I Dream Awake

I have nothing to say about it here. At least not right now. I’m using this space to keep track of every link to net based news, opinion, and reactions I read.

Widening Into War? WAR

The Israel-Hezbollah War Part One

The Israel-Hezbollah War Part Two

The Israel-Hezbollah War Part Three

The Israel-Hezbollah War Part Four

Israel-Lebanon Aggregation @ Truth Laid Bear

Two pro-Israel rallies in NYC - July 16-17:

A demonstration against Syria and Iran and a Memorial Service for those murdered in Israel. (Sponsored by CJC-Amcha.)

Sunday, July 16, 2006 at 11:00 am.
Meet at the Syrian Mission to the UN, 820 Second Ave. (between 43rd and 44th St.) for the demonstration. The group will then walk to the Israeli Mission, 800 2nd Ave, for a memorial service.

***

Rally against terror and in solidarity with the government and people of Israel. Demand the release of Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. (Sponsored by the President’s Conference, JCRC, and UJA-Federation.)

Monday, July 17th, at noon.
Across from the UN at 1st Ave. and 42nd Street, New York, NY.
Rain or shine.

Speakers include: Elie Weisel, Sens. Hilary Rodham Clinton and Frank Lautenberg, Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman, and others.

A War on Two Fronts

Liveblogging the War: Friday July 14th:

The Big Pharoah - Dad Weighs In:

My dad was a general in the Egyptian army. His comments are always so informative especially if they were related to a war that broke out. He had this to say about Lebanon:

This idiot Nasrallah. He is so funny. He keeps on issuing threats, he has no idea what he is talking about. What Israel is doing to him now is just gentle padding on the shoulders. Abou Shakha dah didn’t see what we saw. Israel fought on 3 fronts in 1967 and it was hell. I was there, I saw it all. He has no tanks, no boats, he has nothing except a few toys he got from Iran and it seems abu shakha dah don’t know that Israel confronted 3 of the most powerful armies in the region at the same time. If Israel wanted to brutally crush him it can do so in 1 hour.

*Abu Shakha dah literally means “this guy with the piss”. We use this slang term to refer to a grown up whose capabilities is of a baby who wets himself.

Did the Grandchildren of those in Auschwitz learn the lesson or not

The Same War

Go to hell Nasrallah:

Hezbollah wanted to make us share the fate of Hamas, out of solidarity with the Palestinians, but they never wondered if that was what the Lebanese really wanted. We now have to pay the consequences of the actions of an Iranian stooge who’s been hiding for the last two days. What can you say when your fate is decided by a man who threatens to chop the heads of his opponents?

Did you ever watch Hezbollah units parading in Beirut’s Southern suburb and and making the fascist salute to Nasrallah? Well guess what happened to the guys wearing dynamite belts and holding cardboard RPGs? These mighty fighters were occulted by God overnight. They just vanished. Nobody knows where they are, but according to some rumors Beirut’s sewers are experiencing a lot of demographic growth these days. But there’s no need to worry, the resistance will be back. Once the last Israeli plane leave Lebanon, our courageous Hezbollah fighters will return to threaten the Lebanese who dare to question their policies.

Israel vs. Lebanon - Callimachus @ Michael J. Totten

Closer to War - Callimachus @ Michael J. Totten

War! - Michael J. Totten

On Iran, Giving Futility Its Chance

‘Get me out of here’

Bush, Putin Differ Over Israeli Attacks

Israel, Hezbollah vow wider war

Missile, Not Drone, Hit Israeli Warship

Hezbollah rockets hit ancient Israeli town

Hizbullah hid rockets in houses

Hizbullah leaders leaving Beirut

Israel Lays Siege to Lebanon

Israel Destroys Home of Hezbollah Leader

Terrorists Break Gaza-Egypt Border Gate

Islamic leader of Australia: Holocaust a Zionist lie:

THE nation’s Islamic leader, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, has dismissed the Holocaust as a ‘Zionist lie’ in a series of fiery sermons in which he also lashed out at the West and the US-led occupation of Iraq.

Revelations that the nation’s most senior Islamic cleric has been openly preaching extreme messages to his mainstream followers will be a major setback for the Howard Government.

Sheik Hilali is a senior member of the Prime Minister’s Muslim advisory board.

What Comes Next?

No targets are immune

Israel gives Syria ultimatum

“It is no coincidence that the Hizbullah operation comes at a time when the international community is working to impose sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear program and settle the score with Syria by establishing an international court to try those behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri,”

The War Widens, Hezbollah Strikes Egyptian, Israeli Ships with UAVs

Hezbollah missile sea strikes: UAV or ground based?

Inside Hizballah’s decision-making

Iranian manufactured Raad 1 missiles launched at Haifa

Important overlooked news on latest Hezbollah attacks

Hizbollah’s War for Iran and Syria

Experts’ Posts on Lebanon and Hezbollah:

I was at a lunch with the Israeli Ambassador to the US when he announced that a Hezbollah rocket hit Haifa - the gasp from the crowd was an audible recognition of the major escalation that the attack represents, in part because it wasn’t clear beforehand whether the rockets had sufficient range. I would draw a parallel to the 1914 Sarajevo shooting of Archduke Ferdinand, which ultimately led to World War I.

Imad Mugniyah likely behind the capture of Israeli soldiers

Stuck In Lebanon

Zeno diplomacy

Israel: “Act of War”

Israel smashes Hezbollah strongholds

The Tony Snow Press Gaggle

Gella’s sister in response to whether Israel’s actions will have a positive or negative effect:

A country that refrains from responding in any way to having two to three rockets A DAY fired into its sovereign, undisputed borders by a group directly associated with the government of a neighboring country, for ten months straight, and still can’t get any support for responding, has no security. A country that the world expects to do nothing when a group directly associated with the government of a neighboring country invades its sovereign, undisputed borders and kidnaps its soldiers who are only protecting its sovereign, undisputed territory has no security. Almost anything it can do to stop the over 700 rocket attacks and ground invasions of its territory can only have a positive effect. Invading the country that is BOMBING IT and INVADING IT would indeed be a good first step.

