Detroit's Death Spiral Continues

Corruption, raging unemployment, the auto industry collapse, and a real estate market that is in even worse shape, and yet there are still worse things going on in Detroit these days.

Detroit can't even find the money to bury those people unclaimed by family or relatives in its mortuary. The bodies are stacking up.

After years of gross mismanagement by the city’s leaders and the big three car manufacturers of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, who continued to make vehicles that Americans no longer wanted to buy, Detroit today has an unemployment rate of 28 per cent, higher even than the worst years of the Great Depression.

The murder rate is soaring. The school system is in receivership. The city treasury is $300 million (£182m) short of the funds needed to provide the most basic services such as rubbish collection. In its postwar heyday, when Detroit helped the US to dominate the world’s car market, it had 1.85 million people. Today, just over 900,000 remain. It was once America’s fourth-largest city. Today, it ranks eleventh, and will continue to fall.

Thousands of houses are abandoned, roofs ripped off, windows smashed. Block after block of shopping districts lie boarded up. Former manufacturing plants, such as the giant Fisher body plant that made Buicks and Cadillacs, but which was abandoned in 1991, are rotting.

Even Detroit’s NFL football team, the Lions, are one of the worst in the country. Last season they lost all 16 games. This year they have lost eight, and won just a single gane.

Michigan’s Central Station, designed by the same people who gave New York its Grand Central Station, was abandoned 20 years ago. One photographer who produced a series of images for Time magazine said that he often felt, as he moved around parts of Detroit, as though he was in a post-apocalyptic disaster.

Then in June, the $21,000 annual county budget to bury Detroit’s unclaimed bodies ran out.

Detroit is in a death spiral and the local politicians don't know what to do. Michigan has the highest unemployment rates in the nation, and Detroit's unemployment rate is at Great Depression levels. Foreclosures and a lack of services are shrinking the remaining tax base even further.

High taxes, unemployment, and a shrinking tax base are feeding on each other to result in Detroit's demise. The spin on a slight decline in Detroit's unemployment rate isn't necessarily the result of job creation, but that people are losing their unemployment benefits and falling out of the statistic.

The economic situation in Detroit is so bad, that the Pontiac Silverdome, which cost $55 million to build and includes 150 acres of land for the stadium and parking, was recently sold for $583,000.

That's not that much more than what many houses sell for in Bergen County, New Jersey on a fraction of an acre. The depreciation of assets throughout Detroit and its surrounding communities is going to continue as job opportunities dry up and people seek better economic opportunities elsewhere.

More Troubling Emails In Hasan Case

Sen. Carl Levin notes that there appear to be still more troubling emails written by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who massacred 13 soldiers at Fort Hood.

The U.S. government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at the Defense Department knew about the messages until after the shootings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence procedures.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said after a briefing from Pentagon and Army officials that his committee will investigate how those and other e-mails involving the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, were handled and why the U.S. military was not made aware of them before the Nov. 5 shooting.

Levin said his committee is focused on determining whether the Defense Department's representative on the terrorism task force acted appropriately and effectively.

Levin also said he considers Hasan's shooting spree, which killed 13 and wounded more than 30, an act of terrorism.

"There are some who are reluctant to call it terrorism but there is significant evidence that is. I'm not at all uneasy saying it sure looks like that," he said.

It isn't just emails, but that the contact between Hasan and extremist imam Anwar al-Awlaki intensified. Hasan began inquiring about engaging in financial transfers to further his extremist ideology:

Hasan's contacts with extremist imam Anwar al-Aulaqi began as religious queries but took on a more specific and concrete tone before he moved to Texas, where he allegedly unleashed the Nov. 5 attack that killed 13 people and wounded nearly three dozen, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is sensitive and unfolding. One source said the two discussed in "cryptic and coded exchanges" the transfer of money overseas in ways that would not attract law enforcement attention.

"He [Hasan] clearly became more radicalized toward the end, and was having discussions related to the transfer of money and finances . . .," the source said in describing the 18 or 19 intercepted e-mails. "It became very clear toward the end of those e-mails he was interested in taking action."

Yet, despite these emails, no action was taken by the Army against Hasan. The recriminations between the Army and FBI are only going to intensify because the FBI apparently didn't pass along these messages to the Army all while the Army knew that they had someone in Hasan whose job performance was deficient and whose colleagues were concerned about his work product. Yet, the Army gave him a promotion.

Hasan remains hospitalized, and a pre-trial hearing is scheduled to occur at his bedside. His lawyer complains that the hearing is taking place without regard for his client's physical condition.

Curiously, the CNN article reporting on the pre-trial hearing notes the following:

Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, is accused of killing 13 people and injuring several others in the November 5 shooting at the Fort Hood Army Post near Killeen. He has not pleaded to the charges.

Hasan didn't merely injure several others. He wounded more than 30 other people during his shooting rampage. Some consider that Hasan actually killed 14 people, as one of the women murdered by Hasan was pregnant and the fetus died as well. Why is CNN downplaying the severity of the attack?

On My Nightstand: Never Forgotten: The Search for Israel's Lost Submarine Dakar

The latest book to grace my nightstand is Never Forgotten: The Search for Israel's Lost Submarine Dakar, by David Jourdan. It recounts the arduous journey of trying to determine what happened to the INS Dakar, which was lost at sea on January 25, 1968 with 69 Israelis aboard somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. It came at a time when Israel was trying to counter a growing Soviet and Arab naval threat and attempts to find out what happened failed for the better part of 30 years due to a lack of technological capabilities and faulty assumptions on where to actually search for the Dakar.

New York Job Flight Continues

Starwood Hotels, which employs 800 people in White Plains, New York headquarters, is moving across the border to Connecticut because Connecticut put together a more favorable tax package. New York politicians have tried for the past two years to put together a package, but they just couldn't compete:

The efforts of state and county agencies in the past two years to keep Starwood Hotels’ global headquarters on this side of the border could not match Connecticut’s offer.

"We have tried for two years to make this happen and fill the gap," said Salvatore J. Carrera, Westchester County’s director of real estate and economic development. "And the gap was $40 million."

Wednesday’s announcement that Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. would move from White Plains to Stamford, Conn., reinforced the view of many real estate and development experts that New York stood little chance in an incentives fight with Connecticut.

"New York state and Westchester don’t have the programs and incentives to compete with the state of Connecticut, plain and simple," said William V. Cuddy Jr., an executive vice president at CB Richard Ellis Inc. "No one should be shocked if this is the first of subsequent relocations."

