Rusted Sky

I know you've got problems with your eyes at work - I wonder if this might help? Get a small lamp, put in a small FS light...

Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Wal-Mart Changing the World One Lightbulb at a Time

What the heck - read this, and thought about you...

J.

Anyone know the magic number that will validate pre-war claims that Saddam DID have WMDs? Because if it isn't a binary solution (either he did or he didn't) then there has to be some specific quantity at which it becomes undeniable.

Pajamas Media: EXCLUSIVE Secret Iraq WMD Report -- Partially Unclassified & Available @ PJM

This now unclassified portion of the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) report on pre-1991 Iraqi Chemical Weapons Recovered in Iraq reveals some chilling points concerning weapons not recovered but assessed to exist.
* Munitions recovered - 500.
* Some contained degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.
* Pre-Gulf War munitions are assessed to still exist outside of coalition control.
* Remaining uncontrolled weapons could be sold on the black market.
* Terrorist and Insurgent groups inside and outside of Iraq desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.
* Condition of weapons uncertain. Some stilll potentially lethal. Many degraded.

The full 34-page NGIC Report was initially published on April 4 of this year, but partially declassified (The 7 pages available HERE.) on July 31.

Subsequent to the publication of the NGIC report, PJM has learned the following. In early August on a patrol north of baghdad, us soldiers made another startling and important discovery. Searching near an Iraqi construction site, the troops uncovered at least 240 chemical weapon shells. Although they had not been filled with any agents, they were still more remnants from Saddam’s WMD stockpiles.

J.

When guests are coming, you want your house to be as clean as possible. In this case, I think they need a new maid service... one with geiger counters to get out those last little bits...

Highly Enriched Uranium Found at Iranian Plant - New York Times

VIENNA, Aug. 31 — The global nuclear monitoring agency deepened suspicions on Thursday about Iran’s nuclear program, reporting that inspectors had discovered new traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian facility.

Inspectors have found such uranium, which at extreme enrichment levels can fuel bombs, twice in the past. The International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that at least some of those samples came from contaminated equipment that Iran had obtained from Pakistan.

But in this case, the nuclear fingerprint of the particles did not match the other samples, an official familiar with the inspections said, raising questions about their origin.

Oh, you mean a raised middle finger DOESN'T signal assent in Iran? Dang. Missed that one...

J.

We took our bikes out to the Silver Comet Trail for a ride. We started at Trailhead 12, and went west 10 miles. There's an old railroad tunnel at Milemarker 31, and that's where we had lunch.

The trail is remarkable - clean, quiet, and very well maintained. It felt kind of odd to be just pedaling along, listening to the wind in the trees and hearing the occasional insect and bird.

Yeah, it was a bit of a grind. Neither Sue or I are in particularly good shape, so we took our time. The little guy was busy figuring out how the gears on his new (used) bike work, and had a blast. (Thanks, John C! A good cleaning, some gear lube, a new seat and some air in the tires and it was good to go.) About mile 16 or so my legs just kind of turned to rubber - had to walk a bit to recover and then the little guy and I did one final dash to the car. He beat me, but it was close!

20 miles on a bike. Damn. I still can't hardly believe we did it. And then I feel the sore spots... (Man, I've GOT to get a different seat! Ever have a certain, sensitive part of your anatomy fall asleep from unaccustomed pressure... and then WAKE UP again? Yaagh! Tingly!) and think... we did!

Update: Something I forgot to mention - there was what looked like a blackened area on one side of a cutout that the trail passes through. I stopped on the way back and took a look at it - the stuff was kind of blackish/gray, and felt kind of greasy to the touch. It left a mark on paper, looking an awful lot like a pencil mark. We figure it was most likely graphite, though it could be molybdenite. (The two are very similar.) I'm thinking it's graphite, though.

J.

To draw terror.

Did cartoons spark Germany terror plot? - International Terrorism - MSNBC.com

BERLIN - The prime suspects in the failed attempt to blow up two German trains were partially motivated by anger over the recent publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons, a leading investigator said in an interview released Saturday.

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten first published the 12 cartoons in September 2005, including one showing Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb.

But instead of laughing at the cartoons, these guys decided that it was too much - that the only response was bombing innocents.

Islam. The more I see of the nutcases, the less I respect the entire religion.

J.

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin dead | NEWS.com.au

He was killed in a freak accident in Cairns, police sources said today.
It is understood he was killed by a stingray barb that went through his chest and reportedly into his heart .

He was swimming off the Low Isles at Port Douglas filming an underwater documentary when the tragedy occured.

The Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) was called about 11am (AEST) and an emergency services helicopter was flown to the crew's boat on Batt Reef, off the coast near Cairns, with a doctor and emergency services paramedic on board.

Irwin had a puncture wound to the left side of his chest and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Man. Fate works in some suck-ass ways.

Farewell, Steve Irwin - you made a lot of friends you never met, and may God put you in charge of the Celestial Zoo. Just think of the things you'll see THERE...

J.

And what has that labor bought? Lot of folks think it's good.

TCS Daily - Got to Admit It's Getting Better...

Take home ownership. In the first quarter of 1965, the first date I could find quickly, 62.9 percent of American households owned their homes. That was during Meyerson's golden era. In the second quarter of this year, the "dead middle-class era," it was 68.7 percent, an all-time high. Cars? What's relevant, as with homeownership, is the percent of the population that owns cars. And this has boomed. In 1970, presumably near the peak of Meyerson's golden era, there were 108.4 million vehicles registered in the United States; by 2003, this had soared to 231.4 million, an increase of 113.5 percent, while the population had risen by only 42.4 percent. And note that Meyerson doesn't even mention air travel, which, due to deregulation and technological improvement, has become so much cheaper that even poor Americans, let alone middle-class ones, can now afford to fly. How about college? In 1970, only 10.7 percent of the population 25 years old or more had a college degree; by 2004, this was up to an all-time high of 27.7 percent.

The bottom line is that the vast majority of us are doing well by the standard measures. Finally, (like Don Boudreaux) ask yourself this: Would you rather be in the middle 20 percent of the income distribution today or in the top 20 percent 50 years ago? How much do you value cell phones, cars that last 10 years, airline travel to Europe, iPods, and being able to fight cancer and win?

Labor Day, 2006

This Labor Day, workers actually have something to celebrate, though you'll detect precious little of it in the mainstream media coverage today:

-- 1.7 million new jobs have been created over the past year;

-- Employment has increased in 48 of the 50 states;

-- Manufacturing output is at an all-time high and production employment in manufacturing has increased by 117,000 over the past year -- the largest annual increase in over 8 years;

-- The economy has grown at 3.5% over the past year, while productivity has grown at 2.4%;

-- Real per capita disposable income has risen 9.2% since 2001;

-- Real compensation has risen 1.7%.

Labor for its part laments the state of the US economy -- again -- and points in its new study to how great things are in Europe. This is almost comical, considering the per capita US Gross Domestic Product (also known as the standard of living) is almost 50% higher than Europe's. The 3.5% GDP growth noted above is 35% faster than the EU's. The current 4.6% unemployment rate is half Europe's rate. US workers unemployed for over a year account for just 12% of the total, while in Europe, some 43% of all unemployed have been so for over a year. Finally, the percent of people starting new businesses is five times higher in the US than in France. Ask yourself this question: If you open the borders, which way will people flow -- toward Europe or toward the good ol' US of A? We think we know the answer.

So today, as you read all the wistful comparisons with Europe and read all the grim news about the US economy, just remember that this economy has come up off the economic mat from September 11 with a vengeance. We remain the largest economy in the world and the economic envy of the world.

And that gives us all something to celebrate this Labor Day.

Posted by Pat Cleary at September 4, 2006 07:33 AM

Topical Take

Happy Labor Day/Labour Day!
THE MASSES HAVE AMASSED TOO MUCH

This Labour Day, I thought about the working class, the masses.

No, honestly, I did. Okay, I was on the beach, but the folks around me lying on the sand had jobs they'll be getting back to this morning. They worked. They would be classed as workers. But they're not a homogeneous "working class," they're not conscripts in Karl Marx's "masses." The transformation of Labour Day, from a celebration of workers' solidarity to a cook-out, is the perfect precis of the history of Anglo-American capitalism.

If you want to see what "the masses" are meant to look like, buy a DVD of Metropolis, Fritz Lang's 1926 "expressionist masterpiece." As futuristic nightmares go, it's hilarious: The workers are slaves, living underground, chained to the levers, wheels, cranks and cogs of a vast machine, dehumanized by the crushing anonymity of their servitude, etc., etc.

Alas, nothing dates faster than a futuristic vision: Today, the nightmare that beckons is quite the opposite. Instead of a world in which the workers are forced to operate huge, clanking machines below the Earth all day long, the machines are small and silent and so computerized no manpower is required and the masses have to be sedated by shallow distractions like supersized shakes and Wal-Mart and 24-hour lesbian wrestling channels on Premium Cable.

It took the workers' tribunes a while to catch on: Even today, when your average union leader issues his annual Labour Day address, you can tell at heart he still thinks it's 1926 and Metropolis is just around the corner. But the intellectual left has been scrambling for decades to come up with explanations as to why, if everything's so bad, everything's so good: Noam Chomsky's theory of media manipulation - "manufactured consent" - can stand for an entire school of philosophers who believe a subtler breed of capitalist overlords are maintaining the workers in some sort of fools' illusion of content.

But, inevitably, this was only going to be an intermediate stage, given that the shimmering mirage seems to be holding up pretty well. The new received wisdom - forcefully articulated by, among others, Maude Barlow's Council of Canadians at the laugh-a-minute Johannesburg "Earth Summit" - is that the masses themselves are the problem. The oppressed masses refuse to stay oppressed. If they were down in the basement chained to the great turbines, all would be well. But, instead, they insist on moving out of their tenements, getting homes with non-communal bathrooms, giving up the trolley car, putting a deposit down on a Honda Civic and driving to the mall. When it was just medieval dukes swanking about like that, things were fine: That was "sustainable" prosperity. But now, everyone wants in. And, once you do that, there goes the global neighbourhood.

Thus, Simon Fairlie, in his new pamphlet The Prospect Of Cornutopia, ponders the consequence of a 3% "sustainable" growth rate and immediately spots the catch: by the year 2100 we'll be 18 times wealthier than we are today.

That's the problem? Of course! These days, for your serious media pessimist, the good news is the bad news. As Fairlie frets, "Will each home have 10 rooms and a swimming pool and, if so, where are we going to build them?"

Labrador. Next question.

But to this future of vast, unstoppable, ever-expanding wealth, the champions of the oppressed have come up with an ingenious solution: global poverty! We need a massive Poverty Expansion Program if we're to save the planet. "I don't think a lot of electricity is a good thing," says Gar Smith of San Francisco's Earth Island Institute. "I have seen villages in Africa that had vibrant culture and great communities that were disrupted and destroyed by the introduction of electricity," he continues, globally warming to his theme and regretting that African peasants "who used to spend their days and evenings in the streets playing music on their own instruments and sewing clothing for their neighbours on foot-pedal powered sewing machines" are now slumped in front of "Dynasty" reruns all day long.

