I loved, loved, loved the Little House on the Prairie series when I was a kid. Apparently, there are still girls around the world who read the books, too. If you can ignore Hank Steuver's snide tone, this Washington Post feature on Prairie girls will have you longing for Plum Creek.

I wrote about my Prairie penchant here.

And a bit of trivia: Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, was a noted Libertarian journalist and author of The Discovery of Freedom.

This is pretty amazing - a searchable database put together by an enterprising team at FundRace that allows you to find out who your neighbors have been giving political donations to and how much.

Personally, my husband discourages me from talking politics with the neighbors. Our kids wouldn't have anyone to play with if I did.

(Hat tip: American Digest)

Rod Dreher over at The Corner points to this creepy New York Times piece (registration required, it's worth it) by a cosmopolitan woman who recounts her decision to undergo "selective pregnancy reduction."

Let me translate that for normal people who reject the euphemisms of the pro-death camp. The privileged woman finds out she is carrying triplets. The thought of having to move from Manhattan's East Village to a suburb, where "I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise," fills her with dread. So she undergoes "selective pregnancy reduction"--killing two of her eight-week-old unborn children:

When we saw the specialist, we found out that I was carrying identical twins and a stand alone. My doctors thought the stand alone was three days older. There was something psychologically comforting about that, since I wanted to have just one. Before the procedure, I was focused on relaxing. But Peter was staring at the sonogram screen thinking: Oh, my gosh, there are three heartbeats. I can't believe we're about to make two disappear. The doctor came in, and then Peter was asked to leave. I said, ''Can Peter stay?'' The doctor said no. I know Peter was offended by that.

The callousness and detachment of this woman are so indescribably stunning that you must read the whole thing for yourselves. She concludes dryly:

I had a boy, and everything is fine. But thinking about becoming pregnant again is terrifying.

So she's terrified? I can only imagine how her surviving son will feel when he grows up and learns about the fate of his siblings.

Cool! The Associated Press discovers the young conservative activist group, Protest Warriors. Get ready for Operation Liberty Rising. They may not have any Ketchup money, but they are all heart. You can donate to the group and buy cool gear (I like the Right-Wing Extremists t-shirt...hint-hint!) here.

FOX News also ran a feature on the group today. Here's a video link.

I'm scheduled to be on Fox News this afternoon at around 1:30pm to talk about the Filipino cave-in to terrorism. Meanwhile, as Islamic head-choppers sharpen their blades in search of more Angelo de la Cruzes to use as extortion tools, the Philippines is in an uproar over...Jay Leno. Leno had joked on his show Wednesday:

A new world record has been set in the 100 meter dash. It was set by Filipino troops fleeing Iraq.

Yup. The latest news is that the remaining members of the Philippine police and military contingent in Iraq are to withdraw on Monday, according to Foreign Secretary Delia Albert. De la Cruz has been seen on video without the orange jumpsuit, promising that he'll be home soon. And Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, published a strong rebuke of the flaccid Filipinos in the Wall Street Journal - a must-read.

I continue to get a flood of e-mail in response to my Mollycodding Milksops of Manila column. It's mostly positive (and that includes mail from Filipinos around the world). The remaining hate e-mail falls into two categories: 1) from sputtering "B-b-b-b-b-but it's more complicated than you think" capitulationists and 2) from the "how dare you betray your race" bash-bots. This one made me giggle:

From: aznrocketman@hotmail.com
To: malkin@comcast.net
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2004 1:19 AM
Subject: Townhall Comment: Take a look at your face

Dear Ms. Malkin,

I, like thousands of others, am a proud Asian American. I am proud of being my ancestors, their customs, and am proud to still be practicing the ancient religion (Buddhism).

What I am not proud of, are Asian Americans who act white, who dont care or embrace where they come from.

Ms. Malkin, i just recently read your article of you putting down the phillipines. What do you think you are??? How can you put down your own heritage and ancestry, in newspapers, that circulate to thousands, if not millions of readers in this country??? Yes, if you really feel that way, it is okay, i understand the point you are making. But putting down your own ancestry in front of millions of non-Asian readers, thats just a shame.

Us Asians need to UNITE, and yet, we still have white washed people like you, who recognize yourself as American, before Asian...

Getting to my point, TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR FACE MS. MALKIN. You are Asian whether you like it or not. You have great power in the media, and you should use it to help unite Asian Americans, rather than put down your own heritage and ignore the fact that you are an ASIAN American.

Next thing you know they'll be criticizing me for marrying outside of my race. Oh, wait. The Aztlan crowd already has that covered.

And Jesus answering saith unto them, "Have faith in God."
- Mark 11:22.

The story of this teenager's survival, which she credits to her faith in God, is an inspiration:

She began praying the moment she saw the gun. She kept praying as he forced her into a truck, drove for miles, repeatedly raped her and left her for dead under branches and blackberry vines. And then, when she thought it was all over, when she was ready to die, she felt gentle hands lifting her up, carrying her to the road, setting her down where a truck driver would find her.

"For those who don't believe in modern miracles -- for those who just can't see it -- it's time to get new glasses," said the 18-year-old McMinnville woman's fiance, who asked that his name not be used in order to protect her identity. The Oregonian does not name rape victims as a matter of policy.

In a phone interview Thursday night, the fiance said, "She had a guardian angel. That's what we believe. Everything leads to God."

The woman was abducted about 3 a.m. Monday while working as the lone night caretaker of a McMinnville group home for disabled juveniles and adults. Her attacker, police say, entered the home through an unlocked sliding glass door at the back of the home, then walked her at gunpoint to his truck.

After a 25-mile drive west to the Coast Range, police say, he raped her three times at three locations. Police say he then choked her with her own shirt, dragged her into some bushes, covered her with branches and left her for dead.

At the end of the ordeal Monday, the woman felt that "she could have just decided to lay down and die, but instead she floated to the road, or was picked up and carried to the road," said Mike Holland, 42, a close friend chosen by the victim as a spokesman.

Doctors have said her injuries were so serious she could have died, yet she was on the side of the road when an astonished log-truck driver slammed on his brakes and picked her up at 7:45 a.m...

Please make a note of the information at the bottom of the story: The McMinnville Kidnapped Teenager Support Fund has been established to help with the woman's therapy. Contributions can be made at any Bank of America branch.

Congrats to Hugh Hewitt, whose new book, If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It, is #1 on Amazon.com's Non-Fiction Best-Seller list today!

Check this mess out. Where are the environmentalists when you need them?

Get out your hankies. The civil liberties alarmists are bawling and the sky is falling because...

...they can't take photos of sensitive areas without scary men in uniforms asking them for ID!

...they can't sell their crappy records to pro-American Americans!

...they can't break immigration laws in California without someone trying to enforce the law against them!

Henny Penny! Ducky Lucky! Go quickly and summon the king!

Update: Athena at Terrorism Unveiled thwacks the huffy photographers who assert that terrorists don't use cameras while casing tall buildings, dams, etc. So does Cori Dauber at Ranting Profs in a terrific post from last month:

There's a special class of idiot loose in the world today whose logic runs as follows:

I enjoy activity X.

I am not a terrorist.

Therefore, activity X cannot possibly be a security risk, and restricting it in any way is nothing more than a paranoid restriction of my rights.

I've seen this logic play out before, but rarely as absurdly as with a group of photographers who have decided that the pending ban on photography in the New York City subway system is -- wait for it -- a paranoid restriction of their rights, since after all, they're photographers and they aren't terrorists.

What are these people using for brains, their lenses?

Mark Bogosian, an American Airlines pilot, is co-author of a helpful book for airline passengers. It's Never Again: A Self-Defense Guide for the Flying Public. His co-authors are a SWAT team leader and a police commander. "Unless law enforcement is aboard, passengers and flight attendants are the first line of defense," Bogosian notes.

