How 9-11 Happened
by Ann Coulter
We don't need a "commission" to find out how 9-11 happened. The truth is in the timeline:
PRESIDENT CARTER, DEMOCRAT
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah of Iran to be deposed by a mob of Islamic fanatics. A few months later, Muslims stormed the U.S. Embassy in Iran and took American Embassy staff hostage.
Carter retaliated by canceling Iranian visas. He eventually ordered a disastrous and humiliating rescue attempt, crashing helicopters in the desert.
PRESIDENT REAGAN, REPUBLICAN
The day of Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were released.
In 1982, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was bombed by Muslim extremists.
President Reagan sent U.S. Marines to Beirut.
In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut were blown up by Muslim extremists.
Reagan said the U.S. would not surrender, but Democrats threw a hissy fit, introducing a resolution demanding that our troops be withdrawn. Reagan caved in to Democrat caterwauling in an election year and withdrew our troops – bombing Syrian-controlled areas on the way out. Democrats complained about that, too.
In 1985, an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, was seized and a 69-year-old American was shot and thrown overboard by Muslim extremists.
Reagan ordered a heart-stopping mission to capture the hijackers after "the allies" promised them safe passage. In a daring operation, American fighter pilots captured the hijackers and turned them over to the Italians – who then released them to safe harbor in Iraq.
On April 5, 1986, a West Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. servicemen was bombed by Muslim extremists from the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin, killing an American.
Ten days later, Reagan bombed Libya, despite our dear ally France refusing the use of their airspace. Americans bombed Gadhafi's residence, killing his daughter, and dropped a bomb on the French Embassy "by mistake."
Reagan also stoked a long, bloody war between heinous regimes in Iran and Iraq. All this was while winning a final victory over Soviet totalitarianism.
PRESIDENT BUSH I, MODERATE REPUBLICAN
In December 1988, a passenger jet, Pan Am Flight 103, was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, by Muslim extremists.
President-elect George Bush claimed he would continue Reagan's policy of retaliating against terrorism, but did not. Without Reagan to gin her up, even Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher went wobbly, saying there would be no revenge for the bombing.
In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
In early 1991, Bush went to war with Iraq. A majority of Democrats opposed the war, and later complained that Bush didn't "finish off the job" with Saddam.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, DEMOCRAT
In February 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed by Muslim fanatics, killing five people and injuring hundreds.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
In October 1993, 18 American troops were killed in a savage firefight in Somalia. The body of one American was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu as the Somalian hordes cheered.
Clinton responded by calling off the hunt for Mohammed Farrah Aidid and ordering our troops home. Osama bin Laden later told ABC News: "The youth ... realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat."
In November 1995, five Americans were killed and 30 wounded by a car bomb in Saudi Arabia set by Muslim extremists.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
In June 1996, a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia was bombed by Muslim extremists.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
Months later, Saddam attacked the Kurdish-controlled city of Erbil.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, lobbed some bombs into Iraq hundreds of miles from Saddam's forces.
In November 1997, Iraq refused to allow U.N. weapons inspections to do their jobs and threatened to shoot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
In February 1998, Clinton threatened to bomb Iraq, but called it off when the United Nations said no.
On Aug. 7, 1998, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslim extremists.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
On Aug. 20, Monica Lewinsky appeared for the second time to testify before the grand jury.
Clinton responded by bombing Afghanistan and Sudan, severely damaging a camel and an aspirin factory.
On Dec. 16, the House of Representatives prepared to impeach Clinton the next day.
Clinton retaliated by ordering major air strikes against Iraq, described by the New York Times as "by far the largest military action in Iraq since the end of the Gulf War in 1991."
The only time Clinton decided to go to war with anyone in the vicinity of Muslim fanatics was in 1999 – when Clinton attacked Serbians who were fighting Islamic fanatics.
In October 2000, our warship, the USS Cole, was attacked by Muslim extremists.
Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing.
PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, REPUBLICAN
Bush came into office telling his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, he was "tired of swatting flies" – he wanted to eliminate al-Qaida.
On Sept. 11, 2001, when Bush had been in office for barely seven months, 3,000 Americans were murdered in a savage terrorist attack on U.S. soil by Muslim extremists.
