Volunteer Tailgate Party
...has been up since Thursday afternoon at Teresa Nolen Pratt's blog "Hatamaran." Drop by!. So far, I've especially liked

Barry's proposed answer to that inane "Is God on our side, Senator Kerry?" question

Southknoxbubba's ongoing battle against electronic voting machines

Fletch's post at his "A Smoky Mountain Journal" about the proposed "North Shore Road", a road that would/will cut through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park along the north shore of Lake Fontana.

I didn't know about this; I'm against it on general principles that another road is the last thing this beautiful park needs. I don't know what purpose it serves, and I don't much care. There's a "south shore" beyond the park; keep the roads over on that one.

Folks, I've been all over the U.S., and over a fair bit of the world besides, and I'm here to tell you that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. It's worth your while and your children's while to help keep it that way. There's a comment box at the "environmental impact statement" site above. Use it. The comments seem structured to make you want to give up; Fletch writes in a comment that "If you oppose the road construction, the preferred alternative is 'cash settlement'."

The park is estimated to contain 100,000 species. Less than 10% are currently known.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:43:00 PM -- |    

 
War on terror: Danke schoen...
...Switzerland?!:

The terrorism investigation code-named Mont Blanc began almost by accident in April 2002, when authorities intercepted a cellphone call that lasted less than a minute and involved not a single word of conversation.

Investigators, suspicious that the call was a signal between terrorists, followed the trail first to one terror suspect, then to others, and eventually to terror cells on three continents. [...]

The investigation helped narrow the search for one of the most wanted men in the world, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to three intelligence officials based in Europe. American authorities arrested Mr. Mohammed in Pakistan last March. [...]

...By checking Swisscom's records, Swiss officials discovered that many other Qaeda suspects used the Swisscom chips, known as Subscriber Identity Module cards, which allow phones to connect to cellular networks.

For months the Swiss, working closely with counterparts in the United States and Pakistan, used this information in an effort to track Mr. Mohammed's movements inside Pakistan. By monitoring the cellphone traffic, they were able to get a fix on Mr. Mohammed, but the investigators did not know his specific location, officials said. [...] (links added)

-- from How Tiny Swiss Cellphone Chips Helped Track Global Terror Web, by New York Times reporters Don Van Natta Jr. and Desmond Butler (via Scott Hanson). Just a fascinating story.

This war may not just be police work -- but it's a lot of police work, too. Read for yourself: this investigation can claim full or partial credit for dozens if not hundreds of terrorists apprehended or otherwise sent to their just rewards.

The story is out now because the SIMS will no longer be sold to anonymous customers, and Al Qaeda people seem to have figured out the things weren't so safe for them after all.

Don't know why I wouldn't expect it, but this was nice to read:

When Swiss and other European officials heard that American agents had captured Mr. Mohammed last March, "we opened a big bottle of Champagne," a senior intelligence official said.

As well they should have. High fives to the Swiss police force. Thanks again! posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:11:00 PM -- |    

 
Facts and figures
(1) History of US Budget Deficit/Surplus
(2) Percentage poor by country, where "poor" is defined as 50% or less of the national median income.
(3) Rates of incumbent re-election, Congress 1946-2000



=====
(1) by Radio Free Monkey, via The Poor Man; (2) by Doug Henwood via Keywords and Brett Marston; (3) by Edward Greenberg and Benjamin Page ("The Struggle for Democracy")
UPDATE, 11/11: US Budget Deficit/Surplus link changed, RFM appears to be permanently offline.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:13:00 PM -- |    

 
Slobodan Milosevic trial "collapses"
Glenn Reynolds recently took note of a Boston Globe story by Charles Sennott, "Doubt aired on genocide case against Milosevic." Reynolds waxed sarcastic, writing:

No doubt we'll see handwringing, doubts about intelligence reliability, and charges that the Clinton Administration "sexed up" intelligence and misrepresented Milosevic as a genocidal dictator in order to build support for unilateral action that even Wesley Clark called technically illegal -- but justified on the basis of an "imminent threat" of genocide, one that is now, of course, completely undermined by the absence of a "smoking gun." Massive criticism of the Clinton Administration's warmaking, which landed us in a "Balkan quagmire" from which we have yet to extricate ourselves, is sure to ensue.

Yeah, right, that's going to happen. (all links from original)

Following an ensuing link, it seems that despite his "Albright Lied -- People Died" headline, Reynolds may not in fact be arguing against the Kosovo war, just against what he sees as double standards in arguing against that war vs. the Iraq war. As often the case (at least for me), it's hard to tell. It seems at best a poor use of the professor's time and talents to waste them scoring political points outside the courtroom, as it were, of a war criminal and a monster.

Then "Unqualified Offerings" author Jim Henley took the bait, hook, line and sinker, linking to Reynolds' post and characterizing the Hague events as the "collapse of the prosecution's case in the Milosevic trial." He then used the occasion to take Reynolds and the world to task, as he points out he is wont to do, for failing to oppose the Kosovo war.

Unfortunately for Henley's point, if you actually follow the link to the Boston Globe story, you read:

"I know that I don't have the smoking gun on the count of genocide, and we will see what the trial chamber decides," chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in an interview only minutes after she signed a motion to end the prosecution's two-year case.

"The facts are not in dispute by us. We can prove the facts, but genocide needs a specific intent, a subjective element, and it is very difficult to prove," del Ponte added.

But she insisted prosecutors were confident they had established Milosevic's guilt on the litany of other charges of crimes against humanity and breaches of the Geneva Conventions for his role in the savage campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans throughout the 1990s.

