What Democrats should learn from Chinese riots

Gordon Chang writes in Forbes, "What The Riots In China Really Mean."

his week, rioting left scores dead in Urumqi, the capital of China's troubled Xinjiang region. The latest official death toll is 156, but that number undoubtedly understates the count of those killed. The disturbances are accurately portrayed as ethnic conflict--Turkic Uighurs against the dominant Hans--but they also say much about the general stability of the modern Chinese state. ...

The Chinese regime can fail because, as we are seeing in Xinjiang, the Party is losing hearts and minds, and ... a ruling organization is vulnerable when that happens. In most other parts of China, ethnic tensions are not a factor, but the Communist Party has other problems. Almost nobody believes in its ideology, and everyone can see its failings as a ruling organization. ... The Party stays in place largely due to apathy, fear and a failure to imagine that China can be better.

So this is a dangerous time for the one-party state. For three decades, its primary basis of legitimacy has been the continual delivery of prosperity. In the current economic downturn, however, it has been arguing that it deserves to remain in power for other reasons. As the Party tries to change the basis of its support, it puts its future at risk.

Now over to Jay Cost, who writes that last November's election enables President Obama to "feasibly claim some kind of mandate to get the economy out of recession."

The 2008 election is a typical American response to economic woes. The country has been voting for out-parties during economic slowdowns since 1840, when it tossed Martin van Buren out on his duff. The United States votes for prosperity. It always has. It always will.

That's why I have been so perplexed by the Obama administration's legislative strategy this year. ...

All in all, the process that produced the stimulus bill was not a good one. Rather than use his enormous political capital to construct a bill designed to confront the economic crisis head-on, the President left its construction mostly up to Congress, which is inclined to particularism and waste. ...

This moment is calling for a focus on the economy. That's why Barack Obama has the top job. It's not because of cap-and-trade, not because of health care, not because of his magnetic presence on the campaign trail - but because the economy was shrinking at a 6.1% annualized rate by Election Day. Americans were voting against recession by voting for him. This gives him a claim to a mandate, which not every President enjoys. He now has an opportunity to put his stamp on the country's economic policy in the name of recovery. Yet he's not doing that. ...

I think this is a strategic mistake. My scan of the history of American politics does not indicate that we've been governed so much by "alignments" - the systems of 1860, 1896, 1932, 1968, and so on. Instead, I see a country that votes for growth. That's the true American ideology. Left, right, or middle - the average American wants prosperity. When the majority party fails to deliver growth after having been elected to do so - the electoral consequences can be significant.

And yet the administration's and Congress's' agenda, led by the president, is a scattershot of issues and initiatives - health care and greenism predominating. None of these other agendas hold the slightest promise of turning the economy around despite the Democrats' promises of jobs "saved" or created. Stimulus spending is focused almost exclusively on infrastructure, which was tried and failed during the Great Depression, such that even its architect, John Maynard Keynes, finally decided that federal infrastructure spending is of practically no value in pumping up the economy.

Meanwhile, federal income revenues are falling while spending is skyrocketing. According to usgovernmentrevenue.com:

• 2007 total revenue: $2.568 billion, deficit, $161 billion.
• 2008: $2,524 billion, deficit, $459 billion
• 2009: $2,157 billion, deficit $1,841 billion

2010's deficit is estimated at $1,258 billion. How is the shortfall made up? By selling debt - this one-party rule is the unparalleled master of debt:



And though it did not start on January 20, the Fed is throwing money out the door faster than ever:



Sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost. Meanwhile, unemployment approaches 10 percent, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics computes that published job losses are between 150,000-200,000 lower per month than reality. Nouriel Roubini, professor at the Stern Business School at New York University, explains why and why the economy's bottom is not close.

John Stewart gets the last word:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
That's Great Now Fix the Economy
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Economic Crisis

Why there's no recovery in sight

"The new administration seemingly won't let companies fail, and won't let them succeed either" -- WSJ, "Welcome to government for the benefit of government officials and their hangers-on."

Washington meets Chicago.

Too bad they learn it the hard way

Politicians, that is. George Will quotes Meg Whitman, "the former CEO of eBay who is campaigning for the 2010 Republican gubernatorial nomination," thus:

The current calamitous governor wanted, as movie stars do, to be loved, but Whitman says tersely: "Getting elected is a popularity contest. Governing is the opposite."

To which British Financial Times columnist, observing the Moscow summit, adds, "charm and good looks can only get you so far."

Honduras analysis

Anthony Tsontakis writes at There is Knowledge and emails to point me to his analysis of why the ouster of former Honduras President Mel Zelaya was not a coup, concluding correctly,

It is difficult to comprehend the concurrent positions of the global media, the United States, the OAS, the EU, and the UN--that an illegal coup has taken place in Honduras. In remarks addressing the situation in Honduras, for instance, Secretary of State Clinton unequivocally stressed the importance of “support[ing] and defend[ing] democracy and constitutional order in our hemisphere,” yet came out in support of Zelaya--whose unlawful behavior was aimed at undermining a democratic constitutional order--and against the judicial and legislative branches of the Honduran government--whose conduct was aimed at preserving a democratic constitutional order.

Indeed.

McNair-Kazemi ruled murder suicide

Nashville Chief of Police Ronal Serpas (spelling is correct) announced today that Steve McNair's 20-year-old mistress, Saleh Kazemi, was likely "spinning out of control" in the few days before she killed McNair on July 4, then killed herself. Saleh had also told friends that her "life was over" and she "was going to end it all."

