Opening Act

President Bush in today's radio address, emphasis and annotations [in brackets] mine.

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.[1] Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.[2]

This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.[3] Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.

As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, it was clear that terrorists inside the United States were communicating with terrorists abroad before the September the 11th attacks, and the commission criticized our nation's inability to uncover links between terrorists here at home and terrorists abroad.[4] Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn't know they were here, until it was too late.

The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September the 11th helped address that problem in a way that is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities.[5] The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time. And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.

The activities I authorized are reviewed approximately every 45 days.[6] Each review is based on a fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland.[7] During each assessment, previous activities under the authorization are reviewed. The review includes approval by our nation's top legal officials, including the Attorney General and the Counsel to the President. I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups.

The NSA's activities under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice Department and NSA's top legal officials, including NSA's general counsel and inspector general.[8] Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it.[9] Intelligence officials involved in this activity also receive extensive training to ensure they perform their duties consistent with the letter and intent of the authorization.[10]

This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties. And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I'm the President of the United States.

Now, this is a very direct statement. If I had to guess, I'd guess that Bush is angry — livid, chair-throwing angry — about this revelation, especially since the Times said in so many words that they withheld publication for a year because publication could harm national security. This raises the interesting question, what changed? If it would harm national security on 1 December, what made it publishable on 16 December?

It would appear that the Times is admitting that they released this information, knowing it would damage national security.

18 USC 793 (emphasis mine):

(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; or
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,
(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or
(2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

That's the Espionage Act. Ten years. Expect a criminal investigation, and it's not going to require a referral from NSA — although I understand NSA has already made one.

Notes: Bush is saying —

1. This is important. These are not communications internal to the US.


2. It's based on other intelligence, establishing that the person involved is connected to a terrorist network. I'm not a lawyer (and that caveat should be read in all of this) but it appears to me that 50 USC 1801 (b)(2)(C) defines anyone who is believed to be part of a terrorist network is an "agent of a foreign power" under the act, and not a "US person".


3. He's explicitly saying this revealed "sources and methods"...


4. ... and that the sources and methods are the ones that the 9/11 Commission criticized the intelligence community for not having.


5. It was legal and within Bush's power.


6. This was done and reviewed periodically every 45 days.50 USC 1802 says:
   

   (a)
   (1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year....



7. This defines them as "terrorists" under 50 USC 1801(c).


8. It was reviewed by the government's lawyers.


9. Congress was notified as required under 50 USC 1808.


10. "Minimization" procedures required under 50 USC 1801(h) were in place and performed.

I don't think any claim that this was "illegal" will stand up to scrutiny.

Discussion: For some time, one of the topics of interest on this blog has been the question of what is happening with these leaks. It looks to me like this is a sign that the Bush administration has (finally?) decided to act. I think this is the opening shot of a "pushback" that may well involve criminal prosecution of both reporters and members of the intelligence community, and very possibly a Tom-Clancy-esque revelation of leaks from within the Senate.

It's going to be very very interesting indeed.

---

Updates:

• Jeff Goldstein has an excellent post up.


• Make that two excellent posts.


• 2005-Dec-17 12:43:27 — corrected a typo (1801 vice 1800) and a link atrocity from Blogger.


• Silent Running points out Executive order 12333 as well.


• Mark Levin has some interesting points.


• RightWingNutHouse (Gods, I wish they'd picked another name for the blog):

  First, for the President to use the term “improperly provided” regarding a leak involving the National Security Agency is a monumental understatement. The NSA has extraordinarily strict rules about things like leaks. In short, if you’re an employee and you get caught leaking, you go to jail for a very long time.

  
  Very much my experience with the NSA, by the way.


• Tom McGuire asks some interesting questions too.


• Captain Ed weighs in, and points out that ...


• The Washinngton Post wonders about the timing too.


• Just continuing to beat this moribund ungulate, Baldilocks has some good words too.

---

Later update, 2005-Dec-18 15:08:46: In Stop the Bleating says:

Drop the specious arguments that the warrantless eavesdropping ordered by Bush somehow complies with FISA or some other federal statute. It doesn't. If it did, the White House would have issued a detailed explanation first thing Friday morning and would be repeating it loudly, ad nauseum.

But actually if you look at Bush's radio address, I think that's exactly what he did. I'm trying to track down legislative history, but §1801(a) defines people engaged in international terrorism as a "foreign power" and "agents of a foreign power". §1802 points to 1801(a)(1-3) in defining the exception, but I'm willing to bet that when that section was written, (1-3) were all there was of (a) ... and that a court would find that the intent of §1802 was to include all "agents of a foreign power" under §1801(a).

"USA v bin Laden" defined foreign terrorists as "agents of a foreign power" referring merely to (a)(1-2), so there's precedent to think that §1802 applies anyway.

As I show above, I think the radio address was exactly an argument that §1802 applies.

(This update, by the way, is a slight modification of a comment I left there.)

---

Okay, as I said I was planning to, I've closed comments on this now. Further comments can be applied to the post above.

Dialing back on the seriousness meter ...

Man in Fiji Raised as a Chicken.

No, thats not a misprint.

And remember that it was a democrat who said all politics is local...

FEMA blames trailer slowdown on Louisiana politics

Local disputes such as one stewing in New Orleans are holding up the placement of thousands of temporary trailer homes for Hurricane Katrina evacuees, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Friday.

Acting FEMA director R. David Paulison's remarks came as Mayor Ray Nagin was telling reporters that his emergency powers will allow him to bypass a City Council ordinance requiring approval from individual council members before the federal government can place trailer parks for hurricane evacuees in their districts.

"I'm not going to get involved in local politics," Paulison said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "All I can say is we have a lot of mobile homes and travel trailers ready to install, and the city and the mayor need to let us know where they want them."

FEMA said only eight of Louisiana's 64 parishes (the state's equivalent of a county) are allowing the agency to establish trailer parks with no significant restrictions. Thirty-two have said no, and another 24 have set various restrictions. Some of the restrictions, Paulison said are unreasonable, such as a requirement that only evacuated parish residents be allowed to live in there.

All of the members of the New Orleans City Council want to approve the locations of the FEMA trailer parks in their districts. So, the mayor and the City Council are at odds about this. My homestate continues its tradition of corruption. That would be one thing, but they could at least be effective, if they are going to be corrupt.

I haven't been able to find an article concerning a situation I heard about from a resident. Apparently there are many Vietnamese that are living in tents near their homes in New Orleans East, because the local officials have yet to approve the spots for the FEMA trailers to go. The trailers, apparently, are ready and waiting.

Blequest?

So there's this old song - The Gentleman Soldier (sometimes also The Sentry Box) - containing the line "two wives are allowed in the army..."

Does anyone know to what army this refers, whether two wives actually were allowed, and if so, when?

Bush's Plan

" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. "

"…he belongs on Mt Rushmore."

The full quote, from Chris Matthews: "If he [Bush] gambled on creating a democracy in the Arab Middle East and he does it, he belongs on Mt Rushmore."

This in the context of a conversation in which howard Fineman said the NSA thing was no big deal, but the Iraqi elections are.

We live in interesting times.

