A Heavy Metal Movie Review - Iron Man 2

The trailer is great, but it doesn't do justice to Iron Man 2. Movie critics have been mixed about the movie, and I'm not quite sure what they're watching.

This is a popcorn flick and a very enjoyable one at that. The story is more than sufficient to move things along and Robert Downey Jr., is just as manic as he was in the initial movie. While Don Cheadle steps into the role of Col. Rhodes for Terrence Howard, it is a pretty seamless transition. It was pretty big shoes to fill, but he manages to wear the War Hammer suit more than capably.

There's plenty of eye candy in the movie, and I'm not just talking the special effects as Scarlett Johansson doesn't disappoint. Her mysterious character has a real kick, while Samuel L. Jackson drops in for what amounts to more than a modest cameo appearance, but one that sets the stage for a whole load of sequels and spinoffs.

In fact, I'd suggest staying through to the end of the movie past the credit to ensure you catch the true ending.

Finally, Mickey Rourke does a great job as Whiplash and Tony Stark's nemesis in the movie, while Sam Rockwell plays a sleazy arms dealer who thinks that he can outwit Whiplash and Tony Stark all while getting what he wants.

Developing: Times Square Evacuated For Suspicious Package

Police are investigating the discovery of a suspicious package near New York City's Times Square not far from where Faisal Shahzad left the SUV that failed to blow up even as it was packed with propane tanks, gas, and fireworks.

This is the second evacuation of a space in Midtown today, with an earlier threat called in for 8th Avenue and 44th Street, near the Port Authority and New York Times headquarters.

Here's a live feed from Times Square - which is pretty much a ghost town. Here's a DOT traffic camera and it shows Times Square pretty much empty.

UPDATE:
The photo is from Fox News, which shows that most of Times Square is empty, although crowd barricades are in place at 44th Street and blocks off the area that was in the vicinity of where the Shahzad attack occurred.

UPDATE:
Via the Daily News, more information about that earlier incident, and the fact that more people are coming forward with reports of suspicious packages. That means that the NYPD is going through more calls per day than they were getting before Shahzad carried out his attack.

The section of W. 45th St. between 7th and 8th Aves. was shut down, along with 7th Ave. between 45th and 46th Sts.

A short time earlier, police responded to another suspicious package report on 8th Ave. and 45th St. - near where accused bomber Faisal Shahzad parked his explosives-laden SUV.

The package turned out to be someone's lunch, police said.

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the number of reported suspicious packages was up about 30% since last Saturday's botched bombing.

There were 145 calls on Thursday alone, Kelly said, up from the typical 90-100 per day.

UPDATE:
Looks like they've reopened Times Square to traffic.

UPDATE:
It looks like my first inclination here was pretty much on target.

A suspicious cooler found on the sidewalk in front of the Marriott Marquis Hotel turned out to have water bottles and books inside it, CBS 2 has learned.

The small cooler was discovered at 46th Street and Broadway shortly after 1 p.m., forcing police to shut down a large portion of the surrounding area.

President Obama To Announce Supreme Court Nominee Next Week?

Politico is reporting that President Obama is perhaps ready to announce his nominee to the US Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. They're reporting that Obama has chosen Solicitor General Elena Kagan, a former Harvard Law dean, to be his nominee.

Let the predictions and dirt digging commence?

New York City Tax Dollars At Work

Even though New York City is facing a massive deficit and the proposed budget includes thousands of teacher layoffs and other measures to close the budget, idiocy still abounds throughout the City's vast bureaucracy.

On Staten Island, that translated into the Department of Transportation painting reflective line markers on a pothole and rutted stretch of highway that was slated to get milled and paved... starting next week.

Fresh off the pointless labor of putting lines on a Dongan Hills street, the city Department of Transportation was painting the town again yesterday, this time laying reflective white stripes down the center of the West Shore Expressway.

Only problem is, the new paint was dropped right down the pothole-riddled center of the crumbling highway, which is itself slated for milling and repaving starting Monday night.

Many of the new hashmarks were actually painted inside the potholes, which had the comical effect of accentuating their depth and craggy edges.

The state DOT, which runs the road, entrusts the city with its maintenance.

The two agencies typically coordinate their projects, to make sure both are on the same page, said state DOT spokesman Adam Levine.

The impending milling and repaving of the northbound right lane of the West Shore has been in the works for awhile, and an article about the project has appeared in the Advance. It was expected to be completed in late April.

But the work was delayed a few weeks when the contractor, InterCounty Paving Associates, was backlogged with other projects after the hard winter, and the city may not have been aware that the paving was since expedited to start on Monday.

How much money and time was wasted on that nonsense? New York City taxpayers have a right to know what this nonsense cost them, and why no one is going to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Did no one on that paint crew notice that they were simply painting into the potholes? They didn't question why they were not first fixing the potholes before painting?

I suspect that they were merely going through the motions to collect a paycheck, and didn't want to expend the effort to find out that their services should be directed elsewhere.

Community Board 1 Takes Up Question of Cordoba House Mosque Near Ground Zero

New York City Community Board 1 is in the process of evaluating a proposal from several Muslim groups to build a mosque and major community center in Lower Manhattan just blocks from Ground Zero. The groups, led by the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative want to build a facility that would rival the 92nd Street Y in terms of community offerings as well as provide prayer space for more than 1,000 parishioners. It's a $100 million project, and financing has already been lined up:

The $100 million glass-and-steel Cordoba House would be built on the site of the old Burlington Coat Factory, at 45 Park Place near Broadway, and would have a 500-seat performing arts venue, swimming pool and basketball court in addition to the mosque. Construction financing has already been lined up through private donations from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, among other groups.

Among those involved in the project is the Masjid al Farah mosque, which is located in TriBeCa and led by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is also involved in the Cordoba proposal.

The Community Board appears ready to give its okay to the proposal for the building, which was bought last July.

There's already quite a bit of controversy over whether it is appropriate for the mosque proposal to go forward, and questions over when they hope to hold their groundbreaking and opening. In fact, at the Community Board meeting, there were some who questioned the project because of its proximity to Ground Zero and the 9/11 terror attacks. Still, the Board appears ready to approve the project.

Bear in mind that the Community Board looks at existing community facilities and sees that they are sorely lacking, so that this group's proposal would fill a significant need in Lower Manhattan.

Also, the proposal will have to get approval from the City Council (like all other construction proposals throughout the City), but if the Community Board gives its approval, the City Council will likewise give its approval.

UPDATE:
To give some sense as to this proposed location, here's a map showing the location of Ground Zero compared with 45 Park Place, which is the proposed site:


View Larger Map

JFK Bomb Plot Leader Considered Targeting Yeshiva; Admits To Thefts

The lead plotter in a plan to blow up JFK airport by using explosives to hit gas lines that feed the tank farms at the airport, Russell Defreitas, apparently had more than just the airport in mind as possible targets.

He also considered targeting a Queens yeshiva.

The airport employee, Russell Defreitas, 66, recorded audio and video tapes of his terrorist plot to blow up the airport and considered hitting targets in the surrounding neighborhood, including a Jewish school, according to the feds. Authorities declined to name the school.

Defreitas also confessed on tape to stealing cargo, identity theft and welfare fraud –as well as building and detonating bombs in Guyana, prosecutors say.

And the accused terrorist recorded conversations about a sexual assault charge brought against one of his four co-defendants, Abdel Nur, in Guyana, and how it affected the bomb plot.

It's expected that prosecutors will try to have these tapes played at trial. A Guyanese newspaper has more details, including intimate knowledge that Defreitas had of airport operations that enabled him to steal various items.

