Fallout From Gaming the System

Captain Ed notes that the Pentagon did not first run the news stories detailing the Iraqi documents that show Russia was providing assistance in March 2003, including detailed information about US battle plans and assets in the region through the Russians before publication:

Under normal circumstances with a country viewed as a diplomatic partner, if not an ally, both nations would engage in discussions about this kind of information before making it public, probably through high-ranking diplomats. The aggrieved nation would at least demand an explanation prior to showing its hand. The failure to do so by the US shows that this development has George Bush mad enough to expose Vladimir Putin and his government to the kind of political damage that could restart the Cold War. That may be because Bush understands that, just as with 9/11 and its precursor attacks, that war has already been declared by our enemy.

Ed notes that this is also the likely reason the CIA sought to keep these documents under wraps. That's quite a reason, as it affects the US diplomatic stance vis-a-vis Russia and how we intend to use the UN and other international organizations for furthering US goals.

There's also a story that the IAEA Chief Mohammad ElBaradei says that the UN Security Council is too often ineffective. This is an incredible statement considering the facts that continue to come out showing that the reason that the Security Council fails to act is because any number of countries have been coopted by third parties to prevent aggressive and timely action:

The U.N. Security Council has too often failed to act swiftly and effectively to contain international crises and needs to be reformed, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Saturday.

"Too often, the Security Council's engagement is inadequate, selective, or after the fact," said Mohamed ElBaradei, last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"The tragedies of recent years in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Darfur are cases in point," he told an audience of mostly German dentists.

His criticism of the U.N. body responsible for maintaining international peace and security comes as its five permanent members struggle to agree on a draft statement rebuking Iran for pressing ahead with its nuclear enrichment program.

In an annual lecture organized by a Karlsruhe dental institute, the Egyptian diplomat said the 15-nation Security Council was still incapable of tackling violence in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.

There is no action on Darfur because China is preventing action. On Iraq, France, Germany, and Russia were preventing aggressive and timely action because it turns out all three were on Saddam's payroll - as per the UNSCAM/OFF documents and the documents captured in Iraq showing that Russia was actively assisting the Iraqis with intel on US and coalition battle plans and assets.

Oh, and what does ElBaradei suggest as a solution to fix the Security Council? Reform and expansion. Sorry, but that doesn't fix the problem. The problem lies in the members themselves, not the number. Russia appears to sway its vote according to the highest bidder. China would sway votes in a similar fashion. The Arab/Muslim countries would protect their own at all costs. Dictators tend to stick together on preventing action against fellow totalitarian regimes.

At least ElBaradei thinks that Iran's nuclear program isn't wholly peaceful. That's a relief. Too bad ElBaradei and the IAEA have done nothing to stem the tide of nuclear proliferation (for which they received a Nobel Prize).

Airbus Rudder Problems and NTSB Recommendations

New rudder problems have been found on French-made Airbus jets that could cause disasters like the deadly 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in the Rockaways, federal safety officials warned yesterday.

The rudders of many Airbus passenger jets are made of composite plastic that appears dangerously prone to disintegrating, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

NTSB officials want airlines to immediately comply with recommendations issued by Airbus earlier this month for checks on its A300, A310, A330 and A340 aircraft.

"This urgent recommendation, if acted upon quickly, will go a long way to prevent a catastrophic failure of the rudder," NTSB acting chairman Mark Rosenker said.

The official NTSB press release contains references to several incidents in 2005 that related to separation of rudder components, and it appears that there might be a relationship between the separations and the appearance of hydraulic fluid.

Further examination of the disbonded area revealed traces of hydraulic fluid. Hydraulic fluid contamination between the honeycomb skin and the fiberglass composite skin can lead to progressive disbonding, which compromises the strength of the rudder. Tests on the damaged rudder also revealed that disbonding damage could spread during flight.

The investigation found that the areas specified in the AOT did not include the areas in which the disbonds were found on the incident rudder. Further, it was determined that tap tests on the external surfaces of the rudder likely would not have disclosed the disbonding of an internal surface.

On March 2, 2006 Airbus issued AOTs notifying operators of applicable A300 series airplanes that large disbonds between the rudder's inner skin and the honeycomb core could go undetected, and providing guidance for inspecting the rudders. The Safety Board is recommending a more stringent compliance time than specified in the AOT and also requesting that FAA make the inspections mandatory.

The NTSB is recommending examinations of the rudders before any further flights of the aircraft and is expected to affect about 400 aircraft.

Flight 587 crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens after the rudder apparently failed shortly after takeoff. 265 people were killed, and while Airbus claims that pilot error/training was to blame, many have pointed to rudder problems as the cause of the accident. Here is the NTSB summary of findings from that accident, which occurred shortly after 9/11 and prompted fears that it may have been another terrorist attack.

Other Airbus aircraft have had problems, including several spectacular landings due to failures of landing gear components.

Technorati: JetBlue, Jet Blue, airbus, A300, A310, and A320.

Warming Relations Between India and Pakistan

India is proposing a peace treaty that would formally end the state of war that exists between India and Pakistan. The two countries have occasionally fought for control over Jammu and Kashmir. Both have sought and obtained nuclear weapons programs in the course of their conflict as well.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared to be proposing a comprehensive accord touching on many issues, including the dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir.

''I am convinced we can move forward, if all concerned are willing to accept the ground realities; if all concerned take a long view of history and our destiny," Singh said at a ceremony starting a new bus service between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan's foreign ministry welcomed the overture, but stressed the need for taking ''bold and sincere steps" to resolve Kashmir, which is divided between the two neighbors.

In Islamabad, Pakistan welcomed Singh's overture yesterday but stressed there would be little movement if the Kashmir issue was not resolved.

Kashmir is the root of the tension in the region, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said, calling on India to take ''bold and sincere steps to resolve the issue."

Both countries are involved in the War on Terror and resolving the conflict between the two would be a significiant step in stabilizing South Asia.

Stepping Into The Mess

Ben Domenech was hired by the Washington Post to blog the conservative take on current events. Liberals and leftists immediately swarmed and started making a combination of baseless accusations and claims that Domenech plagarized texts over the course of his career.

It's one thing to be smeared for saying things that you didn't say or taking things out of context to try and get a guy fired, but quite another when you're talking about defending charges of plagarism.

Domenech lifted materials originally written by others without providing due documentation, citation, or other means of providing credit.

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.

Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.

As such, his dismissal from that blogging position at the WaPo was appropriate and a just result. He should not be able to profit from the words and ideas of others.

And for those who are wondering how I cite to others on this and any other blog I post on, here's a handy dandy guide.

If there's indented text, that means that the text was copied from some other source, the citation to which is either from the title or the link that appears directly above such text.

A Break For Abdul Rahman?

World outcry over the Abdul Rahman case in Afghanistan continues snowballing.

And there's a bit of good news, as a report indicates that the Afghan government is preparing to release Rahman soon.

An Afghan Christian facing possible execution for converting from Islam was likely to be released from jail "soon," a senior government official said following huge Western pressure over the case.

"He is likely to be released soon," the official said, adding there would be a top-level meeting on the matter Saturday.

Abdul Rahman was arrested two weeks ago under Islamic Sharia law and faced a possible death sentence in a case that has attracted widespread condemnation, especially from the United States.

UPDATE:
While Rahman's future may be brightening a bit, the same can't be said for other Afghan Christians.

During the past few days, Compass has confirmed the arrest of two other Afghan Christians elsewhere in the country. Because of the sensitive situation, local sources requested that the location of the jailed converts be withheld.

This past weekend, one young Afghan convert to Christianity was beaten severely outside his home by a group of six men, who finally knocked him unconscious with a hard blow to his temple. He woke up in the hospital two hours later but was discharged before morning.

“Our brother remains steadfast, despite the ostracism and beatings,” one of his friends said.

Several other Afghan Christians have been subjected to police raids on their homes and places of work in the past month, as well as to telephone threats.

Technorati: abdul rahman, islam, conversion, apostacy, afghanistan.

Good vs. Evil

THE BUSH administration's newly unveiled National Security Strategy might well be subtitled "The Irony of Iran." Three years after the invasion of Iraq and the invention of the phrase "axis of evil," the administration now highlights the threat posed by Iran — whose radical government has been vastly strengthened by the invasion of Iraq. This is more tragedy than strategy, and it reflects the Manichean approach this administration has taken to the world.

It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction. The administration's penchant for painting its perceived adversaries with the same sweeping brush has led to a series of unintended consequences.

