California's worst series of fires ever

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Southern California has been on fire now since Sunday. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who has family affected by this fire. I had my sister evacuated from Encinitas as well as my cousins in Santa Clarita, not to mention a dozen other friends in the San Diego area. And living in Riverside county, just north of the San Diego county line, I've been watching their fires very closely, but as of now, they haven't come within 10 miles of me. Of course it would be nice if the television news casts actually relayed actual news. One problem we face here in south Riverside county is that we're lumped into what's generally considered part of the greater LA area, so we get LA news channels. The problem with that is the fires approaching our area are from San Diego county. So watching the LA news more useless than normal since they aren't covering the SD fires. And even if they were all we would get still follows the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality. Just more proof that the MSM is totally useless. Before going to bed last night I watched 90 minutes of news and got absolutely no useful information, and certainly nothing pertaining to the fires nearest to my area. You get the stories of the people in the evac centers, will this be better than Katrina type stories. Something tells me there will be plenty of time later to sort that kind of thing out. Let's stick to reporting the news for now. I think it was 20/20 last night that asked Michael Chertoff three questions all of which were about how the affects of Katrina are still being felt. You're interviewing the head of Homeland Security and all you can ask is about the effects of a hurricane 2 years ago? Please... Then there are the clips that follow people back to their homes and watch them sift through the rubble and say this was the garage, this was the livingroom... I don't want to seem heartless, because their loss is staggering and tragic, but it does nothing to inform the population as to what the latest fire info is. Then there are the secondary effects of fire type stories. If you watch you get to learn the breathing smoky air is probably bad for you. I needed you to interview a doctor to tell me that? And what about displaced animals? One report cut to a stable at the LA community college used to house horses from burn areas, and all the reporter there could say was that the stable was full. And the pet interviews were fun, but again, totally useless. You also get the great helicopter shots of massive flames in some random canyon, with the pilot saying yeah Bob, I'm over Dumb River Canyon and wow it's going up in flames. Now, I've lived in SoCal my entire life in LA, San Diego, and now Riverside counties and I'd like to think I know SoCal pretty well. But I've got no idea where this random canyon is or that tiny creek is or what that hill over there is called. It could be 2 miles away and I wouldn't have a clue because most people don't refer to anything around here by topographic features. Try giving real world references like major streets, freeways, and landmarks. And when the reporters do start talking streets they find the smallest dead end street possible to reference. Start small and then give a larger picture of where that is please. Then you have the anchors talking about total area burned, total number of houses destroyed, total number of people displaced simply to shock the audience. I like the statistics and hard data info, but knowing the total area burned by each fire, the number of homes destroyed by that fire, etc. doesn't help. Again maps of what the current burn area is would be nice. What area is the fire burning toward, what areas are threatened. And again show major streets and freeways please; I don't know where Rattlesnake creek is. But my favorite story from yesterday's TV news was the reporter in the Lake Arrowhead area who had just finished filming a clip in front of a house that had a couple embers starting to burn in the backyard. He said this house is about to go up in flames and that fire units were nowhere to be found. Then 2 minutes later, two firemen show up but don't have a truck, hoses, or any water. So the reporter gets to be a "hero" when he goes to the house next door and grabs a garden hose so the firefighter can put out a two foot square patch of fire. I'm sure he'll get a Pulitzer or something for that stunning report. So who's been the best source of info for me? Local city and county websites and all the phone numbers for fire agencies with the up to date info, and webcasts from the local access channels. Several of the San Diego newspapers have fire info blogs, bulletin boards, and chat rooms up where the public can get info from each other directly.

