You Can Take The Boy Out Of Wall Street

Penis News 2 Comments

Barry Ritholtz might know something about markets, but he sure as hell doesn’t know much about cows. In James Joyner’s comments section,he writes:

Bulls have horns which can gore; Bears have teeth and claws. Both can kill. Hence, the graphic imagery depicting the fierce battle between supply and demand, between mighty Bull and ferocious Bear in the jugles of Wall Street..

Horns are not sex characteristics in cattle, they’re breed or breed variety characteristics.



Polled Hereford Bull		 lh-cow-calf.jpg

Longhorn Cow & Calf

Bulls (with a handful of exceptions) are generally less dangerous than cows. They eat, have sex and eat. So long as he isn’t challenged outright or stuck with a cowboy and a bucking strap to get rid of, a bull will probably leave you alone.

Cows . . . Cows . . . Well, Cows stand around the field, chewing their cud, waiting to be either milked or slaughtered.

Cows have calves, protective maternal instincts and a strong matriarchal pecking order. Herds follow the “lead cow”, not a bull. As breeding animals, cows enjoy a longer producing life than the average bull.
Bulls are a relative rarity. Most male cattle are castrated at a few weeks of age and slaughtered by 30 months. And of the lucky few, all but the most valuable purebred bulls move from poking the baloney to being baloney in a fairly short time period. It takes only a couple of years before a commercial herd sire is of little use, unless you have plans to breed him to his daughters. At this point he must be replaced with a new bull.

Hardly a suitable iconagraphy for the stock markets.

Hardly.

Saving Fish Habitat

Gopher News 8 Comments

Feds sue Sask Hiways

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) says highways workers did not take the proper steps to control erosion around Maple Creek, and disrupted a fish habitat when they dug a gravel pit in the Adaire Creek near Wolseley.

Average rainfall in the Maple Creek district is around 12″ per year.

If the matter proceeds to a hearing, the province could face fines of up to $300,000 for each charge.

Of course, federal laws protecting “fish habitat” do not require that actual fish be present – a convenient oversight. Creeks on the Saskatchewan prairies are fed only by precipitation. They generally stop flowing after spring run-off and freeze to the bottom in winter.


&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp  Moose Mountain Creek		 In the 1980’s, the Saskatchewan government ran headlong into federal environmental laws when they began building the Rafferty-Alameda dam project. To put it mildly, all hell broke loose.
The feds demanded environmental impact studies, David Suzuki jetted out to speak on site about the Great Evils Of Dams, while critics alternated with dire warnings – “the dam will never fill!” ….. ” the dam would result in destructive flooding of fragile habitat!”

I remember Valerie Pringle interviewing then Premier Grant Devine for the CBC at the height of the contraversy;

Pringle: “But Premier Devine, don’t you understand? It sounds as though the people of Saskatchewan don’t care about the environment.”
Devine: “With all due respect, Valerie, why don’t you get off your chair in Toronto and come see Moose Mountain creek for yourself. You could stop it with your briefcase.”

Today the dam provides a much needed resort area for the water starved southeast, and helps to control the occassional, but serious flooding that can occur further downstream in years with heavy run-off.
No word from David Suzuki lately.

Hope For Cystic Fibrosis

Science 6 Comments

American and Canadian researchers reported Thursday that they were able to resolve the symptoms of the debilitating disease in mice by dosing them with curcumin, a compound that gives turmeric its brilliant yellow colour.
Furthermore, CF mice receiving treatment with curcumin had a life-span almost identical to that of a normal healthy mouse – a startling development in a disease that generally kills human sufferers by their mid-30s.
While it’s too soon to say whether curcumin will have the same impact in humans, the U.S. Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is already developing human safety and dosage trials which could begin this summer.

When a treatment is as simple as that found in a common spice, one would hope that such trials would be fast tracked – especially as there is likely to be immediate experimentation in the form of home remedies.

Mice with CF who were fed infant formula laced with curcumin stopped suffering the symptoms of the disease. But Caplan and his co-investigators wanted to be sure that the effect they were seeing was caused by the compound, so they enlisted the help of cell biologist Dr. Gergely Lukacs – one of Canada’s leading CF researchers – at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.
“I was very skeptical at the beginning,” Lukacs said in an interview Thursday.
But he tested the compound in cell cultures and the findings were clear. The protein that was trapped in the interior of the cell moved to its proper location when curcumin was added. “I am 100 per cent convinced,” said the former skeptic. “The animal studies from the very beginning are absolutely convincing.”

