Friday, November 25, 2005

Arabs Ask Jews For Help

Arutz Sheva reports Arab leaders in Hevron have contacted the city’s Jewish leaders for help in getting rid of self-proclaimed anarchist volunteers who, they complain, are destroying their traditional way of life.

This is good news. It shows how Arabs and Jews can work together to the benefit of both.
The anarchists, many of whom are members of the International Solidarity Movement, flock to flashpoints throughout Judea and Samaria, ostensibly to help PA Arabs contend with IDF closures and protect them from harassment. In actuality, many of the volunteers seek confrontations with IDF soldiers and local Jewish residents, taking advantage of their Western passports to cause havoc – knowing that, at worst, they will be deported, not jailed.
Maybe a few of them should be thrown in jail fo r a few years, and then deported. It would not take too many before the news spread.
The local Arabs in the Hevron region whom the activists claim to be helping are now complaining that the American and European students behave in a provocative and offensive manner in Hevron’s public areas. The Arabs say the activists disrespect the moral norms and standards of the local population. Several local Arab residents told the Kol Ha’Ir newspaper that the activists have been exposing the local youths to drug use and sexual promiscuity.
Both the Arabs and the Jews have been living a certain way for a long time, and they resent these outsiders bring in too many of the vices of the west and exposing their people to them.
One interviewee told Kol Ha’Ir that the volunteers show a disregard for the religious norms of the local villages and teach the local youth to reject and disrespect the traditions of their forefathers. "These anarchists come here and undermine the education we give our children. At first we took them in with hospitality - after all, they claimed they wanted to help us, so why kick them out? But very quickly they infuriated me with their lewd behavior."
The Islamofascists make the same claims, that they don't like the lewd nature of western ways, and yet they fly planes into buildings in New York and Washington, and leave Hollywood untouched.
In a bid to rid the region of the anarchists, local Arab leaders approached representatives of the Jewish community in Hevron – a rare, but not unheard of occurrence – in order to find a solution. The two sides agreed to have Arabic-speaking Jewish observers along Hevron’s main thoroughfares to replace the anarchists in ensuring calm between the city’s Jewish and Arab populations. The left-wing activists would then be informed by the local Arab population that they appreciate their offer to help, but that they are no longer needed.

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Disaster Planning Firm

Yahoo! News reports Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, heavily criticized for his agency's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, is starting a disaster preparedness consulting firm to help clients avoid the sort of errors that cost him his job.

Good luck. But he should consider that New Orleans had a plan here, and the State of Louisiana had plans here and here. They just ignored them, and sat back expecting the Feds to provide everything, but let them control everything. He should show his clients what Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama did that Louisiana did not do, and how that meant that they did not have near as many problems as Louisiana,
"If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses — because that goes straight to the bottom line — then I hope I can help the country in some way," Brown told the Rocky Mountain News for its Thursday editions.

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Thursday, November 24, 2005

Bacterial photographs

Science Daily reports Using harmless genetically engineered E. coli bacteria instead of photo paper, students at UCSF and the University of Texas at Austin have created the first-ever living bacterial photographs. The photos were created by projecting light on "biological film" -- billions of genetically engineered E. coli growing in dishes of agar, a standard jello-like growth medium for bacteria.

This is interesting.
The work is published in this week’s issue of Nature (Nov. 24, 2005), devoted entirely to the emerging field of synthetic biology. The new field focuses on identifying genes that control key traits and then engineering microbes to activate the genes in novel combinations to create useful tools for medicine and technology. The students produced the innovative bacterial images and a bacterial camera as part of MIT's intercollegiate Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. The project won "best part" for the genetically engineered light receptor developed by UCSF graduate students working with Chris Voigt, PhD, assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF and a leader in synthetic biology.

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FBI warns of fake e-mail worm

Techworld reports The FBI has put out an official warning about a new variant of the Sober worm spreading through e-mails that purport to come from the US investigation agency.

