Paraphrasing Clemens

Apparently there was once a report about Mark Twain's health, which he is incorrectly quoted as having responded to with the following statement...

The rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated.

... to which I will paraphrase regarding my own situation...

The rumors of my wealth are greatly exaggerated.

Well, not greatly exaggerated. As some of you will remember from this post, I had initially predicted a post-paycheck balance of up to $3500. With a $5.95 payment made to Hot or Not yesterday, my final balance, with my bonus and everything in my change jar, was $3185.89, a full $314.11 less than I had hoped for. There were several reasons for this.

I'd have needed a paycheck of at least $1200; my final pay for last month was only $1016.72

The aborted evening with DHSM resulted in a $10.45 charge ($8.95 plus $1.50 gratuity).

The Hot or Not charge resulted in a further $5.95 drop.

So, if I hadn't made those two purchases, it would have been a final tally of $3202.29, not bad, but not thirty-five-hundred. Since I was at the bank, I've had the following deductions:

$39.99 for a new pair of Carhartt jeans; of my two existing pair, both have massive holes in the back left pockets from a couple of years of carrying my wallet, and one has a hole near where the four pieces of material meet under my groin, so I've needed at least one new pair for over a month.

I owed my mother some money, which has now been paid.

So, recapping my wish list, I'm thinking that less items will be crossed off this month than I would have hoped. Perhaps a book and a CD? My goal for last month was to retain at least $1800, and through somewhat fervent frugality, I saved about $2020. I'll run a budget tonight at work and figure out what my goal for saving this month will be... Then maybe it'll be time to splurge, just a bit.

Ironic, isn't it? Even on payday, fate digs its talons into me.

Getting Worse

If today weren't pay day, I'd probably be destroying mailboxes with a baseball bat. Ugh.

Last night I was at work from 17:00 until 20:45, the last forty-five minutes being because I don't care to do one particular task at work while I have command of the office. So, since I hadn't done it during my actual shift, that part of the evening was unpaid. That's right, folks: I don't have anything better to do than photocopy and fold for no pay on a Thursday night. Pathetic.

I came home and watched a little television, then read, then went to bed. Shortly after getting into bed, I got a text message that I didn't check until this morning, since I figured it was just the usual stuff from The Wife, calling me a dirty old man or telling me that I need to get laid or that I'm a nerd. When I finally checked it this morning, it was from the Lobster. Have a look:

(FW: TRANSF :FW) Today is national I LOVE U DAY If u get this ur loved Send this to 10 people in the next 143 min then check ur inbox

Temporarily confused, and thinking that it said "I LOVE UDAY", I was then angry; not, it was not a repeat of the hilarious storyline from "Free Hat". It was a forwarded text message chain about some non-existent holiday, from someone who has repeatedly played off any hint of any interest in me. It gets worse.

I got an instant message from CCG telling me that I was cute. I thanked her, and responded that I'd not seen a recent picture of her. She sent one. Ladies, here are a couple of friendly tips. If you don't want to hook up with a guy, don't forward him a "national I LOVE U DAY" text message (honestly, who forwards text messages?), and don't send him a picture of you in a black halter dress. Cruel.

Now, I'm a clean person, and as tidy as possible, though you wouldn't know it to look at my room. My brother Twitley, who's just graduated from mechanic school in Wyoming, arrived home last night while I was at work. He wasn't home when I arrived home, but while I was watching TV (and trying to avoid seeing anyone, as I was in a sour mood last night as well) he poked his head in on me. While I was reading later, sequestered in my room, I heard him taking a shower and thought to myself, "Oh, good, I get to share a shower with Twitley for two weeks." When I went in there this morning, you'd have thought Hurricane Twitley had hit. There were towels everywhere, shoes, jeans, underwear, and the medicine cabinet was open. For crying out loud! For some reason, I think I'm going to be spending some time away from the house in the next couple of weeks.

Compound this all by the fact that I'm anxious about trying to find a job, being the only cousin on my dad's side of the family without a girlfriend (save for my uncle's step-daughter), et cetera. Bollocks. So now I'm going to get dressed and eat, head down to work, and pick up my paycheck. Then, I'm going to go on a spending spree. I can see it now, like a 1960's movie trailer...

Watch, as Fly buys a new pair of Carhartt jeans! There will be thrills, chills, and spills as Fly buys a filing cabinet! You won't believe your eyes when Fly, the greatest nerd alive, buys a copy of How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb to prevent frequent use damage to his deluxe copy! Watch in brilliant Technicolor as Fly purchases an embalming textbook online! Run, don't walk, to your local theater to see Desilu Studios' latest blockbuster... "Fly Gets Paid"!

You can leave your condolences at the beep.

*beep*

Wasting Away

I can't be positive, but I think I just lost an hour and a half of my life to Tetris. Wow.

Autographs

So, speaking of Chris Isaak, whose autographs do you have? I've got autographs from the following individuals:

Chris Isaak, musician

John McCain, Senator (R-AZ)

Tim Allen, actor

Captain James Lovell, astronaut

Timothy Zahn, author

What about you?

Crazy Dreamin'

Wow. Last night I dreamed the following.

Chris Isaak was married, and lived near me.

I was handling funeral arrangements for him, as he was terminally ill. At some point I got his autograph before he died.

I helped his wife to cremate him at their home, realizing later (within the dream) that the dynamics of such a situation were A) impossible and B) unpleasant for a wife to deal with.

Very, very strange. I'd like to personally wish Chris Isaak, who is probably the most genuinely nice musician I've ever met, a long and happy life.

Bare Naked Jerking

Prank Caller: [with fake Asian accent] Chickity China, the Chinese chicken! You have?
Guy Who Answers: We don't sell dogs.

Don't sell dogs, indeed.

Pump Up the Jam

I have to head to work this morning, since Company Ink and I didn't get things totally squared away yesterday. (Longhorn Wife, if you say a word, I will smite you.) Anyway, a few words about last night.

Dark Horse Sandal Man and I had planned to get together after I got done with work last night, which required a drive to College City. I haven't had occasion to drive much lately, so I haven't been too adversely affected by the spike in gas prices; even so, I try to drive only when I need to, which means no pleasure jaunts for the most part.

I got off work late last night; I usually finish at a couple minutes after 20:00, but the folks who were in didn't leave until after 20:00, and once most of them were gone, the primary client, who had been there since before I'd arrived at the office around 16:55, chose that time to come in and conduct business. Between her late departure and having to change into pub clothes, I didn't get out of the office until just before 20:30.

I finally got on the road and, per our agreement, I called DHSM to let him know I'd finished with work. No answer, full voicemail box. Not good. I called ahead to the pub to order some fettucine alfredo, and kept trying DHSM. I got to the pub, looked around a couple of times, but failed to discover DHSM. I had them box up my fettucine, and I went home after a brief convo with a guy I went to high school with, who looked like a filthy, dirty hippy; if my mate doesn't show up at 20:50, I don't stick around. I went back to work to finish up a project, then went home.

Eventually, right before I went to bed, DHSM called and apologized, and said he'd buy me a beer next time we went out and tell me the story of what happened. I was pissed off, but I can be appeased with Guinness. DHSM is getting fairly difficult to get a hold of, and I tend to blame his new girlfriend, but whatever; you stand by your mates, even if they flake out on you. I value credibility and reliability, but I value loyalty more.

Today will be a better day. I won't give it a choice in the matter.

Hitting the Wall

Long overdue...

I don't know if I can take it
I'm not easy on my knees
Here's my heart, I'll let you break it
We need some release, release, release, release
- Pontifex Maximus

Today was not a good day in the long run. I'm eager to put it behind me. Two E-Mails, then heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to bed I go. G'night, wankers.

Upturn

Even though I'm probably not as savvy about it as I should be, I try anymore to keep very close track of my money. Most of my money is kept in a checking account, and I try to stop in and print out a balance receipt every week or so, sometimes more. I do my best to plan purchases and factor them into a budget, though I could do better.

At any rate, I keep a change jar in my room. When it fills up, I take the change into the bank and get cash for it, then put it in an envelope in the change jar. Recently I've used money from the change jar for a couple of things, and not replaced it, which is pretty much unheard of; however, I kind of figure at this point that it's not so crucial for me to keep it segregated. It's my "travel fund", but if I do any travelling at this point, it's all going to be out of that account anyway. Who knows, I may just put all the travel fund money back in the envelope at some point. Since I'd violated the sanctity of the envelope, and not had enough cash movement to refill it, I decided to just deposit it in my bank account.

From an original envelope of $67.00, I'd given $20 to my dad as payment for something, and pulled an additional dollar out to supplement the money I gave as a tip for some Chinese or pizza delivery. That left $46.00, of which I deposited $40, saving $6 for the dinner I was about to get from a local burger joint. I had the teller write my overall balance on the deposit ticket: It came to $2063.80, which isn't too shabby. Then I arrived at work to find an envelope in my mail slot with my uncle's handwriting on it; payday isn't until the end of the week, yet it contained a check for $100. I checked the "memo" line and saw the word "Bonus". Bonus, indeed. So that brings my total, without the current change in the change jar, to $2163.80.

