Category: News

All the cool bloggers are, about an account in Women’s Wall Street that apparently details a dry-run of some sort of terror attack in a flight from Detroit to LA:

When I returned to my seat I was unable to assure my husband that all was well. My husband immediately walked to the first class section to talk with the flight attendant. I might be overreacting, but I’ve been watching some really suspicious things… Before he could finish his statement, the flight attendant pulled him into the galley. In a quiet voice she explained that they were all concerned about what was going on. The captain was aware. The flight attendants were passing notes to each other. She said that there were people on board higher up than you and me watching the men. My husband returned to his seat and relayed this information to me. He was feeling slightly better. I was feeling much worse. We were now two hours into a four-in-a-half hour flight.

Approximately 10 minutes later, that same flight attendant came by with the drinks cart. She leaned over and quietly told my husband there were federal air marshals sitting all around us. She asked him not to tell anyone and explained that she could be in trouble for giving out that information. She then continued serving drinks.

About 20 minutes later the same flight attendant returned. Leaning over and whispering, she asked my husband to write a description of the yellow-shirted man sitting across from us. She explained it would look too suspicious if she wrote the information. She asked my husband to slip the note to her when he was done.

After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together, eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned, and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified..

The author of the piece followed up with the proper authorities and the airlines:

Through a series of events, The Washington Post heard about my story. I talked briefly about my experience with a representative from the newspaper. Within a few hours I received a call from Dave Adams, the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAM) Head of Public Affairs. Adams told me what he knew:

There were 14 Syrians on NWA flight #327. They were questioned at length by FAM, the FBI and the TSA upon landing in Los Angeles. The 14 Syrians had been hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert. Adams said they were scrubbed. None had arrest records (in America, I presume), none showed up on the FBI’s no fly list or the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List. The men checked out and they were let go. According to Adams, the 14 men traveled on Northwest Airlines flight #327 using one-way tickets. Two days later they were scheduled to fly back on jetBlue from Long Beach, California to New York — also using one-way tickets.

I asked Adams why, based on the FBI’s credible information that terrorists may try to assemble bombs on planes, the air marshals or the flight attendants didn’t do anything about the bizarre behavior and frequent trips to the lavatory. Our FAM agents have to have an event to arrest somebody. Our agents aren’t going to deploy until there is an actual event, Adams explained. He said he could not speak for the policies of Northwest Airlines.

Here’s what Hugh Hewitt had to say:

If this account is true, the plane should have been obliged to land upon the first indication of concern among the flight attendants and passengers. Calling the Homeland Security Department: Is this a true account, and if so, are you happy with the actions of the pilot/marshalls etc?

How easily the simple solution eludes us, Hugh.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you are on a plane, witness suspicious activity, communicate with the authorities in the air, and although they’re afraid and suspect something might be amiss but cannot act because protocol indicates they cannot until an event occurs, make an event.

Stand up in your seat and say, “There is a bomb on board this plane.”

They will land the plane, my friends, and they will take you into custody. You’ll face a felony charge or more if they actually find a bomb or bomb-making components on the plane, but if the people around you are crying into their husbands’ shoulders and you’re facing death, you are not impotent.

You just have to work the impotent system to survive and achieve your goals. Why shouldn’t you? They will.

Bear in mind this tactic is something to use only if you are honestly afraid for your life and the lives of those around you. It carries a high penalty, regardless of if you’re crying wolf when there’s a wolf around or not.

UPDATE: More good ideas here.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the latest felony that has come to my attention courtesy of a news spot on the radio and confirmed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The suspect, Dennis A. Hobson, 43, was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of Maxine Cheeks, 55. Police say Hobson led them to her badly beaten body on a vacant lot off South 14th Street near Soulard Street.

Hobson’s son, Antoine M. Ward, 26, of the 3000 block of Walton Place, was arrested Wednesday. He was charged with abandonment of a corpse, a felony.

Abandoning a corpse is apparently a felony. Because sometimes accessory after the fact just won’t do it. My goodness, why aren’t all murderers charged with this secondary crime that often succeeds the first?

