Sometimes the outright stupidity and shallowness of thinking in the general news media staggers me. But before I blast them, I need to start with myself, for getting so close initially, and then not putting 2+2 together.

Last night I mocked the U.S. military's plan to test a 700-ton bomb in the Nevada desert. I noted that no plane every built could come close to delivering a conventional bomb even a third that size. I wrote it off as a blustering response to Iran's refusal to stop uranium enrichment, but not the test of a serious munition.

I suggested, "If the Pentagon wants to send a real message to the Iranians, they could test a B61-11. I think the folks in Las Vegas and Tehran would be much more impressed with the show."

It wasn't until over 12 hours later that I figured out that something very similar to that might be the point of the test.

The 700-ton bomb will use close to 600-tons of a special mixture of ammonium nitrate-based explosives.

According to Global Security.org, the B61 Mod 11 thermonuclear bomb has a W-61 EPW (earth penetrating warhead) that ranges in yield from 360-kiloton strategic bomb down, if Nuclear Weapon Archive.org is correct, to a tactical penetrator with a yield as low as .3 kilotons. If I'm doing my math correctly, a 0.3 Kt weapon is the theoretical equivalent of 300 tons yield in a convention explosive under certain conditions.

Could the 700-ton bomb test be a surrogate for the shockwave effect of a low-yield .3 Kt B61-11 nuclear warhead?

Neither the Washington Post nor Reuters, nor any other news agency seems to have caught on to this possibility. Then again, they haven't figured out yet that this massive bomb being tested could never get airborne, so this shouldn't be a surprise.

We appear to be running a "nukeless" nuclear test of the kind of ground-penetrating and literally ground-breaking bomb we may be forced to use again Iran. The "empty threat" I mocked yesterday isn't very funny anymore.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:25 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Freed hostage Jill Carroll is being bad-mouthed by some, but after spending three months as a hostage to a group that murdered her translator right in front of her I, like Rusty, am willing to cut her some slack. She's seen a lot of things that none of us ever will, and endured mental stresses none of us will likely ever have to face, so I can excuse the anti-Americanism she expressed in captivity. I suggest that her comments both before and after her ordeal should be viewed through the new prism of her recent experience.

Remind me, howeverÂ… what were Eason Jordan's excuses for coddling terrorists?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:33 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I guess we can consider this indicative of Democratic competence in their "cut-and-run-and-gun" national insecurity program.

This campaign the DNC is running on is going to generate a lot of votes. Republican votes.

Ian at Expose the Left has the video.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:18 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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This is interesting. We talk of 700-ton bombs that will never get off the ground (an M-1 Abrams main battle tank, by comparison weighs 65 tons), and the very next day, the Iranians counter in the bluster war with this:

Iran successfully test-fired a locally made missile with the ability to carry a warhead and avoid radar, the airforce chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards said Friday.

"Today, a remarkable goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran's defence forces was realized with the successful test-firing of a new missile with greater technical and tactical capabilities than those previously produced," Gen. Hossein Salami said on state-run television.

The missile, while locally made, is of American design.

I'd translate the last part about “greater technical and tactical capabilities” to mean they're now using B4-4 rocket engines instead of their earlier designs using A8-3s.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:39 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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As they say, timing is everything:

A full recovery in New Orleans could take 25 years as homeowners, businesses and tourists are coaxed back to the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration's Gulf Coast recovery coordinator said Thursday.
"We kind of want it to happen overnight, or I do, but it's going to take some time," White House coordinator Don Powell said in an interview with Associated Press reporters and editors. "This could be five to 25 years for it all to fit into place."

Powell added: "It's been a bottom-up process and it's complex."

Well, the "bottom" part is right. Guess where New Orleans will be in the next half-century or so?

Give yourself two points if you correctly answered "The Gulf of Mexico."

The original (snark-free) version of this Louisiana wetlands projection comes courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and is used at LSU's Louisiana Energy & Environmental
Resource & Information Center (LEERIC) in this article.

