On My Nightstand: Swimming With Crocodiles

Will Chaffey didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He was a high school graduate and awaiting word on college. A trip to Australia seemed like a good idea, and it turned into an adventure and experience of his life in Australia's back country. This is his story.

The Sleepers Have Awakened?

So, what do we know 48 hours on from the first failed terrorist attack involving car bombs in London, followed by the fiery attack on the Glasgow airport? Well, we've got some names and occupations to go along with all the speculation.

At least one of the five people in custody was a doctor: Dr Mohammed Asha.

That should once again undermine the "root causes" crowd's argument that poverty is behind terrorism.

A total of seven people are now being held in connection with the UK bombing campaign as two more people were taken into custody. The two men, aged 25 and 28, are believed to be of British origins. Meanwhile, more details have emerged over the others in custody:

On Monday, Staffordshire Police closed off Priam Close, in Bradwell, two miles from Chesterton, where one of the people being held, Dr Mohammed Asha, lived.

Dr Asha, 26, who worked as a junior doctor at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, and a 27-year-old woman believed to be his wife, were arrested on the M6 in Cheshire on Saturday night.

Another 26-year-old man was arrested in Liverpool on Sunday.

Warrants have been issued which allow police to further detain the three people, who are being held at Paddington Green police station, until Saturday.

A man arrested by police at Glasgow airport suffered severe burns

Two men were also detained at Glasgow airport on Saturday after the attempted attack.

One had severe burns and remains in a critical condition, and under armed police guard, at Royal Alexandra Hospital, in Paisley.

The first five people arrested are believed to be of Middle Eastern nationalities.

Two of the seven in custody are doctors and more information about Asha has come out:

Dr. Mohammed Jamil Abdelqader Asha has been identified as a suspect in the U.K. terror plot. He was arrested by British police this weekend near Cheshire, England. He has not been charged with any crimes, but police have been searching his home in Chesterton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, north of London.

Asha graduated from a Jordanian medical school in 2004. He registered in 2005 with the General Medical Council, the British medical-doctor registry.

He works as a physician at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent.

I expect intel agencies to focus on whether he has any links to al Qaeda in Jordan, which is Zarqawi's country of origin. They'd probably look for clan and family links to terrorists; quite a few terrorists involved in al Qaeda are related by family or clan.

The Glasgow jeep apparently contained propane gas canisters, just like the two cars discovered in London, along with quantities of gasoline. It would appear that the three vehicles involved were rigged to set off fuel air explosions, but were either discovered before they could explode or were fizzles.

Security in the UK remains on its highest alert level.

UPDATE:
Still more details on Asha's background; he was apparently worked "... in the neurology department at the North Staffordshire hospital, in Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent. He qualified in Jordan in 2004 and is registered to work in this country until 2008, it is thought he holds a Jordainian passport and is of Palestinian origin."

Also interesting is that his father is hoping to get the Jordanian government involved in securing his release.

Jamil Abdel Kader Asha, Dr Asha’s father said that he learnt about his son’s arrest through the media and claimed his “son is incapable of such acts”. He called on the Government in Jordan to intervene and secure his son’s release. “Not all Arabs are terrorists," he told the AFP news wire.

Jamil Asha confirmed that his son had obtained his medical degree in Jordan before moving to the UK. “I cannot imagine he had any other goal than to realise his ambition by studying in Britain,” he said, describing his son as pious but not extremist.

UPDATE:
The identity of the second doctor held in British custody has been released:

Police said one man arrested in Glasgow is Bilal Abdulla.

According to the British General Medical Council's register, a man named Bilal Talal Abdul Samad Abdulla was registered in 2004 and trained in Baghdad. Staff at Royal Alexandra Hospital said one suspect was a doctor of Middle Eastern or Iraqi origin who worked there.

UPDATE:
Make that three doctors of the seven that are in custody.

UPDATE:
Can you say five doctors in custody in relation to the car bomb plot? I knew you could.

UPDATE:
Actually, make that six doctors, as another doctor was taken into custody, this time in Australia.

A MAN arrested at Brisbane’s international airport overnight over the UK terror plots was a registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital in Southport.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the 27-year-old man was arrested at Brisbane International airport yesterday. He did not have a return ticket.

The man, who Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said was not Australian-born, was arrested at the airport at 11pm (AEST) by a counter-terrorism team comprising Queensland police and Australian Federal Police officers after advice from UK authorities.

Mr Beattie said he understood the man had been attempting to leave Australia.

Brisbane Airport has confirmed that only one flight was delayed last night, a flight to Kuala Lumpur.

It appears that the person arrested may have been trying to get to Malaysia, which some folks have fingered as being supportive of the jihad in Thailand that has killed over 2,300 people in just the past two years with multiple bombings, beheadings, and school torchings.

Seven Years For Aussie Terrorist

David Hicks has agreed to a prison sentence of seven years for his role in aiding terrorists in Afghanistan.

The tribunal judge accepted Hicks' guilty plea as part of an agreement that limits his sentence to seven years in prison, in addition to the five years he has been held at Guantanamo in Cuba. But the deal allows for at least part of that sentence to be suspended.

The 31-year-old former kangaroo skinner from Adelaide is the first person to be convicted in revised military tribunals created by the U.S. Congress after the Supreme Court struck down an earlier version that President George W. Bush authorized to try foreign captives on terrorism charges.

Hicks acknowledged that he trained with al Qaeda, fought with its forces against U.S. allies in Afghanistan in late 2001 for two hours, and then sold his gun to raise cab fare and tried to flee to Pakistan.

He denied having any advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks, which he watched on television from a friend's home in Pakistan.

Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and was among the first group of prisoners brought to Guantanamo as ''enemy combatants'' a month later. He had previously claimed he was abused by the U.S. military but said in his plea agreement that he has ``never been illegally treated while in U.S. custody.''

One has to wonder what Hicks will do when he's finally released from prison. Somehow, I doubt he'll become a productive member of society and will instead pick up where he left off in Afghanistan. I'd like to be wrong about that, but sadly all too many of the jihadis picked up around the world and later released return to their business of jihad when given the opportunity.

Which Report Is Correct?