Anyway, Happy Labor Day! Swapped out a circuit breaker in the main panel, with the little guy's help (he held the flashlight) and talked with him about how electricity freed us from a heck of a lot of labor. And in retrospect - I'm just glad folks like Gar Smith don't have any real control of our economy or political system. They're the sort who romanticize poverty and think it would be great for all, yet somehow would never THINK their lives should be so circumscribed.

One of the best things my father ever did was rent a plot of land from a guy out in the country when I was about 13-14. About two acres it was, and he decided we were going to plant a garden in it and grow some vegetables. We tilled it by hand, by shovel, by hoe in the middle of the Midwest summer. I HATED it then, though I'm glad he did it now. THAT was labor, and I respect the guys who do that. I've also unloaded semitrailers by hand, and think the powered Forklift's a gift from God himself. (Pallet jacks come from either Satan or an Archangel, depending on how they've been maintained.) The guys who lionize the worker and think we all should live like that probably haven't done much in the way of the labor they romanticize. If they did, they'd be singing another tune.

J.

David Limbaugh's put up a rather interesting column with an excerpt from his new book. In it, he points out a few things that I found rather interesting.

The party's decline took firm root in the late 1960s and 1970s, but has accelerated dramatically over the last decade. Today's Democratic Party -- the party of Al Gore, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Harry Reid, Joseph Biden, Edward Kennedy, and Hillary Rodham Clinton -- is the party that sacrificed all moral principle to defend Bill Clinton in the 1990s no matter what the scandal. It is the party that adopted the Clinton mode of conducting politics as an art of personal assassination -- while accusing the other side of doing it.

It is the party that tried to steal the presidential election in 2000, then convinced itself that Republicans did steal it -- and has been paralyzed with bitterness and conducting revenge politics ever since. It is the party that demands bipartisanship and reconciliation, but whips President Bush with the olive branch he extended at their behest.

It is the party whose ex-presidents routinely violate the long-standing tradition against criticizing their successors -- and even do so on foreign soil. (And that's ticked me off no end - J.)

It is the party that falsely claims President Bush is trampling on the Constitution -- while making no secret of its own willingness to subordinate the Constitution to its own political ends, most notably through using the judicial branch to "legislate" policy it cannot achieve through democratic means.

It is the party that isn't honest about its core convictions, knowing that honesty will render it even less electable in a center-right America. It denies its liberalism in favor of the euphemistic "progressivism." But while "progressive" implies "forward-looking," Democrats are mired in the past, reactionary on issues from Social Security (don't change a bankrupt system) to Iraq (don't defeat a hostile dictatorship and try to make it a democracy).

It is the party of elites who look down their noses at red-state America. It is the party that snubs Christians and "values" voters yet claims to be their authentic representatives. It is the party that can't decide whether its electoral difficulties stem from its failure to effectively articulate its message or from the wholesale stupidity of an electorate that's too Christian, too much in favor of traditional family values, and too patriotic.

You might not agree with his thoughts. I'm not sure I agree with them all. I might even buy the book to see what I disagree with. But one thing for sure - the Dems aren't 'progressive' any more, they're static. They aren't going anywhere, preferring a status quo that no longer exists to realistically evaluating what's going on in the world and adjusting path accordingly.

And that's not good.

J.

Gateway Pundit: Denmark Officials Arrest 9 in Terror Raid

Go there for the latest...

I'm hoping this is a meme that'll run its course. But I'm starting to worry. Using bombs as a means of political discourse is exeedingly open to potential misuse.

J.

And it's got a lot more meat than the amorphous "We'll win by doing everything differently" strategy that the DNC seems to be operating under.

Austin Bay Blog � White House publishes new counter-terror strategy document

Full PDF here.

We will not be able to win through negotiation, without the will to back up the carrot with the stick. Bush realizes this, but I don't think Congress and the Senate have quite gotten it down...

J.

You hear that word a lot about Bush. His war plans were incompetent. His economic initiatives incompetent. Hell, anything he does results in screams of rage about his incompetence, and if he did nothing the folks who believe in his incompetence would scream about that.

But I don't think he's incompetent. I believe he's doing the best job he can, in a job that got pretty damn hard on 9/11 and hasn't gotten any easier since. Cal Thomas in an article over at RealClearPolitics - The 'Incompetent' Bush Administration looks at some of the supposed incompetencies, and finds them unpersuasive. His thought is that the Democratic party is so desperate to regain control that nothing else matters. But I don't think Bush even cares much about that. He's got other things - more important things - to worry about than whether Reid or Pelosi are mad at him for one thing or another.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush has repeatedly stressed that the war with terrorism will be long, difficult and frustrating. It is unlike any war the country has fought and so all comparisons - from the time it is taking, to the number of casualties - are imperfect. It is not a war America chose to begin; it is a war the United States could not escape.

This war was unavoidable, because religious fanatics concluded a new strategy was needed after Arab states lost five wars to Israel. They viewed Israel as strong - until the Lebanon fiasco - and the United States weak. That weakness, they determined, wasn't in military might, but in staying power. They calculated the United States lacks the stomach for a long war, especially one fueled by religious fanaticism.

Seeing America as religiously weak and morally challenged, the islamofascists are determined to strike us where we live. The Clinton administration failed to see this war coming, but Democrats do not regard its minimal response to terrorist attacks as incompetence or weakness. Condemnation is reserved exclusively for President Bush, who they say misjudged the war on terror by attacking Iraq. But the war was coming and would have come with or without the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. If the United States and the rest of the coalition does not defeat the insurgents in Iraq, that country will become a terror state and the price we will pay when future attacks against America are launched from an islamofascist Iraq, allied with Iran, will make 9/11 pale in comparison.

At a symposium last spring on "Islam and the West," which was sponsored by The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations noted, "The human species is facing a huge historical, cultural problem... For reasons that have very little to do with the U.S., we need to face the fact that we'll be living with this for a very long time." Mead said it isn't just an Arab problem, but an Islamic world problem, which transcends borders and regions. "If you don't understand this, you're deluding yourself," he said.

But anyway... it's been my experience that folks who complain loudly about other people's competence are usually trying to hide their own incompetence. The louder a Democratic politician hollers about Bush's supposed incompetence, the more inclined I am to think they're a jackass. Cynthia McKinney kind of proves that theory out.

J.

The AP takes the President's speech today (which you can read for yourself here), and morphs it into a supposed admission of guilt.

Power Line: Misreporting the News, Again

So the AP's headline and lead paragraph, suggesting that the President made some sort of guilty admission, are misleading at best. The President's endorsement of the CIA's program was aggressive and effective, but few Americans will learn about it beyond the handful who watched the speech as it was delivered.

The real news that came out of the speech was that the 14 high-ranking terrorists now in CIA custody will be transferred to Guantanamo for criminal prosecution, and that the administration is asking Congress to pass comprehensive legislation authorizing military tribunals and protecting American servicemen and CIA employees from prosecution or lawsuits arising out of their interrogations of captured terrorists.

This is, in large part, a response to the unfortunate Hamdan decision. From a political standpoint, though, the Left won't be happy about the return of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Zubaydah, et al. to the front pages; nor will Democrats in Congress relish having to vote on a vital issue of national security between now and November.

I've got no problems with the bad guys being put in jail. Or interrogated. Or held in 'secret' prisons. And I doubt the AP does either - but their idea of who the bad guys are and mine don't seem to mesh.

J.

And up over at LGF.

lgf: Must ... Not ... Remember ...

And it isn’t just the nuts at Democratic Underground. Forwarded by a reader, here’s the email being sent out to the membership of the Democratic National Committee (I replaced our reader’s name with “lizardoid operative” to protect his/her identity):

Hi,

The ABC television network -- a cog in the Walt Disney empire -- unleashed a promotional blitz in the last week for a new "docudrama" called "The Path to 9/11". ABC has thrown its corporate might behind the two-night production, and bills it as a public service: a TV event, to quote the ABC tagline, "based on the 9/11 Commission Report".

That's false. "The Path to 9/11" is actually a bald-faced attempt to slander Democrats and revise history right before Americans vote in a major election.

The miniseries, which was put together by right-wing conservative writers, relies on the old GOP playbook of using terrorism to scare Americans. "The Path to 9/11" mocks the truth and dishonors the memory of 9/11 victims to serve a cheap, callous political agenda. It irresponsibly misrepresents the facts and completely distorts the truth.

Join me in telling Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger to keep this propaganda off the air.

http://www.democrats.org/page/petition/pathto911/ftkhic

Thanks!

J.

For some reason, certain portions of James Lilek's Bleat today struck a chord. First, there was this.

Or not. I just recall the grim Soviet-flavored mood of people in DC, the sullen indifference, and it makes me glad again to live here. I forget sometimes what an effect it has on your mood when everyone’s generally pleasant. From Hell’s Heart, I Glare At Thee gets old. Immediately.

Yet the girl behind the counter this morning... you could tell SHE was having a bad day. Downcast expression, wouldn't look at her customers - I hope her day gets better.

I think I’ll post the movie I threw together right after 9/11, cobbled together from footage I TiVo’d. I think I’m safe, and won’t have to field angry emails from people who think it’s biased or skewed or ignores the big Caterpillar bulldozers that miraculously appeared on the site within 24 hours, proving that the Shadow Government (Illuminati, Bavarian Masons, PNAC theorists, and the ghost of Jack Ruby’s dog) had pre-positioned materiel to cover up their nefarious plan. I probably won’t watch the ABC movie, because it’s been edited to conform to the complaints of complainers and reflect the fact that the MinProd chocorations were always 15 grams, not 20.

I don’t think this is the “veiled threat” some are calling it, because there’s no way on earth the Democrats would introduce legislation to strip Disney of its broadcast license. It’s like threatening to interrupt the broadcast with winged monkeys. Disney lawyers would say, correctly, well, you and what army of winged monkeys? But I don’t recall Congress getting so deeply involved in the content of a specific television show before. Chilling effect? Heck no, not if the result is the truth. And who can possibly be against the truth.

Just so you know: 9/11 reset the clock for me. All hands went to midnight. I’m interested in what people did after that date, and if the movie shows that before the attack one side lacked feck and the other was feck-deficient, I don't worry about it. It's like revisiting Congressional debates about Hawaiian harbor security in November 1941. Y'all get a pass. The Etch-A-Sketch's turned over. Now: what have you said lately?

Never mind the message it sends to the enemy. Which is - "Hold on, once Bush is out of office and we're in charge you'll be free to turn whatever countries you can into Islamic hellholes like Afghanistan under the Taliban, and all we'll do is look concerned and issue grave pronouncements, and get the UN to supply you with more sanction toilet paper!"

Will wherever the Dems want to drive the country be a destination we'll want? What have they done for us lately? (Aside from trying to hamstring Bush's efforts in the WoT, which depending on your point of view is a good thing or a bad thing.)

Regarding the news as delivered by the professional news readers...

