Not Quite War

Scattered, sometimes intense sectarian fighting broke out last week in the wake of the destruction of the Askariya shrine (also known as the Golden Mosque) in Samarra at the hands of suspected al Qaeda terrorists. While the fighting appears to have abated, the Washington Post is now reporting that officials at the main Baghdad morgue put the toll at more than 1,300 dead. This is more than three times previous estimates, and should prove sobering to both those who would brush this off as a minor hurdle already overcome.

While the loss of life is tragic, the series of skirmishes and ambushes of the past few days in Iraqi are far from the "civil war" many news outlets and pundits were all too eager to declare.

Civil wars tend to end with catastrophic losses and destroyed cultures after prolonged, drawn-out conflicts. This was decidedly not a civil war, but more than a riot. It was a "not quite" war where the best planning of al Qaeda and the most emotionally charged of targets failed to ignite an escalating conflagration that would spiral out of control.

Instead, al Qaeda is faced with the Golden Mosque strike that was a tactical success, which may yet turn into a strategic defeat. Terrorists succeeded in initiating a short-term sectarian struggle that while intense, lasted mere days.

The conflict ended with Sunni and Kurdish leaders pledging money and support to rebuild a Shia shrine. It drove politicians together for the good of all their peoples and a shared if not completely agreed-upon future.

The surprising number of dead may even force the Iraqi government to address the growing concern of religious militias and rogue interior Ministry forces that seem to have been responsible for the bulk of the reprisal killings in Iraq.

It was not quite war, but close enough to one, hopefully, that it forces sober thought to overcome bluster, and perhaps hard lessons will be learned.

Scariest Interview Title Ever

You were warned.

This Treason Brought to You By...

As they want to protest illegal occupations by performing an illegal occupation, I guess we should be thankful they are not protesting the clubbing of baby seals.

UPFJ:

Storm the White House Multi-Day Event, Beginning March 15, come when you can and stay as long as you can - we are taking over the White House until they leave. Torture, Occupation, Genocide - Must End Now. Wednesday, March 15th 2006 12:00 AM Washington, DC USA

TAKE THE WHITE HOUSE BY STORM - Stop Genocide, Torture and Occupation

U.N. SOS - We need your help to end the reign of international criminals.

It is our duty and the duty of the United Nations to rescue the people of the world from the U.S. dictators. Murder for occupation and theft of land is illegal. Murder of journalists is criminal. Remove the traitors who have stolen the U.S. budget and used it to commit international crimes against humanity.

If we were being bombed and our journalists were being murdered here in the U.S. by a foreign country's military, we would hope that the people of that country would stop what they are doing and go to their president's office and demand that it was stopped. If we were the ones burying thousands and thousands of our family members and watching the destruction of the homes, schools, churches and offices that we had worked for decades to build, we would hope that someone, somewhere would care enough to do something for us. We must stop the criminals in our government NOW. There is no meeting with Congress that is going to change what they are doing. We must put the power of the people into action and stay there until they leave!

Inviting everyone to the White House for a protest rally to show that we do not accept the criminal government, illegal wars and the permanent occupation planned for Iraq and Afghanistan. For Nat Turner, For Martin and Coretta, For all the Torture and Assassination in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and many others - We will not allow the Slave Holders that Still Prevail in this Country to Rule us any longer. Imprisonment and torture based on race, religion, resources or region is no different than the slavery we sought to abolish years ago. The Administration is Criminal and if they will not step down, we must storm in, show them how many of us do not accept a criminal government. How can we stand by and watch them kill our brothers, sisters, journalists and friends for their dollars?

We are calling on all citizens and governments in every country to stand with us. We are calling on all Member Nations of the U.N.; All Representatives and Justices in the World Court and International Criminal Courts; All Human Rights Advocates; All Soldiers and CIA agents and government officials who have been blackmailed or are in fear of the dictators to join us in ending this reign of corporate terror in our government. The World Criminal Courts need to incarcerate Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for admitted crimes and known crimes of international scope. The Political Cooperative will put a new, temporary government in place that is comprised of people from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and all the organizations that have finally made us aware of the truth of the savage practices and illegal policies of our government in assassinating our own officials as well as people throughout the world who oppose their criminal activity. We need all of you to save U.S. victims and global victims from their ongoing criminal activity. We are calling on the military, police, citizens and religious organizations to stand with us and help us to bring democracy back to the United States and by doing so, free the world from the wrath, occupation, theft, torture, blackmail and assassination by the Criminals in the United States Government. What they have done all over the world is much worse than what Saddam Hussein has done, so why are they not in jail too? They have admitted to international and national crimes, so why have they not been taken to Court too?

Location:
White House, Washington DC Starting March 15th, come for as long as you can and bring signs that say U.N. SOS and "Leave Now" or whatever you would like to say. Ride Share and Room Share Plans can be made here: http://www.citysites.com/travel/tiki-view_tracker.php?trackerId=3 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington DC 20500

Contact:
Darrow Boggiano
admin@politicalcooperative.org
415.409.2611

Sponsored By:
We are requesting participation from all members of the United Nations, PFAW, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Code Pink, police, soldiers, ACLU, CIA, NSA and International Courts of Justice/World Court.

Sweetness and Light notes UFPJ is a Teresa Heinz Kerry-supported organization calling for the illegal overthrow of the duly-elected government.

Slitting Their Own Throats

So much for the "civil war" in Iraq the media and American anti-war demonstrators have been all but hoping for:

Iraq lifted an extraordinary daylight curfew in three governorates on Sunday as the wave of violence that followed Wednesday's destruction of a Shia shrine appeared to ebb outside the capital.

But the ban on traffic in Baghdad – which last night suffered a mortar attack that killed 15 and wounded at least another 30 people – remained in place. In other sporadic violence on Sunday another seven people died, including two US soldiers.

The apparent absence of organised reprisals at the weekend, however, suggests that while the destruction of the dome of the al-Askariya shrine and the ensuing wave of Shia attacks on Sunnis has brought the country the closest it has come to sectarian civil war, key religious and political leaders on both sides have this time been both willing and able to de-escalate the crisis.

The attack on the al-Askariya shrine was probably al Qaeda's last best hope of triggering a sectarian civil war in Iraq. Instead of ripping the nation apart however, it seems to have had the opposite effect, driving the leaders of Iraq's various ethnic groups closer together in a conflict against a common enemy.

al Qaeda, already growing unpopular with the Sunni tribes that once supported them, can be expected to start falling in greater numbers, as seen in the death of Abu Asma, the Al Qaeda Military Emir of Northern Baghdad three days ago.

al Qaeda had only a slim chance to prevail in this conflict when it started. Continued strategic and tactical blunders such as these exacerbate their problems.

Faster, please.

Specter's Greasy Fingers

Paper elephant and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter is showing more of his hand than he knows regarding the NSA program created by President Bush's executive order to conduct terrorist communications intercepts, as he presents a baffling new set of rules:

The federal government would have to obtain permission from a secret court to continue a controversial form of surveillance, which the National Security Agency now conducts without warrants, under a bill being proposed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

Specter's proposal would bring the four-year-old NSA program under the authority of the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The act created a mechanism for obtaining warrants to wiretap domestic suspects. But President Bush, shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on communications without such warrants. The program was revealed in news reports two months ago.

Specter's plan could put him at odds with the administration, which has praised a rival proposal that would exempt the NSA program from the surveillance law. Specter's proposal would also require the administration to give a handful of lawmakers more information about the program than they now receive, such as the number of communications intercepted and a summary of the results.

Self-appointed FISA expert Glenn Greenwald, like many liberal commentators, is utterly baffled by Specter's proposal:

It is, of course, so disorientingly bizarre to hear about a proposed law requiring FISA warrants for eavesdropping because we already have a law in place which does exactly that. It's called FISA.

Actually Glenn, you are quite wrong. Again.

The Justice Department, the FISA Court of Review, and quite a few other learned folks have explained both in public and apparently in more detail in front of closed congressional hearings on the matter, FISA does not cover this NSA program (though it does cover others). Glenn has never been able to get his head around the fact that FISA is not all-encompassing.

After the confidential review of the program that silenced the majority of congressional Democrats and Republicans, Specter must have also ultimately come to the same conclusion that current FISA law does not apply to program of this nature.

Read the nature of Specter's proposal again:

Specter's proposal would bring the four-year-old NSA program under the authority of the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

This one sentence tells us that this program is currently legal outside of the control and competencies of FISA. Specter wants to expand the reach of FISA with new rules so that the program created by Bush would fall under a Congressional sphere of influence.

From the beginning, the President, White House Counsel, The Justice Department and NSA lawyers familiar with the intimate details of this program have all maintained that the program was well within the Executive's Article II powers (and outside of FISA's domain), and they also maintained that the AUMF also granted a statutory exemption to FISA as well.

If I am interpreting this properly, the deal Specter appears to be trying to make is offering the Executive Branch a far broader range of available actions in exchange for more direct Congressional involvement. ”We'll let you do more,” the words slither forth, ”but we want to be involved, too…”

This would appear to be a tremendously bad deal, all the way around.

Liberals and libertarians alike may complain about an “imperial presidency,” but President Bush has not used any more of his Constitutionally-mandated Commander-in-Chief authority than any other previous wartime executive, and the powers granted to him by Article II to capture foreign intelligence are well-established. Specter would make a deal to expand powers that don't need expanding, as long as he can have greasy Congressional fingers in the proverbial pie as well.

The founders would not be amused.

Image Is Everything

Here's an interesting screenshot comparison from the front page of the Washington Post.

The captures are of the exact same stories, one story by Dana Hedgpeth and Neil Irwin, the other story by Jim VandeHei and Paul Blustein. The screen captures were made just minutes apart.

 

The image of the left appears to an innocent mistake where the wrong image and associated byline were called up. The image on the right was intended to go with the Dubai Ports World stories.

The same two stories are present in each screen capture, but the startling contrast in images between a violent riot and a comparatively sedate seaport conjure up far different gut emotions about the "uproar," don't they?

The War On Reality Continues

CNN issued this hysteric report late Friday:

The only Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support has been downgraded to a level requiring them to fight with American troops backing them up, the Pentagon said Friday.

The battalion, made up of 700 to 800 Iraqi Army soldiers, has repeatedly been offered by the U.S. as an example of the growing independence of the Iraqi military.

The competence of the Iraqi military has been cited as a key factor in when U.S. troops will be able to return home.

Not surprisingly, the lefty blogs were ready with their vast suppository of knowledge about military operations. You can read what they have to excrete via memeorandum.

A representative sample is provided by Daily Kos diarist Susan G:

So much for fearless leader's repeated recounting of how great that training of Iraqi forces is going...

Funny, just last month, Bush said, "Today, 125 combat battalions are fighting the enemy, and 50 of those are in the lead. That's progress."

What he forgot to tell us in January was that only one of those battalions was capable of fighting without U.S. support.

And as of today, there are zero.

Somehow I don't think our troops will be coming home for Christmas ... even Christmas 2008.

Of course you don't sweetheart. You never miss a chance to try to lose, do you?

