I can't wait to see what the challenges will be.

Posted by: Attila at 01:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There's a small wrapup on the Izzedin Salim assasination in the Toronto Star; the article also discusses the Sarin gas incident.

A lot of stories aren't pointing out that the position Salim held was a temporary one: the council chair rotates every month. So while Salim was an important figure, he wasn't as pivotal on the IGC as some would have you believe.

There's some discussion of who might have done the deed: the American authorities suggest that it looks like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, our favorite murderer, but the al-Rashid Brigades also claim responsibility.

This is bad, but it isn't quite the disaster we've been led to believe by some news accounts.

Posted by: Attila at 01:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Smash makes a reasonably good case that it's over in Fallujah, and that we've effectively won.

Via Outside the Beltway.

Posted by: Attila at 01:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The best information on the Sarin gas story appears (as always) to be at The Command Post.

It's worth noting that several mainstream sources seem to want to either gloss over the story or somehow minimize it.

But it's absolutely huge: clearly, this stuff is around, has been around, and those who thought Saddam got rid of his stockpiles of WMDs without documenting that fact (the "secret compliance" theory) need to re-think their position.

Posted by: Attila at 12:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Am I the last person to find out that Deb and Jay are blogging their pregnancy? Wow. Cool idea. Maybe the Attila Hub and I should start a separate blog for the ups and downs in our adoption process.

Okay, here's one for you: is it better for a married couple to have a joint blog a la Deb and Jay or Asparagirl and Dr. Suarez, or is it preferable that the blogs be separate, as the Esmays' are, and the Noggles'?

Discuss.

Posted by: Attila at 12:33 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Is still good. I'm tending to agree with my husband: it's clear that the season we're watching now was written when negotiations were ongoing, and it wasn't clear whether this might be the last season. I'm wondering if subsequent shows will feel "tacked on." It feels like the overall story is peaking now.

As last season's climax drew near I was knocked over by the fact that Tony and Ralphie were tied together by a horse, and by two women. The horse appeared to symbolize women to a certain degree (and, for crying out loud, its name was "Pie Oh My").

This week's episode confirms it: the woman Tony "stole" from Ralphie, whom he first met at the stable, gets burned (just as Pie Oh My did last season). And in one dream sequence Tony is mounted on a horse in his wife's living room (see what I mean?). He tells Carmella he wants to move back in, and she says if he does that the horse has to stay out the house. In another dream sequence, Tony is screwing the wife of his childhood friend, the restaurateur, as the friend watches from the bedside and tells Tony to "stroke her muzzle."

Horses are women, and women are horses on this show. And women are animals in general: Tony is capable of displaying emotion when women are killed, as he usually cannot for men. (For instance, Tony strikes Ralphie repeatedly--and has to be pulled off--after Ralphie beats the stripper Traci to death behind the Bada Bing.)

Because animals--as with the ducks from the first season--are family (and Tony is reminded of Traci at one point, after her death, by his own daughter). And his family--his mob family in particular--are animals.

Posted by: Attila at 11:53 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Xrlq discusses the Berg murder, and responds to a few of Venomous Kate's theories regarding same. (Also, see the comments thread on Kate's own post for more input.) A few Xrlq's commenters (including the Angry Clam, whose own website seems to have disappeared from the blogosphere for the time being) have some comments on the blood issue that concerns Kate so much.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media are nowhere to be found, and are still obsessed with Abu Ghraib. "Out out, damned spot!"

Posted by: Attila at 11:34 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Heather explains that it's possible to eat at McDonald's without getting fat.

Posted by: Attila at 10:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . obsessed with the Nick Berg murder, and the strange circumstances in Berg's life that led to his destiny at the edge of a big knife. Contrary to some people's assumptions.

I mean, I just blogged about having lunch in Marina del Rey. And Kelley wrote a nice humorous piece that I linked to.

It isn't really "all Berg, all the time" on the Blogosphere . . . except to the degree that people out there are hungry for information, and want to know the truth. If at all possible.

Posted by: Attila at 03:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just pop over here and tell me what you think of the "two camera" theory. It does appear to solve a few problems rather tidily.

Do you dare me to send the link for that post to friends in the entertainment industry, who know about film editing? Double-dog dare me?

Posted by: Attila at 03:02 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Venomous Kate is back, and badder than ever. This is her take on the Nick Berg murder, and it's a fresh perspective I haven't seen elsewhere. While I'm unconvinced about the "time lapse" issue as her post has it, she may have a point about the blood pooling: I'd like to see larger versions of the video stills than I have so far before I venture an opinion on whether Berg for sure and for real dies at the exact moment suggested.

As for the rivalries among the various jihadist groups, I think those are very real, and I'm hoping we've got a lot of very smart people putting a lot of time into figuring out how best to exploit them.

Posted by: Attila at 02:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . there was no more fun to be had from strange Google searches, Kelley comes along and makes you spit up on your keyboard.

She's going back out to Hawai'i to visit Venomous Kate again. I'm jealous, but that just means I need to get out of California more. Of course, I'll probably be e-mailing them both every five minutes once the baby gets here.

Posted by: Attila at 02:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Berg-est blog at this point seems to be Wizbang!, which is giving us nearly up-to-the-moment news on the Nick Berg Mysteries, and features a lot of links, both to the beheading video and to the best articles/blog entries. There are links to roundups as well, so this is truly a good place to start.

