A long-lost letter written by Abraham Lincoln in the wake of Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg has been found at the National Archives. The money quote is this one.

"Now, if Gen. Meade can complete his work so gloriously prosecuted thus far, by the litteral or substantial destruction of Lee's army, the rebellion will be over."

Meade, of course, failed in this task and the Army of Northern Virginia escaped -- leading to nearly two years of additonal warfare.

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Well, that would be when the excommunication threats (and actual excommunications) are over issues where the liberals agree with the bishops on the moral issue.

After all, Cardinal Ritter in St. Louis desegregated the archdiocesan Catholic schools years before Brown v. Board of Education and was applauded for threatening his opponents with excommunication for upholding Catholic teachings on racial justice. Not only that, but Archbishop Rummel of New Orleans actually did excommunicate desegregation opponents in New Orleans back in 1962.

How did liberals react to Rummel's actions? "We salute the Catholic Archbishop," the New York Times editorialized. "He has set an example founded on religious principle and response to the social conscience of our times." An editorial in the Nation applauded Rummel's initial excommunication threat and cited Ritter's action in 1947 as a precedent. Certainly, it seems, liberals don't really mind mixing religion with politics as long as it's their political agenda being promoted.

Rep. DeLauro, Mr. Giuliani and other Catholic politicians may choose to see ecclesiastical punishments as blunt political weapons used to club them into submission on a controversial issue. For the bishops, however, such punishments are imposed as a last effort to be taken against those who, in their judgment, are publicly flouting the laws of the church.

Of course, if liberals really think that the threats of the Pope and bishops to take disciplinary actions against Catholic politicians who refuse to protect innocent human life from the barbarism of abortion, perhaps they could prevail upon the New York Times to retract and denounce its earlier editorial supporting the same sort of use of ecclesiastical authority to oppose racial discrimination. Or they could just admit that they are not merely pro-choice, but are instead actively and affirmatively pro-abortion.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT The Virtuous Republic, , The Random Yak, DeMediacratic Nation, guerrilla radio, 123beta, The Amboy Times, Phastidio.net, Leaning Straight Up, Cao's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Pursuing Holiness, Adeline and Hazel, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Faultline USA, The Pink Flamingo, Church and State, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Please come out of retirement for Indiana Jones 4 -- you cannot let League of Extraordinary Gentlemen be your final screen performance.

There are some official casting announcements for the fourth Indiana Jones, but the biggest news is who will NOT be in the movie.

Sean Connery says he has decided to pass on reprising his role as the archaeologist adventurer's antiquities-obsessed father, a role he played only once, in 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The 76-year-old Scottish star, best known for launching the James Bond franchise, says he decided to retire in 2005 and he's sticking to it.

"I get asked the question so often, I thought it best to make an announcement. I thought long and hard about it, and if anything could have pulled me out of retirement, it would have been an Indiana Jones film," Connery said in a statement Thursday.

The actor praised director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas and said it was an "honor" to have star Harrison Ford play his son: "But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun."

Your fans really want to see you light up the silver screen one last time, Sean. And for this film, nothing but the best will do. And you, sir, are the best.

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We can certainly hope so -- and that any future legislation does not include an amnesty program.

A bill that would overhaul immigration law suffered a crippling defeat this evening in the Senate, casting grave doubt on the prospects for changing the system any time soon.

The defeat was in the form of a motion to shut off debate and move the bill toward a yes-or-no vote. The vote was 50 to 45 against the motion. Thus, it fell 15 short of carrying, since 60 votes were required under Senate rules.

After the cloture motion failed to win Senate approval, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, held out the hope this evening that the bill could be acted upon again within “several weeks.”

“I have every desire to complete this legislation,” he said.

Otherwise, Mr. Reid may shelve the bill for the year. He said beforehand that the lawmakers had to turn their attention to other issues.

Amnesty. Overturning court-ordered deportations. No significant enforcement mechanisms. No dealing with the problem of anchor babies. This legislation sucks, and must never see the light of day again.

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You know, those loons that cannot believe that 9/11 was a terrorist attack and that instead our own government attacked America on 9/11.

No, it isn't an appeal to eyewitnesses, of whom there are many. It isn't an appeal to science, which overwhelmingly demonstrates that the official version is correct. Rather, it is a simple appeal to logic.

o believe in many of these kooky conspiracy theories, you have to believe that tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of Republicans, Democrats, Independents, politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, FBI agents, and CIA agents all know about an incredibly complex, monstrous plot against the United States, and are keeping their lips sealed while Charlie Sheen, Rosie O'Donnell, and the fruit loops who think Bush is a puppet of the Freemasons have figured it all out.

So much like the claim that the moon landings all took place in a soundstage, simple reality cannot sustain the conspiracy claims. After all, given the inability of small groups of people to keep small secrets, there is no way that a large group of people could possibly keep "the truth" hidden if 9/11 was a government conspiracy.

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Refusal to knuckle-under to the government-run church continues to bring harassment, imprisonment for faith.

An elderly bishop in China's underground Catholic church has been detained again by police, nine months after his release from their custody, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Thursday.

Bishop Jia Zhiguo, 73, was taken away Tuesday by security agents in the northern city of Zhengding, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement. It was not immediately clear why Jia was detained or where he was being held, the group said.

A man who answered the telephone at the Zhengding Religious Affairs Bureau referred questions to the local government. Officials at the Zhengding government office and public security bureau said they had never heard of Jia and hung up without giving their names or any other details.

Jia was last released in September 2006 after being held for 10 months by local authorities. The reason was never made public but religious groups say Jia has been repeatedly detained over his refusal to affiliate himself with the Communist Party-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association.

