Laptop Boy has been learning tons since he first set paw on my computer last week.

He has started his own game of Solitaire.

He has turned on the Microsoft repeat-key program.

Tonight, he searched on the letter “T” in Google Search. I presume he was starting to spell “Tigger,” but he was interrupted by a hand swooping down from above, grabbing him by the scruff, and placing him on the floor.

And while I’m quite sure that it is, indeed, the warmth of the computer that draws him—having caught him curled up behind the laptop, where the warm air exits the vents—it doesn’t seem to make much difference. This cat is learning frighteningly fast how to use my computer. I expect it’s only a matter of time before I find him sitting in my chair, watching my Battlestar Galactica DVDs. (He really liked the space battle in the first episode of Season Four. Couldn’t take his eyes off the screen the entire time.)

I think it’s a good thing that I leave him locked in my office while I’m up in NorVA overnight. Even better that I generally take my personal laptop and hide it before leaving. He won’t be able to do much with it closed.

I hope.

So the post from this morning that I told you to watch the updates on as the day goes by? Here’s the first version, timestamped 9:05:

Palestinian girl, Israeli killed in fighting
Hamas militants fired a barrage of mortar shells into southern Israel on Thursday, killing one person and wounding three others on a communal farm near the border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said.

The attack dealt a new setback to Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers and raised the likelihood of a tough Israeli military reprisal.

Israeli government spokesman David Baker said Hamas “will be held accountable.”

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza for the past year, said in a statement it had fired three mortar shells but did not confirm the deaths.

Here’s the update, time-stamped 11:20. It reverses the order of occurrence. Instead of leading with the mortar barrage, which brought out the IDF to go after missile launchers, we now lead with the Palestinian civilian killed as a result of the IDF trying to stop terrorists.

Palestinian girl, Israeli killed in fighting
JERUSALEM (AP) - An Israeli missile aimed at a group of militants struck a house in the Gaza Strip on Thursday and killed a 6-year-old Palestinian girl, Palestinian officials said, hours after an Israeli was killed by a Hamas mortar barrage fired from the area.

The sudden spike in violence dealt a new setback to Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, and raised the likelihood of a tough Israeli military reprisal.

The Israeli army confirmed the aerial attack and said it had hit a “gunman.”

But Hamas security officials said the missile missed a group of militants and struck a nearby house. The Palestinian girl, who was playing outside, was killed and her mother was wounded, said Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The AP again quotes Hamas terrorists, who have every reason to lie. And the fifth paragraph—the one with the necessary context for why a Palestinian child died today that will likely be dropped from your local paper’s World News section—is this one:

The airstrike came shortly after Gaza’s Hamas rulers claimed responsibility for the deadly mortar attack in southern Israel. The mortar shells were fired from the same area targeted in the airstrike, the army said.

Now let’s look at the afternoon update, timestamped 2:47, and authored by our pal Ibrahim Barzak:

2 die in tit-for-tat clash between Israel, Hamas

Notice the context of who was killed is completely removed from the headline, and the Israeli defense against terrorists is put on an equal footing with terrorists firing mortars into civilian areas for the purpose of killing civilians.

Palestinian mortar fire killed a man at a factory in southern Israel on Thursday, prompting an Israeli reprisal airstrike that apparently missed its target and killed a 6-year-old girl in the Gaza Strip.

The burst of violence dealt a new setback to Egyptian efforts to broker a truce between Israel and the militant group Hamas and raised the threat of worse violence.

The bloodshed came a day after moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for renewed dialogue with Hamas, whose gunmen seized control of Gaza a year ago in fighting with Abbas’ security forces.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the mortar attack on Nir Oz, an Israeli collective village less than a mile from the Gaza border, “as a response to the nonstop aggression against our people.”

The article no longer names Hamas as the group responsible for firing the mortars in the first graf. Instead, the article waits until paragraph four before telling the reader it was a Hamas attack. The fourth graf, as you know, is one that is frequently cut from the World News sections. The previous two versions were by Josef Federman. The whitewashing always seems to go on under Ibrahim Barzak’s byline. I wonder why that is? Hm. Let’s think.

Ban Ki-moon noticed the rocket barrages again, after Dan Gillerman filed a formal complaint. And he issued the usual toothless UN statement condemning both sides.

