Thursday, January 06, 2005

East Boston Gang tied to Al Qaeda



Click here for AmazonThis ain't good. Hat tip: LGF.

A burgeoning East Boston-based street gang made up of alleged rapists and machete-wielding robbers has been linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, prompting Boston police to ``turn up the heat'' on its members, the Herald has learned.

MS-13, which stands for La Mara Salvatrucha, is an extremely violent organization with roots in El Salvador, and boasts more than 100 ``hardcore members'' in East Boston who are suspected of brutal machete attacks, rapes and home invasions. There are hundreds more MS-13 gangsters in towns along the North Shore...

In recent months, intelligence officials in Washington have warned national law enforcement agencies that al-Qaeda terrorists have been spotted with members of MS-13 in El Salvador, prompting concerns the gang may be smuggling Islamic fundamentalist terrorists into the country. Law enforcement officials have long believed that MS-13 controls alien smuggling routes along Mexico.

The warning is being taken seriously in East Boston, where Raed Hijazi, an al-Qaeda operative charged with training the suicide bombers in the attack on the USS Cole, lived and worked, prosecutors have charged.

Also, the commercial jets that hurtled into the World Trade Center towers in New York City were hijacked from Logan International Airport...

MS-13 members congregate near the Maverick Square train station sporting white and blue bandannas, their skin inked with spider webs and ``laugh now, cry later'' clown faces.

``MS-13 is the most dangerous gang in the area,'' Fiandaca said. ``They are big. They are mobile. Now they have a terrorist connection.''

The theory that Salvadoran criminals manage to smuggle people over the border was bolstered this month when two Boston men described as MS-13 leaders were spotted on the North Shore days before Christmas - a year after they were deported by Boston Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators for gang-related crimes...


East Boston Gang tied to Al Qaeda

Delay's Gaffe



Click here for AmazonTom Delay's choice of words is... inappropriate at best. Let it never be said that I condone unacceptable behavior, from the Right or the Left.

By all means, let's have a debate over terrorist interrogation



Click here for AmazonThe White House appears to be dreading today's confirmation hearings for Alberto Gonzales now that Democrats seem ready to blame the Attorney General nominee for Abu Ghraib and other detainee mistreatment. But this is actually a great chance for the Administration to do itself, and the cause of fighting terror, some good by forcefully repudiating all the glib and dangerous abuse of the word "torture."

For what's at stake in this controversy is nothing less than the ability of U.S. forces to interrogate enemies who want to murder innocent civilians. And the Democratic position, Mr. Gonzales shouldn't be afraid to say, amounts to a form of unilateral disarmament that is likely to do far more harm to civil liberties than anything even imagined so far.

The dispute here stems from the Bush Administration's decision, in early 2002, that Taliban and al Qaeda detainees didn't automatically qualify for prisoner of war status. This caused a fuss in some quarters. But it was in accord with the plain language of the original Geneva Conventions, which require POWs to have met certain criteria such as fighting in uniform and not attacking civilians. The Administration understood what critics don't want to admit --namely, that POWs may not be interrogated, period. The Geneva Conventions forbid even positive reinforcement such as better rations to coax them to talk...


WSJ: By all means, let's have a debate over terrorist interrogation

Winter got you down?



Click here for AmazonTake a gander at the pictures from last year's Harbin Ice festival, courtesy of R. Todd King.

Feds Search for Attempted Ammonium Nitrate Purchaser



Click here for AmazonThe ATF is searching for a man of apparent Middle Eastern descent -- and false construction documents -- who attempted to purchase large amounts of ammonium nitrate. You may remember that substance from the catastrophic Oklahoma City bombing; it's what Timothy McVeigh used to destroy the Federal Building (hat tip: LGF):

“We’re still running down leads. But we thought it would be prudent putting out an advisory to the fertilizer industry,” said Tom Mangin, an ATF agent in Phoenix, where the investigation is centered.

The suspect also made several Internet email inquiries to vendors seeking to buy between 500 to 1,000 metric tons of the explosive — a quantity larger than McVeigh used to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building in April 1995 but smaller than amounts companies typically might buy in bulk for construction, explosives or farm work.

The International Society of Explosives Engineers, based in Cleveland, sent an e-mail Wednesday alerting its members and asking them to call ATF in Phoenix to report any suspicious activity.