"He was not even allowed to step out of the courtyard of his residence, was not allowed to administer the 'Last Rites' for his dying parishioners, and was not allowed any visitors," the foundation said.

Communism, like Islam, can only survive by violating the basic human rights of those under its control. And as in Malaysia's Lina Joy case, the world remains silent in the face of grave violations of internationally recognized human rights norms.

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I've mentioned that I spent several years in the seminary, studying to be a priest. That nearly didn't happen because of a problem I had not long before I was set to enter the seminary. No, not the sort of problem you read about in the papers -- rather it was a credit card debt problem.

You see, when I graduated from graduate school I ran into a big problem. In a glutted teaching market, I had priced myself out of many jobs by getting that masters degree. I spent the next two years as a staffer at a homeless shelter, where I made very little money. Without realizing it, I slowly ran up a mountain of debt and was in need of debt helpBeing in bankruptcy court is not looked upon as a plus for a prospective priest, and filing for bankruptcy in the seminary would have been even worse.

What to do? Well, I was fortunate to be able to find debt help in the form of a credit card debt consolidation loan. Having set up a debt management plan, I found a second job and payed off that bill consolidation in just a few months by applying every penny I could towards it. I was, fortunately, in a position to take my bank balances down to a minimum to repay every penny I owed and received a totally unexpected gift from someone close to me who had no knowledge of my situation, so I went into the seminary debt-free a year earlier than I expected to. I call it one of the greatest blessings of my life.

Now not everyone is in a position to do what I did. But through the use of a home equity loan or it is possible for many people to do a credit card debt consolidation. And there are other options that can work for you, if you really interested and try.

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I despise the Fred Phelps Klan from Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. They are hate-filled pseudo-Christians whose anti-Americanism is as deep as that of the Islamists and many left-wing anti-Bush activists.

But this story troubles me, becasue of the clear violation of Constitutional rights it involves.

A woman was arrested in Bellevue on Tuesday during the funeral for a fallen soldier.

Shirley Phelps-Roper was arrested on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allowing her 8-year-old son to stomp on an American flag.

Phelps-Roper is a member of a Topeka, Kan., church that conducts anti-homosexual picketing at funeral services for U.S. soldiers.

Now let's get this one straight here -- mama was arrested because she set up her kid to desecrate the flag. The arresting officer even confirms this.

Bellevue Officer Joe Gray, who made the arrest, said that at first the group brought out a couple of members' own American flags.

"The arrestee, Ms. Phelps-Roper, put one around her waist. The second one was given to a 10-year-old, who put it on the ground and started kicking it in the area they were protesting," Gray said.

Nebraska law states that it is a Class 3 misdemeanor when a person "intentionally casts contempt or ridicule upon a flag by mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon such flag." The law was passed in 1977.

"It appears the adults weren't stepping on the flag because they knew it was a violation of the law. But they allowed the children to go ahead and do that," Gray said.

The local prosecutor seems to agree.

Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said the words from the group are fighting words and that takes it away from protected speech.

Which proves that Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov is an incompetent who should immediately be removed from office.

After all, this issue was settled nearly 20 years ago.

n Texas v. Johnson (1989) the Court addressed the flag-burning issue head-on and held (5-4) that Texas’ “venerated objects” law had been unconstitutionally applied to Gregory Lee Johnson when he burned a flag in Dallas. In considering the two interests advanced by Texas as overriding Johnson’s First Amendment rights, the majority first held that, under previously established standards, “the state’s interest in maintaining order is not implicated” since “no disturbance to the peace actually occurred or threatened to occur because of Johnson’s burning of the flag.” Turning to Texas’ second asserted interest, “preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity,” the majority held that since Johnson’s guilt depended “on the likely communicative aspect of his expressive conduct,” the Texas statute violated the “bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, … that the Government may not prohibit expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” Citing its holding in Street that “a State may not criminally punish a person for uttering words critical of the flag,” the majority, represented by Justice William Brennan, declared flatly that Texas’ attempt to distinguish between the “written or the spoken words [at issue in Street] and nonverbal conduct … is of no moment where the nonverbal conduct is expressive, as is here, and where the regulation of that conduct is related to expression, as it is here.”

Furthermore, Brennan declared that the principle that “the Government may not prohibit expression simply because it disagrees with its message, is not dependent on the particular mode in which one chooses to express an idea” and therefore the state could not “criminally punish a person for burning a flag as a means of political protest” on the grounds that other means of expressing the same idea were available. The majority concluded that the “principles of freedom and inclusiveness that the flag best reflects” would be reaffirmed by its decision: “We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that his cherished emblem represents.”

Now I feel rather confident that word of this decision reached Kansas some time back -- whether by means of semaphore, pony express, or that new-fangled telegraph thingy (not to mention telephone, television, and the internet). And since the state has no interest in punishing desecration of the flag (stepping on a flag is clearly analogous to and less severe than burning one), the Kansas statute in question is as unenforcible as one mandating segregation of public schools. First Amendment trumps state law -- period. And to argue that constitutionally protected political/religious speech (remember, these folks are their own little family-based pseudo-church cult group) constitutes "fighting words" is absurd -- especially since the Fred Phelps Klan had a valid permit to demonstrate. What Polikov wants to impose is nothing less than a heckler's veto -- something the Supreme Court has more or less consistently ruled against in the case of such speech since it decided the case of Terminello v. Chicago, in which SCOTUS held that there “must be a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance or unrest” for otherwise constitutionally protected speech to be banned. That burden clearly has not been met here, and I would argue that the holding in Texas v. Johnson makes it unlikely that any court could ever legitimately hold that the burden has been met in a flag desecration case (provided the flag belongs to those doing the desecration).

