The Fluctuating Dow Jones Average

After all the turmoil last week, the Dow is now down "only" 12% from its all-time high.

That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? :)
I must be some sort of optimist to look at it that way.

Bush Did Not Lie, Part 2

Source:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/03/020093.php

March 21, 2008
More on Saddam and the Terrorists

The Washington Times reports on the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) paper on Saddam Hussein's connections with terrorist groups, which we've already commented on a number of times. The IDA report concludes that "Iraq was a long-standing supporter of international terrorism":

"Many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States," said the report. "State sponsorship of terrorism became such a routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability."

Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad group, which merged into al Qaeda with Zawahiri as al Qaeda's number two leader, worked closely with Iraqi intelligence and received Iraqi help in organizing terrorist attacks. So the IDA report, which is based on a review of only a fraction of the Iraqi intelligence documents that are now available, confirms the threat to the U.S. and its allies that was posed by cooperation between Saddam's regime and Islamic terrorist groups. It's hard not to agree with Rep. Pete Hoekstra:

Mr. Hoekstra bemoaned the White House's refusal to highlight the Islamic Jihad-Saddam connection, or, for that matter, recent disclosures that Saddam told his FBI interrogator that he planned to resume production of weapons of mass destruction.
"It just points out from my standpoint how pathetic this administration has been in really talking to the American people about the threat from radical jihadists in general and what was going on in Iraq in particular," he said.
White House spokesmen did not return calls seeking comment on the IDA report.

SCOTT adds: Tom Joscelyn writes to comment:

Unfortunately, I think this Washington Times account shows how much confusion there still is regarding al Qaeda. There is a subheading in the article that reads "Al Qaeda out" and the article goes on to explain that the IPP study found no "no direct operational link" between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. That's true, the report does have one throw away line in the executive summary that says that. But it is also highly misleading and based on a false premise. Then, under another subheading that reads "Egypt jihad in," the article explains how the IPP study found that Saddam's regime had an "an alliance with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ)" dating to the early 1990's. The second point is true, and it also directly contradicts the first.Here is where the confusion comes in. The EIJ, as anyone who has studied al Qaeda knows, is as much "al Qaeda" as Osama bin Laden himself ever was. A number of accounts have pointed out that the EIJ merged with al Qaeda in 1998 (or not fully until 2001, depending on who you talk to). The implication being that the EIJ wasn't really "al Qaeda" until that time. This is nonsense for a lot of reasons.The EIJ and its leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, who is al Qaeda's #2, have worked closely with bin Laden since the mid-1980's. There is ample evidence of this close working relationship from then on. Montasser al-Zayyat, an Islamist attorney in Egypt who represented Zawahiri's terrorist colleagues in court, has explained this in his book The Road to al-Qaeda. Zayyat writes: "Zawahiri managed to introduce drastic changes to Osama bin Laden's philiosophy after they first met in Afghanistan in the middle of 1986, mainly because of the friendship that developed between them. Zawahiri convinced bin Laden of his jihadi approach, turning him from a funamentalist preacher whose main concern was relief work, into a jihadi fighter, clashing with despots and American troops in the Arab world. Zawahiri gave bin Laden some of his closes confidants to help him. They [EIJ members] later became the main figures in bin Laden's al-Qaeda." Zayyat goes on to recount how the influence went both ways, but clearly Zawahiri was an important influence on bin Laden early on. There is much more, of course. Lawrence Wright documents the close dealings between the EIJ and bin Laden from the late 1980's on in The Looming Tower. Regardless of when the EIJ "formally" merged with bin Laden, whether you want to claim it was 1998 or 2001 or whenever, the two were working hand-in-glove long before - since the mid to late 1980's. They cooperated on attacks, in al Qaeda's founding in the late 1980's, shared the same financing and training infrastructure, etc. Bin Laden even put the EIJ's members on his payroll in the late 1980's.The point is that it takes a special brand of myopia to claim that a significant relationship between Saddam's regime and the EIJ does not somehow represent a "direct connection" to al Qaeda. Zawahiri and the EIJ are as much 'al Qaeda' as bin Laden ever was. And now, thanks to the recently released Iraqi Intelligence documents, we know that Saddam had a working relationship with the EIJ going back to at least 1990.

