The Saudis are now categorically denying that there is any truth to the reports that Osama has has kicked the bucket. They say they have no evidence he is dead and that all press reports are completely speculative.
"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has no evidence to support recent media reports that Osama bin Laden is dead," the Saudi Embassy here said in a statement. "Information that has been reported otherwise is purely speculative and cannot be independently verified."
Earlier Saturday, a French regional newspaper, L'Est Republicain, published a report based on a French foreign intelligence service document, which alleged that Saudi intelligence service had concluded the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States had succumbed to typhoid fever — sometime between August 23 and September 4 — while hiding in Pakistan.
French President Jacques Chirac as well as US, Pakistani and Afghan officials sought to distance themselves from the account, saying that it could not be confirmed.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, when asked before meeting in New York with Sri Lanka's foreign minister whether she gave the report any credibility, said only: "No comment, and no knowledge."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the report would be welcome if it turns out to be true.
"It would be a good news, but it's just speculation," Karzai told Radio-Canada television during a visit in Montreal. "Let's see if it's true or not true."
Pakistan's interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, told AFP in Islamabad: "No, we do not have any such information with us."
Like I said earlier today, I wouldn't be breaking out the bubbly on the kind of reports that started this whole frenzy. So the wicked witch is not yet confirmed dead. Sorry folks.
I have been warning about the drift to the left that the Democrats have been engaging in for a while now. The rush to embrace the fringe of the party is politically dangerous for the two-party system. For all it's weaknesses - and there are a lot of weaknesses - the two party system we have evolved in the US is a system that has been fairly reliable over the years. But if one party effectively neuters itself and makes itself unelectable, the system collapses.
While I have been warning of this problem, so have many others on the so-called right. I use the term so-called for a reason. The left attacks anyone who disagrees with them as "rightwingers". It matters not one whit if those who disagree are reliable Democratic party supporters, like Joe Lieberman. Democratic party leaders who have been rushing to embrace the left because of their supposed money and supposed ability to turn out the vote have made a serious mistake.
Don't believe me? Then go read this. More importantly, go read the comments that follow the post.
Don't Vote Democrat
I'm not kidding. If the last week is any indicator of what we've got to look forward to in a Democratic Congress, then don't bother. The last time they were in charge we got the Patriot Act, the Iraq War resolution, and the Medicare drug bill. Now with every poll supporting the Democrats and the Republicans on the ropes, these cowards are still afraid to throw the first punch.
Instead, we see the torture issue (yeah, that's how far we've sunk) being co-opted by a group the media have dubbed the Republican "Rebels" whose grand act of rebellion consisted of giving the President the right to do whatever he wants. Charles Peirce has it exactly right :
And the Democratic Party was nowhere in this debate. It contributed nothing. On the question of whether or not the United States will reconfigure itself as a nation which tortures its purported enemies and then grants itself absolution through adjectives — "Aggressive interrogation techniques" — the Democratic Party had…no opinion. On the issue of allowing a demonstrably incompetent president as many of the de facto powers of a despot that you could wedge into a bill without having the Constitution spontaneously combust in the Archives, well, the Democratic Party was more pissed off at Hugo Chavez.
The comments go downhill from there. Rapidly. I won't pull any out because if I do, the lefty commenters here will say I'm cherry picking. Besides, they are better absorbed as a massive wave of vitriolic shortsightedness than in a condensed version.
The Democrats have made themselves a slow motion train wreck here. The left will leave them hanging in a massive wave of politicus interuptus that will make the party's collective head spin. They're already pulling out, so to speak.
Niall Ferguson, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, has a very interesting opinion piece in the Telegraph that is seriously worth taking a moment to read. There is a mammoth disconnect in risk assessment going on in financial markets. The financial world is paying no attention whatsoever to world events and appears to be completely out of touch with reality. It is not because of their financial acumen, either. The financial types appear to have paid no attention at all to the antics at the UN of two thugs, Ahmadinejad and his sockpuppet Chavez. Or rioting in Hungary. Or a coup in Thailand. Or pretty much any other developments in the world.
All of which might lead you to think that this must also have been a pretty disastrous time in the world's financial markets. Madmen in charge of two of the world's major oil producers. A military coup in Thailand. Rioting in Budapest. A reforming Russian banker gunned down. There was a time when just one of those stories would have sent a spasm through emerging markets. Oil prices would have jumped. The Thai baht would have collapsed. Hungarian bond yields would have soared. The Russian stock market would have tanked.
