late august hudson river

My brother-in-law takes great shots of people. So does Karol.

I guess I should watch and learn...

The blogosphere's Ernie Pyle, Michael Totten, posts his report from Mushadah, Iraq:

"Al Qaeda terrifies locals," said Major Mike Garcia from Canyon, Texas, before he put me in a convoy of Humvees with 18 American Military Police on their way to the small town of Mushadah just north of Baghdad. "The only people Iraqis may be more afraid of is their mothers. When we arrest or detain people and threaten to call up their mom, they completely freak out. Please, no, don’t tell my mother they say. Women are quiet outside the house, but they severely smack down their bad kids inside the house. When your Iraqi mother tells you to knock something off, you knock it off."

The American military has slowly figured out how to leverage Iraq’s culture to its advantage, but it only works to an extent. Locating, killing, capturing, and interrogating terrorists and insurgents is the easy part. The hard part is training Iraqis to do it themselves.

Our destination in Mushadah was the local police station where American Military Police train and equip Iraqi Police, and where it’s still too dangerous for either Iraqis or Americans to walk the streets.

"I am not trying to scare you," said Captain Maryanne Naro, from Fort Drum, New York. "But don’t get out of your vehicle unless something catastrophic has happened to it."

..and it's so easy, I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Instead of worrying about the batter, just add more chocolate chips.

Follow the traditional toll house cookie recipe:

NESTLE TOLL HOUSE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1 3/4 c. all purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 measuring tsp. salt
1 c. butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 measuring tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 (12 oz.)* pkg. Nestle Toll House semi sweet chocolate morsels
1 c. chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. in large bowl combine butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract; beat until creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually add flour mixture. Stir in Nestle Toll House semi sweet chocolate morsels and nuts. Drop by level measuring tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 9 to 11 minutes.

Makes: about 5 dozen, 2 1/4 inch cookies.

Via Fox News:

Soliman al-Buthi is a prominent religious leader in Saudi Arabia, a father of three and a ranking government official. He's also a terrorist, according to the United States and United Nations.

His lawyers argue that much of the evidence against al-Buthi was misinterpreted by National Security Agency officials who eavesdropped on conversations between al-Buthi and his American attorneys. Those intercepted communications are at the heart of a constitutional challenge to the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which was to be heard Wednesday by a federal appeals court in San Francisco...

..."I am a very respected person in Riyadh," al-Buthi said in a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press, referring to Saudi Arabia's most populous city and his hometown...

...Al-Buthi was not expected to attend the hearing at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because he remains a fugitive in this country. He's also listed on an Interpol "no fly" list and is subject to arrest and deportation to the United States if he steps outside Saudi Arabia, which does not extradite its citizens.

More on the Al Haramain evesdropping case here, covered skillfully and extensively by Zombie:

Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation — based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and with branches around the world — purports to be an innocuous charity which collects funds to help Muslims in poor countries. But this façade is a cover for its real purpose: to spread extremist Wahhabi doctrine internationally, to provide funding for Al Qaeda, and to finance specific terror plots.

The United Nations, The United States, Great Britain as well as several other countries have all designated Al-Haramain as a terrorist entity; frozen and seized its funds where possible; and banned it from conducting business. Even so, Al-Haramain continues to operate in third-world countries and almost certainly continues to fund and promote radical Islamic extremism to this day.

From the Counterterrorism blog and Arab News:

Whats Really Happening to Saudi Charities?

Reviewing some past research, I re-discovered a very reveiling recent news account published by Arab News regarding Saudi actions against charities. This article deserves special attention! Arab News, which is published simultaneously in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dhahran, is one of the Middle East's leading English language newspapers. The story was published January 1, 2005 and was entitled "KINGDOM HAS NO PLANS TO CLOSE CHARITIES." According to the account, Saudi Minister of Islamic Affairs, Saleh ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, told an audience in Jeddah that al Haramain was closed under US pressure and not because the Saudi government had any "suspicions surrounding its activities." It was closed, he said "to serve the general interest." The ministry, he said, was not aware of any misconduct from the Saudi charity and had not received any documented information to this effect from any side. He re-assured the audience that the Saudi government had no plans to act against any further charities, or to take any additional action against al Haramain employees. They would be free, he said, to find employment in other charities. In the meantime, al Haramain international operations and assets, he said, would be folded into a new body named the Saudi National Commission for Charitable Works Abroad. The full text of the article is included below:

Kingdom Has No Plans to Close Down Charities
- Abdul Wahab Bashir, Arab News

JEDDAH, 1 January 2005 — Saudi Arabia has no plans to shut down any local charities, after Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation which had its offices closed down earlier in the year, a government minister has said.

The foundation has been accused by the United States of funding terrorism among several charity bodies in various parts of the world.

Minister of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Dawa and Guidance, Saleh ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, said there are no plans for the closure of any charity and that no imams (prayer leaders) have been sacked this year for having ties with terror cells or helping terrorists...

...Al-Haramain figured among a number of Saudi charities accused by Washington of financing terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The foundation and other private groups that have been dissolved and their international operations and assets folded into a new body has been named the Saudi National Commission for Charitable Work Abroad.

The minister said the commission would be very active in charity outside the Kingdom. It would be subject to strict financial legal oversight, and will operate according to clear policies to ensure that charitable funds intended to help the needy are not misused.

Al-Haramain was said to have received between $45 and $50 million each year in donations and has spent some $300 million on humanitarian work overseas.

Minister of Social Affairs Dr. Ali Al-Namla said the foundation ex-employees could still work with local charity bodies in the Kingdom, denying reports of a ban on the employees to seek work with other charity societies....

Another commenter responded: "Just after they've milked the last dollar from the markets."

Iraqis protested against Saudi-sponsored terrorism in front of the White House and Saudi Embassy in Washington DC yesterday.

Gateway Pundit and LGF reported on a protest that the media largely ignored. According to GP, Iranian Mehr News was the only major media outlet to cover the protest. They wrote:

TEHRAN, Aug 25 (MNA)-- Hundreds of Iraqis residing in the U.S. converged in the front of the Saudi embassy in Washington on Friday condemning Riyadh’s policy towards Iraq, Sotaliraq said on its website.

With slogans "Down with Terrorism" and "Shia and Sunni Should Unite in Iraq," demonstrators called for the immediate halt to Saudi support for terrorism in Iraq and the issuance of “takfiri” religious decrees (fatwas) by Saudi scholars.

