Nosey Online

Yesterday was horrific. There is no doubt about that. The images are of human depravity. I was paying a lot of attention to the Net and Radio yesterday, so I wasn't really watching TV. Apparently, a lot of conservative pundits are a little ticked off today because the TV networks wouldn't show the images of Americans being burned, killed, and mutilated. I had to leave work early today, so I turned on my favorite guy to laugh at, Rush Limbaugh. To my surprise, Roger Hedgecock was filling in for Rush. The topic du jour was how the "elites" in television would not show the images from Falluja. Hedgecock said this was because of either one of two reasons:

• The networks think that Americans can't handle images like this anymore.

Or the more likely reason, according to Hedgecock.

• The networks are worried that showing the images would give Bush more power. Americans would see the dead and demand blood.

I mean, come on. Is he really serious? Remember Somalia? The images from that made people call for us to get out of there, and fast. We're way over the part where we call for blood. The days after 9/11 had plenty of that. The argument now is whether we should be there now, as well as how we got there initially.

I think that a lot of people, especially conservatives, will be pissed off. I think what happened yesterday is a travesty. But let's call a spade a spade. How come everyone in Iraq that is fighting against the occupation is a terrorist or Baathist sympathizer? I looked at the images of young Iraqis and thought they were you everyday average citizen.

The Bush administration said that the Iraqi people would welcome us with open arms and rose petals. Look at the pictures from yesterday's attack and tell me what we're doing there.

For the first time in awhile, I read the OpEd section of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I used to read it all the time. Given the sorry state of affairs in Cleveland, I try to stay away from local news. But alas, I was in a dentist's waiting room while my girlfriend got her wisdom teeth out, and there was the Metro section laid out in front of me. A piece by Paul Roberts got my attention real quick. The link is from yesterday's San Jose Mercury news. (NOTE: For some reason, the online version of the Plain Dealer did not have a link. It's also interesting to see the different headlines papers use for the same articles. The Plain Dealer had it as "The oil boom goes bust - low gas prices are history.")

Roberts writes for Harper's magazine covering the energy industry. According to the bio, he's got a book coming out soon. You can bet I'll be reading it.

This piece relates directly with what Richard Clarke has to say. It's all about strategy. Poor strategy, that is. While Richard Clarke points out faults in the way Bush administration faced terrorism pre-9/11, Roberts highlights another failure of policy.

For the last year, government forecasters have reassured us that the unusually high oil prices we've seen since 2002 -- around $30 a barrel -- were temporary: As soon as global markets recovered from the mess in Iraq, oil prices would drop and gasoline prices would eventually follow.

Yet nearly 12 months after "victory'' in Iraq, oil prices are at an eye-popping $38 a barrel, or about $15 above the two-decade average, and some forecasters are now offering a far less sanguine prognosis: Not only will oil stay high through 2005, but the days of cheap crude are history.

The current administration has aggressively courted new allies in oil-rich (if democracy-poor) West Africa and Russia. White House strategists also saw Iraq -- and the much-awaited "flood'' of Iraqi oil -- as key to lowering world oil prices, bolstering the U.S. economy and ending OPEC's 30-year stranglehold on the global oil market.

Sadly, Washington's cheap-oil strategy isn't working anymore. Hampered by terrorism and unrest, Iraqi oil production won't reach hoped-for levels for years. Political turmoil also has throttled oil booms in Russia and Africa. In short, the advertised wave of new oil that was to bring prices down hasn't materialized.

I wanted to get accurate information on inflation-adjusted prices of gas for this post, just for comparison.

U.S. gasoline prices climbed to a nominal record average of $1.80 a gallon nationwide, according to the latest Lundberg survey of 8,000 stations across the United States.

But that was still below the inflation-adjusted record set in March 1981, Lundberg said. The March 1981 combined average for all grades was about $1.38, the equivalent of $2.85 in today's dollars.

However, if Roberts is correct, we'll see gas prices peaking by the end of summer. If that happens, I'd wager that you'll see Capitol switchboard operators and mail carriers working overtime. But if this is what it takes to force progress, then so be it.

[...] if U.S. voters aren't worried about oil, U.S. politicians aren't either. However, such complacence will soon be untenable. Despite the recent drop in gasoline prices, some forecasters believe prices will soon head back up and could crest at $3 a gallon by Labor Day -- well past the point, experts say, when even oblivious Americans, and their elected representatives, start to pay attention.

Many motorists and some opportunistic politicians will reflexively point the finger at greedy oil companies and nefarious ``foreigners.'' But eventually, all of us may be forced to concede that the days of cheap oil are over and that the United States really does need an entirely new approach to energy.

Bring on the hydrogen infrastructure.

First the FCC wants to save us all from Howard Stern. Now they want to deliver us from the evils of daytime television.

Soap operas have become a potential target in the Federal Communications Commission's crackdown on broadcast indecency, according to a key official who said the programs might be too "steamy" for daytime television.

All the controversy surrounding "indecent" programming had to do with children. Hmm, morning radio shows and early afternoon soaps. I wonder. AREN'T KIDS SUPPOSED TO BE IN SCHOOL WHEN THIS STUFF IS ON??!!?? Nothing makes me crazier than trying to get rid of things that make people uncomfortable and call it "saving our children."

The cleansing of our airways had absolutely nothing to do with young kids. It has to do with stifling free speech and peoples' queasy stomachs. Let's call it what it is. The government wants to tell us what we can watch. The FCC is overstepping their bounds. All they should do is license airwaves, not dictate content. It's up to the average person to decide what they want to watch.

