joyfulchristian

Supreme Court Justice Attacked

Well this ought to keep the tin foil hat crowd busy for a while:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court Justice David Souter suffered minor injuries when a group of young men assaulted him as he jogged on a city street, a court spokeswoman said Saturday.

The attack occurred about 9 p.m. Friday, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.

Supreme Court police took Souter, 64, to a Washington hospital, where he was examined and released about 1 a.m. Saturday, Arberg said. She did not detail his injuries except to say they were minor.

Souter was not robbed, Arberg said.

Fortunately Souter wasn't seriously hurt, but this is disturbing in the extreme. I'd never thought of this before, but do Justices get Secret Service protection? If they don't, why not?

I don't like Souter as a Justice, but the thought that one of the most powerful members of our government could be so easily attacked is worrisome to me, to say the least.

How awful

This is hard to even imagine:

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- As many as 3,000 people were killed or injured after two trains carrying fuel shipments collided and exploded in North Korea, Yonhap new agency reported. The U.S. offered to send humanitarian aid.

The isolationist communist country cut international telephone lines after the explosion to prevent the news from getting out, South Korea's Yonhap said, citing unidentified Chinese sources it didn't identify. There's been no mention of the disaster on North Korea's Central News Agency.

A cargo train carrying oil and liquid petroleum gas crashed into a second train at about 2 p.m. yesterday, Korean time, destroying the station at the city of Ryonchon, about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the Chinese border city of Dandong.

The collision occurred nine hours after a train carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Il home from talks with Chinese leaders in Beijing passed through Ryonchon, Yonhap said.

There are three things about this story. The first is that thousands of people have lost their lives. That is a great tragedy and while it's doubtful that very many people in North Korea are reading the internet, I want to express my condolences.

The second is that the North Korean government is apparently trying to pretend the whole thing didn't happen. They're also apparently ignoring offers for help. This is also tragic and who knows how many lives will be lost from this eyes closed approach.

Third, this explosion happened at a train station "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il had passed through shortly before. It's hard not to wonder if this "accident" was aimed at him.

Heavy heart

My former Congressman, Wes Watkins was involved in a traffic accident yesterday. Two people died and several were injured.

Two children are now orphans. Pray for that family.

Pray for Watkins too. I know him and he's a good friend of my boss. He's a good man and this has got to be tearing him up.

I've heard a more detailed account of the accident than has appeared in any news report I've seen and the wreck was a series of rather improbable collisions from what I've heard.

Well, this is sort of right

The UN Security Council won't be condeming Israel for killing the murderer:

March 25 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. vetoed a resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would have condemned Israel for killing Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, because the measure didn't denounce the Palestinian group's terrorist acts.

Algeria introduced the resolution on behalf of Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority after the council couldn't agree early this week on a less formal statement on Yassin's death. The U.S. veto allows the Arabs to call for action by the General Assembly of all 191 UN members, where no nation can cast a veto.

The U.S. vetoed the measure because ``it is silent about the terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas, because it does not reflect the realities of the conflict in the Middle East and will not further the goals of peace and security in the region,'' U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said.

I've got another reason for blocking the resolution. How about that there is absolutely nothing wrong with killing the man who has orchestrated the deaths of hundreds of civilians?

I also note that the UK abstained. Shame on them. So did Germany, but I don't actually have any expectations that Germany might occasionally do the right thing.

I wish I had something useful to say

Estimates of the attack in Spain are 190 dead.

Spain is a grief stricken nation tonight after its worst ever terror attack. Train station bombs in Madrid killed at least 190 people and injured more than 1300. Spain is blaming the attacks on Basque separatists, but now there`s a strong possibility of a link to Islamic militants.

One stunned onlooker said, "This is so savage you can`t even describe it." Up to 13 bombs devastated three train stations in Madrid during morning rush hour, killing men, women and children. Spanish officials quickly blamed ETA, a violent Basque separatist group that has long fought to breakaway from Spain, but late today, Spain`s interior minister said police found a van containing detonators and an Arabic language tape with verses from the Koran.

From the outset U.S. Intelligence officials said they do not think an al Qaeda link can be ruled out. King Juan Carlos called on Spaniards to stand united against what he called "Repugnant acts." President Bush quickly extended U.S. sympathies, "I appreciate so very much the Spanish government`s fight against terror, their resolute stand against terrorist organizations, like ETA."