“ATF has recently been made aware of a suspicious attempt by an individual to purchase mass quantities of ammonium nitrate, specifically between 500 to 1,000 metric tons,” the alert said. “This individual, who uses a Middle Eastern name, purports to be a representative of a construction corporation. However, indications are that this is most likely false.

”The individual has previously made contact with other industry members via e-mail seeking the large amounts of ‘fertilizer grade’ ammonium nitrate," the alert said...


Feds Search for Attempted Ammonium Nitrate Purchaser

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

The Western Media's Abuse of Power



Click here for AmazonThe Power Line crew points us to a startlingly well-written speech given by Melanie Phillips. It's an important statement and one certain to resonate for months, if not years, to come.

A friend went into Blackwells university bookshop in Oxford and asked the counter clerk: 'Do you have a copy of Alan Dershowitz's The Case for Israel?' 'There is no case for Israel', the counter clerk replied...

Britain is gripped by an unprecedented degree of irrationality, prejudice and hysteria over the issues of Iraq, the terrorist jihad and Israel. All three are intimately linked; all three, however, are thought by public opinion to be linked in precisely the wrong way. This is because all three have been systematically misreported, distorted and misrepresented through a lethal combination of profound ignorance, political malice and ancient prejudices.

This systematic abuse by the media is having a devastating impact in weakening the ability of the west to defend itself against the unprecedented mortal threat that it faces from the Islamic jihad. People cannot and will not fight if they don’t understand the nature or gravity of the threat that they face, so much so that they vilify their own leaders while sanitising those who would harm them...

The outcome is a society which no longer understands how to distinguish truth from lies, no longer understands or accepts the desirability of objectivity and no longer is capable of rational debate based on facts and logic. Instead, all evidence is filtered through prism of prior political prejudice and emotion to which it is wrenched to fit. It replaces evidence by propaganda, rationality by gullibility.

And it is perhaps the single greatest incitement to terror. Terrorism is designed to achieve maximum publicity and to manipulate public revulsion so that pressure is put on the leaders of the democracies to surrender. It cannot be said too often that what drives al Qaeda is not the exercise of disproportionate force by the west but the perception of its weakness and incapacity or unwillingness to fight in its own defence. But even al Qaeda must surely have been taken aback by the craven willingness of the British media to fall into line by abusing and persecuting their own leaders at a time of war. These terrorists know that the more barbaric their acts, the more hysteria and pressure the British media will direct at Blair and Bush. So al Qaeda has every incentive to ratchet up the atrocities. That’s why the hostage Kenneth Bigley was videoed sobbing for his life in a cage; and the media duly do what the terrorists want and put it on their front pages and news bulletins, and the pressure on Blair to split from America becomes more and more intolerable.

The appalling result of all this is that, if a terrorist outrage in London were to claim the lives of hundreds or thousands of people, the reaction of many Britons might not be a revival of the spirit of the Blitz and an iron determination to defeat fascism and tyranny. It might be instead to turn on Tony Blair and blame him directly for bringing about the slaughter. And that, of course, is precisely what makes such a terrible outcome more likely. There can be little doubt that al Qaeda, such a shrewd judge of western decadence and the differences in moral fibre between the countries of the west, will have noted the fact that in Britain, the worse the terrorist outrage that is committed, the more the public will turn on Tony Blair. Every single defeatist, distorted or dishonest article about Iraq, Israel and the war on terror makes another barbaric atrocity more likely.

It is this weakness and moral confusion that comprise the great goal of terrorist strategy; it is this that has characterised the west’s response to Islamic terror for many decades; it is this that has brought us to where we are today. In the war that has been declared upon the free world, the western media’s abuse of power is perhaps the most lethal weapon of all.


Melanie Phillips

Security Holes That Run Deep



Click here for AmazonInteresting discussion from SecurityFocus on some implementation details in ASP.NET (Microsoft's strategic web application serving platform) that have dramatic ramifications for its overall security posture.

The specific flaw Beaumont found was deceptively simple: by using a backslash instead of a forward slash you could access secure ASP.NET resources that normally required authentication.

So, if accessing www.example.net/secure/private.aspx is supposed to require authentication, anyone who wants to could still access the file by entering the URL as www.example.net/secure\private.aspx (or using %5C instead of the backslash in IE). Even if you set NTFS permissions to block anonymous users from accessing the file, ASP.NET still allowed access.

