Update: Even More Confused

Updating this post, one has to ask a few questions. The two men stopped in South Carolina who had "pipe bombs" in their car have a bit of explaining to do. For instance: what exactly were they doing with a can of gasoline, PVC pipe, four hobby store brand rocket launchers, hobby store brand fuses, potassium chlorate and sugar in the trunk of their car? The last two items, when combined with sulphuric acid makes what is called "instant fire".

This is not a harmless substance. (DO watch the video.)

Potassium chlorate, KClO₃, is a white, crystalline or powdery solid which is a very good oxidizing agent; it is used in explosives, fireworks, matches, etc.  When it decomposes under heating (especially in the presence of a manganese catalyst), it releases molecular oxygen, O₂:

2KClO₃(s)  —^heat—>  2KCl(s)  +  3O₂(g)

Sugar is, of course, extremely easy to oxidize, and is a good source of energy, as you know if you've ever eaten a candy bar.

When potassium chlorate and ordinary table sugar are combined, and a drop of sulfuric acid is added as a catalyst, the two react violently with each other, releasing large quantities of heat energy, a spectacular purplish flame, and a great deal of smoke.  (The purple hue of the flame is presumably due to the heating of the potassium.)

Amateur rocketry? Really? How many of you reading this have had all of those things in the trunk of your car? Something stinks out loud about all of this.

UPDATE: Um, well, from the comments it seems there are several people who have, in fact, had these things in their cars for model rocketry purposes. I had no idea these were as popular as they appear to be as rocket fuel.

Busted!

Oliver "Capuchin" Monkey has been busted after a week on the lam. The escapee had eluded authorities (most likely by wearing an Elvis disguise) despite a huge banana reward. Tupelo resident Mike Fair should be able to claim his bananas after turning in the miscreant.

TUPELO – Oliver the monkey is back in his pen at the Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo after a week on the loose.

An observant motorist Monday morning ended the search for the white-faced capuchin who had unlocked his cage and fled the park July 31.

Mike Fair spotted what he called “the little bitty ol’ monkey” on the side of Coley Road as he rode to work with his son and a friend at about 8:30 a.m.

One hopes that the Tupelo Buffalo Park will install better locks before putting Oliver back in his cell.

Associated Press: US Forces Are Gaining In Iraq

Robert Burns, who has covered wars for the Associated Press since 1991 and is on his 18th trip to Iraq says, rather forcefully, that US forces are gaining ground in Iraq. He does not gloss over the political situation there and is obviously troubled by it. But he is very firm in his assessment that the US is gaining ground over there.

BAGHDAD (AP) - AP Video The new U.S. military strategy in Iraq, unveiled six months ago to little acclaim, is working.

In two weeks of observing the U.S. military on the ground and interviewing commanders, strategists and intelligence officers, it's apparent that the war has entered a new phase in its fifth year.

It is a phase with fresh promise yet the same old worry: Iraq may be too fractured to make whole.

No matter how well or how long the U.S. military carries out its counterinsurgency mission, it cannot guarantee victory.

Only the Iraqis can. And to do so they probably need many more months of heavy U.S. military involvement. Even then, it is far from certain that they are capable of putting this shattered country together again.

It's been an uphill struggle from the start to build Iraqi security forces that are able to fight and—more importantly at this juncture—able to divorce themselves from deep-rooted sectarian loyalties. It is the latter requirement—evenhandedness and reliability—that is furthest from being fulfilled.

There is no magic formula for success.

And magic is what it may take to turn military gains into the strategy's ultimate goal: a political process that moves Iraq's rival Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds from the brink of civil war to the threshold of peace—and to get there on a timetable that takes account of growing war fatigue in the United States.

Again, Burns is not at all sure what the outcome will be, but he is also, very definitely, not saying that America is in a hopeless position there. Signs of real progress are evident. He also is getting into print a very important idea: that there will be a bloodbath if the US just ups and leaves.

There is clearly a consensus among senior U.S. commanders in Iraq that the answer to the first question is yes. They feel that so much has been sacrificed already that it makes no sense to quit now. Lt. Gen. James Dubik, in charge of training and equipping Iraqi forces, said the counterinsurgency strategy, not fully implemented until June, has finally wrested the initiative from the insurgents.

