Tax revenues are up and the deficit is dropping, even though total spending has increased and we are "suffering" from the Bush tax cuts and a "bad" economy.

An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief.

On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year's levels and that the deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago. The rising tide in tax payments has been building for months, but the increased scale is surprising even seasoned budget analysts and making it easier for both the administration and Congress to finesse the big run-up in spending over the past year.

Tax revenues are climbing twice as fast as the administration predicted in February, so fast that the budget deficit could actually decline this year.

The main reason is a big spike in corporate tax receipts, which have nearly tripled since 2003, as well as what appears to be a big increase in individual taxes on stock market profits and executive bonuses.

On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that corporate tax receipts for the nine months ending in June hit $250 billion — nearly 26 percent higher than the same time last year — and that overall revenues were $206 billion higher than at this point in 2005.

Congressional analysts say the surprise windfall could shrink the deficit this year to $300 billion, from $318 billion in 2005 and an all-time high of $412 billion in 2004.

What we are seeing here is that the economy is, in fact, robust, and that the tax cuts have helped stimulate it to produce the new revenues. As the GOP constantly reminds folks, tax cuts raise tax revenue.

The potential problem, though, is that the government has been borrowing from Social Security for decades -- and no the Boomers are preparing to start drawing on the plan in the next two years. Thus there needs to be a long-term fix for taxes, the deficit, and Social Security -- something the Democrats are loath to allow to happen.

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Despite the fact that international observers say that the election was clean, the left-wing loser of last week's Mexican presidential election is seeking to use a dual-pronged legal strategy to overturn the results -- including one that that appears to be specificly barred by the Mexican Constitution.

Downtown Mexico City swelled Saturday with the accumulated frustration and rage of the poor, who were stoked into a sign-waving, fist-pumping frenzy by new fraud allegations that failed populist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador hopes will overturn the results of Mexico's presidential election.

López Obrador ignited the smoldering emotions of his followers Saturday morning, alleging for the first time that Mexico's electoral commission had rigged its computers before the July 2 election to ensure the half-percentage-point victory of Felipe Calderón, a champion of free trade. In a news conference before the rally, López Obrador called Calderón "an employee" of Mexico's powerful upper classes and said a victory by his conservative opponent would be "morally impossible."

López Obrador added a new layer of complexity to the crisis by saying he not only would challenge the results in the country's special elections court but also would attempt to have the election declared illegal by Mexico's Supreme Court. That strategy presages a constitutional confrontation because according to many legal experts the special elections court is the only body that can hear election challenges.

Calderón was declared the winner Thursday and has begun publicly presenting his plans for Mexico, even though López Obrador has refused to concede. European Union election observers have said they found no significant irregularities in the vote, and many Mexicans appeared to accept Calderón as their next president.

López Obrador is also using his popularity in Mexico City, where he was mayor, to intimidate the Mexican government into handing the office to him, even though he lost. Mass rallies in the heart of the capital city and unsubstantiated claims of fraud seem designed not to bring about an accurate vote count, but rather a favorable one.

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Why is a US Senator using his influence to get a celebrity out of a foreign prison after his conviction on drug charges?

U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a musician in his own right, helped secure the release of Atlanta R&B producer Dallas Austin from a United Arab Emirates jail after a drug conviction, the senator's office confirmed Saturday.

In a statement released through his staff, the conservative Republican said he was contacted by Austin's attorneys, then called the ambassador and UAE consul in Washington on Austin's behalf.

A Grammy winner who has produced hits for Madonna, Pink and TLC, Austin was arrested May 19 and convicted of drug possession for bringing 1.26 grams of cocaine into the UAE city of Dubai.

On Tuesday a court sentenced him to four years in jail and said Austin, 34, should be deported after serving the term. Hours later, Dubai ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum pardoned and released Austin.

Simply unacceptable.

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Rooting for the home team wasn't the only thing on this mascot's agenda.

A man who played the mascot for a minor league baseball team was arrested after a woman said she was fondled at a game in April.

