News! – Taliban tries to overtake US military base

Looks like the Taliban got a little to big for their britches.

I’m amazed they even tried to attack the base. Usually insurgents and militant groups, such as the Taliban, rely on roadside bombs or IED’s to cause the damage they crave but this time they just charged headlong in to battle.

And got pwned.

“Almost two dozen insurgents were confirmed killed in the attack,” the statement said. Two girls and two Afghan soldiers were wounded during the fight in Uruzgan province, it said.

A group of about 75 goes in and loses almost a third of their force before fleeing. How many casualties on our side? Looks like the tally comes to zero. The Taliban is getting desperate it seems and I wouldn’t be surprised if these attacks become more frequent as they scramble to reclaim the power they lost.

Good to hear that our boys in the military are keeping the security up over there. The Taliban might be trying to come back but it looks like our guys are going to start cracking down on them once again.

Market – Fed not expected to move

Click for the video.

I believe I’m going to have to agree with the first commenter (and even the second one!) about how the economy is still strong and able to hold up on it’s own. For the Fed to show weakness and begin lowering interest rates could cause a crisis in the market among buyers. If they sense that the Fed is getting worried about the state of affairs then that might stifle growth instead of creating it.

Fed officials have warned in the past that investors may have underestimated the risks they were taking and policy-makers are unlikely to view financial market swings as reason alone to lower interest rates.

“Fed officials are very aware that much of the difficulty coming to the surface today is the result of bad decisions made over the last few years and thus will not want to be seen as bailing out bad actors and creating moral hazard for the next financial crisis,” economists at RBS Greenwich Capital wrote.

I couldn’t agree more. Many investors (namely homeowners in the housing market) have made some really bad decisions over the past few years and people were getting in way over their head. they overestimated their ability to cover what they were trying to invest in and now they are asking to be bailed out of that bad call.

I’m going to have to take the Fed’s side on this one. The rates need to stay constant right now.

Jim Cramer’s outburst yesterday was funny and news worthy, but I believe his plan for “saving the economy” is desperate and, in my opinion, a wee bit premature.

Iran – Russians begin to apply pressure

Click for article.

Allah is a bit more optimistic about this than I am, but I will concede to the notion that Russia and China is the key to stopping Iran by peaceful measures. Given some of the recent activity from Russia itself I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I trust either them or the Chinese at this point, but they are making efforts to silence the saber rattling that is constantly flowing from Iran.

 Moscow has warned Iran that it will not deliver fuel to a nearly completed Russian-built nuclear reactor unless Tehran lifts the veil of secrecy on suspicious past atomic activities, a European diplomat said Tuesday.

If Russia is serious about applying this kind of pressure to Iran then, as Allahpundit has stated, this is a good thing. However, if this is just another slap on the wrist type punishment where nothing is really enforced then we can just throw this in to the pile of “threats” that the U.N. has brought against Iran and never followed up on.

News – Israel warns travellers in Middle East.

This doesn’t sound good.

Israel is pretty much the most reliable source when it comes to security intel. I would say that when the Israel National Security Council puts on their website something like this:

Israeli security officials on Monday warned citizens traveling in Egypt, Jordan and other Muslim countries to leave immediately due to a “concrete and severe” threat of terror attacks.

That means that something isn’t exactly kosher in regards to traveling safely. Looks like Israel knows something is up and they are warning people in advance.

Music – Heavenly for lunch

Another of my music lunch series. Best thing to come out of France in the last 60 years. Check out their homepage

News – CA Game law found unconstitutional, Govener wants to appeal.

Here’s the full story.

I have to say that when I first hear this I was happy and I had thought that common sense had won in this battle, but it seems that the Govenator wants to appeal the ruling by stating that the state is looking out for the best interest of the parents. Gamepolitics has been following the story like a hawk these past two days as well.

This was the judges ruling on the law:

The evidence does not establish that video games, because of their interactive nature or otherwise, are any more harmful than violent television, movies, internet sites or other speech-related exposures.

Although some reputable professional individuals and organizations have expressed particular concern about the interactive nature of video games, there is no generally-accepted study that supports that concern. There has also been no detailed study to differentiate between the effects of violent videos on minors of different ages.