ABC News: David Hicks Pleads Guilty. That's followed by quite a few other outlets. Yet Bloomberg reports that Hicks Declines to Enter Plea

We've got dueling reports? VOA reports he entered a guilty plea to providing material support to terrorists. Apparently, the US agreed to let Hicks serve his term in an Australian prison.

Why the discrepancy?

Who is David Hicks? He's an Australian Muslim convert who was captured and is currently being held at Guantanamo Bay and was accused of fighting alongside the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan when he was captured.

Australia Considers Ban On Incandescent Bulb Sales

The Australian government on Tuesday announced plans to phase out incandescent light bulbs and replace them with more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs across the country.

Legislation to gradually restrict the sale of the old-style bulbs could reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 4 million tons by 2012 and cut household power bills by up to 66 percent, said Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Australia produced almost 565 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2004, official figures show.

Prime Minister John Howard said the plan would help all Australians play a part in cutting harmful gas emissions: "Here's something practical that everybody will participate in."

My comments about the California proposal holds for Australia as well. This is essentially an unfunded mandate.

Still, there might be a factual error in the reporting about what Venezuela and Cuba have been doing in regards to CFLs.

Cuba's Fidel Castro launched a similar program two years ago, sending youth brigades into homes and switching out regular bulbs for energy-saving ones to help battle electrical blackouts around the island.

The idea was later embraced by Castro's friend and ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who announced his own program to save energy and in recent months has given away millions of incandescent bulbs in neighborhoods nationwide.

If Chavez was giving away millions of incandescents, then he was actually increasing the energy usage of Venezuela, not decreasing the usage. Methinks that the editor got this wrong and Chavez was actually giving away CFLs, not incandescents.

Also, Cuba's power grid is rickety and can barely sustain itself under normal conditions experiencing blackouts on a regular basis. Their policy is as much about the regime surviving as it is about energy conservation.

The same goes for Chavez in Venezuela. He's using the CFLs as a way to curry favor in the slums, ignoring the big issues like freedom and individual rights.

Of Serial Numbers and Vapor Trails

Terrorists have been captured in Iraq using sniper rifles that were originally manufactured in Austria. That isn't the juicy part.

The juicy part is that the weapon was part of a larger shipment of sniper rifles sent to Iran in an official shipment to the Iranian police for use by the National Iranian Police Association.

Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

More than 100 of the .50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids.

The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year.

The sale was condemned in Washington and London because officials were worried that the weapons would be used by insurgents against British and American troops.

Compare the serial numbers on the rifles with those provided by the company and you'll see where this is headed.

If the US has captured 100 of the 800 rifles, that means that 12% of the Austrian shipment ended up in the hands of insurgents/terrorists. That's not a misplacement of weapons or glitch, but a feature of the Iranian purchase.

Iran is providing terrorists with the weapons to kill Americans and Iraqis in Iraq. They're providing the means and methods to kill more efficiently. Still, there are skeptics out there who claim that the evidence doesn't point to Iranian involvment in Iraq, including General Peter Pace.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces hunting down militant networks that produced roadside bombs had arrested Iranians and that some of the material used in the devices were made in Iran.

“That does not translate that the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this,” Pace told reporters in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. “What it does say is that things made in Iran are being used in Iraq to kill coalition soldiers.”

His remarks might raise questions on the credibility of the claims of high-level Iranian involvement, especially following the faulty U.S. intelligence that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

How exactly did those weapons get from Iranian hands into those of the insurgents. That's the $64,000 question.

How many more lives must be lost before the links between Iran and the insurgency and terrorist support network inside Iraq is established conclusively (to legal standards)? As Ed Morrissey notes, this is the smoking gun that should ordinarily lead to vapor trails over Tehran.

UPDATE:
To clarify a point about my take on Gen. Pace's statements, there is an ongoing question over the extent of Iranian actions inside Iraq, but Iran is clearly doing something inside Iraq that is antithetical to US interests. Other reports of Pace's comments put a different spin:

General Pace said he could not, from his own knowledge, repeat the assertion that the elite Quds brigade of Iran’s Republican Guard force is providing bomb-making kits to Iraqi Shiite insurgents, VOA reported.

“We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se [specifically], knows about this,” he told VOA. “It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it’s clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit,” he said.

General Pace made his comments during a visit to Australia.

He's not questioning the reports from the theater of operations - and can only comment based on his own knowledge. That shows he's giving deference to the soldiers on the ground in Iraq. He also recognizes that Iran is acting with malice inside Iraq, but the level of that participation is unclear.

UPDATE:
Others taking note of the arms captured by US forces: Blue Crab Boulevard, Hot Air, Polimon, and Gateway Pundit.

Now That's a Bottle of Red

The world's biggest wine bottle - weighing in at 1,300 pounds and containing nearly 64 gallons - was unveiled on Wall Street yesterday.

At 6-foot-5, the bottle - which hails from Western Australia - was the centerpiece of a show featuring all things from Down Under and part of a marketing effort dubbed "G'day USA: Australian Week."

The Guinness Book of World Records named the bottle of Shiraz, which bears the label Five Virtues, the world's largest in 2005.

The towering container, which contains the equivalent of 387 regular-size bottles, is a joint venture among wineries from Western Australia.

Most wine is sold in 750ml bottles, although you will also find 1500ml bottles and gallon bottles as well (jug wines). You could have quite the party with this bottle.

Bolton Bashing UN Hatefest

Besides the fact it requires going to read an Indian news source to find out what the US Ambassador to the UN was saying in session because the US media outlets weren't particularly interested, Ambassador Bolton let the General Assembly have it with both barrels.

"Many of the sponsors of that resolution are notorious abusers of human rights themselves, and were seeking to deflect criticism of their own policies," he said.

"This type of resolution serves only to exacerbate tensions by serving the interests of elements hostile to Israel's inalienable and recognized right to exist."

"This deepens suspicions about the United Nations that will lead many to conclude that the organization is incapable of playing a helpful role in the region," Bolton continued.

"In a larger sense, the United Nations must confront a more significant question, that of its relevance and utility in confronting the challenges of the 21st century. We believe that the United Nations is ill served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is a little more than a self-serving and a polemical attack against Israel or the United States," he said.