Since then, Bush has won two wars against countries that harbored Muslim fanatics, captured Saddam Hussein, immobilized Osama bin Laden, destroyed al-Qaida's base, and begun to create the only functioning democracy in the Middle East other than Israel. Democrats opposed it all – except their phony support for war with Afghanistan, which they immediately complained about and said would be a Vietnam quagmire. And now they claim to be outraged that in the months before 9-11, Bush did not do everything Democrats opposed doing after 9-11.
What a surprise.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
From the UK Register, confirming what honest people already knew:
Kazaa and co 'not cause of music biz woes', say Profs
By Tony Smith
File sharing has no effect on CD sales, a pair of US academics have claimed.
The finding will not make pleasant reading for the music industry, which claims file-sharing is the cause of the huge decline seen in North American, German and Italian CD sales.
Harvard Business School Associate Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Professor Koleman Strumpf of the University of North Carolina base their claim on research carried during the Autumn and Winter of 2002 to compare song download volumes with CD album sales.
The duo used data taken directly from file-sharing networks to calculate the number of genuine downloads made during a 17-week period. They also looked at official US CD sales data. Factors such as network congestion, song length - ie. download duration - as well as international school and college holidays were taking into consideration. They then used statistical methods to work out whether the sale of an album declines if it is downloaded more frequently.
The result, the professors say, is that there is no such connection.
"File sharing has no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample," their report states. "Moreover, the estimates are of rather modest size when compared to the drastic reduction in sales in the music industry. At most, file sharing can explain a tiny fraction of this decline."
Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf estimate that it takes on average 5000 downloads to reduce album sales by just a single copy - and that, they say, is a worst-case scenario. On that basis, US CD sales in 2002 would have fallen by two million copies. In fact, they fell by 139 million units between 2000 and 2002.
If the professors' analysis is correct, file-sharing may have actually limited that decline. The professors' study suggests that for the top 25 per cent of albums - those with sales of 600,000 copies or more - one extra copy was sold on average for every 150 downloads. That said, downloads did tend to impact less popular albums - those with 36,000 sales or less. Overall, however, the effect is beneficial, since the music industry makes most of its money from the most popular albums.
"While downloads occurred on a vast scale during this period - three million simultaneous users shared 500 million files on the popular network FastTrack/Kazaa alone - most people who shared files appear to be individuals who would not have bought the albums that they downloaded," the professors say.
However, the professors do provide circumstantial evidence that backs the music industry's claim. The greatest download activity was recorded for users in the US, Canada, Germany and Italy - which are all countries that, according to the London-based industry anti-piracy watchdog the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), have seen some of the biggest declines in music sales.
That seems a pretty close parallel, but the professors suggest we look to other reasons for the decline. Sales, they say, are not lost to downloads since most download are made of songs music fans would not buy anyway. They also point to a similar large decline in LP sales during the late 1970s and early 1980s - a trend that prompted the music industry's 'home taping is killing music' campaign, we recall - which was reversed when CD was launched.
Indeed, CD sales were long been inflated during the 1990s as consumer re-purchased in the new medium albums they already owned.
"Movies, software and video games are actively downloaded, and yet these industries have continued to grow since the advent of file sharing," not the professors. Reasons for the decline in music sales include, they suggest, "poor macroeconomic conditions, a reduction in the number of album releases, growing competition from other forms of entertainment such as video games and DVDs - video game graphics have improved and the price of DVD players and movies have sharply fallen - [and] a reduction in music variety stemming from the large consolidation in radio along with the rise of independent promoter fees to gain airplay".
Kazaa and co 'not cause of music biz woes', say Profs
By Tony Smith
File sharing has no effect on CD sales, a pair of US academics have claimed.
The finding will not make pleasant reading for the music industry, which claims file-sharing is the cause of the huge decline seen in North American, German and Italian CD sales.
Harvard Business School Associate Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Professor Koleman Strumpf of the University of North Carolina base their claim on research carried during the Autumn and Winter of 2002 to compare song download volumes with CD album sales.
The duo used data taken directly from file-sharing networks to calculate the number of genuine downloads made during a 17-week period. They also looked at official US CD sales data. Factors such as network congestion, song length - ie. download duration - as well as international school and college holidays were taking into consideration. They then used statistical methods to work out whether the sale of an album declines if it is downloaded more frequently.