Connecticut, which of late has offered several aggressive incentives packages to lure businesses, will provide the company with a $9.5 million loan, $75 million in tax credits and up to $5 million in tax exemptions on building materials. The package will translate into a 20 percent reduction in the company’s annual rent, Starwood President and Chief Executive Officer Frits van Paasschen said in a statement.

This is what happens when you have states with a poor business climate continue doing business as usual, and don't take a step back to realize that high taxes and competing states putting together favorable tax packages are luring away jobs and businesses, which affects New York's tax base.

The loss of Starwoods doesn't just affect corporate income taxes in New York, but sales and use tax, and other tax revenue streams in upcoming years following the company's headquarters move. It also affects other businesses that helped service Starwood's headquarters, including restaurants and catering that benefited from the company's presence. That, in turn, will result in loss of sales and income to those businesses.

Multiply this by multitudes of other companies that have or will be relocating elsewhere, and the problems facing the state will only deepen.

The single best way to turn around this mess is to reconsider onerous tax and spend schemes in the state and lure businesses back to the state to do business. Moreover, building up the tax base helps reduce the individual tax burden since more people share in the tax load and create jobs in the process.

Senate Health Care Bill Proposes Cosmetic Procedure Tax

Once again, the way that the Democrats are pushing new taxes and fees to secure passage of a health care funding overhaul, the need to tax anything that moves was a given.

The problem is that this latest proposal (or revisiting of an earlier proposal) to tax cosmetic procedures, isn't going to generate the kind of money needed to fund the kind of health care reform the Democrats are looking for. They figure it might generate $5 billion over 10 years.

It's going to fall short. Way short.

That's the experience in New Jersey, which imposed a tax on cosmetic surgical procedures, and it has never lived up to expectations. Moreover, cosmetic surgical procedures are the one area in which costs and prices are least likely covered by insurance and therefore are more market driven.

Hackers Expose Global Warming Chicanery?

Overnight, reports indicated that hackers managed to access tons of email and other data from a premier British climate research group, the Hadley Climate Research Group University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, and exposes issues relating to fudging the data.

This morning the Hadley group has confirmed that the emails that were published as a result of the hacking appears to be genuine, as based on this report.

There is speculation that this wasn't necessarily the work of a hacker, but an insider blowing the whistle, claiming that Hadley cancelled all existing passwords. That could simply be a precaution to institute stronger password protection, such as requiring longer passwords and requiring multiple numbers and case-sensitivity, and not necessarily the result of leaning towards an inside job.

If these emails are indeed genuine, they throw into question analysis and data collection techniques used at the center. The security breach was first uncovered by the folks at Real Climate, who passed on the information to the Hadley group.

Watts Up With That has some of the jucier tidbits, including emails purportedly claiming that they would hide declines in global temps by overlaying different data.

Data collection and analysis is at the heart of the global warming theory. If someone is fudging data and/or clearly trying to massage the data to fit a theory, it's grounds for serious repercussions seeing how nations all over the world are looking to spend and/or tax carbon emissions into the ground (literally and figuratively). It's literally a trillion dollar question, and if the data was indeed fudged, it throws into question the accuracy of the data.

UPDATE:
University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit is the name of the entity involved, not Hadley. I've corrected above.

Pelosi: Taxes Cause Job Flight

Yes, you read that right. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on the record as stating that taxes imposed on financial transactions would have to take effect internationally to prevent Wall Street jobs and related business moving overseas.

Any tax imposed on financial transactions would have to take effect internationally to prevent Wall Street jobs and related business moving overseas, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.

"It would have to be an international rule, not just a U.S. rule," Pelosi said at a news conference. "We couldn't do it alone, we'd have to do it as an international initiative."

The top Democrat's comments seemed to spell longer odds for the Wall Street tax, which some Democrats in the House of Representatives are proposing as a way to pay for job-creating legislation.

The tax, which could raise $150 billion per year, would tap into widespread public outrage at Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis, but support is lackluster among key legislators.

So, if higher taxes cause job flight, why then do Democrats repeatedly push for tax hikes at the national, state, and local level? This is an inadvertent admission that fiscal conservatives have been right all along that higher taxes result in job flight and that higher taxes on Wall Street will result in further job losses.

It also points to a fundamental disagreement between the Speaker and New York Democrats, who have repeatedly used Wall Street as their personal cash cow to fund an overblown and bloated state budget. Now, in a recessionary economic climate, the House Democrats are wary of imposing further taxes unless everyone around the world does so in order to prevent still more job losses.

The Many Terror Ties Of Anwar al-Awlaki

If the name Anwar al-Awlaki sounds familiar, it's because the extremist imam's name came up in the course of the investigation into the actions of Major Malik Hasan, who massacred 13 soldiers at Fort Hood.

However, this isn't the first time that Awlaki's name has surfaced in connection with terror suspects and terror trials. In fact, more than a dozen terror investigations had a common denominator - Anwar Awlaki.

In 2006, for example, a group of Canadian Muslims listened to Mr. Awlaki’s sermons on a laptop a few months before they were charged with plotting attacks in Ontario to have included bombings, shootings, storming the Parliament Building and beheading the Canadian prime minister.

In 2007, one of six men later convicted of plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey was picked up on a surveillance tape raving about Mr. Awlaki’s audio clips. “You gotta hear this lecture,” said the plotter, Shain Duka. Mr. Duka called the cleric’s interpretation of Muslim duties “the truth, no holds barred, straight how it is!”

Last year, Mr. Awlaki exchanged public letters on the Web with Al Shabaab, a Somali Islamist group that has attracted recruits among young Somali-Americans living in Minnesota. The message from Al Shabaab praised the cleric as “one of the very few scholars” who “defend the honor of the mujahideen.”

“Allah knows how many of the brothers and sisters have been affected by your work,” it said.

Evan Kohlmann, a counterterrorism researcher who has testified in terrorism trials in the United States and United Kingdom, said Mr. Awlaki’s work had also turned up in cases in Chicago and Atlanta and in at least seven in the United Kingdom.

“Al-Awlaki condenses the Al Qaeda philosophy into digestible, well-written treatises,” Mr. Kohlmann said. “They may not tell people how to build a bomb or shoot a gun. But he tells them who to kill, and why, and stresses the urgency of the mission.”