For years, the president has acted as if Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's followers and Iran's mullahs were parts of the same problem. Yet, in the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq and Iran fought a brutal war. In the 1990s, Al Qaeda's allies murdered a group of Iranian diplomats. For years, Osama bin Laden ridiculed Hussein, who persecuted Sunni and Shiite religious leaders alike. When Al Qaeda struck the U.S. on 9/11, Iran condemned the attacks and later participated constructively in talks on Afghanistan. The top leaders in the new Iraq — chosen in elections that George W. Bush called "a magic moment in the history of liberty" — are friends of Iran. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, Bush may have thought he was striking a blow for good over evil, but the forces unleashed were considerably more complex.

Where to start with this train wreck of muddled thinking? As the document cache recovered from Iraq shows with alarming regularity, Saddam wasn't above dealing with al Qaeda and Osama. They had common enemies and could set aside theological differences if needed.

Albright conflates micro needs versus grand strategy. Iran may have issued a token condemnation of the 9/11 attacks, but that doesn't mean that they weren't cheering the result. The same goes for their actions related to Afghanistan. They wanted to keep the US out of the Iranian sphere of influence, and if that meant trying to negotiate the Taliban to exit stage left without US action, then not only do the Iranians curry favor in US diplomatic circles, but the Iranians don't have to worry about US forces on their borders (all while they're thinking about putting their nuclear program into overdrive).

And the fact that some of Iraq's new leadership has friendly relations with Iran is a realpolitik on the Iraqi's part to recognize that they've got do deal with ongoing threats as well. The country isn't fully prepared to deal with a threat from Iran, so playing nice along that border is common sense. Not to mention that there isn't any sense of allegience to Iran considering that Iran and Iraq spent 8 years slugging it out in a truly horrific and bloody war that killed millions on both sides.

So, on top of misreading the situation between Iraq and Iran, she selectively reads the history to try and prove her point about the US strategy of calling evil by its name, instead of playing it the way the US has always done - maintaining the status quo, even when dangers lurk and need to be addressed before it is too late.

Too bad Albright didn't perceive North Korea as evil, as they went nuclear on her watch. Or watched as Pakistan and Iran launched nuclear programs with assistance of the AQ Khan network to obtain nuclear weapons.

The administration is now divided between those who understand this complexity and those who do not. On one side, there are ideologues, such as the vice president, who apparently see Iraq as a useful precedent for Iran. Meanwhile, officials on the front lines in Iraq know they cannot succeed in assembling a workable government in that country without the tacit blessing of Iran; hence, last week's long-overdue announcement of plans for a U.S.-Iranian dialogue on Iraq — a dialogue that if properly executed might also lead to progress on other issues.

Iran is a threat to the US, yet Albright thinks that you can negotiate with an unstable and unrational regime. Look at all the good that did with Clinton handing off negotiating a deal with North Korea on nuclear weapons to Carter in 1994. Yet, there is something to be said about dealing with Iran on Iraq - namely to gather intel on the Iranian regime and try and settle things down at the Iraq/Iran border so that Iraq can get on its feet. That buys the Iraqis time, but time is something that the US does not have when it comes to the Iranian threat of obtaining nuclear weapons.

Third, the administration must stop playing solitaire while Middle East and Persian Gulf leaders play poker. Bush's "march of freedom" is not the big story in the Muslim world, where Shiite Muslims suddenly have more power than they have had in 1,000 years; it is not the big story in Lebanon, where Iran is filling the vacuum left by Syria; it is not the story among Palestinians, who voted — in Western eyes — freely, and wrongly; it is not even the big story in Iraq, where the top three factions in the recent elections were all supported by decidedly undemocratic militias.

Funny, but the Administration has consistently beaten Democrats on foreign policy at every turn, so why should anyone in the Administration listen to Albright whose foreign policy was largely a failure in the Middle East. The sad fact is that the march of freedom is the big story precisely because Bush threw his weight behind that idea and millions of people around the region are better off for it.

Those who aren't better off: terrorists, and terror-sponsoring regimes who happen to be evil. Oh, and members of the Democratic party in the US who have to root for US failures overseas to win elections back home.

The Phrase That Pays

This document is of limited evidentiary value.

That's the phrase that pays, and one that CBS probably wishes it had used when it ran bogus documents as proof that Bush lied about his service in Rathergate. This is the phrase that ABC News is using in association with one of the documents captured in Iraq and now translated into English that show linkages between Saddam and al Qaeda:

(Editor's Note: The controversial claim that Osama bin Laden was cooperating with Saddam Hussein is an ongoing matter of intense debate. While the assertions contained in this document clearly support the claim, the sourcing is questionable — i.e. an unnamed Afghan "informant" reporting on a conversation with another Afghan "consul." The date of the document — four days after 9/11 — is worth noting but without further corroboration, this document is of limited evidentiary value.)

It's also a way of dismissing the evidence. The reality is that the evidence is growing that these links extended beyond initial meetings and discussion, not shrinking. And the names of those involved in suspicious activities keep popping up all over the place - see also Ambassador, Russia.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 109

I wish I could finally end this ongoing series about developments at Ground Zero and instead provide updates about the ongoing construction, but the political infighting among the participants who have, or think they have, control over the site is continuing to thwart development.

Nicole Gelinas delves into the financial issues that are driving the current conflict between Silverstein, the Port Authority and even Mayor Bloomberg. Bloomberg comes off the worst, since his withholding of Liberty Bonds is potentially the biggest threat to rebuilding since his share represents the margin that Silverstein would need to not only rebuild the complex, but establish a financially viable project. And it's possible that Bloomberg is actually violating the law that established the Liberty Bonds in the first place by withholding them from redevelopment in Lower Manhattan. Bloomberg has already permitted developers in other parts of the city access to those bonds in projects that will compete with Lower Manhattan.

Bloomberg, by withholding the Liberty Bonds, is acting not as a responsible steward of the city's rebuilding resources, but as a self-fulfilling prophet of Downtown doom. It's hard to see how he is acting in good faith.

Remember, this is the mayor whose scheme for encouraging real-estate development on Manhattan's Far West Side (without benefit of Downtown's transit assets) was thwarted by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver - who represents Lower Manhattan.

Payback's a bitch. And everyone is suffering from this fight, most importantly businesses in Lower Manhattan who are working in an uncertain work environment.

UPDATE 3/27/2006:
Welcome Ed Driscoll and City Journal readers. As you'll note from the title, this is part of my ongoing coverage of WTC related developments. I hope you find my take on the situation informative and worth the extra clicks. Thanks for stopping by.

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

Still Think Diplomacy Would Have Avoided Conflict?

Then you could not be more hopelessly wrong.

Russia was actively assisting Iraq in preparing for the US led coalition effort to depose Saddam Hussein, including providing intel that was quite accurate as to composition of US forces and the battle plan that the US would use to enter Iraq and march towards Baghdad.

The headline by ABC News:

Did Russian Ambassador Give Saddam the U.S. War Plan?

Document written sometime before March 5, 2003

The first document (CMPC-2003-001950) is a handwritten account of a meeting with the Russian ambassador that details his description of the composition, size, location and type of U.S. military forces arrayed in the Gulf and Jordan. The document includes the exact numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, different types of aircraft, missiles, helicopters, aircraft carriers, and other forces, and also includes their exact locations. The ambassador also described the positions of two Special Forces units.

Document dated March 25, 2003

The second document (CMPC-2004-001117) is a typed account, signed by Deputy Foreign Minister Hammam Abdel Khaleq, that states that the Russian ambassador has told the Iraqis that the United States was planning to deploy its force into Iraq from Basra in the South and up the Euphrates, and would avoid entering major cities on the way to Baghdad, which is, in fact what happened. The documents also state "Americans are also planning on taking control of the oil fields in Kirkuk." The information was obtained by the Russians from "sources at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar," according to the document.

This document also includes an account of an amusing incident in which several Iraqi Army officers (presumably seeking further elaboration of the U.S. war plans) contacted the Russian Embassy in Baghdad and stated that the ambassador was their source. Needless to say, this caused great embarrassment to the ambassador, and the officers were instructed "not to mention the ambassador again in that context."

(Editor's Note: The Russian ambassador in March 2003 was Vladimir Teterenko. Teterenko appears in documents released by the Volker Commission, which investigated the Oil for Food scandal, as receiving allocations of 3 million barrels of oil — worth roughly $1.5 million. )

Thus, it would appear that no matter how much diplomatic pressure was exerted by Powell at the State Department on the Russians and the UN, UNSCAM reared its ugly head and would further support that Iraq bought off the Russians and provided sufficient compensation to the Russian Ambassador that the Russians would provide key intel on US assets in the region.

