Volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull in Southern Iceland blows toward the continent.

UK authorities say no flights over English airspace until Saturday; 17,000 flights over Europe canceled Friday.

NASA images

New York Times

The New York Times reports that, lo, a mere three or four years later, one of what must have been a number of Intelligence Community officials who leaked very significant and highly classified national security information is actually about to be prosecuted.

In a rare legal action against a government employee accused of leaking secrets, a grand jury has indicted a former senior National Security Agency official on charges of providing classified information to a newspaper reporter in hundreds of e-mail messages in 2006 and 2007.

The official, Thomas A. Drake, 52, was also accused of obstructing justice by shredding documents, deleting computer records and lying to investigators who were looking into the reporter’s sources.

“Our national security demands that the sort of conduct alleged here — violating the government’s trust by illegally retaining and disclosing classified information — be prosecuted and prosecuted vigorously,” Lanny A. Breuer, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in a statement.

The indictment, approved Wednesday by a grand jury in Baltimore and made public on Thursday, does not name either the reporter or the newspaper that received the information.

But the description applies to articles written by Siobhan Gorman, then a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, that examined in detail the failings of several major N.S.A. programs, costing billions of dollars, using computers to collect and sort electronic intelligence. The efforts were plagued with technical flaws and cost overruns. …

Mr. Drake, who began working as an N.S.A. contractor in 1991 and was a high-ranking agency employee from 2001 to 2008, is charged with 10 counts, including retention of classified information, obstruction of justice and making false statements. The retention counts each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The Times remarks defensively that “[t]he indictment suggests the Obama administration may be no less aggressive than the Bush administration in pursuing whistleblowers and reporters’ sources who disclose government secrets.”

Frankly, I think they may be being more aggressive.

Siobhan Gorman (naturally) in 2006 received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her NSA coverage.

The Baltimore Sun web-site does not seem to be linking many of Siobhan Gorman’s NSA stories, but here’s an example, NSA Killed System That Sifted Phone Data Legally, published in the Sun, May 18, 2006, quoted by the leftwing Common Dreams. Possibly being deliberately misleading, Gorman claims to have four anonymous informants.

Here is Siobhan Gorman talking about Homeland Security use of satellite surveillance on C-Span, November 3, 2007, 8:02 video.

Cobalt-60 is a radioactive isotope of Cobalt with a half life of 5.27 years. Cobalt-60 is not found in nature, and is artificially produced by bombarding Californium-59 with slow neutrons or by placing Cobalt rods in a nuclear reactor.

Cobalt-60 in very small quantities is used to sterilize medical equipment, to irradiate food, and for medical and industrial radiography.

It can also be used to create a dirty bomb.

One week ago (April 8), in the West Dehli industrial area of Mayapuri, two local scrap dealers, Deepak Jain, Bablu, and five others fell ill as the result of exposure to “very powerful” radiation.

Indian Express (April 9)

Economic Times (April 9):

Indian Times (April 14)

Hindustan Times (April 9):

Sources at Bhaba Atomic Research Centre (BARC) told HT the radioactive waste recovered was commercial in nature and may have been used at biochemistry or a haematology laboratory.

Police said the waste in the form of “entangled wires and pellets” could have been brought from outside the country and was handed over to Deepak Jain, the scrap dealer, through an agent.

Jain is battling for his life at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals after sustaining prolonged exposure to the substance.

The officials of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) collected eight bags of the substance from two of Jain’s godowns located 300 metres away from each other.

Two more sources found (April 14).

The Cobalt-60 is assumed to have originated outside India, because no legitimate production of the isotope takes place inside the country.

Hat tip to Debkafile and Thorvald Maada.

Japanese intellectual worker’s survival rations: canned coffee and a couple of packs of cigarettes. The pezzonovantes would never let anyone package such hazardous products together in this way in the “mostly free” US of A.

Hat tip to the News Junkie, Ambisinistral and Trendhunter

Long a popular occasion for self congratulation on our side. 4:47 video

Hat tip to Bruce Kesler.