Stressers in her life, said Serpas, were:

• Within the last week of her life she became convinced that McNair was seeing yet another woman and that she would soon be dropped from his life. Serpas said she told friends she had seen McNair leaving the condo with another woman a few days before the killings and attempted to follow them. But police are not confirming that McNair was actually involved with anyone else. [Saleh's family members told reporters since Saturday that Saleh was convinced that McNair was divorcing his wife to spend the rest of his life with her, so much in fact that she was considering selling her furniture so she could move in with him.]


• Her roommate had just moved out from their shared apartment, leaving her to pay the full rent and utilities by herself. She was already overloaded with other debt. Saleh told a co-worker Friday night that she was "thinking of ending it."

Saleh bought an "off brand" 9mm automatic pistol for $100 in the parking lot of Nashville's Opry Mills mall about 5 p.m. Thursday in the middle of her work shift at a restaurant there, Dave & Busters. She already knew the person selling the gun, having already bought a vehicle from him before. She asked him if he knew how she could get a gun. He said he had one to sell her, so they completed the transaction.

Serpas said that McNair was likely asleep on the sofa in Wayne Neely's condo apartment early Saturday morning when Saleh shot him through the right left temple (see below). She then shot him him twice in the chest, then once in the right temple, that shot with the gun almost touching him.

Saleh then sat on the sofa beside McNair and shot herself through the right temple, falling onto McNair's lap and then rolling onto the floor at his feet. Serpas said there is no question that she shot herself. No gunshot residue was found on McNair's hands. Trace residue was found on Saleh's left hand. Her right hand was covered with too much blood to conduct a valid residue test.

No evidence of drugs or paraphernalia was found at the scene. No one living nearby heard the shots, estimated to have been fired between 1-1:45 a.m. The next door neighbor was away and did not return until 6:30 a.m. and said he did not hear anything after he got home.

Ballistics testing proved that all five shots at the scene were fired from the gun that police found at the scene, both all five expended bullets and fired casing matching the pistol.

There was no bruising on Saleh's body nor any other sign of a struggle between them. There is no evidence that anyone else was involved in the deaths, including review of security camera records near the condo complex. There is no evidence that the scene was tampered with or altered before the police arrived.

Update: Video of the news conference is now online, 16:36 long. Note that Serpas contradicts himself in the sequencing of how Kazemi shot McNair. He says at 1:45 that she shot him first in the right temple, then at 14:48 he says the first shot was "from left to right."

Update: NPD's press release accompanying the news conference is here. It says the shot to McNair's left temple was first.

Previous posts:

NFL quarterback Steve McNair shot to death
McNair-Kazemi deaths not yet ruled murder suicide
Hey, buddy, can you spare $3,000,000?
Police: Kazemi bought pistol
McNair-Kazemi - nagging questions
Was McNair's murder an honor killing?

McNair case police update to be live online

The Metro Nashville police department will hold a news conference this afternoon at 2:45, CDT on the latest developments on its investigation of the murder of Steve McNair and the death of his mistress, Saleh Kazemi.

WSMV.com will video-stream the presser on its web site.

Previous posts:

NFL quarterback Steve McNair shot to death
McNair-Kazemi deaths not yet ruled murder suicide
Hey, buddy, can you spare $3,000,000?
Police: Kazemi bought pistol
McNair-Kazemi - nagging questions
Was McNair's murder an honor killing?

All Palin, all the time?

Maydja look...

I have avoided even mentioning until now that Sarah Palin resigned from governorship of Alaska, effective later this month. For sure I won't try to speculate about her motives and what she might be up to next. Frankly, my dear, I don't give ... well, you know the rest.

Already, of course, some blogs, left and right alike, are abuzz or agog, take your pick, that Palin might be trying to position herself for a run for the White House in 2012.

Who knows? She ain't saying ... yet.

But I have to say that James Joyner nailed it here, discussing one of Mark Halperin's Top Ten reasons that Palin resigned. Halperin says that if Palin wants to make a run for the White House in '12, she needs to raise money and establish some national/international-policy bona fides now.

To which James responded, "I’d say she needed to start about twenty years ago."

Exactly.

I recall way back in '03/'04 the right side of the blogosphere was abuzz with the rather idiotic idea that President Bush would throw V.P. Dick Cheney under the bus for the '04 race, selecting Condoleeza Rice as his running mate instead. Gosh, I laughed my head off over that one and wrote at the time that she'd be trying to box way above her weight. I'd say that Rice's tenure as SecState proved me right.

And so Palin. Nice lady, devoted mother, loves her country, politically conservative, etc. etc. etc.

But ready for the chief executive's office in only three more years? Not a chance.

Yes, I know that it can be argued - and was, last year - that she was actually more qualified for the presidency than Barack Obama, to say nothing of the vice-presidency. At least, said her apologists, she's actually been in charge of something. And while it was true, it was also irrelevant. Surely we have not, I pray, reached the point in our polity where who is the least unqualified is the new criterion for, perversely, being qualified!

In that light I cite another of James' posts, "Krauthammer on Palin," with this embed:



James closes,

But I have to seriously question his observational skills for his next sentence:

You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you’re running for the presidency.

Yes. You. Can.

Which is of course, correct, as Barack Obama proved. And as Dr. Phil might ask, "How's that worked out?"

So if the Republican party finds itself willing to campaign simply on platitudes and clichés, then not only is this ---> the fate that awaits the party, it should await it.

I have to say I think Roger Simon hit the 10 ring:

I certainly agree with those who say the attacks on her were unconscionable, but I challenge her most staunch defenders to say that this is really the kind of person to lead us out of our Twenty-First Century malaise.

So - all Palin, all the time? Nope, not here.

Right hand, left hand, etc.

Teasers at the top of Drudge this morning (perishable, so here's a screen grab), click for full-size view:



Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing? Seems not. But then, we already knew that.

Was McNair's murder an honor killing?

A commenter on Michael Silence's post evoked my thoughts here, which I briefly sketched in a comment there.

