Specter the PA DEMOCRAT!

So much for party unity. It seems like the GOP can't even keep its Senators in line. Great news for the race to 60.

From the NY Times:

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said on Tuesday he would switch to the Democratic party, presenting Democrats with a possible 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters as they try to advance the Obama administration’s new agenda.

“Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats,” Mr. Specter said in a statement. “I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.”

Mr. Specter, the long-time Republican party maverick, faced a difficult re-election next year, against conservative opponent Pat Toomey, the former Pennsylvania representative.

If Al Franken prevails in his ongoing court case in Minnesota and Mr. Specter begins caucusing with Democrats, Democrats would have 60 votes and the ability to deny Republicans the chance to stall legislation. Mr. Specter was one of only three Republicans to support President Obama’s economic recovery legislation.

Don't Mess With Texas! (when they don't need stuff)

So much for the independent nation of Texas. Let's see: federal assistance for natural disasters, accepting bailout money, and now asking for a chunk of our federal stockpiles of anti-viral medication. I say let the Texans make their own.

You can't be against government and then go begging for help. It's un-Texany.

From the Dallas Morning News:

Gov. Rick Perry has asked for 37,430 courses of anti-viral medicine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because of the swine flu outbreak.

And a high school near San Antonio has been ordered closed this week because a third student from the school may have the disease. Two cases have been confirmed.

"As a precautionary measure, I have requested that medication be on hand in Texas to help curb the spread of swine flu by helping those with both confirmed and suspected cases of this swine flu virus, as well as health care providers who may have come in contact with these patients," Perry said in a prepared statement.

Fair and Balanced?

Sure. It's their prerogative. From the NY Times:

President Obama’s third prime-time news conference will be shown on fewer broadcast channels this week.

While Mr. Obama’s first two evening question-and-answer sessions, Feb. 9 and March 24, were shown by all the broadcast networks, Fox will show a new psychological drama instead.

The news conference, scheduled for 8 p.m. Wednesday, will mark Mr. Obama’s first 100 days in office. ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS will carry the event live.

Earlier in the year, network executives grumbled about the advertising losses that were resulting from the White House’s repeated requests for broadcast time. While there are no requirements for television networks to show presidential news conferences, they generally accede to White House requests for time.

Most people can watch the news conference on various cable news channels and C-Span. But network time sends a message about the event’s significance and reaches viewers who rely on over-the-air television signals.

In a statement, Fox said an on-screen graphic during its Wednesday drama, “Lie to Me,” would alert viewers to coverage of the news conference on the Fox News Channel.

The White House had no comment on Fox’s decision.

Battling the Swine Flu - Learn From China

From the NY Times:

The lessons learned from SARS did not gone to waste in Hong Kong. While Mexico struggles to confirm cases of swine flu and sends samples to the United States, Hong Kong is already performing swift genetic tests on patient samples and will have laboratories doing so at six local hospitals by Thursday. Tens of thousands of doctors and nurses, including retirees and those with medical training who have moved to other occupations, are tracked on databases and ready to be mobilized.

Contingency plans are ready to keep public transport, electricity, food supplies, telecommunications and other vital services running even if large numbers of people fall ill. And at a time when many hospitals in the United States are already at full capacity and keep few extra beds in reserve, Hong Kong has 1,400 beds in respiratory isolation units, mostly built over the past six years for fear that bird flu or SARS would become a serious problem, and 15 times as many beds as the territory needs on an everyday basis.

For a population of seven million people, Hong Kong has stockpiled 20 million treatment courses of Tamiflu, a medicine to which the new swine flu virus has not yet developed resistance. Hong Kong also has Asia’s best-known flu specialists and extensive research labs that were expanded in response to fears of SARS or a long-feared pandemic of bird flu, which is caused by a different influenza virus from swine flu.

Government lawyers are also moving quickly, carrying out all the procedures on Monday to make swine flu a disease for which health professionals are required by law to notify the authorities of any suspected case. The Hong Kong government also has broad and detailed legal powers to quarantine possible cases and suspend a range of civil liberties in order to track down anyone who has been in contact with a carrier of a communicable disease; many other countries, including the United States, are still debating how to handle legal issues during a possible pandemic.

SARS “gave us a lot of valuable insights and practical experience in managing a large outbreak,” said Gabriel Matthew Leung, Hong Kong’s under secretary for food and health.

Hong Kong is unusually vulnerable to flu. World Health Organization officials describe Hong Kong and its labs as their sentry for flu in Asia, because the territory’s tests may uncover infected people arriving from other places that are either unequipped to identify influenza or have a habit of keeping medical problems a secret.

Still, in a measure of the terror that SARS has left, the territory’s stock market suffered some of the heaviest losses in Asia on Monday on swine flu fears. The Hang Seng Index fell 2.74 percent. Shares of Cathay Pacific, the dominant airline here, dropped 8 percent and shares of mainland China’s Air China fell 12.8 percent on fears that many passengers will stop flying.

Murphy Wins NY Election!

From CNN:

It took nearly a month, but Democrat Scott Murphy has won the battle for New York's 20th Congressional District.

Democrat Scott Murphy will take the U.S. House seat for New York's 20th Congressional District.

Republican James Tedisco conceded Friday and called Murphy to offer congratulations.

The race was too close to call after the March 31 election. But as absentee and overseas ballots poured in over the past few weeks, Murphy's lead grew.

President Obama extended his congratulations to the Missouri-born Murphy, saying his addition to Congress bodes well for the economic challenges facing the country.

"With this hard fought win, Scott has shown he is willing to fight the tough battles on behalf of the people in his district," Obama said. "As a candidate, Scott courageously championed the economic plans we need to lift our nation and put it on a better path, and he will continue to do so in Congress. With his proven record of creating high paying jobs and standing up for upstate New York, Scott will bring to the nation's capitol the change New Yorkers need."

Detainee Photos To Be Released

From the NY Times:

The Pentagon has agreed to release dozens of previously undisclosed photographs depicting the abuse by American military personnel of captives in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was disclosed on Friday.

The pictures, showing incidents at a half-dozen prisons in addition to the notorious Abu Ghraib installation in Iraq, will be made available by May 28, the Defense Department and the American Civil Liberties Union said.

“These photographs provide visual proof that prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread, reaching far beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib,” said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the A.C.L.U., which sued for release of the pictures under the Freedom of Information Act.

“Their disclosure is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse,” said Ms. Singh, who argued the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan.

The Pentagon’s decision to release the pictures came after the A.C.L.U. prevailed at the Federal District Court level and before a panel of the Second Circuit. The full Second Circuit had declined to reconsider the panel’s decisions, perhaps persuading Defense Department officials that they had little chance of persuading the Supreme Court to review the case.

