I think it's called 'karma',

at least in part, when stuff like this happens.
In the past 48 hours 19 Palestinians have been killed, tossed from rooftops, executed at point-blank range, and shot in hospital wards. That number seems certain to rise. More than 80 Palestinians have now been killed since mid May.

Among yesterday's dead was a 14-year-old boy and three women, all killed in a Hamas attack on a Fatah security officer's home.

"They're firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We're not Jews," the brother of Jamal Abu Jediyan, a Fatah commander, pleaded during a live telephone conversation with a Palestinian radio station.

Minutes later both men were dragged into the streets and riddled with bullets.

Don't you just love these people? "We're not Jews", which makes this terribly wrong. Whereas if the Hamassholes(thank you for the term, Emperor) were killing Jewish men and women and children, it would be just ducky.

Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN envoy to the Middle East, said: "The picture which emerges is very dark, and apparently getting darker. There are reasons for real concerns in the international community."

My first thought is that things will rapidly get lighter as the terrorists kill each other off. And to quote somebody, it serves them right. The Palistinians knowingly elected a terrorist organization to power, and this is part of what comes after. "...reasons for real concerns in the international community", which means that the UN will have a commission to appoint people to a study to examine the situation and make recommendations as to what the following letters of "Why are you doing this?" should say exactly.

And for more on why they deserve this(at least a LOT of them do), check this out:
A 'music video' broadcast on a Palestinian Hamas TV station on Wednesday had a simple message for its viewers: Carrying out a suicide bomb attack is more important than raising one's children.

The video, broadcast on al-Aqsa TV, was made available by Palestinian Media Watch and can be viewed on YouTube.

I think it was Golda Mier who said there would be peace when the Arabs loved their children more than they hated Jews. Looks like they're not there yet. By a long damn way.

And in other news, Angelina Jolie really is a jerk. Not bad looking, but a jerk.

Reason #216 why Sen. Harry Reid

(Disgusting-NV) is a sorry, worthless, walking piece of crap.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "incompetent" during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported.

Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.

Stinking, cowardly, corrupt, vile little excuse for a man. And do take notice of the picture; looks like he's copying the Castro & Co. 'socialism forever!' speechifying.

Among the reasons I like Oklahoma

is the way vets tend to be treated. In this case, the son of a friend, a Marine just back from his second tour in Iraq. Couple of days ago they went to a Pizza Hut for dinner, and a friend of the father who'd known the son growing up saw them, invited them over, and then announced to the place that this man was just back from the sandbox. The whole place gave him a round of applause.

Tonight he said a bit about it. He'd been in Ramadi and said that when his battalion arrived, for the first couple of months there'd been a bunch of firefights; for the last two months not a single American troop in his area had fired a shot. The Iraqi army and police had done all the fighting. From a trickle of information from the locals at the beginning they'd moved up almost to a 'flood' level, tips on bad guys(who and where), weapons and explosives caches and so on.

Also mentioned they'd had a bunch of bad guys who'd gotten sick of the fighting and killing and turned themselves in, often giving information leading to arrests of bad guys and lots of equipment.

He spoke of power restored to neighborhoods, schools and clinics opened and such. Finished with 'there's still bad problems, but they're moving ahead and taking responsibility; it's getting better'.

Oh yes, he got a round of thanks from us, too.

It's not quite 'Let Africa Sink',

but it's definitely 'Stop trying to save us!".

Couple of years ago Kim wrote Let Africa Sink, his thoughts on what might save that continent. This is an interview with a Kenyan economics expert basically saying that "all the aid is making things worse". Couple of key quotes:

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

and on the subject of AIDS:
Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It's not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it's only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.

SPIEGEL: And why's that?

Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

Interesting reading.

So the only time Mexico gives a damn about border security

is when A: it's their southern border and people are sneaking in and B: it's their northern border and they're blaming us for their problems.

Like this one:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday that Washington is taking steps to address Mexican concerns the U.S. is not doing enough to stop illegal weapons from being smuggled across the border and into the hands of brutal drug gangs.

Oh yes, the drug gangs couldn't possibly be getting weapons anywhere except from the U.S. And it seems the Mexican government is getting talking points from the Brady Gun Ban Group:
Mexican officials have repeatedly complained that the U.S. must do more to stop the flow of potent weapons - including assault rifles and even .50-caliber machine guns - that drug gangs often purchase in the United States.
You know, those evil select-fire M16's and the M2 Brownings you find on the shelves at the local gun shop?

Except that ANY select-fire or automatic weapon can only be bought legally after a bunch of federal paperwork and background checks and taxes and fees, and only if it's one that was owned by someone before it was decided(back in the 80's) that no new firearms of the type could be sold to citizens. Which means, besides the cost, there's only so many of them and the authorities are pretty picky about inspections to make sure people still have them. Which means, (wonder of wonders), that the bad guys- IF they're buying them here- are(GASP!) buying them illegally.

And I have to wonder about that, because there's a very few companies that build these, and they have to account for every one built. Not just the completed guns, but the receivers. And even if you assume a company is willing to risk the entire business for the chance of making a few extra dollars sneaking out some pieces to sell, just how many could they manage to make and sneak out?

"The firepower we are seeing here has to do with a lack of control on the (U.S.) side of the border," Patricio Patino, Mexico's top anti-drug intelligence official, said last month. "What we have asked the American government ... is that they put clear controls on the shipments of weapons."

I call bullshit. I don't doubt that there are smugglers taking some weapons south across the border, and if somebody's sneaking them in to the U.S. first and then south, but the numbers they're talking about? And this 'shipments of weapons' crap makes it sound- again- like someone can buy this stuff in stores here and then sneak it south across the border.

And, with all the coastline to land things on and mordida being the way of business down there in so many things, just why would someone smuggle the stuff into the U.S. and then across a second border into Mexico? As much as anything, sounds like another way of blaming the evil, nasty, bigoted U.S. for the problem.

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora argued that combatting violence was a cross-border issue, saying: "We recognize that we can't confront this problem alone."

Gonzales agreed, and said he and President Bush were "committed to collaborating in the development of a regional security and law enforcement strategy."

"Regional security and law enforcement strategy", right. When it's about something THEY want stopped and only in a way that(you can be sure) won't inconvenience the people crossing our border illegally.

Hey, I've got an idea! Let's build a damn fence along the border and stop ALL the smuggling going BOTH ways! And when the Mexican government bitches and whines about the northbound smuggling being stopped(people in particular) wave this article at them and tell them to shut the hell up.


Added: be it noted that Mexico has real problems with gangs of various types; I'm just damn sick of the U.S. being in some way called responsible for all of them.

The son has been heard from,

Yesterday while packing up to head out in the field again. They've been training hard(as they should) and spending a lot of time out in the field.

Pretty much everybody's been qualifying with everything, and he made expert with the M240B











.30 caliber machinegun. Also fired the M2 Browning, (only with the plastic bullet practice ammo, alas) and everything else that might come to hand in time of trouble.

He's supposed to have some leave and come back for a visit in the near future, which'll be nice. So far, so good.

If you've got someone joining or in who doesn't have one, may I make a suggestion? A really good folding knife. Gave him one for his birthday a couple of weeks before he shipped out, one of the big CRKT folders, and it's been a very handy tool.