Blue Crab Boulevard

One of the more annoying characteristics of those who have decided that President Bush is the root of all evil is the tendency of those people to twist what he, and others they see as carrying a message for him,  say into something completely different from what he (or others) actually said. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post would be an example.

For some reason, Bush and Rumsfeld also decided to drop in on the Legionnaires' 88th yearly gathering. Cheney, meanwhile, was spending quality time with the Veterans of Foreign Wars at their convention in Reno.

Do we discern a pattern? The lavish attention being paid to veterans' groups isn't about what year it is, it's about what month it is. Unless the Republican base is somehow energized and the rest of us somehow scared stiff by November, the Democrats have a decent chance of taking the House of Representatives and even an outside shot at the Senate.

That's where all the administration rhetoric about Nazis, commies, fascism and appeasement has to be coming from, because, absent the political context, it makes no sense. It's all heat and no light.

We can pretty much set aside Cheney's recent remarks, since he's been wandering in the rhetorical wilderness for a long time now. But I can't resist citing one line. He told the VFW that the "Bush Doctrine" is to hold accountable "any person or government that supports, protects or harbors terrorists." So what about the newly installed Iraqi government, with its suspected ties to Shiite death squads? And what about the Pakistani government, which gives the Taliban and al-Qaeda safe harbor?

Okay, one more from Cheney. To those who point out that Iraq wasn't a nexus of terrorism until we invaded, Cheney responds, "They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway."

Huh? The terrorists who attacked on Sept. 11 didn't come from Iraq. Except in Cheney's mind, I don't know where the fact that we were attacked by terrorists trained in Afghanistan (and sent by Osama bin Laden, who's probably now in Pakistan) somehow mitigates the fact that we've made Iraq a hotbed of terrorism.

Robinson knows full well that is NOT what Cheney said at all. His exact words are here, in the public record for all to read. Here are the exact words as opposed to Robinson's misinterpretation:

I know some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornet's nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway. As President Bush has said, the hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse.

At no point did Cheney suggest, in any way whatsoever that the attacks came from Iraq. Robinson is deliberately twisting what was said by selectively quoting only a portion of what was said to skew the meaning, a particularly underhanded tactic. Rather than continue to flog this rather obviously politically motivated hit piece which can't even get basic facts correct, I'll just point this out. The year Robinson is referring to is also quite wrong. 2006 is not at all like 1939, the year that WWII started.

It is more like 1938, the year it might have been averted. But Robinson can't get that correct either. What a surprise.

Mexico is in serious trouble due to the blind lust for power of one man. Andrés Manuel López Obrador appears to be intent on overturning what seriously appears to be a legal, if very close, election regardless of the cost to his nation and his people. These are not the actions of someone with the best interests of his people in mind. Even if you are a dedicated leftist, you need to read the article in the Washington Post by Enrique Krauze and see the damage AMLO is doing. This is a bad situation and needs to be stopped.

To get a sense of the danger hovering over Mexican democracy, consider these numbers: In the 681 years between the founding of the Aztec empire in 1325 and the present day, Mexico has lived for 196 years under an indigenous theocracy, 289 years under the absolute monarchy of Spain, 106 years under personal or party dictatorships, 68 years embroiled in civil wars or revolutions, and only 22 years in democracy.

This modest democratic 3 percent of Mexico's history is divided over three periods, far separated in time: 11 years in the second half of the 19th century, 11 months at the beginning of the 20th century, and the past 10 years. In the first two instances, the constitutional order was overturned by military coups.

Scarcely 50 years ago, armed groups of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (known as the PRI, its initials in Spanish) attacked polling stations with pistols and submachine guns, gunning down suspect voters and stealing ballot boxes. Scarcely 20 years ago, the PRI — which had refined its methods — prided itself on being a nearly infallible machine. The government and the PRI (symbiotic entities) controlled every step of the elections, from the preparation of voting rolls and the discretionary issuing of voter registration cards to the counting of votes. Many bureaucrats and members of worker and peasant organizations were carted to polling stations where they were instructed to vote in mass for the official candidate chosen by the outgoing president. The voters were given sandwiches and gifts; their leaders were given government posts, sinecures and money. Many times the ballots were marked in advance and stuffed days before the election into "pregnant" ballot boxes; the establishment of secret polling places was common, and some people were registered many times over.

….

On July 2 this same independent electoral organization, made up of 909,575 citizens (not government employees), oversaw an orderly, peaceful election in which more than 41 million people voted. It's important to note that almost a million representatives from all parties participated, as well as nearly 25,000 national observers and 639 international observers. At the end of the day, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) presidential candidate came away with more votes than any other leftist candidate in Mexican history; in fact, he fell just 240,000 votes short of winning the presidency.

