Video Of Atta Surfaces

A video of 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta has suddenly surfaced in the hands of the Times of London. There is suddenly a rush of this stuff flooding out just before the elections, isn't there?

I’ve always hoped we wouldn’t have to suffer an Atta video. I can stand videos of any of the other 18 — they’re all basically fungible — but to be taunted from the grave by the hijacker everyone recognizes is intolerable. I’m not sure we should even post it when it comes out.

We will, though, of course.

The article says there’s no audio on the video the Times of London has, which means they’ve got a pirated copy. But who pirated it, and from whom?

They’re not saying yet. They had better soon.

The video will be posted sometime around 7AM tomorrow morning. I'll link as soon as it is available.

Miss World

An 18 year old young woman from the Czech Republic has been chosen as Miss World, 2006.

WARSAW, Poland - Tatana Kucharova, an 18-year-old student from the Czech Republic, won the Miss World 2006 beauty contest on Saturday.

Kucharova defeated 103 other women in voting by a panel of judges and television viewers around the world during a two-hour finals ceremony in the Polish capital.

First runner-up in the 56th edition of the annual beauty pageant was Joana Valentina Boitor, a 17-year-old from Romania. Australia's Sabrina Houssami, 20, was third.

Wearing a long white dress, a teary Kucharova blew kisses to the 2,500 audience members in Warsaw's Congress Hall after she received her diamond crown from Miss World 2005, Unnur Birna Vilhjalmsdottir of Iceland.

And just because I know for a fact that some folks who read this blog will enjoy this, here's a link to a slideshow of the Miss World competition.

New York Times Reveals Another Quagmire

Donald Sensing has the details. Crap, now we have to figure out how to retroactively surrender.

Note for the historically clueless and the ClueProof™ : Midway.

Terrific Idea

Flat Daddies. Life sized photos of soldiers from the waist up for families of deployed soldiers. The Maine National Guard is giving one of them to every soldier's family who asks for one. Other units around the country are recommending the photos, only the Maine guard is making it available this way.

HERMON, Me. — It was the first day of school, and distance not withstanding, 9-year-old Baylee Smith wanted to take a picture with her father, Mark, who is stationed with a National Guard unit in Afghanistan. Real daddy was not available, but Sergeant Smith’s doppelgänger was.

“Where’s Flat Daddy?” an excited Baylee asked as her stepmother, Jennifer Smith, pulled a large cardboard picture of Sergeant Smith, in his uniform, out of her Chevy Blazer and propped him on the bumper. The two, along with Ms. Smith’s young sons, Alec and Derek, posed for a picture with their Flat Daddy, who promptly fell down.

“Stop it Dad, that’s not funny. It’s not a joke,” Baylee said with a laugh.

The Maine National Guard is giving life-size from-the-waist-up pictures of soldiers to the families of deployed guard members. Guard officials and families say the cutouts, known as Flat Daddies or Flat Soldiers, connect families with a relative who is thousands of miles away. The Flat Daddies are toted everywhere from soccer practice to coffee shops to weddings.

“The response has been unbelievable,” said Sgt. First Class Barbara Claudel, director of the Maine National Guard’s family unit. “The families just miss people so much when they’re gone that they try to bring their soldier everywhere.”

The Maine National Guard has given out more than 200 Flat Soldiers since January. While other guard units are recommending Flat Soldiers, and families around the country are using them, officials here say Maine’s National Guard is the only one giving one to each family that asks.

Flat Daddies have been used by military families since at least 2003, when Cindy Sorenson of Bismarck, N.D., ordered a life-size photo of her former husband, Capt. Dave Bruschwein, on a piece of foam board when he was stationed in Iraq with the North Dakota National Guard.

This is a great idea for the families of deployed soldiers, especially when there are children, I think. Those who wait also serve. I'll be forwarding this the the Family Readiness Group for the US Army Reserve.

Internet Jihadis

The New York Times has an article dealing with how al Qaeda is using the internet and the media to spread jihad. There are increasing numbers of young Islamists who are choosing not to pick up a rifle but to grab a keyboard and mouse instead. In the process, al Qaeda is reinventing itself as an ideological organization rather than as the planners of operations.