The FBI never sends unsolicited emails to people
The FBI advised computer users that the agency never sends unsolicited e-mails and that they should not open the attachments, which contains Sober.x - a variant that has now be given a "high risk" rating by security experts Secunia. The scam e-mail tells recipients that their Internet use has been monitored by the FBI and that they have accessed illegal Web sites, according to the FBI.
The FBI may be monitoring people that access some terrorist websites, but they don't contact people about it.
The e-mails appear to come from e-mail addresses including mail@fbi.gov, post@fbi.gov and admin@fbi.gov, then direct recipients to open an attachment and answer questions. The text of the fake e-mail says: "We have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.
Most ISPs dynamically change your IP either each time you call (for dial up access) or once a day (for broadband access) so you can't run a server on your connection, so it takes a lot of work in their logs (it is possible, but difficult) to associate an IP address with a customer.
Important: Please answer our questions! The list of questions are attached." The messages then include a fake name of an FBI official and the real address and phone number of the agency. Catherine Milhoan, an FBI spokeswoman, said that recipients of the hoax e-mails began calling the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center yesterday to ask if they were legitimate. About 4,000 calls were received by last night, with some callers saying they had already clicked on the attachment. Others were cautious and wanted to check with the FBI before opening the attachment. An investigation into the incident is continuing.

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Priests Citing New Problem in Gay Policy

NYT reported A day after the disclosure of a new Vatican directive that deters most gay men from joining the priesthood, some priests say they are shocked by one easily overlooked clause. It says that spiritual directors and confessors in seminaries "have the duty to dissuade" any candidates "who show deep-seated homosexual tendencies" from joining the priesthood. These priests said this would turn the confessional and spiritual counseling sessions, which seminarians previously regarded as private and supportive meetings, into a tool for weeding gay men out of seminaries.

Perhaps, but it would help them weed out priests that might abuse young alterboys. And if it did that, it would be a good thing.
"The relationship between a seminarian and his confessor or his spiritual director should not be about enforcing church documents, but to serve as spiritual guides,"
It would still serve that purpose. It would help them guide these gay men to the door, and keep them from raping young boys in their role as priests.
said the Rev. Michael Herman, a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago who has recently publicly identified himself as gay in order to speak out against the Vatican's action.
Then he should be defrocked.
"They've gone so far as to say your confessor's and spiritual adviser's role is to talk you out of" becoming a priest, Father Herman said.
If you are a gay, engaged in homosexual sex, that is right.
His reaction to the document was echoed by other priests and Roman Catholic organizations, who said that the church's decree was discriminatory and hurtful to faithful chaste gay priests and would only exacerbate an already dire shortage of Catholic clergymen.

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Jose Padilla

NYT reported The Bush administration decided to charge Jose Padilla with less serious crimes because it was unwilling to allow testimony from two senior members of Al Qaeda who had been subjected to harsh questioning, current and former government officials said Wednesday.

I suspect it was really more a matter of not wanting to expose top secret information, including sources and methods, in open court, than the fact that senior members of Al Qaeda had been subjected to "harsh questioning". Were they placed in a burning building and given the choice of burning to death, or leaping out of the building, to die when they hit the concrete below? That was the choice given to the innocent workers in the Twin Towers on 9/11.
The two senior members were the main sources linking Mr. Padilla to a plot to bomb targets in the United States, the officials said. The Qaeda members were Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, a top recruiter, who gave their accounts to American questioners in 2002 and 2003. The two continue to be held in secret prisons by the Central Intelligence Agency, whose internal reviews have raised questions about their treatment and credibility, the officials said. One review, completed in spring 2004 by the C.I.A. inspector general, found that Mr. Mohammed had been subjected to excessive use of a technique involving near drowning in the first months after his capture
After seeing the picture of him, I suspect they were just giving him a very needed bath.
, American intelligence officials said. Another review, completed in April 2003 by American intelligence agencies shortly after Mr. Mohammed's capture, assessed the quality of his information from initial questioning as "Precious Truths, Surrounded by a Bodyguard of Lies."
I hope they gave him a few more baths to determine the difference.
Accusations about plots to set off a "dirty bomb" and use natural gas lines to bomb American apartment buildings had featured prominently in past administration statements about Mr. Padilla, an American who had been held in military custody for more than three years after his arrest in May 2002. But they were not mentioned in his criminal indictment on lesser charges of support to terrorism that were made public on Tuesday. The decision not to charge him criminally in connection with the more far-ranging bomb plots was prompted by the conclusion that Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Zubaydah could almost certainly not be used as witnesses, because that could expose classified information and could open up charges from defense lawyers that their earlier statements were a result of torture,
To heck with whether some bleeding heart lawyer could claim they were tortured; we did not want to expose classified information, and allow them to tell the world everything they told their interrogaters.
officials said.