Protests Resume In Greece Following Government Approval Of Austerity Budget; UPDATE: US Stocks Down Sharply

The Greek government adopted the austerity budget that is hoped to nurse the country back to fiscal solvency, but the Greek unions have again taken to the streets warning that this is a war against them.

Demonstrators, banging drums and shouting anti-government slogans through loudspeakers, unfurled a giant black banner outside parliament. More than 30,000 demonstrators filled downtown streets, chanting "They declared war. Now fight back."

The protest followed violent street protests on Wednesday that left three people dead after a bank was firebombed.

In parliament, lawmakers voted 172-121 to approve the cuts that will slash pensions and civil servants' pay and further hike consumer taxes.

Prime Minister George Papandreou expelled three Socialist deputies who dissented in the vote, reducing the party's number of seats to 157 in the 300-member parliament.

"We have done what was necessary, not what was easy," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said after the vote. "Without these measures, we'd be thrown into the deepest recession this country has ever known."

The minister said Greece would default on debt payments this month unless it received the bailout loans from the International Monetary Fund and 15 euro-zone countries who had remained divided for months on how to aid Athens.

"Today things are simple. Either we vote and implement the deal, or we condemn Greece to bankruptcy," Papandreou told parliament before the vote.

"Some people want that, and are speculating (on it), and hope that it will happen," he said, referring to speculative attacks that have been blamed for raising Greece's borrowing costs to unsustainable levels. "We, I, will not allow that. We will not allow speculation against our country, and bankruptcy to happen."

This comes following a deadly day of riots in Greece, where three people were killed, including a pregnant woman.



UPDATE:
In response to the situation in Greece, the US stock markets are tanking in a big way, down more than 8% in heavy trading:

Problems with Greek debt are about to spread to other countries and could infect the US unless the nation tackles its own mounting problems, Pimco’s Mohamed El-Erian told CNBC.

Riots erupted in Greece again on Thursday night to protest austerity measures.

About an hour or so after El-Erian spoke, global stocks sold off sharply with major US averages shedding more than 3 percent.

Speaking as Greek austerity measures won enough votes to be approved by parliament, El-Erian offered a stern warning about the potential of the crisis to escalate into something resembling, though not duplicating, the 2008-09 financial crisis.

“We’ve seen a crisis start in a country—Greece—become regional, impact the whole of the Euro zone and is on the verge of truly going global,” said El-Erian, CEO of the world’s biggest bond fund. He said the debt is a “transmission mechanism to go from country to region to global. So we should take this very seriously.”

Those 3% drops were optimistic as the latest figures show drops more than twice that. The DJIA dropped more than 900 points, but is now down about 450.

Health Care Reform Critics Were More Than Justified Over Cost Criticism and Burden Shifting

I wish "I told you so" means something, but I told you so. You were warned that health care costs would soar and that companies would consider dropping their health care coverages for employees because they would see the costs of maintaining the health care benefits were greater than the penalties that the government was imposing. It would be cheaper for the companies to dump the employee benefits on the government. Well, four of the largest companies in the nation were examining their options:

Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the bill's critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.

That would dismantle the employer-based system that has reigned since World War II. It would also seem to contradict President Obama's statements that Americans who like their current plans could keep them. And as we'll see, it would hugely magnify the projected costs for the bill, which controls deficits only by assuming that America's employers would remain the backbone of the nation's health care system.

Hence, health-care reform risks becoming a victim of unintended consequences. Amazingly, the corporate documents that prove this point became public because of a different set of unintended consequences: they told a story far different than the one the politicians who demanded them expected.

Why the write-downs happened but the hearings didn't

In the days after President Obama signed the bill on March 24, a number of companies announced big write downs due to some fiscal changes it ushered in. The legislation eliminated a company's right to deduct the federal retiree drug-benefit subsidy from their corporate taxes. That reduced projected revenue. As a result, AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) took well-publicized charges of around $1 billion.

The announcements greatly annoyed Representative Henry Waxman, who accused the companies of using the big numbers to exaggerate health care reform's burden on employers. Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, demanded that they turn over their confidential memos, and summoned their top executives for hearings.

But Waxman didn't simply request documents related to the write down issue. He wanted every document the companies created that discussed what the bill would do to their most uncontrollable expense: healthcare costs.

The request yielded 1,100 pages of documents from four major employers: AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar and Deere (DE, Fortune 500). No sooner did the Democrats on the Energy Committee read them than they abruptly cancelled the hearings. On April 14, the Committee's majority staff issued a memo stating that the write downs were "proper and in accordance with SEC rules." The committee also stated that the memos took a generally sunny view of the new legislation. The documents, said the Democrats' memo, show that "the overall impact of health reform on large employers could be beneficial."

Nowhere in the five-page report did the majority staff mention that not one, but all four companies, were weighing the costs and benefits of dropping their coverage.

AT&T produced a PowerPoint slide entitled "Medical Cost Versus No Coverage Penalty." A document prepared for Verizon by consulting firm Hewitt Resources stated, "Even though the proposed assessments [on companies that do not provide health care] are material, they are modest when compared to the average cost of health care," and that to avoid costs and regulations, "employers may consider exiting the health care market and send employees to the Exchanges." (Under the new bill, employees who lose their coverage will purchase health care through state-run exchanges.)

Kenneth Huhn, vice president of labor relations at Deere, said in an internal email that his company should look at the alternatives to providing health benefits, which "would amount to denying coverage and just paying the penalty," and that he felt he already had the ability to make this change under his company's labor agreement. Caterpillar felt it would have to give "serious consideration" to the penalty option.

It's these analyses -- which show it's a lot cheaper to "pay" than to "play" -- that threaten to overthrow the traditional architecture of health care.

Incidentally, this would mean that the coverage that those employees received would be quite different from what they had been accustomed to, and that was one of the things that the Administration and backers had been claiming all along would not happen, even though the legislation explicitly allows companies and individuals to reevaluate their position at the end of their existing coverage periods (which is an annual occurrence).

Congressional Democrats cancelled their hearings on the matter because the information that the companies provided would have blown the lid off this fact that everyone was dreading - that the government would be saddled with costs that it simply didn't account for and could not afford because companies would shift the burden onto the government.

Hewitt, which produced the Verizon review, also provides such health care processing for a wide range of Fortune 500 companies, and if they reached the conclusion for Verizon, you can be sure that other large companies were going to reach similar conclusions and make similar considerations. So, while Verizon is saying that for now they're not going to drop coverages and shift employees into the exchanges, if they see that the costs are increasing as a result of the HCR changes, they may take the penalties rather than see their companies get hit with higher health care costs (which will get passed on to their employees).

UPDATE:
As if all that wasn't enough, the paperwork obligations of all businesses will increase significantly due to provisions of the recently enacted health care bill beginning in 2012.

Right now, the IRS Form 1099 is used to document income for individual workers other than wages and salaries. Freelancers receive them each year from their clients, and businesses issue them to the independent contractors they hire.

But under the new rules, if a freelance designer buys a new iMac from the Apple Store, they'll have to send Apple a 1099. A laundromat that buys soap each week from a local distributor will have to send the supplier a 1099 at the end of the year tallying up their purchases.

The bill makes two key changes to how 1099s are used. First, it expands their scope by using them to track payments not only for services but also for tangible goods. Plus, it requires that 1099s be issued not just to individuals, but also to corporations.

Taken together, the two seemingly small changes will require millions of additional forms to be sent out.

"It's a pretty heavy administrative burden," particularly for small businesses without large in-house accounting staffs, says Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Eliminating the goods exemption could launch an avalanche of paperwork, he says: "If you cater a lunch for other businesses every Wednesday, say, that's a lot of information to keep track of throughout the year."

