They forgot to call him a "stinky poopyhead."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:13 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.

I like this Rowan Scarborough article, though I liked it better when I wrote it almost seven months ago.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:54 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 29 words, total size 1 kb.

"Groped."

In a word overwrought with sexual harrassment dogma and victimization, that word has a very distinct social context. Most would agree to a contextual definition of groping as unwanted touching of a sexual nature, a context provided in no small part by our most recent ex-president.

Taylor Marsh is therefore quite dishonest in her hyperbolic headline, Bush Gropes Germany's Merkel.

Ever taking things out of context and folding them into a "reality-based" worldview, the four still images she includes on her site of President Bush giving German Chancellor Angela Merkel's shoulders an affectionate squeeze as he passes by on the way to his seat at the G8 summit.

Merkel does appear startled, but the lightweight outrage of American liberals who attempt to blow this into an international incident, or worse, some sort of transferred Oedipal complex is amusing to the extreme.

It betrays the mindset of a group of ersatz political bloggers with so little real substance that they are reduced to Page Six hissyfits of feigned indignation over a shoulder touch.

It becomes increasingly harder to take Taylor Marsh and her Fellow Travelers seriously on any subject of real importance.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 194 words, total size 2 kb.

Over at The Corner this morning, John Podhoretz announced:

George Will Goes Nuclear

This may prove to be the most discussed op-ed of the year.

Actually, it isn't even the most discussed post of the day from Washington Post columnists, with Richard Cohen's "curl up and die" op-ed targeting Israel taking that dishonor.

Still, I read Will's column in the New York Post as J-Pod urged, and even after a re-reading, I wasn't duly impressed with any of this:

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Rice called it "short-sighted" to judge the success of the administration's transformational ambitions by a "snapshot" of progress "some couple of years" into the transformation. She seems to consider today's turmoil preferable to the Middle East's "false stability" of the last 60 years, during which U.S. policy "turned a blind eye to the absence of democratic forces."

There is, however, a sense in which that argument creates a blind eye: It makes instability, no matter how pandemic or lethal, necessarily a sign of progress. Violence is vindication: Hamas and Hezbollah have, Rice says, "determined that it is time now to try and arrest the move toward moderate democratic forces in the Middle East."

But there also is democratic movement toward extremism. America's intervention was supposed to democratize Iraq which, by benign infection, would transform the region. Early on in the Iraq occupation, Rice argued that democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable political culture, they also can help create such a culture. Perhaps.

But elections have transformed Hamas into the government of the Palestinian territories, and elections have turned Hezbollah into a significant faction in Lebanon's parliament, from which it operates as a state within the state. And as a possible harbinger of future horrors, last year's elections gave the Muslim Brotherhood 19 percent of the seats in Egypt's parliament.

For a region cycling through periods of high intensity, short-duration wars, and low intensity, long duration slugfests, is the "false stability" Will speaks of worth maintaining? I suggest not, and I think that the turmoil would exist, triggered by Hamas and Hezbollah and the regimes in Syria and Iran that back them, whether or not we ever invaded Iraq at all in 2003.

Certainly, America wasn't invading any Arab or Persian nations in the 1948 War for Israeli Independence, The Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, or any of the other conflicts Israel has been engaged in during it's nearly 60 year modern history, and so Will's argument seems to fall short of the facts.

Will makes the false argument that instability is not required for progress in the region, an absurd position in science and politics. Whether we are discussing physical materials or a region in political stasis, a catalyst is needed to create change, and as that change occurred instability is a certainly. There is only stability in the inert and the dead, and quite frankly, I don't see Israel as willing to be either.

Yes, democracy can have bad results. People can elect bad leaders as easily as bad leaders can seize power on their own, but that does not invalidate the concept democracy, and in fact reinforced the importance of the vote. People can choose to make bad decisions and they must learn to live with the consequences of that decision. Hopefully, the Palestinians will learn that lesson over time, as will the Lebanese that helped Hezbollah into power, only to undo the progress of the past 15 years in less than a week.

Wil'ls column brings us nothing new, nothing astute, and rehashes arguments I've seen better written elsewhere by writers with far less renown.

Perhaps Will has attempted to go nuclear, but like a North Korean missile, he has fallen apart shortly after launch.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 631 words, total size 4 kb.

You are an abomination. You are a mistake. You should have been aborted before birth, and now that you have been born, you deserve every beating you've gotten since, merely for daring to exist.

