Below the fold. There's nothing technically NSFW about it, but it is strongly suggestive of NSFW stuff.

Moderate Strongly Suggested Nastiness Warning. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (44)
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It's come to this in George Bush's Amerikkka.

The warning letter is intended as a first step, alerting donors who might be considering giving to right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.

Can you imagine the justifiable outcry if say, the Club for Growth or some other conservative group did this? Since it's just a bunch of hardcore Obama supporting lefties, it simply gets a free advertisement non-judgmental story in the NY Times.

Leftists have spent a lot of money over the years on harebrained schemes like this (thanks Mr. Soros!). What have they've gotten for their money beyond 8 years of George W. Bush and an inability to force the US to surrender in Iraq? Not much really but hey, it's their money. This campaign is likely to be as effective as most of the rest.

Far from scaring conservatives, this one is likely to energize them. If you have enough money to be one of the largest donors to the GOP or conservative causes, you've probably had to deal with a lot tougher people than these wannabe Brown Shirts over the course of your life. I'm sure this 'warning letter' will be showing up in the solicitation letter of every conservative group by the end of next month. It might even get some lukewarm conservatives on the McCain bandwagon. Thanks guys!

Are You Not Intimidated? [ace] Slublog did an image search and found this picture of the would-be intimidating leftie/planet-eating monster Galactus.

I demand a tribute of gold, myrrh and Krispy Kreme!

I don't want to say the guy's fat, but Michael Moore just said, "Dude, you've really let yourself go."

more...

Posted by: DrewM at 07:57 AM | Comments (79)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:50 AM | Comments (9)
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Low-level violence has been the norm between Russia and its former republic Georgia since Georgia declared independence in 1991. But this may be something different.

Georgian and Russian forces have come into direct conflict as Georgia attempts to reassert control over South Ossetia. Russian tanks as well as "volunteers" are entering the breakaway region, ostensibly to prevent violence. In fact, their goal is to maintain and encourage South Ossetia's de facto independence from Georgia.

An Italian news agency is reporting that a Georgian military base near the capital of Tblisi has come under air attack.

More: Part of Russia's problem with Georgia has been its increasingly pro-Western government. After 2003's Rose Revolution, Georgia's new president, Mikheil Saakashvili launched a program of reform with the ultimate goal of joining NATO. Georgia has been an ally of the U.S. in the War on Terror. At the height of its participation, it sent 2000 U.S.-trained troops to Iraq, making it one of the top contributors to our war effort. Our trainers and contractors in Georgia are reported to be safe and out of the conflict.

If you're wondering why I care so much, it's unknown right now whether this conflict represents a mere escalation of the conflict over South Ossetia or whether Putin (through Medvedev) intends to re-take Georgia with more former republics to follow. Whatever the case, Russia bears watching.

About South Ossetia and Abkhazia: Both breakaway regions declared independence in the early 1990s. That independence was not recognized by any nations, including Russia, but Russia has helped the regions maintain de facto independence from Tblisi by placing peacekeepers in both regions. Part of the reason Georgia moved on South Ossetia this week is because someone in the region has been shelling Georgian civilians.

So the question must be asked: is Kosovo going to come back and bite us? It depends on just what precedent you think Kosovo set.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February and was immediately recognized by the U.S. and several other countries. (It has not been recognized by Russia or the UN, however.) Prior to that declaration, Serbia had lost all control of the region and international peacekeepers were keeping Serbia from retaking it. Superficially, the situation in South Ossetia (and Abkhazia) look similar. However, there were several characteristics to Kosovo's independence that are not present in Georgia.

First, the whole of Kosovo was placed under international supervision following the wars in the late 1990s. The UN, through NATO, had ultimate administrative and military control. There was no analogue to this in South Ossetia. Georgia has always been able to exert at-will military control over South Ossetia. And though the Russian "peacekeepers" have kept Georgia from maintaining administrative governance, neither has an international group been responsible for administrative governance.

