DC's venerable Riggs Bank ends ignominiously

Judge OKs $16M Plea Deal in Riggs Case :
"Justice Department prosecutors laid out a case in which, they said, Riggs officials aggressively courted foreign political figures to win their banking business, failed to exercise proper oversight and aided these customers' illegitimate uses of the bank."

Riggs Bank was founded in DC when Andrew Jackson was in the White House. It is scheduled to be absorbed by PNC of Pittsburgh, but not before settling a Treasury Department civil action for $25 million and a plea bargain in a criminal case with the Justice Department which resulted in a $16 million fine. For perspective, those fines total a bit over 5% of the selling price of the bank.

Long a prestigious institution in the Washington area, I can remember when Riggs was one of the few banks in the credit card business. This may not have been the only time the bank was involved in covering up some shady dealings, however. About 35 years or so ago, a Riggs teller conspired with her boyfriend to raid my father's account there. Dad only found out when he got a notice that a routine monthly debit to pay the mortgage on our house had to be declined for lack of funds. The bank promptly restored the misappropriated money to my father's account but declined to prosecute the teller and her accomplice because doing so would embarass the bank.

Veto-proof GOP majority forces Democrat governor to sign bill denying benefits to illegals

Warner signs measure denying public benefits to illegal aliens - The Washington Times: Metropolitan - March 30, 2005:
"There is no official local or state estimate of how many taxpayer dollars would be saved, since the agencies do not track how many illegals currently receive such benefits.
"Virginia spends about $2 billion on Medicaid and an estimated $60.5 million on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program annually.
"Lawmakers and immigration experts have said there are an estimated 200,000 illegal aliens in Virginia, which has an estimated population of 7.4 million."

This story also points out that the state bureaucracy says it will cost $12 million per year to hire staff to check eligibility.

So, will it save money? The official estimate above is that illegals are a bit under 3% of the state's population. Three percent of the $2 billion Medicaid budget is $60 million. So, even if only one in four or five of indigent illegals are on the rolls, there will be a net saving for the state. My guess is the savings will be in the low eight figures. Not a lot, but still nothing to sneeze at. Now, if the illegals identified and denied benefits could be reported to INS and deported, we'd really be making progress.

This brings us again to the problem I have mentioned before that the failure of the federal government to spend money on border enforcement becomes an unfunded mandate for state and local government spending. If those 200,000 people had never gotten to VA in the first place, the state and its localities would have been saved many millions of dollars annually - $5 to $10 per capita per annum as a low range estimate.

Now suppose the feds spent an additional $5 per capita per annum on border control and enforcement - that would be over a billion dollars - that should be more than 10,000 new agents (assuming it costs $100,000 to put an agent in the field for a year). Ten dollars p.c. p.a. would put 20,000 more agents on the border.

It seems to me highly likely that really tight border control would save money in the aggregate. The trouble is the Congress-critters would have to spend the money which would spread jobs and money mostly over just four states and the savings would accrue to state and local governments over the whole country.

Study's length threatens forests

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Study highlights global decline:
"The assessment runs to 2,500 pages and is intended to inform global policy initiatives."

Besides being a menace to the environment at 2,500 pages, the massive tome is sure to waste shelf space in government offices and think tanks around the world and will not be read in its entirety by any but a select few policy wonks and paid agitators who need to get a life.

When liars lie and cheater cheat - intel "failure"

The New York Times > Washington > Panel's Report Assails C.I.A. for Failure on Iraq Weapons:
"But in retrospect, those assumptions by American and other intelligence analysts turned out to be deeply flawed, even though some of Mr. Hussein's own commanders said after they were captured in 2003 that they also believed the government held some unconventional weapons. It was a myth Mr. Hussein apparently fostered to retain an air of power."

As I have said consistently on this subject, on any reasonable basis, it would have been nothing short of miraculous if our CIA, DIA and NSA had acheived a full and fair assessment of Iraq's capabilities and intentions in the last years of Saddam Hussein's regime. After all, the British and French, who have been active in the region even longer than we have, appear to have come to roughly the same conclusions we did. Even the Russians, who should have had excellent sources based on their role as Iraq's leading arms supplier, did not dispute the Western consensus on Iraq's weapons programs.

