Ashcreek July 2006

Welcome to a new week and a week closer to August. What is up with that? It won't be long and I will have to start talking about FALL weather! GEEEEESH. I don't know where the time goes. I do know that it is moving fast! Faster and Faster and Faster and Faster. It seems like a roller-coaster ride. Oh well - one week closer to winter and that means I can start dreaming of SNOW again! I am hoping to go to Toronto/Waterloo for part of the snow season. Let's just hope we can get some snow! Kristy might move to Boston. I am trying to talk her into going there in the winter. lol Maybe I can see some snow that way.

Things are moving along here at the house. Had some roof damage from the recent storm. That has been repaired. Thankfully I found someone quickly. Was a bit concerned about that.

Still looking for a hill around here. Have not found anything yet. Shall continue to look.

Did get my new anemometer up and running. This one doesn't depend on electricity and give me real time wind readings with gusts. Should be helpful when I call in reports during severe weather. I have it here on the wall behind my radios :)

We have had a break from the hot weather. Today was nice and tomorrow will be nice. The hot weather will return by Tuesday. Oh well better than nothing! I enjoy the cooler weather.

Heading for Ohio during the first week in August. Training for Red Cross.
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It is funny that the United Nations is all of a sudden so concerned about Israel taking out Hezbollah. Does everyone realize that the United Nations passed a resolution YEARS ago saying that Hezbollah HAD to be dismantled. That was one of the agreements when Israel LEFT Lebanon - the last time around. Did you know that the U.N. flag flies NEXT TO THE HEZBOLLAH flag in Lebanon? The U.N. HAS HAD A PEACE KEEPING GROUP THERE FOR YEARS. They have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Soooooo now the U.N. wants to do something again? What a joke. The United Nations has lost all respect. Israel knows that and Israel is going to do what the United Nations refuses to do. Dismantle a terrorist organization that has been terrorizing them for decades.

Time to let Israel do what has to be done.

The UN flag beside the Hizb'allah Flag in Lebanon.

We went to eat at the Lodge this afternoon. That is located in Giant City State Park. Mother and Joey went. GREAT chicken :) home made type stuff. I enjoyed it...almost fell asleep coming home. I guess all that food made me sleepy. BEAUTIFUL day here in Paducah and Southern Illinois.

Mother made a friend at the restaurant

I thought this was dinner...but it wasn't. :)

Monday (July 24)

The world upside down. We give Israel missiles to destroy Hezbollah and then we give money to Lebanon to clean up the mess that our missiles created! I wonder what Saudi Arabia is giving? I know they have trillions to spare.

Humanitarian crisis continue to unfold. Lot of people displaced and a lot of people in need of help. It is too bad that the world didn't come to help Lebanon sooner. This could have all been prevented. Once again we see how ineffective the United Nations has become. Sad that it has come to this.

1559 called for Hezbollah to be dismantled. The world did nothing. The United Nations had their opportunity and walked away from it. Now the cost is higher than ever. If Israel doesn't finish this now then it will mean even more bloodshed later. This goes for Iran as well. Some people would rather ignore all of this and hope things work out. We see where that has taken the world in the past. Ignore your problems and they won't go away. You have to deal with them. War for peace.

GOOD GRIEF THIS YEAR IS GOING WAYYYY TOOOO FAST! :( I wish it would slow down a bit!

An absolutely BEAUTIFUL day here in Kentucky. Sunshine galore - warm - but nice. The last few days have been nice.

Some people are still cleaning up from the storm system. Part of mothers roof was damaged from the high winds. Mine is fixed though :)

I drove around yesterday looking for a hill. Not many hills around here. Waiting to hear from Chad...he might know where some are. I think he must be on vacation.

Estimated 750,000 Displaced now due to the fighting. The world watches as Israel continues to pound Southern Beirut.

During the last three days, aircraft chartered by the ICRC have delivered 90 tonnes of relief, including sleeping mats, blankets and tarpaulins. This evening, a plane will leave Geneva for Amman with 20,000 blankets. More flights are expected in the coming days.

