Ok, I know I originally said this Thursday, but I underestimated everything that i had to do late in the week. They are formulated, and basically just await being typed up and posted. Stay tuned, I promise. :-)

Thanks to the good folks at Haloscan, I've added another new feature to DC: Trackbacks.

You ask, what are trackbacks? Good question. Trackbacks are a feature slowly gaining popularity around the blogosphere. A lot of the "big sites" have had them for months, but still with only growing use.

Simply put, a trackback is a notification from one blog to another that it linked a post. For example, if I am browsing Josh Claybourn's blog (which I highly recommend if you haven't read it) and I like a post I see on it so much that I want to link to that post from my blog, I can click the 'Trackback' on that post which "pings" his blog, notifying him that I have linked his post.

Even cooler, other websurfers can click the 'Trackback' link under a post to see all of the websites that have linked to that post AND decided to ping the blog. Now, other bloggers who like a post on my website can ping my blog using my trackback feature. Just to the right of the 'reader contentions' link under the posts will be the new "Trackback" link. Trackback still isn't used all that much, so I'm taking the "build it and they will come" philosophy.

Ok boys and girls, ladies and gents, its time to ponder the unthinkable-- if you are a Republican that is. If you're a democrat, its a dream. Its time to ponder what will happen if George W. Bush should lose to John Kerry in November. And remember, this is coming from a guy who has not figured out his vote yet.

First of all, a massive blame-game will occur in the Republican party. They have been so confident for so long, that a loss will be a rough shock to the system indeed. And in which direction shall this blame be placed? Of course... in both directions. The likes of Pat Robertson will say that Bush was not tough enough on "moral" issues, and the log cabin Republicans and "business-moderates" will say that Bush caved in to the Christian fundamentalists. Considering the President's strong pro-life record, his backing of faith based initiatives, and his support for the anti-gay marriage amendment, the truth of Bush's political loyalties this time along falls with the latter group.

This is not to say that if Bush loses, that his strong "moral" stands are what cost him the election. Though, I would argue, they certainly did not gain him any votes. Who the hell else is Pat Robertson gonna vote for, other then Bush? In the end, like most blame games, it will so no positive end and result in no clear consensus.

So, what would happen to conservatively in the short-term should Bush lose? This is when the news gets bad. First, foreign policy. Kerry would hand over bits and pieces of American foreign policy sovereignty to a U.N. which is broken and needs reform. His support of the U.N. would deter it from the needed policy and structural reforms which could turn it into the strong and effective institution it should be. Second, the pro-life side will have lost a major major battle-- perhaps the war. With 1-3 justices thought to retire in the next few years, and Democrats in control of the nomination process, only pro-choice justices will be suggested. Right now, Roe v. Wade is 2 votes shy of being overturned. At best, after 4 years of Kerry, these 2 votes will still be shy, but with even more time lost. At worst, Roe v. Wade could become 5 votes safe.

And do not think for one instance, that if Bush loses, that conservatives will not feel betrayed by all this. The "big tent" of the GOP could be torn straight down the middle, or should I say the right? Of course, this is one damn huge "if."

Indianapolis has made Monster.com's Top 10 best cities to live in America. I've been telling my ND friends this for a while. They never seem to believe me. Oh well. Fu** em! :-)

Lawren Mills has the story here...

Well, there is one more milestone complete in my life. No more classes in my undergraduate career. I still have a couple finals though.. oh yeah, and 3 years of law school :-)

Update: And to celebrate I'll be attending ND's biggest party of the entire year this evening. That's right. Its Rally in the Alley baby!

Due to excessive amounts of paper writing to do for today and tomorrow.

I'll return tomorrow with some great material that's been building up. Also, don't forget about the 25 Theses on Thursday.

Unlearning College, another ND blog, has a telling post on an instance of a racial double standard at Oregon St. Senior David Williams was kicked out of the student newspaper after he wrote a column saying that:

I think blacks should be more careful in deciding whom they choose to support. They need to grow beyond the automatic reaction of defending someone because he or she shares the same skin color and is in a dilemma.

