I'm taking a few days off. Check out this item of more than local interest: The Passion of the Christ in Chicago: "Each year on Good Friday, hundreds of Chicagoans gather to escort a modern-day Jesus to his crucifixion. A phalanx of Pilsen [neighborhood] parishioners portray the prophet, Pontius Pilate, the Roman guards, Mary, and the other women who accompanied Jesus to Calvary." Click on the link and see for yourself.

{ 11:49 AM }

.

Here's the latest on Lea Fastow, complete with picture, courtesy of the Houston Chronicle.

We have opined on the hand-wringing over the Fastow children before.

{ 3:00 PM }

.

What the fuck is wrong with him? "WASHINGTON, April 7 — President Bush, vacationing in Texas, conferred with his advisers today on the surge in bloodshed in Iraq and what to do or say about it." [This was the lead paragraph for this story in the NYT; since then it has been buried near the end]

{ 1:28 PM }

.

"It's a lie and a lie is a lie." Who are you going to believe? Condoleezza Rice, or a translator named Sibel Edmonds (Toronto Star):

When Condoleezza Rice takes her seat before the independent 9/11 commission here Thursday her assignment will be nothing short of halting the most serious assault yet on the credibility of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Sitting in the hearing room as Rice testifies will be a 33-year-old former FBI translator who may yet hold the key to the question now engulfing this nation — did an indifferent Bush administration ignore specific warnings that Al Qaeda was about to launch horrific attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001?

While allegations brought by former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke have swung the tide against the Bush White House in recent weeks, Sibel Edmonds delivered her own broadside against her government in private, during more than three hours of testimony to investigators for the 9/11 panel on Feb. 11.

Edmonds, who was hired as a translator by the FBI nine days after the attacks, told the investigative panel she has seen and handled intelligence documents and cables that show Rice, the national security adviser, is wrong when she says there was no advance warning of air attacks on U.S. soil.

She saw intelligence documents that pointed to the use of aircraft against skyscrapers in major U.S. cities.

"We had various information from various sources and investigations," she said in an interview yesterday.

"In terms of specific cities? Yes. It was not only New York and Washington, D.C. There were four or five cities specifically named.

"There were specific activities known. Domestic institutions were being targeted and airplanes were going to be used. That was known. Now, did it say Sept. 11, 8:30 in the morning? I am not aware of such information. Did it say it was going to crash the planes in the building? I am not privy to that information.

"But there was specific information on the use of airplanes. There were people issuing orders and information on people already in place in this country months before Sept. 11."

She said she is not passing on hearsay, but information on specific documents, the names of witnesses, the names of FBI agents and other information so investigators can rely "not on my word," but on the documents themselves. Most of them were dated April and May, 2001, she said. She has previously provided such information to congressional investigators.

Edmonds, a Turkish-born U.S. citizen, said she was "appalled" by Rice's public statements, delivered in a number of television interviews, that there was no information indicating planes would be used on domestic targets.

Had Rice indicated that she did not know, Edmonds may have given her the benefit of the doubt.

"Then I would say maybe the FBI did not take the information to her, maybe she didn't know," Edmonds said.

"But she's is saying 'we' did not know, including herself, her advisers and the FBI. That statement is not accurate. I've never really been diplomatic in life. It's a lie and a lie is a lie."

This commission is of enormous interest to me as I live within sight of Sears Tower, now the tallest building in North America, supposedly next on the list of desirable terrorist targets.

The whole point of the 9-11 Commission is not to level blame (although that is a useful secondary objective) but to prevent the next 9-11. And we must act now to fully understand the nature of any mistakes that were made and any warnings that were unheeded, while Sears Tower still stands and the people who work there are still alive and not trying to pitch themselves from broken windows on the 96th floor.

Condoleezza Rice, we could not care less about your "pre-9/11 mentality" speech. We could not care less about the hindsight and ass-covering of you and your fellow cowardly bureaucrats. You are part of the administration that chose to pursue irrelevancies like pornographers and the doctors who perform abortions and Tommy Chong and Saddam Hussein instead of Osama bin Laden and other true domestic and international threats, and that "mentality" has not changed even in the years since 9-11. Anthrax and large-scale blackouts come and go, and you folks are still falsifying intelligence, ignoring national infrastructure, and propping up your corporate cronies, blithely unaware of the rest of the world or even your own citizens. How many Marines were killed in a single day, yesterday? Twelve. And for what?