The court, although sympathetic to what the legislature sought to do by the Act, finds that the evidence does not establish the required nexus between the legislative concerns about the well-being of minors and the restrictions on speech required by the Act.

Well said. The judge was spot on, but the government wasn’t happy and it has decided to further butt its nose in to the personal decisions of the American people. The games in question have a rating on them and the ESRB has complied with the law of rating each and every game accordingly to warn parents of the content within each game. I do not see how retailers and game companies can be punished for making a product that has not been shown to cause any harm in people whatsoever.

It’s an infringement by the government, but since when as infringement stopped the California government? They like bossing people around and claiming they know whats best so this recent move doesn’t surprise me. The Guv says that he supported the bill with the interest of the Parents in mind, but isn’t it the parents who should ultimately make that decision? Why does the government have to always intervene?

News – Taliban airstrike. Civilian casualties actually ZERO

Click for source.

Remember that news story I posted a few days ago regarding an air-strike on Taliban leaders? Remember how news uotlets were saying that “eyewitnesses” were claiming that up to 300 civilians were killed? NATO looked in to it and it turns out that the actual number of civilian deaths was ZERO.

After checking local hospitals in the general vicinity, Task Force Helmand officials found no civilians admitted for treatment.

They did find injured people in a hospital over 100 kilometers away, but those do not appear to be directly related to this operation at all. It seems that the Taliban is pushing out a new propaganda plan to try and smear U.S. operations by saying that unnecessary civilian deaths are being caused.

There is no evidence of civilian casualties caused by the above mentioned operation. It appears that the current Taliban extremist statements are just another example of their overall disinformation campaign.

Guess that’s that.

Iraq – British forces leave and Basra falls to shambles

Let this serve as a warning.

American media is always filled with the leftist rantings of liberals who demand that we “pull out now” and “re-deploy” but if this example of what happened in Basra is an omen of the future then we need not listen to such cries from the defeatism of the left.

As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.

I don’t want to say “I told you so” but hasn’t this been the scenario that every Bush Administration official has warned us about ever since the Democrats have tried to get us to leave Iraq? Basra used to be one of the most stable regions in southern Iraq, but ever since the British forces pulled out a while back it has rapidly fallen in to sectarian war and violence. Not caused by a military presence but of a lack thereof.

“The British have basically been defeated in the south,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as “surrounded like cowboys and Indians” by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain’s remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.

That sucks. I wonder when it all began falling apart?

Britain sent about 40,000 troops to Iraq — the second-largest contingent, after that of the United States, at the time of the March 2003 invasion — and focused its efforts on the south. With few problems from outside terrorists or sectarian violence, the British began withdrawing, and by early 2005 only 9,000 troops remained. British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced further drawdowns early this year before leaving office.

Ah. There’s where it went wrong.

What did they expect? They lowered a massive force to less than a fourth of what it was to begin with, and then told their troops to begin pulling back and just to stay within Basra palace and the airport. The security was lowered prematurely and now the militias and the insurgency have begun taking over the area once again. I wonder what the U.S. has had to say about this situation:

The administration has been reluctant to publicly criticize the British withdrawal. But a British defense expert serving as a consultant in Baghdad acknowledged in an e-mail that the United States “has been very concerned for some time now about a) the lawless situation in Basra and b) the political and military impact of the British pullback.” The expert added that this “has been expressed at the highest levels” by the U.S. government to British authorities.

I don’t think now is the time to be reluctant about criticizing the British pullout. I think it’s about time that it is acknowledged for what it was, and that is that the British pullout was a horrible mistake that has left the region in jeopardy. And since it doesn’t look like British forces will be beefed up there to try and reclaim the region I can honestly say that this doesn’t look to good for anyone still trying to stabilize Iraq.

News – Israeli police forcefully evict squatters

Click for article.

I must say that when I read news stories like these I feel saddened and depressed for the Jewish people. Especially those who’s homes were originally in the West Bank and then their government up and kicks them out to give it away to a rogue nation. It’s terrible to see people have to forcefully give away their land to the Palestinians, who by all accounts, do not own it or deserve to be there.