Since the beginning of the crisis, Lebanese Red Cross Society ambulances have taken 348 wounded people to hospital and removed 79 dead. Red Cross vehicles have also evacuated 1,814 people in cases of serious need. The Society is also providing medical care for internally displaced persons all over the country

Small portions of Southern Beirut have been impacted.

What will it take to have peace in the Middle East?

Islamic fascism is bringing the world to the brink. It has become painfully obvious that they want to destroy western civilization as we see it today. It is obvious they want to destroy Israel. So what does America do about it? What does the rest of the world do about it. Do we stand by like we did when Hitler was putting the Jews to death? Do we stand up to the extremists and take them on?

This didn't start with 9/11. This started WAY before 9/11. 9/11 just brought the majority of Americans into the battle. America and other countries have been in this battle for decades. Now it is all coming to a head. Radical Islam is going to bring an end to freedom as we know it today. This is a religious war. Call it what you want to call it...but that is exactly what this is.

A supporter of the Lebanese Club in the Czech Republic shows her t-shirt inscribed 'I love Beirut' during a gathering of some two hundred protesters demonstrating against the Israeli military operation in Lebanon at Prague's Old Town Square Monday, July 24, 2006. (AP Photo)

The democracy of Lebanon deserves better than this. The people of Lebanon are tired of the terrorists ruining their beautiful country. Hopefully the world will rally around Lebanon and bring an end to this fighting.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) remarked at the National Press Club on Wednesday July 19th 2006 calling for regime change in Iran and described "Islamic fascism" as the "great test" of this generation, as threatening to the United States as last century's German Nazism and Soviet communism.

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Jews pray at the Western Wall for the soldiers of Israel (AP)

The leader of the terrorists - Hezbollah -
comes on television yesterday and tells the world that they are going to destroy Israel.

Why was Hezbollah ALLOWED to bomb Israel on a weekly basis - for years on end. How long do we think Israel should have continued to allow that to happen to their citizens? Six more years? Three more years? How many more years?

The world COULD have prevented this from happening. The world chose to allow Israel to be pushed to the brink of war. The kidnapping of their soldiers was the last incident that Israel would put up.

Many innocent people are now hurting because of all of this. A once fledgling democracy is now struggling to survive. Iran and Syria laugh at this. This is a war that they wanted and baited. Their time is coming.

Lebanese President Emil Lahoud said today that he supports the Hizbullah terrorist organization.

"I support the Hizbullah because they liberated our land," Lahoud said, adding that the Lebanese army does not have the wherewithal to confront the IDF, but that it will defend Lebanon as much as it can.

Hizbullah is a part of the current Lebanese government, with one of its members serving as Lebanon's minister of energy. Lahoud is widely regarded by Lebanese citizens as a Syrian agent in the country's regime.

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U.S. Air Force rescues a young American girl for the War on Terror aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft from Paphos, Cyprus, to Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

To those who take seriously the infinite value of human life, proportionate casualties are a mockery. How do we compare 20 infinites to 40 infinites? Each death is a tragedy of infinite proportion that must be avoided wherever possible but cannot rightly be compared to any other death.

Put differently, if Hezbollah killed 50 Israelis and the Israel Defense Forces rounded up and killed 50 Lebanese, the response would be proportionate but barbaric. The justice of a war is not a mathematical function of each side�s causalities.

Indeed, this caricature of the just-war concept of proportionality is historically novel. The Japanese killed 68 American civilians at Pearl Harbor. In the course of World War II, we killed 600,000 Japanese civilians. It was the level of threat posed by Japan, not the number of civilian deaths they caused, that justified full-scale war by the United States. If the quarter of a million Israelis living in bomb shelters had made themselves easier targets by coming out into the open, would Israeli military action then be justified?

Unlike Hezbollah terrorists, and even unlike the United States in Japan, Israel practices the just-war criterion of discrimination � making every effort to avoid civilian causalities. Neither Hezbollah missiles nor their suicide bombers make any attempt to differentiate between civilians and soldiers. Quite the opposite � they purposely target civilians.

Israeli air force pilots risk their own lives flying missions to drop leaflets urging civilians to leave combat zones. By just-war standards, those who remain lose their civilian immunity. It is Hezbollah�s practice of placing missile batteries in civilian neighborhoods that deserves condemnation.

