The Daily Background

Sorry for the abbreviated Daily Brief today, I’m travelling back to New Hampshire. Normal posting will resume tomorrow, and I’ve pre-posted some video posts for later today.

The Middle East Headlines To Go
British Prime Minister Blair has called the situation in Lebanon “a catastrophe.” Intelligent bloggers wonder when he’ll say the same about Iraq.

Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has called media coverage of the current conflict biased towards Hezbollah. Intelligent bloggers wonder what he’s smoking, and where they can get some.

“Israeli forces push deeper into Lebanon.” Israel has now captured two men who it says are Hezbollah guerrillas. Perhaps they will trade those two for the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped two weeks ago? Odds say no.

Are Iraqi militants going to join the fight in Lebanon? It’s from the Washington Times, a right-wing publication that has been known to fabricate stories before (most notably about Bill Clinton when he was President), so take it with however big of a truckload of salt you want.

Condi Rice, though perhaps skilled at photo ops, is not successful at diplomacy.

Afghanistan– Is the Afghani “Ministry of Vice,” which enforced religious law under the Taliban back in business? This would not be surprising, considering the reported extent to which Sharia law is still in existence in the country (remember that poor guy who almost got executed for converting to Christianity?).

Bits and Pieces
Video– Lou Dobbs goes Chuck Norris on George Bush’s signing statements.

Carpetbagger dissects one of these obnoxious quizzes that is supposed to tell you what political party you should “affiliate yourself with” (if you don’t already know). They’re always pretty silly but this one is especially bad since it’s made by some supposed experts. To top that off, both Carpetbagger and I got rated conservative by it when we took the test itself. Ahem, obviously flawed.

The Guardian’s newsblog has an entry about the Israeli children writing “messages” on bombs destined for Lebanon which I posted several pictures of here.

And finally…
I’ve always though the Washington Post was trying to be overly cutesy with its editorial page headlines. I’m so right. (check editorial here, and opposing editorial here). By the way, that second op-ed is pretty disgusting. While most pro-Israel American pundits and politicians argue that Israel’s military attacks on Lebanon are proportionate responses, the author of that editorial actually argues that they aren’t proportionate– but that’s a good thing.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog