The last thing I expected after the Israeli attack on Hezbollah began, was for the US and France to negotiate a cease fire in the UN Security Council (Gee, if the US represents Israel in that meetings, who does France represent?).
But, it happened. So my reaction was to look for reasons it would be a good idea. The most logical one I could think of, was that Israel asked for it because they were unwilling or unable to carry on the ground fight. Unfortunately, that may actually be true.
Via Polipundit I found this AP report which does its best to portray the non-volunteer Israeli army as incompetently run and dangerous to itself:
Military experts and commentators have criticized the army for relying too heavily on air power and delaying the start of ground action for too long. They say the army underestimated Hezbollah, and that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set an unrealistic goal by pledging to destroy the guerrilla group.
This week, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz appointed a former army chief to investigate the military’s handling of the war.
Some of the harshest criticism has come from reservists, who form the backbone of the army. Israeli men do three years of mandatory service beginning at age 18, but continue to do reserve duty several weeks a year into their 40s.
Israeli newspapers quoted disgruntled reservists as saying they had no provisions in Lebanon, were sent into battle with outdated or faulty equipment and insufficient supplies, and received little or no training.
Now, some of those criticisms sound identical to the ones lobbed at President Bush and our armed forces. I would not be surprised if Israel, like the US, has its chorus of pacifists ready to chant “Quagmire!” if the war isn’t won overnight.
So while I’m not about to assume this AP report is true, it is what I was expecting to see. So, I hope the Israelis take full advantage of this breather to start getting ready for the real fight ahead, for their own sakes as well as ours.
Erick Erickson caught the Washington Post lying today. Specifically, they found a longtime Democrat in Ohio, and portrayed her as a Republican who was quoted as being dissatisfied with and abandoning the party this November.
Funny how the mainstream press is the one that’s supposed to be so well fact-checked, that it’s more reliable than Internet sources. Maybe that’s true in theory, but when the mainstream press reporters and editors are determined to shape history as Journalists, it just doesn’t work in practice.
In a time when so many star basketball players sell a signature line of shoes for $100 or more, Stephon Marbury has worked with a shoe company to sell a Starbury line of shoes for $15 a pair. These shoes will be real basketball shoes, but will be affordable to more fans.
Of course, at that price, Marbury is not getting an upfront paycheck. He’s doing it anyway though. Good for him.
On my first commentary site, Rob and I talked an awful lot about UN Security Council Resolution 1441. That was the one that the UNSC supported unanimously to order Saddam Hussein to cooperate fully with Hans Blix. He didn’t, and so it meant war.
I believe UNSCR 1701 has the potential to work the same way. Passed unanimously, it tells Hezbollah to disarm, and Lebanon to take control of all its territory. I don’t think Hezbollah and Lebanon will cooperate, though, so it’s going to be incumbent on select Member States to force it to happen.
But the biggest variable at work: Ehud Olmert, Israel’s Prime Minister. If it’s true that the only reason this resolution was brokered by the US to begin with, is that he wanted to withdraw from Lebanon, then it’s not hopeful that he’ll sock it to Lebanon once the deal is broken.
We shall see, though, whether it takes a new Israeli election to get it going or not.
Unfortunately Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi is quitting next month, but he made the most of his final days in office by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender to the Allies in 1945. Apparently during his campaign to become head of the Liberal Democratic Party, he had promised to make a visit the shrine, which honors two million Japanese who died for the Emperor of Japan between 1867 and 1945, some year on August 15. Until now he made his annual visits on other days, though, in an attempt to avoid riling up Japan’s neighbors. But, says the Japan Times:
“I have always been criticized and opposed, even when I avoided (visiting Yasukuni) on Aug. 15,” the prime minister said. “It doesn’t make any difference when I go.”
Of course the feckless South Korean government took the opportunity to show far more hate for Koizumi and the Japanese government than they ever show for Kim Jong-Il and his brutal regime, as did Red China. That just shows how credible they are on the state of the world today, when they won’t let World War II end.
I just hope Koizumi’s successor will be as strong-willed about making his country a strong partner of the US in security and prosperity. I also hope Donald Rumsfeld will continue to move our troops in Korea away toward the south, as an acknowledgement that their priorities clearly differ from ours.
It’s not exactly the leakers I’d most want to see gotten, but a federal judge is now compelling testimony from San Francisco Chronicle reporters who wrote about leaks from the BALCO grand jury.
Sure, this isn’t exactly on the level of the national security-compromising leaks that the New York Times has been gleefully publishing, but it’s better than nothing. Any day when self-proclaimed guardians of the first amendment get slapped around for conspiring with lawbreakers, is a good day.
Quoting an email I got from the Apple Developer Connection today:
1 New Xcode 2.4 Release Available for Download
Xcode 2.4, the latest release of Apple’s integrated development environment for Mac OS X, is now available for download from the ADC Member Site. With this new release you can now develop for 64-bit Mac Pro Systems and create four-architecture Universal applications (32 and 64 bit for both Intel and PowerPC).
(https://connect.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MemberSite.woa/wa/getSoftware?bundleID=19627)
Sounds great, I thought, so I went and downloaded Xcode 2.4, and decided to try to compile a 64-bit PrBoom, but no go. It compiled the first four (C) files OK, but once it hit some Objective C…
cc -arch ppc64 -arch x86_64 -arch ppc -arch i386 -isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk -Os -Wno-pointer-sign -Wno-packed -fobjc-exceptions -I. -IMAC -I/Library/Frameworks/SDL.framework/Headers -I/Library/Frameworks/SDL_net.framework/Headers -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -o "MAC/i_system.o" -c MAC/i_system.m
In file included from /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Headers/NSObjCRuntime.h:42,
from /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Headers/NSObject.h:5,
from /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Headers/NSArray.h:5,
from MAC/i_system.m:51:
/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/usr/include/objc/objc.h:34:6: error: #error 64-bit not supportedWell gee, what does that file say?
#if __ppc64__
#error 64-bit not supported
#endifWould removing that line help? Probably not:
~> file /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon
/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon (for architecture i386): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library stub i386 /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon (for architecture ppc): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library stub ppc
No 64-bit arches there at all, so they’re lying. This Xcode release does not give you what you need to build those binaries, because you don’t have the SDK (probably called something like MacOSX10.5u.sdk) needed to do so!
Apparently the last time the Giants were swept at Dodger Stadium was in 1989! What a win yesterday then!
Gee, and I thought Wikipedia was bad, but here comes ZioPedia which purports to include “all there is to know about Zionism!” Including such great articles as Jewish Power and The Influence of Israel and its American Lobby over US Middle East Policy, ZioPedia does us all that great service of reminding the world that anti-Zionism is just code for anti-Judaism.
What a great game. Greg Maddux: 8 innings, 0 runs, 2 hits, 68 pitches. Jason Schmidt: 8 innings, 0 runs, 5 hits, 115 pitches. On top of some classic pitching, the old guys brought some defense: Maddux and Barry Bonds each made an inning-saving catch that reminded us all of why they both won so many Gold Gloves.
The Dodgers got it all done late though. In the top of the 10th, Takashi Saito walked Bonds, but kept the pinch runner from making it to second before retiring the side. Then in the bottom the first batter, rookie catcher Russell Martin, parked a hanging curve right in the bleachers. Game over. Sweep.
I picked the right game to watch in its entirety.