Thank Allah for small favors.

Posted by: Ace at 02:55 PM | Comments (4)
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Okay. So here's the story: Achmed Chalabi told the Iranians that we had broken one of the most important codes they use for transmitting high-level intelligence orders.

So, what did the Iranians then do? They transmitted a message back to Teheran stating that Achmed Chalabi had told them that a certain code and been broken by Americans, and that the Americans were, therefore, reading all traffic in that code.

Okay. Fine. But guess which code they used to communicate this incredibly-sensitive information?

The very same code that the message was informing Teheran had been broken.

Anyone see an, err, problem here?

This is almost childlessly transparent. It's obviously disinformation-- sending false information in an insecure code which you know has been broken and is being read by the enemy.

In fact, the only thing which makes this somewhat believable is that it's so ludicrously transparent that it's almost too obvious it's disinformation, and therefore, maybe, what the hell?, perhaps it's just a colossal screw-up by the Iranians.

I've got no particular love of Achmed Chalabi. But if this is what the CIA thinks is "evidence" against Chalabi, then we've got to clean this agency out from top to bottom.

When even left-wing conspiracy-monger and longtime Chalabi-hater Josh Marshall thinks the evidence is hinky, it's time to reconsider how strong the case against Chalabi is.

Here's Joshy:

A couple thoughts on the charges against Chalabi.

Chalabi's advocates are arguing that the case against him simply makes no sense. If Chalabi had told this Iranian in Baghdad that we'd cracked one of their codes, why would he turn around and use that code to inform his masters in Tehran?

My answer? Good question. I have no idea.

Well. Thanks for clearing that up, O Wise One.

He then goes on to argue that this doesn't make any sense, but it's true anyway.

Posted by: Ace at 02:15 PM | Comments (10)
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The best part of blogging is just taking something someone else wrote and posting it. You get traffic and praise, and yet you did absolutely no work whatsoever in creating the post.

Aaron affords me an opportunity to cut and paste my way to a book deal:

Media Rules of Evidence

Rule 401: Relevance Defined

All evidence that President Bush is an idiot, incompetent, corrupt, a religious zealot, favoring the rich, or leading the worst economy in the history of the world is relevant, no matter the news story you're ostensibly reporting on. Evidence contradicting such a worldview is irrelevant for all purposes.

Rule 402: Relevant evidence admissible and to be beaten to death

(1) Unless otherwise provided for in these Rules or in the personal agenda of your editor-in-chief, all relevant evidence is admissible, no matter what the news story.

(2) Irrelevant evidence is to be ignored, and if mentioned by lunatic right-wing conspiracy theorists who think that sarin in Iraq is evidence of sarin in Iraq, that irrelevant evidence shall be admissible as evidence of the lunacy of those same right-wing conspiracy theorists.

Rule 403: Relevant evidence admissible in spite of unfair prejudice, confusion of issues, or later contradiction

The possibility of unfair prejudice or confusion of issues shall have no impact on the relevance of the evidence, or on the admissibility of same. Later contradiction of relevant evidence, even if well-documented and incontrovetible, is to be rigorously ignored as irrelevant.

Rule 404: Evidence of prior crimes relevant when they refer to Republicans, irrelevant when the refer to Democrats

(a)(1) All evidence of prior crimes, bad acts, mistakes, changes of opinion, bad haircuts, humiliating moments, gaffes, or stuff that people just made up is both relevant and admissible against Republicans, under all circumstances, no matter how dubious the reliability or probative value of that evidence.

(2) All evidence of prior crimes, bad acts, mistakes, changes of opinion, bad haircuts, falling off of snowboards or bicycles, war crimes, letting girls drown while contemplating future political career, membership in the Ku Klux Klan, accusing Latinos of being racist white men, lying to Congress under oath, or general douchebaggery is neither relevant nor admissible as against Democrats, although the same shall be admissible in all cases against the right-wing fanatics to demonstrate their fanaticism and fascism.