Not a bit of it. The price of crude oil for November delivery fell 5 per cent last week, even as Messrs Ahmadinejad and Chávez were holding their rant-fest. On news of the coup in Bangkok, the Thai currency declined by little more than 1 per cent against the dollar – nothing compared with its spectacular gyrations during the Asian crisis of 1997. Investors in the Hungarian stock market are not having a great year, it's true, but recent political events have barely registered. If you invested in Budapest two years ago, you have still nearly doubled your money.
To see just how far politics and economics have parted ways, just consider which of the world's stock markets have done best so far this year. In pole position is Morocco (up 58 per cent in dollar terms since January 1). Next is none other than Mr Chávez's Venezuela, up 49 per cent. In third place is Indonesia, where three Christian men were executed on Friday for their part in sectarian violence, sparking riots (34 per cent). Russia, where it is bankers who get the bullet, is not far behind on 32 per cent.
Back in January, a prudent investor, aware of the many political dangers that beset this mad world, might have elected instead to invest in secure, developed markets. But the US stock market has risen by less than 5 per cent this year. That of the world's next largest economy, Japan, is down more than 1 per cent. And the world's worst performer? New Zealand, which must be about the safest place in the world, unless you are a professional rugby player. Its stock market is down roughly 10 per cent.
Ferguson goes on to show how incredibly badly investors have been performing in this mad world. Making some really, really bad choices. Frankly, this is not a good sign that the world financial markets are paying any attention whatsoever to world events. Quite frankly, that is not a good thing.
Andrew Roberts writes in the Telegraph a brief account of the English-speaking peoples since 1900. He has written a book that is meant to update the four volume history of the same subject written by Winston Churchill. Roberts points out some important historical facts to remember.
Just as on 9/11, the English-speaking peoples have regularly been worsted in the opening stages of a conflict, often through surprise attack. As Paul Wolfowitz put it at a commencement ceremony in June 2001: "Surprise happens so often that it's surprising that we're surprised by it." The sinking of the USS Maine; the Boer invasion of Cape Colony; the Kaiser's swing through neutral Belgium; the Nazi-Soviet Pact; North Korea's invasion of its southern neighbour; Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal; the attack on the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, which triggered the Vietnam War; the attack on the Falklands; Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. Almost all were sudden, unexpected, not predicted by the intelligence services, and left the English-speaking peoples at a disadvantage in the first moment of the struggle.
The next common factor was how badly the English-speaking peoples were faring even up to three or four years into the first three great assaults on their primacy. The most dangerous moment of the First World War – at least after Paris had been saved by the battle of the Marne in 1914 – came as late as March 1918, when Hindenburg and Ludendorff flung everything into their massive Spring Offensive. By early September 1942 – only weeks before Stalingrad and El Alamein – Hitler seemed to be winning the war both in Russia and the Middle East, while, had it not been for the battle of Midway, the Japanese might well have rolled up the entire Pacific theatre. Three years into the Cold War, 1948 saw Jan Masaryk's suicide during a Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, Mao's victory in China, and the Berlin Blockade.
Simply because a victorious exit strategy is not immediately evident in Iraq or Afghanistan today does not invalidate either conflict, as so many defeatists and Left-liberal political commentators argue so vociferously. Tony Blair's leadership in the war against al-Qa'eda, the Ba'athists and the Taliban has been nothing short of Churchillian. Far from being George W. Bush's poodle, Blair was advocating the overthrow of Saddam in his Chicago speech of April 1999, 21 months before Bush came to power.
Read the whole thing, it is very well done.
The left has lately limited history to begin only in the year 2000 with the election of George W. Bush. The only references to any earlier history is if there is some event that can be blamed on America or Americans. Other than that, history simply does not exist in the narrative being force fed to the world. But we must remember history. We must recall that times have been dark indeed before this war, often even darker and more grim than they are today, in fact. The English-speaking part of the world did, indeed, rise to meet the first three great challenges of the 20th century. This is a historical fact. Many other non-English speaking peoples also joined the great causes to defeat genuine evil. That is also fact.
We must rise and meet this latest challenge as well.
