Free Cuba

So, Adam sent me a link about a party in the Orange Bowl when Fidel Castro dies. I suggested that we have cuba libres to commemorate the occasion.

Can you think of a more suitable drink?

Mayor of London

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24193_Video-_Pipes_vs._Livingstone_in_London&only

I would at least listen to the first one. He said a lot of good things. The call for sharia law in Britain must be doomed to fail.

New county

Article

I think that a new county would be appropriate. I don't see why someone should be forced to help someone else because they are poor. On the other hand, as Josh once said, "we pay them not to steal from us. "

Milton County would have a population of about 300,000, instantly making it Georgia's fifth-largest county.

Residents of north Fulton represent 29 percent of the county's population of 915,000 but pay 42 percent of its property taxes, according to a local taxpayers group. A split would lead to the loss of $193 million in property taxes alone for Fulton County.

Fifth largest county? There is a reason that we have counties a certain size. When one county is really big, you have problems. Henry county has many problems because it is too big, and grew too fast.

The problem with a proposal like this is that it has to be an instantaneous break. I find that discontinuities in almost anything lead to problems.

Ebay

I will have the babies of who ever buys this for me.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lifesize-Lara-Croft-Tomb-Raider-Statue-RARE_W0QQitemZ110080299739QQihZ001QQcategoryZ62053QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The end of an era.

7:05 AM 1/20/07

The Zinni line has ended.

Goodbye Grandma.

Update: weapons for Iraqi army...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2554802,00.html

So, turns out I was right. I didn't really have any "proof" yesterday of the corruption. I knew that it existed but did not know where I heard it. Thankfully the next day an article comes out.

Widespread corruption has robbed the Iraqi Armed Forces of arms, money and troops, a Times investigation has discovered.

Army numbers are swelled with “ghost soldiers” who appear on rosters but do not exist. A brigade commander was removed this month for selling weapons and fuel on the black market and officials in the Ministry of Defence support terrorism, according to one lieutenant-colonel

And

Cost of corruption

325,000 Iraqi security personnel have been trained and are operational, 137,000 are soldiers, the rest police

More than 14,000 guns paid for by the US are unaccounted for

An Iraqi Government report into police corruption concluded that officers made money through kidnappings and forgery, and passed information to insurgents

$4 billion a year is lost to corruption in Iraq, according to auditors — including $100m of oil smuggling that helps to fund the insurgency

One former police chief is said to have run a personal militia of 1,400 troops

Source: Brookings Institution, agencies

More arms for Iraqi Military?

More US arms? I HOPE NOT!

Maliki is misguided. The Iraqis are too corrupt to get "heavy" weapons. That is why we have tried not to give them any. Our soldiers routinely collect weapons with serial numbers that match numbers on weapons that were supposed to be in the Iraqi army control.

The Iraqi government needs to BUY the weapons, not get them handed to them by the Americans. We need to start making Iraq pay for the reconstruction. Alot of the reconstruction is required due to Iraqi people blowing each other up or vying for control. If you look at certain regions of Iraq, they are doing pretty good (look on the northsiiiiide), without all of these hand outs. We should provide weapons ONCE the corruption is proven to have disappeared, and once we see action, and not only hear words.

Rice looks like she is going to put up with less !@#$, and the warning about borrowed time seems to be something that would be acted upon. We are cracking down on the Iranian elements, and just today we had Gates tell them that they were getting too big for their britches.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he had told Saudi and Gulf rulers that the Iranians are "overplaying their hand" and are raising "real concern" about their intentions.

We need to keep up the pressure. We have a carrier group on its way there, and the Marines special forces is also going to the area (but it looks more probable to be helping out in Somalia)

PS1 variable

oh yeah, the code

#new prompt by jiacobucci 01/15/07
jidarkgrey="\[\033[1;30m\]"
jired="\[\033[1;31m\]"
jigreen="\[\033[1;32m\]"
jiyellow="\[\033[1;33m\]"
jiblue="\[\033[1;34m\]"
jipurple="\[\033[1;35m\]"
jicyan="\[\033[1;36m\]"
jiwhite="\[\033[1;37m\]"
jinorm="\[\033[37;0;38m\]"
#jinorm="\[\033[00m\]"
PS1="$jiyellow\u$jicyan@$jiyellow\h$jired|$jiyellow\d$jired|$jiyellow\@$jired|$jiyellow\!$jired|$jiwhite\w\$ $jinorm"

for your favorite bash prompting needs.

By the way, the command "../../sim-outorder -config config_512_1_8_1_512_8.cfg mat_un >& temp.text && grep IPC" is longer than 80 characters. I don't know what size of console you use, but I tend to stick to 80*25. You would suffer from line wrap anyway. Also, you can add a newline at the end of the prompt, then it would always be "virgin" so that you can make your long commands.

New bash prompt

So, new bash prompt. What do you guys think?

Its like roaches...

From Totton,

“We have been screaming about this conflict for 30 years now,” Henry said as he dealt himself a hand of Solitaire from a deck of cards in his pocket. “But no one ever listened to us. Not until September 11. Now you know how we feel all the time. You have to keep up the pressure. You can never let go, not for one day, one hour, not for one second. The minute you let go, Michael, they will fight back and get stronger. This is the problem with your foreign policy.”

“Since 1975 we have been fighting for the free world,” Said said. “We are on the front lines. Why doesn’t the West understand this? America can withdraw from Iraq, you can go back to Oregon, but we are stuck here. We have to stay and live with what happens.”

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001359.html

I could not agree more. We MUST press on, we must keep the fight.

Would you rather fight there... or here?

Mishaps

I was reading this morning about doctrine, strategy, and . I came across Operation El Dorado Canyon. Something caught my eye that I wanted to record.

After several days of diplomatic talks with European and Arab partners, President Ronald Reagan ordered the strike on Libya on April 14. F-111 aircraft flying from 48th Tactical Fighter Wing, RAF Lakenheath and 20th Tactical Fighter Wing, RAF Upper Heyford in England, along with A-6, A-7, and F/A-18 planes from the aircraft carriers USS America, USS Coral Sea and USS Saratoga struck five targets at 02:00 on April 15, in the hope that their destruction would send a message and reduce Libya's ability to support and train terrorists. The United States was denied overflight rights by France and Spain as well as the use of European continental bases, forcing the operation to be flown around France and through the Straits of Gibraltar, adding 1,300 miles (2,100 km) each way and requiring multiple aerial refuelings. The attack lasted about ten minutes. Several targets were hit and destroyed, but some civilian and diplomatic sites in Tripoli were struck as well, notably the French embassy, when a number of bombs missed their intended targets.
-wikipedia article "Bombing of Libya (April 1986)"

The French embassy was hit by accident. The French also wouldn't let us fly over their country, which made the whole operation more difficult. If you look at the airport photos post-strike, you see individual aircraft that were hit, with good aircraft right nearby.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/imint/lib_b1.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/imint/lib_b2.htm

So, if we can hit a Mig-23 (56.8 ft long), a F-27 (77 ft long), and a MI-8 (59.67 ft long) in an airbase, how do we hit a French Embassy. I should find a map and see how close the embassy was to the places that we hit. We did aim for some tents that might have held leadership, they would have been in a residential area.

I am not saying that we intentionally hit the French embassy. I would not rule out the use of precision strike to send messages to other governments though. The probability of success of the mission went down due to French actions, and the Libyans had just injured 63 US troops (and killed one) in Germany. Remind me to look into the other embassy bombing that I know about, in Kosovo.