MAJOR MALIK NIDAL HASAN INVESTIGATION CREEPS ON — FBI DOES NOT FIND ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Major Malik Nidal Hasan Shops at Local Convenience Store

An FBI press release (reproduced in full below) provides an update: government investigators cannot find an elephant in this room.

Passing strange.

Please suspend common sense and do not jump to any unwarranted conclusions — about political correctness, for example — while experts examine the obvious.  Even if it strikes one as more than a bit like children pushing Brussels sprouts under other food on their plates.

Investigation Continues Into Fort Hood Shooting

The FBI continues to work closely with the Department of the Army in the joint, ongoing investigation into the tragic events that occurred last Thursday at Fort Hood. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the victims and their families.

With respect to the investigation—the Army Criminal Investigative Division is leading a coordinated criminal investigation with the support of the FBI and other components of the Department of Justice and the Texas Rangers. The investigation is in its early stages and the information we can provide now is limited.

With respect to what the FBI is doing—personnel from the Counterterrorism Division, Laboratory Division, and the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) are on site in support of the tragedy. The personnel deployed by the Laboratory and CIRG are specialists in crime scene analysis, evidence collection, and shooting incident reconstruction. Our victim assistance teams are working closely with their counterpart Department of Defense specialists, and we will continue to provide whatever resources are necessary to support the investigation.

Experts at Work: "The investigation to date has not identified a motive, and a number of possibilities remain under consideration."

At this point, there is no information to indicate Major Malik Nidal Hasan had any co-conspirators or was part of a broader terrorist plot. The investigation to date has not identified a motive, and a number of possibilities remain under consideration. We are working with the military to obtain, review, and analyze all information relating to Major Hasan in order to allow for a better understanding of the facts and circumstances that led to the Fort Hood shooting. Understandably, there is a large volume of information in various forms and it will take us some time to complete this work.

There has been and continues to be a great deal of reported information about what was or might have been known to the government about Major Hasan prior to the shooting.

Major Hasan came to the attention of the FBI in December 2008 as part of an unrelated investigation being conducted by one of our Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs). JTTFs are FBI-led, multi-agency teams made up of FBI agents, other federal investigators—including those from the Department of Defense—and state and local law enforcement officers.

"Investigators on the JTTF reviewed certain communications between Major Hasan and the subject of that investigation and assessed that the content of those communications was consistent with research being conducted by Major Hasan in his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center."

Investigators on the JTTF reviewed certain communications between Major Hasan and the subject of that investigation and assessed that the content of those communications was consistent with research being conducted by Major Hasan in his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center. Because the content of the communications was explainable by his research and nothing else derogatory was found, the JTTF concluded that Major Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning. Other communications of which the FBI was aware were similar to the ones reviewed by the JTTF.

Our top priority is to ensure that the person responsible for the Fort Hood shooting is held accountable. The ongoing investigation includes forensic examinations of Major Hasan’s computers and any Internet activity in hopes of gaining insight into his motivation. But the investigation to date indicates that the alleged gunman acted alone and was not part of a broader terrorist plot.

After meeting with the president, FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered a review of this matter to determine all of the facts and circumstances related to this tragedy and whether, with the benefit of hindsight, any policies or practices should change based on what we learn.

Again, this is a joint, ongoing criminal investigation that continues to move forward on many fronts. There is still much to learn. As a pending criminal case, the government remains limited in what information can be disclosed publicly about a United States citizen under investigation. As with any criminal investigation, all suspects are presumed innocent unless and until they are proven guilty of a crime in a court of law.

At the Gates of Vienna

CALLING CALIFORNIA: “MEDICAL MARIJUANA” IS A FRAUD — YOU HAVE THE WORST OF BOTH WORLDS

Inhaling the Smoke of This Weed Is Supposed to be Good for What Ails You? Or Are its Dispensers Just a Front for More of the Same Criminal Trafficking in a Banned Drug?

This piece from Charles Lane’s Washington Post blog provides a nice, cold-eyed summary, making [my words here] the point:  “Medical marijuana” is a fraud and the Obama administration is ducking the issue:  Should we flat-out legalize this drug, or should we tolerate and maybe even encourage (as do the Holder guidelines on weed) the continued hypocrisy of phony “medicinal” uses.

