The Lord’s our shepherd, says the psalm, but just in case…
[politics]
And now, for your latest Nerve-Wracking News from the Near East!
<Cut to anchorman in plaid blazer with synthetic grin>
The rumor has started to circulate – (Confirmed by UPI, denied by the governments involved, no clear word yet from other journalistic sources) – that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have concluded a deal by which Pakistan will station nuclear weapons on Saudi territory, offering them an (Islamic) nuclear umbrella to replace the American defense which has been increasingly pulling out of the country since this past summer. The deal is apparently a straight oil for nukes swap. Linked story above has good overall analysis, or see Google News reports for other stories.
In sync with this, Iran has agreed to permit nuclear inspections. While definitely a step in the right direction, there are fairly widespread concerns that this is too little, too late – the program may already be at the point where it is easily concealable. Israel’s chief of military intelligence advised the Knesset today that their program could reach the “point of no return” in bomb development within ten months, even given this inspections regime.
Combine this with heatups in politics [the Palestinian attack on American officials in Gaza a few days ago, various kinds of increased tension in Iraq, new pronunciamentos from bin Laden, the start of winter (and the corresponding drop in temperature to humanly sustainable levels), and even things like Malaysian PM Mahathir‘s and American LGEN Boykin‘s respective bits of brilliant statesmanship], it looks like it’s going to be a hell of a winter…
Strange.
I just spent an hour or so coding to the tune of Rossini’s Stabat Mater Dolorosa. Excellent music, but very clearly liturgical music. Catholic liturgical music, to be precise.
That leaves one in a strange frame of mind.
Your random language thought for the morning:
A slip of the finger could transform an odometer, which measures distance travelled, to an odimeter, which measures the intensity of hatred.
A Google search on “odimeter,” however, only returned a handful of people who misspelled odometer. There are apparently no plans to market such a device, perhaps from lack of consumer interest.
On a completely different, note, the Supreme Court today refused without comment to hear a key case on medical marijuana, letting stand a ruling of the 9th circuit court of appeals that doctors may discuss its use with their patients without fear of reprisal. This was unexpected, as both sides had expected the court to take the case; the decision is likely to be interpreted as agreement by the court that the right of physicians to dispense medical advice supercedes the right of the federal government to make health policy. (Which is how the DEA phrased their case) The fact that nine states have independently passed laws to this effect may have had some impact as well.
OK, back to work for me…
Easily amused…
Reading the Unicode standard for text encoding is surprisingly fascinating. The proposal for the encoding rules for Egyptian Hieroglyphics bring up all the points they’ll need to consider when encoding Mayan Hieroglyphics and various kinds of runes; the proposals for Tengwar and Cirth are just as serious.
OK, I realize this is a strange thing to be doing on a Friday night. But it’s strangely alluring…
Oh, fsck.
[politics filter]
News of a protest in Baghdad. Large numbers of Shi’ites, angered over the deaths of two Iraqis, apparently at the hands of American forces, the day before. (n.b. I have no idea about the actual circumstances of death of these people; I don’t think that’s relevant at this point)
Israeli experience tells me: This sort of protest is a sign of a sudden spike in the anger levels, and a lot of trouble about to happen. Combine with the general increasing friction between Shi’ites and the rest of the Iraqi population, and a possible perception among Shi’ites that Americans aren’t doing enough to safeguard their interests – [whether or not there is such a perception now, such a thing can very easily grow in a very short time, and there are several people with strong incentive to make that happen] – likely portends a sharp escalation in violence in the near future, possibly up to and including major engagements with mobs.
Furthermore, this could be the signal for the start of large-scale trouble between Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds; time will have to tell on that.
Either way, here comes amusement….
A moment ago, after having some remarkably bizarre bit of code explained to me, I walked back to my desk, saying “I am not taking nearly enough drugs to understand this.”
Or at least, I would have said that, but I was interrupted halfway through “understand” by noticing that my screensaver was showing a rendered 3D cow bouncing up and down as on a trampoline, doing interesting flips.
OK, I stand corrected.
Politics to English Dictionary
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.”
Erp.
[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.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 