The plan is now in doubt, but most expect that Sharon will still submit the plan, which has been backed by President Bush if not his own party, to the cabinet and the Knesset.
Many observers believe a brutal terrorist attack on the Gaza stip this morning boosted the "no" vote. Hamas, reportedly supported by Islamic Jihad and the Fatah's Popular Resistance Committees, carried out the gruesome attack where Tali Hatuel, a 34-year old pregnant woman was gunned down in her car, along with four daughters, aged from two to eleven. The two gunmen had fired on passing cars, and hit the woman so her car swerved off the road. They then ran over to the car, and executed the visibly pregnant woman and the four young girls at close range. IDF soldiers arriving at the scene killed the two gunmen, but two of the soldiers suffered injuries from an explosion.
You have to be a particularly shitty excuse for a human being to carry out such an atrocity. Next time the whiners on the left condemn Israel for sending a well-deserved hellfire missile up the exhaust pipe of another Hamas leader's car, that those are the creeps that orders their men to commit such acts, and proudly take responsibility for them.
One of the most fascinating pieces of dialogue in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume 2, and there is much to choose from, is Bill's explanation of the relationship between Superman and Clark Kent:
BILL: Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he is Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red S is the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears, the glasses the business suit, that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak, unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race, sort of like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plumpton.
While searching for this text, I also found an interview with Bill Carradine (who playes Bill) giving the interesting background story for this dialogue. It is actually based on a real cigar-smoking conversation between Quentin Tarantino and David Carradine. Both of them are comic book fans.
Does the Superman speech have particular significant now that comic book movies are all over the place? That's actually a conversation that we had in a cigar bar in Beijing, and we were just smoking cigars and rapping and we're both into comic books and we were talking about this Clark Kent/Superman thing and I'm a Batman freak. And a few days later, our conversation dropped into my mouth. A rewrite came and there it is, the whole conversation.
If you still haven't seen Vol 2, you absolutely should.
It has been presumed that the food for oil palaces deals had a 10 per cent standard rake off that filled Saddam's war chest. However, it is now revealed that in many cases the markup was higher, sometimes as high as 100 per cent.
In one of the many deals funded by UN-supervised oil exports from Iraq, a delivery of cameras and audiovisual equipment for the culture ministry - sent as "humanitarian" items, under a loophole - was valued at 100 per cent above its true cost.
According to new documents recovered in Baghdad, multi-million pound deals with the public works ministry for sanitation and water filtration equipment were often marked up by as much as 30 per cent. [...]
Now, its latest discovery means that the total lost to kickbacks and surcharges could far exceed the American Congressional estimate of £2.6 billion. Oil smuggling is believed to have lined the coffers of Saddam's regime with a further £3.4 billion.
And the UN bureocrats who turned a blind eye to this massive fraud? Well, with so much money flowing through the corrupt UN system, it's not a surprise that many people were willing to look the other way for a little kickback of their own.
CPA staff believe that some border inspectors working for the Swiss company Cotecna at Iraqi frontier posts were bribed to turn a blind eye to discrepancies between goods that were contracted and what was delivered.
Does the name Cotecna ring a bell? But of course. Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son, worked as a partner in a private consulting firm doing work for Cotecna.
So what's the story about Major General Jassem Mohamed Saleh and the newly formed Fallujah Protection Army? Puzzling. I thought the whole idea was to have a single Iraqi army, de-politicised and de-baathised. Of course, I realise that practically everyone with serious security experience were Baath members, so some compromises have to be reached. Not onlike Germany after WWII.
And what about the Thulfiqar Army, a shadowy militia that has taken on Muqtada al-Sadr'suntil recently feared Mahdi militia in Najaf?
In a deadly expression of feelings that until now were kept quiet, a group representing local residents is said to have killed at least five militiamen in the last four days.
The murders are the first sign of organised Iraqi opposition to Sadr’s presence and come amid simmering discontent at the havoc their lawless presence has wreaked.
The group calls itself the Thulfiqar Army, after a twin-bladed sword said to be used by the Shiite martyr Imam Ali, to whom Najaf’s vast central mosque is dedicated.
Residents say leaflets bearing that name have been circulated in the city in the last week, urging Sadr’s al-Mahdi army to leave immediately or face imminent death.
"I haven’t seen the leaflets myself, but I heard about it when I was down there two days ago," said Ahmed Abbas, a carpenter from Najaf who visited Baghdad yesterday.
"It has got some of the Mahdi guys quite worried, I tell you. They are banding together more, when normally you would see them happily walking on the streets alone. I think their commanders have ordered them to do that."
As is the case with most fledgling resistance groups, further details are sketchy. Nobody knows yet who is really behind the group, if the deaths of Mahdi men are its handiwork or, indeed, if it really exists.
Questioned about it at a Baghdad press conference on Tuesday, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt would say only: "I am not aware of its existence, although we have had some reports of that nature from the city."
Interesting.
Both of these developments actually look like the way the British used to run their dirty third world brushwars a few decades back. It would not at all surprise me...