I posted yesterday how there are a lot of nagging questions about the murder of Steve McNair and the still-uncharacterized death of his mistress, Saleh Kazemi. Let me review some facts of the case and then hypothesize. I admit in advance that my hypotheses are real "out on a limb" stuff.

Here are some facts as confirmed by Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron, police records and media interviews with Saleh's close family.

Update: Police now confirm that the gun found at the scene under Kazemi's body was the gun she bought Thursday night and was the gun used to kill McNair and her. "Police still aren't classifying the deaths as a murder-suicide, though state medical examiner Bruce Levy said it's a likely scenario based on the evidence."

1. Saleh and Steve had been an item for five or six months. He had taken her on trips as far away as Hawaii. Family members said that on a trip to Disney World he had taken her to a Florida firing range where she presumably fired a pistol. McNair had a carry Tennessee permit and was known to own a pistol, probably several.

2. Saleh told her family that Steve was divorcing his wife and would marry her.

3. Saleh was Iranian by birth, as was of course the rest of her family. She moved to the US 10-11 years ago when her mother died and lived with her aunt's family here. Saleh and family are not Muslim, but Bahai, which is persecuted in Iran. So Saleh had lived approximately half her life in Iran and half here.

4. Between 1-1:30 Thursday morning, July 2, in downtown Nashville, Saleh was driving the Cadillac Escalade that Steve had given her. Steve was a passenger. She was arested for DUI and taken to the booking center since she refused to take a breathalyzer test. Steve left the arrest scene with police permission and later went to the jail where he threw her bail.

5. Thursday evening, Saleh managed to buy a gun illegally (being only 20) from a private seller. Presumably she bought ammunition, too. Thr purchase was made "only hours" after she was bailed out of jail by McNair, said police.

6. She and McNair spent part of Friday evening together. According to witness statements they arrived separately late Friday night at the apartment. They died "early Saturday," according to police.

7. McNair was shot four times, twice in the head, twice in the chest. The head shots were to each temple, one from less than an inch away. The other three shots were from about three feet away.

8. Saleh died from a single shot to her head, so close the muzzle was touching her scalp.

Questions without answers:

A. Did something happen with the arrest that so enraged Saleh with Steve that she went out only hours later and got a gun?

B. Family members say Saleh told them McNair had promised her he would spend the rest of his life with her. Had McNair already started to back down on that (if he ever said it)?

C. Did Saleh blame Steve, somehow, for her DUI arrest? He was a well-known partier, liked his drinks, and she had spent the whole evening with him on the town.

Iranian culture, like most near-Eastern cultures, is strongly honor-shame oriented. Even though Saleh had spent half her life in America and was apparently quite acculterated, she had lived with her Iranian-immigrant relatives. Did the honor-shame dynamic still influence her in her relations with her family?

If so, then an hypothesis (like I said, this is real out on a limb stuff):

Her sense of honor and pride suffered a double blow in just a few hours' time. First was being dumped, however gently, by Steve. Let me point out that we do not know whether Steve ever made the first step to doing so. But if he did it could have caused a shame dynamic to kick in.

The she got the public humiliation of being arrested with Steve playing a role in it, however innocent that role might have been.

In the first case - if it was the case - she had been shamed herself. In the second, she had shamed her family, which is usually more serious in bear-Eastern honor-shame dynamics. And Steve was warp and woof of both.

Could it have been that she saw no recourse but suicide to restore honor to herself and her family? And did she blame Steve for for both shamings somehow, leading her to take his life as part of the path to restoring her honor? Murder-suicide by shamed women was a scandal in Iraq earlier this year (probably better termed "murderous suicide," though).

If so, it may account for the thoroughness of McNair's murder - four shots, one shot with the gun practically touching McNair's head - that I wondered about yesterday. It means that his killing was not an act of passion of the moment, but was done with planned deliberation and great intentionality, especially considering that he was shot once in each temple. The almost-touching shot, if the final one, might have been her way to ensure she had done the deed, or even a coup de grace.

Like I said, this is extremely hypothetical almost to the limit. And like police spokesman Don Aaron said today, we may never know what made this sad event happen.

Psychiatrist blogger "Dr. Sanity" posted a long explanation of near-Eastern honor-shame dynamics four years ago. Worth the read and before you knock down my hypothesis, read it. Key point: in these dynamics, women cannot increase their honor, they can only degenerate it and restore it. The most common penalty for a woman's sexual shames, such as premarital sex or even being raped, is death at the hand of a brother or uncle or even her father. Possibly, almost living together with a man who then dropped her - again, if Steve did drop her - may have kicked that deep-seated shame into her psyche. It didn't kick in when she broke up with her previous boyfriend, Keith Norfleet, because she dropped him.

Update: Dr. Sanity emailed me wondering whether one of Saleh's family members killed both Steve and Saleh. As I explained above, it accords with the common pattern of honor killings in near-Eastern lands for a male member of the shamed female's family to commit the killing. However, police have said from the beginning that they are not looking for living suspects and that all the evidence so far points to murder-suicide, although it has not actually been declared such because not all the lab work has been done. Also, Saleh's family all live out of state. Third, there's no reason for a male family member to kill McNair - within the dynamic at play (if it was in play at all) from a family perspective it was Saleh who shamed them, not McNair. A male relative would almost certainly have confronted Saleh at her own home or taken her elsewhere, not at the condo.

Update: Was Steve planning to divorce Mechelle? As information becomes available, it seems unlikely. While their house was already on the market, their real-estate agent told TMZ.com that the couple wanted to move out of the city to a home by a lake, of which there is ample supply in the Nashville area.

