Osama bin Laden Helped Plan the Mumbai Terror Attack

A lot of documents and computers were collected by US Special Forces during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan — the raid in which bin Laden was killed. A little of the information from those materials is now dribbling out, and it shows bin Laden was still actively plotting attacks while hiding (and/or being hidden) from the civilized world.

The Hindustan Times reports that Osama bin Laden helped plan the November 26, 2008, terror attack on Mumbai, India, in which 166 people were killed. Pakistan terrorism expert Bruce Reidel noted this also “suggested a much larger direct al-Qaeda role in the planning of the Mumbai attacks than many assumed.”

Bin Laden planned the attack in close coordination with Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, whose group carried out the attack. That resulted in the pictures we'va all seen, like the one in this report.

The Long War Journal notes “the documents raise new questions about the former al Qaeda master's ties to elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment”, noting that Pakistan's ISI military intelligence organization had used Saeed's group “to wage a proxy war against Indian forces in Kashmir during the 1990s.” And many have noted the proximity of bin Laden's home to the Pakistani military academy.

Mandatory Contracts & Other Stupidities

Sometimes things just come together. The most recent is this item from the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web:

We Have Always Been at War With the Individual Mandate

The email we got yesterday from the Obama campaign is a real humdinger. Signed by campaign manager Jim Messina and carrying the subject line "Mitt Romney," it's actually an attack on Rep. Paul Ryan, this month's Emmanuel Goldstein. We especially love this point:

5. Romney [i.e., the Ryan budget] would end Medicare as we know it--replacing it with a voucher scheme that would drive profits for insurance companies by forcing seniors to purchase private insurance.

Imagine, forcing someone to buy private insurance! Oh, the horror!

That takes a lot of brass, coming from the same people that rammed down our collective throats a bill forcing everyone — not just seniors — to purchase private insurance. That's why, as already noted, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid couldn't get their bill passed without ramming it down everyone's throat, against the will of a substantial majority of the people.

Making matters even more absurd is that ObamaCare was and remains so unpopular that it could not be passed without bizarre procedural shenanigans and extreme legislative bullying. As a formal matter, ObamaCare's enactment was an exercise in representative democracy, but as a substantive one, Congress has seldom acted in a more unrepresentative way.

And now we find out that, far from being cost-effective, Obamacare is bending the medical cost curve up and will add trillions to the national debt once it comes into full effect. So Nancy Pelosi was right — they had to pass the bill so we could find out what's in it — and everything we've found out has said it's a lot worse than we thought.

Happy Easter!

Crucifixion was supposed to end the threat Jesus of Nazareth posed to the status quo is Israel.

But this crucifixion was not the end. Somehow the most humiliating possible execution was recast as a badge of honor.

The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world!

Happy Easter!

Treason Against Pakistan

Various articles on the web have noted that the man suspected of helping the United States locate Osama bin Laden has been arrested and jailed. Without trial, so far, apparently — so far, just pending a trial. Now it turns out he's been fired and charged with treason.

I find that interesting. Osama bin Laden was supposedly not in Pakistan, to the best of the Pakistan government's knowledge. And he supposedly had no relationship to or support from the Pakistani government. But, for helping identify bin Laden's whereabouts, this guy is being charged with treason. That means his actions were a betrayal of Pakistan and its government. That means bin Laden was part of Pakistan and its government. Q.E.D.

Good Reason to Ban the Burqa

Anything that allows terrorists to hide their identities — and the explosives they're carrying — is inherently bad. It's time the burqa is banned in every civilized country. It's time any country that won't ban the burqa be considered an uncivilized security risk for everyone.

Otherwise, we will probably see a lot more "drag queens for Allah" like these:

It's Girl Scout Cookie Time

. . . Get them while you still can.

Here's next year's advertisement.
from The Looking Spoon

Absolutely Right!

It's no longer enough to say that President Obama has no respect for Latinos and no fear of them. We're way beyond that. By denying what he's done, Obama has shown that he views Latino voters with contempt. By now, for anyone who is paying attention, the feeling should be mutual.
      — Ruben Navarrette, Jr.

Obama Economics, Part 2

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner testified to the House Budget Committee last Thursday that the Obama Administration had no answer to the nation's long-term budget problem. The article I saw that reported this little nugget also showed a White House chart that demonstrates that Obama and White House statements -- that Obama's budget bends the debt curve over -- are false. White House statements disproven by a White House chart.

Committee Chair Paul Ryan had a similar chart that showed US debt passing 900% of GDP by about 2080.

Geithner took some offense, producing the following exchange.

GEITHNER: You could have taken [the chart] out [to the year] 3000 or to 4000. [Laughs]

RYAN: Yeah, right. We cut it off at the end of the century because the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027 on this path.

It's really looking like Barack Obama and his Administration are actively trying to destroy this country.

Obama Economics

The version of economics being pushed by President Barack Obama has a few problems. Among them are:

1. The end of the "Bush tax cuts", plus the increased surtaxes in the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (Obamacare) will increase the national tax bite by $0.5 trillion per year, beginning next year.
2. Gasoline prices are at new highs, and heading higher.
3. Barely over half the U.S. population pay any income taxes at all.
4. Only 33% of the U.S. population are
   1. taxpayers, and
   2. not government employees.
5. People making minimum wage (quoted here as $14,500/year) are better off than people making four times as much.