Nazar Heydar, the director of Iraq information center in Washington and a member of the international center for campaign against terrorism, said “by this demonstration we meant to draw the attention of the world to Saudi Arabia as the real source of terrorism.”

“We believe that by issuing takfiri religious decrees and financial support of terrorist operations, Saudi Arabia is the real source of terrorism, not only in Iraq, but in the entire world. We read in the press that 50% of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi nationals,” he explained...

..."We tried to submit a copy of the statement to the Saudi ambassador to Washington, but he refused to accept it," Heydar noted.

WASHINGTON, Aug 26--Washington's Muslim residents staged a rally in front of Saudi Arabian embassy to protest the issuance of excommunicative verdicts (Fatwas) in the Persian Gulf country.

Hundreds of angry Muslims urged the Saudi government on Sunday to put an end on such provocative verdicts which are the main reason of the slaughter of innocent Iraqi people...

..The protesters said the excommunicative verdicts trigger violence and terrorist attacks in Iraq and other regional countries.

They know about it, they just don't care.

There is no force on heaven or earth that will convince our current elected officials to abandon their belief that Saudi Arabia is a 'crucial ally'. From the International Herald Tribune:

U.S. officials have been stepping up public criticism of Saudi Arabia but remain cautious in dealing with a crucial ally in the region. Iraqi officials have openly accused Saudi Arabia of allowing a flow of funding to support Sunni insurgents and failing to prevent would-be suicide bombers from crossing the Saudi border to infiltrate Iraq

..."We need to send a crystal clear message to the Saudi Arabian government that their tacit approval of terrorism can't go unpunished," Weiner told a news conference. "Saudi Arabia should not get an ounce of military support from the U.S. until they unequivocally denounced terrorism and take tangible steps to prevent it."

Weiner and Nadler said they will introduce legislation to block the deal, and hammered home the point that 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, were Saudi citizens.

Instead, the list of Saudi attacks against us is followed, as usual, by the mantra that this is a 'crucial ally'. What makes them an ally? Nothing at all.

Obviously this alliance is not built on logic or reason. It's built on more fear, loathing and habit. The rules for the games were playing in the Middle East could have been written by Michael Vick - it's not a great game, it's not a geopolitical strategy - it's a dumb, bloody dogfight.

For years we've been fighting the remnants of the cold war by using the Sauds as a kind of pit bull to fight our official and unofficial battles. The Russians had their pit bull, Iran. The Europeans and the UN had their pit bull, Saddam, the weakest of the bunch, and China had whatever mangy dog they could throw in, (right now, it's the Sudan). This pit bull strategy worked for us against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We thought it was maintaining the status quo in the Middle East, but we were wrong.

9/11 should have been our cue that our pit bull was too rabid to manage. The spread of Iran, Syria and general Islamist sponsored terrorism worldwide should have been everyone's cue that the Middle East dogfight games were both dangerous and stupid. It was time to stop the games and put the dogs down - all of them, not just the runt.

We didn't. Instead, we continue to feed and pamper our rabid dogs. We let them roam wherever they want. There isn't a government in the world that doesn't call the Sauds a 'crucial ally'. There isn't a government in the world that questions the need to keep playing these games.

That's why this protest is interesting, despite the obvious possibility that Iran encouraged or sponsored it. The 'news', that our Saudi allies sponsor the terrorism we're supposed to be fighting needs to be spread among voters worldwide. A grassroots effort is the only way to do that. Our government won't spread the news. Neither will the media.

Most governments are happy to embrace the rabid regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia - they're amply rewarded with piles of money and political status for their tolerance of terrorism. If you polled any government agency, asking them if the Sauds were a crucial ally, you'd probably get a more than 90% 'yes' response.

According to most polls, more than 70% of Americans know that the Saudis are not our allies. The only benefit ordinary citizens get from our friendship with the Saudis is our status as 'soft' targets. Terrorism, "militant" and seperatist violence relentlessly trails our Gulf allies like stink on a skunk. That and high oil prices are the only benefit most people will ever see from this 'crucial alliance'.

If we wait for the government to take action against these rabid regimes, they'll do it sometime around the time our sun goes nova - or around the time the rabid beasts run out of oil, whichever comes first. If we don't like this status quo, we're going to have to go out there and tell our governments that this situation has to change. Voters do have a voice, and it's about time we used it. We're the only ones who can stop these games.

We're getting used to the imposition of Sharia law in the press. This time, our press is voluntarily censoring itself by not publishing a couple of "Opus" comics because Muslims might be "offended".

From Berkeley Breathed's site:

Note to Opus readers: The Opus strips for August 26 and September 2 have been withheld from publication by a large number of client newspapers across the country, including Opus' host paper The Washington Post. The strips may be viewed in a large format on their respective dates at Salon.com.

NEW YORK At least 25 of the 200 or so "Opus" client newspapers might not run the Sunday-only comic's next two episodes, which feature Islamic references and a sex joke.

That's according to Washington Post Writers Group Executive Sales Manager Karisue Wyson, when contacted today by E&P. WPWG Editorial Director/General Manager Alan Shearer added that more than 25 clients might not use the strips because the syndicate hasn't heard from about 150 of the 200 papers it alerted. Wyson said some client papers hesitated to run a sex joke and others won't publish any Muslim-related humor, whether pro or con. "They just don't want to touch that," she said...

...Shearer told E&P that WPWG checked with a couple of Islamic experts to see if the "Opus" strips might be offensive, and they said the comics were OK. But he understands why some papers might still be wary.

Another poster on the comics messageboard says:

Speaking as a secular Mulsim, believe me, some 29% of the Sunnis and Shiites will get pisssed of at this to even violent levels.

For now. I'm going up to Montreal for the weekend, college-bound (my daughter is, not me). We'll be listening to 'Intermediate French' cds on the way up.

Enjoy the weekend!

I just got this email:

Dear Friend,

You are invited to visit http://www.hi-syria.com.

HI-SYRIA is the ONLY free Syrian Community website.

You'll be able to see tons of pics, post messages, and chat with thousands of other Syrians from around the world.

Registration is free for first 100,000 members so why dont you even count upon the rare chance?

