Occidentality (Blogger)

Midnight News -- 9/3/06

2006-09-03T00:40:00.000-05:00

Hillary Clinton may back away from running for President. She is probably realizing she can't win the Presidential race without first winning her party's nomination, and that her exceptionally plotted steps towards the White House have not made her popular with the Democrat core of liberal-left voters. My sense is that they hate both her positions on the Iraq war and her phony, empty-suit personality. Not fertile ground for her to win their votes. The puffery that supports Clinton's fame can now be seen for what it is: great for winning safe seats like the Demcratic Senate seat for New York, and for maintaining a high profile amongst the nation's editorialists, but useless for actually winning a contested race.

An American has renounced of his home to join Osama Bin Laden in the caves of Afganistan. He suggests we all convert to Islam.

The nascent terror group that kidnapped two FOX News reporters has only just begun it's war on Jews and the West. They plan more assaults on non-Muslims: "'Any infidel blood will have no sanctity,' the group said in the statement." If they were American, they would be roundly denounced by all quarters; since they are Palestinians, their murderous hatred will be excused, forgiven, and even praised by many American leftists.

Russians riot against the presence of Chechen immigrants in their northern city after two Russians are killed in a Chechen restaurant.

A 24-year-old American basketball player for the Sydney Kings of Australia has been charged with rape.

Hugo Ready To Throw A Tantrum

2006-09-02T23:54:00.000-05:00

Venezuela will hold presidential elections on December 3, and the tyrannical Hugo Chavez is preparing to take action should his popularity continue to slip. Upon returning from his most recent overseas effort to build an anti-American alliance, he claimed that his opponents were preparing a coup d'etat.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he had uncovered a plot to topple his government, blaming his political opponents and calling them "lackeys" of the United States.

Chavez's mention Friday of a coup plot prompted whistles and shouts from thousands of supporters who filled the streets to welcome him home after a foreign tour in which China, Malaysia and Syria offered to support Venezuela's bid for a U.N. Security Council seat.

He called opposition presidential candidates "lackeys of U.S. imperialism."

His viciousness and his simpleminded attacks may betray his fear. As the article notes, his popularity has been polled at about 50%. This is ridiculously low for a man who has spent the better part of a decade destroying civil institutions and who has built an army of dependents reliant on his government's generosity.

His popularity may be even lower than 50%. From Publius Pundit:

But since the arrival of Zulia-state opposition presidential candidate Manuel Rosales, an authentic democratic alternative from an independent part of the country not affiliated with the old guard Chavez unseated seven years ago, something has shifted the wind.

Suddenly, Chavez has lost those padded middle-region areas of support he had earlier and now seems to be down to the left-leaning hardcore ahead of December's presidential election. He's got only about 27% support now, and he may even lose that. So explains pollster Alfredo Keller, whom Daniel Duquenal at Venezuela News & Views assures us from experience is reliable. He's got all the details and some analysis of his own in this post here.

Chavez perhaps senses he might go the way Ferdinand Marcos should the election proceed, so he has begun to contrive a way to stop the election completely. That it may involve the unjust imprisonment of the opposition, or even their deaths, would not concern a man such as he.

Technorati tags: /Venezuela | Hugo Chavez

Mystery Surrounds Attack On National Guardsman

2006-09-02T18:16:00.000-05:00

Pierce County, Washington police are investigating a brutal attack on a National Guardsman. The soldier, who was attacked while wearing his uniform, claims he was beaten by a group of anti-war thugs who called him a "baby-killer". A witness had cast doubt on the Guardman's testimony, that witness has now contradicted his own testimony and the police are back at "square one":

The witness told police he saw several men in uniform beat a man in civilian clothes, but later changed his account to back the guardsman.

Investigators said the witness's stories were inconsistent with the guardsman's, and they are back to "square one" in the investigation.

A story headlined "Witness Claims Guardsman Attack Not What It Seems", presumably referring to the witness above, has shown up on Google searches since the day the attack was reported, but the URL of the story turns up broken.

Bizarrely, the father of Jon Lester, a young and promising starting pitcher for the Red Sox recently diagnosed with cancer, is a sergeant with the Pierce County Sheriff's Department.

Technorati tags: United States | the left

Euro Terror News

2006-09-02T16:58:00.000-05:00

14 people were arrested in England on suspicion they were plotting terror attacks. 12 were arrested at a "halal Chinese" restaurant in London:

The restaurant was full of people, including children, when around 40 police officers wearing riot gear raided it shortly after 2200 BST on Friday.

Diners were told they were being questioned under the Terrorism Act.

Each was asked to give their name and address, after which those arrested were taken away in handcuffs.

The police also investigated a plush Islamic school in rural England:

According to its website, for an annual fee of £900, the Jameah Islameah school provides its students with "an opportunity of a lifetime in the form of Islamic teacher training".

It continues that "these trained individuals will then be qualified enough to teach in local Masajeds and Madares".

The school was formerly a convent: fools rush in where angels abandon their treading.

Last weekend it emerged that radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza booked a weekend for him and his followers at the school after he saw an advert for the retreat in a London mosque.

Bilal Patel, the school's imam, said he was immediately worried about Hamza's behaviour and on what impact the sight of the cleric and his 15 followers would have on the neighbours.

In Germany, investigators have concluded that the men arrested in a train bombing plot were motivated to kill innocent westerners by the Mohammed cartoons:

The publication of caricatures depicting the Prophet Mohammed was the trigger for a failed attempt to bomb passenger trains in Germany, police have concluded.

One of the main suspects, Youssef Mohammed el Hajdib, who was arrested in Germany on August 16, "interpreted (the cartoons) as an insult to Islam by the western world," Joerg Ziercke, the director of Germany's federal police, told Focus magazine in an interview to be published on Monday.

He and the other main suspect in the failed plot, Jihad Hamad, who was arrested in Lebanon on August 24, were also influenced by the killing of the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in June, the police chief said.

How ignorant they are to understand the actions of one magazine from a small country as the action of the entire western world. What brittle weaklings they are to be so offended by cartoons.

Back in England, life is becoming increasingly dangerous for Jews.

On Thursday an all-party parliamentary inquiry will state that anti-Semitic violence has become endemic in Britain, both on the streets and university campuses. The report will call for urgent action from the Government, the police and educational establishments.

The religion of peace is behind many of the attacks:

Mark Gardner, of the Community Security Trust, said: "In July, when the conflict in Lebanon began, we received reports of 92 incidents, which was the third-worst month since records began in 1984." In 2000 the monthly average was between 10 and 30 incidents.

[...]

The July incidents "were more dispersed than usual", Mr Gardner said. "It is usually a small number responsible for a large number of attacks, but these were very widespread across the country and included graffiti attacks on synagogues in Edinburgh and Glasgow."

The attackers, when visible, are from across society, he said. "When it's verbal abuse, it's just ordinary people in the street, from middle-class women to working-class men. All colours and backgrounds. We hardly ever see incidents involving the classic neo-Nazi skinhead. Muslims are over-represented."

The British elite, and the American elite as well, need to explain how it was they could ever believe that multi-culturalism is beneficial. All it seems to do is provide a cover for people who want to bully, tyrannize, and kill.

Midnight News -- 9/2/06

2006-09-02T00:11:00.000-05:00

The Mexican left has decided to cast aside one of their country's greatest political traditions to protest an election that no one but them believes was corrupt. Current Mexican president Vincente Fox was literally left to fume in the wings as leftist legislators threw a tantrum that prevented him from giving his annual state of the nation address. He instead presented the legislature with a copy of his speech and gave the address on television.Exploiting the fact that only 9% of the polling places were reviewed, they hope to prevent the Mexican public from noticing that the Mexican electoral court completely rejected all of their claims of electoral wrongdoing.

Democrats and liberals seem all too gleeful over the extent of sectarian violence in Iraq, where about 3,000 Iraqis have died each month. The end result for America needs to be a stable Iraq; the end result for Democrats is to have their party control the White House and Congress. When they are willing to sacrifice votes to have the former, I may be willing to tolerate the latter. I see no evidence that they are actually interested in preventing a civil war in Iraq. The report that has them so exicted is here.

Kofi Annan would like us to believe that Syria, which has already decided to build a Hezbollah-like force in the Golan Heights, is interested in peace and the security of Israel. Annan can't leave the U.N. fast enough.

A Japanese corporation may be responsible for helping North Korea and Iran develop nuclear weapons.

In the Bihar province of India, suspected criminals are regularly lynched. "Jagender Prasad, a businessman, said: 'People are fed up with growing lawlessness and rising crimes. As the police do little to curb the crimes, they (people) have started punishing the criminals.'" Whether we wish to admit it or not, this is democracy in action: the state having abdicated, the people become the state.

The IRS made a mistake on its taxes, and should be forced to pay a penalty. The penalty should be precisely the amount of the refunds mistakenly awarded American taxpayers.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Don't Believe Your Lying Eyes

2006-09-01T22:22:00.000-05:00

People have been using the term Islamofascist since 9/11. In my opinion, this is as accurate as the phrase German fascist, indicating a mixture of the peculiar traits of a national culture with the peculiar traits of fascist ideology. Now that Donald Rumsfield and George Bush have used the term to describe the threat we face from Iran and other Muslimn states, the term is considered politically incorrect, and various groups not concerned with the persistence of American values are trying to shame us away from the word.

That the word is accurate can be proven not only be correctly defining Islam as type of nation -- the umma, after all, is a national community -- and correctly identifying the traits of fascistic Islamic movements. It is also proven by the actions of those who wish us to stop using the word. By controlling the language, they wish to control our right to resist their incessant demands.

In Rosemont, Illinois, just outside Chicago and near O'Hare airport as well as my office, the Islamic Society of North America is holding a convention. Its newly elected female leader, Ingrid Mattson, is one of those people trying to purge "Islamofascist" from our vocabulary:

"But I think that when we then bestow that term upon them we only make the situation worse and somehow give validity to their claims which we need to deny and reject," she said at the opening of the group's 43rd annual convention.

To a point, she has a point. The terrorists to which she refers do claim authority over all Muslims, and it is perhaps wrong to indulge their claim by appearing to acknowledge its validity. To her credit, her demand we stop using the word is put in practical terms, and is free of the whiny victimhood that usually accompanies such demands.

However, to use a different word would be false. The Islamic community, as I noted, is a nation, perhaps even more than it is a religion. The terrorist movements within that nation are fascist in nature. To demand we ignore this fact is to demand we ignore reality. This perhaps is her real goal. It would make the demands her organization no doubt wishes to make on the rest of us more palatable. (For the record, I would say that any ethnic or religious group intends to make such demands, and that this is not peculiar to Islamic groups.)

I would be inclined to sympathize with her, were it not for the fact her group has invited a true totalitarian to speak to their assembly, with no acknowledgment whatever of the evil he represents:

The Islamic Society drew its own fire for inviting former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who is expected to address the convention Saturday.

"Khatami ... behaved as an enemy of America and our most cherished values," said Jay Tcath, vice president of the Chicago Jewish Federation in a statement. "It is disturbing that any American organization would honor him by providing such an important platform."

Tcath said American Jews remember "the egregious 1999 imprisonment and circus trial of 13 Iranian Jews on trumped-up charges of espionage for Israel," which happened under Khatami's presidency.

Mattson said the group hopes to show Khatami "how the American Muslim community has dealt with issues of religious freedom and tolerance and perhaps he can carry some of that message back."

Khatami, whose receipt of a visa was announced this week by the State Department, also plans to attend a U.N. conference in New York and to speak on religion's role in promoting peace at the Washington National Cathedral during his trip to the United States.

The persecution of minorities in general and Jews in particular on trumped up charges of treason is a hallmark of a fascist state. Iran is also an Islamic state, in fact referring to itself as the Islamic republic. If Mattson wishes to purge our language of the useful and descriptive term Islamofascist, she will have to stop indulging real Islamofascists herself.

Technorati tags: Iran | Islamofascist

A Few Good Jihadis

2006-09-01T20:52:00.000-05:00

An appeals court handed down a decision affecting the ocnviction of a group of American jihadis who attempted to fight for the Taliban in 2001, after 9/11. The convictions were upheld, and one case was referred back to the district court because his sentence was too light. The decision, available here as a PDF, is fascinating for two reasons.

First, laying out the facts behind the charges, we can see the cultishness and self-absorption of conservative Islam.

Between 1999 and September 11, 2001, Khan, Chapman and Hammad [the appellants] attended the Dar al Arqam Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia where Ali Timimi ("Timimi"), a primary lecturer, spoke of the necessity to engage in violent jihad1 against the enemies of Islam and the "end of time" battle between Muslims and non-Muslims. Several of the attendees, including Chapman and Hammad, organized a group to engage in activities in preparation for jihad. (pg 4)

Right next door to the Capital, while we were all obsessing over stained dresses, a group was indulging in end times fantasies. Earlier in the Clinton administration, a similarly Armageddon minded group was treated to a siege.

In the spring of 2000, members of the group began simulating combat through paintball exercises and practices at firing ranges. By early summer, the group was meeting every other weekend. Chapman, Hammad, and others brought AK-47 style rifles to paintball training and also practiced marksmanship. Members were required to follow three rules: don't tell anyone, don't bring anyone, and invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if questioned by the police. pg 4)

Not unlike the 9/11 hijackers attending at flight school, they took advantage of a mundane recreational activity to plot violence against us. The appellate judge did not buy their arguments that their little paintball sessions were merely recreational.

What's a little disappointing is that the FBI was aware of their paintball activities in 2000, but did nothing about the appellants. This is after one of them had traveled to Pakistan, joined Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), and fired on Indian positions in Kashmir.

9/11 galvanized the appellants. Timmini argued that the attacks should not be condemned. He was thereafter turned out of the Dar al Arqam Islamic Center and tapes of his speeches destroyed. Shortly thereafter, the appellants decided to travel to Pakistan to make their way to join the Taliban. They failed to do so, and although they spent time in Pakistan's terror training camps, they eventually returned to the U.S. They were not arrested and charged until 2003.

The second interesting aspect of the decision is how cowardly and weak these men appear now that they are faced with punishment for their crimes. It may be that their actions and arguments are solely an attempt to manipulate the legal system, and that they don't really believe what their lawyers are saying. But it is also possible that they are, deep down, rats scurrying from a fire.

First, one of the conspirators turned on the others.

Caliph told the FBI that paintball was used for jihad training and that the reason the trainees had acquired AK-47-style rifles was that they were the type of weapon used overseas. When Hammad learned of the admissions, he called a colleague with the "bad news" that Caliph had "cracked."

Later, they made utterly preposterous arguments for their innocence. One of them attempted to challenge the finding that he knew that LET was engaged in violent jihad by saying that although he provided material support to them, he never learned the nature of LET as an organization. The court did not indulge this argument:

The evidence reflects that LET broadly disseminated its goals for the destruction of India, America, and Israel on its web site and elsewhere. Khan was personally acquainted with Singh, an LET official, whom he assisted in purchasing paramilitary equipment. Even if Khan remained unaware of the nature of LET's activities before training in its camps, he was certainly aware of it by the time he returned to them after leaving temporarily because the LET camps were full of descriptions of LET's violent exploits. (pg 11)

Another attempted to argue that the group's paintball exercises had nothing to do with training to fight for the Taliban.

This assertion, however, is belied by the record. Ample evidence demonstrates that Hammad continued to train people in his paintball group after he learned that some members of the group were going to work with LET in the fight against India. In light of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the district court expressly declined to "credit [Hammad's] testimony that paintball was strictly for recreation and physical fitness." J.A. 3207. We conclude that sufficient evidence supports Hammad's conviction for knowingly providing material support to LET in the form of trained personnel. (pg 15)

These appellants are no different than the members of a criminal gang. Once caught, once challenged, they give up on their cause and start looking out for themselves. Timmini, their spiritual leader, had told them that only cowards would turn from war against the U.S. Eventually, these men turned.

The case should also serve as a reminder to all of us of the importance of allowing law enforcement to pursue cases like this. The court does not provide detail in this decision as to why the FBI zeroed in on these jihadis in 2003. Since they had ties to LET overseas, and had provided LET material support, we can speculate that the NSA surveillance program might have intercepted some of their communications.

If that's the case, then thank God the New York Times editors hadn't turned on us earlier. Who knows what this bunch might have gotten up to if they hadn't been caught.

Technorati tags: a | b

John Travolta Really Likes This Dude

2006-09-01T19:39:00.000-05:00

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

How this will go over with the infamously anti-gay "church" of scientology I have no idea. I suppose their legion of attorneys can come up with some way of spinning this photo, but I can't see anyone really buying it. It's probably best they just start with the lawsuits and bully the tabloid that ran with this story into a retraction.

Come to think of it, I should probably call my lawyer.

Via Wuzzadem.

Technorati tags: John Travolta | Scientology | homosexuality

Jon Lester Has Cancer

2006-09-01T19:14:00.000-05:00

22-year-old Red Sox starter Jon Lester has been diagnosed with cancer and will start treatment immediately:

Red Sox left-hander Jon Lester has been diagnosed with a treatable form lymph node cancer.

The Red Sox made the announcement on behalf of Lester's family shortly after 6 p.m. ET on Friday.

The specific condition is known as anaplastic large cell lymphoma, and Lester is expected to begin treatment within the coming week.

"Jon and his family wish to thank all those involved in his care at Massachusetts General Hospital," the family said through a statement. "Our gratitude also extends to the Red Sox organization, which has provided Jon and his family much needed support during this ordeal.

"We ask that you respect our need for privacy during this difficult time."

Lester, in his first Major League season, is 7-2 with a 4.76 ERA in 15 starts for the Red Sox.

Let's all pray he enjoys a speedy recovery.

Technorati tags: Jon Lester | Boston Red Sox

Pipe Bomb At Chicago Commuter Train Station

2006-09-01T11:45:00.000-05:00

Once again, we must parse the euphemism and denial surrounding a possible terror attack. A pipe bomb was set off at a suburban Chicago Metra station:

A man is in police custody after allegedly putting a pipe bomb in a trash receptacle at a Metra train station this morning in west suburban Hinsdale, authorities said.

The device went off, but no injuries were reported. Nor was damage extensive. Remnants of the device were found in the Hinsdale Station, 21 E. Hinsdale Ave., around 7 a.m.

"At this time we do not have any reason to believe this was a terrorist act, nor do we have any reason for this act," Hinsdale police said in a prepared statement.

It's too soon to say what this is all about, and probably too soon to jump all over the police and reporters for not telling the whole story. However, I'm not going to hold my breath that this will be the day that law enforcement officers and journalists decide that the public is capable of hearing all the facts, should those facts prove politically incorrect.

Here's a Google map of the location.

The Chicago Tribune story above describes the suspect thusly:

A witness saw the suspect, described as a tall and skinny 20-year-old man, put an item in the garbage can, Hinsdale police said. The suspect then got on the 6:56 a.m. or 7:04 a.m. Metra train heading to Chicago.

CBS2Chicago adds the detail of his race:

The suspect was described as "tall and skinny," a black man about 20, according to the release, which said authorities did not believe this to be an act of terrorism.

The bomb did not disrupt Metra traffic at all.

UPDATE: But wait! There's more! From an updated version of the Tribune article:

A pipe bomb exploded in a trash receptacle at a Metra train station in Hinsdale today and, in a separate incident, passengers evacuated a train in Park Ridge after detecting a strange odor, authorities said.

[...]

Meanwhile, in northwest suburban Park Ridge, authorities sent bomb-sniffing dogs onto a Metra train following reports of an unidentified chemical smell aboard the train.

The strong odor was reported on train No. 638, which was traveling toward the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago around 10 a.m. near the Dee Road Station, at 881 N. Dee Rd., authorities said.

I used to pass that station on my commute everyday. It was just rebuilt. There's no word on what caused the smell, but this incident did delay the trains about an hour.

Metra spokeswoman, Meg Reile claimed the two incidents were unrelated. That statement may be true, but so far has not been justified by any fact whatsoever.

UPDATE 2: The latest version of the story states the man arrested originally has been released. Here's reassuring bit of information:

[Hinsdale Police Chief Bradley] Bloom said the department has not ruled that man out — or anyone else — but said police don't have a good description of who may have left the bomb. There are no security cameras at the station, and nobody actually saw anyone place the bomb into the trashcan, he said.

They might consider installing some cameras, maybe a few of those red light cameras that have proven so lucrative for so many communities. There must be a few that can be spared. Chicago is not entirely dissimilar a target from London, Mumbai, or Madrid.

Still, the device was more sophisticated than some - it had a timer that allowed it to have a delayed detonation, authorities said.

"We're a little concerned, because it was a somewhat sophisticated device," Bloom said, referring to the timer. "And it was just inside the door (of the station)."

This is what concerns me: a timer suggests great sophistication, even if the bomb itself does not. It makes the pipe bomb story worth paying attention to.

And it makes the perfunctory declarations that this event has nothing to do with terrorism somewhat less than believable.

Technorati tags: Chicago

Thomas Klocek On Constitutional Public Radio Today

2006-09-01T08:54:00.000-05:00

DePaul professor Thomas Klocek will be on Constituional Public Radio this afternoon -- 3:05 pm CDT. Marathon Pundit has the rundown of the show, some other guests, and some links of interest to those who have been following the Klocek affair.

For any parent of a high school junior who might be considering applying to DePaul, here's a quick reference guide to the school:

Professor Thomas Klocek: fired under false pretenses because he refused to bow down to radical pro-Palestinian students.

Professor Norman Finklestein: not fired despite saying things like, "I say this without fear: for those who believe in freedom and dignity, we are all Hizbullah now."

If your kid ends up going to DePaul, now you know why he or she comes back a little deranged.

Technorati tags: DePaul | Thomas Klocek

Midnight News -- 9/1/06

2006-09-01T00:04:00.000-05:00

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has stirred a controversy by asking immigrant groups to learn English, adopt Australian values, and cast aside primitive treatment of women. Naturally, the head of the Government's Islamic advisory committee is suggesting that Howard tone down his remarks lest another race riot break out. Blackmail is blackmail in any language.

Thanks to Typhoon Ioke, the world has one less island.

It's hard for a Florida Democrat to be politically correct when voting in that state's gubernatorial primary. They suffer a choice between coldblooded, law-and-order racism and a tool of the corporate elite. You'll forgive me if I don't shed a tear for them.

It is good to be a shareholder in Lockheed Martin this morning.

Munch's "Scream", uncharacteristically silent when stolen two years ago, has been recovered.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Correct, But Don't Apologize

2006-08-31T23:35:00.000-05:00

No one should apologize, explicitly or implicitly, for suspecting that Omeed Popal was a lone jihadi. No one. Set the record straight if needed, but don't apologize.

The record of the media and public officials in denying the presence of Muslim terrorism in America, be it after loner's assault or when a group is found to be plotting an attack, is shameful. We are forced to navigate through every euphemism and denial that they can contrive in order to determine just how likely it is we might be killed for walking down the street. They force us to dig for facts on our own, and parse every neutered announcement, just to know what the basic facts are. It is contemptible that people who claim to serve the American public can't bring themselves to tell a story straight.

Public officials and journalists should apologize for putting American citizens in a position where suspicion is more reliable than trust. The smug politicos and journalists who look down their noses at the bloggers who suspected Muslim terror need to tell us why they think they can be smug when blogger suspicion has been correct every single time a rampage involving a Muslim has taken place in the past. Every single time bloggers have been right -- we're not the ones who should be apologizing.

Correct the record, but don't apologize.

Technorati tags: media bias | Omeed Popal

The Iranian Threat

2006-08-31T23:07:00.000-05:00

That anyone in the west can deny what Iran is doing is unconscionable. One can say we ought to negotiate, one can say we ought try to appease the mullahs somehow, but no one can say that their aims are not to build a nuclear weapon and to use it on Israel at the first opportunity. From the New York Times:

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.

