Market-Based Profiling

The Daily Mail reports on a flight in Britain that remained on the ground due to the demands of its passengers that two Arabic passengers get ejected. The incident shows that citizens will start imposing their own solutions to flight safety in the absence of demonstrably intelligent security while attempts at attacks continue:

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

The incident fuels the row over airport security following the arrest of more than 20 people allegedly planning the suicide-bombing of transatlantic jets from the UK to America. It comes amid growing demands for passenger-profiling and selective security checks.

It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands - effectively conducting their own 'passenger profiles'.

These incidents have started to spike in the wake of the successful exposure of a massive plot in the UK against the airlines. British travelers have decided, ironically, that the government has not done enough to screen for terrorists and have lost confidence in air service as a result. This will lead to dramatic market reactions; either people will stop flying, or they will take security into their own hands. The perceived lack of security will make it harder for Muslims to travel (the British reference to "Asians" usually means Pakistanis or Arabs).

After 9/11, every flyer understands that they are targeted by terrorists and have to remain vigilant. This message has been reinforced over and over again by the governments themselves. Common sense dictates that people will act in their perceived self-interest in any case, and that means people will remain highly suspicious of Arabic men traveling together -- and more so when they act strangely. In Malanga, the two wore heavy clothing despite the heat and kept checking their watches. That was enough to make them unwilling to risk a flight with the two men, and they applied the pressure necessary for the airline to eject the two.

Is that fair? Hardly. However, the unwillingness of the governments in both the UK and the US to provide systems of screening that instill confidence in the flying public has led to these incidents. They will continue and increase while screening systems insist on playing political correctness games instead of focusing on real threats as the Israelis have done for decades. As I wrote earlier this week, the US has an experimental program attempting to create a similar system; it should get expedited and expanded as soon as possible.

Our Sympathy Is Limited

Ismail Haniyeh wants the world to come to his assistance. The Hamas leader demands that the international community demand the release of his deputy prime minister, captured by the Israelis a day earlier:

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya has appealed to the international community for help to secure the release of his deputy.

Nasser al-Shaer was detained by the Israeli army early on Saturday.

Mr Haniya, from the Islamic militant movement Hamas, said the arrest was part of an Israeli attempt to undermine the Palestinian political system .

The Israeli army said it had detained Mr Shaer because he was a member of a "terrorist organisation".

Lest anyone forget, Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, more than two months ago in order to extort the release of terrorists from Israeli prisons. Now Haniyeh runs crying to the world because the Israelis have begun to arrest Hamas' leadership for its part in this provocation and other terrorist actions. When did terrorists become such whiny sob sisters, anyway?

If Haniyeh wants to get his ministers out of Israeli detention, he can start by coughing up Shalit and stopping the rocket attacks and suicide bombings aimed at Israeli citizens. Until then, he can just suck it up all by himself.

Data Restored

I got a call from Best Buy's Geek Squad earlier this evening, after the NARN show was over. I had asked them to retrieve the data from my dead laptop's hard drive, a service they provide for a fairly reasonable fee regardless of the condition of the drive. They have two tiers for the service: $99 for up to 9 GB of disk space, and $159 for unlimited retrieval. I chose the second, and it turned out to be the right call. The Geek Squad got 43 GB of data off my hard drive, everything I had before the crash. They had asked me to bring my new laptop into the store to transfer the data rather than burn a bunch of DVDs, and the data is now safely on my new system. I'm very pleased with their responsiveness and the fact that all of my data came through cleanly.

Once we determined that the hard drive was undamaged, I bought an enclosure for it, an Adaptec device that allows me to use it as a USB external hard drive. It only costs $26 and is simple to assemble. It even comes with its own handy carrying case and a Y-cable that allows me to attach it without losing a USB port.

I'm in the process of restoring my old e-mail in a separate profile setting. That will take a little work, even in Thunderbird, but the files still exist and I expect to retrieve everything by the end of the weekend. If you've sent a request for the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, that is part of the data I'm trying to restore. Feel free to resend your requests, but please use "101st Fighting Keyboarders" as the subject line. I'm going to try to get them all anyway.

Now to reload all of the programs ...

Arab Media Take Aim At Assad

After Bashar Assad called Arab leaders "half men" for failing to rally to Hezbollah's support, state-sponsored media in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have castigated Assad in terms usually reserved for infidels. His critics have called him a coward and a dead rosebud, among other epithets:

Syria's president sparked a wave of anger after he knocked Mideast leaders as "half men" in a televised speech, underlining the divisions as Arab nations try to form a unified front in the wake of the Lebanon crisis.

The bitterness over Bashar Assad's speech last week will likely stir up a gathering of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on Sunday. The meeting is supposed to pave the way for a summit of heads of state later in the month that will draw up plans to help rebuild Lebanon - and try to launch a new Arab peace initiative with Israel.

So far governments have not commented on Assad's jibes - instead, the task has been left to newspapers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan - some of which are state-guided - which have been sizzling with personal and direct attacks on Assad the like of which the region has not seen directed against an Arab leader in years.