None of McNair's friends or former teammates have indicated there was any issue between Steve and Mechelle. The Tennessean reports this morning,

Bishop Joseph Walker, the pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, said he had no indication there was trouble in the McNairs' marriage. When they came to service, they came together. They had not been to see him for counseling.

(OTOH, I can tell you from personal experience that a couple's pastor is usually the last to know their marriage is on the rocks.)

Update: National Geographic's website has a highly informative article about honor killings. Contrary to widespread Westerners' beliefs, they are not done only by Muslims but are a culturally embedded practice. Last year, more than 2,000 people, mostly women, demonstrated in Iran against honor killings after a man killed his daughter because she wanted to divorce her husband.

Update, July 8: Police have announced the killings were murder-suicide by Kazemi. The near-Eastern honor-shame dynamic seems to have little or nothing to do with her motives, which, police say, were that she was being jilted by McNair (well, I got that one right) and was buried in debt.

Related:

McNair-Kazemi - nagging questions

Police: Kazemi bought pistol

McNair-Kazemi deaths not yet ruled murder suicide

NFL quarterback Steve McNair shot to death

Biden backtrack redux

Citing VP Joe Biden's appearance on a Sunday talking-head show in which he apparently gave the US government's green light to "sovereign Israel" to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities to rubble, I observed,

But, as we all know, Joe Biden does not actually speak for Obama. Heck, most of the time Biden doesn't even speak for Biden!

Boy, this didn't take long:"US not giving Israel 'green light' to attack Iran."

The Obama administration poured cold water Monday on any notion it is giving Israel the green light to attack Iran or that it is reconsidering plans to engage diplomatically with the Islamic republic.

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israel in its dealings with Iran's nuclear ambitions.

But State Department spokesman Ian Kelly rebuffed suggestions from reporters that Biden could be seen as giving the Jewish state a green light to attack Iran, which it views as an existential threat.

"I certainly would not want to give a green light to any kind of military action," Kelly said, repeating Biden's point that Washington considered Israel a "sovereign country" with a right to make its own military decisions.

It's not a meme, it's a template.

McNair-Kazemi - nagging questions

A little speculation here on the deaths of Steve McNair and his mistress, Saleh Kazemi. (Factual updates are at the end.)

I saw a report that McNair's former Titans teammate Eddie George rejected the idea of the deaths as a murder-suicide because, he said, the shootings were "too professional." I don't know what kind of expertise Eddie has about assassinations. Even if McNair and Kazemi turn out to have been killed by a third party, I have a hard time thinking it would be a "hit job," involving a contracted killer.

But this has been nagging me: whomever killed McNair definitely wanted him dead, shooting him twice in the chest and twice in the head. Not a difficult task with a semiauto pistol, but shooting someone four times is actually an incredibly violent deed, even for the fury of "a woman scorned," and there is no evidence (yet, anyway) that McNair was dumping her.

Now, back to more reflections about some technical issues concerning the autopsies, a followup to my first post on the topic.

One thing the pathologist would try to determine at McNair's autopsy was whether the two pairs of wounds were consistent with rapid fire, and whether he was shot first in the chest or the head.

If the bullet entry wounds and angles are very close for each pair (one bullet with the other of its pair) then it indicates the shots were very close together in time. If one entry wound is a few inches or more from the other, or if it is in a different part of the chest (say one entering the front, the other the side) then it shows that the victim had time to move before the other shot was fired. Or it could show that the shooter was not controlling the gun well. (Certainty in such investigations is an invention of CSI and like shows. Real life is different.)

Wound patterns can even indicate whether McNair was falling after the first shot. He was found sitting up on a sofa, but that doesn't mean he was sitting there when he was shot. If the four wounds are vertically aligned, it can indicate (but not necessarily prove) that he was falling as the second through fourth shots were fired.

If there are exits wounds also, then the location of the correlated bullet reveals much information about the victim's location and posture for each wound. Police have not said whether either victim had exit wounds. Guessing that they were shot with a 9mm pistol (police have not said), then McNair's torso probably did not have exit wounds because of his size and muscularity. (I've been elbow close to him when he was in street clothes, and he was a really big guy.) The head wounds were probably both in and out.

Any large police department will have investigators whose forensic specialty is blood-pattern analysis, "the examination of the shapes, locations, and distribution patterns of bloodstains, in order to provide an interpretation of the physical events which gave rise to their origin." This analysis tells investigators whether the pattern of blood at the scene is consistent with the postures of the bodies and, for example, whether an exit wound was suffered standing, sitting or lying down.

This expertise will help determine whether McNair was shot first in the head or the chest. A corpse does not bleed when shot, it leaks. Once the heart has stopped there is no blood pressure to push blood out of a vein or artery. Which leads to three scenarios:

1. If either of the chest wounds was a heart shot with copious blood around them and there is little blood around the head wounds, it strongly indicates that he was shot in the chest first.

2. Conversely, if there is little blood around the chest wounds but obvious bleeding from the head wounds, the opposite conclusion is warranted.

3. Of course, if McNair died of sanguination, none of the wounds were of themselves lethal and all the wounds will be bloody (brain shots are not always immediately fatal, though they are immediately incapacitating).

The scenario that nags me most is number 2. A (presumably) jilted girlfriend double taps her lover in the head and then also in the chest? That's literally overkill and strikes me as something not even an infuriated just-jilted lover would do, especially having limited firearms experience and being only 20 - Kazemi would hardly think her life was tanked just because McNair was dropping her, if in fact that's what he had just done.

In fact, all of the scenarios have their own nag. For Kazemi to have done any of them seems in my mind to require her to have been in an uncontrollable rage or have been a natural-born killer, neither of which accord with the descriptions of her given to media by family, friends or co-workers. (Then again, "who knows what shadows lurk . . . ?")