In Commentary Magazine, Michael Totten writes

Hundreds of Iraqi Yezidis, members of an ancient religious sect heavily influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism, were murdered last week in the most deadly terrorist attack in the world since September 11, 2001. Fuel tankers packed with explosives were ignited in a refugee camp near the town of Kahtaniya, just outside the Kurdish autonomous region. Officials say the death toll has surpassed 500. The American military says this is the handiwork of al Qaeda. They’re probably right: this has their fingerprints all over it...

Al Qaeda also tends to carry out multiple, coordinated attacks. That was also true in this case:

The bombings came as extremists staged other bold attacks by flattening a key bridge outside Baghdad and abducting five officials from an Oil Ministry compound in the capital in a raid using gunmen dressed as security officers.

Nine US soldiers were also reported killed, including five in a helicopter crash.

I know the Yezidis, however, and I can’t say I’m immune. I visited their capital, their “Mecca,” in Lalish, near Mosul, in 2005 and again in 2006. They are among the kindest, gentlest people I have ever met. I went to see them because the president of Dohuk University told me to go. “I am a Muslim,” he said, “but I love the Yezidis. Theirs is the original religion of the Kurds. Only through the Yezidis can I speak to God in my own language.” Some conservative Muslims libel the Yezidis as disciples of Satan, but they have a respected place in Kurdish culture. Kurdistan’s flag is unique among those of Muslims in that it includes a religious symbol, the Yezidi symbol—the sun, instead of a crescent.

The Yezidis have never declared war on anyone. They are the closest thing Iraq has to Quakers. Perhaps al Qaeda massacred the Yezidi refugees because they were a soft target, and because terrorists need body counts to be credible. Perhaps the Yezidis were killed because they are “infidels.” But does it even matter? Al Qaeda has no alleged grievances against the Yezidis, who have no political power and no militia, and who do not participate in sectarian Muslim rivalry. Even Saddam Hussein left them alone.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who himself is an ethnic Kurd, said the attack on the Yezidis’ refugee camp was genocidal. This is an overstatement. I can’t blame him, though, for reaching a bit. We need a new word for the instantaneous massacre of 500 innocents. The conventional and overused label of “terrorism” somehow doesn’t quite say it.

Michael Howard, writing for the Guardian reports on the Yezidis from Lalish - Among the Yezidi, a people in mourning

In my earlier post on Andrew Anthony's essay, "The day reality hit home", I failed to mention that Anthony gave a short critique of Seumas Milne's post 9/11 America-hating diatribe, "They can't see why they are hated". Since Stalinists like Milne are a dime a dozen at the Guardian, he was hardly worth mentioning.

However, in the days following 9/11, after reading a few of Milne's rants, an imaginary picture of him did form in my head. My imaginary Milne was a nasty old fart; an embittered puffy, shaggy-browed intersection between the aged Richard Burton, Lewis Black and Albert Finney.

This dissolute, wheezing Milne spent angry, tobacco-stained days cursing America; his angry beer-soaked nights were spent reminiscing about the good old days sipping kvas at the Dacha with Duranty and Uncle Joe. Every night the barmaid would remind him about his liver and his high blood pressure, and every night old Milne would stagger home to a sleep filled with bedbugs and nightmares about Ike.

Imagine my surprise when I followed the link to his response to Anthony's criticism - and saw his picture*. If he's this bitter now, god help him when he gets older.

* (I got the eyebrows right, though)

Three years ago, I visited London and wrote this about the City's art and culture:

The attitudes of a culture are represented by its art. The art of the Renaissance rejected stiff, religious icons and took joy in the human form. The era of Sensibility was represented by thoughtful, warm-toned portraits.

In Western Europe, the turn of the Millennium was all about flaying traditional culture and human beings...

A culture represented by art that takes great joy in dismembering, disrespecting and deconstructing human beings is, to put it nicely, probably not heading in the right direction. When I saw those displays back in 2000, I wondered – where can these artists go from here? If their intent is to shock and horrify, what will they do next?

That question was answered soon after 9/11, when German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen called the terrorist attacks "the greatest work of art ever"

Artist Damien Hirst said he believed the terrorists responsible for the September 11 attacks "need congratulating" because they achieved "something which nobody would ever have thought possible" on an artistic level.

It's no surprise that these 'deconstructionists' would be so thrilled by images of burned and dismembered Americans. ..

...When I was in London last week, I saw that Brick Street, once the center of the creative/advertising world, is a small outpost surrounded by Halal fried chicken shops. It’s hard to find a decent cup of coffee – or a pub.

In every neighborhood of London, I saw more conservative Muslim women, in traditional black chadors, than I saw in Malaysia. In some areas, it’s a shock to see a woman without her head covered. Harrods was packed with wealthy young black-clad women spending their husbands’ money.

The [latest] displays at the Tate were tame – one was a retro exhibit about the sixties – another was an exploration of the home improvement trend.

- oh, and there was something about the “Art of the Garden”.

University bookstores don’t feature sex (bad or good) anymore. I wonder if that’s too un-Islamic. Foucault, Chomsky and other regurgitated retro-sixties 'thinkers' are featured now.

As always, the bold rebels of the art world scrupulously avoid doing anything that would provoke a fatwa. The government caters to extremist Muslim special interest groups. In the art world, and to some degree, in the City itself, it seems that a coup has occurred without a shot being fired.

Creativity in the City is now pretty damned dead. Conservative, pre-medieval Muslim dress codes and laws, recently exhumed anti-war diatribes are now the 'new' retro cool. Once again, destruction, suicide, the disinterred and the dead are on display.

The only question is, where do they go from here?

One warm-scented summer's evening in 2005 I pulled up outside a Thai restaurant to collect some takeaway food for my family. It was that relaxed time of the day, after work, the sky still light, that promising hour when the night ahead seems to hold unlimited potential. To drink in these soft London evenings from a pavement café or bar is one of the more civilised pleasures of city life. That's precisely what a number of people were doing in Maida Vale, a smart neighbourhood in north-west London, 10 minutes' drive from my house. All that spoilt the scene was the sound of loud female voices piercing the calm some way up the street. It took a few minutes to pick up and pay for the food and when I came out I heard the noise again, this time interrupted by screams.

