Hamas Needed Dead Baby Pictures

The United Nations has denied the Israeli claims that Hamas terrorists had secreted themselves in the Gaza U.N. school shelled Tuesday by the IDF. Forty-two Gazans were killed when three tank rounds exploded inside and around the school.

UN spokesman, Christopher Gunness, said the UNRWA which operates the school was "99.9% certain" that militants were not present and no militant activity had occurred inside the school when the IDF attacked. Actually, the school was a former school. It had been converted to a U.N. refugee camp to accommodate 400 people displaced when fighting between Hamas and Israel resumed Dec 26. At the time of the attack, it was not functioning as a school, so forget the whole gleeful children playing on swings and kids eagerly awaiting the bell imagery meant to shock the world with the dichotomy of lifeless bodies on a playground.

Two people living in the neighborhood told Associated Press reporters they had witnessed a small group of Hamas militants shooting off mortar rounds from the street near the school. Also, Israeli Intelligence had been tipped that among the dead in the school/refugee camp were

members of a rocket launching cell... identified two as Imad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar.

Two residents who spoke to an AP reporter by phone said the two brothers were known to be low-level Hamas militants. They said a group of militants was firing mortar shells from near the school.

An Israeli shell missed the men, and they fled, the witnesses said. Then three shells landed nearby, exploding among civilians, they said.

Hamas engineered the attack on the school. They populated the building with children and families. They deliberately fired mortar rounds at the Israeli Defence Force. Up to that point, Hamas did not have the dead baby pictures they needed to sway world public opinion to their favor again. Now they do and the world is eating it up. However, fewer are being fooled this time.




The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

Brown Jacket Man, Red Shirt Man, and Green Helmet Man

In Gaza, a new man has appeared and he's been dubbed Brown Jacket Man as an homage to the Green Helmet man from the last Israeli/Palestinian war up in Lebanon back in '06. Some blog folk think Brown Jacket Man is turning up in too many photos in Gaza.

(h/t Snapshots)

The guy at left in the brown jacket appears to be the same guy in the brown jacket above. Also, note the big happy grin on the kneeling man.







I'm not interested in Brown Jacket Man. I'm interested in Red Shirt Man. I think we've seen him before. Gaza's Red Shirt Man looks an awful lot like Lebanon's Green Helmet Man.

Chances are greatest that Red Shirt and Green Helmet are different superheroes, but you know what they say - all superheroes look alike.
























The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

Who Is He? Woooh!

Renato Zero. There's not an Italian from 1978 who doesn't know Renato Zero and "Triangolo", the greatest song of the Italian glam star. I had great fun at the Renato Zero concert in Florence when I was studying Art there. My view wasn't as close as the old film here, but I did risk life and limb climbing the scaffolding to see above the crowd.

I can still hear it... "Lui chi e.... wooooh!"

Great fun. Just great.




The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

Proof of Birth - It's Easy

The twin brothers were born on different days in different years in the same hospital. Tarrance Griffith was born Dec 31, 2008 at 11:51pm. Little brother, Tariq Griffith was born Jan 1, 2009 at 12:17am. Both were born in Michigan, USA.

We know because their birth certificates tell us so.

Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles is the world's oldest person at 114 years. She was born April 6, 1894 in Georgia, USA.

We know because her birth certificate tells us so.

President elect Barack Obama was born 47 years ago on Aug 8, 1961 somewhere in Hawai'i, USA.

We know because his birth certificate... uhh... well, we know because Barry tells us so.

We have been given no valid Birth Certificate (proof of origin) only a Certification of Live Birth (proof of birth) which isn't really necessary because we can plainly see Barack Obama was, in fact, born somewhere sometime. Wouldn't it be nice if we knew more about the birth of our future president than we do about twins and an old lady?

The $64,000 question is, if a Hawai'i birth certificate does exist as Obama claims, why doesn't he just release the damned thing and settle all the questions? The Hawai'ian governor's office has said there is a valid certificate on file, but has rejected all requests to see it on privacy grounds, but has also left the document's origin ambiguous.

An unscientific America Online poll shows that nationwide over 53% of respondents want to see a valid Birth Certificate for Barack Obama. His adopted home state of Illinois is even split at 47-47.