ETA says they didn't do it. I strongly doubt something like this went down without their involvement, but there are signs that Islamic extremists may have been involved as well. If local separatists groups and jihadists are starting to work together, what does that mean? I'm afraid it means that we haven't seen the last of events like this.

I extend my condolences to the family. And more importantly, my prayers.

What's French for Passion?

Reuters is reporting ¹ that The Passion of the Christ is going to be distributed in France by Quinta Communications. I find it interesting that this story lists the reason it took so long to get a French company to sign on was squeamishness about violence. The reason I find this interesting is that I've seen previous stories (I don't remember where) that claimed, or at least heavily implied, that no French company had picked the film up because they were taking a principled stand against the supposed anti-semitism of the film.

Funny how large sums of money tend to change everyone's perception of principle for those in the entertainment industry. (Or am I being unfairly cynical?)

¹Am I the only one that finds "Reuters" and "reporting" to be an unusual combination? At least in the sense of the combination actually being accurate?

Grain of salt

I'm skeptical of this story:

NEW YORK -- Two-thirds of Americans polled last month said they support the idea of televising executions -- and 21 percent said they'd pay to watch Osama bin Laden put to death.

Eleven percent said they would pay to see Saddam Hussein executed.

The opinions on executions came in a poll taken by Harris Interactive for the Trio cable channel.

The bin Laden and Hussein numbers don't surprise me. However, the idea that 2/3 of Americans support TV executions is a bit hard to swallow. Yeah, it appeals to all my worst fears about the American people which makes it a little easier. However the story doesn't give the actual questions asked and the actual breakdown of answers. More to the point, it doesn't tell me if Trio, a cable channel I've never heard of, is one of those that is actually trying to get permission to televise the executions.

Let's see: Only a summary of the questions, no answer breakdown, almost no info about the polls sponsors. Yeah, I'm skeptical. Several years of reading stories about polls and comparing them to the actual polls has made me so.

This is interesting

The family of the Guardsman arrested yesterday for attempting to give information to al Qaeda has issued a statement:

"The family is stunned by the arrest and detention at Ft. Lewis of our son and husband, Specialist Ryan G. Anderson, by federal authorities. We have no intention of initiating a dialogue with the media to discuss the matter and ask that you respect our wishes to not be a part of any news story. We have been in contact with Ryan's appointed military counsel and will rely upon his office for all information regarding subsequent legal proceedings.

"As American citizens we will place our faith and trust in the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) to provide Ryan a fair trial before rendering any decision.

"We want to recognize the many friends who have called us to express their support of Ryan and our family. Our heartfelt thank you to each of you.

"Friends of Ryan can send cards or letters of support to our home address and they will be delivered to him at Ft. Lewis."

My first thought when reading this was, "That's odd. Don't these statements ususally contain a proffesion of the loved one's innocence?" Now I'm not implying that the family doesn't think he's innocent. I'm not even commenting on whether I think he did it. So far, there's not enough information to make an informed judgemen. I just thought that it was odd that they didn't say he didn't do it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

... OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never been a big Bond fan, but I'd be dissappointed if this happened.

I tend to agree

Representative Bill Janklow was sentenced to 100 days in jail for manslaughter. Some people aren't happy. I've got to agree. Although I don't think he received a light sentence as a result of favoritsm, I do think the sentence is too light. It's not just Janklow; lots of people who are convicted of manslaughter involving vehicles get pretty light sentences. It seems to be a fairly widespread problem.

Told you so

I'm not the only one either.

Reason not to join the International Criminal Court #1,237: Everything's a war crime.

Take a chill pill

That's Jack Rich's advice as he makes the case for Judge Pickering.

Not only

... was the Islamikaze in Israel today a mother, but she got as far as she did by faking an illness. She also managed to injure another Palestinian woman and caused an incident that forced hundreds of Palestinians to miss a day of work.

She doesn't even get 72 virgins out of the deal. The only possible motivation for this type of thing is pure, unadulterated hatred. How is it possible to hate that much.

Note to self

Boycott HP (Not that I use their stuff anyway.)

Then she went and spoiled it all by committing HP to putting digital rights management software in every one of its consumer devices, encrypting any recorded content stored on HP systems so that it can't be transferred to other computers or players, stopping people copying their old videos to DVD, and even making sure that HP home computers can't record broadcast television programmes.

(Via Kristin Hoppe)

Look, there's no question that digital technology poses all sorts of threats to intellectual property, but hardwiring our electronics in ways that prevent us from doing things we have a legal right to do (like recording TV shows for personal use) is not the answer.