Back in September I interviewed the former chair of a Coastal and Marine Studies Department, and asked him the following question:

1. Are estimates that the continued rate of wetland loss in Louisiana will place New Orleans on or in the Gulf of Mexico in the 2050-2090 time frame accurate?

He responded:

The estimates are probably accurate. There are three main factors: Global sea level rise, delta subsidence, Mississippi River sedimentation. Sea level is rising, the delta is sinking and the river is depositing much less sediment on the delta now than in the past (for multiple reasons).

In other words, by the time New Orleans can recover from Hurricane Katrina, it may do so just in time to disappear under the waves of the Gulf of Mexico forever.

I don't have any problems with spending our tax dollars to rebuild New Orleans, I just don't think it wise to rebuild the city in the same nearly indefensible location.

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On the day that Iran stated it would not halt uranium enrichment, the U.S. military made what some are interpreting as a thinly-veilled threat:

The US military plans to detonate a 700 tonne explosive charge in a test called "Divine Strake" that will send a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas, a senior defense official said.

"I don't want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you'll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Tegnelia said the test was part of a US effort to develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

"We have several very large penetrators we're developing," he told defense reporters.

"We also have -- are you ready for this - a 700-tonne explosively formed charge that we're going to be putting in a tunnel in Nevada," he said.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this would be one of the most pathetic messages we've ever sent, as it is by far the emptiest threat we can make. To put it plainly (or perhaps planely), this bomb project could never get off the ground.

Literally.

According to the article, this bomb weighs "700 tonnes." It doesn't exactly specify if this is 700 long tons ( 2,240 lbs/ton, or a total of 1,588,000 lbs) or 700 short tons (2,000 lbs/ton, or a total of 1,400,000 lbs), but in the end the key detail is that no airplane on earth can carry such a payload.

The massive American C5 Galaxy carries a payload of 240,000 lbs. The world's largest cargo airplane is the Antonov An-225, which carries a maximum payload of "just" 551,150 lbs.

This is an empty threat, as the Iranians surely know.

If the Pentagon wants to send a real message to the Iranians, they could test a B61-11. I think the folks in Las Vegas and Tehran would be much more impressed with the show.

Update: a closer look reveals that the 700-lb bomb may be a surrogate for a low yield B61-11.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:33 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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In news related to the five FISA court judge's testimony, competing articles today by Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times and Brian DeBose of the Washington Times paint radically different pictures of the judge's testimony today, with Lichtblau's article making it appear that the five judges were siding against the president, and DeBose stating that the judges said Bush's executive order was legal. Obviously, one is wrong, and possibly being deceptive. The "verdict" from the lawyers of Powerline:

Having reviewed the transcript, I conclude that the Washington Times' characterization was fair, but arguably overstated. The New York Times, however, badly misled its readers...

...New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau has a considerable career investment (and, I suspect, an ideological investment as well) in the idea that the NSA program is illegal. It would seem that Lichtblau's preconceptions and biases prevented him from accurately reporting what happened in the Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday. His suggestion that the main thrust of the judges' testimony was to "voice skepticism about the president's constitutional authority" is simply wrong; in fact, I can't find a single line in more than 100 pages of transcript that supports Lichtblau's reporting.

Eric Litchblau seems to have either lost his objectivity on this story so completely that he cannot even report facts, or he has made the conscious decision to misrepresent the story to the point of outright fabrication.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:55 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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...Signifying nothing.

Classic Macbeth to be sure, but in this instance, the "nothing" has turned out to be claims from Democrats, libertarians, and some weak-willed Republicans that President Bush's executive order that authorized the creation of a terrorist intercept program by the National Security Agency is in some way illegal.

Yesterday, five FISA judges testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about this very program:

FEINSTEIN: Thank you very much. Now, I want to clear something up. Judge Kornblum spoke about Congress' power to pass laws to allow the president to carry out domestic electronic surveillance. And we know that FISA is the exclusive means of so doing. Is such a law, that provides both the authority and the rules for carrying out that authority — are those rules then binding on the president?