For at least a decade, counterterrorism officials have had a wary eye on Mr. Awlaki, an American citizen now living in Yemen. His contacts with three of the Sept. 11 hijackers, at mosques where he served in San Diego and Falls Church, Va., remain a perplexing mystery about the 2001 attacks, said Philip Zelikow, who was executive director of the national 9/11 commission.

Awlaki's Internet presence allows him to spread his message of jihad and hate to a wider audience than merely holding forth in a mosque somewhere in the world. His Internet presence allows counterterrorism experts to track and get a bead on those who might present threats, but now that his site is offline, that task gets much more difficult.

Now, just because Hasan is linked to Awlaki doesn't mean that Hasan was operating on behalf of any other group; he could have engaged in the massacre on his own. Awlaki's extremism informs as to motive and Hasan's own extremism.

Awlaki is believed to be somewhere in Yemen spreading his hate and preaching the jihad to all who wish to listen.

Recovery.gov Clears Bad Data (Maybe)

The folks running the Recovery.gov website, who have plenty of egg on their face after running data out that showed nonexistent Congressional districts partaking in stimulus funds, now has new data up and running.

The nonexistent district data has been scrubbed, so one has to wonder where the money went.

Well, they now lump all those phantom districts and jobs into the unassigned category: all 574.6 jobs created for just over $25.6 million expended.

No word on whether these jobs were actually created and/or saved and money was actually spent, but that's where we're at.

Court Rules Katrina Damage Due To MR-GO Channel

The US government is going to be on the hook for billions based on a court ruling that came down finding that the flooding in vast portions of New Orleans was the result of the Army Corps of Engineers negligently maintaining Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MR-GO), a navigation channel.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval on Wednesday awarded seven plaintiffs $720,000, but the government could eventually be forced to pay much more. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a better shot at claiming damages.

Duval sided with six residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where two of the plaintiffs lived.

'Monumental negligence'
The ruling is also emotionally resonant for south Louisiana. Many in New Orleans have argued that the flooding in the aftermath of Katrina, which struck the region Aug. 29, 2005, was a manmade disaster caused by the Army Corps' failure to maintain the levee system protecting the city.

"Total devastation could possibly have been avoided if something had been done," said Tanya Smith, one of the plaintiffs. "A lot of this stuff was preventable and they turned a deaf ear to it."

The 36-year-old registered nurse anesthetist lived in Chalmette close to the channel when Katrina hit. She was awarded $317,000 in property damages, the most of any of the plaintiffs.

Duval referred to the corps' approach to maintaining the channel as "monumental negligence."

Far from this being an issue of the Bush Administration screwing up, it goes to the institutional and pervasive failures of the Army Corps of Engineers to maintain navigation channels in and around New Orleans, the failure of which resulted in the massive devastation and deaths in New Orleans as the levees themselves failed following Katrina passing to the East.

Specifically, the court found that the MR-GO channel led to the disaster by funneling water into levees that were incapable of dealing with the water levels.

However, there are limits to the ruling:

Duval ruled, however, that WDSU-TV anchor Norman Robinson and his wife were not entitled to damages because the corps' dredging of the MR-GO did not affect the levee system that protects eastern New Orleans from hurricane storm surge. That probably means eastern New Orleans residents would not be able to collect on claims they've filed against the corps, said attorneys representing plaintiffs in the case.

Expect this ruling to get appealed to the 5th Circuit as the Corps' exposure to lawsuits based on this ruling could rise into the tens of billions of dollars.

However, the Corps is shielded from lawsuits based on levee failures as a result of a 1928 law giving the Corps immunity from such lawsuits. That means many of the nearly 470,000 claims against the Corps are likely to fail. However, those that can tie their damages to MR-GO are likely to pass muster.

On My Nightstand: Eiffel's Tower

The latest book to cross my nightstand is Jill Jonnes' Eiffel's Tower: and the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, The Artists Quarrelled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count.

As someone who has been to Paris and taken in the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower, it's an intriguing look into the personalities of those who came to see the Tower in its inaugural year and how Gustav Eiffel overcame hurdles to make his dream happen.

Jonnes looks at the artists who tried to make their mark at the Fair, competing interests including those of Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, and many other impressionist luminaries. It also provided some interesting background on Buffalo Bill Cody and how his Native American troupe were involved in the Black Hills treaty negotiations, tying together two of my more recent vacations.

A Critique of the Administration's Decision To Prosecute KSM In Federal Court

The decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and his fellow terrorists in federal court was a political decision pure and simple. It was an attempt to rebuke the Bush Administration to engage in tribunals, even though quite a few of the detainees will still get tribunals and not trials. It creates significant problems and legal headaches particularly with the prosecution and handling of detainees who do not get access to federal court.

Andy McCarthy dissects Holder's testimony, and shows the Administration's efforts to hold a trial are dubious and worrisome. In addition, here are a few more reasons why the Administration is wrongly bifurcating the trial of detainees in either tribunals or federal court depending on the evidence against the detainees.

Eric Holder's conduct.
Attorney General Eric Holder's law firm played a role in delaying the operation military tribunals and have represented a bunch of the Gitmo detainees. Some of those lawyers at Covington and Burling are now at the DOJ advising on these very matters.

Legitimacy of Tribunals Versus Federal Court
So, if we're at war with these terrorists and a military tribunal was set up by Congress with the President's approval, why take these detainees out of military hands to put them into civilian courts? The military courts are better prepared to deal with national security matters, and in civilian courts, the detainees can act as their own attorneys and demand and gain access to sensitive information, which includes lists of unindicted coconspirators and others who might later become targets or result in shifting of assets with the assistance of others (such as the case of Lynne Stewart aiding and abetting Abdel Rahman contact his minions overseas in violation of federal law and agreements with prosecutors).

The tribunals have been tested by the courts and Congress and President Bush amended their operation to conform to US Supreme Court rulings; they were set to proceed and yet the Obama Administration finds them inadequate for dealing with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad even as he's more than willing to bring others into the tribuanls.

Protocols Determining Who Gets Tribunal
Here's the standards put forth by the Department of Justice in determining who gets trial in federal court and who gets a tribunal. The presumption is that a detainee gets federal court access, rather than a tribunal.

I find the splitting the difference - that Obama and Holder chose to hold some in tribunals and others in federal district court to be the most troubling aspect of this whole mess. It's one that can't be blamed on anyone but Obama and Holder.