As simple as it was to exploit, the existence of the bug told us a lot about ASP.NET's basic security posture -- none of it good.:

* ASP.NET was not always using NTFS permissions to enforce file access.
* You can fool ASP.NET by disguising the file path.
* ASP.NET did not properly filter URL requests.
* ASP.NET authentication fails open rather than failing closed.

...The ASP.NET authorization code determines if the resource requires authentication or not by checking the configuration file of the current application, and looking for rules that match the requested URL. If the URL does not match any of those rules, it checks the configuration of the parent application for a match. If it still finds no match, it continues up to each parent application until it reaches the machine configuration. By default, the machine configuration allows anyone to access anything without authentication.

This means that if you can disguise a URL so that it doesn't match any rule, you will eventually end up at the default rule that says there is no need to authenticate you to access this file.

In other words, if ASP.NET thinks everyone is authorized to access the file, it won't bother running its authentication code to see if a particular user is authorized to have access. ASP.NET opens the file with the security context of the ASP.NET machine account (ASPNET), unless you specifically configure the application to use impersonation. Therefore it completely bypasses any NTFS permissions you might have set on the file...


Security Holes That Run Deep

Journalists Shouldn't be Cheerleaders



Click here for AmazonI know who I would pick to win a fight between a young Mailer, pictured at left, and a young Rumsfeld, below.

Hat tip: LGF...

Click here for AmazonIt’s hardly a shocker that Norman Mailer could show up at a place like Cambridge, Mass., and win big applause with a speech attacking President Bush. After all, employees of Harvard University gave more money to John Kerry’s presidential campaign than people who work anywhere else (except the University of California). What made the standing ovation for the novelist so disappointing, though, was that it came from a great big pack of journalists.

Claims of media bias were a major theme during this past election year - from Dan Rather’s doctored documents questioning Bush’s military service to a convention of minority journalists loudly cheering Kerry when he addressed them in August. But conservatives who want proof of their longstanding claims that the mainstream media harbor a liberal bias could do worse than ordering the audio recordings of the Cambridge conference that are on sale from its sponsor, Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

They would hear laughter and applause from reporters after Mailer said he wished he "was young enough to thrash" Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and scattered applause when he claimed that it was not Jesus but "the devil who speaks to George Bush every night."

Admittedly, some of the attendees were academics, publicists and students, so it’s hard to say who was laughing at which remark. But the thousand-member audience was dominated by freelance writers and editors and reporters from nearly every major paper in the country. None of the dozen people who stood up to question Mailer challenged any of his political assertions. And only a few failed to stand and applaud at the end of a speech that had characterized Bush as “lord of the quagmire” in Iraq.

"I’m a newspaperman - these people don’t seem to understand what their role in society is," said Jack Hart, managing editor of the Portland Oregonian, which cosponsored the conference along with the Boston Globe and the Poynter Institute (which owns the St. Petersburg Times and Governing magazine, where I work). "It makes me very uncomfortable."


Journalists Shouldn't be Cheerleaders

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

THE WHIG HUT



Click here for AmazonThe The Anagram Server is awesome (hat tip: Hugh Hewitt, whose anagram is the heading of this post).

The Nuke Trader



Click here for AmazonThe Jersusalem Post reports (hat tip: LGF) more disturbing news about AQ Kahn. You'll remember Kahn as the ringleader of the Pyongyang/Tripoli/Islamabad nuclear parts network, which thrived for years under the Clinton administration and was exposed and dismantled once George W. Bush took office.

The implications of the latest revelations? Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia may have acquired some sort of nuclear weapons capability through Kahn. But that's not all. Intelligence sources also indicate serious terrorist efforts to acquire nukes:

Days after former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy expressed fears that Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia might have acquired some kind of nuclear capability via an illicit weapons trafficking network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the chief architect of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Israeli military sources have told The Jerusalem Post that, thanks to Khan, one of those three Arab states now has the potential to achieve a "significant nuclear leap."

The sources said that Israel is aware of Khan's contacts with all three countries, but that he had provided to one of them expertise and material to manufacture nuclear bombs. They would not specify which country.

The sources also spoke of an assessment in the IDF that Arab terrorist organizations are stepping up their efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear bombs.

