An abandoned Nissan Pathfinder with its motor running in the middle of New York City on a busy Saturday night. Cameras at or near a relevant intersection show the SUV crossing an intersection about 2 minutes before two vendors (in particular, handbag seller Duane Jackson) reported the suspicious vehicle, which seemed to be already smoking from contents, which were ignited but failed to explode. The crude propane-and-gasoline interior was rigged with makeshift alarm clocks and mistakingly included an unusable fertilizer.
One possible motive seemed to have emerged is the fact the SUV was parked near the headquarters of Viacom, which owns Comedy Central. Comedy Central recently had angered many Muslims over "South Park" cartoon episodes in which the founder Prophet Mohammad appeared in a bear costume.
An immigrant Pakistani-American is being sought. He, who recently returned from a trip to Pakistan, had purchased the SUV with cash from someone on the Internet portal craigslist several days ago and has not been seen since the incident. [As I write, FNC is reporting the immigrant suspect in question, Shahzad Faisal, is under FBI arrest, apparently caught at JFK Airport.]
After hearing incessantly for passengers to report any suspect abandoned items (e.g., a briefcase) over the loudspeakers in airports these last few years, I'm relieved to see that the abandoned vehicle was reported almost immediately. I would like to think that the vendors and others would have come forward quickly without suspicious smoke from ignited contents; an abandoned, packed vehicle should have been intrinsically worthy of suspicion, even without smoke in or near the vehicle.
Sunday Talk Soup: Katrina vs Deepwater Horizon
I watched DHS Secretary Napolitano and Interior Secretary Salazar on Fox News Sunday and Meet the Press in one of the most patently absurd revisionist attempts to recast administration responsiveness to the Deepwater Horizon rig accident/oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico I have ever seen. Blogger Doug Ross has published a widely-cited illustrated history of the timeline from the accident on April 20. It took almost 10 days before the oil spill made it to the top of Obama's talking points, even though news reports were already reporting oil leaks.
I really don't care if there were Interior Department bureaucrats meeting on the problem or whether the Coast Guard was engaged; the Democrats in politically exploiting the Katrina tragedy were attacking Bush personally--despite the indisputable facts that Bush pressured the New Orleans Democratic mayor and Louisiana governor to execute preexisting evacuation plans of New Orleans and Bush made his first appearances in the area that first week. I agree that the White House at the time seem curiously out of touch as national television showed people being rescued from rooftops. But anyone who says that an administration which has environmentalists as a key constituency was actively engaged in doing any and everything to mitigate the effects of the oil spill reaching the shores FROM DAY ONE, e.g., oil booms, burning off surface oil or chemically dispersing it, plugging the well or pipeline ruptures, etc., simply is in a disingenuous state of denial. I mean, Obama is pushing for financial overhaul reform, the Arizona immigration law, etc., but even after the Coast Guard says the Gulf spill could be one of the worst in US history, it still hadn't made Obama's message of the day. Even if you agree that financial overhaul and immigration reform are important, nobody even pretends they're a short-term priority. You have a spill estimated at 5000 barrels a day, the worst spill in years in a region accounting for a third of American domestic production.
It's not clear how to interpret an allegedly media-savvy Obama Administration's bungling of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, unless you compare it to why the Louisiana Democratic leaders in 2005 failed to act responsively during Katrina. Perhaps they thought with a 100-mile separation, the problem would be contained. But the fact of the matter is Bush was in Louisiana before the end of the week of Katrina, but it took Obama almost 3 times as long to visit the Gulf.
But let's talk about Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama; there was a 1994 federal plan, "In-Situ Burn" plan, that specifically addressed the risk of exactly the kind of problem we are experiencing and called for the use of fire booms, costing under $1M each. Fire booms can burn up to 1800 barrels of oil an hour. The fire booms were never procured (a test burn was done later borrowing one, the only one in stock, from an Illinois manufacturer). And yet Coast Guard Admiral Landry said a few days after the tragedy, she had everything she needed to contain the problem. What if we would have had fire booms in place since day 1?
Of course, Obama is using BP as a whipping boy for any and all things related to the spill, saying BP will pay for any and all damages. That's pushing on a string; BP has been consciously pursuing a public relations campaign long before the Deepwater Horizon incident as a socially responsible energy company. It would be one thing if BP was refusing to pay for cleanup or other costs. Obama's attacks can only be viewed in the context of misguided populism.
The fact is that oil seepage occurs naturally in oceans and other waters. We have not had a serious spill for years in a region preparing a large percentage of our domestic production. To portray a single accident as a representative sample of offshore drilling and its risks is a knowing distortion. There were systems that were supposed to close off the well in the event of failure. They didn't work for probably some combination of human errors and equipment failures. Obviously we need to understand why; but calling for a moratorium on drilling is not an answer for a realistic approach to lessening our dependence on foreign-produced energy supplies.
Political Cartoon
IBD cartoonist Michael Ramirez is pointing out that the Arizona immigration bill did NOT create an Arizona Border Patrol and INS.
Quote of the Day
A professional is a person who can do his best at a time when he doesn't particularly feel like it.
Alistair Cooke
Musical Interlude: "Sand" Songs
Beth Nielsen Chapman, "Sand and Water"
Pat Boone, "Love Letters in the Sand"
Aerosmith, "Remember Walking in the Sand"
America, "Sandman"