Cecil McLaurin Amick III, 37, of Boiling Springs, portrays Reedy Rip'It, a giant frog for the Greenville Drive of the Class A South Atlantic League. He faces a misdemeanor charge of molesting.

According to an incident report from the Greenville Police Department, the woman said she and a friend were leaving their seats at West End Field when the mascot grabbed her breast in a stairwell.

Dude -- should have stuck with the peanuts and Cracker Jacks.

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Hatred of the late Ken Lay runs deep in this country -- especially here in Houston. No surprise, given his role in the Enron collapse.

One man I know said he would not believe that Lay hadn't paid everyone off and faked his death unless a stake was driven through his heart during the funeral. A woman I know said she wanted to go to the viewing and knock on his forehead shouting "Kenny -boy, are you still in there!" And I've seen outrageous internet suggestions, such as that he be strung up by his heels in front of his old office building, like Mussolini was by the Italian peasants after his death.

As a result, I think this family decision will only feed conspiracy theories.

The body of Enron Corp. founder Ken Lay will be cremated and his ashes buried in Aspen, Colo., where he died this week of an apparent heart attack, a newspaper reported Friday.

The Houston Chronicle, quoting a source close to Lay's family, said the cremation and Aspen burial had been Lay's wish because the mountain town, where he once owned several properties, was his favorite place in the world.

The Lay family will hold a private service in Aspen on Sunday for the one-time corporate titan who became a convicted felon, followed by another service in Houston on Wednesday, the newspaper said.

We're sure to hear -- was there really a body? Did he really die? Or is he living in the islands with Tupac?

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The special status of Hong Kong gives a platform to Cardinal Joseph Zen Zi-kiun, the archbishop of that city. Able to operate openly and with relatively little fear of arrest, he serves as teh visible leader of Chinese Catholics loyal to the Vatican in a nation where such Catholics are subject to serious persecution at th hands of the Red Chinese government and its puppet church.

MASS had scarcely ended on June 4 when a gaggle of young women flocked to the front of the cathedral. Groups of them took turns having their photos taken with the thin, silver-haired 74-year-old who so captured their fancy: Cardinal Joseph Zen Zi-kiun.

He smiled gently for the photos, then walked across an alley to an indoor basketball court with a concrete floor and rusty fans on the walls that barely stirred the warm, humid air. After a youth group had sung religious songs, and after a slide show depicting the Chinese military crackdown in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, he read a strongly worded message calling for residents of Hong Kong to remember their countrymen elsewhere in China.

"The young people who fought and died for democracy in Tiananmen Square were their brothers and sisters," he said in the speech. "After June 4, we can no longer fight selfishly just to win the most rights for Hong Kong."

With his charisma, erudition and dedication to human rights, Cardinal Zen has become a celebrity here, a man wielding considerable political influence as well as religious power. But his high profile and growing influence have antagonized senior officials in mainland China, particularly those who oversee the state-controlled church.

A man of learning in a non-Christian land with a culture of respect for scholars, Cardinal Zen is the sort of man who dictators fear -- a man of faith whose loyalty is to God and not Caesar. Prepare to be inspired by this profile.

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I'll be damned -- an option I thought unlikely may come to pass if Judge Sparks' decision is not overturned.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay suggested Friday that he may not be ready for retirement just yet, a day after a federal judge ruled that his name must remain on the November ballot even though he resigned from Congress.

DeLay, who came home to Sugar Land for a previously scheduled event, also criticized U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks' ruling that the former House majority leader's name had to remain on the ballot.

"For this guy to say he can't tell where I'm going to be on Election Day, and that I am forced to be on the ballot, well, they may get exactly what they want," DeLay told supporters to raucous applause. Sparks is a Democrat appointed by Republican former President George Bush.

Later, reporters asked Delay if he now planned to run. He didn't say no.

"We have to wait and see what the 5th Circuit does on appeal," he said.

We may just have to kick Nick Lampson's ass with Tom Delay -- and start grooming GOP candidates for 2008. Because while I believe there is still enough support for Tom DeLay to win this race, I think he is toast in the next primary after this year's mess.

