I love the Lebanese
 

Jacquelita doesn't like it when I post protest babes, she's jealous. So I'll just point to this gallery of images from Beirut and suggest you at least visit #38.

http://www.stavrotoons.com/Independa...asp?toonId=772

Glenn Reynolds points out... which side would you rather be on? The pro-Syria, pro-Hezbollah side looks like this:

http://cellar.org/2005/uglyprotesters.jpg

The anti-Syria, pro-representational government looks like this:

http://cellar.org/2005/beautifulprotesters.jpg

CNN's Anderson Cooper is live in Beirut this week. His reports are so awesome.

These kids rock my world. They are in charge, and they know it. It's their Woodstock, their Burning Man, except that it's 100% political and their road to a better, freer life. And how do they show it? With beautiful optimism and celebration. They have DRUM CIRCLES, they play flutes, they sing joyously. They love the West and want to be more like it.

I work with two men from Lebanon. They are very jolly happy souls. I enjoy working with them. :) :thumbsup:

Lebanon is already pretty western. Some interesting stuff turned up about the car-bomb this week, looks like a well pre-planned operation by Syrian or possibly Lebanese intel guys, they think it was 600(!!!)kg of explosives. They've only got one car for testing because the others were cleared away suspiciously fast - the reason the have the one is because it was blown clear over a building into the sea. They really weren't taking any chances. There was an interesting photo leaked to the press of the bomb site a couple of days before with a big manhole cover and a sus-as-hell looking black box next to it, can't find it now though.

If Syria does withdraw there is a real danger of a power vacuum, maybe this time it'll end nicely but lots of people I've spoken to who know about this stuff feel that there will be more violence before it's settled - but Mr Lebanon's sons have fled to avoid assassination already.

any official number on the protest? I know the pro-Lebanese one beat the Hezbollah (sp) one by at least 500k, but I've heard rumors that there could have been as many as 3 or 4 million people there.

Let's see. 400,000 people at the pro-Syria rally, all of whom were either bussed in or threatened with their lives, vs. 3 million who came out of their own accord to support freedom. I like this trend.

Interesting assumption. Extra points for myopia. Hizbollah enjoys a lot of support, it runs schools, hospitals and media and holds seats in parliament. It's very popular in the Shia community, which is about 40% of Lebanon.

I also heard (one statement) on a BBC report that the pro-Syrian protestors were paid, and implied that the anti-Syrian protestors were not. Draw your own conclusions about which movitation is more noble.

It also ran a series of kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon, including several Americans, in the 1980s; the suicide truck bombings that killed more than 200 U.S. Marines at their barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983; the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, which featured the famous footage of the plane’s pilot leaning out of the cockpit with a gun to his head; and two major 1990s attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina—the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy (killing 29) and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center (killing 95).


Hassan Nasrallah, their terrorist in chief, said "Death to America is not a slogan. Death to America is a policy, a strategy and a vision."

You'll just have to pardon me if my view of this organization tends toward the negative.

Um, most of what hizbollah does/has done has had broad-base popular suport, particularly forcing Israel to retreat. You may have a negative view of the organisation but you cannot deny it has popular support in lebanon particularly with the Shia. End of story. Hizbollah has long been patronised by Syria and I'm sure pressure was applied on hizbollah to get people out but to assume they were [ b]all[/b] threatened and bribed is frankly, sillyness on a iamthewalrus kind of level. It's generalizations like that that cause so much troulbe in the first place. BigV, i'm sure some were, an yes, if anyone has the moral high ground it's the people that want syria out but all I said is hizbollah had popular support, that's all. I never said I liked hizbollah or that hizbollah were right or anything else.

i admit to the blanket generalization. And it does have quite broad support in the Shi'ite community. But Shia are no longer defined by their religious views (I think they're the ones that believe only descendants of Mohammed should rule Islamic ppl), but by their jihad against Isreal and the west.

watch the so-called "popularity" of Hizbollah disintegrate after the Lebanese realize that Syria will no longer be calling the shots in their country. It's obviously a guess, but I'd bet that half of the people in the pro-Syria rally were there under pressure of some kind. No way to prove it either way.

Doubt it. Hizbollah is very deeply rooted in Shia culture in Lebanon, while you might like to see it as an evil terrorist network propped up by Syria it's something much larger, broader and far more pervasive. Hizbollah controls swaths of Lebanon. One of many reasons the leaving of Syrian troops might not be the panacea a lot of people image it is.

Basically, Syria's ties with Hezbollah resemble our ties with the Contras in the 1980's. Easily deniable and able to sever at a moments notice. Hezbollah probably has enough other avenues of support to exist without Syria's support.

Hizbollah certainly can continue to exist without them but the links are a lot less hidden than that.

One of my favorite bloggers Michael Totten has <a href=http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/000768.html>more news photos showing the differences between the two protests</a>.

i prefer the lesbianese

:lol2:Now that's funny!

and delightfully predictable.

Are you opposed to a good pun?

1. there aren't any.

2. any reasonable person is.

Sure there are! /scratches head...moves on without "good" pun/

And if there aren't any, how could reasonable people be opposed to something that doesn't exist? That sure doesn't sound reasonable...

Malapropisms? Bushisms? Spoonerisms? Aural, ambiguous wordplay is unfunny to you? Shirley, you jest.

I don't jest. And stop calling me Shirley. ;)

(Airplane really should have one the field of 64 comedy movies, dammit.)

ahhh, thank you for your clarification.
:)

^^^doesn't get it

wolf wrote precisely what she meant to. Go back a few posts...

:)

I'll delete my posts if you delete yours :)

??!!
Are you sayin ppl delete posts, and that all I see here is the creme' de la creme of what people say? *snort* ahh. well. um. nah, I was just playin.
:stickpoke:

yes, some people are guilty of deleting posts - have you ever seen quotes but can't figure out where the original post is?

2 Panorama VR images here:
http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen5/f11-lebanon.html

To clarify ...

I really did mean "won."

But I was posting from work which leads to all kinds of bizarre typing errors, because of course, while you're in the middle of a good post is the only time that the boss is going to be breathing down your neck or you have to talk to a suicidal person or something.

suggestion--have the boss fill in for the suicidal person

two birds with one stone, if you know what I mean...

btw, your post was clear, consice, correct, AND funny.

Thank you. It's something I strive for.

Their Prague Spring, their Tianenmen Square? A bunch of tanks beats a popular protest any day of the week. This is the Age of Tyranny; don't count Lebanon free yet.

Yeah, that's what I've been thinking but didn't want to say aloud. :unsure:

Well, a lot of the anti-Syrian protesters are probably Christian, and noone lately has gotten away with massacring Christians. There are probably over a dozen organizations in the US who are charged with protecting the rights of Christians worldwide and who can say they have a friend in the White House.

Dear Abby, A couple of women moved in across the hall from me.
One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her mid-twenties. These two women go everywhere together and I've never seen a man go into or leave their apartment.
Do you think they could be Lebanese? :blush:

Hmmm, is she a......control freak??!

still not letting it bother you, i see ;)

Hardly, pretty much the opposite actually.

Just another insecure female - you know we all have attributes we would like to improve if we could, bad eyes, big forehead etc...

I know I'll never be a hot, freedom-seeking, free-loving young Lebanese girlie so I get a little twinge when I see my man droolin over them.

It's the balance of nature...for the twinges and drooling you provoke in the male population. ;)