[U.S. District Judge Allan] KORNBLUM: No president has ever agreed to that.

When the FISA statute was passed in 1978, it was not perfect harmony. The intelligence agencies were very reluctant to get involved in going to court. That reluctance changed over a short period of time, two or three years, when they realized they could do so much more than they'd ever done before without...

FEINSTEIN: What do you think, as a judge?

KORNBLUM: I think — as a magistrate judge, not a district judge — that a president would be remiss in exercising his constitutional authority to say that, "I surrender all of my power to a statute." And, frankly, I doubt that Congress in a statute can take away the president's authority — not his inherent authority but his necessary and — I forget the constitutional — his necessary and proper authority.

FEINSTEIN: I'd like to go down the line, if I could, Judge, please. Judge Baker?

[U.S. District Judge Harold] BAKER: Well, I'm going to pass to my colleagues, since I answered before. I don't believe a president would surrender his power, either.

FEINSTEIN: So you don't believe a president would be bound by the rules and regulations of a statute. Is that what you're saying?

BAKER: No, I don't believe that. A president...

FEINSTEIN: That's my question.

BAKER: No, I thought you were talking about the decisionÂ…

FEINSTEIN: No, I'm talking about FISA and is a president bound by the rules and regulations of FISA?

BAKER: If it's held constitutional and it's passed, I suppose he is, like everyone else: He's under the law, too.

FEINSTEIN: Judge?

[U.S. District Judge Stanley] BROTMAN (?): I would feel the same way.

FEINSTEIN: Judge Keenan?

[U.S. District Judge John] KEENAN: Certainly the president is subject to the law. But by the same token, in emergency situations, as happened in the spring of 1861, if you remember — and we all do — President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and got in a big argument with Chief Justice Taney, but the writ was suspended.

KEENAN: And some of you probably have read the book late Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote, "All the Laws But One." Because in his inaugural speech — not his inaugural speech, but his speech on July 4th, 1861, President Lincoln said, essentially, "Should we follow all the laws and have them all broken, because of one?"

FEINSTEIN: Judge?

(UNKNOWN) [probably U.S. District Judge William Stafford]: Senator, everyone is bound by the law, but I don't believe, with all due respect, that even an act of Congress can limit the president's power under the necessary and proper clause under the Constitution.

And it's hard for me to go further on the question that you pose, but I would think that (inaudible) power is defined in the Constitution, and while he's bound to obey the law, I don't believe that the law can change that.

While a full transcript of the five judge's testimony is not yet available, Spruill notes that all five—his word was "each"—of the five judges seems to hold that the President's argument that he has the inherent Constitutional authority to conduct warrantless wiretapping.

This is consistent with the FISA Court of Review's findings in In re: Sealed Case when the Court recognized "the President's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."

These judges seem to agree with the exact point I made in December:

Every President from the dawn of international wire communications well over 100 years ago until 1978 assumed this right, and the courts have always deferred to this particular power inherent to the Presidency. This is supported by case law and precedent, and is summed up in the five-page Department of Justice briefing (PDF) delivered last week. In short, the Department of Justice seems willing to make the case that Bush was well within his constitutional powers. If anything, Congress may have exceeded their constitutional powers in passing FISA.

Even after passing FISA, Carter himself did not feel strictly bound by it, nor has any President since, from Reagan, to George H. W. Bush, Clinton, to George W. Bush. They have all asserted (and over the past two weeks, their DoJ attorneys have as well) that the Office of the Presidency has the Constitutional authority to authorize warrantless intercepts of foreign intelligence. This power has been assumed by every president of the modern age before them, dating back, presumably to the Great Eastern's success in 1866 of laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable. From Johnson, then, through Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland (again), McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and Taft, through Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, to FDR and on to Truman, Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and into the Carter administration, the Presidency has had the inherent and unchallenged power to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign powers for national security reasons.

This is a simple, unassailable fact, not matter how loudly demagogues shriek.

