Landscaping, for lack of a better word, sucks.

Saturday is my semi-lazy day, I do projects around the place, but if a really good movie or sporting event is on TV, and its over 90 degrees, don't be surprised to find me in my favorite chair with my feet up. This delightful thought came crashing down around me this morning when I heard my wife fire up the tractor. Good heavens, I thought, what is she up to now. What she was doing was dumping horse manure compost into the planting bed in front of the house.

"Hun, whatcha doing?"
I want to plant some foundation shrubs and the soil is so hard that they keep dying.
"How are you going to mix the manure in with the soil?"
I don't know, how about the roto-tiller?
"I need to change the blades on it, if you want to use it."
Well, lets do it. Is it easy?
"No, that's why the new blades have been in the shipping box for two weeks"
"I'll help you" she said cheerfully.

So I hooked up a chain to the tiller and brought it in front of the shop.
I set it up on two work benches to get the blades high enough to change them without getting on the ground to do it. There are 32 blades, 16 right handed and 16 left handed. Each blade has two bolts holding it on, rusted bolts and nuts with damaged threads from spinning around in the dirt all their life.
Did I mention that this was not going to be easy?

Two hours, a half a can of WD-40 later and using a 2 foot breaker bar to break the nuts loose enough to use my air-ratchet, I had the old blades off.
My wife did help by cleaning up the threads on the bolts and she likes using the air-ratchet. I think its the sound it makes. ( Just kidding Hun )
New blades, check. Grease all the zerts, check. Fill the gear box with oil, check. Lets till some horse poop.

The tiller worked great, and after we finished we put down the weed barrier and put the rail road ties back around the edge.

Now we (my wife) will go to Home Depot to buy her shrubs as well as fountain grass and some perennials to plant on the mounds we made.

I am now sunburned, dirty, somewhat pungent, and tired.
My buddy called and wanted me to drive my Jeep up to deer camp with some of our friends tonight, but I am bushed.

When I get out of the shower, I am heading to my chair, for some quiet time with the History channel or SportCenter, or maybe nothing at all.

Man and beast beware, don't disturb fat guys when there are in their chairs, bad things can happen.

PS, I saw a t-shirt at the fair that made me smile it said;
"Fat people are harder to kidnap"

Deranged pedophile or Murdering pedophile?

Something is not right with this story. This guy is a scumbag of the first order, but is he just a demented pedophile who wants his 15 minutes of fame or is he the real killer of JonBenet?

Either way, a tall tree and a short rope would take this guy off the streets for good.

How much more 'victory' can Lebanon handle?

This just in, Jeff Davis has declared victory in the battle for Richmond. Locals could not be found for comment.....

You have to hand it to the terrorists, they run a great PR campaign. Not being familiar with war up close and personal, I have little experience with what real victory in war looks like. Maybe I need a guided tour of Lebanon by one of Hezbollah's press secretaries. Maybe he can explain why the Hezbollah flag isn't flying over any Israeli cities but there are a few dozen Israeli tanks and thousands of their troops sitting inside southern Lebanon waiting for the Lebanese army to take over their positions.

Now wait, before you give me the Israel lost, the terrorists won speech, I want to look at the facts as I see them.

There were no rockets fired into Israel today.
Israel did not get their captured soldiers back.
90% of Hezbollah's long range rockets were destroyed.
4,000 or so rockets were launched into Israel.
The Israeli death toll was 157, including 118 soldiers, according to its military and government.
The Lebanese death toll, 842, who knows you can count Hezbollah fighters from innocent civilians, but lets say two thirds were fighters.
Tehran and Damascus are seen as heroes to the Arabs who 'defeated' the Zionists.
Hassan Nasrallah is the news Terrorist Elvis. (I would not buy any green bananas Hassan, you just became number one on the Mossad hit list.)
The UN forces will not disarm Hezbollah, a dollar to a donut says that the Lebanese army will not find of the 'hidden' Hezbollah weapons either.
Hezbollah sends in Iranian money to bribe the Lebanese into thinking that a flattened house and dead relatives equal victory.