"The Human Rights Council has quickly fallen into the same trap and de-legitimized itself by focusing attention exclusively on Israel. Meanwhile, it has failed to address real human rights abuses in Burma, Darfur, the DPRK, and other countries," Bolton charged.

"The problem of anti-Israel bias is not unique to the Human Rights Council. It is endemic to the culture of the United Nations. It is a decades-old, systematic problem that transcends the whole panoply of the UN organizations and agencies," he continued.

The United States, and Australia joined Israel in voting against the motion, together with four small Pacific island nations. All countries in Europe, including Britain, voted to support the resolution.

The original text condemned Israel over the Beit Hanoun attack and its operations in Gaza, however the adopted resolution had the General Assembly expressing, "regret."

The Human Rights Council was supposed to be an improvement over the prior UN Human Rights Commission. It has not. The HRC has singled out Israel's actions for criticism, all the while ignoring massive human rights abuses around the world, including in Darfur.

Wake Up America has a brief history of the rampant anti-Israel position taken by the UN. It's interesting to note that the UN repeatedly votes on anti-Israel resolutions - seemingly on a weekly basis, but many of these nations deny voting rights to their own citizens. Regimes that are thugocracies, totalitarian regimes, Islamist states who deny women equal rights, and kleptocracies dominate the discussion, rendering the UN useless to deal with real threats.

Others picking up on Bolton's comments, along with Gillerman's disgust with the proceedings: Flopping Aces, Sister Toldjah, and Atlas Shrugs.

It's also interesting to note that Democrats in the US Senate have seen fit to deny Bolton an up or down vote. They've forced the Administration to use a recess appointment for Bolton to represent the US interests at the UN. Perhaps the Democrats think that the point of the US Ambassador to the UN is to represent UN interests to the US. That's bass ackward, and it has been quite some time since the US has had a representative at the UN who actually represents US interests, and not simply parroting the UN view for public consumption.

Uncovered Meat

Seems that the reason that one Australian mufti thinks that it is permissible to rape a woman is because she's nothing more than uncovered meat.

While not specifically referring to the rapes, brutal attacks on four women for which a group of young Lebanese men received long jail sentences, Sheik Hilali said there were women who “sway suggestively” and wore make-up and immodest dress … “and then you get a judge without mercy (rahma) and gives you 65 years”…
In the religious address on adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilali said: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?

“The uncovered meat is the problem.”

The sheik then said: “If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”

I don't have the words to express my utter contempt for this misogyny and abject lack of understanding for human rights. He's blaming women for being raped.

Where are the feminists and their supporters calling for this guy to step down? Denunciations? Nothing. Only crickets.

And while I don't have the words, I do have a photo. Several in fact. Because nothing quite gets the Islamists' panties in a bunch (that is when they're not wearing them on their heads) than seeing scantily clad women.



UPDATE:
Quite a few folks have found the words to describe the sheikh's actions - and rightfully denounce him. Some of them actually include Aussie Muslims, who heretofore have not distinguished themselves in speaking out against the misogynists in their midst. Gaius has the details.

They include Tim Blair, Mark in Mexico, Fausta, Peaktalk, Laurence Simon, The Moderate Voice, and Donald Sensing.

Technorati: islam, misogyny, australia, rape, riots.

The Conundrum, Part 3

Egypt is trying quite hard to play kingmaker, and their gambit relies on a two-stage prisoner swap. This is what I've been warning against for some time now. Hamas and Egypt are trying to get Israel to agree to some kind of prisoner swap without making it appear that Israel is agreeing to a swap. That's why they're going to obfuscate the swap by doing it in stages.

Israel's military has to do some serious thinking on how to rectify problems that arose during the war in Lebanon. How was it that the IAF had current intel, but the IDF and the soldiers on the ground had intel dated only from 2000. That's a big failure, and one that needs to be addressed post-haste.

Haniyeh's guards open fire on a crowd of Palestinian workers protesting that they have not received their wages for months on end. Hamas couldn't care less about such things; they have a war of annihilation to run. It's just the cost of doing business with Hamas.

Meanwhile, the Israelis neutralized two kassam rocket launchers in Gaza and they've arrested 10 suspected Palestinian terrorists. The IDF also notes that a Hizbullah UAV that was shot down was apparently sent to target Tel Aviv, and carried several kilos of explosives and ball bearings.

A senior IDF officer said on Monday that "the drone which was launched by Hizbullah during the war in Lebanon, and which was shot down in the area of Haifa, was intended to strike the Gush Dan region," Army Radio reported.

"We found in wings of the drone 10 kilograms of explosives, with ball-bearings packed inside," the officer said. "We are talking here about a very accurate machine. In the past there have been attempts by Hizbullah to infiltrate Israeli airspace with drones fitted with video cameras, but never drones armed with explosives."

The UN reiterates that it will not disarm Hizbullah. So much for the terms of UN SCR 1701, which like UN SCR 425, 426, and 1559 call for the disarmament of all militias operating in Lebanon to secure Lebanon's territorial integrity. It speaks volumes as to the integrity of the UN. It's funny that Chirac wants UN SCR 1701 enforced, but isn't willing to put his troops in a position where they actually have to disarm Hizbullah. Sound and fury signifying nothing.

Israeli officials are concerned that terrorists might attempt attacks during the Jewish High Holy Days, which start this coming weekend, but do not have any specific threat warnings.

UPDATE:
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry seems to think that a deal on Shalit is going to happen soon. Prisoner swap, here we come. Abbas and Israeli FM Livni have met in New York. The US is trying to back Abu Mazen (aka Abbas) and the other moderates over Hamas and the lunatic fringe of Palestinian terror groups.

Sec. State Rice also met with Livni, and among the topics discussed were Iran and a resumption of a peace process between Palestinians and Israel. However, no linkage of the two issues was made.

Livni's going to have a busy few days:

Livni and Rice agreed to coordinate positions in advance of a diplomatic initiative that the Arab League is expected to present to the UN Security Council on Thursday. Livni also reiterated in the meeting, according to her spokesman, that the release of abducted IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser was a necessary condition for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

A few hours prior to her meeting with Abbas, Livni said it was important for Israel to hear directly from him whether he thought there was a realistic possibility of establishing a PA unity government, and whether it would accept the benchmarks.

