AMF: Just the News

Hey, folks! It's finally Friday! Here's the news.

Afghanistan:

US set to pay Taliban members to switch sides (CNN, BBC)

U.S. commander, NATO in Afghan strategy talks

War training on a California beach

BBC: UN endorses Afghan troop request

Times: John Kerry reinvented as Afghan link

AP: International, Afghan Forces Outnumber Taliban 12-1

Guardian: Video: US strategy failing in Afghanistan

UPI: Outside View: Taliban's viral insurgency

CNN: Security expert: Peshawar attack demonstrates arrogance of Taliban

Times: Commanders hope to make Obama agree to surge

BNP on the BBC:

AP: Report: Protesters Break Past BBC Security

CNN: 'I am not a Nazi,' [British] National Party leader says on BBC

Guardian: The real threat of immigration

Times: The BBC lynch mob proved BNP leader Nick Griffin’s best recruiters

For those of you who aren't aware, America's immigration problem is actually not as bad as Europe's. In Europe, the situation is so bad that white supremacist political groups are actually gaining traction, because like in the United States, mainstream parties won't bother dealing with the issue for fear of alienating voters. The slowly-growing legitimacy of the British National Party wasn't quashed when a bunch of obnoxious twerps were brought in to ambush their party leader, Nick Griffin (MEP), on the BBC's Question Time. I may discuss this situation further at a future time.

In General:

BBC: Kenya Anglicans reject Pope offer; Times: Vatican row delays Anglo-Catholic text

UPI: Reports: Clean coal more costly - Yes, because it's a new technology, and because the industry is set up to keep doing things as normal. For the time being, clean coal is the best compromise since dirty hippies refuse to acquiesce to common sense nuclear energy, and solar and wind are like the empty promises that so many of The Fly's ex-girlfriends have given him.

Fox: Eat a Dog, Save the Earth - How Green? - Now the "climate change" folks want us not to keep pets. No pets? No meat? No electricity? I'll learn to live without glaciers, thanks.

Yemen intercepts Iranian ship with arms (BBC, UPI)

Obama meets coffins of fallen soldiers (Guardian, Times) - Publicity stunt. Sickening publicity stunt. If I'd been the father of the deceased, I'd have told President Obama to get bent.

AFP: EU lifts Uzbek arms embargo

Report Blames Cutbacks on Safety Checks for British Military Deaths
(AP, CNN); Times: [British] Top brass are failing our Top Guns

AFP: France signs defence agreement with Kuwait

Old USA Today: Signals foil IEDs but also troop radios

BBC: Yemen rebels 'fight Saudi forces'

AP: Bahrain lawmakers Vote to Ban Citizens From Having Relations With Israelis

Times: Obama faces first election test in Virginia - Creigh Deeds is going to lose. Bob McDonnell is going to win. That's change you can believe in.

BBC: In pictures: On the silk road in Syria

Guardian: Enemy of the public option - Thank God for Joe Lieberman. I disagree with him on a number of issues, but Joe Lieberman is the kind of Democrat I could and would vote for.

The Onion: 14 American Apparel models freed

Have a great weekend!

Fly Report: 30th October 2009

Good morning. Damn, woman! I just gave you sweet lovin' five minutes ago, you tryin' to kill me!?

It's 13° Centigrade and rainy in Kirkwall. In Cody, the forecast calls for a high of 51° Fahrenheit with morning rain and snow.

A barrel of oil is trading at $78.88. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 9962.58. The exchange rate is $1.66 for £1, or £0.60 for $1.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is cool. The picture at the Orkneyjar Photoblog is not new.

Today's scripture reading is Genesis 3. The Fly is currently reading The Royal Marines: From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force by Julian Thompson and Confessions by Augustine.

You love this town, even if that doesn't ring true. You've been all over, and it's been all over you.

Stuff Fly Wants: October 2009

Hey, folks! Happy Wednesday Thursday! Today I'll catch up on most of the leftover stories from last week, and then do Father Time's favorite post of the month, the Stuff Fly Wants list.

* * *

BBC: Vatican's Anglican decision is dramatic and historic; Times: 400,000 former Anglicans flock to Rome - More straggling articles about the Anglican/Roman Catholic news from last week.

Police Arrest 11 Iranian Revolutionary Guards (AP, BBC, Times) - Fascinating! The game is afoot.

French court convicts Church of Scientology of fraud (CNN, BBC, Guardian)

Report: Palestinians denied water by Israel [according to Amnesty International] (BBC, Times) - There's another rant about this below. Basically, I'd be willing to consider believing this if it was someone reputable; insteade, it's Amnesty International, which is a total joke, and blatantly anti-Semitic. It's not Israel's fault that the leaders of Amnesty International haven't seen the Pallywood video.

AP: NASA Sees Huge Fires Across Parts of N. Korea - The article claims that the Norks are burning in preparation for planting or something. If you ask me, they're probably trying to obscure something from the view of satellite imagery.

Fox: U.N. Report Demands Repeal of Counterterrorism Laws to Promote 'Gender Equality' - Following up on their epic win of giving a seat to the IOC, the UN is trying to use CT laws to promote gender equality. Would someone remind me why we fund this feckless, corrupt organization and allow it to take up perfectly good American land?

Fox: French Minister: Muslim Burqa 'Contrary' to French Values - As much as I respect religious toleration, there is a fundamental conflict if a group - ethnic, religious, ideological, whatever - refuses to accept and assimilate into the culture into which it injects itself. If a person wants to retain their own culture to the Nth degree, they probably shouldn't be trying to find a better life in a country that's so fundamentally different than their own. Allowing immigration is great, but the burden then falls on the immigrant to assimilate. All of my ancestors did it, and if I were moving to a different country with a fundamentally different culture, I'd expect to do it as well.

CNN: Afghanistan drug trail spanning the world

CNN: Ignored by society, Afghan dancing boys suffer centuries-old tradition

BBC: Why 'adolescent America' has to grow up - As annoying as this article is, it makes an interesting and, at the very least, thought-provoking point. If we as a culture continue to lend value to the garbage that comes out of Hollywood, or other elements of juvenile American culture that are exported, it's very difficult to claim any sort of cultural superiority.

BBC: UK navy forces to return to Iraq

BBC: US boosts Seychelles piracy fight

BBC: Australia coastal homes at risk [from climate change] - You know, a while ago, I downloaded and listened to a podcast from the Heritage Foundation entitled Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous Than Global Warming Itself. I remain a skeptic of so-called "global warming" and "climate change" - I think that humanity should be responsible stewards of the planet, but I also think that the "science" of "global warming"/"climate change" is anything but settled, and I don't think we should enact sweeping policy changes based on disputed information. Thus, ridiculous headlines such as this one really annoy me.

BBC: Audio slideshow: Soldier artist [in Afghanistan]

BBC: What defines your religion? - This was actually a really interesting piece. It's inspired by a case in the United Kingdom that discusses the basis for admission to a Jewish school, but it delves a bit deeper to discuss what actually defines a person's faith (but not much deeper - it's the BBC, after all).

Guardian: The 'good' Taliban - Islamists and army fight insurgents - I'm getting pretty sore with the Pakistani government, which seems to be perfectly willing to jeopardize their security and my security by continually making deals with terrorists who break their promises.

Guardian: Who are Syria's real friends?

Guardian: Runoff splits Afghanistan in three

Times: Human Rights Watch accused of anti-Israel bias - Part of the reason why I ignore just about any negative press that Israel gets anymore isn't that I offer unconditional support to Israel - in fact, I'm perfectly willing to call Israel out if it does something wrong. The problem is that anti-Israeli sentiment, some of it based on ignorance, some of it based on anti-Semitism, is so endemic in the media and in various international bodies, that the claims of groups like Human Rights Watch, or even the UN, have lost any trace of credibility. When they'll call Israel out for one or two alleged deaths of people who were probably militants to begin with, but they won't call out "Palestinians" for their verifiable and unapologetic rocket attacks against Israeli schools, there's not much credibility to grant.

