9/11 Survivors Still Dealing With Health Issues

Every few weeks the media finds a new story or study claiming that there are ongoing health risks for 9/11 survivors who breathed in the air from Ground Zero in the aftermath of the collapses. No one knows quite for sure what was in the air when the towers collapsed as there were fires, and a whole host of pulverized building materials that could cause a whole range of long term injuries to those who breathed it in. But it certainly seems that the attacks have had some kind of long term affect on survivors:

A majority of survivors of the 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center suffered from respiratory ailments and depression, anxiety and other psychological problems up to three years later, federal health officials said Friday.

The people who escaped from collapsed or damaged buildings on Sept. 11, 2001, were several times as likely to suffer from breathing problems or psychological trauma if they were caught in the cloud of trade center dust and debris that covered lower Manhattan, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.



"The trauma of being caught in the cloud itself, the whole experience had an impact on their ... psychological health later on," said Dr. Robert M. Brackbill, a CDC doctor working with the World Trade Center Health Registry, which has been tracking the health of more than 71,000 people who worked at ground zero or were in the area on Sept. 11.

Friday's study drew from preliminary interviews with 8,418 adults in the registry who escaped from the twin towers, the collapsed Seven World Trade Center and more than 30 buildings that suffered extensive damage on Sept. 11. More than 70 percent escaped from the twin towers.

The interviews took place more than two years after the attacks, between Sept. 5, 2003, and Nov. 20, 2004, and did not involve medical examinations. Follow-up surveys are planned this month.

"We are just beginning to learn about the health effects of the worst day in New York City's history," said Daniel Slippen, a survivor of the attacks and a member of the registry's community advisory board. "It is critical to know whether these physical and mental effects will continue, diminish or grow worse over time."

City officials in charge of the registry say it will likely take 20 years or more to determine whether 9/11 exposure led to increased cancer deaths or illnesses among survivors.

Local representatives have been seeking ongoing funding for research and health care for rescue workers who toiled directly in the site for weeks and months after the collapses to get a handle on what is going on.

Studying the issue is a prudent thing, but we cannot let the science and health care be politicized by those with an agenda. The care of the emergency workers and construction workers at the site, and all those workers who fled from the WTC complex after the collapse, and breathed in the clouds of dust deserve better than that.

The Doyle Story Continues to Develop

CNN, reports that John Doyle had been reprimanded for having adult pornography on his work computers when he was at Time Warner.

Friends and former co-workers say Doyle was disciplined by Time magazine after he allegedly used company computers to view adult pornography in the publication's Washington bureau office.

Time magazine and CNN are both owned by Time Warner.

Time began an investigation after an employee in the bureau complained after finding offensive photographs on her computer, sources said. The photos, which were not of juveniles, were traced to Doyle. The complaint was dropped after Doyle's colleagues signed a petition of support, the sources said.

Doyle received a formal warning and was required to undergo mental health counseling before returning to work, the sources said.

Wizbang had reported that John Doyle, is actually a registered Democrat. Doyle was caught in an online child sex sting.

Brian Doyle is a career civil servant - NOT a political appointee. Government workers aren't "vetted." Doyle, as a DHS employee probably has a secret or top secret government clearance, but in DC that's hardly a unique commodity in DC. Unless there is some prior history of pedophilia or sex crimes, the background searches and investigation wouldn't have alerted anyone to the possibility that he might get into the kind of trouble he's in now. The kind of hindsight analysis suggesting that the White House should have been "vetting" the civil service employees of their agencies, is laughable considering that the Clinton administration who dogged for years over the FBI files scandal (Filegate). It's also probably illegal

Wizbang also covers the blog swarm by the Left to try and paint the whole situation as a one of another GOP scandal.

Ed Morrissey has more about the screening process.Firedoglake wonders about the level of review.

My earlier coverage is here.

Upon Further Review

The New York Daily News editorial page from Friday, April 7, 2006 [can't locate the link, so if you can track down the piece, please leave the link in the comments] suggested the same thing that I did back on March 31, 2006, when the McKinney kerfuffle first broke. To refresh your recollection:

So, here's what I think. Rep. McKinney should be arrested, tried, and if found guilty, should be forced to do the time.

More importantly, the courtesy extended to members of Congress for avoiding searches through the metal detectors should be eliminated. There's no reason to take any chances, and it eliminates the problems that McKinney claims were at the heart of the disputed events yesterday.

Nice to see that the Daily News come around to the same conclusion that I reached a week after I first made that observation.

Eric at Speak Speak who was also quoted by the National Journal Hotline offers a slightly different take - he thinks that:

...there should be locked turnstile where Congresspersons line up, and get buzzed through as they show their ID.

I don't think that goes far enough, as all bags should be checked upon entry in the Capitol and other federal office buildings, but it would likely be route that the Capitol Police take.

Palestinians Continue Assault on Israel, Despite No Money

The Palestinian Authority is getting cut off from major sources of international because Hamas, which now dominates the PA, refuses to renounce its own founding goals (the destruction of Israel) and seek a 2-state solution. Hamas couldn't care what this does to the Palestinian people, as its ultimate goal is far more important to it than the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Israel isn't going to stand still while Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist groups attempt attacks against Israel. They killed 2 terrorists and wounded a third in an air strike. The trio, who appear to be members of the al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade (the subterror group of the PLO/Fatah - and the former heads of the PA) had launched rockets into Israel.

Wizbang's Kim Priestap has more.

UPDATE:
Posted to Mudville Gazette, Third World County, Basil's Blog, Jo's Cafe, TMH Bacon Bits,Stuck on Stupid, Blue Star Chronicles, and bRight and Early.

UPDATE:
The Jerusalem Post notes that the Israelis struck at a terrorist facility in Rafah overnight, killing six and wounding 14. This is part of an ongoing operation against the terrorists who have continued firing rockets into Israel:

Palestinian police said that four missiles were launched in the attack. The IDF said it targeted the car as it was exiting the camp.

The IAF also attacked two access routes leading to Kassam launching sites in the northern Gaza Strip overnight Friday.

Hours earlier, the IAF bombed an additional access route.

The security establishment decided recently to step up its strikes against terror organizations following an increase in the number of Kassam rockets launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip, Army Radio reported.

Just this week, Palestinian terrorists fired over 40 rockets into the western Negev, including three that were fired on Friday.

On Thursday, the Islamic Jihad fired a Kassam rocket into a mattress factory in Kibbutz Zikim, setting fire to the factory. One person was treated for shock and was taken to the hospital.

Who controls Gaza? Hamas. Don't think that Hamas didn't have any problems with those attacks either as it fits into their long term goal of destroying Israel.

Cutting the Purse Strings

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Hamas will whine that we're not respecting the decision made by their electorate to put a bunch of terrorists in charge of Gaza and portions of the West Bank, but the decision by the EU to cut payments is a testament to European democracy, which decided that providing money to a terrorist organization, even one that runs a country, is against the Europeans' interests.

"We are not authorizing any payments that go to the Palestinian Authority or through the Palestinian Authority," said a spokeswoman for the E.U.'s executive branch, Emma Udwin, adding that further funding of the Palestinians would be discussed by foreign ministers of the 25-nation bloc when they meet in Luxembourg on Monday. "This doesn't prejudge any decisions they might make," she said.

The European Union has been the Palestinian Authority's largest donor since the government was created under the 1993 Oslo peace accords. Since Hamas won Palestinian elections earlier this year, it has been warning that the Palestinian Authority would lose that aid unless the Hamas-led government renounced violence, recognized Israel and accepted past peace agreements.

Hamas advocates the violent destruction of the Jewish state, but that came into question — briefly — after the Palestinian foreign minister, Mahmoud Zahar, discussed the issue in general in an interview with The Times of London published today.

"Let us speak about what is the meaning of the two-state solution," Mr. Zahar said. "We will ask them what is their concept concerning the two-state solution."

Later today, the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya, insisted that Hamas had not changed its position. "That is not correct. Where did you hear that?" he said in the town of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reported.

UPDATE:
The US has also cut its aid to the Palestinians. About time.

Muslims Massacring Muslims in Mosques

What do you call the slaughter of more than 70 Muslims praying in a mosque on Friday? Business as usual for the Islamic terrorists who are running around Iraq trying to ignite a civil war.

Oh, and some reports from the scene claim that it was three suicide bombers dressed as women. Because going into a mosque dressed as a man wearing a bomb vest might be a bit too obvious.

Note that the terrorists aren't going after US targets that can defend themselves or even the Iraqi forces that are becoming more efficient on a daily basis. They're purposefully targeting civilian targets - mosques full of people engaged in prayer.

UPDATE:
CNN has more details on the bombings as does the Washington Post. Apparently one bomber blew himself up, and in the ensuing panic, the other two bombers blew themselves up in the crowd.