Abu Omar, 28, is part of an increasingly sophisticated network of contributors and discussion leaders helping to wage Al Qaeda’s battle for Muslim hearts and minds. A self-described Qaeda sympathizer who defends the Sept. 11 attacks and continues to find inspiration in Osama bin Laden’s call for jihad, Abu Omar is part of a growing army of young men who may not seek to take violent action, but who help spread jihadist philosophy, shape its message and hope to inspire others to their cause.

Though he does not appear to be directly connected to Al Qaeda, Abu Omar does seem to be on a direct e-mail list for groups sympathetic to Al Qaeda, making him a link in a chain that spreads the organization’s propaganda using code and special software to circumvent official scrutiny of their Internet activity.

As Al Qaeda gradually transforms itself from a terrorist organization carrying out its own attacks into an ideological umbrella that encourages local movements to take action, its increased reliance on various forms of media have made Web-savvy sympathizers like Abu Omar ever more important.

For example, this past Sept. 11, Abu Omar said, a link sent to a jihadist e-mail list took him to a general interest Islamic Web site, which led him to a password-protected Web site, then onto yet another site containing the latest release from Al Qaeda: a lecture by its No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahri, threatening attacks on Israel and the Persian Gulf. Abu Omar said he then passed the video to friends and confidants, acting as a local distributor to other sympathizers.

In recent years, Al Qaeda has formed a special media production division called Al Sahab to produce videos about leaders like Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri, terrorism experts say. The group largely once relied on Arab television channels like Al Jazeera to broadcast its videos and taped messages.

Al Sahab, whose name means the cloud, has continued to draw on a video library featuring everything from taped suicide messages by the Sept. 11 hijackers to images of gun battles and bombings spearheaded by Al Qaeda and others, said Marwan Shehadeh, an expert on Islamist movements with the Vision Research Institute in Amman who has close ties to jihadists in Jordan and Syria.

This would actually be something that moderate Muslims could help with enormously. They could help monitor this sort of activity and infiltrate these networks. Then pass along the information. There is at least one courageous American woman who is doing just that. (Though I still do not understand why she broadcast her name in the way she did).

Wile E. Goes Looney

We always suspected that the years of failure and people laughing at him would finally make Wile E. Coyote go mad. Little did we suspect how right we were. But a Pennsylvania man found out the hard way when a mad coyote chased him and his dog right into the house. Only quick thinking by the man's wife prevented the rabid beast from charging right in after them. She slammed the door in the animal's face.

Craig S. Luckenbill said Thursday that he ran to get his 12-gauge shotgun, and his wife managed to close the door, but the coyote continued biting at the door and the front of the house.

The coyote was in the front yard when Luckenbill went out and killed it with the shotgun, he said. "I'm a hunter but I've never seen anything like that."

The Pennsylvania Game Commission confirmed Wednesday that the 40-pound eastern coyote Luckenbill shot on Sept. 21 had rabies, the first coyote to test positive for rabies in the state.

The animal uprising reaches Pennsylvania with the arrival of rabid coyotes. We'd all better hope the Road Runner doesn't join the plot against us.

The Petrified Lady

One day in 1933, Mabel Douglass went for a canoe trip on Lake Placid in New York's Adirondack Mountains. She never came back from that excursion. She simply disappeared. Thirty years later, however, some divers found her in 90 feet of water. Perfectly preserved. She was finally buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. He grave is one of the stops on the Halloween tour of the historic cemetery.

Mabel Douglass was the first dean of the New Jersey College for Women, which was renamed in her honor back in 1955. But in 1933, she was a retiree who went out in a canoe one day — and simply disappeared.

Thirty years later, on a shelf about 90 feet down in the lake, her perfectly preserved body was discovered by divers. Her petrified remains were finally interred in Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery, where Mabel Douglass rests to this day.

Her grave, along with her story, are featured in the annual "Halloween at the Cemetery" tour, where Green-Wood historian Jeff Richman takes visitors on an eerie if entertaining trek through the graveyard where nearly 600,000 souls reside — nearly double the population of Pittsburgh.

"This tour is driven by stories — by murders, by spirits, by tragedies, all of that," said Richman, who started the end-of-October tours a dozen years ago. "Unfortunately for Miss Douglass, her story kind of lends itself to Halloween.

"There's just not that many petrified body stories out there."