The formulation seems simple: The continued existence of problems at this late date in human history implies that we’re regressing. We’re screwing up, we’ve lost it, and we wander confused amongst the morass of the malaise and vice versa. Hard times, brother. Hard times. I’m not saying they should pretend we live in the Republic of Happy Bunnies Who Pee Champagne, but for God’s sake, sometimes you’d think the bread lines snaked from the Hoovervilles to the soup kitchens again. I’m probably confusing the sugar-coated recollections of early youth with actual history, but I grew up with a sense of optimism and confidence in the country. That really makes me sound like Mr. McFartus shakin’ a whittlin’ stick at the jaunty-hatted younguns, I know. But the icons in my dim early youth, either by absence or presence, were JFK and Humphrey. They weren’t defeatists, and they didn’t give off that rank stink of anger.

Of course, someone who's angry about different things is always unbalanced, right? I’m sure I’m regarded as a delusional tool because I worry more about Islamicists than global warming. But it comes back again to that theme I blathered about a few weeks ago, the idea of the eternal adolescent strain in American culture; to the adolescent, the cynic is the truth-teller. The optimists are the fools. (It takes an adolescent to think that people who believe in nothing are the best judges of those who believe in something.) It’s all a pose, for the most part, but after a while it feeds on itself. Pessimism produces its own coal, stokes its own furnaces. Optimism is harder. Optimism takes work. You have to roll your own.

Man, I wish I could write as well as he does. (You probably do too. (grin))

Pessimism and anger. I don't know how they became entrenched as a Democratic philosophy, but it's not attractive at all. I'm tired of watching the Democrats froth at the mouth with rage over this, that, and other stuff, because after a certain point you look at them and go "Okay - if that's an act, what are you really like? And if it's NOT an act, you're getting pretty damn scary and I'm not going to trust you as a representative." (Case in point, Cynthia McKinney.) I'm tired of the anger, real or feigned. At least marginally, that's one of the reasons I like Bush. He doesn't have his Angerstat(tm) cranked to 11 all the time. And he's optimistic. Yes, the war against Islamic facism will be a long, hard struggle - but there's no option aside from donning the burqua which will satisfy those who want to destroy the West.

Pessimism is fun. It's satisfying. It's EASY. It's always a lot easier to go "Damn, that can't be done so I'm not even going to try" than to go "Well, it'll be hard but I'm going to try - even though I might fail I BELIEVE I can do it." I've done it myself, for years. And it's taken watching the little guy to break me out of a lot of that.

Watch a young child. They try, they fail. They try again. And again. And again. I remember when learning to ride a bicycle I had to stand on an old tire to just get on the thing - then I'd push off, go ten feet or so... and fall over. I got up - and did it again. And again. and again. And again... and I figured out how to do it. I saw the same thing (pretty much) with Aaron over the course of the summer. He went from "I can't do this!" in regards to bike riding to doing 20+ miles in a day.

We can learn a lot from the way children approach life.

Optimism gets you a hell of a lot further than pessimism, even if you take a lot of bruises on the way. I'm going to look at the parties, and I'm going to see where their platforms are aligned. Mostly angry? Mostly optimistic? That's my criteria. I'm not looking for "The Republic of Happy Bunnies Who Pee Champagne" - but 24/7 heavy duty ranting anger's about the best way to lose my vote I can think of. And I don't see much else on the Democratic agenda any more.

J.

Or the only truth that's acceptable?

Apparently (depending on interpretation) there's a fair number of Democrats who don't want ABC's The Path to 9/11 shown without some judicious editing. This doesn't really surprise me (though it DOES disappoint me) because it's seemed for years now like the emphasis is that BUSH (and by extension, Republican policies) was to blame from the beginning for 9/11. (Apparently Osama didn't being planning this until the day Bush was sworn in. Who'da thunk it?) This docudrama shows that the path was pretty long - and had a number of branches in it where things might have gone differently.

History happens. People make what seem at the time to be good decisions, based on the information they have AT THE TIME. (Witness Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Wrong move by far, BUT it seemed the right thing to do at the time.) If Clinton knew what was going to come on 9/11, you think he wouldn't have gotten Osama in the '90s? I believe he would have, because although I disagree with a number of the things he did I don't believe he would have ignored a SERIOUS threat to the US. In the '90s, Osama wasn't a SERIOUS threat - just a low-level one and only slightly louder than the normal background noise of threats the CIA and FBI have to investigate and deal with on a daily basis.

(And please, don't point at the memo stating that Osama was looking to attack the US and say that Bush should have known about and stopped 9/11 - there's a great deal of difference between "Osama wants to attack the US" and "20 hijackers are going to take flights X, Y, Z and K on 9/11, with the intention of flying the planes into the White House, the Pentagon, and the WTC Towers." That ain't, if you'll pardon the expression, gonna fly.)

Anyway, because this puts some of the blame on the Clinton years, a lot of Democrats are up in arms about it and demanding (?) changes be made. More info on that here, here, here, and here.

Nice they're so concerned with accuracy, isn't it?

Here's the letter I sent off to ABC.

Regarding the "Path to 9/11" - please show it in the UN-edited version. I believe that when Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter) complain so much about a docudrama, when the historical record can be checked for accuracy so easily, that there's something pretty damning they don't want seen.

Please show it. You owe it to the public to be the standardbearers for the truth. The objective truth, the whole truth - no matter who comes off looking good or bad. Please show the whole thing.

ABC.com - Contact ABC

History has already happened. Let's make sure the truth is out - because that's more important than either party's feelings. And after 5 years, it's pretty solid as to what went on pre 9/11. Trying to recast things to show one party or the other in a different light doesn't do the public any good at all.

J.

But a glimpse, perhaps, of the future?

America Weakly :: Democrats: In Charge and Charged Up Back From Break, Dem Majority Ready to Roll

Six years ago, President Bush entered office promising to be a uniter, not a divider. The Democrats claimed he was lying, and to their credit, they made no such promises themselves. Reducing the partisan rancor in Washington was simply never part of their agenda.

“We’re not here to make friends,” Speaker Pelosi said shortly after the 2006 election. “We’re here to put the brakes on the President, and we’ll use every means necessary to do it.”

That was certainly a promise kept. Since taking control, Democrats have deep-sixed virtually every proposal that ever came near the White House.

“It’s been amazing,” political analyst Phillip Kass said. “If it even had a whiff of White House approval, it didn’t come to the floor.”

Indeed, some of the President’s long-term pet projects are now dying quiet deaths thanks to Democratic control of the government’s purse strings.

A year ago, after North Korea successfully tested a missile with the ability to reach the continental United States, the President ordered the activation of the nation’s first-ever missile defense system. Today, that system sits deactivated and being dismantled, one of the first programs to fall to the Democratic axe.

“Madeleine Albright showed you can deal with the North Koreans,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden said. “Remember her visit with Kim Jong Il in 2000, when she gave him a basketball signed by Michael Jordan? That shows the kind of open dialogue between responsible leaders we need, not expensive technology to stop their missiles.”

Enjoy! If you can...

J.

Sorry for the title. Couldn't resist...

Armitage On CIA Leak: 'I Screwed Up', CBS Exclusive: Interview With Man Who 'Outed' CIA Agent Valerie Plame - CBS News

(CBS) In an exclusive interview with CBS News national security correspondent David Martin, Richard Armitage, once the No. 2 diplomat at the State Department, couldn't be any blunter.

"Oh I feel terrible. Every day, I think I let down the president. I let down the Secretary of State. I let down my department, my family and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson," he says.

When asked if he feels he owes the Wilsons an apology, he says, "I think I've just done it."

In July 2003, Armitage told columnist Robert Novak that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, and Novak mentioned it in a column. It's a crime to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA officer. But Armitage didn't yet realize what he had done.

Oh, I know. It's all Karl Rove's fault. Either that, or Fitzgerald knew a good gig when he saw one and stretched it as far as he could.

J.

It doesn't really count anyway, right?

Power Line: Did the Dems Threaten ABC?

Between 1993 and 2000, everyone who was paying any attention knew that the threat from Islamic terrorism was grave and getting worse. The catastrophic losses that occurred on Septimeber 11, 2001, could just as easily have happened in 1993, when the first plot to destroy the World Trade Center was carried off successfully, but the terrorists had miscalculated the effect of their explosives, or in 1995, when the plot to destroy eleven American airplanes in flight was thwarted by counter-intelligence work in the Philippines. What did the Clinton administration do in response to this grave threat?

Essentially nothing. Worse, Clinton tried to sweep the problem under the rug, lest it disrupt the surface calm and prosperity for which he was eager to claim credit.

And don't believe ANYONE who points to the historical record and tries to tell you different!

J.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that there's a certain subset of pundits who pay a lot more attention to rhetoric and wordplay, to scoring points against their perceived 'enemies' on the side who do not think like they do, than to what the folks looking to impose their brand of Islam on the world are doing and saying.

And I'm puzzled. Sure, I know that the flamewars of UseNet have basically been translated over into the blogging world - where arguement for weeks and months over the meaning of a phrase can exhaust good will and make for bitter partisanship and once you take an opinion you'll fight tooth and nail any attempt to get you to change it - but doesn't there come a time when it has to STOP? What's it going to take, people, to get some off their biases and aware that there's REALLY a problem? Another 9/11?

The house is on fire. The emphasis should be on putting it out, not arguing about what caused the fire or whether the furnishings will be smoke-damaged or what color you'll paint the walls after rebuilding, or whether we should wait to determine IF there's a fire in the first place.

Yet all some seem to want to do is argue... anything but decide to fight the fire.

That's not going to cut it.

J.

Funny how the party most visibly FOR freedom of speech is heavily involved in censorship.

In New Letter, Clinton's Lawyers Demand ABC Yank Film | TPMCafe

On Friday evening, Bill Clinton's lawyers sent a new letter to ABC chief Bob Iger demanding that ABC yank "The Path to 9/11." We've obtained a copy of the letter, and it reads in part: "As a nation, we need to be focused on preventing another attack, not fictionalizing the last one for television ratings. `The Path to 9/11' not only tarnishes the work of the 9/11 Commission, but also cheapens the fith anniversary of what was a very painful moment in history for all Americans. We expect that you will make the responsible decision to not air this film." Full text of the letter after the jump.

I'm impressed. For all the rhetoric and blather about how the REPUBLICANS are working hard to silence everyone who doesn't agree with them, it's the DEMOCRATS who are doing the heavy lifting.

Bravo, guys. Careful with that ploy - it won't get you anywhere near the points you're expecting, I think, and may well backfire on you. This is real heavy-handed, it hasn't gone unnoticed. And it's funny... but things have a way of popping up on the internet. ESPECIALLY the things you don't want anyone to see.

ABC's "Path to 9/11": The Video Democrats DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE | Redstate

I've watched the first two segments. They're based on the historical record. I can understand why they want them squashed - it makes the Clinton administration look weak and indecisive.

It would have been better if they'd owned up to it - not try to hide it. They're going to get a lot of backlash if they get this cancelled.

Enjoy.

J.

Oddly enough, a lot of people have claimed things are worse now than before 9/11. I tend to disagree, and StrategyPage - Winning Al Qaeda's War So Far details out some of those reasons.

