Lighting Up NJ Cigarette Smokers

Corzine is looking to balance the budget through better taxation. Namely raising the price for a pack of cigarettes to $3 per pack.

That would be the highest in the nation.

The current tax of $2.40 per pack is topped only by Rhode Island's $2.46, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators. The tax is expected to generate more than $600 million for New Jersey during the current budget year, which ends June 30.

New Jersey's cigarette tax has been increased three times since 2002. Before that it stood at 70 cents per pack.

Anthony Coley, Corzine's spokesman, declined to comment on the prospect of a cigarette tax hike but said, "Our spending cuts will be more significant than any revenue-raisers."

"The cuts will be deep, painful and significant. They will hurt," Coley added. He confirmed that municipalities, who received $1.8 billion this year, will not receive a projected $82 million increase and could face some small cuts, which he would not specify.

One way to solve the state's fiscal crisis is to simply eliminate the property tax rebate program and the increase to that program. That would save nearly $2 billion. But that's not going to happen because Corzine would much rather raise taxes than cut programs, especially ones he touted in campaign promises.

Prosecutors Seek Reversal on Moussaoui Ruling

When Judge Brinkema ruled that witnesses could not testify in the penalty phase of this trial, it threw the US prosecutor's case in doubt. They even openly admitted that if this ruling were to stand, there was no real chance of success.

So, we now learn that the US prosecutors are calling for Brinkema to reconsider her decision. This is the right move on their part, even if it is only the first step. If the decision is overturned, those witnesses will be able to testify, but if they fail to convince Brinkema to allow the witnesses to testify, they will have to file an emergency appeal with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to salvage their case.

Brinkema did not immediately respond to the motion for reconsideration that prosecutors filed Wednesday evening. But she had indicated earlier she had time available Thursday to hear such a motion if it were filed.

The jury has been sent home until Monday to give prosecutors time for their next step.

Brinkema barred prosecutors from submitting any witnesses or exhibits about aviation security. Prosecutors responded in their motion that this evidence "goes to the very core of our theory of the case.

At the very least, the prosecutors argued, they should be allowed to present a newly designated aviation security witness who had no contact with Carla J. Martin, the Transportation Security Administration lawyer responsible for the government's misconduct. This would "allow us to present our complete theory of the case, albeit in imperfect form."

"The public has a strong interest in seeing and hearing it (aviation security evidence), and the court should not eliminate it from the case, particularly not ... where other remedies are available," they wrote Brinkema.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 106

Absolutely disgraceful. There's no other way to put it. Gov. Pataki ought to be ashamed of the way he and his advisors have handled the rebuilding at Ground Zero. And now they're taking potshots at Silverstein because talks between the two sides failed to reach an agreement by yesterday's self-imposed deadline.

That throws the entire rebuilding process of the office towers at the complex in doubt.

If Pataki wants to know why we're still looking at a mostly empty pit at Ground Zero, look in the mirror. He forced the Port Authority to accept the Libeskind master plan, which included putting the Freedom Tower at what many now consider the least desirable location for the office towers. The Church Avenue corridor towers, which are on the most desirable locations are the sites that will likely be constructed last, despite the fact that those locations would cut off the rest of the site as construction progresses and the transit hub and memorial are built.

It makes no sense, but some want to push the blame on Silverstein, who has only tried to get the buildings rebuilt. He's the only one out of the entire group who has actually rebuilt any permanent structures at the site. Yet, that's exactly what Gargano and Pataki has done - despite the fact that the two sides weren't that far apart:

Both sides agree that the framework was in place for a deal that gave Silverstein the rights to develop buildings 2, 3 and 4 - the most commercially desirable - while the PA took over the Freedom Tower and a proposed fifth tower. The PA would also get about $1 billion of the $2.6 billion insurance payout Silverstein received from the destruction of the towers.

Gargano told The Post's Steve Cuozzo that Silverstein's pre-midnight demand was for more of the insurance money if his construction costs went up - but no added insurance money if the PA's construction tab zoomed. Gargano also said Silverstein wanted double the $350 million rent reduction offered by the Port Authority.

Silverstein's rent on the 16-acre parcel will hit $125 million a year on July 1. The lease lasts 99 years. Lieber said, "There was probably a 3 percent difference between the parties."

Meanwhile, the state is able to come up with $125 million to build a gondola connecting lower Manhattan with Governor's Island, which would open up the island to development and economic opportunities. Considering that the reason Lower Manhattan needs serious economic assistance is because of the destruction of the WTC complex, the state must find a way to get this deal done with Silverstein.

The NY Post editorial page comments and supports Silverstein in his battle with Pataki. Incurious George. The Gothamist also notes the descent of this battle into a war of words.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.

Reading and Misreading Polls

The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll finds the Democratic Party leading the Republican Party 55% to 39% among registered voters in the generic congressional ballot. Gallup asks this question to get a sense of how people will vote in this year's elections for the U.S. House of Representatives.

This is the largest lead Democrats have held over Republicans in the 2006 campaign thus far, and the largest lead Democrats have enjoyed among registered voters in a midterm election since 1982. In the 1992 presidential campaign, Democrats led Republicans by 20 percentage points following the Democratic national convention that year. Once likely voter turnout models are applied -- something usually done later in the campaign -- the Democrats' advantage on the generic ballot is reduced given higher turnout rates among Republicans than Democrats. Still, a lead of this size would suggest a solid Democratic advantage among likely voters and the likelihood of Democratic seat gains.

Just what exactly are these polls actually asking? We've got one poll that claims that 55% of Americans would think that Democrats in charge of Congress would be better. 39% think that Republicans would be better. Despite the gloss and hype, this poll, like most all other polls, doesn't mean a whole lot.

