Sounds like a farewell speech to me.

Remember how they were saying that Dr. Judith Steinberg was so bold for not being a part of Howard Dean's campaign? Not standing there making googly eyes while her husband made speeches. Now she's Judy Dean, and she's everywhere he is.

What are they saying now? Nothing. And Dean's popularity is rebounding with her around. I guess the Democrats don't really want candidates that are fundamentally honest about themselves. Just ask Mickey Kaus.

Everyone is excited about the pictures coming from Mars. Everyone.

Where is the moaning and crying that we shouldn't be doing this because it distracts from the war on terror? The cartoons about how these robots can find water on Mars and not UBL on Earth?

They aren't there, and that is because the American people respect achievement. Spirit and Opportunity on Mars during the midst of the War on Terror on Earth. How excellent is that?

I followed this link from Drudge and got a little further down in the story:

Had John Kerry, the four-term senator from Massachusetts, not stumbled coming out of the gate and not had trouble breaking away from the field in the race to become the Democrats’ candidate for president, there were those in his party who say he would have been a runaway winner.

So what they are saying is that some people think had Kerry just been a runaway winner instead of not being a runaway winner, he would have been a runaway winner. Got it.

A couple of stories about David Kay. The first is reported that David Kay says Iraq never had WMD. That's not what he said, actually, but it is how it is being reported. What he said was:

"What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production programme in the 90s."

The other story is that David Kay says that he has evidence that Iraqi WMD related stuff went to Syria.

"But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."

Only one of those stories was just brought up on Fox News Sunday in an interview with John Kerry. It wasn't the one about Syria.

Instapundit notes that this is another one of those things where Debka was on it months ago. Hmmm.

Fox has some alarmist news:

Workers Use Tape to Secure Aging Nuke Bomb

WASHINGTON — Workers dismantling an aging nuclear weapon (search) secured broken pieces of high explosive by taping them together, federal investigators found. An explosion could have occurred, they said.

....

About 250,000 people live within 50 miles of the Pantex plant, where the motto on its Web site is "Maintaining the safety, security and reliability of America's nuclear weapons stockpile."

I have written explosive safety documentation for Pantex, so this is kind of interesting to me. But this article has a lot of over the top stuff that isn't correct in that story. And the stuff that is correct is very alarmist. Like the bit about 250,000 living within 50 miles of the plant. It isn't like these guys are standing in the middle of the Wal-Mart parking lot handling warheads. They are in underground chambers designed to contain a blast if anything occurs. I wouldn't hesitate in an emergency situation to use tape to hold cracked explosives on a nuke - seems like a good idea to me. Plus, duct tape is good for everything! But this was not an emergency situation, it was in the course of normal work at a DoE facility. So that means procedures, and review, and more review, and then the safety guys review it some more. Read further into the article and the Defense Facilities Nuclear Safety Board wasn't concerned so much that tape was used, but that they hadn't followed all of the procedural steps for making the decision to do that. They are very involved, because I spent about a month working on one document on explosive handling safety there, and I never found out the final disposition of that document.

An email from Paula Zahn's producer to an organization called "Military Families Speak Out":

From: Holland, Emily
To: 'mfso@mfso.org'
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 1:41 PM
Subject: EMILY HOLLAND, CNN PAULA ZAHN NOW>MFSO

Emily Holland, producer for CNN's Paula Zahn Now in New York. I am writing to request your urgent help for a story we are developing on "Untrained Soldiers in Iraq."

Envision an in-depth look at American soldiers overseas -- fighting for our country but without the necessary expertise and/or equipment to do so. The danger, the reasons why, the personal stories.

To that end, anyone who has direct experience - family member, friend, etc. - who can speak about lack of proper training/equipment, please get in touch with me as soon as possible. Cellphone - not email - is the best.

As a final note, we are on deadline! So any help you can give us is certainly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance,

Emily Holland
CNN New York
(917) 716-9001

Watching the Democratic debate tonight, I was kind of stunned by one question and answer - Peter Jennings asked Al Sharpton who he would name as head of the Federal Reserve Board, in charge of monetary policy. Sharpton first went down the road of taking the IMF to task, and Jennings politiely prompted that he had asked about the Federal Reserve. Sharpton then laid out the same boilerplate he had on the IMF for the Federal Reserve.

