One man. Closing, all the windows.
It’s been a long time coming but C-19 is proposed to be amended and debated next week. The Opposition intends to delete most of the clauses.
The great day will be Monday, 2011-2-6. Then the thing should go on to the Senate and Royal Assent. Justice has been a long time coming back to Canada where it is no business of the federal government what tools one own. It’s too bad we could not garnish the $billions wasted on this boondoggle from opposing MPs’ salaries.
The Arab League’s well-intentioned visits and discussions about the situation in Syria are doing nothing but wasting time and lives.
It is in everyone’s best interest to replace the current regime with a functional and democratic government. The outside world has to either intervene militarily or provide arms and training to the opposition so that they can do the job themselves. Either way, blood-letting will increase but only for the short term. The present impasse will kill more in the long run as wider violence will inevitably result.
The UN should go after the regime of Assad even more vigorously than they went after the old Libyan regime. It’s not hard to pick sides. Go with the one that did not foment terrorism around the globe and did not kill thousands of innocent civilians in the streets. This time, don’t limit matters to combat air patrol but deliberately supply weapons, training and close air support. Assad should not be able to move any heavy weapons, columns or supplies around the country within hours of taking action. Within weeks the fighting could be over. That’s a far better result than tolerating months and years of internal terrorism and killing.
There are already many deserters from Assad’s army. There will be many more if a clear winner in proclaimed. Arm them and train recruits. Combined with air support, Assad would be on the defensive and will have two options, destruction in months or a polite change of regime a bit sooner.
see Al Jazeera – Syria rejects Arab League transition plan
see BBC – Syria rejects Arab League plan for Assad to step down
I am travelling today with a son and a daughter to visit my mother, probably for the last time. She’s 84 and in failing health.
My earliest memory of my mother was in the kitchen. She cooked wonderful food for us, simple things like peas, carrots, meat and potatoes but also the most wonderful cinnamon buns. She long ago forgot the recipe but I have managed to reinvent them, more or less. 50 years ago she found morels (Morchella esculenta) growing in the forest beside our garden and gave me a meal of them sauteed in butter. I can still taste them. She used to pickle beets and cucumbers and to preserve jellies and jams for the winter.
In those days winter was always cold and with deep snow. She was delivered of me after a long ride in a horse-drawn sleigh to the nearest hospital. The roads were impassible due to a late winter storm. In my formative years, we lived in a log house in the forest and her favourite thing was to cook cocoa for us when we returned from hours of playing in the snow. She cooked bread and buns and everything else in a wood stove. Fetching water and wood were my principle chores.
In all the years I knew her as a child, my mother never complained even as we planted our garden for food, picked rocks (they were more plentiful than soil) or milked cows. She taught me to read before I was school age. She was a voracious reader and always kept us supplied with books from a mail-order lending library.
As a teenager I was sullen and never gave her much joy but she kept on going and was supportive even into my years at university. She raised five children and three attended university and became teachers. She and my father believed education was the key to a bright future and it was for us. I am sure they were surprised when we kept going at it after graduating high school, something my father did not because of WW II.
I owe my parents for what I am today. They gave me everything I needed to get started and never stood in my way to make my own choices. They treated all my siblings fairly and were a blessing to us all. My father died long ago of cancer. My mother has had a long struggle with diabetes which has worn down her health. The circle of life is completing another cycle. My own children are maturing and today will be an important stop along their way.
Unlike the old days, winter is mild today, with a forecast low temperature three standard deviations above the normal high temperature, cloudy but with no snow. It is a good day to travel to say “Good-bye Mom.”
—–
Mom died peacefully, 2012-1-16 surrounded by family.
I am an old man and have lived many winters in Canada. This is the mildest winter of my life probably. Is it global warming? Is it Nature playing tricks on us? Are we due for a shock?
I was just talking to the little woman about heating costs. We are heating our house mostly on sunshine coming in the windows temperatures are so mild: Continue reading ‘Crazy Weather’
The BBC carries a story that the Taliban are interested in setting up an office in Qatar where dialogue in neutral territory might be more productive than killing.
As usual there are multiple sides to this story. Having some place where people are not hunting you down is valuable for many reasons other than making peace, propaganda, for instance.
