New motto

I decided to change the motto. "Life without baseball" seemed inappropriate now that a new season is here and I'm going to be able to watch 250 games this season! I can't tell you how much my family is looking forward to that.

So, I went back to one of my favorite quotes. Originally, the quote referred to the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, who was sent to London by President Washington to negotiate a deal with Britain in 1794 (summary here at bottom}. In the mid-1790's there was still a lot of aggro between the new USA and Britain. Jay got a deal that got British forts off American soil and ended British harassment of American shipping.

However, the Jeffersonians were outraged because other grievances (British incitement of indians, searches for deserters on American ships & compensation for slaves taken by the British during the Revolution) weren't dealt with.

The full slogan was "Damn John Jay! Damn every that won't damn John Jay!! Damn every one that won't put lights in his windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!!!" — grafitti on a Boston wall.

Irish-American Votes & the Bush visit

To Patricia McKenna, MEP, Green Party:

{I am paraphrasing here, so please overlook my poor grammar.}

There's no Irish-American votes to be had in Ireland, either.

And, that goes for all you other politicians, protestors, journalists, bloggers, etc.

I want you all to buck up because what I'm going to say next will probably upset you greatly:

The number of Irish-Americans whose vote will be swung by Bush's welcome or otherwise in Ireland is so small that it is statistically ZERO!

Yes, you have that right. Pretty pictures of the west of Ireland or wherever are not going to get Bush reelected.

That doesn't mean his trip here has no political implications, but those implications have more to do with the perception of the Bush administration's relations with EU leaders, not Ireland. If the meeting took place in Brussels or in the Azores, it would have the same implications.

Baseball in Afghanistan

I mentioned yesterday that baseball had gone global, but I hadn't realized the "Field of Dreams" had been transplanted to eastern Afghanistan.

{Thanks to Frinklin for this link.}

Richard Clarke & politics

Dick is still trying to come to grips with Richard Clarke and his testimony to the 9/11 Committee. Dick, a few things to bear in mind.

1. Clarke was a "big man" in the Clinton admin and was effectively demoted when Bush came in. Human nature being what it is, he's bound to bear a grudge.
2. This report from September 2000 does not paint a picture of the "well-oiled" anti-terrorism machine that Clarke would like us to believe the Clinton administration was.
3. Clarke's rather self-serving portrait of all that went right with regards to the planned attack on Los Angeles does beg the question as to what happened when the embassies were attacked in Africa or when the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen.
4. And, from this report by the Montreal Gazette, it seems to me that stopping the Los Angeles Airport attack was more down to dumb luck (the attacker's nerves) than anything that R. Clarke did. {Note how the customs officials behaved as if they'd scored a drug smuggler. By the way, this report is one from a long series on Ahmed Ressam, the LAX bomber, who lived in Montreal.}

Whether Bush is doing harm to himself or not is debatable. I think the more he keeps September 11 in the public's mind, the more he wins. That's why I believe that the Bush team will hesitantly respond to the 9/11 Committee. They want this thing to drag out as much as possible. Dick Morris has the numbers in today's NY Post.

And, Dick, one more thing. Don't worry yourself with rumors about rumors.

Casey at the bat

Two towns battle it out to be known as the Mudville, where the Mighty Casey did strike out.

{Note the traditional Irish road sign pointing at Casey.}

Taiwan vs. Hong Kong

The Washington Times argues that the election mess in Taiwan illustrates how healthy democracy is there. And, when compared with with recent developments in Hong Kong, how much better off Taiwan is "outside" China's umbrella arrangement of "One Country/Two Systems".

Second hand spittle

I mentioned back in August that I was against the smoking ban. I'm no more in favor of it now that it has come to pass than I was then.

However, other than hearing that the ban had come into effect, I hadn't paid too much attention to the details of the law. According to Kieron Wood, the following are also banned (indoors, in a public space):

1. having an unlit cigarette in your mouth
2. sniffing a cigar
3. chewing or sucking on any tobacco product

I guess the Minister was protecting workers from that second hand sniff or spittle, huh?

Wind farms - noise polluters

This is from more than a month ago (okay, I get behind sometimes), but it seems that wind farms put out some serious noise. I had heard something about this before, but this quote really struck me

One of the myths put out by the industry is that a wind farm sounds like a stream from 50 yards. We've got a stream running through our garden and if you stand by it, you can hear the whooshing of the turbines above the water. I've lived the same distance from the M3 and that didn't bother me anything like as much as the wind farm.

Of course, environmentalists don't care because you shouldn't be living in the countryside anyway.

Olympic security

The Times (of London) had an article this morning indicating that American athletes were worried about security at the summer games in Athens. Nothing surprising about that, I suppose.

