Friday's Quickie
Apologies over no posts yesterday, I was busy as hell trying to get all the school stuff done as well as pick out components for a new desktop. I'll get to that in a bit. So looks like 2 big issues in the news right now. The first being Hamas and the second being Alito.
Lets start with Alito. Despite attempts by senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy to drum up support for a filibuster, its almost a certainty that Alito's bid for a Supreme Court Justice spot will occur on Tuesday and he will be confirmed. According to ABC News, 52 of 55 Republicans have endorsed Alito and 3 Democrats with 1 more leaning. Five additional senators have said they will not endorse a filibuster. The there is not the 40 votes needed for a filibuster and there is the 50 votes needed for confirmation. Its down now to an open and shut matter with confirmation virtually guaranteed. Now we will see if the gloom and doom of many on the left comes to fruition.
The next major issue, and depending on your point of view much more major, is the issue of Hamas winning and outright majority in the Palestinian elections. I don't have any specific links at the moment but the issue is concerning on many sides. First of all, Hamas is an Islamist organization that has the destruction of Israel in its founding charter. That is concerning on many levels. They have made very subtle hints at possibly negotiating talks but most experts consider this to be just window dressing on the eve of the elections. The fatah movement, the party that lost to Hamas and formerly was in charge of Palestine, has said they will not be a part of the government. Hamas still has the majority, but is losing a large player in politics and experience. Israel has said they will not negotiate with Hamas. The US and the EU have said they will not negotiate with Hamas and could cut off all funding. Hamas itself is unsure what to do because they didn't plan on being elected to a majority but was hoping to be a minority voice with representation, instead they are running the country. My opinion is that Hamas will have too choices, either be much more moderate, or risk isolation and possible destruction by Israel. Time will tell on that one.
Iran is still an issue with an interesting new development. Russia has put forth a plan that will allow Iran to enrich its own uranium, on Russian soil with international monitors. India and China have supported this plan but Iran, after originally being much more warm on the idea, has not said it would accept this. The idea will be presented in the IAEA meeting on Feb 2nd.
As to reports of the Army being stretched, GEN Casey, in charge of the troops in Iraq, has stated that the forces are indeed stretched, but that they are not overstretched. He says that while the Army does not want to keep up this rotation forever, and would have trouble meeting a new large conflict with current deployments, the situation in Iraq is fully tenable.
Google has been accused of highly abetting the Chinese government in censoring what is allowed there. Mostly because its true that google has agreed to censor certain things on its service there. This is totally new for google in that they have touted themselves of never censoring before then. There might be more than just a public backlash as the government is looking to this. They have called google, and other large internet companies like Cisco, to a human rights caucus to discuss this practice. ABC New reports that there is possible legislation in the form of a code of conduct being purported.
I don't know how much I buy into this theory being proported by Mr Sada, but the NY Sun is reporting that he claims that Iraq's WMDs were moved to Syria. At least Sada would be the one to know as he was the #2 man in charge of the Air Force. He claims they were moved out by civilian aircraft. As I said, I would not be surprised in the least if he was lying but its something to consider, since there is no reason for him to lie at this point.
This from Defense Tech, the marine air has been running a large number of missions in Iraq. Marine air gets little attention but this is a shout out to how important and effective there job is, providing close air support is greatly appreciated by grunts on the ground like me.
Lets start with Alito. Despite attempts by senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy to drum up support for a filibuster, its almost a certainty that Alito's bid for a Supreme Court Justice spot will occur on Tuesday and he will be confirmed. According to ABC News, 52 of 55 Republicans have endorsed Alito and 3 Democrats with 1 more leaning. Five additional senators have said they will not endorse a filibuster. The there is not the 40 votes needed for a filibuster and there is the 50 votes needed for confirmation. Its down now to an open and shut matter with confirmation virtually guaranteed. Now we will see if the gloom and doom of many on the left comes to fruition.
The next major issue, and depending on your point of view much more major, is the issue of Hamas winning and outright majority in the Palestinian elections. I don't have any specific links at the moment but the issue is concerning on many sides. First of all, Hamas is an Islamist organization that has the destruction of Israel in its founding charter. That is concerning on many levels. They have made very subtle hints at possibly negotiating talks but most experts consider this to be just window dressing on the eve of the elections. The fatah movement, the party that lost to Hamas and formerly was in charge of Palestine, has said they will not be a part of the government. Hamas still has the majority, but is losing a large player in politics and experience. Israel has said they will not negotiate with Hamas. The US and the EU have said they will not negotiate with Hamas and could cut off all funding. Hamas itself is unsure what to do because they didn't plan on being elected to a majority but was hoping to be a minority voice with representation, instead they are running the country. My opinion is that Hamas will have too choices, either be much more moderate, or risk isolation and possible destruction by Israel. Time will tell on that one.
Iran is still an issue with an interesting new development. Russia has put forth a plan that will allow Iran to enrich its own uranium, on Russian soil with international monitors. India and China have supported this plan but Iran, after originally being much more warm on the idea, has not said it would accept this. The idea will be presented in the IAEA meeting on Feb 2nd.
As to reports of the Army being stretched, GEN Casey, in charge of the troops in Iraq, has stated that the forces are indeed stretched, but that they are not overstretched. He says that while the Army does not want to keep up this rotation forever, and would have trouble meeting a new large conflict with current deployments, the situation in Iraq is fully tenable.
Google has been accused of highly abetting the Chinese government in censoring what is allowed there. Mostly because its true that google has agreed to censor certain things on its service there. This is totally new for google in that they have touted themselves of never censoring before then. There might be more than just a public backlash as the government is looking to this. They have called google, and other large internet companies like Cisco, to a human rights caucus to discuss this practice. ABC New reports that there is possible legislation in the form of a code of conduct being purported.
I don't know how much I buy into this theory being proported by Mr Sada, but the NY Sun is reporting that he claims that Iraq's WMDs were moved to Syria. At least Sada would be the one to know as he was the #2 man in charge of the Air Force. He claims they were moved out by civilian aircraft. As I said, I would not be surprised in the least if he was lying but its something to consider, since there is no reason for him to lie at this point.
This from Defense Tech, the marine air has been running a large number of missions in Iraq. Marine air gets little attention but this is a shout out to how important and effective there job is, providing close air support is greatly appreciated by grunts on the ground like me.
posted by Maddawg at 1/27/2006 12:06:00 PM
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