The bottom line, a squandered opportunity for Israel to crush a terrorist organization.

I'm sure I could go on and on, but you get the point.
No matter what Israel did, short of nuking Tehran and Damascus, the Arabs would claim victory, that is how they have framed every war they ever fought, no matter how badly they were beaten. We won, they lost, aint we great.

So lets get down to brass tacks, Hezbollah wants to kill every Jew in Israel and wipe them off the map. Did they? No, just a bloody nose, Israel will be back to its usual daily life in two weeks if the cease fire holds.

Israel wanted its soldiers back and to stop Hezbollah from firing rockets into its territory.
Did they get what they wanted? No, but they did diminish Hezbollah's fighting forces by a large factor, but they don't have the captured soldiers.

Who is real winner? Iran and Syria send money, weapons and military advisors into Lebanon and get a cease fire. Anything that makes Israel look weak is a big win for them, plus they are now the official "First National Islamic Bank of Terrorism". Anyone who wants to kill Jews or Americans knows who where to go and who they need to please in order to get weapons and training. But that has been the case for some time, now there is just no hiding it.

The real looser. The US State department, President Bush and Ehud Olmert. Bush can claim this is a victory for Israel, but it when this is examined a few months or years from now, it will be seen for what it was, a chance for Israel to crush a terrorist organization that they let slip by through incompetent leadership.

Give liberals enough rope....

Here is a great post by Miller's Time where he interviews the Sacramento/Berkeley couple who just seem to hate the Jews almost as much as the President. Digger has a great photo of Mr. Pearcy's car (warning - sailor language). It must be terrible to be so filled with rage and hate. I thought that the right were the hate mongers?

Mr. Pearcy admits, with very little hesitation, that Israel does not have the right to exist. But remember boys and girls, Bush=Hitler!
Read the comments as well.

Cindy Sheehan goes to the hospital.

Damn that Bush and his global warming! Doesn't he know that you need a cool climate to protest in?

Anti-war demonstrator Cindy Sheehan was hospitalized Friday evening for dehydration and exhaustion after fasting for more than a month and protesting earlier this week in 100-degree weather, friends and relatives said.

What Cindy needs is a protest-drink, kind a like a sports drink only made for hunger striking anti-war protesters. I am going after the trademark right now.

Bush-Haterade.

Songs, stuck in your head - updated

I sat down at my laptop tonight to write about the events of the day, my day not yours, how would I know what happened in your day anyway? But I found my mind was playing and endless loop of "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John. You may be thinking to yourself, Cowboy, what are you doing singing an Elton John song, I thought you were a manly man? I am that, however I have been known to enjoy sappy pop songs, and while I am bearing my cultural soul, I also enjoy Jane Austen books and love Le Mis'.

One of the things that makes up who I am is the ability to enjoy diverse and even odd things. I have, at one time or another, owned vinyl records of everyone from Black Sabbath to Jonny Cash to KC and the Sunshine Band. Living in the country, we had two radio stations, one country and I mean real country, Marty Robbins and Merle Haggard, the other station was pop. In the late 70s that meant disco. Thankfully my cousin came to spend a summer with our family when I was in seventh or eighth grade and introduced me to real rock n roll. Thanks John, I owe you one.

Entering high school I found out that just about anyone could look cool in an AC/DC T shirt and blue jeans, so the cowboy hat went back into the closet and the ball cap and 501s came out. Spent some time in a few bands, as high schoolers do, and tried my hand living the rock n roll lifestyle to the detriment of my grades and my liver. It took meeting my wife to bring me back to the ranch and country music. This was the late 80s and country had changed, Clint Black, Garth Brooks and Randy Travis were made for radio and I found myself listening to it more and more. I never lost my rocker roots and still enjoy blasting "Where ever I may roam" by Metallica when ever I see it on my playlist. But when I am sitting by a fire on a winter evening I also enjoy listening to Mahler's Symphony No. 9.
Strange huh?

