The Perfect Remedy For Constipation

Read these two blurbs.

The Fading Political Impact of 9/11:

So here we are today nearing the summer of 2006, and each passing week and month causes the 9/11 effect to diminish. The pathetic hyperventilating over how we treat terrorists and the NSA efforts to prevent another attack are warning signs of the distance we continue to move from the nation's collective resolve the morning of September 11th....

[T]his success [preventing another terrorist attack], coupled with the passing of time, chips away at the political effect of 9/11. Robert Tracinski writes of President Bush's September 10 approval ratings in RealClearPolitics today and in many ways that is exactly what we are seeing politically. Obviously, there are other issues at work that are contributing to President Bush's woes and Republican angst - the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, the Harriet Miers fiasco, out of control spending and illegal immigration - but in the broader sense, make no mistake about it, we are seeing a fading away of the 9/11 effect.

Of course this can change in a flash with the next successful attack, but if this trend continues it will have a major impact on the 2006 and 2008 elections - and the consequences will not be favorable for Republicans.

Speaking of that "flash":

RM: How many nuclear weapons does Al-Qaeda possess?

HM: As far as I know, they smuggled three suitcase nukes from Russia to Europe. They smuggled many kilos of enriched uranium inside America for their dirty bomb projects. They said in 1999 that they must have material for more than six dirty bombs in America. They tested at least one dirty bomb in the Kunar province of Afghanistan in 2000.

They have planned an attack bigger than 9/11, even before 9/11 happened. Osama Bin Laden trained 42 fighters to destroy the American economy and military might. 19 were used on 9/11, 23 are still "sleeping" inside America waiting for a wake-up call from Bin Laden. [emphasis added]

And, just to make it relevant to the domestic politics of the moment:

RM: Were actual tactical nukes deployed to the US? And is the leader of the nuclear plot Adnan el-Shukrijumah as believed by some experts?

HM: Al-Qaeda leaders claimed to have deployed their tactical weapons inside America. But when I tried to track the transportation of those weapons from Georgia, I lost track in Italy. I don’t know the location of these today because my source left Afghanistan for Iraq last year. On the other hand, they claimed to me that weapons were smuggled to America through Mexico. [emphasis added]

"HM" is Hamid Mir, according to CFP "best known as the last journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden, and the only one to do so after the attacks of September 11, 2001. He is currently the Bureau Chief of Islamabad for Geo TV and is writing a biography on Osama Bin Laden. He has interviewed countless members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in many countries over the years."

Draw your own conclusions. Me, I need a change of pants.