Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Why Israel Reminds me of Juan Berenger

Juan Berenger (or Senor Smoke, as he was called), was one of my favorite pitchers during the 1980s and 1990s. Throwing in late relief, he became a big part of the 1987 Minnesota Twins World Series Team. He was a hefty, long-haired Panamanian, and quite intimidating on the mound.

Berenger could throw a 100 mph fastball, and his pitching was, as manager Tom Kelly often said approvingly, "conveniently wild", which meant he never intentionally beaned opposing players, it just happened in the natural course of things.

"Conveniently Wild" is a term to keep in mind when thinking about Israel's response to the Hezobllah/Hamas border incursions, and the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. When you fire at a missile at or drop a bomb on residential area containing a militant presence, you won't kill many militants. In fact, in this case its a particularly ineffective means of killing militants, since they seem to be employing "shoot and scoot" tactics--firing off a couple of rockets or mortars, and then heading to another area. Given the nature of the weaponry used, you are much more likely to create "collateral damage". Dead Lebanese Canadians, for example.

And the Isaeli Military knows this. In fact, one can assume that it is the point of the exercise: to deliberately use a weapon that is ineffective upon its intended target, but great at creating random slaughter. The "convenient wildness" allows you to achieve a particular end (the intimidation of batters or, in this case, the Lebanese populace), while offering a moral backdoor by which to evade responsibility for the act.

See? Baseball is just like Life.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

so how, in your infinite Liberal wisdom, do you know that the Israeli weapons are not being effective, not destroying terrorist weapons, not killing terrorists ??

Or are you just, again in true Liberal fashion, inventing bullshit points of view in a vain attempt to "prove" your pro hisbullah/pro terrorist beliefs ??

Quite the moral sicko you are, supporting terrorists who set up their rockets in schoolyards and hospital parking lots. Hisbullah revels in civilian casualties and it looks like you do as well.

So Liberal, stink-pooey.

bigcitylib said...

The vast majority of the casualties in the last week have been civilians. And Hezbollah is still firing missiles. Don't you read the papers at all, or at least have someone read them to you?

Anonymous said...

Senor Smoke didn't have the advantage of laser guidance when throwing his spit balls, but it's hardly "wildness" when a laser guided bomb hits a rocket installation. If that rocket installation happens to be in someones backyard then they and their neighbours are likely to get a little dislocated. But presumably they thought that one over, had a community meeting, talked to the local constabulary, before inviting God's Party to set up shop so close to home.

Anonymous said...

if my neighbours set up a rocket battery in their backyard and started shooting at people down the street, I'd get the hell out of dodge, and FAST, before those folks down the street street shooting back..

Since Hisbullah hasn't announced any casualties, how do you know they haven't been whacked hundreds of times harder than the civvy side?

Do you know how many rocket batteries have been destroyed ??

Israel should keep up the attack until there are no more Hisbullah installations. That will save the long suffering Iranian taxpayers from having to pay for thousands and thousands of rockets to replace the thousands and thousands thay have already donated to the Hisbullah Benevelant Peace Loving Brotherhood of mass murdering whackjobs.

Wipe them out Israel, cleanse the planet of the murdering terrorists.

Send Tehran a clear message - your next.

Anonymous said...

MAYOR DAVID MILLER KILLS TEENAGER

Residents watched as teen beaten, stabbed
No one called police because violence so common in area
Jul. 18, 2006. 01:50 PM
ROBYN DOOLITTLE AND CURTIS RUSH
STAFF REPORTERS

Several residents of a North York housing complex watched as a teenage boy was stripped down to his underwear and slowly beaten to death Friday night, but they say they didn't intervene because it didn't look that serious and violence is so common in the area.

The teen's disfigured body was found in a nearby Flemingdon Park ravine at 6:35 p.m. on Saturday. He collapsed in a wooded area behind an apartment building on Don Mills Rd., near Eglinton Ave. E.

Police have identified the teen as 17-year-old Omar Wellington.

A post-mortem examination determined the cause of death as " a multitude of stab wounds to the neck," police said on Tuesday.

Homicide investigators say they are interested in speaking with anyone who was in the area of 61 Grenoble Drive on Friday between 5 p .m. and 8 p.m., and who may have seen a fight involving several young people near the south side of this housing complex.

A mother of three, who didn't want her name used, said "they're always play fighting down there, but they play rough. I didn't think anything of it. He looked okay when I went out to see. Now I just wish I would have done something."

Police say they're unsure why residents didn't contact them when they noticed the clash, but say it may have been because they didn't think the boy was seriously injured.

"It's not really that bad of an area at all ... and we're getting a lot of help from residents," Sgt. Peter Churcher said. "(The most common problem) is kids end up getting in fights."

The woman, who lives in the complex, said a neighbour called Friday night to say a group of about 15 teenagers had stripped a boy naked and were now "beating the hell out of him."

News of the beating spread quickly as neighbours went door to door to warn each other that they should bring their children inside and lock their doors - but no one called the police.

One man, who was walking by, saw the fight and pulled out his cellphone to call 911, but several of the assailants threatened him so he put his phone away and went home.

As the woman left her apartment about 8:30 p.m., she noticed that the teen was standing alone away from the group in his underwear. He did not appear in distress.

"He looked like he was composing himself. I don't know why he didn't just run away if he wasn't okay," she said.

Churcher said the Flemingdon Park area is no more dangerous than other parts of the city and suggested that violence is often correlated with rising temperatures.

An elderly woman who refused to give her name had another theory.

"We have to live here - that's why nobody ever sees anything.... No one wants to get shot for something they weren't part of," she said. "And people may not understand that, but it's because they don't live here."

bigcitylib said...

Anon, an "Hezbollah installation" is a hole under some rubble. That's their infrastructure. They can fire those rockets from anywhere. That's why they've still been able to keep doing it. The shoot, move, and Israel bombs where they've been. Futile.

Anonymous said...

Apostate!

Anonymous said...

. . the israel bombs fall where they have been ??

Your military knowledge = ZERO

Maybe sometimes. . . .


No quick end to offensive, Israeli officials say

CAROLYNNE WHEELER

Globe and Mail Update

Jerusalem — Israeli military sources say they have destroyed a “large part” of Hezbollah's weapons stores but may require up to four more weeks of air strikes on beleaguered southern Lebanon, even as another Israeli has died in another round of rocket attacks and the death toll in Lebanon continues to mount.

Major General Udi Adam, the head of Israel's northern command forces, said Tuesday that air strikes have taken out many of Hezbollah's weapons caches, including anti-aircraft missiles and rockets, but warned there was still work to be done.

“We have hit a large part of their weapons arsenal, their anti-aircraft missiles and their rockets. [The operation] will take time, even three to four weeks,” Maj.-Gen. Adam told Israel's Channel 1 television. “Overall, knock on wood, there have been less rockets lately.”

Anonymous said...

My self-imposed moratorium on calling people rednecks, hicks and colon is over.

So...Has anyone found out just how inbred Prime Minister Steve is?

Anonymous said...

Nice! Where you get this guestbook? I want the same script.. Awesome content. thankyou.
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