Like the poor little guys don't have enough to worry about what with people trying to catch them so they'll reveal where they hid their gold. Or, in some cases, because they're always after the leprechaun's lucky charms. Besides, being that short must be nerve wracking in a world increasing populated by clods that don't watch where they put their feet. Now they really have something to get nervous about.
Michael Jackson.
Jackson's spokeswoman has blasted Irish reports that have the Grammy-winning roller-coaster enthusiast looking to open a leprechaun-themed amusement park on the Emerald Isle.
In a statement Thursday, rep Raymone K. Bain labeled the headlines "erroneous and ridiculous."
"Please check with this office before disseminating any information reported out of Ireland because most of the information reported thus far has been inaccurate," Bain implored.
As requested, Bain was contacted Friday, and asked about the singer's general feelings about leprechauns. (Per the under-attack Irish press, he loves the mischievous, but mythical sprites.) She declined comment.
"I am not even going to discuss that," Bain said.
The bane of Bain apparently is an item said to have originated in Ireland's Daily Mirror. MNSBC gossip Jeanette Walls recounted the article in her online column Thursday.
"He's always wanted to open his own theme park and he thinks Ireland is the perfect place and it will all be built around the leprechaun theme," a source tells the Daily Mirror, per Walls.
It is true that Jackson, who outfitted his own Peter Pan-inspired Neverland Valley Ranch with amusement rides and once starred in the Caption EO attraction at Disneyland, has looked to become a theme-park mogul. In the late 1990s, he had venues in the works in Brazil, Japan, Poland and Detroit. The Walt Disney moment, however, never happened.
The reputed Ireland idea–"Michael is deadly serious," says the Daily Mirror's source–is said to have originated from Jackson's interest in the Emerald Isle and its lore.
Michael Jackson scares heck out of me. The leprechauns must be terrified.
That's how Ann Althouse describes Bill Clinton's appearance in the section of interview with Fox News Sunday which has already aired. She also has an update where Chris Wallace appears to have been completely taken aback by Clinton's behavior.
Actually, I don't mind seeing him angry. He should be angry about this. I'd like to think that when he was in office he had this kind of edge and was not good-natured and relaxed. Of course, he's pissed at his critics, and it's fine for him to be the kind of guy who gets pissed. That doesn't mean his critics aren't right about a lot of things, but there's nothing really wrong with him getting angry like this. I assume a good part of it is that he's angry at himself for the opportunities he can now see he missed.
It's just unusual, as Chris Wallace says at the end of the interview, for anyone — anyone important — to act like that on TV.
UPDATE: I'm just watching Chris Wallace on FoxNews talking about the interview. He says, "I've been in the business a long time, and I've never seen anything quite like this, certainly not involving a President or former President." He notes that this is the first time Clinton has given FoxNews a one-on-one interview and that it was subject to the requirement that half of it be about the CGI. After talking about the CGI, Wallace introduced the subject of going after bin Laden, which, Wallace says, you'd think he'd be prepared to talk about, but: "He went off." Wallace, "mindful of the 15 minute rule," tried to bring him back to the subject of the CGI, but he wanted to go into Somalia and the USS Cole…..
Wow. I'm actually going to have to watch this whole thing. I simply cannot recall a former president getting this angry or worked up in public before this. I'm sure that if someone knows of a similar occurrence, they'll let me know. I've never seen it before, though.
Formula One racing, Cambodian style. Gentlemen! Start your water buffaloes.
Each year, millions of Cambodians visit Buddhist temples across the country to honor deceased loved ones during a 15-day period commonly known as the Festival of the Dead.
But in Vihear Suor village, about 22 miles northeast of the capital, Phnom Penh, citizens each year wrap up the festival with a water buffalo race to entertain visitors and honor a pledge made hundreds of years ago.
Pok Thiva, an organizer, said there was a time when many village cattle — which provide rural Cambodians with muscle to plow their fields and transport agricultural products — died from an unknown disease.
He said the villagers prayed to a spirit to help save their animals from the disease and promised to show their gratitude by holding a buffalo race each year on the last day of P'chum Ben — the festival's name in Cambodian.
You know it's a slow news day when we're covering Cambodian water buffalo racing.
Colbert King, writing in the Washington Post, has a sharp rebuke for both political parties during this election year. As he points out, both parties should be working together to defeat the real enemy, the terrorists. They should not be regarding one another as the enemy that must be defeated.