But Cowboy,what about Elton John? I place the entire blame on my mother. As a kid, we bought and sold quite a few ranches across the West, my father was a Rancher and Real Estate broker. We never really took vacations, but some times we would travel the western US looking at ranches and cattle. My sister and I sat in the back of the family Cadillac and Mom would keep stuffing in those 8 track tapes as the miles flew by. I swear the back seat of that Cadillac was as big as a sofa. The leather was soft but somewhat slick and when turning corners we would slide from one side to the other, my sister punching me when I crossed the line to her side of the car. My mom would play Elton John, Jim Croce and Patsy Cline, or the soundtrack to 'The Big Country'. Ah the memories.

It is getting late so tonight's rant will have to be about my diverse musical proclivities and my diverse, if not somewhat odd taste in entertainment.

(I am not feeling well today so I am home. I though a bit of editing was needed on this post.)

Only in Yolo County

If you drive down Main Street in Woodland, you have seen this guy. Who is he, what is he doing, is he 2,000 years old? Inside Woodland asks the man who stares at the sun.

Okay, here's the hard part- I don't know this man. I don't know anything about him. I don't know if he's a nice guy, or what. In this situation starting the conversation is never easy. So I walked up to him while he was looking at the sun. I stood a few seconds, not wanting to interrupt him. I waited for him to acknowledge me.

I waited a little while longer. A minute passed. Then five minutes. Then possibly ten minutes. The man I wanted to talk to was standing, looking into the sun. He was talking- but not to me.

I decided that I should either try to initiate a conversation, or I should just go home. Standing here next to him wasn't doing anyone any good. Finally he took a break in his talking, and I figured it was my chance to initiate a conversation.

InsideWoodland- Good morning.
Man Staring at the Sun (Turns to me) Good morning sir!

Well so far, so good.
So I figure it is okay to move on with the important question.

InsideWoodland- What are you doing out here?
Man Staring at the Sun -Just getting warm
InsideWoodland -How long have you been doing this?
Man Staring at the Sun- Two thousand years

Jerry Brown calls for a ceasefire in Oakland

Jerry Brown's message to the worst killers in his city; you better stop it, or else. I'm sooper serious you guys, knock it off.

Remind me again what state office is he running for? Oh yea, Attorney General, the top cop in the Golden State. Someone should check his urine sample, he may be hitting the hippie lettuce a little too much.

Brown promised this plan, dubbed "Operation Ceasefire," will succeed where others have failed because of its "relentless" focus on the top 100 offenders, especially teens and young adults.

Eighty percent of this year's murder victims were younger than 28, as were many of the suspects, said Lt. Ersie Joyner, commander of the department's homicide section. In addition to a growing Latino gang problem, many of the murders stemmed from arguments over other criminal activity, including drug dealing and gambling, Joyner said.

Police commanders have already identified Oakland's 100 worst criminals with help from officers who patrol the city's neighborhoods and from community members, Joyner said. Those removed from the list will constantly be replaced by new names, he added.

In the second phase of the plan, those on the list will be brought in for a discussion about the consequences of their criminal activity, and offered a chance to start over, officials said.

Hey I have an idea, if you know who they are, and what they have done to get on the list, PUT THEM IN JAIL JERRY!

Sorry, deep breath, I'm better now.

Wal-Mart finally gets unionized, in China

The perverse idea of the communist Chinese sponsoring unions has me scratching my head. The unions are not private, they are controlled by the government, the government is communist, the communists are supposed to be the party of the people. I don't get it.

Why would workers need a union in a workers paradise? If the Chinese don't like working for Wal-Mart, they can go back to the 'people's factory' and get paid in fish heads or something.

Wal-Mart, stop selling goods made in prison factories....... Sorry, never mind.
Wal-Mart, stop selling goods that violate trademark laws.....Sorry, never mind.
Wal-Mart, stop selling goods made in polluting factories.....Sorry, never mind.

Um, Wal-Mart we want to be paid in cash, not fish heads, is that ok?