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which by the way does not include me as a columnist, has former television critic Eric Mink dissing the Bush Administration in a serious column. I guess Mink grew up and turned off the television and started reading the Post-Dispatch for news insights:

Late last week, yet another august body – this time the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – issued yet another massive report again confirming that the U.S. intelligence establishment got just about everything wrong when it came to Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

But buried deep in the Senate report – little noticed and even less remarked upon – is something important that the committee credits the intelligence community for getting right. And it puts the torch to whatever flimsy tissue of credibility the Bush administration had left:

With respect to contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida during the 1990s, the committee found that the CIA “reasonably assessed . . . that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship.”

Got that? Without a mutual protection pact treaty, it didn’t exist, and Eric Mink is there to analyze it.

Wait a minute, Eric Mink, former television critic, is now the commentary editor for the Post-Dispatch editorial page? Muhahhahahaha! You cannot make this stuff up.

Of course, my chances of being a paid columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch will greatly diminish the next time Mink googles himself. To a slightly lower nil than they were before the search.

The best columnist in St. Louis is David Nicklaus, business columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Check out the wisdom from his latest column taking on light rail groupies:

With what’s spent on the trains, Castelazo and Garrett figure that taxpayers could buy a Toyota Prius for each needy MetroLink rider and have $49 million a year left over.

It’s good to see someone in the Post-Dispatch examining the actual return on the copious public wealth redistribution the paper favors as a matter-of-course.

Meanwhile, back in the San Francisco Chronicle, David Lazurus reads the grounds in his coffee cup to undercover conspiracy! in the nomination of Francis Harvey as Secretary of the Army:

President Bush was widely reported last week to be on the verge of nominating local boy Francis Harvey to serve as secretary of the Army. So let’s meet the man who may soon be the newest player in the top ranks of the military-industrial complex.

Harvey, a Los Gatos resident, sits on the board of Bridge Bank of Silicon Valley and is a member of the board of regents of Santa Clara University. But it’s a safe bet that neither of these gigs placed him in the running for the Army’s senior civilian post.

More likely, it was Harvey’s ties to the defense industry and the influential Carlyle Group that won him the Bush administration’s favor.

Okay, let me summarize how this left coaster knocks Harvey:

• Harvey is former chief operating officer for a division of Westinghouse Electric, a leading defense contractor.
• Harvey sits on the board of a couple companies affiliated with the Carlyle Group, an investment company.
• Because the Carlyle Group has had as its “advisers and leaders” (which could mean that among the numerous firms funded or invested in by the company, an investment company for crying out loud) numerous other, well, leaders, it is obviously the American Illuminati Clubhouse.
• Harvey serves as vice chairman of Maryland’s Duratek, which specializes in the handling and disposing of radioactive materials. Oddly enough, the Departments of Defense and Energy do business with firms that handle and dispose of radioactive materials. The Department of Education does not–and that in itself must insinuate something!
• Harvey is a board member of Carlyle-owned Kuhlman Electric, a maker of transformers. Even though it has no defense contracts, it’s Carlyle-owned and therefore must do something bad, of which Harvey is undoubtedly the mastermind, or in which he is implicitly explicitly complicit.

So what does it all mean? That if Harvey is confirmed, he will favor his friends and companies for which he’s worked? How will Haliburton stand for it?

I guess the messages we can take away from this column, and those of its wide stripe, are that the only people qualified to run the government are not people who have real world experience managing organizations in relevant fields; oh, but no, the only people qualified for appointment are people who have hidden in academia or in newsrooms for most of their adult lives. These people have integrity, and presumably no friends to help.

Also, the second message is that any appointment from the business world would not throw himself into a new, govern-mental position with the same enthusiasm for maximizing resources and utility that made him or her successful in business and worthy of appointment; oh, but no, once they’re on the government payroll, it’s all about sucking the teat, unlike academics, intellectuals, or integrous media or entertainment icons.

This column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch indicates that Missouri currently does not have seatbelt laws for pets:

On Illinois and Missouri’s state highways, though, that’s perfectly legal, police say. Not for a dog to drive with no hands, but for one to roam free in a vehicle. There are no laws against it, and a lot of pet owners let it happen.

In a 2002 survey by the American Animal Hospital Association, 74 percent of 1,200 pet owners in Canada and the United States said they don’t use pet restraints while on the road.