Muphy's Lead Grows

From the WSJ:

Democrat Scott Murphy has expanded his lead over Republican Assemblyman Jim Tedisco in a weeks-long battle over a New York congressional seat the Democrat seems destined to win -- though there's no clear end in sight.

Mr. Murphy currently holds a 401-vote advantage, according to the latest unofficial count by the New York Board of Elections. Since the March 31 special election, the two campaigns have been wrestling in court over some 1,800 disputed absentee ballots, but even those underscore the likelihood of a Democratic victory. A plurality of those absentee ballots is from voters likely to favor Mr. Murphy based on party registrations.

A spokesman for Mr. Murphy was confident of victory. "Scott Murphy is ready," said Ryan Rudominer, of the political newcomer's eagerness to head to Washington, D.C. "Our No. 1 concern here is for the voters who need representation."

After Thursday, some 550 ballots were expected to remain, but the mathematical probability of Mr. Tedisco overcoming the deficit appears all but impossible.

UN: Must Prosecute for Torture Crimes

From the AP:

The U.S. is obligated by a United Nations convention to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who allegedly drafted policies that approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects, the U.N.'s top anti-torture envoy said Friday.

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama left the door open to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terror-suspect interrogations. He had previously absolved CIA officers from prosecution.

Manfred Nowak, who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said Washington is obligated under the U.N. Convention against Torture to prosecute U.S. Justice Department officials who wrote memos that defined torture in the narrowest way in order to justify and legitimize it, and who assured CIA officials that their use of questionable tactics was legal.

"That's exactly what I call complicity or participation" to torture as defined by the convention, Nowak said at a news conference. "At that time, every reasonable person would know that waterboarding, for instance, is torture."

Nowak, an Austrian law professor, said it was up to U.S. courts and prosecutors to prove that the memos were written with the intention to incite torture.

Nowak also said any probe of questionable CIA interrogation tactics must be independent and have thorough investigative powers.

US Journalists Face Trial in North Korea

From the TimesOnline:

Two female American journalists face five years or more in a labour camp, after North Korea announced today that they would be prosecuted for allegedly crossing the Stalinist state’s border with China.

Euna Lee and Laura Ling, of the web-based channel Current TV, were arrested in mid-March while reporting from the Tumen River, which marks North Korea’s northeast border. They were investigating the plight of North Korean refugees and appear either to have crossed the border or been abducted by Chinese soldiers.

Either way, they have now become pawns in a much larger international diplomatic game in which the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, has defied the world by testing a long-range nuclear missile and building a small arsenal of nuclear weapons.

After being held for five weeks, the two have been formally prosecuted on unknown charges, possible espionage or “hostility toward North Koreans”, which carry a sentence of between five and ten years.

Fox News' Shepard Smith On Torture

Gates Backed Memo Disclosure!

From the Washington Post:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates indicated Thursday that he supported the release of sensitive memos on detainee interrogation methods last week because he viewed their ultimate disclosure as inevitable.

Gates, a former CIA director, said his foremost concern was that CIA officers who had used the interrogation techniques should be protected from prosecution.

"I felt very strongly the importance that they be protected," Gates told reporters during a visit to this Marine Corps base in North Carolina.

Another concern, Gates said, was the possibility that the Obama administration's release of the memos would cause a "backlash in the Middle East" that could adversely affect U.S. forces operating there. In discussions, he said, senior administration officials realized the disclosure could be "used by al-Qaeda" to generate opposition against the United States.

Murphy Extends Lead

From Newsday:

Democrat Scott Murphy's lead over Republican Jim Tedisco continued to grow Wednesday in a special election for Congress in upstate New York, and a closer look at the votes yet to be decided had some Republicans worried.

The state Board of Elections says unofficial vote counts showed Murphy leading by 365 votes. The lead in the 20th District race has fluctuated since the March 31 election, but the fate of nearly 1,800 contested votes could decide the race.

Murphy's camp says the challenged ballots favor the Democrat _ with 810 votes from registered Democrats, Green Party voters and members of the Working Families Party. An additional 653 are from registered Republicans and Conservatives _ potentially Tedisco voters. The remaining 310 votes are from people in other parties or with unlisted registration.

Some of Tedisco's fellow Republicans are wondering if he still has a chance. Former Rep. Thomas Reynolds, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said he didn't want to call the race over but thinks Murphy ultimately will win.

Cohen On Obama's Words

Another great piece by Roger Cohen at the NY Times:

Now we all know what “interrogation with enhanced techniques” means: an insect in a human cage.

Don’t say what you mean when you mean to do the unspeakable. That’s an old rule. It was perfected in the 20th century from Moscow to Buenos Aires.

Opacity is the refuge of the faceless tormentor. The constitutions of totalitarian states are always unreadable, impenetrable — and very long. In a thicket of words lies plausible deniability when the time for horror’s accounting arrives. That hour always comes around.

I keep re-reading some of the sentences in the memos from the dark side. Like a labyrinth, they lead back in on themselves: “You have, however, informed us that you expect these techniques to be used in some sort of escalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique.”

The “technique” has a “culmination” that is not necessarily an “ending”; and on round again, several hundred times.

To some degree, words failed us all in the aftermath of 9/11, a time of fear and disorientation. Journalists did not meet the challenge of holding the executive branch accountable, politically and morally, in the run-up to the Iraq war. Such failures, it is true, were not gross manipulations of the law in the service of inhumanity, but they were failures nonetheless. And they carried a human price.

Keep reading here...

Who Approved Torture?

From CNN:

Top Bush administration officials gave the CIA approval to use waterboarding, a controversial interrogation technique, as early as 2002, a Senate intelligence report shows.
Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice were among the officials who OK'd the use of waterboarding, a report says.

On July 17, 2002, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who later became secretary of state, said the CIA could proceed with "alternative interrogation methods," including waterboarding, when questioning suspected al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah.

The decision was contingent on the Justice Department's determining the method's legality. A week later, Attorney General John Ashcroft had determined the "proposed interrogation techniques were lawful," the report said.

The same techniques also were used in the interrogations of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the first person charged in the United States in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 U.S. sailors, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

The release of the report, prepared by the attorney general's office at the request of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, details and declassifies the advice given to the CIA regarding its interrogation techniques.

The techniques again gained the endorsement of the Bush administration in spring 2003 when the CIA asked for a "reaffirmation of the policies and practices in the interrogation program."

In a meeting that included Vice President Dick Cheney, CIA Director George Tenet, Ashcroft, Rice and their legal counsels, "the principals reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy," the report said.

President Obama has called waterboarding -- which simulates drowning -- torture and last week released a series of Bush-era memos on interrogation tactics.