Outside the Beltway notes that mosques are quickly becoming target rich environments for terrorists.

Others blogging: Bill Roggio; The Belmont Club; and Iraq the Model notes why this particular mosque was attacked,

Showing the UN For What It Is

"We want to see what other countries present themselves" for membership, the American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, told reporters. "We'll work to elect countries that share our values on human rights, but we're not prepared at this point to offer our own candidacy."

Cuba and Iran have already signed up for the new body, and are widely expected to be voted in. Like America, Israel yesterday announced it would not be a candidate for membership of the Human Rights Council.

The Human Rights Council is supposed to be an improvement over the discredited Human Rights Commission, which had such luminaries as Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Cuba as members. This new group is going to be no different. The usual suspects are lining up and it shows the uselessness of such an organization when the worst offenders to human rights are able to sit in judgment of others.

Going After DHS With Both Barrels

I've harshly criticized DHS in the past (see here and here), as doing nothing to actually improve homeland security in the past, but Michelle Malkin has taken it to a whole new level. And she uses the incompetence and bureaucratic failures to bolster her opinion that the immigration bills being considered by Congress be scrapped.

The mess at DHS stands as Towering Reason Number One to oppose the Senate's border security sellout. For the last four years, I've reported repeatedly on the immigration bureaucracy's inability to enforce our laws and protect the American public--let alone protect its own employees and police itself.

Leadership positions under the Bush administration's pre-9/11 INS and post-9/11 DHS have been filled by cronies with little or no experience in immigration law and immigration enforcement.

This situation has got to be corrected, and the sooner the better - and that cuts across political lines as well. The Democrats were no better at immigration control than Republicans - as they stocked the INS in the 1990s with their own folks. One would have hoped that the DHS/INS reorganization would have fixed problems, but all it did was rearrange the deck chairs. That's not solving the problem. It's paying lip service.

And someone is going to have a blood lip (or worse) should we be attacked again via the same vulnerabilities that existed pre-9/11.

UPDATE:
Others blogging the DHS debacle: Tel Chai Nation, Coalition of the Swilling, and updated as needed.

Like Hell They Did

AP breathlessly reports that Hamas may be on its way to recognizing a two state solution - Israel side by side with Palestine.

Only a day earlier, Haniyeh had told The Associated Press that Hamas would not recognize Israel.

The contradictory statements came as Hamas is under intense international pressure to moderate its views, including recognizing Israel, renouncing violence and accepting existing peace agreements. In Brussels, Belgium, the EU announced Friday it would cut off direct aid payments to the Hamas-led government.

The idea of accepting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an apparent attempt by Hamas to appease the international community, without having to state directly that it is recognizing Israel.

Hamas officials have said they would only grant such recognition in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from all lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast War — the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.

Hamas will never accept Israel. Period. It's a fundamental tenet of their doctrine and any statements calling for acceptance need to be examined in light of the Islamic practice of deception (taqiya). Hamas will say and do just about anything in order to win concessions that will establish the capability to eliminate Israel down the road. It may sound reasonable to diplomats to try and exploit the reasonable sounding comments and think that this is the basis on which a deal could be reached, but it is a false deal.

And Israel would be foolish to accept any such deal because it would act as a stepping stone to Israel's destruction.

Something to Think About

It's interesting the kinds of folks who visit this humble little blog and take my words so seriously. This story about Rep. Cynthia McKinney seemed to get quite a few folks into a tizzy.

One poster complained that I was a right winger who was interested in taking a break from the constant stream of controversies and scandals. Nope, that's not it. Scandals are a great thing to write about, regardless if you're for or against the party involved. Bloggers, like newsies, love scandals because it makes for an easy narrative.

One poster divined that I was a right winger because I chose to write about McKinney instead of writing about the creep at the Department of Homeland Security who was caught in a child pornography sting. Well, besides the fact that I do this blogging thing not as a job, but as a hobby, there are limits to how much time I can devote to any matter. Should I have posted something on the official involved, Bryan Doyle? Possibly. As it is, there aren't that many people commenting on the story now, despite the fact that the House is now looking at holding hearings on the DHS hiring practices. There's a story there, and some bloggers on the right and left are taking it on. The fact is that if this guy did the crime (and it certainly seems that way), and should do the time. And those who hired him and supervised his activities need to be reprimanded or fired because of their failures.

Meanwhile, the Plamegate moves on, and I haven't devoted too much time to that recently, but plenty of other people who are doing it.

Because I spend more time writing on rebuilding at Ground Zero - which is the one true constant on this blog, it means that I have less time to devote to other issues, which are also important. Just because my priorities don't match with yours doesn't mean that I'm a right winger or a left winger (hey, because my leanings don't go far enough for some). It's because I'm a solo blogger for the moment who blogs about the things that interest me. That you, my readers, keep coming back shows that these items interest you as well regardless of whether you agree or disagree.

It means you feel deeply about the issues, and that's a good thing. You should have the courage of your convictions and stand and debate about them. And I welcome the debate.

But as an aside, there is one thing I will not tolerate. Simply tossing a couple of curse words or other such nonsense in the comments will not be tolerated. Keep the comments PG-13 (and no, this doesn't apply to today's commenters and I applaud your civility, but to some posters in the past).

An Immigration Deal In The Works?

The compromise would give illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for more than five years a chance to legalize their status and, eventually, to become U.S. citizens if they pay a fine and meet a series of requirements. Other rules would apply to those who have been in the country less than five years but more than two years from the effective date of Jan. 7, 2004.

The devil is in the details, and one has to wonder what exactly is going to be different this time around to stem the flow of illegal aliens across our borders. I have no problem if Mexicans want to work in the US, but they have to do it legally. Obtain the necessary paperwork, pay taxes, and the whole nine yards.

The failure to do so is a violation of the law. They are here illegally.

Under the agreement, the Senate would allow undocumented workers a path to lawful employment and citizenship if they could prove -- through work stubs, utility bills or other documents -- that they have been in the country for five years. To attain citizenship, those immigrants would have to pay a $2,000 penalty, back taxes, learn English, undergo a criminal background check and remain working for 11 years.

Those who have been here a shorter time would have to return to one of 16 designated ports of entry, such as El Paso, Tex., and apply for a new form of temporary work visa for low-skilled and unskilled workers. An additional provision would disqualify illegal immigrants who have been in the country less than two years.

And this compromise appears to provide a form of amnesty to those who were here for more than five years and met the necessary conditions. I'm sure there are going to be plenty of folks complaining that this is simply an amnesty program in sheep's clothing. They would be right to complain, but I've yet to hear of any possible way of dealing with the problem that is not only feasible but could work without serious disruptions of local economies.

Most of the competing pieces of legislation call for tougher sanctions against employers who rely on illegal aliens, and call for increased funding for border control. I don't think those go far enough - but that's as far as Congress is willing to go without incurring the wrath of the various interest groups arrayed against immigration reform that cuts across party lines and affiliations.

Better Late Than Never

Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who got into an altercation with Capitol Police has made an apology on the Capitol floor, expressing "sincere regret." Took her long enough. And it's skillfully written to muddy her actual role in the kerfuffle:

"There should not have been any physical contact in this incident," McKinney said in brief remarks on the House floor. "I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all and I regret its escalation and I apologize."

I'm sure she's sorry that the misunderstanding happened, but it appears that she was blaming the officer for the initial contact. Nice. She refused to answer the officer's request to stop, and when he went to stop her, she slugged the officer. Real nice.

The District of Columbia's prosecutor's office had taken this issue to a grand jury.

McKinney's apology came as a District of Columbia grand jury was to begin hearing testimony Thursday related to the confrontation, sources said Wednesday.

A decision on whether the Georgia congresswoman will be charged could come as early as next week, federal law enforcement sources said.

Senior congressional sources said that two House staff members -- Troy Phillips, an aide to Rep. Sam Farr, D-California, and Lisa Subrize, executive assistant to Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Michigan -- have been subpoenaed to testify.

Police say McKinney struck a Capitol Police officer last week when the officer did not recognize her as a member of Congress and tried to stop her from entering a House office building when she did not present identification.

She claims she was inappropriately touched (codewords usually associated with sexual misconduct, not assault btw).

And again, her lawyers comments indicate that the 'courtesy' of permitting members of Congress to enter without going through the checkpoints needs to be eliminated:

McKinney and her attorneys insist that Capitol Police officers should be trained to recognize all 535 members of Congress on sight.

But while Myart has said McKinney was "assaulted" and that her reaction to the officer was appropriate, Gainer argued that McKinney has turned an officer's failure to recognize her into a criminal matter.

It would be far easier if all members had to go through the checkpoints and wear their own ID. Instead, McKinney wants to make this all about the officer's fault in not recognizing her.