September 11, 2006: In the five years since the unprovoked attacks on September 11, 2001, there is a natural question: Who's winning? A quick look at how the landscape of the world has changed can answer the question. The United States has made major strides in the war on terrorism in five years, although much remains to be done.

On September 12, 2001, the day after the attacks, there were seven countries designated as state sponsors of terror by the State Department: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, and North Korea. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was not recognized by the United States government, and thus Afghanistan was not formally listed by the State Department. This makes for a total of eight countries that sponsored terrorism.

Five years later, three of these governments that sponsored terrorism are now off the board. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq were taken down in military campaigns. In December, 2003, Libya proceeded to abandon its support for terrorism and its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. This represents 37.5 percent of the governments sponsoring terrorism as of September 11, 2001. The biggest loss al-Qaeda suffered were the training camps in Afghanistan. This reduced their ability to get well-trained terrorists to replace those lost in murder-suicide attacks or those who were captured or killed. In Afghanistan and Iraq, five elections have been held, despite al Qaeda's best efforts to disrupt them. Now, al Qaeda faces two emerging democracies in the Middle East that are growing stronger.

We need to understand that it's going to be a LONG war. A generational war, with occasional flareups. And I'm sorry to say it, I don't think a lot of our population's got the patience for it. We're too used to instant gratification. It's not something that can be ordered from Amazon.com, express shipped and showing up on our doorstep the next day. It WILL take a long time to get here.

J.

For the firefighters and first responders. For the soldiers who liberated Afghanistan and Iraq. For those fighting a war that some would insist doesn't exist. For those killed by bastards with no honor or decency. For the ones who fight in the shadows with statistical tools, who listen and try to make sense out of a bit here and a bit there, and who try to stop what can only be imagined until it actually happens...

We honor your name here at Rusted Sky. This one's for you, guys.

CR�XSHADOWS | Winterborn (This Sacrifice)

Dry your eyes and quietly bear this pain with pride
For heaven shall remember the silent and the brave
And promise me they will never see, the fear within our eyes
(my eyes are closed)
We will give strength to those who still remain

So bury fear, for fate draws near
And hide the signs of pain
With noble acts, the bravest souls
Endure the heart's remains
Discard regret, that in this debt
A better world is made
That children of a newer day might remember
And avoid our fate

(I've waited all day in the pouring rain, but nobody came, no, nobody came)

And in the fury of this darkest hour
We will be your light
You've asked me for my sacrifice
And I am Winter born
Without denying, a faith is come
That I have never known
I hear the angels call my name
And I am Winter born

Hold your head up high-for there is no greater love
Think of the faces of the people you defend
(you defend)
And promise me, they will never see the tears within our eyes
(my eyes are closed)
Although we are men, with mortal sins, angels never cry

So bury fear, for fate draws near
And hide the signs of pain
With noble acts, the bravest souls
Endure the heart's remains
Discard regret, that in this debt
A better world is made
That children of a newer day might remember
And avoid our fate

And in the fury of this darkest hour
We will be your light
You've asked me for my sacrifice
And I am Winter born
Without denying, a faith in God
That I have never known
I hear the angels call my name
And I am Winter born

And in the fury of this darkest hour
I will be your light
A lifetime for this destiny
For I am Winter born
And in this moment..I will not run
It is my place to stand
We few shall carry hope
Within our bloodied hands
(bloodied hands)
And in our Dying, we're more alive-than we have ever been
I've lived for these few seconds
For I am Winter born

And in the fury of this darkest hour
We will be the light
You've asked me for my sacrifice
And I am Winter born
Without denying, a faith in man
That I have never known
I hear the angels call my name
And I am Winter born

Within this moment now
I am for you, though better men have failed
I will give my life for love
For I am Winter born
And in my dying
I'm more alive, than I have ever been
I will make this sacrifice
For I am Winter born.

J.

Bush lays out ‘struggle for civilization’ - 9/11: Five Years Later - MSNBC.com

Bush, in a prime-time address from the Oval Office, staunchly defended the war in Iraq even though he acknowledged that Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Funny, never thought he was. Al Q were the central instigators about that, with Saddam being of intermittent help and assistance of the "Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend" sort. But Bush DID claim that Saddam was fomenting terrorism, and that was true.

Bill Clinton’s rejoinder
“We had an astonishing moment of unity in America and around the world,” former President Clinton told a Jewish conference in Washington. That has given way to bitter political divisions between Democrats and Republicans. Many nations that rushed to stand with the United States now accuse the Bush administration of failing to honor human rights, tolerance and diversity of cultures.

Still, dozens of lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike, joined on the steps of the Capitol Monday to remember the attacks, singing “God Bless America” as they had five years ago.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday, “Five years later, we have to continue to move forward with unity, urgency and in the spirit of international cooperation, because we are not yet fully healed and not yet as safe as we should be.”

Any more 'cooperation' from Pelosi and the Democrats and we'll be at a complete standstill. But that wouldn't be bad, necessarily, as long as Bush is hurt by it. The rest of the country be damned - anything to get rid of Bush!

We had a moment of unity... then the Dems realized what happened, pulled away and went to wash their hands of the whole thing.

By the way - you know how Al Quaeda #2's been blathering about more attacks? Against the gulf states and Israel?

Have you ever noticed that all they do is TALK about big attacks? Sure, the Madrid bombings and the London bombings were bad, but the body count was under 100. Maybe they're really planning on something - or maybe they're just trying to keep their OWN morale up... because they've been pretty beaten down lately.

Either way, here's the text of Bush's speech. Contrast it to Zawahiri's rants. Figure out which is better grounded in reality.

J.

I said we were in a long war. That's the only way to look at it. Whittle the terrorist actors down, one (or more, I've seen reports that up to 7 were captured with him...) at a time. And judging from the comments, catching this guy will knock the stuffings out of the Taliban and their buddies in Afghanistan.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Reported Captured (The Fourth Rail)

On the day of the fifth anniversary of the 9-11 attack, Coalition forces score a high value target in Afghanistan. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the commander of Hezb-i-Islami and ally of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, has been captured during a joint U.S. and Afghan Army raid in “eastern Afghanistan.” Hekmatyar, contrary to his rhetoric gave up to the Coalition forces without a fight. Hekmatyar's arrest is said to be part of an 'ongoing operation.'

Hekmatyar has been designated by the U.S. Department of State as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist “ and “has participated in and supported terrorist acts committed by al-Qa’ida and the Taliban.” The 9-11 Commision report indicates Osama bin Laden kept lines of communication open with Hekmatyar. “bin Laden apparently kept his option open, maintaining contacts with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who, though an Islamic extremist, was also one of the Taliban's most militant opponents,” states the report.

J.

Why, with all the documentation surrounding the 9/11 attacks, there's a certain portion of folks who are SURE that they didn't happen the way they did.

I've seen all sorts of things - that it's impossible for people to hijack jets with box cutters, that the heat of the fires in the towers wasn't enough to melt steel, that there was no air cover by NORAD was proof that the US/Bush WANTED an attack...

And it's all so damnably stupid and contrived. Conspiracy theories, on the face of things, require people who'll carry things out and NOT talk about them afterwards. Yet it's pretty clear that THIS government we have not only has a hard time keeping secrets, they've got a hard time finding people who won't actively seek out reporters and blab whatever they know for five minutes of fame.

So why do the conspiracy theorists seem to be gaining ground? Rationally, they shouldn't be. The facts are out there, the information is certainly open-source, why are people working hard to delude themselves?

Hell if I know. But this, found at CONSPIRACY CRANKS By JAMES B. MEIGS - New York Post Online Edition: Postopinion is interesting... and kind of depressing.

Rather than grapple with the huge preponderance of evidence in support of the mainstream view of 9/11, they tend to focus on a handful of small anomalies that they believe cast doubt on the conventional account. These anomalies include the claim that the hole in the Pentagon was too small to have been made by a commercial jet (but just right for a cruise missile); that the Twin Towers were too robustly built to have been destroyed by the jet impacts and fires (so they must have been felled by explosives), and more. If true, these and similar assertions would cast serious doubt on the mainstream account of 9/11.

But they're not true. Popular Mechanics has been fact-checking such claims since late 2004, and recently published a book on the topic. We've pored over transcripts, flight logs and blueprints, and interviewed more than 300 sources - including engineers, aviation experts, military officials, eyewitnesses and members of investigative teams.

In every single case, we found that the very facts used by conspiracy theorists to support their fantasies are mistaken, misunderstood or deliberately falsified.

Here's one example: Meyssan and hundreds of Web sites cite an eyewitness who said the craft that hit the Pentagon looked "like a cruise missile with wings." Here's what that witness, a Washington, D.C., broadcaster named Mike Walter, actually told CNN: "I looked out my window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. And I thought, 'This doesn't add up. It's really low.' And I saw it. I mean, it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon."

We talked to Walter and, like so many of the experts and witnesses widely quoted by conspiracy theorists, he told us he is heartsick to see the way his words have been twisted: "I struggle with the fact that my comments will forever be taken out of context."

Could it be that we're seeing the end result of the last 30 years of educational trends, where thinking critically hasn't exactly been encouraged? Concentration on feelings, not facts - shades of gray instead of black and white, all sorts of feel-good attempts to make school as painless as possible... could they have ended up with a generation that cannot look at the facts surrounding something and actually make a decision about what to think? Who have been taught to not judge a situation based on what they see and know, and have confidence that the judgement is correct - and then act on that judgement? Who have been taught to simply look for the person with the loudest drum and flock to the sound of it?

This worries me. If we ignore rational thought for irrational feelings, how long before we start ignoring science for superstition? (Some would argue that we are already doing so... But I don't see that with the advances being made in science... yet.) What IS, IS, and though you may wish things were otherwise, to refuse to face reality (as opposed to being 'reality-based') will not protect you from that reality.

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion," Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was fond of saying. "He is not entitled to his own facts." Yet conspiracy theorists want to pick and choose which facts to believe.

J.

Comments closed due to spam.

Not terribly surprising, if true.

Think Progress � Air America To Declare Bankruptcy, But Progressive Radio Remains Strong

It's kind of funny, in a way - I remember it being marketed as an alternative to 'conservative radio', which was supposedly monopolizing the airwaves. I guess they figured that people would gladly listen to them - because, after all, THEY told the truth. And perhaps they did and do tell the truth as they see it... but it bore little resemblance to the truth everyday Americans see. And in the end, I wonder if they went further left than where they started, to hopefully catch the majority of folks out there who believed just like they do... and lost the ones they had.

By the way, I remember another 'majority' that tried hard to be a massive political force... which ended up being sidelined and essentially dumped by the electorate when THEY went what the poor unwashed sheeple thought to be too far.

The moral? Speech is free. And you can get pretty much anyone to subsidize an outlet for that particular speech. But eventually, the person who gave you the money will be wanting something in return, and if you don't have the listeners to provide some sort of power base (or even provide commercial revenue) then you've learned a hard lesson. Speech is free - but unless you're in a dictatorship like Cuba or North Korea you're going to have a hell of a time making people listen if they don't want to.

J.

