No Traffic Jam

No time to compile a linkfest afternoon, I’m afraid. Posting will resume some time tomorrow. In the meantime, peruse some of the fine sites on the blogroll or follow some of the TrackBacks on the posts below.

Bad Traffic

Sadly, my first confirmation of the beheading came from SiteMeter. All of a sudden, my traffic went from brisk to phenomenal.

I’d have preferred to remain at brisk.

Al Qaeda Beheads American Paul Johnson

Reuters — Al Qaeda Beheads U.S. Hostage in Saudi

Al Qaeda militants beheaded an American engineer they had held hostage since last week, Al Arabiya television reported Friday.

The network was quoting its correspondent in Saudi Arabia and gave no further details. Al Qaeda had given the Saudi government a Friday deadline to free jailed militants or it would kill Paul Johnson

Outrageous, if unsurprising.

UPDATE: CNN — U.S. hostage beheaded

An Arabic TV news network said Friday that American hostage Paul Johnson Jr. has been beheaded by his Saudi captors.

Al Arabiya said its bureau chief had been shown the video of the killing.

A Saudi security source said, “From our end, we cannot confirm this. We have not found a body yet.”

Earlier Friday, Al Arabiya had aired an emotional statement from the wife of Johnson.

Johnson’s wife, Noom, who is Thai, said she hoped the Saudi government “can help my husband.”

U.S. and Saudi investigators concluded an intensive meeting Friday, Saudi officials said, as security forces spread all over the kingdom searching for Johnson.

Johnson, 49, a Lockheed Martin Corp. employee, had been kidnapped Saturday in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. He helped maintain U.S.-built Apache helicopter gunships for the Saudi military.

Johnson’s captors had threatened to kill him by Friday unless the Saudi government released al Qaeda prisoners and Westerners leave the Arabian Peninsula.

Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, the self-proclaimed military leader of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility for Johnson’s kidnapping and the death of another American on the same day on behalf of a group called the Al Falluja Squadron, which says it has ties to al Qaeda.

The State Department has urged all Americans to leave Saudi Arabia, but Johnson’s sister, Donna Mayeux, said her brother “always felt safe in Saudi Arabia.”

“My brother is an honorable man,” she said. “He has always treated people with dignity and respect.”

UPDATE: BBC — Militants ‘behead US hostage’

. . . an Islamist website showed photographs of the apparent beheading.

(via Michael King)

A site calling itself the Northeast Intelligence Network claims, “We have the images in our possesion but at this time we are not placing them on the website.” (via Jeff Quinton)

UPDATE: Apparently, “at this time” was enough time to code the pictures into HTML. They’re up. (HT: OF Jay)

UPDATE: Drudge links a somewhat more detailed AP story

“In answer to what we promised … to kill the hostage Paul Marshall (Johnson) after the period is over … the infidel got his fair treatment,” the statement said.

“Let him taste something of what Muslims have long tasted from Apache helicopter fire and missiles,” the statement said.

and has a rather grisly photo of the beheaded Johnson atop his site. (HT: Joy Larkin)

UPDATE: He’s taken the photo off the main page but posted three of them here.

WWII Vet Gets Belated Aid

Steve Botello, a fellow Jacksonville State grad and officer in the DC chapter its Alumni Association, helped an 86-year-old World War Two vet get some benefits he deserved—and needed.

It made the papers:

CONTINUE READING WWII Vet Gets Belated Aid »

Reshuffling the Cabinet

Dan Drezner, kowtowing to the demands of Brad DeLong, fires the entire Bush cabinet and nominates an interesting string of replacements. He has some interesting choices, some of whom would clearly be upgrades over the current crop (especially at AG and Treasury).

Getting rid of Colin Powell, while likely good from a pragmatic standpoint, has several problems from a political one. A more serious obstacle stands in the way of this plan: Senate confirmation.

It's the Jobs, Stupid

For some reason, I’ve landed on the Senate Joint Economic Committee’s mailing list. They’ve sent me some interesting data:

* Over the past year, the unemployment rate has fallen in 46 states.
* Non-farm payroll employment increased in 36 states in May.
* Over the past year, employment has increased in 44 states.
* 37 states now have unemployment rates at or below the national unemployment rate of 5.6 percent.

It’s based on a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released today, which is the first cut at the May 2004 figures.

State-by-state data is available, in PDF format, here.

Israel's Intifada Victory

Charles Krauthammer, not known for his sunny optimism, proclaims, “The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost.” As evidence for this Israeli victory, he notes that, “The overall level of violence has been reduced by more than 70 percent.”