Unfortunately, I don't know what the answer is. I do know that this is a problem that is not going away. We need new ways to think about intellectual property and new laws that protect the rights of the creators and distributors while still leaving room for fair use by consumers.

And we need them soon.

First, I want to say that this story is very sad:

NEW YORK — Adele Freedman's (search) darkest days were supposed to be behind her. At 39, she had survived cancer and was looking forward to better times with a man who had helped her get through the ordeal. Now, she is recovering from a broken leg while mourning her fiance after they were caught in last month's earthquake in Iran that killed 30,000 people.

"This is probably the hardest thing I've ever been through in my life. And I thought I'd already been through that," Freedman said before leaving a New York hospital.

Freedman, a partner at a California law firm, had become engaged to fellow American Tobb Dell'Oro (search), 41, a market research firm owner, while they were vacationing in Iran.

On Dec. 26, the hotel where they were staying turned to rubble. Dell'Oro was the only American killed in the 6.6-magnitude earthquake in the ancient town of Bam (search).

But, I don't understand something: They were vacationing in Iran? Why would you vacation in a totalitarian state if you had a choice?

I'm at a lost.

Periodically

... China appears to feel the need to remind us that it is an oppressive, totalitiarian state:

SHANGHAI - An editor whose newspaper broke the news of China's first new Sars case was detained and questioned by prosecutors, newspaper employees and a human rights centre said.

Mr Cheng Yizhong, editor-in-chief of Nanfang Dushi Bao, or Southern Metropolis News, yesterday declined to comment on his reported questioning, but appeared to indicate the issue may have been resolved.

[...]

Employees of the newspaper, which is part of the state-owned Nanfang Daily Press Group, said they interpreted Mr Cheng's detention as a signal the daily had exceeded the tight boundaries of press freedom and offended provincial officials.

The Southern Metropolis News embarrassed the communist government by reporting that a man in Guangzhou was suspected of having Sars on Dec 26 - a day before the authorities informed the World Health Organisation of the case.

Tell truth. Get harrassed. Of course, I'm sure there are people who will explain to me that this is all John Ashcroft's fault.

I'm shocked!

OK, not really.

Probably not before the election though

John Snow wants to make the tax cuts permanent:

"The goal now is to make the recent tax cuts permanent across the board. That will be at the center of what this administration will be doing on the fiscal policy front for the coming year. Let me be crystal clear on this. We are committed to making these cuts permanent and the failure to make them permanent would be a huge mistake,"Treasury Secretary John Snow told the U.S Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., on January 7. "If the markets ever perceive that these cuts will not be made permanent, we could risk jeopardizing this strong recovery," added Snow.

If the Republicans can epand their majority in the Senate, this has a shot of passing next year, otherwise I'm not holding my breath.

In other tax news:

The IRS has announced that it is implementing a plan to improve management by making changes designed to create operational efficiencies that should enable it to add more enforcement positions in 2005. The changes consist of closing Memphis tax return processing operations effective in October 2005; consolidating back-office processing for exam, collection and insolvency cases to four locations beginning in 2005; and reducing overhead in internal support functions starting in 2005. These initiatives will not reduce the number of IRS employees who deal directly with taxpayers or decrease the number of office locations where taxpayers can interact with IRS personnel.

While some IRS employees may have to be involuntarily separated, the Service plans to take mitigating action to minimize the impact on the affected employees. According to IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson, "These changes reflect our ongoing effort to manage the agency efficiently and effectively for the nation's taxpayers." He added, "By tightening operations, we can devote more people to front-line positions and strengthen tax enforcement activities. At the same time, service to taxpayers will not be reduced."

That part about services not being reduced is hogwash. The Service has been in a constant state of reorganization, it seems, for years. Everytime they change something service gets worse. Our office has come to the conclusion that you can never count on any deal being final any more. We've had the IRS send clients bills demanding payment for penalties they agreed to abate 2-3 years ago. The entire IRS infrastructure seems to be collapsing and all the reorganization just seems to hasten the collapse. Another reorganization doesn't inspire my confidence.

No sense of irony whatsoever

Yasser Arafat, the man who walked away from peace talks in which the Palestinians were offered almost everything they'd ever asked for without so much as a counter offer, has this to say about Ariel Sharon:

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said on Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon does not want to make peace with the Palestinians.

"Sharon does not want peace. He only wants to continue building settlements and the racist separation security fence," Arafat told reporters as he planted small olive trees near his partially destroyed headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah[.]

