Still Producing

Story still on its way.

In the meantime, I found a video of Ace at Ace-of-Spades.

Second, here is a video of my trip to Russia last summer. I've been described by some as a men among boys, or even a god for the feats I've been able to perform.

Success is all about attitude, blood, sweat and tears. That and a good bottle of Jack...

Alive

Really, I'm here. I've been slammed at work and I have monster story brewing in the incubator. So be patient, it'll be worth it.

So, that lovely shot below is Big Sur, California. My story eventually ends up there.

Exploring Northern California

Remember when I said that I was going to do some adventure writing this year?

For once I wasn't kidding...

I have a full story coming about my experience in this place, but in the meantime, here's a little taste. Anyone know where it is?

Ports Debate

Ok, I'm probably going to take some serious flak for this, as I'm probably one of about four people in the United States that supports the President on the ports deal, but I support the sale to Dubai Ports World for two reasons: 1) the attainment of strategic objectives in the War on Terror, and 2) through an analysis of actual terror risk posed by the UAE as a nation and by its citizens.

The United Arab Emirates, is one of the strongest allies we have in Middle East. But Middle East politics is very complex and muddy, and I think this muddiness in a part of the world where things blowing up on a regular basis (even though not in the UAE) is causing some clearly understandable bi-partisan angst for a large majority of Americans.

To give you a great example of this muddiness, here is how the UAE fit into the geopolitical landscape surrounding Operation Iraqi Freedom:

Although it publicly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the UAE hosted additionalU.S. forces in the run-up to the March 2003 war (Operation Iraqi Freedom, OIF). The number of U.S. forces in UAE rose from 800 in January 2002 to about 2,000 at the time OIF began. The UAE did allow the United States to upgrade airfields in the UAE thatwere used for U.S. air operations, mainly combat support flights, during the war. As of January 2004, about 1,000 U.S. forces were in UAE to support OIF as well as U.S. operations in Afghanistan, using Al Dhafra air base, Jebel Ali, and naval facilities at Fujairah. The UAE is also providing facilities for Germany to train Iraqi police. As one possible signal of the UAE desire to remain aligned with the United States on Iraq policy despite the difficulties with the U.S. occupation, an heir apparent of one emirate, Ras al-Khaymah, was removed in June 2003, probably because he orchestrated anti-U.S. demonstrations in Ras al-Khaymah before the war. Nonetheless, some UAE officials now complain that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq has paved the way for Shiite Islamists to take power in Iraq; UAE, like most other Arab states, is Sunni dominated.

This reads like a see-saw: publically opposed OIF \ allowed us to use and upgrade military airbases / heir of current emirate publically organizes demonstration opposing war \ heir arrested / UAE Sunnis dubious of Iraq's future as a Shiite dominated State \.

But although policy regarding Iraq has produced some mixed signals, the UAE has recently firmed its relationship with the United States as they have long-standing conflict with Iran, particularly over control of the shipping in the Gulf. The UAE has demonstrated nervousness about Iraqi Shiites, but they are now pouring sweat sweating over the prospect of a nuclear armed Shiite-ruled Iran.

All of the preceding is to provide a little background on our relationship with the UAE as a country in order to properly contextualize this debate.

James Lileks articulates his fears of the ports deal in typically intelligent and verbose fashion:

A few words on the Dubai Ports World imbroglio, written without pause or editing, which is probably just as well. Short version: the administration may have thought it was helping a Valuable Ally and probably a pal, end of story. But it plays like Bush defending eminent domain to condemn a neighborhood to build a mosque.

I don’t make predictions, because – well, who cares? You either repeat the conventional wisdom and hide with the herd when you’re wrong, or buck the prevailing opinions and get a reputation as a “maverick” when you’re wrong, again. Works for some. But if I had to make a prediction, I’d say this: the Dubai-ports fracas will become a flap, quickly swell into a firestorm, then become a debacle before settling into the history books as a “historic miscalculation” – providing the Republicans only lose the Congress. If they lose a city, it will be a “critical turning point.”

Do I expect the managers of the ports to start installing Al Qaeda operatives in key positions, so they can wave through all the containers with small nukes for national distribution? No. But such a scenario does not exact tax the imagination, which is why it’s such a stupendously bad idea.

It’s remarkably tone deaf. It’s possible that the Administration did some quiet polling, and asked the question “How much Arab control over American ports are you comfortable with,” and misinterpreted stunned silence as assent. It’s possible the Administration believed that this would be seen as outreach, an act of faith to solidify a Key Ally, and didn’t think there’d be much hubbub – but if that’s the case, it’s the best example of the Bubble Theory I’ve heard, and I’ve not heard much convincing evidence. Until now. The average American’s reaction to handing port control over to the UAE is instinctively negative, and for good reason. There are two basic reactions: We can’t do this ourselves? and We should trust them, why?

Bold emphasis mine. This argument has cut to the center of what this all comes down to: risk. Clearly our ports are one of the biggest security risks that we face in the United States. As I listed above, the UAE has been a strong ally of ours in the region, but although politcs run by states are one thing, a culture that breeds radicals is another. Lileks is not unreasonably concerned that it is possible that al-Qaeda could penetrate and set the big one off in one of our cities. Well, I do share his concern considering I live in San Francisco and watch the multitudes of cargo ships passing in front of my house daily.

But how well founded is the size of this risk? How radical are the citizens of the UAE? I figured that a decent metric of Islamic radicalism should come from the amount of foreign fighters that have been found in Iraq to see who is putting there money where their mouth is. I Googled around and found this:

Nationalities of 312 Foreign Nationals Captured in Iraq since April 2005 Egypt 78 Iran 13 Syria 66 Palestinians 12 Sudan 41 Tunisia 10 Saudi Arabia 32 Algeria 8 Jordan 17 Libya 7

Others: Britain, Qatar, UAE, India, Denmark, France, Macedonia, Morocco, Somalia, Yemen, Israel, Indonesia, Ireland, Kuwait, United States.