So what we have here is a cop and a prosecutor attempting to establish an entirely new paradigm with some frightening ramifications. Under this novel arrangement engaging in constitutionally protected speech or allowing your child to do so is now contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Just imagine -- CPS showing up at the door to haul away children whose parents have taken them to protest abortion. Encouraging your child to express the wrong religious beliefs could constitute grounds for arrest. In other words, the police and prosecutor in Sarpy County are seeking to eviscerate the First Amendment.

As I have said in the past, and in this post, I despise the Fred Phelps Klan, and wish they would slink back under their rock -- but destroying the Constitution is not a method I find acceptable to make them do so.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT The Virtuous Republic, , The Random Yak, DeMediacratic Nation, guerrilla radio, 123beta, The Amboy Times, Phastidio.net, Leaning Straight Up, Cao's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Pursuing Holiness, Adeline and Hazel, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Faultline USA, The Pink Flamingo, Church and State, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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This is beyond belief -- after a judge says she will serve her time in jail, the LA Sheriff let's Paris Hilton go home because of crying jags and a rash!

Paris Hilton was released from a Los Angeles County jail early Thursday because of an unspecified medical problem and will fulfill the reminder of her sentence in home confinement, a sheriff's spokesman said.

The 26-year-old hotel heiress was sent home shortly after 2 a.m. fitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet. She had spent five days at the Century Regional Detention Facility in suburban Los Angeles for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.

"I can't specifically talk about the medical situation other than to say that, yes, it played a part in this," said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.

Hilton had been sentenced to 45 days behind bars, but had been expected to serve 23 days because of state rules allowing shorter sentences for good behavior.

Whitmore said that under the new agreement, Hilton would be confined to her home for 40 days.

"Because she has agreed to this through her attorney, her sentence is now back up to the 45 days. She has served already five days so that's 40 days," he explained.

So instead of jail, she gets to live it up in the lap of luxury. Some punishment!

Maybe if I get arrested, I'll just start sniveling and whining about the low thread count of the sheets. Assuming that doesn't get me anally raped and nicknamed by my cellmate, perhaps they will send me home early.

I'm hoping that the judge in this case calls all parties involved in this travesty into court and sends them away for a little R-&-R in the LA jail for contempt of court.

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I lost everything last year when my hard drive crashed -- including a couple of years' worth of email for both my wife and I. Everything was unrecoverable. How I wish I had been in a position to get it all back -- or that I had been able to backup e-mail before I had this catastrophic failure and data loss hit.

Guess what -- there is a product out there that would let me backup my email and other key files easily. I found it at Backup-Email.com. It is relatively inexpensive, easy to install, and easy to use. Frankly, I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want this software, especially business people whose data is their business lifeline.

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And here I thought debate and discussion and disagreement were a good thing in the process of policy formation. How is it that this one is presented as bad?

Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.

The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.

Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas.

Oh, I see the problem -- Cheney and the folks hated by the Left actually came out on top in this policy debate. We just can't have the elected leadership win such battles, for that would imply that elections mean something when Republicans win. Nor does it matter that the policy adopted was in conformity witht eh requirements of a Supreme Court decision that went in favor of the Carter Administration doing the same thing.

No story here -- just a boat-load of liberal bias.

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Let's look at the financial realities that are presenting themselves to borrowers today. There are clear signs that interest rates are rising and will rise higher still -- so what is a person to do about that, especially if they are currently holding some sort of secured loans that have an adjustable rate, like many mortgages. Frankly, such borrowers need to refinance to lock in a lower fixed-rate now -- or even one that is slightly higher than their current rate, so as to avoid seeing interest rates and payments balloon.

We are seeing more and more debt conscious homeowners facing bankruptcy because of such issues. It is therefore important that people don't delay in tackling debt issues while they can. You will also find some interesting articles here.

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What would news coverage be like if D-Day happened today instead of 1944?

Thank God for those who fought and died that day (including one member of my wife's family). Thank God for those who fought and lived. And thank God for a loyal media that was not dead-set on undermining the war effort and morale of the American people.

H/T Stop the ACLU, Church & State, The Combat Report

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I received this in my email tonight, and am passing it on for your consideration.

Immigration Attitudes Survey

Increasingly, Americans are turning to the web for news about politics. This is a survey about online news coverage of the immigration issue. We are interested in your thoughts on this important political controversy. If you decide to participate in our survey, you will start off by answering a few questions about yourself and your political attitudes. Then you will watch a short news clip of an immigration story. After the clip, we will ask you some questions about your position on immigration policy. In total, the survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. The survey is completely anonymous and you can skip any questions you do not wish to answer.


Click here to take the survey:

http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/stu/crweber/TAKESURVEY/videohuddy.htm

Please feel free to contact Chris Weber or Mary-Kate Lizotte at Stony Brook University with any questions or concerns. Thanks for your help!

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Roger Ailes of Fox News Channel gets this one exactly right when talking about the boycott of debates on the network by Democrat presidential candidates.

“The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Ailes. “And that’s what’s coming.”

What are they afraid of -- having to answer a tough question? What will they do when they have to respond to an al-Qaeda attack?

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I'd love to be able to respectfully forward this one on to the student who keyed a pithy, two-word message (second word: "U") into the hood of my car during finals week.

Enjoy! But not at work or where the kids can see it.

Posted by: Greg at 10:51 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Or donate it to charity?

You know -- apply the same standard to themselves and their newly indicted member that they insisted Republicans apply to contributions from Tom DeLay when he was indicted for an offense that did not exist under Texas law.