Granted, it was probably the most specific question I heard asked, but it was clear that this is not he the sort of thing that Al Sharpton and his candidacy are about. Governance - the actual conduct of doing the job as President - are just not important to him. His whole candidacy is just a protest. Despite my previous post that he represented real honesty for Democrats, he shouldn't be anywhere near the stage with the other candidates.

Of course, John Edwards didn't show himself to be all that concerned with the details, either, when asked about the Defense of Marriage Act. In what has been a big issue with the President's mention in the SOTU and clearly will be important among Democrat voters, it seems he would have some knowledge of it.

And Kucinich wants to fund all his moonbat ideas with a 50% decrease in the Defense Budget? (or did he say 15%?) Regardless, that's not going to help counter the whole "weak on defense" argument. But then again, he is polling maybe just a little above Sharpton, and really not that far behind Lieberman, who has a strong pro-defense, pro-war on terror message.

Dean's flameout flamed him out. That the other candidates didn't bother addressing him much shows they know the dynamics.

And Clark - well, that's all I've got to say about that.

Oddly enough, it appears that the Kerry momentum is a real thing, and is actually the Democrat electorate coalescing around the credible candidate. But those who think that Rove was most afraid of Kerry are probably wrong. Massachusetts is the bluest of the blue states (or in this map, reddest of the red states - more appropriate in my book). No other state went Democrat in every county. Kerry was Lt. Governor to Michael Dukakis. And, as I noted earlier, he's Al Gore in New England drag - that doesn't sound like a winning combination to me.

I saw part of Kerry's self-congratulations speech. My take - the Democrats are going for Al Gore one more time. Long-winded, boring, condescending, always fighting! - and didn't that people vs. the powerful thing go out of style like 3 years ago? I guess not.

I used to think that Dean was faking anger. Not any more!

Gephardt gone and Kucinich still in? And my man Al Sharpton got ZERO percent. GEN Clark got .1%, and he wasn't even running.

Good thing he wasn't running - he might feel a little weird losing to a mere LT.

I was googling something up and cam across this transcript of an on-line chat with Washington Post national security writers Vernon Loeb and Dana Priest. I thought this bit was kind of interesting:

Rochester, N.Y.: I've read that the Iraqis, Saudis, and Egyptians are doing nuclear research in Libya also that much of Saddam's WMDs have been moved to Syria (on the Debka website and others). Isn't it likely that these other governments would want Saddam's weapons for themselves?

Vernon Loeb: I don't know anything about nuclear research being done in Libya, but I would urge caution in putting too much stock in what you might read on the Debka website.

The date on that transcipt - April 2, 2003. I'm definitely a grain of salt with DEBKA guy myself, but, that's interesting that they were reporting it back when the Libyan conversations started.

Lileks:

Fact: In the middle of a war against medieval-minded foes, we decided that we should also head back into space. We’re not going to close the borders, curl up under the covers. The right hand holds the sword, the left hand holds the sextant. If you’d asked me on 9/12/01 what headline I thought I’d see on 01/14/03, I would have said something depressing like “Seattle relies on Israeli experts for help in nuke damage” or some such apocalyptic concept. Back then it all seemed ready to tumble into the deep black pit. I would have been cheered to learn that attacks on our troops in Iraq were down 22 percent. I would have been gobsmacked to learn we had decided to return to the moon as well. That's the sort of news that transcends today and defines tomorrow.

Optimism in the face of war, pestilence, death, and disease. How very American! I love it. Here's what I wrote about a year ago - Captain Kirk was an American.

Okay, I think something is going on here. I don't get it at all.

Reports now are saying that the mortars found in Iraq do not have chemical agents in them. Well, that's not exactly what is determined, but that is what is being reported. Here's what the tests really show:

But tests done by the Americans are inconclusive, although "pointing toward negative", he said, adding that the Americans were taking one of the shells for more detailed tests.

