October 13, 2006

Coroner in Lloyd Inquest Fails to Prove His Charge

I'd like to know how this British Assistant Deputy coroner can justify this conclusion:

A coroner ruled on Friday that a British journalist who died in Iraq at the start of the war was unlawfully killed by American forces.

Lloyd, a correspondent with the British TV network ITN , was killed outside Basra in southern Iraq in March 2003.

Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he'll be writing the director of public prosecutions to seek to bring the perpetrators to justice.

"Terry Lloyd died following a gunshot wound to the head. The evidence this bullet was fired by the Americans is overwhelming," Walker said.

Lebanese interpreter Hussein Osman also was killed in the ITN crew, and cameraman Fred Nerac remains missing. ITN cameraman Daniel Demoustier survived.

Lloyd -- who was aged 50 -- was shot in the back during U.S. and Iraqi crossfire and was apparently shot by U.S. forces when he was taken away in a minibus for treatment.

"There is no doubt that the minibus presented no threat to the American forces. There is no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire upon the minibus," Walker said.

It is tragic when any civilian is killed in combat, but the simple fact that the bullet that killed Mr. Lloyd was fired by an American unit does not establish that:

• that the vehicle was intentionally fired upon;


• that the vehicle could be considered "no threat" if it was targeted.

Assistant Deputy Coroner Walker is attempting to make the claim that Marine tanks were able to identify this as a civilian vehicle, and that despite that, they decided to willfully fire upon it. He does not support his charge.

It is tragic that in this instance that the vehicle in this instance was perhaps a civilian vehicle attempting to provide care for a wounded journalist, but there is no evidence presented by Coroner Walker to the public that supports his charge that the vehicle carrying Lloyd was specifically targeted. Further, Walker does not establish the fact much less that it was knowingly targeted as a noncombatant, non-threat vehicle. For that matter, the inquiry seems to gloss over previous reports that the "civilian" van was also carrying Iraqi soldiers.

Much more detail about the incident is provided in a TimesOnline article which gives a general picture of the event, but it hardly provides enough detail to warrant Walker's statement that Terry Lloyd was "unlawfully killed." There is no released evidence supporting that the van was targeted, and sufficient reason to suspect that the fire that killed Lloyd were fired at Iraqi soldiers engaged with U.S. forces at the time.

I feel sorrow for the Lloyd family, but this inquest, at least what has been released thus far, does not support the coroner's conclusion. Terry Lloyd's death was tragic, but nothing released thus far supports a charge of murder.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:36 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 12, 2006

Questionable Methods, Questionable Results

It seems that the British Lancet has a certain problematic pattern of behavior:

From ABC News last year:

Indian experts say a new study which found that some 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in the country in the past 20 years was sensationalist and inaccurate.

The study, published online by British medical journal The Lancet, says the practice of selective abortion is due to a traditional preference for boys in India.

"It is a sensational piece of work. We are very, very concerned about this study," activist Sabu George said, who has been campaigning against the practice of foeticide for more than two decades.

"An unreasonable estimate will undermine the issue," he said.

Exaggerated? An unreasonable estimate in the Lancet? Shocking.

Worried about the hype generated about "Frankenfood?" If you want to guess where it came from, thank this New York Times article in 1999:

a prestigious medical journal is publishing a study suggesting that genetically modified food may be harmful, even though the research has been widely criticized by scientists and was found wanting by some of the journal's own referees.

The Lancet, a journal based in England, said had it decided to publish the study in part to spur debate and to avoid being accused of suppressing information on a controversial subject.

The study is also likely to be seized upon by opponents of such food in the United States, where consumers have until recently expressed little concern about the genetically altered corn and soybeans that have swept quietly into their diets.

Charles Margulis of the Washington office of Greenpeace was quoted as saying, "I think it gives it a certain scientific credibility. It's going to increase concern here in the United States." But the decision to publish the study is itself generating debate: some scientists say the Lancet has lowered its standards and subverted the peer review process.

Subverting peer review and lowering its standards of accuracy? Surely, this is not the Lancet we're talking about.

Speaking of questionable accuracy and low standards, do you remember the 1998 study linking the common childhood MMR (measels,/mumps/rubella)vaccine to autism? It didn't do too well.

Ten of the original 13 authors of a controversial 1998 medical report which implied a link between autism and the combined MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella, have retracted the paper's interpretations.

The retraction will be printed in the 6 March issue of The Lancet, which published the original paper. One author could not be reached and two others, Peter Harvey and lead author Andrew Wakefield, refused to join the retraction.

"We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient," write the 10 authors in their retraction. "However, the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health."

The original paper, which was based on parental and medical reports of just a dozen children, suggested a "possible relation" between autism, bowel disease, and MMR. The paper added it "did not prove an association".

The Lancet rushed through a under-sampled study spearheaded by a possibly dishonest scientist. Interesting.

It seems that sometimes a desire to influence or shock public sensibilities seems to get the better of the Lancet from time to time, as it did when it claimed just prior to the 2004 elections that 8,000-194,000 (but most often trumpeted as 100,000) Iraqi civilians had been killed.

Funny, how the UN Development Program Iraq Living Conditions Survey using similar cluster survey methodology but on a far greater scale, recorded only 24,000 deaths published five months later with a 95% confidence interval of 18,000 to 29,000.

If you didn't know any better, you might just think their studies were driven by leadership more interested in exerting political influence than presenting valid science.