Cartoon of the Day!

Steve Sack @ Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoonists Index

Credit Cards Beware

It's about time. I finally got fed up with my creditor, who shall remain nameless, after it wanted to charge me a fee for making an online payment. On time. Thus saving them paper. This kind of policy makes me cut up cards left and right.

I wonder what the GOP will find offensive about this initiative.

From the Washington Post:

The heads of the credit card divisions at 14 major banks are set to meet with the president and his top economic officials at the White House on Thursday, administration aides confirmed yesterday. They are bracing for a warning that the president will join the chorus of condemnation if they resist efforts to protect their credit card customers from unfair practices.

The high-profile meeting comes as members of Congress launch new efforts to crack down on credit card companies for such practices as arbitrarily raising interest rates on existing balances, charging late fees when enough time was not given between the billing and due dates, and charging interest on debt that was paid on time.

Lawmakers in the House plan to begin work tomorrow on a bill that would codify new Federal Reserve regulations aimed at curbing those practices. A separate bill in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), would go even further, prohibiting companies from applying a variety of charges. The measure includes capping over-limit fees at one per billing period, allowing no interest charges on fees and no fees to make a payment. The legislation also would prevent companies from raising interest rates at any time for any reason and limit aggressive marketing by card issuers aimed at borrowers under 21.

National Service Bill

From the AP:

The AmeriCorps program started by President Bill Clinton will triple in size over the next eight years, and tens of thousands of other Americans will soon see new opportunities to give back to their communities.

It's all part of a $5.7 billion national service bill President Barack Obama is scheduled to sign Tuesday to foster and fulfill people's desire to make a difference, such as by mentoring children, cleaning up parks or building and weatherizing homes for the poor.

Bolstering voluntary public service programs has been a priority of Obama, who credits his work as a community organizer in his early 20s for giving him direction in life.

The White House said Monday that the president "will call on people across the country to serve their communities and work together to tackle the nation's tough challenges."

Obama is set to visit the SEED School of Washington, a public boarding school that serves inner-city students facing problems in both the classroom and at home, for the signing ceremony.

Congress passed the bill last month with largely bipartisan support and Obama is seeking $1.1 billion to fund it next year. Some Republicans complain it is too costly and is an unnecessary intrusion by government into something Americans already do eagerly and in great numbers — helping their neighbors and communities.

Don't Ovelook Moldova

From the Weekly Standard:

From the United States, the small, failed state of Moldova seems distant and irrelevant. The disputed election of a new Communist government headed by an ethnic Russian, Vladimir Voronin, produced anti-Communist rioting at the beginning of this month. Moldova seemed to embody, if more appropriately, Neville Chamberlain â s infamous description, at the time of Munich, of the controversy between Sudeten Germans and then-Czechoslovakia: â a quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing. â

Yet, as with the Sudetenland affair of 71 years ago, Moldova merits a closer look, and from Kosovo and other troubled countries nearby, the events in Moldova appear to be serious warnings of future crises.

Read the rest Here...

Obama vs. Reagan: Cuddling Wars

Please explain the difference to me.

4.1 Trillion Global Financial Loss

From the NY Times:

With the global economic downturn deepening and confidence in the financial system still elusive, the International Monetary Fund estimates that banks and other financial institutions face aggregate losses of $4.1 trillion in the value of their holdings as a result of the crisis.

In its global financial stability report, released Tuesday, the fund estimated that financial institutions would have to write down an estimated $2.7 trillion in loans and securities originating in the United States from 2007 to 2010. That estimate is up from $2.2 trillion in the fund’s report in January, and $1.4 trillion last October.

The financial crisis “is likely to be deep and long lasting,” the report said, noting that global financial stability has deteriorated further since its October report, especially in emerging markets, particularly in Europe, where banks face more write-downs and may require fresh equity, even as businesses seek to refinance debt.

The authorities “have been proactive in responding to the crisis,” the fund said, but “policies are being challenged by the scale of resources required.”

Malkin's Million

Judging by the incoherent ramblings that Michelle Malkin produced today, it seems that her tea-bag hangover has not yet lifted its cloudy influence over her reasoning skills. Someone should have advised her to breathe through her nose.

She begins yet another useless column by asserting that the tea-bagging crowd exceeded a million, because

When left-wing activists make crowd estimates, the algorithm is: Six figures = one million. An incomplete survey of newspaper accounts and organizer estimates pegged the Tea Party protest population at a minimum of 250,000. We can now, therefore, officially call it the Million Taxpayer March.
So 250,000 is now a million. Ok, I'll bite... But here's her reasoning about liberal counts:

But unlike recent anti-war and pro-illegal immigration rallies padded with union workers, college students, and homeless people, the Tax Day Tea Party demonstrations featured small business owners, working taxpayers, and families. This wasn’t a weekend or holiday, mind you. A quarter million people took time off in the middle of the work week to raise their voices against reckless taxing and bipartisan spending.

Apparently union workers, college students, and the homeless don't quite make the cut to the Tea-Bag Real American Auditions. Which might go a long way in explaining why the GOP is losing its way in the political world these days. She goes on to say that the MSM missed the point; the tea-baggers vented their frustration at the GOP just as harshly as they did at the Democrats. The pictures and soundbites thereof beg to differ.

But, as if by divine intervention, her rambling came to close with remarkable insight.

As one of the most popular Tea Party signs read: "You can’t fix stupid, but you can vote it out."

You're right, Michelle. We just did.

High-Speed Rail Moving Forward

From the St. Louis Business Journal:

The White House and the U.S. Department of Transportation on Thursday said it will invest $8 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and $1 billion a year for five years as a down payment to develop a passenger rail system.

The Obama administration has identified 10 possible high-speed rail projects, including one in the Midwest and nine others in the Northern New England corridor, New York, Pennsylvania, the South and Califorinia.

Earlier this week, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, along with six other Midwestern governors and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking him to support plans for rail corridors between cities in their states, including one connecting St. Louis to Chicago.

Texas: Defining Anti-Americanism

So Rick Perry wants to secede from the Union. I wonder if he's aware as to how that worked out last time. But to the bigger issue; isn't wanting to break away from the Union Anti-American? Isn't that the definition of Anti-American? I say let Texas secede for a year. Build a wall around it, rip out everything that's federally tinged, and let them be Texans. "Don't mess with Texas"; OK pardner, just as long as you don't mess with our Union and your oath of office. Thank God for people like Senator Rodney Ellis.

From Statesman.com:

“There are some issues that simply should not be legitimated in any way, shape or form, and secession is one of them,” he said. “By not rejecting out of hand the possibility of secession, Governor Perry is taking a step down a very dangerous and divisive path encouraged by the fringe of Texas politics.