Or at least that seems to summarize Richard Cohen's feelings toward the Jews of Israel, while he can scarcely find a word to condemn Hezbollah, Hamas, or the other Islamists intent on Israeli genocide. Of course, don't take my word for it, when his will do:

The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.

This is why the Israeli-Arab war, now transformed into the Israeli-Muslim war (Iran is not an Arab state), persists and widens. It is why the conflict mutates and festers. It is why Israel is now fighting an organization, Hezbollah, that did not exist 30 years ago and why Hezbollah is being supported by a nation, Iran, that was once a tacit ally of Israel's. The underlying, subterranean hatred of the Jewish state in the Islamic world just keeps bubbling to the surface. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and some other Arab countries may condemn Hezbollah, but I doubt the proverbial man in their street shares that view.

There is no point in condemning Hezbollah. Zealots are not amenable to reason. And there's not much point, either, in condemning Hamas. It is a fetid, anti-Semitic outfit whose organizing principle is hatred of Israel. There is, though, a point in cautioning Israel to exercise restraint -- not for the sake of its enemies but for itself. Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose...

That is as much of Cohen's "curl up and die" message to Israel as I felt like holding forth, though you are certainly well within your rights to read the whole thing if you must.

Sadly, Cohen's grasp of history is shown to be almost as weak as that of Iran's Holocaust-denying President Ahmadinejad.

Cohen rails against "the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims," in a land where Jews predated the very existence of Islam by more than two millennia. It was only during the first two centuries AD that the Jews were forced from their ancestral homes in Israel and into slavery around the world, and it wasn't until after then that Muslims usurped Israeli lands.

Cohen makes another asinine statement unsupported by the history he claims to be on the side of, when he states, "Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose..."

Poppycock.

If history has taught us anything about Islam, it is that Islam—a religion that dutifully separates the world into Dar al Islam (the House of Submission [to Allah]) and Dar al Harb (the House of War)—the only thing Muslim culture understands or respects is brute force. From Vienna to Tours to modern day wars along Islam's current borders, this lesson is repeated down through history to the present day.

Only overwhelming force and the crushing defeats it has visited upon its enemies have kept Israel alive thus far. Every retreat, every pullback, has led to more aggression from its neighbors.

Displaying a most selective grasp of history, he excretes a post almost Greenwaldian in its dishonesty.

"It is best," Cohen concludes, "for Israel to hunker down."

Forces that hunker down can never win wars, and at best they may merely survive. Israel deserves something far more than the mere survival Cohen is willing to grant them.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:02 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 678 words, total size 4 kb.

Just in case you haven't seen it yet, Pajamas Media has a beta version of a new sister site up called Politics Central that bears watching. We're shooting for a post-Labor Day launch (no exact date set), and I think that I'll personally be most interested in the Media Central and X21Central subsites.

Check it out, and let the design team know what you think.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 73 words, total size 1 kb.

In a moment of candor during the supposedly private G8 luncheon, President Bush was caught on an open mike discussing Hezbollah's recent attacks against Israel to British Prime Minster Tony Blair:

"See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over," Bush told Blair as he chewed on a buttered roll.

It is a probably valid assessment of the situation, but the liberals at Firedoglake actually have the temerity to snip at the President for his choice of words.

Christy Hardin Smith huffed:

It seems that the President of the United States needs a visit from Emily Post.

While munching on a roll, George Bush had a conversation with Tony Blair about Hizbollah cutting out their "shit." So much for that born-again veneerÂ…this deciderating and Presidenting is hard work. (And the fact that the curtain gets lifted from the "moral majority" act for public consumption is just a side bonus, I suppose, since neither Bush nor Blair knew the microphone was on. And we continue now in the "do as I say, not as I do" AdministrationÂ…)

I'm sorry, but did Christy Smith forget which web site she writes for?

Firedoglake is riddled with profanity (most of it from the denizens that comment there, some from the authors), and in the comments to this very post, Christy had to edit out an apparent threat made about poisoning the President's food.

To hear a poster at Firedoglake lecture about profanity is to hear Kennedy lecturing us about sobriety. Quite frankly, you don't know whether to be embarrassed for them, or of them.

Christians curse sometimes, Christy. Even ministers. Even Presidents. That you feign surprise at that, to score some petty points among your sycophants, is perhaps not all that surprising (low hanging fruits, and all), but don't expect anyone outside of your clique to think you are very clever for doing so.

