A Blog For All: 2006-02-26

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Scratching the Surface of New Jersey's Fiscal Mess

A single high school renovation project in Trenton New Jersey will cost $241 million, and that's only if the construction starts right away and there aren't any further delays. That's a whole lot of money for a single school. The state's school construction fund is deep in the hole, being investigated for fraud and waste, and hundreds of school projects are being held up because of the lack of money. Could it be that spending hundreds of millions on a single school might be part of the problem?

And property taxes are out of control as well, rising 40% over the past five years. They now average at least $6,000 annually. Part of that is tied to rising home prices, but with the state in a serious budget crunch, those tax rebates that some lower income homeowners are counting on don't even cover the rise in taxes.

Enlighten NJ notes that New Jersey's tax burden is one of the highest in the nation, and the fiscal woes are only going to inflict an even higher burden on taxpayers. Why would anyone want to stay in the state under these conditions.

DynamoBuzz notes that the state is considering a bill that would whack the likes of WalMart by imposing new health insurance requirements on the company. Nothing like trying to entice large companies to come to New Jersey (that's sarcasm folks).

Top that off with a variety of proposals to increase or expand taxes onto new areas, and New Jersey may see an acceleration of fiscal problems as businesses and taxpayers flee the state. Of course, that might make the housing market a wee bit more affordable for those who work outside the state, but that might be wishful thinking.

While Legislative Republicans are introducing bills that would be more business friendly - like eliminating the alternative minimum assessment, Democrats are busy trying to find new taxes to implement, expand or expand via updating, or increase (or increase with conditions that money be specifically directed for transportation).

With Corzine meeting with various lobby groups - the chief concern is the combination of higher taxes and less state support for municipalities that will in turn be forced to increase property taxes further to compensate.

Random Act of Terror?

Yesterday, there was news reports of an SUV crashing into a bunch of people on the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill campus. What could have been an unfortunate accident turned out to be something quite different.

The driver, Mohammed Reza Taheriazar, purposefully and willfully drove his rental SUV into the crowd as per his interrogation by police indicates.

The reason he did so?

Sources say Taheriazar told police he was seeking retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world, according to ABC News justice correspondent Pierre Thomas. Taheriazar apparently told police he tried to rent the biggest SUV he could find to use in the attack.

By Friday afternoon, a police SWAT team had surrounded a Carrboro apartment complex where Taheriazar reportedly lived.

Michelle Malkin, as usual, has more.

Taheriazar is going to be charged with multiple counts of attempted murder, and it is lucky that no one was seriously hurt.

Five students and a visiting scholar were treated at UNC Hospitals for minor injuries. Five were discharged and the sixth person was not expected to be admitted to the hospital, the university said in a statement.

Three other people declined treatment at the scene, police said.

The incident happened just before noon near the center of campus in an area known as The Pit, a sunken, brick-paved area surrounded by two libraries, a dining hall and the student union.

The FBI is now involved in the case because of statements he made to the local police and the FBI is working to determine the motive.

Investigators are also searching his apartment for evidence, but have declined to say what they've found thus far. The State Bureau of Investigation bomb squad had spent more than four hours searching his apartment in Carrboro before declaring the property clear.

According to this story, the car had an Enterprise Rent-A-Car sticker on the bumper. Confederate Yankee wonders how Taheriazar rented the vehicle. He is 22. However, as this Washington Post article notes from 2005, many of the rental companies have amended their rental policy to permit rental to persons aged 21-25, albeit some impose a surcharge. Hertz apparently still has a 25 year old age restriction (as of the 2005 writing).

So, one has to wonder - did he have assistance in renting the vehicle or provide false information to obtain the rental SUV? Or, is this aspect a nonstarter?

Others covering the story from the outset: The Jawa Report, Opinion Bug (who wonders why the media is not being more forthright about the religious angle of this story), Sister Toldjah.

UPDATE:
Survival Theory is blogging from the Triangle in North Carolina. She's got some additional background on Taheriazar.

Belated Correction

You have got to be kidding me. The original story ran on March 1. It took two days of a media frenzy about these videos before the AP finally corrected and clarified the timeframes and situations involved. Whereas the bloggers found the problem immediately, the AP and all of the entities that picked up the AP story ran it without questioning the factual accuracy.

Overtopping is not the same as a breach. So, when the President was briefed about overtopping of the levees prior to the storm's landfall, that does not mean he was briefed about breaches.

Shameful. Absolutely shameful.

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.

UPDATE:
Ace of Spades and Generation Why? also notes the correction. Jason at Generation Why takes his liberal commenters to task for buying the AP line without regard for all the facts that were already known about the situation (the transcripts had been available for months now, so the videos were not newsworthy).

The AP tried and nearly succeeded with a political hit job on the Administration. They trumped up the claims with video taken out of context. No doubt that the media outlets that ran the original story are going to rush out and correct the story for their viewers/readers. Not gonna happen.

The amazing thing is that the facts surrounding Katrina are bad enough. The Administration has been criticized for a slow response, and FEMA has been woefully inadequate, even at this late date.

Others blogging the disgraceful AP performance: Powerline, Gina Cobb, Big Lizards, Flopping Aces, Patterico, and Newsbusters.

UPDATE:
Posted to Wizbang's Carnival of Trackbacks, Basil's Blog.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; katrina aid; kanye west; impeach bush; slidell; biloxi; gulfport; pascagoula; nagin; blanco; barbour.

Friday, March 03, 2006

The NYC Danish Support Rally

GOP and the City, Blogmeister, and Pamela of Atlas Shrugs attended. The Man and Pamela have some photos up of the event.

Pamela notes:

Everyone spoke of their love of freedom, their unequivocal support of the Danes. There was a genuine concern that Denmark was taking an enormous amount of heat for a basic fundamental right. Very cool crowd.

UPDATE:
A quick survey of the local media shows no coverage of this event. 1010WINS, WCBS880.com, Fox5NY.com, New York Times NY Metro, and even a Google search of protest new york or rally new york turned up no references to today's rally. Funny, but you'd think that this would be newsworthy because of all the violence done because of the cartoons and the media's coverage of the riots that ensued ostensibly because of those cartoon publications. Yet, they're absent from a rally to support Denmark during this trying time. Curious.

Technorati: Buy Danish "jyllands-posten mohammed" "muhammad cartoon" embassy torchings "muhammad image archive"

A Random Thought

Walking to work today, I had a thought about the whole controversy over global warming. Scientists are predicting all kinds of dire global climate changes that are supposed to happen years into the future. That's all well and good.

Yet, they can't even accurately predict the amount of snowfall 24 hours out from a storm. Meterologists will give a range of 3-5 inches or 4-6 inches. So, if the it only snows one inche, they're wrong. Partial credit simply isn't given. They might have gotten the snow part right, but the amount is consequential as well.

Why are they wrong? Because the complexity of climate and atmospheric interactions. The scientists admit that they simply can't figure all of these things out.

So why should we trust the climate scientists who say that we're undergoing global warming and that it's man's fault?

I recognize that man can change the climate. Urban areas have a heat-island effect, and establishes microclimates that have different temperatures than the surrounding rural areas. But that doesn't mean you can extrapolate and say that the entire planet is going to be X degrees warmer.

