Living National Treasure Yoshindo Yoshihara demonstrates the complex process of creating the Japanese sword in the German-language 9:15 video.

It becomes increasingly obvious that the United States failed to occupy Iraq with either adequate forces or firmness. Local incidents of barbarism occur which ought to have been deterred by awareness on the part of the natives of sure and certain consequences from responsible authorities.

You don’t just give these kinds of primitive people a ballot and parliamentary representation, and expect them to join the 21th century. You have to forcibly suppress their barbarous customs, and impose by duress civilized standards. You have to “civilize them with a Krag” first, before you let them vote and run their own government.

Amnesty International is appalled by the killing of Du’a Khalil Aswad, aged about 17, who was stoned to death on or around 7 April 2007 for a so-called honour crime. A member of Iraq’s Yezidi religious minority from the village of Bahzan in northern Iraq, she was killed by a group of eight or nine men and in the presence of a large crowd in the town of Bashika, near the city of Mosul. Some of her relatives are said to have participated in the killing.

Du’a Khalil Aswad’s murder is said to have been committed by relatives and other Yezidi men because she had engaged in a relationship with a Sunni Muslim boy and had been absent from her home for one night. Some reports suggested that she had converted to Islam, but others deny this. Initially, she was reportedly given shelter in the house of a Yezidi tribal leader in Bashika, but her killers stormed the house, took her outside and stoned her to death. Her death by stoning, which lasted for some 30 minutes, was recorded on video film which was then widely distributed and is available on the internet. The film reportedly shows that members of local security forces were present but failed to intervene to prevent the stoning or arrest those responsible.

In an apparent act of retaliation, some 23 Yezidi workers were attacked and killed on 22 April, apparently by members of a Sunni armed group. The Yezidis, reportedly all men, were travelling on a bus between Mosul and Bashika when the vehicle was stopped by gunmen, who made the Yezidis disembark and then summarily killed them.

At least it appears that Justice ultimately was done, however informally.

Daily Mail

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CAUTION: UNPLEASANT IMAGES

2:54 video

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Follow-up posting

YouTube, which is owned by Google, relies on user screening of inappropriate content. The left, of course, has the larger numerical presence on the Internet, and leftists generally have few inhibitions about abusing any powers of censorship available to them.

Inevitably there have been some incidents of leftist viewers (supported by Google managers) applying political correctness tests, tagging, and then banning, videos they don’t like for “innappropriate content.” In the best known incident of the kind, Michelle Malkin had a video banned by YouTube last September.

Charles Gerow, a former Reagan White House aide and current adman, has responded to anticipated YouTube censorship of conservative point-of-view 2008 campaign videos in advance by founding QubeTV, a rightwing alternative video venue.

ABC News story

Google is protesting that there is no need for such a thing. YouTube provides perfect equality of access for every point of view. But it is quite clear that Gerow is being astute in forseeing an inevitable increase in incidents like the Malkin video ban as the campaign season heats up. The existence of a well-known alternative venue is likely to have the salutary effect of persuading YouTube management, when temptation inevitably strikes, that abusing their powers in favor of their own political biases is a futile exercise.

6:40 promotional video

My wife loves these “how it’s made” videos.

Operated by PC.

2:52 video

vCrib.com

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

A Marine Corps Drill Team performs at a basketball half-time.

6:07 video

When I was a small boy, my father (who had served in the Marine Corps in WWII) would sometimes entertain me by performing the Manual of Arms, culminating in the same Queen Anne Salute you see performed here, in which the rifle is spun several times, smoothly returned to the position of Order Arms, and then to Parade Rest.

Following the public execution of Don Imus for racially insensitive remarks last week, the ever-vigilant watchdogs of the media have found yet another speech crime worthy of international attention: a video of a German sergeant using uncomplimentary images of hostile urban African-Americans in training one of his soldiers in the use of a machine gun.

AP.

The existence of the video was first reported on the home page of the German news magazine Stern on Friday and excerpts were aired on the news television channel n-tv on Saturday.

According to Stern, the 90-second clip had been posted on a Web site used by soldiers to exchange private videos. A soldier who used the site alerted his superiors, the magazine reported. …

The clip shows an instructor and a soldier in camouflage uniforms in a forest. The instructor tells the soldier, “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways. … Act.”

The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder.

1:32 video

It’s very short and has no sound track, so I was not going to blog it, but everyone who has seen it seems to love this video of a Japanese sword slicing through a plastic bottle. Sharp, isn’t it?

0:51 video

I really hate blogging this kind of cutsey-wutsey stuff, but still I suppose even the most hardened and cynical among us will like this hamster with his broccoli, so I feel obliged to pass this one along.

video

I could have done without the text comments though.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

French pop singer and social commentator Renaud performs a très witty tribute to David Brooks‘ Bobos (Bourgeois Bohemians).