I expect that after decades of war, Afghanistan is tired of it and may actually be interested in talking instead of killing. There has to be a lot of movement on all sides to have any effect on the ground. I can see the Taliban having real problems with human rights such as education for women and bombing civilians. I can see the current government having real problems with human rights, such as hunting Talibanis like rabbits and allowing everyone a voice/some control in government. I can see the USA having real problems with human rights, such as killing random people from the air and holding prisoners under torture and without trial. There are lots of entrenched positions to prevent any movement but it’s an election year in USA so anything is possible, even peace. Perhaps the old guard are dying off and the younger folks want their chance to build a nation.
Qatar has long been respected as knowledgeable of the various parties. Perhaps they would be good hosts for some sort of rapprochement. Now, if only Iran and North Korea could come to the table, 2012 might be a better year. Sometimes talk is purely for show and sometimes it starts important movements. We shall see. The world certainly needs a break from war.
There always seems to be war somewhere on the planet. A decade ago, the seeds of Afghanistan and Iraq were sprouting. Now it’s Syria and Iran. Some people need war to be relevant, the military-industrial complex and politicians.
I believe the world will be motivated to enter yet another hot war in 2012. All or most of the situations mentioned above will be involved. It’s too bad that leaders have the skills to arouse people to kill other people for some cause. It’s too bad the USA feels the need to meddle in the affairs of others, to call revolutionaries terrorists etc. all the while doing everything possible to destabilize non-clients even murder and torture. While we look back on history and pronounce ourselves morally superior, this tendency to throw off any semblance of civility in order to punish those who disagree with us shows the lie. I wish Canada had the intestinal fortitude to follow its own foreign policy and base choices on reason and morality not money and power. Canada could start by throwing M$, the FBI and the CIA out of Canada. They don’t work for us.
Sometimes one gives up on maintaining something old, obsolete or worn out. It’s too bad we had to wait years for the stupid registry of unrestricted firearms to be scrapped. It’s still not quite done as there still remains third reading in the House of Commons, consideration in the senate and royal proclamation but the Conservative Party of Canada is committed to the process which should resume in February 2012.
The PCs have their lists of myths and facts but I thought I would create my own list. I do love lists. They clarify, motivate and break down problems to smaller pieces.
The level of debate to which the opposition sank recently is a clear demonstration of the intellectual bankruptcy of the gun-grabbers. They raised irrelevant issues. They attacked good people doing their jobs. They begged the question constantly. Paperwork on hammers has almost no effect on crime but the opposition repeatedly claimed it did and pronounced stupid, foolish, and wrong anyone who pointed that out. They tried to undermine democracy by attacking members of parliament elected by Canadians to carry out the wishes of Canadians.
2012 should be a better year. Something horrible will be behind us, left on the scrap-heap of history. I don’t know whether my 22 year old roto-tiller or my 26 year old lawn-mower will be scrapped in 2012. I hope not. They have done a lot more good than the firearms registry ever did. A lot of military bolt action rifles widely used for hunting in Canada will not be scrapped. They are durable goods passed on from one generation to the next like family heirlooms. Few hammers are so beloved. I have hunted deer with rifles more than one hundred years old and they still shoot well enough. One ancient one in my hands beat a brand new Remington in the hands of a young man in a test of accuracy. Some have survived war, gun-grabbers and the registry.
41st Parliament, 1st Session
The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security has the honour to present its
FIRST REPORT
In accordance with its Order of Reference of Tuesday, November 1, 2011, your Committee has considered Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, and agreed on Tuesday, November 29, 2011, to report it without amendment.
A copy of the relevant Minutes of Proceedings (Meetings Nos. 11 to 15) is tabled.
KEVIN SORENSON
Chair
The minutes of the decisive meeting of the Security committee are here. The opposition had attempted several amendments that the chair ruled out of order because of their scope.
The die is cast in Syria. Assad has not responded seriously to interventions by the Arab League and its neighbour, Turkey, to behave reasonably to popular protests. Defections from the military are growing. Last week, defectors attacked key installations near the capital. Here, a group of officers declares a break with Assad:
This is what happens when a government orders troops to kill civilians. Some segment will disagree and they will find popular support to grow in numbers, rapidly. They may even get air support from Turkey because Turkey does not want Syrian military action anywhere near its borders with Syria. Ordinary civilians are still risking bombs, bullets and wholesale arrests by protesting publicly.