The President of the United States said shit because Hezbollah terrorists—supported and supplied by Syria and Iran—are firing rocket after rocket at Israeli cities in order to kill Israeli civilians. This is something that is—interestingly enough—not profane enough for her to find the words to condemn Hezbollah for in this post.

And she thinks President Bush has the language problem...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:18 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 389 words, total size 3 kb.

Writing in Haaretz, Ze'ev Schiff makes what I think is a pretty good analysis when he says the Israel-Hezbollah War has not reached its peak:

The fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, has still not reached its zenith. The Israel Defense Forces' operational plans against the Shi'ite organizations have not yet been carried out. The next two days are the most critical and a lot depends on whether Tehran decides to take a chance and authorize Hezbollah to launch long-range missiles with more powerful warheads. This is a capability Hezbollah still retains, despite the heavy blows it has suffered in the IDF air strikes.

On Sunday, Israel bore witness to the use of more powerful rockets against Haifa, which killed eight people and injured dozens more. The Syrian-made 220 mm rocket has a warhead weighing more than 50 kilograms. Hezbollah was supplied with these rockets as the Syrian armed forces were receiving them off the production lines. The decision to give Hezbollah the rockets was made when it was concluded that the group would be considered part of the Syrian army's overall emergency preparedness.

The risk to Iran is not military, but rather that Hezbollah would suffer such damage that it would no longer be counted as the sole external element of Iran's Islamic Revolution. It is difficult to assess what the Iranian leadership will decide. If it does opt for aggravating the situation, it will certainly encourage the Syrians to become involved in the confrontation, but all indications suggest that Damascus is not eager to get dragged into war.

Israel is also not interested in a third front, so long as Syria does not intervene in the fighting on the side of Hezbollah.

As the Counterterrorism Blog also noted, Hezbollah also has used the Iranian made and supplied 333 mm Raad missile. A Chinese-designed weapon the Raad is based upon the Silkworm, and can carry a 1100 lb warhead of conventional, chemical or nuclear design. It is not to be confused with the Iranian ATGM (antitank guided missile) of the same name that the Hezbollah may also try to use against Israeli Merkava tanks.

Israel is fighting Iran and Syria in the most thinly veiled proxy war of this young century, and Israel must decimate Hezbollah's rocket program if it is to survive.

More than six months ago analysts were predicting that apocalyptic sect running Iran may be trying to create an End Times conflagration to mesh with their 12th Imam eschatology. Much of the analysis and -speculation I've read since then has focused on the threat of long-range nuclear missiles fired from Iran, but it becomes increasingly more clear on a daily basis that Iranian forces and the most advanced Iranian weaponry are being deployed with Hezbollah on Israel's doorstep.

The nuclear deterrence theory of MAD (mutual assured destruction) was predicated upon the thought that bot sides would be able to get nuclear weapons airborne in the event of an attack, assuring both sides would suffer catastrophic losses. This theory was already turned on its head by those who theorize that the Iranian leadership is hoping precisely for that sort of exchange to bring about their hoped for End of Days.

But an Iran that has nuclear-capable missiles in southern Lebanon is another matter entirely, as it is an entirely more practical and worldly extension of Iran's hatred for Israel.

A well-timed and executed Iranian nuclear weapon first strike could easily be disguised as just another conventional Raad rocket attack like the ones that have already been fired on Israeli cities. Iran could conceivably and rather easily hide a crippling nuclear first strike in a barrage of Hezbollah missiles, incinerating the majority of the country before Israel even suspected it was under a nuclear attack.

For these reasons, Israel must not only beat Hezbollah back and rearrange another stalemate, it must continue on until Hezbollah in Lebanon is destroyed. To not follow through is to endanger the very existence of the nation, and to potentially invite an Iranian nuclear attack.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:45 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 685 words, total size 5 kb.