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Over time, BDS enters a terminal phase, complete with suicidal ideations.

Some days the pain is so searing and hot you want to cut off your own head with a nail file. Other days it is numb and pain free and seemingly OK, to the point where you think it might finally be all gone and you allow yourself a whisper of a positive feeling, right up until you look in the mirror, and scream.

George W. Bush is just like that.

Everyone I know has had enough. Everyone I know is just about done. There is this threshold of deadened disgust, this point where the body simply resigns itself to the pain, where the disease, the poison, has seeped so deeply into the bones that you just have to laugh and shrug it all off and go for a drink. Or 10.

Let's help Mark Morford out -- send him a nail file or two.

Mark Morford
San Francisco Chronicle
901 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT: Conservative Cat, Outside the Beltway, Bacon Bits, Bullwinkle Blog, Stuck on Stupid, Dumb Ox, Blue Star Chronicles, Third World County, Madman Returns, Uncooperative Blogger, Cigar Intelligence Agency, Stop The ACLU, Wizbang

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God can make use of the most evil of things.

Croatia's defense ministry has donated a World War II Nazi ship to a local Roman Catholic monastery, which will turn it into a sailing church, the Jutarnji List daily newspaper reported Tuesday.

The landing ship DTM-219 was used by Nazi Germany to transport tanks and infantry. It was given to communist Yugoslavia after 1945 as part of war compensation, it said.

The ship, currently anchored at a Croatian navy port, will be towed to the city of Sibenik, in the central Adriatic, where it will be adapted at a local shipyard.

It will be used as sailing church for the young, who will be able to sail the Adriatic, pray and meditate as part of church-sponsored religious cruises, the daily said.

Some 90 percent of Croatia's 4.4 million people are Roman Catholics. The country, which gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, hopes to join the European Union by the end of this decade.

May God bring people to him by this work, converting a weapon of war into a vessel of grace.

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Every year, I give my students a homework assignment on the first day of school. I tell them it cannot be tested or collected, but that it will benefit them immensely when they reach college and continue n into adulthood. It isn't, strictly speaking, even a part of my purview -- I teach history -- but it is one I believe will benefit my students in many different ways.

It is a simple reading assignment -- "Between today and graduation in three school years, read the complete King James Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare."

Before the strict separationsits get their panties in a knot, let me make it clear that my pointing them to the KJV is for the sake of cultural literacy, not religious conversion. Along with Shakespeare, the KJV is one of the great well-springs of Anglo-American culture, and has great influence on the development of English as spoken today. Perhaps the most worthwhile class I took in college was "The Bible as English Literature", for it opened new horizons to me in literature, art, music and historical studies.

The KJV even shapes American history, as is pointed out in this article.

In 1911 the English-speaking world paused to mark the 300th anniversary of the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, with American political leaders foremost in the chorus of exaltation. To former president Theodore Roosevelt, this Bible translation was "the Magna Carta of the poor and the oppressed . . . the most democratic book in the world." Soon-to-be president Woodrow Wilson said much the same thing: "The Bible (with its individual value of the human soul) is undoubtedly the book that has made democracy and been the source of all progress."

Americans at the time mostly agreed with these sentiments, because the impact of the KJV was everywhere so obvious. It was obvious for business, with major firms like Harper & Brothers having risen to prominence on the back of its Bible publishing. It was obvious in the physical landscape and in many households because of the widespread use of Bible names for American places (95 variations on Salem) and the nation's children (John, James, Sarah, Rebecca). It was obvious in literature, as with the memorable opening of Herman Melville's Moby Dick: "Call me Ishmael." And it was obvious in politics, with no occasion more memorable than March 4, 1865, when four quotations from the KJV framed Abraham Lincoln's incomparable Second Inaugural Address: Genesis 3:19 ("wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces"); Matthew 18:7 ("woe unto the world because of offences!"); Matthew 7:1 ("judge not that we be not judged"); and Psalm 19:9 ("the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether").

I commend the article -- and the Book that it praises -- to your attention and encourage their study.