“In the last week, we’ve seen an extremely troubling escalation of rhetoric. Talking about state’s rights, the oppressive hand of the federal government and secession brings up some pretty bad memories in this state. It was not all that long ago that those were the exact words used by those who opposed desegregation and the civil rights movement. The top elected official in the second largest state with our history simply cannot be so loose with his comments. He’s not a radio or cable TV talk show host.

“The timing and focus of this talk doesn’t make much sense. Since 2001, the Texas budget has increased by 62 percent. The budget we are now working on includes $65 billion from the federal government. We didn’t hear about the oppressive hand of the federal government when we asked for hurricane and wildfire relief and, we didn’t hear these complaints when we took money for transportation and education and health care. We didn’t hear about it for eight years of exploding federal budget deficits, so why now?

“I understand that the governor has a difficult political race on his hands, but that is no excuse to whip up this type of frenzy among people who are already worried about keeping their job or a roof over their heads.”

Torture Memos To Be Released

IT'S ABOUT TIME!

From the BBC:

The US Justice Department is set to publish four secret memos detailing the legal justification for Bush-era CIA interrogation methods.

The release of the memos stems from a request by civil rights group the ACLU.

The request has sparked fierce debate within the US government, with reports suggesting some in the CIA want parts of the memos to be blacked out.

They fear full disclosure could trigger lawsuits against agents and embarrass allies, the New York Times said.

Critics of the Bush administration's interrogation programme say the memos are likely to provide evidence that many of the methods authorised amount to torture under US and international law.

There has been a rift within the Obama administration about how much of the documents should be made available to the public or how much they should be redacted.

Attorney General Eric Holder and White House Counsel Greg Craig have been vocal supporters of full publication of the memos, according to reports.

But CIA chief Leon Panetta and Deputy Director John Brennan have been calling for portions of the memos to be blacked out, or redacted, the New York Times has reported.

Palin's World of Trouble

Palin may not be able to see Russia from her house, but she can sure see the snowball of adverse issues rolling toward her mansion. Now, I'm not one to gloat or get pleasure out of anyone's misfortune, but when that misfortune is brought about by your own hand, repeatedly, then I have a lot less sympathy for you. And if that misfortune serves to show the world your other, less "pit-bullish" and "not so good at governing" side, then I think it's only fair that the story make all the rounds.

Excerpts from the NY Times:

“The source of the greatest tension this year between the Legislature and the executive has been certainly the appearance that the executive is prioritizing her national image, her national brand, over the day-to-day operations of state government and the interests of the State of Alaska,” said Mike Hawker, the Republican co-chairman of the House Finance Committee.

The governor plans to open a legal defense fund to help pay for more than $500,000 in legal debt, principally from what became known as Troopergate, a legislative inquiry that found she had abused her power in the pressuring a former state public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper, her former brother-in-law.

Democratic lawmakers had been crucial in the past to the governor’s efforts to raise oil taxes and approve legislation promoting a natural gas pipeline, her signature achievements, yet many say Ms. Palin has abandoned those relationships, that she has become more polarizing rather than working to broaden her appeal. In turn, some Democrats have missed no opportunity to snipe back.

Recently, she has sparred publicly with Levi Johnston, the 19-year-old father of her grandson, who broke up with Ms. Palin’s daughter Bristol.

And on, and on, and on...Palin 2012!

NJ and Another Dumb Law

What is it about New Jersey that creates ridiculous budgets, crooked politicians, and stupid laws?

From the Daily News:

You might find out soon. A first-in-the-nation law in New Jersey will require new drivers ages 21 and younger to display identifying decals on their vehicles.

Gov. Jon Corzine signed the law yesterday; it takes effect next year.

The decals will probably be a small reflective rectangle attached to the front and rear license plates to help police enforce restrictions on probationary drivers, motor vehicle officials said.

Police will use them to determine whether teens are violating the state driving curfew and passenger restrictions, said Pam Fischer, director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Safety.

Authorities will not use the decals to target young drivers or pull them over for no reason, she said.

The decals are long overdue and will save lives, said Ron Gesualdo, owner of Gene's Driving School, in Matawan.

"The parents are for it," he said. "The kids don't say anything, but you know what they're thinking."

One of those kids thinks the decals will only mean more trouble for teenagers.

"That's going to mean police are going to be bothering us even more," said Tebvon Mcneil, 18, of Paterson. "They see that sticker on the car, they're just going to be pulling us over for no reason. Are there drugs in the car? That's the first thing they're going to think, because we're teenagers."

And not everyone thinks the new law will improve driver safety. Jennifer Collins, a 29-year-old Hamilton resident, wondered whether the stickers will distract other drivers who are looking for them in traffic.

Keeping Us Safe: The French?

How about we put down the tea, stop snickering at "tea-bagging", and help the FRENCH fight off piracy.

From the NY Times:

French forces detained 11 suspected pirates during an assault on what they described as a pirate “mother ship” in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Somalia Wednesday, less than 24 hours after an American cargo ship was attacked by pirates in the same region.

The 11 detainees are being held on board a French frigate, the Nivôse, part of a European Union antipiracy task force patrolling in the area, the French defense ministry said in a statement.

The French forces initially responded to a distress call from a Liberian-flagged container ship, the Safmarine Asia, which came under attack by rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire from two small pirate skiffs Tuesday night. A helicopter from the Nivôse arrived on the scene and observed the skiffs retreating and returning to the mother ship, which was being used as a floating base about 460 miles off the Somali coast, according to a statement by the European Union’s Maritime Security Center.

The French forces then mounted their assault on the mother ship on Wednesday, finding a range of firearms and equipment on board the suspect vessels. The Nivose is now en route to the port of Mombasa, Kenya, with the vessels in tow, the Maritime Security Center said. Authorities are expected to prosecute the pirates in France.

Comcast Steps Up

When I think Comcast, I usually don't associate them with great service. Sorry. I've grown accustomed to outages, long waits for fixes, and the occasional interruption in service. At this point I just grit my teeth and bear it.

But after last Saturday's interruption in e-mail service, Comcast fixed the problem AND sent a very nice apology to affected customers. It may be that I've never seen an apology from Comcast before, but it's kinda nice.

That's all. Good move Comcast.

Colbert Name Scrapped by NASA

Tea party activists and the GOP should take a look at the Colbert Nation for tips on how to organize supporters. From bridges in Hungary, to ice cream flavors and a presidential bid in South Carolina, the Colbert Nation always come through for their champion.

NASA apparently did not fully understand this phenomenon when they allowed a public vote to decide what to name a node on the International Space Station. Guess who came out on top?

But it was not to be, and NASA showed early signs of squeamishness when the results were tallied. They announced yesterday that the appropriate name will be "Tranquility", but they did make one concession.