A tipping point has been reached. Assad has no legitimacy with a large segment of his population and many other states. Even China and Russia who supported Syria are appalled. There is only so far they are willing to go to support an obviously unpopular regime. There is only so far the world will go to tolerate repression. Syria has passed that limit. Expect escalating sanctions and a Libyan-like uncivil war. The violence will increase a great deal before it abates. The end result will not be a continuation of the Assad regime. The only real question is whether Assad and his partners in crime want to go to the bitter end or will they find some way to exit the situation while they still can. The end of the Gaddafi regime should have been an educational moment for Assad but there is no sign he is paying attention.
I fear we have only seen the beginning of repression and desperate responses to repression in Syria but I expect the result will be the overthrow of the regime sooner or later, probably sooner. Anyone in Syria who has not picked a side by now will have little choice soon. Artillery does not respect fence-sitters.
I took another trip to the old workshop to move stuff to the new workshop yesterday. I had run out of steel for my shelving project. What a difference a day makes. I had been using a 10 inch hacksaw blade and I found a 12 inch blade in new condition in the old shop. With it I can cut almost twice as fast, 20%+ for the adding length of stroke, and more for using a sharp blade. I am actually losing a bit of weight by sawing the steel…
I also fetched two vises so I don’t need to be so skillful positioning and holding steel for welding. I’ve done pretty well so far but it is a much slower process positioning things by hand-eye and then holding them for a few seconds in the dark… On top of that the wind has been annoying lately. Combined with the low temperatures, I really want to clamp, weld and be done with it. I am more than half-way done the shelving. It will be a thing of beauty, strong and functional.
It will be a blessing to be able to walk around my workshop in straight lines after the shelves get stocked. Of course I could have bought shelving for a few $K but these will be custom-made for my shop with the spacing I need and the strength I want. The design also minimizes the cost of material, maximizes accessibilty, and I am retired so time is not a problem. I love welding, making things strong and functional that will last a lifetime. Stuff in my old shop is as good as new and it has been there 20 years.
Welding is like software. There is a perception that it is useful and finished but in reality, good software can be around and useful long after it’s creator has died or lost interest. This is a big advantage for FLOSS. There is no commercial motive to kill something off just because a new model has come along and the old model can be improved for less effort sometimes. Linux has been going a long time and never rewritten from scratch. It’s not getting older. It’s getting better. I am definitely getting older, not better, but at least I am still useful.
Further welding projects: boot scrapers so the little woman does not have to nag me about the mud tracked in, picnic tables and seating for the joyous time next year when we will actually have a lawn and gardens, some signage/lighting, and a harrow to help prepare the lawn next year.
It was a disgusting display by Jack Harris of the NDP talking over Vic Toews answering questions. Harris also repeatedly brought in irrelevant issues to the questions, licensing for instance. Several times he accused the government of doing away with “gun control” and licensing of firearms but the bill before committee was only about doing away with the registry. The NDP repeatedly talked about “feeling” safe instead of being safe. The registry has nothing to do with safety. Criminals don’t register firearms. Continue reading ‘Public Safety Committee Meeting on C-19′
They are going to try again. Vic Toews will introduce it and the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters will tee off against The Canadian Labour Congress, whatever they have to say on the matter of eliminating the registry.
“For Canada’s labour movement, the gun registry is an important tool for workplace safety.“ Yeah, right. The gun grabbers just never seem to quit.
On the way the New Democratic Party treated elected members of the House of Commons who voted as their constituents wished, OFAH wrote, “The long gun registry is an issue that has long divided rural and urban Canada. Mr. Rafferty and Mr. Hyer represent rural ridings where the vast majority of residents hunt and fish, and where sentiment against the long gun registry runs deep, something that Mr. Layton understood, regardless of his personal position on the issue.
In voting the way they did on Bill C-19, Mr. Rafferty and Mr. Hyer acted as we expect our elected representatives in Parliament to act, when given a mandate by the electorate in their riding. For them to be silenced in the House and removed from Committees for their actions is not only a gross overreaction on your part, but an affront to the parliamentary system.”
Amen. This will be interesting.