It takes a lot of gumption for the single biggest obstacle to peace to accuse anyone else of not wanting peace. Of course, Arafat has never had any shortage of hutzpah, so there you are.

Malvo gets life

After being convicted, Malvo got only life in prison. As memory serves, there's still the possibility that he may be tried in 2 or 3 other jurisdictions. Other juries may not be so lenient.

And they want to give these people a country?

Number one rule of diplomacy: Don't let people attack other country's diplomats.

The Palestinians broke that rule, rather badly.

Ahmed Maher, Egypt's Foreign Minister, was attacked and beaten by a Palestinian mob yesterday as he prayed at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque during a diplomatic mission aimed at reviving the Middle East peace process. He was taken to hospital where he was recovering last night.

About 100 worshippers set on Mr Maher, who was ending an official visit to Israel, and started to beat him as he finished praying at the third-holiest shrine in Islam.

Some threw shoes, a traditional gesture of contempt, calling the minister a traitor and shouting: "Go back to Sharon! You are collaborators!" Sheikh Ziad Afameh, who commands the Al-Aqsa guards, told The Independent the Foreign Minister fell and lost consciousness.

Some witnesses said he was gasping for breath and was heard saying, "I'm going to choke, I'm going to choke" as the crowd engulfed him. Sheikh Afameh said: "We tried, but we couldn't reach him. The mob punched our guards too. One of them fainted."

I deserve a country more than the Palestinians do.

They've done worse

Time Magazine has named "The American Soldier" as their person of the year. Now of course, that would more accurately be people of the year, but I'm not going to quibble.

Besides, it's a whole lot better than when they thought about naming Osama bin Laden.

Update: Tim Blair has more.

Another blow

... to the freedoms of speech and association.

As I'm sure you've heard by now, the Supreme Court has upheld (mostly) McCain-Feingold.

I'm not going to rehash the problems with the law now. I'll just say that this is bad law and we're all a little less free.

The great awakening

Or something like that.

A new poll shows less than have of the citizens of EU countries support the body:

Less than half the population in the European Union's member states now support the EU project, according to polling results yesterday.

The latest Eurobarometer to be released this week found that just 48 per cent of EU citizens viewed membership as a "good thing", down from 54 per cent last spring.

Britain was by far the most negative state, with positive feelings tumbling to 28 per cent, but even the French were below half for the first time after months of battles with Brussels over tax cuts and illegal aid to ailing firms.

May common sense continue to grow on this matter. A large part of the support has always seemed to be over the euphoria the prospect of ending inter-european wars. In other words people seem to have been supporting the idea of a union more than the actual Union they've got. As time passes, it appears that the abuses of the EU are dispelling some of the euphoria.

At least that's how it looks from here.

EU constitution stalled

I wih I could say permanently. I found this part interesting:

Neutral EU nations Sweden, Ireland, Finland and Austria also have problems with the proposal for a mutual defense pledge, similar to NATO's, stating that if one EU member is attacked, the others were obliged to provide assistance.

In a joint letter, the four said the proposal "would be inconsistent with our security policy or with our constitutional requirements," and demanded requirements to provide "military or other" aid be dropped.

If this becomes a long-term sticking point, Europe may not be as close as it thinks.

What do you call someone

... who jumps from a bungee platform without a cord?

An idiot.

And in this case, incredibly, still alive.

That's nerve

20 years ago Argentina started a war with Great Britain by invading the Falkland Islands. Now they're mad about what type of weapons the British carried into battle:

BUENOS AIRES : Argentina said it wants fuller disclosure from the British government following London's admission that British warships had carried nuclear arms during the brief 1982 war between the two countries over a South Atlantic island chain.

Argentina said it was "very troubled" by the fact that Britain had deployed nuclear arms with its navy during the conflict over the Malvinas Islands, which Britain recognises as the Falkland Islands.

The diplomatic spat is threatening to renew long-simmering tensions over the islands' sovereignty.

Argentina made its demand one day after the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said ships sent to fight in the war had carried nuclear arms.

"We are very troubled by the admission that nuclear arms were brought into the conflict area. We are worried about what could have occurred, and want to know if any nuclear material is in the Argentine Sea (South Atlantic Ocean)," cabinet head Alberto Fernandez told radio Mitre on Saturday.

Now I can understand wanting to know whether any weapons were aboard ships that were sunk, but Argentina needs to tread very lightly here. They did start a war with a country that everyone knew had naval nuclear weapons. Complaining about the possible consequences of said country actually carrying around those weapons is pretty galling to me.