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How a Town Became a Terror Hub

WaPo reported Maaseik, Belgium -- The phones at city hall began ringing nonstop one morning last year when several masked figures were spotted walking through the cobbled streets of this pastoral town. A small panic erupted when one of the figures, covered head to ankle in black fabric, appeared at a school and scared children to tears. It turned out the people were not hooded criminals, but six female residents of Maaseik who were displaying their Muslim piety by wearing burqas, garments that veiled their faces, including their eyes. After calm was restored, a displeased Mayor Jan Creemers summoned the women to his office. "I said, 'Ladies, you can be dressed all in Armani black for all I care, but please do not cover your faces,' " Creemers recalled. "I tried to talk to them about it, but it was impossible. They said, 'We are the only true believers of the Koran.' "

Then you should move to one of the many Arab countries where your dress is acceptable.
What the city elders did not know at the time was that the women came from households in which several men had embraced radical Islam and joined a terrorist network that was setting up sleeper cells across Europe, according to Belgian federal prosecutors and court documents from Italy, Spain and France.
These sleeper cells need to be uncovered and removed, unless Belgium wants to see attacks like Britain saw on 7/7.
Over the next nine months, Belgian federal police arrested five men in Maaseik, a town of 24,000 people tucked in the northeast corner of Belgium. Each was charged with membership in a terrorist organization, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a fast-growing network known by its French initials, GICM.

With each arrest, investigators uncovered fresh evidence that placed small-town Maaseik at the center of a terrorist network stretching across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The town had served as a haven for suspects in the Madrid train explosions that killed 191 people in March 2004, for instance, as well as an important meeting place for the GICM's European leadership. The Belgian investigation underscores the challenges that authorities in Europe face in tracking down sleeper cells and in sorting vaguely suspicious behavior from imminent danger. Police have made scores of arrests in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Stockholm and Amsterdam in the past two years to disrupt what were described as terrorist plots, although in many cases it remains unclear whether the threats were overstated or false alarms.
I would urge the Belgium authorities to consider the threat as real.
The problem has become more acute since the attacks in Madrid and the July 7 subway and bus bombings in London, with many intelligence officials predicting that Islamic radicals will inevitably strike again on the continent.

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UN condems Hizbullah

Jerusalem Post reported Following intense US pressure, the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday issued an unprecedented condemnation of Monday's Hizbullah attacks on northern Israel.

It's abpit to,e/
This condemnation - slamming Hizbullah by name for "acts of hatred" - marked the first time the Security Council has ever reprimanded Hizbullah for cross-border attacks on Israel. The condemnation followed by two days a failed attempt to get a condemnation issued on Monday, the day of the attack, when Algeria came out against any mention of Hizbullah in the statement. When asked what changed from Monday to Wednesday, one diplomatic official replied: "John Bolton," a reference to the US ambassador to the UN. Bolton lobbied vigorously for the passage of the statement.
Good for John Bolton. If the Senate still refuses to confirm him after the reconvene in 2006, Bush needs to do another recess appointment the first time the Senate is not in session.
The condemnation expressed "deep concern" over the attack, and called on Lebanon to exercise its sovereignty and authority in the south according to relevant Security Council resolutions. Security Council Resolution 1559, which led to the withdrawal earlier this year of Syrian troops from Lebanon, also calls for the dismantling of the militias in the country, as well as a call to the Lebanese government to extend its control over the entire country, including the Hizbullah dominated south. Israeli officials expressed satisfaction that the statement did not include any attempt to "balance it," referring to Israel's response to the Hizbullah attack, and that for the first time ever it placed full responsibility for the violence on Hizbullah's shoulders.

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Companies Ban 'Christmas

American Family Association reports that Several retailers have joined in the push to ban the use of "Christmas" in their in-store promotions and retail advertising. The new push to eliminate "Christmas" and replace it with "Happy Holidays," "Season's Greetings," etc. is gaining ground with several retailers participating.

Not wanting to offend a handful of complainers, these companies are willing to offend the vast majority who hold Christmas as a time to celebrate the birth of Christ. Their attitude is that those who identify themselves as Christians don't care if they eliminate "Christmas."

