Suspicion

Suspicion: the act or an instance of suspecting something wrong without proof or on slight evidence : MISTRUST b : a state of mental uneasiness and uncertainty : DOUBT.  (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

British passengers on a charter flight from Malaga to Manchester refused to allow the aircraft to take off after becoming suspicious of two men on the flight.

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

The incident fuels the row over airport security following the arrest of more than 20 people allegedly planning the suicide-bombing of transatlantic jets from the UK to America. It comes amid growing demands for passenger-profiling and selective security checks.

It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands - effectively conducting their own 'passenger profiles'.

The passenger revolt came as Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary was accused of using the terror crisis to make money. Government sources say he boasted to an official at the Transport Department: "Every time I appear on TV, I get a spike in sales."

The Tories said the Government's failure to reassure travellers had led the Malaga passengers to 'behave irrationally' and 'hand a victory to terrorists'.

Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were yesterday reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.

The trouble in Malaga flared last Wednesday as two British citizens in their 20s waited in the departure lounge to board the pre-dawn flight and were heard talking what passengers took to be Arabic. Worries spread after a female passenger said she had heard something that alarmed her.

Passengers noticed that, despite the heat, the pair were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and were regularly checking their watches. (emphasis added)

Later in the article comes the, quite frankly, stupid comment from a British Tory politician:

Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security spokesman, said last night: "This is a victory for terrorists. These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally.

"For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense."

The men may or may not have been unfortunate, but the passengers appear to have keyed off their behavior.  They were dressed in what sounds like a completely inappropriate manner - and that is something police officers are trained to look for specifically. (A long overcoat on a hot day is out of place - and a good place to hide a shotgun, for example). So, if there is fault to be found here, who should it be pointed at? The passengers who were worried or the men who were acting in a manner sure to raise suspicions?

Not to sound paranoid (which I am quite sure some commenters will say anyway), but if you were going to test security and responses, how would you go about it? Would you send some people on dry runs to see what triggers response or alarm? Would you test various things to see what you could get away with? If you were a careful planner you would.

A Most reliable Ally

Kofi Annan proves once again that he is a reliable ally. The man who supervised the criminal fraud of the UN Oil for Food program, the man who allowed genocide in Rwanda, the man who attended a conference where maps of the Middle East without Israel on them were handed out and the man on who's watch UN peacekeepers have become sexual slavers and aiders and abettors of Hezbollah has condemned Israel for trying to stop a violation of the ceasefire in Lebanon. By saying Israel is at fault with not one, single word about Hezbollah violations.

Not one word about the UN failure to even pretend to live up to the ceasefire and disarm Hezbollah. Not one word about even expressing an interest in stopping arms shipments from Iran and Syria. Just a blanket condemnation of Israel. As usual.

A statement issued by Annan's spokesman later Saturday said that the U.N. chief spoke with both Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Olmert about the fighting. "The secretary-general is deeply concerned about a violation by the Israeli side of the cessation of hostilities," it said.

"All such violations of Security Council Resolution 1701 endanger the fragile calm that was reached after much negotiation," said the statement, issued by spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The White House declined to criticize the raid, noting that Israel said it acted in reaction to arms smuggling into Lebanon and that the U.N. resolution calls for the prevention of resupplying Hezbollah with weapons.

"The incident underscores the importance of quickly deploying the enhanced UNIFIL," White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo said.

A reliable ally, indeed. For certain elements in the world at least.

(Please note that a majority of the above links about Annan are from what are normally considered left leaning or neutral sources).

Send In The Ringers

This is kind of amusing. A big promotional event was held in Germany on what I am assuming is Berlin's answer to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills (that's what the article implies, anyway). What was unusual is that it was a footrace for women wearing stiletto heels. It was won easily by a 25 year old psychology student named Nadine Sonnabend.

It took Nadine Sonnabend just 12 seconds to run the 100 metres (328 feet) on her seven centimetre-high heels (almost three inch), said the organisers of the Stiletto Run, which is being held as part of the Global Fashion Festival.

"I much prefer tennis," admitted Nadine, as she walked off with her 10,000-euro (12,800-dollar) voucher to spend at Berlin's most prestigious department store KaDeWe, admitting that she rarely wears high heels.

