Lakes of Hydrocarbons -- On Titan Cassini’s radar has found what appear to be lakes of hydrocarbons on Titan, Saturn’s moon according to the Planetary Society. “The news is lakes, lots of lakes!” said Cassini RADAR team member Rosaly Lopes. One lake is “roughly 234 kilometers long by 73 kilometers wide”.

MidEast War: 39 July 24, 2006 19:00 PDT

Frequent updates. Scroll. Previous coverage @ right. Links to Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict are @ Truth Laid Bear, plus a map view with pointers to the location of the bloggers in war zone. Map of war zone here. Plus detailed military map of current zone of operations here.

News Breaks (Blogs & Opinion below)

23:35 PDT Ynet News reports that the IAF has intentionally targeted banks which hold Hezbollah money in Tyre, Sidon and Nabatiyeh.

23:26 PDT The BBC says Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is preparing to meet Israeli PM Ehud Olmert on Tuesday to seek a peace on “enduring principles”.

22:16 PDT The NY Sun says the bodies of between 6 and 9 Iranian soldiers killed in Lebanon were flown to Teheran according to “senior Lebanese political sources”, confirmed by “Israeli and Egyptian security officials”.

21:02 PDT Haaretz says “All groups in Gaza, including Hamas, would now accept a cease-fire deal with Israel which would include releasing Gilad Shalit, according to the Palestinian Agriculture Minister, who also heads the coordinating committee of Palestinian organizations there. “

19:45 PDT The Australian reports Lebanese Parliament speaker Nabi Berri rejected Condoleeza Rice’s ceasefire proposal “because Rice insisted on a mechanism on a global settlement before a ceasefire … Rice set, as conditions for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Hezbollah to the Litani river and the deployment of an international force in the area which would, she said, allow the return of displaced people.”

19:39 PDT The Jerusalem Post reports that Kofi Annan has asked for the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon to be extended by one month.

19:10 PDT Two IDF, 10 Hezbollah killed in fighting according to Haaretz.

---

Blog & Opinion Reaction

19:18 PDT Across the Bay links to an interview Walid Jumblatt strongly criticizing Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah. “It’s packed with jabs.”.

19:14 PDT Beirut Notes says “My Lebanon is no more … I always realized that day was coming. … After this crisis, Hezbollah and its allies will rule.”

[Earlier coverage here. ]

Live Documentary There’s some very loud and passionate opinions from both sides in this video and picture series taken by Andrew Marcus at yesterday’s pro-Israel rally and commensurately vehement counterprotest in Los Angeles.

A Divided Iraq The Independent: “Iraq as a political project is finished,” a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding: “The parties have moved to plan B.” He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. “There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west,” he said.

Battle of Baghdad 5 17:53 PDT The American Forces Press Service quotes Gen John Abizaid who says more Coalition and Iraq forces will be sent to Baghdad from troops who are already in-country.

17:47 PDT Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell told reporters that Baghdad has become the focal point for the fight for Iraq and that his forces were determined to win, according to the American Forces Press Service.

13:45 PDT AFP reports that General Nasier Abadi, deputy chief of staff of the Iraqi army, has criticized the US security plan in Iraq for not doing enough to co-opt the Syrians and Moqtada al-Sadr.

---

Previous coverage is here.

India Stands Down The Indian government’s censorship of its bloggers is only the low point of relationship filled with mistrust coming from both sides, along with being a miscalculation.

Likely No One Will Issue A Fatwa The Da Vinci Code—as it should have been.

MidEast War: 38
In an Israeli Bomb Shelter

July 24, 2006 11:00 PDT

Frequent updates. Scroll. Previous coverage @ right. Links to Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict are @ Truth Laid Bear, plus a map view with pointers to the location of the bloggers in war zone. Map of war zone here. Plus detailed military map of current zone of operations here.

News Breaks (Blogs & Opinion below)

17:22 The Daily Telegraph reports Tony Blair saying “at some point in the next few days I hope we can say very clearly what our plan is to bring about the immediate end of hostilities”.

16:33 PDT Iraqi PM Maliki warned the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah would destablize Iraq by escalating tensions in the region and furthering the cause of extremists, according to UPI. He called Israel’s actions “a war crime”.