This isn't some mere drafting error, but a significant burden on all businesses that will require countless more paperwork that does nothing to improve efficiency or productivity. In fact, the net result will be reduced productivity as more effort will necessarily be expended to fulfill the filing requirements.

Former NY Giants Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor Arrested For Raping 15 Year Old

Former football legend Lawrence Taylor was arrested in upstate New York for allegedly raping and assaulting a 15-year-old. Let that sink in a bit.

Former Giants great Lawrence Taylor was arrested Thursday in Rockland County in connection with the reported rape of a 15-year-old girl, sources said.

Taylor allegedly beat and sexually assaulted the girl and has been charged with third-degree rape, the Journal News was reporting.

He will be arraigned Thursday afternoon.

The alleged assault happened at a hotel in Montebello, N.Y., earlier Thursday.

Taylor was jailed a short time later, the Ramapo Police Department said in a brief statement.
Details were scarce, but the town's police chief said more information would be provided at a 3 p.m. press conference.

Taylor, 51, played for the Giants from 1981 to 1993 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999.
He also competed last year in ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."

He's accused of raping and assaulting a 15-year-old. This isn't the first time he's had a run in with the law, having been arrested several times for coke possession, but this criminality is a whole new level of violence and whereas he had previously done damage only to himself, he's now standing accused of raping a young girl. If true, prosecutors should be throwing the book at him.

Third degree rape is defined as follows:

§ 130.25 Rape in the third degree.
A person is guilty of rape in the third degree when:
1. He or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person who is
incapable of consent by reason of some factor other than being less than
seventeen years old;
2. Being twenty-one years old or more, he or she engages in sexual
intercourse with another person less than seventeen years old; or
3. He or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person without
such person's consent where such lack of consent is by reason of some
factor other than incapacity to consent.
Rape in the third degree is a class E felony.

A class E felony means that he's facing a prison term of up to four years.

UPDATE:
Here's a list of Taylor's legal woes, which includes assaults, tax evasion, and drug possession. While he has been arrested several times, he's avoided jail time thus far (taking community service and/or paying fines). That's about to change.

Evidence Mounting In Taliban Connection To Times Square Bombing

I'm not particularly surprised that Faisal Shahzad apparently has connections with Taliban terrorists in Pakistan despite Shahzad's claims that he acted alone, although the Washington Post reports that such links are not yet confirmed. From the New York Times:

Officials said that after two days of intense questioning of the bombing suspect, Faisal Shahzad, evidence was mounting that the group, the Pakistani Taliban, had helped inspire and train Mr. Shahzad in the months before he is alleged to have parked an explosives-filled sport utility vehicle in a busy Manhattan intersection on Saturday night. Officials said Mr. Shahzad had discussed his contacts with the group, and investigators had accumulated other evidence that they would not disclose.

On Wednesday, Mr. Shahzad, the 30-year-old son of a retired senior Pakistani Air Force officer, waived his right to a speedy arraignment, a possible sign of his continuing cooperation with investigators.

As his interrogation continued, Department of Homeland Security officials directed airlines to speed up their checks of new names added to the no-fly list, a requirement that might have prevented Mr. Shahzad from boarding a flight to Dubai on Monday night before his arrest at Kennedy International Airport.

The failed attack has produced a flurry of other proposals to tighten security procedures, including calls by members of Congress to more closely scrutinize passengers who buy tickets with cash, as Mr. Shahzad did. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, proposed stripping terrorism suspects of American citizenship, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg asked Congress to block the sale of firearms and explosives to those on terrorist watch lists.

The whole notion of stripping terrorism suspects of American citizenship is nonsense. There is a wholly appropriate crime that takes such actions into account, and that is treason. The US Constitution sets forth explicitly the crime of treason:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

By taking up arms against the United States and working with the Taliban and received terror training at one of their terror camps in Pakistan's frontier provinces, Shahzad committed treason. He admitted to the actions of carrying out the bombing, which is an open admission (and if he allocutes in court, then the conditions for a treason conviction are met). People like Sen. John McCain and Joe Lieberman are stoking out space for campaign slogans and trying to show that they're tough on terrorists, but they could have also been tough by simply calling for the imposition of the appropriate criminal sanctions - treason.

So, why did Shahzad decide to join the jihad? Well, the Daily News reports that he was slowly radicalized because of the war on terror and personal failures. After downplaying the links, the US is now focusing on Shahzad's travels to Pakistan and his contacts there. Someone was providing him with the financial support upon his return to the US, and that has to be fully investigated.

It's also come to light that Shahzad made a dry run the day before, and even then botched things. He left the keys to his getaway car in the Pathfinder.

The source, who did not explain how Shahzad had attempted to set off the bomb, said he then took a number of turns and wound up entering Times Square by driving south down Seventh Avenue. The source said Shahzad told investigators he turned right onto 45th Street toward Eighth Avenue because he saw a place to pull over.

It's unclear why Shahzad left the Pathfinder's engine running and hazard lights blinking.

But because of an incredible goof, Shahzad couldn't use his escape car. He had accidentally left the keys to that vehicle in the Pathfinder that he thought was about to blow up, the source said.

He apparently went to a train station, where he boarded a Metro North train back to Connecticut.

That fortuitous goof on his part gave investigators still another piece of evidence to tie the attack to Shahzad.

UPDATE:
Emirates Airlines has pushed back against claims by the Obama Administration that it didn't check the no-fly lists more frequently, claiming that it complied with then existing rules for a check once every 24 hours. More pertinent is that the FBI apparently told the TSA not to warn airlines:

But officials could have called all the airlines themselves in such a critical situation — they've done it before.

This would have put Shahzad on the radar of the carriers, and it could have prevented him from being able to board the Emirates plane headed for Dubai.

The FBI asked the TSA not to make the calls, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the ongoing investigation. The FBI did let the TSA call a few domestic air carriers, which did not include Emirates.

It's possible that the FBI didn't want to compromise their investigation and hoped to perhaps catch any potential coconspirators and that alerting the airline might have tipped off Shahzad and others to the investigation. Still, there wasn't much more that the airline could do under the circumstances since it was the TSA responsibility to clear the flight's manifest.

On My Nightstand: Appetite For America

Anyone who's ever traveled through the Southwest or visited the Grand Canyon has seen, heard, or experienced an exposure to Fred Harvey. Appetite For America by Stephen Fried is the tale of the man Fred Harvey and the company that went on to bear his name. It's the story of the rise of the hospitality industry, the rise and fall of railroading, and how the company came to epitomize travel and food service, creating the gold standard by which other companies were judged.

Harvey created a family business that not only survived his death, but thrived under the more than capable leadership of his son Ford, and the rest of his family, who carried on the family traditions for excellence in food service and hospitality.

It isn't much of an exaggeration to point out that Fred Harvey helped civilize the West and opened up the West to travelers by making destinations of places like the Grand Canyon and the stops all along the Sante Fe railroad.

Riots In Greece Threaten To Wreak Havoc

At least three people have been killed in riots in Greece following the government's plan to stabilize the economic situation there, but which threatens the cushy financial situation of most of the Greek population that relies on a steady diet of government pensions and salaries.

Tear gas drifted across the city's center as hundreds of rioters hurled paving stones and Molotov cocktails at police, who responded with heavy use of tear gas.

At least two buildings were set on fire and later extinguished, while protesters set up burning barricades in the streets. At least three cars and a fire truck were torched.

The fire brigade said the bodies were found in the wreckage of a Marfin Bank branch, on the route of the march in the city center.

Demonstrators chanting "thieves, thieves" attempted to break through a riot police cordon guarding Parliament and chased the ceremonial guards away from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the building.

