The Golden Gate

Excellent response by Treasury Secretary Snow to Keller over at The Corner:

Mr. Bill Keller, Managing Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr. Keller:

The New York Times’ decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide.  In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails.

Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were “half-hearted” is incorrect and offensive.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times - from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you.  It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story.  Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.

Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story.  And there was nothing “half-hearted” about that effort.  I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure.  I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror.  Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.

You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that “terror financiers know” our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money.  The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works.  While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.

Lastly, justifying this disclosure by citing the “public interest” in knowing information about this program means the paper has given itself free license to expose any covert activity that it happens to learn of - even those that are legally grounded, responsibly administered, independently overseen, and highly effective.  Indeed, you have done so here.

What you’ve seemed to overlook is that it is also a matter of public interest that we use all means available - lawfully and responsibly - to help protect the American people from the deadly threats of terrorists.  I am deeply disappointed in the New York Times.

Sincerely,

[signed]

John W. Snow, Secretary

U.S. Department of the Treasury

Amen.

Go see him.

heh.

…for the pro-freedom rally at the Danish consulate yesterday:

The Only Republican in San Francisco has some first hand details:

“I just got back and it went well. We had 70-80 people, among them a Danish journalism student from Berkeley, many flags, a hottie handing out Havarti and a complete absence of local media.”

Let’s hope we see more events like this. I found out about it too late to make it over there, but I’d love to get to the next one…

Interesting to see that T.O.R.I.S.F. poses the following question in the header area of his blog: “Imagine being an empirical, free-market thinker in a liberal town.”

Hmmmmmmmm… Gee, I wonder what that WOULD be like?

Personal to TORISF: let’s talk.

Hubris has joined the fray. You remember Hubris. Now, Hubris is not back, he’s just posting now and then. And this now and then is a doozy:

Dick Cheney Goes On Accidental Seven-State Shooting Spree.

Just go read it. And see the pic of the VP’s vehicle in action.
And welcome not back, Hubris. Glad you’re not back, but just posting from time to time. Or not…err, ummm, yeah.

Oh–and Hubie, you owe me a fucking Keyboard. That shit was so funny I spit up on mine.

Are we at war? You know, Western Civilization with its ideas about liberty, freedom, expression, gender relations, multi-cultaralism…against those who hate it. Or is this just trumped up lies and fear by the Bush Administration?

Well, may be just the locals in palestine justifiably upset about the oppression by the Israelis, right?

Except that is a Danish flag. You know, those Danes. Hungy for empire and all.

And this is in London. That’s right. That’s a Bobby there.

And just in case you had any doubt about their affections…

What was this protest over? Editorial cartoons depicting Mohammed. Cartoons. Time to wake up people.

More photos here. More commentary and links to come in an update later.

To the CONSERVATIVE PARTY OF CANADA — the new governing party of Canada!

Geez, did you know that the Canadian Liberal Party has been in power for about 70 of the last 90 years? That’s amazing! That means that, on average, for only TWO YEARS out of every DECADE since WORLD WAR I has it happened that somebody _other_ than the Liberal Party has ruled Canada. Or, taken sequentially, it’s akin to having the Liberals in charge in Canada from 1937 to the present day.

Talk about your total domination.

Well, anyway, the Conservatives (or “Tories”) are in charge now, at least for the time being.

And what does the Conservative Party of Canada stand for?

Ann Althouse cites the following:

“It is in the DNA of this Harper government to improve the relationship with Washington.”

Said Janice Stein, director of the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, according to the NYT:

Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party defeated the long entrenched Liberal Party in Canadian elections on Monday. A Conservative victory is a striking turn in the country’s politics and is likely to improve Canada’s strained relations with the Bush administration….

Mr. Harper, 46, is a free-market economist who expressed strong support for Washington at the time of the American-led invasion of Iraq and shares the Bush administration’s skepticism of the Kyoto climate control protocol, which Canada has signed and ratified. His party was formed three years ago as a coalition of two conservative parties.