Is Mel Gibson's career over?

You can make me pick up trash off the freeways of LA, but you will never take my freedom!

So, is he dead as disco in Hollywood?
Eh, maybe. But what do I know, I am not a Hollywood insider. Not that they know anymore than I do mind you, but the full-court press on Mel's DUI and the racial slurs and sexist comments are just the gasoline-soaked cord of wood needed to burn the hated Gibson at the stake. Mel maybe on the way to becoming the rightwing version of Oliver Stone. They both may make entertaining movies, but both seem to suffer from a form of ass-hattery.

The Hollywood left hates Gibson with a passion, er bad choice of words, they hate him.

Mel has always seemed to be wound a little too tight, now it seems that he has a drinking problem, a anger problem, a vulgarity problem and a anti-Semitic problem. That adds up to a lot of couch time for Mr. Gibson in my book. And maybe some community service time as well.

Not quite raining cats and dogs, but definitely dogs.

No word yet as to the how the press will blame Israel on the unguided dog-bombing of an innocent civilian in Poland.

A man was bruised but alive yesterday after a Saint Bernard dog thrown out a two-storey window landed on him as he was walking down the street in the southern-Polish city of Sosnowiec.

The 50kg dog was pushed out of the window by its drunken owner on Monday, police said.

"The dog had a soft landing because it fell on a man," said police spokesman Grzegorz Wierzbicki.

Snap shots from Lebanon

Hi all, I just got back from Lebanon to visit my family. Here are some pics.



This is my Uncle Ahmed, and my two cousins. They were in the backyard of their apartment complex trying to get the ice-cream truck running again so they could give some cool and delicious snacks to the victims of Israel's terrible attacks.




This is my wife's brother Hamim, he is hunting rabbits for dinner since the Zionist, murdering Jews have cut off all supplies to southern Lebanon.

Well, that's about it, I have to unpack and get ready to teach my Arab studies class tomorrow.
Later.

Heatwave=crimewave as 'Spare The Air' days lets riders ride free

And now from the 'Unintended Consequences' file...
I know that living in the Sacramento valley comes with a few environmental certainties. Tule fog in the winter and oppressive heat and air pollution in the summer. Sort of like death and taxes, if you live here, you have to be ready to deal with both.

The State of Californians Air Resources Board is charged with finding ways to reduce the air pollution in the golden state just as the population keeps expanding. Tough job.

To promote and protect public health, welfare and ecological resources through the effective and efficient reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering the effects on the economy of the state.

More people, more cars, more growth in rural areas increasing commute times, how can you hope to reduce the air pollution? They must try or the state looses out on federal road funding if they fail to achieve their goals, like I said, tough job.

One of the ways they try to reduce the worst pollution days is through education. The 'Spare the Air' program is managed through the ARB's 35 management districts. We live the Yolo-Solano Air Quality Management District. On a real bad air quality day the YSAQMD works with the local public transit systems to provide free or reduced fares to get cars off the road. I have not read of any problems during these free ride days but I am sure the increased amount of riders is inconvenient for the regular riders. In a small mostly rural county the program seems to work, however in a high crime metropolitan area, not so much.

The highly touted 'Spare the Air' days spelled financial relief for thousands of Bay Area commuters and help for the environment -- but for BART, this summer's experiment with six days of free rides also brought so much grief that the system's police chief is calling for the program to be limited to just commuters in the future.

On one Spare the Air Day, said BART police Chief Gary Gee, "we had a train car taken over by 10 young males in white T-shirts and baggy pants, and they were holding the door open and acting like they were on the playground.

"In certain trains, people were pretty terrified by their rides," he said.

I am sure the regular passengers who ride BART will think twice on the next 'Spare the Air' -free ride day. They may drive their own cars just to avoid being terrorized by the gang bangers or sitting next to the passed out homeless guy who just relieved himself.

In theory it should work like a charm, bad air, free rides, less cars, better air. But like most government programs, they are thought up in a big room with coffee and danish by bureaucrats who live in the world of static analysis.