Along with disarming tips – in case a terrorist was able to get a gun on board – it provides numerous self-defense moves, ways to take away a knife or box cutter and information about dozens of ordinary items in aircraft cabins that can be used to thrwart an attack. Bogosian emphasizes, however, this is not a "whack 'em up" book, but a carefully measured approach to an attack that begins with analyzing the situation and using the standard levels of the "force continuum" employed by law enforcement.

Certainly a timely read.

Canada Free Press's Judi McLeod provides a preview of Teresa Heinz-Kerry-subsidized protests being planned by the Ruckus Society at the GOP convention in New York.

More info on the Ruckus thugs at ActivistCash.com.

...at the Republican Party convention! The Washington Times and Bob Novak report separately on efforts by conservatives to diversify the Karl Rove-approved, namby-pamby, prime-time speakers line-up. The Times' Ralph Hallow writes today:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York Gov. George E. Pataki, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani — all of whom are pro-choice — are lined up for evening speeches.

Among three other prime-time speakers, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is a fiscal conservative with a pro-life voting record. But he publicly ran against religious conservatives in the 2000 primaries, frequently clashes with party leaders, and opposes such religious conservative touchstones as the marriage amendment.

Secretary of Education Rod Paige is little known outside of his home state of Texas. Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia is strongly pro-life, but he is a Democrat.

"The most conservative speaker right now is John McCain, who is truly a fiscal conservative. But a lot of conservatives believe the conservative movement that got us here is being ignored at the convention," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican.

More than half the Republicans in the House have signed a formal complaint to President Bush about the failure to give prominent conservative, pro-life party members a single prime-time speaking slot. The members are asking to add Henry Hyde to the speaking roster.

Depressing. Kate O'Beirne rightly assailed this rise of Rockefeller Republicanism at National Review Online:

"The decision to showcase rogue elephants as representatives of the modern Republican party is not the mark of a self-confident party establishment. If the lineup is intended to make an overwhelmingly conservative party attractive to swing voters, it does so by pretending to be something it's not. The Republican party seems to habitually internalize the criticisms of its opponents. When the only Reagan Republican to enjoy a prominent supporting role at the party's convention is a Democrat, the GOP has a serious identity problem."

Exactly right. Republicans have some nerve making light of the Hillary Clinton/Dem convention gaffe when so many conservatives have been shunned and ignored in the GOP convention's own lineup.

So, help me celebrate diversity and add your suggestions for conservative convention speakers: Rep. Henry Hyde is a good choice. Here are a few of my nominees:

Ward Connerly
Tom Tancredo
Tom McClintock
Gianna Jessen

Something's up (and it's not just my teething baby and me). The Washington Post reports today on renewed efforts by the FBI to gather intelligence from Arab/Muslims via targeted voluntary interviews:

FBI agents have launched a series of interviews of Muslims and Arab Americans in the Washington area and across the country, hoping to glean information that could prevent a major terrorist attack during this election year. A few dozen voluntary interviews of community leaders, students, businesspeople and others have been conducted so far, according to attorneys and Muslim activists. Authorities said they do not know how many people will be contacted, but the effort is expected to expand significantly in the next week or so.

Some details on what FBI is asking about:

Several people in California and Arizona have been asked whether they knew anyone who had recently been in the Pakistani border region of Waziristan, regarded as a possible refuge for al Qaeda figures. They were also asked about Abu Nour, which agents identified as a mosque and school in Syria that was popular with American converts to Islam, the attorneys and activists said.

"We were told by the FBI agents that they're concerned there could be a coming threat from people who are recent converts to Islam," said Stacy Tolchin, a San Francisco lawyer who accompanied a Turkish Kurdish immigrant to an interview this week.

The civil liberties Chicken Littles are naturally up in arms:

"It creates fear in the community and accomplishes absolutely nothing," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

The interviews are voluntary. They could yield information that potentially saves thousands or more. Zogby and company would have the Justice Department do absolutely nothing in order to avoid creating "fear in the community."

Forget what's in the McDonald's bag. P. C. hypersensitivity is a potent enough weapon of self-destruction.

Update: The Los Angeles Times reported on these interviews two weeks ago in an article entitled, "FBI Delays Interviews in Fighting Terror Plot; After accusations of profiling, an official says the agency is being careful whom it talks to." In the article, the Times quoted an unnamed FBI official saying initiation of the interviews had been delayed because the FBI was "being sensitive to" the concerns of Muslim groups who object to profiling. (Hat tip: Sissy Willis)

Sens. Judd Gregg and John Sununu of New Hampshire have discovered the feds' old catch-and-release game...not with fish, but with illegal aliens. The Union Leader reports:

[Gregg and Sununu] want to know why federal immigration officials decided not to step in when New Ipswich police stopped a van carrying nine illegal aliens this week.

New Ipswich Police Chief Garrett Chamberlain said he contacted the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau of the Department of Homeland Security Monday afternoon when a speeding stop led to the discovery of the illegal immigrants from Ecuador.

But ICE officials in New Hampshire and Connecticut both said they were not interested in taking custody. They advised Chamberlain to get identities and other information and release them.

The men told police through an interpreter that they had paid $10,000 each to be smuggled into the U.S. and that they make their living as day laborers in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Police cited the van driver for driving after suspension of his license and impounded his car.

Gregg and Sununu, both New Hampshire Republicans, said local police did their job in stopping a speeding vehicle.

But they said they want to hear what happened at ICE, which has taken many responsibilities of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Sununu said the ICE response “was disturbing and clearly unacceptable. It is the responsibility of federal officials to further investigate and prosecute any violation of immigration laws when alerted to possible violations by local and state law enforcement officials.”

Welcome to reality, gentlemen. This game has been going on a long time. You want answers? Have your staff contact Justice Department whistleblower Juan Mann at DeportAliens.com.

You want to know why consistent immigration enforcement is impossible? Well, when was the last time you voted to increase federal immigration detention space and take a stand against granting amnesty to immigration law-breakers? When was the last time you voted to punish cities that defy federal law and give sanctuary to illegal aliens? When was the last time you publicly stood up against the ACLU, CAIR, AILA, etc. etc., who scream "racial profiling" any time law enforcement officers enforce immigration law?

Look in the mirror, gentlemen (voting records here and here).

Update: Let's play catch-and-release across the USA. Send me your examples. I'll start...

July 14 - WENATCHEE, Wash. - The man now charged with the murder of deputy Saul Gallegos in Chelan was "voluntarily removed" from the United States three times in recent years but he always came back. Twice Jose Sanchez-Guillen was removed from the border at Blaine, and once in Wenatchee. Immigration experts say it's part of an old loophole in the system, where unless local law enforcement specifically notified them of an illegal immigrant in custody, they didn't know about it...

July 11 - LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Open borders activists oppose a plan by LA County Sheriff that would allow sheriff's deputies to interview foreign-born jail inmates to determine their immigration status. The Los Angeles Times (registration required) reports:

Earlier this week, dozens of inmates bunched against the exit of the Inmate Reception Center, awaiting their release. The immigration agents began by interviewing as many of those men as possible, working down a list of foreign-born immigrants provided by the Sheriff's Department. But they never finish the list.

"I guarantee you that some of the people right there, walking out the door, are criminal aliens," said Chief Chuck Jackson, head of the jail system, as he walked past the prisoners.

July 12, DEL RIO, Texas - From the Del Rio News-Herald, we learn that 17 illegal aliens from Brazil were arrested by a local sheriff and almost released without any federal investigation. The sheriff's complaints to Rep. Henry Bonilla resulted in immigration enforcement interviews that would otherwise not have happened. Sheriff D'Wayne Jernigan fumed:

“What are my concerns about these releases? They’re the same as yours. These people are unknowns, they were arrested in a different part of the country and transported to Del Rio. They can’t enter Mexico, so they are turned loose in Del Rio without any visible means of support and intent on going north to New York, Detroit or Chicago or west to Los Angeles,” Jernigan said.