UPDATE:
And Myart is a piece of work who continues to proffer the race baiting angle.

UPDATE:
Confederate Yankee reminds readers about the death of two Capitol Police officers, John Gibson and Jacob Chestnut, were gunned down trying to protect members of Congress in 1998 just like McKinney at the same kind of checkpoint she bypassed and ignored.

UPDATE:
Ian has the video of McKinney's statement. See for yourself if she actually apologized for her actions.

UPDATE:
Sister Toldjah also notes the tone of McKinney's remarks. Malkin notes that McKinney has taken to hiring a bodyguard, and Capitol Police are none too pleased. And Mac Ranger notes that should McKinney be found guilty (hey, gotta go through an indictment and trial before you get to that point) - she'd have to give up her seat.

Modernizing the Nuclear Stockpile

The Bush Administration wants to modernize and upgrade the US nuclear weapons capability. That's long overdue. Many of these weapons systems are decades old, and the reliability of many of these weapons become questionable as the components decay through natural processes. The Administration wants to consolidate plutonium storage and production at a single facility, begin building new weapons, and refurbishing existing weapons.

Critics take two tacts - one that the consolidation isn't quick enough and that refurbishing or building new weapons would only encourage other countries to engage in nuclear weapons research.

The plan was outlined to Congress on Wednesday by Thomas D'Agostino, head of nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the Energy Department. Though the weapons proposal would restore the capacity to make new bombs, D'Agostino said it was part of a larger effort to accelerate the dismantling of aging bombs left from the Cold War.

D'Agostino acknowledged in an interview that the administration was walking a fine line by modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons program while assuring other nations that it was not seeking a new arms race. The credibility of the contention rests on the U.S. intent to sharply reduce its inventory of weapons.

The administration is also quickly moving ahead with a new nuclear bomb program known as the "reliable replacement warhead," which began last year. Originally described as an effort to update existing weapons and make them more reliable, it has been broadened and now includes the potential for new bomb designs. Weapons labs currently are engaged in a design competition.

The U.S. built its last nuclear weapon in 1989 and last tested a weapon underground in 1992. Since the Cold War, the nation has had massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons to deter potential attacks. By contrast, it would increasingly rely on the capability to build future bombs for deterrence, D'Agostino said.

The blueprint calls for a modern complex to design a new nuclear bomb and have it ready in less than four years, allowing the nation to respond to changing military requirements. Similar proposals in the past, such as for a nuclear bomb to attack underground bunkers, provoked concern that they undermined U.S. policy to stop nuclear proliferation.

Critics also contend that the plutonium pits that form the heart of the US weapons do not degrade as those seeking to restart production contend.

Some of these plans were shelved, even as the number of nations with nuclear weapons capabilities emerged. Other countries are already engaging in nuclear weapons research all while the US efforts at maintaining the nuclear stockpiles remained stagnant. Iran. Saudi Arabia. Pakistan. India. North Korea. These countries are all working on nuclear weapons programs. Pakistan, India, and North Korea all went nuclear within the past decade while nonproliferation treaties did nothing to stop the spread of nuclear weapons technologies.

The US must take its own security first and foremost, especially when dealing with threats from rogue states like Iran and North Korea - both of whom are seeking not only nuclear weapons, but long range delivery systems.

Some of those countries will not be deterred from seeking nuclear weapons no matter what - Iran. The US building weapons that could take out the Iranian threat is not only a responsible thing to do, but it shows that the US will not tolerate long term threats from countries that seek to harm US interests around the world.

Let The Testimony Begin

Today brings the commencement of the testimony against Zacarias Moussaoui, which the jury will use to determine whether Moussaoui gets the death penalty or life in prison. Last week, the jury had determined that Moussaoui was eligible for the death penalty.

Among those who are expected to testify is former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was at 7WTC when the towers collapsed and was a steadying influence on the city, and indeed the nation as a whole, in the days and weeks after the attacks. His leadership after the attacks is one that other mayors should take to heart and I'm sure that his accounts from those early days and weeks will have a significant impact on the jurors.

The jurors will also get to hear audiotaped messages from Flight 93. Flight 93 was hijacked and experts believe the plane was headed towards the White House when the passengers managed to overpower the hijackers and the plane crashed in Shanksville, PA. Prosecutors have also noted that they will not only have "...up to 45 victim-impact witnesses and they plan to identify each of the 2,972 people killed that day by name and photograph to the jury."

While the emotions will run high because of the Moussaoui trial testimony, news that more bone fragments were recovered from the Deutsche Bank building site in NYC is sure to get 9/11 families upset as well.

The combination of events is sure to reopen emotional wounds that never quite healed after 9/11 - and the news coverage of the tapes and the Moussaoui trial has meant that footage that was seldom seen after the attacks is being shown once more. That includes videos of the towers collapsing and the carnage after the towers came down.

UPDATE:
Mayor Giuliani took to the stand and recounted watching people jumping from the burning towers to their death. And a smiling Moussaoui was sitting no more than 10 feet away from the mayor when he was giving his testimony. I have no idea what was going through Moussaoui's sick twisted cranium, but it couldn't be anything good. He's on his way to getting his wish - death by lethal injection - if the jury determines that he should get the death penalty instead of life in prison.

Moussaoui is the only person held in the US on charges directly relating to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And the Washington Post has one of the worst headlines I've seen in a while "9/11 Takes Center Stage at Moussaoui Trial." That's what Moussaoui was on trial for - his involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and his culpability in not alerting authorities to the impending attacks. This phase is going through all the damage wrought by Moussaoui's fellow Islamic terrorists on the US on 9/11/2001.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 116

Corzine says he isn't to blame for the holdup. Sure he isn't. Corzine, Pataki, and Bloomberg held a 2-hour meeting yesterday (it isn't a secret if we hear about it) to try and hammer things out.
All that you need to know about the problems with the rebuilding process can be summed up with the following description of what happened at the meeting:

It's expected a "joint detailed proposal" from Pataki, Corzine and Bloomberg will be ready to be presented to developer Larry Silverstein within a few days, the source said.

Far from this being a disagreement between Silverstein and the Port Authority, it's a problem that emerges from the competing interests within the Port Authority, and Silverstein is caught in the middle of a bistate battle over rebuilding and allocation of assets. That's not to say that Silverstein shouldn't bear some of the blame for rebuilding, as he tries to get as much money from his deal as possible. There has to be some give and take, and it definitely appears that the Port Authority and Pataki are mostly at fault for the continuing morass at Ground Zero. With a flawed master plan, everything that follows is a result of decisions made months and years ago that are now being reexamined as construction start dates approach.

One has to wonder why Silverstein is now looking to get out from operating the Freedom Tower when he knew that this building, while being the first to be rebuilt on the Ground Zero site (within the bathtub, that is), was in the worst possible location for the initial buildings - as the Church Avenue corridor is seen as being the better location due to proximity to NYC subways and the rebuilt PATH terminal.

Elsewhere, the City Council approved the Yankee Stadium project, which will cost $800 million to build, and the city and state will chip in to build certain infrastructure improvements. At a tune of $200-300 million.

And you mean to tell me that the City can't find a chunk of change to get all the sides to agree on the deal and start the building at Ground Zero? Does no one at the City Council think it odd that they voted on a deal that will result in the city and state spending hundreds of millions on infrastructure at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and that they can't find the money to get Ground Zero rebuilt? Curious. Where are their priorities? I can certainly understand the need to get infrastructure built in the South Bronx to improve traffic and help the economic development of that area, but when we're talking about limited resources, shouldn't they be directed at the area that needs it the most - Ground Zero?


Meanwhile, more bone fragments have been discovered at the Deutsche Bank building. The building is being prepped for deconstruction because it was severely damaged by the attacks and could not be salvaged. The reports that additional bone fragments were discovered comes on the heels of reports that other fragments were found earlier this year at the same site.

Also, investigators reviewing emergency calls from the morning of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks also identified eight more recordings of emergency dispatches and 911 calls from the towers that had previously been overlooked.

Most of the bone fragments discovered over the weekend were found mixed with gravel that had been raked to the sides of the roof of the Deutsche Bank building, which suffered extensive damage when the twin towers collapsed. (Watch as 911 operators struggle to help during the World Trade Center attacks -- 2:31)

"This is the largest find from the Deutsche Bank, and I would not be surprised if additional quantities of remains are found there," Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office, told The New York Times in Thursday's editions. "They are still doing the cleanup."

More than four years later, and personnel are still finding remains. Hopefully some families will be able to finally be able to bury remains of their loved ones. Only about half of those killed at the WTC have ever been formally identified through remains.