Second, after it was made de facto autonomous Kosovo developed a robust democratic government. No such government exists in South Ossetia. Instead, two governments (aside from Georgia, I mean) claim to represent the region: Ossetian separatists and a "Provisional Administration" which has Georgian support.

Third, Kosovar independence was achieved without military action. Actually, the fact that Kosovo was able to declare independence without going to war with Serbia is evidence of just how complete its de facto independence was. South Ossetia has no such claim. And it is noteworthy that although Ossetian separatists are fighting the Georgians, Russia is the real power keeping Georgia out.

Make no mistake. This is not a freedom movement for South Ossetia. And if Russia wins, South Ossetia will not be an independent and free country. It will be a part of expansionist Russia.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:49 AM | Comments (40)
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Posted by: Open Blog at 11:36 PM | Comments (79)
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Yesterday I mentioned that a federal court had upheld Denver's plan to confine convention protesters to a fenced area of the parking lot which they have amusingly dubbed a "freedom cage." This evening, one of those protester groups announced that it would appeal by means of a little civil disobedience:

An organizer for one of the groups planning large-scale protests during the Democratic National Convention said Thursday it will challenge "in the streets of Denver" a federal judge's decision to restrict access to the Pepsi Center.

"We're going to vote with our feet, and we're going to vote in the streets," said Glenn Spagnuolo of the Re-create 68 Alliance.

"We're going to take our marches right to the gates of the Pepsi Center, and we're going to push the limits of that security zone, because sooner or later, at some time or another, Americans need to start resisting and say no, enough is enough," Spagnuolo said.

He added that his group does not plan to be violent.

That final assurance is sadly necessary and--given the propensities of the radical left--unbelievable. I'm stocking up on popcorn and praying for the health and safety of the Denver PD and the Secret Service.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:36 PM | Comments (36)
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Many commenters have pointed out this hilarious attempt at a new rallying symbol for Obama.

These people are really stretching.

More: Several bloggers have noted the call-back to Star Trek's The Way to Eden, but I think Baldilocks was first. For those of us who missed out on TOS, the Enterprise is hijacked by a criminal former university professor and his loyal, hippie-like followers who are attempting to find paradise.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:55 PM | Comments (80)
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In this search warrant application, the FBI describes its genetic testing, which identifies not just the strain of anthrax (which is Ames, as has long been known) but specific mutations to its DNA (which wouldn't be present in other Ames anthrax samples).

As a whole, the collection of all the genetic mutations found in the anthrax used in the 2001 mailings, [sic on that comma] serve to provide a "DNA fingerprint" which can, and has been used [sic -- guy needs to learn how to use commas] to investigate other Ames isolates collected from laboratories possessing the Ames strain. Four individual, highly sensitive, and specific molecular assays capable of detecting four of the genetic mutations discovered in the Bacillus anthracis used in the mail attacks have been develped and validated.

Following the mailings, sixteen domestic government, commercial, and university laboratories that had virulent Ames strain Bacillus anthracis in their inventories prior to the attacks were identified. [Two and three quarters lines now blacked out, redacted received Ames strain Baccillus anthracis isolates or samples from all sixteen domestic laboratories, as well as, [sic] from laboratories in Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. All total, the Task Force as obtained more than 100 isolates of the Ames strain of Bacillus anthracis from these laboratories and archived those isolates in te FBI Bacillus anthracis Repository (hereinafter "FBIR").

The four aforementioned molecular assays have been applied to each of more than 1000 Bacillus anthracis samples contained within the FBIR. Of the more than 1000 FBIR samples, only eight were determined to contain all four genetic mutations.

The Task Force investigation has determined that each of the eight isolates in the FBIR is directly related to a single Bacillus anthracis Ames strain spore batch, identified as RMR-1029.... Dr. Bruce Ivins has unrestricted access to the suite [where the batch is stored] and has been the sole custodian of RMR-1029 since it was first grown in 1997.

