Medary.com

James Lileks has Screed again:

The US continues to support Israel. This is becoming difficult, since many important nations with well-dressed, urbane spokesmen have decided that Israel should stop its strange policy of firing rockets on UN-run stem-cell research facilites for no apparent reason. These diplomats will tolerate a little wartime madness – we all have our moments, after all – but enough is enough, and now they must go home and sit in the basement and wait for more rocket attacks. If they’re good, they will get a snack.

Just the right note of sarcastic scorn for those who think Israel is somehow the bad guy here.  Hat tip:  Hugh Hewett

I hate it when this happens . . .

I tend to agree with Democrats almost as often as I agree with Republicans. The only difference is that I tend to agree with Democrats about subjects that I barely care about (abortion, gay marriage and the right of everybody to burn the American flag) and with Republicans about things I care about intensely (killing jihadis and their sympathizers without mercy, keeping taxes low, tort reform, and spending as large a portion of the federal budget on defense as is conceivably worthwhile). So I usually vote for Republicans.

Yeah, that's pretty close to where I am.  We'll quibble over "gay marriage" vs. "civil union" (i.e. I think there is a positive public good served by giving preferential treatment, let's call it "marriage," to heterosexual couples who choose to procreate, but I concede that this is perhaps a debatable point).  Otherwise, what Tigerhawk writes is pretty close to what I think, too.

India is cracking down on monkeys on trains:

NEW DELHI - In an effort to keep monkeys out of the New Delhi subways, authorities have called in one of the few animals known to scare the creatures -- a fierce-looking primate called the langur, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

The decision to hire a langurwallah -- a man who trains and controls the langurs -- came after a monkey got into a metro car in June, the newspaper reported.

I wanna be a langurwallah.  There's a song in there somewhere.

Survey shows most obese people say they're eating healthy:

ATLANTA - More than three-quarters of obese Americans say they have healthy eating habits, according to a survey of more than 11,000 people.

About 40 percent of obese people also said they do "vigorous" exercise at least three times a week, the telephone survey found.

"There is, perhaps, some denial going on. Or there is a lack of understanding of what does it mean to be eating healthy, and what is vigorous exercise," said Dr. David Schutt of Thomson Medstat, the Michigan-based health-care research firm that conducted the survey.

Explanation #1:  fat people are lazy, they lie, and are not good people.  We hate them.

Alternative Explanation:  "Eating healthy" doesn't work and is the root cause of the obesity epidemic.

Shuttle Atlantis makes it to the launch pad:

After two stalled attempts, NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis rolled out to its Florida launch pad Wednesday as workers ready the space plane for a planned liftoff later this month.

Atlantis reached Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida just after 8:00 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT) following a seven-hour trek from the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building.

Murtha being sued by Marine:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine suspected in the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, will sue Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record) for libel after the war critic made public comments about the case and accused the serviceman of murder, attorneys said on Wednesday.

Lawyers representing Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 26, said Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, made false, misleading and defamatory statements.

Loose cannons eventually get tied down.

Found on FreeRepublic, these two Reuters pictures:

Israeli special forces and their llamas wait to cross the Israel-Lebanon border west of Avivim, late night August 1, 2006. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach (ISRAEL)

Battle Llamas.  I should feel guilty being this amused about it, and I do, no question about it.

Battle llamas.

What do Iran's President Ahmadinejad and (alleged) inebriated actor Mel Gibson have in common:

Rabid antisemitism.

Gibson was drunk at the time. What's Ahmadinejad's excuse?

Photo credit: AFP

This banner was unfurled only a couple of hours after the Qana attack, according to Pajamas Media/Power Line. The Arabic legend reads:

The massacre of children in Qana 2, is the gift of Rice. The clever bombs..Stupid

Almost like somebody knew ahead of time what was going to happen today, isn't it?

There is also some doubt regarding exactly when the building containing the 55 dead collapsed. The IDF attacked around midnight, but the building apparently did not collapse until 8 a.m.

"The attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear," Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters told journalists at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, following the incidents at Qana.

Is it beyond imagining that the same mentality that would drive two jetliners into skyscrapers to kill over 3,000 would sacrifice 50 of their own for public relations purposes?

It may be useful to recall who initiated these hostilities in the first place. It was not Israel.

It may also be useful to recall which side disregards the Geneva Conventions by taking hostages then refusing Red Cross access to those hostages; hiding as civilians in civilian areas; attacking civilian areas without warning--or for that matter without any regard for whether the target being hit is civilian or military. It is not Israel.

Dakotas at 'epicenter' of U.S. drought, says Yahoo News:

An area stretching from south central North Dakota to central South Dakota is the most drought-stricken region in the nation, Svoboda said.

"It's the epicenter," he said. "It's just like a wasteland in north central South Dakota."

Conditions aren't much better a little farther north. Paul Smokov and his wife, Betty, raise several hundred cattle on their 1,750-acre ranch north of Steele, a town of about 760 people.

North Dakota's all-time high temperature was set here in July 1936, at 121. Smokov, now 81, remembers that time and believes conditions this summer probably are worse.

"I could see this coming in May," Smokov said of the parched pastures and wilted crops. "That's the time the good Lord gives us our general rains. But we never got them this year."

Brad Rippey, a federal Agriculture Department meteorologist in Washington, said this year's drought is continuing one that started in the late 1990s. "The 1999 to 2006 drought ranks only behind the 1930s and the 1950s. It's the third-worst drought on record — period," Rippey said.

That's the problem with living in a semi-arid region.  Sometimes you get the semi, other times you get the arid.

If you live through the wet times (like the 1970's and 80's, for instance) without planning for the dry, life gets mighty hard.

Mighty, mighty hard.