Author: Moe_Lane

If at first you don’t succeed…

(Via Instapundit) There’s a lot of meat in this post about How The System Worked, but what struck/disquieted me was this almost-casual observation:

Al Qaeda seems to have a lot of respect for US border security screening.  That’s why it is trying to commit terrorist attacks on US soil without actually entering the US.  Since border measures were strengthened after 9/11, al Qaeda has tried three separate plots using the same basic technique — get on a transatlantic flight and blow it up before it lands and before the terrorists are put through our border screening process.  Every plot has failed.  But if this doesn’t remind you of the successive World Trade Center attacks, you’re not paying attention.  They’ve got a schtick, and they’re going to keep using it until it works.

You ever hear what the IRA once told the British? “We only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky all the time.” That’s how terrorists think: stop them nineteen times and they’ll keep coming back for a twentieth bite at the apple.  That doesn’t mean that they can’t be deterred or suppressed; but you can’t do either by waiting for them to commit a crime and then arrest them all.  You do either by finding them and killing everybody who doesn’t surrender, and by detaining the ones who do so that you can interrogate them and get more intelligence about their compatriots still remaining alive and at liberty.

We don’t let cops do that in this country.  We don’t want cops to be able to do that in this country.  Given the way that the Left has indirectly encouraged this country’s growing acceptance of torture, one wonders why they seem so determined to also encourage the American people to think that it’s necessary to let cops be able to do that.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D): airport screenings for explosives doubleplusungood.

In fairness, that money was just sitting there, all fat, dumb and happy, and practically begging to be misappropriated to some domestic pork program.  Besides, how was Dodd supposed to know that international terrorists would come up with the novel idea of using explosives to try to blow up airplanes?

Now that our attention is focused on airline security measures thanks to the failed airline attack on Christmas Day, it’s worth mentioning that one Senator took money away from aviation security to line the pockets of constituency that supported his presidential campaign in a big way.

Back in July, Senator Chris Dodd, D-Conn., proposed an amendment reducing aviation security appropriations by $4.5 million in favor of firefighter grants — a notoriously inneffective program. In fact, the money was specifically “for screening operations and the amount for explosives detection systems.”

…oh, wait.

Via Jim Geraghty, who notes that the Senate in general signed off on the amendment (S.AMDT.1458 to H.R.2892; it was part of the Homeland Security appropriations bill).  This is fostering an atmosphere where you have the ability to read and assess bills before you sign them is so critically important…

…oh, wait.

Moe Lane Continue reading Sen. Chris Dodd (D): airport screenings for explosives doubleplusungood.

You know, 2009 was not a *bad* year…

…after all, my second child was born in it, which alone would make the year worthwhile.  But it’s a year that I would have otherwise fast-forwarded through if I had been given the opportunity.  I’ve been thinking about 2010 since November 5, 2008, and the only things that kept 2009 from being the Star Trek III of the decade were the NJ/VA state elections.  And now 2010 is almost here, and I have to switch gears.  It’s… odd.

Or else just ‘the deep breath before the plunge.’

Moe Lane

Christian activist detained in North Korea?

Very possibly.

North Korean authorities have said they have arrested a US man who crossed into their territory.

The North’s official KCNA news agency said the man had entered the country from China on 24 December. There is no official word on the man’s identity.

However there have been reports that Robert Park, a US Christian activist, recently crossed into North Korea.

See also VoA News, whose reporter Kurt Achin makes no real attempt to hide the fact that he considers deliberately walking into North Korea in order to spread the Gospel to be the act of a madman.  Which it may or may not be; but it’s certainly not the act of a coward.  Particularly when he’s also telling the North Korean regime to shut down the concentration camps that you, I, and Kurt Achin all know exist there – even if Achin’s hiding behind a convenient ‘they say.’

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

There’s a SF story in this.

Working with the below in terms of an artificial structure:

gravity_wells

…such as a ringworld or an Alderson disk suggests one heck of a setting.  Although working out the oddities of atmosphere, sunlight, and how much of that structure is habitable for anything resembling terrestrial life would be a: very complicated and b: far too easy to get wrong.  I get the feeling that this sort of thing was a lot easier to pull off in the days of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Rep. Clyburn abandons public option on behalf of Democratic party.

Here we go.

The House’s third-ranking Democrat said Sunday that he can support a healthcare reform bill without a public option.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) — a proponent of a government-run public plan — said that he could back the bill as long as it creates more choice and competition in the insurance industry and reduces costs. “It’s of no consequence” whether it’s done via the public option or not.

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines) Translation: House Democrats are going to abandon the public option. Ignore the nonsense about more choice and reduced costs: that’s for the rubes and the netroots. They went with the #3 House Democrat to make the announcement because both Pelosi and Hoyer want to appear to be reluctantly going along with this, instead of enthusiastically: if the endgame ends up reminding you of their FISA ‘capitulation,’ well, there’s a reason for that.  Anyway, this is probably back on track for being settled by the State of the Union address.  In fact, they’re probably right now working out how many liberal House members can vote ‘no’ on the bill and still get it to pass.

I’d be offended at the Democratic leadership’s upcoming betrayal of their own (loudly stated) principles, if only I believed that they had them in the first place.  As I didn’t and don’t, the best that I can muster is a slightly cynical moue of distaste.  And that’s only because I’ve never gotten to use the word ‘moue’ in a post before.

Moe Lane

PS: The final language on federal funding on abortion will be at whatever point between Stupak’s and the Senate’s version that will cause the NRLC to stop threatening to score the final vote.  If that call hasn’t been made yet, it will be.

Crossposted to RedState.

Rhetorician’s Year of Failed Narratives.

#2 was particularly tasty, although my essentially kindhearted and easygoing nature dictates that I be kinder these days to those poor folks trying to spontaneously generate a left-populist movement out of… well, nothing.  Nothing at all*.

(H/T: Instapundit)

Moe Lane

*I know, I know: it’s fun.  Not as much fun as watching elements of the Left now try to co-opt a movement that they spent half a year sexually slurring, of course.  Those people really need to learn to embrace the concept of long-term planning.

Crossposted to RedState.