The Palestinians are actually Syrians and since I they already have their own country I don’t know why they just cant go back to it. Either way it’s depressing to see pictures of families being ripped from their homes kicking and screaming as their own people turn against them.

“This is a crime against justice and against Jewish history,” said Noam Arnon, a spokesman for the Hebron settlers. “I am sure we will return. Hebron has a long history and we will return.”

I hope they do.

Politics – Looking in to the phony scandal

Click here for the article.

I haven’t always been interested in Dick Morris’ opinions regarding the political stage as of late, but I just had to link to his article in regarding this dragged out and time wasting scandal that the Democrats and the Left have cooked up. What am I talking about? The dismissal of the US Attorneys and the constant barrage brought against Alberto Gonzalez. Despite what the news networks and some of the other lefist pundits might say this whole mess is one big scam.

The most key bit of information you should know is this: The President has the authority to dismiss United States Attorneys at any time and for any reason. That means if the President doesn’t like one of those guys haircuts then by gosh he can toss him out of the job. Sound a bit harsh and unfair? Well, it doesn’t matter if it does or not because the President reserves that right regardless of what people may think about it.

However, just as Dick Morris wrote in his article:

The Democratic assault on the administration over the dismissal of United States attorneys is the most fabricated and phony of scandals, but the Bush people offer only craven apologies, half-hearted defenses, and concessions. Instead, they should stand up to the Democrats and defend the conduct of their own Justice Department.

Bang.

Morris is exactly right. The Bush Administration has basically shown that in regards to actually standing up for themselves they have had nothing but a noodle spine and have tried to wiggle their way around everything by giving little press conferences and trying to stamp their feet like children. I’m almost embarrassed of the President and this administration on how they have dealt with the Democrats’ attacks at every turn.

Bush, Rove, Gonzales and Co. should explain why the U.S. attorneys were dismissed by emphasizing the importance of the cases they were refusing to prosecute. By doing so, they can turn the Democratic attacks on them into demands to go easy on fraudulent voting. A good sense of public relations — and some courage — could turn this issue against the Democrats for blocking Bush’s efforts to crack down on the criminals he wanted prosecuted.

Bingo.

Do read the full article. Good read for the morning.

Science – Ancient Life lives again

Click for news article.

Turns out all those micro-organisms frozen in the Antarctic is still alive after all those years. This isn’t really surprising to me since this would have been a way of saying that Nature performed it’s very own Cryogenic project. Since the planet has obviously warmed up since the last Ice age those micro organisms are being released and reawakened as they thaw.

In a lab right now, but if the ice does melt then no doubt they will begin moving again.

Microorganisms locked in Antarctic ice for 100,000 years and more came to life and resumed growing when given warmth and nutrients in a laboratory.

Researchers led by Kay Bidle of Rutgers University tested five samples of ice ranging in age from 100,000 years to 8 million years.

People are treating this as some huge find and that if they were all released it might changed the ecosystem, but I highly doubt that. The world has constantly shifted and changed over the time periods so an unthawing, repopulating, and then new freezing period would just be part of the cycle. Plus, there is no indication that he antarctic ice caps are going to be melting any time soon. Global Warming or not that stuff down there is coooooold.

Still, it’s a pretty interesting article.

Project – First Carbon Neutral City

Click for the full article.

I don’t really see this working out but if they want to built it then let em’. I don’t see how you can actually make a city that is carbon neutral unless it was some type of biodome project  that cut off the city from outside influences. I mean…if they were going to take airsamles outside and the wind blew from say….an oil refinery….wouldn’t that effect the air quality there?

Just wondering.

The 3.7-square-mile city, called Masdar, will cut its electricity bill by harnessing wind, solar, and geothermal energy, while a total ban on cars within city walls should reduce the long-term health costs associated with smog.

Well, at least they are going to rely upon a system that utilizes more than just one renewable energy source. Wind and Solar powers, by themselves, are terribly unreliable but they are going to be using a Triad power system so the city might actually work. The idea isn’t really new though. Walt Disney had the same idea years ago before he died. I believe that you may have actually been there?

It was called EPCOT.

Admittedly Disney went a few step further than just being carbon neutral, but the idea was already there.