Conviction on those charges, specialists in international law and trial observers say, would almost certainly ensure that Milosevic would spend the rest of his life in jail." (link added)

Now this may indeed be the collapse of the Hague/ICC/UN/etc. attempt to make genocide both a narrowly defined and routinely prosecutable act -- instead of the common sense "I know it when I see it" thing it is. Then again, it may mean no more than the failure to put a murderer behind bars after he's killed or intimidated the witnesses, and his two main henchmen who might give him up remain at large. As a New York Times article by Marlise Simons pointed out,

The prosecution set out to prove, first that the crimes occurred, second to show how the chain of command worked, and [third] to link them to Mr. Milosevic. But the trial has been hard to follow, because testimony has zigzagged, not following chronological order.

Mr. Garapon believes the chain of command has been particularly difficult to reconstruct because the military, the police and the militias often operated under different guises. "This is crucial to convince judges that massacres in Bosnia and Milosevic in Serbia are connected," he said.

Regardless: whether it's because of the narrow legal definition of genocide, or the lack of witnesses who might testify to Milosevic's intent, the lack of a "smoking gun" hardly signifies the "collapse of the prosecution’s case" -- let alone of the high justification for putting an end to Milosevic's depredations by force of arms.

There was no deception here -- unless you assume that the American public and the world public should have been leafing through their international law books for definitions of genocide, or drumming their fingers for the confirmed dead to cross the ten thousand mark.

The back history in Bosnia was well known. A serial war criminal was striking again. Whether or not the evidence available from Bosnia or Kosovo ever met some formal definition of genocide, most people -- perhaps even most "natural," "small-l" libertarians -- had a pretty good hunch what was in store for Kosovars if nothing was done. Thankfully, at long, long last, NATO and the U.S. intervened to prevent the worst and stop what was bad enough already. That was done in our self-interest, for our self-regard, and on behalf of a people powerless to stop Milosevic's onslaught.

Personally, I'll always be proud that the United States helped put an end to the reign of terror that bastard and his mafia inflicted on the Balkans. I don't revel in wars, ever. But to my mind, it's hard to conceive of bombs better dropped than the ones that ultimately put Milosevic in the dock at the Hague. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:45:00 PM -- |    

 
Kerry
...got my vote.

As far as I was concerned it was a tough call, between two pretty good candidates. I had slight but not insurmountable quibbles with both. Edwards' anti-NAFTA stuff bugged me, even if I could agree with this op-ed by former Clinton advisor Gene Sperling in the Post yesterday that we have to mitigate the impacts of global trade.

Kerry can be stiff, he doesn't charm me, but like this item points out (among a bunch of other good points): a lot of us are maxed out on charm anyway. Reagan was charming, Clinton was charming, Bush can be charming: it's nice, but it's not all there is. If Kerry is thoughtful about things, if he's been known to change his mind when new facts emerge, why, that's a refreshing change as far as I'm concerned.

I think Edwards would make a very good V.P., and might have made (might still make) a good president. But if this guy were interested in the V.P. slot -- I have no idea -- I'd be intrigued. It's not so far-fetched. It would be contesting the center -- heck, it could bypass "contesting" and proceed directly to taking a nice, great big bite. Dream with me, it could mean marginalizing the radical Republican Right, almost at a stroke. It might also be one hell of a ticket.

...I awoke with a start. I'd had a strange dream -- it had all seemed to make sense, but now I couldn't put it together anymore.... posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:15:00 AM -- |    

 
Now you tell us
Rover reveals Mars was once wet enough for life; sadly, the fine print here means NASA's discovery may have come too late for millions of Americans.

This observer wonders whether NASA intentionally delayed its discovery just to serve the interests of corporate America. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:48:00 PM -- |    

 
Quick takes
Sure it is:"This agreement is a significant victory for college sports and higher education,'' NCAA president Myles Brand said. -- from AP news item BCS agrees to add fifth game. "And it's my love of higher education that made me think when I was a very young boy: I want to be part of the NCAA someday," he failed to add for some reason.

Hey! This spying stuff is really hard, you know: "For crying out loud. As one guy I know put it: "I've tracked down women across the country with a lot less information than that." -- Maureen Dowd, reacting to this by George Tenet: "The Germans gave us a name, Marwan — that's it — and a phone number," the director of central intelligence replied, adding: "They didn't give us a first and a last name until after 9/11, with then additional data."

The U.S. Department of Labor in the 60s: a lot more entertaining than I thought: Before publishing Unsafe at Any Speed, Nader worked as an obscure functionary at the Labor Department under then-Assistant Secretary Pat Moynihan. "Ralph was a very suspicious man," Moynihan told Charles McCarry in his 1972 biography Citizen Nader. "He used to warn me that the phones at the Labor Department might be tapped. I'd say, 'Fine! They'll learn that the unemployment rate for March is 5.3 percent, that's what they'll learn.' -- from "Make You Ralph," not a exactly a love note to Citizen Nader by Jonathan Chait. I kind of miss Moynihan, I can just about hear him saying that.

Jihad just ain't what it used to be: PESHAWAR: NWFP Senior Minister Sirajul Haq has said that the [Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Party, MMA] is waging Jihad against corruption, mismanagement, nepotism and all other wrongs that cause social imbalances, anomalies and public grievances." -- from NWFP govt waging Jihad against corruption: Siraj, in Pakistan's The News International. I have a dream -- of all those madrassa mujahedin settling down and working for better trash pickup and civic government. I think Minister Sirajul crosses the line here, though: "He asked LG representatives to shun their petting differences and work for welfare of people of their respective areas." posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:24:00 PM -- |