Day: July 16, 2006

Obviously, I have little in common with Joao Silva. If it were me standing there, I would have knocked the cannon out of that guy’s grip and stomped on his head.

And counting.

On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 blew apart in flight.

To observe the anniversary of the July 17, 1996, disaster, hundreds of family members will gather for a memorial Monday on Long Island at Smith Point County Park, the closest point on land to the crash site.

Back in 1996, I had just started to travel frequently for my company, and this tragedy sent a chill down my spine. Just a couple of days ago, I viewed an animation of what happened when the plane exploded (located three paragraphs down within the story on this page). Based on investigator findings, we now know exactly what the passengers experienced. It’s pretty awful.

Unfortunately, as CNN discovered, there are planes flying today with the same problems that led to the disaster of TWA 800, making it likely that more of these kind of disasters could happen in the future. The network will broadcast a special report focusing on the anniversary of the doomed flight.

There’s no end in sight.

Israeli missiles struck Beirut’s airport and killed 17 people in the south Sunday, including a family who had come from Canada to visit their home village — the first in what Israel warned would be a massive retaliation after a Hezbollah rocket barrage left eight dead in the Israeli city of Haifa.

The Haifa attack, a dramatic turning point in five days of violence, led Israel to accuse Syria and Iran of providing guerrillas with sophisticated weapons. Israeli officials said the missiles that hit Haifa were more advanced, with longer range and heavier warheads, than the hundreds of rockets that have rained on northern Israel.

The Jerusalem Post notes Hezbollah rockets have hit targets 45 kilometers southeast of Haifa, marking the longest distance into Israel to date.

Meanwhile, Michael Totten’s old neighborhood is under attack, and insults made by readers of his blog have forced him to revise his comment policy.

More: World War III?