On The Third Hand

Warblog Archives

Saturday, 15 Dec 2001

Is it parody, or satire or...? Damned good rant by Andrew Hofer, on the subject of a "sadly preventable tragedy". Enjoy!

Friday, 14 Dec 2001

Associated Press: Ashcroft Praises German Law Allowing Crackdown on Religious Organizations Deemed Extremist.
So, is that why he wants the FBI to have permission to check on religious groups here? If so, I'll vote for it, as long as he promises to check up on all religious extremists.

• Satire Wire: "CONGRESS FORBIDS ECONOMY TO RECOVER UNTIL CONGRESS PASSES BILL TO HELP ECONOMY RECOVER"
• The Onion: "TORA BORA, AFGHANISTAN An emaciated and heavily bandaged Osama bin Laden offered the U.S. a final chance to surrender Monday."
• Cheney's daily weblog(or not...)
• U.N. Creates Suicide Bomber Hotline

After overdosing on the monster video yesterday, I thought we might all need a bit of a chuckle today.

Thursday, 13 Dec 2001

I'm sure that the interesting portions of the tape will be played and replayed for days. If you missed it; however, and would like to at least see the translation, you may get it in PDF format on the US Department of Defense website, or the CNN website or the Washington Post website. CNN also has it in regular HTML format. All the sites are getting hit pretty badly, so be patient!

This morning's Washington Post article, "Take This, Terrorist Boogeyman" reviews an e-mail that has been wandering the Internet for a while, titled "The Real Deal About Chemical, Nuclear and Biological Warfare" (I never got it). Red Thomas, a retired army sergeant, wrote about three pages of general common-sense advice for dealing with attacks. The Army doesn't think too much of it, but I get the impression that is because they think they should be doing the protecting and that they think his article is too general. Their comments and Thomas' rebuttal are at the bottom of the WP article. (This is a long one, please keep reading.) [Continue reading]

The US criteria for designation as a terrorist organisation are as follows:
1. The organization must be foreign.
2. The organization must engage in terrorist activity as defined in Section 212 (a)(3)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. (** - see below)
3. The organization's activities must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States.
I suppose that means the Jewish Defense League is not considered a terrorist organization by the State Department, since it is based in the USA? If I were them, I would reconsider my definition of terrorism.

Will Vehr's Punditwatch takes on the latest in punditry, and does a lovely overview of this week's writing gimmicks. It's an enjoyable read (as usual).

Israel has cut all contacts with the Palestinian Authority and ordered the IDF to recapture territory in Gaza and West Bank, as well as targeting PA facilities. Palestinian officials say that the Israeli strikes constitute an act of war.

Terrorrists attacked the Indian Parliament. The Parliament had been adjourned, but a number of members were still inside. The attackers were armed with machine guns and grenades. Indian news reports all attackers dead and at least six other fatalities, mostly MPs. No injuries or deaths were reported among members of Parliament.

It's too bad we have to be nice to Pakistan right now, I'd say that the Indians are our natural allies over there.

Wednesday, 12 Dec 2001

who you were going to bomb. Two Jewish Defense League leaders arrested in alleged bomb plot. See, it doesn't matter who is trying to bomb whom in this country. We aren't going to put up with stuff like that.

Now, if we could just catch the eco-terrorists...

All four of the crewmen from the downed B-1 bomber have been rescued, per Fox News tv.

I sometimes wonder if the UK newspapers know what "secret" means. I referenced an article by the UK Observer, back on Dec 2, announcing "Secret US plan for Iraq war". Today it is the Telegraph's article about Somalia, which starts off as follows: "AMERICAN officers have secretly entered Somalia in the first indication of President Bush's determination to extend the war against terrorism." Just a note to the reporters in the UK: If you are reporting it, it is not secret! Got that! Good.

Both Ananova and Fox News (on tv) are reporting that John Walker "claims there will be a biological attack on the US" at the end of Ramadan.

I'm beginning to think that the US government has probably headed off more attacks than it has let us know about. I think they should let us know a bit more of what is going on. We aren't going to panic if we are informed and can make plans! The US government is demanding that we "the people" trust them. It's about time they trust us too.

Thanks to MommaBear for the Ananova link!

To America's first World Wide Web site. We've come a long way, baby!