This begs several questions:
1) Was the information leaked to the Russians by US Central Command to provide a backchannels dialogue showing US resolve on tossing Saddam on the ash heap of history? Or was this the result of a spy or spy ring?

2) If this intel was obtained via a spy or spy ring, has the US smoked out the person or persons who provided the Russians with the intel about US assets and battle plans? This person is a traitor and should be treated as such for undermining US national security at a time of war. And has this person been identified so that he, she, or the group of persons involved cannot undermine US national security going forward - with an eye towards Iran?

3) Have the Russians been running interference for the Iranians in the same fashion that they did for Iraq? If so, then there's no way that the UN or any other international body will be able to respond to the threat posed by an Iran on the nuclear precipice as those entities have been compromised through graft, corruption, and bribes.

4) Given that this evidence supports the contention that US diplomatic efforts were being undermined by the Iraqis who bought off key players at the UN, should any Administration going forward consider or rely upon the UN to handle international disputes when it is clear that the UN has been gamed to eliminate or reduce the possibility of action on key conflicts (Sudan, Iran, North Korea, et al.)?

Others blogging: Ace of Spades, Captain Ed, Pajamas Media, and Ray Robison, who provides a breakdown of US forces being assembled for the invasion, including the following:

Number of tanks: 480
Number of armored cars: 1132
Number of artillery: 296
Number of Apache helicopters : 735
Number of fighter planes: 871
Number of Navy ships: 106. 68 in the Gulf and the rest in Oman (State of Oman), Aden (Yemen), the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
Number of air carriers: 5. One nuclear powered. Three in the Gulf one in the Mediterranean and one on its way.
Number of Cruise missiles: 583 based on the US Navy and distributed on 22 ships.
Number of Cruise missiles on planes: 64
Number of heavy bombers B-52 H: 10 in the Indian Ocean.
Number of B1-B: 8 present in the US base of Thumarid in Oman.

4- The ambassador pointed that what worried us (most probably “us” refers to the Russians) was the increase in the number of planes in Jordan where the number of planes in Al Sallt base was as follows:
24 planes F-16
10 planes Tornado
11 planes Harrier
He also mentioned that there were 10 A-10 tank destroyers in the Jordanian base of King Faysal.

5- The ambassador also pointed that a certain number of the 82nd Division (82nd Airborne) which was deployed in Afghanistan started coming to Kuwait. The number of troops has reached 750 soldiers.

UPDATE:
Flopping Aces is also covering the latest document examination, and the name of Teterenko keeps popping up. In fact, he was among those Russians who were in a convoy that was hit by US forces in April 2003 on its way to Syria. Considering that no one quite knows what happened to Iraq's WMD, much speculation has swirled that Iraq transported its WMD out of the country, and some believe that Iraq had help. Russia could have played the role of intermediary. That's all conjecture, but with continued examination of these documents, evidence of Russia's malfeasance is growing.

QandO is also examining the documents.

UPDATE:
PJ Media reports yet another curious tidbit. Ray Robison has additional translations to work from. These ones show that Iraq was hiding Russian and Turkish scientists from UN inspectors during a surprise inspection December 15, 2002. AJ Strata picks up the story as well and also wonders whether Iran has picked up the Iraq payoff strategy.

Meanwhile, AJ points to a WaPo article that Naji Sabri may have been a French spy who was turned over to CIA handlers:

Deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s last foreign minister, Naji Sabri, was a paid spy for French intelligence, which later turned him over to the CIA to supply information about Iraq and its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs more than six months before the war began in March 2003, according to former senior intelligence officials.

This differs from the version of events that I noted a few days ago, which was based on NBC news reports:

The contact was brokered by the French intelligence service, sources say. Intelligence sources say that in a New York hotel room, CIA officers met with an intermediary who represented Sabri. All discussions between Sabri and the CIA were conducted through a "cutout," or third party.

Once again, we're down to figuring out which sources to value higher.

MacRanger also picks up on the document dump and provides some color commentary.

And Bonds Thinks This Is A Good Idea?

Barry Bonds, he of the bulging biceps, a balloon for a head, and of the cream and the clear, intends to sue the authors of the book Game of Shadows. Considering that he's really got nothing to lose here as most people have already made up their minds as to whether Bonds was taking steroids to enhance his ability to hit home runs, this book attempts to lay the foundation for why people have drawn that conclusion.

The lawyer for Bonds claims that the authors of the book, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, used illegally obtained grand jury testimony.

Bonds’ attorneys sent a letter Thursday to an agent for the authors of “Game of Shadows,” alerting them of plans to sue the writers, publisher Gotham Books, the San Francisco Chronicle and Sports Illustrated, which published excerpts this month.

The letter, signed by Alison Berry Wilkinson, an associate of Bonds’ lead attorney, Michael Rains, was posted on the Chronicle’s Web Site. A hearing was tentatively scheduled for Friday in San Francisco Superior Court.

This is about the only way Bonds can go after the authors, SI and the SF Chronicle, because to use the legal theory of libel would put Bonds in a serious quandry. Not only would Bonds have to show that the book's allegations were untrue, but that the authors had to make the statements with malice aforethought as Bonds is a public figure. The problem is trying to prove that the allegations were false. That would likely require Bonds to take the stand in his own defense.

But Bonds' legal team isn't stopping there:

Bonds’ legal team will ask a judge Friday to issue a temporary restraining order forfeiting all profits from publication and distribution, according to the letter. The lawyers plan to file the suit under California’s unfair competition law.

The attorneys will ask a federal judge to initiate contempt proceedings “for the use of illegally obtained” grand jury transcripts the authors used in writing the book. Rains said profits should be forfeited because of that.

And lest you think that Bonds is alone in being accused in the book of using steroids, the book further claims that Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi were both taking steroids.

Baseball Musings has more.

Return of the French Riots

This time, its youth torching cars and causing mayhem because the job situation in France is pitiful. The government is trying to do something, anything really, about the incredibly high unemployment rates among young people, which is pegged at 23%.

Rampaging French youths set fire to cars and looted shops in Paris on Thursday, marring protests against a youth jobs law that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, in a conciliatory move, agreed to discuss with unions.

Aides said Villepin would meet senior trade union officials on Friday to try to defuse a crisis that has triggered a national strike threat and drawn hundreds of thousands of protesters on to French streets.

In Paris, riot police fired tear gas in clashes with youths, dubbed "casseurs" by the French, in the Invalides areas near the Foreign Ministry, Reuters witnesses said.

Youths threw stones at police and set fire to the door of an apartment building in running battles at the end of a largely peaceful rally by thousands of students and workers against the CPE First Job Contract.

"This time, there are lots of young criminals on the march who are there to steal and smash. This discredits the movement," said Charlie Herblin, a 22-year-old worker on the march.

Dozens of young people, many wearing masks or hoods, overturned cars, smashed shop windows and robbed student demonstrators of clothes and mobile phones, witnesses said. Police said they had arrested 42 people.

Clashes also erupted in the western city of Rennes, where about 300 to 400 youths battled with police.

No Pasaran notes that this is what the French are calling "adapting to new circumstances." Not particularly well, I might add.

Update on Abdul Rahman

Rahman remains in custody as the Afghan government tries to weasel out of the sticky wicket it placed itself in by trying to prosecute and execute a person who was formerly a Muslim but converted to Christianity 16 years ago.

Michelle Malkin has more.

UPDATE:
Afghan clerics want Rahman dead no matter how the court rules. Nice. Real nice.

But four senior clerics interviewed by The Associated Press in their mosques in Kabul said Rahman deserved to be killed for his conversion.

"He is not crazy. He went in front of the media and confessed to being a Christian," said Hamidullah, chief cleric at Haji Yacob Mosque.

"The government is scared of the international community. But the people will kill him if he is freed."

"He is not mad. The government are playing games. The people will not be fooled," said Abdul Raoulf, cleric at Herati Mosque. "This is humiliating for Islam. ... Cut off his head."

Raoulf is considered a moderate cleric in Afghanistan. He was jailed three times for criticizing the Taliban's policies before the hardline regime was ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001.

Considering that the Taliban were as extreme as it gets when it comes to imposing Islamic law, anyone could be considered moderate in comparison.

And why would it be considered humiliating for Islam? Is Islam as a religion not strong enough to withstand the conversion of an adherent to another religion? Does it not speak more to the religious views, strengths and weaknesses of Rahman than it does the religion?

For a Muslim religious leader to proclaim that this act of conversion is a humiliation for Islam suggests that the imams are insecure about their religious beliefs and instead must rely on force and intimidation to carry on their religious traditions. One cannot disagree with the dogma handed down by the imams or else face a potential death sentence.