This NYTimes report goes on to say: "One issue the commission grappled with is whether the intelligence agencies failed to understand what was happening inside Iraq after the inspectors left in 1998, a period that David Kay, the first head of the Iraq Survey Group, referred to last year as a time when the country headed into a 'vortex of corruption.' Mr. Kay, who also testified before the commission, said Mr. Hussein's scientists had faked some of their research and development programs, and Mr. Hussein was reported by his aides to be increasingly divorced from reality."

This makes my point clearly. If even senior Iraqi military commanders could believe that some of these claimed weapons and weapons programs were real, and if scientists were being paid to work on them and were submitting reports indicating progress was being made, on what basis would we have justified dismissing the likelihood that such weapons and R&D programs existed?

Now, it is true that this study does raise disturbing questions about how well we know what we think we know about the capabilities and intentions of Iran, North Korea, Al Qaeda, and other nations and groups of concern to us and our allies. Similar questions were raised when the old Soviet Union split up and we found that many of our intel assessments had given too much credit to the Soviets. There are several reasons why such things happen: (1) while hiding the specifics, the adversary wishes to appear more formidable in terms of capabilities to deter enemies and more pacific in terms of intentions to discourage pre-emption; (2) bureaucracies in intel, like other bureaucracies, do not grow in power and influence by announcing that problems have been solved or never existed; (3) reluctance to admit past errors even when they become apparent means that new capabilities which may be real get added to old ones that weren't and vice versa; (4) it's hard to get hurt by over-estimating your enemies and very easy to get hurt under-estimating them.

A difference of opinion

Albany, N.Y. -- timesunion.com:
"'Before the clock, there was no game at all,' [Dolph Schayes]"

Syracuse, NY, has a new tourist attraction - a monument to the 24-second shot clock in professional basketball. I can't say I have any memory of the change in pro rules which happened 50 years ago since, then as now, the pro game has never held my interest.

I was a great fan of college hoops for several years until the shot clock intruded. Since then, I find it as boring as the pro version. For me, and I understand this is a minority position, the real charm of the game was masterful ball handling and the "four corners" offense to work of the clock was a thing of beauty to behold like a long series of volleys back and forth in tennis.

We all die a little when Terri Schiavo dies

WorldNetDaily: The whole Terri Schiavo story:
"Major media organizations paint the pitched battle over the life of Terri Schiavo as a clear- cut debate between pro-life and right-to-die advocates, bankrolled by big money activist organizations on both sides. But the case of the 41-year-old brain-injured Florida woman is anything but clear cut."

Follow this link to an excellent recitation of the long sad saga of Terri Schiavo as presented in a copyright story by WorldNetDaily.com. I must admit I only read half of it as it was just too painful to continue. I've written about this before and I don't have the heart to go into it again now when the end is so near, but I wanted to preserve the link to this important history. Perhaps we can return to this in future.

For now, let me share one of the reasons this story strikes me so strongly. The son of a very dear friend of mine, just a little older than Terri I think, suffered hydrocephaly as a young child. As a result, he cannot speak. He can vocalize and and make gestures which the family manage to interpret. He can walk haltingly and, although he lacks sufficient dexterity to feed himself or otherwise attend to his personal care, he has learned how to operate a tractor and can use one to cut grass and plow snow - activities which bring him obvious joy. I once had to try to keep him occupied for about half an hour in a real estate development office while his father was on the phone. The office overlooked a small harbor and there was a model of the proposed development on a table and maps and aerial photos on the walls. I started asking him to point out the window to things I pointed to on maps or photos or the model and he was immensely happy to study the view from the windows and point out the same features outside. That afternoon helped me to understand that just because a man cannot speak plainly doesn't mean his brain isn't there. For the sake of that man and many others like him, the Schiavo case troubles me very deeply.

No wonder economics is called "the dismal science"

The Observer | International | French bitter over wine study:
"In a move that is likely to send tremors from Burgundy to Bordeaux, two economists conclude that environmental conditions - or what France's oenophiles lovingly refer to as 'terroir' - is not important when it comes to producing memorable wine."

