News Blog @ i66.com

MidEast Crisis: Phosphorus and Armageddon

The most disturbing film thus far on any media covering the Middle East crisis happened to be shown this evening on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now. The clip was shown during an interview Zahn had with an Israeli Ministry official - she specifically asked him if Israel was using phosphorus in military bombs and missiles. The footage displayed during the questioning depicted a very badly and cruelly burned boy and a baby. Israel denies that it using phosphorus, but that footage was disturbing and meant to be so. Phosphorus, by the way, is used in military incendiary bombs, smoke pots, and tracer ammunition, and burning phosphorus burns human skin beyond imagination and cannot be put out easily; people who have been covered with it have been known to commit suicide from the pain.

Zahn’s show also contained a report on the Book of Revelations as it relates to current events - Armageddon. Pentecostal and other evangelical churches were represented, and some of their ministers believe we’re in the thick of it. Jerry Falwell also alluded to the same thing recently, and The Left Behind Series are selling just as well as when they first began to be published in 2003. However, 2 panelists (one the esteemed author of "Walking the Bible" Bruce Fieler) were concerned that people are believing the literal interpretation of Revelations and Armageddon.

Since we’re speaking of Armageddon, Condi Rice made an unexpected stop in Lebanon on the way to talks with the Palestinians and Israelis. Rice promised some aid from the US for Lebanon, but wouldn’t commit to pressuring Israel to stopping strikes on southern Lebanon. Interestingly, we finally saw the Syrian ambassador back on TV - and Zahn must have been having a good night, because she didn’t hesitate to mention to him that Syria has rather been dealt right out of any talks the US is having with Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon. His eyes nearly left his head at her audacity (GO PAULA!) and you could see he probably wanted to swat her through the camera for her blatant American insolence. Meanwhile, Lebanon didn’t find Rice too encouraging, since she didn’t don a burka and just say "absolutely" when Lebanon wanted her to. Instead, she said there would be "no cease-fire before Hezbollah freed the soldiers unconditionally and pulled its forces back at least 12 miles from the border." Palestinians, hearing she’s in the region, want a "day of rage." Funny, I thought they were always in a rage, but maybe that’s me. Finally, Israeli Defense Forces also report that Hezbollah has some long range missiles somewhere, and a strike on Tel Aviv is not particularly out of the question.

Update: 10:51PM - Haven’t seen this anywhere else - Israel is apparently targeting financial institutions in Lebanon who they believe fund or support Hezbollah.

Technorati Tags: Current Affairs, News, Hezbollah, Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Revelations

Mideast Conflict: The Israelis Are Coming, The Israelis Are Coming!

So, Israel has stepped up some troop deployment at the Lebanese border - calling up reserve units so they can eventually go into Lebanon and flush the Hezbollah units out of their tunnels and bunkers. Weird, but why do terrorists seem to dig earth so much? (No pun intended, but doesn’t Osama bin laden and his merry band of terrorist rather do the same thing?) Hezbollah militants keep firing rockets at the northern Israeli city of Haifa, numbering 11 today; I guess your options are limited when you only have small rockets to fire. Stands to reason you’re just going to keep targeting the same places, although they did manage to hit towns near the Sea of Galilee.

Condoleeza Rice, our current Secretary of State and NFL commissioner-in-training, will be en route to the Middle East for talks next week. (Side note: how being Secretary of State lends experience to being an NFL commissioner, which she has professed she wants to be, is some food for thought - but I digress.) The UN, France (ugh) and the Red Cross are demanding that Israel stand aside or allow humanitarian aid to Lebanon’s people. Apparently the Israelis intend to allow the French to do that, and specific note has been made by the UN that Beirut only has about a couple days of fuel left. Meanwhile, an increasing number of Beirut’s cabin-fevered citizens are starting to venture outdoors, and some shops have opened. Evidently, Beirut itself has become a city of refugees as many southern Lebanese are fleeing north and ending up in the city’s school, parks and hotels if they can afford them.

As far as Syria and Iran are concerned, not a peep from them and we’re entering Day 3 of media silence from the governments of those respective countries, but Iranian clerics sure are vocal.

The US expects that some 8,000 Americans will be evacuated from Lebanon by the end of this weekend. That leaves about 17,000 more, and as I suspected earlier in the week, the number of evacuees passing through Cyprus is taking a toll on the resources there.

Now, news from our sponsors.... just to lighten the plethora of Middle East news a little, perhaps focusing on Hillary Clinton’s statements about how advertisers would resort to "putting chips in kids’ brains" today might do the trick. One wonders how anyone could *possibly* think that Democrats are "misunderstood"....