The medical examiner's office has more than 9,000 unidentified remains from the 2,749 victims of the trade center attack. The remains are being are being stored in the hope that more sophisticated DNA technology will allow for identifications in the future.

Many of the remains being stored are too damaged by heat, exposure, and the elements to be identified using current technologies, even as the medical examiners office and various companies pushed the boundaries of DNA identification to help bring closure to as many families as possible. Every few weeks the office does manage to identify a victim of the terrorist attacks through DNA matches, though the pace has slowed.

UPDATE:
And the battle over the memorial construction is far from over. The memorial foundation wants the Port Authority to pick up the tab for the infrastructure so that the memorial can actually be built. That's a $100 million right there. And the foundation has fallen short on fundraising for the $500 million it says it needs to get the memorial built and funded.

Meanwhile, as noted, the facility's planners have raised a mere $100 million to cover the memorial's putative $500 million cost; taxpayers are locked in for another $200 million.

That still leaves at least $200 million to go - not even counting infrastructure and other costs. And Mayor Bloomberg recently put the bill for the project at a cool $1 billion (about 1,200 times more than the cost of the Vietnam Memorial).

This being New York, that figure is only likely to grow. Not to mention ongoing operating costs.

No wonder Dykstra said last week that she wants to charge admission - a grotesque notion, but understandable, given the memorial's financial hurdles.

And no wonder New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine is trying to shake down developer Larry Silverstein for $100 million for the memorial - to the extent that Corzine seems willing to hold up the entire Ground Zero project unless Silverstein antes up (though he denied it yesterday).

There's got to be a better way.

In fact, The Vietnam Memorial can be a useful model.

For $8 million, America got an enormously powerful and majestic monument to the courage and sacrifice of its Vietnam soldiers. Why can't planners do something similar at Ground Zero?

Lest anyone forgets, the Maya Lin design was widely criticized by groups who thought the stark and post modern design wasn't appropriate. The memorial planners even required a traditional statue be built nearby to allay the concerns. It was only after it opened that people realized the design was extremely powerful and a fitting memorial to those who died in Vietnam. Maya Lin is among those who were involved in the memorial selection process.

UPDATE:
Some additional thoughts on the discovery of remains at the Deutsche Bank building. Are there remains to be found at other locations in and around Ground Zero? Just how thorough was the earlier search? These are questions that being raised by families who lost loved ones on 9/11. And they deserve the honest answer.

Some Sept. 11 family members have urged the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. rebuilding agency to have forensic experts search the building first, and many planned to ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday to require a team from the medical examiner's office to be on the site at all times.

"This is an abomination that we are putting this on construction workers," said Sally Regenhard, the mother of a firefighter killed at the trade center.

The medical examiner's office has more than 9,000 unidentified remains from the 2,749 victims of the trade center attack. The remains are being are being stored in the hope that more sophisticated DNA technology will allow for identifications in the future. The remains of more than 40 percent of the people killed at the trade center have not been identified.

The newly discovered 911 recordings were identified on two previously overlooked tapes as investigators searched for the voice of a fire department official who died in the trade center.

The fire department said the recordings would be released after they are processed by the city law department. Roughly 130 calls were released Friday after the voices of the callers had been edited out. The voices of the fire and police operators who heard the calls for help were released after The New York Times and victims' relatives sued.

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

Iran Threatens Closure of Straits of Hormuz

The Supreme Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, described on Wednesday the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s southern shores as “the economic lifeline” of the West and said it could be used to put pressure on Iran’s enemies, state television reported.

About two-fifths of the world's oil supplies pass through the 50-kilometre-wide entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Safavi was speaking to reporters during the sixth day of weeklong naval exercises in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman, dubbed “Great Prophet”. The general said that the area was of “immense military and geo-strategic importance” and that it linked the seaways of three continents – Africa, Asia, and Europe.

“Many industrial countries are dependent on the energy from this region. Japan gets 70 percent of its oil from this region, likewise 70 percent of certain European countries’ energy comes from this region”, he said, adding that every day the equivalent of 20 million barrels of oil travelled through the Strait of Hormuz.

“The Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf are … the corner stone of [Iran’s] defence. The Strait of Hormuz counts as a point of economic control and pressure in the transfer of energy for aggressive powers from beyond the continent that want to endanger the security of the region”, General Safavi said.

Iran wants to use terror and other means at its disposal to close the Straits? They don't have to actually close the Straits of Hormuz to cause economic harm. The threat is more than sufficient to send oil prices higher. The mullahs are counting on this. I bet they're banking on it.

And they figure that if someone calls their bluff, launching a couple of shkvals towards a couple of tankers would get people's attention (and they had done the tanker war before).

The mullahs don't have to rely on any of those new weapons the mullahs have been touting either (and those weapons are more than likely either Russian in origin, or derivatives of Russian designs). They could rely on old fashioned underwater mines to accomplish the same task. Dump a bunch into the straits, and let the craziness ensue.

So what is the long range goal of such a strategy? Well, it will initially force oil prices far higher than they are currently. Insurance rates for shipping in the Persian Gulf will increase, and those costs will be passed on in the form of higher prices. Shipments may be delayed, further affecting the price.

And if the Iranians do succeed in carrying out their threats, it is possible that some civilian shipping will come under fire.

This open hostility needs to be dealt with, especially with the context of Iran's nascent nuclear program.

The Race Rap

So, Rep. Cynthia McKinney is trying to play the race card. That's not playing very well, even among her fellow Democrats, who shunned the press conference she attempted to call this past Friday shortly after the incident took place. They need to get this issue out of the way so that they can get back on message (attacking the GOP with the "ethically challenged" meme). Throwing out race and gender discrimination as a spurrious claim to an incident at a security checkpoint in the Capitol building only serves to undermine the message and the messengers.

The Capitol Police deny the charges, of course and Rep. McKinney essentially makes the point that I first made when this story broke:

Police also have said that McKinney was failing to wear a pin that lawmakers are asked to display when entering Capitol facilities.

But she said Wednesday: "Face recognition is the issue .... The pin doesn't have my name on it and it doesn't have my picture on it, and so security should not be based on a pin ... People are focused on my hairdo."

Get rid of the 'courtesy' of permitting Members of Congress to avoid the security checkpoints and require everyone entering the buildings to be searched. Not only does this avoid this problem going forward, but it actually enhances security in the building should someone manage to smuggle items into secured facilities without the Members of Congress knowing.

And in case your sense of irony needed recalibration, this might do the trick: And soon to be former Rep. Tom DeLay (the ethically-challenged one himself) weighed in claiming that...

'Cynthia McKinney is a racist. She has a long history of racism. Everything is racism with her. This is incredible arrogance, and -- that sometimes hits these members of congress, but especially Cynthia McKinney'...

To top that off, he's considering filing an ethics complaint against McKinney. Pot meet kettle.

Yet, on the merits, McKinney surely needs to be called out. Her actions were inexcusable and throwing bogus claims of racial or gender bias into the mix only undermines those who have genuine complaints.

UPDATE:
The Capitol Police chief says McKinney escalated the incident. Michelle Malkin slams McKinney's fellow Democrats, by and large have not stood up for the Capitol Police who are sworn to protect members of Congress from threats. I'm not sure if I agree with her assessment, but that's not what I'm tracking. I'm more interested in why people aren't taking more of an interest in why the police feel it acceptable to not search everyone entering the facilities where they are in charge. I understand that Congress would like the special treatment because it is expedient, but that expediency could get someone killed (and it did in New York City).

UPDATE:
It's going to the grand jury. Lucky us. While a grand jury could indict a ham sandwich, this case has political ramifications that should go well beyond the simple assault case. Other blogging McKinney's ongoing troubles: Mac's Mind and The American Street.

NYT Realizes Syria is a Totalitarian Dictatorship

Syria is a dictatorship. People do not have free speech rights. They do not have any rights.

Period.

They have whatever rights the dictator in charge (currently Bashar Assad and his cronies) decides to give them. If he feels like giving people a few crumbs, he'll do it.

However, he's in the process of crushing dissent, much of which is fallout from the Lebanon fiasco. Assad is wooing the religious fundamentalists because he needs to coopt their power base. It's all calculated to keep him in power. Arresting perceived and real political opponents is part of the process.

Security forces have detained human rights workers and political leaders, and in some cases their family members as well. They have barred travel abroad for political conferences and shut down a human rights center financed by the European Union. And the government has delivered a stern message to the national news media demanding that they promote — not challenge — the official agenda.

The leadership's actions were described in interviews with top officials as well as dissidents and human rights activists. They reflect at least in part a growing sense of confidence because of shifts in the Middle East in recent months, especially the Hamas victory in Palestinian elections, political paralysis in Lebanon and the intense difficulties facing the United States in trying to stabilize Iraq and stymie Iran's drive toward nuclear power.

