One Has To Ask

What the heck Harry Reid is smoking? Does Reid honestly believe the elected officials must now answer to career bureaucrats? Because this sure sounds like that is exactly what he is demanding:

The administration's national intelligence director would have to show Congress that he has a process in place for reviewing administration officials' statements and ensuring they are consistent with the work of professional intelligence analysts.

The headline of this article is, "Reid Calls For More Intelligence Oversight."

I'd settle for a bit more intelligence from good old Harry.

Damn. As If.

I could ever write the way Mark Steyn can. Read the whole thing.

Memorium

Sarge Just sent this:

It's been a little while since I've posted here, but Friday night all the
things in the world news that I'd been planning to write about suddenly
became completely unimportant. Friday night a soldier from my company, from
my platoon, was killed by an IED. His name was SPC Benjamin (Withheld), and he
was one of the best soldiers I've ever met. I'm not going to evangelize too
much because the fact is none of you knew him, and, unfortunately, none of
you will ever have the honor and privilege of knowing him. I can only
imagine how much the world has missed out on now that he's not in it. He was
a good friend, quick with a joke and a smile. Our commander, who was pretty
close to Ben, said it best: "he was a child at heart…and a man in spirit."

Goodbye Ben. We'll miss you.

Note: I have withheld the soldiers last name so as not to intrude upon the family's grief. I will not publish it unless and until the family gives me permission to do so. May God have mercy upon his soul and may his family find peace.

UPDATE: Sarge asked me to post this picture of Ben. I will do so, but will remove it if the family asks me to.

Rest in peace, Ben.

101st Blog Of The Day

My continuing mission to visit one member of the fighting 101st each day led me over to the Wide Awake Café today. Laura Lee Donoho notes a very special anniversary and does a bit of car blogging. Laura Lee has been kind enough to link this blog several times in the past.

The Butterfly Has Landed

Julia "Butterfly" Hill has come down out of her walnut tree. Other volunteers have been training to take the tree-sitting activist's place. She also broke a hunger strike.

"I ate a couple of bites of food from the garden today," she said by telephone.

Her place was taken by Rufina Juarez, a farm representative.

Hill, who gained fame by living for more than two years in a California redwood, said she remained at the garden until replacements were trained to allow "the community to shine its own brilliance."

Why in the world do we care about Butterfly? Actually we don't. In the least. It just gives us a chance to link back to this picture from when celebrity tree-sitter Joan "Damn This Bark's Rough" Baez made her brief media photo op in the same tree.

Shine your brilliance, y'all.

Ode To A Fire Ant

There's a stereotype out there of the scientist that paints them as, well, a bit weird. You've all seen the slightly dotty depictions of scientists in countless movies and television shows. Sometimes they are more weird than others, like Doc Brown in the Back to the Future series.

I wonder where that idea comes from.

Consider the lowly fire ant for a moment. Pest or hero? Well, to Walter Tschinkel's way of thinking, the ant is a much maligned creature.

"The fire ant has been accused of almost every heinous act that people have been able to imagine, typically without any careful experimentation," Tschinkel said in an interview. "So there is this tendency to believe fire ants are capable of doing almost anything nasty."

….

"Most people hate fire arts without reservation, without reflection," he wrote. "Perhaps that is what the fire ant has to offer us — something we can all agree to hate, something about whose reprehensibility there is no argument, something we can blame and that won't argue back."

Robert Vander Meer, fire ant research leader for the federal Agriculture Research Services in Gainesville, admires Tschinkel and his work and agreed fire ants bring out people's emotions. But there's good reason for that, he said.

"If it were an innocuous pest then you wouldn't have these emotions," Vander Meer said.

Besides being deadly to people who are allergic, fire ants destroy crops, damage irrigation systems, kill wildlife, short out air conditioning systems and undermine roads with their tunnels, he said.

Between repairing the damage fire ants cause and trying to stop the little buggers, the USDA estimates the price tag at around $6 billion a year.

Tschinkel's book, meanwhile, has received a glowing review from The New York Times, which praised the interludes for offering "a real glimpse of what science is and how it is done."

Harvard professor emeritus E.O. Wilson, who won a Pulitzer Prize with co-author Bert Holldobler in 1991 for "The Ants," wrote the foreword. He called "The Fire Ants" a "masterpiece" and "example of how future biology will be written."