This finding alone ought to be sufficient to impose sanctions at the very least, if not engage in military action against Iranian nuclear facilities. Even if neither action is taken, Iranian intentions should be undeniable.

But undeniable facts do not lead to sensible action. Even though the deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment has passed, there is no guarantee the major powers will impose sanctions on Iran. Even though Iranian excuses for producing heavy water are increasingly absurd, they have been sufficient to confuse the debate over Iran in the U.S. Iran itself is defiant towards the threat, and probably would not be greatly harmed if sanctions were only imposed by the U.S. and a few allies.

AJ Strata believes strongly George Bush will never be allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapons, even if preventive action undermines Bush's project to build the Republicans into a long term governing party. I think a nuclear Iran is inevitable. The world now has a late-40s feel to it. Ahmadinejad is determined to have the bomb to project his ideological obsessions, just as Stalin was after he saw the destruction unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And as we were towards the Soviets, we have become too weary and naive to resist Islamofascist Iran.

Technorati tags: Iran | nuclear proliferation | islamofascism

God's Been Known To Smite Whole Cities For Less

2006-08-31T22:51:00.000-05:00

Alright, so maybe my theology is a little off, but He can't be too pleased with a people that would spend over $20,000 on something like this.

"'A bronzed cast of baby's first poop can be a meaningful memento for the family,' gallery director David Kesting said...."

For a family of horse flies, perhaps. A sane human being can make do with a photo.

Technorati tags: Tom Cruise | Suri Cruise

Chicago Cops To Be Charged For Robbing Crime Victims

2006-08-31T21:39:00.000-05:00

There's a new police scandal in Chicago:

A winner of the prestigious Superintendent's Award for Valor was stripped of his police powers this week as prosecutors prepare to charge up to eight Chicago Police officers suspected of raiding homes and stealing valuables, sources said Wednesday.

[...]

The 43-year-old officer, described by sources as a ringleader, has been a defendant in five lawsuits in federal court alleging police misconduct. In some cases, he was accused of participating in ripoffs of cash and jewelry during illegal searches of homes, cars and a bar.

[...]

Last year, NBC's Unit 5 profiled Miguel Melesio, a high school student at Excel Academy who said he was stopped, handcuffed and held by police who stole thousands of dollars from his home. Melesio said he was driving a 2003 Cadillac when officers swooped in. He said he thinks they were looking for drugs.

Melesio said he was taken back to his family's three-flat and remained in the police car while three officers, including a woman, went inside. They searched the building and left. About $13,000 in savings was missing from the home, Melesio said.

Sources said they do not think the Melesios, who are legal U.S. residents, were engaged in illegal activity.

"It's gonna be our word against his [an officer's] word, and they are the law," Miguel Melesio's brother Uriel Melesio lamented in a Unit 5 interview.

Second City Cop, over to you.

Technorati tags: Chicago | crime | corruption

The Agonies Of Alex Rodriguez

2006-08-31T21:06:00.000-05:00

The Village Voice, of all places, has a lengthy and mostly sympathetic profile of Alex Rodriguez. What I did not realize was just how common it is for New York fans to make life miserable for stars who deserve much better.

Veteran sportswriter and Lou Gehrig biographer Ray Robinson has heard something like it. "The torrent of boos that Yankee fans inflicted on Mickey Mantle from about 1958 to 1960 was shocking," recalls Robinson. "What was baffling about it was that Mantle had, by 1959, two Most Valuable Player awards and five World Series rings. I'll say this: Rodriguez has reacted to the booing with a lot more maturity than Mantle did. Mickey led the league in smashed water coolers and batting helmets."

Though he hasn't done as much as Mantle, A-Rod deserves better than he gets from New York fans. However, he brings some of it on himself:

"Most Latin fans in the New York area don't regard him as Latin like they do Ramirez or Ortiz," says Constantino Viloria, baseball writer for El Diario. "To them, he's an American, and comes off phony when he makes reference to his Latin background."

In a revealing interview a few weeks ago with The Sacramento Bee's Paul Gutierrez, Rodriguez said, "We're kind of lost in the mix a little bit because African Americans are one thing, or being of a different religion or descent. But Latinos who are born and raised here are kind of overlooked in a crazy way."

"A main criticism," Gutierrez said to Rodriguez, "from both mainstream America and the Latino culture, is that you are seen as a sellout. That your public persona is so polished that you're not real."

I'm more sympathetic to Guillen after reading this then I was before. I never knew how much he struggled after his dad essentially abandoned his family, and it's clear that bouncing back and forth from the Dominican Republic and the U.S. left him deeply insecure. I hope he bounces back from his trouble at third, but not in way that actually leads the Yankees to a World Series. No matter how much I might like or respect one of the players, another trophy in New York is more than I can bear.

Writer Allen Barra makes a remark that I can't let go uncorrected.

That was certainly the reaction earlier this year when White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen lambasted Rodriguez for wavering over whether to play for the U.S. or the Dominican team in the World Baseball Classic. "Alex was kissing Latino people's asses," said Guillen, a Venezuelan. "He knew he wasn't going to play for the Dominicans. He's not Dominican. I hate hypocrites. He's full of shit." Guillen, who later made headlines for calling critical sportswriters "fags," later apologized--sort of.

It is inaccurate to say Guillen said what he did about all reporters, or even critical reporters generally. Rather, he was speaking of one particular reporter that Barra by definition must not be familiar with. If he were familiar with Jay Mariotti's work, he would have been much more sympathetic to Guillen's message, if not to Guillen's ill-considered use of a bigoted word.

Technorati tags: Alex Rodriguez | baseball

Anti-Americanism Run Amok, Maybe

2006-08-31T20:43:00.000-05:00

Omeed Popal's rampage could have been, but apparently was not, an instance of freelance jihadism. In Washington state there was possibly an instance of freelance ... something. I'm not quite sure what to call it. Revolutionary terror? A purge?

The Pierce County Sheriff's Department is searching for five people who allegedly attacked a uniformed National Guardsmen walking along 138th Street in Parkland Tuesday afternoon.

The soldier was walking to a convenience store when a sport utility vehicle pulled up alongside him and the driver asked if he was in the military and if he had been in any action.

The driver then got out of the vehicle, displayed a gun and shouted insults at the victim. Four other suspects exited the vehicle and knocked the soldier down, punching and kicking him.

"And during the assault the suspects called him a baby killer. At that point they got into the car and drove off and left him on the side of the road," Detective Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff's Department told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

The suspects were driving a black Chevy Suburban-type SUV.

The allegation may fall apart. A quick search for an update found a headline from the same source that read "Witness Claims Guardsman Attack Not What It Seems". The link is broken as of the original post time. If the allegation isn't true, there's a story in that as well.

Via LGF.

Technorati tags: United States | the left

Not Reporting: Plamegate

2006-08-31T17:34:00.000-05:00

I don't usually follow Washington scandals too closely, especially once I decide that no real legal controversy exists. This is because Washington scandals are almost universally phony and tilted by the media against conservatives and Republicans. Plamegate was no exception, and since learning that Valerie Plame was not a covert operative for the purposes of the identity shield laws I have only paid attention when a leftist has decided to make an ass of himself waiting for Karl Rove's much rumored "frog march".

Now the scandal has more or less settled with the revelation that former deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the person who revealed Plame's identity to the press. The facts surrounding these reports illustrate what I mean when I say Washington scandals are phony: the really scandalous behavior gets ignored in favor of contrived controversy.

I take it as an obligation to understand what happens in the world. By that I mean I want the full story. I don't think I necessarily have an obligation to do anything about it: most problems we see as important are fleeting. But I still want to know the truth.

From the start, it was clear to me that the media and the various talking heads bloviating about this story in no way respected the obvious truths of the matter. The distance between what was known about the case and what people tried to argue was as vast as a sea. It isn't simply that known facts were spun, or even that known facts were dismissed; it seemed that even suggesting the existence of certain facts brought down wrath and fury.

In the Plame case, the two obvious truths that none of the anti-Bush crowd wanted to recognize were that it was Joe Wilson who lied about Saddam Hussein and Nigeri uranium, and that "outing" his wife Valerie Plame could not under the law be considered a crime. Thus, to me, the most important part of the story became how it was the scandal was sustained for so long.

We are much closer to knowing the answer to that question today than we were before Richard Armitage was revealed to be the leaker. At FOX News, Jack Kelly helpfully and succinctly explains the case:

In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

First in leaks to reporters, and then in his own op-ed in The New York Times, a retired diplomat, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, said the president was lying. His claim to speak with authority was that in the spring of 2002, the CIA had sent him to Niger to see if Saddam had tried to buy uranium there.

Wilson's charge was important because it marked the beginning of the "Bush lied" meme about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But investigations by the Senate Intelligence Committee; the Robb-Silberman commission on prewar intelligence, and the British Butler commission all concluded it was Wilson who was not telling the truth. Saddam had indeed tried to buy uranium in Africa, as even Wilson himself had acknowledged to the CIA officers who debriefed him after his Niger trip.

This is the truth about Joe Wilson. Supposedly, despite the fact Wilson was lying, George Bush instructed his staff to silence Wilson by intimidating his wife.

The scandal that ensued was a procession of half-truths, insinuations, and pompous rants that never failed to overlook Wilson's lie. It has continued for well over three years now, and with the knowledge of many who had no interest beyond watching Karl Rove suffer. As Kelly notes:

Armitage, Powell, and Justice department officials knew the truth, but said nothing. Clarice Feldman, a Washington, D.C. lawyer, described Armitage's silence as "inexplicable and perfidious."

[...]

Fitzgerald knew in his first few days on the job that Armitage was the leaker; that the leak was inadvertent and that the Intelligence Identities Act hadn't been violated. Yet he has persisted in a sham prosecution.

Isikoff and Corn write: "The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about prewar intelligence."

They add, lamely, that: "The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework."

They don't mention that Isikoff and (especially) Corn have been among the journalists flogging this meme, and the time that it takes to research and write a book indicates they've known for quite some time that it isn't true. They're only willing to tell the truth, now, for money.

The behavior of Fitzgerald, Corn, Isikoff and others is the real story behind the Plamegate scandal. They are the bad actors in this preposterous drama, and we will be waiting a very long time before anyone tells that tale.

Technorati tags: Plamegate | Richard Armitage | Karl Rove

Omeed Popal Just Crazy

2006-08-31T07:49:00.000-05:00

Omeed Popal is just a sad and crazy man, and his rampage in San Francisco is just the insane expression of his frustration and isolation.

The arguments began over the weekend. Omeed Popal begged his father for permission to return to Afghanistan to be with his new bride.

The tension heightened Tuesday morning when his mother, like his father, refused to let him go.

By around noon, police say, Popal -- who has a history of mental problems -- was so enraged he jumped in his family's black sports utility vehicle and began a rampage. He plowed through pedestrians up and over sidewalks, police say, leaving one man dead in Fremont and 14 others injured in San Francisco.

This Mercury News story, as well as a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, both rely almost entirely on the comments of Popal's cousin Hamid Nekrawesh. It is possible he is spinning the event, but I think that's highly unlikely. The story is too sophisticated to be fake, unless Nekrawesh, an auto shop owner by day, doubles as a forensic psychologist by night. Some bits from the Mercury News:

"I didn't know he had these mental problems until last night," Nekrawesh said Wednesday. "They were keeping everything pretty much within themselves."

Popal is 29 years old, but Nekrawesh said he was under such strict control from his parents -- who believed they needed to protect him from America's "evil society" -- that Popal probably felt his arranged marriage was a ticket to freedom.

Before one jumps all over this Muslim family for teaching things like that, it should be recalled that there are native-born Americans who would say similar things. In this case, I don't even think the family's religion mattered: they were simply isolated, oppressive people by nature. I think if we look at the family histories of spree killers or rampage killers we'll find a similar profile. The variable isn't religion, but paranoid isolation.

"My personal feeling is that he has been away from all the other pleasures and growing up of life, and all of a sudden he got this pleasure of a woman out of nowhere and he fell in love and wanted to be with his wife," Nekrawesh said.

"All I know is that he wanted to go back and his family wouldn't let him," Nekrawesh said, giving one relative's version of a complicated tale that police are only starting to unravel.

I'm not sure there is any more to unravel, unless they find jihadi propaganda in Popal's possession.

Since Popal returned from his wedding two weeks ago, Nekrawesh said, he had been haunted by dreams that a man was dragging him to a graveyard to kill him.

I really want to know how that should be interpreted.

On Saturday or Sunday morning, after the intense argument with his father over returning to Afghanistan, Popal "ran away" to Los Angeles, Nekrawesh said.

"He came to his senses that he didn't have any money," Nekrawesh said, "so he called home and asked his dad to pick him up."

His father drove down with his sister, and the father put the siblings on a train back to Fremont on Monday while he conducted some business, Nekrawesh said....

On Tuesday morning, the argument with his mother began, Nekrawesh said. It continued in the car, as Popal's mother and sister came along for the ride when Popal dropped off his brother at San Jose State University. And it kept going as Popal headed to a job interview at a Fremont temporary-employment agency, Nekrawesh said.

Popal parked, then returned to the car, telling his mother the agency needed her signature for something. Mother and daughter got out of the car, Nekrawesh said, and that's when Popal jumped in and sped away....

At this point I imagine he felt a rush of freedom that quickly gave way to overwhelming frustration that he released with unrelenting, remorseless aggression against whatever targets he could find.

"He has been pretty much isolated from society most of his life," Nekrawesh, 43, said. "He was pretty much under full control of his parents, not having a whole lot of freedom of talking to people and making friends. I have tried to talk to his dad to allow him to grow up as a normal kid, just like anyone else's kid in the community. He thought he should keep him away from everybody."

This is what the husband did to Andrea Yates. Forced isolation is toxic when added to mental instability.

The cousin said he found out after the rampage, when the family gathered at a relative's house, that Popal had been hospitalized for mental problems two or three times over the summer.

"I asked his mother why didn't she tell us about his hospitalization," Nekrawesh said. "She said, 'I didn't want the bride's family to find out.' They wanted to keep it a secret."

How charming of them to lie to people thousands of miles away. That the family thought to avoid shame first rather than their son's health or the fairness of their actions to the girl's family says a lot about the family's moral character.

The San Francisco Chronicle piece covers much the same ground. Here's a few unique highlights:

Family members said Popal could be rational and calm. But he had also been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and had been hospitalized at least twice in recent months after suffering breakdowns, relatives said.

I wonder how accurate that definition is. Was Popal just emotionally disturbed because of his environment, or was there genuine reason to say his behavior was caused by an organic mental illness (which is what I understand schizophrenia to be)?

At 29, Popal still lived with his parents in Fremont. His mother was especially sheltering, seeing the world as filled with "evil people" and trying to keep Popal from being harmed, said his cousin, Hamid Nekrawesh.

"Since he was a little kid, they had been overly controlling of him," Nekrawesh said. "They tried to keep him away from evil situations, in their mind, and that had a negative effect on him. He just didn't have any friend or anyone to talk to except Mom and Dad."

Isolation, again.

Last spring, Popal was voluntary committed to Kaiser Medical Center in Fremont after a breakdown on brought by a dream of "the devil taking him to a graveyard and trying to kill him," Nekrawesh said.

The Mercury News said it was a "man" in the dream, not specifically the devil.

"He was supposed to be taking medication," Nekrawesh said. "From what I heard from his mom and dad, when he was in Afghanistan, he was perfectly fine. When he came back, all these problems occurred."

This doesn't surprise me at all. In Afghanistan, Popal was in the environment his parents tried to recreate, apparently, in their home. Or at least he was away from the environment they kept calling "evil". He was the center of attention. he was away from any pressures of working or fitting in. He was away from his more successful relatives and peers. And he finally had hope of achieving independence from his family. It must have seemed like paradise to him.

Then his family brought him back home to his personal hell.

Technorati tags: Omeed Popal | San Francisco

Midnight News -- 8/31/06

2006-08-31T00:02:00.000-05:00

The UN is concerned that Israel's "immoral" use of cluster bombs against Hezbollah has made parts of south Lebanon dangerous and perhaps uninhabitable. Left unnoticed is Hezbollah's use of human shields that drew Israeli fire to civilian areas in the first place. Frankly, Israel's attacks humiliate the UN: Israel does what the UN claims it wants to do, but hasn't the will to do itself. Nothing is more humiliating than someone else fighting your battles, and that's how Israel humiliates the UN.

Israel has rejected the UN's request that the blockade against Lebanon be lifted. Respecting the position that terrorist put Israel in might benefit the innocent people that Kofi Annan claims to want to help, because the constant criticism of Israel's self-defense probably didn't aid Annan's diplomacy.

Iran is enriching uranium despite the deadline imposed by the major powers that they stop. They will never stop on their own. Every bit of rhetoric coming from the mullahcracy indicates that they believe the world is insane for not allowing them to have the bomb and for irrationally supporting Israel. Iran has a monstrous, aggressive government that will continue to threaten Israel, Iraq, and the West until it is deposed. Sanctions are the least we should be doing, and I hope that the U.S. imposes sanctions of its own if the other major powers lose their backbone.

The family of the woman killed by poor construction in Boston's Big Dig tunnel is filing a lawsuit.

According to an upcoming Russian mini-series, Stalin was more lover than fighter. I can think of about 100 million reasons why a soap opera about Stalin is grotesque.

Young Red Sox starter Jon Lester may have cancer.

Someone in Ho Chi Minh City was very, very horny, but will now have to go unsated.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Really, It's A Union

2006-08-30T23:08:00.000-05:00

The workers at a Chicago Starbucks are now represented by a union that is not actually recognized by anyone.

The baristas at the Logan Square Starbucks store joined the IWW Starbucks Workers Union Tuesday night, the union said. They issued a set of demands that included a living wage, guaranteed work hours and the reinstatement of IWW baristas fired for organizing activity.

They're caffeinated Wobblies! The union also claims to represent the workers at a "handful" of New York City Starbucks, but is not recognized by the National Labor Relations Board and has not actually negotiated anything with the Starbucks corporation.

Daniel Gross, a former barista who has led union organizing efforts at Starbucks, has refused to disclose how many members the union has, characterizing it only as a "modest-sized group" with "positive membership growth."

Step one: we organize. Then step 2. And finally, step 3: revolution!

Starbucks is known for offering good benefits to part-time workers, but apparently that isn't enough for our neo-Wobblies. Like the organization they work for, they are too pretentious to realize they are working at a fast food joint.

Technorati tags: Chicago | Starbucks

A Bad Job Situation

2006-08-30T22:57:00.000-05:00

A man upset that his boss would not have a sexual relationship with him decided to exact revenge in a peculiar way that ultimately backfired:

A Chicago man who allegedly tried to frame his boss by telling police the boss had child pornography on his computer was charged with possessing the illegal images.

I think this pretty much defines 'bad idea'.

At some point, the lovelorn employee confessed that he in fact had planted the images. The story does not indicate the gender of the boss, which inclines me to think it must have been a man: the reporter wouldn't be so coy if the truth did not appear embarrassing to a protected minority, especially one that is hypersensitive to insinuations relating to child pornography.

The clincher for me, however, is this: the employee had an advanced degree in education. I have to say I'm not entirely surprised that someone that came up with a scheme this dumb could get a hold of an advanced degree in education. Frankly, as stupid as his scheme was, it's probably smarter than Whole Math.

Technorati tags: Chicago | crime

In Case You Forgot, Scalia's Evil

2006-08-30T18:10:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press would like you to know that Justice Antonin Scalia has had particularly nefarious dealings with all sorts of dark and sinister organizations:

Justice Antonin Scalia was the Supreme Court's most frequent traveler last year with 24 expense-paid trips that took him as far as Ireland, Italy, Turkey and Australia.

Law schools and legal groups paid for most of Scalia's travel, although Italian heritage organizations, media giant Time Warner Inc., the Roman Catholic Diocese of Louisiana and the Juilliard School also covered some trips.

It is well known that the Julliard School uses bribery to corrupt all manner of public officials.

The article doesn't fail to imply sinister dealings, even though the trips were perfectly legal. What's worse is that Scalia was more or less singled out for this treatment. Other Justices made similar trips, though not as many, and six of the nine, including Scalia, reported incomes of over $1,000,000. Enviable, but not criminal, even though this fact is presented thusly:

Scalia also is one of at least six millionaires among the nine justices, with assets of $1.1 million to $2.6 million.

Implying they could all be millionaires, not just the standard-bearer Scalia, and that they may not be reporting everything as honestly as they might. The other millionaires aren't named until the end of the article, and reporter Mark Sherman notes that Justice Sam Alito might be among the millionaires depending on how one valued his assets.

By the end of the piece one is left wondering what, exactly, this story is meant to accomplish. Since he is mentioned so extensively, one can reasonably conclude that it is about discrediting the integrity of Justice Scalia in particular.

Technorati tags: Supreme Court | Justice Antonin Scalia | media bias

Red Sox Done

2006-08-30T17:35:00.000-05:00

Curt Schilling got his 3,000th strikeout today against the Oakland A's Nick Swisher. He's one of only 14 pitchers to reach that milestone. It's about the only honor the Red Sox can hope for this year, I'm sorry to say. Schilling lost the game today, the Red Sox fifth loss in a row.

The team has gone 8-20 this month, and dropped from a half-game up on the Yankees at the All Star break to 8 games back prior to tonight's second game of a New York Yankees / Detroit Tigers doubleheader. Their most important players are sidelined by injuries, with the remarkable David Ortiz now hospitalized with some sort of ominous heart ailment.

Now there's news the Red Sox are planning to trade David Wells to the San Diego Padres for prospects. Though injured for much of the year, Wells is still strong enough to help the Padres, who play in a pitchers park and are just 3 games out of the lead in the NL West. Sources tell ESPN that there's at least an 80-20 chance that Wells will head west by the end of the week, when teams will have to set their playoff roster.

Whether or not he goes, the trade talks are the signal that the Red Sox are tossing it in for the season. They were outplayed by the Yankees, out-traded by the Yankees, and suffered more injuries to star players than I remember any other team suffering in a long time.

It was a fun season while it lasted. If only it were the Blue Jays who'd be winning the East, instead of the damn Yankees. Again.

UPDATE 8/31/06: Players and reporters that entered the Red Sox locker room today at Fenway were greeted by an empty locker at the spot where David Wells would normally dress. It was later announced that Wells had been scratched from that night's start and designated for assignment. Finally, tonight, it was announced that Wells had been traded to the Padres for a catching prospect mostly known for his defense. That's pretty much it for the season, as manager Terry Francona has admitted:

Pressed as to whether the pending loss of Wells was a sign that the club was throwing in the towel on the season, Francona defended his club's competitiveness.

"I don't think that's the way to put it," the skipper responded. "I don't think that's the proper way. Throwing in the towel means you give up. I don't think you get to this level [and] give up. That's not how you compete."

But Francona acknowledged the club needs to not only think about now but also the future. So, Thursday's move was an opportunity to get younger and deeper at a key position.

And so it will be the Yankees at the top of the division again, only this year the Red Sox won't be the Wild Card. And yes, Casey, it does suck.

Technorati tags: baseball | Boston Red Sox

Afghani Immigrant Charged In SUV Rampage

2006-08-30T07:36:00.000-05:00

Details about the driver in the San Francisco SUV rampage are trickling in. He was, apparently, Omeed Aziz Popal, an Afghani living with his parents in Fremont, California. There is no indication of how religious he was, if at all.

Popal had recently returned from Kabul, where he celebrated his arranged marriage. According to family and neighbors, that was the only new stress in his life. A cousin suggests he has a history of mental illness -- specifically that he was deathly afraid of the devil -- but other relatives and the police discount that. Nothing in the testimony of relatives and neighbors suggests why he went on the rampage, be the reason political, religious, or simple insanity. The only statement that begins to shed light on Popal's mental circumstance is from his next-door neighbor:

Popal was usually friendly but wasn't talkative lately, [Frank] Silva said. "It seemed like since he got married he quieted down," he said.