If you don't like it, change the channel.

I noted earlier that this summer is going to be a long one. Everyday waking up to a different color for terror warnings. Now it seems that Homeland Seciruty has issued an alert regarding our mass transit systems.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI issued a bulletin citing unconfirmed information that there could be a potential plot to target mass transit systems this summer, officials said on Friday.

Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the departments issued an informational bulletin late on Thursday to law enforcement and the private sector after receiving "uncorroborated, nonspecific threat reporting" about a potential plot to target commercial transportation systems."

So now we're back to the "nonspecific threat" thing. When in doubt, scare 'em with fear of the unknown.

Apparently, Wal-Mart wants to be a nation unto itself. After trying to get the Inglewood, CA, town council to approve a new store, Wal-Mart is putting the issue in front of voters.

Inglewood voters go to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to turn over 60 acres of barren concrete adjacent to the Hollywood Park racetrack to Wal-Mart to create a mega store and a collection of chain shops and restaurants.

While the issue alone isn't too out of the ordinary, the fine print is just that.

While Wal-Mart has turned to the ballot in a number of cities and towns to win the right to build its giant emporiums, the Inglewood initiative is significantly different. The proposal would essentially exempt Wal-Mart from all of Inglewood's planning, zoning and environmental regulations, creating a city-within-a-city subject only to its own rules.

Wal-Mart is planning on spending $1 million to get this thing passed. Now, the town council is a group of elected officials. The people select those they see fit to govern and voice town concerns. Unions, local citizens, and some business owners seem to be strongly against it. The group with the most money and power, the unions, might not be concerned with the local interests.

Unions all over the country are struggling to get some power over the mega corporations. Wal-Mart is staunchly anti-union. They claim that not having unionized workers helps them offer products at the lowest possible prices. While this may or may not be true, it is something to add to the equation of this problem.

How much power should Wal-Mart have? It's the number one company on the Fortune 500. They employ more people then many of the other top companies combined. Product manufacturers have to redesign whole product lines just to get their stuff on store shelves.

One thing is for sure, though. The people love to shop at Wal-Mart. Many citizens cheer the opening of a new Super Center, even if it means their neighbor's local grocery might close down. But the strategy of building stores outside of metropolitan areas has paid off. Poorer people usually live in the area surrounding the stores, and they welcome the lower prices Wal-Mart offers.

But is lower prices reason enough to let Wal-Mart make their own rules? In fairness, the mayor of Inglewood is all for the project.

[The mayor] said the complex would bring more than 1,000 new permanent jobs, add $3 million to $5 million a year to the distressed city's tax base and provide a revenue stream to finance as much as $100 million in new bonds. "We're talking about a new police station, a new community and cultural center, a new park in District 4, upgrades for every park and recreation area in Inglewood," [Mayor] Dorn said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a no-brainer."

In trying economic times, people tend to do anything to get through. But is giving a corporation free reign a good idea? Competition is a good thing. But how can anyone compete with a company who can afford to get an issue passed that will exempt it from local laws?

If the issue passed, it will surely set a precedent. Let's see how many other companies opt for this extreme measure.

You'd think that after last summer's blackout, power companies might have tried to do everything to make sure it didn't happen again. I know I was majorly stressed out because of it. Unfortunately, it looks as if this kind of power outage could, and probably will, happen again. The joint US-Canadian task force that issued the report outlining the faults also says that the '-3 blackout, and many preceding it, could have been prevented.

"The Aug. 14 blackout -- and every major regional blackout that preceded it dating back to 1965 -- could have been prevented if clear, common sense reliability measures had been followed," FERC Chairman Patrick H. Wood III said in a statement yesterday.

The power company at the heart of the problem is FirstEnergy here in Ohio. Given the fact that other states will be watching them like a hawk, one could surmise that any problems FirstEnergy has will be limited to in-state (or at least they will try hard to keep them from happening elsewhere). That means should the crap hit the fan, Ohio will be left to deal with it.

But Congress can make sure there are no more problems by taking action.

As it did last November, the task force urged Congress to enact a stalled energy bill that would create mandatory, enforceable reliability rules for the grid. NERC's rules would be backed up by the authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees wholesale power.

Let's just see if the industry will actually do something to keep this from happening again. But it will cost money, and you know they like to keep as mush as they can for themselves. Corporations first, citizens second.

Things got even worse yesterday. Followers of Muqtada al-Sadr fought US troops in southern Iraq. An arrest warrant has been issued for al-Sadr, but I'll bet you won't see him in handcuffs anytime soon.

President Bush vowed to stay the course, keeping to the June 30th deadline for turning over authority to the Iraqis. But what will we have to turn over?

Fallujah and other towns in the "Sunni triangle" around Baghdad are the main battleground for insurgents fighting the occupation, but the widespread clashes with Shiites that erupted this month are a dangerous new front for U.S. forces.

Fighting between occupying troops and Sadr's militiamen in Baghdad and Najaf on Sunday killed at least 48 Iraqis, eight U.S. soldiers and one Salvadoran soldier.

Sadr's supporters have held a series of mass protests over the closure of his movement's newspaper, which the U.S.-led administration said was inciting violence, and the arrest of his aide Mustapha Yacoubi in connection with the killing a year ago of Shiite cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei.