So now two practitioners of the dark arts of ecomomics claim to have proved that the real science of modern winemaking has surpassed the influence of regional variations in weather and soils. They are making a direct assault on the AOC (the French initials for the Name of Origin Control) system. That system plays a key role in propping up the prices of some wines and consigning others which may taste just as good to the status of "country wine" not suitable for educated palates.

Euro elites and masses divided on China alliance

In Europe, public turns toward U.S. on China:
"'... if Europe does want a strategic partnership with China, then that means the EU should openly discuss China's strategic interests and that includes human rights, censorship, its relations with Taiwan and other issues,' said Daniel Keohane, security analyst at the Center for European Reform in London."

France and Germany are driving the diplomatic push to form a strategic partnership between Europe and China, politely inviting many smaller nations to shut up and get out of the way. Unlike the debate over the Iraq war, public opinion in Europe is generally favorable toward the maintenance of sanctions or the British effort to impose a new arms trade regime to replace the sanctions imposed at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Unlike their enlightened leaders, the people seem to understand, as reports from Human Rights Watch and other observers make clear, that nothing much has changed in China on the human rights front.

Just another little ornament on Washington's favorite Christmas tree

Bill Allots $37M for Wal-Mart HQ Street :
"[US Rep. John] Boozman [R-AR] spokesman Patrick Creamer said the congressman's request for the funding was penciled in for $3 million when the bill was in committee."

In the miraculous math of Washington a $3 million contribution requested for about 8% of the funding for a small highway project in Bentonville, Arkansas (for the benefit of guess who?) was smiled on by the committee chairman and became $37 million full funding. Of course, in a $284 billion Christmas tree, such a small ornament hardly rates comment.

The "Fox Blocker" - a solution in search of a problem

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Device lets you out-Fox your TV:
"It's not that Sam Kimery objects to the views expressed on Fox News Channel. The creator of the 'Fox Blocker' contends the network is not news at all."

As tempests in teapots go, this one is only a small squall. A disgruntled former Republican has created a device to plug into your TV that will prevent the set from displaying the Fox News Channel. Of course, you can save $8.95 (as all but 100 people in the whole world have) by simply not choosing to watch that channel. And even the inventor admits he doesn't use it and tunes in for "especially heinous" stuff.

It is amazing to me that this fellow can't see that the news on FNC is mostly the same leftist twaddle as on the other cable news networks. A few of the commentary shows lean right or make a show of exploring both conservative and liberal perspectives through their choice of guests. But even Fox's highest rated host, Bill O'Reilly, is a Humphrey-Jackson liberal caught in a time warp. I had thought before I started this blog that it might be fun to run a blog exposing liberalism on FNC. But I decided it would be better for my blood pressure to just cut down on the TV news.

Roundball hooligans threaten life and property in Morgantown

West Virginia Metro News:
"City leaders are already making contingency plans on how to deal with what could turn into another mob scene."

The Morgantown, West Virginia, Fire Department had to put out 50 fires as students celebrated a victory over Texas Tech and officials are bracing for another riot if the Mountaineers defeat Louisville.

Every last one of these punks ought to be put in prison. Every person who starts a fire in a malicious or reckless manner ought to be treated as a potential killer because firefighters have to put their lives on the line to deal with their "fun."

Bravo, Cardinal Ratzinger!

Yahoo! News - Church leader rails at cloning "arrogance" :
"Justice is trampled underfoot by weakness, cowardice and fear of the diktat of the ruling mindset. The quiet voice of conscience is drowned out by the cries of the crowd. Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think"

The quote above is from a recent statement by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was part of a Good Friday address in which he also condemned cloning as man attempting to usurp God's role as the Author of life and alluded to the disgrace brought upon the church by some of its own in the priestly pedophilia scandals in the US and Austria.

I hold no brief for the Bishop of Rome and his cronies, but when a man is right he is right, and Cardinal Ratzinger is absolutely on target here.

Fed looks in mirror and forecasts inflation ahead

Yahoo! News - Inflation fears prompt selloff on Wall Street :
"'The Fed conceded that there's a bit more inflation in the near term than people were expecting to hear about,' said Jack Caffrey, equities strategist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank."

Isn't it amazing how people can take this stuff seriously? The Fed comment about interest rates sounds like the weatherman admitting we might have slightly more rain than anticipated. A truer analogy would be the operator of a dam saying lake levels might not be as expected without bothering to mention that he is the one controlling the floodgates.