Whether thoughts like these have nagged investigators I cannot say, of course. Once the ballistics lab work comes back the picture will doubtless be much clearer. But for now it's not clear at all, and I think that must be a big reason that no manner of death has yet been determined for Kazemi.

Curiouser and curiouser . . .

Update, 5 p.m.: At a press conference late this afternoon, Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said:

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation continues to conduct ballistics, gunshot residue testing. Kazemi's death classification won't be made until testing is done and results are back. A total of five shots were fired in the apartment: four hit McNair, one hit Kazemi.

Gunshot residue testing isn't 100 percent reliable, Aaron said, but once the tests return, conclusions may be able to be reached.

Police Department aware of Internet postings eluding to McNair's death prior to the death. Keith Norfleet, Kazemi's ex-boyfriend, has not been named a suspect.

There was a period of time between when other people entered the apartment and the police department arrived.

"We are concerned" about the time elapse between when the bodies were discovered and 911 was called, said Aaron, who said the time elapse could be 40 minutes or longer. Police don't believe the bodies were moved.

Detectives have an idea of how the gunshots happened but can't discuss it now.

"It may be that we'll never know exactly why this happened," Aaron said.

WKRN-TV's (ABC affiliate) aite has this nugget:

In an interview Monday, Dr. Bruce Levy, Chief Medical Examiner for the state of Tennessee and Davidson County, told News 2 of the four gunshot wounds McNair sustained, one, to the head, was at close range, or within inches of his body.

He said the other three, a second to the head and two to the chest, were shot from a distance of three feet or greater.

Dr. Levy said Kazemi died of a single contact gunshot wound to the head, which he said means the barrel of the gun was in contact with her skin.

He said while the evidence is consistent with suicide, it is still too early to classify Kazemi's death.

The facts about McNair's wounds make trying to sequence those shots all the more important. Also, in police speak, saying that Kazemi's wounds were "consistent with suicide" does not mean that they have decided she committed suicide. But it does sound like they are leaning that way.

5:50 p.m.: Just now Brian Williams said on NBC News that Nashville police have confirmed that Saleh bought the gun used in the shootings. No surprise that Brian got it wrong. The police have said that Saleh bought the gun found under her body, but have not actually said that the same gun fired the fatal shots. As I wrote yesterday, that determination is made by technical ballistics lab testing, of which Aaron said results are not in yet.

Related:

Police: Kazemi bought pistol

McNair-Kazemi deaths not yet ruled murder suicide

NFL quarterback Steve McNair shot to death

Hey, buddy, can you spare $3,000,000?

Police: Kazemi bought pistol

A pistol was found beneath the body of Saleh Kazemi, found dead in an apartment next to the corpse of Steve McNair on Saturday. Today, Nashville police announced that the pistol had been purchased by Kazemi.

Kazemi, 20, died Saturday of a single gunshot to the head alongside former Titans quarterback McNair, who had two gunshots to the head and two to the chest. The gun was found under Kazemi’s body.

“We believe the pistol recovered from the apartment was purchased by Kazemi,” Metro spokesman Don Aaron said.

Police said the possibility of a murder-suicide is still on the table, but there are several other theories of the crime still possible.

I explained yesterday what other theories are possible. Police also questioned Kazemi's former boyfriend, Keith Norfleet, yesterday for several hours but have not named him or anyone else as a suspect.

Kazemi was only 20 when she died, so she could not have legally bought the gun, 21 being the minimum age in Tennesse for handgun purchases. Whether a legal adult can "co-buy" (as opposed to shadow purchase) a handgun, I don't know. It was well known for years that McNair had a carry permit. A carry permit enables a gun buyer to skip the instant-criminal-records check for gun purchase, since the background check for a permit is much more thorough. Update: but apparently not in Tennessee, see first comment.

Update: Police say now (5 p.m.) that she bought the gun from a private seller, name unreleased, and that the transaction took place in Nashville.

Police also said that testing for gunfire residue on Kazemi's hands is not finished. This is another reason that her manner of death has not yet been determined. Semiauto pistols expel unburned propellant gases not only from the muzzle, but from the breech when the recoil kicks the slide back. This ejecta winds up on the hand holding the pistol.

There are chemical tests to detect even minute amounts of residue. The larger the caliber and heavier the load, the more residue there will be. If there is no residue on Kazemi's hands, it argues strongly that she did not fire a gun, therefore did not commit suicide.

The Tennessean reported yesterday that Saleh's family said that Saleh had gone to a firing range in Florida with McNair, who took her to Disney World awhile back.

Meanwhile, police have been interviewing staff and patrons of Nashville's Blue Moon Lagoon bar because of this report of an event there Friday evening:

According to several NashvillePost.com sources, it is at Blue Moon Lagoon where McNair's evening took an ominous turn.

While sitting with friends at the restaurant (sources say that Kazemi was not in the party), a white woman in her early 20s, about 5-foot-4, approached McNair and accused him of slipping her a “roofie” a year ago.

The woman then told McNair, according to sources, that her boyfriend was going to kill him.

Roofie is a slang term for Rohypnol, a sedative dating back to the early 1970s that is used in hospitals for deep sedation, but is now a fairly infamous date-rape drug.

Seems spurious to me.

Hey, buddy, can you spare $3,000,000?

If you can, you can buy Steve McNair's 14,000-square-foot Nashville home, currently on the market for $2,999,990 (photo at link).

The house was already on the market before McNair was murdered Saturday. McNair's widow, Mechelle, still lives in it, although judging from news stories run since McNair and his side girlfriend, Saleh Kazemi, were found shot to death, Steve didn't spend much time there.

Kazemi's family members, interviewed by the Tennessean, said that Saleh had told them Steve was divorcing Mechelle. (No relevant papers were ever filed in Nashville/Davidson County, which have a unified government.) Mechelle has not consented to any interviews with media - and who can blame her - but Saleh's kin have stated clearly that Saleh expected to marry Steve. Saleh's family, however, were skeptical.

