Fiat Lux

Some of the better morning-after commentary:

Josh Marshall:

What occured to me somewhat while I was watching the first time and even more on the second go through was just how long it's been since President Bush had to face someone who disagrees with him or is criticizing.

Every president gets tucked away into a cocoon to some degree. But President Bush does notoriously few press conferences or serious interviews. His townhall meetings are screened so that only supporters show up. And, of course, he hasn't debated anyone since almost exactly four years ago.

Frankly, I think it showed. It irked him to have to stand there and be criticized and not be able to repeat his talking points without contradiction.

Ezra from Pandagon:

Fact is, 9/11 didn't change Bush, it just changed his rhetoric. And while the smirk now floated above terra-fightin' and tyrant-smashin', it was still the same smirk that had accompanied social security privatization and medicare reform. But while we all knew and understood that he had been a lightweight in the days of domestic policy -- at least, we tittered, he hadn't been an atrocious dullard like that Gore -- we began pretending that something had snapped in George W. Bush and he was now a somber leader prepared to face down a time of grave danger.

But tonight the curtain lifted and Bush was back onstage with a competitor, without a teleprompter, and facing a barrage of unfamiliar and even unfriendly topics. But the way George debates -- rigid adherence to message, down-home charisma, a quick grin and general geniality -- was sadly unsuitable for the occasion. Past confrontations have been reasonably light, occurring in times of relative prosperity and in opposition to barely-liked incumbents whom the public liked seeing taken down a few pegs. But tonight, George was supposed to be serious, to be somber, to show himself the sort of timeless leader appropriate for such a crucial stage in history. Instead, he was like a glitchy boombox machine-gunning the phrase "mixed messages". Where Kerry had calm presentation and logical progressions, George jumped from story to quote, personal attack to platitude ("I know how the world works"). Where he was supposed to run on a record, he instead ran on an ethic ("It's hard work"). Where he was supposed to act dignified, he was draped over his podium. Where he was supposed to be the country's commander, he was instead a mediocre candidate.

Matt Yglesias:

The main thing that lends debates -- as opposed to normal speeches -- some interest is that even when the candidates aren't allowed to directly address one another, they still set up their charges in such a way as to clearly imply that the other guy ought to be responding to his opponents' attacks. In that light, it's worth highlighting one charge Kerry made several times that Bush never responded to directly -- namely that the reason Osama bin Laden is at large threatening the United States rather than dead on the battlefield was the Bush administration's decision to "outsource" the battle of Tora Bora.

I've never heard any of Bush's allies offer a convincing defense of this decision, and it's a critique Kerry's been leveling on-and-off ever since the day it happened. Tonight, Bush didn't even try. A tacit admission, perhaps, that Kerry was right. I think that means Kerry ought to press the assault forward and start bringing this up more often. Force the president to either admit he was wrong and puncture his self-cultivated mystique of infallibility or else offer some kind of defense. I don't see what he could possibly have to say for himself.

Finally, I can't find the quote now, but this is one other observation I saw that I found particularly apt -- Bush's loopy assertion that the simple act of saying "This is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" (an observation the majority of Americans currently agree wtih, by the way) somehow rendered him unfit to be Commander In Chief. I can't begin to understand the weird brain alchemy by which that is seen to be legitimate criticism of a candidate.

Does he seriously think that unless you are always right, always positive, you can't be in charge? That actually might explain Bush's inability to admit to a mistake.

Anyway, kitten blogging to follow.

Too cute!

Gimli can be a total nutball, attacking anything that moves, especially loving to ambush your feet as you walk by him. He can also be very cuddly, too - the last two nights I've woken up to find him playing with my hair, then cuddling up against my head and going to sleep. I hope he doesn't push me off my pillow entirely when he's full-sized.

There's a website that offers a substantial reward to the person who asks George W Bush "How many times have you been arrested?"but that is not the question I most want to ask Bush. Mine's pretty simple:

"Are there any cases when it is acceptable for the President of the United States to deliberately lie to the American public?"