Times: Missing Link? No Way - Apparently that "missing link" from a few months ago isn't a missing link at all - or, at the very least, it's being hotly disputed. See? Darwinians can jump to their own faith-based conclusions, too!

Times: Vatican gives Marx the thumbs up - And they were doing so well...

Times: First US official resigns over Afghanistan war

Times: Climate chief - give up meat to save the planet - See above. This is just silly. Comparing meat consumption to drinking and driving, in the name of "climate change"? If these are the kind of people who are pushing this global warming agenda, no wonder people are starting to question it.

Times: Gaddafi apologises for WPC Fletcher murder

Times: India Knight: The obese want to have their equality cake and eat it too - This is one of the best op-eds I've read in a long time, and I'm guessing that one reader of this blog in particular will agree with every word of it.

Wired: US largesse keeps African militaries rolling

Wired: Helicopters: Achilles' Heel of the Afghanistan War

Wired: Pak Taliban spooked by drones, insider account shows

ThreatPost: Report: Cyberterror Not a Credible Threat - I've thought this for years. The concept of "cyber-terrorism" is intriguing, and was really terrifying back in the late 1990's when nobody knew any better. The truth is that, while there's a moderate amount of damage that might be done by criminal or state-sponsored hackers, America's nuclear arsenal, nuclear power stations, electrical grids, and hospitals housing grandma aren't just accessible at the click of a mouse, if they're plugged into the Internet at all. Not that they're reputable as journalists, but the kids over at Cracked.com pointed this out a while ago in conjunction with Hollywood movies, which portray computers as a simple means of blowing stuff up and erasing people from the face of the planet. The truth is that terrorism requires bloodshed, and it requires people to be terrified when that bloodshed occurs. The hacking that China has been publicly accused of/proved to be doing over the last few years? Not terrorism. North Korea running DDoS attacks on South Korean networks? Not terrorism. Georgian and Estonian networks being attacked by (probably) Russian state-sponsored or criminal-sponsored hacking teams? Not terrorism. Obnoxious? Yes. Vandalism? Yes. Violent and terrifying? Not really.

UPI: Libya eyes new Russian jet fighters

AFP: Pentagon conducts secret war game on Afghan options: report

AFP: Boatload of Iranian arms seized off Yemen: reports

AFP: Medvedev unhappy with quality of Russian weapons

* * *
Field Gear

British special forces style rucksack - £75.00

British SAS smock - £95.00

British Desert DPM trousers and shirt

MARPAT Desert Utilities - $67.98

Tiger Stripe Utilities - $39.98

Khaki Tru-Spec Tactical Response Uniform trousers (2) - $89.80

Sand Crye Precision Field Pants AC - $115.00

UDT/SEAL Team Swimmer Trunks (2) - $71.90

U.S. Army ACU tan sweat-wicking uniform T-shirts (3)

Under Armour Cold Gear

5.11 Tactical Polos (3) - $89.97

Rubbermaid 48 Gallon ActionPackers (2) - $69.99

TAD Gear Pathfinder Zip Hoodie - $117.70

Sony 8GB Walkman Video MP3 Player (black) - $119.95 (Amazon price $99.77)

Mini Cargo Pocket Organizer - $27.95 NEW

M9 Mag Pouch - $29.95 NEW

Bushmaster Deluxe Armorer's Kit - $180.95

FN FAL

Household Items

Union Jack - $8.09

Amazing Pasta Maker [click me] - $39.95

Fouled Anchor lapel pin

Walther PPK

Roman Mainz Gladius - $144

The Maxim Coffin Coffee Table - $3995.00

Pawleys Island Tri-Beam Hammock Stand - $140.00

Pawleys Island Beach Quilted Hammock - $199.99 (Amazon price $184.36)

Discipline poster - $19.95

book case

Clothing

Royal Marines T-Shirt - £10.96

More Cowbell T-Shirt - $20.00

Position Wanted: Pope T-Shirt - $12.99

Clan Cleland tartan kilt and kilt pin - $400.00 - $700.00

deer skin sporran

Books

Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab - $7.99

Contact Zero by David Wolstencroft - $7.99

Entertainment

Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5 - $49.98 (Amazon price $31.49

Best of Chris Isaak (CD & DVD) - $24.98 (Amazon price $22.99)

Kids in the Hall - Seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4 - $179.90 (Amazon price $155.98)

Gladiator Extended Edition - $35.98 (Amazon price $22.99)

Apocalypse Now - The Complete Dossier - $19.99 (Amazon price $13.99

Switchfoot - The Legend of Chin - $11.98

Stephanie Schneiderman - Live at Kung Fu Bakery - $15.98

Hootie & the Blowfish - The Best of 1993 Through 2003 - $11.98 (Amazon price $8.97)

Mystical Chants of Carmel by the Carmelite Monks - $18.95

* * *
That's it for today. Check in tomorrow for what should be the last of the articles carried over from last week. Have a great Wednesday Thursday!

Fly Report: 29th October 2009

Good morning. Mmmmm, how about a little more of that good lovin', Chef?

It's 14° Centigrade and partly cloudy in Kirkwall. In Cody, the forecast calls for a high of 35° Fahrenheit with sunshine.

A barrel of oil is trading at $76.86. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 9762.69. The exchange rate is $1.64 for £1, or £0.61 for $1.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is beautiful. The picture at the Orkneyjar Photoblog is not new.

Today's scripture reading is Genesis 3. The Fly is currently reading The Royal Marines: From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force by Julian Thompson and Confessions by Augustine.

Oh, lordy, you've been stealing from the thieves, and you got caught.

Bollocks

Beer-related technical issues. Hopefully back to blogging by Monday. Standby.

UPDATE: Okay, it appears to be better than I'd thought. Basically, I spilled beer on my new laptop. However, it appears to have only disturbed the keyboard. With only $86 (USB hub, USB keyboard and mouse, and monitor/laptop stand), two and a half years of working with techies, and a dream, I'm back up and running, and when all's said and done, I think I'm going to be able to get the thing squared away for under $200, which is much better than spending another $700 on another brand new laptop.

Ugh. I need a vacation.

Beer Run: October 2009

Hey, folks! It's Beer Run day! First, more of my news catch-up, then the Beer Run update.

* * *
Anglicans and Roman Catholicism:

USA Today: Is Catholic Church rustling - or just welcoming - Anglican converts?

National Post: Amen to a good offer

Wall Street Journal: Vatican in Bold Bid to Attract Anglicans

BBC: Rome rules on admitting Anglicans

I think that this offer by the Roman Catholic Church to conservative Anglicans is both fascinating and envigorating. In no uncertain terms, this represents an unequivocal indication of just how broken the Anglican Communion is. It's schizophrenic, the only "leadership" is from the branches of the Communion that have lost any trace of accountability, and it's obvious. It's so obvious, that Anglican clergy have been making requests of the Holy See to allow them to have a special dispensation within the Roman Catholic Church, and the Holy See has responded.

I'm not positive that I'll start going to Mass, but I'm thinking about it. The Roman Catholic Church has caused me to keep it at arms length because there are so many items of doctrine and dogma that I disagree with - things that are just plain wrong, ahistorical, et cetera. This development could very well allow me to put those differences behind me, as the Roman Catholic Church appears to be ready to accept Anglicans as they are, as a sort of church-within-a-church. That's profoundly stirring, and should send a message to devout Anglicans everywhere, not to mention the leaders of the Anglican Communion.

General News:

US Biden to reassure Poles (BBC, AFP) - Yeah, I'm really positive that Vice President Biden is reassuring the Eastern European allies that President Obama gave the finger to on the anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland. Seriously.

CNN: Greenpeace protests genetically modified corn in Mexico - Greenpeace is protesting Mexican efforts to feed people. Unbelievable.

CNN: Atheist ads to adorn New York subway stations - Is it just me, or are most evangelistic Christian advertisements a lot more uplifting than these obnoxious Atheist billboards that they've taken to running on public transportation?

BBC: Australia to review Afghan force - Australia is looking to pull out of Afghanistan. Thanks, Kevin Rudd.