I'm not sure how much I'm going to get paid for last month. I didn't get called out quite so much during the nights as I did in August, but I worked a lot of hours, and I had a few night callouts. I'm not positive that it will match my last $1200+ paycheck, but if it did, and if, God forbid, I got as much as $1250 for the September pay period, supplemented with the bonus, supplemented with the bills in the change jar and the change currently in the change jar, it's very possible that I could break the $3500 mark. It would be temporarily; I owe my mother around $35, I have a few purchases to make, including a new pair of jeans, a couple of books, and a couple of CDs. However, unless everything comes through right at once and I end up going to England, I'm still looking at a post-purchases balance of more than $3000.

That's good. It makes my day; it may make my week.

UPDATE: The revised figure after a purchase this evening is $2153.35; stay tuned.

The Delay Indictment

Well, they've finally indicted Tom Delay on charges of campaign finance malfeasance.

WASHINGTON - A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.

A defiant DeLay insisted he was innocent and called the prosecutor a "fanatic."

"I have done nothing wrong ... I am innocent," DeLay told a Capitol Hill news conference in which he criticized the prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, repeatedly. DeLay called Earle an “unabashed partisan zealot” and a "fanatic."

I'm going to be completely honest, as usual: I think this is the result of a partisan witch hunt. There have been accusations leveled against Delay by political opponents for a long time now, including accusations of such "malfeasance" as paying his family members for their work as staff members on his campaigns. The folks who make these accusations do the exact same thing.

I'm listening to Medved about it right now, and it sounds like the case is very weak to begin with. My guess is that Representative Delay will be acquitted; I'm also guessing that he won't return to his leadership position in the House, though I could be wrong.

I'm no fan of Delay; I think he's done a fine job, but he doesn't walk on water in my eyes, and I have no problem with him remaining in the House of Representatives, but not being House Minority Leader. I dislike that turncoat Frist even more, but that's not the point. The bottom line, though, and I know of at least one frequent reader who will probably disagree with me on this, is that partisan lefties are so raving, and so desperate, that they've resorted to these kind of witch hunts. They can't come up with any dirt on Karl Rove, so they accuse him of leaking Valerie Plame's identity. They can't come up with any dirt on John Roberts, so they accuse him of being Roman Catholic, and they claim that some non-racist memo he wrote as a young Reagan legal clerk is proof positive that he's unfit for his job.

This sounds to me like yet another long-standing political witch hunt by partisan folks whose years and years of digging for any shred of dirt on conservatives yields nothing. I hope they sputter and cough, and then fail. Both parties should be above this kind of idiocy.

Remember Nintendo?

I've just been playing Dragon Warrior, which I downloaded a couple of years ago from Vimm's Lair. It's one of many games that are simple by today's standards, but still entertaining. Before there was Halo, or Ghost Recon, or Splinter Cell, or even Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, there were "simple" games like Dragon Warrior, Maniac Mansion, and the Secret or Monkey Island.

What are some of your favorite old video games? Time to reminisce... Again!

Eliminate Amtrak

TCS has an article, excellent as usual, about why the costs of rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina justify the elimination of Amtrak. I agree with pretty much the whole article, but there's one section I want to highlight:

The trains in Europe that are run by private companies are the ones gaining the most customers, a result of companies providing higher quality and lower prices to stay ahead of market contenders. Such competition inspires them to be more innovative and imaginative.

As many of you know (mainly because I never shut up about it), I spent last summer in England, and to a lesser degree in Europe. A lot of my travel was by train, and I can honestly say that the best trains over there were the ones that were operated by private companies. In particular, I remember taking a train on the Virgin rail network (the one owned by billionaire lunatic Sir Richard Branson). Bar none, the train was newer and nicer, and save for a couple of rude passengers, and the overall service was better.

In Europe, things are compact enough within individual countries and adjacent countries to allow for travel by train, and enough people do it in certain areas to make it cost effective; even so, the private sector does a better job in Europe, and is in higher demand as a result, than public train services. America is not Europe, and the dedication the federal government seems to have to this money pit is astounding. When you consider that Europe is roughly the size of the States (at least, the scale of the U.S. is closer to Europe than to individual nations in Europe), you can get a better understanding of the issue. If you're using Europe as an example, consider this.

Hypothetically speaking, say that I live in Edinburgh, Scotland. Well, better yet, let's say I live in Orkney. I have a business meeting, or a wedding, or holiday time, and I'm headed to Firenze, Italia (Florence). In order to travel this distance, I need to cross through no less than two other countries (England and France), dependng on my routing. I'm an average European. How do I travel? It's simple. I don't waste two days sitting on a train and in train stations. If I'm in Orkney, I take the ferry to Scotland, then I drive or take the train to Inverness or Edinburgh, and then I fly to Rome or Florence. The most train travel I would expect would be two or three hundred miles, from Thurso to Inverness (or maybe Edinburgh), and Rome to Florence. Almost without exception, Europeans would fly across Europe, not take the train.

So why should we expect Americans to do it, when the distances are often greater than the distances that Europeans aren't travelling by train? Aside from that, the train systems in Europe aren't universal and normalized. You can expect trains in Greece or Italy to be of poorer overall quality and reliability than trains in richer countries like England or Germany; the Rail Europe system is nothing more than an administrative amalgamation of existing national rail networks.

I'm all for mass transit and rail travel, and I'm all for emulating Europe when Europe has good ideas (and that happens from time to time). However, blindly following everything Europe does not only isn't the American way, it's not smart (just look at French and German unemployment rates if you don't believe me). If we want people to buy into national mass transit, it must be privatized; otherwise, it's one more money pit, like Social Security or the TSA, to suck in your tax dollars. Particularly if we're going to spend $200,000 per person to rebuild New Orleans, we can't afford to keep doing this, particularly when not enough Americans care about it to make it worthwhile.

Infant Baptism

Our good friend Jake Copper sent me this link as a justification for infant baptism. I'll make several observations about the article.

First, the title ("Church history supports long tradition of infant baptism") is enough for me to almost dismiss the rest of the article. I don't fall completely within the sola scriptura camp, but I'm pretty close. The Bible is verifiable, it's definitive, and it's accountable. Church tradition isn't.

In the case of infant baptism in particular, I feel very strongly that passages in the Bible like Luke 3 suggest that baptism in Christ's time was a choice that was being made. People were coming, of their own volition, to be baptised by request. They did it of their own free will, and did not have it subjected upon them.

The article that Jacob referenced to is, quite frankly, not very convincing, and makes assertions that the evidence provided can't back up. Here are a couple of examples.

>It is true that, according to our earliest biblical records (as in Acts 2, for example), perhaps only adults were baptized, though we can’t be sure of that.

"Earliest biblical records" should be rephrased as "the Bible". What this sentence says is that all the Bible ever talks about is adults being baptised; there is no mention whatsoever of infant baptism. The claim "we can't be sure of that" is an empty disclaimer; we can't be sure that the world isn't filled with gummy worms, but we're also given no indication whatsoever to believe that it is; in the same way, the Bible gives us no indication whatsoever that infant baptism was practiced during Jesus' time, so we have no reason to believe that it was.

I'll admit, the quotes (without much context behind them, I must note) from Origen, Polycarp, and Augustine are compelling; however, just because these respected church forefathers accepted something as common doesn't mean that it was orthodox, particularly when there's no mention of it in the Bible.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church notes that the New Testament never suggests that children will need to seek baptism later. It positively hints, in fact, that infant baptism was the practice even in the time of the apostles.

Excuse my harsh language, but I don't give a damn what the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says. There are a lot of things that the New Testament never suggests; that doesn't make their opposites true. The New Testament never suggests that the Red Sox are the world's best baseball team; does that mean that the Yankees are? There is no indication in the New Testament that infants were being baptised by the Apostles, no matter what the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says it hints at. The Bible is scripture, the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church is interpretation, and it appears to be baseless interpretation.

Beyond this, evidence is lacking for infant baptism. The lack of evidence is not surprising, however, the Oxford reference says, since the New Testament is concerned mainly with the expansion of the church into the non-Christian world and hardly at all with the natural growth of membership among persons of Christian parents and upbringing.

There is, in other words, overwhelming support for the ancient Christian practice of baptizing infant children.