This is weird:

The government's cybersecurity chief has abruptly resigned after one year with the Department of Homeland Security, confiding to industry colleagues his frustration over what he considers a lack of attention paid to computer security issues within the agency.

Amit Yoran, a former software executive from Symantec, informed the White House about his plans to quit as director of the National Cyber Security Division and made his resignation effective at the end of Thursday, effectively giving a single's day notice of his intentions to leave.

I'm sure there's a story there we're not hearing, but no clue what it is.

They may be overrun by partisan hacks but at least the Supreme Court got it right with regard to telemarketers:

The Supreme Court let stand a lower-court ruling that telemarketers' rights to free speech are not violated by the government's nationwide do-not-call list.

Without comment, the justices rejected an appeal by commercial telemarketers against the lower-court ruling, which upheld as constitutional the popular program in which consumers can put their names on a list if they do not want to be called by telemarketers.

"We hold that the do-not-call registry is a valid commercial speech regulation because it directly advances the government's important interests in safeguarding personal privacy and reducing the danger of telemarketing abuse without burdening an excessive amount of speech," the appeals court said.

Actually, reading further into the article, maybe I should take back the 'partisan hack' comment. The Justices also:

• let stand a ruling that a Catholic charity in California must include prescription contraceptives in its employee health insurance plan
• rejected an appeal from ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who lost his job after defying a federal order to dismantle a Ten Commandments monument.

It's hardly a new or unique insight, but it's all too obvious that we should never have left Saddam in charge of Iraq after Gulf War I. George Bush senior has been quoted as saying that at the time, the Arab members of the coalition forces objected to Saddam's removal from power so he was left in place. I wonder sometimes, how much would have been different if was had told those allies, "No, he's going down".

The road ahead is grim, and the growing rumblings in the blogosphere and the press about the possible need to re-institute the draft are worrisome. I try not to make too much of the rumblings, but then I picture my 21 year old cousin with a draft card of his hand and it's not so simple.

It's been 30 years since the draft was last a reality. A lot has changed since then. One thing that hasn't changed is that no matter how they try to write the rules, the richer, more well-connected, and smarter kids will find ways around any draft.

I am not, by the way, convinced that a Kerry victory means we will not have a draft instituted. It is not clear whether even with the best intentions we will be able to draw down significant troops out of Iraq in the near future. No matter who wins in November, it's possible we will have to change how we build our military. But I am sure that a Kerry administration would not be so reckless with the lives of our soldiers as this administration has been.

If you're a flu shot recipient (I am not) this is a little alarming:

British authorities suspended the license of Chiron Corp. for three months because of problems at its vaccine manufacturing plant in Liverpool, England, which primarily supplies the American market. The action means the company can't supply any flu vaccine during that time, and Chiron said it would provide no U.S. vaccine this year.

(snip)

Chiron had planned to ship 46 million to 48 million doses, but that already had been delayed by a contamination problem discovered in August in the English factory where the vaccine is made. At the time, the company said only 4 million doses were tainted but that the entire supply would be held up and re-tested.

About 1 million doses already had arrived in the United States, but now even that won't be made available because of the British safety concerns.

Chiron's stock, of course, is taking a sharp nosedive today.

And I can't resist the political cheap shot:

Less than two weeks ago, top U.S. health officials assured the public that close FDA monitoring of the rest of Chiron's supply suggested it was fine and that there would be plenty of supplies.

Guess that Reality Distortion Field emanating from the White House has reached the FDA too.

To be honest I think the VP debate was at best a tie.

Cheney was playing hardball, and unlike Bush, he is capable of speaking in complete sentances and sounding like he knows what he is talking about. He hit hard and often, and of course since he doesn't care much about truth he had the advantage there. His line about "I've never met you before tonight," although a lie, was a particularly nasty shot that might have legs.

