The New York Times reports that the Administration did have a good reason for telling us to be scared of something happening.

The New York Post endorses Janine Piro for Westchester D.A.

This Non Sequitor cartoon captures perfectly the over litigation that exists in our country today.

According to this article in The Daily Telegraph, a number of British Muslims have begun leaving Britain to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Good. I say all who want to openly kill Americans be sent there so we can kill all of those who will plan violence against us.

"The New York City Skyline is missing its two front teeth." -Flava Flav immediatly after plane crashings

This slideshow on 9/11 is very moving. I strongly urge you to watch it.

"The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right." Ayn Rand

According to Situation Reports Russia is sending over 100 armored vehicles for the Northern Alliance.

InstaPundit points to this CNN article where Ashcroft tells us to be scared. Of what? Well, that is not so clear.

"Good Thinking" makes an apropriate response to those concerned about the few civilian casualties we have had.
QUOTE:
"Here's a question. How many civilian casualties were there during WWII? Should we not have gone after Nazi Germany even though there were countless German civilian casualties?

"Stop the violence by any means necessary. A lot of people say stop the violence with a flower. You can not stop any violence with a flower. You can not stop violence with a banner." KRS-ONE

Davey D points out that the oftens sampled phrase in hip-hop actually comes from the movie "The Warriors." He also points out that "The Riffs were often compared to the Black Spades and later the Zulu Nation which is what the Spades evolved into."

For all those who were critical of Americans for the low number of incidents against Muslims here read this article talking about Christians being killed in Pakistan.

CIA Weighs 'Targeted Killing Missions It is about time. What took them so long to figure this out? (Thanks to QuasiPundit for the link)

New Search Law Likely to Provoke Fourth Amendment Challenge due to broadness of the law. Remember, the provisions in the anti-terrorism law that was passed do not apply only to terrorism cases.

BlackElectorate.com has an excellent Op-Ed by Star Parker today. A good summary is given by her closing two sentences:
"Our nation must defend itself clearly and resolutely today against evil in any dress, in any form, and spoken in any language. We must defend the God given principles that make this a blessed and great country."

The restriction on smokers continues in LA where they are considering a ban in all public parks. If these people against smokers had any guts, they would try and ban it altogether, but they don't.
UPDATE: LA has become the smog capital of the U.S. The city with the worst smog in the country is trying to prevent low level exposure of second hand smoke.

The British back us up with 4,200 in military personel. Plus, they call it Operation Veritas which is a lot cooler than "Operation Enduring Freedom"

Over the past few days, I have been arguing with QuasiPundit.com over the complexity of this anthrax. He pointed me to this Washington Post article which talked about the Anthrax having additive such as Bentonite. Well, InstaPundit.Com points out that Bentonite is clay, the same kind used in kitty litter. I can't blame quasipundit for the Washington Post's reporting on this. I can quote InstaPundit.com who says the "Reporting on this subject, frankly, sucks."

UPDATE: OK This Anthrax does seem complex. I guess I was just trying to be overly optimistic. QuasiPundit is right on this.

Cato asks Will the War Kill the Bill of Rights? I don't know any way to say this but this is some serious shit. QUOTE:

"The Senate bill allows the government to conductsecret searches. This measure is not limited to terrorism cases. Rather, it would apply to federal government searches involving drugs, pornography, gambling, and everything else in the federal criminal code.
The federal government could covertly enter a person's house, copy the contents of his computer, and then break in the next month, and copy the hard disk again. To perform secret searches, the government would merely have to show that there "might" be an "adverse result" if the person found out about the search.
Of all the checks and balances in the Fourth Amendment, the most important is that the person who is searched knows that he has been searched. More so than any other person, he will have the incentive to complain (and, if necessary, to sue) if the search was in violation of the Constitution. Because judges don't come along when the police serve search warrants, judges have no practical way of knowing whether a search is conducted within the limits of the search warrant. In essence, secret searches put federal agents on the honor system.
While the solid majority of federal law enforcement agents arehonorable, some are not. And the records of the FBI,the DEA, the ATF, and the rest of the federal law enforcement bureaucracy over the past decades demonstrate that when power can be used, some agents will abuse it."