Livni also met on Monday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, and with leaders from Argentina, Mauritania, Finland, Latvia and South Korea.

On Tuesday she is slated to meet with the presidents of South Africa and Ghana, as well as the foreign ministers of Qatar, China, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Britain and Pacific island nations, which traditionally support Israel at the UN. Thirty minutes have been allotted for each of these meetings.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda is threatening Eilat with attacks, and Israeli officials think that al Qaeda cells are operating in and around the area. That would mean cells operating in Egypt and Jordan.

The Israelis demolished a building in Southern Gaza that happened to have a smuggling tunnel therein. The tunnel was being used to smuggle weapons. Oh, and the IDF was nice enough to warn the neighbors to evacuate before taking action. One has to wonder who was behind the smuggling tunnel.

Fatah wants early elections. So soon after their so-called unity government was formed? That can't be good for morale. Or maybe they think that they'll pick up seats because Hamas has done such a good job.

Technorati: terrorism, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Regev, Goldwasser, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah, lebanon, syria.

Damning Hizbullah With Sartorial Splendor

So many folks around the world and blogosphere accept as truth the fact that Israel is indiscrimantly killing Lebanese, and that the overwhelming number of people killed in Lebanon are civilians.

Au contraire. That is not the case as these photos show.





What do these photos show? When you look at their attire, you notice a couple of things. One isn't their sartorial splendor. It's that they look like anyone else in Lebanon. They blend in perfectly with anyone else walking around in that neighborhood, so if Israelis hit this particular heavy weapons position, the news report will claim that there were only seven or eight civilians hit - on the basis of the appearance of the clothes. The facts are substantially different. It would show that seven or eight Hizbullah terrorists were eliminated in a raid that successfully took out a heavy weapons position.

They show Hizbullah terrorists operating a heavy caliber machine gun in the middle of a densly populated area. Let's not forget that Hizbullah has had six years to prepare for this conflict, and knows the terrain well, and blends in perfectly with the civilian population, so that accurate counts of civilian casualties is simply impossible.

Plenty of other people are taking note of these photos, including Michelle Malkin, Charles at LGF, Wizbang, Ed Morrissey, Atlas Shrugs, The Volokh Conspiracy, Jonah Goldberg at NRO, All Things Beautiful, AJ Strata, and Ranting Profs.

UPDATE:
In Search of Utopia takes exception with my commentary on the Qana attack. That's his right of course. But lets examine his claims a wee bit more closely, shall we?

Okay, now someone want to explain to me how clothes would survice and huge weapon systems would be obliterated from the scene?

Hmm, if someone is manning that particular heavy machine gun, are they wearing a uniform or not? They aren't. That gun can shoot down Israeli helicopters or aircraft. Should Israel refrain from hitting it because the people manning it aren't dressed in uniforms?

If the airstrike hits, and the position is obliterated, those folks on board that gun platform are going to be scattered about. Who is going to arrive on the scene to figure out what happened? Hizbullah or Israeli forces? Hmmm, this is happening in areas that Hizbullah controls, so they'll determine who counts as a casualty and who is a civilian. We're already seeing elsewhere that Hizbullah is controlling the casualty counts coming out of South Lebanon.

Next is this:

These arguments border on ridiculous. The Israelis blew up some children. Did they do it deliberately? I am certain they did not, but all this bullshit justifying it is turning my stomach. It's a war, in war mistakes are made. ON BOTH SIDES. The true test of morality is whether one accepts their mistakes, makes ammends for them and makes every effort NOT to repeat them. This justification of Israeli carelessness does nothing to encourage that morality.

Hmmm, mistakes were made on both side? What mistakes were made by Hizbullah? They purposefully operate in and among civilians, dress as civilians, and purposefully put civilians in harms way as human shields. They purposefully target Israeli civilians. Hizbullah exploits the West's inability to deal with existential threats for what they are. Hizbullah places weapons caches in locations it knows that the West is reluctant to attack for fear of imposing civilian casualties. So far, the only mistake made by Hizbullah is that they didn't expect as forceful a response as they received thus far.

On Israel's side, they're making all the apologies, for whatever it's worth - and it isn't much. The EU and UN made up their minds that Israel is in the wrong, and that it must cease and desist. No mention of forcing Hizbullah to stop, and that's because no one can make them stop except Israel or Syria and Iran, and Syria and Iran have no interest in doing so.

Israel is suppossed to be BETTER than Hezbollah...

Israel is supposed to eliminate Hizbullah, not accomodate Hizbullah and accept a situation where Israel continues to be hit on a daily basis by hundreds of rockets, all fired from positions that are designed to put civilians, including Lebanese women and children in harms way.

All these victims in Lebanon are on Hizbullah's shoulders - they began this latest round of fighting, continue to fight to maximize civilian casualties in both their attack and placement of rockets, and we even see how Hizbullah purposefully put ammo bunkers under schools for precisely that purpose. By the formulation that In Search of Utopia proposes, Israel would have no choice but to accept these attacks, because civilian casualties will continue until the rockets run out. And given that Israel couldn't interdict those supplies coming across the Syria/Lebanon border, Israel will become a bloody mess before long.

Indeed even the UN recognized that Hizbullah was purposefully operating in civilian areas to maximize civilian casualties. The burden is not on Israel to defend itself from the terrorists. If you want to direct your ire at someone, do so at the Hizbullah terrorists and their terror masters in Damascus and Tehran.

Technorati: terrorism, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Rains, Summer, cavaliers, wrath, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah, lebanon, syria.