The NDP has done a lot of good in Canada keeping the older parties honest but they really blew it on the issue of the firearms registry. In the debate on eliminating the firearms registry was this:
Mrs. Anne-Marie Day (Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, I will not congratulate the party opposite on the speech I just heard. If Pinocchio were standing in her place, his nose would be so long it would touch the bench across the way. First, the hon. member talked about myths, and she suggested that police officers do not use the registry. I invite the hon. member to read the article in today’s issue of Le Devoir, which says: “This data is useful to police officers—who consult it thousands of times a day—and was paid for by taxpayers”, and it should go back to the provinces. It was the Fraternité des policiers et policières de Montréal who said that. They know what they are talking about.
I would like to talk to the hon. member opposite about violence against women. The mother of a friend of mine was killed by my friend’s father with a shotgun. Okay. It is important to have gun control. I would like the hon. member to talk about safety. If we are talking about safety, a firearm is a firearm. Firearms kill. That is not to say that everyone who has a firearm kills, but someone might get killed. We have to be careful what we say.
Mr. James Bezan:
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We have been fairly concerned about decorum in the chamber and ensuring that we are respectful when addressing each other in the House. For the member opposite to accuse someone of being Pinocchio and that his or her nose is growing is implying that the individual is a liar, which is completely unparliamentary.
I ask that you discipline the member and that she retract that statement, Mr. Speaker.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin):
The Chair will review the blues on this matter and, if needed, will come back to the House.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
Ms. Candice Hoeppner:
Mr. Speaker, I have been working on this issue for many years. I am not sure what expertise the hon. member has but, if I were her, I would not refer to Le Devoir as a source of expertise.
In terms of violence against women or anyone, the member referred to a firearm that was a long gun. The registry does not stop any crime from happening. It does not stop a long gun from being used in a crime, just like a registry for bats, knives or any other instruments that can be used as weapons. A knife can be a weapon but a registry of knives will not stop the knife from being a weapon. Most women who are killed in Canada are killed with knives, followed by beatings and strangulations. If we want to look at registering weapons, it would need to include knives and people’s hands. That is ridiculous, but I guess that is what the NDP thinks.
The whole debate was laced with fallacies on the part of the NDP. They just did not seem to know what they were talking about or misconstrued information. For example, they repeatedly stated that police support the registry when the rank-and-file do not because the registry is deficient in information about millions of firearms and erroneous in about 10% of the records. Further the registry drives a wedge between officers and citizens and creates a market for illegal firearms. Police chiefs love the registry because they get to hire more police to deal with firearms and probably get higher salaries/larger budgets. Ask any officer whether it would be more useful to hire 1000 more officers or run the registry a few years.
Candice Hoeppner was abused when she spoke on her bill last year before the committee. The Lieberals and NDP refused to allow her a proper amount of time. Now they accuse her of lying. Candice Hoeppner has worked tirelessly on this issue because her constituents asked her to do that. Abusing her for doing her job is disgusting. This issue is important for large numbers of Canadians and is no doubt part of the reason the Lieberals lost seats and PCs were given a majority by voters. I know this was my issue and I am glad I voted for Bezan.
From the minutes of the Committee on Public Safety and National Security:“Candice Hoeppner moved, — That, pursuant to the motion adopted Tuesday, September 27, 2011, giving priority to government bills, should Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, stand referred to the Committee, the Clerk shall make arrangements for an appearance by the Minister of Public Safety on Thursday, November 3, 2011.”
The bill was referred to the committee as a result of a motion in the House today. It looks as though Candice Hoeppner is getting even with the way she was treated by the Lieberals and NDP last time around. The Government appears to be wanting this thing home by Christmas. Amen.
UPDATE The committee meeting scheduled for 1100 on 2011-11-3 was cancelled on short notice. No reason was given.
UPDATE Just read a sound article in the Toronto SUN: Goodbye and good riddance to long gun registry
“There’s a good reason why the long gun registry’s supporters still don’t get why it needs to end, with its data destroyed.
It’s simple: Their names aren’t on it.”
Amen.
From 10am to 2pm time will be spent debating “C-19 — The Minister of Public Safety — Ending the Long-gun Registry Act — Second reading (resuming debate)”.
I will have the CPAC channel going.
The government has moved to limit debate to three days.
Continue reading ‘Debate Continues on C19′
There are reports he was captured at Sirte and has been rushed to hospital for treatment of wounds.
see BBC
see Al Jazeera
That should end the matter unless his sons try to fight to the bitter end.
