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We've seen political organizers use Twitter as a means of quick, mass comms that skips the MSM and saves having to dial a lot of numbers.

No wonder then, that the Palestinians and Israelis are leveraging Twitter for the same reasons.

Interesting post on the subject from blogger Kirk Petersen.  Too bad Twitter is not something I can have up and running at work.  -the Armorer

 

UPDATE: Noah Schachtman has more.  -the Armorer

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Snerk - on the internet, no one knows you're a dog.  Except at this place.  H/t, SWWBO.  -the Armorer

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Hmmm.  Someone is liveblogging trebuchet construction.  I wonder who that could be?  Oh, hello, Murray!   -the Armorer

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Greyhawk has an excellent piece up that wraps up Iraq, the California Army National Guard, the MSM, and milblogs in one tart confection.  So stop by and read Meanwhile, Back At To The Front.  -the Armorer

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Last, but not least - over at The War On Big Tobacco, BT tells how a young jewish boy from Jersey finds himself motivated by an eye-patch and products of the White Motor Company, and becomes a failure in everything important.  Except to himself.   Read My Son The Doctor Is Drowning.  There's hope, BT.  I'm thinking my father, the Auld Soldier, despaired for me now and again, too.  He's just taciturn by nature and was much more discreet about it.  Over time with us, at least, things got better. 
You could raise BT's spirits by voting for him in the 2008 Weblog Awards, and while you're there you could check out those other fine nominated blogs - especially if you're new to the whole milblog thing.  [As of posting this morning the polls aren't open yet, I'll change the link if needful]-the Armorer

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Heh.  Right Wing News has just released...

The 7th Annual "20 Most Annoying Liberals Of 2008"

The honorable mentions include,

Bill Ayers, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Juan Cole, Kent Conrad, The Daily Kos, Bill Delahunt, Glenn Greenwald, Alcee Hastings, Christopher Hitchens, The Huffington Post, Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr. Caroline Kennedy, John Kerry, Ezra Klein, The L.A. Times, Mike Malloy, Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore, MoveOn, Michael Newdow, The New York Times, Michelle Obama, Rosie O'Donnell, Michael Pfleger, Ted Rall, Bill Richardson, Randi Rhodes, Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey, Jeremiah Wright, Matthew Yglesias

If you think those folks are bad, wait until you see the winners!  -the Armorer

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Michael Yon with a frankly disturbing piece called "Border Bullies" about an individual immigration agent of DHS, in the context of a friend of his visiting the US.  I admit were I sitting in that chair across from DHS Agent Knapp, I would have been concerned, too.  So, you want to come into the country (at least as a foreigner) you have to give up your email passwords and let DHS fish through your email?  Heh.  I suspect we won't hear much of substance from DHS coming in response - if only because they'll say they have to protect their processes.  I honestly don't know what I would do if I were headed into say, Great Britain or France and was told I had to let them fish through my email in order to gain entry.  Because once you're at *that* end of a trip, choices become expensive ones. Heh.  -the Armorer

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I admit, I wasn't quite as keen as SWWBO was about this whole farm thing - but it turns out she was right.  -the Armorer

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Oh, sure, John - plug BT for the 2008 Weblog Awards, but not one of the Castle Denizens.  I'm not too hurt.  Of course, who bothers to look at the nominees for Best Canadian Blog anyhow?  (Heh - free guilt trip courtesy of my mother, who taught me well.)  - Damian

[Hey, he *shilled* me this morning.  *You* have posting privileges...  and I would note I'm not pushing *us* either...  so there!  Whiner.  -the Armorer]

Whining is one of my strong suits - take that away from me, and I got nothin'.  And, btw, I'll push your readership to vote for this blog if you won't: Argghhh! for Best Midsize Blog!  - Damian

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Here's more proof that the Speaker believes that the Democrat majority in Congress and a Democrat in the White House also means that majority equals a mandate for single party rule.
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Retired Navy Lieutenant Roy Boehm, bona fide war hero and plank-owner of the SEALS knew better.

