Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • Sheehan: A Reason to Not Believe in Ghosts

    Any remaining specter of brave Casey Sheehan would have put a stop to Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan’s crap long before it came to this.

    Confederate Yankee is right about normal mothers and Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan’s need for help.

    Disgusting, but not all too surprising. After all, just weeks ago I blogged the following:

    The woman is addicted to attention, as demonstrated by her jealousy of hurricane coverage, and will not wait until Easter. I only fear how low Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan will stoop to be in front of cameras in the meantime.

  • Ecoterror Suspect may be Charged in 2001 UW Arson

    I only highlight this story because, as the far-far-far left becomes more militant, I expect such tales to become more common and groups like ELF and ALF to become more dangerous and eventually murderous.

    A woman being held in Oregon and accused of toppling an electricity transmission tower and torching a meatpacking plant there is a prime suspect in the 2001 firebombing of the University of Washington’s Urban Horticulture Center in Seattle.

    Chelsea Gerlach, who is also known as “Country Girl,” is one of six people the FBI arrested last week in a series of Northwest ecoterrorism attacks. She is likely to be indicted in the UW arson, according to federal criminal justice sources.

    At a hearing in Eugene on Tuesday to determine whether Gerlach will be held or released on bond, assistant U.S. attorney Kirk Engdahl said that she is a prime suspect in the May 21, 2001, UW fire. He also called her a suspect in four other high-profile ecoterrorism cases: the Oct. 11, 1998, attempted arson at Bureau of Land Management wild-horse corrals in Rock Springs, Wyo.; the Oct. 19, 1998, firebombing of a ski resort at Vail, Colo., which caused $12 million in damage; the Dec. 25, 1999, arson of a Boise Cascade office in Monmouth, Ore.; and the May 21, 2001, firebombing of the Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie, Ore. Two others have been arrested in the last case.

    Judge Thomas Coffin ordered Gerlach held without bail, pending the outcome of today’s grand jury session in Oregon.

    Gerlach, 28, of Portland, and two others are accused of loosening bolts and support components on a Bonneville Power Administration electric tower 25 miles east of Bend on the night of Dec. 30, 1999. The tower toppled.

    She is also being charged with the May 9, 1999, firebombing of the Childers Meat Co. in Eugene. Engdahl said he would present evidence to a grand jury today seeking indictments against Gerlach in the meatpacking fire and the 2001 firebombing at the tree farm in Clatskanie.

    She was one of six people arrested in five states last week on indictments alleging they took part in a string of arson attacks and other crimes from 1998 to 2001 in Oregon and Washington, for which the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front took responsibility.

    How environmentally sound was the UW arson? Well, good if you hate the manipulation of plant DNA. Bad if you hate plant preservation.

    The apparent target at the UW center was research into the fast-growing hybrid poplar tree — a tiny portion of which were the transgenic product of DNA manipulation and had been imported from an Oregon State University lab.

    But the ELF attackers — who style themselves as defenders of the environment against unchecked encroachment by people — also destroyed numerous rare and endangered Northwest plants growing at the center that were intended to be replanted in the wild.

    I will not judge Gerlach at this time, but I will predict a bloody future for ELF and ALF. You know, as if radical Islamist bastards trying to establish global dominion weren’t enough to deal with, there’s always our own domestic idiots.

    I really need a new category for this kind of garbage. Any suggestions, y’all?

  • Carnival of Liberty XXIV

    This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community’s Carnival of Liberty is up over at Searchlight Crusade. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.

  • Sometimes

    … ya just have to sit back and admire the brilliance of making the best out of an otherwise silly, overrated old tune.

    Granted, a certain sort of humor is required.

  • Iraq Expatriates Start Parliamentary Voting

    Sorry, y’all, but I’ve been working on my Christmas shopping, so here’s a link dump about this week’s Iraqi parliamentary elections, the nation’s third trip to the polls since the end of the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.

    First, let the balloting begin, at least the absentee balloting.