He added, “What are they going to turn to, to get money? When people are desperate, they turn to crime. Even good people will turn to crime when they are desperate. And I don’t want to subject our local citizens to this potential for stealing and robbing,” Jernigan said.

“Another thing that concerns us: Are they criminals? Are they terrorists? We don’t know who they are,” Jernigan said. The sheriff, who retired from the U.S. Customs Service after serving as the resident-agent-in-charge of enforcement, said interviews of federal immigration prisoners can provide officers with valuable information...

“I raise the issue with our elected officials, so they can then question agencies at the headquarters level. The agency officials at this level here locally, I truly believe, are just as much against these releases as I am. They feel betrayed. They’re thinking, ‘We work hard to apprehend these people and then the next day someone at the Washington level orders their release. Why are we apprehending them in the first place?’” Jernigan said.

“They turn these people loose with a piece of paper that tells them to report (to an immigration hearing) at an unknown time and date, to an unknown place,. . .and there’s no way for the agency to get in touch with them again. Are they going to show up at those hearings? Will the agency ever be able to find them? Let’s be realistic. It’s ridiculous. A war on terrorism? Homeland security? Hah!” Jernigan said.

Hah, indeed.

Ok, the kids are asleep.

1) Skeptics (yeah, even the ones who hate my guts) are having an interesting discussion here.

2) Still no word from any other passengers. It's possible that after Jacobsen appears on the networks, folks will come forward.

3) Reader Liz Roewe has sent several questions to the editors of WomensWallStreet.com and has yet to receive any answers. An excerpt from her latest e-mail to the editors follows:

To Women’s Wall Street Editorial Board and General Management:

Dear Editors,

Let me start by saying I began as a very sympathetic reader. I read Annie Jacobsen’s article with interest and I felt you all were doing a good thing to get this article out to the public. I’m disappointed that you all have not responded yet to my first email. I read the article by Annie Jacobsen and want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but you all must understand and embrace the responsibility necessary to publish her account and you all should be able to embrace the scrutiny and searching for the truth that should naturally result from putting this account out to the public.

Why did only your public relations person speak to Michelle Malkin instead of one of you, or a corporate representative????

[From Jacobsen's article: There were 14 Syrians on NWA flight #327. They were questioned at length by FAM, the FBI and the TSA upon landing in Los Angeles. The 14 Syrians had been hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert.]

OK, well then name the NAME of the casino, and the NAME of the musicians, and the booking agent... Editors, help.

[From Jacobsen's article: To receive any follow-up articles about Annie's experience, click HERE to register to become a member. You will receive an e-mail notifying you of any subsequent articles on this subject.

Red flag, red flag...why am I becoming a member of a financial website to receive emails notifying me of subsequent articles?? Cue the scary music...stay tuned with this cliff hanger .....but wait where is the empowering civil outrage, where do the editors want this incomplete article to take us to?? Kinda leaves us with a big Huh????

[From Jacobsen's article: Do you have any thoughts about this article that you'd like to share with our e-ditors?]

I did and I do, and no one has responded to my email.

As a mother with an August 2004 ticket on a Northwest Flight #327 flight, you all immediately got my attention.

I think you all get pretty poor marks for follow up in so many regards. You’ve lobbed a journalistic bomb without the professionalism to take it above anecdotal girl chat and that seems sad to me, especially when it may be that Annie Jacobsen does have an interesting account but to make it NEWS on your website it has to stand up to the scrutiny of good journalism and good editors...

Please contact me respond to my questions.

Sincerely,

Liz Roewe

4) A reader who listened to the KVI interview was not impressed with Jacobsen:

This woman did not even sound like a credible person. The radio host had to prompt and it even seemed like he was reminding her of the main points of her story and when he would ask her for analysis she kept saying “It is not my place to speculate” or “if you read between the lines of the story you will understand” She also seemed a little too excited to be giving out her website at every opportunity (a website by the way that only has 1 other story written by this esteemed writer, and also a site that the editorial staff had to debate over running this story).

Yeah, this bothers me.

5) More sense from Sensing and a response from the equally sensible Andy McCarthy.

***

Morning additions:
1)
Blaster's Blog sums things up nicely:

The discussions around the Annie Jacobsen article are "is she telling the truth or exaggerating," and "if she's telling the truth we are all doomed or it's shows that things are working."

Count me in on the "things are working" crowd. No defense is perfect, but an active defense, combined with staying on the offense, is pretty darn good, and a damn sight better than what we had. Remember, John Kerry's idea - such as it is - is to return to what we had in the 90's. A bad idea. That's still the choice: live, and have the French hate us, or die.

2) Power Line pursues the Syrian band angle.

3) A timely Mark Steyn flashback.

The beautiful and brainy Marie Gryphon, an old Seattle gal pal and Second Amendment sister of mine, has a good piece at FOXNews.com on "The Affirmative Action Myth." Also be sure to check out this great new group blog, Right on Race, for excellent commentary from my old friend Tom Wood of AADAP and many others. And for more strong views that dissent from the civil rights establishment, check out the writers at The Conservative Brotherhood.

I have been speaking with Brendi Rawlin of Porter Novelli (PR rep for Womens Wall Street). According to Brendi, the Washington Post has been sitting on the true story of Annie Jacobsen's "Terror in the Skies" account since last Friday, when WomensWallStreet.com approached him. Dave Adams, the air marshal's spokesman, not only confirmed the story, but has also apparently supplied witness statements and other corroborations of Jacobsen's account. NBC Nightly News, ABC, and Dateline NBC are now on the story as well.

More to come...

3:24pm. Just got off the phone with Annie Jacobsen. She has been writing business reports and articles for WomensWallStreet.com and print magazines for the past two years. Recounting the flight, she told me "My legs were like rubber...It was four and a half hours of terror." She is working on a follow-up story for WomensWallStreet.com on Monday and will appear on NBC Nightly News Monday night. I asked how she felt about suspicions that her story had been a hoax. She hadn't heard of these suspicions and instead has been hearing overwhelming corroboration of her experience in thousands of e-mails, many from pilots and flight attendants reporting similar incidents.

She has been shocked that "for whatever reason, the story didn't develop" in the mainstream media.

I took off my journalist's hat and told her I thought she was a patriot for bringing the story to light.

Now, I want to know why John Mintz and the editors of the Washington Post have deemed Annie Jacobsen's story unfit to print.

Update: Donald Sensing remains skeptical.
I asked Jacobsen if she talked with other passengers. She said no. I also asked if she had heard from other passengers from her flight in response to her story. She said she hasn't. If anyone else out there was on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles Flight on June 29, 2004, departing at 12:28 p.m., we'd love to hear from you.

Update II: Last post of the day on this. Wizbang, USS Clueless, and Spoons all have advice for airline passengers who might need to thwart potential terrorists.

Says Sarah W at Wizbang: "Be annoying."

That we can do! :)

Update III: Last, last post of the day. One of my favorite Pacific Northwest conservatives (a rare breed!), John Carlson at KVI-AM in Seattle, interviewed Annie Jacobsen. Charles Simpson live-blogged the broadcast here.

Regarding Annie Jacobsen's intriguing article, I just got word from Dave Adams of the Federal Air Marshals Service (FAM). Adams confirmed that he spoke to Annie Jacobsen, was quoted accurately in her story, and confirmed some of the basic facts outlined in her article (there were 14 Syrians on the flight; they were questioned by the Los Angeles Police Department, FBI, FAM, and so on; they were a musical band).