Opinion in South Dakota and Wyoming "runs 65-40 that Obama's eligibility needs to be investigated, but those figures are topped in Mississippi, where fully two-thirds believe the truths need to be revealed...Even left-leaning Washington state came in at 53-42-5 saying there's merit to the issue, and in California it was 50-45-5. In North Dakota and Texas 61 percent said there's an issue to review."

Even the United States of America has a birth certificate. It's called the Declaration of Independence, but it's a birth certificate all the same. We can go to Washington, D.C. and look at it. A growing number of people want to see the Obama birth certificate, the real deal, nothing less.


The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

Our Citizen Soldiers and the Evil They Do

Don't stay here long. Wordsmith from Nantucket has a post at Flopping Aces that is a superb read. Why Our Military is So Hated Around the World is an in depth look at the work that the US military performs around the world and throughout history. Word focuses on Iraq, but it is only a small part of what our citizen soldiers do.

Ted Turner said during an interview with Bill O'Reilly, "...I think if we stopped bombing people and sent doctors and scientists and engineers around the world that we’d make a lot more progress..." and far too many people will quickly agree without knowing the facts. It's hard getting the facts out and Word does a good job month after month doing just that.

Go read his article. Here is a sample of how personnel of the United States military terrorize children:

U.S. Army Spc. Sam Rogers receives a hug from a young Iraqi girl who is overjoyed with her new shoes. Rogers helped deliver donated shoes to the Abu Tubar School near An Nasiriyah (Iraq).

That is one terrified little girl. Must be Stockholm Syndrome.




The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

Afghan Woman Smiles

The Afghan chadri is a lovely skyblue, but why would anyone cover such a lovely face?

An unveiled young Afghan woman smiles after lifting her veil while waiting for her turn to receive food aid amongst fully-veiled Afghan women 21 November 2001.

The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

Israel v. Hamas in Gaza - What's Next?

Israel started the ground offensive into the Gaza Strip early this morning. The Israeli Consulate in New York City has been asked the same question in various forms all day, "Why has Israel started a ground operation today?" Consul David Saranga replies,

Hamas still maintains the capacity and will to engage in terrorism. With Iranian assistance, Hamas has extended the reach of its missile strikes to threaten close to one million Israelis. By using Mosques, private homes and other public institutions as arsenals and bases of operation, Hamas has effectively taken the Palestinians of Gaza hostage, using them as human shields.

Over many years Israel has tried to bring an end to the terror attacks from Gaza and was unsuccessful. Hamas abused its truce with Israel not only to keep firing missiles against the civilian population, but also to stockpile weapons and prepare for a confrontation with the IDF. Israel has no intention to govern Gaza, but operation “Cast Lead” must continue, for the time being, as the IDF acts to gain control over areas from which rockets are being launched on Israeli towns.

Israel must persist in order to achieve its stated objectives: to significantly disable the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas and produce lasting change in the security predicament affecting residents of southern Israel. No sovereign nation would tolerate the daily targeting of its people. Still, Israel is not an enemy of the Palestinian residents in Gaza: 400 trucks of humanitarian aid and 10 ambulances were allowed passage into Gaza this week; this assistance will continue.

Okay. But, why now? Why not days or weeks ago? Indeed, why wasn't ground action taken months ago?

Since June 2008, a cease fire truce has nominally been in existence. During that time Israel has held it's fire, or conducted highly targeted commando raids against specific targets like tunnels and rocket launchers. Meanwhile, Hamas has continued launching rockets and mortars into Israel. After six months, June to December, the truce expired. Under International Law Chapter VII, Article 51, Israel invoked its right to self-defense.

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Understandable and reasonable. But, still, why now? Why today?

In 17 days, Barack Obama is to sworn as the next President of the United States and no one knows what his policy toward Israel will be. Perhaps not even Obama knows and that is too big a risk for Israel to take. The United States provides much of the Israeli military arsenal and to conduct ground operations after Obama's administration begins could be inviting battlefield abandonment, a knife in the back for every IDF soldier risking all for the continued existence of Israel.

Two days ago, Ralph Peters wrote in the NY Post, BAM STIRS FEARS IN ISRAEL - COULD HALT DEATH BLOW TO HAMAS :

Ordinarily, Israeli leaders would only need to ponder battlefield costs and counter international pro-terror propaganda. But the rise of President-elect Obama complicates matters gravely.