Why?

Simple.

Registered voters do not vote for Congress. They vote for their local Congressman or Congresswoman or Senator. They do not vote on the entire makeup of Congress. And if you were to poll on the individual candidates, and not the Congress as a whole, you'd find that most registered voters are mostly satisfied with their representatives.

Try reframing the questions as to whether they'd want to change their own representative so that Congress reflects a Democratic majority, and you'd not only get a different answer, but it would undermine the whole rationale of these kinds of polls.

Republicans currently hold a 231 to 201+1 advantage in the House. 55 to 45 in the Senate. How many of those seats are truly seats with competitive elections with a good chance of the seats shifting. In the House, you need at least 15 seats to change hands to give the Democrats an advantage. In the Senate, 6 must change hands to give Democrats the edge.

Are there simply enough people retiring in the Senate to give the Democrats the edge? Larry Sabato has a few ideas, and while he thinks that Democrats may gain seats, it doesn't look like it would be enough to win in the Senate.

Are You Ready For Tax Hikes in NJ?

Say your prayers rabbits because we're gonna be seeing some serious tax increases in New Jersey.

Gov. Jon Corzine is planning more than $2 billion in spending cuts, along with major tax increases that could include an additional penny to the sales tax, to balance the next state budget, a top administration official said yesterday.

The cuts include $100 million from higher education and a freeze on state aid for most school districts. That would increase the pressure on municipal officials to raise property taxes and on colleges to raise tuitions.

The cuts are a fraction of the $28 billion budget and don't even scratch the surface of the structural debt inflicted on New Jersey taxpayers by the McGreevey and Codey administrations and their prodigious spending and use of gimmicks to 'balance' the annual state budgets.

Instead, New Jersey has to repeatedly look to raising taxes to just make ends meet. New Jersey imposed a wide ranging and comprehensive overhaul of the corporation business tax in 2002, and the state's fiscal status has not improved with the additional revenue that has come in because spending has continued to outpace revenues.

And even with the tax increases, it's not a given that we'll end up with a balanced budget:

"You are going to hear the howling near and far," said the official, who is familiar with the budget planning and discussed it on condition of anonymity.

The official said Corzine has not settled on the mix of tax increases but that they will generate less than $2 billion. The source said it is "likely but not definite" they will include sales tax changes.

Four other Democratic sources said the governor, who personally briefed Democratic leaders on the budget Monday, is considering raising the 6 percent sales tax to 7 percent and extending it to some untaxed services. Those two moves alone could net about $1.4 billion.

And for someone who claims to want to help the little guy, Corzine's sales tax increases will adversely affect lower class and middle class taxpayers disproportionately. So, how does Corzine deal with that? Raise taxes in other areas to lessen the burden on those citizens at the lower end of the economic spectrum, which may even things out at the bottom, but the higher income taxpayers are getting hosed. As are the higher income municipalities who see less state aid for education and must raise taxes to balance their own budgets.

Nothing is set in stone, but needless to say Corzine will find it easier to raise taxes than he will in cutting the bloated state budget in any meaningful and structural manner that will improve the state's fiscal picture going forward.

And one of the things New Jersey taxpayers ought to look at is whether their representatives are giving taxpayers their money's worth.

EnlightenNJ has more.

Saddam Suit Against Coalition Members Tossed

Europe's human-rights court yesterday threw out a lawsuit filed by Saddam Hussein against 21 European nations who fought in Iraq, saying the case is outside its jurisdiction.
Saddam said his arrest, detention and handover to the Iraqi authorities and the ongoing trial in Baghdad breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

The mass-murdering dictator said coalition forces had violated his right to life, liberty and security.

The European Court of Human Rights said the suit did not fall within the jurisdiction of any of the 21 nations cited.

If at first he doesn't succeed, he'll just try to find another court. And I'm sure Ramsey Clark and the hate America cadre will try their best to run these claims into any and every court they can think of.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 105

We're at a critical impasse between the Port Authority and Silverstein, which puts construction of the office towers in doubt. Construction is supposed to begin next month on the Freedom Tower, but without a deal on the construction of the other office towers at the complex, the whole schedule may be thrown off (and out).

Silverstein says that he's still willing to make some kind of a deal, but blames the Port Authority for walking away.

This is a huge mess, and is absolutely inexecusable. All we've seen and heard from Bloomberg for the past few months is that Silverstein doesn't have the money all while Silverstein says adamantly that he does. Silverstein's position rests on the ability to begin construction as soon as possible before costs rise beyond his cash on hand, the Liberty Bonds (some of which Bloomberg is using as a club to get his way on construction), and insurance proceeds.

Gargano says that Silverstein wasn't negotiating in good faith.

Sounds like lots of animus there, and this isn't going to get any better unless cooler heads prevail at the Port Authority and Governor's office. As of last nite, the latest proposal seems to shape up thusly:

Under a proposal discussed yesterday, the Port Authority, not Mr. Silverstein, would build the Freedom Tower, the least economically feasible of five skyscrapers. The authority would also take control of a second site for a tower that would be built at Greenwich and Cedar Streets, where the heavily damaged Deutsche Bank building still stands.

Mr. Silverstein, in turn, would develop what all sides view as the most desirable office sites for three towers and a shopping mall, next to the $2 billion PATH terminal under construction on Church Street.

A host of thorny money issues were involved in the negotiations, ranging from the allocation of $2.9 billion in insurance money to a recalibration of Mr. Silverstein's rent, which will rise to $125.25 million a year in July from $107.25 million, and his share of the infrastructure costs at ground zero.

According to people in the negotiations, the Port Authority rejected Mr. Silverstein's insistence that he retain the bulk of the insurance money and get a hefty reduction in his rent. At the same time, he has rebuffed the Port Authority's proposal for his share of infrastructure costs.

