A Conventional Nuke

Sometimes the outright stupidity and shallowness of thinking in the general news media staggers me. But before I blast them, I need to start with myself, for getting so close initially, and then not putting 2+2 together.

Last night I mocked the U.S. military's plan to test a 700-ton bomb in the Nevada desert. I noted that no plane every built could come close to delivering a conventional bomb even a third that size. I wrote it off as a blustering response to Iran's refusal to stop uranium enrichment, but not the test of a serious munition.

I suggested, "If the Pentagon wants to send a real message to the Iranians, they could test a B61-11. I think the folks in Las Vegas and Tehran would be much more impressed with the show."

It wasn't until over 12 hours later that I figured out that something very similar to that might be the point of the test.

The 700-ton bomb will use close to 600-tons of a special mixture of ammonium nitrate-based explosives.

According to Global Security.org, the B61 Mod 11 thermonuclear bomb has a W-61 EPW (earth penetrating warhead) that ranges in yield from 360-kiloton strategic bomb down, if Nuclear Weapon Archive.org is correct, to a tactical penetrator with a yield as low as .3 kilotons. If I'm doing my math correctly, a 0.3 Kt weapon is the theoretical equivalent of 300 tons yield in a convention explosive under certain conditions.

Could the 700-ton bomb test be a surrogate for the shockwave effect of a low-yield .3 Kt B61-11 nuclear warhead?

Neither the Washington Post nor Reuters, nor any other news agency seems to have caught on to this possibility. Then again, they haven't figured out yet that this massive bomb being tested could never get airborne, so this shouldn't be a surprise.

We appear to be running a "nukeless" nuclear test of the kind of ground-penetrating and literally ground-breaking bomb we may be forced to use again Iran. The "empty threat" I mocked yesterday isn't very funny anymore.

Cut Her Some Slack... For Now

Freed hostage Jill Carroll is being bad-mouthed by some, but after spending three months as a hostage to a group that murdered her translator right in front of her I, like Rusty, am willing to cut her some slack. She's seen a lot of things that none of us ever will, and endured mental stresses none of us will likely ever have to face, so I can excuse the anti-Americanism she expressed in captivity. I suggest that her comments both before and after her ordeal should be viewed through the new prism of her recent experience.

Remind me, however… what were Eason Jordan's excuses for coddling terrorists?

The Signs are There

I guess we can consider this indicative of Democratic competence in their "cut-and-run-and-gun" national insecurity program.

This campaign the DNC is running on is going to generate a lot of votes. Republican votes.

Ian at Expose the Left has the video.

Iranian Stealth Missile

This is interesting. We talk of 700-ton bombs that will never get off the ground (an M-1 Abrams main battle tank, by comparison weighs 65 tons), and the very next day, the Iranians counter in the bluster war with this:

Iran successfully test-fired a locally made missile with the ability to carry a warhead and avoid radar, the airforce chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards said Friday.

"Today, a remarkable goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran's defence forces was realized with the successful test-firing of a new missile with greater technical and tactical capabilities than those previously produced," Gen. Hossein Salami said on state-run television.

The missile, while locally made, is of American design.

I'd translate the last part about “greater technical and tactical capabilities” to mean they're now using B4-4 rocket engines instead of their earlier designs using A8-3s.

New Orleans: Out of Time?

As they say, timing is everything:

A full recovery in New Orleans could take 25 years as homeowners, businesses and tourists are coaxed back to the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration's Gulf Coast recovery coordinator said Thursday. "We kind of want it to happen overnight, or I do, but it's going to take some time," White House coordinator Don Powell said in an interview with Associated Press reporters and editors. "This could be five to 25 years for it all to fit into place."

Powell added: "It's been a bottom-up process and it's complex."

Well, the "bottom" part is right. Guess where New Orleans will be in the next half-century or so?

Give yourself two points if you correctly answered "The Gulf of Mexico."

The original (snark-free) version of this Louisiana wetlands projection comes courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and is used at LSU's Louisiana Energy & Environmental
Resource & Information Center (LEERIC) in this article.

Back in September I interviewed the former chair of a Coastal and Marine Studies Department, and asked him the following question:

1. Are estimates that the continued rate of wetland loss in Louisiana will place New Orleans on or in the Gulf of Mexico in the 2050-2090 time frame accurate?

He responded:

The estimates are probably accurate. There are three main factors: Global sea level rise, delta subsidence, Mississippi River sedimentation. Sea level is rising, the delta is sinking and the river is depositing much less sediment on the delta now than in the past (for multiple reasons).

In other words, by the time New Orleans can recover from Hurricane Katrina, it may do so just in time to disappear under the waves of the Gulf of Mexico forever.

I don't have any problems with spending our tax dollars to rebuild New Orleans, I just don't think it wise to rebuild the city in the same nearly indefensible location.

The Big Nothing

On the day that Iran stated it would not halt uranium enrichment, the U.S. military made what some are interpreting as a thinly-veilled threat:

The US military plans to detonate a 700 tonne explosive charge in a test called "Divine Strake" that will send a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas, a senior defense official said.

"I don't want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you'll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Tegnelia said the test was part of a US effort to develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

"We have several very large penetrators we're developing," he told defense reporters.

"We also have -- are you ready for this - a 700-tonne explosively formed charge that we're going to be putting in a tunnel in Nevada," he said.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this would be one of the most pathetic messages we've ever sent, as it is by far the emptiest threat we can make. To put it plainly (or perhaps planely), this bomb project could never get off the ground.

Literally.

According to the article, this bomb weighs "700 tonnes." It doesn't exactly specify if this is 700 long tons ( 2,240 lbs/ton, or a total of 1,588,000 lbs) or 700 short tons (2,000 lbs/ton, or a total of 1,400,000 lbs), but in the end the key detail is that no airplane on earth can carry such a payload.

The massive American C5 Galaxy carries a payload of 240,000 lbs. The world's largest cargo airplane is the Antonov An-225, which carries a maximum payload of "just" 551,150 lbs.

This is an empty threat, as the Iranians surely know.

If the Pentagon wants to send a real message to the Iranians, they could test a B61-11. I think the folks in Las Vegas and Tehran would be much more impressed with the show.

Update: a closer look reveals that the 700-lb bomb may be a surrogate for a low yield B61-11.

Fact or Fiction?

In news related to the five FISA court judge's testimony, competing articles today by Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times and Brian DeBose of the Washington Times paint radically different pictures of the judge's testimony today, with Lichtblau's article making it appear that the five judges were siding against the president, and DeBose stating that the judges said Bush's executive order was legal. Obviously, one is wrong, and possibly being deceptive. The "verdict" from the lawyers of Powerline:

Having reviewed the transcript, I conclude that the Washington Times' characterization was fair, but arguably overstated. The New York Times, however, badly misled its readers...

...New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau has a considerable career investment (and, I suspect, an ideological investment as well) in the idea that the NSA program is illegal. It would seem that Lichtblau's preconceptions and biases prevented him from accurately reporting what happened in the Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday. His suggestion that the main thrust of the judges' testimony was to "voice skepticism about the president's constitutional authority" is simply wrong; in fact, I can't find a single line in more than 100 pages of transcript that supports Lichtblau's reporting.

Eric Litchblau seems to have either lost his objectivity on this story so completely that he cannot even report facts, or he has made the conscious decision to misrepresent the story to the point of outright fabrication.

Full of Sound and Fury

...Signifying nothing.

Classic Macbeth to be sure, but in this instance, the "nothing" has turned out to be claims from Democrats, libertarians, and some weak-willed Republicans that President Bush's executive order that authorized the creation of a terrorist intercept program by the National Security Agency is in some way illegal.

Yesterday, five FISA judges testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about this very program:

FEINSTEIN: Thank you very much. Now, I want to clear something up. Judge Kornblum spoke about Congress' power to pass laws to allow the president to carry out domestic electronic surveillance. And we know that FISA is the exclusive means of so doing. Is such a law, that provides both the authority and the rules for carrying out that authority — are those rules then binding on the president?

[U.S. District Judge Allan] KORNBLUM: No president has ever agreed to that.

When the FISA statute was passed in 1978, it was not perfect harmony. The intelligence agencies were very reluctant to get involved in going to court. That reluctance changed over a short period of time, two or three years, when they realized they could do so much more than they'd ever done before without...

FEINSTEIN: What do you think, as a judge?

KORNBLUM: I think — as a magistrate judge, not a district judge — that a president would be remiss in exercising his constitutional authority to say that, "I surrender all of my power to a statute." And, frankly, I doubt that Congress in a statute can take away the president's authority — not his inherent authority but his necessary and — I forget the constitutional — his necessary and proper authority.

FEINSTEIN: I'd like to go down the line, if I could, Judge, please. Judge Baker?

[U.S. District Judge Harold] BAKER: Well, I'm going to pass to my colleagues, since I answered before. I don't believe a president would surrender his power, either.

FEINSTEIN: So you don't believe a president would be bound by the rules and regulations of a statute. Is that what you're saying?

BAKER: No, I don't believe that. A president...

FEINSTEIN: That's my question.

BAKER: No, I thought you were talking about the decision…

FEINSTEIN: No, I'm talking about FISA and is a president bound by the rules and regulations of FISA?

BAKER: If it's held constitutional and it's passed, I suppose he is, like everyone else: He's under the law, too.

FEINSTEIN: Judge?

[U.S. District Judge Stanley] BROTMAN (?): I would feel the same way.

FEINSTEIN: Judge Keenan?

[U.S. District Judge John] KEENAN: Certainly the president is subject to the law. But by the same token, in emergency situations, as happened in the spring of 1861, if you remember — and we all do — President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and got in a big argument with Chief Justice Taney, but the writ was suspended.

KEENAN: And some of you probably have read the book late Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote, "All the Laws But One." Because in his inaugural speech — not his inaugural speech, but his speech on July 4th, 1861, President Lincoln said, essentially, "Should we follow all the laws and have them all broken, because of one?"

FEINSTEIN: Judge?

(UNKNOWN) [probably U.S. District Judge William Stafford]: Senator, everyone is bound by the law, but I don't believe, with all due respect, that even an act of Congress can limit the president's power under the necessary and proper clause under the Constitution.

And it's hard for me to go further on the question that you pose, but I would think that (inaudible) power is defined in the Constitution, and while he's bound to obey the law, I don't believe that the law can change that.

While a full transcript of the five judge's testimony is not yet available, Spruill notes that all five—his word was "each"—of the five judges seems to hold that the President's argument that he has the inherent Constitutional authority to conduct warrantless wiretapping.

This is consistent with the FISA Court of Review's findings in In re: Sealed Case when the Court recognized "the President's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."

These judges seem to agree with the exact point I made in December:

Every President from the dawn of international wire communications well over 100 years ago until 1978 assumed this right, and the courts have always deferred to this particular power inherent to the Presidency. This is supported by case law and precedent, and is summed up in the five-page Department of Justice briefing (PDF) delivered last week. In short, the Department of Justice seems willing to make the case that Bush was well within his constitutional powers. If anything, Congress may have exceeded their constitutional powers in passing FISA.

Even after passing FISA, Carter himself did not feel strictly bound by it, nor has any President since, from Reagan, to George H. W. Bush, Clinton, to George W. Bush. They have all asserted (and over the past two weeks, their DoJ attorneys have as well) that the Office of the Presidency has the Constitutional authority to authorize warrantless intercepts of foreign intelligence. This power has been assumed by every president of the modern age before them, dating back, presumably to the Great Eastern's success in 1866 of laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable. From Johnson, then, through Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland (again), McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and Taft, through Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, to FDR and on to Truman, Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and into the Carter administration, the Presidency has had the inherent and unchallenged power to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign powers for national security reasons.

This is a simple, unassailable fact, not matter how loudly demagogues shriek.

FISA is a case of Congress infringing upon the inherent power of the executive branch, and if it comes up as a direct constitutional challenge, FISA will most likely be struck down as Congress infringing upon the constitutional authority of the executive branch to perform foreign intelligence functions.

Statutory law cannot override the President's constitutional powers and duties; only a constitutional amendment has that power. Neither FISA nor other current statutory proposals in the Senate can infringe upon the President's Article II powers.

Cut-And-Run-And-Gun

The new, "aggressive" 2006 Democratic platform advocates shifting 140,000 American soldiers out of Iraq to attack a nuclear-armed nominal ally to capture a figurehead dialysis patient that Harry Reid already thinks is dead.

More. Please.

Note: Bad link fixed.

Handcuffs, Not Kid Gloves

The Washington Times editorial on illegal immigration by Tony Blankley this morning really set me off (h/t Drudge), especially this part:

...The senators should remember that they are American senators, not Roman proconsuls. Nor is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee some latter-day Praetor Maximus.

But if they would be dictators, it would be nice if they could at least be wise (until such time as the people can electorally forcefully project with a violent pedal thrust their regrettable backsides out of town). It was gut-wrenching (which in my case is a substantial event) to watch the senators prattle on in their idle ignorance concerning the manifold economic benefits that will accrue to the body politic if we can just cram a few million more uneducated illegals into the country. ( I guess ignorance loves company.) Beyond the Senate last week, in a remarkable example of intellectual integrity (in the face of the editorial positions of their newspapers) the chief economic columnists for the New York Times and The Washington Post — Paul Krugman and Robert Samuelson, respectively — laid out the sad facts regarding the economics of the matter. Senators, congressmen and Mr. President, please take note.