It's a good thing that couldn’t be the case.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:03 PM | Comments (26) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

In Your Hands

Scott Elliott wrote this very impassioned call to action for conservative voters yesterday:

Here we are enduring the ongoing saga of Foleygate, immersed in a steady stream of scandalous revelations about who and when, what and where. After news broke of former GOP Rep. Mark Foley's disgraceful acts, it was only a matter of time before the headlines would begin tolling the death knell for the GOP’s chances in November. "GOP in meltdown" was the headline recently at MSN online. "Bush approval sinks to new low" was another. Phrases like "tipping point" and "nail in the coffin" are being banged out of keyboard after keyboard across the country faster than my 8-year-old can tell you his life story.

And why shouldn't they be? After suffering through a withering summer in which their fortunes seemed to steadily decline into resignation, many Republicans feel the Foley scandal is indeed the coup de resistance for Democrats ravenous to regain the gavel of power on Capitol Hill. The undersea earth has shifted; the tsunami is on its way. And there's nothing we can do to stop the coming tidal wave from crashing down on November 7. There is no force to stand against the swelling political seas. Hey, we had a nice run; it's time to close up shop and accept the inevitable, right?

I can hear Jimmy V. turning in his grave and the editorial board at The New York Times shrieking with delight. Are we really giving up? With so much to lose, so much on the table, with America's very future hanging in the balance, surely we can't be calling it quits. If we learned anything from the last three elections, it is that participation, not polls, pundits or pooh-poohing, makes or breaks an election.

In 2000, ineffective GOP mobilization efforts and disaffected GOP voters afforded Al Gore 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. In 2002 and 2004, a transformation of miraculous proportions took place in the Republican get-out-the-vote machine. It culminated in the GOP control of both congressional chambers and the re-election of a Republican president who received over 3 million more votes than his opponent and nearly 8 million more than any previous presidential candidate in history.

Scott, by the way, knows a thing or two about elections. His web site, called Election Projection, was only off of getting the exact electoral vote count correct by three in the 2004 Presidential race.

Despite all the gloom and doom from the media, his present models are calling the Senate a dead heat and predicting that the Republicans will hold onto the House by five seats, quite a far cry from the slaughter many on the left are merrily predicting.

In fact, the only way it seems that the Republicans could lose the House is if we decide not to vote. So vote already, and if you haven't registered, you need to do so quickly. Here in North Carolina, tomorrow is the last day to register to vote.

A web site geared at getting out voters called PayAttention.org has all the details about registering and voting in your area. Please register, and use your right to vote.

If you don't, some patchouli-stinking liberal front group might just do it for you.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:47 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Thank You

I think I responded to everyone who contributed funds to my "blegburst" personally, but I’d like to do so again publicly. I’m both deeply touched and humbled that so many people—almost none of which I’ve every met in person—were kind enough to donate money to help me purchase a replacement for my aging Dell desktop.

I swung by the TigerDirect outlet store here in Raleigh during lunch and was able to find a solid, basic laptop that I think will take care of my needs quite nicely. I'll likely pick it up next week when the transfer of funds from PayPal to my bank is complete.

I couldn't have done it without the support of both blog readers and of course, my fellow bloggers, who linked to my bleg.

Bloggers and blog readers are truly wonderful folks.

From the bottom of my cold conservative heart, thank you.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:57 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Dirty, Dirty Harry

If current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid suddenly find himself on the wrong end of a full investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee for a undisclosed land deal that made him quite rich, he'll have no one to blame but himself, and perhaps, the company he keeps:

Reid's avoidance of disclosure hid two aspects of his business relationships. The first was his association with Jay Brown, who has a history of being involved in scandal. The NY Times describes him as "a prominent Las Vegas lawyer," but they never get around to mentioning his involvement in a federal bribery case in Las Vegas. Nor do they mention Brown's work as a lobbyist, as the AP did, nor do they follow up on the AP's report of connections between Brown and organized crime.

The other part Reid wanted to keep secret was the financial ties between himself and Harvey Whittemore. The AP story reported that Reid bought the parcel from "a developer who was benefiting from a government land swap that Reid supported," a perfect description of Whittemore in 1998 when Reid purchased the land. For the next seven years, Reid would work to ease Whittemore's difficulties in developing the Coyote Springs project by forcing the government to swap its right-of-way for less valuable land owned by Whittemore; he tried to get the government to literally give away more of its land to Whittemore, although he would not succeed; and in the end, he pressed federal regulators to lift a endangered-species restriction on Whittemore's Coyote Springs real estate. All of this helped give Whittemore an opportunity to make tens of millions on residential and commercial development in the former test range site.

Personally, I'm not big on covering corruption scandals, but I've been hearing for quite some time that "Dirty Harry" has long held ties with the shadiest of characters, so this wouldn't unduly surprise me. What happens next?

Time will tell.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:42 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Confirming or Debunking the Lancet Study with One Simple Question

The controversial and disputed Johns Hopkins study published (free reg required) in the Lancet today claims an additional 654,965 deaths as the result of the Iraq War since 2003, 610,000 of those deaths as a result of violence. It also claims they were able to verify that 92% of those 629 claimed killed in their survey had valid death certificates.

Using the research of the John Hopkins study, the Iraqi Ministry of Health should be able to therefore produce roughly 602,568 total death certificates (654,965 x 92%), and 561,200 (610,000 x 92%) of these death certificates should by attributed to violent deaths, if they do in fact collect such information nationally.

