HOMELAND SECURITY UPDATE: Man convicted in NY of trying to start terror camp. “The verdict against Oussama Kassir capped a three-week trial that featured the testimony of a U.S.-born Muslim convert who said he tried to create the training camp on 360 acres in Bly, Ore., in 1999. It was one of two victories Tuesday for U.S. terrorism prosecutors. A federal jury in Miami convicted five men of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to topple Chicago’s Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices. A sixth man was acquitted in the case’s third trial.”
Archive for 2009
May 12, 2009
CREATIVE CONFUSIONS: Flickr Creates New License for White House Photos.
50 ALBUMS for $5 each. As MP3 downloads.
HOPE AND CHANGE! Obama administration threatens Britain to keep torture evidence concealed. More from the Pro-Torture Obama Administration. Don’t all you people who told us it was a moral imperative to support Obama over this issue feel kinda silly now? You should. . . .
UPDATE: Steny Hoyer: Investigate What Pelosi Knew When.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Backpedaling on releasing the pictures?
RICHARD POSNER: “I sense intellectual deterioration of the once-vital conservative movement in the United States. As I shall explain, this may be a testament to its success.”
SWINE FLU migrates to China and Japan.
ORBITAL DEBRIS UPDATE: Space junk raises risks for Hubble repair mission. “Space shuttle Atlantis is now in a rough orbital neighborhood—a place littered with thousands of pieces of space junk zipping around the Earth at nearly 20,000 mph. There are more pieces of shattered satellites and used-up rockets in this region than astronauts have ever encountered. And the crew must be there for more than a week to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. As soon as the job is complete, the shuttle will scamper to safety.” The risk is still fairly low.
STIMULUS! “Counties suffering the most from job losses stand to receive the least help from President Barack Obama’s plan to spend billions of stimulus dollars on roads and bridges, an Associated Press analysis has found.”
Plus this: “Federal auditors acknowledge they can’t yet track the transportation money that is leaving Washington and there is no single list of the thousands of projects planned in each state.”
STEVE CHAPMAN: The Empty Symbolism of Hate Crimes Legislation. I wish it were really just empty symbolism. It’s actually a power grab.
CAR LUST: REMEMBERING THE Pontiac 6000 STE. With video.
TOM VANDERBILT ENDORSES cars that are governed so they can’t exceed the speed limit. Sorry, it sounds creepy to me. On the other hand, urban speed limits are often set with no eye toward reality; if people were forced to obey them, I suppose that might change. . . .
OBAMA DONOR GOES AFTER HIM ON “SCARE FORCE ONE” SNAFU: “A wealthy Obama donor who turned on the president is launching an attack on Obama over the Air Force One flyover screw-up, linking it to his big spending policies, an assault that may involve radio and TV ads in a preview of what to expect in the 2010 midterm elections.”
MEGAN MCARDLE: The Risk of Debt:
For a while now, I’ve been asking people at conferences, on and off the record, what America’s sovereign debt risk is? That is, how long until people stop treating treasuries as the “risk free” securities, and start demanding a premium for the risk that we might default.
The answer from the right has been a nervous (perhaps hopeful) 2-3 years. The answer from the left, and professional Democratic wonks, is some unspecified time in the future. Probably, there will be a Republican in charge. Markets hate Republicans.
But last Thursday, the Treasury auction was . . . well, descriptions vary from “weak” to “horrible”. This raises the unpleasant possibility that markets are, as my business school professors insisted, “forward looking”. Voters may believe that getting a bunch of special interests to agree in principal that costs should be cut is the same thing as actually cutting costs. Bond markets don’t. . . . Obama can assure voters that he inherited these deficits. But bond markets pay closer attention to the fact that Obama has already increased the projected deficit he inherited by 50%.
Read the whole thing.
AHEAD OF THE CURVE! “The federal government ran a deficit in April for the first time in 26 years, pushing the red ink so far this budget year to a record $802.3 billion. The Treasury Department says the deficit for April was $20.9 billion, a sharp contrast to a year ago when the government ran a surplus of $159.3 billion.”
THE NEWS: “No doubt you’ve noticed this yourself.”
HOLES IN the science of forensics.
GAY SOLDIER WRITES OBAMA: “Don’t Fire Me.”
DECLAN MCCULLAGH: Shared Sacrifice Stops with Feds: “President Obama’s call last year for ‘shared sacrifice’ doesn’t extend to federal employees, at least based on the details of his administration’s 2010 budget released this week.”
UPDATE: A reader emails:
I’m a Federal government employee (hired in August 2006), and it is indeed a good time to work for the Feds. Through the magic of compounding, my pay has increased by nearly 15% since my start date! No promotions or “step increases”, just the annual cost of living adjustment.
Mr. Obama can inflate all he wants. My pay is indexed!
Great. Mine’s not . . . .
CHICAGO STYLE: White House lobbies for Olympics in Chicago. “The Obama White House is playing an unprecedented role in the bid to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago, with top adviser Valerie Jarrett spearheading an effort that draws on the international symbolism of his presidency.”
MORE GOOD NEWS ON THE BUDGET: Social Security, Medicare may run dry sooner.
ADVICE FOR younger men diagnosed with prostate cancer.
BRENDAN O’NEILL ON the inalienable right to “excessively noisy sex.”
Perhaps the “Anti-Social Behavior Order” should be responded to with a “Tar And Feathers Order.” Or, you know, the occasional beheading or bombing seems to keep the British constabulary in a deferential mode. Works for some people, anyway. Meanwhile, should I be reminded of this?
ESQUIRE: I GUESS WE’LL HAVE TO START CALLING IT the Pro-Torture Obama Administration.
NICHOLAS CARLSON: Newspapers Must Be Allowed to Fail.