Go get 'em Killer

Calling Sen. John McCain a "Maverick" has officially become one of those ironic nicknames. Like when a fat guy is named "tiny" or having a chihuahua named "killer."

I'm sure Carter will screw this up too

Nothing really to add to this, I just thought it was really interesting.

Nicaragua is building it's own canal.

Here's why.

Opened in 1914, the Panama Canal cannot accommodate vessels that are more than 106 feet wide and 965 feet long. Panamanians will go to the polls on Oct. 22 on a referendum to expand their country's own facilities. The proposed $5.25 billion project would allow vessels with double the tonnage to use the 50-mile-long waterway.

Sneaky Frist

These day's you always hear 'bout politicians "politicising the war." It's happened during every war going back at least as far as the Pelopennisian War, both sides do it (vote GOP or the terrorists will kill every American, starting with the children v. Dems smell blood in W's bad poll's and pounce-well "pounce" is a bit strong, more like "flail about wildly a litte more", yet people still get all lathered up about it. In the end, its mostly just rhetoric, it's expected and it's easy to ignore.

However, Frist pushed his pet project, an anti-internet gambling law into the Port Security bill, a law that could get no traction on its own. Very smooth. A vote against this big government, nanny state, special interest protecting, anti-capitalism bill would be used as "Senator X voted against Port Security" by their opponents. Plus, remember when the you could rely on the GOP to be for capitalism, small government, and killing the nanny state? When did they become the democrats?

Anyway, again, there's words and action. The same people who get all worked up over silly words, ignore real action. When Frist talks about the need to reign in pork and create more transparancy, remember this. But more importantly, when Republican's get upset and accuse the Democrats of politicising the war, remember the astounding hypocracy of their Republican Senate Majority Leader.

What would Sid Meier say?

The Senate passed the torture bill, aka The Military Commissions Act of 2006, yesterday, W is expected to sign.

Here's what the bill lacks.

Any proof of guilt before torture is allowed.

Any threshold of what constitutes a torturable event. For example it does not say, "If a bomb is about to go off in NYC and the suspect knows where it is, then it is permissible to torture." There is no minimum offense, or standard of information required to allow torture.

No requirement to keep records of how many are tortured, why they were tortured and under what methods.

No recourse for the tortured if they are innocent or do not have the information. In fact, since there is no requirement period for releasing anyone brought into custody, if you are embarrassing enough, you may never get released. Innocent, tortured, and life in prison.

So to recap. After careful consideration by our House and Senate, and at the President's urging, we are now a nation that can torture a mysterious number of innocent people, for any reason, and keep them locked up forever, without oversight or recourse by anyone outside those who are doing the torturing.

Mr. Bush said this is a battle for civilization.

He's right, they are destroying our civilization.

I'll let you decide who "they" are.

McCain's compromise torture bill

AKA, "The Agreement Upon Common Article 3"

I have some opinions, but I'll let you read it on your own. Concider it homework.

What the pro-torture crowd is really supporting

When discussing torture its important to discuss who it is we're actually torturing. As it stands, those who are lined up for torture are the ones who don't have a right to trial, with some small sub-set being selected for military tribunals (which offer less defendant rights than our standard courts) at the pentagon's sole discression. However, both classes can be tortured at any time. In other words, you can be tortured without ever seeing even a tribunal.

The standard defenses for this are along the lines of, "this is better than they would treat us," or "these terrorists don't deserve better," or "terrorists must be dealt with," etc.

The problem is this. Because we are not fighting an enemy nation with uniforms, how do you know you have a terrorist and not a goat farmer who was named by someone a) being tortured and giving up a name, any name to ease the pain, or b) someone with another agenda (like wanting his land)? Keep in mind, there is no link, anywhere between torture an guilt. Not in any document, bill, or memo I've found. Furthermore, even those selected to undergo trial do not get the standard defense, they have lesser rights and a harder fight. Normally, when a punishment is unusual the trial is biased for the defendant, think death peanalty. Even with all the hurdles in place to insure that those on death row are guilty, many were freed years, or decades, later with DNA evidence or when the real killer came forth. Now, we're told to accept that a watered down defense, or even no defense, will have a lesser innocent conviction rate than our standard trial system? Just to trust some random guy that a detainee is a terrorist? Has this ever worked out?