What Susan G. and the rest of the omni-impotent left either isn't bright enough to know (or honest enough to admit) is that this unit is still afield, still fighting terrorists, and still winning even while undergoing what appears to be a major shift.

CNN provides a hint as to the level of transition:

Though officials would not cite a specific reason for downgrading the unit, its readiness level has dropped in the wake of a new commander and numerous changes in the combat and support units, officials said.

It is not uncommon in our own military for units to be temporarily downgraded when similar changes in force structure, support, and command are made. In many instances, a recalibration of a unit to this level will not even occur in the field, and so the fact that they had enough faith in the ability of the unit to keep it deployed while undergoing such a transition speaks to its strength and professionalism, not to any real or lasting weaknesses.

Buried far down in the CNN article is this bit of information that you won't find liberal blogs discussing:

According to the congressionally mandated Iraq security report released Friday, there are 53 Iraqi battalions at level two status, up from 36 in October. There are 45 battalions at level three, according to the report.

17 Iraqi battalions went up a readiness level, and the media focuses on the top Iraqi unit's ability to affect a battlefield reorganization as if it represents failure instead of a high level of confidence in their abilities.

I wish the news media could display a level of competence on par with the Iraqi military, but of course, that would be hoping for far too much.

What Did I Step In?

It must be Bush's poll numbers:

Just 17% of Americans believe Dubai Ports World should be allowed to purchase operating rights to several U.S. ports. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 64% disagree and believe the sale should not be allowed.

Just 39% of Americans know that the operating rights are currently owned by a foreign firm. Fifteen percent (15%) believe the operating rights are U.S. owned while 46% are not sure.

From a political perspective, President Bush's national security credentials have clearly been tarnished due to the outcry over this issue. For the first time ever, Americans have a slight preference for Democrats in Congress over the President on national security issues. Forty-three percent (43%) say they trust the Democrats more on this issue today while 41% prefer the President.

Bush may very well have had valid questions with his versions of "If not them, who? If not now, when?" when discussing the pending Dubai Ports World deal, but that time is now passed.

At this point, opportunistic Democrats and some reactionary, uneducated congressional Republicans have painted those who would be more reflective into a corner, creating a situation where a serious, logical discussion of the situation is not longer possible.

As Joe Gandelman notes:

Polls reflect perceptions and mood, not necessarily the validity or worth of an issue or policy. If the White House had done better prep with the Congress and public before the news of this deal came out the poll numbers — and controversy — would probably be a bit different.

Dubai is one of our better Arab allies, and if we can't work with them, it seems to send the message we are unwilling to work with any Arab countries, at least when it directly affects us. Instead of having them literally buy into America, we sell them what our enemies have been whispering the entire time, "See? They will not accept you. Come back to us..."

I have no stake in Dubai. I know some there have had their hands in terrorism, and I know that some still may. I know they don't recognize Israel, and that bothers me.

At this point, there aren't a lot of good "outs."

If Bush stands his ground, then most rest of the Republican Party will break with him to chase the polls in what has become a surprise election year turkey. If Bush backs down, we could lose some of the fragile trust we've tried to develop in Arab countries since 9/11.

Thanks, Congress.

We'll Have a Gay Old Time

It looks like events are conspiring to bring us a "theme post."

First, the bad:

The Army has charged seven members of the celebrated 82nd Airborne Division with engaging in sex for money on a Web site, authorities said Friday.

Three of the soldiers face courts-martial on charges of sodomy, pandering and wrongfully engaging in sexual acts for money while being filmed, according to a statement released Friday by the military.

Four other soldiers, who were not named, received nonjudicial punishments.

The Army has recommended that all be discharged.

"Of course, where they were discharging was part of the problem to begin with."

*rimshot*

Thanks folks, I'll be here all week...

I have always supported the idea that any able-bodied American willing to serve their country should have the opportunity. It is unfair to exclude gays from the armed forces or make them hide who they are, while simultaneously telling them they should be proud of the character the military is supposed to have helped them develop. It was and is an intellectually dishonest position.

American soldiers who have the mettle to handle withering enemy fire can handle the sexuality of their fellow soldiers. I suspect it's the generals and the politicians who aren't mature enough to handle cope.

It is important to note that the seven soldiers in this story disgraced in their uniforms not by being gay, but by participating in pornography and prostitution. They also embarrass the homosexual community as well, reinforcing a horrible stereotype held in some minds. They deserved to be branded with a dishonorable discharge, though odds are that anyone willing to whore themselves for petty cash on camera doesn't have much honor to loose.

* * *

In other news, Ohio Democratic State Sen. Robert Hagan is looking for a co-sponsor to his bill that would ban Republicans from adopting:

Hagan said his "tongue was planted firmly in cheek" when he drafted the proposed legislation. However, Hagan said that the point he is trying to make is nonetheless very serious.

Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption.

"We need to see what we are doing," said Hagan, who called Hood's proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill "homophobic."

Hood's bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.

To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities."

Holding up the flashing neon "I don't get it" sign is Matt Margolis at GOPBloggers:

For Hagan to even suggest there is any parallel between political orientation and sexual orientation is beyond absurd. Principled Republicans are trying to hinder the efforts those who seek to redefine marriage and family, and all Democrats can do and whine and accuse them of being homophobic. Hagan has taken things a step further by trivializing the debate with a ridiculous mockery of a bill.

What Margolis doesn't to be able to grasp is that any attempted parallel between sexual orientation and good parenting is far more absurd than any comparison between sexual and political orientations. Hagan's bill rightly mocks the stupidity of a handful of small-minded homophobes that would rather children end up in a series of foster homes or in an orphanage than be adopted into an atypical but loving and supportive home environment.

Quite frankly, I'd like to see several of Ohio's Republican senators cross the aisle and sign on as co-sponsors for Hagan's bill, as there are clearly at least eight Republican senators in Ohio that are more worried about the image of parenting than the substance of it. We should stand for family values, whatever the family looks like.

Perhaps Hagan's bill, applied selectively, isn't such a bad idea after all.

Blowout

From the NY Times:

After a day of violence so raw and so personal, Iraqis woke on Thursday morning to a tense new world in which, it seemed, anything was possible.

The violence on Wednesday was the closest Iraq had come to civil war, and Iraqis were stunned. In Al Amin, a neighborhood in southeast Baghdad, a Shiite man said he had watched gunmen set a house on fire. It was identified as the residence of Sunni Arab militants, said the man, Abu Abbas, though no one seemed to know for sure who they were.

"We all were shocked," said Abu Abbas, a vegetable seller, standing near crates of oranges and tomatoes. "We saw it burning. We called the fire department. We didn't know how to behave. Chaos was everywhere."

Pajamas Media's own Iraq the Model:

In our neighborhood the Sadr militias seized the local mosque and broadcast Shia religious mourning songs from the mosques loudspeakers. In several other cases, worshippers were turned away by "gunmen in black" who surrounded the closed mosques. Other mosques are encircled by razor-wire to stop anyone from approaching them.

The sense in the streets and the statements given by some Shia clerics suggest that retaliation attacks are organized and under control and are focusing on mosques frequented by Salafi and Wahabi groups and not those of ordinary Sunnis.

Looking at the geographic distribution of the attacked mosques, I found they were mostly in areas adjacent to Sadr city forming a line that extends from the New Baghdad district in the southeast to al-Hussayniya in the northeast.

Two different snapshots remind us that in such fluid events, nothing is certain. Whether triggered by al Qaeda or Iranian proxy al-Sadr who was just too conveniently out of the country for my tastes, the bombing of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine ignited a firestorm in Iraq.

The question on everyone's mind is if it is possible to bring this situation back under control. I strongly suspect that it can and will be brought back under control, because it is not in the interests of the three major groups--Shiites, Sunnis, or Kurds--for this situation to devolve into a civil war. The only groups that have something visibly to gain are Zarqawi's al Qaeda, which have sought from the beginning to destabilize the Iraqi government, and Iranian puppets like Muqtada al-Sadr.

I think that if authorities can bring Shiite reprisal attacks under control within the next few days without too much further damage, then the violence might serve as a wakeup call to the major groups. This attack, if traced back to al Qaeda, could bring a rapid end to the remaining Sunni support for an insurgency that is already at war with itself.

Blowing up the Askariya shrine might prove to be the equivalent of detonating dynamite to blow out a burning well fire. al Qaeda in Iraq might have just blown out their own flickering flame.

Deep Thinker

Ninth District Congresswoman Sue Myrick (R-NC) sent a letter to the White House regarding "regarding the sell [sic] of US Ports to the United Arab Emerites[sic]" yesterday that shows the amount of thought most Congress critters have applied so far to the Ports Dubai bid.

She wrote:

In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just NO—but HELL NO!

Sincerely,

Myrick is certainly representative of most critics of the Dubai Ports bid, as she doesn't bother to grasp the most basic of facts before spouting off an ignorant opinion. Ignoring her staff's basic linguistic incompetence, ("sale" not "sell," "Emirates," not "Emirites," and 12 hours later, not a soul on her staff is bright enough to notice), we can look at the simple truth that the ports are not being sold.

The only thing potentially changing is the port management, and if Myrick is so concerned about foreign management of American ports, she should have raised a stink six years ago when the first foreign company took control of these exact same ports.

Instead, we get muddled thinking and bad grammar.

Too bad only one of those is relatively easy to correct.

Update: I'm glad to see someone is capable of acting like an adult in this situation. Unsurprisingly, once again, it isn't Congress.

Prayers for the Assassin

Last night marks the first time in a long time that I didn't hop on the computer to either read or blog, and I blame it all on Robert Ferrigno.

Instead, I churned through the firt twelve chapters of my advance copy of Prayers for the Assassin. The pacing is excellent in this novel set in a future America divided between the Islamic Republic in the North, and a Christian Bible Belt South.

I won't ruin it for anyone, but Ferrigno (who has a blog) has written a book that holds the reader's attention. You know you've got a good one when you keep promising yourself that you'll read "just one more" chapter before you put the book down for the night.

The 2036 edition of the online news portal Republic World News is an interesting companion site.

I'm hoping to finish it up this evening.

2/23 Update: While my blogging may have suffered a bit in the past 24 hours, I think it was worth it. Ferrigno did a nice job of storytelling, leaving just enough hanging that you might think a follow-up book must be somewhere on the horizon.

Color Blind

"...not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963

"I think it sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it's okay for a company from one country to manage the port, but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world can't manage the port...

"Again, I repeat, if there was any question as to whether or not this country would be less safe as a result of the transaction, it wouldn't go forward. But I also want to repeat something again, and that is, this is a company that has played by the rules, that has been cooperative with the United States, a country that's an ally in the war on terror, and it would send a terrible signal to friends and allies not to let this transaction go through."

George W. Bush February 21, 2006

George Bush will never be half as eloquent as the late Dr. King, but the sentiment remains the same: judge people by what they do, and not because of cultural stereotypes or the color of their skin.

The UAE have been an ally to this country, and I think our initial knee-jerk response on this (mine included) was wrong. This may not play well domestically at first, but the rest of the world is watching, and the President is sending the right message.