When Popal was arrested, he was eerily indifferent to his circumstance:

Moments later, the Pilot roared through a red light and turned left, narrowly missing a man as he crossed the street at California and Spruce.

"It was just by a couple of inches," said architect Jeremy Warms. "Then the car came down the opposite way down Spruce and the police converged in on him all at once."

Warms said the police blocked the man's path and he heard a crashing sound -- police said one officer was slightly injured in the collision. Then the officers pulled the man out of the car and sat him down on the curb.

"He looked calm and pretty clean-cut, like a normal guy," Warms said. "He sat on the pavement for a good 25 minutes ... I don't think anyone said anything to him. They put him in a police car and took him away."

The office manager at a dental office at 500 Spruce St., who identified herself only as Kira, saw the arrest from a second-floor window.

"They dragged him out and put him on the ground. They got him up. He was absolutely indifferent, no fear, no expression. He was like a zombie."

She said he was bald, with a mustache, wearing a gray sport jacket. He showed no sign of injury. Police identified him as Omeed Aziz Popal, 29, of Fremont, and said he would be booked on 14 counts of attempted murder.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll and Hugh Hewitt are both picking up on the possibility this may be an anti-Semitic hate crime. Two of the victims were pedestrians outside a Jewish center in San Francisco. Without dismissing the possibility, if this were motivated by anything other than narcissistic stress, it was probably general anti-Americanism, as his behavior suggests he was looking for any target possible, not Jewish targets in particular. As I said earlier, however, it's pathetic that Americans are reduced to reading news accounts the way the citizens of the Soviet Union once did: all tea leaves, no facts.

Ironically, the Washington Post runs a feature today on a new magazine that presents Afghan culture to the children of Afghan immigrants. Most of the target market are families probably like the Popals: people who fled the Soviet occupation 20+ years ago.

As Aman Feda, 32, tells it, many of them were well-educated professionals who scraped by as taxi drivers and beauticians when they arrived. They've raised doctors, engineers and now publishers. But calming the political tensions they brought with them, reconciling Muslim tradition with American lifestyles, and easing the resulting strain between generations proved tougher than the financial challenges they faced.

I don't think the Popals were quite that successful, and maybe that was the son's problem.

UPDATE 2: The Mercury News has more details about Omeed Popal and his family:

Friends and relatives said Popal had been hearing voices since returning a month ago from Afghanistan.

"He thought the devil was coming for him,'' said Zarghona Ramish of San Jose, who also identified herself as Popal's cousin.

A stressful event triggers a madness.

Afghan community leader Farid Younos said Popal comes from a "decent, pious and respectful" family, devout members of the Abu Bakr Siddiq Mosque in Hayward.

So now the obvious question: has that particular mosque been known to preach radical Islam? No tea leaves in the story to help us answer, so we'll just have to wait.

"It's very bad, very bad. We're very sad about it," said Younos, a California State University-East Bay anthropology professor.

[...]

He was born in Afghanistan but came to the United States at a young age. Three months ago, he returned to his home country to marry, relatives said, and his wife's family was very traditional and strict.

"He grew up as a Western boy in the United States and went to Afghanistan to get married culturally over there," [first cousin Hamid] Nekrawesh said.

Nekrawesh wondered if the stress of the trip and the culture shock affected Popal, especially since Afghan weddings are large, and he comes from a large extended family.

The bride's family didn't let the couple meet or talk before the wedding, Nekrawesh said.

"The only thing would be some kind of mental pressure," Nekrawesh said, adding that Popal seemed happy before leaving for Kabul. "The lifestyle is very different in Afghanistan."

This is why modern, Westernized societies are superior to other cultures: it is inhuman to put two people through a marriage like that.

UPDATE 3: Clarity & Resolve points to a video linked by JihadWatch, in which a female witness reports Popal proclaimed himself a terrorist shortly after his arrest. I think this clarifies the moral principle quite well: "[A]n act of random violence by someone who declares himself a terrorist is terrorism even if he lacks a laminated Al-Qaeda ID."

UPDATE 4: Popal may need a new lawyer. His current attorney, Majeed Samara, was retained by the family. He says he's only handling the matter until the public defender steps in. He has not yet been able to see his client.

Samarra made a comment that makes me quite curious:

Millbrae attorney Majeed Samara said that according to Popal's father, Popal has not been the same since waking up from a bad dream six months ago.

His family once took Popal, 29, of Fremont, to a Kaiser Permanente facility in Fremont for treatment of his mental health issues, Samara said. He also said Popal disappeared for three days last week without telling anyone where he was going.

Samarra notes that Popal will need "a lot of doctors."

The family has become less than sympathetic in my eyes:

The attorney retained by the family of Omeed Aziz Popal, the driver suspected of killing a Fremont man and injuring 14 San Francisco pedestrians in a hit-and-run spree on Tuesday, said today that Popal's family is terrified for him, for the victims and for themselves.

It would be nice to hear them express sorrow for the victims undiluted by self-regard. I'm going to be extremely generous and understand "terrified...for themselves" to mean they are terrified in a general, what-do-we-do-now sort of way, and not that their terrified by what other Americans might do in response.

PREVIOUSLY:

SUV Crazy

Technorati tags: San Francisco

A Cruel Death In A Public School

2006-08-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

Teachers at a public school in suburban Chicago have defined negligence for a future generation of lawyers.

Deanna Mendieta, 36, claims in the suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, that her daughter became ill about 10:30 a.m. on tn April 4, but despite a deterioration in her condition for the next 40 minutes, little was done to help her, according to a release from the Power Rogers & Smith law firm, which is representing the plaintiff.

Katina, a first-grader, told her gym teacher she was sick to her stomach and not feeling well, the suit claims, but the girl was told to continue with class activities. Shortly afterward, she told the teacher she was nauseated, had chest and stomach pain, and had urinated on herself, the suit alleges, but the gym teacher told her only to return to her first-grade classroom, which she did without supervision or escort.

In the classroom, the teacher noted Katina's sickly appearance and sent her to the principal's office, again alone and without escort, the suit alleges. Minutes later, the girl was found by a school official in the hallway, slumped over a roll of construction paper, the suit claims. She again reported nausea, chest pain and discomfort, but was only taken to the principal's office, given a change of pants and placed in a bathroom by herself, the suit claims.

The girl was later found in the bathroom, "collapsed on the floor in an altered state of consciousness," according to the release. At the time, school officials were on the phone with Katina's grandmother, telling her the girl had wet her pants, the suit claims. No professional health assistance was ever offered, the suit claims.

Paramedics were subsequently called, and found the girl struggling to breathe, the suit alleges. Resuscitation efforts were attempted and Katina was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, where she was pronounced dead, the suit claims.

But here's two questions, the issues that the emotions of the case would probably overwhelm at trial: how does a 7-year-old die of a heart attack, and should the teachers be held responsible for not recognizing that rather bizarre possibility?

A portable cardio-defibrillator was within feet of where the girl died, but no one at the school was trained to use it; there is frankly no evidence anyone thought to try to use it. This could be evidence they anticipated such a problem, but is more likely evidence that the district had money left over in their budget and needed to spend it on something or risk facing a budget cut in the future.

I wager the school will settle.

Technorati tags: Lincolnwood, IL | Chicago | education

News That's Fit To Fake

2006-08-29T19:34:00.000-05:00

It looks as though the Katie Couric era at CBS news will maintain Dan Rather's exacting standards.

You'd think by now CBS would realize that bloggers aren't idiots, and many know all sorts of PhotoShop tricks.

They say the camera adds 10 pounds. CBS added the stupid all on its own.

UPDATE: It was Photoshopped. CBS comes clean:

No, Katie Couric didn't suddenly lose 20 pounds. The incoming "CBS Evening News" anchor appears significantly thinner in a network promotional magazine photo thanks to digital airbrushing.

[...]

CBS News President Sean McManus said he was "obviously surprised and disappointed when I heard about it."

Good for him. Now if we can just get him to be skeptical of photos coming out of Gaza and south Laebanon.

Couric, 49, said she hadn't known about the digitally reworked version until she saw the issue. The former NBC "Today" show host told the Daily News, "I liked the first picture better because there's more of me to love."

They really want me to believe this?

Gil Schwartz, executive vice president of communications for CBS Corp., said Wednesday in a phone interview the photo alteration was done by someone in the CBS photo department who "got a little zealous."

But he dismissed any notion of heads rolling over the matter.

"I talked to my photo department, we had a discussion about it," Schwartz said. "I think photo understands this is not something we'd do in the future."

Someone got "zealous"? Over what? Is Katie Couric's waistline some kind of religious icon? Yikes!

Technorati tags: CBS News | Katie Couric

SUV Crazy

2006-08-29T19:14:00.000-05:00

An SUV driver has finally done what we've always suspected a stereotypical SUV driver might do:

A man targeted pedestrians with his sport utility vehicle Tuesday, killing one man and injuring at least 13 people and himself, authorities said.

Among the injured are a young child. Only the first person struck was killed. The others were run down later, after the driver crossed the bay to San Francisco from Fremont.

The man is being questioned, as is his family.

UPDATE: The San Jose Mercury News has more:

The victims appear to include a Fremont man, a 78-year-old man who was using a cane to cross the street when he was struck, and a woman in her 70s. Earlier reports that a child was injured was incorrect.

"It's one of the craziest things I've seen in my years on the force,'' said San Francisco police Sgt. Neville Gittens. "This individual was driving around the city mowing people down."

They have not released the name of the driver in custody, but the Department of Motor Vehicles has released the name of the person the SUV, a black Honda Pilot, is registered to: Omeed A. Popal, of Fremont.

The million dollar question: is that a Muslim name, and is this a frelance Jihadi, like the driver in North Carolina?

If it is, we won't hear anything about it from the authorities. If it is not, they'll fall all over themselves to tell us. It's pathetic that in America we have to treat news like this in the same way my wife once treated news coming from the Soviet-era Kremlin: all tea leaves, no straightforward facts.

The rest of the Mercury News article deserves a read, if only for the sheer drama.

Technorati tags: San Francisco

I Told You So Redux

2006-08-29T15:47:00.000-05:00

The Mexican judges charged with responding to losing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's complaints of fraud have eviscerated AMLO's complaints and cleared the way for Felipe Calderon's inauguration. As I suspected, the recount of 9% of the polls changed the result hardly a whit, and the court dismissed the allegations of fraud as flimsy and unfounded.

Ceci Connolly at the Washington Post recaps the results and reports what might follow should Obrador continue his protest. The most ominous part is that Obrador's party plans to hold its own convention and decide whether to elect Obrador as the "legitimate" President of a resistance government or simply authorize him to be the leader of a peaceful civil resistance. The latter sounds dangerous, the former like civil war. Perhaps there is some nuance in the rhetoric that is lost on me for not being knowledgeable about Mexican politics.

Typical for Obrador, he doesn't say which role he would prefer, saying instead that it is up to his supporters to decide. He was similarly passive-aggressive when the protests first began, saying that he couldn't control how his supporters reacted to his loss, even as he stoked the controversy surrounding the election results.

Also ominous are the coincidence of three events that will take place in coming weeks in the Zocalo, the locus of the protests: Vincente Fox's final state of the union address, the Mexican Independence celebrations, and Fox's final review of the Mexican military.

I think the controversy may die down now that the judges have found so strongly against Obrador. 70% of the Mexican public is against his party's planned "convention", and even his party's spokesman seems to recognize that Obrador has lost his fight. It is better for Mexico the sooner it ends: a country with such mature elections after so many years of corruption deserves a better fate.

Technorati tags: Mexico | elections | Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador | Felipe Calderon

Midnight News -- 8/29/06

2006-08-29T00:01:00.000-05:00

George Bush will not make the same mistake twice. He, as well as leading Democrats, are racing to the Gulf Coast in solidarity with the victims that Hurricane Ernesto has not yet created. In a related story, Wizbang has an analysis of last year's levee break in New Orleans. New Orleans was doomed the moment Katrina made landfall, and would probably be doomed should Ernesto turn to the west.

The British newspaper the Telegraph insists that Hassan Nasrallah has made himself enormously popular by claiming on Lebanese television that he did not expect Israel's robust response to his attack. They speak of him the way a preteen girl speaks of a pop star. Big Pharaoh provides information suggesting the Telegraph may be misreporting the truth about Lebanese opinion.

Gas prices have mercifully dropped. It has less to do with oil imports than refinery capacity and gasoline supply. It has always had less to do with oil imports than refinery capacity and gasoline supply. When gas prices go up in the future, it will be less due to available oil imports than refinery capacity and gasoline supply. It is problems with refinery capacity and gasoline supply that cause high gas prices, and not oil imports. How long do I have to say it before someone builds another damn refinery?

A team from Columbus, Georgia has beaten a team from Kawaguchi City, Japan to win the Little League World Series. It's the second year in a row the U.S. team has won.

Monday was another bad day for airline travel.

Desperate to make a case for himself as a viable Democratic candidate for President, Joseph Biden makes an unfortunate argument. If he wants to run for President, he'll have to learn not to say things like this.

The Farmer's Almanac predicts a frigid winter to come. They were more or less right about last year's winter, and claim 80-85 percent accuracy.

Thugs broke into a forest preserve in Australia and killed a favorite koala.

Marapana manager Tim Mullany says Mambo was so friendly he would have rushed towards the intruders, who are believed to have bashed the animal, possibly tearing off an arm, before the dingoes found and attacked him.

That koala could have worked for the U.S. State Department, so trusting was he in the face of mortal danger. He could have also worked for the U.N., the mainstream media, academia, about half of Congress, and the Democrat Naional Committee.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Allah's Enemy...

2006-08-28T21:56:00.000-05:00

...is a lovely 16-year-old Australian girl.

Ayten Ahmet, a Muslim teenager from Melbourne, has advanced to the final round of competition to become one of two representatives from Victoria to the Miss Teen Australia pageant. This action has infuriated Muslim leaders in that Australian state.

A spokesman for Melbourne cleric Sheik Mohammed Omran last week branded the competition, which involves swimsuit parades, as a "slur on Islam". And Victorian Islamic leader Yasser Soliman said the contest did not conform with the teachings of the Koran.

But fortunately, her family is that rarest of breeds: the moderate, assimilated Muslim:

Parents Salih and Sarah Ahmet said their daughter was a typical teenager, and her faith was irrelevant to the contest.

[...]

Mr Ahmet said the family respected their religion, but his daughter was entitled to participate.

"We are not flying any flags, we are Australians first and foremost," Mr Ahmet said. "We live in a democracy, we respect the religion as well, and they are good kids and come from a good upbringing."

Some leaders in the Muslim community have backed away from Sheik Omran's comments, and this is to their credit. They really ought to be running away furiously from the comments, but every journey begins with a first step.

Technorati tags: muslims | Miss Teen Australia | Australia

Once Again, Never Again

2006-08-28T20:52:00.000-05:00

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is so evil that he does not know he is evil. This is the only explanation for his bizarre letter to Germany's Angela Merkel, in which he denies the Holocaust only to justify its repetition.

"Is it not a reasonable possibility that some countries that had won the war made up this excuse to constantly embarrass the defeated people ... to bar their progress," Ahmadinejad said in the letter.

"The question is if these countries, especially Britain, felt responsible for the Holocaust survivors, why they did not settle them in their own countries?" it said.

He understands the Jewish people as one would a herd of sheep. It is not that Britain chose Palestine for the Jews at the expense of Arabs. Rather, Jews expanded their settlements already there and took responsibility for creating their own state.

"By promoting the necessity of settlement of Holocaust survivors in the occupied Palestine, they have created a constant threat in the Middle East," he said, referring to Israel.

On behalf of Muslims, he is shamed by the proximity of a prosperous Jewish state not under the thumb of Islamic rule. Their escape from the grasp of his coreligionists seems to burn away at him, thus the insane historical rantings.

Iran will hold a conference on the Holocaust in a few months, one which will no doubt be appalling and intellectually monstrous. But we should remember that his goal is not to deny the Holocaust, but to rehabilitate it.

Technorati tags: Iran | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | anti-Semitism | the Holocaust

NFL Steroids

2006-08-28T20:33:00.000-05:00

The NFL may have a steroid scandal approaching. Not just a one-player, failed-drug-test type scandal, but a big-scale, everybody-looks-bad, the whole-league-is-dirty type scandal:

According to an investigative report posted on the Charlotte Observer's Web site on Sunday, a number of Carolina Panthers used a vast quantity and tremendous variety of performance-enhancing drugs during the team's 2004 Super Bowl season.

[...]

Players' names were blacked out on Wadler's report, but the Observer reported that six Panthers -- and three of the five starting offensive linemen from the Super Bowl team -- were taking performance enhancers. And many reported adverse reactions.

Although studies have shown that steroids can affect blood flow and contribute to strokes and heart disease, one member of the Panthers ignored a family history of strokes and took the drugs anyway.

This story is going to get bigger.

Technorati tags: football | NFL

Possible Proof Castro Is Dying

2006-08-28T20:18:00.000-05:00

AcademicElephant infers from the following story that Castro may be on his death bed:

Venezuela's President says he made a second visit to Cuban leader Fidel Castro earlier this week.

President Hugo Chavez describes his ailing ally as "recuperating" and says they spoke for a couple of hours.

Chavez' visit was more or less secret, and thus AcademicElephant's inference: had there been good news about Castro's health, Chavez would have arrived with cameras in tow. He did not, therefore Castro's health must be very poor.

We can hope.

In the Australian, Caroline Overington describes how she came to realize that Castro's Cuba was not the paradise she had imagined in here fevered, progressive dreams:

Two years ago, I was given what quickly became an awful assignment. I was told to visit Cuba. Oh sure, like everybody I thought: dark rum, hot nights, fat cigars, the rumba.

The reality was very different. Cuba was wretched. Every day the photographer and I encountered distressing scenes of women, children and ageing Cubans living in terrible poverty.

I should be grateful she eventually figured out that all those nasty right-wing Cubans were telling the truth all along, but I'm not lately inclined to be generous to the dimwitted.

It was a terrible shock because, like many people, I'd believed the hype about Cuba: that it was a socialist paradise; that Castro was a visionary leader; that the Cuban people were happy communists. In fact, Castro is a gutless dictator who has never been brave enough to hold a presidential election. Yet across the West he continues to be celebrated as some grand, visionary leader, instead of being derided as a lunatic on his last legs.

If she really was a believer, then she probably owes a number of people an apology. People like her, people who "celebrated" Castro, are responsible for denouncing and denigrating those who have always understood Castro was a lunatic, long before he was on his last legs. Now that she's found her courage, she might take the time to recognize the Cuban dissidents who have always been courageous enough to tell the truth.

Previously:

Castro: Maybe Recovering, Probably Not Dead

Technorati tags: Fidel Castro | Cuba | freedom

Dumb Blogger

2006-08-28T19:54:00.000-05:00

So, I'm still waiting for HTML editor that was promised in a time frame of "days, not weeks" almost two weeks ago. And I'm still waiting for my Google AdSense ads to appear, and the DiggIt links, and so on, and so on. But while I'm waiting I've discovered yet another bizarre glitch.

A few days ago I clicked on a referring link from my logs. I could see it was to somebody's Blogger dashboard, but I was curious if it was simply a "Next Blog" hit or if there was some other link on the page. It turns out, the particular dashboard page was on the Korean blogger site, or at least I think it was Korean. I think, fine, whatever, and log in. Since then, every time I go the dashboard on my home computer, the site is in Korean. Every single time. At right is a partial screenshot.

How stupid is the programming that it thinks one visit means I want to work in the Korean version of blogger.

Technorati tags: Blogger | Blogger Beta

I Told You So

2006-08-28T19:02:00.000-05:00

Eleven days ago I wrote the following about John Mark Karr:

The man is a pedophile obsessed with the death of JonBenet Ramsey, and think it highly unlikely his confession will hold up once DNA evidence is tested. Despite all the talk, we never really left square one on this case.

I was right.

Since the prosecutors have declined to file charges, John Mark Karr can be returned to California to serve his time for possession of child pornography. His release from jail for that charge will probably be heavily covered by the media, so we can then learn whether he really is planning a sex change.

The media's insistent belief that not only had the JonBenet Ramsey murder been solved, but that the Ramseys' deserved all manner of mea culpas for ever having been suspected of the crime, only proves that the media is full of pompous, preening buffoons. In no way did Karr's sudden appearance exonerate the Ramseys: if he were guilty, given the facts of the crime, he would at least have to have been inside the Ramsey's home, making the parents possibly complicit; if he were innocent, then his appearance in no way relieved the parents of suspicion. After they had rushed to a judgment about Karr, they rushed to decry their prior rush to judgement about the Ramseys. We'd have all been better off if these reporters had chosen a career in janitorial science instead of journalism.

As I noted previously, Drunkablog has been covering the case more than is healthy,
as he now admits. I'm sure his friends and family are happy to have him back. But before he returned to his senses, such as they were, he did find this nugget of wisdom from the World Socialist Web Site. It is rapidly becoming axiomatic that while all idiots may not be leftists, all leftists are idiots.

Upon being cleared, one of Karr's lawyers, Seth Temin, advocated so zealously on behalf of his client that he nearly managed to defy the laws of physics:

"We're deeply distressed by the fact that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand, with no forensic evidence confirming the allegations against him and no independent factors leading to a presumption that he did anything wrong," Temin said.

Let's see, what's insane in that statement?

He was returned to California because he violated laws against child pornography in that jurisdiction.
He confessed on international television.
Champagne and fried prawns hardly constitute "dragging."
He confessed on international television.
He was returned Colorado because he refused to challenge a duly legal extradition warrant in a California court.
He confessed on international television.
He alluded to his guilt to two different sources, who each kept records of his statements.
He confessed on international television.

Yes, his arrest makes no sense at all.

One last point: I heard a few of my friends say things like this about Karr: "Why would he confess if he didn't do it?" For the record, I've never heard anyone ask a question like that when it actually made sense. Every time I've heard someone say, "Why do x, it makes no sense," that person has only succeeded in displaying naivete and ignorance. There is always a very solid reason that someone would do something that seems crazy, and its because that person is crazy. Karr confessed because he had a broken mind to begin with and somehow convinced himself he was guilty. It's called human nature, and it isn't always sunshine and moonbeams. The next time you hear someone say, "Why would somebody do that?" remind them of that fact.

Technorati tags: crime | JonBenet Ramsey

Hurricane Ernesto Reaches Cuba

2006-08-28T08:50:00.000-05:00

Hurricane Ernesto made landfall this morning more or less right on top of the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay and the terrorist detention center there. My question, what do they do with the prisoners? The vast majority of people held there are monstrous, using every opportunity to harass and intimidate the Marine guards, including hurling feces at them. Do they all sit together in a shelter? Are left in their open air cages? Can we just put them all on a little boat and hope they sink in the bay?

UPDATE: Question answered (see page 2 of the article). The prisoners are no longer housed in open air cages, and haven't been for some time:

For the last three years, detainees have been kept in cells without windows or with a single window covered with a heavy steel hurricane shutter. The cells replaced the open steel cages where prisoners were initially held.

U.S. military personnel, except for guards and people in other critical jobs, were told to stay in their quarters until the storm passed, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman.

My image of the open air cages persisted.

Technorati tags: hurricane Ernesto | Guantanamo

Midnight News -- 8/28/06

2006-08-28T00:15:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post implies there is something fishy about how few homicide charges are brought against American troops responsible for civilian deaths in the Iraq War. That may be the case, but it is more important to ask why the Washington Post and other media outlets are willing to equivocate when American lives are taken by terrorists, and cry injustice when Americans accidentally take the lives of Iraqis. It seems that civilian deaths only discredit the force responsible when that force is American or Israeli. I would be more inclined to take the Post's concerns seriously did it not so often act as defense attorney for groups that would prefer to chop off my head for not submitting to Islam rather than praise my country's application of the rule of law.