And using a limited data sample doesn't help your cause either. We only have limited records for the past 100+ years, and satellite data from the last 40+ years.

One good volcanic eruption might change the climate far more profoundly and completely than decades of machinery emissions. How do we know this? Because we've seen it happen. Tambora. Krakatau. Years where there were no summers because of the amount of ash and emissions thrown into the atmosphere.

To take global warming as some certain truth takes a leap of faith I'm not willing to make. It is a theory, and one that needs to be studied closely. Regulating emissions is a good idea because I like to breathe clean air, and so does the next person. But making wild claims about how the earth will be X degrees warmer in 50 years loses a bit of the luster when the scientists can't figure out what the weather will be tomorrow.

ER Tackles Darfur

Chalk one up for this aging and over the hill show. Last night's episode provided the audience with a somewhat fictionalized assessment of what is going on in Darfur as seen through Carter's eyes. Carter is working in one of the refugee camps set up to handle the people trying to escape the janjaweed who have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Darfur residents.

And survival in the refugee camps are by no means assured. The simple task of going out to get firewood may mean rape or death.

That this particular show mentioned Darfur is interesting. That's far more than can be said of many of the television networks and many of the big media outlets.

I want to commend ER for showing the situation in Darfur, even if they had to fictionalize how and what Carter would have done in the situation he faced. Even though the show falls flat on its pacing, this is one of the better episodes in recent years if only for the subject matter that it attempted to tackle.

UPDATE:
Back in the real world, Kofi Annan wants the big powers to provide air cover for peacekeepers. Who would those powers be? The US of course. Who else is there? And don't doubt for one moment that Sudan will oppose any such overflights, and that they'll get China to back their position since Sudan has China over a barrel - literally.

Secretary General Kofi Annan told the United States that U.N. members should consider providing close air support in possible combat situations for several thousand African Union peacekeeping troops in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The request, in a confidential letter to John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, shows that the world body is pressing for a more aggressive military approach in dealing with armed groups in Darfur, and that it wants the United States and other Western powers to participate in that effort.

A day late and a dollar short. The aggressive action was required and demanded by the situation months ago. We're now seeing the ongoing failure to confront genocide by a half assed attempt to deal with the remnants months later.

Technorati: dafur, darfur, genocide, african union, annan, janjaweed.

Wrong Way Carter

Once again former President Jimmy Carter is siding with despots, dictators, and theocrats against basic human rights. Go figure.

President Carter personally called Secretary of State Rice to try to convince her to reverse her U.N. ambassador's position on changes to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the former president recalled yesterday in a talk in which he also criticized President Bush's Christian bona fides and misstated past American policies on Israel.

Mr. Carter said he made a personal promise to ambassadors from Egypt, Pakistan, and Cuba on the U.N. change issue that was undermined by America's ambassador, John Bolton. "My hope is that when the vote is taken," he told the Council on Foreign Relations, "the other members will outvote the United States."

While other former presidents have tried to refrain from attacking the sitting chief executive, Mr. Carter's attacks on President Bush have increased. The episode he recounted yesterday showed how he tried to undermine officials at lower levels in an effort to influence policy.

The story, as Mr. Carter recalled, began with a recent dinner for 17 he attended in New York, where the guests included the president of the U.N. General Assembly, Jan Eliasson; an unidentified American representative, and other U.N. ambassadors from "powerful" countries at Turtle Bay, of which he mentioned only three: Cuba, Egypt, and Pakistan. The topic was the ongoing negotiations on an attempt to replace the widely discredited Geneva-based Human Rights Commission with a more accountable Human Rights Council.

The Human Rights Commission is a cesspool of anti Semitism and a blind eye to gross human rights violations throughout the world, from Darfur to China. The Human Rights Commission's major focus has been to focus its ire on Israel, which is facing an ongoing 40+ year war for its very survival and whose enemies have resorted to suicide bombers, car bombs, and indiscriminately bombing and shelling Israeli settlements. Israel's response of setting up checkpoints, fences, and targeting the terrorist infrastructure is met with complaints of human rights abuses.

No such scrutiny exists for the Palestinians who are behind the attacks. And Carter is hammering away at Israel while turning a blind eye to the terrorists who perpetrate these heinous acts.

Curious. Very curious.

Yet Carter wants to maintain the status quo?

NYT Gets It Wrong...

The NYT website has the following posted this morning:

Quiet in Baghdad Streets
Car traffic was shut down by a daytime curfew meant to forestall any sermons at Friday Prayer that could reignite sectarian conflict. Go to article.

The curfew wasn't meant to forestall sermons. It was meant to prevent car bombs from being used to detonate outside mosques where parishoners were congregating. Big difference.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

CBS Interviews Jihadi: Film at 6?

This story was first posted to this blog entry, and I've separated it into its own item here.

I came across this particular story as I was watching CBS Evening News. I know, I'm a glutton for punishment, but there is a good reason to watch. You never know what you're going to get.

CBS ran a story based on Richard Roth interviewing a jihadist, who was busy scurrying around across the Syrian/Iraqi border. He claims to be Lebanese, joined up with a couple of others, ferried $25,000 across the border, and wanted to be a suicide bomber. He describes his suicide bombing as revenge, not an act of faith (no B-52s, so he's using what's at his disposal).

He wanted to be a suicide bomber, but Iraqi handlers in Baghdad told him that he could do more by leading the efforts in Lebanon. In a voice over, Roth claims that Iraq is a training ground for terrorists, well beyond its borders. Of course, this belies the fact that the terrorists were already operating outside Iraq's borders for years.

We're told that the reporter had to maintain the jihadi's anonymity, but why would the journalist accept such a deal? For getting a news scoop about a terrorist's intentions? Someone who alligns himself with terrorists who capture, torture, and behead journalists? I've got serious questions about the story:

1) Reliability - how do we know that this is a legitimate person of interest. Did the journalist verify the contents of the guy's story?

Assuming that this guy's story checks out, that makes him a terrorist and an enemy of the Iraqi people and the US. That leads to point two:
2) Did CBS run the story with the knowledge of the DoD or contacted the DoD in relation to the story?

Related to that question, one has to wonder the following:
3) Did anyone at CBS have any moral qualms about running a story on an terrorist whose religious obligations include killing Americans? By the score.

So, assuming that the terrorist is who he says he is, CBS went ahead and talked to the DoD, and ran the story, where does this story go?

4) By letting this guy run free, how many lives has the journalist put in danger?
5) Why did the DoD, if they were in fact contacted, permit the story to run? Could they take any action to stop the story from running (national security interest)? Did the journalist provide all relevant information to the DoD and US intel agencies to track down this terrorist in order to gather further intel, and save the lives of potential targets?

Al Qaeda Planning Spectacular Attack in Iraq?

That's what CBS News reported during its evening broadcast:

Last week's mosque bombing in city of Samarra that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war was the work of terrorists, some U.S. officials have theorized. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi seems to be betting that another big bang would push the country over the brink, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin. The bomb in one of the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims set off violence all across the country that left hundreds dead.