Now, let me be clear. I do not like the way this is worded. Rather than grouping all African-Americans under the term "blacks" with no qualifier, it would be more useful and proper to give polling data on issues and candidates, and perhaps use the qualifier 'most' or 'some' based on that data. I never use a wording that could imply "all" because that is nearly always a false statement. But should Williams have been kicked out for this statement which was insensitive at worst and just clumsy at best? Afterall, he was trying to make a point about political loyalties, and nothing about that point was inherently racist. But there was an outcry and he was kicked off the paper.

In fact, Pullitzer prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts, who happens to be black, wrote something very similar just a few days ago:

Blacks ought to be more thoughtful about whom they choose to rally around, ought to be less automatic in leaping to the defense.

His wording is much better, but the point was much the same. And there was no outcry for Pitts to lose his job.

I despise racism and double-standards no matter which way they go.

I know you all have been waiting, gripping your seats as the 17-day countdown progressed on DC. And now the zero-day has arrived. What does he have in store?

Haha, ok, enough with the hype. Here's the announcement:

Next Thursday, I will be nailing my 25 Theses on the Modern State of Christianity to the proverbial blogosphere door.

Some observations need to be made, and I'm not one to shy away from such things. My two 10-page papers due early this week have precluded me from having them ready now.

In the year 2000, Indiana was the only state in the country to lose technology jobs. Today the Hoosier economy has still not fully recovered, especially with Indiana continually plagued by "brain drain," where many of our degree earners leave the state to gain employment.

It is essential, then, for Indiana to have creative technological thinkers like George Witwer, who have both a political and business background. In today's advanced technology-driven economies, its think or die.

Check out this column by Russel Pullium in the Indianapolis Star for the full story on Witwer and what it means for Indiana. Here's the lead:

George Witwer doesn't claim to be an Internet genius. But he thinks his company has come up with technology to offer news and information with a new level of convenience.

All the naysayers in the media have been making storylines out of how bad they think the morale is in Iraq, and they play up these interviews with disenchanted soldiers, and generalize from them that the situation in Iraq must be completely terrible.

Now for the truth. Re-enlistment numbers of U.S. soldiers have actually exceeded the army's goals in almost every single division. Yes we need to be concerned with troop morale and yes we need to keep a close eye on the safety and physical and mental welfare of the soldiers. This is paramount. But let us not distort the truth and make generalizations that are unsupported by fact. Doing that hurts the very cause these for which these soldiers fight.

This information from this CNET News.com article: "Hollywood's new lesson for campus file swappers"

ACNS stands for Automated Copyright Notice System. It allows ISPs and universities to "automatically restrict or cut off internet access for alleged infringers on notice from a record label or movie studio."

This system is being pushed by the record labels and movie studios to streamline the process of going after sharers of copyrighted material. Of course, ISPs and universities would have to agree to use the system. Before, each copyright holder would have to file a specific complaint against an individual to get the copyrighted material removed. Theoretically this would save the ISPs and universities money by lessening their bandwidth burden and saving them the administrative oversight duties.

ACNS, according to its proponents, does not infringe a user's privacy because it merely enforces a university or ISP's own policies and its function is to shut down the internet connection in question, not to report on information on the computer.

I'm skeptical. But eitherway, I have a couple of problems with ACNS. First, it does not seem to account for 'fair-use' of copyrighted material. On a college campus, for instance, students have many personal and educational uses of material which would fall under fair-use. For instance, what happens if a student buys a CD, rips its songs to his computer, and decides to share those songs so he can hear them from home or from a cluster computer? ACNS would arbitrarily cut him off. Second, the system does not allow for any appeal by the individual before the internet connection is restricted.

We'll just have to wait to see how much universities will embrace this. (I seriously doubt that ISPs will). But if they do, and listen up upcoming college students, your ability to share music will become more difficult-- maybe much more difficult. That all depends on how active the music and movie industries are at filing take-down complaints.

You know you're living in 2004 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

5. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

6. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

7. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.

8. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.

9. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.

10. You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.

11. You are too busy to notice there was no #4

12. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #4

...and now you're laughing at yourself !!

[post shamelessly copied from Sarah's blog]

We have a couple stories in the news recently which really expose the pressters are some of our "esteemed" media institutions.

