Rockets hit Israel from Lebanon

BBC

At least three rockets have been fired into northern Israel from Lebanon, raising fears that the current Israeli offensive in Gaza may spill over. Israel's army responded with artillery. It is not clear who fired the rockets, and no-one has yet said they did it.
The exchange came as Israel reportedly launched 60 air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight, targeting facilities used by the militant Hamas group.
Correspondents say this is a dangerous moment in the current conflict.
The fear in the past few days has been that the violence in Gaza could spread to northern Israel and the Lebanese border area, says the BBC's Mike Sergeant in Jerusalem.
...

continue to the full story here.

Is this what some of you asked for??
An escalation of the war that now might involve Lebanon again?

Speechless ...

Boston.com The Big Picture
November 28, 2008

Mumbai under attack
Late Wednesday night, Mumbai, India found itself the target of a ferocious terrorist attack, and the situation remains unresolved even now, three days later. According to reports, upwards of 60 young men entered Mumbai in small inflatable boats on Wednesday night, carrying bags filled with weapons and ammunition, and spread out to nine locations to begin their attacks. Lobbing grenades and firing their weapons, they entered hotels, a railway station and several other buildings, killing scores and wounding even more. As of this moment, the identity of the attackers has yet to be definitively determined, though there are reports indicating some of the gunmen were Pakistani - at least nine of them have been killed, nine more arrested. As of this writing, there were a reported 151 people killed from 11 different countries - though nearly 100 were Indian. More than 300 injuries have also been reported - those numbers may yet rise as several hostage situations still exist in the city. (35 photos total)

More links and information
Indian Forces Battle Pockets of Militants - NYTimes.com 11/28
Virginia man, daughter among Mumbai terror victims - Boston.com 11/28
Mumbai Attack Sites - NYTimes.com graphic
November 2008 Mumbai attacks - up-to-date current event Wikipedia entry

Call of Duty: World at War

I was waiting for the release of Call of Duty: World at War (or CoD5) for quite a long time .... Finally it's here!
I bought the PS3 version on Wednesday and I was thru with the game on Thursday afternoon...
I played it in 'Veteran' difficulty just to see what the game is like and to unlock the levels.
It is GREAT! I was hoping for a much longer single player game but then again it has some very very pretty graphics. It is using the same engine that CoD4 was using with different textures of course and much much better maps. Your are playing the story of two soldiers.
A Russian that is fighting the Germans that are portrayed really evil and bad in this game (and some of them were in reality as well). You are accompanied by some Russian commander who's pushing his soldiers to be just as bad as the Germans are. In one scene he is asking you to shoot 3 German soldiers who surrendered. I refused to do it so he threw a Molotov Cocktail (one of the available weapons being a Russian) on them!
The other soldier is a US Marine that is fighting the Japanese. They are also shown as real savages and attack you several times with banzai (suicide) attacks. Traps are waiting for your comrades laid by the Japanese and they are very deadly. The US Marines are behaving 'good' in the story, meaning they do not kill POW's or other ridiculous stuff. BUT... they are putting a really gruesome weapon to use ... the flame thrower!

They throw some actual film footage from both fronts into the game in between the levels. Very graphic ones as well... German officers being executed ... burned Japanese soldiers ...

It's definitely nothing you should let your kids play though since it's very graphic when it comes to injuries and killing people. Specially with a flamethrower, grenade or a heavy machine gun. No wonder it is rated 18+ !!! But I guess that's what makes it even more interesting for the kids...

I am looking forward to play it on the PC in my favourite "Game Center" since there is a new 4 player coop mode! You are going thru the same story as in the single player mode... just with your friends by your side. Also the multi player maps seem to be quite cool! They are big and have real nice graphics. Vehicles are back in the game! So you can take control of a tank with your buddy mounting the MG in the turret.

Call me a weirdo ... but I like Ego Shooters that are as real as possible ... and CoD: World at War is!!

BTW...

Two of the screenshots are NOT from some video scene!

They were made during game play !!!

A reply to "A View on Humanity.."

Please read the blog entry from Caleb Bardeforte first before continuing to read this one.

China - expected toll so far: 50.000 dead (more to come)/ 5 Million without a home / Hundred thousands with no food, water, medical supplies.

Myanmar - expected toll so far: over 100.000 dead (more to come)/ Hundred thousands without home, food, water, medical supplies / first deadly diseases spreading.

Is that all that is happening?!? By far not! There are little, medium and big things going on all around the world causing death, terror, destruction, injustice, fear, pain, etc. etc. on a daily basis! Do we notice... not really... we are waiting for the weather report at the end of the news and the sports results and local news just before the weather!

Yes... we humans are strange at times. We know so much and do so little about it!!
We are aware of all the injustice on this planet, yet we seem not to care. We know that probably one of our neighbors is suffering from a deadly disease or doesn't have enough food or maybe he's beating and raping his maid... yet... we don't do shit!

Is this all wrong?!? Yes and No!

A natural disaster like in China or Myanmar is terrible, we all agree upon this! But is it something that we can change or even stop from happening?!? No way! We can build stronger houses and we can send Aid workers and doctors (if the ruling government lets us), but we will never be able to stop nature from killing our own kind. It has been like that since the first form of life formed on this planet. Mother nature is cruel and doesn't care too much if one, ten, thousand or a billion of us die. Even if we all disappear from this planet ... she doesn't care!
The thing is, we assist Mother Nature in getting rid of us! We build in places we should not, we life in areas that get flooded frequently, we poison the atmosphere, we reroute rivers, we exterminate other living creatures, we kill the rainforest's, etc. etc. If you believe in evolution (and I do) there are plenty of examples in the very early stage of this planet where little one cell creatures kinda did exactly this! They killed themselves! Thru either exploiting their food source till there was nothing left or thru poisoning their own habitat to a point where even they could not survive anymore... or by just being eaten or killed by something bigger, 'better', 'meaner', smarter... Did Mother nature care?!? Nope ... she moved on ... and finally she came up with this new experiment called Human. So yes... terrible thing that happened there!!! Really!!! But... such is life...

Now what about all the other bad things... what happened to our neighbor, his maid, the child in Africa, the Dodo?
Should I really care if a sack of rice turns bad in China and a family starves to death because of this? Should I really care about my neighbors maid? Should I? Isn't that Mother Nature again?!?
What should I worry about? Why should I worry about it? Where to start? What to do?
Mother Nature gave the human experiment something that other experiments most likely do not have (to the extend that the human race has)! Sense, feelings (other then pain), consciousness!!
All the things that we do to us... injustice, wars, sectarian violence and terror, crimes, exploitation of nature, etc. etc ... THAT is something we should really worry about since it is caused by US!
You need to worry about this since YOU could make a big or small difference! Yes... YOU! Start with yourself!!! See if there is anything happening in YOUR home that is not the way it is supposed to be! Then start to make that circle bigger and bigger! See if you can help friends! Your neighbor! His maid! Your district! Your local government! Your country! Your continent! The world!
You will not be able to bring peace and harmony and all this to the world if it is not happening around you!

I wish I could make MY circle bigger already!!!