One paper described the Syrian president as a rose that has failed to bloom. Another berated him for remaining silent throughout Israel's offensive on Lebanon. And a third mocked all his talk about resistance when not a single bullet has been fired from Syria toward the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Assad had been silent throughout the 34 days of fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hizbullah, a Syrian ally. But the day after a cease-fire set in, he gave his speech.

One might expect the man who went into hiding after the Israeli Air Force buzzed his house after the Gilad Shalit kidnapping -- and didn't emerge for over a month -- would take care in tossing out accusations of insufficient masculinity. The accidental dictator apparently didn't think before berating other Arabs for a lack of testicular fortitude.

He's making a big mistake. As the Jerusalem Post notes, Assad has made his alignment with Teheran even more explicit with this speech, which will cut him off from the mainly Sunni Arab governments in the region. Even apart from the sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites (Assad himself is a Shi'ite), the Arabs do not want Persian rule. They have a deeper mistrust of Teheran than they do of the Israelis and the Americans, whom they know to act rationally. None of them want to take their cues from a panel of mullahs from Qom, nor from their latest nutcase mouthpiece.

It's not the first mistake that the myopic opthalmologist has made, even this month. Earlier, Assad stated that he will apparently mothball the Syrian armed forces in exchange for setting up Hezbollah-like guerilla groups in an attempt to wrest the Golan Heights from Israel. What Assad apparently doesn't understand is that Hezbollah enjoyed an advantage in Lebanon only because the world considered the terror group separate from the nation itself. Any guerilla warfare in the Golan region will result in the destruction of the Syrian air force, their armored units, and most of their infrastructure within the first few hours of the engagement -- because Syria will have responsibility for this militia just the same as it does for the actions of its traditional armed forces.

Assad does not appear very stable. One has to wonder whether the pressures of the job has affected his mind. Other Arab leaders must be asking themselves the same questions.

Northern Alliance Radio Expands To Six Hours!

The Northern Alliance Radio Network will expand its live programming today to six hours. King Banaian and Michael Broadkorb will begin NARN 3 today, airing from 3-5 PM on Saturdays from now on. That follows Mitch Berg and me in NARN 2 at 1-3pm CT, and the trio of NARN 1 (Brian Ward, Chad The Elder, and John Hinderaker) from 11-1 CT.

Our broadcasts can be heard as always on AM 1280 The Patriot, which has an Internet stream for those outside the Twin Cities. Listeners can join the conversation at 651-289-4488, and we love telephone calls. Be sure to join the original blogger radio show every Saturday!

Maybe It's A Protest Against Halal?

The descent of modern art continues in Cornwall, where a dead pig and a naked woman received government funding for an exhibition in Newlyn. Kira O'Reilly dances with an actual dead pig on stage, and British taxpayers get to foot the bill (caution: link not work safe):

After pickled sheep, unmade beds and painting with elephant dung, some questioned where modern art could go next.

Kira O'Reilly will provide her own answer today by spending four hours naked, hugging a dead pig - at the taxpayer's expense.

The controversial Irish performance artist will invite one person at a time to watch her sit in a specially-constructed set and perform a 'crushing slow dance' with the carcass in her arms.

She claims the bizarre exhibition is an attempt to 'identify' with the pig, which she cuts with a knife during the show.

She feels the need to "meld into [the pig's] warm flesh, my blood and her blood," which is why she cuts the pig during the performance. I think it's safe to say that Kira O'Reilly desperately needs a date, but potential suitors may want to ask her to shower first -- and to keep the knives locked up.

PETA is organizing protests against the show, but it will only be performed once in any case. The pig has a prior engagement at a luau.

Does anyone wonder why conservatives see government funding of the arts as a joke? The decision makers have no sense of judgement or artistic vision, but instead have become the carnival barkers of their age. They care nothing for art but instead fund exhibits strictly for their shock value. Why should governments fund geek shows? Artists should have their freedom, but they should get their patronage from their own work and not from government handouts.

The Taylor Embarrassment

The more people read of the opinion by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruling against the government in the NSA's terrorist surveillance program, the less impressed even the program's opponents become. Adam Liptak reports in the New York Times -- whose editorial board hailed Taylor's jurisprudence -- that legal analysts have little support for Taylor's reasoning:

Even legal experts who agreed with a federal judge’s conclusion on Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program is unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision’s reasoning and rhetoric yesterday.

They said the opinion overlooked important precedents, failed to engage the government’s major arguments, used circular reasoning, substituted passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own conclusions.

Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal, said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose Web log provides comprehensive and nonpartisan reports on legal developments.

“It does appear,” Mr. Bashman said, “that folks on all sides of the spectrum, both those who support it and those who oppose it, say the decision is not strongly grounded in legal authority.”

One of the first arguments that legal analysts attacked, according to this report, was the novel notion that the NSA program violated the First Amendment as well as the Fourth. No one that Liptak contacted would support that assertion. Another issue with Taylor's analysis is her refusal to engage the government arguments in a substantive way, dismissing them in a hail of "obviouslys". She also failed to review the pertinent precedents, even those supporting her overall decision. Most felt that Taylor rushed the decision in order to garner headlines.