UPDATE Apparently the first reports were false. Gaddafi was killed and his body transported to Misrata.
UPDATE Further information is that Gaddafi was captured alive but killed on the spot by out of control fighters. This is a black mark on the revolution but I doubt many will shed a tear. One son was also killed and Saif was captured separately. The French air force apparently blocked the escaping vehicles carrying Gaddafi.
Surely this must be the end of the fight. Now comes the rebuilding.
The Vancouver Sun has a story that the bill to repeal the registry could be introduced as soon as tomorrow. That will be a happy day. For a decade and a half firearms owners have been burdened by this nonsensical law that punished law-abiding citizens and rewarded criminals by promoting gun smuggling. More than $1billion has been spent implementing and refining a flawed concept no longer enforced. To officially repeal the law will be just and reasonable. It’s a sad commentary on Canadian politics that it was ever implemented and maintained so long.
see Bill to abolish long-gun registry could come this week
To follow bills in the House of Commons, visit Parliament of Canada.
On top of this activity in France, LibreOffice now has a web application demo and LibreOffice will soon be ported to Android/Linux and iOS.
see TDF Blog
Defecting soldiers are joining the protests and fighting back against the Syrian regime. The regime has deployed all kinds of force against various towns and cities where protests occur. Thus it seems there is no alternative except violence to overthrow tyranny there. Why is the UN ignoring the situation? China’s veto… Maybe it’s time the UN General Assembly kicked out the “Security Council” whose only role seems to be to protect the “in crowd”.
see BBC
The pace of developments seems to have slowed but Syria is still slaughtering its citizens in the street, Yemen’s tyrant is still in power and an unpopular regime is still in power in Bahrain.
Libya is down to the last couple of battles for complete overthrow of Gaddafi. It’s time for the world to focus on Syria, currently the worst offender of human rights in the news. There is danger of conflict at the Turkish border and Russia is still providing Syria with arms to kill its citizens. China vetoed a resolution of the UN Security Council to yank Assad’s chain. The longer this situation persists, the less likely a peaceful solution will work. The citizens will get arms one way or another and take back their country. The only question in my mind is what is the least bloody way to have that happen. I don’t see a better solution than what happened in Libya, NATO, or some other force, taking out Assad’s armour and artillery. It takes time but the citizens are mad as hell and won’t take it any more. They will fight and win.
The other parties/antagonists in the region had better smarten up or face overthrow. That includes Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Israel. No one likes a bully for a neighbour. No one wants a bully in power. It’s time to get rid of all the bullies. We have to live together on this planet and we should not be locked-in by the mistakes of our ancestors. Change can be good. Change is necessary.
Here it is the day before the election and I have not made up my mind. I am not a decisive person in many ways so that is not surprising but the hopelessness of the decision-making process is. Each of the major parties has serious baggage with me:
One of the fallouts of this weekend’s time spent with family was that my children tried to help me make up my mind. One said, “What about the Green Party?”. That’s cool. I like to be self-sufficient as much as possible. I like Nature to be left alone as much as possible. They do have an advantage for me of not being close to power so they might actually listen to my advice to embrace hydroelectric power as a valuable renewable resource and to use GNU/Linux and thin clients. We shall see.
The platform of the Greens is here.
They are cool with my being a hunter:
“Other benefits of our forests include outdoor recreation, hunting, fishing, timber, spiritual retreats, harvesting of food and medicine, and wildlife habitats. Large expanses of old growth forests in northern Manitoba must remain intact in order to maintain these human and ecological values.”
Their hangup with hydroelecticity is that major environmental impact is arising not from the needs of the local economy but actually subsidize exports of power to the USA at bargain-basement prices:
“Bipole III is only a small portion of the roughly $20 billion in planned hydroelectric mega-project developments that accompany Bipole III – and which continue to soar in cost!
The primary driving force behind the construction of these new mega-dams and Bipole III is to export power to the U.S.A. Recent investigations by the Manitoba Public Utilities Board have revealed that if we build these new dams, we may be exporting the power at a loss – leaving Manitobans with soaring electricity rates.”
I can live with the Greens, I think.