First is the gaff at The New York Times. Apparently, they posted a photo of the Republican candidate for the Senate, Pete Coors, underneath a story about a KKK member who murdered a black sharecropper. I like the quote from Coors' press spokeswoman, "It could have been worse. Pete could have been identified as John Kerry." My friend Dan has more on the story. And showing that he is a journalist and not a presster, he also supports Sulzberger's new stance that reporters must be treated like "liars" now. Brave man not to fall in lock-step with his brethren.

Second is the gaff by the Washington Post, Reuters, CNN, and AP, where they showed photos of coffins of dead Columbia astronauts and identified them as deceased members of the military serving in Iraq! Doesn't anybody fact check these photos!!

Well, the answer of course, is yes. But how many, and how significant is their influence?

Here we have a story of a Saudi cleric that spoke out against the recent terrorist bombing in that country. Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik, Saudia Arabia's highest ranking religious figure according to The Guardian, spoke out in strong terms against terrorism. Or did he really? Let's see:

"God revealed the criminality of this wayward group, which harms Islam and the nation,'' al-Sheik said. "Instead, it aims at destabilizing security, terrorizing the people and killing Muslims.''

Ok, so far so good. Here's more:

"Whoever kills an (Islamic) believer on purpose will be punished by being burned in hell, punished by God's anger and will be cursed and suffer great pain,'' he said.


Hmmmmmmmmm. So a person only is condemned if they kill another Muslim, according to al-Sheik. Now, even if even if you take issue with The Guardian's insertion of the word "Islamic" in parantheses, the statement still emphasizes that the guilt of the murder is contingent on the victim's religion, rather than innocence or lack thereof.

That doesn't pass as a condemnation of terrorism to me. In fact, it sounds more like an apology for terrorism against the West or against "unbelievers."

Show your support, by buying the Condi '08 thong!

[Link from Ryan Reynolds blog]

Its nice to hear about terrorist plots that are disrupted, but also frightening to know that they are still actively planning big events around the world.

First, we read about this Al Qaeda plot to bomb the Manchester United soccer game, with several suicide bombings, which if successful, could have killed up to a thousand people. Thankfully, British cops acting in part on American intel, raided the subjects in the dawn of that day.

Next, we hear that Al Qaeda had a plot to use chemical weapons in Jordan. Where did they get the WMD? We don't know for sure, but Jordan claims the vehicles loaded with the chemical explosives came from Syria. Jordanian officials estimated that if the bombs had gone off, up to 20,000 could have been killed. Interestingly enough:

Israeli intelligence has long believed that after the U.S. delayed invasion plans to allow U.N. weapons inspectors time to search for Iraq's WMDs, Saddam moved the banned weapons to Syria, the only other country ruled by the Ba'ath Party.

I found this article on the blog, Unlearned College, the author of which, Joe Heiecke, is another Notre Dame student and was also on the Dennis Prager show with me today. I've added this blog to the sidebar; check it out.

This article in the Chicago Tribune discusses the attitudes and positions coming from the Log Cabin Republicans, now that President Bush has pushed for an amendment banning gay marriage. Of the numerous delegates to the recent Log Cabin convention, the basic sentiments can be wrapped up by this passage:

According to the opinions expressed in discussion sessions and in individual interviews, many members are bitterly divided between their deep loyalty to the GOP and their deep anger at feeling they were being sacrificed to placate the religious right wing of the party.

My sentiments exactly. How many gay conservative votes has Bush lost with this decision? And the follow-up question: how many Christian Conservative votes did he gain? I'm sure some staffer in Karl Rove's office calculated the latter to be greater than the former... All the more reason for gay republicans, and groups like Log Cabin, to speak up and make their presence more prominent. [Thank to Chris Letkewicz for the pointer to the article]

Today, I'll be on the Dennis Prager radio show along with around 4 other Notre Dame students, representing a diverse set of ideological backgrounds. Mr. Prager, who's program is aired in over 60 cities, is a conservative who began his radio career in Los Angelas. I've been invited to speak regarding ND's new gay-straight alliance and issues surrounding that.