The NY Post has a bit more on the story, but I find Gov. Pataki's leadership laughable.

UPDATE:
Jen at Gothamist has more thoughts on the matter. She isn't amused by the way this whole mess is going.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.

Saddam Testifying or Pontificating

This isn't about Saddam testifying as to his crimes relating to Dujail where 148 Shi'ites were murdered after an assassination attempt on Saddam. It's about Saddam having face time before the judge to rail about the US, and whatever else comes to mind.

Mr. Hussein, the last of the defendants to testify, did not address the charges against of him, concerning the torture and killing of Shiite villagers in the 1980's.

He walked into the court, neatly dressed in a black suit and dark gray vest, put on a pair of glasses and began his testimony by reading from a written statement that essentially was an address to the country's insurgents.

"You were big in defending the country and you will always be big in my eyes," Mr. Hussein said. "You're defending your country against the occupation . I want you to stick to your virtues, your faith and your patience."

After more than half an hour, the chief judge ordered that the live broadcast of the trial be cut off. "This is something between you and the Americans," he said. "Don't involve the court in the struggle between you and the Americans."

Mr. Hussein's testimony concluded the second portion of the trial, in which he and seven other former government officials are charged with wrongly imprisoning and killing 148 men and boys from the Shiite village of Dujail after assassins there tried to gun down Mr. Hussein in 1982.

Saddam wants the terrorists to continue killing, which goes to show how little he cares for the rights of the Iraqis to live in peace. The terrorists aren't able to go after coalition forces with any great success, they're finding going after Iraqi forces to be getting more difficult by the day, so they're left with killing civilians in greater and greater numbers, which goes to explain the rising body count among civilian populations in the past week (which also coincides with the ongoing trial and Saddam's testimony).

UPDATE:
Ed Morissey notes that the judge cut off Saddam's pontificating rather quickly, and shows that this current judge has firm control over the proceedings. Saddam was able to get away with all kinds of shenannigans with the earlier judge, but that simply isn't possible now. And that means that this case will proceed far more efficiently and with a minimum of disruptions.

Taheriazar: It's In The Koran

The suspect in this month's attack on the UNC-CH campus has written a letter to ABC11 Eyewitness News. Eyewitness News received the letter Monday, in response to our request for an interview. It was sent from Central Prison in Raleigh and dated Friday, March 10. Addressed to ABC11 Eyewitness News anchor Amber Rupinta, the two-page letter includes Taheri-azar's explanation of what he was trying to accomplish in the attack.
"Allah gives permission in the Koran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one's life in obedience of all of Allah's commandments found throughout the Koran's 114 chapters..."

"The U.S. government is responsible for the deaths of and the torture of countless followers of Allah, my brothers and sisters. My attack on Americans at UNC-CH on March 3rd was in retaliation for similar attacks orchestrated by the U.S. government on my fellow followers of Allah in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic territories. I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead."

Again, we need to heed the words of this jihadist, who makes it abundantly clear that he justifies his actions because of his religious beliefs.

Taheriazar also must be rather myopic considering that the overwhelming number of deaths in the Middle East and South Asia are not caused by infidels killing Muslims, but by Muslims killing other Muslims who do not adhere to the same version of Islam as they do. Sunni killing Shi'ite. Shi'ite killing Sunni. Militant Islamists (Salafists and Wahabists) killing Sunni and Shi'a - to try and forment a civil war in Iraq. Ba'athists (who are Sunni Muslims) trying to kill their opponents (Kurds and Shi'a - both of whom are Muslims).

Also, there's the curious wording - "similar attacks orchestrated by the US"? We don't hear much about soldiers running down terrorists or civilian populations in Iraq or anywhere else for that matter, but we do hear plenty about Islamic terrorists using car bombs to blow up people waiting to get jobs or go to school or voting in elections.

Greyhawk has a roundup of views from Iraq on who's doing the killing - and by and large it's not the US doing the killing but Islamic terrorists killing other Muslims.

Others commenting on Taheriazar's statements: Charles at LGF, Ed Driscoll, and Small Town Veteran.

Katrina in Review

MSNBC is surprised that while many homeowners are slow in repaying mortgage payments on homes that were damaged or destroyed by Katrina, the number of foreclosures is still quite small. Government programs and bank programs are working to keep the number of foreclosures low:

The rate of new foreclosures in the fourth quarter was only 0.16 percent in Louisiana and 0.26 percent, compared with the national rate of 0.42 percent. In both states, the rate was at least three times as high in the comparable year-earlier period.

In Louisiana, for example, lenders began foreclosure proceedings on only 657 homes in the fourth quarter, compared with nearly 2,400 in the second quarter, the last full quarter before Katrina, according to the MBA figures. In Mississippi lenders began foreclosing on 576 properties, compared with 1,400 in the second quarter.

All told there are about 630,000 properties with mortgages in Louisiana and Mississippi, according to MBA figures, of which 123,000 were at least 30 days delinquent. In the New Orleans area alone, at least 95,000 residential structures, or two-thirds of the total, suffered damage totaling $8 billion to $10 billion, according to a previous study by the mortgage bankers.

The Washington Post also covers the mortgage repayment situation, though its link on the WaPo website highlights not the fact that foreclosure rates are low, but that the mortgage payments are lagging.

Then, there's the issue of the levees as noted by Paul at Wizbang. Did the Army Corps of Engineers know that there were problems in the 1980s? Well, that would seem to depend on which news report you read, but the actual reports seem to indicate that they did know that the problems encountered as a result of Katrina were a concern to the Corps back in the 1980s.