16:30 PDT The Jerusalem Post says that Olmert is still committed to the realignment plan and will evacuate more settlements as the situation permits.

15:30 PDT U.N.’s Jan Egeland: “Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending … among women and children,” he said. “I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don’t think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men.”

14:22 PDT Ynet News reports the loss of an Apache helicopter gunship together with both of its crewmen due unknown causes. Four IDF soldiers were also hurt due to friendly-fire accidents in fighting north of the border.

14:20 PDT Haaretz reports that senior Liberal Democrat MPs, who are in opposition to Tony Blair, have called for a suspension of weapons sales to Israel, "in light of disproportionate military action by Israel in Lebanon and Gaza …".

13:55 PDT Oil @ $75

13:35 PDT Haaretz: “Syria is not a partner to diplomatic efforts. The Syrians could earn recognition if only they weren’t keeping their finger on the trigger on two fronts - in Lebanon and in Gaza,” Olmert said.

13:15 PDT Lebanon Daily Star: “‘The Lebanese government will lead the exchange through the intermediary of a third party. This has been accepted by Hizbullah,’ Speaker Nabih Berri said Sunday.”

12:44 PDT MEMRI is reporting Hezbollah gave Lebanese leaders advance warning they were going to abduct Israeli soldiers to free Hezbollah prisoners. (warning: MEMRI link currently overwhelmed)

12:25 PDT AP: The U.N. is calling for $150 million dollars in aid to repair damage caused by Israeli bombing.

12:20 PDT Reuters: “U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Lebanon on Monday and insisted Hizbollah must release two Israeli soldiers and pull back from the border before any ceasefire, Lebanese politicians said.”

12:10 PDT Bloomberg has the latest update on Israeli progress into southern Lebanon.

11:25 PDT Vital Perspective has a transcript of a press conference held by Hamidreza Assifi, Spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Says Mr. Assifi, “Regarding the two Israeli prisoners taken by Hezbollah. They served as an excuse for the pre-planned attacks against Lebanon. Israel was therefore looking for the smallest opportunity to begin this aggression. We had prior knowledge and believe that the American administration, together with Israel, made plans for this invasion.”

11:20 PDT JPost: As rocket attacks continue, several organizations are working hard to save abandoned animals in the streets of northern Israel.

11:10 PDT JPost: “Leaflets distributed in the West Bank and Gaza by representatives of several Palestinian factions called for a ‘day of rage’ [a euphemism for violent protests] against Rice’s visit. The groups also called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to refrain from meeting with Rice.”

11:05 PDT IDF captures two Hezbollah fighters.

---

Blog & Opinion Reaction

17:33 PDT Israel at Ground Level describes an origami meet between Jews and Arabs near Gaza. “Origami magic inspired by desert magic” — and by other things too.

Origami magic inspired by desert magic”

16:58 PDT Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV may have a street address in Lebanon but it’s website is still hosted in Hoboken, NJ according to the Internet Haganah.

16:17 PDT Ralph Kinney Bennett at Tech Central Station describes how Hezbollah has turned the art of using civilians as cover into a high tactical art form.

16:11 PDT Fouad Ajami in the Opinion Journal believes Hezbollah did not see in Lebanon, “the garden without fences”, what it needed most: a field of blood, and set about changing the scenery.

16:00 PDT The Counterterrorism Blog says that Hezbollah is now able to launch rockets from the cover of Christian areas possibly with the collusion of Michael Aoun.

14:38 PDT Carl in Jerusalem recounts three versions of the Rice-Berri meeting. One according to the Washington Post, the other according to Lebanese Bloggers and the last according to DEBKA. Boker Tov talks about the fourth front: Israel’s north, south, internal threats from suicide bombings and last but not least — international diplomacy.

14:22 PDT Greg Djerejian at Belgravia Dispatch very gallantly reproduces an email from a reader who says: "Many have been speculating in Lebanon, prior to the kidnapping, that if the country were to fall back into civil war, it would be a civil war between the Shiite and the Sunni, rather than the Muslim and Christian communities with the Druze alternating between them."

13:45 PDT Amy Alkon imports the war to SoCal for some comparative analysis: “You’re dead because you went to the wrong Starbucks.”