He learned in Leadership 101 to not give orders you know won't be obeyed.

Lex covers the details in his bit.

That leaves the other detail to we here at the Castle.  Accordingly...

"Detail, atten-SHUN!"

Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam for Roy Boehm, United States Navy SEAL. 

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Can too much diversity be a bad thing?
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Snerk.  http://www.codepinkforpeace.com/  Go ahead, click the link.  You won't be damaged.

Hmmmm.  Welcome to Fort Leavenworth, home of the Command and General Staff Place For Learning, as well as Patton Junior High Place for Learning, and MacArthur Elementary Place for Learning.  Hey, works for me.  We can have the United States Infantry Place for Learning, and the Field Artillery Place for Learning...

Winning Writers sponsors an annual war poetry contest, pop over here to read the winners.  Some interesting stuff, some stuff I find painfully earnest, and, unsurprisingly in this day and age (though I admit I haven't read each one) not much Kipling, far more Seeger, Brooke, and Owen.  Except there aren't any Seegers, Brookes or Owens'  that I could find.  I'm not a sophiisticate when it comes to poetry - it seems to me almost everybody has to use ever-so-sophisticated meters.  Heh.  Sometimes, simplicity is the best sophistication.  Let your story tell itself.  But, I admit, I'm no poet.  I did like Jude Nutter's Via Negativa, both in terms of simple reading and conceptually, defining something by its absence.  M.C. Allen's In The Silos was bemusing, but I liked her Baghdad Zoo. But I found little there as moving as Wilfird Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est,, Alan Seeger's I Have A Rendevous With Death.  Rupert Brook's The Soldier,

Much less John McRae's In Flander's Fields.  -the Armorer

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Yanno, there are some things you just don't expect to read when perusing a milblog.  Like this:

There are also times when the Pythagorean Theorem comes in handy. Like when you're making something on the bias and you want to make sure that you're knitting a true square. You are making a triangle and you can solve for the hypotenuse to make sure your real hypotenuse is hitting the target.
 

And you read on, and discover just how *apt* reading that on a milblog is.  You rock, Sarah.  Tip of the budyanka to Fuzzybee.  -the Armorer

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Oh, good golly no.  Hey, I know he's the guy's father and all... but, sorry Jeb.  I won't vote to establish a dynastic presence in the White House.

Asked in a broadcast interview about Jeb Bush's consideration of the Senate seat, Bush 41 said: "I'd like to see him run. I'd like to see him be president someday."

When asked if he was serious, he said: "Or maybe senator. Whatever. Yes, I would. I mean, right now is probably a bad time, because we've had enough Bushes in there. But no, I would. And I think he's as qualified and able as anyone I know on the political scene. Now, you've got to discount that. He's my son."

Enjoy the Senate or something, fine.  A couple of realities - the President, despite the power inherent to the position and the prestige we accord the incumbent (unless of course, we're spitting at him and calling him a dung-flinging chimp, which half the electorate is doing at any given time, so to speak) there are any number of individuals at any given time who can assume the duties of the office.  No one is indispensible.  Think not?  Arlington Cemetery is *full* of indispensible people (or people who thought they were) and the Republic still totters along. 

Far more important than any one qualified individual in the Oval Office is a principle that it not be a family business, so to speak.  Much more so than the Senate (let Caroline run and win the seat outright, fine with me - I just ain't comfortable with her suddenly piping up and asking for it, with an expectation that she'll get it - because of that surname...  It's going to have to be a pretty execrable Democrat running against him - as in Cynthia McKinney/John Murtha level bad - for me to pull the lever for another Bush in the White House.  -the Armorer

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Speaking of the White House.  President Bush has taken such a low profile here during the diminuendo of his Presidency that Powerline notes that in Indonesia, not-yet-President Obama is enjoying his ritual hanging and condemnation for what's happening in Gaza.  Gee, he didn't get much of a honeymoon overseas, where people unclear on the concept (but hey, if they read American newspapers, it's easy to understand their confusion) take their opening shots at Mr. Obama before he assumes the reins.  Clearly, the people in Indonesia didn't get the memo about the seas stopping their rise and unicorns pooping rainbows.  -the Armorer

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When we injure Afghan civilians during combat operations, we provide medical care and assistance on-the-spot, as well as transport to local medical facilities or our own hospitals, as the situation dictates.   We provide medical assistance to the people we are deliberately targeting, too.