An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets as part of nationwide strikes to protest austerity measures imposed as a condition of bailout loans from the International Monetary Fund and other eurozone governments. The bailout is needed to keep heavily indebted Greece from defaulting on its debts.

The government proposed billions in cuts in return for an extension of a credit lifeline from the EU, necessary to stave off bankruptcy as the Greek government hovers in junk bond territory.

Mr. Papandreou’s reforms, which aim to squeeze savings of 30 billion euros through 2012, include cuts to salaries in Greece’s sprawling public sector, higher taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, and tighter retirement rules. They are part of an effort to clear the way for a 110-billion euro rescue package aimed at preventing the debt-ridden country from defaulting.

The strikes on Wednesday shut hospitals, schools and tourism sights across the Greek capital, including the Acropolis, where several dozen protesters from the Communist Party broke the locks at the entrance to the monument on Tuesday and spread banners saying, “Peoples of Europe — Rise Up.”

Investigation Continues Into Faisal Shahzad's Background; Security Lapses Noted

While Faisal Shahzad claims to have acted alone, investigators are looking at potential links overseas, particularly in Pakistan. Authorities in Pakistan had arrested several of his relatives in connection with his arrest at JFK airport as he was trying to leave the country via Dubai.

Shahzad told authorities he acted alone, but officials said he had spent five months in Pakistan of late and Kelly said Shahzad had a wife and two children living in Peshawar.

The United States and Pakistan will try to trace Shahzad's path to Times Square, determine how he ended up in a militant training camp in Pakistan and which group influenced him, in hopes of preventing future attacks.

Shahzad, a former financial analyst who worked in the U.S. state of Connecticut, is the son of a retired vice air marshal, affording him a special status in Pakistan, where the military is the most powerful and influential institution.

Security officials said Shahzad's parents resided in Peshawar, the city hit hardest by Pakistani Taliban suicide bombings. They said Shahzad also has a residency identification card from commercial hub Karachi.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Shahzad's family "are on our radar."

"He is not from a radical or illiterate family. He is from an educated family. We are looking into how he got radicalized," he told Reuters.

JPMorgan Chase's mortgage unit sued Shahzad in September last year to foreclose on his three bedroom home in Shelton, Connecticut, court documents and county records show.

The bomb was in a sports utility vehicle that prosecutors said Shahzad bought three weeks ago in Connecticut for $1,300.

There were issues with getting timely no-fly instructions out to law enforcement at the airport, but once the airport was notified, there was no way he was going to evade capture.

Workers at Emirates evidently did not check the list, because at 6:30 p.m., Mr. Shahzad called the airline and booked a flight to Pakistan via Dubai, officials said. At 7:35 p.m., he arrived at the airport, paid cash for his ticket and was given a boarding pass.

Airlines are not required to report cash purchases, a Homeland Security official said. Emirates actually did report Mr. Shahzad’s purchase to the Transportation Security Administration — but only hours later, when he was already in custody, the official said.

Mr. Shahzad had evaded the surveillance effort and bought his ticket seven hours after his name went on the no-fly list. But the system gives security officials one more chance to stop a dangerous passenger.

As is routine, when boarding was completed for the flight, Emirates Flight EK202, the final passenger manifest was sent to the National Targeting Center, operated in Virginia by Customs and Border Protection. There, at about 11 p.m., analysts discovered that Mr. Shahzad was on the no-fly list and had just boarded a plane.

They sounded the alarm, and minutes later, with the jet still at the gate, its door was opened and agents came aboard and took Mr. Shahzad into custody, officials said. The airliner then pulled away from the gate but was called back.

“Actually I have a message for you to go back to the gate immediately,” an air traffic controller told the pilot, according to a recording posted to the Web by LiveATC.net, which tracks air communications. “I don’t know exactly why, but you can call your company for the reason,” the controller added.

After the plane was called back, the authorities removed two more passengers. They were questioned and cleared. They and all the rest of the passengers were rescreened, as was the baggage, and the flight took off about seven hours late.

There were multiple layers of security involved here, and while several layers didn't manage to prevent him from boarding the flight, he was still captured before the flight took off. Investigators and political leaders need to look at how and why the system was not more efficient and how the notification system could be better improved - whether it is providing clearer and more urgent notifications, better voice communication with those at the gate, or a combination of factors.

Clearly, the law enforcement job of tracking down the terrorist responsible for the attack did a great job of tracing leads that pointed to Shahzad and did so with remarkable speed, but that was due in part to the failure of the bomb to explode - leaving a veritable smorgasbord of evidence that detailed the history of the Nissan Pathfinder, its origin, and ultimately Shahzad's identification as the prime suspect.

The charges in the criminal complaint are as follows:

Criminal complaint against Faisal Shahzad

Now, there are questions as to why he carried out the attack in the first place. Some are speculating that it may have been because of ongoing UAV airstrikes against the Taliban in Pakistan that have targeted Taliban and al Qaeda along the frontier provinces. He also admits to training with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which is one of the major extremist Islamic groups in his native Pakistan. The criminal complaint states that he trained in Waziristan, and Bill Roggio notes that it was likely North Waziristan, which is littered with more than 150 Taliban and al Qaeda camps. In fact, it appears that Tehrik-i-Taliban is the latest cover name for Mehsud's Taliban faction.

UPDATE:
One change to the no-fly notification list following the Shahzad arrest is a good idea: airlines will now be required to check every 2 hours, instead of 24 as previously required.

I think it should be even more frequent, and the technology is present to make this pretty much instantaneous, but this is a step in the right direction.

UPDATE:
Via legalbgl, did a US Army spy plane snoop on Shahzad's calls?

Investigators were able to track wannabe terrorist Faisal Shahzad through his anonymous, pre-paid cell phone — exactly how, they won’t say. But there was a tantalizing explanation posted — and then quickly yanked — from the website of WCBS TV. “In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport.”

Jeremy Scahill, relying on a source in U.S. Special Operations, says those planes were likely RC-12s, equipped with a Guardrail Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) system. The planes are designed to pluck all kinds of communications from the air. But from the ground, they could easily be mistaken for an executive aircraft. The RC-12 is based on the Hawker-Beechcraft King Air B200 suit-carrier. And while earlier versions of the aircraft were covered in odd-looking antennas, the latest aircraft are far less conspicuous.

Variants of the planes are at the center of “Project Liberty,” a crash project by the Air Force to send more airborne spies to Afghanistan. The first of an estimated 37 aircraft began flying there last December.

“It sucks up everything. We’ve got these things in Jalalabad [Afghanistan]. We routinely fly these things over Khandahar. When I say everything, I mean BlueTooth would be effected, even the wave length that PlayStation controllers are on. They suck up everything. That’s the point,” Scahill’s source tells him.

UPDATE:
Officials still can't confirm whether Shahzad has links to international terror groups or whether he trained at terror camps in Pakistan. However, we are learning that he did purchase M-88 fireworks in Pennsylvania.

Also, the video that was released the day after the failed attack showing a man taking off a dark colored shirt in Shubert Alley around the block from the SUV may have reassured Shahzad that the authorities weren't on to him at that point giving him a false sense of confidence.

Meanwhile, an official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that the video police released right after the botched bombing of a man shedding his shirt near the SUV had the effect of falsely reassuring the real suspect he wasn't a target.

The unidentified man -- whom Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly referred to in his first briefing after the failed bombing as someone police sought to interview -- is now not believed to be involved with the attack, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case. Police have not interviewed the man.

UPDATE:
We have a money quote, and it's about the vast sums of money that caught the attention of law enforcement since 1999.

Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list - Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) - between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States.

TECS is a major law enforcement computer system that allows its approximately 120,000 users from 20 federal agencies to share information. The database is designed to identify individuals suspected of or involved in violation of federal law.

