TigerHawk

His family spurned him and applied for the father's estate to be redivided, taking into account his new sex. "They filed a suit even though I am still considered a man and am legally male in Saudi Arabia. I do not know what to do or how to change my sex legally," he said.

Changing sexual identity is not unknown in Saudi Arabia, where the operation is referred to as a sex correction. Cases are studied first by religious scholars, who decide whether surgery is religiously permissible. It is available only to those with an "inter-sex" condition: people born with some characteristics of the opposite sex.

Close air support in Fallujah at its best. Some Marines were pinned down in a building in a Fallujah neighborhood. Terrorists throughout the city heard about it and were rushing to the area to try and take the Marines out.

The Marines called in air support and the first responders were Air Force F-16's. This video shows a group of guerrillas rounding a corner onto the street leading to the Marines. The F-16's altitude appears in the upper right corner. In the lower right corner is the countdown until the bombs impact. The cross-hairs in the middle indicate where the pilot is directing the laser spot to guide the bombs. The number just to the right of the crosshairs is the length of one of the arms of the crosshairs on the ground in meters.

The bombs are two 500lb laser-guided.

The missile strike occurred some time ago as insurgents were leaving a clandestine meeting in a mosque after midnight. This is low light level imagery captured with CCD technology. You can tell from the night/reflective characteristics of the imagery, and from the CCD code on the display.

Separated in the height department from his baby brother by nearly a foot, Command Sgt. Maj. Jordan appears to have set the example for him in the heart department.

(2004-11-26) -- After a week of tough negotiating by France, Germany and Britain, the Islamic Republic of Iran has conceded to reduce the size of nuclear warheads it will use in the eventual bombing of Paris, Berlin and London.

"Iran blinked," said French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, who is a man. "We have achieved everything we wanted in these negotiations. Our capital cities will be spared to a certain degree and Iran has pledged to stop enriching uranium, while retaining 20 operating centrifuges, and continuing to process plutonium. This is a great victory of diplomacy."

A spokesman for Iran's President Mohammad Khatami said, "The Europeans are vigorous negotiators, and we have made deep concessions. The eventual survivors in Paris, Berlin and London will express gratitude to Allah when they compare their lot with the fate of Jerusalem and New York."

I've been surprised, out on the road, how often I get asked about my family. They're beyond red - more like crimson. My sister flew to West Virginia in October to work a phone bank for W.

People often wonder what our Thanksgiving is like.

It's lovely - if you enjoy hearing about how brilliant Ann Coulter is, how misguided The New York Times's editorial page is, and how valiant the president is as he tries to stop America's slide into paganism.

While everyone watched, Americans called in a new round of air strikes on Tora Bora, letter al Qaeda -- and Zaman -- know that the U.S. was not honoring any cease-fire. As important, they were letting Zaman know that the money he undoubtedly collected from al Qaeda for calling the cease-fire was his death warrant with bin Laden, who would now see him as having taken the payoff without having delivered. Zaman was now completely dependent on the United States.

The United States did something even more startling. A B-52 bomber flew over Tora Bora. It started releasing white smoke, and traced a figure eight in the air - representing 8 a.m., the time the ceasefire was to start. The bomber then traced two other letters: NO. A B-52 bomber had played skywriter over Tora Bora, letting al Qaeda know that whatever deal they thought they had was null and void.

[F]or fully more than eight years, from 1995-2004, the secretary-general's son was in one way or another on the payroll of Cotecna, which for almost five of those years held a crucial oil-for-food inspection contract with the U.N. Secretariat.

A large part of the pro-Bush vote - especially among blue state residents - was a vote against the left elite and the cultural attitudes it represents in the public imagination. It was a vote not so much for Bush or his often religious policies (or even the war on terror), but against the post 9/11 left, against Michael Moore and political correctness and Susan Sontag and CBS News, among a host of others.