If they have far, far less death certificates on file, then the Lancet study will have invalidated itself using it's own methodology, would it not?

I'll also be very interested to find out whether or not Gilbert Burnham of John Hopkins or the editors of the Lancet made any attempt to check their figures against any available compilations of the number of death certificates issued in Iraq as a check on their research. Iraqi morgues regularly and independently released their own figures until September, when the Iraqi government took over that responsibility, which was after the data in the study was compiled by June of 2006.

Other Estimates
Not surprisingly the study figures--far beyond every other survey done by orders of magnitude--are widely discounted by most, and run contrary to every previous attempt to estimate casualties.

Iraq Body Count, a well-respected site that tracks the number of casualties in Iraq based upon media reports, lists the maximum number of casualties to date at 48,693.

The Brookings Institute reports (PDF) their estimate, based upon IBC and United Nations Cumulative data until August 31, 2006, to be a slightly higher figure of 62,000 civilian deaths due to violence. Michael E. O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution said of the Lancet numbers:

"I do not believe the new numbers. I think they're way off," he said.

A June 25, 2006 Los Angeles Times report comes up with another set of figures:

The Times attempted to reach a comprehensive figure by obtaining statistics from the Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry and checking those numbers against a sampling of local health departments for possible undercounts.

The Health Ministry gathers numbers from hospitals in the capital and the outlying provinces. If a victim of violence dies at a hospital or arrives dead, medical officials issue a death certificate. Relatives claim the body directly from the hospital and arrange for a speedy burial in keeping with Muslim beliefs.

If the morgue receives a body — usually those deemed suspicious deaths — officials there issue the death certificate.

Health Ministry officials said that because death certificates are issued and counted separately, the two data sets are not overlapping.

The Baghdad morgue received 30,204 bodies from 2003 through mid-2006, while the Health Ministry said it had documented 18,933 deaths from "military clashes" and "terrorist attacks" from April 5, 2004, to June 1, 2006. Together, the toll reaches 49,137.

Obviously, the Johns Hopkins study figures published in today’s Lancet are far higher than any previous estimates. It will be quite interesting to see if these figures—already dismissed by every world leader and military leader commenting on it so far—can indeed be defended.

As Bryan notes at Hot Air:

The Lancet study would have us believe that 2.5% of Iraq has been killed by the war in the past three years. It would have us believe that more Iraqis have died as a result of a mid-sized insurgency than Americans died in World War II. Or the Civil War. Or Germans, who died in World War II, fighting against the combined might of the USSR, the British Empire and the United States, at a time when Germany was reduced to conscripting young boys and old men to resist those armies as they approached Berlin.

This study, in other words, is nonsense on stilts.

Of course it is, but it will be most entertaining if we can debunk them using their own informaiton against them.

Update: A word on public health methodology from a medical professional at Jane Galt:

And sorry, but the defense that it's as soundly designed as can be expected for these kinds of public health surveys is a weak one. Retrospective, interview-based studies like this are poor designs. It may be the standard way of gathering data in the public health field, but that doesn't make it the best methodology, and it certainly doesn't make its statistics sound. For too long the field of public health has relied on these types of shotty shoddy numbers to influence public policy, whether it's the number of people who die from second hand smoke or the number who die from eating the wrong kinds of cooking oils.

The same blog post notes that Lancet-published studies of the past have been throughly debunked for shoddy research.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:25 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 11, 2006

Help You, Help Me: The First Blegburst (Bumped)

Update: A huge "thank you" is in order to all my fellow bloggers who linked this post (you know who you are), and to the readers who were kind enough to contribute so generously so far. Thanks to your donations, I am very close to being able to get a replacement PC for this old clunker. I couldn't do this without you, and I'm touched by all your support.

I guess I wasn't paying very close attention, but at some point yesterday I cracked a million visits on ye olde Sitemeter, a good chunk of which came from this post that took me longer to upload than create.

I think this a milestone of some sort, and so I'll do what bloggers often take this once-in-lifetime opportunity to do: bleg. But not just any bleg.

What's a bleg?

According to Samizdata:

Bleg verb. To use one's blog to beg for assistance (usually for information, occasionally for money). One who does so is a 'blegger'. Usually intended as humorous.

Yes, usually intended as humorous, and I think I would be quite tickled, neigh, giddy at the thought of those of you who have visited this humble blog over the past year and eleven months contributing just one small dime for each visit you've made.

Granted, Sally Struthers claims that for one dime a day that you can "give the gift of hope, the gift of life," to some small child in Africa, but does that starving urchin plop down in front of a keyboard several times each day to keep you entertained with wit and insight?

I think not.

Besides, as a social conservative, I'm pretty sure that's pretty much welfare, and how are we going to force them to get off their sickbeds and learn to provide for themselves if we make them reliant on charity? Help them learn self-sufficiency by giving me your money instead.

For unlike rudimentary every day supplies like "food" and "water" that the impoverished can get almost anywhere not devoured by famine and pestilence, I have more technical needs that must be satisfied so that I can to continue to bring you this dreck the high-quality content and occasional tomfoolery you've come to expect here at Confederate Yankee.

Specifically, I need a new computer.

The Dell Dimension L733R that I've held together since 2001 with spit and bailing wire is coming apart (and getting just a bit groady). And yes, I blegged for cash for a replacement almost a year ago, but you know, my drug problem came first, and the blegged cash went to paying that off. Damn doctors.