So, we now have an idea of why the JTTF was interested in Shahzad in 2004 but what happened that he wasn't on the lookout list in 2010? Was his name dropped, but only added in conjunction with the investigation and if so, why was his name dropped?

NJ Democrats Don't Get It About Court Nominations

In New Jersey, it is a governor's right to nominate or opt not to nominate or renominate a justice to the state supreme court. Yet, the Senate President, Democrat Stephen Sweeney thinks that it is his right to engage in grandstanding and outrageous outrage over Gov. Chris Christie's refusal to renominate Justice John Wallace trumps that of Christie.

"He's sending a message, and we're sending a message right back," Sweeney said in an interview in his Statehouse office. "We're not going to allow the Judiciary to be intimidated."

Although Christie has the power to nominate top government officials like Supreme Court justices, as Senate president Sweeney controls which nominations and bills move through the Legislature's upper house. Top Democrats have previously said the Senate will not hold any confirmation hearings on Anne Patterson, a lawyer in a private Morristown law firm and Christie's choice to replace Wallace.

"Regardless of her qualifications, she's not going to get a hearing," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), whose committee is responsible for vetting the governor's nominees.

Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said Monday that Patterson, a partner at a prominent Morristown law firm, deserves a fair hearing.

"This is not an unreasonable request, and it is a function of the state constitution," he said. "It is our request based on state constitution -- which we know the Senate president, and the Senate as a whole, respects and embraces -- that our nominee get a hearing and a vote."

So, these Democrats are going to hold up the nomination process for Wallace's replacement why? It is because Christie isn't going along with the current court's makeup. Christie has the right to nominate qualified candidates as he sees fit, and the State Senate can opt to confirm or reject candidates as they see fit, but to refuse holding hearings altogether? That's an abuse of power and unconscionable on their part.

It is the legislature's responsibility to confirm candidates nominated by the governor, and their refusal to do so bodes poorly on the Democrats who are going along with this nonsense. Wallace has served the state judiciary; he's not being renominated as per Christie's intentions. Sweeney's move is a threat to demand that Christie retain Wallace, even though the Governor can nominate as he sees fit.

Why is this acceptable behavior on the part of the top Democrat in the state? Elections have outcomes - including judicial appointments. This is one of them - the ability to pick judges that fit the governor's political and legal philosophies. That's how it's been done in the past - but here Sweeney wants to substitute his own judgment for that of the governor and that oversteps his authority in the process.

Democrats are hoping that people will focus on the fact that no governor has opted not to reappoint a sitting justice since 1947 when the current state constitution was enacted, but given the dysfunction in the state and the need to clean up Trenton, this is a precedent that is in need of being broken once and for all. Courts are responsible for some atrocious decisions that have rendered the state on the verge of insolvency, including the Abbott decision on education funding that have fallen short on delivering quality education to students and improving student performance and decisions relating to affordable housing that have proven to be anything but affordable.

Phillies Fan Tasered For Running on Field During Game

Leave it to Phillies fans to do something stupid. Running on to the field at any ballpark means an automatic ejection from the ballpark, but in this idiot's case, he first got a taste of a taser.



Now, I've seen some people complain that the taser was an inappropriate use of force, but I disagree. All too frequently, those who are running on to the field are tackled by security with the potential for serious injury. The taser allowed the security to bring this guy under control rather quickly and easily once the taser hit.

UPDATE:
Apparently MSNBC voters think that it was acceptable based on this online poll.

Gov. Paterson's Plan To Aid Illegal Aliens

There really isn't any other way to put it, but that's exactly what Governor David Paterson wants to do if his proposal gets implemented. He wants to make it easier for illegal aliens to avoid deportation if they've been imprisoned on other criminal charges.

“Some of our immigration laws, particularly with respect to deportation, are embarrassingly and wrongly inflexible,” Mr. Paterson said in a speech on Monday at an annual gathering of the state’s top judges. “In New York we believe in renewal,” he added. “In New York, we believe in rehabilitation.”

Mr. Paterson is establishing a special five-member state panel to review the cases; while few such cases are currently pending, the administration expects an influx of hundreds of new pardon applications by the end of the year.

The move thrusts the governor into the middle of the country’s immigration debate and could give new hope to legal immigrants facing deportation.

Mr. Paterson said the new policy was in the works weeks before Arizona enacted a law late last month to give the police there broad authority to question people about their immigration status. It was spurred in part by his pardon in March of Qing Hong Wu, a 29-year-old information technology executive who The New York Times reported had been threatened with deportation because he participated in a series of muggings as a 15-year-old. He had not lived in his native China since he was 5.

“We just feel that some of these charges are very minor in nature and some of these conversations go back beyond a decade for people who’ve demonstrated that they’ve lived productive lives in the interim,” Mr. Paterson said. “We’re separating these cases from ones where there are egregious crimes.”

Let's get something straight. The people who are illegal aliens are already breaking the law by the very act of being in the country without proper paperwork. Paterson now wants to provide the means for these people to stay in the country even if they've been found guilty of other criminal acts, claiming that the federal immigration law is too harsh.

Paterson appears to be staking out ground that is diametrically opposite to that found in the Arizona immigration debate, which many people think is too harsh and opens the door to profiling. Paterson wants to let people who are convicted of other crimes to stay in the US despite being subject to proper deportation under federal law.

Moreover, it appears that Gov. Paterson's proposals are clearly preempted by federal law, which takes precedents. For the same reasons that many people think that the Arizona law could be struck down for impinging on federal supremacy in the area of immigration (even though the federal government has abdicated or loosely enforced those laws), the New York proposal actually crosses that line and then some.

The governor should really stick to trying to get the month-late budget passed instead of trying to insert himself into the immigration debate with an asinine proposal.

Suspect Held In Times Square Bombing Case

A man was arrested at JFK Airport as he was trying to board a flight to Dubai in connection to the failed bombing in Times Square.

A Pakistan-born U.S. citizen accused of driving a bomb-laden SUV into Times Square and parking it on a street lined with restaurants and Broadway theaters was to appear in court Tuesday to face charges that he tried to set off a massive fireball and kill Americans, federal authorities said.

The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, was taken into custody late Monday by FBI agents and New York Police Department detectives at Kennedy Airport while trying to board a flight to Dubai, according to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and other officials. He was identified by customs agents and stopped before boarding, Holder said early Tuesday in Washington.

Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen and had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife, according to law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation into the failed car bombing.

The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan was handling the case and said Shahzad would appear in court Tuesday, but the charges were not made public. FBI agents searched the home at a known address for Shahzad in Bridgeport, Conn., early Tuesday, said agent Kimberly Mertz, who wouldn't answer questions about the search.

Authorities removed filled plastic bags from the house overnight in a mixed-race, working-class neighborhood of multi-family homes in Connecticut's largest city. A bomb squad came and went without entering as local police and FBI agents gathered in the cordoned-off street.

It was the use of a disposable cellphone that led the FBI to the suspect. Shahzad will be in federal court today to face charges and it was believed that he had bought the Nissan Pathfinder about three weeks ago for cash via Craigslist.



The person seen in a video taken from the Junior's Restaurant on Shubert Alley doesn't appear to be involved in the bombing.

Shahzad was actually on board the plane and readying for departure when it was called back to the gate and Shahzad was taken into custody, but not before all the passengers and baggage were rescreened.

UPDATE:
Three other people were detained from that flight, and it appears that investigators are looking at the possibility that Shahzad trained at a Pakistani terror camp.

UPDATE:
Experts believe that Shahzad didn't have sophisticated weapons training, but that the crude weapon he fashioned had the potential to cause mass casualties. Shahzad also claims to have acted alone.