Rule 405: Reputation and Character evidence

Evidence of reputation in the community shall be inadmissible as against Democrats, because the ghastly poor can't reasonably be expected to come into contact with John Kerry enough to really understand his depth and nuance anyway. All evidence of reputation or character, when it tends to demonstrate ordinary human weaknesses or mistakes, shall be admissible against Republicans, and shall be conclusive proof that they are, in fact, worse than Hitler.

....

I'd just add Rule 408, the so-called "Rape Shield Rule," stating that Evidence of a Prior Rape Shall Not Admissible Against Bill Clinton, and Rule 408 (b), which states, when it comes to Democratic scandal, it's always high time to "move on."

Posted by: Ace at 01:47 PM | Comments (4)
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Chris Matthews, among many others, has been pretty glib about tossing the "chickenhawk" slur around. The term refers to people who didn't serve in a war as young men, but who support war as older men.

Here's a quick little question for Chris Matthews and the other liberals:

Most liberals, including Christ Matthews, claim to have supported our war on Afghanistan. I don't actually believe they really supported it in their heart of hearts; I think they simply realized that it was politically impossible to oppose it. So they didn't oppose it in principle; they just constantly warned of "quagmire" and the undauntable fightin' spirit of the Afghans and the hellish Afghan summers and impossibly-cold Afghan winters.

But the point is: On paper, they supported this war. They said they supported it. That's enough for my purposes.

So my question is a simple one. Let's pose it to Chris Matthews:

Mr. Matthews, you avoided the Vietnam draft. You might quibble with that characterization. But you did join the Peace Corps, which I think you probably knew would get you off the draft-lists. I don't think it was a surprise to you to learn that your membership in the Peace Corps would keep you away from the fighting in Vietnam. It wasn't an unexpected bonus.

So let's agree that while you did not unlawfully dodge the draft, you did, somehow, manage to avoid the opportunity to serve your country in war, despite the fact that your country was quite actively looking for warriors at the time. So actively, in fact, that the country was drafting men to serve in Vietnam against their will.

And yet you say you supported the war on Afghanistan.

Please explain how you are not then by your own definition a "chickenhawk." You had ample opportunity to fight for your country as a young man; and yet you delcined this opportunity. And then, as an older man, you supported sending young men off to die in a foreign land.

What exactly is your distinction? The only distinction I can see is that you supported (well, you claim to have supported) one war and not the other. So one war you liked, the other you did not. You will say the first war was "necessary."

But a lot of conservatives who you term "chickenhawks" felt that the Iraq war was also quite "necessary."

Is "chickenhawk" status determined by which wars liberals like?

Posted by: Ace at 01:38 PM | Comments (8)
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Mike Wallace phoned O'Reilly last night to defend his partisan, anti-American remarks at the highly-inappropriate venue of a Memorial Day speech.

His main point was that WWII was a "good war," because it "united" us, whereas Iraq is a "bad war," because it divides us.

Put aside the point that liberals claim to have an absolute veto over American war-making. Apparently they don't think that we need a mere majority of Congressmen or voters in favor of war in order to go to war, but that we need a majority of the subset of liberals in favor of war in order to go to war.

What struck me was how important he thought it was that America had resisted entry into WWII until the Japanese sneak-attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor united the country, he reasoned.

Well, yes. Yes it did. Pearl Harbor united the country. And all it took to unite the country was the deaths of thousands of US servicemen and civilians and the sinking of half the Pacific fleet.

And that's all it took to get the everyone on board. That, and, of course, the fact that Uncle Joe wanted us to join the war in order to save the Soviet Union.

This is, right here, the crux of the disagreement. Implied in Mike Wallace's remarks is the idea that in WWII, we were wise and peaceful enough not to go to war until we had been grievously wounded by a sneak attack. Also implied is the idea that we would not have been justified in pre-emptively hitting Japan before they hit us; that would have been barbaric and warlike.

Even if we knew, as of course we know now, that Japan was planning its own pre-emptive attack.

Liberals have the idea that we should only be forced into war by direct attack. Even when we have strong suspicions or actual proof that another country is conspiring against us, or actively funding terrorists who attack us, we must never attack first. We must absorb the first blow in order to be peaceful and righteous and have the moral approbation of the world, by which they mean the French.

