Senator, in light of your earlier assertion, is the Pennsylvania Legislature bigoted and un-American?

By a vote of 136-61, which included significant Democratic support, the House approved a proposal that would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

The bill will likely be voted on in the Senate by the end of the month, a Senate Republican spokesman said.

A constitutional amendment requires passage in the legislature in two consecutive sessions and then approval by voters in a statewide referendum, which could come as early as spring 2007.

We are waiting, Senator, with bated breath.

And are there other issues that you believe it is unAmerican for legislators to debate, or upon which it is un-American for the people to vote?

And why is it that so many Democrats fear democracy in action?

Posted by: Greg at 12:15 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The humanity of it all -- border-jumping immigration criminals are receiving substandard wages and working in unsafe conditions -- in their illegal jobs rebuilding New Orleans.

Illegal immigrants helping to rebuild this shattered city are working in hazardous conditions without protective gear and earning far less than their legal counterparts, a study says.

Nearly one-third of the illegal immigrants interviewed by researchers reported working with harmful substances and in dangerous conditions, while 19 percent said they were not given any protective equipment, according to the study by professors at Tulane University and the University of California at Berkeley.

Illegal immigrants also were paid significantly less — if at all — earning on average $10 per hour, compared with $16.50 for documented workers, the study said.

"What is fundamentally unfair is these are workers who have responded to a national priority to rebuild this city and yet whose rights are being violated," said Laurel Fletcher, director of Berkeley's International Human Rights Law Clinic and one of the study's co-authors.

What isn't mention is that their wages and working conditions are much better than those in Mexico and the other Latin American countries.

I do find this law to be particularly galling -- what other law-breakers do we provide such protection for in the course of their criminal activity?

Under federal labor law, illegal immigrants are afforded the same health and safety protections as documented workers. And regardless of their legal status, laborers can sue most employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act for violation of the minimum wage law and overtime regulations, according to the researchers.

Before you ask, I don't find it acceptable for employers to expoit border-jumping immigration criminals who violate our nation's sovereignty and laws. There is but one solution to this terrible situation in New Orleans and other places in this county where such exploitation presumably exists.

Round 'em up! Ship 'em back! Rawhide!

Posted by: Greg at 11:28 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This certainly warms hears here in Houston!

Only Roger Clemens could draw a standing-room crowd, a national-television audience and four different mascots, all to watch him play a little ball with his son.

For Clemens, every pitch has become a production, every outing a family photo op. His first appearance of this season, alongside his oldest son at Class A Lexington on Tuesday night, was the ultimate baseball greeting card come to life.

Playing at a minor league stadium near Kentucky's famous horse farms, with one son at third base and the rest of the family in a luxury suite, with the song "Rocket Man" blaring through the speakers and fans wearing "Rocket Relaunch" T-shirts, Clemens gave up one run in three innings to the Lake County Captains. By the time he was finished, an artist's rendering was being auctioned at a souvenir stand.

The most poignant father-son moment was also the most genuine. In the top of the third inning, Koby Clemens walked solemnly toward the mound at Applebee's Park. His father braced for words of advice about the next hitter. "One more strikeout," Koby Clemens said, "and everybody in the stadium gets wiper fluid."

Roger Clemens, suddenly aware of the promotion that gives Lexington fans free windshield wiper fluid if the home pitcher records a strikeout in the third inning, reached 93 miles an hour and notched his fifth and sixth strikeouts of the game. "It was just like normal," Koby Clemens said. "Striking everybody out."

The only blemish was a first-inning home run by Lake County center fielder Johnny Drennen, who wears Clemens's No. 22 and sent one of his split-fingered fastballs onto the roof of the Pepsi Party Deck in right field. Even Drennen was awarded reluctant applause.

He remains simply the best.

And I have to wonder -- we will soon get the Rocket back in the rotation with local product Andy Pettitte. Does local poy Nolan Ryan still have a few good innings left in his arm?

Posted by: Greg at 11:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And here we kept being told that the GOP was going to lose this safe seat previously held by Duke Cunningham (may he rot in jail forever). Guess not!

A former Republican congressman narrowly beat his Democratic rival early Wednesday for the right to fill the House seat once held by imprisoned Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a race closely watched as a possible early barometer of next fall's vote.

Republican Brian Bilbray emerged victorious after a costly and contentious race against Democrat Francine Busby, a local school board member who ran against Cunningham in 2004.

With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Bilbray had 56,016 votes or 49.5 percent. Busby trailed with 51,202 votes or 45 percent. "I think that we're going back to Washington," Bilbray told a cheering crowd of supporters.

The race _ one of dozens of election contests in eight states _ was viewed by Democrats as an opportunity to capture a solidly Republican district and build momentum on their hopes to capture control of the House.

Even Francine Busby's appeal to illegal aliens to turn out to vote for her and Busby-financed ads for Minuteman-backed candidate William Griffith didn't do the Democrats any good, as busby increased her share of the vote by less than one percent from the primary.

I think that Nancy Pelosi may want to hold off on planning to "redecorate the House".

Posted by: Greg at 11:04 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Unless the Justice Department can track down some actual quid-pro-quo related to this, I believe that it will be one more blind alley in the continuing DeLay saga.

A registered lobbyist opened a retirement account in the late 1990s for the wife of then-House Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and contributed thousands of dollars to it while also paying her a salary to work for him from her home in Texas, according to sources, documents and DeLay's attorney, Richard Cullen.

The account represents a small portion of the income that DeLay's family received from entities at least partly controlled by lobbyist Edwin A. Buckham. But the disclosure of its origin adds to what was previously known about the benefits DeLay's family received from its association with Buckham, and it brings the total over the past seven years to about half a million dollars.

Buckham was DeLay's chief of staff before he became a lobbyist at the end of 1998, shortly before the account was opened and the flow of funds began. He has come under scrutiny from federal investigators because his lobbying firm received hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from clients of indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Buckham's financial ties to DeLay's family -- and the retirement account in particular -- have recently attracted the interest of FBI agents and others in the federal task force probing public corruption by lawmakers and lobbyists, according to a source who was questioned in the course of the government's investigation.

Looks damning, doesn't it -- until you realize that the sums in question, received over 7 years, are just about right for the amount of work done by the Congressman's wife and daughter, boh of whom did work for Buckham's company. The sums involved are not outrageous, and are probably normal payments of salary and benefits.

Even the Post makes something of a concession in this regard concerning the retirement account in question.

Cullen said the retirement account was required for Buckham's employees under Internal Revenue Service rules. But investigators are looking at Buckham's role in establishing the account and at whether the lawmaker may have performed official acts in return for any of the income arranged by Buckham, according to the source. DeLay denies any wrongdoing.

Required by the Federal Government. That puts a whole new aspect on it -- and only took them five paragraphs to get to that point. But the Justice Department is looking into it anyway. There is no actual evidence of any wrong-doing on anyone's part, and the payments are legal permitted under House ethics rules and are legal under federal law. And such payments will happen until we make it illegal for spouses and other family members of government officials to be involved in politics or government, or be employed at all.

But that said, I am counting the hours until Delay's departure from office and removal from teh balot happen -- and cannot wait for the selection of the new GOP candidate for the November ballot.

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Could you support this proposal from Dafydd of Big Lizards -- what he calls the Defense of Marriage Amendment (DMA)?

1. For federal purposes, marriage in the United States of America shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.

2. The Constitution of the United States of America shall not be construed to require any state, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as or like a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.

Now let's consider what this would do -- it would not prevent any state in the union from allowing for homosexual marriage or domestic partnerships that are th functional equivalent. It also would not allow the US Constitution to be misinterpreted (a la Lawrence v. Texas) to require homosexual marriage nationwide or to allow the policy decisions of a state that permitted homosexual marriage to compel recognition of such marriages in any other state under the FUll Faith and Credit Clause. In other words, it would serve to Constitutionalize the provisions of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Since the existance of the DOMA is one of the reasons for opposing the FMA, and since many of those opposing the FMA use either federalism or the existance of the DOMA to justify their position, those two arguments become irrelevant.

Unless, of course, those are merely fig-leafs intended to cover their support for homosexual marriage.

And if it is, don't the American people have a right to know?

Posted by: Greg at 12:38 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I've yet to see a compelling argument in favor of homosexual marriage.

And I've yet to see a good reason for opposing the marriage Amendment.

But this one, presented by the Rino-ettes from Maine, has to be among the worst.

Maine's two U.S. senators say a constitutional amendment proposed by President Bush to ban same-sex marriage is unnecessary at this time.

Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins responded to Bush's effort Monday to rally support for the proposal being debated in the Senate ahead of a test vote Wednesday in which it is all but certain to go down to defeat.