The Secretary-General condemns the ongoing rocket and mortar attacks by militant groups, including Hamas, from Gaza against crossing points and Israeli civilian targets, which caused the death of an Israeli civilian and four casualties today. He calls on Hamas and other militant groups to cease such acts. He also reminds them that these actions as well as attacks on crossings have detrimental implications for the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza.

Wow. Just—wow. No mention that these are war crimes, crimes against humanity, or even just plain wrong. But they’re bad for the Palestinians.

Eff you, Ki-moon. Eff you and your whole organization.

The Secretary-General also condemns the death of a Palestinian child and the injury of its mother in Gaza as the result of Israeli Air Force (IAF) fire. While recognizing Israel’s right to self-defence, the Secretary-General calls upon Israel to exercise maximum restraint, and reminds the IAF and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) of their responsibility to protect civilians under international humanitarian law during military operations.

I see he only manages to accuse Israel of war crimes. The Israeli Double Standard is in full bloom at the UN, from bottom to top, with a media bias thrown in. Only Americans, it seems, can see through the bias and not blame Israel for being the victim of terrorists and Arab rejectionism.

Exit comment is from Ehud Barak:

“Military action is closer than even, it appears likely there will be an operation prior to the calm (truce).”

Your break from the news of the day: So cute he’s going to give you diabetes from the sugar overload.

People all over the world, join hands Start a love train, love train People all over the world, join hands Join a love train, love trainAll of your brothers over in Africa
Tell all the folks in Egypt and Israel too
Please don’t miss this train at the station
‘Cause if you miss it, I feel sorry, sorry for you

- Love Train, the O’Jays

via memeorandum the Associated Press reports (or maybe exults):

Excitement about Barack Obama emerged as a global phenomenon Wednesday as commentators and citizens around the world welcomed the news that he had sealed the Democratic presidential nomination.The excitement was less about Obama’s foreign policies — which remain vague on many fronts — than a sense that the candidacy of a black American with relatives in Africa and childhood friends in Asia marks a historic moment.

The article goes on to play up all the people around the world who herald Sen. Obama’s nomination as a sign of positive change.

One of the points that gets mentioned is that it’s nice to see a minority rise to such political prominence. Of course, to the best of my knowledge, none of the countries where people were interviewed has a member of a minority group ever risen to power. (The closest would be Germany, where the current chancellor, Angela Merkel comes from what used to be East Germany.)

Gina Cobb notes cynically:

Glad to see they’re keeping their perspective about the election.We wouldn’t want to see our media. Pushing. Voters. With. All. Their. Might. In. One. Particular. Direction!

The Washington Post ran a similar article.

Both articles cite the same response from Germany:

Obama also has strong support in Europe, the heartland of anti-Bush sentiment. “Germany is Obama country,” said Karsten Voight, the German government’s coordinator for German-North American cooperation. “He seems to strike a chord with average Germans,” who see him as a transformational figure like John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr.

(The Post article doesn’t credit AP, though it’s the exact same statement.)

It’s interesting though that the places where there are doubts are places where his policies or expected policies could change from America’s current policies.

Which is why Abe Greenwald at Contentions cautions (regarding the AP story):

When it comes to peace-and-love, beautiful sentences, and vague comparisons to adored icons, a handful of friends and family are jazzed up. That would be fine–if we were actually “waiting on the threshold of history.” But in reality, the world’s dangers and complications don’t pause so that everyone can stand around and admire the handsome man with the eloquent speeches, and in the dangers and complications department the world’s candidate has already clumsily placed himself behind the eight-ball.

For example:

In Iraq, views on Obama’s victory were mixed. Salah al-Obaidi, chief spokesman for Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite Muslim cleric who opposes the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, said the Sadr movement favors having a Democrat in the White House on grounds that McCain would largely continue Bush’s policies.But in Samarra, a Sunni stronghold north of Baghdad, Omar Shakir, 58, a political analyst, said he hoped McCain would win the election and combat the influence of Shiite-dominated Iran.

So a spokesman for al-Sadr favors Obama but someone fighting Iranian influence doesn’t.

In Iran, government officials have taken no official position on the race. But “the majority of Iranians feel that the Democrats support what they want: a major and drastic change in relations with the U.S. So for them the coming of Obama would be a good omen,” said Davoud Hermidas Bavand, professor of U.S.-Iranian relations at Allameh Tabatabai University.