It sounds like the Senate decided to take the 4th Amendment and use it to wipe their but. Because that is what the legislation passed by the Senate does it shits on the 4th Amendment. Maybe I am going overboard but I don't think so. Let me quote from the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects , against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, sipported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seizd." In a land with laws like these, I can teach constitutional law, I would just have to say "The Constitution doesn't matter."

The Washington Post reports that it looks more and more like it may be a case of domestic terrorism. Josh Marshall reported this possibility several days ago by mentioning the fact that Islamic Terrorists are suicide bombers and would have had no problem claiming responsibility for their actions.

StrategyPage.com is reporting U.S. intelligince thinks not all of the terrorists knew it was a suicide mission.

The L.A. Times has an article on why the U.S. can win a ground war that the US can not:

"The Soviet military and the U.S. Special Forces are just simply not analogous forces. The elite American teams are a modern, professional fighting force."

Afghanistan was Russia's vietnam. If Russia had put the resources and been equiped to win the war, they would have. The Russian military was not properly outfitted for the condition though. The U.S., however, is prepared and ready.

The FBI is using 9/11 as an excuse to wiretap the Internet. (via Drudge (After thinking about it it seems like an excuse to move from a free-market internet to a centrally planned internet. And we all know how well central planning works.)
Update Glenn Reynolds points out that this would create a system that would be easier for terroriststs to attack. QUOTE:

"Hmm. Take a decentralized architecture designed to survive a nuclear war, and centralize it. What do you get? A big fat target for terrorists. If you could damage one or more of those "central servers" you could bring the economy to a halt. (And the bottlenecks created by this architecture would probably slow things down enough to do the terrorists' work for them. Or is this really an RIAA stalking-horse?)"

Lockheed just signed contract with the federal government to produce The Joint Strike FighterThe Joint Strike Fighter

Be Patriotic and Get a Flu Shot! So we don't have emergency rooms filled with people who think they have Anthrax. (via QuasiPundit

This comic on Salon.com shows perfectly how we can defeat the Taliban; by being Americans.

JAYZ's Blueprint a classic? Contrabandit.com thinks so

Bush signs anti-terror bill Boo! I want my small government Bush back!

Well, we went to war thinking 5,000 died in New York. I hope people think it is still worth going to war for 3,000 as The Gaurdian is claiming the number is closer to.

InstaPundit.Com points to this article calling for the arming of pilots. John Fund asks why we let 73,000 federal agents fly armed, but not the one flying the plane.

InstaPundit.Com is right. Slate's redesign does suck.

Davey D points out the scary points in the "anti-terrorism" law which Bush has signed. Quote:

1. Allow for indefinte detention of non-citizens, even if they have succesfully challenged a government effort to deport them. 2. Minimize judicial supervision of federal telephone and Internet surveilance by law enforcement authorities. 3. Expand the ability of the government to conduct secret searches. 4. Give the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and block any non-citizen who belongs to them from entering the counrty. Under this provision, paying membership dues to such an organization would become a deportable offense. 5. Grant the FBI broad access to sensitive business records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime. 6. Lead to large-scale investigations of American citizens for "intelligence" purposes.
"If I happen to be a member of a group that opposes George Bush or any of his policies will that group be labeled a terrorist organization and thus its member become subjected to far reaching secret surveillance activities? Do you think that the new laws now granted to police won't be abused? "

Davey D continues bringing up the point of the Zulu Nation, a peacefull organization who was arrested in New York after mentoring youth in a park in NYC. Later, the NYPD labeled them as a gang. Can the FBI eventually use laws like this to look over various American citizens they may not agree with.