Sad Anniversary

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the July 7 London bombings. Islamic terrorists detonated bombs on a number of subways and buses across the city, killing 52 people. Their names are as follows:

Liverpool Street/ Aldgate Circle line train: 7 victims
Lee Baisden, 34, accountant from Romford (East London)
Benedetta Ciaccia, 30, business analyst born in Rome and living in Norwich
Richard Ellery, 21, camera shop worker from Ipswich
Richard Gray, 24, tax manager from Ipswich with a wife and two children
Anne Moffat, 48, marketing executive for the Girl Guides from Harlow
Fiona Stevenson, 29, criminal lawyer from Danbury, Essex
Carrie Taylor, 24, from Billericay, Essex, who worked for the Royal Society of Arts

Edgware Road tube station: 6 victims
Michael Stanley Brewster, 53, from Derby
Jon Downey, 34, HR Systems Development Officer of Wolverton, Milton Keynes
David Foulkes, 22, newspaper trainee from Oldham
Colin Morley, 52, facilitator and marketing professional from Finchley
Jennifer Nicholson, 24, from Bristol and the University of Reading
Laura Webb, 29, of Islington (North London)

Piccadilly line train (King's Cross St Pancras / Russell Square): 26 victims
James Adams, 32, from Peterborough, a Christian Deacon at Breton Baptist Church
Samantha Badham, 36, from Tottenham, partner of Lee Harris (q.v.)
Lee Harris, 30, from Tottenham, partner of Samantha Badham (q.v.); died over a week later.
Phil Beer, 22, hairstylist from Borehamwood, Hertfordshire
Anna Brandt, 42, originally from Poland, of Wood Green (North London)
Ciaran Cassidy, 22, shopkeeper from Finsbury Park (North London)
Rachelle Lieng Siong Chung For Yuen, 27, of Mill Hill (North London), originally from Mauritius.
Elizabeth Daplyn, 26, manager at University College Hospital who was living in Highgate (North London)
Arthur Edlin Frederick, 60, of Seven Sisters (North London)
Karolina Glueck, 29, IT consultant, originally from Poland
Gamze Gunoral, 24, student originally from Turkey living in North London
Ojara Ikeagwu, 55, social worker from Luton
Emily Jenkins, 24, office worker from Richmond upon Thames (South West London)
Adrian Johnson, 37, Burberry product technical manager from Nottinghamshire
Helen Jones, 28, accountant of Holloway (North London). who grew up near Lockerbie, Scotland.
Susan Levy, 53, of the village of Newgate Street, Hertfordshire
Shelley Marie Mather, 26, receptionist with dual New Zealand and Irish nationality living in London
Michael Matsushita, 37, tour guide born in Vietnam who grew up in The Bronx, New York City, USA
James Mayes, 28, of Islington (North London)
Behnaz Mozakka, 47, Iranian biomedical officer from Finchley (North London)
Mihaela "Michelle" Otto, 37, dental technician from Mill Hill (North London)
Atique Sharifi, 24, Afghan refugee from the Taleban working in a pizza takeaway
Ihab Slimane, 19, waiter from Lyon, who moved to Finsbury Park (North London) a couple of months before the attacks.
Christian "Njoya" Small, advertising worker from Walthamstow (East London)
Monika Suchocka, 23, accountant from Archway (North London), originally from Poland
Mala Trivedi

Tavistock Square bus: 13 victims
Anthony Fatayi-Williams, 26, an oil executive from Nigeria, grandson of that country's former Chief Justice
Jamie Gordon, 30, of Enfield (North London)
Giles Hart, 55, a BT engineer from Hornchurch (Essex)
Marie Hartley, 34, of Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire
Miriam Hyman, 32, picture researcher from Hampstead Garden Suburb (North West London)
Shahara Akhter Islam, 20, from Plaistow (East London)
Neetu Jain, 37, Software Developer from Hendon (North London)
Sam Ly, 28, originally from Melbourne (Australia); died 15 July 2005 in hospital
Shayanuja Parathasangary, 30, Sri Lankan-born postal worker of Kensal Rise (North London)
Anat Rosenberg, 39, was an Israeli expatriate.
Philip Stuart Russell, 29, of Kennington (South London)
William Wise, 54
Gladys Wyndowa, 51, a cleaner from Chadwell Heath (East London)

National Review marks the occasion with reprinting their July 7, 2005 article - Courage Under Fire. Al Qaeda marks the occasions with a video release.

Bali Bomber Released From Prison

I have a bad feeling about this. A real bad feeling. Radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was released from an Indonesian jail after serving reduced time for links to the 2002 Bali bombings. He's completely unrepentant and states plainly:

"I will maintain my struggle to uphold sharia (Islamic law), he added, before getting into a black van.

That would include jihad - the violent struggle kind, not the deeply intense personal kind of struggle.

Seen by the West as the spiritual head of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) regional militant network, Bashir was convicted of being part of a conspiracy behind the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists.

In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard told parliament: "I want (Indonesia's politicians) to understand from me, on behalf of the government, how extremely disappointed, even distressed, millions of Australians will be at the release."

Brian Deegan, whose son Josh was one of 88 Australians killed in the Bali attack, told Sky television: "Abu Bashir really is to us what Osama bin Laden was to the Americans."

In Jakarta, U.S. embassy spokesman Max Kwak said: "we were deeply disappointed that a person convicted of a 'sinister conspiracy' was given such a short prison sentence."

His sentence was originally 30 months, and even that was reduced on 'good behavior.' I think his sentence came out to a couple of days per victim killed in the Bali bombings. And JI isn't just a regional terrorist group, but one with significant ties to al Qaeda and espouses the same brand of militant Islam.

Well done Indonesia. As we saw with Zarqawi - revolving door justice is no justice at all. Zarqawi had been released from Jordanian prison in 1999 in an amnesty following the death of King Hussein. Zarqawi proceeded to Iraq where he became one of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty terrorists in the world, with the death of thousands on his head. Will we be saying the same thing of Abu Bakar Bashir in a few years? I pray that isn't the case, but know full well that we may be hearing about how he was the mastermind or inspiration for some other mass casualty attack in South East Asia/Pacific Rim.

UPDATE:
Doing the math, this murderous bastard did 3.81 days ((26months*30 days)/202 victims)of time for each of the 202 people he was found responsible for murdering. Yeah, that's justice alright.

UPDATE:
Others taking note of Abu Bakar Bashir's release and his glorious reception by his followers, which stands in stark contrast to the muted cries of horror from the families of the 202 victims who were murdered by terrorists affiliated with, and who took direction from Bashir: Little Green Footballs, Clarity & Resolve, Global Security, and Don Singleton.