Right Winged also takes the Corps to task. These were the experts on who President Bush and his advisors relied upon. They didn't think that collapse or levee failures were a concern, and that translated into how the Administration handled matters. One way to look at this is that we're witnessing the civil engineering failure equivalent to the Challenger or Columbia failures. We're witnessing government agencies/departments trying to spin out of the fact that they knew, or should have known, of failures or inadequacies in the systems they were managing and either failed to anticipate those failures or minimized the risks despite evidence suggesting that the risks were far greater.

Llama Butchers has a novel choice for who to blame for the levee failures.

And the New York Times wades into the fray with a discussion over the difficulties of rebuilding a bridge between Ocean Springs and Biloxi. Biloxi wants a bridge that is far larger than the one it replaces, while Ocean Springs wants to rebuild the bridge as it was - to preserve the smaller community's way of life. That tension exists throughout the Gulf Coast, and some of the concerns can be addressed by statewide or regional planning.

Everyone wants it rebuilt as soon as possible. But officials on one side of the bridge — those in Biloxi — favor a large, multilane structure that can accommodate casino workers and the new horde of gamblers. On the other side, in Ocean Springs, officials want to restore the four-lane drawbridge that once spanned the bay, hoping to keep their French-colonized, tree-lined town the definition of quaint.

The debate over what should replace the Biloxi-Ocean Springs bridge in many ways illustrates the entire rebuilding effort along the Mississippi coast, where cities, drained of resources, infrastructure and people, struggle toward rebirth.

People are also catching on to the idea of doing working vacations - assisting the rebuilding of New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities doing charitable work instead of pure vacationing.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; katrina aid; kanye west; impeach bush; slidell; biloxi; gulfport; pascagoula; nagin; blanco; barbour.

Protecting Free Speech in New Jersey

That chill in the air is not the last gasp of winter. It’s New Jersey legislators trying to ice free speech on the Internet, according to advocacy groups who took aim at a pair of bills meant to curb anonymous postings.

In a joint letter sent yesterday to three assemblymen, the groups said bills A-1327 and A-2326 conflict with state and federal laws.

“... We urge you to withdraw your support for these troubling bills and not waste taxpayer resources defending laws that will inevitably be challenged in court and struck down,” the letter said. It was signed by representatives of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Public Citizen and the U.S. Internet Industry Association. Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist, and a pair of law professors also signed.

A-1327 would require operators of interactive Web sites to solicit identities of online participants; operators could be held liable for defamatory statements made on their sites.

Its sponsor, Assemblyman Peter Biondi (R-Somerset), has said his intention was to restore civility to forums at nj.com, a sister organization of The Star-Ledger. The lawmaker awaits a review of his bill from the state Office of Legislative Services, his office said.

The second bill isn't A-2326, but rather A-2623, which would require certain Internet operators to remove defamatory materials and to disclose account information to defamed individuals. This particular bill has two sponsors, neither of whom appear particularly well versed in the jurisdictional issues of trying to govern conduct on the Internet. A2623 should die a quick death alongside A1327 for trying to chill free speech.

My prior coverage: here and here.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Big Pharoah calls the Palestinians stupid. He's being far too kind.

The Palestinians are colossally stupid on a level previously unknown.

Israel goes and deals with a festering situation in a Jericho jail - namely dealing with six terrorists being held there under a 2002 agreement because the Palestinians were not living up to the obligations of that agreement. Among the six prisoners is one Ahmed Saadat, who is accused of assassinating an Israeli member of the Knesset, Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi. The Palestinians were threatening to release the six, in violation of the 2002 agreement.

There were US and British monitors at the jail to try and ensure compliance (namely that the Palestinians wouldn't simply leave the keys lying around for these six to head for the hills). The monitors left the jail for reasons that are still unclear, and Israel went in. After that, all hell broke loose at the jail and in Gaza.

The Palestinian response? They go after European aid workers in Gaza. Powerline writes:

Mr Saadat, who Israel blames for the assassination of a minister in 2001, has refused to surrender. [See the linked Jerusalem Post story below for the bacground: "Sa'adat, the secretary general of the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine is believed to have masterminded Ze'evi's assasination. He never stood trial but was included in the deal struck with the Palestinian Authority whereby he, together with five others involved in Ze'evi's murder would be transferred to Jericho jail where they would be supervised by British and US agents. Prior to their leaving Yasser Arafat's Mukata compound in Ramallah to be transferred to Jericho, Arafat held a kangaroo court in his office and sentenced the four cell members."]

Hamdi Koran, who pulled the trigger and was sentenced to 18 years hard labor, Basel al Amar, sentenced to 12 years hard labor, Majdi Rimawi to eight years and Ahed Gholam to one year.

A British cultural centre in Gaza has been set ablaze and an EU compound stormed, in what appears to be a response to events in Jericho.

A Palestinian official has said two French citizens have been kidnapped.

Hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza have been demonstrating against the Israeli operation in Jericho.

Palestinian militants from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Gaza City have warned US and UK nationals to leave the Palestinian territories immediately.

Where's the logic in all this? There is none, except that it's the same thing that the Palestinians do time and time again. They rant, rave, rampage, and rage against those who have done nothing against them.

Oh, and the six prisoners who claimed that they would never surrender alive? Well, they surrendered alive. LGF reports that the PFLP threatens more assassinations of Israeli officials.

UPDATE:
See Meryl Yourish and Vital Perspectives for more on today's incident at the Jericho prison and the background on the terrorists who Israel sought to keep under lock and key and the terrorists' backers and fellow travellers who want to continue with the carnage. Laurence Simon blogging at Meryl's also weighs in on the value of Palestinian agreements. I think he's thinking the Palestinians are full of crap.

Iran on the Precipice?