3:42 video

Comment on the songs appearance last August by Charles Bremner in the London Times.

On les appelle bourgeois bohêmes
Ou bien bobos pour les intimes
Dans les chanson d’Vincent Delerm
On les retrouve à chaque rime
Ils sont une nouvelle classe
Après les bourges et les prolos
Pas loin des beaufs, quoique plus classe
Je vais vous en dresser le tableau
Sont un peu artistes c’est déjà ça
Mais leur passion c’est leur boulot
Dans l’informatique, les médias
Sont fier d’payer beaucoup d’impôts

Les bobos, les bobos
Les bobos, les bobos

Ils vivent dans les beaux quartiers
ou en banlieue mais dans un loft
Ateliers d’artistes branchés,
Bien plus tendance que l’avenue Foch
ont des enfants bien élevés,
qui ont lu le Petit Prince à 6 ans
Qui vont dans des écoles privées
Privées de racaille, je me comprends

ils fument un joint de temps en temps,
font leurs courses dans les marchés bios
Roulent en 4×4, mais l’plus souvent,
préfèrent s’déplacer à vélo

Les bobos, les bobos
Les bobos, les bobos

Ils lisent Houellebecq ou philippe Djian,
Les Inrocks et Télérama,
Leur livre de chevet c’est surand
Près du catalogue Ikea.
Ils aiment les restos japonais et le cinéma coréen
passent leurs vacances au cap Ferrat
La côte d’azur, franchement ça craint
Ils regardent surtout ARTE
Canal plus, c’est pour les blaireaux
Sauf pour les matchs du PSG
et d’temps en temps un p’tit porno

Les bobos, les bobos
Les bobos, les bobos

Ils écoutent sur leur chaîne hi fi
France-info toute la journée
Alain Bashung Françoise Hardy
Et forcement Gérard Manset
Ils aiment Desproges sans même savoir
que Desproges les détestait
Bedos et Jean Marie Bigard,
même s’ils ont honte de l’avouer
Ils aiment Jack Lang et Sarkozy
Mais votent toujours Ecolo
Ils adorent le Maire de Paris,
Ardisson et son pote Marco

Les bobos, les bobos
Les bobos, les bobos

La femme se fringue chez Diesel
Lui c’est Armani ou Kenzo
Pour leur cachemire toujours nickel
Zadig & Voltaire je dis bravo
Ils fréquentent beaucoup les musées,
les galeries d’art, les vieux bistrots
boivent de la manzana glacée en écoutant Manu chao
Ma plume est un peu assassine
Pour ces gens que je n’aime pas trop
par certains côtés, j’imagine…
Que j’fais aussi partie du lot

Les bobos, les bobos
Les bobos, les bobos

(translation by Frank Dobbs:)

They call them bourgeois bohemians
But their close friends call them bobos
You find them in every rhyme
In the songs of Vincent Delerm
They are a new class
After the mids and the prolos
Like the rednecks, but with more class,
I will set up their picture for you.
They are a little bit artistic by this time
But their passion is their job
In MIS or the media
They’re proud they pay so many taxes.

They live in the best neighborhoods,
Or in the suburbs, but in a loft,
Workshop of an artists’ commune,
Is much more likely than on the Avenue Foch
have children well brought up
who read the Petit Prince when they were six,
who go to private schools,
deprived of “scum,” I understand

They smoke a joint from time to time
And then work out in health food stores
They drive an SUV, but much prefer
To make their round on bicycles.

They read Houellebecq ou Philippe Djian,
Les Inrocks et Télérama
Their bedtime reading is Surand
Next to the IKEA catalog.
They like Japanese joints and Korean films
They spend their vacations at Cap Ferrat
The Riviera gives them the willies.
They mostly watch ARTE
Canal Plus is for the armadillos (lit. badgers)
Except for the occasional PSG matches
And, from time to time, a little porno.

They listen on their hi-fi system
To France-Info all day long
Alain Bashung Françoise Hardy
And of course Gérard Manset
They love Desproges but unaware
That Desproges could not stand them
Bedos and Jean Marie Bigard,
Even if they can’t admit it
They love Jack Lang and Sarkozy
But always vote Green
They adore the Mayor of Paris
Ardisson and his pal Marco.

She dolls up at Diesel
He at Armani or Kenzo
For cashmere its always Nickel
I say hurray for Zadig and Voltaire
They frequent the museums
Art galleries and old bistrots,
They drink iced manzana
While listening to Manu Chao
My pen I fear has taken aim
At these guys I don’t like so well
In certain ways, I must suspect
It is my lot to be like them.

Hat tip to Frank A. Dobbs.

0:56 video.

The design may save your finger, but it looks like you have to replace the blade and the safety mechanism if you accidentally trigger it.

The comedy magician duo apply their customary skepticism to the myths of Gun Control.

28:00 video

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.