Tuesday, 11 Dec 2001

San Francisco embarrassed again by elections fiascos

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - After a number of embarrassing mishaps that have left some members of this city's Board of Supervisors screaming for answers, the Department of Elections will try again Tuesday to get it right during a runoff election. The Department of Elections has been under fire since the Nov. 6 election when thousands of absentee ballots were secretly moved, and the Coast Guard fished eight ballot box lids out of San Francisco Bay several weeks later.

In the week after September 11, I read only two articles that I thought truly captured the way I was feeling. Although I don't speak for the American people, I suspect that many felt the same, judging from the number of times I was e-mailed both of these articles. Today, I went back and re-read both of them. You may read them too, if you wish.

• Why Did It Have To Be A Perfect Morning? by Andrew Sullivan
• We'll go forward from this moment by Leonard Pitts Jr.

I'm listening to John Ashcroft on the news. He has actually indicted a detainee, by the name of Zacarias Moussaoui! I'll link to the transcript when it goes up on the government website. Meanwhile, you can read the article Reuters.

Update: Here's the link to the full indictment .

Monday, 10 Dec 2001

Moira Breen comments: "I sometimes switch on CNN when I have to fold piles of laundry or clean the kitchen, and thus can't use my preferred sources. And the niggardly amount of information given is stale, more often than not. Certainly they have the resources to do better than this. Exactly what demographic are these people trying to reach?" Not mine, that is for sure! It isn't just CNN, either. MSNBC and Fox News on tv are just as bad.

Gerald Grimes, whose cartoons I feature on the right, was evidently amused by my comment that I "look good in blue". He sent me a cartoon...of me. I'm still giggling.

Come to think of it, those burqas might prove to be a nice thing to wear in the middle of the Afghanistan winter. In summer... I think I'd pass.

While all the commentary about Johnny Taleban has been going on, I have been remembering an article about a Taleban fighter who had come out of that same prison basement, and claimed to have been born in Louisiana. I finally decided to find out if I'd been imagining things, and went searching. I found the article in the UK Observer. I had remembered correctly, they quoted him as saying "I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana." According to an interview with John's parents, he was born in Washington, DC. So... what happened to the guy who said he was born in Baton Rouge? Was that a misquote by the Observer, a lie by John, or is there another American Taleban?

Update: This Washington Post article says there were two others captured who also claimed to be Americans.
Thanks to Tony Adragna for the link!

Sunday, 09 Dec 2001

Please read Will Vehrs' excellent (as usual) Pundit Watch. I think I should just put up a link that says "click here every Sunday and Wednesday"...

I do understand what Ellen Goodman's saying in "For Journalists, A Question of Balance". I even agree with her that journalists should do their best to report the facts, in a manner as balanced as possible. However, she objects to Fox News calling Osama bin Laden a "dirtbag" -- and I can't help thinking they are being entirely too kind.

More seriously, I completely agree with her that "You can be a patriot and a journalist but practicing ''patriotic journalism'' sounds suspiciously like propaganda." It is propaganda, but I note that she doesn't take on those journalists such as Robert Fisk, who described Mullah Omar as "the humble priest from Noudi".

The problem is that journalists (and the media they work for) are all unbalanced to one degree or another. The slant may show in the words they use (or don't), or in what they choose to report. I would like to see more balanced reporting from all sides but, despite the fact that I look good in blue, I shan't hold my breath waiting to see it happen.

CBS news reports on a whistle blower who used to work at a plant that "makes sophisticated batteries that power the guidance systems inside virtually all of America's precision guided weapons." The whistle blower is claiming that the plant has been sending out substandard batteries that, if they failed, could cause missles to go astray.

The company, Eagle-Picher Technologies, is (of course) denying the allegations. If the allegations are true; however, criminal negligence would be the least of what they'd be facing.

An opinion piece in Friday's San Francisco Chronicle about John Walker seems to have turned the blogs of war into attack blogs. Mr Louis Freedberg writes: "...President Bush should allow Walker's parents to fly him back to Fairfax, and let him get his life back on track. We'd want nothing less for our own children, who could easily have found themselves in a similar mess."

So far, the bloggers taking aim (and firing) are:

• Matt Welch
• Steven Den Beste
• Charles Johnson
• Moira Breen
• Joanne Jacobs
• Ken Layne
• Damian Penny
• Tony Adragna

I'd take a few shots myself, but I think my fellow bloggers have said it all.

For anyone who might still have doubts as to whether Osama bin Laden is guilty, it seems the US has discovered even more evidence.