Bush Did Not Lie, Part 1

A Conversation with Kenneth Timmerman, investigative reporter

From an interview with Rush Limbaugh, February 2008

Rush: You report that weapons of mass destruction were indeed found in Iraq?
Timmerman: Yes.
Rush: The mantra is, “Bush lied” about weapons of mass destruction. Is it ever going to be reversed? First, tell me what was found, and where?
Timmerman: What was found was hundreds of tons of chemical weapons precursors. These were the weapons discovered by U.S. combat troops on the way up to Baghdad in March and April of 2003. On one occasion when an underground bunker full of chemical precursors was found, there was a CNN camera crew along with the soldiers, and they had to be scrubbed down in extremis before they got hit with these toxic chemicals. Of course, they never reported the truth and never cared afterwards. Biological weapons precursors, the strains to make biological weapons, were found. The plans to make nuclear weapons were found. The teams of scientists and technicians that had been assembled by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s were discovered.. They had never been disbanded. They were kept on the payroll all during the period of the United Nations sanctions when Saddam said he had no programs left. Well, he was still paying the scientists and the technicians who developed the programs and had the technology. As U.S. troops were marching toward Baghdad, the UN still had inspectors in Iraq that were dismantling, destroying long-range ballistic missiles that also had been built in violation of the UN sanctions. So you’re talking about missiles; you’re talking about chemical weapons precursors; you’re talking about biological weapons programs; and elements of the nuclear weapons program. All of these things had been found and were completely discounted by the press and by the Congress, even though they were told about it in open session by the U.S. arms inspectors who went in there after the liberation.
Rush: Then there’s an obvious question: why did the Administration go along with the notion there weren’t any?
Timmerman: I asked that question again and again of my sources in the White House, and I almost invariably got the same response. “We lost that one. Why go and fight a battle that we’ve already lost? We are going to look to the future and fight the future battles.”
Rush: You mean lost in the press?
Timmerman: You bet. “The media has beaten us. They have driven this notion of ‘Bush lied, people died’ into the mentality of ordinary Americans to the extent that nobody would believe us.” This is what they told me: “Nobody would believe us if we told them that we found chemical weapons, that we found even rockets packed with chemical munitions in Iraq, so why bother? We give up. Let’s go on to the next thing.” Unbelievable, isn’t it?
Rush: Yes, it so unbelievable you almost have to conclude there’s got to be something else guiding this that we might not ever know.
Timmerman: I studied Iraqi weapons plants all during the 1980s. I was there many, many times when Saddam was in power. I was the first Western reporter who ever interviewed his weapons designers and the heads of the weapons programs who were later exposed to the UN. I was able to help the first UN arms inspectors in 1991 and 1992, by identifying the locations of many of these weapons plants. I have the map of these plant s right here in my office. I’m sitting here looking at it now. The entire country when we went in, in 2003, was a vast weapons manufacturing facility. There were hundreds of these plants all over the country. Everybody knew about it. The UN knew about it, we knew about it, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, and even the formerly mainstream media knew about it.

Too Cold for Easter

This Easter seems so cold. My childhood Easter memories are warm sunny days with tons of daffodils blooming and lawn grass tall enough to hide Easter eggs. My grandmother's birthday was April 17, and Easter often fell on her birthday, so I knew long ago that Easter is a movable holiday.

I did some research. As you may know, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. In other words, start with the first day of Spring (this year it is March 19th at 11:40 PM Greenwich time). Next, find out when the first full moon is after the first day of Spring (this year it is March 21st). Then Easter is the first Sunday after that full moon (this year it is March 23rd), making this the earliest (and coldest) Easter Sunday since 1913.