The Hezbollah War is neither retaliation nor revenge. It is an effort to remove Hezbollah, and the threat it poses, from Israel�s border. Counting bodies is not a useful exercise. Separating the perpetrators of wanton violence from their victims is.

Small portions of Beirut have been hit very hard. This map below shows just how small of an area has been impacted by the bombing. The media is making it look worse than it is. They apparently are showing the same buildings over and over again.

VERY small area has been destroyed. This is the area where Hezbollah has its headquarters.

RAIN RAIN RAIN AND MORE RAIN IS ON THE WAY! It appears that some heavy rain will move into our region later today. Looks like over one inch for most areas. I guess we can always use rain. Perhaps our drought will hold off this year. THANKFULLY! The drought continues to spread across the United States. More than 40% of the country is in drought. Bad conditions to say the least.

All of the areas in red, yellow, and orange are in drought. Not a good situation for a large portion of the country.

How about gas prices! $3.40 in the Bronx of New York. Wowsers. Here is a gas price map

Orange is above $3.00 and the green is around $2.80.

PEACE - We need peace! Somehow through this war Israel and the Middle East has GOT to change. They have got to find a way to sustain peace. This war must be won. One way or another.

In the first days of fighting in the Middle East, some Arab leaders found themselves in the unusual position of criticizing an attack on Israel; suggesting that Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, the event that started this latest bloodshed, was ill-conceived, risky and wrong.

At that time, the loudest complaints about Israel's actions were coming from Syria and Iran, countries that have backed Hezbollah for years.

But look at how a little more than two weeks can change things.

The Israeli military has been battling Hezbollah nonstop and hammering Lebanon. And now, Middle East watchers say public complaints about Israel's actions are growing noticeably louder throughout the Arab world. The images of Lebanese killed, wounded and fleeing; the pictures of Hezbollah neighborhoods reduced to rubble; the mere thought of Israel attacking on the soil of an Arab country -- these things have triggered many deep-seated and long-lived hatreds.

Some of the Middle East experts I have talked to say this should not be mistaken for the beginning of a massive, pro-Hezbollah movement. Many Arabs, they say, especially those who must live alongside Hezbollah in Lebanon, do not like the group's radical politics and despise its militant methods. But few Arabs say that publicly.

It was explained to me this way: Ask any Arab if he or she supports Hezbollah right now and that person is likely to say "yes," but what they mean is that they are not about to be heard supporting Israel.

Some Arabs have always hated Israel and probably always will. Some Israelis, no doubt, would be happy to be rid of many Arabs. So my question is this: Does it make any difference, with the guns of war pounding, that their hatreds may be hardening even more?

Posted By Tom Foreman, CNN Correspondent

:
TEL AVIV - Patriot Missile is fired

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California heat wave death toll tops 130

Woodland Hills breaks L.A. county record with 119-degree heat

FRESNO, California (AP) -- The death toll from California's record-breaking heat wave reached 132 on Friday, the first day in nearly two weeks that temperatures were expected to stay below 100 degrees across most of the state

Time to REWIRE everything. heh By the time I was finished the entire floor was covered in wires and monitors and and and and and everything else!

DISGUSTING - TERRORISTS PUT CHILDREN IN HARMS WAY TO FURTHER THEIR GOAL. HEZBOLLAH SHOULD BE 100% DISMANTLED AND THE WORLD SHOULD BE OUTRAGED AT THEIR BEHAVIOR. INSTEAD THE WORLD WANTS TO BLAME ISRAEL? GIVE ME A BREAK.

Jerusalem-----July 30.....The following communication was transmitted from the Israel Defense Forces to the Israel News Agency.

"This morning, the Israel Air Force attacked Hezbollah missile launch sites in the area of the village of Qana, Lebanon. An area from which hundreds of Katusha missiles were launched towards the Israel city of Nahariya and the Israel communities in the western Galilee."

The IDF will defend the citizens of Israel from terror attacks by the Hezbollah and the responsibility for any civilian casualties in Lebanon rests with the Hezbollah who have turned the suburbs of Lebanon to a war front by firing missiles from within civilian areas.