Tschinkel shares the credit with the creatures he loves.

"They have provided me with an almost endless opportunity to engage my curiosity and to delve into the secrets of their lives," he said. "I like them in that sense. They're not cuddly."

My late father-in-law would have had an interesting conversation with the good doctor about fire ants. He had to change a flat tire on his RV down in Texas once. He didn't notice the fire ant nest.

He sang a slightly different song about fire ants than Tschinkel. Let's put it that way, shall we?

Perhaps You Should Make A Pair Of Boots?

A Tualatin, Oregon man is looking for a new home for himself and his family. It seems the city is, in his words, discriminating and he just won't live there. A neighbor had complained about his family members it seems.

His three alligators.

Brown has lived in the city for 26 years and his oldest alligator has been with him since 1985. But recent concerns from a neighbor prompted the City of Tualatin to push Brown to say "see ya later" to his pets.

The neighbor runs a daycare out of her home and called the city with safety concerns about having the alligators next door. However, she says she didn't intend for Brown to lose his pets.

The city considered a law banning alligators and other exotic pets but has set the exotic pet ordinance aside after enormous community response. Instead, they are fining Brown for violating city code.

Brown could have to pay up to $1500 each day his alligators stay there. But a municipal judge will make the final decision on how much Brown is fined.

We aren't sure this is discrimination as much as it is rampant sanity breaking out finally.

The Curse Of The Mummy

Is apparently in the disguise not working and getting caught. A man entered a bank in Jackson, Mississippi completely swathed in bandages. He asked a teller for some help, then vaulted over the counter and grabbed a bunch of cash. Which is pretty darn spry for a mummy, them usually being dead and all. Nonetheless, the disguise did not seem to work very well. Police and a SWAT team raided an apartment soon after the robbery and took Montaries Brooks into custody. Police are not saying he was the mummy just yet, only that he was a convicted felon who had an illegal firearm.

"He was fully bandaged," Wade said, including his face and arms. "The only things they could see were his eyes and lips. He asked a teller for help, then jumped over the counter and began taking money out of the drawer," Wade said.

The robber, who Wade said never showed a weapon, stuffed the money into his clothes and ran. Police would not disclose how much money was stolen.

We never much cared for the mummy thing. Perhaps a nice werewolf outfit might have worked out better.

Details On The Zarqawi Safe House

The Washington Post has a description of the remains of the building where Zarqawi was killed. Frankly, it doesn't shed a lot of light on anything, just pretty well describes what two 500 pound bombs will do to pretty well ruin your day.

The article, again, directly contradicts the AP hit piece from yesterday that attempts to smear American troops with the accusation that Zarqawi was found alive and beaten to death. Iraqi police were first on the scene. Period.

When Fisher received orders for an urgent mission at 5:50 p.m. Wednesday, his troops were already involved in two other engagements: a firefight at an Iraqi army checkpoint nearby, and another incident south of Zarqawi's hideout where a Humvee had hit a roadside bomb, he said. Fisher moved troops and AH-64 Apache helicopters toward the area, and they set up a cordon along the canal; two tanks also blocked off Highway 2, which runs north-south to the east of the house.

They reached the site about 10 minutes after the bombs struck the house, Fisher said. Local residents were already there, picking through the rubble, he said; so were Iraqi police from a station about two miles away. His troops detained 14 civilians at the scene, he said, and later released them when it was discovered that they were local farmers.

Fisher, of Sioux Falls, S.D., said he had a hunch that Zarqawi had been the target, although he did not know for sure until the next morning. He received a watermelon from the local police chief as a gift when the news got out.

It appears that Zarqawi's house contained some rather racy women's clothing. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard assume that Zarqawi felt that he looked quite fetching in them. Not that we needed that mental picture or anything.

Tin Ears

Well, if this guy is trying to reassure the British people that Muslims are fine, decent people who are not intent on imposing their views on the west he's taking a particularly weird tack to do so. Suggesting that Britons need arranged marriages won't exactly warm the cockles of the average Brit, I think.

