Classic Confrontation

UNIFIL's leader in Lebanon was stopped at a Hizbullah checkpoint in South Lebanon in order to thwart his review of the situation there.

The commander of UNIFIL's forces in Lebanon, Major General Claudio Graziano of Italy, was recently stopped by Hizbullah militants at a checkpoint in Beirut to prevent him from gathering information on the terror group's activities in the capital's south.

According to a report published by Kuwaiti newspaper Al Seyassah, the militants acted under direct orders from senior Hizbullah officials.

UNIFIL is tasked with keeping Hizbullah weapons out of the area south of the Litani River, and a number of confrontations between the sides have been reported in the past few months. However, it appears that UNIFIL's method of operation will not change drastically as a result.

Need I remind anyone that UNIFIL's mission is to enforce UN SCR 1701, which requires the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon, including Hizbullah.

Not Too Hot To Trot

The New York Times was headlining this Travel section article this morning alongside the CIA interrogation tapes story on their website.

It's the 53 places to go see in 2008.

How exactly are you getting to many of them? Isn't that going to create global warming or polluting the local environment?

1 Laos
2 Lisbon
3 Tunisia
4 Mauritius
5 Mid-Beach, Miami
6 South Beach, Miami
7 Maldives
8 Death Valley
9 Courchevel
10 Libya
11 Hvar
12 Puerto Vallarta
13 Sylt
14 Prague
15 Quito
16 Liverpool
17 Munich
18 Iran
19 Tuscany
20 Anguilla
21 Bogotá
22 Playa Blanca, Panama
23 Alexandria
24 Mazatlán
25 St. Lucia
26 Oslo
27 Buenos Aires
28 Rimini, Italy
29 Malawi
30 Roatán
31 Mozambique
32 Kuwait City
33 Verbier
34 Lombok
35 Northwest Passage
36 Easter Island
37 Virgin Gorda
38 Namibia
39 San Francisco
40 Detroit
41 Itacaré, Brazil
42 Kilimanjaro
43 Algeria
44 San Diego
45 Málaga
46 Puerto Plata
47 London
48 Vietnam
49 Essaouira
50 Las Vegas
51 Barossa Valley, Australia
52 Tokaj, Hungary
53 New York

How many airline miles would it take to visit all of them from New York? Let's pick a couple out that strike me as fascinating selections, but ones that are dubious as to their environmental or political climate.

Easter Island. It's extremely remote, and has a sensitive ecosystem that can be overwhelmed with increased tourism. I thought we're supposed to tread softly on this green planet?

Northwest Passage. Again, it's another remote destination in an ecologically sensitive location where assistance in case of emergency is difficult at best. A recent Antarctic cruise ended in near-disaster as a cruise ship sunk after striking an iceberg. No one was killed in that incident, but plying the waters in the Arctic Circle isn't child's play and would release pollutants into the environment.

Then, there's Iran. Iran? Has the Times travel staff not been paying attention lately as to what Iran is busy doing? Don't consider Iran if you've got alternative lifestyle. That includes being Jewish. Or gay. Why would anyone go to Iran when doing so supports a regime that treats human rights as optional, and whose imposition of Islamic law is misogynistic and homophobic?

If you truly believe in man-made global warming, taking trips to these locales should be off-limits because of the COx emissions needed to get there, the pollution caused by staying at hotels in such locales, and the impact on the environment and ecology by your stay.

I guess the travel section doesn't have the same concerns for the environment as the environmentalists.

Democrats Caving On War Funding... Again

Reality is beginning to catch up with Congressional Democrats. Not only are they behind the curve on what is going on in Iraq, but they've been on the wrong side for so long that they're going to piss off their core constituency.

House Democratic leaders could complete work as soon as Monday on a half-trillion-dollar spending package that will include billions of dollars for the war effort in Iraq without the timelines for the withdrawal of combat forces that President Bush has refused to accept, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday.

In a complicated deal over the war funds, Democrats will include about $11 billion more in domestic spending than Bush has requested, emergency drought relief for the Southeast and legislation to address the subprime mortgage crisis, Hoyer told a meeting of the Washington Post editorial board.

If the bargain were to become law, it would be the third time since Democrats took control of Congress that they would have failed to force Bush to change course in Iraq and continued to fund a war that they have repeatedly vowed to end. But it would also be the clearest instance yet of the president bowing to a Democratic demand for more money for domestic priorities, an increase that he had promised to reject.

"The way you pass appropriations bills is you get agreement among all the relevant players, among which the president with his veto pen is a very relevant player," Hoyer said. "Everybody knows he has no intention of signing anything without money for Iraq, unfettered, without constraints. I think that's ultimately going to be the result."

The Democrats plan to take a three-step approach to completing the deal. House leaders are considering an initial allotment of about $30 billion, ostensibly for the war in Afghanistan and some other military needs, which all sides in the deal recognize could be shifted to fund the Iraq war.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) then would allow Republicans to increase that amount to avert a filibuster of the spending bill in the Senate. The goal of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is $70 billion for the war, more than the $50 billion short-term funding that House Democrats initially proposed but far less than the $196 billion Bush has sought.

Democrats have lost again, and the GOP is going to deliver to President Bush what he's been asking for for months.

Congressional Democrats had been holding up the military appropriations for months seeking partisan political advantage and they failed to convince anyone that they were supporting the troops by withholding that funding.

The Democrats agenda was to defund the war, even as the Surge showed significant and impressive gains in Iraq. They continued to hold to this position, even after some Congressional Democrats began seeing the light. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both held to the defeat and retreat line and demanded timelines, all of which were an affront to the US military, which showed that its changed strategy was winning in Iraq and defeating al Qaeda and insurgents in Iraq.

Don Surber has more.

Strong Arming In Venezuela

Well, I suspected this all along, but we now have more substantial proof that [T]hugo Chavez tried to steal the election referendum that would have amended the Venezuelan constitution and enabled him to run as el presidente for life. Apparently, the military and a former confidant told Chavez in no uncertain terms that if he tried to steal the election, he would face a coup d'etat.

Most of Latin America's leaders breathed a sigh of relief earlier this week, after Venezuelan voters rejected President Hugo Chávez's constitutional amendment referendum. In private they were undoubtedly relieved that Chávez lost, and in public they expressed delight that he accepted defeat and did not steal the election. But by midweek enough information had emerged to conclude that Chávez did, in fact, try to overturn the results. As reported in El Nacional, and confirmed to me by an intelligence source, the Venezuelan military high command virtually threatened him with a coup d'état if he insisted on doing so. Finally, after a late-night phone call from Raúl Isaías Baduel, a budding opposition leader and former Chávez comrade in arms, the president conceded—but with one condition: he demanded his margin of defeat be reduced to a bare minimum in official tallies, so he could save face and appear as a magnanimous democrat in the eyes of the world. So after this purportedly narrow loss Chávez did not even request a recount, and nearly every Latin American colleague of Chávez's congratulated him for his "democratic" behavior. Why did these leaders not speak out? Surely they knew of Chávez's machinations, and with the exception of Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Bolivia's Evo Morales and, to a large extent, the Argentine Kirchner duo, none of the region's heads of state sympathizes with the Venezuelan revolutionary.

The head spins at the nonsensical statements cast about by leaders around the world congratulating him on acting democratically in accepting the loss.

Did they not know or not care that Chavez tried to throw the election and the close election was a sap to Chavez's oversized ego? Or, are they worried about a fifth column in their own countries that Chavez has cultivated over the past few years that would give those leaders trouble that they're not able to face?

Do they not know that Chavez will try again, after he's thoroughly prepped the battlefield? He's going to move against the opposition media outlets and his opponents directly to prevent them from organizing against his agenda.

Chavez remains extremely dangerous to the Venezuelan people, and it appears that they're beginning to understand what's going on. More importantly, it appears that there are cooler heads prevailing in the military that would speak out in defense of the Venezuelan people.

Hanukkah in Iraq

It’s not just the cultural and religious sensitivities that make celebrating Hanukkah “downrange” in a predominantly Muslim land a bit of a challenge.

It’s the little things, too — like finding out that the base dining facility does not have kosher sour cream, seemingly a must for any potato latkes worth the name.

While the ceremonies do not come close to reaching the fever pitch associated with Christmas on bases downrange, servicemembers at several bases in Iraq paused Tuesday night to mark the first of Hanukkah’s eight nights.

At Camp Taji, for example, Chaplain (Capt.) David Goldstrom, a rabbi with the 4th Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, led about 50 servicemembers in an evening service. Goldstrom is one of three Jewish chaplains tending to U.S. troops in Iraq.

