It's a little early for quittin' time, but this will be the eighth substantive post of the day. More than enough for a Friday. Assuming nothing major happens, this is it for the day. Shabbat Shalom to our Jewish readers. And to the other three of you: as you enter the weekend, remember that if you take care of your body, your body will take care of you. So take note of scientific evidence attesting to the health benefits of catechins, and prefer red wine over white wine. Yes, even if you're having fish.

And actually, that little bit of wisdom goes for everyone else too.

Anyway, the Israeli Air Force has been doing flyovers in Lebanese airspace. This has a little bit to do with flexing some muscle and a lot to do with keeping an eye on the massive shipments of weapons that have been arriving for Hezbollah from Syria and Iran. UNIFIL and the Lebanese government are obviously ignorant of these transfers, since if they knew about them they'd be rushing to meet their 1701 obligations by intercepting them.

So Israel has continued to do manned flights over Lebanon. First thing that happened: Lebanon threatened to open fire on the IAF. This is such a mind-bogglingly stupid idea that people just figured that Siniora had failed to take his meds or something. Everyone pretty much went on with their lives.

But then the UN made some noises about how the IAF shouldn't cross into Lebanese airspace. Everyone kind of blew them off too - because, you know, they're the UN. But then - and this part is totally awesome - France threatened to open fire on IAF jets. The subsequent dialogue went exactly like you'd imagine, and the French withdrew from their position.

In the last couple of days, EU uber-diplomat Javier Solona has chimed in and demanded that Israel stop. But his statements didn't really have much credibility, since they came right after the part where he said that- in his expert diplomatic opinion - Hamas really wants peace.

So naturally, now the Bush administration has hopped on the band-wagon:

This is yet another aspect of President Bush's willingness to disadvantage Israel in order to help out Saniora. Now we've been consistently skeptical that Saniora either intends or wants to reign in Hezbollah. But let's pretend that he does - it still doesn't matter, because Hezbollah is now actively consolidating its political power. But at least Israeli jets won't there to see it happen.

All of this has just been a really roundabout way of saying that this is a really cool video:

How about instead of not letting the IAF do its job, the Bush administration lets the IAF do its job?

Previously:
US Will Rebuild Hezbollah Infrastructure - Your Tax Dollars (and State Department) At Work, Hezbollah Probably Lost the War, But They May Never Have Been In It To Win, Syria is Hiding Weapons in Civilian Aid Convoys. Of Course They Are.