Such positions are in sharp contrast with those of [Liberal] Prime Minister [Paul] Martin, who rejected cooperation with President Bush’s missile defense program, ratcheted up criticism of American trade policies and caustically criticized Washington during the campaign for not supporting the Kyoto protocol.”

A commenter on this piece added:

…on the surface of things, this seems to reflect what has just happened
in Germany. On the strength of good showing and after piecing together a “grand
coalition,” the new leader of the German government is an advocate of strong
ties with the US, supported the invasion of Iraq, and believes in a more robust
market capitalism than her predecessor. Is this a trend?

Hopefully one that’s gaining momentum…

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last” –Sir Winston Churchill

More gorgeousness here.

December 16, 2005 - The art of life is making necessary conclusions from insufficient premises. - anonymous

I just came accross notes I took on a book I read in the mid 90’s by Richard Brodie who writes in a field called memetics called Virus Of The Mind (a fantastic, quick read), and it got me thinking.

The wide world we experience often differs dramatically from the world we actually live in. The “facts” on which we build our understanding of what is happening are “spun” by media savvy spin doctors from every pulpit, but even more by our emotional responses to the information we are given. If our actions are a function of our thinking and values, and our thinking and values are a function of the information we get, how can we protect ourselves from the spin of our conventional media providers (polititicain, priests, professors) and the independent bloggers in the seemingly more and more conventional blogsphere?

So, take a ride with me…

“(Insert your most recent annoying person) is a big fat idiot!”

These simple and fighting words make for confrontive and often invigorating conversation. But are they an example of the very behavior they are denouncing?

Yes, I agree with Mark Twain when he said that “A person may be intelligent, but people are stupid.” At the same time, as Ken Wilber puts it, “no one is stupid enought to be 100% wrong.” We all use our intelligence to build reasonable conclusions from incomplete information. When that information is partial, inaccurate, or distorted, the conclusions we build are likewise “screwed up.”

You know, “stupid, idiotic, clueless, dumb, hare-brained, Bush-like…”

Since we are all operating on incomplete and inaccurate information of one type or another, we all say “off the mark” or “stupid” things now and again. When we do, it is often helpful for people to get in our face and point out our glaring mistakes with an epithet or two (or 20…).

However, our stupidity cuts both ways. Not only do we say stupid things, but more often, we hear intelligent things stupidly. Sometimes, someone can say something that is “right on” but we distort it according to our stupidity and end up calling them an idiot. The people who see the intelligence of the person we are calling an idiot then experience us as an idiot, often expressing their observation in lengthy and clever ways - to the delight of the crowd who agrees with them, and inflaming further invective from others…

Who wins in this battle? : The very stupidity each person is denouncing.

In blogs, this is all good and fun - I mean, HELL, I “IS” one!

In politics, when we empower the idiots with legislation, guns, TRILLIONS, and public podiums, it is tragic.

Richard Brodie gives this example inVirus Of The Mind:

–

In 1992, 37,776 people were killed by guns in the United States. An other
40,982 were killed by automobiles. Yet a casual look at reporting would
verify that guns get much more coverage than cars, even though almost half
the gun deaths (18,169) were suicides. I’m not saying guns shouldn’t get
more coverage after all, this gun problem is new and growing, while the car
problem has been with us for decades. But people get a distorted picture of
the dangers involved.

Just doing a simple calculation, the chance of any one person dying in an
automobile accident in a given year in the U.S. are one in 6224; the chance
of dying in a gun incident other than suicide is less than half as likely:
one in 13,005. If you put yourself in a low-risk group by not being a
criminal or a police officer, the odds get considerably better. But what are
people more afraid of: guns or cars?

If you’re like most people, the answer is guns. and it’s likely because of
the distorted media coverage. This kind of disturted coverage leads to an
outcry from the populace, which often leads to politicians going
off–forgive the pun half-cocked with “solutions” to the problem.