That sounds good. But I don't know what "directly related" to RMR-1029 means. Note they don't say the anthrax in the mailings is actually RMR-1029, or identical to RMR-1029, or that it has the same mutations as RMR-1029, but instead that it's "directly related" to RMR-1029.

I assume they mean RMR-1029 is the "parent" and that the "children" spores have defects the parent may not, but they can prove that the defects could only have arisen in RMR-1029's "children," thus proving "paternity."

That may be so, but they need to explain their thinking to someone capable of parsing this out and deciding if it's true or shenanigans.

Oh, and for those of you bored by this, here's some Kappa Kappa Gamma chicks. And some more.

Baby, I would totally do some fucked-up bio-shit for you.

Baby, you finer than micro-milled anthrax spores.

Baby, you make me so hard, I feel like my dick's been coated in ferrosillicate bentonite.

Baby, are you into genetic-determinism/materialism? 'Cuz right now I've gots some genetic material that's determined to get into you.

Baby, why don't you make like a replicating helix and unzip?

The Trouble... with the FBI's theory here (at least as I vaguely understand it) is this:

They seem to be saying that Generation 1 anthrax (straight-up Ames) gave rise to Gen 2 (RMR-1029).

The mailing anthrax is Gen 3 (in their theory), as it has mutations that could only have arisen from Gen 2 (Ivins' anthrax), thus proving the paternity.

The trouble is that anyone with Generation 1 anthrax (a big number) could have seen that mutate into Gen 2 and thence to Gen 3 (the mailed anthrax).

So it's not clear to me how they prove not just a family relationship (which I assume is the case; it's all Ames, after all) but a direct parent-to-child with no-intervening-generations relationship.

How do they do that? How does one prove such a thing?

Maybe the RMR-1029 was genetically spliced or something, with new DNA that could never have arisen naturally. I don't know. They're really not explaining very well.

Posted by: Ace at 07:08 PM | Comments (46)
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Finally waking up to just how bad it looks to exclude the most recent Democratic president from any speaking role at the convention, the Obama campaign has offered a Wednesday night spot to Bill Clinton. NBC's sources say that Clinton "will in fact speak."

I don't know if that means he's accepted or that Obama's people are saying that Clinton has accepted, but I wouldn't believe it until someone more trustworthy than NBC's unnamed sources announces it. Yes, if true this helps with the image problem. But no one is going to believe this will end what NBC's Mark Murray calls the "Obama-Clinton drama."

Immediately after her primary defeat, Hilary Clinton did a very good job of unreservedly championing Obama's candidacy. She told her people to support him and then she started stumping for him. In return, Obama treated her like dirt. As a result, her support slowly waned to the point where she's actually facing questions about her alleged race-based campaign again. Letting her husband speak at the convention does nothing to erase the hurt that comes with that or the distress of Clinton's die-hard supporters.

The thing that would actually have ended the Obama-Clinton drama is to put her on the ticket. But Obama doesn't want to do that and I suspect that until recently he assumed that he wouldn't need to. Now, even if he were to offer her the VP spot, I don't think she'd accept it.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:12 PM | Comments (31)
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He's Catholic, you know.

This story suggests that Ivins may have been trying to murder people because of their support for legal abortion. If you read or listen to the story, youÂ’ll see that there are three key pieces of evidence that, according to NPR, support this view. First, Ivins may have read an article critical of pro-abortion Catholic politicians. Second, IvinsÂ’s wife is active in the Frederick, Maryland right-to-life movement. And third, Ivins and his wife sent their children to Catholic schools.

They seem very eager to fit this neatly into The Narrative as quickly as possible.

So we have half the left claiming Ivins is innocent (see Greenwald for this) and the other half saying he's clearly guilty, why look, he's a right-wing pro-lifer. (Without pausing to note that he was a Democrat.)

Let me say a few things about Greenwald. First of all, he's dogged in reading the documents, I'll give him that. And for a skeptical look at the FBI's case, I guess I can say read him, he's doing the most skeptical digging on this.