Following U.S. Representative Tom DeLayÂ’s indictment at the hands of a local district attorney with whom he frequently battled, the DCCC called on GOP candidates to return contributions they received from the then-House Majority Leader.

Jefferson donated nearly $140,000 to the DemocratsÂ’ campaign committee. Jefferson also gave thousands to Democrat House members and candidates, including freshmen Nick Lampson, D-TX, Heath Shuler, D-NC, and Ciro Rodriguez, D-TX.

Lampson and Shuler received contributions from JeffersonÂ’s re-election committee, while Rodriguez received $1,000 from JeffersonÂ’s political action committee, the Future PAC.

Only Lampson is reported to have returned JeffersonÂ’s contribution.

Other Democrats who received financial support from Jefferson are: Sanford Bishop, $1000; Corrine Brown, $2000; Lois Capps, $500; Julia Carson, $1000; Donna Christensen, $1000; Emanuel Cleaver, $2000; Chet Edwards, $1000; Al Green, $2000; Alcee Hastings, $1000; Barbara Lee, $1000; John Lewis, $500; Carolyn McCarthy, $1000; Charlie Melancon, $2000; Gwendolynne Moore, $1000; Brad Sherman, $1000; and Mel Watt, $1000.

Jefferson also contributed a total of $5,680 to the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) PAC.

JeffersonÂ’s Future PAC gave $1,000 each to Democrat Representatives Corrine Brown, Julia Carson, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Carloyn McCarthy, Kendrick Meek, Mike Ross, and Linda Sanchez.

That's a lot of dirty cash, folks -- and only one member returning it (probably the only good thing I have to say about soon-to-be-former Congressman Nick Lampson). I guess the Democrat culture of corruption runs mighty deep -- and the hypocrisy even deeper.

H/T GOPBloggers

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I don't know whether to be more concerned about the pope's safety or impressed by his unflappability.

A German man tried to jump into Pope Benedict XVI's uncovered popemobile as the pontiff began his general audience Wednesday and held onto it for a few seconds before being wrestled to the ground by security officers.

The pope was not hurt and didn't even appear to notice that the man -- who was between 20 or 30 years old -- had jumped over the protective barrier in the square and had grabbed onto the white popemobile as it drove by. The pontiff kept waving to the crowd and didn't even look back.

At least eight security officers who were trailing the vehicle as it moved slowly through the square grabbed the man and wrestled him to the ground.

The man was a 27-year-old German who showed signs of "mental imbalance," said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman.

"His aim was not an attempt on the pope's life but to attract attention to himself," Lombardi told reporters.

The man, whom Lombardi declined to identify, was interrogated by Vatican police and then taken to a hospital for psyciatric treatment, he said.

The man wore a pink T-shirt and dark shorts, a beige baseball cap and sunglasses. He vaulted up and over the barricade from the second or third row back. He got as far as the back of the jeep, holding onto it for a few seconds, before being wrestled to the ground.

I'm glad it is this, rather than the terrible news that flooded out of the Vatican on that awful day in May, 1981, when Pope John Paul II was shot.

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The Hokie Horror this past spring, with the murder of so many Virginia Tech students and faculty members, may yet claim another victim -- the functionality of the building where most of the murders took place.

Norris Hall is known for its Gothic architecture, its central location on Virginia Tech's huge campus and, more than anything, its role as the primary site of the nation's deadliest individual shooting rampage.

The two-story building that witnessed so much carnage in April when a gunman killed 31 people there, including himself, will reopen in about two weeks and will be used for offices and laboratories, university officials announced yesterday.

Formerly used by several academic departments, Norris will house only two departments -- engineering science and mechanics, and civil and environmental engineering -- when it reopens June 18.

The decision comes nearly two months after student Seung Hui Cho of Fairfax County shot and killed 30 students and faculty members on Norris's second floor before shooting himself. Cho fatally shot two other students in a campus dormitory earlier that day.

Since the April 16 attack, Norris Hall has been empty, but debate has surfaced among university officials, parents, students and faculty members about what should be done with it. Some wanted to raze the building and replace with it a memorial. Others said it should be left alone.

Speaking as an outsider, I think that it is a good thing that Norris Hall is being returned to some use -- and think that it quickly needs to be returned to full use rather than limited functionality. The demands that it be torn down are nothing more than the cries of those who believe that emotion should overcome reason -- the wussification of the American spirit and the over-indulgence of grief.

Come here to Texas. Visit the University of Texas in Austin. There stands the bell tower, site of the infamous sniper attack in the 1960s. It stands unchanged, as does (for the most part) the plaza where the victims were killed and wounded. Thousands pass through that plaza daily, as they go about their lives. Thus has it been for four decades -- the greatest memorial to the dead. For you see, it is the prime example of how life goes on in the face of tragedy, and how the paroxysms of grief that follow death cannot be allowed to forever paralyze the mourners.

So should it be at Virginia Tech -- the ultimate honoring of those who have died by those who continue to live in their footsteps and in the pursuit of the same lofty academic goals. Bravo to those who have moved to reopen the building -- and may they bring the building back to full use soon.

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That would be a better headline for this story from the AP.

Forty years after Israel's stunning victory over three Arab armies, the defeat still lingers in the Arab world — so much so, some blame it for everything from a lack of democracy in the region to the rise of religious extremism.

On June 5, 1967, Israeli warplanes destroyed 400 aircraft belonging to Egypt,
Syria, Jordan and Iraq — most of them sitting on airport tarmacs. Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, Syria gave up the Golan Heights, and Jordan relinquished the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Trying to minimize the defeat, Arabs have long called the Six Day War the "naksa," or "setback," but its impact remains a deep wound.