Now let’s get a handle on what it really means to have a one-in-6500 or a
one in 13.000 chance of dying. lt’s as if you lived on an island in the
South Pacific with a population of 650. You make your living by swimmuing
around in the azure waters around your idyllic paradise and spearing fish
for dinner. Yum, yum. About once every 10 years. a stray shark happens by
and eats a swimmer. That’s a one in 6500 chance of any one per­son being
eaten by a shark. just the same as the odds of dying in an auto­mobile
accident in the U.S. in 1992.

Also, about once every 20 years, two men get into an overheated argument
over a fish or a woman and one of them kills the other one with his spear.
That’s a one-in-13,000 chance of being killed in an argument, just the same
as the odds of being killed by someone else with a gun in the U.S. in 1992.
These are very sad events, and probably dinner table conversation for quite
a few days, but not the be-all and end-all of life. Fortunately, since you
live on an isolated island, these events come and go, and life goes on.

But now imagine there are 392,000 of these islands all linked by tele­vision
and INN (Island News Network). This brings the total population to about 254
million, similar to the U.S. today. Every night, INN reports on the goriest
of the 107 shark attacks and 54 spear deaths that day. Suddenly people’s
picture of the world is quite different. From a peaceful existence disrupted
only by a tragedy every few years, you go to a fear-ridden hell filled with
fear and terror.

Isn’t this interesting? Nothihg has changed except the addition of
television. Yet now it feels like you’re living in a dangerous world, not an
idyllic paradise. Same number of shark attacks; same number of spear deaths.
What happened?

Television news.

–

Thank Dick!

The question becomes: What is your “Television news?” What are the sources of information you use to get the “facts” on which to build your world, your opinions about who is or is not an idiot? Towards what emotions are they spun to inflame in you, and towards what purpose?

Intolerance breeds intolerance, and when communication breaks down, violence increases. When we cannot find enough common ground with our adversaries (political, military, or familial) to build negotiated solutions, our only alternative is to force them or be forced. And as Ayn Rand put it through the character of Francisco D’Anconia, “when force becomes the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket.”

Of course, to find common ground, to look for where people are right rather than self-righteously pointing out where they are wrong, requires energy, time, and patience.

Screw that, who was the idiot that wrote this anyway?

Mark Michael Lewis
http://LastingHappiness.com

I sure hope this is not true:

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not.  Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.

How many other Presidents and Congresspeople do you think feel too restricted by that little “piece of paper”? Precious little protects us from them. Our life, liberty, and property is always on the table.

Vigilance.

I will be away and incommunicado for 2 months. I do not expect Rich, my alleged co-blogger, to be posting. What that means to you is that I will be back January 2.

…

…By Rick Moran over at the Right Wing Nuthouse. In my experience, this puts it all into perspective.

Too bad they didn’t try the Magic Marker approach.

I have said for some time in conversation that I support high oil prices. While in the short term they are painful, this…is good. It is only the pain of the high cost of oil that will have people look for other alternatives and it is only the high cost of oil that makes other, initially more expensive solutions be relatively more affordable.

A study released yesterday states that America has more oil locked in shale on Colorado than the entire Middle East. It is because the price of oil is so high, and that one of the elements of Bush’s energy policy was to open the door to shale oil development, that this is overwhelmingly good news. It would be good news anyway, but now it is glorious.

Here’s the story.

via LGF:

Here’s an interesting e-mail from a Doctor in New Orleans to staff at UAMS, courtesy of LGF reader CoCo:

***
This is a dispatch from New Orleans from Dr. Greg Henderson, a pathologist who recently moved from Wilmington:

Thanks to all of you who have sent your notes of concern and your prayers. I am writing this note on Tuesday at 2 p.m.. I wanted to update all of you as to the situation here. I don’t know how much information you are getting but I am certain it is more than we are getting. Be advised that almost everything I am telling you is from direct observation or rumor from reasonable sources. They are allowing limited internet access, so I hope to send this dispatch today.