In some cases, he makes a valid point. The FBI offered, as circumstantial evidence against Ivins, the claim that he sent an email to a colleague that sounded a lot like the "Death to Israel, Death to America" anthrax letters.

ne of the pieces of circumstantial evidence which the FBI stressed most heavily and which has clearly impressed The New York Times is that Ivins, in a September 26, 2001 email to a colleague (which the FBI appears not to have released in full), wrote: "Osama bin Laden has just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans." After citing that email, the FBI then claims in each of its Search Warrant affidavits (emphasis in original) that this is "language similar to the text of the anthrax letters postmarked two weeks later warning 'DEATH TO AMERICA,' 'DEATH TO ISRAEL.'"

This is faintly ridiculous as an offer of proof. "Death to America, Death to Israel" is (as the torpid Greenwald notes) hardly some eldritch Islamofascist chant that the average person wouldn't have heard before. It's pretty much Iran's E Pluribus Unum.

To suggest that this silly shit constitutes evidence of any sort makes me doubt the strength of the rest of their case. If they're offering this nonsense as evidence, how strong can the rest of their evidence really be?

I always operate on the assumption that no one offers weak "evidence" if they have strong evidence at hand, and if they're offering the weak stuff, well, that must mean they don't have anything much stronger than that.

I also note that a scientific commenter here me the lypholyzer is a rather common machine and, in any event, may have been needed to produce the anthrax, but hardly was enough to produce the anthrax.

It all comes down to these "new techniques" the FBI say they've developed to positively ID the anthrax as coming specifically from a specific, distinctive strain found in a flask controlled by Ivins and no other people. I too am suspicious that the FBI's new, improved anthrax-identifying techniques may just be some rubber science being used to convict a dead man. And they're really going to have to reveal these new techniques soon. As in, they should already have done so.

I don't see any reason to keep these techniques secret. Scientists and criminologists need to be allowed to independently test whether these techniques are as case-breaking and definitive as the FBI says.

That said, I have to note the real reason Glenn Greenwald doubts Ivins' guilt: It's because he thinks Bush and Cheney did it. Check out the beginning of his long series of accusatory questions:

Given the significance of the anthrax attacks, it would be unconscionable for there to be anything other than a full-scale Congressional or independent investigation -- with a full airing of all the facts -- regarding everything that happened here. Those issues should include exploration of the following questions, many of which might well have perfectly reasonable and benign explanations, and some of which may not, but until there is a full airing, it will necessarily be the case -- and it should be the case -- that this episode will only serve to further erode whatever lingering trust there is in media and government institutions:

* Why were White House aides given cipro weeks before the anthrax attacks, and why "on the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, [did] the White House Medical Office dispense[] Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David"? [Washington Post, 10/23/2001];

* Why, if Cheney was given cipro on the night of the 9/11 attacks, was he allegedly "convinced that he had been subjected to a lethal dose of anthrax" on October 18, and that this fear is what led him to seek refuge in "undisclosed locations" and thereafter support an array of hard-line tactics against suspected terrorists? [Jane Mayer, The Dark Side, 2008];

* Which "high government official" told Richard Cohen to take cipro prior to the anthrax attacks (it wasn't a "source" who did so, since Cohen didn't write about it and apparently never intended to; it was just someone high up in Government passing along a helpful tip to a media friend) [Richard Cohen, Slate, March 18, 2008];

* Did the FBI meaningfully investigate who sent an anonymous letter to the FBI after the anthrax letters were sent, but before they were made public, accusing a former Fort Detrick scientist -- the Arab-American Ayaad Assaad -- of being a "potential biological terrorist," after Assaad was forced out of Fort Detrick by a group of USAMRIID bioweapons researchers who had exhibited extreme anti-Arab animus? [Laura Rozen, Salon, 1/26/2002];

* Why did the FBI gives its consent in October, 2001 for the remaining samples of the Ames anthrax strain to be destroyed, thereby losing crucial "genetic clues valuable to the criminal inquiry"? [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/9/2001];

Further questions flesh out his theory that the anthrax was released by Bush in order to pin on Iraq to justify the invasions.