I originally thought the new Obama/Holder weed guidelines were an elegant solution:  stand back and let the states develop policy and reach a national consensus.  I now see them as a political base-holding confection.  The states, if California is an example, and it is, are developing neither policy nor consensus.  They are waddling along with a sick and corrosive system that is partially legal and overwhelmingly criminal, following a lobby that intensely wants every American to light up and enjoy, meanwhile rewarding criminal gangsters with a facade of legality.

Attorney General Eric Holder Announces Obama Administration's "Medical Marijuana" Tolerance Guidelines

And where is the Washington “law enforcement establishment” — the suits di suits — on this?  Neutered and silent, complicit, reminding one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Dereliction of Duty when another Democratic President, Lyndon B. Johnson, used his forceful political persona to send “American boys” to fight a war he said they never would.  Nice backdrops for media conferences.

The original Post blog site from which this excerpt is taken contains data on medical surveys about how phony the so-called “medicinal” properties, at least as administered through a cigarette with no production standards, are.

‘Medical marijuana’ is a Trojan horse

…decriminalization of marijuana is worth debating. I have no objection to letting AIDS patients and other truly desperately ill people smoke marijuana if it makes them feel better. I have no objection to the administration of THC, pot’s active ingredient, in properly tested and dosed pharmaceuticals. What I do object to, strongly, is the claim that smoked marijuana is some sort of wonder cure with a multiplicity of proven, but officially repressed, therapeutic uses.
….
Why does this bug me so much? It always bugs me when some group of true believers tries to foist its views on the public in the guise of science (e.g., “creation science”). This is especially pernicious when it involves selling phony remedies for real diseases (or real drugs for phony diseases)…
….
“Medical marijuana” is obviously a Trojan horse for legalization of pot as a recreational drug. In a democracy, people should pursue their policy objectives openly, not under false pretenses. In that respect, I thought that the attorney general created a certain amount of inevitable confusion when he announced his non-prosecution policy toward consumers and sellers of pot under state “medical marijuana” laws, while continuing to pursue large-scale traffickers and growers. Is marijuana a sometimes-therapeutic substance, as the AG implied by referring to “medical marijuana” smokers as “patients,” and those who provide pot to them as “caregivers” following “treatment regimens?” Or does pot have “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” as federal law provides — and, I would add, the evidence suggests? To be sure, the Justice Department’s directive to prosecutors focused on individuals with “cancer or other serious illnesses” who are complying with state law. But since many people who don’t have cancer or anything close to it are getting high under medical pretenses, plenty of ambiguity remains.

What Lane does not get into here is how the present phony, runaway “medical marijuana” system simply drives up demand — “patients” are pouring out of the woodwork because, “Hey, dude, it’s legal!” — which demand is met not by doctors and laboratory technicians in white coats ensuring a uniform product free of impurities, but criminal networks large and small selling illicitly grown, insecticide-laced, who-knows-what weed.  Fairly Civil was told during a visit to California that the bigger criminal networks, including the Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations, are cranking up to help meet the supply, and even forcing out those beloved hippy pot farmers whose righteous sense of  “serving” the self-medication community disappears into a liquid stream down the leg when confronted with DTO or gangster firepower.

Weed and Weapons In Oregon

Nothing stops a small-time farmer like looking down the barrel of a Kalashnikov clone.

Here’s another point I heard from the parent of a 16-year old boy.  Yes, he’s smoking, and guess where he gets his weed?  From the children of other parents who procure their “legal” drugs at “medical marijuana” shops on jacked-up licenses, and then dispense it to their own medically-needy children.  These aren’t East L.A. stereotypes, these are whatever passes for upper middle class in L.A.  See, they would rather “know” where their kids are getting their drugs (i.e., from their own trendy parents) than worry about some “dealer” seducing them.  How sick and disgusting is that?  The parent-victim of this system that I talked to doesn’t want her son smoking, but she is caught right smack between the do-gooders and the traffickers.

This is exactly an example of the kind of evil some state and local law enforcement personnel understand and want to shut down.  But, for some reason, many politicians in California want to actually encourage and expand this criminal shambles and resist cleaning it up.  Cui bono?

Ironic, but this state may fast be sliding into No Country for Either Old Hippies or Old Values….If you like your budget system, you’re gonna love where this is going.

Let's See: Smoking Tobacco is a Public Health Hazard. Smoking Marijuana is Medicinal? Oh-h-kay...