The detentions, the press crackdown, the restrictions on travel and the overall effort to crush dissent are also a response to a fragile domestic political climate and concern over a growing opposition movement abroad.

"I may not be keen on early morning arrests, but this regime was being threatened," Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Dardari, a London educated technocrat charged with steering Syria's economic overhaul, said in an interview. "The survival of this regime and the stability of this country was threatened out loud and openly. There were invitations for foreign armies to come and invade Syria. So you could expect sometimes an overreaction, or a reaction, to something that is really happening."

Oh, I'm sure that Dardari's all broken up over the detentions and crackdowns. He's standing against the tide of freedom and openness that he was able to experience during his education in London. Returning to Syria, he's part of the privileged elite that can act more freely than the rest of the country, but even that has limits as if he doesn't say these things, Assad may put him in one of those detention facilities, which make Abu Ghraib on its worst days look like Club Med.

Behind the Rise In Autism

The rise in the number of reported cases of autism is due to more diagnoses, not because there is an epidemic as some have repeatedly claimed.

Children classified by school special education programs as mentally retarded or learning disabled have declined in tandem with the rise in autism cases between 1994 and 2003, the author of the study said, suggesting a switch of diagnoses.

Government health authorities have been trying to allay widely publicized concerns that vaccines containing the mercury-containing preservative therimerosal, which is no longer used, were behind an autism epidemic.

There may be as yet unknown environmental triggers behind autism, study author Paul Shattuck of the University of Wisconsin at Madison said, but his research suggested the past decade's rise in autism cases was more of a labeling issue.

Autism was fully recognized in 1994 by all states as a behavioral classification for schoolchildren, who receive individualized attention whatever their diagnosis, he wrote in the journal Pediatrics.

Subsequent increases in the number of autism cases have varied widely by state but the average prevalence among 6- to 11-year-olds enrolled in special education programs increased from 0.6 per 1,000 pupils in 1994 to 3.1 per 1,000 in 2003.

During the same period, diagnoses of mental retardation fell by 2.8 per 1,000 students and diagnoses of learning disabilities dropped by 8.3 per 1,000 students.

It would appear that instead of being classified as mentally retarded or learning disabled, these children would be diagnosed with autism or an autism spectrum disorder. I hope that further study is done to evaluate whether the new classifications are helping these children receive focused treatment that improves their cognitive and social skills. Otherwise, we're playing a shell game and throwing money at a problem that has always persisted, just under different names.

When the Levee Breaks...In California

What happens when a levee breaks and it's not in Louisiana? There are thousands of miles of levees throughout the country, and some protect extremely densely populated areas, including in and around Sacramento, California. Well, two gave out yesterday after severe rain hit the region.

The breaks occurred as rain continued to fall across Northern California, with some residents evacuating their homes near San Francisco because of the threat of landslides and forecasters predicting continued wet weather for two more weeks.

Water breached a 30-foot section of levee along a creek in Merced, sending up to 18 inches of water pouring through a mobile home park, said Michael Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Water Resources.

Three trailer parks were evacuated, a total of 200 people, said Elaine Post, spokeswoman for the Merced County Office of Emergency Services.

South of Sacramento, a Consumnes River levee gave way, swamping pastures but not threatening any homes. The same area broke in January during heavy storms. The amount of land under water was not immediately known.

Sacramento had 5.29 inches of rain in March — 2.49 inches more than average, according to the National Weather Service. Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, San Rafael and Santa Rosa all broke rainy-day records last month.

The rain also is melting snow in the mountains, swelling streams in the Central Valley.

Were those levees built up to code? How many others could and would fail under similar circumstances, and were they properly maintained?

You know, the usual questions asked (and still not adequately answered about the levee failures around New Orleans).

Sudan and the UN

Sudan blocks the UN from investigating the situation in Darfur.

Sudan has prevented the United Nations' top humanitarian official from visiting refugees from the troubled Darfur region, who have fled to Chad.

The government did not give a plane carrying Jan Egeland permission to fly over Sudanese territory to reach Chad.

How about flying around Sudan to get to Chad? Is that a possibility? Or is the message Sudan sending one that they do not want the UN interfering in its internal matters, even though they're neither solely internal (with the violence spilling over into neighboring countries), nor is the actions Sudan taking with respect to human rights even close to what anyone should consider acceptable. Sudan is trying to hide its involvment in the genocide of its citizens in Darfur at the hands of the janjaweed. Khartoum doesn't seem to mind the violence much, either, and by going out of its way to keep the UN from interviewing refugees, seems to think that they might be implicated in the violence directly.

Fear and Loathing in Hollywood

I have not seen the movie trailer for Flight 93 in the theaters, but I did see it via CNN's video link. In fact, I haven't seen any movie in the theaters since the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe last year. But that is not the issue here.

We're 4.5 years removed from that horrible day, and we're still fighting the war that the US finally recognized was being fought against it for years prior to 9/11/2001. Some people think that this is too soon to see a movie about 9/11. Others think that the media needs to do a better job of replaying events of that horrible day when Islamic terrorists hijacked four planes and attempted to not only destroy the WTC, but to damage the Pentagon and destroy the Capitol building.

Everyone reacts differently to watching the trailer, and I'm sure people would come away from seeing the movie with different reactions as well. My first visceral reaction to watching the trailer was the chill that ran down my spine seeing the planes, confused air traffic controllers struggling to figure out what was going on, the fleeting images of the WTC burning, and knowing where all this led. And it got me angry (again).

Mrs. Lawhawk commented to me last night if a simple trailer showing the name would have been sufficient to convey that this movie was opening in just a few short weeks. I'm sure that it would, and I'm sure that even a blank screen with the name of the movie and the subhead or a picture of the plane or WTC would have evoked a reaction, perhaps one that caused people discomfort.

That's part of the point of Hollywood, as Hollywood itself likes to think of its movies. They aren't just making art, but statements on society, life, and politics. They want movies that will spark reactions and get people thinking. As in Good Night, and Good Luck, Crash, and Brokeback Mountain from this past year alone (all nominated for Academy Awards). Well, one recent event that should spark a reaction and get people thinking is 9/11. And a movie about 9/11 will certainly generate a reaction.

The question isn't why are people so traumatized by seeing movie images evoking the feelings of that day but, a) whether people reacting differently to this than they did to movies showing Pearl Harbor attacks and WWII in general, and b) why this is the case.

Hollywood ran a series of films - Why We Fight, to show the horrors of war and to keep people focused on ultimate victory. The first of those films, Prelude to War aka "Why We Fight, 1" - was produced in 1943. Six additional films were produced with the last released in 1945, which detailed the attack on Pearl Harbor. These were films showing the brutality of war all while the war was going on. Frank Capra directed those films. These movies were released concurrent with the war and shown repeatedly throughout the war.

Meanwhile, Victory at Sea was a 24 episode series produced in 1952, which fell right in the middle of another bloody war - this time in Korea. That was seven years after the end of World War II, and 11 years after Pearl Harbor.

These films were produced at a time when there was no 24 hour news cycle, and it still took time for events around the world to reach back to the US.

Yet, the reaction was one showing the brutality of war, the events that led up to the conflicts, and the personalities involved. It didn't attempt to gloss over the brutalities, or the horrors that the Nazis and the Axis powers inflicted on Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we had millions of soldiers under arms, and many of them never came home, and many more came home grievously wounded - and it was a stark and vivid reminder of what we were up against. Those movies that were published couldn't possible compete with the fact that so many fought, were wounded, or died serving this country.

In the current era, we have far fewer men and women serving in the military and most people didn't even recognize that we were at war (well, our enemies had declared war against the US numerous times, and it took 9/11 to get the US to belatedly react), so the horrors of 9/11 are far more vivid. Cameras are pervasive and the imagery of 9/11 is easily accessed. Although some, including Sean Hannity, claim that the media outlets aren't showing video from 9/11 anymore, the release of the 911 tapes from the WTC on 9/11, did prompt the networks to run video and images of the attacks, including the collapses at least in the NY area. And I haven't seen people condemn the networks for showing those videos again with each broadcast.

Also, it's a different media environment that we're living in today, but that doesn't mean that the trailers should have been pulled. And as far as the producers of the movie are concerned, there's no such thing as bad press - as this gets the movie press coverage it might not ordinarily have received had there been no such actions by individual movie theaters.

I suppose that some people might be offended having to sit through trailers to movies that they would find objectionable or never want to see, as opposed to the fact that no one forces people to pay money to see the movie of their choice.

Ed Driscoll has more.

Tom DeLay Calls It Quits

Tom DeLay has called it quits and will not seek reelection in November. Thus ends his career as a Congressman and one of the most powerful people in Washington, D.C.