Tribunals are a lawful and recognized court of law for purposes of dealing with these detainees - as per the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches. All have had input into their formation and operation. Multiple lawsuits and adjudications attest to that very fact, along with the Congressional record and laws enacting and amending the operation of the tribunals.

The Administration could have chosen to put all in federal court, but didn't.

Apparently the reason some get tribunals and others don't is based on whether they can get convictions in federal court. If they can, they go to federal court.

Again, if that's the case, why not try all in tribunals where the evidence is better safeguarded?

Differential Treatment.
If the tribunals were okay for some but not others, a lawyer representing a detainee who is forced into tribunals will claim that some right of theirs was violated because they didn't get a trial. That issue will have to work its way through the courts until it is decided by the Supreme Court, and thereafter the court/tribunal procedure will be adjusted accordingly.

Don't think that the defense teams aren't already working on just that scenario.

Just because the military and DOJ engaged in negotiation doesn't mean that the detainee has to sit back and accept a tribunal when they're seeing other detainees go into civil court. They too will claim access to the courts. It will further delay the operation of the tribunals (which may have been the point all along).

It reinforces my point; the tribunals should have been the only venue for the detainees, but this Administration sought to bring some them into federal court.

Additional Arguments Favoring Federal District Court Trial Fall Short.
Arguments that this prosecution of KSM is somehow similar to the prosecution of the 1993 WTC bombers ignores several key differences: 1) the terrorists in 1993 were captured by the FBI on US soil; 2) the Clinton Administration handled matters as a law enforcement matter; and 3) the US was not at war with al Qaeda (al Qaeda declared war on the US in 1998 and the US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001). The detainees being tried include those captured overseas and who have declared war against the United States, not mere common criminals.

National security issues are not protected nearly as well in federal court as they are in the tribunal system; and it's not just classified information that one has to be concerned with but lists of unindicted coconspirators and other information that might prove useful to al Qaeda.

Arguing that a tribunal can act as a backstop to a federal court decision (where a tribunal hears charges that were not included in the federal court indictments) that results in an acquittal or hung jury also falls short since the tribunal clearly was the more appropriate venue from the outset.

Appropriate Venue.
So, while I completely disagree with the Administration's decision to try some detainees in federal court and others in tribunals, the decision to try the 9/11 terrorists in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) is an appropriate venue. Of all the jurisdictions in the US, the SDNY is the best venue because it has dealt with the most terror prosecutions and has the institutional experience with the trials and the issues involved when dealing with domestic terror law enforcement operations.

The NYPD is the largest law enforcement agency in the nation and has significant experience in dealing with high profile security matters and New York City will be a top target for al Qaeda regardless of any trial or tribunal because of what the City and the nation represent. A trial under any circumstances will not change al Qaeda's mind one iota about their decision to engage in jihad against the US and the West.

There are three other possible venues; the Western District of Pennsylvania, the DC Federal District Court, and the Northern District of Virginia, but each doesn't have the institutional experience handling these kinds of trials nor the full complement of law enforcement that can be dedicated to security.

President Obama's Statements.
While some may argue that the detainees will not get a fair trial in New York City, one has to wonder how prejudicial statements by none other than President Obama could be construed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's defense team. After all, the President said that he fully expects Mohammad to be convicted and sentenced to death.

Obama: Alleged 9/11 Mastermind Will Be Executed. Again, just a wee bit prejudicial and putting the cart before the horse? Where are the civil libertarians to get their knickers in a twist about a sitting President declaring the outcome before we've even settled into the jury selection and pre trial motion phase?

Does anyone else have a problem with that?

You should.

I want 'em found guilty and convicted based on whatever evidence is presented in the forum at hand. I want the sentencing to be appropriately handled by that same jury.

Yet, a constitutional law scholar such as President Obama is releasing statements that are deeply prejudicial? Even the President realized that his statements would be a problem and attempted to walk them back, but the damage is done since he put them out there.

Additional Political Considerations.
The problem is that the tribunals were excoriated and denounced roundly by the Left so Obama is pushing ahead with the trials, and some will get tribunals that may end up with still more lawsuits that affect their operation - up to and including invalidating the tribunals altogether because of the disparate treatment of some detainees.

That may have been the goal all along; knowing that political necessity required pushing detainees into the federal court system all while the reality is that many of the detainees could never be released and/or evidence against the detainees was insufficient to meet federal court standards.

Moreover, Obama and Holder admit that some detainees will never see the inside of a courtroom under either tribunal or trial because of evidenciary issues and that regardless of outcome, some will never be released (including KSM).

Administrator Admits Recovery.gov Data Unsupportable

This should come as no surprise given that independent groups and others (myself included) have cataloged that the recovery.gov website includes billions of dollars going to congressional districts that don't exist and that basic defects in the database render it useless. The head of Recovery.gov, Earl Devaney, admits that they can't certify the jobs data.

Earl Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, responded to questions posed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., late yesterday to say the board can’t vouch for the numbers submitted by recipients of stimulus funding.

“Your letter specifically asks if I am able to certify that the number of jobs reported as created/saved on Recovery.gov is accurate and auditable. No, I am not able to make this certification,” Devaney wrote, in a letter provided to ABC News.

Devaney rejected Issa’s suggestion that the site include a more prominent disclaimer, such as an asterisk or a footnote. He said the site already does mention in a note to users that “errors and omissions” are likely.

Devaney said that while he can’t yet provide a list of all entities that were required to submit information but failed to do so, “I expect to have access to this data shortly.” He also said the board will seek to correct data that proves to be faulty, and is promising “increasingly higher levels of accuracy in the future.”

Jobs created or saved is a bogus metric, and combine that with phantom districts, and the entire enterprise is a waste, except to highlight that the waste is pervasive and overwhelming and that the Administration's claims of job creation ring hollow for most of the country, 75% of which still finds itself in recession. MSNBC would like us to believe that 1 in 4 metro areas are showing signs of growth, but that ignores that the bulk of the nation is mired in recession despite all the money thrown about via the stimulus package. Indeed, few areas of the country are actually showing growth, but most are just shrinking at a lower rate than previously indicated.

Moreover, even liberal groups are realizing that the stimulus package was a failure, and are clamoring for another stimulus package to kickstart job growth.

Even President Obama is now warning of a double dip recession. He and his economic team have already botched any projections on job losses (and purported job creation) by a wide margin, so noting that there's a possibility of a double dip recession doesn't hurt him politically as much as you would think. If anything, it insulates him further should the double dip not materialize, he can go on to claim that but for his actions, the double dip would have occurred. If the double dip occurs, he can brand Republicans as standing in the way of his economic plans to jump start health care reform or other nonsense, even as the Democrats control both chambers of Congress with significant majorities such that they don't need Republican support to pass legislation.