Halloween cemetery tours are actually popular in a number of cities across the nation. In fact tours are a year round occurrence at several. Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York has an organization, the Friends Of Mount Hope Cemetery, that holds regular themed tours of the place where many famous people are buried. Frederick Douglass is buried there among many others. Here's the Green-Wood Cemetery website.

Baghdad Under Tight Curfew

Omar at Iraq the Model says things have begun to calm down under the extremely tight curfew imposed on Baghdad. All residents have been ordered to stay in their homes until Sunday. It is not clear why the government took the drastic measure at this point.

What can be noticed about this particular curfew is that it's being strictly enforced by Iraqi and US forces in Baghdad.
During most previous days of curfew, vehicles and pedestrians were occasionally seen on the streets but this is not the case today. At least that's what I heard from people who tried to move around for shopping or other business. All, whether driving or on foot, were ordered to go home.

The reasons that made the government declare a curfew remain unclear. AFP reports that:

"The curfew was implemented on the advice of multinational forces to the prime minister because they felt violence would increase today," interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf told AFP Saturday.
A US military spokesman would not say why it had recommended a curfew but only that "intermittent curfews have been an effective means of reducing violence in the past".

However, there's a rumor in Baghdad that al-Qaeda was planning to launch a major offensive in Baghdad and takeover wide sectors of the city. The rumor that was heard for the first time several days ago speaks of 3,000 al-Qeada fighters who have entered the city for that reason.

I spoke with my son last night and while I can't really discuss a lot about what we talked about, I can say he had a lot of very, very good things to say about the Stryker Brigade. That force is heavily involved in what is going on in Baghdad right now.

UPDATE: MSNBC is reporting that the curfew may have been imposed to break up a suicide attack against the Green Zone.

Iron Outlaw Update

Back at the beginning of August I linked to a story about the Australian government providing funds to promote tourism centered around Ned Kelly and his gang of outlaws. Kelly and his gang made a last stand against law enforcement wearing iron armor fashioned by local blacksmiths. Three of the gang members were eventually killed even though the armor proved amazingly effective. Kelly himself was wounded but was captured and later hanged for his crimes. The four suits of armor have been in private hands for years, but are exhibited fairly often.

Today the Sydney Morning Herald has a story about a man who is almost certain that he has located the smithy where at least some of the armor was fabricated.

DARREN SUTTON could not believe his eyes. Treading warily across the scorched earth outside Beechworth after the 2003 bushfires, he stumbled on something he always figured must be there. And it goes a long way to solving one of the last mysteries surrounding the Kelly Gang.

An army of historians and folklore aficionados have been unable to establish where the armour worn 120 years ago by Ned and Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne was made.

Mr Sutton believes he has found the forge where Byrne's armour suit was created by a local blacksmith, Charlie Knight, and a friend, Thomas Straughair.

The only relic he has removed from the site is almost certainly an offcut from Byrne's armour. It has lain under topsoil and bush scrub for more than a century.

This week Mr Sutton took the Herald to the site. Also on the expedition was noted Kelly historian and author Ian Jones, whom Mr Sutton invited for his expert opinion.

Once again, here's a link to a website dedicated to Ned and his gang.

More Detail From Zawahri Tape

More detail is coming out about what Zawahri said on his latest Kos video diary. CNN has a more thorough translation up today.

On the tape, al-Zawahiri calls the leader of the Roman Catholic Church an "impostor" whose religion "is made of myths, like the Trinity, crucifixion, sacrifice and the original sin."

"This impostor, Benedict, reminds us of another impostor, his predecessor [Pope] Urban II from the 11th century in Clermont, France, who urged the people of Europe to kill the Muslims and launched the crusades," al-Zawahiri says.

Benedict, he says, "went beyond his way to defame us, [but] we will respond to his insult with kindness."

The Vatican said it had no comment on the tape. Benedict is at his summer residence in Castelgandolfo and is expected to make a public appearance Sunday. He is scheduled to return to the Vatican on October 3.

Al-Zawahiri also criticizes the United Nations for proposing to send peacekeepers into Darfur to quell the violence there. He calls the government in Khartoum, which has rejected the proposal but expressed interest in bolstering the African Union forces there, as "deceitful and hypocritical."

"Rise, O Muslim nation, to defend your land and your honors from the crusaders' aggression who are now hiding behind the masks of the United Nations," al-Zawahiri says. "Nothing will protect you but a jihadi popular war that will be led by the mujahedeen."