It seems to surprise many people that when the government of a country says that they plan to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews, that the Israeli government takes that seriously and responds appropriately. Why this surprises people I’m not sure, but it still does.

Israel has survived this long by demonstrating that if you attack them, they will fight back. Sitting still for ten months at the request of the USA and Europe while being bombed just led to the murder and abduction of soldiers in sovereign territory. So, tell me, what would you have them do? Sit still for another year and hope that Lebanon and Syria decide to play nice?

‘Israel has a window of opportunity to hit Hizbullah’

So far, one senior diplomatic official said, Israel has been able to fend off a “collapse on the diplomatic front.” The official noted favorably the comments made by British Prime Minister Tony Blair Friday, in which he refused to condemn Israel, and US President George Bush’s comments at the G8 summit during which he placed responsibility for the situation fully on Hizbullah’s shoulders.

Although many statements coming from foreign ministries around the world called for Israeli restraint and for the use of proportionate force, Foreign Ministry officials said that this was all within the framework of “agreed upon language that the EU is recycling - old formulas of restraint from both sides, and ideas of moral equivalency. But if you look at the basic components of the statements, Israel’s main interests are being preserved - calls for Lebanon to implement Security Council Resolution 1559, and the release of the soldiers.”

In addition, senior diplomatic officials said a significant anti-Hizbullah line has emerged in the Arab world that goes beyond Egypt and Jordan, and that there was anger at Hizbullah for destabilizing the region and plunging it into a crisis without any coordination with the Arab world.

Sharp rifts among Arab foreign ministers appeared at an emergency meeting in Cairo, with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal calling Hizbullah’s actions “unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible,” and said they have set the whole region back years, “and we cannot simply accept them.”

This position was reportedly accepted by representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

A Middle East Peace Plan That Just Might Work

bq. The Italian political theorist Gaetano Mosca noted in “The Ruling Class” (1939) that universal peace is something to be feared, because it could come about “only if all the civilized world where to belong to a single social type, to a single religion, and if there were to be an end disagreements as to the ways in which social betterment can be attained… even granting that such a world could be realize, it does not seem to us a desirable sort of world.”

bq. Of course, there is often nothing worse than war and violent death. However, the truism that bears repeating is that peace, as a primary goal, is dangerous because it implies that you’ll sacrifice any principal for the sake of it.

bq. A long period of peace in an advanced technological society like ours could lead to great evils, and the ideal of a world permanently at peace and governed benignly by a world organization is not an optimistic view of the future but at dark one.

I just don’t know what to say. This is nuts:

Twelve-year-old Samayra Williams says she saved her birthday money for a new cell phone.

“I paid for the phone myself,” she says.

That made it especially disappointing when her school took it away from her.

The student of Bertha A. Dreyfus School on Staten Island says she
accidentally left her phone at a friend’s house. The next day when the
friend brought it to school to return it to her, the phone was
confiscated.

After numerous calls, faxes, and a couple visits to the principal’s
office, Samayra’s parents were finally told that the school lost their
daughter’s cell phone.

“They said, ‘Well, we can’t locate it.’ And my husband said, ‘Okay,
so can I get reimbursed for the phone then?’ They said, ‘Well, you can
fill out this form, and you may or may not get reimbursed,’” says
Laurette Williams, Samayra’s mother.

The working mom says the cell phone was used to ensure that her daughter made it home safely from an after-school program.

Laurette says it’s not the lost money that angers her, rather the attitude of the school.

“I understand you must confiscate the phone because there is now a
ban on all cell phones. Fine. Then be responsible for the phone,” she
says. “If you’re going to take it, you’re going to bag it, you’re going
to catalog it, then be responsible.”

After Williams contacted NY1 For You, we reached out to the
Department of Education. A spokesman said it’s not the school’s
responsibility to safeguard personal prohibited items that are seized
from students.

He said the parents can file a claim with the city, but because it
was a prohibited item, the city will most likely not reimburse the
family. In any event, he said it will probably take years for the city
to respond.

It shows this problem goes way beyond bad policy from the mayor’s office. The everyday incompetence in the schools themselves is miserable.

I’m annoyed with myself. It looks like I lost most of the pictures I took yesterday because somewhere between sharing a few drinks with friends late last night and walking in my door (I think) I lost the 512mb SD card they were stored on. The bulk of them were from the Free Tibet rally outside the Chinese Consulate.

I’m really frustrated with this happening and am still hoping I just misplaced it when I was putting things away before sleep. If it doesn’t turn up I guess I have to chalk this one up as an excercise in contemplation of the Buddhist concept of impermanance. Doesn’t really help to cheer me up about it though…

I’ve always had fun making just about anything with paper. Growing up it was usually me learning to make ever better paper airplanes, wasting time making paper football triangles, being dorky by making and throwing paper ninja stars, being no different from all the other elementary school kids when making those fortune telling number thingies you put on four fingers, or being artistic in making delicate paper roses and the like. Never got into origami… But I was reading about hyperdifficult, highly mathematical, amazingly beautiful origami in this month’s issue of Discover and it definitely whet my appetite. Then I stopped by Barnes and Noble earlier tonight and saw this:

I’m hooked of course. It’s a shame I don’t have it yet. When I get it I can share a few of the choice folds here. In the meantime a link to the exhibit will have to do.

I’ll be looking for more of an intro to origami book soon. Whenever I start making some of my own I might even share shots of them here. Heh, it’s nice being excited over something artistic again…