Petraeus to Congress: the surge is working

... exactly what the Democrats feared... WaPo - Army Gen. David H. Petraeus told Congress yesterday that the deployment of 30,000 more troops to Iraq has made enough progress that the additional combat forces can be pulled out by next summer, but he cautioned against "rushing to failure" with a larger and speedier withdrawal. In what some called the most anticipated congressional testimony by a general since the Vietnam War, Petraeus presented an upbeat picture of improving security conditions in Iraq and offered a grim forecast of the "devastating consequences" of a more rapid pullout. Petraeus said his forces "have dealt significant blows" to al-Qaeda in Iraq but warned that Iran is now fighting a "proxy war" against Iraqi and U.S. forces there. The partial troop pullout Petraeus outlined in a joint appearance with Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker represents a modest acceleration of what military planners were privately forecasting but is the first drawdown the two men have publicly supported since becoming the top U.S. military and civilian officials in Baghdad. President Bush, in a televised national address later this week, is likely to adopt the recommendation for this rollback of his troop "surge," while war critics immediately condemned it as too little, too late. Of course the Dems didn't let a little good news prevent them from trying to discredit the General at every chance. They didn't debate his ideas or try to debunk his facts; they went after him. There is of course the Public Relations arm of the Democratic Party, MoveOn.org's full page ad in the NYTimes, "General Petraeus or General 'Betray Us'?". And don't think that it is simply a coincidence that this ran in the NYTimes either. Why would the NYTimes give MoveOn.org a 60% discount on the full page ad? A full page, nationwide ad space in the NYT normally goes for between $182K-$167K. MoveOn.org only paid $65K. Why the discount NYT? Is Soros running low on cash? Are the Dem's really that hard up for money now that Hillary gave back (some of) that money from her criminal supporter, Norman Hsu? You'd think that perhaps the Dems might try to get what they believe to be the real facts out of Petraeus. This is their chance! The man with the answers sitting right there in front of them! Clinton, Reid, Boxer, et al "know" that the war is a failure and this would be their chance to prove it! But instead of asking questions, they wasted their 8 minute window of opportunity to preach, bluster, and opine from their little soap boxes. That's what California's distinguished Senator Boxer did. So did Sen. Obama. Boxer's question speech was so long the General will have to reply via letter to it, which is exactly what they wanted. They get to talk uninterrupted and no one gets the chance to argue. Heaven forbid they actually have to deal with facts. But perhaps this apparent ineptitude in the face of the facts on the ground in Iraq could be why Rep. Pelosi accused this reporter of being biased when he asked how we could view her stewardship of Congress as anything other than a failure. She insinuated that surely he was a Fox News plant. But no, he's from CBS. His question has from so far to the left that it just must have seemed like the vast right wing conspiracy. Pelosi should know better though... The left relies on hatchet job reporting. The right simply tries to stay with the facts.

We will not forget...

September 11th, 2001.

Current market woes claim another victim...

The mortgage industry is getting hammered, and I'm another casualty. In a company paying commission only to the sales force and loan processing staff, I was the only salaried employee in the company other than the owners. After closing branch offices in an effort to cut overhead, there isn't much else left to cut other than staff... But it looks like I won't be the only one looking for work... Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest U.S. mortgage company, plans to cut its workforce by 10,000 to 12,000 in the largest round of firings since the industry's contraction began last year. New U.S. home loans probably will drop 25 percent in 2008 from this year's levels, forcing the company to eliminate as much as 20 percent of its staff, Calabasas, California-based Countrywide said in a statement yesterday. More than 15,000 jobs have been lost this week amid the worst U.S. housing slump in 16 years. IndyMac Bancorp, the second-biggest mortgage company, National City Corp. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. cut staff. At least 100 mortgage companies have sought buyers or halted lending since the start of 2006, and foreclosures in the second quarter rose to a record, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington. Time to look for something new. How well does blogging pay?

Better late than never...

Fred Thompson confirmed all the rumors about his presidential candidacy last night on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. From his 15 or so minutes he actually made some decent points... his support of the war and being respected by the "international community" instead of being liked. Based on his appearance last night (and I really don't know much else about him or his views) he seems to have a solid grasp of things and certainly comes across in a straightforward, easy to understand manner. If his campaign team doesn't fall apart on him, he certainly can't be counted out...

Schumer says the surge isn't working

Huh? Can anyone follow this man's warped logic? Looks like the Dems are trying to discredit Petraeus' upcoming report before he even gives it. Perhaps becuase Schumer, like his colleague in the House Rep. Jim Clyburn, realizes that a positive report from Petraeus would be "a real big problem for us."