Regarding the Senate's and the president's guest-worker proposals, The Post's Robert Samuelson writes: "Gosh, they're all bad ideas ... We'd be importing poverty. This isn't because these immigrants aren't hardworking, many are. Nor is it because they don't assimilate, many do. But they generally don't go home, assimilation is slow and the ranks of the poor are constantly replenished ... [It] is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico ... The most lunatic notion is that admitting more poor Latino workers would ease the labor market strains of retiring baby boomers ? Far from softening the social problems of an aging society, more poor immigrants might aggravate them by pitting older retirees against younger Hispanics for limited government benefits ... [Moreover], [i]t's a myth that the U.S. economy 'needs' more poor immigrants.

[my bold, not in original - ed.]

It does not help that a small but growing number have no intention to assimilate, as shone in these disturbing images captured yesterday noted on both the left and the right.

It also inspired my to contact my Senators, Richard Burr (R) and Elizabeth Dole (R), to whom I sent the following email:

Dear Senator,

It is with a great deal of concern, and even anger that I write to you this morning, regarding the subject of illegal immigration before us this day.

According to an article this morning in the Washington Times:

Gallup Poll (March 27) finds 80 percent of the public wants the federal government to get tougher on illegal immigration. A Quinnipiac University Poll (March 3) finds 62 percent oppose making it easier for illegals to become citizens (72 percent in that poll don't even want illegals to be permitted to have driver's licenses). Time Magazine's recent poll (Jan. 24-26) found 75 percent favor "major penalties" on employers of illegals, 70 percent believe illegals increase the likelihood of terrorism and 57 percent would use military force at the Mexican-American border.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (March 10-13) found 59 percent opposing a guest-worker proposal, and 71 percent would more likely vote for a congressional candidate who would tighten immigration controls.
An IQ Research poll (March 10) found 92 percent saying that securing the U.S. border should be a top priority of the White House and Congress.

And yet those of you in the Senate, including 73 percent of Republicans, support guest worker legislation, rewarding those that would break the law, repeating polices that have failed miserably in the past.

This must not stand. Immigration must be legal. Amnesty is not an option. Illegals must leave this country, and return legally. Employers who hire illegals must be heavily fined. Illegal immigrants must be charged as felons. We must have our southern border sealed with fences and walls to enforce legal immigration, and prevent illegal immigration.

I am but one voice of many, but mine is a loud voice, getting louder, with more than 60,000 influential readers coming to my conservative political blog (http://confederateyankee.mu.nu) last month alone.

I will use that digital pulpit to highlight the fact that you specifically voted against the will of North Carolina's Republican voters. I will questions your motives. I will question your reasoning. I will examine your other legislation. I will examine your connection to lobbyists. And I will do so relentlessly.

America is a land of immigrants. Immigration is good for America's soul. But this immigration must be legal, and every immigrant must come here legally, without exception.

Those of us who can legally vote, including legal immigrants, will have it no other way.

Sincerely,

As I stated in my email to the good senators, I'm completely behind the concept of immigration, but it must be legal immigration.

Those who break our laws should be treated with handcuffs, not kid gloves.

Update: The hihg school students who ran up the Mexican flag at Montebello HS (cluelessly but appropriately running the American flag in the "in distress" upside down position) were not from Montebello HS, but nearby El Rancho High School and both "a board member and the acting administrator of the El Rancho High School were present" according to Ward Brewer, who called Montebello and El Rancho high schools in running this story down.

It sounds to me like a couple of folks need to be fired from El Rancho.

Another reader who claims to be from the area states that many of the students and families of students from El Rancho are *gasp* illegals, though I have no way of verifying this.

For Sale...

School Buses
Slightly damp, a total of 259. Previously used as a symbol of incompetence. Works great as anchors and fish attractors. Ask for Ray.

This Cult Smells Fishy...

According to Michelle Malkin, British Muslims are carping about a pair of fish they claim are inscribed with the names of Allah and Mohammed, calling it a miracle. Frightening as it all may seem, this "miracle" just goes to reinforce the truth of the being they once called the Arafish.

Certain dhimmi liberals of course, are falling for this hook, line and sinker, and are all too willing to pander to fish-fascinated fanatics here in the United States.

Some are willing to praise the Allah fish:

Some are so intent on capturing votes that they are willing to go the extra mile to look like the Allah fish:

Not surprisingly, they're all famous bottom feeders, doncha know.

Those Tools At The Times

For those of you who have read this NY Times article about captured Iraqi war documents being placed on the web, you'll note that the Times did not deem to give Ray Robinson, the blogger interviewed in the article, a link to his blog, nor did they bother to give you his entire background. Ray Robinson worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency as a member of the Iraq Survey Group that collected and in-processed this documentation when it was captured. He isn't just a blogger, but a person with some hands-on expertise.

Too bad that the Times couldn't be bothered to provide a link or give his bona fides.

I guess that would go against their "bloggers are hacks, and we're so accurate" meme, wouldn't it?

Flailing Fukuyama

One can only hope that the truth brigade of the liberal blogosphere that so effectively curtailed the career of Ben Domenech will maintain their high standards of integrity in the pursuit of accuracy, and be among the first to call for the head of famous ex-neocon Francis Fukuyama.

Fukuyama's life-altering revelation that caused him to turn away from neoconservatism was supposedly triggered by a speech calling the Iraq war "a virtually unqualified success." It turns out Fukuyama's story was instead the unqualified fabrication, according to the man who gave the speech, Charles Krauthammer, who calls Fukuyama out:

I happen to know something about this story, as I was the speaker whose 2004 Irving Kristol lecture to the American Enterprise Institute Fukuyama has now brought to prominence. I can therefore testify that Fukuyama's claim that I attributed "virtually unqualified success" to the war is a fabrication.

A convenient fabrication -- it gives him a foil and the story drama -- but a foolish one because it can be checked. The speech was given at the Washington Hilton before a full house, carried live on C-SPAN and then published by the American Enterprise Institute under its title "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World." (It can be read at http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19912,filter.all/pub_detail.asp.) As indicated by the title, the speech was not about Iraq. It was a fairly theoretical critique of the four schools of American foreign policy: isolationism, liberal internationalism, realism and neoconservatism. The only successes I attributed to the Iraq war were two, and both self-evident: (1) that it had deposed Saddam Hussein and (2) that this had made other dictators think twice about the price of acquiring nuclear weapons, as evidenced by the fact that Moammar Gaddafi had turned over his secret nuclear program for dismantling just months after Hussein's fall (in fact, on the very week of Hussein's capture).

It's all right there in black and white pixels, with an easily followed link to a copy of the speech above. Fukuyama misrepresented the content of Krauthammer's speech as being something else, which certainly as vile as misrepresenting the content of the speech as his own.

I'm sure the intrepid truth squad of the far left - at Firedoglake, Media Matters, the Daily Kos, and others - will press Fukuyama for a full accounting for his transgressions with the same righteous fury they unleashed last week in their relentless pursuit of truth.

Seriously.

Any minute now.

What They Saved

News is now breaking in the trial of the so-called "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui that Moussaoui and shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth plane on 9/11 and fly it into the White House.

Via Breitbart:

Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.

Moussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom as he disclosed details he had never revealed before. It was in stark contrast to Moussaoui's previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions.

Quite frankly, it is hard to trust anything Zacarias Moussaoui has to say, but if he is telling the truth that his target was the White House, it might provide an answer to the question of Flight 93's target that September morning.

It has long been suspected that the hijackers on Flight 93 were likely targeting either the Capitol Building or the White House. As Moussaoui was arrested just one month before the attacks, it seems likely that the other the terror cells would stick with their original targets instead of trying to retarget shortly before the attack. If Moussaoui's statement it true that his target was the White House, then it would seem likely that the terrorists on Flight 93 had the Capitol Building as their target.

We know that the heroes of Flight 93 prevented an attack on a Washington target when they stormed the cockpit over Pennsylvania that September morning. If Moussaoui is correct, we now have a reason to suspect exactly what it was they saved.

Bush Lied, Yadda Yadda Yadda

The NY Times has a huge non-story today, where it was found that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair did not wait until the week before the invasion of Iraq to do their war planning.

When presented in that context, of course, it really is a non-story, other than the fact that the document provides some interesting historical context of the kind of commentary that goes on between leaders in a run-up to a conflict.

Ed Morrissey says pretty much what I would say about the matter, summing it up:

In short, the Times presents us with a memo that shows the US and UK understanding that Saddam would not cooperate with the UN nor voluntarily disarm or step aside; history proved them correct on all those assertions. Given those as reality, the two nations prepared for war. If the Times finds this surprising, it demonstrates their cluelessness all the more.

I suspect it isn't cluelessness as much as it is political opportunism by the Times, which has consistently covered this conflict in a way that makes al Jazeera unnecessary.

Bush Lied, People Died. I think I've heard that before.

Escape From New York

Didn't blog over the course of the weekend, and probably won't post much during the next few days, either. We have something of a family reunion is going on at my place, with my wife's sister and her kids up from Florida, and my wife's parents down from New York, and we're having a blast.

They're all looking at real estate and thinking about joining us in the area, and if they do, my wife's brother and his family probably won't be too far behind. The crappy schools, over-priced real estate, and high taxes are pushing them out of both upstate New York and West Palm Beach, and they're looking here like so many people have before them.

Based upon people I've met, I think half of Poughkeepsie, NY has relocated to Cary, NC. They didn't jokingly nickname it C.A.R.Y. -the "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees" - for nothing.

Why are people moving?

Houses are going for over $190 a square foot in the part of NY my wife's family is from for a 40 year-old home, and they're paying outrageous property taxes to support public schools that are both under-performing and increasingly dangerous.

Here is NC, we're building a home for less than $90 dollars a square foot, pay considerably lower taxes, and have our kid attending one of the top school systems in the nation.

I think that's what they call a "no-brainer," isn't it?

The Results of French Homeschooling

Sometimes it is simply better to shut up and take your lumps. Ben Demonech has not learned that yet:

In his first public comments since resigning earlier today as a blogger for washingtonpost.com, Ben Domenech says his editors there were “fools” for not expecting an onslaught of attacks from the left.

“While I appreciated the opportunity to go and join the Washington Post,” Domenech said, “if they didn't expect the leftists were going to come after me with their sharpened knives, then they were fools.”

Ben, you can't hold the Washington Post to blame for your serial plagiarism, both during college, and afterward.

You don't have an inherent right to work for a major news organization, you don't have a greater level of privilege, and you certainly shouldn't expect a lesser level of accountability.

You don't get a free ride.

Do you think you are French?

Going, Going...Gone?

I have a confession to make: I never heard the name "Ben Domenech" until the Washington Post launched the blog Red America several days ago.

Since his first substantial post hit Tuesday, he has generated an outburst of outrage that I haven't seen on the left since... well, since the last one. True to form, the left has engaged in what they call opposition research, what we call dumpster diving, and what Chuck Schumer's office called an isolated incident after the plea deal last week.

And they have scored hits.

They've uncovered what David Brock's Media Matters for America called, "new evidence of Domenech's racially charged rhetoric and homophobic bigotry,” in an effort to have Domenech fired for what they claim are his past views, including the following:

• In a February 7 post on RedState, Domenech wrote that he believed people should be "pissed" that President Bush attended "the funeral of a Communist" -- referring to the funeral for Coretta Scott King. As you know, labeling the King family "communists" was a favorite tool of the racists who opposed them.
• In another RedState post, Domenech compared "the Judiciary" unfavorably to the Ku Klux Klan.
• In still another RedState comment, Domenech posted without comment an article stating that "[i]t just happens that killing black babies has the happy result of reducing crime" and that "[w]hite racists have reason to be grateful for what is sometimes still called the civil rights leadership" because black leaders "are overwhelmingly in support" of abortion rights.
• In yet another, Domenech wrote that conservative blogger/journalist Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, "needs a woman to give him some stability."

I'm sure that David Brock, being honest and not the kind of guy to write a hit piece, would certainly encourage us to look into his charges. Surely, nothing he charges would be hyperbolic, would it?

Let's look at Brock's first charge:

In a February 7 post on RedState, Domenech wrote that he believed people should be "pissed" that President Bush attended "the funeral of a Communist" -- referring to the funeral for Coretta Scott King.

Posting under the screen name "Augustine" on Red State Domenech did in fact call King a communist. As I asked earlier today, whether or not Domenech was right about King's political affiliation, when did communism become a race?

Brock's second charge is even more volatile.

In another RedState post, Domenech compared "the Judiciary" unfavorably to the Ku Klux Klan.

But what exactly did Domenech say? Brock doesn't directly link to the comment, or provide it in context, instead burying it in text of another Media Matters article.

The Red State post and its comments are here, and Domenech's comment is in response to a charge by James Dobson that men in white robes (the Ku Klux Klan) "did great wrong to civil rights to and to morality" and now we have men in black robes (judges) also doing great wrongs to civil rights and morality. [Note: the comment below is the wrong comment. This is Domenech's first comment in this thread, not the one Brock cherry-picked that was far less descriptive and inflammatory. My mistake ofr grabbing the wrong comment. See comments of this post for details.]

Domenech's comment:

Actually, Dobson's soft-pedaling it. The worst black-robed men and women are worse then the KKK, and not just because they have the authority of the state behind them. They don't even use the vile pretense of skin color - they dismiss the value of all unborn lives, not just the lives of ethnic minorities.