Even when such moral approbation of the French comes at the cost of thousands of American lives.

With all due respect: the moral and rhetorical value of allowing ourselves to be attacked first is simply not worth letting thousands of our fellow Americans die.

Liberals are forever claiming that conservatives are selfish, heartless, and cowardly for sending American boys off to die in foreign wars. The argument goes that anyone not serving in the military must never agitate for war, because doing so means you're sending someone to die for your beliefs.

Liberals never seem to grasp the implications of their own position, however. Liberals would gladly sacrifice thousands of American lives simply so that we can have the moral high ground of saying "We were attacked first."

It seems to me that they're willing to sacrifice a lot of lives in order to achieve a policy goal as well.

I'm not so willing, and I never will be. Sure, I'd like to have an inarguable moral high-ground for any war. But when that moral high-ground comes at the expense of a thousand people immolated in a holocaust of burning jet-fuel, I say it's too high a price.

Besides, there is actually no "inarguable" moral high ground. The Nazis and Japanese certainly didn't seem to think they were the bad guys in WWII. And the Islamofascists sure don't seem to have any pangs of conscience about 9-11.

The philosophical divide is clear. Conservatives say "Better them than us."

Liberals actually believe the opposite: "Better us than them." Better that we die, even if in large numbers, than we ever act pre-emptively to protect ourselves and kill would-be enemies.

I've always felt that liberals were viciously abstract in their thinking. One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic and all that. There sometimes seems no limit to the amount of real, concrete, tangible human suffering and misery they will countenance in order to achieve an abstract, philosophical, and utterly unreal goal.

Liberals love "the masses." They just don't seem to particularly like actual people.

The abstract rhetoric of "We were hit first" is all well and dandy, Mr. Wallace.

Care to explain to the families of the 9-11 victims why letting Al Qaeda hit us first was preferable to pre-emptively attacking Afghanistan?

How many dead Americans, precisely, is "We were attacked first?" worth? I want an actual number. I want to know exactly how many Americans we have to allow to be murdered in order to put liberals into the strange position of supporting their own country.

Tell me the exact number, and then we can all decide whether or not having the liberals for once "united" with us against an enemy is actually worth the bargain.

Posted by: Ace at 12:56 PM | Comments (11)
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Probably just another one of those wacky coincidences.

Bill O'Reilly, who I don't watch much anymore, said last night that he'd be breaking a "big story" about the OBL-SH connection on tonight's show. Maybe this is what he'll be talking about.

Better yet, maybe he'll have something else.

Posted by: Ace at 12:07 PM | Comments (7)
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Conservatives have been calling for his head for years.

I've never been on that bandwagon, for several reasons. For one, I doubt that simply sacking the boss will actually change the nature of a huge institution. And the CIA's failures, while of course partly due to Tenet, are mainly due to institutional problems and, frankly, everyone working there. When an NFL team performs poorly, sure, the coach gets sacked more often than not; but let's face it, the coach may be important, but player performance has something to do with losing too.

Another reason I was never super big on firing Tenet: I assumed Bush had reasons for keeping him on. Obviously, Bush no longer has the same level of trust in Tenet now (hence the sacking), so I guess I'm happy to see him go.

I'm curious as to the reasons for this. Not as curious as the lefty bloggers like Joshua Micah Marshall, who are undoubtedly writing novel-length conspiracy theories linking the sacking to Valerie Plame.

Tenet was, I think, a weak director. I think the CIA is a very politicized institution, and I think Tenet wasn't strong enough to push back against the Clintonistas who, for example, claim with an evangelist's passion that there was "no connection" between Saddam and Al Qaeda, despite the mountain of evidence proving beyond any doubt that there was, at the very least, some "connection."

So I'm looking for a strong director, one with credibility with the public, one with popularity with the public, a man with the balls to reform the Agency, a man who's tough enough to tell the Clintonistas that we're going to have a dispassionate analysis about The Connection whether they like it or not.

In other words, I'm looking for Rudy Guiliani.

I don't think this is necessarily a pipe dream. While Rudy has been upfront about his desire to make a pile of money, he undoubtedly also wants to serve America in the fight against terrorism. And DCI isn't some minor posting. He could walk in and take command of an incredibly important institution and change it for the better.