What happened next has left Mexico on the verge of social upheaval. What would an American think if, after a campaign as heated as the Kerry-Bush race, the losing candidate had declared himself the winner the night of the election, claimed "massive fraud" a few days later and orchestrated a sit-in of his followers (many of them directly paid by the local PRD government) on the Mall in Washington, blocking access to the neighboring streets and affecting businesses and government offices? That is exactly what Andrés Manuel López Obrador has done.

Read the whole thing. The election was very close, but there is NO evidence it was stolen. AMLO is so set on power that he will see Mexico in flames rather than do the right thing. He is not a man of the people. He is a demagogue with a blind lust for power. He will murder the democracy he swears he is in favor of when it suits him.

Did you hear about the pipe bomb in Hinsdale, Illinois that exploded in a trash can in a commuter railroad station? It happened Friday morning at about 6:50 am. Nobody was hurt in the blast. It was a sophisticated device with a timing mechanism. Did you hear about it?

I didn't think you had. Those who read here must know I watch a lot of major media outlets. This was not picked up or covered anywhere in the national media. Not. One. Word.

The maker of a sophisticated pipe bomb that exploded in a trash receptacle inside the Hinsdale Metra station early Friday still was at large late in the day, police said.

Nobody was injured in the 6:50 a.m. blast inside the ticket building, authorities said.

A man witnesses had pointed to as possibly being involved was released after a consensual search of his home turned up nothing, Hinsdale Police Chief Bradley Bloom said. The man had been seen near the receptacle and was apprehended at Union Station about an hour and a half later.

Bloom said the department has not ruled that man, or anyone else, out but said police don't have a good description of who may have left the bomb. There are no security cameras at the station, and nobody saw anyone place the bomb, he said.

U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent Thomas Ahern said authorities do not believe the incident was terrorist-related, although they do not have a motive yet. He said the device was "improvised" but not a manufactured bomb. Its remnants will be sent to a Maryland laboratory for examination, Ahern said.

The device was more elaborate than some–it had a timer that allowed a delayed detonation, authorities said.

"We're a little concerned, because it was a somewhat sophisticated device," Bloom said, referring to the timer. "And it was just inside the door" of the station, he said.

If someone had been near it, he or she could have been seriously hurt, Ahern said.

I had to get this from a comment here that linked a Canadian story. Then I searched and found the Chicago Tribune story. (Thanks for the tip, Blackhawk.) I begin to fear, rather badly, for this country when the press is more interested in cheerleading than it is in reporting anything that might hurt their agendas. There is a certain silence on some things that is beginning to really bother me.

How about you?

Guy Gabaldon, sometimes called the "Pied Piper of Saipan" has died in California. He was 80 years old. (I do not believe I had heard of Gabaldon before today). But he single-handedly talked as many as 1,500 Japanese soldiers into surrendering during the battle for Saipan in the Second World War.

Gabaldon died of a heart attack Thursday at his home in Old Town, his son, Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey Hunter Gabaldon, said Monday.

Using an elementary knowledge of Japanese, bribes of cigarettes and candy, and trickery with tales of encampments surrounded by American troops, Gabaldon was able to persuade soldiers to abandon their posts and surrender. The scheme was so brazen — and so amazingly successful — it won the young Marine the Navy Cross, and fame when his story was told on television's "This Is Your Life" and the 1960 movie "Hell to Eternity."

"My plan, as impossible as it seemed, was to get near a Japanese emplacement, bunker, or cave, and tell them that I had a bunch of Marines with me and we were ready to kill them if they did not surrender," he wrote in his 1990 memoir "Saipan: Suicide Island."

"I promised that they would be treated with dignity, and that we would make sure that they were taken back to Japan after the war," he wrote.

The 5-foot-4-inch Gabaldon used piecemeal Japanese he picked up from a childhood friend to earn the trust of the enemy, who believed his story of hundreds of looming troops. In a single day in July 1944, Gabaldon was said to have gotten about 800 Japanese soldiers to follow him back to the American camp.

His exploits earned him the nickname the Pied Piper of Saipan.

The private acknowledged his plan was foolish and, had it not been pulled off, could have resulted in a court-martial. His family suspected his initial disobedience — though they say officers later approved — might have kept him from receiving the Medal of Honor.

"My actions prove that God takes care of idiots," he wrote.

A brave and honorable man who helped save many lives that would have been lost otherwise. There is quite a lot more on Gabaldon here. It is important to remember men such as this when the revisionists try to rewrite history years later. Thank you for your service. Rest in peace.