It's not, however, surprising. This type of blustering by smaller powers at larger ones seems to be more and more common.

This is radical

Britain is planing on shifting significant resources from military hardware to intelligence gathering:

Ministers are planning big cuts in military hardware in order to pour extra money into high technology intelligence operations. The plans are likely to provoke a bitter political war with service chiefs.

The Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, is convinced that the main threats to Britain come from terrorists and insurgents, who have to be attacked with pinpoint accuracy, rather than conventional armies.

Mr Hoon is due to publish his long awaited Defence White Paper on Thursday but the cuts will not be made explicit because he wants to minimise political reaction. They will, however, emerge over the next few months.

I haven't taken time to read the whole report, but this seems disturbing. Among other things, they appear to be considering severely curtailing next-generation fighter aircraft. If the British fighters are in similal condition to our own, this is a major sacrifice.

I suppose that it's possible that they'll be more effective if they're able to drasticallly improve intelligence, even if that costs military efficiency, but I doubt it. They'd be better off cutting some of they're socialist agenda and increasing spending on intelligence and the military.

Like that's going to happen.

I should have said bored or REALLY mad

This Drudge story has seriously disturbed me.

Active duty soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are upset over being forced take part in a military repatriation ceremony today for remains believed to be those of the non-military brother of presidential candidate Howard Dean, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

"His brother will receive full military honors...flag over the coffin and all!" fumes one soldier, who asked not to be named.

Governor Dean is set to visit to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and the repatriation of his brother to Hickam AFB, Hawaii.

The brother's remains were recovered in Laos by a JPAC recovery team this past month. JPAC's mission is to search, recover, and identify remains of US service members who were killed in previous wars.

During the Vietnam War, Dean's brother and an Australian friend treked into Laos as civilians -- and were captured by the Vietcong and killed.

JPAC was pressured to not only recover his brother's remains, but to bump Dean's recovery over numerous other MIA's who actually died fighting for their country, a well-placed military source tells the DRUDGE REPORT.

Read the rest. I can't express how mad this makes me.

Better judgement than Chirac

The nation of Nigeria has it's share of problems, not the least of which is a Sharia court that sentences women to death for being raped. But you've got to give credit where credit is due, so 3 cheers to Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo who refused to invite mass-murderer and Thief-in-chief Robert Mugabe to the latest Commonwealth summit.

Unfortunately not all world leaders are this enlightened when it comes to Mugabe. To bee fair, Chirac's not the only one to cuddle up with Mugabe, but he is the one whose done so most prominently.

Is Tony Blair starting to see the light?

Maybe.

Al Qaeda Inc. ?

So under this theory, was 9/11 a really bloody IPO?

BERLIN - Emerging details of last week's Istanbul suicide bombings support the idea that al Qaeda is becoming more of a terror "consultancy" and less of a direct actor, security analysts say.

[...]

"Al Qaeda has moved to a 'second generation' of structures and operational capability," said David Claridge, managing director of Janusian Security Risk Management in London.

"There clearly is some remaining (organisational) core, but that core is no longer involved in operations at the sharp end."

Some see it as an international terror "university" or consultancy; others liken it to a franchising operation, endorsing approved operations around the world with the cachet of its feared global "brand".

"The old, damaged military organisation of al Qaeda has undergone a transformation to terror sponsor. That means Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri (his deputy) and others are more active today in the sense of franchising terrorism," said Berndt Georg Thamm, a German writer on security issues.

[...]

"Al Qaeda has very successfully managed to create the conditions under which it can unleash these groups, either directly or indirectly," Claridge said.

"By committing the September 11 attacks, in particular, it significantly radicalised and demonstrated to a whole range of groups around the world that they can have impact if they shift their focus away from immediate domestic concerns towards international concerns."

Keep reading. I don't know how good a theory of al-Qaeda's operations this is, but it's sure worth thinking about.

You've got to be kidding!

That's probably the families reaction as well.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, convicted of detonating a Pan Am flight above Lockerbie Scotland, thereby killing 270 people, has been sentenced to 27 years in prison. As the families of some of the victims have pointed out, that's less than a month per victim.

The Lord Advocate has 28 days to decide if he wants to appeal the decision. This is a decision that cries for appeal.

Tony blair has more patience than I do

Toby Helm talks about some of the problems involved in hosting a French President:

Yet French presidents are made of less sentimental stuff. At a press conference amid the splendour of the Long Room at Lancaster House, M Chirac remained studiously, gloriously above it all.