UPDATE:
Others blogging this deadly serious story: Astute Blogger, In the Bullpen, Captain's Quarters, Below the Beltway, California Conservative, Stop the ACLU.

Some critics remind us that this is the government that the Afghan people chose for themselves and/or that the Adminstration lied about the nature of the Afghan constitution. This is absolutely correct on the former, but incorrect on the latter. The Afghan people did choose this style of government and the constitution that calls for this potential outcome (executing apostates). However, there were serious criticisms of the Afghan constitution (and the Iraqi constitution) over the protections and freedoms that Americans take for granted as references to Shari'a and freedom of religion are proving to be incompatible. These criticisms came from places like LGF, Captain's Quarters, and even on the Iraq the Model site.

Yet, none of this means that we should sit idly by while the Afghan government goes through with the trial and execution. Sitting idly by while this happens is tantamount to condoning such behavior.

Thankfully, we're already seeing various countries, including the US and Canada, trying to exert pressure and engage the Afghan government in discussion on how to avoid executing Rahman (not to mention finding a way to save face for the government).

UPDATE:
LGF notes that Reuters ran a stealth rewrite on an article it ran earlier in the day, which originally found the cartoon jihad and the Rahman situation to be mirror images of each other. The new version now says that the two are complete different. Gotta admire the editorial board at Reuters picking that one up.

Technorati: abdul rahman, islam, conversion, apostacy, afghanistan.

Chicken or Egg

Which came first; the New York Times puff piece that portrayed Donna Fenton in glowing terms while slamming the federal response to the disaster or the realization that she was a complete and utter fraud who should never have received federal hurricane Katrina disaster aid in the first place?

The New York Times did a horrible job in researching the story, but it was no worse than the vetting by the federal agencies that approved her aid.

What a mess.

"Yesterday, the New York police arrested Ms. Fenton, charging her with several counts of welfare fraud and grand larceny. Prosecutors in Brooklyn say she was not a Katrina victim, never lived in Biloxi and had improperly received thousands of dollars in government aid. Ms. Fenton has pleaded not guilty.

"For its profile, The Times did not conduct adequate interviews or public record checks to verify Ms. Fenton's account, including her claim that she had lived in Biloxi. Such checks would have uncovered a fraud conviction and raised serious questions about the truthfulness of her account."

Amazing fact checking the NYT has. And it would appear that FEMA employs the same level of fact checking as well.

Lovely.

New York Times: Supporting Sudan One Ad at a Time

While human rights activists and others applaud New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for his coverage (by subscription) of Sudan, some are appalled at the paper’s business side for accepting an eight-page advertising insert singing the praises of the government of the African nation, which is widely considered responsible for genocide against its own citizens. The supplement lauds Sudan for facing a "peaceful, prosperous and democratic future," and, according to felixsalmon.com criticizes the media for being "focused almost exclusively on the fighting between rebels and Arab militias."

Human Rights Watch program director Iain Levine tells Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove that when he saw the ad "I practically fell off my seat on the subway …. I could not believe it."

"Would the New York Times run an advertorial extolling the charitable works of Osama bin Laden?" asks Felix Salmon. "Would it run advertisements from Nambla, or from the Ku Klux Klan?

If the price was right, who knows. Felix wonders what Kristof was thinking of his employer running these disgraceful advertisements. Considering that the paper's news division hasn't distinguished itself on covering events in Darfur (and only pushing the story to the forefront after refugees from the Darfur genocide started getting pushed into neighboring Chad - threatening to become a regional conflict), and Kristof has been the one shining light on that heart of darkness, there's no doubt that this particular story will not get any coverage either.

The fact is that Darfur's inhabitants have been on the receiving end of a genocidal campaign by the janjaweed who have the blessing of the Khartoum regime. We've even got major US leaders on both sides of the aisle making that point. US action has been limited to assisting the African Union's peacekeeping efforts, but those efforts are coming to an end and the UN is on the precipice of stepping in. No doubt that the violence will once again spiral out of control, just as it did when the UN stood idly by as Rwanda tore itself appart in 1994 resulting in the genocide of more than 800,000. Considering that China and other nations are blocking any kind of action against Sudan, a stalemate at the UN means only more suffering for Darfur unless another group (NATO?) or nation (US?) takes the lead.

Islamists are Islam's Own Worst Enemies

It's not good public relations when you get a bunch of imams calling for the death of a moderate Muslim politician because he simply disagrees with those imams. With a smile, no less. From Jyllands Posten:

In a central segment of this document it is shown how Iman Ahmed Akkari indirectly threatens the leader of Demokratiske Muslimer Naser Khader. It is proposed that he ought to be killed if he joins the government.

"If he becomes Foreign or Immigration Minister, one should send a couple of guys to blow up both him and the ministry", says the spokesman for the imams who travelled to the Middle East.

This discharge was stated in arabic with a smile, while the muslim and arabic-speaking journalist Mohamed Sifaoui was sitting in the backseat of the car. Sifaoui is the producer of this program.

But Akkari did not know he was being filmed. Sifaoui wondered whether his statment was ironic or not...

And these are among the same folks who complained that those 12 cartoons published by Jyllands Posten were an affront to Muslims.

Saved!

Three hostages taken by Islamic terrorists were released rescued by coalition forces earlier today. They were located by US and British forces in a house in Western Baghdad. No terrorists were present when the coalition forces made the rescue.

British officials in Baghdad said those freed were Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, and Briton Norman Kember, 74. The men - members of the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams - were kidnapped Nov. 26 along with their American colleague, Tom Fox.

The body of Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., was found earlier this month.

Yet, the organization that the three belong to made absolutely no mention of who actually freed their members from captivity. Figures. Oh, but they blame the coalition forces for the situation in the first place:

"We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end.

Considering that the US is not occupying Iraq, but instead there to provide assistance in building a new democratic Iraq, this is nothing but agitprop. These so called peace protestors could care less about the fate of Iraqis who had lived under Saddam's tyrannical regime.

It is great news that these hostages were rescued by the coalition forces and their families must be overjoyed at the prospects of being reunited with their loved ones. Too bad their experience being kidnapped, held for more than four months, and potentially witnessing one of their fellow victims murdered has done nothing to disabuse them of their notions of a heroic insurgency seeking to overthrow the coalition's efforts at building a democratic government in Iraq.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin has more on the Christian Peacemaker Teams' media response to the rescue operation, which the CPT claims was a release. It was no such thing, as I clarify above. It took the hard work of the US and British forces to locate and rescue the hostages. The terrorists did not simply release their prisoners, which is precisely the kind of message that the CPT would like you to believe.

Others blogging: Sister Toldjah and Point Five (with their characteristic take on the situation).

UPDATE:
The following folks and websites are taking the CPT to task for their inane statement that doesn't even recognize that their members were actually rescued from their dire situation and not simply released: Gina Cobb, The Green Knight (who notes that Canadian military units participated as well - who knew?), Riehl World View, Secular Blasphemy, and Flopping Aces. Memeorandum rounds up the reaction.

And it took three hours to turn around intel gathered last night to mounting the operation. The soldiers who cared for these three rescued hostages said that they were overjoyed at their release. There's an understatement.

Jill Carroll is still being held hostage somewhere in Iraq. Her whereabouts are still not known.

UPDATE:
The CPT has belatedly issued an addendum at 9:00PM EST thanking the coalition forces that rescued the trio of hostages. You would think that you'd go out of your way to first thank the folks that saved you from the fate of one of your fellow hostages, Tom Fox. Alas, that was not to be.

The Bristow Memo

To: Jack Bauer, CTU
From Jack Bristow, CIA/APO
Re: CTU Status update

Jack, I know we haven't met before, but I feel a certain amount of kinship with you, especially when I hear that you've been double crossed by your lovers twice in the last five years. And it wasn't just you who was double crossed. It was our nation that we both love and have sworn to defend.

I've been there. Really, truly, I have. The love of my life turned out to have used me and I never even saw it coming. She was KGB and she used me, my love for her, and it has cost this nation a great deal.

Audrey and Nina both deserve their respective fates, but I'm writing to warn you about the future. Someone has to get control over CTU hiring practices to stop your mole infestation. Every time you turn around, someone else is either a mole or an incompetent boob that lets their keycard get stolen without reporting the theft and permits CTU to be attacked with nerve gas killing 53 CTU personnel including the invaluable Edgar.

Such incompetence can be tolerated no longer. It should never have been allowed to get to this point, but that's besides the point at this stage in time. The clock is ticking after all.