Contrasts

(Victor David Hanson, quoted from Instapundit:)

For some time, a large number of Americans have lived in an alternate universe where everything is supposedly going to hell. If you get up in the morning to read the New York Times or Washington Post, watch John Murtha or Howard Dean on the morning talk shows, listen to National Public Radio at noon, and go to bed reading Newsweek it surely seems that the administration is incommunicado (cf. “the bubble”), the war is lost (“unwinnable”), the Great Depression is back (“jobless recovery”), and America about as popular as Nazi Germany abroad (“alone and isolated”). But in the real adult world, the economy is red-hot, not mired in joblessness or relegating millions to poverty. Unemployment is low, so are interest rates. Growth is high, as is consumer spending and confidence. Our Katrina was hardly as lethal as the Tsunami or Pakistani earthquake. Thousands of Arabs are not rioting in Dearborn. American elderly don’t roast and die in the thousands in their apartments as was true in France. Nor do American cities, like some in China, lose their entire water supply to a toxic spill. Americans did not just vote to reject their own Constitution as in some European countries.

(Charles Krauthammer, quoted from Instapundit in the previous post:)

Lest you get carried away with today's good news from Iraq, consider what's happening next door in Iran. The wild pronouncements of the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have gotten sporadic press ever since he called for Israel to be wiped off the map. He subsequently amended himself to say that Israel should simply be extirpated from the Middle East map and moved to some German or Austrian province. Perhaps near the site of an old extermination camp? . . .

Today's Democrat talking points, courtesy of Harry Reid

In my inbox yesterday:

...Remember, in virtually every arena, Republican leadership in
Washington has chosen to put their special interests (sic) friends
ahead of the broad national concern and to blindly adhere to
their right-wing ideology, even in the face of failure.

* While they offer nothing more than recycled slogans, violence
continues in Iraq and serious questions linger about whether the
Bush administration distorted or misused intelligence to lead us
into war.

* Despite repeated promises and ongoing suffering, the
administration continues to drag its feet on the reconstruction
of the Gulf Coast after the devastation wrought by this year's
hurricanes.

* The latest round of tax cuts for millionaires forced painful
cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and student aid, just when these
fundamental social programs are needed the most.

* They tried to privatize Social Security, threatening a hugely
successful program that millions of seniors rely on to make ends
meet.

* While oil companies are posting record profits, the
Republicans led the effort to pass an energy bill that does
nothing to cut the price of gas at the pump or to promote energy
independence in the coming years.

...

America can do better than this.

Only a Democratic Senate can force the administration to develop
a real strategy for success in Iraq and to work with our allies
to ensure real security for America in the face of international
terrorism. Only a Democratic Senate can advance an economic
agenda that focuses on educational excellence and opportunity
for every American, affordable health care for all, and a
commitment to retirement security for our seniors. And only a
Democratic Senate can address prices at the pump today and
ensure energy independence tomorrow.

With your help, I am confident that we can take back the Senate
in 2006 and achieve our agenda. Please make a contribution
today.

Sincerely,
Harry Reid

Bleah.

Arab News Editorial: Voice of the People

Editorial: Voice of the People

No one should pretend, of course, that the violence will now end rapidly. But the display of determination by all Iraqis to participate in the democratic process must have made a deep impression on all but the most hardened terrorists. The fact that so many Sunnis trooped to the polling stations for the first time, having boycotted the previous two national votes, sends the clear message that the community which most of the insurgents pretend to represent wants peace, not violence. Nor are they prepared to be intimidated by the killers in their midst. They want to become part of the political process.

….

Beginning today, this is democracy’s chance in Iraq. Massive hopes are riding on the success of the political process. Nevertheless, providing men of moderation can hold the center ground and bring more extreme politicians at least to its edge, the new Parliament can work. A muscular broad-based administration will only emerge if politicians are prepared to work together for the greater good. Now is not the time for individual political aspirations to come to the fore. Future Iraqis will honor all those who today focus on stability rather than their own ambitions.

(Updated to remove the evidence of a horrible cutting-and-pasting accident. Lesson: don't post while half-asleep.)

Who won today's election?

Iraq did.

Polls Close After Iraqi Voters Turn Out in Droves

Aliens invaders take over Los Angeles Times


"A GOOD DAY IN AL ANBAR PROVINCE"

MSNBC's Bagdadblog: "These results are still unofficial - coming from State Department figures and not from the Independent Electoral Commission in Iraq (IECI) - but the headline is that it was a good day in terms of voter turnout, not only in Fallujah, but throughout al Anbar province.

Preliminary figures have 21,000 people voting in Ramadi, 19,000 in Hit/Haditha, and 42,000 in the far west – where the cities of Qaim and Rutbah are located.

That would be over 80,000 votes, not including around 200,000 in the greater Fallujah area.

By comparison, about 14,000 voted through out the province in January of this year."

Roger L. Simon: Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter

Roger L. Simon: Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter: "BIG LOSERS of the day so far: Howard Dean, Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the reactionary, fuddy-duddy leadership of the Democratic Party. (To call them 'liberals' is absurd because they have no ideology whatsoever.) How will they spin this? Of course the second big loser is the Mainstream Media - again without ideology, really."


W. Thomas Smith Jr. on Iraq on National Review Online

W. Thomas Smith Jr. on Iraq on National Review Online: "As Iraqis queue up at polling stations, some of the scenes look more like a series of regional block parties than what most Westerners would associate with an election day. Children can be seen waving flags or playing soccer. Adults are cheering, clapping hands, beating drums, singing, dancing, and waving at passing U.S. and Iraqi military vehicles. There simply seems to have been more energy in the run-up to this election than in previous ones. And why not?"

Gateway Pundit: Surprise Guest at Iraqi Elections

Gateway Pundit: Surprise Guest at Iraqi Elections: "Senator Joseph 'We're doomed in Iraq' Biden joined the party today in Hillah.

Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., accompanied US Iraqi Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to the city of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad."

Hammorabi

Hammorabi: "In few hours time Iraq will be the Model in Democracy and freedom for the Middle East and the Arab region.

Iraq will lead the changes.

Finally the totalitarian and the one dogma dominated region will end.

God make people free and no one should impose his thoughts to control the others."

ThreatsWatch.Org: InBrief: Voting in Barwana

ThreatsWatch.Org: InBrief: Voting in Barwana: "Barwana, once part of Zarqawi self declared “Islamic Republic of Iraq”, is now the scene of al-Qaeda’s greatest nightmare: Muslims exercising their constitutional right to chose their destiny."

BBC NEWS World Middle East 'This is stability, at last'

Read the whole thing.

(Graphic: © Buddy Larson 2005.)

So sad

It's sad, so sad
It's a sad, sad situation.
And it's getting more and more absurd.
It's sad, so sad
Why can't we talk it over?
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word.

I happened upon this while scanning Best of the Web Today. As the title says, I find it sad - disturbing even. Read it and weep, as the saying goes. It is, in my opinion, a very thought provoking article. I'll never know if the thoughts it provokes are even remotely anticipated by the author but that never matters.

Odd as it may be I have only two complaints about this piece. First is the title, The New Underground Railroad, which is so over the top in its pretensiousness that it is preposterous. Perhaps even insulting. The other petty complaint I have is that for some reason that is beyond my comprehension either the author or the publisher, or both, were compelled to put in, or fail to remove, the following - stupid! - line:

"This is about somebody else’s body. It’s not President Bush’s body, but it’s not mine, either,” she says.

President Bush has nothing to do with the article. Nothing. But some way, some how, it apparently must have a gratuitous slap at President Bush.

A preposterously pretensious title and a preposterously gratuitous slap at the president. Otherwise it is a dark and disturbing article. I nearly regret providing the link but it seems vaguely important to me.

What if...

Israeli Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon has indicated that Saddam moved chemical weapons to Syria several weeks for the start of the war. General Yaalon's position in the IDF was roughly the equivalent to the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Whether his assertion can be proven in the near future is unlikely. If strong evidence could be presented and Syria called to account for it, there would be a tremendous swing in US public sentiment. Half the fun would be watching the boomerang of some of our senators, among others. Some of them would suddenly remember what they said in 1998.(hat tap K-Lo at NRO)

Election Day In Iraq

Pajamas Media will be providing periodic updates from Iraqi correspondents in Iraq as the day progresses.