Ralph "Bucky" Phillips is rapidly running out of running room. That tends to happen to suspected cop killers. The career criminal who is suspected to have murdered a New York State trooper escaped from a jail less than one week before he was due to be released and has been the suspect in a string of burglaries, car thefts and shootings of police ever since. The trooper who died, Joseph Longobardo, was shot from ambush along with trooper Donald Baker Jr. Baker remains hospitalized in serious condition. Please, if you are a hunter in Western New York or Northern Pennsylvania, stay out of the woods until this man is captured. The police do not want any accidents and you would be at serious risk from Phillips.

Hunters in rural and wooded Chautauqua County are "interfering" with the search and face danger from Ralph "Bucky" Phillips and authorities pursuing him, State Police Maj. Michael Manning said.

"They can certainly be mistaken for the wrong individual," Manning said.

Many officers are scouring the western New York woods for Phillips, the prime suspect in Thursday's ambush of troopers Donald Baker Jr., 38, and Joseph Longobardo, 32, who died Sunday. Baker remained in serious condition at a hospital Monday, police said.

Phillips, 44, wounded another trooper near Elmira in June and has eluded police since his April 2 escape from an Erie County jail.

SWAT teams from Buffalo, Rochester and Jamestown joined troopers in the search Monday, Manning said. Other reinforcements have come from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, nearby Erie County and police agencies in neighboring Pennsylvania.

Manning would not say how many law enforcement officers are involved in the manhunt, but said the search and recent arrests of Phillips' supporters have put pressure on the suspect.

"I think he's in hiding. I don't think he has any place to go now," Manning said. "The noose is tightening."

Earlier post on this subject is here. Fellow blogger Resurgemus has a brother who is a New York State trooper and is likely to be sent to help in the manhunt. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support. He also has additional links and information on Phillips. Again, if you are a hunter, stay out of the woods. If you know a hunter warn them.

Reuters reports that sources close the the Mexican electoral court indicate that the court will declare Felipe Calderon the winner of the contested Mexican presidential election tomorrow in a special session. The source says the vote should be unanimous. No news from Mark in Mexico at this hour whether he is hearing anything.

The media cheer leading gets a stern call out from Ed Morrisey over at the Captain's Quarters. He's pretty hard on the New York Times. With good reason mind you. The Times is obviously playing opinion as news, anecdote as hard data. This is a common game and one which fails time and time again in the past elections.

Plenty will change between now and November, but the question is what will change and in which direction. The polling has continued to change, but not in the manner in which the Times describes. Rasmussen notes a seven-point improvement for the GOP in the generic Congressional ballot, with only an eight-point gap. USA Today/Gallup shows a two-point gap, a nine-point improvement for Republicans and a dead heat that would indicate almost no change in House composition at all. Pew Research shows a decline in the gap over the summer, as does Hotline, which shows the race at a complete dead heat.

These numbers do not get mentioned in the Times article. The only numbers produced by Toner and Zernicke are the numbers for general dissatisfaction in America's direction, which have approached the lows set in 1994, when the Republicans took control of the House. However, while the number does have some correlation to political movement, it isn't a direct correlation. That number includes many conservatives who feel that the Bush administration and the GOP majority in Congress have not upheld conservative principles during their tenure. Those voters will not support Democrats in November. They may stay home, but that's probably less likely considering the impact on national security that these elections will have.

The only solid numbers used by the Times are prices of gasoline, but even then they manage to be somewhat misleading. Gas prices have actually fallen well ahead of their normal drop-off point, Labor Day, down significantly from a couple of months ago. Now that the family-vacation season has concluded, prices will fall even farther. If significant resources do not get clobbered by hurricanes in the Gulf Coast this season, prices will fall even further. Democrats relying on commodity pricing to gain political traction may be building their houses on sand.

By all means read the whole thing, it's pretty harsh on the Times. Of course, these days criticizing the Times is sort of like shooting whales in a bucket. (But still, it's fun to do even if it is easy). I noted a fairly honest report yesterday that did not indulge in the media cheer leading anywhere near as much. I would recommend that over getting your information from the Times.

UPDATE: Curt from Flopping Aces has a history lesson.

Authorities in Sao Paulo, Brazil have had to resort to a special operation to rid the city of a major mole problem. They instituted something called "Operation Mole Faction" and it produced immediate results.

They arrested 28 people tunneling into two banks.

The suspects were all members of the gang called First Command of the Capital, or PCC from its Portuguese initials, police said.

Almost 200 people have died in Sao Paulo since May in three separate waves of attacks by the PCC on police stations, banks, and government buildings. The gang is also tied to Brazil's biggest-ever bank robbery in 2005.

At the time of the arrests in downtown Porto Alegre, 22 people were digging an 88-yard (80-metre)-long tunnel into the safes of two banks.

"This was a very strong setback for them because they were caught with what they value the most, the goal of their crime, which is money," Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos said, according to Agencia Estado local news agency.