FISA is a case of Congress infringing upon the inherent power of the executive branch, and if it comes up as a direct constitutional challenge, FISA will most likely be struck down as Congress infringing upon the constitutional authority of the executive branch to perform foreign intelligence functions.

Statutory law cannot override the President's constitutional powers and duties; only a constitutional amendment has that power. Neither FISA nor other current statutory proposals in the Senate can infringe upon the President's Article II powers.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:55 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The new, "aggressive" 2006 Democratic platform advocates shifting 140,000 American soldiers out of Iraq to attack a nuclear-armed nominal ally to capture a figurehead dialysis patient that Harry Reid already thinks is dead.

More. Please.

Note: Bad link fixed.

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The Washington Times editorial on illegal immigration by Tony Blankley this morning really set me off (h/t Drudge), especially this part:

...The senators should remember that they are American senators, not Roman proconsuls. Nor is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee some latter-day Praetor Maximus.

But if they would be dictators, it would be nice if they could at least be wise (until such time as the people can electorally forcefully project with a violent pedal thrust their regrettable backsides out of town). It was gut-wrenching (which in my case is a substantial event) to watch the senators prattle on in their idle ignorance concerning the manifold economic benefits that will accrue to the body politic if we can just cram a few million more uneducated illegals into the country. ( I guess ignorance loves company.) Beyond the Senate last week, in a remarkable example of intellectual integrity (in the face of the editorial positions of their newspapers) the chief economic columnists for the New York Times and The Washington Post — Paul Krugman and Robert Samuelson, respectively — laid out the sad facts regarding the economics of the matter. Senators, congressmen and Mr. President, please take note.

Regarding the Senate's and the president's guest-worker proposals, The Post's Robert Samuelson writes: "Gosh, they're all bad ideas ... We'd be importing poverty. This isn't because these immigrants aren't hardworking, many are. Nor is it because they don't assimilate, many do. But they generally don't go home, assimilation is slow and the ranks of the poor are constantly replenished ... [It] is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico ... The most lunatic notion is that admitting more poor Latino workers would ease the labor market strains of retiring baby boomers ? Far from softening the social problems of an aging society, more poor immigrants might aggravate them by pitting older retirees against younger Hispanics for limited government benefits ... [Moreover], [i]t's a myth that the U.S. economy 'needs' more poor immigrants.

[my bold, not in original - ed.]

It does not help that a small but growing number have no intention to assimilate, as shone in these disturbing images captured yesterday noted on both the left and the right.

It also inspired my to contact my Senators, Richard Burr (R) and Elizabeth Dole (R), to whom I sent the following email:

Dear Senator,

It is with a great deal of concern, and even anger that I write to you this morning, regarding the subject of illegal immigration before us this day.

According to an article this morning in the Washington Times:

Gallup Poll (March 27) finds 80 percent of the public wants the federal government to get tougher on illegal immigration. A Quinnipiac University Poll (March 3) finds 62 percent oppose making it easier for illegals to become citizens (72 percent in that poll don't even want illegals to be permitted to have driver's licenses). Time Magazine's recent poll (Jan. 24-26) found 75 percent favor "major penalties" on employers of illegals, 70 percent believe illegals increase the likelihood of terrorism and 57 percent would use military force at the Mexican-American border.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (March 10-13) found 59 percent opposing a guest-worker proposal, and 71 percent would more likely vote for a congressional candidate who would tighten immigration controls.
An IQ Research poll (March 10) found 92 percent saying that securing the U.S. border should be a top priority of the White House and Congress.

And yet those of you in the Senate, including 73 percent of Republicans, support guest worker legislation, rewarding those that would break the law, repeating polices that have failed miserably in the past.

This must not stand. Immigration must be legal. Amnesty is not an option. Illegals must leave this country, and return legally. Employers who hire illegals must be heavily fined. Illegal immigrants must be charged as felons. We must have our southern border sealed with fences and walls to enforce legal immigration, and prevent illegal immigration.

I am but one voice of many, but mine is a loud voice, getting louder, with more than 60,000 influential readers coming to my conservative political blog (http://confederateyankee.mu.nu) last month alone.

