A surprise????

I am surprised at how many analysts, and news casters and such are shocked that Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya is using force to resist an attempt to remove him from power. Have these people not looked at his history? Gaddafi has ALWAYS been an agent to chaos and destruction. Even as he was was pushing "Pan Africanism" he was funding revolutions in many African countries. He has sent hit squads out to kill dissidents around the world. He has seemingly never found a terrorist group that he wouldn't fund, with the exception of Al-Queda which hates him and he them.

The only surprising thing to me about his use of force against the insurgents in his country is his relative ineffectiveness.

But if you want to see REAL repression, wait and see what happens when/if this revolutionary movement hits Syria.

I wonder

The other day I had a (wrong number) voice message left on my cell phone. It started off,"Hey, my nigger! Give me a shout!...."
Now I just wonder how long I could get away with shouting that before I was assaulted for using hate speech?

On a different topic, I really wonder about the lines of power and how they are shifting in the government of Bahrain. I mean look, protests start and there is a crack down. Then the crackdown stops and the king apologizes, and says there will be peaceful settlement of issues. Then there is a crackdown again, then there is a pull back again. I get the idea that there are some seriously divergent opinions on how to handle this situation. It is the kind of thing where governments could change suddenly and not in "democratic" way.

I seriously expect a LOT of chaos in the mid east for awhile. Popular rule while theoretically a "good thing" can lead to serious issues. Witness Hamas on the Gaza strip. There is a real potential for governments coming into power that will roll back peace treaties with Israel. Which of course could lead to a much greater chance for new wars in the area.
Which would be a real serious issue becasue Israel has been living off the reputation it's army earned in the 60s and 70s. I seriously doubt they have the same skill/mind set now. The latest two endeavors have shown they are far from the unstoppable force legend makes them. Added to that is the fact that Egypt at least is now armed with top of the line US equipment and trained to use it. A war between Egypt and Israel now would be.... Interesting. In the sense of that old Chinese curse.

Interesting to me at least

Strange little fact about this blog. of the almost 400 posts I have made here the one that get's the most hits off Google regularly is one I made in Sept 2005 about a song that I remembered singing with my family while traveling. A song about a man who grew an apple tree and then died in it.

The original post is Here.

Of equal interest is the second most hit post which is my review and commentary on the movie V for Vendetta.

Not the posts I would have thought would be tops but hey, anything that works.