The Crumbling Infrastructure

Anyone who drives our roads and highways knows this innately. Roads, bridges, tunnels, railroads, and even airports are not in the kind of shape that they should be in. And those are the most visible parts of the infrastructure that keeps the country humming.

The Tappan Zee Bridge in New York carries I-87, the NYS Thruway, across the Hudson River and north towards Albany. It now carries far more traffic than it was designed for, and that's taking a serious toll on the bridge's condition.

In this latest inspection, 11 yellow flags were found, indicating potentially hazardous structural conditions. There were also 11 safety flags marking possible dangers to cars or pedestrians.

It's important to note that none of the problems ever posed any threat to the structural safety of the bridge and more than half of these problems have already been repaired.

Hoffer: "Is it safe to say that it is getting harder and harder?"

Ramesh Mehta, New York State Thruway: "To maintain? There's no doubt about it. Absolutely."

New York Thruway's chief engineer took us underneath the massive steel and concrete span to show us the bridge's condition.

Mehta: "You can continue to maintain this bridge for many more years, but the question is whether or not it would be cost effective to maintain it or not."

In the last ten years, the state has spent more than $300 million dollars patching and repairing the Tappan Zee. Later this year, an additional $150 million will go into replacing the bridge deck. Yet, as the latest inspection report shows despite all the money, the thruway's repair crews struggle to keep up with the holes, cracks, and corrosion.

For now, the bridge is safe. The thruway's continuing cycle of inspection and repair keeps the aging bridge structurally sound. But experts tell us it's a costly way of buying time while the power brokers in Albany try to come up with a permanent fix.

Mehta: "Every morning, every evening, we have miles and miles of backup, and if you have to invest money, it is better in my opinion to replace the bridge."

A good part of the problem lies in the fact that important decisions have been put off for too long. The bridge was never designed to last this long with the kinds of traffic it now carries on a daily basis.

And the problems are found throughout the country. Bridges big and small need to be replaced, modernized, and upgraded. And it takes money. Lots of it. A small bridge in New Jersey carrying the North Jersey Coast line will cost $4.7 million to repair. At the same time, New Jersey Transit approved a contract for preliminary engineering on improving platforms at Penn Station in NYC.

Seattle is looking at replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which could be destroyed in a major earthquake. That's no small endeavor, as it could cost upwards of $2 billion to rebuild, or $3.6 billion to replace with a tunnel. The mayor wants the tunnel, which would open up urban renewal possibilities, while Gov. Gregoire is backing the rebuild option.

Los Angeles is considering a multibillion dollar bond act to fix roads. This bond act will compete with other issues for priority and may be defeated at the ballot box by taxpayers fed up with rising taxes to cover the costs for such projects. California is also looking at a levee system that is being strained by heavy weather conditions over the past several weeks, and homes that may be washed away by landslides.

That's just a small sampling of the kinds of infrastructure projects that are ongoing around the country, and whose dependability must be assured for safety and security. While most people agree that infrastructure is crumbling and needs to be fixed, replaced, or otherwise improved, the question of how to pay for it all is a question mark.

Down in Florida, some are betting on a public/private consortium to answer that question in trying to build a new tunnel:

The Florida Department of Transportation is trying to entice international construction firms and financiers into a partnership that would be unique to the Sunshine State but is quite common for major infrastructure projects in Europe and Asia.

An industry newsletter recently reported that firms from Spain, France, Australia and Brazil that specialize in such public-private partnerships are lining up partners before the April 12 filing deadline.

What's happening with the port tunnel is part of a bigger trend. International firms have been storming cash-strapped governments and authorities across the United States, offering to privatize bridges, tunnels and toll roads in return for long-term profits.

Here's how it would conceptually work: DOT will select a team that would receive exclusive 35-year rights to finance, build, operate and maintain the twin two-lane portals under Government Cut that would provide a straight shot for truckers to Interstates 395 and 95 via the MacArthur Causeway.

The vendor will absorb all the costs during the first five years when the tunnel is under construction. The public won't start repaying the money until the tunnel opens in the sixth year. Experts say the vendors are seeking a steady, reliable cash flow stream over a long period of time, plus a profit margin in the 8-to-12-percent range.

The state would maintain some control over the vendor via its so-called ''availability payments.'' In a nutshell, if the road isn't available for traffic -- and Mother Nature is not to blame -- the state can dock the vendor's pay. If maintenance is slipping, the state can withhold a portion of its annual or quarterly payment.

Let's assume the tunnel will cost $1.3 billion to design and build. The state and county have already set aside about $300 million -- including the $100 million Miami-Dade voters committed in the 2004 general obligation bond issue election.

So the vendors will be financing the remaining $1 billion.

Experts familiar with similar public-private deals say the state would be looking at an annual payment in the ballpark of $70 million to $75 million a year over 35 years to make it work.

Other options include design and build contracts, where the contractor designs and builds the bridge - which has the potential benefit of reduced costs. It's a method being chosen for some bridge construction in Louisiana.

UPDATE:
And don't forget that parts of the country are susceptible to earthquake damage and are unprepared or underprepared for such a situation. San Francisco is about to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1906 quake, which heavily damaged the city and the ensuing firestorm destroyed what wasn't already damaged. And there are concerns that it is unprepared for another big quake despite the billions spent on infrastructure improvements. But quakes aren't confined to California. Alaska has had severe quakes in the past, as have Charleston, SC, New Madrid, MO, and even the northeastern US. A state by state breakdown shows that all but a few states have had moderate to strong earthquakes occur within their borders in just the past 200 years.

Leftist Chic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You've seen it.

The Che Guevera t-shirts and berets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Les Enfants Terribles

We're on day 11 of the riots throughout France and there's absolutely no sign that things will be improving. Thousands of cars have been destroyed, and an increasing number of businesses, schools, and other buildings have been damaged by arson.

Police and law enforcement seem completely incapable of stopping the violence or even trying to determine the best course of action.

The Glittering Eye has a map of the violence that has spread through the French countryside over the past 11 days (the map has the locations from the first 10 days of rioting). The French have always thought of the concept of the ugly American, but I think the world is seeing the ugly Frenchman. This is the side of French life that the French government would much rather have been kept an open secret.