"No One Deserves This"

From "the Sandbox," a soldier speaks out on the false Christians of Westboro Baptist Church that protest at soldier's funerals, and the rough-and-tumble bikers that support our soldier's families during the hardest of times.

"No One Deserves This," from Mind in the Qatar.

"Senator Feingold Praises Benedict Arnold"

Jason Smith is on a tear...

NATO Terror... It's Yugo-rrific!

While cruising alGore's internet this past weekend to find an analogy for something as finely tuned as President Bush's various border policies, I just happened to come across the Wikipedia entry for the Yugo.

For those of you who might have forgotten (and those of you still trying to forget), the Yugo is to compact automobiles what the English are to fine dining, the French are to bathing, and radical Muslims are to satire whether the understand the word, or not.

Currently the Wikipedia entry for the Yugo is a bit sparse:

To meet Wikipedia's quality standards and appeal to a wider international audience, this article may require cleanup.

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view.

Do tell.

Luckily, I managed to obtain a screen capture before the offending content was brought down, so you don't have to guess what "may not represent a worldwide view."

A larger, more legible (but no more coherent) capture is here.

Apparently, the writer is miffed that U.S. precision bombing isn't as accurate as he thinks it should be, as a U.S. air strike hit the automobile assembly line and not the weapons production lines on the underground floors below the automobile assembly line, or because—drumroll please—the United States was targeting the car assembly line on purpose all along.

Of course we were.

Fear the country that fears your Yugo.

Israel Guns Down Top Terrorist

Israel takes out the trash:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Nablus early Monday shot and killed Islamic Jihad's top commander in the region, the militant group said.

Lt. Col. Benjamin Shick, an Israeli commander, said his forces caught a group of militants, including Ahmed Abu Sharik, 30, off guard on the second day of a raid in Nablus.

"We found a group of people we have been seeking for a while and we went for them," he said. "We know every street and alley, where they are and where they hide."

Military officials said Abu Sharik had been involved in numerous attacks on Israeli soldiers, and he helped plan a recent suicide attack in Tel Aviv. The army also arrested 15 militants overnight throughout the West Bank.

Interesting thing about 5.56mm NATO. It may not work all that well, but when it does, the bad guys are rarely are set free on appeal...

Pro-al Qaeda Students Join Coalition Forces For Weapons Testing Internships

In a bold show of solidarity with coalition forces, hundreds of pro-al Qaeda students have stated they may assist in joint testing of U.S. and Afghani government weapons systems.

U.S. forces will test their targeting, guidance, and propulsion systems, while the pro-al Qaeda students will test warhead effectiveness.

No "Free Speech Abuse"

Paul Geary blasts those supporting the thought crime of "free speech abuse" in The New Editor:

I contend there is no such thing as free speech "abuse." The perceived need to equivocate on free speech in order to display the appropriate sensitivities misses the point altogether. The bigot who uses racial epithets, however repugnant they may be to most of us, isn't abusing his speech freedom, he's exercising it. The pornographer isn't abusing free press, he's exercising it. The civil rights marchers who invaded southern towns in the 1960s were accused of "abusing" free speech. Thank God they did.

Dan Riehl admonishes:

Name it for freedom, or name it for unity, or name it as you will. But stand together nationally, with as much scope as you can, and make a clear statement against intimidation and threat and jointly publish the cartoons.

The alternative will only be ever more editorials like the one below and a nation that won't believe you when you tell us of the value of freedom of expression, for which you especially purport to stand. If you lack the courage of conviction to stand up for the very principles upon which our free press was formed, than you relinquish the right to expect others to defend you in the face of any coming storm.

As Benjamin Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Shooting Blanks

In the past few days, much attention has be paid to a short video compiled by a man by the name of Alex Jones who claims to have proven that Vice President Dick Cheney shot a fellow hunter, Harry Whittington, at a much closer distance than the 30 yards that has been accepted and uncontested by federal (Secret Service), state (Texas Parks and Wildlife), and local (Kenedy County) law enforcement.

Dan Riehl gutted the Jones video Saturday with precision, and even this liberal bird hunter concurs, but the logic of their statements haven't sunken in yet, and so I thought I would give it a try myself, even though no amount of logic can overcome a closed mind.

The Shotguns: Buicks and Maybachs
The firearm used by Alex Jones in his video is an unidentified side-by-side shotgun of undetermined origin, manufacture, and condition, presumably a general mass-produced shotgun like the vast majority of firearms in the world today. Vince President Cheney's Perazzi is a custom-fitted, hand-made over-under competition-grade shotgun.

Incredibly, Alex Jones tries to pass off shotguns of different basic design, layout, and manufacture as being identical (or at least being close enough). The closest he comes to validating the shotgun he uses is when Jones states that the shotgun is "the same length" as that used by the Vice President. That said, he doesn't explain that unlike rifles, shotgun barrel length does not have a significant impact on accuracy or velocity. All that Jones does substantiate is that both his firearm and Cheney's are both 28-gauge shotguns.

The Ammunition
In addition to passing off very dissimilar shotguns as being the same, he attempts to pass of the same broad generalization as being specific enough with his mention of shotgun ammunition. In short, how does Jones know he is using the "exact same shot?"

Who made the ammunition he used in his test, and was it a harder-hitting game load, or a lighter target load using both less powder and shot? Three major ammunition manufacturers make loadings for the 28-gauge shotgun that uses size #7 ½ shot. A virtually limitless number of smaller, custom ammunition manufacturers also have this same capability.

Winchester makes two loadings, a lighter shooting AA target loading that fires ¾ oz of shot at 1300 fps (feet per second), and a harder hitting “Super X” game loading that fires 33% more shot, or 1 full ounce of # 7 1/2 shot, with a maximum powder loading, at 1205 fps.

Federal Cartridge manufactures a Premium Wing-Shok Hi-Brass loading for the 28-gauge that fires at 1295 fps, 3/4 ounce of #7 1/2 shot that, interesting enough, happens to be copper plated. Copper-plating makes shot less prone to deformation, and typically contributes to a tighter shot pattern that lead shot.

Remington makes their Express Extra Long Range 28-gauge using #7 1/2 shot to perform at 1285 fps with a ¾ oz shot loading.

Every single manufacturer uses slightly different primers, powder, wads and shot.

Every single one of these shells patterns differently, even from the same firearm.

It is very important to note that nothing Alex Jones says about the ability of Dick Cheney's shotgun to pattern is valid. Froma forensic perspective, the firearm and ammunition combination Jones used for "testing" are little more than theatrical props.

The Chokes
Another point of interest is that Jones either knows next to nothing about shotgun chokes, or he simply cannot talk about them articulately. A choke is nothing more than the tapered constriction of the muzzle end of a shotgun used to focus the concentration of shot to varying degrees.

He speaks of firing a shot through the "larger barrel," which is false statement, as the barrel of even a wide-open, un-choked cylinder bore is not larger, but is the same diameter of the rest of the barrel. Somehow, we are supposed to trust the “expertise” of a man who does not know his own weapon.

He fires a shot through this "larger barrel," and while we are not able to see the pattern of the shot, by his description is that with the ammunition he uses, it patterns poorly at 30 yards.

He then speaks of shooting "through the choked barrel." He later states this barrel uses a modified choke, but that it patterns poorly as well. I felt from the beginning that Jones was comparing his Pontiac of a shotgun to Cheney's Maybach, and this would seem to support that supposition.

Jones says his choke is modified, but is unable to tell us what the chokes on the Vice President's shotgun may be. There are no less than nine chokes for shotguns, ranging from the un-constricted cylinder bore through skeet 1, the common improved cylinder, sheet 2, modified (the claimed choke of the second barrel of Jones' shotgun), improved modified, full, extra full, and turkey chokes.

In review, Jones uses a different basic shotgun design and unknown ammunition, from chokes that may not be similar, and attempts to fool a largely gun-ignorant audience into believing that he is creating a valid test situation. He is not.

What About Bob?
In addition to creating an invalid test situation by comparing dissimilar shotguns and unknown ammunition (with only the shotgun gauge remaining similar between the two firearms), Jones selects the oddest of targets for comparison, including my old friend, BOB. I worked at a sporting good store some years ago, and I watched as BOB took punches ever hour, twelve hours a day, every day of the week. Bob is a lot tougher than Harry Whittington.

BOB, or the Body Opponent Bag, is a martial arts striking mannequin, with "skin" composed of a thick, very resilient, dense and yet flexible rubber compound made to takes thousands of punches and strikes from some martial arts weapons. When compared to human flesh, BOB's rubber skin is far thicker, more dense and far more resilent.

The degree of Jones' deception is compounded by the physiology of the skin in the elderly:

By the time we reach old age our mature skin may well have experienced decades of sun exposure, even if only at very low levels. This is associated with the effects of intrinsic aging. The result as we see it is almost always a balance of the two.

Elderly skin can be very dry and almost paper-thin, with the structures in the dermis clearly visible. The TEWL is increased, and the skin becomes more fragile and prone to injuries: with the lack of protection from the dermis, the small blood vessels become vulnerable to breakage and bursting ('broken veins').

BOB's strike-proof rubber hide is a far cry from the skin of the average person, and even further away from the paper-thin skin of a 78-year old like Harry Whittington. Alex Jones could not be further from the truth when he states that Bob's thick rubber hide is "soft rubber, very similar to human skin." That is simply an untrue statement. I suspect it is far closer to being a purposeful lie.

The Shooting
Jones then make claims about the birdshot that hit Harry Whittington that he cannot factually support.

He claims that some of the shotgun pellets from Cheney's shotgun penetrated three layers of clothing that Harry Whittington was wearing, passed through his ribs and his pericardium, and into his heart. The first doctor's to treat Whittington, including a surgeon, never claimed pellets penetrated Whittington's rib cage. The shot migrated to Whittington's heart, it did not penetrate there.

The vast majority of shot to hit Harry Whittington hit exposed flesh on the right side of his face, neck, and shoulder (upper right chest), more than likely through the open neck of the button-down shirt typically worn while quail hunting, as shown below.

Counting Pellets
In addition, while Jones and others have claimed Whittington was hit by 200 pellets, they misstate what the doctor actually said. What the doctors once stated is that up to 200 pellets may have hit Whittington, but they never claimed that 200 pellets necessarily did hit Whittington. 200 pellets could have hit him, but only about half that (and here) actually did according to the most recent reports.

The False Charge
Alex Jones directly charges that Vice President Dick Cheney shot Harry Whittington from 15-18 feet away.

That is the width of average American living room. At that distance, a mass of shot weighing 3/4 of an ounce would have spread (as a liberal bird-hunting blogger concurs) only about 4-5 inches, and would have hit with enough velocity that it would have penetrated deeply into the body, shredding internal organs and obliterating bone, regardless of how much clothing was worn, as one of my commentors to this post can personally attest. Chances of anyone surviving this kind of hit to the upper torso are slight.

So does anyone—any rational person—actually think that a 78 year-old man, when shot in the chest, face and neck with a shotgun from a distance only as wide as a living room, would walk out of a hospital under his own power and be able to give a press statement less than a week later? It is, quite literally almost impossible. And yet...

