Brain Droppings

Bill C:

Glenn Reynolds links to articles supportive and critical of Glassman. It seems to me the problem is sample size. The letter in Nature says that warmer sea surface temperatures would lead to more intense cyclones. (Natch) Now we have to connect that to global warming and global warming to a solution. Not as simple as it sounds.

CLARIFICATION:

Both Kennedy and Tritten of Germany have used Katrina for political purposes. Kennedy used Katrina to spout off about the war in Iraq and Tritten used Katrina to promote the Kyoto Protocol. Until this kind of rhetoric is removed from the global warming issue I'm afraid it will not be taken seriously.

Bill O:

I see your point on how political opportunism can undermine the global warming argument, but I hope people wouldn't choose to downplay the potential impact this issue because of the rhetoric of uneducated partisans. There are a lot of other voices out there. In fact, here are three recent converts whom you should take seriously: I noticed in the two weeks leading up to the summer's G8 conference that The Wall Street Journal, Exxon/Mobil, and President Bush himself all conceded that greenhouse gasses contribute to global warming, with the first two actually stating that fossil fuels are a source of greenhouse gasses. This was a major shift for all three, as I had never seen anything but out-and-out denial previously. It seems that the argument has begun to move from "yes-or-no" to "how much" do fossil fuels contribute to GW. Hopefully we'll be able to put the rhetoric, politics and opportunists aside to judge the facts however they fall.

Bill C:

There has been an increase in surface temperatures. Atmospheric temperatures are not increasing. The increase has not been abnormal compared to what has occurred during the past. Just as it was a matter of time until a hurricane hit N.O. and there was very little we could do to protect the city, there is very little we can do to prevent global warming. We are kidding ourselves if we think that human efforts can change the weather on a global scale. I don't like bad science in any debate and the use of Katrina is nothing but politics. If we really want to try something we should be rapidly approving nuclear power plants and I don't see the Left championing that cause just yet. Let's work on making cheap electricity via nuclear power and then we can talk about tax incentives for switching to hybrid and hydrogen powered vehicles. More on the left using Katrina to flog global warming later.

# posted by Diego @ 3:38 PM |

"If you paid your mortgage off, it means you probably did not manage your funds efficiently over the years," said David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors and author of "Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?" "It's as if you had 500,000 dollar bills stuffed in your mattress."

He called it "very unsophisticated."

Anthony Hsieh, chief executive of LendingTree Loans, an Internet-based mortgage company, used a more disparaging term. "If you own your own home free and clear, people will often refer to you as a fool. All that money sitting there, doing nothing." [Emph. added]

The financial services industry is doing all it can to avoid letting consumers be foolish. [Snicker] Ditech.com touts home loans as a way to pay off credit cards, and Morgan Stanley says they're a good way to fund education expenses. Wells Fargo suggests taking a chunk out of your house to finance "a dream wedding."

Many of these are first-time home buyers, and many of them are relatively young. The report calculates that the greatest increase in homeownership rates between 2000 and 2003 came in the 30-to-34 age group. Second-highest was 25-to-29.

"I think what's happening is that a lot of younger renters feel the ship is passing them by," said Hans P. Johnson, one of the authors of the report, titled "California's Newest Homeowners: Affording the Unaffordable." "If they don't buy a house now, they think, they never will."

BuzzCharts and the rest of the supply-side community know better. Because America is being governed by supply-side economic policy, our housing market is very strong. It started with the Clinton capital-gains tax cut in 1997. It slowed down during the deflationary recession of 2000-01. It restarted when the Fed ended the deflation through a series of rate cuts. It was strengthened when President Bush cut taxes in 2001. And it culminated in the economic boom that started when the president implemented the final phase of his tax cuts in May 2003. Obviously, this kind of growth can’t continue forever, otherwise BuzzCharts’ grandchildren will be building their homes on the moon. However, if it’s not a bubble, it can’t burst.

# posted by Bill C @ 10:58 AM |

If you'd been asked in 2003 to devise an ideal constitution for Iraq's very non-ideal circumstances, it would look something like this: a highly decentralized federation that accepts the reality that Iraq is a Muslim nation but reserves political power for elected legislators -- and divides the oil revenue fairly.

And if it doesn't work? Well, that's what the Sunnis are twitchy about. If Baathist dead-enders and imported Islamonuts from Saudi and Syria want to make Iraq ungovernable, the country will dissolve into a democratic Kurdistan, a democratic Shiastan, and a moribund Sunni squat in the middle. And, in the grander scheme of things, that wouldn't be so terrible either.

In Iraq right now the glass is around two-thirds full, and those two thirds will not be drained down to Sunni Triangle levels of despair. There are 1 million new cars on the road since 2003, a statistic that no doubt just lost us warhawks that Sierra Club endorsement but which doesn't sound like a nation mired in hopelessness. A new international airport has been opened in the north to cope with the Kurdish tourist and economic boom. Faruk Mustafa Rasool is building a 28-story five-star hotel with a revolving restaurant and a cable-car link to downtown Sulaimaniya.

To be sure, we shouldda done this, and we shouldda done that. Yet nonetheless Iraq advances day by day. The real quagmire is at home, where the kinkily gleeful relish of defeatism manifested by Cindy Sheehan, Joan Baez, Ted Kennedy et al. bears less and less relationship to anything happening over there. Iraq's future is a matter for the Iraqis now -- which, given the U.S. media, Democrat blowhards like Joe Biden and Republican squishes like Chuck Hagel, is just as well.