13:10 PDT Baron Bodissey ventures a guess or two on the behind-the-scenes machinations in Middle East. With a dash of paranoia thrown in for that special regional flavor.

13:00 PDT Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari: Hezbollah = George Washington

12:30 PDT Aaron Hanscom @ Barcepundit has the latest measured commentary from Spain’s Socialist leaders: “The civilian deaths are not collateral damage, they are an objective.”

12:15 PDT For those of you paying too much attention: A really big roadmap of southern Lebanon.

12:05 PDT Amal Saad Ghorayeb, writing for Qatar’s Peninsula, has grave predictions for Hezbollah.

11:55 PDT “I was out picking up lunch from a small middle eastern restaurant near the University of Denver when three men, their faces partially obscured by green and yellow bandanas, launched an orchestrated strike on me using heavy falafel balls and what I think must have been shanklish.” - Citizen Journalist Goldstein

11:45 PDT A strong dose of the anti-semitic sentiment that surrounds Israel. Captured last year by Palestinian Media Watch.

11:40 PDT Chad Evans comments on the latest reports from the Sun of Iranian casualties being transported back to their home country: “It is clear Iran has declared war upon Israel, which is one reason why England has prepared to appeal to the UN Security Council to immediately impose sanctions upon Iran this week. But how long will it be before other nations publically call out Iran’s aggression? That’s too long.”

11:35 PDT Day by Day unravels the complexities of civilian casualties.

11:30 PDT From BunkerBlogger Eugene: “The Hezbollah costs Iran about $100 million dollars a year in funding. Since this conflict started the price of an oil barrel has risen enough that Iran (the flow of oil out of it uninterrupted) has made its “investment” back and then some.”

11:03 PDT Dean Barnett @ The Weekly Standard on the split between the left blogospere and the Democratic Party regarding the MidEast War, with the Daily Kos as exhibit A. LGF has had a running series on the subject. Kesher Talk also comments.

[Earlier coverage here. ]

Patron Saint Together, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez visit Che Guevara’s childhood home.

MidEast War: 37 [Coverage continues here.]

Arab Street Greets Rice

July 24, 2006 06:00 PDT

Frequent updates. Scroll. Previous coverage @ right. Links to Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict are @ Truth Laid Bear, plus a map view with pointers to the location of the bloggers in war zone. Map of war zone here. Plus detailed military map of current zone of operations here.

News Breaks (Blogs & Opinion below)

10:30 PDT Editor and Publisher: The general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists says that the Israeli attacks on the Hezbollah TV and radio station “represent an appalling threat to press freedom” and “are a threat to the safety of media staff ‘and cannot be justified.’”

10:15 PDT CNN News Alert: “President Bush is ordering U.S. helicopters and ships to Lebanon to provide humanitarian aid, White House spokesman Tony Snow announces.”

10:04 PDT Reuters headline: “Rice sets same tough terms for Lebanon ceasefire”

09:44 PDT Israelis watch the skies: “‘It doesn’t matter where you are. They can fall anywhere,’[Tamar Elizarof, 24] says in a frail voice, surrounded by hot bread in her bakery.

“‘In any case, if your time has come, you die and that’s it.’Unmarried and with no children, Elizarof says she often thinks of death, but that this does not deter her from coming to work every day.

“‘I have nothing to lose, so I may as well open the shop. Being at the bakery or at home, it’s the same,’ she says.”

09:38 PDT Asharq Alawsat: “Hezbollah’s representative in Iran [Hossein Safiadeen] struck a defiant tone Monday, warning that his Islamic militant group plans to widen its attacks on Israel until ‘no place’ is safe for Israelis.”

09:24 PDT Yemen retracts proposal to conduct “an emergency Arab summit on Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip” which the country feared would have created “an inter-Arab divide.”

08:41 PDT Oil prices drop to $73.70 “reflecting traders growing belief that the violence in Lebanon and Israel is unlikely to spread across the oil-producing region.”

08:38 PDT The US—in the person of Condoleeza Rice—will try to make sure that the Arab League doesn’t go all wobbly in its condemnation of Hezbollah’s actions.

08:34 PDT UK’s Liberal Democrats ask Tony Blair to halt weapon exports to Israel.

