Heading to bed, but wanting to point other dumbass tankers (DATs) towards this and this about the M1’s employment in urban Iraq (hat tip to Argghhh!). Check out the graphic on urban upgrades — intriguing stuff. It’s interesting that the external phone is a flashback to WWII and the exhaust barrier is a big duh, but there’s no change that the TC’s Ma Deuce is still externally loaded. Too big a mod for a quick change, I guess.
Very cool stuff, all considered.
I’ll admit I chuckled.
The rhymes they will log.
See Eric, and here he will plug.
See how he plugs a harbor that’s Snugg.
On this very important matter concerning Terri Shiavo,
I haven’t blogged, staying well clear of the beehive-o.
[Fine, I ain’t the next coming of freakin’ Dr. Seuss, but I like Snugg Harbor‘s treatment of the importance of rule of law by GuyS. I may not be in complete agreement, but it’s closer to my beliefs than most on my blogroll have come in this fiasco. As for Eric, he put some good points here before sailing into Snugg Harbor]
I also would like y’all to take a look at another GuyS post, first referring to an excellent column about how our military always is declared to be wrong but ends up doing right and then to a vet commenter’s putting the notion to rhyme.
While I’m at it, thanks to Eric and Guy. Thank you for serving and thank you for blogging.
It looks like the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, will be a publishing event worthy of the “mega” prefix.
You already know a new Harry Potter book is coming this summer. Here are some bells and whistles.
First, expect enough books out there to fill all of Hogwarts. Scholastic, Inc., the U.S. publisher of J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series, has announced a first printing of 10.8 million copies of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the largest such printing for a hardcover release in this country.
The previous record holder was “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which came out in 2003 with a first run of 8.5 million.
“We have worked very closely with all of our accounts to anticipate the level of demand for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,”‘ Scholastic Children’s Books president Barbara Marcus said Wednesday in a statement. “Once again, we are hearing from our accounts that the pre-orders are phenomenal.”
“Half-Blood Prince” has topped the best seller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com ever since its release was announced in December.
To make sure that nobody could miss the book’s arrival, Scholastic also announced Wednesday a range of marketing gimmicks, including a Harry Potter crossword puzzle in The New York Times in July, promotional spots on the Times Square billboard, Google ads and video commercials on domestic flights of Continental Airlines and American Airlines.
Bookstores already are planning their traditional parties to mark the midnight, July 16 publication of “Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth of seven planned books. Worldwide sales have topped 250 million for the fantasy series, which has been translated into 62 languages.
As silly as it is, the girlfriend and I will probably find ourselves in a Barnes & Noble at midnight again. The HP5 release was a good wrap for us to an evening at the movies watching X2. Hey, she’s been a geek-in-the-making since I dragged her to The Fellowship of the Ring. Besides, she started reading the HP series before me. It’s not my fault.
I’m getting pretty sick of fighting a comment spam attack. Please bear with me.
UPDATE: Attack over, 13 IP addresses denied, Target Centermass victorious.
Expect outages this weekend, as I anticipate a WordPress upgrade and will be investigating better defenses against comment spam.
I sit here, barely able to blog, overcome by awe.
Cpl. Jemel Daniels was a gunner on patrol with his unit in Iskandere, Iraq, when his Humvee hit a makeshift bomb on the side of the road.
“I shot out of the turret 30 feet into the air and fell into a ditch on the side of the road. My friends dragged me across the road. Just two of us actually got out and three passed away,” the corporal said.
Daniels works out hard without appearing to give much thought now to his injuries — an amputated left leg, a battered arm and a shattered right foot now stabilized by painful steel pins running through it. None of his wounds have deterred his future plans.
“I’m staying active duty,” he said.
Go read the rest. Seriously. Between tales of perserverence such as this and sacrifice such as that of Sergeant First Class Paul Smith, I can only shake my head at the valor of our troops, both on and off the battlefield.