None of this is sustainable.

National or International

Quoted in Impromptus last week:

Whenever I hear someone mention socialism, I ask innocently, “Excuse me, do you mean national or international?”

Travel Warning on Mexico

As a resident of a border state, this concerns me.

In all other respects, I find this just incredibly sad.

The Tax Man Cometh

We're taught we should work hard and save for the future, like for our retirement. If we end up not using all our savings, we can pass them on to our kids and grandkids. This is defined as good behavior; these actions are defined as good deeds. And the laws are structured to support those doing these good deeds.

Now, in the category of "no good deed goes unpunished", there's this:

"The problem with retirement accounts is that they're hostage to future Congresses' greed." That is the lead in a short item on Instapundit, and it is absolutely true. It extracts, and links to, a Wall Street Journal article that tells of a Senate Finance Committee proposal being tucked into the highway funding bill that would require most inherited IRAs and 401(k)s to be emptied out within five years of the time they're inherited. This has been proposed as a means of increasing government tax revenues (from income taxes) by $4.6 billion over the next ten years. (Shall we play "guess the party" as to whose proposal this is?)

And you know this is just the beginning.

Guess I'll go back to an old standard:
    Rule 1: Never trust the government.
    Rule 2: When you have an absolute iron-clad guarantee, see Rule 1.

Good luck to us all. We'll need it.

Now That Is a Quartet!

Obama Loves America

Got this in an e-mail a day or so ago

Definitely a very sharp pointed comment.

And then, today, there's this

That encapsulates a lot of worldwide history and experience.

No Budget For You!

UPDATE: Others have noticed, too, that the Democrats' refusal to pass a budget is illegal. Isn't there anything that can be done to get the national Democratic Party leadership to at least acknowledge the law's existence — and preferably to obey the law, for once? (end update)

The Budget Act of 1974 was intended to provide some fiscal discipline for the Congress. It was to do this through imposition of a legal requirement that each house of Congress produce a budget proposal not later than April of each year.

That Act has failed.

The Senate is still controlled by the Democrats. And the Senate, controlled by the Democrats, has not produced a budget since Barack Obama was sworn in as President in 2009. Nor does it intend to. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said last week that he would not allow the Senate to take up a budget this year. “We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year,” was what he said. And President Obama has told Harry Reid and the Senate not to worry about it. "No budget, no problem," he's saying. In effect, he's also saying it's OK to flout the law and its requirements.

Now House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer has chimed in, saying "The fact is, you don’t need a budget. We can adopt appropriations bills." Of course, they haven't done that, either.

It should be no surprise that others disagree.

Concerning Reid’s remarks, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said in a statement, “It’s been more than 1,000 days since Senate Democrats have offered a budget plan to the American people. Now, once again, the Senate’s ineffectual Democrat majority balks at the task of leadership. … He obviously continues in his belief that it would be politically foolish for his members to go on record in support of any long-term vision.”

It seems to me, with the Senate Democrats abdicating their responsibilities and breaching their legal requirements, the best current proposal is the one that says "no budget, no pay." If they won't do their job, they shouldn't get paid.

When Progress Isn't

They told us the shift from analog to digital would make things better. I'm not so sure.

Like digital television, done under a government mandate. I understand the advantages, things like bandwidth and the ability to make more channels available — at the cost of moving the low-numbered channels up into the UHF realm. And the additional channels are a good thing. But, speaking as a consumer, this has been a definite downgrade. With analog TV, I got movies from Mexico City on my TV in Tucson. Not all the time, but relatively frequently. The signal quality wasn't the best — we got significant "snow" in the picture and "hiss" in the sound, but we got both. And where I live now, we would sometimes lose a few pixels from the area stations, but the programs continued. But now, with digital TV, the picture frequently freezes (and the sound drops out) with distressing regularity, and we lose 15-30 seconds of program each time. I'm not sure this is an improvement.

Like video recorders, too. With the VCRs, the biggest problem was that I'd screw up in programming the recording. And, once in a long while, the VCRs would eat a tape. Still, that's a lot more reliable than the DVD recorders have proven to be. Their usual trick is to suddenly make the current rewritable DVD no longer recordable. I'm not sure this is an improvement.

Yes, the older technologies had their limitations, but it sure seems they were more reliable than their newer cousins.

Singing Valentines in Albuquerque

You can send a singing valentine to your sweetheart in Albuquerque — and a number of other cities. Love songs, chocolate, a long-stemmed red rose, and your personal card. What could be better? All you have to do is call.


More information — at least till Valentine's Day — at the New MexiChords site, among other places.

This Month's Proof of Global Warming

If global warming is real, how can there be cold records being broken all over the world? There's significant snow in Rome for the first time in three years. They even had to close the Coliseum for safety reasons. Matter of fact, it turns out it's the first heavy snow in 26 years! A storm that has trapped thousands and killed hundreds.

And that's not counting the Seattle snow — two feet of snow according to some accounts.

It looks like an endless winter! And it definitely must be global warming.

A Classic Sign

It's a gem.


Shamelessly cribbed from Doug Ross

Maybe There Are No Coincidences

I'm not sure I believe in coincidence. Too many things seem so clearly to happen for a reason, even if we don't recognize what that reason is till later.

This story provides an illustrative example. Go read it — I'll wait. And I dare you to tell me your eyes stayed dry!