UPDATE:
US Attorney General Eric Holder has been holding a presser at which time he said that Shahzad admits to his role in the car bomb attempt. At least two other people have been arrested in Pakistan if reports out of Pakistan are to be believed:

Mr. Shahzad, 30, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan, told the authorities that he had acted alone, but hours after he was arrested, security officials in Karachi, Pakistan, said they arrested a Pakistani man who had spent time with Mr. Shahzad during a recent visit there.

Investigators said they arrested the man, Muhammad Rehan, in a mosque in the North Nazimabad area just after morning prayers. The mosque is known for its links with the militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Investigators said Mr. Rehan told them that he had rented a pickup truck and driven with Mr. Shahzad to the northwestern city of Peshawar, where they stayed from July 7 to July 22, 2009. The account could not be independently verified.

Pakistani television reported that as many as eight people had been arrested there on Tuesday, but those reports could not be immediately confirmed.

Moreover, there's no way to know whether those arrests are connected with the Times Square plot. Curiously, Jaish-e-Muhammad is more well known for its terrorism in connection with the disputed territories Jammu and Kashmir along the Line of Control with India than terrorism relating to the US.

UPDATE:
Shahzad wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. He wasn't exactly a Rhodes Scholar. He also didn't do a good job of hiding his identity and allowed investigators to trace back the bomb to him in any number of ways:

How did investigators zero-in on Shahzad? Officials said they found a bevy of evidence by examining that same SUV. NYPD officials say the VIN – or vehicle identification number – was scratched off the dashboard, but was also stamped on the engine block.

Agents tracked down the SUV's most recent registered owner, a 19-year-old Bridgeport, Conn. woman. She told them Shahzad responded to her online Craigslist ad for the SUV and that he bought it on April 24th for $1,300 cash and paid for it in $100 bills.

His arrest was actually part of a law enforcement operation to not only nab Shahzad, but any potential accomplices here in the US:

Emirates Airlines flight 202 out of John F. Kennedy International Airport, which was bound for Dubai, rolled back from the gate at around 11:45 on Monday night. Shahzad was presumably all buckled in, ready to leave the country and ultimately return to his native Pakistan.

CBS 2 has learned that investigators were already onto Shahzad and laid low, hoping he would make contact with an accomplice. Airport authorities had already instructed the pilots that they were not to take off.

UPDATE:
There has been some dispute over exactly where Shahzad was taken into custody and whether he actually made it on the plane.

According to the latest reports, he was allowed to board and be seated aboard the Emirates Air Flt 202 before law enforcement noticed that he was on the no-fly list and should not be allowed to fly:

As federal agents closed in, Faisal Shahzad was aboard Emirates Flight 202. He reserved a ticket on the way to John F. Kennedy International Airport, paid cash on arrival and walked through security without being stopped. By the time Customs and Border Protection officials spotted Shahzad's name on the passenger list and recognized him as the bombing suspect they were looking for, he was in his seat and the plane was preparing to leave the gate.

But it didn't. At the last minute, the pilot was notified, the jetliner's door was opened and Shahzad was taken into custody.

After authorities pulled Shahzad off the plane, he admitted he was behind the crude Times Square car bomb, officials said. He also claimed to have been trained at a terror camp in Pakistan's lawless tribal region of Waziristan, according to court documents. That raised increased concern that the bombing was an international terror plot.

Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, was charged Tuesday with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Saturday evening's failed Times Square bombing. According to a federal complaint, he confessed to buying an SUV, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it into the busy area where he tried to detonate it.

The Obama administration played down the fact that Shahzad, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, had made it aboard the plane. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wouldn't talk about it, other than to say Customs officials prevented the plane from taking off. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the security system has fallback procedures in place for times like this, and they worked.

The plane wasn't going to take off, but it is disconcerting that he managed to get on the plane at all.

Gulf Coast Oil Slick Threatens Wildlife and Livelihoods as BP Moves To Stop Leak

Oil continues to seep out of several cracks in a wellhead more than 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day. BP is hoping a device can be lowered down to the site of the leaks that would siphon off the oil and quench the flow that threatens wildlife and livelihoods throughout the Gulf Coast.

In its efforts to minimize the widening oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP will deploy a large structure in the next 6 to 8 days to capture leaking oil. Here's how it works.

Called the Subsea Oil Recovery System, the 125-ton structure is designed to be placed over the largest source of oil leaking 5,000 feet beneath the Gulf of Mexico. The system collects the leaking oil and pumps it through a funnel and pipe to a tanker at the surface, which stores it and ships the oil to shore.

The structure is a 40-foot tall concrete chimney that conveys leaking oil to a ship on the surface, the Deepwater Enterprise. Once there, oil is separated from water and stored until the ship can return to shore, where it is offloaded and shipped to an on-shore terminal.

The ship is capable of storing 139,000 barrels of oil, processing it at a rate of 15,000 barrels per day. BP hopes it will be able to collect as much as 85 percent of the oil leaking from the sea floor.

It will be several days before they can lower the device to the sea floor and in the meantime, the environmental damage is starting to be tallied as oil slicks start to come ashore.

Mumbai Terrorist Convicted On Terror Charges In Deadly Attacks

One of the Mumbai terrorists was convicted today in the deadly attacks at various Mumbai hotels and locations, including a Chabad house. However, two co-conspirators were found not guilty of assisting the terrorists in their plot:

Pakistani terrorist, Ajmal Amir Kasab, charged with the deaths of 166 Indians and foreigners, has been pronounced guilty of all charges by a special court in Mumbai. The two Indians, who were named as co-accused in the case-- Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Shaikh, have been acquitted.

The argument on quantum of sentence to Kasab will be held tomorrow.

Kasab has been convicted on all 86 charges against him. He was found guilty or murder and waging war against the nation, the court said while delivering the judgment.

"You have been found guilty of waging war against India, and killing people at CST (train station), killing government officials and abetting the other nine terrorists," Judge M.L. Tahaliyani said as he announced his verdict. They were the most serious charges laid against Kasab, a 22-year-old Pakistani who was arrested after the Mumbai siege.

The conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan, the judge said.

The two Indian co-accused were set free because the evidence against them was weak, the court ruled. Kasab had said that the duo supplied maps of Mumbai to LeT bosses. Thus, they gave logistical support to carry out the attack. But the judge, punching a hole in the prosecution’s argument, said better maps were available on Google than the crude drawings Kasab claimed had been supplied by Ansari and Sabauddin.

The terror attacks, which included attacking several swanky hotels, a Chabad House, and other locations around the city killed 173 people and wounded another 300 and did significant damage to two hotels. The Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was behind the attacks.

More Details Emerging on Failed Times Square Bombing

Investigators are poring over video footage and forensic data from the Nissan Pathfinder that was loaded with propane gas canisters, gasoline tanks, M88 firecrackers, timers, and nonexplosive fertilizer bags. The New York Times has a great graphic showing where the vehicle was located when alert street vendors saw the vehicle and thought something was strange and contacted police.

Here's a street view:

View Larger Map

With its location near the Marriott Marquis and the headquarters for Viacom, the potential for mass casualties was quite high. The Marriott has a covered area for loading and unloading passengers and theater patrons are always walking up and down the block there to reach any number of theaters on 45th Street or the dozens of restaurants beyond. Car traffic frequently backs up because of trying to enter the parking garages both at the Marriott and across the street, so it is a target rich environment, but the Marriott does check vehicle trunks for suspicious cargo. Expect to see more of that in coming weeks.

