Logic & Sanity

Hezbollah cares...

Texaggie at Cannon Blodder, shares my sentiments regarding the West's reaction to Hezbollah's circus. Those guys know which hoops to jump through to press all the right buttons. Yep, the the same people (and their supporters) who load up their Katusha rockets with ball bearings and send them to residential areas pretend to care about the innocent civilians.

And another thing. If you watch the media's coverage of the conflict, then after a while you'll start noticing a peculiar thing. New footage of Israelis firing their howitzers is shown every day. Yet there's never any video of Hezbollah firing their katusha rockets at Israel. Keep in mind that these are fired off by the hundreds on daily basis. So, what gives?

Naturally, the media savvy Hezbollah doesn't want any video of their katushas using residential areas for cover to get out.

A hibiscus...

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It's a circus...

The world has gone to shit. You got religious fanatics attacking a sovereign state of Israel, crying for its death, blending in with civilians and rocketing Israel from civilian areas and who's the world pissed at? Nope, not the bearded guys who belong to the Party of G-d(Hezbollah) and who use UN posts as a shield. Nope, the guilty party, according to the world opinion, is the only democracy in the middle east - Israel.

I am going to keep this post really dry and to the point, because there are plenty of other blogs that cover these pretty well. So here's what I think:

1) Lebanon - all these big statements and the pretense of growing hair on the lebanese balls - give me a fucking break. You can't even deploy troops on your southern border and stand up to Hezbollah, and now you pretend to be all brave and courageous all of a suden? Get back to us when you are a real state.

2) Arabs - These guys pretend to care about the civilians, but in reality they don't. Syria killed tens of thousands within days. King of Jordan has killed several thousands in ten days. And none of these states had to face suicide bombings or face world's condemnation.

3) Europeans - These guys, in all their sophistication, have allowed for two world wars. If you want for tens of millions to die, heed their advice. Otherwise, try something else.

As for all these, so called, "anti-war" demonstrations - they are hardly that. Any time you see a rally with Hezbollah/Palestinian flags present its not an anti-war rally. It's a pro Hezbolalh, pro Palestinian rally.

iGrado headphones

No more earbuds for me! As one needs a proper seal to get the full sound from the tiny drivers, I find myself poking at my ears more and more to get them in place. I've been looking at the behind-the-ear headphones for a few days now and decided on the iGrado that's pictured above.

Sure, these are ugly. But they are ugly in a charming way and I'll be sure to pick up a (black) pair as soon as they are released in september.

Tourists...

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For some reason I think tourists make great photo subjects. I took this shot through my 3rd floor (dirty) office window of the people sitting atop a double decker tour bus, while it was standing at a red light. Came out pretty good I think.

Definately liking my new camera: SONY H5. The handling is great, the 432mm telepho reach is definately great for candid shots, and when set to fully automatic mode the camera picks the ISO rating in fine steps (ie, 80/100/125/160/200/250/320,etc) which is nice. The shot above was taken at ISO 320.

I'll be posting more photos from my tourist series later on this week.

Balconies...

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Diary of an Israeli air force pilot

1800
I join up with a few friends on Tel Aviv beach. We're having some beers, enjoying the breeze and watching the sunset. After a while I say something about how bizarre the situation is - we're here having fun, while whole towns in the north are being bombarded. Wait a minute - they ask me, haven't you been called up? Sure, I reply. Just this morning I dropped two tons of explosives on Lebanon.

Read the whole thing here.

Term of the day

Emotional tampon.

Caught in a lie

Ex CIA officer Larry Johnson states:

Like George Bush, Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, never served in a combat unit and launched military operations without thinking the matter through. In fact, Olmert reportedly never even served in the military.

Oh, really, Larry?

Wikipedia:

Olmert served with the Israel Defense Forces in the Golani combat brigade. While in service he was injured and temporarily released. He underwent many treatments. Later he completed his military duties as a journalist for the IDF magazine BaMahane. During the Yom Kippur war he joined the headquarters of Ariel Sharon as a military correspondent. Already a Knesset member, he decided to go through an Officer's course, at the age of 35, in 1980.

and from Ehud Olmert's Curriculum Vitae:

1979-1982 – Volunteered in the IDF and completed officers’ course while serving as MK. Volunteered for reserve service in Lebanon.

What the hell was Larry Johnson doing at CIA???

UPDATE

From Larry Johnson's "about" page:

Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson works with US military commands in scripting terrorism exercises, briefs foreign governments on a regular basis on terrorist trends, and conducts undercover investigations on product counterfeiting and smuggling.

I hope his clients are paying attention...

Deadwood

Whoa, today's episode of Deadwood was quite violent! This show is the best series ever, by the way. I used to like Sopranos and its still decent, but at times it comes off almost like a sitcom with its silly sub plots and characters that are almost caricature like. Deadwood, on the other hand, has smart dialog, a tight plot, and characters that seem very real. Al Swearengen is by far the most interesting character I've seen in a while on any show.