I guess this means that my take on his political demise being greatly exaggerated, was off a bit. It remains to be seen whether he can make an eventual comeback or simply withdraws from public view, though there continues to be a swirl of charges, convictions, and plea deals involving close associates and underlings, which are associated with the ongoing Jack Abramoff investigation.

"He just decided that the numbers and the whole political climate were against him and that it was time to step aside," said one Congressional official with knowledge of Mr. DeLay's plans. The official did not want to be identified because Mr. DeLay's formal announcement was scheduled for Tuesday in Houston.

His decision was first reported Monday by MSNBC and by Time magazine on its Web site, which posted an interview with Mr. DeLay, as did The Galveston County Daily News. "I'm very much at peace with it," Mr. DeLay told Time of his decision.

Mr. Delay, who is serving his 11th term in Congress, told the Galveston paper he planned to step down from his seat by late May or June.

Congressional aides said Mr. DeLay had informed his Texas colleagues and other Republican leaders, including Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, as well as President Bush.

One DeLay ally said that the lawmaker had been considering leaving Congress since he gave up his leadership post in January and that he had been persuaded to make the break last week, when his former deputy chief of staff, Tony Rudy, pleaded guilty to corruption charges. He was also said to have been influenced by troubling poll numbers in his district in the Houston area.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 115

Steve Cuozzo bursts the orthodox notion that the Freedom Tower would be a white elephant incapable of finding tenants or that the tower would put the hurt on the real estate market. He's right of course, but that doesn't stop other developers from whispering about the project, if only to boost their own competing projects. In fact, Cuozzo thinks that Pataki has this singular aspect right. NYC needs first class office space, and the Freedom Tower would deliver that.

It is a separate question as to whether people would want to work in Tower One, with all the connotations and implications that brings. For that matter, Tower Two would similarily have the same issues, though no one is talking about that perhaps because the other towers would be significantly shorter and perceived to be a lesser target for terrorists.

True, the Freedom Tower faces unique challenges, including the theoretical terrorist threat. What if, God forbid, nobody wants to move in?

To brokers and landlords, nothing is worse than an office building that temporarily has no tenants. But what's dangerous for the city is not to have first-class new office space available when job growth and the economy expand, as they invariably do after a contraction.

For some companies, buildings 20 years older suffice. But for others - like Goldman Sachs, which is erecting its own new headquarters Downtown, or PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which filled all of brand-new 300 Madison Ave. - only the most state-of-the-art, electronically sophisticated product will do.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, white elephants stampeded through the Times Square area. The towers at 1540 Broadway, 1585 Broadway and 750 Seventh Ave. rose when the neighborhood was still a war zone. With no tenants immediately in sight, the developers lost their gleaming new skyscrapers to their banks.

Yet those failures proved a boon to the area and the city. The towers were sold at discounts. Their new owners immediately moved into them or rented them out. All of a sudden, Bertelsmann and Morgan Stanley were in or near Times Square - paving the way for others to follow. Fifty years from now, no one will remember that the buildings stood briefly empty when new.

Or take the Twin Towers - the biggest spec buildings of all time, with 4.4 million square feet each. The World Trade Center dumped more than 10 million square feet of space on the market in the early '70s. For years, Downtown landlords had to settle for lower rents thanks to the depressing effect the temporary over-supply had on prices.

But the Twin Towers arrested Downtown's long slide. Even though then-Gov. Hugh Carey had to bail them out by temporarily moving much of the state government there, they became the global symbol of Lower Manhattan. Without the WTC, there would have been no Battery Park City or World Financial Center.

It took the towers more than 20 years to become fully successful. Yet those 20 years would have been a minor footnote to the centuries-long lifespan they'd surely have enjoyed had two airplanes not destroyed them on 9/11.

Meanwhile, more NY politicians take their digs at New Jersey's Governor Corzine for injecting himself into the Ground Zero debate:

New York's top fiscal watchdogs yesterday escalated the border war with New Jersey over Ground Zero, telling the Port Authority's Garden State representatives to stop dragging their heels on a deal to rebuild the World Trade Center.

"We are deeply troubled to learn of the objections now being voiced by the PA's New Jersey representatives regarding the final lease negotiations for Ground Zero," city Comptroller Bill Thompson and state Comptroller Alan Hevesi wrote in a letter.

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

Let's Go To The Videotape

Fortunately for Paul LoDuca and the New York Mets, Major League Baseball does not have instant replay [review], because they would surely have given up the tying run in yesterday's home opener. LoDuca clearly dropped the ball in trying to apply a tag to Alfonso Soriano who was trying to score on a hit to left field.

Unfortunately for the Senators, that quite possibly cost them the game and would be my turning point in the game.

For another Washington, DC inhabitant, videotape could also play a key role. That is, if it actually showed the actions claimed.

A security video shows McKinney entering the building and moving around the metal detector and X-ray machine.

It does not show her encounter with the police officer, according to officials familiar with it.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney claims that she was manhandled by a Capitol Police office, who in turn claims he was assualted by McKinney when she did not present herself as a member of Congress or wore a pin showing her to be a member of Congress.

A pair of Congressmen are preparing a resolution commending the Capitol Police for their actions.

The resolution, by Mr. McHenry and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida Republican, which could be voted on this week, comes after increasingly harsh accusations by Mrs. McKinney, the Georgia Democrat who was stopped by Capitol Police last week for bypassing a metal detector.

McKinney released a statement on the matter, and you can judge her for yourself.

Channel 2 Action News has acquired a copy of McKinney's original statement that she decided against posting on her website.

In that original statement she complains that Capitol Hill police officers often fail to recognize her. She calls her treatment by Capitol Hill police being "harrassed at work."

In light of these statements and those made by her supporters over the past few days, it is understandable that instead of dropping the matter, the Capitol Police are pursuing the possibility of criminal charges against McKinney, since the outcome of those charges could vindicate their officer and the credibility of the agency.

The lack of videotape of the situation means that witness testimony will be key to the case. It remains to be seen whether the prosecutors believe that there is sufficient evidence to go for a criminal indictment.

UPDATE:
Added the link to the LoDuca tag in the Mets/Nationals game for those of you who didn't know what I was talking about.

UPDATE:
McKinney's histronics aren't particularly helpful to Democrats who were hoping to gain in the polls on GOP ethical lapses. Wizbang has more. I think the Democrats would be better with Paul LoDuca running things than Howard Dean - as LoDuca magically made something out of nothing with the sell of his 'catch' yesterday to the umpires. Dean and the rest of the Democrats are still trying to come up with a policy and have nothing to show for it. That, and that DeLay effectively resigned takes yet another potential weapon out of the Democrats hands yet they still have to deal with the fallout from the McKinney incident.

Saddam Facing New Charges

On top of the current trial for the murder of Shi'ites at Dujail, Saddam is going to be put on trial for the slaughter of 5,000+ Shi'ites at Halabja as part of the Anfal campaign.

The new case involves Saddam's role in Operation Anfal, a three-phase move against Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s. Anfal included the March 16 gas attack on the village of Halabja in which 5,000 people, including women and children, died.

Human rights groups consider the Halabja attack one of the gravest atrocities allegedly committed by Saddam's regime.

"These people were subjected to forced displacement and illegal detentions," Juhi said. "They were placed in different detention centers. The villages were destroyed and burned. Homes and houses of worshippers and buildings of civilians were leveled without reason or a military requirement."

Others accused in the Anfal case include Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan Majid, or "Chemical Ali"; former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad; former intelligence chief Saber Abdul Aziz al-Douri; former Republican Guard commander Hussein al-Tirkiti; former Nineveh provincial Gov. Taher Tafwiq al-Ani; and former top military commander Farhan Mutlaq al-Jubouri.

Saddam and seven others have been on trial since Oct. 19 for the deaths of Shiite Muslims following a 1982 assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail. Iraqi authorities chose to try Saddam separately for various alleged crimes rather than lump all the cases together.

Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered during the Anfal campaign, some with the use of chemical weapons. Some observers thought that this would have been the first crime to be brought against Saddam. Instead, the Iraqis brought the charges stemming from the Dujail slaughter as their lead case. It turns out that this might have been a good move since the court has gotten on the job training on how to deal with outbursts from Saddam and his cohorts and have become increasingly efficient in their handling of the case.

Medical Breakthrough Watch

Recreating a human bladder in the lab using stem cells harvested from the patient themselves. It's incredible stuff, and the possibilities are endless - the ability to replicate human organs without having to go through the ordeal of waiting for organ donors or the problems associated with rejection.