# posted by John O @ 1:13 AM |

Dear Mrs. Sheehan,
You have asked me to identify the noble cause for which
your son died. I have not answered you personally out of respect for the
nobility of your son's sacrifice.
Being president forces me into the
spotlight, but I would rather stand in the shadows of men like Casey Sheehan.
Directing national attention on my response to your protest creates a
distraction from what matters. The focus of our attention, and our admiration,
should rest on people like Casey Sheehan, who stand in the breach when evil
threatens to break out and consume a helpless people.
The running story on
the news networks should be the valiant efforts of our troops -- the merchants
of mercy who export freedom and import honor. They trade their own lives for the
sake of others.
As a result, we live in a nation where a woman can camp
outside of the president's house and verbally attack the president for weeks on
end without fear of prison, torture or death. And the number of nations where
such protest is possible has multiplied thanks to the work of our
military.
You ask for what noble cause your son died?
In a sense he died
so that people like you, who passionately oppose government policies, can freely
express that opposition. As you camp in Crawford, you should take off your
shoes, for you stand on holy ground. This land was bought with the blood of men
like your son.
Now, 25 million Iraqis cry out to enjoy the life you take for
granted. Most of them will never use their freedom to denigrate the sacrifice of
those who paid for it. But once liberty is enshrined in law, they will be free
to do so. And when the Iraqis finally escape their incarceration, hope will
spread throughout that enslaved region of the world, eventually making us all
safer and more free.
The key is in the lock of the prison door. Bold men
risk everything to turn it.
Mrs. Sheehan, everyone dies. But few experience
the bittersweet glory of death with a purpose -- death that sets people free and
produces ripples of liberty hundreds of years into the future.
Casey Sheehan
died that freedom might triumph over bondage, hope over despair, prosperity over
misery. He died restoring justice and mercy. He lived and died to help to
destroy the last stubborn vestiges of the Dark Ages.
To paraphrase President
Lincoln, the world will little note nor long remember what you and I say here.
But it can never forget what Casey Sheehan did during his brief turn on earth.
If we are wise, we will take increased devotion to that cause for which he gave
the last full measure of devotion.
Our brave warriors have blazed a trail.
They have entrusted the completion of the task to those of us they left behind.
Let's, you and I, resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.
Let's
finish the work that they have thus far so nobly advanced.
Sincerely,

George
W. Bush

# posted by Bill C @ 4:19 PM |

(Illegal aliens) Mr. Mancía and Ms. Leiva were caught on a ranch in Hebbronville, Tex., in March 2003 by Mr. Nethercott and other members of Ranch Rescue. The two immigrants later accused Mr. Nethercott of threatening them and of hitting Mr. Mancía with a pistol, charges that Mr. Nethercott denied. The immigrants also said the group gave them cookies, water and a blanket and let them go after an hour or so.

The Salvadorans testified against Mr. Nethercott when he was tried by Texas prosecutors. The jury deadlocked on a charge of pistol-whipping but convicted Mr. Nethercott, who had previously served time in California for assault, of gun possession, which is illegal for a felon. He is now serving a five-year sentence in a Texas prison.

Mr. Mancía and Ms. Leiva also filed a lawsuit against Mr. Nethercott; Jack Foote, the founder of Ranch Rescue; and the owner of the Hebbronville ranch, Joe Sutton. The immigrants said the ordeal, in which they feared that they would be killed by the men they thought were soldiers, had left them with post-traumatic stress.

Mr. Sutton settled for $100,000. Mr. Nethercott and Mr. Foote did not defend themselves, so the judge issued default judgments of $850,000 against Mr. Nethercott and $500,000 against Mr. Foote.

It is completely beyond me why anyone, even a legal resident, should expect to receive millions of dollars from people who detained them when they were trespassing. Especially when said people, having detained them for an hour gave them cookies and a blanket and sent them on. If ever there was a sign of a justice system that has been hijacked by the loonies this is it.

So let me get this absolutely straight: If an illegal alien is grabbed by any American and held against their will they can sue and take that person's property?

This certainly isn't the same United States I was born into.

# posted by John O @ 10:49 PM |

In less than a month's time -- Sept. 16 and 17 -- the world's great and good will be gathering at the United Nations in Manhattan for what is officially called the High Level Plenary Meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. This meeting, attended by the heads of government of most countries, including the major powers, has become a regular event in recent years, but one of ceremonial importance rather than of substance.

This year it will be very significant indeed. For the plenary session will almost certainly pass an obscure document, now circulating in draft form among U.N. delegations, that calls on the assembled governments to reaffirm their support for the U.N.'s Millenium Declaration Goals and the other declarations of U.N. conferences over the last 30 years. It will ask them to support the achievement of these goals in a co-ordinated and integrated manner, to renew their commitment to . . .

Falling asleep already, are you? Well, that is precisely the intention of those who composed these anodyne phrases. When bureaucrats seize power, they do it not with swords but with chloroform. And this document is a power grab by people of whom you have never heard, the officials of the U.N. Secretariat, working in tandem with the diplomats of those countries and international organizations that would like to expand the power of the U.N. and its various agencies.------------------What harm is there in signing onto to these desirable outcomes even if we believe that they are either unobtainable or very distant? As scholars like John Fonte of the Hudson Institute have shown, there is very considerable potential harm. These treaties and declarations include enforcement mechanisms such as "monitoring" bodies. Sovereign democratic nations such as Canada have had to host delegations from the U.N. investigating whether their budgetary cuts in welfare violate some commitment they made on welfare rights.

Worse, these commitments change when judges interpret the treaties in a way no one would have predicted when they were signed. A topical example: the British government is currently trying to deport terrorist suspects it considers a danger to the public, but the courts maintain that such deportations are contrary to Britain's signature on the European Declaration of Human Rights.

In other words, the most sensitive and vital political questions are removed from democratic parliaments and the voters and handed over to an international committee nominated by foreign and often despotic regimes. (Emphasis mine.)