Domenech says that the worst judges, with the authority of the state behind them, are more dangerous than is a specific marginalized extremist group. Does anyone dare to argue the absolute truth of that statement?

Domenech then makes an allusion to the millions of children (of all races) aborted since Roe v. Wade was decided. No one can argue the fact that many more lives have been cut short by abortions than by lynchings.

Domenech is 100% factually correct.

Brock's willful misrepresentation of the meaning and context of Domenech's statements are even more offensive than the charges of racism Brock is peddling because the charges are so obviously contrived.

Next.

In still another RedState comment, Domenech posted without comment an article stating that "[i]t just happens that killing black babies has the happy result of reducing crime" and that "[w]hite racists have reason to be grateful for what is sometimes still called the civil rights leadership" because black leaders "are overwhelmingly in support" of abortion rights.

The Dowdified quote Brock provides was Swiftian satire written by Richard John Neuhaus (full article here) about the book "Freakonomics," and the disgusting thought that a high level of minority abortions cuts the crime rate. Domenech himself states:

Neuhaus, one of the most outspoken, respected and influential pro-life intellectuals in America, finds this logic as morally disgusting as I do. He is putting this logic in its bluntest terms to show the full degree of its inhumanity. A few people have noticed this, but for those who are still having trouble, I highly recommend this.

Once again, Brock is guilty of misrepresenting Domenech.

Last and least of Brock's bulleted list of charges:

In yet another, Domenech wrote that conservative blogger/journalist Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, "needs a woman to give him some stability."

Sullivan, is Domenech's target in this post, and he does end with the line Brock cites. According to Technorati, there are no less than 239 posts about Andrew Sullivan freaking out. Sullivan needs something, but the answer is probably not estrogen-based.

In short, Brock presents four bullet-point charges that he states should be reasons for the Washington Post to fire Ben Domenech. Of those four points, Brock catches Domenech using excessive hyperbole once, and projecting a sexuality-based thought against an erratic writer in another instance.

In between these bookends, Brock intentionally misrepresents Domenech not once, but twice.

In living up to his own high standards of moral clarity, I'm sure we'll see David Brock's resignation letter tomorrow.

* * *

Brock's creativity aside, there seems to be a strong argument for Domenech to resign his Washington Post blog, not for the reasons listed above, but for his lack of creativity... and originality.

Apparently Domenech plagiarized the work of P.J. O'Rourke, and maybe others.

Dan Riehl adds:

Frankly, the attack by Media Matters was about as fair, or accurate as the New York Times - not very. However, if any, let alone all, of the charges of alleged plagiarism are deserved, Domenech is an embarrassment to all bloggers, not just conservatives.

Now, even the defense of him I made is in question if he can't produce a link to an original article containing the deficit quote re the above link.

Though apparently a co-founder, I would also encourage RedState to think very seriously about his role as a RedState blogger going forward. If Domenech plagiarized as freely and often as it would appear, there is no excuse for it.

I can forgive someone who runs across a concept and inadvertently "thinks" it at a later date. It can happen. Ripping content, however, word-for-word, line-by-line, post-by-post... if true, that is no mistake.

Hello, Ben. Goodbye.

Update: It Ain't Over, Fat Lady.
John Cole of Balloon Juice, hardly a "Bush loyalist," puts up a spirited defense of Domenech's character while gutting one of the almost incoherently rabid far left blogger Jane Hamsher:

Hell, half the things in that despicable Hamsher post were not even WRITTEN BY BEN. Even as I grow more and more disgusted and sick of the Republican party, I am still amazed at the gutter antics of the rabid left.

I don't agree with Ben Domenech on nearly any social issue, but I have read thousands of his private emails at Red State (we have an Editor's listserv of sorts), spoken with him (via AOL IM) dozens of times, and I have never seen or heard one shred of racism come from him. I think Ben Domeonech is wrong on a lot of things, but he is no racist, and I think the distortion of what Ben has written by Jane and others is outrageous and disgusting.

Nor is the Washington Post willing to show Demenech the door just yet:

Late yesterday, the liberal Web sites Daily Kos and Atrios posted examples of what appeared to be instances of plagiarism from Domenech's writing at the William & Mary student paper. Three sentences of a 1999 Domenech review of a Martin Scorsese film were identical to a review in Salon magazine, and several sentences in Domenech's piece on a James Bond movie closely resembled one in the Internet Movie Database. Domenech said he needed to research the examples but that he never used material without attribution and had complained about a college editor improperly adding language to some of his articles.

The ante has been upped.

Domenech is either going to be proven a serial plagiarist and a liar, or quite a few liberal blogs are going to have to explain to their readers how they were wrong on a very serious charge.

This seems far from over.

Update: What was the last thing I said?
Ben Domenech has resigned.

Shall We Play a Game, Part V

Landfall...

An Interview Wth Fred

The Real Ugly American (hey, he said it, not me) scores an interview with Fred Barnes of the "Beltway Boys," author of Rebel in Chief.

Beyond the Green Zone

Thoughts on American combat journalists, the lazy and the dead, from Mind in the Qatar.

Hillary Clinton's Lost Translation of the Bible

You knew she couldn't keep her inner liberal quiet forever, but you would at least hope she wouldn't resort to rewriting the Bible for political gain:

Invoking Biblical themes, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton joined immigration advocates Wednesday to vow and block legislation seeking to criminalize undocumented immigrants.

Clinton, a potential 2008 presidential candidate and relative latecomer to the immigration debate, made her remarks as the Senate prepares to take up the matter next week.

Clinton renewed her pledge to oppose a bill passed in December by the House that would make unlawful presence in the United States _ currently a civil offense _ a felony. The Senate is set to consider a version of that legislation, as well as several other bills seeking to address the seemingly intractable issue of immigration reform.

Surrounded by a multicultural coalition of New York immigration advocates, Clinton blasted the House bill as "mean-spirited" and said it flew in the face of Republicans' stated support for faith and values.

"It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures," Clinton said, "because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself." [my bold - ed.]

Senator, I doubt you even know what the Good Book looks like, but please have your campaign researchers at least make a pass at reading the New Testament before you try to rewrite Luke 10:25-37.

The Good Samaritan, like the priest and the Levite, was an Israeli, and Samaritans exist to this day inside Holon, Israel, and Nablus in the West Bank. The proposed law would not criminalize the Good Samaritan, because he, too is a native citizen of Israel. Jesus Christ, like the Good Samaritan, is also a native son, and not an illegal immigrant.

Your comments, Senator Clinton, were not just calculated to be inflammatory, they were laughably ignorant. Perhaps the next time you are seen near a Bible for a photo-op, you should consider opening it.

Red, or Black?

The Church of the Perpetually Offended is up in arms again, this time over the "fact" that Ben Domenech of the Washington Post's new blog Red America made the "racist" comment that Coretta Scott King was a communist while blogging under the screen name Augustine at RedState. While I do not know if Domenech is Augustine, let's say that he is for argument's sake.

Predictably, the leftists making this charge said far more offensive things then Domenech did when leveling their charge against him, but their hysteria basically boils down to one simple question:

Whether or not Domenech was right about King's politics, when did communism become a race?

Battle Math

The war in Iraq is sometimes a numbers game.

Yesterday:

About 100 masked gunmen stormed a prison near the Iranian border Tuesday, cutting phone wires, freeing all the inmates and leaving behind a scene of devastation--20 dead policemen, burned-out cars and a smoldering jailhouse.

At least 10 attackers were killed in the dawn assault on the Muqdadiyah lockup on the eastern fringe of the Sunni Triangle, police said.

33 inmates were released in the attack, roughly half or (according to some reports, more) were insurgents, and the other half were common criminals. Ten insurgents were thought to have died, along with 20 police officers.

Battle result: 20 Iraqi policemen killed, 16 (est.) insurgents escaped from the prison, and ten insurgents were killed. A rough net “gain” of 26 bodies for the insurgency and a palpable P.R. boost that lasted all of 24 hours.

Today:

Insurgents attacked a police station Wednesday for a second day in a row, but U.S. and Iraqi forces captured 50 of them after a two-hour gun battle.

About 60 gunmen attacked the police station in Madain, south of Baghdad, with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, said police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi. U.S. troops and a special Iraqi police unit responded, catching the insurgents in crossfire, he said.

Four police were killed, including the commander of the special unit, and five were wounded, al-Mohammadawi said. None of the attackers died, and among the captives was a Syrian.

Battle result: 4 Iraqi policemen killed, 0 insurgents escaped from the prison, and 50 insurgents were captured. The result is net “gain” for the day of 46 captured insurgents.

If recent history is any indicator, those captured will provide significant information. Typically, these large-scale captures end up revealing operational details, exposing ammunition caches, and releasing other vital intelligence information that may end up shutting down the insurgency in this area.

The media will more than likely present these two insurgent assaults as being equal, but opposite in effect. This of course is far from true.

The insurgency is much smaller than Iraqi police and military forces, and a two-day net loss of 20 men, especially 20 live men that can threaten the larger network with the information they can reveal, is a far greater loss for the insurgency.

Red America

If a primary goal of newspaper blogging is to attract the attention of readers and start conversations, then WPNI (Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive) knocked it out of the park by launching Ben Domenech's unabashedly conservative political blog, Red America.

The first substantial post, Pachyderms in the Mist: Red America and the MSM, got a huge, on-going, and predictably whiny response from the left side of the blogosphere, who didn't think it was fair having a conservative blogger to balance out Dan Froomkin and William Arkin (a former Greenpeace activist/"National and Homeland Security" blogger, protecting us, presumably, from the threat of kamikaze Japanese whalers).

If generating "buzz" (or for that matter, hysteria) is part of the intent, WPNI has succeeded. The far left are engaging in much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Keep in mind, little liberals, it could have been worse.

The Barry Bonds of Bass

Rusty is taking far too much enjoyment from the fact that the new world record* largemouth bass has been caught--well-foul-hooked-- in California:

World record large mouth bass caught yesterday at Dixon Lake, in San Diego County by Mac Weakley. Yes, the world's biggest bass was caught in California. Take that Confederate Yankee. The fish weighed 25 lbs. 1 oz, breaking the previous record of 22 lbs. 4 ozs set by George W. Perry at Montgomery Lake in Georgia in 1932.

Unfortunately, this giant of a fish was "foul-hooked"--which means that it was hooked in a place other than in the mouth. In other words, Weakly's lure snagged the fish on accident. The IGFA rules, though, only disqualify the fish if it was intentionally fould-hooked [sic]. Regardless of its official position in the record books, this is the biggest bass ever caught.

George Perry's record largemouth was (and may still be) the longest running and most coveted of fishing records, but even if Mac Weakley's 25 pound 1 ounce is deemed the new world record* for largemouth bass, it will carry with it an asterisk like that of Barry Bonds.

Why?

Introduced in 1874 (or 1891, depending on the source) from Midwestern stock, largemouth bass in California are a non-native species. Largemouths from Florida, long considered the thoroughbreds of the species, were introduced in 1959 in an effort to boost the potential size of California bass, which began growing fat on a steady diet of stocked trout. It remains to be seen if BALCO was invlvoed.

A record? Maybe, but every bit as engineered as Barry Bonds.

Civilization vs. Barbarity

In a speech he is to give later this afternoon in London, Tony Blair is correct that the essential nature of the "long war" we continue to fight is an ideological one:

"This is not a clash between civilizations, it is a clash about civilization," Blair will say in a speech this afternoon, according to extracts released by his official spokesman.

"'We' is not the West. 'We' are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu. 'We' are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy, liberty and human rights administered by secular courts," he will say.

While there is no indication that Blair had Afghani Christian Abdul Rahman in mind with this speech, those words easily apply to the case of Rahman, a 40-ish Afghani that converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago, and faces the death penalty in Afghanistan for leaving the “religion of peace.”

I wrote about this last night with some restraint, trying to keep in mind that Afghanis live in a far more primitive, basic culture than our own, one that has not substantially changed in the thousand years since Muslims invaded the Hindu kingdoms of Gandhaar & Vaahic Pradesh. The mountain range which dominates the country was named in honor of one of Islam's greatest genocides; "Hindu Kush" is Persian for "Hindu slaughter." Millions of Hindus were put to the sword or forcibly converted to Islam in Afghanistan, and Islamic bloodlust in Afghanistan seems far from sated.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Abdul Rahman told his family he was a Christian. He told the neighbors, bringing shame upon his home. But then he told the police, and he could no longer be ignored.

Now, in a major test of Afghanistan's fledgling court system, Rahman, 42, faces the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity. Prosecutors say he should die. So do his family, his jailers, even the judge. Rahman has no lawyer. Jail officials refused to let anyone see Rahman on Monday, despite permission granted by the country's justice minister.

"We will cut him into little pieces," said Hosnia Wafayosofi, who works at the jail, as she made a cutting motion with her hands. "There's no need to see him."

Rahman's trial, which started Thursday, is thought to be the first of its kind in Afghanistan. It goes to the heart of the struggle between Islamic reformists and fundamentalists in the country, which is still recovering from 23 years of war and the harsh rule of the Taliban, a radical religious regime that fell in late 2001.

Even under the more moderate government now in power, Islamic law is supposed to be followed, and many believe it requires the death penalty for anyone who leaves Islam for another religion.