Now how does this professor know this? Perhaps a majority of Iranians want its government to change (or be changed) in order to improve relations with the U.S. But if that were true he wouldn’t dare say it, would he?

The Washington Post also reports that in Israel some are concerned about Sen. Obama as President. And the Palestinians?

Obama’s candidacy has generated suspicion among Palestinians as well. Ali Jarbawi, a political scientist at the West Bank’s Bir Zeit University, said that even if Obama appears to be evenhanded in his approach to the Middle East, he would never take on the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. “The minute that Obama takes office, if he takes office, all his aides in the White House will start working on his reelection,” Jarbawi said. “Do you think Obama would risk his reelection because of us?”

And that suspicion that a President Obama would be in thrall to the Jewish lobby was only increased by the candidate’s appearance before AIPAC yesterday.

Now Hamas retracts its endorsement (via memeorandum)

“Obama’s comments have confirmed that there will be no change in the U.S. administration’s foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in Gaza.

“The Democratic and Republican parties support totally the Israeli occupation at the expense of the interests and rights of Arabs and Palestinians,” he said.

“Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and Mccain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win,” Zuhri said.

Hot Air notes that Sen. Obama’s been pretty public in his support of Israel since he’s become a candidate for President.

That’s one mighty thorough unendorsement, which is curious given that they only “endorsed” him in the first place six weeks ago, after he’d spent the past year telling anyone who’d listen how much he loves Israel. Did they somehow miss the previous thousand pro-Zionist speeches? Or were they finally convinced that he’s saying this stuff because he means it and not for political advantage by his big speech today to … the most politically influential Israeli lobbyist group in America? Doesn’t add up; I guess we’ll just have to wonder what the motive could be. Let’s hope that the news doesn’t dissuade his Palestinian-American supporters, many of whom have it in their heads that his true beliefs on this subject are rather more nuanced than his rhetoric indicates.

(Daled Amos has more on that “nuance“)

And it’s not just the extremists of Hamas who are upset, so too is the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas.

“The whole world knows that holy Jerusalem was occupied in 1967 and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.” said Abbas.

Unfortunately, the world isn’t aware that in 1948 what is called the West Bank was occupied by Jordan. The Jews of the Old City of Jerusalem were expelled in violation of the cease fire agreement and the Jews of the Etzion Bloc who survived the battle were slaughtered after surrendering.

Still most of the world seems happy, not least the media.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Democratically-elected government of Hamas just killed one, and injured five Israelis in another mortar attack.

A 52-year old man was killed Thursday morning when a mortar shell fired from northern Gaza landed in Kibbutz Nir Oz, located within Eshkol Regional Council limits in the Negev. Hamas’ Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades have claimed responsibility for the fire.

[..] Head of the trauma center at Soroka, Dr. Gadi Shaked added the hospital was caring for “four patients, one suffering serious wounds to his back, another suffering moderate shrapnel-induced chest wounds and two men suffering superficial injuries.”

The mortar, a 120mm shell, hit a Nirlat Groups facility, located in Nir Oz. the council’s security director and security forces swept the area, but no further injuries were reported.

That makes one dead and ten wounded so far this week, by the daily missile fire that the wire services like to point out “rarely” harms Israelis.

On Tuesday five people, including two foreign workers, sustained shrapnel injuries during a rocket attack on an Eshkol Regional Council community. The IDF later hit a Palestinian terrorist as he was attempting to fire another Qassam toward the western Negev region.

Let’s check out the AP spin:

Hamas militants fired a barrage of mortar shells into southern Israel on Thursday, killing one person and wounding three others on a communal farm near the border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said.

The attack dealt a new setback to Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers and raised the likelihood of a tough Israeli military reprisal.

Israeli government spokesman David Baker said Hamas “will be held accountable.”

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza for the past year, said in a statement it had fired three mortar shells but did not confirm the deaths.

You see? Dead and wounded Israelis are “setbacks” to the “truce.” But how ludicrous is it to try to get Hamas to confirm the deaths? Excuse me? Are the fabled Palestinian “medics,” who infamously lie about how Palestinians die, now part of the Israeli health system?

One noticeable item to point out: This Hamas statement.

The attack is “part of our continuous confrontation and response to the Zionist invasions along the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip,” Hamas said. “We will continue to strike the Zionist military locations and settlement colonies around the Gaza Strip as a response to the nonstop aggression against our people.”

