[Guest post by DRJ]

I wasn’t planning on posting on this subject but you can’t ignore a one-day internet haul like this:

“Today, Nov. 5, marks not only Paul’s best fundraising haul in a single day — approximately $3.75 million by 11 p.m. EST — but online observers say it’s also the most money raised by a candidate on the Web in a single day. And the day’s not over yet.

“Damn. Wow. Um, that’s pretty awesome,” said a stunned Jerome Armstrong who served as Howard Dean’s online strategist. Armstrong, the founder of the popular blog MyDD, said Dean raised as much as $700,000 in one day toward the end of the primary race. “But not a million,” Armstrong added. “What Paul is doing — or what his supporters are doing — is really impressive.”

Ron Paul’s website shows a final one-day total of $3.8M. Very impressive.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

The U-Wash Law School has increased security after the discovery of a Nazi/firearm threat on a bathroom wall and menacing phone calls:

“University of Washington law students are on alert after graffiti appeared on campus last week that threatened their lives, but some are upset about how little information they’ve been told.

The threat, directed toward Law School students and the Law School, was found scrawled across the wall of a campus bathroom Oct. 30. UW officials declined to reveal the exact wording of the graffiti, but School of Law Dean Greg Hicks summarized the sentiment as being that the school is “training up little Nazis.”

The UW Police Department isn’t saying where the graffiti was discovered or what it said because investigators haven’t questioned a suspect they have identified. But police acknowledge that the threat was specific to November and that firearms were mentioned.

The graffiti’s threat is compounded by a number of menacing phone calls made to the Law School recently, Hicks said.

It’s not clear how serious those threats are, but police have taken security measures at William H. Gates Hall, which houses the School of Law. Students and faculty must have a Husky ID card to get into the building, and an officer has been posted there indefinitely, UW Police Assistant Chief Ray Wittmier said.”

A student leader urged students to be patient in the face of a “tight-lipped” response by authorities:

“Student Bar Association President Nowell Bamberger e-mailed students Saturday, asking them to be patient with the tight-lipped policies of school administrators and police.

“I can assure you that, based on the very limited information that has been shared with me at this point, the administration is taking every prudent action to keep the building, our students, staff and faculty safe in light of our current situation,” he wrote.

“This is one of those times when I believe that we all must trust that the steps that are being taken are in the interests of our collective security and well-being,” he added.”

I’m sure everyone is rightfully concerned about this, and I hope the perpetrator is quickly identified and prosecuted.

This incident brings home in a very real way the delicate balance between the public’s right to know and the government’s need for secrecy in investigating terrorist threats.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Describing it as the worst threat that Britain’s security service has faced in its 98-year existence, the head of Britain’s MI5 acknowledged that al Qaeda is recruiting teenagers to carry out terror attacks and that terror plans are emanating from a growing number of foreign countries:

“Teenagers as young as 15 are being groomed to carry out terrorist attacks in Britain and al-Qaida sympathisers are hatching plots in a growing number of foreign countries against targets here, the head of MI5 warned yesterday.

In his first public speech, Jonathan Evans described the threat posed by al-Qaida-inspired extremism as “the most immediate and acute peacetime threat” the security service had faced in its 98-year history. The threat, he emphasised, had its roots in ideology, making it all the more important that the response must not be indiscriminate.

“Terrorists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in this country”, Mr Evans told the annual conference of the Society of Editors in Manchester. He added: “They are radicalising, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism. This year, we have seen individuals as young as 15 and 16 implicated in terrorist-related activity.”

Al-Qaida was “conducting a deliberate campaign against us”, he said. It was an “expression of hostility” against Britain that existed long before the September 11 attacks on the US. What was new was the attempt to recruit youngsters and the extent to which conspiracies here were being driven from more countries.