California Targets TV Energy Usage

California is proposing strict energy usage limits on new televisions. They're concerned about the profligate energy required to power ever larger LCD and plasma screen televisions.

If adopted, the regulations will require televisions sold in California to be more energy efficient beginning in 2011. The requirement would be tougher in 2013, with only one-quarter of the TVs on the market currently meeting that standard.

Energy commissioners say TVs account for about 10 percent of a home's electricity use. The concern is that the energy draw will rise by as much as 8 percent a year as consumers buy larger televisions, add more to their homes and watch them longer.

Some manufacturers say implementing a power standard will cripple innovation, limit consumer choice and harm California retailers because consumers could simply buy TVs out of state or order them online.

The standards would apply to all TVs up to 58 inches, allowing increasing power use for larger TVs.

For example, all new 42-inch television sets must use less than 183 watts by 2011 and less than 116 watts by 2013. That's considerably more efficient than flat-screen TVs placed on the market in recent years.

A 42-inch Hitachi plasma TV sold in 2007 uses 313 watts while a 42-inch Sharp Liquid-crystal display, or LCD, TV draws 232 watts, according to Energy Commission research. LCDs now account for about 90 percent of the 4 million TVs sold in California annually.

LED televisions utilize even less electricity, but are still several hundred dollars more expensive than LCD or plasma televisions of the same size. The market is already moving towards LED televisions precisely because of the qualities LED offer over LCD or plasma (power usage and picture quality) and it is only a matter of time before the market decides the issue.

In fact, it appears that LED technologies could cut power usage by 50% for the same size product. Samsung is already offering LED televisions that are Energy Star v.3.0 compliant, cutting power use by 40% over LCD televisions of the same size. As the cost drops on the LED televisions, the market penetration of these televisions will increase, that is until future technologies become available and render the LED systems obsolete.

Here we have the government once again trying to dictate winners and losers in a marketplace that is constantly changing and evolving for the better.

Somali Pirates Continue Harassing Shipping

Not only have they continued their attacks, but they have again attacked the Maersk Alabama, a ship that was briefly siezed by pirates earlier this year and whose captain was held hostage for several days before US Navy SEALs rescued him and killed three of four of his captors.

The Maersk Alabama repulsed the attack by firing back at the pirates.

The United States Navy Central Command said four suspected pirates in a skiff came within 300 yards of the Maersk Alabama at 6.30 a.m. Wednesday about 600 miles off the northeast coast of Somalia as it headed for the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

But a security team on board the Maersk Alabama responded with small-arms fire, long-range acoustical devices painful to the human ear and evasive maneuvers to thwart the attack, the navy said in a statement.

“Due to Maersk Alabama following maritime industry’s best practices such as embarking security teams, the ship was able to prevent being successfully attacked by pirates,” said Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, the commander of the Central Command. “This is a great example of how merchant mariners can take pro-active action to prevent being attacked.”

No injuries or damage were reported, the Navy said.

That comes after a captain of a hijacked chemical tanker reportedly died of gunshot wounds inflicted when pirates seized his ship off the Seychelles Monday.

Piracy continues to be a huge problem, and ransoms are a big reason. Yesterday, the Spanish apparently paid $3.5 million to secure the release of a Spanish crew.

The pirates had threatened to kill the Spanish crew unless Spain agreed to release two pirates captured by its navy a day after the Alakrana was seized. A Spanish court on Monday indicted the two pirates for kidnapping and armed assault, charges that could allow Spain to deport them. News of the sailors' release emerged as the European Union said it would consider expanding its anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia as pirates venture further south to attack commercial vessels.

The EU's mission off the Horn of Africa will not diverge from its objectives, though officials may agree on changes, the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, told reporters after a meeting of the bloc's defence ministers in Brussels.

''If the pirates move south, we'll have to see if some adaptation can be done,'' Mr Solana said. The EU force, consisting of eight warships and four surveillance planes supplied by eight countries, has been operating off Somalia since December to protect commercial trade.

Typically, pirates press for ransoms totalling millions of dollars in return for freeing crews.

By continuing to pay ransoms, it makes attacking shipping all the more attractive to the Somali pirates and the risks are mitigated by the huge paydays.

Moreover, there continues to be evidence that the pirates are in cahoots with the Islamists who are busy trying to control Somalia and who may have affiliations with al Qaeda. Indeed, there are reports that al Qaeda has been urging the Somalis to continue their high seas terror campaign.

While there are links between the Islamists and the pirates, some believe that the clan allegiances are more important, even as they recognize the threat posed by such links.

Militant Somali Islamist groups such as Hizbul Islam and Al Shabab – who control most of southern Somalia and most of the capital city of Mogadishu – may share a hard-core Islamist ideology with the Al Qaeda militants loyal to Osama bin Laden. But the larger portion of Somali society – and certainly those who make up Somalia's business sector and even its many armed militias – make their crucial decisions based on clan rather than on religion. In a society where nearly everyone is a Muslim, blood relationships are a firmer basis than ideology for deciding whom to trust, whom to hate, whom to do business with, and whom to fight.

"While it is true that Al Qaeda has penetrated into parts of Somalia, it is another thing altogether to prove a link between piracy and Al Qaeda," says Ms. Roque. "For the pirates, it is in their interests to have money and it is in their interests to have prisoners captured by the French to be released. This is an economic decision."

Then, there's the issue of prisoner swaps - capturing crews and passengers and hoping to exchange them for pirates captured by various navies operating in the waters off Somalia.

The world navies refuse to take steps to put the piracy to an end, and that includes zero tolerance for any piracy. It means a cessation of ransoms and instead demanding the unconditional release of the captured ships and their crews/passengers.

New Medicare Study Finds Still More Fraud

Can you say more than 10% of the annual Medicare budget is fraudulent? I knew you could.

Indeed, Weiner & Co. may want to check out the numbers in an explosive new federal report.

According to the survey, Washington paid more than $47 billion in questionable or fraudulent Medicare claims in FY 2009 -- fully 12.4 percent of the $440 billion program's annual budget.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report says Medicare fraud for the first nine months of 2009 increased at a rate nearly triple the previous year.
Chad Rachman/N.Y.Post

Not that fraud is necessarily on the rise: New methodology uncovered previously undisclosed improper payments -- meaning that Medicare fraud likely has been rampant for years.