The stories posted by the Pajamas Correspondents are very compelling.

Iraq The Model - Wednesday evening

Hammorabi greets the new day.

Legacy Media

Reuters

Washington Post

New York Times

"Everything I thought I knew was wrong."

Think about everything you’ve heard about the conditions in Iraq, the role of U.S. forces, the multi-layered complexities of the war.

Then think again.

I’m a journalist. I read the news everyday, from several sources. I have the luxury of reading stuff newspapers don’t always have room to print. I read every tidbit I could on Iraq and the war before coming.

Everything I thought I knew was wrong.

….

But then I realize it’s not a conflict of interest. If I am truly unbiased, then I need to get used to this one simple fact; that the untold story, might in fact, be a positive one. It takes a minute to wrap my mind around it, as a news junkie that became a news writer. The great, career-making, breaking news stories usually don’t have happy endings; they usually revolve around disturbing news, deceit and downfall. Nasty political doings. Gruesome crimes and murders. Revealing secrets.

Read the whole thing.
(From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner blog.)

Is the US under (cyber-) Attack?

Terranet:

A systematic effort by hackers to penetrate US government and industry computer networks stems most likely from the Chinese military, the head of a leading security institute said.

The attacks have been traced to the Chinese province of Guangdong, and the techniques used make it appear unlikely to come from any other source than the military, said Alan Paller, the director of the SANS Institute, an education and research organization focusing on cybersecurity.

Bruce Schneier says:

There seems to be a well-organized Chinese military hacking effort against the U.S. military. The U.S. code name for the effort is "Titan Rain." The news reports are spotty, and more than a little sensationalist, but I know people involved in this investigation -- the attackers are very well-organized.

I don't know anything in particular about this, and tend to take press reports about "cyberwar" and "hackers" with a good bit of salt, but Schneier knows everyone and is not notable for having his hair catch fire without good reason.

Congressional Omerta Update

The penultimate paragraph of the original Congressional Omerta article made this prognostication concerning the Barrett Report:

The American public will hear of the published-but-restricted contents of Section V via anonymous leak and innuendo, and the redacted portions will be subject to surmise based upon political advantage. The order by the Court of Appeals is a compromise that will satisfy no one.

The current Evans-Novak Political Report gives a very clear example of what we can expect to see dribble out over the coming months:

The report contains shocking allegations of high-level corruption in the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department under Clinton, which Barrett found as Clinton aides monitored his investigation and sought to derail it in order to cover up the Cisneros matter. A regional IRS official had formulated a new rule enabling him to transfer an investigation of Cisneros to Washington to be buried by the Justice Department. Barrett's investigators found Lee Radek, head of Justice's public integrity division, determined to protect President Bill Clinton.

The article Information Of The People explores the rationale of the importance of the citizens of the United States having the best available information at their disposal at all times. Actions by members of either party which seek to circumvent statutory authority either through clever manipulation of a seemingly compliant court system or through the legislative chicanery elucidated by Evans-Novak are worthy of the politburo of the former USSR. They have no place in American politics and the limp compliance of the Republican members of the oversight committee give rise to suspicions that their future political opponents may well voice. The quid is very visible and of some value, what was the quo?

Clarice Feldman explained the costs of this type of political tactic very well in A Culture of Strife. The damaging leak from an "anonymous" source is nothing new - we can be reasonably certain that the Roman Senate was at least as careful as the American Senate in its use of quid pro quo for the untidy burial of unseemly conduct. The powerful have always found ways to try and sweep their abusive "indiscretions" under the carpet. There was a time when America had a press that delighted in uncovering those indiscretions but that was before reporters became journalists. Today it falls to the citizenry to demand that statutes be followed by those who presumed to pass them.

The Independent Counsel Statute calls for each counsel to send his report to the National Archives - presumably for perusal by the citizenry of the United States. It is incumbent upon that citizenry to demand that the statute be followed. The Barrett Report must published in full - IC Barrett has discharged his duties in an admirable manner under constant partisan sniping and the American public should see to it that the fruit of his and his team's effort is delivered into the hands of those for which it was intended.

The elected officials who have not abdicated their responsibility in this matter need encouragement to continue, their contact information follows:

Sen. Chuck Grassley
135 Hart Senate Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-1501
202.224.3744

Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr.
2449 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-4905
Telephone: (202) 225-5101

Go vote

Time has some wonderful pictures to choose from, but this my favorite.

Extremes Meet

I just read back over some old threads and noticed something.

Early defeats in the South Pacific in WW2 were the fault of isolationist Republicans who did not properly man the Phillipines.

And modern day Republicans are not isolationist enough.

Cunning.

Is it possible to even decide on the facts anymore? I am not talking about opinions, but facts.

And is everything about money and partisan politics? Is this all that human history is?

It seems to me there is strain of extremist in the world today who is not satisfied unless everyone else is unsatisfied.

They assume that human history and all that compels it, can be boiled down to a D or an R behind the name.

These people are dangerous. Extremes meet in an ugly little circle of hate and mutual distrust.

So I think it might be a good idea when looking at history and subjects like WW2 to remember the enemies were: Tojo, Hitler and Mussolini...not the Republicans or the Democrats.

And considering the fact that there are people in the world today who would gladly wipe us off the face of the earth, if they could, no matter which party won the White House would it not be wise to remember who the enemy really is today?

Islamic fascism and the suicidal terrorism it glorifies is the enemy. And no I am not saying all Muslims are fascists. In fact I would say Muslims are targets themselves.

BTW, Adolph Hitler could not make it across the English Channel much less the Atlantic Ocean. FDR responded to his declaration of war because he felt that sooner or later the Nazis would have to be confronted.

In the 90's Saddam Hussein tried to kill an American president, broke a cease fire and gave refuge to one of the attackers in the first World Trade Center attack. Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States in 1997.

What is the difference?

Oh, the irony!

Apparently, Ramadi is better equipped for democracy than at least one US city:
Blanco: NO elections

Another Clinton cover up.

Bill is the gift that just keeps giving.

My friends here at Flares have made mention of a little known scandal involving the use of the IRS by certain Clinton administration officials. It seems this information came to light during the Cisneros investigation.

Over at powerline there is another story about the scandal and the attempts of high level Democrats to cover up.

But I am proud to say I read about it here first.


Updated by flenser;

Since some people may not bother to follow a series of links, I'm linking directly to the final article by Tony Snow, which is well worth your time.

We Report - You Pull Your Hair Out

On Dec.2 Knucklehead linked this seemingly dispositive piece which convincingly asserted Corps of Engineers design flaws (or contractor chicanery) as the cause for the failure of the flood walls in NO. There was even a clever bit about the LSU investigative team: The corps has long claimed the sheet piling was driven to 17.5 feet deep, but Team Louisiana recently used sophisticated ground sonar to prove it was only 10 feet deep.

Today another piece appears (HT Skookumchuk) which refutes through actual physical evidence the core of the previous piece. Maybe.

Sadder (but in all probability no wiser) I believe that I will withold further speculative comment until a definitive report is published. There are too many axes being ground by both sides at the moment to have much confidence in the reporting.

Another One for the MSM Case History File

From Chaotic Synaptic Activity, a short report on a talk given by two newpaper folk who served in WWII, How Did WWII Affect Newspaper Editors?. Just another data point, but they both seem to have been activist, and they would have come to positions of influence in the 60's. I think we tend to overlook just how much the 60's were a product of the WWII/Depression generation. We were, after all, our parents' children and I think some of the trends associated with boomers, such as divorce, began with them.