"London, Mar. 14 – Iranian authorities have imposed a de facto martial law in several volatile cities in the north-western province of Kurdistan as restive youths used the occasion of Iran’s traditional “fire festival” to hold anti-government protests, residents told Iran Focus by telephone on Tuesday.

"Agents of the paramilitary police, the Revolutionary Guards, and plainclothes agents of the secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, moved in to take control of the cities to limit unrest as people took to the streets.

"There is a heavy police presence at every major junction, square, and highway in and around the cities of Sanandaj, Piranshahr, and Mahabad and security forces are attempting to arrest any individual seeking to take part in protests...."

During the festival, known as ‘chaharshanbeh souri’ – literally, Feast of Wednesday – people jump over bonfires to “drive away evil”. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, however, Iran’s theocratic leaders have made strenuous efforts to stamp out the festivities, but to no avail. In recent years, there have been extensive clashes between festive crowds and the security forces deployed to prevent street celebrations. This year the event falls on March 14.

In Piranshahr, banks, police cars, and government buildings were set on fire as violent clashes erupted on Saturday between security forces and angry residents.

Protests began after agents of the State Security Forces (SSF) shot and killed a young man in his car at a stop-and-search point.

At least five police vehicles were set on fire during the clashes between young protesters and security agents.

Reports from the Kurdish city of Mahabad in north-western Iran said that widespread clashes had broken out on Friday between residents and security forces after a detained man was shot at point blank by security agents.

This is on the heels of a Washington Times report that Tehran elites are backing away from Ahmadinejad and his "reckless spending and needlessly aggressive foreign policies."

Within this context, many see the president's long-running confrontation with the United States and Europe over Tehran's nuclear program as an attempt to demonize the West and distract the Iranian public from pressing domestic problems.

A relatively small group of extremists "at the top of the government around the president" are seeking to benefit from a crisis with the West, because "that way they will be able once again to blame the West for all of their problems," said Mousa Ghaninejad, the editor of Iran's best-selling economics daily newspaper, Dunya Al-Eqtisad.

The problem is that we're only seeing a small group of people opposing Ahmadinejad and his rantings. There is no real good way to gauge Iran's sentiments towards its mullahs and Ahmadinejad.

UPDATE:
Wizbang is also on the case.

Initech Personnel: Exclusive Provider to CTU

Note to the reader: This is part of my roundup of the Fox show 24. Any attempts at humor are intentional. If you think that this is an Initech website, you're mistaken. Initech does not have a website. Only TPS reporting nodes.

Last night's episode of 24 reveals how CTU handles layoffs and disgruntled employees, not by letting people go on a Friday, as per the Initech human resources manual, but via a noxious and terminal dose of nerve gas.

We wish we had thought of this sooner.

It would have saved our customers many hours of heartbreak and encouraged workers to leave their jobs in a far more orderly and calm manner.

That said, now that CTU has various openings for new employees, we hope that the government considers Initech for personnel decisions. Our employees are highly motivated, require little in the way of additional training, and even have adorable red uniforms.

Some people may denigrate the red uniforms, but this is only because they're envious of the snazzy outfits. Our TPS v. 3.06.6.6 report indicates that the red uniforms encourage personnel to remain at their jobs longer than if they had no uniforms at all.

Also, Initech's review of the personnel status at CTU suggests a need for Crime Scene Cleaners Inc., a subsidiary of Initech. Without getting into details, we're looking for a few good men and women who have strong constitutions and even stronger stomachs to clean up following the 'incident at CTU LA.'

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 104

While some families continue their protest over the Memorial, Mayor Bloomberg had this to say:

"My sympathies are with those who aren't happy with the design, but I think it is, of the designs submitted, a good one. You could keep asking for designs for the next 20, 30 years and get different ones."

Quite true that we could continue to request different designs and never come to a consensus, but the notion that the current memorial design is a good one may be overreaching - by quite a bit.

Of course, the design was predicated on a Libeskind's master plan, which was panned at the outset, and only been ripped to shreds by pundits and developers ever since. And that master plan was based on design recommendations from the LMDC and Gov. Pataki. Therein lies the rub.

While today is a deadline between Silverstein and the Port Authority on a plan for the rest of the site, everything could be up for reconsideration in November when Pataki exits stage left and a new governor comes in and takes charge.

Right now, that appears to be Eliot Spitzer. What's his take on the WTC rebuilding and would he continue with the master plan or scrap everything in favor of something new? Spitzer is playing his cards on this quite close to the vest.

Nicole Gelinas notes that the site redevelopment comes down to educated guesses between billionaires. Do we take Silverstein's guess on the real estate market or that of Bloomberg?

Silverstein's plan for what he'd do with the bond money is straightforward: He says he wants to use those funds, along with his own insurance money from the 9/11 attack, to rebuild 10 million square feet of office space in four new towers at Ground Zero - thereby fulfilling the obligations of the 99-year lease he signed with the Port Authority six weeks before 9/11.

The mayor's objection is equally straightforward: Bloomberg says he's studied the economics of Silverstein's blueprint, and determined that the plan is impossible.

Bloomberg claims that it is a financial certainty that Silverstein will run out of money after building just two towers, and walk away from the rest of the project - irrevocably harming Downtown's recovery. Since this walkout is inevitable, argues the mayor, the city must use the one tool at its disposal (its control over half the Liberty Bonds) to try to force the Port Authority and Silverstein to restructure their lease now to prevent that from happening.

The mayor has released cash-flow charts and graphs to support his claim; Silverstein disputes that analysis. But the math is really all smoke and mirrors. The dispute comes down to the same question that must be answered in any real-estate venture, or any investment, for that matter: How much will the project cost, and is it worth that much?