I drove to the corner of the street, where a gang of about 10 teenage girls was involved in some sort of scuffle outside an off-licence. A single girl was being kicked and punched and having her hair pulled by the rest. I wound down my side window and barked: 'Hey, stop that!' At the sound of my voice the gang eased off and looked up momentarily, then, having satisfied themselves that I was of no concern, set about their quarry once again. Now I could see that blood was pouring from the victim's face on to her white, school-uniform-like shirt. I jumped out of the car, uncertain of what I was going to do, and headed straight for the gang, shouting as loudly and authoritatively as my strangled vocal cords could manage. Whatever strange sound was emitted seemed to do the trick. This time they let her go and, with theatrical reluctance, stepped back. The ringleader proudly inspected her work and received high-fives from her companions. A large thick flap of skin hung from the cheek of the beaten girl, like a sole that had come loose from a shoe. I asked her if she was OK and told her I was phoning an ambulance. She was about 16 or 17 and she was shaking in shock. She had been stabbed in the face with a broken bottle.

Her attackers casually sauntered off, chatting and laughing, as if they had come out of a lively film at the cinema. If they felt in any danger they did not show it. I called the police and gave a description of the gang and clear directions on where it was heading. As I tried to comfort the girl, she was surrounded by several helpers. These people were spectators a few seconds before but now that the attackers had gone they snapped into loud Samaritan mode, shouting at each other and me to stand back as they led the girl into the off-licence. Where had these caring voices been before when the teenager was undergoing a lifetime's disfigurement? The attack had lasted for five minutes, they had plenty of time to intervene. I looked around. There were perhaps 10 adults standing by, men and women, mostly in their thirties, and further along, easily within plain view and earshot, were at least 20 more. Anger began to rise in me. I noticed one stationary onlooker with a smile on his face, a sort of amused smirk. He was standing no more than five yards away, a well-built, reasonably fit-looking man in his mid-thirties. His clothes - faded jeans and T-shirt - and general demeanour - unshaven, unruly hair - suggested that he did not earn his living as a stockbroker or corporate lawyer. He looked like he worked in the arts or some creative field, though of course looks can be misleading. In any event, he conformed to nonconformist style and I wouldn't have fallen over in surprise if I learned that his sympathies were anti-authority, pro-underdog, leftish, liberal.

'What's so funny?' I asked him. 'She's a young girl. How could you stand by and watch that happen to her?'

'Don't have a go at me, you pompous prick,' he replied, full of belated aggression. 'Why should I get involved? It had nothing to do with me.'

Blaming the victim gave people some kind of control over the situation - it also gave them a chance to criticize behavior that they never liked in the first place. That person got mugged because they did A, B, or C. I'll never do A, B or C, so I'll never get mugged.

And crime got worse.

We see the same reaction to terrorist attacks. Many pundits blamed US foreign policy for the attacks - or they blamed the liberals, the homosexuals, the neocons, the people who didn't sign the Kyoto treaty or the global imperialists. When al Qaeda attacked Bali, the blame cycle started all over again. Iraq gave the critics from all sides and opportunity to place blame where it didn't belong . Pundits and politicians put more effort into placing blame onto their ideological enemies than they do into learning more about our actual enemies, the terrorists and their supporters.

And terrorism gets worse.

Anthony writes as a liberal who was mugged by reality - first by the 9/11 attacks, and then by the deterioration of London society. The message that comes through is that tolerance of crime, like tolerance of terrorism, creates more terrorism and more crime. As Anthony said, "A society that places great emphasis on respecting others has next to nothing to say about protecting others."

New Yorker Judith Weiss wrote about Anthony's essay here. She says:

Thus a once-proud and civil culture is brainwashed into disavowing the best of its heritage. It used to be that New York was known for its crime and London was the city where one could walk the streets at night.

I had a mild disagreement a few months ago with someone who thought our values of individual rights and rule of law are so deeply embedded in our society that I was needlessly fretting about losing them. My argument was that the shift in values is creeping and insidious and one cannot afford to be sanguine about it. Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of liberty. (It was only a mild disagreement because we were at a dinner and the conversation was ranging far and wide and I agree with this person about most things and I decided not to get into it. But it's something I feel very strongly about.)

Exhibit A: Great Britain.

Via SPACE.com

Scientists trying to create a detailed inventory of all the matter and energy in the cosmos run into a curious problem--the vast majority of it is missing.

"I call it the dark side of the universe," said Michael Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, referring to the great mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

In fact, only 4 percent of the matter and energy in the universe has been found. The other 96 percent remains elusive, but scientists are looking in the farthest reaches of space and deepest depths of Earth to solve the two dark riddles.

Einstein's famous equation "E=mc^2" describes energy and matter (or mass) as one and the same--maps of the cosmos refer to the energy-matter combination as energy density, for short. The problem with detecting dark matter, thought to make up 22 percent of the universe's mass/energy pie, is that light doesn't interact with it.

But it does exhibit the tug of gravity.

Initial evidence for the mysterious matter was discovered 75 years ago when astrophysicists noticed an anomaly in a jumble of galaxies: The galactic cluster had hundreds of times more gravitational pull than it should have, far outweighing its visible mass of stars...

...Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is dark matter's big cousin, dark energy.

The invisible force is thought to be a large-scale "anti-gravity," pushing apart galactic clusters and causing the unexplainable, accelerating expansion of the universe. Turner thinks dark energy is the biggest mystery of them all--and quite literally, since physicists predict that it makes up 74 percent of energy density in the universe.

"So far, the greatest achievement with dark energy is giving it a name," Turner said of the elusive force. "We are really at the very beginning of this puzzle."

Turner described dark energy as "really weird stuff," best thought of as an elastic, repulsive gravity that can't be broken down into particles. "We know what it does, but we don't know what it is," Turner said.

While astrophysicists look deep into space to gather more details about dark energy's effects, Turner noted that theoretical physicists are focusing on explaining how the force actually works. And at this point, he joked, any physicist's explanation for dark energy is probably good enough to consider.

"We're at this very early stage, at the crime scene of dark energy's existence, if you will," Turner said. "It's a highly creative period, and now is the time for ideas."

Taken after a boat tour (in Russian) along the Neva. We didn't see any dolphins, but we did see a wind surfer.

This shot was also taken with a single-use 'sport' camera I bought from a street vendor, so unfortunately, the focus is nonexistent. The colors came through.

On a hot summer day, clouds like this stalk the coast of Florida constantly, sending out occasional deluges and lightning storms. It's no surprise that Florida is our nation’s lightning capital

That link above has a lightning safety quiz. I got this question wrong:

If you can hear thunder, are you within striking distance of lightning?

I said no, but the answer was yes. "Lightning can strike more than 10 miles from the rain area in a storm, and that’s the distance you’re able to hear the thunder from the storm."