From UPI:

NASA announced the name Tuesday night during Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report." The cable show's producers offered to host the announcement after comedian Stephen Colbert urged his viewers to suggest the name "Colbert," which subsequently received the most entries.

"We don't typically name U.S. space station hardware after living people and this is no exception," Gerstenmaier said. "However, NASA is naming its new space station treadmill the 'Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill,' or COLBERT. We have invited Stephen to Florida for the launch of COLBERT and to Houston to try out a version of the treadmill that astronauts train on."

The treadmill is to be launched in August and will be installed in the Tranquility module. A newly created patch will depict the acronym and an illustration of the treadmill.

McCain Snubs Palin

If the title doesn't give it away, guess who McCain leaves out as a candidate for leadership and the 2012 nomination. I'll wait. Courtesy of the Tonight Show:

Voronin: Romania and Serbia to Blame

From B92 News:

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin says the Romanian security services and nine persons from Serbia led the violent protests in Chisinau on April 7.

“The same scenario was seen in Belgrade, Tbilisi, Bishkek and Kiev,” Voronin told Spanish daily El Pais, stating that he has a picture of a “Yugoslav” with "documents of an American institution".

Voronin added that on April 9, nine persons from Serbia and agents of the Romanian security services “directed” the events in Kishinev.

“We have everything recorded and we can identify all the beasts that attacked police. We will arrest them and file charges against them,” he said.

Voronin also accused high school and university teachers, stating that they played a destructive role, especially in Chisinau, "where they formed the disciples of Ion Antonescu”.

Pirates Take 4 More

This is seriously troubling. Not only are the pirates showing that they're not the least bit shaken by the rescue of Captain Phillips or the threat of multinational attacks on their bases, but now they're escalating their tactics.

This is a challenge to the rest of the world. And since we've decided to play politics with the results of the pirate menace, this would be a GREAT platform for Obama, because I bet dollars to pesos that most of the world will back us on this one. Obama needs to get in front of this now; he needs to take control. He just has to pull this one off of Hillary's plate.

From ABC News:

The pirates have now seized four ships since the dramatic rescue of American Capt. Richard Phillips Sunday, who was taken hostage during a failed hijacking attempt.

Just as the cheers were dying down for the daring rescue of Phillips that left three pirates dead, Somali pirates swooped down on more victims. This time they struck in the Gulf of Aden along the north coast of Somalia.

Two Egyptian fishing boats were hijacked, according to Egypt's Foreign Ministry, which said the boats carried a total of 18 to 24 Egyptians.

The biggest overnight prize for the pirates was the capture of the Greek freighter M.V. Irene and a Togo-flagged freighter named the Sea Horse, according to NATO officials. The Irene had a crew of 22. There was no immediate information on the Sea Horse crew.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States can't end Somali piracy by itself and noted that 16 nations have warships in the region, which is roughly four times the size of Texas.

When Mullen was asked today whether the United States had considered attacking the pirate strongholds in Somalia, the admiral said, "I've asked, and we've been doing this. We've initiated a review on the Joint Staff to look broadly and widely and deeply at the overall strategy," he told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Comedian of the Day: Michele Bachmann!

Yes sir, she's done it again. Nothing specific this time, but when you sit back and glance over her glowing ignorance, Michele Bachman has to be presented with her second Comedian of the Day Award here at Comically Partisan. I think Tom Horner, Republican analyst, puts it best in the Minnesota Independent:

“She is an embarrassment to some republicans, myself included,” he said. “She is intentionally provocative, and does it in a way that is designed to exploit fears, to exploit mistrust in government, to do all of the kinds of things that America is not needing right now.”

He continued, “I don’t think that’s what the Republicans ought to be doing and I don’t think it’s how we need to be defined. We need leadership in this party that can stand up and say, ‘Michele Bachmann is not my kind of Republican.’”

Predictably, MPR’s Democratic analyst, Todd Rapp, welcomed Bachmann as a leading voice for the Republicans.

“In a state like Minnesota, if Michele Bachmann wants to be the voice of the Republican Party, I think most Democrats would say, ‘That’s great!’”

Bernard Goldberg Scolds Sean Hannity

Sometimes, the voice of reason comes from an unlikely place. And sometimes, Sean Hannity doesn't get his way. And during those times he acts like this:

Trust in Obama Policy

A new Gallup Poll shows that 71% of those that participated say that they trust Obama to fix the economy. And you thought that all people cared about was who got the credit for the rescue of Captain Phillips. Guess not, GOP. Look at the numbers for Congress broken down by party. I sense good things coming.

From the LA Times:

That puts Obama ahead of some of the country's leading economic experts: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke had a 49% rating in the poll and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner drew 47%.

Fifty-one percent of respondents said they were confident in Democratic congressional leadership on the economy.

Thirty-eight percent felt that way about Republican leaders.

Obama -- who has won passage of a $787-billion economic stimulus package and advanced multibillion-dollar plans to aid homeowners, the auto industry and other sectors of the economy -- has said tough times are ahead, but he is seeing signs of improvement in an economy that has been mired in recession for more than a year.

"The economy is still under severe stress," Obama said last week after meeting with economic advisors and Bernanke at the White House. "We're still seeing a lot of job losses, a lot of hardship . . . so we've still got a lot of work to do."

But, the president said, the nation was starting to see "glimmers of hope."

Franken Wins! Coleman Grumbles

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

A Minnesota court confirmed yesterday that Democrat Al Franken won the most votes in his 2008 Senate race against Republican Norm Coleman.

Coleman, who had already announced plans to appeal the decision, has 10 days to do so to the state Supreme Court. Once his petition is filed, that could further delay the seating of Minnesota's second senator for weeks.

More than five months after the Nov. 4 election, and after a statewide recount and seven-week trial, Franken stands 312 votes ahead. He gained more votes from the election challenge than did Coleman, who brought the legal action.

The state law under which Coleman sued required three judges to determine who got the most votes and who is therefore entitled to an election certificate, which is now on hold pending the appeal.

"The overwhelming weight of the evidence" indicates that the Senate election "was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately," the judges wrote. "There is no evidence of a systematic problem of disenfranchisement in the state's election system, including in its absentee-balloting procedures."

The ruling diminishes Coleman's chances of retaining a seat he won in 2002, when he narrowly defeated former Vice President Walter Mondale, who'd stepped in after Democratic incumbent Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash two weeks before the election.

How long is Coleman going to keep the people of Minnesota underrepresented in the Senate, only to have every court in the land rule against him. And where is the sentiment diplayed by the GOP in 2000 when Gore could have taken that battle to the legal and political extremes? Double standards, or just politics as usual?