Thousands of Central American children risk "robbery, rape and death" to sneak into the U.S. illegally. The primary source of their suffering is the desperate economies of parts of Central America. The secondary source is our lax and indolent treatment of our own borders. Our unwillingness to act like we deserve to enforce our own immigration laws offers these children a false hope, and entice them into making the cruel passage north.

The pilots of Comair flight somehow made a horrible mistake. The lone survivor was the co-pilot, and he will carry the weight of this tragedy on his shoulders for the rest of his life. I think I would prefer to be one of the 49 fatalities.

Public school teachers in Detroit have voted to strike, beginning tomorrow. From some colleagues in that area, I learned that the teachers are highly motivated for two reasons. First, they haven't had a raise in four years, and are beginning to feel stretched. Second, their union has caved so many times in the past that many believe that should the union agree to the proposed pay and benefit cuts, that the union would effectively be broken. One strategy I heard bandied about, and which I think the teachers will regret not employing, would have had the teachers delay a strike until next week, when the students arrive. It would have shown good faith, allowed more time for negotiation, and would have given the teachers a chance to cause real pain, by forcing the schools to somehow manage all those teacherless students.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Another Reason To Shrink The Government

2006-08-27T23:32:00.000-05:00

According to some experts, the United States is falling apart.

A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland.

None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating.

[...]

The American Society of Civil Engineers last year graded the nation "D" for its overall infrastructure conditions, estimating that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years to fix the problem.

I once heard an analyst from the Cato Institute describe big government as a luxury we purchase for ourselves when the economy is strong. I think this is a wise insight, and can be expanded by noting that when we buy ourselves a luxury, it usually has little to do with our actual needs. A luxury item isn't usually an expensive version of a necessity, it is an impulsive purchase for which no prior need existed. In this sense, the big government we support when times are good is not big government that will prove useful, but simply a popular impulse in response to a supposed, not actual, need.

All those billions we've thrown at expanded regulations and expensive programs are now coming back to haunt us. Most of them should be tossed aside as unaffordable luxuries, so that money can diverted to infrastructure or taxes cut for those industries that can improve infrastructure. It pains me to say it, but even the so-called "big-government conservative" programs I generally support, such as a Mars mission and NCLB, probably need to be dropped in favor of infrastructure spending. We shouldn't tolerate living in a country where our elites preen at their own superiority for passing grandiose federal programs, while all around us we see deterioration and decay.

Technorati tags: United States

Government By Gangster

2006-08-27T23:04:00.000-05:00

The kidnapping of FOX News journalist Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig represented something at least unusual. Prior kidnappings of Westerners in Gaza were short lived, but the two journalists were held for several days, and were even subjected to a forced conversion. The internecine feuds driving Gaza politics are responsible for this strange kidnapping case.

In its broadcasts, Fox News often portayed the Hamas militants as terrorists, but the kidnapping of the two journalists, sources tell TIME, had nothing to do with Fox's perceived pro-Israel stance or a serious attempt, as the captors first demanded, of swapping the pair for Muslim prisoners in the U.S. Instead, the two newsmen were more likely the victims of a vicious feud between various Palestinian militias.

Palestinian security sources close to the negotiators told TIME that the two Fox Newsmen - reporter Steve Centanni, 60, from Washington, D.C., and New Zealand cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36 - were kidnapped from Gaza to embarrass Haniyeh's government. The militants, who earlier identified themselves as members of the previously unknown Holy Jihad Brigades, were enraged with fellow Hamas militants because they too had joined in the daring capture on June 25th of Corp. Shalit, in which Palestinian gunmen tunneled under a wall and attacked an Israeli army post. But according to these security sources, the militant groups fell out after Hamas' military wing took control of Shalit and elbowed the other co-conspirators aside.

In revenge, these militants, who belong to a splinter group of the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, struck back by seizing the two journalists, these sources said.

The Palestinian pseudo-state is governed by gangsters, and this fact alone makes their government one with which no deal can be struck. I don't know what can be done instead, since the Palestinians are such the darlings of the international community and the U.N., but we ought to at least recognize their government and political culture for what it is: barbarous collections of armed thugs, driven by irrational hatreds and preoccupations.

The problem that follows from the kidnapping is the price that Ismail Haniyeh had to pay to secure the journalists' release: the hard line militants will now have a say in whether Gilad Shalit is released.

Also mentioned in the TIME article is the air strike against a car carrying various Palestinian journalists:

The reporters' car was clearly marked "TV" and the crew were filming the destruction of an Israeli air raid when the missile struck. The Israeli military said the journalists' vehicle was acting suspiciously, a claim that the Foreign Press Association in Tel Aviv dismissed as "outrageous."

Given the outright lies in "news" stories from both Lebanon and Gaza, and the willingness of terror groups and militants to use civilians as cover for their attacks, I think the notion that the Israeli claim is "outrageous" is outrageous itself. The Israeli claim may be true, it may be untrue, but unbelievable it is not.

The strenuous response from the Foreign Press Association suggests they also think the military's claim may prove true. In other words, methinks the Muslim doth protest too much.

Technorati tags: Gaza | Israel

Brewers-Rangers Trade One Month Later

2006-08-27T15:16:00.000-05:00

On July 28, the Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers completed a typical deadline trade: the Brewers got a strong relief pitcher to shore up their bullpen and the Rangers got a soon-to-be free agent slugger and a prospect in return. I thought at the time the trade would help the Brewers but made no sense for the Rangers, and now that it's been a month we can see if that statement was accurate.

In the trade, the Brewers received four players: reliever Francisco Cordero, outfielders Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix, left-hander Julian Cordero. Texas received Carlos Lee and top prospect Nelson Cruz.

Nix is a bench player and Julian Cordero is a minor leaguer; neither was expected to have much of an impact on the season. The primary player in the trade for Milwaukee was Francisco Cordero, and Mensch was included to replace the player the Brewers gave up, Carlos Lee, and as a sign of Lee's value.

I'll use July 29 as the baseline, even though F. Cordero pitched on the 28th; the 29th is the first date that all players had settled in with their new teams. On that day, one day after the trade, the Brewers record was 49-55, and they were 9.5 games out of first place in the NL Central and 6 games back, tied for fourth place, in the wild card. As of today, they are 62-67, 6.5 games out of first place, and are only 4.5 games back for the wild card, but behind 6 other teams in seventh place.

My thought at the trade was that since F. Cordero was a strike out pitcher, he'd be missed by Texas and effective for Milwaukee. Since the trade he's come in as the teams closer, pitching 11.2 of about 120 innings for the team. He's compiled a remarkable record, with 10 saves in 10 opportunities and no losses. He has yet to give up any runs, and has had 15 hits and walks against 13 strike outs. If the teams has not won more games, it is because the starters and the offense has not gotten to th 8th or 9th inning with a lead.

One reason why this might be the case is the loss of slugger Carlos Lee. The acquisition of Kevin Mensch was intended to replace Lee, so the immediate wisdon of the trade might be an issue of whether losing Lee cost the team any of the leads that may have allowed F. Cordero's performance to help them. Since he's come to the Brewers, Mench's average has dropped 50 points and his OPS has gone from a respectable .797 to a lowly .573. He's scored but 5 runs and only driven in 13, and has seen limited playing time in the last two weeks. This shouldn't surprise: until this year, he's only played in the American League.

The best comparison is to what they might have had from Carlos Lee had they not traded him. In the 21 games he played for the Brewers in July, Lee had 8 runs and 17 RBI, and thus was only marginally more productive than Mench. The Brewers may have a problem in left field, but Mench's presence instead of Lee has hardly hurt the Brewers win percentage.

On July 29, Texas had a record of 51-53, was 3 games back AL West, and was 11 back for wild card in sixth place. As of today they are 66-65, 9 games back, and still in sixth place for the wild card, 11.5 games back.

For Texas, the value of the trade isn't just what they get in Lee, but what they lose by giving up F. Cordero. In his last 12 appearances for the Rangers, used as a setup reliever and not a closer. Cordero had 16 strike outs against a 14 hits and 4 walks. He gave 5 runs, all earned, 4 of them in a single game against the New York Yankees.

In his place, the top 2 setup men for Texas have mainly been Wes Littleton and Ron Mahay; these two seem to be the best players to compare to Cordero. In August, Mahay has 14 Ks and has given up 4 runs, 3 earned, in 11.2 innings. In the same month, Littleton has 1 strike out and has given up 4 runs, all earned, in 13.2 innings. Against that lone strike out, he has given up 12 hits and 4 walks. Losing Cordero can be said to have changed nothing, since he had not pitched that much better than either of these men, or it could be said to have cost 2 or 3 runs. Unlike Mahay and Littleton, Cordero had been consistently strong excpet for one bad appearance against the Yankees.

Meanwhile, Carlos Lee has provided more offense for Texas than Mench has for the Brewers, but little more than Mench did before the trade. His slugging percentage since joining the Rangers has been an unexciting .517, and though he has hit well, he has drawn few walks. However, compared to Mench, he has been a run scoring machine. He has 24 runs and 15 RBI. In his last 28 games with the Rangers, Mench had 7 runs and 10 RBI.

Lee has probably benefited from playing a stronger line up and in a park that allows a lot of offense. In this sense, they've improved their team by including him, because he has taken advantage of the park in a way that Mench never has. That his presence has not helped the team greatly is a function of a pitching staff that did not improve from the trade, and arguably became weaker.

Ultimately, this trade will probably mean little to either franchise. Unless Nix, Cruz, or Julian Cordero turn into top players down the line, the whole episode will be quite forgettable. Neither team improved greatly after the trade, and neither team will reach the playoffs this year. But it is interesting to note that the two primary players in the deal, F. Cordero and Lee, have been rejuvenated somewhat by the change. Cordero, for 12 games at least, has gone from a slightly above average set up reliever to a top closer, and Lee, in terms of runs, has become more productive than he had been in Milwaukee. At least their agents will be happy, and Milwaukee, with an important position solidified, can build for next year.

Technorati tags: baseball

FOX News Journalists Freed

2006-08-27T11:00:00.000-05:00

As Ismail Haniyeh had predicted, Olaf Wiig and Steve Centanni have been released by their captors.

The two journalists were dropped off at Gaza City's Beach Hotel by Palestinian security officials and appeared to be in good health. A tearful Centanni embraced a Palestinian journalist briefly as he entered, then rushed upstairs as Wiig followed.

Centanni, in a phone interview shortly after his release, said "I'm fine. I'm just so happy to be free."

He said he was so emotional because he was out and alive.

"There were times when I thought 'I'm dead,' and I'm not," Centanni said. "I'm fine. I'm so very happy."

Prior to their release, the kidnappers released another videotape.

Parts of the latest six-minute tape, aired on al-Jazeera television, showed Centanni and Wiig seated cross-legged. Both read from written statements condemning the American policy in the Middle East. In one scene, both men were shown eating.

"It is Apache helicopters firing Hellfire missiles made in America that kill the residents in Gaza," Wiig said on the tape.

Their statements were punctuated on the tape with screens of written verse from the Koran, and scenes from Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq that was the site of abuse of Muslim prisoners by American soldiers.

Despite this barbaric treatment, the two men still very positive towards the Palestinians.

At a news conference, Centanni and Wiig said they worried that their kidnapping might discourage other news organizations from reporting on the Palestinians, whom Centanni said "are beautiful."

"That would be a great tragedy for the people of Palestinians" if their story does not get told, Wiig said. "You guys need us on the streets."

The end of the FOX News story, which included material from the Associated Press, tries to put the kidnapping into perspective.

In chaotic Gaza, gunmen often change their affiliation or form splinter groups. Their agendas are often driven by personal issues, including jobs and power for their clans, rather than by ideology.

They sound almost like old-fashioned hillbillies. Except for the death worship and the blowing up of Jews.

Technorati tags: Gaza | terrorism

Midnight News -- 8/27/06

2006-08-27T00:07:00.000-05:00

The Sudan has charged a Chicago Tribune reporter with espionage.

Paul Salopek, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, was charged with espionage and two other criminal counts in a Sudanese court Saturday, three weeks after he was detained by pro-government forces in the war-torn province of Darfur.

[...]

Salopek was on a scheduled leave of absence from the Tribune when he and the two Chadians were detained Aug. 6 and jailed. All three were officially charged Saturday with espionage, passing information illegally and writing "false news," in addition to a violation of Sudan's immigration laws by entering the country without a visa.

Though unable to convince his own militia to quit launching rockets at Israel, Prime Minister of the Palestinian pseudo-state Ismail Haniyeh is convinced the release of kidnapped FOX newsmen is imminent.

The Israeli Air Force apparently struck an armored car containing Palestinian journalists. None were killed, and Pallywood has a new storyline.

Iraqi civil defense workers are unsung heroes in the sectarian violence in Baghdad. It is really a question of how long they will keeping working for the benefit of a weak central government that cannot at this point protect even them from violence.

Democratic candidates are discovering that courting the left means riding a tiger. The left does not wish to confront real threats, preferring instead more aggrandizing policies that involve spending other people's money to satiate their egalitarian whims. A war against people that want us all dead is to them only a distraction, and they want that distraction to end as soon as possible, regardless of the consequences. Democrats who realize that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be disastrous are finding that however sensible their proposals for ending the war might be, they are not going to satisfy for their most vociferous and demanding supporters.

Tropical Storm Ernesto could strengthen and become a major hurricane. Ernesto is also chatting up your date at the cabana bar, so there's another reason to watch out for him.

An invitation to a conference on freedom of expressions was rescinded for one participant because he was Israeli, and indication the organizers didn't quite grasp the concept of freedom of expression. Some Norwegians offered to grant the person Norwegian citizenship to allow him to bypass the restriction on a technicality, but the participant, a former Israeli MK, declined. Freedom of expression follows directly from the freedom to exist; denying the latter implicitly denies the former.

An advertisement on the Tokyo subways that features a nude and pregnant Britney Spears will not be censored as originally planned. This is not good news for America.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Insult Upon Injury

2006-08-26T22:50:00.000-05:00

The fact they survived for months on raw fish and rainwater does not stop the vultures of the Mexican press from invading the lives of three fisherman.

The story captivated Mexico when first reported last week. Having disappeared in October, family members said, the fishermen and their 27-foot skiff turned up two weeks ago in the central Pacific halfway between North America and Australia, a blip on the radar screen of a tuna vessel north of Baker Island.

But the 100 or so journalists who greeted the survivors at Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport are more used to reporting crime and scandal than heroism. They grilled the three men at an often chaotic news conference that ended in a melee between producers and cameramen from rival television networks.

This is the tragic part: an ordeal like this alone would be fascinating were anyone to take it seriously enough to tell these fishermen's story, but the press is too caught up with themselves to do so.

Is it true that you guys are really drug dealers on a failed smuggling mission, the reporters asked. What happened to the two other men who you say were on board with you? Did you eat them? If you were at sea for nine months, why aren't your fingernails longer?

"To those who don't believe us, all I can say is that I hope that what happened to us never happens to you," Lucio Rendon, 27, said after denying that he and his comrades [Salvador Ordoñez and Jesus Vidaña] were either "narcos" or cannibals. "I just thank God for being here."

The truth should be enough, but it probably isn't sick enough for the media.

Family members say the three are typical fishermen from a stretch of coast dotted with hardscrabble fishing hamlets. When they left San Blas with two other men on Oct. 28, they didn't notify port authorities, or even many members of their family — not an unusual practice in an area where many fish illegally.

[...]

The survivors have said in interviews that they set off in search of shark, but have not said whether they were licensed. Their first night out, they lost a fishing line. While they tried to find it the next morning, their onboard engines ran out of gas. They began to drift.

One of the men, known to the others only by the nickname "El Farsero," died in January. Fifteen days later, a second man, known to the others as "Juan," died. The men either wouldn't eat or couldn't hold down the raw fish the others were eating to survive.

The other two men have not been identified, which does not seem surprising given the fishing industry of these little Mexican towns. The fact they dies so early has led to the accusations of cannibalism.

The men read a Bible they had on board. When a storm ripped out the Apocalypse chapters, they said, they took it as a good sign.

I think a case could be made that moral imagination allows people to persevere, and having the Bible with them no doubt insipred them.

They collected rainwater to drink. Ordoñez remembered advice from a government-sponsored survival course: Eat as little as possible and drink fish blood to stay hydrated. (Officials in San Blas confirmed that Ordoñez completed the course in 2004.)

Score one for a government program.

Upon hearing of his presumed death, Ordoñez's 15-year-old daughter, Gladiola, gave up her dream of being a teacher, dropped out of school and set out for the United States, the newspaper La Cronica de Hoy reported Thursday.

"My father is dead," Gladiola told her brother Angel. "What will I do here? I don't even have money for a notebook." Gladiola crossed the border illegally and reportedly is working in a Los Angeles factory, the newspaper reported. The account could not be independently verified.

The story is possible, but it sounds too good to be true, especially from a country where there is much resentment at America for acting like it has a right to defend its borders. I wonder how the "hardscrabble" life she endured in this little village would have allowed her income enough to go to school in the first place, and thus why her circumstances so changed upon her father's supposed death. That the story has not been verified illustrates the problem with how the Mexican press is treating these men. They treat the most salacious rumors as though they were true, as though these men were Brangelina.

Rendon, it turned out, was on probation on charges of stealing shrimp from a fishing company. A mortgage company was about to foreclose on the family home of Vidaña, 27. Vidaña's wife had given birth to their baby, a girl — Juliana is now 4 months old. And while talking with Ordoñez in a phone call broadcast live by the Televisa network, his family in Oaxaca learned that he had moved in with a woman in San Blas.

But little has emerged about the two men said to have died at sea. "Up to now they are only ghosts," the newspaper El Universal wrote Tuesday. "No one knows their full names or where they're from. It's as if they never existed."

We might learn the truth if the press were interested in more than the following:

At Friday's airport news conference, a radio reporter asked the three men whether they would take lie detector tests to prove that their story was true.

Yes, the fishermen answered.

After the news conference, producers from the rival Televisa and Azteca television networks engaged in a shoving match over who would get the first "exclusive" interview with the three men: Televisa ended up with two of the survivors, Azteca with one.

Reporter Carlos Loret de Mola prodded Ordoñez and Rendon until they acknowledged that, yes, at one point they had drunk their own urine to survive.

The press probably won't bother finding out who the other two fishermen are: ghosts and victims of cannibalism make better copy.

Technorati tags: Mexico | the press

These Nazis Get A Protest

2006-08-26T22:04:00.000-05:00

It's nice to know that at least one instance of Americans resisting a fascist rally gets favorable news coverage.

Hundreds of people jeered and taunted a group of neo-Nazis who rallied against immigration policy and the Iraq war Saturday on the steps of the state Capitol.

Police estimated about 800 people showed up to counter the Minneapolis-based National Socialist Movement's speakers, but a brief rainstorm thinned the crowd.

Police said 64 neo-Nazis lined the Capitol steps.

Of course, these Nazis make it easy: they take essentially the same name as Hitler's party, and they wear brown uniforms with little arm bands. They are so easy to spot that they succeeded in becoming the target of a pompous newspaper editorial.

But I suspect the mass denunciations are a function of the group's obviousness and inherent weakness. These are alienated white losers who are the remotest of threats to the public at large. They are easy to spot, are not likely to fight back, and thus easy to denounce.

It is rather pathetic that we can so loudly decry these people but shrink to even notice fascists who are Muslim. In the case of Islamic fascism, we fail to see the same hatred, violence, and ideological rigidity that the gentlemen in Madison displayed on Saturday. In fact, not only do we fail to notice, we often fall all over ourselves to prove that we don't notice, endlessly repeating the mantra that "Islam is a religion of peace" and justifying genocidal intentions by pointing out all of Israel's mistakes and none of the Islamofascist crimes.

Protesting the neo-nazis is a useless display given the threat we face from fascists of a different faith.

Technorati tags: neo-nazis | the left

Adblogging: Dance! Dance! Dance!

2006-08-26T21:46:00.000-05:00

I can think of few professions more useless then that of dancer. Dance, while pretty to look at, expresses little but the dancer's own athleticism. It has little or no content, and holds little or no intellectual interest. Yet young people in droves seek out this career, and when they need to eat, they can usually find employment in music videos and advertising, two genres where the superficiality of the dancer's art is not a vice but a virtue.

Below are some recent examples in commercials:

Starbucks Doubleshots: Manic, caffeinated hordes are coming to pillage your offices and conference rooms. They stomp, shout, and chant their way through urban America, seeking virgin office managers they can sacrifice to their pagan gods.

There's several fatal errors in this ad, and it not only fails to make me feel enthused about trying the product, it actually makes me want to avoid the product entirely, even if it were offered to me for free.

The first is that the producers attempted to maximize how large the crowd of stompers appears to be. They used quick cuts from dance move to dance move, rearranging most of the dancers each time, to make that hundreds of people had taken the streets. The problem is, they didn't have enough dancers: too many faces repeat. In the final set of cuts, a man sees the crowd then rushes out to join them. However, the same man was in the shot just prior to this, and the fact it is the same man is obvious. An ad with a mistake this obvious does not bring credit to the product it advertises. It also doesn't help that the ad is all about getting ready for the day and in the last shots, some guy is ditching work to go stomp around the streets with a bunch of strangers.

A second flaw is the art design. The ad is all black, grey, and denim blue. It is supposed to have a cool, corporate feel to it, and I suppose it does, but all the ambition it is supposed to inspire crashes against its depressing backdrop. Why would I want to succeed in an environment so completely lacking in joy, around people so dour and intense, and why would I want a product that is intended to help me do so?

The final and most serious problem is simply this: these people are freakin' crazy, I mean totally, completely, balls-to-the-wall insane. I really don't want to drink something that will cause me to act like these people. I'd be more interested in the antidote.

Fanta: I thought the first bunch of Fanta ads featuring the Fantanas were absolutely brilliant. The scantily clad girls, each dressed in a different bright, solid color to represent the different flavors of the drink, would suddenly appear on some hot sweaty scene bringing joy and refreshment. It was all so cheesy and fun that I was tempted a number of times actually buy a Fanta, which is saying a lot for the ad because I never buy soft drinks. I especially loved that each of the Fantana's had a name, as though they were dolls you could collect.

The ads must have been popular, because they have been developed further in a batch of ads. Unfortunately, the producers took what was good, cheesy fun and created a successor that is less clear and much more overproduced. The music changed: it has become a complex and overproduced dance tune, and one that isn't half as fun to listen as before. Second, instead of primarily presenting obvious scenarios that show Fanta is a cool and refreshing drink, the new ads are mostly a jumble of people dancing. This lessens the clear message about the drink the prior version had. The only redeeming virtue of the new ad is that the girls still have names.

"Don't you wanna?" Not as much as before. They should have kept things simple.

Bacardi Mojiti: Apparently, if you are very hip, you are at the mercy of smug, pretentious bartenders. They can make you dance, they can make you stop dancing. Your whole world revolves around them, at least while they are crushing mint leaves for your Mojito. This ad features a muscular dance not unlike the Twist, only without any of the joy or variety of movement.

With all the sweaty bodies grinding about, the underlying message of the ad is subtle. The bartender is only just beginning the drink; he hasn't even added the alcohol. So it takes more thought then they expect the viewer to employ to realize that the entire commercial is saying Bacardi rules the night, and is the sole source of whatever fun one might have. When the drink mixing stops, so does all the dancing in the entire city.

The people most responsive to this ad are those who hope to submerge themselves into the overpriced, soulless world of clubs and parties. Watching it makes me grateful that I am not hip.

And by the way, I don't think a Mojito is a gay drink: Moe-hee-toe.

