Hank: “If we tell people that our town was founded by prostitutes, they’ll know.”
and
“Not Miss Kitty.”
Smog At The Beach
I’m flying back to Florida tomorrow, and it will be good to be home with Patricia, but I thought I’d take a little walk in my old neighborhood this afternoon. If you’re interested, click for more, but a warning that there are several pictures, for those limited in bandwidth…
Losing Face
Anthropologists say that our faces are shrinking. Well, OK, not everyone’s.
Guess The Headline
Here’s a story from AP, that has items such as:
In Mosul, extraordinary security measures were underway Sunday around the house where the insurgents died, Iraqi officials said. American soldiers maintained control of the site a day after a fierce gunbattle which broke out when Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers surrounded a house after reports that al-Qaida in Iraq members were inside.
Three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were wounded.
Meanwhile, four Christian women were killed Sunday night when gunmen stormed their home in a Christian district of eastern Baghdad, police said. The gunmen stole valuables and the motive for the attack appeared to have been robbery, police added.
The latest deaths occurred at the end of a violent three-day period in which at least 140 Iraqi civilians died in a series of bombings and suicide attacks
What Is Human?
Stephen Gordon has some thoughts on Asimov’s Three Laws, post-humanism, and personhood.
Journalism Versus Reality
…in Iraq:
Few of the troops understand that the news business is driven by dramatic events, not the tedious kind of process the troops go through every day to defeat the terrorists. To the troops, the war is being won. They see bad guys killed in large numbers, and few Americans getting hurt (it
Al-Zarqawi Dead?
That seems to be the rumor in the Arab press:
A fitting end, if true (though it might actually be better for him to live a long time with nails and ball bearings buried in every pore). Let’s hope it’s true, and that they can find DNA evidence to verify, and if it is, good riddance to rotten rubbish.
The Real Reactionaries
John Weidner has a review of an old science fiction book, and of contemporary society.
Saving Lives With Bullets
As the terrorists entered the street, a volley of shots rang out and the three insurgents slumped to the ground.
Each terrorist had been killed by a single head shot – the snipers having spent the past few days rehearsing the ambush in minute detail.
The SAS troopers had been warned that only a direct head shot would guarantee that bombs would not be detonated.
I suspect that as time goes on, and the Iraqis get ever more disgusted by the “insurgents,” and less fearful that the Americans will abandon them, the intelligence needed to do more of this will get better and better. Of course, calls like Murtha’s latest one do nothing to help.
Bernanke Who?
Alan Blinder, former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, goes into why no one knows or cares about the person taking on most powerful position in the world, the Federal Reserve Board Chairmanship.