It's amazing what a few days away from this politics-obsessed town can do for one's perspective. Seen from afar, the congressional debate over the war and terrorism comes across as a Washington event designed to show that Democrats are wimps on national security and to boost Republicans as true defenders of the homeland. Or Republicans are portrayed as clueless warmongers hell-bent on sending other people's sons and daughters into battle.
In reality, the struggle on Capitol Hill is not about terrorism. It's about gaining and holding power in the fall election. And it is a disgusting sight to behold.
Only five years after a horrifying new reality crashed into America, the political parties have lost sight of the nation's interests. Now it's all about getting elected.
So what if we are doing battle with an enemy that operates without a government behind its name? So what if it's the kind of enemy that boards an airplane containing schoolchildren and their teachers, mothers holding toddlers by the hand and other innocent civilians minding their own business? So what if it sets out to kill because the intended victims have the bad grace to live in America?
Unless I'm mistaken, the Sept. 11 hijackers didn't ask the doomed passengers if they were Democrats or Republicans. They didn't care one bit if the people strapped in their seats for takeoff were liberals, conservatives or neocons.
They made no politically correct announcements allowing women, children and people of color to leave the aircraft before the flight attendants closed the doors.
King makes several good points here. It is worth reading just to remember what - and who - we are supposed to be fighting together.
The problem with long-term marijuana usage appears to be that it makes you really, really stupid. Stupid enough to carry your freshly harvested crop in your arms right past the County Sheriff's office. In broad daylight.
Polk County Chief Deputy Mark Burdock said he did a double-take when he looked out his office window at the county jail and saw Janssen walking down the sidewalk, carrying his freshly harvested crop.
"I look out the window … , and I see him walking north carrying a green leafy substance, all pulled up by its roots," Burdock said. "He was carrying it like you'd carry a bundle of presents. It was tall enough where he was looking over the top of them, and he's just walking like nothing's going on."
Burdock said he went outside and yelled at Janssen, who walked right over to him, still carrying the plants.
Janssen said the plants were part of his marijuana grown near the Des Moines River, but wouldn't say exactly where, Burdock said.
Janssen was also carrying a couple of two pound bags of processed marijuana. The mind boggles.
Or, you can't get there from here. Robert Bigelow, head of private space venture Bigelow Aerospace is aiming to have a human-habitable space station in low earth orbit by late 2009 or early 2010. The one tiny problem is that there is currently no way to get a crew there.
SAN JOSE, Calif.—If the planned Jan. 30 launch of Bigelow Aerospace's Genesis 2 space module on a Russian Dnepr rocket is successful, Las Vegas entrepreneur Robert Bigelow plans to send a human-rated habitat into orbit in either the second half of 2009 or the first half of 2010.
Bigelow's Genesis 1 module was launched July 12 and continues to provide data on its condition in low Earth orbit. But while it is hosting some experiments, Genesis 1 – and Genesis 2 – will not be capable of supporting low Earth orbit space tourism, Bigelow's ultimate goal.
But the module Bigelow plans to launch at the end of the decade would be capable of supporting visiting crews of up to three people.
At a luncheon speech today in San Jose, Calif., at the AIAA Space 2006 Symposium, Bigelow said his third module, dubbed Sundancer, would have a mass of 8,618.4 kilograms and be equipped with life support systems, attitude control, three windows, on-orbit maneuverability, reboost and de-orbit capability.
He plans to place it at an altitude of 250 nautical miles at an orbital inclination of 40 degrees. Bigelow said that while Sundancer will be a scale model of the large, human-rated habitat he eventually plans to launch into orbit, it will nonetheless have 180 cubic meters of habitable space.
"We're pretty damn serious," Bigelow said in his lunch address.
Initially Sundancer will require a six-to-nine month period to check out all of its onboard systems. After that, Bigleow said, Sundancer would be able to stay in orbit for several years, which may be necessary since he acknowledged that at present there are no commercially available spacecraft designed to take humans into orbit.
Sundancer will, in effect, be a destination waiting for a means to get there.
I've posted about the Genesis I before here, here and here. You have to hand it to him, he's pushing pretty hard on this idea.