Krauthammer believes this case study has a lot of lessons to teach.

How did Israel do it? By ignoring its critics and launching a two-pronged campaign of self-defense.

First, Israel targeted terrorist leaders — attacks so hypocritically denounced by Westerners who, at the same time, cheer the hunt for, and demand the head of, Osama bin Laden. The top echelon of Hamas and other terrorist groups has been either arrested, killed or driven underground. The others are now so afraid of Israeli precision and intelligence — the last Hamas operative to be killed by missile was riding a motorcycle — that they are forced to devote much of their time and energy to self-protection and concealment.

Second, the fence. Only about a quarter of the separation fence has been built, but its effect is unmistakable. The northern part is already complete, and attacks in northern Israel have dwindled to almost nothing.

This success does not just save innocent lives; it changes the strategic equation of the whole conflict.

Of course, Israel is fighting on a much more contained battlefield. They know precisely who their enemies are and where they live. The US can’t very well build a wall that would shield us from our enemies, given both our comparative vastness (for comparative purposes: Israel would fit in Ted Turner’s backyard).

Still, we can and have hardened some key targets. Highjacking a commercial airliner or bringing a suitcase bomb into a federal building are much harder than they were two years ago.

Killing the terrorist leaders is also a more daunting task when one’s enemy is a global jihadist network rather than a handful of Palestinian irredentists. We’ve been looking in vain for bin Ladin for years. Still, we’ve “otherwise dealt with” dozens of key al Qaeda leaders and, while we’ve barely made a dent in the movement, we do seem to have disrupted their ability to plan 9/11-scale operations. It’s simply harder to plan attacks when you are hiding in a different spider hole every night, unable to show your face in public, and can’t use your cell phone. It’s even harder if you’re dead. (It’s true—look it up.)

Putin Says Russia Warned U.S. on Saddam

Reuters — Putin Says Russia Warned U.S. on Saddam

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in comments sure to help President Bush, declared Friday that Russia knew Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had planned terror attacks on U.S. soil and had warned Washington.

Putin said Russian intelligence had been told on several occasions that Saddam’s special forces were preparing to attack U.S. targets inside and outside the United States.

“After the events of September 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services several times received information that the official services of the Saddam regime were preparing ‘terrorist acts’ on the United States and beyond its borders,” he told reporters.

“This information was passed on to our American colleagues,” he said. He added, however, that Russian intelligence had no proof that Saddam’s agents had been involved in any particular attack.

Jon Henke isn’t sure what to make of this but asks some reasonable questions:

1: How much credibility did Russia assign to that information?
2: How much credibility does the US assign to that information?
3: Why are we just hearing this now?
4: Are we just hearing about this now because the information was dubious?
5: Through what kind of sources did Russia get this information? If they came from Russia’s own intelligence work, they would have more credibility than if they came from Iraqi (dis)informants (read: Chalabi’s INC)

These are fair points.

Honestly, I’m not sure how to read this, either, although I’m more than a bit skeptical. For one thing, given that we loudly proclaimed some rather sketchy intelligence in bolstering our case for the war, one would think we would have shooted this from the rooftops. After all, it would constitute an “imminent threat” that would more easily have justified pre-emptive action. Secondly, this is especially odd given Putin’s adamant opposition to our invasion.

Speaking to reporters in the capital of ex-Soviet Kazakhstan, he went out of his way, however, to say that Russia’s view of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was unchanged.

“Our position has not changed. We indeed passed this information on to our American partners but we consider that there are rules, defined by international law, for using force in international affairs and these procedures were not observed,” he said.

Still, this is a story worth following.

The Right to Fight

Ralph Peters asks, in his NY Post op-ed today, “What about our troops?”

The transfer of power may prove, God willing, to be good news for Iraq, but it’s already bad news for our troops and the War on Terror. To further their own political interests, Iraqi officials will demand a say in our military operations.

If their approach is practical and realistic, we can work together. But if every junior clerk in the Ministry of Graft has to sign off on our plans to apprehend terrorists and battle insurgents, we should begin withdrawing our forces as soon as we can get the first transport aircraft into Baghdad International.

Iraq matters. But if it doesn’t matter sufficiently to Iraq’s own leaders for them to support our struggle against the forces wrecking the country’s future, we shouldn’t waste the life of another soldier.