You nailed it, dude. You just fucking nailed it. I grew up in redneck America - John Ashcroft's hometown, no less - but I've been a chai latte-drinking, Times-reading, wine-scrutinizing-metro-scum pig living in the northeast ever since I got my law degree ten years ago. So I think I know "both sides" of this country pretty darned well. The Democrats didn't lose this election because of the GOP's gay bashing - the polls bear that out. And they didn't lose because 51% of Americans are cross-wielding bigots who want to roll back our civilization to the fourteenth century. Follow the principle of Occam's Razor - all things equal, the simplest explanation is the best. As applied here, that means the Democrats were not entrusted with the keys to the White House because there were just too many Americans who don't like and don't trust the Democratic Party. That's why they lost this election. That's why GOP voter id equaled - for the first time ever - Democratic voter id. That's why Daschle lost his Senate race. That's why the GOP has six more Senate seats than it did 25 months ago.

Let me say it again - the Democrats lost because they are not liked and they are not trusted. That, and really nothing else, was the verdict of this election. And for what it's worth, shitting all over the 61 million pitchfork-wielding imbeciles who didn't vote for them probably isn't their path back out of the wilderness, emotionally gratifying though it may be.

It is incredibly humbling to walk among such men. They fought as hard as any Marines in history and deserve to be remembered as such. The enemy they fought burrowed into houses and fired through mouse holes cut in walls, lured them into houses rigged with explosives and detonated the houses on pursuing Marines, and actually hid behind surrender flags only to engage the Marines with small arms fire once they perceived that the Marines had let their guard down. I know of several instances where near dead enemy rolled grenades out on Marines who were preparing to render them aid. It was a fight to the finish in every sense and the Marines delivered.

The United Nations is investigating about 150 allegations of sexual abuse by UN civilian staff and soldiers in the Congo, some of them recorded on videotape, a senior UN official said today.

The accusations include pedophilia, rape and prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an assistant secretary-general in the peacekeeping department.

Ms Lute, an American, said there was photographic and video evidence for some of the allegations and most of the allegations came to light since the spring.

As the US-Iraqi Fallujah offensive goes into its eleventh day, some hard facts glint through the pile of chaff obscuring the operation. For one, the immediate impression of several secondary fronts springing up out of the Fallujah offensive - and fought by small groups of rebels, foreign Arab and al Qaeda combatants - is misleading. According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources, those groups were allowed to retreat from Fallujah and “guided” towards Baqouba, Mosul and Ramadi. There, US and Kurdish forces were lying in wait to trap them and are now wiping them out...

The American tactic was in fact to push the insurgents out of Fallujah in any of four directions: south to Latafiya and Iskandariya; west to Ramadi; east to Baqouba or north to Mosul.

The Marines made sure of an open corridor or two in all the battle sectors they encircled. Their purpose was to siphon the enemy out of the city for two reasons:

A. To accomplish their mission with greater speed and minimum casualties.

B. To cut down on difficult urban, door-to-door combat by emptying the city. The enemy was expected to be easier to pick off outside Fallujah while they were in flight and in disarray.

One blade will lie between Fallujah and Baqouba; the second from Fallujah to Latafiya.

In the weeks to come, the two blades will come together, sweeping up the pockets of resistance in their path – foreign Arab, Iraqi and al Qaeda insurgents. American planners hope this action will clean out the area bounded by Latafiya and Iskandariya in the south and Baqouba and Ramadi in the northeast and west - right up to Baghdad.

According to our military experts, American strategists have their sights on two goals:

1. Baghdad’s virtually insulation against terrorist attack, a pre-condition for stable government, especially after the January 27 general election.

2. The division of Iraq’s heartland and Sunni region into two sectors: In one, the southern environs of Mosul, Haditha, al Qaim and other parts of Anbar province and Tikrit, insurgent warfare is not expected to disappear although its pitch will be reduced. The second - from Fallujah to Latafiya and including Baqouba and the Diyala province, southeast of Baghdad - will be rid of rebel violence. Cleaning it out is a vital element of the Fallujah offensive and intended to make sure that the Sunnis of Diyala Province turn out for the vote.

