Be prepared for anything

This is a sad day indeed. Harry at Harry's Place has published his last post as a regular blogger at the site where he's been writing for three years. Work and family commitments take first place for now although I predict that he'll start blogging regularly again one day. His site is going to be run by four other guys who've been doing a great job over the last few weeks, particularly with regard to raising awareness of George Galloway's pro-war, pro-jihadist, pro-fascist beliefs.

The post is long and touching and well worth reading so click here. He talks about "the ethic of responsibility" and describes his position as "an anti-fascist, pro-democracy, internationalist, secular, liberal and social-democratic stance".


"This medium isn't going to disappear nor are readers going to return to being passive consumers of other people's views."


In his last post he has quite a few entertaining and enlightening links. That is one of the drawbacks of the blogosphere, you get sucked into spending hours following various links. Pleasurable but time consuming hours go past at warp speed.

I want to return to the idea of the nationality of the terrorists in Iraq as I found some statistics here.

"In New Republic Online Husain Haqqani and Daniel Kimmage attempt to glean what they can from biographies (posted on the internet) of suicide bombers in Iraq:"

Saudis 61%, Syrians 17%, Iraqis 10%, Kuwaitis 5%, Jordanians 5%, other countries 2%=100%

At the Society of Cogers meeting last night someone mentioned that Iraq's inevitable civil war will be between the Shiites and the Sunnis. I think the Baaaathists may get a look in and according the statistics above there will be Saudis popping over the border on the odd occasion. That is, if the coalition pulls a substantial proportion of their military might out of Iraq before the Iraqis themselves are trained up to police their own country. And the example of New Orleans is a valid one here, get the wrong governor and things go to hell in a handbasket. But I don't think there's any likelihood of the armies leaving anytime soon. That's just a headline for a slow news day.

I really enjoyed reporting on the Galloway/Hitchens debate at my Cogers meeting last night. I was the only American in the room and the only one who had watched the debate and the stony faces didn't daunt me at all. My fellow Cogers are an intelligent lot and not a one can defend someone who so openly supports totalitarian regimes like the Syrian dictatorship of al-Assad. In fact, later on, someone drew a laugh when referring to Galloway's party name - RESPECT. That is funny and an example of how George understands public relations so much better than some members of the US government.

Time to focus on the day job.