Personally, my family and I are fine. My family is safe in Jackson, Miss., and I am now a temporary resident of the Ritz Carleton Hotel in New Orleans. I figured if it was my time to go, I wanted to go in a place with a good wine list. In addition, this hotel is in a very old building on Canal Street that could and did sustain little damage. Many of the other hotels sustained significant loss of windows, and we expect that many of the guests may be evacuated here.

Things were obviously bad yesterday, but they are much worse today. Overnight the water arrived. Now Canal Street (true to its origins) is indeed a canal. The first floor of all downtown buildings is underwater. I have heard that Charity Hospital and Tulane are limited in their ability to care for patients because of water. Ochsner is the only hospital that remains fully functional. However, I spoke with them today and they too are on generator and losing food and water fast.

The city now has no clean water, no sewerage system, no electricity, and no real communications. Bodies are still being recovered floating in the floods. We are worried about a cholera epidemic. Even the police are without effective communications. We have a group of armed police here with us at the hotel that is admirably trying to exert some local law enforcement. This is tough because looting is now rampant. Most of it is not malicious looting. These are poor and desperate people with no housing and no medical care and no food or water trying to take care of themselves and their families. Unfortunately, the people are armed and dangerous. We hear gunshots frequently. Most of Canal street is occupied by armed looters who have a low threshold for discharging their weapons. We hear gunshots frequently. The looters are using makeshift boats made of pieces of styrofoam to access. We are still waiting for a significant national guard presence.

The health care situation here has dramatically worsened overnight. Many people in the hotel are elderly and small children. Many other guests have unusual diseases. … There are (Infectious Disease) physicians in at this hotel attending an HIV confection. We have commandeered the world famous French Quarter Bar to turn into an makeshift clinic. There is a team of about seven doctors and PAs and pharmacists. We anticipate that this will be the major medical facility in the central business district and French Quarter.

Our biggest adventure today was raiding the Walgreens on Canal under police escort. The pharmacy was dark and full of water. We basically scooped the entire drug sets into garbage bags and removed them. All under police escort. The looters had to be held back at gunpoint. After a dose of prophylactic Cipro I hope to be fine.

In all we are faring well. We have set up a hospital in the French Quarter bar in the hotel, and will start admitting patients today. Many will be from the hotel, but many will not. We are anticipating dealing with multiple medical problems, medications and and acute injuries. Infection and perhaps even cholera are anticipated major problems. Food and water shortages are imminent.

The biggest question to all of us is where is the National Guard. We hear jet fighters and helicopters, but no real armed presence, and hence the rampant looting. There is no Red Cross and no Salvation Army.

In a sort of cliche way, this is an edifying experience. One is rapidly focused away from the transient and material to the bare necessities of life. It has been challenging to me to learn how to be a primary care physician. We are under martial law so return to our homes is impossible. I don’t know how long it will be and this is my greatest fear. Despite it all, this is a soul-edifying experience. The greatest pain is to think about the loss. And how long the rebuild will take. And the horror of so many dead people.

PLEASE SEND THIS DISPATCH TO ALL YOU THINK MAY BE INTERESTED IN A DISPATCH from the front. I will send more according to your interest. Hopefully their collective prayers will be answered. By the way, suture packs, sterile gloves and stethoscopes will be needed as the Ritz turns into a MASH

An extensive list over at Instapundit.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Panic engulfed thousands of Shiites marching across a bridge in a religious procession Wednesday after rumors spread that a suicide bomber was about to attack, triggering a stampede that killed 648 people.
Scores jumped or were pushed to their deaths into the muddy Tigris River about 30 feet below, while others were crushed in the crowd. Most of the dead were women and children, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.

It was the single biggest confirmed loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

Full story here. Via Captain Ed

I had 2 [yes t-w-o] g4 PowerBooks go down in the same week. I will be blogging again Monday. May you never experience this. AND may the sands of the Gobi forever blow at your back.