So when you find yourself supporting torture, remember the administration has never, ever said anything about only the guilty getting the business. When you support this administration and Congress and their torture bill, you have to accept that you are supporting the torture innocent people.

It's not about "getting the bad guys." Never has been. Otherwise there would be a push to make sure those we have are guilty. This is about fear and vengance. When you're a coward and your afraid you'll hurt anyone to feel safe. When you're feeling vengeful, you'll hurt anyone to satiate your desire. American is about justice.

How far from justice will we stray, and how long will it take us to come back?

Clinton v. Wallace

In case anyone's interested, here's the transcript from the Fox broadcast of the Clinton Wallace debate, tirade, lie fest, ambush, where Clinton was brilliant, unhinged, set the facts straight, told more lies, hurt his legacy, helped his legacy.

I print, you decide.

Iraq, youraq,ouraq

So here's my proposal for Iraq. Divide it into thirds. Have a Kurdland, a Sunniland, and a Shiiteland.

Here's why. One of the great reasons people give for the turmoil in the Middle East is that borders were arbitrarily drawn, and did not take into concideration tribes, sects, etc. In Iraq, we can undo that by dividing it up. Kurdland to the north, and Sunniland and Shiiteland...well, wherever. Give everyone oil and a port, and give everyone a place to call home.

It has the benefit of cementing relations with the one group that likes us, the Kurds. Giving them their own country should give us another strong ally in the region. Plus, the Kurds, unlike the Sunni or Shiite's, have been actively fighting for independence for decades. They're ready. The Turks will complain, bitterly, but my bet is that Turkish Kurds don't rebel against Turkey, they'll move to Kurdland. Much easier and safer. I don't know how the Kurds get along with Iran, but if they're not allies, then we've created another check on Iran's growing influence.

Having an independent Shiite country will also act to check Iran. They can't meddle in the affairs of a Shiite nation, they have no "in." Also, the Shiite's will justifiably be concerned with Iran, and will watch, check, and othewise act to prevent Iran from gaining in the region.

And finally, yes a Sunni nation will likely closely ally itself with Iran. But think how much easier our foreign policy will be. We like you and you, but not you. You and you get these neat weapons, you don't. We have bases here and here, to watch you. Having them all together only complicates matters, gets us bogged down, and forces us all to wait until the inevitable civil war basicly does what I'm outlining. You could get it done now with negotiations, get our troops to friendly bases in Kurdland and Shiiteland.

Then we could look across the border to Iran and say, "Hey, we can do that to you too."

Bolton sings a good one

Don't know much about U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations John Bolton, or his brother Michael (except that both have a history of funny hair). Lot's on the left don't like him, but that doesn't mean much. Anyway, he has a sweet zinger on the Chavez Bush=Devil comments.

"The real issue here is he knows he can exercise freedom of speech on that podium, and as I say, he could exercise it in Central Park, too," Bolton said. "How about giving the same freedom to the people of Venezuela?"

Here you go buddy.

The link to the video mentioned below.

Torture works

UBlo, I sent you the video that makes clear that there are intelligence successes that come as the result of "coercive tactics" (I don't know how to attach it to the Blog). Personally, I consider it a no brainer that torture can work. I also consider it a no brainer that it doesn't always work. The clear truth is that it is a tool that works in some situations and not in others. Even the head of Human Rights Watch granted the point that torture can produce valid intelligence. However, she followed up with the very logical counter that perhaps a less "aggressive" technique could also have achieved those successes. I find that a reasonable challenge to the pro torture crowd. "Torture never yields good intel" is simply a false claim.

Again, where this discussion needs to be is "what price should we pay?". I'm not sure I'm on the pro-torture side. However, I would be intellectually dishonest to maintain it never works. I know it works, but I'm still not convinced we should use it. The woman from Human Rights Watch is correct, you must show that there is no other alternative that can work before you conclude torture is necessary. But since it does work, let's assume that there was no other viable way to get the info. Is it OK to torture then? Or should we be absolutists on this? Never, no matter what the cost.