[...]

M Chirac offered a lecture about how to be a good European. The key, he said, was to show respect to those who really mattered.

And they were the original founder members of the European Community - a team of six which includes France, but not Britain.

Despite this, it was not conceivable, M Chirac said, to imagine Europe moving forward without Britain. "It would be Europe that would be missing something," he said. It was just that Britain had to know its place.

Yeah, there's more.

I hope this good news

The US has recognized the new Georgian government.

Imminent and inevitable

That doesn't sound good.

Britain is preparing to dramatically step up it's anti-terror defenses in response to what appears to be rather disturbing intelligence:

MINISTERS are preparing to place the UK on ‘red alert’ in an unprecedented peacetime move that would see the streets of Britain flooded with armed police.

The plan to step up to the highest possible security state follows last week’s devastating terrorist attacks on British targets in Turkey and growing fears that a direct assault on the UK is inevitable.

The nationwide alert would result in tougher security checks across the country and give intelligence agencies and police emergency powers to increase surveillance, phone-tapping and the detention of terror suspects on the basis of intelligence reports.

Fears of "martyrdom operations" by terrorists against targets in Britain were heightened last night after it emerged that a possible poison attack in London was thwarted last year. A terror group attempted to buy half a tonne of toxic chemicals from a UK firm which was suspicious about the quantities needed and reported the matter to police.

It was also claimed last night that security services are hunting two al-Qaeda cells they believe are preparing to carry out "spectacular" terrorist attacks on Britain.

Up to 10 terrorists from north Africa and Saudi Arabia have reportedly mounted surveillance operations on vulnerable commercial targets such as big banks and shopping centres, and even made "dummy runs" to practise suicide car-bombings against the premises.

MI5 director-general Eliza Manningham-Buller was last night reported to have warned ministers of the potential for attack, and told senior MPs of the threat posed by al-Qaeda "sleepers" based in Britain.

[...]

Blunkett, who yesterday said he was "sick and tired" of people pretending there was not a threat from terrorists, has held talks with senior intelligence and security advisers about the likelihood of cranking up defences still further.

Britain’s top policeman, Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir John Stevens, has warned an attack in London is both imminent and inevitable.

This sounds very disturbing and I hope they're able to stop whatever appears to be in the works. Part of me is tempted to think that they're overreacting. On the other hand, as long as they don't keep these measures in place indefinitely, I'd rather them overreact than underreact.

Wow

The Independent seems to do it's best to spin this story against the President, but they just can't. If you want to really understand Bush's character, read this. (Link via Tacitus)

One more reason for my personal boycott of Chinese products

They seem to have a vendetta against native born Asians who have moved to the US. They've been detaining a lot of them. Here's another disturbing story:

09/11/2001 - Updated 07:59 AM ET Lawyer: Businessman held illegally in China hospital

BEIJING (AP) — A U.S.-based Chinese businessman has been held for almost five weeks in a hospital in violation of Chinese law, his American lawyer said Tuesday.

Liu Yaping, 46, was moved from jail to a hospital Aug. 7 during a U.S. Senate delegation's visit to Beijing, said lawyer Jerome Cohen. Liu, a permanent U.S. resident, is being held in the northern city of Hohot in the Inner Mongolia region.

Liu is guarded around the clock and barred from making phone calls, though he was released under a form of supervision that was supposed to let him move freely within the city, said Cohen.

Cohen, a New York University law professor and expert on Chinese law, has advised the families of several Chinese-born U.S. citizens and permanent residents detained recently in China.

Liu has a life-threatening brain aneurysm but has been refused treatment even though his family is being charged $25 a day for his hospital stay, Cohen said.

Liu was first detained in March, reportedly on charges of tax evasion and fraud. His lawyers say he is innocent and is a victim of a local power struggle in Hohot.

"Every day the authorities tell him that some leader will be back to handle his case and that something good will happen," Cohen said by telephone from New York. "It's a blatant violation of Chinese criminal law."

Read the rest; it ain't pretty.

Random thought

It occurs to me that the opposition in Georgia seems to be managing the news pretty well. (I don't mean that in an authoritarian way.) That may be why the government is trying to shut down the media.

Ugh!

A police officer pulls a man over for driving the wrong way and finds the guy is nude from the waist down. And that's just the beginning:

After pulling the man over, Sgt. Don Woods discovered the man was naked from the waist down as he downloaded images on a laptop computer of a young girl involved in a sex act with an adult.