They are very wrong, and I do not want to do business with a company that feels that way. If they want to post Hanukkah signs on December 26-Jan 2, or Ramadan signs Oct. 5-Nov. 4 that is perfectly ok with me, but December 25 is the day that Christians celebrate the birth of Christ, and I would like to see nativity scenes in addition to Santa and the reindeer, and next year on April 16 I would like to see more than bunnies and eggs, I would like to see some indication that they know the true meaning of Easter.

Also today is Thanksgiving. It is a day we should be giving Thanks to God for all that He has given us. We are not giving thanks to the turkey, or to the one who provided the money that was used to buy the turkey, or the one who cooked the turkey, but to The One that created the turkey (although thanks to the latter two is appropriate as well)
While it is too late to make changes this year, we have already sent letters to several major retailers we have identified as participating in banning "Christmas," asking them to put Christmas back into their in-store promotions and retail advertising next year. We have sent letters to the chairmen of Target, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Kmart/Sears, Costco, Kohl's and Lowe's about their practice. (Lowe's even refuses to promote their trees as Christmas trees, but calls them "Holiday Trees." Their toll-free number is 1-800-445-6937.)

Please sign our petition letting these companies know that banning "Christmas" in their promotions and advertising next year will result in a loss of business. As we identify other companies participating in this practice, we will contact them.

We need your support to be effective. That is why we need your petition. Please help us get the word out by forwarding this to your friends and family. Many of them will want to participate. We will keep you informed on which companies make changes and which ones refuse.

Click this link to sign the petition now!

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Chinese hack attacks

CNET News reported Security experts have revealed details about a group of Chinese hackers who are suspected of launching intelligence-gathering attacks against the U.S. government.

The internet is a very good thing, but it can be used for bad things too. This is why it is so important that control of the root servers remain under the control of the US, and not taken over by the UN.
The hackers, believed to be based in the Chinese province of Guangdong, are thought to have stolen U.S. military secrets, including aviation specifications and flight-planning software. The U.S. government has coined the term "Titan Rain" to describe the hackers.
The author Tom Clancy is very in tune with the military; he also wrote a series Net Force, set in 2010 and charts the actions of Net Force: a federal agency set up to combat increasing crime on the internet. I think it is time to set up Net Force now (if it has not already been done).
"From the Redstone Arsenal, home to the Army Aviation and Missile Command, the attackers grabbed specs for the aviation mission-planning system for Army helicopters, as well as Falconview 3.2, the flight-planning software used by the Army and Air Force," Alan Paller, the director of the SANS Institute, said on Tuesday. The team is thought to consist of 20 hackers. Paller said that the Chinese government is the most likely recipient of the information they intercepted. "Of course, it's the government. Governments will pay anything for control of other governments' computers. All governments will pay anything. It's so much better than tapping a phone," Paller said at an event at the British Department of Trade and Industry.

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Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The Ultimate Guide to Google Services

TipMonkies posted an extremely complete list of Google Services, including some I was not aware of:

  • Google Analytics crawls your website and keeps track of your visitors through a small piece of Javascript. Great tool for webmasters trying to improve their stats and AdSense revenue.
  • Google Base looks like its going to be Google’s massive content library, with all sorts of content, uploadable by anyone. Oddly enough, it sounds like EPIC and Google Grid mentioned in this video. Many people are comparing this service to Craigslist.
  • Google Movie Showtimes lets you type in a zip code or address, and it will find movie theaters and showtimes near that area.
  • Google Ridefinder lets you easily find taxis in some of the major cities around the United States.
  • Google Scholar searches things such as theses, papers, and other research and technical information.
  • Google Send to Phone is a little Firefox extension which lets you send text messages to mobile phones via SMS.
  • Google Sitemap helps create particular searches for a web address which can be very useful for webmasters looking to index their own site, or see who is linking to it.
  • Google Video and Google Video Upload offer an archive of freely available video clips.

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Still Searching for a Strategy

Adam Liptak wrote in an opinion piece which pretends to be "News Analysis" in NYT Four years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the government has yet to settle on a consistent strategy for holding and punishing people it says are terrorists.

