The Kang Nam, a two-thousand ton North Korean freighter, is powering towards Southeast Asia. An eight-thousand ton American destroyer, the John S. McCain, trails behind it. As the two-ship mobile standoff crawls along the east coast of Asia, telephones have been ringing in Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo, as the leaders of the U.S., South Korea, and Japan scramble for a strategy to confront North Korea's weapons smuggling operations.

Watch for the Mega-Shark cameo...

About this time, Abram discovered a small flaw in God’s divine plan to make his offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth: his wife was sterile. So when God came to him in a vision with more promises of greatness and plentiful offspring, Abram pointed out that Sarai’s advanced age and well-documented sterility could present a problem.

Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) and Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA) have introduced a resolution expressing support for Iranian citizens, condemning the violence in Iran, and spouting off about the importance of free and fair elections.

There was at this time a war between nine kings of various tribes of ites and ims. Four of the kings defeated the other five, including the king of Sodom. The victors pillaged the possessions of the vanquished and took their people captive, including Abram’s nephew, Lot, who had been chilling in Sodom. When Abram heard of the kidnapping, he chased the four kings with 318 of his servants. He split his forces (all 318 of them) and rescued the captives and their possessions.

Commentary: Obviously, these were not the most powerful kings ever to rule the Middle East.

So Abram, Sarai, and Lot, enriched by the prostitution business, headed back north to Canaan. They were so rich that the land couldn’t support all their flocks, and their herdsman started to squabble, so Abram told Lot to go one way, and he would go the other. Lot went east to the wicked city of Sodom, and Abram went west.

Commentary: Lot did not have a good head for real estate.

When Lot was gone, God promised Abram that all the land as far as he could see would soon be his and that his offspring would be as numerous as the dust of the earth.

I'm usually an easy customer. It doesn't take much to please me. Just treat me fair and show me respect. Work with me if you've made a mistake. Just basic, simple stuff.

No, seriously. I want to know why.

They get six years of free reign during which they drive the country into a ditch. Not just any ditch, either--a snow-filled ditch with a pond of thin ice at the bottom, far, far away from the nearest gas station.

Then, they start losing. So, instead of asking themselves why they are losing, they double down, and lose some more.

Today the Senate Local Government Committee will be hearing AB 715 (Cabellero) which would allow cities to post adopted ordinances on their official city websites in lieu of adjudicated newspapers.

According to the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) it would “kill the required publication in newspapers…key public notices”. But when AB 715 went to the assembly floor on May 14, 2009 it didn’t receive a single vote against it.

Follow the tragic experiences of an Iranian student on twitter as the protests in Tehran unfold: http://twitter.com/change_for_iran. I'll display the latest tweets on the right panel of this page. Here are some samples of recent tweets in chronological order:

When Abram turned 75, God told him to move out of his father’s house.

Commentary: I have to agree with God on this one.

To encourage him, God promised: “I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you great. You shall become a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and he who curses you, I will curse. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

Commentary: I think that God had a little man-crush on Abram.

I have no clue as to the veracity of these photos, but if they're real, they are very disturbing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arasmus/

Beware, some of the images are very graphic.

For all of our efforts trying to 'promote democracy' in the Middle East (mostly by destroying Iraq and then trying to rebuild it), this may end up being the real catalyst. And you could at least make the argument that Obama's speech to Muslims - just words, as Genghis has mentioned - helped in some way.

Being the President is cool and all, but how about Supreme Leader?  Way tighter.

Apparently, diving boards may be as common as a live dinosaur. Pool companies refuse to install them because they are afraid of liability claims should they fail and Homeowner insurers don’t want to insure homes with diving boards for the same reason. Because businesses are so afraid to get sued the younger generation of kids are deprived of the joy of a well executed cannon ball or the satisfaction of a diving into the pool like a seal getting after fish.

The descendents of Nimrod, the mighty trapper before God, settled in the valley of Shinar. Once they were settled, they decided that it would be fun to build a really tall tower that reached the sky, so that’s what they did.

Then God came around to check out their tower, and he apparently wasn’t too pleased because he said,

“They are a single people, all having one language, and this is the first thing they do! Now nothing they plan to do will be unattainable for them! Come, let us descend and confuse their speech, so that one person will not understand another's speech.”

This is another boring chapter. It’s just a list Noah’s kids and grandkids and great grandkids who founded seventy nations between them, including a bunch of “ites”  (Canaanites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Overbites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Uptites, and Chamathites) and a few “ims” (Ludim, Anamim, Wetdrim, Lehabhim, Naftuchim, Pathrusim, Casluchim, Caphtorim, and Shavincrim). I didn’t count seventy, but that’s what the Great Rabbi says, and he is one wise counter.

There is one line, however, that makes the whole chapter worth reading:

For those of us who, like Mir Hosein Mousavi, are wondering what happened to our projected landslide green revolution, Josh Marshall links to an interesting Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/iranian-election