Roger Cohen on Iran

Rarely do I find a column with which I agree 100%. This is one of them. From the
NY Times:

For Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, “a combination of ignorance and arrogance” under the Bush administration squandered countless diplomatic opportunities with Iran and so allowed it to forge ahead with its nuclear program.

Referring twice to Dick Cheney as “Darth Vader,” ElBaradei told me in an interview that “U.S. policy consisted of two mantras — Iran should not have the knowledge and should not spin one single centrifuge. They kept saying, wait, Iran is not North Korea, it will buckle. That was absolutely a mistake.”

Instead of building on Iran’s Afghan help in 2001, exploring an Iranian “grand bargain” offer in 2003, or backing 2005 European mediation that hinged on the U.S. agreeing to sale of a French nuclear power reactor, “We got Darth Vader and company saying Iran was in the axis of evil and we have to change this regime.”

The result, ElBaradei said, was that instead of containing the program at a few dozen centrifuges, “Iran now has close to 5,500 centrifuges, and they have 1,000 kilos of low enriched uranium, and they have the know-how.” Still, he dismissed the notion that Iran “could go to a weapon tomorrow” as “hype,” putting the time frame for that at two to five years.

Read the rest here...

Dangerous Somalia

We just shot 3 pirates. They just shot at a US diplomat. Coincidence?

What I'd really love to know is how far can these pirates reach. Up to this point I thought these pirates were loner squads in dinghies. It seems that we may be underestimating them.

From the BBC:

A US congressman has had a narrow escape on a visit to Mogadishu after Somali insurgents fired mortars towards his plane as it was about to take off.

Airport officials told the BBC one mortar had landed at the airport as Donald Payne's plane was due to fly and five others after his plane departed.

Mr Payne had just met leaders of Somalia's government in the capital.

He had discussed ways that the international community might be able to help war-torn Somalia.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says Mr Payne had just held a half-hour news conference at the presidential palace in the capital when the attack happened, according to airport officials.

Abukar Hassan, a police officer at Mogadishu airport, told Reuters news agency: "One mortar landed at the airport when Payne's plane was due to fly and five others after he left and no-one was hurt."

Three people were wounded when one of the mortars hit a nearby neighbourhood, residents told Reuters.

Pirates Escalate Threats

While the rescue of Captain Phillips is being hailed as a passed test for the Obama administration and the families of the crew celebrate with the rest of us, Somali pirates have just tipped their hand by letting us know unequivocally that, according to the NY Times:

In Somalia itself, other pirates reacted angrily to the news that Captain Phillips had been rescued, and some said they would avenge the deaths of their colleagues by killing Americans in sea hijackings to come.

“Every country will be treated the way it treats us,” Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the pirate den of Gaan, a central Somali town, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying in a telephone interview. “In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying.”

This presents the world with a problem, one that may be escalated by the intentional destruction of vessels in order to send a message to the world. Talk of invasion and grandstanding on the part of the world, especially the Secretary of State, without quick and decisive action will leave us standing toe to toe with pirates that do not have to contend with law enforcement or poll numbers.

The path ahead is dangerous. It demands either swift action, or the arming of civilian vessels. I opt for both. I do not want to see the Obama administration trying to use diplomacy here. We're not dealing with an organized group of people.

Norm's Minn. Judge

From Politico:

Remember that two of the Minnesota Supreme Court's seven Justices recused themselves from hearing Coleman's appeal to the state Supreme Court because they served on the state Canvassing Board. Those two Justices wanted to avoid the conflict of having served on the Canvassing Board and then serving on the Court that will hear an appeal of, in part, the Canvassing Board's actions and decisions.

Well, one of the remaining Justices that will decide Norm Coleman's electoral fate is a two-time Norm Coleman donor! Heck, one of the two contributions occurred in the six years leading up to Coleman's 2008 re-election bid - in other words, it was put toward this very election whose result Coleman is preparing to appeal. This is a crystal clear conflict of interest. Justice Dietzen should recuse himself from any Coleman appeals to the state Supreme Court in order to prevent the (rather obvious) appearance of bias.


This gets better and better. I say leave this guy on the bench. If Coleman loses with a judge that's obviously a supporter on the bench, then I think it would behoove him to step aside and stop the nonsense. Still, it's going to be interesting to see if this judge recuses himself, or if he shamelessly tries to seem impartial. We'll see.

GOP Turning America Toward Socialism

I thought this was pretty interesting considering the uninformed, underdeveloped, and lunacy-tinged regurgitation of the cry of "socialism!" by the GOPpers. Keep in mind that this is a Rasmussen poll. Rasmussen. Not a NY Times, ABC, MSNBC, or otherwise "lefty influenced" sham. Rasmussen. Not Zogby either. Rasmussen.

So according to Rasmussen polling data, a BIT more than half of the American public prefers capitalism. Yeah, the results struck me as strange too. But as Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker puts it:

What I do conclude is that all the conservative shouting about how Obama is a socialist has had the unexpected effect of educating a sizable portion of the public to think of socialism as synonymous with “European socialism” (i.e., democracy plus private industry plus nice, soft, 400-thread safety nets) instead of Soviet-style “socialism” (i.e., totalitarianism plus gigantism plus poverty).

What do I conclude? That the GOP is driving us to socialism. Their utter inability to do anything but shout nonsense is tragically infecting the masses with a skewed and uninformed notion of the various economic systems and philosophies that the GOP claims to understand, and even master.

In short, the GOP fails again, comrade.

Obama Buying American

Tick one more republican whine item off their admittedly short list. The "investigative reporting" by bloggers and main-streamers about the lists of foreign vehicles driven by those in government will probably have to stop. Probably. I'm sure some cynics out there will just have to resort to gripping over the fact that these are fuel-efficient cars instead of Hummers.

Well, you can't please everyone. But you can sure try.

From the Washington Post:

President Obama yesterday announced plans to buy 17,600 American-made, fuel-efficient cars and hybrids for the government fleet, the White House's latest gambit to steer aid to the nation's beleaguered automakers.

The move came in a week when the administration accelerated efforts to revive an industry suffering it lowest sales in decades. Earlier this week Obama dispatched a team of 15 finance experts to Detroit to work with General Motors and Chrysler on restructuring efforts. On Wednesday, the Treasury Department began to release $5 billion in aid to parts suppliers. And yesterday Ed Montgomery, the president's new adviser on auto communities and workers, visited Ohio to discuss what assistance might be needed there.

By June 1, the government plans to spend $285 million in stimulus funds to buy fuel-efficient vehicles from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. The purchase is slated to include 2,500 hybrid sedans, the largest one-time purchase of hybrid vehicles to date for the federal fleet.