Residents in this region in Lebanon and specifically the residents of Qana were warned several days in advance by both Israel and Lebanon radio to leave the village.

Eighteen Israelicivilians have been murdered and over 400 have been wounded from these rocket attacks which have disrupted the lives of thousands in Israel.

A Canadian UN officer serving as a military observer in the United Nations base hit by an Israel strike last Tuesday emailed his former commander that Hizbullah was using his UN post as a human shield. Major Paeta Hess von Kruedener was also clear that the Israel Air Force was not targeting the observers.

The UN commander, Major General Louis Mackenzie said in an interview with a Canadia radio station that his former soldier had written to him six days before his death about the recent developments in Lebanon. According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, Kruedener wrote that the IAF strikes near the post were �necessary�. He also noted that the IDF fire was not aimed specifically at the UN post, but rather at the terrorists.

(Photo) A young Israeli girl is evacuated from Nahariya hospital after a Hezbollah rocket attack made a direct hit on the hospital. Photo: AFP

Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post described the killings of civilians in Qana and other villages in south Lebanon as such: "What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security? What other country sustains 2,000 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities--every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians--and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?"

Krauthammer continues: "Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, and a very few others), the world--governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats--has completely lost its moral bearings. The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate" as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response."

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki to a cinder, and turned the Japanese home islands to rubble and ruin. Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right--legal and moral--to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan.

Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did it respond to the blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with "proportionate" aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. Churchill orchestrated the greatest land invasion in history that flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process.

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides. In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. These rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do. But it is a dual campaign. Israel innocents must die in order for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents must also die in order for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime. It is also a Hezbollah specialty."

Krauthammer adds: "On Wednesday, CNN cameras showed destruction in Tyre. What does Israel have against Tyre and its inhabitants? Nothing. But the long-range Hezbollah rockets that have been raining terror on Haifa are based in Tyre. What is Israel to do? Leave untouched the launch sites that are deliberately placed in built-up areas? Had Israel wanted to destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure, it would have turned out the lights in Beirut in the first hour of the war, destroying the billion-dollar power grid and setting back Lebanon 20 years. It did not do that. Instead, it attacked dual-use infrastructure- bridges, roads, airport runways--and blockaded Lebanon's ports to prevent the reinforcement and resupply of Hezbollah.

Ten-thousand Katyusha rockets are enough. Israel was not going to allow Hezbollah 10,000 more. Israel's response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. Does anyone imagine that it could not have leveled south Lebanon, to say nothing of Beirut?

Instead, in the bitter fight against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages by radio and even phone text to Lebanese villagers to evacuate so that they would not be harmed. Israel knows that these leaflets and warnings give the Hezbollah fighters time to escape and regroup. The advance notification as to where the next attack is coming has allowed Hezbollah to set up elaborate ambushes.

The result? Unexpectedly high Israeli infantry casualties. Moral scrupulousness paid in blood. Israel soldiers die so that Lebanese civilians will not, and who does the international community condemn for disregarding civilian life?"

Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said today that Israel had told the residents of the Lebanese village of Qana to leave before the raid. "All the residents were warned and told to leave. No one was ordered to fire on civilians and we have no policy of killing innocent people. The village and its surrounding areas were a source for launching hundreds of rockets."

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What I've Watched
at the theater lately

----------------------
Star rating that I give each movie (out of a possible 5 stars)

California heat wave death toll tops 130

Woodland Hills breaks L.A. county record with 119-degree heat

NWS Forecast

Current Severe
Weather Warnings
Paducah Radar

What I've Watched at the theater lately ---------------------- Star rating that I give each movie (out of a possible 5 stars)

California heat wave death toll tops 130

Woodland Hills breaks L.A. county record with 119-degree heat

NWS Forecast Current Severe Weather Warnings Paducah Radar

What I've Watched
at the theater lately

----------------------
Star rating that I give each movie (out of a possible 5 stars)

NWS Forecast

Current Severe
Weather Warnings
Paducah Radar