I don't think Edwards did badly, but I was annoyed a bit by how some of his foreign policy lines were almost verbatim repeats of what Kerry said last week - couldn't he at least have rephrased it a bit so he wasn't so obviously repeating talking points? I think he did better in the second half of the debate; he seemed more relaxed (it is not surprisng that he would be more comfortable discussing domestic policy issues). And his complementing Cheney for how his family has handled having a gay daughter was masterful. Cheney had absolutely nothing to say after it. Very nice.

Both sides will spin it as a win for their guy. We'll see what the CW says tomorrow.

Given the technological advances today and the reduced number of people seeking the monasitc life I suppose this is not surprising news, but it is sad:

The highest church in the world sits 8,000 feet up in the Alps on what was once the most dangerous mountain pass in Europe. Today, climbers and hikers come for the challenge, but for hundreds of years, the monastery of the Grand St. Bernard was a lifesaving refuge from the cold and snow for everyone from local hunters to Napoleon.

In the 1600s, the St. Bernard monks decided they needed help rescuing snowbound travelers. So they bred a burly but reliable dog, which they named after their patron saint.

"The St. Bernards were never just a symbol," said Father Hilaire, a monk in the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard. "Before the 1900s, there were no skis, so the dogs made paths even if there were one or two meters of fresh snow. They helped us save lives."

The St. Bernards have saved more than 2,000 lives since the monks started keeping records in 1700. They still tell stories about one dog named Barry who set the record with 41 rescues in the early 1800s.

But today, there are only four monks remaining, and they say they don't have the time or the money to take care of the dogs.

Now this is the kind of thing you think the wealth of the Vatican would be a good use for. But no.

Oh, and in case you're wondering,

The dogs never carried small barrels of brandy to revive climbers; 19th-century artists added that picturesque touch.

Guy goes to attend a conference on terrorism, gets arrested -- THIS is why we 'freed' Iraq?

Meanwhile, a former leading figure in the Iraqi National Congress party - the party led by Ahmad Chalabi - remained defiant after an Iraqi court indicted him Sunday for visiting the "enemy state" of Israel.

Mithal al-Alusi attended a conference there on terrorism last month and was subsequently expelled from the party.

I'm in a pretty foul mood already, reading this didn't help me any.

In other news, my DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11 arrived today. Maybe this weekend I'll watch it again.

Closer than the first one, but I call it for Kerry.

Bush did a better job this time in his presentation. He seemed more relaxed, didn't make squinty faces as much, and although he obviously got excited a few times he did not whine. He fumbled badly the question about whether he had made any mistakes, his response to the environmant question was a joke, and most important - he is having trouble running from his record. Minor snarky side note -- he called it "the Internets" rather than "the Internet". I wonder if he's ever even used the Internet?

Kerry smacked down the "flip flop" charge at two different times and handed Bush his butt on jobs, the environment, and of course the war. He made a point of remembering questioner's names, referring back to them later in the event - as compared to Bush, who I think didn't mention anyone's name at all. And I think his answer to the pro-life woman about goverment funding of abortion was spot on.

What the audience thought of them both I don't know. Bush got more laughs than Kerry, especially when he put his "aw shucks" personna on. If they really can't see through that facade after all this time, then we're in deep doo-doo on November 2nd. However, not to bash the audience too much, I think the questions were overall very good -- as good as the ones Lehrer asked at the first debate and definitely better than Gwen Ifil's.

Now to see what the pundits have to say.

My husband Skawt has been doing some work with Movable Type at work and is getting more interested in blogging. I've set him up as an author here at Fiat Lux. So if the tone of a post should sound a little different from usual, check the author -- it's probably Skawt!

Welcome aboard, honey.

Kos doesn't usually indulge in snarkiness (the Diaries do it for him most of the time) but he had a funny bit tonight:

We know you have a choice in Internets, so thank you for choosing this one. Come back and see us again soon, we appreciate your business.