Sounds like science fiction, but scientists think that it's only a few years away, though there are still issues that need to be resolved and the technologies involved are in their early stages of development:

The Boston researchers used a more mature cell type known as a progenitor. They first operated on the patients to remove bad tissue that made up more than half their bladders. They fished out muscle and bladder wall cells, seeded them on cup-like bladder-shaped scaffolds of collagen, then let the cells reproduce in the lab for seven weeks. Starting with tens of thousands, they ended up with about 1.5 billion cells. The cell-bearing molds were then surgically sewn back to the remnants of the patients' original and partly working bladders, where the lab-nurtured cells kept maturing.

In undergoing the experimental procedure, the patients skirted the typical side effects of grafts that would otherwise have been made with their own intestinal tissue.

Atala, who has since moved to Wake Forest University, has already begun commercializing his transplant techniques through Tengion, a company he helped found in King of Prussia, Pa. It has licensing rights to patents on his work, and some of his research collaborators have acted as consultants.

Some researchers were more cautious about the promise shown with the new procedure, saying the study lacks any direct comparison group of patients getting the traditional graft.

Dr. Joseph Zwischenberger, who edits the journal of the American Society of Artificial Internal Organs, questioned how well the new bladders worked in the first few patients and raised a "red flag" about two patients who left the study for personal reasons and were ultimately omitted from the results. He also said Atala's attempts to commercialize the technique should add some skepticism toward the findings, which he nonetheless called "very interesting preliminary data."

And This Isn't Bigger News?

Terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has sharply lowered his profile in recent months, halting his group’s Internet claims as the number of big suicide bombings in Iraq — his infamous signature form of attack — has fallen.

Now, a man with close ties to Iraqi insurgent groups claims al-Zarqawi was shunted aside as political leader of a recently formed coalition of militants because they were angry at his propaganda efforts and embarrassed by his group’s deadly attack on hotels in Jordan.

But others caution the claim is hard to verify — and that perhaps the insurgents are just changing tactics.

Misinformation or a sign that the insurgency fueled by al Qaeda has splintered over tactics and ideological differences? No one quite knows for sure, but the ramifications are worth exploring.

If this has actually happened, this should be considered a significant victory. It shows that the US has gotten inside the al Qaeda command and control decision cycle, forcing the terrorist group to react to US actions, instead of initiating action.

It also has the potential of showing that the US has driven a wedge between the various terrorist groups operating in Iraq that it can exploit - both to be used against each other (divide and conquer individual cells).

However, it also has the potential of being a misinformation ploy to get the heat off Zarqawi. Yet, even that would show that the US has gotten close to Zarqawi.

Will She Stay Or Will She Go?

Will Rep. McKinney be arrested? Who knows. Her case is going to a federal prosecutor. But this much is clear - her supporters are playing the race card for all it's worth. If you don't have the law on your side, you argue the facts. If you don't have the facts on your side, you pound your fist on the table. It appears that McKinney's hands are getting tired, because that's all she was able to muster. No laws, no facts, just bluster.

Michelle Malkin has more.

Moussaoui Verdict Is In....

And we're going to have to wait until 4PM EDT to find out. Anyone want to take wagers?

I will put down $25 that the losers are the American people, who will either have to pay for Moussaoui's upkeep until he's dead by lethal injection, or after serving life without parole - and that's not counting legal fees and costs associated with the trials.

UPDATE:
The New York Times has more on what this verdict actually represents:

The verdict on Moussaoui, the only person to face charges in the U.S. in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, was being announced at 4 p.m. Monday, according to the court's Web site.

This first phase of the trial only determines Moussaoui's eligibility for the death penalty.

If jurors find he is eligible, it moves into a second phase to determine whether he deserves the death penalty. Victims of Sept. 11, 2001 and their families will testify in this second phase.

If they find that he's ineligible, he's automatically sentenced to life in prison.

And the verdict has come in - he is eligible for the death penalty, which means that 9/11 survivors and families of the victims will be able to testify against Moussaoui.

UPDATE:
[Fixed grammar above.] Michelle Malkin reports that Moussaoui had this to say as the verdict came down:

"God curse you all! You will never get my blood" and "Allah Akbar!"

Others blogging this decision, which triggers a sentencing phase that will ultimately determine whether Moussaoui is sentenced to death or life in prison: Stop the ACLU, Sister Toldjah, and In the Bullpen.

UPDATE:
The prosecutors will have about 40 relatives testify. And we might get to hear from Moussaoui's mother, who would testify on her son's behalf. But that's not all. Moussaoui's lawyers are looking to run with a mental illness defense:

Court-appointed defense lawyers, whom Moussaoui has tried to reject, will summon experts to suggest he is schizophrenic after an impoverished childhood during which he faced racism in France over his Moroccan ancestry.

UPDATE 5/3/2006:
For those who are trying to find whether Moussaoui received life in prison or the death penalty, my latest posting is here. The jury found against imposing the death penalty so he'll be incarcerated for the rest of his life.

Putting a Genocidal Leader on Trial

The latest genocidal leader to be put on trial for war crimes is Liberia's Charles Taylor. Of course, he refuses to accept the legitimacy of the court - just like a long list of other genocidal leaders like the Nazis at Nuremberg, and more recently Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.

Taylor is accused of committing atrocities in Sierra Leone's civil war. And it was less than a week ago when Taylor managed to escape and was caught trying to enter Cameroon. The Times picks up the following:

Security was tight at the Special Court in Sierra Leone, the country to which Taylor is accused of exporting his civil war. Court officials who received death threats and Taylor will be protected by bulletproof glass and dozens of U.N. peacekeepers from Mongolia and Ireland.

Taylor showed little emotion as a court official, Krystal Thompson of the United States, read the indictment. He sat at a table, flanked by two security officers. When the official read ''murder, a crime against humanity,'' he laced his fingers on the table before him.

Taylor met with his lawyers for the first time Monday morning shortly before his court appearance. Two lawyers from Liberia and two from Ghana ''gave him our advice and he will consider it. We consider our mission accomplished,'' said Kofi Akainyah, a Ghanian member of the team.

Many were suspicious when Nigeria's government announced Taylor's disappearance last week, just days after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo reluctantly agreed to hand him over from the exile haven he had been offered under an internationally brokered peace agreement ending Liberia's 14-year civil war.

But Taylor's spiritual adviser said Nigerian security forces encouraged Taylor to flee and helped him get to the Cameroon border before turning around and arresting him in a double-cross.

How To Steal Elections and Influence People

How To Steal Elections and Influence People - the Hugo Chavez way.

MIT mathematicians using Benford's law have essentially proved Chavez stole the last election, in which Chavez faced recall. They calculated that the odds of the voter tabulations given happening without tampering were about 100:1.

Benford's Law is basically a way of looking at the number of things in lists. It's a statistical law that says in a random sample of tabulations, a certain percentage should begin with the number 1, a certain percentage with 2, etc. The Venezuelan election tallies were way out of line with what the law predicts.

And since Chavez's cronies determined which polling places Carter's observers could check out, Chavez controlled every aspect of the election, and Carter's group couldn't find fraud because they were limited to only those polling places that Chavez kept out of the rigged portion.

So, instead of free and fair elections, Venezuela got its dictatorship - complete with the rubber stamp of Jimmy Carter. And Hugo gets to influence people with his oil weapon, and makes friends with the likes of Castro, the Iranian mullahs, and the usual suspects of the far Left.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 114

Mayor Bloomberg is sticking up for Gov. Corzine's insistence on participating in Ground Zero rebuilding and demanding terms favorable to New Jersey, which has a say in rebuilding through the Port Authority - a bistate agency:

Mayor Bloomberg stuck up for Jon Corzine yesterday after reports surfaced that aides to Gov. Pataki said the New Jersey governor was "nickel and diming" the city on the deal for the World Trade Center site.

"To blame Corzine, who didn't even take office until three months ago, is an outrage," said Bloomberg.

Sources told The Post over the weekend that aides to Pataki were "outraged that while New Jersey is nickel and diming New York over the most important development project in the world, at the same time they've managed to come up with $100 million in funding to keep New York's teams in New Jersey."

The state is putting up $120 million for an $800 million stadium that's being built for both the Jets and the Giants.

Sources said the reason that a deal on how to redevelop the WTC site is being stalled is because Corzine is holding out for help on a $6 million [lawhawk here - it's a $6 billion project, not $6 million] Hudson River commuter rail tunnel.

In the three months since Corzine has taken office, he's tried to renegotiate a deal between the Jets, Giants, and the State over the new stadium, which sent the teams into a fit. He's tried to insert himself into the Ground Zero debate, and all that within the last three months.

And it's rather curious that Bloomberg remained largely silent on Ground Zero until a few weeks before his own reelection last November. Before that, he had largely ceded power and control (what little he has is based on controlling doling out Liberty Bonds), to the Port Authority and the Governor.