The Iraqi government has banned all private vehicles in Baghdad during daylight hours Friday, the Muslim prayer day, just as it did last week. That kept car bombs, what the military cars vehicle-born improvised explosive devices, off the streets.

But Zarqawi just waited until the ban was lifted.

The terrorists know that bombs will get press. Lots of bombs will bring lots of press - all of it negatively affecting how the US perceives Iraq, the war, and prospects of peace in the region. They're playing the information war expertly, and when the media continually focuses solely on the bad news, the distortion of what is truly happening in Iraq is magnified.

UPDATE:
If you're looking for the section of text about the CBS interview of a jihadi, I've moved it to its own blog entry. It's certainly newsworthy to deserve its own entry.

A Done Deal

The Patriot Act, as revised by Congress, is set to be signed into law by President Bush. There were some modifications, but the biggest change is that many of the provisions that previously had expiration dates are now made permanent.

A day after passing a related bill to better protect civil liberties in this war, the Senate approved the renewal measure on a 89-10 vote. It next goes to Bush to sign into law. The House of Representatives passed it in December.

First enacted after the September 11 attacks, the Patriot Act expanded the power of the U.S. government to obtain private records, conduct wiretaps and searches and share information.

With 16 provisions of the act set to expire next week, the bill would make 14 of them permanent and extend two others by four years.

After all the bluster by the Democrats, this group of laws is going to be readopted as amended. Either the concerns weren't that great, or the Democrats caved.

That doesn't speak well for them on either ground. Trumping up civil liberties arguments and then voting overwhelmingly to pass the bill. Not a good sign for showing seriousness on the key issues.

UPDATE:
Here's the roll call vote. 89-10.

The nays:
Leahy (D-VT), Nay
Levin (D-MI), Nay
Akaka (D-HI), Nay
Bingaman (D-NM), Nay
Byrd (D-WV), Nay
Feingold (D-WI), Nay
Murray (D-WA), Nay
Harkin (D-IA), Nay
Wyden (D-OR), Nay
Jeffords (I-VT), Nay

Inouye (D-HI), did not vote. The rest of the Senate voted Yes. Text of the Bill can be found here: HR 3199 (click through to the last version).

A Gold Star

In a rare instance of bipartisanship, the House voted 400-0 approving the Congressional Gold Medal on the Tuskegee Airmen.

That was the vote in the House of Representatives Tuesday night in favor of Rep. Charles Rangel's bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to the Tuskegee Airmen. In a body known for its partisanship, it was a remarkable expression of national unity and consensus. As Mr. Rangel notes, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld - who Mr. Rangel has urged be impeached - released a letter urging members of Congress to support the initiative. "I don't agree with Secretary Rumsfeld on too many things. But when it comes to the Tuskegee Airmen we stand shoulder to shoulder," Mr. Rangel, a Democrat who represents Harlem, said in a press release.

The resolution itself tells a remarkable story: "The Congress finds the following: In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt overruled his top generals and ordered the creation of an all-Black flight training program. President Roosevelt took this action one day after the NAACP filed suit on behalf of Howard University student Yancy Williams and others in Federal court to force the Department of War to accept Black pilot trainees."

It goes on, "Due to the rigid system of racial segregation that prevailed in the United States during World War II, Black military pilots were trained at a separate airfield built near Tuskegee, Alabama. They became known as the 'Tuskegee Airmen'. The Tuskegee Airmen inspired revolutionary reform in the Armed Forces, paving the way for full racial integration in the Armed Forces. They overcame the enormous challenges of prejudice and discrimination, succeeding, despite obstacles that threatened failure."

That unit of African American pilots deserves every accolade that this country can bestow on a unit, and to the soliders individually. Their heroic actions were instrumental in the Allied war effort in Europe.

Among the feats performed by the Tuskegee Airmen, this one stands out: the Redtails were the only fighter group who never lost a bomber to enemy fighters. They were requested by bombing groups that learned of the unit's record, and knew that their comfort factor (and survival) was greatly enhanced when the Redtails were escorting them. This, despite the fact that few actually knew that the unit was comprised of solely African Americans. Further:

By the end of the war the 332d had claimed over 400 Luftwaffe aircraft, a destroyer sunk only by machine gun fire, and numerous fuel dumps, trucks and trains. They flew more than 15,000 sorties and 1500 missions. The unit received recognition through official channels, and won two Presidential Unit Citations, 744 Air Medals, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, fourteen Bronze Stars and several Silver Stars.

In all, 992 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1940 to 1946. About 450 deployed overseas and 150 lost their lives in training or combat.

UPDATE:
Incorrectly listed the award as a Gold Star, when the award is a Gold Medal.

The Carnival of Bauer, Week 1

Go forth and see the power of Jack Bauer for yourself. And check out my inaugural contribution - Bauer vs. Bristow. Jack vs. Jack. Watch 'em duke it out. Or get together in the torture room for some serious mayhem.

Technorati: alias, 24, jack bauer, jack bristow, sydney bristow, kim bauer, sutherland, garber, garner, culbert.

About The Katrina Teleconferencing Videos

Kevin at Wizbang has the details. What exactly did we learn from the AP report? Nothing that we didn't already know, and people are trying to make more out of them than they probably should.

However, it is interesting to see how President Bush was 'vacationing' on his ranch. That's where the teleconferences were taking place. But some folks would much rather believe that being away from the White House means that they're not working. Bunk. Pure unadulterated bunk.

UPDATE:
Captain Ed has more, and calls this a media hack job. I'd agree considering that the source material clearly does not state that anyone advising the President considered levee breaches in New Orleans to be a concern, even on the 29th. Overtopping was the primary concern, and even that concern was lessened as the storm track took the brunt of the storm to the east of New Orleans and into the Louisiana/Mississippi border.

Again, the entire briefing that related to levees only focused on the effects of the wind on Lake Pontchartrain and its effect in pushing water over the top of the levees. Mayfield never even addressed the possibility of breaches in the levee walls. And in fact, the storm track shifted eastward in the final hours before Katrina hit, which eliminated much of the predicate for even the worries Mayfield expresses in this transcript.

The media got it wrong yet again on Katrina. The notion that the experts warned of levee breaches is nothing more than a hack job initiated by the AP and continued by the rest of the Exempt Media even after the source material has proven it false.

UPDATE:
Paul at Wizbang also picks up on the whole vacationing in Texas meme that the Left wants folks to believe. What's in a word? Quite a bit. All that video undermines the claim that the Administration didn't take the hurricane threat seriously. There's videotape from sessions over the course of six days. Sounds like they took it quite seriously.

UPDATE:
The Times Picayune has more, and wonders when the rest of the media will finally debunk the myth that Bush wasn't deeply involved in the Katrina preparations:

On the day that Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, President Bush and a top presidential aide were worried about whether New Orleans' levees had held, according to a transcript of discussions among disaster officials on the front lines of the storm.

Those concerns, expressed about midday Aug. 29, are in contrast to an image of a detached president.

UPDATE:
There are plenty of people who are taking the AP to task for the hatchet job, including the following: Flopping Aces, Outside the Beltway, The Anchoress, Instapundit, and others added as found.