A good part of the energy for transnational progressivism is provided by human rights activists, who consistently evoke "evolving norms of international law." The main legal conflict between traditional American liberal democrats and transnational progressives is ultimately the question of whether the U. S. Constitution trumps international law or vice versa.

Before the mid-twentieth century, traditional international law referred to relations among nation-states. The "new international law" has increasingly penetrated the sovereignty of democratic nation-states. It is in reality "transnational law." Human rights activists work to establish norms for this "new international [i.e. transnational] law" and then attempt to bring the U. S. into conformity with a legal regime whose reach often extends beyond democratic politics.

Transnational progressives excoriate American political and legal practices in virulent language, as if the American liberal democratic nation-state was an illegitimate authoritarian regime. Thus, AI-U.S.A. charged the U. S. in a 1998 report with "a persistent and widespread pattern of human rights violations," naming the U. S. the "world leader in high tech repression." Meanwhile, HRW issued a 450-page report excoriating the U. S. for all types of "human rights violations," even complaining that "the U. S. Border Patrol continued to grow at an alarming pace."

# posted by John O @ 11:11 AM |

Maybe the Democrats believe they�ll win the next election just because they can't possibly keep losing. As Krusty the Klown kvetched after betting against the Harlem Globetrotters: 'I thought the Generals were due!'

# posted by Bill C @ 8:24 AM |

Democrats say a long-standing rift in the party over the Iraq war has grown increasingly raw in recent days, as stay-the-course elected leaders who voted for the war three years ago confront rising impatience from activists and strategists who want to challenge President Bush aggressively to withdraw troops.

Amid rising casualties and falling public support for the war, Democrats of all stripes have grown more vocal this summer in criticizing Bush'’s handling of the war. A growing chorus of Democrats, however, has said this criticism should be harnessed to a consistent message and alternative policy,— something most Democratic lawmakers have refused to offer.

That is because rooting against a US success in Iraq is political suicide - something the manic leftward fringes could care less about. They don'’t want to be popular, they want to be right!

Some pro-Democratic commentators are urging a cease-fire, lest the party play into the hands of the GOP. In the words of Kevin Drum, who aired his concerns online the other day, "This is about the last thing we need." Unless warring Democrats "knock it off," he warned, "we can be sure that Karl Rove will do his best to hammer this wedge straight through the heart of the Democratic party, as the 2006 [congressional races] begin to heat up."

But prominent liberal activists such as David Sirota aren't going to knock it off. Sirota looks at the latest Gallup poll and finds that 33 percent of Americans now favor full withdrawal from Iraq - which beats partial withdrawal (23 percent), status quo (28 percent), and sending more troops (13 percent). And he notes that a majority now believes the war has made Americans less safe at home.

"This sentiment gives Democrats an opening," he said recently. "We can now make the case that an exit strategy from Iraq will actually strengthen our national security. We have to stand up for our principles. There is strength in national-security prudence. There is weakness in national-security impulsiveness, as Bush has demonstrated. People will believe us. They have the evidence in front of their eyes every night on the evening news."

Since 9/11, patriotism has become the most potent "values issue" in U.S. politics. To compete in America's heartland, Democrats must challenge Republicans' claim to be the authentic voice of American patriotism.

The problem for Democrats is that an important part of their base -- upscale white liberals -- seems torn about the meaning of patriotism. Republicans are ruthlessly effective in exploiting this ambivalence. Questioning Democrats' patriotism has been an ugly, but undeniably effective, GOP tactic from last year's "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" campaign against John Kerry to Karl Rove's recent canard that liberals counseled "therapy and understanding" rather than retaliation in response to al Qaeda's attacks on America.

Even so, many Americans are beginning to wonder just how much more Republican-style patriotism they can afford. In Washington today, conservative hotheads abound who think diplomacy is for sissies and who delight in throwing America's military weight around. They belittle longtime allies who have the temerity to disagree with Bush administration policy. They complain, illogically, that the United Nations is both hopelessly weak and an intolerable check on U.S. sovereignty. This belligerent, overbearing chauvinism has stirred anti-American passions around the world, made U.S. efforts in Iraq more costly and difficult, and tarnished America's moral reputation.

You might think that Congress would have its hands full with escalating violence in Iraq, exploding public debts, a growing competitive challenge from Asia, and plunging public confidence in President Bush's Social Security plan. But GOP super-patriots ignored such distractions and found time recently to ram through the House a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning -- of which there was a grand total of one incident in the entire United States last year.

Such antics give Democrats an opportunity to expose what lies beneath the fulsome facade of GOP patriotism -- an atavistic nationalism in which the ruling passion is the will to power, not love of country. The right answer to GOP jingoism, however, cannot be left-wing anti-Americanism. Of course, progressives can criticize their country and still be patriotic. Indeed, one of the highest forms of patriotism is being honest about your country's flaws and taking responsibility for fixing them. (Emphasis mine.) But it is what's in your heart that counts. Are your objections rooted in a warm and generous affection for your country, or in a curdled contempt for it? Too many Americans aren't sure if the left is emotionally on America's side. And that's a big problem for Democrats

The problem with the liberal concept of 'patriotism' is that they are patriotic only to their personal conception of what the country should be. This renders the idea of patriotism meaningless - it is trivial to say that one has a loyalty to one's own world views. Their unbridled criticism results, then, from the failure of the country to satisfy their individual tenets about what it should be.

The conservative idea of patriotism is more externalized - love of country as it is, even when it doesn't match up to our notions of what it should be. This tempers the criticism from the right, and provides a natural unity and cohesion (called 'marching in lockstep' by our friends on the left).

The left is like the naive bride who marries a guy presuming that she can change him into someone she can love. The right is the bride who decides that she loves him, warts and all.