    Iraqis Go to the Polls in 15 Countries

    Iraqi expatriates voting Tuesday for a parliament in their homeland said they want stability and an end to the violence in Iraq. But the voters in 15 countries around the world were as divided on how to get there as as their communities are back home.

    Strong voter turnout was seen in polling stations around the world, including in Syria, Jordan and Iran, where Associated Press reporters witnessed heavier turnout compared to Iraq’s landmark January elections. Official turnout figures were not immediately available.

    Even for Iraqis in Israel, albeit indirectly.

    Israeli-Iraqis can vote in election

    Iraqi law doesn’t bar Iraqi dual-nationals, even those holding Israeli or Iranian passports, from voting in out-of-country polling stations for Iraq’s upcoming parliamentary elections, a top Iraqi election official said Sunday.

    Hamida al-Hussaini, director of out-of-country voting in the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, told reporters that Iraq’s election law says “anyone who carries an Iraqi citizenship has the right to cast ballot in the upcoming parliamentary elections.”

    “The law doesn’t state what could be done in the case of dual nationals,” she said, answering a question on whether Israelis or Iranians of Iraqi origin can vote. She avoided specifically naming Israel and Iran.

    “How would we know about a person’s other nationality? We will only be checking documents verifying Iraqi nationality,” al-Hussaini said.

    Participation by Iraqi-Israelis – numbering an estimated 290,000 – is expected to be limited as there will be no polling stations in Israel and they must vote in another country, said Mordechai Ben-Porat, who led the Jewish underground in Iraq and helped organize the 1950s exodus of Iraq’s Jews.

    “If there had been a polling station in Israel, I would definitely go,” Ben-Porat said, adding Jordan will be the closest polling station.

    Meanwhile, sucurity is an obvious concern for Thursday’s in-country voting.

    Curfew imposed to stop insurgent attacks in Iraq

    US-led coalition soldiers and the Iraqi security forces last night imposed a nation-wide curfew to try to stop insurgents disrupting tomorrow’s general election. A British military spokesman in Iraq said the “lockdown” meant the borders were sealed from last night to Saturday, and no private or commercial vehicles would be allowed on the roads except those of the security forces and election officers.

    A curfew will be in place from 10pm each night. Action against anyone found in the streets defying the curfew will be determined on whether he or she is considered a threat, he said.

    […]

    The British military spokesman denied the lockdown was draconian. “Why run the risk of spectaculars against polling stations?” he said. By “spectacular”, he said he meant vehicles loaded with explosives and driven by suicide bombers.

    Iraqi police will be positioned at polling stations. About 150,000 members of the 216,000-strong Iraqi army will cordon off the area around the stations to divert suicide bombers. The 150,000-strong US-led coalition will be mainly out of sight but ready to intervene. Local police and election officers will be able to make exemptions to the traffic ban to avoid the disenfranchisement of people living far away.

    The Islamist terrorists and home-grown insurgents seem rather split on the pending election. The predominantly-Sunni insurgency seems to have at least shown a willingness to temporarily embrace the process.

    Iraqi insurgents urge Sunnis to vote, warn Zarqawi

    Saddam Hussein loyalists who violently opposed January elections have made an about-face as Thursday’s polls near, urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al Qaeda militants not to attack.

    In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

    Graffiti calling for holy war is now hard to find.

    Instead, election campaign posters dominate buildings in the rebel strongholds of Ramadi and nearby Falluja, where Sunnis staged a boycott or were too scared to vote last time around.

    “We want to see a nationalist government that will have a balance of interests. So our Sunni brothers will be safe when they vote,” said Falluja resident Ali Mahmoud, a former army officer and rocket specialist under Saddam’s Baath party.

    “Sunnis should vote to make political gains. We have sent leaflets telling al Qaeda that they will face us if they attack voters.”

    The shift is encouraging for Washington, which hopes to draw Sunni Arabs into peaceful politics in order to defuse the insurgency.

    The Baathist warning to al Qaeda raises the possibility of a wider rift between secular Saddam loyalists and fundamentalist militants, who have been cooperating in their efforts to drive out U.S. forces.

    But it is far too early to suggest any breakthroughs will ease insurgent violence that has killed thousands.

