Blogging is certainly more free-flowing and none of us have editors cleaning up our prose.

I'm just keeping tabs for now. I'm watching a replay of Roma-Napoli from the Italian "Serie A" soccer league. Even though my team isn't playing (AC Milan), I read the match report and it was a great game (4-4). It'll be over by around the 5th-6th inning.

Priorities! Baseball doesn't hold a candle to soccer in my book.
It's number 3 after Soccer and Football (tied).

I threw Reid under the bus less than 2 weeks into the new Congress.  He sux, and he's dirty. 

In fact, I may have been THE VERY FIRST PERSON on DailyKos to note this kind of legislative failing in the new Democratic Congress, amidst the still rampant cheerleading of early January, though I cannot confirm that ;-)  Of course, now such condemnations are very much en vogue over there, as abject despair has set in.

All along the max line you find expensive developed neighborhoods surrounded by much less developed and lower cost areas further from the stops. Clearly the Max line is serving as a root for development.

Of course that isn't always good, a lot of those areas are revolting yuppy hells. As for the savings in transit time I highlighted the same study in my diary. I don;t have the expertise to do the analysis myself so I can't confirm that the study is right, but qualitatively Portland certainly feels less congested than most big cities (obviously New York is an exception with their subway system).

As for O'Tool... he works for Cato. I don't waste my time on them for good reason.

independent and corroborating evidence to support their cases against these individuals as well as evidence to enhance the information gain directly from these individuals?

That doesn't surprise me at all. In fact I assume that these types of investigations (i.e. where the government follows-up on leads provided by people that they have interrogated) occur all the time. If they don't, well we should complain about their lack of due diligence, right?

I generally don't even read your references anymore, at least not for a while. Everything I have said to defend this point thus far was based solely on knowing how you operate. I finally decided to read the reference to see how well I had done based on nothing bu knowing you modus operandi. Here's what I found.

The FBI is especially interested in Mohammed, who during the more than three years he spent in CIA custody boasted that he had killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and orchestrated more than two dozen other terrorist plots. Several senior counter-terrorism officials said they believed that Mohammed falsely confessed to some things, including the Pearl slaying, under duress or to obscure the roles played by operatives who might still be on the loose.

Hmm, well then, THIS sounds like something we bettergo back and try to corroborate, eh? Just like I said.

The FBI's efforts appear in part to be a hedge in case the commissions are ruled unconstitutional or never occur, or the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay is closed. Under those scenarios, authorities would have to free the detainees, transfer them to military custody elsewhere, send them to another country or have enough evidence gathered by law enforcement officials to charge them with terrorism in U.S. federal courts, some current and former counter-terrorism officials and legal experts said.

Hmm. Well that seems pretty reasonable to me. Be ready to present the evidence in the case of a public trial in U.S. Federal Courts? Why would that prompted additional information gathering? Who knows?

Special Agent Richard Kolko, an FBI spokesman, said the investigations were a natural outgrowth of a long-standing interagency effort. "The FBI will support the prosecution of KSM and other high-value detainees by making its investigative and evidentiary expertise available to the prosecution team," he said. He referred all other questions to the Defense Department.

Oh, I guess Special Agent Richard Kolko does. This sounds a lot like what I was saying, doesn't it? :)

FBI officials interviewed for this article emphasized that the bureau's probes should not be viewed as a repudiation of the CIA's efforts, noting that the spy agency's primary responsibility has been to gather intelligence to prevent further attacks, not collect evidence for trial.

Interesting. The FBI officials directly involved with the investigation have one thing to say, you and the Amnesty International guy are, predictably, on the opposite page form that. And you wonder why people think you don't support the United States?

"They have put themselves in a very bad situation here," the former agent said. "They have to redo everything because they have to come up with clean statements from these [detainees], if they can get them, obtained by law enforcement people who can actually testify. The CIA agents are not going to testify, nor should they."

Ah, and here we get to the real crux of the matter. Protecting the identities of active CIA operatives. Obtaining independent testimony from independent investigators.

Some former FBI officials and legal analysts said that even if evidence gathered through the CIA interrogations were admissible, it had lost significant credibility because of the allegations of coercion and torture.

Allegations which, of course, come straight from Democrat mouths.

CIA officials have said that they never tortured the detainees and that they operated within the law.

Like I said, no torture. Allegations to the contrary are mere fabrications.

Musa of Amnesty International said: "People like KSM should be held accountable. And the real tragedy would be that the focus of the commissions won't be on scrutinizing the conduct of Mohammed and the others, but on the conduct of the CIA."

Primarily because that is where the Democrats will put it for partisan reasons.

Federal law enforcement officials believe they have gathered enough admissible evidence to try the high-value detainees. "We've redone everything, and everything is fine," one official said. "So what's the harm?"

Well said.