No information as to how they were led to do research into this spice, but it seems that sufferers were already aware it had beneficial properties, while it has had long use as a herbal remedy for other ailments, including Alzheimer’s.

Newsertainment

Media 2 Comments

Ted Koppel just stumbled upon something that Arthur Kent was warning about ten years ago when he left – then successfully sued – NBC;


His relationship with NBC began on a freelance basis, as Kent spent much of the ’80s covering the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
�
After covering the Tiananmen Square uprising in May 1989, the network made Kent its Rome correspondent, dispatching him to cover the fall of East Germany and, in the assignment that would result in the moniker “Scud Stud,” the Persian Gulf War.
�
A bitter contract dispute in 1992 resulted in Kent suing the company for $25 million for breach of contract, fraud and defamation.
�
At the heart of Kent’s dispute with NBC, and its parent company General Electric, was the shift in management’s concept of the news.
�
In addition to cutting budgets drastically, international hard news was both losing airtime to magazine-style programs like Dateline NBC and being “crafted” to fit the more entertainment-oriented style.
�
“It was a clash and a confrontation that was totally unnecessary, because once I had been convinced to join Dateline, I warned them in writing that the editorial direction of the program was dangerous and that the manipulation and re-editing of stories was going to cause trouble.”
�
A climate was being created in which corruption was imminent, Kent said.
�
“You could see that something like the exploding truck fiasco (a Dateline story about unsafe GM trucks in which toy rockets were used in test crashes to ensure fiery explosions and which caused a number of NBC resignations) would happen eventually.”
�
Kent offered to resign, but NBC dug in for battle, assigning him to cover the war in Bosnia without the proper equipment or preparation. When he refused, the network publicly called him a coward.

With the millions he was rumoured to have recieved in settlement, Kent established an independant production company.

In 2001 while much of the network news industry was focusing on shark attacks and the Chandra Levy mystery, Arthur Kent’s production company, Fast Forward Films, was warning Americans about the dangers posed by the Taliban regime’s reign of terror and repression. Kent’s hour-long documentary Afghanistan: Captives of the Warlords, was broadcast nationally by PBS in June of 2001, and was extensively rebroadcast post-September 11. The program has won the Gold WorldMedal at the New York Festivals and a Golden Eagle award from the CINE organization.

Kent’s 1997 book, Risk And Redemption is a worthwhile read, and unsurprisingly prescient about the blurring of the line between news and entertainment that continues today.

Justice Delayed. Now – A Time Out.

Roadkill No Comments

The jury in the Farah Khan trial was expected to begin its deliberations yesterday. Her mother and stepfather are accused of killing and dismembering the little girl in 1999.
Instead, the judge granted a jury request to delay deliberations until tomorrow, so that jurors could catch game seven between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators before they are sequestered.