...here he is, even wearing a coat and tie.

The Conspiracy Unravels
Jones further claims that the police were kept in the dark to allow time for nefarious forces to somehow orchestrate a cover-up. He purposefully ignores the fact that federal law enforcement officers (the Secret Service) were with the Vice President's party the entire time, and that the Secret Service called local authorities shortly after the shooting. It was the local sherriff's decision not to interview Cheney until Sunday. This bears repeating: the proper authorites were immediately notified, and they conducted their investigation without interference.

Of course, Alex Jones is attempting to justify a conspiracy theory to persecute a political figure he personally demonizes, and inconvenient facts such as these merely get in the way.

When the Ignorati Attack

As I thought might happen, some gun-ignorant liberals are concocting stories about Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of Harry Whittington one week ago today.

Their basic argument is that Cheney must have been a lot closer than 30 yards when he shot Whittington becuase of the way the shot patterned.

Dan Riehl deconstructs and debunks their argument rather well.

The only slight discrepancy in Riehl's post is that jumps out at me is that steel shot is only made for waterfowling loads, not birdshot sizes. Steel has too little mass to be effective in such small sizes.

And so Dan got me thinking... WWCS? (What would Cheney shoot?)

To get such a dense pattern, you need shot that hold their spherical shape very well when exiting the barrel. Shot (pellets) that deform are aerodynamically unstable, will wobble, and will cause pattern spread. Extremely hard shot keeps its shape and enables the shot string to pattern better.

I present to you, Federal Cartridge company's 28-gauge # 7 1/2 Premium Wing Shok Hi-Brass copper-plated lead birdshot. The copper-plating makes the pellets harder, enabling them to hold tighter patterns at longer ranges.

Of course, if Taylor-Marsh wants to be thoroughly humiliated, I can deconstruct her articles one-by-one, but I think liberals are against torture.

Saddam, Unplugged: A WMD Intel Expert Speaks

The selection below is from an email sent yesterday by a former soldier and defense analyst I've had the good fortune to work with on several stories in the past. These were his reflections on a recent television interview about the recently released "Saddam tapes."

Background here, here, and of course, here.

Last night, Bill Tierney was on Hannity and Colmes talking about the Saddam Tapes. I was fascinated as Bill Tierney defended the information he claims to be present on the tapes. How eerily familiar he looked. I realized it was like a mirror for me.

I saw in him the frustration of knowing that the most significant reasons that President Bush led this nation to war against Iraq were legitimate reasons, yet the “conventional wisdom” is that we were at best wrong, and at worst criminal in that endeavor.

It looks to me to be the frustration of the vanquished, believing something to be true which was confirmed by your every sense, yet history being re-written round you as all that you believed and know is erased as flawed intelligence. This was obvious to me when he blew up at Alan Colmes telling him he wouldn't let Alan silence him on this issue, showing that Bill, like me is very tired of having to remain silent as idiots who have no first hand experience to the subject constantly define and redefine the issue.

Yes I recognize his frustration and for that reason I lend his words great credence on this matter. I get you Bill. Bill “knows”.

He made one bad mistake. He brought his evidence to what would seem to be the P.T. Barnum of our age, John Loftus. More and more it appears this intelligence summit is crumbling. It was a mistake for Mr. Tierney to choose the Loftus intelligence summit to be the vehicle of disclosure. It was a mistake for Mr. Tierney to allow John Loftus to take the tapes to ABC news for translation and reporting, a huge mistake.

Today, Mr. Tierney is reporting that the tapes were mistranslated and misreported by ABC news. I find this very believable from my experience working with translators with the Iraqi Survey Group.

How many people did ABC news have translate the material they had? With ISG, it was common practice to have important items reviewed by at least 2 linguists. Usually this was done by a cleared linguist as a reviewer, usually an Arab American with a security clearance. What provisions did ABC take to make sure that what it reported was accurate?

Often time's nuances are lost on a transcript, such as sarcasm. As soon as I heard the tapes I got what Saddam was saying. According to the ABC news transcript, Saddam said “This is coming, this story is coming but not from Iraq.” For anyone who has studied Saddam, you get the feeling that what he is really saying is “of course this is our objective, but we are getting our story straight here and now because we have told the world that we have no WMDs and this can never be traced back to us.”

Having worked with ISG in the audio and visual department, I was privy to the exact type of information that Tierney has released. The CD he has copied probably came from me or a coworker in my shop. I can not explain the level of frustration that I have had to live with for over a year now.

The Duelfer report was supposed to tell the story. It didn't, not completely. It is a fine start, but missing key evidence to form conclusions. What Mr. Tierney has in the form of those tapes has nothing to do with the credibility of Mr. Loftus. What is on those tapes has nothing to do with one translator for ABC news.

For these reasons I urge Mr. Tierney to immediately make the full tapes available to Fox News and disconnect himself from Mr. Loftus. I urge him to go on Hannity and Colmes tonight and show all his cards before no one is paying attention anymore. Wait and see until the full tapes are released and analyzed. Don't give up ground on the creditability of those tapes based on John Loftus. I watched Bill Tierney last night and he “knows”.

About the Author
Ray Robison is a Sr. Military Operations Research Analyst with a defense
contractor at the Aviation and Missile, Research, Development, Engineering
Command in Huntsville Alabama. His background includes over ten years of
military service as an officer and enlisted soldier including the Gulf War
and Kosovo operations. Most recently he worked as a contractor for DIA with
the Iraqi Survey Group. He holds a B.S. degree in Biology, Pre-med from the
University of Tampa and is a graduate of the Combined Arms and Services
Staff School.

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 3

Harry Whittington did something today that confounded millions. He apologized:

"This past weekend encompassed all of us in a cloud of misfortune and a sadness that is not easy to explain, especially to those who are not familiar with the great sport of quail hunting," said Austin attorney Harry Whittington, who was discharged from the hospital Friday. "We all assume certain risks in whatever we do ... accidents do and will happen and that's what happened."

He added: "My family and I are deeply sorry for all Vice President Cheney and his family had to deal with this week. ...We hope he will continue to come to Texas and seek the relaxation he deserves."

Once upon a time, such an honorable speech would have been notable. In these days, however, honor seems hardly understood.

Harry Whittington and Dick Cheney both made mistakes one week ago that ended with the Vice President felling his Whittington in the Texas brush country. Many experts - some real, some imagined - hold the Vice President solely responsible for accident. This is not right, as hunters - all hunters - have a responsibility to know where their companions are and should be, and this lack of knowledge not only led to Cheney shooting Whittington, it put Whittington in a position where he could be shot.

Luckily, both men survived with a harsh lesson learned. In this sue-happy culture, some expect and even hope for a lawsuit because personal responsibility is not something they understand. Harry Whittington could sue and would probably win in court, but as a sportsman afield, he understands that he bears at least partial responsibility for his wounds, as Cheny bears the other part. As the media and the ever-aghast howl about non-existant conspiracies, there is something about honor and personal responsibility to be learned from this tragedy.

* * *

Tying Up Loose Ends
As for the many conspiracy theories floated, most were “reality-based,” but far from having any basis in reality. Of those potential theories that did appear even slightly plausible, only two seemed worth exploring because of apparent discrepancies between different versions of stories told by actors in this series of event at one time or another.

The first item of interest was the question of shot size. While pundits right and left proved their basic firearms illiteracy by not knowing the difference between buckshot and birdshot, a more subtle question emerged when it was stated by the attending physician that Harry Whittington suffered a very minor heart attack as the result of a pellet traveling through his bloodstream and stopping in his heart. The doctor claimed that the pellet was "roughly 5mm" in size.

While inconsequential to most, I knew that the #7/ 1/2 shells fired by the Vice President do not contain pellets nearly that size, and after a little bit of digging, determined that the size shot claimed by the doctor isn't even made for the relatively uncommon 28-gauge cartridge favored by the vice president. Obviously there was a discrepancy here, as lead pellets don't grow.

The shot size issue has faded away, and profile pictures of Mr. Whittington today clearly show various small wounds that indicate he could not have been hit by the large-caliber “roughly 5mm” shot the hospital original claimed, putting this inconsistency to rest as a mistake in estimating shot size on the X-ray.

The second question was a question of position, which I will readily acknowledge that after reading various conflicting accounts, I still cannot claim to understand. All accounts I've read establish the Vice President as being on the far right side of the group of hunters, but accounts vary as to whether he tracked the quail left or right on the way to firing the shot that hit Harry Whittington.

I still don't understand all the details, but the Kenedy County Sheriff's Department investigators on the scene surveyed the accident site, and felt informed enough to close the case. That they and the victim are in agreement makes me feel comfortable with the outcome even if I don't get it.

* * *

When all is said and done, this was a horrible accident brought about by a lack of communication and situational awareness between two hunters. Hopefully, both men with learn from this and recover to enjoy the sport the both of them and so many others obviously enjoy so much. If we are very lucky, other hunters will learn from this near tragedy as well.

Previous:
The Quail on the Grassy Knoll

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 2

Cheney - Perazzi '08

Now this is a poltical campaign sure to start with a bang.

Update: Not a campaign ad.

Brokeback Fountain

It was an illicit love... of water.

Sorry.

Once the pun comes, it has to be released... and hey, if you don't like that, there's always Brokeback to the Future that has been making the rounds.

Flight 93 Appeasement Mosque

L.A. architect Paul Murdoch's controversial Crescent of Embrace seems poised to go ahead in Shanksville, PA, as a terrorism-honoring, Mecca-oriented crescent:

The Project's last public meeting was the unveiling back in September of Paul Murdoch's winning Crescent of Embrace design, with its half-mile wide Mecca-oriented crescent. It is very likely that Saturday's meeting is to announce that Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has given final approval to Murdoch's design, based on the insignificant design changes announced in late November. The design is now called simply The Flight 93 Memorial instead of The Crescent of Embrace, but the half-mile wide Mecca-oriented crescent is still there, as are all of the other Islamic and jihadist design elements of the original Crescent design.

This must not stand.

Error Theory provides the detailed list of snail mail, email, and telephone contact information needed to make your voice known.

Please do.

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 2

I just read the transcript of Dick Cheney's interview with Brit Hume on Fox News, and it is obvious that the Vice President is extremely remorseful, haunted by the fact he shot a friend. The image of Cheney firing at the bird, only to see Whittington drop, obviously plays over and over again in his mind.

My heart goes out to Mr. Whittington and his family, and also to the Vice President and his family. This is traumatic for all concerned, and I wish for all of them to recover as fully as God and time allows.

That said, some of the details of this late Saturday afternoon hunt are still unclear.

Obviously, I'm still very interested in discovering if the shotgun pellet in Harry Whittington's heart is really "roughly 5 mm" as Dr. David Blanchard claimed. Odds are that the good doctor was mistaken, and I hope that this is indeed the case. Ammunition using pellets of that size, which are more suitable for goose hunting than quail hunting, are not made for the Vice President's 28-gauge shotgun. I have two emails in to media contacts at the hospital where Mr. Whittington is being treated, and hopefully they will indeed confirm this is a simple mistake in judging the size of the shot.