Al-Zawahiri closes his message by cautioning Muslims to reject governments that do not accept sharia, or Islamic law, and others that cooperate with the United States, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Lovely fellow. No wonder he's known as "Number Two". Fitting, isn't it?

Congress Passes Port Security Bill

The final bill passed before Congress adjourned for the election season is a bill to improve security at the nation's seaports. The House passed their version of the bill and the Senate confirmed by voice vote, sending the bill to the president for signature.

Passage of the bill was the last act of the House as lawmakers left for a five-week election campaign during which candidates will be trying to prove to voters their commitment to keeping America safe in the war on terrorism. The Senate passed it by a voice vote, sending it to the president for his signature.

Containers, now largely uninspected, "have the potential to be the Trojan Horse of the 21st century," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. She said the legislation would be a "major leap ahead" in strengthening national security.

Democrats favored the bill, but said it failed to address rail and mass transit, other areas considered highly vulnerable to terrorist attack.

"The terrorist attacks on rail and transit systems in Spain, London and Mumbai (Bombay) should be enough evidence to convince the Republican-led Congress that U.S. rails are dangerously vulnerable," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.

The bill approves $400 million a year over five years for risk-based grants for training and exercises at ports. It requires the nation's 22 largest ports, which handle 98 percent of all cargo entering the country, to install radiation detectors by the end of next year.

Pilot programs would be established at three foreign ports to test technology for nonintrusive cargo inspections. Currently only one foreign port, Hong Kong, scans all U.S.-bound cargo for nuclear materials.

Background checks and credentials will be required for workers at the nation's 361 ports, and the Homeland Security Department would set up protocols for resuming operations after an attack or incident. It is feared that a terrorist attack, such as a nuclear device set off by remote control, could cripple the entire economy as well as cause massive casualties.

Preferential cargo processing is offered importers who meet certain security requirements.

This took entirely too long to get passed, so neither party has anything to brag about here. But it did pass and should be an improvement to the security of the US.

Kean Leads Menendez

In what is very, very bad news for the Democrats, Tom Kean, Jr. is leading Robert Menendez in the New Jersey Senate race. While polls are always to be taken with a grain of salt the size of Detroit, this really is an enormous turnaround and shows that momentum has shifted badly in what was supposed to be a safe seat.

It appears the ethics investigation targeting New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez is hurting his chances to return to Washington.

A new WNBC/Marist poll released on Friday shows that, if this were Election Day, Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. would defeat Menendez 42 percent to 37 percent.

This is a big change from two polls taken earlier this week, where likely voters were polled, and Menendez was slightly ahead.
 
More than half of those polled in this survey were aware of Menendez's recent troubles. The federal government is investigating his leasing of a building he owned to a non-profit agency who also received federal money. There are also concerns about possible unethical dealings while in Hudson County government.

Overall, 52 percent said they were aware of the Menendez investigation, while 47 percent were not.

The numbers tell a devastating tale. Since all the New Jersey party leaders have gone on the record stating they back Menendez completely, they should be announcing a "Lautenberg" at any moment! (That being the pattern). This is also devastating news for Ned Lamont, frankly. The national party can not afford to waste money on his attempt to unseat a Democrat when they are facing this kind of loss of "safe" seats. The nutroots are going to be toast after this campaign season if the Dems fail to carry at least one chamber of Congress.

New Pictures From Mars

NASA is extremely happy with images being sent back from the low-flying Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) using a new high resolution imaging system. The first picture is absolutely amazing.

The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera flying aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has beamed to Earth its first image of the Martian surface, revealing in never-seen-before clarity Ius Chasma, a complex floor that is part of the giant canyon system Valles Marineris.

Within moments of the image being beamed back, researchers said they had identified many boulders, craters and channels.

"We are elated at the sharpness of the image, revealing such fine detail in the landscape," said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

Zooming in

The HiRISE team, led by McEwen, has been working at top speed to prepare for the low-orbit images they'll get between today and Oct. 6.

Last March, the telescopic camera snapped test images of the Martian surface from a distance of 1,600 miles above the planet as the orbiter settled into a circular orbit around the planet.