Considering that Silverstein wants to build commercial and Bloomberg wants a mix of commercial and residential, both rely on forecasts of where the market is going to go. Both have to make predictions, and both can be wrong. Bloomberg's proposals would spread the risk to multiple developers to rebuild, even though they would still be constrained by the same market predictions. Pushing the site back into the hands of the Port Authority wouldn't make the market behave differently - it would only foist the costs of rebuilding on the Port Authority instead of a private developer.

Senator Chuck Schumer weighs in and complains about how the office space may end up going to the Port Authority and other government agencies. Well, history reminds us that the original WTC was similarly occupied in the early days before the market picked up and occupancy rates grew to nearly full occupancy of the towers.

While full office buildings are almost always good news, the limited supply will lead to prohibitively high rents throughout the city. CB Richard Ellis predicts that, if our growth stays on course, commercial vacancy rates could drop below 5 percent by 2008, and below 3 percent by 2009. And - in the trend of the last last 30 years - for every percentage-point drop in vacancy rates below 5 percent, rents rise 15.5 percent.

With rapidly rising rents, businesses will be hard pressed to stay in New York - and our prospects for attracting new industries will shrink.

We need to build office space for the future, and there is no better place to begin meeting this demand than at the World Trade Center site.

This site represents the last ready-to-build commercial project in Lower Manhattan. With the Calatrava transit hub and an impressive retail component, the new World Trade Center will be some of the most attractive office space in New York City. Furthermore, Downtown is likely to remain an affordable alternative to other business districts - new office space in Lower Manhattan is renting for around half the price of comparable Midtown space.

Instead of giving over the best parts of Ground Zero to government and luxury apartments, we need to build office buildings. When we build them, businesses will come. Yet we are at a logjam in the rebuilding process, with myriad new "solutions" that may pull us off this course.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.

Sudden Impact

So, Russ Feingold wants to censure President Bush over the NSA eavesdropping on terrorists who happen to transmit messages across our borders. Of course, the media wants to play up the fact that some US citizen might tangentially be involved, but the fact is that we're talking about a program, the facts of which have been spun by Democrats for political gain.

Feingold wants to censure the President for doing his job of protecting this country against terrorist attacks.

So what do the Republicans do? They attempt to schedule a vote on a censure motion to show that the Democrats are not only feckless, but that they're solely doing this for political gain.

Just as they did over the call to withdraw immediately from Iraq, the Democrats have gifted Republicans a rubber mallet to whack Democrats with. Democrats make statements that they simply do not believe in, and will not vote to support. It's not that the Republicans have distinguished themselves in this whole mess, it's that the Democrats have been so godawful that the Republicans look positively impressive by comparison.

Others blogging: Flopping Aces, Michelle Malkin, Below the Beltway, and Suitably Flip, [more to follow]

UPDATE:
Others blogging this include Captain Ed, Small Town Veteran, The Political Pit Bull, AJ Strata, and Confederate Yankee.

Democrats are clearly trying to spin out from under the Republican counter. They're trying to delay votes, claiming that they need more time to mount a response. Yeah, like that will help.

Releasing the Hounds

Over the weekend, the call to release the documents was made by President Bush. Looks like the call was heeded, and we're going to get the documents released after all. Millions of them.

What remains to be worked out are the mechanisms by which the documents will be released, the review of the documents for classified information, and how they will be released.

I'd say searchable .pdf files would be the best way.

Hat Tip: Little Green Footballs.

Arrest in Rafik Harari Assassination

A fugitive bank executive wanted for questioning in the U.N. probe of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination was arrested in Brazil Monday on an unrelated charge, authorities said.

The Lebanese consul general in Sao Paulo said Rana Abdel Rahim Koleilat, 39, was wanted in Lebanon for bank fraud. She also was being sought for questioning by the U.N.'s Independent International Investigation Commission, which is probing the truck bombing that killed Hariri and 20 other people in downtown Beirut last year, consul general Joseph Sayah said.

"It's vital that Miss Koleilat submit herself before the U.N. commission for questioning," Sayah said in a faxed statement to investigators that Brazilian police showed to reporters.

Sayah did not say why it was important for the panel to question Koleilat, and U.N. officials had no immediate comment.

Police inspector Nicanor Nogueira Branco said police acting on an anonymous tip found Koleilat Sunday in a furnished apartment at a hotel on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city.

Koleilat offered officers up to $200,000 to release her and was arrested on a charge of attempted bribery, Branco said.

Lebanese consular officials spent hours Monday inside the police station where Koleilat was being held, but declined to speak with journalists.

Koleilat made headlines in Lebanon and Europe for years in connection with questions about her role in the disappearance of $300 million from the private Medina Bank where she worked. The funds' disappearance was the worst financial scandal at a Lebanese bank since the country's 1975-90 civil war.

Harari's assassination awoke the Lebanese people from their slumber and silence in the face of Syrian occupation. The resulting Cedar Revolution (complete with Protest Babes), forced Syria to withdraw its uniformed soldiers. Baby Assad and his minions have been implicated in the assassination by the Mehlis Report.

Shaolin Fighting Cats

It's a short clip, but note the cat on the right side engaging in the Flying Crane style while the cat on the left uses the Eagle Claw style.

Moussaoui Trial In Doubt?

Defense attorney Edward MacMahon moved to have the judge dismiss the death penalty as a possible outcome, saying "this is not going to be a fair trial." In the alternative, he said, at least she should excuse the government's FAA witnesses from the case.

Prosecutor David Novak replied that removing the FAA witnesses would "exclude half the government's case." Novak suggested instead that the problem could be fixed by a vigorous cross-examination by the defense.

But Brinkema said she would need time to study what to do.