I'm feeling inadequate today

So I'll just let Jeff Goldstein say it:

On the cusp of nationwide elections in Iraq—as insurgent Sunni Arabs eager to join the political process “actively support the voting, reportedly promising to provide security at polling places, and informing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorist elements that they oppose any effort to disrupt the elections”—it strikes me that those left arguing that the insurgency is really but a manifestation of Iraqi nationalism have placed themselves in the strange position of having to maintain that, well, the real Iraqis aren’t Iraqi at all, but are rather those non-Iraqi fighters who continue the insurgency, or at the very least, that these foreign fighters (and those who provide them with aid and support) are the only ones left who are really acting in the best interests of Iraq. Which puts a whole new spin on identity politics, I should think.

Just thought I’d mention it.

The levee's gonna break

The extent to which Governor Kathleen Blanco played politics with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is slowly coming out into the open. Her administration in Louisiana recently, and finally, released documentation covering the communication the Governor had with her own staff, with the White House, and with Democratic spinmeisters in the week following the storm.

Robert Travis Scott, writing for The Times-Picayune, has the most informative account I have yet seen on what these documents revealed. It's a story which, predictably, is being ignored by the press on the whole.

The extent to which the press was complicit in covering for Blanco, and the extraordinary effort it made to smear the Bush administration, becomes clear in these passages;

.. an ABC News reporter wrote Blanco's press secretary, "2 senior GOP aides have called me to suggest we should be focusing more blame on Governor Blanco." A New York Times reporter wrote an e-mail message saying, "Several officials in Washington are asserting that the Federal Government should have assumed control of the overall operation . . . As it would have meant, they suggested, better coordination of the response."

In other words, when it was suggested to members of the press that perhaps they should do their jobs and expose Blanco's incompetence, they did not do so. Instead they contacted Blanco’s staff to feed them (dis)information about the White House. You have to wonder; how often do the members of the press, when contacted by Democrat officials, call or email Republicans to notify them of the Democrat position? All right, you don't really need to wonder; it never happens.

This is odd.

On the morning of Aug. 31, Blanco was awaiting a television interview when she whispered a comment to Bottcher, saying she should have requested troops earlier. The comment was picked up off-air and cited as an admission by Blanco that she was tardy in her request for ground troops.

It was cited as an admission? It appears to any reasonable observer as an explicit admission. Further documents hint at the insanity that gripped Blanco and her staff.

"What have we done to counter Bush claim that gov delayed relief because she needed 24 hrs to make some decision?" reads an internal e-mail message by a Blanco administration official.

Documents and interviews show that Blanco wanted to avoid conceding her authority, and during the week she argued that a federalization of all military units would compromise her ability to keep law and order.

The impression given by these documents is certainly that Blanco and her people were far more concerned with conducting a PR war against the White House than they were in the safety and wellbeing of the people of New Orleans. And "compromise her ability to keep law and order"? The entire reason she was asking for federal troops was that she was quite unable to maintain law and order.

"By the weekend, the Bush administration will have a full-blown PR disaster/scandal on their hands because of the late response to needs in New Orleans," according to a Sept. 1 e-mail message sent by Blanco communications director Bob Mann. He attributed the observation to former President Clinton's press secretary Mike McCurry.
Kopplin advised the Blanco staff by e-mail that "we need to keep working to get our national surrogates to explain the facts."

Their "national surrogates", of course, were the journalists and reporters of the MSM. As the Democrats expected, they proved quite willing to overlook homicidal incompetence on the part of Louisiana officials in pursuit of their petty vendetta against the Bush administration. Among their number must be counted Mr. Robert Travis Scott, who, in presenting this evidence of political gamesmanship on the part of Democratic politicians, still manages to conclude that Bush (surprise!!) was at fault. For example, although the Guard units from other states could only enter Louisiana under DoD orders, Scott gives the clear impression that this activity was something the States coordinated among themselves, with no Federal involvement.

Other facts which their surrogates did a poor job of explaining to the world were that the city of New Orleans was lawless for several days, and that the only way Federal troops could have restored order was for the President to invoke the Insurrection Act and essentially oust Blanco from her post. If this report is any indication, the dam which the Democratic parties "surrogates" have built to protect Governor Blanco is finally showing a few small cracks.

Discuss

It is surely no exaggeration to say that a man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.

— Alexis de Tocqueville

At a certain point in the near future, if the current oligarchy cannot be removed via the ballot, direct political action may become an urgent and compelling mission. It may then be necessary for many people in many walks of life to put their bodies on the line. For the moment, however, although pressing and profound questions have arisen about whether the current government is even legitimate, i.e., properly elected, there still remains a chance to remove this government peacefully in the 2008 election. (Or am I living in a dream world?)

I do think this regime's removal is the most urgent matter before the country today. . . . This is all terrible and rather fantastic to contemplate. But what assurances have we that it is not all quite plausible? Having discarded the principles that Jefferson & Co. espoused, the current regime seems capable of anything. I know that my imagination is a feverish instrument. But are we not living in feverish times, in times of the unthinkable?

— Cary Tennis in Salon

The "Opinionated Bastard"…

… puts the recent BBC/ABC poll into graphical form.

1. 77 percent of Iraqis say their lives are good.
   



2. 52 percent says their lives are better. Only around 30 percent say their lives are worse.
   

   (And is it just me, or does that not sound like about the percentage of Sunni?)
   
   

3. 65 percent expect life next year to be better.
   



4. While 53 percent say things in Iraq today are "quite bad" or "very bad", 48 percent say it's better than it was under Saddam.
   



5. 69 percent expect Iraq as a whole to be better a year from today.
   



6. 71 percent want a unified government in Bagdad. 74 percent want the government to be a democracy (versus 25 percent who want an Islamic government of religious leaders.)
   



7. 76 percent think the December elections will create a stable government.
   

Judith Apter Klinghoffer makes two interesting points as well:

When asked what would be the worst thing that could happen to Iraq in the next 12 months, only 8.9% chose "occupation not leaving Iraq."

When asked what would be the best thing that could happen to Iraq in the next 12 months, only 5.7% chose American forces leaving Iraq.

Perspective

Someone had to have some.

Superbowl Sunday. All other world controversies are temporarily knocked off stage by Janet Jackson's nipple. So great is the nipple's disruptive field, scientists wonder if it might have power to slow the spin of hurricanes or stop the mutation of deadly viruses.

An oppressive colonizer is forced to withdraw from occupied Arab land. This is initially met with dancing in the streets of Cairo, Paris, and Turtle Bay. Then everyone realizes it is Syria pulling out of Lebanon. You must understand that the Cedar Revolution, after years of Syrian domination, has nothing to do with the American presence in Iraq, you jingoist. It's just one of those international coincidences like the moon being where it was when Apollo 11 flew past. A few months later, Israel voluntarily withdraws from Gaza, earning approximately 17 seconds of goodwill from the international community. Personal best!

The Iraqi constitution, a Middle East milestone, is approved. But hey! Over there! It's Britney and her new baby! Everybody grab your cameras and run after her! Dang: false alarm. Anyway, what was that about Iraq? Right: They chose their own rules of governance. Yet statistics show voter participation is down significantly from 99.99 percent in Saddam's day, to 60 percent.

That is by no means all.

Whatever Happened to Objective Journalism?