I will use that digital pulpit to highlight the fact that you specifically voted against the will of North Carolina's Republican voters. I will questions your motives. I will question your reasoning. I will examine your other legislation. I will examine your connection to lobbyists. And I will do so relentlessly.

America is a land of immigrants. Immigration is good for America's soul. But this immigration must be legal, and every immigrant must come here legally, without exception.

Those of us who can legally vote, including legal immigrants, will have it no other way.

Sincerely,

As I stated in my email to the good senators, I'm completely behind the concept of immigration, but it must be legal immigration.

Those who break our laws should be treated with handcuffs, not kid gloves.

Update: The hihg school students who ran up the Mexican flag at Montebello HS (cluelessly but appropriately running the American flag in the "in distress" upside down position) were not from Montebello HS, but nearby El Rancho High School and both "a board member and the acting administrator of the El Rancho High School were present" according to Ward Brewer, who called Montebello and El Rancho high schools in running this story down.

It sounds to me like a couple of folks need to be fired from El Rancho.

Another reader who claims to be from the area states that many of the students and families of students from El Rancho are *gasp* illegals, though I have no way of verifying this.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:50 AM | Comments (29) | Add Comment
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School Buses
Slightly damp, a total of 259. Previously used as a symbol of incompetence. Works great as anchors and fish attractors. Ask for Ray.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:30 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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According to Michelle Malkin, British Muslims are carping about a pair of fish they claim are inscribed with the names of Allah and Mohammed, calling it a miracle. Frightening as it all may seem, this "miracle" just goes to reinforce the truth of the being they once called the Arafish.

Certain dhimmi liberals of course, are falling for this hook, line and sinker, and are all too willing to pander to fish-fascinated fanatics here in the United States.

Some are willing to praise the Allah fish:

Some are so intent on capturing votes that they are willing to go the extra mile to look like the Allah fish:

Not surprisingly, they're all famous bottom feeders, doncha know.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:25 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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For those of you who have read this NY Times article about captured Iraqi war documents being placed on the web, you'll note that the Times did not deem to give Ray Robinson, the blogger interviewed in the article, a link to his blog, nor did they bother to give you his entire background. Ray Robinson worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency as a member of the Iraq Survey Group that collected and in-processed this documentation when it was captured. He isn't just a blogger, but a person with some hands-on expertise.

Too bad that the Times couldn't be bothered to provide a link or give his bona fides.

I guess that would go against their "bloggers are hacks, and we're so accurate" meme, wouldn't it?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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One can only hope that the truth brigade of the liberal blogosphere that so effectively curtailed the career of Ben Domenech will maintain their high standards of integrity in the pursuit of accuracy, and be among the first to call for the head of famous ex-neocon Francis Fukuyama.

Fukuyama's life-altering revelation that caused him to turn away from neoconservatism was supposedly triggered by a speech calling the Iraq war "a virtually unqualified success." It turns out Fukuyama's story was instead the unqualified fabrication, according to the man who gave the speech, Charles Krauthammer, who calls Fukuyama out:

I happen to know something about this story, as I was the speaker whose 2004 Irving Kristol lecture to the American Enterprise Institute Fukuyama has now brought to prominence. I can therefore testify that Fukuyama's claim that I attributed "virtually unqualified success" to the war is a fabrication.

A convenient fabrication -- it gives him a foil and the story drama -- but a foolish one because it can be checked. The speech was given at the Washington Hilton before a full house, carried live on C-SPAN and then published by the American Enterprise Institute under its title "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World." (It can be read at http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19912,filter.all/pub_detail.asp.) As indicated by the title, the speech was not about Iraq. It was a fairly theoretical critique of the four schools of American foreign policy: isolationism, liberal internationalism, realism and neoconservatism. The only successes I attributed to the Iraq war were two, and both self-evident: (1) that it had deposed Saddam Hussein and (2) that this had made other dictators think twice about the price of acquiring nuclear weapons, as evidenced by the fact that Moammar Gaddafi had turned over his secret nuclear program for dismantling just months after Hussein's fall (in fact, on the very week of Hussein's capture).