It brings up an interesting question, one raised by Patterico yesterday. Judicial diktats like this one have the same effect as any unconstitutional efforts by the executive or by Congress, and all that is left is partisan bickering over whether the ends justified the means. Taylor's weightless opinion reduces itself to a basic because I said so, which is exactly the same impulse for which she excoriates the Bush administration in her decision. The only saving grace is that Taylor doesn't get the last word, and in this case one can hardly say that she had the first word, either.

Taylor's lack of rigor in examining the legal arguments presented in this case will force the appellate court into a position it usually avoids -- being the finder of fact. It now must review the evidence and listen to all the legal arguments, which must be made a second time, in order to straighten out the mess that Taylor made of her responsibility to give all sides a fair hearing. Liptak's sources believe that the appeals will uphold the decision while completely rejecting the opinion Taylor issued in delivering it. I predict that the appellate court will throw the entire case out for lack of standing. We will all know soon enough, but in the meantime, the NSA continues to operate its program under a stay issued by the Sixth Circuit appellate court.

UPDATE: I wrote Sixth District when I meant Sixth Circuit; thanks to Barnestormer in the comments. He also raises another important point. The strange argumentation that led Taylor to conclude that the NSA program violated the First Amendment is the only manner in which these plaintiffs had standing to bring the suit. If the appellate court rejects that portion of her ruling, the entire lawsuit goes out the window.

Israel Attacks Resupply Convoy

Israel has made it clear that they will abide by the cease-fire only to the extent that their partners do the same. In a raid this morning, Israel killed three militants while stopping an arms transfer to Hezbollah:

Israel carried out an overnight raid inside Lebanon aimed at disrupting an arms transfer, the Israeli army says.

One soldier died and two were injured in the Bekaa Valley operation, it said. Lebanese sources earlier told Reuters agency that three militants also died.

The incident came hours after UN chief Kofi Annan warned of a "fragile" situation on the ground.

The Israeli commando raid took place near Baalbek, far to the north of Lebanon along the border with Syria. The IDF attacked the convoy and claimed that its mission objectives "were achieved".

Fuad Siniora, meanwhile, complained that Israel had committed a "naked violation" of the cease-fire agreement. Siniora may want to take care with that accusation. After all, it's his government that refuses to implement the key portion of the agreement: the disarming of Hezbollah. Israel has no real reason to abide by the cease-fire while Siniora hasn't the testicular fortitude to adhere to its provisions. This raid shows that Israel will not stand by while Siniora allows Hezbollah to garner even more arms.

If the Lebanese want to restart the war, they will find the Israelis more than willing to do so. Israel may count on precisely that reaction, as well as the inability of Siniora to enforce his end of the cease-fire agreement. If this cease-fire fails, the Israelis will have no further constraints by the UN and can take all the time necessary to complete their overall mission, and Siniora will have no way to stop it. All the crying in the world will not cover the fact that he had an opportunity to rid himself of Hezbollah and chose to endorse it instead.

Canada: Iran Responsible For War In Lebanon

In a surprisingly straightforward declaration, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister has publicly declared Teheran responsible for Hezbollah's actions in Lebanon this summer, and described Syria as a "conduit" for Iranian misconduct. Peter Mackay's statements aligns Canada more closely to their southern neighbor than to their traditional alliances in Europe, where governments have been reluctant to lay blame for Hezbollah on their obvious sponsors:

With a potential international showdown looming next week in Iran's nuclear standoff with the West, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay says Tehran has "blood on its hands" for backing Hezbollah in its recent war against Israel.

In an interview with CanWest News Service, Mr. MacKay highlighted Iran's support of Hezbollah and its nuclear ambitions, which will be back in the international spotlight on Tuesday -- the symbolic date in the Muslim calendar chosen by the Islamic regime to reply to UN demands to end its suspected nuclear weapons program.

"They [Iran] are certainly behind much of the difficulty that's going on in the region by funding Hezbollah, by supporting them in terms of their activities against Israel. They have a great deal of responsibility and blood on their hands from their activities," he said. ...

"Of course, we've been very much caught up with what's been happening in the Middle East, but Iran, it's fair to say, has been described an agent provocateur."

Mr. MacKay also pointed to Syria as "a conduit for Iran to perpetrate much of this mischief."

Of course, Mackay gets points just for his willingness to state the obvious, a willingness that seems to escape many in the West these days. It reflects the reality of Iran as perhaps the most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism and Islamic fascism, and it comes at a moment when the world holds its breath over the potential for millenial mischief on August 22nd.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad picked that date for the Iranian response to the incentive package offered by the West for Iran to end its uranium-enrichment program. That date holds special significance in Muslim belief, as most know now; it's the date that Mohammed rode a winged horse to heaven, after making stops in Jerusalem and Mecca. Some people believe that millenial thinkers such as Ahmadinejad will want to use that date to advance some strategy to create the chaos necessary for the return of the 12th Imam -- which would either point to an attack on Israel or some act of defiance so provocative that it will start a devastating war.