Another of the Jewish chaplains, Capt. Andrew Shulman of the 4th Battalion, Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, performed similar services at Camp Striker, also in Baghdad.

Until about two months ago, Shulman was the only Jewish chaplain serving the estimated 160,000 U.S. servicemembers in Iraq.

Shulman will be hitting the road to take Hanukkah services to soldiers in Mahmudiyah and in the Green Zone. Additionally, soldiers from Forward Operating Base Hammer, Camp Slayer, Camp Liberty and other bases will travel to take part in services at Striker.

Shulman said the circumstances will make Hanukkah a little different than at home.

“The custom is to eat oily foods on Hanukkah, as the miracle had to do with oil,” Shulman wrote in an e-mail. “In the U.S., people eat potato latkes — kind of like a poor man’s hash brown. In Iraq, we don’t have eggs to mix with the potatoes ... so a woman from Cedarhurst, N.Y., mailed me 10 pounds of frozen potato triangles (not so frozen anymore) and applesauce to dip them in.”

But, Shulman said, “I checked at the [dining facility], and their sour cream isn’t kosher, so that’s a no-go. Oh, and there really aren’t any ‘windows’ at Camp Striker to display the menorah in, so we’ll light it inside the chapel on a table.”

Shulman also said that on Thursday, he and other officials will perform a menorah-lighting ceremony taped by public affairs videographers for later broadcast. The ceremony will be held in Saddam Hussein’s old al Faw Palace, with soldiers from Afghanistan and California Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger participating via video.

At Camp Taji, Goldstrom said the menorah was designed and built by Fred Dillard of Morse Welding in Copperas Cove, Texas, near Fort Hood. Goldstrom brought the large menorah from Fort Hood.

“Hanukkah is really about respect for each other’s religious beliefs,” Goldstrom said. “While the historical events the menorah commemorates is related to a military victory and the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem, when you look at the history and the political and cultural context, it was about people fighting against oppression, persecution and for the opportunity to practice their religion.

“And that’s a great message for what we are doing here in Iraq. Helping a culturally diverse country while remaining true to the high value we place on religious tolerance and pluralism.”

Asked about the sensitivity of celebrating a Jewish holiday in a Muslim country, Goldstrom said, “American soldiers are both culturally sensitive and committed to religious pluralism, so we both respect the host nation’s cultural and religious sensitivities while providing an opportunity for our servicemembers to observe their faith traditions.”

Shulman saw historical parallels to the first Hanukkah.

Then, he said, “a small band of citizens defeated the mighty and fierce Greek army. This week, 2,200 years later, we light a menorah to commemorate the events and acknowledge God’s continuous interaction in our lives, all while on a U.S. Army base in the middle of the Iraqi desert.

“Moral of the story: Where there’s a will to make something happen, there’s a way. Nothing is too difficult.”

Palestinian Restiveness

Yet another car bomb has gone off in Gaza, as Hamas security installations were hit in the latest in a series of bombings. Hamas blamed Fatah, which denied responsibility. Fatah says that Hamas is stealing fuel from Gaza hospitals. Heh.

Yet another kassam rocket hit Israel after being fired from Gaza. Secretary of State Condi Rice instead focused on Israel's proposed construction of homes in Har Homa as being problematic for the peace process. Secretary General of the UN Ban echoed Rice's statements, again ignoring the rockets falling on Israel, like the one that hit an apartment building in Sderot as the occupants were celebrating Hannukah Wednesday night.

The Palestinian terrorists are busily upgrading their rocket capabilities, even as the infrastructure in Gaza decomposes. They're able to store the rockets for a longer period of time, and have extended their range, putting more Israelis at risk of coming under fire.

Israeli Foreign Minister Livni is pushing for an international peacekeeping force in Gaza. No one wants that job. No one.

Livni also says that Israel with evacuate settlements in the West Bank. Good luck convincing the Israeli public that any good will come from that given how the Gaza withdrawal resulted not in peace, but a rocket war that continues to this day.

Major NATO Offensive In Afghanistan Underway

International and Afghan troops have begun a major offensive to retake a strategic town in southern Afghanistan from the Taleban, Nato sources said.
Nato says Afghan and British ground troops used heavy gunfire against the Taleban on the outskirts of Musa Qala.

It says the main assault will be carried out overnight by US soldiers who have been dropped in by helicopter.

The Taleban say they have 2,000 troops defending the town in Helmand province, which they seized in February.

Musa Qala is the only substantial town the Taleban holds in Afghanistan. For now, they say they are holding their ground.

The BBC's David Loyn, in Kabul, says the town has been the main centre of drugs trading in the country since the Taleban moved in in February and has taken on symbolic importance for both sides.

Of course the Taliban are saying that they're holding ground. Why would they claim otherwise. They're also probably puffing up their numbers.

It's also important to remember how the Taliban managed to gain control over the town in the first place:

Taliban stormed Musa Qala in early February, disarming police and taking over the district administrative centre from a tribal council.

The takeover followed a controversial deal about four months earlier which saw British forces withdraw on the request of tribal elders who said they would keep out the rebels and maintain the peace.

Azimi stressed that the operation to retake Musa Qala was launched at the request of the elders, who had been prepared.

Meanwhile, across the border in Pakistan's Swat district, the Pakistani forces are making slow progress against the Islamists there. Pakistani forces captured the compound of a major Taliban leader, Maulana Fazlullah. This is as the Taliban are making moves towards Peshawar.

Pooped Out

After a broken pipeline cut off water to sinks and toilets at the state's Harriman Office Campus, Labor Department employees were alternately fuming and laughing at a short-lived plan to bus them to Crossgates Mall if they needed a bathroom break.

"They were telling us to take a bus to the bathroom," marveled Debbie Atwell, one of approximately 1,300 Labor Department employees who, after a restroom-free morning, were sent home at 12:30 Thursday afternoon.

The water crisis actually started shortly after 7 a.m., when early arrivals at the sprawling office campus realized the water main that feeds the campus had burst.

Soon after that, employees in buildings 8, 8a, and 4, which house the Department of Taxation and Finance and the Division of Military and Naval Affairs, were sent home.

But the massive Building 12 initially was hit with just lower water pressure, and repair workers thought they had the problem licked.

"We had the water restored at about 9:45," said Department of Labor spokesman Leo Rosales. "There was a rush to the bathroom that impacted the system," he added.

Others put it more graphically, noting some toilets either stopped working or started to back up.

So supervisors put out word that vans would ferry people the approximately two miles to Crossgates as well as other shopping spots and businesses for potty breaks.

No one actually used the toilet shuttle, however, although one van was about to leave when word came that Building 12 was also closing for the day at about 12:30 p.m. Buildings 7 and 22 had lower water pressure but didn't have to close.

Unionized employees of the Labor Department -- which among other functions ensures safe and sanitary workplaces for New Yorkers -- were not amused at the shuttle idea or that workers couldn't safely relieve themselves in-house.

"A number of the bathrooms overflowed," said Gary China, a representative of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), which represents about 800 Building 12 workers.

China and another rep, Angelique Bywater, were dispatched by the union to see what was going on. Bywater questioned the wisdom of trying to send people to places like shopping malls or the nearby SEFCU credit union, which was identified as another possible backup bathroom.

"How was everybody going to walk into SEFCU's bathroom?" she asked.

Betty McLaughlin, vice president of CSEA's Local 67O, said she wonders if the problem wouldn't have been resolved sooner if the new Labor commissioner, M. Patricia Smith, spent more time in the building rather than in New York City.

We Can't Go To The Video Tape

The New York Times broke this story last night, and gave it prominence on their front page of the paper edition today. They note that the CIA purposefully destroyed two videotapes showing harsh interrogations of high value targets.

Last night, I offered up the following comments at LGF on this.

It doesn't look good for the CIA and the Administration. Someone had the bright idea of destroying tapes of harsh interrogations at a time when Congress was looking into the detention program.

Well, I was right. It really doesn't look good for the Administration. There's a firestorm brewing - and it's bipartisan in nature. That said, some of the hyperventilating on the Left is just out of control.

This morning, Michelle Malkin provides some context missing from the Times piece:

So, how bad is it? The Left is going bananas–with one its most unhinged bloggers now dubbing America a “Banana Republic.” It is bad. Center and right-leaning bloggers are weighing in. James Joyner points out that “People have gone to jail for obstruction of justice for actions much, much less brazen than this.” Ed Morrissey believes the tape destruction “looks a lot more like destroying evidence than tightening security.” Rick Moran concludes “Any way you slice it, someone needs to be held accountable for the tape’s destruction.”