Inconclusive, and they are going to do more detailed tests at a lab in the US. Not exactly the same, but still a lot like other reports of chemicals from earlier. Initially positive tests, then inconclusive, then identification as something else. As put it in a different article:

A U.S. official, speaking Wednesday on condition of anonymity, said chemicals such as phosphorous used in some munitions can produce false positives.

....

Since the war ended, the U.S.-led coalition has found several caches that tested positive for mustard gas but later turned out to contain missile fuel or other chemicals.

Now there is no way that missile fuel was put in a mortar. Or pesticide. And phosphorus, when in a warhead, is not a liquid. If this isn't a chemical agent in these rounds, what is it? What corroded them in the desert?

I'm not just ticked because a couple of posts down I boldly predicted that these are chemical rounds. I've made my share of bold predicitons that have not borne out. But this just fails the common sense test.

Partial transcript from a press conference yesterday:

Q Mr. Secretary, I'd just like to ask you about an Army -- a report published by the Army War College last month and just to stipulate at the outset that the report reflects only the views of its author, not the Army War College itself.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Yeah.

Q But nevertheless, it's gained some currency because of the reputation of the author, Jeffrey Record. And he says, just very briefly, that the global war -- that it was a strategic error to link the war against al Qaeda with Saddam Hussein's Iraq; that the war against Iraq was not integral to the war on terror, but rather a detour from it; and that the overall war against terror is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver and threatens to dissipate scarce U.S. military resources over too many ends.

Could I just get your general reaction to that criticism, which reflects the --

SEC. RUMSFELD: Take a wild, flying guess!

In case you are wondering what "report" is being discussed, it is a research paper published by a visiting professor at the Army War College - you can find it here. It is too long to fisk the whole thing, but the author argues that the Global War on Terror is too big an idea, that we cannot sustain it, and that we need to cut back, and make the GWOT about Al Qaeda only. Too bad for the author that he finished it before the capture of Saddam Hussein and the dramatic announcement about Libya and the announcement by Iran that it would accept IAEA inspections and North Korea's offer to freeze its nuclear program, because he argues that it is unproven that invading Iraq would have an effect on other rogue states. Also, for a scholar, he makes a lot of internal contradictions. For example, he says that Iraq is taking too many troops and costing toomuch money, but recommends increasing the troops and amount of money spent there. He argues that terrorism is too big a target to win against, and cites a terrorism expert who says that AQ is more than just a single terrorist organization, but a global insurgency instead. But his argument is that we ought to be taking on AQ alone, and not fighting a global war.

Even better, Howard Dean is running around using this research paper and saying that experts (plural) at the Army War College are saying that the war was a strategic error. I wonder if he agrees with the idea to put more troops and money into Iraq, then?

Instapundit links to a Joe Conason piece in Salon that accuses the Bush administration of pushing a mission to Mars so Halliburton can get oil. No, really! Oddly enough, the link gets you a 404, but the description is still on the opinion page:

Expanding space exploration is a fine aspiration for America and humanity -- and also quite promising for Halliburton.

Luckily Instapundit copied some choice bits before it went away. Maybe Conason got confused when he read that "Mars is averaging an output of about 21,000 barrels of oil and 25 million ft3 of natural gas per day." Then again, it's not totally farfetched (PDF)....

UPDATE: It's back. Maybe it was just overloaded. Where did that $100M go?

Yeah, I know that's Stephen Green's schtick, but stealing is the sincerest form of flattery or something. It's the NYT Magazine (so it requires registration), but a really good and really long article about Iraq.

Oh - and the main focus of the article. I know him. He's a classmate.

I have seen quite a bit of people claiming that they cannot vote for Bush now that he has proposed what he has on immigration, some even saying the y will support Dean instead. Seems like a bad tradeoff to me. Sign the US up for the ummah because you don't want Mexican workers who are already here illegally to have legal status granted to them.

I know that the "battered woman syndrome" has been brought up about conservatives and Bush before, but it doesn't apply. If we don't win the war on terror, all the rest doesn't matter. Gay marriage? Mexican immigrants? Deficit spending? School vouchers? None of that has a place for debate if we aren't winning.

Like I said, what was proposed isn't what I would do, but it doesn't leave me outraged.