What I did find interesting is that those athletes who do not HAVE to participate in the Olympics were the ones who seemed most worried. Basketball and tennis stars are concerned and considering whether to go or not, while track and swimming athletes are trying to "limit the distractions". For the Williams sisters or members of the "Dream Team" (that name should be retired - there was only one Dream Team and they played in Barcelona; every US Olympic basketball team since then has merely been the best the NBA could offer. They couldn't hold a candle to that first team.) the Olympics are not much more than a marketing opportunity, an optional extra. That's why they're so sanguine about not going. I don't think it will really bother them much if they can't make it.

Al Qaeda & "the Irish"

Seaghán Ó Murchú writing in The Blanket about Irishman Sean Ó Cealleagh, who is threatened by deportation from America, made use of assumptions that are long-standing (maybe stereotypes is more accurate?), but may no longer be valid.

Refusing to let Ó Cealleagh remain in his new homeland, in the name of a supposed heightened “security,” saves nobody. If terrorists lurk to overthrow the U.S., I doubt that they will be found among Irish émigrés.

I know that Irish-Americans would agree with that assumption without a second thought.

BUT, what if that isn't true? Front page of the Sunday Business Post this week had the following headline, "Madrid bombing suspect was educated in Ireland". Now, when I read this article something about it made me feel that this guy probably isn't involved in the Madrid bombing, but he could be. The article doesn't mention whether the suspect carries an Irish passport, but he did do his inter and leaving certs here. That means he spent a good few years here as a teenager.

Further down in the article, this passage was even more alarming:

In 2002, it emerged that a man with an Irish passport had attended a secret meeting in Spain with Mohammed Atta six months before the attacks on the World Trade Center.

As much as I'd like to believe that no Irish emigrant could pose a serious risk to the US, I can't accept that unquestionably. Holders of UK, French and other EU countries' passports all represent a threat to the US. Why not Ireland? If not today, then tomorrow. It's a certainty.

Not every Irish émigré is going to be a "freckly-faced Catholic". The old assumptions are no longer valid.

Global baseball

I know most Irish people believe that baseball is a peculiarly American sport and to a large extent it is. However, yesterday I was watching the Hanshin Tigers beat the NY Yankees in an exhibition game ("friendly") from Tokyo and it was striking how global baseball is now.

Half the Yankees seem to be from Latin America. Of course, the most popular Yankee in Japan is Hideki Matsui. The Tigers had an Australian pitcher.

But, it was when the broadcasters mentioned this summer's Olympics that I was struck by the international spread of baseball. They reminded me that the US didn't qualify for this year's Olympics. Talk about shame!

O'Hanlon & R. Clarke

Michael O'Hanlon is a regular on RTE and not a "Bush cronie". Here's what he has to say about Richard Clarke's charges

I'm not aware of anything specific that Clark recommended we do before September 11 that really could have stopped this. If one had been a lot more vigilant, there are things we could have done but it's easy to say that in retrospect.

As for Bush's determination that Clarke go back and recheck Iraq's possible involvement in September 11:

I can't fault Bush on that one," Mr. O'Hanlon says. "I don't think there was such a link, but who could be against a rigorous attempt to make sure?

I wonder if RTE will be interviewing O'Hanlon on Clarke's charges?

"The stakes are too high"

Those are the words of Representative Peter King and explain why he will not apologize for referring to Muslim leaders in the US as "extremists" who constitute "an enemy living amongst us." The Daily News agrees with King.

"Trigger-happy"

Some interesting history and a complete "in your face" on Green Party MEP Patricia McKenna by Ryle Dwyer in today's Irish Examiner.

Clarke on pre-emption

An editorial in today's Toronto Globe & Mail brings a good helping of common sense and reason to the Richard Clarke & September 11 debate. To those who are now praising Mr. Clarke, they point out the inconvenient little fact that the strategy that Mr. Clarke is championing is "pre-emption".

The editorial also tackles Clarke's criticism of the decision to attack Iraq. Clarke believes this was a mistake, but the Globe & Mail illustrates the other inconvenient fact that

surely the lesson of Sept. 11 is that you can't wait. The Clinton administration failed to act forcefully against al-Qaeda because it had no solid proof of an impending attack. The proof came in a burst of flame over Lower Manhattan. The Bush administration decided it could not risk another event like that. It had to take the fight to the enemy. Some of his advisers said he should go after Mr. Hussein right away, but Mr. Bush went to Afghanistan first and waited till March of 2003, a year and a half after Sept. 11, to take on Iraq.

Even if Mr. Clarke disagreed with that decision, in a sense Mr. Bush was only doing what he advised: acting pre-emptively against a gathering threat.