"We are Muslim, our fathers were Muslim, our grandfathers were Muslim," said Abdul Manan, Rahman's father, who is 75. "This is an Islamic country. Imagine if your son told a police commander, also a Muslim, that he is a Christian. How would this affect you? It's very difficult for us."

As Tony Blair's speech states, we are not in a clash between civilizations, but a clash about civilization. What Blair has not directly stated is that most Muslim countries have precious little civilization, or practice civilized behavior. They are trapped in a backward culture hundreds of years in the past. While we hoped that bringing democracy to them would be a start, the sadistic nature of fundamentalist Islam bared by the case of Abdul Rahman makes me wonder if a slow conversion to a moremodernized society is the correct course of action after all.

We did not deliver Afghanis from the Taliban to allow Afghanis to perpetrate the same crimes against basic human decency. If this murderous intolerance truly is the essence of fundamentalist Islam, then we need to rethink our basic approach to the "religion of peace."

"A Religion of Tolerance"

Abdul Rahman is on trial for his life in Afghanistan. His crime (h/t Michelle Malkin, who has the round-up) is converting to Christianity:

Despite the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban government and the presence of 22,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a man who converted to Christianity is being prosecuted in Kabul, and a judge said Sunday that if convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Abdul Rahman, who is in his 40s, says he converted to Christianity 16 years ago while working as an aid worker helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Relatives denounced him as a convert during a custody battle over his children, and he was arrested last month. The prosecutor says Rahman was found with a Bible.

So Afghans are willing to take our economic aid to develop their battered infrastructure, our medicines to cure their ills, our EOD teams to clear their mines, and our soldiers to hold the Taliban at bay, and yet they are willing to kill a man because he has taken to heart another contribution from us in Christianity.

The "tolerant" judge hopes for a peaceful resolution:

"We will ask him if he has changed his mind about being a Christian," Mawlazezadah says. "If he has, we will forgive him, because Islam is a religion of tolerance."

Afghan is a country with its own laws, and we cannot force them to accept converts to other religions when the most extreme interpretations of their law supposes they have legal "right" to kill Abdul Rahman.

They, however, do not have any claim to economic or military aid from civilized nations. We have no moral obligation to support a government that would allow Abdul Rahman to be killed. It goes without saying that were we to withdraw our support, the "tolerant" judge himself might meet a judgement of his own at the hands of the remaining elements of the Taliban.

Judge Mawlazezadah should be introduced to an American phrase attributed to Ben Franklin at the signing of our Declaration of Independence:

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

The neck Judge Mawlazezadah saves may be his own.

Utter Liars

It never ceases to amaze me how liberals claim to "support the troops but not the war."

What utter liars they are.

Four months ago in the Iraqi city of Haditha, an IED exploded, killing one Marine and wounding two others. After the explosion, the Marines stormed a nearby building and killed 15 people. Three were children. The Pentagon has now launched a criminal investigation.

Those are the facts.

There is the possibility that the Marines did gun down innocent civilians as local Iraqis claim.

But it is equally as possible that one or more people inside the house opened fire upon the Marines in an ambush after the IED went off. It has happened that way frequently, and that exact scenario left ABC anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt seriously wounded, when the IED attack that wounded them was followed by small arms fire from nearby buildings. The attack was broken when coalition forces counterattacked.

Someone who truly supports the troops, even if they do not support the war, would want this incident fully investigated to uncover the truth. They would want to know the facts.

They would want to know if the Marines fired out of blind rage at the loss of their friends, and they would be equally interested in finding out if the Marines assaulted that location because someone inside fired upon them, as they claimed. Was it a slaughter of innocents, or were insurgents firing from within civilian homes? Were those that triggered the IED among the dead? We do not yet know, and some are already passing judgment.

Steve Clemmons states in his Washington Note:

Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon Investigating Another U.S. Military Atrocity. When will Rumsfeld be held accountable and fired? [my bold. - ed]

A crime has not even been established, and yet Clemmons and his nauseous ilk have already deemed our Marines guilty, and presume to pass sentence.

Steve Soto at the Left Coaster is equally as charitable, asserting:

At a time when Rummy and others say that things in Iraq are better than reported, and that bad news is the result of bloggers and other enemies of the truth, we find out today that if it hadn't been for videotape, the Pentagon would have blamed the deaths of 15 Iraqis including children four months ago on a roadside bomb. In fact, based on a Time magazine article and the inconvenient videotape of the bodies, the Pentagon now confirms they have opened a criminal investigation to see if our own troops gunned down innocent Iraqi civilians and children as a result of that roadside bombing in Haditha. This comes at the same time that Iraqi police are now accusing US soldiers of executing 11 Iraqis last week, including a 75 year-old woman and an infant.

[snip]

Maybe we can call a blogger's ethics conference now on why we are inferior to whatever propaganda is spewed by Rummy. You can bet that if Rummy could have snuffed out that Iraqi journalism student and grabbed that videotape, he would have. [my bold. - ed]

"Support the troops?"

Not ours.

FBI Report Shows Evidence of Civil War

Thousands of news stories have been slavishly devoted to a brewing civil war in Iraq.

Acording to USA Today:

…about 15 Americans and 73 Iraqis are killed or injured each day. A USA TODAY analysis of U.S. military data shows the number of U.S. forces killed during the war has declined steadily since November.

But while preliminary report cites statistics that show a decline in U.S. forces killed, other statistics show an exact opposite trend in another theater of operation far closer to home.

The January-June 2005 murder rate is up 9.3% in cities with a population of 100,000 to 249,999, and the region "spiraling out of control" isn't the Middle East, but is the Midwest, with a murder rate jumping 4.9%.

Forget Baghdad, let's pull out of Des Moines.

Update: Ed Driscoll notes this might be an extension of the Cartoon War.

He's Not Here...

Went to visit with my parents and grandparents this weekend, so weekend posting was virtually nil. I'll be getting back into the swing of things later today...

Shall We Play a Game, Part IV

...In which the ex-USNS San Diego goes to sea, and plots an intercept course for Hurricane Beryl in the continuing "Salvation Navy" narrative over at Beauchamp Tower Corporation's OES Project blog.

More Abuse From Iraq

Task Force 6-26 is under the stark, naked bulb of the New York Times crack investigative staff (the one that never makes mistakes), and picked up something from their unhealthy obsession with abuse at Abu Ghraib:

Most of the people interviewed for this article were midlevel civilian and military Defense Department personnel who worked with Task Force 6-26 and said they witnessed abuses, or who were briefed on its operations over the past three years.

Many were initially reluctant to discuss Task Force 6-26 because its missions are classified. But when pressed repeatedly by reporters who contacted them, they agreed to speak about their experiences and observations out of what they said was anger and disgust over the unit's treatment of detainees and the failure of task force commanders to punish misconduct more aggressively. The critics said the harsh interrogations yielded little information to help capture insurgents or save American lives. [my bold - ed.]

Once again, the Times is unable or unwilling to provide any direct evidence of their charges, relying on anonymous sources and injuries that could have come from combat against American forces or resisting capture as well as the abuse they allege.

I hope survivors of the overzealous NY Times interrogations weren't coerced into giving statements under duress that would free insurgents or endanger American lives.

I'd hate to have to drag Bill Keller in front of a tribunal...

...A Persistent Vegetative State

Let me get this straight:

You cannot believe documents released by un-named government sources, because you cannot vouch for the credibility of the source,

-BUT-

You must believe documents released by un-named government sources, because the credibility of the source must be impeccable for them to want to remain anonymous.

"Paging Dr. Sanity..."

Sea Change

By now, the importance of the information provided by bloggers before, during, and after a major disaster such as a hurricane, earthquake or a tsunami is well-established.

Here in America, bloggers provided much of the accurate first-hand information during Hurricanes Katrina and after landfall, and to this day they—we—continue to play an important role in informing the public and providing perspective about the successes and failures in coping with the storm's aftermath.

If everything goes as is planned, during up-coming hurricane seasons selected bloggers will have even more front-line access:

After a Beauchamp Tower Corporation emergency meeting with state, federal, and local officials, the decision is made to deploy the ex-USNS San Diego at the earliest possible moment of readiness—whether or not the cargo holds have been filled. Food stores onboard will be at less than half capacity, however water and ice supplies are considered more important, therefore the ship will not wait to load all designated supplies before she gets underway.

The announcement that the ex-USNS San Diego is ready to go to sea is made public. Crew members and volunteers are contacted and told to report immediately to the ship. Bloggers and news crews are screened, checked through security, and allowed to board the ex-USNS San Diego. The Bloggers will report from the ship while underway and document the disaster relief efforts of the ex-San Diego and crew for Hurricane Beryl. [my bold -ed.]

Who among us wouldn't like to see someone like hurricane blogger Brendan Loy on board these ships, blogging in real-time as events unfold, or crisp, riveting post-landfall reporting from someone like Michael Yon?

The entire premise of Beauchamp's Operation Enduring Service concept has been based on "thinking outside the box," blending the old-but-serviceable with the cutting edge.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they'd want to apply it to everything they'll touch.

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers. If you feel you're coming in mid-story, you're right. Start here with "Shall..We...Play...A...Game? Part 1," or as I like to call it, "Pimp My 7,000 Ton Ride."

Shall We Play a Game?

BCT/OES has Part 2 of their "Salvation Navy" disaster response narrative up.

Check it out.

Hell no, we won't go...

...to work:

This week, students were protesting a newly passed law that has the support of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, a leading presidential candidate from Chirac's party. The measure, due to go into effect in April, will make it easier to hire and fire young people at a time when the youth unemployment rate averages 23 percent.

The protesters' anger focuses on provisions that will allow companies to fire employees under 26 at any time during their first two years of work, without cause.

"They're offering us nothing but slavery," said Maud Pottier, 17, a student at Jules Verne High School in Sartrouville, north of Paris, who was wrapped in layers of scarves as protection against the chilly, gray day. "You'll get a job knowing that you've got to do every single thing they ask you to do because otherwise you may get sacked. I'd rather spend more time looking for a job and get a real one."

Why, the nerve of employers, expecting you to do what they ask!

It's like these kids expect to have tenure, or something.

Cheese-Eating Tenure Monkeys...

Heh.

Chatter

Several bloggers... okay, a bunch of bloggers... have noticed increasing al Qaeda "chatter" as high or high than the months leading up to 9/11. Many are attaching this "chatter" to a significant date around the corner, the March 20th third anniversary of the U.S invasion of Iraq.

Some folks are spooked over the possibility that the NCAA mens's basketball tournament might be a target, and today's scare in San Diego didn't help to quite that theory.

Quite frankly, if I were an al Qaeda planner, a basketball game wouldn't be my first pick.

I'd consider the NCAA tournament arenas too hard of a target to easily penetrate, without enough civilian targets to warrant the effort needed for a major attack. The Twin Towers were "soft" targets to a certain extent and had roughly 50,000 potential victims. Why waste limited resources on a post-9/11 basketball arena with increased security, an unfavorable layout, and far fewer people? It doesn't make the most tactical sense.

And there are other issues.

In addition to pure carnage, al Qaeda is also into symbolism. The Twin Towers were a symbol of our economic reach and might, just as the Pentagon was the symbol of our military power. Flight 93 ended up in a field in Shanksville, PA, but was more than likely targeted at one of the seats of our political power, either the White House or the U.S Capitol.

If you were a terrorist planner, imagine a scenario where:

• the potential victim pool more than twice that of the Twin Towers
• the target is "soft," completely exploitable in some way
• there is some cultural significance to the target
• the attack can be tied to a culturally important date

If you were a member of al Qaeda with that tempting target in front of you, what would you say?

How about, “Gentlemen, start your engines.”

NASCAR, while scoffed at by some, is the second most popular professional sport in U.S. television ratings, and draws by far the largest crowds of any U.S sporting event. The NEXTEL Cup Series is the premiere division of NASCAR, and they happen to be racing at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, a 1.5-mile track, this Sunday, March 19.

By the time the race starts at 1:30 PM local time (9:30 PM in the evening in the Middle East), up to 125,000 fans could be in attendance, along with the dozens of drivers to which fans have developed fierce loyalties.

An unmodified single-engine plane can carry a bioweapon agent over this concentrated open-air target, disperse it into the crowd by the crudest of means, simply pouring (a powder) or spraying (an aerosol) over the grandstands and infield, and run a significant chance of infecting hundreds or thousands or more, just before intentionally crashing the plane into the stands in horrific fireball in front of a live nationwide audience.

Footage of the crash is sure to be played over and over again on the 20th throughout the Middle East, with credit claimed by al Qaeda on the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

It could be hours or days later after infected fans have scattered to their hometowns across the country that symptoms begin to show, with a predictable public panic ensuing in a country already primed by the media for an avian flu epidemic.

Chatter?

I sure hope the NSA is listening...

Which One of these Things is Not Like the Other?

As folks on the right and left are both botching their reporting on Operation Swarmer, which CNN accurately reports (for a change) as the "largest air assault operation since the invasion of Iraq nearly three years ago" I want to take a second to get things straightened out.

The is a huge difference between an "air assault" and a "bombing raid."

This is a Blackhawk helicopter, most often used to transport men and equipment to combat zones:

This is a F/A-18 Hornet, one of the premiere strike fighters in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and an aircraft often called upon to drop guided and unguided bombs on the bad guys:

Now, which do you see warming up on the runway in this CNN photo prior to Operation Swarmer?