"It was fought over and died for, and there's no reason to give it back right now," Dubik told AP.

On compelling Iraq's political leaders to move toward reconciliation, few American officers appear to believe that an early pullout would do the trick. They think it would propel the country further into chaos.

Crocker is explicit on that point.

"A massive human catastrophe (could follow), with the bloodshed among the Iraqi civilians on a scale we have not seen and may find hard to imagine," he told AP.

As I read this, I suspected that Burns would like the US to leave Iraq (I may be wrong in that, if so, I apologize for jumping to a conclusion) but it also reads as if he is too honest to disregard clear evidence of real progress. Read the whole thing yourself, though. It's an important piece, I think.

Again, Burns is not at all sure what the outcome will be, but he is also, very definitely, not saying that America is in a hopeless position there. Signs of real progress are evident. He also is getting into print a very important idea: that there will be a bloodbath if the US just ups and leaves.

There is clearly a consensus among senior U.S. commanders in Iraq that the answer to the first question is yes. They feel that so much has been sacrificed already that it makes no sense to quit now. Lt. Gen. James Dubik, in charge of training and equipping Iraqi forces, said the counterinsurgency strategy, not fully implemented until June, has finally wrested the initiative from the insurgents.

"It was fought over and died for, and there's no reason to give it back right now," Dubik told AP.

On compelling Iraq's political leaders to move toward reconciliation, few American officers appear to believe that an early pullout would do the trick. They think it would propel the country further into chaos.

Crocker is explicit on that point.

"A massive human catastrophe (could follow), with the bloodshed among the Iraqi civilians on a scale we have not seen and may find hard to imagine," he told AP.

As I read this, I suspected that Burns would like the US to leave Iraq (I may be wrong in that, if so, I apologize for jumping to a conclusion) but it also reads as if he is too honest to disregard clear evidence of real progress. Read the whole thing yourself, though. It's an important piece, I think.

Even More Confused

I stayed off this particular story when it broke yesterday because it seemed a bit confused about what was happening. Two men, of Middle Eastern origin, were arrested in South Carolina with what appeared to be explosives. The facts known at the time were that and that the bomb squad had detonated something. There was supposed to be a press conference about it today.

Only I cannot find any press reports about the conference.

I can find denials from the FBI that the arrests were terror related. Some reports that the "explosives" were actually fireworks. Some later reports that it was "too soon to tell" if it was terror related. And exactly one story about what happened today: a judge placed a more than half-million dollar bond on the two men. Local police insist that there were pipe bombs found in the car. Oh, and CAIR jumped in.

GOOSE CREEK — Pipe bombs were found Saturday in the trunk of a car being driven by two Florida college students, according to court documents.

Now the men will have to post a combined $800,000 in bond to get out of jail, a circuit judge decided this afternoon.

Youseff Megahed, 21, and Ahmed Mohamed, 24, have been charged with possession of an incendiary device, Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt announced today. If convicted of the charges, the men could face between 2 to 15 years in prison.

Mohamed’s bond was set at $500,000 while Megahed’s was set at $300,000.

Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt said the men were pulled over Saturday night on U.S. Highway 176 while driving more than 60 mph in a 45-mph zone. When an officer approached the car, he saw one of them men fold a laptop computer, which the officer believed was suspicious, DeWitt said.

The officer asked them if he could search the car, which the men agreed to. When he asked if there was anything in the car he should know about, the men said there were fireworks in the trunk.

The only press conference appears to have been held at the South Florida college the men were "attending". A few credit hours each - not enough to be considered full time students. Why is this suddenly a dead story? There are a lot of things here that should have a journalist's hackles up at full alert.

UPDATE: This item just popped up over at Memeorandum:

Authorities: Men Had Pipe Bombs in Their Car

MONCKS CORNER, S.C. (AP) — Authorities say two Middle Eastern men arrested near a Navy base had several pipe bombs in their car.

Authorities say 24-year-old Ahmed Abda Sherf Mohamed and 21-year-old Yousef Samir Megahed were charged Monday with possession of an incendiary device.

An FBI spokeswoman says a joint state-federal investigation is under way to see if there was any terrorism connection but no link had been found yet. The Navy base is the site of a brig where enemy combatants have been held.

Well, it's something, anyway.