The result, the professors say, is that there is no such connection.
"File sharing has no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample," their report states. "Moreover, the estimates are of rather modest size when compared to the drastic reduction in sales in the music industry. At most, file sharing can explain a tiny fraction of this decline."
Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf estimate that it takes on average 5000 downloads to reduce album sales by just a single copy - and that, they say, is a worst-case scenario. On that basis, US CD sales in 2002 would have fallen by two million copies. In fact, they fell by 139 million units between 2000 and 2002.
If the professors' analysis is correct, file-sharing may have actually limited that decline. The professors' study suggests that for the top 25 per cent of albums - those with sales of 600,000 copies or more - one extra copy was sold on average for every 150 downloads. That said, downloads did tend to impact less popular albums - those with 36,000 sales or less. Overall, however, the effect is beneficial, since the music industry makes most of its money from the most popular albums.
"While downloads occurred on a vast scale during this period - three million simultaneous users shared 500 million files on the popular network FastTrack/Kazaa alone - most people who shared files appear to be individuals who would not have bought the albums that they downloaded," the professors say.
However, the professors do provide circumstantial evidence that backs the music industry's claim. The greatest download activity was recorded for users in the US, Canada, Germany and Italy - which are all countries that, according to the London-based industry anti-piracy watchdog the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), have seen some of the biggest declines in music sales.
That seems a pretty close parallel, but the professors suggest we look to other reasons for the decline. Sales, they say, are not lost to downloads since most download are made of songs music fans would not buy anyway. They also point to a similar large decline in LP sales during the late 1970s and early 1980s - a trend that prompted the music industry's 'home taping is killing music' campaign, we recall - which was reversed when CD was launched.
Indeed, CD sales were long been inflated during the 1990s as consumer re-purchased in the new medium albums they already owned.
"Movies, software and video games are actively downloaded, and yet these industries have continued to grow since the advent of file sharing," not the professors. Reasons for the decline in music sales include, they suggest, "poor macroeconomic conditions, a reduction in the number of album releases, growing competition from other forms of entertainment such as video games and DVDs - video game graphics have improved and the price of DVD players and movies have sharply fallen - [and] a reduction in music variety stemming from the large consolidation in radio along with the rise of independent promoter fees to gain airplay".
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Jan Berry, 62, was half of the 'Surf City' sound
By Myrna Oliver
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Jan Berry, half of the 1960s pop-music duo Jan and Dean, has died at 62. The pair recorded hits including their No. 1 "Surf City" and Mr. Berry's personal favorite, "Dead Man's Curve."
Mr. Berry died Friday at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center after suffering a seizure at his home nearby, his wife, Gertrude Filip Berry, said yesterday. His health had been precarious since he suffered brain damage and partial paralysis in a 1966 automobile accident.
Along with his teenage friend, Dean Torrence, Mr. Berry had half a dozen hits in the Top 10, including 1959's "Baby Talk" and five in 1963 and 1964 alone — "Surf City," "Honolulu Lulu," "Drag City," "Dead Man's Curve" and "Little Old Lady From Pasadena." They sold more than 10 million records.
Torrence could not be reached Saturday for comment on Mr. Berry's death.
Steeped in the surf, sun and sand culture of Southern California youth of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mr. Berry delighted in spinning lyrics about a hot-rod-racing grandma in "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena" or driving a "woody" to "Surf City" where he envisioned "two girls for every boy."
He joined Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys to co-write the lyrics for several Jan and Dean hits including "Dead Man's Curve," "Drag City," "Surf City" and "New Girl in School."
"Jan and Brian influenced each other so much they had one of the most important friendships in popular music, particularly in developing the West Coast Sound," said Mark Moore, who is writing a biography of Mr. Berry, his music and his overcoming physical handicap.
He said Wilson learned about producing records from Mr. Berry, and Mr. Berry gained insight on harmony from Wilson.
The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean even performed on each other's records, according to the "New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll," until their respective record companies objected.
Jan and Dean's meteoric career might have soared higher, but for the April 12, 1966, accident in which Mr. Berry's silver Corvette Sting Ray hit a parked truck at 90 mph in Beverly Hills after he came off Sunset Boulevard only a few blocks from the legendary "Dead Man's Curve" of their song. Mr. Berry was severely injured, and his three passengers were killed.