The newest images will have 10 times the resolution of the ones taken last March. One of the objectives of the MRO mission is to search for evidence of long-standing bodies of water on the Martian surface, so having detailed images of the planet will be important. Other Mars missions have found signs that water once flowed across the Martian surface, suggesting the possibility of subsurface water and perhaps even surface lakes and oceans. But whether water stuck around long enough to provide habitat for life has remained a mystery.

The bus-sized MRO launched on Aug. 12, 2005 and settled into its final orbit on Sept. 11, 2006. It now circles near Mars' north and south poles and at times gets as close as 155 miles of the planet's surface. With the craft's six instruments, including HiRISE, team members hope to study the Martian surface, atmosphere and signs of underground water and ice deposits.

The Image can be seen here. It can also be seen, along with a lot more, at the NASA MRO Project homepage.

Indian Police Blame Train Bombings On Pakistan

Police in Mumbai, India say they have proof that Pakistan intelligence service ISI was behind the bombing of commuter trains in Mumbai on July 11. They have 15 people in custody. Pakistan heatedly denied the allegations and demanded the Indian authorities provide proof.

MUMBAI, India - Pakistan's spy agency masterminded the July 11 train bombings that killed more than 200 people in the Indian city of Mumbai, the top police officer in charge of the investigation alleged Saturday.

Tariq Azim, Pakistan's minister of state for information, denied the claim, calling it "sad and unfortunate."

"We reject this allegation, and demand that India should provide us any evidence, if they have," Azim told The Associated Press.

Mumbai police Commissioner A.N. Roy said the attacks were planned by the spy agency and carried out by Pakistan-based Islamic militant group, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, assisted by the Students Islamic Movement of India, a banned Islamic group.

Addressing a news conference to announce the completion of the investigation, Roy said 15 people had been arrested, including 11 Pakistanis.

Roy said Pakistan's Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence, or ISI, the country's top spy agency, began planning the attacks in March and later provided training to those who carried out the bombings in Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

….

Roy gave a detailed description of how the explosives were transported into India and by whom. He also described how the bombs were packed into pressure cookers and placed on the trains.

There have been many occasions where rogue elements of the ISI have proved to be behind various terror acts. So the accusations are plausible. The Indian police obviously believe they have enough evidence. This is not exactly going to calm things down between the two countries.

“Fence Only” Immigration Bill Passes 80-19

The Senate bill to build 700 mile for fence passed the Senate by an overwhelming majority of 80-19. 26 Democrats joined with 54 Republicans to approve the measure. The president has indicated that he will sign the bill. Mexico is protesting that they will now find it more difficult to dump their social and economic problems on the US.

Mexico's foreign affairs secretary, Luis Ernesto Derbez, told reporters in Mexico City yesterday that his country plans to send a letter strongly condemning the measure in an effort to dissuade Bush from signing the bill.

If fully constructed, the fence would span a distance equivalent to the distance between Washington and Jacksonville, Fla.

The Secure Fence Act authorizes the construction of at least two layers of reinforced fencing around the border town of Tecate, Calif., and a huge expanse stretching from Calexico, Calif., to Douglas, Ariz. — virtually the entire length of Arizona's border with Mexico. Another expanse would stretch over much of the southern border of New Mexico, with another section winding through Texas, from Del Rio to Eagle Pass, and from Laredo to Brownsville.

The Department of Homeland Security would be required to install an intricate network of surveillance cameras on the Arizona border by May 30, 2007, with the entire fence set for completion by the end of 2008.

Under the measure, the secretary of homeland security would have 18 months to achieve "operational control" of the U.S. frontier, using unmanned aerial vehicles, ground-based sensors, satellites, radar and cameras to prevent all unlawful U.S. entries. Fortifying those requirements, Congress approved $1.2 billion in a separate homeland security spending bill to bankroll the fence.

That figure, however, is only a down payment and falls far short of the $6 billion the fence is expected to cost. Lawmakers from both parties conceded that even at 700 miles in length, the barrier would leave nearly 1,300 miles of border uncovered.

It is at least a start. There will be a lot of relieved people in Arizona right about now. They really have been under siege down there. Bill Frist pulled a rabbit out of the hat to get this one through. But note the margin the bill passed with. Democrats knew full well that this bill put them in a horrible position. They can read the polls (too often, sadly) and know full well an overwhelming majority in this country want something done about that border.