"In all the years I've been on the bench, I have never seen such an egregious violation of a rule on witnesses," she said.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country with the 9/11 attacks. He pleaded guilty in April 2005 to conspiring with al-Qaida to hijack planes and other crimes, but he denies any role in 9/11. He says he was training for a possible future attack.

Brinkema noted that last Thursday, Novak asked a question that she ruled out of order after the defense said the question should result in a mistrial. In that question, Novak suggested that Moussaoui might have had some responsibility to go back to the FBI, after he got a lawyer, and then confess his terrorist ties.

Brinkema warned the government at that point that it was treading on shaky legal ground because she said she knew of no case where a failure to act resulted in a death penalty as a matter of law.

Even prosecutor Novak conceded that the witness coaching was "horrendously wrong."

According to descriptions by the lawyers in court, it appeared that a female FAA attorney who had attended closed hearings in the case went over with four upcoming witnesses from her agency the opening statements at the trial, the government's strategy and even the transcript of the questioning of an FBI agent on the first day.

"She was at the Classified Information Act procedures hearing and she should have known it was wrong," Novak said.

MacMahon said the government had told the defense she had wanted the witnesses to be very careful in discussing the FBI agent's acknowledgment that the FBI knew long before Sept. 11, 2001 that al-Qaida terrorists in the Philippines were working on a plan to fly an airplane into CIA headquarters.

This mishandling of the case may irrevocably damage the case against Moussaoui. Not a good way to start off a Monday morning.

UPDATE:
To be clear, this doesn't affect his guilt - that is a given due to his plea arrangement. The problems today raise doubts over the sentencing phase, which was to determine whether Moussaoui would face the death penalty or life in prison. Outside the Beltway and Below the Beltway has more.

Must See Sidewalk Art

Someone get Julian Beever an art deal. He takes the art of trompe-l'œil to a whole new level. Impressive. Most impressive stuff.

Darfur Updated

With the number of corpses in Darfur steadily mounting, and President Bush again seriously involved in confronting what he has accurately called the genocide there, Mr. Bolton has been pressing hard to get the United Nations moving against the resistance of the government of Sudan, the perpetrator of the genocide.

Among Mr. Bolton's goals is sending a U.N. force, with possible NATO components, into Darfur to bolster the present small, beleaguered African Union contingent. He is also proposing targeted U.N. sanctions against some of the chief organizers of the genocide in the Sudanese government. (Britain is also working on a resolution that could lead to warrants from the International Criminal Court against the architects of the genocide.)

The three members of the U.N. Security Council blocking Mr. Bolton's proposed measures are Russia, China and Qatar. Qatar -- home of the Al Jazeera TV network but also with strong military ties to the United States -- represents the Arab states in the decision-making U.N. Security Council.

As Mr. Avni reports, although U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan recently spent a weekend in Qatar, he did not even discuss Sudan during his visit. Nor did he discuss the need for targeted sanctions against Sudanese officials and their Janjaweed militia involved in the atrocities that have slaughtered so many thousands and devastated the villages of black Africans in Darfur, and who are now also killing and raping refugees in neighboring Chad.

Qatar, resisting these sanctions, was supported by the United States in becoming part of the powerful U.N. Security Council. But like the other Arab states at the United Nations, Qatar appears indifferent to the genocide in Darfur, even though both the killers and the victims are Muslims.

Just don't expect to read about this in the New York Times. You'd have to check out the New York Sun or other regional papers to find out what is really going on in Darfur and what the UN is doing about it (nothing).

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 103

Construction on the WTC memorial is scheduled to begin this morning with the forming up of molds for the concrete foundations. However, there is still the possibility of lawsuits bringing the whole matter to a screeching halt.

The Coalition of 9/11 Families last week filed a lawsuit charging that the memorial would damage the historic footprints. Preservation groups have made similar arguments in letters to rebuilding officials. A court hearing was scheduled Monday, and other family members planned a protest rally.

"There is always opportunity until concrete is poured," said Rosaleen Tallon, the sister of a firefighter killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks. Tallon began sleeping outside her brother Sean's firehouse across from the trade center site last week, and said Monday's construction work wouldn't stop her protest.

The "Reflecting Absence" design, by architect Michael Arad, was chosen two years ago out of more than 5,200 competition entries. It marks the fallen towers near their footprints with two stone reflecting pools at street level, surrounded by trees. The pools go 70 feet below ground, where visitors find surrounding each pool the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the 2001 attacks and the 1993 trade center bombing.

Families have said the memorial would dishonor the dead by placing their names below street level and might be difficult to evacuate quickly.

And some families have also said that they do not want anything built on the footprints of the towers. Those two ideals cannot coexist, and the footprints are now more about a spiritual footprint than the original footprints, parts of which are occupied by the PATH train tracks that ran through the complex.

The families opposing this plan are having a noontime protest.

The Gothamist has more, and tomorrow also marks a deadline day for Silverstein to come to some sort of agreement with the PANY/NJ and the LMDC on rebuilding the office towers.

UPDATE:
Steve Cuozzo recaps the battle at ground zero and lays much of the fault at the feet of Gov. Pataki. He notes that while Silverstein is cantankerous and the Port Authority is notorious for doing its own thing, Silverstein has built 7WTC and the Port Authority has built the temporary PATH station. All the delays and problems trace back to the Governor's office and his decision to establish the LMDC and push the Libeskind master plan.

UPDATE:
Here are some renderings of the Memorial as per the WCBS880.com website. WCBS880 also reports about 100 people showed up to protest the memorial's design and location.

UPDATE:
Marcus emails me this link which goes into the incestuous relationship between various cultural groups and those heading up the LMDC.

Last Wednesday, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation handed out $27 million in grants to 63 downtown arts organizations and projects. Six of those groups may have had an inside track on landing that money - their board members or advisors also sit on the board of the LMDC.