Snowe restated her belief that the issue was addressed by the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage as a union of a man and a woman and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex unions from other states.

"As the Defense of Marriage Act has not been overturned by the courts -- and therefore remains the law of the land -- I believe that an amendment to the Constitution is unnecessary at this time," she said.

Citing the same law, Collins said family and domestic affairs have always been regulated by the states and she saw no reason for change.

"Most states, including Maine, have passed laws declaring that they will not recognize such marriages," Collins said. "Therefore, I will vote against proceeding with the constitutional amendment at this time.

That reasoning would be enough to make me laugh my ass off if it did not enrage me so.

After all, the people of Massachusetts thought they were safe -- but an out-of-control court decided that they were wrong.

One of these days, a federal judge somewhere is going to strike down the DOMA or rule that the Bill of Rights and Fourteenth Amendment has gay marriage in their penumbras -- and then the argument will not be about whether or not the amendment is necessary, but about the propriety of "rolling back civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution." You already hear that argument in Massachusetts, where it is deployed against those seeking to amend that state'sconstitution to fix what its top court has damaged.

But I'll toss this question out to the distinguished gentleladies from Maine.

Will they commit to co-sponsor the Federal Marriage Amendment in the event that the DOMA is struck down or a federal judge rules in that the US Constitution contains a right to homosexual marriage?

Or is your argument all a sham?

Posted by: Greg at 11:51 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Looks like my rocket-scientist friends will have some work to do over the next few years. And since JSC is only 10 minutes from this computer (depending on the traffic lights), I bet I know several of the leading figures in this new quest to return to the moon.

NASA handed out assignments for President Bush's lunar human exploration program on Monday, with much of the development work headed as expected for the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

All 10 of the space agency's installations in eight states will be involved in meeting the $104 billion Constellation program's goal of returning American explorers to the moon as early as 2018.

Johnson's responsibilities for directing the development of a new moon ship, called the Crew Exploration Vehicle, as well as for managing much of the work actually carried out at other agency installations, emerged in September as NASA unveiled the blueprint for its lunar transportation system.

The economy of this part of Harris County is driven by NASA and related corporate entities. Some of the older generation at my church still talk about the original Mercury astronauts on a first name basis. There is a couple that talks about some of the astronaut kids hiding out at their home to get away from the news crews in their front yards. One dear lady laments that the custom of NASA wives preparing meals for the families of those in space has fallen by the wayside since the end of the Apollo program.

This area is a company town -- and i'm glad it may stay that way for a little bit longer.

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At least that is my interpreteation of Chucky-boy's comments and voting record on anti-terrorism funding.

Sen. Charles Schumer, who has likened $7 million in federal cuts to New York's bioterrorism programs to "rubbing salt in an open wound," voted to cut those programs by 10.4 percent last year, according to Senate records.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pressuring Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Julie Gerberding to recalculate a new funding formula that disproportionately reduces aid to the state. Schumer, who red-flagged the issue during a news conference Sunday, will take his case directly to Gerberding today.

The proposed cuts could effect operations at city health department labs and environmental-testing programs, although it's possible some or all of the money might be made up through other federal funding, a city official told Newsday.

In December, Schumer didn't object to a unanimous voice vote approving a huge bipartisan spending bill that included $95 million in CDC bioterrorism cuts, largely because the measure also included restorations to student loan cuts and other domestic programs.

"There was 7 billion dollars in that bill, restoring student loans, health care, necessary things - every Democrat voted for it," Schumer said yesterday.

Schumer also voted for a $123 million bioterrorism cut during a preliminary vote on the package that passed 94-3 in October. He was joined by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton both times.

Since Schumer believes that New York City is the center of the universe, he apprently didn't intend for those cuts to come out of NYC's money -- or even from New York state's funding. It was the rest of the country that was supposed to eat the entire financial hit. That does not sound reasonable to me. Of course some of the cuts would have to come from the largest recipients.

Get over it, Senator. The world does not revolve around New York -- or Uranus.

Posted by: Greg at 11:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Any person with an ounce of sense would answer that it is indeed part of the time to which a felon is sentenced.

Which is, of course, why the Colorado Supreme Court is considering the issue in relation to a voting rights suit on behalf of Colorado felons on parole.

The state Supreme Court has agreed to consider a case that could determine whether parolees can vote in Colorado.

In an announcement late Monday, the court said it would review a ruling by a Denver District Court judge who upheld a state law prohibiting Colorado's nearly 6,000 parolees from voting.

Judge Michael Martinez had concluded convicted felons haven't completed their sentences until their parole ended, therefore those on parole aren't eligible to vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union appealed. It had sued on behalf of two nonprofit groups and Michael Danielson of Fort Collins, who was ordained a pastor while in prison on drug and theft charges. Danielson, who now runs a ministry for released prisoners, said restoring parolees' voting rights would help them with the transition.

In their appeal, attorneys argued that under the state Constitution, prisoners' voting rights should be restored when they are released from prison, even if they are still on parole.

Kristen Hubbell, a spokeswoman for Attorney General John Suthers, said the state will defend the law.

Seems pretty clear to me -- you have been sentenced to 25 years in prison. you are givn parole after 15 years. Your sentence runs for another 10 years. Duh! No shit! Where is the ambiguity that the courts need to adjudicate?

Now maybe Rev. Danielson has a valid point. Maybe the restoration of voting rights would help felons reintegrate. But that is a decision to be made by the legislature, not the courts.

But if the Colorado Supreme Court DOES rule contrary to sense, reason, and the commonly understood definition of the word "sentence", there remains a solution out there for the Colorado legislature. Eliminate the possibility of parole completely by requiring that all felons serve 100% of the term to which they are sentenced.

Posted by: Greg at 10:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I recently added The Federalist's Quote of the Day feature to my blog, sharing with my readers the wisdom of those who founded Our Republic, having framed the documents that provide a foundation for American liberty, such as the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

Today's quote, from Thomas Jefferson, deserves a special post all its own, and a place of special prominence.

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.
-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Wilson Nicholas, 1803)
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial Edition), Lipscomb and Bergh, eds., 10:419.

We live in an age in which there are many, especially in the judiciary, who would make of the Constitution a blank page by construing itsclear words in a manner alien to the American political and legal tradition, and through the application of alien laws and doctrines to the matters over which that great charter of liberty is to be the supreme law. Let us remember that the touchstone is the text as it was understood by those who wrote and ratified it, not the latest academic fad, legal trend, or judicial fancy.

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You decide.

SUPPOSE that a member of Congress, locked in a tight re-election campaign, hired someone to murder his opponent. The homicide occurred, the congressman paid the murderer for the job, and the congressman then hid the dead body in his office. Does anyone think that it would be a problem for law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant and search the congressman's office, looking for the dead body?

The principle is the same as that in the Jefferson case -- are Congressional offices sactuaries wehre membrs can hide evidence of their criminality with impunity?

The argument that there is something problematic with the execution of a search warrant in Rep. Jefferson's congressional office has absolutely no foundation in the Constitution. As the Supreme Court has noted, Capitol Hill is not a sanctuary for crime. The Constitution does not protect the offices of any member of government from a search executed in accordance with a validly obtained warrant, nor does it forbid the executive branch from obtaining a warrant where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a crime has been committed.

Now I do not agree with most of the rest of the arguments made by Professor Dow -- he tries to make connections to datamining and other issues that are clearly not connected. But his analysis on this one point is clearly correct.

Anyone want to argue to the contrary?

Posted by: Greg at 11:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Back when my Darling Democrat and I both worked, we would put the Apolitical Pooch in her crate at 6:30 and release her when we got home at 3:300 -- an 9-hour crate time with no bathroom break. We would immediately get her to the field across teh street when we came home.

Why can't a teen be expected to wait 90 minutes to use the restroom -- especially with many schools having 10-minute passing periods between classes?

Even though Daniel Thornton occasionally needed to go to the bathroom during his AP history course last year, he also needed a B on the midterm to maintain his grade. So he did what lots of students at Forest Park Senior High School in Woodbridge do in their Darwinian pursuit of academic success: Thornton endured a full bladder and instead hoarded his two restroom passes, which, unused, were worth six points of extra credit.

It was enough to bump the 18-year-old's midterm grade from a C-plus to a B.

"Occasionally it made days unpleasant, but I was just very careful. I would try to go in the five minutes beforehand or afterwards, between classes," said Thornton, who will graduate this month. "Some of my classmates definitely had a lot of trouble. People around me would fidget, especially girls."

Bladder control, especially in an era of 90-minute classes, is a vital skill in many Washington area high schools, where administrators often limit access to restrooms during class to reduce interruptions and quash potential mischief in areas without adult supervision.

