Category: Internet

The 9/11 Commission’s attempt to suppress evidence about the Able Danger Program calls their credibility into question:

Another day, another story seems to be the containment strategy for the defunct and now discredited 9/11 Commission. The AP reports that the Commission’s spokesperson, Al Felzenberg, now admits that the Commission knew full well that the secret Army program Able Danger had identified Mohammed Atta as an al-Qaeda operative along with three other men in Brooklyn, but left it out of their final report:

This is a scandal, even bigger than the Air America scandal, and heads need to roll.

In related news, you can read Cindy Sheehan’s story in Michael Moore’s web site, where the exploitation of grieving families is the stock in trade. No, I’m not linking the scum.

Excellent. The A’s are back in undisputed possession of first place after they beat the Rancho Cucamonga Angels of Orange.

Baseball is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you hit the ball, and you catch the ball. Unless your name is Frankie Rodriguez, in which case you drop the ball and lose the game in the bottom of the ninth on account of your deciding to throw a hissy fit over a bad call.

70-year-old San Francisco Giants manager Felipe Alou claimed Larry Krueger’s scalp today:

On “Sportsphone 680” last Wednesday night, Krueger made reference to the Giants’ “brain-dead Caribbean hitters hacking at slop nightly.” That led to Krueger getting a suspension that was due to end this Monday.

Giants manager Felipe Alou refused to accept an apology from Krueger. Alou appeared on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” program Monday night and called Krueger “this messenger of Satan, as I call this guy now. … And I believe there is no forgiveness for Satan.”

On Tuesday morning, KNBR aired Alou’s sound bite from “Outside the Lines” and then parodied it with Satan references from the Comedy Central show “South Park.”

That apparently was the impetus for Rhein’s dismissal — and might have had something to do with the termination of Agnew, who had been with KNBR since 1989.

“The segment, featuring inappropriate comedy sound bites,” Salvadore wrote in the statement, “demonstrated an utter lack of regard for the sensitivity of the issues involved and a premeditated intent to ridicule Felipe Alou’s commentary.”

There’s a saying in baseball that players from the Dominican Republic (Alou’s home) don’t “walk off the island”, they have to hit their way into the major leagues. Krueger said nothing that hasn’t been said a million times before.

Alou wouldn’t let the issue die, probably because he was offended by the cream of wheat remark, and probably because the heavily Latin team that’s been assembled in Frisco since Alou’s been in town really, really sucks. Three years ago, the Giants made it to the World Series with David Bell, Jeff Kent, J. T. Snow and Rich Aurilia in the infield. Now they’re 48-63 with Omar Vizquel, Edgardo Alfonzo, Deivi Cruz, and Pedro Feliz.

It’s time for the Giants to fire Alou and rebuild the team with an eye toward winning, without regard for ethnicity, native language, or cereal preference.

The hot story of the day is this little gem about a military intelligence program using data-mining:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 – More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.

In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military’s Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday.

Privacy freaks say it’s a no-no, but they’re wrong. See Kaus and McGuire for more.

Moneybags took the opening game of the series last night owing to some shoddy pitching in the first two innings:

First and foremost among the reasons for Oakland’s 9-2 loss was ace righty Rich Harden’s worst start of the year. He took the mound on time at about 7:05 p.m., but he didn’t really start pitching until 7:30 or so.

Harden, who was 7-1 in his previous nine starts, gave up six earned runs on eight hits in the first two innings of a game that felt an awful lot like Mark Mulder’s implosion in the penultimate game of the 2004 season, complete with uncharacteristic defensive failings by a typically surehanded defense.

“It was one of those days,” Harden said, “where anything and everything that could go wrong, did.”

That’s OK, Zito goes tonight and he’s untouchable. The A’s were playing like they had playoff jitters last night, so it’s good to get that out of the system. While they’re a very talented team, they are a bit young and inexperienced. When you have four legitimate contenders for Rookie of the Year, stuff is gonna happen.

Creationists aren’t really down with Jesus:

Thomas Aquinas found the human likeness to God especially in man’s speculative intellect (Summa Theologica I-II:3:5, ad 1). Pius XII noted that while the human body may originate from pre-existing living matter, God individually creates the spiritual soul. The proper Christian view rejects not evolution per se, but theories of evolution that argue that the human spirit comes from matter, not God. (Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna recently reiterated this view in The New York Times, unfortunately using terms that could easily be co-opted by intelligent design advocates.)