BBC: African view: China's new long march

BBC: Violent clashes in Algiers slums

BBC: US arms Mali to battle al-Qaeda

BBC: Bedouin who serve in Israel's army

Guardian: Iran will do business but not with France

Guardian: Religion, HIV and the developing world

Guardian: You can be good without God, Denham tells church leaders - Most people just aren't. They've done studies of this.

Guardian: A moral atrocity: Judge Goldstone has been suckered into letting war criminals use his name to pillory Israel

Guardian: Climate change in Siberia - 'Our reindeer go hungry'

Guardian: The great birdwatching war hero

Times: The decade that changed who we were - An article about the first decade of the new millennium.

Times: [British] Women have got greedy with maternity leave

Times: Britain and US reject Iranian accusations over terror attacks

Times: Yemen could become first nation to run out of water

Times: Tory stance on European Union worries Obama

UPI: Iran's enemy within strikes again

UPI: Turkey set to sue Israel as rift deepens

UPI: Walker's World: China's new enemies

Michael Totten: From Bucharest to Chernobyl

Michael Yon: Adopt-a-stan

* * *
It's been a while since I did a beer run. Through a business deal with some co-workers whereby I took some notes for them during a series of meetings, I was inundated with four six-packs of Guinness Extra Stout. It was wonderful, but it certainly delayed my regular beer run cycle. I refused to drink the rest of that horrible Hoegaarden, and I only had one bottle of Guinness left by this weekend, so I did a beer run when I was out grocery shopping on Sunday. I picked up my signature six six-packs, and this is what I got:

Guinness Extra Stout

Harp Lager

Widmer Hefeweizen

Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat

Pete's Wicked Strawberry Blonde

Samuel Adams Blackberry Witbier

For those of you who have seen my Beer Run posts in the past, none of these will come as a surprise. I've had all of these before, and none of them are particularly adventuresome. In the coming weeks, following the end of this Iraq disappointment, I want to get back to basics on a number of things, just to regain a sense of personal equilibrium. Familiar beer will help with that, I hope.

* * *
That's it for today. Tomorrow, I'll finish up the news catch-up process, and throw in Father Time's favorite post of the month: the Stuff Fly Wants list. Until then, have a great Tuesday.

Fly Report: 27th October 2009

Good morning. Saith Mrs. Mike Nelson: "That's okay, I like pictures of pudding any day."

It's 10° Centigrade and cloudy in Kirkwall. In Cody, the forecast calls for a high of 40° Fahrenheit with rain and snow.

A barrel of oil is trading at $77.85. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 9867.96. The exchange rate is $1.63 for £1, or £0.61 for $1.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is beautiful. The picture at the Orkneyjar Photoblog is not new.

Today's scripture reading is Genesis 2. The Fly is currently reading The Royal Marines: From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force by Julian Thompson and Confessions by Augustine.

Love is blindness.

The Shocking Revelation

Alright. It's Monday, and I've had the weekend to collect myself and get the new computer squared away. There are a number of things to catch up on.

* * *
Let's start off with the biggest item: I'm not going to Iraq. I had hinted at something over the last few weeks, but I didn't want to mention anything until I had something conclusive.

During the last full week of September, I was contacted by a representative from Aegis, a company that I've written about in the past on this blog. It's the current business endeavour of the semi-legendary Tim Spicer, the retired lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards who wrote An Unorthodox Soldier. The next day, I interviewed for a position in Iraq, and was invited by the close of that week to schedule an interview at the company's American office in the DC area.

I scheduled the interview for their first available day, which was 05th October. Regular readers may remember that I was negligent in blogging for a couple of days, and the reason was that I was in the DC area overnight for the interview, and to meet with several friends in the surrounding area. Without going into detail, I was given a number of reasons to believe that the interview had gone extremely well, and that I would be more competitive for the position than the other candidate who was selected for a second interview. Once I left the office, I was standing by, with the understanding that I would be updated as appropriate.

About two weeks ago, I got an update that I was still being considered for the position, but that the company had not yet been able to meet with the other candidate for the second interview. I E-mailed again on Thursday, inquiring about the situation and mentioning a further qualification that I had neglected to mention during the interview. I received a reply on Friday morning indicating that the client had placed a hold on new hires. My contact said that he doesn't believe that the position will be filled, but will keep my information on file in case of any future opportunities. It sounds like standard business speak, but I have reason to believe that he's being straight with me, and I'll contact him sporadically for the purpose of keeping me on his radar.

The position in question would have been a perfect fit for my background, interests, and goals - tailor-made for yours truly - and I would have been thrilled to work for this particular company. I'm unquestionably disappointed that the opportunity fell through, but the bottom line is that I'm glad to have a final answer. For the last month, I'd been living my life on hold, and this answer allows me to get back to the projects that I had been working on previously. Getting upset and losing myself isn't my style - fighting harder for what I want is.

So, for those who hadn't seen the news on Facebook, and for any regular readers who may have been curious what's been going on over the last few weeks (other than the unrelated trouble with my laptop), that's the answer: I was within a proverbial stone's throw of going to Iraq, but it's not going to happen for the time being.

* * *
A couple of weeks ago, prior to learning that I would be paying nearly $700 for a new computer, I made a couple of orders from the Stuff Fly Wants list.

UDT/SEAL Team Swimmer Trunks (2) - $71.90

TAD Gear Pathfinder Zip Hoodie - $117.70

Except... It's not that simple. Okay, so with the jacket, it is. And actually, I decided that I'd rather have the jacket, as opposed to the "hoodie" - I really hate that word, by the way. I have a few points of disappointment with the jacket. First, I thought that it would have spots for velcro patches on both arms; and second, I thought it would have pockets on both arms. Instead, it has one of each - not a problem, just not what I'd expected. The third issue is that the pocket on the arm, which is intended for use with an mp3 player, appears to be too small for mine (and mine isn't particularly large). Overall, though, I'm pretty pleased with it.

The UDT trunks are a different story. Now, for those who aren't familiar with UDT trunks, they're worn by the Navy SEAL teams in training and on operations, and the design goes all the way back to the Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) of World War II. They're not fancy, but they're great swim trunks. They run small, and even if they fit, they're pretty tight. Now, the $32.35 price tag didn't really jump out at me, but I decided that the time had come to get a pair in order to facilitate my swim workouts - my board shorts are fine, but I prefer the UDT trunks.

Well, the UDT trunks arrived late last week, and I tried them on. Barely. It was immediately apparent that I'd need to go up a size. I also noticed that, despite only being available on one website, the trunks were made by Tru-Spec - a military clothing giant. After a quick Googling, I found that the trunks were available elsewhere online, for about $15 less. So, at this point, I've ordered two pair - a pair in tan, and a pair in black - from U.S. Cavalry. For $20.99 apiece. Which is much less than $32.35. Seriously, if you figure that $20.99 is marked up a bit, then $32.35 must be, what, a one hundred percent markup? That's just ridiculous. So, since they don't fit, I'm going to try to return them, which is going to be a real hassle, but probably worth the effort.

* * *
I have a week's worth of news to catch up on, so I'm going to triage it and take care of it over the next few days.


Afghanistan:

Too early to send more US troops to Afghanistan: Kerry (Times: Times, AFP) - People are still listening to this turd burglar? Unbelievable.

AFP: Afghanistan's helicopter force takes to the skies

TrueSlant: Are the Taliban trying to recruit Russia and China to their side?

Times: On patrol with the roadside bomb hunters in Afghanistan

Wired Danger Room: Winning Over the Taliban? Fat Chance

Iran Attack:

Iranian Revolutionary Guards vow revenge on Britain and US (Fox, Times

BBC: Iran accuses Pakistan over attack; Times: Rumours of Western support for Iranian dissident militia groups have broad backing

BBC: Soldiers of God: Profile of Iranian Sunni militant group Jundullah

AFP: Iran Guards prestige target for rebels

CNN: Iran mourns dozens killed in attack

General News

Guardian: Dutch MP hails UK visit 'victory'; Times: Protests force anti-Muslim politician to retreat - The British government needs to get over this bizarre idea that people who call out Islamists for what they are should be excluded from British soil.