Restrooms, of course, have been a choice milieu for school scofflaws since the advent of indoor plumbing. With school security a top priority, administrators have become vigilant enforcers as they try to block loitering, bullying or drug use in student restrooms.

What I've noticed is that many kids are using the restroom as the new phone booth. I've heard whispered comments about same-sex encounters as well -- especially in the girls restroom. And of course, there are the other illicit transactions mentioned in the article.

And the interesting thing is that it is usually the same kids wanting to go at the same time.

And I won't get into the question of the girls whose period apparently begins on the first day of school and runs through the end of May -- shouldn't they seek medical assistance?

What I am saying is that 90% of these bathrooom breaks are about getting out of class for illicit purposes -- not taking care of necessary bodily functions.

As a result, I will be very happy to see my school return to a more traditional schedule, with 45 minute periods. After all, there will be no excuses for not being able to wait in most instances -- and since our school declares teh first 20 minutes and last 20 minutes of each period to be a "dead time" when no student is permitted in the hall, we won't have any time to send them anyway!

Posted by: Greg at 11:20 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Who Do You Trust With Your Constitution? by New World Man, and "Guest Workers" Are Destroying the US by MaxedOutMomma. 

Here is where you can find the full results of the vote.

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This incredible quote comes from Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Theological Cafeteria).

“A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry, pure and simple.” Thus spoke Sen. Ted Kennedy in reference to the Marriage Protection Amendment being debated in the Senate today.

Senator – does this mean that your own Archbishop is a bigot for supporting this amendment? Does this mean the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Catholic Church – both in the US and in the Vatican – are bigots for insisting that the traditional definition of marriage should be enshrined in law worldwide and that homosexual marriage should be rejected wherever it rears its head?

And what of this quote, Senator?

Americans believe in tearing down the walls of discrimination and inequality, not creating new barriers for civil rights

Is it your belief that the Catholic Church is an un-American, anti-civil rights church? If so, do you now repudiate the supposed lessons of the 1960 presidential election, which supposedly dispelled for all time the notion that one cannot be a good Catholic and a good American at the same time? In short, do you repudiate the position taken by your late brother, President John F. Kennedy, and instead take the position held by the KKK and other religious bigots of that day?

If no, how can you make such brazen statements attacking your own Church?

If yes, do you now declare that you are taking a formal act to separate yourself from the Catholic Church – an institution which your words appear to brand as bigoted and opposed to American values?

After all – you cannot have it both ways. Either you believe in and embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church, or you reject both them and the Church.

Decide – and speak out as clearly and forcefully as you did in the quotes above.

Oh, and by the way, Senator – in every state -- 19 in all, most likely 20 after a vote in Alabama tomorrow -- in which the people have been given a chance to speak directly on the matter, they have overwhelmingly rejected homosexual marriage and embraced the traditional definition of marriage this amendment would promulgate. In several cases, judges have thwarted the clear will of the people. In all, 45 states have acted to prevent homosexual marriage from being imposed upon them by renegade courts or the actions of other states. No state has ever voluntarily adopted homosexual marriage – and Massachusetts was forced to do so by a court which ruled that for over 200 years the people of Massachusetts, including the generation that adopted it, misunderstood their own constitution when they repeatedly adopted the traditional definition of marriage as one man and one woman. Given the evidentiary weight of such facts, how can you possibly make the claim that those who support efforts to protect the definition of marriage from judicial reinvention are un-American?

And Senator -- is your own governor, Mitt Romney, an un-American bigot? If so, do you have the political courage to state so publicly. Would you argue that the mormon Church is a bigotted organization for its opposition to homosexual marriage -- especially given your history of attacking Romney for his religious beliefs.

UPDATE -- 6/7/2006: Senator Kennedy -- Alabama passed a state constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage by a 4-1 margin. Is over 80% of labama un-American?

Posted by: Greg at 06:07 AM | Comments (26) | Add Comment
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This incredible quote comes from Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Theological Cafeteria).

“A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry, pure and simple.” Thus spoke Sen. Ted Kennedy in reference to the Marriage Protection Amendment being debated in the Senate today.

Senator – does this mean that your own Archbishop is a bigot for supporting this amendment? Does this mean the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Catholic Church – both in the US and in the Vatican – are bigots for insisting that the traditional definition of marriage should be enshrined in law worldwide and that homosexual marriage should be rejected wherever it rears its head?

And what of this quote, Senator?

Americans believe in tearing down the walls of discrimination and inequality, not creating new barriers for civil rights

Is it your belief that the Catholic Church is an un-American, anti-civil rights church? If so, do you now repudiate the supposed lessons of the 1960 presidential election, which supposedly dispelled for all time the notion that one cannot be a good Catholic and a good American at the same time? In short, do you repudiate the position taken by your late brother, President John F. Kennedy, and instead take the position held by the KKK and other religious bigots of that day?

If no, how can you make such brazen statements attacking your own Church?

If yes, do you now declare that you are taking a formal act to separate yourself from the Catholic Church – an institution which your words appear to brand as bigoted and opposed to American values?

After all – you cannot have it both ways. Either you believe in and embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church, or you reject both them and the Church.

Decide – and speak out as clearly and forcefully as you did in the quotes above.

Oh, and by the way, Senator – in every state -- 19 in all, most likely 20 after a vote in Alabama tomorrow -- in which the people have been given a chance to speak directly on the matter, they have overwhelmingly rejected homosexual marriage and embraced the traditional definition of marriage this amendment would promulgate. In several cases, judges have thwarted the clear will of the people. In all, 45 states have acted to prevent homosexual marriage from being imposed upon them by renegade courts or the actions of other states. No state has ever voluntarily adopted homosexual marriage – and Massachusetts was forced to do so by a court which ruled that for over 200 years the people of Massachusetts, including the generation that adopted it, misunderstood their own constitution when they repeatedly adopted the traditional definition of marriage as one man and one woman. Given the evidentiary weight of such facts, how can you possibly make the claim that those who support efforts to protect the definition of marriage from judicial reinvention are un-American?

And Senator -- is your own governor, Mitt Romney, an un-American bigot? If so, do you have the political courage to state so publicly. Would you argue that the mormon Church is a bigotted organization for its opposition to homosexual marriage -- especially given your history of attacking Romney for his religious beliefs.

UPDATE -- 6/7/2006: Senator Kennedy -- Alabama passed a state constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage by a 4-1 margin. Is over 80% of labama un-American?

Posted by: Greg at 06:07 AM | Comments (26) | Add Comment
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How on earth could such a thing have happened?

At least 6 of the 17 people arrested by Canadian authorities in a sweeping counterterrorism operation over the weekend regularly attended the same storefront mosque in this middle-class Toronto suburb of modest brick rental townhouses and well-kept lawns, fellow worshipers said Sunday.

Their attendance at the mosque, Al-Rahman Islamic Centre for Islamic Education, is one of the few public pieces of information that clearly link any of the suspects — 12 adults and 5 youths — in one of the biggest antiterrorism arrests in North America since the Sept. 11 attacks.

However, since we are assured that Islam is a religion of peace, I wonder if the police have found some connection between those arrested that could explain their terrorist inclinations.

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The Washington Post has great coverage of the ongoing scandal surrounding Rep. William Jefferson (D-Highest Bidder), the poster child for Democrat ethics. It includes a great graphic outlining the degree of corruption.

On May 12, 2005, over dinner with business partner and FBI informant Lori Mody, Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) furtively scrawled the letter "c" on a sheet of paper, and next to it wrote some numbers indicating that he was demanding a much larger personal stake in an African business deal than previously agreed to.

"The 'c' is like for 'children,' " the congressman told Mody, as an FBI tape recorder rolled. "I make a deal for my children. It wouldn't be for me."

I see -- it is all for the children. Well, it takes a village in Africa wired for cable to raise a child, doesn't it? I guess that makes it all OK.

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When Christians protest on public streets during pro-homosexual events, tehy face harrassment and arrest. If they attempted to actually interfere with the event, there would be oputrage.

When will we hear the condemnation of this disruption of Pentecost Sunday Mass in Minnesota?

More than 50 gay rights activists wearing rainbow-colored sashes were denied Holy Communion at a Pentecost service yesterday at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in St. Paul, Minn., parishioners and church officials said.

In an act that some witnesses called a "sacrilege" and others called a sign of "solidarity," a man who was not wearing a sash received a Communion wafer from a priest, broke it into pieces and handed it to some of the sash wearers, who consumed it on the spot.