You must do something. Buchanan doesn't have the clout to do so. And you cannot trust the Homeland Security wench and her toady who both have ulterior motives. I sense much fear in them. And more to the point, I sense that both have an agenda that compromises national security.

Neither of them can be trusted, and both will seek your incarceration at the earliest possible moment. President Logan, whose moral and ethical code is seriously compromised will turn to whoever barks at him the loudest, instead of doing the right thing.

The Vice President has his own agenda, which I have not yet ascertained other than to accumulate power for an eventual run for President. And Novic has his own agenda as well.

Oh, and watch out for those Thin Mints. They're killer on the abs.

Signed,

Jack Bristow
APO

PS: Keep an eye on Kim. She's a trouble magnet. I should know.

UPDATE:
Welcome to those who have entered this blog from the Blogs4Bauer Carnival of Life. Stick around. Stay awhile. And check back next week for another installment of 24 related mayhem.

The Translations Continue and Curious Finds Abound

Pajamas Media has one of the more interesting tidbits of information gleaned from the document dump by the US Government from the millions of documents captured in Iraq.

A. During the visit of the Sudanese Dr. Abrahim Al Sanoosi to the country and his meeting with Mr. Uday Saddam Hussein on 13/12/1994 and with the presence of the respectful Sir the Director of the Apparatus he indicated that the opposition person Osama Bin Laden who is staying in Sudan and who was cautious and fears that he will be accused by his opponents that he became an agent for Iraq, is ready to meet with him in Sudan (The results of the meeting were written to the Honorable Presidency according to our letter 872 on 17/12/1994).

B. The approval of the Honorable Presidency was granted to meet with the opposition person Osama Bin Laden by the Apparatus according to letter 128 on 11/1/1995 (attachment 6) and the meting with him was completed by Mr. M.A ex-4th Directory in Sudan and with the presence of the Sudanese Dr. Abrahim AL Sanoosi on 19/2/1995 and a discussion occurred about his organization, and he requested the broadcasting of Sheikh Sleiman AL Awada (who has influence in Saudia and outside since he is a known and influential religious personality) and dedicate a program for them through the station directed inside the country and make joint operations against the forces of infidels in the land of Hijaz ( the Honorable Presidency has been notified with the details of the meeting according to our letter 370 in 4/3/1995 attachment 7).

It's from 1995. And it shows attempts at opening lines of communications between one Osama bin Laden and the Iraqi government and a meeting between Osama and the Iraqi intel services.

Osama is considered a member of the Saudi opposition - which is an accurate assessment given that Osama's earliest grievances were against the Saudi rulers who let the infidels into the Kingdom and defiled the Holy places by their presence. Considering that Osama opposed the Saudis and the Iraqis opposed the Saudis for their involvement in the first Gulf War, this put both on the same side of the fight. Common interests - striking back at the Saudis and even against the US was not out of the realm of possibility though this document doesn't go beyond approving the meeting.

Barcepundit and Decision '08 have more. And both wonder at the so called 'conventional wisdom' among the Left that says that there was no connection or communications between Saddam and Osama because one was secular and the other was fundamentalist.

Taheriazar's Justification

The man who hit nine people with a sport utility vehicle on the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus wrote a letter to a television reporter saying he read the Quran's 114 chapters 15 times and found that the Muslim holy book justified the attack.

''I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead,'' Mohammed Taheri-azar, 22, wrote in a letter to Amber Rupinta dated March 10 posted on WTVD's Web site.

Funny, but it doesn't matter how many times you read a book, if your interpretation is wrong, rereading the same passages aren't going to give you any different result. Of course, the thornier response is that Taheriazar wasn't misinterpreting the Koran and that it indeed calls for jihad and justifies attacks on infidels. Front Page considers the problems dealing with Taheriazar's actions as a terrorist incident, including the legal hurdles.

Even if his statements trumpeting jihadist motivations are true, authorities can neither charge him with a terrorist offense, nor seek a sentencing enhancement based on his terrorist motives. This points to a significant blind spot in dealing with terrorism in the United States.

Taheri-azar is being prosecuted in state court, and North Carolina doesn't have an applicable terrorism offense that can be brought to bear against him. The state only has two statutory provisions dealing with terrorist incidents. One bans weapons of mass destruction, while the other amends the murder offense. The amendment to the murder offense doesn't apply here--not only because Taheri-azar didn't murder anybody, but also because it only applies when the murder was performed with a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon.

The federal sentencing guidelines do contain a sentencing enhancement in §3A1.4 for offenses intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism. In turn, 18 U.S.C. § 2232b(g)(5) sensibly defines the predicate intention for a federal crime of terrorism as actions "calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct." While this provision may seem at first glance to apply to Taheri-azar, it doesn't provide federal courts with independent jurisdiction. Rather, the terrorist intentions must be coupled with an independent federal crime.

And this situation isn't going to change anytime soon as more lone wolf jihadis come out of the woodwork and wreak havoc on American streets.

Abdul Rahman: Prisoner of Islam

Abdul Rahman, an Afghan citizen who is currently being held in an Afghan prison because he had the audacity to convert to Christianity, may escape a death sentence because he might be mentally unfit to stand trial.

Something is definitely wrong with this picture.

Abdul Rahman, 41, has been charged with rejecting Islam, a crime under this country's Islamic laws. His trial started last week and he confessed to becoming a Christian 16 years ago. If convicted, he could be executed.

But prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari said questions have been raised about his mental fitness.

"We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn't talk like a normal person," he told The Associated Press.

Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination.

The prosecutor is questioning whether Rahman is mentally unfit because he had the audacity to convert away from Islam. That kind of thing simply isn't done in Afghanistan, even after several years of exposure to Western and US influence.

And why does the prosecutor think that Rahman isn't competent to stand trial? Because converting away from Islam is crazy? Well, if you know that you're facing a death sentence should you be outed, it might be crazy to let people know that you've converted. Don't tell and pray that no one asks.

Or, is Rahman crazy simply because he's embraced Western thought and theology that doesn't comport with the theology of Islam and thus branded a heretic for taking a different view on religion.

Karzai better recognize that this doesn't do Afghanistan any good to see someone put to death for their religious views, though he also probably realizes that the Islamists in the country would only cause yet more violence and upset the delicate balance there.

For starters, Karzai and the Afghan government ought to look at getting rid of the head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, who is calling for Rahman's head because "he clearly violated Islamic law." Once again, we're witnessing a conflict between western philosophy and liberalism and Islamic theology, and the Islamists see the Islamic theology trumping all else.

President Bush should press the Afghan government to cease and desist, as Rahman's plight really is no different than the Bamiyan buddhas prior to when the Taliban destroyed those priceless and historic artifacts. It is a clear and unadulterated sign of religious intolerance by certain groups of Muslims against all other religious views (including those Muslims who do not practice in the same fashion as those in charge). More to the point, we should not have to call on Muslim groups to condemn this persecution and instead Muslim groups should be condemning the action and calling for cessation of these kinds of actions.

Others blogging: Michelle Malkin who has updated coverage including Bush's statements on the matter and an even stronger Danish response, Big Pharoah, Myopic Zeal, Stop the ACLU, LGF, The Jawa Report, Hyscience, Captain Ed.

Where are the human rights groups on this?

UPDATE:
Mark Tapscott wonders who exactly will come to Rahman's rescue. It certainly doesn't appear to be Muslims. LaShawn Barber also muses about Rahman's fate as a martyr dying for his religious beliefs.

Below the Beltway wonders what would happen if the Afghan court actually found Rahman insane.

The Political Pitbull has a transcript from a State Department press briefing that included questions about Rahman's situation.

UPDATE:
Others blogging: The Shape of Days who will be protesting outside the Afghan Embassy on Wyoming Ave in Washington, DC, Okie on the Lam, Wizbang, Freedom Zone has a petition to sign.

Technorati: abdul rahman, islam, conversion, apostacy, afghanistan.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 108

Silence isn't golden, as far as Governor Pataki is concerned on the fiasco at Ground Zero since talks broke down last week on how to proceed at the site. Since the governor's deadline, he's either silent on the matter, or gone out of his way to slam Silverstein and the Post muses that this might be because no one took the deadline seriously:

So far, in fact, no evidence that the governor takes even his own deadline seriously.

No surprise there, though: Nobody else does, either.

Today, it's clear that all of last week's overwrought theatrics - including the governor's ad hominem attacks on Silverstein's character and integrity - served no constructive purpose whatsoever.

Here's the dirty little secret: No one really seems to be in a rush for a deal.