It is worth noting that the CIA actually informed members of Congress about the tapes four years ago and also informed them in advance about their intention to ultimately destroy the tapes. One leading Democrat admits he knew about the destruction of the tapes last fall.

So, Democrats have known about this for a year and voiced their concern to the CIA. Nice.

This looks real bad for former DCI Porter Goss, who headed up the CIA for the relevant timeframe. The Democrats in Congress knew for a year that the tapes were going to be destroyed and did nothing. So, why did the Times release this now? Does it have anything to do with the ongoing legal wranglings with GitMo detainees?

I'm with both Ed, James, and Rick on this - not only does someone need to be held accountable, but it would appear that this was the destruction of evidence, and not simply tightening security to ensure that the identities of those CIA involved in the interrogations would ever become known.

DCI Hayden has much explaining to do about the situation, but he's going to take the heat for a practice of his predecessor.

Meet the New Boss...Same as the Old Boss

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dan Doctoroff, a top deputy to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who helped orchestrate the city's real estate revival after the September 11 attacks, will resign to become president of the mayor's private media company, Bloomberg L.P.

Bloomberg has called Doctoroff the most influential official in transforming the city since Robert Moses, the former housing, parks and transportation official who dominated New York City politics for decades.

Bloomberg announced Doctoroff's resignation as deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding, effective December 31, and said Doctoroff would take over in February as president of the news and financial information company that the mayor founded and continues to majority own.

The mayor is not involved in daily operations of Bloomberg L.P., which has made him a billionaire several times over. But Bloomberg remains involved in the company's strategic and policy discussions.

I wish Deputy Mayor Doctoroff luck and success in his new post. He will be missed in New York politics. He was the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development. He was at the helm of New York City's economic revival after September 11. He was instrumental in obtaining approval for the new New York Mets and New York Yankee Stadiums, and the new Nets arena in Brooklyn. He is responsible for the planned expansion of the 7 train line to the west side, PlaNYC 2030, an initiative to make the city “sustainable;” Queens West, a proposed middle-income housing development; the development of Hudson Yards and the construction of Moynihan Station.

When I met him several years ago, he joked that he was the "Deputy Mayor of the Olympics", as he created NYC2012, the organization which spearheaded New York's campaign to land the 2012 summer Olympics. NYC2012 was sabotaged by Sheldon Silver and the State legislature, who refused to approve an expansion of the Javits Convention Center, which would have served as the Olympic Stadium, and subsequently, the new home the New York Jets (as well as provide New York with much needed additional convention space.)

Pearl Harbor Remembered

On this day in 1941, the Japanese navy attacked the US fleet at Pearl Harbor.



It was a day that will live in infamy.

Sadly, many of those who lived through, and fought at Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning, are no longer with us. The number of survivors of that day grows smaller by the day, but this year a new memorial to the USS Oklahoma victims will be dedicated. After the Arizona and the loss of 1,177 of the 1,400 sailors and Marines on board when Japanese bombs tore apart the ship's forward magazine, the Oklahoma lost 429 sailors and Marines — the second greatest loss of life among any of the battleships in Pearl Harbor.



UPDATE:
Others remembering Pearl Harbor Day: chaoticsynapticactivity, Michelle Malkin, Noblesse Oblige, and SteelJaw Scribe.

Mass Transit Maneuverings

New York City Transit is hoping that a change in how subways are administered will bring about improvements in service. They're going to start with two lines that riders have deemed to have poor service - the 7 and L lines, and each will have a manager responsible for the entirety of service on those lines.

I'm not sure how successful that will be. After all, is this not simply yet another layer of bureaucracy? The last thing the agency needs is another layer of bureaucracy. Money that goes to feeding the bureaucracy means money is not going to actually improve service.

This, too, comes at a time when fare hikes are going to be implemented. While Gov. Whiplash Spitzer said that the base fare would not be increased, the fact is that few people actually pay the base fare because of the various multiple ride and unlimited ride Metrocards. It is those people who will be hit hardest. Metrocards have made it easier for people to get around the City and it encourages people to use mass transit over driving and increasing congestion. Yet, that's going to be the target of the fare hikes.

Commuters have their own ideas of how to improve service.

Jay Diaz, a piano technician who works in Long Island City, echoed Ms. Muccio: He wants a more dependable schedule on the No. 7. But he is going in the opposite direction — toward Queens in the morning, when Ms. Muccio is heading to Manhattan. Mr. Diaz lives in Washington Heights, so he takes the A train to Times Square and changes to one to Queens.

“I don’t trust the 7 to get me to work the way I trust the E,” he said. “So the first thing I would do is make the 7 more consistent as far as departure times and arrival times.”

On the L, Jeffrey Griffith said he would redesign the cars. “In Japan,” he said, “all the seats on trains flip up. The conductor latches the seats up so at rush hour there is standing room only.”

He also said he would move the poles away from the doors because “people get packed in around the poles—it causes congestion.”

Other passengers on the L said they would put a priority on bringing reality to signs that are supposed to tell riders how long before a train is due. Passengers complained that the signs sometimes say a train will arrive in one minute. They said 15 minutes can tick by before the white eyes of a train appear in the darkness beyond the platform.

Adjusting the location of the poles would make sense, as would the Paris subway train tri-pole that enables more people to hang on than a single pole as currently found on the NYC subways. The Paris subways also have the flip seats right near the doors, which enable more people to fit on the trains during rush hour.

Better instructions and information at subway stops would also make sense - including better signage for exiting stations would also relieve congestion within some stations.

Meanwhile, across the Hudson, the Port Authority is busy considering whether to raise tolls and fares for PATH. The way the fare and toll hikes are being reported, it would still make more sense to drive into Manhattan than take mass transit because the price would still favor driving over mass transit.

At a time when the region needs to reduce congestion, raising the fares on PATH doesn't make much sense, even as the increases would help defray the costs for new capital spending that includes new railcars and signalling systems that would enable trains to run faster and closer together. Eliminating the EZPass discounts also makes little sense as those discounts encourage people to use the system, which also reduces congestion at toll plazas around the region.

All one has to do is look at the long lines of traffic that wait for cash lanes at any of the area bridges and tunnels and realize how much time you're saving by zipping through the EZPass lanes. Not only are you saving time, but you're saving gas and lowering emissions all at once by not idling in traffic.

Islam's Silent Moderates

Ayaan Hirsi Ali in all her glory - and on the op-ed page of the New York Times:

It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.

But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted — and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?

Usually, Muslim groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are quick to defend any affront to the image of Islam. The organization, which represents 57 Muslim states, sent four ambassadors to the leader of my political party in the Netherlands asking him to expel me from Parliament after I gave a newspaper interview in 2003 noting that by Western standards some of the Prophet Muhammad’s behavior would be unconscionable. A few years later, Muslim ambassadors to Denmark protested the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded that their perpetrators be prosecuted.

But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.

I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.

Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: more compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.

Indeed, where are the moderates? Ayaan has found herself to be on the receiving end of the Islamists who seek her death because she dares to question the treatment of women in the Islamic world. She's in need of constant security to protect her against jihadis who wish to murder her because of her apostasy (anyone who doesn't strictly adhere to the precepts of Sharia are considered apostate and subject to death). Highlighting the misogyny that is institutionalized in Islam is a crime worthy of a fatwa - death.

The silence remains deafening.

Iran's Cure For Homosexuality: Hangings

Ahmadinejad was rightfully ridiculed at Columbia University when he stated that there were no gays in Iran. Well, there's a good reason that no one is openly gay in Iran.

They are lynched. Or hanged by the government.

Or first convicted and sentenced to be hanged, and then the Chief Justice of the Iranian Courts reviewed the case and reduced the sentence only to have the original sentence carried out anyways by the lower courts.

That's the latest case.

Mr. Mouloodzadeh was a 21-year-old Iranian citizen who was accused of committing anal rape (ighab) with other young boys when he was 13 years old. However, at Mr. Mouloodzadeh's trial, all the witnesses retracted their pre-trial testimonies, claiming to have lied to the authorities under duress. Makvan also told the court that his confession was made under coercion and pleaded not guilty.

On June 7, 2007, the Seventh District Criminal Court of Kermanshah in Western Iran found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Despite his lawyer's appeal, the Supreme Court upheld his death sentence on August 1, 2007. The case caused an international uproar, and prompted a letter writing campaign by IGLHRC and similar actions by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Outrage! and Everyone Group.

In response to mounting public pressure, and following a detailed petition submitted to the Iranian Chief Justice by Mr. Mouloodzadeh's lawyer, the Iranian Chief Justice, Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, nullified the impending death sentence of Mr. Mouloodzadeh. In his November 10, 2007 opinion (1/86/8607), the Iranian Chief Justice described the death sentence to be in violation of Islamic teachings, the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land.