Investigation showed the man had hooked into a wireless computer network at a nearby house to gain access to a resident's Internet connection and download images from child pornography websites.

The scheme, known as "war driving," allows a computer with wireless Internet capability to tap into a wireless home network and access the World Wide Web, usually without fear of discovery.

"We have never laid a (war driving-related) charge before," Det.-Sgt. Paul Gillespie said yesterday.

"And I'm not aware of any similar charges being laid in Canada," Gillespie said.

[...]

Walter Nowakowski, 36, of Delhi, is charged with possession of child pornography, accessing child pornography, distributing child pornography, making child pornography and theft of telecommunications.

Police who searched Nowakowski's home say they, "have been exposed to some of the worst child pornography they've ever seen. "

So a simple traffic stop ends up netting a guy whose committed acts of public leqdness, internet piracy, and engages in child pornography. This is part of why I couldn't be a cop. I don't think I could take this kind of stuff.

Getting even uglier

The Georgian government is now apparently in the process of shutting down TV stations.

Print Email Last Update: Sunday, November 23, 2003. 7:49am (AEDT) Georgia's Govt TV channel off air: report Georgia's Government controlled television station has gone off the air and an opposition station said the authorities were trying to shut it down.

"We don't know what's going on. We just went off the air," a worker at the Government channel told AFP.

Meanwhile, the country's most popular station, Rustavi-2, which has backed opposition protest against President Eduard Shevardnadze, said on air that armed men were heading towards its headquarters to turn it off.

Yeah, this ain't good.

A protest examined

David Frum has some interesting observations from yesterday's protest in London. This was probably the most disturbing:

The organizers of the protest installed a mobile jumbotron at the front of the square. On it, images of the speakers were interspersed with herky-jerky art-school style film clips. Just before the toppling of the effigy – and in order to work up the crowd into a more frenzied mood of rage and hate – the jumbotron broadcast images of George Bush, stepping out of his limousine into Buckingham Palace and standing at attention at the welcome ceremony. Now here’s the interesting thing: Whenever Bush appeared, there appeared superimposed upon him crosshairs – like those of a sniper’s rifle. I wonder what the organizers meant by that?

Yeah, I wonder.

Arrests made in Turkey

I thought this was worth mentioning:

Istanbul — Turkish investigators arrested an undisclosed number of suspects Friday in the deadly suicide bombings on the British consulate and a London-based bank that have been blamed on al-Qaeda. Foreign governments, meanwhile, warned more terrorist attacks could target Turkey.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul confirmed the arrests in Thursday's bombing but declined to give details.

“Some people have been arrested, but its too early to give information about them,” he told a news conference.

The daily newspaper Hurriyet said police were interrogating seven people in connection with the attack, which killed 27 people in Turkey's worst-ever terrorist bombing and stood as the highest single-day death toll from terrorism in Turkey since 1977, when gunmen opened fire on leftists and killed 37.

The paper also said police believe they had identified the suicide bombers as two Turkish men with links to the perpetrators of an attack five days earlier at two Istanbul synagogues that killed 23 people.

If the second set of bombers had known ties to the first set, this may be an indication that al Qaeda was forced to use members of the same cells for both attacks. (An indication that they don't have many cells operating effectively in Turkey.) The Turkish police appear to have responeded to this by rounding up the known associates of the second set of bombers. That action may well save a lot of lives.

If we don't see more attacks in Turkey in the next week or so, that would probably be a good indication that al Qaeda doesn't have as many resources in country as the recent bombinbs might suggest. Either that or they just have no since of operational continuity. After all, they should have had follow up attacks planned after 9/11, but they didn't.

Good for them

While driving to work this morning, I heard something that made me happy. Apparently a bunch of "concerned citizens" tried to get the Stillwater, OK city commission to consider passing an ordinance calling for the repeal of the PATRIOT act. The quotes from commssioners that I heard were basically, "Look, we understand you're concerned, but even if we did pass such an ordinance, what difference would it make." One of the commissioners basically told the "concerned ones" that if they wanted the PATRIOT act repealed, they needed to talk to their Congressman. Exactly the right response.

Tragedy

The bombings in Turkey today claimed the life of a diplomat:

A senior British diplomat in Turkey is among the 27 killed in Thursday's bombings in Istanbul, the consulate's chaplain told several sources.

Consul-General Roger Short's body is believed still to be entombed in the rubble left by the attacks on British interests in the Turkish capital, twin bomb blasts that hit the consulate and the HSBC bank headquarters.

