The situation grows ever more dire in Lebanon. Evacuations continue; blogger fears about this turning big have turned out all too true. So sad to compare this with the Lebanon of just three weeks ago.

The good news? The Lebanese PM Siniora continues to be a beacon of statesmanship: “The entire world must help us disarm Hezbollah“. The vast majority of Americans support Israel’s war. Israel may have killed the Hezbollah leadership (here’s Al Jazeera’s take on the same event). Hamas seems eager to negotiate in the south. Israel and Syria/Iran are not waging war on each other yet.

The scary news? Israel has begun the invasion. Bush has little interest in a cease-fire–not that the UN could do anything anyway. The Senate condemned Iran and Syria, who are determined to prevent peace. They seem determined to nuke Israel.

For the first time in five years, Japan’s economic report does not contain the word, “Deflation”. Japan also recently ended its zero-percent interest-rate policy.

The economy over there seems very healthy. Time to invest in Yen?

The PM of Lebanon says that he expects Israel to pay for the rebuilding of Lebanon. That seems very reasonable and fair if Lebanon gets Israel’s soldiers back and if Hizb’allah and Syria are ejected from the country and if Hizbullah is prevented from participating in the government or country in the future and if Lebanon refuses any and all aid from Iran or Syria going into the future.

If that is the case, then the United States, UN and every other peace-loving nation in the world should pitch in.

Terrorism is such a useless enterprise. I have no idea why Hezbollah and Hamas even bother. Their strength is deceptive. They can threaten Israel, blow up tanks, sink ships, shoot down planes and kill a few people. So what?

In the United States, the country I am from, people kill each other every day: over money, over land, over vengence. It is very sad. The deaths in Lebanon are very sad. And so are the deaths in Israel. But America lives on. Israel will live on.

For comparison: if America had the same number of people as Israel, car accidents would kill around 1,000 people every year. If Israel had the same murder rate as America, between 70 and 700 people would be murdered every year.

In 2004, terrorism killed 117 people in Israel. In 2005? 45.

In these past few days, Hezbollah angered Israel. In return, Israel has killed hundreds of people, destroyed bridges and roads, imposed a naval and air blockade on the country…all so that Hezbollah can be almost as big a problem as car accidents.

Idiots.

The word, “Need”, first appeared in English in 1929. It has since vanquished must, have to and the like; it is now our primary means of compelling someone.

Check out this crazy project: A cockroach powered robot.

Many people are upset about the damage Israel is wrecking upon Lebanon. One such example is this blogger, who asserts that Hezbollah and Lebanon had the right to kidnap soldiers.

If these soldiers are treated as POWs, then I will grant him that point. That doesn’t mean it was in their own interests to do so. Let’s consider the situation as it now stands:

Lebanese (Hizbullah) invaded Israel, attacked, killed and kidnapped two soldiers. A sovereign government–something Lebanon asserts itself to be–has an absolute right to do this. We have a very specific name for these class of actions: war.

Lebanon declared war on Israel.

Thus, Israel did what any country is entitled to do to a country with which that it is at war: fight back. It is wholly Lebanon’s problem that it had the brilliant idea of declaring war against a country it cannot defeat–cannot protect itself from.

Idiots.

Russia had some critical words for Hizbullah:

Putin said it was unacceptable that Hizbullah was trying to reach its goals with abductions and strikes against an independent state.

“In this context we consider Israel’s concerns to be justified,” he said.

Note that while Russia does endorse their concerns, they do not go so far as to endorse their actions. This is almost certainly because they do not want this to escalate into a Israel-Iran war.

Israel has given Syria a 72 hour warning before they “may” will start attacking the country. In preparation for this, Israel has begun moving their attacks eastward.

This sounds bad–and increasingly less avoidable. Israel will declare war on Syria, and Iran will declare war on Israel. Will the USA join after this?