These threads are razors to my wounded heart.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Open Thread
Thread more than thou showest, thread less than thou knowest, thread less than thou owest.
Open Thread
Thread more than thou showest, thread less than thou knowest, thread less than thou owest.
Open Thread
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your thread; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
Sadly, Impossible
I would like to believe that at some point there would be a larger political constituency for mass transit, and there probably is a greater one than we are often led to believe, but nonetheless land use patterns in much of the country have made it quite difficult for any proposed transit systems to really improve the lot of most existing homeowners/commuters. Expanding rail systems into existing suburban areas reall only makes a lot of sense if its accompanied by some land use changes in those areas (there at least needs to be higher density development around the stations themselves). But, between the rigidity of zoning laws, basic Nimbyism, your standard suburban fear of property value decline, and the competition between development and the parking that those who need to drive to the stations demand, all make the necessary changes highly unlikely in most areas.
Ideally, transit improvements would be made in those areas which already have sufficient density. Los Angeles is one of the best candidates, as its basic layout grew up around the old streetcar system and still is quite a dense city relative to most of the rest of the sun belt car cities.
Gas & Transit
The real question is whether high gas prices will create more public demand for better transit:
In Dallas, an increase in ridership in the past month on DART has resulted in "incredibly creative parking at some outlying stations," and the service received a growing number of complaints from motorists demanding to know why the system doesn't serve their destinations, according to DART spokesman Morgan Lyons.
While a train fan myself, I'm actually quite stunned at the ridership figures in Minnesota:
August light rail ridership hit a new record: an estimated 838,500 people boarded the Hiawatha line trains.
The numbers: 691,000 were weekday rides. The number is up sharply from a year ago when August 2004 ridership was recorded at 476,800 - before the south end of the line opened to Bloomington until December. This August, five south end stations accounted for about 35 percent of total rides, Metro Transit reports.
Benefit of the Doubt
As always, happy to be proven wrong. It hasn't happened yet.
Who's in Charge
That sore spot was rubbed raw earlier this week when Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, suggested that the Republican Congress had already trimmed much of the fat from the federal budget, making it difficult to find ways to offset hurricane spending.
Mr. Coburn called such a claim ludicrous and other Republicans took exception as well.
"There has never been a time where there is more total spending and more wasteful spending in Washington than we have today," said Pat Toomey, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and the head of the conservative Club for Growth. "There is ample opportunity to find the offsets we need so that this does not have to be a fiscal disaster as well as a natural disaster."
Still, after years of total Republican rule during which the president has failed to veto a single bill and House Democrats have been completely stripped of any ability to do anything, nothing will stop the Republicans for being portrayed as the party of fiscal restraint.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Blogging Mostly Returning to Normal
The Stupids
I suppose the silver lining is that Tucker Carlson may find himself under arrest next time he visits the U.K.
Naked
want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport.
I don’t care if they’re being inconvenienced. I don’t care if it seems as though their rights are being violated.
I care about my life. I care about the lives of my family and friends.
And I care about the lives of the Arabs and Arab Americans I’m privileged to know and study with.
They’re some of the brightest, kindest people I’ve ever met.
Tragically, they’re also members of an ethnicity that is responsible for almost every act of terror committed against the West in the recent past.
It goes on. And, yes, she's clearly making no distinction between Arabs and Arab-americans. And, yes, another conservative martyr has been born:
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A student journalist accused of misleading those she interviewed for an inflammatory column about racial profiling of Arabs has been fired, the editor said.
Columnist Jillian Bandes told three campus sources — two Arab students and a professor who teaches a course on Arabic — she was writing an article about Arab-American relations, Daily Tar Heel opinion editor Chris Coletta wrote in an article published Thursday.
Instead, Bandes' column, published in the paper Tuesday, argued that racial profiling of Arabs was essential to national security. The column began with the line, "I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport."
Behind the Curtain
I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.
Wanker of the Day
OCCASIONAL LISTENERS to ''Extreme Games" on WTKK are accustomed to host Jay Severin admiring himself in the mirror of his own imagination, a glass so vast and glittering as to rival the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
But last Friday, the talkmaster positively outdid himself in setting new laurels upon his brow:
He awarded himself a Pulitzer Prize.
...
That struck several listeners as unlikely. Once I'd heard the claim, I asked the Pulitzer folks to check it out. ''We looked at the records and there is no record of him winning a Pulitzer Prize," says Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzers. Nor is there a Pulitzer for excellence in online journalism.