Let's recap: Friday, Silverstein sent PA officials a new offer. The authority rejected it and pledged to produce a counter-proposal. There were reports of back-channel discussions, possibly with the governor's office playing intermediary.

Then, nothing.

The two sides reportedly scheduled a meeting for staffers for today. And everyone is expecting the next developments, at the very least, to bring the sides formally back to the table.

And Post also notes that the Port Authority, as a bistate agency, has a competing agenda that may actually find itself rooting for Silverstein to fail so that it could get back in the real estate business and make more money for the agency, rather than continue down the privatization of the Authority's real estate holdings.

Meanwhile, NY Metro runs a story on the various 9/11 related conspiracy theories, some of which show a complete and utter lack of scientific understanding and grasping at straws. For instance, you've got some folks wondering how the towers can collapse if steel melts at 2700F and hydrocarbon fires only get to 1700F. Quick clue: steel doesn't have to melt for there to be a collapse, it only has to soften in order to lose its strength. Once the steel melts, it loses the strength and ability to carry the weight above it. That's exactly what happened at the WTC. Steel trusses carrying the weight of the floors above failed, pancaking on top of each other, which combined with the failure of the steel outer skin caused the collapses.

And we now have yet another example of a skyscraper collapsing after a fire. This time it was in Nigeria, where a 22 story building partially collapsed after a fire struck two floors several days ago. The building collapsed during a heavy rain.

Now, before those same conspriacy theorists think that the Nigeria building proves their point, remember that there's a different scale of construction involved, and that a collapse in the middle of a 22 story building may not be sufficient to take down the entire building, but a collapse in the middle or even top third of a 110 story skyscraper would be.

UPDATE:
The New York Times has an in-depth piece on how construction workers are preparing the memorial site and protecting remnants of the WTC columns and foundations for the eventual memorial. Of course, some folks don't think the efforts go far enough:

When the memorial opens, after the protective enclosure is removed, most of the 84 column remnants from the north tower and about half of the 73 remnants from the south tower will be visible and publicly accessible on the main level of the museum, 70 feet below ground.

Preservation-minded relatives of 9/11 victims, like Anthony Gardner, who led a campaign three years ago to save the column remnants, believe this gesture does not go nearly far enough. They favor keeping as much as possible of the towers' remaining structural foundations and are suing in State Supreme Court to stop the memorial project until alternative designs are considered. A hearing is scheduled tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the protective enclosure around the north tower footprint is nearing completion. Could Mr. Mendes have imagined in 2002 that he would one day treat these column stubs like revered artifacts?

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

Down In It

So, with all the media attention on the so called civil war in Iraq, how come there's next to no media attention on the real civil war in Gaza and the West Bank?

After all, you've got rival terrorist groups battling it out for supremacy. Both control territory and both seek to topple the other's regime. As the Jerusalem Post reports:

Eyewitnesses said most of those wounded in Monday's fighting in the Gaza Strip were policemen who tried to prevent Fatah gunmen from taking over government buildings and security installations. The two sides exchanged gunfire for several hours in scenes that many Palestinians said were reminiscent of the civil war in Lebanon in the 1970s.

Every time the Palestinians get restless, they start a civil war. It happened in 1970 in Jordan, when Arafat and the PLO got tossed out after trying to topple King Hussein's government (Black September). The PLO ended up in Lebanon, where they promptly upset the delicate balance between sectarian groups and started a long civil war that devastated that country, carved up large swaths of Lebanon and forced Israel to intervene in South Lebanon to protect itself from ongoing terrorist attacks from Lebanon.

Lebanon finally rid itself of Arafat and the PLO, which went to Tunesia, where they stayed until permitted to enter Gaza in 1993. We're witnessing the Palestinian leadership once again engaging in their ritual self-destructive behaviors as the PLO is trying to maintain its power against Hamas, which seeks Israel's destruction at a faster clip than the PLO sought.

The Wretched

So New Jersey taxpayers, are you pleased with the new budget that Gov. Corzine has laid on the table? I didn't think so. Higher taxes and fees, one-shots, and continued structural deficits as far as the eye can see.

How do you get out from under this mess? Well, I've been saying for some time now that refinancing debt isn't solving anything. It's only extending the time to pay in exchange for what appears to be lower monthly payments. You still pay more in the long run, and that adds to the structural deficit going forward. Sure, you balance the budget today, but your kids will still be paying off your debt 30 years from now.

Brian has noted that the sales tax and gas taxes are regressive. He's right. They are regressive and hit the lower and middle class harder than upper class taxpayers. I would not want to see the sales tax raised because it also reduces the competitiveness of businesses compared to neighboring states. Raise the sales tax and you reduce traffic into the state to seek out bargains. Those out-of-state purchasers are spending money on food, gas, and other services. Raise the sales tax and those folks will stay in their home states.

The gas tax is a slightly different creature. Revenues generated from the gas tax are supposed to go towards transportation projects, and transportation projects only. If you're using your car, truck, or SUV on a New Jersey road, your gas taxes are going to pay for road improvements and maintenance. It also goes to mass transit, which improves the usability of roads throughout the region because it shifts traffic off the roads and eases congestion.

The Transportation Trust Fund was going to run out of money in July. Refinancing the fund's debt only buys time. It doesn't solve the problem. An increase in the gas tax is the best way to address that problem, even though it will hurt taxpayers across the board. After all, all taxpayers deserve roads that aren't crumbling under their cars (or on to them as concrete or debris falls down from decrepit overpasses and bridges), and a safe transportation system which we would have to rely upon should there be a natural disaster or a mass casualty event (terrorism).

And if the gas tax isn't raised this year, count on it coming up next year when the same problems resurface and Corzine figures that he needs to balance the budget somewhere and people will not tolerate tax increases elsewhere.

UPDATE:
Enlighten NJ has a breakdown of the tax and fee increases (which are euphemistically called revenue raisers).

Like Father, Like Son

Charlie Sheen would like people to think that he should be taken seriously when he thinks that 9/11 was caused by some US government conspiracy. Too bad that he's peddling theories so far divorced from reality, that only the names may seem familiar because facts, logic, and the engineering simply doesn't compute.

Actor Charlie Sheen has joined a growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the official story of 9/11 and calling for a new independent investigation of the attack and the circumstances surrounding it.

Over the past two years, scores of highly regarded individuals have gone public to express their serious doubts about 9/11. These include former presidential advisor and CIA analyst Ray McGovern, the father of Reaganomics and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Paul Craig Roberts, BYU physics Professor Steven Jones, former German defense minister Andreas von Buelow, former MI5 officer David Shayler, former Blair cabinet member Michael Meacher, former Chief Economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds and many more.

Why is it so hard for people to grasp the fact that 19 people could use boxcutters, take over planes, and crash them into buildings? Because the idea is so preposterous that no one thought it possible before 9/11?

Ace also notes the nuttiness and points out that Charlie's theory relies on claims that because the upper floors of the WTC pancaked onto the lower floors that it must have been a controlled demolition, and not a terrorist attack.

Oh, and he throws in the alternative theory that the Administration knew of the impending terrorist attack but did nothing because it would enable the Administration to further its international agenda.

Never mind the fact that the terrorists have an international agenda, aren't shy about it, and have repeatedly stated that they want to bring harm to the US and the West, and then there's the not insignificant point that Islamic terrorists attempted to destroy the WTC once before, but failed because they could not place sufficient explosives close enough to the foundation columns to bring down the towers.

Pundit Guy thinks Charlie should lay off the sauce. Or pick better scripts. Daimnation! thinks Heidi Fleiss has something to do with this. Or maybe it's being split from Denise Richards. But this is far more serious - it's being divorced from reality.

Everyone saw the planes hit the WTC. Everyone has access to the video showing the plane hitting the Pentagon. The French nutbar who peddled the conspiracy theory that no planes hit the Pentagon has been debunked too many times to count, but Snopes has a pretty good fisking. Similarly, Popular Mechanics debunks many of the other 9/11 related conspiracy theories. Of course, the conspiracy cranks continue claiming that they've got the real truth about 9/11, but their science and facts fall well short.

Leftist Chic

Venezuela is the latest hotbed of leftist chic. All the big names of the Left are going to Venezuela to pay homage to the dictator de jour, Hugo Chavez.

The actor Danny Glover has come. Harry Belafonte has also been here. So has the antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, the prominent African-American writer Cornel West and Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales.

A student from an American university photographed residents of a Caracas neighborhood during a visit to Venezuela, a new leftist mecca.