Allee Bautsch and Joe Brown

We heard a great deal from democrats, the dinosaur media, and the punditocracy of the left recently about conservative rhetoric and all sorts of supposititious threats of violence to democrats who voted for the health care bill. No actual violence, of course, ever actually occurred.

It turns out, on the other hand, that leftwing violence these days is quite real. Last weekend, Allee Bautsch, an aide to Republican governor Bobby Jindal and her boyfriend were savagely beaten in New Orleans and both were seriously injured.

Nola.com:

The news release issued by New Orleans police Tuesday evening… notes that the 25-year-old female victim and the 28-year-old male victim were attacked in the 600 block of St. Louis Street after leaving an event at a restaurant in the 400 block of Royal Street.

Jindal’s office acknowledged on Monday that Bautsch, his chief campaign fundraiser, was recovering from a broken leg after an altercation with a group of people in the Quarter on Friday night. Bautsch was attacked after a fundraiser for the Louisiana Republican Party at Brennan’s Restaurant, 417 Royal Street, the governor’s office said. …

New Orleans police say that the incident began about 10:45 p.m. when a group of three to five men made “derogatory comments” to Bautsch and her boyfriend. When the man described as the male victim “turned toward” the group of men, at least one of the men struck him repeatedly. The woman “fell to the ground and screamed,” the news release said.

Police released a description of one suspect, saying he was in his 20s, looked “dirty,” and wore his hair in an auburn-colored ponytail. The man was 6 feet, 1 inch tall with a thin build, police said. He wore a light-colored T-shirt and dark pants.

Officers in the area responded and requested EMS assistance. The woman used her purse as a pillow while waiting for help. Once she was in the ambulance, the woman realized her purse was missing, the release said.

Kyle Plotkin, a Jindal spokesman, said Bautsch had surgery during the weekend and is facing a recovery time of two to three months. According to the NOPD news release, Bautsch’s friend was treated at the hospital for a mild concussion, broken jaw and broken nose.

The attackers were probably persons involved in a radical protest against a Louisiana State Republican Party fund raising dinner taking place at a local restaurant. The Hayride, a local political blog, describes the protesters.

Michelle Malkin is discounting rumors that the couple was attacked for wearing Sarah Palin pins.

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UPDATE — 4/17:

Several prominent conservative blogs are reporting today that the victims were uncertain about whether their attackers had any connection to the demonstration and did not identify any specifically political insults from their attackers, including both Michelle Malkin and Ed Morrissey.

Human Events talked to the victim’s mother:

Della Burning, mother of Jindal staffer Allee Bautsch, confirmed that her daughter had been savagely beaten. She refused to discuss whether or not politics were involved (although at one point in the interview she did say the report was “accurate” when New Orleans Police Information Officer said slurs hurled at her daughter during the attack were “political in nature”).

Burning confirmed her daughter’s leg is broken in four places and she has five surgical scars and a steel rod now running from her knee to her ankle with seven screws holding it all in place. She did not fall and break her leg as was reported in the lonely and inaccurate story done by the Associated Press.

Burning also confirmed that the attackers did not rob her daughter or her daughter’s boyfriend.

On the other hand, the local blog Hayride (which covered this story in a lot of depth) is still arguing today that the attack was definitely politically motivated.

I wonder exactly how much of the full story is yet to emerge at this point.

Last week, the Heritage Foundation issued its annual Index of Economic Freedom. The United States’ ranking fell dramatically from 80.7 in 2009 to 78 in 2010, for the first time declining out of the free category into the “mostly free.”

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Bruce Bartlett, in Forbes, says what liberals say: We’re so much wealthier today that we can afford to pay our taxes and the costs of regulations.

Stephen M. Bainbridge responds with some indignation, rightly characterizing Bartlett’s argument as proposing “trading our birthright of freedom for an iPad.”