Make that more than 200,001 registered voters

Hey everyone its official. I changed my voter ID to "Libertarian." That's our kickin' logo to the left. For the first time in my life I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. Ahhh, the sweet smell of freedom. Or maybe that's irrelevance, I can never tell the difference, both smell like cookies to me.

A little bit about my new club. From the web-site,

"We’re active in all 50 states and have more than 200,000 registered voters, which is more than all other third parties combined."

Suck on that Green Party. Ok, so now the party is 200,000 electrical engineers and me, but someone has to bring the flavor. And that someone is this here play-ah.

Later,

Around the USA there are Libertarian mayors, county executives, county council members and even a Libertarian sheriff!

That's right, "even a sheriff!" Unfortunately nothing mentioned about state legistalors, Governors, or national Congressfolks. But with that sheriff at least we have a cool car with sirens.

Finally,

In fact, Libertarians saved Americans over $2.2 billion in 2004 alone.

No idea in the world how they figure that, but if it holds true in 2007, that's almost $7.50 a citizen we saved America. Stalin you'll owe me a Happy Meal. Muscles, you're on the hook for a Moons over My Hammy at Denny's.

Get ready, country with 300 million citizens, to feel the awesome force of more than 201 thousand anti-social, aluminum hat wearing know-it-alls. And that's right, we're bringing our sheriff.

Torture; It's What's for Dinner

As Brian Ross of ABC News told Bill O'Reilly, water boarding has directly led to intelligence used to thwart terror attacks in this country. That is a fact. It also eliminates an argument mistakenly put forward that torture is not only wrong, but it is useless. It is clearly not useless. Now, this brings us to an interesting discussion. What price honor? I agree with UBlo that as Americans we should uphold the highest standards of decency. I also understand that that impulse is what led people to want to believe torture is useless. That way we could do away with it cost free. Well, not using torture (and American techniques are quite tame in the arena of real torture) now has a clear price - American lives. So I question is the moral high ground, in this case, worth the price?

Roman holiday

I have to admit, when I first read about this I snickered, then I started thinking about it, and i thought, "To the Hydrablog!".

Italy released 12,000 prisoners early (those with less than 3 years to go, certain crimes excempted) in an effort to releave prison overcrowding. Most papers are reporting a ruslting crime spree. However, in The Week Magazine's coverage (sorry no link-you have to buy the hard copy August 18, pg 6) also under "crime wave" says that "in less than a week several dozen were rearrested." Now I'm no mathmatician, but call in 24 out of 12,000 in a country with a population of about 60 million and it just doesn't qualify as a crime wave. I'm hamstrung by lack of follow-up data, but .002% hardly seems like evidence of a bad policy. I'm willing to bet that most people, on any project, would be happy with a 99.008 percent sucess rate. Furthermore, now the prisons can easily hold those rearrested.

I want to be clear, I'm not backing the Italian policy, my point with this entry is to point out how the headlines may not match the reality. Especially given that all the reports I found (except The Week) call it a "crime wave/spree" without mentioning how may crimes were commited, by how many of the released, or even to what degree crime rose over the period mentioned compared to previous periods. The reader has no reasonable base to draw their own conclusion.

Again, when it comes to numbers and reporting, you have to be careful.

Oooh U2, not you too

Yeah, I'm looking at you. Looks like U2 figured out that it's more fun to spend other peoples money. They recently moved part of their music business off-shore to avoid taxes, this after years of enjoying the tax amnesty that Ireland gives artist's and performers. But since Dublin recently capped the amnesty at 170,000 pounds (about $325,000) U2 jumped ship. So far, nothing really off about it, it's common practice to shelter income from taxes. But here's the rub. Bono travels the world asking governments to do more for poor nations, give money, forgive debt, etc. By itself a worthy and admirable goal (we could all do more to help the poor). U2 slips, however, by looking to minimize the taxes that go towards his goal. Since not everyone in Ireland is an artist or performer, nor can everyone afford to send part of their tax generating income to the Netherlands, who's left to fund the programs that U2 has successfully lobbied the Irish government to create to help poorer nations. If you guessed poor and middle-class Irish folks, you're right.

