New Motto...

Europe swelters as heat wave continues - Yahoo! News

"It's amazing how quickly we've got used to it. We seem to think we're Mediterranean now," said Brendan O'Connor, a newspaper and TV satirist. "There's even a danger that we'll start drinking sensibly."

and

Since no one in Ireland uses sunblock, no matter what the weather, O'Connor said, "There are big tomato heads everywhere. And everybody is saying to each other, 'Were you away?'"

The crazy Irish... The day they start drinking sensibly, there will be peace in the middle east!

Show me the money!...

To all the people who read this blog and think it is only a small border skirmish between Hizbollah and Israel. I ask you to follow the money. I have found that if you follow the money, you can learn a lot more than from what is said. It shows action and is not something that can be taken back easily. When a country spends millions (or billions), they normally have a reason.

To back up the claim that it is not a border issue, I bring to your attention the actions of Saudi Arabia in the past two weeks. Tanks, Personnel Carriers and ground troops equipment, Helicopters, Artillery, more Helos, Ship protection, and Patriot missiles. The last two were early July, so it wasn't all in the last two weeks. I'll sum the other ones without the Patriots and Phalanx.

It comes to... drumroll... $15.378 Billion... lemme say that again. BILLION. I find it very interesting that Saudi Arabia decides in the recent weeks to finalize that many deals for new military equipment. I know that just recently a defense cooperation agreement was signed with France, but you must question why it was signed on July 21st.

The GDP of Saudi Arabia was 340.5 Billion dollars in 2005. As a percentage of GDP, Saudi Arabia in the past two weeks was contemplating spending 4.52 % of its GDP. That is a LARGE amount. I am assuming that these contracts are not going to be paid in one year, but it is still significant.

Trouble is brewing, and many people want to be ready for it. Including the Saudis.

You guys got any suggestions on what other nation's spending I should look into next? I wouldn't mind doing most of the countries in the middle east, since the Hizbollah thing started.

One caveat. I do not show/ haven't researched previous year spending in Saudi Arabia defense, nor know if they need to upgrade everything. It was something that I noticed as I kept seeing more and more defense procurement from them recently.

UPDATE: I was in the shower, and the thought came to me. What does all of that defense procurement have in common? I see the common thread of a ground-based fight. Helicopters are used to support ground troops. Tanks and LAV's -> Ground troops. Artillery -> Ground troops. Ships... well, ships don't fit. But its also a very small portion of the spending.

My new motto

PhD !


Debt Free!

Can you believe this?

So it finally comes out. Hizbollah is a master at wtf pwn-ing the western media. They stage media events to make us feel sympathy. Don't fall for it. Hiding behind civilians is not courageous. Hiding behind civilians that don't support your cause is even worse. I have heard reports of Hizbollah not allowing people to leave Bint Jbeil, wtf is that. I recognize that both sides play the propaganda war, but I am wondered why I didn't see scores of Israeli civilians in the news. All I heard about was dead Israeli soldiers.

You want to know why? ........    The Israeli government promoted bomb shelters and has air raid sirens to warn it's citizens. Hizbollah? ... they would have a siren to tell people to run out into the street, luckily they haven't thought of that yet. 

CNN.com - Transcripts

This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah media event. When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. We were allowed a few minutes to talk to the ambulance drivers. Then one by one, they've been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians. That's the story -- that's the story that Hezbollah wants people to know about. (Voice-over): These ambulances aren't responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect. When a man in a nearby building is prompted to play Hezbollah resistance songs on his stereo, we decide it's time to go. Hezbollah may not be terribly subtle about spinning a story, but it is telling perhaps that they try. Even after all this bombing, Hezbollah is still organized enough to have a public relations strategy, still in control enough to try and get its message out.

Bean Plants update #2

My mom bought me a pepper plant a few days ago, and I planted it into the pot that used to hold the beans on Tuesday. The pepper plant has one pepper (of the bell pepper variety). I was checking on the crushed bean plants between tues-wed and I found out that some were flowering. On wed, I found out that some had BEANS.

So, today, I cleared out all of the weeds in the back plot, moved 4 bricks around them. I watered them, and wanted to thin the plants so everyone got the sun that they needed. The crushed plants grew toward more sun, and ended up along the ground until they could get around the washing machine. So I moved the washing machine. I found sticks and used some hemp to make the bean plants more vertical. They are really good at listening to changes in direction. Four bean plants remain there, and I converted them from "crushed and running along the ground" to "proud and standing tall". I also watered them, and might re-water when it gets cooler today. We were supposed to get rain, but we haven't.