And if I may offer a little advise -- stay away from those Canadian Internets (damn third-world hellhole). They aren't safe.

Interesting meme out there today: Bush's citing of Dred Scott was not some odd piece of prose, but rather code to his anti-abortion followers.

Orcinus has a long historical overview of what "Strict Constructionists" really means. Worth a read.

I had the great pleasure of seeing Christopher Reeve on Broadway in 1986 at Circle in the Square, in a production of Beaumarchais' "The Marriage of Figaro" -- the play which Mozart used as the basis for his opera of the same name. Reeve played the Count and did it admirably. He was a much better actor than the "Superman" movie and its sequels ever let him show.

A few years later, I briefly worked at the Williamstown Summer Theater Festival while Reeve was rehearsing a production of "Undiscovered Country". I never crossed paths with him, to my great disappointment, but word of mouth was that he was a cool guy.

It's sad that a man who took a shattering personal tragedy and turned it into something positive did not live to see significant progress made towards a cure for spinal cord injuries. I hope something good comes from his passing.

I try to avoid the tit-for-tat aspects of politics but this one is so indicative of the dreamland you have to be living in to believe the right-wing spin, and so personally offensive, I had to mention it:

Sinclair vice president Mark Hyman just said on CNN that Kerry and the Democrats are like "holocaust deniers" and that if the Sinclair stunt is an "in-kind donation to George Bush" then "every suicide bomb that goes off in Iraq is an in-kind donation to John Kerry."

Presumably this was just down from on-air within the last hour. So I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the quotes. But a quite look at this morning's Post shows that yesterday Hyman said "the networks are acting like Holocaust deniers" for not showing the POWs' story. So I think there's every reason to believe that the quotes are accurate.

Per a Kos diary and Josh Marshall.

As usual, the Yankees are in the playoffs and my Mets are in the toilet. Even so, I'd prefer the Yanks to beat the Sox, so GO YANKEES!

Last night, a classmate noted to our Statistics teacher that there's a class on Election Night, and would he consider cancelling class. Unfortunately the teacher refused, so now I get to decide whether to cut class or be incommunicado from roughly 5PM to 11PM PST that night.

I think it's very much up in the air whether we'll know who wins on Election Night or not. Given the rumblings in Ohio, Florida, Nevada, and elsewhere, it may well be that the morning after Election Day we'll see a tidal wave of lawsuits and accusations, and will not know who won for weeks. Again.

On the other hand, the poll numbers are starting to shift in Kerry's favor. It could happen that a Kerry win will be of sufficent numbers to make it clear that despite any shenanigans, real or attempted, Kerry's victory will be secure. I well remember how happy and relieved I felt in 1992 when Clinton won. If something similar happens again I want to be there for it in real time.

Or God forbid, the reverse could happen. In which case I will have to drink myself into oblivion for a while and then start trying to figure out how to survive the next 4 years.

Either way, I think I want to be at home, or with friends, watching the events unfold.

Sorry, Professor.

Apparently Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has been hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit. Almost as a side note, he gets quoted threatening Al Franken.

Franken's going to have a field day with this, I'm sure (if you've read his book Lies and the Lying Liars et al you'll know what I mean).

Update: O'Reilly is counter-suing.

Wasn't really inspired to blog much about the last debate.

One comment though -- I think the most telling moment of the debate was when Bush was asked about what he would say to a person whose job had been sent overseas. His response? To talk about "No Child Left Behind". Again. As if the testing of grade school children has any bearing at all on the predicament an adult who is out of work today.

As if he eventually realized that the quality of public school education was not really appropriate as an answer, he belatedly mentionted that there is trade adjustment assistance money available to help people whose jobs have gone away retrain for new jobs.

Interesting, I though, I'll have to check into that. One quick Google later, I find that even the Heritage Foundation -- hardly a bastion of liberalism -- calls the TAA program inadequate and flawed.

Typical.