They noted that there is now evidence of increased debate as to whether Islamic law could allow for the deaths of Muslims as part of the price when tens of millions of heathens are killed – a debate whose very nature, the sources said, implies that thought is being given to the notion of using weapons of mass destruction...


Jerusalem Post: The Nuke Trader

Monday, January 03, 2005

How the Left Betrayed my Country - Iraq



Click here for AmazonThis article by Naseer Flayih Hasan has gravitas. Heft. Power. Emotion. Read the whole thing. Hat tip: Power Line.

Before the last war, we Iraqis spent decades cut off from the outside world. Not only did the Baathist regime prevent us from traveling during the Iran-Iraq conflict and the period of the sanctions, but they punished anyone possessing satellite television. And of course, internet access was strictly limited. Because of our isolation, most of us had little idea or sense about life beyond our borders.

We did believe, however, that democracy and human rights were important factors in Western civilization. So it came as a shock to us when millions of people began demonstrating across the world against America’s build-up to the invasion of our country. We supposed the protests were by people who had no idea about the terrible atrocities that the regime had inflicted upon us for decades. We assumed that once they learned what had happened in Iraq, they would change their minds, or modify their opposition to the war...

...We came to understand how these "humanitarians" experienced a sort of pleasure when terrorists or former remnants of the regime created destruction in Iraq—just so they could feel that they were right, and the Americans wrong!

Worse, we realized it was hopeless to make them grasp our feelings. We believed—and still believe--that America’s removal of the regime opened a new way for democracy. At the same time, we have no illusions that the U.S. came to Iraq on a white horse to save our people. We understand this war is all about national interests, and that America’s interests are mainly about defeating terrorism...

...I have become disillusioned, at least with the Leftists I met in Iraq. So noble in their rhetoric, they looked to the stars, yet ignored what was happening around them, caring only about what was inside their minds. So glorious in their ideals, their thoughts were inflexible and their deeds unnecessary, even harmful. In the end, they proved to me how dogma and fanaticism had transform peace activists into—lifeless peace "statues."


How the Left Betrayed my Country - Iraq

Iraqis Undeterred By Violence



Click here for AmazonPower Line:

We've said before that, with few exceptions, those who want to postpone the elections in Iraq are those who would prefer that they never take place at all. Haider Ajina adds further support for that view with this translation of poll results that appeared in the Iraqi Arabic newspaper Alsabaah this morning. The poll was of 4,974 Iraqis living in and around Baghdad:


Will the security problems cause you to?

Not come out and vote the day of elections = 18.3%
Come out and vote the day of elections = 78.3%
No opinion = 3.4%

Do you support military action against the terrorists?

Yes = 87.7 %
No = 11.1%
Don’t Know = 1.2%


My guess is that the turnout in Iraq at the end of the month will exceed what we normally get in a Presidential election here in the U.S. If the terrorists aren't deterring the Iraqis, why should they deter us?


Power Line: Iraqis Undeterred By Violence

DEBKAfile: Saddam Hussein Speaks



Click here for AmazonThe Israeli strategy and intelligence site Debka had an interesting, second-hand interview with Saddam Hussein based upon conversations with one of his attorneys. Topics covered included the ex-dictator's health; complaints about his American guards and the Red Cross; and his impressions of the war and postwar insurgency. Granted, it's hearsay, but worth reading nonetheless.

For me, the most interesting segment came at the end.

...When Duleimi [ed: his attorney] informed him that five million Iranians infiltrated Iraq in advance of the January 30 elections to register as voters, Saddam retorted: "This is nothing new as far as the Persian traitors are concerned. We always knew they wanted to grab southern Iraq and that this was the objective of the Badr Brigades. Now the Americans are discovering this for themselves."

But, he added, in any case, the Americans and Allawi will not succeed in bringing the elections off. They will fail, he declared.

Finally, the former Iraqi president said: “I fear for Syria. I warned Bashar Assad that the Americans had not only targeted Iraq, but Syria too.”

DEBKAfile’s military sources add:

Saddam Hussein touched inadvertently on the most burning issue between the Bush administration and Iraq’s interim prime minister Iyad Alawi. Ever since the December 21 suicide attack on the US forward base in Mosul, when 22 Americans were killed, Allawi has been urging Washington to launch attacks from Iraq on points in Syria – singling out military locations known to intelligence as bases used to assist and train terrorists preparatory to their infiltration of Iraq. The Iraqi prime minister believes that without military action against Syria, three key goals will remain out of reach:

1. A general election on January 30 orderly enough to be a success.

2. An effective deterrent to Tehran’s meddling in Iraq.

3. Victory in the war against the guerrillas.

Sunday, January 2, US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage arrives in Damascus with a final warning from Washington. The Syrian ruler will be informed that the administration is closer than ever before to acceding to Allawi’s demand.