Ushers threatened to call the police, and a church employee burst into tears when the unidentified man re-distributed the consecrated wafer, which Catholics consider the body of Christ. But the Mass was not interrupted, and the incident ended peacefully, said Dennis McGrath, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

"It was confrontational, but we decided not to try to arrest the guy," he said.

Disrupting the service and profaning the Eucharist -- they need to be arrested next year.

More importantly, participants should be excommunicated next year.

And as far as condemnations -- who wants to bet that the only ones we hear are of the Church, not those who violated the sanctity of the cathedral.

Oh, and here's a suggestion -- why don't you try something like that at a Muslim house of worship? Oh, yeah, they will stone you or decapitate you, not just deny you communion.

Posted by: Greg at 11:32 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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As the date for Tom DeLay's resignation approaches, the race to replace him on the ballot is getting tight. Candidates were out in force this weekend at the Texas GOP Convention in San Antonio.

Eight of the candidates vying for the Republican nomination to replace DeLay on the general election ballot for the 22nd Congressional District worked the convention center crowds as if it were a traditional campaign. A select group of party leaders actually will pick the next candidate.

DeLay's successor won't be decided here, but candidates vying for his spot knew this was the best chance to reach out to party activists.

This isn't an ordinary campaign and candidates aren't appealing to regular voters. Instead, they are working the roughly 200 precinct chairs who make up the district and who will elect one representative from each of the district's four counties — Harris, Fort Bend, Galveston and Brazoria — to collectively choose a new GOP candidate for the general election ballot.

Those four people have yet to be chosen.

First, DeLay must provide proof to the party he is ineligible to serve. He will do so by moving his permanent residence from Texas to his Alexandria, Va., condominium.

Eight candidates made the trip to San Antonio — State Reps. Charlie Howard of Sugar Land and Robert Talton of Pasadena, state Sen. Mike Jackson of La Porte, Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace, lawyer Tom Campbell, former state executive committee member Tim Turner and retired Air Force major Don Richardson.

My guess is that the most likely picks for the nomination are, in no particular order, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, Charlie Howard, Robert Talton, and the article fails to note appeared at the convention (and spoke to several SD caucuses), Fort Bend County Commissioner Andy Meyers. While David Wallace was seen as an early favorite, critical mis-steps on the part fo his campaign and questions about his business history have harmed him among many of us who are involved in the process of selecting a replacement for Delay. The nature of this process, however, is such that we could have a candidate arise out of nowhere once the county electors (AKA the Gang of Four) get together.

At least two of the counties have serious races to fill the elector spot, with grassroots candidates challenging SREC members for the spot. In Harris County, SREC member Kathy Haigler and Precinct Chair Steve Williams are the declared candidates candidates, while SREC member Therese Raia and Precinct Chair Pat Hebert are both seeking the spot. The issue is not a disagreement on principles or candidates. It is over the question of whether the SREC members should be the electors, given that the entire SREC will pick the candidate if the Gang of Four cannot achieve a consensus. All four of these individuals are fine individuals with strong conservative Republican credentials, but I'm personally backing the grassroots movement. Call it a question of avoiding the appearance of "politics as usual". I'm told by multiple sources that Randy Weber is the most likely choice to be the Brazoria County elector. I've heard nothing definitive on the Galveston County slot.

My expectation is that the process will have run its course and a new congressional candidate will have been selected no later than June 30 -- and I suspect several days earlier than that.

Posted by: Greg at 04:23 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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In Canada, they have arrested a bunch of would-be terrorists -- who all, utterly by coincidence and without reflecting on the religion in any way are inexpiliably all Muslim.

Apparently in response, someone has vandalized Toronto mosque.

Vandals smashed 30 windows of a Toronto mosque and damaged nearby cars after the arrest of 17 suspected al Qaeda sympathizers accused of planning bomb attacks. Canadian Muslims expressed fear on Sunday that a backlash had begun.

The vandals struck overnight at the west-end mosque, a police official said on Sunday. A second official said he had no information on any link between the incident and the arrests, which began late Friday.

"The actual weapon that was used to break (the windows) is unknown," said secretary Ameer Ali of the International Muslims Organization of Toronto, which houses the mosque. "We believe it has to be a heavy instrument, possibly a sledgehammer or a pick ax, or it could even be a crowbar."

About five cars in a parking lot next to the mosque also had their windows broken, Ali said. He said the two-story mosque sees about 500 worshipers daily and the organization said the mosque is one of the largest in North America.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair told a meeting with Islamic community leaders, "it is certainly possible that that damage was motivated by hate. Hatred in any form, and certainly in its expressions of violence and damaged property, will not be tolerated in our community."

How strange -- we so often are told that we must "understand" actions of the jihadi terrorists as a response to world events, whether we are talking about the 9/11 attacks, suicide bombings in Israel, or beheadings in Iraq. But when someone reacts to the capture of jihadi terrorists with nothing more than a little bit of vandalism, we are told that there is no room for hate in society.

Why the double standard?

Posted by: Greg at 12:54 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Can't folks understand that border-jumping immigration criminals are not permitted to work in the United States -- and so when they lose a job it really does not matter why they were fired. They certainly are not entitled to their job back or damages for being fired.

A group of immigrant workers, some of whom are in the U.S. illegally, are claiming an auto supplier fired them because they were trying to join the United Auto Workers, but the company says they were fired because they could not provide valid Social Security cards.

The UAW and the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, an immigrant rights group, are helping the fired workers file a complaint against Hope Global Industries with the National Labor Relations Board. It's illegal to fire or intimidate workers for attempting to organize.

"This isn't about invalid Social Security numbers," said Elena Herrada, a member of the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. "It's about workers who begin to stand up for their rights, and they lose their jobs."

Hope Global President and CEO Robert Louis-Ferdinand said the company did not learn of the workers' union efforts until after they were fired.

"That's outrageous," Louis-Ferdinand said of the charge.

The dispute comes several weeks after the Social Security Administration notified Hope Global that the workers, whose employment ranged from more than a year to just a few months, had provided the company with Social Security numbers that did not match their names, which is often a signal workers are in the country illegally.

"We had no choice," but to fire the workers, Louis-Ferdinand said. "We're way too small of a company to live in fear of IRS penalties and not comply with the law."

So there is a valid reason for firing these invaders -- they provided false documents, and this was brought to the company's attention by the federal government. It means one thing, clear and simple -- these immigration criminals were working in this country illegally. Fire them and ship them back where they come from.

But there is one stupid aspect to federal labor law that does need to be fixed.

Linn Hynds, a labor law expert in Detroit, said the National Labor Relations Act entitles workers to union representation whether they are in the country legally or not.

A right to union representation? For jobs they cannot legally hold? That is absurd!.

As foreigners who have invaded our country in violation of our national sovereignty, the only thing these people should be entitled to is to be dumped unceremoniously back in their homeland.

Posted by: Greg at 04:03 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I couldn't help but be struck by the list of potential committee chairs in the House of Representatives if the Democrats win the House this fall.

It is generally a list of liberal hacks who will work to drag the government well to the left of the American people. I suspect one term with the House of Representatives run by these extremists will be enough to bring the House back into the GOP fold.

But one or two names in particular jumped out at me as exempifying the Democrat Culture of Corruption.

. . . here is Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, in line for the top spot on the Judiciary Committee; Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi on the
Homeland Security Committee; and Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida at the Intelligence Committee.

Please note the two in bold face type. Each of these men has some serious ethical clouds hanging over him.

Conyers has been accused by former aides of misusing his office by turning them into baby sitters for his children. He is the prime sponsor of a resolution that seeks to investigate grounds for possible impeachment of Bush over the war in Iraq.

It is actually much worse than it sounds -- it isn't a case of "watch my kids while they hang out in my office on a day off of school." It is "you will stay here until I come back and get my kids -- whenever that is." Or even, in a couple of cases, "I'm going out of town and I'll be back in a few days -- you will take care of my kids until then."

Yowsuh, Massa Conyers -- we all know that congressional staffers are intended to be a taxpayer-funded nanny service for over-privileged office holders and their spoiled children.

And since the article mentions Conyers has been on an impeachment kick, let's look at Rep. Alcee Hastings over at the Intelligence Committee.

Hastings, a charismatic former federal judge, was impeached and removed from the bench in 1989 for fabricating evidence that secured his acquittal in 1983 on bribery charges.

Impeached and removed from a federal judgeship -- when the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate. So there is no question about Hastings being corrupt -- the Democrats have already affirmed that themselves.

Absolutely incredible.

Captain Ed has some interesting insights on this issue as well.

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Let me begin with a truly shocking true story.