1515 Broadway, which is the headquarters for Viacom (which owns Comedy Central and may have been targeted by the terrorist for allowing South Park to depict Mohammed in one of its cartoons), also houses the Chancellor's office for the Department of Education.

Investigators are talking to the registered owner of the Nissan Pathfinder involved in the terror incident. They're also looking at hundreds of hours worth of video taken from surveillance cameras in the area and tracing back the vehicle's path through Manhattan.

The Daily News and other outlets wonder whether the person in this image was involved. The footage is grainy, but appears to match the description given of a man in his 30s or 40s. It was reported that he ended up walking into Schubert Alley, which is located behind 1515 Broadway, and switched out of a dark colored shirt into a different shirt.

Meanwhile, the police probe was in high gear, aided by clues that would have vanished if the car had exploded.

The stolen license plate came back to a different car that was being repaired at Kramer's Used Auto Parts in Stratford, Conn.

The SUV's vehicle identification number was defaced, but detectives were able to find it stamped on the engine block and identified its owner, who had not yet been interviewed, Kelly said.

The SUV had not been reported stolen, he said. Cops were also able to lift some fingerprints from the vehicle.

Cops also scoured videos from bridges and tunnels to try to track the would-be bombers' movements.

Surveillance videos caught the SUV heading west from Sixth Ave. on crowded W. 45th St. at 6:28 p.m.

It took only a New York minute for bystanders and cops to go on full alert: Rhatigan made his first radio call at 6:34 p.m.

Rhatigan and some rookies patrolling the area began pushing thousands of people away from the scene. Times Square from 43rd to 47th Sts., between Sixth and Eighth Aves., was shut down, and the south tower of the Marriott Marquis hotel was evacuated.

UPDATE:
Fixed the google map that was showing an incorrect location. It was one block off.

UPDATE:
Despite no evidence linking the Taliban to the failed attack, the Taliban is threatening more attacks in the US. While an authentic video showed a Taliban leader taking credit for the failed attack, law enforcement has found no links.

UPDATE:
Here's video footage showing the man taking off his shirt in Shubert Alley. It's grainy and not entirely clear, but it appears to be a male about 6 foot tall and balding. The video was apparently taken from the Junior's Restaurant on Shubert Alley.

UPDATE:
Investigators are looking into the vehicle, and traced back the license plates to a junkyard in Connecticut, and the owner claims that the plates were stolen. Yet, he didn't report the theft and that raises some interesting questions. They also obtained the VIN number, and have traced back its sale to its origin, but don't know the in-between steps.

The Connecticut license plates on the SUV matched a Ford; according to WFSB, "The investigation led agents to a scrapyard in Stratford and a shoreline car dealership. Police said the Pathfinder could have been sold from Thomas Anthony Auto in Bridgeport at some point. The SUV's vehicle identification number led officials to the dealership... Police were also at Kramer's scrapyard in Stratford in a search to hunt down the license plates, which they said came off a pickup truck."

UPDATE:
More updates - video reaction from NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and from Rep. Peter King (R-NY):





UPDATE:
The Washington Post reports that there are tentative links with a foreign terrorist group, quite likely in relation to a pair of videos released by the Pakistani Taliban taking responsibility/credit for the failed attack and warning of more to come.

Another U.S. official, recounting a conversation with intelligence officials, said, "Don't be surprised if you find a foreign nexus. . . . They're looking at some tell-tale signs and they're saying it's pointing in that direction."

Officials cautioned that even if the investigation points toward an international link, rather than domestic or anti-government groups, that does not mean al-Qaeda or another terrorist organization is necessarily involved.

The emerging picture came as police and federal investigators searched for a man in his 40s whom surveillance cameras caught changing his shirt in an alley and looking over his shoulder near where the car was parked about 6:30 p.m., and another person seen running north on Broadway from the area. New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly also said detectives had spoken with the registered owner of the car but revealed no details other than that the man was not a suspect.

It's way too easy to shrug this off as a failed attack by a novice to let our guard down, and as always we have to stay vigilant against threats.

Here, the US has increased scrutiny on passenger screening on flights in and out of several East Coast cities, but did they do the same for AMTRAK?

UPDATE:
The SUV at the heart of this failed terror attack was apparently sold in a cash deal with no paperwork involved.

The person of interest involved in the case appears to be a naturalized American but had recently visited Pakistan. ABC News says that he was from Pakistan.

There is growing evidence the bomber did not act alone and had ties to radical elements overseas, with one senior official telling ABC News there are several individuals believed to be connected with the bombing and that at least one of them is a Pakistani-American.

Attorney General Eric Holder said today the investigators had made "substantial progress" in tracking the man who drove a Nissan Pathfinder into New York's Times Square with a crude bomb that failed to detonate.

Officials declined to provide the specifics that led them to believe there were overseas links to a larger plot.

Authorities said another clue in the investigation is a video posted online early Sunday morning by persons in Connecticut, who may have been involved in the bomb attempt and are being sought by law enforcement. The video, posted on a site registered one day before the attack, has the Taliban in Pakistan claiming responsibility for the attempted bombing.

UPDATE:
It was only a matter of time before video surfaced showing the vehicle just after the bomb failed to detonate as its makers' intended. Anyone who's walked or driven through Times Square knows how many people are carrying around cameras or video. Well, video has surfaced showing the vehicle smoking just after the bomb failed to detonate.

Sen. Parker's Do-Nothing Charity

New York State legislators frequently create charities to funnel member items to preferred groups. Democrat Sen. Kevin Parker is no exception, except that his charity hits a wee bit closer to home. It's all in the family for him.

A do-nothing Brooklyn charity created with the help of state Sen. Kevin Parker used most of the $18,750 in taxpayer funds he steered to it to hire the brother of his chief-of-staff as a "planning consultant."

The only community program the Building Blocks Local Development Corp. managed to implement since it was created in 2004 was a part-time vegetable stand staffed by local teens at a farmers market on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn.

Parker, a Brooklyn Democrat known for angry outbursts and alleged assaults, landed in the news again last week when he flew into a tirade during a discussion of affirmative action at a Senate hearing.

On a radio show the next day, Parker, who is black, called Senate Republicans "white supremacists."

This is just a tip of the iceberg in the clown circus in Albany, and it's a tolerated behavior for far too long.

Times Square Bomb Investigation Gets Underway

While reports indicate that the bomb that was discovered in a Nissan Pathfinder was
"amateurish" in design, the reports also say that it was a massive bomb that could have done significant damage had an alert street vendor not called police over to investigate further.

At 6:28 p.m., Mr. Kelly said, a video surveillance camera recorded what was believed to be the dark green Nissan S.U.V. driving west on 45th Street.

Moments later, a T-shirt vendor on the sidewalk saw smoke coming out of vents near the back seat of the S.U.V., which was now parked awkwardly at the curb with its engine running and its hazard lights on. The vendor called to a mounted police officer, the mayor said, who smelled gunpowder when he approached the S.U.V. and called for assistance. The police began evacuating Times Square, starting with businesses along Seventh Avenue, including a Foot Locker store and a McDonald’s.Police officers from the emergency service unit and firefighters flooded the area and were troubled by the hazard lights and running engine, and by the fact that the S.U.V. was oddly angled in the street. At this point, a firefighter from Ladder 4 reported hearing several “pops” from within the vehicle. The police also learned that the Pathfinder had the wrong license plates on it.

Members of the Police Department’s bomb squad donned protective gear, broke the Pathfinder’s back windows and sent in a “robotic device” to “observe” it, said Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the police department’s chief spokesman.

Inside, they discovered three canisters of propane like those used for barbecue grills, two five-gallon cans of gasoline, consumer-grade fireworks — the apparent source of the “pops” — and two clocks with batteries, the mayor said. He said the device “looked amateurish.”