1 Confed, my friend, I think you've gone just a tad bit overboard about a potential Iranian nuclear first-strike capability in southern Lebanon. First, let us examine the missles we know Hizbolla has (from strategypage and other googled sources): -B12: 107mm diameter, 838mm long. Weighs 19 kilograms (42 lbs), has a 1.4kg (3 lb) warhead, and 6,000m range. -BM21: 122mm diameter, 2.74m long. Weighs 68kg (150 lbs), has a 20kg (45 lb) warhead, and 20km range. -Fadjr-3: 240mm diameter (about 9.5"), weighs 407kg (900 lbs), 90kg (198 lbs) warhead, and 43km range. -Fadjr-5: 333mm diameter (about 13.11"), weighs 915kg (2017 lbs), also has a 90kg warhead, and 75km range. What should jump out at you? The biggest rocket above only carries a 90kg warhead! Just under 200 pounds for us Merkans. Now let's consider nuclear weapons. I don't think anyone is claiming that Iran has nukes right now, so it's fair to say they're still trying. Then let us consider the first US nuclear devices weight; "Fat Man" weighed in a 10,000 pounds, and "Little Boy" around 9,000. Let's be very, very generous and assume that Iran can manufacture their first-generation nuke twice as efficiently as those, so it only weighs half as much. Call it 4,500 pounds. How many countries in the region even have a missle which can throw that much? Note that the original Atlas ICBM carried a single 5500-pound warhead, for reference. But -someone interjects- what if Iran developed small, 2000-lb nuke? They could put that in a SCUD. Aha!, they cry! Well, that's theoretically possible. But let's note something else; all the rockets mentioned above which Hizbolla actually has are all have solid-fuel engines. And they're all (relatively small) compared even to a SCUD. The original SCUD missle was literally a remake of the German V-2 (A-4) rocket. It's about 11.25 meters long, and .88m in diameter. It is obviously much larger than anything known to be in the Hizbolla armory. Both the A-4 and the typical SCUD can carry a 2,000-lb warhead. As you can see by the dimensions, a SCUD would physically stand out like the proverbial sore thumb. Add to that the fact that any missle which could carry a Persian-built nuke warhead would of necessity be liquid-fueled, unless they've managed to steal a Minuteman III or a Trident. I really don't see how Hizbolla could smuggle in missles which are literally twice the size of the Fadjr (much less the katushyas), and need liquid-fuel maintainence to boot. To really put a cap on things, the SCUDs use hypergolic fuels, which are an absolute bitch to handle. The facilities required for either hypergolic or LOX/other fuels would also be obvious indicators. So even a 2,000-lb nuke (which I maintain is beyond anything the Persians do for a long time) would require a missle with literally 10 times the throw weight of the biggest Fadjer Hizbolla has. (2,000 lbs vs. 200 lbs). It would require liquid fuels, which would require liquid-fuel storage and handling. All of these things are much harder to conceal than the smaller solid-fuel missles Hizbolla is known to have. So I have to ask: how to do expect Hizbolla/Iran to accomplish this? I'm just askin'...

Posted by: Casey Tompkins at July 18, 2006 11:14 PM (xdVg/)

2 Casey, we were making 50-pound W-54 nukes 44 years ago, and the soviets claim to have had similar weapons, so call-ed "backpack nukes." I find quite technically possible that with guidance and possibly materials from both the A.O Khan network and North Korea, that Iraq could be in posession of something that would fit well within the payload profile of both the Fadjr-3 and Fadjr-5. The Soviet FROG-7, which most nearly matches the Fadjr-5's weight and payload, was typically used for nucelar weapons.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at July 18, 2006 11:33 PM (psJM2)

3 Point taken. Still, let us note that was after 18 years of massive US R&D. AFAIK both the Norks and the Persians are still at 1945. 1952, or -54, tops. While the FROG-7 is solid-fueled, I must again point out that it was developed 20 years after the first nukes. Let us review: -first you have to develop the ability to build a nuke. One that predictably goes "boom." -then you have to shrink that puppy to 50 or 60 kilos (objectively a 20-year process). -finally you have to mate a warhead to a missle. In this case, the warhead has to be small enough and robust enough to fit on a FROG-7 and/or Fadjr-5 missle. For all I know, weapons engineering has advanced to the point where they do all the scut-work in simulations, as they do with cars and commercial jets. But I doubt it. From what I've picked up, here and there, even the Bolshies had some nuke designs which were less than reliable. On the other hand, if we developed a couple of dud designs, I wouldn't doubt they'd go into the "HIGHLY CLASSIFIED, NEVER DE-CLASSIFY" cabinet as well. I don't think you're wrong. Let's just say you're five years ahead of the news cycle... Either way, let's all buy the IDF lots and lots of pizza. They're earning it.

Posted by: Casey Tompkins at July 21, 2006 02:01 AM (xdVg/)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

A terrorist sniper is trying to kill U.S. soldiers, and the New York Times is literally right their with them.

Taking pictures.

Probably spotting.