I would get it if U2's stance was along the lines of, "helping the poor is the right thing to do, so we're donating loads of money, and ask others to voluntarily do so as well. We feel that the people have a better say in how they spend their money than governments so we, like lots of others, are doing just that by legally sheltering part of our income." But when they lobby governments to spend, which is essencially a forced donation from the Irish people, then opt out of the system leaving others to fund their mission, well, as much as I hate to do it because I'm a huge fan, they get a mean write-up on the 'ol blog.

It hurts just to write it.

Schneier on Security

I like Bruce Schneier's blog on security issues and terrorism. Particularly this post on terrorism and security.

I do fall into the traps of fear that come's with terrorism, which is, of course, what they want. Like all challenges, the issue isn't fear, it's dealing with fear and moving on. Which is why I think it's shameful when politicians play into that fear for their own gain.

When W and the Blogger Agree

W says we're in a "a struggle for civilization." And I agree. What I don't understand about W is why he want's to bring our civilization down to the enemy's level. Why is he pushing so hard for the right to torture? Why is he looking to undermine equal protection under law? Why turn our our civil rights? In a battle for civilization, doesn't it make sense to display the proud dominance of our civilization by highlighting what makes ours so special? Why are we shedding the very things that we're protecting. It's amazing, it's not so much what the enemy is taking away as what we're so willing to eject. Either way the end result is the same, our civilization is diminished.

This is where I think W misses the point. He has the right grand idea, but he fails to create the right plan to achieve his goal. To me, he seems like the stereotypical college professor. Great ideas, can inspire others, but can't "do." He get's bogged down in the details, the reality, and the cause/effects. You can't save a civilization by destroying what makes it, just as you can't create democracy amidst chaos. This is why, ultimately, W's not a bad guy, he's overmatched in the real world. I think he see's things in the simplistic terms of a philosopher, not with the strategic mind of a tactician. I think he would have been a fine peace-time president, but his weaknesses in detail, strategy and tactics make him a weak commander-in-chief.

Good points

My friends over at Cato, well friends is a little bit of a reach. Much like my friends in high school, I like them but they don't know I exist, but that's a whole nother story. Anyway, John Mueller writes a solid article on "Are we safer?" I don't like to post without comment, but because the article is pretty long, I won't take up more of your time with my own long-winded prose.

Please sir, may I have some more?

Chicago's city council couldn't muster the votes to over-ride Mayor Daly's veto on an ordinance that would force "mega-retailers" (see - Wal-Mart) to pay higher wages.

This outcome, which I favor, gives me a chance to talk out of both sides of my mouth.

First, my problem with mandatory wages, especially those above minimum wage. The problem is the potential for a lose-lose situation. If a person is willing to work do a job for a given wage, and an employer is willing to hire someone for that wage, but a law exists that says the transaction can't take place, then both the potential employee and the employer lose. You may be willing to work, want to work and able to work, but because you and a potential employer agree that you're services are worth less than the law, or a union agreement allow, you aren't allowed to work. If an employer want's to hire someone for a given task, but it is of only marginal worth, they cannot seek out anyone to fill that need unless the value is above the law, or union, stated wage. Both sides lose. Not because of any evil master-plan, but because some (well intentioned) third party has decided what's best for you.

Quick aside, sports unions have perfected this. They've acutally made it impossible for an athlete to work for less than the several hundred thousand league minimum. If I'm an aging vet willing to work for $100k, possibly the last big income year of my life, and I can't because of the veterans minimum, I'm not sure I'm real jazzed with my union. Anyhoo...

Back to the minimum wage. As it stands, it's way, way to low. Even if it's just used as a guide line (which it mostly is, no one makes the minimum wage for any length of time, but everyone know's how their pay relates to the minimum wage) it's not an accurate measure of income to survive. The minimum wage should be scrapped or brought to a more reasonable level. I like the idea of using it not as a legal floor, but as a national guideline.