And is it a coincidence that the AP report was put together by a staffer who was associated with 60 Minutes 2, which put together the Rathergate hatchet job on President Bush mere weeks before the Presidential elections. Wizbang, The Jawa Report, and Don Surber.

UPDATE:
Expose the Left is not a happy camper with the media. In fact, the media has had the transcripts from these videos for six months. They're running them now as though this is some new story. It's not. Patterico takes the LA Times to task for their dishonest coverage. Big Lizards echoes the sentiment. And then posits the key question. Even if Bush did know that the levees were going to be breached, what could he actually do? Stop time? The options available to the President are limited by the US Constitution and federal law. Violate those, and you've got yourself impeachable offenses (Posse Comitatus Act anyone?) The President could only cajole Nagin and Blanco to take steps to evacuate people out of harms' way and neither was particularly effective at the decisive moment. Both failed miserably. They took too much time to make the decision to evacuate, and then when they did, they failed to use all the means to get people out of harms way (Nagin's Memorial Motor Pool).

Jeff Goldstein is not amused. And he notes that the videos show that Michael Brown was doing his job quite competently, but the media ran him out of Washington because they needed a scapegoat. Is it possible that Brown was behind these videos surfacing - both to slam the media types who ran him out, and also to restore his name? It's possible - the Potomac two-step is a common dance in DC.

AJ Strata thinks that the AP has drunk the Kool Aid. Willisms thinks that Wizbang has uncovered Rathergate2, with the dishonest attack piece being cobbled together and taking items from different days to completely rejigger the facts to suit their political tastes, not the facts.

UPDATE:
Now, after the news cycle is nearly over for today, the AP runs a story headlining that Gov. Blanco said that the levees were safe. Famous last words?

In the hectic, confused hours after Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast, Louisiana's governor hesitantly but mistakenly assured the Bush administration that New Orleans' protective levees were intact, according to new video obtained by The Associated Press showing briefings that day with federal officials.

"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. "We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this time."

In fact, the National Weather Service received a report of a levee breach and issued a flash-flood warning as early as 9:12 a.m. that day, according to the White House's formal recounting of events the day Katrina struck.

This clearly doesn't put Blanco in a positive light. She had no idea what was going on, and relayed incorrect information to the President.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; katrina aid; kanye west; impeach bush; slidell; biloxi; gulfport; pascagoula; nagin; blanco; barbour.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 98

The National Trust For Historic Preservation now says that the memorial plan will adversely affect remnants of the Twin Towers.

To a growing chorus of criticism of the World Trade Center memorial and museum — that it may be unsafe, that it will not properly honor the dead, that it is too much of a fund-raising challenge — the National Trust for Historic Preservation has added its own concern: that it would cause the "substantial destruction" of the remaining foundations of the twin towers.

The preservation battle, occurring just as construction of the memorial is about to begin, turns in part on significantly different interpretations of what constitutes the towers' historically important footprints.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has planned memorial space, exhibition galleries and mechanical equipment rooms within the perimeters formed by the truncated underground remnants of the columns that once supported the towers' facades. This would require new walls inside the tower outlines and new floors over those parts of the original concrete foundation slabs that are heavily damaged or otherwise unusable.

Sixty-nine of 84 perimeter column remnants from the north tower and 35 of 73 column remnants from the south tower would remain visible and accessible as part of the memorial museum. (Almost half the south tower columns fall within the adjacent PATH terminal.)

The feds, meanwhile, are continuing to look at the possible health impact from the collapse of the WTC complex.

And in an interesting turn of events, Bruce Willis and Halle Berry are filming a movie in the nearly completed 7 WTC. They've turned the entire 25th floor into a set, and that can only help drum up business for the tower, which sorely needs more tenants.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Clinton Triangulation On Dubai Ports World Deal?

Who knew - triangulating on the ports deal would mean Bill trying to help get the deal through and Hillary opposing the deal, and likely knowing that the deal will eventually go through.

It's truly a dangerous game those two are playing.

And it's quite dangerous for national security. Does this change anything? Not really. The security concerns are the same as it was before this bit of information came to light.

However, it once again calls into question former President Clinton's judgment, not to mention Hillary's actions in this whole affair.

Mr Clinton’s spokesman said: “President Clinton is the former president of the US and as such receives many calls from world leaders and leading figures every week. About two weeks ago, the Dubai leaders called him and he suggested that they submit to the full and regular scrutiny process and that they should put maximum safeguards and security into any port proposal.”

He added that Mr Clinton supported his wife’s position on the deal and that "ideally" state-owned companies would not own US port operations.

Mr Clinton’s contact with Dubai on the issue underscores the relationship he has developed with the United Arab Emirates since leaving office. In 2002, he was paid $300,000 (€252,000) to address a summit in Dubai.

All that was happening while Hillary was busy opposing the deal in Congress. Curious. Very curious.

Revisiting Numbers

I had earlier questioned the numbers proffered by the Washington Post in the violence that ensued after the Golden Dome was destroyed by terrorists. Instapundit links to Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette who also takes the WaPo to task.

Greyhawk and his wife sort through a tremendous amount of information on Iraq on a daily and weekly basis, and their analysis is quite good.

The most likely group to have committed the original Golden Dome attack are the takfiri. That's the term used to describe the following:

those Muslims who regard other Muslims as infidels - of carrying out the attack in order to cause sectarian sedition. Takfiri is the somewhat cautious term used to indicate those enemies of Iraq described above. Used in a "politically correct" sense to avoid pinpointing (or enraging) a specific group before all the facts are in, everyone in Iraq knows what it means. There's a good reason to strike a balance between being specific and non-specific when addressing the masses in Iraq

Now, in reexamining the US media response to the Dome attack, you find a nearly hysterical response: on February 24, the New York Times declares More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are in Ruins. That's right. Ruins. They've determined that there's no hope and taken the most pessimistic view on events despite the fact that events are fluid and shifting. Of course, that's exactly what happened less than 48 hours later, which the Times had to report that the leading Sunni groups were resuming talks to form the government.

And even in and around Baghdad where reports claimed that a dozen mosques were attacked, only three instances could be confirmed.

Terrorism? Absolutely. Civil war? Most definitely not, says Ralph Peters in today's editorial in the New York Post. And this isn't some armchair pundit talking from the comfort of an office in New York City or even a journalist hunkered down in the Green Zone. This is from a journalist who actually went out into the field to see things for himself.

Iraq Pundit notes that the media really wants a civil war. He can't understand why. Neither can I, although the axiom 'if it bleeds, it leads' certainly may play some role in this.

There is still a fog of war issue to deal with - that the true death toll from the bloodletting following the mosque attack will eventually be known with some certainty. Yet, I'm sure that the WaPo figure will be bandied about with a certain smug satisfaction by some who are literally and figurative hoping for a civil war if only to say 'I told you that Iraq was beyond all help and that regime change was a bad idea.'

UPDATE:
Confederate Yankee notes that your view of the situation in Iraq depends on which side you think is winning. Good observation.

Failed States As Safe Harbors for Terrorists

This has been one of my recurring comments whenever discussing human rights catastrophes in places like Darfur, Sudan, most of the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. Failed states make perfect breeding grounds for terrorist groups, and the most dangerous one out there right now is al Qaeda.