So far, that remains an interesting and entertaining hypothesis and not much more. What has remained fact is the overweening deference paid to Ahmadinejad and the mullahcracy by European diplomats. Perhaps they fear that the truth will cause Iran to reject their incentive package out of petulance, a laughable notion considering the calculating nature of the Iranian ruling class. They have eschewed the firmness and resolve needed to face down the Iranians and offered sweet words and ever-increasing incentives: the basic appeasement package.

It's good to see that Canada no longer holds any illusions about Iran and its intent in the Middle East. We only wish that more Western nations would wake up to the threat that faces us. (via Newsbeat1)

UPDATE: It's not just the diplomats in Europe who have their lips firmly affixed to Ahmadinejad's nethers. Try reading this Simon Tisdall piece in The Guardian (UK) without laughing at the lack of objectivity:

As the rotors of the venerable American-made Huey 214 chopper spin slowly to a halt, and the murk clears, a great, human noise replaces the sound of engines. It is not cheering; more like a giant, murmuring sigh, punctuated by shouts of joy and the screams of women.

For Meshkinshahr, a city perched on the desiccated Caspian steppes and mountains west of Ardabil, this dramatic descent to earth has the momentous significance of a prophetic visitation. Local elders say there has been nothing like it in years. Children are out of their heads with excitement.

But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, clambering out of the helicopter cabin with a big smile on his face, is getting used to it. His visit, part of a magisterial three-day, nine-city procession through Ardabil province in north-west Iran, is the 18th such meet-the-people expedition since he took office one year ago this month.

Mr Ahmadinejad's extraordinary comings and goings are a cross between American-style town meetings, itinerant Islamic evangelism, and pure political theatre. Think Bill and Al's "excellent adventure" during the 1992 US presidential campaign; think Saladin on a soap box; then add a straggly beard, wrinkly, unexpectedly twinkly eyes, a gentle, open-handed style, and a genuine ability to connect - and you have Mr Ahmadinejad, a local hero (he was formerly governor of Ardabil), a would-be champion of Muslims everywhere, and an unlikely grassroots superstar.

Tisdall later says that Ahmadinejad "may not know much about the Holocaust", about as close to criticism as this piece gets, but he's quite obviously wrong. Ahmadinejad has learned how to become an adored Fuehrer, or at least pose as one for Western journalists. It worked seventy years ago, too, and it portended much the same kind of conflict in the end.

Israel Arrests Palestinian Deputy PM In Ramallah

The Israelis sent a message this morning that they have not forgotten the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit by Hamas. The IDF captured the Hamas Deputy Prime Minister, Nasser Shaer, at his home this morning:

Israeli soldiers arrested the Palestinian deputy prime minister Saturday, the highest-ranking Hamas official rounded up in a seven-week-old crackdown against the ruling party.

Troops burst into the home of Nasser Shaer around 4:30 a.m. and took him away, said the deputy prime minister's wife, Huda. ...

The army said Shaer was arrested in Ramallah overnight for his involvement and activity in the Islamic militant Hamas.

With Shaer, Israel has now arrested four members of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Cabinet and 28 Hamas lawmakers. Four other ministers have been detained and released.

As Shaer's wife explained, this comes as no surprise to the deputy PM. He had avoided his home ever since the Shalit kidnapping, which preceded the similar Hezbollah operation that touched off the war in Lebanon. The Israelis have taken the Hamas claim of responsibility seriously, and acknowledged it by holding its senior leadership responsible. The Israelis show no sign of relaxing their campaign, and Ismail Haniyeh may well be next if Hamas does not return Shalit.

Of course, the Palestinians howl with outrage at the Israelis. Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad claims that Israel "won't be satisfied with any government headed by Hamas or headed by Fatah," which amounts to a PR non-sequitur. Hamad wants people to believe that the Israelis have reacted badly to normal political activity. Apparently, Hamas considers kidnappings (and worse) as a banal part of government, not an act of war. If Fatah believes that as well -- and its Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade certainly suggests it -- then no sovereign government should be satisfied with that kind of government. And in any case, if Hamad wants to argue for kidnappings as political maneuvers, then his petulant whining must spring from the fact that Israel can capture people better than Hamas can.

When the Palestinians decide that they want responsible, rational government, the world will rush to give them their own state in which to live, and Israel will be at the head of the line. Until then, the Palestinians would do well to remember the proverbs about reaping what one sows, and to quit crying like babies when their own tactics get turned onto themselves. If they want Israel to stop capturing its leaders, then return Gilad Shalit and renounce terrorism. It's really that simple.

UPDATE: I forgot to credit CQ reader Stackja1945 for the hat-tip.

Mel Had The Good Grace To Get Drunk First

At least Carter-era UN Ambassador and former Mayor Andrew Young didn't call a police officer "sugar tits" when unleashing his bigoted tirade:

The civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was hired by Wal-Mart to improve its public image, resigned from that post last night after telling an African-American newspaper that Jewish, Arab and Korean shop owners had “ripped off” urban communities for years, “selling us stale bread, and bad meat and wilted vegetables.”

In the interview, published yesterday in The Los Angeles Sentinel, a weekly, Mr. Young said that Wal-Mart “should” displace mom-and-pop stores in urban neighborhoods.