The case just gets curiouser and curiouser.

Obama administration: Israel, ¡sí!, Honduras, ¡no!

This administration seems to have a pretty pliable concept of national sovereignty. On the one hand, the president and his secretary of state hardly let two breaths be drawn before denouncing Honduras after its government united to depose their would-be strongman Chavez protege, Mel Zelaya. They immediately called Zelaya's deposition a "coup" and demanded he be returned to office immediately. Immediately, you hear? Now!

On the other hand, Israel is a sovereign nation and if it wants to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age, well, they don't need our consent. That according to Vice President Joe Biden on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to make matters into his own hands.

Is that the right approach?

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?

BIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.

What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.

If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?

BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say we can't dictate, but we can, if we choose to, deny over-flight rights here in Iraq. We can stand in the way of a military strike.

BIDEN: I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests, and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests.

So there you are. Video at the link. The AP has a report, too.

But, as we all know, Joe Biden does not actually speak for Obama. Heck, most of the time Biden doesn't even speak for Biden!

"You are Being Deceived"

So wrote a group of highly-credentialed atmospheric scientists in a July 1 open letter to the Congress. Climate Depot provides the text, pasted below.
--------------------------------

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: YOU ARE BEING DECEIVED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

You have recently received an Open Letter from the Woods Hole Research Center, exhorting you to act quickly to avoid global disaster. The letter purports to be from independent scientists, but that Center is the former den of the President's science advisor, John Holdren, and is far from independent. This is the same science advisor who has given us predictions of “almost certain” thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time.

The facts are:

The sky is not falling; the Earth has been cooling for ten years, without help. The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists' computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them.

The finest meteorologists in the world cannot predict the weather two weeks in advance, let alone the climate for the rest of the century. Can Al Gore? Can John Holdren? We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc, but in fact

THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE; IT DOESN'T EXIST.

The proposed legislation would cripple the US economy, putting us at a disadvantage compared to our competitors. For such drastic action, it is only prudent to demand genuine proof that it is needed, not just computer projections, and not false claims about the state of the science.

SCIENCE IS GUIDED BY PROOF, NOT CONSENSUS

Finally, climate alarmism pays well. Alarmists are rolling in wealth from the billions of dollars floating around for the taking, and being taken. It is always instructive to follow the money.

Robert H. Austin
Professor of Physics
Princeton University
Fellow APS, AAAS
American Association of Arts and Science Member National Academy of Sciences

William Happer
Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics
Princeton University
Fellow APS, AAAS
Member National Academy of Sciences

S. Fred Singer
Professor of Environmental Sciences Emeritus, University of Virginia
First Director of the National Weather Satellite Service
Fellow APS, AAAS, AGU

Roger W. Cohen
Manager, Strategic Planning and Programs, ExxonMobil Corporation (retired)
Fellow APS

Harold W. Lewis
Professor of Physics Emeritus
University of California at Santa Barbara
Fellow APS, AAAS; Chairman, APS Reactor Safety Study

Laurence I. Gould
Professor of Physics
University of Hartford
Chairman (2004), New England Section of APS

Richard Lindzen
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences, AGU, AAAS, and AMS
Member Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Member National Academy of Sciences

Climate Depot adds that "Woods Hole Research Center is an environmental activist group -- not affiliated in any way with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution."

Casey "Top 40" Kasem signs off after 39

On July 4, 1970, of of American radio's most recognizable voices, that of Casey Kasem, was first heard on the show Kasem created, "Casey Kasem's American Top 40 Countdown."

Yesterday Casey made it 39. Years that is. The July 4 broadcast was his last. Although he gave over the AT40 show to other hosts years ago, he continued to broadcast a couple of spinoffs. But no more. He's retired.

Honduras govt. blocks Zelaya's attempt to return

Ousted former Honduran President Mel Zelaya attempted to return to Honduras today on an airplane donated by Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, but the Honduran government literally blocked the runway at Tegucigalpa with trucks, preventing the plane from landing.

The pilot of his Venezuelan plane circled around the airport and decided that landing is "totally impossible" because of the trucks in the way.

Groups of police and soldiers also are stationed around the runway and the perimeter of the airfield, facing off against thousands of Zelaya supporters outside.

Zelaya says he'll announce later where they'll land. A crew of the Venezuelan network Telesur is on the plane. He told them Sunday that the pilots won't risk a crash, and vowed to try again on Monday or Tuesday.

Having flown more than once into Tegucigalpa's lone, short runway, I can tell you it is no casual undertaking to land there in the best of conditions. The airport has a reputation as one of the most treacherous in Latin America due to a difficult approach.

I wrote about it here.

Related:

Honduras Verification

Honduras' Constitution and its army

Americans at risk in Honduras?

"You are wrong about Honduras"

Reuters and AP - Intentional irony?

The role of the Honduran military

McNair-Kazemi deaths not yet ruled murder suicide

Updates added through the day at the end of the post.

Update July 8: police have ruled that Kazemi killed McNair and then turned the gun on herself. No one else was involved. Details here.

A press conference was held this afternoon by Metro Nashville police, who gave some of the details of the autopsies done on the remains of retired NFL quarterback Steve McNair and his presumed girlfriend, Saleh Kazemi.

McNair's body and that of 20-year-old Saleh Kazemi were found in a Nashville condominium yesterday afternoon by resident Wayne Neely, a friend of McNair. All those details are here.

Police have officially termed McNair was a homicide victim. He was shot four times, twice in the chest and twice in the head. Kazemi suffered one gunshot to the side of her head.