In accordance with Iranian legal procedure, Mr. Mouloodzadeh's case was sent to the Special Supervision Bureau of the Iranian Justice Department, a designated group of judges who are responsible for reviewing and ordering retrials of flawed cases flagged by the Iranian Chief Justice. However, in defiance of the Chief Justice, the judges decided to ratify the original court's ruling and ordered the local authorities to carry out the execution."

Allah wonders whether this is some kind of progress for Iran in that their Chief Justice took action to nullify the original death sentence, but the facts show that he was powerless to actually stop the sentencing.

Islamic law is quite strict on these matters, and as with the case of the Saudi rape victim who was sentenced to 200 lashes for being in public with a male companion who was not a relative and complaining about the severity of her sentence, the Iranian courts are intent upon adhering to a strict Islamic law, even if it means killing gays and subjugating women.

Also commenting: Gateway Pundit who notes that 4,000 gays have been executed in Iran, and Hot Air.

Iran's Endgame

What is Iran up to? The experts don't know what the endgame is, but they certainly can see what they've been up to.

They're busy inside Iraq, as Bill Roggio details here.

The issue of Iranian complicity in the Iraqi insurgency has been contentious since US and Iraqi forces began heavily targeting the Iranian networks in late 2006. While news reports have touted Iran's role in reducing the violence, US military officers believe Iran still serves as a source of weapons and fighters in Iraq.

The Long War Journal has spoken to several mid-level and senior US military and intelligence officers, all of whom have declined to go on the record due to the sensitive nature of the Iranian issue. Based on these conversations as well as other information, The Long War Journal has learned the nature of the Qods Force operations in Iraq and how they move resources into the country.

Suffice to say, had this reporting been done at the New York Times or Washington Post, not only would more people know what's going on, but it should be a Page One blockbuster story.

Roggio clearly indicates that the Iranians are heavily involved in what's going on inside Iraq, and that they're busy trying to shape the conflict to Iran's best interests. Those interests differ from that of the Iraqis, let alone the Americans.

At the same time, taking the NIE at face value makes little sense. In fact, it's downright dangerous, especially on how narrowly it defines the pursuit for nuclear weapons. Iran's currently actively engaging in nuclear enrichment and working on a plutonium processing plant, both of which are critical elements of a nuclear weapons program, but which are given short shrift in the NIE.

During the past year, a period when Iran’s weapons program was supposedly halted, the government has been busy installing some 3,000 gas centrifuges at its plant at Natanz. These machines could, if operated continuously for about a year, create enough enriched uranium to provide fuel for a bomb. In addition, they have no plausible purpose in Iran’s civilian nuclear effort. All of Iran’s needs for enriched uranium for its energy programs are covered by a contract with Russia.

Iran is also building a heavy water reactor at its research center at Arak. This reactor is ideal for producing plutonium for nuclear bombs, but is of little use in an energy program like Iran’s, which does not use plutonium for reactor fuel. India, Israel and Pakistan have all built similar reactors — all with the purpose of fueling nuclear weapons. And why, by the way, does Iran even want a nuclear energy program, when it is sitting on an enormous pool of oil that is now skyrocketing in value? And why is Iran developing long-range Shahab missiles, which make no military sense without nuclear warheads to put on them?

For years these expensive projects have been viewed as evidence of Iran’s commitment to nuclear weapons. Why aren’t they still? The answer is that the new report defines “nuclear weapons program” in a ludicrously narrow way: it confines it to to enriching uranium at secret sites or working on a nuclear weapon design. But the halting of its secret enrichment and weapon design efforts in 2003 proves only that Iran made a tactical move. It suspended work that, if discovered, would unambiguously reveal intent to build a weapon. It has continued other work, crucial to the ability to make a bomb, that it can pass off as having civilian applications.

That work includes the centrifuges at Natanz, which bring Iran closer to a nuclear weapon every day — two to seven years away. To assert, as the report does, that these centrifuges are “civilian,” and not part of Iran’s weapons threat, is grossly misleading.

And by grossly misleading, it means irresponsibly dangerous.

Yet, the media and opponents to the Bush Administration cling to the NIE with all the tenacity they can muster because they think that this will prevent the Administration from going further on dealing with the threat posed by Iran than sanctions, if the Administration can even generate any action on that front.

Jack Goes Directly To Jail; Does Not Pass Go

Kiefer Sutherland will be reporting directly to jail to serve out his sentence of 48 days for DUI charges. He had originally been scheduled to enter jail in February after the conclusion of the season, but the ongoing writers strike in Hollywood has meant that Kiefer can do his time in jail without affecting the production schedule.

While in jail, it is likely that he'll be working either in the laundry or the kitchen - picking up skills that will serve Jack Bauer well in upcoming seasons (should they ever get done when the strike ends).

Omaha Mall Shooting Coverage

MSNBC headlines its website this morning with how the shooter was such a nice young man:

Mall gunman called ‘helpful young man’

He helped people alright.

He murdered eight people, and MSNBC leads with a headline on the shooter? What about the victims? They were nice people, who did nothing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a depressed and disgruntled teenager went on a shooting spree that ended when he took his own life.

CNN notes that in the shooter's suicide note, he said that he would become famous. Well, infamous is more like it.

FoxNews wonders what drove the shooter to commit a mass murder and commit suicide. They also report that the shooter's note said that he was sorry for everything.

The New York Times plays it straight on their website:

Gunman at an Omaha Mall Kills 8 and Himself
A gunman in camouflage and wielding a rifle opened fire in a mall crowded with holiday shoppers.

Drudge conflates his headline. He reports that "GUNMAN KILLS CHRISTMAS SHOPPERS; 9 DEAD AT MALL." The shooter murdered eight, and killed himself. Perhaps he's simply cribbing what the local media outlets were headlining - as they too conflate the murder victims with the murderer who took his own life in what is now the worst mass slaying in Nebraska history.

The worst mass slaying in Nebraska history claimed the lives of five men and three women, plus the shooter.

ABC News has confirmed with two sources that the gun used at Westroads Mall was an SKS-style assault rifle with two magazines taped together found at the scene. ABC reported that taping magazines together is a technique that allows the shooter to reload more quickly.

That may be why witnesses heard so many shots when Robert A. Hawkins, 20, opened fire on Wednesday afternoon.

Enemies Within and Outside

While Israel has arrested two Arab Israelis on terror related charges stemming from thwarting a plot to attack Israeli soldiers, there are those who complain that an Israeli operation against Hamas in Gaza will put a crimp on the peace process.

No word on whether this will have a similar effect.

Jordan is busy complaining about Israel's plans to build 300 homes in East Jerusalem at Har Homa. If that name sounds vaguely familiar, it's because Har Homa has been in the news before. Construction at Har Homa raised a stink in the 1990s, leading to rioting and demonstrations.

Meanwhile, Hamas and Fatah are sparring over everything from fuel shipments to using charities as front groups for terrorist fundraising.

Both agree, however, that the impediment to peace is Israel's existence.

UPDATE:
This is another item that the diplomats will be sure to ignore. The Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council has passed a law that makes any concessions on Jerusalem illegal. The law, which was approved by first reading, also defines such concessions as a crime of high treason.

Well, this simply codifies Hamas' existing theological and ideological position on the matter, but it once again demonstrates that Israel simply does not have a partner in peace that can be negotiated with.

UPDATE:
Not to be outdone by Hamas, Fatah's Abbas has announced that he would not accept provisional borders of a Palestinian state because he feared they might become permanent. Such an idea had been raised at Annapolis, and he rejected it. No counterproposal was given.

Figures:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he has rejected the concept of a provisional Palestinian state out of concern that the temporary borders of such an entity would become permanent.

Abbas told Palestinian lawmakers that during last week's Mideast summit in Annapolis, Md., the idea of a provisional state was brought up, but he turned it down — although it is a key part of the internationally backed "road map" formula for creating a Palestinian state.

If you refuse to accept a provisional state, which is a necessary part of the roadmap, can you still be negotiating in good faith? No. Absolutely not.

This was never about negotiating in good faith. This is about taking apart Israel in bits and pieces. They have no interest in a provisional country of Palestine; no more so than in 2000. Seven years and hundreds of dead later, and the Palestinians are in no better position than they were before, and an intractible conflict continues because the Palestinians refuse to accept a two-state solution even as the diplomats push for exactly that.