And so I implore you to use what you've gained from this record-breaking Republican Economy to help me ensure your blog-reading enjoyment. Help fund the equipment I need to continue bringing you both insightful conservative commentary, bias against media bias, and crude, sophomoric PhotoShops.

But wait, there's more!

And I will give something back to the blogging community in kind for your support, a new, powerful and practical concept: blegburst.

How do I know it's new? It's not here.

And it’s imminently useful, especially to those of you in the blogging community.

But Bob, How does it work?

I'm so glad you asked.

Put simply, a blegburst is when you beg for money or some other sort of assistance online, and other bloggers link your plea. And the coolest thing is this: as blegbursts are brand page-spanking new, you can participate in the very first one.

Isn't that exciting?

Wow! What do I need to do to participate?

It's actually quite simple. Simply link this post in one of your own blog posts. It really is that simple.

Plus, no smelly, starving kids!

It's a win-win situation for all, and I and my new computer thank you for your support.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:05 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Small Plane Hits NYC Skyscraper

I hope this is just an accident:

The aircraft struck the 20th floor of a building on East 72nd Street, said Fire Department spokeswoman Emily Rahimi. Witnesses said the crash caused a loud noise, and burning and falling debris was seen. Flames were seen shooting out of the windows.

"There's huge pieces of debris falling," said one witness who refused to give her full name. "There's so much falling now, I've got to get away."

The article goes on to say that this is a 50 story building, meaning that 30 stories of the building is above the site of the strike, which would likely make it difficult for people to escape through the elevators. The relatively low strike and small size of the plane might make a rooftop helicopter evacuation plausible, but I just don't have enough details to know.

It is too early to know how bad the fire may be or what the proximate cause was at this point. More as this develops...

Update From Allah's description, it does indeed sound like an accident and it appears that the NYFD will bring this under control, if they haven't already.

Update: NY Yankee's pitcher Cory Lidle and an instructor pilot were killed in the crash.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:33 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Greatest Conspiracy Ever

Complete and utter crap.

I'm frankly amazed that the same idiots who brought us the massively inflated body count study just before the 2004 election cycle would be stupid enough to try to float their same lies again, saying that as many as 650,000 Iraqis have died since the war began in 2003, 601,000 from violence.

Proving once again that there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics," this study overestimates the number of actual deaths by just a mere 600,000 or so, according to the widely-regarded anti-war Iraq Body Count which puts the maximum number of Iraqis killed at less than 50,000.

Even the basic premise of the study is dishonest, taking into account all Iraqi deaths over the past few years—car crashes, cancer, heart attacks, adverse drug reactions; anything will do—and including those non-war-related deaths along with the deaths of insurgents, Iraqi police, Iraqi military, and "legitimate" civilian combat-related deaths.

Now I'm not surprised that someone blatantly dishonest enough to use sockpuppets to protect his fragile ego is supporting this dreck, but I expect people with a modicum of common sense to realize, that as Blue Crab Boulevard notes, that for this study to be close to valid, that an additional 15,500 people are dying each month than every recognized government and private estimate of deaths has ever supported. That's 400-500 additional deaths per day than any media outlet on the planet has reported.

Let's use common sense for just a second: if this study was even third of what they claim (which would be almost 217,000 civilian deaths), don't you think that such a catastrophic loss of live would have been noticed by someone? al Jazeera, or al Manar, or maybe slightly larger and well-funded news organizations, such as the Associated Press, Reuters, or United Press International? Of course it would have. It is a mathematical impossibility to have hidden even this number of civilian combat deaths from a war zone so thoroughly saturated with media.

As a former President once said, you can fool all of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. It would have taken the greatest cover-up in human history to have been able to have covered up 217,000 civilian deaths as a result of the war, much less the massively inflated body count of 650,000.

As I just left in the comments at Matthew Yglesias' site:

...Where are the bodies?

The Iraq war is extremely well covered by the international news media and is of specific interest to the Arab media in particular, and yet not a single media outlet in the world will independently claim even ten-percent of what this study suggests. Don’t it set off even the slightest alarm bells when a figure this greatly inflated comes across your radar?

A simple, cursory look at the well-respected anti-war site Iraq Body Count will reflect that the maximum number of civilian deaths is less than 50,000.

I know some are completely blinded by partisanship on both sides of this issue, but common sense has to tell you this study (once again timed for release before an election—how convenient, that) is patently absurd.

To buy these conclusions, you have to swallow the impossibility that Reuters, the Associated Press, UPI, the BBC, the New York Times, the Guardian, Robert Fisk, al Manar, al Jazeera, and every other news conglomeration in Iraq are a willful part of the largest cover-up in human history, hiding three times of the number of those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (214,000 according to wikipedia) over the course of three-plus years.

It’s patently absurd.

I know we disagree and disagree strongly over the Iraq war, but even the most rabidly anti-war bloggers should come out strongly against this politically-motivated farce, if for no other reason than to protect your own integrity.

This “study” is a blatant falsehood, and you know it.

So say so.

And yet, odds are neither Yglesias, nor Sock Puppet, nor Think Progress, nor Rising Hegemon, nor attytood, nor any other liberal blog likely have the integrity to challenge the study nor the world's media outlets.

