Patterico's Pontifications

7/5/2006

Yale’s Taliban Guy: Talibanned!

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:34 pm



Our pal Clint Taylor takes a victory lap over at Hot Air.

P.S. It’s Allah’s pun. I just copy ’em.

Federal Agents Make Arrests of People Exposing Highly Classified Information

Filed under: Terrorism — Patterico @ 10:17 pm



I knew we could get federal agents to start arresting people to protect “highly classified” information! Here are the details:

ATLANTA, July 5 — Federal agents have arrested and charged an employee of the Coca-Cola Company and two others with stealing trade secrets and wire fraud, saying they tried to sell “highly classified” information to that company’s competitor PepsiCo for $1.5 million.

Oh . . . you thought I meant they made arrests in the disclosure of the Swift program! Silly me! I guess that headline was a bit misleading, now that you point it out.

Hint for our counterterrorism officials: next time you have a legal and effective counterterror program — trademark it! Instead of calling it the “Terrorist Finance Tracking Program,” call it “Terror Busters.”™

It’s the ™ that makes all the difference. New York Times lawyers will kill any story disclosing the program — and federal agents will be at your beck and call.

You heard it here first.

UPDATE: Or second. Ace apparently had substantially the same gag before I did. I guess the irony is such that it leapt out at more than one person.

What is Wonkette Doing Nowadays? When She’s Not Fighting Malkin, She Is Apparently Writing Wine Descriptions

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:20 pm



We were wine-tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley on Monday. I saved the brochure from the tasting we did at the Fess Parker winery. According to the brochure, one of the wines has a

rich, round mouth feel and lingering finish.

Another “finishes with nice length.”

Not to be outdone, a woman at a different winery told us that a wine had a “smooth silky mouth finish.” That wasn’t in the brochure; she told us that orally.

L.A. Times Once Again (Deliberately) Confuses Opposition to “Illegal Immigration” with Opposition to “Immigration”

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General,Immigration — Patterico @ 7:20 pm



A recent L.A. Times article opens:

Several thousand legal immigrants stood in line for hours Saturday in Los Angeles to take the first step toward becoming citizens of the United States.

Angered by the anti-immigrant rhetoric emanating from a Republican-dominated Congress, they converged on the Los Angeles Convention Center to apply for citizenship.

I challenge reporter Jeffrey L. Rabin or his editors to provide me with a single example of rhetoric levelled by Congressional Republicans against legal immigrants. I doubt they can provide even one.

Far from ranting against legal immigrants, Republican hard-liners seek to help them — by preventing the illegal immigrants from cutting in line in front of them.

Chris Reed, whose post brought this to my attention, says:

Reporter Jeffrey L. Rabin of the L.A. Times should be embarrassed, but so should his editors. . . . His lead is a parody of left-wing newspaper bias. In a just world, his career would suffer. In this world, he’s probably on the NYT’s short list.

Heh. I don’t know, though. First he may have to prove his willingness to publish classified information on legal counterterror programs. Just to show that he’s one of the guys.

Ken Lay Dead (UPDATE: So Is His Criminal Case)

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:43 am



The radio is reporting it’s a heart attack.

UPDATE: I am persuaded, on reflection, that my initial reaction to this news was in bad taste. (I made a comment to the effect that, while I had hoped to see him go to prison, “I guess roasting in hell works too.”) Forgive my anger; my parents were among the thousands defrauded by the man and his company, so it’s a personal issue for me. But while I think he did some very bad things, that’s no excuse for making a tacky comment like that.

UPDATE x2: A commenter has suggested that I deleted the offensive language from the post. Not at all. Even though the comment (which was part of the post itself) was up for only a few minutes before I retracted it, the part I wish I hadn’t said is right there inside the quotes. I haven’t deleted it.

Blogging ethics require bloggers to acknowledge errors and missteps, not paper them over. Acknowledging my error is what I have done here, which is why the quoted language remains in the post.

UPDATE x3: Legally, his case died with him.

UPDATE x4: Captain Ed says it well.

And If It Doesn’t Lack One Now, I’ll Make Sure It Lacks One in the Future!

Filed under: Media Bias,Scum,Terrorism — Patterico @ 7:07 am



Cassandra at Villainous Company notes an Eric Lichtblau-penned New York Times article from November 2005, titled: “U.S. Lacks Strategy to Curb Terror Funds.”

The Swift program that everyone and his dog already knew about? Apparently it was unknown to Mr. Lichtblau then.

Read her whole post.

Maybe Mr. Lichtblau’s disclosure of the Swift program was simply designed to ensure the accuracy of that headline.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Allah reports on evidence that the recent disclosure jeopardized three ongoing investigations. See? Mr. Lichtblau was right after all!

UPDATE x2: Original credit for finding Lichtblau’s 2005 piece goes to Cori Dauber.


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