DEBKAfile: Saddam Hussein Speaks

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Half the Story



Click here for AmazonIn propagandizing the "Iraq = Vietnam" meme, some in the mainstream press have forgotten one teensy, tiny detail. Our side (we'll call them the good guys) are fighting for a Democratic government against extremist, suicidal Islamofascists who would like nothing better than to kill Americans (and for that matter, anyone who is not their co-religionist), either here or abroad. Nothing to do with the situation is similar to that in Vietnam, and the sooner the MSM picks up on that fact, the better for everyone. You'd think their arthritic circulation numbers would have provided the hint.

Haider Ajina sent us this translation of an article that appeared today in the Iraqi Arabic newspaper Nahrain:

A press release by the Iraqi ministry of defense.

1. At 1 am Iraqi National Guard (ING), the Mahmudih division, arrested 217 individuals suspected of being terrorists and confiscated a large cache of light and heavy caliber weapons and ammunition.

2. At 2 am the same ING division arrested Hatem Alzobaae, a suspected terrorist cell leader.

3. At 2:30 am ING in Hillah arrested the terrorist Ali Mehsan Ghnajar. In his possession were 19 grenades, three 28mm mortars.

4. At 4 am, based on a tip that he had returned from Syria, the criminal Ali Latief was arrested by the ING. Four men who are part of his cell were also arrested.

5. At 4 am 10 terrorists were arrested after returning from Mosul by the ING Mahmudiah division.

6. At 4 am ING raided the Hai Alaskari area based on a tip. As a result of the raid the ING arrested 10 terrorists one of which resisted and was wounded and arrested.

7. At 4 am terrorists attacked the Hadbaa police station and were repelled with 2 terrorists killed and their weapons confiscated.

8. At 5 am ING started a security clean sweep of Bab Shams. They confiscated a large number of hand grenades and mortar weapons and rounds.


Haider adds these comments:

I keep seeing more and more of this type of terrorist cleansing activity. What is more interesting is that the Iraqi National Guard is more and more active in these arrests. I have also noticed that more and more actions based on tips are being reported.


Check your local newspaper tomorrow morning and see whether these successes by the Iraqi National Guard have been reported. Then ask yourself whether any successful terrorist attack, whether via car bomb, attack on a police station, kidnapping, or whatever, has ever gone unreported in your local paper. Then ask your local paper why half of the story is missing.


Powerline: Half the Story

Of Car Bombs and Spectrometers



Click here for AmazonThere's something that's been eating away at me regarding the security situation in Iraq. Too many good people are being killed or maimed by car bombs in Iraq. I'm definitely no physicist, but doesn't it seem feasible to position spectrometer-based sensors on major intersections in the Sunni triangle to detect these fascists?

Heck, maybe this already exists. But, if so, it would be good to hear about some successful interceptions (or, as I like to call them, "premature detonations") of car bombers.

Use the Comments feature, below, if you have an idea why this is so difficult to achieve.

Fave Blog Moment '04: Hugh Hewitt, Calm in the Storm



Click here for AmazonThis is probably a bit esoteric, but one of my favorite blog moments was election day. Specifically, when the exit polls were pointing towards a stunning Kerry victory.

What the heck was happening? How could that be?

More than anyone else, Hugh Hewitt provided the calming rally point first; marshalling the forces of good through his insistence that the exit poll data was bogus.

The facts rolled in and PoliPundit and others provided the quantitative basis for disputing the polls.

On that day, Hewitt, PoliPundit, and others demonstrated the mettle that only true leaders possess. The calming influence they exerted may very well have turned the tide in Ohio.

I'll explain the picture... I simply did a Google image search for "Hewitt" and that's what I came up with. Odds are that's Jennifer Love and not Hugh.

Whither Old Media?



Click here for AmazonPoliPundit has the answer.

In a nutshell: catastrophic losses in readership for newspapers. And the demographic trends must truly be frightening. Younger readers are ignoring newspapers in ever greater numbers.