But, I can't get my stomach to take the idea that Congress get's an annual pay raise, while the minimum wage stays stagnant. Yes, yes, Congressfolk always make noise about not spending the money of small business owners, but those same business owners are also tax-payers. Well, Congress sure has no problem spending that money on themselves. Jackasses. So here's my proposal. Link Congressonal pay increases to the minimum wage. Minimum wage goes up, so do Congressional salaries. No minimum wage increase, no Congressional pay increase. One further note one Congressional salaries, I think the state they represent should pay the salary, not the nation. Makes much more sense to me. Whether they choose the former or the latter, I'm happy.

And that's what this is really all about anyway.

Wait, they've sold 23,000 of those things?

Segway recalls 23,500 Segways.

First, the article says there's competition. I didn't even know there was a market for Segways, much less competition for the space.

Among Segway's competitors in the electronic vehicle market are the Japanese company Sanyo (Charts) and U.S.-based Zap (Charts)

I also liked,

There have been six reports where the scooter has not operated properly, resulting in head and wrist injuries for users

So first you have to explain that you actually own a Segway, then you have to say that you somehow hurt yourself on it. I'd pay money to be there for that conversation.

Finally, a quick comment on the pictures (which came from their website). No way, no how anyone like the guy on the right owns one. My bet is that most users look like the guy with the orange shirt on the left, only they're never that close to an actual girl.

When three really equals two

Joe Scarborough's recent article in the Washington Monthly is not only yet another example of a Government Conservative coming out against the NeoGOP (I could fill this blog with examples, but I won't bore you), but he also backs into a point I've been trying to make for a while now. That we don't realy have three branches of government, what we have in today's USA are two branches of government, the Dems and the GOP. Needless to say, I think this is bad.

Using Scarborough's words as an example (and I'm not saying he means it my way).

The fact that both parties hated each another was healthy for our republic’s bottom line. A Democratic president who hates a Republican appropriations chairman is less likely to sign off on funding for the Midland Maggot Festival being held in the chairman’s home district.

And later,

But in Bush’s Washington, the capital is a much clubbier place where everyone in the White House knows someone on the Hill who worked with the Old Man, summered in Maine, or pledged DKE at Yale. The result? Chummy relationships, no vetoes, and record-breaking debts.

The first quote regarding the benefits of having the two parties controlling different branches describes what the founders intended as a constant state when creating the nation. Conflict between the branches was not supposed to be an occasional effect, rather the norm. Now we can only get the intended benefit when the Dems and the GOP happen to be in controlling conflict.

The second paragraph is an example of why the founders wanted to separate out the roles of Congress and the White House. But the two party, party first system exposes the loophole, and we've seen the consequenses.

What the founder's created was a system where Congress and the White House were at odds, with the Supreme Court acting as a sort of referee, giving us the fabled "checks and balances." Now with the two party system so dominant and pervasive, the only way you get checks and balances is if the two parties are in a position of conflict, as exemplified during the Clinton years. When one of the two parties controls both Congress and the White House, the only checks and balances we have are writing the checks to cover the growing negative account balances.

Until something happens to shake up the two party system (which is unlikely as the two parties would have to agree to anything that allowed this) American's have to come to grips with the fact that Congress, the White House, and even the Supreme Court are becoming irrelevant against the increasingly dominant two party, two branch system.

Rice Pudding

I thought Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's recent comment's on terrorism, and the link between Hussein and Binny were telling.

First the good news (sort of):

"I think it's clear that we are safe -- safer -- but not really yet safe,"

Then let's call this "War on Terror" a victory. We'll never be totally safe, we haven't been totally safe since, well...ever. But safer, that's great. Granted, I didn't know the goal was total safety, and yes, she didn't say "totally safe" but I think the word "totally" is superfluos, either your safe or your not. Kind of like being "totally pregnant." Anyway, safer is like totally awesome, and also a winning campaign platform, "Hey we won the war on terror!" Yes, yes, probably a touch hard to pull off with Binny running around free and all, but it's time to highlight some success.

Second, I was very interested in the Hussein/9/11 link, non-link.