Unfortunately, in St. Petersburg, during a typically hot summer day you hear thunder on and off all day…

they're not.

However, those of you who thought Jim Cramer was..ummm..unstable were right.

* Cramer freak-out links thanks to DPU and Jane Galt.

"If someone knows that he is capable of entering Iraq in order to join the fight, and if his intention is to raise up the word of God, then he is free to do so,"
- Sheik Saleh Al Luhaidan, chief justice of Saudi Arabia's Supreme Judicial Council, April 26, 2005

The apparent predominance of Saudi fighters on the Internet lists has caused an alarmed reaction by Saudi officials, who fear a backlash from the Americans at the same time they are trying to convince the United States that they are working as allies against terrorism.
- from 'Martyrs' In Iraq Mostly Saudis by Susan B. Glasser

Via the News Scotsman

Four bombers struck communities of the small Kurdish Yazidi sect in north-west of the country yesterday.

The death toll is the highest since last November when 215 people were killed by mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim enclave of Sadr City.

The US called the latest attacks "barbaric", while a Kurdish official said Baghdad had failed to protect the Yazidi.

The bombings came as extremists staged other bold attacks by flattening a key bridge outside Baghdad and abducting five officials from an Oil Ministry compound in the capital in a raid using gunmen dressed as security officers.

Nine US soldiers were also reported killed, including five in a helicopter crash.

US officials believe extremists are attempting to regroup across northern Iraq after being driven from strongholds in and around Baghdad.

The Islamic State in Iraq, an al Qaida front group, distributed leaflets a week ago warning residents near the scene of yesterday's bombings that an attack was imminent because Yazidis are "anti-Islamic".

Yazidis worship a deity considered to be a devil by some Muslims, so the "anti-Islamic" claim by the "The Islamic State in Iraq" suggests a purge of religious minorities may be the first order of business. Fighting "the occupation" seems to be a distant memory, and even that is seeming more and more like a pretext, doesn't it? The name of this al-Qaida front-group says it all.

Yegorova has asked neighbouring countries and European nations to help members of their community flee Iraq.

"We're desperate and with this massacre we're sure that soon there'll be more killings. Dozens of Yazidis have been individually killed over the past four years [since the US occupation of Iraq] and we have to save the remaining ones," he said. "Today, our organisation received a threatening letter saying that the massacre was just the beginning of the fate of all Yazidis."

Yazidis have long claimed discrimination in Iraq for matters such as employment and education. But now, with sectarian violence escalating over the past year, the threat of death hangs over them.

"We don't have schools near our towns that can cater for our children's education and our children cannot go to university in Mosul or in Baghdad after the constant reprisals. We are a minority but we are human beings too and have the same rights as any other Iraqi," said Hanan Quewal, 43, a resident of Sinjar who is desperately looking for a school for her grandsons.

"Our community has been forgotten and has been threatened on a daily basis. We don't have anywhere to go and if things continue as they are, the only thing we can do is to wait for someone to kill us in the coming months," Hanan added.

Why are the Taliban 'resurgent' lately? Here are few reasons:

Via the India Times:

"While Musharraf admitted the Taliban were being sheltered in the lawless frontier border regions, the declassified US documents released on Tuesday clearly illustrate that the Taliban was directly funded, armed and advised by Islamabad itself," the National Security Archives said in a statement.

The government documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, also detailed US concerns about Pakistani troops training and fighting alongside the Taliban inside Afghanistan.

"The records released today represent the most complete and comprehensive collection of declassified documentation to date on Pakistan's aid programmes to the Taliban, illustrating Islamabad's firm commitment to a Taliban victory in Afghanistan,"

And, (apparently) we're ok with that...

Pakistan is escalating its war against the people of Baluchistan. In recent years, thousands have been jailed, tortured or killed. Military operations have included the use of chemical weapons. Nearly 100,000 Baluch people have been made refugees in their own land. Pakistan ignores their plight; refusing to allow the UN and international aid agencies to assist these displaced persons.

Simultaneously, the Islamabad imperialists are stripping Baluchistan of its vast natural resources of gas, oil, coal, copper and gold, which include an estimated 19 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves and six trillion barrels of oil reserves on-shore and off-shore.

Despite this fabulous wealth, the people of Baluchistan live in abject poverty. Much of the population is malnourished and illiterate, living in squalid housing with no electricity or clean drinking water.

To subjugate and pacify Baluchistan, Islamabad is working on a sinister plan to colonise the region with ethnic Punjabis (the largest and dominant ethnic group in Pakistan). The aim is to make the Baluch people a minority in their own homeland, as happened to the Native Americans in the US and the Aboriginals in Australia. This has already been achieved in major cities like Quetta, where colonist settlers, mostly Punjabis, now predominate...

....The West’s attitude towards Baluchistan’s quest for the resumption of its brief 1947-48 sovereignty has been less than honourable. Because Britain and the United States want Pakistan as an ally in the so-called “war on terror,” they have armed Pakistan and acquiesced with its suppression of the Baluch.

This is short-sighted political manoeuvring. Pakistan’s war against Baluchistan is strengthening the position of the Taliban, who have exploited the unstable, strife-ridden situation to establish bases and influence in the region. From these bases, the Taliban terrorise the more liberal and secular Baluch people and seek to enforce the Talibanisation of Baluchistan. The Pakistani government tolerates the Taliban, on the grounds that its presence acts as a second force to crush the Baluch people and weaken their struggle for independence.

The Taliban bases in Baluchistan are also hide-outs from which they mount military operations to overthrow the imperfect but democratically elected government of Afghanistan. This campaign to usurp power in Kabul and reimpose a fundamentalist regime seems to be taking place with the tacit collusion of key figures in the Pakistani government, military and intelligence services. The Pakistanis are talking no serious action to stop the Taliban using Baluchistan as a base for its war against Afghan democracy and human rights.

We're currently supporting the violent, talibanesque Chechen 'struggle for independence'. In Iraq, violent talibanesque Saudi-supported Sunnis battle violent talibanesque Iran-supported Shi'ites in their 'struggle' against occupation.

Given the current misuse of the phrase, I'm wary of supporting any 'struggle', including the one in Baluchistan, until I learn more about it, but in any case, the fact remains - Pakistan is still supporting the actual Taliban. What are we going to do about that?

Probably what we've done in the past...