The association, though, said that could cause trouble. It urges owners to use harnesses, seat belt attachments, or carriers.

“They help protect pets in case of a collision, and they keep pets from running loose and distracting the driver,” the association’s Web site says.

Undoubtedly, though, a crack team of activists are, well, acting to ensure this travesty will not continue, and that eventually drivers will not be allowed to have any unsecured item floating around the cabin of the car. Fast food wrappers, CD cases, pets, and loose change–by 2013, legislators will mandate that you need to lock all of these down as though you were piloting the space shuttle through re-entry every time you go down to the U-Gas for a lotto ticket and a fill-up.

Let this story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch with the headline 3-year-old wounds grandmother with gun lead to a bevy of batties in the belfry rattling their sightless bodies in favor of more gun control legislation because of this stupid, preventable accident.

Because they need a break from their machination mastications that take place in favor of banning cars whenever some SUV-armored pinhead on eating while on a cell phone plows into a Honda and shuts down I-270 for hours.

Not only do campaign finance laws protect incumbents, but as Owen at Boots and Sabers points out, apparently they also protect polisci majors and other non-productive members of society. Or at least they penalize business owners who run for office:

The next few months are a vital time for selling cars, but the Russ Darrow Group, with 20 dealerships throughout the state, may have to stifle its familiar pitch.

That’s because it is a vital period for selling candidacies, too. And the namesake of the car dealership chain, Russ Darrow Jr., is in the hunt for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

New federal election law may forbid any television or radio advertising bearing Darrow’s name and not funded by his Senate campaign during the 30 days before the Sept. 14 Republican primary.

“It would appear as if such (car) advertisements might be considered electioneering communications,” and thus prohibited, said Ian Stirton, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission.

Citizens, I ask you, is this freeing you from the corrupting influence of advertising impressing messages into your malleable mind or is it protecting a self-appointed ruling class who can schmooze their way through four years of schmooze classes, a couple of D.C. internships, an appointment or two, and then election through incumbent indulgence?

Apparently, Subway restaurants have determined:

Beginning Sunday, Subway stores throughout the [St. Louis] metro area stopped handing out a stamp for each 6-inch sandwich purchased, as did Subway restaurants in Knoxville, Tenn.; Madison, Wis.; and Lansing, Mich.

“A number of franchisees feel that we are too big of a company to have an incentive program. They have elected to participate in a test to see what the customer feedback will be,” said Subway spokesman Les Winograd at company headquarters in Milford, Conn. “They may replace it or go back to the way it was or drop it entirely.”

Apparently, St. Louis is one of the test markets for this new “program” of discontinuing a program that has been in place for 39 years, since Subway’s founding. Subway has determined that its name recognition alone will spur brand loyalty, even when faced with competition here with Quiznos, Blimpies, Mr. Goodcents, and other smaller shops just trying to get a foothold in the apparently-lucrative submarine sandwich franchise space.

You can call Subway at the number listed above to register your feelings on the subject or just to let them know you’re a consumer who’s paying attention and don’t subscribe to the theory that less-for-the-customer-is-more theory.

Class, what would Niccolo Machiavelli say about this particular idea? Hmmm?

From Neil Steinberg’s column today, wherein he describes how polarized political society has gotten, we have this:

The electorate is as calcified and entrenched as I’ve ever seen it, divided by those who would vote for Bush if it turned out he was paid by Osama bin Laden to invade Iraq and so hasten the day of Islamic jihad there, and those who would vote for Kerry if photos surfaced of him in Hanoi in the 1960s standing behind Jane Fonda, his fist in the air in the black power salute as she inspected Viet Cong anti-aircraft guns.

I don’t know how I should take that comparison. Right wingers, which I would guess includes me, would vote for Bush even if he were a paid operative of a foreign power actively involved in a conspiracy against the best interests of the United States, whereas more reasonable left wingers would vote for John Kerry if he openly supported, through “protests,” an enemy power currently at war with the United States while he was in that foreign country (which is the key difference, since he only did that here and in Paris, France, but never in North Vietnam).

Message, again: People who support Bush are whackos.

I must be the most whack of the lot since I support Bush and read Steinberg three times a week.