They want to set up shop in a big way in Sudan. Actually, they want to restore Sudan as a major base of operations. That's where the terrorist group found a safe haven for a long time. There's a genocide in Sudan that the UN has refused to act upon, despite the fact that there's international law that requires such action. And now al Qaeda is threatening the UN should it send peacekeepers to Darfur to replace the beleaguered African Union.

The Boston Globe comments on why we need to intervene in Sudan to stop the bloodletting. The fact that the violence is spreading to neighboring Chad is only one aspect. This is no longer a contained situation (not that it ever was, but that's besides the point). It's the spread of the violence that has finally brought Darfur's genocide to the forefront of significant news stories, despite the fact that most of the media outlets failed to cover this story over the course of the past year.

UPDATE:
Jihad Watch also noted the UN report on al Qaeda's threats of acting in Darfur.

Connecticut has introduced a bill that would divest all public investments from companies that do business in Sudan. Juliana at Mother Jones notes that we're at a stalemate on Sudan. Can't argue with that. Juliana notes:

When we wrote last week about Darfur, the UN was talking about taking over peacekeeping duties from the African Union there. Now top UN officials are claiming that the African Union is backing away from the plan. The Sudanese government has opposed UN involvement, and has helped fuel anti-UN sentiment around the continent, with other African leaders expressing concern that outside involvement will only cause more violence in the region.

Considering how awful the UN has been on defending human rights over the past decade, from failing to act on genocide in Rwanda, Congo, the former Yugoslavia, and now Sudan, there's good reason to be wary of UN action. UN peacekeepers have repeatedly shown themselves unwilling to stop violence against refugees in their care. However, Sudan's intention in stirring up anti-UN sentiment is to give the regime in Khartoum more time to complete its ethnic cleansing of Darfur.

Tom Barnett puts the Darfur/Chad crisis into a economic and geopolitical context relating to China, the need for oil, and how the overlapping interests are coming to a head in the region.

So who's going to stop the violence? Daimnation wants to know, given the general lack of interest in stopping this kind of slaughter.

Tapped notes that one of the 17 people named in news reports as being singled out for targeted sanctions, the Sudanese minister of the interior Zubair Bashir Taha, quickly placed the blame of the genocide in Darfur on the Bush administration. Maybe he's hoping that the Left will try and bail out the Sudanese regime much as they tried doing for Iraq?

Technorati: dafur, darfur, genocide, african union, annan, janjaweed.

Revisiting the OU Hinrichs Bombing Incident

Michelle Malkin posts that the story isn't completely closed on what was behind Joel Hinrichs' death by high explosive. Jason Smith at Generation Why? and Mark Tapscott have more.

This case has never satisfactorily explained why Hinrichs blew himself up, or whether suicide was his ultimate goal or that he intended to kill others. And there's now word that one of the bombing investigators says that there's no evidence "... he intended for an explosion to occur at that spot (on the park bench)."

Well, where did he intend to blow up? And what was his target? And why? $64,000 questions one and all, and all remain a mystery.

Technorati: terrorism, suicide bomber, hinrichs, bomb.

A Sign of the Apocalypse

This is something that Mrs. Lawhawk would appreciate, as well as some of my loyal readers. Sebastian Bach, yes, that Sebastian Bach of the band Skid Row, has been a regularly featured cast member on Gilmore Girls as an old rocker who's found new life with a group of crazy kids who've formed a band.

The story line is that the band broke up, but they're now trying to get the band back together. And we find Bach's character and another bandmate doing a bar mitzvah gig.

He was singing Hollaback Girl. And Hava Negila.

Sebastian Bach was singing Hava Negila.

If that isn't a sign of the apocalypse, I'm not sure what is.

Boycott This

The Javits Center in NYC is going to be undergoing a $1.7 billion renovation and expansion. The architect who's doing the design work hosted the founding meeting of a group of architects who want to boycott work in Israel. Is this the kind of guy we want getting taxpayer dollars in a city that has a very large Jewish population?

The lead architect tapped to head the $1.7 billion redesign of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center last month hosted the founding meeting of an association of professional building designers considering a boycott against Israel.

On February 2, Richard Rogers gave his office space for the inaugural meeting of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine in his London headquarters.

A statement from the new organization released on February 9 condemns any individual or company working on "occupied territory" as violating their professional ethics and being complicit in promoting "an apartheid system of environmental control."

At the meeting, according to British and trade press reports, the 60 architects discussed boycotting both Israeli architects and construction companies employed in the construction of the country's barrier - part wall and part fence - delineating Israeli Jewish population centers from Palestinian Arab ones. The Independent newspaper of London also said the meeting broached the idea of recommending that Israeli architects be kicked out of the International Union of Architects.

Even if he doesn't totally subscribe to all the goals set forth at the meeting, the fact that he's behind the idea would probably send Javits himself spinning in his grave.

Javits was one of the Jewish state's staunchest defenders in the Senate, where he served from 1956 to 1981. In particular, he was one of the toughest voices to oppose the Arab boycott of Israel in the 1970s. In 1986 President Reagan singled out the Jewish lawmaker's support for Israel in a statement marking his death.

Saddam's Trial Update

One has to wonder what kind of interrogation techniques were utilized by Saddam's minions when of the 146 people taken into custody following the Dujail assassination attempt nearly 1/3 never survived the interrogation to be executed for their 'crimes.'

However, the documents uncovered today showed that Barzan was personally deeply involved in following up the case and "interrogating" the suspects and their families.

The documents were presented in chronological order in a way that literally stunned Saddam and Barzan who barely uttered a few words during the more than an hour-long presentation.

Dozens of documents that look authentic and carried the signatures of Saddam, Barzan and other criminals were displayed; the earliest ones go back to as early as 2 days after the assassination attempt with the latest dated 7 years after that showing all stages of the massacre from interrogation to sentencing the 148 resident of Dujail to signing and approving and executing the death sentence to finally following up a couple of prisoners who mistakenly were let out to be later recaptured and executed.

The documents revealed some unbelievably terrifying facts about the Dujail massacre; can you imagine that when orders were given to execute the 148 "convicts" the prison authorities executed only 96 of them. Why?

Because the remaining 48 "convicts" had already passed away during "interrogation"!!
What kind of interrogation was that killed one third of the suspects?!

The people I spoke to during and after watching the session were pleased with the way the trial went this time. Today's session wiped away the bad impression many of us had about the last few sessions where the trial looked like a circus by all standards but today things were different and we were able to see a reasonably professional trial that relied on much more facts and much less rhetoric.

Actually no one had to say anything, the papers spoke for themselves and for the horrendous crimes of Saddam and his fellow criminals.

This is on the heels of Ramsey Clark's latest attempt to show just how incompetent he is (and perhaps set up a defense of incompetent counsel?). As I noted yesterday:

Jason at Generation Why notes Ramsey Clark's defense of Saddam didn't exactly go as planned today:

Ramsey Clark, the former US attorney general who is helping to defend Saddam, has submitted a motion recently claiming the judge "is not impartial and has a manifested bias against the defendant"...

