Saturday, 23 August, 2003Ferrets in needIncidentally, if you've got a few bucks to spare, consider sending some to Rocky's Ferret Rescue & Shelter in Maryland. The Shelter was involved in a mass ferret rescue in Hagerstown last month, and another in Wolfsville last week. A total of 80 ferrets were involved, 62 in Hagerstown and another 18 in Wolfsville, and those critters need veterinary services and feeding. The rescue sites are two studies in cruelty by extreme neglect; maybe I'm a softie, but I cried upon seeing the accompanying pictures, and damned the so-called "caregivers" to the hottest corner of Hell, especially since the ferrets at the Wolfsville rescue appear to have been hastily transferred from Hagerstown before Washington Co. Animal Control arrived. Donations can be made to Rocky's PayPal Account, and should you chance to meet one Di Bachman of Hagerstown, MD, tell her there's a guy in Washington State (i.e. me) who wouldn't piss on her if she were on fire. posted 0515 Z-8 [link] Thursday, 21 August, 2003The Norm of HumanityNorman Geras is running a multi-part discourse on crimes against humanity, which is definitely recommended reading (Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4, with more to come). posted 0116 Z-8 [more..] Wednesday, 20 August, 2003The role of Ansar al-Islam revisitedOn 10-Aug-2003, the New York Times ran an article in which Paul Bremer, the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq warned that hundreds of members of Ansar al-Islam had infiltrated back into Iraq from Iran, where they had fled after being dislodged by American special forces in March. Before the war began, Ansar al-Islam had already been touted as the missing piece of the puzzle linking al-Qaeda to the Ba'athi régime. In a swipe at the British Lib Dems, Oliver Kamm dredges up some of claims (if the permalink doesn't work, scroll down to 14-Aug-2003, "Those Liberal Democrat predictions"). Norman Geras, somewhat to my dismay, describes Oliver's entry as follows: Oliver Kamm has the goods on evidence of pre-war links between al-Qaida and the Baathist regime.I disagree. posted 0442 Z-8 [more..] Tuesday, 19 August, 2003Bombing in BaghdadThe first news I read this morning was about the bombing of the UN building in Baghdad. As if that wasn't bad enough, I read that Sérgio Vieira de Mello had been killed in the attack; indeed, that he had possibly been the primary target. By all accounts, he was a good guy, who'd devoted a fair chunk of his life to making the world a better place. I'm having difficulty getting my head around the fact that anyone would want to kill someone like him. In my particular case, I'd been reading UNHCR documents with his name on them dating back over a decade by now, and it's hard to accept that a life like that can be snuffed out so easily. It's a sad day indeed, and whoever carried out this attack has not done the people of Iraq any favours. posted 1351 Z-8 [more..] |
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