Holy cow, this is pretty interesting. Apparently Ahmadinejad was the guy in charge of 'security' during the famous taking of American hostages in their own embassay in Iran in 1979.
Link is here.
CNN story is here.

Good for the MSM for plastering this over the front page. This should be a real wake-up call for the region, and is precisely what we don't need now. Prediction: in two years, after Iraq is secure, US troops will be sent into Iran to support a 'student uprising' or for 'building nukes'. This is one guy I'd like to see taken down; America lost alot of prestige when our embassy staff was taken hostage.

It's all over the news, three NJ boys were found in a trunk of their parent's car, suffocated, two days after beign reported missing. (story here) Which begs the question, if the children were known to play in the car, why didn't the parents check it first? Or tell them it wasn't a good idea? How stupid do you have to be? It's not like someone could have driven up, accosted the three, and drove off in the 5-10 min the mother was away. One child, yes, but three? Oh well. Let this be a lesson to stupid parents everywhere.

This is the guy the right is deriding as comparing Gitmo to Pol Pot and Nazis. I tracked down his statement, it's available here as a PDF. It's a fairly long document (3-4 pages), and it's a pretty good speech. His main point was that we should close down Gitmo, because the abuses there, and because we are not treating the prisoners there by the Geneva Convention. He described some uses of tortue, mainly leaving prisoners chained to the floor in uncomfortable positions, for up to 24 hours, without food, without water, without rest, subject to extremes of temperatures (60F or 100F), or loud rap music. Also he questioned what type of prisoners are there, and if they are really 'the hardest core of the hard core' as Rumsefeld had stated.

All in all, powerful, eloquent arguments. I am not yet convinced, however, that we need to adhere to the Geneva Convention in this case, for the following reasons.

1) None of the enemies that we have fought since the Geneva Convention, actually adhered to it or were a signatory of it.
2) Our troops have been for the most part treated extremely inhumanly by whoever captures, them, while the opposite is true for those we capture. Indeed in the 2nd Iraq war, many of the POWs living conditions were better in the camp than at home, because of the absence of electricty, food, water, etc.
3) The terrorists of today are not a national, standing army, fighting to protect it's territory from US incursion. They are all irregular troops, privately funded, without organized ranks, or a supporting State. Therefore they are not troops in the real sense.

UPDATE: This is real torture, from the Saddam era. Warning, this site contains photos which are graphic and upsetting.

It's my birthday. I'm .... old. Old enough to lose my hair. Old enough to wonder what I'm still doing in school. How did I celebrate as midnight struck? I was at work. Blah. Anyway. Happy birthday to me.

"Marriage died before husband did," read the ad in The Columbus Dispatch

story here

This is interesting; a recent epidemiological study of hispanic americans found a sharp correltion with number of sodas drank per day and obesity. And surprisingly, drinking diet was worse than drinking regular soda. There are two lines of thought:

1) The increases amount of soda reflects an increase in calories elsewhere, it's symptomatic

2) The diet soda causes the body to crave sugar, it's biochemical. This line of thought is supported by rat studies; those that were given fake sugar were more obese than those given normal sugar (if I'm reading the study right).

Actually loud frogs. They are called Coquis, and they seem like a genuine pest. Story here. At first, a few years ago, I was against agressive erradication methods, but now I feel that the govt has underestimated the seriousness of the threat to public healthy and sanity, and as usual, the hawaiian govt has its head up its ass.

I was watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight (Monday's episode, and his guest was a leftist liberal who worked with the CPA (coalition provicial authority, the first govt in the post-saddam iraq). I'll dig his name up later. (Update: cant' find it, too tired) Anyway he remarked about how the U.S. was screwing everything up there, and how the U.S. didn't want women in parliment, but half of the parliment seats are required to be filled by women. Then he said something interesting, that those women are not empowered because they are too scared to go out and do their civic duty, attend meetings, organize woman politically, etc. I found that interesting, then I remember the latest Chrenkoff report which had this bit about people violating curfew in Ramadi because they felt so safe. (Interestingly its in the Honolulu Advertiser, a very leftist paper).

Then I also remembered a survey of Iraqi women who were asked about how they felt about their safety. 12% thought they were not safe due to U.S. and coalition forces. 40% thought they were not safe due to criminals, and 46% said they didn't see any threat.

Further, another survey showed a more pronouced finding; mostly women felt safe in the country, from 80-90% in the Kurdish north and Shiite south, to 60% around bagdad and in teh center of the country, where the most unrest is.

So basically i think he's full of shit. But his book might be interesting. if only i can figure out what it is.

here
By the Challenger flight surgeon (a psychiatrist). Interestingly she predicted another preventable disaster at NASA. It appears NASA has still not learned their lessons; will they ever? Maybe space is just too complicated to be anywhere near 'safe'.

There is an interesting dicotomy here. In a recent poll, 2 of 3 Iraqis believed their country is headed in the right direction, and 40% of Sunnis (the minority who many attribute as behind the insurgency) also think this. (The 40% figure is up from 11%).

Meanwhile, 6 of 10 Americans think we should withdraw some or all of our troops in the US.

This was in teh Cherkoff report, and here at the Mudville Gazette.

So, either Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket, or it's not. I guess the people who actually live there would know. And i guess it's not.

I wrote in to Hints from Heloise, when she queried about ferret ownership. She printed two sentences from my email. Story here.

I looked at today's Houston Chronicle and counted at least 6 stories about bombing, death, and chaos in Iraq. One cover story laments how senior US military officials feel that they will lose the war (at least, this is how the article is painted). The reality is far different I think. We are winning the war, but will not win until the insurgents 'come in from the cold' and begin political involvement.

Anyway here is the most recent of Arther Chrenkoff's Good News from Iraq. Its a huge story, and full of excellent news about progress in this country. From this and other reports, it is clear to me that the country is continuing to head in the right direction, but don't tell the mainstream media that.

Wow, this is powerful. Basically about a small, obscure religion, and the trials of one village under saddam. Very very interesting.