The World Show

photoblogging 7 Comments

I left last Tuesday morning – more than 24 hours later I arrived in Rio for the FCI World Dog Show. The 2 shows covered 4 days, and with three days taken up in travel, it was a whirlwind experience.
The Exposition Center is absolutely huge, with the show occupying three gigantic buildings. I regret not taking a photo of our benching area – approximately 4,000 sq feet for several handlers, owners and around 40 dogs. My host has the top winning Mini Schnauzers in Brazil. (I sold him a dog a few years ago and was there as his guest.) There were two full time kennel men who did the heavy lifting, much of the grooming and all the basic care, errands and cleaning. The dogs loved them – a sign of how well they did their jobs. Labour costs are extremely low in Brazil – I was told they were paid around $50 US a month. In Brazil’s heavily class-divided society, they are unlikely to ever achieve their goal of becoming full fledged handlers – they’re black. Each benching area had tents in which they slept at night, so that the dogs were supervised 24 hours a day.
In addition there was a third employee – an armed guard who doubled as a driver. (The drug wars were not that far from the site, and there were armed guards at the gates as well). As it turned out, having high placed “connections” at the show afforded me the luxury of VIP status for the group and best in show judging. We had the comfort of lounge chairs and waiters, free beer, cola and coffee and finger food – and fans – while the rest of the spectators crammed several deep like sweating sardines, and dared not leave for losing their view.
The event was heavy with ceremony – the national dog of Brazil, the “Filas”, were serenaded by a full choir, backed up by an orchestra. There were dancing girls in spectacular costumes. At the conclusion of each group a swarm of press photographers surrounded the winners’ stand. Large overhead screens were up at each end of the main ring those who couldn’t see the judging itself. (Unfortunately, the flash function on my digital camera decided to unfunction, so I didn’t get as many shots of the dog show that I know the curious back at home would have liked to see. )
(Click on the thumbnails for full sized photos)
t_rio_show2.jpg
But, apart from the spectacle and hospitality, the overall experience was deeply disappointing. The quality of most of the breeds that made it to group was poor to mediocre (terriers were an exception), and judging was abysmal. Organization was poor and the venue itself was dreadful. Unseasonably hot, there was no air conditioning – cooling consisted of dozens of ceiling fans that blew intermittent mists of water down on the dogs and people below (in the benching building only – the other 2 exhibition buildings had nothing at all). Temperature inside the show buildings must have been close to 100F – combined with high humidity and a crush of people, it was truly dangerous for the dogs. One top winning Golden Retriever died the first night. I immediately trained my own to lie on an ice pack until it was time to go to the ring.
“Carlos” recieved an “excellent” rating, which is the highest, though no placement. I was prewarned that the judges for our breed were not well thought of. Under the Spanish judge, for example, it came as no surprise when a Portuguese dog recieved top honours. Overall, there was great disappointment about the heavily political nature of the judging all weekend – that coming from judges on the panel as well as exhibitors. At World Shows in the past, host country dogs have had a distinct advantage – in Italy, an Italian dog won Best In Show, the same in Germany, and so forth. Brazil turned out to be no different.
However, when the Brazilian owned Pug was announced as Best In Show, applause was drowned out by booing from the crowd, due to an alleged “set up” that had led to the win. Negative crowd reactions such as this are virtually unheard of in the sport – a contraversial moment that will be talked about for years. But perhaps a necessary one, given the charades of previous World Shows.
Balancing the disappointment of the World Show (I doubt I’ll ever attend another) was the generosity of my hosts. The Brazilians are wonderful people, generous and helpful – I speak no Portuguese and my host no English, so we spoke only through his friends who spent all weekend as translators. It was virtually impossible to pay for anything, and after selling a little artwork, I left the shows with more money than I came with, along with a suitcase full of gifts.
t_rio_view.jpg
In the few hours before I left on Monday a friend of my host (a professional tour guide) took me on the Reader’s Digest tour of Rio – we went part way up to Sugarloaf, drove past the main beaches and had lunch with him and his housekeeper in his very colourful little “hole in the wall” apartment in Copacabana. I did regret not bringing my Minolta and zoom lens. The shantytowns that cover the hills have to be seen to be believed.
t_rio.jpg
It’s difficult enough to take photos from a moving vehicle – nearly impossible in Brazil, where drivers seem hell bent on mutual destruction. But I have a few more. Visit this directory to see them – the file names are fairly self explanatory.
Directory of photos
t_rio_beach.jpg
Now, I must get some sleep.

“Israel Behind 9/11”

Moonbats No Comments

Via the Shotgun:

The Mossad and the CIA infiltrated “Islamic combatant groups” in Afghanistan and were the forces behind the attack on Sept. 11 in New York and Washington, D.C., Imam Mohamed al-Asi said at York University last week.
Al-Asi was part of an event titled “From Ground Zero to Islamophobia: Who Are the Victims?” that was hosted by seven different campus organizations, including the Muslim Action Network, the Muslim Student Association, the Middle Eastern Student Association, the Pakistani Student Association and the Pakistani Student Federation.

Some of the juicy bits:

“The Israeli Zionist [sic] are the true and legitimate object of liquidation. A new generation of death-defying youth are motivated by Islam, and Islam alone, to challenge and destroy the racism and nationalism of Tel Aviv’s politicians. Israel is running out of time and all the politicians know it.”

Last night headstones at a Jewish cemetary in Kitchener were vandalized. That made national news. Yet, this hasn’t. But wait – there’s more!

The other main speaker of the evening, Zafar Bangash, director of the Toronto-based Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought, also spoke about 9/11. The institute is described on its website as “an intellectual centre of the global Islamic movement.”
…
Bangash spoke about several conspiracy theories, including allegations that Canadian corporations defrauded Canadian taxpayers out of $2.5 billion in order to make banks Y2K compliant.
“Now this happened in Canada. You can imagine what goes on in the United States,” he said.
Bangash also complained about the lack of leadership in the Muslim community in Toronto.
“Any screwball can get up … [and] give their two-bit opinion about Islam.”