The UAE makes the list, but so does Britain (the host country of the company currently managing our ports) along with Denmark, France, Ireland and even the United States. According to this document, the quantity is unknown, but acccording to this MSNBC article, European countries have provided 3% of the total foreign fighters killed in Iraq.

Islamic radicals who live in Europe have bombed London and Madrid, while also causing numerous riots (most notably in France and Denmark). In looking at the complete picture, why would it be acceptable to bear the risk of a foreign European country to run our ports, versus a country in the Middle East that has been one of our strongest allies in the region? The UAE has been a bit of a seasaw in terms of forgein policy with us, but practical politics mostly due to Iraq aside, their citizens have NOT exactly been flocking to Iraq to kill Americans. Logistically, this is rather remarkable considering radicals in the UAE only have to get through Saudi Arabia to hook up with the insurgents.

Regardless, one of the central strategic objectives in the the war on terror is to provide support for moderate Muslims. It is one thing to support with grandiose speech and "dialog" our "friendship" with the Muslim world, but it is another to outright ban a moderate ally in the Middle East because they are Muslim and the potential exists for radicals to infiltrate.

But I don't want to discount real risk. If there is a real risk, we should treat ALL risk as the same. Based on the proportion of foreign elements we have found in Iraq, I think if you want to take a zero tolerance towards any risk posed by foreign companies managing our ports, you'd have to ban ALL companies regardless of origin. Or, at the very least, European countries should be excluded along with companies based in the UAE based, as the level of radical influence within their respective borders has been comprable, if not less so in the UAE.

Lileks thinks the Administration is being politically tone-def to the majority of the American people, but I think the majority of the American people, and a number of politicians, are knee jerking a bit against an decision that I think is of way more importance than popularity in the polls. What Bush has done very poorly so far, which is par for the course for him, has been in properly communicating solid counter-arguments for those opposing the deal. The President owes the American people a solid explanation that argues against the perceived risks people are carrying with them (regardless of how unfounded they are). He owes this explanation because the American people are the ones that have to bear the consequences of any actual risk involved.

Deficient communication skills aside, and with the caveat that I'm not privy to a lot of intelligence coming across the desk of our decision makers, I'm not convinced the risk is as real as the opposition to this deal makes it seem.

-----

Postscript: Actually, I think that there is a further case to be made that European countries would have a higher risk before the UAE. This is purely a pragmatic play, and not something that I support as stauch supporter of world-wide democracy, but European democracies are less likely to actively monitor the employees and contractors hired by port managers than a company that falls within the borders of a quasi-monarchy. From a regulation and diplomatic standpoint, it is much easier to deal with an entity that can crack the wip on their radicals without having to deal with laws that restrict government control. With Iran looming across the Straits of Hormuz, I'd say the UAE would have some strong incentives to actively work with us to ensure New York doesn't end up burning because of an Islamist plot using our ports.

Chapter 1, Entry One - The Annals of "Holy Crap!"

"So honey, how was your day?"

Lydia Angyiou's kids sure won't be giving her much trouble any more, now that they've seen her wrestle a 700-pound polar bear.

Angyiou lives in Ivujivik, a village of 300 people on the shore of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec.

One Wednesday evening earlier this month, Angyiou was walking near the village community center with her two sons when a group of children playing street hockey nearby started shouting and pointing frantically.

Angyiou, 41, turned around and saw a polar bear sizing up her 7-year-old son.

She told the children to run and raced around to get between the bear and her son. Then she started kicking and punching the animal, according to police reports.

In a flash, the bear swatted her in the face and she fell on her back. With the bear on top of her, Angyiou began kicking her legs in a bicycle-pedaling motion. She was swatted once more and rolled over, but the bear moved toward her again.

Siqualuk Ainalik heard the commotion and came rushing over. Seeing Angyiou wrestling with the bear, he ran to his brother's home, grabbed a rifle and headed back to the street. He fired a few warning shots.

The sound diverted the bear's attention from Angyiou just long enough for him to aim and fire again. According to police, Ainalik fired four shots into the bear before it finally died.

When reached for comment, Lydia Angyiou shrugged off reporters tersely, but not before asking, "Can someone hand me my wallet that's lying the on the ground where I wrestled that polar bear? Which one is it? It's the one that says "Bad Mother F*&@er" on it."

Foggy Brain Goes Bye-Bye

Ok, I'm alive. Maybe the chemicals that influenced my brain have altered my already unusual brain, but I'm looking to clean some things up around here.

As Ulysses S. McGill said:

"Out with the old spiritual mumbo-jumbo, the superstitions and the backward ways. We're gonna see a brave new world where they run everyone a wire and hook us all up to a grid. Yessir, a veritable age of reason - like the one they had in France - and not a moment too soon..."

So that means, a little less talk about politics and a little more talk of living life, adventure, passion, desire and fashion.

"Did you say fashion?"

...um, it was a typo that made it past the editor. I clearly have no desire to talk about fashion. Football maybe, but not fashion...

"No, I think you meant fashion."

Fashion. What the devil would I have to say about that?

"You're gay."

Who are you, and what are you doing on my blog?

...

Anyway, sorry. What I meant was this: there is going to be a lot of adventure coming your way this year. I'm not exactly going to be riding across the entire country on a freaking tricycle like this guy, but I'm sure I can keep you mildly entertained with a few stories of fighting lions, tigers and stuff like that.

Stay tuned...

Hey

Sorry for the light and frivolous posting recently. My apologies for giving you "too much information" in advance, but I've really not been feeling very well and have been experiencing some major side effects of the muscle relaxers I was prescribed two weeks ago. I've been off them for over a week and I am still experiencing these same side-effects with the same intensity. Essentially I'm walking around in a haze that won't go away.