    Meanwhile, those terror groups the insurgenst threaten are still singing their same old tune.

    Insurgents denounce Iraq vote as ‘satanic’

    Soldiers, patients and prisoners began voting Monday in national elections, three days before the general population, while insurgents denounced the balloting as a “satanic project” but did not threaten to attack polling stations.

    […]

    In a rare joint statement, Al Qaeda in Iraq and four other Islamic extremist groups denounced the election as a “satanic project” and said that “to engage in the so-called political process” violates “the legitimate policy approved by God.”

    However, the statement contained no clear threat to disrupt voting as in the run-up to the Jan. 30 election and the Oct. 15 referendum on the constitution.

    It is interesting to note the lack of “streets will run with blood” threats that proved so hollow and displayed the actual large-scale impotence of the terrorists in the previous two elections.

  • Supreme Court to Hear Texas Redistricting Cases

    The stormy tale of the 2003 redrawing of Texas’ congressional districts will continue for at least a few more months as the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hearings on the matter.

    In a move that could redefine the limits of partisan politics, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear four Texas cases challenging a controversial remapping of the state’s congressional districts two years ago by the Republican dominated Legislature.

    The court also agreed to expedite the four cases – filed by minorities, Democratic officeholders and others who claim to have been disenfranchised by the GOP plan.

    The court gave no reason for accepting the appeals, which involve a wide range of highly charged claims: from “excessive partisan gerrymandering” and “mid-decade” redistricting to the dilution of minority votes. Just last year, the court ruled in a split vote that a Pennsylvania redistricting plan – though highly partisan – could not be resolved by the courts on a complaint that the process was simply too political.

    Since then, the court is the midst of a transition in which two of its nine justices will be replaced.

    At the very least, the announcement Monday promises to re-energize a bitter three-year struggle between Texas Democrats and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who is widely credited with engineering the redistricting strategy.

    “We felt all along that there was a serious voting rights violation in the way these districts were drawn, particularly involving the black voters in Fort Worth,” said former congressman Martin Frost, whose district was largely redrawn. “I hope they’ll throw the districts out.”

    A special two-hour hearing is scheduled for March 1. Redistricting arguments will be heard in addition to three other unrelated cases slated that day. Texas is scheduled to hold its primary on March 7.

    The current map’s boundaries resulted in a gain of six House seats for Republicans and a string of lawsuits by Democrats, who charged that the map was designed solely for that purpose. The Republicans countered that the plan added a black to the 32-member delegation.

    Well, of course the map was redrawn to help the Republicans, just as the previous district lines were essentially a court-sanctioned holdover from previous lines drawn by Democrats to help Democrats. As can be seen in this Houston Chronicle graphic, for every strangely-drawn district in the Republican plan, a similar strangely-drawn district can be found in the earlier incarnation.

    DeLay has blamed recent political and legal problems – including his indictment in Austin for money laundering – on Democrats angry about the redistricting. His office was philosophical Monday, saying the plan has so far passed every legal hurdle.

    “The Supreme Court’s consideration represents the last step in the redistricting process,” said his spokesman, Kevin Madden. He said the map, which aimed to clear past gerrymandering by Democrats, gained preliminary Justice Department approval and the backing of a three-judge federal panel.

    Yes, this indeed could be the end of the Texas redricting tale for the remainder of the decade, unless the Supremes toss out the plan. Although I hope that will not be the case, it sure would make for some interesting politics.

    There is certainly much to be made of Madden’s comment about clearing earlier gerrymandering. When I first moved to Texas in 1980, the state had just gone into Ronald Reagan’s electoral column two days earlier and was in the second year of having a Republican governor for the first time since the end of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Still, Texas was considered a one-party state as Democrats dominated every other level of the state’s politics. That shifted drastically over the 1980s and 1990s though, as the conservative nature of the state remained but the national nature of the Democrats drifted left. By 2000, the Republicans held every statewide office, including the governor and both U.S. senators. The last remaining Democrat strongholds were the Texas House of Representatives, responsible by law for drawing the districts for the state’s congressional delegation, and the Texas congressional delegation.

