I already mentioned this this morning (a few posts down), but here’s a press story. The Church is angry at the Israelis for shooting at the Church of the Nativity (in apparent response to sniper fire from it). No similar anger is expressed at the Palestinian commandos who took over the place.

In fact, not only are they not angry, but they’re attempting to negotiate a deal to move them to Gaza, after they’ve given up their weapons.

Why are they doing this? Do they think they’ve done nothing wrong? Or is it because they don’t want the church to sustain any more damage, and risk the lives of the hostages (who they will not admit are hostages) in the battle that it would require to capture or kill them?

If the former, they are moral morons, and don’t deserve to run a Sunday school, let alone a Christian church. If the latter, then it’s clear that the church and its inhabitants are hostages to the situation, regardless of the mealy-mouthed platitudes being pronounced by their eminences.

And either way, they’re apparently perfectly comfortable with rewarding terrorism with freedom to go out and do it some more (there’s likely no shortage of replacement guns in Gaza).

Christians everywhere should be outraged.

Lone-Star-state reader Greg Lange points out this bit of all-too-typical tripe and “shrub” bashing from the unredoubtable Molly Ivins. It’s all pretty bad, but the part that really got to me was:

Sharon himself started this second Intifada with his cruelly reckless and deliberately inflammatory visit to the Temple Mount. Took no genius to see what that was going to touch off. If you want to blame this Intifada on someone in particular, Sharon is the leading candidate.

Yes, Molly, ignore the evidence that the Intifada was planned for months leading up to that, and the visit was an excuse–not a reason.

Anyway, I don’t have time to dissect this properly right now–maybe someone else will take a crack at it.

George Mason finally got a memorial on the mall today.

Lee surrendered to Grant a hundred and thirty seven years ago today, at Appomattox Courthouse, effectively ending the War Between The States. This site describes the events leading up to that final capitulation. I’m struck by the professional tone of the letters between the two generals, in the days prior.

This is one of the reasons that Grant was a great general. He was always a clear communicator, and his letters to his officers had the same clarity–describing exactly what was to be accomplished strategically, without necessarily dictating how, leaving that instead to their initiative.

Also, to put this event in context of current events, consider, as we mourn the loss of some three thousand dead.

That war killed over six hundred thousand Americans on both sides. And this was when the country only had a total population of about forty million. Losing the equivalent today, percentage wise, would be like losing four or five million people, mostly men in arms.

Lee surrendered to Grant a hundred and thirty seven years ago today, at Appomattox Courthouse, effectively ending the War Between The States. This site describes the events leading up to that final capitulation. I’m struck by the professional tone of the letters between the two generals, in the days prior.

This is one of the reasons that Grant was a great general. He was always a clear communicator, and his letters to his officers had the same clarity–describing exactly what was to be accomplished strategically, without necessarily dictating how, leaving that instead to their initiative.

Also, to put this event in context of current events, consider, as we mourn the loss of some three thousand dead.

That war killed over six hundred thousand Americans on both sides. And this was when the country only had a total population of about forty million. Losing the equivalent today, percentage wise, would be like losing four or five million people, mostly men in arms.

Lee surrendered to Grant a hundred and thirty seven years ago today, at Appomattox Courthouse, effectively ending the War Between The States. This site describes the events leading up to that final capitulation. I’m struck by the professional tone of the letters between the two generals, in the days prior.

This is one of the reasons that Grant was a great general. He was always a clear communicator, and his letters to his officers had the same clarity–describing exactly what was to be accomplished strategically, without necessarily dictating how, leaving that instead to their initiative.

Also, to put this event in context of current events, consider, as we mourn the loss of some three thousand dead.

That war killed over six hundred thousand Americans on both sides. And this was when the country only had a total population of about forty million. Losing the equivalent today, percentage wise, would be like losing four or five million people, mostly men in arms.

From the Washington Times:

Turkish officials are warning NATO allies that they have detected new bases for the militant PKK Kurdish Workers Party being built in northern Iran, at least three in the Iranian city of Umriye disguised as medical facilities. The PKK have apparently relocated — with Iranian permission — after being driven out of northern Iraq last year by Turkish military raids. The Turks say they have evidence that the new camps are storing weapons and training insurgents — and are dropping strong hints of an al Qaida connection.

As the story points out, such warnings are often prelude to a cross-border strike. The Turks have done this to Iraq in the past, under similar circumstances, but I’m not aware that they’ve ever gone after Iran. If they do, this could set up another flashpoint in the Middle East, whether Al Qaeda are involved or not.

Instantman points to this WaPo article that has an interesting image in it. It’s a map of Israel that he says makes no distinction between Israel proper and the occupied territories.

He overstates it a bit. There is a thin black line separating the West Bank and Gaza from the rest, and they are separately labeled, but he’s right in the sense that they’re not cross hatched or differently colored–presbyopics have to put on their glasses to see the difference.

I’m figuring that they just got it from a Palestinian text book, and changed the name of the map from “Palestine” to “Israel” for domestic consumption. Those lazy WaPo reporters…

[Update at 1:21PM PDT]

Whoops, somebody at the Post must read weblogs. They’ve taken it down.

Steyn is, as usual, a must read.

There’s a thread over at Charles Johnson’s site about this article in the LA Times.

As I point out in his comments section, I think that the concern over nuclear winter is overblown. That theory has been pretty throughly discredited, at least as originally propounded by Sagan et al. No one really knows what the effects of a massive nuclear war would be, but if it’s unlikely that a Soviet-US exchange would cause one, it’s hard to see how Israel alone could. However, Israel is certainly capable of making glowing parking lots out of places like Baghdad, Riyadh and even Mecca.

To the commentator who suggested that the West Bank itself might be a nuclear target, there are a number of reasons that this would be unlikely. The Israelis wants that territory for itself, and won’t want to have to clean up a radioactive mess. They’d prefer to keep everything intact.

Which brings up a disconcerting thought. Have they developed a neutron bomb?

These posts are getting depressing. I’ll try to shift the subject back to space a little later today.