Some days you just can't win. And when you've tied your own hands, with rules of engagement that the enemy sure won't follow, such an action may please the politically correct crowd, but it makes you wonder just how you're supposed to fight a war.

U.S. declines Taliban funeral target

"During the observation of the group over a significant period of time, it was determined that the group was located on the grounds of (the) cemetery and were likely conducting a funeral for Taliban insurgents killed in a coalition operation nearby earlier in the day," the statement said. "A decision was made not to strike this group of insurgents at that specific location and time."

While not giving a reason for the decision, the military concluded the statement saying that while Taliban forces have killed innocent civilians during a funeral, coalition forces "hold themselves to a higher moral and ethical standard than their enemies."

You know, there's such a thing as taking moral and ethical standards to a ridiculous extreme. For example - if you look at the Geneva accords, there are certain protected spaces. Hospitals and houses of worship are considered to be sanctuary spaces and not to be targeted in the normal course of prosecuting a war. However, those spaces cannot be used to store arms and ammo, and are not to be used as fighting positions. To use them as such strips them of their protected status, and they become fair targets.

The photo shows what NBC News says are 190 Taliban militants standing in several rows near a vehicle in an open area of land. Gunsight-like brackets were positioned over the group in the photo.

NBC News had quoted one Army officer who was involved with the spy mission as saying "we were so excited" that the group had been spotted and was in the sights of a U.S. drone. But the network quoted the officer, who was not identified, as saying that frustration soon set in after the officers realized they couldn't bomb the funeral under the military's rules of engagement.

Defense Department officials have said repeatedly that while they try to be mindful of religious and cultural sensitivities, they make no promises that such sites can always be avoided in battle because militants often seek cover in those and other civilian sites.

Damned if they did, damned if they didn't. I'd rather have seen them splattered all over the cemetary.

But at least we were respectful of the local customs! That's FAR more important than actually killing the enemy.

Right?

Update: After due consideration, I'm thinking the folks at the trigger made the right call - considering the ROE they had to work with. They followed orders and SOP, even when it was plainly NOT to our advantage to do so. I don't agree with that particular aspect of the ROE, but ... they followed orders. Whoever decided that particular aspect is probably kicking himself right now. And I've got a pair of steel-toed boots I'd gladly lend him.

J.

And someone else would see a complete defeat. The truth's likely somewhere in the middle. Over at Captain's Quarters, they examine the premise that for all the praise at first - Arabs are seeing Hezbollah's battle with Israel as a real 'lose-lose' situation.

Arabs Increasingly See Lebanon As A Loss

At the imposition of the UN Security Council cease-fire resolution, the West almost unanimously considered the war in Lebanon a disaster for Israel. Most analysts insisted that Israel's failure to destroy Hezbollah amounted to a humiliation and worried about the energizing effect Hassan Nasrallah's victory would have on radical Islam's popularity in the region. These analysts would be surprised to learn that Arabs increasingly view Hezbollah's war as a disaster as well -- but a disaster for Arabs:

Oh, well. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch of people.

J.

And the fall is going to be spectacular. The Corner on National Review Online has a bit more info.

Also, looks like the Party Hearty dictator's having some medical problems.

The Steel Curtain between NK and the rest of the world's got a few holes in it. And the economy's in such a state that if it weren't for the US, they'd have probably collapsed by now.

Of course, there's skepticism about that, and thoughts about what will happen when it does. Time will tell...

J.

Um, NOT!

The American Thinker

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sharia?
September 15th, 2006

Steal a loaf of bread and one or both of your upper extremities will be hacked off at the wrist. Get caught holding hands with your same-sex fiance and the only thing the two of you will ever share again is a slow, painful, death. Are you a married woman who’s just suffered the brutality of gang-rape? Well, you’ll find either four males your attackers were stupid enough to allow to bear witness to the crime, or find yourself guilty of adultery—a fate far worse than anything you suffered during the actual assault. Adulterers, and others deemed accountable for acts “incompatible with chastity,” are wrapped head-to-toe mummy style, buried in sand up to their chests, and slowly and brutally stoned to death by their neighbors.

Welcome to the merciless world of Islamic Sharia Law, where religious “scholars” sit as judges and juries. This medieval system of “justice” oversees countless stonings (video), beheadings, crucifixions, and often-fatal floggings in Islamic theocracies each year. But the system is not confined to those lands only.

A growing number of countries with Muslim majorities are, while maintaining secular constitutions and penal codes, imposing religious law for family and civil matters. Less harsh than complete Sharia, indeed; yet this bifurcation creates what amounts to an Unequal Rights Amendment to the law. Women are treated as property, existing under the total command of, and fear of legal beatings from, their typically polygamous husbands or fathers. In divorce settlements, females living within this sexual apartheid rarely receive half that of men in property and wealth distribution and generally lose custody of their children—particularly boys.

Persuade me otherwise - if you can.

J.

So. Gitmo. A place so horrible that it makes the gulags look like Club Med? Or a place so great that it makes Club Med look like a gulag? The truth is likely at neither extreme, but you'd have a hard time telling it from a lot of the 'news' broadcast about it.

And I've got to admit I think the Geneva Conventions are a good idea - but they were supposed to be reciprocal, with both sides in a conflict at least paying nominal respect to the ideas enumerated in them. As history has shown, that has been much more the exception than then rule. Now I'm afraid they're looking more like the UN - great in theory, but the practice has failed to live up to the expectations.

In A DEADLY KINDNESS By Richard Miniter, we get a look at what's going on in Guantanamo with the detainees. As I said, I think the Geneva Conventions are a good idea - but this... goes way beyond the ideals of the treatment of prisoners/POWs. And I know it's a comforting fantasy to say that we NEED to show how much better we are than the enemy in order to ensure our OWN soldiers aren't mistreated if captured, but the history of the conflicts we've been in since the Geneva Accords were written show that pretty much no matter how WE treat prisoners, our enemies pay little to no attention to what their obligations are on how to treat the prisoners THEY take. We give them three hots and a cot, and they maybe use a clean knife when beheading. Somehow, that doesn't seem exactly equitable.

A DEADLY KINDNESS By RICHARD MINITER - New York Post Online Edition: Postopinion

ON the military plane back from America's most fa mous terrorist holding pen, the in-flight film was "V for Vendetta," a screed that tries to justify terrorism. It was a fitting end to a surreal, military-sponsored trip.

The Pentagon seemed to be hoping to disarm its critics by showing them how well it cares for captured terrorists. The trip was more alarming than disarming. I spent several hours with Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., who heads the joint task force that houses and interrogates the detainees. (The military isn't allowed to call them "prisoners.")

Harris, a distinguished Navy veteran who was born in Japan and educated at Annapolis and Harvard, is a serious man trying to do a politically impossible job. I spoke with him at length, and with a dozen other officers and guards, and visited three different detention blocks.

J.

Otherwise Muslims will get angry. Because they're peaceful, you know, those Muslims. And they wouldn't force conversion.

They'll burn you in effigy just for saying that it used to happen.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Muslim leaders demand apology for Pope's 'medieval' remarks

Pope Benedict XVI was last night facing angry demands from Muslims that he apologise for a speech in which he appeared to say the concept of jihad was "unreasonable" and quoted a medieval ruler who said Muhammad's innovations were "evil and inhuman".
Protests swept across the Islamic world and the furore threatened a scheduled visit by the Pope to Turkey.

The Vatican spokesman, Federico Lombardi, told Vatican Radio: "It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to undertake a comprehensive study of the jihad and of Muslim ideas on the subject, still less to offend the sensibilities of the Muslim faithful."

Is this what we're going to have to expect? Anytime anyone says anything critical of Islam you'll have marches in the street? And threats of violence?

In Turkey, however, where the Pope is due to visit in November, the deputy leader of the ruling party said Benedict had "a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the middle ages". Salih Kapusuz added: "He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."

Representatives of the two million Turks in Germany, where the comments were made, also expressed deep annoyance. The head of the Turkish community, Kenan Kolat, said they were "very dangerous" and liable to misunderstanding.

The row broke out over a lecture given by the Pope on Tuesday at his old university at Regensburg. His central theme was one on which he has touched repeatedly in recent months - the need to reconcile faith and reason.

He quoted from a little-known medieval text recording debates between a Byzantine emperor and an educated Persian. The Pope recalled that the emperor had told his adversary: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Benedict acknowledged the "startling brusqueness" of the remark, but went on to endorse fully the view that "spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable".

Not to make fun of things (Oh, hey, who am I kidding? What can you do with extremism like this? You've got basically two choices - cower in fear of giving offense, or laugh at it, and I'm not going to cower. At least, not yet!) but I'm reminded of an old advertising slogan for Clairol. "The closer he gets, the better you look." Only with Islam, the further back you are, the better it looks. Looking at it from up close, you see a lot of things you're a lot better off not seeing.

Update: Over at Captain's Quarters I found the following bit of analysis...

Benedict never says this explicitly, but Islam's demands that all criticism be silenced turns doctrine into dictatorship, which rejects God on a very basic level. A central tenet of most religions is that humans lack the divine perfection to claim knowledge of the totality of the Divine wisdom. Islam practices a form of supremacy that insists on unquestioned obedience or at least silence of all criticism, especially from outsiders, and creates a violent reaction against it when it occurs.

Islam bullies people into silence, and then obedience. We saw this with the Prophet Cartoons, a series of editorial criticisms that pale into insignificance when seen against similar cartoons from the Muslim media regarding Christians and especially Jews. It is precisely this impulse about which Benedict warns can occur in any religion, but modern Muslims show that they are by far the widest purveyors of this impulse.

Update 2 - Saw this in our two local papers - both emphasized how ticked off Muslims were, didn't print the Pope's remarks. Wouldn't you think that what he actually SAID would be important in the context of "Muslim Rage"? I'm getting pretty tired of that, by the way, and think if they're that insecure about their religion that they need to examine themselves instead of screaming at everyone else to never say a bad word about Islam. I'm willing to respect a religion that gives respect - and I'm seeing precious little of that from Islam.

J.

Simply put - she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the wrong religion.

Italian nun slain by Somali gunmen - Yahoo! News

MOGADISHU, Somalia - An elderly Italian nun who devoted her life to helping the sick in Africa was shot dead by two gunmen at a hospital Sunday in an attack possibly linked to worldwide Muslim anger toward Pope Benedict XVI.

Sister Leonella, 65, was shot in the back four times by pistol-wielding attackers as she left the Austrian-run S.O.S. hospital at lunch time after finishing nursing school for trainee medics. Her bodyguard was also slain.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, which came just hours after a leading Somali cleric condemned the pope's remarks last week on Islam and violence.

Yet it seems like Muslims world-wide are trying hard to prove that the Pope's remarks are correct. The rage isn't sensible - far from it. It's like a tantrum thrown by kids who are told they can't do something and they know they can get away with a lot of it.

Found this also.

The Rosett Report: And the Offended Shall Inherit the Earth?