Law enforcement officials seized tunneling equipment and 20,500 reais ($9,579), the Federal Police said in a statement.

Police arrested four other people as part of its "Operation Mole Faction," including Antonio Carlos da Silva and Lucivaldo Laurindo, members of the PCC the police said were tied to the $70 million heist at a central bank building in Ceara state in 2005.

Those are some serious moles alright. I kind of get the impression that Brazil is having more than a little trouble with criminal gangs at the moment.

Tim Hames writes in the Times of London on what the international shambles over a coherent stand against Iran's nuclear ambitions will likely bring about. It is not at all a rosy picture. For all the dedicated "internationalists" out there it really is important to note that this could well spell the end of the UN.

Whether a nation possesses nuclear weapons is not always a political catastrophe. That Israel has such an arsenal has surely rendered another regional war similar to those of 1948, 1956, 1967 or 1973 unviable. That both India and Pakistan have the bomb is better than only one of them being in that position, and conflict was more likely when each enjoyed only conventional military muscle. The thought of the crackpot regime in North Korea being a member of the atomic club does not lift the heart, but it dare not dream of deploying such weapons without the blessing of Beijing, which would not be forthcoming. There is an extent to which nuclear missiles are little more than a national virility symbol, the military version of counterfeit Viagra.

Yet Iran is different, which is why a collapse in resolve towards Tehran really matters.

Iran is a special case because, first, it is already an established menace. It has spent the past two decades consistently seeking to sabotage any prospect of a permanent peace settlement between Israel and its neighbours and it remains dedicated to that mission. It continues to sponsor extremist fanatics in the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon. It is behind much of the trouble that has tortured Iraq and it does not intend to stop pulling these strings once US and British troops have left. If it becomes a nuclear nation, it is likely to be emboldened in these deeds.

Iran is also distinct because this project is not merely about national symbolism, but also religious aspirations. It would not be an “Islamic” bomb but a “Shia Islamic” bomb, the most potent physical representation so far of a drive to seize command over a faith that was briefly, if tenuously, held and then lost in the 7th century. It would be in the hands of people whose interpretation of theology places a weight and value on the concept of martyrdom that the rest of us properly find alien, bizarre and chilling.

Sunni nations, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, would, rightly, be aghast at, and uncomfortable with, the notion that they have to rely on Israel as their de facto nuclear deterrent. The incentives for them, too, to pursue nuclear status would be overwhelming. Indeed, to put it bluntly, if Tehran obtains nuclear standing, then tacitly encouraging Cairo and Riyadh to travel down the same path may be the least bad outcome for outsiders to fall back on.

An Iranian nuclear capacity would, finally, make a mockery of the United Nations. It would be seen as confirmation that the phrase “Security Council ultimatum” is close to a contradiction in terms. I am not a huge fan of this organisation, but it undoubtedly has its merits. It will be seen as having huffed and puffed on Iran and blown nothing down. Other rogue states will observe these events and reach their own, rational, conclusions. What passes for international order will be deeply undermined by this imminent debacle.

It would be a good thing to read this article in its entirety. I have been saying all along that the world has got to stand together on this or there will be enormous negative consequences. We are running out of time and trying to point fingers is not at all helpful.

UPDATE: Reader_I_Am at Done With Mirrors really lets fly on this one. Highly recommended.

NASA is extremely optimistic that a Wednesday afternoon launch of the shuttle Atlantis will go as planned. As of right now there is only a 20% chance of a weather-related cancellation.

Unlike last week's planned launch attempts, the window Wednesday opens before Florida's afternoon summer thunderstorms normally blow through, and a tropical depression brewing in the Atlantic wasn't expected to interfere.

If Atlantis doesn't lift off on Wednesday, NASA will try again Thursday and possibly Friday.

"If you go back a week, it looked we were not going to be able to have a launch attempt in September," said Robbie Ashley, the mission's payload manager. "So we're very thankful to the shuttle folks for carving out these three days of launch attempts and giving us another shot."

Atlantis originally was scheduled to launch Aug. 27 on a mission to resume construction of the international space station, but that launch was delayed after a lightning strike at the launch pad.

The lightning didn't hit the spacecraft, but by the time the shuttle was cleared for launch, Tropical Storm Ernesto was approaching Florida.

NASA managers on Tuesday ordered the shuttle returned to its protective assembly building, then reversed course midway through the 10-hour journey when Ernesto's forecast was downgraded.

By sending the shuttle back to its launch pad immediately, NASA gained enough time to prepare for a launch this week.

As I mentioned at the time, what looked to the casual observer like a bit of confusion for the folks at NASA was actually a darned smart move. By reversing the shuttle when they did, they opened this launch window.