Where are readers turning? You know the answer as well as I. Blogs.

Study: Blog creation, readership jumped in ’04

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Ocean's Twelve



Click here for AmazonI saw Ocean's Twelve a couple of days ago and was, as most critics were, very underwhelmed. All that talent and so little story. Let's count the plot devices, many of which were flimsier than Scott Peterson's alibi...

Warning: spoiler alert!

Skip to the next section (in which I rewrite the plot of Ocean's Twelve) if you have not, and intend to, see the current movie. These are the things that really, really pissed me off about the screenplay:

1) Okay, so how does the Nightfox steal the priceless, incredibly well-protected treasure from antiquity, the Faberge Egg? Yes, that's right - he dances over randomly oscillating "laser beams" using a combination of yoga moves and Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning exercises. Let's not even mention that this plot device is a recurring theme in Catherine Zeta-Jones movies, given that she used an identical set of moves in the stunningly underwhelming Entrapment. That's it. The entire Nightfox plan for stealing the egg. And it works! Oh, and let's not even get into the nom de guerre of Nightfox. Let's just say that David Hasselhoff and the Chevrolet Camaro factory are considering separate lawsuits.

2) In a matter of two days' time, Ocean's team (a) acquires six (6) huge, highly sophisticated, computer-controlled hydraulic jacks (that, by the way, must be capable of operating underwater); (b) installs said jacks underneath a house in Amsterdam in pitch black water; and (c) commandeers a submarine -- in the middle of downtown Amsterdam, mind you -- from which to coordinate the house lifting operation. Uhmm, how about using a f**king ladder on the rooftop to get the bow angle they need... instead of jacking the house up? I guess jacking the house up was... easier?

3) Julia Roberts playing Tess, who then pretends to be Julia Roberts? Bruce Willis playing Bruce Willis? 'Nuff said. I know many reviewers picked on this outrageous escape valve, claiming that it was effective as a 12-foot sailboat in a hurricane. Or that it was an "egregious, ineffective plot device that highlighted the writers' complete lack of ability and creativity". Okay, maybe they didn't say any of that, but they should have said it... and worse.

I could go on... but, thankfully, I won't. What I will do, dear reader, is tell you how I would have plotted Ocean's Twelve. So sit right back and you'll hear a tale... a tale of a fateful robbery...

Ocean's Twelve: the Remake

Terry Benedict has never forgotten the humiliating and monstrously large theft at his casinos. It tarred his reputation, diminished his ego, and made him, for a time, the laughingstock of the casino industry.

His minions have been searching for Daniel Ocean for months, offering an immense reward to those who might provide information on his whereabouts. Knowing Ocean's central weakness - a propensity for "visiting" high-end jewelry stores -- Benedict's team mass mails every jewelry store in the country with a flyer of Ocean and an offer of reward: one million dollars.

Sure enough, Ocean is spotted perusing diamond earrings in Tiffany's at Copley Plaza in Boston. Benedict's goons grab Tess and hold her as ransom while a startling ultimatum is delivered to Danny: repay the stolen money, with interest, in six months' time. Otherwise, Tess is toast and Benedict will track down the entire team -- and their families -- and kill them all. Their total tab? $190 million.

Ocean assembles his original team... even Sol, who realizes that his beloved wife may pay the ultimate price for his crimes. But it is Rusty (Brad Pitt) who has the best idea. It evolved as he courted Amsterdam's leading stolen art detective, Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Amsterdam is home, of course, to the world-famous Van Gogh museum, which possesses many of Van Gogh's finest works. Rusty knows the ins and outs of not only the museum, but also the identity of a mysterious Japanese art collector willing to pay for the entire Van Gogh collection. The amount? How does a quarter of a billion dollars sound? Best of all, there are... no questions asked.

An escrow account is arranged with the Japanese principal. And the meticulous planning, a hallmark of Danny Ocean, begins. The heist itself is a doozy: the Van Gogh museum possesses triply redundant security systems and two completely independent teams of security guards. The latter team is a quick-react force possessing all the tactical equipment of a major city SWAT team, including night vision.

There are perimeter alarms at every door and entry-way... motion detectors... pressure-sensitive switches... and even infrared sensors that can detect body temperature changes through the museum. All must be dealt with.

Ocean dispatches two members of his team to Las Vegas; they are tasked with filming the faces of Benedict's key security personnel and gaining access to Benedict's personal safety deposit box at the Belaggio.