In the past, much of the command, control and inspiration for planning attacks in Britain came from al-Qaida’s remaining core leadership in the tribal areas of Pakistan – often using young British citizens to mount the actual attack, Mr Evans said. Now, he said, a similar pattern was emerging elsewhere. There was no doubt there was training activity and terrorist planning in East Africa – particularly in Somalia – which was focused on the UK.“

Evans also made this interesting comment about the limits of security and surveillance in a free society:

“Mr Evans defended MI5 against charges that it could have identified two of the bombers who struck in London on July 7 2005 because they had been seen with the perpetrators of another terrorist plot the agency had succeeded in foiling.

“There will be instances when individuals come to the notice of the security service or the police but then subsequently carry out acts of terrorism”, he said. He continued: “This is inevitable. Every decision to investigate someone entails a decision not to investigate someone else. Knowing of somebody is not the same as knowing all about somebody.“

MI5 currently has a workforce of 3,150 people but it is expected to grow to 4,000 in the next 4 years.

— DRJ

[by Justin Levine]

Here.

[guest post by Justin Levine] 

For those of you who haven’t checked out the website recently, I have recently updated the page posting the ‘best’ (worst) hate mail to the Bill Handel Radio Show.

Read them at your own peril (or, read it for personal inspiration – if that is where your own taste proclivities happen to lie).   [Warning: Racist hate speech alert.]

For those who live outside of Southern California, you can check out the Handel podcasts here. If you have broadband, you can also check out our new ‘vodcasts’ at the site by clicking the ‘HOTN vodcast’ button under the ‘On Demand’ menu.

[Guest post by DRJ]

In this era where many young voters get most of their news from Comedy Central shows featuring Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it’s news when Stephen Colbert ends his bid for the White House:

“Stephen Colbert has dropped his bid for the White House. His announcement came after the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council voted last week to keep the host of “The Colbert Report” off the state’s primary ballot. The vote was 13-3.

Colbert poses as a conservative talk-show host on the Comedy Central show. “Although I lost by the slimmest margin in presidential election history – only 10 votes – I have chosen not to put the country through another agonizing Supreme Court battle,” Colbert said Monday in a statement. “It is time for this nation to heal.”

Colbert had said he would run only in his native South Carolina, a key primary state. He said he planned to run as a Democrat and a Republican – so he could lose twice. Colbert, 43, later declined to file with the GOP, which has a much higher filing fee ($35,000) than the Democrats ($2,500).

“I want to say to my supporters, this is not over,” Colbert said. “While I may accept the decision of the Council, the fight goes on! The dream endures! … And I am going off the air until I can talk about this without weeping.”

In reality, “The Colbert Report” was going off the air because of a strike by Hollywood writers that began Monday. Many talk shows were expected to be shown in repeats during the strike.”

I’m old and old-fashioned so I don’t often watch Stewart and Colbert, but I’ve seen them enough to know they are funny and entertaining. In that sense, I’m disappointed in his decision. Of course, since this probably resulted from the writers’ strike, maybe I should say I’m disappointed in that.

— DRJ

[guest post by Justin Levine] 

From the L.A. Examiner dated Sept. 27, 1951, come this small blurb on page 1, below the fold –

2212 Increase in Korean War Casualties Announced by U.S.

Washington – Sept. 26 – (INS) – The Defense Department today announced a sharp increase in American casualties in Korea to a total of 85,469 or 2212 more than last week.

The week’s increase, including 890 dead, exceeded the weekly average of American casualties in the entire war.

The new total includes 12,715 killed in action; 60,410 wounded, of whom 1420 have died; and 12, 344 missing, of whom 145 are known to be dead. The total of known American deaths is 14,280.

[Note: This will be an occasional continuing series that I will post, featuring past stories in L.A. papers that are interesting and/or provide perspective to today’s world. Most of the examples are from copies made from microfilm, so I regretfully won’t be able to link to any source on the Internet for others to verify from. However, if you can convince me that you genuinely doubt the veracity of the information in question, and aren’t just someone who likes to waste my time for your amusement, I will be willing to scan the copy that I have and e-mail it to you as a jpg file. Otherwise, you are free to look it up yourself in the L.A. Public Library.]