Egyptian columnist Wael Abdel Fattah wrote in the independent weekly Al-Fagr newspaper that Arabs blame the defeat for "everything" — from "price hikes, dictatorship, religious extremism, sectarian strife, even sexual impotence."

The thing is, though, that every single one of the problems that is listed long pre-dated the 1967 war -- lousy economies, totalitarian regimes, the teachings of Islam, the divisions between Sunni and Shiite, and (presumably) lack of sexual prowess among Arab men. It is simply one more example of Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism to blame the Jews for these problems, when they are part and parcel of the failure of Arab/Muslim culture and "civilization" (if you can even call it that over the last several centuries).

Until the Arabs take responsibility for their own destiny, admit that their societies are fundamentally flawed and dominated by a barbaric and backwards theological system that holds them back in the modern world, there is little that can be done to help them -- and strife will continue in the Middle East.

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Roxanne
You don't have to put on the red light
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Roxanne
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You don't care if it's wrong or if it's right

From the moment I first heard the initial gut-wrenching moaning of the word "Roxanne", I was hooked on The Police. I just loved the song -- and not just because of some adolescent rebellion against the school authorities at my Catholic high school, who felt that there was something unseemly about a love song to a prostitute. No, there was something about the song that got into me at the cellular level. I didn't know what the beat was, but I later (much later) learned that the song is done to the rhythm of a tango. I'm so glad it is on the new Police cd.

And that is one of the great things about The Police -- they've never been afraid to experiment with different musical forms in their music, introducing entire new generations and audiences to something a little different. Reggae rhythms turn up all over their music, as do ska and other musical forms that are now seen as mainstream in pop and rock. They were not before The Police. Don't believe me? Just check out the new Police cd and see some of the many examples.

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Here is an interesting story from the Holy See.

Some Holy See buildings will start using solar energy, reflecting Pope Benedict XVI's concern about conserving the Earth's resources, a Vatican engineer said Tuesday. The roof of the Paul VI auditorium will be redone next year, with its cement panels replaced with photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity, engineer Pier Carlo Cuscianna said.

The 6,300-seat auditorium is used for the pontiff's general audiences on Wednesdays in winter and in bad weather during the rest of the year. Concerts in honor of pontiffs are also staged in the hall, with its sweeping stage.

The cells will produce enough electricity to illuminate, heat or cool the building, Cuscianna said.

"Since the auditorium isn't used every day, the (excess) energy will feed into the network providing (the Vatican) with power, so other Vatican offices can use the energy," he said.

You guys know I am not a believer in man-made global warming. I am, however, a believer in energy conservation and switching to renewable resources like solar and wind power for practical reasons. I therefore applaud the move that is being made, and hope that more nations, religious organizations, businesses, and individuals make efforts like this one.

Posted by: Greg at 02:37 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Because after all, it can't be that the national Democrats are corrupt -- so the Houston Chronicle would prefer to slime an entire state instead.

The indictment of Jefferson, a Democrat, shifts some of the attention and shame from the Republican side of the aisle after a string of Republican congressmen, aides and lobbyists — including the notorious Jack Abramoff, whose name has become synonymous with lobbying excess and improper favors — were indicted for bribery and other forms of official corruption.

If there is a distinction to be made, it is that Jefferson's behavior seems less the product of Washington's ethical void than of Louisiana's. Jefferson's constituents, perhaps inured to a culture of rampant official corruption, apparently regard $90,000 in a politician's freezer as a commonplace and re-elected him to Congress last November by a wide margin.

Now granted, Louisiana Democratic politics is known for its corruption, and Democrats have long turned a blind eye to such unethical behavior in that state because it has allowed them to retain power. But to trash the entire state?

But why stop there -- we could point out a disturbing tendency for official corruption among black public officials (at least anecdotally) that proportionally outstrips such corruption on the part of whites. Or perhaps we could go digging into religion or other demographic breakdowns -- anything to try to avoid the clear truth of the matter. You know, that William Jefferson is just one of a long string of corrupt Democrats that have highlighted the party for decades.

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And the suporters call this comprehensive immigration reform/border control?

The Senate's immigration bill will only reduce illegal immigration by about 25 percent a year, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report, Stephen Dinan will report Tuesday in The Washington Times. The bill's new guest-worker program could lead to at least 500,000 more illegal immigrants within a decade, said the report from the CBO, which said in its official cost estimate that it assumes some future temporary workers will overstay their time in the plan, adding up to a half-million by 2017 and 1 million by 2027. "We anticipate that many of those would remain in the United States illegally after their visas expire," CBO said of the guest-worker program, which would allow 200,000 new workers a year to rotate into the country.

* * *

"CBO estimates that those measures would reduce the net annual flow of unauthorized immigrants by one-quarter," the report said. Still, with estimates of hundreds of thousands to one million illegal aliens per year, CBO is assuming a large problem will remain.

So if I get this straight, there will be 50,000 "overstayers" each year, plus 500,000 to 750,000 border jumpers.

In other words, we really won't see that much of a reduction in illegal immigration -- and we will need another amnesty 10, 20, or 30 years down the road, after the population of immigration criminals has again reached critical mass (remember, we did an amnesty like this in 1986 under Reagan, and it has clearly failed) Maybe then it will require super-duper comprehensive legislation to solve the problem.

H/T Confederate Yankee, Captain's Quarters

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How can Clinton and Edwards (and Biden and Dodd, for that matter) "take responsibility" for their "incorrect" votes on the Iraq War, claim the war is not their responsibility at all but that of George W. Bush, and at the same time insist upon their fitness for the presidency?