Seneca the Younger raised this question in an earlier post. After some memory and web searching, I managed to find this old post by Callimachus, What's Wrong With Journalism, that I think lays out some of the events in the moral decline of journalism. Callimachus, himself a journalist, speaks of the environment at a small newspaper when he began:

A good newspaper editor spent time in the back shop every day. The people who set up the copy for the presses read it as they did so -- in this picture they literally typed it in by hand. In my day, they read it on the proofs. And they would tell you what they thought about it. Same with the guys who ran the printing press, in their blue overall suits and ink-blacked hands. If an editor wanted to know what the world outside his office walls thought about the news, and his presentation of it, this was a great place to start.

But the nature of printing technology changes and class segregation, the infamous bubble, creeps in:

Now, where I work, there still is a back shop. It consists of about 5 people who oversee the computer systems. Unless we meet them by chance at the coffee machine, we newsroom denizens rarely speak to them. Most of them have computer backgrounds; they don't have ink or wax or lead splattered on their clothes. The process of making a newspaper is now computer to computer to printing press.

And he concludes

And somewhere, along the way, the American media comes unmoored from the American people. Perhaps it would have happened anyhow.

I think this same process has taken place in many other American institutions. The universities come to mind. A leisured upper class elite, isolated from the necessities and realities of life, has come to power. They don't really concern themselves with the safety and wellbeing of ordinary people because, well, they themselves are doing just fine, thank you.

In closing I will link to a post where Callimachus describes the social atmosphere in a modern newsroom: My Left Behind III. I don't think anyone here will be surprised at what he has to say, as it is much as we might imagine.

Air Quality Set to Improve in California Tomorrow

Gov. Schwarzenegger roundfiled Mr. William's appeal for clemency today - very justifiably. Mr. Williams deserves neither pity nor contempt. He was a stone cold sociopath who murdered his way into a position of leadership of a group of thugs who should themselves be sitting in Q. Perhaps not on The Row but certainly within sight of it.

Tonight Mr. Williams shall reap the full measure of what he has sown.

My heartfelt sympathy goes to the families of his victims who have waited overlong for justice to be served.

Will Murtha continue to lie?

This is the question the Captain asks after analyzing new poll data on Iraq. It seems that 80% of the Iraqis do not want us to leave right this damn minute after all. It is more like 26%, the majority want us to wait until Iraqis are able to defend themselves. Imagine that.

What is more it seems the Iraqis are a lot more optimistic about their future than a lot of Americans are about our own.

Go figure. It is almost as if certain people have been deliberately giving the American people the wrong impression about the true state of affairs in Iraq.

They begin voting today. I pray for their safety.

Don't They Know We Lost the War?

DoD Announces Recruiting and Retention Numbers for November

The Department of Defense announced today its recruiting and retention statistics for the active and reserve components for the month of November.


Active duty recruiting. All services exceeded their recruiting goals in November.

....................................................Accessions..............Goal..............Percent
Army................................................5,856................. 5,600................. 105
Navy.................................................2,742..................2,694...................102
Marine Corps.......................................2,127.................2,026...................105
Air Force............................................2,407.................2,390....................101

Active duty retention. The Army re-enlisted 10,677 soldiers toward a year-to-date mission of 11,556 (92 percent). The Marine Corps and Air Force enjoy excellent re-enlistment rates through November. The Navy barely missed its mid-career goal due to a shortage of specialized skills, and it is making program adjustments to achieve its end-of-year mission.

Reserve forces recruiting. Three of the six reserve components met or exceeded their recruiting goals this month.

......................................Accessions......Goal.......Percent
Army National Guard...............4,960..........4,510.........110
Army Reserve..........................2,131...........2,212..........96
Navy Reserve...............................711.............821...........87
Marine Corps Reserve...................484.............. 482.......100
Air National Guard.......................561...............794...........71
Air Force Reserve........................495................493........100

Reserve retention. For November, Army National Guard retention was 103 percent of the cumulative goal of 4,841, and Air National Guard retention was 101 percent of its cumulative goal of 1,636. Both Guard components are currently at 95 and 99 percent of their end strength, respectively. Losses in all reserve components for October were within acceptable limits. Indications are that trend has continued into November.

I suppose the next thing will be some ridiculous claim about the economy doing well, or employment being at its highest historic level or fuel prices having dropped substantially from seasonal highs.

Breaking Fisking

I'm listening to Chris Matthews and the Hardball "Special Report" on Plame-gate. A detailed fisking will have to wait, but so far, listening with half-attention while I work on something else, I've already heard them make several straight-out false statements and misattributions, starting with discussing Wilson's NYT op-ed, "What I didn't find in Niger" without mentioning the disagreement between what he wrote and what the Senate Committee reported were the facts.

When there's a full transcript, I'll write a more thorough critique, but for the moment I want to write about something that has bothered me for a good while. It's clear, listening to this, that Matthews has a slant in mind, and isn't particularly scrupulous about making his "reporting" match the facts. It would be disingenuous of me, extremely so, to affect surprise at this. It's become increasingly clear, I think to nearly everyone, that the Legacy Media is less that scrupulous about these things in general.

I'm very suspicious that one of the underlying factors in this is that, up until recently, there was the assumption that the Legacy Media could not just report what happened, but effectively define what happened, and have the expectation that once the dominant paradigm was established there would be no effective refutation. (For an example of this, consider the number of people who still believe Alger Hiss was completely innocent, and the number of people who think that Joseph McCarthy was not working with any evidence of Communist infiltration.)

(If that last sentence is a surprise, have a look at the Venona Intercepts.)

But then — how long has this been going on? I can remember having suspicions about some press reports going back to Viet Nam. (I had friends coming back who thought we were winning. Sort of like Iraq now.) I've heard it said that Robert Heinlein told of being at events convered by Time three times, and that Time never reported one of them accurately.

If we go back a little longer, we're at the time of "yellow journalism" and the Hearst papers.

It's almost as if the question we should be asking is not "whatever happened to objective journalism", but "how did the myth of objective journalism get started.?"

'Tis the Season...

Knowing that Christmas, Hanukkah, etc. are coming up and that people will still be buying presents for each other whether the ACLU likes it or not, it seems appropriate to share a few websites which provide some real deals.

Before anything else though I must introduce the wonderful Firefox extension RUsure. This is a must-have for all serious internet shoppers. It allows you, before you buy anything online, to highlight it in your browser, right-click it, and a quick scan of thousands of internet bargain and retail sites is then performed for you automatically on that item. The results pop into a separate tab so that you can immediately make sure you are getting the best possible price on that product. (If you're not familiar with Firefox extensions, these are a series of add-ons for the Firefox browser created by third parties that give you numerous new capabilities and conveniences. More are being created daily. Read more here. If you haven't tried them yet, you're just missing out.)

Ok, now that you're assured of getting the best price possible, let's start with the Geek basics. PriceWatch is one of the oldest shopping comparison sites on the internet. If you want to buy a computer or electronics accessory, CompUSA isn't having a sale on it, and you want the very best price available today, you probably won't do better than what this site offers. I've bought an enormous number of computer parts off of this site over the years (they're an aggregator by the way, they don't actually sell anything) and had good luck with everything I bought. It's where I bought the 1-dollar USB wheeled mouse I'm using right now.

Along the same line, but more consumer oriented and user-friendly, is PriceGrabber. Froogle is also useful.

Now for the more exotic. Woot is like nothing else. "One day one deal." That's it. Every day they offer a very special deal on one single item. When it's gone, it's gone. At midnight the next day something else will appear. Good quality stuff so worth keeping an eye on. Magazine Bargains is exactly the same--but for magazines. One magazine on sale per day at an unbelievably low price.

I've saved the best for last. You know how CompUSA, Staples, Amazon, etc. are offering different incredible bargains every week but it's too much trouble to keep up on all of them? Good news: there's a website that does it for you. Updated hourly. Ben's Bargains has become a personal addiction during this shopping season. It's just incredible. Also very useful are NoBrainerDeals and Digg's Deals section.