How the author of this article, Father John Dietzen, can derive a claim of "overwhelming support" right after acknowledging "lacking evidence for infant baptism" is beyond me. None of the so-called "evidence" Father Dietzen provides demonstrates a biblical justification for infant baptism. None of the passages in the Bible describing baptism demonstrate it to have occurred during or after the time of Christ in any other context but consenting adults seeking it out. Jesus did it not when he was commencing his ministry, around the age of thirty; I don't think we all need to wait to the age of thirty to be baptised, but the implication as far as I'm concerned is that it requires a cognizant mind.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, baptism is a ceremonial practice only; I don't think it has any bearing on salvation, just like I don't think that taking the Eucharist has any bearing on salvation. The Eucharist is a personal reminder of the covenant we enter with Christ upon accepting His sacrifice; baptism is a public display of our pledge to live our lives in faith upon acceptance of that sacrifice. I don't mean to downplay the importance of these things, but let's be realistic: they're symbolic. If these things saved us, we'd have no need for the crucifixion. It's as simple as that.

For what it's worth, I'll give my own history. My mother's family have been Presbyterians for a long time, and Presbyterians practice infant baptism. When I was a little baby, I was "baptised" by sprinkling. After I was "born again" or "saved" or whatever my freshman year of high school, I considered being re-baptised, but decided against it; I even called into a local Christian talk radio call-in show and asked them about it. Eventually, shortly after I turned sixteen, I felt an overwhelming need to do it, and that evening I met a couple of friends and had one of them, a friend a few years older than me who was at a Christian college at the time, baptise me. I didn't seek out a priest or a pastor, I didn't feel the need to do it formally; we did it in a local river, by immersion (I think sprinkling is a cop-out, but whatever), and that was that. So, basically, I felt the need to be "re"-baptised because as far as I'm concerned, my original "baptism" was a meaningless gesture by my family, made with good intentions, but devoid of any spiritual or personal value.

If people want to have ceremonies for infants, I think that's great; call it a dedication, call it whatever you want, but it's not baptism. Baptism is something that a Christian seeks for themself in order to publically acknowledge their faith in Christ. That's the position that the Bible leads me to take, and no matter how much stock I want to put in church tradition and history, if it's not supported by the Bible, I can't accept it as orthodox.

Post your thoughts. I'll try to do another post about salvation for infants and children in the next few days.

A Science vs. Religion Hypothetical

Okay, I've got a hypothetical for you, tied into my previous post and the latest circular screaming match over at Lee's site. I'll give you some background.

I was a devoted follower of science throughout elementary and middle schools (and, as far as I'm concerned, I continue to be to this day). I was a firm believer in evolution, having read a lot of books about dinosaurs as a kid. Near the end of my freshman year of high school, a lukewarm interest in Christianity was awakened and I was "saved", "born again", whatever you want to call it. As I began researching and learning about my new faith, I learned for the first time that there were serious scientific questions about evolution, even if they weren't purely scientific in motivation.

As I read through various information available online, I gained a stronger belief in the Bible, and I came to believe that the credibility of Darwin's theories and their subsequent development was lacking. Essentially, I decided that the evidence supporting evolutionary theory was, quite frankly, not very compelling.

Now, my position has softened a bit in the last year or so. I'm still most certainly a strong theist, and I of course believe in a theistic creation, in one way or another. As I've said before, it doesn't really matter to me whether the initial chapters of Genesis are literal or not; I believe that no matter how our universe was created, it was the work of God. At any rate, I've come to believe that if evolution actually happened, which I'm not convinced of, then it could have been used by God as a device to facilitate shifts in the wildlife inhabitation of Earth for various reasons. (I have come to believe that one should not attempt to second-guess God, as God is too smart for that.)

Darwin's book, The Origin of Species, is on my list of books that I want to eventually read. The Purpose Driven Life is not. I can't say that I've studied evolutionary theory extensively; then again, I'm not a biologist, or a historian of biology. Evolution has pretty much nothing to do with my chosen discipline; even so, the theory is a minor interest of mine, and I enjoy reading about it. I have a fascination with scientific theories of all types, even if I disagree with them in part or in total, or find them completely uncompelling.

So, here's the question: if I'm educated about evolution, understand its proposed mechanics and history, and comprehend the overall theory, yet find the evidence uncompelling and approach the whole thing with a great deal of skepticism, can I really be described as suffering from "self-imposed ignorance, religious dogma masquerading as science, and general ooga-booga spirituality"? Keep in mind, of course, that I'm not talking about folks like Fred Phelps, or Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson; I examined the evidence, I'll continue to examine the evidence, but I've found it insufficient to inspire a belief in the veracity of the evolutionary paradigm.

So, what do you think? Am I an example of "self-imposed ignorance"? Do I perpetrate "religious dogma masquerading as science"? Do I display "general ooga-booga spirituality"? Post it up.

Extrabiblical Accounts of Jesus

Longtime reader/commentator Poosh asked the following in comments:

Fly, if you're out there, and have some easy off hand links etc with you, could you grab some real historical evidence for the existence of Jesus?

Thanks!

Well, Poosh, I'll direct you to the following links:

CARM - Extrabiblical Accounts of Jesus

Wikipedia - Historicity of Jesus Christ

I'll quote the two that I'm most familiar with, Suetonius' Life of the Deified Claudius, chapter XXV...

Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.

... and Tacitus' Annals, book XV, chapter 44:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

The fact that neither of these are particularly glowing reports about Christ are examples of historical verisimilitude, which is to say, they lend credibility to the historicity of the Bible because they're not the kind of thing that people with a pro-Christian agenda would make up. Suetonius is a reliable historian in some respects, though many of his stories are tabloidesque; Tacitus, on the other hand, has proven extremely reliable as a historian, and writing from a pro-Roman, anti-Jewish/Christian point of view is precisely what one would expect from a Roman court historian of the time, which we know that Tacitus was.

A long answer (that could be longer) to a short question, I know. I hope this helps.

The Fly Precedent

I'm lame enough that I'm watching C-SPAN on a Monday morning. To be specific, it's C-SPAN 2. I'm watching a "moot" (which I think means "mock") Supreme Court case being heard by eight individuals (various law-associated folks, including at least one journalist) at William and Mary Law School. The case is Rumsfeld vs. the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), and it poses the following question:

If an institution of higher education receives federal funds, can the federal government then require the same institution to allow military recruiters on campus? Or, to simplify, can federal funds come with conditions attached?

So, tell me: what do you think? Here's some background information about the case.

High Tension Mullahs

Well, isn't this story interesting?

Reporting Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear program would "breed tension" and increase volatility in the Middle East, Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said Monday.

"There is no doubt that a report to the Security Council initiates a chain of events, of actions and reactions that breed tension and add volatitility to an already vulnerable political situation in the region," Aghazadeh told a meeting of the 138 nations of the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

Aghazadeh said a resolution adopted by the IAEA's board of governors on Saturday that threatened to take Iran before the Security Council for violations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) showed "how issues can reach the borders of absurdity when politics overwhelm the work of the agency."

Fascinating. So does that mean that illegally enriching uranium and developing nuclear technology doesn't increase tension in the region!?

Patron Saint of War

Somehow, I don't think that Fyodor Ushakov will go down in history like Saint Barbara.

Historic Russian admiral Fyodor Ushakov -- a hero of Russia's wars against Turkey and Napoleon Bonaparte -- was designated the patron saint of nuclear-armed, long-distance Russian bombers by the Orthodox Church on Monday.

Russian Patriarch Alexei II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, carried a reliquary and an icon of the admiral, who was canonised in 2004, into the Moscow chapel of the Russian Air Force's 37th Air Army in Moscow, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency said.

"I am sure he will become your intermediary as you fulfil your responsible duties to the fatherland in the long-range air force," the patriarch said.

"His strong faith helped Saint Fyodor Ushakov in all his battles," the religious leader said, reminding his audience that the famous admiral of the 18th and 19th centuries never lost a battle.

Call me crazy, but I think that the assignment of a patron saint to intercontinental nuclear bombers is a little off-kilter.

PC Estonia

I have to say, I think that both sides of this story are out of line.

Estonian Defence Minister Jaak Joeruut tendered his resignation Monday after the director of a museum linked to his ministry wore a virulently anti-communist T-shirt to a football match.

A group of anti-communists contesting the October 16 local elections in Estonia distributed red T-shirts at a weekend football match, emblazoned with the slogan "Commies to the oven" and listing the names of 35 Estonian politicians who have been members of the Communist Party.

"The shirt had a list of people against whom it was directed, and it began with the names of the president and prime minister of Estonia," Joeruut said in a statement to explain why he had handed his resignation to Prime Minister Andrus Ansip.

"When the director of a war museum belonging to the defence ministry of NATO and EU member country like Estonia goes along with a campaign to burn people in ovens, including the leaders of our own state, I'm totally lost," Joeruut, who was a poet before he went into politics, said.

It sounds to me like the issue wasn't so much that the shirts were anti-communist, it's that they suggested that communists ought to be burned in ovens. Obviously, that's inappropriate. However, for the defence minister of Estonia to step down over this issue is kind of ridiculous; seeing as how Estonia is now a NATO country, and seeing as how NATO is anti-communist, the base message of these shirts shouldn't be very offensive.