The thing about a war is that once it has started, you can't take it back. Yes, Bush did push for the Iraq war. Yes, Bush asserted that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Bush also had help -- a 296-to-133 House vote and 77-to-23 Senate vote in favor of a resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, with Clinton, former Sen. John Edwards, and Sens. Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd voting in the "yes" column.

This is Bush's war, the Democrats claim, because that dunderhead president misled them -- which is interesting, because presidential frontrunners Clinton and Edwards told debate host Wolf Blitzer that it did not matter that neither of them had read the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate before they voted for the war resolution. They had been briefed. Edwards read the five-page summary.

So now it's: Bush lied, we read the CliffsNotes.

In other words, they dared to vote for war without bothering to get informed -- they were not leaders, they were blind followers. Hardly a great qualification for a would-be president.

But there is more.

Maybe this attitude works in a primary election dominated by far-left partisans, but in the general election, I have to think that a more adult approach would work better for Candidate Clinton -- especially considering that the facts get in the way of her version of events. Clinton would look much better in the long run if she said not that she had been gulled, but that she had good reason to believe Hussein had WMD.

As reporters Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. -- authors of "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton" -- wrote in a Sunday New York Times story that dissected Clinton's pro-war vote, while she did not read the full intelligence estimate, Clinton believed firmly that Iraq had WMD.

Of course she did. Her husband launched more than 400 cruise missiles at suspected WMD sites in Iraq when he was president.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton said of Saddam Hussein's WMD arsenal: "Someday, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who has really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too."

Sen. Clinton claimed Sunday that she had expected that her vote for the war resolution would allow U.N. inspectors to finish their job -- even though Bush had made clear before the Senate vote that he was prepared to strike Iraq if Hussein did not back down.

Let me add, the figure who was really wrong was Hussein for his refusal to cooperate with U.N. inspectors. Hussein misled the world into thinking he had WMD.

And so i am curious about Senator Clinton -- at what point is she prepared to condemn her husband for having misled the world on Saddam Hussein's WMDs? At what point is she willing to condemn his actions against Iraq over the "nonexistent" stockpiles of chemical biological, and (potentially) nuclear materials? Why does Bill get a pass? Well, maybe the fact that offering the same sort of "fair-minded" critique applied to the Bush Administration would completely undermine the "Bush lied us into war" mantra chanted by the Democrat Left, and point to the fact that the Iraq War was and is the logical outcome of over a decade of bipartisan American policy related to Saddam Hussein's rogue regime.

And as for Edwards, there is this.

As for Edwards, his idea of leadership is to claim in February, "I think I was the first, at least close to being the first, to say very publicly that I was wrong." To me, that makes Edwards the first, or nearly the first candidate, to let down troops who can't go home -- and fallen troops who cannot be brought back to life -- just because Edwards admits he was wrong.

And as Sen. Barack Obama pointed out: "John, the fact is, is that I opposed this war from the start. So you are about four-and-a-half years late on leadership on this issue."

Indeed, it shows Edwards to be an intellectual light-weight who is more interested in poll numbers than principle -- so much so that he must be seen as either willing to sacrifice the lives of American troops to bolster his popularity or to abandon them when it become politically expedient. Or both.

Indeed, the columnist Debra Saunders really gets it right with her conclusion -- any candidate who supported the war at its inception but claims now to have been wrong or misled needs to actually take responsibility for their "mistake" by sitting out the 2008 presidential race.

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That is the only word that fits this situation.

No one was believed to have survived the crash of a small plane that was carrying a six-member organ transplant team and their cargo of donor organs, authorities said Tuesday.

Searchers found human remains during a search in Lake Michigan, about six miles northeast of Milwaukee, a Coast Guard official said Tuesday.

The team's lifesaving mission _ carrying unspecified organs from Milwaukee for transplant to a patient in Michigan _ was cut short Monday when the Cessna Citation went down in 57-degree water shortly after the pilot signaled an emergency.

Those on board were two surgeons and two donor specialists from the University of Michigan Health System and two pilots who regularly fly their transplant missions.

The loss of the transplant organs is awful, but the loss of the team involved in getting them where they are needed is even worse. Prayers must go out for those killed, and their families, the organ donor(s) and loved ones, and the intended recipient(s). So many touched by one incident. -- and so many folks involved in heroic service snuffed out in an instant.

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I'm not a big fan of horror type movies, but I have always had a soft spot for Stephen King movies. In particular, I loved The Dead Zone, which was one of the most chilling movies I had seen when it came out during my college years. the idea that one can not only have precognition but also be able to change the events one has seen is a particularly intense one for me -- after all, who is to say that the change you make doesn't create the future you see rather than heal the unpleasant future?

Well, another movie based upon one of Stephen King's works is coming very soon -- 1408 - The Movie. I suppose you want to know what the 1408 Movie is about. Well, the movie's official website describes it as follows.

Renowned horror novelist Mike Enslin only believes what he can see with his own two eyes. After a string of bestsellers discrediting paranormal events in the most infamous haunted houses and graveyards around the world, he scoffs at the concept of an afterlife. Enslin's phantom-free run of long and lonely nights is about to end when he checks into Suite 1408 of the notorious Dolphin Hotel for his latest project "Ten Nights in Haunted Hotel Rooms."

I'll stop there, so that you visit the website for the 1408 Movie. I don't know about you, but that certainly sounds rather enticing to me. I’ll be looking forward to seeing the commercials when they come out – I hope they appear as enticing as the website does. I’m feeling pretty excited right now.

Oh, and here is this little tidbit for you as well. Enjoy!

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RIP -- Senator Craig Thomas

Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas, a three-term conservative Republican who stayed clear of the Washington limelight and political catfights, died Monday. He was 74.