Going after this guy will obviously not help the situation. Things are getting grimmer by the day. Josh Marshal writes that the whole mess is being complicated by overly political priorities. As usual, he nails it.

A very difficult situation has been worsened by the political priorities of key decision-makers in the occupation authority. But that fact seems more like an afterthought when you consider how dire a situation we've backed ourselves into.

In another post Josh mentions the word "quagmire." Contextually that word draws up images of Vietnam. What will happen when the footage of helicopters evacuating Americans from Baghdad is broadcast all over the world? Will the neo-cons go back into their holes while the rest of us deal with cleaning up America's image? How far can this thing possibly go?

Under a brilliant Ohio House Republican plan, the majority of tax burden will be shifted to the middle class. Make no doubt about it; Ohio is in desperate financial times. So something must be done. We need to increase the amount of revenue the state takes in. So this Republican proposal takes care of that, right?

Under a plan that would reduce the number of state income tax brackets from nine to three, Ohio's top income tax rate would be lowered from 7.5 percent to 3.9 percent.

But overall, the plan would generate the same amount of money as the current tax system, shifting more of the burden to the middle class...

Ouch. Thanks guys. The middle class in Ohio doesn't have it hard enough already. But wait, the good ole boys in charge say that the plan is just a "work in progress."

But, this might not pass muster after all.

State Sen. Ron Amstutz, a Wooster Republican, said he suspects that House Republicans still have a lot of work to do on their plan.

"Anything that [increases taxes on the middle class] is not going to pass the House or the Senate," said Amstutz, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. "I would be surprised if that became the subject of a bill."

Blah, blah, blah. Republicans control this state. It is up to them to rectify the situation. My bet is that nothing will get done and people (especially in conservative southern Ohio) will be dumb enough to keep electing Republicans to local and state-wide offices. Ohio isn't business friendly. Ohio isn't citizen friendly. Ohio isn't education friendly. Ohio isn't jobs friendly. This has all happened under a Republican watch. Hopefully the Dems will actually start fielding viable candidates in all districts soon. When that happens, the state-wide offices will be up for grabs again. One can only hope for this and an end to the Republican game of "musical chairs."

WaPo has a piece on Condi Rice and her testimony on Thursday. Apparently, they did all they could before 9/11.

"We're confident in the actions we took before 9/11, and we're confident in the actions we took on that day and in the days after," White House communications director Dan Bartlett said. "It's easy to look back in a post-9/11 world with perfect hindsight. . . . The decisions being made were being made in a different mindset, not only for the administration but for all of America and the world."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this why you've been stonewalling the commission all along? Anyway. Rice plans on being tough on Clarke.

Rice also plans to mount a lengthy and barbed rebuttal of Richard A. Clarke, Bush's former counterterrorism adviser, who has sharply criticized Rice and other Bush administration officials for allegedly neglecting the al Qaeda threat. But Rice's response will likely be saved for the two-hour question-and-answer session with the commission rather than being included in her opening statement, which is expected to take about 20 minutes, officials said.

Will anyone find this credible? All of the stories poring out after Clarke's testimony must have done some damage to Condi's image.

And what about the speech she was supposed to give on 9/11? MSNBC.com has this piece about the White House not being very forthcoming.

The White House has refused to provide the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a speech that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was to have delivered on the night of the attacks touting missile defense as a priority rather than al-Qaida, sources close to the commission said Tuesday.

But if you go back to the WaPo piece, you'll see this interesting tidbit.

Rice and other administration officials have said the administration was preparing a strategy that was more aggressive than President Bill Clinton's because it was aimed at eliminating al Qaeda rather than rolling it back. Bartlett said Rice plans "a clear explanation of this administration's views towards terror before 9/11 and the priority and the emphasis that we placed on having a successful strategy for the elimination of al Qaeda."

Bush said on Monday that Rice will "be great" when she appears before the commission and called her "a very smart, capable person who knows exactly what took place, and will lay out the facts."

I guess the text of Condi's 9/11 speech doesn't count as fact. Well then, let's take a look, shall we?

"Why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open? At the end of the day, do we really want to choose a course of action that gambles with America's security by choosing not to explore the additional measure of security that limited missile defenses could provide?"

Then I look back at this line in the WaPo article.

...Rice plans to argue that President Bush focused aggressively on terrorism before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Yeah, spend time looking at useless alternatives that provide "limited" defenses. I'd call that aggressively going after terrorism.

The citizens of Inglewood, CA, have said no to Wal-Mart by a margin of 61% to 39%. Wal-Mart responds.

In a statement, the company said the decision means Inglewood residents will have to go elsewhere to shop at Wal-Mart.

"We are disappointed that a small group of Inglewood leaders together with representatives of outside special interests were able to convince a majority of Inglewood voters that they don't deserve the job opportunities and shopping choices that others in the LA area enjoy," the company said.

Boo hoo. Job oportunities at $5.50 an hour. The residents of Inglewood have spoken.

Rumsfeld says we need 'em.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the U.S. will keep extra soldiers in Iraq to counter the growing offensive by militants opposed to the U.S.-led occupation.

"We have a larger number'' of troops in Iraq at present because forces are being rotated, Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. "We're taking advantage of that increase to allow these seasoned troops'' to "see the current situation through.''

Exactly when will this "current situation" end. Is he talking about the increasing violence? Or the Iraq occupation altogether?