Three cats on one (messy) desk. From top to bottom: Tommy, Gimli, Tina.

I really try to avoid the "tinfoil hat" stuff out there in Internet-land. But after 3 debates' worth of snapshots of the weird wrinkle on Bush's back, I really have to ask, what IS that thing?

I suspect it's a flak vest of some sort and the Secret Service won't let anyone confirm it ... but who knows?

Bush Today:

I made it very plain. We will not have an all-volunteer army.

The New York Times has a long, interesting analysis of President Bush today. Not that it's going to change anyone's minds, but I think it's pretty well-done.

The Decembrist more or less says what I was going to say, except that I felt from very early on this was all about religion and belief. I think being on the outside of the religious mainstream in the US helps sharpen your instincts on this point, but for all I know the Decembrist is Jewish, so maybe not.

I've felt for a while that September 11th took some otherwise normal people and turned them into rabid "get the Arabs" Bush supporters, but not many people have looked at what it did to Bush himself. This article doesn't make the point directly, but I think that change that Suskind points to, that of going from "a self-help Methodist" to "an American Calvinist" was very much a reaction to 9/11.

And then there's the people around Bush. This section pretty much sums it up:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Religious fervor, total arrogance, and dead-wrong political instincts. It would be hard to find a worse trifecta for the people running this country.

I just hope we start to find our way back to normalcy on Election Day.

Good News: The US Supreme Court told Tom Delay today that his redistricting scheme in Texas need to be reconsidered.

Bad News: By not summarily affirming the lower court's ruling and issuing their ruling two weeks before an election, chaos ensues.

The man who should have been President, Al Gore, gave a good speech recently about the problems with the Bush crew. Given the recent Suskind article this is worth a read.

There are many people in both political parties who worry that there is something deeply troubling about President Bush's relationship to reason, about his disdain for facts, his incuriosity about new information that might produce a deeper understanding of the problems and policies that he wrestles with on behalf of the country.

One group mistakenly maligns the president as not being smart enough to have a normal active curiosity about separating fact from myth. A second group seems to be convinced that his personal religious conversion experience was so profound that he relies on religious faith in place of logical analysis. But I disagree with both of those groups and reject both of those cartoon images. I know President Bush is plenty smart, and while I have no doubt that his religious belief is genuine, and it's an important motivation for many things that he does in life, as it is for me, and for most of you, I'm convinced that most of the president's frequent departures from fact based analysis have much more to do with right-wing political and economic ideology than with the Bible. And it is crucially important to be precise in describing exactly what it is he believes in so strongly, and then insulates from any logical challenge or even debate. It is ideology, and not his religious faith that is the source of this troubling inflexibility.

Most of the problems President Bush has caused for this country stemmed not from his belief in God but his belief in the infallibility of the right-wing Republican ideology that exalts the interest of the wealthy, and of large corporations over and above the interests of the American people. It is love of power for its own sake that is the original sin of this presidency.

Good stuff.

It has rained twice in the last few days -- looks like the winter rainy season is starting a little early this year. It's time to pack up the summer stuff and break out the sweaters.

Also, 10 years ago today Scott and I went out on our first date. Dinner and a movie -- "Ed Wood" of all things. To commemorate the occasion, he surprised me with 2 dozen roses.

I've got a really wonderful guy.

I've been meaning to post a review of William Gibson's "Pattern Recognittion" for quite a while now and still have not done so. It's a book that moved me deeply in some ways and left me really annoyed in others, and I find it hard to wirte about that contradition. Hopefully I'll get it finished eventually.

Good news today, though -- Peter Weir wants to make it into a movie.

You know things are seriously messed up when even Pat Robertson is telling President Bush "I told you so" about Iraq:

"I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "

Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

[snip]

"I mean, the Lord told me it was going to be A, a disaster, and B, messy," Robertson said. "I warned him about casualties."

But I thought God talked to Bush too? I guess he got the message garbled.