Iran Talking Up New Mini-Sub; Photo Editing Extra

Iran's busy talking up their new mini-sub, and Fars, the Iranian news outlet, doesn't seem to know the difference between an Iranian mini-sub and an American Los Angeles class submarine. In fact, it appears that they purposefully photo-edited the image from the US Navy website. Bubblehead has the details.

Via Strategy Page:

From available information, this appears to be an Iranian version of the Italian MG110 mini-subs. Some of these boats were sold to Pakistan years ago. The Iranians and Pakistanis have been known to exchange information like this (on foreign weapons) before.

The MG110s are 85 feet long, displace 105 tons and have a crew of six. These boats are designed to also carry eight combat scuba divers. These subs can carry two torpedoes or mines externally. Top speed on the surface (using the diesel engine) is 16 kilometers an hour. The sub can stay at sea for about five days. It can stay under water for up to eight hours at a time (on batteries). These subs are hard to detect, but it remains to be seen if the Iranian boats are as reliable and capable as the Italian ones they are modeled on. The Iranians love to talk up new weapons they developed themselves, but when the stuff is actually put to use, the performance tends to be dismal.

This Research Gig Too Good To Pass Up

A German research published in New England Journal of Medicine and Weekly World News said that men staring at women's breasts in fact prolong their lives with years.

"Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female such as Baywatch actress Pamela Lee is equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out," said author Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist.

The team led by Weatherby was made up of researchers at three hospitals in Frankfurt, Germany, and found this results after monitoring for 5 years the health of 200 male subjects, half of whom were asked to look at busty females daily, while the other half had to abstain from doing so.

For five years, the boob oglers presented a lower blood pressure, slower resting pulse rates and decreased risk of coronary artery disease.

What does a guy have to do to get a job as a researcher these days? And how exactly did they manage to convince the research advisory committees that this was research worth funding? Well, when you show boobs, anything goes.

So, if we've got to see boobies for 10 minutes a day to gain a benefit, here's my response:





UPDATE:
Well, Snopes says that this is a bogus story, and the news outlet got taken by the story. Heh. I'm not going to take any chances, so why should you?

Assailing the NIE

It's one thing when you get John Bolton or Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman nothing the thorough disconnect between the latest Iran NIE and the world-at-large, but when Hans Blix starts criticizing the NIE as being politicized and likely based on political considerations rather than actual facts and knowledge of the situation on the ground in Iran, you really have to wonder.

The latest NIE even goes against what the author of the NIE said just four months ago. Why the quick turnaround? What changed in the interim? Does the September 6 raid in Syria have anything to do with this?

Sub Prime Mortgage Bailout Takes Shape

Congressional aides say the Bush administration has hammered out an agreement with industry to freeze interest rates for certain subprime mortgages for five years in an effort to combat a soaring tide of foreclosures.

These aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not yet been released, said the five-year moratorium represented a compromise between desires by banking regulators for a longer time frame of as much as seven years and industry arguments that the freeze should only last one to two years.

Another person familiar with the matter said the rate-freeze plan would apply to borrowers with loans made at the start of 2005 through July 30 of this year with rates that are scheduled to rise between Jan. 1, 2008, and July 31, 2010.

The Administration is making a serious mistake in bailing out the sub prime mortgages. The banks are getting a freebie by not having to incur the painful lessons of giving money to those who are incapable of repaying loans. Mortgagees are escaping a painful lesson in responsibility for taking on loans that they had no business being in and this move artifically maintains a high price for real estate at a time when drops in prices would make markets around the country more affordable to those who are qualified to take loans.

What we've got is a bailout for those subprime mortgagees, and they're able to lock in rates for another five years at the teaser rates. This rewards those who took on the riskiest kind of mortgages, while those who were responsible and entered into conventional 30 year fixed rate mortgages see none of the benefit. In fact, we're going to be bailing out those subprime mortgages because this whole thing is going to cost the government billions.

On the flip side, it is the emotional argument that has won the day - the Administration doesn't want to see people lose their homes because of foreclosure as the interest rates get bumped up after the end of the teaser rates to the current market rate.

I would have counseled a slightly different path. Instead of providing a moratorium, any of these subprimes would have had to convert to a fixed rate 30 year security at 2 percent higher than the initial teaser rate. So, if a teaser rate was 4.875%, the homeowner would face a new interest rate of 6.875%, which isn't far off what mortgage rates for 30 year fixed was earlier this year. Subprimes have a higher interest rate to start, but the same principle applies. The pain would be spread out among the lenders and the mortgagees, but it would stem the tide of foreclosures because the banks do not want to be in the business of owning real estate, especially at a time when prices are falling.

Israel Under Fire

Whether it's the continued fallout from the diplomatic endeavor into psuedoreality or actual mortars and rockets landing in Israel, Israelis are under fire from many directions at once.

Olmert and his diplomats are busy ignoring the real gunfire, even as they open up Israel to potentially more serious consequences with pursuing diplomacy with the Palestinians even as they refuse to recognize Israel, its right to exist as a Jewish state, or its claims to Jerusalem.

Hamas is looking to team up with Fatah, because Israel has been going after Hamas thugs in Gaza and needs a relief valve just in case Israel decides to engage Hamas in a truly serious and purposefully manner instead of tit-for-tat retaliatory strikes.

Major Archeological Find In Jerusalem

The site, which has been unearthed during a six-month 'salvage' excavation in the Givati parking lot just outside the Dung Gate ahead of the planned expansion of the Western Wall car park, also indicates that the ancient City of David was much larger than previously thought, said archeologist Doron Ben-Ami, who is directing the dig at the site.

The "monumental" edifice, which was destroyed by the Romans when they demolished the Second Temple in 70 CE, was dated to the end of the Second Temple Period by pottery and stone vessels, as well as an assortment of coins from that time, Ben-Ami said.

According to the director of the dig, the elaborate edifice, which is an anomaly in the landscape of the Lower City at the end of the Second Temple period - which was marked with modest buildings - was probably a palace built by Queen Helena, a wealthy Iraqi aristocrat who converted to Judaism and moved to Jerusalem with her sons.

Helena became known for her generosity in helping the city's poor during a famine, and was buried in Jerusalem.

The archeologists carrying out the dig have not yet found any inscription to identify the building they uncovered, but the excavation director said that there was a "high probability" that the site was indeed the 2,000-year-old palace of Queen Helena.

Jerusalem's rich history can be found in the layers of dirt on which the modern City of Jerusalem is built. Any kind of construction work in the city will uncover potentially significant archeological ruins, and in this case, the scientists have discovered a palace dating from the Second Temple period.

I know the area where this find was made, as it being used as a parking lot with access to the Kotel through the Dung Gate. Millions of people have crossed that area without knowing what lay underneath their feet.

Holiday Lights 2007 Edition

It's that time of the year again as people put on lavish lighting displays for Christmas and Hanukkah.

These are from South Jersey:


Not sure where this house is located, but this one has a computerized display:


This display is hoping to give epileptic seizures with the way the lights flash incessantly.

So, what do all those lights say about the owners of those homes? Does more lights equate with the homeowner being a lawyer or other professional, while lesser displays reflect teachers or social workers? Well, when photos of different displays were presented to test subjects, that's exactly what was found.

I don't think one has anything to do with the other. If the homeowner is flamboyant and wants to show their Christmas spirit, they're going to go all out. If you drive through Ridgewood, NJ, which has one of the highest incomes in Northern New Jersey and where more than 25% of taxpayers are required to pay the AMT, you might find some lavish displays, but most are tastefully done.

UPDATE 12/7/2007:
Well, the famous Elvis house in Mahwah on Victoria Lane will begin its annual traffic jam next week. This is one of the largest and most elaborate displays anywhere.

I Prefer My Childrens' Products Unleaded

A recent survey found that 35% of childrens' products contained lead. Lead is a potentially toxic material (toxicity is always a function of dose), that can cause neurological problems.

Tests on more than 1,200 children's products, most of them still on store shelves, found that 35 percent contain lead -- many with levels far above the federal recall standard used for lead paint.

A Hannah Montana card game case, a Go Diego Go! backpack and Circo brand shoes were among the items with excessive lead levels in the tests performed by a coalition of environmental health groups across the country.

Only 20 percent of the toys and other products had no trace of lead or harmful chemicals, according to the results being released today by the Michigan-based Ecology Center along with the national Center for Health, Environment and Justice and groups in eight other states.

Of the 1,268 items tested, 23 toys were the subjects of recalls of millions of units this year.

Mattel Inc. recalled more than 21 million Chinese-made toys on fears they were tainted with lead paint and tiny magnets that children could accidentally swallow. Mattel's own tests on the toys found that they had lead levels up to 200 times the accepted limit.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has not done a sufficient job in policing the industry to cull those products containing lead from the marketplace.