My draft version of this post included a whole refutation of Marshall's aargument, but really, it's all irrelevant. Ultimately, this is the modern DLC -- an aider and abettor of Right-wing smear attacks against Democrats. They make the same arguments, use the same language, and revel in their attacks on those elements of the Democratic Party that seem to cause them no small embarrassment.

Two more weeks, folks, before we take them on, head on.

No calls for a truce will be brooked. The DLC has used those pauses in the past to bide their time between offensives. Appeals to party unity will fall on deaf ears (it's summer of a non-election year, the perfect time to sort out internal disagreements).

We need to make the DLC radioactive. And we will. With everyone's help, we really can. Stay tuned.

# posted by John O @ 6:15 PM |

Up until very recently, finance companies were able to come up with more and more imaginative products and expand the pool of potential speculators in the real-estate market -- thereby making it possible for prices to hold steady or be driven higher.

But a contact in the subprime-lending arena (lenders who specialize in making loans to borrowers with less-than-stellar credit records) suggests to me that it's becoming increasingly difficult for originators of subprime mortgages to sell them at a profit. Unless all of these are booked on the originator's own balance sheet, we'll start to see credit being cut off to the more marginal real-estate speculators -- the driving force, at the margin, behind the real-estate market.

Meanwhile, subprime-mortgage company New Century Financial (NEW, news, msgs) recently lowered its earnings projections, even though its loan volume is supposed to be rising. What that means, among other things, is that the company is facing margin pressure, which jibes with my contact's information. (I added to my New Century short position last Wednesday. I'm trying to be alert to additional problems, as it's beginning to feel to me like the short side of the entire housing ATM is slowly becoming an investible idea, not that I've done much about it just yet.)

In any case, I believe what's now changed is that, with the advent of problems in the subprime arena, the pool of potential buyers will begin to shrink. That will be a very big development, as it is a significant change at the margin. All important change tends to begin at the margin, and I think this is a perfect example.

Thus, the macro winds have shifted, I believe, and none of those shifts has occurred in a way that is bullish for U.S. assets. Bottom line: It's my opinion that a top is being formed (or is already in place), both in the housing market and the stock market. That spells trouble for an economy built on the unsustainable strategy of trying to speculate our way to prosperity.

Stop for a minute and consider that interest-only and adjustable-rate mortgages now comprise roughly 60% of all home loans (with "interest-only" contributing one-half to two-thirds of that). Just about four years ago, they may have accounted for less than 20%. That's not to say these two flavors of mortgages couldn't become even more popular -- because they could -- but to illustrate the magnitude of the potential problem we could ultimately face.

For those who think that real estate can never go down, I should note, as I did in my May 5 column, a like-minded belief among Japanese property owners in the late 1980s, where values have subsequently declined for the last 14 years. That decline, however, may finally be in the process of changing.

Another prevailing myth in the real estate market: We can always ride out any bumps in the road. While that may have been partially true in the past (assuming you didn't lose your job), it may be less likely in the future, given the huge percentage of people taking out interest-only and adjustable-rate mortgages.

For instance, if you had a 30-year $300,000 mortgage at 5.5%, it would cost roughly $1,700 per month (before taxes and insurance). If you took out an interest-only mortgage, your payments would start out at $1,375 but would rise in a few years to between $1,800 and $2,200, depending on how rates fluctuated in the future, assuming they went up. (Of course, rates could be higher or lower, depending on the prevailing policy.)

If you pick one of the super-duper interest-only mortgages that permit borrowers to basically choose their payment, you could shoehorn into the same $300,000 loan with a monthly payment of about $965. But a few years down the road, that would rise to around $2,200. That's a mighty hefty jump. (These numbers are meant as approximations, just to give you some feeling for the size of the jump that's staring lots of folks in the face.)

# posted by Bill C @ 11:35 AM |

Democrats hoped they would be scoring political points in this year's election cycle as a result of increasing terrorist violence in Iraq and skyrocketing gasoline prices that have combined to send President Bush's job-approval ratings plunging into the low 40s.

But things are not turning out as they hoped. The Democrats are beset by internal division over the lack of an agenda, carping from liberals who say party leaders are not aggressive enough in challenging Mr. Bush's nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court, bitterness among abortion rights activists after criticism by Democratic leaders that forced them to pull a TV advertisement attacking Judge Roberts, and complaints from pollsters that they have no coherent message to take into the 2006 elections.

Independent pollster John Zogby says that although Mr. Bush is not doing well in the polls, the Democrats aren't doing any better.

"The Democrats aren't scoring points in terms of landing any significant punches on Bush or in terms of saying anything meaningful to the American people," Mr. Zogby said.

What is so demagogic about Dean's stance is his insinuation that women were better off under the Saddam dictatorship. He is following the lead taken by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Brookings Institution on Feb. 25 last year. She quoted Iraqi women leaders as ''starting to express concerns about some of the pullbacks in the rights they were given under Saddam Hussein. He was an equal opportunity oppressor, but on paper, women had rights.'' She contended that ''as long as they stayed out of his way, they had considerable freedom of movement.''

Clinton in 2004 was not nearly so over the top as Dean in 2005, but both are contradicted by people who know the situation better than they and are not driven by partisan concerns. Nina Shea, director of the religious freedom center at Freedom House, responded to Clinton's claim: ''Women's rights [under Saddam] were largely an illusion.''

In 1989, when the dictator was at full power, Iraqi dissident and intellectual Kanan Makiya said: ''Male domination has not been done away with. It has found a substitute in the all-male Revolutionary Command Council, the higher army command and the ever-so-male person of Saddam Hussein.''