Yeah, that'll work. Bush did it, Hoss. Bush did everything.

Also: Someone mentioned the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority angle. I didn't know what he was talking about. Here's what that was all about:

Just to illustrate how utterly unreliable and often frivolous the Government-media leaking ritual has been, look at what happened yesterday. The AP's big, leaked scoop of the day to incriminate Ivins was this:

The top suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks was obsessed with a sorority that sat less than 100 yards away from a New Jersey mailbox where the toxin-laced letters were sent, authorities said today. . . .

The bizarre link to the sorority may indirectly explain one of the biggest mysteries in the case: why the anthrax was mailed from Princeton, 195 miles from the Army biological weapons lab the anthrax is believed to have been smuggled out of.

That's not exactly convincing evidence. Its primary purpose seems to be to make Ivins look creepy -- he harbored a decades-long obsession with a college sorority -- but at least one could argue it would be enough of a circumstantial link to be worth noting. But as it turns out, the leaked information wasn't even close to accurate. Shortly after that leak appeared, it transformed into this laughable claim in an updated AP story:

The mailbox just off the campus of Princeton University where the letters were mailed sits about 100 yards away from where the college's Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter stores its rush materials, initiation robes and other property. Sorority members do not live there, and the Kappa chapter at Princeton does not provide a house for the women.

Good point, eh? Just for balance, let's look at a blogger he cites as an authority on the case:

14. The anthrax letters were sent for effect, not to kill. (See my 2002 article for more on this.) Here are the effects that resulted, at least in part, from the letters:

A. The Patriot Act
B. War against Iraq
C. A new bioterrorism industry, worth over $50 Billion so far, was created
D. The moribund Anthrax Vaccine Program was resurrected

Who benefited? Ivins was no beneficiary. (Had the Bioport vaccine been killed, as planned, maybe Ivins' vaccine would have taken its place.)

You know who benefited:

* The bioevangelists, who have made a ton of bucks on the threat
* The Neocons, looking for an excuse to attack Iraq. The Iraqis may not have attacked the World Trade Center, but by golly, everyone knew they had anthrax!
* Those seeking to consolidate more power in the executive branch, increase the surveillance of Americans, get rid of Habeus Corpus, and on and on.

Just so you know where Greenwald is coming from -- he's a Truther, at least on anthrax, but not quite gutsy enough to come out of the closet and say so.

That said: I have to say at this point I am seriously doubting the FBI.

I simply do not believe one even bothers offering this sort of utter nonsense as evidence of any kind if one has smoking-gun "new techniques" which definitively prove the anthrax came from Ivins' flask.

Why are they not releasing these techniques? Do they wish to hide these powerful new methods from their fellow criminologists?

I have a feeling these "new techniques" are not particularly conclusive or rigorous at all. A bit like handwriting comparisons, which are always of a pretty bullshitty, more-art-than-science-and-barely-an-art-at-that sort of evidence.

So that the case is really that Ivins had access to the Ames strain, which a lot of people do, and he was weird and kinda kooky, which, I admit, is certainly enough reason to investigate someone on, but not nearly, by itself, enough to convict someone on.

And if the FBI does have this definitive, super-duper new anthrax analyzin' technique that proves the case beyond the doubt, why are they gaslighting me with this bullshit about sorority-house obsessions and Islamist catchphrases that one could have lifted from the beginning of The Naked Gun?

Oh: I realize some of this weak crap (like the sorority thing) might have been included in previous applications for search warrants, and that's why it's coming out. It's in the record. And yeah, police sometimes have to strain for probable cause for a search warrant.

But if they had these new techniques conclusively proving the anthrax had come from Ivins' flask and none other, why wouldn't that and that alone be enough to secure all the warrants you might want?

Posted by: Ace at 03:52 PM | Comments (50)
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