The worst off bean plant that I removed from that plot I planted into the ground near the pepper pot. It will remain horizontal. I took off the kink in the stem, and basically planted the stem. In the other plants, I noticed that when bent and close to the ground, they grew roots, so I am experimenting. This is in the "flowerbed" plot, and it is shitty soil.

The other two bean plants that I wanted to transplant I added to the pepper plant pot. This was the pot with potting soil and purchased at ace hardware. I added them, and used sticks to try and make them grow how I wanted. I used hemp to tie them to the sticks. I hope that one of those survive, it had the most flowers out of all of them. It also has one green bean on it.

Hopefully, the plants can begin to make fruit for my labors, and stop spending all of their energy on fighting the stress of being crushed and fighting against those vines. They need to be spending the energy making babies for me to eat. And dry for storage and planting next year.

I know, this post needs pics. If you are so inclined, donate to the "Joe Camera Fund" by using this link:

If you are not as inclined to donate, yell at me to buy a disposable digital camera and convert it into one I can get the photos off.

I will make all of my readers a green bean casserole if the plants are successful.

Snakes on a Plane... remake?

Funny fan film, might even be advertising.. Fun to watch though.

CollegeHumor Movie: Did you Snakes on a Plane was a remake? Here's the original unreleased version from 1920, "Snakes on a Flying Machine"

The usual

So evidently, they were banking on "the usual, limited response". I hope you see what is wrong with this. The status quo should not be "we get to pester you when we want, and you get to take it and then barely strike back". What happens when they get stronger? What happens when they can up the ante past what Israel is willing to do?
 

Hezbollah says Israeli response a surprise - Yahoo! News

The truth is — let me say this clearly — we didn't even expect (this) response ... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said Komati. He said Hezbollah had expected "the usual, limited response" from Israel. In the past, he said, Israeli responses to Hezbollah actions included sending commandos into Lebanon, seizing Hezbollah officials and briefly targeting specific Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon. Komati said his group had anticipated negotiations to swap the Israeli soldiers for three Lebanese held in Israeli jails, with Germany acting as a mediator as it has in past prisoner exchanges. He said Hezbollah captured the Israeli soldiers from a military area, but charged that Israelis had taken Hezbollah leaders from their homes at night.

Hizbollah is like a colony of cockroaches in your house. Do you have
cease fires with cockroaches? Do you just say, hey, take over my house,
I love you creeping me out. When you see a cockroach, do you just kill
the cockroach? I don't. I kill that cockroach, and then I try and kill
any that attempt to use the same entrance to my home (using poison).
After that, if I saw any more cockroaches I would "fortify" my
parameter with poison and spray that nerve toxin stuff on probable
places that they live and travel across. I would get those roach motels
so that the cockroaches would bring poison back to their homes, and
they all would die. My goal is to exterminate them.



The goal against Hizbollah should be extermination. Not negotiation.

 Negotiation leads to infestation. An infestation of Hizbollah leads to your own extermination.

And so it ends...

It is with great sadness that I write the next sentence. My parents computer will have to run Windows. I am going to try and find a windows 2000 cd and install that. They will be overrun with spyware, and I will routinely be tasked to clean it out. I will be yelled at for it being slow, for microsoft products crashing, and other such annoyances. In a few years time, when the hardware is still good for what they need the computer for, they will be forced to upgrade to a newer windows and buy new hardware. ALL THEY DO IS WEB BASED EMAIL AND WORD PROCESSING! They don't need a GPU, they don't need multiple cores/processors.

My parents will need to buy new versions of office, so they continue to send documents to other people. Their old files will no longer load in these new products, so they will lose their old files. And they will pay for this service. They will be forced to have extremely buggy software that will have bugs that microsoft knows about, but will not fix. But no, they can't fix the bugs themselves.

People have been wondering why other operating systems haven't caught on. The reason is VERY simple. The people have applications that have not been ported to the alternate operating systems that they NEED. For example, my Mom's work needs to have internet explorer, with activeX and java. The microsoft version of all of that. It is a web based application that does not follow any standards, except only running on internet explorer. It actually codes for internet explorer specific things. It is the SOLE reason that I have to install windows on their computer. I would install windows XP, but it would cost more for the operating system and office than the hardware that it runs on.