But the deeper you get into the water, the muddier it looks.

The conspiracy theorists are jumping in, pointing out that it's a little odd for Berg's kidnappers to have dressed him in an orange jumpsuit, as if he were a prisoner in an American institution. I wrote that off as part of the "theater"--that they were attempting to pass this off as revenge for the Abu Ghraib abuses. But I wonder what the answer really is.

No written confirmation yet, but one report a friend passed along suggests that video enhancement shows a gold wedding band on the finger of one of the captors. This same friend points out that this is against Muslim law.

And then there is that 11-hour gap in the videotape itself. Curiouser and curiouser.

I wonder if we'll ever have answers, or whether this is going to be one of those things like the Kennedy Assasination or the Oklahoma City bombing that drops question marks onto the pages of history and leaves people wondering and speculating forever.

And I'm pretty irritated that the news accounts can't seem to agree on whether or not Berg spoke any Arabic: my impression is that he knew a little--but not much.

Personally, I think the kid was a right-of-center version of Rachel Corrie--idealistic, a bit of an idiot--and I'm willing to live with a couple of coincidences/ironies in his life. But that's me.

Posted by: Attila at 01:20 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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There are conspiracy theories in the air, and a lot of data are floating around. Larry Elder has been talking a lot about all the Berg Mysteries, and based on the documents he has available to him--and has discussed on the air--I have a few conclusions:

1. Nick Berg was raised in the suburbs and had a very sunny, optimistic view of life. He saw bad events as, by definition, things that happened to other people--never him.

2. Nick Berg was a free spirit, and didn't want to be ruled by fear--or pragmatism.

3. Berg had an Israeli stamp on his passport, and this looked suspicious to Iraqi authorities.

4. He was held by the Iraqis for a time, and was in American custody long enough for them to beg him to leave the country, which was a dangerous place for a young man to be without friends, an employer, or even a translator.

5. He refused to do this, preferring to travel over land. This appears to have been a fatal mistake.

6. His father is a wingnut to begin with, and now near crazy with grief. Rather than accept the notion that evil is real and needs to be dealt with, and that he was mistaken about its nature all along, the senior Berg prefers to pin the entire chain of events on George W. Bush, against all reason.

7. Possibly because of the father's wingnuttery, the family has had previous brushes with the FBI.

8. At no point was Nick Berg mindful of the fact that he was in a war zone; just before he disappeared for good he sent one note home to friends in the States to the effect that he'd been out drinking heavily the night before. A Jewish-American guy who goes out on the town, unaccompanied, in Baghdad, is not being careful of his own safety. Not at all.

9. I do not happen to believe that his captors tumbled to the fact that he was Jewish. I suspect if they had that he might have got worse treatment--like what happened to Daniel Pearl.

I've heard about the e-mail passord business, but I haven't so far seen any evidence to link Nick Berg with AQ or other extremists. I suspect this was just coincidence--or possibly another manifestation of the same carelessness that got Berg killed.

To be clear, I don't think this kid was at fault in his own murder. I also (so far) don't see any evidence that he was guilty of anything other than thinking he'd live forever--or at least long enough to tell his kids and grandkids about his swashbuckling adventures in a war zone someday.

He was 26, and appears to have been almost criminally naive. The luck that got him through one previous trip to Iraq and a few forays to other hot spots finally ran out.

And it's a damned shame.

Posted by: Attila at 03:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I had lunch today with the Left Coast Conservative, a charming engineer who spent ten years with the Navy and has lived a pretty interesting life. He's a good conversationalist--and sharp--and has a lot of sound ideas about a great many things. He had just met up with Boi from Troy the evening before; apparently they had a lovely discussion over apple martinis.

He's also among the very few Northern California Bear Flag League Bloggers I've met. I may need to start calling more of the Northern League people on my periodic trips to the Bay Area.

The Bear Flag League (see my sidebar for their blogroll) is one of the many, many reasons I feel blessed to live in the Golden State.

Posted by: Attila at 02:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . has gone all Jane Austen on us. I mean this in a good way, of course. That show is getting better and better.

Posted by: Attila at 12:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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James shares some good news with us regarding Iraq--both in terms of winning "hearts and minds," and in terms of Iraqi security forces gaining some legitimacy in the eyes of the general population there. Looks like things are cooling down a bit--which is a much-needed bit of cheer.

Posted by: Attila at 12:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Alan and Michele of The Command Post have a brilliant idea for channeling our anger and disgust at the Berg murder into a tangible good.

In the meantime, my husband and I will be writing letters to public officials involved in the war effort--from the President on down--expressing our support and gratitude.

Posted by: Attila at 11:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Stephen Green, under the influence of Virginia Postrel's new book The Substance of Style, has an epiphany to the effect that as long as we Americans remain as shallow and greedy as we are, the economy will do fine.

Of course, a martini might have been involved as well, for all I know. But go RTWT anyway.

Posted by: Attila at 02:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Michele actually runs a picture of the latest obscenity from Mickey D's:

This is a McDonald's Adult Happy Meal. Salad, water and a prize of a fitness book and stepometer.

That is not a Happy Meal. It is a Sad Meal.

Ice cream, tequila, nachos and a prize of porn: That is a happy meal.

Posted by: Attila at 01:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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