Either 13 or 14 of the dead were at the consulate, not all of them British, according to various sources.

The Turkish Interior Minister, Abdulkadir Aksu, told reporters that 450 had been wounded in attacks carried out by "two pick-up trucks loaded with explosives".

"Those who carried out the attacks were torn apart themselves," Mr. Aksu added.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that some of the intelligence he had heard indicated that there could have been as many as five co-ordinated explosions in the two attacks. Although he acknowledged that it was too early to know who was responsible, Mr. Straw told reporters that the attacks were similar to earlier handiwork by al-Qaeda.

I'd like to think that these attacks will prompt some people to see how dangerous the Islamists are and how vital it is that we win, but I'm not holding my breath.

Stupidity

Via Josh Claybourn, I found this little gem:

DENVER - High school without seniors? Colorado lawmakers have asked education officials to study the possibility of eliminating the 12th grade and establishing a year of preschool instead. They said it would better prepare students for college by giving them an early start and possibly save money.

That seems pretty radical. Why would they want to do that?

"I'd really like to see if we might change the model," Republican state Sen. Ron Teck said Monday. "We've been operating under the same education model for the last 100 years."

I have no idea whether this is a good idea. I doubt it is, but that's not really relevant at the moment. What I want to talk about is the reason Sen. Teck gives for making the change; Basically he says that we've been doing things the same way for 100 years so it's time to change.

This is stupid. He's not the only one to say things like this, but it's still stupid. For some reason people have come to believe that newer is better. That's not always true. In fact, when it comes to processes (as opposed to products), I'm not even sure it's usually true. Something is not inherently better just because it is new.

Let me just say

... that China is delusional when it comes to Taiwan.

China has issued another strong warning that it is prepared to go to war, if necessary, to stop what it calls Taiwan's drive for independence. A senior Taiwan affairs official in Beijing, Vice Minister Wang Zaixi, said Wednesday that the communist government's main goal is to curb Taiwan's independence efforts. Mr. Wang said the use of force might be unavoidable if separatists on the island challenge Beijing's one-China policy. But he stressed that the government hopes to settle the question of Taiwan peacefully.

Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian has launched an aggressive re-election campaign based on the assertion that Taiwan and China are two sovereign countries. He also has vowed to push for a new constitution for the island in 2006.

In an interview earlier this year with the Washington Post, Mr. Chen called Beijing's one-China principle abnormal thinking that should be corrected. China condemned those remarks as proof of the Taiwanese leader's desire for independence.

OK, here's the deal: Taiwan already is independent. They have their own (non-communist) government, their own military, and their own economy. All of that is completely seperated from the Chinese government on the mainland.

Despite all that, China continues with it's absolutely ludicrous "one China" policy. "One China" is just a legal fiction that has nothing whatsoever to do with fact. Everyone continues to pretend "one China" is the truth for the simple reasons that a) the Chinese government has insisted repeatedly that if Taiwan actually "declared independence" that war would follow, and b) China's continued insistence on "one China" doesn't seem to be hurting Taiwan very much. Consequently, every one seems to think that the best course of action is to just let them have their fantasy.j

Of course it says a lot about the Chinese government that they'd be willing to go to war just because someone punctured their fantasy world.

John Muhammad

Guilty as charged. May many more convictions follow.

Not terribly surprising

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the car bombings in Turkey. They even give a reason: They say they were trying to kill Mossad agents. That doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about it; bombs are terribly efficient assasination devices. If you're trying to kill specific people the best option is going to be something a little more direct. However, if you're trying to scare people, demonstrate your ability to execute dramatic attacks, and there happen to be some people around that you wouldn't mind killing then bombs make more sense. I guess what I'm saying is that it's possible that the timing of the attacks may have been the result of al-Qaeda's belief there were Mossad agents present, but it wasn't the reason.

Kiltmakers rebel

Good for them:

European bureaucrats have been forced to rethink the idea that Scotland's national dress is "womenswear".

Officials have backed down over a decision to classify the kilt as a skirt on forms sent to manufacturing firms.

The statistical agency Eurostat, which is collating information from 15 states to examine business trends, sent questionnaires to garment producers that did not allow kiltmakers to register the national dress as menswear. Manufacturers were told to fill in how many kilts they had sold in the space provided for women's skirts, sparking condemnation from kiltmakers and politicians alike.

Just another example of Eurocratic cluelessness.