The ones that are "suspected" of containing chemical agent: there will be no need for the "24 hour rule" here. There is no doubt that they contain chemicals. No other liquids would be contained in a mortar round.

Nicely corroded. It's going to be mustard.

However - these are still not the warheads we were looking for. They are no doubt old. My guess is that an Iraqi unit was supposed to fire them but didn't, and buried them instead. The Iraqi regime thought they had been used. Which conflict is a different question. Could be Iran-Iraq, could be Desert Storm, could be Shi'ite putdown. Whatver. It still isn't them.

Big question, though, is how they were discovered. Did someone tell the coalition that they were there, or was it random chance? Were the Danish troops looking for them? How, digging up the whole desert?

By the way, Danish troops and Icelandic munitions experts. I thought we were all alone in Iraq?

UPDATE: Now this is interesting, from the Telegraph story on the mortars:

Ali Nimir, a former colonel in a Republican Guard artillery unit, said: "I remember seeing boxes of these kinds of armaments in our base two years ago. We were told that they were chemical weapons.

"They made a splashing sound inside if you moved them around. From what I recall they were removed from our bases and distributed to secret hiding places around the country about a year before the war. I never saw them again."

EDIT - added a new link to a picture, the Yahoo one went away:

Not often that I comment on fashion magazines, but Mrs. Blaster showed me an article that was in the December Vogue. There won't be a link because there don't appear to be any news items on the Vogue website. The article was entitled "Handmaidens of Terror," written by Deborah Scroggins, about the wives of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Kinda weird reading this article in a magazine filled with ads for push-up bras and thousand dollar shoes. The article was about how Muslim women may become the Islamists' new secret weapon. Kind of prophetic given the worries about a female bomber during the Orange alert. This is the close of the story:

She tells a story that illustrates both the allure of the jihadis and the churning mixture of resentment and desire even the most Westermized Muslims feel toward the U.S. these days: A friend of hers, a university graduate, wanted to name her new baby boy after Osama bin Laden. Nothing special in that. It's said that Osama, once an unusual name, is now the most popular name for boys in Pakistan. But her friend's husband was worried. What if hte boy wanted to apply for a U.S. green card some day? Might not American immigration officials of the future hold little OSama's name against him? The couple decided to compromise. They're going to give the boy another first name. On his passport, he will be Omar or Ahmed or something else.

But he will always be Osama to them.

At first blush, a little disheartening that these people want to name their child Osama. But on reflection, this story bodes well, I think. This couple, despite their desire to honor Osama bin Laden, knows that there is a future for the United States, and not one that includes Osama. They know that they will lose, and that we will win. That's a good thing for them to have internalized.

The Mars thing. Let's do it. I said so almost a year ago.

The immigration thing. I'm with Jonah on it. I am not outraged by it. It isn't what I would do, but it is better than the status quo. Of course, that is an awfully low measure. Why would I be that way? Well, I'm also with Lileks:

No. Bad idea. But let me be clear: I am not in favor of illegal immigration. I'm in favor of copious amounts of legal immigration, combined with Tupperware-tight borders and a newly remade INS whose official seal says “What the Hell Do You Think You’re Doing Here, Anyway? Oh Yeah? Prove it.” (Sounds nobler in Latin, I’m sure.) Deportation is not an option – and those who think it’s necessary need only wonder what the national media would do with mass expulsions. Our paper will run a sad story when a guy who’s been here illegally for 10 years gets deported and leaves his family behind; imagine several million such stories, complete with lovely footage of the caravan of train cars leaving for the daily dump on the Mexican border. It’s not going to happen. If anything short of that disappoints you, that’s your right. But don’t expect to be included in the conversation, anymore than people who want a return to the gold standard NOW are going to be consulted on House subcommittee hearings on eliminating the sunset provisions of the estate tax.

They both make the point that it just isn't going to happen that we are going to deport all the illegals, so we need to be thinking of things that can happen. I am not so keen on a guest worker program, but would, like Lileks, prefer to see something that increased legal immigration. If people are going to come here, I want it to be because they want to be Americans, not so they can come and earn a few bucks and then leave. I would want to change it, but not, as John Derbyshire writes, "trash this ludicrous plan."