But don't question their patriotism.

(h/t Protein Wisdom)

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:37 PM | Comments (27) | Add Comment
Post contains 48 words, total size 1 kb.

The nutty professor just won't stop... but if I don't miss my guess, she's about to:

Guess Deb isn't quite done milking her 15 minutes.

This time, however, I've contacted the authorities.

Presumably, the responsible authorities here happen to reside at 1961 Stout Street, Suite 1823 in Denver.

The Left has a long and storied history in America of creating homicidally-minded psychopaths.

As I noted on another (now defunct) blog over a year ago and chronicled for posterity here:

As a matter of fact, the majority of political assassinations in America have come from the left or other variations of the mentally ill (as you will see below, many are both, liberalism and mental illness apparently run hand-in-hand), with the exception of RFK, who was killed by a long-standing lefty friend, the Jew-hating Muslim, in this instance Sirhan Sirhan.

The list goes on: John Wilkes Booth was a cross between Robert Byrd and Alec Baldwin, Charles J. Guiteau was a John Edwards-type lawyer who was told by the great beyond (perhaps channelling?) to murder President Garfield, Leon F. Czolgosz, who shot William McKinley was a lefty anarchist. Guiseppe Zangara who tried to kill FDR was a whacked-out anti-capitalist, and we all know Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist sympathizer.

Wannabe white Black Panther Sam Byck got himself killed trying to take out Nixon, and a year later, loonie lefty cultist Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme tried to take out President Ford, who was the target of lefty counterculture loser Sarah Jane Moore just 17 days later.

The evidence is pretty convincing Sara, that if there is a political assassination attempt in America, that either the left or the mentally ill are behind it (I'm not sure I see the distinction between the two, but some do).

One of those discussed in that post was Andrew Mickel, another liberal assassin who was an Indymedia contributor and an Evergreen State College student, who murdered a cop. Why?

"Hello Everyone, my name's Andy. I killed a Police Officer in Red Bluff, California in a motion to bring attention to, and halt, the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country. Now I'm coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility."

"...the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country."

"Â…an action against corporate irresponsibility."

Sounds like it was cut out of Michael Moore.com, doesn't it? Or maybe Talk Left, or a Daily Kos diary, or Firedog Lake or many other mainstream liberal sites, with the not-as-mainstream sites such as IndyMedia or the Democratic Underground providing far worse fodder to feed the crazed masses.

Mickel was a Leftist. His parents say he was mentally ill. Again, I question the difference, and wonder why it took Jeff Goldstein so long to turn someone as potentially dangerous as Debbie Frisch over to the responsible authorities.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:25 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
Post contains 483 words, total size 3 kb.

...into blogging isn't necessarily a habit, but Old Soldier is the second CY regular in olive drab to hang out his own blogging shingle in the past few months (Ray Robinson was the first).

Please stop over and welcome Old Soldier to his new blogosphere home, now officially open for business.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 57 words, total size 1 kb.

At least one strategic operations think tank that reports to the Pentagon thinks that our near-term future may be found in the Bible:

For in my jealousy [and] in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;

So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that [are] upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother.

And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that [are] with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I [am] the LORD.

Ezekiel 38:19-23

From Israel to India, nations with the power of the sun teeter on the brink of full engagement in the Fourth World War.

VII Inc. is a strategic planning company that in a January report, "Iranian President Ahmadinejad, Islamic Eschatology, and Near Term Implications," imagined an "Ezekiel 38" scenario in a where Syrian/Iranian missile attacks supported by Russia would rain "great hailstones, fire, and brimstone," upon Israel with such ferocity that Israel was forced into the nuclear response wanted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad, VII contends, is attempting to create a war that would be perceived as a major sign of the Mahdaviat, the Second Coming of the 12th Iman. He is, quite literally in a eschatological sense, attempting to bring about Armegeddon, and an Islamic version of the Rapture. Ahmadinejad wants to bring about the end of the world.

As Ahmadinejad said Sept 17, 2005 in front of the United Nations:

Dear Friends and Colleagues, from the beginning of time, humanity has longed for the day when justice, peace, equality and compassion envelop the world. All of us can contribute to the establishment of such a world. When that day comes, the ultimate promise of all Divine religions will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being who is heir to all prophets and pious men. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace.

O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.

As Iranian forces fire long-range rockets on Israel it seems quite apparent Ahmadinejad is willing to do all he can to hasten that emergence, and begin the end of man.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:55 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 511 words, total size 4 kb.