UPDATE: WH spokesman Scott McClellan called Robertson a liar. Heh.

I ran across a well-written piece over at a blog I would not normally visit today. It's nice to see that at least a few people on the other side of the blogosphere grok why many Jews do not feel comfortable voting Republican.

In brief:

The first is that Jews tend to be very intimidated by evangelical Christians. Jews as a whole don't really try to convert people and evangelicals are all about evangelizing and converting. Big culture clash there.

[snip]

The second is that Jews are a minority culture. When Christians start talking about faith-based initiatives, Jews realize that anything they do is going to be overwhelmed by the vastly Christian majority.

Indeed. These are not the only reasons, of course, but they are very pertinent ones. (Yglesias offers a few more).

It would be nice if more folks in Red-State Blogville "got it". Volokh twice suggests that Jews have some racial or genetic predisposition to be liberals, a suggestion I find offensive and even potentially frightening. But expecting rationality from far-right wingnuts like him is probably too much to ask.

My passport recently expired. I should have renewed it sooner:

Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the Bush administration--specifically, the Department of Homeland Security--has wanted the world to agree on a standard for machine-readable passports. Countries whose citizens currently do not have visa requirements to enter the United States will have to issue passports that conform to the standard or risk losing their nonvisa status.

These future passports, currently being tested, will include an embedded computer chip. This chip will allow the passport to contain much more information than a simple machine-readable character font, and will allow passport officials to quickly and easily read that information. That is a reasonable requirement and a good idea for bringing passport technology into the 21st century.

But the Bush administration is advocating radio frequency identification (RFID) chips for both U.S. and foreign passports, and that's a very bad thing.

These chips are like smart cards, but they can be read from a distance. A receiving device can "talk" to the chip remotely, without any need for physical contact, and get whatever information is on it. Passport officials envision being able to download the information on the chip simply by bringing it within a few centimeters of an electronic reader.

Unfortunately, RFID chips can be read by any reader, not just the ones at passport control. The upshot of this is that travelers carrying around RFID passports are broadcasting their identity.

Think about what that means for a minute. It means that passport holders are continuously broadcasting their name, nationality, age, address and whatever else is on the RFID chip. It means that anyone with a reader can learn that information, without the passport holder's knowledge or consent. It means that pickpockets, kidnappers and terrorists can easily--and surreptitiously--pick Americans or nationals of other participating countries out of a crowd.

Since the program is currently in test only I suppose I should renew ASAP so I don't get stuck with the chip. You might want to check your own passport's expiration date and see if you're in a similar boat.

This is so good that I am also going to email it out to all my friends and family. How to make sure your vote counts:

1. If you are newly registered or if you have moved recently, call ahead of Nov. 2 and make sure that you are on the list of registered voters and make sure that you know where you are to vote.

2. Get a sample ballot. Call your county or state election official to request it. Or, check your state's election website to print one out - especially if your ballot is going to be complex (many referenda) or if you will be using a new voting technology/machine. Study the sample ballot beforehand. Complete the sample ballot with your choices - slowly, quietly and carefully in the privacy of your home or office.

3. Take your sample ballot with you to the polling place. You may bring it with you. This will help you assure that you are voting for whom/what you think you want to vote.

4. Do not vote early morning or evening hours at your polling place. Avoid long lines and crowds -- especially in battleground states. Vote mid-day: 10 AM - 4 PM.

5. Know your rights. Every state is required to provide a list of voter's rights on the sample ballot and at the polling place. If you need help with your voting machine or ballot at your polling place, ask for it You must be given help if you request it. If you have a paper ballot and you make a mistake, call for help immediately from a poll official. You have the right to receive another ballot and to destroy the ballot with the mistake.

6. If your name is not found on the registered voters list at your poll on Election Day or if anything else comes up that prevents you from being able to step into the voting booth, demand a Provisional Ballot. Demand it! You have this right! Your Provisional Ballot may be counted after your registration problem/voter challenge has been cleared up.