Actually they settled on a strategy right away. Bleeding heart liberals like the NYT have not liked that strategy (apparently the NYT has not seen the big hole in the ground where two big buildings used to be, prior to 9/11), so they have been pressing the government to be nicer to people who want to kill us.
Its efforts remain a work in progress, notable for false starts and a reluctance to have the executive branch's broadest claims tested in the courts. Last year, three Supreme Court decisions turned back the administration's boldest positions. Government lawyers do not seem eager to give the justices a vehicle for elaboration, at least not one that involves Jose Padilla, an American citizen captured on American soil.
Or perhaps they don't want to have to expose in open court the sources and methods by which they learn the terrorists plans.
Mr. Padilla's lawyers filed an appeal in the Supreme Court last month, asking a fundamental question: "Does the president have the power to seize American citizens in civilian settings on American soil and subject them to indefinite military detention without criminal charge or trial?" The administration says there is no need to answer that question just now. President Bush, in a directive signed on Sunday and made public yesterday, ordered the Defense Department, which had been holding Mr. Padilla as an "enemy combatant," to transfer him to the Justice Department "for the purpose of criminal proceedings against him." That move, the administration says, renders Mr. Padilla's appeal to the Supreme Court moot.
The Supreme Court has already accepted one case this month concerning the scope of the president's power to fight terror. That one involves whether he has the authority to try detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for terrorist offenses before military commissions there.
New York still has a lot of tall buildings. Does the NYT want some of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay to fly some planes into them as well? Would the editors at the NYT be willing to be on those planes?
The administration had vigorously urged the court not to hear the case.

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US pushes Bosnia leaders into deal after 10 years of ethnic divide

Guardian reported Bosnia's rival leaders agreed yesterday to the biggest shift towards centralising power in their partitioned country since the war ended 10 years ago. A pact reached in Washington under heavy American pressure aimed to overhaul the creaking constitutional machinery that ended the 42-month war in November 1995, but left the country partitioned and dysfunctional.

Good news. The Bush Administration is fixing the problem that Clinton created in Bosnia.
At ceremonies in Washington to mark a decade since the Dayton accords ending the war were sealed, leaders of parties representing Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, as well as leaders of non-ethnic parties, agreed "to streamline" parliament and the tripartite presidency and "embark on a process of constitutional reform" that will strengthen a national government. The ambitious US-authored scheme aims to turn Bosnia into a "normal" parliamentary democracy and reduce the role played by ethnic factors. The plan has been pushed by the US state department. Its progress is crucial to Bosnia's chances of entering the European mainstream. On Monday the EU launched Bosnia on the path of integration, but made plain that it needs to speed up reforms to become "a fully functioning and viable state" if ultimate accession to the EU is to succeed. Yesterday's agreement, if implemented, should also bring closer the end of the international mission in Bosnia.
How long did Clinton say those troops would have to be there? Wasn't it just one year? This shows how incompetent Democrats are at military matters.

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3 Brigades May Be Cut in Iraq Early in 2006

WaPo reports Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade "on call" in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said.

The operative words there are Barring any major surprises the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades. We are not going to stay any longer than the Iraqi government wants us to stay, but we are not going to abandon them and let the insurgents win, and turn Iraq into a bed of terrorism.
Pentagon authorities also have set a series of "decision points" during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a "moderately optimistic" scenario, would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000, including 10 combat brigades, by the end of the year, the officers said.... The current number of U.S. forces in Iraq represents an increase of more than 15,000 troops over a base level this year of about 138,000, including 17 combat brigades. The equivalent of another brigade's worth of combat power was added this fall to bolster security for the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum and the coming Dec. 15 vote on a new national government. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld spoke over the weekend of plans to bring the force level back down to 138,000 after the elections, effectively removing the extra brigade equivalent added for the election period.
That makes sense. Cutting and running like the Dems want, does not make sense.
In addition, officers said, two combat brigades that had been slated to move into Iraq to replace units coming out are now expected to be held back. One of those units -- a brigade of the 1st Armored Division based in Germany -- will probably be positioned in Kuwait. The other unit -- a brigade of the 1st Infantry Division -- will probably remain at its home base of Fort Riley, Kan., the officers said. The plan to keep at least one brigade in Kuwait represents what one senior officer called a "hybrid option." It is intended to hedge against events in Iraq deteriorating once U.S. force levels begin to drop, the officer said, adding that the Pentagon probably will place troops on alert elsewhere as well.