Day by Day is now available on your cell phone.

It's the perfect way to spend your time until the cops arrive.

Well that, or hiding the bodies.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:53 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 44 words, total size 1 kb.

In November of 2005, I became aware of a non-profit called Beauchamp Tower Corporation. BTC was focused on a project they called Operation Enduring Service.

The premise for the program was really quite simple and broken down into several easily understood parts.

Start with mothballed ships that were no longer of use to the Navy.

Convert those of historical significance to floating museums.

Take others in good shape, and turn them into disaster response ships.

The rest—those that had no historical significance or were too worn or obsolete and destined for a scrapyard—would be salvaged to help pay to restore the museum ships worth restoring. Like most truly good ideas, it was simple and direct.

On many occasions on this blog I wrote of the proposed "Salvation Navy," an idea so good it simply had to occur.

How many lives could we have saved in Hurricane Katrina with these ships bringing in food, water, and emergency workers just hours after the storm's landfall? How many lives would be saved in future hurricanes?

In the event of another 9/11-type terrorist attack, how much support could a ship such as this provide to aid in recovery?

This is what Ward Brewer, CEO of Beauchamp Tower envisioned.

But that was before Enduring Service and the "Salvation Navy" it would create ran into the buzzsaw of incompetence, corruption, and criminality that may eventually implicate officials within the U.S Maritime Administration, the Department of Transportation, and other members of the Executive and Legislative branches.

* * *

The Tip of the Iceberg

Let's start with illegal access of Beauchamp's servers by the U.S. Maritime Administration. Most would simply call it hacking, but password theft and false identity use will do as well.

According to documents obtained from Ward Brewer, CEO of Beauchamp Tower Corporation. BTC has a strict User Agreement for their server and web site. The server was used as a medium to provide partners and vendors of the project with internal corporate information—which was and is copyright protected

Item 5 C-F of the User Agreement explicitly states:

c) User agrees that he or she is not an employee of or contracted by the United States Department of Transportation and or the United States department of justice, or any agency within the structure of these departments, such as, but not limited to, the Maritime Administration. user agrees to, acknowledges, and hereby testifies that he or she is not an employee of the afore mentioned agencies.

(d) User agrees to and permits BTIS access to ISP identities, other internet information, and data deemed necessary by BTIS to confirm user identity and verify user is not an employee of the afore mention federal agencies. User also grants the user's internet service provider permission to identify the user's identity to btis for verification that user is not an employee of the afore mentioned federal agencies. BTIS agrees to maintain the privacy of such information, provided user is not an employee of the afore mentioned federal agencies. BTIS reserves the right to deny or terminate, at BTIS's sole discretion, access to this site by any user that BTIS cannot verify user's identity or where user's identity is not known to BTIS.

(e) Any person employed by or contracted by the United States Department of Transportation and or the United States Department of Justice, or any agency within the structure of these departments, is hereby denied any and all access to this website without the expressed written permission of BTIS. Any person employed by or contracted by the afore mentioned agencies that attempts to enter this site will be in violation of state and federal laws, which may include, but not be limited to, laws pertaining to false identity, internet website use, and software user agreements. BTIS reserves the right, at BTIS's sole discretion, to prosecute any violation of this agreement. written agreements may be obtain, at BTIS's sole discretion, by contacting info@btcorp.us and requesting written permission. Written permission to enter this site must be dated after January 30, 2004. Written permission dated prior to this date is not valid.

(f) User understands that he or she may not, and agrees that he or she will not knowingly communicate to any employee of the Department of Justice or Department of Transportation the passcodes to enter this site or disclose the contents of this website with out the express written permission of BTIS.

Brewer states that Maritime Administration officials actively sought the password to access the protected portion of the BT Corp site, and were eventually successful, obtaining it from an accidental posting to a veteran's group web site. Brewer states further:

MARAD officials were told a number of times that they were not allowed on the website, yet they continued to search the Internet to try and find the password every time we changed it. Once they obtained the password (which we were forced to continually change, agency officials electronically signed in under false identities—violating the our End License User Agreement.

And there is indeed proof that Maritime did indeed successfully "hack" into Beauchamp's site no less than 15 times.

What evidence is there? There are server logs, as shown in this screen capture (click to enlarge):

There are the logs of the Maritime Administration's illegal access time and IP addresses, including:

And there is much, much more, which has been turned over to the FBI for investigation, evidence of such obvious weight that agents declared felony charges were “quite possible” when discussing it with Brewer. Of course, once the case went to the US Attorney General's office in Washington for permission to investigate, it has since stalled...