Apparently.

Journalist “Kidnappings”

Media 1 Comment

I mentioned this observation from The Belmont Club earlier, in reference to the two NYT reporters who were “captured” and released – he now has three such stories that suggest a special forces unit is targeting western journalists in a disinformation campaign. Not coalition special forces – someone elses’.

A team from a writer or newspaper respected by conservatives is captured on the road. The journalists are taken to a picturesque location where they are first greeted with hostility, then granted surprising liberty. A sense of shared danger bonds them with their captors. Scenes are provided to lend color. Due to a surprising coincidence, the captured journalists stumble on information every Western intelligence agency wants to know. The preparations to defend the Golden Mosque, the fate of the missing German counterterrorism agents. Then, as quickly as they were captured, they are released. Not for them is the long and slow incarceration of Terry Waite, but a hearty goodbye, encumbered only by the promise that they will tell the world the truth, on their word as Americans or Englishmen.

Have a look.

Kyoto Nailed To Perch

Media 3 Comments

Canadian media and Liberal party response for the past year on the failure of Russia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol: “La la la la, I can’t hear you, la la la la, I can’t hear you”
Colby Cosh;

Kyoto is deader than Abe Lincoln, and has been, really, for more than a year. This is not exactly a secret. But there appears to be a — what? A conspiracy? A gentlemen’s agreement? — not to mention it. The elderly guest has expired in the parlour, but his teacup must be kept full, despite the gathering flies. It’s like a protracted and even less funny version of Weekend at Bernie’s.

Canadian Identity

Political Animal 2 Comments

A great deal of hand wringing has gone on about the prospects of democracy in the Middle East, and how the current situation in Iraq is likely to shake out. We have lost a sense of scale, a recognition that there is no way to measure success or failure from the perspective of a month or a year – that such questions are answered through the efforts of decades. Having finished the war the UN would not allow his father to complete, today George Bush is taking on Jimmy Carter’s failure to confront Iran. Seeding concepts of freedom and democracy takes time, and often fails to stick on the first try – but ultimately, it is the only hope for long term stability in the region. If this war fails to achieve it, another will follow.
We also make the mistake of assuming that violent struggle is an impediment to the process of stabilization and democracy. Very few countries emerge as stable democracies without bloody, gut-wrenching political upheaval, or a struggle for their survival from threats without – it has a maturing effect on nations, transforming populations into peoples.
And over the past year or so, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is at the core of Canada’s problem in achieving a “national identity”.
We’ve yet to fight for our country in a life or death struggle. The US has been through two cataclysmic wars at home – the American Revolution and the Civil War – American patriotism springs from this history. Pearl Harbor and 911 occurred on American soil. The British Empire grew out of centuries of armed conflict and invasion. And while an empire no more, there is no national debate about British identity – “Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!”
A few days ago the anniversary of Vimy was noted – now nearly 90 years in the past, and the closest Canadians have come to a sense of common nation, common achievment – and yet, even that was from behind the safe distance of the Atlantic. Our troops fought for freedom and against the Axis in WWII – but not here. Canadian schoolchildren were not sent to the country to protect them from German bombs. Our parents suffered no mornings picking through rubble for loved ones. Today, we pride ourselves on “peacekeeping” – that is, staying out of the way until the hard fighting is done.
It’s sadly revealing – and to our discredit – that when asked, most Canadians cite a government entitlement (public health care) as the defining feature of Canadian identity. Most of the rest list differences between ourselves and “the Americans”, not understanding that identity is not something that one receives from “the government” or that exists “relative to”.
Today, unwilling to face fully the threat of Islamism – or to acknowledge and honour that those who do are spilling their blood to secure our way of life as much as theirs – I do wonder if this unusual gap in our history has been our undoing. Having skipped over the part where we expelled the barbarians, with no fundamental shared Canadian experience to cement us as a nation, I suspect our passivity is now terminal, and the beginning of an inevitable slide towards de-Confederation.
But no fear – it will be a negotiated settlement.

Higher Learning

Roadkill 2 Comments

The classic stereotype of the con man as smooth, crafty and clever just took a hit.