The march to democracy may stumble in Zimbabwe

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | SA court bans Zimbabwe blockade:
"Cosatu is an ally of South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC), but unlike the government, has been a vocal critic of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe."

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has been ordered by a judge to keep its pro-democracy demonstrations aimed at the March 31 elections in Zimbabwe at least 200 miles from the border, but relaxed the police rule on numbers of pickets. Two delegations of COSATU election monitors have been deported from Zimbabwe by the enlightened regime of Robert Mugabe.

It is refreshing to see trade unionists bucking their own government to support democratic reform in a neighboring country. Unfortunately, without some serious pressure from SA president Thabo Mbeki on his counterpart in Zimbabwe, it is unlikely that Mugabe's grip on his long-suffering country will be relaxed.

Canadians are known for being polite. Why?

My Way News:
"'The Liberals have once again shown their anti-American bias ... This strategy is like poking someone in the eye and then asking them for a favor,' Conservative legislator Diane Finley told Parliament."

The poke in the eye in question came from Marlene Jennings, parliamentary secretary for Canada-US relations, who apologized to the House of Commons for saying "let's embarass the hell out of the Americans in front of other countries." Her ire was aroused by the recent US decision to ban imports of Canadian cattle due to fears of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, aka mad cow disease).

Personally, I admire straight talk from politicians and wish they would be encouraged to speak plainly. But, it does appear that Ms. Jennings may be carrying the wrong portfolio in the current Liberal government.

Another blow to internet privacy

Tracking PCs anywhere on the Net | CNET News.com:
"[Tadayoshi] Kohno appears to be aware of the interest from surveillance groups that his techniques could generate, saying in his paper: 'One could also use our techniques to help track laptops as they move, perhaps as part of a Carnivore-like project.' Carnivore was Internet surveillance software built by the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

The UCal doctoral candidate says his method works without any cooperation by the targeted machine and in spite of large distances between the target computer and the one attempting to identify it. As the Bard of Avon said, "Oh brave new world, that has such people in't."

You read it here first

WorldNetDaily: Has Osama given up?:
"'The media went into a tizzy, bombarding Homeland Security officials with demands as to how they were going to protect us from this latest threat. And maybe there is a threat. Far more likely it's an announcement of surrender,' writes [Dr. Jack] Wheeler [proprietor of the intel website To The Point]."

I welcome Dr. Wheeler's assessment that the call by UBL for Zarqawi to take point on attacks on the US in the US is a sign of Al Qaeda's weakness, not strength. I made that basic point here several days ago. I do not believe that this signals victory in the GWOT. As I have also written here, Al Qaeda is a small part of the forces arrayed against us. Still, it's good news.

Be it ever so lavish, there's no place like home

Martha Stewart Enjoys Comforts of Home:
"Stewart continued to project the softer, more approachable image that she cultivated in prison ..."

On behalf of all the folks who can't stand Martha Stewart but think that distaste does not justify the troubles to which she has been subjected on our behalf by our government, I say - WELCOME HOME MARTHA STEWART!

Now Mrs. Stewart can get down to serious work for her stockholders who have also been victims of this affair even though their only mistake was to own stock in a profitable company.

A warning to soccer moms

BBC NEWS | Education | TV football 'corrupts children':
"Verbal abuse, cheating and violence among players are commonplace, Martin Ward, deputy leader of the Secondary Heads Association claims."

Remember when they told us it would be better for our children if Americans played soccer, what the less enlightened parts of the world call football, instead of real American football?

Is beer the secret to long life?

Germany's oldest man dies, despite unusual drinking regimen - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News:
"BERLIN (AFP) - Germany's oldest man, who has died aged 111, said that a little sweetened beer and the potato cooking water most people throw out were the secret of his longevity, family members said."

It would be a great comfort to some of us to think that drinking beer every day was the key to a long life, but I suspect the secret was in his attitude toward life. His daughter said "I never heard him complain, he was always satisfied."

Helicopter ambulance services criticized

Report: Air Ambulances Often Slower Than Counterparts On Ground - (Firehouse.com News):
"SAN DIEGO -- According to a report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, air ambulances are often slower and more dangerous than traditional ground ambulances."