That should be enough to get you started. If not, more advice and choices can be found here. Bon apetit!

Time for a (Coffee) Break

So you don't like coffee?







More art available.

Some interesting reading

Via RealClearPolitics there are three interesting stories today.

The TimesOnLine has an interesting piece on the rise of David Cameron, Tories Seize lead in polls. David Cameron's debut as Tory leader has given Tories a surge of support that has put them ahead for the first time in 18 months.

Is Labor on the way out?

Mark Steyn is spot on with But Seriously folks this clown is dangerous in his SunTimes Oped concerning the hostage taker leader of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who recently called for Israel to be wiped off the map of the Middle East and wiped on the map of Europe.

In his Post-Gazette column, Jack Kelly writes Abolish the CIA and start over:CIAO CIA, stating that the spy agency is damaged beyond repair. He notes a recent intel report from the agency saying that Iran is 10 years away from the bomb. This report was followed in a few months by another report on December 5 by Mohammed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency which "confirmed Israel's asessment that Iran is only a few months away from creating an atomic bomb."

How comforting.

How did the Republicans lose black voters?

While I agree that many members of the Civil Rights movement have devolved into demagogues, I take exception with the notion that the Martin Luther King did more harm than good.

His I have a Dream speech was one of the great moments in American history. The fact that the man was flawed does not change that.

The Republican party was founded in part as the antislavery party and following the Civil War it was difficult to find a black American who did not support the Republican party.

So, what happened?

The first Ku Klux Klan founded in Tennessee in 1865 was rabidly antiRepublican. In fact in 1868 they claimed to have murdered 1300 Republicans. In 1871 US Grant got the Grant Civil Rights Act, also known as the KKK Act, passed to put an end to its influence.

The Hayes Compromise of 1876 was meant to bring the North and South together, but in fact it costs blacks many of the gains they had made and left them feeling abandoned.

The KKK did lose influence until The Birth of a Nation released in 1915 portrayed the organization as the defender of white womanhood and moral values.

The MSM strikes again and the second KKK was born, not a nation.

The second KKK gained most of its influence in the North among Repbulicans where it developed an antisemitic, antiCatholic, antiimmigrant and of course racist philosophy. It reached its peak in 1924 when Klansman Edward Jackson ran as a Republican and won the Governorship in Indiana. In 1926, the Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson would be convicted of rape and murder. The scandal would do irreparable damage to the Klan. But the attitudes remained.

Lyndon Johnson could not have passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 without Congressional Republicans and yet Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee was an opponent of the legislation.

I think the Republicans lost the support of black Americans because they were divided at their base. Divided between conservatives who were believers in states rights and suspicious of black activism in particular and change in general which made them vulnerable to the rhetoric of the Klan... and their true self.

Their true self was the reformer who believes in government by the people, for the people. This division is the reason the Democrats got credit for finishing what the Republicans started.

Ken Mehlman said as much in a recent address to the NAACP. He said "We were wrong".

Now conservatives can either accept that and learn from it or they can attack a black preacher who was shot by a white supremist.

White Flag Democrats

The GOP has released its new ad, Retreat and Defeat.

The Democrats do not like it, not one little bit.

More on Free Speech

Melanie Phillips is reporting that you can now receive a visit from the police in Britain if you publicly question the right of homosexuals to adopt children. My question in this post is not your opinion on same sex marriage or adoption. But why would anyone imagine that a plainly-stated opinion on such matters qualifies as a "homophobic incident" in need of cautionary policing?

Homophobia is a concept rooted in the fact that we all learn our desires from each other. For example, when we see a very beautiful person, we may simply gaze in awe, needing no other confirmation of this truth of nature, and often feeling no desire to hold or own this beauty. But this is an exception to the rule: most of the time, our natural instincts are subject to cultural mediation. We turn to our fellows to confirm or deny our desire. On a scale of one to ten...

I may not normally be focussed on homoerotic imaginings, but when exposed to them I may well have reason to think I risk falling under their spell, under the other's desire, unless I make an effort to reject them. To the other, this effort may appear a denial of sexual possibilities that are in me if only I could throw off the chains of my repressive past and let them out. The term "homophobia" was first coined to refer to people's denial of a homosexual possibility in at least a good number of us, if not in everyone, and more generally to the denial of the culture of (especially male) homoeroticism that some quite reasonably suggest was at the origin of all erotic culture.

What homophobia has to do with one's opinion on marriage and family is a whole other question, I won't try to figure now. Suffice to note that the assumption implicit in the alleged crime of homophobia, i.e. that we are irrationally fearful of certain natural human desires, makes me wonder what the very concept of homophobia, or phobias more generally, have to do with the policing mentality: "Your professed desire is good/bad; you know it's in you, or at least in human nature, why don't you just admit it or at least celebrate it for others".

The essence of policing is in stopping and winning confession of dangerous desires. The desire for free speech lies in the powerlessness of some desire, and the possibility the powerless might have, if free to speak, to make the powerful respond to their verbal provocations. The truly powerful don't have to talk, and it may well be in their interests not to: if you have to assert your authority, it's a sign you might not have it. A great king is mostly silent; he simply raises a finger or eyebrow and all in court will know and follow his desire. The great king shuts himself up to protect the established community from desire, from too much speech.

But what is the essence of policing and free speech in a world where everyone can do pretty much anything they desire (beyond violence or theft), except, it increasingly seems, speak freely of a desire for a world in which certain boundaries are maintained in the name of a conservative concept of freedom in society?

The Democratic Party R.I.P.

Let every man know whether he wishes us will or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe in order to assure the the survival and success of liberty.

John F. Kennedy.

The idea that we are going to win this war is an idea that unfornately is just plain wrong.

Howard Dean.

Victor Hanson has written an excellent essay, Democratic Implosion [Can the Party of the People be saved from itself] in which he discusses the Vietnamization of the Democratic party and the self destructive leadership that currently holds sway over party politics.

When I was growing up men like John F. Kennedy were the party, now Joe Lieberman is shunned and Michael Moore sets in the seat of honor at the Democratic National Convention.

It is like watching an old friend commit suicide.

Martin Luther King’s Tragic Mistake

Only recently have I realized that Martin Luther King caused more harm than good. He rightfully demanded that his followers reject violence. Sadly, he forgot to add one more nonnegotiable requirement: no radical leftists should have been allowed to join the civil rights movement. These people had their own agenda and the pursuit racial justice was secondary to destroying civilized society. In the long run, it was impossible to marginalize them. They would ultimately push the movement into a direction where King originally did not want to go. By hook or crook, they would grab power. The more moderate voices would be purged.

The childish behavior of so many Afro-American citizens during Hurricane Katrina is the direct result of their being turned into “victims” by the adversarial left-wing culture. They have been discouraged from becoming adults who are masters over their own lives. The dramatic increase in the destruction of black families did not occur until the beginning of King’s movement! Until the late 1950s the illegitimacy rate of American blacks was only slightly higher than that of the majority white community. All hell had broken out by the mid 1960s.

What might have happened if Martin Luther King had never become a major figure? Admittedly, the evolution of our society would have been slower. The South would likely have continued enforcing its unjust Jim Crow policies for another few years. But things were changing anyway. By the 1970s America’s blacks should have achieved their rightful place at the table. Quickening the pace of change was not worth the awful price tag. Far too many of our black citizens are presently members of the permanent underclass. This tragedy could have been avoided. The Reverend King had the best of intentions. As matter of fact, I may have well committed the same mistake had I been in his shoes. We have the distinct advantage of hindsight. If only a time machine existed and one could go back into the past and warn him.