His aim, he says, will be to encourage Britain to adopt more Muslim ways, as well as to encourage Muslims to be good British citizens. He thinks that non-Muslim Britons would benefit from having arranged marriages and espousing stronger family values; they would also do well to stop drinking and gambling and to follow many of the teachings of Islam.

Note to Dr. Bari: Telling the country you have moved to that they should adopt your ways is extremely arrogant and will tick people off. Trust me on that one.

UPDATE: The Big Pharaoh is all kinds of impressed with Dr. Bari's advice, too.

Who Are You And What Have You Done

with Germany? In a frankly stunning development as far as I am concerned, a very diverse coalition of political groups, religious leaders and other prominent Germans are protesting Iranian policies all across Germany. This is the single largest sighting of incipient backbones developing yet.

Iran's Football team will be met with a series of protests across Germany during their World Cup campaign as anger mounts against the country's viciously anti-semitic President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Senior politicians, Jewish groups and a prominent German TV host will join a demonstration today in Nuremberg hours before Iran play their opening match of the tournament against Mexico in the city. They are furious that Ahmadinejad's deputy, Mohammad Aliabadi, has been allowed into the country after the Iranian President called the Holocaust 'a fairytale' and called for the destruction of Israel.

….

A cross-party group of German politicians is due to speak at the protest, including Gunter Beckstein, Bavaria's right-wing Interior Minister, and Claudia Roth, the co-leader of Germany's Green Party. The country's most famous Jewish TV personality, Michel Friedman, will also attend. He has threatened to take legal action against Ahmadinejad if he comes to Germany, where Holocaust denial is a criminal offence.

Hundreds of Jewish people are expected at today's event, with busloads arriving from Berlin, Munich and other cities. Jewish leaders are comparing the presence of the Iran team and Aliabadi at the World Cup with the Berlin Olympics before the Second World War, when Adolf Hitler sought to use the Games to promote Aryan supremacy and his own leadership.

'Aliabadi's presence means we could have a repeat of the 1936 Olympics, when they were hijacked by Hitler for his own political purposes and presentation,' said Rene Pollak, chairman of the Zionist Federation of Frankfurt. 'We should have denied him entry to the country. Western leaders should know by now that appeasing fascist regimes does not work.'

I am very surprised and very pleased by this development. The fact that such a diverse group is willing to come forward and actually confront the reality of the situation in Iran is a very good sign for Europe, I think. Maybe the ruling elites will begin to see the light, too.

Well, we can hope, can't we?

UPDATE: There have been a number of arrests inside Iran to prevent people from protesting as the World Cup game gets underway. Gateway Pundit continues to shame the mainstream medai with an incredible roundup of news about Iran and the unrest within it's borders. Don't miss Publius Pundit's picture. (Work safe, gratuitious babe shot for the troops).

More True Love From The Kozvention

Allah's secret operative at the Koz Kidz shindig has a very, very strong stomach indeed. Although he confesses to almost losing it in this report. What's really telling is that there really is no recognition in the crowd there that we are actually at war. Wishing it so will not make that go away.

I’m sitting in a foreign policy panel now and it is gripping. We are at war and there is one sparsely attended panel on foreign policy in the whole conference. I can just imagine the planning that went into this: “Let’s see, we have two journalists from publications never read by people who don’t drive a Toyota Prius; we have a former DIA guy who quit in disgust and obscurity over the Iraq War; we’re doing great, but we need someone to really anchor this panel down. We have some great new voices on there, but we need a big name with a lot of foreign-policy savvy… By Jove, I’ve got it!”

Arianna Huffington.

I can’t wait to see who they get for the National Security panel. Carrot Top is in town this weekend…

Oh, wait. There is no National Security panel.

Do not miss the tinfoil hat contest. No joke, they actually had one. The spy sees Rovian hands at work.

UPDATE: Another must read from Pat, AKA the Brainster on riding the tiger. Not easy to get off, is it?

Getting Word Out

I think this is very, very important. The Iraqi Foreign Minister is getting word out about who is really targeting civilians in Iraq. I'll give you a hint here, it is not US forces.

ABU DHABI — The US troops in Iraq do not carry out target killing of civilians in the war-torn country, Hoshyar Zebari, Iraqi Foreign Minister, has asserted.