Technorati tags: advertising | ads | culture | television | tv

Clarity In India

2006-08-26T15:42:00.000-05:00

In India's Daily Pioneer, Dina Nath Mishra makes an observation that I can't imagine appearing anywhere in the mainstream Western media, despite that it's truth can be verified by simple observation:

Islam is not past, it is very much alive and clicking all over the world. The number of its followers is next only to Christians. They are present as minority in almost all parts of the world. They are troublesome where in minority; they are tyrants where in majority.

Samizdata discusses a recent example of this phenomenon:

There is a strange article in the LA Times called The Governor's cold shoulder to Muslims, in which Shakeel Syed, the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California criticises state governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for refusing to meet with him. The title suggests this refusal amounts to cold shouldering 'Muslims' rather than just certain Muslims (i.e Shakeel Syed).

In reality, all Schwarzenegger did was attend a rally supporting Israel. Demanding he crawl before them apologetically is evidence of a congenital bully. The calls for an apology are meant to demean the governor, and make any other public official think twice about supporting the existence of Israel. Trouble now, as a minority, and giving every indication that as a majority they would be tyrannical.

Technorati tags: muslims | Islam | terror | terrorism

Fentanyl Laced Heroin Dealer Faces Murder Charge

2006-08-26T12:43:00.000-05:00

Corey Crump, a 35-year-old convicted felon, is charged with murder for selling drugs to the son of a deputy police chief. "In this case, the body of 17-year-old Joseph Krecker -- still clutching tinfoil packets of heroin in one hand -- was discovered within a half block of the [Crump's] home, investigators said."

While the charge is significant -- murder indictments are rare for selling drugs that cause a fatal overdose -- it is not part of the primary arrests made several weeks ago in the heroin-fentanyl epidemic.

Similar charges involving other fentanyl victims and dealers in Chicago could be forthcoming soon, a law enforcement source told the Chicago Sun-Times. Investigators are awaiting laboratory toxicology results in those cases, the source said.

Krecker is the youngest victim of the nearly 200 fatal fentanyl overdoses in Cook County since April 2005.

"This tragedy is based on somebody's greed," said Jack Krecker, a deputy chief of the west suburban FranklinPark Police Department. "They tried to make more money by cutting this [heroin] with fentanyl. This greed is what killed my son."

Technorati tags: heroin | fentanyl | Chicago

Midnight News -- 8/26/06

2006-08-26T00:01:00.000-05:00

According to Kofi Annan, troops from the European Union will provide the "backbone" of the peacekeeping force being sent to southern Lebanon. This will severely deplete Europe's already limited backbone resources. The whole continent threatens to collapse into a puddle.

Russia is experience regular economic growth, but is also suffering severe inflation:

City authorities quickly began handing out bread coupons to him and hundreds of other pensioners in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - the first time food vouchers had been issued anywhere in the country since the dark days of 1992. But the gesture brought little comfort to [Vladimir] Gaidukas, 72, who lives on 5,000 rubles ($187) per month.

"People are in a state of shock," Gaidukas said by telephone from the remote city on the Kamchatka Peninsula this week.

Muslims in Pakistan are enraged by attempts to change the rape laws in that country. They are profoundly furious at the notion that rape victims might not be guilty of adultery, and thus not available to be stoned.

French socialists are sexist pigs.

There is no redemption for this degree of depravity.

I am glad I am not a polar bear in this day and age.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

YouTube Barbarians

2006-08-25T21:14:00.000-05:00

The revolution may not be televised. The barbarity, however, can be found on YouTube. (NSFW)

From Crime Scene KC.

Technorati tags: Kansas City | crime

Refined Moonbattery

2006-08-25T20:44:00.000-05:00

Not all idiots are leftists, but all leftists are idiots.

In a commentary that drips with phoniness, a poster at Huffington Post has stated that although he'd prefer there not be another 9/11, he does sometimes long to see one take place so that the true source of evil in the world, George Bush, might be deposed. Apparently, no sacrifice is too great for other Americans to make in the service of protecting our republic from the depredations of a Texas conservative. This is a point of view so deranged that although those who express it ought to be ashamed, expressing it at all implies a mind incapable of shame.

Ace of Spades is monitoring any attempts to retract post and avoid the repercussions of its vicious insanity.

Technorati tags: the left | 9/11

God Mocks White Sox Fans

2006-08-25T20:23:00.000-05:00

The Chicago White Sox have always been the second team in Chicago. Despite their history of losing, the Cubs have always been the most loved team in the city. However, despite their long wait between world series wins, the White Sox have had more consistently strong teams over the years than the Cubs have, a trend that finally rewarded them with a World Series victory in 2005.

While most predicted the Sox would repeat as division champions, if not American League and World Series champions, this year the Sox have not been as good as they were last yer. Though they have one of the best records in the league, they have been in the shadow of the Detroit Tigers all year, and their much praised starting pitchers have been inconsistent at best, not inspiring any confidence in a post-season run like last year's.

As an added insult, the universe has also thrusted the following upon White Sox fans: he Chicago Cubs, one of the worst teams in baseball in the first half of the season, has a better record since the All Star break than do the White Sox. The Cubs are at 19-19 since the break, and this weekend play the faltering St. Louis Cardinals, a team they have dominated this year. Meanwhile, the Sox have an 18-21 record since the All Star game. Most of the Sox losses came in an extended bad run right after the break. they've been playing better more recently, and this weekend seek to expand their Wild Card lead against the Minnesota Twins.

The fact that the Cubs are playing equally as well as the White Sox should frighten Sox fans more than a little. Perhaps an extra prayer or two would help, or maybe a few servings of billy goat stew. Certainly, something must be done to appease the baseball gods.

Technorati tags: baseball | Chicago White Sox | Chicago Cubs

Russia Betrays The West

2006-08-25T19:12:00.000-05:00

Tehran responded to the incentive package proposed by the major powers by agreeing to talks and demanding the right to retain all of their weapons programs. Essentially, they rejected the incentives package completely but decided the major powers would be fool enough to sit and negotiate rather then act on threats of sanctions. Tehran has successfully bought themselves time to build a nuclear weapon. This in turn will enable Iran to better project their foreign policy beyond their own borders. Since their foreign policy consists primarily of destroying Israel and bringing about the Muslim apocalypse, their success is the worst news possible for the free world.

The picture below accompanied accompanied the first news of the package:

The caption read:

Britain's Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett, center, speaks as, from left, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov listen during a press briefing after a meeting at the British Residence in Vienna, Thursday June 1, 2006. Six world powers meeting to discuss the crisis over Iran's nuclear program agreed Thursday on a 'significant' package of incentives to convince Tehran to halt uranium enrichment, Beckett said. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

I wrote at the time that one of the people in the picture would betray us when negotiations with Iran escalated: one of the nation's represented above would decide their short term gain would be best served by siding with Tehran against the rest of the world. Russia has decided to play that role, ruling out any support for sanctions for Iran's defiant rejection of the major powers accord.

Germany's Angela Merkel denounced Iran's response, as did Jacques Chirac. Even Kofi Annan is working to convince Iran to halt uranium enrichment. But Russia will only make token efforts, and is establishing itself as Iran's protector among the great powers.

Now that Russia has assisted Iran's nuclear ambitions, we can understand the news we read as a prelude to the day Tehran tests their first weapon. Iran's former president has aided his successors by reinforcing their cover story:

"Our nuclear program is a peaceful one completely," [former Iranian President Mohammad] Khatami claimed. "We are not trying to create an international crisis, though some countries are trying to do that."

He also repeated a vile threat oft6en heard both from Islamofascists and their appeasers in the West:

Khatami, speaking at a gathering sponsored by U.N. University in Tokyo, defended Iran's "legitimate right" to develop nuclear energy, claiming the program is completely peaceful and poses no threat.

But he warned that pressure aimed at forcing Iran to abandon the program is "creating another crisis in a region that is already ready to explode."

[...]

On Friday, he particularly singled out U.S. Mideast policy for criticism, saying it is fomenting tensions. "Many of the policies the big powers are promoting are promoting violence, although in the name (of) fighting terrorism," he said. "This is like pouring gasoline on a fire."

The argument can be summarized as: preventing evil people from expressing their evilness will cause them to do evil things.

Domestically, Iran is claiming it will soon announce a breakthrough in nuclear technology. The timing is too convenient to be a coincidence. The announcement simply furthers Iran's cover story.

What makes the crisis so difficult is that for two reasons, the Iranian people support the mullahs. First, Iran really does suffer an energy crisis, and while more oil refineries would be the most appropriate response, threats to what is allegedly an attempt to aid the population suffering the crisis will not be popular within Iran. Second, ordinary Iranians support the development of nuclear weapons as a matter of national pride. They assume that if Pakistan and India can have the bomb, they deserve the bomb as well. It is schizophrenic state of mind: we're only interested in peaceful use of nuclear power, and even in case we aren't, we deserve the bomb.

Only brute force can protect us from Iranian mullahs who enjoy their own public's support, and sanctions are the first step in applying brute force. Russia has decided the protection of the West is less important than Russia's short term interest.

Previously:

Technorati tags: Iran | politics | nuclear weapons | Israel

The Following Story Is Not News

2006-08-25T02:42:00.000-05:00

Phoenix is in the middle of a desert, and the soil there just can't hold much water. So on the rare occasions when it rains heavily, the washs and arroyos that are everywhere in the city fill up and Phoenix experiences flash floods.

Yet every time it rains heavily, some idiot decides that they can ignore the street signs that warn them not to cross through a wash when the road is flooded, gets himself trapped, and has to be rescued. It happens like clockwork, and usually the "victim" of is some SUV driver who thinks himself invulnerable to the laws of physics that apply to other drivers. It really doesn't deserve to be called news.

It happened again in the recent rains in the Valley.

Heavy rain caused flooding in the Phoenix area Thursday, turning normally dry riverbeds into raging rivers and trapping motorists.

Firefighters waded into the Indian Bend Wash to help two people out of two cars and walk them out of the swift knee-deep water.

This is near where my relatives live and where I grew up. There are plenty of signs telling people not to cross.

Elsewhere, a woman driving through a flooded Phoenix intersection became trapped momentarily, but firefighters rescued her without incident, said Mike Sandulak, a division chief with the Phoenix Fire Department. Several other cars were stranded in the intersection but no one else needed to be rescued.

Emergency personnel in other jurisdictions also reported calls to pull people from stranded vehicles.

Some of these people may have been caught accidentally by the floods, but my experience tells me that is unlikely. Not recognizing the danger of heavy rains, they decided to ignore the warnings of street signs and press their luck. Bad move.

Technorati tags: Phoenix | floods

A Poison Hatches Out

2006-08-25T01:53:00.000-05:00

Hezbollah's war against Israel did not result in the complete annihilation of Hassan Nasrallah's illegal, private army, and thus is viewed by far too many as a victory for Hezbollah. That organizations momentum, coupled with their successful propaganda efforts concerning Israel's air strikes, has allowed those who wish to hate and kill to openly declare their desire to hate and kill.

Jewish leaders in Italy on Thursday condemned recent newspaper advertisements likening Israel's military offensive against Hizbullah operatives in Lebanon to Nazi massacres and fascism.

In a statement issued at the end of a meeting with Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, the Committee Against Discrimination and Anti-Semitism said the ads also generated intolerance and hostility toward the Jewish community at a delicate time.

Israel's existence is the crime which such people decry, an idea that is a crime in itself.

Technorati tags: Israel | ant-semitism

Time According To Blogger

2006-08-25T01:27:00.000-05:00

The other day I wrote about some of the troubles I had with the new blogger, primarily that I could not edit the new template's HTML. The official Blogger Buzz wrote that this functionality would be coming in "days not weeks." That was 8 days ago, and thus we are now in the time frame of weeks not days.

Even though I tend to be loyal, I'm getting a little peeved. This layout is nice, but it isn't me, and it has some serious flaws compared to what I had before. Most importantly, I can't place the "I Stand With Israel" javascript in the upper right, a circumstance about which I'm not happy at all, seeing as how I do stand with Israel. I also can't display any of the Google ads I signed up for now that I'm using the beta version of Google's own blogging system, a strange problem given it's all the same company.

So I wait, impatiently.

Technorati tags: Blogger | Blogger Beta

Yet Another Road Trip

2006-08-23T16:28:00.000-05:00

This grows a little tedious.

I'm on another road trip. I knew it was coming, but I was informed that a colleague and I would be leaving this morning at 7:30 rather than Thursday. Not the best way to get an itinerary, especially with a pregnant wife I'd rather not be away from.

In any event, blogging will be light until Friday evening.

Technorati tags: travel

Midnight News -- 8/23/06

2006-08-22T22:33:00.000-05:00

The Congolese finally heard the results of their historic election, and they did not like the results at all. Riots and inter-party violence broke out when it was announced a runoff would be required between incumbent President Joseph Kabila and former rebel leader and runner-up Jean-Pierre Bemba. Kabila received 45% of the vote to Bemba's 20%. The European Union has sent troops to quell the violence and support UN peace keepers, and President Kabila is begging his army to remain in their barracks. Much of the capital Kinsasha has shut down. The greatest disappointment in the election is that it failed to unite the country and that much of the voting fell along tribal lines. It is foolish to have expected a Switzerland to erupt after a single election.

We should not be glamorizing the functionaries of the state. This is how we go from a government of public servants to one of courtiers and mandarins.

Much controversy ensued in Scottsdale, Arizona when the Pink Taco restaurant chain moved to town. Now, the family behind the chain wants to purchase the naming rights for the new Arizona Cardinals stadium across town in Glendale. They've pledged 30 million dollars to indicate their seriousness, but I have no doubt their only goal is to keep their company's name in the headlines. As successful as they have been, they must be smart enough to know that the lead-in to a televised football game could never begin: "Coming up, the 49'ers take on the Arizona Cardinals, live, from the Pink Taco in Glendale, Arizona."

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

The Bugs Are Here

2006-08-22T19:26:00.000-05:00

Once again, mainstream journalists are ignoring a grave threat to mankind, hoping to shield incompetent authorities from criticism for the horror that approaches:

Have any vivid memories of carting away shovels full of large, red-eyed flying insects back in 1990?

The Lake County Forest Preserve District would like to hear about them.

They're the damn government, don't they keep records? Maybe they should turn over bug work to credit report companies: they remember everything.

The district is seeking information from residents as it prepares for the emergence next summer of thousands of 17-year periodic cicadas, which appear all at once, in contrast to annual cicadas, which mature and emerge at different times.

[...]

"It only happens every 17 years and people tend to remember it because it's pretty fantastic when it happens," said Jennifer Filipiak, a wildlife biologist with the district. "I'm sure we'll get stories from people remembering having to shovel them away."

I would hope the people who had to shovel them away had the good sense to sell their houses and move away. Giant piles of dead bugs don't exactly remind me of home sweet home. My first call after clearing the dead bugs would be to a realtor. Actually, my first call before clearing the dead bugs would be to the realtor, and my question would be, "Why didn't you warn me about the giant piles of bugs?"

Also known as 17-year locusts, periodic cicadas are related to leafhoppers, not true locusts, which are a kind of grasshopper. They have red eyes instead of the green eyes of annual cicadas.

Cicadas are harmless insects with wide-set eyes, short antennae and transparent veined wings.

Harmless? They sound horrible. How can something that ugly be harmless? It's incongruous, and I don't believe for one second these bugs are harmless, no matter how many "biologists" and "scientists" say so.

The eggs for the 17-year cicadas were laid in 1990. The bugs have been living underground ever since, Filipiak said.

For 17 years they've laid in wait, and now are ready to launch their attack. We've had all that time to set up our defenses, yet our government has done nothing to protect us. So what do reporters do? They ignore the fact the authorities have no plan whatever to cope with this threat, and even help the desperate authorities by calling on the public to do Lake County's job. Disgraceful.

Think about that when a bug with giant, red eyes comes for you and your loved ones.

Technorati tags: Chicago

The Chevrolet Cobalt Is A Horrid Car

2006-08-22T10:04:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, I rented a 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt to get from Memphis to rural Mississippi. I didn't choose that car by request, it was simply the one Hertz gave me, probably the cheapest rental the company had and thus the preference of my current employer.

I can say without any hesitation whatsoever that the 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt sucks to high heaven. It sucks so hard that not even light can escape. I would also say it blows, but that would be an insult to things that blow. If I had a million dollars, I would buy as many Cobalts as I could and destroy them all in painful, tortuous, sadistic ways, then send the dismembered pieces to the people who designed it. It is an absolute, unmitigated disaster of a car.

Here's what happened:

I got the car Sunday evening and got to my destination relatively quickly, as I noted yesterday. It drove well for a little car, though I didn't like the fact it was bright red: cops tend to ticket red cars for speeding more than any other, and I was most definitely speeding. Monday morning, I got up and drove another hour or so to a small college in Mississippi, where I gave a presentation until 12:30 pm. I was headed back to Memphis by 12:45, trying to catch a 6:05 flight.

I took the Natchez Trace Parkway. If you ever have to drive through Mississippi, I highly recommend that road, which cuts across the state from the southwest to the northeast. It is precisely the kind of road that people mean when they refer to lovely back-country roads: nothing but thick woods and an occasional idyllic farm. There's no commercial traffic allowed at all, and since it was a Monday afternoon, there was little other traffic. A truly beautiful drive.

I was making good time, but I was so busy enjoying myself that I didn't realize I was quickly running out of gas. The only problem with the Natchez Trace is that it never passes through any towns, and only has occasional exits to nearby towns. I also had no cell phone reception whatsoever. If I ran out of gas I was going to be stuck for a very long time.

I drove several miles hoping for an exit to something other than a camp site or trail head, and luckily got my wish: an exit to Utica, Mississippi. I took the exit and drove a few miles and came to a ramshackle old general store with a couple of gas pumps out front. I figured I'd fill up and be back on the Natchez Trace in a few minutes.

I pulled up to one of two pumps, one that did not have a sign that said "pump out of gas." The equipment was so old it did not have any way to pay at the pump, so I went inside, dropped some money on the counter, and said "I need $10 worth of unleaded." The lady behind the counter said, "Oh, we're out of gas."

I didn't argue with the logic of putting a "pump out of gas" sign on only one of two empty gas pumps, and instead asked her politely where the next gas station was. She pointed me down the road to a station a few miles away.

I walked back to my car praying the thing would start. Before I got in it occurred to me I had still had the air conditioning blasting, wasting fuel, so I turned it off, turned the radio off, and tried start up. Happily, the car started fine and I peeled out of the store as fast as I could, the rear windows now rolled down.

I got the car up to about 50 mph, the posted limit, and all of a sudden it started to shake violently. Really violently. So violently I could hardly control it. Worse, I felt pressure in my ears like someone was holding me down under 20 feet of water. I slowed down a little and the shaking reduced some, but not completely. That's when I heard thumping sound coming from the back of the car and I realized I probably had a flat, acquired from the dirt and gravel lot at my previous stop. I reduced speed to 40 MPH, the fastest I could go and still feel I had some control over the car.

I thought, to hell with it, it's a rental: a few miles on a flat won't kill it, and with any luck there will be a mechanic at the gas station I was headed to, one who could help me put on a spare or maybe even fix the flat. At that point, I'd given up hope of making my flight: I would have been happy to get as far as civilization and a decent hotel.

I got to the station to learn it was just another little country store, so there would be no mehcanic to help me, but when I checked the tires I realized I didn't have a flat at all. So something else was wrong with the car. I felt some hope that the shaking had somehow to do with the empty gas tank, and that once I'd filled up the car it would go away. I got my gas -- $15 worth just to be safe -- and I realized I had no idea what highway I was on, what direction I was headed, or how to get to the interstate that would take me to Memphis. I asked the lady at the store for directions and she pointed me down a state highway, and assured me it would take me to the interstate. The problem was, no more Natchez Trace, no more easy, no-commercial-traffic driving.

I got on the state highway and took the car up to 50 MPH and once again it started shaking viloently. I realized then that it didn't matter what road I was on, this car wasn't going to get as far as Memphis. The shaking had to have been more than just an empty tank or a flat tire. There was something profoundly wrong with the car, somehow suddenly acquired in the gravel parking lot of the decrepit little store I stopped at first. I slowed down to a controllable speed, hoping only to get to the outskirts of Jackson, where I could call Hertz's roadside assistance, get another car, and call my office to arrange different travel.

I spent about 30 minutes driving like this, frustrated at myself for not asking how far Jackson was from the last store. I kept looking ahead for signs of the city, some kind of easy-to-find location so Hertz could come resue me. I started to get hot, and realized I still had the air conditioning off and the back windows rolled down. Now that I had plenty of gas there was no point in being uncomfortable, so I rolled the windows up and blasted the air. Like magic, the car returned to normal. I almost didn't believe it. I accelerated slowly, first to 45 MPH, then 50, then 55, and no bone-rattling, head-crushing vibrations.

It couldn't be the air conditioning, could it? That would be crazy: how can turning the air off cause a car to shake so violently it could barely be driven? It made no sense at all. Just to see, I turned off the air and accelerated a little bit more. No shaking. I turned the air back on and realized there was only one possibility: having the rear wiindows down in a 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt made the car dangerously undrivable at speeds above 45 MPH.

My exact thought was: "No freakin' way." Seriously, how could a car be designed so badly that it couldn't be driven when the driver made the not unusual choice to roll down the rear windows? How is it possible a mistake like that could get past all the testing a car company must do? This made even less sense then the air conditioning. I simple refused to believe it. I drove a good 5 minutes unwilling to even attempt to roll down the rear windows to test the possibility. It was simple inconceivable to me that the car could be designed so badly that it could kill a person for rolling the windows down.

But eventually, the scientific method won out. I rolled the rear windows down about half-way, and the violent shaking began. I almost lost control of the car because I'd taken one hand off the wheel to press the button to roll the windows down. I slowed to a speed where I could control the car with one hand and rolled the windows up, and the shaking stopped. I even tried it with one window down, and while the shaking was lessened, it was still impossible to drive the car safely above 45 MPH.

I theorized that having the rear windows down created an air pocket of some kind, one so severe that it made the car completely undrivable at high speeds. That would explain both the shaking and the pressure I felt in my ears.

With the windows rolled up, I could again drive fast, perhaps fast enough to make it to Memphis in time for my flight. Though I had to deal with all the traffic on the two-lane state highway I was on, plus all the stop lights as I neared Jackson, I was able to get to the Hertz agency by 5:00 pm. It helped that I averaged about 90 MPH once I got to the interstate. I had plenty of time to get through security and to the gate. The plane happened to be delayed about an hour, but as my wife pointed out, if I had driven the speed limit, the plane would not have been delayed at all and I would have missed my flight.

So, to recap: the 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt is a steaming bucket of horse piss. If you are driving more than 45 MPH and you roll down the rear windows, there is a strong chance you will lose control of the car, drive off the side of the road, and get yourself killed. Other than that, it's a good car.

Technorati tags: travel | 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt

Midnight News -- 8/21/06

2006-08-21T00:09:00.000-05:00

Despite condemning Israel's commando raid in Baalbek, Kofi Annan is expected to announce that the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon will be allowed to use force to keep the peace. Perhaps Israel's raid sent a sufficiently loud message to the world that Israel would take the provisions of resolution 1701 even if no one else did, thus spurring Annan to make a change in UNIFIL's rules of engagement.

South Korea is taking a keen interest in whether the North is planning to test a nuclear weapon. This despite saying that U.S. claims of an impending North Korean nuclear test were unfounded.

The human oddity that has claimed the murder of JonBenet Ramsey flew in style from Bangkok to Los Angeles. Sitting in business class, John Mark Karr sipped champagne, had a beer, then enjoyed a supper of chardonnay and fried prawns. Some commentators have suggested that indulging Karr was a ploy by Boulder, Colorado investigators, an attempt to soften Karr up for an interrogation. Others, by which I mean myself, have suggested the cops who escorted Karr were too distracted by the man's weirdness to think to say no. It has also been reported that while in Thailand, Karr visited a sex change clinic. Drunkablog has been covering the Karr case more than is probably healthy.