[the] former Harvard University instructor of medicine who was arrested on Tuesday for conning friends, colleagues and Internet acquaintances out of $600,000 was himself duped when he trusted other swindlers with the money, police said.
Weidong Xu, 38, quickly lost his ill-gotten loot by investing it in a dubious Nigerian business offer he received by e-mail. The spam message promised gains of $50 million, police said.

But, what does it tell us about Harvard professors?

Selective Intelligence

What He Said 1 Comment

James Joyner distills current Bush administration criticism down to the bare essentials: “Damned if You Do…”

Watching several of the Sunday morning talk shows, I’ve noticed two themes:
The Bush Administration didn’t do enough with sketchy pieces of intelligence that al Qaeda was going to do something, somewhere, at some time and is therefore responsible for not preventing the 9/11 attacks.
The Bush Administration relied too heavily on now-discredited intelligence that Saddam Hussein was ramping up WMD production and used it to launch a war before we were attacked.

But of course, this is far too black and white an analysis.
A more sophisticated president would have understood the complexities of the history and culture of the Middle East, and made reparations for past insults to Islam.
A true diplomat would have negotiated the peaceful retirement of Saddam, with seats on the UN Human Rights Committee for his sons, and disarmed and rehabilitated the Fedayeen. This would have freed the Iraqis from the chokehold of the “US” sanctions, removing their troops from Saudi Arabia and the no-fly zone, thereby avoiding intelligence altogether.
See? Is that so hard?

Heartstrings

Insufferable Twits 2 Comments

This sad story today courtesy Colin Freeze at the Globe and Mail :

Canada, the country of his citizenship, has never been home in any meaningful way for Karim. He was a young boy when he first met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. At age 11, he watched U.S. bombs rain down as his family became part of the exodus of al-Qaeda-affiliated Arabs who fled the U.S. invasion to go to the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Forced from their homes, with nothing but the Kalashnikovs on their backs, they were.

There, he watched his father and seven other militants die last fall in a fierce battle with government forces. Karim, who was caught up in the battle, emerged partly paralyzed.

Caught at the extreme end of crossfire, so they say.

The towering 6 foot 3 big brother, 21-year-old Abdurahman, embraced Karim. They had not seen each other since being separated in Afghanistan.
Abdurahman’s life has also been eventful since the fall of 2001. He returned to Toronto a few months ago to speak publicly of his capture in Afghanistan, the time he spent as a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the international spy work he says he did for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Quote from his news conference – “We were an Al Queda family”.

Increasingly comfortable as family spokesman, he stood alone to address a battery of cameras to say he’d like to see the return of Omar, a 17-year- old brother still held in Cuba on suspicion of killing a U.S. soldier.
Abdurahman said he would like the rest of his family – his 23-year-old brother, who is a fugitive terror suspect in Pakistan, and his two sisters, one of whose wedding was attended by Mr. bin Laden – back here as well.

Can they travel by urn?

One politician, MP Stockwell Day, says it’s outrageous that some members of the Khadr family have been allowed to return to Canada. But onlookers in the arrivals area of the airport were non-judgmental.

Traumatized crippled little boy. Flashes peace sign, carries flowers.
Big, bad US bombs.
Warm embrace from reformed brother.
Reformed from past association with CIA.
Mean judgemental conservative politician.
Kind forgiving Scottish grandmothers.
Oh Canada, The True North Diverse And Non-Judgemental.

Bizarro News From The Future

Media 2 Comments

You know that favorite gag in futuristic science fiction movies – Schwartzenegger battles his roboto killer wife while a nifty projected television screen hovers in the background, the newscaster reads out bizarro future news –

“Mars shuttle pilots enter third day of strike, stranding passengers at Moonport” … “Genetic Savings And Clone announces new cat cloning production line” … “Former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell named to official list of History’s 50 Greatest Leaders”.

Then the station turns back to prime time Thunderdome action, or a grey haired Oprah interviewing a wise Klingon poet….
Except that, I heard two of those three stories on the radio today.