God forbid we should acknowledge that communism killed more people in the twentieth century than fascism. Being honest isn't tolerant!

Dangerous Beirut Update

Following up on this story, the female Christian anti-Syrian news anchor has lost her left leg and arm.

Savages.

Butch Dead

No, this isn't a post about lesbian necrophilia like you might find on a liberal blog. It's a post about the death of one of the Little Rascals, whose character's name was 'Butch'.

And do you know what it reminds me of? What else! The Simpsons!

[Link]

Barney: Whoa! You mean, you were one of the original Little Rascals
Moe: Yeah.
Homer: Which one were you? The ugly one? [Moe glares] Were you the ugly one?
Moe: No, I was the tough kid, Smelly. My shtick was looking into an exhaust pipe and getting a faceful of soot. Nobody could do that better than me. Of course, it was kind of hard to think of reasons for me to look in that exhaust pipe every time, but, you know -- we had good writers. William Faulkner can write an exhaust pipe gag that would really make you think.
Barney: If you were such a big shot, why aren't you still making movies? Moe? Moe!
[Moe thinks back to an episode where the Little Rascals are
playing marbles]
[he flicks one away; it bounces into an exhaust pipe]
Moe: Oh, no! My favorite aggie!
[Alfalfa runs off, looks in the exhaust pipe]
[the car starts and blows soot in his face]
Moe: [smashing Alfalfa's head into the ground] You stole my bit! That's my bit... Ooh! Ooh! You stole my bit!
Man: Cut! Oh my God! He's killed the original Alfalfa.
Moe: [in the present] Yeah. Luckily, Alfalfa was an orphan owned by the studio.
Denizens: Oh! I see. That makes sense.

And what about this episode with guest star Leonard Nimoy?

Quimby: And now, I'd like to turn things over to our Grand Marshall, Mr. Leonard Nimoy.
Nimoy: I'd say this vessel could do at least Warp Five.
[appreciative laughter from the crowd]
Quimby: And let me say, "May the Force Be With You!"
Nimoy: [annoyed] Do you even know who I am?
Quimby: [indignant] I think I do. Weren't you one of the Little Rascals?

Ahhhh, yes. God bless the Simpsons... Er, the Little Rascals.

Blair: Troops to Stay

There's one man on this planet who has big steel nuts matching those carried around by President Bush: his name is Tony Blair.

BRIGHTON, England — Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday he had not expected the ferocity of the insurgency in Iraq, but he insisted British troops would stay as long as the Iraqi government needed them.

As Blair's governing Labor Party gathered for its annual conference, the prime minister said he had not set a deadline for withdrawing some 8,500 British soldiers from Iraq.

"There is no arbitrary date being set," he said, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

But Defense Secretary John Reid said British troops could begin handing over their responsibilities to Iraqi soldiers and police next year.

Blair also insisted that two British soldiers rescued from an Iraqi jail last week would not be handed over to Iraqi authorities.

The two soldiers, operating undercover, were arrested Monday in southern Iraq after allegedly shooting two Iraqi policemen who tried to detain them. A British armored patrol surrounded the jail in Basra where the two were held and crashed through the prison walls to rescue them.

As far as Brits go, other than Doug the Embalmer, Tony Blair is the friggin' man. Kudos to him for having a backbone and cast iron balls.

Silencing Dissent

This is horrible! It's censorship, it's a violation of the free press! They're using propaganda and rhetoric to silence defense! Bushitler and his thugs, under the guise of the evil Halliburton corporation must be sto-... Wait, it's happening in China!?

BEIJING — China said Sunday it is imposing new regulations to control content on its news Web sites and will allow the posting of only "healthy and civilized" news.

The move is part of China's ongoing efforts to police the country's 100-million Internet population. Only the United States, with 135 million users, has more.

The new rules take effect immediately and will "standardize the management of news and information" in the country, the official Xinhua News Agency said Sunday.

Sites should only post news on current events and politics, according to the new regulations issued by the Ministry of Information Industry and China's cabinet, the State Council. The subjects that would be acceptable under those categories was not clear.

Only "healthy and civilized news and information that is beneficial to the improvement of the quality of the nation, beneficial to its economic development and conducive to social progress" will be allowed, Xinhua said.

It always amazes me how hippies will claim that President Bush is "silencing dissent", or that "we're going in the direction of people being jailed for speaking out", but the same people pretty much ignore when it actually happens in places like China. Absolutely ridiculous.

Nitpick

This Friday TBS Superstation is showing Gladiator, which happens to be my favorite movie. I have to say, I'm disgusted by the adverts they're running. They're manipulating the footage, and putting it to a slow dance beat, looping clips to make it look like the cast is "throwing their hands in the air, and waving them like they just don't care". Simply disgusting. "Kick it old school with Russell Crowe in 'Gladiator'". You're kidding, right?

And the ultimate insult? "If your parents named you 'Maximus Decimus Meridius' [Crowe: "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius."] you'd be angry too." And some ad wizard at TBS couldn't even spell "Meridius" right on the screen; they've got it spelled "Meridious", which is wrong.

I know that Manda is going to say that I have breached the existing wilderness of nerdery, but honestly, this is nothing but a cheap sellout. Gladiator won Best Picture in 2000; it doesn't need some cheesy hip hop dressing to get people to watch it.

Idiots.

Show Boating Mullahs

Why am I not surprised?

Iran has branded a resolution passed by the UN nuclear watchdog which paves the way for the country to be referred to the UN Security Council illegal.

A majority of countries voted against Iran on Saturday, setting in motion a procedure that could end in sanctions.

Iran's foreign minister said the resolution proved Britain, France and Germany acted on behalf of the US.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes and not to produce nuclear arms as the US alleges.

Illegal, huh? Kind of like enriching uranium and building nuclear reactors without telling the IAEA is illegal? Kind of like violating nuclear treaties and international law are both illegal? Yeah, I thought so.

Basra Update

There's a some more information about the situation in Basra. It looks like the two individuals who were "arrested" may have been undercover SAS operators. The situation looks pretty FUBAR from all sides.

End of the IRA?

An independent commission is set to announce confirmation that the Irish Republican Army has disbanded. I'm remaining skeptical about this one.

BBC Strikes Again

Have a look at this BBC article. Should I be offended that some reporter has apparently figured out a way to spin a news story in order to malign not only the Roman Catholic Church, but the U.S. as well?

The Vatican is to ban all gay men from joining the clergy even if they accept a vow of celibacy, reports say.

The late Pope John Paul II ordered a review of the Catholic church's policy on homosexuality after US priests were involved in child sex abuse.

A formal announcement is expected in the coming months, but Vatican sources have confirmed US newspaper leaks.

The Vatican has regularly made clear its opposition to gay priests, calling homosexuals "intrinsically disordered".

The Papal "instruction" is expected to deal with concerns in Rome about the extent of a latent homosexual sub-culture at Catholic seminaries.

Practicing homosexuals are barred from the priesthood, but celibate gay men are commonly ordained, although many keep their sexual orientation secret.

Some estimate that more than 25% of US Catholic priests are non-practicing homosexuals.

I wonder who "some" is. How much do you want to bet it's a bunch of guys standing around the water cooler? At any rate, it's not surprising that some people value the mythical notion of progress more than they value orthodoxy.

Anyway. I thought the whole article was pretty much offensive. What do you think?!

Polish Polls

Poland has ousted its ruling left-wing government, voting in a center-right coalition. I'm not positive, but I think this means that Aleksander Kwasniewski is out; that would mean that Kwasniewski is the second Bush ally, after Jose Maria Aznar in Spain. Hopefully this won't mean that the Pols will turn tail and run like a bunch of nancy boys with their tails between their legs like the Spanish did. Somehow I doubt it; I get the impression that the Pols are more hardcore than that.

The Empty Ceasefire

Have a look at the goings on on the Israel/Gaza border.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered "unrestricted" military strikes against Palestinian militants after rocket attacks from Gaza.

Overnight Israeli aircraft launched a series of air raids, injuring several people, and arrested more than 200 suspected militants in the West Bank.

Israel has also taken the unprecedented step of posting artillery pieces on the border with Gaza, and practice-firing.

Palestinians warned the moves could force a ceasefire to collapse.

Amid threats of revenge attacks from militants, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called on US President George W Bush to step in to calm the conflict "so we can sustain the cessation of violence".

"Palestinians warned the moves could force a ceasefire to collapse", huh? It sounds to me like the "Palestinians" (read: Hamas terrorists) are the ones who suspended the ceasefire. The solution to this is not to throw more empty rhetoric at Israel, which is defending itself and posing itself to protect its own security. The solution is for the "Palestinian" leadership to now, once and for all, consolidate their territorial gains in Gaza, eliminate the Hamas terrorist militias, and establish control. Until they do that, Hamas will continue using Gaza as a base for attacks, and Israel will have to respond with force.