‘The US forces do not kill civilians. Yes, civilians got killed in Haditha and other places but it is the terrorists who target civilians in Iraq,” said Zebari, to a question posed by Khaleej Times on measures adopted by his government to protect civilians.

Zebari was taking part in the first pan-Arab Broadcast Forum held in Abu Dhabi recently.

“More than 40 to 50 Iraqis are killed daily at markets, places of worship and gatherings due to suicidal terrorist bombings. This is the solid truth which journalists cannot beat us on," he added. Cases of killings of civilians in Iraq, have raised worldwide concern over US conduct in the war-torn country. A case in point is a recent report filed by Iraqi police which accused US troops of rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in a house, including five children and four women, before blowing up the building.

Why is this important? Because Zebari is doing it in the Arab world. He is getting the word out directly to counteract the widespread misinformation that exists in the Arab world about the US. Will it be enough? That I do not know. But it is, I think, encouraging that some word is getting out to point out what has been obvious to a lot of people for a long time. The biggest killer of Muslims are other Muslims. The people who have saved more Muslims than any other nation is the US.

There’s A Warning There

Well, the big convention in Las Vegas has ended, Adam Nagourney reports. Some of the participants from the Democratic establishment are recognizing the potential that blogs have. But whether the Koz Kidz realize it or not, there was also a very, very clear warning about a couple of things.

Mark R. Warner, the former governor of Virginia and potential Democratic presidential candidate, went before an unconventional political audience on Saturday — a bloggers' convention — and offered a fairly conventional presentation: the introductory campaign video, a few jokes, and 30 minutes of biography, criticism of the Bush administration and views of government.

Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee chairman, took a different approach, celebrating the bloggers as the future of American politics. "We have a whole new department at the D.N.C. — the Internet department," he said. "What they do is read you all day long so they know what's going on."

Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, a Democrat who also may run for president, praised blogs as an emerging power in American politics after appearing at a panel here, but assailed a major liberal blog, Daily Kos, for "banging away" with personal attacks on political leaders.

"I'm not the enemy — I'm a pretty decent guy, if I say so myself," Mr. Vilsack told reporters.

If there is an emerging consensus among much of the Democratic Party establishment, it is that blogs are an important, potentially crucial emerging power in American politics, as reflected by the turnout of Democratic leaders here this weekend. What is less clear is how mainstream politicians like Mr. Warner — or the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, who gave an address Saturday night — will grapple with an audience that has defined itself in part by its dissatisfaction with mainstream politicians.

The warning from Vilsack is likely the most important of the two. The mainstream in America will tolerate a lot of passionate beliefs and a certain amount of vitriol, but only so much. If a line gets crossed, credibility suffers and your message gets weakened, not strengthened. The other warning is a little more circumspect but still vital. If you cast yourself as the angry outsider, you risk that becoming a self-fulfilling - and permanent - prophecy.

Something to think about. For the right as well as the left.

UPDATE: This is a hoot. The Washington Post report has this in it:

Tom Mattzie, Washington director of MoveOn.org, called the struggle inside the Democratic Party a "clash of civilizations" between an old order and a new order, but he also discounted those who view it purely in ideological terms. His group, he said, had polled the net-roots activist community. "What they want is not an ideological litmus test," he said. "They want Democrats to stand up and fight. They don't want Neville Chamberlain Democrats; they want Muhammad Ali Democrats."

That, said many of those in attendance, explains the contempt with which net-roots activists hold Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), whom they see as having gone out of his way to support Bush and to criticize Democrats on the Iraq war and other issues. A popular button here showed Bush and Lieberman in near-embrace with the words "The Kiss," and Lieberman's primary challenger, Ned Lamont, has become a darling of the net-roots activists.

But Dave Dayen, a comedian and activist, said the net-roots activists are genuinely pragmatic in evaluating candidates, particularly those in heavily Republican states. He noted that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) is as conservative as Lieberman but has not been targeted by bloggers. "We understand regional realities," he said.

Stirling Newberry, an active blogger on economic issues, said the list of attendees at the conference validates the significance of the net-based movement. "The media are here, the candidates are here," he said. "That says the power is here."