...
Now to the matter of online awards. From 2000 to 2002, Columbia University was the cosponsor for the Online Journalism Awards, awards in no way related to the Pulitzers. According to Tom Regan, executive director of the Online News Association, there is only one annual Online Journalism Award that goes to an individual. It's for commentary. Severin hasn't won that, he said.
It is true that in 2000, the first year for which those awards were given, MSNBC.com won an Online Journalism Award for general excellence ''in collaboration," and Severin was writing columns for the site at the time. But that award ''is for the site as a whole," says Regan.
Severin, however, said that he had been told by Joan Connell, then executive producer for opinions at the site, that the prize he alluded to was for a small group of writers that included him. Connell, who is now with The Nation, says she's not even sure what award Severin has in mind. Asked about Severin's account, she says: ''I don't recall that. The awards we did win tended to be for sitewide excellence and not for the opinion sections."
More Like This, Please
BOSTON — The state Legislature voted Thursday to override Gov. Mitt Romney´s veto of a measure that will expand access to emergency contraception.
The measure, which the Republican governor vetoed in July, will require hospital emergency room doctors to offer the medication to rape victims. It also will make the medication available without a prescription.
The Senate voted unanimously 37-0 to override the veto. In the House, the vote was 139-16 to override.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Open Thread
Thread more than thou showest, thread less than thou knowest, thread less than thou owest.
Offense
Don't Talk About the War
That said, I certainly understand that it's tricky politics. But it isn't going away.
Hilarious
(Note to Rush Limbaugh: out of professional courtesy, before you attack us (wrongly) for being liberally biased or anti-Bush, we would ask you to do three things: [1] consider each item one-by-one and ask yourself if you really think what we wrote is wrong; [2] ask the White House if they disagree with any of this — except that Pelosi item; [3] call us to discuss it. Then: trash us.)
Shorter Joe Biden
The Press
Maybe you want to spend $200 billion on rebuilding the Delta region too. Fine. Something like that will probably be necessary. But don't fool yourself into thinking that what's coming is just a matter of a different chef making the same meal. This will be Iraq all over again, with the same fetid mix of graft, zeal and hubris. Cronyism like you wouldn't believe. Money blown on ideological fantasies and half-baked test-cases.
You could come up with a hundred reasons why that's true. But at root intentions drive all. You'll never separate this operation or its results from the fact that the people in charge see it as a political operation. The use of this money for political purposes, for what amounts to a political campaign, tells you everything you need to know about what's coming.
For this, however, the press will have no excuses. Will they do their job?
Open Thread
Thread more than thou showest, thread less than thou knowest, thread less than thou owest.
The Crazy Guy At The Bar
how many like him?
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Potty Break
...since the hamster which powers First Draft's server seems to have died, here we go:
U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war. REUTERS/Rick Wilking Email Photo Print Photo
...here's the full original at Reuters.
Two Governors
She says that two days after Katrina, desperate for help, she couldn't get through to Bush and didn't get a callback; hours later, she tried again, and they talked.
...
Barbour hasn't had to wait hours to talk to Bush. In fact, Barbour said in an interview with USA TODAY, the president called him three to four times in the wake of Katrina. "I never called him. He always called me," he said.
Why oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press?
WASHINGTON (AP) - Chief Justice nominee John Roberts said Wednesday that Congress has the right to counter Supreme Court rulings including a divisive decision giving cities broad power to seize and raze people's homes for private development.
``This body and legislative bodies in the states are protectors of the people's rights,'' Roberts said on the third day of his confirmation hearings to be the nation's 17th chief justice.
Republicans and many Democrats reacted angrily earlier this year when a sharply divided Supreme Court said cities can take and bulldoze people's homes in favor of shopping malls or other private development to generate tax revenue. The decision drew a scathing dissent from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as favoring rich corporations, and Republican lawmakers have criticized it as infringing on states' rights.
This isn't about countering Supreme Court rulings. This is American Government 101. Decisions like Kelo either limit or don't limit congressional power in certain areas. In the case of Kelo, no new limits were placed on the power of government but nothing prevents governments from either just not using all of the powers available to them or passing statutory limits on the use of the eminent domain power.
This is not news, this is just evidence that Roberts has a rudimentary understanding of how things work in this country, which I'd sort of assumed.
Fresh Hell
BAGHDAD A series of bombings and assassinations here on Wednesday killed more than 150 people, and injured hundreds more.
Militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian linked to Al Qaeda, said in an Internet statement Wednesday that they had carried out the wave of suicide bombings to avenge an offensive by U.S. and Iraqi government troops in the northern rebel town of Tal Afar, Agence France-Presse reported.
Another car bomber blew himself up in northern Baghdad, killing 11 people who had lined up to get gas canisters refilled. Gunmen also dragged 17 people from their homes and killed them in Taji, a northern suburb.
Victory
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday that Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an "ongoing victory," and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget.
Mr. DeLay was defending Republicans' choice to borrow money and add to this year's expected $331 billion deficit to pay for Hurricane Katrina relief. Some Republicans have said Congress should make cuts in other areas, but Mr. DeLay said that doesn't seem possible.
"My answer to those that want to offset the spending is sure, bring me the offsets, I'll be glad to do it. But nobody has been able to come up with any yet," the Texas Republican told reporters at his weekly briefing.
Asked if that meant the government was running at peak efficiency, Mr. DeLay said, "Yes, after 11 years of Republican majority we've pared it down pretty good."
And, it must be pointed out, that federal expenditures as a percentage of GDP were higher in 2002,2003, and 2004 than they were in 1997,1998, and 1999.
36 Hours
Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the "principal federal official" in charge of the storm.
Chertoff - not Brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.
But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn't shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.
On the day that Chertoff wrote the memo, Bush was in San Diego presiding over a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Open Thread
Thread more than thou showest, thread less than thou knowest, thread less than thou owest.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Open Thread
Thread more than thou showest, thread less than thou knowest, thread less than thou owest.
Blankley
A total of 25,655 noncitizens living in the United States were interned or deported during the war years because of their ethnicity or nationality, rather than their words or conduct. They included 11,229 Japanese, 10,905 Germans, 3,278 Italians, 52 Hungarians, 25 Romanians, five Bulgarians and 161 other foreign nationals.
The Supreme Court later held, in Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), that "executive power over enemy aliens, undelayed and unhampered by litigation, has been deemed, throughout our history, essential to wartime security." The high court added: "The resident enemy alien is constitutionally subject to summary arrest, internment and deportation whenever a 'declared war' exists." So the power to intern or deport comes into effect only when war has been declared.
Today, we are under attack not by a nation, but by groups of militant individuals who claim Islam as their faith. Yet for the first time in human history, the destructive power of terrorists can be as great as that of a traditional nation-state that has declared war. We need a mechanism to deal with this change.
During World War II, the country was faced with the prospect of large numbers of people -- again identifiable by ethnicity, not conduct -- who were real or potential enemies.
The logic of the Supreme Court's opinion is applicable to the situation we face today. The court held that people ethnically connected to the war-makers are more likely to support them than are others -- and our country at war has a right to protect itself from this presumed higher risk of danger.
...
The court would draw lines and preserve the essence of our freedoms. But the justices were practical men.
They understood that the broadest enforcement of every last theoretical right and privilege might well be purchased at the price of losing our most basic right: the right to effectively defend ourselves.
Who's "ourselves," Tony?
Monday, September 12, 2005
Heroes
Iowa
Open Thread
Thread more than thou showest, thread less than thou knowest, thread less than thou owest.
Shorter Andrew Sullivan
UPUPUPUPUPUPUP!!!!
President Snippy
Is Bush the commanding, decisive, jovial president you've been hearing about for years in so much of the mainstream press?
Maybe not so much.
Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don't emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies -- the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department -- has failed a big test.
Much of what passes for "balanced journalism" is simply the recycling of conventional wisdom, which in itself is a product of a massive propaganda campaign. It's clear that much of what passes for CW is, in fact, bullshit and that most of the people involved in peddling it know that it is.
No Pony for Holden
President Bush's public standing has hit record lows amid broad support for an independent investigation of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and calls for postponing congressional action on $70 billion in proposed tax cuts to help pay for storm recovery, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
President Bush's overall job approval rating now stands at 42 percent, the lowest of his presidency and down three points since Hurricane Katrina savaged the Gulf Coast two weeks ago. Fifty-seven percent disapprove of Bush's performance, a double-digit increase since January.
Bush's handling of Iraq and terrorism also have never been lower, according to the poll. Thirty-eight percent approve of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq and half the county now approve of the way Bush is handling the campaign against terrorism.