Today, after returning to the doctor, he told me that the muscle relaxers that I was on were actually designed to shut down certain pain impulses going to my Central Nervous System. In otherwords, it was literally shutting down a portion of my effin' brain. If he would have told me this when he prescribed them to me (and I did ask), I would have suffered through a stiff neck instead.

So, I go to the Doc again today and tell him what I am going through, his nurse incorrectly takes my bloodpressure not once, but twice, then he prescribes me something else and almost walks out of the room. I asked him what it was that we was prescribing and he said, "Stuff to clear up your head."

"Yeah, how?"

"It's medicine for your head."

"What does it do?"

"Makes you not groggy anymore."

That was my last visit to Dr. Non-Specific-Engrish-as-a-Second-Language-Guy. I went to the Pharmacsist and asked what the perscription was, and it was a bunch of little yellow pills that counter dizziness by stabalizing your inner freaking ear.

Dummy.

In the meantime, my brain literally hurts, and I've got all these paranoid thoughts that my brain has been running on Microsoft Windows 98 all this time and is just ready to crash permanently.

Labotomy is looking good.

Indiana Hoops Breaking News

Seth Davis at SportsIllustrated.com is reporting that Mike Davis has resigned as head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers.

I'm a bit relieved. As an Indiana Hoosier alumni, I am finding it hard to swallow not playing for anything in March, and a lot of it has to do with Davis, some not.

I will say though, Mike is a stand-up guy and someone who I really wanted to see succeed. This is a good development for Mike as well, as I think he'll have better success somewhere else.

Coaching speculation begins. They got the new football coach right, let's up Greenspan get's this one right (as in, he does NOT higher hire Steve Alford).

In other news, Indiana lost to Penn State tonight. Penn State is to basketball what we are to football. Penn State shot 51% for the game. It seems like you can have an aneurysm and still score against Indiana's atrocious "defense." When I say defense, I mean a bunch of guys standing around who you need to slightly avoid on your way to the basket.

Sad days in Hoosier-land.

Lovely

Via Elephants in Academia:

This is my only retort to this whole overblown spectacle.

In other news: the Left is still suffering from a major case of obessession, whose symptoms manefest themselves in full-blown Bush Derangement Syndrom, or as Charles Krauthammer puts it:

...the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay -- the very existence of George W. Bush.

...and Dick Cheney apparently.

I think the Veep should just hold a press conference and pistol whip Helen Thomas on live T.V.

Don't mess with Dick Cheney. He won't give you the courtesy of a reach-around.

Continuous Progress in Iraq

In my continuing effort to counter the "we're losing the war" meme--which is nothing more than a rhetorical tactic to distort reality through the emphasis of bad news and the de-emphasis on the good, the creation of false and impossible expectations, with a stronger credibility given to those who's goals are only intended not to enlighten or solve problems, but to critize--I present you the latest piece of defeatist agitprop from Paul McGeough:

THE masked gunman cradles a sniper's rifle as he sits in the back of a car. Speaking to the camera, he taunts the US President with a chilling outline of his planned mission: "I'm going to give George Bush a small present. I have nine bullets - with each I'll shoot someone and, before your eyes, I'll give the present to Bush."

Alighting in a built-up area, he heads over rough ground to the corner of a building. The camera rolls as he cocks the Tabuk rifle - a Saddam Hussein take-off of the Russian-designed Dragunov.

The recording then cuts to a tightly spliced sequence of nine shootings, in which the targets appear to be members of the American or Iraqi security forces.

It is pure and brutal propaganda. Some of the images are blurred and there is no proof that the man with the gun has even fired the shots.

Each target seems to collapse as a single shot is heard, but there is no attempt to verify the gunman's claim that he has killed the victim.

Nonetheless, this and three other video CDs gathered recently by the Herald in Sunni communities near Baghdad are graphic indications of the extent to which an emboldened insurgency has dug in, arming itself with high-tech propaganda as well as low-tech weaponry.

Recorded over the past two years, the videos suggest that the rebel fighters have a remarkable ease of movement in urban and rural Iraq and an ability to acquire the weapons and uniforms of the new Iraqi security forces.

They show too their skill in crafting crude homemade missile launchers and improvised bombs for use in brazen daylight attackson military, political and economic targets.

As the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq (March 20) looms, they underscore the daunting challenge that still confronts US and Iraqi security forces as they attempt to execute the counterinsurgency orders of the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to "drain the swamp".

When told of the content of the CDs obtained by the Herald, one of America's leading terrorism analysts, Bruce Hoffman of the Rand Corp, said the insurgency was not just entrenched, but was now self-perpetuating.

The purpose of my counter-argument is not to deny the horrible realities of the story above. Bad news is a large part of war, and snipers picking off soliders from a rooftop or killing Iraqis going to work, is indeed horrible. But, McGeough's article uses a piece of enemy propaganda (which he fully admits it is) to portray these events as yet another example of failure by the leadership of the United States to effectively win the war. His myopic piece stands in stark contrast to the big picture, where al-Qaeda, the insurgent group responsible for the bloodiest and most deadly attacks in Iraq over the past three years, is now being actively resisted not only by the portion of the Iraqi population loyal to the newly elected government, but also by the insurgent groups who were allied with them against the Americans during the beginning of the resistence.

The bad news is, of course, that Iraq is still an extremely dangerous place. More so than American soldiers, Iraqi citizens are routinely murdered in an effort to a) terrorize them, b) gain more recruits through their resistence to the infidels, and c) equalize the strategic disadvantage they have to the democratic elements who have yet to miss a single strategic objective since the initial invasion.

The American efforts to reclaim their strategic advantage began with the retaking of the insurgent stronghold in Fallujah. U.S. forces destroyed their main hub and continued to chase the insurgents through the Euphrates River Valley into Syria. As residents realized that U.S. forces were not going to pull-out and allow the insurgents to reclaim their old territory, intelligence and tips started to trickle in about the insurgency.