7. Take the time to check your ballot before completing your vote. Give a second reading to your ballot before you cast the ballot. If you spot a mistake, call for a poll official.

8. Carry this telephone number with you to the polls: (866) OUR-VOTE [(866) 687-8683]. If you have any problems at the polling place, call the Election Protection hotline at (866) 687-8683. Election Protection is a nationwide program to safeguard your right to cast a ballot on Election Day.

9. Mail or deliver your ballot personally. If you are voting by mail or using an absentee ballot, mail it yourself or hand it in yourself. Don't, under any circumstances, give it to someone else.

10. Bring valid photo ID with you.

UPDATE: added #10, which was suggested by a respondant after I e-mailed this list out to all and sundry.

This was probably not the kind of October Surprise the Bushies wanted to see.

Call it poor planning, call it arrogance, call it stupidity -- all or the above of none of the above. The long and the short of it is, there was a particularly large cache of very high-end explosives in Iraq that the US government left unguarded after the invasion. 370+ TONS of explosives have vanished.

The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no-man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the American invasion last year.

How much damage can that much explosive do?

The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the material of the type stolen from Al Qaqaa

There's much more. Go read it.

Hope it was good for Clinton's too.

I just wish I could have been there.

UPDATE: Atrios was there, lucky guy. So was Richard Cranium. This is one of those days I wish I still lived on the east coast.

I've shied away from making election predictions mostly out of superstition, and party out of a fear of looking like an idiot if I guess wrong. But I am cautiously optimistic about next Tuesday.

That said, here goes:

I listen to the local ABC AM radio affiliate, KGO, fairly often, but I missed Ronn Owens' show today. Unfortunately. Howard Stern called in to rant at Michael Powell this morning on the air.

KGO has a link to an audio archive of the show on their home page. I'm about to listen to it.

I can't get through to any of the Blogger-hosted blogs in my blogroll today. I hope they get their issues straightened out soon, because web traffic to blogs is likely to increase significantly for the nest week or so.

The days when I had any positive feelings about Yasser Arafat are long since passed, but if the reports are true, he's not long for this world and that's Not Good News.

Exactly how ill he is seems somewhat up in the air -- the various news reports I've read range from describing Arafat as practically being on his deathbead to his being ill but not critically.

Says ABC:

Palestinian officials said he had the flu. Israeli officials speculated he might have stomach cancer, but two of his doctors said Wednesday a blood test and a biopsy of tissue from his digestive tract showed no evidence of cancer.

On Tuesday, a hospital official said Arafat was suffering from a large gallstone. The gallstone, while extremely painful, is not life-threatening and can be easily treated, the official told AP.

So why is this bad news?

Arafat's health crisis has highlighted how unprepared the Palestinians are for their leader's death, making a chaotic transition period all but inevitable. Arafat refuses to groom a successor; rival security chiefs already have battled each other in the streets.

[snip]

No leader of Arafat's stature and popularity is waiting in the wings, said Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi. "It's only natural to expect that there would be either a power struggle or there would be a loss of cohesion," she said.

Analysts said it could take years for a leader to emerge, hurting prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. However, Israel and the United States hold out hope that a post-Arafat Middle East will be more conducive to peace because of what they say is Arafat's blind eye to terror and opposition to reform.

Polls show the second most popular Palestinian after Arafat is Marwan Barghouti, a leader of Fatah's young guard. But Barghouti is serving five consecutive life terms in an Israeli prison for involvement in deadly shooting attacks.

On paper, at least, a path of succession has been charted. The parliament speaker would replace Arafat as Palestinian Authority president for 60 days, until elections are held. However, current speaker Rauhi Fattouh is a bland backbencher uncertain to hold on during a turbulent transition period, and timely elections appear unlikely.

Somehow I don't think this is going to end well. We shall see though. After all, if the Red Sox can finally break the Curse of the Bambino, anything is possible.