    In 2001, the state representatives essentially failed in their constitutional mandate to redraw congressional districts from 2000 census data, leaving it to the courts to only slightly modify the lines that had protected the Democrat congressional delegation. When the state house fell to the GOP in 2002, the state reps, in violation of no law, decided to take up their redistricting responsibility and apparently were successful in generating a map that more accurately reflected state party trends. Certainly, the process was successful in angering the state house Democrats, who fought the process tooth and nail (and even foot by cowardly shirking their duty and fleeing the state in mass in hopes of stopping the process). Hence, mucho bitter on the Dems part and today’s judicial struggles.

    Others blogging on the matter include James Joyner at OTB, who sees no constitutional problems with the redisticting and has a link to a nice summation of the issues under judicial consideration, and PoliBlog‘s Dr. Steven Taylor, who questions whether redistricting should be taken out of the hands of state legislatures.

  • Syria “Likely Involved” in Hariri Offing

    The U.N. report investigating the assassination of Lebanon’s anti-Syrian former prime minister Rafik Hariri paints the picture of systematic obstruction and likely involvement by top Syrian officials.

    [… ] details from a report submitted by UN investigator Detlev Mehlis reached the press, indicating that the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were likely involved in the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

    The 25-page report from the German prosecutor and his team again accused Syria of trying to obstruct his probe when it demanded that they revise their findings after a crucial witness recanted his testimony.

    “This was, at the least, an attempt to hinder the investigation internally and procedurally,” commented Mehlis.

    Syria denies involvement in the Hariri blast and has also waged a campaign to discredit the commission, citing a Syrian witness, Husam Taher Husam, who recanted his testimony to the commission and said he had been bribed to frame Syria.

    Mehlis said that recantation hadn’t affected his findings. In fact, he said, “the investigation has continued to develop multiple lines of inquiry which, if anything, reinforce this conclusion.”

    According to Channel 2, the report urges Syria to detain its senior officers, suspected of involvement in the assassination. Among those Mehlis wants to interrogate, according to the report, is Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara. The report names 19 Syrian and Lebanese officials who are suspected of involvement in the hit.

    In addition, the report accuses Syria of burning intelligence documents pertaining to the assassination and methodically intimidating witnesses. Mehlis also claims that there are new witnesses who had followed Hariri prior to his assassination.

    The latest claim of obstruction would be important because after Mehlis delivered his earlier report, the council had warned Syria that it would face further action – possibly including sanctions – if it didn’t cooperate fully.

    […]

    Lebanon has asked the Security Council to extend Mehlis’ commission for six months after its mandate expires on Thursday. The Security Council, whose approval would be required, is likely to agree to extend it until June 15

    There’s further reason to not disband the commision, as another anti-Syrian Lebanese official met his fiery end today.

    A car bomb killed Lebanese newspaper magnate and anti-Syrian legislator Gebran Tueni in Beirut on Monday, triggering an official call for a U.N. inquiry that split the government along sectarian lines.

    Five Shi’ite Muslim ministers close to Syria and an ally of the pro-Syrian president suspended participation in the cabinet after it voted to seek a U.N. investigation into a series of assassinations that have rocked Lebanon over the past 14 months.

    Tueni, publisher of the An-Nahar daily, was killed in a blast that destroyed his armoured car in mainly Christian east Beirut, the morning after he returned from Paris where he lived for several months because of assassination fears.

    Several politicians blamed Syria, but Damascus denied any role and said the killing was an attempt to smear it hours before the release of a U.N. report into the February 14 killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

    Syrian denials — yeah, those mean a damn thing.

  • Quote of the Week, 11 DEC 05

    Strategy is finding a sonofabitch whom you rank and telling him to take a place, and relieving him if he doesn’t.

    —General George Patton

  • Iran’s Leader Criticized at Home, Abroad

    The recent statements by the hard-line Iranian president that Israel should be moved to Europe and that the Holocaust is a myth have continued to cause an international tempest that even angered the Saudis and some Iranians.

