Tsunami round-up, 12 January – More good stuff from Arthur Chrenkoff

Good News from Afghanistan, Part 8 – From Arthur Chrenkoff

I am adding a new feature to my blog: a linkblog. The main page now features a blue box, where I’ll add interesting links I stumble upon which don’t warrant extended commentary. This will keep the main part of my blog free of clutter. I’ll be limiting posts in my main blog to posts where I have something meaningful to say.

The linkblog is named “Excursions,” which is what will go in that area – excursions to places around the web. Excursions has its own syndication feeds (RSS/Atom) so if you like what you find there you can subscribe to the individual feed. Also, Excursions has its own site complete with entry pages and archives. Feel free to browse around it. At some point I’ll probably enable comments and trackbacks for Excursions enties, but for now I’m just going to post the links.

Feel free to let me know what you think of Excursions. Enjoy!

Interview with Victor Davis Hanson – An interview with the man himself. Good stuff.

Welcome to the new home of Abstract Musings.

This is the reason my posting has been light recently. I imported my Blogger archives into my Movable Type database, so all of my entries would be available here as well as at my old Blogspot site. That took some time as the import wasn’t perfect and I had to clean up most of the old entries by hand. Mostly, that involved fixing all the internal links to other entries within my blog itself. I am leaving my Blogspot site up so that all the links to pages on that site don’t break.

Also, I had to convert my Blogger template to a set of Movable Type templates. It took me me some time to learn how to use MT’s template tags and create all the separate templates.

I will also enable comments and trackbacks on new entries starting with this one. Comments will require either a TypeKey login, or a name and email. Also, comments posted with just a name and email will be subject to moderation.

If you notice anything amiss, please drop me a line – a link for my email address is in the navigation bar to the right – or leave a comment in this post.

Now, that the new site is up I plan to get back to posting more frequently. Thanks for your patientience. Hope you enjoy the new site.

I have a lot of stuff to do.

(From PunditGuy)

When can I get one of these?

My first computer (actually it belonged to my father) was an IBM PC, which didn’t even have a hard drive. When my dad added a second floppy drive (5.25 inch, of course), I thought that was awesome, because it meant no more having to remove the OS disk to put in another disk with whatever I really wanted to do. Eventually, we added a hard drive – though I don’t remember its capacity, I’ll bet it was pretty small. When my dad replaced that computer, he bought one with a 256 MB hard drive, and I thought we’d never outgrow it, and of course, we did. Over that computer’s life, we upgraded various parts of it: adding a 3.5 inch floppy drive, adding memory, upgrading the processor (from a Intel 286 to a 386), etc. When I went off to college, that computer became my hand-me-down. Eventually, I outgrew it and replaced its motherboard, processor, memory, video card and hard drive. It was my computer version of Frankenstein. I still have that machine, though it has been upgraded a couple more times since. My wife and I use it as an MP3 jukebox connected to our stereo and TV in our living room.

Now I have 30 and 40 GB hard drives that I am in the process of filling up. Some day, I’ll probably replace my Frankenstein machine with a newer version.

Mark Steyn doesn’t seem surprised that the U.N. is taking credit for the American and Australian relief efforts.

I didn’t catch the interview, but I’m assuming that the Oil-for-Fraud programme and the Child-Sex-for-Food programme notwithstanding, Miss Short managed to utter that last sentence with a straight face. But, if you’re a homeless Sri Lankan, what matters is not who has the moral authority, but who has the water tankers and medical helicopters. President Bush didn’t even bother mentioning the UN in his statement. Kofi Annan, by contrast, has decided that the Aussie-American “coalition of the willing” is, in fact, a UN operation. “The core group will support the UN effort,” he said. “That group will be in support of the efforts that the UN is leading.”

So American personnel in American planes and American ships will deliver American food and American medicine and implement an American relief plan, but it’s still a “UN-led effort”. That seems to be enough for Kofi. His “moral authority” is intact, and Guardian columnists and Telegraph readers can still bash the Yanks for their stinginess. Everybody’s happy.

Actually, they landed in Sri Lanka yesterday. Here’s a link to the Reuters video (and story) on their arrival.

A first group of United States Marines arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday (January 3) with helicopters, bulldozers, generators and other specialist equipment to help the country deal with the aftermath of the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami.

For those who, like myself, were hopeful that Yasser Arafat’s death would lead to the peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, this must come as a disappointment.

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called Israel “the Zionist enemy” for the first time on Tuesday after an Israeli tank killed seven Palestinian youths in a Gaza strawberry field.

The words were certain to stir concerns in Israel where images of Abbas embracing fighters during the campaign for a Jan. 9 election have led some to question hopes for reviving peace talks after Yasser Arafat’s death.

The Israeli army said it had targeted militants who had crept into the strawberry field and fired mortar bombs into a nearby Jewish settlement in the occupied territory.

Palestinian witnesses and medics in Beit Lahiya, a north Gaza village, said the militants had vanished by the time the tank shell crashed and all the dead were youths aged 11-17 from two farming families. Four people were critically wounded.

The field, where farmers had been harvesting strawberries, was spattered with blood and body parts.

Word of the incident clearly angered Abbas, widely tipped to win the presidential election, as he continued campaigning in the Gaza Strip despite further fighting between militants and the Israeli army.

“We are praying for the souls of our martyrs who fell today to the shells of the Zionist enemy,” Abbas told a rally in the south Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis, a hotbed of militants.

Reuters leaves the impression that these were innocent Palestinian by-standers who were tragically killed. Presenting only the Palestinian version of events, Reuters conveniently leaves out the Israeli side of the incident. But the Jerusalem Post presents the Israeli version of events. (From LGF)

At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Col. Avi Levi, commander of the Gaza District, said that seven Hamas members were killed in Beit Lahiya this morning.

Levi defended the IDF’s decision to fire a tank shell at the rocket-launching cells. “If civilians were wounded, it is because terrorists opt to launch attacks from within the civilian population and we regret the harming of any civilians.”

The army also confirmed that the tank fired toward Beit Lahiya, a town located in the northern Gaza Strip not far from Erez, when it identified the Hamas cell. Col. Levi said that six of the deaths were caused by shrapnel from the tank shell and two Palestinian terrorists died when a Kassam rocket they were trying to launch exploded prematurely.

How’s that for perspective? But, Reuters isn’t finished. The article also manages to portray Abbas in a sympathetic light.

Israel also demands Palestinian leaders heed a provision in an internationally sponsored “road map” peace plan for a crackdown on militants before talks begin.

Palestinian leaders demand Israel obey a parallel obligation under the road map to stop expanding West Bank settlements and Abbas has balked at tackling gunmen he calls “freedom fighters” without an Israeli promise of viable Palestinian statehood.

“They are freedom fighters and should live a dignified and safe life,” Abbas said on Monday in a campaign tailored in part to defuse the distrust of gunmen who branded him a stooge of Israel when their revered ex-guerrilla leader Arafat was alive.

Abbas said he was determined to ensure rule of law prevailed in Palestinian territories, a cautionary message to militants and one of reassurance to U.S.-led mediators encouraged by his credo of non-violence.

How can calling Israel “the Zionist enemy,” hailing these thugs as “freedom fighters” and refusing to confront their violent actions be called a “credo of non-violence”? Reuters makes it sound like he’s just campaigning and this is empty campaign rhetoric. Rhetoric that Abbas will not act upon it when he is elected. Only, this campaign rhetoric fuels more violence which, in turn, leads to more deaths.

UPDATE: Reuters has video.

UPDATE II: More commentary on Abbas from Damian Penny and Michael Totten.