Dangerous Beirut

What do you do if you're Syria, and one of the Christian television stations in Beirut is anti-Syrian? You bomb a defenseless female news anchor's car.

Cowards.

Nostalgic Fly

I've just discovered the (somewhat) new Orkney Photoblog. Go have a look. I'm not quite sure who the author is, as I only know about six or seven people there, but the images are making me rather nostalgic. I'd very much like to spend Christmas in Orkney; we'll see if I can make it happen.

More pictures of Orkney on the same site can be found here, and I'm strongly considering, when I have money forking over the money to purchase this satellite map of the place.

Nerdery Exposed

Our old buddy Jake Copper sent me this link, proving once and for all that science fiction nerds need to get a life.

And, in case some of you missed it, here's more proof of the same.

Wow.

More Essay Gaffes

Here are a few more from Friar Dave.

Friar Dave: "with the growth of Christianity grew classical culture with many great Christian thinkers like Socrates, St. Jerome and St. Augustine of Hippo..."
Friar Dave: all fairly relevant... minus Socrates who lived 800 years before
The Fly: LOL

And what about this gem?

Friar Dave: how bout this? "Quite often historians and people alike....."
Friar Dave: does that mean im not a person?
The Fly: I take that as a personal insult.
The Fly: Or I guess an impersonal insult.
Friar Dave: i couldnt agree more

History makes me smile. Undergraduates (hehe, look at me, I'm elitist!) who can't bring themselves to study or apply tact to their essays make me giggle like a schoolgirl.

Still Thankful, Still Hanging On

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote this. I'm feeling pretty pathetic tonight; I was at work until nine tonight. When did I get done with work? Seven.

I wasted two hours of my life accomplishing nothing on the computer. I'm absolutely pathetic. I had pretty much two things on my list for this week beyond the stuff that's usually on there, and at this point I've completed one of them, and that was two or three days late. Considering that it was a time-sensitive item, and it's pushed back the eventual meeting to sometime next week, I'm going to have to go out on a limb and say that this week wasn't extremely successful.

So what do you do when you feel like Paris Hilton? (Which is to say, you feel like a free-loading, dog-faced, no talent hack with no ambition and no motivation whatsoever.) You make out a list of some of the things you're thankful for.

1. I'm thankful that I probably have more books than anyone I know, save for Professor Augustus and maybe Super Dave.
2. I'm thankful for tapes of my last few radio shows; the music was great, I was in rare form, and they can still make me laugh, right down to knowing from what I had to say that I was being distracted at the time by a phone call to the station phone from Fyffe for Fighting.
3. I'm thankful that I'm fully functional: walking, talking, hearing, (corrected) sight, smell, taste, touch, et cetera.
4. I'm thankful that I have two thousand dollars in the bank, and I hope that I can sit on it long enough to have in excess of three thousand in there in a week and a half before I start making some necessary purchases.
5. I'm still thankful that I get to end my week with Battlestar Galactica.

I could do more, but this is good for now. I'm going to take a leak, then sit back down for the rest of Galactica. See y'all tomorrow, folks.

Oh, and I'll chalk a sixth one on here, just for good measure.

6. I'm thankful for those Special K commercials with the girl in the dark blue jeans, red sweater, and white undershirt. She gives me an absolute chubby every time I hear that Collective Soul song start up.
7. There's a gorgeous harvest moon out my window. Outstanding.

G'night.

UPDATE: Fuckin' A... This episode of Galactica is not what I needed tonight. It's not often that a television show gets me shook up, and this one has. I'll not give away the details; suffice to say, the only redeeming factor is that the good guys came to the rescue (Chief and Helo), but it looks like an ugly cliffhanger. More later.

The "K" is for "Komedy"

No, this isn't a post about a bunch of dumbass white supremacists.

One of my buddies, who I've spoken of several times here at TSTF (he's even commented), is Friar Dave. Friar Dave is a grad student studying medieval Europe at a prominent Generic University somewhere in the Midwest. Every now and again, when he's grading essays, he'll give me the highlights. Having done some grading myself, I know how completely asinine answers can be. Here's the latest.

Friar Dave: so its grading time
Friar Dave: my FIRST essay:
The Fly: Hahhaaha
The Fly: I'm laughing already.
Friar Dave: ""to conclude was the early middle ages a time of darkness? Technically, yes, due to the absense of electriicity"
The Fly: HA!
The Fly: Great answer!
The Fly: AHAHAHAHAHA!
Friar Dave: who puts that in a written assignment?
The Fly: I've done worse.
The Fly: One time in an essay on military history, I said that American soldiers in the Old Northwest entertained themselves by telling filthy pirate stories.
The Fly: Hypothetical, of course.
Friar Dave: the question's deals with the years 500 to 1000 and he spent over half of it talking about the Empire
The Fly: ROFL
The Fly: Holy Roman?
Friar Dave: just Roman
The Fly: I figured.
Friar Dave: Caeasar, Octavian, Aurelius, Diocletian and Constantine
The Fly: Hahahahaha
The Fly: THat makes my day.
Friar Dave: good
Friar Dave: i hoped you would enjoy it
Friar Dave: unfortunately, i have to give a very low grade to my first essaqy of the year
Friar Dave: not once is Roman capitalized
The Fly: Wow.
The Fly: An omen of things to come?
Friar Dave: i sure hope not

For those of you who are unaware, the Roman Empire died prior to 510 AD, so it has essentially no bearing on the actual assignment. Here's more.

Friar Dave: i dont know how good these are, but here ya go (both from one essay)
Friar Dave: "After Rome, the barbarian tribes no longer had any authorities trying to prevent them from taking land away from Rome as there was no longer a Rome" -- to which i said "city or empire" as there was clearly still a city
The Fly: Okay.
The Fly: LOL
Friar Dave: and later the blood feud was "retired" and replaced with the wergeld
The Fly: Which i know nothing about.
The Fly: Why's that funny?
Friar Dave: so what? the practice of blood feud just packed up its bags and said, "eh, i'mtoo old for this kind of thing"
Friar Dave: retired?
The Fly: Okay.
The Fly: LOL
Friar Dave: just a bad word choice

I am a nerd. King of the nerds, in fact. More later; I think I've still got the highlights in an... Nope, nevermind, that's on the other computer. Bollocks!

Dividing the Spoils

You know, I'm writing this from my dad's office, in my great-grandmother's house. (She's deceased now.) Coming up the stairs, and considering the way our family's history has unfolded in the past century, I was struck by one overwhelmingly simple notion:

I'm a big fan of primogeniture.

(Then again, I'm also the oldest son, grandson, great-grandson, and great-great grandson. Go figure.)

MacGyver Goes Bad

Okay, so I'm watching an old episode of MacGyver entitled "The Gun", and it's really pissing me off. Here are a few of my objections.

We all know that MacGyver dosn't like guns; what I don't like is the dressing down he gives to the arms dealer (who's manufacturing AK-47's in the United States? What's that all about?), talking about a well-regulated militia, et cetera. I am my own well-regulated militia, ladies and gentlemen.

The premise of the episode revolves around a famous, rare gun. It's accidentally used to kill a cop, and when a crazed anarchist from "the Middle East" sees it on the news, he tells the aforementioned arms dealer to get it for him, or the existing deal for the AK-47's is off. The guy's name is "Rachid Zamora", but guess what: he's the stereotypical Jew. That's right, folks: a Jewish anarchist buying a massive shipment of AK-47 assault rifles.

I like MacGyver, I think it was a good show, even if it was in the dark ages of 1980's television writing. I mean, you can only get away with so many episodes where MacGyver and the Phoenix Foundation help underprivileged inner-city kids before it gets old. And I don't know how many environmentalist episodes they had. Because we all know that lumber companies aren't given enough oversight, and are constantly breaking the law.

Anyway.

Totally Bent

Ahhh, I remember hallowed antiquity...

Norm MacDonald: I'm Norm Macdonald. Now the fake news. Our top story tonight:

Does President Clinton have a bent penis? Well, according to a doctor who examined him last week, the President's genitals are, quote, "completely, one hundred per cent normal." It should be noted however that the doctor who examined him also has a bent penis. That may color his findings a little.

While this controversy raged, the president himself was on a state trip to South America where he met with various leaders and repeatedly stressed his strong ties to the region. Finally, asked to elaborate on these ties, Clinton replied, "Are you kidding me? My - my brother Roger was a huge coke dealer!"

As his last stop on the trip, the president met in Buenos Aires Thursday with Argentinian president Carlos Menem. During a meeting, Clinton asked Menem to continue with economic reform and protect democratic freedoms. Menem, in turn, asked Clinton to show him his bent penis.