Howard Dean is not the first politician to distort facts in his own interests. But many activists in the party he now leads are puzzled over what he thinks he is accomplishing politically. Is it good politics to contend that Iraq was better off under Saddam than even a flawed Islamic republic? Does it make sense politically to tell Americans that more than 1,800 troops have died to make life worse for half of Iraq's population?

# posted by John O @ 2:50 PM |

"If you really want to enjoy sports, do what I did. Become a Harlem Globetrotters fan. There's no losing, no stats, no strikes, no contract hassles, no postseason, and no annoying media. Just winning every night. "

George Carlin - Braindroppings

DIEGO: I choose to suffer, GO WHITE SOX!!!!

# posted by Bill O @ 11:26 AM |

TCR,

You (Large distance) The point

You really should listen to Rush more often if you are a conservative. I don't think you are a conservative because you look to Media Matters and repeat their analysis without question. Both you and MM don't get that a lot of what Rush says is done to be humorous. He calls it using obsurdity to illustrate the obsurd. It is meant to be funny and it is to conservatives.

Of course, your average liberal/person-who-posts-comments-on-your-blog does not think it is funny. I would be surprised if they did since their beliefs are the object of ridicule. Ridicule. That is a new tool that the right has been using since the beginning of its ascendency and it has liberals hopping mad. No one likes their icons or convictions held up to all and made fun of. That is why so many liberals hate Rush. Take Rachel Corrie for example. To a conservative she was a young, useful idiot who did not have the sense to stay out of the way of a bulldozer. She was given a Fiskie by LGF in 2003 making her the 'idiotarian of the year'. She is affectionately known as St Pancake. I find this characterization hilarious but if I mention it to a committed liberal they have a fit.

Anyway, TCR you are not a conservative. I suspect you are faking it in order to build up a readership for your blog. Good job, it has worked. A lot of liberals want to believe that they can convert conservatives to their side even as they have been steadily losing political power for over a decade. Keep up the good work you sly dog.

# posted by Bill C @ 11:02 AM |

I also wish,” he continues, “I desperately wish, that I had been president when the FBI and CIA finally confirmed, officially, that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Then we could have launched an attack on Afghanistan early. I don’t know if it would have prevented 9/11, but it certainly would have complicated it...I always thought that bin Laden was a bigger threat than the Bush administration did.

State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam "well beyond the Middle East," but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show.
Skip to next paragraph

In what would prove a prescient warning, the State Department intelligence analysts said in a top-secret assessment on Mr. bin Laden that summer that "his prolonged stay in Afghanistan - where hundreds of 'Arab mujahedeen' receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate - could prove more dangerous to U.S. interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum," in Sudan.

The declassified documents, obtained by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and provided to The New York Times, shed light on a murky and controversial chapter in Mr. bin Laden's history: his relocation from Sudan to Afghanistan as the Clinton administration was striving to understand the threat he posed and explore ways of confronting him. -------------------------------------------------The newly declassified documents do not directly address the question of whether Sudan ever offered to turn over Mr. bin Laden. But the documents go well beyond previous news and historical accounts in detailing the Clinton administration's active monitoring of Mr. bin Laden's movements and the realization that his move to Afghanistan could make him an even greater national security threat.

Several former senior officials in the Clinton administration did not return phone calls this week seeking comment on the newly declassified documents.

That’s laughable to an extent, but very sad that Clinton would say such a thing. The 9/11 Commission report details four chances in which Clinton had the chance to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden, but pulled out at the last moment. Author Richard Minter of Losing Bin Laden details twelve (12!) chances Clinton missed the mark.

This isn’t just playing Monday morning quarterback, this is outright revising history and trying to minimize his ineffectiveness to kill or capture Bin Laden. It is true that up until 1995 or 1996 no one thought of Bin Laden as anything more than a financier, but they quickly learned who he was and still shied away from attemps due to legal issues and not wanting to support Afghan tribes to find and capture him because there might be innocents who died. Well, over 20,000 people have died as a result.

Clinton's insistence on "proof" refers to a legal certainty that demonstrates his continuing fecklessness on the war that Islamists had declared on the West years earlier. In fact, he already had "proof" that al-Qaeda and bin Laden had masterminded earlier attacks on US interests, especially the twin Embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. One reason that the FBI knew of Khallad was because they had established Khallad as one of the terrorists who helped plan and execute those attacks.

Besides, take a second look at the wording used by the consummate lawyer in his assertion to Jennifer Senior. He would have "launched an attack". That is what he did after the embassy bombings; in the words of his successor, Clinton launched a two-million dollar missile at a ten-dollar tent and hit a camel in the butt. Did it disrupt anything else that al-Qaeda had planned? Not at all.

The long record of gross ineffectiveness based on the faulty premise that terrorism required indictments and civil trials created the Clinton legacy on al-Qaeda, not a lack of opportunities. Clinton's whine about "proof" demonstrates that very clearly. He had all the "proof" he needed to order military action in November 2000 to retaliate against bin Laden and the Taliban for sheltering him and chose not to do so. His attempt now to recast himself as a terrorism hawk who had the misfortune of bad timing makes him even more pathetic than ever.