It is quite simple: either all of the world's media organizations are involved with a massive conspiracy with the U.S., British, and Iraqi governments for more than three years to cover up massive civilian losses roughly triple the number of those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

--OR--

This study, like the one issued before it, is another statistical lie.

I'll let you and Occam figure out which is more likely.

Update: The Iraqis think this study is bogus as well h/t HotAir:

THE Iraqi Government described as "exaggerated" an independent US study which estimated that 655,000 Iraqis had died since the 2003 US invasion.

US President George W. Mr Bush had similarly called the report "not credible".

The study estimated that one Iraqi in 40 had died as a result of the conflict by comparing the death rates from the period before the war to the period from March 2003 to June 2006.

"This figure, which in reality has no basis, is exaggerated," said Iraqi government spokesman Ali Debbagh.

"It is a figure which flies in the face of the most obvious truths," he said, calling on research institutions to adopt precise and transparent criteria especially when the research concerns victim tolls.

The study has no basis in reality, and flies in the face of the most obvious truths.

Of course, that's just the Iraqis saying that, not the report of an anti-war Democrat researcher who has contributed money to anti-war candidates, so the Iraqis are assuredly wrong.

Update: One of the "Loose Changers" in the comments accidentally helped provide a good self-debunking point contained in the report:

If you'd bother to read the study before denouncing it, you'd find that they were able to produce Death Certificates to verify 90% of the reported deaths in the sampled households.

If that is indeed the case and the study results are validly extrapolated, then the Iraqi government should be able to produce 540,000 death certificates. Even if they can provide death certificates for just half of those that the study authors claim were killed by violence, then government morgues should be able to produce 300,000 death certificates, which again the media would have picked up very quickly as the media consistently uses the Iraqi morgues as a source for fatalities for their stories on a daily basis.

In short, the study provides the evidence—or lack thereof—debunking itself.

Update: Baghdad dentist Omar Fadil cuts loose:

When the statistics announced by hospitals and military here, or even by the UN, did not satisfy their lust for more deaths, they resorted to mathematics to get a fake number that satisfies their sadistic urges.

When I read the report I can only feel apathy and inhumanity from those who did the count towards the victims and towards our suffering as a whole. I can tell they were so pleased when the equations their twisted minds designed led to those numbers and nothing can convince me that they did their so called research out of compassion or care.

To me their motives are clear, all they want is to prove that our struggle for freedom was the wrong thing to do. And they shamelessly use lies to do this…when they did not find the death they wanted to see on the ground, they faked it on paper! They disgust me…

This fake research is an insult to every man, woman and child who lost their lives.

As they say, read the whole thing.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:50 AM | Comments (49) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Welcoming my new Co-Blogger, Regan Teresa MacNeil

Um, you might notice that the site is acting a bit, well, possessed this morning, with the content inexplicably centered, the "Digg It" button missing and the "show comments" link going to Digg instead.

I have no earthly idea why this is happening as I have nott knowingly altered my templates in quite a while. Hopefully we can get this cleared up soon, and I apologize for the unexpected weirdness.

Update: Of course, now that I post this, everything looks fine. Oh well... Tech genius and dear brother Phin of Apothegm Designs cleared up the snafu within mere minutes.

Just a plug for him and his partner Sadie in case any of my fellow bloggers are thinking about a blog design, redesign, or platform change: they really know their stuff.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:54 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 10, 2006

Confirmed: Blast ''Non-nuclear''

How do I know?

'cause Michael Yon told me so.

This of course, means my "Divine Strake" guestimate of earlier this week was correct.

Yeah, even a blind hog can find an acorn every once in a while...

Update: Mary Katharine Ham and Allahpundit have more.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:52 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Greatest Political Ad Ever

Go see it.

Allah's got the other one.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:16 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Other "Blue Dress Moment"

Things just keep getting worse for Bubba.

It was bad enough that his attempts to censor the recent "Road to 9/11" mini-series backfired and instead exposed his incompetence in dealing with al Qaeda, reminding the world that he allowed an attempted chemical weapons attack on Manhattan to go unchallenged militarily. Now the ripples of North Korea's nuclear (or not) blast have shown the 1994 Agreed Framework Clinton allowed Jimmy Carter to lead has led us to our present state of affairs. North Korea, a rogue state that has always sold every weapons system it has ever developed to the highest bidder is threatening to fire a nuclear-armed missile. Given their history, we might look at this as both nuclear gamesmanship and a product demonstration.

As time wears on and more failures are revealed, William Jefferson Clinton, the charismatic Man From Hope, is proving to be arguably the least competent foreign policy President of the twentieth century.

It must be said that every president since the early 1970s has failed in one way or another in dealing with terrorism. From Nixon and Ford, down through Carter and Reagan, to George H.W. Bush, Americans suffered through a string of terrorist attacks nearly unanswered.

Bill Clinton, however, established a new low point of inaction. He froze out his CIA Director, never meeting with him in two years, leading Woolsey to resign in disgust. Even though a new terror network was emerging to confront America directly, Clinton continued to treat the matter as a law enforcement issue. Clinton steadfastly refused to confront terrorism, as even his own top advisor Dick Morris noted:

The weekly strategy meetings at the White House throughout 1995 and 1996 featured an escalating drumbeat of advice to President Clinton to take decisive steps to crack down on terrorism. The polls gave these ideas a green light. But Clinton hesitated and failed to act, always finding a reason why some other concern was more important.