I thought I'd see if I could find a picture of the winner, so I searched on Google. This is when it started getting funny. It seems that a psychology student named Nadine Sonnabend appears to be quite prominent in German track sports. I don't speak German, so I had to rely on Babel Fish, but this website seems to indicate that Nadine Sonnabend, a psychology student from Mainze is a hurdler (the translation is really rough). This one says that a Nadine Sonnabend of Mainze also does pole vaulting. So does this one. She appears to be nationally ranked, though I'm guessing on that based on the number of citations and rankings she has.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we got us a ringer! I have no idea if this violates any rules, I just thought it amusing.

Hugo Chavez Hallucinating

The president of Venezuela appears to be hallucinating. Today he told a campaign rally that he caught four US spies and returned them to the US - or at least I think that is what is babbling is saying. When queried by reporters, a US government spokesman simply replied that he had, "No idea what the president is talking about".

Without offering specifics, Chavez said that one woman was caught not long ago while taking photos in the north-central city of Valencia.

"I've caught four of their spies, four, and I've put them back in their hands," Chavez told a campaign rally in western Venezuela Friday night.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Brian Penn said Saturday that more than a year ago, a clerical official working in a military office at the embassy had her purse stolen in Valencia and that inside it was a disposable camera.

The woman, who was on a temporary assignment in Venezuela and eventually moved on to other duties, was never detained or formally accused of spying, Penn said.

Chavez also expelled a US naval attaché a while back - the US responded by ejecting a Venezuelan diplomat. While I have no doubt that some intelligence gathering is ongoing in Venezuela, I rather doubt Chavez or his people actually caught anyone at it. 

We could mess with his head and tell him that Cindy Sheehan is actually working for the CIA, though.

More Media Bias

I was going to write something about several headlines I have read today that completely misrepresent the words a Marine officer said about Haditha. Curt over at Flopping Aces has already done an outstanding job, so I figure it's better to recommend his excellent take on it than to try to improve on it.

Let's just put it this way, if you can find that the officer actually said the exact words the headlines says anywhere in the article, you're hallucinating. If you interpret what he said in a negative way, you are not reading it honestly.

Stand Up To Terrorists

And the left will come after you. Gateway Pundit has the details on a budding campaign against the Hollywood Stars, directors and others who signed an advertisement against Hamas and Hezbollah. Note that the blog GP linked (I will not link it) is essentially engaged in stalking saying that the author found out addresses of some of the signatories - but don't ask how they were obtained. Very nice.

Get That Butterfly Away From Me!

Researchers at the University of New Mexico's Health Sciences Center have just completed a study on how to reduce patient's anxiety levels about needles. They studied people's reactions to regular needles and IV's and then exposed the patients to the same needles and syringes covered with various decorations.

Fear of needles, or needle phobia, can impact the care a patient receives, the researchers said. Some children become hysterical at the sight of needles, while some adults will avoid the doctor's office altogether.

The researchers said the decorated needles can increase the quality of care when patients are less stressed.

Such decorations likely interfere with an established link between visual recognition of a perceived threat and the subsequent emotional response to that threat, the study suggested.

Needles, syringes and IV bags decorated with musical notes, flowers and smiley faces were highly favored by patients, the researchers said.

The researchers recruited 60 patients from outpatient clinics at the Health Sciences Center. Subjects randomly were exposed to eight designs of winged needles — such as one decorated as a butterfly — and six designs of syringes fitted with a needle.

When exposed to conventional syringes, 80 percent of the subjects experienced moderate to severe aversion, 63 percent suffered moderate to severe fear and 62 percent showed moderate to severe anxiety.

When exposed to the decorated syringes, the aversion in patients was reduced by 68 percent, fear by 53 percent and anxiety by 53 percent, the study found.

Researchers theorize that the decorations stimulate areas of the brain not normally associated with fear. Now, one should also ask what happens after someone has completed a hospital stay complete with frequent sticks by a butterfly-winged syringe. Will people come out of the hospital with butterfly phobia? (Which, as funny as it sounds, is actually a legitimate question).

Just One Question

An Indian man checked himself into a hospital to have what appears to be the only operation of its kind ever attempted. This is to correct an abnormality that has only been reported about 100 times worldwide. In this case his case appears to be the only one on record where the abnormality is fully functional.

Even so, he's going to have his second penis removed.

The 24-year-old man from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh admitted himself to a New Delhi hospital this week with an extremely rare medical condition called penile duplication or diphallus, the Times of India said.

"Two fully functional penes is unheard of even in medical literature. In the more common form of diphallus, one organ is rudimentary," the newspaper quoted a surgeon as saying.

The surgery was expected to be challenging as both organs were well-formed and full blood supply to the retained penis had to be ensured to allow it to function normally, he added.