A rational degree of freedom of action should be the quid pro quo for our continued presence — and further funding. There’s a grave danger that Iraq’s non-elected leaders will attempt to turn our forces into their palace guard as demagogues jockey for advantage at the expense of the masses.

We cannot afford to remain in the desert twiddling our thumbs while the ranks of terror swell. If we can’t fight, we should leave.

Well, sure. My understanding is that this is indeed the arrangement we’ve made. Certainly, the interim government desperately needs the backing of American troops to stave off the insurgency.

US forces have, at least since World War Two, always been under operational US command. On occasion, we’ve been under the nominal control of a foreign power for political reasons. The most obvious case being the 1991 Gulf War when a Saudi general was in “command” but Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf was calling the shots. In the coming months, our forces will “answer” to the Iraqi authorities and, presumably, actually consult with them and take their concerns seriously before launching operations. On the other hand, I can guarantee you that they won’t be asking for permission from anyone to defend themselves.

Kerry Foreign Policy Illustrated

Bruce Tinsley’s “Mallard Fillmore” June 12, 2004
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Terrorism Fallacies

Smash has started a post thread to debunk misunderstandings of terrorism as he encounters them.

[A]fter looking throught the 9/11 Commission reports, and reading the reactions in the press and around the various weblogs, I realize that most people still know very, very little about the al Qaeda organization and international terrorism in general. The past few days have made me realize that many people are holding on to various fallacies and misconceptions about international terror groups. So, instead of writing a lengthy analysis of the reports, I’ve decided my time would be better spent addressing these fallacies as I encounter them.

This is going to be a very long post, and I will be updating it frequently…

That’s not a post, my friend, it’s a book. Or a blog. [Hmm. How about a group blog called “Terrorism Fallacies”? -ed. Like I’ve got time for that. As Dave Barry would say, though, it would be a good name for a rock band.]

How The Holy Warriors Learned To Hate

Waleed Ziad has an interesting op-ed in today’s NYT entitled, “How The Holy Warriors Learned To Hate.” [RSS]

[C]ontrary to popular theories, the fight against militant religious groups in South Asia is not a clash of age-old civilizations or a conflict between traditionalism and modernism. Rather, it is a more recent story of political ineptitude and corruption, and of a postcolonial class struggle between the disenfranchised poor and these countries’ elites.

He details the history of Islamic movements in the region and notes that, although madrasas were in place as early as the 19th century, radical Islamist movements gained little traction until relatively recently.

The turning point was the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The West and its allies decided the best resistance to Moscow would come through presenting the war as a religious struggle. While Pakistani religious leaders had little political power, they did have considerable influence over the madrasas in Pakistan’s northwestern frontier region and in Afghanistan. Even the most benign found this to be an opportunity to finally win recognition (and a fortune), and they set up their own militant subsidiaries. Madrasas were converted overnight into training grounds for mujahedeen. In exchange for political power and global recognition, these impoverished students readily became cannon fodder in Afghanistan.

Of course, the eventual Soviet withdrawal meant an end to all that Western attention and money. The mujahedeen needed a new cause. International events — including the Persian Gulf war and the Palestinian intifada — provided one: hatred of America. An ethnic Pashtun militia, which metamorphosed into the Taliban, provided a rallying point for the unemployed mujahedeen. The rest is history.

Today, Western politicians, academics and intelligence experts continue to search through the annals of history to determine the sources of this jihadist mindset. But the truth is, it is just another ideology adopted by so-called religious parties in the former British Empire for short-term political gains, and fueled by the frustrations of a disaffected lower class.

To battle this phenomenon, then, we need to open a new front on the war on terrorism. Permanently dislodging these extremists calls for educational, economic and cultural development. A first step should be working with Afghanistan and Pakistan to move the focus of the madrasas away from holy war. Equally important is providing more Western money for new schools to provide functional education, coupled with real economic opportunities for graduates. Education and jobs, not rooting out some faux-religious doctrine, are the means by which the disenfranchised may be brought back into the fold.

Considering the vast populations of the underclasses in these countries, changing their lot may take longer than war, but it would be cheaper and is the only long-term solution. And in doing so, America would be seen not as an occupier but as a purveyor of prosperity, winning the hearts and minds of generations to come.

This is an interesting argument. It should be noted, though, that he’s talking about South Asia and not the Arab world, where Islamism has much earlier and deeper roots. it’ll take much longer to overcome its appeal there.

Hanging for Saddam

WaTi — Iraq Officials Seek Death By Hanging For Saddam

Iraqi authorities hope to see Saddam Hussein face capital charges punishable by hanging when he stands trial sometime after June 30, the head of Iraq’s special tribunal on war crimes said yesterday.