WHAT “FIRST DUDE” TODD PALIN COULD LEARN FROM HARRY TRUMAN ABOUT DAVID LETTERMAN

The Jerk

The sexualization of girls and women in the media is reaching new lows these days — it is exploitative and has a negative effect on how all women and girls are perceived and how they view themselves. Letterman also joked about what he called Palin’s “slutty flight attendant look” — yet another example of how the media love to focus on a woman politician’s appearance, especially as it relates to her sexual appeal to men. Someone of Letterman’s stature, who appears on what used to be known as “the Tiffany Network” (CBS), should be above wallowing in the juvenile, sexist mud that other comedians and broadcasters seem to prefer.

National Organization for Women “Hall of Shame”

Not Harry S Truman

David Letterman’s now notorious emission of what can only be accurately described as hate speech has generated quite a bit of comment — from everyone it seems but Todd Palin, Alaska’s “current First Gentleman (self-styled ‘First Dude’).”

At the risk of perpetuating Letterman’s crudity and further polluting the world, here is the gist of what has happened to date, from the venerable Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — Sarah Palin says David Letterman owes an apology to young women across the country for his joke about her daughter.

The Alaska governor appeared on NBC’s “Today” show Friday, continuing a feud with the CBS “Late Show” funnyman over his joke earlier this week that Palin’s daughter got “knocked up” by New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez during their recent trip to New York.

Target of Letterman's Hateful "Humor"

I don’t agree with the Palin camp on a lot of things.  But, as a father, there is nothing political or partisan about this shameful behavior on the part of Letterman, a true jerk.

Now, there was once long ago and far away a President of the United States who had what some of us might call “cojones.”  He never rode on a snow mobile, but he sure as hell knew how to respond when his daughter Margaret was — in his judgment — unfairly maligned by the Washington Post’s music critic.  Here is the text of a note that Harry S Truman — the Last Great Democratic President — penned and sent to Paul Hume, the critic at the Post (quote from Wikipedia, chronicler of the 21st Century):

I have read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert. I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an eight ulcer man on a four ulcer job … Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes and perhaps a supporter below.

* Letter to critic Paul Hume, as quoted in TIME magazine (18 December 1950)

Now, that was an outraged father.

Harry S Truman Had a Charmingly Direct Way With Words

BENJAMIN BUTTON! POSSIBLY THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE NOMINATED FOR AN OSCAR? WHAT IS WITH THAT?

Okay, enough with the prankster headlines.

“‘Benjamin Button’ sweeps Oscar nominations with 13,” for example. Don’t they have any grown-up editors at Newsday to squelch this kind of childish newsroom humor?

And, where are the copy editors?  How could they let something like a nomination for Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino slip through the cracks?

You’re saying that this isn’t a joke?

Not Brad Pitt

These are the real decisions of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the “the more than 6,000 artists and professionals who bring the magic of the movies to life?”

This nomination explains why it’s much safer to keep movie stars and their moneyed handlers out of Washington.  If this is “magic,” the safest place to keep it is in Los Angeles.

But, “magic?” Look, this is possibly the worst movie in history. Its closest rivals are:

• The Golden Child (1986) — Eddie Murphy’s alternative to root canal surgery without the painkiller.
• Forrest Gump (1994) — Tom Hanks’ dopey ode to feel-good vacuity (the warm-up to Cast Away, his vacuous feel-good ode to dopiness in 2000).
• The Crossing Guard (1995) — Out of Ambien?  Drug store closed?  Watch Jack Nicholson sleep walk through Sean Penn’s self-indulgent, endless soporific and see whether your butt or your brain cries “Uncle!” first.

It’s not even fair to include The English Patient (1996) in this list of incredibly dull movies, it’s such low-hanging fruit.

No Clark Gable

These are the kind of movie you go to because someone with whom you want to share life’s most meaningful moments — or, whatever, you know — wants to see it.  Something … I have no idea what … overrides one’s innate intelligence and critical sense.

Putting that aside,  what these movies have in common is that they are empty intellectual calories.  There is nothing to them.  None of them tells a good story.  They are “buzz” movies.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is all of that down and doubled.  You’ve already read everything you need to know or will ever learn about or from this wretchedly boring exercise in prancing Brad Pitt in various forms of digital special effects across the screen.  A man is born old and gets younger.  The progression affects people around him.  After the first five minutes, the only mental exercise you will enjoy will consist of looking at your watch and wondering whether you need a new battery.

Okay, if you insist that there must be something more to it — some weighty theme or deep literary artifact hiding behind this really silly device — read the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald here.  It’s free.  It’s online.  It takes much less time than the movie.

And it’s just as light weight.