Panetta: I’d ask Obama to authorize “harsher interrogation methods if necessary”

Well, on the heels of Obama’s sudden turnaround on the matter of rendition, his CIA nominee Leon Panetta is now saying he’d ask for the ability to conduct “harsher interrogations” under circumstances he found “necessary.” My, my. That almost sounds like… like… he’d want to, you know, torture someone. Or, at the very least, make them uncomfortable.

Imagine for a second that one of Bush’s top folks publicly said they’d want to ask for authorization to exceed the Field Manual’s restrictions on coersion. Can’t you just hear the howling from the media? Where is that howling now, I wonder?

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Loudoun Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman exonerated of wrongdoing in Tate issue.

I’m sure it’s just slipped the mind of Loudoun Insider over at Too Conservative but I’m sure he’ll be posting shortly as regards the fact that the Virginia State Bar has concluded their investigation into Jim Plowman’s involvement in the Mark Tate 2007 Primary issue. Their conclusion is that insufficient evidence of wrongdoing exists to support the allegations and they’ve dismissed the complaint.

The Virginia State Bar has dismissed a complaint alleging that Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney James E. Plowman abused his office when he investigated a state Senate candidate on accusations of campaign finance violations.

The candidate, Republican Mark D. Tate, was indicted on charges of felony election fraud and perjury in May 2007, shortly before he lost a primary election. The charges stemmed from alleged irregularities on Tate’s campaign finance filings.

And before anyone jumps around pointing out that their finding was just “insufficient evidence,” not that he was innocent, allow me to point out that there’s “insufficient evidence” to support the claim that unicorns exist in the forests around England, too, but I don’t see them suggesting we should believe in them anyway. Investigation done and concluded; Plowman did not abuse his office as was alleged.

I note, too, that the many posts on Plowman over there at TC are no longer available for linkage. I believe that’s likely due to the extended shutdown that happened over there, not due to any “memory hole” problem. It would be nice of those people who made the accusations to acknowledge that their accusations have not been born out by the evidence, but I’ll leave that to them and their own personal senses of honor.

After-action report on a cable cut in the yard

Back in early December I had a contractor come to the house to look into a couple of issues with trees in my yard. What was to have been a discussion on trimming some branches and options on making the existing greenery a bit nicer turned south pretty quick when he demonstrated that the 55-foot oak tree in my back yard was rotten in the middle. It turns out that the trunk had a gap in the center that comprised between 70-90% of the tree’s thickness up to a height of about 12 feet. In short, it was a heavy windstorm away from coming right down on my house or that of my neighbor. It had to go.

Another tree that had been looking sickly from a distance turned out to be, literally, half dead at close range. It also had to go. Ditto what used to be a holly bush in the back that had been allowed (by the previous owner) to grow to tree dimensions and now had an 18-inch truck less than 18 inches from my foundation. Finally, 2 large arborvitae were so old and tattered they were literally splitting apart. The decision was made to cut them down and that was done in mid-December. I didn’t want that big oak hanging over our heads while we traveled during the Christmas season. Considering the wind storms that happened the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I’m glad we had it handled.

However, while the trees got cut down, the stumps remained until we got back. Various weather/scheduling issues kept the contractor from coming back to grind the stumps down until this week. When he showed up, the folks from Miss Utility hadn’t, so there were no markings in the yard. They called the utility folks again and got them to come out to paint the stripes on my lawn where the electric, gas, phone, water, phone, and cable lines were buried. With that out of the way, the contractor went to work.

The good news is he came no where near those marks. The bad news is the cable line didn’t, either. And since it was up against this:

…you can imagine how long it lasted. I, of course, found out about this issue when I got home from work. After getting the necessary evening routine done (dinner, supervising the kid’s homework, etc.) I got on the phone with Comcast, the cable provider, to report the problem. Like you, I had visions of how this was going to turn out. I was wrong, from the 1st ring.

The phone system asked me to say whether this was a maintenance call (yes), whether the outage was on all channels (yes) and to verify the zip code I was calling from. As soon as that was out of the way, I was transferred to a real, live human who confirmed he knew my name, and phone number I was calling from. He asked me to confirm the address and then asked for the problem details. Well, I wasn’t going to try to snow job the guy so I told him straight up what had happened. In response he did something surprising: he apologized for the inconvenience.

I was thinking, “Inconvenience? It was my contractor who chewed up the cable. Isn’t it you being inconvenienced?” He clicked a few keys and asked me if someone would be home tomorrow so he could arrange to have the repair personnel around. Yes, that’s “tomorrow” as in “the very next day.” When asked what time they might be by he gave me 3 time slots, each 3 hours long. The last time I had to have cable service the guy told me he’d be there sometime between 8 am and 7 pm. This guy’s promising he’ll be here between 2 pm and 5 pm.

As it turns out, he called a bit ahead of schedule and showed up at about 1:30. He managed the patch in about 10 minutes and tested it. Nope, still not up. He attached the tester to the cable box at the side of the house and was able to “see” the cable DVR over by the TV which meant the problem wasn’t inside. When he went back to check his patch job, he pulled lightly on the cable that was headed toward the junction box at the back of the property line. It came right up out of the ground leaving about 2 feet of cable on the “company side” of the patch he’d done. The cable was snapped underground somewhere.

He attached a cable at the junction box and ran it, above ground, along the patch it should follow to attach to the side of the house. Connecting the new cable, the service is back up. He’s promised to get someone to come next week to bury it.

At no point in time did anyone at the cable company show anything but professionalism and I’ve not gotten a hint of an attitude that this was my fault even though, as the homeowner who contracted with the guys who cut the cable ,it technically is my fault. The service restoration was fast, easy, and the people performing the work have been nothing but pleasant. Comcast is doing a great job here and I want to say that on the record.

Thanks, guys.

Back on-line and spooling up

Situation with the Internet service is corrected and I’m spooling back up for a few posts this evening when I get time. Stay tuned!