Proudly Ashamed

Paul McNellis, who teaches philosophy at Boston College, pens an analysis of the actions of "Scott Thomas" Beauchamp. It is not flattering to either Beauchamp or to The New Republic who chose to publish the falsehoods that Beauchamp wrote. We know they are falsehoods because TNR admitted that one of the lurid tales of the "dehumanizing effects of war" occurred before Beauchamp ever got into the theater in the first place.  

But Beauchamp knows he's describing sociopathic behavior, for he asks, "Am I a monster? I have never thought of myself as a cruel person. Indeed, I have always had compassion for those with disabilities. I once worked at a summer camp for developmentally disabled children." So what would explain the behavior? Why do he and his comrades find despicable behavior funny? Beauchamp's answer: "That is how war works: it degrades every part of you, and your sense of humor is no exception."

Here, finally, is the master narrative sought by TNR. Because war "degrades every part of you," soldiers can't be expected to make normal moral decisions. Bad behavior? The war made them do it. See what the bad war does to good people? It turns former camp counselors into sociopaths.

But no self-respecting soldier wants TNR's bogus absolution. Soldiers pride themselves on being held to a higher standard than the rest of us, and to deny them the dignity of being moral agents renders meaningless the distinction between a dishonorable discharge and a Bronze Star. If soldiers no longer merit praise or blame, just sympathy, their service becomes meaningless.

TNR shows no awareness of this, and its attempt to defend its own journalistic malpractice is truly a wonder to behold. Editor Franklin Foer's first defense claimed that the objections raised about the story "really boil down to, would American soldiers be capable of doing things like the things described in the diarist. The practical jokes are exceptionally mild compared to things that have been documented by the U.S. military." We now know that Mr. Foer never believed it was about "practical jokes," for he now says that TNR published Beauchamp's piece because it "was about the morally and emotionally distorting effects of war…[it] was a startling confession of shame about some disturbing conduct, both his own and that of his fellow soldiers."

As Newsweek's Evan Thomas said of the press coverage of the Duke lacrosse team, "The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong." Similarly, Mr. Foer has his narrative–"the morally and emotionally distorting effects of war"– but the facts keep getting in the way. TNR now admits that the disturbing behavior Beauchamp claimed he engaged in actually occurred in Kuwait, before he had seen a single day of combat. So now the story is about the "morally and emotionally distorting effects of…" Well, of what, exactly? Of merely being member of the U.S. Army? Is that the new narrative?

Well, TNR is not done with all this yet. They may want to be, but they have some explaining to do. But Beauchamp has to go on with his life now. McNellis offers him some advice:

He can await his discharge and then return to testify before Congress as the victim veteran in the "proud of being ashamed" mode. He might even run for Congress himself. He wouldn't be the first.

Or, he can use his remaining time in the military to earn an honorable discharge. He could try to leave the military as a better man than when he entered. There are hints from his blog that he was already moving in that direction.

I would urge Pvt. Beauchamp to look at those in his unit, some of whom he surely respects and admires. Imitate them, and in the process you will become a better soldier, a better friend, a better husband, one day a better father, and…in the end, a better writer.

I rather suspect that Beauchamp will not heed the advice. But it would be nice to be wrong here.

Power Outage

The Crabitat was without any power for several hours today, the result of a series of very nasty thunderstorms that swept through the area (the forecast was calling for a 50% chance of "some" storms. Not a word of warning about massive storms, go figure.) The chance turned really ugly with the area getting hammered - many trees down. That, of course, led to power lines being knocked down as well. The power is back, for now at least. It has flickered several times, however, so I'm not sure we're out of the woods yet. I have UPS systems for every computer, but they are limited in capacity, so I shut the computers down when the lights went off for the final time after a series of short trips.

The hardest thing was explaining protective relaying and the physical realities of restoring downed lines to a bored 12-year old boy.

Ouch. That Will Leave A Mark.

One of the organizers of the Yearly Kos Konvention acknowledges an embarrassing thing: the demographics. The confab was disproportionately white and male. And the Washington Post has run with that.

CHICAGO, Aug. 5 — It's Sunday, day 4 of Yearly Kos, the major conference for progressive bloggers, and Gina Cooper, the confab's organizer-in-chief, surveys the ballroom of the massive McCormick Place Convention Center. A few hundred remaining conventioneers are having brunch, dining on eggs, bagels and sausage.