The fact is that we need more "boots on the ground." They did not plan for things going badly after Saddam's regime was toppled. They expected rose petals and weeping women kneeling in front of our soldiers. All it takes is to close down a newspaper and arrest a few key people, and then you have the current mess that is unfurling by the hour.

No plan for the peace = War in the streets.

A Google search for "Scott McClellan unprecedented" yields 7,020 hits. For a refresher, here's a common quote from Scott during a Feb. 24 '04 press briefing.

[The 9/11 commission's] work is very important. And that's why we've been working with them in an unprecedented way to make sure they have the information they need to complete their work.

So, does being unprecedented include keeping important documents from reaching the commission?

The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks announced yesterday that it has identified 69 documents from the Clinton era that the Bush White House withheld from investigators and which include references to al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and other issues relevant to the panel's work...

Yesterday's announcement came just 14 hours before national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to testify publicly in front of the 10-member bipartisan panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The commission has feuded for months with the White House over access to documents and witnesses, and Rice's agreement to testify came after weeks of refusals from White House lawyers.

So I guess being "unprecedented" involves secrecy and stone-walling.

The 9/11 commission was formed in order to get the bottom of what happened to our country on that fateful day. They have one of the most important responsibilities in the history of our nation. This is as important (if not more than) the investigations into Pearl Harbor and the JFK assassination.

The commission is just part of the craziness in Washington right now.

"I've never seen the atmosphere that exists in Washington right now; it's the nastiest I've ever seen it," said [Commission Chairman Thomas H.] Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who has been out of politics for more than a decade.

Sigh.

I am optimistic that we can change the tone in Washington, D.C.

So says President-elect George W. Bush on Dec. 13, 2000.

We're at a crossroads right now. Either we learn from past mistakes or we ignore the past altogether.

Peggy Noonan right now (Via Jesse at Pandagon). It made my head spin.

Then read this. So much for your GOP fantasy Peggy.

I don't usually post about tech stuff, but this piece from News.com tickles my fancy. For all of us who want to stangle the guy whose cell phone goes off during a movie (and answers it), this one's for you.

It could happen on a train, in a restaurant or during an awe-inspiring aria at a performance of "Carmen." A neighbor's cell phone starts bleating the theme song from "Friends," disrupting the mood and setting nerves on edge.

Wouldn't it be great, you think to yourself, if this couldn't happen?

Others are thinking likewise, including companies and researchers developing or already selling devices that render cell phones inoperable in certain locations. Methods include jammers that interfere with cell phone frequencies, routing systems that mute phones' ringers in specific places, sensors that detect active cell phones and building materials that block cell phone waves.

Proponents say that such measures are more effective than "no cell phone" signs, "quiet cars" on trains or even legal restrictions (like a law prohibiting cell phone use during performances, enacted by the New York City Council last year).

We've all been there. I've seen a lot of movies in the past year. I'd venture to say that someone answers a cell phone call during about one out of every two showings I've been to. The fact that someone is SO important, that they can't possibly miss the call, makes me crazy.

But the funny thing is the cellphone industrt's response to the people who want to use jamming products in order to protect their silence.

"You're not allowed to barricade the street in front of your house because you don't like hearing an ambulance," said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Cellular Telephone Industry Association, who asserts that blocking systems inhibit customers' rights and can block emergency calls. "Just like roads, the airwaves are public property."

Give me a break. Comparing cell phones to ambulance sirens is ridiculous. The CTIA comment about emergency calls is a common one from them. We used to live in a wired world without cell phones. People found out about emergencies just fine.

Now if we're talking about blocking cell phone calls from people in distress, like kidnap victims, that's one thing. But to say that it is vital to interrupt my viewing of The Matrix Revolutions because you wife wants you to pick up bread on the way home is laughable. You don't need cell phones in movie theaters or playhouses. Annoyances on a subway train or bus are another thing, but those rides tend to be loud as it is.

Although, if I here another Britney Spears "Toxic" ringtone, I might lose it.

It seems as if Washington DC just doesn't hold the attention of our president. According to this WaPa piece, via Josh, Bush has spent about a good amount of his time at one of his three retreats.

This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency.

Isn't this kind of disturbing? If I worked for a company whose CEO spent 40% of their time at personal retreats, wouldn't you think I'd be a little mad? Ever since his first vacation in August of '00, I've thought it was a little strange that Bush would spend so much time in Crawford.

But then it hit me this morning. He doesn't really want to be president. We've all heard the stories about how he likes to go to sleep early and wake up later. Bush spends so much time out of the office, one has to question his convictions. Look at the facts. He entered into office after the most highly controversial elections this contry has seen in modern times. Gore won the popular vote. Ever since Bush has taken office, it's been all conservative, all the time. There is virtually no middle ground at all.

Progressive values haven't just taken a back seat to convervative ideals, they've gotten booted off the bus.

All of this adds up to one thing. They want to push as much of the conservative agenda as they can, country be damned. Maybe they think that four years would be enough to accomplish that. Because if you factor out Iraq, Bush would have no chance of re-election. War on terrorism or not, two an a half years after 9/11, people would be paying more attention to their checkbooks.

But the Iraq plan was for things to go well, and Bush would ride into the GOP convention having "liberated" Iraq. Now that loud sound you hear is his re-election chances going down the toilet.

So I ask, what's more important to Bush?