One thing that is completely and utterly predictable in this world is that the Palestinians will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Today, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas announced that negotiations with Hamas to form a unity government are "back to zero". Hamas has reneged on whatever deal was in the works.
CAIRO, Egypt - Efforts to form a Palestinian government acceptable to the West have gone "back to zero," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday, a day after Hamas said a coalition government that recognizes Israel is unacceptable.
The Islamic militant group has ruled alone since March, but this month agreed to share power with Abbas' moderate Fatah Party in hopes of ending a crippling international aid boycott of the Palestinian Authority.
The Hamas-Fatah coalition deal sidestepped recognition of Israel. Instead, it said the government would seek to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel, which implies recognition. However, the U.S. and Israel demanded a clear commitment from Hamas on the subject, and Abbas was forced to revisit the issue.
At the United Nations on Thursday, Abbas indicated a national unity government would recognize the Jewish state. But Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh from the Islamic militant Hamas group declared the next day that he would not lead a coalition that recognizes Israel.
Abbas said Saturday during a visit to Cairo that "backtracking took place" on the negotiations for a unity government with Hamas.
"Backtracking" being Palestinian-speak for the usual treachery and backstabbing among the various terror factions in that hideously messed up culture. They have constantly ruined good chances to establish their own state with this behavior. They could have long ago been peaceful and prosperous. But then, some things are constant.
Here's an important life lesson for all you would be bank robbers out there. Wearing a Ronald Reagan mask to perform your bank holdup is bad enough, but never, ever wear a cape.
SAN DIEGO - A man suspected of bumbling an August bank robbery while outfitted in a Ronald Reagan mask and a cape was arrested. During the Aug. 29 robbery at a Bank of America, the masked robber stumbled to the ground after his gun got tangled up in his cape, and his getaway vehicle got boxed in by delivery trucks, forcing him to inch backward and forward to bash his way out.
After he finally fled, a dye bomb went off in the car, staining the money. The robber abandoned his SUV, and police found it with the mask, the gun and a $50 bill inside.
Gerald Jones, 29, of San Diego, was arrested in connection with the crime Thursday.
It is really too bad nobody got a video of this. It sounds utterly hilarious, like something out of a slapstick comedy. Police connected him to the crime by recovering DNA from the mask. However, he really could have avoided the entire thing if he had simply watched - and learned from - the movie The Incredibles. "No capes!"
The Australian Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, has blocked a controversial crocodile feeding program. The plan, heartily endorsed by crocodiles, would have allowed rank amateurs to join the annual crocodile culling program, effectively providing the crocs with a steady supply of fresh victims.
Environment Minister Ian Campbell described the proposal to allow domestic holidaymakers to annually cull 25 of the deadly reptiles — which are rife in the area — as "stupid" and inhumane.
"Getting amateurs in to take a pot shot at a croc is not a modern, sensible or humane approach and the Australian Government won't be having a bar of it," Campbell told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
"The 600 (crocodiles) that are culled under a license are culled using professional techniques that ensure there is a humane culling process," he said, branding the plan to allow tourists to join the culling as "stupid".
Campbell said he had turned down a similar proposal last year and had no intention of approving the latest plan submitted by Northern Territory entrepreneur Mick Pitman.
Oh sure, they call it inhumane to the crocodiles, but we know what's really going on here. Pitman is secretly working in league with the crocodiles. He gets to keep the fees, the crocs get to eat the amateurs. It's a win-win!
The North Koreans plan to unload the fuel from the Yongbyon reactor to extract plutonium within the next three months. This could give them enough plutonium for three to six nuclear weapons.
During a meeting this past week in Pyongyang, Selig Harrison said that North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan told him that the communist nation would unload the rods "beginning this fall, and no later than the end of the year."
Removing the fuel rods is "a significant new development because it underlines that North Korea is enhancing its weapons capability," Harrison, director of the Asia program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, told reporters shortly after arriving from a four-day stay in North Korea.
The Yongbyon reactor has been at the center of U.S. concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The reactor's spent fuel rods can be mined for plutonium, which then can be used to construct nuclear bombs.
Details about the Yongbyon reactor are here. North Korean officials did not confirm or deny whether they were planning a nuclear test when asked by Harrison. But they are obviously stepping up the rhetoric by threatening to acquire still more plutonium.
War, World news | Gaius Saturday, 23 September , 2006 | 
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