Al Qaeda In Iraq Admits Heavy Casualties

This is extremely interesting. The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq has issued an audio tape that admits that more than 4,000 foreign fighters have died in Iraq. (Frankly, if they are admitting 4,000, the actual total is much higher). Then he calls for additional volunteers, especially explosive experts and "nuclear scientists".

"The blood has been spilled in Iraq of more than 4,000 foreigners who came to fight," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir — also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri — the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. The voice could not be independently identified.

The Arabic word he used indicated he was speaking about foreigners who joined the insurgency in Iraq, not coalition troops.

Al-Masri is believed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad in June.

In the message, the speaker also called for explosives experts and nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war against the West.

I read this as an act of desperation. Al Qaeda is losing, and losing badly. They know it even if some of our own politicians don't.

Ah Ha! The Truth Comes Out!

We reported a few days back that the Australian government had blocked a crocodile feeding program. Even though the plan was widely endorsed by crocodiles, the government would not let rank amatuers go into the saltwater marshes to "hunt" crocodiles. The crocs were disappointed. But now, at last, we know the real reason the plan was blocked! Because it interfered with the goverment's own feeding program!

They are feeding convicts to the Crocodiles!

Prisoners in the remote Northern Territory may be finding they've bitten off more than they can chew as they are trained as crocodile handlers under a programme aimed at encouraging them to turn over a new leaf.

"The course is the first of its kind in Australia and will give prisoners the real life skills that they can use back in their communities," Northern territories Justice Minister Syd Stirling said Thursday.

The programme is being run in conjunction with the Darwin Correctional Centre Darwin Crocodile Farm, Australia's largest crocodile farm which houses more than 36,000 of the deadly and prehistoric reptiles.

Oh sure. They pretend it's a job training program, but we know the truth. They say there are five prisoners in the pilot program. How many were there when they started? Note the name of the prison as well. Ever heard of the Darwin Awards?

Menendez Meltdown Marches On

More Menendez follies as he is forced to sever all ties to a long-time political adviser and fundraiser. Why? Because the adviser was taped trying to get a favor for Menendez.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez's closest political adviser was secretly recorded seven years ago boasting of political power and urging a Hudson county contractor to hire somone (sic) as a favor to Menendez, according to a transcript obtained by The Star-Ledger.

Tonight Menendez's campaign says he has severed his ties with the adviser, Donald Scarinci, after learning of the taped conversation.

Menendez and Scarinci were childhood friends and Scarinci, a prominent attorney with extensive contracts in state and local governments, has been a key fundraiser for the senator throughout his long political career.

Scarinci was recorded in 1999 by Oscar Sandoval, a Union City psychatrist (sic) who had contracts with the county jail and hospital in Hudson County, according to two people familiar with the tapes who requested anonymity because the recordings are evidence in a pending lawsuit.

We're all just waiting for what we know the New Jersey Democrats are going to try to pull off: another Lautenberg moment. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard already leaked the exclusive news about who the party is planning to pull in as a replacement. Or is the correct term 'dig up'?

Empty Pot Speaks

The perennial empty pot is at it again, Jimmy Carter has the unmitigated gall to lecture about the US being in more danger because we "didn't stay in Afghanistan".

FALLON, Nev. — Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday major policy changes are needed because the Iraq war has divided the nation "almost as much as Vietnam."

"So there's no doubt that our country is in much more danger now from terrorism than it would have been if we would have done what we should have done and stayed in Afghanistan," he said on the campaign trail with his son, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Jack Carter.

The former president said the Bush administration made a "terrible mistake" by invading Iraq and diverting troops from Afghanistan.

Yeah, Jimmy. We've been in more danger from terrorism alright. But you have the dates all mixed up. We have been in more danger since November 4, 1979. Thanks to you, Jimmy.

Iran Refuses To Halt Enrichment Activities

Anyone foolish enough to believe Iranian president Mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would agree to any suspension of uranium enrichment under any circumstances, go have your head examined. Ahmadinejad has repudiated any "progress" EU negotiators say they have made by flatly refusing to halt the activities even for a single day.

Ahmadinejad spoke after top Iranian and European negotiators ended their latest round of talks in Berlin, saying they had "come to some positive conclusions" but failed to reach an agreement.

"They asked for a one-day halt (of uranium enrichment). We said we won't do it," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in Karaj, west of the capital, Tehran.

The West dithers. Absent a unified front against Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions we are on a collision course.