In this second-hand account, the point is made that the patients transported are often not seriously injured. From my own experience in EMS I know this happens, but there are usually very good reasons why it does. Frequently, victims of auto crashes require lengthy extraction procedures and a full patient assessment may have to wait until firefighters have freed the patient from the wreck. In such cases, the decision to call for helicopter transport to the best available trauma center may have to be made as much on an assessment of the look of the wreck as the patient.

I remember a case where we rolled up on the scene of a car, skidded on snow, run off the road and slid sideways into a pine tree. The tree was where the driver should be and there was someone on the passenger side of the car. This turned out to be the driver whose seat had pulled out of the floor and been forced over the passenger seat, leaving his legs caught among the pedals and the tree. When he regained consciousness, he looked around and asked, "Who was driving?" Paramedics responding called for a helicopter while we focused on keeping the patient warm and shielding him from flying debris from chainsaws and various extraction tools. The chopper set down in a cornfield about 200 yards away and we hustled the patient into it as soon as his legs were freed. Later we found out that he had no broken bones, no internal injuries, just a lot of bruises and superficial cuts. But there was no way to know that in the field and use of the helicopter was prudent.

Man trips radiation detector three times

My Way News:
"[San Diego County] Sheriff's deputies pulled over the driver and detained him and his passenger for about one hour while they confirmed that the man was not carrying a nuclear weapon and that he had received radiation treatment, according to Sgt. Robert Healey."

It's hard to know which is worst, that merely receiving medical radiation treatments would trigger an alarm on fire department radiation detector or that the man in this case triggered such a radiation alarm on an Escondido fire truck three times before he was stopped and questioned by police. At least we know the radiation detectors being handed out by Homeland Security are highly sensitive, maybe too sensitive.

In my time in EMS we monitored the fire board on our radios. The acronym AFA indicated the call was initiated by an automatic fire alarm, but most firefighters called it an automatic false alarm and treated it as a nuisance call until there was evidence to the contrary. Any equipment that generates a high rate of false positives is likely to do more harm than good.

One more impending crisis

Telegraph | News | Drugs to combat superbugs 'will soon be useless':
"The warning that the age of infectious disease control is almost over has come from Prof George Poste, Director of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University and an advisor to the US president."

As if nuclear war, global warming, obesity, urban sprawl, Hubbert's Peak, and all the other screaming headlines weren't enough to worry about, here comes one more - MRSA, methicilin-resistant staphylococcus aureus. Not mentioned here, but of related interest, is the rise in once rare infectious diseases like tuberculosis due to immigration, both legal and otherwise, from countries with less advanced standards of public health.

Is this bad news or good news?

Osama Urging Zarqawi to Attack Inside U.S.:
"The Homeland Security Department issued a classified bulletin to officials over the weekend about the intelligence, which spokesman Brian Roehrkasse described Monday as 'credible but not specific.'"

The tone of this AP story on NewsMax.com suggests that this means increased danger for us here in the US. It seems to me rather to indicate, if it is true at all, that the Pakistanis are correct in their assessment that Al Qaeda is no longer operational in Pakistan and Afghanistan. If it were, there would be other assests tasked with taking the war to the US proper while Zarqawi continues to harass US, allied and Iraqi interests in Iraq. That, or we would pick up some indication that other leadership was being provided for the fight in Iraq.

School board acts promptly to shoot the messenger

APP.COM - Video of teacher's outburst is on Web:
"'We as a Board of Education realize that we are ushering a new era and will be forced to review our policies and perhaps enforce a more stringent districtwide policy regarding electronic recording devices in the classroom,' [Schools Superintendent Thomas L.] Seidenberger added."

I suggest, to avoid any future misunderstanding, that the school officials of Brick, NJ, adopt an unambiguous policy. How about this:
The recording or reporting by any means whatsoever of any incriminating images, information or data of any kind regarding the activities, interests or attitudes of school trustees, administrators, teachers or other employees is absolutely forbidden under all circumstances. This is in keeping with district policy that, in all matters related to the health, safety and well-being of the students committed to our care by the state, we are right and you are wrong, whoever you are. Or, in the immortal words of Bart Simpson, "I didn't do it, nobody saw me, you can't prove anything."

That ought to do it.