Update: I agree with many readers that some skepticism is still warranted, especially if this is the same Annie Jacobsen that wrote the piece. (Update to the update: James Taranto notes that the Jungian Annie lives in Toronto, not Los Angeles). Another quick thought: Building a bomb in mid-air using 14 operatives to take down one plane seems like a rather inefficient means of terrorism. If al Qaeda has been driven to such pathetic plots, maybe (no thanks to Norm Mineta) we really are getting somewhere.

Update II: By the way, my friend and Philly talk show host Michael Smerconish was the first to pick up on the idiotic policy that Jacobsen mentions which punished airlines for pulling over more than two Arab/Muslim passengers for secondary questioning. More info here, including Smerconish's testimony about what 9/11 commissioner and former Navy Secretary John Lehman told him.

Update III: Good discussion at Ace of Spades and via Volokh, Jeff the Baptist thinks the Syrians were just praying. Hmmmm. Thomas Galvin had his own experience observing a passenger with "an oblong object wrapped in cloth." Via Daniel Drezner, here's the February 2004 London Observer article on intelligence related to mid-air bomb plots. David Horowitz had an eyebrow-raising flight experience last month.

Update IV: The always incisive Michele Catalano writes:

If this story is real and these men were what Annie thought they were, it's a frightening story, indeed. Enough to make me start doing that nervous twitch everytime a plane flies a bit too low over my house. I thought I got rid of that twitch.

The more I write about it (as I'm reading other bloggers' reactions to the story while I compose this), the more I think, why not? They keep saying they're going to do something, why would I think this story is not true?

Again, I don't want it to be true. The implications are not something I can let my brain chew on right now. Head, meet sand.

But what if? What if they were making a dry run? You can't really protect the country by dealing in what ifs. So what's the solution? Or is there one? And what do you make of this story?

Update V: Just a side note. The air marshals' spokesman, Dave Adams, was a bit defensive in confirming the story, which seems to lend unsettling credence to Jacobsen's account, in my opinion. Also, I've been trying to get a hold of the p.r. reps for WomensWallStreet.com. A receptionist said they've been swamped with calls since this morning. Am hoping this means my colleagues in the mainstream media are digging into the story, too.

Julia Gorin, stand-up comic and Jewish World Review contributing editor, has a funny piece in the Wall Street Journal's Taste page today. She attempts to unravel the mystery of the "Anti-Semitism is Anti-Me" campaign recently launched by the Anti-Defamation League:

I couldn't help noticing, on a telephone kiosk in midtown Manhattan, a poster of an Asian child admonishing: "Anti-Semitism is anti-me." My eyes scanned to the bottom of the poster for an explanation. There I read that "anti-Semitism is anti-everybody" and was directed to the Anti-Defamation League's Web site to help fight anti-Semitism.

Mystified, I tried to think what exactly a poster like this was supposed to mean: Be careful being anti-Semitic; you might accidentally offend an Asian-American if he's adopted by Jews? Don't be anti-Semitic because we all come from Adam and Eve so, like, we're all related?

I walked on and came to another kiosk, this one sporting a white Lutheran minister of androgynous appearance. OK, I thought, perhaps this one makes sense: To a man (or woman) of the cloth, anti-Semitism runs counter to the teachings of the church. Or perhaps this minister used to be a rabbi but converted? Eventually I came upon a third poster: Apparently, anti-Semitism is also anti-Naomi Campbell; for there she was, making the same "anti-me" point.

So now I had a black woman, an Asian child and a gender-vague minister being offended by anti-Semitism...

Read the rest for the ADL's inane We Are the World, We are the Victims response.

Update: Speaking of victim campaigns, Cynthia McKinney seems to be resurrecting herself. JWR has the latest analyses here and here.

Lonewacko notes an encouraging development in the case of legal immigrants who filed a lawsuit against a big orchard owner in Washington's Yakima Valley. The plaintiffs charged that orchard executives "conspired to depress farmworkers' wages by hiring large numbers of illegal workers to set low wage standards for orchard and packing house work." Their class action lawsuit has now been certified:

The class action lawsuit was originally filed in United States District Court in March of 2000 under the Federal Racketeer and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and is the first of its kind in the U.S. where legal workers have sued agricultural employers about intentional wage depression through the use of illegal labor.

Now certified as a class action, the suit represents an estimated 20,000 packing house and orchard workers of Zirkle Fruit Company, based in Selah, Washington and those legal workers hired by Selective Employment Agency to work in Zirkle's packing house operations.

Seattle attorney Steve Berman filed the lawsuit on behalf of three named plaintiffs. "We know from our investigation that a large percentage of workers hired by Zirkle are illegal. These workers know that they are not in any position to demand a fair wage, and as a result, illegally depress the wages of legal farm workers," Berman said. "It is an insidious cycle that exploits the illegal workers and victimizes the legal ones."

According to the lawsuit, Zirkle Fruit Co. conspired with Selective Employment Agency to hire illegal immigrants who would work at below prevailing wage standards at Zirkle's packing house. The company used Selective Employment as a front, buffering it from liability with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the suit claims.

"We believe Zirkle's actions are horridly unfair to the immigrant workers who have taken the legal channels to work here-making sacrifices at every step of the way to create a better life for their families," Berman added. The suit seeks an end to the practice by Zirkle, and compensation for the class members.

Good. It's way past time to turn up the heat on illegal alien employers and enforce Reagan-era sanctions against companies that subvert border security. If the federal government won't do it, lawsuits are the next best thing. Yeah, trial lawyers are by and large rapacious sharks. But any trial lawyer who understands the importance of immigration enforcement and comes to the aid of law-abiding workers is alright by me.

Unlike the miscreants in Bainbridge Island, Washington, the folks on American Airlines Flight 866 know how to show their gratitude to our men and women in uniform:

Eight soldiers flying home from Iraq for two weeks of R&R; flew in style instead of coach after first-class passengers offered to swap seats with them.

"The soldiers were very, very happy, and the whole aircraft had a different feeling," flight attendant Lorrie Gammon told The Dallas Morning News in Thursday's editions.

The June 29 seat-swap on American Airlines Flight 866 from Atlanta to Chicago started before boarding, when a businessman approached one of the soldiers and traded his seat.

Update: Reader Peter send a link to the original Dallas Morning News story on the flight here, which includes this great photo:

Meanwhile, back on Bainbridge Island, Tamar Gilson and her son, Jason, the 23-year-old military veteran who was booed and mocked by Kerry supporters while marching in his local July 4th parade, send the following notes along (Tamar also includes an e-mail address where the family can be reached):

Don't be drinking anything when you read the Incredible Hulk's diary.

Update: Will the real Hulk please stand up? Meryl Yourish alerts me to these postings (here and here) from REAL Hulk on her excellent site. She adds:

Your Blogspot Hulk, quite frankly, sucks. He uses words that the Hulk would never use, and his style isn't even close to classic Hulk. It's as bad as the Onion's Hulk column.

Peter David, who wrote the Hulk comic for thirteen years, read my Hulk and asked to reprint it in his column in the Comic Buyer's Guide. He's made no such offer to this poseur.

Ok, Hulk huckster, there better be a good explanation for this.

The good folks at the Becket Fund have returned from a fact-finding mission in Sri Lanka. Here's a summary of their investigation of religious persecution:

While Americans worry about religious radicalization in the Middle East, most of them don't know that it's increasingly happening in South Asia. There has been a recent wave of anti-conversion and anti-blasphemy bills in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Religious minority groups, particularly Christians, are being attacked, their leaders beaten, their houses of worship burned down. Religious majority groups, which in the various countries include Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, are becoming ever more militant and radicalized in these areas. Americans understand the dangers that can arise from such situations, no matter where in the world.