The newspaper did not disclose the identity of the man or the hospital to protect the patient's privacy.

There are about 100 such reported cases of diphallus around the world and it is known to occur among one in 5.5 million men, the newspaper said.

Reportedly, the reason the man decided to do this is so that he can marry and have a normal sex life. We were just wondering if he had checked with his prospective bride before he made the decision.

Mexican Leftists Vow More Protests

The Mexican leftists who have continued to protest and demand a full recount have admitted that they have no hope of forcing a recount and no hope of grabbing the presidency.

So they will simply continue protesting anyway.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's leftist opposition party has given up hope of the electoral court handing it a victory in a disputed presidential vote and plans to step up protests to make life tough for the country's next leader.

After weeks of legal battles, street marches and rain-sodden blockades that have brought the center of Mexico City to a standstill, the left-wing party whose candidate narrowly lost July 2 elections said it was prepared for the worst.

The Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, says the election was stolen from their candidate and wants every vote recounted, but expects Mexico's top electoral court to confirm conservative Felipe Calderon's slim victory.

"We are not naive," party spokesman Gerardo Fernandez said on Thursday. "The court is preparing the conditions to impose the candidate of the right."

Former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador almost led the party to its first presidential election win, and he says he only lost because votes were tampered with at tens of thousands of polling stations.

Forget the fact that EU observers did not see any evidence - at all - that there were irregularities. Forget the fact that the partial recount appears not to have revealed widespread problems. Forget that Mexican law does not allow for a recount just because AMLO demands one. Forget the fact that the PRD admits it has no hope of winning now. Just keep agitating:

Fernandez said the protesters, who have sporadically shut down government buildings, foreign-owned banks and the stock exchange, would take tougher, but non-violent, action if Calderon was named president.

"We'll take it further," he said, adding possible protests could include trying to stop Calderon's swearing in ceremony.

Calderon is favored by most businessmen for his free-market policies. He says the election was fair.

The PRD says it will do everything it can to stop President Vicente Fox, who is from Calderon's National Action Party, from giving his annual state of the nation address to Congress on Sept 1.

In 1994, Lopez Obrador blocked oil wells and organized a mass non-payment of electricity bills to protest an election that was likely stolen from him in his home state of Tabasco.

More than a decade later, thousands of Tabasquenos still don't pay energy bills.

Other possible actions include closing highways and border crossings to the United States, across which millions of dollars of freight is trucked every day.

Destroy the Mexican economy even though there is no real reason to any longer. There's someone with the best interests of the country in mind. Someone really should look into who is financing this little clambake.

It’s Cheese Alright

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows that I am a music aficionado and often quote song lyrics when I think they fit into a post. It should also be pretty well evident that I think people like Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks are being stupid when they insist on making music about politics. Not because she is not entitled to her political views, but because she is willfully cutting herself off from a segment of potential fans. In other words, playing politics with music is bad business in my opinion.

There have been overtly political songs that have become bona fide hits on many different subjects through the years. For the most part, this has happened because the songs were good, not because they were political. They succeed in spite of the politics because of their musical merits.

So I am amused when I read an article like the one in the New York Times today about a group of Nashville songwriters who want to push country music toward liberal ideals. They see themselves as bold champions of the left in what they consider a conservative wasteland. Or something equally dramatic. 

Sitting at a table in early August, Bobby Braddock, the longtime songwriter, lamented the conservatism of the country music industry that was demonstrated when the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks became a target of fury three years ago after saying she was ashamed that her band and President Bush shared the same home state.

Asked whether his recent song “Thou Shalt Not Kill” would have airplay, Mr. Braddock said, “Oh, never.”

“Something political will not get played on country radio unless it’s on the conservative side,” he added. “If you show both sides, it’s not good enough. It’s got to be just on the right.”

Country music, the genre of lonely hearts and highways, lost jobs and blue-collar woes, has become a cultural battleground. Conservatism is widely seen as having the upper hand, a red-state answer to left-leaning Hollywood.

Democrats on Music Row, the country music capital here, have grown frustrated with that reputation. A group of record-company executives, talent managers and artists has released an online compilation of 20 songs, several directly critical of Mr. Bush and the Iraq war.

The price for the set is $20, with most of the proceeds going to the group, which calls itself Music Row Democrats and is using the money to support local and national candidates who share its values.

Bob Titley, a former manager of Brooks & Dunn and a co-founder of Music Row Democrats, has no illusions that the songs will shoot to the top of the charts. Rather, Mr. Titley said, he hopes to use them as fund-raisers and to change the image of country as strictly Republican music.