[I]f I get the gist of this column correctly, he’s arguing that I should be happy about bigger government and higher taxes because I get to buy an iPad . …

I’m happy to acknowledge that the free market economy has produced profound blessings. But I’m not willing to swap my birthright of economic freedom for a “PDA” (how technologically quaint). Nor am I willing to stand by without protest while ever larger chunks of the American economy are turned over to the Obamabots–the very definition of “Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to conform with scientific utopias.” After all, if we rely today on government to provide us with bread and circuses, what will we rely on government to provide tomorrow?

At bottom, my problem with Bartlett’s argument that we can afford higher taxes and greater regulation is that regulation and taxation are like the story about how to boil a frog. If a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.

In the United States today, the thermostat is still set pretty low. The Heritage Foundation has warned us, however, that the Obamabots have turned up the heat a tad. It is the proper function of conservatives to resist and to seek to turn down the heat.

August Saint-Gaudens, The Puritan, 1883 – 1886, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Fast cars, smoking, flirting, even eating fast food at Burger King, the puritans of the Left are determined to eradicate each and every one of life’s little pleasures, Dennis Praeger warns.

Just as the Soviets removed Trotsky from old photos, anti-smoking zealots have forced the removal of cigarettes from old photos — from photos of FDR, from the famous Beatles photo — and from movies whenever possible. Torture and murder are ubiquitous in films, but smoking is all but banned — even cigars are now banned from James Bond films.

Smoking has been banned in entire cities, outdoors as well as in. In Pasadena, Calif., one cannot even smoke in a cigar store. …

Virtually every game I played as a child during school recess is now banned because organizations such as the National Program for Playground Safety deem games in which kids are “running into each other” as too dangerous. Someone might get hurt.

Until a few years ago, just about every American boy, and many girls, played dodgeball. No more. This joy, too, has been eliminated from American life. “We consider it inappropriate to use children as human targets,” said Mary Marks, physical education supervisor for Fairfax County, Va. And it may hurt the feelings of kids who are eliminated. For the same reason — potential hurt feelings of those eliminated — musical chairs is no longer played in some schools.

Some might argue that these bans are not because of Leftism but because of fear of lawsuits. But in light of how leftwing the trial bar is, that only reinforces my argument.

Read the whole thing.

Can it be accidental that Obama persists in bowing to foreign leaders like China’s President Hu Jintao?

Victor Davis Hanson can see no rational direction to Barack Obama’s foreign policy and bitterly complains that “Obama has no idea of what he is doing, and wings his way from one embarrassment to another.”

But Michael Ledeen thinks Hanson has overlooked the obvious explanation of what Obama means to do.

[W]hat if Obama does know what he’s doing? What if Victor has it right when he says that we are being transformed into a much larger version of the E.U.? (Actually, it’s a somewhat smaller version, but no matter.) …

He is not an admirer of America. He believes that America’s past behavior is the root cause of the world’s problems, and he wants to bring America under control by making it just another European country: impotent in world affairs (except for spreading the wealth) and stripped of its traditional exceptionalism at home.

That’s what his latest initiatives are all about, the new nuclear policy and the removal of clarity from our national-security doctrine by banning words like “jihad” and “Islam.” Since he considers us the problem, he imposes a nuclear doctrine that reins in America — the root cause of evil in the world. And since he wants to turn America into a weak country that will accept the political correctness of the feckless “international community,” he adjusts our language to bring it into line with the U.N.’s version of Newspeak.

It’s worse than you thought, Victor. It’s not confusion at all. It’s a campaign to cut America down to size.

“As goes California, so goes the nation,” boasts this Tea Party video by Lipstick Underground.

5:33 video

I heard about it from a liberal classmate who was not pleased by this video’s high professional quality.

Stop Taxing Us web-site

Hat tip to Norman Zamcheck.

1880 Frederick Burr Opper Cartoon from Puck, titled: The Bankrupt Outrage Mill (showing bloody shirts, lynchings, and other forms of racial violence)

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s break with political correctness and resumption of the practice avoided by two democrat party predecessors of declaring April to be “Confederate History Month” provoked the American left to open fire with all the batteries of the establishment media and the progressive blogosphere.