“You see those are the people who have been overcharging us,” he said of the owners of the small stores, “and they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it’s Arabs.”

Mr. Young, 74, a former mayor of Atlanta and a former United States representative to the United Nations, apologized for the comments and retracted them in an interview last night. Less than an hour later, he resigned as chairman of Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group created and financed by the company to trumpet its accomplishments.

“It’s against everything I ever thought in my life,” Mr. Young said. “It never should have been said. I was speaking in the context of Atlanta, and that does not work in New York or Los Angeles.”

It's unfortunate that Mayor Young decided to perpetuate racial and ethnic stereotypes in his evaluation of urban economics, because he actually has a point. Store owners in blighted neighborhoods -- no matter who owns them -- do charge much higher prices for lower-quality goods. That comes from the high risk associated with business ventures in the neighborhoods, and that requires the owners to either pay high insurance rates or do without. Either choice requires the owners to get as much margin as possible in a short period of time. Also, most family-owned businesses don't create jobs in these areas, because the families usually run the businesses themselves to save even more overhead.

In that respect, Young told the truth. The romantic view of mom-and-pop small-business retail might apply in places like Solvang and Belmont Shore, but in the inner city it represents a critical loss of buying power and employment. Their displacement by a retailer like Wal-Mart, a provider of low prices and much-needed employment, hardly seems like a disaster for communities in these economic straits.

However, rather than explain it in economic terms, Young gave vent to his inner bigot and trotted out a veritable cornucopia of paranoia. Unlike Mel Gibson, whose drunken state could arguably have created an irrational mental state (or he could just be an anti-Semite), Young has no such excuse. Not only was Young sober, but the statements came in a newspaper interview, when Young knew his statements would go on record. Nor does his apology quite wash; he implies that anti-Semitism and anti-Asian bigotry is rational and understandable in Atlanta, if not in Los Angeles or New York. Atlantans might take offense at that suggestion -- well, perhaps most Atlantans, excepting the McKinney family.

The world issued condemnations for days after Mel Gibson's drunken outburst. It will be interesting to see whether the same people rush to condemn Andrew Young's measured and deliberate bigotry. (via TMV)

Addendum: Of course, Young's economic argument for the benefits Wal-Mart brings to blighted neighborhoods clashes strongly with the new war that Democrats have declared on the retailer. Perhaps the Democrats may want to re-think their effort to demonize the organization that allows the poor to extend their buying power.

Martyrdom Videos Found In Suspects' Computers

The latest meme to emerge is that of skepticism of the British sky terror plot on the part of some bloggers. Arguments heard when the feds busted the amateurish Miami conspiracy earlier this summer have arisen -- that the supposed conspirators had no capability to carry out such a wide-ranging plot, or more often that the plot came from Pakistani torture and the desire of George Bush and Tony Blair to change the subject. The discovery of martyrdom videos on the laptop computers of some suspects appears to throw cold water on the conspiracy theories:

Police investigating an alleged plot to bring down airliners have found several martyrdom videos in the course of their searches, the BBC has learned.

Unofficial police sources said the recordings - discovered on laptop computers - appear to have been made by some of the suspects being questioned.

Scotland Yard has refused to comment on what officers are finding.

Police are continuing to search woodland at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire and 14 addresses.

The Metropolitan Police, which is leading the inquiry, has said it has already completed searches of 36 business and residential sites.

If this proves true, then apparently the conspirators took this plot very seriously indeed. Martyrdom videos don't usually get made far in advance of the plot, either. If the police found several on laptops, it would strongly indicate that the plot not only was deadly serious, but about to launch.

British courts have extended the interrogation times for all 23 suspects, two of them for five more days and the rest for seven. This also seems to indicate that the judges have found some reasonable grounds for invoking the anti-terrorism laws regulating detention of suspects. The videos may form part of that basis, but the police have hardly focused solely on interrogation. According to the BBC, every single police force in the UK is taking part in the investigation -- an astounding level of mobilization.

All indications, then, show this plot to be as serious as advertised, perhaps even more so. Why do people exhibit such skepticism? One fair explanation is that we have had some false alarms before, but by this time in each of those the lack of a true threat had been determined. It seems as though some people want to believe that either the governments of Britain and the US make up these stories to scare people, or they haven't the capability to acknowledge the real and existential danger that terrorism presents.

Skepticism can be healthy. Foolish denial can cost lives.

Earmarks, Inc.

(Note: This was the post I was writing when the laptop died. Thanks to good friends who had an advance look at the effort, I can post it now.)