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Texas sues Sony BMG for spyware violations

Yahoo! News reported Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a civil lawsuit on Monday against Sony BMG Music Entertainment (6758.T) for hiding "spyware" software on its compact discs in a bid to thwart music copying. According to the lawsuit filed in Travis County, several of the company's music compact discs require customers to download Sony's media players if they want to listen to the CDs on a computer. Software included with that media player "remains hidden and active" after installation, the Attorney General's office said, and makes users vulnerable to security risks and possible identity theft.

Users should be able to use any Media Player they want.
Sony said on its Web site that it had recalled all CDs that were installed with its XCP technology designed to prevent illegal music copying, Abbott said, but Texas investigators were able to purchase several of the CDs at Austin retailers on Sunday. Texas is seeking civil penalties of $100,000 per violation of the state's Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act, which was enacted earlier this year. "Sony has engaged in a technological version of cloak and dagger deceit against consumers by hiding secret files on their computers," Abbott said. Sony announced on Friday that customers could exchange CDs that contained XCP software for new copies without the spyware, and download software designed to fix the security vulnerabilities.
Since they are willing to let you exchange to get CDs that don't contain it, and let you download software to disable the XCP software, it appears they are admitting it is spyware.

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Iraq's a lost cause? Ask the real experts

Max Boot wrote in Los Angeles Times When it comes to the future of Iraq, there is a deep disconnect between those who have firsthand knowledge of the situation — Iraqis and U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq — and those whose impressions are shaped by doomsday press coverage and the imperatives of domestic politics.

And who are being influenced by the false reports printed by the Left Wing Main Stream Media (MSM).
A large majority of the American public is convinced that the liberation of Iraq was a mistake, while a smaller but growing number thinks that we are losing and that we need to pull out soon.
They are getting more strident in those claims, because they realize we are so close to victory, and they desperately want us to fail.
Those sentiments are echoed by finger-in-the-wind politicians, including many — such as John Kerry, Harry Reid, John Edwards, John Murtha and Bill Clinton — who supported the invasion. Yet in a survey last month from the U.S.-based International Republican Institute, 47% of Iraqis polled said their country was headed in the right direction, as opposed to 37% who said they thought that it was going in the wrong direction. And 56% thought things would be better in six months. Only 16% thought they would be worse.

American soldiers are also much more optimistic than American civilians. The Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations just released a survey of American elites that found that 64% of military officers are confident that we will succeed in establishing a stable democracy in Iraq. The comparable figures for journalists and academics are 33% and 27%, respectively. Even more impressive than the Pew poll is the evidence of how our service members are voting with their feet. Although both the Army and the Marine Corps are having trouble attracting fresh recruits — no surprise, given the state of public opinion regarding Iraq — reenlistment rates continue to exceed expectations. Veterans are expressing their confidence in the war effort by signing up to continue fighting.
So the people being shot at are reenlisting because they know they are doing good, and they want to be there for the victory.
Now, it could be that the Iraqi public and the U.S. armed forces are delusional. Maybe things really are on an irreversible downward slope.
And maybe Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are real. Maybe. But not likely.
But before reaching such an apocalyptic conclusion, stop to consider why so many with firsthand experience have more hope than those without any. For starters, one can point to two successful elections this year, on Jan. 30 and Oct. 15, in which the majority of Iraqis braved insurgent threats to vote.
And the election December 15 will be another major milestone.
The constitutional referendum in October was particularly significant because it marked the first wholesale engagement of Sunnis in the political process. Since then, Sunni political parties have made clear their determination to also participate in the Dec. 15 parliamentary election. This is big news. The most disaffected group in Iraq is starting to realize that it must achieve its objectives through ballots, not bullets.

There are also positive economic indicators that receive little or no coverage in the Western media. For all the insurgents' attempts to sabotage the Iraqi economy, the Brookings Institution reports that per capita income has doubled since 2003 and is now 30% higher than it was before the war. Thanks primarily to the increase in oil prices, the Iraqi economy is projected to grow at a whopping 16.8% next year. According to Brookings' Iraq index, there are five times more cars on the streets than in Saddam Hussein's day, five times more telephone subscribers and 32 times more Internet users.

The growth of the independent media — a prerequisite of liberal democracy — is even more inspiring. Before 2003 there was not a single independent media outlet in Iraq. Today, Brookings reports, there are 44 commercial TV stations, 72 radio stations and more than 100 newspapers.