Bent penis, indeed.

Prince Faisal: Tool

Anyone with any familiarity with the Saudi royal family knows that we can thank God repeatedly that Prince Faisal didn't take the Saudi throne.

WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia's foreign minister says the Bush administration did not heed some Saudi warnings on occupying Iraq and that he doesn't believe a new constitution and elections will solve the emerging nation's problems.

Prince Saud al-Faisal also said his country was still holding out the prospect of a peace treaty with Israel, but could have no diplomatic contact in the meantime, as other Arab and Muslim countries have had. He said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not acted on opportunities for peacemaking after his withdrawal from Gaza.

"He does something and then immediately goes to the United Nations and makes a speech saying, 'I am not going to do this, I am not going to do that,'" Saud told The Associated Press.

"We are not establishing relations just for the heck of it," he added. "It would be false because we are in a state of conflict."

In a wide-ranging interview Thursday, Saud said he'd like to see oil prices drop about $20 a barrel from their current $60-plus range, but predicted a lack of refineries will keep consumer prices higher even if crude becomes cheaper.

Okay, let's take this piece by piece.

First off, nobody's claiming that an Iraqi constitution and elections will solve Iraq's problems. Iraqis taking control of their country and demanding accountability and justice from their leaders, and enforcing their own border and internal security is what will solve Iraq's problems. Part of that process is a constitution and elections.

Ariel Sharon hasn't acted on peace opportunities? The whole withdrawal from Gaza is part of the peace process, and it's only been finished for about a week. A peace treaty? I'll believe it when I see it; as things stand now, you can't even set foot on Saudi soil if your passport has an Israeli stamp in it. That's not what I call a commitment to peace.

A state of conflict? Gee, I wonder who initiated that one.

Prince Faisal's analysis of the oil situation is a further display of his genius. A lack of refineries will keep prices high? Gee, I would have never guessed that, or said it. Considering that the Saudis are part of the OPEC powerhouse, and have the largest oil resources in the world, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they can pretty much set whatever price they want. So, basically, his claims are pretty much well-known fact, mixed in with pure Machiavellian nonsense.

Thank God for King Abdullah, because his half-brother is a complete and total tool.

Rebuilding After Katrina

I saw this article over at the eyerocker's blog. Two hundred grand per head? Somehow, I think there's a better use for my tax dollars than rebuilding a big man-made sinkhole that's surrounded by water. I think a better solution would be to bulldoze (or carpet bomb!) everything below sea level, fill it in with silt and sand pumped in from the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River, and build on top of that. Or, better yet... Don't use federal money to rebuild a location that's below sea level and surrounded by water.

Post your thoughts.

Arbeit Macht Freitag

I can't say that I've worked that hard this week, but I've done quite a bit, and been more productive than previous weeks. Today's Friday, which means work in the morning, work in the afternoon, work in the evening, but not a full work day; I haven't had one of those since early September, 2004.

Speaking of which, today marks one full year that I've been back on American soil, as this is the one year anniversary of my first full day after my return on 22nd September of last year. In one way or another, I'm hoping to go back by the end of this year, hopefully for Christmas and New Years; as several of you know, I am not a fan of Christmas.

This weekend, I'm on call; tonight is the season finale of Battlestar Galactica. I think I may even get a run in today, after about a month of no running whatsoever. I also may hear back today on whether or not my request for an increase in pay will be granted by my employer in England. If not, I'll definitely not be headed back as an employee.

Anyway. More soon. I need to get moving.

Stuff Fly Wants: Updated

Seeing as how this miracle has finally arrived (thanks to somebody, I forget who, for telling me it was on its way!), I think it's time to update my wish list.

Military Gear

British special forces style rucksack (available at Silverman's in London, item number 35116) - £89.99

British SAS smock (available at Silverman's in London, item number 35116) - £90.00

Tiger Stripe Utilities - $39.90

Ka-Bar USMC Fighting Knife - $70.83

Miscellaneous Clothing

Royal Marines T-Shirt - £10.96

Household Items

Brita Water Filtration Pitcher - $29.99

George Foreman Grill - $59.99

Sheep Skin Rug - price unknown

Books

Embalming: History, Theory, and Practice by Robert G. Mayer - $84.05

The Sword and the Shield by Christopher Andrew - $22.00

Lord of the Flies by William Golding - $7.95

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess - $13.95

Entertainment

Space Above and Beyond - Complete Series - $41.99

Sports Night - Complete Series - $59.99

MI-5 Volumes 1 & 2 - $124.98

Switchfoot - Nothing is Sound" - $18.98

The Best of Bond... James Bond - $17.98

There's probably some more. What about you? What do you want? Post it in comments, or on your own blog (leave a link!).

The Temptation

Behold, wisdom.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread."

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'"

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours."

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'"

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'"

Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
- The Gospel according to Saint Luke, Chapter IV, verses 1-13

Yup.

Basra Update

What's wrong with this picture?

The authorities in Basra will not co-operate with British troops until they get an apology for a raid to free two UK soldiers, its governor has said.

Mohammed al-Waili has also demanded compensation for damage caused by the raid on Monday and a "guarantee that it does not happen again".

Britain has defended its action, saying the soldiers were handed to militiamen by rogue elements in the police.

British troops have reduced their presence on the Iraqi city's streets.

For the second consecutive day British forces were not seen accompanying Iraqi police on patrols around the city, as they routinely had in the past.

This reminds me of the infamous Hainan Island EP-3 Aries incident back in 2001. My primary military instructor at the time was the executive officer of our unit, who I've referred to on here as Colonel Spook. He emphasized checking the news daily and having a good working knowledge of current events. When that incident was going on, he incorporated some of the political cartoons pertaining to the standoff into his Power Point presentations. One of them, which I've tried repeatedly to find without success, had an "apology" written in "Chinese". When you rotated it ninety degrees, it said "GO FUCK YOUR SELF".

I think that British political cartoons should incorporate the same strategy.

Let's be honest, here. The police are under the authority of the regional governor, this Mohammed al-Waili character. The police screwed the pooch on this one, and British military forces had reason to believe that their men were in immediate and severe danger, so they acted. The Basra governor should be apologizing... Or he should be replaced by the Iraqi authorities.

Obviously, this is a sensitive incident, and it needs to be handled with kid gloves. The Iraqis and the Brits need to reach a point where they can cooperate again, because if they can't get past this incident, the Iraqi police aren't going to get shaped up, and the coalition will be there even longer. Even so, the Basra governor is completely out of line here; this is nothing but showboating on his part.

Should the Brits have stormed the prison? Maybe, maybe not; I can't guarantee that I wouldn't have done the same thing if two of my men had been detained unreasonably by rogue Iraqi police. However, the fact remains that the entire incident wasn't caused by British troops, it was caused by unsavory elements within the Iraqi police forces. The solution is to cooperate, root out these unsavory elements, and establish a legitimate security force so that an incident like this doesn't happen again; in fact, it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

The Fly: Strategic Analyst Extraordinaire

Well, it looks like someone was paying attention to me when I said that the solution to piracy was to send in the U.S. Navy.

The US Navy is preparing to assume command of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), freeing up the US Marine Corps (USMC), currently in charge, for operations elsewhere.

The CJTF-HOA has been stationed in Djibouti since 2002. The task force aims to disrupt violent Islamist networks in the area, including Somalia and Yemen. Thus far its command staff has been dominated by the USMC but the service is becoming overstretched as a result of the continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The interest is, with the ongoing war on terrorism, getting some of the forces that are here freed up by forces that are maybe less engaged elsewhere … and the navy is certainly well qualified to run the base," said USMC Colonel Dwight Trafton, the chief of staff for CJTF-HOA. "This will still remain a combined joint task force. I think what you will see is, instead of a core staff of marines like we have now, a core staff of navy and a navy commander."

If you'll remember from the earlier post that I've linked to, and the posts prior to it, piracy is on the rise along the Horn of Africa, and Somali pirates have hijacked a shipment of tsunami relief supplies. Not only does the U.S. Navy have a lot less to worry about in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has the kind of resources needed to eliminate piracy and some of the terrorism and instability that's going on in the region. It wouldn't take much, a couple of destroyers or frigates, to cut down on piracy, and considering that terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah often fund their operations through illicit criminal operations, this is a good solution.

Archaeology Watch: Google Strikes Again

Sweet merciful glaven, this is so cool.

Latest technology proved an unexpected aid to unearthing the past when an Italian man decided to look at internet maps of his home.

Computer programmer Luca Mori found the remains of an ancient Roman villa when he browsed Google Earth maps showing satellite images of his local area.

His curiosity was sparked by unusual shading by his home in Sorbolo, Parma.

He contacted local archaeologists who investigated and confirmed it was once the location of a Roman villa.