Technorati Tags: Current Affairs, News, Beirut, Evacuations, Lebanon, Israel, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria

Mideast Conflict: American Public Survey'd Says Nuh Uh, Not Us

A recent poll by a independent research team of about 630 or so American adults reveals that almost 2/3rds of those who responded want the US to stay out of the Israel-Hezbollah-Palestinian-Syria-Iran fracas. Most had sympathy for Israel, but were evenly matched on the topic of whether or not Israel has just, well, gone too far in their efforts. And not surprisingly, the majority held that the US has done a good job of evacuating Americans trapped in Lebanon; apparently none of the people surveyed were on CNN. However, 2 American evacuees with children paid a whole lotta money to get to the US embassy - this is a MUST read, because it shows finally some folks who took some personal responsibility for themselves and does lead me to believe that perhaps the US embassy in Lebanon is not run as well as it should be.

The JPost is reporting that the Lebanon Defense Minister is telling Israel that if Israeli ground troops start amassing in Lebanon, the Lebanese Army will hook up with Hezbollah to fight them. (Like that will be any different than them NOT doing anything about Hezbollah in the first place.) Israel, in turn, has told residents of southern Lebanon to leave the area and an intense firefight has now broken out in Lebanese territory between the IDF and Hezbollah - and according to Haaretz, the IDF troops number in the thousands. Israel also lost 2 helicopters which appeared to have collided in midair - investigations ensue. In a weird turn of events, the Hezbollah chief has apologized for the deaths of 2 Israeli Arab boys in Nazareth yesterday; Nazareth apparently doesn’t have the same number of bomb shelters as other Israeli cities and had no warning when bombs hit there. Hezbollah is also denying Israel’s claim that IDF forces have destroyed 50% of Hezbollah’s weapons.

Heard several interesting commentaries about the unofficial support Israel seems to be getting from many countries, including other Arab countries who don’t want an axis of power to exist with Iran and Syria. For their part, Iran and Syria have been strangely quiet - rather unnerving for the second day since prior they were extremely vocal on any channel or media they could find the time to be interviewed by.

We hadn’t heard from Hamas in a while, but word is that Hamas is negotiating through Egypt for the release of Gilad Shilat, the Israeli soldier taken by Hamas militants during the first stages of the conflict. And lastly, Anderson Cooper is still in Cyprus, while the rest of his media peers are much closer to the action or in the case of ABC and NBC, coming home. Tonight though, there aren’t any breaking news banners all over the place, which must really disappoint him.

10:26PM Update: I spoke too soon. The obligatory Anderson Cooper breaking news banner has reared its head.

10:34PM Update: Found this on Brietbart, and had to laugh. If any country on the planet shouldn’t criticize another country for fighting terrorism or invading a country at its border, it’s Russia. Did or did not the Soviets fight a war in Afghanistan? Did they not invade that country under the guise of a treaty and literally execute its leader? Didn’t they also use gunship helicopters, ground troops, and a "scorched earth" campaign where they destroyed whole villages, farms, and houses? That’s like a bank robber pointing a finger at a thief. I would think it would be difficult to forget a thing which lasted for almost 10 years.....and then there’s the Soviet-Chechen rebel conflict, which Russia calls an "anti-terrorist" campaign. (Thanks, Alla :))

Technorati Tags: Current Affairs, News, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, Israel, Middle East, Lebanon, Hamas, Gaza

An Inconvenient Truth: Britain Hits Highest Temp Since 1911

From our Storm Digest Blog:

How odd that the first news article I should see after taking in an afternoon matinee of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is that London experienced its highest temperature of record for a July day since 1911 - 97 F. The all time record of 101 F set in August 2003 still stands, but that’s not much relief to London Underground passengers having to deal with 116 F temperatures and 125 F recorded on London’s city buses. The heat wave the US has been experiencing this week is mirrored in Europe, where French scientific researchers are attributing the climate change to global warming. The topic of global warming, the subject of Gore’s book and movie, appears to be dead center this week.

Since we live pretty far from a theater showing this documentary, the opportunity afforded us the ability to take off work on a sultry summer afternoon and spend it in an air-conditioned and almost-vacant movie theater with popcorn, soda and hotdogs for lunch. I hadn’t read Gore’s book, but have a fiance who was convinced we couldn’t miss this movie. It turned out he was right. I’ve never been a fan of Al Gore, but in the documentary he is personable, funny, touching and above everything else, committed that what he is presenting. He believes that this is the moral and ethical thing for him to do and for us to consider; for that alone, I respect him. His motivation, from the beginning to the end, starts with a Harvard course he took with Professor Roger Revelle, who co-authored a paper in 1957 with another scientist about greenhouse effects causing global warming over time - the only such paper of it’s time that linked greenhouse emissions and increased cardon dioxide in the atmosphere to mankind’s burning of fossil fuels.