Joe Trippi, who helped tap the power of the Internet for Dean as his campaign manager, said he was surprised more prospective Democratic presidential candidates were not here. "Skipping this is like skipping the Iowa J-J [Jefferson-Jackson Day] dinner," he said.

Yep - that explains the netroots antipathy for Joe Lieberman. It's not ideological.

Sure.

War On Terror Working?

A story today points out that the war on terror has been quite a lot more successful than a lot of people realize. Estimates are that about forty percent of known terrorists have been killed or captured since 2004.

Two years later, 40 percent are dead, targets of a worldwide crackdown that claimed its biggest victory with the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's front man in Iraq.

Manhunts in Asia, Africa and Europe have pushed most of the rest deep underground — finding refuge in wartorn Somalia or the jungles of the southern Philippines. While there are still recruits ready to take up al-Qaida's call to arms, analysts say the newcomers have fewer connections than the men they are replacing, less training and sparser resources.

No organization can handle a 40% drop in resources well. Even if new people are coming forward to take the place of those killed or captured, the newcomers lack the contacts, training and expertise of those lost. This is actually a huge accomplishment. As the more experienced people are killed, the total functionality of the organiztion declines significantly.

"There are more people popping up than are being put away," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College. "But the question is whether the new ones have the fortitude to take up the mantle and carry the struggle forward. I don't see that they have."

A 2004 Associated Press analysis named a dozen young terror suspects as front-line leaders, their hands stained with the blood of attacks from Bali to Baghdad, Casablanca to Madrid.

Al-Zarqawi, who sat atop the 2004 list as the biggest threat after bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, died Wednesday when U.S. forces dropped two 500-pound bombs on his hideout northeast of Baghdad.

What is significant here is that the AP is actually keeping track and they have to admit that the war on terror appears to be working. Experts are cautioning that this does not mean that the terrorist are not still a threat. They certainly are. But by keeping up the pace of disrupting the organiztions, the networks suffer and coordination of attacks becomes much harder.

Globally, security forces have also had considerable success. Another four of the top 12 young militants in the 2004 list have met violent ends — in shootouts in Saudi Arabia, under U.S. bombardment in Iraq, or in an Algerian terror sweep. The seven who remain at large are on the run, and none has been able to match al-Zarqawi's success at launching large-scale attacks since mid-2004.

Counterterrorism officials warn that others have emerged as equally or more dangerous, and that the global fight against Islamic militancy is far from won. But tracking the fate of the "class of 2004" gives a rare insight into the landscape of Islamic militancy, and the short life expectancy of those who take up arms.

Joining al-Zarqawi in the list of dead militant leaders is Nabil Sahraoui, who took over the North African Salafist Group for Call and Combat in 2004 and announced that he was merging it with al-Qaeda. Sahraoui did not have much time to savor his power play. The militant, who was in his S, was gunned down by Algerian troops that same year east of Algiers.

Habib Adas, the accused ringleader of the 2003 bombings in Istanbul, Turkey, and another member of the class of 2004, died during the U.S. bombardment of the Iraqi city of Falk in November of that year, according to the testimony of an al-Qaeda suspect in U.S. custody. Turkish security forces believe the account and say Adas, who was also in his S, is dead.

Syrian-born Lao's Mohammad Hajj Bark al-Saga, who has emerged as an even more senior leader of the Istanbul bombings, but who was not included in the 2004 list of top terror suspects, is in a Turkish jail awaiting trial on terror charges.

Two other men who were on the 2004 list met their ends at the hands of security forces in Saudi Arabia.

This is real progress. As word gets around that taking up arms means you have very little time left to live, it will decrease the desirability of that particular line of work for a lot of people. Asama's "strong horse" analogy may end up describing the situation pretty well. Think of it in terms of a sports team analogy. The Cubs might have a hardcore fan base that adore the lovable losers, so to speak, but the ranks of fans don't increase much above that hard core until the team starts winning. I think the same rule applies here.

UPDATE: Best post title yet from Tim Blair: "BROAD STRATA OF COMMUNITY SUFFER HIGH DEATH RATE", with the lede: Jihadis are becoming jihasbeens. H/T James Joyner. (I would have used "Jihadwas" if I had actually, you know, thought of this first. But I really like Jihadwas and think I'll try to remember to use that when referrring to dead ones!)