Bush spent the morning watching national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's televised testimony to the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, then toured his ranch with Wayne LaPierre Jr., chief executive of the National Rifle Association, and other leaders of hunting groups and gave an interview to Ladies' Home Journal. He is not scheduled to appear in public until Sunday, when he will visit nearby Fort Hood, the home base for seven soldiers recently killed in Baghdad.

Josh says that the "Vacation gibes are usually unfair. But with the situation in Iraq so critical, shouldn't the president be at the White House?" I say the vacation gibes are fair all of the time, and for the reason he outlines in the last line of his post.

It's a full-time job, comes with a decent salary.

A middle-management employee in any company probably has a decent salary as well. But don't you think the CEO job is a little more important? I certainly do.

Via Hesiod, Robert Novak joins the chorus of worried conservatives.

But Afghanistan also needs more troops. So, where will they come from? Nobody knows, and that connotes an overcommitment by the U.S. and a miscalculation at the Defense Department. The uniformed military does not speak out publicly, but the generals are outraged. A former national security official who held high office in previous Republican administrations considers the relationship at the Pentagon between civilians and the military as worse than at any time in his long career.

Welcome to the party Robert! He joins Bill O'Reilly , Joe Scarborough, and other conservative pundits who are wondering if Iraq is a mess we will be able to get out of.

I realized today the "fans of Bush" are separated into two halves. The first, and most important to Bush, is the religious conservatives. They helped get Bush into office, and he has repaid the favor in spades. The other half is the non-religious fiscal conservatives. They whole heartedly supported Bush and are sure glad they got their tax cuts. The second group puts up with the first because, well, they've got more money in their paychecks. Non-religious fiscal types turn a blind eye to the faith-based initiative stuff because their party's in power.

But now things are different. The foundation of Bush's re-election strategy is starting to break. As Iraq gets worse, the non-religious fiscal conservatives are beginning to think about a Democratic White House again, and they don't like it.

I'm sure we'll see more "self-realizations" from the right in the weeks and months ahead.

I don't usually go for the whole "conspiracy theory" thing, but Billmon provides us with a link to a story at Buzzflash entitled "Will the 2004 Election Be Called Off? Why Three Out of Four Experts Predict a Terrorist Attack by November."

While the Letterman episode is a lesson in abject absurdity, nearly two years ago, Madsen and Stanton warned that following a major terrorist attack, seditious web sites would be blocked (something that is already happening to howardstern.com) and "the broadcast media would similarly be required to air only that which has been approved by government censors." (How will we know the difference?)

Read the whole thing. I'll send a chill down your spine. I'm not so sure about the theories, but it's always fun to play what-ifs.

As my blogroll continues to grow, I've decided to split things up a bit. Basically, I put the ones in "read obsessively" out of laziness, so I don't have to keep scrolling through the list as it gets longer. I read the others almost as much. I've also been toying with the idea of a 3 column layout. Anyone have comments on that? I want to be able to have as many links to things as I can, without making it look too cluttered. I choose the 2 column layout specifically for that reason. But as that left column grows, I think it might be better to add the right column. Let me know what you think.

NOTE TO READERS: you know I'm speaking to all 6 of you, right?

"And I know that there was no single thing that might have prevented that attack."

-Condoleezza Rice to the 9/11 Commission, 4/8/04

-- An intelligence report received in May 2001 indicating al Qaeda was attempting to send operatives to the United States through Canada to carry out an attack using explosives. This information had been passed on to intelligence and law enforcement agencies;

-- Al Qaeda had been considering ways to hijack American planes to win the release of operatives who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999;

-- Osama bin Laden was set on striking the US as early as 1997 through early 2001;

-- Some intelligence suggested suspected al Qaeda operatives were traveling to and from the United States, were U.S. citizens, and may have had a support network in the U.S.;

-- At least 70 FBI investigations were underway in 2001 regarding possible al Qaeda cells/terrorist-related operations in the U.S.

-highlights from the Aug. 6th, 2001, PDB, via CNN.com

Maybe not one single thing, but all of these added up together could have. The PDB in question is in the process of being declassified, so we'll know what it says for sure. My thought is that the PDB won't amount to much, but it will sure underline the Bush administration being ill-prepared. A good summary of this viewpoint comes from Atrios.

August 6, 2001: Bush gets briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US."

August 7, 2001: Bush begins month long vacation in Crawford, TX.

What else do you need to know?

Kevin Drum calls our attention to a piece in the NY Times about beef processors, the Department of Agriculture, and the answer no.

The Department of Agriculture refused yesterday to allow a Kansas beef producer to test all of its cattle for mad cow disease, saying such sweeping tests were not scientifically warranted.

The producer, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to use recently approved rapid tests so it could resume selling its fat-marbled black Angus beef to Japan, which banned American beef after a cow slaughtered in Washington State last December tested positive for mad cow. The company has complained that the ban is costing it $40,000 a day and forced it to lay off 50 employees.

....Gary Weber of the cattlemen's association called 100 percent testing misleading to consumers because it would create a false impression that untested beef was not safe. He compared it to demanding that all cars be crash tested to prove they are safe.

....Asked if beef producers did not want to be pressured to imitate Creekstone and pay for more tests, Mr. Weber said it was "absolutely not about the money."

The Department of Agriculture has been near the top of my pet peeves list ever since I read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. I think comparing testing cattle to testing cars is absolutely deranged. Cars don't contain potentially lethal pathogens, like those that can liquefy internal organs.