Nearly a decade ago, I had a 18-year-old high school senior inform me that her current (THIRD!) pregnancy was the fault of the state of Texas. After all, she had wanted her tubes tied following the birth of her second child (at age 16)-- but Medicaid wouldn't cover it for a female under 21 unless she had three children. It wasn't like she was going to quit having sex with her boyfriend (they lived together at his parent's house, along with their child and her child by another guy, born when she was 14) -- so it was clearly the state's fault.

I couldn't help but think of this young woman when I read this opinion piece from the Washington Post by the anonymous "Dana L.".

The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn't want. Well, not literally, but let me explain.

I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we're starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.

The next morning, after getting my kids off to school, I called my ob/gyn to get a prescription for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill that can prevent a pregnancy -- but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. As we're both in our forties, my husband and I had considered our family complete, and we weren't planning to have another child, which is why, as a rule, we use contraception. I wanted to make sure that our momentary lapse didn't result in a pregnancy.

The receptionist, however, informed me that my doctor did not prescribe Plan B. No reason given. Neither did my internist. The midwifery practice I had used could prescribe it, but not over the phone, and there were no more open appointments for the day. The weekend -- and the end of the 72-hour window -- was approaching.

But I needed to meet my kids' school bus and, as I was pretty much out of options -- short of soliciting random Virginia doctors out of the phone book -- I figured I'd take my chances and hope for the best. After all, I'm 42. Isn't it likely my eggs are overripe, anyway? I thought so, especially since my best friend from college has been experiencing agonizing infertility problems at this age.

Weeks later, the two drugstore pregnancy tests I took told a different story. Positive. I couldn't believe it.

Got that. Dana was not responsible enough to use her birth control and was too busy to to bother looking for another doctor or -- lest we put too fine a point on it -- go slumming at the ER, so she made a choice to take risk a pregnancy. So the resulting pregnancy was the fault of. . . the Bush administration!

We then get all the ranting about right-wingers, religion seeping into American politics and government and the difficulty in procuring a feticide. This highly-educated professional woman (she's a lawyer) who made a number of choices that resulted in a pregnancy, like my former student, simply refuses to take responsibility for those choices. She has to find someone else to blame so that she can be the victim in the story.

A decade ago, I responded to my student by telling her that unless she could truthfully claim that a team of Texas Rangers kicked open her door and held her in place while then-Gov george W. Bush personally impregnated her, it was not the state of Texas fault that she was pregnant.

I offer the same response to Dana L. -- unless you can claim that the Secret Service held you down while President George W. Bush personally impregnated you, it is not the Bush administration's fault that you got pregnant and needed to have your unborn child killed.

And remember, Dana, Plan B in your case still would have been an abortion -- so don't kid yourself about what you were seeking.

You just wanted it to be earlier, neater, and easier on your conscience -- the ultimate rejection of responsibility.

UPDATE: I've gotten a couple of emails wanting to know what happened to my former student. About six weeks after our conversation, she delivered a healthy baby boy -- her third child delivered at expense of the taxpayers of the state of texas. And true to its policies, Medicaid paid for her tubes to be immediately tied. I'll let you decide if that was a net loss or net gain for the taxpayers.

Others writing on this piece include Maryland Conservatarian, appletree, Creature of Mad Enthusiasms, Villainous Company, jonquil, Suburban Guerrilla, The Reality-Based Community, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler

OPEN TRACKBACKING TO Conservative Cat, Samantha Burns, Stuck on Stupid, Bacon Bits, Adam's Blog, Lil Duck Duck, Third World County, Passionate American, Blue Star Chronicle, 7 Deadly Sins (twice), Uncooperative Blogger, Stop the ACLU, Wizbang!

Posted by: Greg at 02:56 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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Could you imagine the outrage if this were a report that a state-run health-care system were insisting that it would cover only radical mastectomies for all women, even if the less destructive lumpectomy were a better course of action for a woman with only a small, contained tumor who would be better served by a lumpectomy?

Well, that is comparable to what is hapening in England right now, where the NHS has decreed that it will not cover a less-invasive treatment for men with early-stage prostate cancer which radically cuts the likelihood of impotence.

HUNDREDS of men are being denied an alternative to radical surgery for prostate cancer because the National Health Service is refusing to pay for it, writes Sarah-Kate Templeton.

Hard-up primary care trusts across England have stopped funding brachytherapy, a new form of radiotherapy, although it has been approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

Doctors and patient groups have accused the NHS of discriminating against men. John Neate, chief executive of the Prostate Cancer Charity, said: “Nobody should have to battle bureaucracy when they need all their energy to come to terms with a diagnosis.”

Brachytherapy has fewer side effects than removing the prostate or giving radiotherapy for five days a week over seven weeks. Only 10%- 15% of men are left impotent after brachytherapy, compared with about 50% of men who undergo surgery.

The £9,000 treatment takes just one day. The patient has radioactive pellets implanted into the prostate gland. These target and kill the cancer.

Brachytherapy is not suitable for all prostate cancer sufferers but doctors believe that it is the best treatment for patients who have small tumours which have been caught at an early stage.

The number of men who die of prostate cancer each year in Great Britain (and, I believe, in the United States and worldwide) is similar to the number of women who die of breast cancer. Funding for the latter, however, is significantly higher -- as is the politicization of the disease.

Posted by: Greg at 01:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Looks like we will get another load of information about the offenses of William Jefferson (D-$90K Next To The Lime Sherbet).

A federal appeals court judge has ruled that The Times-Picayune should have access to legal paperwork that led to the Aug. 3 raid by federal authorities on the New Orleans home of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, along with his car and the office of his campaign treasurer, Jack Swetland.

The Justice Department has already released similar paperwork laying out its justification for the recent raid of Jefferson's congressional office as part of the same federal inquiry.

Jefferson has not been charged in the case and has denied wrongdoing. Two of his associates have already pleaded guilty to federal charges, acknowledging they were involved in a scheme in which Jefferson sought bribes in exchange for helping an American telecommunications firm do business in Africa.

The Times-Picayune sued last month to make public the materials related to the New Orleans raids -- including the search warrants as well as the affidavits, applications, returns and inventories filed in connection with the warrants -- which had been sealed by court order.

A similar case is pending in a Maryland court regarding materials filed in support of a raid on the Nigerian vice president's house in Potomac. A federal judge has ruled that the materials should be unsealed, but the order was stayed to give Jefferson time to appeal.

Federal investigators have not opposed any of the requests to make the materials public. But Jefferson has objected in each case, saying that unsealing the materials would violate his privacy and deny him the right to a fair trial if he is indicted.

On Friday, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge W. Eugene Davis agreed with the newspaper's position in regard to the materials supporting the local raids, saying that the public's right to know details of the case outweighs Jefferson's interests.

Davis noted that a "substantially identical" affidavit had already been unsealed in Washington, and that details of the federal probe "have been widely reported in the press." In addition, he noted that Jefferson "is a public servant and his conduct in the performance of his official duties is a matter of great public interest."

No doubt we will hear more ranting about the unfairness of subjecting Jefferson to the same laws and procedures as ordinary citizens.

Posted by: Greg at 08:46 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This suppression of political speech is something only a fascist, Leftist, or John McCain could love.

Captain's Quarters has been tracking a Canadian campaign finance scandal involving John Volpe, who is seeking the leadership of the Liberal Party.

The Liberals just can't seem to shake their reputation for financing shenanigans, and now it looks like they've decided to enhance it by attempting to silence Volpe's critics. A satirical website, youthforvolpe.ca, attempted to poke fun at Volpe's predicament by posing as a contribution website for civic-minded Canadian youngsters. Not seeing the humor, Volpe reacted by having the website shut down:

It was all the buzz in official Ottawa yesterday -- a hilarious political whodunit in this age of websites, platforms and templates.

Overnight, someone built a website spoofing Liberal leadership candidate Joe Volpe and his acceptance of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from children, including the 11-year-old twins of a former vice-president of a generic drug company.

By early yesterday afternoon, the Volpe team had the website pulled down. ...

Mr. Volpe's campaign had the site shut down without knowing, it seems, who put it up: "Hi Everyone," wrote Brenden Johnstone, who is with the Volpe campaign, in an e-mail to other leadership campaigns. "There has been concern about how the issue of the Volpe donations was reflecting on the leadership race.

"My Office has had the website suspended through CIRA [Canadian Internet Registration Authority] and CDNS [Canadian Domain Name Services] and it will be down as soon as 6 p.m. I think the issue with the website has been dealt with. . . ."

If Volpe's office thinks that pressuring the hosting service to silence his critics will "deal with" the problem, I suspect they have some naivete on the Internet. More than just showing a thin skin, Volpe and his office will likely provoke a torrent of criticism that will dwarf any consideration of questionable contributions. Does the Liberal Party really stand for government officials bullying hosting services into gagging their critics?