In the background, Iraq security forces continued their training and began to join U.S. forces on raids while also providing much needed man-power in holding territory reclaimed. Tactically, the Americans were able to leverage their Iraqi allies in clearing and removing insurgents from the politically sensitive mosques. But the Iraqi forces were establishing a long-term footprint by providing legitimacy as a home-grown element to the largely American operations.

The Americans continued to cut off the insurgency from their life-lines (or rat-lines) along the Euphrates. The Anbar Campaign, which I claim history will demonstrate was one of the mostly widely successful military operations ever, attacked insurgents in their strongholds along the Euphrates. But, as the green Iraqi troops who fought limitedly during the first phase, began to increase their presence and were taking more and more initiative with every operation. Not only were the rat-lines being cut off, but the Iraqi troops were starting to win engagements against their foes.

Al-Qaeda responded. They attacked soft targets: women and children. Even the Sunni insurgent groups didn't have the stomach for this and actively told al-Qaeda to back-off. They didn't, so the insurgency which the media is so fond of portraying a single entity, ferociously went after each other.

McGeough does close his piece with a truism from a counter-terrorism analyst:

Noting official Iraqi and US responses to fluctuations in data, he says: "It's easy to claim a trend towards 'victory', but … far more difficult to make them enduring or valid. Equally, it is easy to talk about 'tipping points' or 'turning points', but most such claims are wrong, oversimplified and/or premature.

"Real patterns take time to emerge and insurgencies are filled with cycles in which the patterns of a given day, week or month are reversed and later, reversed again."

In his latest report, Bill Roggio demonstrates which direction this pattern is headed:

Further details emerge about the developing rifts between the native elements of the Iraqi insurgency and al-Qaeda and their Islamist allies. Army Major General Rick Lynch, the spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, acknowledged the infighting has occurred in Anbar province; “Many times these citizens are urged by their local tribal leaders to rid the area of the insurgent influence... In Fallujah and Ramadi, citizens have established checkpoints to keep insurgents out and six al Qaeda leaders have been killed in the area since September.”

According to Maj. Gen. Lynch, the increase in tips from over a year ago has skyrocketed by 240 times the number reported last year. The Department of Defense reports “Iraqi civilians provided more than 1,300 tips to coalition and Iraqi security forces... That is a huge improvement from the 47 tips received in January 2005... Of all the valid calls received by the Ministry of Interior's national tips hotline, 98 percent provided actionable intelligence... Most calls are about terrorist activity... but calls also come in about kidnapping, murder and other criminal activity.”

...The newly created Mujahedeen Shura Council, which is comprised of al-Qaeda in Iraq and six small Islamist groups (Victorious Army Group, the Army of al-Sunnah Wal Jama’a, Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades, Islamic Jihad Brigades, the Strangers Brigades, and the Horrors Brigades) has made yet another appeal for the insurgency to unite under its banner. So far there are no new takers.

Osama bin Laden once said “when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” Zarqawi is by no means defeated in Iraq, and can still muster the strength to commit acts of terror, but it seems clear at this point his horse is viewed more like a nag than a thoroughbred.

It is not my place to answer whether I think that Paul McGeough is writing from the standpoint of bad faith or just ignorance. Just the same, this type of reporting that tries to insinuate that "Iraq is just like Vietnam," instead of a messy battleground where the strategic advantage is heavily in favor of those supporting the new democracy, only serves to benefit the muderous thugs that continue to ruthlessly kill those who are trying to work towards rebuilding a country that now belongs not to a strongman, but to them. When the Iraqi people look back in fifty years, I hope they'll remember who provided the enemy a mouthpiece to spread fear throughout the world.

Former Vice President Al Gore Speak to the Saudis

Ronald Reagan in 1994 was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He wrote a letter addressing the nation for the last time before spending the rest of his life in peace away from the attention and cameras knowing full well that his mind would be deteriorating.

If only Al Gore would have been so graceful.

Today, he's addressing the Saudis:

Former Vice President Al Gore told a mainly Saudi audience on Sunday that the U.S. government committed "terrible abuses" against Arabs after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and that most Americans did not support such treatment.

Gore said Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up" and held in "unforgivable" conditions. The former vice president said the Bush administration was playing into al-Qaida's hands by routinely blocking Saudi visa applications.

"The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake," Gore said during the Jiddah Economic Forum. "The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States."

Gore told the largely Saudi audience, many of them educated at U.S. universities, that Arabs in the United States had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."

"Unfortunately there have been terrible abuses and it's wrong," Gore said. "I do want you to know that it does not represent the desires or wishes or feelings of the majority of the citizens of my country."

The article, who tries to establish the credibility of the Saudi audience by stating that many were Western educated, passes on the fact that our mostly Saudi friends that flew airplanes into our buildings on September 11th were also educated here. And last that I checked, "indiscriminate round-ups" in "unforgivable" conditions is definitely something "the majority of the citizens in (our) country" do no support, but what is Al talking about here? I'm under the impression that he is trying to insinuate to a foreign audience that we've re-opened the internment camps and are throwing a bunch of brown people into them under the Bushitler regime.

Is there something I'm not privy to that isn't sourced from Indymedia?

Is he talking about Guantanamo?

What the duce is this former Vice President talking about?

Oh well, it's not like he threw the country into a Constitutional crisis for personal gain again. Maybe I was foolish in my youth, but didn't we once know a sane Al Gore? Was this the same guy that utterly embarrassed Ross Perot in arguing for a highly logical and bi-partisan free-trade agreement?

The West Coast Rules

I took this from the window of my shoe-box apartment the other day.

It's been a fabulous weekend here in San Francisco. It is mornings like this that keep me here for good in spite our crazies.

By crazies, I mean our 'Supes, not the crackheads in the Tenderloin.