Recount In Moldova

From the AP:

Moldova's president on Friday called for a recount of ballots in last weekend's Parliamentary elections to restore stability in a country rocked by riots and claims of voting fraud.

President Vladimir Voronin said the recount would prove to skeptics that his governing Communist Party fairly won Sunday's election in the former Soviet republic.

"The elections were democratic and free," Voronin said in a statement.

Anti-communist protesters who claimed the election was rigged stormed Parliament and the president's office in Chisinau on Tuesday in riots that left more than 90 injured and led to 200 arrests.

Official results said the Communists won about 50 percent of the votes in the election, which international observers declared fair.

"I call on the Constitutional Court to wholly recount the votes," Voronin said. The president said he was firmly convinced that the recount would "become an important argument for political stability, peace and mutual trust in the Republic of Moldova."

Meanwhile, about 200 protesters urging the Communist government to resign held a rally Friday in the capital. The protesters — mostly students — shouted "Down with the Communists!" and "Resignation!"

"It's good that the youth have woken up," said Timofte Croitaru, an 82-year-old retiree joining the protest. "My pension doesn't cover my living costs."

Comedian of the Day: Betty Brown!

And the GOP is absolutely befuddled as to why they don't appeal to the growing immigrant voter base in this country. Priceless!

From the Houston Chronicle:

A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

The comments caused the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday to demand an apology from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell. But a spokesman for Brown said her comments were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes.

The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Defending Against Pirates

It occurs to me that is international shipping lanes are going to come under constant attack by Captain Jack Sparrow & Co., then the international community had better step up the effort to ensure that constant military presence is available to deal with this threat. But the seas are vast, and response time would be dismal, even if fixed or rotor aircraft were to be dispatched in time. And short of a miraculous recovery by the Sudanese government, sailors are not going to be able to count on local help.

This scenario leaves individual vessels to fend for themselves. And if the mode of operation of these pirates relies on squad-sized elements using small arms, grenades, and variations of RPG weapon systems, then the only logical solution is to arm crews.

The objective of the pirates dictates that they would not use their most destructive on a ship itself, at least not with the intention of catastrophically crippling it, lest it sink with all of their proverbial booty. What remains is intimidation.

And the way to counter intimidation is to intimidate. Crews need to be trained in evasive maneuvers, but they must also realize that their advantage as defenders allows them to proactively counter pirate maneuvers with their own weapons.

This last example of piracy points to the fact that crews are capable of fighting back. I say arm them, and make any would-be pirates walk the plank.

Iran Open to Talks

This is a start. From the AP:

Iran's president said Thursday his country is open to talks offered by the U.S. and other countries over its nuclear program. But he insisted the talks must be based on respect for Iran's rights, suggesting the West should not try to force Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.

Hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the comments during celebrations for Iran's Nuclear Day, in which a number of advances in Iran's nuclear program were announced.

Among them, officials said the number of centrifuges at Iran's uranium enrichment facility had increased to 7,000 — up from 6,000 announced in February — and that a new, more advanced type of centrifuge had been tested. Ahmadinejad also announced the opening of a new plant for developing uranium fuel for a planned hard-water reactor.

Ahmadinejad's comments came after the United States and other nations invited Iran to direct talks over resolving the standoff over its nuclear ambitions. The Obama administration's announcement that it would join the talks marked a shift from the policy of former President George W. Bush, whose administration generally shunned such meetings.

Ahmadinejad said past talks with European nations failed because "they were insisting on stopping our peaceful activities, they were trying to impose that. It was clear the Iranian people would not accept that."

"The Iranian nation has always been for talks," Ahmadinejad said. But, he said, "dialogue has to be based on justice and respecting rights ... Justice means both sides are treated equally and bilateral rights are respected."

Progressive Iowa

From the NY Times by STEVEN W. THRASHER:

IF it weren’t for Iowa, my family may never have existed, and this gay, biracial New Yorker might never have been born.

In 1958, when my mother, who was white, and father, who was black, wanted to get married in Nebraska, it was illegal for them to wed. So they decided to go next door to Iowa, a state that was progressive enough to allow interracial marriage. My mom’s brother tried to have the Nebraska state police bar her from leaving the state so she couldn’t marry my dad, which was only the latest legal indignity she had endured. She had been arrested on my parents’ first date, accused of prostitution. (The conventional thought of the time being: Why else would a white woman be seen with a black man?)

On their wedding day, somehow, my parents made it out of Nebraska without getting arrested again, and were wed in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 1, 1958. This was five years before Nebraska would strike down its laws against interracial marriage, and almost a decade before the Supreme Court would outlaw miscegenation laws throughout the country in Loving v. Virginia.

When the good state of Iowa conferred the dignity of civic recognition on my parents’ relationship — a relationship some members of their own families thought was deviant and immoral, that the civil authorities of Nebraska had tried to destroy, and that even some of my mom’s college-educated friends believed would produce children striped like zebras — our family began. And by the time my father died, their interracial marriage was seen just as a marriage, and an admirable 45-year one at that.

That I almost cried last week upon reading that the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the state law banning same-sex marriage will therefore come as no surprise. I’m still struck by one thought: over the years, I’ve met so many gay émigrés who felt it was unsafe to be gay in so-called flyover country and fled for the East and West coasts. But as a gay man, I can’t marry in “liberal” New York, where I’m a resident, or in “liberal” California, where I was born, and very soon I will have that right in “conservative” Iowa.

Tweeter and the Fight Against Communism

George Washington would have loved it. Gandhi would have found a way to use it. MKL Jr. would have drawn a following on it. And Moldovan students are just as inspired.

Social media is the new frontier in business concepts, marketing, and communication. An integrated approach to this relatively new phenomenon, coupled with the technical knowledge need to use it effectively will ensure the success of many old and new businesses; or the downfall of a Communist government. How?

From the NY Times:

A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.

The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network.

The protesters created their own searchable tag on Twitter, rallying Moldovans to join and propelling events in this small former Soviet state onto a Twitter list of newly popular topics, so people around the world could keep track.

By Tuesday night, the seat of government had been badly battered and scores of people had been injured. But riot police had regained control of the president’s offices and Parliament Wednesday.

After hundreds of firsthand accounts flooded onto the Internet via Twitter, Internet service in Chisinau, the capital, was abruptly cut off.

There was no sign that the authorities would cede to any of the protesters’ demands, and President Vladimir Voronin denounced the organizers as “fascists intoxicated with hatred.”

But Mihai Fusu, 48, a theater director who spent much of the day on the edges of the crowd, said he believed that a reservoir of political energy had found its way into public life.

“Moldova is like a sealed jar, and youth want more access to Europe,” he said. “Everyone knows that Moldova is the smallest, poorest and the most disgraceful country. And youth are talking about how they want freedom, Europe and a different life.”