Earlier, the Heritage Foundation profiled legislation that provided over $1.5 billion dollars to the Washington DC Metro System, which Dr. Ron Utt called the biggest pork-barrel project in American history. Representative Tom Davis offered HR 3496 as an amendment to the Deep Water Resources Act, even though his boondoggle for the transit system had little to do with deep water or any other kind of resources. At the time, Dr. Utt questioned Rep. Davis’ motives in providing such a thick slice of federal revenue to Maryland and Virginia:

Beyond such posturing lies a legislative effort whose origins sprang from an act of constituent service, and chief among the constituents served is the Congressman himself. As originally introduced in July 2005, H.R. 3496 was written to force a resolution of a dispute between Mr. Davis and Metro over its plan to sell 3.75 acres of land it owns beside a rail station to a developer who wanted to incorporate the land into a large, mixed-use development near Mr. Davis’s home. Concerned about traffic congestion and the displacement of suburban charm by urban density, Mr. Davis threatened to do something about it. While most Americans can only complain about encroaching development, Mr. Davis can use his congressional powers to prohibit it, and H.R. 3496 was written to do exactly that. Specifically, Section 4(a) of the bill prohibits Metro from selling the 3.75 acres in question until it has submitted a detailed study of the proposed land sale and planned development to Congress. But as Metro has since sold the land to the developer, this legislative prohibition is pointless, and all that remains of the bill is a massive federal and local bailout of the faltering system.

Rep. Davis took umbrage at this description of his project, and of his motivations in championing it. After Dr. Utt arguments against the bill appeared in the Washington Examiner, Rep. Davis fired off a letter to the Examiner:

It is a journalistic travesty that the Examiner has decided to re-write poorly reasoned press releases and masquerade them as editorials ("Don't give Metro the 'largest earmark in history,'" July 19). Your editorial is based entirely - and indeed quotes at length - from a piece that originated with the Heritage Foundation, written by an author who never met a transit system he didn't want to kill. The end result was an editorial that betrayed a stunning ignorance of my Metro legislation, the legislative process, and the importance of Metro to the federal government and to the region as a whole. …

Calling my legislation an "earmark" and a "federal bailout" for Metro is both incorrect and inflammatory. The legislation approved by the House on Monday does not authorize one nickel of federal money. The money for Metro was approved on June 29, when the House agreed to take a small portion of offshore drilling royalties and dedicate them to Metro for the next 10 years. That was possible because of the work my Government Reform Committee has done in recovering additional royalty payments the Clinton Administration failed to identify or collect. Nothing was "earmarked" - instead, a fiscally responsible source of the funding was identified.

Since 1965, Congress has on four previous occasions infused the Metro system with federal funding, recognizing the unique relationship between the federal government and the transit agency responsible for the daily commute of so many federal employees. With each vote, the Congressional Record illustrates the Congress' belief that the Nation's Capital requires mass transit for the day-to-day operation of the federal government.

Davis tried mightily to convince people that when Congress spends $1.5 billion, it somehow fails to qualify as “federal funding”. His argument that the money comes from revenue the government received through an overdue debt collection doesn’t make it any less the property of the taxpayers; it could easily have been applied to the federal deficit rather than put into the pockets of Maryland and Virginia. He contradicts himself in almost the next breath anyway, explaining how federal funding for the Metro has plenty of precedent.

All of this hides the fact that Davis has some interests beyond good government. The Washington Post, whose editorial board supported the Metro funding, reported shortly afterward that Rep. Davis has often pressed for legislation that allow for easier passage of pork and looser controls and oversight on spending:

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) and his staff have worked closely with corporations and their lobbyists to help write federal procurement legislation.

Davis said the effort is intended to streamline contracting and make it more efficient. But some procurement experts and federal investigators said the legislation, called the Services Acquisition Reform Act, contains provisions that would loosen federal oversight on contracts and allow practices that are susceptible to abuse and fraud. …

[Angela B. Styles, the former chief of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget] described 13 of the legislation's 29 provisions as "problematic" and said they would result in "policy changes that the administration cannot support." Among them: a plan to allow more contractors to bill the government for their "time and materials" with no fixed cap on the total amount.

While some of the provisions have been adopted, Davis continues to work on winning approval for the others.

Why would Rep. Davis continue to pursue pork-friendly policy with such tenacity? Apparently, it pays to do so. Looking at the campaign-finance disclosure site Open Secrets, it becomes apparent who supports the Virginia Congressman:

• Rep. Davis gets the second-highest amount of contributions from public-sector unions – and he is the only Republican in the Top 20.
• Contractors and real-estate companies donate a lot of money to Rep. Davis. They total over $130,000 in campaign contributions.
• Metro contractors like Rep. Davis, too. Bechtel gave $5,000 in this election cycle, for example.
• The House Subcommittee on Standards of Official Conduct warned Davis about the appearance of impropriety when his wife’s employment with a government contractor came to light. Davis later claimed that the Ethics Committee had “thoroughly vetted” his wife’s relationship with ICG Government.

The Metro bailout offered by Rep. Davis involved real estate deals, and public-sector unions service the Metro employees. Any expansion and improvements would create opportunities for contractors to get federal contracts.

Rep. Davis may well support this measure out of pure conviction, but the evidence shows that he hasn’t too much incentive to side on fiscal responsibility and limited government. At the very least, this shows why the principle of federalism and the efforts to reduce the amount of money given to politicians are so important in reducing the temptations to enrich one’s friends and supporters.

Does The Press Owe Us An Apology For Jon Benet?