Clinton's unstated policy ignoring of the growing threat of al Qaeda emboldened them, leading to a plot that ultimately unfolded on the morning of September 11, 2001. Jumping office workers in Manhattan, a flaming facade in the Pentagon, and a rubble-strewn field in Pennsylvania are the legacy of President Clinton's decision to always find "some other concern" instead of acting against an increasingly bold al Qaeda terrorist network.

But what Clinton didn't accomplish against terrorism while he was in office may eventually pale in comparison to his incompetence in allowing rogue states to develop the technology to manufacture nuclear warheads and the weapons systems to deliver them.

On Clinton's watch, China successfully sold a conversion plant to Iran and the gas need to test the uranium enrichment process. In 1996, as Clinton froze out the CIA Director, Iran was busily constructing the Arak heavy water plant. Iran began the secret uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in 2000.

During the same time period, North Korea was secretly expanding it's nuclear weapons research and designing long-range multi-stage missiles, even as the gullible Clinton sent Secretary of State Madeline Albright to fulfill her own historical blue dress moment.

Bill Clinton left office in 2001, leaving us a world safe for terrorism instead of from it, and with two rogue nations developing nuclear weapons programs. Perhaps we cold have known of all of these programs far earlier, had he and Congressional Democrats not emasculated with constant calls for intelligence agency budget cuts.

Bill Clinton fundamentally misunderstood the threats posed by rouge nations aspiring to nuclear weapons capability and blinded American intelligence agencies that may have exposed them earlier. He fundamentally understood the causes of and how to confront Islamic terrorism.

Clinton's "do nothing" legacy is echoed today by Democratic Senators and Congressmen that rose through the ranks during his presidency. These Senators and Congressmen—Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi among them—still hold desperately to the same flawed misconceptions that led us to a point where are today. We now face not one, but two rouge nations on the cusp of being able to provide terrorist organizations with nuclear warheads.

President Clinton's "blue dress moment" with a White House intern led to the President being exposed as a distracted man with weak moral values who lied under oath.

President Clinton’s other "blue dress moment," —sending Madeline Albright to negotiate for a piece of paper that was never honored—now becomes emblematic of his failures on the nuclear proliferation front as well, and may ultimately be a far more damning part of his legacy of charismatic incompetence.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:36 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

North Korean Seppuku?

Can someone please tell me when the firing of an ICBM armed with a nuclear warhead was not universally recognized as an act of war?

North Korea stepped up its threats aimed at Washington, saying it could fire a nuclear[sic] nuclear-tipped missile unless the United States acts to resolve its standoff with Pyongyang, the Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday from Beijing.

Even if Pyongyang is confirmed to have nuclear weapons, experts say it's unlikely the North has a bomb design small and light enough to be mounted atop a missile. Their long-range missile capability also remains in question, after a test rocket in July apparently fizzled out shortly after takeoff.

"We hope the situation will be resolved before an unfortunate incident of us firing a nuclear missile comes," Yonhap quoted an unidentified North Korean official as saying. "That depends on how the U.S. will act."

The official said the nuclear test was "an expression of our intention to face the United States across the negotiating table," reported Yonhap, which didn't say how or where it contacted the official, or why no name was given.

More after I have a chance to think about what this means...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:23 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

NorK Dork Corked

And Bill Gertz agrees with that initial speculation, just 24 short hours later:

U.S. intelligence agencies say, based on preliminary indications, that North Korea did not produce its first nuclear blast yesterday.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that seismic readings show that the conventional high explosives used to create a chain reaction in a plutonium-based device went off, but that the blast's readings were shy of a typical nuclear detonation.

"We're still evaluating the data, and as more data comes in, we hope to develop a clearer picture," said one official familiar with intelligence reports.

"There was a seismic event that registered about 4 on the Richter scale, but it still isn't clear if it was a nuclear test. You can get that kind of seismic reading from high explosives."

It still remains, of course, to see if this assessment is correct. It could have been a faulty nuke, after all.

As ever, the sleepless Allah is on the case.

Update: Related thoughts at AoC.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:31 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Who Do You Trust?

According to USAToday's new poll, the pachyderms are toast:

A Capitol Hill sex scandal has reinforced public doubts about Republican leadership and pushed Democrats to a huge lead in the race for control of Congress four weeks before Election Day, the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.

Democrats had a 23-point lead over Republicans in every group of people questioned — likely voters, registered voters and adults — on which party's House candidate would get their vote. That's double the lead Republicans had a month before they seized control of Congress in 1994 and the Democrats' largest advantage among registered voters since 1978.

Nearly three in 10 registered voters said their representative doesn't deserve re-election — the highest level since 1994. President Bush's approval rating was 37% in the new poll, down from 44% in a Sept. 15-17 poll. And for the first time since the question was asked in 2002, Democrats did better than Republicans on who would best handle terrorism, 46%-41%.

"It's hard to see how the climate is going to shift dramatically between now and Election Day," said John Pitney, a former GOP aide on Capitol Hill who now teaches at Claremont-McKenna College in California. He said Iraq remains the biggest problem for Republicans: "People just don't like inconclusive wars."

The plummeting GOP ratings in the poll of 1,007 adults, taken Friday through Sunday, come amid a series of events that have given Democrats ammunition to argue that the country needs a new direction.

Ah, the sounds of wishful thinking.

Now, it may very well come to pass that the Republicans have made enough mistakes to finally lose to a feckless Donkey, but I'll be among those surprised if that is the case. As I said in a previous post, "you can't beat something with nothing."