I woke up and discovered I was a blogger

I jumped out of bed all excited. I had posted an interesting and controversial article at Flares that contained a special insight into the war on terror and I was sure people had reacted and posted comments.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and turned on the TV to see if the world was still there. I saw the tail end of a report on CNN about citizens in Ramadi turning over a big al Qaeda guy. I knew about that already. In fact I already knew about the citizen turn around in Ramadi. In fact I've known that for a few weeks already and even made comments about it elsewhere.

I sat down at the PC, eager to see if anyone had written a comment on my latest blog posting yet.

But there was nothing. Not even my article.

The blog posting I woke so excited about, was only a dream.

Man, I love life. All these little surprises.

I think I need another cup of coffee.

-------------

Update: Ah. Coffee. Food shopping. Fresh winter air. Life is good today. And I'd like to show you what I was doing instead of posting a blog article. The Cricket Cage has the latest. Note the gap between October 4th and December 3rd? That's because of this blog and also because of intently following the Plame Game at JustOneMinute. I'm beginning to get into the Christmas spirit. No, I don't want to join my love of blogs with my 3D stuff. I want them separate. You will find little to no political posturing in my work. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

BY LATE DECEMBER, TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE

For Sabrina




I go onto the mountain to defend

My loneliness, by yielding to white time,

Find granite fissures and the river's bend

Obedient to stone's weakness. My notes rhyme

With some of snow's ideas: early ice

Forms all around me shattering country rock,

But gently, plucking boulders from cliff-face

And canyon. —Hollows, cold shadows come back

Again, this year appearing not to know me

Who played with them. Last summer my song fled

Headlong and watery, down to a wide valley

Floor, where the opening sky took hearts and bled

Blue back, as vivid as the Steller's jay

Shrieks killers' joy, and strops its feathered blade.

Cross-Species Lesbian Sexual Harassment!

"Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples."

Quite the blog entry title, eh?

How could I resist... the Age reports that the Gorilla Foundation has settled a lawsuit brought by two former animal handlers. The Gorilla Foundation is home to Koko, the lowland gorilla that was taught sign language some years ago. It seems Koko, who is female, has a "nipple fetish". The two women handlers claimed they were fired after they refused to bare their breasts for the ape. Terms of the settlement were not released.

Yeeesh, this is the start of the chat transcript from the Koko site:

KOKO: Fine.

PENNY: We're going to be on the phone with a lot of people who are going to ask us questions...

KOKO: Nipple. (Koko sometimes uses 'nipple' as a 'sounds like' for 'people.' [ed --suuure, we believe that])

PENNY: ...about you and about me. . . Lots of people.

KOKO: That red pink. (Indicating Penny's shirt.)

PENNY: That red pink. Yes, right!

KOKO: Hurry good.

What in the world have they been teaching that ape?

Google Earth!

Google's excellent extension of Google Maps is now available for OS X. Mac users should grab it while it's hot.

Narnia Opens Tonight

Cathy Seipp (whose work I always enjoy reading) responds to various nattering nabobs of negativism in an excellent NRO piece. Prior to reading her response, I actually had no idea that there were so many brainless twits with nothing better to do than critique the movie and the author of the books that led to it. To try and put Rowling and Pullman in a class with C.S.Lewis is itself an engagement in dystopic fantasy. Cathy runs their arguments through the logic blender with great style.

Forget Dolphins

The armed forces should be training squirrels. They're cheap, plentiful, and vicious.

(HT: Tim Blair)

The Search for Root Causes: France

Yes, research into the root causes of the French disturbances continues. The apparent culprit? Hip hop.

Last week, 200 politicians backed a petition by MP François Grosdidier calling for legal action against several hip hop musicians for their aggressive lyrics.

The article continues in The Telegraph (registration may be required).

Immigration and the Right

I think that George Bush is facing reality when he endorses a guest worker program.

Some conservatives disagree.

At Polipundit Jayson has some interesting statistics citing real improvement in terms of immigration and security; while Polipundit feels quite differently, fearing a backlash against Republicans if more stringent measures are not taken.

I am not sure what these measures are supposed to entail however.

I grew up in the southwest and once the subsidized water came the people came and the towns and cities grew and the overall border crossings increased.

But it works both ways. I know a young lady who just went to Mexico for a medical procedure performed by an American doctor in a clinic just across the border.

I think it is very late to expect huge changes in this issue quickly and while I believe that the threat of terrorism is real and the borders need to be more secure, I also think there is a little something else going on here. And it is not pretty.

American Views of the Middle East

In his Middle East Journal, Michael Totten has an interesting essay featured on American views of Arabs and how these views affect the way we deal with the people of the Middle East.

I think that democracy is not static and that in fact it can represent the people of different cultures and societies.

India and Japan are examples of this.

I think the Middle East with its various ethnic groups can govern itself if given the tools and the oppurtunity.

Corruption may well be their greatest challenge, not religion.

Is Barrel Fishing Cruel?

Tom Maguire at JOM sent me over to watch Mark-In-Mexico spearfishing Lefties.

Very entertaining.

Washington Times — Under-reported News from Iraq

Today's highlights:

• …[O]ne wouldn't know it from the acrimonious debate in Washington, but [Najaf and Mosul] two former trouble spots are rapidly joining the 80 percent or so of Iraq that suffers little or no violence,….


• The Iraqi economy is rebounding; real gross domestic product is expected to grow by 16 percent next year. …. On a per-capita basis, income levels in Iraq since 2003 have doubled, according to World Bank data.

Progress in Iraq - Editorials/Op-Ed

Oh, and check out the Iraqi Stock Market. (Thanks to Buddy in the comments.)

Quagmire

… 77 percent of Afghans say their country is headed in the right direction — compared with 30 percent in the vastly better-off United States. Ninety-one percent prefer the current Afghan government to the Taliban regime, and 87 percent call the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban good for their country. Osama bin Laden, for his part, is as unpopular as the Taliban; nine in 10 view him unfavorably.

Progress fuels these views: Despite the country's continued problems, 85 percent of Afghans say living conditions there are better now than they were under the Taliban. Eighty percent cite improved freedom to express political views. And 75 percent say their security from crime and violence has improved as well. After decades of oppression and war, many Afghans see a better life.

ABC News: Poll: Four Years After the Fall of the Taliban, Afghans Optimistic About the Future

Washington Times — Under-reported News from Iraq

Today's Washington Times starts a new series of under-reported stories from Iraq. In today's editorial, the Times notes:

• Primary-school enrollment has jumped 20 percent over the Saddam years, according to the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index.


• Iraq's GDP rebounded by an estimated 50 percent in 2004, according to the IMF, mostly due to increased oil revenues. About one-third of Iraqis are unemployed -- an alarming rate -- but this is significantly better than two years ago, when half or more of Iraqis were unemployed.

I'll be following this series. Remember that one of the running talking points has been that things are worse now than they had been under Saddam.

When did Britain start following France?

In a post the other day, I was knuckle rapped for saying I was shocked when I read the Alain Finkielkraut interrogation-confession. Why are you shocked? Don't you know that a once free France is now dead? I was asked by my Flares colleague, David Thomson. Other countries, perhaps your own, are not far behind he added.

Well, I'm still shocked. This time it is by the news that the British government would ask one of its prisoners described by a Spanish judge as al-Qaeda's ambassador in Europe to plead on behalf of the four "Christian" "peace" activists kidnapped in Iraq. Or is it really on behalf of the British government and its desire to save face, to show that it can work with Muslims to bring non-violent solutions to our conflicts?