‘Sufficient evidence’ to charge Libyans over WPC (Guardian, Times)

Guns given to Somali quiz winners (BBC, Fox)

BBC: Kyrgyzstan looks into reviving the death penalty

BBC: Israelis mark Emirates flag debut - How pathetic is it that there is so much hate in the Islamic world that an Israeli delegation to some conference being allowed to display their flag at their table is counted as a diplomatic victory?

BBC: Libya frees 'repentant' Islamists

Guardian: William Shatner should not be beamed back for Star Trek 2

Guardian: Tajikistan, in other words - The BBC has an interesting story about the politics and academic fallout of language in Tajikistan.

Guardian: Michelle Obama, black like me - Focusing on the first lady's ancestry is part of an American obsession with slavery that we need to leave behind

Guardian: The rise of the religious left - Whoever wrote this article is an idiot. The "religious Left"? Seriously? What a load of drivel.

Times: Terrorists plotted mass attack in name of jihad

AP: GPS Causing Truckers to Crash Into Bridges - People who use a GPS to navigate while driving are pathetic.

BBC: BBC dot.life: Reading the Kindle - The BBC has another interesting article about the Kindle e-reader. The Crypto King might be somewhat interested in this.

BBC: Scientists announce planet bounty

BBC: 'Militants' hunted in Tajikistan

BBC: Israel spying devices found by UN

BBC: US drone 'shot down over Somalia'

BBC: China honoured in Central Africa

Guardian: Linking Islam and terrorism is wrong

Times: International Olympic committee to get UN seat - The International Olympic Committee? If the IOC gets a UN seat, the UN has officially given up any trace of legitimacy.

Michael Totten: Patterns of Dictatorship

BBC: In pictures: Landscape photo of the year 2009

Blog: Stonehead - In looking for pictures of Orkney, I found a blog by a "crofter" (small-scale farmer) in northeast Scotland. Fascinating.

* * *
That's probably enough for today. Be sure to check back in tomorrow for more, to include more catching up on the news, and a number of other items of interest. Until then, have a great Monday.

Fly Report: 26th October 2009

Good morning. Actually, it was Alypius who prevented me from marrying, urging that if I did so it would not be possible for us to live together and to have as much undistracted leisure in the love of wisdom as we had long desired.

It's 10° Centigrade and cloudy in Kirkwall. In Cody, the forecast calls for a high of 52° Fahrenheit with clouds.

A barrel of oil is trading at $79.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 9972.18. The exchange rate is $1.63 for £1, or £0.61 for $1.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is lame. The picture at the Orkneyjar Photoblog is not new.

Today's scripture reading is Genesis 1. The Fly is currently reading The Royal Marines: From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force by Julian Thompson and Confessions by Augustine.

Too much is not enough.

The Fly's Long Computer Nightmare

Wow. What a week. Okay, I'm going to forego at least most of the news for today, and start catching up on blogging this weekend.

On Saturday morning, my computer wouldn't boot up. It would turn on, but it wouldn't get past the initial screen. I made a quick run to Best Buy, and decided that another reconditioned Dell would be a better use of my money. I ordered a reconditioned laptop, and paid about $70 for the next business day shipping. My hope was that this would get it to me on Monday, but I expected it on Tuesday. When checking my balance on Tuesday, I noticed that the money that had been withdrawn on Monday was back in my account. That afternoon, after a call to Dell, it was determined that they had put my order on hold, and hadn't bothered trying to contact me at the E-mail address or phone number that I'd provided with my order, on the grounds that the phone number didn't match the one associated with my card (because it had changed - a year ago). Unbelievable. I got it sorted out, it shipped on Wednesday, and it arrived today. During my lunch break this afternoon, I went to Best Buy and picked up a SATA hard drive enclosure, hoping that the hard drive from my old laptop would be operational.

So, as I write this now, I've grabbed the files I want from both the old laptop, and my ancient desktop machine. My project for this weekend will most likely be to classify and sort through all of the files from both old computers, put them into proper categories and directories, and back them up to CD as appropriate. It sounds worse than I expect it to actually be - in fact, I expect it to be rather therapeutic, as it's something that I've been meaning and/or trying to do with the ancient HP desktop computer for months.

It's been a relatively slow news week, but there have been a few stories worth noting. The big one as far as I'm concerned was the Roman Catholic Church's invitation to accept Anglicans, no questions asked, as is. That's big news, and as an Anglican with Catholic leanings, I'm still turning it around in my head. I'll probably have more to say about it on Monday.

Many regular readers of this blog will know that my life has been very, very odd lately, as I've prepared for a dramatic change that may or may not actually happen. I don't have any news, and for a variety of reasons, I will continue to be cryptic as to what the actual situation is. The big frustration is that it's caused me to essentially put my life on hold for the past month as I wait for news. I haven't received any update on the situation for about a week and a half, so yesterday evening I sent a brief message to the party in question, seeking an update and adding some additional information about my background. Maybe I'll hear something tomorrow; maybe I'll hear something next week.

Regardless of what happens, I need a vacation. I had been putting a vacation off until the first week in October due to goings-on at work, and then the week before I was planning to take some time off, this situation arose. For reasons relating to that potential change, I've held off. It's difficult for me to foresee another week going without me receiving some sort of news about this potential upcoming event: either it will happen, and I'll start preparing for it, or it won't, and I'll take a much-needed vacation, even if it's just puttering around Van Diemen's Station and the surrounding community for a few days. With respect to the potential event: when I know something, the blog readers will know something, and they'll know something specific. One outcome or another has to come sooner or later.

As of today, it's been a solid year since I spoke with CCG. It's time to take that item off of the Fly Report, so it will be absent on Monday. Believe it or not, there are times when I miss her, and I always wonder whether she's reading the blog, as she tended to do over the last several years. At any rate, I may or may not replace that Fly Report item with something different.

I'm still reading from and enjoying Augustine, and there will be several items worth sharing - items about Augustine's relationship with his buddies and women - next week. Augustine, for better or for worse, is sounding more and more like a fraternity guy as I continue reading, and it's really entertaining.

Alright, I have things to do. Have a fantastic weekend, folks, and tune in Monday - there's a lot of catching up to do, and some of it will be very entertaining, I promise.

Fly Report: 23rd October 2009

Good morning. Thank God, that's finally over.

It's 12° Centigrade and cloudy in Kirkwall. In Cody, the forecast calls for a high of 56° Fahrenheit with partial clouds.

A barrel of oil is trading at $80.26. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 10,081.31. The exchange rate is $1.66 for £1, or £0.60 for $1.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is cool. The picture at the Orkneyjar Photoblog is not new.

Today's scripture reading is Proverbs 8. The Fly is currently reading The Royal Marines: From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force by Julian Thompson and Confessions by Augustine.

Consecutive days without CCG: 365

And I know it aches, and your heart it breaks, you can only take so much. Walk on.

Still Stranded

Apparently, because I hadn't updated my phone number with my bank a year ago, Dell has yet to ship my laptop, nor did they bother to E-mail me at any point in the last two business days (or four real days) to let me know that there was an issue. I will allegedly have my new laptop tomorrow. In the mean time, I guess I'll go run some errands since I'm not getting any blogging or any other work done in the mean time.

Usually, I blame the French. This time, I'm choosing to blame Father Time. I'm sure that he accidentally (read: intentionally) did something to botch the whole thing during the course of polishing his thimble collection.

Epic Fail

My Dell Laptop bit the dust. Bogus. I've ordered a replacement, and I'm optimistic about the prospect of getting my data off of the hard drive (hopefully the account-specific files won't be encrypted, or else I may be hosed). However, I don't expect the replacement to arrive until Tuesday. I'm limping along with my the computer that I started the blog on, an ancient HP Pavilion 6460 running Windows 98 First Edition - oh, yeah, baby! So, expect no posts on Monday or Tuesday, and we'll see what Wednesday brings.

Oh, yeah, and Jundallah strikes again - this time killing at least one general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Wow.

AMF: Postponement!