Although the accident, which put Mr. Berry in a coma for 10 months, initially left him unable to talk and walk, through determination he regained the ability to walk and to speak slowly.
Mr. Berry's right hand and arm remained paralyzed, reducing his instrumental repertoire from ukulele, guitar and most other instruments to one-handed piano. He had difficulty remembering lyrics he had written and would go over them repeatedly backstage while listening to a Walkman.
But he was able to resume performing with Torrence in the late 1970s after a 1978 television movie, "Dead Man's Curve," renewed interest in Jan and Dean.
The duo split briefly in 1981 when Mr. Berry developed a cocaine habit — another handicap he overcame and talked openly about.
In 1998, Mr. Berry recorded a solo CD, "Second Wave."
Known for his remarkable intelligence (reportedly, his IQ was 180), Mr. Berry handled his musical career while earning a degree in zoology at UCLA. The accident halted his plans to become a medical doctor.
In addition to his wife of 13 years, Mr. Berry is survived by his parents, William and Clara Berry of Camarillo, Calif., three brothers and three sisters.
By Myrna Oliver
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Jan Berry, half of the 1960s pop-music duo Jan and Dean, has died at 62. The pair recorded hits including their No. 1 "Surf City" and Mr. Berry's personal favorite, "Dead Man's Curve."
Mr. Berry died Friday at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center after suffering a seizure at his home nearby, his wife, Gertrude Filip Berry, said yesterday. His health had been precarious since he suffered brain damage and partial paralysis in a 1966 automobile accident.
Along with his teenage friend, Dean Torrence, Mr. Berry had half a dozen hits in the Top 10, including 1959's "Baby Talk" and five in 1963 and 1964 alone — "Surf City," "Honolulu Lulu," "Drag City," "Dead Man's Curve" and "Little Old Lady From Pasadena." They sold more than 10 million records.
Torrence could not be reached Saturday for comment on Mr. Berry's death.
Steeped in the surf, sun and sand culture of Southern California youth of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mr. Berry delighted in spinning lyrics about a hot-rod-racing grandma in "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena" or driving a "woody" to "Surf City" where he envisioned "two girls for every boy."
He joined Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys to co-write the lyrics for several Jan and Dean hits including "Dead Man's Curve," "Drag City," "Surf City" and "New Girl in School."
"Jan and Brian influenced each other so much they had one of the most important friendships in popular music, particularly in developing the West Coast Sound," said Mark Moore, who is writing a biography of Mr. Berry, his music and his overcoming physical handicap.
He said Wilson learned about producing records from Mr. Berry, and Mr. Berry gained insight on harmony from Wilson.
The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean even performed on each other's records, according to the "New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll," until their respective record companies objected.
Jan and Dean's meteoric career might have soared higher, but for the April 12, 1966, accident in which Mr. Berry's silver Corvette Sting Ray hit a parked truck at 90 mph in Beverly Hills after he came off Sunset Boulevard only a few blocks from the legendary "Dead Man's Curve" of their song. Mr. Berry was severely injured, and his three passengers were killed.
Although the accident, which put Mr. Berry in a coma for 10 months, initially left him unable to talk and walk, through determination he regained the ability to walk and to speak slowly.
Mr. Berry's right hand and arm remained paralyzed, reducing his instrumental repertoire from ukulele, guitar and most other instruments to one-handed piano. He had difficulty remembering lyrics he had written and would go over them repeatedly backstage while listening to a Walkman.
But he was able to resume performing with Torrence in the late 1970s after a 1978 television movie, "Dead Man's Curve," renewed interest in Jan and Dean.
The duo split briefly in 1981 when Mr. Berry developed a cocaine habit — another handicap he overcame and talked openly about.
In 1998, Mr. Berry recorded a solo CD, "Second Wave."
Known for his remarkable intelligence (reportedly, his IQ was 180), Mr. Berry handled his musical career while earning a degree in zoology at UCLA. The accident halted his plans to become a medical doctor.
In addition to his wife of 13 years, Mr. Berry is survived by his parents, William and Clara Berry of Camarillo, Calif., three brothers and three sisters.
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