Well, I feel proud. For the first time over the weekend, a conservative blogger linked back to one of my posts. Apparently, the fine thinkers at QandO chided me for posting about a story in the NY Times that wasn't thoroughly fact-checked. The post in question is the last one I wrote, Where's The Beef?. Jon Henke thinks that we all need to do a better job of fact-checking. But since he wants to "prove" his point, he does it for us.

His source is a piece from the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy. So, being a brilliant thinker, Mr. Henke points out that Creekstone Farms was denied a license to market their test results, not just denying the company the ability to test at all. After telling us to do a better job, Mr. Henke sums up his opinion with this.

Read that carefully. It's saying something very simple: Creekstone cannot market their meat as "safe", because the tests involved simply do not - and cannot - confirm that the meat is actually safe.

The USDA is simply unwilling to license them to market their meat with misleading scientific claims.

The funny thing here is that the article does not say this at all. Let's look at the text.

The department told Creekstone Farms of Arkansas City, Kan., yesterday that its request for a license to use rapid BSE tests in a private marketing program cannot be granted, according to a statement today by Bill Hawks, USDA undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs.

"The test is now licensed for animal health surveillance purposes," Hawks stated. "The use of the test as proposed by Creekstone would have implied a consumer safety aspect that is not scientifically warranted."

Mr. Henke implies that the reason the USDA denied the license was because the testing could not guarantee that all animals tested were safe. But that's not what the article says.

The USDA announced a major expansion of its BSE testing program in mid-March but has rejected calls for testing of all cattle, saying it is not scientifically justified. Hawks' statement today mentioned the plan to increase testing and noted that an international panel of BSE experts concluded that testing of all cattle is unnecessary because the disease doesn't appear in younger animals.

So it has nothing to do with certifying all animals are safe. Only that some scientists came to the conclusion that young animals do no need to be tested. That is what Mr. Henke claims is not "scientifically warranted."

Why not test all animals? I'm sure that old cattle aren't the only ones we need to be worried about. Scientists also thought that DDT was ok as well. Not all decisions are based on sound science.

Common with most of these conservatives is the act of leaving out the more important parts of a story. Further down the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy piece is this.

When the Creekstone proposal was first reported, the USDA had not approved any rapid BSE tests. Since then it has approved several, including three this week. On Mar 29 the department announced that seven state veterinary labs would help in the expanded BSE surveillance program, using rapid screening tests. Any samples that tested positive in the screening tests would undergo confirmatory testing at the USDA's national veterinary lab in Ames, Iowa, officials said.

The USDA granted temporary approval of three rapid BSE tests this week, pending submission of further documents, according to Andrea McNally, a spokeswoman for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in Washington, DC.

So much for your accusations Mr. Henke.

So next time you want to deride us basically because we're liberals, you might want to completely understand your source material (and read it all the way through).

This is the first and last time I will ever bother to respond to one of these idiots.

UPDATE: Jon Henke has responded to my remarks last night. I do observe that there is a difference between conservatives and libertarians. After briefly scanning his blog before responding last night (after a long day), I concluded that his was a conservative screed that liked to go after more leftist thinkers. I seem to have mischaracterized Jon's blog, so I apologize.

You know, I don't ever want to be conceived as someone who rants without reason. After some misunderstanding, comments back and forth with Jon Henke from QandO, and an agreement to disagree agreeably, I came to a realization. I don't get enough of differing opinions on the net.

During the day when I get a chance, I'll usually tune into Rush just to see what the other side is saying. But for some reason, maybe lack of time, I really have never taken the time to take in opposing viewpoints. For that matter, I have added a new section of links dedicated to those opposing viewpoints. I spent some time looking over QandO, and they make some good points (including this one about the outcome of yesterday's Masters).

Dude. It was golf. However "exciting" a game of golf might be - and I use the word "exciting" very loosely - it most certainly does not produce "insanity".

Very true.

Jon defines the blog as libertarian, so it's not quite conservative.

I'm not going to spend too much time looking for worthwhile blogs that highlight differing views, so if you know of any, let me know so I can check 'em out. So for what it's worth, maybe we should start to take in some opposing views.

Now that the August 6th, 2001, PDB had made it to the light of day, the 9/11 commission is now setting their sights on the FBI. One of the highlights of the PDB had to do with terror investigations.

The memo, known as a PDB or President's Daily Brief, was a summary of the domestic terror threat posed by al-Qaida in August of 2001. The memo mentions that the FBI was conducting 70 field investigations involving suspected al-Qaida cells inside the United States.

I'm sure they are going to inquire about the outcome, if any, of those 70 field investigations. Why weren't investigators able to figure anything out? Why didn't the intelligence agencies share information that might have helped with terror investigations. One of the problems in the CIA & FBI is that they've fostered a culture of secrecy and being uncooperative with each other. No matter who's been president, this type of behavior was commonplace. Then 9/11 happened and changed everything. So now it's up to the intelligence community to answer some questions.

The 9-11 commission is expected to press the FBI and the CIA this week as to why the two agencies did not share more information with each other that could have exposed, at least in part, what the al-Qaida hijackers were up to before September 11.

Condi Rice declared that there was no "silver bullet", or something that could have stopped the terrorists. But if you have the abilities to connect (at least some of) the dots, it might help.

American military planners believe the current level of U.S. forces in Iraq is sufficient to accomplish the mission, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said here Aug. 20.