I would bet you lunch at the Burger Barn in Esparto that no one asked the question, do you think there will be a increase in crime if we let everyone ride free? I wonder if the crime will make some people stay off the trains?
Hmm.

What does peace look like?

This is not what peace looks like.

To adequately understand the solution to war, you must first determine the meaning of peace. What it is;
To achieve peace both sides must want it, you cannot have a unilateral peace.
Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is when one side defeats the other and imposes it's will on the defeated people. Like I have said many times, as terrible as war is, there is something much worse than war, its loosing a war.

Ask those who oppose war how they would define peace, you may get answer like this; when both sides sit down face to face and agree to stop killing each other. I would ask them this question; Give me an example in the last 100 years where that has taken place without one side having defeated the other. I would like to hear their answer. Egypt and Israel? Not really, Israel could have crushed Egypt and Sadat knew it.

Today we see the pictures of destruction coming out of Lebanon and on a few occasions the MSM will show the destruction in Israel. As terrible as these images are, there is a context that must be explained to the viewer. This is war. War is terrible, but sometimes necessary to bring about lasting peace. Stopping the fighting for the short term goal of 'peace' is a adolescent response to the situation. A response put forth by the Madeline Albrights, the John Kerrys and Jimmy Carters of the world. It is the left's response to war. Stop it now!

Hezbollah, Hamas and Al-Qaida don't want peace, they want to kill their enemies down to the last man, woman and child. When they start loosing, they may want 'peace' only to buy time to regroup, re-arm and recruit more terrorists. Why cant the Democrats and liberals understand this? Please show me where I am wrong. Please tell me, how do we live in peace with people sworn to murder us? I want more than peace, I want peace and quiet. To show you what I mean, we need to look back a few years to find real and lasting peace.

Germany and Japan are examples of how you achieve lasting peace. It is not pretty, many innocent and not so innocent people are killed. Sometimes thousands, sometimes millions. Here is what real peace looks like.

Berlin 1945



Dresden 1945

Tokyo 1945

And today, more than 50 years later, what do find there? Allies. Not very good allies in the case of Germany but two nations who have not fired a shot in anger in generations. People who want peace.

Dresden today

Berlin today

Tokyo today

So to refresh your memory. To have lasting peace both sides must want it, and one side must be defeated or very close to it, and the loosing side must submit to the victor. The victor by the way has a responsibility to make sure that the defeated side changes its ideology so as to never become a threat again. When there is real peace, the victor should help rebuild what he has destroyed. But the vanquished must know, if it there is any backsliding, the rubble returns.

War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.

From one end of the Cable TV universe to the other, the anchors are asking all parties involved in the Israeli-Hezbollah war the wrong question. I would estimate that if you watched any cable news program, you would hear the reporters or anchors ask someone about a timeline for a cease-fire at least 5 times an hour. This basic lack of understanding is quite shocking for anyone who supposes that they are capable of digesting the happenings of this world, then wrapping them up in high tech graphics and passing it off as news.

If the world wants the fighting and killing to stop, it has to ask just one thing. If tomorrow morning Hezbollah, through Syria, tells the Israeli government that it will return their two captured soldiers and stop firing rockets across the border into Israel, the fighting would end by noon. That is a fact, and to pretend otherwise is just a waste of breath.

That is what I believe secretary of State Rice told the Hezbollah representative in Syria today. He is reported to have declined the offer.

What if a third party were to send in say 2,000 troops to keep Hezbollah from attacking Israel? Would that be a possible solution? Nope.

The UN has had 2,000 'blue helmeted boobs on the ground' since 1978. The UN is worse than useless, it proposes solutions that serve only to make people feel better. Not only don't those solutions work, they make them much worse by ignoring why the problem exists in the first place.

Hezbollah is evil. Not sort of evil, plain old standard run of the mill evil. Please don't comment that they build schools and hospitals, the Nazis built all kinds of schools, hospitals and every other type of infrastructure you can think of. The also killed almost 20 million people, don't talk to me about schools and hospitals.