Young people have increasingly used the Internet to mobilize politically; cellphones and text messages helped swell protests in Ukraine in 2004, and in Belarus in 2006.

US Electric Grid Hacked

Awesome. I wonder if this is why my power keeps shutting off. From the AP:

Spies hacked into the U.S. electric grid and left behind mechanisms for them to disrupt service, according to a newspaper report Wednesday that renewed questions about the security of key pieces of national infrastructure.

The report in the Wall Street Journal said that the intruders have not yet sought to damage the nation's electric grid, but that they could try in a war or some other crisis.

Government officials declined to comment on the report.

Congressional investigators and intelligence officials have warned before that electric utilities are vulnerable to cyber attacks. CIA analyst Tom Donahue told utility engineers at a conference last year that in other countries, hackers had broken into electric utilities and demanded payments before disrupting power — in one case turning off the lights in multiple cities.

Stewart Baker, the former assistant secretary for policy at the Homeland Security Department, said Wednesday that electric grids have been hacked for years, and that he would not be surprised if China, Russia and other countries had taken part.

"We were certainly aware that there were intrusions into the electrical grid," said Baker, now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Security of these systems is not regulated, so the industry is under no mandate on how it should secure its computer networks.

Moldovan Communists Blame Romania

From Bloomberg:

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin accused neighboring Romania of playing a role in a violent protest against the Communist leadership that left dozens injured yesterday in the capital.

Voronin said he temporarily shut the border between the two countries as he prepares to reintroduce visa regulations. Romania is part of the European Union while Moldova, which once formed part of Romania, is not. Romania’s ambassador to Moldova was ordered today to leave within 24 hours.

“The influence of Romania is felt very strongly here, as is the hand of Romania’s secret services,” 67-year-old Voronin, a Communist, said in an address aired by Romania’s Antena 3 television. “Our patience has its limits.”

Moldova, a nation of 4.4 million people located between Ukraine and Romania, is split between those with a pro-Russian sentiment, led by the ethnic Russian minority, and opponents who have advocated closer ties to the West since watching comparatively prosperous Romania join the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in recent years.

Romania’s Foreign Affairs Ministry denied all involvement in the Moldovan protests in an e-mailed statement today, saying “it’s unacceptable that the Communist powers in Chisinau transfer the blame for internal Moldovan problems to Romania.”

Franken Lead Increases

If Franken eventually does take his seat in the Senate, I will personally start the push to have Ann Coulter take a Senate seat across the isle. Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against Franken. But when the legislative body of your government starts looking like a potential Jerry Springer Top Ten rerun, then I think we've got some work to do. But hey, maybe Franken is part of the drastic change we need.

From MSNBC:

“Not long after a decisive majority of once-rejected absentee ballots were counted and broke for Franken on Tuesday, attorneys on both sides were already jawing over the merits of an appeal in the 10-week-old U.S. Senate recount trial. Coleman spokesman Ben Ginsberg said the three presiding judges erred in permitting only 351 rejected absentee ballots to be counted. ‘We will be appealing this to the Minnesota Supreme Court,’ he said.”

The more interesting debate that will have to follow this development is what Pawlenty will end up doing about it. The Coleman campaign could take this all the way to the US Supreme Court, if their Minnesota legal challenges are not successful. But once every measure is exhausted at the state level, what's the governor going to do. He's a potential presidential candidate, so he can't let the GOP down; he certainly cannot be "the guy" who brought the Democrats closer to 60 in the Senate. But can he let the people of Minnesota be underrepresented for years?

Roxana Saberi Charged

From the AP:

An Iranian-American journalist detained in Tehran has been charged with espionage, her lawyer said Wednesday.

Roxana Saberi has been informed of the charges against her, her lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi told the Associated Press, without providing any further details.

"Yes, Saberi has been charged with espionage," he said.

The charges against her come two days after her parents visited their daughter in prison. The couple from North Dakota met Saberi for half an hour at Evin prison — the first time they had spoken to her since she called them on Feb. 10 to say she had been arrested.

The 31-year-old U.S.-born journalist has reported for the BBC, NPR and other media. She was arrested in late January. Iranian officials said at the time that she was working in the Islamic Republic with expired press credentials.

Saberi grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Iran. She has lived in Iran for six years and has reported for several news organizations.

Muntazer al-Zaidi Sentence Shortened

From CNN:

Iraq's federal appeals court has reduced the sentence for the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at then-President Bush at a news conference in December, his lawyer told CNN on Tuesday.

An Iraqi journalist touched off a firestorm when he threw his shoes at then-President Bush in December.

Muntadhar al-Zaidi will serve one year in jail instead of three, the attorney said. Bush was able to duck, and was unhurt in the incident.

Iraq's Central Criminal Court sentenced al-Zaidi to three years in March after he was found guilty of assaulting a foreign head of state on an official visit to Iraq. It was Bush's last visit to Baghdad before leaving office in January.

Al-Zaidi's lawyer, Dhiaa al-Saadi, said the appeals court announced its decision to reduce the sentence Monday, after lawyers appealed the criminal court ruling.

Al-Baghdadia TV, where the 30-year-old al-Zaidi worked, has been broadcasting a bulletin announcing the reduced sentence.

In many traditional Middle East circles, throwing shoes at someone is considered a grave insult.

Al-Zaidi became a kind of hero after his actions, because of Bush's unpopularity, mainly as a result of the Iraq War.

Expressing their freedom on Facebook, a worldwide fan base rose up. Supporters formed hundreds of fan pages and groups, including one called the "Shoe-Throwing Appreciation Society."

Our Confidence Grows

Who thinks that the country has turned a corner? Who's optimistic about our economy? Apparently, a lot of US are. Say what you will about teleprompters, gifts, clothes, and ceremonial bullshit. President Obama is changing our outlook, world opinion, and our very attitudes. Don't believe me?

Reuters has proof:

Two-thirds of respondents said they approved of Obama's overall job performance.

Just 31 percent said they had a favorable view of the Republican Party, the lowest in the 25 years the question has been asked in the poll, The New York Times said.

The number of people who said they thought the United States was headed in the right direction jumped from 15 percent during the final days of Republican President George W. Bush's administration in mid-January, before the inauguration, to 39 percent today, the newspaper said.

The number of respondents who said the country was headed in the wrong direction dropped to 53 percent from 79 percent.

Thirty-four percent said the economy, already contracting, was getting worse, down from 54 percent just before Obama took office.

According to the poll, 20 percent of Americans now think the economy is getting better, compared with 7 percent in mid-January.

The national telephone poll of 998 adults was conducted Wednesday through Sunday. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.