That isn't new - as the IFC/The Drawing Center had similar relationships to members of the LMDC.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.

Albany Makes The Big Dance?!

Are You Kidding Me?! SUNY Albany - aka University at Albany, aka Albany State, aka SUNY at Albany, and aka where I did my undergraduate and some post graduate work, never so much as sniffed an NCAA tournament bid while I was in college (they were Division III back in the day).

Now, not only have they gone Division I, but they've actually managed to make the Big Dance.

Against UConn. Welcome to the big time.

Good luck Great Danes!!!! You're gonna need it.

The Milosevic Post Mortem

Medical examiners at the Hague are running an autopsy to determine Slobodan Milosevic's cause of death. It wasn't by lethal injection or hanging. That's for sure.

It was most likely by natural causes, despite the protestations by his attorney, who claims that Milosevic believed that his jailers were poisoning him. No doubt that he and his supporters will not accept the findings by the medical examiners either. They'll continue to claim that he was murdered, and no amount of forensic evidence will be sufficient.

Others blogging Milosevic's demise: Lawyers, Guns, and Money wonders what kind of precedent is being set by going after dictators (he mentioned Pinochet) who have willingly stepped down - only to be prosecuted for their crimes anyway. Good question, and one I haven't seen posited anywhere else though Milosevic doesn't exactly fall into this category seeing how he was completely unrepentant and forced multiple wars in the Balkans to remain in power. Does their prosecution despite peacefully stepping down actually encourage dictators to remain in power longer because they have no incentive to step down? Well, there's not much incentive to step down in the first place.

The Moderate Voice also has some interesting thoughts. Diggers' Realm and Jay Currie have more.

UPDATE:
The plot thickens:

Traces of a drug used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis were found in a blood sample taken in recent months from former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, a Dutch news report said, citing an unidentified "adviser" to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

The report came hours after Milosevic's legal adviser showed journalists a letter the late Serb leader wrote Friday, one day before his body was discovered in prison, alleging that he was being poisoned.

The report was on the text service of the Dutch state broadcaster, NOS. It did not identify its source further.

Dutch doctors conducted an autopsy Sunday on Milosevic's remains, but the results were not expected to be released until Monday.

The tribunal spokeswoman said she could not comment on the news report. "We don't have any information. We simply have to wait for the results" of the autopsy report, said Alexandra Milenov.

Meanwhile, the early reports indicate that Milosevic died of a heart attack.

heart attack killed Slobodan Milosevic in his jail cell, the U.N. war crimes tribunal said, citing preliminary findings from Dutch pathologists who conducted a nearly eight-hour autopsy Sunday on the former Yugoslav leader.

The tribunal said pathologists had determined that "Milosevic's cause of death was a 'myocardial infarction'" - a medical term for heart attack.

Found dead in his cell Saturday morning, the 64-year-old Milosevic had suffered from heart ailments and high blood pressure, and his bad health caused numerous breaks in his four-year, $200 million trial before the tribunal.

Some wondered if suicide might have been an out for the man accused of causing wars that killed 250,000 people during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. And a legal adviser said Milosevic feared he was being poisoned.

We're going to have to wait for a toxicology report to see whether the lawyer's theory bears out, or that there was foul play involved.

Central to Our Intelligence

For all the talk about Valerie Plame, the real scandal is that the CIA has never properly addressed the threat posed by the Internet. You know, the Internet, developed by DARPA and academics to distribute information among nodes around the world.

The CIA apparently can't keep secret the names and identities of thousands of its employees and agents. This isn't just a national security problem, but a scandal of epic proportions that has been an ongoing mess since the 1990s.

The Tribune is not disclosing the identities of any of the CIA employees uncovered in its database searches, the searching techniques used or other details that might put agency employees or operatives at risk. The CIA apparently was unaware of the extent to which its employees were in the public domain until being provided with a partial list of names by the Tribune.

At a minimum, the CIA's seeming inability to keep its own secrets invites questions about whether the Bush administration is doing enough to shield its covert CIA operations from public scrutiny, even as the Justice Department focuses resources on a two-year investigation into whether someone in the administration broke the law by disclosing to reporters the identity of clandestine CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Not all of the 2,653 employees whose names were produced by the Tribune search are supposed to be working under cover. More than 160 are intelligence analysts, an occupation that is not considered a covert position, and senior CIA executives such as Tenet are included on the list.

Covert employees discovered

But an undisclosed number of those on the list--the CIA would not say how many--are covert employees, and some are known to hold jobs that could make them terrorist targets.

Other potential targets include at least some of the two dozen CIA facilities uncovered by the Tribune search. Most are in northern Virginia, within a few miles of the agency's headquarters. Several are in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington state. There is one in Chicago.

Some are heavily guarded. Others appear to be unguarded private residences that bear no outward indication of any affiliation with the CIA.

A senior U.S. official, reacting to the computer searches that produced the names and addresses, said, "I don't know whether Al Qaeda could do this, but the Chinese could."

And you can be damned sure that if the Chinese weren't trying before, they're going to be doing it in earnest now. This isn't meant as an indictment of the Tribune, because their reporting has exposed a major hole in our national security.

The real question is what anyone is going to do about it. Will Porter Goss, who was brought in to fix the situation actually address the matter? Will Congress take necessary steps to fix it. Or will it be business as usual until the next terrorist attack within the country?

Paul at Wizbang has some additional thoughts. So does AJ Strata, In search of Utopia, and Jeff Goldstein. No Quarter thinks you have to have a name first to find the linkages to the CIA. If you're a foreign government, don't you think that part is already part of the spycraft - to identify those affiliated or associated with the intel agencies?