It’s a good rule of thumb that there is no one more easily offended than your average despot and surrounding acolytes. Tyranny by nature requires grand fictions, and when anyone dares point out that the emperor has no clothes, or the emperor is living it up while dressing his minions in suicide belts, or the emperor is murdering his own subjects and honing technologies and methods to blackmail, subjugate or kill anyone else in reach, then the emperor and his cohorts take huge offense. If you happen to live under their sway, they chuck you in prison. If you are outside the immediate reach of their secret police and terror squads, they do what they can to maneuver the debate onto their terms. They — who apologize for nothing — demand apologies.

J.

Lt. Cmdr. Smash had a few choice words. He's been trying to get a respectful dialog going with them, to little avail. They're at Walter Reed to support the troops, don't ya know, but their idea of 'support' is to ignore them, mock them... turn their back son them. But remember, they support the troops and you shouldn't question their patriotism.

The Indepundit

"You should be ashamed of the way you treated those soldiers. Ashamed! If that is what you think supporting the troops means -- turn your backs on them when they come to talk to you -- then you are either a fool, a coward, or a hypocrite. I leave it to each of you to decide which word fits you best.

"The charade is over. We all know that you do not support the troops. If you did, you wouldn't turn your backs on them. You disrespected my brothers, on our front porch. So let me be absolutely clear: You may have a slip of paper from the City of Washington recognizing your right to stand here, but you are not welcome here.

"I want you to think about what I've said. Your vigil here does not support the troops. It does not comfort them in any way. It only aggravates them. When you go home tonight, reflect on the pain that you have caused. And if you have a shred -- an ounce -- of human decency, don't come back.

"Goodnight, ladies."

J.

Sigh. Just when you THINK they start to get it...

Head-in-the-Sand Liberals - Los Angeles Times

In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.

Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. And yet liberals in the United States and Europe often speak as though the truth were otherwise.

We are entering an age of unchecked nuclear proliferation and, it seems likely, nuclear terrorism. There is, therefore, no future in which aspiring martyrs will make good neighbors for us. Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies.

Increasingly, Americans will come to believe that the only people hard-headed enough to fight the religious lunatics of the Muslim world are the religious lunatics of the West. Indeed, it is telling that the people who speak with the greatest moral clarity about the current wars in the Middle East are members of the Christian right, whose infatuation with biblical prophecy is nearly as troubling as the ideology of our enemies. Religious dogmatism is now playing both sides of the board in a very dangerous game.

While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant. Being generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity, liberals should be especially sensitive to the dangers of religious literalism. But they aren't.

As it is, I think he'll get a lot of nastygrams for this - even though he is, as he points out - quite liberal himself.

Perhaps I should establish my liberal bone fides at the outset. I'd like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years — especially with respect to its waging of the war in Iraq, its scuttling of science and its fiscal irresponsibility.

But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

Yet he does close with a few words of hope...

The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.

To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.

Fanatical Islam's a branch of the religion (yes, for now I'm STILL operating under the theory that most Muslims are indeed peaceful and good people who respect others) that embraces the knife, and simply loves watching these idiots work hard at disarming those who would offer resistance. But you know something? I DO see hope in his last words - a realization that, like it or not, we're seeing a fight between civilization and 8th century barbarism. And (reading into it) that if you're going to have to choose sides, you might want to pick out the one which would let you live your lifestyle undisturbed,

You'd think he'd have the sense to realize it would be Western civilization. I think he does - but he's going against a lot of conditioning there.

J.

Independent Online Edition > World Politics

Chirac calls for threat of Iran sanctions to be lifted

"Nice little country you have here, Chirac. Be a shame if anything would happen to it. You wanna do what we say, or something bad might happen."

Just a theory, of course - but why else a 180? Diplomacy doesn't stand a chance if it isn't backed up with SOMETHING - and nothin' ain't somethin'.

J.

I heard about this shortly after I got into work today...

Thailand's PM ousted in military coup - Yahoo! News

BANGKOK, Thailand - In the dead of night and without firing a shot, Thailand's military overthrew popularly elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday amid mounting criticism that he had undermined democracy.

The sudden, well-orchestrated coup — the first in 15 years and a throwback to an unsettled era in Thailand — was likely to spark both enthusiasm and criticism at home and abroad. The military said it would soon return power to a democratic government but did not say when.

Striking when Thaksin was in New York at the U.N. General Assembly, army commander Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin sent tanks and troops into the drizzly, nighttime streets of Bangkok. The military ringed Thaksin's offices, seized control of television stations and declared a provisional authority loyal to the king.

...

Sondhi, who is known to be close to Thailand's revered constitutional monarch, will serve as acting prime minister, army spokesman Col. Akarat Chitroj said. Sondhi, well-regarded within the military, is a Muslim in this Buddhist-dominated nation.

Sondhi, 59, was selected last year to head the army partly because it was felt he could better deal with the Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand, where 1,700 people have been killed since 2004. Recently, Sondhi urged negotiations with the separatists in contrast to Thaksin's hard-fisted approach. Many analysts have said that with Thaksin in power, peace in the south was unlikely.

J.

We grant the media a lot of credibility when reporting the news. We have to - we're not therre and they are (supposedly) impartial reporters of actual happenings. However, a cursory glance at the record can spot at least a couple of major events where the media decided to toss out the factual record for sheer conjecture and introduced 'fake but accurate' evidence to support their claim. (Rathergate springs to mind, the Jenin Massacre, lots of photos of the Israeli-Hezbollah war...)

And that raises an interesting question - when they tell you what's going on - are you ALWAYS getting an honest take on things?

Politics Central: MSM, NGOs AND PARANOIA

Due to the complexity of modern democratic societies, the MSM managed to achieve a virtual monopoly first on credibility-granting and then, even when losing its own, on the withdrawal or corrosion of other people’s, organizations’ and institutions’ credibility. They have thus managed to corrode much of the democratic institutions’ legitimacy.

There’s, however, an even worse consequence to all this. In a world where people feel attracted to strains of thought that explain in simple and intentional terms complex and impersonal phenomena, the MSM, by working as a machine or mechanism the function of which is to automatically cast suspicion on anything and everything, became a source less of information than of perpetual mistrust. They do not have to spread conspiratorial theories themselves, though they don’t always refrain from doing so. It’s enough for them to suggest that anything that happens is done by someone and that anything that’s done by anyone is motivated by something suspicious. Putting always in doubt whatever is clear, looking always for something hidden where what’s obvious or mere chance might explain things perfectly well, turning rational questioning into an inquisitorial prosecution, perverting method into obsession, what they have been doing is creating the ideal breeding ground for all kinds of paranoia.

It's hard to believe that fuzzy thinking could become so ingrained in our society, but it's happened.

J.

When the high-tech junkies yawn at your pet project.

Cambridge SoundWorks 820HD radio premieres at CEDIA - Engadget

Cambridge SoundWorks has thrown its hat into the HD Radio ring with its 820HD, which debuted last week at CEDIA. HD Radio, the new digital radio format, for those of you keeping score at home, is now available from about 1,000 stations who are simulcasting in HD and in traditional formats -- which is still less than 10 percent of all American radio. Furthermore, the price of a new HD radio still remains significantly higher than a pocket or tabletop analog radio. How much higher? Well, this newest offering will set you back $300 when it becomes available in November -- and that little $20 "transistor" radio your Mom gave you in 1987 still works great, doesn't it? So yes, we're still listening to National Public Radio and baseball games in analog, thank you very much.

Among HD's flaws - short range, limited selection of channels, and commercials. As one commenter put it...

It will be an especially hard sell considering that the "HD" (high definition?) monniker is a cruel joke. The signal is compressed as no digital signal has been compressed before. HD Radio boldly goes where none of us is likely to follow.

J.

In an odd show, In Britain we got a great view of what media relations with the unassimilated Muslim community are like.

Daily Express: The World's Greatest Newspaper

Reid's UK Muslims appeal 'hijacked'

Home Secretary John Reid's attempt to connect with British Muslims was hijacked by radical protesters claiming he was an "enemy" of Islam.

Others attending a speech he gave to a 30-strong group of Muslims in Leyton, east London, were angered by calls for Muslim parents to look out for the signs of brainwashing in their children in the fight against terrorism.

Mr Reid was 10 minutes through his speech when well-known extremist Abu Izzadeen, clutching the hand of a small boy, interrupted him. The Home Secretary had just listed a number of terror attacks around the world when Izzadeen began his tirade and forced him to stop.

"How dare you come to a Muslim area when over 1,000 Muslims have been arrested?" he said. "You are an enemy of Islam and Muslims, you are a tyrant. Shame on all of us for sitting down and listening to him."

The Home Secretary stood and watched as police officers ushered him out of the room, followed by hoards of cameras, photographers and reporters. Continuing his diatribe, Izzadeen accused the Government of state terrorism and said Mr Reid, Tony Blair and George Bush with their crusade could "all go to hell".

After the furore died down, Mr Reid said: "This is not a new experience for me or for those involved in politics. There will always be people who will not be prepared to take part in a dialogue, but who will try to intimidate and shout down. They are not confined to the Muslim community."

But Mr Reid had only just re-started his speech when a second protester, radical Anjem Choudary, stood up to protest.

"Muslims do not need British values," he said. "We believe Islam is superior, we believe Islam will be implemented one day. It is very rich for you to come here and say we need to monitor our children when your Government is murdering people in Iraq and Afghanistan."

In his speech Mr Reid stressed that the terrorists were waging a "violent and indiscriminate war" and warned that communities needed to be more aware of signs of terrorist activity. He urged Muslim parents to look out for the "tell-tale signs" of radicalisation in their children.

"These fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for one thing," he said. "Grooming them to kill themselves in order to murder others. Look for the tell-tale signs now and talk to them before their hatred grows and you risk losing them forever."

I've seen posts calling the radical Muslim community in the UK insane. But I think it depends on what you call insanity. From an outside point of view, I think they're a bit nuts to expect the country to conform to their desires, regardless of the wishes of the non-Muslim neighbors.

From an inside point of view - they're very cunningly using British customs and political structure to try to get what they want.

So, are they insane? Depends on which side of the mirror you're looking on.

J.

Bush on Democrats: 'They will raise your taxes'�|�Politics News�|�Reuters.com

TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - President George W. Bush charged on Thursday that Democrats would raise taxes if put in control of the U.S. Congress, turning to a familiar campaign theme as he seeks to stave off Republican losses in November.

"If they get control of the House of Representatives, they'll raise your taxes. It'll hurt our economy. And that's why we're not going to let them get control of the House of Representatives," Bush said.

If Democrats take control, will they raise taxes? Based on past experience, I'd say yes. And the results will be predictable. (It also makes me wonder if the dotcom boom of the 90s would have been even bigger if Clinton hadn't raised taxes at the beginning of it.)

But what of the economy now? Is it good, or not? It looks like it's pretty good.

Poor-Mouthing Prosperity

Out of the stagflation and malaise of the 1970s emerged a new and improved American economic system--less regulated and unionized, more globalized and entrepreneurial than the old triumvirate of Big Government, Big Business and Big Labor that preceded it. And ever since, a considerable portion of the political left's intellectual energy has been spent in poor-mouthing the ensuing prosperity.

