Bits and Pieces, Some of Which Are Found On the Side of the Road

Further on Hiroshima…from The Guardian (UK) (Terrible, but not a crime). Excerpts:

Today is Hiroshima day, the anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb. As the wartime generation passes on, our sense of gratitude is increasingly mixed with unease regarding one theatre of the second world war. There is a widespread conviction that, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, America committed acts that were not only terrible but also wrong.

Disarmament campaigners are not slow to advance further charges. Greenpeace maintains that a different American approach might have prevented the cold war, and argues that new research on the Hiroshima decision "should give us pause for thought about the wisdom of current US and UK nuclear weapons developments, strategies, operational policies and deployments".

This alternative history is devoid of merit. New historical research in fact lends powerful support to the traditionalist interpretation of the decision to drop the bomb. This conclusion may surprise Guardian readers. The so-called revisionist interpretation of the bomb made headway from the 1960s to the 1990s. It argued that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less the concluding acts of the Pacific war than the opening acts of the cold war. Japan was already on the verge of surrender; the decision to drop the bomb was taken primarily to gain diplomatic advantage against the Soviet Union.

[…]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are often used as a shorthand term for war crimes. That is not how they were judged at the time. Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome. The bomb was a deliverance for American troops, for prisoners and slave labourers, for those dying of hunger and maltreatment throughout the Japanese empire - and for Japan itself.

I’m not a constant reader of The Guardian these days (would you believe I was a subscriber, once upon a time? S’true, that.), but I must admit I was shocked at the deviation from Liberal Cant found in this editorial. Gratified, too. I’ll bet the comments section will be incendiary supremely stupid in content, for the most part. Well, yes:

August 6, 2007 8:32 AM

this is a truly disgusting article by a truly disgusting war monger who has now become famous for constantly suggesting war and violence against brown, black and yellow people - Lebanon, Iraq and now a justification of nuclear weapons against Japanese,

next we will get an Oliver Kamm article that says drop a nuke on Bahghdad for the sake of the Iraqis and to save American casualities,

{sigh}

You may think my earlier post on Hiroshima was lacking in sensitivity, Gentle Reader. And you’d be somewhat correct in your assumption. I have a total lack of sympathy for our enemies, especially when it was they who initiated the hostilities, any hostilities. And I do not believe in “kinder, gentler” warfare, either. Just sayin’.

"They were really bold and quick, it took them only 10 minutes. I can't find the right words to describe what they did -- it was just an exceptionnal (sic) heist!" This from a deputy curator of a Nice, France art museum. The thieves got away with a Monet, a Sisley, and two Bruegels…in broad daylight. Amazing chutzpah.

In today’s WSJ: Domestic Terror in Iran; Iran has just carried out the largest wave of executions since 1984.

It is early dawn as seven young men are led to the gallows amid shouts of "Allah Akbar" (Allah is the greatest) from a crowd of bearded men as a handful of women, all in hijab, ululate to a high pitch. A few minutes later, the seven are hanged as a mullah shouts: "Alhamd li-Allah" (Praise be to Allah).

The scene was Wednesday in Mashad, Iran's second most populous city, where a crackdown against "anti-Islam hooligans" has been under way for weeks.

The Mashad hangings, broadcast live on local television, are among a series of public executions ordered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month as part of a campaign to terrorize an increasingly restive population. Over the past six weeks, at least 118 people have been executed, including four who were stoned to death. According to Saeed Mortazavi, the chief Islamic prosecutor, at least 150 more people, including five women, are scheduled to be hanged or stoned to death in the coming weeks.

[…]

According to Gen. Ismail Muqaddam, commander of the Islamic Police, a total of 430,000 men and women have been arrested on charges related to drug use since April. A further 4,209 men and women, mostly aged between 15 and 30, have been arrested for "hooliganism" in Tehran alone. The largest number of arrests, totaling almost a million men and women according to Mr. Muqaddam, were related to the enforcement of the new Islamic Dress Code, passed by the Islamic Majlis (parliament) in May 2006.

The Revolution just can’t be far away; you simply cannot oppress that many people for long without suffering a similar fate. As for me, I find the concept of stoning people to death simply mind-boggling… at any time, actually… but most especially in the 21^st century. But these are the type of deranged madmen we’re up against.

Market research? I gotta hand it to Hershey’s…this is the second hit I’ve had from their domain with the search term “cacao reserve,” or a variant on same. They’re obviously using New Media to find out what folks are saying about their product, and good on ‘em for that. But check the out-click:

ISP: Hershey Chocolate U.S.A.
Referring URL: http://blogsearch.go...ey%27s&sa=N&start=10
Search Words: cacao reserve by hershey's
Visit Entry Page: http://exileinportal...tsa-links-today.html
Visit Exit Page: http://exileinportal...tsa-links-today.html
Out Click: Police Cars from Around the World
http://www.gadling.c...om-around-the-world/

Well, I guess it's OK to mix bidniz with pleasure. Once in a while.

Today’s Pic: As Lynyrd Skynyrd once said: “One More From the Road.” This time I’m on I-80, truckin’ west at obscene speeds (for an RV, anyway) towards my new job and the two-year sojourn in the Greater San Francisco Soviet Socialist Republic. This very large sculpture…which I estimate is at least 40 feet high… sits all alone by the roadside in the middle of the salt flats surrounding the Great Salt Lake, about 50 miles (or so: I’m guessing) west of SLC. It’s a startling sight, and one I just had to grab. I shoulda stopped, but once again, I had someplace to be and was running just a little bit late.

July, 2000.