"Son, never underestimate a woman's desire to make herself feel miserable!"

My Dad! 

Akbar who? Iranian dissident wrongfully impirsoned for 9 years ? Died in prison after a 9 day hungerstrike you say? Who cares? Don't you know that there is a war going on?

That didn't take long!

The Israeli air force carried out strikes Monday in southern Lebanon
despite an agreement to halt raids for 48 hours after nearly 60
Lebanese civilians were killed in an Israeli bombing, the army said.

The airstrikes near the village of Taibe were meant to protect
ground forces operating in the area and were not targeting anyone or
anything specific, the army said.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah guerrillas attacked an Israeli tank in southern
Lebanon, wounding three soldiers, the military said. The attack
occurred near the villages of Kila and Taibe on border, where Israeli
ground forces have been fighting Hezbollah guerrillas for nearly two
weeks.

Fantastic.

In other great news:

But Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz made clear in a speech to
parliament that Israel would not agree to an immediate cease-fire and
had plans to expand its operation in Lebanon.

"It's forbidden to agree to an immediate cease-fire," Peretz told
parliament, as several Arab legislators heckled him and demanded an
immediate halt to the offensive. "Israel will expand and strengthen its
activities against the Hezbollah."

This is not going to end soon is it?

You know what this is like to watch? It's like watching a fight between two men. One of them stabs the other with a knife, so the other slaps him on the face really hard, so the first one stabs him with a knife again and the other retaliates with another slap and so on and so forth. Both are waiting for the other to say Uncle, and neither are willing to do it first. This is a war with no winners, and it has regressed into an exercise of stubborn stupidity. Too bad it's of the fatal kind!

This conflict is soo stupid! 

I can't verify this to be either true or authenthic, or if it really proves anything. If anything, this will look like damening proof to Israel supporters, and like bullshit to Hezbollah supporters, so it is kinda pointless. But anyway, watch it and make up your own mind! (H/T Rampurple )

"I wish I could quit you!"

CAN'T…STOP….LAUGHING!

French Foreign Minister Philippe
Douste-Blazy held a press conference in Beirut, in which he said that
Iran was "a stabilizing element in the Middle East."

According to the French minister, "Iran is an outstanding country
with great people and a honorable civilization. It has a crucial role
in the region." (Reuters)

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe 

This is necessary at this point. Too bad it's temporary!

This has been a long time coming:

Given to the redicilous number of complaints that I get over the behaviour of some people in my comments section, I find myself forced to do something I really really hate and take the following position:

ANY ONE OF YOU WHO PEROSNALLY INSULTS/THREATHENS SOMEONE OR LEAVES RACIST COMMENTS OF ANY KIND WILL HAVE HIS COMMENT DELETED. THERE IS ONLY ONE PERSON WHO IS ALLOWED TO INSULT PEOPLE ON THIS BLOG AND IT'S ME, IN MY POSTS, AND THAT'S IT.  I DON'T CARE WHO STARTED IT, OR IF THEY REALLY WERE IDIOTS/ASSHATS/SANDNIGGERS/ZIONISTPIGS/WHATEVER. THE COMMENT WILL GET DELETD! I AM ALL FOR FREE-SPEECH, BUT ENOUGH IS FUCKIN ENOUGH. CAPICE?

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR……….. 

That will be all! 

Roba is right, you know?

sigh… 

Death to America!

Here are Hezbollah's views on the war, and they are not exactly surprising.

What's really at stake:

For Ali and his comrades, the latest conflict is a war of survival
not only for Hizbullah but for the whole Shia community. It is not only
as a war with Israel, their enemy for decades, but also with the Sunni
community. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt have all expressed fears of
Iranian domination over the Middle East.

"If Israel comes out
victorious from this conflict, this will be a victory for the Sunnis
and they will take the Shia community back in history dozens of years
to the time when we were only allowed to work as garbage collectors in
this country. The Shia will all die before letting this happen again."

On winning the war:

 Despite Israel's claims to have inflicted heavy losses on Hizbullah,
Ali insists his side is in a strong position. "Things are going very
well now, whatever happens we are winning. If they keep bombing us we
will stay in the shelters, and with each bomb more people support the
resistance. If they invade they will repeat the miserable fate they had
in 1982, and if they hold one square foot they will give the Islamic
resistance all the legitimacy. If they want to kill Hizbullah they have
to kill every Shia in the south of Lebanon."

The only time they lose, is when there is peace!

And on what happens after the war is over:

And even when the battle with the Israelis is over, he adds menacingly,
Hizbullah will have other battles to fight. "The real battle is after
the end of this war. We will have to settle score with the Lebanese
politicians. We also have the best security and intelligence apparatus
in this country, and we can reach any of those people who are speaking
against us now. Let's finish with the Israelis and then we will settle
scores later."