08:30 PDT Hezbollah and its “vast supply train running from Iranian arms factories and Syrian warehouses to Hezbollah” is focused upon in US News. “Hezbollah’s armed force—with a hard core of several thousand men—is equipped with rocket launchers, artillery, and armored personnel carriers. Its soldiers have access to night vision goggles, aerial drones, and motorized gliders. ‘I have a lot of respect for Hezbollah’s capabilities,’ says former CIA officer Robert Baer, who has followed the group since 1983. Baer spent a couple of weeks with Hezbollah last year, touring its facilities. ‘You’ve got some the most experienced operatives in the world there.’”

08:25 PDT Body count in Gaza increases to five, including an elderly woman and a boy.

08:22 PDT Kevin Whitelaw surveys the scene of Lebanon’s New Ruins: “The scene in Baalbek is deceptively placid compared with the worst-hit sections of Beirut and the bulk of southern Lebanon, which have been hit by a withering Israeli air assault. These are Lebanon’s new ruins—entire city blocks, reduced to skeletons of buildings, and whole villages in the south, a Hezbollah stronghold, flattened. Huge swaths of Lebanon’s modern infrastructure—bridges, highways, even a big power plant—are gone. At the same time, many of Beirut’s tonier areas, including its famous luxury shops, remain largely unscathed. Most shops and restaurants are closed, but the few bars that remain open are packed.”

07:29 PDT Iranian Revolutionary Guards killed in Lebanon are flown back to Iran.

07:08 PDT Rockets continue to fall on random targets in Israel.

06:26 PDT Three killed as IDF opens fire on Gaza position.

06:02 PDT Is Hezbollah running out of rockets? IDF intelligence thinks so.

---

Blog & Opinion Reaction

10:36 PDT Only the Almighty Allah(pundit) could compare wars and sock puppetry and make one say “I never thought of that way, but you’re right.” : “Nasrallah is Assad’s sock puppet, Assad is Khamenei’s, etc. I saw a ventriloquist do something like that once, with a dummy on his lap and a smaller dummy on the dummy’s lap. It’s reminiscent of the Glenn Greenwald/Rick Ellensburg/Thomas Ellers fooferaw, although I suppose that’s less a case of one dummy on the lap of another than, like, five different dummies all on Greenwald’s lap. Anyway, really interesting stuff.

“I suppose Ehud Olmert is Bush’s sock puppet — potentially. If Bush brings him to heel before the job is done, then yeah. But what if Olmert tells Bush to take a hike? Then he wouldn’t be a sock puppet.”

09:57 PDT Irina Prentice: Live of a Beirut journalist in wartime.

09:16 PDT Kaveh L. Afrasiabi predicts the future. “As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice begins her journey to “the region”, which reportedly does not include any Arab capital, in spite of Syria’s declared willingness to engage in dialogue with the US…” and “both the US and Israeli policy of destroying Hezbollah is doomed to failure, and no matter how severely it is pounded by massive bombs, it will survive and its phoenix will rise from the ashes of Lebanon.” Time will tell whether he will go one out of two.

09:06 PDT Uri Avnery @ Arab News: The war will only strengthen Hezbollah.

09:01 PDT “‘No place’ safe for Israelis”; from Hossein Safiadeen’s(Hezbollah representative in Iran) wish list.

08:54 PDT How to make “Rumors of World War III” remain rumors: “…Job One isn’t restoring more temporary ‘stability’ to the Middle East. Job One is refocusing the world—including the congenitally timid UN Security Council—on perilous nuclear research and development that for now goes unblocked and unpunished.”

08:07 PDT Spengler quotes himself “Fight a dictatorship, and you must kill the regime; fight a democracy, and you must kill the people,” and blames Bush for the deaths.

07:23 PDT Lebanon isn’t innocent: “Lebanon is host to the terrorist aggressor which has sworn to eliminate Israel and its Jews from the face of the earth. This is the explicit creed of both Hezbollah and its sponsor Iran…the Lebanese government allowed Hezbollah to build its headquarters and underground bunkers in the populated neighborhoods of Beirut. It allowed Hezbollah to import 13,000 missiles to be fired into Israel’s cities and towns. The 75,000-man Lebanese army has not sealed off the Syrian border and, according to reports, has allowed Syria to re-supply Hezbollah in the midst of its aggression.”

