This follows up on this weekend’s posts about damage done to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington (NewsBusters; BizzyBlog).

The latest comes from the Washington Post (HT Michelle Malkin, who has video):

Monday, September 17, 2007; 2:32 PM

The unidentified substance that was found splashed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial earlier this month was the result of vandalism, the U.S. Park Police said today.

Sgt. Robert Lachance, a spokesman for the Park Police, said the investigation into the incident is continuing, but the detective on the case had ruled it an act of vandalism. Lachance said he could provide no more details because the probe is still underway.

….. The oily substance was first reported to police the evening of Sept. 7, National Park Service officials have said. Dark blotches were found along a stone curb at the base of the memorial for most of its length, and at least two of the wall’s panels appeared to have had something splashed on them.

Park Service officials said they did not know what the substance was, and at first said it was unclear if it was the result of vandalism or some kind of accident.

(Park Service spokesman Bill) Line said it could take another week or more to clean, but officials remain confident they can remove all the stains.

The last sentence of the excerpt makes it very reasonable to believe that whoever did the deed was intent on causing permanent harm, and could have been successful at doing just that.

It’s also not unreasonable to question why the Park Service avoided revealing that the damage was deliberate until after this weekend’s die-in by International ANSWER protesters and the Gathering of Eagles (GOE) counter-protest. The delay in reporting what several eyewitnesses and commentators knew to be obvious served at least three ignoble purposes:

• It eliminated public speculation as to whether whoever did it was trying to get the damage done before GOE members guarding the walls during the ANSWER protests showed up.
• It avoided any speculation as to a possible link with last week’s testimony by General Petraeus (the Park Service discovered the damage on September 7).
• It allowed dissemblers, two of whom I have read but will not link (if you must, go to this Google Blog Search link and look for “vietnam memorial vandalism story debunked”) to start propagating the lie that vandalism was not involved.

The story deserved wider, and more prompt, Old Media coverage than the pittance it received.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Apparently, the world’s largest Internet search business believes it has little to fear from those who object to its continued involvement with government censorship in communist China. Google agreed to censor its search-engine results in accordance with government wishes in January 2006. That control regime is still in place, as comparative searches on “Tiananmen” at Google.com and Google.cn readily show.

Oh, company co-founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page have said that what they agreed to do in Mainland China was a “mistake.” But that’s only because of the fallout, not the cooperation decision itself, as this January excerpt from the UK Guardian shows:

Last year in a speech in Washington Mr. Brin admitted the company had been forced to compromise its principles to operate in China. At the time, he also hinted at a potential reversal of its stance in the country, saying “perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense”.

From what was said yesterday a policy change seemed unlikely in the near future. Co-founder Larry Page said: “We always consider what to do. But I don’t think we as a company should be making decisions based on too much perception.”

Much of the harm had come from newspaper headlines, he said, which affected perception for most people, who then did not read the actual articles.

So small is the company’s concern over continued blowback that it has begun actively pushing for international privacy standards, expecting no one in Old Media to notice the irony.

The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampall certainly didn’t. Her 600-word story, which begins as follows, never mentions China or the search company’s involvement with it:

Google, a frequent target of privacy advocates, yesterday called for new international standards on the collection and use of consumer data.

Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel for Google, told a U.N. audience in Strasbourg, France, that fragmentary international privacy laws burden companies and don’t protect consumers. He argued for an international body such as the United Nations to create standards that individual countries could then adopt and adapt to fit their needs.

“The ultimate goal should be to create minimum standards of privacy protection that meet the expectations and demands of consumers, businesses and governments,” Fleischer said, according to a transcript of the speech provided by Google.

But what about a government which is uninterested in and hostile to privacy protections, and which instead uses its control of the Internet as part of an obvious attempt to perfect its police state?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Stealth operating system updates, from Microsoft:

Microsoft caught doing stealth updates

files on both Windows XP and Windows Vista without displaying the usual notification or permission dialog box – even if the user had previously disabled automatic updates. Microsoft, however, calls it built-in behavior and no cause for alarm.

Scott Dunn of “Windows Secrets”, reports nine files in XP and Vista have been altered by Windows Update in what he calls a stealth move by Microsoft. The updates are upgrades to the Windows Update service itself, and are not harmful to the system. However, the tactics used by Microsoft to perform them are comparable to those used by spyware companies, thus raising some concerns among the privacy minded.