Is street cred really something to be learned in the classroom? Stanford has decided to have a course teaching hip-hop lingo.

U.S. citizens were not happy with the idea of National ID cards so Kyl and Feinstein have decided to see if the public is happy to impose them on all Imigrants

Andrew Sullivan reports, what I myself have seen, New York is getting back to normal.
"Well, it was great to see New Yorkers jerking people around again - uplifting actually."
His comparison of NYC with D.C. is great:
"The place seems far calmer than D.C. My pet theory is that it's because most people in this city have real jobs and don't have to think about the war all day long."

Bush has appeared to break his campaign promise on "nation building"
The United States and the United Nations have reportedly reached an agreement wherein air strikes against Taliban frontline positions will be forestalled until an agreement has been reached for a.S.-led transitional authority in Afghanistan, the Financial Times reported.

John McWhorter gives a goot critique of Tupac and hip-hop. I think he becomes overly critical at points but I have never understood the saint like treatment given to Tupac. The kind of praise that goes out to Tupac does not go out to Rakim or many other artists who don't live a double persona. I think Tupac may have been deep though and just played up the thug image as a way to be more "real" with hip-hop.

fungible= interchangable

autarky= national economic indipendince

The Russians Are Coming! ...To help us that is. CNN.com - Russia is sending tanks to aid anti-Taliban forces

The problem with the terrorism bill: It's not about Terrorism

Hastert really looks like a wimp for whining about the Senate staying open. This is just an excuse for Hastert to rant about the Democrats while still not looking too bad.

MichaelKinsley has an article today in Slate that basically asks Bush to cave on everything. Sorry Kinsley, I don't think it is going to happen.
Kinsley Demands:
"1. Appoint Democrats" See the idea of winning a Presidential election is so you can appoint people.
"2. Stop Picking on Your Predecessor" Oh, so Clinton never said anything thing bad about the Republicans? But I don't think the Adminstration has been picking on Clinton.
"3. Apologise." Kinsley asks for Bush to apologise for being against nation building during his campaign and now preaching a differint tone. Bush has not been preaching a differint down. I don't think Rumsfield, Cheney, Powell or Bush want to do any nation building.

What's with the new look on Slate

The EU has had enough time on its hands to declare that Santa's reindeer must be female.

Can anyone really vote green seeing as how they have considered a ban on water.

I have to agree with Fredrik Norman that I too find myself preferring Tony Blair to Lew Rockwell

Blog of the Day has recognised me as the blog of the day today.

The Roots having problems with MCA? That is what SOHH.com is reporting. The article would have appeared in this month's XXL but MCA/Universal threatened to stop advertising. (What HipHop magazine could appear "real" with no involvement of Rawkus artists?)

Micheal Lynch very wisely makes the argument that the reason things are so difficult for the Arabs is simply a lack of freedom.

Matt Welch puts it clearly those who constantly continue to diss the U.S. are pessimists and there is a lot to be optimistic amount.

NY Senate approves gambling expansion - October 25, 2001 Due to 9/11 and already existing comments New York has decided to expand gambling to raise some revenue.

The Pentagon is asking for help from it citisens. Heretical Ideas "A free nation, that is asking for the voluntary cooperation of its citzens, whom it encourages to be creative and unorthodox, will always, in the long run, defeat closed and rigid societies."

InstaPundit.Com quotes Professor Eugene Volckh of UCLA. QUOTE

"...It now turns out that the great danger is anonymous speech in a far older medium, the post office."

I encourage you to sign this petition extending the moratorium on taxes on the internet. (Thanks to Tony Adragna for helping me fix this link.)

I find Stetsasonic's "Freedom Or Death" very relevant right now.

StrategyPage.com is reporting that Syria has received a seat on the UN Security Council. I can not understand why the US would not block this. The only possibility I can think of would be to make the UN look bad.