Your post-9/11 mentality is, if anything, even less competent than its predecessor. The world has changed, and you have worsened it.

{ 8:10 AM }

.

As the situation in Iraq deterioriates, the place to go for insight is Informed Comment by Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan.

{ 1:12 PM }

.

Gays trounce Bigots, 40-1. Not only are they losing, the bigots aren't even very smart, says the Boston Globe's ombudsman:

"Your editorial page is printing letters in a ratio of seven-to-one in favor of gay marriage according to my sampling," complained a local college professor. "Surely this is not a fair reflection of your readers' letters?"

Actually, the ratio of incoming letters is even more lopsided -- more like 40 to 1 in favor of gay marriage -- according to the two editors, Glenda Buell and Peter Accardi, who compile the daily letters for publication.

Impossible, you say? Well, I haven't eyeballed every letter myself, but my quick review convinces me that -- surprising as it is -- the Globe indeed gets many more letters supporting gay marriage than opposing it. And that leaves editors scrambling to find suitable "anti" letters to run along with the "pro" ones reflecting the Globe's editorial stance on the issue.

On one recent occasion they were so desperate that they went to the resident conservative columnist, Jeff Jacoby, to see if he had any "anti" letters that could be used. He didn't.

The problem, the editors say, is compounded by the fact that many of the "anti" letters tend to be simple statements of religious or personal belief, rather than the more layered arguments that make the best reading as letters to the editor.

In the end, the paper ends up publishing one anti-gay marriage letter for every two or three pro-gay marriage letters -- a "pro" tilt, but a far less dramatic one than what is represented in each day's incoming mail.

Via Romenesko.

{ 9:26 AM }

.

Surreal estate. It may interest you to know the real estate investment trust (REIT) that buys more office space in the US than any other entity is led by a Christian nut (Stephane Fitch, Forbes, September 1, 2003):

Leo F. Wells has become one of the hottest names in real estate. His real estate investment trust is amassing an amazing amount of fresh capital: In 2003's first half he sold $1 billion of stock, amounting to nearly half what public REITs raised, and he's targeting another $1.5 billion by year's end. Like a latter-day Harry Helmsley, he is using the money for a buying binge of first-class office properties. In May his REIT bought Chicago's 83-story Aon Center, the third-tallest building in the U.S.

[...]

A cherubic fellow with an easy Southern charm, Wells, 59, combines a salesman's bonhomie with a religious conviction that he is doing good for his 100,000 investors. The company creed is "to glorify God and care for people." Meetings at headquarters in suburban Atlanta often begin with a prayer. Professions of atheism, casual dress at work and drinking are verboten. So are beards and moustaches. Last year Wells settled a lawsuit with Gregory Genovese, a broker for Wells until 1999, when he alleged he was fired for failing to shave.

Sure, but are they good investments?

Not if you ask real estate pros Mike Kirby and Jon Fosheim. From this week's Barron's (sub. req'd.):

Q: Any developing trends in REITs?

Fosheim: There is a relatively new product probably being marketed to a lot of Barron's readers: private REITs that are publicly registered but not traded. They market via commission-based financial planners. It has a lot of similarities to the syndication days of the 'Eighties. As a general rule, we tell people to stay away from them because the fees are very high -- in many cases you are looking at a front-end load around 15%.

Some examples are Wells, based in Atlanta and not affiliated with Wells Fargo; Inland; and CNL. The private REITs primarily own office and retail properties and are characterized by the high intermediaries' fees and by relatively low sponsor ownership in the entity. Often, the real-estate company also owns the advisory companies, which poses a conflict. Hundreds of millions of dollars a month are being raised in these things and we have a feeling that it may well end badly. Wells, for example, has been the biggest buyer of office properties for about the last year and a half, bigger than Equity Office Properties.

I know it's not illegal to sell investors crap at fantastically high commissions (15% front load!), but isn't it illegal to fire your employees for professing atheism?

The Forbes article further downplays the investment potential of shares in Wells's trusts by pointing out the stagnant stock price, weak earnings, deteriorating dividends, sky-high fees, and the fact that Leo Wells, man of so much faith in Jesus, has so little faith in his own enterprise that he owns just $15,000 of the shares he sells to the public through his cult, even as he rakes in fees of $400 million.

Leo Wells provides still more evidence of the crypto-Christian agenda supplanting American business and political life.

{ 9:45 AM }

.