No, despite the illogic of the Democrats, it’s not the Republicans’ fault. There is no responsibility on their part to attempt to implement an atrocious law that they rightly opposed, or to stop trying to repeal it when it’s clearly going to be so damaging to the nation’s economy and our personal health and freedom.
The Benghazi Stand-Down Order
Was it issued by Valerie Jarrett?
Locked-In Syndrome
A new technique for communication. The good thing is that you probably don’t even have to be good at math. Just the attempt to solve the problem would create the desired response. Being in this state is one of my nightmares. Hard to know if it would be preferable to death, but this technique may allow us to find out for some individuals.
[Via Geek Press]
Skymall
Has the company fallen in with the wrong crowd?
I’ve always thought that Skymall’s target customers had to be people with too much money. It’s worth noting, though, that SpaceDev went public on an RTO.
[Update a while later]
Sorry, forgot the link. It’s fixed now.
Michael Mann
Hey, he said it, not me.
Removing A Splinter Non-Surgically
Here’s some news you can use. I did not know that.
Potential Garver Replacements
Brian Berger has some names.
Pam Melroy would be the best choice, as far as I’m concerned, but Patti or Rich would be fine as well. I hope that it’s not Zulkoski.
[Update a while later]
Brian has an exit interview with Lori.
The New Anti-Semitism
It’s becoming increasingly fashionable in Europe:
What this describes is a slow pogrom — but one that can pass unnoticed and be ignored because of its very gradualness. Governments are doing some good things about it, but the battle for decency will have to be fought in the universities, the media, political parties, and other places where the virus is spreading. It will have to deal honestly but intelligently with Muslim anti-Semitism, which European officialdom shrinks from confronting.
What was old is new again.
Paramilitarization Insanity
A tragic story. In fact, a criminal one.
I wonder what Mr. Wrana’s final thoughts were of the country he fought for 70 years ago. Too much law enforcement in America has lost all sense of proportion: If you need six armed officers to police a nonagenarian in an old folks’ home, seven armed officers to police a 20-year-old female you suspect might have a beer in her shopping bag, thirteen armed officers to terminate Giggles the baby doe, you’re doing it wrong — and you’re the real threat to public order.
These cops should be charged with manslaughter. It was a huge mistake to give the police departments all of that Pentagon surplus.
The Embassy Closings
Is it wag the dog?
…the indefinite shutdown of 20 U.S. embassies in the Mideast and Africa after the announcement of a for-sure, impending terrorist mega-attack looks suspiciously gift-wrapped and well-timed.
For one thing, if we’re on the eve of a possible “9/11 junior,” what on earth is the president of the U.S. doing going on the Tonight Show for the umpteenth time?
Why is funny man Jay Leno the one who gets to ask Obama about al-Qaida, but he’s too busy for queries without punch lines from the Washington press corps?
The paradox is dizzying: The new “on its heels” al-Qaida, whose charismatic leader “Osama bin Laden is no more,” as Obama boasted during last year’s campaign, may no longer be as centralized, and CIA director John O. Brennan may claim al-Qaida has its eyes on regional preoccupations rather than on attacking us.
Yet this supposedly weakened “network of local-actor organizations,” as German Marshall Fund analyst Hassan Mneimneh described it to USA Today, has managed to shut down U.S. diplomatic facilities indefinitely in a strategically vital region stretching 6,700 miles by 1,700 miles, as the State Department frightens thousands of Americans out of traveling.
And apparently all because current al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri told a flunky in Yemen to “Do something!”
Who is really “on its heels” or “on the run,” to use the president’s campaign rhetoric last year — the terrorists or the U.S.?
When you shut down that many embassies, the terrorists win.
[Update a few minutes later]
The problem is that the administration refuses to admit we’re at war, instead insanely thinking that wars can be “ended” (the thought of actually winning one, against foreign, as opposed to domestic enemies, in anathema to them) by unilaterally declaring it over. And such a delusional attitude manifests itself like this:
Don’t look to Obama for leadership, especially in the area where his constitutional responsibilities are highest — protecting the nation’s security. In fact, Bagram is a problem of his own creation. Obama cannot reach an agreement with the Afghans to continue operating the base. No doubt Afghan president Hamid Karzai is none too happy about being abandoned in the middle of a fight. The administration cannot send the enemy prisoners to their home countries, such as Yemen or Pakistan, because these countries cannot be trusted to hold them. Obama will not move the prisoners to Guantanamo Bay because he has ordered that no prisoners be added there (which has reduced U.S. captures of al-Qaeda leaders to almost zero and cut off our most valuable source of intelligence on the enemy). He cannot bring them to the U.S. because of congressional opposition to his earlier attempt to move the Gitmo prisoners to the continental U.S.
Absolutely nuts.
[Update a couple minutes later]
This terror alert is “crazy pants“:
If ordinary Americans are confused, they’re in good company. Analysts who’ve devoted their careers to studying al Qaida and U.S. counterterrorism strategy can’t really make sense of it, either. There’s general agreement that the diffuse list of potential targets has to do with either specific connections authorities are tracking, or places that might lack the defenses to ward off an attack. Beyond that, however, even the experts are stumped.
Take this sampling of reactions from prominent al Qaida observers:
“It’s crazy pants – you can quote me,” said Will McCants, a former State Department adviser on counterterrorism who this month joins the Brookings Saban Center as the director of its project on U.S. relations with the Islamic world.
“We just showed our hand, so now they’re obviously going to change their position on when and where” to attack, said Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who was part of the team that hunted Osama bin Laden for years.
“It’s not completely random, but most people are, like, ‘Whaaat?’” said Aaron Zelin, who researches militants for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and blogs about them at Jihadology.net
“I’m not going to argue that it’s not willy-nilly, but it’s hard for me to come down too critical because I simply don’t know their reasoning,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute.
I think he’s being generous in assuming that there is actual reasoning going on.