This is why I have such a problem with these public hearings. As much as I sympathize with the families of those who died on September 11, these hearings are not about discovering who didn't do what so that the families have someone they can blame (when really, only Osama bin Laden and his underlings can be truly blamed).

The whole point of these hearings is to learn, so that we can be better prepared next time. We need to know what offensive and defensive strategies we can employ that will lessen the likelihood that we'll have another attack of similar scale or worse.

All this politicking is just garbage. It's unseemly, unhelpful and un-patriotic.

Neither administration did all it could to prevent September 11, but they did do all that they considered reasonable given what intelligence, etc. they had. Could the attacks have been prevented? Yes. Could the hijackers have been prevented from entering the country? Yes. Could airport and airline security have been better? Yes. Could the military have invaded Afghanistan & dismantled the terrorist training camps before September 11? Yes.

These things didn't happen for many reasons. We were caught off guard. It should not have happened, but more importantly, it cannot be allowed to happen again.

And, while I'm at it . . .

What I'm really trying to accomplish (see directly below) is to get all my old work files off the old PC by establishing a network with the new PC and (a) install Linux on a partition just to see if I can and (b) turn the machine over to my children so that they can play their 5+year old computer games. The games don't really work either, I think because the PC is not really able to interpret the simple graphics that these games use. So, if anyone knows where I might get the graphics update I need (is that a graphics card?) to run games designed to run on Win95 that would be a great help.

Techie wannabee

That's probably how I should describe myself. Ideally I want to be a knowledgeable PC-tinkerer who has no fear and doesn't mind getting his "hands dirty" inside the box. I want to be able to resolve all resolvable problems at minimal expense.

I am probably a short way down that road, but I don't know anywhere near enough to really do the things I want.

A while ago I bought an ethernet card and I am now trying to make that work in my Windows95 machine. Does anyone know if this is even possible? So far, I have the card physically installed, but it's not being recognized when I start the machine. The paltry supporting documents, etc. that came with the card seem to indicate that it will work in a Win95 machine, but I'm unconvinced.

Anyway, the documentation is telling me to check the BIOS for duplicate entries in the interrupts. Well, as a techie wannabee I know how to get into the BIOS and have made some minor changes in the past, but I have no idea where to look to check these interrupts. And, I really don't know what to look for.

Still, I'd rather play this game any day rather than change the oil in my car.

Clarke vs Clarke

When Time turns against a Bush-basher, you know it's not going to get any better for him.

The accounts of high-level conversations and meetings given by Clarke in various television appearances, beginning with the 60 Minutes interview, differ in significant respects from the recollections of a former top counterterrorism official who participated in the same conversations and meetings: Richard Clarke. In several cases, the version of events provided by Clarke this week include details and embellishments that do not appear in his new book, Against All Enemies. While the discrepancies do not, on their own, discredit Clarke's larger arguments, they do raise questions about whether Clarke's eagerness to publicize his story and rip the Bush Administration have clouded his memory of the facts.

Encyclopedia

I'll be 40 on my next birthday. Anyone interested in getting me a present, well . . . this would certainly be welcome! I imagine the postage to Ireland might be on the steep side, however.

Richard Clarke — whistleblower or hornblower?

Mr. Clarke is making big news, which can only help his book's sales. However, it's only 3 days since his appearance on 60 Minutes and already he's beginning to look pretty foolish.

Bloggers are checking every word he has written and spoken to see if they can find any inconsistencies or worse. John Cole seems to have found Clarke telling an "untruth" during 60 Minutes the other night. Maybe this "untruth" is only small beer, but now it seems that Clarke is telling a completely different story to the one he told in 2002.

. . . the Bush administration decided then, you know, mid-January [2001], to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.

The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies — and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals.

Over the course of the summer — last point — they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance.

So the Bush team, pursued the existing policy vigorously, looked at untried possible options left over from the Clinton term, increased CIA resources 5 fold, and drafted a whole new strategy to deal with al Qaeda by early Sep. 2001. This is what he refers to when he claims that Bush failed to act against al Qaeda despite repeated warnings from intelligence officials about a looming terrorist attack?

Do you think the Boston Globe ("Clarke's disclosures are a healthy antidote to the malady of an imperial presidency) or the Irish Times ("Mr Clarke carries undoubted authority as a counter-intelligence officer for more than 30 years who served under four successive presidents in the White House as policy co-ordinator on the subject") will want to reassess? And, there are many other examples. Oh well. Looks like GW Bush will slip out of this one pretty easily.

John Podhertz's summation on Clarke — a self-regarding buffoon — seems pretty accurate.