Seven of the eight Democratic presidential candidates have paid their respects this weekend, and some 200 members of the credentialed press have filed their stories. A mere curiosity just two years ago, the progressive blogosphere has gone mainstream. But Cooper sees a problem.

"It's mostly white. More male than female," says the former high school math and science teacher turned activist. "It's not very diverse."

There goes the open secret of the netroots, or those who make up the community of the Internet grass-roots movement.

For all the talk about the increasing influence of this growing group — "We are a community . . . a movement . . . an institution," Cooper said in a speech Saturday night — what gets scant attention is its demography. While the Huffington Post and Fire Dog Lake, both founded by women, are two of the most widely read blogs, the rock stars are mostly men, and many women bloggers complain of sexism and harassment in the blogosphere.

A black eye? Maybe, maybe not. But Rick Moran, who attended, is right about one thing for sure:

Lastly, I will sound this warning to the GOP and conservatives a lot between now and next summer. Ignore or make sport of the netroots at your own peril. Underestimate them and you will get the holy living crap kicked out of you in 2008. These people are organizing far beyond blogs and blog readers. And that organization extends almost down to the precinct level as I’m sure next year’s Netroots Convention will show (they’ve decided to rename the shindig in order to move it away from one guy’s blog).

They are determined, well funded, optimistic, committed, and excited. The GOP is uncertain, underfunded, hopeful but pessimistic, dispirited, and seemingly leaderless, rudderless, and without an agenda.

Who do you think is in better shape going into next year’s contest?

There is an enormous amount of money backing the left at the moment, but they also have an incredibly rigid, top-down discipline - in other words, exactly what they claim the right has but frankly does not.

The Jobs The Native-Born Refuse To Do

It seems that France is, like America, experiencing a flood of immigrants to "take the dirty jobs that no native-born citizen wants to do". And frankly, who can blame the natives? Who in their right mind wants to be sautéed in butter and garlic? That's a job for immigrant snails from Poland.

MACON, France (AFP) - Hordes of French gourmets joined forces at an annual snail festival at the weekend to munch their way through a record 100,800 gastropods, organisers said Monday.

……

Chefs used 500 kilogrammes (1,100 pounds) of butter, 55 of parsley and 33 of garlic to rustle up the Bourgogne snails according to the traditional French recipe — although the snails themselves came from a farm in Poland.

The French gastropod union is holding out for better pay and benefits. The people of France, however, keep eating the picket lines.  

Break Out The Sweaters

Weather experts in Britain are warning that summer may very well be over for the country. Yesterday's high temperature of 30.0° C (86.5° F) may well be the highest recorded temperature for the entire year.

It looks like our brief summer could be over for another year after forecasters warned that there is no sign of more hot weather on the way.

Temperatures on Sunday reached 30.3C in London, making it the hottest day the UK has seen this year.

But temperatures have taken a decisive tumble and are expected to struggle to stay in the low twenties for the remainder of the week.

"It's quite possible this could have been the hottest temperature we get this year," said Tony Conlan, a meteorologist at MeteoGroup UK.

"There's no sign of a heat wave for the next few weeks."

There have been many reports in the British press about the onset of fall already, with many fruits and nuts already being harvested, weeks ahead of normal. It's global coldening mania for Britain.

Wake Up And Smell The Aliens!

Britain has decided to release all of its "UFO sighting" reports to the public right away rather than waiting 30 years. This should keep a few folks busy for a while.

The ministry's website shows that in 2006 alone there were 97 reported UFO sightings.

The alien peering through the kitchen window was spotted by a couple in Hastings. Another witness reported hearing a massive bang above Stamford Hill, North London, before two large fireballs streaked away.

Sunderland had a silver pyramid which rotated at low speed. And a 'mothership with two smaller orbs' flying above Barlaston in Staffordshire was spotted twice in five days.

And moving into 2007 unidentified flying objects have caught the attention of hundreds of stargazers in Stratford, lighting up the otherwise clear night sky above Shakespeare's birthplace two weeks ago.

In the previous year, 128 sightings included an orange ball of light with 'spiderish legs' and a 'black cigar-shaped object that looked like a disc side-on' and flew 'faster than a fighter jet'.