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The New York Daily News is reporting on a plot to blow up the Holland Tunnel in New York City, which was hoped to cause the flooding of Lower Manhattan and the incredible economic disruption that would entail, along with massive loss of life.

The FBI has uncovered what officials consider a serious plot by jihadists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in hopes of causing a torrent of water to deluge lower Manhattan, the Daily News has learned.

The terrorists sought to drown the Financial District as New Orleans was by Hurricane Katrina, sources said. They also wanted to attack subways and other tunnels.

Counterterrorism officials are alarmed by the "lone wolf" terror plot because they allegedly got a pledge of financial and tactical support from Jordanian associates of top terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before he was killed in Iraq, a counterterrorism source told The News.

It's not clear, however, if any cash or assistance was delivered.

The News has learned that at the request of U.S. officials, authorities in Beirut arrested one of the alleged conspirators, identified as Amir Andalousli, in recent months. Agents were scrambling yesterday to try to nab other suspects, sources said.

This is a plan that could have actually worked, according to some experts.

It was uncovered by monitoring Internet chat-rooms, and there are additional individuals being sought besides Andalousli.

The New York Times indicates that Senator Chuck Schumer and Rep. Peter King are confirming the report. So are law enforcement sources -- but with a possible twist.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York Representative Peter T. King of Long Island confirmed a report in The Daily News today, which said that the man arrested in Lebanon and an unknown number of other people had discussed exploding a bomb to disrupt the system.

The News said the plot focused on the Holland Tunnel, and said the plotters hoped that a bomb detonated under the Hudson River would crack the tunnel and flood Lower Manhattan.

But a law enforcement official said today that the tunnel was not the target of the plot, and Mr. King said in an interview that he "would agree" with that assessment. In a televised interview, Mr. Schumer referred to the Lincoln Tunnel, rather than the Holland.

Mr. King and Mr. Schumer both said that the plot had been caught in its early stages. Mr. King said that he had been informed on an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department nine months ago.

I just overheard a report on the television that the plan may have been directed at the subway system and not the roadway system -- which would make more sense, given the widespread system of tunnels underneath Manhattan.

I certainly hope that the investigation did not involve monitoring phone calls or financial transactions -- the Times will becalling for this mutt's release from jail and the prosecution of those who saved New York from another terrorist attack.

MORE AT LaShawn Barber, CaptainÂ’s Quarters, A Blog For All, The Stata-Sphere, Hot Air, The Ranting Profs, Michelle Malkin

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Some things transcend politics -- and whatever I think of Jimmy Carter as a political figure, I cannot help but be gratified by the example of marital love and faithfulness he and his beautiful wife have given to America.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, fresh off of a trip to Nicaragua to monitor preparations for November's elections, plan to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary Friday with a quiet day in their Georgia hometown.

In the long line of American presidents and first ladies, the Carters have the second longest marriage. George and Barbara Bush have been married for 61 years.

Jimmy Carter is 81. Rosalynn Carter is 78. They have four children and 11 grandchildren, and are expecting their first great-grandchild in September.

Friends and associates say the Carters remain as active as ever two and a half decades after leaving the White House.

"They continue to be full partners in the post-presidency to this day," said Deanna Congileo, spokeswoman for the couple. "They're continuing the work of the Carter Center, strengthening democracy, advancing human rights and ending suffering around the world."

Congileo said the Carters have no fancy plans to celebrate the anniversary _ "a quiet day in Plains," she said.

And may you share many more years of love and devotion together.

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If this report is true (consider the sources -- the New York Times and the Southern Poverty Law Center, both arguably extremist hate groups themselves), then I am disturbed.

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.

"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."

Looking at the group's website, the following claims are made.

"Last year, for the first time, they didn't make their recruiting goals. They don't want to start making a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military, because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."

