Kashmir

Kashmir:

Big arrest in Kashmir today. You can read about it here. As the article points out, it is extremely rare to capture one of these senior people alive. If he talks, he will be most valuable in getting a picture of the operations of Muslim militants at the top of the world.

A light moment from the story. The fellow is identified by the author:

Mohammed Shafi Dar, alias Abdullah...

Now, I can understand why a militant leader named Mohammed would want an alias. But Abdullah? That's just not making it any better.

Yule

Yuletide:

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and a fine Yuletide. My thoughts go out to the deployed, who are not blessed as I am to share today with their families. Greyhawk is keeping a list of Milbloggers deployed this year. You might drop by, and wish them well.

Be well yourselves.

holiday

Holidays:

In spite of the holidays, no rest. That's fair: there's a lot going on out there, and most of the world doesn't take off for Christmas. More's the pity.

I'll be doing some travel over the next week, too; in fact, I leave at 0200. This being our last evening in town, we had a little celebration at Molly's pub tonight with Sovay as our guest. She brought gifts, and we had a little something for her too.

They say you never get what you really want for Christmas, but sometimes that's just because you didn't know you wanted it:

A catapult! Who knew they still made catapults?

I set it beside my Winchester 94 so you can appreciate the size. It's a working scale model. I spent part of the evening practicing siege warfare, using walnuts as ammunition. In case you should be interested in real mayhem, however, the package came with little lead balls you could hurl.

With a little practice, I think I will be able to knock on my neighbor's door from across the street. Or, you know, their yippy dog. Whatever.

SoldierTech: Military Gear and Gadgets

...In Shining Armor:

Now this is body armor. These kinds of stories always invoke two reactions in me: 1) How great that our fighters will have this tech! 2) What are we going to do if we should ever have to fight against it?

Keeping a lariat on this genie is not a small matter.