-American Forces Press Service, Aug. 20, 2003

Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said he was dissatisfied with the performance of Iraqi police and members of the civil defense corps in refusing to help U.S. Marines in Fallujah and in deserting their posts in southern cities, allowing militiamen loyal to Moqtada Sadr, a 30-year-old Shiite cleric, to take over government buildings and police stations...

Abizaid said he has requested reinforcements in the form of two U.S. combat brigades, but he declined to specify where they would come from and how many troops they would include.

Military analysts in Washington said the two brigades would probably amount to about 10,000 troops, allowing commanders to maintain U.S. troop strength in Iraq at about 125,000 in the coming months. The military had planned to draw the forces down to about 115,000 from the current level of about 135,000, a number that officers have said is unusually high because of an overlap of new and departing units.

-Washington Post, April 12, 2004

The situation is not getting any better over there.

NOTE: I particulary was unnerved by the president's comment yesterday that the soldiers who have died thusfar in Iraq did so for our "security". I don't feel any safer.

The fine people at Lean Left have drawn our attention to this NY Times piece. Where in the world are we going to get the money to fund any future programs or initiatives when this type of thing going on?

Since taking office, the Bush administration has repeatedly promised to get tough with tax cheats, saying it has ended a long slide in enforcement of tax laws.

But an independent analysis of new Internal Revenue Service data released today shows that tax enforcement has fallen steadily under President Bush, with fewer audits, fewer penalties, fewer prosecutions and virtually no effort to prosecute corporate tax crimes. The audit rate for the 11,200 largest corporations, which pay nearly all corporate income taxes, has fallen by almost half over the last decade, as has the audit rate for unincorporated businesses.

During a lesson in local economics in high school, I learned that a big part of funding for things like arts, garbage pick-up, schools, and any city services come from businesses. My hometown has a section that was once a large industrial area. It's no longer an economic center, and the city is struggling to make up the difference. The national economy is in the tank and jobs are not reappearing like we were told. What is a financially strapped city to do?

Looking at the NYT piece, it's apparent that taxes from businesses might not be the answer. The reason? Not enough IRS funding to audit companies.

Mark W. Everson, who became tax commissioner last May, said that changes he had made to increase enforcement would not show up until statistics for the current year become available next spring. He also said that the increase would happen only if Congress fully funds the I.R.S. in fiscal 2005. . . .

The increase Mr. Bush requested is 4.8 percent, all of which may end up going to incremental costs for the existing I.R.S. staff. The I.R.S. Oversight Board, a panel of business experts Congress created to monitor the agency, wants an increase of more than double that amount, warning that enforcement will otherwise continue to dwindle to the detriment of honest taxpayers.

Hmm. Let's review.

1. Give huge tax breaks to the wealthy while beginning to shift more responsibility to the middle class. CHECK

2. Pay back corporate donors by letting them take advantage of a loophole in the tax code that gives incentives for shipping jobs overseas. CHECK

3. Under fund the IRS so big corporate donors don't have to pay any taxes. CHECK

Call me a cynic, but there's got to be a even-handed way of doing business here. How much longer can average joe taxpayer take a backseat to the corporations?

According to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, North Korea had three working nuclear devices five years ago.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology around the world, has told his interrogators that during a trip to North Korea five years ago he was taken to a secret underground nuclear plant and shown what he described as three nuclear devices, according to Asian and American officials who have been briefed by the Pakistanis.

Does this shock anybody? Given the fact that North Korea is a paranoid isolated country, this is not a stretch to imagine.

A former American official noted that if North Korea produced three actual weapons by 1999, it was either more skilled at using its then relatively small supply of plutonium than experts thought, or it had obtained an additional source of the bomb-making material.

North Korea definitley has the desire for WMD. So let's assume that they've had the nukes since then. Wouldn't you think North Korea would be at the top of our priority list, given the fact that our security is of the utmost concern?

American officials have known about the Pakistani reports for at least three or four weeks, Asian and American officials say. But they have kept them quiet, and President Bush has not mentioned the country in public for weeks. Many Democrats say they believe that Mr. Bush is trying to play down the issue in an election year, especially because North Korea may be making more bombs as talks drag on.

More of the same. Iraq, has no WMD. North Korea, has WMD. Going into Iraq makes sense only in bizarro world.

Mr. Bush's aides say that they are making progress, and that there is no use publicly denouncing North Korea while diplomacy continues. If the country already has a few nuclear weapons, they say, a few more would not make a strategic difference.

"It's an untenable argument," said Samuel R. Berger, President Bill Clinton's national security adviser. "There's a difference between two or three and eight and it's called the market in weapons for global terrorists."

I thought we were supposed to worry about Iraq giving WMD to terrorists?

Sorry for the lack of new posts today. It's been a long one. Still trying to catch up after the weekend. Anyway, another interesting day. More passing the buck. Looks as if the FBI might get the blame for 9/11.

In a world "blinking red'' with terrorist threats against the United States, the FBI missed a last-minute chance to detect a key al-Qaida cell and possibly disrupt the Sept. 11 attacks, the commission investigating the 2001 hijackings said Tuesday.

Delays and missteps in linking terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui to al-Qaida in the weeks before the attacks were emblematic of chronic problems within the FBI, including limited intelligence and analysis capabilities, outdated technology, poor information-sharing and floundering attempts at reorganization, the commission said.

In a day of finger-pointing, the panel chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, said two scathing reports compiled by the commission's investigators amounted to"an indictment of the FBI.''