The level of violence associated with the rioting has also increased, as police are increasingly coming under gunfire from the rioter. Nearly a dozen police were injured by shotgun blasts, two of them seriously.

The first death associated with the rioting has been reported, and the rioting has spread to at least 300 towns.

As urban unrest spread to neighboring Belgium and possibly Germany, the French government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence, despite massive police deployment and continued calls for calm.

On Sunday night, vandals burned more than 1,400 vehicles, and clashes around the country left 36 police injured, setting a new high for overnight arson and violence since rioting started Oct. 27, Michel Gaudin told a news conference.

Australia, Austria, Britain, Germany and Hungary advised their citizens to exercise care in France, joining the United States and Russia in warning tourists to stay away from violence-hit areas.

In other words, the borders aren't containing the violence, and it is spreading far faster than the French government would like to admit. The seemingly powerlessness of the French government to contain the violence is not going to go unnoticed - both by other countries and by terrorists. The terrorists are watching the situation and keeping score.

And I would like to know what is considered a strong police response, considering the fact that only a day ago did we hear that even a single police helicopter was in the air to survey the carnage and that only 1,200 people have been arrested thus far. If the French authorities were truly serious, we'd be seeing a massive crackdown with thousands of arrests, not a smattering of arrests. Where's the NYPD when the French need them?

The grim milestone of 5,000 cars burned is only a night away.

The Belgravia Dispatch notes the sense of utter helplessness setting in among the French as the government has proven to be ineffectual.

The violence the roving gangs of youth are engaging in is borne of various causes and grievances. This profound alienation needs to be analyzed, to be sure. And at the end of the day, while there is some room for jihadist radicals to play on these sentiments to lure more towards piety, the book and perhaps terror--what this is really about is not some religiosity-infused intifada on the Seine but bread and butter issues of jobs and racism. Sarkozy is right that so called positive discrimination (affirmative action), at least in calibrated fashion, needs to be experimented with. But he is also at least equally right that criminals, even young ones just 18, must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Stoking mayhem cannot be rewarded. Such 'chantage'-like tactics should not be in the cards. And yet, there is reason for some of the fury, and I'd hazard most of it stems from unemployment in the 30% zone among many in their early 20s.

As I've noted over the past few days, the rioting is morphing and changing depending on where and who is involved in the carnage. Some are doing it because of high unemployment and other economic grievances (though other countries with high unemployment have not seen rioting), and others are using this as an opportunity to push the religious sentiments.

Blogger Clive Davis thinks that the focus on the Islamist element in the rioting is overstated and that the economic situation is the trumping issue. I don't discount that as a factor, but the Islamists are most definitely exploiting the situation.

Whatever the reasoning for the thugs involved in the riots, the French government must put an end to the rioting and platitudes about economic opportunities and affirmative action isn't going to cut it. The French need to seriously reconsider the issues of assimilation, economic growth and the underlying economic order in France and their relationships to each other.

On the media front, the Washington Post has an above the fold story, and the New York Times is finally realizing that the situation in France is dire. Took 'em more than a week to realize the significance of the rioting - and that it is far more important than the organized and professional rioting that occurred when Bush visited Argentina.

UPDATE:
Don Surber uncovers Israeli advice for the French intifada, which is:

"First, until this plan is implemented in full, we must insist that the French government acknowledge that there is no military or police solution to the problems of violence in its suburbs, and only through recognizing the legitimacy of the demands of the murderers and rioters outside Paris can the problems be resolved."

Well, while not all the rioters are Muslim, it's certainly sage advice. The French government will certainly not appreciate the advice, but this is where they're at.

UPDATE:
Vodkapundit has more thoughts, including the difficulty of keeping a riot going. More interesting is the fact that the rioters will have learned that they have a dangerous new tool at their disposal to get their way in the future. Don't think for a moment that this fact hasn't been lost on the rioters - and the government hasn't quite realized this.

UPDATE:
Ace castigates the WaPo for essentially saying Riots Just A Way For Youth To Say "I'm Here, Man. I'm Here." You can't make this stuff up. The original headline? Rage of French Youth Is a Fight for Recognition. Here's some more advice.

Listen to the Beastie Boys. Play Fight for Your Right. Loud. At 11. Repeat as necessary. You'll find the urge to riot and pillage diminish as the music takes hold.

UPDATE:
Ace also notes that the French are trying to minimize the violence to only a few provinces. Yeah, that's the ticket. Each night see the violence spiral out of control and into more areas of the country. But the media will buy the offical line of the French government despite the facts clearly burning before them.

UPDATE:
Via LGF comes this amazing tidbit - the French media is going to refrain from posting the numbers of cars torched in an effort to stop the rioting. Are you kidding me?! Anyone have a nighttime overhead shot of France to see all the fires burning?

UPDATE:
Mister Snitch has provided a roundup of the coverage of the French riots among the left leaning blogs in New Jersey. It's a short and sweet review, because they're simply not covering the riots at all. Well, if you consider that it took the NYT more than a week to realize that something was happening in France, and the leftie blogs take their cues from the mainstream media sources, this isn't altogether unexpected. However, I do believe that Daily Kos has had a number of postings on the riots, but the coverage has been limited, especially in comparison to a site like LGF.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin has new updates on the rioting. She finds that one of the key words missing from the news coverage generally was Muslim or Islamists. Not surprising. The media has downplayed the religious aspects in favor of the economic arguments. I'm sure that there is an economic argument to be made somewhere by the goons involved in firebombing thousands of cars and hundreds of businesses, but there is an increasing Islamist element in the rioting - both in terms of who is doing the rioting and who is formenting further attacks. Ace also makes a similar observation.

The Anchoress also makes some interesting observations about the rioting and France in general.

UPDATE:
Wretchard has an interesting observation about the car-b-qs: the French government had opportunities up to the 6th day to contain the violence, and again has a chance to contain the violence, but in each instance, the violence spread because the government failed to take decisive action to put down the riots. As much as the French government bloviates, it doesn't take any real tangible steps.

The French government must demonstrate that it can deliver, for nothing incites contempt so much as to be all hat and no cattle; to bluster and to bluster impotently.

Thus far, this quote symbolizes the entire French government response.