An "airborne assault" is moving infantry units via air transport to a combat zone. It is often accomplished via helicopters, but can also be accomplished by dropping soldiers from airplanes via parachutes or in glider insertions, though I don't think we've used gliders since Operation Market Garden in World War II.

We've been using helicopter air assaults for over 40 years, and bringing soldiers to a combat zone by helicopter is quite different than an airstrike dropping bombs.

Let's see if we can keep that little detail straight, okay?

No Greater Joy Than Murdering a Child

Here in North Carolina, a sick story has been developing about a woman that murdered her adopted 4-year-old son last month and beat two others with lengths of plumbing pipe. Most of us would prefer to think of the murder of Sean Paddock as the depraved act of an isolated psychopath. But Lynn Paddock, now charged with first-degree murder and possibly facing the death penalty, did not come to such acts of brutality without guidance.

No, Lynn Paddock got her ideas on how to discipline her children from the web site and books of an evangelical minister and his wife that advocate something that certainly sounds like child abuse.

From the Raleigh News & Observer:

Paddock -- a Johnston County mother accused of murdering Sean, her 4-year-old adopted son, and beating two other adopted children -- surfed the Internet, said her attorney, Michael Reece. She found literature by an evangelical minister and his wife who recommended using plumbing supply lines to spank misbehaving children.

Paddock ordered Michael and Debi Pearl's books and started spanking her adopted children as suggested. After Sean, the youngest of Paddock's six adopted children, died last month, his older sister and brother told investigators about Paddock's spankings.

Sean's 9-year-old brother was beaten so badly he limped, a prosecutor said. Bruises marred Sean's backside, too, doctors found.

Sean died after being wrapped so tightly in blankets he suffocated. That, too, was a form of punishment, Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell said.

The Pearls' advice from their Web site: A swift whack with the plastic tubing would sting but not bruise. Give 10 licks at a time, more if the child resists. Be careful about using it in front of others -- even at church; nosy neighbors might call social workers. Save hands for nurturing, not disciplining. Heed the warning, taken from Proverbs in the Old Testament, that sparing the rod will spoil the child.

The Pearls' website No GreaterJoy.org does indeed condone the "advice" such as that above, which most sane people would consider not only outright child abuse, but an acknowledgement that is could invite investigation if used "in front of others." Of "¼ inch supply line" they state, "It's a real attention-getter."

I am no opponent of corporal punishment. I got spankings as a kid when I deserved them, I earned every one, and avoided a few I deserved. But there is no "fine line" between discipline and beatings worse than we'd allow any al Qaeda POW to suffer.

Michael and Debi Pearl seem to be advocates of outright child abuse, calling on parents to hit children with PVC pipe no less than ten times, and "more if the child resists", as the News & Observer reports.

The Pearls have a Contact page on their web site. I suggest you use it, and politely tell them you do not condone the beating of children with construction products.

Better yet, contact:

Mr. Davis is up for re-election in the Williamson County Republican Primary Election for the 21st District on May 2, 2006. While Mr. Pearl is running unopposed in the primary, I'm sure that his electorate would like to know why the Pearls have been allowed to sell more than 400,00 copies of a book advocating what sounds like child abuse under his very nose.

Also contact the newsroom at the Nashville Tennessean , at newstips@tennessean.com and ask them why this has been allowed to go on in Williamson County.

"Suffer the little children," no more.

Overcoming The "Viagra Theory" of Home Defense

Via Instapundit, I see that a blogger by the name of Miss Kelly is looking for shotgun advice:

National Buy a Gun Day is only 30 days away! I have a great little .22 Browning rifle for plinking, but my husband and I are looking to purchase a shotgun for home security. Not sure what's the best shotgun to get for this, although I'm leaning towards a pump action for the sound effects, which I'm told can be a good deterrent. Would love to hear recommendations from folks. Also wondering if we can get a shotgun that can also be used for trap or skeet, or are guns just too specialized these days? Looking for cost info too, for new and used. Thanks for your advice!

As you may imagine, she's picked up a lot of advice... and most of it is bad. As a matter of fact, I guarantee someone reading this post right now is already thinking about a 12-gauge pump stoked with 00-Buck, without first bothering to really digest the questions in her post.

Let's look over her request again, shall we?

What she did and didn't say…
She wants a shotgun ("leaning towards a pump") for "home security" (we'll define that later) and possibly trap/skeet shooting. She is willing to look at used firearms. Let's go from there.

Looking at her profile, it seems she lives in Massachusetts (not the most gun-friendly state), and she lives with her husband and some animals, but no children seem to be present in the household.

We do not know if she lives in an apartment or condominium, or if she lives in a home, if she lives in a high-density suburban area or if she lives in a rural location. We do not know if she or her husband have any physical limitations. We do not even know the basic layout of her dwelling. It would be nice to have more specifics about all of these things, but we'll make do with information we have.

We'll have to assume she and her husband are healthy, and probably in middle age. As we don't know for certain that there aren't children present, and as Massachusetts is a fairly dense state population-wise, we'll assume for safety's sake that there are other inhabited dwellings in close proximity.

Defining weapon parameters
First, we know that Miss Kelly is looking for a shotgun. This fact has been no deterrent to at least 13 people make comments about other weapons so far. Nice to know they are listening, isn't it?

We also know that the users of this shotgun will be a male and female. While Miss Kelley didn't give her measurements, lets assume she is the "average" American woman of about 5'4" with proportional arms and legs for her height. Any shotgun we pick must be able to be used effectively by her to be, well, effective.

So what do our intrepid commentors at Miss Kelly's give us (those that can remember to focus on shotguns, that is)? No less than 18 posts about variations of the tricked-out pump-action 12-guage combat shotgun, a weapon designed for relatively large, healthy, men.

Following the "Viagra" theory of defense, these folks think bigger and the more enhancements and attachments you can add on, the better it is. That might work for some devices that a woman might to keep in her bedroom, but Miss Kelly is interested in shotguns.

She needs one that will fit her needs, not theirs.

"Home Security"
The phrase “home security” means different things to different people, and a lot of the weapons choices made, paint a picture of people preparing for sustained offensive urban combat operations.

Unless we wake up in al-Anbar in the morning, this is not our reality.

In our world, home security means retreating to a defensible point in your home and firing your weapon only when given no other choice, and firing only until the threat ends. Nothing more than that is legally justifiable.

This is a defensive situation, not an offense one.

Choosing the Home Defense Shotgun
Miss Kelly would be best served by a shotgun designed for the smaller stature of women and teens, and many men will be surprised to find the shortened stocks, smaller gauges and lighter overall weight of these weapons can be desirable, especially in the close confines of a home security situation.

As she has only noted experience with a .22 rifle, and the defensive shotgun will be used indoors in the confined spaces of her home and possibly at night, recoil, flash, noise and penetration are all critical factors in choosing a shotgun as well.

Luckily, O.F. Mossberg, the company that won the U.S. Military contract for combat shotguns in 1979, was diligent, and did their homework for the home security market as well. Their suggestion is a .410 pump called the HS 410.

A .410?

The smallest of the shotgun calibers does seem like an odd choice to those of the "bigger is better" philosophy and it would be an odd choice for a police or military weapon, but it makes perfect sense for a home security shotgun.

A .410 shotgun, at the typical home security distance of near-contact range out to 25 feet, has more short-range stopping power than the vaunted .45 ACP, the .357 Magnum, or the .44 Magnum. The .410 won't deafen you the way a 12 or 20 gauge shotgun could, not will it have excessive muzzle flash or recoil.

In addition—and this is very important—the .410, loaded with birdshot will not over-penetrate walls as 12 and 20 gauge shotguns typically will. All bullets fired by pistols and rifles (even .22s) will easily over-penetrate multiple layers of sheetrock, going into other rooms or even other homes, potentially wounding or killing someone other than your intended target.

Not a great choice for the beginning skeet or trap shooter, a 410 pump is a shotgun Miss Kelly and her husband can learn to shoot well and confidentially in a minimal amount of time, with enough stopping power to immediately stop anyone who invades her home at a reduced danger to others in the area.

Bigger may be better for some applications in the bedroom, but not for home security shotguns.

Mary Mapes joins the Huffington Post?

No, not really.

Just Arianna Huffington herself, busted for being fake, but accurate about a George Clooney blog post he never wrote.

Duck and Cover

"It's like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet."

Sure, we could be talking about the ballistic missile intercept program, but we're not.

We're talking about much more elusive targets:

"I haven't read it," demurred Barack Obama (Ill.).

"I just don't have enough information," protested Ben Nelson (Neb.). "I really can't right now," John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters -- an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski (Md.).

"Ask her after lunch," offered Clinton's spokesman, Philippe Reines. But Clinton, with most of her colleagues, fled the lunch out a back door as if escaping a fire.

Even though Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold was firing blanks in his pandering to the far left for his expected '08 Democratic Presidential primary run, the shots scattered Senate Democrats as effectively as live rounds.

While Democrats are more than willing to play partisan politics with American lives as they continue attacking the President for his executive order authorizing an NSA terrorist surveillance program, they are not willing to put their own reputations on the lines during an election year, even if they believe the program is wrong.

Cowardly to the core?

Obviously.

But this is politics, and today's Democrats have a tradition of trying to hide what the really believe in order to get elected.

As this is an election year, Democrats are more than willing to snipe at the President if they think it helps them. They'll quickly turn and run, however—as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid and almost every other Democrat has done—if there is the threat of any accountability for their actions from voters.

Top Democrats cannot say what they really feel, which is in line with Radical Russ and the MoveOn.org/George Soros wing of the party that finances their campaigns, because they'd then lose the moderate voter that they must have to win elections. For Democrats, being pinned down and forced to display their true colors (white or yellow) is a losing proposition.

They have no choice now but to duck and cover, and hope they can outlast the storm.

Runaway Dems

In this modern age of on-demand printing, it takes almost no time at all before current events can be turned into a book.

This one is about Russ Feingold's attempt to censure President Bush without his own party's apparent knowledge.

.

Who...

...let the nuts out?

Watch for updates...

Update: Where did it go? I guess the bong hits finally wore off...

Pimp My Ship

I've written several times in the past about Beauchamp Tower Corporation and their plan to convert retired Navy ships into a small fleet of state-of-the-art disaster-response vessels that would greatly increase the nation's capability to respond to both major terrorist attacks and natural disasters such as hurricanes, all without costing the taxpayer a single dime. As a matter of fact, the corporate sponsor-backed program could save the government up to $100 million by taking over old ships the government is spending millions to scrap.

The BTC blog has a new/old post up called Shall...We...Play..A...Game? Part 1, which discusses the birth of what I've dubbed the "Salvation Navy" in narrative form.

If you like to see how things work, BTC will be putting up a post a day describing in both broad strokes, and in small detail, what the program will be like from it's inception and the first "Pimp My Ship" refitting process, through BTC's first hypothetical hurricane response.

I think you'll like it.

Democratic Party Now Comes With Warning Labels

Don't you just love truth in advertising?

Name That Bang-Stick

Being something of a gun geek, I usually can identify modern military firearms at a glance, but this photo of Jordanian Army counter-terrorists has me almost stumped.

To me it looks like a H&K G36C. Can anyone confirm this?

The Case for Targeting Tehran

The Jerusalem Post reports that the Pentagon is looking into the possibility of striking Iran's nuclear facilities, as Iran may force a military response by refusing to back down from the further development of a nuclear weapons program, despite growing international pressure.

I covered the subject in Thunder over Iran in December in some detail, and do not doubt for a second that the IDF/AF is capable of inflicting significant damage on Iran's nuclear facilities if they do take this route. Damage, of course, could be far more extensive if Israeli commando units on the ground, or other allied air and ground forces also participated in the strike. Unsurprisingly, Great Britain and the United States have assets in the region capable of conducting such a strike.

What remains shrouded in doubt is the retaliatory capability and intentions of Iran and its allies.

Iran is rumored in some circles to already have some nuclear weapons capability, but those rumors are far from confirmed. Iran can, however, potentially strike Israel with its Shihab-3 missile carrying conventional or non-nuclear WMDs that it may have in its possession. A WMD strike by Iran would be counterproductive and justify more reprisal attacks against it, but as Iran has not missed a chance to make a bad decision to date, so it would hardly be surprising if this eventuality happened.

There is also the probability that Iran's ally Syria might be pushed by Tehran to honor their mutual defense pact by launching an attack against Israel, but I suspect that Syria would not uphold their end of the agreement. Faced with an unstable regime at home and the quite real possibility of crushing military defeat at the hands of the IDF in the east and an a nearly-assured response (or threat of a response) from U.S. air and armored forces stationed in Iraq's al-Anbar province to the west, not to mention the very real possibility of a coup at home, Syria's strongman would likely chose to sit this one out.

If Assad does not honor the pact, he risks losing the support of his Iranian ally. If he does honor the pact, he risks losing his country. Either eventually is a plus for the United States and Israel.

Iran-supported terrorist organization Hamas would almost certainly attack Israel with a spate of suicide bombings and rocket attacks in response to an Israeli strike on Iran, but this would actually play into the hands of the Israelis, further delegitimizing the Hamas-led Palestinian government and providing Israel with an excuse to crack down harder against Hamas and other terrorist organizations in the West Bank, Gaza, and southern Lebanon. Again, an armed retaliatory response is likely to be more of a benefit to Israel.