But aren't bombs still going off at an alarming rate? Of course. It's almost impossible to stop a few thousand fanatics who are willing to commit suicide to slaughter others.

Yet there is hope on the security front. Since the Jan. 30 election, not a single Iraqi unit has crumbled in battle, according to Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who until September was in charge of their training. Iraqi soldiers are showing impressive determination in fighting the terrorists, notwithstanding the terrible casualties they have taken. Their increasing success is evident on "Route Irish," from Baghdad International Airport. Once the most dangerous road in Iraq, it is now one of the safest. The last coalition fatality there that was a result of enemy action occurred in March.

This is not meant to suggest that everything is wonderful in Iraq. The situation remains grim in many respects. But the most disheartening indicator of all is simply the American public's loss of confidence in the war effort. Abu Musab Zarqawi may be losing on the Arab street (his own family has disowned him), but he's winning on Main Street.
That is because the Democrats have decided that since they have no new ideas, the only way they can hope to be reelected is if they can convince the American People that the Iraq War will fail, and that it is all the Republican's fault, and the MSM sees it as their job to help the Dems sell that lie.
And, as the Vietnam War showed, defeatism on the home front can become self-fulfilling.

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Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Louisiana Sees Faded Urgency in Relief Effort

NYT reported Less than three months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, relief legislation remains dormant in Washington and despair is growing among officials here who fear that Congress and the Bush administration are losing interest in their plight. As evidence, the state and local officials cite an array of stalled bills and policy changes they say are crucial to rebuilding the city and persuading some of its hundreds of thousands of evacuated residents to return, including measures to finance long-term hurricane protection, revive small businesses and compensate the uninsured.

I am not surprised. The extreme incompetence of the local and state governments, the obscene greed shown by the demand for an additional $200 Billion in money for many things besides fixing things damaged by the flood, and the insistence on building up the levees to protect land 7 to 15 feet below sea level even with a Cat 5 storm, when the rainfall from such a storm would fill up the "bowl" and flood it out anyway makes the US wonder why the other 49 states should pay for Louisiana's stupidity. Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida were hit by hurricanes as well, and their state and local governments worked much better with FEMA, and they did not make obscene requests for huge amounts of money, or ask for protection of land 7 to 15 feet below sea level.

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Iraqi Factions Seek Timetable for U.S. Pullout

NYT reported For the first time, Iraq's political factions on Monday collectively called for a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces, in a moment of consensus that comes as the Bush administration battles pressure at home to commit itself to a pullout schedule. The announcement, made at the conclusion of a reconciliation conference here backed by the Arab League, was a public reaching out by Shiites, who now dominate Iraq's government, to Sunni Arabs on the eve of parliamentary elections that have been put on shaky ground by weeks of sectarian violence.

If the elected Iraqi government requests such a timetable, or even if it just asks us to leave, we certainly should do so. I am not certain how much weight should be given to a "consensus" that attendees to a meeting of the Arab League, with many countries that want Iraq's Democratic Government to fail.
About 100 Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders, many of whom will run in the election on Dec. 15, signed a closing memorandum on Monday that "demands a withdrawal of foreign troops on a specified timetable, dependent on an immediate national program for rebuilding the security forces," the statement said. "The Iraqi people are looking forward to the day when foreign forces will leave Iraq, when its armed and security forces will be rebuilt and when they can enjoy peace and stability and an end to terrorism," it continued.
I assure the Iraqi people that the American forces would love to be back home with their families. But they are dedicated to helping the Iraqi people form a Democratic Government responsive to the needs of all of the Iraqi people.
Astute Blogger blogged I believe that the Sunnis who are attacking Shias in Iraq will either be unmoved by this appeasement, or encouraged to be more brutal in order to win more concessions.

Mahablog blogged I guess they really can work together and agree on something. The television pundits still talk about staying in Iraq another two or three years, but I think we’ll be out in a matter of months (see “Speaking With One Voice,” below). The only question is, will it be an orderly and honorable withdrawal or something more ignominious? The Bushies and their rightie supporters will be the last people on the planet to realize that a withdrawal will happen, but once they catch on they’ll find some way to argue that withdrawal was the plan all along.