Two attorneys from our organization, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, came back this week from a fact-finding mission in Sri Lanka. The Becket Fund is an international, interfaith, public-interest law firm that has protected the free expression of all religious traditions for a decade. Our lawyers are available for interview, and we also have many photographs from the trip. We have testimonials from clergy members there, and many contacts in the country.

On Tuesday, the Sri Lankan parliament will vote on a bill that would effectively outlaw all conversions in the country. Violence against minority religious groups, mostly Catholics and other Christians, but also including Muslims and Hindus, will almost certainly increase. Buddhism is the majority religion there, and a particularly militant strain predominates. Our lawyers spoke to pastors who have been beaten. They saw churches which have been burned to the ground. World Vision and its local partners have been attacked. Female Christian workers have been sexually assaulted.

Many Americans think of Sri Lanka only when putting on apparel with a "Made in Sri Lanka" tag. They have no idea that religious freedom is readily becoming extinct there. And they have no idea that Christianity, a religion to which the majority of Americans subscribe, is particularly under attack.

Much more here.

Several readers have sent me the link to this fascinating article from WomensWallStreet.com, which brings to mind James Woods' experience prior to September 11, 2001.

Update: Over at Redstate, Martinipundit says the story is a hoax (hat tip: Instapundit).

Update II: Reader Liz Roewe cc'd me on an e-mail to the editors of WomensWallStreet.com. An excerpt:

I am concerned about the article you published on your site. I read it through a link from Michelle Malkin’s site.... How is it that Annie Jacobsen knew they had purchased one way tickets? What is the name of the casino and did it check out? What is the relevance of whether the bathrooms used were forward or aft on the plane. Was this “camera” of the one musician’s confiscated? Very sketchy information was given as to how long these Syrian musicians were detained. What's with the "one month" response time pr comment from NWA, that seems like a pr nightmare or again, my fear, a terrible hoax put on by you people for publicity. This alarming piece need more follow up and front page exposure on your site (if you are serious) with updates.

At Tony Pipitone's request, I removed this morning's post about Pipitone's role in the Jesse Maali case. Pipitone stated in an e-mail that the Orlando Sentinel article that I relied on for this morning's post inaccurately reported the testimony of lawyer Mark NeJame. I contacted Pedro Ruz Gutierrez, who wrote the article for the Sentinel and attended the Maali hearing. He stands by his characterization of NeJame's testimony. Pipitone says he simply "called an attorney (who was not then and had never previously represented the target) to see if he had heard rumblings about an investigation in the Muslim-American business community." I apologize for suggesting that Pipitone was part of an open-borders conspiracy and willingly abetted immigration law-breaking.

The Wonkette-ization of the Washington Post continues. I've just learned that the Post is planning a Washington Post Magazine front-page cover story on Jessica Cutler because, you know, she just hasn't gotten the attention she deserves. Here's the e-mail I received from April Witt, a Post staff writer:

----- Original Message -----

From: witta@washpost.com
To: malkin@comcast.net
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 2:19 PM
Subject: Townhall Comment: Jessica Cutler

Michelle, I'm a staff writer at The Washington Post. I read your piece on Jessica Cutler. I'd like very much to interview you for a story I'm writing. If you are willing, could you e-mail me at witta@washpost.com or telephone me...with contacts numbers for you? Regards, April Witt

After speaking on the phone with her briefly to find out what the article would focus on and also alerting her to a young conservative women's event on Capitol Hill where I will be speaking on the "Girls Gone Wild" culture, I sent the following:

From: Michelle Malkin
To: witta@washpost.com
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 10:03 AM
Subject: Regarding your Cutler piece

Hi April - I've thought about whether I want to comment for your story, and I've decided against doing so. I am truly disturbed you are giving Cutler an entire Washington Post Magazine cover story, and I do not want to be a part of your newspaper's continued pimping of Skankette (y'all are doing it just fine on your own). Sure, it is being written under the guise of "exploring the social forces that created her." But you will have the obligatory photo spread, I'm sure. Not materially different than Maxim or Playboy. Would love to be proved wrong.

If you want to attend the conservative women's event I told you about yesterday, here is more info. Even better, if someone from your newspaper wants to do a stand-alone feature on my speech or a Washington Post magazine cover story on the Clare Booth Luce Institute--look, a group of non-promiscuous women working in Washington who don't accept money for anal sex!--I would be happy to talk further.

Best,
Michelle

The Washington Post's proud history of prize-winning journalism is here.

It has become so cliche: The next-door neighbor murders his wife. The handsome jock is nabbed for serial rape/killings. The distant son hijacks a plane and drives it into a tall building. Somebody, somewhere, commits a deed of pure, naked evil, but there's always an available idiot shaking his/her head and blubbering to a reporter, "Yeah, but he was such a good person."

They said it about Ted Bundy and Mohammed Atta and Scott Peterson. And now, Genario Garcia:

A man doused his girlfriend and three small children with gasoline inside a car and set them on fire early Wednesday as he drove, authorities said. All five died after the car crashed in flames.

Residents reported hearing the crash and seeing two adults engulfed in flames, stumbling across a road near Bonny Lake, a small town east of Tacoma. Firefighters found the bodies of a 6-month-old boy, 1 1/2-year-old boy and 2 1/2-year-old girl in the back of the burned car.

Antigone Monique Allen, 18, who had recently filed an assault complaint against the 24-year-old man, survived for nearly eight hours at a Seattle hospital, sheriff's Detective Ed Troyer said. She managed to tell investigators and family what happened before she died.

Laveda Allen said her sister had gone out the previous evening with her estranged boyfriend, identified as Genario Garcia.

Garcia snorted cocaine while they were out Tuesday night and the two began arguing, Laveda Allen said. Antigone - "Mona" to her family and friends - demanded that he take her home.

They stopped at a gas station, and, because she had been dozing, she didn't notice right away that he had filled a container with gasoline and placed it in the back seat, Laveda Allen said.

They drove along back roads before Garcia pulled a gun and pointed it at Antigone Allen's head. He grabbed the container and splashed gasoline on the children, Antigone and himself, Laveda Allen said.

He flicked a lighter and the car erupted, left the road and flipped over.

The two adults stumbled from the wreck, and Garcia, who had two guns with him, began shooting. Neighbors said he fired four or five shots. Troyer said an autopsy would be needed to determine whether any of the bullets hit Antigone Allen.

Lisa Hansen, who lives nearby, said she heard the crash and drove down the road to see if she could help. She and a friend of her sons heard a voice in the pasture screaming: "Help! Help! Help me, please!"

They saw the woman standing, with her shirt burned off, but Hansen could not get to her because an electrified horse fence was between them. According to Hansen, the woman was screaming in pain, saying, "He did it! He did this on purpose!"

Laveda Allen said doctors told her sister had burns over 85 percent of her body.

"She said she wanted to be with her babies. She wasn't angry. She knew she was going to die, and she was willing to go, but she wanted to say bye," she said.

Troyer said Allen had recently filed an assault complaint, and a deputy was assigned to the case, but the woman failed to follow through.

"They were in the process of getting back together or breaking up, off and on," the detective said. The woman's relatives indicated there had been "some unreported domestic violence," Troyer said.

Laveda Allen said she wasn't upset with Garcia, who she said was the father of her sister's three children.

"He was a good person," she said. "He was an illegal immigrant here, but he was a hard worker and tried to do what he had to do to make it.

"He just went over the deep end. He probably just loved her too much. He didn't want to see his kids being taken care of by another man."

The family is planning to bury her and the three children on Saturday, which would have been Antigone Allen's 19th birthday.

God help us.

Jon Lauck has the latest on Michael Moore, Tom Daschle and Hug-gate. Moore says Daschle is a liar.