Controversy during a cricket match between England and Pakistan on Sunday exposed tensions between citizens of Muslim countries and those of Western countries. I frankly have no idea how cricket works, but the drama surrounding it, as described at Samizdata, is intelligible and captivating.

The Maori queen has died. Long live the Maori king.

Teachers at my old grade school in Scottsdale are making special efforts to make sure kids attend the first week of classes. The problem is that many families are on vacation through August, and that many are newcomers who don't realize school starts on before Labor Day. Life is good for a public school educator when those are the worst problems.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Travel Notes

2006-08-20T21:24:00.000-05:00

Some miscellaneous notes from the road:

United Airlines owes me frequent walking miles for all the times I've had to hike to the furthest corner of O'Hare's terminal 1 to catch a flight.

Did you know that there is a headquarters for the American Contract Bridge League? Did you even know there was an American Contract Bridge League? I knew neither until I drove by their large, white office complex in Memphis today. I did a double take and nearly veered into the car in the next lane. Their looking for a new accountant: you need a masters degree and to bid three clubs.

I was driving through a dark portion of the interstate tonight and saw what I thought was giant metal Star of David on the back of a flatbed truck. I spent maybe ten minutes ruminating on who in rural Mississippi might want a giant metal Star of David before the truck passed under some lights and I realized I was seeing things: it was just a big metal frame held down by ropes. I should have been more skeptical when the phrases "giant metal Star of David" and "rural Mississippi" passed through my mind simultaneously.

Two trips ago I had to buy some new luggage before my return flight because I'd torn the very old bag I'd brought with me. I got a rolling duffel bag from a PGA-themed shop in the airport and thought to myself, "Wow, that was really cheap for something for sale at the airport." But it wasn't cheap: it was overpriced for the completely useless bag it turned out to be. It literally fell apart at the seams as I took it downstairs to the garage on my way to the airport today. Now I have a new axiom: if you see it on sale at the airport, and it sounds like a great deal, it's because it's a piece of crap. The only things worth buying at the airport are overpriced, like wireless access, and liquor.

I made what AAA said would would be a 4 and a half hour drive in 3 hours and 20 minutes. All those hours playing Grand Theft Auto finally paid off.

Technorati tags: travel

On The Road, Again

2006-08-20T11:42:00.000-05:00

I get to fly again today! Yay!

It's another short flight, but still a hassle, especially with all the issues surrounding airports lately. As long as the flight includes no Muslims wearing coats and sweaters in the middle of summer, I'm sure it will all go well.

The absolute bestest part of this trip is that after I land, I get to drive for four hours in a rental car! Double yay!

It's my own fault. Partly because of issues I kept having with making connections and long flight delays, I proposed a new travel policy for our company. It requires us to fly direct to large airports and then drive to a final destination, as opposed to taking a short commuter flight to a small airport. This applies when the destination is a 4 hour drive or less. It makes sense when you consider that even a one hour flight can mean up to three hours of extra travel, including waiting time at the gate, and that two flights doubles the chance for an extended delay. We figured the extra hour is worth it since by driving we some control over whether we arrive at our destination at all.

But because of the policy, I have to drive four hours through Tennessee and Mississippi, do a presentation in the morning, then drive another four hours to get my flight home.

Needless to say, blogging will be light until tomorrow night.

Technorati tags: travel

Next Comes The Giant Bugs

2006-08-20T08:53:00.000-05:00

A massive earthquake has hit the South Pole:

A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of at least 6.9 hit in the Scotia Sea between South America and Antarctica, Japanese and U.S. officials said Sunday.

No tsunami alert was issued by the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said Dale Grant, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center.

The warning center monitors seismic activity in the Pacific area.

The quake struck at 1:41 a.m. local time (0341 GMT) with a preliminary magnitude of 6.9, the USGS said.

Japan's Meteorological Agency put the preliminary magnitude at 7.2.

The USGS estimated the earthquake's depth at 10 kilometers (six miles). The quake was centered in the Scotia Sea, approximately 495 kilometers (305 miles) west-southwest of Bristol Island in the South Sandwich island group, the USGS said.

Isn't an earthquake at the South Pole pretty much how giant bugs are released from the earth's core? Or how an ancient monument is revealed that contains a gate that allows travel to other solar systems? Isn't this how we discover an underground continent populated by dinosaurs and giant apes?

I'm growing a little alarmed here. Haven't these journalists learned anything from science fiction?

Technorati tags: earthquake | South Pole

Good For These Brits

2006-08-20T08:39:00.000-05:00

Some British airline passengers mutinied when authorities refused to do anything about two suspicious men.

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

That rather understates the problem with the pair and, appearing in the first two paragraphs of the piece, has the effect mischaracterizing the passengers fears. Maybe that's that Daily Mail's intent, but here's the key problem from later in the article.

The trouble in Malaga flared last Wednesday as two British citizens in their 20s waited in the departure lounge to board the pre-dawn flight and were heard talking what passengers took to be Arabic. Worries spread after a female passenger said she had heard something that alarmed her.

Passengers noticed that, despite the heat, the pair were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and were regularly checking their watches.

Summer. In Spain. Heavy coats.

For some reason I can't quite fathom, British Tories, citing other instances of passenger anxiety over Pakistani (Asian) or Muslim passengers, seem to look down on what the passengers did. They are trying to make a larger criticism of Tony Blair's government, but it sounds to me like they want the government to prevent the public from drawing any conclusions at all about their own safety.

The Tories said the Government's failure to reassure travellers had led the Malaga passengers to 'behave irrationally' and 'hand a victory to terrorists'.

Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were yesterday reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.

Individuals have the right to draw whatever conclusions they wish, as they are the ones who must pay the price when government functionaries preen about the 'religion of peace'.

Technorati tags: terror | terrorism | travel

Midnight News -- 8/20/06

2006-08-20T01:04:00.000-05:00

Among other things, yesterday was a very bad day for women's rights, as a number of stories report women suffering at the hands of deranged or fanatic men.

Four American soldiers were killed in two separate battles against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The fighting came on Afghanistan's independence day, on which president Hamid Karzai praised education:

"Our history proves our bravery," Karzai said. "The only thing we need to keep our independence is education."

Militants have targeted schools, burning 144 to the ground over the past year and forcing another 200 to close following threats against teachers and students, according to officials. More than 200,000 children have been unable to continue their education as a result.

The insurgents claim that educating girls is against Islam and oppose government-funded schools for boys because they teach secular subjects besides religion. Targeting schools is also considered a tactic to shake the authority of the U.S.-backed government.

The religion of peace has also been sighted in Italy. A Pakistani Muslim living there slit his daughter's throat because she dared to act like she had a mind of her own. Now Italy is reconsidering its planned liberalization of immigration policy.

Two women were murdered while sitting in their car in midtown Kansas City. One was seven months pregnant, and since the unborn child was also killed, the murderer could be charged with three homicides. The description sounds like a planned assassination, as the killer jumped into a grey car and fled the scene. The police have already linked the crime to drugs. A third homicide charge for the killing of the child looks likely to spark and intense debate related to abortion.

A Long Island Man murdered his neighbor, a female retired teacher. He dismembered her and kept her severed head in his car.

Fears grow for the lives of a FOXNews correspondent and cameraman kidnapped in Gaza. None of the radical groups in that territory are willing to take credit for the kidnapping, and few kidnapped journalists have ever been held this long.

The president of Taiwan is defiant against allegations of corruption and increasing calls for his resignation. Part of his defense is that his opposition, by decrying him so vociferously, is providing mainland China with an opportunity to hurt Taiwan. The trouble with democracy is that we use legal restrictions on democratic leaders to fight political battles. This is fine when a country is rich and safe, but can be disastrous when a country faces an immediate threat, as Taiwan does. It's tragically ironic that the only party that would really benefit from extended battles over corruption Taiwan is the profoundly corrupt government of mainland China.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

The Lebanese Army Gets Squirrelly

2006-08-19T18:26:00.000-05:00

Lebanon's defense minister wants no part of his assignment in south Lebanon, realizing Hezbollah's provocations are partially meant to bring an Israeli attack on his troops:

Defense Minister Elias Murr said Israel's raid in the eastern Bekaa Valley early Saturday was a violation of a UN-imposed cease-fire that ended fighting between Israel and Hizbullah.

"If there are no clear answers forthcoming on this issue, I might be forced to recommend to the Cabinet early next week the halt of the army deployment in the south," he told reporters after a meeting with UN representatives.

Murr said the IDF operation deep inside Lebanon could spark retaliation, which in turn could lead to Israeli reprisals. He suggested Israel might be trying to provoke a response, so it could have an excuse to attack the Lebanese army.

"We will not send the army to be prey in an Israeli trap," he said.

He said he believed Hizbullah was committed to the cease-fire, but said he worried Israel was trying to provoke retaliatory attacks from "any group that wants to cause a problem for Lebanon." He did not elaborate on which group that could be.

"It could be that they (the Israelis) are pushing it (any group) to fire a rocket on northern Israel, so that Israel can come and attack the Lebanese army," Murr said.

Note that he has nothing but praise for peace-loving Hezbollah, and diplomatically refuses to name that organization when discussing the strategy behind launching rockets into northern Israel.

Those cunning Israelis, able to magically cause peaceful, social justice advocates like Hezbollah terrorize Israel just so Israel can have a reason to attack Lebanon. It's quite brave of radical Muslims to take on an enemy with such pronounced supernatural powers.

On the same day as the Israeli raid in the Bekaa Valley, 50 French troops arrived in Lebanon. This represents fully 20% of the total French effort.

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Thank The Troops

2006-08-19T17:15:00.000-05:00

Here's an easy and free way to show support for military personnel serving overseas. There's really no reason not to fire off a card.

Blogger Beta Bummer

2006-08-19T16:08:00.000-05:00

I am both loyal and lazy, and those qualities combined mean I tend to stay with a mediocre product, service, or, for that matter, job long past the point that most people would give up and look for something better. That holds for the free service of Blogger.

They just released the beta version of Blogger and I thought, "what the hell, how different can it be," and reconfigured my account. Posts in the new version load much faster than before, and the spell check is enormously improved. After a few days I decided to see if I could make some changes to my highly customized template, only to find that I had to allow Blogger to totally reconfigure the template to the new version. I made a backup and let blogger do its job, figuring I could always paste in my old HTML if I had to.

Well, guess what: Blogger hasn't got an HTML template editor in the new version! They say it's coming, but I would have liked to have known that it no longer existed at all before making the switch. So I had to cut and paste my old blog roll into separate parts in the new "page elements" feature, hardly a satisfactory compromise for me. I also had to find a new template I could live with until I had a chance to redo my customizations. The changes you see on the page are the best I could do.

I can't say I'm real happy with the "new" design. Not only is it not as unique as my old design, but I've lost some of the changes I really liked, like a reduced size for the items in the post footer and full control over the sidebar elements. I've also lost the ability to have Digg It and del.icio.us links for each post, this on a day that someone actually decided to Digg something of mine -- by the way, thanks nailinmyeye.

But as I said at the start, I'm loyal and lazy, a perfect customer, and I probably won't switch to another service unless Blogger gets a whole lot more annoying, or drops the edit template feature altogether.

Technorati tags: Blogger | Blogger Beta

Hezbollah Dares Israel Into An Attack

2006-08-19T10:03:00.000-05:00

In the past week, Lebanese troops have been deployed to the Israeli border, ready to do absolutely nothing but stand around and watch Hezbollah rearm. The French have decided they support a multinational force, they just don't want to have anything to do with one, and the UN has gone begging for troops. I think the problem is that suddenly the UN forces are expected to do something about the vicious and heavily armed force infecting south Lebanon. It's hard to convince countries to send troops when those troops are actually under threat of violence, and can't indulge their usual predilections.

It may be too late, because what every sensible person expected has started to happen, and Israel didn't wait around to do something about it.

An IDF officer was killed during a commando operation in eastern Lebanon early Saturday morning.

Another officer was seriously wounded and a third sustained light wounds. The two were taken to an Israeli hospital to receive medical treatment.

Hizbullah claimed that it had foiled an IDF commando raid near the town of Baalbek.

[...]

The army said its commandos entered Lebanon "to prevent and interfere with terror activity against Israel, especially the smuggling of arms from Iran and Syria to Hizbullah." The army said the force completed its mission successfully, and that such operations would be carried out until a multinational force is in place to prevent Hizbullah's rearmament.

Of course Hezbollah claims a victory. That's what they do: make a provocation, throw up cannon fodder, ignore their own numbers that are killed, complain to the world about aggression, then claim victory regardless of the result. They have no one to answer to but their paymasters in Tehran, so why bother with the truth. Their attempts at resupply were as much intended to draw an Israeli response as they were to actually rearm their own forces.

Any sort of resupply is an immediate violation of resolution 1701, yet Kofi Annan's concern seems to be that Israel is acting like all of the resolution's provisions matter, not just the ones that ask Israel to stop firing. Israel takes a different view of the matter.

Lebanese prime minister, Fuad Siniora described the raid as a flagrant violation of the cease fire. Left unnoticed by Siniora was the flagrant violation of allowing Hezbollah to be resupplied at all.

Via Airborne Combat Engineer, which has more on the raid from DEBKAfile.

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Midnight News -- 8/19/06

2006-08-19T01:03:00.000-05:00

The U.S. continues to suspect that North Korea will conduct an underground test of a nuclear weapon. South Korea continues to downplay U.S. suspicions. South Korea has a political and financial interest in protecting North Korea from the approbation of the world. The U.S does not. You can decide for yourself who is more credible.

Some Iraqi Shiites are able to see who their real enemies are. The problem is that Iranian-led terrorists don't much concern themselves with political pronouncements, so unless the denunciations from these Iraqis are backed up with firepower they won't come to much.

Israelis are coming to realize just how badly their military performed against Hezbollah. It doesn't appear the troops that made it into the field did badly, but rather that the generals used poor tactics and failed to supply their troops sufficiently. "'For four weeks we failed to defend ourselves against daily bombardments against our cities. This is a failure that never happened before,' said Yuval Steinitz, a Likud Party member and former chairman of parliament's defense committee." The IDF has limited time to right itself before Hezbollah launches its next attack. If the past is prelude, they have only as long as Iran allows.

For the third time this year, a letter has been sent to Indian authorities threatening to blow up the Taj Mahal. The letters have been in Hindi and are probably written by the same person.

The woman who disrupted a flight from London to Washington, D.C. -- yammering about al Qaeda and urinating in the aisle -- is a leftist writer who specializes in painting America as the root of all evil in the world in Pakistani newspapers. Is anyone really shocked at this?

My two favorite baseball teams lost so horribly today that I find it impossible to look beyond the final scores. See for yourself how bad it was, if you dare. On the plus side, the Kansas City Royals managed to sweep a double header against the AL West leading Oakland A's. I lived in KC when I was in high school, when they got their World Series win in 1985. I'll always have a soft spot for them.

One of America's foremost skanks is making news in Australia.

A group of young, adventurous Americans are planning to travel to Thailand to compete in Elephant Polo Championships. They have not yet actually ridden on any elephants, a fact I predict will doom the entire enterprise. I'm torn between crediting their daring and bemoaning their vanity. It's inspiring to see them make this effort, but is softball not good enough for them?

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Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

The Secret Code is "Fletcher"

2006-08-18T21:38:00.000-05:00

It's Friday night, and my wife and I are enjoying our regular Friday night Geek Fest, during which we loaf about the house and enjoy SciFi's original programming. For this summer that has meant a night watching new episodes of the two Stargate series.

The promo for tonight's episode of Stargate Atlantis is that a special code would be announced during the first airing of the show that would, for a limited time, allow people to unlock some special feature on the Atlantis page of the SciFi website. Of course, I originally disregarded this as a silly way to get people to watch the show's first airing rather than recording the`show and watching it later. And of course, the minute the code aired I had to know exactly what it unlocked. I mean, if you don't try then you won't know what's there and what's there could be really cool and how could you not use the code when you had the chance! Right?

So I go to the website and since everybody else is doing exactly what I'm doing the site won't load. I shouldn't be surprised the site crashed: Every Stargate fans is a) sitting in front of a computer, and b) obsessive enough to rush to the site the minute they saw the code flash on the screen.

I finally got through to the site, and it appears the code merely unlocked a clip of from tonight's episode. I'm not sure since the video wouldn't load, even though the rest of the site did.

What can I say: I'm a geek. As my wife puts it, with parents like us, our kid doesn't stand a chance of being cool.

UPDATE: The secret code for the 8/25 episode is Kolya. My wife and I are nothing if not predictable.

Technorati tags: Stargate Atlantis | SciFi

Watch Them Preen

2006-08-18T20:57:00.000-05:00

I probably shouldn't care what an contemporary American novelist has to say about anything. Save a few spectacular exceptions, they are among the most myopic and witless creatures our country produces. Only the humanities professors upon whom their reputations feed are more likely to express the kind of mind-numbing moral confusion that John Irving does today in the Guardian.

How do I feel about what Kurt Vonnegut would describe as a "shit storm" of nationalist babbling in the German media, in the wake of my friend Gunter Grass's revelation that he was drafted into the Waffen SS at the age of 17? From what I have read of the editorials, and the lofty remarks of my fellow writers, critics, and journalists of various political persuasions, there has been a predictably sanctimonious dismantling of Grass's life and work from the oh so cowardly standpoint of hindsight, from which so many so-called intellectuals safely take aim at their targets.

Grass remains a hero to me, both as a writer and as a moral compass; his courage, both as a writer and as a citizen of Germany, is exemplary - a courage heightened, not lessened, by his most recent revelation.

This last point is slightly deranged. Courage requires at least a risk of a sacrifice. Grass, now in his dotage, waited until the last possible moment to admit his role in the war. He accepted all the praise and all the acclaim for his moral vision, and rather than risk all the benefits of his reputation he held his tongue. It can perhaps be said that it took courage for him to admit his role in the war at all, but it is simply counterfactual to say that it is more courageous of him to admit that role now rather than when it would have cost him much, much more.

Grass enlisted at 15; he has said he volunteered mainly "to get away". I wonder if any of his critics truly remember themselves at 15. He had volunteered for the submarines, but in the last months of the war the Waffen SS were taking anyone they could get. I do not judge what 17-year-olds volunteer for - short of premeditated rape and murder.

Signing up for the Waffen SS was as close to signing up for premeditated rape and murder as one could come. And there were at least a few German young people who did know better.

Irving follows that notion with a comparison of the Waffen SS to the American military in Vietnam, a comparison that is inapposite for all but the most dedicated members of the left wing fever swamp.

Now there is all this bitching in Germany about when Grass chose to reveal his Waffen SS enlistment as a teenager! The man (and the writer) is a model of soul-searching and national conscience. People are saying he deliberately withheld this information until after he won the Nobel prize for literature, because he would never have won the prize if it were known he'd been in the SS.

A dishonest change of subject -- it is not merely the enlistment, but the fact he hid that enlistment while preening about Germany's need to confront its past.

(If it is true that the Nobel committee would not have given the prize to him under those circumstances, then the committee should do some soul-searching of its own - I thought it was an award for literature, not political correctness.)

I love how the left turns the phrase "political correctness" around: it applies to the incessant carping from the left about what whole classes of people are allowed to think and say. It has nothing to do with coming to a judgment about the things an actual individual has actually done.

And some people are saying that Grass chose to time his revelation to sell copies of his new autobiography.

heard that when I talked openly about my sexual experience as an 11-year-old with an older woman - that I was just selling books.

It sounds to me like Irving was bragging, and is using this opportunity to remind us all of his former potency. This is another inappropriate analogy: Irving didn't build his reputation on retaining one's virginity until adulthood the way Grass built his on having the courage to confront the past.

How naive do critics and journalists think real readers of complicated fiction are? Grass and I aren't running out of readers. The fulminating in the German media has been obnoxious. Grass is a daring writer, and he has always been a daring man. Was he not putting himself at risk - first at 15, then at 17? And now, once again, at age 79? And, once again, the cowardly small dogs are snapping at his heels.

How many of those cowardly small dogs joined an organization like the SS in the first place, and how many wait six decades between acts of courage?

It was another German novelist of distinction, Thomas Mann, who wrote about a well-known writer's "vulnerability to mean disdain and spiteful abuse ... no matter how plainly such abuse is impelled by private rancours". Mann added that "enemies are the necessary concomitant to any robust life ... often the very proof of our strength".

A definition of enemies as people who criticize you for your choices can only come from the mind of a complete narcissist. Poor writerly John Irving, poor writerly Gunter Grass, having to suffer the existence of people who dare to criticize their writerly souls. If the people who read their work so displeases them, then perhaps they can take another German writer's advice and elect a new people.

The Waffen SS was not an ordinary military force, and the reason we might forgive an adult for having joined that organization is directly related to that adult's willingness to admit his actions. That he lied about his choices indicates that Grass never really came to terms with Germany's past and his own. His reputation is based on his persuasive hectoring of Germany and the west on the subject of war and history, yet he did not have the courage to admit his own role in that history. Having disowned his past, he may as well have not even lived. His moral imagination is no more worthy of trust than that of an inexperienced college student.

Technorati tags: Gunter Grass

Midnight News -- 8/18/06

2006-08-18T00:06:00.000-05:00

The Russian navy shot at a Japanese fishing boat that had entered waters near the Kurile islands, killing one fisherman. Now, the Russians are going to escalate the controversy by charging the fishermen with "poaching and intruding into Russian waters."

There are certain jokes that no one should make, and that conservatives should be especially careful to avoid. A Republican congressional candidate in Florida has failed this basic test of common sense. I don't care how innocuous the joke really was, he should have known better than to make it.

A motley collection of British leftists, fellow travellers, and aspiring dhimmis has a hate fest over George Bush. Note their peculiar obsession with Bush's unwillingness to indulge Palestinian terrorism. It's almost as if they didn't want Israel around at all.

NFL washout, stalker, and former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett owes money to an Israeli mobster, and has faced death threats over the past year.

Phoenix police may be zeroing in on the Baseline Killer. Along with the Phoenix snipers, he's terrorized the city for a number of months.

I totally dig this cat.

Violent gangs of yuppies terrorize the Chicago lakefront. Some come on bikes, some come on roller blades, and some come running, but all are united in their thirst for the blood of pedestrians. It's a blood bath on the shores of Lake Michigan. Shattered razor phones litter the streets. Empty bottles of Dasani are crafted into crude weapons. Victims of latte burns crowd the hospitals. The police can do nothing to halt the social breakdown, and a once-great city is paralyzed.

M. Night Shyamalan perhaps drives his stars to drink. First it was Mel Gibson, now it's Haley Joel Osment.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

North Korea May Test A Nuke

2006-08-17T23:03:00.000-05:00

A vicious storm swept through the Korean Peninsula a few weeks ago, leaving flood and devastation in its week. Because it has been weakened by decades of brutal totalitarianism, North Korea suffered mightily. Kim Jong Il's functionaries persist in claiming only 151 deaths with 39 more people missing, but one South Korean charity estimates the death toll to be closer to 55,000. Only begrudgingly has the North accepted aid from the Red Cross.

Now, intelligence suggests that Kim Jong Il is planning an underground nuclear test:

Activity at a North Korean facility suggests Pyongyang could be preparing its first test of a nuclear bomb, US media has cited US officials as saying.

But US officials told Reuters they had no new evidence of such a plan, and a diplomatic official in Seoul familiar with the North's nuclear program said he was sceptical of the reports.

ABC News quoted an unidentified senior military official as saying a US intelligence agency had observed "suspicious vehicle movement" at a suspected North Korean test site.