We also provide medical assistance outside of those instances.

The Taliban, and al Qaeda, do not.

They just generate civilian casualties. And do so deliberately, as policy.  Deliberately targeting children.

Therein lies a huge difference between the two sides, difficult as that is for some people to get their heads around. [Read More]

Besides, fuzzy dice just make a *statement*, yanno?... [Read More]

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It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

Heh. Damn that opiate of the masses, anyway.  Here's guessing Mr. Parris won't get invited to Bill Maher's next party. -the Armorer

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It will be interesting to see if this report on immigration survives 18 days from now.

Washington » The United States must embark on an aggressive effort to integrate immigrants, including teaching them English and U.S. history, a federal task force recommended Thursday.

If this "Americanization" fails, the nation could see major problems in 20 or 30 years, with foreign-born populations detached from the larger society and engaging in anti-social behavior, said Alfonso Aguilar, who heads the U.S. Office of Citizenship.

Aguilar compared the potential strife to what is occurring in some Western European countries where foreign-born populations do not feel part of the larger society and are not accepted by many as full citizens.

"We should not be naive and assume that the assimilation process is going to happen automatically," Aguilar said at a news conference.
 

I'm all for legal immigration.  I'm also for assimilation - and the assimilated always change the dominant culture as it adopts some of the "best practices" the newcomers bring with them, while flensing away some of those bad practices that also come in.  Too often "balkanization" or "ghetto-ization" (in both the US and Euro sense) of immigrant populations both hampers the transfer of "best practices" and serves to establish in the new place many of the bad practices that drove the people to leave their old place.   We benefit, for example, from hispanic focus on the family, we do not benefit, however, from an importation of the Mexican forms of politics and governance that have given them such an uplifting and well-functioning national government that they wish to come live here.  Especially people who are motivated to come for the opportunities, vice the goodies (they want the welfare handouts, I suggest Canada, Great Britain, Sweden).  Come here to exploit the opportunities, and we get an infusion of entrepreneurial spirit to help overcome the sense of entitlement that many natives have...  just sayin'. Besides, some diversity of viewpoint is always good.  Heh.  Just look at the Bus to Abilene that Secretary Rumsfeld drove to Baghdad.  -the Armorer

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If you're bored this weekend - how about spending a little quality time building yourself a legal-just-about-anywhere-maybe-even-DC Vulcan?  H/t, CAPT H, who also sent along this little distractor, the Yoshimoto Cube.  -the Armorer

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Echoes of war...  Nigel from Milweb sends us this link to a story of a recent discovery of a little vignette of violence during the Normandy campaign.  In a farmer's field.  -the Armorer

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Sadness at Castle Argghhh!  Satchmo, the Mascot of Argghhh!, passed, probably due to fowl play.    SWWBO is bereft.  I miss him, too, he was an engaging little fella, with a heart and ego bigger than the banty breast it beat in.  He managed to drag himself back to the coop, where SWWBO found him and he died in her arms.  Which is much better than being coyote poop, if rather hard on SWWBO.  -the Armorer

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An interesting discussion over at Slate, where Akhil Reed Amar and Josh Chafetz discuss how indeed, the Senate could, with legal cover and justification, refuse to seat Governor Blagojevich's appointee, Roland Burris.  -the Armorer

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So posting may (or may not, I did say "oddly busy") be light - unless the the Muse I sent out in the form of an extremely annoying lapdog with sharp teeth finds one of the other bubbas around here - so I'll leave this little tidbit for all my treadhead buddies...