A log of unidentified flying objects has been kept by the MoD for decades, with some cases investigated for national security reasons.

Previously, it took 30 years for classified records of UFO sightings to be released, leaving enthusiasts with a cold trail to follow up.

But details of every sighting since 1998 were released just a few months after this year's 60th anniversary of the alleged alien crash-landing in Roswell, New Mexico.

(We actually deciphered the Stratford-Upon-Avon event for our faithful readers.) Experts quoted in the article - including UFO enthusiasts - note that 98% of the reports can be explained. Now a sane person would then conclude that the other 2% also have natural explanations. Occam's razor and all that. But, of course, that would be expecting far too much. My favorite quote from the entire article:

However astronomer Sir Patrick Moore, veteran presenter of The Sky At Night, dismisses the chances of aliens visiting Earth.

"There is no intelligent life in our solar system, except possibly on Earth – and I am not so sure about that – so the chances of anyone seeing an alien craft are extremely light," he said.

We agree, sometimes we are not too sure, either!

Self-Parody

The Associated Press has put together an article on some bloggers - on the left, naturally - wanting to form a labor union. The descent into self-parody is highly amusing.

Organizers hope a bloggers' labor group will not only showcase the growing professionalism of the Web-based writers, but also the importance of their roles in candidates' campaigns.

"I think people have just gotten to the point where people outside the blogosphere understand the value of what it is that we do on the progressive side," said Susie Madrak, the author of Suburban Guerilla blog, who is active in the union campaign. "And I think they feel a little more entitled to ask for something now."

But just what that something is may be hard to say.

In a world as diverse, vocal and unwieldy as the blogosphere, there's no consensus about what type of organization is needed and who should be included. Some argue for a free-standing association for activist bloggers while others suggest a guild open to any blogger — from knitting fans to video gamers — that could be created within established labor groups.

Others see a blogger coalition as a way to find health insurance discounts, fight for press credentials or even establish guidelines for dealing with advertising and presenting data on page views.

"It would raise the professionalism," said Leslie Robinson, a writer at ColoradoConfidential.com. "Maybe we could get more jobs, bona fide jobs."

But not everyone is on board.

"The reason I like blogging is that it's very anarchistic. I can do whatever I want whenever I want, and oh my God, you're not going to tell me what to do," said Curt Hopkins, the founder of the Committee to Protect Bloggers.

"The blogosphere is such a weird term and such a weird idea. It's anyone who wants to do it," Hopkins said. "There's absolutely no commonality there. How will they find a commonality to go on? I think it's doomed to failure on any sort of large scale."

Let's see, the union would have to negotiate with management for better pay and conditions. The union member would presumably also be the proprietor of the blog. The union member would be able to call a strike against themselves to force higher pay! Wow, what stunning logic.

You either do this stuff because you enjoy it or you don't blog. The public either chooses to read what you write or it doesn't.

More Man-Eating Pandas

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard have been trying to help get the truth out about Pandas for some time now. People have this false impression that pandas are vegetarians, we have plenty of evidence that they are actually man-eaters. We documented it here, still more about it here and a woman's near buffet experience here. Well, maybe today people will pay attention. A Chinese zookeeper was preparing a nice bamboo dinner for Lan Zai, a panda at the Wuquanshan zoo. The panda took one look at the salad then opted for the meat entrée. That being said zookeeper.

Lan Zai, a male panda at Wuquanshan zoo in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, put zoo worker Xiao Zhang in hospital with multiple bite and scratch wounds to his arms and legs after a fierce attack on Saturday, according to a newspaper report posted on the official Xinhua news agency Web site.

"Lan Zai had only been there a week and had not acclimatised to Lanzhou," the report quoted a zoo official as saying.

"In the first two or three days, he did not eat anything… When the worker was preparing some bamboo for him to eat, he suddenly clawed at him," the official said.

Doctors spent more than two hours patching up Xiao Zhang's wounds. The worker was still in hospital, the report said. Another newspaper said he had had 100 stitches.

On Sunday, Lan Zai displayed none of the previous day's temper, the report said, adding that his elder sister, Lan Bao, was moping in a neighbouring enclosure, apparently in low spirits about her little brother's transgression.