Salem Chalabi also said the Iraqi government expects to file charges quickly against Saddam and other top members of his regime once it assumes authority at the end of the month.

Saddam “may be charged relatively soon,” said Mr. Chalabi from Baghdad. “We can expect movement after June 30. We are working the arrangements out.”

Although the charges remain to be decided, Saddam has been widely accused of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. According to the Statute of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, if any of these acts was committed by a subordinate, he would not be relieved of criminal responsibility. Asked whether Saddam could face the death penalty, Mr. Chalabi answered “Yes,” adding that Iraqi law stipulated death by hanging for civilians and by firing squad for soldiers.

The death penalty in Iraq has been suspended by U.S. Administrator L. Paul Bremer, but the law is still on the books and Mr. Chalabi said members of the Iraqi government have discussed reinstating it after June 30. “I suspect it is not unlikely they will do that,” he said. Complicating the decision, however, is pressure from international donor countries trying to tie aid to keeping the moratorium in place.

One suspects a compromise can be worked out that would allow capital punishment for extreme cases such as Saddam’s. If ever there was a poster boy for the death penalty, he’s it.

Senate Votes To Add 20,000 Soldiers To Army

NYT — Senate Votes To Add 20,000 Soldiers To Army

The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to increase the strength of the Army by 20,000 soldiers, with lawmakers saying the military is badly strained by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Members of both parties said the troops, added to the Pentagon spending plan for 2005 on a 93-to-4 vote, were essential in light of international tensions and the policy of keeping military personnel in Iraq and elsewhere beyond their scheduled tours.

“Frankly, they need more help,” said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a chief proponent of additional personnel. “This operational tempo is putting great stress and duress on soldiers.” He and others, including Senators John McCain of Arizona and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, both Republicans, have been pressing for a personnel increase as well as for dispatching more forces to Iraq. The administration has resisted, saying the army has enough. “I hope that the Pentagon and the civilian leadership there will come to their senses and recognize that there are not enough men and women in the military today,” Mr. McCain said. “They’re stretched too thin, they’re badly overworked, and we have paid a very heavy price for these failings from the beginning of the Iraqi conflict.”

Under a compromise, the Senate agreed to pay the $1.7 billion cost of the new personnel out of the administration’s $25 billion request for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through early next year. Mr. Reed said the 20,000 recruits were the number Pentagon officials said could be absorbed in the next year. The addition would bring the authorized strength of the Army to 502,400.

The House also approved additional troops, but phased them in over three years.

The piece doesn’t explain how the troops will be allocated or integrated into the force. Presumably, since we’re talking recruits, they’ll simply increase the strength of existing units. There would be value in doing that for, say, infantry units or even military police; additional lower enlisted soldiers would be of limited utility for armor or rocket artillery units.

And John Kerry is now halfway to his goal of increasing the Army by 40,000 (I’m presuming the House will ultimately go along). And he’s not even president!

Equipping the Iraq Security Force

Defense Today [$]— General Sees ‘Long, Hard Slog’ Ahead In Building Iraq Security Force

The U.S. general leading the effort to train and equip a new Iraqi military told legislators that he sees progress in fielding Iraqi units, but he warned that “equipment is not flowing fast enough” to the new security forces.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus repeated the same memorable phrase-“a long, hard slog”—that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used in a much-publicized October 2003 memorandum to describe progress in the war on terror. “We’ve got to … keep our shoulder to the wheel, and keep pushing, because it is a long hard slog,” Petraeus said. “But again, I think we’re going to see the chain reaction begin that’s going to help push the development of the Iraqi security forces in the coming months.”

Speaking by video uplink from Iraq, Petraeus listed a number of recent achievements the coalition has seen in building a new Iraqi army. He said, for instance, that Iraqis now have a nascent special operations/commando force that is working with U.S. and coalition special operations forces. And he suggested that there might be an expansion of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, which is a paramilitary force drawn from local communities and political parties.

Iraqi forces—like their U.S. counterparts—need more and better gear. “Equipment is flowing; it’s not flowing fast enough yet,” Petraeus said. “But it is starting to come in.” Among the equipment that Iraqi forces need are flak vests, vehicles, heavy machine guns and uniforms. “We are working very hard to insure that the security forces do have the equipment that they need and that they’re not outgunned by the bad guys,” Petraeus said.