UPDATE It’s over. My candidate came in third of four. The fourth was my old ex-principal, Lawrence Einarsson of the Lieberals. Not bad for the first try by the Green party. Of 9729 votes cast my candidate received 300, 3%. It will take some hard work to advance but that fourth place was the Lieberal party which thought it was the “naturally governing party” when I was young… The Green Party did come in a distant second in one riding, Wolseley. The NDP lost a bit of popular vote but due to redistribution won all of the northern seats and most of Winnipeg’s. The Green Party needs to connect with more people. People vote. Issues do not. Education will be required to show people that green issues are important to them, more important than governmental slush funds and kickbacks.
It was an interesting weekend. I got to visit all of my children, a grandchild and to terrorize a cat. It was great.
We got in some target shooting, a good dinner including asparagus and chicken and apple pie with ice-cream. I even grabbed a mower instead of commenting that the grass was a bit long. I got to sleep on a couch. It seemed OK but I awoke with a pain in the neck and stiff as a board. The most fun was finding that the younger generation still have a lot to learn despite their supposed maturity.
At one point we drove up to the front of my son’s home and spotted his cat prowling the side walk. I called the cat’s name and approached whereupon it looked startled and ran into a neighbour’s yard. It turned out that my son’s cat has a ringer in the neighbourhood…
A large US satellite is predicted to impact Earth sometime in the next 24h. The bulk of the satellite is fluffy and will burn up but a serious amount is expected to strike in pieces up to 158kg at a speed of 44m/s. The trail of large piece could be about 500km long. The probability of you dying from this is pretty low. I suggest a party tonight, just in case. The probability of any human casualty is estimated to be 1 in 3200, and of course that 1 could be any of 7 billion people, so you’re probably OK. Unfortunately, humans are densely concentrated in cities… so it could be 0, 1 or many casualties. We shall see.
Current re-entry time is listed as 3:16 +/- 5h UTC. The most probably impact sites are the centre of Canada, north of me or the southern Indian Ocean. It might be a good night for star-gazing. If you have to go tonight, you might as well have some fun.
see http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/585584main_UARS_Status.pdf
UPDATE 2011-9-23 The latest estimates show the thing is heading for M$’s HQ…
ETA 9PM Redmond time. This could make up for all those Patch Tuesday annoyances that they release when convenient in their time zone.
UPDATE NASA says the thing re-entered over the Pacific. Close, but no cigar. There are reports of debris falling on Alberta, Canada.
The temperature is already below freezing so I went out in the dark to put on the garden sprinkler to keep my tender plants alive until the bitter end. It was such a poor growing season, some of my most productive plants still have tender growth and unripened fruit. The sprinkler plugged with ice so I had to clear it. The hose was so cold water froze in it at first. I removed the sprinkler head and managed to flush it. The only good thing about this cold snap is that hunting season is getting closer…
Harper is a good guy. After all he has committed to doing away with the long gun registry but there are things that are not done in the Arab world. One is to show the sole of the shoe to another person …
Oops!
The new government of Libya has given Gaddafi’s supporters at Sirte until Saturday to surrender. In the interim, forces from all over Libya will be concentrated there. There is no doubt about the outcome except for the number of casualties. Gaddafi has caused the deaths of so many thousands a few more thousand will not likely cost him sleep.
Sirte is a tiny place just a mile or so in size. There are only a few strategies that may be applied and all will be successful for the new government of Libya:
The largest advantage the new government has is time not manpower. They can take lots of time for reconnaissance and assembling forces and psychological warfare. No doubt Sirte has been well prepared for months and a good plan will be needed. The troops don’t care much about losses. They seem to like charging ahead. Combined with the subtlety they have learned, the end should come quickly whatever the plan. Even a siege will get results in a few weeks.
This is an awkward situation for NATO who are nominally overhead to protect civilians. Sirte is an armed camp on both sides. NATO can still take out machinery caught in the open but when the infantries get so close that they can see each other’s eyes, there is not enough separation for use of 250 kg bombs. If NATO suppresses artillery, the new government will be able to get in close.
I expect no one wants this to drag on much longer. The battle of Sirte will be quick and dirty with high casualties. The end is near. After victory in Sirte, no enclave of Gaddafi will have any illusions about holding out.
