Ashcroft and FBI: asleep at the wheel

The FBI failed miserably over several years to reorganize and respond to a steadily growing threat of terrorism, and Attorney General John Ashcroft rejected an agency appeal for more funding on the day before al-Qaida struck, the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks said Tuesday.

It’s not like any of this was a deep secret. Well before 9/11, there were numerous news reports and books written about al Qaida, bin Laden, and the increased chances of terrorism.

I’m becoming convinced that the real problem here is, under all the bluster and arrogance, the US government (and that includes the Clinton Administration as well as Bush) is simply not competent when it comes to foreign affairs.

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Is that a draft I feel in here?

General requests additional troops, 7,000-10,000 more, to be exact.

Kerry calls for increased “national service“ by college students. He wants to give more tuition money to those joining the military, not precisely a draft yet, but definitely edging towards it. Plus, as mentioned here before, Kerry’s website calls for 40,000 more troops on a “temporary” basis.

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The kingdom is crumbling

Empire Notes: a reporter in Baghdad blogs
(April 12, 1:00 pm entry)

Word on the street is that the risks to foreigners are very great. I will probably not leave home in the evening any more. I will only be able to update once a day, if things go smoothly. It’s even possible I’ll phone in my blog updates. Going to Fallujah was very important, because literally nobody was reporting the whole story in English, but risking kidnapping day by day here is a foolish risk — or so my colleagues have persuaded me.

Everything you’ve seen in the press (if you’re reading very widely and carefully) about how the occupation is collapsing is true. I don’t mean this to predict prematurely what the outcome is, just to say that the change I sense in public opinion seems close to irreversible.

Meanwhile, back at the Let’s Git Tough corral

US pledge to arrest or kill Shia cleric

Let’s see, hmm, gittin’ tough has proved to be a disastrous policy. Everytime the US gits tough, things get worse. Faced with such a predicament, rational adults might possibly contemplate changing plans and trying something new - a ha ha ha, as if the Bushies could ever do that - so, faced with the disastrous consequences of their game plan - they’re sticking with that plan yet again!

Even Bill O’Reilly is getting twitchy. While channel surfing tonight, I came upon him yelping at a right-wing Kurd that if high US casualties continue, Dubya might not be re-selected - er, re-elected - so Iraqis damn well better get their act together. Lord, what a loony uncomprehending comment. As if Kurds have control over Iraqis. As if Iraqis have any reason to want Bush re-elected. As if Bill O’Reilly has the power to command any of them to do anything.

The Kurd, who had been supportive of the US and no doubt thought he was saying what O’Reilly wanted to hear, looked stunned both at O’Reilly’s ritual and pointless nastiness and at the inanity of the comment. 

Bush will hold a rare press conference today, his first this year. He’s only doing this because events are forcing him to. Events like Richard Clarke, the mediocre at best testimony of Condoleeza Rice, the release of the memo detailing bin Laden was planning attacks, and of course, the unexpected powerful resistance in Iraq - all these are hurting him and hurting him badly.

The Right has lost their momentum, and are on the defensive. Good. Let’s keep the pressure on.

Seize the day!

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Mail Washer Pro: a worthy spam killer

I’ve been using Mailwasher Pro for several days now. I like it, it learns fast, is easy to use, and most definitely kills spam. Plus, it doesn’t matter what your mail reader is, it works with all of them.

It works differently from other spam killers. It sits between your mail server and your mail reader. Mail flows into it. You mark which emails are spam and which are ok. Ok addresses get added to your Whitelist of approved email addresses. Click a button, it washes the mail, opens your mail reader, then you click the mail reader to import the mail. After a few days of learning, it’s already marking most email correctly, so I don’t have to do much at all.

Doing it this way, spam never gets downloaded to you. At first I thought checking email first like this would be a pain, until I realized I was checking the mail after it arrived anyway. Y’see, I need to check all my email marked as spam for false positives, i.e. mail marked as spam that actually isn’t - because if I don’t, I could (and have) missed important mail.

They have a functional free demo version. The registered version is $37 and includes, I think, one year of FireTrust, a network of thousands of users who (anonymously) share which emails are spam thus allowing Mail Washer to work even smarter. Plus, FireTrust defaults to hiding mail it knows to be spam, thus saving you time.

The spam I was getting through my five email accounts was getting overwhelming. Now it’s quite manageable, in fact I never see most of it!

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