Blah. I HATE fixing other people's computers. And my parents computer the most. I do not have many problems on my own windows box, but that is because I watch it like a hawk. I don't run random things. I don't get stupid emails from my friends with virus infected attachments (thats my mom's friends). I use a browser that removes alot of problems (firefox).

Firefox is not perfect. But it most definately fits what I want the most. When it has a flaw, it gets fixed. I don't have to wait for business's to tell microsoft it is ok. With windows, they don't let you upgrade stuff, if you do, you have to tell them. Switching a harddrive? yeah right, then some of your programs can not be updated, or other weird problems arrise.

Drivers is another big issue. I have had NO problems with Ubuntu in this regard. The printer, scanner, and camera all worked out of the box. The video card, and other components within the case all worked out of the box. It had applications, out of the box. Now, with windows. I gota find drivers, for the camera. For the printer. For the scanner. I have to uninstall the stupid extra programs that those drivers install. I have to do that in a way that they do not stop the driver from working. I have to stop my mom from installing anything without asking me. So i can uncheck the "install spyware" box. Sony would develop a rootkit again. who knows?

I have my windows box because I need it for work. I am trying to ween myself off of it. I "need" it for games, but I would give them up. Wine supposely works for the majors ones, and that would be good enough for me.

And it was so great. Linux. and my parents using it. and everything worked. My dad liked it alot. It runs his old windows 3.11 programs perfectly (games). I converted his old files. It works for all of his internet needs.

FUCK gamls. They run their site from a linux box. Why can't I access their site from a linux box? Good enough for them, not for me?

*end non-coherant rant*

P.S. please tell me of any spelling errors, I was not writing this on my home computer with the firefox spellcheck plugin...

Check out those boots

Ha, look at those boots. I definately like the outfit. So she ended up talking, and both sides agreed that they weren't going to agree. From inital reports it looks like Lebanon wants to deal with Hizbollah as an internal problem.

To the Lebanese government:
WTF have you been doing since 2000? From your track record, no one should trust you when you say that you will do that. The Lebanese government has publically declared that they can not take Hizbollah on directly, and how do you expect to be able to if a crease-fire occurs? You might as well be secretly cheering for Israel to remove the cause of you losing your way of life in the past few weeks.

As you can see, I took the pic from http://airbornecombatengineer.typepad.com/,Take your time, Condi.

Neat squirrel pic

http://www.ericsiegmund.com/fireant/archivesmt/002972.html

Ha, it must be hot....

How to beat us.

There has been more and more people lately talking about the lose-lose situation that democracies are in at the moment against terrorism. Either we attack terrorists hiding in civilian populations (and therefore kill civilians) or we don't attack the terrorists and allow our own civilians to die. Western nations need to stop taking the smack from countries like North Korea and Iran, and terrorist organizations such as Hizbollah or Al Qieda (who cares how you spell it). We need to figure out a new paradigm of warfare/ rules for dealing with non-state actors.

The American Thinker

In World War II there was no talk of a “cease-fire” with Japan, or of a “buffer zone” between Japan and China. No one thought it made sense to merely “disarm” or “degrade” the Wehrmacht, or to just push Hitler back into Germany where his National Socialist party could continue to dominate the Reichstag. And no one who suggested that the fire-bombing of Dresden, or the D-Day invasion, were a “disproportionate response” to Hitler’s invasion of Poland was taken seriously.

Ha, I just realized that I have been talking about this alot.

I am struck by the difference in reactions to civilian deaths in the Israeli-Hizbollah conflict. There has been MANY cries for humanitarian aid for displaced peoples in Lebanon, but I haven't heard one for Israelis. It is like there are no missiles coming down specifically to target civilians in Israel. At least the missiles going to Lebanon are an attempt to kill military targets (and not packed with ball bearings).

I need to implement the blog paradigm of having a short summary/introduction and a "more after the fold" link to expand it.

I lasted 33 seconds...

How long can you last?

4Games: Game Guru runner up Sneeek

Sowell isn't so bad, and he has a good point.

"Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of
Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in
the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed
Germany."

Thomas Sowell

Civilians die in conflicts. More civilians die when they are directly targeted (ie: any extremist islamists) than when not directly targeted (ie: United States military with JDAMs). Groups that start conflicts and do not get along with anyone do not fit into the current infrastructure of the world. They need to be eliminated. They need to have no protections that are given to nations.