The contemporary left enthusiastically identifies with the 19th century radical abolitionist movement (which had so much to do with starting the Civil War) and is determined to ruthlessly suppress any expression of enthusiasm or affection for the Lost Cause.

The theoretical defense of the Southern political perspective and the rights of the states, remembrance of Confederate military victories, admiration for Confederate leaders, and any defense of the Southern Antebellum way of life are all treated as the gravest of thought crimes.

From the point of view of the Left, the politics of Slavery is all. Just as Harry Reid declared opposition to the Health Care Bill to be equivalent to opposing Civil Rights, the liberal commentariat characteristically treats any form of positive perspective on the Confederate Cause as tantamount to racism and an active defense of the Peculiar Institution.

Jon Meacham, in the New York Times, lays down the liberal law, insisting on the absolute centrality of Slavery to any interpretation of Civil War history.

If the slaves are erased from the picture [of the Civil War], then what took place between Sumter and Appomattox is not about the fate of human chattel, or a battle between good and evil. It is, instead, more of an ancestral skirmish in the Reagan revolution, a contest between big and small government.

We cannot allow the story of the emancipation of a people and the expiation of America’s original sin to become fodder for conservative politicians playing to their right-wing base. That, to say the very least, is a jump backward we do not need.

In other words, if the issues of states rights, popular sovereignty, and Constitutional limitations on federal power going back one hundred and fifty years are allowed to be raised, discussed, and argued, there is no telling what might come of it. Who knows? Some more complex interpretation beyond a simple drama featuring wicked slave owners and oppressed darkies might interfere with universal acceptance of the American left’s self-justifying narrative of radical leadership first overthrowing Slavery, then marching on to deliver first Civil Rights, then National Health Care.

It is vital to enforce a politically correct, crudely simplified version of history, so that history can be used as a credential by those who claim to be enforcing History’s will and decrees on the rest of us.

Invoking racial politics and inflaming sectional animosity at the expense of the South is a very old political game, as the 1880 cartoon above testifies. Americans were already tired of the practice in the 19th century. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the radical Benjamin Butler, then a Congressman, exhibited on the floor of the House of Representative a blood-stained shirt belonging to an Ohio carpetbagger who had been whipped by night riders in Mississippi. This kind of divisive and manipulative politics of accusation came to be referred to derisively as “waving the bloody shirt.”

Bob McDonnell is just the most recent victim of the left’s habit of waving the bloody shirt in order to bully and intimidate its opponents.

Like myself, John R. Guardino had no relatives in the United States at the time of the Civil War. He discusses at some length, quoting Senator James Webb along the way, why the attacks on Governor McDonnell are so dishonest.

And, just for the record, I’d like to note that Virginia obviously did not secede to defend Slavery. Virginia seceded in order to avoid supplying troops to be used to conquer and invade her fellow states. Virginia went to war only to defend herself and other fraternal states from invasion.

The Provisional Forces of the Confederate States, under the command of Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard, opened fire on Fort Sumter at 4:30 A.M. April 12, 1861.

Before the attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln had been in the uncomfortable position of seeking support in order to make war on fellow Americans. Opening fire on Fort Sumter was a disastrously bad idea. Offensive action initiated by the Confederacy placed the federal government in the position of the innocent victim wrongfully attacked and provided a compelling justification for President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 troops to defend the government.

It would have been far more difficult to obtain support to initiate a war of conquest of fraternal states. The majority of Northerners deplored secession, but initially favored allowing “the erring sisters to go in peace.”

Ironically, the South Carolina firebrands who insisted on asserting that state’s sovereignty over the forts in Charleston harbor inadvertently supplied the moral leverage to their own great adversary that allowed him to begin the process of defeating them.

President Lincoln’s call for troops resulted in the secessions of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, all of which chose to leave the Union rather than supply troops to be used to invade and occupy their fellow states.