Moreover, according to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), federal watchdogs received 30 fraud warnings over the previous years from inspectors, including of organized crime scams and physician kickbacks -- and simply ignored them.

Every year we're talking tens of billions of dollars in fraudulent payments. That's real money that has gone down the rabbit hole.

And one has to wonder how much more fraud is out there for prior years based on the improved fraud detection techniques.

If the amount of fraud is reduced, the costs of the program are reduced; lowering the cost of health care and insuring that payments go to responsible parties. Moreover, the federal government has repeatedly failed to overhaul the system to root out the fraudulent payments.

Do Not Pass Go; Go Directly To Jail

So says the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals to terrorist appeaser and sycophant, Lynne Stewart.

Stewart was a lawyer who represented blind sheikh Abdel Rahman in his trial. She was warned not to pass any messages between Rahman and his followers. She did.

A lengthy trial resulted in a conviction, and the trial court granted a lenient sentence, the operation of which has been delayed by legal maneuverings and Stewart has remained out on bail since 2002.

The court upheld the conviction, and they revoked bail. Stewart must report to prison to begin serving her sentence immediately. In fact, the court found that the trial court's sentencing to be lenient.

Disbarred radical lawyer Lynne Stewart is going to jail – maybe for a lot longer than she thought.

A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld her conviction for smuggling messages to her jailed terrorist client, and said she deserves more than the 28 months she got because she may have lied at her trial.

Stewart, 70, is to surrender to U.S. Marshals immediately. The Brooklyn resident has been free on bail since 2006.

In fact, the decision can be found here.

The court essentially rebukes the sentencing phase of Stewart's trial and requires the trial court to resentence Stewart. However, that will not delay Stewart's date with the inside of a justly deserved prison cell.

As I'd reported previously, the prosecutors had been asking for 30 years (with sentencing guideline support), and she got a weak slap on the wrist for breaking the law and consorting with and passing messages for known terrorists. She was unrepentant over her actions, and should have been remanded to prison the moment the initial sentence was handed down.

This is justice delayed, and I can only hope that the trial court comes around on the sentencing to adjust Stewart's term to a much more appropriate level.

For those who think that this might result in her spending the rest of her life in prison, I have nary a tear to shed for that. She aided and abetted terrorists in communicating with their brethren overseas. She knew that the conduct was prohibited and she lied to prosecutors and violated the law. She was a member of the state bar and knew her responsibilities to the court and decided that assisting her terrorist client was in order.

More Jobs Saved Or Created Nonsense

On top of the bogus metric "jobs saved or created" reports from all over the country are finding that money has gone to congressional districts that don't even exist. According to the Recovery.gov website, which is supposed to track these things (and you would think knows how many districts there are in the House (435)). Yet, the website claims for Kansas 10 jobs created and saved in the 9th Congressional district, 9 jobs in the 8th District and 3 in the 6th district and 2 in the 14th. Kansas has four Congressional districts.

The same problems are reported in Arizona, where the 15th District was invented out of whole cloth. Arizona has only eight districts.

The list of questionable or nonexistent jobs keeps growing.

All the while, unemployment rates continue creeping up around the country and those states with the highest unemployment like Michigan have gotten little in the way of relief from the stimulus funds. There's been little to no private sector job creation:

The Free Press examination of more than 1,800 government reports of those who have received or expect to receive stimulus money found the biggest impact was spurring or protecting public-sector or summer jobs — not private-sector jobs. Michigan has the nation’s worst unemployment rate.

The spokesmen for the Recovery.gov effort claim that it was human error to make such mistakes. No kidding.

The fundamental problem with the website is that we're discussing a bogus metric that is impossible to define, and implausible on its face. Any job that hasn't been eliminated can be construed as a job saved according to the Obama Administration, and all too many jobs being claimed under the Obama Administration headline as the stimulus working its magic are jobs that would never be cut, jobs that don't even exist, or jobs who are getting raises. One estimate suggests that there were 75,000 phantom jobs included in the Administration press releases touting the stimulus.

(HT: NJDhockeyfan)

How else do you think the government is able to build those arks we saw in the trailers for the movie 2012? You don't think it really costs $400 for a toilet seat do you? This is government waste writ large. If the government can't keep track of its payments and outlays, how can we trust it to keep track of monies for health care or any other operation?

Moreover, the stimulus was a way for states to avoid having to make tough decisions to reduce spending because of the downturn in the economy. It enabled states to continue profligate spending and not face voter wrath for spending money that the states don't have. It enabled governors, like NJ Gov. Jon Corzine to avoid making serious cuts to the state workforce at a time when he needed to get all the votes he could in his failed reelection campaign. The money glosses over the real problems around the country with state spending that doesn't come close to matching revenues.

The stimulus is a way to deny responsibility and ignore fiscal responsibility. Future generations of Americans will be saddled with the crushing debt incurred to fund this mess.

UPDATE:
New Jersey apparently suffers from the same problems as many other states. Money is listed as going to districts that simply don't exist. The state has 13 districts, and yet the 40th district gets $2 million? The 00 district gets $7 million?

Who does the fact checking for the Recovery.gov website when they're doing data entry to insure that the figures reflect Congressional districts? Where is this money being spent?

Gov. Paterson Begins 2010 Campaign Season

Governor David Paterson has been running several ads to begin rehabilitating his image among New York voters and to get a jump on his potential rivals, including Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Polls put Paterson behind pretty much everyone who might contemplate a run for his office.

So, when I saw this ad, I was struck by one thing.



It's an admission of mistakes. I'm sure his opponents will try to dwell on it, but this advertisement actually tries to spin a negative as a positive; mistakes were made, but they can and have been overcome, just as surely as all the other trials and tribulations in Paterson's life.

This ad is refreshing because it doesn't hide from the fact that the Governor has made mistakes; he's made plenty as I've written about here since he took office upon the resignation of Eliot Spitzer. Typically, it's the opponent who points out mistakes and failings of a politician, so to see the candidate himself point out this makes this advertisement all the more interesting. I wonder if it will have the intended effect to build a coalition of voters in the state to sustain a reelection effort.

Bipartisan Criticism Of NYC 9/11 Trials Continues

Far from being a partisan split, we're finding that there's bipartisan anger over the Obama Administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and four other al Qaeda terrorists in New York City less than a mile from Ground Zero.