And what, precisely, do Democrats really have to offer the American voter other than "we aren't Republicans?"

If Democrats gain control of Congress, you can flush any pretense of border security down the drain. It will go from weak, to nonexistant.

As for Iraq, forget it: Speaker Pelosi will push to have the troops "redeployed" to some place useful like Guam, and faster than you can say "Rwanda," you'll see a nation of 26 million ripped completely to shreds. Think Iraq is bad with us there now? See what happens to it if the party of "cut and run" takes over and allows bin Laden his victory.

And allow bin Laden's victory they will. The Democrats have already shown they have no stomach for fighting in Iraq, so how long do you really think it would take for them to concoct a storyline saying that since bin Laden isn't in Afghanistan, than we shouldn't be either? Guam's going to get might crowded.

As for Mr. Kim and the NorKs, we've seen what happens when President Bush tried the preferred Democratic solution of multilateral talks. Expect it to get even worse as Dems push the same failed strategies in dealing with Iran. Oh, and kiss you missile defense goodbye.

Taxes? Going up if Democrats have their way.

Jobs? Going down because taxes are going up.

The current record-high stock market? Gone in the mist.

And don't even get me going on the endless poltically-driven investigations that will completely cripple the government. Think two weeks of Foleygate is bad? Try two years of the same shrill whine as they try to Get Bush.

But hopefuly, that unpleasantness won't come to pass. Between now and November 7, Foleygate will fade, along with the Democratic chance for victory. The Democrats won't win the House, but lose it by six, as I previously mentioned.

Interestingly enough, Scott Elliott's extremely accurate Election Projection currently has the Elephants taking the House by five (220-215), so I feel my SWAG has some merit. The Senate is closer and currently a dead heat, but once again, I predict that the election will come down to the all-but-forgotten Security Moms (and Dads) on November 7.

If the Democrats can convince them that by withdrawing from Iraq (and Afghanistan, which you know they will cry for next) is in this nation's best interests, and that allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons uncontested is a smart strategy, then the Republicans deserve to lose.

I happen to think that the American voter is smarter than pollsters give them credit for. You can't beat something with nothing, even when the media is on your side.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:11 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 09, 2006

NoDong, Little Action

Even as North Korea came under international condemnation today after boasting that it had tested a nuclear device, there were serious doubts about the strength of the weapon.

We have assessed that the explosion in North Korea was a sub-kiloton explosion,” said the intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. He added, “We don’t know, in fact, whether it was a nuclear explosion.” He spoke as intelligence analysts in Washington were in the early stages of assessing the explosion.

New York Times

Note: PhotoShop Jihad on the NorKs.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:30 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Did North Korea Call or Bluff?

I speculated last night that the North Korean nuclear test could possibly be "spoofed" by North Korea detonating a massive conventional explosive instead, just as the United States had planned with an operation called "Divine Strake" that was scheduled to take place in Nevada earlier this year using a massive ammonium nitrate bomb of 770 tons (Divine Strake was postponed, but may be rescheduled for 2007).

Some are stating that the seismic data is showing that the yield is even lower than that planned for Divine Strake, around 550 tons. This can be interpreted a couple of different ways, providing that the actual yield was in the range of 550 tons.

(1) The North Korean nuclear test was a fake. North Korea was hoping to get by on a bluff using a massive conventional explosion, hoping that it would be close enough to make the world think they had detonated the real thing.

(2) The North Korean nuclear test was a dud. Several experts are stating the possibility that the North Koreans detonated a shoddily built nuclear warhead that was more or less a dud, not achieving even a twentieth of the power one should expect from a plutonium warhead detonation.

And then there is the seismic data.

This is the seismic wave of a blast in North Korea that corresponds with the time that North Korea claims to have conducted their test, as currently shown on CNN.com.

I'm no seismic expert by any measure and would never claim to be, but does this data look similar to the seismic data of the confirmed simultaneous Indian nuclear tests of May 11, 1998, and a nearby earthquake that I culled from a Lawrence Livermore Web page?

The confirmed Indian nuclear tests show a massive initial spike, then much less intense aftershocks tapering off relatively quickly when compared to an earthquake. The north Korean blast seems to have ramped up before spiking and settling back down.

To my untrained eye, it appears that the North Korean test didn't act in the same way that the Indian detonation did, going from normal seismic activity to a massive spike before receding. It appears to have ramped up at first, then spiked, then tapered off.

I don't know if experts can easily determine the difference between a fizzled nuclear blast and a conventional detonation for the simple reason that I don't understand the physics involved. I would think, however, that even a partial nuclear dud would not "ramp up" as the North Korean test did, but just go off with much less of a "pop."

I'll turn this back over to the experts, but for now, the more I see, the more I question just how successful this test was. I don't know if it was a fake or a dud, but it certainly doesn't appear to be what we expected from a competently constructed modern nuclear warhead.

Updates: they are coming fast and furious, so hang on.

Josh Manchester, who I just met in person this past weekend and found to be very impressive, has a couple of posts I consider must-reads. Allah has compiled continuing breaking news from the beginning of this story on Hot Air. Start here and continue on here. Glenn Reynolds is of course providing roundups and passing out Instalanches here and here. Pajamas Media has an on-going thread here.

Mary Katherine Ham started off here last night and continues on today. No word yet on whether or not she's wearing the hated orange yet.