For many, just another reason to hate us.

via: LGF

Nobody’s Business reports that the International Criminal Court is actually PAYING accused war criminals to turn themselves in. On top of that, the accused’s family gets a “double salary,” a per-child bonus, plus four paid-for trips to the Hague per year to visit the accused war criminal.

Wow.

But wait, it gets better — the really senior war criminals get a MILLION DOLLAR bonus for turning themselves in, on top of all the other payments.

It’s the world turned upside down.

And both Nobody’s Business and Bill Quick of Daily Pundit wonder what else the indicted were able to negotiate before they turned themselves in? Maybe reduced charges? Reduced sentences? I mean, the whole thing just reeks.

Bill Quick puts it well:

What can I say? There are no words. This transcends farce into some new, even more absurd plane of surrealism. It goes without saying, of course, that there was an under-the-table negotiation about the verdict and sentence, and that the whole thing is an abomination that exposes the foulness at the center of the philosophy that could even consider making deals with mass-murdering fiends in exchange for the appearance of credibility for this pathetic perversion of justice. I am so glad that Bush refused to sign onto this “court”.

***JASON ADDS: WTF!? It is clear that our international institutions are ill and need radical therapy or complete disbanding and reconstruction. I am stunned.

I am moving this week so posting from me will be light.

The first nuclear explosion is remembered:

Lawrence Johnston, a University of Idaho physics professor emeritus, will join other scientists invited by the National Academy of Sciences to Washington, D.C., July 14 to recall the 1945 detonation of the first nuclear weapon.

The symposium will mark the 60th anniversary of Trinity, the first manmade nuclear explosion. The event will feature 11 scientists and veterans who participated in the test at the Trinity site on New Mexico’s Alamogordo Bombing Range.

Johnston witnessed the successful early morning test July 16, 1945, and the later use of nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. He is believed to be the only person to witness all three.

Christopher Hitchens lays it out clearly and concisely:

We know very well what the “grievances” of the jihadists are.

The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won’t abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art. The grievance of the existence of Hinduism. The grievance of East Timor’s liberation from Indonesian rule. All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way.

FOR a few moments yesterday, Londoners received a taste of what life is like for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose Muslim faith does not protect them from slaughter at the hands of those who think they are not Muslim enough, or are the wrong Muslim.

It is a big mistake to believe this is an assault on “our” values or “our” way of life. It is, rather, an assault on all civilisation.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Read the whole thing.

We do not use the word “evil” anymore, even with apolitical criminals, whose crimes are called sicknesses now, or syndromes, caused by — what is it this week? society? parents? TV? — and who need our understanding and accommodation, not our rejection or punishment. All the more so for avowedly political murders like those in London.

Leftists who call for more understanding or dialogue or compromise, are not understanding the Muslim “other.” They are projecting themselves onto the terrorists, imagining what it would take to cool themselves off if they were ever that mad about something.

No-f*cking-sh*t.

Ezra says it is terrifyingly simple.

Posting has been light this weekend. I have been leading a workshop. Rich has been doing what Rich does [see below]. Once I recover from the weekend and feel more physically and emotionally resourceful, I will be posting like a crazed, pajama-clad man again.

Heh.

Indeed.

RICH ADDS: Actually, while Jason was leading his course this past weekend, I was busy participating in the “Sports for the Worlds Children” Charity Softball Tournament. I had a great time and I am just a bit achy and sunburned today to show for it (but not too sore, on either front.)

I don’t know about “crazed” or “pajama clad,” but you’ll also be seeing some more stuff from me as the week gets cranking, here.

Oh, and, Sports for the Worlds Children is a great cause. Go here to give them some support.

One hundred and fifty years ago—on or close to the Fourth of July—Walt Whitman, Brooklynite and sometime journalist, published the first edition of an utterly original book of poems. The great New England sage Ralph Waldo Emerson quickly recognized that Leaves of Grass marked the beginning of what he had long been calling for: a truly distinctive American literature.

From US News