McNair was found seated in a couch in the living room. Kazemi was lying dead on the floor near him. A semiauto pistol was found underneath her body. Evidence collected at the scene (and presumably from the autopsies) is consistent with the gun recovered. BATF is tracing ownership of the pistol.

Both died early Saturday; they were discovered at about 1:30 that afternoon.

Police have not characterized Kazemi's death as suicide or anything else and do not expect to do so for several days.

There was no sign of forced entry into the apartment. Wayne neely, who was leasing the apartment, found the bodies after he let himself in.

Let's consider all this forensically. I was a principal staff officer for US Army Criminal Investigation Command ("CID," the Army's internal FBI) and can speak with some authority on these facts.

Let's consider McNair's autopsy first. There were four wounds. The pathologist can determine which one was the fatal shot. In fact, he probably suffered two or more shots that were each fatal in themselves, perhaps all four, but only one actually killed him (you can't get "more killed" once the first fatal shot is suffered). Almost without exception, fatal gunshot wounds are incapacitating immediately. So the notion that McNair shot himself twice through the chest and then twice in the head is not tenable even to the most obtuse observer.

So on that alone suicide can be ruled out. But that's not all an autopsy can reveal. Gunshots always leave residue on victims' clothing and skin, residue of smoke and unburned propellant that adheres as particulate matter. Also the propellant gases burn the skin around the entrance wound.

Unless, of course, the gun is fired from several feet or more away. This distance depends on caliber and load. And this is critical to both McNair and Kazemi. If McNair's clothing and skin has very little or no such residue or burns, it's as close to conclusive as can be that he was not holding the gun that shot him. Even his long arms could not have held a pistol far enough away to escape those muzzle effects.

As for Kazemi, the presence of muzzle effects supports, but does not prove, that she shot herself. Absent them, suicide would be very difficult to support. But even with them, all it shows is that she was shot at close range. But it might have been another's hand that pulled the trigger.

I presume investigators will also determine whether there is an actual ballistic match between the pistol found at the scene and the wounds and the bullets recovered from the bodies. They will try to determine whether the pistol and the bullets match ballistically - was it that particular pistol that fired the bullets that killed the two victims? Do firing pins marks on fired casings at the scene match those of the found pistol?

My guess is that police will not characterize Kazemi's death until they have answered those kinds of questions.

So here is the chain of possible outcomes, which investigators will try to support on the one hand and eliminate on the other:

1. McNair was murdered by Kazemi, who then turned the gun to her own head and pulled the trigger. Murder-suicide, open and shut, which would require:

• The gun found at the scene matches the wound evaluations and ballistic evidence.
• There is no evidence of a third party at the scene at time of the shootings (for example, shoe imprints in the carpet on top of McNair's imprints or Kazemi's, and that don't match Neely's shoes or an officer's, and no fingerprints on top of Kazemi's on the pistol).

2. Kazemi used the gun found at the scene to kill McNair, but she was then murdered by a third party with a different gun who, obviously, fled. This would be supported by:

• Wound ballistics that show the gun was fired too far away from Kazemi for her to have held it
• Different firearms used to kill McNair and Kazemi.

3. Both McNair and Kazemi were murdered by a third party, supported by:

• Wound ballistics that show the gun was fired too far away from Kazemi for her to have held it
• The gun found at the scene was not used to shoot either McNair or Kazemi.

Police have not ruled out any of these three scenarios. Police said this afternoon that they are interviewing friends and acquaintances of both McNair and Kazemi. The term of art for this is "psychological autopsy," an unfortunate phrasing that implies a scientific accuracy that simply isn't there.

Update, 3:30 p.m: Police say that Kazemi's autopsy did not show that she was pregnant. The Tennessean reports,

"While it is clear McNair’s death is a homicide, the police department is not classifying Kazemi’s death, pending further investigation and interviews with persons who knew her and McNair,” police spokesman Don Aaron said at press conference this afternoon.

"We can’t be close-minded,” Aaron said. “All scenarios are on the table."

The thought also occurs to me that, according to Neely, the door to the apartment was locked when he arrived. Being the renter, he had a key to get in. But if a third party was involved, how did he lock the door when he left?

4:40 p.m.: The unedited video of today's police news conference is here.

6:30 p.m.: Kazemi's erstwhile boyfriend, Keith Norfleet, says that he and Kazemi broke up about five months ago (which was about the time McNair appeared on their scene). He also told police that Kazemi had banged on his door early Saturday morning, but that she had left by the time he got to the door. Norfleet said Kazemi had told him not long before that she and McNair were going to break up. He said he spent the day trying to find Kazemi, especially after he heard the reports that McNair and an unnamed woman were found dead.

I would imagine that investigators have asked Norfleet to give a detailed account of where he went and when on Saturday and whom he talked to so that they can try to establish a timeline and interview those people.

Police said that McNair and Kazemi had been dead since "early Saturday" though not discovered until early that afternoon. Establishing times of death is not precise; pathologists can only give a window of time within which they died. The question is begged, though, whether that window includes the time that Norfleet says Kazemi was pounding on his door.

A commenter on one of the Tennessean's articles earlier today seemed to think it was forensically significant that Norfleet's Myspace page is headlined, "never let anyone or anything come in between you and the one you love because when you do you lose everything" and that the first song on his playlist there is, "I Want You Back," by the Jackson Five.

NFL quarterback Steve McNair shot to death

Updates are being added as they become available, posted at the end of this post.

Summary as of 10 p.m. CDT: McNair appears to have been murdered by 20-year-old Sahel Kazemi, a woman he had been dating for a few months. Kazemi then apparently turned the gun on herself. While Nashville police have not pronounced the death a murder-suicide, neither are they actively looking for suspects. Continue to read for the story as it developed during the afternoon and evening.