CQ notes that Conservative Party blogger Stephen Taylor is doing yeoman's work giving this matter the sort of coverage it deserves.

The censored site has been mirrored here and hereand here.

One has to wonder if Canada qualifies as part of the free world any longer, or if all the jokes about Soviet Kanuckistan are really true.

More coverage of this developing story can be found at Left Wing=Hate, The Daily Bayonet, The New American Citizen, Angry In The Great White North, Slashdot, Pajamas Media, Boing Boing, Little Green Footballs.

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Steve Radack, County Commissioner for Harris County Precinct 3, takes exception to a letter sent by Orlando Sanchez seeking support to fill the ballot vacancy caused by the death of County Treasurer Jack Cato. That normally would not trouble me -- individuals of good will can disagree on such matters.

Unfortunately, both Radack's tone and timing are terrible.

Less than two weeks after the death of County Treasurer Jack Cato, the succession process has gotten ugly.

In a letter to Republican precinct chairs, who will select a nominee to replace Cato on the fall ballot, prospect Orlando Sanchez says he developed a warm and respectful relationship with Cato while running unsuccessfully against him in the March GOP primary.

That's a lie, GOP County Commissioner Steve Radack says in a letter to the same group.

"Don't believe for a second that Sanchez respected Jack Cato," writes Radack, who delivered a eulogy at Cato's memorial service. "Further, he certainly did not have a warm relationship with Jack or his family. As a matter of fact, what Sanchez did was conduct a negative campaign against Jack that was outrageously cruel and unnecessary."

I seem to recall that during the campaign, which ended only three months ago, that Sanchez ran on a platform of bringing in new blood and new vision at the County Treasurer's office, and adopting a more activist stance akin to that of County Assessor/Collector Paul Bettencourt. While there was criticism of style, there was no criticism of Cato personally. Yet Radack, for all intents and purposes, blames Sanchez for Cato's death by making insinuations about the way in which "Sanchez's negative attacks physically affected Jack." Such a statement is beneath contempt.

It seems that what really has Radack's frilly lace panties in a wad is the fact that Sanchez was so disrespectful as to have dared to challenge Cato at all, once all the GOP elected officials in the county decided to endorse each other for reelection. You know -- how dare the people be given a choice?

And more sadly, this arrogant attitude of the elected aristocracy seems to have spilled over into the Cato family, at least as exemplified by the comments of Cato's son, John.

John Cato said he was put off by the substance and timing of Sanchez's letter. He said he disagreed with Sanchez's characterization of his relationship with his father as warm and respectful.

"I don't think it's respectful for a fellow Republican to wage a campaign against an incumbent Republican who had the support of every Republican county official," he said.

In other words, once Jack Cato was elected County Treasurer he was entitled to hold that seat unchallenged forever. Sorry, John, that isn't how it works in countries where there are elections. I'm sure your father knew that. Don't disrespect his memory by implying that he might have believed otherwise.

And while it might be true that all the Republican county government officials endorsed Jack Cato for reelection, that was not true of the the GOP grassroots. More than 250 of the precinct chairs in Harris County endorsed Sanchez in the primary. I don't think he has lost any support there, and so Orlando Sanchez should easily become the replacement candidate on the ballot.

But then comes this insidious comment from the Radack letter (which I received in yesterday's mail), insinuating that those of us who support Orlando Sanchez are somehow "sheep" being led by one or two unnamed office holders. I find that strange, since the only office holder I've been contacted by is Radack himself, trying to shepherd me away from a candidate I've been supporting for the last five months.

One or two of our office holders believe that most precinct chairman are like sheep and they are your shepherds.

Too bad that Radack doesn't have the personal integrity to name those office holders. But then again, I'm not surprised -- this is the same Steve Radack who took $900,000 in consulting fees from Sueba USA over a seven year period when the company did business with or had business before the very Harris County Commissioner's Court on which he serves. Integrity is simply not a part of Radack's personal make up.

Angered as I was by Radack's letter, I wrote a quick email to the commissioner -- but decided to hold it pending a cooling-off period. Discovering that the letter is circulating at the state GOP convention in San Antonio, and that Radack has spoken to the press about it, I decided to send it this morning. I'll share it with you here.

Commissioner Radack:

I was most disappointed to receive your letter dated May 31, 2006 regarding Orlando Sanchez. Such a blatant act of character assassination merits nothing other than contempt in my eyes. Given your history of using public office to unethically enrich yourself personally, I view it as the equivalent of the local prostitute complaining about the sexual morality of kids these days.

I liked and respected Jack Cato and honor his many accomplishments as treasurer; however I saw his age and health as making it unlikely that he would complete his term -- a concern which has been sadly confirmed by recent events. I endorsed Orlando Sanchez in the March primary because I thought he was the best candidate to direct the office of treasurer in the future. I continue to believe that Orlando Sanchez is our best candidate for the office of county treasurer, and in light of the vacancy on the ballot have endorsed the former councilman to replace Jack Cato on the general election ballot

My endorsement was not given because I am any politician's "sheep" -- it is because not only have my concerns of this spring have been confirmed, but because I believe the office of County Treasurer can and should be made into a "bully pulpit" of the sort Paul Bettencourt has created in the Assessor/Collector's office. We certainly haven't seen much in the way of leadership out of the Commissioner's Court -- until now, when you appear in a guise that gives new meaning to the term "shepherd's crook". Needless to say, you have in no way changed my mind.

I do hope my meaning is clear to Commissioner Radack.

UPDATE: PinkDome has a different perspective

OPEN TRACKBACKING TO Conservative Cat, Samantha Burns, Stuck on Stupid, Bacon Bits, Adam's Blog, Lil Duck Duck, Third World County, Passionate American, Blue Star Chronicle, 7 Deadly Sins (twice), Uncooperative Blogger, Stop the ACLU, Wizbang!

Posted by: Greg at 03:10 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Munuviana went down yesterday afternoon. I'll allow Pixy Misa, the all-powerful deity who generously owns, operates, and manages the Munuvian universe, to offer an explanation.

Splat

Sorry about the explosions, fires, earthquakes and other catastrophes today.

Yuri, the server that runs most of the blogs, got hit by a denial-of-service attack.

After disconnecting the server from the internet (if I left it connected, it would crash), I started copying all the blogs across to Kei, the other server.

Then Kei ran into a spot of disk trouble, and it crashed too.

If you're reading this, it's a sign that things are almost back to normal. Except that the entire load of mu.nu is now sitting on one server rather than two. So I have to pry everything loose again somehow, hopefully without eight hours of downtime this time around.

Update: All blogs have been moved and should be working now. I need to activate Fluffy, and I'm sure I've forgotten a couple of other things.

Thanks, dude, for all you do. I really don't say it enough.

And by the way -- where did you get those server names?

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Project Gutenberg will be giving away e-books for a month this summer -- some of the great classics of world literature.

For much of the past decade, the publishing world has been trying to figure out how to make money selling books in electronic form. Now a private project wants to give e-books away for free.

Project Gutenberg, a 35-year-old nonprofit based in Urbana, Ill., announced yesterday it is putting as many as 300,000 books online, where they will be available for free download. Called the World eBook Fair (worldbookfair.com), the program will last a month -- July 4 to Aug. 4 -- and will be repeated annually.

The catalog of available works will include fiction, nonfiction, and reference books, mostly those that are no longer protected by copyright. ``It will include the oldest books in the world, including every author you have heard of in your life, other than current ones," said Michael Hart, Project Gutenberg's founder. The fair also will offer classical music files, both scores and recordings, as well as films.

About 95 percent of the books are in the public domain and not subject to copyright law, Hart said. The copyright holders of the remaining 5 percent have given permission for use of their works. Copyright law generally protects a work for 70 years beyond the death of its creator.

Roughly 20,000 of the books have been scanned by thousands of Gutenberg volunteers -- and are already available at gutenberg.org -- but the majority will be loaned to Gutenberg for the month by more than 100 e-book libraries, including the World eBook Library, which normally charges a fee for temporary access. As many as 100,000 of the 300,000 books will remain available permanently. Gutenberg plans to offer 500,000 books in next year's fair, 750,000 in 2008, and 1 million in 2009. Still, even these numbers are a fraction of the tens of millions of books that have been published throughout history.

``Our stuff is all free," Hart said. ``We want people to take these books and use them, to keep them in their PDAs. Our mission is to help break down the walls of ignorance and illiteracy."

A bibliophile's dream, and a scholar's fantasy!

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Many of us have been saying this for some time -- why is it only now that we hear such talk out of the Administration?