A senior State Department official, who was also not identified, told the network: "It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is a real possibility."

In light of the suffering in North Korea, no doubt Kim Jong Il needs a political distraction to maintain his regime's survival. But he also has customers to serve, and no doubt they would be very interested in purchasing successful nuclear weapon technology.

Technorati tags: North Korea | United States

For The Slow Of Mind

2006-08-17T21:20:00.000-05:00

There are many people in America who really, truly believe that we are living under a tyrannical president bent on destroying the Bill Of Rights. We call these people "idiots". As a public service for any such people who have recently enjoyed a spark of common sense, here's an example of what real tyranny looks like. To make it easy to understand in the context of the recent NSA court case, it even involves wiretaps.

In August, 1991, nearly 15 years ago to the day, elements of the Soviet military attempted a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. They sent tanks into the streets of Moscow and towards the Russian Federation Building, and informed Gorbachev that he could continue to serve as a figurehead. Boris Yeltsin was then President of Russia, the major portion of the still extant Soviet Union. He defied the plot, along with Andrei Sakharov. Young people poured into the streets to stand between the tanks and democratic ministers inside the Federation Building. For three tense days, the country waited out the crisis, and the putsch eventually dissolved. Yeltsin's actions made him the dominant figure in Russia, and the failed plot contributed to the failure of the Soviet Union a few months later.

During the crisis, my wife's mother was speaking on the phone regularly to a friend in Minsk. She tried to describe the scenes on television to her friend, who couldn't get the latest news. At one point she said the word "tank" and the line cut off. Thinking it coincidental, she called her friend back. Again, the line cut off just after she said the word "tank". After suffering this several more times, she switched to using less exact phrasing, like "green thing with treads." The line stopped cutting off.

That is what a tyrant's wiretap looks like, and that is not the NSA surveillance program. Pretending to be a freedom fighter by disrupting the President's attempts to surveill al Qaeda phone calls to the U.S. is ignorant narcissism.

As I said earlier, what we are having is a disagreement about Executive power, about whether a clearly necessary wartime program is constitutional as currently configured, or if further legislation is required.

Technorati tags: freedom

America's Foremost Pedophile

2006-08-17T20:33:00.000-05:00

John Mark Karr is a disturbing individual. I don't doubt for a moment that he is capable of killing JonBenet Ramsey, and I don't doubt he is capable of claiming to have murdered her for attention and as an expression of his deeply troubled mind:

Karr is a man who, while wanted as a fugitive on child pornography charges, sought to impress prospective employers with a long record of accomplishment preparing young lives "for a successful future."

He is a man who twice married teenagers -- one just 13 at the time. Both would later claim they had been coerced.

Almost by definition, the 13-year-old must have been.

And he is the man who years ago confided to family members that he was deeply troubled by the murder of the Colorado 6-year-old, who he now claims to have loved and sexually assaulted.

This, coupled with inconsistencies with his description of the crime, make me lean towards thinking his confession is a fantasy. He was, according to one of his ex-wives, obsessed with the case, and researched the case "voraciously" when completing a distance-learning degree. It's this level of obsession and knowledge that I think will ultimately explain his knowledge of aspects of the crime not divulged by the police. A mind offered sufficient information can deduce many facts.

"I awoke the children in the morning and gave them breakfast," Karr wrote in one online resume, recounting life as a private teacher and caregiver of three girls in Germany, aged 7, 11 and 12. "At day's end, I made sure the children had their evening bath, then put them to bed and read to them before they went to sleep."

It sounds like a fairy tale, and probably is.

Karr, who arrived in Thailand earlier this year looking for work as a teacher, claims to have spent years skipping from job to job, country to country, nearly all the time working with children. Details proved difficult to pin down Thursday.

And that's the problem with crediting his confession.

Here's where the story gets completely creepy. The material below is compiled from separate places in the story linked above.

"He just seemed like somebody who thought he wanted to be a teacher," said Bob Raines, superintendent and principal at Wilson Elementary School, in one of the four districts near Petaluma, Calif. where Karr worked. "After a few days, I could tell it just wasn't for him."

[...]

As an adult, Karr wrote in one online resume that he worked for years in real estate and restored old homes. His work in schools appears to have begun in 1996 -- the year of the Ramsey murder. According to the resume, that was the start of a five-year stint teaching in "some of the most prestigious schools in the United States, working with children from high profile families."

[...]

Contrary to his resume's description of a life in the classroom, Karr's sole Alabama experience was being hired as a substitute teacher in 1996. But his time there ended after school officials received complaints about Karr saying things "that didn't need to be said in an elementary class," Jackson said. Karr was "bragging on the students, their dress," said Jackson, declining to elaborate further.

[...]

He moved his family to California about the same time and in 2001, Karr found work as substitute teacher. But that came to an abrupt end when Karr, then 36, was arrested on five misdemeanor counts of possession of child pornography, according to the Sonoma County sheriff's office.

[...]

In the affidavit filed with her divorce petition, Lara Karr said her husband "was told by one school in or about '97 or '98 that he would not be asked to continue to serve as a substitute teacher because he had a tendency to be too affectionate with children."

A parent's nightmare.

The man is a pedophile obsessed with the death of JonBenet Ramsey, and think it highly unlikely his confession will hold up once DNA evidence is tested. Despite all the talk, we never really left square one on this case.

Technorati tags: crime | JonBenet Ramsey

West Virginia Terror?

2006-08-17T19:51:00.000-05:00

It's really a good thing that the NSA surveillance program has been ruled unconstitutional, because now we'll never have to know the truth about what happened today in West Virginia. Ignorance is bliss:

A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated Thursday afternoon after a bomb-sniffing dog reacted to a bottle filled with a liquid in a passenger's luggage, an airport official said.

A screener noticed the bottle in a woman's carryon bag as she prepared to board a flight to Charlotte, N.C., said Tri-State Airport authority President Jim Booton.

An AP story has a few more details.

Larry Salyers, manager of Tri-State Airport, said the bottles would be moved by robot to a remote area of the airport where officials would attempt to detonate them. National Guard and State Police explosives experts will conduct chemical field tests to determine their contents, he said.

Salyers said he was told the woman was a 28-year-old of Pakistani descent who had moved to Huntington from Jackson, Mich. He did not know how long she had lived in Huntington.

The woman was still at the airport late Thursday afternoon but was not under arrest, said FBI spokesman Jeff Killeen.

It could be nothing, but it sounds like someone may be testing for weak spots in our airport screening. How brave it is to send a woman to do this, and how ironic that the woman is from Michigan. By the way, she had a one-way ticket to Detroit.

UPDATE: The latest version of the story states a full test showed no explosives were contained in the bottles. Unexplained is why two screens indicated any explosives residue at all, and why the woman thought she could carry liquids on to the flight in the first place, despite numerous warnings to the contrary.

Technorati tags: terror | terrorism

Education Going Right...

2006-08-17T16:02:00.000-05:00

...so to speak.

Australia has done something right, and something conservatives have wanted to see here in America for a long time: they are going to teach history in history classes, and give up on the weakly substitute known as social studies:

Students will be taught traditional Australian history, rather than postmodern subjects with titles such as Studies of Society and its Environment, after a summit of experts yesterday recommended the Howard Government override state and territory education authorities.

The history summit communique foreshadowed a massive shift in the teaching of history, as well as a new level of commonwealth interference in state and territory education systems.

Of course, one can be as PC teaching traditional history as when teaching social studies, but we'll look on the bright side and recognize that names and dates have at least returned to classroom. I was never so bitter at public school social studies as my first day in a real history class in a private high school. I knew that the civil war involved the North and the South, slaves and free states, blacks and whites, but at no point in that grand study of social movements and public issues did anyone see fit to explain when the damn war started, or how it was the South lost. That I had to figure out on my own.

For that and other reasons, I really want to pop this guy upside the head:

Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford said it would be "educational vandalism" for the federal Government to force on the states the separate study of history.

"To talk about history as a stand-alone subject, as a list of events, is an educational absurdity," Mr Welford said.

"It will do absolutely nothing to students' understanding or interpretation of their place in the world."

No, not correct, and the only educational absurdity I can see is Mr. Welford's employment. Having no sense of the procession of historical events is what prevents knowing one's place in the world. Muddy, vague discussions of social generalities only serves the modern liberal educator's goal of controlling the opinions of the young. A person who knows the whens and wheres of history can form intelligent opinions about how things come to pass and how evils might be avoided. A person subjected to social studies only knows what they are supposed to think.

To enforce the new provisions, Education Minister Julie Bishop is threatening to withhold up to 13 billion (Australian) dollars worth of funding to schools.

UPDATE: Mrs. Occidentality informs me that as a girl in Russia, she learned all the dates and places of the American Civil War. She also learned it was entirely a war over money, between the rich South and the nouveau rich North, and that slavery didn't have anything to do with it.

At least her teachers taught her when it started.

Technorati tags: history | education | Australia

ACLU Strikes Again

2006-08-17T14:30:00.000-05:00

The ACLU and at least one federal judge seem to be confused about the "life" part of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness":

A federal judge in Detroit ordered a halt to the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program, ruling for the first time that the controversial effort ordered by President Bush was unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor wrote in a strongly-worded 43-page opinion that the NSA wiretapping program violates privacy and free-speech rights and the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of government. She also found that it violates a 1978 law set up to oversee clandestine surveillance.

[...]

Ruling in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups, Taylor, 73, wrote that "public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of the Constitution. . . . "

"It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights," she wrote. " . . . There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution."

I'll need to read the case, but a couple of quick points.

First, the ACLU is going to get people killed with some of these arguments. I know they believe they are preserving something very important, but there are times their intransigent refusal to ever err on the side of national security is breathtaking. They press every case, regardless of the costs and benefits, and I wonder if anyone in that organization is capable of acknowledging a middle ground between the completely neutered executive they seek and the robust investigations the Bush administration pursues.

Second, and I'll need to go back to some old law school homework to be sure, I think that the judge's interpretation of "inherent powers" smacks a little of sophistry. It's my recollection that "inherent powers" means those powers which follow from enumerated powers, and that those have always included powers necessary to the executive's role as commander-in-chief and have always been interpreted broadly. The NSA powers may not be included among those that are inherent, but the judge seemed to come very close to saying that there is no room at all for reasonable inference regarding inherent powers, thus creating a standard so strict that, in practice, no inherent powers exist at all. I'll need more time with the issue to be sure I'm not reading too much into that portion of the decision, and that I'm remembering Constitutional Law correctly in the first place.

Third, and my track record is admittedly weak recently, my prediction is that this goes to the Supreme Court and the majority decision is a rambling, incoherent, self-gratifying discourse by Justice Kennedy, one that explains nothing, aids no national interest, and generally leaves everyone irritated and confused. I predict this will be the case regardless of which side actually wins the decision.

UPDATE: Having quickly read the decision and perused some of the commentary, I'm confident my second point was generally correct. The courts have held warrantless searches in the interest of national security to be constitutional. See Power Line for a quick run down.

Also through Power Line, a story about the tyrants in Tehran at Vital Perspective. What the mullahs are doing in that country is real tyranny, and as extreme civil libertarians start to get agitated about the NSA program, it's useful to remind ourselves what real oppression looks like. What we are having in America is a disagreement about executive power; what Iranians are suffering is totalitarianism. The two are rather different.

One last point about the case for now: the plaintiffs, a bunch of journalists and professors represented by the ACLU, was found to have standing because warrantless intercepts potentially threatened their ability to do their jobs. Seriously! I'm supposed to risk my life when I get on a train or airplane so some writer can pay his mortgage. To hell with their jobs -- the world needs ditch-diggers too.

UPDATE 2: The court said the following in its decision, on page 13:

It is undisputed that Defendants have publicly admitted to the following: (1) the TSP exists; (2) it operates without warrants; (3) it targets communications where one party to the communication is outside the United States, and the government has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda. As the Government has on many occasions confirmed the veracity of these allegations, the state secrets privilege does not apply to this information.

It is at this point that we can begin to question the judge's own respect for separation of powers. It is undoubtedly the province of the Executive to determine when a foreign nation or organization is an immediate threat to American lives, and the Bush administration has undoubtedly done so in the case of al Qaeda. Yet that finding is insufficient for the judge in finding the plaintiff's claim is justiciable, because she follows that statement with this:

Plaintiffs' declarations state undisputedly that they are stifled in their ability to vigorously conduct research, interact with sources, talk with clients and, in the case of the attorney Plaintiffs, uphold their oath of providing effective and ethical representation of their clients. In addition, Plaintiffs have the additional injury of incurring substantial travel expenses as a result of having to travel and meet with clients and others relevant to their cases.

It cannot be that a party is injured by being separated from an enemy against whom the Executive, with the support of Congress, has declared war. It is not the place of the Judiciary to undeclare a war, and turn an avowed enemy of the U.S. into an ordinary corporate individual, one with whom the plaintiffs can have a kind of commercial relationship.

The judge does consider the claims of injury to be somewhat lacking, but eventually finds the plaintiffs have standing because without so finding, there would be no way for the courts to speak to the Executive's behavior. Basically, she finds the plaintiffs have standing so that she, on behalf of the Judiciary and to preserve the separation of powers, can undo the NSA wiretaps.

Following this, the judge declares the wiretaps "obviously" unconstitutional under the 4th amendment, a matter that the past decisions would somewhat dispute. Having not explained why any of the well-founded exceptions to the warrant requirement do not apply, we can only conclude she found some that could and neglected to share them with the public. I think the 6th circuit will explain to the lower court just how "obvious" the law really is.

It's smart at this point to remember two points made by different writers at the Volokh conspiracy. First, that lower court rulings like this really are "briefs to a higher court." This is not a ruling that even the judge herself necessarily expects to stand in full. It is merely this judge's assertion of constitutional law. A second point follows, in a way, from the first. This judge may have simply wanted to get her arguments in before Congress enacted a law that specifically allowed the kind of surveillance performed by the NSA, thus rendering much of her decision moot.

Technorati tags: ACLU | freedom | NSA

JonBenet Confession Doesn't Help

2006-08-17T13:25:00.000-05:00

Seriously, I don't know how anyone can say the arrest and confession of Mark Karr settles anything. To me, the whole idea that he committed this crime just raises more questions.

Karr, a divorced father of three who listed jobs as a nanny on an internet resume, went to Bangkok this summer to look for a teaching job. At some point either before or after his arrival in Thailand he became wanted in California for possession of child pornography; he was arrested on that charge just days before starting the teaching job he had found.

Karr was caught because he communicated with University of Colorado Prof Michael Tracey, a filmmaker behind the documentary "Who Killed JonBenet". Tracey alerted authorities after Karr exhibited knowledge of the crime that had not been released to the public. However, Karr's ex-wife claims that he was with her in Georgia on Christmas day in 1996, and so could not have committed the crime.

My thought about how both these facts can be true is that Karr seems to be a prodigious pedophile. I wonder if it is possible Karr was able to infer facts from the extensive news reports, thus gaining credibility for himself with Prof. Tracey. A pedophile is by definition an obsessive, and so much time spent contemplating possibilities may have made him able to correctly deduce a fact, a perverted version of a dedicated doctor who deduces the nature of an illness from a handful of symptoms.

Of course, if the alibi holds up, then absolutely no questions have been answered. If it does not, we still have the problem of whether the suspect knew the Ramseys, and if so, how well he knew them:

Karr's arrest still left plenty of mystery, including his possible relationship to the Ramseys.

Some reports said he lived in Boulder at the time JonBenet was killed.

Others said he lived near the Ramseys in Atlanta when she was a toddler.

Mr Wood said the that Ramseys gave information about Karr to police before he was identified as a suspect.

He would not say how the Ramseys knew Karr.

The Ramseys always said an intruder killed their daughter, but police labelled them as suspects within days of the brutal killing.

Far from exonerating the Ramseys, Karr's arrest only muddies our knowledge of what happened that night.

Technorati tags: crime | JonBenet Ramsey

The Cease Fire That Sort Of Is

2006-08-16T23:00:00.000-05:00

The cease fire seems to be holding, and the Lebanese cabinet has approved the army's deployment to the south. This is the very least that Lebanon can do to implement the two applicable security council resolutions that call for Hezbollah's dismantling: 1559 and the recently passed 1701. However, the deployment had to be negotiated with the representatives of the Hassan Nasrallah's illegal, private army. Hezbollah's military commander even claims that the the resolution had nothing to do with Hezbollah's arms, a triumph of propaganda over reality.

It is this flaw that I still believe marks resolution 1701 for its demise. The UN has asked a weak state to do the job they could not tolerate leaving to a strong state, indicating the international community does not want the job of disarming Hezbollah done in the first place. Coupled with the fact the UNIFIL force will go into Lebanon virtually unarmed, and we can see that the hope of the security council, led by the French, is not for peace but for quiet, even though war is almost guaranteed to to break out again. That the U.S. fooled itself into thinking the French were a good faith partner will prove one of George Bush's most shameful errors. It is wrong of the Bush administration to pull its support from the only force, Israel, willing to do the work the security council has mandated, especially because Israel will ultimately be the victim of Hezbollah's survival.

However, events have a habit of unfolding in unexpected ways. The moves that seems inevitable in the chess board of global affairs are undone by some random new factor. Perhaps we will see one here, and Israel will be liberated from the threat of Hezbollah despite the ineptitude and mendacity of the UN, the Lebanese cabinet, and the French.

PREVIOUSLY:

JonBenet Mystery Is Now Even Deeper

2006-08-16T22:42:00.000-05:00

A second-grade teacher has been arrested in relation to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. He was arrested in Bangkok, where he was being held on an unrelated sex charge, after what authorities described as a complex investigation.

This actually makes the case more mysterious. The suspect, John Karr, knew the Ramsey's when the Ramseys lived in Atlanta, prior to their move to Colorado. [CORRECTION: may have known; I nonetheless think it suspicious the parties have a geographical connection.] This connection illuminates some of the problems in the Ramsey's story, in particular the strange ransom note and the father's bizarre discovery of the child's body. Far from exonerating the Ramseys, it only adds to suspicions about their involvement that they were acquainted with the man suspected of killing JonBenet.

Technorati tags: crime | JonBenet Ramsey

A Cubs Debacle Avoided In Houston

2006-08-16T22:22:00.000-05:00

Forced to use today's starter during an 18-inning marathon yesterday against the Houston Astros, the Chicago Cubs delved into the furthest reaches of their forty-man roster and extracted Ryan O'Malley. Facing the Astros in the shoebox that is Minute Maid Park made this game, O'Malley's major league debut, more likely to be a human sacrifice than a ball game.

After three innings, O'Malley looked to be the luckiest pitcher ever to take the mound. He had given up no runs, but had allowed three walks and two hits. Not a reassuring ratio, since the first time through the lineup a new pitcher has a distinct advantage. I fully expected him to be gone by the fourth, as the Astros batters got a feel for his stuff.

But amazingly, O'Malley pitched 8 shutout innings, leading the Cubs to a 1-0 victory and giving the bullpen some much needed rest. His line was somewhat unimpressive -- 8 IP, 0 R, 5 H, 6 BB, 2 SO -- but he won. I wouldn't expect a repeat: that many baserunners and so few strike outs usually indicates a pitcher who doesn't quite have what it takes for the majors. But for today, he managed to win, and a dismal day was avoided.

Technorati tags: baseball

Job Hunts Both Suck And Blow

2006-08-16T22:10:00.000-05:00

After travel kept me from blogging on Monday and Tuesday, a call back on my resume and the preparations for a job interview kept me from blogging today. I've been looking part-time for a little over a month, and have been moving into the process slowly, so I figure I'm doing alright even though this is my first serious interview. I haven't looked for a new job in over ten years, so I'm a little overwhelmed by it all.

In any event, if I go over my answers to the questions I'll face tomorrow one more time I'll probably scream, so I'll write a few posts before I go to sleep, visions of corner offices and expense accounts dancing in my head.

Though actually, right now, I'd settle for a cubicle in a company that knew what it was doing.

Technorati tags: travel

Midnight News -- 8/16/06

2006-08-16T00:32:00.000-05:00

Back from the road after a long presentation, a long drive, and two fairly long flights punctuated by a three hour layover. I was single for many years, and I have to say about the best thing I've ever experienced is coming home late at night to a warm meal and an appreciative wife.

Travelling so much I missed most of the news. I know the basics, but didn't have any time read a full article or read any blogs. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up tomorrow, and will probably have a lot to say about the score increases reported for the ACT exam. For now, just the midnight news:

Hezbollah, an illegal, private army, is trying to negotiate to retain it's bunkers and armaments south of the Litani River.

A Russian patrol boat fired on a Japanese crabbing boat sailing near the Kurile Islands. The two countries fought a war 100 years ago that ended disastrously for Russia, and even though this appears to be a minor incident, I can't help but notice the symmetry. UPDATE: The headline writer at Times Online was asleep at the switch: "Russia shoots dead Japanese fisherman". What can a dead man do to get himself shot?

To the great dismay of Japan's neighbors, that country's prime minister paid a visit a a shrine for Japanese World War II dead on the anniversary of the war's end.

Someone in Pakistan bought houses for the figures at the center of the Britain airplane bomb plot. "Experts argue that heightened vigil could have easily sniffed the mismatch between the high-volume transactions and the modest net worth of the recipients." Yes, but that would require we watch bank transfers and review phone call records, and that's just nosy.

A man in Kansas City was crushed by a car he was working to repair. Neighbors eventually noticed his legs sticking out from underneath the vehicle and called for help, but the man had been dead for hours by that time.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Travel Again

2006-08-14T23:43:00.000-05:00

I'm on the road again, going places that I've never been, so thus the light blogging. And actually, I've been to this city before, so technically I'm going places I've been, which doesn't sound half as interesting. It's actually hard for me to think of a city I haven't been to, but it's usually in an out for a presentation. I hardly get a feel for the place. It was better when I worked the booth at conventions, because then I could spend a few days somewhere. For most cities now, I only know the airport.

I slept through most of the flight, but sitting near me at the gate and in the rows in front of me on the plane was a woman with five young boys. They group was fascinating to watch. The mother hardly lifted a finger, but the boys were as well behaved as a group of young boys can be, given a pack of boys may as well be a pack of wild animals. I finally realized that this was because the oldest boy, maybe 8-years-old, acted like a sergeant and kept the reins on the little ones. The mother had a face like a mouse and a serene temper, and the boys all followed her very dutifully when she gave a command. It wasn't until we were getting off the plane that I realized she wore a jeweled cross, one that was only modestly gaudy, but which clashed with her otherwise plain appearance. I imagine it helps her state of mind. If the dad was nearby he didn't make himself known. A man who may have been the father said a couple of things to the boys, but I think he was just a polite bystander.

I'll be traveling and working most of the day tomorrow, so blogging will continue to be light. I'll post what I can when I can.

Technorati tags: travel

Midnight News -- 8/14/06

2006-08-14T01:11:00.000-05:00

His loss being confirmed by a partial recount, former Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador plans years of protests, and even to disrupt the inauguration of winner Felipe Calderon. "'We will not accept an illegitimate government and a counterfeit president,' Lopez Obrador told supporters in Mexico City's downtown square, the Zocalo."

Muslims in India feel "targeted with suspicion". Blowing up hundreds of people on commuter trains can have that effect.

The government of South Africa is pursuing policies that mirror those of economic powerhouse Zimbabwe.

Someone accidentally cut the lights in Tokyo, and the Japanese are now out for blood. They've called in the lawyers.

A man who pleaded guilty to a vicious murder in Deadwood, South Dakota is seeking to forgo any appeals and bring about his own execution. I think the only moral objection to the death penalty is epistemological: how can we be sure that a person has done the crime for which death is the penalty? This doubt is to me nearly sufficient to abandon the whole enterprise of the death penalty. There is no such doubt here, and the punishment ought to be carried out. Holding back in this case is just squeamishness.

