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Author: Bryant

Big fat untruths

Or possibly the Saudi/Pakistan nuke story is completely untrue.

We can still invade, though.

Hm. On further thought… why would Israeli intelligence want to spread that story? The implications are unpleasant. Not that I’m saying I don’t think Israeli intelligence would do that, it’s just worrisome. Weren’t we supposed to be stabilizing the Middle East?

Danger climbing

I’m not sure what I think about Pakistan providing nukes to Saudi Arabia, other than that I can’t be sure if the article is even accurate. One anonymous source is a thin reed.

You could claim that this is the result of recent Israeli saber-rattling, but really, it’s not. It’d be more accurate to claim that a nuclear Israel will inevitably encourage other Middle Eastern countries to get the bomb.

And, of course, a US-occupied Iraq changes the balance of power in the Middle East. This sort of thing is an inevitable consequence. It’s not clear that it’s an unacceptable consequence; Saudi Arabia with nukes is hardly the end of the world. But this move certainly shouldn’t be unexpected.

Oh, snap

This post is pretty much for Patrick. Others may be amused as well.

Chapter 11 of Dan Simmons’ new book, Hard Freeze, starts like this:

“How’s the book?” asked Kurtz. He squinted at the title. “Isn’t that the same guy you were reading twelve years ago, before I got sent away?”

“Yeah. His detective fought in the Korean War, which makes the old fart in his late sixties at least, but he still kicks ass. A new book comes out every year, if not sooner.”

“Good, huh?”

“Not anymore,” said Arlene. “The P.I.’s got a girlfriend who’s a real bitch. An arrogant piece of work. And she’s got a dog.”

“So?”

“A dog who eats on the table and sleeps in their bed. And the P.I. loves them both to bits.”

“Then why do you keep reading them?”

“I keep hoping the P.I. will wake up and cap both the girlfriend and that ratty dog,” said Arlene.

Monday Mashup #14: Red Sox

The fourteenth Monday Mashup revolves around the Boston Red Sox. (Yeah, you can take a week off if you’re staring at your screen in horror.) They’re generally a talented team of players but are always struck down before they reach the peak of their profession by a dire curse — which always leaves them strong enough to come back and make another try next year. In my book, professional sports is a popular form of entertainment, so let’s mash those Dirt Dogs up.

Trading places

That’s kind of surreal. The Celtics just traded Walker and Delk to the Mavericks for Rafe LaFrentz, Jiri Welsch, and Chris Mills. Plus a first round pick.

It’s hard to make sense of this one for either team. LaFrentz has a $69 million contract which doesn’t expire till 2008 or so. He also doesn’t represent a huge upgrade at center from Tony Battie, although he’s a much better shot blocker. Chris Mills is just kind of there, and his contract expires soon. Jiri Welsch might actually be something; he’s a 6’7” point guard who played well overseas. But giving up Walker for a handful of potential seems very odd.

From Dallas’ point of view, you lose your starting center in exchange for yet another tweener. Are they going to have Antoine play center? It almost seems like they’d have to be planning something like that.

More trades coming, maybe. Hard to figure out any other explanation.

Skipping farms

Lieberman and Clark are skipping Iowa, or at least the Iowa caucuses. Makes sense for Lieberman, who was polling very poorly in Iowa. A little surprising for Clark, but he couldn’t make a dent in the Gephardt/Dean race, so it’s probably his best option.

However, this puts both of them in the position of battling for third place in New Hampshire, which is not entirely auspicious. Even worse, if Kerry wins or comes in second in Iowa, they run the risk of being just part of the pack.

South Carolina is looking increasingly important. No wonder Edwards hasn’t dropped out yet.

Lickety split

That was easy enough. Admire my brand-new title-based individual entry URLs, which will permit me to migrate hosts, databases, and even blog software without losing my permalinks should I ever feel the need.

Redirection

The redirection solution I’ll use when I get around to fixing my archive permalinks comes from Elizabeth Lawley. (Shelley has some notes as well.) Clever stuff. MTEntryID needs padding, though, and Shelley’s quotes got smartened. Word to the wise.

Mark Pilgrim has tips on archive names, which are pretty good even if I don’t mind having .php on the tail of each URL. Which I don’t. But the keywords trick will be very useful, since my post titles tend to be cryptic.