Read this plese

See, this is something that people are not getting yet. We are not fighting a war as they used to be fought. The enemy is using our own tools against us.

GraniteGrok: The changing nature of war, or is the West only just starting to catch up?

Ha, Score!

So uh, yeah, the polecat was to show off composites making ability...

New Scientist Tech - Breaking News - A plane you can print

Rapid prototyping is something that I have been interested in for a while. That they can make some parts for a flying plane out of it is a big accomplishment.

Quote of the Friday

Good ole Churchill, I was talking to Kerr about him today.

Live from an Israeli bunker

"One ought never to turn ones back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half." -Churchill

New "Secret" Drone...

Defense Tech: High-Flying, Secret Drone Unveiled

So Lockheed Martin has an internally funded "high flying secret drone". It is mostly made from composites, with a thrust to weight of ~0.66. The payload fraction is ~11% of the GTOW. It is tailless, has "new" aerodynamics (new airfoil shape with laminar flow), and has all the automation needed. ~90ft wingspan. I haven't gotten the Aviation Weekly that talks about it yet, I'll add some stuff there.

From how it was introduced, and my estimations of the capability, the aircraft was not designed to be secret at all. The only secret in it was corporate secrecy. Lockheed martin needed to prove that they had the capability to manufacture and integrate large composite pieces like Boeing. They were using a low temperature process (only like 150 degress F vs 350 degrees F with an autoclave) that really hasn't been flight tested. The autonomous nature of the airplane would have been a secondary goal. It was weird that Lockheed did not have an airplane like the x-45A (Boeing) and x-47A (Northrop Grumman). Lockheed Martin did win both of the next generation fighter contracts. The autonomous features were proven in the Darkstar as early as 1996. The Darkstar was supposedly terminated in 1999, but rumors abound about its use in 2003 during the begining of the war in Iraq. The Polecat seems to be made to show off composites ability and that Lockheed has not lost the ability to rapidly (18 months) design and build unique aircraft.

One really neat thing about this airplane is that they have been hinting that it can fly over 60 kft, and will use contrail suppressing ideas. Jane's seems to think that you don't get contrails that high anyway so just flying high is enough. I don't know anything about contrails, other than how they are made. So, basically, it could fly high enough that you cant hear/see it, you can't detect it visually from the contrails, and it is low observable to radar. I wonder if you can see the temperature difference from the exhaust, using an IR sensor of some sort? It would have to be high res or have a really neat zoom, as an aircraft at that altitude wouldn't be much more than a few pixels with a commercial camera.

This picture shows the rear end of the aircraft, you can tell it is a development airplane because of the huge ass pitot tube sticking out of the front. The two engines each have their own exhaust, and it looks like the wing has some sort of sweep, starting about 4-5 engine nozzle diameters from the edges of the engine nozzles. There is some suggestion in the artifacts of jpeg compression that the engine nozzles are circular, and not half circles as you initially expect. The "shadow" in the right engine nozzle sort of "jumps" right at the edge of the nozzle.  You can see a control surface on the right wing. I am going to attempt to get estimates on trailing edge sweep and length of the control surface (the inner one, it probably has another one more outboard).

It supposedly has a 4 hour loiter, with the only fuel tank being in the center portion. Some thoughts have been floating around about putting fuel in the wings for more endurance. I am guessing that they were structurally designed to handle fuel loads in the wings.

Upon further analysis, I think that the back end of the aircraft is not straight as I originally thought. I really wish I had that software that I was using at Dryden for 2D images to 3D models. I could generate a top down view of the rear end of this aircraft right now, based on this one image. The front I am guessing is half of a circle, sort of like the Darkstar. It does not have to be, as it is hidden by the "belly".

Ok, resolved. I am going to try and get the wing "kink" angle and distances. I am going to assume that the edges of the wings are coplaner, and that everything is symmetric. (not bad assumptions) There are not too many points to look at, I am going to compute distances, constrain everything to one plane and enforce some symmetric constraints. I hope it is possible.

Any one want to travel to Australia?

Ha, I should find some cheap wine at Kroger. And become a wino.

Glut makes Australian wine cheaper than water - Yahoo! News

Neat t-shirt

Ha, check it out. I have been thinking about buying a shirt from Threadless, some of them are very good. Maybe I'll take the plunge.