Josh Marshall thinks the Anthrax letters may still not be connected to al-Quaeda. QUOTE:

Using the mail is an excellent delivery system for someone who wants to avoid detection or danger to themselves. But Al Qaeda seems to operate bysuicide bombers. The incubation period of Anthrax makes it hard to compare this to truck bombs in terms of dying in theattack. But still. Isn't the very caginess of this means ofattack a bit odd?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there aren't good logical reasons for assuming a direct 9/11-Al Qaeda connection. And I wonder too whether some of my doubts may be wishfulhinking.

InstaPundit.Com is reporting that one of the reasons the Taliban has received very little opposition is because they had confiscated all firearms in Afganistan to make it peacefull.

Despite Larry Ellison's wishes, the idea of a National ID program is failing to attract supporters.

Findlaw.com offers a commentary on the Bert and Bin Laden poster.

Six people have been treated for anthrax in D.C. QuasiPundit is completely right on this:
Congress' retreat was an overreaction, but surveying their chambers was prudent - DC area postal workers should've gotten the same consideration. .

I belive the bad grammer and the references to Allah being great rule out domestic terrorism. Theese documents show what the terrorists really think.

Todd Lindberg says we must fight through Ramadan. If we stop fighting during Ramadan, he argues, it will clearly appear that we have been fighting against Islam.
He points out Muslims have always fought each other during Ramadan:
The Prophet Muhammad fought during Ramadan to reclaim Mecca in 624. Anwar Sadat's Egypt launched war on Israel in 1973 during Ramadan. Iran and Iraq, during their brutal eight-year war in the 1980s, fought through the corresponding eight holy months. In 1981, Saddam Hussein's Iraq offered a cease-fire for Ramadan, but the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran rejected it; both the offer and the rebuff likely had far more to do with the pursuit of military advantage than religious sentiment. In 1995, militant Algerian groups rebelling against the government called for stepped-up attacks during Ramadan; 1,500 people had been killed during the holy month the previous year. In Afghanistan itself during the period of Soviet occupation, resistance forces continued to press their attacks through the holy months.

If it is okay for Muhammad to do, it should surely be okay for the U.S. to do it. He continues:
There is, in fact, no formal Islamic prohibition on fighting during Ramadan. And out of deference to the rigors of
armed combat, the requirement of day-long fasting has long been waived for warriors.

Donny Ferguson Online gives ample reason for the police and fire fighters booing Hillary:
A large urban assault vehicle in her entourage ran down and injured a New York security officer in an attempt to bypass a mandatory airport security checkpoint. (Westchester County P.D. but he has the right idea.)

We need "By All Means Necessary and if violince is necessary to obtain peace, so be it. KRS-ONE provides one of the best counters to those peacniks against the bombing in Afghanistan.
QUOTE:
"By all means necessary that peace is the name of this game
Whether peace by war, or peace by peace, the reality of peace is scary. But we must get there, one way or another, by all means necessary."
-Boogie Down Productions "Necessary"

The Post Office Continues despite actual anthrax deaths. Congress continues to look like wimps.

The Taliban are hiding in civilian structures to avoid the bombing.

This has included keeping tanks in a mosque compound. A clear sign that the religion of Islam does not have a thing to do with theese fanatics beliefs.

This terrorist hunting license does not go too far. Although it is a little bit of taking the idea of "letters of marque" a little far.

"We agree with the district court that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to privately keep and bear their own firearms that are suitable asindividual, personal weapons and are not of the general kind or type excluded by Miller, regardless of whether the particular individual is then actually a member of a militia."
-Judicial Activism sure is great when it is on your side. Read the rest of the U.S. Court of Appeals decision for Emmerson v. US

The mob may be cashing in on the current situation according to StrategyPage.com.
Quote:
With the FBI focusing on terrorism, New York mob families are cashing in. Not only are they not under as much scrutiny from the Feds, but their two biggest rackets are construction and garbage hauling, two industries in high demand.