Even the timing of Israel's strike at Hamas has been driven, at least in part, by the coming power transfer in Washington. The immediate trigger was the hundreds of Hamas rocket attacks on Israel after the terrorists refused to renew an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, but Israel's leaders also counted on steadfast support from the Bush administration in its final days.

Obama's an unknown quantity, though. While hysterical claims that he'll be pro-Islamist from start to finish are absurd, even minor shifts away from supporting Israel's struggle against terrorists could have catastrophic consequences. And Israel's vaunted intelligence services can't tell their superiors what Obama will do, since few (if any) of the president-elect's supporters know what he intends to do.

In fact, the president-elect may not know himself. He's a babe in the woods, and the woods are full of wolves. Fighting political rivals doesn't prepare you for fighting terrorist fanatics.
(snip)

...fighting terrorists effectively means going in on the ground - and sooner is better than later. You can't impress fanatics into surrendering. You have to kill them. Nothing else works.

Let me repeat that: You have to kill fanatics. Nothing else works.

However, Obama said in a New York Times interview last July, as reported by the AFP today,

any country would find it acceptable to have missiles raining down on the heads of their citizens...If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.

In the same interview, Obama said about Hamas, it's

very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognize your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon, and is deeply influenced by other countries.

Of the current military action, Obama has been silent invoking the selective admonition that we have only one President at a time. His silence has garnered anger from Hamas leaders.

Khaled Meshaal, Hamas Islamist movement leader that has ruled Gaza since June 2007, said,

The start is not good... You commented on Mumbai but you say nothing about the crime of the enemy (Israel). This policy of double standards should stop.

Hamas apparently was expecting a favorable political position from the Obama Administration which may not be in the offing. Last June, Sen Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State select, told AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby,

The next president must be ready to say to the world: America's position is unchanging, our resolve unyielding, our stance non-negotiable.

David Axilrod, Obama's prime political advisor, has said recently:

He is going to work closely with the Israelis. They're a great ally of ours, the most important ally in the region. And that is a fundamental principle from which he'll work... But he will do so in a way that will promote the cause of peace, and work closely with the Israelis and the Palestinians on that -- toward that objective.

When a nation's very existence is at stake as Israel's is, it is not surprising they don't want to put all their eggs in the Obama basket. Israel intends to encircle all of Gaza by morning, cut Gaza into four sections to better control Hamas rocket fire, and after that it doesn't matter what Obama may have wanted. The die is cast and a new paradigm exists.




The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

Carbon Tax to Redistribute Wealth

James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and No. 2 global warming alarmist, wrote a letter to Michelle Obama in which he advocates for a carbon tax. Outwardly the tax is to cut the emission of carbon dioxide, a purported cause of global warming ... or cooling, or climate change, or something like that, it keeps changing.

Hansen goes on to explain the tax is actually a "collectivist redistribution of wealth" which should appeal to the next president who likes redistributing other people's money. Hansen recommends the carbon tax be returned to the people in

"equal shares on a per capita basis."

That means wealthier Americans whose activities emit more CO2 will pay more in carbon taxes than they get back, while those who earn less will receive more in refunds than they will lose through taxes.

"A person reducing his carbon footprint more than average makes money," explains Hansen, while "a person with large cars and a big house will pay a tax much higher than the dividend."

Hansen and his ilk never seem to question whether the government should be involved in behavior modification. They believe so zealously in their cause — establishing an egalitarian society where conspicuous consumption is limited to the few who make the rules — that they have no misgivings about using the police power of the federal and state governments to beat society into shape.

Nor do they question their hunch — the idea doesn't even rise to the level of theory — that CO2 emissions are causing climate change even as there are ample reasons to doubt it.

My carbon footprint is small so I get an equal share of the collectivist redistributed wealth. Well, that's okay then. This plan has got to better than not collecting the wealth to redistribute it in the first place. Otherwise, people would decide for themselves how to redistribute their own wealth as they see fit. We can't have that, now, can we?



The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

2008 to 2009

A different number and a little happiness for many, but really, what's so new about the coming year?

Things don't really change much from year to year.

Happy New Year anyway!




The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.