Out of all the chaos of the grim reality that is the fight for freedom in Libya, there is a bit of humour. The word “sniper” occurs repeatedly in news reports and everyone’s talking about “snipers” but what they are talking about is a bullet from unknown sources. These folks are firing all kinds of weapons in all kinds of directions so naturally bullets are going everywhere. In video that I have seen there is rarely an aimed shot. Where are the snipers?
To be true, I have seen a few rifles that looked like tools of a sniper with telescopic sights and a hefty calibre like 7.62X51 NATO which can definitely dispatch anyone sticking head and shoulders around a corner from 900M/1000yards. The vast majority of injuries by bullets seem rather to be inflicted on people in the wrong place at the wrong time without any help of a sniper. Proof is that time and time again we see exchanges of fire on YouTube and no one is hit after hundreds of rounds. A sniper takes only one shot, especially in still air. Combatants are exposing themselves, stationary, in the open and not being hit with regularity. If there were many snipers around, the combatants would soon learn to avoid suicidal behaviour. In the video, no one seems to take cover by entering a building and moving closer to the other side or making a flanking movement. That’s what people would do against snipers. People don’t fire machine guns at snipers. It doesn’t pay to annoy them.
If there were many snipers in Libya, the combatants would call in their pet snipers to deal with the other guys’ snipers. The best tool against snipers is another sniper.
No, what we have in Libya are thousands of poorly trained combatants using spray-and-pray. The AK-47 which is the most common rifle in use is a short-range assault rifle, useless against snipers without getting close. A true sniper will stay out of sight and pick high-value targets from long range. His best weapon will be a scoped rifle designed for the purpose. He will make a kill almost every shot and will not exchange fire with infantry to avoid revealing his location. In hot battles such as we see from Libya, a sniper will separate himself from the melee so that he will not be killed by stray bullets but can be effective. Typically he will be far inside a building so that only a bullet fired from his target could reach him and that won’t happen because the target will be killed on the first shot. He will keep his side if he has one between him and the other side so he cannot easily be flanked.
In the recent taking of Bab Al-Aziziya in Tripoli, many people were “shot by snipers”, hundreds, reportedly, yet no snipers were captured/killed. Most likely, in the confusion of battle, there were many friendly-fire incidents or spray-and-pray got lucky. The compound, described as “square miles” in size, is tiny, about the size of a football field. A park nearby is larger, about one square mile, but neither is a suitable deployment for a sniper with no cover. The wall of the compound prevented snipers outside the compound being effective inside.
Where snipers could be effective in Tripoli, between tall buildings or along a street viewed from a tall building are places where we see people engaged in machine-gun fire. If they were engaging snipers they would enter the building and search it. If they were assaulting a building to enter, there would be no need to elevate those machine-guns 10-15 degrees as we see often.
So, let’s not give the snipers a bad name. There aren’t many there.
I love ants. They work so hard. They cooperate. They share.
I have some in my garden in a spot of light sandy soil. They were harmless until my last cultivation proved too effective. Denied natural food in the weeds, they devoured my best pumpkin… Sigh. I guess I will have to sacrifice the pumpkin to appease them. I don’t want them going after my peppers.
Next year the garden will be relocated to a region of the yard with fewer ants. The deck/patio will go where the garden is now.
The Gaddafis were known to be in Tripoli only hours ago so the chances are good they are still there. News reports seem to neglect that it is known that Gaddafi has a network of tunnels amongst very important places in Tripoli. There could be a breakout tonight.
When I was in Riyadh, a system of tunnels were being built. Interestingly, they had some peculiar characteristics for “storm sewers”:
I expect that while celebrations are going on tonight raids or escapes will take place. Apparently the Rixos hotel is on a tunnel and reporters say Gaddafi’s boys are still in charge…
Judging from the BBC’s map of the situation, Gaddafi’s control is concentrated around Bab Al-Azizia (the bunker) and includes the Rixos hotel where a mess of journalists are hiding out and some areas towards the TV station and port. That’s a few percent of Tripoli at most and, being surrounded by revolutionaries, is destined to shrink. Revolutionaries are pulling in men and equipment from all over Libya by land and sea to build strength while Gaddafi’s resources are limited. Gaddafi’s supporters are sniping in a wider area around Tripoli but are being systematically hunted. This is a battle of attrition and there is little doubt about the outcome. With checkpoints on all roads, Gaddafi’s insiders are caught in a tightening noose. Continue reading ‘Implosion in Tripoli’
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