Even More Deadly Than The Animal Uprising

Oakland, California authorities are essentially clueless about a lot of things, but especially the dangers of the animal uprising and the even more frightening animal mafia. So they don't understand the significance of the find residents recently made.

A dead llama in the middle of the city.

At first, East Oakland residents assumed the 400-pound animal with black and white spots was a horse and called the city's animal control department to report the find.

"At first it looked like a horse — all we saw was a head sticking out from a tarp," said Andrew Gordon, with Oakland's Animal Control Field Services. "But I looked at it closely, and I said, 'Look at the ears — that's a llama.' "

The llama's legs were tied up and it was covered with a tarp, but it appears to have died of old age, Gordon said.

Residents of the Oakland hills sometimes keep llamas, who are members of the camel family, as pets.

"I can't think of any reason someone would just dump it," he said. "People who have animals that good usually have money."

The tied feet give it away. It was a professional hit by the animal mafia. This is gangland-style llama-butchery. (Apologies to the Llama Butchers).

But He’s A Criminal Lawyer

Proving once again that the old joke about the words 'criminal lawyer' being redundant is true, a 27 year old law student in Australia has been sentenced to more than four years in prison. He was captured by police trying to escape the scene of his latest burglary. In a taxi.

When not studying for a masters degree in law, Phillip Ryan See, 27, used his off-time to rob 43 houses in Sydney's plush harbourside suburbs, netting goods worth more than A$110,000 ($83,000), the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said on Thursday.

See, who once worked as a legal assistant in a government law office, would load plasma televisions, cameras, jewelry and laptop computers into the boot of a taxi after each raid.

But when a surprised home-owner discovered See during a midnight burglary, police arrested the would-be legal eagle escaping in the back of another taxi.

He'll be doing a different sort of bar exam for a few years.

Not Exactly

The Associated Press gets this wrong right from the headline: "China carries out test of fusion reactor". No, they did not. They made a successful test of a Tokamak device and created plasma. This is fusion research, but it is certainly not fusion. Nor is the Tokamak a "fusion reactor".

BEIJING - Scientists on Thursday carried out China's first successful test of an experimental fusion reactor, powered by the process that fuels the sun, a research institute spokeswoman said.

China, the United States and other governments are pursuing fusion research in hopes that it could become a clean, potentially limitless energy source. Fusion produces little radioactive waste, unlike fission, which powers conventional nuclear reactors.

Beijing is eager for advances, both for national prestige and to reduce its soaring consumption of imported oil and dirty coal.

The test by the government's Institute of Plasma Physics was carried out on a Tokamak fusion device in the eastern city of Hefei, said Cheng Yan, a spokeswoman at the institute.

Cheng said the test was considered a success because the reactor produced plasma, a hot cloud of supercharged particles. She wouldn't give other details.

They are contributing to the field of study, that's a good thing. It is indicative of the low level of expertise in the AP that they call this a "fusion reactor". Here is what a Tokamak is. Incidentally, I remember reading something a while ago that discussed the engineering difficulties of any practical fusion reactor. The biggest challenge is going to be the sheer volume of fast neutron radiation that would be produced. That's another discussion, however. The research is not far enough advanced to start engineering yet.

Character Assassination

George Allen's blog is hitting back - again - against what looks increasingly like a very coordinated campaign of character assassination. They have a very compelling roundup of some pretty darn odd coincidences around all this.

Let’s note some of the odd coincidences about the recent character assassination:

• The people making these allegations are (surprise!) Democrats and activist opponents of George Allen.
• George Allen has held prominent public office in Virginia for more than a decade, yet a few Democrats have chosen to make unfalsifiable claims at the same time, just prior to an election.
• …and they ‘independently’ sought out Larry Sabato to tell him the story? Why?
• Christopher Taylor says he heard Allen say “only the n*****s around here eat [turtles]”, yet Allen’s ex-wife has denied “with absolute certainty” Taylor’s claim, and points out that the “person who ate the turtles was our neighbor.”
• Each news story has produced one person to claim that Allen said the ‘n-word’, against many — even dozens — of people who directly contradict those claims. The unsubstantiated claims get (surprise!) headline treatment, while the dozens of contradictions are buried or ignored.
• Christopher Taylor claimed he’d merely been emailing a colleague, Fred Damon, at UVA about the alleged racism. By amazing coincidence, Fred Damon’s wife is a Democratic activist and (surprise!) a Webb supporter.
• The Damons have even given money to the Webb campaign and to the Democratic National Committee, and Nancy has called her husband “a political animal.” What a remarkable coincidence that he just happened to get an email about their candidates opponent!
• In yet another shocking coincidence, Damon is known by Webb campaign staff, one of whom listed her in “a who’s who of C’ville Dems supporting Webb“.
• Again, Sabato says of the people he’s talked to: “I never solicited them. They came to me during the past few months.” Why did they all come to him? One possibility: they were sent.
• Why have two “Louisa County sheriff’s deputies who were on the force in the early ’70s … recall no complaints about severed animal heads”, the police officer in charge of investigations say “that’s a myth”, and a “search of Louisa County’s weekly newspaper [between] the years 1972 through 1974 yield no” similar account?
• By sheer coincidence, just months before Ken Shelton allegedly ‘remembered’ a hunting trip with Allen in which a deer head was put in a mailbox, an identical incident happened in North Carolina, where (surprise!) Shelton lives.
• No doubt by pure coincidence, a blogger known by Webb campaign staff claims to be aware of news stories that haven’t come out yet.
• The New York Times runs an emailed allegation from “an active Democrat” despite having no confirmation at all from the other person she claims was a witness. No doubt they just thought it was a very well-written email…and who can doubt the word of a Democratic activist during an election? Any resemblance to bad journalism or an anti-Allen agenda is pure coincidence.

That’s a lot of coincidences. Here’s one more.

Go read the rest, including the extremely odd way the original accuser (and party activist) Dr. Ken Shelton turned down Fox News for an interview. One of the other accusers is the same guy who runs the thoroughly discredited Capitol Hill Blue website.

I said it yesterday: The vicious season.

Shipwreck Found

She was 785 feet long, could carry a crew of up to 100, carried four fighter planes for self defense and was the last of her kind. Battered by severe storm winds, she sank under the waves of the Pacific Ocean on February 12, 1935. After she fell from the sky. She was the USS Macon, the last rigid airship built by the US Navy. Her wreckage has been found in 1,000 feet of water off the California coast.

On September 17, 2006 researchers from NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary program and Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) will embark on an expedition off the Big Sur coast to conduct an archaeological investigation at the submerged wreck site of the rigid airship USS Macon, the nation's largest and last U.S.-built, rigid lighter-than-air craft.

The 785-foot USS Macon , a U.S. Navy “dirigible,” and its four Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk aircraft were lost on February 12, 1935 during severe weather offshore of Point Sur, California, on a routine flight from the Channel Islands to its home base at Moffett Field. The wreckage of the USS Macon provides an opportunity to study the relatively undisturbed archaeological remnants of a unique period of U.S. aviation history.

“A key mandate of the National Marine Sanctuary program is to explore, characterize, and protect submerged heritage resources and to share our discoveries with the public,” said Robert Schwemmer, West Coast maritime heritage coordinator for NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program and co-principal investigator for the expedition. “The USS Macon is a top research and stewardship priority in the Monterey Bay Sanctuary and we encourage the public to join in on the adventure via the sanctuary's web portal.”

Two of the Macon's crew of 83 died in the sinking, all the rest survived. The four Curtiss Sparrowhawk fighters the Macon carried were located as well as engines and other parts of the ship's structure. High resolution photographs of the wreck can be found here. A history of the Macon can be found here.

Commission To Review AZ “9/11 Memorial”

All of a sudden, the commission that approved the Arizona "9/11 Memorial" will review the structure that carries inscriptions that make it seem more like a tribute to moral equivalence. The chairman says that the commission did not actually review the planned inscriptions before approving the memorial. After that particular odd admission the chairman went on to say that the board would do so from now on.  

Also Wednesday, Gov. Janet Napolitano said she didn't pre-approve the wording criticized by Republican gubernatorial nominee Len Munsil and others as containing "blame America" messages and lacking enough sentiments related to faith, unity and patriotism.

The memorial includes quotations like: "You don't win battles of terrorism with more battles" and highlights chronological events such as "Congress questions why CIA and FBI didn't prevent attacks" and "Erroneous US air strike kills 46 Uruzgan (Afghanistan) civilians."

Among the other inscriptions: "FBI agent issued July 2001 warning in `Phoenix Memo,'" "Steve of Scottsdale wrote songs for brother, Robby" and "Violent acts leading U.S. to war, 05-07-1915, 12-07-41, 08-04-64 and 09-11-01."

Smith's commission in February heard a presentation from the Governor's Sept. 11 Memorial Commission on its plans for the memorial and authorized its placement near the State Capitol.