This attack came as a response to the American chemical attack on Fallujah a few days ago. At press time, there is not one word in mainstream press about this large scale attack. Curiously, a quick search on Google netted virtually no information at all on the Iraq war – a war that is taking American lives daily.

"Your hair is one of the first things people notice about you," he said. "You can spend a lot on clothes, but you wear your hair every day. The luxury market is not about needs, or 'Is it worth it?' It's about 'What can I spend?'

Combat air controllers were the critical military specialty for the United States in Afghanistan. In a very real sense, the entire campaign rested on a handful of men drawn from the Air Force and Naval Aviation whose specialty was calling in air strikes. There were never more than a few dozen of these men deployed in Afghanistan, but they were the ones who enabled airpower to be effective. Calling in an air strike consists of more than simply designating the target. It also requires a selection of munitions appropriate to the target, a vector of attack to minimize the chance of friendly casualties, rapid damage assessment, and so on. Sometimes a laser designator is used to pinpoint the target for laser-guided munitions. Sometimes when he lases the target, the target shoots back. The combat air controller not only has to be skilled at his own trade, he also has to be able to operate as an infantryman. He walks to his target.

Exactly what the finding means is not yet clear, but several pieces of evidence suggest that reduced volume in the amygdala may predispose a person to cocaine addiction, the study's senior author told Reuters Health.

Swiss teenagers smoke more cannabis than their peers in every other European country, a survey said Thursday, casting a pall over the country's prim and wholesome image.

The dolphins deployed as underwater sentinels to the Arabian Gulf region by the U.S. Navy last year have been valuable in protecting coalition ships and piers against terrorist attacks, a Navy spokesmen said Friday.

The video of the soldier shooting is proof, we are told, of America’s evil. And the kidnapping, torture and murder of Mrs. Hassan is then proof of what?...

All tactics of the insurgents are excused. Hide among civilians. Justified. Wear civilian clothes. Justified. Shoot from a mosque. Justified. Feign death to draw soldiers in (the way one Marine died the day before the incident). Justified. Wave a white flag as a ploy. Justified. Booby-trap dead bodies. Justified. That’s just Fallujah.

Moving outward — Deliberately killing Iraqi civilians daily. Justified. Bombing churches. Justified. Bombing cafes. Justified. Using schools and mosques as arsenals. Justified. Attacking the police. Just fine.

The rules of war don’t apply to the insurgents, only the Americans. And if one horrible act occurs at the hands of one American soldier, the world howls.

The fact they pulled the drug from the market is proof there was something wrong with the approval process in the first place.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited a Seoul source with "good connections" in the North as saying that North Korea is removing pictures of Kim Jong Il from public places. This follows an Itar-Tass report on Nov. 16 that, at a recent reception in North Korea, there was only a "light rectangular spot and a nail in the wall" where the portrait of Kim once hung next to the one of his father, Kim Il Sung. Yonhap also cited Norbert Vollertsen, a German based in Seoul who advocates human rights in North Korea, as saying his sources in the North also confirm pictures had been removed, dating as far back as August.

If the large-scale removal of Kim's portraits is indeed taking place, it poses some interesting questions on the status of the reclusive regime. Is there a significant problem with Kim, physically or politically? Is there a massive political change coming in North Korea? Or is it something less drastic, but perhaps no less significant?

The U.S. already had experience in dealing with the possibility that covert Soviet operatives had penetrated the United States during the Cold War and had handled it so poorly that it traumatized an entire generation and caused U.S. intelligence and security services to shy away from anything that reminded them of that period. The ultimate legacy of Joseph McCarthy is that he left the United States institutionally and intellectually incapable of coming to grips with Al Qaeda on a domestic level without reviving a deep national nightmare.... [McCarthyism] ... defined what was impermissible in dealing with conspiracies. McCarthy became the negative standard against which all counterconspiratorial actions were judged. Al Qaeda was certainly a conspiracy. Fighting Al Qaeda became hopelessly entangled in the collective memory of McCarthyite excesses.