Sen. Craig's resignation not worth the paper it's written on

What the hell is this guy thinking? Does he really want to withdraw his previous plea and have this go to trial? This bathroom sex scandal will be just the tip of the iceberg... WASHINGTON - To the dismay of fellow Republicans, Sen. Larry Craig launched a determined drive to save his seat on Wednesday, vowing to stay in office if allowed to withdraw his guilty plea in a men's room sex sting. Craig's campaign suffered an instant setback, however, when the ethics committee refused to set aside a complaint lodged against him. "Pending Sen. Craig's resignation, the committee will continue to review this matter," the committee's senior senators wrote. Craig's decision to deploy his legal team marked a reversal of his pledge to resign on Sept. 30, and raised the possibility of a protracted legal and political struggle, much of it playing out in public, with gay sex at its core. Please just resign Seantor. You've slimed yourself and the party enough already.

Major terrorist plot broken up by Germans

The arrests were made because it appeared that attacks were imminent. The US base at Ramstein was a primary target along with Frankfurt International Airport. BERLIN - Three militants from an Islamic group linked to al-Qaida were planning "massive" bomb attacks against Americans in Germany when an elite antiterrorist unit raided their small-town hideout after months of police surveillance, officials said Wednesday. Prosecutors said the suspects — two German converts and a Turkish citizen sharing a "profound hatred of U.S. citizens" — had military-style detonators and enough material to make bombs more powerful than those that killed 191 people in Madrid in 2004 and 52 commuters in London two years ago. [...] Germany's elite GSG-9 anti-terrorist unit arrested two of the suspects Tuesday at a vacation home in Oberschledorn, a town of some 900 people in central Germany. A third suspect fled through a bathroom window, but was caught about 300 meters (yards) away, authorities said. [...] During the first part of the year, they acquired 12 containers of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide solution, which officials said can easily be combined with other material to make explosives. As a token of the intense surveillance by German police, prosecutors said that during the investigation they were able to replace the dangerous peroxide in the containers with a harmless solution without the knowledge of the suspects. The containers were first kept in a garage in the Black Forest region in southern Germany. Subsequently, one of the three rented a vacation cottage in Oberschledorn under a false name on Aug. 17. On Sept. 2, the two other suspects joined him there with the intention, officials said, of making bombs using detonators and electrical components they had obtained. Police decided to move in when the suspects moved one of the containers to the cottage, fearing an attack could be in the offing. The more than 700 kilograms (1,500 pounds) of peroxide could have made a bomb with the explosive power of some 550 kilograms (1,200 pounds) of dynamite. "This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings," Joerg Ziercke, head of the Federal Crime Office, Germany's equivalent of the FBI, said at the news conference. Terrorists love to mark important anniversaries (like 9/11) with more death and destruction, so we were probably less than a week away from a massive terrorist attack. Hopefully, German officials can use information obtained from these would-be terrorists to take down other terrorist organizers in teh al Qaeda food chain.

Just how badly is the MSM mis-reporting the news from Iraq?

On the heels of my post from yesterday, quoting from Robert McFarlane's WSJ piece relating his work getting a joint Shia-Sunni fatwa against violence in Iraq, and how the MSM has yet to report of such a historic occurrence, comes this incredible post over at Protein Wisdom. Honestly, this is the best single Iraq post since Chrenkoff stopped doing his Good News from Iraq series. It hammers the MSM for its hotel journalism, reducing the number of reporters in Iraq from 570 to, at it lowest level, 9, relying on sources like al Jazeera for their stories, and simply reporting numbers (number of bombs, numbers of crashes, number of casualties, etc.) without doing any analysis whatsoever. Take, for example, the coverage of events in Anbar province. In September-November 2006, the Washington Post ran a series of articles suggesting that the US military was unable to defeat the bloody insurgency in western Iraq “or counter al-Qaeda’s rising popularity there.” These stories were echoed in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, NBC News, ABC News, CNN, the AP and others, down to local TV. But this was not the only picture of events in Anbar. In “Will the Real Anbar Narrative Please Stand Up?”, Bill Ardolino juxtaposed the WaPo stories against analysis by bloggers and embedded reporters like the Times of London’s Martin Fletcher and Michael Fumento for the Weekly Standard. Bill Roggio’s military and intelligence sources were angry over the media’s characterization of the secret reports cited by the WaPo. Roggio examined how the claims made in the WaPo coverage were taken out of the larger context of events in Anbar. Roggio and the Mudville Gazette’s “Greyhawk” charted the formation and rise of the Anbar Salvation Council — the alliance of 25 of the province’s 31 tribes in the fight against al Qaeda. Roggio and Greyhawk followed up when the Anbar tribes got US air and artillery support — a development ignored by the establishment media. We now know which narrative was more accurate. Al Qaeda was not increasingly popular in Anbar. To the contrary, the local tribes were overwhelmingly opposing and increasingly waging war against al Qaeda, with support from the US military. Bloggers — carefully following and synthesizing information from their own sources, military information, embedded reporters, Arabic media and isolated stories in the establishment media over the course of a year — proved to be better remote journalists than those at the WaPo, NYT, CSM, AP, CNN, NBC and ABC (and any others I have overlooked). Incidentally, as early as September 2004, Roggio had predicted the tribes would eventually turn on al-Qaeda. This type of development is crucial to winning a war against an insurgency. Popular support is key to the continuation of an insurgency; Mao Zedong famously advised his insurgents to “move through the people like a fish moves through water.” Thus, the magnitude of the media’s failure to recognize the import of the rise of the Anbar Salvation Council — and its portrayal of Anbar province as lost — cannot be understated. It's very long but definitely worth the read. (h/t LGF)