Hezbollah may want to talk once they get low on rockets, but I doubt it. My terms for a cease fire would be this - unconditional surrender.

If you don't like those terms, you will hate the alternative.

William T Sherman had it right, you called the tune, you pay the fiddler.

Angels and Airwaves and cowboys

My son has a growing interest in music. He is on his second guitar and looking to purchase a larger amp, undoubtedly to drive his mother and I out of the house. He likes the new alternative/semi-punk rockers. Having recently turned 13, he wanted to go to his first concert. I was very concerned with taking him to what is always a R rated show, with him being a PG-13 kind of young man. I listen to his music as a way of finding out what kind of messages he is putting into his brain, so I knew that while some of the songs deal with mature themes, they are nothing he can't handle and nothing we don't talk about, so I agreed to take him.

Yesterday's temperature was 110 degrees at concert time and my son wanted to get there as soon as the gates opened at Arco. Being the master concert goer I am, I said that if we get there at 6:30 we will miss the crowds, the parking lot mess and walk in right when the two opening bands had finished. As we walked to the front doors there was a stack of hundreds, maybe a thousand studded leather belts on the lawn, they were not allowed inside the arena. We walked around the concourse and my son bought his t-shirt and CD at the vendor booths and found good seats for the show. I was 11 minutes off.

The first band we saw was one of his favorites, Angels and Airwaves. The front man for the band was the singer for now defunct Blink 182. The band sounded tight and the sound system was ok for a notoriously bad venue, the only problem I had was with the lead singer and guitarist Tom DeLounge. The show was all about Tom, here I am, I am great, look at me. The worst part, aside from his walk through the crowd to the stage where he let fly a few F-bombs, was the fact that he didn't introduce a single member of the band. What a head case. He should just rename the band the DeLounges.

One observation about today's young concert goers. They suck.
They are so pre-occupied with their cell phones and texting their friends that they don't watch the show. It was like being at a Journey concert when they played a power ballad, there were hundreds of flickering lights in the crowd , but instead of lighters , they were cell phones. Snapping pictures and taking video clips, then trying to scream over the music to ask their friends if they got the pictures. Arco arena didn't open the upper deck so there were probably 9 to 11 thousand people there with two thousand or so down on the floor. Only a quarter of the crowd sang along with the songs, or cheered after the song was over. A textbook reaction from the 'Yea, whatever' generation.

The headliner was Taking Back Sunday. The band was good, the guitar playing was strong and the music is melodic. An all around good show. The front man for TBS is Adam Lazzara and he is a fancy guy. He has obviously seen way to many Stones concert videos. He mimics Mick's moves quite well, with a little of Roger Daltry's microphone swinging thrown in for good measure. He once knocked his bass player for a loop in England with his mic. He has control of the show and the crowd and did introduce his band mates, always a good sign.

All and all a good experience for my son and a good time for me as well. I think one of things that persuaded me to take him at this young age was when I was in 8th grade my favorite band was coming to my hometown on their first country wide tour. You may have heard of them, Van Halen was going to play a concert 45 minutes from my house and I wanted to go in the worst way. But my parents didn't let me go, they wouldn't have thought of going with me, they didn't like my music and I was too young. I went on to see Van Halen three times when I was in high school and college, but I always wondered what that first tour would have been like.

My son's excitement was pretty evident as we drove home. He decided not to spend his birthday money on a new iPod, he wants a bigger amp. I may have created a monster.

I may reconsider renouncing my French ancestry

Speak English and work harder.
What a concept.

THE French need to work harder and display less arrogance, if they are to recapture former glories, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, tells his countrymen in a highly personal 281-page book published yesterday.
Just as they embark on their long summer break, he has a blunt message for them: the holiday is over.

"I believe that deep in French society there is a strong demand for the restoration of certain values of the Republican right: work, respect for authority, the family, individual responsibility," he says. Although he denies personal animosity for his rival, President Chirac, he makes no attempt to hide their fundamental political differences.