Joe Lieberman. First reaction: Yawn. But I read it an it says this:

Since September 11, 2001, George W. Bush has ruthlessly turned the country's fear and rage into a wedge issue, sacrificing national unity but recreating the visceral flag-politics of the 1980s.

This is of a piece with Dean and Clark and the rest saying the flag doesn't belong to Rush Limbaugh or John Ashcroft. But it is in support of a candidate who is the most in support of President Bush's "ruthless" policies. But "flag-politics"? Just. Look. At. All. The. Flag. Wavers.

The news today that the unemployment rate is down is tempered with the news that payrolls are only up by 1,000. The upshot of that is that many people stopped looking for work. The question is, what are these people doing, if they aren't looking for work?

I think I know where some of them are going. They are going home and staying there, and not because they are frustrated about not finding a job.

Mrs. Blaster is a "stay-at-home mom" as they say these days. And she is not alone. I noticed that women staying home to be mothers was becoming more common in my age cohort. I saw it among friends, and was surprised to see women who I had known a dozen years ago as "have-it-all" feminists, even if they didn't call themselves that, turn domestic when they had children. But those aren't the people reflected in today's unemployment statistics.

As a stay-at-home mom, Mrs. Blaster participates in several "mommie's groups" that meet, have play dates for the kids, run baby-sitting coops, etc. She checks the local events calendars for things to do during the week, and she has noticed that in the past year, the number of these groups that are listed in the paper has tripled. And it isn't that they just started getting listed in the paper - a lot of the announcements are for the formation of these groups, so they are new. And the new mommies I have met are staying home not because they can't find work, but because they want to stay home for their kids.

Granted, I live in Fairfax County, Virginia, which has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country, so that may be a factor in what I see locally, but this could be a social phenomena that is under the radar. Anyone else seeing the same thing where you are?

There is currently a conservative push for Dean right now, which is partly tongue-in-cheek political opportunism and partly for real. I am kind of partial to the political opportunism - I know that all the people that thought that professional smart guy Al Gore would wipe the floor with poor old dumb George Bush in a debate think the same thing about the good doctor, and I think that they are every bit as wrong now as they were then. Dean is fun to watch, as David Broder writes today, "Howard Dean is now racing the clock to see what comes first -- nomination or detonation." Note that Broder doesn't add an "if" to that formulation. He is sure of the detonation, the only question in his mind is whether it happens before or after he is nominated. Dean has a real chance at being the Democrat nominee. Being in a double digit lead in the polls has to count for something, but he also has a real chance of stepping on one of those landmines he keeps planting.

Andrew Sullivan and Bill Kristol are arguing that Dean is good for the Democrats, because of he'll make the Democrats honestly approach the election. Core Democrats are angry dammit!!!! and they really ought to send up a candidate that represents that same anger. Presumably, that makes them, or the rest of the public, realize what its about, and cause the Democrats to create a better, more realistic candidate for the Future.

I don't agree that this is a good thing, even if it happens that way. First of all, as a conservative, when David Broder has advice for the Republican Party, I am pretty sure he really doesn't think that an improved, more competitive Republican party is good for the country, and is what he really wants. And while I do suspect that Sullivan and Kristol really would like to see some competition to rein in some of the things that Republicans are doing that they have already criticised, like increased spending and entitlements, I don't think that even a chastened and improved Democrat party is going to provide competition on those grounds. I also don't think that nominating Howard Dean would represent any sort of honesty on the part of Democrats. Yes, I think those core Democrats are angry, and they want an angry candidate. But I think Dean is not actually an angry man, he just plays one on TV. He may have a short temper, but I don't think he is at his core a truly angry man. I mean, his family doesn't even treat servants like servants! His anger one of his political poses, only he doesn't have to apologize for that one like many of the others because money is rolling in because of it, and practically every other candidate is trying to pretend to be as angry as he is.