Hey, folks! So, I stayed up later than I really wanted to on Wednesday night to finish up Thursday's post. And I was up pretty late on Tuesday night, too. So, in lieu of finishing Catch-Up Week today, I'll leave the last items for Monday (they're a tad involved, far beyond what I wanted to get into last night). So, here's the news to close out this week.

AP: Obama Calls for $250 Payments to Seniors - Is there anyone that President Obama doesn't want to give a government-funded hand-out to?

AP: Groups Question $7B China-Guinea Mining Deal

CNN: Finland makes fast Internet access a legal right - A legal right? The next thing you know, people will be manufacturing a "legal right" to free health care. Oh, wait...

BBC: California sees the return of gold fortune-seekers - Ha. I'm so glad I got out of California. Unlike states like Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and Washington, which were all founded by folks who wanted to make a new life for themselves through hard work and rugged individualism, California was founded by a bunch of bums who wanted to make a fortune out of little or no real work. That culture persists to this day, and as far as I'm concerned, California can have it.

BBC: MoD equipment plan 'unaffordable' - It appears that with an ongoing fiasco with Chinook helicopters, and no effort to buy life-saving surplus MRAP vehicles, Britain's military procurement system may be even more screwed up than America's.

BBC: Australia 'open' to atomic energy - Now if we could only get American hippies to realize the benefits of emissions-free nuclear energy...

BBC: Will 'Hotel of Doom' ever be finished? - North Korea has been trying to build this obnoxiously tacky hotel for decades, and they've apparently restarted work on it. And nuclear weapons. Even though the North Korean populace is all starving. This, ladies and gentlemen, is yet another example of communism sucking.

BBC: US dismisses Afghan surge report - Apparently the DoD isn't planning to send 13,000 additional troops.

BBC: Egypt groups target Mubarak son - Very, very interesting. Hosni Mubarak has been large and in charge in Egypt since the early 1980's, and he's not getting any younger. His succession, like that of neighboring countries like Libya and Syria, could become very interesting in the coming years, or sooner if something were to happen to him.

BBC: In pictures: Romance in a Tehran park - Iranians deserve to be free. Don't believe me? Just look at these pictures of young Iranian people being herded off for questioning by police for enjoying each other's company in a public park. Oh, and they're executing people who were involved in the riots a couple of months ago, now that the attention has died down. Ali Khamenei, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, and their entire filthy regime deserve to be utterly laid waste to by the Iranian people, and if it happens, I hope the West offers to help. I want to see a free Iran in my lifetime, and so do the Iranians.

BBC: Once-heretic Galileo given exhibition at the Vatican

Guardian: Geert Wilders, the 'pre-criminal' - Home Office attempts to deny UK entry to extremists are both authoritarian and inept. Pre-emptive gagging is a bad precedent

Guardian: Why I celebrate the Tel Aviv centenary

Times: 'Islam is violent' Obama's new pastor says

Times: French troops died when Italy stopped 'bribes'; Times: Victims' parents criticise French army

Michael Totten: Hezbollah Isn't a Model for Afghanistan - The idea of "bringing the Taliban into the political system" is deeply and fatally flawed. Michael Totten explains why.

Washington Post: David Ignatius - President Obama's Crucial Afghanistan Decision

Small Wars Journal: China's Preoccupation with Asymmetric Warfare

That's it, folks. Have a great Friday, have a great weekend, and check back Monday for the conclusion of Catch-Up Week.

UPDATE: Oh, wow. YouTube was generous this morning.



Awesome. Don't get murdered! I love Spricket24, even though she's a total hippy and/or hippie.

Fly Report: 16th October 2009

Good morning. Contrary to popular belief, Al Gore didn't actually invent the Internet. However, he did invent global warming, so there's that.

It's 11° Centigrade and partly cloudy in Kirkwall. In Cody, the forecast calls for a high of 58° Fahrenheit with partial clouds.

A barrel of oil is trading at $76.72 - I don't like where this is going, or that nobody in the media or the administration appears to be paying any attention to it. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 10,062.94. The exchange rate is $1.62 for £1, or £0.62 for $1.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is beautiful. The picture at the Orkneyjar Photoblog is not new.

Today's scripture reading is Psalm 146. The Fly is currently reading The Royal Marines: From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force by Julian Thompson and Confessions by Augustine.

Consecutive days without CCG: 358

I know the truth about you.

Catch-Up Week, Day 4: False Prophets of Various Stripes

It's the fourth installment of Catch-Up Week, and this will be a long, long post. First, the news; then, catch-up items; finally more quotes from Augustine. Father Time, I'm sure you'll be primarily interested with the passage from Augustine, but you might also take some interest in the catch-up section. Anyway, on with the news...

Afghanistan

U.K. Set to Add 500 More Troops in Afghanistan (AP, CNN, BBC, Guardian); Guardian: Extra 13,000 US troops to Afghanistan

Times: General: we could buy our way to Afghan victory - It could be part of the solution, but there's no way to just buy our way out of this war. We need to win it.

Times: US says al-Qaeda in 'poor financial state'

AFP: US military says Afghan force numbers no secret

Michael Yon: Market Garden, Afghan Lunacy

New York Times slideshow: With the US Marines in Afghanistan

Everything Else

Armenian leader in Turkey for 'soccer diplomacy' (CNN, BBC, Times) - This is probably a good sign - soccer is kind of a joke, but it's huge throughout the rest of the world, and I'm glad that the Armenian and Turkish diplomats involved took the opportunity to do this.

BBC: A photo a day for 64 weeks

BBC: Berners-Lee 'sorry' for slashes - Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, apologizes for the dual slashes that are included in all website addresses.

Guardian: White House says Fox is 'rightwing propaganda', not news - President Obama really, really doesn't like criticism or challenges to his authority. As far as I'm concerned, his fear of any and all criticism serves as an indicator of just how insecure he is. I, on the other hand, look forward to frequent, cordial, and substantive challenges from Father Time. It's just one more reason why I'm more qualified to be President of the United States than President Obama is... You know, in addition to having served at least a single day in uniform, and having ever held a real job.

Guardian: The decommissioning of [IRA] Marxism - What a lot of people forget is that the Irish Republican Army (and various splinter Republican groups) are and were motivated in large part by Marxism. Apparently, the claim is that Marxist ideology in Ulster has fallen apart as a result of the decline in violence in Northern Ireland over the last decade. As far as I'm concerned, less violence and less Marxism are both good things.

Guardian photo: Indian subway tunnel

Times: First new picture of Jaycee Lee Dugard since she was freed

UPI: New players reported in Yemen war

AFP: With economy down, US military recruitment is up

The Onion: Report: Al-Qaeda Allegedly Engaging In Telemarketing

BBC: Biases, U-turns, and the BBC's climate coverage - The BBC doesn't have a fantastic record of unbiased and iron-spined reporting on the climate debate. That having been said, I think the BBC deserves some credit. Even if the reporting has a consistent tendency to have a leftist, enviro-whacko bias, the BBC does make an effort to give voice to a number of different climate change skeptics. Like I said, their record isn't fantastic - observe...



... Yeah, yeah, I know, Glenn Beck, boo, hiss. The point, though, is that the BBC reporter changed the article under pressure from a "climate change activist". But, like I said, the BBC has made a point of interviewing folks from both sides of the spectrum, as I've cited before - the interviews are just poor quality, like pretty much everything that the BBC does. So... Yeah. Brilliant.

* * *
Back in July the Wired.com blog, which is literary tripe, did a slideshow on the history of the AK-47 assault rifle. A few of the items struck me as odd, but I wasn't paying close attention to the narrative. I went back and looked for it again, and found that I wasn't the only one who'd seen a few issues with it. The write-up was most obviously done by some anti-gun twerp who has no clue about the subject he's covering. Here are just a few samples.