The Kings make a deal for new digs

After two dozen attempts at getting a new arena to replace Arco, the Kings and the City and County of Sacramento agreed to a deal that will be put to the voters in the fall. If you don't like the Kings, or you just don't think that the public should have to pay for a new arena when the Maloofs are rolling in dough, you may not vote for the quarter cent sale tax increase. If you want Sacramento to grow, and not just sprawl, you need to give the public something to do downtown. A new arena coupled with development of the SP rail yard could make downtown Sacramento a draw for tourist and bring more concerts, sporting events and conventions to town. I love going to San Francisco and walking around Union Square or North Beach in the evenings, what can you do in downtown Sacramento? Go to Old Sac? Stumble over the homeless on K street? No thanks, been there, done that.

Negotiators for the city and county of Sacramento moments ago finalized a deal with the Maloof family to finance a new arena for the Sacramento Kings.
The financing package would rely on voter approval of a new quarter-cent sales tax that would produce about $1.2 billion over a period of years, sources said. Half the money would go to pay for the new arena, and the other half would go to the city and county governments to spend as they wish.

Sources familiar with the deal say the Maloofs have agreed to contribute $20 million upfront to pay for various costs to initiate the process.

I chuckle about the timing, yes the deadline for county review was coming up and there was a definite time crunch, but one day after the Seattle Supersonics were bough by an Oklahoma City ownership group, the Kings had the trump card. The notion of the Kings not going anywhere came crashing down. The Seattle deal was proof that the Maloofs could sell the team tomorrow, turn an obscene profit and whoever bought them could move them to any city that could support an NBA franchise.

Who needs the International Red Cross, we have Hezbollah

I just love these stories. Here is Fouad Yassin, most likely a Shiite, living in southern Lebanon with his family. The story says he has been under attack from Israeli artillery for four days. He has had enough and takes his family north, only to find help at a school 'temporarily' taken over by Hezbollah. The nice man from Hezbollah gives him some bread, cheese, three cans of tuna and sends him on his way. You can just hear the stirring music in the background as this story of mercy and compassion unfolds in the piece by Mohamad Bazzi.

Mr Yassin, 35, a book dealer, fled the Bir El-Abed district of Beirut on Monday. Along with his father, mother, four siblings and their families - 24 people in all - they crammed into two minivans and drove through back roads for nearly three hours looking for somewhere to take refuge.

They arrived at the Ibn Rushd School, where they were given foam mattresses to sleep on. Three cans of tuna, two packages of processed cheese and a bundle of bread was the food ration for the day.

At no point in their flight did the Yassins receive help from the Lebanese Government. Instead they ended up at a school that has been temporarily taken over by Hezbollah.

"Hezbollah makes sure that the refugees have everything they need," said Ali Shwaikani, 29, who described himself as a Hezbollah "volunteer" helping organise the displaced.

To fill the government vacuum, the group has dispatched hundreds of young men like Mr Shwaikani to schools and community centres throughout Beirut. Armed with mobile phones and walkie-talkies, they distribute mattresses, food, water and medicine to the refugees.

I have a few observations.

I would bet you lunch at the Burger Barn in Esparto that Mr. Yassin or his family voted for Hezbollah in the last election. You wanted these guys, you got em, now deal with the consequences of electing terrorists as your government representatives.

Nowhere in the story is Hezbollah called a terrorist organization. "The group" Hezbollah, is made to sound like the Shiite version of the United Way. What a load of manure! I wonder if Osama Bin Laden handed out food and built a school or two he could get better press. Oh, wait, a Democrat Senator from Washington did that already.


I am betting another lunch at the Burger Barn that the school Hezbollah 'temporarily' took over, is a storage or launching site for katyusha rockets. That is level of care and respect Hezbollah has for innocent civilians, launching rockets from apartments, schools, and hospitals. They hide behind women and children to launch attacks. Very honorable, very merciful.