It's all right there in black and white pixels, with an easily followed link to a copy of the speech above. Fukuyama misrepresented the content of Krauthammer's speech as being something else, which certainly as vile as misrepresenting the content of the speech as his own.

I'm sure the intrepid truth squad of the far left - at Firedoglake, Media Matters, the Daily Kos, and others - will press Fukuyama for a full accounting for his transgressions with the same righteous fury they unleashed last week in their relentless pursuit of truth.

Seriously.

Any minute now.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:40 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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News is now breaking in the trial of the so-called "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui that Moussaoui and shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth plane on 9/11 and fly it into the White House.

Via Breitbart:

Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.

Moussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom as he disclosed details he had never revealed before. It was in stark contrast to Moussaoui's previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions.

Quite frankly, it is hard to trust anything Zacarias Moussaoui has to say, but if he is telling the truth that his target was the White House, it might provide an answer to the question of Flight 93's target that September morning.

It has long been suspected that the hijackers on Flight 93 were likely targeting either the Capitol Building or the White House. As Moussaoui was arrested just one month before the attacks, it seems likely that the other the terror cells would stick with their original targets instead of trying to retarget shortly before the attack. If Moussaoui's statement it true that his target was the White House, then it would seem likely that the terrorists on Flight 93 had the Capitol Building as their target.

We know that the heroes of Flight 93 prevented an attack on a Washington target when they stormed the cockpit over Pennsylvania that September morning. If Moussaoui is correct, we now have a reason to suspect exactly what it was they saved.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:48 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The NY Times has a huge non-story today, where it was found that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair did not wait until the week before the invasion of Iraq to do their war planning.

When presented in that context, of course, it really is a non-story, other than the fact that the document provides some interesting historical context of the kind of commentary that goes on between leaders in a run-up to a conflict.

Ed Morrissey says pretty much what I would say about the matter, summing it up:

In short, the Times presents us with a memo that shows the US and UK understanding that Saddam would not cooperate with the UN nor voluntarily disarm or step aside; history proved them correct on all those assertions. Given those as reality, the two nations prepared for war. If the Times finds this surprising, it demonstrates their cluelessness all the more.

I suspect it isn't cluelessness as much as it is political opportunism by the Times, which has consistently covered this conflict in a way that makes al Jazeera unnecessary.

Bush Lied, People Died. I think I've heard that before.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:49 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Didn't blog over the course of the weekend, and probably won't post much during the next few days, either. We have something of a family reunion is going on at my place, with my wife's sister and her kids up from Florida, and my wife's parents down from New York, and we're having a blast.

They're all looking at real estate and thinking about joining us in the area, and if they do, my wife's brother and his family probably won't be too far behind. The crappy schools, over-priced real estate, and high taxes are pushing them out of both upstate New York and West Palm Beach, and they're looking here like so many people have before them.

Based upon people I've met, I think half of Poughkeepsie, NY has relocated to Cary, NC. They didn't jokingly nickname it C.A.R.Y. -the "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees" - for nothing.

Why are people moving?

Houses are going for over $190 a square foot in the part of NY my wife's family is from for a 40 year-old home, and they're paying outrageous property taxes to support public schools that are both under-performing and increasingly dangerous.

Here is NC, we're building a home for less than $90 dollars a square foot, pay considerably lower taxes, and have our kid attending one of the top school systems in the nation.

I think that's what they call a "no-brainer," isn't it?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:05 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Sometimes it is simply better to shut up and take your lumps. Ben Demonech has not learned that yet:

In his first public comments since resigning earlier today as a blogger for washingtonpost.com, Ben Domenech says his editors there were “fools” for not expecting an onslaught of attacks from the left.

“While I appreciated the opportunity to go and join the Washington Post,” Domenech said, “if they didn't expect the leftists were going to come after me with their sharpened knives, then they were fools.”