“My hope would be that they would play this music at campaign rallies,’’ he said, “and when the volunteers are out on a hot day driving door to door, they’ll put it in their cars to keep themselves pumped up and in a good mood.”

I can truthfully say I had never heard of Bobby Braddock before reading this article. Or actually about any of the people that are featured in it. Real hardcore country fans may know them, but I wouldn't exactly call them household names. Regardless, what they seem not to grasp here is that music, especially in Nashville, is a business. The people who run the industry are very, very good at figuring out what sells and what doesn't. They are also very good at spotting quality work. One of the members of this group just wrote and recorded a song that may help explain why they just are not getting the attention they think they deserve:

 The songwriter Darrell Scott contributed “Goodle U.S.A.” Faith Hill had recorded it under a different name and without the line “It’s like Joe McCarthy was our acting president.”

Mr. Scott recently recorded a new song, “W Cheese,” in a basement studio at Famous Music on Music Row. One verse ends, “They filled our plate with freedom fries, red, black and blue, white lies/And a helping, heaping, hating size of stinkin’ W cheese.”

“I’ve never thought of myself as very political,” he said. “It just seems like in the current environment even I have to write about it.”

Mr. Scott may have talent, but if he can't come up with better lyrics than that, he sure as heck wont be getting any big airplay. Playing politics with music isn't likely to succeed unless the quality is there in the first place. Cheesy lyrics wont cut it. How about sticking to what music is all about in the first place: entertainment?

Nearly Universal Condemnation

Even the New York Times, obviously not the most neutral of observers in the matter, takes note of the nearly universal condemnation of judge Anna Diggs Taylor's opinion in the NSA case.

Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal, said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose Web log provides comprehensive and nonpartisan reports on legal developments.

“It does appear,” Mr. Bashman said, “that folks on all sides of the spectrum, both those who support it and those who oppose it, say the decision is not strongly grounded in legal authority.”

The main problems, scholars sympathetic to the decision’s bottom line said, is that the judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, relied on novel and questionable constitutional arguments when more straightforward statutory ones were available.

She ruled, for instance, that the program, which eavesdrops without court permission on international communications of people in the United States, violated the First Amendment because it might have chilled the speech of people who feared they might have been monitored.

That ruling is “rather innovative” and “not a particularly good argument,” Jack Balkin, a law professor at Yale who believes the program is illegal, wrote on his Web log.

Judge Taylor also ruled that the program violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. But scholars said she failed to take account of the so-called “special needs” exception to the amendment’s requirement that the government obtain a warrant before engaging in some surveillance unrelated to routine law enforcement. “It’s just a few pages of general ruminations about the Fourth Amendment, much of it incomplete and some of it simply incorrect,” Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University who believes the administration’s legal justifications for the program are weak, said of Judge Taylor’s Fourth Amendment analysis on a Web log called the Volokh Conspiracy.

Judge Taylor gave less attention to the more modest statutory argument that has been widely advanced by critics of the program. They say that it violates a 1978 law requiring warrants from a secret court and that neither a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda nor the president’s constitutional authority allowed the administration to ignore the law. A recent Supreme Court decision strengthened that argument. Judge Taylor did not cite it.

Some scholars speculated that Judge Taylor, of the Federal District Court in Detroit, may have rushed her decision lest the case be consolidated with several others now pending in federal court in San Francisco or moved to a specialized court in Washington as contemplated by pending legislation. Judge Taylor heard the last set of arguments in the case a little more than a month ago.

Not that any of this will stop certain people from hyperventilating about the NSA program, but at least people who are being intellectually honest see the problems with activist agendas masquerading as legal scholarship. This decision is all but overturned already and does not really advance the discussion of the program.

Questions Without Answers

Franklin Kramer, a former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs from 1996 to 2001, asks a number of questions about the UN peacekeeping force to be deployed in Lebanon. He points out five key questions that will determine whether the force actually can accomplish anything of value.

First, what is the mission of the force? It may seem obvious that the overall purpose is to limit the use of violence. But the key question is how the force proposes to do that. Will it be an observer force, a reactive force or a force designed to create new conditions on the ground? To put it another way, will the force actively take on Hezbollah, will it leave that task to others, or will Hezbollah in effect be left alone? Over time, Hezbollah will seek to regain military strength. Will the peacekeeping force seek to ensure that Hezbollah has as little capacity as possible to commit violence? That was the purpose of the force put into Bosnia, and there the peacekeepers maintained the monopoly on violence. Lebanon will be a much harder task, but unless controlling violence is an affirmative mission, the peacekeeping effort is unlikely to succeed in the long-term.