Complaints about increasing inequality and a supposedly declining middle class have formed a familiar litany since the days of Ronald Reagan. Now Jacob Hacker, a political science professor at Yale, seeks in "The Great Risk Shift" to call attention to another alleged failing of the new, more market-oriented economy: rising levels of risk and insecurity. "Over the last generation," he writes, "we have witnessed a massive transfer of economic risk from broad structures of insurance, including those sponsored by the corporate sector as well as by government, onto the fragile balance sheets of American families."

The unions, in a lot of cases, have managed to eliminate jobs because the cost of contracted pay and benefits outran the income the individual member brought in. (Saw that at the plant, where it became much cheapr to contract out manufacturing the subassemblies - and ended up with better quality control, too.) Steel mills in PA couldn't compete against foreign imports, and closed down. (Ancedotal story - apparently the steel union guys got a 'one-time' deal arranged for the members to take a two-month paid vacation one contract cycle, in addition to regular vacation and sick days. The next contract cycle it became an annual requirement. A couple of years later, the plant went under. I'm sure there was no correlation between the two events.)

Job security's a good thing. However - what's the price we as a society are willing to pay for it? The USSR had job security - but at a terrible cost to human initiative and happiness under a very stratified, locked-down system. We have less - but with a great deal of freedom to strive for more, in whatever direction we see fit.

Seems to me like freedom - even if accompanied by 'insecurity', is better than stability without freedom. And you can't exactly say we're hurting, either...

But if we're talking about security from material deprivation, that's a different story. Let's start with the biggest risk of all: that of premature death. Back in 1970, during Mr. Hacker's golden age of economic stability and risk-sharing, the age-adjusted death rate stood at 12.2 deaths per 1,000 people. By 2002, it had fallen more than 30%, to 8.5 per 1,000. In particular, infant mortality plummeted to 7.0 from 20.0, while the number of Americans killed on the job dropped to three per 100,000 workers from 18.
Next, look at the two main indicators of middle-class status: a home of one's own and a college degree. Between 1970 and 2004, the homeownership rate climbed to 69% from 63%, even as the physical size of the median new home grew by nearly 60%. Back in 1970, 11% of Americans 25 years of age or older had a college or higher degree. By 2004, the figure had risen to 28%.

As to consumer possessions, the following comparison should suffice to make the point. In 1971, 45% of American households had clothes dryers, 19% had dishwashers, 83% had refrigerators, 32% had air conditioning, and 43% had color televisions. By the mid-1990s all of these ownership rates were exceeded even by Americans below the poverty line.

No matter how the doom-and-gloomers torture the data, the fact is that Americans have made huge strides in material welfare over the past generation. And with greater wealth, as well as improved access to consumer credit and home equity loans, they are much better prepared to deal with the downside of increased economic dynamism.

J.

Before he gets killed. Of course, it depends on his bodyguards - if they're willing to stop a bullet for the man - and if he's really serious on this.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Abbas: Unity government to recognize Israel - Mideast/N. Africa - MSNBC.com

UNITED NATIONS - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday that the planned national unity government will recognize Israel.

I'll believe this one when I see it.

J.

If we aren't winning hearts and minds, let's get some money instead. After all, you constantly hear about how we're trying to form an 'American Empire' - yet we've been notably reluctant to exact tribute on the old school way. Maybe we could learn something from them Romans regarding that.

Michael Williams -- Master of None: Tourism or Tribute

It's obvious that doing good by freeing gazillions of people from tyranny hasn't won us any points with the world, so I say it's time to stop making friends and start making money, Roman style. Rather than freeing all these people, protecting Europe from commies and Nazis, policing the oceans, and saving Tsunami victims, all gratis, it's time to start extracting tribute from every country that has benefitted from American foreign policy. Here's the tribute menu:
- Saved you from Nazis: 10% GDP
- Saved you from Communists: 10% GDP
- Special Commie and Nazi combo: 15% GDP
- Freed you from insane Muslim dictator: 20% oil discount in perpetuity, plus free airbases
- Every time one of your citizens bombs American property: $1 billion cash or 10 times the damage cost, whichever is higher
- Each one of your ships that transports goods without being attacked by pirates, Nazis, or Commies: 10% of the value of the goods
- Rescued your country from a major natural disaster: 10% GDP for the first disaster, 5% each additional disaster

Hell, if we're going to be accused of going for empire, well - empires aren't cheap to establish or maintain. No sense always shelling out for our efforts, when we can get others to finance them.

J.

It looks like 1&1 Hosting is undercutting everyone else, making up in volume what they don't take in for user fees. Take a look at the specials that 1&1 Internet Inc. Hosting has going.

$2.24 a month gets you a domain name, 5 GB space, and 250 GB traffic a month.

$3.74 a month gets you 2 domain names, 100 GB web space, 1000 email accounts and 1,000 GB traffic.

$7.49 a month gets you 3 names, 200 GB web space, 2000 emial accounts and 2,000 GB traffic.

Check them out by clicking on the links to the right. (Yes, I'll get a kickback. No, it won't be a big one. Yes, I'll be grateful. No, I won't split it with you. Empires are expensive to maintain, after all!)

J.

The end result's pretty predictable.

FOXNews.com - 1 Dead, 18 Missing in Magnetic Train Derailed in Germany - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

LATHEN, Germany — A high-speed magnetic train carrying 29 people went off a test track in northwestern Germany on Friday, killing at least one person and injuring others in a new blow to hopes for magnetic-levitation technology. A town councilman said the number of dead was expected to rise substantially.

Trains using maglev technology can reach 270 mph, but it was not immediately clear how fast the train was traveling. One such train in Shanghai caught fire last month.

Most of the 29 people were in the front of the train when it crashed head-on with a maintenance wagon on the elevated track.

Hermann Broering, a member of the town council, said 10 people had been rescued and one dead body was recovered. As far as the 18 others were concerned, he said: "We must prepare ourselves for the fact that they are not living any more."

J.

Is Osama dead?

Word is out that he might be, of typhoid fever. That'd be good, if true - I understand typhoid's a pretty bad way to go. Not as fast as a bullet, or as painful as being fed into a shredder, but unpleasant nonetheless.

However, what does this spell for worldwide Jihadism? The figurehead of the movement confirmed dead, by a disease that the lowliest grunt in the US military gets vaccinated for the first week of basic training. Dead of a disease usually associated with unsanitary living conditions - when he was trying to set up a worldwide caliphate with himself as the pivot man. Likely dying pretty much unknown in a cave or mud hut somewhere - when he was aiming for palaces and the adulation of the masses.

He wanted to be ruler of the world. Now, he's worm food.

As he goes, so shall we all - but while most try to leave the world a little brighter for having been in it, it can truely be said that the world brightened as this sorry waste of carbon breathed it's last, and the worldwide weight of evil lightened a touch with his departure.

Rest in hell, Osama Bin Laden.

J.

Chavez. Ahmadinejad. Two nuts that vomit bile that taste great to some. You'll notice I've been a bit quite on those two lately - simply because it's hard to either parody or condemn them. My folks brought me up not to make fun of the mentally ill, and the following shows that at least Chavez doesn't realize how nonsensical he sounds.

Bush will kill me: Chavez | | The Australian

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez accused his American counterpart George W. Bush overnight of ordering his assassination for calling the US leader the devil during his speech at the United Nations this week.

"The devil appears very sulphurous, and a few people say that he has given the order to kill me," Chavez said during a speech before scientists in western Venezuela.

Yet you're still alive.

Maybe Bush isn't the 'devil' you think he is - or maybe you're just projecting and thinking that if someone called YOU a 'devil' you'd have them offed immediately so naturally Bush is going to do the same thing.

You know, for a malignant, overbearing, freedom of speech-stifling dictator, Bush just plain fails to live up to his billing. You come into NY, talk trash, and then leave unmolested. We've got thousands of people calling Bush every name in the book in public - and they're still walking around. We're constantly warned about the theocracy that Bush is ready to impose... yet there's still freedom to worship as you choose, or even to not worship without any penalty whatever. So either Bush is incredibly devious in his manipulation of the American Public, or he's actually not planning all the things he's supposedly planning, and won't do them - but it could all be a magnificent plot and he's REALLY going to take over, start up the concentration camps and impose a crackdown any day now...

It's funny. During the Clinton years we had all the folks saying Clinton was going to cooperate and hand over this country to the UN, creating a world government that would stifle mankind. There were all sorts of clues to that - stickers on the back of highway signs to guide UN troops, black helicopters and the like... You change presidents, it doesn't happen, and it's like a switch is thrown and the crazyness goes the other way.

J.

Think of it as a first, small step...

My Way News

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, New Mexico (Reuters) - A rocket packed with cargo is set to blast off into space from a desert launch range in New Mexico, ushering in what its backers say is a new era of cheap public access to the stars.

UP Aerospace plans to launch SpaceLoft XL rocket into space early on Monday from Spaceport America, a remote desert launch site a few miles from the town of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico.

The telephone pole-sized rocket will hurl around 50 items of payload including a Ziploc bag of Cheerios, some cremated remains and several high school science projects, into a brief suborbital flight 70 miles above the earth.

J.

Well, this should give any potential suspects time to bug out. All it takes is one phone call, after all. And with cell phones being as popular as they are...

This is just nuts. It's like the cops asking a crack addict whether or not they should raid a suspected crack house.

Police to brief Muslims before terror raids - Sunday Times - Times Online

POLICE have agreed to consult a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests. Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.

Members will be security vetted and will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown. They will not have to sign the Official Secrets Act.

This is a very bad move.

J.

Or - "It's all about ME! And if you think I didn't do enough, well, you were wrong!"

It's hard to miss the controversy over Pres. Clinton's appearance on Fox News yesterday. I didn't see it, and don't really care to - I've heard enough about it and heard sound bytes from it to form my opinion.

Basically, Clinton lived up to what I've thought of him all along. While he was in office, he was the Party Prez. A real good-time Charlie - the type of guy who could alway find a party (or organize one) but he was reactive instead of proactive when it came to governing, and while he was great at 'feeling our pain', he didn't do much to alleviate it and he didn't stick around for the hangover when the dotcom bubble burst. (Not that he could have anyway - two terms and you're out...)

He wasn't a good President. He wasn't a BAD President (not on the order of Warren G. Harding) but he wasn't a good one. 6 years out, and his legacy is clear - the moving finger of history has written and moved on. He failed to keep the country safe. In mitigation, and to be very fair, Osama was a minor nuisance during the Clinton watch. It was only in 2001 he really showed how dangerous he was. And under Bush's watch, that danger's been reduced.

But Clinton? Clinton's shown how shallow his facade was.

J.

Heard it on the radio - a snippet of a news interview for some Democratic organizer.

Naturally, the interview turned to the WoT. And the same thing occured as I've come to expect - the litany of Bush's failing... and pretty much nothing as far as differing plans. Except for one thing that struck a chill up my back.

She really, really wants to see the draft come back. Because we need the bodies to fight the WoT.