There is a good guy and a bad guy in this fight. The good guy is not perfect, but wants to live in peace. The bad guy wants to kill every good guy, down to the last infant. This is not an endless vicious cycle of violence, it a battle between good and evil. No matter how many cans of tuna they hand out, Hezbollah is a terrorist gang, and you can give them land, money, tuna it doesn't matter, the don't want peace they want the death of every Israeli.

But other than that, Hezbollah is just swell.

Speakerphone terrorism.

Ok, is everybody on?

Yes, here.

Praise be to Allah this contraption is working.

God is great. I am here also.

Great, great, well first I want to thank the honorable Mr. Hassan Nasrallah for capturing the two Zionist pig soldiers and sending them back to me here in Iran. Good work, they are now guests of the new Ayatollah.

What about me? I am the one who dug the tunnel and captured the first Zionist pig and killed his two Zionist friends.

Ah my friend Khaled Meshaal, no one is forgetting you and the way you started this whole diversion, I mean Holy War.






Diversion?

I'm sorry President Asad, a slip of the tongue. This is a wonderful chance to finally rid the world of the Zionist threat. They should all die in a fiery Hell, praise be to Allah. You all should be commended for your service to the one true God.





Yea, that's easy for you to say, sitting out of air-strike range in Tehran.





Hey, I am in this with you guys, all the way, I mean who is sending you the money and rockets to kill the Jews anyway? Iran boys, and don't you forget it.





Sorry.




My Bad.





I love you Mahmoud.





Don't get emotional on me Hassan, Hezbollah needs you to be strong and ferocious big guy.




Mr. President, I am getting concerned with the Zionist pigs flying their airplanes over Lebanon, what if they strike my palace in Damascus?





I told the world that a strike against you would bring a devastating response.





Will you use your nuclear weapon?





When its ready boys, when its ready.





How long do we have to keep up these rocket attacks?





Until the western news media turns the popular opinion against the Zionists pigs.





Give us a ballpark timeframe.






A week to ten days before the BBC, CNN and the New York Times run feature stories on the innocent children being killed in Gaza and Lebanon. That will make the world run to the UN calling for diplomacy. That should give me another six to eighteen months to work on the nuke.





What if Bush gets the EU to threaten sanctions and the Russians and Chinese go along with them?





Fire another hundred rockets at the Jews, that should keep everyone's attention away from Tehran for another six months.




Are you sure can get a working weapon in less than two years?





You can't put a timetable on these things, but if we can keep the worlds eyes on the Jews, the North Koreans say they might sell us a working bomb.





Cool.

Yea Baby.





Is that crazy little yellow infidel really going to sell you a nuke?





Hey his people are eating their shoes, they need hard money bad, they will sell us anything.





Ok, so to sum up, Asad, he keep cool and keep quiet and nothing will happen to you.
Nasrallah, you keep your Hezbollah fighters firing those rockets at the Jews until the media pressures them to go UN for peace talks. Meshaal, you keep killing the Jews until you hear otherwise. Ok, are we clear? Thanks everyone, we will talk again next Monday, but it might be later, I don't want to miss 24.

Osama Bin Laden -- In the Words of Those Who Know Him.

Christiane Amanpour is getting Larry King's spot on August 23rd to run her special about OBL. I'm sure it will tell all about how America and the West drove this happy young man into becoming a defender of the Islamic people.

When there are Arabs killing people anywhere, and when isn't there, Christiane will give us the American cause for it.

Hey, Chris, how about doing a report on the families of all the Arab people OBL has murdered in his campaign to take the world back to the 14th century. Oh that's right, you only have a one hour show.

The two edged sword of democracy.

I have been thinking about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Israel and have come to a conclusion. People need to be held accountable for the governments they choose. Germany was willing to elect Hitler with full knowledge of what they were getting, he wrote a book for crying out loud. These folks wanted Hitler, they got Hitler and it lead to the destruction of their nation.

The Palestinians chose Hamas and now they will pay for their choice with their destruction. Lebanon chose to elect Hezbollah, now they will pay a price.

Democracy is a two edged sword.