Look, in the real world, 99% of us don’t understand or care what Microsoft, Apple, or others are doing to our OS’s in their updates, as long as our routines aren’t disrupted. Most of us, for better or worse, probably wouldn’t object to automatic updates after being asked the first time if they’re okay. It’s the mixing of announced updates and stealthy ones that raises suspicions that either someone is trying to cover for previous mistakes or invading our privacy, and puts commentators like this one, who makes great points about network administration problems, into high dudgeon.

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At OpinionJournal.com, “Borking Ted Olson” reveals the laughable reason why the former Solicitor General will not get support from the current Senate majority:

“Ted Olson will not be confirmed,” declares Senate Majority Leader Reid. “He’s a partisan, and the last thing we need as an Attorney General is a partisan.” That standard could certainly stand some fleshing out. As “partisans” go, Mr. Olson doesn’t come close to Bobby Kennedy, the brother of JFK; or Griffin Bell, close friend of Jimmy Carter (and a fine AG); or for that matter Janet Reno’s Justice Department, which was run for years not by Ms. Reno but behind the scenes by close friend of Hillary Clinton and hyper-partisan Jamie Gorelick.

Mr. Olson remembers who killed his wife, and would likely not cut her killers’ fellow-traveling sympathizers, disrupters, and legal gameplayers any slack. THAT’s what they don’t like about him.

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Memo to Darryl “That’s Entertainment” Parks of WLW (700 on the AM dial in Cincinnati): This is NOT “entertainment.” Nor is this. This weekend, I endured the fateful podcast of September 7. The Bill Cunningham-Seg Dennison dust-up is contrived nonsense unworthy of what used to The Nation’s Station.

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In a column hyping Alan Greenspan’s “I should have done more” appearance Sunday on CBS’s 60 minutes, the Associated Press’s Jeannine Aversa asserts that “A meltdown in that (subprime mortgage) market has rocked Wall Street.”

Really?

The S&P 500 is less than 5% off its all-time high, and is up about 6% in the past 5 weeks while much of the hyperventilating over the “meltdown” has occurred.

If this is “rocked,” Jeannine, I say “rock” on.”

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Speaking of which, Ken Fisher has a response to the subprime situation at TCS Daily:

TCS: Let’s talk about the current status of the subprime mortgage market. Are you worried?

KEN FISHER: The only thing I fear about the subprime mortgage market is what politicians might do, because fundamentally everyone gets this backwards.

TCS: You don’t see major long-term economic consequences?

KEN FISHER: I think intuitively everybody knows that in the long term, this is not a big deal for the economy and the stock market. I don’t think it’s big enough to matter.

I’m not as sure as Mr. Fisher is. He mistakenly mixes in subprimes with all teaser-rate mortgages at the end (some teaser-rate mortgages were subprime, but most were not), the whole thing is still worth a read.

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I pray that the Army is wrong about the likelihood of Matt Maupin still being alive, but fear that they are not.

Though he could have done better with his post’s title, Porkopolis found a story I heard about on Hannity’s radio show but had a hard time finding:

OTTAWA–Belinda Stronach, the MP for Newmarket-Aurora and former cabinet minister, travelled outside Canada’s health-care system to California for some of her breast cancer treatment earlier this year.

Stronach, diagnosed in the spring with a type of breast cancer that required a mastectomy and breast reconstruction, went to California in June at her Toronto doctor’s suggestion, a spokesperson confirmed.

Reports of prominent US officials traveling to Canada for health care superior to that found in the US could not be located.

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Boring Made Dull caught a story from ABC about the FAA threatening to curtail flights because of air travel delays. Trouble is, ABC didn’t investigate why the FAA may be the most culpable party in all of this. Bill Hensel Jr. at the Houston Chronicle did:

….. The FAA is pushing “NextGen,” short for the Next Generation Air Transportation System Financing Reform Act of 2007. It says the NextGen system will accommodate two to three times current traffic levels, but a fight is expected over how to pay for it.

Aviation consultant Mike Boyd of the Boyd Group said he thinks that the government largely is responsible for what is happening with the nation’s air traffic system.

“Unfortunately, instead of the DOT investigating why the FAA has failed, they are investigating the airlines, which are just trying to meet the needs of the nation,” (aviation consultant Mike) Boyd said.