But how are the Brits saving any face for the cause of non-violence with this shameless pleading with terrorists over the lives of four people whose hatred of Israel and the west, and whose general disregard for reality, led them to become hostages and pawns in a struggle against the west in the first place? In all the pleading that is now ongoing, western voices on behalf of the kidnapped are almost caricaturing, in their utter sincerity, the "Christian pacifism" of the kidnap victims' own gnostic caricature of Christianity and peace.

Need we not make some sacrifices to reality and refuse to give terrorist kidnappers any sustenance for their dangerous egos?

Melanie Phillips has two good posts up on "Dreamworld Britain" In the first we are told about the new "Conservative" party leader, a so-called "libertarian" with a fondness for political correctness:

yes, the old Tories are a deeply unattractive bunch. So maybe the country will indeed be thus charmed by this Lord of the Rings hero Frodo Cameron and his Samwise Osborne — who reportedly watched Tony Blair give birth to New Labour in the 1990s and decided then and there that the Conservative party needed similarly to tear itself up by the roots — as they set out on their journey to throw the ring of Conservatism into the fires of Mordor.

So stand by for (almost) all-women Tory candidates’ short-lists (according to the BBC’s excellent Nick Robinson this morning), and almost certainly support for the whole multicultural, libertine, victim culture lifestyle — and who knows, maybe a dash of exciting, trendy drug legalisation too, just to be in touch with ‘Britain as it now is’.

In the second post, Melanie reports on Carol Gould's report of a "Global Peace and Unity Conference", sponsored by, among others, London's Metropolitan Police, at which all manner of hatred from western leftists and Islamist celebrities was given voice.

Carol:

What was interesting was the repeated theme by a string of sheikhs from across the globe that the leaders of Arab nations were a weak, spineless bunch of puppets of the Americans who did not have the guts to stand up to Israel and the United States. This theme caused tremendous excitement in the crowd, as if a global Intifadah might just start in this London arena.

Melanie:

Not surprisingly, Carol describes herself as being in a state of shock after this event. Her account needs to be brought to the widest possible public attention. The people participating in this hate-fest need to be exposed for the racist hate-mongers that they are. Her account should be shown to the government and to the Attorney-General with a view to possible prosecution for incitement to violence. Did I say prosecution? Fat chance! The Metropolitan Police was actually sponsoring this event. Someone should be asking it, as a matter of urgency, what the hell it thinks it is doing.

Living in Britain at present is like living in a dream world. Things are happening, trends are running and a particular logic has taken hold which are all driving the country towards an unspeakable future. Yet no-one talks about it, no-one acknowledges it and whenever the plain facts are blurted out by a brave and clear-eyed person like Carol Gould people’s eyes glaze over, they shuffle their feet and look the other way.

Perhaps Carol should not have been shocked. Perhaps this event reflects a phenomenon integral to Islam, the pattern recognized centuries ago by the historian, Ibn Khaldun: the perennial tendancy in Muslim society to replace decadent leaders in the seats of power with fresh blood and defenders of the faith who come in from the cold deserts with their tribesmen, lop off the heads of the corrupt Islamic world, and settle down to rule in the name of the true law, that is until they in turn become corrupted by power and are replaced in the endless cycle of resentments that, it may seem, have yet to find more liberal ways of transcending themselves.

Two bald men fighting over a comb

One of the 'little' tragedies of the World looks like it is about to heat up again. As this Times Online article reports, Eritrea and Ethipia look like they are on the path to another war. Eritrea has ordered all US, Canadian and European UN peacekeepers to leave the nation. This follows an expulsion of UN helicopters earlier.

Between 1998 and 2000 they fought a war over a disputed border that cost an estimated 70,000 lives. The disputed border area ran largely through deserts. The war ended with both sides agreeing to abide by the decisions of a Eritrean-Ethiopian Boundary Commission. When the Commission released its work the Ethiopians rejected their drawing of the boundary, demanding control of villages given to Eritrea. However, these villages are not the real cause of the problem, the root of the dispute is landlocked Ethiopia's desire to gain the Eritrean port city of Assab.

Eritrea seems to have a legitimate grievance that the international community did not exert pressure on Ethiopia to abide by the Boundary Commission's findings. None the less, it is difficult to see what tiny Eritrea hopes to gain by going to war. The title of this article alludes to what the previous war was described as... blood spilled for sand and rock for as foolish a reason as two bald men fighting over a comb.

As a personel aside, during the Yom Kippur war I was on a ship that ran a Somali/South Yemeni blockade of the Babal-Mendeb straights. We docked in the then Ethiopian, now Eritrean, port of Massawa. Wonderful people, but horrible beer. Eh, what else did you think would be important to a sailor?

Mohammed of ITM - Iraqi Election Report

Mohammed has a special report on the Iraqi elections up at Pajams Media.

Well worth a read.

Lieberman to the Rescue

Sincerity is one of the more important attributes that a politician must learn to display. Once a pol has learned to fake sincerity convincingly, his career is made. Joe Lieberman fakes it as well as anyone in Congress. His words as opposed to action in the Clinton impeachment are one piece of evidence of that fact and his groveling performance as a Vice-Presidential candidate in the 2000 election was further confirmation.

He has an editorial in the New York Post today that is a real corker. It has to be read very carefully in order to comprehend in full what a masterful exercise in sophistry has been created. Note in particular:

"The plan, developed over the 21/2 years since Saddam Hussein's overthrow, has resulted from trial and yes, many errors."

followed by:

"The response to the president's proposal by leading Democrats — including my colleagues Sens. John Kerry and Jack Reed — was important and instructive: Most did not call for an arbitrary withdrawal, but instead questioned some tactics and asked the administration to go to the next level of detail on its plans."

So, many errors were committed and the Dems only want to interject their views on tactics - at three years in, with victory in sight and having behaved in the most craven manner imaginable.

Then Joe goes into a "politics must stop at the water's edge" riff which might have had some value - three years ago. Today it is as irrelevant as the Democratic Party.

He closes with a modest proposal:

"To encourage that new partnership, I propose that the president and the leadership of Congress establish a bipartisan Victory in Iraq Working Group, composed of members of both parties in Congress and high-ranking administration national-security officials. This group would meet regularly, I would hope at least weekly, to discuss conditions and progress on the ground in Iraq and ways to alter or improve our strategy for victory."

He wants to plan the victory parades and make sure that he has a place in the front car.

I don't know how the President will respond to faux Joe, my response would conclude with "strong letter follows" but the President generally reserves that response for the press.

Joe Lieberman has been consistent in his personal support of the war but his party has owned the "Not in Our Name" franchise for the past three years.

Victory and success in Iraq were achieved in spite of the Democrats - politically they had nothing to do with it. Sorry Joe, you're a thousand days late and as many dollars short. If you want to ride on the victor's float in the big parade, you're going to have to switch parties.

Al-Arian and Two Others were Acquitted by a Florida Jury

The evidence was overwhelming. There were even videos presented to the jury showing one of the defendants asking for money to murder Jews. This should have been a slam dunk case for the prosecution. We have yet to hear from the individual members of the jury pool explaining their bizarre decision. However, I think I know the reason. Our society is being severely damaged by postmodernism. There is supposedly no such thing as objective truth. One man’s terrorist is someone else’s freedom fighter. Calling for the destruction of Jews is merely a way for a Palestinian allegedly victimized by Israeli imperialism to fight for truth and justice. Who are we to say that they are employing language in a literal manner? Perhaps these individuals are merely engaging in rhetorical exaggeration? After all, the language of the victims of colonialist oppression is not the same as that of their oppressors.