"At first I thought it was a stain on the photograph," 47-year-old Mr Mori explained. "But when I zoomed in, I saw that there was something under the earth."

The satellite images threw up a dark oval shape more than 500m (1,640ft) long, as well as shaded rectangular shapes nearby.

Here's the original Telegraph article. This is pretty amazing. I wonder if the French Google rival will be able to find Roman ruins on French soil. Somehow, I doubt it.

Fuh-Laming

Behold, Iraqis who are ready to take control of their own security.

LONDON (Reuters) - British soldiers described on Wednesday how they bailed out of a burning tank after it was attacked by a mob throwing bricks, stones and petrol bombs in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

The soldiers were caught in a riot on Monday during a British raid on an Iraqi jail to free two undercover soldiers detained by local security forces. The raid provoked a furious response from Iraqis in Basra, and Iraq's government has launched an investigation.

During the raid, a crowd of Iraqis hurled petrol bombs at British troops, and pictures of one soldier engulfed in flames as he tumbled from his tank have dominated British television and newspapers for days.

Speaking from his army base in southern Iraq, the soldier, George Long, described how his Warrior light tank was surrounded by angry Iraqis.

"The crowd grew more hostile, and moved closer to the Warriors," he told Sky Television News.

"They were throwing petrol bombs ... Our hatches were open and one of the petrol bombs unfortunately hit the top and came in on top of me and my gunner.

"I had to get out because basically it was in flames, on fire, so ... I got out and luckily enough, someone put me out (put out the flames)."

Look, like I said earlier, this is precisely why Iraq is not yet ready to stand on its own two feet. First, you have plainclothes police officers arresting two British troops without cause. Then, you have militiamen transporting them, and allegedly moving them to a private residence. Then you have a an angry mob destroying a British infantry fighting vehicle with petrol bombs and rocks.

Where were the Iraqi security forces? If they're ready for us to leave, then why didn't they put down the mob before the Brits could be overwhelmed? If you ask me, this is an admirable demonstration of restraint on the part of those British troops. Everybody's favorite indignant Brit, Poosh, has some comments on the subject. As Poosh points out, the "softly-softly approach" is a confident, but ineffective one.

And of course, the BBC is shouting "Quagmire!" as usual, claiming that the so-called "exit strategy" is "elusive" and that the mission has become "unclear". Sounds more like BBC ignorance than anything else.

Hurricane Humor

It's too soon to make light of Hurricane Katrina. However, plenty of time has passed to allow us to poke fun at Tropical Storm Georges.

COLIN QUINN: While Hurricane Georges has been downgraded to a "tropical storm," it has already set records as the longest, rainiest storm of the season. In a dramatic development, Weekend Update has captured the following satellite images of Tropical Storm Georges.

[Cut to Georges, a sophisticated French gentleman complete with slicked back hair, mustache, ascot, a purple robe, champagne glass, cigarette and holder. He sits on a yellow sofa with a poodle as noisy wind blows and huge storm clouds race by in the background. SUPER: LIVE / VIA SATELLITE -- 2ND SUPER: Tropical Storm Georges]

TROPICAL STORM GEORGES: [thick French accent] Ah, bonsoir, mes amis! I am Tropical Storm Georges. ... The most beautiful and sensuous of all the severe weather systems. My actual birth name is Jean Francois Georges Le Grand. But the stupid National Weather Service shortened it to "Georges." They have no class. They are just jealous. The Weather Service is nothing to me, I spit on them. [spits] You see, that just caused a flash flood in Mississippi [pronounced "Mass a sappy"]. Like I was saying, when Georges decides to invade an American city, it's not just a storm -- it is art. Every power failure I cause is like the stroke of a brush on a canvas. Every time-- Every telephone pole I overturn is like a fresh dish of coq au vin -- with a petit side of camembert. Every airport I close is like making passionate love to a woman named Dominique. You stupid Americains with your lust for money, your fest food and your Brian Benben. [shakes his head with disgust] Ha ha! ... How I long to destroy you. Au revoir, Colin!

[Cut back to Colin at the desk.]

COLIN QUINN: Ah, that was Tropical Storm Georges ... [applause] confirming many of our worst stereotypes of the French. Tropical Storm Georges, everyone, urrgghh!

Kelsey Grammer. Is there anything he can't make classy?

A Little Misguided

Just to show you how bad things are in the world's only truly anarchic state: Somalis are travelling four thousand miles to seek asylum in Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe. When conditions in Zimbabwe are better than conditions where you are, then you've got a real problem.

Are all those punk teenagers who draw anarchy symbols on their notebooks and spraypaint them on overpasses paying attention? Of course not.

Lynndie England Strikes Again

Here's more news from the shame of the U.S. Army, Lynndie England.

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) -- Four months after she tried without success to plead guilty, Army Pfc. Lynndie England plans to fight charges she played a key role in abusing detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, her lawyer said.

The 22-year-old reservist, who appeared in several graphic photos taken inside Abu Ghraib in 2003, goes on trial here this week on two counts of conspiracy, four counts of mistreating prisoners and one count of committing an indecent act.

She will be the last of a group of junior enlisted soldiers charged with abuses at the notorious prison to have their cases resolved. Two have been convicted at trial, while six others made plea deals and received prison sentences of up to eight years. Most were members of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company.

A final hearing is scheduled Tuesday to resolve any last-minute motions, with jury selection and opening statements to follow on Wednesday. The trial is expected to conclude by the end of September.

In May, England entered into a plea agreement that eventually fell apart, but this time around "there's not going to be a deal," said Capt. Jonathan Crisp, her lead defense lawyer.

Crisp said he plans to base much of his defense on England's history of mental health problems that date back to her early childhood.

If she was competent to enlist in the Army, she's competent to stand trial. She knew she didn't belong at Abu Ghraib, and there's not a doubt in my mind that she knew that was she was doing was illegal and immoral. One of the things that nobody seems to understand about the rule of law is that you are liable for your actions, even if you didn't know they were illegal. Lynndie England is liable, and even if she's dumb as a sack of hammers, she knew right from wrong. She should be given the maximum possible sentence for all her crimes.

Larry King Loaded

And I thought Jerry Springer was bad! He's got nothing on this lunatic.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — The host of a new Dutch talk show plans to take heroin and LSD on the air in a program intended to reach young audiences on topics that touch their lives, producers said Wednesday.

The show, scheduled to premiere on late-night television Oct. 10, is called "Spuiten & Slikken," or "Swallow and Shoot Up."

Even in the liberal Netherlands, where marijuana is sold and used openly, the proposed actions by presenter Filemon Wesselink are illegal, and it was unclear how authorities will respond.

The show's hostess will interview guests about drug use and abuse, while two other presenters carry out in-the-field experiments with sex and drugs.

It's this kind of garbage that cancels any desire I could ever have to visit Holland. The Dutch have pretty much pissed away any prestige or class they ever had, and this is just another one of the many examples of it. And consider this: from the look of the article, this little stunt is in an effort to stop kids from taking drugs. What a moron.

A Legitimate Prison Break

Did you hear about the great escape?

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Britain on Wednesday defended its decision to use force to free two British soldiers being held by Iraqi police, saying the men were first stopped by plainclothes gunmen, then moved by militiamen from a jail to a private home while British officials tried to negotiate their release with Iraqi officials.

Britain's position also appeared to be strengthened by Iraq's national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, who acknowledged that one problem coalition forces face in such situations is that insurgents have joined the ranks of Iraq's security forces.

"Iraqi security forces in general, police in particular, in many parts of Iraq, I have to admit, have been penetrated by some of the insurgents, some of the terrorists as well," he said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday night.

But Iraqi Interior Minister Baqir Solagh Jabr disputed the British military's account of how it freed the captured soldiers in the southern city of Basra on Monday.

He told the BBC that the two British soldiers never left police custody or the jail in Basra, were not handed to militants, and that the British army acted on a "rumor" when it stormed the jail looking for them.

In Basra, about 500 Iraqi civilians and policemen held an anti-Britain protest outside the city's police headquarters on Wednesday.

These British soldiers shouldn't have been arrested in the first place, period. They shouldn't have been moved by militiamen, period. If they were, then the Brits absolutely had justification to storm the jail. This is precisely the kind of situation that leads to a couple of decapitated soldiers and a video on al Jazeera.

If the Iraqi police forces are in this kind of state, then this is precisely why we can't withdraw our troops from Iraq yet. In fact, I foresee an American military presence, even if it's in a slow decline, for several years into the future. When Iraq's police forces have a handle on things, to the point that two British soldiers can't get arrested by a couple of plainclothes officers, transported by militiamen, and moved to a private residence for no apparent reason, then they're ready to take over; not before.

Up, Up, Up Again

It looks like oil is going back up. Hopefully it will continue the downward trend that we'd been seeing. This $2.75/gallon stuff is bollocks.

Nork Update

Here we go.