Smith said he plans to personally review all the inscriptions and have the mall commission meet, likely in October, "to review the statements that have been engraved in the 9-11 memorial and see if some of them could be removed."

However, he said, "I can't do anything until I get all the facts."

Smith, a Phoenix Republican who served in the Legislature from 1991 through 2002, said he didn't know who or what would pay for any costs of altering the privately funded memory but that he believes the mall commission has the authority to revisit its authorization.

Frankly, the funniest thing is the way Napolitano is positively scrambling to distance herself from this one and turning away reporter's questions:

Napolitano, who on Sept. 11 called the memorial a "fitting and thoughtful tribute" to the terror attacks' victims "and to the strength that we have built since," said Wednesday the panel was an "independent commission" and that she didn't preview the inscriptions or other details of the memorial's design.

"I knew the general schematic. I knew that the concept was to use a disc with the sunlight coming in that would illuminate a piece of the World Trade Center, but I didn't see the wording, no."

Asked whether she would have objected to any of the wording if she'd seen it beforehand, Napolitano demurred.

"You know what, guys, address those questions to the commission. The commission had hearings. The commission approved the memorial. Move on."

I take it her challenger is gaining ground by going after this issue. I'm pretty sure the details of the inscriptions is not sitting well in Arizona.

Campaign Finance Myths

George Will, writing in the Washington Post has a devastating takedown of public financing of presidential elections. Meant to be a high-minded way to take all candidates to a level playing field, public financing has instead limited candidates and provided funds to convicted felons. Later changes, like the McCain-Feingold incumbent protection act, have made the situation worse:

It is delicious that the McCain-Feingold law, the reformers' most recent handiwork, is helping kill taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns. Before McCain-Feingold, limits on contributions of private money — set in 1974 and not indexed for inflation — became steadily more restrictive, so candidates accepted public funding. But McCain-Feingold, by doubling the permissible size of campaign contributions, made it easier for candidates to raise sums far larger than taxpayer funding provides.

Public funding was supposed to increase voter turnout by decreasing the cynicism supposedly caused by privately financed politics. But Bradley Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, notes that turnout did not surge until 2004. Then, the dramatic increase correlated with a surge of private money, much of it devoted to voter turnout efforts. Reformers considered this surge evidence of increasing corruption and, of course, evidence of the need for more regulation of speech.

John Samples of the Cato Institute, in his new book, "The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform," demolishes the argument that taxpayer funding has increased voters' choices by increasing the number of presidential candidates. The seven elections before 1976 had an average of 10.7 candidates who received at least 1 percent of the votes in the two major parties' primaries. Since taxpayer funding was enacted, the average has been 7.8 candidates. In the 15 elections since 1945, the two most successful independent candidates — George Wallace in 1968 and Ross Perot in 1992 — did not use government funds. Taxpayer financing, which liberals love, did help Ralph Nader win 2.7 percent of the 2000 vote, including 97,488 Florida votes that cost the liberals' candidate, Al Gore, the presidency.

Does anyone argue that the $1.3 billion in tax dollars given to candidates since 1976 has purchased more elevated campaigns? About 10 percent of public funding pays for the two parties' conventions — vacuous festivities for a few thousand activists. Major broadcast organizations no longer cover conventions extensively because the public, which considers them unimportant, will not watch.

Both public financing and McCain-Feingold are actually bad for the election process. Go read the rest of Will's analysis.

Going Nuclear

Glenn Reynolds has an article up over at TCS Daily that argues that it might just be time to seriously look at nuclear energy if you are serious about global warming and American dependence on foreign oil. He describes the "Pebble Bed" reactor and the changes it might entail. (Full disclosure here, I used to work for a company that was very interested in this technology. However, we parted on bad terms, so I'm not biased in their favor).

What's more, we're fortunate that the choice isn't between continuing to burn fossil fuels or shifting to nuclear power as we've known it over the past several decades. Although nuclear power plants to date have been safer and more economical than is generally appreciated, the current generation of operational nuclear plants is obsolescent and results have been, in many ways, disappointing.