This has been a very interesting couple of weeks, culminating in what amounts to a docu-dump today. Lt Col Shaffer is now front and center risking his career on this story, and Rep. Weldon has been hinting that more officers may come forward to shed yet more light on Able Danger. We've had the State Dept's 1996 warning about al Qaeda come out on the same day that Mary Jo White's second Gorelick Wall memo surfaced, both of which point at the various reasons al Qaeda survived the 1990s with sufficient strength to attack us on 9-11. Those reasons turn out to be, unsurprisingly, that the Clinton administration created an atmosphere of legalese that hindered the prosecution of what should have been a war all along, and that the chief architect of that atmosphere was none other than 9-11 commissioner Jamie Gorelick. Foolishly violent prosecution at Waco and its fallout seem to have played their role in all of this too--the Pentagon's posse comitatus fears seem to have had more to do with Waco hangover than the Wall. And in the midst of all of this, we had Clinton's incredible statement that he wished the Cole bombers would have been identified on his watch so he could have had the satisfaction of striking at bin Laden himself. As though it wasn't obvious from the get-go that the Cole was an al Qaeda operation...? As though Clinton hadn't already bombed that factory in Sudan on much flimsier reasoning...? As though Clinton himself hadn't declared war on al Qaeda long before he even left office, only to do next to nothing about the actual problem...? Clinton's latest lie doesn't pass the laugh test. He's losing his touch.

Clinton knows his legacy is going up in flames. The rest of his former administration are running for cover--where have Sandy Berger and Jamie Gorelick been lately, anyway? Shouldn't they be talking to some sympathetic reporter by now, if only to defend their reputations?

# posted by John O @ 12:16 AM |

None of these revelations matter because virtually no Western politician can ever use force again to prevent a regime, even one openly dedicated to terrorism, from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The subject is verboten because the Left has declared it so. Unless something radically changes, it is only logical to prepare for the consequences of this head-in-the-sand policy, a possible catastrophe beside which September 11 will diminish into insignificance. Perhaps this event is already inevitable and those future victims beyond saving. But even so, it is important to begin the work of opening our eyes now, so that we might avoid the blindness which took the world of the 1930s and the 1990s over a cliff. Some mental disease in Western culture has allowed it to stand idly by while evil grew to monstrous proportions around and within it; an infirmity dignified with the name of pacifism. Perhaps it has already killed some of us reading this post; and the least we can do, if our final moments come, is to realize why we died.

Pacifism. Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security. Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be “objectively pro-British”.’ But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom’ station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

# posted by John O @ 11:24 PM |

Those who believe in the adage 'when it rains, it pours' might take the tale of the plaintiffs in Kelo v. New London as a cue to buy two of every animal and a load of wood from Home Depot. The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city's original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit and owe back rent. It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation.

In some cases, their debt could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Moreover, the homeowners are being offered buyouts based on the market rate as it was in 2000.

# posted by John O @ 3:11 PM |

Thousands of young men and women from leftist groups participating in the world youth festival cheered when the judge on Sunday read the verdict ending the two-day trial: “Condemned, for crimes against humanity.”

“We declare President George W. Bush in particular as guilty, of being directly responsible for the crimes,” said Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel as he continued to read the verdict.

The mock trial was part of the festival, hosted by Venezuela and held under the slogan “Against Imperialism and War.” Events included debates and forums on issues ranging from proposals for wiping out poverty to aiding alternative media to opposing US imperialism worldwide.

# posted by John O @ 4:37 PM |

The fact is that by subscribing to Bush's War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq with every corpuscle of your tired body you've made common cause with Republican conservatives, neoconservatives, and Christian fundamentalists who are dedicated to destroying those parcels of liberalism on which you stake your tiny claims of pride. When you align yourself with the likes of Hugh Hewitt, author of that polemical gem of understatement If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It, or Michael Ledeen, you've allied yourselves to political gangsters dedicated to waging permanent war abroad and cultural war here.

The fact is that by opposing Bush's War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq with every corpuscle of your tired body you have made common cause with Ba'athists, bin Laden, Zarqawi, and Taliban fundamentalists who are truly dedicated to destroying those parcels of liberalism on which you stake your tiny claims of pride. When you align yourself with the likes of Saddam Hussein, author of perhaps 2 million murders, or Mullah Omar, you’ve allied yourself to real political gangsters dedicated to waging permanent war abroad and terrorist war here.

# posted by John O @ 1:41 AM |

Clearly the Commission has little credibility left. Five days ago, no one could remember the July 2004 briefing, and the Commission only admitted to it when pressed by the New York Times. Four days later, they have a prepared rebuttal with everything but pictures showing how they gave the allegations serious consideration but ultimately rejected it. Why? As I posted yesterday, the naval officer did not have any documentation with him -- which would, incidentally, have landed him in Leavenworth for life -- and the time frame didn't match up with the Commission's understanding of when Atta entered the US.

Color me unimpressed. If the Commission had this level of understanding about Able Danger and the July 2004 briefing, why did it deny knowledge of the program and the subsequent briefing that named Atta? The statement itself shows the absurdity of taking Hamilton, Kean, and the Commission at face value.

In those horrific weeks after the attacks, the official story line was that U.S. counterterror officials had no idea who Atta was before that murderous plot unfolded - or where he was before 9/11. Only after the attacks could authorities track Atta's movements.

Now that story seems to be false.

Federal officials confirmed last week that a year before the attacks, a top-secret military intelligence team was following Atta and three suspected terrorists who turned out to be hijackers. The intelligence operatives tried to sound an alarm but were rebuffed by government lawyers who feared possible legal complications of using military spying techniques to keep tabs on foreign visitors in the United States with legal visas even though they might be terrorists.

A former member of the military intelligence team told me in an interview that it had enough data to raise suspicions. "But we were blocked from passing it to the FBI."

The connect-the-dots tracking by the team was so good that it even knew Atta conducted meetings with the three future hijackers. One of those meetings took place at the Wayne Inn. That's how close all this was - to us and to being solved, if only the information had been passed up the line to FBI agents or even to local cops.---------------------On the phone last week, the former Able Team member I interviewed told a depressing story of that (CIA-FBI) cooperation that never took place.