Bush targets Iran's role in Iraq (and other news items of significant progress in Iraq)

Bush was speaking to the American Legion and not only reminded everyone that our troops have killed or captured 10,000 terrorists and insurgents, but that Iran is playing a major role in Iraq. In Iraq, Sunni extremists, led by al Qaeda, are staging sensational attacks on innocent men, women, and children in an attempt to stoke sectarian violence. Their operatives have assassinated those seeking to build a new future for the Iraqi people. Their targets include everyone they consider infidels -- including Christians and Jews and Yezidis and Shia, and even fellow Sunnis who do not share their radical distortion of Islam. Their ranks include foreign fighters who travel to Iraq through Syria. Their operations seek to create images of chaos and carnage to break the will of the American people. These killers don't understand our country. America does not give in to thugs and assassins -- and America will not abandon Iraq in its hour of need. (Applause.) Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people. Members of the Qods Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are supplying extremist groups with funding and weapons, including sophisticated IEDs. And with the assistance of Hezbollah, they've provided training for these violent forces inside of Iraq. Recently, coalition forces seized 240-millimeter rockets that had been manufactured in Iran this year and that had been provided to Iraqi extremist groups by Iranian agents. The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the last few months -- despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq. Some say Iran's leaders are not aware of what members of their own regime are doing. Others say Iran's leaders are actively seeking to provoke the West. Either way, they cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities. And one of the ways Bush may target Iran is by labelling Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist force. Ahmadinejad responded to that likely threat: TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran would respond if the United States were to label the Islamic state's Revolutionary Guards a "terrorist" force, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday. "They know that any action against the Iranian nation would be faced with a proper response," Ahmadinejad, himself a former Guards commander, told a news conference. But he also said he believed it was "highly unlikely that the American government will take such an illogical approach ... it would be a joke I guess." U.S. officials said this month Washington may soon name the Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist group, a move that would enable the United States to target the force's finances. I think it'd be a great joke, and I hope we give it a try. Of course the challenge with the terrorists designation is also going to be getting other nations to recognize the Revlutionary Guards as a terrorist force as well. But Bush is (finally) out there trying to drum up support for the war, trying to get the word out about our progress in Iraq. One thing that seems to be slipping through the cracks though was discussed this morning on Dennis Prager's show. Dennis interviewed Robert McFarlane, former National Security Advisor to Ronald Reagan. McFarlane has been working in Iraq and has achieved a momentous agreement; something that should be the headline on every newspaper in the country: A Fatwa Against Violence. Last week, I participated in a three day meeting here that included six of the most senior Iraqi Sunni and Shia religious leaders. At the meeting, held at a Marriott hotel in a Cairo suburb, they formally agreed to "end terrorist violence, and to disband militia activity in order to build a civilized country and work within the framework of law." This gathering was a truly historic event, given the authority of the participants -- including Sheikh Ahmed al Kubaisi, acknowledged by all Iraqis as the senior Sunni religious authority (the weekly audience for his Friday sermons, broadcast from Dubai, number 20 million), and Ayatollah Sayyid Ammar Abu Ragheef, chief of staff for Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, the acknowledged leader of the Shia community in Iraq and beyond. One has only to consider the power of these specific religious leaders, and the instruments at their disposal for getting results, to grasp the gathering's enormous potential importance. Going well beyond traditional rhetoric in their closing statement late last week, they stated their intention to work for the early issuance of a joint Sunni-Shia fatwa to the Iraqi people. A fatwa such as this will carry the force of law for all followers. Think about that. After more than four years of brutal warfare and untold suffering, the leading religious authorities in Iraq have joined hands and said "Enough," and have committed to use their authority to bring peace to their country. Why isn't this ANYWHERE in the MSM? A google new search of Robert McFarlane yields only 48 results, and the #4 result is the WSJ article linked above. Most of the results appear to be about a completely different Robert McFarlane! Where's the NYTimes? LATimes? Chicago Trib? CNN? MSNBC? ABC? All the other alphabet soup networks? No where to be found... Once again the MSM seems to news that shows the progress we're making in Iraq.