A Bright Idea

Via, fellow Bay Area resident Jeff from Beautiful Atrocities, Barbara Streisand has a WARNING! for all of us ignoramouses living our measely existences with our collective heads in the sand:

I encourage those that visit my web site to read the book “Fooled Again” by Mark Crispin Miller. This is an important and illuminating book about our seriously flawed election system.

Barbara doesn't elaborate much on just exactly what those flaws are, so I can only extrapolate from various Leftist talking points over the years.

This got me thinking, why should those of us interested in arguments have to go through the trouble of having to ask people like Barbara specifics on what the heck they are talking about? Why does the ball have to be in our court?

Fear not, I've been thinking about creating a list that could be the basis for an engine that churns random lefty meme's for various "questions" one might have for such unsubstantiated claims.

On second thought, I'm going to go outside in a short-sleeve shirt, soak up some 70-degree evening air, and go watch some big-time music.

Happy weekend East Coasters!

To My Family on the East Coast: "Ha-ha!"

What's all the fuss, it's 70-degrees here?

::ducks:::

Yet Another Justin King Post

Today, I'm like a kid anticipating presents on the Eve of Christmas.

Tonight I'm going to see one of my favorite new musicians in Oakland: Justin King.

As a guitar player, this kid is just plain sick. Watch this video, and feel unworthy of yourself.

It was on the crude side (but it revealed the truth of how good this guy was) I saw a review of one of Justin's videos on an independent site a year ago that said, "Hey Justin, you should wear a t-shirt that says "Steve Vai can suck my #$&^."

If you are thinking, Yeah, those are neat tricks, but can the guy write a song?

The answer to that is here.

His first CD isn't even out yet, but they are just getting ready to release it. Justin is going to be playing all over California this month in anticipation for the release of their first album.

For you Bay Area people, Justin will be in Oakland tonight, Mill Valley on the 16th, and then in San Francisco on the 23rd. I'll be going to all three shows.

Planned Riots?

I've been pretty quiet on the Muhammed cartoon controversy because 1) I don't spend a lot of time scooping the news here, and 2) there seems to be more behind this than a simple, random collective tizzy from "outraged" Muslims.

Strategypage is reporting something that I had a hunch about. I'm not sure how to validate this information, but it does seem to jive with the events we've been seeing over the last few days:

The riots throughout the Moslem world over Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed appear to have been instigated by Iran, with the help of Syria. The cartoons first appeared last fall, and were even published in an Egyptian newspaper last October. There was no fuss then, until the Iranian government decided there was an opportunity to enlist the media, and Islamic radicals, into some violent, and well publicized street theater. Ten have died so far, all Moslems, and the cartoons have been more widely published than would have been the case otherwise. The clerics ruling Iran apparently see themselves as retaking the leadership role in the "worldwide Islamic revolution."

I don't think it is much of a coincidence that the most violent and explosive demonstrations against the cartoon have occured in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut. The Western media has been reproducing these images without scrutiny or question for the past week, and have yet again, become a bull-horn for those that want to strike fear into the hearts of the infidels. Do you think these men would have gotten away with burning down Egyptian Embassy in Tehran?

Right now in the West, the debate is simmering over freedom of expression and the wisdom behind the appropriatness of printed content designed specifically to "infuriate" people of a certain minority protected ideology.

These debates are completely unfocused, and only serve to demonstrate how utterly clueless the West is in dealing with our enemies who, regardless of what you choose to believe, have declared war on us. The Iranians in particular are masters of the proxy war, and have used yet another trick to not only rally Muslims to their radical bosom against the West, but also to make the West feel bad about being the infidels that they are. The button that activates self-loathing is big and exposed on our chests for all the world to see.

Light Posting

Posting has been light for a few reasons:

1) I've been on muscle relaxers for the past week, due to the fact that my doctor believes that my muscles are far too big for a person of my stature. He wanted me to "take it down a bit."

That and I've had a kink in my neck for the last 2 months that won't go away.

So, they put me on these damn things, and I have watched my personality turn from "fun, vibrant, optimistic" guy, to "melancholy, dreary, agnostic, ambivilant" guy. Once I noticed that I was on this downward spiral, I threw the damn things away.

It leads me to the question of why doctors are so quick to prescribe medication for any and every ailment. He didn't even check me out, I told him what was wrong, and the next thing you know, I'm standing in the pharmacist's line with THREE prescriptions. The side effects of these things is far worse than the pain I wanted to go away in the first place.

2) Speaking of downward spiral, how about those Indiana Hoosiers? The one good thing about these drugs is that as I listened to their last two losses with emotional output of the anti-Andrew Sullivan.

It is really hard to watch a team so talented play with so little confidence. From what Don Fischer was saying on the radio, it seems like they are playing hard, but they look lost and completely out of sync. I think this team has the talent to turn it around, but do they have the confidence in themselves to believe that they can beat anyone they step on the floor with?

So far, it looks like we are stuck with another bubble-team.

The reason why the demise of this year's team stings Indiana fans so badly, is because next year, we'll be watching two of the best high-school players the state of Indiana has produced in a long time play for Ohio State. We know that this year is our year to do our damage. Sadly, all the young talent sitting on the bench for IU looks mediocre, and even if they improve, I don't think we'll have enough to match up with 7 ft 1 inch Greg Oden.

3) Didn't you read yesterday's post? It is 70-plus degrees out. I'm going outside to play...with a gimpy neck and enough drugs to kill a couple of hippies on Haight Street.

It's 72 friggin' degrees outside. Do you really think I am going to stay in and blog about stuff that no one reads anyway?

See ya tomorrow...

Blogroll Update

If you've hung out here long enough, you'll probably notice that my blogroll doesn't change too much. That isn't for any reason other than pure laziness on my part.

