Monthly Archives: December 2008

The rocket rain

Posted on December 27, 2008 | Comments Off on The rocket rain

It’s ho-hum, media-and-big-politician-business-as-usual when the Palestinians are raining rockets and mortars on southern Israeli towns, week after week. But let the Israelis retaliate and Big Media pulls out the stops, plastering photos of wailing Palestinians all over the air- and Web-waves. Yegads but those people can act. They sure know a camera when they see one. Al-Reuters bemoans the end to "six months of relative calm." Suddenly the Arab street is a’blaze. The Left is all a’ flutter. European leaders are aghast. Israel’s side, meanwhile, is, uh, conveniently forgotten. Bleh.

MORE: Fortunately, there are alternatives to the usual blather, here and here, via Instapundit. And one more.

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Posted in Israel

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The singing refrigerator

Posted on December 27, 2008 | Comments Off on The singing refrigerator

Alan Sullivan’s Xmas leftovers are singing to him from his refrigerator: Come eat us! Now! I know the sound, sort of. For me it’s the trilling of the sweets drowning out the basso of the meat and potatoes. But, alas, I must return to my pre-holiday diet if I am to continue avoiding a dance with the Big D of diabetes.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly

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Ghostly ground

Posted on December 27, 2008 | Comments Off on Ghostly ground

Ever wonder what it would be like to live in a place like Israel surrounded by all the history that’s flowed over that really quite small pocket of always-influential terrain? Treppenwitz knows, and he shows us. My own ground undoubtedly was ridden over by the Commanche and Apache, not to mention countless aboriginal hunters and gatherers. Indeed, when you think of all the people who have preceded all of us over the millennia, we’re probably all living on ghostly ground.

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Posted in Israel

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Skyper

Posted on December 27, 2008 | Comments Off on Skyper

What I need is a primer on how to use Skype & one of those teensy Bluetooth earsets with a netbook in place of a cell phone. I keep hearing there’s a way. Free calls! I just don’t know how to jigger it.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly

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Hope instead of despair

Posted on December 26, 2008 | Comments Off on Hope instead of despair

No I don’t mean Barry’s Hopenchange campaign babble, which he will drop like a hot enchilada when it suits him. I mean the good old American urge to hope. For instance, that the recent economic diddle, however apparently catastrophic, won’t necessarily lead to something truly awful in 2009 and beyond.

Like the Depressionistas fear it will. A commenter at the Seablogger also cites a new, despairing Spengler essay that I read but must frankly admit that I really don’t understand. So I’ll go on being optimistic. And with some good company. As Wretchard says in a similar context, we all have the right to worry, but no one is right to despair. The bears are out in force these days, true enough, but, hey, it just might surprise us all and actually get better.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Rancho Roly Poly

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The new Wii

Posted on December 26, 2008 | Comments Off on The new Wii

Time was, back when Mr. Boy was a toddler, I had to stay up late trying to assemble some toy or other. Including, once, a Thomas the Tank riding train. This year all I had to do was set up a new Wii. Then, naturally, I had to test it. So I was up until 3 a.m. playing tennis on it. Until my wrist seized up.

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Posted in Mr. Boy

Apollo VIII

Posted on December 26, 2008 | Comments Off on Apollo VIII

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Instapundit remembers hearing it on Armed Forces Radio as a teenager in Germany. I was twenty-four in 1968 when it was broadcast from the moon. I was duty officer that Christmas Eve night at squadron headquarters of the Sixth Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Meade, MD. The duty NCO and I were transfixed.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Infantry OCS, Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Space

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