There's a pot and a kettle.

Chief Wiggles needs help! More information on Operation Give is here.

It has come to my attention that Nathan, a very cool blogger at at Brain Fertilizer, is irked that I mentioned him in a previous post, but failed to provide a link to his fabulous blog. My bad. Please help me make amends and visit him at Brain Fertilizer.

(And no, I'm not doing this for everyone!)

Paul Sperry reports on the latest Department of Homeland Security woes, including a directive ordering detention facilities to free illegal aliens because of a budget crunch. More of the same old catch and release policies.

Threat advisory level: Screwed.

Over and over again, we are reminded that the intelligence on WMDs in Iraq was flawed. Over and over again, we are informed that there was no collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The strong implication is not just that the case for war was built on "lies" and "hype" but that Saddam Hussein was never really a major threat to U.S. interests. This view has been gaining adherents even among some who initially supported the war. As William F. Buckley Jr. put it in a New York Times interview, "With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago.... If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."

Against this backdrop, this National Review Online column by David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey is well worth reading. Rivkin and Casey argue that Saddam was indeed a major threat to vital U.S. interests, and that alternatives to war (i.e., international sanctions and U.N inspections), would have proven inadequate. An excerpt:

[T]he Democrat political establishment, including presidential candidate John Kerry, and his recently announced running mate John Edwards, have now broadened their attacks on the president's Iraq policy. Having spent months arguing that the problem was not with the fact that the United States effected a regime change in Iraq, but rather with how the administration went about it — not enough international support and insufficient planning for the postwar period have been Kerry's favorite allegations — now they have begun to claim that the whole enterprise was flawed.

These arguments are fundamentally wrong. They both underestimate the threat posed to the United States by Iraq's WMD programs, erroneously equating the absence of WMD stockpiles at a particular point in time with the absence of a WMD threat, and trivialize other aspects of the unique strategic challenge of Saddam Hussein. They also ignore compelling evidence that the international sanctions regime was collapsing and that the real strategic choice facing the United States was not between a regime change and containment, but between a regime change and Saddam Hussein's continuation in power, free from any meaningful constraints.

Read the whole thing.

Column's up: The mollycoddling milksops of Manila. Excerpt:

Add the flag of the Philippines to the International Hall of Appeasers. Sign this pitiful nation up for a lifetime membership to the Axis of Weasels. And remind me never again to brag about the proud fighting spirit of my ancestors.

See also Philippine Commentary, Wizbang!, The Moderate Voice, The Intergalactic Capitalist, The World Wide Rant , and Galen's Log, all of whom disapprove of Philippine officials' decision.

Update: Introducing the "Islamic Protectorate State Of The Philippines:" One Fine Jay has redesigned the flag of the Philippines accordingly.

Update II: Robert Tagorda contemplates the diplomatic and national security implications of the Philippines' pullout.

Update III: Marc Landers, CPO, USN, Ret., at USS Neverdock shares his thoughts on the Filipino people.

A reader writes: "You'll be happy to know that the public school system has taken a step further in promoting counterculture reading in schools, by encouraging their students to write based on the subject matter they read, using computers furnished with gangsta compliant software. See attached."

Headline in the Washington Times today:

Mfume calls black conservatives puppets

So, what else is new?

Well, apparently Latino liberal actor John Leguizamo is dissing Hispanic Republicans along the same lines. At the DNC fund-raising hate-a-thon in New York last week, he jibed: "“A Latino voting for a Republican is like a roach voting for raid.” (Hat tip: Rightwingduck)

All this tired, old "sellout" rhetoric reminds me: I just received my cool new Ted Rall-inspired t-shirts (courtesy of Rachel Jurado, the Banana Republican). I sent a "Self-loathing race traitor" shirt to my brother. And I may wear my "I'm Not 'White.' I'm RIGHT" shirt to the next UNITY Journalists of Color conference.

Michael King, who will be on Scarborough Country tonight taking on the NAACP mafia, has his own line of t-shirts, too: Black and Unapologetically Conservative

Get 'em while they're hot!

Athenae, posting on the premiere liberal blog run by Atrios, seriously thinks the public displays of affection (or rather, affectation) between Teresa and John Kerry are admirable and healthy. Athenae swoons:

I know I've said this before, but if we truly are electing people based on who you want to have a beer with, the last guy I want to have a beer with is the jerk who treats his wife like dirt, condescends to her in public, or complains about her in front of me. The married people I have beer with on a regular basis have (from what I can tell) healthy, adult marriages based on like and mutual respect, and nothing warms me up to somebody faster than that person praising their spouse. I have no idea what goes on in the Bushes' marriage, nor, for that matter, in the Kerrys'. But I like what I see of the two of them, that's for sure.

Hmm. The happily married, mutually respectful people I know (myself and my husband and included) do not sigh heavily and roll their eyes looking petulantly bored when one or the other partner is speaking. The happily married spouses of veterans I know do not mock their husbands' traumatic war experiences in public. The adoring wives I know do not have huge conniption fits over adopting their husbands' names.

I don't drink, but if I did, I would be afraid to get anywhere near John, Teresa, and their beer mugs.

"You've gotta like a senator who is a pooper picker-upper," said Connie Thompson of Laurel, Md., upon seeing Senator Ted Kennedy cleaning up after his dog, Splash (!).

I'll leave the comments to you all.

Via Drudge, we learn that European scientists are trying to grow an affordable AIDS vaccine in genetically-modified plants. You might think this is good news, but not everyone thinks so. So upset are environmentalists in Europe that the crops will probably have to be grown in South Africa, where the threat of sabotage is lower. Clare Oxborrow, a Friends of the Earth spokesperson, explained her opposition to the project as follows:

Growing medicines in plants has serious implications for human health and the environment. We recognise the need for affordable medicines to be made available to people with life-threatening illnesses but this research could have widespread negative impacts.

Millions of people are contracting AIDS every year, particularly in places like Africa that environmentalists claim to care about. The cost in human suffering is staggering. Meanwhile, not one person had gotten sick from genetically-modified food. Yet Oxborrow would prefer that research on an AIDS vaccine be shut down because "[g]rowing medicines in plants has serious implications for human health."

And it's not just AIDS. According to Mike Fumento's book, BioEvolution: How Biotechnology is Changing Our World, tests are underway to develop:

• bananas, potatoes, and carrots that prevent Hepatitis B;
• potatoes that induce immunity against the Norwalk virus;
• tomatoes and spinach that prevent rabies;
• soybeans that prevent respiratory syncytial virus;
• soybeans and corn that prevent genital herpes; and
• turnips that produce interferon for treating people with hepatitis B and C.

All of this research is under fire by Luddite environmentalist groups like Friends of the Earth. As I wrote last fall, their solution is to wear red-string bracelets, eat organically grown ginger, and pray to Gaia.

Update: On a related note, Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan link to this article on the lack of progress in finding an AIDS vaccine. "This is a global disgrace," says Seth Berkley, director of the non-profit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. "There hasn't been a serious effort, and until there is a serious effort, we'll never get there."

A few days ago, I blogged on the Philippines going wobbly in the face of threats by Islamofascists who kidnapped a Filipino truck driver in Iraq. Now, just as I feared, it looks as though President Gloria Arroyo has fallen over completely. According to Reuters:

"The Philippines will withdraw its forces from Iraq "as soon as possible," Philippine deputy foreign minister Rafael Seguis said on Monday in a statement he read out on al Jazeera television. "In response to your request, the Philippines ... will withdraw its humanitarian forces as soon as possible," Seguis said according to al Jazeera's Arabic translation of his remarks. His statement was addressed to a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq, which is holding a Filipino driver hostage and has threatened to kill him unless Manila agrees to withdraw its troops by July 20.