Another thing that perplexes me is the relative positions of the three hunters in this incident. According to the Vice President in Hume's interview:

HUME: Tell me what happened.

CHENEY: Well, basically, we were hunting quail, late in the day.

HUME: Let's recall the setting.

CHENEY: It's in South Texas, wide open spaces, a lot of brush cover, but fairly shallow, but it's wild quail. It's some of the best quail hunting any place in the country. I've gone there to the Armstrong ranch for years. The Armstrongs have been friends for over 30 years. And a group of us had hunted all day on Saturday.

HUME: How many?

CHENEY: Probably 10 people. We weren't all together, but about 10 guests at the ranch. There were two of us who had gotten out of the vehicle and walked up on a covey of quail that had been pointed by the dogs. The covey was flushed, we shot, and each of us got a bird. Harry couldn't find his. It had gone down in some deep cover, so he went off to look for it. The other hunter and I then turned and walked about 100 yards in the other direction.

HUME: Away from him?

CHENEY: Away from him, where another covey had been spotted by an outrider. I was on the far right ...

HUME: There was just two of you then?

CHENEY: Just two of us at that point, a guide and an outrider between us. And, of course, there was the entourage behind us, all the cars and so forth that follow me around when I'm out there. But the bird flushed and went to my right off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second, saw Harry standing there. I didn't know he was there.

Here is where I start to get confused.

The three hunters - Dick Cheney, Harry Whittington, and a third hunter Cheney does not name, but self identifies herself in this CTV article as Pamela Willeford, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, were walking in a line when they flushed a covey of quail and all three fired and brought down birds. Cheney and Willeford were able to find their birds, but the quail Whittington shot went down in heavy cover. As Whittington sought his bird, Cheney and Willeford went off "in the other direction."

We aren't told exactly what the course change was, but most people, I think, would assume a reversal of course of 180 degrees. At this point, the explanation becomes unclear to me.

Cheney and Willeford have apparently left Whittingon somewhere behind them as they sought a second covey of quail, with Cheney explicitly stating he was on the far right. A quail flushed, as Vince President Cheney recounts:

...and went to my right off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second, saw Harry standing there. I didn't know he was there.

Let me see if I get this.

The two hunters had separated from Whittington and had gone off in "the other direction," meaning a returning Whittington came up from either the dead rear, left rear, or right rear of the party. Let's look at how this plays out.

Whittington advances from the center rear
First off, a center rear (straight behind) situation doesn't make much sense. A hunter would have had to pivot and bend to an excessive degree to have hit Whittington, who would have been on their inside. None of these AARP-aged folks would appear to be capable of that sort of Cirque de Soleil contortion. Let's rule that out as a strong improbabability, (but not an impossibility).

That leave us with the more logical situations of Whittington angling in from either the right or left rear.

Whittington advances from the right rear

In the crude image above, the green circle represents Willeford, the blue circle represents Cheney, the red circle coming up from the right rear is Whittington, and the the black circle is the quail, with the curved, dotted line representing the bird's flight path, and the short dotted line between the blue circle (Cheney) and the red circle (Whittington) representing the path of the birdshot from Cheney's shotgun.

Assuming all three hunters were moving in roughly the same direction (towards the top of the page), what do you notice? A hunter on the right, swinging right, would have most likely shot a forward-facing Whittington on the left side. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department incident reports states that Whittington was shot on the right side of his body.

Whittington advances from the left rear
Now, I suppose it is possible for the shooter on the right to swing to the right and hit a person on their right side, but only if the victim turned aggressively inward, and it seems questionable that a 78 year-old man would have the reflexes to make that turn quickly.

It would, however, seem to make sense that a shooter on the left, swinging left, would almost certainly hit the victim on the right side as Whittington was struck.

If the hospital is correct in estimating the size of the pellet in Mr. Whittingon's heart (and that is indeed the major point of contention), then Vice President Cheney could not have fired the shot, because ammunition is not made for his shotgun using pellets of anything approaching that size.

In addition, it seems quite puzzling how a hunter on the right, swing right, could have hit Harry Whittington on the right side of his body.

I'm very glad that it appears Mr. Whittington will survive this horrible accident, and I'm glad that the Vice President has now given his side of the story.

I just wish what I've heard reported made more apparent sense.

Also:
The Quail on the Grassy Knoll

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 3

Bad and Worst

The Daily Tar Heel student newspaper at the University of North Carolina has stepped foot into the Cartoon Wars.

The UNC Muslim Student Association, of course, is having a fit. Not that the image is inaccurate (in my opinion, this cartoon is editorially superior to most of the other cartoons I've seen on the subject, even if the cartoonist hasn't fully developed as an artist), but that the University allowed the cartoon to run.

It's real simple folks.

You can live in a country that values freedom of expression and learn to develop tolerance as a result, or you can live in a country without the freedom of intellectual diversity, and deal with stagnant minds and derelict cultures.

The choice is yours.

HillaryCare, Part II

Somehow, this seems so familiar...

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll

Austin lawyer Harry Whittington was shot during a hunting trip with Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday. This afternoon, he suffered a slight setback as a birdshot pellet in his bloodstream became trapped in his heart... and what an interesting pellet it was.

Via CNN (my bold):

Dr. David Blanchard, the hospital's emergency room chief, said Whittington suffered an "asymptomatic heart attack," meaning Whittington did not display symptoms such as chest pains or breathing difficulty. He said a roughly 5 mm piece of shot became lodged in or alongside Whittington's heart muscle, causing the organ's upper two chambers to beat irregularly.

The physician quoted is Dr. David Blanchard, director of emergency services at the hospital. Only “T” and “BBB” shot - at 5.08mm and 4.83 respectively - are close to that size range.

According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department incident report, Vice President Cheney was hunting with a Perazzi Brescia 28-gauge shotgun using factory-loaded #7 1/2 shot.

#7 1/2 shotgun pellets have a diameter of 2.41 mm, half the size of the pellet found in Harry Whittington's heart.

According to 28-gauge aficionados, the size shot found in Whittington's chest is not made for the caliber of shotgun Cheney was shooting.

The most logical explanation is that the hospital equipment is merely inaccurate in measuring the size of the pellet, in which case they should recalibrate their machines.

If the hospital equipment is accurate, however, then someone using a shotgun other than a Perazzi Brescia 28-gauge fired the shot that wounded Harry Whittington.

Also:
The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 2

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 3

...And My Other Brother Darryl

This is the face of the professional media. Michelle Malkin has the video of an utterly pathetic attempt to mock a near tragedy.

I can only imagine Milbank enjoys popping balloons near Jim Brady and making gargling noises near the Kopechne family.

Ugly Sarah's Dirty Secret

The paleo-Sheehan of the anti-gun movement has emerged in the wake of the Cheney/Whittington shooting incident:

"I've thought Cheney was scary for a long time," Sarah Brady said. "Now I know I was right to be nervous."

This is the same Sarah Brady that established the radically anti-gun Brady Center.

This past fall, the Brady Center proved that they are willing to make untrue statements about upcoming civil lawsuits they intend to file, apparently in an attempt to push defendents to settle potentially unpopular cases before they come to trial.

Sarah Brady should be nervous, just not for the reason she has in mind.

Painful Lessons

This will be liberal blog fodder until 2009. Via the Associated Press.

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.

Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was "alert and doing fine" in a Corpus Christi hospital Sunday after he was shot by Cheney on a ranch in south Texas, said Katharine Armstrong, the property's owner.

[snip]

Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail.

Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and discovered a second covey.

Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said.

"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."

Luckily, Mr. Whittington's wounds, while painful, are not life-threatening, and the presiding officer of the Texas Funeral Service Commission will not yet become a client.

Some will enjoy blaming the Vice President for this one, but Harry Whittington bears a large degree of the blame for his shooting. You simply do not come up behind a hunter unannounced, especially while bird hunting when a passing shot is a distinct possibility.

I'd guess (this is hypothetical) that Whittington, having been shot in his right side, came up from the left rear quadrant of the Vice President. If the Vice President is a right-handed shooter as the majority of people are, Whittington would have been in Cheney's blind spot as he swung on a bird passing right-to-left. There is very little the Vice President could have done, except, perhaps, having gone hunting with someone a little more intelligent.

Regardless, I hope Whittington has learned something from this very painful experience.

MoGoBang: Sportswear for Infidels

shop


Because real freedom means the freedom to be offended.

Send in the Clown

The Daily Kos kids are holding a rather unique fundraiser, auctioning off a Speaking Engagement with Cindy Sheehan on eBay. The proceeds will go to their version of a good cause, namely, the YearlyKos, an organization (non-profit status pending in the state of Pennsylvania, or so they claim) "dedicated to organizing and supporting an annual meeting of progressive netroot activists."

As compassionate conservatives, we feel their excruciating pain of being—what, 0-17 so far?—in state and national elections. Actually we don't feel their pain because we won the 17 elections they lost, but it's all about the empathy.

I therefore we move that we conservatives unite to help the YearlyKos with their futile effort, by sending Cindy Sheehan to a speaking engagement of our choice. As an activist, Mother Sheehan has a professed and world-recognized interest in meeting with influential politicians, and in keeping with her interests, I'd suggest that we raise the funds to send Cindy Sheehan to speak before the duly-elected and newly certified Iraqi Parliament.

It would be quite moving, one would think, for Mother Sheehan to have the opportunity to speak before such an influential body of legislators. Mother Sheehan would have an opportunity to express her true feelings about the war to those most directly affected by its outcome.

Speak truth to power, Cindy!

I'm sure the Iraqi people can hardly wait.

Playstation Goes to War?

"Yeah, tech support? Medal of Honor: Rising Sun keeps crashing my HMMWV..."

Somehow, I don't think that is what they have in mind:

IBM, the world's largest maker of business computers, on Wednesday introduced new computing systems that it said extend the processing power of video-game microchips to corporate data centers.

The systems will open up new capabilities for businesses in the medical and military sectors, for example, as companies seek ways to use increasingly demanding and graphics-intensive computer applications, IBM said.

Driving the systems is the so-called Cell processor, developed by IBM, Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. for gaming consoles including Sony's PlayStation 3, scheduled for release later this year. IBM is now installing the Cell in its "BladeCenter" computer servers, a compact way of building large data centers that run corporate networks.

[snip]

"We see a commercial application for that Cell processor" in corporate data centers, Balog told Reuters. "Several customers approached us to take advantage of this highly graphics-intensive engine, which can render whole cities and landscapes on the fly."

The Cell chip already has found some uses beyond gaming, but the technology being introduced on Wednesday is meant to broaden the potential applications and customers, Balog said. IBM in June agreed to license the Cell processor to military equipment maker Mercury Computer Systems Inc.

With some military companies either currently able or close to being able to monitor real-time battles conditions via layers of GPS, airborne, ground-based and satellite video feeds, layered thermal, chemical scans, and constantly updating individual GPS data currently being tested, a live action, video-game surveillance view for commanders may be exactly what is around the corner in future battle management.