Jack Shafer argues that the press has no need to apologize for the sensational coverage of the Jon Benet Ramsey murder, which appears closer to resolution after ten years. Shafer, one of the best media critics in the business, says that the scrutiny the media gave the case was warranted by the circumstances:

If you're down on your knees for me, gentlemen, please stand up. We have nothing to apologize for. The riotous coverage of the endless murder investigation won't be recorded as journalism's finest hour, but the story deserved the punishing scrutiny the press gave it.

In the case of the JonBenet murder, Boulder, Colo., police and prosecutors botched the investigation from the get-go. Their incompetence gave the story additional legs.

And as the obituary page proves each morning, the murders of the wealthy and privileged—and their offspring—automatically receive more play than the tragic deaths of the poor and working class. Newspapers everywhere lavish attention on the murders of young innocents, no matter what demographic or racial persuasion they hail from.

Did the press treat the Ramsey family unfairly by airing official suspicions, which is at the heart of the apologies cited above? According to the JonBenet case timeline in the Denver Post, the Ramseys gave that suspicion greater play by announcing through a spokesman, two months after the murder, that they knew they were "at the top of the list of possible suspects." Were journalists supposed to ignore this news? Likewise, when the district attorney said the Ramseys were under an "umbrella of suspicion" three-plus months after the murder, were reporters supposed to suppress his statement? The "umbrella of suspicion" was still wide open as recently as May 2000, according to CNN.

Well, maybe. Shafer correctly says that the leaks and public statements implying or outright stating that the Ramseys themselves were the prime suspects did not originate with the media. From that poisoned fruit came the entire poisoned coverage, Shafer says, as law-enforcement amateurism begat journalistic amateurism.

That might make for a compelling rhetorical argument, but most parents recognize the he made me do it! defense, and usually reject it out of hand. I don't blame the media for reporting on the tips from inside sources and the statements of the authorities. I blame them for not exercising some restraint and skepticism in doing so, a situation that allowed the media to get exploited as a tool of intimidation by these authorities against a family that had realized the hostile stance they had taken towards Jon Benet's survivors.

News agencies used to exercise judgment and restraint, and they used to focus on facts. The competitive pressures of the 24-hour cycle and the need to fill all of that time with compelling entertainment has demeaned journalism and promoted the tabloid mentality. Cable news shows gave us endless (and mostly baseless) speculation about this case, all of which cemented the image of the Ramsey family as sick, twisted murderers without a shred of supporting evidence. Shafer wants to distinguish between the Geraldo-Greta type of shows and straightforward paper and television reporting, but in this case it was indistinguishable, and that was a deliberate decision on the part of media outlets.

One would expect that the revelation that the Ramseys were blameless in the murder of their daughter would inspire some apologies, and not just to the Ramseys but also to the public. They exploited a little girl's murder for years, and allowed themselves to be manipulated in the effort of Colorado authorities to intimidate the Ramseys into submission. That seems worthy of an expression of regret.

The French Surrender ... Again

After insisting on a cease-fire in Lebanon and demanding international action to separate the combatants, the French have performed one of their traditional about-faces and refused to substantially contribute to the effort. Efforts to create a strong international force to support the Lebanese Army centered on commitments by the French of up to 5,000 troops. Now the Chirac government says they could scrape up maybe 200, if they're not too busy on their August vacations:

France on Thursday rebuffed pleas by U.N. officials to make a major contribution to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, setting back efforts to deploy an international military force to help police a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, according to U.N. and French officials.

French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France would contribute only 200 additional troops to the U.N. operation in southern Lebanon, which the Security Council wants to expand from 2,000 troops to 15,000. Chirac said that a force of about 1,700 French troops and crew members on warships off the coast would provide logistical support. ...

[T]here were no firm commitments to contribute personnel for a crucial, well-equipped spearhead force of 3,500 troops that the United Nations is trying to get into southern Lebanon within the next 10 days, according to India's U.N. ambassador, Nirupam Sen. The United Nations had hoped that the mission would be made up largely of forces from advanced military powers, including France, Italy, Spain and Turkey, whose troops and firepower could deter challenges.

It's difficult to blame the French for this. Since World War I, the French have shown a great capacity to demand action and little stomach for providing it. In this manner, they mirror almost perfectly the UN itself. After imposing a cease-fire in Lebanon -- mostly on Israel, the only sovereign nation fighting the war -- the UN casually mentioned that its commitment to provide troops would get fulfilled in a few months, and perhaps a year. When Israel and the US objected strenuously, Annan finally decided to start asking nations for immediate commitments. So far, Annan has come up empty.

If nothing else showed the uselessness of the United Nations, this latest folly should convince everyone of it. The UN fancies itself as the modern mechanism of peace. However, in its sixty years of being, the only accomplishment it has achieved has been the prolongation of every conflict it enters. The UN provides no solutions; they fix all disputes in amber and hope that the boredom kills them. That strategy has proven singularly unsuccessful, and nothing demonstrates that better than the UNIFIL force that the UN wants to bolster. Most people did not know that the UN had a peacekeeping force on the Israel-Lebanon border for almost thirty years -- and the reason why is because they have proven themselves nonentities in the effort to stop war.