Fortunately, the technology hasn't been standing still. Partly as a result of recent Congressional efforts to fund reactor research, and partly as a result of ongoing work in national laboratories and the nuclear power industry, things in the field are looking up. As a recent survey article in Popular Mechanics magazine makes clear, there are new approaches to nuclear power in the offing that promise cleaner and more efficient power production with far less risk of "all-out" (or even minor) nuclear war in the process. Of these, perhaps the most promising technology is the pebble bed reactor:

"A typical pebble-bed reactor would function somewhat like a giant gumball machine. The design calls for a core filled with about 360,000 of these fuel pebbles — "kernels" of uranium oxide wrapped in two layers of silicon carbide and one layer of pyrolytic carbon, and embedded in a graphite shell. Each day about 3000 pebbles are removed from the bottom as fuel becomes spent. Fresh pebbles are added to the top, eliminating the need to shut down the reactor for refueling. Helium gas flows through the spaces between the spheres, carrying away the heat of the reacting fuel. This hot gas — which is inert, so a leak wouldn't be radioactive — can then be used to spin a turbine to generate electricity, or serve more exotic uses such as produce hydrogen, refine shale oil or desalinate water.

"The pebbles are fireproof and almost impossible to use for weapons production. The spent fuel is easy to transport and store, though there still remains the long-term problem of where to store it. And the design of the nuclear reactor is inherently meltdown-proof. If the fuel gets too hot, it begins absorbing neutrons, shutting down the chain reaction. In 2004, the cooling gas and secondary safety controls were shut off at an experimental pebble-bed reactor in China — and no calamity followed, says MIT professor Andrew Kadak, who witnessed the test."

China, with a booming economy, a huge population, and air pollution problems that are already absolutely dreadful, is very interested in pebble bed reactors. And they would seem to promise a lot for the United States, too — plus a way to promote nuclear power in the Third World without the kinds of nuclear-weapons proliferation threats we face today.

This kind of reactor would be much less likely to be misused for weapons production and would be a major plus for the reduction of greenhouse gases. It is well worth going ahead on projects like this.

UPDATE: Request from the comments section: more information on the pebble bed reactor concept. Here's the Wikipedia entry, here's the MIT information about the project and here's the South African information.

Reading Polls

Judith Apter Klinghoffer has a definitive breakdown of the latest polls coming out of Iraq. You REALLY need to read this before you accept the media spin that is being force-fed to the American public. All is not what it seems. First of all, al Qaeda has decisively lost in Iraq.

Al Qaeda has desicively lost the Iraqi battlefield.

Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very).

Views of Osama bin Laden are only slightly less negative. Overall 93 percent have an unfavorable view, with 77 percent very unfavorable. Very unfavorable views are expressed by 87 percent of Kurds and 94 percent of Shias. Here again, the Sunnis are negative, but less unequivocally—71 percent have an unfavorable view (23% very), and 29 percent a favorable view (3% very).

There is much more, I urge you to go read this. The people claiming we have got to pull out of Iraq precipitously are dead wrong. The Iraqi people are really moving toward democracy. There is still a ways to go, but we must not abandon them. The people shouting that we must leave at once do not give a damn about the horrible bloodshed that will ensue if we just cut and run. They care not one whit for any human life at all, despite their protestations.

I think we were right to go to war, others do not. That's fine, that is what democracy is about. We can disagree about a lot of things. But we must remember: Our troops are there and they are giving these people a chance they did not have before. But if we leave them in the lurch, more and more of them will die or be maimed, And we will have robbed all honor from the job the troops have done to date and dishonored those who have sacrificed in Iraq.

If we leave these people to their fate, history will judge us harshly. History will be right.

UPDATE: Flopping Aces sees a bit of a problem with the MSM spin, too.

The Rim Of Opportunity

The Mars Rover Opportunity has reached the rim of Victoria Crater and has beamed back a stunning picture of the place. The little robot that could has done good.

The rover beamed black-and-white images back to Earth showing the crater interior complete with hanging rocky cliffs and rippling sand dunes on its floor.

"We made it!" said rover principal scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University.

The road to Victoria Crater, a half-mile wide and 230-foot deep impact crater, was tough. The six-wheeled Opportunity drove through what scientists called a "wasteland." At one point, it spent five weeks stuck hub-deep in a slippery sand dune before freeing itself.

Victoria, with its exposed walls of thickly layered rocks, is a treasure trove for scientists trying to determine whether the rocks were formed in shallow lakes, which might suggest the planet once could have been hospitable to life.

"The big payoff is getting to the rock record," said deputy principal investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis.

Opportunity will spend a day looking for a more favorable spot around the rim to take a panorama of the vista. Meanwhile, scientists are plotting Opportunity's next move and analyzing the images to find the safest route for the rover to enter.

You really have to see this picture, click the image to see the full size version. (JPL Website for more Mars stuff is here.)