Bush staff wanted bomb-detect cash moved

I received an update on the liquid explosives debacle from a commenter on a diary post over at Kos' place. Here's how it starts, from the Associated Press:

Bush staff wanted bomb-detect cash moved
WASHINGTON - While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology.

Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of steps by the
Homeland Security Department that has left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

Homeland Security's research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a "rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course," Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.

Bush staff wanted bomb-detect cash moved

Who'd a Thunk?

How can it be that after spending billions of dollars on the 'War on Terror' that this week, 5 years after 9/11, we collectively as a nation found out that the Department of Homeland Security hasn't equipped a single airport with the technology to detect liquid explosives? It must have been a small threat, less likely than someone taking over a plane with nail clippers because while I've had my clippers confiscated, they've looked the other way when it came to my sun tan lotion or that big bottle of green Gatorade tucked into the outside pocket of my backpack. Do we really trust that it just wasn't on their radar? The first return from a Google search of the phrase 'liquid explosives' is a site with a recipe for:

Astrolite A-1-5, said to be the world's MOST POWERFUL NON-NUCLEAR EXPLOSIVE, and Astrolite-G, claimed to be the world's highest detonation-velocity liquid explosive

There are plenty of reports coming to the defense of DHS claiming that they knew about this risk and have been planning for it, but if so, why didn't they start confiscating liquids and gels prior to this week? Are we waiting on technology to protect us from a threat that now the DHS believes can be eliminated by asking people to voluntarily hand over the banned items? The only way to deal with this right is by using the Israeli method: hand search everything.

If the Bush administration is serious about defeating terrorists, then they'd better start getting serious about how they manage the problem. Throwing more money at Iraq to referee a centuries old grudge-match between Sunni and Shia isn't going to stop the real al-Qaeda threat, but then again it appears that neither will the current DHS strategies, or lack thereof.

Molten Carbon DailyKos Diary Entry

This clip, though funny, is actually about right>>

Taliban Democrats

In a commentary published by the Washington Times, Cal Thomas went on a name calling spree and actually coined a brand new, evil, divisive and childish phrase: "Taliban Democrats".

The narrow primary defeat of veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary is more than a loss for one man. It is a loss for his party and for the country. It completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing.

They used to be "San Francisco Democrats," a phrase coined by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick to describe the party's 1984 convention. But they have now morphed into Taliban Democrats because they are willing to "kill" one of their own, if he does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party's kook fringe.

Mr. Lieberman's one "sin," in the eyes of the Taliban Democrats, was that he supported the effort to defeat the insurgent-terrorists in Iraq. As a Jew, Mr. Lieberman is particularly sensitive to those who have targeted the Jewish people for extinction. But even if he weren't Jewish, he would still "get it," because he understands what's at stake in the region and has correctly concluded that the consequences of American failure in Iraq would be catastrophic. [...]

Taliban Democrats have effectively issued a political "fatwa" that warns all Democrats not to deviate from their narrow line, or else face the end of their careers through a political jihad. Perhaps the few remaining rational Democrats should put on their burkas now and submit to the will of the party mullahs.

The Republican Bloc is facetiously overwhelmed that the Democratic voters in Connecticut decided to oust Joe Lieberman for a simple and selfish reason: They are losing their war footing, and along with that they will actually have to hold themselves accountable for the billions of dollars wasted and fraudulently spent on a war that has only brought about more chaos, justify why tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens were killed for an American war, and tell our children how we let thousands of American soldiers die to build a nation that quite possibly the people living there didn't even want, and not least of all explain why they allowed the President to selectively ignore and violate the The Constitution and the rule of law.

Even with a party-majority Congress is only slightly more effective at legislating than AG Alberto Gonzalez, but with a smaller ideological majority they will be on even shakier ground, by which I mean legal ground. Mr. Thomas' cowardly, divisive and evil statements may only reflect his point of view, but he isn't the first or last to demonize the Democratic party for doing what they do best: understand and follow the will of the American public, which, last time I checked, is what our representatives are supposed to do.