Does the service bring out the best in a person, or is it that our best are drawn to the service? Perhaps a mixture of both, as honorable people see their fortitude strengthened by camaraderie and shared burden. Either way, we are truly blessed as a society to have such heroes among us.
Methinks here is a person that needs to be locked away and fast.
An Egyptian stabbed a Hungarian man and woman, slightly wounding them, after the couple kissed while pausing for a photograph near a mosque at Cairo’s popular tourist bazaar, police said Tuesday.
Hesham Mohammed, 36, apparently was upset by the kiss Monday in front of Al-Hussein Mosque, a security official said on customary condition of anonymity. The mosque is adjacent to the Khan el-Khalili market where foreign tourists flock to buy souvenirs and locally made crafts.
The Hungarians, who were not identified, were treated at a nearby hospital for minor wounds, the official said, and Mohammed was being questioned. He was described as unemployed and suffering from severe depression.
Tourism is Egypt’s top foreign-currency earner, bringing in more than $7 billion Cdn last year and providing an estimated 2.2 million jobs.
First off, knifing foreign smoochers is not an economically sound practice for the Egyptians to adopt as a regular practice. Second, it would be quite safe to say the unemployed Mohammed is severely depressed. I would also guess that he’s either a freakin’ loon, bitterly single, or both.
As is my tradition here at Target Centermass, I’d like to take a moment to thank those who have blogrolled or linked to TCm.
First, thanks to the following fine blogs for adding TCm to their blogrolls:
Second, thanks to the following for recent links to TCm:
As always, if you’ve linked or blogrolled Target Centermass and I haven’t found you, please send an email or post a comment. No good deed should go unacknowledged.
Sergeant First Class Paul Smith will become the first recipient of our military’s highest award next Monday when President Bush presents the Medal of Honor to SFC Smith’s family.
The first Medal of Honor awarded for service in Iraq will be presented next Monday in a ceremony at the White House, White House spokesman Scott McClellan announced Tuesday.
For the family of Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, the honor, the nation’s highest military award, brings conflicting feelings: pride that he’ll be remembered among America’s bravest soldiers, grief that he died two years ago in Iraq.
“At least my mind is at rest because with the Medal of Honor, Paul’s name will go on in history,” his wife, Birgit Smith, said Tuesday from her home in Holiday, Fla. “His name will never die. This is very important to me.”
President Bush will present the medal to Smith’s 11-year-old son, David, during the White House ceremony, Birgit Smith said.
There’ll be a second ceremony next Tuesday morning at the Pentagon. Then in the afternoon, the family will attend another ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, where Smith’s headstone will be unveiled.
Smith was nominated for the Medal of Honor by commanders of the 3rd Infantry Division after his death on April 4, 2003.
Smith, 33, died behind the trigger of a .50-caliber machine gun as he fought off an Iraqi attack near Baghdad’s international airport. He’s credited with saving more than 100 American lives and killing at least 50 Iraqis.
I missed the news when the award was announced in February, but Blackfive had the story, pointing towards this account.
What Paul Smith did on April 4, 2003, was climb aboard an armored vehicle and, manning a heavy machine gun, take it upon himself to cover the withdrawal of his men from a suddenly vulnerable position. Smith was fatally wounded by Iraqi fire, the only American to die in the engagement.
“I’m in bittersweet tears,” said Smith’s mother, Janice Pvirre. “The medal isn’t going to bring him back. … It makes me sad that all these other soldiers have died. They are all heroes.”
With the medal, Smith joins a most hallowed society.
Since the Civil War, just 3,439 men (and one woman) have received the Medal of Honor. It recognizes only the most extreme examples of bravery – those “above and beyond the call of duty.”
That oft-heard phrase has a specific meaning: The medal cannot be given to those who act under orders, no matter how heroic their actions. Indeed, according to Library of Congress defense expert David F. Burrelli, it must be “the type of deed which, if he had not done it, would not subject him to any justified criticism.”
From World War II on, most of the men who received the medal died in the action that led to their nomination. There are but 129 living recipients.