Which is, of course, complete nonsense. Lan Bao is not moping because Lan Zai attacked the zookeeper. She's mad because he didn't share a fresh haunch of zookeeper with her. But never fear, Lan Bao. They'll toss a volunteer in for you to gnaw on presently.

August 6, 1945

On August 6, 1945 an American B-29 bomber nicknamed the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Enola Gay was named after the pilot's mother only the day before the flight. Paul W. Tibbets was the pilot. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki finally ended the Second World War.

Time Magazine slide show on the Hiroshima bombing. General Paul Tibbets website.

Surprisingly, the Guardian has a piece by Oliver Kamm that slaps down the revisionist history that is so fashionable on the left.

This alternative history is devoid of merit. New historical research in fact lends powerful support to the traditionalist interpretation of the decision to drop the bomb. This conclusion may surprise Guardian readers. The so-called revisionist interpretation of the bomb made headway from the 1960s to the 1990s. It argued that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less the concluding acts of the Pacific war than the opening acts of the cold war. Japan was already on the verge of surrender; the decision to drop the bomb was taken primarily to gain diplomatic advantage against the Soviet Union.

Yet there is no evidence that any American diplomat warned a Soviet counterpart in 1945-46 to watch out because America had the bomb. The decision to drop the bomb was founded on the conviction that a blockade and invasion of Japan would cause massive casualties. Estimates derived from intelligence about Japan's military deployments projected hundreds of thousands of American casualties.

Truman had to take account of this, and dropped the bomb for the reasons he said at the time. Contrary to popular myth, there is no documentary evidence that his military commanders advised him the bomb was unnecessary for Japan was about to surrender. As the historian Wilson Miscamble puts it, Truman "hoped that the bombs would end the war and secure peace with the fewest American casualties, and so they did. Surely he took the action any American president would have undertaken." Recent Japanese scholarship provides support for this position. Sadao Asada, of Doshisha University, Kyoto, has concluded from analysis of Japanese primary sources that the two bombs enabled the "peace party" within Japan's cabinet to prevail.

Had the US been forced to invade the Japanese home islands, as many as 2 million Japanese and hundreds of thousands of Americans would have become casualties.

Heading For A Fall

John Fund takes a look at the latest shenanigans in Congress and is very, very unimpressed. Between what certainly appeared to be a stolen House vote and midnight rewrites of legislation, the current Democrat-majority leadership in Congress is certainly not covering itself with glory. Fund points out that they are heading for a fall.

The House of Representatives almost turned into the Fight Club Thursday night, when Democrats ruled that a GOP motion had failed even though, when the gavel fell, the electronic score board showed it winning 215-213 along with the word FINAL. The presiding officer, Rep. Mike McNulty (D., N.Y.), actually spoke over the clerk who was trying to announce the result.

In the ensuing confusion several members changed their votes and the GOP measure to deny illegal aliens benefits such as food stamps then trailed 212-216. Boiling-mad Republicans stormed off the floor. The next day, their fury increased when they learned electronic records of the vote had disappeared from the House's voting system.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi made matters worse when she told reporters, "There was no mistake made last night." Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had to rescue her by acknowledging that, while he thought no wrongdoing had occurred, the minority party was "understandably angry." Under pressure, the House unanimously agreed to create a select committee, with subpoena powers, to investigate Republican charges the vote had been "stolen."

Congress appears to be gripped by a partisanship that borders on tribal warfare. In a forthcoming book, Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein compares it to a "second Civil War" that has led to "the virtual collapse of meaningful collaboration" between the two parties. Public disenchantment with Washington is such that now both New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic former senator Sam Nunn of Georgia are musing openly about an independent run for president. But Congress itself has to act if it doesn't want to degenerate into one of those fist-wielding European or Asian parliaments we occasionally see on TV.

Read the whole thing, it is a good look at where the Congress is failing. I have said many times that the Reid-Pelosi regime is setting up a "throw the bums out" situation for 2008. Virtually everyone is angry with Congress at this point, regardless of political affiliation. Fund points out that the last time Congress was held in such contempt, in the early 1990's, incumbents got their clocks cleaned at the polls. With the approval rating for Congress being at the lowest level in recorded history, the electorate may have a few lessons for sitting members of Congress very soon.