A clear majority--54 percent -- now disapprove of the way Bush is handling the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Even some members of Bush's own party appear to have lost faith in their leader: The president's overall approval rating among Republicans has declined from 91 percent in January to 78 percent in the latest poll. Overall, barely half the country now characterize Bush as a "strong leader" -- down 12 points since May of last year. And the percent who say he can be "trusted in a crisis" likewise has fallen from 60 percent to 49 percent now.
Senatoring is Hard
Bye Brownie
argh, which rock did Ashcroft crawl out from under.
Good Work
But now it is known that major levee breaks occurred much earlier than that, starting in the morning of Monday, Aug. 29, the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Even as the storm veered off and many observers felt a sense of relief, the Industrial Canal levee in eastern New Orleans was giving way, and a rush of water swiftly submerged much of the Lower Ninth Ward and areas nearby, trapping thousands of people on rooftops and in attics. The 17th Street Canal levee also was breached early Monday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now believes, resulting in a slower-rising flood over a larger area.
Yet it wasn't until Tuesday that most people across the country, apparently including Mr. Chertoff, realized that any levees at all had been breached. Did media outlets get it wrong, as Mr. Chertoff claimed? Some did, some didn't.
A look at news reports of the events of Aug. 29 paints a picture of confusion, miscommunication and conflicting information among some government officials and news media. Several major news outlets, including Viacom Inc.'s CBS network and National Public Radio reported the breaking of the Industrial Canal and flooding on Monday, although not all of the reports acknowledged the extent of the devastation. The Wall Street Journal reported the Industrial Canal breach but no others.
The New Orleans office of the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning at 8:14 a.m. Monday, saying "a levee breach occurred along the industrial canal at Tennessee Street. 3 to 8 feet of water is expected due to the breach." The media largely ignored it. The NWS's source of information was ham-radio transmissions by the Orleans Levee Board, a city-state agency. The 8:14 warning was the last one the local office issued before its communications were cut off. The statement was repeated only once more, at 10:52 a.m., by the National Weather Service office in Mobile, Ala.
Yet some government officials certainly appeared aware of a breach and said so on network television. At 7:33 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 29, Gov. Kathleen B. Blanco said on NBC, "I believe the water has breached the levee system, and is -- is coming in."
In its Aug. 29 online edition, the New Orleans Times-Picayune first reported a breach in the 17th Street Canal levee at 2 p.m., citing City Hall officials. No other major news outlets picked up that report. The newspaper's Web site also reported massive flooding near the Industrial Canal, writing that city officials "fielded at least 100 calls from people in distress in the Lower 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans." At about 2:30, it reported that the Industrial Canal had been breached, citing a National Weather Service report.
But in the hours immediately following the storm, some news organizations seemed to play down the damage in New Orleans. Introducing "World News Tonight" on Aug. 29, anchor Charles Gibson said: "In New Orleans, entire neighborhoods are underwater, but the levees held. The nightmare scenario of an entire city underwater did not happen." A spokeswoman for ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co., had no comment.
Officials with the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers said last week that one canal breach came to the attention of corps personnel early Monday, Aug. 29 and another by midday. But the "fog of war" and "massive logistical problems with communications in the hours after the storm hit" created some confusion, said John Rickey, a spokesman for the corps.
No major newspaper printed a headline that literally said New Orleans "dodged a bullet," as Mr. Chertoff claimed. But some did say the city had escaped a direct hit -- which was true, but misleading -- while others focused on the levees along the Mississippi River. Meanwhile, it was the levees along canals extending south from Lake Pontchartrain that gave way.
"But the city managed to avoid the worst of the worst," read a front-page Washington Post article on Tuesday. "The Mississippi River did not breach New Orleans's famed levees to any serious degree, at least in part because Katrina veered 15 miles eastward of its predicted track just before landfall."
Leonard Downie Jr., the Washington Post's executive editor, says the paper's reporting was hampered by communications problems caused by the hurricane. "Unfortunately, where our communication was good was where it wasn't flooding," he says. "All the media were hampered by the fact that people on the ground didn't know what happened."
...
In the 5 p.m. news report on News Corp.'s Fox News Channel, anchor Shepard Smith informed viewers of "late word" that the levees had held. But a few minutes later, in the same program, a public-health expert told the channel the exact opposite: "Well, the National Weather Service are reporting that one of the levees was breached. ... People have been forced out onto the roofs of their homes."
...