Some of the problems stem from Chinese manufacturers who use lead paint in their products, and US importers and toy manufacturers who are not policing their own products to ensure that they are produced with lead free paints.

The muddled picture on safety makes this a more harrowing season for people looking to buy toys for their kids because no one knows for sure whether the toys on the shelves are safe and unleaded.

Of course, if it doesn't have lead, there might be other hazardous materials lurking. Like asbestos.

10,000 Jet Into Bali To Confer On Climate Change Pact

Today is the start of a UN conference in Bali, Indonesia to hammer out a pact on global warming. It appears that the UN could not have picked a better location to host. Bali is one of the most inaccessible cities in the world from Europe and the US, and the 10,000 attendees have to fly into the country, expending serious amounts of the gases that the very same attendees claim are causing global warming.

Whatever happened to teleconferencing to limit the impact on the environment? I guess when you get to fly off to the exotic city of Bali, such concerns about the environment take a back seat to the fun in the sun. It shows the unseriousness about the very issue that these attendees claim is so dire that the failure to act will mean catastrophic changes to the world's climate. Jetting off to exotic locales to confer on the problem shows that the so-called environmentalists are more concerned with their airline miles than they are with reducing emissions.

Indonesia is claiming that it is planting millions of trees to offset the conference. Well, by that logic, if every nation simply plants more trees, we'd all be able to continue at the current pace of emissions, while providing the offsets needed for such emissions. However, such a plan would mean no money/tax on nations that emit, and therein lies the problem. The UN and climate change proponents are looking at a way of taxing countries and emitters, and they want to have their hands in the cookie jar.

It's entertaining to watch the spinning going on at Bali by the UN officials, but this conference will not accomplish anything:

''Public expectations for Bali to provide answers are big,'' de Boer exhorted the delegates. ''The eyes of the world are now upon you. There is a huge responsibility for Bali to deliver.'' But Bali won’t deliver an agreement to cut the carbon emissions that are the top reason for global warming. It won’t deliver commitments from the world’s top three sources of carbon emissions - including host country Indonesia - to accept emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Despite the millions spent on airfares, hotel rooms, taxis, and resort meals, it won’t deliver a dime to poor or rich countries to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Indonesia’s Environment Minister and president of the conference Rachmat Witoelar said: ''Climate change is unequivocal and accelerating,'' seemingly sounding the clarion call for bold action. Except that we’re talking about the UN here. ''Countries now have to agree on the agenda for the negotiations,'' Witoelar continued. ''This will cover the key areas for the new climate change deal and what the organizational and procedural arrangements are to get to this result.'' Wake me when CNN news personality Anderson Cooper floats by on the next melting ice cap.

''If you’re hearing messages about what it’s not, that’s because we and Indonesia have tried to keep realistic about what will emerge from the conference,'' UNFCCC conference spokesman John Hay explained. ''Politically, if there’s agreement for negotiations to be carried out to reach an agreement on a successor to Kyoto, then Bali is a success. Anything less is unacceptable.'' Hay added, ''It’s true that the Indonesian presidency for the conference and the UN are keen on managing expectations.'' Simpler, perhaps, than managing meaningful results.

Despite UN IPCC scientists’ calls for urgent action, there’s a palpable lack of urgency. Some officials here use the term ''road map'' to describe what’s likely to emerge from the Bali meeting. But in fact, the map is already drawn. After Bali 2007 comes Poland 2008, then Denmark 2009. By then, perhaps there will be a successor regime in place of Kyoto after 2012. But with three years of wiggle room, don’t be surprised if the route to agreement runs through additional resorts.

Kyoto doesn't limit China or India's emissions, even as China now exceeds US emissions, and is expected to grow even more over the years so that any reductions by the US or EU will be swallowed up by the increase in Chinese emissions.

Of course, there's also the problem with the science on which this conference is based. If you want to reduce pollution for the sake of cleaner air, that's one thing, but claiming that you have to reduce pollution because the climate will change if we don't is unadulterated folly. There is one sure thing about the earth's climate. It is always in a state of change. The earth has alternated between ice age and periods of warming. There are long-term cycles and shorter term cycles, both of which can span millenia.

UPDATE:
Well, Texas environmentalists haven't gotten the memo about sustainable and renewable energy sources like wind power. They're busy litigating a wind power project to death in Texas claiming that the wind turbines will kill migratory birds and that the permitting process didn't have the proper environmental reviews.

Missing the Target on the NIE

This is funny, just noticed I got linked from a "senior blogger" at HuffPo, some guy I've never heard from (and I've been at the blogging and writing online for more than a decade) - and he called me a "junior blogger" who's wrapped up in consistency issues. To wit:

The main line of response against the news from the U.S. intelligence community that Iran's nuclear weapon program is not fearful boils down to one word: Iraq. We overestimated on Iraq, therefore, we're probably underestimating on Iran. Check out Gabriel Schoenfeld at Commentary:

...the latest NIE is not a rock-solid judgment, and as we have already seen in a number of other dramatic instances, even the intelligence community's rock-solid judgments might not be solid at all.

To further the idea that consistency is the hobgoblin of the little minds, another junior blogger (that would be me) echoes this principle:

From overestimating the threat, we're going in the polar opposite direction, and being wrong in underestimating the situation is just as dangerous - if not more so.

Roston doesn't get it. He thinks the solution to this is "Let's Make a Deal." Indeed, he closes the post with that exact statement.

Iran doesn't want just deals. It wants to go and get nuclear weapons, and the NIE doesn't even rule that out - it simply says that based on what limited intel the US intel agencies have at present, they think they've held off developing nukes until after 2009, and from that point it might be another two years before Iran is nuclear.

In the meantime, how is the US intel agencies spinning the fact that Iran's centrifuges continue spinning away? They don't address this, other than to say that they think that Iran has shelved the nuclear weapons approach for now, based on their current intel, the reliability of which may not be rock solid.

Let's also ignore the repeated statements by Iran's leadership calling for the destruction of Israel, the demise of the US, and numerous statements on the further implementation of enrichment cascades that refine uranium into an enriched state that can be used in nuclear weapons.

That's the hat on which the left thinks that Iran is no longer a threat? Color me unconvinced.

Roston may consider himself a senior blogger, but by no means is he a senior thinker. He's clearly out of his league in understanding the Islamist ideology behind the Iranian regime, which takes a long term view of its war against the West and its Sunni enemies within the Middle East. He also ignores the bureaucratic nature of CYA within the intel agencies.

Roston also ignores what the NIE itself states about Iran's nuclear infrastructure as I summarized

The NIE goes on to note that enrichment at Natanz is likely to continue, but the amount of weapons grade material isn't likely to be sufficient for a nuclear weapon until the first half of the next decade.

It would be nice to trust this, but US intel has been shaky on determining what is going on in the Iranian regime, and if there are covert facilities, Iran's technical capabilities would be far more difficult to gauge.

The NIE also states that Iran continues to work on its technical capabilities in related fields (including missile tech). How exactly is that not an ongoing threat that must be dealt with? If Roston wants to punt this down the road, that's one thing, but to consider that diplomacy in the face of a regime that has been recalcitrant and has refused to open up its entire nuclear program to inspections is going to gain results is to believe in the tooth fairy. Iran will continue in its nuclear work, regardless of whether the US intel agencies think that the work is going on or not.

As it is, the Israelis believe the Iranians are continuing their work on nuclear weapons, notwithstanding the US position. They have much more reason to fear a nuclear Iran - as it would take on a handful of weapons to obliterate the Jewish State of Israel (and radiate the rest of the region rendering it a wasteland). Israeli Defense Minister Barak is correct to note the Iranian threat even as the diplomats counsel talking with Iran. Iran's leaders see diplomacy as a sign of weakness in resolve, and will exploit this.

You Know Hsu Indicted In New York

A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Norman Hsu, a top Democratic fundraiser accused of cheating investors of at least $20 million and using some of the money to make illegal donations to political campaigns.

In the 15-count indictment returned in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the government accused the 56-year-old clothing-industry entrepreneur of duping investors nationwide with a massive Ponzi scheme.

Hsu was one of Sen. Hillary Clinton's big bundlers of campaign donations for her campaigns. This should be a major hit on the Clinton effort as she hasn't done nearly enough to distance herself from Hsu's odious efforts.

Michelle Malkin has more.

Hsu is in hot water in multiple states for criminal endeavors - both stemming from going on the lamb in California to campaign finance malfeasance, to operating a Ponzi scheme. Yet, Hsu managed to cozy up to some of the biggest names in the Democratic party during the time when Hsu should have been in prison in California on grand theft charges.