Hot Wing Conspiracy Fantasy Baseball: Week 21 recap

Well we're only 1 week away from the playoffs baby! And these last 2 weeks are going to be huge. Only the top 6 make it, and while it appears that we already have the 6 likely playoff teams, only one had clinched entering this week's action, and just 3 more would join by week's end... Wookies Will Repeat - 7 Big Damn Heroes - 4 Sure I'm happy with the win, but going into Sunday's games I was winning 10-1, and only end up winning 7 to 4, and on top of that I drop in the overall rankings despite the win from 5th to 6th. Fortunately, the top six make the playoffs which start next week, and barring an absolute meltdown, I'm in! MVP: Miguel Tejada. He's had a sub- par season, but came through this week with 3 HRs, 6 RBIs, and hit .346 Dud: Heroes pitching staff. He played to waiver wire to try to make up some ground in pitching, but picked up 6 losses, 4 pitchers who's ERA were in the double digits, and 2 wth ERAs at 27.00. Robots Eat Babies - 5 PFB - 8 Robots just wasn't prepared for the PFB offensive onslaught. 14 HRs, 41 RBIs, 77 hits, .330 average. Wow. He took 5 of 7 offensive stats and took ERA and WHIP on top of that to seal the win. MVP: Brandon Philips and Carlos Pena combined to hit .400, 20 hits, 6 HRs, 15 RBIs, and 16 runs scored. Dud: Phil Hughes and Jeremy Bonderman. Hughes ERA was 7.30 and Bonderman's was a sky high 11.12. Needless to say both picked up losses. Baseball Rulz! - 9 RFTR - 4 Baesball Rulz put together a solid overall performance, winning both offensive and pitching stats. RFTR managed to blow out Baseball Rulz in the HR and SB categories, but that's it. The silver lining for RFTR is that depsite the loss he's clinched a playoff spot. MVP: Adrian Gonzales and Mike Lowell combined to hit .464 with 4 HRs, 16 RBIs, 16 hits, and 16 runs. Dud: RFTR's relievers Billy Wagner and Tom Gordon got hammered with ERAs at 12.00 and 18.00 respectively. The PAWs - 5 Cookeville Engineers - 7 Apparently the PAWs offense is throwing in the towel on the season already. They forgot, however, to tell the pitching staff. Cookeville took all 7 offensive stats, but only managed to get a tie in saves, otherwise PAWs would have swept the pitching stats. MVP: Jose Guillen hit .407, with 11 hits and 2 HRs. Dud: Chad Cordero got lit up. A 54.00 ERA and a loss. bRight & Early - 10 Joe's Keizer Killers - 2 bRight is the one who leap-frogged me in the standings with this 10-2 thumping of the Keizer. Joe put up a fight in the pitching categories, but was no match at all for bRight's offense. bRight's currently in the #5 spot, and while he hasn't clinched yet, it doesn't look like he'll be knocked out by anyone... MVP: Ryan Zimmerman hit .333, 3 HRs, 9 hits, and 7 runs scored. Dud: Mike Mussina could've singlehandedly lost the pitching categories for bRight with a 37.80 ERA in his loss to the Angels. Stupid Yankees... Webcats - 2 Maximum Poo - 10 Max Poo had another solid, but the game was a little closer than that score would indictate, especially in the pitching categories. Max Poo only blew the cats away in a couple categories (hits, average, and RBI), everything else was pretty closely contested. MVP: Kenji Johjima, Freddy Sanchez, & Magglio Ordonez each had 11 hits, combined to hit .392 with 6 HRs, 19 RBIs, and 17 runs. Dud: A.J. Pierzynski hit .167 with a grand total of 3 hits in 18 ABs. Fmragtops Spewers - 4 Leones de Yucatan - 9 Leones shows again why he's the #2 team in the league, clinching a berth with this win. Even though 9-4 isn't quite a blowout, the categories that he did take from FM were by a LARGE margin. 13-3 in HRs, 46-18 in RBIs, 66-48 in hits, and 3-0 in Wins. MVP: Matt Holiday continues to puch for the MVP with 12 hits, a .400 average, 3 HRs and 7 RBIs. Dud: Geoff Jenkins had just 1 hit in 16 ABs for a .063 average Anna Benson is Yummy - 8 JAX Juggernauts - 3 Mmmm.... Anna.... she's got the sweetest pitching staff this side of the Mississippi. She posted 6 wins. Wow. John Lackey, Brandon Webb, and Jake Peavy. She may only be ranked #4 in the league, but I wouldn't want to face her in the playoffs, but at least she clinched her spot in the dance. MVP: All that pitching and I'm picking Carlos Lee as the MVP in this matchup. A .414 average with 2 HRs and 12 hits. Dud: The JAX manager. 3 starters didn't play last week. 2 in fact were on the DL. He's lucky he didn't get demolished. So here's the top 6 teams, and I'm 99% sure they'll be the playoff teams when things are said and done. The ranks may rearrange a bit, but that's about it. bRight and I haven't clinched yet but #7 (Big Damn Heroes) is 12.5 games back so he'd have to sweep webcats this week and I'd have to lose 13-0 to get knocked out of the playoff picture. However there was one 13-0 victory this year, and Big Damn Heroes pulled it off against PAWs. My worst loss though was only 3-9; in fact I haven't allowed an opponent to get double digit points against me, so I like my odds at making the playoffs.