Glad we cleared this up. And don't forget, this is about Israel, and not about controlling Lebanon! 

When mindbleed is genius:

You watch TV and you can’t help but wonder: what will it take for
this shit to stop? Diplomacy has taken a seat, and there are
conflicting reports on why Israel is shelling places like Qana and
killing 55 in the process. Most of the dead are children and women, and
Al-Jazeera is taking full advantage of this, replaying a clip of some
Red Cross workers pulling out a body of a 4 year old girl from the
rubble.

The mood amongst the Lebanese is changing. Everyone - Shiaa, Sunni
and Christian - seems to be willing to rally behind Nassrallah, if only
to counterbalance the ridiculous death toll on the Lebanese side.
Whether or not Hezb’ollah is actually stationing it’s missile batteries
need civilian buildings seems irrelevant - it’s about 600 dead, 800,000
displaced and 3000 injured. The numbers are pathetically out of
proportion compared to their counterparts on the Israeli side.

This is an unequal war. We’ve lost. As Arabs, we’ve lost. As Muslims,
we’ve lost. I don’t know why people refuse to accept this. When
children are being killed, it’s our responsibility to put an end to it,
even if it means raising the white flag and declaring defeat. Before
long, there won’t be anyone left to surrender. The ruthelessness of
Israel, the hypocrisy of the US and the neutered UN won’t save us. Why
can’t we just come to terms with the fact that we can’t win this war,
and that no matter how brutal Israel is, it doesn’t change the fact
that no one has the balls or the means to end this shit?

The Arab ’street’ keeps talking about pride. Where is the pride in
having our children shelled to death? Where is the pride in having an
entire country regressed a good 20 years? Where is the pride in
watching a nation that was once united, precariously mind you, now fall
into the gripes of another civil war? Where is the pride in any of
that? And we’re willing to tolerate all of this for what exactly? For a
couple of Lebanese prisoners, or to fool ourselves into thinking that
we’ve slapped Israel’s face?

What he said!

I just received word that things in Lebanon are, getting, ehh, a little secterian. There was stories of Shia refugees in a druze beighbourhood that tore up Walid Jumbalatt's pictures and posters that were hanging on the walls. There was another story of a Christian supermarkets refusing to sell groceries to Shia refugees, saying that they are saving it for the christians. I recalled a post that I read at Mustapha's blog the nother day, where the Shia refugees booed and heckled the FPM sunni youth while it was bringing them food and supplies, and I started to get slightly alarmed.

The Lebanese are currently united behind Hezbollah because they want the israeli shelling to stop, and the only people who are doing something about it are Hezbollah. But the moment ba cease fire takes place this could all change. I am more afraid of lebanse civil war than I am of what is going on right now, and I think many lebanese people would share my view. The Lebanese fabric maybe united right now, but it's secterian. And while I said that any civil war would be won by the Shia at this point, it doesn't mean it would be a pleasant victory, or that it would stop the other lebanese sects from fighting it. All it would take, for it all to go to hell, is for someone to do something stupid, someone else to retaliate, and mob rule will take over.

However, since I didn't want to be the lil monkey who cried civil war, I figured I would cruise around the lebanese blogs to see if the stories I've heard were isoalted incidents, or if there is a larger pattern taking shape here. I basically wanted them to comfort me that what's happening right now is the worst that Lebanon will have to endure. After reading a couple of them, such comfort now seems lacking. Here are a few examples:

This is a picture posted on Michael Totten's blog. It's of a christian mob attacking a car the other day for having a Support Hezbollah sticker on it.

There are the reports of Hezbollah firing their rockets from the Ain Ebel Village, which is christian, against its people's will:

But for some of the Christians who had made it out in this convoy,
it was not just privations they wanted to talk about, but their ordeal
at the hands of Hezbollah
— a contrast to the Shiites, who make up a vast majority of the
population in southern Lebanon and broadly support the militia.

“Hezbollah
came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,” said Fayad Hanna Amar, a young
Christian man, referring to his village. “They are shooting from
between our houses.”

And from behind churches as well, it seems:

Hezbollah has been firing rockets from the village since Day 1 hiding
behind innocent people’s places and even CHURCHES. No one is allowed to
argue with the Hezbollah gunmen who wont hesitate to shoot you and i ve
heard about more than one shooting incident including young men from
the village and Hezbollah.

The Hezbollah forces didn't hesitate at shooting such a man who didn't obey them:

One woman, who would not give her name because she had a government
job and feared retribution, said Hezbollah fighters had killed a man
who was trying to leave Bint Jbail.