Petraeus, who commanded the 101st Airborne Division during the invasion of Iraq and oversaw the occupation of a large part of northern Iraq, recently returned to Iraq to head the Office of Security Transition.

Obviously, we want them in different uniforms to differentiate them from Saddam’s force but they could use existing weapons. One would think there would be plenty of machine guns laying around unused in Iraq, given that Saddam had one of the world’s largest armies. Frankly, there’s little excuse for an inadequate supply of uniforms, flak vests, and the like at this stage of the game. Those are readily available, off-the-shelf items that were obviously going to be needed.

TCS: Saddam and al Qaeda

My second piece for TCS, Saddam and al Qaeda, is now up.

Totten, Sullivan, and Non-Partisans

Michael J. Totten applauds Andrew Sullivan’s announcement that he won’t support Bush for re-election. Sully’s rationale:

Bush’s endorsement of antigay discrimination in the U.S. Constitution itself is a deal-breaker. I can’t endorse him this fall. Like many other gay men and women who have supported him, despite serious disagreements, I feel betrayed, abused, attacked.

I’d be somewhat more sympathetic to Sullivan’s position had either he or the GOP changed positions recently. They haven’t. The GOP, since at least 1980, has been staunchly socially conservative and aligned with the evangelical Christian movement. George W. Bush certainly wore it on his sleeve in 2000. Sully apparently disagrees:

This betrayal exists on two levels. First, it’s a betrayal of the inclusion and compassion once promised by George W. Bush. The proposed constitutional amendment is a conscious and clear attempt to exempt gay citizens—and only gay citizens—from the equal protection of the law. It’s an amendment designed to marginalize an entire minority. When the president endorsed the amendment, he could not even bring himself to say the words “gay,” “lesbian,” or “homosexual.” He could not even manage a sentence to speak to the very Americans he seeks to disenfranchise. I’m sick of being told that, on a personal level, this president is not homophobic. If it’s true, it makes his catering to homophobia even worse—an act of political cynicism. If he cannot even name us, he cannot pretend to accord us dignity and respect. It’s a lie.

While I agree with Sully on the merits of the gay marriage argument, his statement of Bush’s position is odd. I certainly got no signal in 2000 that Bush was a supporter of homosexual marriage, or anything like that. He’s not seeking to marginalize homosexuals—just to maintain the status quo as it existed during the 2000 campaign and, indeed, until a Massachussets court read gay marriage into their constitution.

Totten, himself a former Democrat who supported Bush on the war but likely won’t is reluctant to support him for re-election, notes that some in the far right are saying deplorable things about Sullivan. He encourages him to do what he thinks is right:

Political parties are cruel to people who think. The more partisan members are bigots. They hate people in the other political party, and they hate you if you don’t follow orders. If you’re going to talk about principles you might as well be writing in Martian for those who will jump at a moment’s notice to stay on the right side of the party line.

Quit. Just walk away from the Republican Party. They are not your comrades as you can plainly see. Don’t bother calling yourself a conservative anymore. Publicly declare yourself an Independent and a Centrist. Don’t let anyone call you anything else. Oh, but they’ll try. Ann Coulter will call you a traitor and a leftist. Michael Moore will say you’re an imperial neocon cabalist. Who cares what they think? They’re slapstick buffoons, not your peers.

Your conservative friends who are worth their body weight in water will still be there for you. Your subscription to The Weekly Standard will still arrive in the mail. Your boyfriend will still love you. Your neighbors will still wave hello. Your favorite bartender will still smile when he sees you pull up a stool. Your Web site will still be one of the most popular blogs in the world. Don’t be afraid to lose readers. Some of us have learned a lot from your work, and we are not going anywhere.

All true enough. Except that, as Sullivan himself notes,

I’m not a Republican, so I have no party to leave. I’m not even sure what I would say to a gay Republican right now. But I would insist that the president’s stance is a betrayal of conservatism as well. Civil marriage is a conservative institution in many ways. Denying it to gays is tantamount to arguing that homosexuals should always be at the margins of society, beyond its unifying institutions, outside their own families and society. To my mind, that is unconservative. It segregates and divides people into groups, while conservatism should seek to treat all individuals equally. Worse, the amendment strips states of the right to decide for themselves how they want civil marriage to be defined. Again, that’s a betrayal of a political tradition that has long embraced states’ rights and the benefits of local rather than federal government. And using the sacred Constitution as a political tool is also a frivolous ploy that traditional conservatives would never endorse.