The senator's family issued a statement saying he died Monday evening at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He had been receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia.

Just before the 2006 election, Thomas was hospitalized with pneumonia and had to cancel his last campaign stops. He nonetheless won with 70 percent of the vote, monitoring the election from his hospital bed.

Two days after the election, Thomas announced that he had just been diagnosed with leukemia.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, will appoint a successor from one of three finalists chosen by the state Republican party.

Frankly, Senator Thomas showed great courage and dignity in how he dealt with his illness. His death is sudden, unexpected, and very sad. He and his loved ones are in my prayers at this time.

Wyoming law seems to establish a process for keeping the seat in the hands of the party that won it in the last election, but that means this seat is also in play in 2008. This could make for some interesting dynamics in the 2008 election cycle.

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I'll admit it -- I'm a space geek. I have ever since i was a kid watching the Apollo flights, especially the moon landing. Even now, I still get tingles every time I drive past Johnson Space Center, or when I remember that friends from church are honest-to-God rocket scientists.

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More At Malkin, Liberty News, Bill's Bites, Old War Dogs, Gateway Pundit

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It has to be one of the dumbest stories that I've seen in a long time.

If there could be one place protected from the cancerous infection of pornography and sexual misconducts, one would assume that the Christian church would be that sanctuary. But, recent research is revealing that no one is immunized against the vice-grip clutches of sexual addictive behaviors. The people who struggle with the repeated pursuit of sexual gratification include church members, deacons, staff, and yes, even clergy. And, to the surprise of many, a large number of women in the church have become victim to this widespread problem. Recently, the worldÂ’s most visited Christian website, ChristiaNet.com, conducted a survey asking site visitors eleven questions about their personal sexual conduct.

Amazingly, there were one thousand responses to the poll conducted by ChristiaNet.com. ChristiaNet.com partnered with Second Glance Ministries in evaluating the poll responses and it seems the Christian community is struggling with many of the same “temptations” that the secular society is faced with.

“The poll results indicate that 50% of all Christian men and 20% of all Christian women are addicted to pornography,” said Clay Jones, founder and President of Second Glance Ministries whose ministry objectives include providing people with information which will enable them to fully understand the impact of today’s societal issues. 60% of the women who answered the survey admitted to having significant struggles with lust, 40% admitted to being involved in sexual sin in the past year, and 20% of the church-going female participants struggle with looking at pornography on an ongoing basis.

Now I would be curious to see how they define "addicted" here -- that statistic seems o me to be a bit high. But the notion that Christians do not face the same temptations as everyone else is absurd. After all, St. Paul put it well in the seventh chapter of Romans.

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.

As it was in biblical times, so it remains today. Christians are not perfect, just forgiven.

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I don't like this ruling, but it may have an up-side.

A military judge on Monday dismissed terrorism-related charges against a prisoner charged with killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, in a stunning reversal for the Bush administration's attempts to try Guantanamo detainees in military court.

The chief of military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay, Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, said the ruling could spell the end of the war-crimes trial system set up last year by Congress and President Bush after the Supreme Court threw out the previous system. The ruling immediately raised questions about whether the U.S. will have to further revise procedures for prosecuting prisoners, leading to major delays.

Over at The Corner, there is serious concern.

Briefly, an enemy combatant can be any enemy soldier. Such a combatant is unlawful if he has not comported with the laws of war — including belonging to a regular army, wearing a uniform, carrying weapons openly, and not targeting civilians. It should have been easy enough to do this with al Qaeda detainees. If it really has not been done, however, that could be a big problem since it would presumably necessitate re-doing all of the combatant status review tribunals before commissions could go forward.

The government is going to appeal. That, too, could be problematic according to the defense, which says they have only 72 hours to do so and the appellate court for commissions has not been constituted yet.

We don't know enough facts yet to make an assessment of what's going on here. Yet, if things are as the defense claims — and it bears remembering that very often they are not — this would be a demonstration of monumental incompetence. Let's hope that's not the case. Stay tuned.

Actually, this could be the worst thing in the world -- for the detainees. Assuming that the government is stuck with the designation of these terrorists as enemy combatants and cannot change their status, there is a proper status for them -- PRISONERS OF WAR. As such, they would have no access to American courts, and can be held until the conclusion of hostilities -- so that they will not be released until the end of the War on Terror. So unless it is the intent of the Democrats to surrender in that larger conflict (and not just on the Iraqi front), these individuals can be kept safe and sound at Gitmo -- forever.

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Soros owns Halliburton!

To the tune of 3.5% of his firm's portfolio -- the fourth largest stock holding.

I'm curious about how the liberal groups he bankrolls feel about taking money tainted by that association, especially since the purchases were made in the last quarter of 2006 -- well after the time that the Soros-funded groups had defined the company to be the source of all evil in the world.

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I've been arguing with one of my commenters about man's impact on climate change for a while now. He argues that 99.9% of all scientists support the theory of man-made global warming -- and further claims that "hundreds of thousands" of scientists support it while only 10 do not. I've asked him to prove that latter claim, but he either cannot or will not.

I'd argue that it must be cannot, based upon this information. heck, it appears that the IPCC cannot or will not even list those who endorse its positions.

What of the one claim that we hear over and over again, that 2,000 or 2,500 of the world's top scientists endorse the IPCC position? I asked the IPCC for their names, to gauge their views. "The 2,500 or so scientists you are referring to are reviewers from countries all over the world," the IPCC Secretariat responded. "The list with their names and contacts will be attached to future IPCC publications, which will hopefully be on-line in the second half of 2007."