Threadless T-Shirts - Cowboys and Indians by Glenn Jones

Someone make some wine...

Anyone want to make some with me on wed?

How to brew cheap wine · LeftOfMe.com

Anti-social

Feeling slightly anti-social, don't know why.

This is the problem with the world.

Girl was beat up in bus for having good grades

This is a common occurrence, and I think more common in "ghetto" areas. I attribute the difference in grades/test scores between different schools/socioeconomic groups to hatred for success and on a much smaller scale, teachers. A good teacher does wonders for kids, but often the teacher can not teach due to the kids trying to keep smart kids down. My mom taught at Riverdale High, a school in Clayton county. She often ran into kids that were really smart, but they could not show it because they would get beat up, picked on, or lose all of their friends.  I was lucky to have a school when I was growing up (SAIS-R) that encouraged kids to learn and we ended up competing to be better, and not competing to equalize. We had some problems with kids getting jealous, but they were mostly minor. At Eagles Landing you had to mostly hide that you were smart, but in the honor's class circles it wasn't that bad.

Genesis I

Well, Bigelow did it. He has a sub-scale prototype of an inflatable hotel in orbit. It seems to be keeping shape, and all power stuff works correctly. He bought the engineering from a NASA project (Transhab) on an inflatable habitat/lab. He sent up some insects for good measure. I hope that micro meteorites don't destroy it, but it looks like the shell might even be a bit stronger? Or at least more able to take hits because it is elastic. (Not sure it matters when the object is going that fast) I am waiting for the high res shot of the Genesis-I.

Bigelow Aerospace

Redirecting

Ok, so I haven't had much content lately. I have been busy. This guy is a good read.

Rantings of a Sandmonkey » Surprised?

Maybe later I'll do something other than link other good content.

Interesting paragraph.

The problem with Israel fighting Hizbollah is that it is a non state actor. Can a country have a war with a political party in another country without being at war with the host country? If the host country is not strong enough to control non state actors within its borders, can other countries control the non state actors?


Whiskey Bar: Punching Above Its Weight

In that sense, Hezbollah may have found the sweet spot in Fourth Generation War: It isn't a state and doesn't carry the political or defensive burdens of one, but it controls enough territory, commands enough popular loyalty and has enough allies to mount some fairly sophisticated military operations, using both conventional and nonconventional weapons. It's powerful enough to be successful -- and be seen as successful -- but not so powerful that state actors like Israel can fight it on equal terms. We may be looking at the New Model Army of the 21st century.

Star Trek Quote

"We've made too many compromises already; too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! And *I* will make them pay for what they've done."

Tears

http://lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com/2006/07/enough.html

Yeah, that sucks. It sucks when people have to live in fear. I shed tears for the Lebanese and Israelis tonight. I hope that they keep their hopes up while cooped in bomb shelters, and that things do not get worse.

Gah.

I am lucky I moved, our company's people moved to a subdivision (compound) that was bombed, Hiroko had her windows shattered by the blast.

No one wants to live like that.

wow

I never thought I would see the day. Saudi Arabia on Israel's side. I got a lot of comments about what is happening. First things first, buy gas before gas futures that will be delivered in a month cause gas prices to go up tomorrow.. (ha, explain that one to me, please, anyone!)

TigerHawk

Putin's Kitten

YouTube - Putin's kiss

Putin poofing a little boy. Afterwards when asked he said it was "prompted by a desire to 'touch him like a kitten' " or " He said that he wanted to 'stroke him like a kitten'." HA! It looks like Putin likes the boys. And not just any boys, but young scared Russian boys. " 'I tell you honestly, I just wanted to stroke him like a kitten and it came out in this gesture. There is nothing behind it.'" WOW. Check out what the boy said "The Izvestia daily reported that he has refused to bathe ever since.
Nikita said: 'I just liked him and he liked me very much. I want to be
president myself.' "   

Ever seen a Penguin do that?!

Neatorama » Blog Archive » One Massive Core Dump.

WOW.

Women have more separated flow

Textile & Apparel - Supercomputing for Olympics swimsuit designs

So, the obvious  is proven with a super computer. Interesting application. I assume that they use a shaved skin for the human. I wonder how they got the measurements and made the muscles move between each case. They would have to regenerate the grid many times. I also wonder how they put in the energy that the swimmer added to the flow. I bet that they were analyzing cases where the swimmer is mostly "coasting" and they cared more about drag.