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...the "something new" is the number you *should* be writing instead of the number you'll *probably* be writing for the next couple of days. Or, if you're like me, for the next couple of months.The "something not-so-new" is that I finally got up off my dead ass a break from writing lesson plans and courseware and had a chance to take care of BCR's 'toon jones. A twofer, in fact. Now, those of you who are regulars already know that she posts her Sunday Funnies commentary whenever the PNW is *not* being pelted with solid oxydihydride. Snow on the ground... [Read More]

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Sergeant B, who's been pretty busy what with that whole deploying to Iraq thing, has gotten The Gun Line, MkIII up and running in-theater.  -the Armorer

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All y'all have a safe and fun New Year's Eve, eh?  I suspect SWWBO and myself will not stay up to ring in the New Year (Happy Already New Year to Argent, Murray, and SezaGeoff).  Heck, we didn't stay up for Y2K, and I'ld spent 18 months planning, wargaming, and rehearsing the DoD response to Y2K in support of the Civil Authority if it all went south.  We're just boring that way.  -the Armorer

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Tigerhawk on the issue of proportionality in the Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza.

The newest award for Epic Fail in Proportionality of Analogy.  The winner is - Dr Mohamed Elmasry, founder of the Canadian Islamic Congress. 

The Gaza strip is a small ribbon of land some 40 kms in length and ranging in width between 6 and 12 km. Crammed into this tiny area are 1.5 million native Palestinians living in deplorable conditions; many contemporary historians have aptly compared Gaza to the cramped and destitute Warsaw Ghetto of World War II.
 

But wait - there's more!

Zionist Israel has demonstrated no inclination whatsoever to give these people their liberty. Instead it chooses to treat Gaza as a mass concentration camp. The IDF occupational ground forces may have been gone since 2005, but Zionist Israel still controls all of Gaza’s ports, border-crossing points, and its sky. And as if economic and humanitarian strangulation were not enough, it has launched the most violent military siege in recent decades; if it continues against a virtually weaponless population, the result can only be a genocidal death toll.

Gaza has, in fact, been reduced to a new Auschwitz: the only difference – a nightmarish irony — is that Jews are now playing the role of Hitler’s ruthless SS.
 

Uh-huh.  So, like this makes Egypt and Hamas the Capos, eh?  -the Armorer

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Here's a nickel to go with your pair of dimes...

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Well, The Weblog Awards is finally off and running, meaning Kevin Aylward is running around with his hair on fire.Oddly enough, after a two-year absence from the awards, not being a premier milblog anymore, just kind of a place to hang-out frequented by old veterans and their groupies, with some guns hanging on the wall, we didn't even know that someone had nominated us.  To whoever that was, thanks!Not in the milblog category, mind you.  No.  Save your scrolling finger some effort, and open the 2008 Weblog Awards link and yank it all the way to the bottom and scroll... [Read More]

Before Snopes.com rides to Her Excellency's rescue... 
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It's Burris...whoever that is. 

Update, looks like Senator Reid returned your serve, Dusty.  -the Amorer

Har! Methinks they doth protest too much...suppose Blago then appoints someone who he KNOWS the Obama camp wants (assuming it wasn't Burris). Then what does Harry do? This smacks of painting oneself into a corner, even though Rod B is an internationally recognized scuzzball, he can still tweak some pretty big noses. I repeat: Har! -Attila of Argghhh!

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While all good points, something else I meant to bring up was - does the Senate have the right to refuse to seat Mr. Burris, given that thus far, Governor Blagojevich remains in office and unconvicted except in the court of public opinion?  So I went looking around, and found this, over at Volokh, which would indicate that perhaps the Senate can't refuse Mr. Burris.   Oh, btw - the race card just got played, too. -the Armorer

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