Scott Kirwin at Dean's World writes

Fox News is having a hissy-fit over Steven Levitt's soliciting terror attack ideas from the readers of his New York Times' sponsored blog. Today when talking head on Fox News a "blogger" - as if this was the worst epithet she could imagine one could hurl at a journalist.

Levitt is more than a "blogger" or a journalist - he's the author of Freakonomics and an economics professor at the University of Chicago. I happen to own the book, and found it sandwiched on my bookshelf by Bill Gertz's Treachery and PJ O'Rourke's On the Wealth of Nations. I purchased it from American Compass - a bookclub for conservatives (yes contrary to what many on the Left claim, some of us do read.) It's a good read, and rather conservative in its economic arguments.

Now I like Fox News, but it does have a tendency to get its collective panties in a twist over certain things...it's hard for me to separate Fox News's bias from the justifiable concerns raised by Levitt's actions.

However, after thinking about it I have to conclude that Levitt's post is not a big deal. Jihadists in caves are not lacking for ideas to attack us. It's not like they need help from University of Chicago professors or those who read their blogs. Native psychopaths view themselves as geniuses: they don't need ideas from intellectuals. They have their own - or get their ideas from their dogs, their god, or the voices in their heads.

After 9/11, it never occurred to me 'think like a terrorist' or to come up with ways to kill me. All I could think of were ways to destroy the enemy.

If we put our minds to it, we'd realize that it's not so hard to do. Terrorists are like a bug infestation - counter-terrorism should involve identifying the beast, then targeting their nests so you can destroy the infestation without destroying the rest of the house. *

These daydreams were useful and psychologically satisfying, giving me some a yippy kay yay mother f@*#ers sense of satisfaction, security and a hope that the problem could be controlled.

I guess it's easy to come up with an infinite number of possible terrorist attacks, just as it's easy to come up with an infinite number of possible ways to die. But if you obsess about avoiding death and risk, you never enjoy or accomplish much. If we put a huge effort into preventing every possible terrorist attack that our minds can create, we'll be doing the terrorists' jobs for them. We'll wind up creating a static, fear-based society enclosed within a panic room of "security".

The terrorists' ideal caliphate is static fear-based society enclosed within a panic room of sameness and security. If we succeed at 'thinking like a terrorist', we'll succeed at putting ourselves in their simple mindset.

The result of this obsession with panic-room "security" can be seen in John Robb's essay, The Coming Urban Terror. According to Robb, terror gangs are going to use our technology against us, and there's very little we can do about it, other than quake in fear.

As Alan Sullivan says in his analysis of Robb's essay:

[the] article is strangely abstract — a prolonged fret over ways and means, instead of men and motives.

* speaking of bug infestation, here's a creative way to reduce a fruit fly infestation. Put some chopped bannas or rotten apples in the microwave. Leave the door open for about thirty minutes during the day, leave the kitchen so they feel free to congregate on the rotten fruit. Then return, shut the door quickly and nuke 'em for at least 5 minutes. (Given their exoskeletons, fruit flies are tougher than poodles). It doesn't target the nests, but it does give some yippy kay yay mother f@*#ers satisfaction.

If only we could build a microwave big enough to hold these nectarines

Walking past Madison Square Garden on my way to B&H photo, I saw fans waiting for the WWE crew to arrive.

My daughter's friend is a fan of the WWE, so I thought I'd wait for a "someone" to show up...

Fans started screaming and waving autograph books, so I assumed the guy in the cowboy hat was 'someone'. They were shouting 'JL' (I think). If anyone out there knows something about WWE, could it be John Layfield?

The Queen also loved Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which reintroduced the concept of smart, witty dialogue. If only the concept would catch on in Hollywood.

From the Counterterrorism blog:

As the trial for the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) continues, the mountain of evidence presented by prosecutors demonstrates, in detail, the existence of a grand Muslim Brotherhood network in the United States dating back to the 1960s. A segment of this network, the self-designated “Palestine Committee,” sought to financially, politically, and morally support the efforts of HAMAS to destroy the “Zionist enemy.”

One exhibit – the Palestine Committee’s 1991 bylaws - reveals a web of key organizations tied to the Committee that were tasked with promoting HAMAS’ agenda, each in a particular field. Six groups were listed, the most prominent being HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR).

What has so far gone unnoticed, though, is one last organization on this list that the Committee hoped to establish in the future. As stated in the bylaws, this organization would handle “issues relating to political work and foreign relations”:

It is a committee which operates through the Association [IAP] for now. It is hoped that it will become an official organization for political work and its headquarters will be in Washington, God’s willing. It represents the political aspect to support the cause politically on the American front.

An organization headquartered in Washington, DC, tasked with political activism, born out of the IAP? Maybe a vague reference at first glance, but growing evidence points to the identity of the mystery organization listed in the bylaws as the youngest in the family of HAMAS front groups founded on American soil.

Fast forward to July 30, 1994, just weeks after the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded. A Palestine Committee meeting agenda lists several issues to be discussed, including a review of the reports of the “working organizations.” Listed among these organizations right beside HLF, IAP, and UASR – all members of the Palestine Committee as listed in the bylaws – is the word “CAIR."

The same CAIR that is headquartered in Washington, and whose co-founders - executive director Nihad Awad and chairman emeritus Omar Ahmad - served as president and public relations director, respectively, of the IAP.

Add to that recently-released evidence that both Ahmad and Awad were present at a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia attended by two-dozen HAMAS members and supporters. According to an FBI analysis and transcripts of wiretapped conversations, they spent three days discussing the most effective approach to derail the Oslo Accords, a peace deal with the potential to end the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians..

This latest document tying CAIR to HAMAS is just one more piece of the puzzle, and it raises serious questions about the organization’s political agenda in the United States. Should an organization listed on Muslim Brotherhood documents, with leaders directly tied to the movement, really escape scrutiny and be accepted as the “mainstream” voice of an entire community?

This arms deal is giving me a severe case of BDS. Republicans who support this deal should realize that most polls indicate that more than 70% of Americans know that Saudi Arabia is not an ally. We're also dismayed by other phony alliances with Islamist regimes. Fewer than 17% of Americans supported the Dubai ports deal.

If this arms deal goes through, the Republicans will not gain any brownie points in the upcoming election year.

405

The acclaimed digital short about a jumbo jet crash-landing on a real busy L.A. freeway.