If the Democrats really wanted straight talk and honesty, their candidate should be Al Sharpton. I actually like Sharpton as a politician. Yes, some of that is tongue-in-cheek political opportunism - he hasn't a chance of beating George Bush, but some of it is real. I think Sharpton really is what Sullivan says Dean is - an honest candidate that represents the core Democrats. I believe that he is angry. When he talks about the 2000 election in Florida, I am quite sure that he is actually angry about that and it isn't just an applause/shout line for the audience (okay, Lieberman is probably sore about it for real, too). When Dean said he wanted to be the candidate of guys with Confederate flags on their trucks, it seemed like political opportunism, and that was reinforced by his quick backtrack and apology. When Sharpton said he didn't want to be their candidate, I am pretty certain that he meant that from the bottom of his heart.

Which leads to another thing I like about Sharpton, that he is unapologetic about his positions. Some of that, I think, is literally because he has nothing to lose, as he has no chance of winning. But even when not running for President he has stood firmly in his convictions, even when it would have been easy and advantageous to flip-flop or apologize. There is something admirable in that, I think.

But not everyone agrees. Think about how many times you've heard a liberal, elected or just someone you know, say "if only Bush weren't so arrogant" or "he's just afraid to admit his mistakes." I think the truth is that right now, a lot of Democrats say they like straight talk, but it just isn't so. They boo and hiss at Joe Lieberman when he talks straight. John Edwards seems like he is fairly earnest, but that's getting him nowhere, either. Dennis Kucinich talks straight, but he's too weird even for most core Democrats. I'm not sure what Carol Moseley-Braun is saying, and apparently neither is anyone else. The top of the Democrat polls are the flip-floppers and apologizers. I think that those core Democrats really want a candidate they can cow into whatever they want, and Dean is their guy. Back when deandefense.org was a blog with a bunch of Dean's internet supporters playing the "rapid response" game, it was mostly Dean supporters trying to convince each other that Dean was really, really a Lefty that was so cool that he was practically gay, or really, really, a super-duper budget hawk who thinks guns should be issued in grade school.

Dean's popularity with Democrats has increased with his gaffes, rather than decreased. I think that's because his apologies show that he will dance on the string of the special interest groups. And unlike Kerry, when he flips, he stays flopped. Unlike Lieberman and Gephardt, there isn't anything he is willing to challenge the core Demcorats on. Only Clark seems to be as completely able to turn on any issue. And he is gaining.

At any rate, I'd still like to see Sharpton as the Democrat challenger. He's brave, and he's honest, and he's even funny (another way he is unique in the crowd of Democrats). It might improve the Democrat party to honestly address what it believes, but I wouldn't bet too much on it.

And it would have one interesting side effect. It would make all those "Bush is a moron because he says nuc-u-lar" folks think twice. Think about it.

USS Clueless, as usual, has an interesting take on polls.

One of the most misleading questions in polling is this one.

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation with Iraq?"

CBS has had a tracking poll using this question for quite a while now.

The problem with the question is that it conflates two different types of individuals in the disapprove category. One group are the people that disapprove of Bush's handling because it has not been nearly tough enough (Many of the Jacksonians) and the other group are the people that disapprove of Bush's handling because they disapprove of Bush no matter what.

Many times, these types of polls are used for political purposes. Usually to indicate a lack of support for the President. This is misleading because the people captured by the disapprove label, may be very different voters. It is highly unlikely that someone who believes that Bush has not been forceful enough, will vote in the same manner as an anti-war person.

The problem can be resolved by a follow up question, but almost never is. Simply asking whether the person disapproves because we should not be there, or whether the person disapproves because Bush has been too soft on the terrorists there would seperate the parties nicely. Naturally the question has to be finessed some in order not to bias, something I did not do.

However, the main point holds. Be wary of polling data. It is easily manipulated.

One other thing. Most polling will not give out information that should be required. One thing I find problematic is that they rarely divulge the specifics of their pollers, by which I mean the people who make the calls for the polling data. Many of these people are paid very little for the work, and there are very few studies that deal with how they effect the polling data.

For instance, the gender of the poller would seem to make a difference. A male poller is more likely to get a more assertive response from a male, then a female. The female to female dynamic is also different. Thus, it may be possible to skew the poll by using specific pollers. For instance, if I wanted to skew a poll towards an anti-war setting, I would ensure that my poll callers are mostly young females. If I wanted to skew in the other direction, young males would be better. There are a few studies which show this.