"I hope the statement that I read will touch the heart of this group," Seguis told the satellite television from Baghdad.

Seguis ends his pathetic bleat with this statement to the terrorists:

"We know that Islam is the religion of peace and mercy."

Looks like it's time to add the Philippines to the Axis of Weasels. This is a grave embarrassment to a country that has long prided itself on its fighting spirit and its people's willingness to die for the cause of freedom. I know my grandfather, who fought alongside U.S. troops and survived the Bataan Death March during World War II, would be cursing mightily had he lived to see this day.

Update: Cranial Cavity welcomes President Arroyo to the Coalition of the Appeasement Monkeys.

Wretchard at Belmont Club calls her a Manila Folder.

Captain Ed concludes that "the Filipinos have guaranteed that the Islamofascists will continue its kidnap-and-behead strategy, undermining the efforts not only of the US but also those of the nascent Iraqi government. While their new security forces train to find and eliminate these lunatics, the Filipino government accedes to their "requests" as if they have diplomatic standing. It's a dispiriting display of political cowardice on behalf of the Arroyo administration, who would have been much better served by standing fast."

Agreed.

Update II: So much for Balikatan. Man, am I eating those words tonight.

The name will be unfamiliar to most, but Constantine Menges was a great American dedicated to the preservation of freedom and security. He served under President Reagan as Special Assistant for National Security Affairs and at the CIA as a National Intelligence Officer. He was a scholar, author, university professor. Menges oversaw the design of several major successful foreign policy strategies, including countering Soviet political warfare/indirect aggression and encouraging transitions to democracy abroad.

Menges died on Sunday of cancer. Thor Ronay of the Strategic Information Group sends his remembrance:

Dr. Constantine Menges was a patriot, strategic thinker, and an accomplished national security official who served his country with honor and distinction. And, as important to him as a teacher, he was not only a trusted counsel for Members of Congress and Administration officials (of both parties) -- but a valued mentor to several younger national security practitioners who went on to serve in all levels of government and policy leadership.

In a classic American story, Constantine was an immigrant whose professor father, after being arrested in 1937 for publicly opposing Hitler, upon release wisely fled Germany. Constantine, born on the run in Turkey on the first day of WWII, (9/1/39) arrived six years later in the US. After graduating from Columbia, Constantine began a career in service to his adopted country, first at Hudson, recruited by Herman Kahn, then at RAND (one of the first cohort developing Soviet nuclear targeting strategies), and then in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan Administrations. From the dock to the White House in one lifetime.

Aside from his training in both physics and security policy, and his broad education in political history (which he taught at Wisconsin), he knew that as important as how things worked was how to work them for postive change, not mere stewardship. From the beginning, Constantine understood the importance of what he called "political action"and "political education" in service of national security at home and freedom abroad. He also believed in the need for advocates, particularly conservatives, to match their ideological determination with the necessary if burdensome requisites both of bureaucratic infighting and strict adherence to the facts -- all while never giving any quarter to opponents.

Constantine's ability to conceptualize and guide political warfare in support of democracy was perhaps his strongest contribution; a skill he would lament is now almost completely absent in the US arsenal. He was an early supporter of the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, a co-founder of the Demcoracy International (1978), and played a major coordinating role in countering Soviet front activities and coalitions for over 30 years -- having been present helping people to escape when the Berlin Wall was being built. (He was on the line similarly in Mississippi during the height of the voter rights struggles in the "long hot summer" of 1963.)...

...While he served three Presidents, his service in the Reagan years was, both at CIA and the NSC, was the most vital -- especially in Latin America. While many take credit after the fact for what became known as the "Reagan Doctrine" -- it was Constantine who, in 1968, wrote the original RAND paper that became the Reagan Doctrine, "Democratic Revolutionary Insurgency as an Alternative Strategy" -- arguing that "Communist regimes are very vulnerable to a democratic national revolution that is conducted with skill and the determination to succeed." He knew there had to be a military component to match the political work; neither alone would be sufficient.

...It is not to much to say that millions of people around the world, but particularly in Latin America, owe their freedom in some measure to the tireless efforts of Constantine Menges. Bill Buckley wrote, "Constantine Menges is among the wisest and ablest of those who have sought to realize Ronald Reagan's foreign policy goals."

...In recent years Constantine continued his work on Russia and China, and tirelessly pursued a range of political action activities aimed at target such as Castro's Cuba and Chavez' Venezuela, pointing again to the threat posed by destabilizing coalitions of antidemocratic forces.

The week before his untimely passing Constantine was slated to be a panelist at a Hudson Institute conference on the US-Taiwan-PRC relationship. He was concerned about China's military threat and its potential to support anti-American coalitions in the Middle East and elswhere; and, at the same time, he was concerned about the cohering of democracies in the defense of freedom. In this case: how the US could best stand with the 27 million people of Taiwan, and how we might prepare now for supporting proactively democracy in mainland China, and of course, how those two properly are related.

That was Constantine Menges, giving his all to support the vision of democracy and freedom. "It's not inevitable," he always said of democracy, "but it's certainly achievable by people of good will and strong conviction. And, it's Always in the best interest of the United States."

Freedom has lost a friend and the country has lost a Patriot.

Please keep his family in your prayers.

Update: For those in the Washington, D.C., area, funeral services for Dr. Menges will be held on Friday, July 16, at noon at the Holy Trinity Church, 3513 N Street, NW, Washington, DC.

Condolences may be sent to Mrs. (Nancy) Menges and her son, Christopher, at 1543 33rd Street, NW, Washington, DC 20007.

The recording artist known as "Jadakiss" is earning big bucks and bling-bling with a new hit single called "Why?" (Hat tip: Resurrection Song)

The song accuses President Bush of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, with the lyric "Why did Bush knock down the Towers?" According to Reuters/Billboard, Jadakiss said:

"I just felt [he] had something to do with that," Jadakiss says, referring to the events of Sept. 11. "That's why I put it in there like that. A lot of my people felt that he had something to do with it."

"My people" presumably includes fellow rappers "The Coup," who had the good taste to release an album less than three months after the September 11 attacks showing the duo partying in front of the flaming towers. A self-identified "communist" and son of a Black Panther lawyer, The Coup's Boots Riley says he wanted to spread the message that "the blood that happened on [Sept. 11] is on the hands of the U.S. government."

I'm sure these noble works of poetry will be on your children's summer reading list in no time!

I'm adding the fearless Shannen Rossmiller to my list of Moms Who Rock--but with some reservations, which I'll get to in a sec. The Houston Chronicle profiles Rossmiller today, going into great detail about how she works by day as a judge, at by night as a terrorist hunter:

By day, she’s the municipal judge of this tiny town, a wife and mother of three, but by moonlight Shannen Rossmiller is a spy.

Then, Rossmiller — petite, blond and 34 — assumes one of several unlikely false identities, all angry, violent, Muslim men, nurturing hatred of the United States. In that guise, she combs the Internet through the late evening and early morning and sifts through the messages and declarations on extremist Islamic Web sites.

During those hours, Rossmiller is on a quest that consumes hours of each day, days of each week. It’s one that will place her on the stand Thursday as the government’s primary witness against a National Guardsman accused of offering information to help Muslim extremists kill U.S. troops.

It’s a quest that has already placed her in danger.

Rossmiller works with an exclusive group, a coalition of seven civilians, international "cyber spies" who chase terrorists on the Internet.

They call themselves the "7-Seas."

Until recently they were a largely unknown, almost clandestine bunch. Named for its global scope, the group consists of Rossmiller; a nuclear physicist/software designer in Canada; a corporate security consultant in Houston; a former private detective in Singapore; an Australian; and two other Americans.