The latest person to slam the Administration? That would be New York State Governor David Paterson (D) who said that this was not a decision he would have made had he been in a position to do so.

"This is not a decision that I would have made. I think terrorism isn't just attack, it's anxiety and I think you feel the anxiety and frustration of New Yorkers who took the bullet for the rest of the country," he said.

Paterson's comments break with Democrats, who generally support the President's decision.

"Our country was attacked on its own soil on September 11, 2001 and New York was very much the epicenter of that attack. Over 2,700 lives were lost," he said. "It's very painful. We're still having trouble getting over it. We still have been unable to rebuild that site and having those terrorists so close to the attack is gonna be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers."

Paterson also said that the White House warned him six months ago this very situation would happen. He said while he disagrees with the decision, he will do everything in his power to make sure that the state's Department of Homeland Security will keep New Yorkers as safe as possible.

Republicans, including former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, have said the group should be tried in a different location under military tribunal because the attacks are considered an act of war.

The fact is that the Obama Administration is tying itself in knots over this needless decision because of one salient fact.

There's no way that the Administration is going to release Khalid Sheikh Mohammad if a jury somehow acquits him or results in a hung jury. Moreover, the government is going to do all it can to tailor the charges and the evidence to result in a conviction, which is tantamount to being a show trial. Patterico delves into that issue more deeply, and it is a serious read.

Moreover, the President himself believed that the 9/11 terrorists in custody were prisoners of war, which makes me wonder why they're getting access to civilian courts, given that under the Geneva Conventions, a military tribunal would be the appropriate venue.

The Obama Administration is clearly picking and choosing its position based not on sound legal reasoning, but political expediency, which in this case is to satisfy a political need to show that the Administration is closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Of course, those detainees aren't going anywhere. They're not going to get released, but shifted to other facilities. It's so that President Obama can differentiate itself from President Bush's policies.

Then, there's the damage that will be done to the US intel establishment as a result of a trial. It's unconscionable for the Administration to proceed on this basis alone. After all, the Administration knows that military tribunals were acceptable for some of the terrorists in custody, so the legal groundwork was there to avoid allowing the release of methods and techniques that the US uses to gather intel on al Qaeda.

Josh Marshall wonders why people are upset with the idea of civilian trials and the possibility of acquittals when the government could reserve charges that could be tried in military tribunals. That's just it; there's no need to expose that information in the first place if the tribunals can handle it just as well.

I actually agree with Marshall that New York City could handle the trial, but that doesn't mean that it's the best venue or one that should have been chosen in the first place. The City remains a high profile target for al Qaeda, and they will surely try further attacks.

FAA To Split Hudson River Airspace

After the disastrous accident that killed the occupants of a sightseeing helicopter and a small private airplane, the FAA has issued new rules splitting the airspace.

One zone will be for local planes and helicopters, such as those carrying commuters and sightseers. Another will be for those passing through the New York City area on longer flights to other destinations.

FAA head Randy Babbitt says the air traffic controller and supervisor who were on duty at the airport where the plane flight originated have been fired.

The changes follow recommendations in an FAA task force report compiled after the collision. They are to take effect Thursday.

Specifically, the FAA calls for the following:

The rule also now requires pilots to follow safety procedures that were previously recommended, but were not mandatory. In a new Special Flight Rules Area over the Hudson and East Rivers, pilots must:

* Maintain a speed of 140 knots or less.
* Turn on anti-collision and aircraft position/navigation lights, if equipped.
* Self-announce their position on specific radio frequencies.
* Carry current charts for the airspace and be familiar with them.

In an exclusion zone below 1,300 feet over the Hudson River, pilots must announce their aircraft type, position, direction and altitude at charted mandatory reporting points and must stay along the New Jersey shoreline when southbound and along the Manhattan shoreline when northbound.

Pilots transiting the Hudson River must fly at an altitude between 1,000 feet and 1,300 feet. Local flights will operate in the lower airspace below 1,000 feet.

The rule also will incorporate provisions of an October 2006 Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) that restricted fixed-wing aircraft in the exclusion zone over the East River to seaplanes landing or taking off on the river or those specifically approved by FAA air traffic control.

Graphical interpretation of the new rule is here and the situation as it was in place when the accident occurred is here.

Forget About Nationalizing Subway and Light Rail Safety

Until now, subway and light rail safety has been a local and state issue. However, the Obama Administration wants to pursue another bureaucratic layer of oversight in the aftermath of a deadly subway crash on the District of Columbia Metro system that killed nine people. WCBS News reports:

"The industry has always had its own safety – each of the properties does their own," Dr. Robert Paaswell said. "In New York, there's an Office of Inspector General associated with the MTA, so if there is an accident OIG gets right involved."

But in the wake of the Washington, D.C. Metro crash that killed nine people, the Obama administration is proposing that the federal government take over safety regulation of all subway and light rail systems across the country – in essence, telling state and local regulators to step aside.

The plan would require congressional approval. New York's senior senator says that, based on what he knows so far, he's supportive.

"We have federal standards for highway safety, for airline safety, and having it for subway safety is a good thing," Sen. Charles Schumer said.

The idea of federal oversight of subway safety appeals to some straphangers.

"I think that would be a great idea," Jordan said. "Many more people are traveling on the subways these days."

Some subway riders, however, aren't so pleased with the idea.

Don Surber notes that if local government can't provide mass transit it should be privatized. That may be possible, but there's an even more fundamental flaw with President Obama's plans.

Congress already has oversight over the District of Columbia and the Metro. The District of Columbia is not a home rule jurisdiction free of further oversight. If the DC Council wants to pass legislation, it requires Congressional approval. The Council can pass emergency and temporary legislation, but it needs Congress to approve legislation permanently.

That means that the compact establishing the DC Metro required Congressional approval. See:

"Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Compact," Pub. L. No. 89-774, 80 Stat. 1324 (1966); as amended by "National Capital Transportation Act of 1972," Pub. L. No. 92-349, 86 Stat. 464 (1972); "National Capital Area Transit Act of 1972," Pub. L. No. 92-517, 86 Stat. 999 (1972); "Metro Transit Police Act of 1976," Pub. L. No. 94-306, 90 Stat.672 (1976); "Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Regulation Compact Amendments," Pub. L. No. 100-285, 102 Stat. 82 (1988); "Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Regulation Compact," Pub. L. No. 104-322, 110 Stat. 3884 (1996) and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Regulation Compact Amendment, Pub. L. No. 105-151, 111 Stat. 2686 (1997).

