Drumhead Redux
Earlier here.
Entries Tagged as ''
Revenge Of The Jihadi
I think their fundamental weakness stems from the undoubted fact that Bush et al are profoundly regressive and hierarchical people. Thus, they think in terms of cohorts and divisions, leaders, and roles. They think — or they know their supporters think and tell them what they want to hear — that they can somehow “end terrorism” through the elimination of identified “leaders”. I think that’s bogus, it betrays a profound lack of understanding of the nature of smart mobs (leadership roles as situtated, contextual, emergent, and transitory) and ideological drivers, and I’m not the only one.
The spate of attacks and threatened attacks last week owed less to ‘the return of al-Qaeda’, as trumpeted by some headlines, and more to a broad-based Islamic militant movement that is growing in strength everywhere between Malaysia and Morocco. Those involved may share many of the aims of bin Laden and his associates, they may even accept temporary help from experienced senior individual activists, but they are not part of his group. They do not carry membership cards, they have not taken any oath of allegiance. If these groups, cells and individuals are part of al-Qaeda, they are merely part of an ‘al-Qaeda movement’ not any structured, hierarchical organisation. This movement is as diverse as the many countries from which its members come.
Smart Bombs or Smart Dollars?
So which was more pivotal for the swiftness of the US invasion of Iraq? The 20th-Century industrialised warfare style routines of concerted fire-and-manoeuvre, or the refreshingly 19th Century imperialist conquest style of bribery and corruption?
A fascinating piece in the May 19 Defense News quotes Gen. Tommy Franks, chief of U.S. Central Command, confirming what had until now been mere rumors picked up by dubious Arab media outlets � that, before Gulf War II began, U.S. special forces had gone in and bribed Iraqi generals not to fight … it �was as important as the shooting part, maybe more important. We knew that some units would fight out of a sense of duty and patriotism, and they did. But it didn�t change the outcome because we knew how many of these [Iraqi generals] were going to call in sick.�
Turnips Ahoy
There’s a standard carnivorist theory that a transformation around 2 MYears ago of hominids from omnivorous, opportunistic scavengers to dedicated, meat-eating Home Erectus hunters was the necessary and sufficient condition that drove the evolution of larger brains and complex socieities. But there’s also a renegade theory that says that cooked tubers were possibly more pivotal. Pro-male theorists dislike this theory because it would diminish the touted role of strong males within hominid socieities, and they point to a lack of evidence of dedicated hearth fires in human societies before 250 KYears ago. I’d counter that dedicated hearth fires are a social construct, and required a certain level of domestication and population to become permanent enough for large-scale development, reproduction, and fossilization. Early homids could have been opportunistic or intentional brushfire tuber-cookers. Let’s hear it for the humble turnip! It even manages a good explanation for the apparent decrease in Homo Erectus gender dimorphism.
Females attempting to thwart theft would use sexual attractiveness to recruit the best male defenders. This tended to offer plenty of mating opportunities for males and less rivalry among them, hence less selection for large males. Thus, while females evolved a larger body size–either to better produce and nourish babies or to fend off stealing–males stayed about the same size, and the size gap between the sexes narrowed.
Silicone Embolism Slays Tranny During Arse Pumping Party
So this person died when hir arse leaked injected silicone into hir bloodstream, causing an embolism. Apparently low-rent FtM transsexuals attend “pumping parties” (not this sort of pumping!) where pretend-doctors inject their marks’ bodies with huge quantites of industrial-grade silicone. Who knew? Anyway, the hypo-happy couple who did the silicone injecting are being charged with murder. What’s unusual about this case is the obvious confusion of the media, being forced to caption their trial photos of “female” defendants and witnesses with the birth male names and occasionally some porno-styled tranny names. And then trying to explain who is what. Or not. The court is even getting a little tranny show-and-tell body exhibition so they can see the effects of this dodgy body sculpting.
Hawkins and Hendricks charged up to $1,000 per pumping party. Most of the witnesses are transsexual men who went to the parties for “body-sculpting.”
Microsoft Bollixes Up Beamers
Suchart Jaovisidha and his driver were trapped inside the BMW for more than 10 minutes before guards broke a window. All doors and windows had locked automatically when the computer crashed, and the air conditioning stopped, officials said.
“We could hardly breathe for over 10 minutes,” Suchart told reporters. “It took my guard a long time to realize that we really wanted the window smashed so that we could crawl out. It was a harrowing experience.”
Michael Number Two
Next year we will *destroy* these “Jacobs“, oh yes. Maybe with the aid of the newly resurgent “Sigmunds”? And whatever you do, don’t name a kid “David Nelson“!
If your name is David Nelson you can expect to be hassled, delayed, questioned and searched before being allowed to board aircraft anywhere in the United States for the foreseeable future. Since the horrific attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the federal Transportation Security Administration has, without any public announcement, created a two-tiered list of names … The name David Nelson apparently is on one of those lists … This week 18 men named David Nelson, all residents of Oregon, confirmed they have been repeatedly delayed at airport counters and security checkpoints in the last year or so.
Safe As Houses
But Ms. Hamid’s stand is just four paces away from a burnt-out Iraqi tank, destroyed by – and contaminated with – controversial American depleted-uranium (DU) bullets. Local children play “throughout the day” on the tank, Hamid says, and on another one across the road.
No one has warned the vendor in the faded, threadbare black gown to keep the toxic and radioactive dust off her produce. The children haven’t been told not to play with the radioactive debris. They gather around as a Geiger counter carried by a visiting reporter starts singing when it nears a DU bullet fragment no bigger than a pencil eraser. It registers nearly 1,000 times normal background radiation levels on the digital readout.
…
This burned dart pushed the radiation meter to the far edge of the “red zone” limit. A similar DU tank round recovered in Saudi Arabia in 1991, that was found by a US Army radiological team to be emitting 260 to 270 millirads of radiation per hour. Their safety memo noted that the “current [US Nuclear Regulatory Commission] limit for non-radiation workers is 100 millirads per year.”
…
Six American vehicles struck with DU “friendly fire” in 1991 were deemed to be too contaminated to take home, and were buried in Saudi Arabia. Of 16 more brought back to a purpose-built facility in South Carolina, six had to be buried in a low-level radioactive waste dump.
Earlier here.
Blogroll