"as far as we know," Saddam had no knowledge of or role in the Sept. 11 plot. "If you think that 9/11 was just about al Qaeda and the hijackers, then there's no connection to Iraq. But if you believe, as the president does and as I believe, that the problem is this ideology of hatred that has taken root, extremist ideology that has taken root in the Middle East, and that you have to go to the source and do something about the politics of that region.

Ahhhhh, now I get it. Yes, there was no direct link between Al Qaeda and Iraq (welcome to the show Mrs. Rice, we saved you a seat. It's right here next to the rest of the world - Stalin, we have one for you too). However, if you look at Iraq in a certain way, tilt your head to one side and kind of squint, then...then you can almost see a connection.

Sometimes I get a cramp trying to contort myself into position to follow the logic of this administration.

Something to make you feel better

Thomas Green at the Register says that apparantly it's really hard to make liquids go boom. Way out of my league, but for me it's win-win. Either it's true (win) or it's not and I think it is (ignorance is bliss = win).

Shhhhhh

Today, I give the 4th Amendment a break, and focus on the 1st. This post from Jacob Sullum over at Reason.com kicks off the 60-day blackout period for electioneering communications. This is part of the campaign to "clean up elections." Like most of what comes out of Congress and the White House, all it really does is tangentially address the issue (at best), while taking away a huge chunk of our rights, all the while missing the meat of the issue. Personally, I think you would get a much bigger bang (meaning closer elections with more turn-over if you got rid of gerrymandering - a politician is much less likely to be on the take if they know that people are watching and that they're not guaranteed re-election - but hey, suppressing free speech while not getting closer elections or more turn-over is much more fun). Isn't it intersting that the Feds tend to "solve" our problems by taking away our power and consolidating theirs (think injury award caps).

Anyway, dumb law. He uses the Wisconsin Right to Life group as his example and does a nice job with it.

Also worth noting, those screaming pro-abortion left wing whackos the ACLU supports the Wisconsin Right to Life group in their petition for an allowance. His synopsis of the ACLU's point does a great job of pointing out how the law of unintended consequences works.

Finally, I don't like the Supreme Courts reason for upholding the law. It's a negative burden of proof. You have to prove why your ad is ok rather than the state having to show why it's not. Huge, huge difference between the two, and the court should know that.

Hey everybody look. I'm going to defend Bush!

Report says that Bush say's "Jews are going to hell." I don't know what he really believes, but as described in the link I think the comment was clearly a joke.

Bin Landin wants to reunite the Rhineland!

"Bin laden and his terrorists' allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them," says Bush.

If I were Poland, I'd look out.

But what's interesting is that W says it's very clear what the terrorist's want, but then he doesn't say what the terrorist's want. He does say, "The question is `Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?"' But he doesn't mention what they're saying. Which leads me to the question, "what do the terrorists want?" And are we talking about just Al Qaeda, or all terrorists?

I pay some sort of attention to this, and I have to admit, I have no clear answer to the question. Yes, yes, they hate us, but hatred is hardly an "intent." And, yes Israel is a problem for them, but I've also heard that maybe Israel is a red herring. But even if getting rid of Israel is their clearly spoken intent, are we at war with Iraq to defend Israel? Do they want to destroy the US? I don't think I've heard that. I have heard that they want us to stop meddling in the region. I've also heard that Binny wants to take over Saudi, so maybe we're at war to protect the Saudi government and their territorial integrity. Neither Hilter nor Lenin were big fans of Democracy, maybe the terrorists want to overturn democracy? But there's only one real democracy in the region and that's Israel, so I'm not sure that's it. I'm honestly not trying to be coy here, I'm not sure I do know what the clearly spoken intent is of the terrorists, or even who constitutes the voices I should be hearing.

What I do know is that when someone tells me something is obvious, but doesn't tell me what it is, well, either they don't know or I'm being manipulated. It would be real easy for W to say, "The terrorists have made their intention clear, they want 'blank,' and we're not going to let them have it." But he didn't. He left a pause there for all of us to fill in and everyone could be right. Honestly (again with that word) I would have loved it if he filled it in, give me a reason, give me a solid "why," or just plain lead for crying out loud.