While we've been debating and defending legitimate programs by the NSA and CIA, other elements of the government haven't even attempted to find a legal excuse for their accessing of private information. They've simply broken in.

Of course, the million dollar question is: "Why?"

Why would a federal agency illegally hack into the web server of a not-for-profit organization working in emergency response?? What were they hoping to find, and why were they willing to risk it?

The answer appears to be a simple combination of political corruption and revenge, but that is a story for another post...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:05 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 1043 words, total size 7 kb.

As you've likely heard by now Israel has destroyed the runways at Beirut International Airport as part of a rapidly-evolving campaign against various Palestinian terrorist organizations. Some reports cited bombs, some rockets, some naval gunfire for the destruction of the runways, but nobody bothered to do a simple Google search to turn up this interesting purpose-built munition, the BLU-107 Durandal.

According to Wikipedia, it works like this:

Durandal is designed to be dropped from low altitudes. The fall of the bomb is retarded by a parachute. When, due to the parachute action, the bomb is vertical, it fires a rocket booster that accelerates it into the runway surface. The bomb explodes after it has penetrated below the surface. This results in a large and difficult to repair crater in the runway.

Israel has used it to great effect before.

A predecessor to Durandal was developed jointly by France and Israel during the 1960s to destroy air base runways. The weapon was used to devastating effect by the Israelis during the Six Day War.

One of these days, the Arab nations surrounding Israel are going to realize that they are still militarily no match for the IDF. As the situation in Lebanon continues to escalate and Syria becomes a more likely target, they might find out sooner rather than later.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:40 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 231 words, total size 2 kb.

Poor Glenn Greenwald.

He tries hard. He really, really does. But no matter how he tries to rationalize it, hyperbole against public figures does not come close to equating to terroristic threats uttered against children.

Nevertheless, Greenwald, tries to make that exact case in this post, attempting to equivilate comments made by Misha of the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler with those made in the past week by Counterpunch-published liberal academic Deborah Frisch.

Gleenwald offers up this quote from Misha as evidence of equivalence as Misha talks about the Hamdan decision granting Geneva Convention rights to terrorists after the release of an al Qaeda video showing the bodies of two American soldiers captured, tortured, and murdered by terrorists:

Of course, this is the same Supreme Court that earlier decided in Kelo that private property rights only matter as long as a private company doesn't offer a better deal, above or below the table, to local authorities, so one shouldn't really be surprised. The unelected, black-robed tyrants have a long history of not giving a fig about the Constitution if they don't like what it says, not to mention a long tradition of usurping the powers of the legislative and executive branch by ruling by judicial fiat. . . .

Try doing anything to those mutilating darlings of the Supremes in order to extract life-saving intel from them, and then wait for the Supreme Whores to decide that you were "humiliating" them in doing so.

Five ropes, five robes, five trees.

Some assembly required.

Greenwald misrepresents the quoted section, as Greenwald bolded this text, not Misha, adding emphasis that was not there in the original. In his commentary immediately following, Greenwald goes on to state:

He's advocating that the five Supreme Court Justices in the Hamdan majority be hanged from the neck until they're dead. His homicidal formulation is a play on the more standard call of the Right for American journalists to be hanged -- "Journalists. Rope. Tree. Some assembly required" -- another death call which, it just so happens, Misha also issued just a few days ago.

Now, does Greenwald, in his wildest delusion, seriously think that Misha is advocating for the lynching of Supreme Court justices and journalists? What would a reasonable person determine? A reasonable person—which I've given up on Greenwald attempting to be—would realize that Misha has a long-running infatuation with the rhetorical device known as hyperbole.

Most adults understand that hyperbole is the deliberate overstatement or exaggeration, and yet, Greenwald exposes himself as the Amelia Bedelia of the American Left, unable to understand that Misha's use of language is anything but literal.

That is the only rational explanation for this graph:

What happened? They all seemed to find such disturbing rhetoric so upsetting, such cause for great alarm this weekend, when it came from an obscure person in some comment section, but they have not said a word of condemnation about these death calls from a prominent blogger on the Right. Nor have any of them condemned the calls by Misha's readers for Islamic countries to be turned into radioactive parking lots or for the death of the towel heads by other means. Why not?