In many respects, the continued press forward by the Iranian government with their nuclear ambitions could very well trigger a small war that changes the fate of Iran's mullahs, their relationship if not the very existence of their Baathist allies in Syria, and the continued existence of Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

I have a better question for the Pentagon's planners: Why shouldn't Israel bomb Iran's nuclear sites?

Choices

Aurora, or Batesville?

I turn 35 today. Funerary contributions are appreciated...

Wisconsin's Shame

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) has announced that on Monday, March 13, he will introduce a resolution into the Senate to censure President George W. Bush for the warrantless surveillance of suspected terrorists in foreign countries trying to communicate with contacts here in the United States.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Democratic Presidential hopeful for this unexpected and quite welcome 35th birthday present.

The good Senator was nice enough to post the rationale for his censure resolution on his Senate web site. Not surprisingly, the political left is utterly delighted with Feingold's charges. They are not the only ones.

So what exactly does the good Senator advocate? He begins:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has announced that he will introduce a resolution in the U.S. Senate on Monday to censure the President of the United States. Feingold's resolution condemns the President's actions in authorizing the illegal wiretapping program and then misleading the country about the existence and legality of the program. Feingold calls the resolution an appropriate and responsible step for Congress to take in response to the President's undermining of the separation of powers and ignoring the rule of law.

"The President must be held accountable for authorizing a program that clearly violates the law and then misleading the country about its existence and its legality," Feingold said. "The President's actions, as well as his misleading statements to both Congress and the public about the program, demand a serious response. If Congress does not censure the President, we will be tacitly condoning his actions, and undermining both the separation of powers and the rule of law."

The President's illegal wiretapping program is in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISA law makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order. The Bush Administration has obtained thousands of FISA warrants since September 11th and has almost never been rejected by the FISA court. FISA even allows wiretaps to be executed immediately in an emergency as long as the government obtains a warrant within 72 hours.

"This issue is not about whether the government should be wiretapping terrorists – of course it should, and it can under current law" Feingold said. "But this President and this Administration decided to break the law and they have yet to give a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate, or legal. Passing more laws will not change the fact that the President broke the ones already in place and for that, Congress must hold him accountable."

Feingold's basic charges are these:

• President Bush created a program that violated FISA which, "makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order."
• President Bush mislead the country about the existence of the program.
• President Bush mislead the country about the legality of this program.
• Congress must hold President Bush accountable because, "this President and this Administration decided to break the law and they have yet to give a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate, or legal."

Let's address these charges point-by-point.

Charge 1: President Bush created a program that violated FISA which, "makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order."

Feingold is correct only in that FISA does make it illegal to "wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order."

But the NSA surveillance of these suspected terrorist communications only intercepted communications, outside of the United States. Former NSA director General Michael V. Hayden implemented the surveillance program and states [ed. - my bold]:

This is not about intercepting conversations between people in the United States. This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al Qaeda. We bring to bear all the technology we can to ensure that this is so. And if there were ever an anomaly, and we discovered that there had been an inadvertent intercept of a domestic-to-domestic call, that intercept would be destroyed and not reported. But the incident, what we call inadvertent collection, would be recorded and reported. But that's a normal NSA procedure. It's been our procedure for the last quarter century. And as always, as we always do when dealing with U.S. person information, as I said earlier, U.S. identities are expunged when they're not essential to understanding the intelligence value of any report. Again, that's a normal NSA procedure.

So let me make this clear. When you're talking to your daughter at state college, this program cannot intercept your conversations. And when she takes a semester abroad to complete her Arabic studies, this program will not intercept your communications.

Not one soul, not one single soul, has ever in any way, been able to substantiate the false charge that this was a domestic spying program as it has been reported in the media and by politically motivated Democrats, including Russ Feingold, in the past.

On the first charge of his censure resolution, Democratic Senator Russ Feingold is not only incorrect, but wildly incorrect in his assertions as stated by the very man who implemented the program to intercept terrorist communications outside of the United States.

Charge 2: President Bush mislead the country about the existence of the program.

Is Senator Feingold making the charge that the President has the obligation to announce to the country and the world that he has authorized the NSA to intercept the communications of al Qaeda suspects if someone merely asks about it? The President is under some sort of obligation to blurt out top secret information if someone merely gets close?

It appears that is exactly the Wisconsin Democrat's argument.

He then cites three instances where President Bush did not inform the nation about warrantless wiretaps.

Note that Senator Feingold focuses on the word wiretaps. Note in General Hayden's speech that he never uses the word wiretap once.

Not only is Senator Russ Feingold—a potential Democratic Presidential contender in 2008—making the astonishing claim that secret intelligence programs should not apparently be kept secret, he appears to make the attempt to mislead the American public about the very nature of the NSA intelligence program by calling it wiretapping.

Russ Feingold makes an insane "rule" about being utterly revealing to the point of self-defeat, and immediately violates that rule himself.

Charge 3: President Bush mislead the country about the legality of this program.

Once again, Senator Feingold makes a charge, but has shown neither the willingness nor the ability to support it.

Two Attorney's General, White House counsel, the top legal minds of the National Security Administration, and top Justice Department lawyers 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 Dept. of Justice brief (PDF) strongly asserts that warrants are not required for this kind of international surveillance. FISA simply does not apply. Even if FISA did apply to this program, FISA would be illegal, not the NSA's program. The President has a duty as Commander-in-Chief (sorry Glenn, but those are the facts as they are, not as you would have them) to direct military assets such as the National Security Agency to conduct foreign surveillance, as collecting intelligence about enemy forces is a unquestioningly part of normal war-fighting activities.

No one—not one single soul—can say categorically with any objectivity that the President's executive order is illegal. A case against the program has not been adjudicated, and the majority of those with explicit access to the details of the program hold it to be legal. It may be in doubt, but it is far from being held to conclusively be illegal.

Once again, Democratic Senator Feingold falls far short of supporting his charges.

Charge 4: Congress must hold President Bush accountable because, "this President and this Administration decided to break the law and they have yet to give a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate, or legal."

And yet, Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, has not provided any evidence that so much as one single law was broken. No case has been decided or even tried to show that this foreign terrorist surveillance program was illegal, immoral or even improper, and those experts (not pundits, but experts) most familiar with the specific, classified details of the program overwhelmingly support its legality.

Senator Feingold doesn't seem to regard the increasingly bold attacks of radical Islamic terrorism over the past 30 years is "a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate, or legal."

Why is the President is more worthy of attack from this Wisconsin Democrat than is radical Islamic terrorism? Because Russ Feingold's Presidential aspirations comes first. Defending America... well, that's further down the line.

Update: Minor language revisions made for clarity.

Update 2: A.J. Strata has what is (IMO) a pretty fair assessment of how Feingold's grandstanding is ripping liberals apart from the rest of the Democratic Party.

Man Down

I just found out that someone I know was shot in a hunting incident that sounds eerily like Vice President Cheney's accident with Harry Whittington several weeks ago.

I don't have all the facts, but apparently "E." had a successful quail hunt and swung by the club. He ran into another member and his son who wanted to go out, and being more experienced, he volunteered to take them.

They flushed the first bird, and the young man froze. They flushed a second bird and again the young man froze. I'm sure he was probably embarrassed, and when they flushed the third quail, he concentrated so hard...

He fired at the quail just as he swung into both E. and his own dad. His father took four or five birdshot without any serious injuries.

E. wasn't quite as lucky.

He took 44 birdshot to the right side of his face, including two in the right eye. One of those continued through his eye, into his brain. Miraculously, he wasn't killed. He'll find out later this week if they can repair his right eye. He could lose his sight. They'll also try to determine if they will need to remove the shot lodged in his brain, or if it is safer to let it remain where it is.

If any of my readers are praying folks, I'd ask you to say two prayers.

The first is for E. and his family, asking that E. has a full recovery. The second prayer is for this young man, who was only 12. He certainly meant no harm, and this is bound to have devastating effects on him and his family as well.

Strategery Babies

We went to my hometown today to meet the newest member of my family today, and I was tickled at not only how cute he was, but how quickly Phin adapted to the "Mr. Mom" role as the new mom recovered from her ordeal. He looked like he'd been raising kids all his life. Color me impressed.

We also found out that my new nephew willl only be the newest baby in the family for about seven months. My other brother and his wife revealed tonight they are expecting in early October.

It's all part of a Rovian plot, of course.

We don't only out-think liberals, we out-breed them as well.

That's strategery, baby.

Fancy Lies

Certain liberal bloggers are all atwitter over the "racism" displayed in a web site put forth by the National Republican Senatorial Committee called FancyFord.com that targets Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford, Jr.

Jesse Berney runs the screamer, Elizabeth Dole is a racist, and calls FancyFord.com, "a racist attack site" that in Jesse's bleary eyes, has but one goal:

What's the message behind this site? The line of white women on the front page, the fact that it highlights his attendance at NBA All Star events featuring Biz Markie, the emphasis on opulence all combine to portray Ford as a pimp. The site tries to be subtle in its racism, but it fails.

Pam's House Blend agrees:

The Fancy Ford web site is something to behold and cherish. It tells you all that you need to know about where the great minds of the GOP are when it comes to campaigning -- it's still all about playing on race, racial history and the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways of invoking the uppity Negro in Southern politics.

Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest senses the theme:

A black man is runing[sic] for Senator in Tennessee. How does the Republican Party campaign? With blatant racism, what else? Basketball, white women, portraying him as a pimp... There's probably something about driving a Cadillac, but I got sick of looking at the site.

And last but not least is Steve Gilliard, who puts up a picture of hip-hop star 50 Cent (a George W. Bush fan) and says, "When you see Harold Ford, the NRSC wants you to see him."

It seems that among these liberals at least, there is pretty close to unanimous agreement that FancyFord.com is a vile, racist site set up with the goal of portraying Tennessee Democratic Congressional Representative Harold Ford, Jr as a pimp.

As a southern white racist RepubliKKKan (if you don't believe that I am, just ask any of those named above), I took off my hood, put down my copy of Lynching for Dummies, and eagerly clicked over to FancyFord.com to see what all the hubbub was about.

Boy, were the Kleagle and I disappointed.

Try as I might to find some good, old-fashioned references to plantations, Sambo, the master-slave relationship, and the inability of black folks to swim, I just couldn't find it. (Well I could, but it was here, instead). Nor could I find any modern-day references to gangs, homies, or gats (though I did find two mentions of a Playboy Superbowl Party at Hef's that is close enough for "ho's," I suppose).

Imagine my disappointment when the site seemed not to be about race, but a Congessman living the high life off his campaign money!

Jesse, you got my hopes up, just to let me down.

You didn't mention that the "NBA All Star events featuring Biz Markie" was a political fundraiser featuring such notables as Sheila Jackson Lee, U.S. Congressman Al Green and Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis. Granted, I'm sure something was being sold for all that cash, but I think it was influence, not honeys. That isn't racist. It's Congress.

Pam got me going with all her talk about, "the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways of invoking the uppity Negro in Southern politics," But all I found was several pages showing sourced material that puts him in the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, or passing out expensive Davidoff cigars to those hosting his fundraising receptions. Now, being a dumb old racist redneck, I'm not sure how exclusive Hollywood hotels, imported cigars, and Armani suits play into "the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways of invoking the uppity Negro," but if it actually does that, can he be uppity at my place, please?

And Dave, I tried, but I couldn't find any references to "pimped out" Caddy either, no matter how hard I tried.

You know, I'm starting to think y'all were just putting me on…

Cowardice at Carolina

Chancellor James Moeser of UNC-Chapel Hill refused to name last week's attempted mass murder of Carolina students a terrorist act, even though the suspect admitted that perceived affronts to Islam were the motivation for his attack.

Moeser said of the vehicular assault that intended to kill students in his charge:

"The fact is, this is not the university's call," Moeser said. "The U.S. attorney will determine whether or not this is an act of terrorism."

Perhaps the chancellor is waiting for the U.S. Attorney to read this definition of terrorism to him from Dictionary.com:

The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Mohammed Taheri-azar's "Jeep Jihad" was an unlawful use of force by a person against people with the intention of intimidating and coercing a society he thought was hostile to Islam. He stated in his 911 call, "It was really to punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world." Is this nakedly an ideological reason? This was a textbook case of the very definition of terrorism, and yet Chancellor Moeser lacks the fortitude to address this terrorist attack for what it was.

Instead, he argues:

"I agree, this could feel like terrorism, especially if you're standing in front of a Jeep that's heading toward you trying to kill you," Moeser said. "As we have investigated this, we've come more and more to the conclusion that this was one individual acting alone in a criminal act."

Perhaps Moeser would like to pretend that crazed individuals and isolated groups are not capable of terrorism. I'd have him remember Timothy McVeigh, Eric Robert Rudolph or Theodore Kaczynski. Dare he not call them terrorists?

Or does Moeser object more to the method of the madness? Will only pipe-bombs full of ball bearings or a spray of machine gun bullets meet his lofty threshold of acceptably terrorist behavior?

Perhaps he is not psychologically equipped to handle the fact that his university was the target of a terrorist act, and so he would like to ignore it and return to business as usual. But ignoring the problem is not the kind of leadership we expect from our flagship university, or it's chief adminstrator.

Waiting for the permission to state the obvious isn't leadership at all.

More Katrina Incomptence

Can we bring Michael Brown back? At least he has experience handling quadrupeds:

Game wardens Wayde Carter and Roger Guay said Louisiana apparently didn't make the proper arrangements with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to guarantee them housing after Thursday night, and their supervisor, Maj. Greg Sanborn, has called them back to Maine.