Sen. Larry Craig arrested in airport bathroom for lewd conduct

YOU'VE GOT TO BE FREAKIN' KIDDING ME! Are Republicans trying to lose every election for the next 20 years? Roll Call is reporting that Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, was arrested earlier this summer in a men's room at the Minneapolis airport by an undercover officer investigating complaints about sexual activity. The Capitol Hill newspaper says it obtained the arrest report. So far, CNN and several blogs are reporting the news. On Aug. 8 Craig pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. A 10-day sentence was stayed, but he received a year probation and paid more than $500 in fines and fees, Roll Call writes. A spokesman for Craig described the June 11 incident as a “he said/he said misunderstanding,” and said the senator's office would release a fuller statement later today. He said/he said misunderstanding... that has all the marks of an Onion news piece... But don't stop reading now... It only gets better... [...] After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, “What do you think about that?” the report states. I'd be saying that that makes him a bigger loser than George Michael. [...] “At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states. Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could ... see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.” Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it. “With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit. Craig responded, ‘No!’ I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. ... Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn’t want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom.” A caller to Hugh Hewitt's show made the excellent point that if Craig was doing this at high noon and knew all the signals, that this probably wasn't his first time getting busy in a bathroom. What the hell are Republican elected officials doing? Unbelievable...

Alberto Gonzales resigns

Honestly, I wasn't sure what to make of that when I read about it this morning. There was certainly no reason for the Senate hearings he'd been neck deep in for the past couple months, but I've no clue about the DoJ and it's inner workings, so I thought I defer to someone better versed in arena: Capatin's Quarters. In any case, it's far past time for Gonzales to go. No one did anything illegal in terminating the federal prosecutors, but Gonzales and his team made it into a royal botch-up anyway. Gonzales really should have resigned after telling people publicly that the attorneys had performance issues when their reviews showed that they had performed well. That set off a series of statements that Gonzales had to retract or clarify, including some in Senate testimony that made him appear as though he hardly had anything to do with running the Department of Justice. It's been an ongoing embarrassment -- and not just for the White House, which refused to acknowledge the reality of Gonzales' incompetent handling of the DoJ. The Senate has spent months trying to nail Gonzales on some sort of crime when none occurred. The SJC, and to a lesser extent their House Judiciary colleagues, have wasted months trying to deliver Gonzmas to the nutroots crowd, and the only thing they can find is mediocrity with frequent bouts of incompetence. Had they left it at that point, they would have won the war, but instead the Democrats overpromised and underdelivered and now look like fools. At least on that note, Gonzales made the partisan differences fade into the background. He made everyone look like fools in equal proportion. And the Captain's not alone here. Dean Barnett also thinks Gonzales' resignation was long overdue. Hugh hadn't really opined on the issue other than to say it's a good chance for the administration to appoint a charismatic, young, anti-terror guru to the post. So, adios Alberto. I think you got a bit of a bum deal, but hey, that's life.