President Bush told the nation's most prominent business group yesterday that "unscrupulous" employers have contributed to the illegal immigration crisis in the United States by knowingly hiring undocumented workers, and called for steep new penalties on those exploiting the shadow economy.

As part of his emerging public campaign for the immigration legislation pending in Congress, Bush visited the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to emphasize his focus on enforcement and to combat the conservative complaint that his immigration proposals add up to amnesty for millions of foreigners violating U.S. immigration law.

"Businesses that knowingly employ illegal workers undermine this law and undermine the spirit of America," the president said during a speech against a backdrop of U.S. flags, images of the Statue of Liberty and the slogan "Comprehensive Immigration Reform." "And we're not going to tolerate it in this country." Although most businesses abide by the law, he said, "there are some unscrupulous folks who want to take advantage of low-cost labor."

We really do not need immigration reform -- we need immigration law enforcement. Start aggressively enforcing the laws agaisnt employing illegal immigrants. Shipe them back wehn they are caught. Increase teh force at the border and explicitly authorize local law enforcement to aid with the task (to shut up the anti-border, pro-criminal folks who oppose enforcement). We can deal witht he problem quite effectively with just those steps -- and many of the border jumpers will head south if they can't find work.

Will the president match his rhetoric with action?

Posted by: Greg at 03:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm probably teaching English III this summer in summer school (I'll know in a few hours). If I do, I will use this story to teach the concept of irony.

This is a story about fate, a story about a curse -- if you care to believe in such things. It is a story about coming to grips with them, and maybe, just maybe, reversing them. It is a story about a 12-year-old boy in a black T-shirt who is now a polished 22-year-old man with a marketable talent. And it is a story about a beleaguered baseball team that may be preparing to take a wild stab at manipulating fate by confronting it head-on.

Jeffrey Maier, a future Baltimore Oriole? Oh, dear heaven. The blood of Orioles fandom boils at the very thought of the name, let alone the thought of such a traitorous alliance.

Could the deities that control the vagaries of baseball have conspired to put the kid who probably cost the Baltimore Orioles a shot at the World Series title on the Orioles as a player? It looks like it could be that way.

Ah, the irony or it all!

And the chance for a little bit of redemption and forgiveness after all these years.

Posted by: Greg at 03:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, it looks like the report I saw the other day was bogus.

A free fuel plan for hurricane evacuees that was
unveiled to the public by a state official this week was incorrect
and not approved by top emergency leaders, officials said
Wednesday.

The plan was outlined Tuesday for about 500 people -- mostly
Harris County residents -- at the Houston/Galveston Hurricane
Workshop. But state officials said a day later that they were
unfamiliar with the free fuel system described during the public
presentation by Jenniffier Hawes, a regional liaison officer with
the Texas Department of Public Safety.

"The information she presented was incorrect," said Rachael
Novier, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. "The situation is being
dealt with within the division of emergency management."

* * *

The revelation of a non-existent free fuel plan surprised -- and
scared -- many state agencies and industry officials who would be
directly involved in such a situation.

If motorists showed up to stations expecting free gas during an
evacuation, "we could end up with riots in our driveways," said
Scott Fisher, spokesman for the Texas Petroleum Marketers and
Convenience Store Association.

* * *

According to the state's new evacuation plan, officials will
work closely with gas companies to ensure that stations along
evacuation routes are adequately filled before an evacuation is
called. Officials have said that they will assess the gas supply
and send out tankers 120 hours before tropical storm force winds
make landfall.

On the heels of the erroneous plan going public, Texas
Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Cox said Wednesday that
if stalled drivers are spotted by courtesy patrol trucks, they'll
be given enough gas to get to the nearest station.

"But there will be no free fill-ups," he said.

Well, i hope this works. I'm just curious how they will deal with the traffic gridlock that we saw last September, and how those "courtesy patrol trucks" will get to vehicles that have run out of gass when the roads are moving at under 5 miles per hour.

(H/T Unite Later)

Posted by: Greg at 03:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It appears that at least one newspaper columnist from the area near Duke University believes that if you don't meet his moral standards, you deserve to be falsely accused of sexual assault. That means if you drink or look at strippers, you bring libelous accusations upon yourself.

Thing is, we might expect those guys on the lacrosse team to have some bags under their eyes.

I mean, here's David Evans, who was the captain on the lacrosse team: He graduated on Mother's Day and in less than 24 hours was at the county jail turning himself in on a rape charge.

But that's what can happen when you don't keep your nose clean. Whether or not he's shaved his would-be incriminating mustache in the days since a stripper claimed he attacked her during a party where he was living at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., the biggest news in Durham would have been Jackie Wagstaff's school board loss had Evans and his homeboys not decided to get their kicks one night in March.

No drunken orgy, no allegations of rape.

* * *

Butch Williams, representing a lacrosse player who hasn't been indicted, said his client and the other 44 who haven't been charged are free to resume a normal life.

Which I take as meaning deciding in the coming weeks of spring about returning to Duke for classes in the fall. And if they want to play lacrosse, maybe they go elsewhere, since Duke President Richard Brodhead and the rest of the big dogs haven't said yea or nay about fielding a team for the upcoming season. But there's also the notion of whether it'll do any good for the players to transfer if the curious stares will follow them wherever they go.

Nothing's normal about that.

The lacrosse boys brought it on themselves, though -- even if the accuser's lying.

Hmmmm.... I wonder if John McCann would also agree with this premise regarding the accuser. No going into houses full of strange men to take your clothes off for money, no rape -- she brought it on herself.

Nope, I didn't think so. Any person with even an ounce or decency would reject such an argument. As they should reject Mr. McCann's disgusting column.

(H/T Blogs for Bush, Real Clear Politics)

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Can you believe the gall of these border-jumping invaders? Not only are they demanding the right to stay in this country despite having entered illegally, they also want their jobs back -- jobs that they cannot legally hold!

Dozens of undocumented immigrants demanded their jobs back Thursday after being fired during an immigration raid here in Chicago.

Twenty-four workers were let go from IFCO Systems of North America after customs agents raided the plant during a sweep last April.

IFCO is a container company located off Damen and the Stevenson Expressway. It's accused of harboring and transporting illegal workers.

The workers rallied outside the federal immigration court on East Monroe Street. Inside, they begged a judge not to deport them.

"Last night was a very scary time for these families. They didn't know. The kids didn't go to school because they wanted to be here because they didn't know if their parents were gonna come home," said Ema Lozano with Center Without Borders.

The workers will have to wait several months to find out if they'll get their jobs back.

The judge granted a continuance until Oct. 12.

Why should this matter take until October to decide?

Round 'em up!

Ship 'em back!

Rawhide!

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New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi was renominated for his office by New York Democrats on Tuesday. After his commencement speech at Queens College today, he may need to be concerned about going to jail, after seeming to call for the assassination of President George W. Bush.

State Comptroller Alan Hevesi publicly apologized Thursday for a "beyond dumb" remark about "putting a bullet between the president's eyes."

Hevesi hastily called a mea culpa press conference hours after putting his foot in his mouth at the Queens College commencement.

The Queens College media relations office said it had videotaped the commencement but could not immediately provide a copy of the tape or a transcript.

At the press conference, a contrite Hevesi repeated what he recalled saying in the speech. The comptroller said he was merely trying to convey that Sen. Charles Schumer has strength and courage to stand up to the president.

"I apologize to the president of the United States" as well as to Schumer, said Hevesi. "I am not a person of violence."

"I am apologizing as abjectly as I can. There is no excuse for it. It was beyond dumb."

Hevesi said he hadn't been in touch with the White House but he hoped his apology reached President Bush.

Hevesi also called his comments "remarkably stupid" and "incredibly moronic."

"I do speak extemporaneously," he said. "And I've never said anything like this."

Dare I suggest that if this is the. . . uhhhh. . . caliber of candidate put forward by the Democrats, then we need to work hard to ensure they don't have a shot at winning.

H/T Michelle Malkin

MORE AT: Sister Toldjah, Strata-Sphere, It Shines For All, Plains Feeder, Political Pit Bull, NJ Blog, Darleen's Place, Urban Grounds

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A commission in the state of North Carolina acknowledges what history has long recorded -- that Democrat partisans overthrew the elected Republican city government in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898 and engaged in a campaign of race-based murder that resulted in the deaths of over 40 black citizens who had voted for and participated in the formation of the Republican administration.

Now there is discussion of possibly giving reparations for the crimes of the racist Jim Crow Democrats who perpetrated the bloody coup.

A state-appointed commission is urging North Carolina to provide reparations for the 1898 racial violence that sparked an exodus of more than 2,000 black residents from Wilmington.