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Tuesday it would not dismantle its nuclear weapons program until the United States first provides an atomic energy reactor, casting doubt on its commitment to a breakthrough agreement reached at international arms talks.

The North insisted during arms talks that began last week in Beijing that it be given a light-water reactor, a type less easily diverted for weapons use, in exchange for abandoning nuclear weapons. The agreement reached at the talks' end Monday — the first since the negotiations began in August 2003 — says the six countries in the negotiations will discuss the reactor issue "at an appropriate time."

Both the United States and Japan, members of the six-nation disarmament talks, rejected the North's latest demand.

"This is not the agreement that they signed and we'll give them some time to reflect on the agreement they signed," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in New York, where he was with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at meetings of the U.N. Security Council.

"The Japanese side has continuously said that North Korea's demand is unacceptable," Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.

The North Koreans are at it again. The State Department's solution, letting them stew on the negotiations, is precisely the right solution. They should be reminded that our portion of the agreement states that we won't smite them if they give up their existing reactor program; it does not state that we'll give them a light-water reactor if they give up their existing reactors.

Then again, we shouldn't be surprised; double dealing and putting the cart before the horse are hallmarks of North Korean diplomacy.

And then there's this story.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Wednesday accused the United States of intending to disarm the communist country and then "crush it to death with nuclear weapons" — two days after a landmark disarmament agreement that was expected to ease tensions.

North Korea pledged to give up its nuclear weapons program in return for economic aid and security assurances at six-nation talks in Beijing on Monday — the first breakthrough in more than two years of negotiations.

However, the country's rhetoric since then has cast doubt on its commitment to the agreement and underscored its unpredictability, though none of its negotiating partners say they expect a breakdown in the disarmament talks, scheduled to continue in November.

"The ulterior intention of the United States talking about resolving the nuclear issue under the signboard of the six-party talks is as clear as daylight," the North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

What lesson should we take from this story? When you're doing something you shouldn't be doing, take attention off of yourself by accusing the United States of planning an invasion. Don't take my word for it: ask Hugo Chavez!

Biggest Tool in the UK: George Galloway

Internationally infamous jackass George Galloway, member of the British parliament and all-around schmuck, is on Michael Medved right now. If you're not familiar with him, go ask Poosh about him. He's basically defending the "Iraqi insurgency"/a bunch of foreign terrorists blowing up Iraqi civilians. He's also trying to filibuster Michael at every turn, and he's called MEMRI an "Israeli website" about twenty times, as if that dismisses the transcripts of his statements that it has available in its archives.

This guy's an absolute piece of work. I want to reach through my radio and strangle the bastard. I pity Poosh and my fellow co-workers and friends for having to put up with this jackass representing them in Parliament. What a tool.

New Section

I've added a new section, entitled "Hallowed Antiquity". If you're bored, and you're too lazy to read Tacitus or ibn Fadlan, you can refer yourself to this section and look up transcripts from old episodes of The Simpsons, South Park, or Saturday Night Live. Knock yourselves out.

Pervez Musharraf: International Example

It's stories like this that

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said his country will take steps to build ties with Israel as the Middle East peace process progresses.

He made the comments at a ground breaking dinner meeting with members of the American Jewish Congress.

He is the first leader of a Muslim nation that has no diplomatic ties with Israel to hold a public dialogue with Jewish leaders.

Israel and Pakistan recently held talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

President Musharraf's historic address in New York began with bread being broken and prayers from the Koran being recited.

He was given a standing ovation as he arrived for the meeting at which he called for the establishment of a Palestinian state to end violence in the Middle East and bring security to Israel.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf understands the future, and understands what's best for the Islamic world. The only way that Islamic nations can become economically and politically secure is by instituting democratic reforms, giving their people a stake and influence in the conduct of government, and modernizing their economies. In a nutshell, they need to emulate the West, and establish good relations with Western nations. If they can't put their differences with the Jews behind them and get along like civilized people, they will persist in difficulty. Don't believe me? Look at Syria. Look at Iran. Look at Sudan. Look at most of North Africa. They have no prospects whatsoever for improvement.

Now, consider the other nations, the nations that have gotten onboard with the peace process. Egypt. Jordan. Mauritania. Hopefully Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Pakistan. They recognize that religious differences may give us different perspectives, even conflicting perspectives, but that we still have to live together. We still have to work together.

Basically, you get onboard and play by the rules, or you get left behind, or smoten. Pervez Musharraf gets this, and although I don't agree with all of his policies (he should garrison troops within and consolidate Baluchistan and Waziristan), he's stronger than most of our allies in the War on Terror. I, for one, will give him credit for that, and for this.

A Hero's End

Simon Wiesenthal has died. Don't have any clue who he was? Read on.

Simon Wiesenthal survived the Nazi death camps, but was haunted for the rest of his life by the need to track down those responsible for them.

Born in Lviv, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, into a family of Orthodox Jews, Simon Wiesenthal survived the Soviet invasion of the area in the late 1930s, and suffered the arrival of the Nazis in 1941.

As a young architect, Wiesenthal watched his mother being transported away for execution. He believed his wife Cyla had died too. In fact, she had escaped persecution by pretending to be a Pole.

He spent four years in concentration camps, once spared by a firing squad that stopped before it reached him.

As the advancing Red Army pushed into Germany, Wiesenthal was forced to march westwards by his SS guards. The survivors of this arduous trek were liberated, finally, by American troops at the Mauthausen camp in Austria, in May 1945.

He cried from loneliness and then dictated a list of 91 names of camp officials. He later tracked down more than 70 of them.

In 1947, Wiesenthal helped establish a centre in Linz, Austria, devoted to collecting information for use in future war crimes trials.

[...]

But his enthusiasm was rekindled with the capture by Israeli agents of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the so-called Final Solution.

Buoyed by the trial and execution of the Nazi technocrat, Wiesenthal opened the Jewish Documentation Centre in Vienna.

Collating sightings and tip-offs from a worldwide network of sympathisers, human rights activists and even former Nazis themselves, he pursued the 90,000 people named in the German war crimes files.

His biggest success was bringing Franz Stangl to justice in West Germany in 1967. Stangl was commandant at Treblinka where an estimated 800,000 Jews died.

In all, he was believed to have brought 1100 war criminals to trial. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, set up in the United States in 1977, has pressed for the extradition of numerous war crimes suspects, as well as campaigning for the rights of Holocaust survivors and an end to pensions for SS officers.

In 1986, he succeeded in having gypsy representatives included on the Holocaust Memorial Council in Washington DC.

His biggest disappointments were his failure to secure the capture of Gestapo chief, Heinrich Muller, and Auschwitz doctor, Josef Mengele, who died in Brazil in 1978.

We need more Simon Wiesenthals in this world. To be honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if men like this start rising up in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where tyrants and their henchmen have done everything in their power to kill scapegoats and deny freedom to their citizens. This is the dividend of dictatorship and authoritarianism: heroic individuals who rise up and hunt down those who do evil.

May Mr. Wiesenthal rest in peace after a well-spent life devoted to the pursuit of righteous justice.

The Karzai Factor

I can get onboard with most of this.

KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday challenged the need for major foreign military operations in Afghanistan, saying air strikes are no longer effective and that U.S.-led coalition forces should focus on rooting out terror bases and support networks.

Karzai also demanded an immediate end to foreign troops searching people's homes without his government's authorization.

"I don't think there is a big need for military activity in Afghanistan anymore," he told reporters in Kabul. "The nature of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan has changed now.

"No coalition forces should go to Afghan homes without the authorization of the Afghan government. ... The use of air power is something that may not be very effective now."

In suggesting a new approach to fighting militants, Karzai said foreign governments should "concentrate on where terrorists are trained, on their bases, on the supply to them, on the money coming to them" — a veiled reference to alleged support that the militants get from neighboring Pakistan.

I'll agree that, for the most part, there's very little point in continued air strikes; my guess is that there aren't a great deal of air strikes going on at this point. I'll also agree that if American troops are going to search the homes of Afghans, they should do so in conjunction with the Afghan government. Just as our goal in Iraq is to build an Iraqi fighting force capable of kicking terrorist ass and taking names, our goal in Afghanistan is to build an Afghan fighting force capable of kicking terrorist ass and taking names.

I can't fully agree that there's no need for coalition troops in Afghanistan. Every few days, you'll hear about a car bomb, or an assassination attempt, or masked gunmen, or something. Heavy emphasis should be placed on terrorist bases and camps, and I've said before (and will probably have occasion to say again) that part of that infrastructure is probably in Pakistan. As long as terrorists continue to carry out attacks in Afghanistan, and as long as the Afghan security forces don't have the training and experience to handle it, coalition forces need to continue operations in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai has proven to be a strong leader with big, cast iron balls, but he doesn't have any military experience, so I have to take some of his statements with a grain of salt.