Ben, you can't hold the Washington Post to blame for your serial plagiarism, both during college, and afterward.

You don't have an inherent right to work for a major news organization, you don't have a greater level of privilege, and you certainly shouldn't expect a lesser level of accountability.

You don't get a free ride.

Do you think you are French?

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I have a confession to make: I never heard the name "Ben Domenech" until the Washington Post launched the blog Red America several days ago.

Since his first substantial post hit Tuesday, he has generated an outburst of outrage that I haven't seen on the left since... well, since the last one. True to form, the left has engaged in what they call opposition research, what we call dumpster diving, and what Chuck Schumer's office called an isolated incident after the plea deal last week.

And they have scored hits.

They've uncovered what David Brock's Media Matters for America called, "new evidence of Domenech's racially charged rhetoric and homophobic bigotry,” in an effort to have Domenech fired for what they claim are his past views, including the following:

• In a February 7 post on RedState, Domenech wrote that he believed people should be "pissed" that President Bush attended "the funeral of a Communist" -- referring to the funeral for Coretta Scott King. As you know, labeling the King family "communists" was a favorite tool of the racists who opposed them.
• In another RedState post, Domenech compared "the Judiciary" unfavorably to the Ku Klux Klan.
• In still another RedState comment, Domenech posted without comment an article stating that "[i]t just happens that killing black babies has the happy result of reducing crime" and that "[w]hite racists have reason to be grateful for what is sometimes still called the civil rights leadership" because black leaders "are overwhelmingly in support" of abortion rights.
• In yet another, Domenech wrote that conservative blogger/journalist Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, "needs a woman to give him some stability."

I'm sure that David Brock, being honest and not the kind of guy to write a hit piece, would certainly encourage us to look into his charges. Surely, nothing he charges would be hyperbolic, would it?

Let's look at Brock's first charge:

In a February 7 post on RedState, Domenech wrote that he believed people should be "pissed" that President Bush attended "the funeral of a Communist" -- referring to the funeral for Coretta Scott King.

Posting under the screen name "Augustine" on Red State Domenech did in fact call King a communist. As I asked earlier today, whether or not Domenech was right about King's political affiliation, when did communism become a race?

Brock's second charge is even more volatile.

In another RedState post, Domenech compared "the Judiciary" unfavorably to the Ku Klux Klan.

But what exactly did Domenech say? Brock doesn't directly link to the comment, or provide it in context, instead burying it in text of another Media Matters article.

The Red State post and its comments are here, and Domenech's comment is in response to a charge by James Dobson that men in white robes (the Ku Klux Klan) "did great wrong to civil rights to and to morality" and now we have men in black robes (judges) also doing great wrongs to civil rights and morality. [Note: the comment below is the wrong comment. This is Domenech's first comment in this thread, not the one Brock cherry-picked that was far less descriptive and inflammatory. My mistake ofr grabbing the wrong comment. See comments of this post for details.]

Domenech's comment:

Actually, Dobson's soft-pedaling it. The worst black-robed men and women are worse then the KKK, and not just because they have the authority of the state behind them. They don't even use the vile pretense of skin color - they dismiss the value of all unborn lives, not just the lives of ethnic minorities.

Domenech says that the worst judges, with the authority of the state behind them, are more dangerous than is a specific marginalized extremist group. Does anyone dare to argue the absolute truth of that statement?

Domenech then makes an allusion to the millions of children (of all races) aborted since Roe v. Wade was decided. No one can argue the fact that many more lives have been cut short by abortions than by lynchings.

Domenech is 100% factually correct.

Brock's willful misrepresentation of the meaning and context of Domenech's statements are even more offensive than the charges of racism Brock is peddling because the charges are so obviously contrived.

Next.

In still another RedState comment, Domenech posted without comment an article stating that "[i]t just happens that killing black babies has the happy result of reducing crime" and that "[w]hite racists have reason to be grateful for what is sometimes still called the civil rights leadership" because black leaders "are overwhelmingly in support" of abortion rights.