The wardens were to stay in New Orleans until March 21.

Carter and Guay, on loan from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, arrived in Louisiana from Maine late last week.

The story goes on to mention:

According to FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews, the agency has paid for a block of rooms at the hotel, and she promised to follow up on the men's dilemma Thursday.

Carter and Guay said that Tuesday night, a FEMA representative greeted them at the hotel with a disclosure form asking them to identify themselves as long-term evacuees needing financial assistance; the men said they refused.

A canine team from south Georgia also may leave New Orleans.

To sum up: Louisiana's government is still bumbling and incompetent and unable to handle even small-scale outside help, and FEMA is still strangling in irrelevant paperwork instead of getting the job done.

Pathetic.

On the Sunken Ports Deal

David Ignatius hits the nail on the head in his Washington Post editorial:

Arab radicals will be gloating, admonishing the UAE leaders, "We told you so." But officials here recognize that they're in a common fight with us against al-Qaeda. And unlike some Arab nations, the UAE really is fighting -- reforming its education system to block Islamic zealots and taking public stands with the United States despite terrorist threats. They have created one of the best intelligence services in the Arab world, and their special forces will be fighting quietly alongside the United States in Afghanistan tomorrow, and the day after.

President Bush tried to do the right thing on the Dubai ports deal, but he got rolled by a runaway Congress. The collapse of the deal was a measure of Bush's political weakness -- but even more, of America's traumatized post-Sept. 11 politics. The ironic fact is that the UAE is precisely the kind of Arab ally the United States needs most now. But that clearly didn't matter to an election-year Congress, which responded to the Dubai deal with a frenzy of Muslim-bashing disguised as concern about terrorism. And we wonder why the rest of the world doesn't like us.

Congress failed America last night. Try to remember that in November.

Brutalized, With a Smile

Sorry, Ramstein. Mother Sheehan won't be protesting you after all.

Sheehan is due to arrive in Frankfurt on Thursday. Despite uncertainty clouding Sheehan's visit, protesters and counterprotesters still plan to gather outside Ramstein Air Base on Saturday afternoon.

Sheehan was arrested Monday in New York City outside the U.S. mission to the United Nations when she and other protesters attempted to deliver a petition calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Her condition raises doubts as to whether she will make the trip to Germany and France.

"If I am there, I won't be anywhere near the air force base ... or participate in the march," wrote Sheehan on Wednesday. "I was brutalized in New York the other day by the NYPD (New York Police Department) and I need to go to the doctor today (Wednesday)."

Perhaps Sheehan's injuries resulted from police brutality, but if that occurred, no one else seemed to have noticed, except for Sheehan ally al-Jazeera, which found something else repulsive about the event. I'll let you guess what:

No muffin tops in Mecca, kids.

Sheehan was part of a miniscule gaggle of anti-war activists (a dozen total), four of which were arrested Monday as they blocked the doors to U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The four were arrested for criminal trespassing and resisting arrest.

Was Cindy Sheehan "brutalized" as she claimed to the media? She hasn't filed a complaint against the police force, nor has anyone other than Sheehan made the allegation despite heavy press coverage of the event, but you be the judge of these pictures of the arrest pulled from Yahoo!

Sheehan is pulled away from the other protestors who have locked arms and legs with her. You can see someone's right hand grasping tightly to Sheehan's left thigh, and the same protestor locking both legs around both of Sheehan's legs. Sheehan appears to be holding on tightly to her fellow protestors with her left hand as well, as a police officer, screen by another officer, attempts to separate Sheehan by pulling on her right arm. There is a grimace on Sheehan's face, but I think it is one resulting from her determination not to let go of her friends rather than any brutality by the police.

A police officer controls Sheehan and reaches for his handcuffs after Sheehan is separated from her group. Note he is not being rough on her, or using force or a great degree of leverage against her. His control consists of grabbing a handful of fabric. There is no brutality evident, except in the face of the police officers, who appear to have become nauseous for some unexplained reason.

I'm starting to appreciate the photo-editing of al-Jazeera, if not their editorial slant. As Sheehan is being led away, she has a grim smile on her face, but does not appear to be in any physical pain. Note the officer on the left escorting her only has his hand lightly looped around Sheehan's arm.

Sheehan's smile persists as she is led away by the same officer as in the previous photo, who appears to be far more bored than abusive.

Was Cindy Sheehan exposed to police brutality as she was arrested? Not in any way that any sane or sober person would note. Could she have been injured during her arrest? Possibly, but any blame for that is surely shared by Cindy and her fellow protestors, who locked limbs and attempted to resist arrest, while police used only necessary force to disengage them and affect arrests.

Cindy Sheehan appears to be fabricating her story of police brutality to bring herself more attention.

Shocking, I know.

The Spawnling Hatched

I'm "Uncle Bob" again.

My blogging brother's beautiful wife gave birth to their first child last night, a handsome baby boy, weighing in at 8-14. Head on over and congratulate them, won't you?

Shocking New Poll: Americans Don't Like Being Blown Up by Islamic Terrorists

Anytime you get the Washington Post (home of the 1,300 imaginary dead at the Baghdad morgue) together with James Zogby (of the discredited military poll) you know that anything they come up with will be highly suspect.

You would hope that they'd get past the first sentence, however:

As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year, a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam, and a majority now say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The invasion of Iraq began March 20, 2003. It is currently March 9, 2006. By my count, we've been in Iraq 2 years, 354 days. "Grinding" into a fourth year? Not yet.

But on to the rest of the story:

The poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence.

While this may seem shocking at first, upon reflection, this would seem to make sense. The terrorist attacks of September 11 cold be easily chalked up to a small subset of radicals. Events since then have consistently painted a darkening picture of Islam, with the defining moments for many still occurring for many right now. The "cartoon war" still echoes around the world, a terrorist organization is elected in Palestine, and Iran seeks nuclear weapons to annihilate Israel, with the much-vaunted "moderate" Islam still as rare and frequently seen as unicorns.

Conservative and liberal experts said Americans' attitudes about Islam are fueled in part by political statements and media reports that focus almost solely on the actions of Muslim extremists.

According to the poll, the proportion of Americans who believe that Islam helps to stoke violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled since the attacks, from 14 percent in January 2002 to 33 percent today.

Again, we are forced to focus on the acts of Muslim extremists because any other kind of Muslim in an activist, leadership position is in short supply. Perhaps Americans believe that Muslims stoke violence because Muslims fund the terrorists, Muslims detonate IEDs, Muslims behead Christian schoolgirls, and blow themselves up to murder busloads of innocent civilians. Seeing, after all...

Could it possibly be that the perception of Muslim violence comes from the fact that Muslims act violently, again and again and again?

The survey also found that one in three Americans have heard prejudiced comments about Muslims lately. In a separate question, slightly more (43 percent) reported having heard negative remarks about Arabs. One in four Americans admitted to harboring prejudice toward Muslims, the same proportion that expressed some personal bias against Arabs.

Though the two groups are often linked in popular discourse, most of the world's Muslims are not of Arab descent. For example, the country with the largest Muslim population is Indonesia.

So did you here the one about the Cowboy, the Indian, and the Muslim?

We are at war with Arab terrorists that profess the Muslim religion as the basis for their war against us. I think we have the right to doubt their motives at the very least, and we certainly have a right to joke about them, though they're willing to go to war even over that. Arab Muslims have proven to be the most violent towards westerners, but that does not give non-Arab Muslims a pass. It is the religion that we have reason to suspect, not a particular race practicing it.

The rest of the article is worth a read—or not—but don't expect anything earth-shattering from it. What the Post has learned on this subject only confirms what many people figured out long ago.

Ignorance and Congress... But I Repeat Myself

From time to time, Democrats and Republicans come together and agree nearly unanimously in such a way that makes me wonder if any of them are capable of rational thought at all.

This is one of those times:

In an election-year repudiation of President Bush, a House panel dominated by Republicans voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to block a Dubai-owned firm from taking control of some U.S port operations.

By 62-2, the Appropriations Committee voted to bar DP World, run by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, from holding leases or contracts at U.S. ports.

Bush has promised to veto any such measure passed by Congress, but there is widespread public opposition to the deal and the GOP fears losing its advantage on the issue of national security in this fall's elections.

"This is a national security issue," said Rep. Jerry Lewis, the chairman of the panel. The California Republican said the legislation would "keep America's ports in American hands."

No matter how little I think of congressmen, time and again they prove I think far too much of them.

Despite the profound ignorance of Lewis and others in Congress, America's ports have always been in American hands, the work carried out by American workers, as it has been done under foreign leadership for the last six years.

Whatever "rational" excuses they come up with, our ports have been run, as Ed Morrissey notes, by British, Saudi, Chinese, and Singaporean operators, yet when an Arab company steps into the mix, all of a sudden we worry about security. Hypocrites.

As I first stated on 2/25:

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.

That emerging trust, fragile as it was, is now perhaps shattered.

Thanks, Congress.

Hillary's Vision of "Police States"

Coming from a woman who spent a significant portion of her husband's term in the in the White House under one investigation or another, I guess this kind of comment shouldn't come as much of a surprise:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential White House candidate in 2008, said Wednesday some Republicans are trying to create a "police state" to round up illegal immigrants.

Clinton, D-N.Y., spoke out on the U.S. immigration policy after largely staying away from an issue that has roiled Congress in recent months and spurred a number of conflicting proposals.

Speaking at a rally of Irish immigrants, Clinton criticized a bill the House passed in December that would impose harsher penalties for undocumented workers.

"Don't turn your backs on what made this country great," she said, calling the measure "a rebuke to what America stands for."

Now feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought part of what made America great was that we are a nation of laws, not men.

What Hillary seems to state is that breaking the law without consequence is "what America stands for." If this is indeed her position, no wonder she would find a state where the police enforce the laws so unpalatable.

Nice, But...

I'm glad Glenn Reynold's new Book, An Army of Davids (which I did not get a pre-production proof of, by the way) is selling quite well (currently #167 in Books on amazon.com), but I think his formulaic followup book on the chief author of the Republican "Contract With America" might be pushing a good gimmick too far.

NSA Wins, Terrorists and Liberals Lose

Senate Republicans have introduced a bill to provide oversight of the President's NSA terrorist intercept program while rejecting any further investigation:

The measure would create terrorist surveillance subcommittees under both the Senate and House intelligence committees to oversee the surveillance program.

The panel, meanwhile, rejected a full investigation of the program, which was acknowledged by Bush in December after it surfaced in media reports.

Liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald is not happy:

Nobody who has lived outside of a cave for the last five years could possibly be surprised by any of this. One of the reason we are at the point we're at in our country -- where we have a President who not only breaks the law but claims he has the right to do so, while the media barely finds any of it worthy of much attention -- is because the Congress has completely abdicated its responsibilities at the altar of cult-like obedience to White House decrees. That's just one of the many rotted roots in our government.

Well, there is that perspective, isn't there?

In Greewald's world, 535 members of Congress and the Republican-dominated press are complicit in Chimpy McHitlerburton's grand conspiracy (with the consent of the majority of the ignorant AmeriKKKan sheeple) against Glamourous Glenn and the Forces of Truth.

I'm sorry, Glenn, that this reality presents a different picture than the one that you would star in.

Top constitutional scholars, experienced federal lawyers past and present, and even the FISA Court of Review itself have all agree that the President has the power to conduct this kind of surveillance against the enemies of this country. Only Congress, with it's insatiable desire for more power, and the media with their ever-present desire to generate scandals for their advertisers brought this non-story along as far as they did.

I admire your enthusiasm, Mr. Greenwald. I just wish you could harness your energies to fight the enemies of this nation instead of trying to antagonize those trying to hunt terrorists down.

Rummy and the Troops

Funny, how the media is drawn to the fiction, but can't bother itself with the facts.

A Proxy War No More

For the second day in a row, ABC News targets Iran with another bombshell allegation (my bold):

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday rejected suggestions Iraq is engulfed in a civil war but predicted there would be additional "bursts" of sectarian violence in the weeks ahead.

Rumsfeld also claimed that Iranian Revolutionary Guard elements had infiltrated Iraq to cause trouble.

"They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq," he said. "And we know it. And it is something that they, I think, will look back on as having been an error in judgment."

He would not be more specific except to say the infiltrators were members of the Al Quds Division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

We know from yesterday that Iran is supplying Iraqi terrorists with sophisticated SCMs (shaped charge munitions) that can defeat the armor of even our heaviest tanks. It is this kind of charge that was responsible for the deaths of 14 Marines in their Iraqi interpreter last August near Haditha.

Now we have the Secretary of Defense stating that members of the elite al Quds division—the same unit that deployed elements to Afghanistan to assist the Taliban and roughly analogous to the Green Berets in usage if not quality—are actively fighting coalition forces in Iraq.

It is quite probable that this has not been a proxy war for some time, but instead a low-level special operations war. One has to wonder how and when the Iranian "error in judgement" will be corrected.

Red-Handed

Iran may just been caught red-handed shipping high-tech IEDs into Iraq:

U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.

They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.

What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures — certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

"The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production," says explosives expert Kevin Berry. "So it's the same make and model."

U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.

"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."

I am not a legal expert, but I think it is clear that when a nation chooses to participate in warfare against another nation, that participation is nothing less conscious and calculated than a formal declaration of war.