But most visitors are like Cameron Durnsford, a 24-year-old student from Australia who decided to study at a new government-financed university in Caracas. Mr. Durnsford was, admittedly, put off some by the cult of celebrity around President Hugo Chávez, which he says "seems a little bit Maoist." But Venezuela's revolution, he quickly added, was not to be missed.

"You've got a nation and a leader trying to prove an alternative to neo-liberalism and the policies that have ravaged Latin America for 20 years," he said. "That's why people are coming here. There's a sense that it's a moment in history."

Mr. Chávez is decidedly unpopular with the Bush administration, which he has branded a terrorist regime out to get him. That antagonism, coupled with Mr. Chávez's huge oil-generated outlays for social spending, is drawing a following from all over and turning Caracas into the new leftist mecca.

Evoking other cities transformed by revolutionary leaders, like Managua, Nicaragua, in 1979, or Havana 20 years before that, Caracas is attracting students and celebrities, academics and activists, grandmothers and 1970's-era hippies — a new generation of Sandalistas, as some call them.

What kind of pablum is Durnsford talking about? Chavez is pushing the very policies that doomed Latin America for the past 20 years - socialism and a cult of personality. Chavez may have come in riding the mythos of a savior, but he's turned out to be nothing of the sort.

And leftists in the US are lapping this kind of stuff up.

You've seen it.

The Che Guevera t-shirts and berets.

And the rampant anti-Americanism that happens to be tinged with anti-Semitism to boot.

Chavez rigged the last election so that he could win, and it got rubber stamped by Carter, despite the overwhelming evidence that there was widespread fraud and vote rigging. And Chavez has learned from Fidel Castro on how to use Americans who have anti-American and Leftist policies to his own advantage (all while destroying the economy and social fabric of the country). That's how and why folks like Sheehan, Belafonte, and others get honored with personal meetings, lavish dinners, and other benefits. Because his cult of personality trumps everything else.

These same people who go down to Venezuela are not doing the Venezuelans any good; they're only benefitting Chavez, who exploits the situation to his own personal benefit. VCrisis has more on the political situation in Caracas:

The Caracas government, as such, is simply an extortion racket for protection schemes. Those who do not pay to play in Caracas are either dead or hounded out or selling Hugo Chavez look-alike dolls on the street corner.

Hugo Chavez is a demagogue. A demagogue is defined as, “a person who tries to stir up the people by appeals to emotion, prejudice, etc., in order to win them over quickly and so gain power.” Chavez is a demagogue and that is not the only thing he is up to. Every time Chavez lets lose his now standard demagogic vitriol, he is trying to control and manipulate events. This communist caudillo habitually takes over Venezuelan air waves each week-end, commanding center stage, to rant and rave like a manipulative, scolding, aggravating wife.

Hugo Chavez is trying to manipulate, among several agenda items, global oil prices to pad his personal wallet and increase his political buying capital. Each and every time Chavez opens his long-winded vitriol against the U.S., oil prices spike and Chavez and his cronies make profit. Every time Chavez’s paid protesters blow up a gas or oil pipeline, oil and gas prices spike as well, as increase costly repairs and police-military expenditures. Of course, Chavez’s paid propaganda agents remind us to not complain when the Chavez agents of doom and harm come their way. Silence is required of these minions. Any who speak out or question the wisdom of Chavez’s Bolivarian take-over profiteering plan is silenced or forced in to serving as a complicit enabler of the regime. These habitual dyspeptic, and at times racist and misogynistic, screeches of the harpy Chavez-as-desperate-housewife are more than some lithium-induced hysteria by Chavez, although that could be a factor as well. We suspect this is more about control.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 107

So, Silverstein is placing his bet on Eliot Spitzer. That's a pretty solid play for Silverstein. Silverstein knows that Spitzer is very likely to be the next governor of New York, which means Spitzer gets to name his own people to the Port Authority, LMDC, and Empire State Development Corporation. Bloomberg doesn't control those entities, so no matter how much Bloomberg complains, the site development really isn't up to him. It's up to whoever is governor of New York.

Real estate experts say it was with that in mind that Silverstein Properties recently retained a lobbyist and political consultant, Roberto Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez, a former state assemblyman and leader of the Bronx Democratic Party, now heads the Mirram Group. He is a former political adviser to Mr. Spitzer and is said to have a close relationship with him. It is Mr. Ramirez who reportedly engineered Mr. Spitzer's early endorsement of another Mirram client, Fernando Ferrer, in last year's mayoral primary.

The suggestion is that Mr. Silverstein is looking past Mr. Pataki to a new negotiating partner.

The director of the Newman Real Estate Institute at Baruch College, Henry Wollman, said: "The state is in the middle of these issues in a formidable way."

"Someone as smart as Larry Silverstein may feel that he may do better with a new administration," Mr. Wollman said. "It would not surprise me if there were a strategy in the back of his mind."

A senior fellow at the Fiscal Policy Institute, David Dyssegaard Kallick, who follows ground zero, said: "It seems to me that the lease has to be renegotiated. How much gets done now and in the next nine months, and how much after that, is an open question.

Spitzer hasn't exactly been forthcoming with his own vision for Lower Manhattan, other than to say that there has been a "profound failure of leadership" so one has to wonder just what will happen after November.

However, a word to the wise would be to follow the money:

Mr. Spitzer, whose father was a developer, has already received large contributions from the city's biggest real estate developers, who could be betting with Mr. Silverstein that Mr. Spitzer will soon take over from Mr. Pataki.

According to the state's campaign finance records, developer Stephen Ross of Vornado Realty Trust, one of the city's most active firms, gave Mr. Spitzer $25,000 last May. The attorney general's campaign received $20,000 from the Witkoff Group, about $20,000 from the Durst family, about $10,000 from a Queens builder, Muss Development, and more than $100,000 from members of the Milstein family.

The Mirram Group has given about 20% of the $43,000 it has doled out in state races since 1999 to Mr. Spitzer's campaign for governor.

Mr. Kallick, of the Fiscal Policy Institute, said that Mr. Spitzer may be more willing to scratch plans for the Freedom Tower, which is widely known to be Mr. Pataki's creation. Many real estate experts now say it is the least commercially attractive building slated for the site.

And if they've got to toss out the plans for the Freedom Tower, you're looking at even more delays in rebuilding the site.

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

Eye of the Storm

We've known for years that the Northeast could face a major hurricane at some point in the future. The further away we were from the last hurricane to hit, the closer we are to the next one. Yet, more people now live on vulnerable coastlines, and emergency preparedness is nowhere near as good as it should be both at the personal level or at the local, state, or federal levels.

Long Island could be especially hard hit from a major hurricane striking the coast.

Are we prepared should one hit? Are our elected leaders doing their jobs by making sure that emergency preparedness is a top priority and that emergency management organizations are fully engaged and on top of the situation, taking into account lessons learned from Katrina, Rita, and Wilma? Is anyone asking serious and tough questions of our elected leaders to make sure that they're properly dealing with the issue?

Or, will we once again see that local governments, along with state and federal agencies, have waited until it was too late to prepare and that lax planning (urban planning, zoning, and emergency planning) all contribute to a mass casualty event?

Far too many people wait until it is too late to prepare for natural disasters that are a regularly occuring feature of living on this planet. The time to prepare for hurricanes is well before the season starts, and to make sure that you've got some kind of plan to deal with such a crisis.

The New York area ranks third among major American cities most likely to be slammed by a hurricane - behind New Orleans and Miami.

"Will houses built along the shoreline be able to withstand 130-mph to 140-mph winds? We lost a lot of lives to Katrina and I don't think anybody wants to see a repeat of that," Reeves said.

But that's exactly what could happen if a natural disaster strikes, according to experts.

"The city is not prepared," said Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, (D-Westchester), who has studied the state's evacuation plans for years and issued reports on their woeful inadequacy.

He said the number of people who would have to be evacuated has been underestimated and the public transportation needed to do it is inadequate.

Even more vulnerable than New York City, meteorologists say, are the Hamptons, which could see huge areas of land disappear under water if the storm surge the hurricane generates is powerful enough. Fire Island, a glorified sandbar of multimillion-dollar homes, would likely be wiped out.

Lest anyone think that these scenarios are too far fetched, note the massive destruction along the entire Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida caused by the 2005 hurricane season. Hundreds of communities were devastated and the infrastructure (roads, bridges, buildings, rail, communications, power, and water/sewage) is still in need of massive repairs.

Are we prepared to deal with that kind of scenario? I don't think so.

Build Anywhere?

That's the plan being put forth by New Orleans Mayor Whiplash Nagin. Of course there's a few caveats to that plan. You can build anywhere, but don't expect to receive city services including sewer, water, police, or fire protection. And flood protection isn't a given either.