Congress wants to expand its oversight and add bureaucracy when it can't even fulfill its current obligations? Sorry, that's not going to fly with this commuter.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 85

The Freedom Tower will get a movable Subway concession later this month as part of a move to make it easier for construction workers stay on the Tower. A shipping container is being fitted with offices and a Subway concession and toilet facilities. It would be attached to one of the crane towers to provide support and offices for project managers.

That's all well and good, but the construction schedule provided by the NY Post makes no sense.

With 24 jumbo steel columns now in place, the tower, formally known as 1 World Trade Center, is finally making a dent in the skyline after years of work below street level.

PA officials expect that the 200-foot base will be done by February.

"The next year will bring recognizable progress to this signature building as the public sees it rise higher and higher. It will serve as a tangible reminder that the site is no longer a pit," PA Executive Director Chris Ward said.

Once the base is complete, officials expect that the tower will rise a floor a month, till it tops out at 105 floors in December 2011. A spire will follow, bringing the tower to 1,776 feet.

If the tower rises a floor a month, it would take nearly eight years to top out. It would take building nearly 5 floors a month to match the deadline.

And This Will Make Health Care Cheaper How?

New York is contemplating raising more than $1 billion in taxes that would directly affect health care costs. It wouldn't be a direct tax hike, but would instead raise taxes on insurance companies that provide health insurance.

While the nation debates health-care reform, state Democrats are secretly considering $1 billion in new taxes on medical services, The Post has learned.

Although the taxes would be imposed on health-care providers, they'd be passed along to insurers or local governments. And it's ultimately taxpayers who'd be sucker-punched.

The clandestine strategy was prompted by Democrats desperate to dodge Gov. Paterson's proposed cuts in education and more readily noticeable health-care spending, according to a source.

"The Democrats don't want to cut programs as Paterson proposed, so they're looking at a health-care hike as an alternative," said the source. "They're looking at another round of tax hikes."

The increases are expected to be considered by the state Senate Finance Committee, headed by Brooklyn Democrat Carl Kruger, at a two-day special legislative session slated to begin today.

They'd be imposed on top of about $8 billion in new taxes and fees approved earlier.

Since the new taxes would show up on bills to insurance companies, they would likely raise premium rates.

The measure would also hit local governments, which pay a portion of all Medicaid costs. They would then scramble to make up their losses through taxes.

City residents who buy their medical coverage directly from insurers saw premiums skyrocket 20 percent to 30 percent this year, a Post analysis shows.

For GHI's policyholders, premiums surged 30 percent. That means the monthly cost for an individual shot up to $2,277 for HMO coverage, a $526 increase compared with a year ago. The price tag now comes to a staggering $27,324 a year.

Health-care experts agree the increases are evidence that the market for individual policies -- mostly from the city -- has collapsed.

They described a vicious cycle in which yearly increases drive younger and healthier policyholders to drop their insurance coverage, leaving sicker and older customers in a shrinking pool to pay for even higher medical premiums.

There are about 31,000 policyholders in the direct-pay market, down from more than 100,000 a decade ago.

It goes without saying that those taxes will be passed on to the end user - the consumer.

Democrats continue with the cruel hoax of trying to convince people that raising taxes is somehow going to make health care cheaper. It isn't. It simply means more people will be feeling the sting of more taxes.

So, why are these health care taxes being considered? Well, Gov. Paterson's proposal to impose a fee on mandatory license plate renewals that would have raised more than $100 million got shot down in a flurry of criticism.

Instead of offering a proposal in the legislature that would allow insurance companies from other states to compete in New York with their policies that were approved, which would not only alleviate the uninsured issue, but would drive down the cost of insurance through increased competition, the state is looking at ways to further increase the costs of that insurance with those who are left.

It's sickening.

On My Nightstand: After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

My latest read has been Lesley Hazleton's After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam. It provides an excellent background resource into the way Islam developed in the years following Mohammad's death and how personal conflicts between his followers led to ongoing and deep seated conflict that has lasted more than a millennium. Central to this conflict is Aisha, Mohammad's youngest wife and Ali, one of Mohammad's earliest devotees and followers. Their conflicts and choices politically and religiously set Islam upon a course that we still live with to this day.

Of particular note is the rise of fundamentalist Islam as a response to the growing schism between the followers of Ali as Imam and the followers of the Sunni tradition that was based around Aisha's recitations of hadith - the sunnah. They rejected anyone who didn't follow the strict word of the Koran as being apostate and were the progenitors of the modern Wahabi/Salafist sects that now dominate Saudi Arabia and spawned the terror group al Qaeda as well as the Taliban in Afghanistan.

One flaw to this is an attempt by the author to infuse several areas of the book with not so veiled attacks on the Bush Administration and that had the Administration known their history they would not have gone and acted as they did. That glosses over nearly 1,000 years of conflict and subjugation and suppression of Shi'ites by Sunni Muslims, and that it was that suppression by Saddam Hussein that was genocidal in intent and deed.

Illinois Prision Eyed As New Gitmo

How else should one describe it? If you're potentially closing Guantanamo Bay's terrorist detainee facility and transferring the detainees to a maximum security facility in Illinois, what exactly changes other than the name and location? The detainees are still detained, and instead of having full military supervision in a US base offshore, you're now housing these terrorists in the middle of the Continental United States.

The Obama administration may buy a near-empty prison in rural northwestern Illinois to house detainees from Guantanamo Bay along with federal inmates, a White House official said Saturday.

The maximum-security Thomson Correctional Facility, about 150 miles west of Chicago, was one of several evaluated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and emerged as a leading option to house the detainees, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because a decision has not been made.

President Barack Obama wants alleged terrorism suspects from the controversial military-run detention center in Cuba to be transferred to U.S. soil so they can be prosecuted for their suspected crimes.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has been hinting at a possible new use for Thomson, and he issued a statement saying he would hold a news conference Sunday to outline those plans.

Why exactly is Gitmo so controversial? Well, it's a symbol of the Bush Administration's policy towards those terrorists it captured on the battlefield and by other means, and it is therefore an anathema to Bush opponents. Therefore it must be closed.

There's no real strategic or tactical reason to shutter the Gitmo facility because the detainees are quite secure there and are treated according to the rules of the Geneva Conventions despite the fact that all the detainees completely and utterly ignore the Conventions and as terrorists are singled out as an unprotected class under the Conventions.