Iranian military technology advances on parade (Updated)

Well, those Iranians just seem like the huge military superpower recently, don't they? Since Saturday, they've announced the successful deployment of 2 new torpedos with abilities that are touted as being beyond America's abilities to counter. Now, the AP reports

Iran said Tuesday it had tested what it called a "super-modern flying boat" capable of evading radar. State TV showed a brief clip of the boat's launch."Due to its advanced design, no radar at sea or in the air can detect it. It can lift out of the water," the television said. It said the boat was "all Iranian-made and can launch missiles with precise targeting while moving."

Click on the link to view the report and you'll see a picture of the sooper-dooper vehicle there. Click on it to enlarge the picture.

(Update: better idea. How about I just post a shot of it right here?)

Let's examine this "super-modern" technology, shall we? Does it bear any resemblence to, perhaps, this?

Prosecutors consider arrest in McKinney cop-smacking incident

Representative Cynthia McKinney, the race-card playing lunatic who still managed to get elected by Georgians who ought to know better, decided to simply walk past the Capitol Police checkpoint last week without displaying the proper authorization ID. When instructed to halt by the Police there, she ignored them. When one of the cops reached out to get her attention, she hit him.

When the incident started getting some air time, she did the predictable thing and got on television, surrounded by the same yes-man squad that always accompanies her, and performed a "non-apology" apology followed up seconds later by accusations of racism and blatherings of a conspiracy against her. She all but challenged the Capitol Police to arrest her.

Seems the US Attorney's office is considering just that.

NYT fumbles the ball, again. “30 Beheaded” story found untrue.

Via Mudville Gazette we have this lovely story of the NYT slapping a big headline on a story of the horrible conditions in Iraq only to have it surface, once again, as a great big fairy tale. Seems the Times ran the story back on the 27th of March that 30 beheaded bodies had been discovered and that "Iraqi Death Squads" were the culprits. Just one problem. Apparently, the "discovery" was never actually made. From Mudville:

But Blazing headlines notwithstanding, the odd thing about those headless bodies that provided more evidence that death squads in Iraq were out of control is that nobody ever claims to have actually seen them:

Interior Ministry officials said a driver discovered the bodies heaped in a pile next to a highway that links Baghdad to Baquba, a volatile city northeast of the capital that has been wracked by sectarian and insurgent violence.Iraqi army troops were waiting tonight for American support before venturing into the insurgent-infested area to retrieve them.

"It's too dangerous for us to go in there alone," an Iraqi Army commander, Tassin Tawfik, said.

In short, some guy said he knew a guy that saw them. Which is how the story should have been reported – as a rumor. But it wasn't.

Greyhawk notes that the Times actually ran a correction – and buried it in the 17th paragraph of a different story. He also notes some actual, confirmed stories of Iraqi soldiers successfully capturing insurgents and preventing their attacks from landing. Those stories, however, are no where in the NYT at all. As he puts it:

There are thousands of actual and compelling stories to be found in Iraq, and the mainstream media misses them all in favor or urban legends.

These real stories have plenty of blood, death, human misery and suffering too, so "if it doesn't bleed it doesn't lead" can't be the reason.

No, it can't be. What it can be, however, is that stories showing real progress and real hope don't fit the NYT's story that Iraq is a quagmire and Bush Lied™ !

Nah, no media bias, here.