Now if they can just figure out how to add bonus lives...

Will Blog For Closing Costs

Yankee Wife and I have been house hunting off and on since we moved back to North Carolina last summer, and seem to be narrowing things down to the southern Wake County area, and a specific three-bedroom homeplan in a developing community where we had to stop for a doe and two fawns crossing the road tonight. Absolutely gorgeous.

But more important than those details, who wants wants to buy the house for me? A few hundred grand through that PayPal button on the right ought to do the trick. Baby needs that jetted tub upgrade...

All kidding aside, I would like to pick up some writing gigs to help finance this puppy, so if you hear anything, please pass 'em along.

Recession Bias

Thanks to the constantly impending Bushitler-Halliburton Recession, it's like 1929 all over again... isn't it?

At a time when unemployment was at 6.5 percent, and GDP was forecasted to be 3 percent in 1994, Time Magazine wrote, "which would be no boom, but maybe something much better: a pace that could be sustained for a long time, keeping income and employment growing without igniting a new surge in inflation…. The circle (of spending, production and hiring) may not spin fast enough to produce a boom -- but who wants one anyway? Moderate, steady growth is better."

Now compare it to the one Time Magazine article ("How Real is the Squeeze?") written about economic recovery under President Bush. Keep in mind that at the time the article was written GDP grew 3.9 percent in the first quarter of 2004 (which was subsequently revised upward to 4.3 percent) and unemployment was at 5.6 percent.

"Jonathan Thornton finally found a job this spring after six months of unemployment...

While economics is not my bag, the obvious bias in the tone of in economic reporting between the Clinton and Bush presidencies speaks for itself, I think.

Infidel Idol

Jim at bRight & Early rewrites Stairway to Heaven in (dis)honor of the Cartoon War:

There's a feeling we get
When we look to the jest,
Printing cartoons depicting Mohammed.
It just makes us see red
You should all end up dead,
For defying our peaceful religion.
Ooh, it makes us wonder,
Ooh, it really makes us wonder...

As they say, read the whole thing.

A Fein Whine

Raw Story has what it claims was an advance copy of a prepared speech Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) gave on the floor of the Senate regarding the secret NSA surveillance program authorized by President Bush in 2001 to intercept international communications between suspected al Qaeda terrorists overseas and their contacts in the United States. I sincerely hope that this is an accurate transcript, as it a damning indictment of the level of dishonesty Senate Democrats are willing to stoop to in an attempt to damage the White House, national security concerns be damned.

It begins (My bold):

Mr. President, last week the President of the United States gave his State of the Union address, where he spoke of America's leadership in the world, and called on all of us to "lead this world toward freedom." Again and again, he invoked the principle of freedom, and how it can transform nations, and empower people around the world.

But, almost in the same breath, the President openly acknowledged that he has ordered the government to spy on Americans, on American soil, without the warrants required by law.

This is not just one lie, but three blatant, calculated lies in one breath.

The executive order signed by President Bush and implemented by General Michael Hayden was designed not to spy on Americans, but to intercept communications with suspected overseas terrorists. As Hayden himself made clear, any information identifying Americans was sanitized, meaning that information was redacted. Stricken. Not used. Destroyed.

Nor was this program operating "on American soil." The program captured targeted, specific communications as they entered or left the country, much in the same way a customs official has the right to search luggage entering or leaving the country, also a practice that happens legally without a warrant, I may add.

As the President, two Attorney's General, White House counsel, and cohorts of National Security Administration and Justice Department Officials have maintained and existing case law such as the FISA Court of Review's decision in In re: Sealed Case, Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld , and other evidence in this 42-page brief (PDF) strongly asserts, warrants are not required for this kind of international (occurring in more than one country, hence not domestic) surveillance.

That's a whole lot of hyperbole and straight-up lying packed into one sentence, but the Senator is far from done.

The President issued a call to spread freedom throughout the world, and then he admitted that he has deprived Americans of one of their most basic freedoms under the Fourth Amendment -- to be free from unjustified government intrusion.

The President was blunt. He said that he had authorized the NSA's domestic spying program, and he made a number of misleading arguments to defend himself. His words got rousing applause from Republicans, and even some Democrats.

The President was blunt, so I will be blunt: This program is breaking the law, and this President is breaking the law. Not only that, he is misleading the American people in his efforts to justify this program.

How is that worthy of applause? Since when do we celebrate our commander in chief for violating our most basic freedoms, and misleading the American people in the process? When did we start to stand up and cheer for breaking the law? In that moment at the State of the Union, I felt ashamed.

Senator Feingold is, once again, lying, so of course he should feel ashamed, if that emotion still resonates in a being so morally vacuous.

The Fourth Amendment is not applicable to the NSA program whatsoever. The Fourth Amendment clearly states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What terrorist supporter on this planet that the interception of international terrorist communications does not meet the well-established exemption to the warrant requirement and the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement? Apparently, Russ Feingold.

As stated before and stated often, this is a targeted program intercepting international communications of terrorists, and it does not exceed the President's constitutional powers.

Once again, this is not a domestic spying program. No matter how many times shrill Democrats and their allies in the media repeat that hysteric refrain, it remains a targeted program intercepting the communications of suspected terrorists outside of this nation, trying to slip messages to their agents within our borders. These are the people Russ Feingold is trying to protect, and they are hardly loyal Americans.

The President is not misleading the people, he has laid out his legal case as clearly as prudence will allow without compromising the program, and many scholars and practitioners of the law from all political persuasions agree. There is misdirection and misleading going on, but it is being led by Senate and House Democrats who desire a perceived temporary political advantage more than the security of America's people.

Feingold continues with a shockingly honest (and probably quite accidental) admission:

Congress has lost its way if we don't hold this President accountable for his actions.

The President, in reasserting the power of the Presidency as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, is directly challenging an overreaching Congress. They seek to hold onto a momentary illusion of power that they do not legally possess, and hope to bluster their way though against a president they see as weak, and they challenge the power of the Commander in chief to lead military surveillance against a foreign enemy during a time of war as they plot attacks on our soil, against our citizens.

The congressional way of bluster, accusation, and usurping of executive power enabled by a weak-willed President Carter must not stand, or this nation cannot defend itself. Wars are not led by committees, but by commanders. Congress does not want to acknowledge their own limitations. Acknowledging that Congress will be exposed as having lost its way is Feingold's only accidental honesty.

The President suggests that anyone who criticizes his illegal wiretapping program doesn't understand the threat we face. But we do. Every single one of us is committed to stopping the terrorists who threaten us and our families.

But not if that commitment involves recognizing that the Congress has overreached. Perceived Congressional power is far more important than American lives.

Defeating the terrorists should be our top national priority, and we all agree that we need to wiretap them to do it. In fact, it would be irresponsible not to wiretap terrorists. But we have yet to see any reason why we have to trample the laws of the United States to do it. The President's decision that he can break the law says far more about his attitude toward the rule of law than it does about the laws themselves.

Once again, Feingold is accidentally correct.

Defeating terrorists should be our top national priority, but instead, members of both Houses, led by Democrats have made upholding their own perceived importance to be a higher priority than enabling the President to carry out his constitutionally mandated duty to carry out foreign surveillance.

This goes way beyond party, and way beyond politics. What the President has done here is to break faith with the American people. In the State of the Union, he also said that "we must always be clear in our principles" to get support from friends and allies that we need to fight terrorism. So let's be clear about a basic American principle: When someone breaks the law, when someone misleads the public in an attempt to justify his actions, he needs to be held accountable. The President of the United States has broken the law. The President of the United States is trying to mislead the American people. And he needs to be held accountable.

Unfortunately, the President refuses to provide any details about this domestic spying program. Not even the full Intelligence committees know the details, and they were specifically set up to review classified information and oversee the intelligence activities of our government. Instead, the President says - "Trust me."

Feingold is more guilty of projection that he could ever imagine. It is Democrats that have broken faith with the American people, hoping to turn a crime (government leaks) into a scandal for political gain at the expense of the security of average Americans. No Congressman or Senator-let me rephrase that-no honest Congressman or Senator can assert that the President's duty to protect this nation in a time of war is subservient to an unconstitutional statutory law.

The President is accountable to a higher standard than the hyperbole and bombast of a shrill Senator with a track record of trampling on the Constitution.

Being a Senator, Feingold does go on from there... and on, and on, and on, regurgitating the talking points you have not doubt already chanted a hundred times.

Unfortunately for Feingold, this mantra of deceit is all he has, and history will remember him for the small, self-serving man he continually proves himself to be.

Update: Reliapundit fisks Feingold's "BDS to Power" speech as well.

Spears Challenges Jackson For BPoY Award

It's only February, I know, but I figured Michael Jackson had already won the Bad Parent of the Year Award for moving his kids to an oppressive Arab country and starting to cross-dressing professionally.

I never should have counted out Britney Spears.

Yikes.

What the Times Should Say, But Won't

Adam Nagorney and Sheryl Gay Stolberg have thoroughly amusing article in Wednesday's NY Times, Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities. I thought it could use some clarification.

Democrats are heading into this year's elections in a position weaker than they had hoped for, party leaders say, stirring concern that they are letting pass an opportunity to exploit what they see as widespread Republican vulnerabilities.

In interviews, senior Democrats said they were optimistic about significant gains in Congressional elections this fall, calling this the best political environment they have faced since President Bush took office.

But Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party since the middle of last year, driving down the president's approval ratings, opening divisions among Republicans in Congress over policy and potentially putting control of the House and Senate into play in November.

Asked to describe the health of the Democratic Party, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said: "A lot worse than it should be. This has not been a very good two months."

"We seem to be losing our voice when it comes to the basic things people worry about," Mr. Dodd said.

And what "basic things" would those be, Senator?

Being able to remember an icon without turning her casket into a soapbox? Would you be referring to "basic things" such as Democrats cheering the fact they torpedoed an attempt to reform Social Security? Perhaps a shocking tendency towards behavior that helps terrorists? Do tell.

Democrats said they had not yet figured out how to counter the White House's long assault on their national security credentials. And they said their opportunities to break through to voters with a coherent message on domestic and foreign policy — should they settle on one — were restricted by the lack of an established, nationally known leader to carry their message this fall.

Let's be honest, kids. Democrats have done far more to assault their own national security credentials that Republicans ever could. From the false allegations of concentration camp type conditions in Dick Durbin's imaginary gulags, to John Murtha's call to retreat and statement that he would not serve in today's Marine Corps, Democrats have contributed to their own Purple Hearts and Pink Badges. It is a dishonor hard-fought, and well-earned.

As a result, some Democrats said, their party could lose its chance to do to Republicans this year what the Republicans did to them in 1994: make the midterm election, normally dominated by regional and local concerns, a national referendum on the party in power.

"I think that two-thirds of the American people think the country is going in the wrong direction," " said Senator Barack Obama, the first-term Illinois Democrat who is widely viewed as one of the party's promising stars. "They're not sure yet whether Democrats can move it in the right direction."

Mr. Obama said the Democratic Party had not seized the moment, adding: "We have been in a reactive posture for too long. I think we have been very good at saying no, but not good enough at saying yes."