What was required was a surgical tool to distinguish between members of the Communist Party who were simply engaged in political agitation [which was protected by the Constitution] from members who were agents of the Soviet Union. Another tool was needed to distinguish between former members who simply changed their mind about communism and former members who had been ordered to go covert. Unfortunately, no such tools existed. What happened instead was pure chaos, the issue being seized upon by political opportunists on both sides.... Both sides conspired to create an intellectual, moral, and security circus. Because of McCarthyism, the U.S. became increasingly incapable in dealing with deliberate covert conspiracies that arose in subsequent decades.

The problem with September 11 was that it was indeed a conspiracy. Even worse, it had to be assumed to be an ongoing conspiracy. Somewhere in the United States, there were men planning additional acts of mass murder. Moreover, this was not a randomly selected group of Americans. It was a group of Muslims. Not all Muslims were in Al Qaeda, but all members of Al Qaeda were Muslims. With some exceptions, Muslims can be recognized as Muslims, in the sense that in the United States, most have ethnic characteristics as well as religious beliefs.

Aircraft are essentially long tubes attached to giant explosives
-- jet-grade fuel. Commercial airliners and their passengers were once
referred to as prepackaged hostages. They sit in a long, metal tube,
strapped into seats without space to move, and when it is airborne, there
are no usable exits. Normally there are only two or three people on board
who know how to fly the plane, and if they are killed, everone
dies.

US troops are reportedly using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive on the Iraqi resistance bastion of Fallujah, a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein’s alleged gassing of the Kurds in 1988...

“They use chemical weapons out of despair and helplessness in the face of the steadfast and fierce resistance put up by Fallujah people, who drove US troops out of several districts, hoisting proudly Iraqi flags on them. Resistance has also managed to destroy and set fire to a large number of US tanks and vehicles.

“The US troops have sprayed chemical and nerve gases on resistance fighters, turning them hysteric in a heartbreaking scene,” an Iraqi doctor, who requested anonymity, told Al-Quds Press.

Just so we're all clear on this: They won't fire the producer who pursued a story for four years which ultimately resulted in the broadcasting of obviously forged documents procured from a mentally unstable publically-known Bush-hating guy in order to advance a slander against the President of the United States...but it will fire a producer who pulled the trigger 5 minutes early on the death of a major international figure interupting the end of the tertiary CSI series.

[T]hat in the interval between Episodes III and IV, which is clearly less than thirty years, the entire known universe has forgotten about the Jedi so much so that they believe the Force to be a myth. However, the trailer for Episode III includes the famous speech from Episode I in which Obi-Wan describes how Darth Vader, his pupil, hunted down and murdered all of the Jedi, thus ensuring that they -- and the force -- would be forgotten.

Now, you might say that Ben is hundreds of years old, which is why he alone remembers the Jedi. But that would mean that Vader himself is also hundreds of years old and the two of them are the only ones who remember the Jedi and believe in the force. (This scenario gets more complicated when we learn about the Emperor's background in Episode III, because he clearly remembers the Jedi, too.)

Face it: Vader clearly has a hard enough time preventing R2-D2 from shuffling around with records belonging to the Rebel Alliance. What are the chances he could get rid of everything else?

Just minutes after a California jury declared Scott Peterson guilty of the murders of his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn child, Conner, French President Jacques Chirac called Mr. Peterson "a man of courage and conviction like the late Yassir Arafat."