NASHVILLE, TN-Metro Nashville police have confirmed that former Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens quarterback Steve McNair, 36, was found today shot to death in a downtown condominium.

Police spokesman Don Aaron appeared on WSMV-TV (NBC affiliate) moments ago (video below). Aaron said that police found the bodies of McNair and a woman in the condominium this afternoon, although no time of death has been determined. Both were dead, apparently of gunshot. Aaron said police have tentatively identified the woman, but have not released her name. The condo is located at 105 Lea Ave. in Nashville.

After leaving the Titans for Baltimore, McNair continued to maintain a residence in Nashville, but media have not said whether the condo was his. McNair recently opened a restaurant in downtown Nashville, also. Police have not released other details as of 4 p.m CDT.

Here is hastily-grabbed video of police spokesman Aaron's statement to media. This is all the information that police have released so far.



Titans coach Jeff Fisher is in the Persian Gulf on a morale-boosting trip to the troops.

Update: The rumors are already flying that this was a case of murder-suicide. But police have not even finished processing the crime scene. Having served with a federal law-enforcement agency, I can tell you that the investigators are not even hypothesizing yet. Scene processing will consume several hours yet.

Update: The Tennessean's report (Nashville paper) is here.

Titans owner Bud Adams's statement:

We are saddened and shocked to hear the news of Steve McNair’s passing today. He was one of the finest players to play for our organization and one of the most beloved players by our fans. He played with unquestioned heart and leadership and led us to places that we had never reached, including our only Super Bowl. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family as they deal with his untimely passing.

I should mention that McNair was tremendously popular in Nashville and most of Tennessee, even after he moved to the Ravens.

Update, 5 p.m. CDT: WSMV's reporter just emphasized that police have still only tentatively identified the dead woman and that police have told at the scene that they do not yet know what the relationship was between the woman and McNair. Blogs are already afire reporting that the woman was McNair's wife.

Update, 5:25 p.m.: The owner of the building where McNair's body was found was a man named Charles Cardwell, a Metro Nashville trustee. Cardwell leased that apartment to a man named Wayne Neely (both spellings phonetic from listening to TV news). Cardwell told WSMV that Neely and McNair were good friends and that when McNair visited Nashville he would sometimes stay at the apartment. Neely apparently did not use the apartment as his own principal residence. Cardwell said he had no idea who the dead woman was. This just reported on WSMV.

Update, 6 p.m. Nashville newscasts: Condo building owner Charles Cardwell (see update just above) lives in the building and says he last saw McNair there about 6 weeks ago.

A reporter is saying that McNair's driver of three years told her that McNair's Nashville residence is in the Green Hills section of Nashville, which is a few miles south of downtown. In this Google maps grab, "A," at the top, is Lea St., where McNair's body was found and "B" is the Green Hills section of Nashville. Click for larger view. It's about 5.5 miles between the two points.

Update, 6:35 p.m.: WSMV is reporting that McNair's wife, Mechelle, has told police that she had not heard from her husband for two days. So much for rumors that the dead woman was Mechelle. A field reporter, also a good friend of McNair, says that McNair probably would stay in the downtown condo because he had already been convicted of a DWI while with the Titans and didn't want to risk another arrest driving to Green Hills after a night out.

6:40 p.m.: Police have officially stated that the dead woman is not Mechelle McNair. The dead woman's identity still has not been released. Police have towed a Cadiallac Escalade and a Lincoln Navigator to their impound lot. WSMV reports that McNair was shot in the head.

7:40 p.m.: It was Wayne Neely who found the bodies. Neely, as explained above, held the lease on the apartment and was known to loan it out to McNair when McNair was in town. Reports are now that McNair suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Mechelle McNair has been in town all along at their Green Hills home.

10 p.m.: The dead woman has been identified as Sahel Kazemi. The Tennessean reports:

Former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair was killed in an apparent murder-suicide with a young woman he met at a local restaurant and have been dating for at least a few month

McNair, the hometown hero who did extensive charity work in Nashville, died of several gunshots and was found on the sofa, police said. Sahel Kazemi, 20, was found alongside him in a Second Avenue condo he rented. She had a single gunshot wound to her head; a pistol was found near her body.

Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi

Metro police spokesman Don Aaron said they were leaning toward certain scenarios based on the evidence, but they hadn’t ruled anything out. Still, they were not actively looking for suspects Saturday night.

Kazemi was arrested for DUI Thursday night. McNair was a passenger in her Cadillac Escalade, which was impounded by police this afternoon.

Kazemi's former boyfriend told police that she and McNair met while she was waitressing at Dave & Busters.

Cash is King

I noted back in March that even though the supply of money being pumped out by the Fed has been spiking for many months, inflation is being held at bay because banks aren't making loans very freely. As well, account holders are saving money at rates higher than for a generation or so, and that leaves money in banks also. Hence, despite an oversupply of money to the economy, we are in a period of deflation, not inflation.

When will the logjam break? That is, when will money start to flood into the broad economy? Probably not soon, since cash is still king.

In the past, investors would cling to cash until the market's prospects brightened and then money would pour back into stocks. That's just what the bulls today are hoping will drive a surge on Wall Street in the months ahead.

But the shock of the financial crisis - which have made leverage and risk-taking dirty words - may be changing all that. Even with today's minuscule returns, cash seems to have become a sought-after asset class among investors who intend to keep it as a part of their portfolios for the long term. ...

Even with the massive government stimulus program, Americans are choosing to bolster their nest eggs rather than spend. According to Rosenberg's calculations, the total stimulus from the Obama administration came to $163 billion at an annual rate in May, but consumer spending only increased at an annual rate of $25 billion.
So long as the cash just stays on the sidelines, there won't be much fuel to propel stocks and the economy forward.

Related posts here.