Or in Senator Obama's case, not good enough at saying anything truthful.

Some Democrats said they favored remaining largely on the sidelines while Republicans struggled under the glare of a corruption inquiry.

I wonder why?

And some said there was still time for the party to get its act together. But many others said the party needed to move quickly to offer a comprehensive governing agenda, even as they expressed concern about who could make the case.

Their concern was aggravated by the image of high-profile Democrats, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, challenging the legality of Mr. Bush's secret surveillance program this week at a time when the White House has sought to portray Democrats as weak on security.

"We're selling our party short; you've got to stand for a lot more than just blasting the other side," said Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee. "The country is wide open to hear some alternatives, but I don't think it's wide open to all these criticisms. I am sitting here and getting all my e-mail about the things we are supposed to say about the president's speech, but it's extremely light on ideas. It's like, 'We're for jobs and we're for America.' "

Haven't you heard, Phil? There's a better way.

To a certain extent, the frustrations afflicting Democrats are typical for a party out of power. In Congress, the Democrats have become largely marginalized by the Republican majority, depriving them of a ready platform either to make attacks or offer their own ideas.

Who needs a platform, when you've got a casket? Not Jimmah Cartah!

Presidential campaigns typically produce prominent party leaders, followed around the country by a cluster of reporters and television crews, but that is at least two years away.

What? You're forgetting the Man with the Magic Hat so soon?

Yet in many ways, the Democratic Party's problems seem particularly tangled today, a source of frustration to Democratic leaders as they have watched opinion polls indicating that the public is souring on the Republican Party and receptive to Democratic leadership.

And the problems are besetting Democrats at a pivotal moment, as they struggle to adapt to a shifting American political landscape, and a concerted effort by this White House to make permanent inroads among once traditional Democratic voters.

Since Mr. Bush's re-election, Democrats have been divided over whether to take on the Republicans in a more confrontational manner, ideologically and politically, or to move more forcefully to stake out the center on social and national security issues. They are being pushed, from the left wing of the party, to stand for what they say are the party's historical liberal values.

What are "liberal values?"

Quick 'n easy (preferably government-subsidized) abortions, no welfare or social security reform, little or no respect for the troops, snide attacks on Christianity while sharing talking points with radical Islamic fascists...

You can have "liberal." You can have "values." Which is it?

But among more establishment Democrats, there is concern that many of the party's most visible leaders — among them, Howard Dean, the Democratic chairman; Senator John Kerry, the party's 2004 presidential candidate; Mr. Kennedy; Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader; and Al Gore, who has assumed a higher profile as the party heads toward the 2008 presidential primaries — may be flawed messengers.

And your first clue was what exactly?

One of the party's most prominent members, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, has been relatively absent for much of this debate, a characteristic display of public caution that her aides say reflects her concern for keeping focused on her re-election bid. Mrs. Clinton, who has only nominal opposition, declined requests for an interview to discuss her views of the party.

Mr. Kerry said the party's authority had been diluted because of the absence of one or two obvious leaders, though he expressed confidence that would change.

"We are fighting to find a voice under difficult circumstances, and I'm confident, over the next few months, you are going to see that happen," Mr. Kerry said in an interview. "Our megaphone is just not as large as their megaphone, and we have a harder time getting that message out, even when people are on the same page."

The megaphone won't work for policy mutes. Until Democrats have a message concocted on this side of 1968, then they might as well go red-faced blowing into a dog whistle. Only Kossacks will hear their call.

Beyond that, while there is a surfeit of issues for Democrats to use against Republicans — including corruption, the war in Iraq, energy prices and health care — party leaders are divided about what Democrats should be talking about and about how soon they should engage in the debate.

Just a quick reality check for the Times:

Reid is said to be hip-deep in the Abramhoff scandal, and it seems likely that Jay Rockefeller may have committed a felony breach of espionage laws that put this nation in danger. Corruption? Not so good. The War on Iraq? Start by picking a side. Energy prices? John Kerry wastes more gas on ski vacations than some small nations. Health care? Uh, does anyone remember Hillary's last stab at that? They do have the market cornered on unhinged shrieking, however, so all is not lost.

In a speech last week in Washington and in an interview, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who is considering a run for president in 2008, sharply criticized fellow Democrats who were arguing that the party should focus only on domestic issues and turn away from national security, since that has been the strong suit for this White House since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

"I think the Republicans are ripe for the taking on this issue," Mr. Bayh said in the interview, "but not until we rehabilitate our own image. I think there's a certain element of denial about how we are viewed, perhaps incorrectly but viewed nonetheless, by many Americans as being deficient on national security."

In his speech, to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Bayh said: "As Democrats, we have a patriotic duty and political imperative to lay out our ideas for protecting America. Frankly, our fellow citizens have doubts about us. We have work to do."

Seantor Bayh, to paraphrase John Houseman's Smith Barney ads, "At the Democratic National Committee, we don't make our reputation on national security, we burned it." Badly. If you want to protect America, start by muzzling Pat "Leaky" Leahy and Jay Rockefeller before the Justice Department does.

"When you bring it out early, you are going to leave it open for the spinmeisters in Rove's machine, the Republican side, to tear it to pieces," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.

I translate that to, “Dude, I got nothin'.”

"What the American people are hungry to hear from us is, what is the difference?" Mr. Edwards said in an interview. "What will we do? How will we deal with the corruption issue in Washington? How will we deal with the huge moral issues that we have at home? This is a huge opportunity for our party to show what we are made of."

*crickets*

Historically at least, Democrats should be in a strong position. The out-of-power party typically gains seats in the midterm elections of a president's second term. And Democrats said they had a particularly compelling case for voting out the party in power this year because of investigations centered on the White House and Congress, including the influence-peddling case involving the lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"We're going to keep hammering this," said Mr. Dean, the party chairman, referring to the scandals. "One thing the Republicans have taught us is that values and character matter."

Yet some Democrats warned that it would be a mistake to talk only about ethics.

Harry Reid, or Ted Kennedy?

"It's absolutely required that the party talk about things in addition to the Abramoff scandal," said Martin Frost, former leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "I think the climate is absolutely right to take back the House or the Senate or both. But you can't do it without a program."

And Mr. Bayh said, "I don't believe we will win by just not being them."

Ms. Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, did not dispute that argument. But, pointing to the Democratic strategy in defeating Mr. Bush's Social Security proposal last year, she said there was no rush.

"People said, 'You can't beat something with nothing,' " she said, arguing that the Democrats had in fact accomplished precisely that this year. "I feel very confident about where we are."

And Senator Barbara Boxer, also a California Democrat, said: "We have a strategy. First is to convince the American people that what's happening in Washington is not working. We have achieved that. Now we have to, at this stage, convince people that we are the ones to bring positive change."

Boxer's plan is working... somewhat.

The American people have seen that what is happening in Washington isn't working.

The way Democrats gave themselves thunderous applause for killing social security reform made that fact abundantly clear to us all.

Ussselesss Pressidentessss...

Well, we can't say this is exactly a surprise:

Former President Jimmy Carter criticized the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program Monday and said he believes the president has broken the law.

"Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal decision _ we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we're spying on the American people," Carter told reporters. "And no one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act."

Carter...

Oops , wrong picture...

Carter, however, is a lagomorph-phobic peanut farmer, and not a lawyer. He should talk to his attorney general Griffin Bell, who said that FISA, "does not take away the power of the president under the Constitution."

Carter would also do well to read this analysis (PDF) of H. Bryan Cunningham, a "national security lawyer" and CIA officer under Bill Clinton, and the Deputy Legal Advisor to the National Security Administration in the George H.W. Bush administration. The letter absolutely guts the arguments of Democrats and libertarians, and strongly suggests that FISA may be unconstitutional as it constrains the President's Article II powers. Virginia Patriot, the shiny new blog of a William & Mary law school professor who tipped me off to the letter, has more analysis of the letter.

He also provides one of the better Op-Eds (free registration may be required) I've read about the FISA flap and the legality of Bush's actions in signing the order to run this NSA program.

Iran Requests Holocaust Cartoons

Via Drudge, this bit of unpleasantness:

IRAN'S largest selling newspaper announced today it was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. "It will be an international cartoon contest about the Holocaust," said Farid Mortazavi, the graphics editor for Hamshahri newspaper - which is published by Teheran's conservative municipality.

He said the plan was to turn the tables on the assertion that newspapers can print offensive material in the name of freedom of expression.

"The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of freedom of expression, so let's see if they mean what they say and also print these Holocaust cartoons," he said.

Doesn't everyone enjoy a good Holocaust cartoon?

And so I came up with one of my own, though it is just a draft so far. What do you think?

I call it "Azadi Tower, March 2006."

I can't claim credit for this as an original concept, of course. I think the IDF is much further along working with this same concept.

War On Terror Forfeited

Pakistani doctors, still fuming over controversial Dutch cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed, have sworn off using European drugs:

The Pakistan Medical Association has vowed not to prescribe medicines from firms based in some European countries where controversial cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohammed were published, said Shahid Rao, the body's general secretary for Punjab province.

The association will boycott drugs from Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Germany and France to protest the 'blasphemous' drawings, Rao said.

Spokesmen for al Qaeda announced that the terror organization has also joined in the boycott, and will no longer use small arms, explosives, "or any other device" of either western design or manufacture.

Shortly after the announcement, an estimated 40 insurgents armed only with shebriya daggers ambushed 3 Iraqi policemen armed with AK-47 rifles.

In accordance with Muslim tradition, all 40 insurgents will be buried within 24 hours.

In Baghdad, Iraqi government officials who said police and military units will not be participating in the arms boycott, said they expected the insurgency to be wrapped up by. "dinnertime, next Thursday, God willing."

(h/t Michelle Malkin for the medical story)

Cramping Liberty

I've been sitting back and watching the Danish cartoon flap with great interest, but I've refrained from commenting on it thus far because I haven't decided how to best articulate my feelings on the subject. I'm still letting my thoughts percolate on the subject, and perhaps I'll hold forth in a few days.

Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom, other other hand, has his own observations online and they are well worth a read. I invite you to take a look at his most recent post, Identity Politics, Free Speech, and the Future of worldwide Liberalism, 2: a follow-up.

Silence of the Cankles

The last time I say this face was after hearing the words:

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti... Fly back to school, little Starling.

h/t Instapundit

Guardian Fetches A Bucket of Prop Wash

The latest of the so-called "Downing Street Memos" is the most laughable one yet. According to a key passage in this latest theory:

Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".

One problem with that theory: U2 high altitude surveillance aircraft typically operate near their operational ceiling of 70,000 feet, or more than 13 miles in the air. The aircraft simply cannot be seen from the ground, regardless of what paint scheme it manifests, whether it is United Nations blue, or pink with green stripes. The very concept is preposterous.

If Bush and Blair wanted to use Iraqi anti-aircraft fire as their excuse to trigger a war, they hardly had to make up an incident.

Iraq has a long and well documented history of firing upon aircraft enforcing the U.N.-mandated "No-fly" zones in what became unofficially known as the No-Fly Zone War which occurred more or less continuously from the end of the first Gulf War in 1991 until the Iraq War began on March 20, 2003.