The defence claims Abdel Rahman is biased because he is a native of the Kurdish village of Halabja, the target of a 1988 chemical attack in which some 5,000 people, including women and children, were killed.
Open mouth, insert foot. Or, in this case, open mouth and assist in assuring that Saddam dances at the end of a rope.

UPDATE:
Saddam doesn't think any crime was committed. Of course he doesn't. And he doesn't think razing entire farms was a crime either.

"I razed them ... we specified the farmland of those who were convicted and I signed," Saddam told the court trying him for crimes against humanity.

"It's the right of the state to re-own or compensate. So where is the crime?"

When you're the judge, jury, and executioner all at the same time, there's no way any of the people had a fair trial. These people were murdered by a dictator who controlled every aspect of his country, and sought to eliminate his opponents, down to razing their property.

The Excuse Machine

Saeb Erekat writes an editorial in the New York Times not only finding every reason to blame Israel for all the problems facing Palestinians, but spinning a new reason to find the PLO useful going forward.

Many people believe that Mr. Abbas did not deliver. Today, there are fewer jobs, not more; security for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Gaza Strip is worse, not better; and negotiations, like the two-state solution, are stalled.

Mr. Abbas, however, is not ultimately to blame. When he called on Israel to lift restrictions on Palestinian movement and trade within and between Palestinian areas, Israel refused — despite similar calls from the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Union and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The restrictions translated not just into more poverty but also into less security, for Mr. Abbas could not even move police forces within Palestinian territory.

President Abbas did deliver, and largely maintained, a "tahdia" — a "period of calm" between the Palestinian factions and Israel. And he was able to do this despite scores of Palestinian deaths and several thousand military raids and arrests that Israel conducted in violation of its agreement not to undertake such activities. Israel also tightened its control over key territory, resources and markets — primarily occupied East Jerusalem — that we will need to build an economically viable state.

So, President Abbas, the leader of the Fatah party, made a set of campaign promises; the opposite came to fruition; therefore, Palestinians elected the only alternative: Hamas.

There was not a period of calm between the Palestinians and Israel. Only someone who completely whitewashes history would come to that conclusion. The only reason that there was a large period of calm was that Israel intercepted and stopped literally hundreds of terrorist attacks. Regular mortar and rocket attacks went unreported in US media outlets because they didn't end up killing or injuring Israelis.

And then there's Israel's security fence and the disengagement from Gaza. Both of those steps cut down on the ability of Palestinian terrorist groups, including the PLO's own al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade to launch terrorist attacks from Gaza into Israel.

It remains to be seen whether Palestinians want peace when most recent polling suggests that the Palestinians would support violent riots and demonstrations against even the slightest affront against Islam. Considering that Israel's very existence is such an affront, one can only conclude that Erekat cannot tell the world the Palestinians' true intentions.

UPDATE:
On cue, al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade takes credit for two shooting incidents in the West Bank. One Israeli was killed, another seriously injured when assailants shot the Israeli victims at point blank range.

In two shooting attacks that occured within two hours, one Israeli was killed and one seriously wounded.

Earlier Wednesday Eldad Abir, 48, was shot and killed in a terrorist attack at a gas station just outside the West Bank settlement of Migdalim, southeast of Nablus. A second man was seriously wounded shortly following, in a shooting near Nebe Elias, east of Kalkilya.

The modus operandi in both shootings was similar - the attackers shot the victims at point-blank range with a handgun.

Additional IDF forces were deployed throughout Samaria, where both attacks took place, and roadside checkpoints were set up throughout the sector in the hopes of findig the terrorists and increasing security on the roads.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

The Manifesto Against Islamist Totalitarianism

Via Little Green Footballs. Agora did the translation of this letter that appeared in Jyllands Posten.

This is one posting that deserves very wide distribution. The twelve people who wrote and signed their names to this letter know first hand what totalitarianism and militant Islam can do in the name of their religious views. It will be interesting to see how big media outlets cover this particular story:

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

As Charles said, I sign my name to this letter as well.

UPDATE:
Others who are signing their name to this manifesto: Rusty at The Jawa Report, PBS Watch (who provides a short bio for each of the signatories), Vince aut Moire, Michelle Malkin, Small Town Veteran, Stop the ACLU, House of the Dog, Pamela at Atlas Shrugs, Junkyard Blog, Tipping Point, GM Roper, Captain Ed Morissey, Slapstick Politics, and more added as I find 'em. Better yet, add comments or trackbacks and I'll add your name to the growing list of people who are saying enough is enough. Memeorandum is tracking those covering this story.

Also, this letter was first published in the French weekly Charlie Hebdo. Jyllands Posten picked up the story from which Agora translated. No Pasaran had picked it up as well.

UPDATE 3/1/2006:
Thanks to those that have commented or trackbacked and want their names added. They include The Political Pit Bull, Sean Rooney, Patricia E. Hardin, Peter Warner, Annoying Little Twerp, Blue Star Chronicles, All Things Beautiful, and Tel Chai Nation.

Technorati: Buy Danish "jyllands-posten mohammed" "muhammad cartoon" embassy torchings "muhammad image archive"

Going Loony for WWII Cartoons

I report. You decide.

Self Inflicted Crisis

The UN is warning of an economic crisis if the Palestinians don't get money quick. Sorry, but this is an economic crisis of their own making and they're going to have to live with the repercussions of their actions.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs cautioned that an Israeli decision to cut off taxes and customs duties collected on behalf of the Palestinians could bring the Palestinian government to the brink of collapse by limiting its ability to provide basic services such as health, education, utilities, sanitation and policing.

The flow of money has been jeopardized by the Islamic militant group Hamas' landslide victory in Jan. 25 Palestinian elections. With the Palestinian Authority already strapped for cash, experts warn a cutoff could trigger a quick collapse.

Israel's Cabinet decided this month to stop sending the Palestinian Authority roughly $55 million in taxes and customs duties it collects on its behalf each month on imports and from Palestinian merchants and laborers working in Israel. The Jewish state considers Hamas, which is committed to Israel's destruction, a terrorist organization.

Would it be such a bad thing if the Palestinian 'government' collapses? After all, its comprised of terrorist groups who want nothing more than to destroy Israel, spread its militant Islamist worldview, and will not waiver on any of its goals. A collapse would be a shock to the Palestinian society, and show that elections have consequences - their overwhelming choice to back a terrorist group as their voice was the worst possible outcome, and any bailout would only delay the lesson that they sorely must learn.

Refusing to bail out the Palestinians at this juncture may be precisely what the Palestinians need in order to purge itself of the radical militancy that has dominated their leadership for more than 40 years; first in the guise of Arafat and the PLO and now Hamas.

However, the UN will likely try to do everything within its power to see that money ends up in the Palestinian Authority's hands, despite the fact that who knows how many billions have been siphoned off through the years in corruption or for the running Intifada. There are no checks against more siphoning of monies except the word of the UN (which has its own accounting - and accountability - problems) or Hamas.

While I feel sorry for most of the Palestinians who do not deserve this kind of leadership, that feeling is tempered by the fact that many do support terrorism, support violence in the face of dissenting opinions, and do not take responsibility for their own actions, instead blaming the Zionists or the West for their predicament.

