Category — Uncategorized

Alaska is and isn’t what you think. It is one of the most confounding places on earth. I know of no other location where libertarian-communist could describe someone, but they can be found in Alaska. It is the most and least sexist state in the Union, the most and least patriotic, the most and least liberal or conservative. Understand that I am not talking about shades of difference, grays, I’m talking about a place where most things is black or white, but at the same time.

Maurice Robert “Mike” Gravel is an excellent example. First off, he’s weird, OK? He is apt to do almost anything, but among the those things are some really good things, like including the Pentagon Papers in the Congressional Record while the Nixon administration was blocking their publication.

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Not good at all. This was a nice little hurricane a few hours ago, and now it has a definite attitude. It’s a good thing that Al Gore needs to lose weight or some people might suspect that these explosive growth major hurricanes have something to do with global climate change.

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Cindy McCain’s trip to Georgia has nothing to do with her husband, or American politics. Petulant at Shakesville notes that she is there in support of the UN’s World Food Program relief effort.

Just because she’s a married woman doesn’t mean that everything she does is related to her husband.

It isn’t immediately obvious, but Walter Brasch’s article about the media, Downsizing the News And Pretending to Increase the Quality, and Tom Lasseter’s about the oil industry, Russia’s oil boom may be running on empty, are both addressing the worst concept in business today, no matter what area that business is in: sacrificing long term survival for near term profits.

There are very few investors left in the business world, people who are making decisions that will provide profits for generations from research and development of new products or resources to keep the business viable. Today people with capital are gamblers looking for the maximum profit possible in the near term.

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Keith at Invisible Library reminded me of one of my favorite comedy bits: Eddie Izzard’s Cake or Death routine performed with Legos.

On this map there is all of the territory of one US ally, and a piece of another. These are countries with whom we have mutual defense treaty obligations, and regular joint training exercises. They are allies, not dependents, and they have fought in combat with the US military.

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In My Opinion:

The individual who was mailing the anthrax letters was not trying to kill individuals, the purpose was to increase funding for bioweapons research.  Attempting to fabricate a motive for the individuals to whom the letters were addressed is a waste of effort.  If you look at them based on their jobs, you see the threats were addressed to the media and politicians, two groups who could influence increased funding.  That is the connection I see.

Not all of the evidence collected in any case, especially evidence gathered from public areas, is actually tied to the  case in the final analysis.  A lot of the physical evidence that is gathered in a major investigation has nothing at all to do with the object of the investigation.  It is collected because it might have some meaning, and is some cases may help in establishing a time line.

The anthrax samples were not all of the same granularity, some were fine and others were clumpy.  Under controlled laboratory conditions you would expect them all to be of the same type.

The standard for a criminal conviction is beyond reasonable doubt, not beyond all doubt.

Things are a little clearer today: Search of gunman’s house finds weapons and a will

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The man who fatally shot the chairman of the state Democratic Party had a Post-It note at home with the victim’s last name and phone number along with 14 guns, antidepressants and a last will and testament, according to court documents.

Police Thursday were exploring possible links between the gunman Timothy Dale Johnson and the party chairman, Bill Gwatney, 48. Johnson, 50, shot Gwatney to death Wednesday and after he lost his job at a Target and was killed by officers after a 30-minute chase.

The search of Johnson’s home in Searcy also turned up two sets of keys for vehicles from car lots Gwatney owned. Johnson also had a pistol and 13 long guns.

First off, they keep saying or implying he was fired, which is not accurate, he quit. He went into work and snapped, writing various complaints as graffiti on the walls. As he had been a good, long time employee, his manager tried to find out what was wrong, but Johnson just turned in his employee badge and left.

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I give you NewsBuiscuit and Four horseman of the Apocalypse split; ‘Pestilence to go solo’.

I was looking for something related that I will explain after I drain off some of the anger.

First of all this case was always going to be made on “circumstantial evidence” because the perpetrator(s) was/were very knowledgeable about the evidence gathering techniques of law enforcement. The envelopes were standard Postal Service pre-stamped that can be bought anywhere, and everything else involved, except the spores, was readily available all over the country.

All of Dr. Ivins friends and colleagues are saying that he wasn’t the type of person to do something like this. The people who knew the guy in Canada arrested after decapitating a fellow passenger, are saying the same thing sorts of things. I had a fellow investigator tell me one day that he had concluded that if you a saw someone helping a little old lady across the street, you should kill them immediately, because only murderers seem to do that. It should be noted that he was finishing up a murder investigation with a cast iron case against a nun who was beloved by thousands of students and coworkers.

The BBC article, Scientist ‘lone anthrax attacker’, gives you an overview of the evidence, while the CNN article, FBI accused of hardball tactics in anthrax case, covers some of the naysayers.

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• 1538 – Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada.
• 1777 – Revolutionary War: Battle of Oriskany.
• 1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.
• 1909 – Alice Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip.
• 1923 – Henry Sullivan swims the English Channel.
• 1926 – Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to swim across the English Channel.
• 1945 – World War II: Hiroshima is devastated when an atomic bomb, “Little Boy”, is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 90,000 people were killed instantly.
• 1960 – Cuban Revolution: In response to a United States embargo, Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.
• 1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into United States law.
• 1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web.
• 2001 – White House briefing entitled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. delivered to George W. Bush. This document foreshadowed the September 11, 2001 attacks.

People Are Born:

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The BBC has a video report on a 13-year-old guitarist who makes £70 per hour [$140] playing on a pier.

He’s worth it, he really is.

I first heard this in Deborah Tedford’s NPR piece, Scientist In Anthrax Case Dead Of Apparent Suicide, but The Smoking Gun has more details about Dr. Ivins’s mental history as revealed in an application for a “peace order”, Maryland’s version of a restraining order, filed by a mental health counselor.

Someone is going to be required to explain what Dr. Ivins, with a long history of talking about “homicidal actions, threats and plans” going back to his graduate student days, was doing with a security clearance and working in a bio-weapons lab.

When you are being investigated for a major security clearance one of the first things you are required to do is sign releases giving investigators access to all of your records, including medical records. How could something like this be missed?

If the Feds weren’t ready to arrest him on the anthrax charges, he was facing a forced commitment hearing, that he had avoided in July by voluntarily checking to a clinic, and then checking himself out.

He did the Feds a big favor by going for suicide, because he had a solid insanity defense available.

Major league congratulations are in order.

The title of her post, Bob Newhart Names “Mad” Kane Winner of 2008 Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor, pretty much says it all.

She has a scan of Bob Newhart’s note up with the post. Being compared to Robert Benchley by Bob Newhart is as good as it gets for a satirist.