Barfield, who is based at Fort Lewis, said he has identified and submitted evidence on 320 extremists there in the past year. "Only two have been discharged," he said. Barfield and other Department of Defense investigators said they recently uncovered an online network of 57 neo-Nazis who are active duty Army and Marines personnel spread across five military installations in five states -- Fort Lewis; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Stewart, Ga.; and Camp Pendleton, Calif. "They're communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military," Barfield said. "Several of these individuals have since been deployed to combat missions in Iraq."

Every year, the Army's Criminal Investigation Division conducts a threat assessment of extremist and gang activity among army personnel. "Every year, they come back with 'minimal activity,' which is inaccurate," said Barfield. "It's not epidemic, but there's plenty of evidence we're talking numbers well into the thousands, just in the Army."

There are a number of specific instances of scuzzy individuals documented.

This closely follows a report six weeks ago in the Chicago Sun-Times about signs of street gang activity in the military.

These reports are disturbing, to say the least -- but I wonder if they are really accurate.

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Over at the Jawa Report and Ace of Spades note a report that the North Korean missile the other day may have been headed to Hawaii as a warning of the vulnerability of the Pacific Fleet.

North Korea targeted waters near Hawaii when it test fired a long-range missile this week, according to a Japanese newspaper.

Japanese and US defence officials, after analysing the missile's path from intelligence data, have concluded that the Taepodong-2, had been targeted near the Pacific island, the conservative daily Sankei newspaper said.

The test missile was one of seven test launches launched on Wednesday that fell into the Sea of Japan, causing no damage.

The determination was reached by analysing the angle of its nose cone immediately after its launch and the altitude it reached, the newspaper said.

Defence experts analysed the missile target based on data collected by Aegis-equipped destroyers and RC-135S electronic reconnaissance aircraft, it said.

Do we need any additional basis to take action against the North Korean dictatorship?

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Mysterious announcement over at that popular site.

Due to some possible legal drama, I have to take MacStansbury.org offline.

All the stuff is still there, you just can't see it.

What's maddening is that I can't bring up the stuff that isn't bad, because then you could look at what was there before, and compare it to what's there now, and triangulate the difference. So, all of it - down.

To be clear, it wasn't anything anybody else posted as far a blog-post goes. To say any more would give the whole thing away. And, as I've said, legal drama.

Since a couple of people have asked, I'm not YET in legal hot water, I am AVOIDING legal problems as quickly as possible.

We will be keeping you in thoughts and prayers as you go through this. Hope to see you back very soon.

(H/T Alabama Improper)

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I cannot believe that this treasonous, terrorist-aiding bitch has the audacity to make a request like this!

Attorneys for civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart have asked a judge to spare her a prison sentence for her conviction in a terrorism case despite a recommendation by the federal probation department that she serve 30 years.

The attorneys filed papers Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan asking that the judge take into consideration Stewart's bout with breast cancer, her age, 66, and three decades of selfless service as a lawyer in sentencing her on Sept. 25.

One lawyer, Elizabeth Fink, called a U.S. Probation Department pre-sentencing report that recommended Stewart serve the maximum possible sentence of 30 years "draconian, inhumane and ludicrous."

Good God! The woman used her position as a lawyer to aid a terrorist in setting up terrorist attacks. To claim that her legal work is a basis for leniency is like a doctor who intentionally gave drugs intended to murder a patient seeking a lesser sentence because of his work as a physician.

Put her away -- all thirty years -- and let her rot. She deserves to die in prison.

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Republicans are presumed to be bigots by the Left, despite the long history of Democrat intolerance. Not to mention comments like this that regularly fall from the mouths of Democrat politicians.

They say the main thing standing between Joe Biden and the White House is Joe BidenÂ’s mouth.

The would-be presidential candidate proved it again on a recent trip to New Hampshire, where C-Span cameras caught him telling an Indian-American activist that Indian-Americans are the fastest-growing immigrant group in Delaware.

In fact, Biden said, “You cannot go into a Dunkin Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

I'm curious -- where is the uproar? Where is the outrage? Certainly this is much more offensive than Trent Lott's courtly compliment to a centenarian.