“This is what’s happening, but no one wants to say it” for fear of Hezbollah, she said.

And then you have the similar stories about the druze village of Mari and their desperate battle to keep Hezbollah out:

Not all villages in southern Lebanon are Shiite. Just above the
abandoned SLA base at the old Majidiyya estate on the Lebanon-Israel
border sits a small, quiet Druse village called Mari. You will not find
Mari on any maps, but at the beginning of the current conflict Mari
found itself caught between the Israeli Air Force, which apparently
wanted to avoid bombing the village directly, and Hizbullah, which
wanted to enter the town at all costs. You see, Mari's location would
provide the militia an excellent overview of the Israeli city of Kiryat
Shmona (and the settlement of Metulla, which is closer but much
smaller), and finding a way to operate there would give Hizbullah
increased civilian cover for their Katyusha rocket fire.

Residents
who have recently escaped from Mari tell of a dramatic, desperate
situation in the village. The Druse residents, who have no affinity at
all for Hizbullah, resisted Hizbullah's attempts to enter the village.
The IAF apparently and unwittingly assisted in their resistance by
bombing the roads leading into the village, cutting off the militia's
ability to enter the town, at least temporarily. Hizbullah responded by
cutting off the town's electricity and water supply, essentially laying
seige to a town on its own side of the border, hoping that its
residents would pack up and leave. Many of them have done so. My
sources say that Hizbullah has been desperate to enter the village but
has as of yet been unable to do so in large numbers. Residents also
describe a growing humanitarian crisis in the village due to the lack
of fresh water.

[...]

In the interests of clarity, let me reiterate what I have already said:
Hizbullah attempted to enter Mari not to defend it from attackers, but
so they could fire rockets from the village toward Israel. Hizbullah's
intention was to bring Israeli reprisals on the town, ostensibly to
destroy or damage it significantly, and to cause greater civilian
suffering. Hizbullah's MO and tactics are well-known in the south.
However, Druse typically defend their own villages, and in the case of
Mari (a place I have been to several times, many of whose residents I
know personally), the residents have desperately tried to keep
Hizbullah fighters out of their area.

And let's not forget the personal account with an old christian militant and war criminal, who are, apprently, is confirming that "the Youth" readying up for what they consider to be the upcoming war: 

So today, I visited Tony and asked him if he was getting ready to fight
against the Hezbollah. He said that he was getting too old (he is in
his early 40s), and that the 18-year olds were mobilizing, but that
they don't have machine guns now. I asked him if they would receive
weapons from Israel. He said, "No, Israel is the enemy. Before it was
different. Israel doesn't care about any of the Lebanese." He
prophesized that a civil war will break out a month or two after the
Israeli bombing stops, and that Christians, Sunnis and Druze will fight
the "fucker Shia", with arms from the US and France.

If this goes down the only way it could, ehh…I shudder at the thought!

You know, I am not the praying kind, but I might start praying for Lebanon right about now. I think you should too.

No words, no words can describe how I feel at the moment! 

According to the Somalian PM, we, alongside Libya and Iran (Iran? IRAN????) are helping the islamic militants against his government. No wonder we are not getting involved in Lebanon.

One war at a time people. One war at a time! 

Gotta admire the Iranian government. That's a government that tackeles important issues!

Take it from the UN themselves:

 There were two direct impacts on UNIFIL positions from the Israeli side in the
past 24 hours. Eight artillery and mortar rounds impacted inside an Indian
battalion position in the area of Hula, causing extensive material damage,
but no casualties. One artillery round impacted the parameter wall of the
UNIFIL Headquarters in Naqoura. There were five other incidents of firing
close to UN positions from the Israeli side. It was also reported that
Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of five UN positions at Alma Ash Shab, At
Tiri, Bayt Yahoun, Brashit, and Tibnin.

All UNIFIL positions in the area of operation remain permanently occupied
and maintained by the troops. UNIFIL dispatched three logistic convoys to resupply
some positions yesterday. Additional convoys are planned for today,
particularly to the forward positions in the eastern and central sectors which
are facing critical shortages of basic supplies. The number of troops in some
Ghanaian battalion positions is somewhat reduced because of the increased
safety risk for the troops due to frequent incidents of Hezbollah firing from
the vicinity of the positions, and shelling and bombardment close to the
positions from the Israeli side.

Hmm…. 

Q: What unites god-fearing islamist Ahmeddinjad with non-god-fearing socialist Chavez?

A: They both fear the great Satan! 

The Happiest people on earth, it seems.

Anybody knows Egypt's ranking?