Perhaps Associated Press writer A. Josef Hebert only dabbles in American English as a second language, as he resorts to the dreaded so-called adjective:

In a secret operation, the United States last month removed from Iraq nearly two tons of uranium and hundreds of highly radioactive items that could have been used in a so-called dirty bomb, the Energy Department disclosed Tuesday.

I’m unsure what that particular adjective adds to the sentence. Unless Hebert’s paid five cents a word, in which case it adds a dime to Hebert’s pocket.

(Link courtesy Perry on Politics.)

Whitney Gould, the architectural columnist for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, muses on what to do with “big box” store buildings after the big box stores have moved on. Go check out her July 4 column.

Me, I read her all the time as a residual effect of too many adolescent readings of The Fountainhead and too much adolescent appreciation of Patricia Neal as Dominique Francon. But you can read her for other reasons, as ye liste.

The mayor of a small newly-suburban outpost in St. Louis County has discovered the joys of property rights infringement: Arnold Mayor declares war on vacant buildings:

Arnold Mayor Mark Powell is hoping that unsightly, abandoned buildings in the city will soon be nothing but an ugly memory. Powell reported that the city is cracking down on building owners who fail to maintain their properties.

“I have reviewed our property maintenance codes and have determined that sufficient authority exists within the code to deal with the maintenance of the boarded-up buildings,” said Powell. “The code provides for buildings to be kept up such that the building looks ready for use. This means no peeling paint, no boarded up windows, no missing shingles, no missing sign faces.”

Or else it will be seized for a new Wal-Mart or New Utopianist mixed use apartment/condo/retail development that will be boarded-up buildings belonging to someone else in twenty years.

Yo, Powell, if you’re so interested in making Arnold something more than a St. Louis-area punchline, how about you reform its ordinances to make it a business-friendly environment, so that the owners of the properties to which you refer would lose money by leaving them in their current states.

Oh, but no. Just seize them, dish them out to friends, and screw the person who put down capital on it in the first place. It’s your perogative as duly-elected despot.

These guys always have sufficient authority, don’t they?

The joke’s set up line, as published by the BBC, begins with the headline Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high:

A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years.

Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star’s activity in the past.

They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth’s climate became steadily warmer.

This trend is being amplified by gases from fossil fuel burning, they argue.

Got that? Driving an SUV causes sunspots. Maybe even space-time distortions that threaten our very existence, or perhaps just the holes that stupid people will punch in November.

On the other hand, global warming has proven to be our main defense against planetary invasion from the venomous snowcrawlers from Dis X. So I guess you have to take the bad with the good.

If I weren’t laughing, I would be crying.

Who knew Mexico’s armed force had automatic weapons? Too bad all dozen and a half of its forces showed up and interrupted a Marine funeral for a Mexican-American:

Mexican soldiers carrying automatic weapons interrupted the U.S. Independence Day funeral of a U.S. Marine and demanded that the Marine honor guard give up ceremonial replicas of rifles they carried.

Hundreds of friends and relatives packed a small cemetery for the funeral on Sunday of 22-year-old Juan Lopez, who was born in this sun-scorched farming town, immigrated to Dalton, Georgia, as a teenager and became a Marine.

Message received, “allies”. Hey, you guys remember when Mexico was a French possession? Ain’t history fun?

Stop the madness! Now there’s a Pro Plan Performance Bar nutritional supplement for dogs!

Just eliminate yourself from the decision-making process if your choices lead to your death, just like this woman’s estate:

The plaintiff, Linda Lou Poag, executrix of Rubick’s estate, claims that Atkins and two other doctors at the Atkins Center were negligent in treating Rubick’s cancer.

In 1995, Rubick, then 39, underwent a lumpectomy of her right breast for treatment of stage two breast cancer, according to court papers. The surgeon – not affiliated with Atkins – referred Rubick to a traditional oncologist for chemotherapy.

Rubick decided instead to pursue “alternative care” with Dr. Atkins, care that consisted of such “quackery” as dietary manipulation, enemas and vitamin therapy, the suit says. [Emphasis mine, since I’m the only one who seems to think “decide” is an active verb, requiring a subject. Unfortunately, I have no connection with the legal system.]

Apparently, Willie Sutton is the patron saint of attorneys.