To listen to the show via streaming audio, which begins tomorrow at 11 A.M., click here, and click on "Today's Show" under Dennis Prager's name and photo. If you miss it live, it will loop continuously throughout the day on that same address. Hopefully I'll get soundbites for DC after I get a tape of the program.

Update: by my estimates, my part should be on again at 5:15, 8:15, and 11:15 tonight

I've gone through a lot of my old school essays and other material and have found some of the better stuff to post on DC. So here are my essays on:


Why the priesthood is essential to the Catholic Church and women should be ordained...

Why, despite the critics, Notre Dame is still Catholic at its heart...

Why terrorism requires a new model in international relations...

Why the Bible's authorship must be scrutinized...

Why the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan was morally justifiable...

How Clinton learned his lesson about gays in the military and learned to become a media darling...

Why the market should be allowed to find a solution to digital music downloading (written before the emergence of the Apple iTunes music store!)...


With a mock Supreme Court opinion, written by me, arguing as a Constitutional matter that the phrase "under God" should remain in the Pledge of Allegiance but why it should be barred when the pledge is recited in schools [my finest work, btw]...


And a pro-life speech by me, given my senior year in high school in front of the Indiana Right to Life at the Indiana Statehouse

[and check out this Indianapolis Star article about the two Republican candidates. I'm quoted at its end, in a manner which helps Daniels out, I think]

On Thursday night Mitch Daniels, the frontrunning Republican candidate for governor of Indiana, visited South Bend to see a Silverhawks game (the Silverhawks are SB's single-A baseball team, btw). I came with a group of Student for Mitch from Notre Dame to see the game and to meet with him. Here are a couple photos.


...Mitch (the one in the tan sweater) sings "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with us while standing on the dugout


One of the Silverhawk mascots lays across us (and on my lap, making this photo somewhat uncomfortable :-)

Here's a whine-session article from the Washington Post about the iTunes music store and the iPod. Basically it complains about the fact that a certain few albums are priced higher than their CD counterparts and it complains that Apple is being too proprietary with its technology.

With this I agree. Right now many more devices are being created that support the Windows Media format, including DVD players, home entertainment systems, handheld players, etc. But only the iPod and Windows2000/XP and Macintosh computers can play iTunes AAC/MPEG4 songs. As a music consumer, you are going to pick your online music store partly on where all you can play its songs. The iPod simply cannot maintain this level of dominance, as lower priced competitors enter the market, and when the slip happens, they will also loose their leverage with the iTunes music store. We will see a repeat of the Mac's market share collapse of the late 80s and 90s?

[Thanks to Kristine Lam for the link]

...ideologues can never look out for you. They are too blinded by the light on the right or the left and will never see things for what they really are. If you become an ideological prisoner, the truth will always elude you because you will never seek it. Instead, you'll evaluate each issue and problem with an agenda: trying to prove your ideology is correct.

-Bill O'Reilly

Here is an excellent article from Popular Science magazine. It looks at science and technology and the role that a vibrant "gadget" marketplace plays in creativity and innovation. Here are some money quotes:

If you pick up a memoir by a famous scientist, more often than not you'll get a story about how, as a child, he went to the corner drugstore to buy some insanely dangerous chemicals, then nearly blew up the family home. It's a recurring theme, believe me...

Explosives, though, are not the only kind of exciting science, and I'm here to tell you that today?not 20, not 50, not 150 years ago, but today?is the golden age of access to a vast range of scientific equipment, supplies, chemicals, you name it. How is this possible? eBay...

I think eBay matters. Part of the reason that Japan is the source of such an incredibly diverse and creative explosion of electronic gadgets is the Akihabara district of Tokyo. It's a rabbit warren of shops, stalls and ven- dors selling every imaginable kind of electronic component, in an atmosphere normally reserved for the vegetable market. Looking for some of the latest high-speed integrated circuits? See the man in the third stall on the left.

That kind of atmosphere stimulates dreaming, problem solving and creativity of the highest order. I'm sure many an engineer, or future engineer, has spent days wandering those booths until just the right part caught his eye, solving a problem or inspiring another astonishingly clever bit of technology...

Today eBay is Akihabara and a hundred other markets, and it's everywhere.