Original: Early in the Iran-Iraq War, an AK-47-toting Iranian soldier watches smoke rising from burning oil refineries near the Iranian city of Abadan. The Iraqis under Saddam Hussein, armed and supported by the United States, used mostly M16s.
Eventually corrected by Wired: Early in the Iran-Iraq War, an AK-47-toting Iranian soldier watches smoke rising from burning oil refineries near the Iranian city of Abadan. The Iraqis included AK-47s in their arsenal as well, although the Soviet Union imposed an arms embargo on Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran. Iraq’s new partner, the United States, was able to provide Saddam’s troops with the spare parts necessary to keep their Russian-made weapons functional.
The Truth: Iraq was a Soviet client state, and both sides were using AK-47s. The author obviously has absolutely no concept of the history of the Iran-Iraq War, or the various nations that were arming both Iran and Iraq. Iran Contra and the Israeli connection come to mind as far as Iran goes. This claim that Iraq received substantial support from the United States during the 1980's is just bizarre - American support for Iraq prior to the ouster of Saddam Hussein was superficial, at best.

Original (and uncorrected): A Taliban militiaman checks his AK-47 while cleaning it between skirmishes in the mountains of Afghanistan. The ammunition clip has been removed, which, considering the way he’s holding it, shows good sense.
The Truth: The magazine is removed, not the "clip" - the author obviously has no knowledge of the meaning behind gun terms. Oh, yeah, and the entire upper receiver of the weapon has been removed for cleaning, so the claim of "good sense, considering the way he's holding it" is pure ignorance on the part of the writer.

Original (and uncorrected):Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) holds an AK-47 with a modified shoulder stock and ammunition drum during a 1999 news conference in Washington D.C. Feinstein was seeking a federal ban on high-capacity ammunition clips. She didn’t get it.
The Truth: Again with the "clip" versus "magazine" mistake, not to mention one reader's comment: "The photo of Feinsein is a true classic. A U.S. Senator committing assault with a deadly weapon!! Bolt closed, magazine inserted, finger on trigger. Anyone with any sense would have hit the deck the instant they saw that."

The Murdoc Online comments are well-informed; the Wired.com users who left comments really pulled no punches, and rightly so. Two of the reasons why I've grown to loathe the "journalists" who write on military topics, particularly for Wired, is that most of them can't proofread, and they don't appear to have any real clue what they're writing about, even the higher-ranking ones. This kind of ignorance when writing on a topic that people actually know about, and that's important for informing the public about critical national security issues, particularly when average readers can post fact-checks in the comments section, is both comedic and inexcusable.

Speaking of comedic and inexcusable, through some of my experience with conservative media outlets, I came to know bits and pieces about an author named Douglas Farah. Wikipedia describes him as an "investigative consultant and freelance writer on finance and national security issues". He's apparently the son of missionary parents, and spent much of his upbringing in Bolivia and elsewhere in Central and South America. He worked as a correspondent for United Press International, and as a bureau chief for the Washington Post, and, oh yeah, he has absolutely no concept of reality.

How do I know? Well, let's look at two articles he's written in the last couple of years. The first, titled IEDs and the Failure to Adapt, deals with the DoD's provision for counter-IED warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Farah, the American military's reliance on technology has failed to translate into a reduction in IED attacks or IED deaths. He basically implies in his article that the DoD was sluggish and ineffectual in dealing with the IED threat.

He goes on, but that's sort of the gist of the article. Let's think about this for a second. In July of 2000, shortly before I was formally inducted into the United States Navy Reserve, I had a conversation with a recently-commissioned ensign, with whom I discussed the Joint Strike Fighter. For those who aren't familiar with the F-35 Lightning II, it's a massive program to develop a multi-service, multi-nation attack/fighter aircraft. In July of 2000, I heard it mentioned for the first time. More than nine years later, they're still in the testing phases, and the first F-35 aircraft isn't expected to be fielded for another three to five years. This sort of development and implementation timeline is common for military systems, as has been noted in recent months with respect to a variety of systems across all four branches of the United States military as the new administration has sought to slash wasteful DoD spending.

Now, take the IED threat. Without going into excessive detail, I'll cite systems like the Warlock electronic countermeasure system, which was a Desert Storm-era system that was originally designed to prevent the explosion of certain types of mortar and artillery rounds, that was re-tasked and re-packaged for counter-IED warfare. Or how about MRAP vehicles, like the Cougar and the Buffalo? Or, semi-related, what about the C-RAM system, which countered a growing threat from indirect fire attacks? These systems didn't exist in the American arsenal prior to the invasion of Iraq, and by the time Farah wrote his article on the topic in October of 2007, robust initiatives throughout DoD had provided these systems to American personnel to counter threats that had emerged after the outbreak of the Iraq War. Sure, the DoD took longer that was optimal to get on the ball with respect to IED warfare, and lives were lost in the interim; but once the severity of the problem was realized, the DoD acted with much greater flexibility and ingenuity than normal to begin countering the threat.

And it's not as if he wrote this piece in '05 or '06, during the height of the IED threat - he wrote it in late 2007, when these systems were already being fielded in Iraq, far quicker than the typical testing and acquisition curve for military procurement. Was Farah lying? Probably not - he was probably just completely ignorant of the topic he was addressing. For a so-called "investigative journalist", writing on a topic despite this profound level of ignorance is just inexcusable.

I mentioned within the last few weeks that I recentely reread one of my favorite books, An Unorthodox Soldier by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, OBE. Because of this and other reasons, I've recently been doing some casual Internet research about LtCol Spicer and his current company, Aegis Defence Services. What would I run across but another poorly researched article by Douglas Farah? Here are a few of the highlights - I can't speak to the entire article, but he seems to botch a number of the items to which I can speak specifically. First and foremost, he couldn't even be bothered to proofread his own headline. From there...

Well, it looks like Aegis, the company run by British mercenary and profiteer Tim Spicer...

"Profiteer" is a bit strong, particularly since Spicer's first company, Sandline International, isn't actually accused of having accepted payment in commodities. In both Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone, the two locations to which Farah is referring when he says that Spicer "has a long history of involvement with rogue armed groups", Spicer and his company were paid in cash, in exchange for logistical, training, and operational support provided to legitimate military forces in vetted and legitimate conflicts.

One of Spicer's main business partners in the 1990s was Anthony Buckingham, and oil entrepreur with interests in Africa. Together they founded Executive Outcomes, a forerunner of Sandline (see above).

The part about Tony Buckingham is true, and Buckingham was tied to both Executive Outcomes and Sandline International; but Executive Outcomes was founded by South African businessmen and a former South African lieutenant colonel named Eeben Barlow in 1989, when Spicer was still a fairly junior officer in the Scots Guards regiment of the British Army. Sandline wasn't founded until around 1996, after Spicer had retired from the British Army as a senior lieutenant colonel. The history of Sandline's founding and its timeline are well documented in Spicer's book, and while I can accept that the book almost certainly contains some spin, I don't think that the chronology of Spicer's military career, or his involvement with Sandline International (vice Executive Outcomes), or the timelines for the founding of either company are at issue. Farah just plain gets it blatantly wrong.

Spicer formed Aegis to operate in Iraq.

Aegis was formed in 2002, prior to the outbreak of the Iraq War (which commenced in March of 2003). At the time of the invasion, Aegis was doing security consultation work for the Disney Cruise Line. Again, Farah's narrative is at odds with fairly well established chronologies.

Somehow, despite his open affiliation with ... various mercenary operations in Africa that offered military services in exchange for the right to diamond fields...

Again, I don't think this particular item is actually in evidence. In Spicer's book, he notes that the company prefers payment in cash, but that he is not inherently opposed to taking payment in commodities. Trying to tie Spicer's work to conflict diamonds, no matter how controversial it may have been, is pretty questionable.

His reviews have not been good. The GAO has consistently found his company to be doing a poor job, but that appears not to matter. It was renewed recently for another year.

This is literally the only time I've ever read or heard this. My understanding, having read articles about Aegis and LtCol Spicer in Vanity Fair and the Times of London, is that Aegis has not only done good work in Iraq (to include designing and operating a system for tracking all private contractors in Iraq in the same way that military personnel are tracked), but has essentially avoided the scandals that have dogged companies like Blackwater/Xe in Iraq, and ArmorGroup in Afghanistan.