It would be like being Mayor of a Shadow City. And we know Rudy likes being Mayor.

And we all know Rudy wants to be President. And we all know his liberal social positions are a near bar to his getting the nomination from the Republican Party.

He needs to do something big -- something even bigger than his steadfast performance on 9-11 -- to overcome the conservative hesitancy about him.

Becoming a major player in the war on terror and reforming yet another unreformable, sprawling mess could certainly be that "something big."

Posted by: Ace at 11:32 AM | Comments (10)
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While overall activity slips a little (although still indicating good growth), it's the jobs component that surprises, rising two points and giving hope for a stronger-than-expected jobs report tomorrow.

Manufacturing, construction, and services all show job growth at or near 20-year-highs. What's left, precisely?

Productivity was revised up higher; initial first-time jobless claims fell; wages were up. On the downside, factory orders dropped and the costs-of-production increased, feeding inflation fears.

Posted by: Ace at 11:14 AM | Add Comment
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Ultra explosives?

“Research in nanoenergetics is at a very early stage,” Texas Tech researcher Latika Menon told nanotechweb.org. “Nanoscaled energetic materials are expected to be far superior to existing bulk energetic materials due to an increased reaction interface area and drastically decreased distances between reactants, leading to much faster diffusion-limited processes.”

...

Igniting samples of the nanocomposite using a butane flame, resistive heating element or a laser caused them to burn with a flame temperature of around 4000 °C, a value that did not depend on the ignition temperature. The scientists reckon that the energy released was about 0.4 J/sq. cm - around a thousand times higher than the amount released by a purely surface reaction, as for a planar film.

A thousand times? But then, that was as compared to a "purely surface reaction." I imagine that explosions are not "purely surface reactions."

Still. Let's say nanotech can increase the power chemical explosive warheads by 10 or 20 or even 50 times one day.

The sharp line between permissible chemical shell and impermissible nuclear warhead starts to get a little blurry.

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 AM | Comments (5)
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Another strong piece.

The writer's wife told her rich, liberal (presumably NY and/or DC) friends that no, she wouldn't be assisting them in their raise-money-for-Kerry activities. These brave proponents of the untrammelled right to free speech immediately called her a "fascist" and ostracised her.

I'd like some genuine imput, here.

Let me tell you what liberals in New York are like. They have absolutely no hesitation about injecting stridently liberal politics into conversations with perfect strangers they only just met. They have no sense that perhaps they ought not to be insulting those with different beliefs.

Usually, I give them three bites at the apple. Three free swings before responding. I don't bother contradicting them the first three times; I just nod noncommitally and say, "What can you do, what can you do." I try to steer the conversation away from politics.

After the three bites, I let them have it. Not rudely, but without sugar-coating it.

They're generally a) stunned to have met anyone so incredibly exotic as a Bush supporter and b) immediately hostile.

Me? I'm used to living in a city of liberals. I tend not to write people off as thought-criminals, although I do consider them to be idiots as far as politics. So I don't usually become hostile; I just sort of smile and attempt to inject a bit of levity into the awkward situation (a situation I didn't create, by the way).

I usually get no levity in response. No, "Oh, let's agree to disagree." It's often burning anger.

Now, maybe "usually" overstates it. "Usually" I'm not talking about politics at all with near-strangers. And even when I do, perhaps it's an overstatement to say that "usually" liberals respond with such hatred.

But it does happen. Quite a bit.

So I've been wondering: Is this something peculiar to liberals? Or is it actually a fairly widespread phenomenon? What I'm asking is-- in conservative areas of the country, do conservatives behave as liberals do in New York?

Be honest. I'm curious about it. Is this really a liberal problem, or is it a problem generally with the dominant/majority group in any particular area?

If you live deep in Bush country, do you typically inject conservative politics, in strident terms, into light social situations?

I suspect it's a trait more or less unique to liberals, who have simply swapped liberal politics for passionate religious belief, but I actually don't know.

Posted by: Ace at 08:32 PM | Comments (54)
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