Rossmiller and her colleagues would have remained anonymous if it hadn't been for her success in nabbing National Guardsman Ryan Anderson, accused of attempting to defect to al-Qaida and offering information on troop strength and vulnerable points on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle:

After exchanging 27 e-mails with Anderson ("Abdul Rashid"), Rossmiller called the FBI. Undercover agents then met with Anderson in a secretly videotaped session, during which he designated vulnerable points on a tank and offered other information.

Rossmiller netted an arrest...

...And was called to testify at Anderson's preliminary hearing in May. Her identity was revealed in court. Days later, phone threats were called in to Rossmiller’s office in Conrad, and she has been under police protection since.

Okay, here are my questions: This woman and her colleagues are amazing patriots. But why wasn't her identity concealed in court? And why did the Chronicle decide to endanger her even further? As much as I was glad to read the story, it seems to me that the publicity may deter other citizens from undertaking similar efforts--the opposite of what the government would want. Or maybe not...

Update: Reader Nathan passes along this interview with Rossmiller from MTPolitics.net.

Update II: I asked the brilliant Andrew McCarthy, former chief assistant U.S. attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others, for his thoughts on Rossmiller's outing. Here's what he had to say:

This revelation of her identity is something that, unfortunately, often happens in two different kinds of prosecutions -- and this case features both: (a) sting operations and (b) cases featuring Internet chat room evidence.

Taking entrapment first, a defendant caught in a sting almost always claims to have been entrapped. (Usually, the evidence is so damning that he has no choice but to say "The devil made me do it.") There are two ways for the government to defeat an entrapment defense: (i) demonstrate that the defendant took the first step toward (i.e., initiated or proposed) the crime, or (ii) even if the government operative took the first step, prove that the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime. To increase the chances of conviction, the government will always prove predisposition even if the evidence shows the defendant probably took the first step (so the prosecutor can make the "even if" argument for conviction, which is usually very powerful). Consequently, if Anderson claimed that the FBI guys entrapped him, the government would have wanted to prove his prior chat room conversations with Judge Rossmiller to show that he was predisposed to help al Qaeda long before the FBI sting ever happened. If those conversations thus became an important part of the case, she would almost certainly be a necessary witness to explain them. (Otherwise, he could claim that it was all a joke and that the person he was talking to in the chatroom was someone who knew he was kidding.)

Next, chat rooms. I do not consider myself a techno-wonk, but I know enough to know that, unlike regular email, chatroom evidence is pretty hard for Internet Service Providers to preserve -- i.e., you often cannot get it by subpoena. On the other hand, a witness to a conversation can always testify that the conversation happened, and can authenticate a transcript of the conversation (if she has kept one) in a way the ISP might not be able to. Assuming that (a) the government thought it was important to prove the chats (whether to defeat an entrapment claim or because they actually charged some crimes directly out of the Internet chats), and (b) Anderson was unwilling to stipulate to the authenticity of the transcripts, the government would have needed a witness to prove those chats, and Judge Rossmiller would have been the obvious witness.

This is one reason why I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment that Judge Rossmiller is a patriot. There is ALWAYS risk attendant to cooperating with the government, and the real patriots bear the risk. Sometimes the government can conceal a witness's identity, but most of the time people who are crucial to the government's ability to make the case -- especially if they've had extensive interaction with the defendant -- end up being exposed. That's probably what happened here.

This is part of the reason that I've been writing that the law enforcement approach to terrorism, where terrorists get the advantage of our generous due process standards (including discovery about informants), is nuts -- we have to tell the bad guys too much. As this case shows, the military justice system is not a perfect antidote to that problem.

Fifty years ago, at Oxford University, Roger Bannister became the first human being to run a mile in less than four minutes. Today the record stands at three minutes, forty-three seconds. In the not-so-distant future, with the aid of gene therapy, we may see someone run a three and a half minute mile. Unfortunately, athletes who choose not to use performance-enhancing therapies will be (and are) at a serious disadvantage. In track and field, many men's world records and most of the women's records are viewed with skepticism. Call me a Luddite, but I miss the days when incredible athletic performances could safely be assumed to be the product of hard work and God-given talent.

1) Excellent column this morning by Jeff Jacoby, who takes a "New look at Bush's 16 words." Here's the conclusion:

Intelligence failures are not the same thing as lies. And intelligence failures about Iraqi WMD did not begin with the Bush administration. It is worth recalling that the CIA was way off the mark in its estimates of Saddam's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs before the first Iraq war, too. It turned out then that Saddam was a much more dangerous WMD menace than the experts had realized. The experts then underestimated the threat. This time around, they may have overestimated the threat. But if intelligence mistakes are inevitable, is it better to worry too much about potential threats or to worry too little? Worrying too much -- if that's what happened -- resulted in the toppling of one of the planet's most murderous tyrants. Worrying too little resulted in 9/11.

Couldn't have said it better.

2) John O'Sullivan's review of Sam Huntington's book, Who Are We?, is the best written so far. (Hat tip: David Orland.) In response to critics who have pooh-poohed Huntington's dire concerns about the negative effects of massive illegal immigration on American culture and who have labeled Huntington a racist for expressing his well-founded and reality-grounded views, O'Sullivan observes:

The final resort of critics when faced with evidence they don’t like—especially statements by irredentists claiming that the American Southwest is destined to return to Mexico—was either “well, they don’t represent anyone” (even when the speaker was the spokesman for an irredentist organization) or “well, they don’t really mean it.” There is no answer to that. Nor is any answer needed.

But the third point is more worrying. An alarming number of critics, some apparently academics, denounced Huntington’s arguments as “poisonous,” “incendiary,” “unabashed racism,” and so forth in a highly intemperate fashion, while misquoting and misunderstanding his actual arguments. Professor Bruce E. Wright of California State at Fullerton remarked that the article was an affront not only to Hispanics and Catholics (a Catholic myself, I had failed to be affronted) but also to “those of us”—such sang froid!—“whose identity is not so shallow as to be threatened by a massive invasion of others.” The Rev. Edward Lopez of New York thought that Huntington was “threatened by diversity” and “frightened by the world around him.” Patricia Seed of Rice University lamented “the arrogance of an East Coast Brahmin.” There was the usual irrelevant blather about how earlier Huntingtons had measured skulls and dismissed the potential of now successful immigrant groups. And there was a theme running through almost all of these critiques—the America of Huntington’s youth was being replaced by a better, more vibrant, and more just America, one of diversity and multiculturalism. To resist this evolution in defense of a past America was a sign of nostalgia at best, of wicked nativist racism at worst.

It is tempting to dismiss these denunciations as a cry for help. But they must be taken more seriously. After all, several letter-writers went to the lengths of arguing that Huntington’s article should not have been published and that Foreign Policy should apologize for printing it. It seems reasonable to infer that people holding such views would not willingly allow such arguments to be expressed in their churches, schools, and colleges or treat fairly any student who submitted an essay advancing them. The later anonymous Economist reviewer, who was not uncritical of the book, was nonetheless upset by these outbursts that sought, in effect, to censor the rational expression of reasonable fears. They reflect a disturbing willingness to enforce an orthodoxy on dissenters and indicate a moral atmosphere that might best be described as “soft totalitarianism”—even when, or particularly when, the orthodoxy is a minority opinion and the majority has invariably rejected any clear expression of it.

Again, I couldn't have said it better myself (though I will try to say more about this subject at some point). Meanwhile, do take the time to read O'Sullivan's piece in its entirety.

"Sanitation worker."

"Exotic dancer."

"Domestic engineer."

And now this: Watching commercials during the Olympic trials earlier this evening, I learn that the guy who slops together my Subway meatball sub (6-inch on white, salt & pepper, and parmesan cheese) is...a "Subway sandwich artist!"

Next up: Domino's "pizza escorts?"