His story, he says, tells us just how close U.S. officials could have come to breaking up the 9/11 plot before it unfolded. But there was one problem: The U.S. government did not want to hear what this sleuth and his 10 teammates had to say - before and even after the 9/11 plot.

By mid-2000, the Able Danger team knew it had important information about a possible terrorist plot. Because of a peculiar series of computer links that went through Brooklyn, the team began referring to the four future hijackers as the "Brooklyn cell." Their movements and communications were raising too many suspicions.

The Able Danger sleuth, whose interview with me was arranged by the staff of Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., asked that his name not be revealed so he could maintain his top-secret counter-terror role. He emerged from the shadows of spying and intelligence analysis last week because he wanted to set the record straight.

One of his targets is the 9/11 commission. The commission's staff, he says, ignored him when he approached them on two occasions to spell out Able Danger's work.

Another target are Pentagon lawyers. The sleuth says he and other Able Danger team members became so concerned during the summer of 2000 that they asked their superiors in the Pentagon's special operations command for permission to approach the FBI. Their superiors approached Pentagon legal experts. Those experts turned down the request

In my previous post, I had stated that the accounts of Weldon’s guy and the 9/11 Commission were so different that this can’t be a simple misunderstanding – somebody’s lying. And an account with a lot of details (like the Commission’s Friday release) tends to seem more plausible than a vague one. Well, this account offers a lot of details. Anybody in North Jersey want to contact the Wayne Inn? They remember anybody who looked like Atta staying a year? Do they still have their pre-2001 guest records?

If the Commission's response had its virtue in its details, then Kelly's scoop in the Bergen Record matches it. The obvious conclusion -- someone is lying, either the Commission or the intelligence source for Kelly and Weldon, or possibly everyone. The Commission and Weldon appear to have enough problems with credibility, especially the former after the denials and evasions they released all week long. Congress has to step in and find out what really happened with Able Danger.

As a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, Gorelick wrote the infamous order creating a "wall of separation" that precluded intelligence on terrorists from being shared with law-enforcement agencies — the very "wall" that kept Able Danger from passing along the information it had uncovered on Mohammed Atta.

As The Post's Deborah Orin reported Friday, then-U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White — who headed up key terrorism prosecutions, like the first WTC bombing — blasted Gorelick's order in blistering memos at the time.

But the memos, like the Able Danger information itself, were not included in the Kean Commission's final report.

When Gorelick's order first came to light, and critics demanded she quit the commission and instead appear as a witness under oath, Kean bristled.

"People ought to stay out of our business," Kean huffed.

Now, sadly, Americans are learning the price of not having held the commission's feet to the fire.

Kean and his fellow commissioners have been barnstorming the country, arrogantly demanding more information from the White House, even though they've concluded their work and the commission has officially disbanded.

Before Kean & Co. start making demands on the White House for information, it's time they started providing some of their own information to the people they were meant to serve.

Military intelligence guy says there were 11 guys who worked on Able Danger. And he’s specific about what they found – they identified four names that ended up becoming hijackers.

Okay, eleven guys. Step forward. Show us your notes from that era. Folks in authority, declassify what you need to in order to protect sources and methods. Somebody show us something to indicate this isn’t just one guy spouting off a wild “see-I-told-you-so-but-no-one-listened” story and a congressman seeking to sell his book.

If Weldon and military intelligence guys are right, then somewhere in a secure vault in the Pentagon is the evidence to back this up.

Evidently, as Jim reports, it was well known that two of the hijackers lived in the Wayne N.J. motel. But see, if that were true, it would also be well-known that Atta had lived there, since this information was gleaned right in the aftermath of 9/11. That fact would not have just emerged yesterday -- or in a single-day story in the Bergen Record in 2003 in which a local police chief alleged without providing proof that Atta had lived in the motel. We would have known more about this before yesterday.

Theory: the source of the story about Atta being in Wayne NJ is Weldon's original source (we know the reporter for the Bergen Record was introduced to his source by Weldon's office). He may have done a little data mining on his own and found the Bergen Record story from 2003. And now everything he and we know about the hijackers is getting thrown into the mix like a big salad to "prove" something that, unless some actual paper turns up, is unprovable and not entirely believable

# posted by John O @ 11:43 PM |

Q: You mentioned Iran and I wonder, Mr. President, how imminently is the Iranian threat? There was a release lately of the U.S. intelligence that they won't have any capability in the next 10 years. Is this your latest information, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: My latest information is that the Iranians refuse to comply with the demands of the free world, which is: do not in any way, shape or form have a program that could yield to a nuclear weapon. And the United States and Israel are united in our objective to make sure that Iran does not have a weapon. And in this particular instance, the EU 3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- have taken the lead, been helping to send the message, a unified message to the Iranians.

Look, in all these instances we want diplomacy to work. And so we're working feverishly on the diplomatic route. And, you know, we'll see if we're successful or not. As you know, I'm --

Q: And if not?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, all options are on the table.

Q: Including use of force?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, as I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any President. You know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country. It's a difficult -- it's difficult for the Commander-in-Chief to put kids in harm's way. Nevertheless, I have been willing to do so as a last resort in order to secure the country and to provide the opportunity for people to live in free societies.

But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, one of the most prominent European opponents of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, told an election rally on Saturday the threat of force was not acceptable.

In what appeared to be a reference to Bush's remarks that "all options are on the table", Schroeder told the crowd in his home city of Hanover:

" ... let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work."

In comments that will infuriate EU diplomats, (Iranian Nuclear Affairs Negotiator) Hosein Musavian said that Teheran took advantage of the nine months of talks, which collapsed last week, to finish work at its Isfahan enrichment facility.

'Thanks to the negotiations with Europe we gained another year in which we completed the [project] in Isfahan,' he told an Iranian television interviewer.