Anyway, last week I receive a burst of inspiration and I added a few new folks to my list. Since this is such a rare event, a little Pomp and Circumstance is required. I would cue the band, but they are union members, and they're taking a smoke break:

• I found Rick's site, Verb-ops, via Ian Wood's Astonished Head. Rick's site, much like Ian's, is a refreshing break from politics on the web. I love art, and he has plenty of interesting narratives about the subject. One of my favorite posts of his is one that he did on Paul Weingarten's World Trade Center paintings. Rick and Ian are of the same mould in that they can write about anything and make it incredibly interesting.

  Bastards! Both of them!

• Via Colossus, I found two blogs. First, Elephants in Academia. For a taste of what they do, check out this post about the potential future of Palestine. Second is the Llama Butchers. If you can make it through any of their posts without laughing, then you have no soul. Read this one.

• This next blog, Bobby's World, is a perfect example of the cynicism that I have about the "blogosphere" (for the record, I hate that word). I cannot believe that this military blog isn't acclaiming the attention that it deserves. Bobby was embedded as an advisor to train Afghan soldiers, and often has some of the most insightful analysis you'll find anywhere (read the latest on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan). Bobby also is a huge baseball fan, but his hometown Dodger loyalties may conflict with this author who is literally publishing this post six blocks away from Pac Bell SBC AT&T Park.

• Kirk H. Sowell is the author of Arab World Analysis. I found his site through his sister blog, Security Watchtower. Sowell is an Arab linguist and is a fantastic source on Middle Eastern affairs. If this is an area of interest for you, you should be on this site everyday.

• I'm not sure how I found Digital Niccotine, but I've been hitting this site for a few months now. The author, LEE, seems to have a similar approach to blogging that I do: write about whatever the heck you feel like writing about at the time. Lee likes college basketball, so double-the-points there.

• Lastly, Michael Yon. If I had even a shred of integrity, I would have put Michael on the blogroll the second I found him. His orginal and in-depth reporting in Iraq is by far, superior to the mainstream media's efforts. Michael was in the thick of it, and he has more confidence in our efforts than a lot of people back home. I challenge you to read it and decide for yourself.

I hope you enjoy these good reads. If you are blogger that comes to this site and you would like to be on the blogroll, just drop me a comment here and I'll put you up. I don't spend a lot of time look at my referrers log, so I can't really tell who is visiting here or not.

Anyway, cheers for now!

Challenging Conventional Thinking

C.S. Scott provides a very interesting analysis on the possible whereabouts of al-Qaeda in Iraq's number one:

The most salient point here is that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has viewed Iran as an area of retreat in the past and there is little reason to believe that view has changed. With Iraqi security forces taking over more areas of responsibility and Sunni Iraqi insurgents actively fighting al Qaeda in some areas, the possibility of a Zarqawi retreat into Iran is even more likely than previously. On Monday a report coming from Iraqi intelligence bolsters the credibility of the original report we cited two weeks ago.

He then follows up with a more detailed analysis supported by a report on Strategypage (details in italics) of who might be smoking the al-Qaeda out of the grass:

Apparently, al Qaeda-in-Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi has had to flee from wherever it is he’s been hiding, because members of the Sunni Arab Dulayni tribe are gunning for him. Worse, the tribesmen are suddenly passing on information to American troops and Iraqi police about the location of "foreign fighters" (al Qaeda members) in their territory west of Baghdad. Until recently, the tribe has generally supported the terrorists and anti-government forces, but has kept its options with the government open. For example, one of the principal Dulayni sheiks has sometimes served as a go-between in kidnappings. Reportedly, al Qaeda, unhappy with the “loyalty” of the tribe, and decided to “teach them a lesson.” Al Qaeda killed several members of the tribe in a car bombing in Ramadi early in January. Rather than “learn the lesson,” the Dulayni have apparently decided to knock off Zarqawi.

Interestingly it was members of the Dulaymi tribe that attempted the 1995 coup against Saddam Hussein, attacked Abu Ghraib prison that same year, and may have tipped US forces to the location of Uday and Qusay Hussein in Mosul after the regime collapsed.

Scott's post provides great insight on the level of complexity and the quantity of vissitudes that one must take into account when trying to make sense out of our enemies in Iraq. Far from being a unified body, the insurgency has always been a loosely formed "front" that in-tially used their ambiguity to their advantage, especially in projecting their "mysterious" image to the Western Press. Early on, it was hard to tell who was behind the mayhem--bombs went off in mosques and crowded city centers, Islamists rioted and chanted the demise of the American-led effort, American troops were attacked endlessly with IEDs, citizens were terrorized and burned bodies hung from bridges.

The Western Press, as a whole, projected these ambiguous images back into our living-rooms without much care or insight into what made up the "block" creating this mess. The motives behind this are wide ranging, but the "least offensive" of them was mostly laziness. But all in all, the insurgeny only had one face unified in their opposition to American.

Now that we are getting our first looks into the make-up of "THE INSURGENCY," we are finding that the THE, implying some sort of unified nomenclature in describing THE ENEMY, in reality shows a machiavellian enterprise in its extreme: loose bands of interests who have much to lose if the American-led efforts achieve their strategic goals. But since these groups are so numerous and diverse in their reasons why they chose to fight against the Americans, they have always had a soft-underbelly that could be exposed and exploited over time.

The American-led effort did precisely this. Instead of shrinking back and playing defense in relatively safe areas in Iraq, the military went on the offensive in Western Iraq with the goal of choking those who were set on interrupting democratic process. Almost within weeks after initiating this campaign, American troops were reporting red-on-red (enemy fratricide) fighting. The enemies soft underbelly was being exposed.

This is a game of power. The Baathists want to return to power. Al Qaeda wants to gain power to turn Iraq into their vision of being ruled by radical Islam. Then there are elements like the Dulyami tribe who want control. The Dulyami tribe has shown that they do not favor any group who is in power as they were just as willng to oppose Saddam as they were to oppose the Americans.