No president is perfect. It’s important to note that even John Kerry opposes equal marriage rights. So do Bill Clinton and Howard Dean. I can live with disagreement on the issue of civil marriage itself. But raising the issue to the level of a constitutional amendment is not something anyone can or should live with. It’s writing gay people out of their own country. It’s the political equivalent of domestic violence. Once that happens you’re a fool to stay in the relationship. You’re asking for more abuse. You’re enabling a movement that seeks to destroy you.

From a purely academic standpoint, I find it puzzling that this one policy statement —on which the leading alternative differs only marginally and one which has zero chance of actually being enacted in law— would be enough to override one’s belief system on a whole variety of other issues. Of course, for me, this is a purely intellectual issue; for Sully, it’s existential.

The nature of a two party system is that people who are passionate about politics and reasonably intelligent are almost never satisfied. Certainly the Republican party is too much under the influence of fundamentalist Christians for my tastes. I’ve voted for a few Democrats for lower office, including the U.S. Senate and a state governorship, but that was in Alabama where even the Democrats are rather conservative. I’ve voted Libertarian a few times for lower offices, including U.S. House of Representatives, in elections that the incumbent was going to win by a landslide, anyway.

Still, there hasn’t been a Democratic presidential nominee in my political lifetime (1984-present) that seriously tempted me. Two issues dominate my voting calculations at the presidential level:

1. Who would be the better commander-in-chief of our military? While there have been some significant mistakes in the Iraq War and the war on terrorism has been far too timid for my tastes, I have no reason to suspect John Kerry would be an improvement. He strikes me as incredibly indecisive and likely to be far too willing to bow to international pressure.

2. Who would I rather have appointing Supreme Court justices? This one is just a no-brainer for me. Given that the current deadlock in the Senate is likely to continue, it’s unlikely that either Bush or Kerry would be able to get through an ideologue with a paper trail. Still, Bush’s sensibilities on this front are —by leaps and bounds— more to my liking.

But Sully and Michael have to make their own call on this one. I’ll still read their sites and wave to them if I happen to see them.

Oh, and if you’re feeling particularly non-partisan, might I suggest Ralph Nader?

Three Alabama Policemen Killed

Newsday/AP - 3 Police Officers Shot to Death in Alabama

Three police officers at a house to make an arrest were shot to death Thursday, and the sheriff said a suspect was taken into custody.

Colleagues of the officers found their bodies outside the house where the three had gone to serve “misdemeanor-type warrants,” said Brett Oates, spokesman for Birmingham’s mayor.

Authorities did not release further details, but the small, one-story dwelling, divided into apartments, had a reputation in the low-income neighborhood as a site for drug dealing.

Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale said Nathaniel Lauell Woods, 27, and four others were in police custody.

Later, Police Chief Annetta Nunn, who had described Woods as a suspect and released his mug shot, told reporters three people were in custody and declined to say if Woods was among them. It was not known if any charges had been filed.

“We just ask the public to pray for the officers, their families and the officers who are still on duty,” Nunn said at a brief news conference.

For a few days after 9/11, we remembered how dangerous police work can be. We usually forget. Even routine misdemeanor arrests can be fatal in that line of work.

Reagan on the $20 Bill?

Sean Hackbarth argues that Ronald Reagan should replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, rather than Alexander Hamilton on the $10 as previously suggested.

I know my early 19th Century American history is really rusty, but other than killing the national bank, telling John Calhoun to stick it, and winning the Battle of New Orleans after the War of 1812 was in essence over what make him deserve the currency honor more than Reagan?

I would argue that Sean greatly understates Jackson’s contributions at New Orleans. In 1959, the imminent historian John Gale Horton published a first person account, relying on primary source materials, which summarized the conflict thusly:

In Eighteen-fourteen, we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in a town in New Orleans

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

We looked down the river and we seed the British come
And there must have been a hunnered of ‘em beatin’ on the drum
They stepped so high and they made the bugles ring
We stood beside our cotton bales and didn’t say a thing

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Old Hick’ry said we could take ‘em by surprise
If we didn’t fire our muskets till we looked ‘em in the eye
We held our fire till we seed their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns and really gave ‘em…

Well, we fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ‘em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

We fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannon balls and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind!

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ‘em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

So, not only did they defeat a superior foe using asymmetric warfare techniques, fight the elements, and encounter dangerous wildlife, but Jackson was an early exponent of the Adkins diet.

Those Clever Japanese II

Phil Libin continues reporting on neat Japanese technology that we don’t have. (See here for previous marvels.) I’m still waiting for them to turn a television into a watch, however.