    Saudis fumed Friday that Iran’s hard-line president marred a summit dedicated to showing Islam’s moderate face by calling for Israel to be moved to Europe, and the chief U.N. nuclear inspector said he was losing patience with the Tehran regime.

    Even some of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s conservative allies in Iran were growing disillusioned, fearing he has hurt the country with his wild rhetoric.

    “The president has to choose his words carefully. He can convey his message to the world in better language tone,” Hamid Reza Taraqi, a leader of a hard-line party, the Islamic Coalition Society, told the Associated Press.

    The U.S., Israel, Europe and Russia condemned Ahmadinejad over his remarks, made Thursday on the sidelines of the Mecca, Saudi Arabia, summit of more than 50 Islamic nations.

    Hours before the participants issued the summit’s centerpiece — the Mecca Declaration, promising to stamp out extremist thought — Ahmadinejad spoke at a news conference, casting doubt on whether the Holocaust took place and suggesting Europe give land for a Jewish state if it felt guilty.

    Privately, Saudi officials were furious Friday. Three senior Saudi officials complained that the comments contradicted and diverted attention from the message of tolerance the summit was trying to project.

    One Saudi official compared Ahmadinejad to Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, whose renegade statements frequently infuriated Arab leaders.

    The Saudi reaction is somewhat surprising, and there’s even more about their anger in this article, which takes pains to point out that the anti-Israeli comment were not carried in the Saudi written press. The best quote of the article is the following:

    “The Iranian president seems to have lost his direction,” said Gilan al-Ghamidi, a prominent commentator in Saudi media. “Iran should be logical if it wants to receive the support of the world. The president didn’t score any points. He lost points.”

    Lost points? Well, let’s run a little tally. Who, besides the Saudis, has come out against Ahmadinejad’s comments?

    Is anybody getting Ahmadinejad’s back on this matter? Well, of course there is, as the world is more chockful of crazies than Microsoft products are of bugs (theoretically, as it would be difficult to actually run the figures). Chief among the nutcases supporting Ahmadinejad’s statements is his nation’s supreme religious leader and de facto boss.

    Iran’s supreme leader has backed the country’s President, who said the state of Israel should be moved to Europe.

    In a TV interview last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt on whether the Holocaust happened, and then suggested that Israel should be moved to Europe.

    […]

    Iranian state radio is quoting the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, as describing the international criticism as weakness and fear, dismissing it as nothing more than the sensitivity of the Zionists and the American supporters.

    Ahmadinejad may or may not actually believe his own words, but it is quite certain that he knows where his Iranian bread is buttered.

  • UN Wants to Question More Syrians in Hariri Probe

    The investigation into a murder that spurred a series of surpising changes in Lebanon continued, as the U.N. sought to question even more Syrians.

    A U.N. inquiry into the murder of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri will summon more Syrian witnesses in the next few days, its chief investigator Detlev Mehlis was quoted on Saturday as saying.

    In an interview published in Lebanon’s al-Mustaqbal newspaper, which was owned by the murdered ex-premier, Mehlis said he would ask Syria in the next few days if U.N. investigators could question new Syrian witnesses in Vienna, but did not identify them.

    International investigators questioned five Syrian officials in the Austrian capital this week in connection with the Feb. 14 truck bomb that killed Hariri and 22 other people in Beirut.

    Neither Syria nor the United Nations has identified the five but diplomatic sources say they included senior Syrian security officials, including Lieutenant-General Rustom Ghazali, Syria’s former intelligence chief in Lebanon, and his aide Jamae Jamae.

    […]

    In an interim report in October, Mehlis implicated senior Syrian security officials and their Lebanese allies in the murder and requested more cooperation from Damascus.

    Syria has strongly denied any role in the murder but the report prompted a unanimous Security Council resolution threatening Damascus with unspecified action if it failed to cooperate with the investigation.

    That is the U.N. Security Council in a nutshell — it can unanimously agree to threaten, but it is rare that it can agree to act. Indeed, Russia has already hinted that it will veto any sanctions against Syria, despite the years of Lebanese blood on Syrian hands.