. 3:43:32 AM    comment []  trackback []

Dubya the po-8 First Lady Laura Bush revealed that her husband, who is not generally known for his exceptional language skills, had penned a poem for her when she came back from her trip to Europe. Roses are red Violets are blue Oh my, lump in the bed How I've missed you. Roses are redder Bluer am I Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy. The dogs and the cat, they missed you too Barney's still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier. Not Nobel prize material, for sure, but I have to say I am impressed with the humour. I am not totally convinced none of the White House's speech writers were involved, though. 3:40:34 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.11.2003; 03:18:29.