Wizbang has a roundup going as does another new friend, Sister Toldjah.

Expect information overload. I'm sure more is on the way.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:45 AM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

North Korea Detonates Nuke, Enters Refractory Period

Developing:

North Korea said Monday it has performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test, which would confirm that the country has a working atomic bomb as it has long claimed.

The country's official Korean Central News Agency said the underground test was performed successfully "with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent," and that no radioactive material leaked from that test site.

"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the (Korean People's Army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability," KCNA said. "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."

I suspect that we'll find out that this was a real test of a small nuclear warhead, but I would not be surprised in the least to find out that this was a large conventional blast like we had planned earlier this year in Nevada in an operation named "Divine Strake."

Time will tell, but I think North Korea miscalculated. They don' t seem to have any other threats to issue now that they've test-fired both missiles and warheads in the past year. They've essentially fired out with everything they have, and I don't see that they have anything with which to negotiate now.

Bad dictator. Dumb move.

Update: MKH and Allah are all over this. Back to my sick bed I go...

Update: Josh Manchester has a must-read analysis of the situation in his TCS Daily article, "Stalking the Hermit."

Update: Captain Ed ain't buying it. Not yet, anyway.

Update: Pushing their luck: Norks say they might test another. This could escalate quickly, both diplomatically and perhaps even militarily. Stay tuned...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:33 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 08, 2006

Carolina FreedomNet Wrap-up

I'm a bit under the weather now and intend to crawl back in bed momentarily, but I wanted to take a second to thank the John Locke Foundation for inviting me to participate on a panel at Carolina Freedomnet 2006.

While I've spent a lot of time with fellow bloggers via email and the occasional phone call, FreedomNet was the first time I actually got to meet some of my fellow bloggers in person, and I can't tell you how nice they all are.

I got in Friday night and caught up with Jon Ham of John Locke, Kay Ham (Jon's wife, Mary Katharine's mom, great lady), Abby Misemer and Missy Nurrenbrock, sisters who came up all the way from Florida for the conference, Kory Swanson of John Locke, and another blogger you might just have heard of, Scott Johnson of Powerline. We went dinner in one of the excellent Koury Convention Center restaurants, and I was amazed at just how well informed Abby and Missy were. I think they knew Powerline as well as Scott did, and he was visibly impressed.

After dinner we went back to a suite and I got to meet my fellow panelists, Sister Toldjah, Lorie Byrd of Wizbang!, Scott Elliott of Election Projection, and Josh Manchester of The Adventures of Chester. It was interesting that these folks, many of whom I've been reading for a long time, were quite a bit like I expected them to be.

Your personality really does come out in your blogging, I guess.

We had a delightful, wide-ranging discussion that was just, well, cool. I felt right at home. The fashionably late Ms. Ham joined us after 10:30-ish when her flight got in. We palled around a while, and I think we decided we needed to kidnap Allah and take him to a NASCAR race to expand his cultural horizons, but we need to work out the details.

This was my first conference panel since college and so I was a little nervous, but I finally managed to drop-off around 2:00 AM.

I awoke the next morning to a call from my brother (phin of phin's blog, Phineas G of Agent Bedhead, and half of the Apothegm Designs blog design masters) saying that he's gotten a wild hair and registered for the conference at 4:15 AM and had driven up and was standing in the lobby. I was touched, to put it mildly, that he took the time out of his insanely busy schedule to make the trip.

I was on the first panel with Lorie Byrd, Sister Toldjah and Sam Heib of Sam's Notes, who I unfortunately didn't get to spend any time with beforehand, but who was quite intelligent and well-spoken on the panel.

While we were going there was a minor disturbance as a very rude gentleman made a loud and obnoxious exit. I found out later that the scruffy Garrison Keillor look-alike was apparently attempting to drum up traffic for his own blog. Personally, I'd suggest compelling content instead of temper tantrums, but to each his own. I'd tell you more about what we said during our panel discussion, but it all went by in a blur.

Bonus: Bruce of GayPatriot was sitting in the front row, which was something we found out just before our panel ended. It was neat to get a chance to meet him.

Mary Katharine Ham was the only blogger whose work I was familiar with on the second panel prior to the conference, but that will change quickly. I was very impressed with Josh Manchester and Scott Elliott from talking with them some the night before, listening to them during the panel discussion, and talking with them after the conference was over. As they are all local, I'm going to try to make an effort to keep in touch. Jeff Taylor, who writes for Reason and Hit & Run in addition to the Meck Deck, was extremely bright as well.

Lunch was good (ever had a blue potato before? I hadn't, but it was good), and the Scot Johnson gave the keynote address, "The 61st Minute: Inside the Eye of Hurricane Dan," which of course was about the "September Surprise" orchestrated by CBS News in which they allowed themselves to be duped into using fake Texas Air National Guard records to support a story they wanted to be true.

I knew the story of Johnson's "The sixty-first minute" of course, as do almost all bloggers. It is without a doubt the most famous single blog post written so far, one that shredded the reputation of a a news network and their top reporters and producers as willing political partisans. Hearing Scott recount his feelings that morning and throughout the afternoon as experts began to help him build the case against CBS News was riveting, even though I knew the basics of the story before.

In short, Carolina Freedomnet 2006 was an excellent experience all the way around, and I cannot thank the staff of the John Locke Foundation enough for their hospitality. I can't wait to do it again next year.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:19 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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