He also sends two of the team to the Rembrandt House, Amsterdam's premiere historical venue, to perform reconaissance. The Rembrandt House was home to the immortal Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn and his wife Saskia from 1639 to 1658; this is where the master painted some of his most memorable works, including "The Night Watch".

On the critical night, a burglar alarm and a fire alarm both go off at the Rembrandt House, occupying the Fire and Police departments. During the hullabaloo, three police cruisers pull up at the back entrance of the Van Gogh Museum. The police officers alert the security guards to the ongoing emergency at the Rembrandt house and gain access to the museum. And then they take over, handcuffing the security guards and stripping the place clean of Van Gogh's works.

As far as the security cameras are concerned, Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) has seamlessly spliced the facial images of Benedict's goons on the museum's security tapes using advanced, computer-generated imaging. Ocean also anonymously alerts the authorities to the fact that a stolen Van Gogh painting is in Benedict's personal safe at the Bellagio.

Closing scene: Terry Benedict is led off in handcuffs, with bail certain to be denied by the man who orchestrated the theft of dozens of Van Goghs. With Benedict behind bars, Ocean's Twelve is now safe and sound. And, oh by the way, in possession of $250 million. Roll credits!

Friday, December 31, 2004

Whither the Blogosphere, Nick Coleman?



Click here for AmazonIit's been only a few days since The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Nick Coleman suffered a very public, very embarassing end-of-year breakdown. His attempt to insult Time Magazine's blog-of-the-year, Powerline, and tar them as insecure, highly compensated GOPeratives worked out about as well as a Denny McClain comeback attempt.

The blogosphere responded with a punishing barrage. The Powerline gang responded, of course, and a host of other bloggers took up the cause as well.

Given everything that's happened in 2004... heck, given just the real-time mobilization of the blogosphere to report upon and respond to the tragic aftermath of the tsunami, one would think that even Nick Coleman could grasb the obvious:

Comparing the blogosphere with the mainstream media...

o The blogosphere is more nimble, able to array credible reporters on every street corner and in every village
o The blogosphere is more scalable, able to redeploy resources at a moment's notice
o The blogosphere is more accurate, with every story of significance fact-checked and vetted by hundreds or thousands of competitors, hoping to uncover a gaffe or scandal (with experts ranging from forgery analysis *ahem* to military tactics)
o The blogosphere is more comprehensive, achieving more sensors, reporters, analysts and editors than the MSM could ever hope to amass

Whither the blogosphere, Nick?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind. Oh, and Nick, don't you love the smell of napalm in the morning?

Patterico on the LA Dog Trainer Times



Click here for AmazonThis is required reading for all media watchers. Patterico has compiled a litany of partisan hackery on the part of the LA Times for '04... and he's just getting started.

The LA Times: with all the credibility of Art Schlichter at the dogtrack... holding a Mastercard in the name of Pablo Rodriquez. I laughed, I cried, it changed my life.

Here's a quick taste:

...When CBS's "60 Minutes" program relied on forged documents to support allegations that Bush had been AWOL, the Los Angeles Times ran another front-page story, trumpeting the existence and content of the documents. But when the Washington Post (taking its cue from the blogosphere) ran a Page A01 story reporting that the documents were probably fake, the L.A. Times buried the news on Page A18. That's right: when documents damaging to Bush appeared authentic, that was front-page material -- but genuine questions about their authenticity were buried in the back of the paper.

Worse still, the L.A. Times portrayed the controversy about the forged documents as a "partisan" issue, and quoted Col. Killian's daughter as saying that Killian's family knew nothing about the authenticity of the documents. This was false, as the paper's editors should have known. The Times didn't tell its readers that the previous day, Col. Killian's son and widow had both publicly questioned the documents' authenticity.

When the Times finally put this story on the front page, no variant of the word "forgery" appeared in the entire piece, and the front page didn't contain even a hint that the documents might not be authentic. All the information showing the documents were probably fake was carefully buried on the back pages, on Page A18 -- the Page of Choice for embarrassing revelations about the forged documents.

While the rest of the media slowly accepted the fact that CBS had relied on forged documents, the L.A. Times followed Dan Rather's lead, and kept looking for that partisan connection. The results were occasionally comical...


Patterico: Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review '04 (and don't miss Part II)