Greenwald cannot differentiate between Misha's hyperbole, and Deb Frisch's physical and sexual threats made against a minor. How sad.

I'd tell him to take a long walk off a short pier, but I don't know that the poor man would survive the rhetorical drop.

Note:via Instapundit, Dan Riehl wasn't quite as pleasant in his criticism.

Update: It becomes even harder to take Greenwald seriously. He's written a follow-up post to the one discussed above where he flatly lies about things written by conservative bloggers. Patrick Frey demands a retraction, but I don't think he's going to get one. Greenwald doesn't seem to have that much integrity. I flatly called Greenwald a liar in his comments, and when I checked hours later, he had no response. I'll let that stand on its own. Notice I didn't link to Greenwald again. I got the memo from Rove, and I concur. He really isn't worth it anymore, even if he is a willing patsy.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:12 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
Post contains 696 words, total size 5 kb.

When all is said and done, all the hyperbole has been set aside, and all the conspiracy theories debunked, it comes down to this little tidbit written by Bob Novak:

I learned Valerie Plame's name from Joe Wilson's entry in Who's Who in America

Joe Wilson's Who's Who bio outed his wife's name after an unnamed primary source accidentally revealed information about her role. Karl Rove and the CIA's own Public Information Officer Bill Harlow merely confirmed what Novak already knew.

I don't care too much about the whole Plamegate/Fitzmas bit, though I have read along with it, and this anti-climax is simply hilarious in its non-scandal.

No laws were broken in Plame's name going to press. Not even a tiny one. An inadvertent slip of a position was cross-referenced with publicly available information that Wilson and Plame were stupid and vain enough to volunteer.

This wasn't a grand conspiracy. This was Spies Like Us.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:44 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
Post contains 165 words, total size 1 kb.

For those of you in the midwest who've liked what you've seen of the Young Americans trailers I've linked to over the past weeks, you can now get a chance to listen to the man himself. Pat Dollard will be on Mancow's morning radio show this Friday, July 14, at 7:10 AM (CST).

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 59 words, total size 1 kb.

After her third Wendy's Frosty of the day, Cindy Sheehan wondered why some people thought hunger strikes were so hard. *

Like her poor, starving fellow travelers in isolation at Guantanamo Bay, Sheehan is expected to gain 13 pounds on her ice cream-laced "fast."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:55 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 48 words, total size 1 kb.

CNN reports at least six blasts during the evening rush hour on commuter trains in India's financial capital of Mumbai:

At least six blasts have rocked commuter trains at rush hour in and around India's financial capital of Mumbai, with at least 15 deaths reported.

Dozens of people were injured in the blasts, which took place around 6:30 p.m. (1300 GMT) on Tuesday when the trains were packed with commuters making their way home.

A correspondent for CNN's sister network, CNN-IBN, reported seeing 15 bodies at the Matunga train station.

Video from one station showed people with blood on them being treated, other commuters carrying victims and some people lying motionless near train tracks.

At least one train was split in half by the explosion.

A major terrorist attack on a democracy's financial hub... must be those damn Methodists again.

Fox News is reporting seven bomb blasts.

The Bangkok Post is reporting that all the explosions took place in the first-class compartments of the trains.

Forbes, citing Indian television reports, states that dozens have been killed.

Based upon these breaking preliminary reports, I suspect the Mumbai bombers may have used similar explosives to the ten-pound TATP backpack bombs that hit London just over a year ago.

Pajamas Media is providing information as it comes in from Indian blogs and news reports, and seems to be ahead of the wire services. An Indian blogger, Deep Ganatra, is reporting at least 63 dead and 400 injured according to local television media reports.

As of 11:00 AM, CAIR remains focused on a Koran that someone shot up in Tennessee and then threw at a mosque.

Glad to see they have their priorities straight.

Update: A fleeting moment of honesty at the Democratic Underground:

Silence on this board stems from difficulty blaming this on George W. Bush.

That's the fact.

I'll pass on that $20 bet BTW, but I still think we should invade Canada.

Have faith, little liberal.

Your fellow DUers were able to blame Bush for the terror attacks in London, so I'm sure you'll be able to get your thought together long enough find an excuse to blame him for these attacks as well.

Update: Deaths now reported as 130+, and is likely to climb with more than 300 injured. Indian Islamists have been arrested.

CNN-IBN reports another bomb has been found and defused.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:00 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
Post contains 399 words, total size 3 kb.