In the Western Church, the earliest day (of the 35 possible dates) for Easter is March 22 and the latest is April 25. Easter has not fallen on March 22 since 1818, and will not do so again until 2285. It falls on the second earliest day, March 23, in 2008, but will not do so again until 2160. Easter last fell on the latest possible date, April 25, in 1943 and will next fall on that date in 2038. However, it will fall on April 24, the second latest day, in 2011. The cycle of Easter dates repeats after exactly 5,700,000 years, with April 19 being the most common date.

Josh is Blind

Excerpts from "The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat, by Richard Harris"

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming. In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus.

"Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming." Trenberth and Willis agree that a few mild years have no effect on the long-term trend of global warming.

My comment: Josh must be a true believer in global warming. Otherwise he would allow the possibility that a slight cooling of the oceans is a precursor to global cooling. But, no, he suggests that "we are in a period of less rapid warming," after saying that "the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming." Josh can't read the handwriting on the wall.

Let's looks at some recent air temperature data. New global surface temperature data has recently been released from the UK Hadley Climate Research Unit, and it shows a significant drop in the global temperature. The January 2008 temperature has dropped 0.595°C (that is 1.07°F) compared to January 2007. The chart below shows that data expressed as an "anomaly" relative to a baseline.

Pi Day

I learned something new this morning. Today is Pi Day.
http://www.piday.org/

You know, pi. The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Despite my love of mathematics, numbers, and trivial data, I have never heard of Pi Day before today, when I heard about it from my local talk radio host. Check out this cool clock you can buy at piday.org.

Now that you know about it, isn't it obvious why today is Pi Day?

Pi humor:
Pi to i: Stop being so complex!
i to Pi: When you stop being so irrational!
By terry moore

Serving Our Country

This video clip gives new meaning to "serving our country".

http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=161927&ERSC=dod.nl

I am speaking of the team that crawled under the helicopter.

Smile (Source Unknown)

I got this in an email, with this intro line:
"You can't read this and stay in a bad mood."

1. How Do You Catch a Unique Rabbit?
Unique Up On It.

2. How Do You Catch a Tame Rabbit?
Tame Way, Unique Up On It.

3. How Do Crazy People Go Through The Forest ?
They Take The Psycho Path

4. How Do You Get Holy Water?
You Boil The Hell Out Of It.

5. What Do Fish Say When They Hit a Concrete Wall?
Dam!

6. What Do Eskimos Get From Sitting On The Ice too Long?
Polaroid's

7. What Do You Call a Boomerang That Doesn't work?
A Stick

8. What Do You Call Cheese That Isn't Yours?
Nacho Cheese.

9. What Do You Call Santa's Helpers?
Subordinate Clauses.

10. What Do You Call Four Bullfighters In Quicksand?
Quattro Sinko.

11. What Do You Get From a Pampered Cow?
Spoiled Milk.

12. What Do You Get When You Cross a Snowman With a Vampire?
Frostbite.

13. What Lies At The Bottom Of The Ocean And Twitches?
A Nervous Wreck.

14. What's The Difference Between Roast Beef And Pea Soup?
Anyone Can Roast Beef.

15. Where Do You Find a Dog With No Legs?
Right Where You Left Him.

16. Why Do Gorillas Have Big Nostrils?
Because They Have Big Fingers.

17. Why Don't Blind People Like To Sky Dive?
Because It Scares The Dog.

18. What Kind Of Coffee Was Served On The Titanic?
Sanka

19. What Is The Difference Between a Harley And a Hoover ?
The Location Of The Dirt Bag.

20. Why Did Pilgrims' Pants Always Fall Down?
Because They Wore Their Belt Buckle On Their Hat.

21. What's The Difference Between a Bad Golfer And a Bad Skydiver?
A Bad Golfer Goes, Whack, Dang!
A Bad Skydiver Goes, Dang! Whack.

22. How Are a Texas Tornado And a Tennessee Divorce The Same?
Somebody's Gonna Lose A Trailer

"Now, admit it. At least one of these made you smile."

Several, actually. :)

One Syllable

There are just four countries in the world with names (in English) that are one syllable.

What are they?