Questions Mount on Able Danger

Last night, Rusty at the Jawa Report asked for more information on the Able Danger program and any related issues. I was more than helpful in providing him with what meager scraps I could find.

However, it would appear that the questions I pose to the general audience are the ones worth asking, and that the answers might help figure out what exactly the government knew, and when it knew, and why no one who was in a position to act on that information was up to speed.

Here is the list of questions I provided (and I've further edited multipart questions into individual parts):

I would break it down by pre 9/11 and post 9/11
issues:

Pre 9/11:
~ What specific steps were taken by the DoD in culling this data to send it up to those who might act on the information?
~ Who was involved in the decision making process?
~ Why did they stop this information from being passed on to law enforcement - if only to keep an eye on Atta's associations?

Post 9/11:
~ Why was the program disbanded if it was successful in naming 4 of 19 hijackers?
~ Was there political pressure to can the project?
~ Has the program been subsumed into other data mining projects?
~ What other information, if any, was overlooked by the 9/11 Commission in the course of its investigation?
~ Was that oversight politically motivated is a subpart of the prior question, but I frankly feel that politics permeates the entire process at this point?

All of these questions are the groundwork of any good journalist. Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?

You have to establish the groundwork, so let's start with the papertrail. How did Rep. Weldon come to have this information? Was it a leak? Was it part of some classified or unclassified briefing to Congress (or some subpart of Congress)? If it was to a group of members of Congress, how come Weldon is the only one who thinks this information is newsworthy, which it would appear to be? Wouldn't the words Atta and cell ring bells at any meeting relating to 9/11 events? If they didn't, were they paying attention or were they not mentioned at all?

Also, we get conflicting reports on whether Able Danger was known to the Commission or not. One early report says that they didn't know, but a later report says that they did, but discounted the results. Either situation is troubling, but the latter case would indicate that the Commission either thought the intel fit with other information and not important enough to be considered on its own, or the characterization of the data mining by Weldon is suspect. Now, it's possible that the Commission thought the information from Able Danger fit with other intel, but why was there no mention of the program in the Commission's report or preliminary reports, if only to show that they examined all the government intel operations.

That sounds like an oversight to me. A pretty profound one at that.

Others are working on timelines (Dr. Sanity), and they should be applauded for their work.

Last nite, Captain Ed reported:

Tomorrow's [which would be the Thursday edition] New York Times reports that members of the 9/11 Commission reversed themselves and now acknowledge being briefed on the Army's data mining project, Able Danger, prior to the publication of their report to the American people. After over 24 hours of denying that anyone had told the Commission about the secret project, their spokesman now says that commission officials met with a uniformed officer who told them about the identification of Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers in 2000, over a year prior to the attacks[.]

The NYT changed the headlines to boot. Curious.

Captain Ed has more this AM, including why the 9/11 Commission didn't make mention of Mohammed Afroze, who was convicted in India of conspiring to attack targets in India, Australia, and England simultaneously with the US attacks. That raises further issues.

Did Able Danger mention Afroze?

UPDATE:
More people are starting to view Able Danger as a major story, including, but not limited to: Michelle Malkin, Jim Geraghty , Baldilocks, Just One Minute, and The Anchoress.

Good.

Also, Comments from Left Field makes an interesting observation - namely that the incoming Bush Administration had little faith in whatever the outgoing Clinton Administration thought was serious.

That was both a function of political and practical considerations, but it had its consequences, not the least of which is a failure of massive proportions to keep this nation safe from all threats, foreign and domestic. It also underscores the absolute necessity to maintain a non-political intelligence system, so that the information can flow to all those that need it in a timely fashion without being shaped by political considerations.

Villainous Company is more skeptical of Weldon.

UPDATE 6:24PM 8/11/2005
New York City area talk show host Mark Levin had Rep. Weldon on last night. I'm working to get either a link to the interview, or the interview itself. MarkLevinFan is a good source of sound clips from Levin's shows. So MLF, if you're reading, we could use the clips/transcript.

It's the End of the Wine World As We Know It

And no, we're not talking about the damn merlot grape. We're talking about the end of the domination of Burgundy in wine circles. With more producers in the New World (that's outside France and Europe for non-wine snobs), using modern techniques and willing to take chances that the French are not allowed by law or conscience to take, the New World wines are going to dominate the market like never before.

And France wonders why their share of the wine market has dropped. It could be simple economics. When producers have figured out ways to reduce overhead and costs associated with growing, they can pass the savings on to the consumer, even with better vintages and delicate grapes like pinot noir. Pinot noir is a notorious grape to grow, but a growing number of California, Oregon, Washington, Aussie, and New Zealand winemakers have figured out how to do so magnificently.

And they can do it undercutting the Burgundies all the same.

Empires are falling. Everywhere, the old order is undergoing change on a scale, and with a speed, that no one could have predicted only a decade ago. Let me first give you an anecdotal example. Lately, pinot noir has been much on my mind. It always is, but it's been more pressingly so than usual. As previously chronicled in this column, I was in New Zealand's Central Otago district - pinot noir country - as well as Australia's Mornington Peninsula and Tasmania (ditto).These visits included two pinot noir conferences as well as independently visiting producers. So I've been steeped like a tea bag in pinot noir. Anyway, I returned home and found myself having lunch with a Burgundy shipper I've known for decades - a good, honest guy who's in the top echelon of Burgundy shippers. It was just the two of us, so the conversation was, as the State Department likes to say, frank and honest. I told him, hyperbolically, that Burgundy was dying. (Actually, what's happening is that the less prestigious subregions such as Cote Chalonnaise and Maconnais really are declining, with increasing bankruptcies. The heart of Burgundy, the famed Cote d'Or, is so far unaffected.) As you might imagine, this took him aback. I said that although Burgundy was hardly going out of business, it will certainly steadily lose business, pointing out that California alone has the same pinot noir acreage (24,000 acres) as Burgundy, never mind Oregon, New Zealand, and Australia. I told him that I had recently recommended in this column a California pinot noir that - if I were tasting it blind - I would have sworn was a really good Bourgogne rouge. And it sells for $16.

That's $16 for a good pinot noir. I can drink to that!