...and it stinks. I'm referring to the ABC Political Unit's new website, Noted Now. Actually, its not entirely new, as its just a new effort by the same people who made ABC The Note, which has been listed on my sidebar for quite some time.

Whereas The Note was kindof a website for media insiders, with very very bland formatting (no real headlines, just bullet points) and references to political events almost exclusively, it did not enjoy the appeal of the Drudge Report. With Noted Now, ABC has attempted to steal Drudge's thunder, by using headlines and covering a diversity of issues just as Drudge does. Sadly, Noted Now still is not nearly as easy to read, and you don't get a sense for what headlines matter most, as you do on Drudge. Also, its advertizing is more intrusive and you have to filter out all the stupid ABC links. You simply can't beat Drudge's simplicity. Though I'm sure it will be copied.

Oh yeah, and with the following address (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/) its not nearly as easy to find as Drudge. Neadless to say, I've updated my sidebar to include Noted Now, rather than just The Note.

So, if you're looking to replace Drudge as your daily news source, there you have it.

:: how jedi are you? ::

For my course called The Reformation, we are required to do discussion postings online at the course website before every friday. I thought I'd share mine from this week:
<<
When I read Thieleman van Braght's "The Bloody Theater or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians" (cool title by the way), I was brought back to a theme I've
been wrestling with throughout the course-- namely, what are the correct reasons for faith. I explored this topic in my previous post to a lesser degree.

So many of the figures and religions we have studied thus far seem obsessed with salvation. In fact, I would say this is the one consistent aspect of complete
agreement that the Protestants and Catholics have been on. Before the Reformation, many Catholics were obsessed with salvation; this is why they purchased masses and devotionals to be said regularly, indulgences, etc. This is a sentiment echoed by many of the Protestant and Catholic writers we have read
previously. As one put it, we have faith on earth so that we may have life... real life, eternal life, not worldly.

Martin Luther's deep religious meditation was focused on human sin and shortcomings before God's commandments. From this he emphasized God's grace and the necessary faith to gain it. He was even apocalyptic in his expectations of the judgement before salvation... as were the Anabaptists to an even more urgent degree.

Van Braght and this work on martyrdom certainly reflects this tremendous emphasis on salvation; it repeatedly states that the martyrs do what they do, not out of massochim, but quite the contrarily for future gain, to gain eternal life of their soul with God: "All this was granted them by the munificent hand of God, on account of the constancy of their faith, from which they could by no means be made to swerve, nor brought to waver in it; on account of their living hope, WHICH BEGAT IN THEIR SOULS A LONGING FOR FUTURE RICHES." (7)

I am inclined to be suspicious of a faith completely dominated by the want of "future riches" or of salvation. Indeed, placing scriptural passages like Rom. 8:28 as top priority seems a bit selfish (7): "that all things work together for good to them that love God."

On the other hand, for what other reason should we have faith? And, as the counter argument would go: if a want for salvation is a want to be nearer to God, then what is wrong with that wish? This positive face of salvation is echoed by Braght on page 8 when he quotes Ruth 1:16-17: "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I aught but death part thee and me."

If this is indeed the underlying hope, then I commend it, but I fear that many people obsess on salvation, not on a hope to be more with God, but on a selfish
want to be glorified in Heaven, for eternal life, to get 7 virgins (in the case of another religion), etc. Ultimately, I think that a person's faith is sincere when he or she strives to get closer to God as much as possible here on earth, without obsessing on the afterlife, and thus eventually is raised before God in the end.
>>

Since I have just touched on the why of faith, and for further reading, may I suggest my essay on the sources of faith: Faith Matters (10/23/03)

David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy group blog has an excellent post on the Palestinian leadership's failure. Here is the brunt of it, on which I completely agree:

Bush has made it abundantly clear that he wants the Palestinians to have a responsible government that fights terrorism, and wants the Israelis to move toward a settlement that turns over sovereignty of Gaza and most of the West Bank to a Palestinian state. No progress was being made in either direction for some time. Then, Sharon announced a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Self-interested, sure, but also a political risk that breaks the impasse that had developed, and a potential momentum builder. Bush looked in vain for a reciprocal gesture from the Palestinians. He got nothing. Worse then nothing, the Palestinians have been busily discussing how to bring Hamas into their government. Result: political rewards for Sharon, a cold shoulder for the Palestinians. It was almost two years ago that Bush made it clear that he would judge the Palestinian leadership by one criteria: its willingness to fight terrorism. Why, two years and no willingness to fight terrorism later, it expects "evenhandedness" from Bush shows that they simply don't understand the man.

