Thursday, September 25, 2003

I recommend the movie Below.  It's a well done thriller/slight horror movie that nobody has heard of. 7:00:34 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

AP.  Israeli pilots grounded after protest. One of the 27 pilots, identified only as Capt. Alon, told the Yediot Ahronot daily he was now ashamed to be a member of the air force. "It's an organization that has no qualms about dropping bombs ... on the densest neighborhoods in the world ...," he was quoted as saying. This is the heart of the dilemma.  In order to fight terrorists, a nation needs to become a counter-terrorist state.   Israel is a counter-terrorist state.  America is on the road to becoming one.  What does this mean?  More assasinations and reprisals.  A substantial reduction in civil liberties and privacy.  A willingness to inflict wanton collatoral damage.  A tremendous amount of secrecy and an increasing number of secret organizations.  These pilots were unwilling to accept that. 4:47:33 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

The Bush administration is gearing up to put more (beyond the current 170,000) Guard and Reserve forces on active duty for work in Iraq.  Why?  No other countries want to participate.  To cheer the deployed troops up, the administration has just adopted a new leave policy: Separately, the Pentagon's personnel chief, David Chu, has approved a new policy that will allow U.S. troops — both active duty and Reserve — who are in Iraq on 12-month assignments to take 15 days of vacation in the United States at some point during their tours. They will be permitted to fly free of cost to Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles or Baltimore. Travel inside the United States beyond those cities would be at the service member's own expense.  NOTE: couldn't they have at least flown them home? 10:06:00 AM    Comment_ Trackback []