I'm not going to bother looking up the GAO report - Farah could be accurate on that, but as far as I'm concerned, the outright lies and/or ignorance that are easily fisked out of this article with only moderately detailed level of knowledge on the subject are enough to prevent me from bothering to verify any of his other claims. Add to that the previous article about Iraq, in which Farah has no knowledge of rapid fielding initiatives which saved lives by streamlining the acquisition process, and Farah loses any trace of journalistic or investigative credibility.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who takes issue with Douglas Farah's reporting. His Wikipedia page links to an article about him at a site called Loonwatch, in which the writer attempts to make a case for Farah being an delusional anti-Muslim fanatic. I didn't read the whole article, but what I did read would seem to indicate that Farah tends to make outlandish inferences based on very tangental connections and limited evidence. I'm sure that Farah's own beliefs on a number of subjects overlap with my own, but I'd rather not have someone like this making my political or philosophical cases for me. Whether you're liberal or conservative, people like Douglas Farah give journalists of every feather a bad name - and that jackass from Wired.com who doesn't know anything about guns isn't much better.

* * *
Today's passage from Augustine, which I read Monday morning, discusses a couple of issues that I've studied extensively, both from academic and religious perspectives: the interrelationship between legitimate science and legitimate religious faith, and the disconnect that many heretical religious groups have with reality. I've done a bit of abridgement, as Augustine had a tendency to rattle from a relevant discussion of his experiences right into verbose praise of God. I'm all for verbose praise of God, but I think it detracts a bit from Augustine's narrative. So, read on.

And as I had already read and stored up in memory many of the injunctions of the philosophers, I began to compare some of their doctrines with the tedious fables of the Manicheans; and it struck me that the probability was on the side of the philosophers, whose power reached far enough to enable them to form a fair judgment of the world, even though they had not discovered the sovereign Lord of it all... They have discovered much; and have foretold, many years in advance, the day, the hour, and the extent of the eclipses of those luminaries, the sun and the moon. Their calculations did not fail, and it came to pass as they predicted. And they wrote down the rules they had discovered, so that to this day they may be read and from them may be calculated in what year and month and day and hour of the day, and at what quarter of its light, either the moon or the sun will be eclipsed, and it will come to pass just as predicted. And men who are ignorant in these matters marvel and are amazed; and those who understand them exult and are exalted. Both, by an impious pride, withdraw from thee and forsake thy light. They foretell an eclipse of the sun before it happens, but they do not see their own eclipse which is even now occurring. For they do not ask, as religious men should, what is the source of the intelligence by which they investigate these matters. Moreover, when they discover that thou didst make them, they do not give themselves up to thee that thou mightest preserve what thou hast made... They do not know the way which is thy word, by which thou didst create all the things that are and also the men who measure them, and the senses by which they perceive what they measure, and the intelligence whereby they discern the patterns of measure. Thus they know not that thy wisdom is not a matter of measure.

[...]

Yet I remembered many a true saying of the philosophers about the creation, and I saw the confirmation of their calculations in the orderly sequence of seasons and in the visible evidence of the stars. And I compared this with the doctrines of Mani, who in his voluminous folly wrote many books on these subjects. But I could not discover there any account, of either the solstices or the equinoxes, or the eclipses of the sun and moon, or anything of the sort that I had learned in the books of secular philosophy. But still I was ordered to believe, even where the ideas did not correspond with--even when they contradicted--the rational theories established by mathematics and my own eyes, but were very different.

[...]

Yet, since he did not know even these other things, and most impudently dared to teach them, it is clear that he had no knowledge of piety. For, even when we have a knowledge of this worldly lore, it is folly to make a profession of it, when piety comes from confession to thee. From piety, therefore, Mani had gone astray, and all his show of learning only enabled the truly learned to perceive, from his ignorance of what they knew, how little he was to be trusted to make plain these more really difficult matters. For he did not aim to be lightly esteemed, but went around trying to persuade men that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter and Enricher of thy faithful ones, was personally resident in him with full authority. And, therefore, when he was detected in manifest errors about the sky, the stars, the movements of the sun and moon, even though these things do not relate to religious doctrine, the impious presumption of the man became clearly evident; for he not only taught things about which he was ignorant but also perverted them, and this with pride so foolish and mad that he sought to claim that his own utterances were as if they had been those of a divine person.

When I hear of a Christian brother, ignorant of these things, or in error concerning them, I can tolerate his uninformed opinion; and I do not see that any lack of knowledge as to the form or nature of this material creation can do him much harm, as long as he does not hold a belief in anything which is unworthy of thee, O Lord, the Creator of all. But if he thinks that his secular knowledge pertains to the essence of the doctrine of piety, or ventures to assert dogmatic opinions in matters in which he is ignorant--there lies the injury. And yet even a weakness such as this, in the infancy of our faith, is tolerated by our Mother Charity until the new man can grow up “unto a perfect man,” and not be “carried away with every wind of doctrine.” But Mani had presumed to be at once the teacher, author, guide, and leader of all whom he could persuade to believe this, so that all who followed him believed that they were following not an ordinary man but thy Holy Spirit. And who would not judge that such great madness, when it once stood convicted of false teaching, should then be abhorred and utterly rejected? But I had not yet clearly decided whether the alternation of day and night, and of longer and shorter days and nights, and the eclipses of sun and moon, and whatever else I read about in other books could be explained consistently with his theories. If they could have been so explained, there would still have remained a doubt in my mind whether the theories were right or wrong. Yet I was prepared, on the strength of his reputed godliness, to rest my faith on his authority.

I used to see a conflict between science and religion, but after studying under Professor Augustus, I refined my beliefs and views on the subject. As far as the disconnect between science and religion, I think that there are two groups at fault. The first group is select scientists, who vocally and militantly turn science into a surrogate religion, losing any trace of actual objectivity. It's one thing if scientists are indifferent to religion; it's quite another if a scientist is openly hostile to religion, and attempts to use science to unequivocally denounce religious faith. This creates an inherent conflict of interest, and as far as I'm concerned, it's quite revealing of many so-called "scientists'" actual motives.

The second group, of course, is overly dogmatic Christians. Many people fail to realize that, following the age of Aristotle, nearly all scientific research in the Western world was conducted by Christians who were seeking to better understand God through the discovery of His creation in greater and greater detail. There's an inherent difficulty in dogmatically rejecting any scientific evidence that contradicts an entirely literal interpretation of the Bible, and it's also unnecessary - there are plenty of figurative and poetic passages in the Bible, and there's no reason to believe that various passages that discuss things like origins or other items that interact with science aren't included in that. Christians who are dogmatic about such items are really doing themselves, and centuries upon centuries of Christian scientists, a great disservice.

There's more that can be said about this, but for me, the bottom line on this topic is that science and religion are inherently linked, rather than being inherently contradictory. I may discuss this in greater detail at another time.

As far as heretical religious movements are concerned, Augustine's experiences with the teachings of Mani (the founder of the Manichean faith/philosophy) are highly demonstrative of modern heretical sects and cults, many of which can be carefully examined and subsequently dismissed as ignorant heresy based upon their rejection of obvious factual evidence. It's one thing to have faith in something that can never be proved or disproved; it's quite another for one to maintain faith in something that's easily disproved, or even disproved with some degree of expertise or difficulty. This reinforces my previous statement: there is no inherent conflict between legitimate science and legitimate religion - if you find an actual conflict between the two, the issue is either bogus science (which is out there), or in many cases, inherently bogus religious doctrine.

* * *
That's a long post, but I'm glad that I got it all squared away - catching up is hard work, but ultimately satisfying. Have a fantastic Thursday, folks, and check back tomorrow for a few more items to complete Catch-Up Week.

Fly Report: 15th October 2009

Good morning. Tutum te robore reddam.

It's 13° Centigrade and rainy in Kirkwall. In Cody, the forecast calls for a high of 54° Fahrenheit with partial clouds.

A barrel of oil is trading at $74.62. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 10,015.86. The exchange rate is $1.60 for £1, or £0.63 for $1.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is beautiful. The picture at the Orkneyjar Photoblog is not new.