UPDATE:
Jammie notes that Reuters was even kind enough to address who Hsu was raising funds for in their headline. That's a start. Let's see them keep it up.

UPDATE:
A copy of the indictment is here. Of note are counts 13 through 15, which alleges campaign finance fraud for 2005, 2006, and 2007 respectively.

Thai Islamists Murder Four; Wound 25 In Ongoing Jihad

That's not how the headline reads in the Reuters piece, but it should. This is how Reuters ran the headline:

Bomb kills 6, wounds 25 in Thai Muslim south

There's no reason for a passive sentence structure in the headline, which fails to convey who actually detonated the bomb. The bomb didn't go off by itself. Someone set it - and in this case it was an Islamic suicide bomber. The Reuters report also suggests that Southern Thailand is solely Muslim. That is wrong:

According to the last census (2000) 95% of Thais are Buddhists of the Theravada tradition. Muslims are the second largest religious group in Thailand at 4.6%. Some provinces and towns south of Chumphon have dominant Muslim populations, including many ethnic Thai.[verification needed] Often Muslims live in separate communities from non-Muslims. The southern tip of Thailand are mostly ethnic Malays and they are mostly concentrated in the south, where they form a strong majority in four provinces. Christians, mainly Catholics, represent 0.75% of the population. A tiny but influential community of Sikhs and some Hindus also live in the country's cities. There is also a small Jewish community in Thailand, dating back to the 17th century.

The details of the latest attack are familiar:

A motorcycle bomb exploded outside a busy restaurant in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south on Tuesday, killing six people, including two boys, government officials said. Two Muslim men died instantly when the bomb, left in a motorcycle parked in front of the restaurant, exploded in Pattani, one of four southern provinces where more than 2,600 have been killed in nearly four years of insurgency, an army spokesman said.

"We suspect the two dead men might have been the bombers who failed to escape before the bomb exploded," Acra Tiproch said by telephone from the Muslim south.

Two women and two boys died at the hospital where 25 wounded people were being treated, Pattani's deputy governor Vinai Kruvanapat told reporters at the hospital.

The southern violence is centred in the region bordering Malaysia, a Malay-speaking former sultanate annexed by Thailand about a century ago.

The Islamists have been seeking an Islamic state in Southern Thailand and have been receiving ongoing support from Malaysia. The Thai government has been unable to put down the Islamists, and appeasement did not work either. So, the bloodletting continues.

(HT: Ringo the Gringo at LGF)

UPDATE:
Fixed the headline to reflect the fact that the Reuters report included the two suicide bombers in the tally of those killed. I repeated that error in the original headline.

Life Changing

Gillian Gibbons is back in the UK, and she's got a whopper to tell:

Gillian Gibbons, the teacher jailed in Sudan for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Mohamed, arrived back in Britain today and declared: "I never imagined this would happen. I am just an ordinary primary school teacher."

Ms Gibbons, 54, touched down at London’s Heathrow Airport at 0700 GMT. She had spent more than a week in jail in Sudan when she was found guilty of insulting Islam after allowing her seven-year-old pupils to give the bear the same name as the sacred prophet.

Looking happy to be home, Ms Gibbons added: "I went out there to have a bit of an adventure and got more of an adventure than I bargained for, I don't think anybody could have imagined it would snowball like that."

Oh really? You think?

How about having to worry about some Islamist lurking the shadows who might teach you and your family a lesson for the teddy bear incident?

If you think this is far fetched, ask Theo Van Gogh. He was murdered for directing a film about Islam called Submission. Simply pointing out that Islamic law is misogynistic fueled fatwas and death threats which he did not take seriously. A jihadi murdered him.

Or, you can ask Salman Rushdie who's been forced to maintain heavy security after publishing the Satanic Verses and Islamists in Iran demanded his head on a platter in a fatwa.

Or, you can ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who's been forced to maintain heavy security after death threats for questioning Islam's misogyny and violent tendencies.

Just because Gibbons has returned to the UK doesn't mean that she's safe. Keeping a low profile may not be sufficient. I seriously fear for her life, and she'd be wise to keep an eye out. Better yet, she should look into security arrangements because the jihadis are more than likely to make a political and religious statement by going after her.

NJ Transit Finally Acknowledges Reality

It's about time. NJ Transit may finally add parking to the Secaucus boondoggle aka Secaucus Transfer. Well, NJ Transit has actually gone ahead with purchasing land that could be used for that purpose for $25 million. The final disposition of the land remains in the air and the developer who originally pushed for development at the Transfer remains noncommittal to building out their office space.

Parking is sorely needed and would help relieve congestion on the Turnpike and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels as long as there is capacity on the rails and parking for commuters to consider the switchover. There are some groups that think that building parking at the Transfer is a bad idea, but the benefits of building parking outweigh the supposed negatives. The fact is that the Transfer is underutilized and the Turnpike exit is even more so.

Of course, commuters still have to deal with cars hitting trains, just as one did again this morning. Trains on the Main and Bergen County Line train were operating with 15-30 minute delays in both directions due to a train striking an unoccupied car in Ho-Ho-Kus.

Thankfully no one was hurt, but this is the third time in the past quarter that cars have gotten into accidents with NJ Transit trains on the Main/Bergen line. The fact remains that when a car collides with a train, the train will always win. Commuters and the passengers of the cars will always lose.

UPDATE:
Well, there were actually a couple of minor injuries in the Ho Ho Kus incident. The train clipped a car that stalled on the tracks while it may have been attempting a U-turn or stopped to discharge passengers at the Ho Ho Kus train station.

woman hustled her infant from a stalled vehicle seconds before it was clipped by a slow-moving passenger train Tuesday morning, police said.

New Jersey Transit trains on the Main and Bergen County lines are running on schedule following the 7 a.m. incident.

The unidentified mother and her baby were being treated for minor injuries at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ Transit spokeswoman Courtney Carroll said. The driver of the vehicle – the infant’s grandmother – was uninjured.

About 125 passengers on the Hoboken-bound 1150 out of Suffern, N.Y., were transferred to other trains after the locomotive struck the vehicle, which had stalled on the Glenwood Road tracks, Carroll said at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

“It’s under investigation, but police are looking into the possibility the car may’ve tried to stop to discharge passengers,” Carroll said.

What Happened To Trust But Verify?

The US says that Iran has stopped work on its nuclear program.

Trust and verify?

Nope, this is the latest NIE which is going in the opposite of the Iraq NIE that showed Iraq to possess WMD:

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

“Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might — if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program,” the estimate states.

The new report comes out just over five years after a deeply flawed N.I.E. concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons programs and was determined to restart its nuclear program. The report led to congressional authorization for a military invasion of Iraq, although most of the N.I.E.’s conclusions turned out to be wrong. The estimate does say that Iran’s ultimate goal is still to develop nuclear weapons.

From overestimating the threat, we're going in the polar opposite direction, and being wrong in underestimating the situation is just as dangerous - if not more so.

If you read the Times article, you'll find that no one knows what Iran's end game is. However, if they restart their program, they'd be two years away from a nuclear weapon because that's how long it might take to have sufficient weapons grade materials.

The Times also claims the report states that international efforts at stopping Iran's nuclear intentions have worked.

The new assessment upends a judgment made about Iran’s nuclear capabilities in 2005. At the time, intelligence agencies assessed with “high confidence” that Iran is determined to have nuclear weapons.

Since then, officials said they have obtained new information leading them to conclude that international pressure, including tough economic sanctions, had been successful in bringing about a halt to Iran’s secret program.

“We felt that we needed to scrub all the assessments and sources to make sure we weren’t misleading ourselves,” said one senior intelligence official during a telephone interview, speaking on condition of anonymity.

So, what does the NIE actually say? Well, the intel community consensus opinion is that there's good reason to believe Iran stopped its nuclear program, but that it can restart it at a moment's notice. The NIE also admits that there are gaps in the intel relating to the nuclear program (page 6):

We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were
working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.

• We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because of intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, DOE and the NIC assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran's entire nuclear weapons program.)
• We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons
program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop
nuclear weapons.
• We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently
have a nuclear weapon.
• Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.

The NIE goes on to note that enrichment at Natanz is likely to continue, but the amount of weapons grade material isn't likely to be sufficient for a nuclear weapon until the first half of the next decade.

It would be nice to trust this, but US intel has been shaky on determining what is going on in the Iranian regime, and if there are covert facilities, Iran's technical capabilities would be far more difficult to gauge.

Moment of Clarity on Islamic Law

Has the NYT had a moment of clarity on the treatment of women in Islamic society?