History’s Greatest 50

stuff 3 Comments

National Geographic magazine has released a list of their picks for history’s 50 most influencial leaders. Drum roll, please:

Alexander the Great
Atilla the Hun
Benazir Bhutto
Bilqis, The Queen of Sheba &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp 
Simon Bolivar
Napoleon Bonaparte
Kim Campbell
Catherine de Medici
Catherine the Great
Charlemagne
Chiang Kai-shek
Sir Winston Churchill
Cleopatra
Charles de Gaulle
Elizabeth I
Fu Hsi
Indira Gandhi
Genghis Khan
Hannibal
Emperor Hirohito
Adolf Hitler
Isabella of Castile
Empress Jingo
Julius Caesar
John F. Kennedy 		William Lyon Mackenzie King
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Abraham Lincoln
Sir John A. Macdonald
Nelson Mandela
Moctezuma I
Benito Mussolini
Jawaharlal Nehru
Nero
Pericles
Eva Peron
Chief Pontiac
Ramses II
Romulus
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Shanakdakhete
Joseph Stalin
Raden Suharto
Suleyman the Magnificent
Margaret Thatcher
Getulio Vargas
Queen Victoria
George Washington
William the Conquerer
Mao Zedong

I think maybe National Geographic should just stick to photo-essays on big shiny bugs and painted tribespeople.

From Tet To Guernica

Military No Comments

The Belmont Club is one of my regular reads. This analysis illustrates why so many people are turning their backs in disgust at the “mainstream media”. The two NYT reporters mentioned didn’t seem to know they were being used. That’s forgivable under the circumstances.
The bigger question – when reporters on the ground become an integral part of the enemy’s strategy, are the editors who approve the reports aware of what is being done? If they aren’t, are they incompetent – and if they are, is it complicity? Too storng a charge? I don’t think so.
Judging by the frequency that the media outlets places negative headlines over content that is tilted towards the positive for the Bush administration – my suspicion is that the more likely answer is the second.

In hindsight, it was possible that CENTCOM arranged for its troop “rotations” in Iraq with the end in view of increasing the available forces under the cover of regular replacement. When the Blackwater contractors were murdered in Fallujah, an operation some speculated was organized by Syrian Special Operations, US commanders probably saw it for the signal that it was. They had arranged media coverage of the outrage for a reason. It was followed by Shi’ite attacks on coalition bases, one attack per ally and a wave of kidnappings. Then Moqtada al-Sadr conveniently seized one of the holiest sites in Shi’ite Islam, the Golden Mosque and proclaimed he was going to die there. Two New York Times staffers were kidnapped and conveniently held in the Golden Mosque, an incident described in Belmont Club’s The Time Traveller. There, they were allowed to glimpse preparations for the final stand. The script written for CENTCOM to follow was probably this (what follows is speculation). Small Marine units would rush into Fallujah to recover the Blackwater corpses and trapped themselves. The Marines would mount a desperate rescue which would create heavy civilian damage. In the meanwhile, Sadr would attack the coalition partner’s bases and flee to the Golden Mosque, where his presence would be confirmed by newsmen who just happend to be to imprisoned there and later released to tell the tale. CENTCOM would destroy the mosque from which he had ‘just left’ or perhaps only occupied by a double. Catastrophe would follow on catastrophe, necessitating the postponement of the June 30 transfer of power.
But CENTCOM refused to sing from the sheet. Sanchez lagged the Fallujah operation and then when the traps had staled, attacked on his own terms. With a keen awareness in the operational limitations of Sadr’s men, he let them strike their impotent blows, then picked them up piecemeal. Within 72 hours, CENTCOM had essentially deflected the Syrian/Iranian offensive and regained the initiative. In the coming days, it will be important to see whether Sadr and the Hizbullah lackeys can maintain their tempo. If they cannot, then the next moves are CENTCOM’s. It seems that Sadr rapidly went to Plan B, leaving the Golden Mosque for Najaf� without finding any takers at CENTCOM. He must be looking at Plan C. President Bush has been on the telephone with key coalition heads of state, bringing them up to speed on the current situation. Syria and Iran have dished out their best shot and landed it on CENTCOM’s arm. Now it’s our turn.

and further down the page:

The pitiful accounts of the battle of Fallujah should put paid to the silly press suggestions that the US military is “overwhelmed”. The problem is that the terrifying combat efficiency of the Marines may in fact lead to the literal extermination of enemy forces. US authorities, with a longer term end game in mind, are balancing the political outcomes of letting the Marines continue, even in their restrained mode, and taking more US casualties from holding back. When the media learns the full extent of enemy casualties in Fallujah, Kut, Ramadi, Saddam city and elsewhere, the image of the US military will be switched from “hapless” to “bullying” in a millisecond.

Hapless to bullying? Try “Tet” to “Guernica”.

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