Time and resolve, not superior firepower, have been the weapons that have been most effective in defeating the various insurgent groups. Al-Qaeda fallaciously assumed that terror tactics could scare the Americans into a withdrawl, while also assuming the general population of Iraqis would cower in the face of car bombs. They were wrong on both counts--the American's turned up the heat of their offensive and continued to capture and kill insurgent positions, while the general population saw al-Qaeda, not America, as the killers of women and children.

The success of the three major elections in Iraq did more than just bolster the more abstract cause of democracy. Tribal leaders who once supported attacks against the American backed government were rendered impotent as the people voiced their own wishes. The Iraqi people, not the Americans, provided their government's legitimacy. If the tribal leaders continued to resist, they would not only be opposing America, but they would isolate themselves by standing in the way of the majority of Iraqis.

Al-Qaeda unintentionally took the bait, and turned their murderous ways on those they initially fought alongside with in order to entice them back into the fight against the democratic forces. The result of these brutal attacks put the tribal leaders in direct opposition to al-Qaeda. Tribal leaders are ultimately responsible for the health and safety of their people, and al-Qaeda was indiscriminantly murdering them.

Now that we see the make-up of those that make up the collective insurgency, we can begin to understand that the one overriding axiom we can base further analysis is self-preservation. When Scott first relayed reports that it was very likely that Zarqawi was finding refuge in Iran, I was initially dubious. Why would the Iranian government, who hoped for a Shiite controlled Iraq, support a Sunni who has openly proclaimed that the mass murder of the Shiite heretics was a madate from Allah?

Self-preservation. In Iran, Zarqawi finds refuge in an area where the Americans and Iraqi security forces find the most inaccessable politically. Iran, in turn, benefits from having instability in Iraq. If security in Iraq continues to teeter, American forces will be committed to stopping that before they can turn and focus on Iran. Time and resolve helped the Americans get the better of the insurgent groups, but now time is on Iran's side, as they hope America is tied up just long enough for them to finish their developing their nukes.

Anyway, the concluding point here is that there is a lot of stuff happening that doesn't seem to be getting much attention. Whether it's Shiite theocrats harboring Islamist Sunnis or radical tribal insurgents actively fighting radical foreign elements, there is a lot new information being revealed that is challenging conventional wisdom.

iPod Will Kill Your Brain

Certain elements of our society continue to linger in Darwin's waiting room:

Apple Computer’s popular iPod music player was facing a new legal threat after an aggrieved customer filed a class action complaint claiming the comany did not adequately warn customers about the potential for damaging hearing loss from playing its popular music player at full volume. A complaint filed with a California court this week alleged that Apple’s music players were “inherently defective in design” and “not adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss”.

IPods sold in Europe contain software that limits their noise output to 100 decibels, but the complaint alleged that iPods sold in the US can produce sound levels of up to 115 decibels – louder than a helicopter or a jackhammer.

Apple also forgot to mention that their inherently defective design also created severe oxygen shortages in the brain for those who forget to turn the music down when their ears hurt. When the plaintiffs were asked what they were planning on doing about that, they sat there drooling in a semi-conscious coma, wondering what time it was for dinner, and if they left the gas on before leaving the house.

Tony From South Philly, You're on the Air...

For those of you in the know (3 out of my 5 readers), I went to high school outside of Philadelphia in the mid-nineties. I moved there during my sophomore year, and even though I only spent three-continuous years there, I felt as if I drank through the firehose which is the Philadelphia experience. It left me woozy, dizzy, confused and a little angry, but I somehow ended up being the only male over the age of 15 to not have a waistline over 36 inches.

During my high school years, I worked part-time at a very prominent, but family-run printing company that was East Coast Italian to the core. Nepotism showed no bounds, as the maintenence guys were just as likely to be repairing something in the building as picking up sticks and mowing the lawns of the owner's second cousin's house. Plus I learned an important equation that would I will never forget as long as I live:

I + i'+ (P x bc') = BOOM^3

Derived: (I) Italians + (i') a handful of firey and proud Irishmen + (P) Philadelphia x (bc') blue collar = (BOOM^3) a concentration of explosive energy so massive, Iran would be much schrewder in trying to harness it over challenging the world with uranium enrichment.

Case in point: a 270 lbs Irish man who worked in receiving picked up a 400 lbs palette containing fresh ink with a hand-held, electric palette jack. He moved it over to the 16-color Heidleberg Press, and after setting it down, ripped a fart that reverberated so loudly, it made the guys working on the press actually jump down in fear that something was severely jammed in the press. When the foreman, a 5'6" Italian, realized what the source of the sound was, he ran across the room, picked up cardboard tube about 4 ft long/5 inches in diameter, and started to beat the living piss out of the gaseous perpetrator while reeling off a string of obsenities with a filthiness, ferociousness and vitriol that would have made the crossbred spaun of a wolverine and Richard Pryor sheepish and self-conscious.

Naturally, the Irishman retaliated by emptying the methane, in what I am assuming was probably his third stomach, that was even louder and more potenent than the first surprise-warning shot. Fearing for my life, I ran for the nearest exit, but heard a rumble from the warehouse that was irrily similar the fight Paul Buyan had with Big Blue. Assuming of course that the foul language being tossed around made up for the 150 pound differential.

So, this is the environment in which I was exposed to the phenomenon of Philadelphia Sports Radio (WIP). I am convinced that WIP is not really an actual sports station, but a front for some kind of nefarious group who's purpose is to incite a riot large enough to overthrow the government. This anarchist radio would play from the time Howard Stern got off the air at around 10:30 am until Howard found his way back on the air again at 7:00 am the next day. If it wasn't for Howard Stern anesthetizing the masses for several hours-a-day, I'm convinced the warehouse would have ended up like this:

WIP allocates a large portion of their programming to allow Philadelphians to "sound-off" on various issues related to sports. As a pretty close to free-speech absolutist, I usually applaud those outlets that encourage debate and free-flow of ideas between pundits and listeners. But, if you have ever heard Philadelphians calling into sports radio the Monday morning after an Eagles loss, you'll regret ever putting the title "absolutist" next to free-speech. Here is an example of a typical caller-radio host exchange that I overheard sometime around 1993:

"We are discussing the mauling Cowboys gave the Eagles yesterday, and we're taking calls for the next hour. Tony from South Philly, you are on the air..."