Things turned sour when Bloomberg pushed the West Side Stadium project and Assembly Speaker Silver spiked that project. Bloomberg had tried to buy off Silver with nearly a half billion dollars of downtown projects, but Silver refused to permit the project to go ahead. Now, Bloomberg is playing politics on Ground Zero and is using anyone with an interest in sticking it to Pataki and Silver to press his own agenda.

Sen. Chuck Schumer has his own thoughts on the building impasse, and he notes that Silverstein and the Port Authority are pretty close on a deal, and that they're essentially fighting over the last $100 million:

Let me be clear: A lot of the hard work on coming to an agreement has already been accomplished. The basic framework for a deal is in place. The Port Authority will own the Freedom Tower and Tower 5, while Silverstein Properties will build and own Towers 2, 3 and 4. This framework will ensure that the most desirable commercial space on the site is reserved for job-creating office space and that retail development along the Church Street corridor can begin as soon as possible.

Considering the advances we've made, we cannot turn back now.

In normal commercial negotiations, parties are sometimes tempted to hold out for a little more and see if the other side blinks first. But this is not a conventional real-estate deal, and it demands more than the usual negotiating postures. I believe that a deal is within our reach, but only if we all acknowledge that now is a time for statesmanship, not brinksmanship.

He also suggests bringing in an independent auditor to ensure that the underlying financial assumptions are sound and he wants to avoid a court battle, which would tie the site up indefinitely.

Meanwhile, the memorial has problems of its own - with how the names of all the victims should be arranged. Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, writes:

To accurately reflect the realities of 9/11, the memorial must recognize rescue workers separately. Firefighters, police officers and EMTs all responded, operated and died not inside a specific tower but rather as a result of the worst terrorist attack on American soil.

A third memorial space - equal in size to the two but not only exclusive to first responders - should be included in the plans.

For historical accuracy, New York's firefighters and other first responders need to be memorialized as they functioned that day - by division, battalion, unit and rank, with their badge numbers listed alongside their name.

The many acts of heroism on 9/11 - performed by firefighters, police and civilians - uplifted the nation. After the towers' collapse, our firefighters worked in spite of their own loss and sorrow lifting up and carrying our nation's heart and soul on their shoulders, digging for survivors and then for the dignified recovery of victims' remains.

Their valiant efforts have also had personal consequences in the aftermath, as many first responders working there have been diagnosed with significant heath conditions post 9/11. Several have already died.

Is a random list of names what the American public wants in a 9/11 memorial? A list that fails to recognize the teamwork and unity and sacrifice that allowed America real pride amid all the horrors of that day? Teamwork and unity that, while costing so many rescuers their lives, helped 25,000 others live?

The designer, Michael Arad, wants random order to the names, and many of the family groups want some kind of order - whether it's alphabetical or by company affiliations. The emergency responders want to be specially recognized for their efforts, and the current design does not do that.

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

Follow The Money

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has shut down a massive terror-finance pipeline in which a whopping $3 billion in profits from drug deals and other crimes flowed through a major New York bank to Middle East fanatics, The Post has learned.

Morgenthau told The Post his office is pursuing a settlement involving possible penalties against one of the largest and most prominent banks in New York - which he declined to identify - for maintaining an account where funds that originated in South America's notorious "tri-border region" were rerouted to suspect accounts in the Middle East.

Evidence developed in the course of a three-year probe, which has already resulted in charges against other New York-based financial institutions, revealed that about $3 billion that flowed through the account over a two-year period was going to terror groups Hamas, al Qaeda and Hezbollah, Morgenthau said.

"I can't go out and arrest Osama bin Laden. But I can try to cut off his money," Morgenthau said of his massive probe.

Drugs and terrorism. One funds the other, as Morgenthau's investigation appears to show. Cutting off the flow of money will put a serious crimp in their terror operations, but one has to seriously wonder what that money was used for and whose pockets were lined in the process. $3 billion can buy a whole lot of explosives, weapons, and materials, not to mention personnel and other expenses.

He said most of the $3 billion in suspicious funds were generated, through criminal enterprises, in the lawless tri-border region of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

Over a two-year period, the $3 billion was sent to the New York bank account by a shadowy money-transmittal company in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The money then flowed into bank accounts in the Middle East locations including Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Beirut, Lebanon, and Ramallah in the Palestinian territories.

Iran's War Drums

Iran continues its war games, and analysts are scurrying to determine whether the latest pronouncements from Tehran are bluster or whether Iran has genuinely upgraded and implemented modern systems into their military.

Although Iran can draw on huge manpower, its naval and air-force technology is largely dismissed as outmoded.

"A powerful torpedo made by experts of the Revolutionary Guards will be test fired today in the Persian Gulf. Tomorrow, we will see other missile test firings by the Revolutionary Guards in the 'Great Prophet' war game," Rear Admiral Dehqani told state television, which only gave his family name.

Iran said in February last year that it had started a mass production line of torpedoes.

The Islamic Republic has three elderly Kilo class diesel-electric Russian submarines. These are capable of firing homing torpedoes but military analysts say these vessels are unsuited to modern naval combat.

Iran has also started building midget submarines, which it says are capable of firing torpedoes.

"We are going to have very important news that will make our nation proud in the next few days," Dehqani added, without explaining. The week of wargames started on Friday.

Western nations have been watching developments in Iran's ballistic missile capabilities with concern amid a standoff over the Iranian nuclear program, which the West says is aimed at building atomic bombs.

The latest development over the weekend was the claim that Iran had successfully tested a Shkval torpedo derivative. The torpedo, which can travel 200+ mph, is more than 3 times faster than conventional torpedoes. At 26 feet long, however, the Iranians have a limited number of vessels that can maneuver and fire the weapon. They have the three Kilo class submarines, and several surface ships, but that's it. The mini subs that they have developed are most likely unable to accomodate the Shkval, though if they're intent on using it as a suicide squad, that increases the number of ships by three.

Surface ships are sitting targets for US aircraft, who could fire off their anti-ship missiles from 100 miles away. The Shkval has a range of 7 miles. Doing the math, the only way that these torpedoes are going to be used is if the Iranians get lucky or go after unarmed tankers in the Straits of Hormuz.

And if they're going after tankers, they don't need the Shkvals. Ordinary torpedoes could do the job just as well.

The wildcard is whether they've deployed these weapons with crude nukes (which the Iranians are hellbent on acquiring) - as the original version was designed to fire in a straight line with a nuclear warhead. Firing such a weapon in the general direction of a carrier battle group might result in serious casualties in the narrow confines of the Persian Gulf where maneuvering space is more limited.

This suggests that the Iranians are thinking in strategic terms and hoping that their nuclear weapons program catches up with their delivery systems, which they've been testing in increasing frequency.

UPDATE:
Ed Morrissey sees the Iranians as blustering:

The most likely explanation falls closer to bluff than reality. The continued boasting of superweapon technology combined with the diplomatic isolation Iran has experienced makes this sound like the mullahcracy is willing to pull out all stops in order to intimidate the West into backing off of Teheran. The mullahs have overplayed the threats at this point.

The Sub Report has more. Bubblehead pores through the Iranian press release (and the CNN copy) and thinks this is yet another exaggerated threat:

Us submariners know that such claims are either spurious (radar evading -- not hard for a submarine firing an underwater weapon) or ridiculous (a supercavitating torpedo that can "evade sonar detection"?). Vigilis has more background on the Russian Shkval supercavitiating torpedo on which this alleged weapon is supposed to be based, but even if they did make something like this, the things are basically unguidable, and are really only useful for firing down the bearing of an incoming torpedo in hopes of getting your opponent to move, or, if it's armed with a nuclear warhead, as a "revenge" weapon.

And he further notes that the press video of the torpedo launch shows that it was surface launched, which means that it can either be deployed from a ship (a nice big target for US aircraft defending the US fleet) or from land (again, a nice stationary target for US aircraft to plink).

UPDATE:
And the Iranians tested another new torpedo today. No word on what kind, but I'd check the sources above (Bubbleheads and The Sub Report) for more information.

UPDATE:
Defense Tech breaks down the Shkval threat and comments on Iranian capabilities. [also fixed a typo above.] There's additional commentary on the technology involved here. New York Times reported the test, but this is curious:

The state television video broadcast Sunday showed crew members on a submarine and described them as preparing to launch the missile. Another film clip showed what was described as the missile being fired from the deck of a ship and diving into the water.

Hmm, the Iranians trying sleight of hand showing a sub crew supposedly preparing to fire, but the clip of the firing is from a surface ship? Curious. I guess the Iranians aren't too keen on firing the missiles from a submarine?

UPDATE:
Others blogging the story include Gina Cobb, The Rolling Barrage (who counsels caution on bedwetting), All Things Beautiful, The Jawa Report, and Riehl World View.