You begin to see the problems, and let us not even get into whether polls drive polls.

Forgive me, this was a subject of my undergraduate work that I find fascinating. Many others roll their eyes when this subject comes up.

*Update* Welcome to the USS Clueless readers.

So there's a new tape purported to be bin Laden, and the big news is that there is a reference in this tape to Hussein's capture. Of course, bin Laden is dead, so it can't be him on the tape.

In the comments over at LGF, someone pointed to this weblog from Iraq, which says this about the tape:

Al Jazeera TV just broadcasted a tape said to be by UBL. He condemned the Arab leaders who helped US to topple Saddam. He also condemned these states because of their acceptance of the Iraqi GC. He criticized the governments who stopped the financial support to the Palestinian groups. He also criticised the reformist among the Mullahs.

His letter was mainly critical about the Arab rulers and a call to fight the infidels. He called the Muslims to form an Assembly as a replacement for the present governments. He said today is Baghdad and tomorrow is Riyadh and described the situation in Iraq as the present Rome army in there.

The strangest thing that he makes no threatening to the US as before!

Al Jazeera then asked Abd Al Bari Atwan in London who supported UBL speech calling him The Sheikh UBL. He agreed with UBL and adds a cream on the cake on the letter of UBL. His comment were synergistic with the UBL tape and additive to the Al Jazeera!

The report of the tape on Al Jazeera's English site seems to confirm this. What I find most interesting is that it could have come straight from the US - denunciation of Arab tyrants, support for an elected assembly, warnings that regime change is coming, and no threats against the US.

A UBL tape coming from the US? Now there's an idea. A good idea, actually.

I have a friend who does a real good deed, buying up items like baby wipes and beef jerky and candy and stuff and sending out boxes to deployed troops once a month. Very cool.

He also sends along copies of movies on DVD (of questionable provenance), CD's with photos on them that cannot be altered by magic marker (if you catch my drift), and sometimes, some adult beverages.

That last bit there is all contraband, I know, and if I were an officer over there I would be kinda ticked that people were sending stuff like that to my troops. But from where I sit now, I think its kinda cool, so I won't reveal how it works. But the troops are really happy to get his boxes.

Today it is reported that there is a specific threat to Washington, DC. That British Airways flight that keeps getting cancelled coming into Dulles Airport. I heard it on the radio (link via Indepundit). In fact, I heard it on the radio in the car while waiting in line to get into the new Stephen Udvar-Hazy annex of the National Air and Space Museum. Yes, waiting in a line of cars to get onto the grounds of Dulles Airport. I thought the hold up might have been security inspections, but it was just everyone in the DC area decided to go there today. As I was leaving, somewhere overhead one of those BA flights was getting an F16 escort into the airport. Evidently not everyone thinks that Tom Ridge's "go about your lives" normally advice is silly.

By the way, if you like airplanes, you have to go to this museum. It is a big hangar-like space devoted to almost purely aircraft. Inside the building are the space shuttle Enterprise, an SR-71, the prototype for the 707, a Concorde, and, of course, the Enola Gay. But they take up a very small percentage of all that space. Admission is free as with all of the Smithsonian museums, but parking is $12. A bus from the main museum downtown is available, too.

From Fox News:

Soon after, five men "wearing black press jackets with 'press' clearly written in English" fired on U.S. paratroopers guarding the crash site, Kimmitt said. He said it was the first time he had heard of assailants in Iraq posing as journalists.

I hope journalists are quick to denounce this tactic. It sounds like it makes for a bad situation for all involved. Of course, I never heard anything outside the blogosphere about the Al Jazeera guy who was carting money around for Al Qaeda, I only heard how the US was discriminating against Al Jazeera.

I seem to have missed my blog birthday. First post was Dec 29, 2002. Hmmm. That's my anniversary. That might explain why Mrs. Blaster was so cranky that I was spending all that time typing on the computer....

One of these days I am going to get around to categorizing the posts and hooking up links through that. I guess the longer I put that off, the worse it gets. A lot of things are like that.

Bill Quick thinks we ought to just start nuking all the Arabs, and that will fix everything. I think that idea fails the common sense test.

If you wonder what the heck I am talking about, click here.