Today:


Last summer:

Seriously. Glenn Reynolds has got the story over at InstaPundit... So if one is good, then 5 are better right? ... right?

I am but a visitor, here [at ND] for scarcely longer than a football season, yet I can see the campus from several different perspectives. In September 2003, I had the good fortune of beginning a fellowship at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, where I have been researching a book on how mythmakers shape and steer our foreign policy. Those mythmakers are journalists, like me, and as a journalist I have come to know a thing or two about con games. I have been a newspaperman with The New York Times for more than 17 years...

-Anthony DePalma, "The Soul of a University," Notre Dame Magazine

Read the article if you get a chance, especially if you are an ND student or otherwise interested in ND. DePalma talks about the unique experience his family has had with Notre Dame and what he calls ND's unique "soul."

Well, I don't think economic reasons should motivate a change on this huge social issue, but the numbers by Forbes Magazine are intriguing: $16,800,000,000 !!!

See a breakdown of the numbers in this DiscountBlogger post.

Check out this quiz... damn funny, I must say... I'll pull out the best questions later on today.

Well, he really said that he did not order the tapes erased; it was the U.S. Marshal acting on her own. I think there was confusion, and responsibility ultimately falls on Scalia and those around him to make their media policy clear. So the apology was in order.

But I stick behind my guns that the AP reporting (and other editorials around the nation) shows that many journalists are clueless regarding restriction of press coverage of Supreme Court justice speeches, and it shows an inherent bias towards wanting unbridled access to everything.

Ok, so my perfect prediction record was tarnished a bit by my miscall on Dean getting the Democratic nod. But unfazed, I'm ready to go at it again. A couple predictions:

1. Mitch Daniels will be the next governor of Indiana after he wins the gubernatorial election in November.

2. The Pacers will make the NBA playoffs this year, but lose to the Sacramento Kings in a sweat-inducing 7 game series. It will be billed as one of the best championship series in recent NBA history.

To practice law in this nation you have to be a registered member of the bar, in effect licensed as a professional. Lawyers provide an invaluable service that affects the public sector, even though they are not part of the government.

In this regard the media is quite similar. Journalists/pressters provide a public service. Yet they have no set professional mechanisms like lawyers do to ensure ethics. Of course, this must and should be the case, because free speech and press is paramount. Still, I would love to see them unify standards oversight into one organization.

AP Denise Grones update: I spoke with Jack Stokes of the Associated Press's Corporate Communications Department this morning. He said that the AP does not have any policy on reporters being personally involved in stories. He said that editors look at these stories on a case by case basis, and only question running the story if the reporter's veracity is being questioned.

So I asked him, "What about disclosure? If reporters are personally involved should they say so in the article?" He responded by asking me, "So in this article were you unclear that the reporter [Denise Grones] was in fact the same reporter as got the tapes erased?" To which I answered, "Yes. Nothing in the article indicated in the slightest her personal involvement."

Mr. Stokes, "So you would have preferred this article to have been written in first person?" Me: "Yes."

Yet, he admitted that the AP has no policy to require their reporters to do so. There we have it. The AP does not care if their readers are misled by their reporters possible position of bias.

This is an interesting question to ask. And it reveals an odd assumption on the behalf of many on the 9-11 and its partisan supporters. They continue to grill President Bush, Condi, and the other members of the Administration for not acting on the general information they had prior to 9-11. But one must ask as what we could have done to stop such a vague terrorist threat from happening.

The only thing we could have done would have been to launch an all out war against terrorism-- indeed, the very thing we are engaged in to this day. This article in the New Republic, while a bit of a parody, makes the excellent point that the world and many domestically would have reacted very harshly indeed to such "brazen" counter-terrorist measures. Anyways read the article for a good laugh, and some good thinking too.