Link thanks to Judith at Kesher Talk

Wretchard at the Belmont Club comments on Michael Totten' interview with "Hammer":

The interpreter is a man who just won't fit and just won't bend. Some people may think that the interpreter is slightly addled or exaggerating. Personally, I don't think he's crazy because I think I have met the type, though not in so extreme a form, typically a smart, sassy guy unable to accept the cheap horrors and rewards of a distorted millieu. The guy who thinks there's something sad about the thin stripper gyrating on a plastic tabletop while the rest of his thuggish companions find it hugely titillating. The kind of guy who turns down the earnest offer to kill a Chinaman from a hitman friend because it's not his idea of fun. The kind of guy, who if you can believe it, actually finds an Army unit in wartime a sane and comforting environment. A man with the right kind of values in the wrong kind of world. The reader may not agree with all of Hammer's assertions, but if you amp them down some, ask yourself: how much of what he says would you expect to be true, given the history of Iraq?

Hammer is looking for employment in and permanent relocation to the United States for himself, his wife, and his son. If you can sponsor him for a Green Card and help save his family, email him at superlink_par@yahoo.com and superlink_70@yahoo.com.

I hope Iraq becomes a place where all these people (the ones still alive, anyway) can live in peace, but until them we owe them refugee status and it isn't happening. Lisa testified about it to a Senatorial panel.

Also as long as I am on this topic let me plug the Steven Vincent Foundation to assist families of local fixers/stringers/reporters who have been killed in war-torn areas.

Via AP

GHAZNI, Afghanistan - A group of 75 Taliban militants tried to overrun a U.S.-led coalition base in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, a rare frontal attack that left more than 20 militants dead, the coalition said in a statement.

The insurgents attacked Firebase Anaconda from three sides, using gunfire, grenades and 107 mm rockets, the coalition said. A joint Afghan-U.S. force repelled the attack with mortars, machine guns and air support.

"Almost two dozen insurgents were confirmed killed in the attack," the statement said. Two girls and two Afghan soldiers were wounded during the fight in Uruzgan province, it said.

A firebase like Anaconda is usually a remote outpost staffed by as few as several dozen soldiers.

"The inability of the insurgent forces to inflict any severe damage on Firebase Anaconda, while being simultaneously decimated in the process, should be a clear indication of the ineffectiveness of their fighters," said Army Capt. Vanessa R. Bowman, a coalition spokeswoman.

A direct attack on a U.S. or NATO base by insurgents on foot is relatively rare. More often insurgents fire rockets at bases and flee. Military officials say that Taliban fighters know they can't match Western militaries in a heads-up battle, which leads the insurgents to more often rely on roadside and suicide bombs.

Terrorism isn't an unbeatable tactic, it's an opportunistic infection.

* Link to the pro-mujahideen sites "Jihad Unspun" and "Kavkaz Center" thanks to news.google.com, who is apparently treating these jihadi propaganda outlets as genuine news sources...as I said, these losers couldn't have gotten this far without a lot of help from the clueless.

Via Space.com

The largest planet ever discovered is also one of the strangest and theoretically should not even exist, scientists say.

Dubbed TrES-4, the planet is about 1.7 times the size of Jupiter and belongs to a small subclass of "puffy" planets that have extremely low densities. The finding will be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal.

"Its mean density is only about 0.2 grams per cubic centimeter, or about the density of balsa wood," said study leader Georgi Mandushev of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. "And because of the planet's relatively weak pull on its upper atmosphere, some of the atmosphere probably escapes in a comet-like tail."

The planet's large mass-to-density ratio makes it an anomaly among known exoplanets, and its existence cannot be explained by current models.

In August 2007, Hot Air reported on How one wealthy jihad supporter is using UK courts to kill American free speech

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this story. The Chronicle of Higher Education .. on Wednesday published an article about Khalid bin Mafouz, a wealthy Saudi banker, and his successful effort to persuade the Cambridge University Press to halt the publication of four books that detail how Saudi citizens use their wealth to finance global terrorism. One of those books, Alms for Jihad, was once on sale at Amazon and elsewhere, but it has been pulled from sale and copies of it are now being pulped. Cambridge has even sent out letters to libraries that stock it and the other three books, asking for their return so that they too can be pulped, meaning they will soon disappear, burying the details they contain on how terrorism finance works and who is behind it.

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld of the American Center for Democracy is one of the authors whose books have been subject to judicial attack by Khalid bin Mafouz. I interviewed her about the case of the censorious jihad financier, and Cambridge Press’ cowardly capitulation to him. She is the author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It. She is the only author to date who is fighting back.

How will we lose the war against "radical Islam"?

Well, it won't be in a tank battle. Or in the Sunni Triangle or the caves of Bora Bora. It won't be because terrorists fly three jets into the Oval Office, Buckingham Palace and the Basilica of St Peter's on the same Tuesday morning.

The war will be lost incrementally because we are unable to reverse the ongoing radicalization of Muslim populations in South Asia, Indonesia, the Balkans, Western Europe and, yes, North America. And who's behind that radicalization? Who funds the mosques and Islamic centers that in the past 30 years have set up shop on just about every Main Street around the planet?...

...Unfortunately, if you then try to buy "Alms for Jihad," you discover that the book is "Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock." Hang on, it was only published last year. At Amazon, items are either shipped within 24 hours or, if a little more specialized, within four to six weeks, but not many books from 2006 are entirely unavailable with no restock in sight.

Well, let us cross the ocean, thousands of miles from the Amazon warehouse, to the High Court in London. Last week, the Cambridge University Press agreed to recall all unsold copies of "Alms for Jihad" and pulp them. In addition, it has asked hundreds of libraries around the world to remove the volume from their shelves. This highly unusual action was accompanied by a letter to Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, in care of his English lawyers, explaining their reasons:

"Throughout the book there are serious and defamatory allegations about yourself and your family, alleging support for terrorism through your businesses, family and charities, and directly.

"As a result of what we now know, we accept and acknowledge that all of those allegations about you and your family, businesses and charities are entirely and manifestly false."

Who is Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz? Well, he's a very wealthy and influential Saudi. Big deal, you say. Is there any other kind? Yes, but even by the standards of very wealthy and influential Saudis, this guy is plugged in: He was the personal banker to the Saudi royal family and head of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, until he sold it to the Saudi government. He has a swanky pad in London and an Irish passport and multiple U.S. business connections, including to Thomas Kean, the chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

I'm not saying the 9/11 Commission is a Saudi shell operation, merely making the observation that, whenever you come across a big-shot Saudi, it's considerably less than six degrees of separation between him and the most respectable pillars of the American establishment.