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Pajamas Returns

Charles Johnson & Roger L. Simon at OSM blogged Once upon a time, some friends who met in the casual atmosphere of the blogosphere (us) got together and decided it would be groovy to start a blog company. "We could call it Pajamas Media," we said, referring to the now-famous quote by whatshisface, who disparaged bloggers as a bunch of guys sitting around in their sleepwear. Well, we were as surprised as anyone when we managed to raise a significant amount of capital to form said company.

At our swanky launch party in the Rainbow Room at New York’s Rockefeller Center on November 16, we changed out of our "pajamas" both literally and figuratively. We went from being www.pajamasmedia.com to OSM™ Media, LLC, the OSM being short for Open Source Media. And oh, what a drubbing we took. Many, many readers pointed out to us that OSM™ was an oxymoron; the open source tech community expressed concern; and a very fine gentleman named Christopher Lydon at Open Source (www.radioopensource.org) politely pointed out that we might be trampling on his space. (We’re sending him a pair of warm, fuzzy slippers, a heartfelt apology, and his name back, as we speak.)

All of which, as it turns out, has led us to make a change for the better. We are re-assuming our identity as Pajamas Media. (Just give us a few days to sort the technical issues out.) In short, the whole experience of being caught with our pajamas down has been a bit embarrassing, but in the end, when we realized we could get our beloved name back, we were overjoyed. So a warm, hearty thanks to all of you who expressed your displeasure with our phony identity.

Whoopee!!! I joined Pajamas Media, and liked the name, and was disappointed by the change in names, but I still like the concept. But I am even happier now that they have gone back to the original name.
So how did this happen in the first place? Back at the beginning, certain, shall we say, paternalistically minded parties (i.e., the guys in suits) decided that we should act like grownups, and being as yet somewhat immature—at least as businesspeople--we did as we were told.

Which is how, one day, we ended up sitting around a conference table listening to representatives from a "branding" company. What followed is still a bit of a nightmarish blur, but it involved a PowerPoint presentation on the history of names, and such probing questions as, "If you were an animal, what animal would you be?" (Which is how we almost ended up as Jellyfish Media.)

Enough said. So, in the spirit of "open source," we thought we’d tell you the real story behind the reason for our name change. And hope that our corporate parents will be satisfied with good grades and healthy revenue.


LaShawn Barber blogged OSM has reverted to its original name, Pajamas Media. Trademark issues aside, the name Pajamas Media has more character. I was disappointed when I heard the name would change and even more disappointed when I heard it was Open Source Media. But that’s the past. Onward to the future, baby! We are the pajamahadeen and ought to say so. The name not only mocks Jonathan Klein, but it invokes a rebellious and defiant spirit. A new medium has emerged and will continue to challenge traditional media to at least do accurate, if not objective, reporting. (I’ve come to the conclusion that not many human beings can be objective.) Unfortunately, we can’t expect anything more of leftist journalists, can we?

Eric Deamer blogged I agree with commenter Benjamin at Jeff Jarvis's that the marketing people were right and Pajamas Media is a bad name. (My problem with it being that it relates to an extremely inside baseball joke that can only be appreciated by blog geeks). The problem wasn't changing the name, but changing it to Open Source Media, which goes too far in the other direction, sounding too dull and corporate. And it was already in use to begin with. I'm not saying I can come up with a better name. Names are hard. Even if I could think of one I wouldn't post it for fear of somebody using it.

Decision08 blogged I think it’s a good move…and I also think Pajamas should take advantage of this second chance and re-launch, as it were, with more content…HuffPo may be a joke, but they launched with an incredible amount of material. I may have been one of the few who liked Open Source Media, but hey, Pajamas it is (and it fits my lifestyle much better)…

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CNN Xs VP

Drudge Report reported At 11:04:45 AM ET Monday CNN was airing Vice President Dick Cheney's speech live from the American Enterprise Institute in Washington -- when a large black 'X' repeatedly flashed over the vice president's face! The 'X' over Cheney's face appeared each time less than a second, creating an odd subliminal effect.

One top White House source expressed concern about what was aired over CNN. "Is someone in Atlanta trying to tell us something?" A CNN spokesman did not return repeated calls late Monday night.

I am not surprised that the Clinton News Network would do this; it is another example of how the MSM, including CNN, is in the pocket of the Democratic Party

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