Smith is the first soldier from the Iraq war to receive the medal, which had not previously been awarded since 1993. In that year, two Army Special Forces sergeants were killed in Somalia in an action described in the bestselling book Black Hawk Down.
The officer who called Birgit Smith on Tuesday nominated her husband for the medal.
Lt. Col. Thomas Smith (no relation) sent in his recommendation in May 2003, beginning a process that involved reviews at 12 levels of the military chain of command before reaching the White House. On Tuesday, Lt. Col. Smith expressed satisfaction that the wait was over, and great admiration for his former subordinate.
In the Army, he said, you hear about men who won the Medal of Honor. “You think they are myths when you read about them. It’s almost movielike. You just don’t think you’d ever meet someone like that.”
[…]
Lt. Col. Smith commanded the 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, during the American attack on Iraq, which began March 20, 2003. On the morning of April 4, the engineers found themselves manning a roadblock not far from Baghdad International Airport.
A call went out for a place to put some Iraqi prisoners.
Sgt. Smith volunteered to create a holding pen inside a walled courtyard. Soon, Iraqi soldiers, numbering perhaps 100, opened fire on Smith’s position. Smith was accompanied by 16 men.
Smith called for a Bradley, a tank-like vehicle with a rapid fire cannon. It arrived and opened up on the Iraqis. The enemy could not advance so long as the Bradley was in position. But then, in a move that baffled and angered Smith’s men, the Bradley left.
Smith’s men, some of whom were wounded, were suddenly vulnerable.
Smith could have justifiably ordered his men to withdraw. Lt. Col. Smith believes Sgt. Smith rejected that option, thinking that abandoning the courtyard would jeopardize about 100 GIs outside – including medics at an aid station.
Sgt. Smith manned a 50-caliber machine gun atop an abandoned armored personnel carrier and fought off the Iraqis, going through several boxes of ammunition fed to him by 21-year-old Pvt. Michael Seaman. As the battle wound down, Smith was hit in the head. He died before he could be evacuated from the scene. He was 33.
Thank you, Sergeant First Class Paul Smith.
Does anybody know how to say “Attack Fort Sumter” in Hebrew?
Militant settlers warned of violence and civil war after Israel’s parliament cleared away a major obstacle in front of a planned pullout from all 21 Gaza settlements and four in the West Bank this summer, handily defeating a call for a referendum.
The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, following Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s lead, rejected the plebiscite proposal yesterday by a vote of 72-39. Sharon had denounced the call for a referendum as a last-ditch effort by the settlers and their backers – many in his own Likud party – to scuttle the pullout.
Polls show about two-thirds of Israelis in favour of the withdrawal, roughly the same proportion as the Knesset vote. But the settlers, far from giving in, are simply redirecting their efforts to demonstrations and possible violence.
First, it should be pointed out that two-thirds favoring withdrawal does not mean one-third favors the settlements; rather, it only means that a portion of one-third are for the settlements. I’ll wager that the percentage of this portion that actually believes in the idea of an Israeli civil war over the settlement issue is minute. There’s always that little matter of the threat of outsiders surrounding the nation and hoping for its demise that will keep such matters from happening.
Thousands of settlers, many of them teenagers, demonstrated in front of the Knesset during the debate and vote. When the wide margin was announced, the settlers seemed momentarily deflated. Leaders called off the second day of the planned 36-hour vigil and said they would abandon their efforts to change the parliament’s mind.
But as their options narrowed, their rhetoric heated up.
“The Knesset has voted for violence, for civil war, for the next political assassination in Israel,†said Yehuda Glick, once the spokesman for a government ministry, referring to the 1995 murder of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an extremist Jew opposed to Rabin’s compromises for peace.
Civil war? No. Another assassination by an Israeli radical? A legitimate threat.
Here’s hoping Israel doesn’t stray, just as the entire region is fumbling its way towards popular reform. Self-inflicted bleeding is not a good thing in shark-infested waters.