'War' reporting gripe.

I'm a bit of a 'fanboy' when it comes to military history so I'm probably just being pedantic but neither this

or this

is a tank. They are mobile artillery, a tank is an armoured vehicle used for direct assult against an enemy, mobile artillery is used from behind the frontlines to support attacks or defense and does not engage an enemy directly.

Also a canon is a large calibre gun usually above 20mm, not just any old machine gun that looks big. They are just machine guns.

I could go on but it just irks me when journalists don't bother to find out even the basics of military terminology or descriptions.

Another thing is the way the media, mainly the 'left' leaning and politically correct media, love to sensationalise the effect of the Israeli 'onslaught' and devastation of airstrikes. Do the journallists know what effect the IAF could cause if they wanted too? The pictures of destryed buildings and numbers of casualties caused so far are nothing compared to the effects of a concerted air campaign conducted indescrimately.

When it's reported that Israel is targetting civilians it's by sources that aither don't know what they are talking about or are misinterpretting an isolated incident. If the IAF wanted to target civilians the death toll would be in the tens or even hundreds of thousands and the Lebanese cities would all be rubble.

The same goes for reports of the 'hundreds' of Hizbollah rockets 'raining' down on Israel. I don't know the true numbers but if those numbers are ture, the missiles are pretty ineffectual.

Religion or Politics?

I thought I'd comment on what looks to be an imminent ground invasion of Lebanon by the IDF (Israeli Defence Force). Lots of commentators seem to be polarised into the pro-Israeli camp and pro-Lebanon camp but it's not really that simple IMO.

I support the Israeli response, to a degree, in that thier nation is under attack and that requires a response. They are surrounded by nations of Arabs who want to see their nation wiped off the map and they seem to be immune to the liberal media boom who want to make nice-nice with religious fundmentalists.

There is no point negitiating with Hamas or Hizbollah or whatever Islam terrorists are the flavour of the month because they aren't interested in diplomacy, except if it makes Israel lose face or influence, all they want is the annihilation of the 'zionists'.

However, the wholsesale invasion of Lebanon isn't the way forward, it will only exacerbate the anti-Israeli feelings among the Arabs. Then again the Israelis don't seem to care as there seems to be no way out of this mire of spiralling violence and tit-for-tat escalation.

I don't know what the soluiton is and I'm not sure there is one. The Arabs can't live with Israel and Israel ain't going anywhere. Apart from the massive loss of life a full-scale war would involve, the only long term solution I can see is a large scale ground war with the victor in charge of the whole Middle-East; not a scenario I, or anyone else, would want to see happen.

So where to go? Politics is the ultimate driving force here and unless a long-term political solution, involving the Palistinians, is reached the relious differences between the two cultures, (and 'christendom' - the US) will continue to influence those in positions of power.

Complete eradication of religion in the ME (and the world) would prehaps enable some degree of reason and lessening of hatred amongst the decision makers and a long-term peace involving co-operation between humans can be attained.

I'm not too hopeful, it has to be said but I don't think the conflict will spread as Syria and Iran don't have the means to stand up to Israel and they aren't stupid enough to try.

World Cup - and Englands sporting demise

Well, it's all over - the World Cup has been won by Italy and whilst it's a shame England weren't playing in the final it's been a good spectacle. Zidane's head-butt will, I think cast a black cloud over the event for some time to come as will Rooney's stamp and Ronaldo's (Christiano) cheating.

FIFA must take action against players diving as it's getting ridiculous now. It's always been part of the game but some teams seem to be taking it to extremes.

As for English sport, man it's bad. Just over 6 months since we were on a high now our sports are in the doldrums.

Cricket - what happened? Admitedly we have had lots of injuries but even so, the high of winning the Ashes has gone and I fully expect normal service to resume in the winter with a drubbing by the Aussies.

Rugby - what can i say? We have the players but the management isn't so great and there just seems to be no will to win anymore. Johnny being injured hasn't helped but there are other players who should be able to step into the role.

Football - I was an Eriksson supporter early on but now he's gone i think he was not so great. Our players should have been brilliant, on paper most of the team could play for any side in the world. Again we were struck by injury and again there seemed to be no will to win. Hopefully McLaren can get them to play together properly but i'm not convinced - Scolari would be better, maybe in the future.

What is it with these people?

I was handed a piece of paper the other day by a member of my family who is a devout Evangelical Christian. It read as follows:

Subject: Murder n Miracle in Egypt-Must Read!

A Muslim man in Egypt killed his wife and then buried her with their infant baby and 8-year old daughter. The girls were buried alive! He then reported to the police that an uncle killed the kids. 15 days later, another family member died.
When they went to bury him, they found the 2 little girls under the sand - ALIVE !
The country is outraged over the incident, and the man will be executed.

The older girl was asked how she had survived. "A man wearing shiny white clothes, with bleeding wounds in his hands, came every day to feed us. He woke up my mom so she could nurse my sister," she said.

She was interviewed on Egyptian national TV, by a veiled Muslim woman news anchor. She said on public TV, "This was none other than Jesus, because nobody else does things like this!"

Muslims believe Isa (Jesus) would do this, but the wounds mean He really was crucified, and it's clear also that He is alive! But, it's also clear that the child could not make up a story like this, and there is no way these children could have survived without a true miracle. Muslim leaders are going to have a hard time to figure out what to do with this, and the popularity of the Passion movie doesn't help! With Egypt at the centre of the media and education in the Middle East, you can be sure this story will spread. Christ is still turning the world upside down!

I think I was supposed to be amazed and wonder at how fantastic Jesus is, but all I felt was disbelief and disgust at the crap Christians will not just believe themselves but peddle to others.

I mean where to start? Firstly there are no names, dates, locations, witnesses etc etc, how is anyone supposed to take this at face value? There is nothing to enable one to corroborate the story.

The quote from the girl has the word 'mom' in it, er I don't think Egyptian girls refer to their mothers as mom. What's with the bit about the 'veiled Muslim woman'? Women on Egyptian TV don't wear veils, and it's preposterous to believe that a Muslim woman would say what is attributed to her on national Egyptian TV.

Next, the wounds don't mean crucifiction, they mean idiot Christians think that a crucified person is nailed through the palms of their hands. It would have been the wrists.

Why would muslim leaders have a hard time and what on earth does Gibsons drek have to do with anything? If the author is so sure the story will spread why is it being e-mailled all over the place by mainly US fundies?

Christ isn't turning the world upside down, it's religion and it's not doing it in a good way.

The only correct thing in the whole awful spiel is when they state that the children couldn't survive without a miracle. There was no miracle.

The thing that really makes me sick is that Christians do not question any of the story and the plain fact that if their god is so wonderful how did he allow two children to suffer 15 days of being interred below ground? What gives, is he some kind of sick psychopath? Why did he not let them out after 10 days, 1 day or even stop the whole thing? It's a very warped way of showing how much you love people.

I'm not surprised there is so much hatred in the world when people put out such racist propoganda.