Numbers

The Washington Post is claiming that more than 1,200 people were killed in the violence spurred by the attack and destruction of the Golden Dome Mosque. Omar at Iraq the Model has different numbers that are seriously at odds with the Washington Post's figures.

The WaPo claims that the figure is more than three times higher than previously released figures.

Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media.

Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

So what's the real toll? And does the ultimate death toll matter as to whether the country is headed towards civil war, something less than civil war, or an extremely violent response to an incredible travesty and affront to a large percentage of Shi'ites who saw one of their holiest shrines destroyed by terrorists?

The answers aren't clear, and anyone who thinks that the Iraqi endeavor is doomed to failure only wants to see the worst. Let's recall what spurred the horrible bloodletting - an attack and destruction of a holy religious shrine that resulted in that group attacking its religious opponents.

The butchers bill must be laid at the feet of the perpetrators of the attack on the Golden Dome mosque. They knew that their action would cause some to resort to violence, and hoped that the sectarian violence would spiral out of the control of the Iraqi government and coalition forces.

Despite the high death toll, that did not come to pass. The high death toll is extremely unfortunate and a step back in the process, but the fact that Sunni and Shia political groups are back to talking about forming a new government shows that there is resiliency in the political groundwork being laid by the Iraqi people.

UPDATE:
While there was more violence today, and 56 people killed in a series of bombings around Baghdad, the Iraqi government strenuously objected to the WaPo's tally.

UPDATE:
The Officers Club takes the AP to task for burying the lede (and the headline boast to boot). This news comes concurrently with the violence elsewhere in Iraq due to the destruction of the Golden Dome, and yet people in Ramadi turned in a major al Qaeda figure. Curious. Jihad Watch also noticed.

Sweetness and Light wonders what would happen if the media declares a civil war and no one shows up.

Decision 08 notes the tremendous amount of diplomatic work that the US and many Iraqis did behind the scenes to keep a bad situation under control and reduce the likelyhood of a civil war. The blog also notes that Sadr's militias continue to be a major headache for the coalition.

Others blogging: Memeorandum

University of Texas Ricin Scare Update

The substance that initially tested positive for ricin has been examined and determined that it wasn't the deadly poison:

mysterious powder that set off a ricin scare at the University of Texas campus likely will remain a mystery, FBI officials said late Monday.

The coarse powder, which a UT student from Pearland found in a roll of quarters Thursday while doing laundry, prompted an FBI investigation after state lab results came back positive for the deadly toxin. But testing at a federal lab in Maryland showed the powder did not contain ricin.

The FBI announced Monday that it had closed its investigation without determining what the powder was.

"It's not what it was. It's what it's not that's important," said FBI Special Agent Rene Salinas.

Meanwhile, UT officials acknowledged some kinks in communication, both within the university and with law enforcement agencies, that may have complicated the situation and increased anxiety.

Bob Harkins, associate vice president for campus safety and security, said in a news conference that university staff had some old cell phone numbers for each other and some outdated contacts for agencies that are being updated.

Once again, the question of communications in a crisis rears its ugly head. Enterprises large and small need to be sure that their communications are up-to-date to deal with potential emergencies, and yet we've repeatedly seen this is not the case. UT police admit that they could have done a better job. Now let us hope that they actually make changes so that they're better prepared going forward.

Letter of the Day

To the Editor:

Re "Silenced by Islamist Rage" (editorial, Feb. 25):

I find it ironic that you claim solidarity with moderate Muslim journalists who have been silenced by the continuing controversy over cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Unlike these courageous proponents for free speech, many of whom have received death threats for publishing these images, The Times has yet to print any of the notorious caricatures.

How are we as readers to evaluate this story fully when The Times is unwilling to take the same risks as the people you laud?

Solidarity indeed!

Matthew Stiles McDonald
Hanover, N.H., Feb. 25, 2006

Michelle Malkin has also picked up this letter. The Times has no shame, and will not publish the cartoons no matter how much people protest and complain. They don't consider items that caused riots, mayhem, and deaths around the world worthy of publication because they might offend Muslims. Sorry, but I find the Islamist reaction to the publication - in the form of rioting, committing acts of war, and murder - to be extremely offensive.

The sad fact remains that there are still riots and demonstrations about these 12 cartoons. Nigeria is a festering mess, where violence between Muslims and Christians may resume at any moment.

And over in India, the cartoons have moved into the political debate:

Uttar Pradesh Chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav today asked the house to move a resolution condemning the Danish cartoonists for lampooning Prophet Mohammed, while the opposition BJP created uproar by raising the issue of state minister Haji Yakoob Qureshi announcing a bounty of Rs 51 crore on the head of the cartoonists.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, the BJP members demanded that the Speaker of the House declare the act of announcing bounty as ''unconstitutional''.

Meanwhile, Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey, reserved his judgement over whether the minister's statement would be declared "unconstitutional." ''Announcement of bounty by a minister for an individual's head amounted to an offer for contract killing and hence the minister's statement should be declared unconstitutional,'' the BJP demanded.

Over in the Palestinian territories, polling done suggests that nearly 2/3 of Palestinians support violent riots against those who publish the cartoons:

According to the poll, 63 percent of respondents advocate Muslim riots and violent attacks in response to the publication of cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad, while 35 stated they oppose such acts.

Funny, but the Arab League poohbahs are saying that the cartoons are part of a battle against Islam. Methinks they have it backwards. The Islamists want this battle, and they think that their version of Islam is superior to all other religious interpretations and religious beliefs. And they'll kill to prove their point.

Back in Europe, the Danish Prime Minister welcomed a declaration made by the European Union. You can be sure that the Islamists will not approve.

UPDATE:
Tigerhawk reports that Islamists are now rioting over a depiction of Mecca. On a playing card. A playing card? You can't make this stuff up:

Police fired tear gas at hundreds of rampaging demonstrators on Tuesday in the main city of the Indian portion of Kashmir, protesting the publication by an Indian magazine of the picture of Islam's holiest Shrine on a playing card.

While I can understand the anger at depicting religious holy shrines on a deck of playing cards, rioting seems, well, to be a disproportionate response. Boycott the company that produced the cards. Call on the company to stop manufacturing the cards. Riot? Looks like the card company was holding the deadman's hand (aces and eights).

Technorati: Buy Danish "jyllands-posten mohammed" "muhammad cartoon" embassy torchings "muhammad image archive"

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 97

Costs continue to increase for the construction of the WTC Memorial, which is now topping $1 billion. Some families are worried that the safety of visitors is compromised because the memorial is below street level with limited access and egress.

Sen. Charles Schumer continues to comment on developments at Ground Zero saying that the Port Authority should be the anchor tenant for the Freedom Tower. Schumer is also demanding that all remaining Liberty Bonds be devoted exclusively to rebuilding at Ground Zero.

Silverstein has until March 14 to prove he's capable of finishing the project.

Bloomberg said he won't commit the city's half of the $3.3 billion in Liberty Bonds to any project until he's certain it's "going to work out."

