I just posted a wrap up of our trip this weekend the the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, which is apparently a big deal nationwide as far as sheep and wool types are concerned. Read it here
And this is also the public release of summer.smicollum.net, a chronicle of things going on this summer in our neck of the woods, or wherever we take our necks.
The bunnies are back and this time they are performing The Shining in 30 seconds.
p.s. And I’m technically not allowed to post this since I still haven’t seen Pulp Fiction but here’s a Star Wars based parody of that movie.
Today’s reason: widening the divide.
The people in the Middle Ease who hated us before we destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq still hate us. Now, our Middle East “allies” are starting to speak out against us.
King Abdullah of Jordan flew home from the US after abruptly cancelling a meeting planned for today with the president in Washington. The king’s move came as the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, said there was more hatred of Americans in the Arab world today than ever before.
King Abdullah and Mr Mubarak are two of the most moderate leaders in the Middle East and the two normally closest to the US.
Boy do I like prime numbers! Apparently, so does Brood X – probably why they’ve managed to survive.
I post this first for the bad Star Trek references, and second, for the following, which is the most beautiful bit of prose I’ve seen in about a month:
“when you have two people locked up in a very small environment for months at a time, all the conditions for murder are met.” Mix in sex, and you almost have the script of Othello in space.
Wow. Electric poetry.
Again, I’ve had a kind of “come to Jefferson” moment in the last week regarding church and state. But this in Nigeria is an absolute violation of religious freedom that should be getting squashed by the US or the UN.
somewhat. Real is still sucking hind teat, but there’s support for WMA now, too. More cool features include weekly free songs and publishable playlists.
Plus, why an iPod is better than a Significant Other. Thanks, as always, to the Cult of Mac
Remember the Crimson Room or the Mystery of Time and Space? Now, there’s a sequel — the next room over! — called Viridian Room.
Time’s-a-wastin’! (as it were…)
Continuing on the Project for a New American Century thread from a couple of days ago, I bounced into this interview with a former Soviet dissident (Heh, free speech when there really was a threat of life and limb for speaking. This dude has bigger stones than a thousand folks marching against the war, WTO, or whatever). His thesis:
Beyond wishing and waiting for democracies to emerge, Sharansky says the West has an obligation to actively promote them. As a human-rights activist in the 1970s, he learned firsthand that when Western officials tried to befriend the USSR rather than pressure it to reform, they only made it easier for the regime to continue being its brutal self at home and a menace abroad.
“When I argue today that Israel’s partners in the Arab world are dissidents,” he says, those in my government laugh. ‘Where do you see dissidents in the Palestinian Authority?’ And I say, ‘Where did you see dissidents in Stalin’s Russia? You didn’t, because he was killing all of them. But you did see dissidents in Brezhnev’s Russia — why? Because the pressure from the West was very great, so the price Brezhnev would have to pay for killing dissidents was high.
“It is true that today there are no dissidents among the Palestinians, because every time there are, Arafat kills or persecutes them. Even in Egypt things are this way. And in Syria Assad recently put another 14 dissidents in prison. So the question is always, what is the price? If these dictators can afford to kill all of the dissidents, the West is not putting enough of a price on that behavior.
Read more!So maybe Bush didn’t lie in his SotU back in 2003. Joe Wilson’s changed his tune
It was Saddam Hussein’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as “Baghdad Bob,” who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade — an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium.
But don’t worry, it’s just a little lie on Wilson’s part: That knowledge has not altered Wilson’s much-expressed view that the Bush administration distorted intelligence on Iraq’s weapons capabilities to help make the case for going to war.
Is this treason?
“In the next few days,” he said, “I will prove to you again how we strike the Americans.”
If the reporter’s American, does he/she bear any responsibility to their fellow citizens carrying the country’s flag to break up the pending attack?