But then again, don't rush to judgment.

"I would ask that you balance what you call an indictment, and which I don't agree with at all, with the two primary findings of your staff,'' [former FBI head Louis J. Freeh] said. "One is that there was a lack of resources. And two, there were legal impediments'' that made it difficult for agents to pursue terrorism investigations.

So in other words, "ain't my fault."

And then we have the beloved Ashcroft, who blames Clinton.

In a veiled swipe at the Clinton administration, Attorney General John Ashcroft testified Tuesday the nation was stunned by the Sept. 11 attacks because "for nearly a decade our government had blinded itself to our enemies.''

...In a nationally televised appearance, Ashcroft said the Justice Department had become addicted to a legal wall that had been put in place to separate criminal investigators from intelligence agents. "Even if they could have penetrated bin Laden's training camps, they would have needed a battery of lawyers'' to take action, he said dismissively.

So let's do the opposite and start to cut down on access to lawyers.

Nevertheless, the 9/11 commission still took jabs at Freeh and Ashcroft.

The commission on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on Tuesday broadly criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for failing to meet the threat from al Qaeda and said Attorney General John Ashcroft did not see counterterrorism as a top priority before it was too late.

In its latest report detailing security breakdowns throughout the government, the commission issued two lengthy staff reports analyzing the failure to prevent the hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.

One report drew attention to a May 10 Justice Department document that set out priorities for 2001. The top priorities cited were reducing gun violence and combating drug trafficking. There was no mention of counterterrorism.

Pretty much sums it up.

Via Justin, we get this flashback from the run up to the Iraq War.

Nine Army linguists, including six trained to speak Arabic, have been dismissed from the military because they are gay.

The soldiers' dismissals come at a time when the military is facing a critical shortage of translators and interpreters for the war on terrorism.

That's funny, because it directly relates to what I wrote about here in regards to a piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

"The government is taking the first steps toward a targeted military draft of Americans with special skills in computers and foreign languages." -Seattle P-I

This is an important story, one worth more airtime and print. A year ago, the mere mention of "special-skills draft" would have some people freaking out. Now, while attention is on the election, the procedures for a draft can be drawn up in silence.

It sounds like a great* idea to fire those soldiers, especially now that we're short on specialists.

*=thick sarcasm

Usually before I post something, I'll go to Google News just to see if there's anything to write about. Right now, there are a lot of articles about Iraq or 9/11. Everyone in the blogosphere is gearing up for Bush's press conference. So there’s nothing to post about right now. Just for fun, I want to make a prediction. If there's a brave reporter in there, you're going to hear this one.

"Mr. President, given the fact that our forces are stretched thin, and some generals are asking for more troops, can you categorically deny that a general military draft will have to be considered?"

Otherwise, we're not going to hear much of anything important. Only his defense of the war in Iraq and how it's made us "safer."

Well, that was interesting. My prediction didn't come true, but watch out, we'll still hear about it. There's so much to talk about. I was going to title this post "Kill Two Birds With One Stone" because that was the president's answer to why he is going to appear before the commission with Cheney. But I thought his comment on how he doesn't like to see dead people on TV was quite a stark reality for some. Here are two of my favorite questions.

• Why do you never seem to admit any mistakes?

• Have you made any mistakes?

Answer to #1 - "I'm going to blab about something unrelated here.

Answer to #2 - "I can't think of any, but one might pop in my head during this press conference.

That's not exactly how he answered the first one, but the second answer is dead on.

Bush thinks he's infallible. When asked if he should give an apology ala Richard Clarke, he responds that bin Laden is the one responsible. Basically, it's all about responsibility. If Bush ever directly apologized for 9/11, it would mean accepting responsibility. This is something he will never do.

Another point to ponder is just how much Bush is tying his reelection chances to Iraq. In fact, I think he's betting the ranch on it. The 9/11 commission is going to come out with a report that will heavily criticize the FBI. Bush will not get away scott free. It happened on his watch. Blaming Clinton is the only way they will try to spin the 9/11 report. Therefore, his best chance will be Iraq. This is why he had the press conference in the first place. Poll numbers were dropping and Republican leadership wanted him to get out in front of the American people.

There does seem to be an administration talking points memo floating around. The phrases "historical document" and "before 9/11 we weren't on war footing" came out in the conference. More of the same, nothing new. Everyone is just following the same script.

So here we are. This is the message. It isn't their fault, their predecessors didn't do enough, they didn't have enough time to stop anything, Bush's legacy will be spreading freedom, and they will never apologize.

Life is good when you look through rose colored glasses.

NOTE: Whoever chose that tie for Bush tonight should be sent to Gitmo.

NOTE2: By the way, in case someone forgot to tell you Mr. President, Mr. Rumsfeld is your Secretary of Defense, not State.

UPDATE: The New York Times has this picture with the caption, President Bush at tonight's press conference. How come this isn't the tie I saw?

Via Atrios, David Sirota has some good line by line analysis of parts of Bush's press conference tonight.

One of my favorites:

CLAIM:

"But there was nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government that could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale."
- George W. Bush, 4/13/04

FACT:

In the very same press conference, President Bush said "part of [the reason I requested the PDB] had to do with the Genoa G-8 conference I was going to attend" in 2001, where he was warned that Islamic terrorists were potentially plotting to fly airplanes into buildings.

Good stuff. I'm sure we'll see more of this analysis in ths days ahead.