Mr. Browne said: “It appeared it was in the process of detonating, but it malfunctioned.”

Bomb squad officers also discovered a two-by-two-by-four-foot metal box — described as a “gun locker” — in the S.U.V. that was taken to the Police Department’s firing range at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx to be destroyed, Mr. Kelly said. It was not immediately known what, if anything, was inside it.

Officials said they had no reports of anyone seen running from the vehicle. Mr. Kelly said police were scouring the area for any additional videotapes but noted that the S.U.V.’s windows were tinted, which could further hamper any efforts to identify those inside. Some of the surveillance cameras nearby were located in closed businesses, and the mayor made clear it would take time to review all available tapes.

“We have no idea who did this or why,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

The Pathfinder was driven into Times Square and apparently abandoned. The driver's whereabouts are unknown, as is his motive. The vehicle's license plates were stolen and the VIN number was filed off.

New York City dodged a bullet given that this bomb had the potential to do significant damage. Times Square was exceedingly busy last night with the unseasonably warm temperatures bringing people out to enjoy the weather, plus the usual large crowds going to the theaters, restaurants, and sights in Times Square. The vehicle's location was outside the Marriott Marquis, and that large hotel (1,949 rooms, plus convention space, restaurants, and theaters) was affected by closures, as were other restaurants and theaters in the area. Street cordons blocked off much of Times Square to all traffic, but has since reopened this morning.





Without having a person in custody, there is no word on motive, or whether there was a specific target in mind. Right now, all the talking heads can do is speculate on who, what, and why.

Times Square has witnessed several incidents in recent years, including a pipe bomb that hit the Armed Forces Recruiting station, and an abandoned vehicle that was deemed suspicious last December that was ultimately found to be not a threat.

It will take reviews of video from the area - many of the buildings and law enforcement have videos of Times Square - to see if the vehicle's driver can be identified. Investigators are also tracking back the ownership of the Pathfinder to see if there's anything that can shed light on last night's failed bombing.

UPDATE:
Lots of updates. There's a person of interest who appears to be a white male in his 40s. Pakistani Taliban group claims responsibility for the attack as revenge for the elimination of two al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The U.S.-based SITE intelligence group, which monitors militant websites, said the Pakistani Taliban claims the attack is revenge for the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud and the recent killings of the top leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq. Images of the slain militants are shown as an unidentified voice recites the message. English subtitles are at the bottom of the screen.

New York authorities were combing through the SUV at a forensic lab for fingerprints and DNA evidence and had isolated a 200-pound gun locker at a police firing rang in the Bronx, trying to determine whether it could contain more power explosives that could have detonated the explosive device.

Police say that they have no links just yet. Rep. Peter King posited that this could have been an attack done as revenge for Comedy Central allowing South Park to go forward with its depiction of Mohammed.

The US authorities are considering this to be a potential terror attack and the NYPD and other law enforcement are investigating, using all the means at their disposal.

UPDATE:
The feds are treating this as a potential terror attack; it clearly wasn't an accident. It was a failed terror attack, and the failure means that obtaining forensics will be easier.

There is also word that someone called in to 911 the possibility that this incident was a diversion:

On Sunday, police and F.B.I. officials were also investigating a 911 call placed at around 4 .a.m. on Sunday, several officials said. The caller, who one official said sounded intelligent, admonished the 911 dispatcher not to interrupt him until he was finished and then said there would be a massive explosion soon and the car in Times Square was only a diversion.

The call came from a payphone at West 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue, which detectives have since dusted for fingerprints, the officials said.

It remained unclear what link, if any, existed between the caller and the failed car bomb from hours earlier, the officials said.

UPDATE:
The tape of Taliban thugs claiming credit for failed TS bombing appears legitimate. Well, they can claim credit but doesn't mean that they did it - they could be claiming credit for a lone wackaloon or jihadi lone wolf, or they could have been behind it - in which case, that means that there may be coconspirators involved domestically and abroad.

New Jersey Offshore Wind Farm Study Moves Forward

New Jersey's offshore wind power project wont happen for at least another two years, because we first need a 2-year study to tell us whether it is even feasible to do this project and whether it would adversely affect the local ecology.

It is the beginning of a two-year wind and whale study for what may end up being the nation’s first offshore wind farm, where pylon-mounted turbines perched high above the waves, driven by huge, aerodynamic blades spinning freely to catch the wind, are expected to generate enough power one day to light up thousands of homes.

New Jersey is in a race to have the first offshore wind-generated power project, and the state just might beat Massachusetts, where U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last week announced the approval of a 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound. That project, under review for nine years, continues to be threatened by lawsuits.

The issue has taken on renewed urgency as the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which threatens wildlife and beaches along the Louisiana and Florida coastline, has dampened enthusiasm for offshore drilling. On Friday, a group of New Jersey lawmakers called for a moratorium on oil exploration off parts of the Atlantic Coast, and urged the federal government to speed up the permitting process for offshore wind farms.

The shore of the Garden State slopes to a shallow continental sea shelf — perfect for locating turbines — and at least four sites are under study. Three are in federal waters as far as 20 miles from shore. A fourth, the focus of the research being conducted out of Atlantic City, is in state waters much closer to land.

The technology of harnessing energy from the wind harkens back to the iconic windmills of Holland, updated by modern materials. Conical towers are typically anchored to the seabed, rising above the ocean, where a nacelle on top houses a generator spun by helicopter-like rotors. The electricity produced is then brought ashore through underwater cables to land-based substations for distribution.

Bomb Squad Investigating Suspicious Car Fire In Times Square

A suspicious car fire has closed streets in and around Times Square as the NYPD and the bomb squad investigate.

Police said Saturday the bomb squad was investigating the contents of the car on 45th Street.

They say the block was closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues as a precaution.

A webcam at 46th Street and Broadway showed the streets had been cleared of pedestrians. A line of police cars blocked one street.

Police say a call of a car fire came in about 6:30 p.m.

Broadway is closed between 44th and 46th Street, as can be seen with the police cars on the photo above. The vehicle, apparently an SUV, was seen smoking in the area and fire and police responded. Something must have gotten the attention of the police, since they called in the bomb squad. A car fire by itself wouldn't be cause for concern, but this kind of response suggests that there was something more here. The investigators found flammable materials and combustibles at Times Square.

ABC News in NYC is reporting that the SUV appeared to contain propane canisters and gasoline canisters in the trunk. With its location, had those canisters gone off, it could have resulted in significant casualties.

The driver of the vehicle is nowhere to be found and the license plates don't match the vehicle, increasing the likelihood that this may have been a terror incident.

Times Square is one of the busiest locales in Manhattan, and there are continuing crowds in the area gawking at the situation.

As they say, developing.

UPDATE:
Bear in mind too that Thomson-Reuters HQ is down the block from the incident and the NYT HQ is a few blocks away. It's the heart of Midtown.

Here's NYT's latest:

Police officials said a witness reported a running Nissan Pathfinder with Connecticut plates, with smoke coming out of the back. A bomb squad robot popped the back latch of the Pathfinder, and officers found what they initially believed was a bomb. The vehicle was found to contain explosives, gasoline, propane and burned wires, a Fire Department officer told Reuters.

The officer, who did not give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, said that a man was seen fleeing the S.U.V. and that the police evacuated the area in case there were other threats nearby.

The officer said that the police were treating the vehicle as a “failed device.” The police were searching for a suspect.

A federal official said that it was not considered a terrorist threat and that the New York Police Department had told the Department of Homeland Security to stand down.

That last bit is... odd.

Who exactly has a car that contains gasoline, propane, and explosives and yet isn't considered a terrorist threat?