Hamas is calling Israeli towns—towns that have been inside the 1949 Armistice Lines that even the United Nations agree are Israeli—”settlement colonies.” These are the words that the Jimmy Carters of the world pretend aren’t being uttered by Hamas when they say that Hamas is willing to leave in peace with Israel, if only Israel stops oppressing the Palestinians. These words are the words of a rejectionist philosophy that assures us there is no room for Jews in “Palestine.” But then, those of us who have been listening to Hamas all along know that.

However—watch for the lead to change in upcoming versions. It’s far too truthful about the Hamas attack at the moment. Watch it change especially after the IDF goes after terrorists. It will be along the lines of “Palestinians killed by IDF in retaliation for attack.

And just in time: The latest AP report on “the cycle of violence,” complete with reports from Palestinian spokesliars.

Palestinian doctors reported Thursday that a 4-year-old girl has been killed and her mother wounded in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip.

Hamas security said that an Israeli aircraft targeted a group of militants in the southern Gaza Strip but missed them. Relatives of the girl said that she and her mother were in the yard of a house that was hit by the errant missile.

Thursday’s airstrike came shortly after Palestinian mortar fire on a southern Israeli community killed one person. The violence dealt a new setback to Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

I think the Gaza offensive is nearing. And it’s about damned time.

Does anyone else think that organizing a conference on interfaith dialogue—from the Saudia Arabian city of Mecca, a place in which only Muslims are allowed to set foot—is a signal that perhaps the Saudis don’t really mean what they say?

Islam must do away with the dangers of extremism and present the religion’s positive message, Saudi King Abdullah said Wednesday as he opened a conference of Muslim figures aimed at launching a dialogue with Christians and Jews.

The three-day gathering in the holy city of Mecca seeks a unified Muslim voice ahead of the interfaith dialogue. In particular, Saudi Arabia hopes to promote reconciliation between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

By the way, there’s something wrong with that modifier in the second paragraph. Let me fix it.

The three-day gathering in the holy only to Muslims city of Mecca seeks a unified Muslim voice ahead of the interfaith dialogue. In particular, Saudi Arabia hopes to promote reconciliation between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Boy, are they trying to present a united front or what?

“You have gathered today to tell the whole world that … we are a voice of justice and values and humanity, that we are a voice of coexistence and a just and rational dialogue,” Abdullah told the 500 Muslim delegates from 50 Muslim nations in his opening speech.

Yes, justice. It’s the hammer of justice:

Saudi Arabia is one of a number of countries where courts continue to impose corporal punishment, including amputations of hands and feet for robbery, and lashings for lesser crimes such as “sexual deviance” and drunkenness. The number of lashes is not clearly prescribed by law and is varied according to the discretion of judges, and ranges from dozens of lashes to several thousand, usually applied over a period of weeks or months. In 2002, the United Nations Committee against Torture criticized Saudi Arabia over the amputations and floggings it carries out under its interpretation of Sharia. The Saudi delegation responded defending “legal traditions” held since the inception of Islam 1400 years ago and rejected interference in its legal system.

It’s the bell of freedom:

Saudi women face severe discrimination in many aspects of their lives, including education, employment, and the justice system and are clearly regarded as inferior to men. Although they make up 70% of those enrolled in universities, women make up just 5% of the workforce in Saudi Arabia,[6] the lowest proportion in the world. The treatment of women has been referred to as “gender apartheid.”[7][8][dead link][9] Implementation of a government resolution supporting expanded employment opportunities for women met resistance from within the labor ministry,[10] from the religious police,[11] and from the male citizenry.[12] These institutions and individuals generally claim that according to Sharia a woman’s place is in the home caring for her husband and family. It is a country where culture and religion make women live mostly restricted segregated lives. There is also segregation inside their own homes as some rooms have separate entrances for men and women. [13]

It’s the song about love between the brothers and the sisters, all over this land:

Participants said they hoped the gathering would culminate in an agreement on a global Islamic charter on dialogue with Christians and Jews. They expect Saudi Arabia will launch its formal call for an interfaith dialogue at the conference’s close or soon after.

Abdullah’s message, which has been welcomed by Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders, is significant, though it remains unclear who will participate in the second phase of the initiative; in particular whether Israeli religious leaders would be invited.

Color me skeptical.