With perhaps just a little schadenfreude, an east coast paper reports on the troubles of Phoenix, Arizona, a long-booming Sun Belt megalopolis. Phoenix, when I was growing up, was smaller but still dangerous. There have always been neighborhoods that were quite dangerous, and there have even been mafia murders there. It's now so huge, however, that it's hard to ignore what takes place in Phoenix. An interview with a few newcomers disappointed that the Valley is too much like Los Angeles just reminds us that many people in Phoenix have no ties to the city's past. It's possible to talk to a hundred people at a Valley supermarket and not find one who was born there. Even in the early 80's, the vast majority of my elementary school classmates came from other states.

West Africans search internet dating services for Westerners who might lift them out of that region's poverty. One of them says she considers internet dating a "safer alternative to becoming an illegal migrant and trying to cross the ocean in a tiny boat."

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Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

A Deadly Miscalculation About Water

2006-08-14T00:40:00.000-05:00

I learned to swim when I was about three-years-old, and spent much of my childhood in and around swimming pools and beaches. I can't fathom why people would trifle with the water. But people do. In southwest suburban Chicago, a family was having a picnic near a dammed river, and a four-year-old boy jumped in the water. His brothers and other family members jumped in after him, but a powerful suction near the dam pulled some of them under. Two drowned and one is missing. The missing and probably dead family member is a Marine sergeant just returned from Iraq.

Incidents like this seem to happen often: one person gets in trouble in the water, and another drowns trying to perform a rescue. Water is dangerous, very dangerous, and what these people were doing having a picnic near a dam is beyond me.

Technorati tags: Chicago

Finally, White Sox All They Need To Do

2006-08-13T23:18:00.000-05:00

Alex Cintron had a big day for the Chicago White Sox. The Sox regular short stop, Juan Uribe, had been complaining of nagging injuries, so Cintron has been getting a fair amount of playing time. He started the third game against the Detroit Tigers with a first inning triple, and scored from third on a sacrifice fly from Paul Konerko. In the second inning, he doubled with the bases loaded to drive in three more. This put the Sox up 4-1, and they didn't look back, eventually winning 7-3.

The real news isn't that the White Sox swept the Tigers to pull to 5.5 games back in the division. The real news is that for the first time this season the White Sox did all that was necessary for them to gain an advantage in a playoff hunt. The real baseball season starts after the All Star break, and it was in that time the Sox reached their nadir. Some days it looked like they'd never win again. But they had a road trip a couple of weeks ago that started with the Baltimore Orioles and the Kansas City Royals. They won both series, but against those teams, they really should have had one sweep. They didn't quite do all they needed to do.

And even though the team started playing better, one could still see the hints of the bad play that had sent their season reeling after the break. A starter would do well, but the bull pen would let the starter down. A starter would be doing poorly, but the offense would pick that day to fall apart. The offense would do well, but the pitchers couldn't get an out they needed to hold the lead. Even when they won, there was a sense that it was a close thing, and the next win might be a long way off.

Finally, this weekend, the team as a whole did what was required to have at least a chance in the division: they swept the Tigers, the team with the best record in baseball. Kansas City comes to Chicago tomorrow, while the Tigers go to Boston for the Red Sox. Chicago has a good chance to pick up one more game this week. They'll next face the Tigers a week from tomorrow, in Detroit for four games. They could conceivably be playing for the division lead.

Technorati tags: baseball

The Cease Fire That Wasn't

2006-08-13T23:04:00.000-05:00

Arab mothers are naming their children after Nasrallah, the Lebanese cabinet is in disarray, and Hezbollah's own politburo opposes Nasrallah's acceptance of a cease fire. The rocket fire into Israel from the illegal, private army of south Lebanon won't be stopping any time soon.

It's around 7:00 am in Israel and Lebanon, and Israel at least is still planning to uphold the cease fire. The first Katyusha that flies into Israel calls the deal off.

UPDATE 1:20 am CDT: The cease fire has been in effect successfully for a couple of hours now, but I still say it's doomed. Hezbollah vows to keep fighting as long as Israel is within Lebanon, but Israel, under no legal obligation to withdraw, prefers to wait until the Lebanese army is deployed to replace them.

The U.N. resolution calls for 15,000 foreign troops and 15,000 Lebanese soldiers to be deployed in southern Lebanon.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, meeting with Israeli officials in Jerusalem, said that at least 4,000 foreign troops could be ready to move into southern Lebanon "in a very, very short time," but he declined to pinpoint a timetable.

I predict that won't be soon enough for Nasrallah. I expect a rocket strike by the end of the day in Israel.

UPDATE: It's the end of the day in Israel, and no rockets. A handful of Hezbollah died testing the limits of the meaning of self-defense, but the cease fire holds. This is why I don't gamble.

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Who Won? -- Part 2

2006-08-13T10:46:00.000-05:00

Israel is pressing Hezbollah as much as possible during the countdown to the cease fire. The most likely scenario is that the cease fire breaks down, so the assaults of the last two days will ultimately prove wise. Hezbollah leadership is already opposed to cease fire provisions that they disarm south of the Litani. The Lebanese cabinet, which had earlier been united, postponed a session about how 15,000 Lebanese troops would be deployed into Hezbollah controlled south Lebanon. The objections came from Hezbollah ministers serving in the cabinet.

The cease fire is simply that: a cessation of fighting to allow attempts at a negotiated settlement. It's provisions are legal in nature and minimally binding, and Israpundit reports at least some rumors about how Israel views it's legal obligations. The most promising is that they are working with some elements of the Lebanese government to help Lebanon crush Hezbollah. Israel's other points are probably legally correct, but if acted upon would bring many recriminations from the ever-so noble international community. They all revolve around pressing the edges of definitions of self-defense.

Via Israel Matzav, a Lebanese writer articulates the bitterness of some Lebanese towards both Hezbollah and their own leaders:

The national salvation discussions that concerned the application of Resolution 1559 and which included most of the Lebanese political movements were simply for show. Iran and Syria had not invested billions of dollars on militarizing Lebanon in order to wage their war, simply to give in to the desire of the Lebanese and the international community for them to pack up their hardware and set it up back home.

[...]

We had two years to put implement this resolution and thus guarantee a peaceful future to our children but we did strictly nothing. Our greatest crime - which was not the only one! - was not that we did not succeed but that we did not attempt or undertake anything. And that was the fault of none else than the pathetic Lebanese politicians.

There's much more, including further proof that despite the rending of garments over every Israeli missile strike, their bombing has been as precise and clearly targeted as modern warfare will allow:

Moreover the road and airport infrastructures were put out of working order : they served to provide Hezbollah with arms and munitions. Apart from that, Tsahal has neither hit nor deteriorated anything, and all those who speak of the "destruction of Beirut" are either liars, Iranians, anti-Semites or absent. Even the houses situated one alley's distance from the targets I mentioned have not been hit, they have not even suffered a scratch; on contemplating these results of this work you understand the meaning of the concept "surgical strikes" and you can admire the dexterity of the Jewish pilots.

[...]

The defeat of the Shi'a fundamentalists of Iranian allegiance is imminent. The figures communicated by Nasrallah's minions and by the Lebanese Red-Cross are deceiving: firstly, of the 400 dead declared by Lebanon, only 150 are real collateral civilian victims of the war, the others were militiamen without uniform serving Iran. The photographic report "Les Civils des bilans libanais" made by Stephane Juffa for our agency constitutes, to this day, the unique tangible evidence of this gigantic morbid manipulation. Which makes this document eminently important.

Moreover, Hassan Nasrallah's organization has not lost 200 combatants, as Tsahal claims. This figure only concerns the combats taking place on the border and even then the Israelis underestimate it, for a reason that escapes me, by about a hundred militiamen eliminated. The real count of Hezbollah's casualties, that includes those dead in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, Baalbek and their other camps, rocket and missile launchers and arms and munition depots amounts to 1,100 supplementary Hezbollah militiamen who have definitively ceased to terrorize and humiliate my country.

Hezbollah's declared victory is really a non-defeat: they have so far not been destroyed, so they proclaim themselves superior to the invincible Israeli military. Madness, yes, but they must believe it plays well among Arabs and Muslims, as it has been their argument from the start.

However, there are some indications that the Arab governments dominated by Sunni Muslims are taking steps to neutralize Shia Hezbollah and their sponsors in Shiite Iran. At Publius Pundit, Nouri Lumendifi (of A Moor Next Door) argues for an Arab-Iranian cold war, and I believe we've seen the beginnings of such a phenomena in the Arab Leagues insistent advocacy on behalf of Lebanon's central government.

Hezbollah's "victory" may in fact turn into a broader defeat, even if the cease fire holds. Via Meryl Yourish, a discussion from Bradley Burston of what the Arab world turning on Hezbollah might look like:

The world is scared of Hezbollah. Because the whole world is scared of Iran. Especially large swaths of the Arab world.

If, for the first time, Hezbollah is forced by international pressure to pull back its fighters in favor of the Lebanese army and a multi-national force, even at the cost of a large prisoner exchange.

"In the past we used to oppose or not agree on deployment of the army at the borders," the Hezbollah leader said this week, spending a large part of a televised speech deflecting what he called criticism of his policies, apparently from fellow Lebanese. Now, he said, "we agree on deployment of the army."

When this war is over and Israel's troops are gone from Lebanon, and when the rage at Israel begins to subside, it will be Nasrallah's turn - like Nasser's four decades ago - to answer to fellow Arabs for his actions.

One element Burston mentions, an element upon which arguments such as his rely, is the relative silence of the world towards Israeli action, at least for the first few weeks. The unlikelihood that this silence will continue is why I think Israel will ultimately be the loser in this war, at least in the sense that Hezbollah will continue to be an active military force in south Lebanon that is sponsored by Iran and Syria. Already, criticism surrounding Israel's bombing campaign has caused American politicians to consider restricting the munitions that they sell to Israel, and great controversy ensued when the U.S. attempted to send weapons to Israel through Great Britain. Hezbollah needn't worry about their own supporters cutting them off.

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Midnight News -- 8/13/06

2006-08-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

The Lebanon-Israel cease fire will begin about 24 hours from the time of this post, and it may bring down the Israeli government.

Cops in New Dehli are on the hunt for a suicide bomber. "...Special Commissioner of Police Ajay Chadha said: 'We have got a few specific and a number of general intelligence inputs. But the threat is highest of a possible attack from a fidayeen or car bomb.'" In Mumbai at least, there have been sightings of the much rumored of moderate, socially assimilated Muslims.

Britons are stunned by the rage of young Muslims. They really shouldn't be. Indulged by a welfare state, cultural outsiders despite all manner of weak and craven appeasements, young Muslims see no reason to act like Britain is a place worthy of respect. Like any cunning predator, the jihadis attack the weak, and Britain shows little but weakness on all Islamic matters not related to al Qaeda and Iraq.

Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is getting more and more pissy as reporters uncover further state government hiring scandals.

"Hey, let me ask you a question? Do you think I get up every single day wasting my time doing that?" Blagojevich said. "I get up trying to get health care done for people, education funding, create jobs--the stuff that people care about, doing things for people."

The governor's remarks came a day after the administration disclosed more than 2,000 people with political connections allegedly received special treatment over applicants without clout.

The little exchange above took place as the governor and his family opened the Illinois state fair, and it made his three-year-old daughter cry.

The Congolese enjoyed their first election in decades at the end of last month, but only about 10% of the votes have been counted. Election workers in canoes are still gathering ballots. Though relatively few votes have been counted, at least four election officials have been arrested for fraud. So far, incumbent President Joseph Kabila appears to be winning.

New Orleans is barely beginning to rebuild itself, despite the heroic determination of some. The story of a 94-year-old woman's efforts to reclaim her home is truly inspiring and also truly depressing. She's the only person in her entire neighborhood with enough grit to rebuild.

Canadians think we're a bunch of bible-thumping hicks. Canadians! Oh well, it's not their fault: God designed them that way.

Paul McCartney's divorce from Heather Mills is getting ugly.

Hugo Chavez is going to Cuba to help Fidel Castro celebrate his 80th birthday. Chavez is bringing presents, one of which he coyly refused to identify. I bet it's a tricycle. Dictators love tricycles. Fidel will be so happy.

In Los Angeles, as elsewhere, the homeless have discovered the joy of reading, and can indulge that joy so long as they also discover the joy of bathing.

There are 4,000,000 people in Dubai, and its capital city has a population that 82% foreign, yet there are over 350 publications available for sale in that country. "Dr. Mohammed Ayesh, head of the Media Department at Sharjah University, blamed a shortage of market studies and a dearth of statistics for the huge number of publications. According to a common misconception, he added, everything published will be read."

In America, even our dogs are fat. Seriously, we need to get control of our impulses -- this is getting ridiculous.

Job hunt note: becoming a Chinese acrobat is not a good career move.

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Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

News For Those Who Report The News Redux

2006-08-12T23:00:00.000-05:00

Control of the press is an essential ingredient of a totalitarian regime. It is both a method of control and a pleasure to those who seek total political power. A person who desires to control behavior can mold a mind to produce a behavior, and is also by definition a person who takes joy in telling others what to think and do. In Lebanon, there is more documentation of Hezbollah's totalitarian designs, and we can at least hope that the new evidence is so obvious that even reporters will be forced to admit Hezbollah's true character, and report news from southern Lebanon with the appropriate skepticism.

From Little Green Footballs:

Photographer Alleges Unearthing of Bodies

From the international photographer's forum Lightstalkers.org, photojournalist Bryan Denton, in a message from Beirut Lebanon, describes the most vile sort of photo staging imaginable...

It's an incredibly strong allegation from a very credible source.

Of course, this news comes to late to prevent a whitewash of the vicious pro-Hezbollah demonstrations in Washington.

It may take time, but perhaps reporters will learn if we keep rubbing their noses in the mess.

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News For Those Who Report The News

Technorati tags: Israel | Lebanon | Hezbollah

Who Won?

2006-08-12T21:15:00.000-05:00

My prediction is that Hezbollah will appear the winner, because unrestricted by a sense of obligation to tell the truth, and with the ability to threaten and intimidate those journalists that are not already their supporters, they can declare victory as often as possible and create the impression of strength. Already, the crawl on al Manar TV states "We won. We defeated the invincible army." But that victory is merely having survived, and even that is something that Hezbollah did little to bring about. They were saved by the weak-heartedness of the West, and by the willingness of their enemy to stop fighting.

To their credit, Israel is doing their best to put Hezbollah into as weak a position as possible before they will stop fighting. From the New York Times:

Israel poured troops into southern Lebanon on Saturday, making its deepest push yet toward the Litani River and suffering its highest daily losses, including having a helicopter shot down by Hezbollah guerrillas for the first time in the fighting.

The problem is, Israeli losses get reported very quickly and precisely. If earlier engagements are any indication, Hezbollah losses were triple Israel's, but that will not get reported for another few days, after the notion that Israel is facing some kind of quagmire has settled in. One of the headlines at Haaretz is about a helicopter shot down by Hezbollah. The story emphasizes that 11 were killed, but left unstated is the lrger fact that helicopters don't tend to travel alone, was part of a larger assault deep in Hezbollah's territory, and the privilege of shooting it down probably cost twice as many Hezbollah lives as Israeli's.

Earlier Saturday, the Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, went on television to charge that "nothing had changed" since the resolution, but conditionally pledged to abide by a cease-fire once it came into effect. "The war did not end, because the aggression is still going on," he said, but added that his forces would stop fighting "when the Israeli aggression stops" and Israel's troops leave Lebanon.

As expected, the Lebanese government approved the cease-fire plan after more than five hours of debate that lasted long into the evening. Two ministers representing Hezbollah went along with the decision, though they expressed "reservations" about the resolution because it blamed Hezbollah for the war and seemed to exonerate Israel, said one of the ministers, Mohammed Fneish.

The arrogant sensitivities of some Muslims is utterly astonishing to me, and the minister's statement is a case in point.

The truth of the matter is found at the end of the NYT piece:

In Beirut, there was little celebration at the possibility that a cease-fire could come soon, the people instead expressing mostly exhaustion. "All we have is 1,000 dead and widespread destruction," said Jamal Ghosn, who runs an Internet store. "Hezbollah’s stature has grown. But the biggest losers are the people."

Both statements are equally true, but I suspect Hezbollah will continue to bring suffering. The IDF already reports that weapons still flow into south Lebanon from Syria.

Ehud Omert's government is trying to sell the cease fire as a victory for Israel, even as the U.S. tries to sell that idea to Israel.

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White Sox Get One Game Closer

2006-08-12T15:58:00.000-05:00

I checked in on today's Chicago White Sox / Detroit Tigers game at U.S. Cellular Field to find that Detroit's Kenny Rogers had a no-hitter through four innings. If he had made it through another inning, that would have made it three Sox games in a row to feature a pitcher throwing no-hit ball through 5. I even wrote a post in anticipation of that happening, but alas, Paul Konerko broke up the no-hitter as the first batter of the 5th.

The White Sox end up winning 4-3 on a good performance from Mark Buehrle, his second of his last three starts. Sox starter Mark Buehrle managed to get 7 strike outs over 6 innings, and gave up no walks, a marked difference from his weaker outings of the last couple of months.

Near the trade deadline, the White Sox traded for veteran catcher Sandy Alomar, who has a history with Buehrle. The hope was that having Alomar calling the games, or at least nearby, would help Buehrle get his head on straight. Buehrle's improved since Alomar arrived, but I can't say if Alomar himself is the reason. It's possible Alomar did something to help, it's possible the trade merely triggered something in Buehrle's mind that helped him focus, and it's possible Buehrle's improvement is just coincidental to the trade.

The Sox are now 6.5 games behind the Tigers, and if they win tomorrow will be only 5.5 games behind, a distance they may overcome to win the division. If they don't win, their best chance for the playoffs is the wild card.

Technorati tags: baseball

Cindy Sheehan Exhausted By The Weight Of Her Own Narcissism

2006-08-12T11:17:00.000-05:00

Phony hunger striker Cindy Sheehan has been hospitalized in Texas for exhaustion. She also underwent a biopsy to determine the cause of uterine bleeding.

It's all probably related to her "hunger strike", which is in actuality a ruse for her to get the credit that true hunger strikers receive without having to suffer the physical consequences. She gambled that protein shakes would bring her credit as a hunger striker without actually causing her any meaningful discomfort. While technically only a liquid diet, protein shakes are not exactly the same type of liquid diet that people like Gandhi lived on, and it looks like she lost her gamble. Now, the new Camp Casey will have to make do without her.

For the record, real hunger strikes look like this.

UPDATE: The reporting is even more phony than I realized.

Technorati tags: the left | Cindy Sheehan

Cease Fire Fallout

2006-08-12T10:46:00.000-05:00

The second operational paragraph of the UN cease fire resolution states that Israel will withdraw past the blue line as UNIFIL and the Lebanese army deploy to south Lebanon. It is fortunate that Israel continues its deployment towards the Litani, as this will ensure there is no vacuum for Hezbollah to fill.

The possibilty that Lebanon will accomplish anything close to Hezbollah's disarmament seems rather slim, given what Fuad Saniora said of the cease fire:

Praising Hizbullah guerrillas, the prime minister said, "The steadfastness of the resistance fighters in the field was very important, as was the steadfastness and unity of the people," he said.

He doesn't have to like what Israel did, but neither need he praise Hezbollah for starting the war in the first place. A statement like this suggests he accepts Hezbollah's subversion of Lebanon to make war against Jews. Perhaps the Cedar Revolution is already dead.

At Publius Pundit, Jonathan Taylor develops a thoughtful criticism of Israel's attacks on Hezbollah, which includes this conclusion:

Israel may win the physical battle, but they are dangerously close to losing the war for democracy. Yes, Israel was provoked. Yes, it is intolerable that a group of radicals have their own independent army. That Israel has faced these problems is not a new development – its been this way for decades. Democracy in the Arab world, however, is new. And Israel has decided, for whatever reasons, that a brief military campaign is more important than lasting peace.

This is similar to the argument Richard Cohen made in the Washington Post a few weeks ago, though on a smaller and much more rational scale. I think the flaw here is that it fails to account for the disproportionate strength of Hezbollah's mini-state as compared to the weakness of the Lebanese central government. Taylor's argument asks Israel to have waited for an infant to grow, but that infant was surrounded by wolves, and the odds of its survival even before Israel's attacks were already quite slim. It is not just to ask Israel to absorb the blows of a totalitarian aggressor on the off-chance Lebanon's Cedar Revolution would survive Hezbollah's presence.

If there is any reasonable criticism of Israel's choice to attack, it is Taylor's, but even his argument does not persuade me that Israel would have been wiser to show patience. That country drew the quite reasonable conclusion that Iran and Syria, working through Hezbollah, were acting on their stated goal to drive Israel into the sea. They responded with brute force, as they have the right to do. It may be that in doing so they have destroyed the possibility of lasting democracy in Lebanon. However, given Hezbollah's strength and its true character, I don't think the chances for the Cedar Revolution's survival were very strong in the first place.

Hassan Nasrallah had begrudgingly accepted the cease fire. He called resistance to Israel's attempts to destroy the threat he poses a "natural right", which by implication means he believes he has an absolute legal right to destroy Israel, and Israel has no legal right to do anything but sit back and take it. He left unmentioned the resolution's demand for the unconditional release of the kidnapped soldiers.

The New York Times reports on Israeli soldiers' surprise at how well armed and resilient Hezbollah troops are. I suppose they mean to imply that Israel should recognize how hard it is to destroy an entrenched, well-armed guerrilla army and just give up. I say, send bigger bombs. Under UN resolution 1559, Hezbollah has no right to exist as a military force. The world should act like it actually believes that principle.

UPDATE 1:45 pm CDT: A question has occurred to me: when has any central government ever survived an armed party within its borders when the difference in strength between the central government and the armed party is as great as the difference between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah?

My first thought was Columbia, but the difference in strength between FARC and the central government is not as great as that between Lebanon and Hezbollah. The central government has military forces capable of fighting FARC, has the support of the U.S., and has the presence of well-armed right wing militias fighting the same enemy. In Lebanon, all the militias except Hezbollah have disarmed.

Then I thought of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, but after Vietnam invaded, a much weakened Khmer Rouge was driven to the hills. A strong Cambodian state eventually emerged, but they had help from an invading nation and an enemy much less powerful than Lebanese democracy has in Hezbollah.

I can't really think of any other cases similar to Lebanon and Hezbollah at the moment. I'd like to know if there is any historical justification for asking Israel to be patient with Lebanese democracy, when that democracy is so weak compared to an internal mini-state like Hezbollah.

UPDATE 2:33 pm CDT: Israel will cease military operations at around 7:00 am Monday Israeli time, or 11:00 pm Sunday CDT. It's not official yet because Israel has yet to officially endorse the cease fire. Since its not clear what ceasing operations means, but it probably doesn't mean an immediate Israeli withdrawal. Thus, Hezbollah can continue its attacks under the pretense that having not withdrawn, Israel hadn't accpeted the cease fire.

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Midnight News -- 8/12/06

2006-08-12T00:58:00.000-05:00

The government of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is attempting to take exclusive control of the armed forces of its own country, dismantling the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command. Military leaders and conservative activists are vociferously resisting these efforts.

A federal judge will make the state of Illinois pay for it's attempt to restrict the First Amendment.

No witnesses were harmed in the making of this crime.

Uber-sherrif Joe Arpaio, of Arizona's Maricopa county, is threatening to arrest two radio DJs for encouraging bestiality, in particular for paying a listener $550 to eat peanut butter off the.... Okay, I'm not saying where the peanut butter was. Although I wonder why they chose an English Bulldog in particular.

A terrorist squirrel is tormenting Florida children, no doubt because of the war in Iraq. Or because of something someone did to it with peanut butter.

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Technorati tags: news | politics | current events