07:03 PDT Al Qaeda is in Lebanon, according to Syria.

06:21 PDT Heads-I-win, Tails-you-lose—Dershowitz: “By hiding behind their own civilians, the Islamic radicals issue a challenge to democracies: Either violate your own morality by coming after us and inevitably killing some innocent civilians, or maintain your morality and leave us with a free hand to target your innocent civilians. This challenge presents democracies such as Israel with a lose-lose option and terrorists with a win-win option.”

06:09 PDT How to defeat an enemy—Herbert Meyer @ American Thinker: “When you’re in the middle of a war, of course you need to think before you act. But there is such a thing as over-thinking, and today we are in serious danger of making this mistake. In war there is nothing – absolutely nothing – that brings victory faster and more completely than the total annihilation of your enemy.”

[Earlier coverage here. ]

MidEast War: 36 [Coverage continues here.]

July 24, 2006 00:00 PDT

Katyusha launcher in the crosshairs Photo: IDF

Frequent updates. Scroll. Previous coverage @ right. Links to Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict are @ Truth Laid Bear, plus a map view with pointers to the location of the bloggers in war zone. Map of war zone here. Plus detailed military map of current zone of operations here.

News Breaks (Blogs & Opinion below)

05:32 PDT Foreign forces on the border, maybe—but make them NATO and not the UN, says Israel.

05:22 PDT More on Condoleezza Rice’s surprise visit to Beirut and other war sujects from WSJ.

04:19 PDT Washington Times: “U.N. humanitarian aid coordinator Jan Egeland condemned the Israeli air strikes as ‘a violation of international law’ after touring a neighborhood in southern Beirut that had been largely leveled by air strikes. He said about $100 million was needed immediately to provide relief to an estimated 600,000 displaced Lebanese.”

04:15 PDT An Israeli Apache helicopter crashes.

03:57 PDT Rice visits Beirut.

03:43 PDT Syria is willing to talk to US to broker peace. Syria’s opening demand? Return of the Golan Heights.

01:28 PDT The New York Times says Syrian believes “the chaos engulfing the region could only be reduced if Damascus and Hezbollah were directly involved in negotiations.”

01:14 PDT The Jerusalem Post says the Golani Brigade is advancing on the Hezbollah “terror capital” of Bint Jbail. Nine IDF troopers are reported wounded.

---

Blog & Opinion Reaction

05:53 PDT “Good” and “bad” Muslims—a practical guide: “I simply don’t know enough about the religious edicts of various versions of Islam to make an informed decision about who is, or isn’t, a potential ally. Instead, I suggest we just oppose the people who are trying to kill us and ally ourselves with whoever isn’t trying to do that.”

05:48 PDT Glenn Reynolds notices that oil prices dropped just as Condi Rice sets foot in Beirut.

05:35 PDT Michael Medved @ Townhall.com: “What other people on earth would be expected patiently to absorb literally hundreds of rocket attacks, not to mention the kidnapping of its soldiers from its own sovereign territory, without launching some firm, decisive response?”

04:39 PDT Where’s the money? Don Singleton notices a New York Times report containg the info that some Iranians aren’t too happy with Hezbollah. “‘Of course I am angry,’’ said Hamid Akbari, 30, a deliveryman. ‘All our income is going to Palestine and Hezbollah.’”

04:27 PDT Arabs versus Iranians—the coming threat? Michael Rubin and Lastango @ Daily Pundit.

04:03 PDT “We are all Hezbollah now.” Confederate Yankee wonders whether that is CNN’s motto for this war.

03:37 PDT Michael Barone notes that the idea of “land-for-peace” is dead and buried.

03:14 PDT Vik Rubenfeld and Penguin Pundit separately attended yesterday’s pro-Israel rally in Los Angeles, featuring speakers Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Pictures and video.

01:06 PDT The Left Coaster asks, “Knowing now that it was critical under this alternate scenario to get the Syrians out of Lebanon for these off-the-shelf plans to proceed at an opportune time, who really killed Hariri last year?”

[Earlier coverage here. ]