Glenn Reynolds, July 19th (original): MORE: Hugh Hewitt: Ask yourself what would be going on in Washington, D.C. tonght, and on the network news, within the blogosphere, and in the morning papers, if it had been revealed that Condi Rice was the target of a criminal investigation for removing classified handwritten notes from the government records relating to terrorism. I think we know. But it’s early yet — this may get more attention from Big Media tomorrow. ...
Not very surprisingly, the Syrian band that freaked out Anne Jacobsen has been identified. Despite this, the usual suspects (original) are still up in arms. From National Review Online: That means that our air-traffic system was expecting trouble. But rather than land the plane in Las Vegas or Omaha, it was allowed to continue on to Los Angeles without interruption, as if everything were hunky-dory on board. It certainly wasn’t. If this had been the real thing, and the musicians had instead been terrorists, nothing was stopping them from taking control of the plane or assembling a bomb in the restroom. Given the information they were working with at the time, almost everyone should have reacted differently than they did. ...
iTunes users may be pleased to discover that much of the 9/11 Commission hearings are available via the iTunes Music Store. This link (original) will do something useful if you use iTunes, and if you don’t, I have no idea what will happen. Something useful, here, is defined as a page which contains the hearings among many other things. I’ve been unable to find a more useful direct link.
I am eternally grateful for the presence of sane people on this planet. A summary: Annie Jacobsen got worried (original) because she was on a flight with a number of Middle Eastern men acting in a manner which she found suspicious. Cue blogosphere firestorm. Some people pointed out that no responsible flight attendant (original) would act as described. But, you know, evil Muslims are a better story. And the aforelinked sane person said “You know… that’s what devout Muslims do on long flights. They pray, because they need to pray five times per day.”
The cynical may enjoy being proven right by thirty-odd Fox News memos. It is blatantly clear that Fox News thinks of itself as the conservative defender of truth against the marauding liberal news media. We have good perp walk video of Eric Rudolph which we should use. We should NOT assume that anyone who supported or helped Eric Rudolph is a racist. No one’s in favor of murder or bombing of public places. But feelings in North Carolina may just be more complicated than the NY Times can conceive. ...
The governor of Mosul, Mashaan al-Juburi, was just assassinated. This follows massive car bombings in Mosul a couple of weeks ago. Mosul is a key city because it’s a key point of friction between the Kurds and the Sunnis. Juburi’s appointment was not without controversy and violence, to say the least; his early speeches resulted in a demonstration during which US troops fired on demonstraters. The details of the event are unclear: the US claimed that the demonstrations were violent and the demonstraters claimed they weren’t, which is as you’d expect in any case for both sides of the story. ...
The anonymous TPB, Esq. presents this compelling explanation of the proper interpretation of the word “shall” in New Jersey’s election law. It is compelling because he provides examples to support his argument; take careful note, oh pundits of all stripes. This is why I like most lawblogs.
Newsweek reports (original) that the Department of Homeland Security is looking into ways to postpone the November Presidential election in the case of an Al Qaeda attack. But the success of March’s Madrid railway bombings in influencing the Spanish elections—as well as intercepted “chatter” among Qaeda operatives—has led analysts to conclude “they want to interfere with the elections,” says one official. Forcing a delay in elections is every bit as much interference, if not more so, as an attack which causes people to change their vote. This is so obvious that I have trouble believing that it’s escaped the Bush administration. ...
Gosh, that’s unfortunate. Some of Bush’s service records were destroyed in 1996 and 1997. By accident. This should be easy enough to resolve; since Bush wasn’t the only guy whose records were lost, one assumes that there’d be an official record of the accident. Perhaps even a postmortem. Memos. That sort of thing. Except that I can’t help noticing that Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett said, in February of this year, that members of George Bush’s staff purged the National Guard files in 1997. Damned confluence of dates. Now, the records that Burkett says were destroyed were not the records that the Defense Department just admitted to destroying accidentally, so this is not exactly a smoking gun. I think the time period is still suggestive, however. If you believe Burkett, it’s not a stretch to suspect that the Texas Air National Guard was not the only organization willing to clean up Bush’s records. ...
Then, in Rwanda. Now, in Sudan. This is pretty much for me so that I don’t forget to read these regularly. On a semi-detached, attempting dispassionate note, the Rwanda blog is a new twist on the Pepys and Sei Shonagon blogs: historical events retold in the blog — dare I say it? — medium. I think it works.