I don't ordinarily spend a great deal of time thinking about France and French politics. It's basically a weak and irrelevant country, except it is a pretty place to visit and the food is a treat. It's sad to say that France only becomes geopolitically relevant when it behaves badly or stupidly. It has long been forgotten that the French were actually our enemy for most of WWII under the political leadership of the Vichy (i.e, French Nazi) government and Petain. I suppose that they were relevant then. The Germans found the architecture and food charming too. Let's not forget that not a building in Paris was blemished by the Germans, while London was subjected to endless bombings. Paris was and is much more pleasant than Stalingrad and Berlin. Is Chirac Petain? If you asked that question of a full time elite jouranlist, would he understand what I am asking? Could he spell Petain?

Maybe there is something to this. Chirac is clearly appeasing his Arab population at the expense of his relationship with the US, Israel, the UK and other European countries. While it is not shocking that he has to deal with this political reality, at some point he gets exposed. It was politically clever for him to break with the US on Iraq, but at some point the cost gets very high. If, for instance, his main ally in this position, Gerhard Shroeder (my goodness, the German analogy holds up), get chucked out on his ear, Chirac will be pretty lonely in his stance. It looked good for awhile -- Aznar is voted out in Spain for Zapatero, Chirac has momentum. But suddenly John Howard wins, Bush wins and Blair looks good again. The German and French economies suck wind...maybe Chirac doesn't have staying power. Can he resist the American position forever?

Thus far, Ariel Sharon has demonstrated the keenest understanding of history, and a willingness to refer to it. Recall his reference to the fact that "Israel will not be Czechoslavakia." That reference undoubtedly had Peter Jennings calling history professors to figure out Sharon's meaning. He meant Israel won't be sold out as a token of appeasement without dragging alot of people down with him, as Chamberlain sold out the Czechs to Hitler. It was a message to Bush and Blair more than anybody.

A couple of years later, he tosses out a recommendation to his French/Jewish brothers that they might want to consider purchasing some real estate elsewhere. He's telling us that he thinks Chirac might sink the French ship in favor of the Algerians and Moroccans. Throughout history, states have at some point scapegoated their domestic Jewry because it has been a convenient sop - and those states have paid a big price for their bigotry. Right now France is the finest example of a state about to drown itself in this folly. Let's watch it play out. Does anybody seriously think that the North African Muslim underclass in France will uplift French economic, social and intellectual society? I guess there is a price to be paid for French colonialism.

It is increasingly extraordinary to me how this Islamofascist War (WWIV) is playing out as a dramatic reenactment of WWII, but within tighter political guidelines and with far casualties on both sides. Of course, this time we have far better allies, as some of our former enemies have changes sides, Japan being the best example. Italy started out on the winning side this time. But the geopolitical ambiguity of the French and Germans is the most interesting element here. When will they roll over?

Japanese Defense Agency Director Gen. Yoshinori Ono ordered Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) aircraft and surface ships to interdict and track a suspicious submarine spotted in the early hours of Nov. 10 in Japan's territorial waters near Miyako and Ishigaki islands in Okinawa prefecture. By the time the ship was dispatched, the submarine already had left Japan's waters, but still was being tracked by a Japanese P3C maritime patrol aircraft. Japanese Defense Agency officials suspect it was a Chinese nuclear submarine.

The incident is significant for two main reasons. First, it demonstrates the continuing evolution of the role of Japan's self-defense forces. Second, it reflects the growing tensions between China and Japan. Both the timing, coming amid a war of words between Tokyo and Beijing as to whether China is a military threat to Japan, and the place, near a proposed location for more forward-deployed Japanese and U.S. military aircraft, suggest that no accidental straying across amorphous maritime lines occurred....

On Nov. 7, Japanese media released information on a September Defense Agency report that postulates three scenarios in which China attacks Japan. The report, constructed by the committee on defense capability, is part of a broader defense review that will ultimately lead to the revision of the National Defense Program Outline. Beijing reacted strongly to the report, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue issuing a stinging rebuke Nov. 9. "The parties concerned should give up their Cold War mentality and work to promote peace and development in Asia, and the world as whole," Zhang said. Beijing accused Tokyo of trying to meddle in the Taiwan issue, and said such comments and actions are an affront to China's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Japanese media reported in October that U.S. Marine aircraft and Japanese F-15C aircraft could be moving from Okinawa to Shimoji, an island in Okinawa prefecture further west -- and closer to Taiwan. In early November, there were reports that Tokyo was considering setting up an electromagnetic wave-detecting station on Miyako Island capable of intercepting communication signals from Chinese warships and aircraft. These same islands are where the suspected Chinese submarine was spotted.