It seems that the promised "robust force" is not working out right now since the European governments, France in particular, are not supporting the effort. One of the main sticking points appears to be this very issue. There is no clear mandate or rules of engagement for the force. Nor does the UN appear interested in clarifying those issues. The other questions are as vexing as the first.

No answers to Kramer's question appear to be forthcoming from Turtle Bay. The UN is stumbling along with no goals and no plan. This ceasefire will not hold long, and I rather suspect the UN, France and the other European governments all know that.

Israeli Commando Raid In Bekaa

The rumor reported last night of Israeli missiles being fired in the Bekaa Valley appear to have been part of an Israeli commando raid on Boudai. Information is still sketchy, but the Washington Post reports that Israeli authorities have confirmed the raid and that there were Israeli casualties.

The Israeli military, confirming the raid, said its commandos carried out the operation as part of an effort to prevent resupply of Hezbollah with weapons and munitions from Iran and Syria. It said one Israeli officer was killed and two soldiers were wounded, one seriously.

There was no immediate reaction from Hezbollah. But Lebanese immediately worried that the militant Shiite Muslim movement would retaliate, risking a chain of cease-fire violations that could result in resumption of the devastating war that drove nearly a fourth of Lebanon's inhabitants from their homes and inflicted an estimated $3.6 billion in damage to bridges, roads and other infrastructure.

In accepting the cease-fire, the Hezbollah leader, Hasan Nasrallah, warned that Hezbollah reserved the right to attack Israelis as long as they remained on Lebanese soil. At the same time, the Israeli government declared it reserved the right to respond to attacks and prevent resupply of Hezbollah guerrilla units in the southern border hills until an international force is in place.

"Until proper monitoring bodies are established on the Lebanese border, such operations will continue," an Israeli military spokesman said.

Boudai, which lies in the foothills of the Mt. Lebanon chain about 10 miles northwest of Baalbek and more than 60 miles north of the border, has long been known as a Hezbollah stronghold. Local officials speculated to local journalists that a senior Hezbollah leader, Sheik Mohammed Yazbek, may have been the commandos' target.

Apparently, the raid did not succeed and was discovered early in its execution.

UPDATE: Well, the AP is reporting a number of details now. Israel is claiming that the commandos accomplished their mission, so it's still very confused.

The army said such operations would be carried out until "an effective monitoring unit" of Lebanese or multinational troops was in place.

"If the Syrians and Iran continue to arm Hezbollah in violation of the (U.N. cease-fire) resolution, Israel is entitled to act to defend the principle of the arms embargo," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

Hezbollah TV and Lebanese security officials said Israeli helicopters dropped off a commando team outside the village of Boudai west of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release information to the media, said the Israelis apparently were seeking a guerrilla target in a nearby school but had no other details. The officials also reported heavy overflights of Israeli jets.

Lebanon's foreign minister said he immediately informed a visiting U.N. delegation of Israel's violation.

Such a bold operation risked scuttling the fragile cease-fire and suggested Israel was going after a major target near Baalbek — perhaps to rescue two Israeli soldiers snatched by Hezbollah on July 12, or to try to capture a senior guerrilla official to trade for the soldiers.

Hezbollah has said it wants to exchange the two soldiers for Arab prisoners, but the U.N. cease-fire resolution demands Hezbollah unconditionally release the soldiers.

Oppression

An object lesson on what oppression looks like for those in this country who like to talk about it. The Iranian government has started cracking down on satellite television. They announced a crackdown and immediately began doing so, ripping dish antennas off buildings and destroying them. While Cuba warned about it, the Cuban government does not appear to have made aggressive moves yet, Iran went full bore after these connections to the outside world.

The use of satellite dishes is prohibited by law and we ask people not to use this equipment anymore," Morteze Talaie was quoted as saying in the press.

Police armed with warrants raided rooftops of large apartment blocks and high-rises in the chic northern and western areas of Tehran on Sunday and have conducted similar operations in other cities, witnesses and press reports said.

"Police seized scores of satellite dishes in Velenjak (northern Tehran) and after loading their vans, they took off," a resident identifying himself as Hamid told AFP.

We heard the other day that Iran was clamping down on bloggers, now that they are shutting off outside channels of communication. This is an ominous sign.