As to whether allegations about support for terrorism by the sheikh and his "family, businesses and charities" are "entirely and manifestly false," the Cambridge University Press is going way further than the United States or most foreign governments would. Of his bank's funding of terrorism, Sheikh Mahfouz's lawyer has said: "Like upper management at any other major banking institution, Khalid Bin Mahfouz was not, of course, aware of every wire transfer moving through the bank. Had he known of any transfers that were going to fund al-Qaida or terrorism, he would not have permitted them." Sounds reasonable enough. Except that in this instance the Mahfouz bank was wiring money to the principal Mahfouz charity, the Muwafaq (or "Blessed Relief") Foundation, which in turn transferred them to Osama bin Laden.

In October 2001, the Treasury Department named Muwafaq as "an al-Qaida front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen" and its chairman as a "specially designated global terrorist." As the Treasury concluded, "Saudi businessmen have been transferring millions of dollars to bin Laden through Blessed Relief."

Indeed, this "charity" seems to have no other purpose than to fund jihad. It seeds Islamism wherever it operates. In Chechnya, it helped transform a reasonably conventional nationalist struggle into an outpost of the jihad. In the Balkans, it played a key role in replacing a traditionally moderate Islam with a form of Mitteleuropean Wahhabism. Pick a Muwafaq branch office almost anywhere on the planet and you get an interesting glimpse of the typical Saudi charity worker...

...We've gotten used to one-way multiculturalism: The world accepts that you can't open an Episcopal or Congregational church in Jeddah or Riyadh, but every week the Saudis can open radical mosques and madrassahs and pro-Saudi think-tanks in London and Toronto and Dearborn, Mich., and Falls Church, Va. And their global reach extends a little further day by day, inch by inch, in the lengthening shadows, as the lights go out one by one around the world.

Suppose you've got a manuscript about the Saudis. Where are you going to shop it? Think Cambridge University Press will be publishing anything anytime soon?

Those anti-free speech Sauds also took a few potshots at the blogosphere.

But why are the Saudis going through all this trouble? As Steyn and many others note, the US government already knows about these saudi shenanigans and other acts of war. They know and they don't care. They cover it up, and they continue to insult our intelligence by claiming that the Sauds are our "allies and strategic partners". Republicans and Democrats have been selling us this bullshit for decades.

Since the government already knows that these wealthy Sauds support terror, why are our Wahhabi "allies" spending so much time and money trying to hide the truth?

Could it be that they actually care about, and worry about what the average American or Englishman thinks? Do they truly believe that we common folks can actually influence the actions of our government?

If they do, then in their own strange way, these Sauds may have more respect for the power of free speech than our own government does. They have more faith in Joe Sixpack's ability to influence the course of the world than our own politicians, academics, media hacks or state department trough-feeders.

We can't let this time and effort go to waste, so let's pay some attention to the facts that our wealthy wahhabi patrons are working so hard to hide. Buy this book * - and read it. Do a google search for the googolplex of sources linking Saudis to their war against us, including 9/11, Hamas, the spread of Islamism and the Iraqi insurgency. Take a minute to click on a few of the links above. It's the least we can do.

* links thanks to marvelous Doris and Atlas Shrugs

A non-economist's guide to the link between mortgage-backed securities, hedge funds and the housing market, via the NY Times. With little monopoly houses.

The point isn't the answer, it's the question - how will Wall Street and the housing market react in the next few months?

Via Harry's Place - the Judeosphere’s List of Top Ten Double Standards On the Middle East ™

1. Christian fundamentalists who support Israel are religious fanatics; Jewish fundamentalists who oppose Zionism are individuals of deep religious and moral conviction.
2. Comparing Israelis to Nazis is a poignant political statement; comparing Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler is a gross distortion of history with the intent of demonizing foreign leaders and justifying imperialist military campaigns.
3. Palestinian nationalism reflects the inherent right of all people to self-determination; Jewish nationalism is an archaic form of tribalism and racial supremacy.
4. Criticizing academics that legitimize hateful stereotypes of African-Americans and Arab-Americans is a proper response from minority groups who oppose racism; criticizing academics that legitimize hateful stereotypes of Jewish-Americans is an attempt to stifle free speech.
5. Iran has the right under international law to pursue nuclear power for peaceful purposes; any other country that pursues nuclear power is endangering the environment and increasing the risk of nuclear proliferation.
6. Jews who cite the lessons of the Holocaust as a rationale for opposing Israel are moralists; Jews who cite the lessons of the Holocaust as a rationale for opposing authoritarian regimes in places like Yugoslavia and Iraq are neocon warmongers.

Via DANEgerus - Domestic Terror Attacks in the USA since 1993

Omar Abdel-Rahman

June 24, 1993
New York City landmark bomb plot

The attacks were to take place on July 4, 1993, Independence Day in the United States.

The first target was the United Nations Headquarters; it was to be destroyed by a suicide bomber driving a truck bomb. Also to be destroyed by car bombs were the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel, two busy underground roadways in the city. The George Washington Bridge would be bombed next, as well the PATH tunnels between New York and New Jersey and the FBI's main office at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City.

Rashid Baz

March 1, 1994
New York City

...a Lebanese livery cab driver, opened fire on a van full of Hasidic Jewish boys on the Brooklyn Bridge, killing one and wounding several others. He was sentenced to 141 years in prison. ME Forum: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) at one point ascribed his motive to 'road rage.' But then, in December 2000, federal authorities changed their minds and announced that Baz’s actions were 'the crimes of a terrorist.'"

Now that the Minnesota bridge disaster has brought national attention to unsafe bridges, New Jerseyans are starting to ask questions about the infamously hazardous Pulaski Skyway.

Governer Jon Corzine doesn't think there's anything to worry about:

"I understand our bridges are inspected regularly and, according to federal standards, while some are considered 'structurally deficient' none are now deemed 'unsafe," Gov. Jon Corzine said in a statement. "Any unsafe bridge would be shut down immediately."

In any case, the bridge is just a small part of the Skyway, a crumbling combination of roads, underpasses and bridges that are decorated with crumbling cement, accident-prone exit and entrance ramps and exposed rebar.

It's also one of 'America's Most Dangerous Highways'.

More on Structural Deficiencies from civil engineer Ben in NYC

Palapalo Ho'omau Church Cemetery, Kipahu