The FAA is seven years late in its program to update the air traffic control system and five times over budget, Boyd said.

“It is outrageous,” Boyd said. “This is a smokescreen of the worst kind.”

BMD is, of course, absolutely correct that rationing flights will lead to higher fares.

Update: John Fund at OpinionJournal.com is all over this story today:

Some 40 nations, including Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Fiji, have taken their air traffic control systems out of their calcified government bureaucracies and created public-private partnerships or self-supporting public-sector corporations that can move more quickly and nimbly to meet challenges. A 2005 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that under the new entities have made it possible “to implement modernization projects more efficiently,” while “safety of air navigation systems has remained the same or improved.”

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I sure hope Puddle Pirate at Brain Shavings isn’t sitting at his computer waiting for specific responses to the three excellent questions he put to Ohio’s Junior Senator Sherrod Brown. As you will see, Brown has already whiffed once. Proving that life does provide occasional second chances, Puddle Pirate re-sent his questions. Your move, Senator. Based on your first answer, further silence signals, and confirms incoherence.

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FYI News noted that USA Today’s 25th anniversary occurred this past weekend (link is to an interactive timeline at USAT). Though the paper has had its share of knee-jerk Old Media moments and reportorial gaffes, it has certainly tried to be fair and balanced — something that its brethren at the so-called “papers of record” (NY Times, WaPo, and LA Times) have abandoned almost all pretense of trying to do. One thing I’ve always appreciated is that USAT has always allowed a viewpoint opposite of its daily editorial positions to appear on the very same day, in the space immediately below.

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The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is considered one of those political “third rail” laws. In other words, touch it and your political career is dead. Large Bill refers to one of a gazillion examples of why that shouldn’t be.

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King’s Right Site has a story from Tiffin (OH) that is giving Seneca County a case of heartburn.

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I meant to get this one much sooner. Last Tuesday, One Bob very nicely tied in the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the six hours of MSNBC’s replay of the coverage that fateful day, and General Petraeus’s testimony.

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Another “should have mentioned sooner” item — But this time I have an excuse, as Maggie Thurber’s September 12 post now has a September 15 update (there’s also a backgrounder here). Maggie has been following the story of planned eminent-domain abuse by the City of Toledo against a shopping center. City fathers are “cleverly” planning to put a road through the center as a “public use” smokescreen. My contention is that the property confiscators have to prove that the road is publicly useful and necessary to pass Fifth Amendment muster. I’m not close enought to the situation to know for sure, but it looks like they would have a tough time doing so.

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If you haven’t already, check out Justin’s reports at Right on the Right on Gathering of Eagles III. Just keep scrolling.

From Poole, UK, and Southampton General Hospital:

September 07, 2007

GUTSY tots Kian and Lyndon Davies — born weighing less than a bag of sugar — went home to their parents yesterday.

Doctors gave the twins almost no chance of survival after being born four months early when mum Brydie Winslow went into labour after a car crash in April.

Yesterday Brydie, 20, of Poole, Dorset, said: “To be told that the chances of survival were none for Lyndon and one to two per cent at tops for Kian, and for them to be here now, is an absolute miracle.”

At birth Kian weighed 1lb 13oz and Lyndon 1lb 8oz — and the odds were more stacked against them when their tiny bodies were ravaged by meningitis.

Lyndon also had to undergo heart surgery and a hernia operation.

Brydie and fiance Louis Davies, 21, were repeatedly summoned to Southampton General Hospital, Hants, to say goodbye to the identical tots as their condition deteriorated.

Brydie said: “Inside you want to cry but outside you have got to be strong.”

Proud dad Louis, a former Royal Marine, added: “They were so small we were scared of breaking them.”

Now nearly five months old, Kian is 8lbs 10oz and Lyndon 6lbs 13oz — which is what they should have weighed when they were born.

Brydie said: “To have them home means they are well enough to be with us, which is fantastic.

“When they were born everyone said they didn’t want to bring flowers and cards because they didn’t know what was going to happen.

“Now we are going to get everyone round for a big celebration.”

The only sign of the babies’ ordeal is Lyndon’s oxygen pack, which he has to wear until his lungs are stronger.

A hospital spokesman said: “It’s a story of survival against all odds.”