parallels to 1982 Lebanon

Just a note that the current state of affairs in Lebanon has some parallels to the 1982 "Operation Peace of the Galilee."

There is even the parallel that the UN, favoring terrorists was already rewriting history

On 10 July 1981, after a period of peace, violence erupted
inSouth Lebanon. According to the U.N. Secretary-General, the
Israeli air force bombarded Palestinian targets in south Lebanon, and later that
day Palestinian elements fired artillery and rockets into northern Israel.
However, according to the Federal Research Division of theLibrary of
Congress, "Israel responded to PLO rocket attacks on northern Israeli
settlements by bombing PLO encampments in southern Lebanon."

I remember that day. The news reported the attacks by the PLO and several hours later had a breaking news story showing the Israeli AF retaliation in Lebanon.

TRex

Disingenuous

I get really tired of hearing the argument that we need a "counterfeit proof" national ID card (usually coupled with the snake oil assumption that it must include biometric data) as a way of stopping illegal immigrants. This is disingenuous. All that is needed is for the employer to be able to check government records and find out if the data given by new hires is valid.

Employment is not like gaining entry to a club where alcohol is served, or cashing a check for groceries. Those transactions need to be completed in a matter of seconds - an employer should be spending some real time checking into who they are allowing to work at their business.

On a similar note (disingenuousness), since there has been no incidents of flag burning for about 40 years - why would congress be considering a constitutional amendment to ban it?

Has to be an ulterior motive. Anyone have an idea what the motives might be?

Day Without Immigrants

Is much like any other day, if you don't go downtown in big cities.

I do suggest building a list of major corporations that closed May 1st.

Start with Tyson.

I won't be knowingly buying from Tyson this month.
(I think a month is practical)

Net Neutrality

The SavetheInternet.com Coalition is gearing up a battle for Net Neutrality, in order to insure we all have equal access to the Net. Are they right? Well, IMHO, partially. I agree with most of what they say, except that I believe the public corporations who invested capitol in the networks should be able to charge more for a "fast lane" and less for routine traffic.

It just makes sense that if you want the highest priority - for instance a telephone call - you need to pay extra to get it. OTOH, I do believe regulations should be in place to prohibit blocking traffic based on site ownership or content. The Net belongs to us, the users, and allowing corporations (or governments) to block traffic is just wrong (except perhaps, as an act of war).

Product Review: Kodak EasyShare Camera

Product Review on Kodak EasyShare CX7330 3.2 Mpixal Camera

From a minimalist perspective.

This camera is just about one year old, and the equivalent camera today will have about 6 or 7 MegaPixals

Overall I am very happy with this choice of camera.

It does have a few irritants, but I found it is easy to learn the basics well enough to take some pretty good snapshots.

We only use the camera to take about 10 pictures per month. We have taken a couple of videos by mistake (one of only two irritants is that if you turn the on/off knob in the wrong direction, it goes into video mode.)

I use the review and flash way more than most people (I would guess) - so batteries only lasted about 6 months but were easy to replace (and the old ones powered my flashlight for quite a while. One irritant here though, there was very little warning when the batteries died. I don't know if the little "low battery" indicator was on - but I didn't notice it. Maybe something a little more annoying would be in order. Maybe I am overly sensitive since the batteries went dead a mile into a cave tour :-/

Transferring pictures is where this camera really shines. The method is essentially connect the USB cable and click. It gives you the opportunity to name an album to put the photo's into - which you could also do on the camera itself.

The pictures are transferred in JPEG format, with each being from 550 Mb to 1550 Mb in size. Since they are in a standard format, any number of programs can be used to manipulate, transfer or print them.

Lessons Learned

Many lessons will be learned from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but I suspect some will be missed. Here are a few examples.

Corpus Christie: Don't get too far ahead of the game. Some evacuation, such as the islands, was prudent, but mandatory evacuation of the entire city was overkill.

Houston: Even the best plans aren't good enough when you keep having to shift gears.
I would say they did a good job overall.

Galveston and other coastal areas: As the hurricane begins to land, KILL THE ELECTRIC GRID. Didn't we learn this from Florida last year? Are we dense?

All affected areas: Civil defense needs hardened communications. And that includes media. It does no good to plan to provide news and information if you don't have stations on the air. And tell them which stations will be on the air for them. Tell them before the storm.

Plan for returns. Don't just tell people they can't go back home. Tell them the roads into those areas are closed. And make sure it is true.

Military in route to Paperless operations

Those of you who subscribe to the Military.Com newsletter got notice a couple of days ago that the military pay system is trying to end the use of snail mail for earnings statements and other paperwork that includes SSAN. They will be sending it over the Internet instead.

If you visit your MyPay site after Sept 1st (good of them to tell us almost two weeks AFTER it goes into effect) you will sign up for online documents automatically (if you are on active duty).

Those of us who have been around computers for more than 20 years thought we would never see the day when the Net was considered secure and Snail Mail was considered insecure.

China - 16 years ago

This is the 16th anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square.

I post this in the hope that we do not forget what China did, and still does today.

good links for recent news:

http://alekstheblogger.blogspot.com/2005/05/tibet-tiananmen-and-taiwan.html

http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-05/05/content_439585.htm

For those too young to remember:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/china/eleven_years.htm

While the world tries to forget - China continues their murderous ways, and seeks weapons to modernize their army.

What do we think they will do with modern weapons?