Darwin addressed the origin of species, not the origin of the soul. The former is science. The latter is theology. The president was correct to observe that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought and that people should understand the debate. But there is no debate among scientists about evolution as an important unifying theory in biology. Discussion of varying views of the creator, or the “intelligent designer,” belongs in the humanities, not in sciences classes.

In “Creation Controversy & The Science Classroom,” published by the National Science Teachers Association, James W. Skehan, a Jesuit professor at Boston College who holds both a masters of divinity in theology as well as a doctoral degree in geology from Harvard, argues that religious people who believe God is the creator of the universe should find no conflict between science and religion, but those who misrepresent the Bible as a scientific presentation are destructive of sound religion. He suggests that science teachers who are likely to come into contact with the creation science mindset might be best equipped to respond if they learn about modern biblical scholarship, the limits of scientific knowledge and the role of religious faith.

Unless they get it together, they will all burn in hell.

Greasy Jim Wolcott has reached a new low in this blog chastising Roger Simon and other liberal supporters of the War on Terror for ideological sins against the proletariat and their protectors among the cultural elite:

The fact is that by subscribing to Bush’s War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq with every corpuscle of your tired body you’ve made common cause with Republican conservatives, neoconservatives, and Christian fundamentalists who are dedicated to destroying those parcels of liberalism on which you stake your tiny claims of pride. When you align yourself with the likes of Hugh Hewitt, author of that polemical gem of understatement If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It, or Michael Ledeen, you’ve allied yourselves to political gangsters dedicated to waging permanent war abroad and cultural war here. Do you really think that conservative supremacy in the executive, congressional, and judicial branches of government means that gay rights and abortion rights will somehow be spared? These people won’t be happy until not only is gay marriage but gay adoption is outlawed as well; they’re not out simply to restrict abortion but to restrict contraception of any kind. There is absolutely no excuse for certain bloggers to be upset or dismayed by Bush’s recent statement about teaching Intelligent Design in schools–you bought the whole package when you chose him as your staunch leader in the war on terror, mocking liberals for being too wimpy for the task.

This is so obvious that it hardly bears mentioning, but at the risk of being tedious I have to point out the following: if supporting the War on Terror is making common cause with conservative Christians, with whom do the War on Terror’s opponents make “common cause”?

Clue: The US and the UK allied with the USSR to defeat the Axis, then we turned in the USSR. This tactic is right out the Little Red Book for god sakes.

Jimmy tends to be a little shrill, but he must have been high when he wrote this.

Once again things are almost right in the world of baseball:

ANAHEIM — The Angels fell out of sole possession of first place in the American League West on Saturday, but only because the Devil Rays played a better game than the Royals.

By virtue of Oakland’s 16-1 walkover in Kansas City and the Angels’ 6-4 loss at the hands of the Devil Rays, the Halos fell into a tie with the A’s for first place — the first time in eight weeks that the Angels haven’t held the lead outright.

But while it’s noteworthy that the Angels have surrendered an eight-game lead in the span of only 17 games, the Halos would just as willingly point out that the last time they were tied for first place (May 17), they were tied with Texas and the A’s were 13 games under .500.

A couple of days ago, the Los Angeles Anaheims held a two-game lead, but losses to the two worst teams in baseball (Orioles and Devil Rays) took it away.

The season starts over Tuesday, the battle between Moneyball and Moneybags shining in sharp relief in a three-game series in Oakland.

We should all be supporting Barry Zito’s Strikeouts for Troops, a charity combining two of the greatest things about America, baseball and support for the brave men in our military who liberate oppressed people.

Could it possibly be that Raffy Palmeiro got juiced by accident? Apparently El Presidente thinks so:

President Bush — who owned the Texas Rangers while Palmeiro played for the team — called Palmeiro a “friend” in a round-table interview with reporters from several Texas newspapers. “He’s testified in public, and I believe him,” Bush added.

I dunno, maybe he took some over-the-counter supplement thinking it was vitamins, but either the dude is lying or they need to look into the test some more.

In related news, Palmeiro has been seen doing tequila shots with Valerie Plame at the Covert CIA Agents Bar in Virginia, so there may be some trickery here.

And in other related news, young Joe Blanton and the A’s took down Johan Santana and the Minna-so-duh Twins tonight to cut the LA Anaheims’ margin to one game. The Anaheims were too chicken to play tonight, so the Good Guys don’t get to officially climb into first place until tomorrow.