The Dowdified quote Brock provides was Swiftian satire written by Richard John Neuhaus (full article here) about the book "Freakonomics," and the disgusting thought that a high level of minority abortions cuts the crime rate. Domenech himself states:

Neuhaus, one of the most outspoken, respected and influential pro-life intellectuals in America, finds this logic as morally disgusting as I do. He is putting this logic in its bluntest terms to show the full degree of its inhumanity. A few people have noticed this, but for those who are still having trouble, I highly recommend this.

Once again, Brock is guilty of misrepresenting Domenech.

Last and least of Brock's bulleted list of charges:

In yet another, Domenech wrote that conservative blogger/journalist Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, "needs a woman to give him some stability."

Sullivan, is Domenech's target in this post, and he does end with the line Brock cites. According to Technorati, there are no less than 239 posts about Andrew Sullivan freaking out. Sullivan needs something, but the answer is probably not estrogen-based.

In short, Brock presents four bullet-point charges that he states should be reasons for the Washington Post to fire Ben Domenech. Of those four points, Brock catches Domenech using excessive hyperbole once, and projecting a sexuality-based thought against an erratic writer in another instance.

In between these bookends, Brock intentionally misrepresents Domenech not once, but twice.

In living up to his own high standards of moral clarity, I'm sure we'll see David Brock's resignation letter tomorrow.

* * *

Brock's creativity aside, there seems to be a strong argument for Domenech to resign his Washington Post blog, not for the reasons listed above, but for his lack of creativity... and originality.

Apparently Domenech plagiarized the work of P.J. O'Rourke, and maybe others.

Dan Riehl adds:

Frankly, the attack by Media Matters was about as fair, or accurate as the New York Times - not very. However, if any, let alone all, of the charges of alleged plagiarism are deserved, Domenech is an embarrassment to all bloggers, not just conservatives.

Now, even the defense of him I made is in question if he can't produce a link to an original article containing the deficit quote re the above link.

Though apparently a co-founder, I would also encourage RedState to think very seriously about his role as a RedState blogger going forward. If Domenech plagiarized as freely and often as it would appear, there is no excuse for it.

I can forgive someone who runs across a concept and inadvertently "thinks" it at a later date. It can happen. Ripping content, however, word-for-word, line-by-line, post-by-post... if true, that is no mistake.

Hello, Ben. Goodbye.

Update: It Ain't Over, Fat Lady.
John Cole of Balloon Juice, hardly a "Bush loyalist," puts up a spirited defense of Domenech's character while gutting one of the almost incoherently rabid far left blogger Jane Hamsher:

Hell, half the things in that despicable Hamsher post were not even WRITTEN BY BEN. Even as I grow more and more disgusted and sick of the Republican party, I am still amazed at the gutter antics of the rabid left.

I don't agree with Ben Domenech on nearly any social issue, but I have read thousands of his private emails at Red State (we have an Editor's listserv of sorts), spoken with him (via AOL IM) dozens of times, and I have never seen or heard one shred of racism come from him. I think Ben Domeonech is wrong on a lot of things, but he is no racist, and I think the distortion of what Ben has written by Jane and others is outrageous and disgusting.

Nor is the Washington Post willing to show Demenech the door just yet:

Late yesterday, the liberal Web sites Daily Kos and Atrios posted examples of what appeared to be instances of plagiarism from Domenech's writing at the William & Mary student paper. Three sentences of a 1999 Domenech review of a Martin Scorsese film were identical to a review in Salon magazine, and several sentences in Domenech's piece on a James Bond movie closely resembled one in the Internet Movie Database. Domenech said he needed to research the examples but that he never used material without attribution and had complained about a college editor improperly adding language to some of his articles.

The ante has been upped.

Domenech is either going to be proven a serial plagiarist and a liar, or quite a few liberal blogs are going to have to explain to their readers how they were wrong on a very serious charge.

This seems far from over.

Update: What was the last thing I said?
Ben Domenech has resigned.

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Landfall...

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