Interesting data regarding Justice Department Terrorist Arrests

First, how's that for a boring header? Two, having been married for more than a decade I've learned that when I'm not sure if something is good or bad from the wifes perspective, to lable it "interesting." So this bit of news is "interesting"

It seem's that the Justice Department is prosecuting terrorists at about the same level as pre-9/11. I think this is good news and it makes sense. There are several possible reasons mentioned, but I'll add some more (hey that's what you don't pay me for). One, it may indicate that the knee-jerk "we're afraid, arrest everyone!" mentality may be waning, which is great news for a nation that hopefully has found it's spine. Two, it may also show that real police work is being done. One would expect that as law enforcement agents do better detective work, arrests go down (you get less false positives with better research), more potential good news.
Finally, maybe the Justice Department has decided to spend it's time investigating crimes that have a higher chance of affecting the lives of Americans than a terrorist attack. Nation-wide the total number of people who have died in a terrorist attack over the last 20 years is less than those that die from many more mundane reasons each year (yes-this is totally unsubstaciated, but here's how I arrive at my guess. About 3,000 people died on 9/11, add to that the couple of hundred at OK and the several at the first WTC attack. Estimate a total of 4000. There were 17,000 drunk driving fatalities in 2005 Madd. And there were 18,000 people murdered in 1997. I could take this out farther (further?), but I think I've illustrated my point).

But I think the thing that best describes the decline is this. I'm just not convinced that there was this massive, conserted, constant terrorist plot against the US. The reaction to 9/11 always , understandibly, seemed more emotional that factual. Yes, there are those who wish either to do harm to, or that harm would come to, the US, but how many really have both the will and the capability to do something? Here are the attacks I remember. Oklahoma 1995 (domestic not-al Quaeda affiliated-remember those simpler times) the first attempt on the World Trade Center 1993, 9/11 2001 (I left out the Cole attack 2000. I'm not sure how to categorize it. It was an attack on a military vessel and usually terrorism is reserved for non-military targets - I leave it to you to decide). Sooooo, the fact that the Justice Department isn't arresting a lot of terrorists with designs on the US, is that there just may not be a lot of terrorsts with designs on the US.

Finally, take the last sentence,

"An empirical study like TRAC's cuts through the rhetoric, lets us see just how many terrorists are being brought to justice," Aftergood said. "The data suggest that some of the official rhetoric is misleading."

Ironically, that statement is misleading. It makes it sound like maybe not much is being done to arrest terrorist afterall. What it doesn't say is that no one knows how many terrorist exist to arrest. Maybe lots is being done, and the Justice Department is doing a great job because they've arrested 90% of the possible terrorist pool. Or maybe they're doing a terrible job because they've only arrested 5% of the pool. No one knows. So TRAC's empical study doesn't cut through the rhetoric, and Aftergood is only adding to the rhetoric. This report has lots of numbers, but it doesn't really tell the reader anything. The reader can speculate, as I've done through this entire post, the report can give the reader ideas, maybe spark some new thoughts, but it's hardly a report card as it does not give you the whole picture (nor could it). But as it stands, its like me telling Stalin that MFJ took a test and got five right. Stalin has no idea if that's good or bad, five out of five is great, five out of 100 is terrible. Don't get fooled by numbers alone, get fooled by me. It's better for both of us.

Save the Drama for Your Ma Ma

I admit that I may not be the best blogger, but at least I'm not this guy.

Key quote, "This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of 'em is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn't become the speaker."

Two things. First the minor. That is exactly the kind of hyperbole that normally brings the left under justified mockery. Still not sure why the right continues to adopt those wildly successful liberal tactics, but at least they're having the same success.

Second, while we're in the middle of two actual wars where people are actually fighting and dying, I cringe at the statement. To be fair, I also cringe whenever some athlete or commentator refers to a game as a "war." I fairly certain that Sean Hannity doesn't actually want someone to die to prevent the dems from taking over the House, and I'm sure he isn't planning on it, it's some weak attempt at a motivational speech. But seriously, doesn't he have the chip in his brain that says, "maybe we should go with a different allegory."

Anyway, I don't know much about the guy, he seems like a derivative of Limbaugh, and like all derivatives he's not nearly as good as the real thing.