"Hey! This is Tony from South Philly. I have two questions for you: first, the Eagles are number one, second, the next time Randall Cunningham runs out of the pocket on 3rd and long, should I lacerate his eyeballs?"

As soon as Tony finished his rhetorical analysis as to the Eagles' third down woes, one of the more mellow gentleman on the printing press floor who operated one of the paper cutting machines, a 68-year old Italian man, said, "F--k that effin' Cunningham darkie. Tony is right! If Cunningham had his eyes lacerated, he wouldn't be able to run outside the pocket and he might actually throw the ball down the field for once in his freaking life."

I looked at him to see if he was kidding, but the man who had been working with a 500 pound, 5-foot long blade all day long, was clearly not kidding. I figured as he put another stack of paper up to be cut, he was imagining taking the embattled Eagles' Quarterback into his private quarters for an optical adjustment.

So, in this atmosphere, it comes to no surprise that when the biggest loudmouth in sports history, Terrell Owens, joined the Eagles, he would find himself in a spot, taking the full brunt of the raging Philly hostility harnessed by "sports" radio.

This was all a long a bloated way of describing the backdrop to this story:

Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb took another hit Wednesday, this time from a former teammate and current Eagles' employee.

Former defensive end Hugh Douglas told radio station WIP that McNabb isn't the type of man to lead the Eagles, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

"The thing that Donovan needs -- it's been proven, especially this year -- he needs other people to lead," Douglas told the radio station. "He's not a leader. He doesn't want to lead. He is the leader on the field as a quarterback; he isn't a team leader. He needs a good supporting cast."

Contacted Wednesday night by the Inquirer, the 34-year-old Douglas modified the statement about McNabb, but only slightly.

Of course he "modified the statement," he was on WIP. Philadelphia sports radio lives on this stuff. They love controversy, they love to get angry, and they looooove a villian. Terrell Owens for all intents and purposes is out of Philadelphia. Is there anything out there than can provide the fuel for the fire of fury that rages? I'm not sure one can match Terrell's drama, but it looks like they are going to continue with their attacks on Philly's other superstar quarterback. The national sports news media might want to be careful wandering into the world that is WIP because if there is vitriol out there, they will find it and embrace it and ESPN is ignorant if they think they can leverage it.

Rolling Stone Reponds to SOTU

Writing political analysis for Rolling Stone Magazine must the be the career equivalent of being a masseuse who can only find employment in seedy, back-alley, San Francisco massage parlor that serves happy-endings. Without an inherant, natural touch, you have to make it up by delivering a strong-stroke to your customers.

So, Tim Dickinson shows why he's jerking people off instead of massaging the hardbodies at the country-club:

Here's a president who has spent his political capital, and is out of ideas to boot. You can see the flipside of his predicament in Bush's bluster about foreign policy. A man who couldn't properly topple a tin-pot dictatorship is now wrapping his grand misadventure into a grandiloquent narrative about American interventionism somehow bringing the "end of tyranny in our world."

Fantasyland, indeed.

Actual analysis, or rhetorical set-up? I'm calling shannagans on Tim. He accuses the President of turning a colossal screw-up in Iraq (a grandmisadventure) into a false narrative that seeks to mislead the American people in believing that we are actually winning that war (a grandiloquent narrative about American interventionalism that wants to "end tyranny in our world").

This is a typical example of the Leftist tactic of "speaking truth to power." But what is missing is an actual plan where they lay out in some well-reasoned argument, using logic and facts, why the war is such a disaster. The Left will endlessly refer to civilian and military body counts, insurgent suicide bombings and polls showing support for the President, but what you won't see is any kind of context showing what is actually happening on the ground outside the narrative that they are trying to establish into the mind of the American people.

Free elections? They don't matter, Cindy's shirt says it all, "2,457 dead--how many more"?

Iraqi insurgents breaking apart, with some even actively fighting against al-Qaeda? Doesn't matter, Bush lied, people died.

New Constitution written by a diverse group of Iraqis and voted on by the people? "Are you trying to stiffle my dissent?"

Reading this it is clear that Tim isn't interested in understanding a very complex, dynamic and evolving history that is still being written in Iraq. I peronsally have not shied from supporting the war on this blog, while spending countless hours digging through an awful lot of hyperbole to argue that events are working towards victory in Iraq. And only a small, but significant, portion of these events are in the hands of President George Bush.

There is a significant portion of the Democratic Party that actively embraces the rhetorical rabbit punch as a strategy to removing the Republicans, and particularly George Bush, from power. It makes pragmatic thinkers, like me, want to run to the nearest Tom Delay office and make a love child with him. Ok, that would be very gay, but the point is, this strategy wins loud applause and "Amen brothers!" within their tight nit circle, but it is still only capable of gaining about 47% of the popular vote in a national election in spite of George Soros's decision to "donate" the proceeds from short-selling the stock-market crash to the opposition.

But, this is just me on a lowly blog with about five actual readers speaking truth to power.

Alive

Really, I am here. I've been crazy busy at work and haven't had a morsel of time to spend writing about anything.

Didn't watch the SOTU speech last night, but did read it. Big woop. I liked what he said about Iran, but everything else was very, um, State of the Union. I chalk it up the very nature of the SOTU speech being a rather dull thing anyway. The SOTU after September 11th had such a sense of urgency, and to me everything else after that is a bit of a let down.

But, I did see a clip of Cindy Sheehan acting like an average, ordinary mom again.

Right, if Cindy is an ordinary mom, than these guys are just ordinary, African students: