The LLama Butchers

Gratuitous Llama Vacation Posting - Part 3

We actually got home yesterday and by last evening I was pretty worn out. So imagine my delight when, flipping on the tee-vee, I discovered that AMC was running Escape From New York.

Despite all the talk about this movie that goes on round here, I hadn't actually seen it in years and years. I guess it's true that you can never go home again, because all through it I kept having the following thoughts:

Of Lee Van Cleef, all I could do was shake my head. To think that Angel Eyes had come to this. Sad. Very sad.

Of the President, I couldn't get the imagine of The Forger from The Great Escape out of my head. Surely James Garner was a more logical choice as the one who should try and get him out.

Perhaps silliest of all, every time Isaac Hayes' Duke of New York came on the screen, I half expected him to say, "Hello there, Children."

Finally, I keep coming back to the name "Pliskin". Whose idea was that? I will simply point out here that Jim Carrey's dufus character in The Mask was named Stanley Ipkiss, note the obvious similarity and leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

Gratuitous Llama Vacation Posting - Part 2

Just in case you think I spent all my time loafing about and reading whilst on vacation, let me just say that we also spent a goodish bit of time on the beach and in the water. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that is reminding me more and more that I'm not a teenager.

There is an enormous sand hill about two miles down the beach from our cottage. The thing is about 300 feet tall with a slope of about 45 degrees. One afternoon - an unusually hot and sunny day, we took a trip over to it in our neighbor's boat. As soon as we were in the shallows, the kids were over the side and charging up the hill like the Rangers hitting the beach at Normandy. I was the only adult in the boat who had not climbed it before, so of course everyone else encouraged me to join the kids and see the view. Under this pressure, I too hit the surf and started hustling up the slope, encouraged by the yipping of my girls high above.

Well.

About halfway up the hill, I realised that I was in some trouble. My knees were showing a dangerous inclination to fold the wrong way, my breath was beginning to come in gasps and I could see at least twice as many daughters up there as I actually had. The only thing that kept me going was the horror of being seen to pack it in by my offspring. Thus motivated by pure fear of shame, I made it to the top. (Of course, the punch line was that the kids immediately wanted to hurl themselves back down the hill, not giving a flying patooie for the view or for the Old Man's need to rest for a minute.)

Another incident like this occured at my In-Laws' house in Westport, CT. They live on a little cove and recently someone anchored a float about thirty yards out from shore there. At low tide, I think you could walk to it, but at high tide one loses one's footing about 5 yards out from the beach.

My six year old took one look at that float and insisted that we go out to it. Now she can swim pretty well, but a distance like that is way beyond her, especially as she is used to having the side of a pool always at hand. So I agreed to swim out with her and to lend assistance as needed.

It's amazing what an enormous distance 30 yards really is, especially when you are more or less carrying a 50 pound kid and trying to breast-stroke with one hand.

When we set out, the float was occupied by a very pretty woman and her three sons. By the time we got there, I was so drained that I was incapable of any kind of banter, despite the dazzling smile and encouraging welcome of this woman. It was left to my daughter to handle the social pleasantries from our end.

After the girl had spent some time hurling herself off the float, she announced that she was ready to head back to the beach. Our conversation every two feet or so on the way back was as follows:

She: Can you touch the bottom yet?

Me: (Gasp) No!

She: Can you touch the bottom yet?

Me: (Wheeze, gasp!) Not yet, Sweetie!

She: Can you touch the bottom yet?

Me: (Urgh!) Please..... Kick.

And so on.

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that our friend John L had dug up the Marine Corp physical fitness guide and that I was going to start using the thing myself. Looks as if I'm going to have to do so even sooner than I had thought if I expect to keep up with the kids.

Gratuitous Llama Vacation Posting - Part 1

I know what you're thinking: Well, Dave, just what did you do on your vacation?

One thing I did was to read books like they were going out of style. Here is my library list for the past two weeks:

- I finished up Christopher Hitchens' George III.
- As a follow-up, I read David Saul's Prince of Pleasure, a biography of George IV. Interesting book, but there was some underlying tension: Saul doesn't like Tories very much, but at the same time has to admit that the Regent and most of his Whiggish set were a bunch of shits as well. The only person who comes out of the whole sordid story of Georgie-Porgie half-way decently is Mrs. Fitzherbert, and she strikes me as a fool.
- I read the first volume of Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples. First rate. Winnie combines a beautifully crisp and clear narrative style with solid insight. It's all I can do to prevent myself from skipping the rest of this set and going straight to his history of WWII.
- Just for laughs, I re-read Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. I am increasingly convinced that his writing is the sort of stuff that is thought clever only by smart-ass teenagers.
- Really just for laughs, I re-read Harold Robbins' The Betsy. (It's kind of a tradition with me - there's an old copy at the cottage and I've got in the habit of reading it every time I go up there.) If ever we started a blog about Truly Bad Books, I'm sure this one would be right up there in the Top Ten. Even the smut is, well, uninspired.
- For genuine chuckles, I re-read Wodehouse's The Code of the Woosters, one of my favorite Bertie & Jeeves novels.
- Finally, the Gods smiled down and, via my in-laws, gave me a copy of Victor David Hanson's Ripples of Battle. I'm about half-way through his assessment of the Battle of Shiloh and its effect on the character and outlook of W.T. Sherman. I don't call VDH "incomperable" for nothing.

Mmmmm.....books. Mmmmmm.

The Missus (bless her) also picked up a couple of new books for my collection from the Southhampton Library sale. First were a couple of books from the Heart of Oak Sea Classics series. One is James Norman Hall's Doctor Dogbody's Leg - a collection of 18th Century seafaring short stories. I don't know anything about it and am eager to take a dekko. The other is James Fenimore Cooper's The Wing-and-Wing. I'm a bit dubious about this one. Not only is Cooper a santimonious blowhard, he's a bloody boring sanctimonious blowhard. I often suspect that the writers on M*A*S*H who always used to go on about how wonderful it was that Hawkeye was named after the hero of The Last of the Mohicans never actually read it.

What else? She also cagged Antonia Fraser's Royal Charles, a biography of Charles II. My mother has a copy that I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to steal for years. Now I won't have to. One of my goals for this fall is to read her biography of Oliver Cromwell and then this one.

Finally, she dug up a short early novel by John Mortimer (of Rumpole fame) called Like Men Betrayed, a story of a lawyer's plunge into the seedier side of London in the 50's to find out what his estranged son is up to. Mortimer is, to me, a hit-or-miss kind of author. We'll see which category this one goes in.

So there you have it.

I'm BAAAAA-aaack!

Yes, indeed! And a big ol' Llama Yip! Yip! Yip! to you all out there. I just flew in from the Coast and boy are my arms tired. (Ed. - Knock it off right now. Okay, okay.)

We had a fantastically relaxing vacation - just loafing about at the beach house, not doing much of anything and not paying any attention to the outside world. No tee-vee, no newspapers, no on-line access. I haven't the faintest idea what's going on in the world except that John Kerry has picked a fight with those Swift Boat guys that I'll bet he's already regretting.

I also have to say honestly that I barely ever thought about blogging the entire time I was out at the shore. I suppose this is a good thing, a sign that I have not been entirely assimilated by this pasttime. On the other hand, I feel a bit overwhelmed now, trying to figure out whether and how I should catch up on nearly two weeks' worth of reading, to say nothing of getting acquainted with our new digs. The next couple of days are probably going to be a bit, well, ragged, as I get back into the swing of things.

In the meantime, hearty thanks go out to Steve-O for piloting the move to the new digs and making sure folks had plenty of helpings of fresh Llama goodness while I was away. The one time I took a peak at things this week was when we had a movie night for the kids at our next door neighbors at the beach. Whilst all the young'uns were watching Shrek, I showed the grown-ups the new site. As I was dialing up, I tried to explain a bit about what blogs are. When the page loaded, the first thing they saw was Steve-O's photoshop of Rosie O'Donnell in Apocalypse Now. The look of alarum and confusion on the face of my host (a New York judge) was priceless.

Heh, as they say, indeed.

Friday afternoon political fix

Here's the link to the newest SwiftBoat Vets ad, which zeroes in on Kerry's testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committe in April 1971. I've often thought that this is a much more effective line than the whole medals issue.

Also, INDC Bill has the link to the latest advocacy group: Communists for Kerry. (No word from the Commissar, who is still mysteriously on vacation at the Gulag).

Both links pirated from our old friend INDC Bill: now here's your chance to pay Bill back. He's heading off to NYC for the Republican National Convention as an Official BlogMan/Cabana Boy, and hey, batteries and hookers are expensive in the big city. So follow the link over to Bill's where he's raising money for a new laptop.

Google Bling-Bling

It's only 7:56 AM, and we already have our GOOGLE BLING-BLING (TM) Bizarre Search of the Day Winner!

Someone came to our site early this morning via the search "Reese Witherspoon Naked."

Dude--she's a mom!

Here's our promise to you, our reader (and by that I mean Rob's mom): we will NEVER feature naked or nekkid pictures pics of Reese Witherspoon, Charlize Theron, female Olympic swimmers, volleyballers, or soccer players. Naked pictures found at Llamabutchers, you ask? Not going to be found.

Well, maybe Margaret Thatcher dressed as "Electro-woman" and Condi as "Dyna-girl" but hey, that's the way we Neo-Khans are.

Anyhoo, in honor of this week's winner, here's my latest attempt to completely chum the Google waters:

Phom Phen Sean Penn wet hen uses phen phen michael phelps puppy whelps strangles chickens demi: older than slim pickens yes john kerry there's a santa claus and sometimes he visits cambodia jerry nadler ate michael moore and now he's going to explod-ia jingle bells batman smells catwoman laid an egg swift boat vets boinked their pets now cha-chi ran away

(deep breath)

illuminati mahdi mcgreevey luvs moqtada buying him prada oh where have you gone steve forbes new jersey turns its lonesome eyes to you, woo-hoo-hoo, what's that you say christie todd back from obscurity will you plod ooo-ooo-oooh, woo hoo hoo

(drum solo)

margaret thatcher terri hatcher naked/nekkid pics of the former not the latter jeane kirkpatrick performing a hat trick allen iverson sucks feta iraqi soccer is better katie couric skank republican platform plank worst movie of all time? tank! olsen twins losing season for the fins terry mac spins dubya wins algore Navigator speeding in the polls we are leading alligator wrasslin' Charlton Heston "abutabutaehhhhh....that's all folks!"

What the Dems are telling their friends abroad

In an interesting article in the Guardian about the end of the affair between the American Democratic Party and Tony Blair, this gem:

America is polarised between red and blue - or, as some Democrats whisper, between progressive America and a revived Confederacy.

This from the party that nearly took the plunge with the greatest metrosexual since George Pickett.

The Swift Boat Vets Break Through

In the IHT no less.

Of course, it's all an evil Republican plot. And no answers about where exactly young Lt. JG Kerry was on December 24, 1968.....

(A private message to Senator McCain, who we know is a regular reader: So, still think 527 Committees are a great idea?)

The Arab News Reviews the Olympics

and the result is rather predictable: security issues are way overblown because of American fear-mongering, and oh those trashy and despicable beach volleyballers!

How did they describe the massacre of Israeli athletes by Yassir Arafat's thugs at the 1972 Munich Games:

Visions of a terrorist attack on the Olympic village, a la Palestinian strike at the 1972 Munich games, must have danced through the heads of Greek security officials.

Unfortunately for the Saudis, antisemitism isn't an Olympic event, otherwise they'd bring home gold for the Team event (Men's only, of course), not to mention the Overall Competition as well as the individual events.

No mention in the article of course about the Iranian athlete who refused to compete against an Israeli in Judo---surely for fear of losing. And you'd have to know it was fixed, the Arab News would say, because after all:"what's the name of the sport? I tell you, their influence is everywhere!" Cowards.

No mention of course also about the sad and pathetic exclusion of women athletes from their country as well.

What's Chomsky going to say about this one? Let's see....ummmm...preemption's okay if it's America's sorry ass being preempted, yeah, THAT'S the ticket!

Iran threatens strikes against American forces in Iraq.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

In a marked escalation of a war of words between Iran and its arch-enemies Israel and the US, Tehran has for the first time threatened a preemptive strike against US troops in the region.

"We will not sit [with arms folded] to wait for what others will do to us," Iran's defence minister, Rear-Admiral Ali Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV yesterday when asked if Iran would respond to a US attack on its nuclear facilities.

"Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly.

"America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq," said Shamkhani.

An exchange of threats between Israel and Iran in recent weeks has led to speculation of a repeat of Israel's strike against Iraqi nuclear facilities at Osirak in 1981.

But analysts say such an attack is unlikely because of sensitivity to the US position in Iraq and the fact that Iran's nuclear facilities are scattered around the country.

Asked about the possibility of an American or Israeli strike against Iran's atomic power plant being built in Bushehr, Shamkhani added: "We will consider any strike against our nuclear installations as an attack on Iran as a whole, and we will retaliate with all our strength.

"Where Israel is concerned, we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to launch any military operation without an American green light. You cannot separate the two.

"The US military presence [in Iraq] will not become an element of strength [for Washington] at our expense. The opposite is true, because their forces would turn into a hostage" in Iranian hands in the event of an attack, he said.

Earlier in the week, a commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying that Tehran would strike the Israeli reactor at Dimona if Israel attacked the Islamic republic's own burgeoning nuclear facilities.

"If Israel fires one missile at Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear centre, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons, and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequence of this move," General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr warned.

Iran's controversial bid to generate nuclear power at Bushehr is seen by arch-enemies Israel and the United States as a cover for nuclear weapons development.

Iran insists that its nuclear intentions are peaceful, while pointing at its enemy's alleged nuclear arsenal, which Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing.

Shamkhani also warned that Iran would consider itself no longer bound by its commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the event of an attack.

"The execution of such threats [to attack Iran's nuclear installations] would mean that our cooperation with the IAEA had led to feeding information about our nuclear facilities to the attacking side, which [in turn] means that we would no longer be bound by any of our obligations" to the nuclear watchdog, he said.

Hmmmmm.....America? Hostage to Iran? Now where could he have gotten that idea? Oh, right, the Democratic National Convention, Day One:

Allahpundit's not going to like this one, bu I think I know what Tricky Dick would do to a threat like that:

Prediction? Iran declares its nuclear capabilities before 9/11/04. Of course, not to get all VDH in your face, but the Persians might want to reflect on the last time they really pissed off a democracy...

Fame's a bitch, Muqtada

One week, the jihab set can't get enough of your wild exhortations for martyrdom

the next week you're picking buckshot out of your ass playing "fetch" on a leash for Pfc. Ratchet, and your old posse is on to some new jihad wannabe who you swear used to be the lead singer of Deathtongue

Somehow, though, I have a feeling Ayatollah Bill will be easier for Allawi and all to negotiate with, providing they can come up with the Tender Vittles, Paris Hilton porn, and a few metric tons of Brazilian cocaine.

Najaf, Muqtada, and November 20, 1979

The next time you hear a lefty bemoaning--bewailing--that the US is desecrating one of the holiest sites in Islam with military action, remind them of November 20, 1979. November 20, 1979, you ask? As usual, A-double-lizzle has a long memory, suited to his role as ominiscient supreme being of the blogosphere.

1979---the year of Khomeni, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and this milestone event. All orchestrated by a then-drunk George Bush and a Karl Rove so manipulative, so evil, that he could influence events half way around the world from his job as night manager of the Piggly-Wiggly in Austin. Suspicious timing, indeed...

Somewhere down on my to-do list is go find Francis Fukayama and give his "End of History" head a couple of good swirlies in the toilet.

One last word: do you think Muqtada's read Dune one too many times? Mehdi Army, my divinely directed ass.

SPOILER: In the extended section I have the larger passage Allapundit was linking to:

Allahpundit links to a review of Yossef Bodansky's Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America

Soon Islamist youth in Egypt and elsewhere had forceful proof of the righteousness of their cause. On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran, overthrew the shah, and established the Islamic Republic. Throughout the Muslim world the masses celebrated the success of Khomeini's Islamic Revolution as the triumph of Islam over the United States and the West. The Islamic Revolution became a source of pride and envy to all Muslims, as well as living proof that local rulers could be over-thrown by Islamist forces. The impact of Iran was strong in Egypt because Sadat invited the deposed shah to take shelter there, a flagrant affront to the sentiments of most of the population.

The radical Shiite movement was the force behind the Iranian Revolution, and its development in Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq was almost simultaneous to and paralleled the evolution of Sunni revivalism in Egypt. By the late 1970s the philosophy of the revolutionary Shiite thinkers, as expressed in their writings, was very similar to that of the radical Sunni standard-bearers. Their approach to the diagnosis and cure of contemporary problems and their emphasis on the singular importance of confrontation and struggle were virtually identical. Saudi Arabia, in the middle, was exposed to the mounting Islamist fervor.