The answer is maybe. Just maybe.

Muslims who wonder why non-Muslims are often baffled, angered, even frightened by some governments’ interpretation of Islamic law need only look to the cases of two women in Saudi Arabia and Sudan threatened with barbaric lashings.

They're starting down the path, but don't quite go far enough in outing the misogynistic nature of Islam, and the treatment of non Muslims in Islamic-dominated lands around the world.

The Islamists treat non Muslims as second class citizens, and treat women even worse. Those who "insult" Islam are greeted with calls for execution. Women who are raped at greeted with lashes for being in the presence of men who are not blood relatives - and then get their sentences doubled when questioning the sentence or seeking publicity to show the injustice and inhumanity of the decision.

The Times has been largely silent on the subject of Islamic law and sharia as it relates to the mistreatment of women and non Muslims around the world. While the world (and the Times) focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is far from the only place where Islamists seek to spread Islam at the sword. Thailand. Pakistan. India. Philippines. Indonesia. Sudan. Somalia. Iran.

Not content with living peacefully with their neighbors, the Islamists seek to spread Islam throughout their dominion and subjugate those who do not comply.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 7

The Deustche Bank building continues to vex Ground Zero rebuilding. The deconstruction has stalled and the LMDC has not been able to restart the demolition work. Delays on the deconstruction can and will have a ripple effect on the construction within the Ground Zero site as the Deutsche Bank building site is meant to be a key access point to the complex.

He told a Crain’s New York Business breakfast forum in October that he hoped work would resume in early November. He refused to detail reasons for missing the start date, saying the situation was “complicated” and “things took a little more time.”

Dismantling was halted in August after two firefighters died fighting a blaze in the building that was severely damaged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Numerous safety violations at the building, including a broken standpipe that was supposed to bring water to firefighters, allowed the blaze to rage uncontrollably.

Various factors stand in the way of restarting the demolition, sources say, including the failure to fully implement new fire safety strategies, the lack of a contractor to tear down the tower and a criminal investigation into the firefighters’ deaths.

For now, leaving the scarred structure standing is more psychologically damaging than an impediment to rebuilding the area, sources say. It remains an eyesore that’s a reminder of the attacks and the long, convoluted process to finally begin building on the World Trade Center site.

“It is a symbol of the past and that is what makes it so frustrating,” says Liz Berger, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York. “It is not a symbol of the current state of Lower Manhattan.”

But if the failure to resume work goes on for an extended period, it could kill the deal for JP Morgan Chase to build its new headquarters at the location and potentially interfere with other construction activity at the World Trade Center site.

The deconstruction of the site has already been delayed for four months, and it may be weeks before the deconstruction resumes at the site.

Meanwhile, I walked around Lower Manhattan on Friday and construction is booming in various places. Fulton Street at Broadway is a mess, as the MTA is working on the Fulton Terminal. It's a maze of construction and street closures as utilities are exposed to enable construction below. Skyscrapers are going up elsewhere, including the Goldman Sachs building just to the Northwest of Ground Zero.

The area was bustling with commuters trying to get home, and J&R Electronics was busy with holiday shoppers. It would be even more so if the construction pace were hastened at Ground Zero and the Fulton Street corridor. Those projects divide Lower Manhattan and are a tangible and visible reminder of how far the area has to go in rebuilding.

Imus Returns In Five Year Deal With WABC

While I'll be missing Curtis and Kuby in the morning, Don Imus will certainly use that morning slot to his advantage.

He's back on the air after a hiatus due to his flap with the Rutgers' Ladies Basketball team.

Imus has a five year deal, which will probably be just enough to get even with all his detractors:

"We signed for five years because that's how long it's going to take to get even with everybody."

(HT: anonymous emailer)

Among the guests this morning were Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ), both of whom are presidential candidates in 2008. His guests also included historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and political analysts James Carville and Mary Matalin.

Some things aren't going to change though:

While Imus pledged to use his new show to talk about race relations, he added: Other than that, not much has changed. Dick Cheney is still a war criminal, Hillary Clinton is still Satan and I'm back on the radio."

Expect Imus to skewer his many detractors in the weeks and months to come.

UPDATE:
Well, the first day back didn't exactly earn Imus any kudos. He was widely panned, and Curtis Sliwa had it right when he complained that his top rated show was shelved to make way for the tired Imus.

Surprise; Chavez Loses Constitutional "Reform" Vote

I'm frankly stunned. [T]hugo Chavez lost his bid to move Venezuela one step closer to the socialist dictatorship Chavez always wanted.

On top of that, he actually didn't contest the vote or claim that the US interfered. He admitted he lost on national television.

It was the first major electoral defeat in the nine years of his presidency. Voters rejected the 69 proposed amendments 51 to 49 percent.

The political opposition erupted into celebration, shooting fireworks into the air and honking car horns, when electoral officials announced the results at 1:20 a.m. The nation had remained on edge since polls closed Sunday afternoon and the wait for results began.

The outcome is a stunning development in a country where Mr. Chávez and his supporters control nearly all of the levers of power. Almost immediately after the results were broadcast on state television, Mr. Chávez conceded defeat, describing the results as a “photo finish.”

“I congratulate my adversaries for this victory,” he said. “For now, we could not do it.”

Opposition leaders were ecstatic. “Tonight, Venezuela has won,” said Manuel Rosales, governor of Zulia State and the opposition’s candidate in presidential elections last year.

In recent weeks, members of previously splintered opposition movements joined disillusioned Chávez supporters in an attempt to defeat the referendum on constitutional changes. The plan would abolish term limits, allow Mr. Chávez to declare states of emergency for unlimited periods and increase the state’s role in the economy, among other measures.

Today is a good day in Venezuela.

Venezuelans realized what Chavez was actually intent upon doing, and were determined not to let it happen. This isn't to say that Chavez wont try again; he will. But for now, he's been chastized and humbled by this major defeat.

Gateway Pundit has the rundown of the day's events - and it was indeed quite close as early polls had put Chavez ahead, but in the end, he lost 51-49.

UPDATE:
Fausta notes that if the margin was that tight, it's more than likely that Chavez did all the rigging and prodding he could to overcome a huge loss just to make it look respectable.

Again, while Chavez lost this round, he's not going to give up. He'll be back - and watch for him to crack down on the opposition media outlets again before making another attempt to revise the Venezuelan constitution. If you can shut down the opposition media outlets, you can get your message out unopposed.

Sudan Pardons Gibbons

While this is characterized as a victory for common sense, I think there's more to it than that. Gibbons was freed earlier this morning, and is ostensibly on her way back to Great Britain.

Her life is forever changed by this experience, and not for the better I'm afraid. Islamists have a very long memory and her life is still in danger despite the pardon.

A British school teacher jailed in Sudan for two weeks after allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad was freed Monday following a pardon by the Sudanese president.

President Omar al-Bahir’s pardon of Gillian Gibbons allowed her to leave prison before the end of her 15-day sentence, and ended a diplomatic tangle with what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a victory for “common sense.”

Bashir pardoned Gibbons, 54, of Liverpool, after meeting with two Muslim members of Britain’s House of Lords, Nazir Ahmed and Sayeeda Warsi, who had traveled to the predominantly Muslim African nation to lobby for her release.

While Muslim groups in the West may want to portray this as a misunderstanding, the Islamists have a different take.

Bryan at Hot Air has a similar take; noting that Gibbons was forced to leave (pretty much for her own protection) because the Islamists weren't going to stand down anytime soon, and were going to demand her death until someone finally succeeded. Sudan didn't apologize for their wrongheaded treatment, nor did they exonerate her.

UPDATE:
Gibbons notes that she's sorry that she has to leave Sudan. She was teaching kids, which is an admirable thing to do.

However, her life is seriously in danger - if she stays, and even if she leaves. Those death threats aren't going to stop at the Sudanese border.

UPDATE:
Was a grudge to blame for this whole mess? It appears that way:

The two sources said Sarah Khawad was fired as the school's secretary in November after an employment spat and threatened to shut down the school.

The sources said Khawad did not appear to have a vendetta against Gibbons, but hoped that by bringing the teddy bear incident to the education minister's attention, he would close down the school for anti-Islamic teachings.

The private school was shut down after the controversy came to light last week. It is unclear if it will reopen.

Although there is no ban in the Quran on images of Allah or the Prophet Mohammed, Islam's founder, some Muslims consider likenesses highly offensive.

The sources said they have confirmed the account with Gibbons.

And Gibbons was the poor soul who got hammered hardest by Khawad's claims and belief in adhering to a strict Islamist education.