He said yesterday he doesn't question Schumer's "dedication" but said, "We happen to disagree with some" of his proposals.

Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said the agency hasn't decided which World Trade Center building to move into.

UPDATE:
Here's a link to the concerns over the memorial design. It's been known for quite some time that the design would be largely below street level, but with construction scheduled to start this year, these latest complaints are meant to scuttle the design. That would add to the delays and costs.

UPDATE:
The New York Sun has a good overview of the current issues raised by Schumer, Silverstein, and Bloomberg.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.

A Long Time Coming

Public authorities in New York State are notoriously poor at responsiveness and transparency. Current Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who's also running for Governor in November, wants to do something about it.

It's amazing that Spitzer has found the issue after all these years. After going after the drug companies, the financial services companies, and tobacco companies, he's finally going after some of the worst run entities in the State. Oh, and they happen to be public authorities.

Nice.

Actually, I hope that Spitzer does more than speak platitudes and does something about the situation. The MTA has been worse than awful in accounting for its finances, and that's taxpayer money we're talking about. Other public authorities are also poor stewards of taxpayer money. That has to change.

Monday, February 27, 2006

The Bob Owens Interview

Things must be looking up at the Washington Post when they run an interview with blogger Bob Owens who runs the Confederate Yankee website. Congrats to Bob.

Congrats on the bigtime media mention. And this question that Bob asked himself is most enlightening:

Question: What makes your thoughts and opinions more correct or valuable than mine or someone else's?
Answer: Thoughts and opinions only have the value a reader assigns to it. On matters of fact, I try to establish credibility by doing research the reader may not have time to conduct on his own, and in matters of opinion, I try to offer a reasonable level of support for my position. Whether you are a Pulitzer-winning journalist or a Weblog Award nominee, your value comes from your credibility and your ability to substantiate what you say, and your ability to admit and correct mistakes.

I've got to wonder just how some of the big-name journalists would answer that question.

Deadlocked

Once again, the UN is failing to assist the people of Darfur, Sudan. The latest proposed UN action would be to impose sanctions and to punish 17 specific individuals:

While the United States, Britain, Denmark and France argued certain individuals should be quickly designated as sanctions targets, China, Russia and Qatar called for more delay, U.N. diplomats said after closed-door talks on the way ahead in Darfur.

Tens of thousands of Sudanese have been killed and more than 2 million driven from their homes and herded into grim camps during more than three years of fighting in the remote western Sudanese region pitting government forces and rebel militias against non-Arab rebels.

The council voted nearly a year ago to authorize sanctions against individuals blocking the peace process or violating a U.N. arms embargo, and U.N. experts last December gave the council a secret list of 17 people it said should be punished.

The list remained confidential until February 17, when details appeared on the Web site of The American Prospect. Additional details were published last week including by Reuters, leading to speculation the 15-nation council would now quickly move ahead with freezes on travel and assets of those on the list.

At this point in time, more than 200,000 people have been killed in this violence, and 2 million are refugees from the roving militias and janjaweed. The African Union has been unable to stop the violence, the UN doesn't have a significant peacekeeping presence although the AU is planning on turning over operations to the UN, and the US is providing assistance through the AU.

The Chinese don't want to lose their oil sources, so they're siding with the despots in Khartoum to prevent further action to stop the genocide. Now, the American Prospect article also links one of the 17 named individuals to the CIA - Salah Abdala Gosh, who happened to be Sudan's director of National Security and Intelligence Services, who purportedly envisioned the Darfur genocide strategy. However, he also kept tabs on the likes of Osama bin Laden when he was camping out in Sudan during the 1990s.

There's lots more than meets the eye, but the regime in Khartoum benefits from the delay.

UPDATE:
The New York Times is headlining on its website that the situation in Darfur is reaching another crisis point. Refugees are streaming across the border into Chad, threatening to widen the problems even further. The UN is powerless to act to stop this as long as there's at least one country that threatens to veto Security Council action.

Arab gunmen from Darfur have pushed across the desert and entered Chad, stealing cattle, burning crops and killing anyone who resists. The lawlessness has driven at least 20,000 Chadians from their homes, turning them into refugees in their own country.

Hundreds of thousands more people in this area, along with 200,000 Sudanese who fled here for safety, now find themselves caught up in a growing conflict between Chad and Sudan, two nations with a long history of violence and meddling in each other's affairs.

"You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn't get worse, but it has," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said in a recent statement. "Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."

Indeed, the accounts of civilians in parts of eastern Chad are agonizingly familiar to those in western Sudan. One woman, Zahara Isaac Mahamat, described how Arab men on camels and horses had raided her village in Chad, stealing everything they could find and slaughtering all who resisted.

Note the portion I italicized in the quote. And it's not just Arab militias involved - these militias are Muslims and they're specifically going after Christian and animist Sudanese. The Darfur genocide and ongoing conflict in the region has religious overtones, yet the Times is playing down that aspect. Curious.

Technorati: dafur, darfur, genocide, african union, annan, janjaweed.

USA Olympics Post Mortem

I'm not sure why so many people think that the US didn't do particularly well in the Olympics that just ended. Maybe it's because Bode Miller never bothered to show up. Michelle Kwan probably shouldn't have shown up. Johnny Weir failed to show up for the free skate (figuratively and nearly literally). The US mens hockey team's offense failed to show up. Yet for all those failures, the US Olympic Team had their most successful showing at a Winter Games staged outside the US. Ever.

Think of it this way. If Bode Miller had managed to live up to half the expectations and garnered a couple of medals (and they didn't even have to be gold), the US could have overtaken the Germans for the most medals at the Turin games.

Far from being a failure, the Games showed that sports are unpredictable, and that the media-annointed favorites often can't live up to the hype either because their bodies let them down (Kwan) or because they think that the Games are a party scene first and a high level competition second (Miller).

To me, the competitions are compelling enough if the live networks bother to show the competitions. People are amazed at the incredible skill needed to ski down a mountain at 80mph or skate 30mph for 1,000 meters. Sure, people like to gravitate towards their countrymen, but the good stories of the games will come out.

And that's what it really is about.

The networks and advertisers have a different frame of reference. They're looking for the next star and next media attraction. And a return on investment. So, expect someone from these games to end up on a Wheaties box. And some commercials.

When Is Treason Not Treason?

When the treason is being proffered by the unrepentant hard Left:

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

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

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

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

Location:
White House, Washington DC 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington DC 20500

Contact:
Darrow Boggiano
admin@politicalcooperative.org
415.409.2611

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

Who will actually show up for this spectacle? Probably a handful of yokels and 60s retreads who have nothing better to do on the 15th. I know I'm probably giving these nutbars far more press than they're worth, but the media coverage of the demonstrations will likely omit the nature of the groups involved, hoping to make the demonstrations appear to have far more popular support than there really is, as well as blur who is sponsoring this event.

UPDATE:
The text of the message has been altered to specifically state that this is meant to be a peaceful demonstration. Gee, you think more than a few folks emailed to let the organizers know a thing or two?

UPDATE:
Others blogging this story: Confederate Yankee, Pirate's Cove, Jason Smith at Generation Why, Right Wing News, Michelle Malkin, and Sweetness and Light.