Saudi Arabia was the first of the traditionalist conservative states to erupt in Islamist violence. On November 20, 1979, the Grand Mosque in Mecca was seized by a well-organized group of 1,300 to 1,500 men under the leadership of Juhayman ibn-Muhammad ibn-Sayf al-Utaibi. A former captain in the White Guards (National Guard), he now declared himself a "mahdi" (messiah). In addition to the Saudis the group's core included well-trained mujahideen (Islamic holy warriors) from Egypt, Kuwait, Sudan, Iraq, North Yemen (the YAR), and South Yemen (the PDRY). Egyptian and Soviet sources estimated the total number of rebels to be 3,500. Although the assault was in the name of the return to the purity of Islam, most of the 500 leading attackers had been trained and equipped in Libya and especially South Yemen by instructors from East Germany, Cuba, and the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). These attackers included Communists in command positions who demonstrated excel-lent organizational and tactical skills. Furthermore, fifty-nine of the participating Yemenis had been trained in Iran and received weapons via the Iranian Embassy in Sana.

During the preparations for the assault Juhayman's men had recruited several members of the elite White Guards and received active support in the smuggling of weapons and equipment into Saudi Arabia and the mosque itself. A White Guards colonel was among the senior instigators of the plot and organized the smuggling of the automatic weapons, provisions, and supplies into the mosque. The bulk of the weapons used had been brought from South Yemen over a lengthy period. The rebels also smuggled in huge quantities of food and drinking water to supply them-selves and their supporters for a long siege.

On November 20, after a brief firefight to secure control of the Qaaba (the center of the Grand Mosque complex, containing the holiest shrine of Islam), Juhayman addressed the crowd of trapped pilgrims and asked for their support. Sermons and discussions of corruption, wastefulness, and the pro-Western stance of the Saudi royal family quickly gained the rebels widespread support among the worshipers. Before long most of the 6,000 pilgrims taken hostage asked to be issued arms so that they could join the revolt. Juhayman's sermons gained sympathy even among the leftist and quasi-Marxist students. News of Juhayman's sermons incited militant mobs throughout Saudi Arabia to storm local mosques and government posts. Latent subversive elements came to life as almost simultaneously with the seizure of the Qaaba a series of bombs exploded in places sensitive to the royal family in Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, and Riyadh. Among these targets were palaces, personal and official offices, and businesses.

Initially the White Guards reacted chaotically to the attack and suffered a humiliating defeat. Moreover, growing discontent in the ranks of the Saudi elite units led the royal family to fear that even they might rebel. The Saudi security forces settled for a siege of the mosque that lasted about two weeks. In the end the rebellion was only subdued by a special detachment of French paramilitary special forces, antiterrorist experts who used stun grenades and chemical weapons.

The uprising in Mecca shook the world of accepted norms in Saudi Arabia. The grievances raised by Juhayman echoed throughout Saudi Arabia, being whispered about in closed meetings. In intellectual circles his arguments made people stop and think about Islam and the society they were living in. A thinking and well-read individual, Osama bin Laden was influenced by the social issues Juhayman raised. But although the crisis of November 1979 reinforced bin Laden's conviction that only an Islamic government could shield Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Muslim world from the evils of encroaching Westernization, he remained a loyal subject of King Fahd and the House of al-Saud.

OSAMA BIN LADEN' S WORLD, like that of most Muslims worldwide, was jolted in the last days of 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. In the late 1970s Afghanistan -- a desolate and backward landlocked country -- was ruled by a Soviet-sponsored Communist government being challenged by Pakistani-sponsored Islamist subversion. With the Communist regime increasingly unstable, the Soviet armed forces marched into Afghanistan, occupied the country's strategic infrastructure, assassinated the president, and replaced him with a docile Soviet puppet. They also began a systematic campaign to suppress the Islamist subversion.

The Soviet invasion was the first time since World War II that non-Muslim forces had occupied a Muslim country -- and these were anti-Islamic Communists to boot. Little wonder that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the last days of 1979 shocked the entire Muslim world to its core. The occupation of a Muslim state by Communist forces insulted the most basic sensitivities of Islam. But however immense the shock and however great the condemnation by the Arab states, little was actually done.