Gore clearly articulates scientific data and analysis to support climate changes as indicators of global warming to a non-technically focused audience in layman’s terms and anyone who presents technical data should take this film as a object lesson in how to do so effectively and successfully. He unabashedly lends the full weight of his persona and passion towards telling you the story of how we came to be experiencing the increasing instability of our weather, including the intensity of damaging hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, heat waves and thunderstorms not just in the US, but all over the globe. Gore intersperses this with his own life experiences, including his son’s accident at age 6, his life growing up in Tennessee and his defeat as a Presidential candidate. Then you get taken to places like Antarctica, where the Larsen B Ice Shelf (as large as Rhode Island) collapsed and broke up in a 35 day period in 2002. Gore shows how glaciers and ice shelves worldwide have diminished over time, especially focusing on Greenland where glaciers are melting twice as fast as they were 5 years ago. He shows you models and predictions of what would happen to some of the shorelines of the most populated places in the world if only Greenland’s glaciers were to melt completely away - a displacement of millions of people. Gore explains the world’s ocean currents and their cooling/heating effect on the Earth and again shows you models of how they could change in the not-so-distant future. He also presents a dismal view of American automakers - sorry Ford, GM and all, but looks like the Chinese and Japanese are 5 or more years ahead of you and have your asses stomped when it comes to fuel economy and alternatives as well as emissions. (Note to Ford Motor Company: *Don’t* play those CEO commercials about how you were the "first" American automaker to produce a hybrid, when the efficiency of that hybrid, well, sucks in comparison to your overseas competition. We knew that before we went to see this movie - it just made it more appallingly obvious.)

The first question co-workers asked us when we went back to work to pick up our laptops (do NOT leave laptops in your car unless you wish for them to be stolen) was "will you be recycling now?"and "will you eat vegan?" What’s weird is the people who asked us this weren’t even in the same room at the time, so the general impression is you’re about to become an eco-warrior after seeing the film, and that really isn’t so. I went into the theater thinking that I understood what global warming meant - I came out understanding better what it is, what it’s believed to be caused by, and what I could do about it. I also unexpectedly came out with a tremendous amount of admiration for Al Gore.

So you see, whether global warming is caused by human factors or not, it can’t hurt to be more conscious of our affects on our environment - if the film’s message is true, the damage that could be done by not doing anything is not one that can be undone readily.

Technorati Tags: Books, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Kyoto Protocol, Global Warming, Glaciers, Heat waves, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Tropical Storm, Ford, GM, Hybrid, London, Britian, Al Gore

Israel Strikes Palestinian Foreign Ministry

Cable news has been busy tonight. The better part of 40 minutes Shepherd Smith’s Fox News broadcast was devoted to live coverage of the Israeli strike against the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, a strike aimed at letting the Palestinians know this is personal now. Haaretz reports that 3 people were injured, however it looks as though the action taken by Hezbollah in Lebanon earlier in the day (the abduction of 2 Israeli soldiers) was intended to escalate the situation and get Israel out of Gaza - well, that didn’t work well, did it? Instead, Israel has responded with striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and more strikes and skirmishes in both Gaza and at the Lebanon/Israeli border. And heads up, it may not stop there.

Thus far, we have the following players in this budding Middle East war:

• Israel
• Palestine
• Hamas
• Hezbollah
• Lebanon
• Syria (in the background)
• Iran (in the background)

Note that Iran is also involved in UN security issue surrounding their development of nuclear weapons - makes one wonder if this is a race against time in the Middle East. As far as the Israelis are concerned, this is by no means the first such escalation of tensions they’ve experienced: such turmoil has reared its head with its neighbors after Israel’s establishment, such as 1948’s War of Independence, 1968’s War of Attrition, and Israeli’s 1982 attack against Lebanon for terrorist attacks against northernmost Israeli settlements. These conflicts are very, very deep in Middle East culture - most of the same countries or organizations are involved in the latest events.

Couple this with the upcoming G-8 summit this weekend, train bombings by terrorists in India, insurgents in Iraq, and last week’s North Korean missile tests...well, it’s an alarming picture.

Technorati Tags: Breaking News, Current Affairs, Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Lebanon, Middle East, Terrorism, Hezbollah

Airbus Still No. 1 in Passenger Jet Market (AP)

AP - A December sales surge kept Airbus on top of the global passenger jet market in 2005, the company said Tuesday — bettering Boeing Co.'s orders and deliveries in a record year by both measures.

From Click here for entire story

California Executes Oldest Inmate (AP)

AP - California executed its oldest death row inmate early Tuesday, minutes after his 76th birthday, despite arguments that putting to death an elderly, blind and wheelchair-bound man was cruel and unusual punishment.

From Click here for entire story

Russia, China want talks not sanctions on Iran (Reuters)

Reuters - Russia and China made clear on Tuesday they did not favor UN sanctions to induce Iran to scale back its nuclear program, advocating more negotiations.

From Click here for entire story

Cheney Meets Egyptian President Mubarak (AP)

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Tuesday for talks on the political process in Iraq and the West's standoffs with Syria and Iran.

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Saudi mediates to ease Lebanon-Syria tensions: FT (Reuters)

Reuters - Saudi Arabia has presented Lebanon and
Syria with a plan to defuse tensions between the two countries
over the killing of ex-Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri, the
Financial Times reported on Tuesday.


From Click here for entire story