Iraqi aggression against Coalition planes carrying out U.N.-mandated missions occurred with enough severity that they warranted an armed response more than 47 times in 2001, and more than 76 times - more than once a week - in 2002. In the 3 months of 2003 leading up to the March 20th invasion of Iraq, Iraqi anti-aircraft and command and control sites targeting these same coalition planes had to be fired up in defense 33 times in just 12 weeks in the Southern Watch area alone.

Over the course of 12 years, more than 1,100 missiles were expended in defensive actions against a minimum of 350 Iraqi targets, most of them when anti-aircraft weapons had "gone hot," committing the exact same kinds of breaches that forms the basis of the dubious Bush-to-Blair comments above.

Blair and Bush did not have to manufacture these kinds of incidents to justify a war when Saddam was already breaching the ceasefire on his own.

These are the facts.

This "new, explosive memo" as some are calling it (the "Mother of All Downing Street Memos" according to others), is therefore based upon some demonstrably false information.

Update: Dropped speculative theory of what dissiminating false info might mean. We'll stick with the facts for now.

Mental Bondage

Like a bitter, bigoted version of Marley's Ghost, the NAACP's chief rabble(rouser?) Julian Bond is out once again rattling his chains, taking the low road as far as it would go without crawling under the podium.

In a vicious, hate-filled speech at Fayetteville State University, Bond spent his time impugning Republicans as “Nazis,” and named two of America's most successful black public servants "tokens" for belonging to the wrong political party.

Julian Bond is right about one thing, however: if you are black in America you have no freedom today. He intends to make certain of that, by chaining blacks to the Democratic Party with every innuendo, invective, and slur that slithers past his lips.

Why should blacks vote for Democrats, simply because they were born black? That is the real issue in a nutshell, and one Bond does not want discussed.

Blacks are no more homogenous than any other ethnic group, and yet for decades they have been expected to vote Democrat simply because of their race, an expectation put on no other ethnic group in America. It is a racist ploy, pure, simple, and as evil as a burning cross.

Like whites, Asians, and Hispanics, blacks live in every part of the country, rural and urban, across all economic layers, with differing wants, needs, and expectations.

Black voters deserve something other than the “one size fits all” approach the Democratic Party and black community “leaders” have been pushing for the past 40 years, and they certainly deserve far better treatment in non-election years. They are individuals, and deserve to be treated as such, not relegated to the political status of a “sure thing.”

Someone is certainly disparaging the intelligence of the black voter, Julian Bond.

I think it's you.

Update: Generation Why? says it all: "NAACP Chairman Julian Bond crawled out of his hole this morning and saw his shadow, indicating 6 more weeks of racism."

Goss: Leak Caused "Very Severe" Damage

Top U.S. intelligence officials confirmed today that national security leaks published by the NY Times (just as reporter James Risen had a book about to be published) dealt a severe blow to the surveillance efforts of several U.S. intelligence agencies to defend America from al Qaeda terrorists.

From Forbes:

CIA Director Porter Goss said Thursday that the disclosure of President Bush's eavesdropping-without-warrants program and other once-secret projects had undermined U.S. intelligence-gathering abilities.

"The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission," Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said a federal grand jury should be empaneled to determine "who is leaking this information."

His testimony came after National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, who directs all intelligence activities, strongly defended the program, calling it crucial for protecting the nation against its most menacing threat.

"This was not about domestic surveillance," Negroponte said.

[snip]

"I use the words `very severe' intentionally. And I think the evidence will show that," Goss said.

He said not only have these revelations made it harder for the CIA to gather information, but they have made intelligence agencies in other countries mistrustful of their U.S. counterparts.

"I'm stunned to the quick when I get questions from my professional counterparts saying, `Mr. Goss, can't you Americans keep a secret?'" he said.

Goss cited a "disruption to our plans, things that we have under way." Some CIA sources and "assets" had been rendered "no longer viable or usable, or less effective by a large degree," he said.

"I also believe that there has been an erosion of the culture of secrecy and we're trying to reinstall that," Goss said.

"I've called in the FBI, the Department of Justice. It is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present, being asked to reveal who is leaking this information," he said.

Somehow, I just don't see the left wing blogs jumping all over the Times for putting the nation in danger, as they seem to share the notion that any damage to national security was merely collateral damage in what they view as a legitimate attempt to destroy their real enemy, President George W. Bush.

"Loyal opposition," my ass.

Electile Dysfunction

Let me get this straight... we go from DeLay, to Blunt to Boehner? This isn't a House Republican leadership race as much as it is a Levitra ad. then again, I guess that is what we can expect when all the candidates are guys in their mid-50s...

Of course, let's see what he can do with it before we talk about it too much. His position, I mean.

His political position.

Buncha pervs...

Cut the Red Wire. But First...

Dear "Gary" from a certain "Axis of Evil" member state,

If you are trying to change public opinion by meddling in the comments of a small blog (and I'm not necessarily saying this is a state-sponsored action, though if it is, it qualifies among the most pathetic ever recorded), you might want to consider, at the very least, a bit better training in English before trying to pass yourself off as some guy named Gary.

It just doesn't quite hang right on you, Hamid.

And try wiping the flecks of foam from your 'stache when you go all anti-Semetic, babbling about "israel soil and zionists."

Somebody might confuse you with Mother Sheehan.

Bare Hooks

The longer it goes on, the more pathetic terrorist surveillance opponents become:

The Bush administration is rebuffing requests from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for its classified legal opinions on President Bush's domestic spying program, setting up a confrontation in advance of a hearing scheduled for next week, administration and Congressional officials said Wednesday.

The Justice Department is balking at the request so far, administration officials said, arguing that the legal opinions would add little to the public debate because the administration has already laid out its legal defense at length in several public settings.

But the legality of the program is known to have produced serious concerns within the Justice Department in 2004, at a time when one of the legal opinions was drafted. Democrats say they want to review the internal opinions to assess how legal thinking on the program evolved and whether lawyers in the department saw any concrete limits to the president's powers in fighting terrorism.

With the committee scheduled to hold the first public hearing on the eavesdropping program on Monday, the Justice Department's stance could provoke another clash between Congress and the executive branch over access to classified internal documents.

Translation: Now that we're hip deep in this sitation of our own design, we find that we don't really have anything to really justify these hearings, so... a little help, please!

As more than one person has predicted, the NSA surveillance case has come into a phase where Democrats in Congress (along with a few Republicans) are determined to re-establish where they think that the borders of presidential authority should lie. Apparently, the evidence amassed so far does not bode well for the self-important legislators of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

They've been reduced to casting about madly, hoping that by dumb luck they might hook something of significance. At the very least, they hope to muddy the waters enough so that they can limp out out of this investigation not perceived as small men and women jealously guarding their fiefdoms.

Regarding the NSA intercept program, the Justice Department issued a 42-page white paper explaining the Administration's legal position in great detail, establishing that the Presidency has always had "inherent constitutional authority" to conduct warrantless investigations of enemy forces to dissuade attacks upon the United States. The document cites case law, the President's inherent Constitutional authority under Article II, an apparent FISA exemption granted by the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), and certainly not least, the fact that the FISA Court of Review, in In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d 717, 742 (FISA Ct. of Review 2002), clearly stated:

([A]ll the other courts to have decided the issue [have] held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information... We take for granted that the President does have that authority...").

It appears that the game was over before it began. The fact that the Senate Judiciary Committee been reduced to such a blatantly weak Hail Mary play reveals just how desperate their hopes for a face-saving gesture have become.

But don't worry, Senators. At least when all this is over you won't face the prospect of Justice Department espionage investigations like your friends at the NY Times.

Risen into the Ether

Is it just my perception, or has self-serving NY Times reporter James Risen all but vanished since it was announced that the Justice Department was conducting an investigation into allegations that he and his sources might have broken federal espionage laws?

Fry Daddy

AC-130 "Fry Daddy" (conceptual rendering)

(h/t Austin Bay)

al Qaeda better hope Coppertone comes out with SPF 4,000,000, or they are going to be in for a whole new world of hurt:

The U.S. military has been developing a gunship that could literally obliterate enemy ground targets with a laser beam.

The military plans to test the Advanced Tactical Laser, a laser weapon mounted on a C-130H air transport that could destroy any weapon system without collateral damage.

The laser could have tremendous repercussions on the battlefield, particularly in urban warfare in such countries as Afghanistan and Iraq. "It's the kind of tool that could bring about victory within minutes," an official said.

The applications of ATL could change military dynamics on the battlefield. Officials envision the laser being able to destroy or damage targets in an urban area with virtually no collateral damage.

A very nice weapon indeed, except for those targeted. I would like to know just how effective the radius of the weapon is, however, and how the heat effects of such a system might work.

While it is rather obvious how this weapon would affect, say, a Shahab-3 missile (developed, appropriately enough, from the North Korean No-Dong missile, which, while obviously accurate when considering the source, is a name I did not make up), it is not so clear how well a weapon of this type would affect a concrete bunker or mud brick structure.

Would such a laser provide enough immediate heat damage to cause the entire structure to violently fail, thus incapacitating or killing all enemies within, or would it it simple burn through in a restricted beam, perhaps slicing through Omar but leaving Abdul free to to operate an IED? Is it able to burn through such heat resistant structures at all?

I reserve the right to be absolutely wrong, but it seems to me that a weapons system that promises "virtually no collateral damage" is a weapons system of reduced lethality useful in only specific, limited circumstances.

Update: Created and added image.

...and Domestic

President George W. Bush, in his January 31, 2006 State of the Union Address:

"In a time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders. If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores."

A massively outnumbered border patrol agent somewhere on the U.S. Mexican border (original source unknown).

Mr. President, we cannot retreat within our own borders, because you have done almost nothing in five years in office to protect them. Despite attempts to fight for American security in battles overseas, you are failing the nation's security in a far more fundamental way on the domestic front.

A nation that fails to control its borders fails in "a fundamental act of sovereignty." United States ex rel Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 537, 542 (1950). President Ronald Reagan is credited with later echoing this sentiment when he stated, "A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation."

President Bush, we do NOT control our borders in any way, shape, or form under your present administration. We suffer an invasion of illegals equivalent to 160 12,500-man military divisions every year under your presidency, and this torrent shows no signs of abating.

Only 25% of Americans approve of your handling of immigration, Mr. President. You have failed to secure America itself, and that fact is not lost on the American voter.

As Rep. Tom Tancredo said tonight:

The President must enforce our immigration laws before we consider any guest worker proposal. Until we bring law and order to our border anarchy, importing more workers into the equation is out of the question.

In 1986, Congress passed a blanket amnesty on the promise that border security would come later. We all remember the '86 bait-and-switch, and we won't be fooled again. There is no way to determine if we need guest workers, and there is no way to gain control of this broken system until we seal our borders and control our country's interior.

We expect leadership on this issue, Mr.Bush, both from you and the Republican Congress. If you will not provide this leadership, we will eagerly seek it elsewhere this fall.