The irony continues to build. According to the American Spectator:
[George]Tenet started getting calls last week from several Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee who had been reading the committee’s report on intelligence failures leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to a Senate Intelligence staffer, the Democrats told Tenet that their support of him probably could not be sustained given what the draft report had to say about the CIA’s performance a little over a year ago.
That report, which is currently being vetted by the CIA and by intelligence committee staff, and which may be declassified before the end of the month, was one reason why Tenet may have accelerated his retirement plans.
Random Friday posts:
Black Americans Urged to Consider Republican Policies — Good luck with all that. Mere words can’t express how fortunate I am that my leftist days are behind me. The number of inflammatory remarks and nasty comments thrown my way this week only confirms that I made the right decision. I live unchained and unbound, a servant to no one but my Lord and Savior. For that, I am eternally grateful!
Research Refines Homicide Statistics (registration req.).
Los Angeles has been called the murder capital of the United States. But a new study of homicide rates that takes poverty into account challenges this notion: By this new measure, Los Angeles actually falls nearer the middle of the pack for homicide rates — 24th on a list of 67 large American cities in 2002, and 42nd on the same list in 2003….
The finding suggests that Los Angeles’ large number of homicides can mostly be explained by its high poverty rate and other demographic characteristics….
The broader finding, according to researchers, is that big cities may not be the crucibles of violent crime they are often assumed to be.
Instead, the study suggests, homicide rates are high in some of America’s large cities largely because that’s where poor people live: Poverty and homicide tend to go hand in hand….
Factors other than socioeconomics or demographics — cultural or policing issues — might be pushing homicides up in those cities, said Richard Rosenfeld, criminology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Rosenfeld conducted the study with Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University and Friedmann.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Justice for the Improving Crime Data project. The three researchers calculated homicide rates in cities with populations of more than 250,000, taking into account such factors as male unemployment rate, poverty, single-parent homes, median income, length of residency, divorce rates, and the percentage of blacks in the population.
Is my brain deceiving me? Are they implying that poverty causes crime? There is a strong correlation between poverty and crime, but what exactly are the researchers getting at? That homicide doesn’t “count” as much in black neighborhoods as it does in white neighborhoods?
Look, it’s Friday and the week has been long, so maybe someone can explain this article to me. I’m done.