Pop, goes the stripper!

USATODAY.com - Strippers rupture dancer's breast implant

All I can say is ... WOW. Two strippers so mad at another that they popped her over her attitude.
I demand pics! Crazy Canadians. I found pics of the one of the two strippers. That link is NSFW. I think that it is her.

Spoid! ... where do they get this stuff?

Please read.

Sploid: ''Black guys like fat chicks' is racist?'

I have seen that in action.

I also read an article today, about how DDT really didn't kill the eagles... I should check up on it.

RIP Backyard Beans

So my fucking mower dude decided to kill my beans that were not in a pot or on a raised portion of earth. The beans that I planted in my backyard went from this:



to this:



no really, it was this:



I don't understand why the washing machine was moved:



but the bricks were pushed together on top of the plants, I moved them apart to see the carnage. Sara is holding a broken bean plant in her hand, it is oh so sad.



So I am not very happy.

Plans include:

• sharpened sticks pointing outward
• a sign that says "Don't fucking touch my beans"
• calling the landlord to ask the mower dude not to be retarded
• I would have booby traps, but they are illegal in this state
• Webcam w/snapshots when it detects motion
• Only doing the first three bullets

I am going to completely move the washing machine though. It blocked the sun most of the day. The strongest plant was the one that was the most out of the washing machine's influence. I would have thought that using bricks and the washing machine to make a wall around the beans would be enough deterrent. The beans were also planted in a grid, and weeded. It looked like developed land! He moved the washing machine (for what reason!?) and then moved the bricks together so that everything was crushed. The strongest plant was only slightly bent, I am going to lash him to a stick until he gets strong again. I have two bean plants that probably shouldn't be in the potted plant that I am going to transplant to that location. It is the best location that I chose, and it was productive. The plants in the raised earth part next to the pot are in shitty soil and are growing slower.

To end on a good note, these beans are still good:

I should have beans to eat by end of July/early August. Everyone is invited for green bean casserole.

Quote of the Day

Herodotus wrote that when Dienekes, a Spartan soldier, was informed that Persian arrows were so numerous that they blotted out the sun, he remarked with characteristically laconic prose, "So much the better, we shall fight in the shade."

HA! This was during the Battle of Thermopylae.

Spelling?

Push for simpler spelling persists - Yahoo! News

The simpler spelling idea doesn't sound too bad on the surface. We would make the english language more like spanish, in that any word that you hear you can spell. One problem is that we would need more letters in the alphabet, or use two letter groups for certain sounds. Another problem is that everyone that is not in kindergarden would need to relearn the alphabet, and how to spell most words. The article brought up a good point, that we get meaning from how words are spelled. Sometimes we get more information from how the word is spelled than from how it is sounded out. It would most likely take over a generation. Books would have to be reprinted. Keywords in ANSI C would get redefined.

Quotes about militants...

"We are doing the utmost effort ... to avoid civilian casualties," said
another military official, Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan. "Really, there is
no other way of operating against terrorists who are operating inside
their own civilian populations."

I think that that quote is important to how we handle current conflicts. People say that we should not kill civilians, but when the civilians support the opposition, and the opposition forces look and act like civilians, how can you tell the difference? I do not believe that the answer is to not kill anyone.

"Israel can't be extorted by a group of terrorists, because then they'd
be kidnapping civilians and soldiers every other day," Sheetrit said.

The age old logic about terrorism. I believe it to be correct. The reason that we do not have the same amounts of kidnappings in the United States as Mexico or other Latin American countries is that we handle kidnappings in a way that works. When people pay ransoms or agree not to arrest kidnappers if they give the person back they give that message that it is alright to kidnap. It becomes profitable. The FBI has helped in the United States also. I think that the main reason is because they stopped giving into the demands. Criminals learned that most kidnappings ended up with the SWAT breaking down the door, throwing in flash bangs, and killing or detaining all kidnappers.

Amongst my friends lately we have been talking about how guerrilla warfare depends on the people. The people can not complain when their lives are ruined if they are supporting a losing guerrilla group. Guerrilla warfare is not always a bad way to make change happen. But when the civilian populations support the groups, they also need to understand that they suffer the same fate as the guerrillas. If the guerrillas win, they will have whatever they were fighting for. If they lose, then the civilians also pay.