The Washington Note has a seriously depressing account of what is really going on for our armed forces in the mideast. Basically, there is not one bit of good news.

It is worth a read, though.

Tommy is dreaming of a Kerry victory. That's why he looks so cute & happy:

Given the increased prominence religion has had in America over the last several years, I suppose this is not so surprising, but it's not good news at all -- a big article in the NY Times about the Christianization of the workplace.

On the face of it, it's a nice idea:

One of the movement's objectives is to give Christians an opportunity to "out" themselves on the job, to let them express who they are, freely and without feeling persecuted. Few would argue with such a goal: it suits an open society. And if it increases productivity and keeps C.E.O.'s from turning into reptiles, all the better.

Even government agencies are getting in on the game:

In 2001, Angie Tracey, an employee at the Centers for Disease Control, organized what she calls a "comprehensive workplace ministry," among the first officially sanctioned employee religious groups within the federal government. She says that many colleagues have been "saved" at her group's Bible studies and other gatherings on government property, and she describes the federal agency's not-yet-saved employees as "fertile ground." Her program has spread rapidly within the C.D.C., and employees at other divisions of the federal government -- the Census Bureau, the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management -- have contacted her about bringing the Word into their workplaces, too.

Apparently it is completely legal to do this at a government agency, although frankly it boggles my mind that that is so.

But even if workplace evangelism is legal, it's still got a big problem; that being the fact that part and parcel of the evangelical Christain faith is to prostletize. It sets up a dynamic tension between people who approve of that activity, and those who either have a secular orientation or who belong to faiths which do not have a tradition of evangelism.

On a small scale, who cares? If it makes for successful businesses and happy employees, why should anyone be concerned? Becasue these people have big plans. Some of them want to have not only Christian businesses, but all-Christian towns, and even an all-Christian America:

Later I met several of the men for lunch at the Olde Main Eatery downtown. One owns the local fitness center; another runs a heating-oil business. As they talked, their ideas and objectives expanded. It turned out that their group -- Pray Elk River -- is part of a network of municipal officials, ministers and small-business owners across the country that has the goal of winning whole towns over to Christ. [snip] Rick Heeren -- a businessman and the author of "Thank God It's Monday!" -- is the Midwest representative for the national umbrella organization, which is called Harvest Evangelism. He told me that Harvest Evangelism had chosen Elk River as a "detonator city" through which, ultimately, the nation will be turned to Jesus Christ. (Other detonator cities include Honolulu and San Jose.)

Frankly reading this kind of thing turns my stomach in a mix of revulsion and fear. The America these people envision is an America that this Jew has literally no place in. And there are a hell of a lot more of them than there are of people like me. Although the author takes great pains to detail how kind, how nice, and how loving the evangelicals he meets generally are, the important question is never asked: what happens when you expand out of your all-white, all-Christian suburbs and meet people not willing to live within your vision?

The closest they get is when the author asks one of the subjects of the article, bank owner Chuck Ripka, the following:

When I asked Ripka if a Jew or Muslim had ever applied for a job at the bank, his choice of language was a bit odd: "We don't really have that in our community at this point."

The bank is located in a more or less all-white suburb in Minnesota, so no surprise there. But it is a critical point the author never quite addresses. This phenomenon is here and is is growing. It's even fully legal. But what happens when the inevitable culture clash begins?

I often think that when America finally fails, it will be this schism -- the religious versus the secular -- that brings it down. If these differences calcify for a few more decades, it's not such a stretch to see the day come when the Christian heartland decides it does not want or need those ungodly people on the coasts who refuse to conform to their vision of an all-Christian America and seriously tries to form an America of its own.

And in my heart of hearts I have to say, maybe that's the right solution. It would certainly be better than the nightmare vision of a civil war over the future of America, or even worse, the repressions, deportations, or even executions that might emerge out of one America dominated by the theocratic mindset.