Great plan. And it took six months to come up with this.

On Monday, he offered to let residents rebuild anywhere, but warned that homeowners in flood-prone areas would do so at their own risk. “I’m confident that the citizens can decide intelligently for themselves,” the mayor said.

Extensive wish list
The report also recommended a host of other ideas, from revamping schools to consolidating some city offices. The wish list of projects included new light-rail systems, new riverfront development and better flood protection.

“We have worked tirelessly,” Nagin told hundreds of residents who gathered to hear about the plan. “It has been controversial in some respects, but I am pleased by the results.”

Residents vented their frustrations during the public comment period, with one black man calling the group “a rotten, racist committee.”

But the commission’s plan has been warmly received in many circles. Ron Forman, a strong mayoral candidate and prominent businessman, applauded the commission’s work and the breadth of the report. But he said it is still short on specifics.

“The only problem I see with the plan is that I don’t see an implementation plan, an action plan, based on dates on when we can expect to be done,” Forman said.

The Times Picayune has far more detail:

Hundreds of people, including at least four City Council members, crowded into a Canal Street hotel ballroom to listen to the speech, which was partly a State of the Union-style laundry list of ideas and initiatives, partly a campaign document for a mayor in the midst of a re-election race.

Applause was infrequent, but Nagin drew laughter when he announced at the start, "I am going to do something I normally hate to do: I am going to read from a script."

Remembering the trouble Nagin sometimes has gotten into with impromptu remarks, notably his "chocolate city" speech on Martin Luther King Day this year, many in the audience chuckled, and one commission member uttered an audible, "Thank you."

Nagin began with the most controversial area of his commission's recommendations: land use.

As he has often done before, he rejected the call by the commission's Urban Planning Committee for a moratorium on building permits in the city's hardest-hit and most flood-prone neighborhoods.

Of course, flood control and prevention cuts to the core of New Orleans' plight. Solve the flood control issue and you'll get businesses coming back quicker and more land will be considered safe enough to rebuild upon.

Further Down the Spiral

We're finally going to see Gov. Corzine's budget plan in its totality later today. It's not going to be pretty.

But we've already got one bit of bad news - the legislature rubber stamped Corzine's plan to refinance the transportation trust fund. Forget about doing the fiscally prudent step of properly funding the fund. The Governor and Legislature determined that raising the 10.5 cent per gallon tax was too unpalatable, so they decided that refinancing the fund was the better way to go.

Never mind the fact that it will cost even more in the long run - $17 billion over the next 30 years. What a bargain. [That's sarcasm for those whose sarcasm detectors aren't functioning properly.]

Critics of the measure said that the plan was an extension of the kind of practices that had put the fund in jeopardy to begin with as it faced insolvency after years of borrowing against it.

"It seems to me that there could have been an alternative that is more fiscally responsible," State Senator Leonard Lance, a Republican from Hunterdon County, said during a debate on the measure moments before the vote was taken. "This is a continuation down the road that we have traveled for at least half a decade, and even before that, of overreliance on debt."

State Senator Anthony R. Bucco, a Republican from Morris County, put it more plainly. "Our grandchildren will be paying for repairs to roads that we will be doing next year," he said.

Supporters of the plan said that while imperfect, the refinancing of the fund's debt was essential to keep the fund running. If the fund ran out of money, as expected on June 30, the state could have lost millions of dollars in federal matching funds.

So, they've resorted to a one-shot, which doesn't actually fix anything but extends the problem for years into the future - making it someone else's problem.

Meanwhile, Enlighten NJ wonders how a 49% increase in school aid can be considered a freeze. Only in New Jersey. Only in New Jersey.

And forget about controlling spending. Spending in the budget is going up 10.4%. That's nearly three times the rate of inflation.

He [Corzine] will ask the Legislature to spend $1.2 billion on property tax rebates, which are mailed in the fall, according to an outline of his budget proposal released Monday.

Mailed out just in time to avoid completely pissing off taxpayers and likely voters. Getting a rebate check in the fall might remove some of the sting of the higher taxes, but it shouldn't. Corzine is playing the Trenton shell game on taxing and spending instead of taking fiscally prudent steps to control costs first and foremost.

To cover the rebates and rising state expenses, the Corzine administration says it needed to raise taxes and fees by $1.8 billion and cut $2 billion from state spending.

Corzine's biggest spending decisions, however, reverse years of shaky financial practices by his predecessors.

He wants to pay $735 million into the state's debt-plagued public employee pension system, the largest payment by any governor in years. Corzine also plans to repay $300 million to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, money that had been raided to balance earlier budgets and put the state in danger of being forced to raise payroll taxes.

Corzine will propose increasing the state sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent in order to bring in another $1.1 billion. He also will ask the Legislature to add sales taxes to some goods and services now exempt, such as tanning salon treatments and limousine rides.

And then there's the cigarette tax, which would jump another 60 cents to $3 a pack of 20 cigarettes. Of course, sin tax increases are more palatable because not everyone gets soaked on them. Except, of course, those who smoke, drink, or utilize any of the goods or services that will be taxed.

The governor wants to raise taxes on alcoholic beverages and cigarettes. He's calling for a new tax on household water use, and he says people who buy cars with list prices over $45,000 also should pay a new tax.

Lawmakers must approve the fiscal year 2006-07 budget and all of Corzine's tax proposals before July 1.

Despite a growing state economy, Corzine's hands were largely tied because of budget deals made by governors over the years and growing expenses for state services, his top advisers said. "What's staggering about this budget is the amount of [spending] growth we have," Treasurer Bradley Abelow said Monday in briefing reporters.

It's not like Corzine is actually controlling spending here either. He's passing the buck just as all those other governors did, and he's blaming earlier administrations for his fiscal problems (where have we heard that before as well).

Controlling spending would be a good place to start with fixing New Jersey's fiscal woes, but that isn't going to happen this year either. And the budget doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of controlling costs like Medicaid or addressing debt payments, which we already know doesn't matter because Trenton will just refinance and hope the problem goes away with longer amortization of the debt.

So what do these tax increases mean for the average taxpayer? Well, here's some idea:

A family of four would pay about $1,500 a year in sales tax, about $260 more. The new water tax, which would be 4 cents per 1,000 gallons, would cost each household about $3 to $4 a year. Officials said the money would pay for new water system equipment and "infrastructure improvements.''

Others aren't so optimistic.

"This could mean $1,000 in new taxes per person this year," said state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., R-Union, who is running for U.S. Senate. "And that is on top of a 10 percent increase in spending."

Robert Pinard, president of the Beer Wholesalers Association of New Jersey, noted that the proposed tax would hit beer proportionately more than wine and spirits. A 10-cent increase would be a 42 percent tax hike on beer, but 14 percent on wine and less than 1 percent on spirits.

Pinard said the 3-cent tax on a six-pack would likely rise to 10 cents by the time it was passed on to the consumer, due to additional administration costs.

Trenton hopes that the sales tax increases and sin tax increases wont affect too many people because they might actually form a group large enough to affect the November elections. Yet, some of these taxes will many people in New Jersey. And businesses will suffer as well, as they'll be pressured to keep prices down to avoid losing customers.

It's business as usual in Trenton, and that might make for an uncomfortable November for New Jersey legislators up for reelection.

UPDATE:
Corzine gave his budget address and it was as advertised:

Corzine's 31-minute address was so sober it was interrupted by applause only three times - including when the governor admitted a "Freudian slip" after saying "tax cuts are a last resort" when he meant to say "tax increases are a last resort."

The governor called for an increase in the sales tax - from 6 to 7 percent - and other tax increases on alcohol, water, luxury cars and cigarettes. Corzine said he decided against an income tax increase over concerns about how it would affect the state's economy.

He also called for $2 billion in restrictions on spending, including elimination of 1,000 state jobs and 75 programs.

"To those who thought my financial background would mean I had some magic bullet in my holster to balance the budget, I am sorry to disappoint you," Corzine said. "My answer is as simple as old-fashioned arithmetic. We can't keep spending more then we take in."

Corzine acknowledged that the proposed $30.9 billion budget increases spending by $2.6 billion over last year, but said the increase "reflects already legislated, mandated, negotiated and inflated costs."

He challenged critics to identify their own spending cuts and said he would not accept more tax increases or one-shot gimmicks, which he said have already brought the state to a "day of reckoning."

Here's a spending cut that would address the problems. As Brian noted in the comments, eliminate the so called property tax rebate program increase and apply the money to pay down the debt. That works towards solves two problems - profligate spending and the ongoing structural deficit.