Wherein the Fly Purchases Fruit

Okay, so, first thing's first. In case I haven't announced it already, a long-time reader and occasional commenter now has a new name. Law School Goddess is no longer in law school, and we can't just call her Law Goddess or Legal Goddess because she hasn't received her bar exam scores yet. So, at least in the interim, and possibly long-term if she prefers it, her moniker will and has become Triathlon Goddess, because she's just crazy about swimming, biking, and running. Thus, Triathlon Goddess.

Why I am I blathering on about this? Well, aside from giving me dirty thoughts of her shapely body, Triathlon Goddess is constantly making me feel like a disgusting physical failure by describing her healthy diet and constant exercise. So, as I was at the grocery store today, I decided to pick up some more fresh fruit than I normally do - which is to say that I almost never do, and only recently did I start doing it at all. So, you can see the picture of the fruit that I bought.

bananas

a mango

medjool dates

kiwi fruit

Just two things, for the record. First, I had never encountered dates, at all, until I worked in California with various Middle Eastern folks, all of whom had authentic Middle Eastern food, and basically force-fed you with it whenever they possibly could. I especially loved dolma, although I have to say: Kurdish and Arab style dolma is much better than Greek dolma. Much.

The second thing, which is a bit more brief, is that kiwi fruit is, bar none, the most sensuous fruit ever. Just think about that for a few moments.

Okay, on to the news.

Last week, a tribe of Tuaregs pledged to stop fighting the government of Niger. Well, during a weapons surrender operation, a landmine accidentally exploded. In a loosely related story, it's been discovered that the Provisional IRA likely held onto some Semtex explosives that were used in a terrorist attack on the Police Service of Northern Ireland a couple of weeks ago.

As I mentioned previously, al Qaeda in the Maghreb pulled off several high profile bombings in and around Algiers over the last couple of weeks. UPI, via SpaceWar, has yet another article on the rise of al Qaeda's wing in North Africa, and the significance of the recent attacks. How much actual logistical support the Algerian terrorists get from the bin Laden core element of al Qaeda has yet to be determined, but it's probably negligible. The article's worth reading.

I also ran across a fairly interesting article on the crumbling morale and membership of women in Colombia's FARC terrorist group. If you have any interest in Central and South American affairs, or just counter-insurgency in general, it's well worth the read.

Two interesting articles from the Wired.com defense blog yesterday. First, as some of you may know, the recent South Ossetian War in Georgia involved a massive online attack against Georgian computer networks. Someone has started an open source effort to combine various pieces of intelligence in an effort to build a more comprehensive picture of what online groups staged the attack, and how they did it. Also, in a post I found to be very interesting, India participated this year in the annual Red Flag exercise in Nevada, hosted by the U.S. Air Force. What made India's participation interesting was that, because of their use of Russia's newest equipment, they actually had to essentially fight with one hand tied behind their back in order to avoid giving away the full capabilities of the Russian equipment.

Tune in tomorrow; I'm assuming I'll have some more news, but there are also a couple of lighter topics to discuss. One of the topics will be game review shows on YouTube, so my question for you today, should you be reading the post, is this: what's your favorite video/computer game of all time? Post it in the comments, and have a great Tuesday. And remember... Kiwi fruit!