From the NY Times today:
The Palestinian prime minister-designate, Ahmed Qureia, has given Arafat and Fatah considerable say over the composition of his government. Qureia has said he wants to avoid confrontations with Arafat that helped bring down his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas.
The appropriate English translation, I believe, includes the phrase “butt-monkey.”
[politics filter]
Quick summary of Middle East events of note in the past few weeks, some already mentioned here:
Breakdown of cease-fire with major terrorist strikes and retaliatory measures by Israel. (Odd side note: In the first few hours, Hamas denied responsibility and Islamic Jihad claimed it; shortly afterwards, Hamas changed their mind and claimed responsibility. English translation: They thought they were still on the cease-fire. Once it became clear that that had failed, it was much to their advantage to have been the ones to do it)
Israel decides to open the Temple Mount, including the mosque area, to everyone. (n.b. this is the heart of everything in Jerusalem – and it had a status quo of each religion controlling their own areas there)
Arafat manages to set up a no-confidence vote against Mahmoud Abbas. On the eve of this, Israel gibs some high-level Hamas leaders by blowing up a 7-story apartment building with them in it. No bystander casualties reported, but plenty of dramatic footage and several families left homeless; this pretty much seals the vote against Abbas.
Arafat installs Abu Ala as the new Prime Minister. He starts to form a cabinet, but as of today has stopped this process without explaination. (Subtext: Things have started to heat up to the point where really, Arafat needs to be in direct control again, so he’s not going to do anything to distract from Arafat’s next attempt at media spotlighting. No, the Prime Minister doesn’t actually do anything important; Arafat very carefully rigged it that way.)
Increasing violence of all sorts – several terror strikes, followed by major raids into Gaza, etc.
Today: Call-up of reserves to bolster anti-terror effort in Israel. Sharon calls an emergency cabinet meeting to deal with the matter, and it ends with a decision to “deal with” Arafat – by deportation or by less savory means – but to hold off for now. Point is still unclear.
In sync with this: Iraq is heating up, with several major bombings in the past few weeks, and shooting increasing.
Brief summary: Things are heating up rapidly against a political tinderbox. It may go off relatively quietly, but if a spark catches the resulting fire could spread rapidly over the entire Middle East – and thence around the world. We currently hold the high ground in Iraq – but as woody77 recently pointed out in a completely different context, that’s not where you want to be when a wildfire starts.
This isn’t quite the warning bell for the Apocalypse, but it’s a sign to be paying close attention to world politics in the near future – troubles abroad could make it here much faster than usual.
Well, I guess I might as well be the one to post the obituary notice — Dr. Edward Teller, the father of the Hydrogen Bomb, prominent physicist of several disciplines, general political lunatic, and the model (I can say this now that I know he won’t overhear and come after me with sharp objects for it) for Dr. Strangelove in all too many ways — passed away yesterday at the age of 95 at his home on Stanford campus.
The world just won’t be the same without him. Doctor Teller, for all that you were a madman, you were one of the most interesting madmen I’ve met.
[politics filter]
Last notes before heading out to Seattle. Headlines for today given here, behind a cut tag – these are from Debka, but they’re over quite a few other sources as well. Casualties from the strike in Iraq are currently listed as 95 dead, 140 wounded. (that number from the NY Times)
Get ready, here comes more fun.
First, the politics part:
Latest news, compliments of the New York Times: The Israeli government has decided to open the temple mount to the general public, Jews, Christians and Muslims. (This is a change from the current de facto situation, where the Muslim waqf that runs the mosque basically controls access to the mount itself) Basically, it’s setting the place up as a tinderbox, apparently on the theory that the area doesn’t have enough of them. Both sides starting to act like they usually do in the vicinity of the heart of the old city, namely like frightening madmen; most of you have probably heard me try to explain this before.
(Actually, it’s more likely on the theory that establishing a status quo on the ground counts for everything in Middle Eastern politics, which is actually a pretty accurate theory, although it tends to only be applied to things that are likely to lead to bloodshed)
From a CERT advisory I received today (CA-2003-22, “Multiple vulnerabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer”):
VU#548964 – Microsoft Windows BR549.DLL ActiveX control contains
vulnerabilityThe Microsoft Windows BR549.DLL ActiveX control, which provides
support for the Windows Reporting Tool, contains an unknown
vulnerability. The impact of this vulnerability is not known.
Could someone please explain to me what the hell this sort of report is supposed to mean? I mean, was this vulnerability discovered by consulting the Delphic oracles? Or has CERT decided that, in the present legal climate, they can only inform the world of critical bugs by means of gnomic utterances and vague allusions?
I can just see now where this is heading… two years from now, I’ll be getting this —
VU#xxxxxx – Software is all perfectly fine!
There has been a rumor that a certain piece of software has
a minute imperfection. Please do not listen to this at all, nudge
nudge, wink wink. There is no impact to this at all, and you should
not be in any way worried that it could allow an attacker to execute
arbitrary code on ***** systems with the privileges of the root user.
Have a nice day!
You probably don’t want to read this one. Those of you who prefer to avoid politics almost definitely don’t want to. If there’s anyone who does – it’s about the work of dealing with the aftermath of yesterday’s attack in Jerusalem, and in particular how hospitals and families are coping with the large number of children among the casualties.
Not quite sure why I’m posting this. It’s not exactly a happy-making thing. Just something that’s on my mind a lot this past day.
(Side note, in response to something musae said yesterday: “getting used to it” involves very little numbing of the emotional responses, unless you really want to numb them. Some people do. It’s more about being good at dealing with them and getting on with one’s life and the tasks at hand. I have no idea how social workers and ER doctors handle it. They have my deepest respect.)
Every time, I think I’m going to be used to it, but it still makes me feel so damned angry, and so damned hopeless, and sad, and frustrated, every time.
Are we going to be doing this for the rest of our lives? For the rest of history?
Doesn’t anyone have anything better to do than kill people?
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 