If these munitions can be tied to the Iranian government—and the article seems to strongly suggest just that—then we have the clear legal and moral justification to disrupt Iran's intentions to wound or kill American soldiers.

We have been trying to settle our differences with Iran with non-military means, but by their actions, their intent is clear. The mullahs of Iran would wage war upon America, and in doing so, have determined freedom for their enslaved pro-western people sooner, rather than later.

Update: Cox & Forkum weigh in:

No Terrorism Here

The local North Carolina news media, and adminstration at UNC Chapel Hill, and even the Daily Tarheel itself do not seem willing to call the "Jeep Jihadi's" Friday afternoon attempt to run down multiple UNC-CH students in the name of Islam an act of terror.

A quick cross-section of local media:

Raleigh, NC News and Observer: The UNC-Chapel Hill graduate charged with driving into a lunchtime campus crowd Friday is scheduled to be in court today, accused of what some students are condemning as an act of terrorism.

Raleigh, NC WRAL-TV: Headline: "Students To Protest UNC's Reluctance To Label Pit Incident Terrorism."

Raleigh-Durham, NC WTVD-TV: Reports on the assualt and the protest and doesn't even use the words "terror" or "terrorism" when describing the attack or the anti-terror protests.

Apparently, when launching an attack from a vehicle, using a bumper as a weapon is somehow different that detonating the same vehicle, or shooting from it into the same crowd. It doesn't matter how many people are injured or even why, but how they are injured that matters.

It isn't the madness that counts, but the method.

Future campus terrorists take note: if you want to be taken more seriously than Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, be sure to use something more conventional in your attacks, like explosives or automatic weapons. If it doesn't have the Good JihadKeeping Seal of Approval, the liberals in academia and the press just won't give you the credit you deserve.

Man Down

Posting will remain light during the rest of the day. Mind-crushing sinus headaches tend to block stimulating political discourse.

Funny, that.

A Bone to Pick

One of the military experts who hangs out here from time to time just started his own blog. Go harrass Ray Robinson, and say, "hi."

I do think a lot of my fellow bloggers will have a minor bone to pick with him, however. Calling himself "The smartest man alive!!!" even in jest is sure to annoy those who would claim that title, and that's the majority of the blogosphere.

Tarheel Jeep Jihad

Among the details starting to emerge surrounding Mohammed Reza Taheriazar's attempted Jeep Jihad at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, is the realization that Taheriazar was not old enough to rent the SUV (Sharia Utility Vehicle*) used in the attack according the rental company's own internal policies.

The company forbids renting SUVs to anyone under the age of 25 for insurance purposes, and Taheriazar had to have an accomplice over the age of 25 to sign for the vehicle as the primary driver. Because of the close relationship between Confederate Yankee and the company in question, I was able to examine copies of the rental paperwork before it was turned over to authorities.

The name of Taheriazar's accomplice?

Jimmy Carter.

* h/t Bill H at Ace's for the turn of phrase.

Carolina Crusher

Is someone is taking tomorrow night's Duke-Carolina basketball game just a bit too seriously?

Shocked UNC students watched in disbelief around noon Friday as an SUV plowed through a crowd at The Pit, the central gathering place, injuring at least two students.

Several students said the driver was young and wearing a dark suit and tie and they said he intentionally swerved to hit people.

The driver fled but was arrested soon after by Chapel Hill Police. His name was not immediately available.

Classes had just changed and The Pit was crowded. Witnesses said the SUV was going at least 40 miles per hour as it passed Lenoir Dining Hall. The condition of those injured was not immediately available.

All kidding about the intense Duke-Carolina rivalry aside, I have it on expert authority that the SUV was a rental vehicle picked up last night from a central North Carolina rental car company. If it was picked up for use as a weapon, atttepted murder charges would seem plausible.

Update: The 23-year-old driver has been identified as Mohammed Reza Taheriazar, which the News and Observer identifies as being a UNC-Chapel Hill student as late as last year.

In what could be an unrelated event, the Daily Tar Heel joined the Cartoon Wars, running this editorial cartoon February 9:

None of the staff of the Daily Tar Heel were among the injured, however, and a motive had not been announced.

Update 2:Terrorism confirmed

ABC11:

The driver of an SUV that plowed into a group of pedestrians at UNC-Chapel Hill on Friday told police it was retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world, according to ABC News.

It appears to be an isolated incident. Also, the Duke-Carolina game is Saturday night, not tonight.

In a Word, Yes.

The next time you hear John Murtha speaking of withdrawal, the next time your hear Al Gore accusing anyone of playing on our fears, the next time you listen to Cindy Sheehan saying this country is not worth fighting for, remember this:

So far, 2,298 U.S. soldiers have sacrificed their lives in 1,079 days to liberate 25 million Iraqis.

Saddam Hussein's Baathists murdered 10,725 men women and children in just one building in Suleimaniya.

Is this war on terror worth it?

Only if you have a conscience.

The Big Truth

It took until the seventh paragraph, but Washington Post reporters Peter Baker and Spencer S. Hsu uncovered the Big Truth about the AP's newly released Hurricane Katrina meeting video:

In its substance, the video reveals nothing that was not already known from previously released transcripts and government investigations. But in politics, images carry a power far beyond written words, and the video, played again and again on cable television, instantly provided new fuel for an emotional debate.

This debate is not a story of substance, but one of emotion.

The disaster response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest, fastest rescue in American history.

Yes, mistakes were made on all levels. The levees were poorly built. Evacuation plans were not followed. Leadership collapsed, and in some cases, hindered the rescue effort. There is plenty of blame to go around, and no shortage of imaginitive ideas to help boost our response capabilities for future storms to levels never before imagined.

But none of that is the focus of the media. Over 1,400 people were confirmed dead, and more are missing. Damages exceeded $75 billion, making this the costliest hurricane in history, and what does the media worry most about?

Three days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of New Orleans, President Bush appeared on television and said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." His staff has spent the past six months trying to take back, modify or explain away those 10 words.

But Bush was, despite all media claims to the contrary, correct. Fictional hurricanes "Zebra" and "Pam," were used to train for the event of a New Orleans hurricane strike, and neither exercise anticipated levee failure. According to Greg Breerwood, deputy district engineer for project management for the Army Corps of Engineers:

We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some levees and some flood walls would be overtopped," he said. "We never did think they would actually be breached."

Katrina made landfall at 6:10 am CDT on August 29 as a Category 3 hurricane, far less than the feared category 5 strike. Of course they didn't think it would be breached in a weaker storm that hit off-center.

Another new video has also surfaced late yesterday, where Gov. Kathleen Blanco said nearly six hours after landfall:

"We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said shortly after noon on Aug. 29, according to the video that was obtained Thursday night. "We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this time."

Officials did not expect a breach of the levees before Hurricane Katrina, and still thought they'd dodged a bullet almost six hours after the storm made landfall.

That's the Big Truth of what was expected of the New Orleans levees, and the Big Truth about ten words that some opportunists would conflate into a disaster all their own.

Update: The Associated Press backtracks:

AP FRIDAY NIGHT CLARIFICATION ON BUSH/KATRINA VIDEO Fri Mar 03 2006 19:48:29 ET

Clarification: Katrina-Video story
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.

The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.

The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn't until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.

To further clarify the AP clarification: Bush was told that the levees could be overrun (which is still inaccurate as a technicality, but as good as we are likely to get from the media), or topped, but he was not told the could be breached.

Drug of Choice?

Presumably, we can expect a full-on rant from drug abuse expert Lawrence O'Donnell later today, after NBC White House correspondent David Gregory's bizarre behavior on the Don Imus Radio show yesterday morning which led the host to ask Gregory if he was drunk (video and transcript here).

While I'm not an expert in speaking Drunkenese, I don't think Gregory sounded drunk. I would be interested to see the results of a drug test to make sure it wasn't something else, however.

Bad curry, perhaps?

Smells like Mapes...

The Associated Press summary video (embedded in this Washington Post story) of a high-level videoconference made one day prior to Hurricane Katrina's landfall smells to high heaven.

The leaked video—heavily sympathetic to former FEMA director Michael Brown—relies on dramatic still image splices of a post-Katrina New Orleans for dramatic effect in a heavily edited montage of dramatic hypothetical situations, narrated by an AP voice attempting to weave together an otherwise incoherent 2 minute, 41 seconds of disjointed footage.

There is no way of telling, of course what the full video shows until it is seen in an unedited, un-spliced form. Until such a point as the unedited footage is made public, any claims made about this AP video should be regarded as highly suspect.

Jason Coleman covers some of the inaccuracies in the spliced video in more detail.

Thank You, Now Go Away

It pained me several weeks ago when a retired veteran sent me an email, telling me bluntly, "Republicans are starting to treat veterans like Democrats treat African-Americans," pandering to them during election years, and then ignoring or undercutting them the rest of the time.

Obviously, I cringed at the comparison.

A quick web search turned up articles showing that healthcare costs for retirees under the military's Tricare could as much as triple in the next few years for retirees under 65, steering retirees toward their current employer's health plans, while at the same time, these same employers are pushing retirees to go to Tricare to reduce their costs. The result is that we end up with both sides trying to push veterans off on each other. It sends a great message, doesn't it?

"Thank you for your service, sir. No will you please go somewhere else?"

We owe our veterans their due for putting their lives on the line to protect our freedoms, and we should not drastically increase their healthcare costs, even as we recognize the fiscal fact that if left unchecked, health-care costs could balloon to make up 12% of the defense budget by 2015.

The problem is complex, and I don't have a ready answer. Obviously, no one does, but as those who have always championed out commitment to our men and women in uniform, we should be the ones who find a way to best take care of them once they've put the uniform away.

They've served us honorably, and we must make sure that honor is returned.

Boomer U.

Jason Smith at Generation Why? has been tracking the Joel Hinrichs suicide bombing incident since the beginning, and passes along new information today. A Norman, OK bomb expert states he does not believe that Hinrichs' death was a suicide as widely reported, but an accidental detonation just 200 yards from a football stadium packed with 80,000 people.

There seems to be more to this story than meets the eye. Read the whole thing.

Which Iraq?

Hammorabi fears Iraq is burning, heading for a civil war.

Omar hears "a big bang," knows he won't be leaving for work, settles
back on the couch, and quickly becomes riveted by the Saddam Hussein trial.

Two Iraqis, vastly different concerns.

American news media takes an almost universal view that Iraq is on the brink of a sectarian civil war. Bill Roggio, an astute analyst of the war who has travelled on the ground in Iraq, states that the main lead indicators a full-scale civil war aren't present.

Victor David Hanson states (and I agree with him) that the attack on the shrine and the ensuing violence:

might be a sign of the terrorists' desperation--killers who have not, and cannot, defeat the U.S. military.

Ralph Peters states unequivocally:

-- THE reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.

Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?

Which Iraq is real? That seems to hinge on who you think is winning.

Saving the Salvation Navy

Ward Brewer is tired. Exhausted. Pissed.

It took years of effort to get this far, and as it comes down to the wire, everything he's worked so hard for depends on what happens in the first tense days of March.

The former emergency responder is the CEO of Beauchamp Tower Corporation, a non-profit organization with a bold and brilliant idea: convert obsolete, scrapyard-bound military vessels into a fleet of state-of-the-art disaster response ships that can be on-site after a major natural disaster like last year's Hurricane Katrina in a matter of hours instead of days. Many of the challenges Beauchamp Tower Corporation have been document Operation Enduring Service on the OES Project Weblog.

Retired Navy veterans such as Mars-class combat stores ships and other obsolete but still-capable cargo ships will be refitted to provide complex emergency communications support that can replace cell phone and radio towers lost in a hurricane, so that on-shore first responders can answer rescue calls even if the local phone and radio systems are destroyed.

These same ships, crewed by the Coast Guard Auxiliary and supported by disaster-aid groups, can bring in hundreds of emergency-response personnel to a disaster zone and provide them housing so that lodging on-shore can be dedicated to the victims of the storm, while bringing thousands of tons of supplies. Each ship will also be capable of distilling, bottling, and shipping thousands of gallons of water and over 100 tons of ice to shore each day.

This humanitarian fleet—this Salvation Navy—will have far more disaster-response capability than anything currently in use by either FEMA or the military, and—here's the kicker—it actually saves taxpayers the tens of millions of dollars it would have taken to turn these ships into scrap.

Generous corporate sponsors will underwrite the conversion and modernization of the rescue fleet.

So why is Ward Brewer so upset? Politics.

For want of a "germaine" bill between now and the end of March to which they can attach a rider giving these obsolete ships to his non-profit Beauchamp Tower Corporation, the entire program could be sent to the bottom.

The U.S. Navy has been holding these ships, but if legislation does not come through soon, other interests and indeed other countries will be allowed to potentially scrap or salvage these ships, ships that could be saving American lives in coming hurricane seasons. We gripe about foreign nations controlling our ports, even as we give away our ships. This must not stand.

Ladies and Gentlemen, kickstart your Congress.

Save this Salvation Navy.

Update: The OES Project Web Log has a new post up today that explains the concepts and technologies involved in far more detail.

Some Will Not Go Quietly

In a Europe seemingly paralyzed by fear, a dozen brave souls speak out in this translation in the Indland Jyllands-Posten.

MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

All freedoms worth having must be fought for to be cherished. Dine-and-dash pacifists who risk nothing, deserve nothing, and very often get exactly that.

I will not go quietly into submission.