An IPCC reviewer does not assess the IPCC's comprehensive findings. He might only review one small part of one study that later becomes one small input to the published IPCC report. Far from endorsing the IPCC reports, some reviewers, offended at what they considered a sham review process, have demanded that the IPCC remove their names from the list of reviewers. One even threatened legal action when the IPCC refused.

A great many scientists, without doubt, are four-square in their support of the IPCC. A great many others are not. A petition organized by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine between 1999 and 2001 claimed some 17,800 scientists in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol. A more recent indicator comes from the U.S.-based National Registry of Environmental Professionals, an accrediting organization whose 12,000 environmental practitioners have standing with U.S. government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. In a November, 2006, survey of its members, it found that only 59% think human activities are largely responsible for the warming that has occurred, and only 39% make their priority the curbing of carbon emissions. And 71% believe the increase in hurricanes is likely natural, not easily attributed to human activities.

Sure seems like we are talking about something less than 99.9% of scientists, and not even what can be reasonably described as a consensus. I guess what I've been getting is junk statistics to go along with the junk science of the supporters of the theory of man-made global warming.

My commenter argues that those who dissent from his beliefs are "outliers" it seems clear to me that those who make such hip, faddish (dare I say cult-like) claims about the metaphysical certainty of and scientific consensus on man's impact on global warming might best be referred to as "In"-liars.

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I wonder -- will Speaker Nancy continue to stand by her man?

Sources tell CBS News that authorities are seeking an indictment against Congressman William Jefferson, D-La., on more than a dozen counts involving public corruption.

Jefferson has been the subject of a ongoing probe in which FBI agents allegedly found more than $90,000 in cash in his freezer in August 2005.

CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports that the Justice Department is expected to unveil the charges later today.

This was the latest development in the 16-month international investigation of Jefferson, who allegedly accepted $100,000 from a telecommunications businessman, $90,000 of which was later recovered from a freezer in the congressman's Louisiana home.

Remember -- this is the same Louisiana Democrat who commandeered rescue craft to help him remove evidence "personal property" from his New Orleans home following Katrina.

More as this develops.

UPDATE: And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a 94-page indictment with 16 charges that could bring up to 235 years in prison for the corrupt Louisiana Democrat (but I repeat myself).

Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long-running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa.

The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Va., Monday is 94 pages long and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years, according to a Justice Department official who has seen the document.

Among the charges listed in the indictment, said the official, are racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The text of the indictment can be viewed here.

Oh, and here is this little tidbit about the consequences of this indictment for Jefferson.

Although the indictment will no doubt raise political pressures on him to step down, he does not face any official sanctions in Congress as a result of the indictment alone, according to House rules. But should he be convicted, Jefferson could face disciplinary action including being excluded from votes if he receives a prison sentence longer than two years.

I'm curious -- will Democrats insist he receive be subject to the same sort of limits that Tom DeLay was following his indictment for violations of a law that does not even exist in Texas? Will he lose any committee assignments? Or will they continue to hold him to their bosom as one of their own?

UPDATE II: I knew it -- Speaker Nancy stands by her man.

The charges in the indictment against Congressman Jefferson are extremely serious. While Mr. Jefferson, just as any other citizen, must be considered innocent until proven guilty, if these charges are proven true, they constitute an egregious and unacceptable abuse of public trust and power.

Matt Margolis notes the double standard Speaker Nancy applies when it comes to Democrats accused of corruption.

So, Democrats are given the benefit of the doubt--they are considered innocent until proven guilty--while Republicans like Tom DeLay, who was the victim of a politically motivated indictment, are immediately part of a "culture of corruption."

But then again, as one local Democrat blogger points out, hypocrisy on the part of Democrats isn't so bad because they don't claim to have any moral values.

More At Stop the ACLU, Michelle Malkin,
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Or at least terrorist supporters.

Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.

Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

While the foundation was charged in the case, which was filed in 2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community.

A court filing by the government last week listed the three prominent groups among about 300 individuals or entities named as co-conspirators. The document gave scant details, but prosecutors described CAIR as a present or past member of "the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee and/or its organizations." The government listed the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust as "entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood."

And let's be clear about CAIR's prior record.

The inclusion of the Islamic groups on the list of alleged conspirators could give ammunition to critics of the organizations. CAIR, in particular, has faced persistent claims that it is soft on terrorism. Critics note that several former CAIR officials have been convicted or deported after being charged with fraud, embargo violations, or aiding terrorist training. Spokesmen for the group have also raised eyebrows for offering generic denunciations of terrorism but refusing to condemn by name specific Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah.

Now the group's active support of terrorism is on the public record -- and I hope the indictments will be forthcoming.

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Tragedy seems to have brought together two individuals who have suffered deeply.

n a match made in tabloid heaven, the father of murdered child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey and the mother of missing-in-Aruba teen Natalee Holloway are dating, FOX News has confirmed.

John Ramsey, 63, and Beth Holloway Twitty, 46, have been romantically involved since January 2007, though the two met at a fundraiser last summer.

The couple has been spotted openly holding hands and kissing in Mountain Brook, Ala. — where Twitty lives — and at an art show at a nearby art museum. They've also been seen at various restaurants.

Ramsey's wife and JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey, died last June of ovarian cancer at the age of 49. Twitty was officially divorced from George "Jug" Twitty in December.

Both single parents share the tragedy of children who are victims of unsolved crimes.

At first blush, there is something that strikes me as unseemly about the relationship -- but in truth, there really isn't. Indeed, one can only hope tat these two people, united by the pain of losing daughters in horrific ways, might find some comfort in their companionship and love.

And may the news media and tabloids have the decency to leave them in peace.

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