WHO says US Health Care system ranks 37th in the world

The US ranked 37th out of 191 countries in WHO's report (PDF) behind such health care giants like Costa Rica, Morroco, and Cyprus, and in a report by the Commonwealth Fund the US ranked last or next to last in all categories except one when compared to Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. But really... who cares what WHO thinks? Well Michael Moore does, and apparently he makes a big deal of these statistics in his new anti-American film, Sicko. But John Stossel takes a closer looks at these studies, and as usual finds out they're not all that they're cracked up to be. So what's wrong with the WHO and Commonwealth Fund studies? Let me count the ways. The WHO judged a country's quality of health on life expectancy. But that's a lousy measure of a health-care system. Many things that cause premature death have nothing do with medical care. We have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. That's not a health-care problem. Similarly, our homicide rate is 10 times higher than in the U.K., eight times higher than in France, and five times greater than in Canada. When you adjust for these "fatal injury" rates, U.S. life expectancy is actually higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation. Diet and lack of exercise also bring down average life expectancy. Another reason the U.S. didn't score high in the WHO rankings is that we are less socialistic than other nations. What has that got to do with the quality of health care? For the authors of the study, it's crucial. The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how "fairly" health care of any quality is "distributed." The problem here is obvious. By that criterion, a country with high-quality care overall but "unequal distribution" would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution. It's when this so-called "fairness," a highly subjective standard, is factored in that the U.S. scores go south. The U.S. ranking is influenced heavily by the number of people -- 45 million -- without medical insurance. As I reported in previous columns, our government aggravates that problem by making insurance artificially expensive with, for example, mandates for coverage that many people would not choose and forbidding us to buy policies from companies in another state. Even with these interventions, the 45 million figure is misleading. Thirty-seven percent of that group live in households making more than $50,000 a year, says the U.S. Census Bureau. Nineteen percent are in households making more than $75,000 a year; 20 percent are not citizens, and 33 percent are eligible for existing government programs but are not enrolled. So like most things espoused by Michael Moore, they're shallow arguements based on halftruths and misleading statistics. This isn't to say that the US healthcare system is without flaws. We all know there's room for improvement. Frivolous lawsuits create higher malpractice premiums for doctors, and higher insurance premiums overall. So doctor visits cost more, testing costs more, and procedures cost more because you're not spending your money. Other people are spending your money, and Stossel quotes Milton Freidman, "No one spends other people's money as carefully as he spends his own." And multiply that problem by 1000 if you want the government to take over and socialize healthcare. You think ER waiting rooms are packed now, just wait and see. All doctors offices will be like the DMV. Like socialized systems in Canada and Europe, you have to schedule appointments 6 months in advance, and wait months even years for important tesing and surgical procedures. Preventative medicine will be a thing of the past. Doctors and nurses will function more like postal workers; nothing against the post office, but would you bet your life on your package arriving on time via the post office? To quote PJ O'Rourke, if you think healthcare is expensive now, wait to see how expensive it is when it's free. Our public schools spend more per student than any other nation on the planet, and yet our public education system barely makes the top 20. Whenever people talk about having the government run anything I always think of this satirical scienctific piece on a new elemnet just discovered: governmentium. A major research institution (MRI) has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been tentatively named Governmentium. Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of three years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass. Exactly.

Michael Yon: The Ghosts of Anbar

Michael's back with Marine's in Fallujah. Check out his first dispatch... Reframed thus from a position of strength, this stage of the Anbar-war is more a sort of business transaction, where alliances beneficial to all sides—except Al Qaeda—are formed. From this perspective, there is now a moment of genuine ground-floor opportunity in Anbar, if the people here can see that by doing business with the Coalition, everyone benefits—except Al Qae