When Tony Blair comes to Washington this week, he will be urging Bush to stick by his pledge to help create a Palestinian state.

Good. A solution is long overdue. It is a good cause in its own right. It is not a simple way to end violence or appease Islamism, since the Islamists will promptly declare war on any Palestinian state that falls short of an entirely Muslim entity.

But John Kerry would never even have come close to saying, as Bush was the first president to say, that a Palestinian state was a good idea.

If Bush is remembered for kicking out the keystone of Arab rejectionism, in his first term, and then helps Palestinian statehood in his second, he'll be remembered as a historic president.

Every campaign has a political dimension. The campaign in the Sunni Triangle is probably aimed at convincing the enemy that resistance is now futile and their best hope lies in participating in the new Iraqi government through elections. Personally (speculation alert!) I doubt it can achieve as much. The campaign will absolutely gut the enemy as a guerilla force, but it will not be enough to prevent them from terrorizing Sunni politicians who may wish to participate in the coming elections. But this will only postpone unconditional Sunni defeat for another year because a terrorist enforced boycott will mean that Kurds and Shi'ites will dominate the new administration and most importantly, its Army. By next year, the regular Iraqi Army will be a far more potent force and the Sunni insurgency a far weaker one. But that's the old sad human story; to miss the chance when it comes and pine for it ever afterward.

Neither his doctors nor Palestinian leaders would say what killed him.

The boy I carried in my arms and spooned ice cream with at midnight is now the man lined up to battle the bombers, murderers and beheaders. Our women soldiers are also in harm's way. But the burden of an assault is for infantrymen, armor and artillery: combat arms soldiers. Grunts at the front.

On eve of battle, I see my son sleeping. His picture moved on The Associated Press and a few days ago was the "Marine Corps Times Picture of the Day." A huddle of Marines, exhausted after a night mission. And my son's angle of repose so similar to his sleepy lull on the way home from a camping trip in the Sierras.

He is all of them, to me, and all of them are our sons. They have put it all on the line for us. Like the men on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Like the men on Iwo Jima and those other Pacific atolls.

When I was watching Scott Peterson's pursuit amid preparations for deployment as an embedded journalist, my son was in high school attending the prom. A little more than a year later, in his first adult decision, he is in the gathering storm.

Every time I see the seemingly endless saga of the accused wife killer, all I can think is, "You mean this thing was going on before Baghdad fell?" The Peterson drama drones on, and in that time, a boy has grown to manhood and now stares at the dragon's teeth across the blasted, battle-scarred heath.

So here is what I want to say on the absolutely crucial matter of secularism. Only one faction in American politics has found itself able to make excuses for the kind of religious fanaticism that immediately menaces us in the here and now. And that faction, I am sorry and furious to say, is the left. From the first day of the immolation of the World Trade Center, right down to the present moment, a gallery of pseudointellectuals has been willing to represent the worst face of Islam as the voice of the oppressed. How can these people bear to reread their own propaganda? Suicide murderers in Palestine—disowned and denounced by the new leader of the PLO—described as the victims of "despair." The forces of al-Qaida and the Taliban represented as misguided spokespeople for antiglobalization. The blood-maddened thugs in Iraq, who would rather bring down the roof on a suffering people than allow them to vote, pictured prettily as "insurgents" or even, by Michael Moore, as the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers. If this is liberal secularism, I'll take a modest, God-fearing, deer-hunting Baptist from Kentucky every time, as long as he didn't want to impose his principles on me (which our Constitution forbids him to do).