Problems with Mules
Okay, so I had nothing social or logistical to do... Well, nothing social and very little logistical to do last night, so I had intended to catch up on a few things that I've been meaning to write about lately. First, the news.
From the AP: Chicago Family's 'Buy Black' Experiment Becoming a Nationwide Movement. Okay, wasn't the whole point of electing the first black POTUS supposed to be that race didn't matter anymore? If some white guy organized a "Buy White" campaign, they'd probably be murdered, arrested, and lampooned simultaneously. Seriously.
Al Qaeda terrorist Ali al Fakhiri, AKA Ibn Sheikh al Libi, has reportedly committed suicide in a Libyan prison, and hippies are whining about it. They allege that he was tortured by American forces so that he would provide bogus intel in order to justify the Iraq invasion. Yeah, okay. People should study these things before they make outlandish claims. (CNN, Guardian) You'll excuse me if I don't put much stock in the testimony of another guy who was detained during OEF.
Things are looking pretty bad in Pakistan. Although the Pakistani government appears to be fighting off the Taliban, this is the same government that's tried to make deals with the Taliban in the past; and elements of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence service (ISI) have even been rumored over the last several years, and accused by Hamid Karzai himself, of funding the Taliban in an effort to keep Afghanistan from becoming a stable rival - which would put the failing state of Pakistan between a stable Afghanistan and a stable India. The situation in Pakistan is inexorably tied to that of Afghanistan, as much of both countries is actually an ethnic nation that should be properly referred to as "Pashtunistan". There are several interesting links about the situation in Pakistan from yesterday's news.
Taliban: All local leaders [in Northwest Pakistan] must quit (CNN)
Interactive Pakistan Conflict Map (BBC)
Pakistan 'most dangerous country in the world': [Canadian Defense Minister] MacKay (AFP)
Closer to American operations in Afghanistan, it looks as if the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) Air Base that Uzbekistan ousted the United States from in '04 may be reopening soon thanks to some diplomatic strategery by our South Korean allies. This follows the recent eviction notice that American forces unexpectedly received from Kyrgyzstan regarding the Manas Air Base.
I haven't followed the arrested Iranian-American journalist's story on the blog, but a couple of articles jumped out at me yesterday: news outlets are claiming that she was arrested because she was found to be in possession of a sensitive Iranian government document about the Iraq War (Times, Fars). Very interesting.
Today's cool item of the day is the Scaled Composites Proteus aircraft, which is currently owned and operated by Northrop Grumman in conjunction with NASA and other government entities (Wiki entry). I just think it's really cool looking, and apparently they've done some cool stuff with it, so check it out. Since I've run out of time to compose this post, I'll try to pick the rest up for AMF tomorrow, time permitting. There's no satellite picture to close things out today, but your video clip of the day is one of the opening scenes from Per un Pugno di Dollari - A Fistful of Dollars.
Have a fantastic day, folks.
From the AP: Chicago Family's 'Buy Black' Experiment Becoming a Nationwide Movement. Okay, wasn't the whole point of electing the first black POTUS supposed to be that race didn't matter anymore? If some white guy organized a "Buy White" campaign, they'd probably be murdered, arrested, and lampooned simultaneously. Seriously.
Al Qaeda terrorist Ali al Fakhiri, AKA Ibn Sheikh al Libi, has reportedly committed suicide in a Libyan prison, and hippies are whining about it. They allege that he was tortured by American forces so that he would provide bogus intel in order to justify the Iraq invasion. Yeah, okay. People should study these things before they make outlandish claims. (CNN, Guardian) You'll excuse me if I don't put much stock in the testimony of another guy who was detained during OEF.
Things are looking pretty bad in Pakistan. Although the Pakistani government appears to be fighting off the Taliban, this is the same government that's tried to make deals with the Taliban in the past; and elements of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence service (ISI) have even been rumored over the last several years, and accused by Hamid Karzai himself, of funding the Taliban in an effort to keep Afghanistan from becoming a stable rival - which would put the failing state of Pakistan between a stable Afghanistan and a stable India. The situation in Pakistan is inexorably tied to that of Afghanistan, as much of both countries is actually an ethnic nation that should be properly referred to as "Pashtunistan". There are several interesting links about the situation in Pakistan from yesterday's news.
Closer to American operations in Afghanistan, it looks as if the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) Air Base that Uzbekistan ousted the United States from in '04 may be reopening soon thanks to some diplomatic strategery by our South Korean allies. This follows the recent eviction notice that American forces unexpectedly received from Kyrgyzstan regarding the Manas Air Base.
I haven't followed the arrested Iranian-American journalist's story on the blog, but a couple of articles jumped out at me yesterday: news outlets are claiming that she was arrested because she was found to be in possession of a sensitive Iranian government document about the Iraq War (Times, Fars). Very interesting.
Today's cool item of the day is the Scaled Composites Proteus aircraft, which is currently owned and operated by Northrop Grumman in conjunction with NASA and other government entities (Wiki entry). I just think it's really cool looking, and apparently they've done some cool stuff with it, so check it out. Since I've run out of time to compose this post, I'll try to pick the rest up for AMF tomorrow, time permitting. There's no satellite picture to close things out today, but your video clip of the day is one of the opening scenes from Per un Pugno di Dollari - A Fistful of Dollars.
Have a fantastic day, folks.
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