At some point, the combatants in the region will have to have the war they so obviously desire, and all the UN resolutions in the world will not stop it. Until governments stop using terrorists as proxies to conduct their wars, conflict will continue, and the UN has done nothing to solve that underlying cause of the troubles in the region. The French just provide the latest and the crassest example of the joke at Turtle Bay. (via The Moderate Voice, which notes that the French have now doubled their commitment to a whopping 400 troops.)

NSA Decision: Lots Of Emotion, Little Reasoning

The ruling yesterday to forbid the President to continue his warrantless surveillance of international communications involving one party within the US seems likely to find resistance in the appellate court, not so much for its conclusion but for its emotional and mostly weightless reasoning. The Washington Post notes that legal scholars found themselves underwhelmed by the legal justifications of Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, and after reading the decision myself a couple of times, I'm glad to see that my reaction matched theirs:

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ordered a halt to the wiretap program, secretly authorized by President Bush in 2001, but both sides in the lawsuit agreed to delay that action until a Sept. 7 hearing. Legal scholars said Taylor's decision is likely to receive heavy scrutiny from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit when the Justice Department appeals, and some criticized her ruling as poorly reasoned. ...

Several dozen lawsuits have been filed around the country challenging the program's legality, but yesterday's ruling marked the first time that a judge had ruled it unconstitutional. Experts in national security law argued, however, that Taylor offered meager support for her findings on separation of powers and other key issues.

"Regardless of what your position is on the merits of the issue, there's no question that it's a poorly reasoned decision," said Bobby Chesney, a national security law specialist at Wake Forest University who takes a moderate stance on the legal debate over the NSA program. "The opinion kind of reads like an outline of possible grounds to strike down the program, without analysis to fill it in."

Judicial opinions usually state the competing arguments in a lawsuit, which read like press releases combined with legal references, and then provide a solid line of reasoning towards the eventual decision. Taylor's opinion seems to just continue the assertions into the analysis, which is filled with scolding rhetoric but not much else. She comes across as so anxious to be the first to strike down the program that she marches right past the standing of the plaintiffs, which seems questionable, to agreement with every point raised by their attorneys.

Taylor not only declares that the President has violated the Fourth Amendment but also the First Amendment by not allowing people the right to unfettered international communications. In this, she accepted the fact that the plaintiffs suffered real damage because they are journalists who have to make overseas phone calls for their job. However, the program in question only applied to telephone numbers and/or persons identified by intelligence agents as potential terrorists. Unless Taylor heard evidence that these men knowingly communicated with terrorists, it seems a stretch to accept their standing to sue over the program. (Congress would have had standing in any case, but Congress did not sue after polls showed that Americans overwhelmingly supported the program.)

No one doubts that the legal question would center on the Fourth Amendment, as well as Article II and the AUMF from September 2001. However, the inclusion of the First Amendment, as well as the condescending tone Taylor takes while invoking it, can't be supported in the context of the program as presented to the court. No one has the right to unfettered communications with suspected terrorists; otherwise, terrorists could never be surveilled. Journalists do not have the right to unfettered conversations with mafia bosses, either. A warrantless surveillance in these situations may run afoul of the Fourth Amendment, but the First Amendment doesn't come into play.

The Sixth District Appellate Court slapped a stay on this decision almost immediately, and one suspects that the justices will take a long and skeptical look at Taylor's scattershot opinion. Whether or not one agrees with the end result, the decision itself is insupportable because Taylor never bothered to provide the support necessary.

How does this play out politically? Had it happened before the plot uncovered by the British last week, I would think it would have damaged the Bush administration. It still might, in the short term. It's likely to sway moderates to the thought that the program did violate the law, while it's unlikely to convince die-hards of anything but what they already believed. The exposure of another international and complex plot against airlines might mitigate that and remind moderates and undecideds that we still face an enemy determined to kill as many of us as possible. And if Taylor gets overturned by the 6th, that will only underscore the validity of the program.

I think one can make compelling arguments against the NSA warrantless surveillance program. However, I believe that surveilling enemy communications falls within the executive powers during wartime and does not require FISA approval, a construct that (I believe) violated Article II from its inception. Taylor's opinion is only the first round anyway; this will go to the Supreme Court before it gets settled for good, and that will likely take place after the present administration leaves office.

For other views, see Power Line, Volokh Conspiracy, Patterico, and Glenn Greenwald for dissent.

UPDATE: The Washington Post editorial board takes its turn scolding Taylor for her weightless screed:

Judge Taylor's opinion is certainly long on throat-clearing sound bites. "There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution," she thunders. She declares that "the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution." And she insists that Mr. Bush has "undisputedly" violated the First and Fourth Amendments, the constitutional separation of powers, and federal surveillance law.

But the administration does, in fact, vigorously dispute these conclusions. Nor is its dispute frivolous. The NSA's program, about which many facts are still undisclosed, exists at the nexus of inherent presidential powers, laws purporting to constrict those powers, the constitutional right of the people to be free from unreasonable surveillance, and a broad congressional authorization to use force against al-Qaeda. That authorization, the administration argues,