Today's scripture reading is Psalm 145. The Fly is currently reading The Royal Marines: From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force by Julian Thompson and Confessions by Augustine.

Consecutive days without CCG: 357

God will not deal with the proud.

Catch-Up Week, Day 3: Big Willy Style's All In It

Hey, folks! First, the news, then another couple of catch-up items.

Afghanistan:

BBC: Al-Qaeda 'faces funding crisis'

BBC: Japan 'will end' Afghan mission

BBC: Now or never for Waziristan push?

Times: Afghan recruits 'turned into cannon fodder'

Times: [Balochistan refugee] camps are Taleban breeding ground

Times: Britain's success in Afghanistan is measured in small steps - An article by a battalion commander with The Rifles, one of the United Kingdom's best infantry units.

UPI: Feature: Outposts vital in Afghanistan - I differ with General McChrystal on the strategy of withdrawing from remote outposts. The remoteness of the outposts isn't the problem - the problem is that we don't have enough troops to effectively staff them. It's worthless to reinforce cities that are already largely safe, just to allow the Taliban to run wild in the countryside. If we're going to win this war, it will eventually require us to secure the countryside anyway. With more troops, it's possible. If we concentrate on the cities and leave rural staging and logistics areas to the Taliban, it's far more difficult.

AFP: Desert the enemy for US armoured vehicles

China in Africa:

China offers $4.4bn lifeline for Guinea 'massacre' junta (BBC, Times) - I think China also provided funding to the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. I've been collecting articles for month in anticipation of doing an article about China's growing pseudo-colonial operations in Africa, but with the end of my stint writing for my parallel writing endeavour, that article is indefinitely postponed.

BBC: All Chinese to me: Liberians take lessons - to read the deals they sign

Times: Tanzanian women in hunt for Chinese husbands

Everything Else:

Guardian: A damning verdict on Russia; BBC: Ingush attack suspects 'killed' - Apparently that UN report about last year's South Ossetia war wasn't so forgiving of the Russians as was originally advertised.

CNN: 'Mad scientist' aims to build greener future

CNN: Should Americans banish the burger? - Banish? No. Eat fewer of? Maybe. I don't think that hamburger is the problem, and the idiot in the story who hasn't let any of his daughters eat hamburger, ever, is a moron. Beef is not inherently dangerous to eat if it's properly prepared and cooked. I'm living proof: I've probably eaten thousands of hamburgers in my life, and I have yet to get E Coli. The danger of hamburger isn't E Coli, it's the same danger that Americans face in everything they do: doing it too much.

CNN: 'Digital dirt' can haunt your job search

CNN: [British] soldier dies after receiving [British] smoker's lungs in transplant - Chalk another win up for socialized health care: a British Iraq War veteran receives transplanted lungs after being diagnosed with a rare respiratory disorder, and the NHS gives him the lungs of a smoker. About a year later, he's diagnosed with lung cancer, and dies. This, ladies and gentlemen, is just one more reason to oppose socialized health care: higher costs and higher demand equal lower quality control.

BBC: Cold turkey: A Facebook addict cuts herself off from the site

BBC: Japan's new hi-tech 'graveyards' - Weird.

BBC: Assad decrees Syria smoking ban - Weird.

Guardian picture gallery: Sergio Leone: a tribute at the Rome film festival

Times: Marge Simpson to appear in Playboy - Weird, and certainly not enough to get people to start subscribing to Playboy again.

Times: Unionists walk out over Clinton's peace speech - Who sent Secretary Clinton to lead negotiations with the Irish? Senator Kennedy, I could maybe, sorta, not really see doing it because his family was definitely Irish. Since when does the American Secretary of State try to horn in on Irish negotiations? Very odd.

Times: If the future's worth having, it won't be free - Whine, whine, whine, bitch, bitch, bitch. When newspapers start doing the job that they claim they've been doing for decades, then maybe I'll pay for their content. Most of it's literary sausage: low quality, and poorly composed. The Internet has become the great equalizer and bullshit detector when it comes to mass information distribution. When newspapers start giving me steak instead of tripe, then maybe I'll consider paying for the content. As it is, news sites are essentially interchangeable save for a few exceptions, and if one starts charging, another will jump in to fill the void.

Times: Cleverness is no more. This is a dumb Britain - Jeremy Clarkson is becoming one of my favorite columnists. In this piece, he explains why Britons (and I'd venture to say Americans) are too stupid to understand good comedy, or good anything. Case in point? Chuck barely made a third season, and with a reduced budget, while Family Guy has been renewed by popular demand at least twice. And Sam-Wise, if you dare try to defend Family Guy, as God is my witness, I will IP block you from commenting for a month.

UPI: Walker's World: Obama's absurd prize - Yup. Pretty much.

Daily Mail: Britain is the worst place to live in Europe (despite our big pay packets) - England and Ireland are worse places to live than Italy? The folks who ran this survey will forgive me if I don't count "annual hours of sunshine" as an indicator of quality of life. France and Spain have better living conditions than the United Kingdom? Give me a break.

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Last week, I saw a link on YouTube, and out of a sheer desire for entertainment, I decided to take a quiz at the website of the Clinton Foundation, which was gauged at testing my knowledge of "urgent global issues". A mere sampling of the questions:

In New York City, approximately what percent of carbon emissions is generated by buildings? I wasn't aware that carbon in New York City was an "urgent global issue".

How many acres of tropical rainforest are lost to deforestation each year? Okay, I'll give him this one.

What is the leading cause of death worldwide among people ages 15-59? Uh... AIDS? Sorry, I don't consider a disease that's passed almost entirely by easily preventable behavior to be an "urgent global issue".

How many children and teens are obese or overweight in the U.S.? Yeah, 'cause Bill Clinton should be lecturing people on health and fitness after that bypass surgery of his a few years back...

Fill in the blank: More than half of all people in Africa live on $_ per day. Ehhhh, I'll give him this one, too, although "urgent global issue" may still be a bit strong.

The gap between the rich and poor is the largest in which region of the world? Urgent global issue? Oh, yeah, the haves and the have-nots. Apparently President Clinton still doesn't realize that life isn't a zero sum game.

How many people in the United States do not have a bank account? People having bank accounts in the United States is an "urgent global issue"? Seriously?

Since leaving the White House, President Bill Clinton has accomplished which of the following through his Foundation? Oh, right, I forgot: it's all about Bill.

The "answers" to each of these are used to plug Clinton's various philanthropic initiatives: the Clinton Climate Initiative, the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, the Clinton Foundation Alliance for a Healthier Generation, the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, and the Clinton Economic Opportunity Initiative. I'm sure that these things probably do some socially progressive things, some of which is probably a good thing. But seriously, it's obviously all about Bill, and some of this crap is just ridiculous. And, once you finish the "quiz" (which is to say, once you've been caught up on what President Clinton's been up to other than skirt-chasing since leaving the White House), you're shown the screen pictured above! You can get E-mail updates from Bill Clinton! As many pictures of scantily clad women as my buddies send me on occasion, I'm not sure my inbox could handle the amount of nudity that President Clinton is likely to forward when he's chillin' at his Dell.

Hilariously unbelievable.

Oh, and I ordered some stuff from the Stuff Fly Wants list on Sunday night: one pair of UDT/SEAL Team Swimmer Trunks, and a TAD Gear Pathfinder Jacket, both of which I hope to use in the coming weeks for one thing or another. More on that as it develops.

* * *
No philosophical quotes today, so if you've been following my quotations of St. Augustine, check back tomorrow. After some initially boring passages, I've been starting to really get into some of the recent readings. I'm trying to do five chapters daily ("chapters" being sections - the "chapters" as we would call them are called "books", as was common in the ancient documents that contained successive sections on individual scrolls or folios), which is a tall order, but worth the effort. On Monday, the passages had a great deal to say about the interrelationship between science and legitimate religious faith. Today's section had a lot of relevance to heretical religious movements and cults, at least from my point of view. I'll try to post some of the relevant sections in the coming days. Until then, have a fantastic Wednesday.