At that point I realized the interviewer didn't have clue one about that particular issue. Firstly, the Armed Services are getting what they need using the regular recruiting methods. Second - I don't want to see us return to the conscript army model. There's too many high-tech weapons systems that could be rendered useless by someone who doesn't want to be there. The days of trench warfare and getting two lines of soldiers to stand up and go bangity-bangity each other are long gone. No, a draft would only be appropriate if the situation were dire indeed - and it's very far from that.

I'm knee-jerk on this, I'll admit. Any candidate, any party who starts talking about how the draft would be a GOOD thing isn't looking at the good of the country as a whole - they're looking at getting enough college and high-school folks angry enough to go out and demonstrate and stop the war. After all, it worked in the '60s, didn't it? And it'll work again!... or so they think. However - if it becomes apparent and clear that we NEED a draft, and as I said we're far from it, I'll support it.

J.

Man, they get algorithims that can do this...

United Press International - NewsTrack - Computers taught to sort opinion from fact

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is funding a research project designed to teach computers to scan text and then sort opinion from fact.

The project involves Cornell University Professor of Computer Science Claire Cardie and associate professors of computer science Janyce Wiebe of the University of Pittsburgh and Ellen Riloff of the University of Utah.

The consortium is one of four University Affiliate Centers to conduct research on advanced methods for information analysis and to develop computational technologies that contribute to national security.

"Lots of work has been done on extracting factual information -- the who, what, where, when," explained Cardie. "We're interested in seeing how we would extract information about opinions."

The scientists will use machine-learning algorithms to give computers examples of text expressing both fact and opinion and then teach them to tell the difference.

Heck, they'd probably unionize.

J.

Sometimes when you're in a hole, the best thing to do is keep your moth shut lest you dig it deeper.

RICE BOILS OVER AT BUBBA By IAN BISHOP Post Correspondent - New York Post Online Edition: Seven

September 25, 2006 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday accused Bill Clinton of making "flatly false" claims that the Bush administration didn't lift a finger to stop terrorism before the 9/11 attacks.

Rice hammered Clinton, who leveled his charges in a contentious weekend interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel, for his claims that the Bush administration "did not try" to kill Osama bin Laden in the eight months they controlled the White House before the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false - and I think the 9/11 commission understood that," Rice said during a wide-ranging meeting with Post editors and reporters.

The secretary of state also sharply disputed Clinton's claim that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for the incoming Bush team during the presidential transition in 2001.

"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," Rice responded during the hourlong session.

Her strong rebuttal was the Bush administration's first response to Clinton's headline-grabbing interview on Fox on Sunday in which he launched into an over-the-top defense of his handling of terrorism - wagging his finger in the air, leaning forward in his chair and getting red-faced, and even attacking Wallace for improper questioning.

Um. Wait. Different TV appearance. I've read about the one with Wallace. Clinton had the chance to show statesman-like qualities... and went the other way.

No, I don't give him much credit for his anti-terrorism stance pre 9/11. He was occupied with other things. And let's be real - pre 9/11, Osama Bin Laden wasn't a high-priority target for either administration. Clinton was too laid-back to really go after him, and Bush had a recession to deal with that had it's roots in Clinton-era policies and the dot-com bust.

But that won't stop Clinton from trying to rewrite the way it's perceived. It does him no credit that he'd even try.

H.

Lies the heart of a stone cold killer.

Teddy bear kills 2,500 - MSNBC.com

J.

Funny how the NYTimes is calling 'foul' on this...

New Campaign Ads Have a Theme: Don’t Be Nice - New York Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Republicans and Democrats began showing at least 30 new campaign advertisements in contested House and Senate districts across the country on Tuesday. Of those, three were positive.

For Republicans, it was the leading edge of a wave of negative advertisements against Democratic candidates, the product of more than a year of research into the personal and professional backgrounds of Democratic challengers.

The result of the dueling accusations has been what both sides described on Tuesday as the most toxic midterm campaign environment in memory. It is a jarring blend of shadowy images, breathless announcers, jagged music and a dizzying array of statistics, counterstatistics and vote citations — all intended to present the members of Congress and their challengers in the worst possible light. Democratic and Republican strategists said they expected over 90 percent of the advertisements to be broadcast by Nov. 7 to be negative.

While Democrats have largely concentrated their efforts on the political records of Republicans, the Republicans have zeroed in more on candidates’ personal backgrounds.

/sarc

J.

Funny how the NYTimes is calling 'foul' on this...

New Campaign Ads Have a Theme: Don’t Be Nice - New York Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Republicans and Democrats began showing at least 30 new campaign advertisements in contested House and Senate districts across the country on Tuesday. Of those, three were positive.

For Republicans, it was the leading edge of a wave of negative advertisements against Democratic candidates, the product of more than a year of research into the personal and professional backgrounds of Democratic challengers.

The result of the dueling accusations has been what both sides described on Tuesday as the most toxic midterm campaign environment in memory. It is a jarring blend of shadowy images, breathless announcers, jagged music and a dizzying array of statistics, counterstatistics and vote citations — all intended to present the members of Congress and their challengers in the worst possible light. Democratic and Republican strategists said they expected over 90 percent of the advertisements to be broadcast by Nov. 7 to be negative.

While Democrats have largely concentrated their efforts on the political records of Republicans, the Republicans have zeroed in more on candidates’ personal backgrounds.

/sarc

J.

Looks like Al Q isn't being seen as the heroes of the hour.

History News Network

POLL: AL QAEDA LOST HEARTS AND MINDS IN IRAQ

J.

Looks like Al Q isn't being seen as the heroes of the hour.

History News Network

POLL: AL QAEDA LOST HEARTS AND MINDS IN IRAQ

J.

Looks like Al Q isn't being seen as the heroes of the hour.

History News Network

POLL: AL QAEDA LOST HEARTS AND MINDS IN IRAQ

J.

Frankly, that's what I think the Democratic Party's been trying to do for some time - marginalize itself to the point where it can shriek and gibber and throw feces, yet never have to take on the real responsibility of actuially having to come up with ideas and proposals that are effective in real-world scenarios. Witnesss, if you will, the bizzare case of Joe Lieberman - who went from being a VP nominee to a political outcast in six years, because he realized that real-world results are more important than fantasy doctrines which consisted primarily of "We get rid of Bush and get the Democratic Party in control, and suddenly everyone in the world will looooooove America again and everything in this country will be wonderful!!"

He was, alas, slightly more realistic than that and figured out after 9/11 that we couldn't stick our head in the sand on an international level. For that realization, he got shown the door. Now there's apparently some Democrats who are trying to rewrite the story of his 'departure'.

Winds of Change.NET: A New Definition Of 'Chutzpah'

Political seer Matt Stoller writes about Joe Lieberman (in response to Lieberman's interview at Pajamas Media):

Lieberman is throwing the whole party under the bus. It's time for 2008 candidates to step up.

Matt, let me say here and publicly that this proves you're an idiot. Lieberman didn't throw the party under the bus - you tried to throw him under it, and are going to fail, and are being petulant about it.

But there's one advantage of marginalizing your party that isn't readily apparent...

You NEVER have to take one the onerous responsibility of actually fixing any of the problems you so loudly identify.

Welcome to the world of eternal childhood - where you can complain loudly to mommy and daddy and demand they fix whatever you're mad about, and then you can be resentful as hell if they DO fix it, or they DON'T. Either way, you 'win'. And with Joe Lieberman's defeat, and Lamont's apparent disadvantage in the polls - it looks like the Democrats are setting themselves up to 'win' again this year, and possibly in 2008 if they don't turn around. Many more 'wins' like 2004, and they'll never have to worry about being taken seriously again.

J.

Frankly, that's what I think the Democratic Party's been trying to do for some time - marginalize itself to the point where it can shriek and gibber and throw feces, yet never have to take on the real responsibility of actuially having to come up with ideas and proposals that are effective in real-world scenarios. Witnesss, if you will, the bizzare case of Joe Lieberman - who went from being a VP nominee to a political outcast in six years, because he realized that real-world results are more important than fantasy doctrines which consisted primarily of "We get rid of Bush and get the Democratic Party in control, and suddenly everyone in the world will looooooove America again and everything in this country will be wonderful!!"

He was, alas, slightly more realistic than that and figured out after 9/11 that we couldn't stick our head in the sand on an international level. For that realization, he got shown the door. Now there's apparently some Democrats who are trying to rewrite the story of his 'departure'.

Winds of Change.NET: A New Definition Of 'Chutzpah'

Political seer Matt Stoller writes about Joe Lieberman (in response to Lieberman's interview at Pajamas Media):

Lieberman is throwing the whole party under the bus. It's time for 2008 candidates to step up.

Matt, let me say here and publicly that this proves you're an idiot. Lieberman didn't throw the party under the bus - you tried to throw him under it, and are going to fail, and are being petulant about it.

But there's one advantage of marginalizing your party that isn't readily apparent...

You NEVER have to take one the onerous responsibility of actually fixing any of the problems you so loudly identify.

Welcome to the world of eternal childhood - where you can complain loudly to mommy and daddy and demand they fix whatever you're mad about, and then you can be resentful as hell if they DO fix it, or they DON'T. Either way, you 'win'. And with Joe Lieberman's defeat, and Lamont's apparent disadvantage in the polls - it looks like the Democrats are setting themselves up to 'win' again this year, and possibly in 2008 if they don't turn around. Many more 'wins' like 2004, and they'll never have to worry about being taken seriously again.

J.

Frankly, that's what I think the Democratic Party's been trying to do for some time - marginalize itself to the point where it can shriek and gibber and throw feces, yet never have to take on the real responsibility of actuially having to come up with ideas and proposals that are effective in real-world scenarios. Witnesss, if you will, the bizzare case of Joe Lieberman - who went from being a VP nominee to a political outcast in six years, because he realized that real-world results are more important than fantasy doctrines which consisted primarily of "We get rid of Bush and get the Democratic Party in control, and suddenly everyone in the world will looooooove America again and everything in this country will be wonderful!!"

He was, alas, slightly more realistic than that and figured out after 9/11 that we couldn't stick our head in the sand on an international level. For that realization, he got shown the door. Now there's apparently some Democrats who are trying to rewrite the story of his 'departure'.

Winds of Change.NET: A New Definition Of 'Chutzpah'

Political seer Matt Stoller writes about Joe Lieberman (in response to Lieberman's interview at Pajamas Media):

Lieberman is throwing the whole party under the bus. It's time for 2008 candidates to step up.

Matt, let me say here and publicly that this proves you're an idiot. Lieberman didn't throw the party under the bus - you tried to throw him under it, and are going to fail, and are being petulant about it.

But there's one advantage of marginalizing your party that isn't readily apparent...

You NEVER have to take one the onerous responsibility of actually fixing any of the problems you so loudly identify.

Welcome to the world of eternal childhood - where you can complain loudly to mommy and daddy and demand they fix whatever you're mad about, and then you can be resentful as hell if they DO fix it, or they DON'T. Either way, you 'win'. And with Joe Lieberman's defeat, and Lamont's apparent disadvantage in the polls - it looks like the Democrats are setting themselves up to 'win' again this year, and possibly in 2008 if they don't turn around. Many more 'wins' like 2004, and they'll never have to worry about being taken seriously again.

J.