Many reporters, working on foot, isolated in higher, drier sections and focused on the survival of the city's tourist districts, were unaware of the unfolding disaster in poor neighborhoods of New Orleans. It wasn't until Monday evening that a private helicopter company, Helinet Helicopter Services of Los Angeles, began feeding the first aerial images of New Orleans to Fox News, ABC, NBC, CNN and CBS. By early Tuesday morning, most major media had become aware of the awful extent of the destruction.
Maybe all they read in Washington is the Washington Post? Would explain a lot.
WaPo Follies
he point is simple --- this was horrendously bad journalism. The fact that Blanco DID declare a state of emergency was central to the story. The fact she DID declare a state of emergency completely undermined the story. The fact is that the Washington Post's journalism on this story is every bit as bad or worse than the journalism much berated by you Howie in Rathergate.
Though the stakes were not as high politically as is in Rathergate -- the journalism was worse. At the least, CBS had documents they were looking at, though they were not properly verified, IMO. At the least, CBS gave the White House a chance to respond.
Here, the Washington Post had nothing but the word of a BushCo official - the false word. And they ran with the story anyway. And they did not give Blanco a chance to respond. If Dan Rather had to go, who has to go at the Washington Post?
One last thing - you want to do a followup story on this WaPo? I got one for you -- how is it that a high BushCo official did NOT know that Blanco had declared a state of emergency. Is that not scandalous in and of itself? Do you think THAT merits a story? Or is it too embarrassing for you now?
The joys of carte blanche anonymous sourcing. We're protected from knowing about the dishonesty and ignorance of our public officials. oh joy!
More Accountability
One such bit of news is the fact that Bush continues to be either deceptive or clueless about what happened. Pointing that out might be a good start.
Another way to have more accountability is to investigate the rampant cronyism in FEMA and elsewhere. Now that maybe we've had another lesson in why having decent people in charge actually matters, instead of just people who you might want to have a beer with, it's time to look hard at the people in important positions in all the government agencies.
In addition, it's time to start looking into where we're spending all that money. Steve Clemons suggests there may be a lot of fraud in FEMA contracting. Follow the money...
Accountable?
Certainly one hopes that voters come to their senses in '06, though that will in part require the Democrats doing something they weren't even willing to do in '04 and make the election a national referendum on the last few years of Republican rule. But, to me the desire for "accountability" is, for the moment, about accountability by the 4th estate who, by Brian Williams own admission, have for the last 4 years not provided much of that
By dint of the fact that our country was hit we’ve offered a preponderance of the benefit of the doubt over the past couple of years.
Period
Spencer Hsu, the article's co-author, says he "tried to make clear that the source came from the administration, and that he was blaming the locals, which I believe our story made clear and broke ground in explaining by uncovering the National Guard dispute."
Should the paper identify the source who provided bad information? "We don't blow sources, period, especially if we don't have reason to believe the source in this case actually lied deliberately," Hsu says.
Perhaps Hsu didn't mean to say that, but taking his statement at face value he's saying that even if he knew for certain that an administration official had lied to him, he still wouldn't burn the source.
The only possible punishment for lying to the press is that they tell the public that, indeed, you lied to them. Hsu says this is off the table. So, our press feels that it's ok to let public officials lie to the public, under the cover of anonymity, with complete and total impunity provided by the information launderers at the Washington Post.
Something's Missing
But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
Leaving aside the fact that Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992 and not 2002, and without fact-checking the basic assertions about federal response times, let's deal with this by playing a game of Jeopardy.
Answer: What Hurricanes Andrew, Hugo, Iniki, Francine, and Jeanne all have in common.
Question?
The Roundtable
Newt Gingrich - conservative.
George Will - conservative.
Fareed Zakaria - conservative.
Now, it's true that Zakaria happens to be intelligent and sane, and I wouldn't describe him as a partisan Republican, but our media should stop putting "conservatives who aren't obviously insane" as stand-ins for liberals.
Power Tools
That's Time magazine's blog of the year, in case you didn't know.
Katrina Leads a Blogger To Reevaluate Priorities
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Dead or Alive
Now, as the last major battle of the war in Afghanistan began, hidden from view inside the caves were an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 well-trained, well-armed men. A mile below, at the base of the caves, some three dozen U.S. Special Forces troops fanned out. They were the only ground forces that senior American military leaders had committed to the Tora Bora campaign.
Freedom Walk
Imagine, if 4 years ago I had told you that 4 yours hence we'd be celebrating the events of that day with a Clint Black concert...
Open Thread
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your thread; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.