Monthly Archives: February 2007

Baghdad, week 2

Posted on February 23, 2007 | Comments Off on Baghdad, week 2

Troops are increasing incrementally daily…

"We are getting used to the procedures at checkpoints; keep your hands visible on the wheel, keep your papers close to you, prepare to open the trunk and if it’s getting dark then turn the headlights off and turn the reading light on…The terrorists counterattack is a dirty chemical one this time. Nothing surprising about it though—their old master had a long history of using chemical weapons against unarmed civilians and so we’d expect the minions to use the same evil ways to mass murder and terrorize our people."

Iraq the Model continues here. 

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Posted in Iraq

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Uniting the sects

Posted on February 22, 2007 | Comments Off on Uniting the sects

"An Iraqi contestant in an Arab-world talent competition similar to ‘American Idol’ has managed to unite her country like no government can. Every Friday night, Iraqis gather around their TVs to root for Shada Hassoon, 25, as she tries to sing her way to victory and a big cash prize on ‘Star Academy.’"

Iraqis as one. 

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Posted in Iraq, The War

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Looking for a flood

Posted on February 22, 2007 | Comments Off on Looking for a flood

Area meteorologists aren’t enthusiastic about the prospects of a rainy spring, as El Nino bows out and La Nina walks downstage. Bob Rose certainly sees no more than light showers late tomorrow:

"While this is typically a fairly dry time of the year, the overall pattern seems to have shifted back toward dry after a period of rain in January.  With most storm systems being too weak or tracking too far to the north, I’m not confident we’ll see a wet period return anytime soon."

So, even though the marina wants a new annual contract, the boat remains practically inaccessible on vanishing Lake Travis. That’s Texas, long periods of drought broken by intense flooding. I’m ready.

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Posted in Weather/Climate

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Of armature and tone

Posted on February 22, 2007 | Comments Off on Of armature and tone

My dad was a trumpet player whose talent I never could reach on the horn. But it left me a sucker for a good trumpet solo and here are two of them, two interpretations of the same piece, thanks to Mystic Chords.

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Posted in Scribbles

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Cracks in the narrative

Posted on February 22, 2007 | Comments Off on Cracks in the narrative

The 9/11 Commission’s report was a bestseller because it had a simple narrative line that anyone could read and appreciate. Alas, it may have been too simple. It depended on the assertions of two career jihadis, and what they told their CIA interrogators about the plotters and the plot. Investigative reporter Edward Jay Epstein says the commission was not allowed to question either the jihadis or the interrogators, and a new investigation of the alleged participation of a jihadi cell in Spain cracks the narrative’s spine.

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Posted in The War

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Beat down

Posted on February 21, 2007 | Comments Off on Beat down

Comparing the good Professor Reynolds with a left wing looney over the subject of assassination is a great way to be made to look unlettered and stupid.

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Posted in Blogosphere

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More moon base

Posted on February 21, 2007 | Comments Off on More moon base

amoonbase.jpg

More good, if a few trifle far-fetched, reasons to return to the moon, by former moon astronaut Buzz Aldrin who recalls looking back from its surface in 1969 to "…the cloudy blue ball that should only be mankind’s starter home." The plan is to put the base at the moon’s south pole, where there is some evidence of water ice and more shelter from the sun, and rotate astronaut teams in and out every six months. Top of the far-fetched list, it seems to me, is beaming solar energy home, but the argument’s at least as interesting as the space elevator. /NASA

Via Instapundit 

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space

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