Mr Musavian also claimed that work on nuclear centrifuges at a plant at Natanz, which was kept secret until Iran's exiled opposition revealed its existence in 2002, progressed during the negotiations. ----------------------"The IAEA give us a 50-day extension to suspend the enrichment and all related activities," he said. "But thanks to the negotiations with Europe we gained another year, in which we completed the [project] in Isfahan."

The plant, about 250 miles south of Teheran, carries out an early stage of the cycle for developing nuclear fuel, turning yellowcake into UF4 and then into UF6, a gas essential to enrichment.

"Today, we are in a position of power," Mr Musavian said. "Isfahan is complete and has a stockpile of products." Mr Musavian also said that Iran had further benefited from sweeteners offered by the EU, including the invitation to enter talks on Iran joining the World Trade Organisation.

At Isfahan, natural uranium (yellowcake) is turned into a gas that can then be spun in centrifuge machines to produce more usable uranium. So far, Tehran has not restarted work on the most sensitive part of the nuclear fuel cycle, uranium enrichment -- —a process that can be used to make either fuel for reactors or nuclear warheads. But it may be about to do so. On Wednesday, workers unsealed the section of the Isfahan plant where the final conversion to create weapons-grade uranium is carried out, again under IAEA supervision. ----------------------Earlier this year, the Europeans persuaded America's president, George Bush, to support their incentives-based approach. He agreed that Iran could open talks on membership of the World Trade Organisation and import spare parts for its ageing fleet of civilian aircraft. But Tehran’s decision to back away from the process, coupled with recent political developments --— America criticised the election that brought Mr Ahmadinejad to power --— has complicated things. Iran seems determined to dust down its nuclear programme. And it is not clear that its government, having failed to take the carrots, would respond any more encouragingly to sticks.

# posted by John O @ 5:32 PM |

How a fictional show shot in La La Land could make anything about Iraq policy “obvious” is hard to fathom. But the series does tout its realism, as have some reviewers who’ve never gotten closer to Iraq than filling their gas tanks. Further, Bochco claims it’s politically neutral. Unfortunately, “Over There” puts reality in a body bag and is as unbiased as if scripted by a guy named Allen Queda.

...

In order to include women, two females from a transportation unit just happen to join the siege. In fact, they just happen to tag along for the rest of the series! Reality is sacrificed to the God of Diversity. Why didn’t Bochco also include a Klingon?

Qapla' Worf.

Update:

The thin man returns links to Brent Bozell's take on the entertainment industries attitude towards the middle class:

You can almost feel the hate coming out of Kohan against suburban neighborhoods: "They all look pretty, but they're built like crap. It's the same house over and over, all style, no substance. Everything in their world is mass-marketed. There, homes are full of condo furniture, which looks perfect at first, but it's just trash." Left unspoken: unlike my home.

Rightwingsparkle comments on FX's show selection.

Fumento's article is also on TechCentralstation. According to the comments section the show is getting mixed reviews at Fort Stewart. Article (Bugmenot required):

The FX network's new fictional war drama "Over There," about a squad of 3rd Infantry Division soldiers fighting the war in Iraq, may be entertaining television.

However, some in the 3rd ID - or married to soldiers serving in it - say the television show is an unrealistic and, at times, upsetting portrayal of a war that's already very real in their lives.

"In my opinion, as far as engaging in combat the way they do, it's a little unrealistic," said Sgt. David Cebolla, now stationed at Fort Stewart with the 3rd ID's rear detachment.

Cebolla knows a thing or two about being "over there."

His first deployment as a platoon sergeant with the 5th Squadron, 7th Cavalry during the 2003 invasion lasted seven months.

The way the show portrays a group of six new Army privates that head immediately into combat, alone and led by a sergeant they don't know, doesn't reflect reality, Cebolla said.

Most soldiers know the others in their unit because they've trained together for so long, he said. And squads regularly interact with larger units, a fact that seems missing in "Over There."

"It seems they portray them as a bunch of draftees that get sent straight to the front line. That wouldn't happen. They're going to go through some train-up phase before they go into that situation," he said.

Created by Steven Bochco of "L.A. Law" and "NYPD Blue" fame, "Over There" is the first TV war drama to be aired while combat is still taking place.

So far, it's been successful. The 4.1 million people who watched the first episode put it in the top-10 basic cable series debuts of all time.

Despite its edge, "the show doesn't proselytize," Bochco said. "It just presents you with the complex realities of being in a war and leaves you to ask yourself interesting questions: What's right? What's wrong? How does one reconcile personal beliefs with a sense of duty?"

Military personnel and their family, however, have been critical of the show on Internet message boards, including one on the show's Web site.

Erica Reynolds, whose husband, Sgt. 1st Class Sherman Reynolds of the 5th Squadron, 7th Calvary, is now in Iraq, has only seen part of an episode.

Scenes depicting a wife crying after discovering she's pregnant, and showing another wife cheating on her husband while he's in combat, unfairly portray military wives as weak, Reynolds said.

While the show depicts 3rd ID soldiers, and images of what is supposed to be Fort Stewart, the show's creators and writers have not actually visited the installation to do research, said Lt. Col. Robert Whetstone.

That bothers Reynolds.

"If they're going to use and abuse the 3rd ID patch, they need to come here and talk to some of the spouses," she said. "The actual drama is enough, they don't need to overplay it."

Made without the cooperation of the Pentagon, the show does employ a military adviser, former Marine Staff Sgt. Sean Bunch, himself a veteran of Iraq service.

Bunch not only put the actors through a week of "boot camp" before the show's pilot episode, but he continues to advise cast and crew on everything from the proper way to hold firearms to a soldier's likely emotional response.

# posted by Bill C @ 3:25 PM |