The 500-page report that was produced after six years of study also said the violence, which killed as many as 60 people, was not a spontaneous riot but rather the nation's only recorded coup d'etat.

"There is no amount of money that can repair what happened years ago and compensate for the loss of lives and the loss of property," said vice chairman Irving Joyner, a professor at N.C. Central School of Law.

The commission did not provide any cost estimates, although compensation advocate Larry Thomas of Chapel Hill estimated that the economic losses calculated today are "probably in the billions of dollars."

Along with compensation to victims' descendants, the commission also recommended incentives for minority small businesses and help for minority home ownership. It also recommended that the history of the incident be taught in public schools.

Let's be clear about the results of the racist pogrom.

The 1898 violence began when white vigilantes, resentful after years of black and Republican political rule during Reconstruction, burned the printing press of a black newspaper publisher, Alexander Manly.

Violence spread, resulting in an exodus of 2,100 blacks, the commission concluded. Then the largest city in the state, Wilmington flipped from a black majority to a white majority in the months that followed.

Before the violence, which led to a Democratic takeover from Republicans and Populists, black men in North Carolina had been able to vote for about three decades. But Democrats quickly passed voter literacy tests and a grandfather clause, which disenfranchised black voters until the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

"The growth of Wilmington was stunted as a result of what happened in 1898," Joyner said. "Wilmington has never recovered economically, socially or politically."

I don't minimize what happened in Wilmington -- and in fact wrote about it several months back (when the News & Observer wrote about this horrific event and its own involvement with it), decrying that fact that the Democrat partisans who engaged in murder, mayhem, and the suppression of civil rights of American citizens were never punished for their misdeeds.

No one was arrested for this act of rebellion against lawful authority during time of war (treaty negotiations to end the Spanish-American War were still underway in Paris), and Josephus Daniels, whose active support for white supremacy in the pages of his newspaper led to him being referred to by one historian as the "precipitator of the riot", eventually became Secretary of the Navy for the entire two terms of the Wilson administration.

It was an evil deed perpetrated by the racist members of a racist political party that practices and encourages racism to this day.

That said, I do not know how reparations can ever be properly assessed or distributed.

Those who perpetrated the misdeeds 108 years ago are long dead, as are their victims. Given that reparations are designed to "repair" or "make whole" those who have been harmed, and morally can only be legitimate if they come from those whose actions were responsible for the damage, it is impossible to repair the damage. The harm is too remote, and the connection of present day North Carolinians to the perpetrators is so tenuous, that it is impossible to do more than acknowledge the evils done in the past and make a firm resolution of purpose to ensure that such wrong-doing will never be permitted in the future.

More to the point, the only remaining "perpetrators" of this coup and campaign of murder are the Democrat Party and the News & Observer newspaper (which stirred the white supremacists to action). I suppose that the government of North Carolina could disband those two institutions, seize their assets, and distribute the proceeds to the descendants of the murder victims. But this would never happen, because anyone with common sense would recognize that such actions would be unjust (as would actions against the individual descendants of Josephus Daniels and other participants in these ugly events for their ancestors' misdeeds). The reality is that the present-day institutions are not the same as those who committed the crimes of 1898 -- the News & Observer has been owned for over a decade by a California corporation, and the Democrat Party (while still racist and disloyal to Constitutional notions of equal rights for all regardless of race) cannot really be held responsible for the actions of its members and officials over a century ago.

And neither can the twenty-first century taxpayers of North Carolina be held responsible for the failings of nineteenth-century government officials.

So I encourage the building of monuments to prick the conscience, the establishment of educational programs to dispel the ignorance that is racism, and the recommitment of our society to eradicating government imposed barriers to equality for all Americans. But financial reparations at this late date would be simply one more injustice added to the tab of those who overthrew the elected government of Wilmington, murdered its citizens, and destroyed a community.

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Must every form of entertainment Make A Statement?

Years after she first emerged from the Batcave, Batwoman is coming out of the closet. DC Comics is resurrecting the classic comic book character as a lesbian, unveiling the new Batwoman in July as part of an ongoing weekly series that began this year.

The 5-foot-10 superhero comes with flowing red hair, knee-high red boots with spiked heels, and a form-fitting black outfit.

"We decided to give her a different point of view," explained Dan DiDio, vice president and executive editor at DC. "We wanted to make her a more unique personality than others in the Bat-family. That's one of the reasons we went in this direction."

The original Batwoman was started in 1956, and killed off in 1979. The new character will share the same name as her original alter ego, Kathy Kane. And the new Batwoman arrives with ties to others in the Gotham City world.

"She's a socialite from Gotham high society," DiDio said. "She has some past connection with Bruce Wayne. And she's also had a past love affair with one of our lead characters, Renee Montoya."

Is this really necessary? And I ask not because of bias against homosexuals, but because this appears to be introducing an extraneous political statement where it does not need to be. Is there no place safe from PCism?

Posted by: Greg at 05:12 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Here’s hoping that an ethics complaint is immediately filed against Harry Reid, whose office still won’t admit that he breached ethics restrictions by taking free boxing tickets while legislation on regulation the sport was pending before the Senate – but then vows that he won’t do it again.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid learned that what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas after all. A day after The Associated Press reported Reid accepted free ringside seats to boxing matches from a Nevada agency trying to influence him on federal boxing legislation, the senator offered his own ethics justification to a home state audience in Las Vegas.

And he vowed to keep taking such gifts.

But Reid's comments Tuesday quickly reached Washington, where several ethics experts concluded the Senate leader had misstated the Senate rules to his constituents.

Within hours of being questioned by AP about the ethics experts' assertions, Reid's office abruptly reversed course and acknowledged Wednesday night he had misspoken about the ethics rules.

The Senate leader also has decided not to take free boxing seats in the future even though he still believes it was ethical to do so in 2004 and 2005, Reid's office said.

"In light of questions that have been raised about the practice, Senator Reid will not accept these kinds of credentials in the future in order to avoid even the faintest appearance of impropriety," spokesman Jim Manley said.

Interestingly enough, it appears that prior to becoming the Democrat leader in the Senate, Reid always paid for his boxing tickets – and accepted none free until there was pending legislation on possible federal regulation of boxing. Even if one concedes that there was no actual quid pro quo or actual violation of the Senate ethics regulations, this action does breach the catch-all regulation that requires Senators not act in a manner that gives the appearance of impropriety.

And this certainly does appear improper.

And I like this comment from the spokesperson for a watchdog group.

Ellen Miller, head of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan group studying the ethics and inner workings of Congress, said Reid's comments in Las Vegas should make voters suspicious.

"Any time a politician starts parsing language and telling different stories, you have to assume they may have something to be ashamed of," Miller said.

And to all you Democrats out there – would you accept such conduct or rationalizations from a Republican?

Posted by: Greg at 05:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Budgeting decisions, the last time I checked, belong to the legislative branch on both the national level and in all 50 states. Why, then, is a court even involved in this case, which seeks to overturn the budgeting decisions of the Maryland legislature? Does this not violate the notion of separation of powers?

Attorneys for a group of immigrant children dropped from the state's medical assistance program because of budget cuts asked Maryland's highest court yesterday to restore the benefits.

But an attorney for the state said that courts do not have the authority to override budget decisions made by lawmakers and that Maryland was justified in cutting a state-funded medical assistance program for recent legal immigrants.

Last year, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) decided to cut $7 million from the program that provided heath care for about 4,000 pregnant women and children classified as permanent legal residents for less than five years.

In response, attorneys for 13 sick children -- ranging in age from 2 to 17 and suffering from a variety of health problems, including asthma, West Nile virus, a crippling hip disorder and a rare blood disease -- sued the state, asking that benefits be restored.

In January, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge granted a preliminary injunction, opening the way to reinstate the children's health-care benefits. The state, however, was granted a stay, pending appeal, from the Court of Special Appeals. The matter was then taken up by the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals of Maryland. The seven-judge panel heard arguments yesterday and will issue a written decision.

I thought that federal law required that immigrants be self-supporting, and not on the government dole, as a condition of staying here. Perhaps we need to reinstitute that requirement as part of our “comprehensive immigration reform” package. But setting that matter aside, Maryland is acting in a manner consistent with the Federal government’s decision (dating back to the Clinton administration) to exclude aliens in the country less than five years from federal medical programs such as Medicaid. This has been upheld on the federal level, and there is therefore no legitimate reason for ruling that the state action is invalid.

Now one can question the wisdom of such a budgetary decision, though I believe most Americans would support policies like this if asked. But even if one decides the legislatureÂ’s action is unwise, that does not equate with unconstitutional.

Posted by: Greg at 05:07 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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