MORE AT: Michelle Malkin, Real Clear Politics, Hotline Blog, Hot Air, Iowa Voice, Ed Driscoll, Plains Feeder, Old War Dogs, Two Babes & A Brain, Stuck On Stupid, Irish Pennants

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Traditional marriage won two victories today in state courts in the United States.

First, the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled that the state's marriage laws were constitutional.

New York's highest court today turned back a broad attempt by gay and lesbian couples across the state to win the right to marry and raise children under New York State's marriage law, saying that denying marriage to same-sex couples does not violate the state constitution.

In a 4-2 decision, the Court of Appeals found that the state's definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, enacted more than a century ago, could have a rational basis, and that it was up to the State Legislature, not the courts, to decide whether it should be changed.

The majority decision, written by Judge Robert S. Smith, who was appointed by Gov. George Pataki, found that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples could be based on rational social goals, primarily the protection and welfare of children.

"Plaintiffs have not persuaded us that this long-accepted restriction is a wholly irrational one, based solely on ignorance and prejudice against homosexuals," Judge Smith wrote in his 22-page opinion. For example, he wrote, it could be argued that children benefit from being raised by two natural parents, a mother and a father, rather than by gay or lesbian couples.

In other words, absent a clear and convincing showing that a law violates a right, the decision on what is proper policy is in the hands of the people and their elected legislators, not the courts. This decision is important in that it does recognize that there is no constitutional bar to or requirement of homosexual marriage -- and that like ages of consent, consanguinity and other issues, the state may set reasonable limits on what marriage will be recognized. This upholds a fundamental principle of American government which is oft overlooked by those who seek social change against the will of the people.

The Georgia decision likewise is a triumph for the right of the people to control the direction of government.

In Georgia, where three-quarters of voters approved a ban on gay marriage when it was on the ballot in 2004, the top court reinstated the ban Thursday, ruling unanimously that it did not violate the state's single-subject rule for ballot measures. Lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that the ballot language was misleading, asking voters to decide on same-sex marriage and civil unions, separate issues about which many people had different opinions.

The Georgia court saw through the semantic game which was being played by the plaintiffs in this case -- and indeed rejected an argument that amounted to "the voters of Georgia are too stupid to know what they are voting on." The clear will of three out of every four voters was to ban homosexual marriage and civil unions -- and to argue that they wee two different issues was specious.

The simple fact of the matter, ignored by the supporters of homosexual marriage (or dismissed as irrelevant) is that the people of the United States support traditional marriage and oppose homosexual marriage. The statistics make the case for me.

Forty-five states have specifically barred same-sex marriage through statutes or constitutional amendments. Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay marriage, although Vermont and Connecticut allow same-sex civil unions that confer the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples.

In two of those cases, Vermont and Massachusetts, the institutions as they now exist were imposed by judges who interpreted eighteenth century documents to confer rights that neither the majority of those who adopted them nor the majority of those alive at the time accepted as being contained in them.

It is important to note why these cases are in court.

With little hope of getting a gay marriage bill signed into law in Albany, advocates from the ACLU, Lambda Legal and other advocacy groups marshaled forces for a court fight.

Yes, you read that correctly -- this was a deliberate act intended to defy the will of the people as expresssed by the elected government. These groups and individuals decided that what they could not win through persuasion they would have imposed upon the people of their respective states. Dare I suggest that this should be unacceptable to Americans of all political persuasion?

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The other shoe has dropped.

Judge Sparks has ruled that Tom DeLay must remain on the ballot as the GOP candidate in CD22.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, a Republican appointee, ruled that DeLay must appear on the Nov. 7 ballot as the GOP nominee for the congressional seat that he abandoned last month.

Sparks said DeLay could "withdraw'' from the race under Texas election law, but that still would not allow the Republicans to replace him on the ballot.

DeLay had sought to have state Republican Chair Tina Benkiser declare him ineligible by moving from Sugar Land to his condominium in Virginia. But Sparks said that would not make him ineligible because the requirement under the Constitution is whether DeLay is an inhabitant of Texas on election day.

Sparks said contradicting evidence raised questions about whether DeLay planned to remain a resident of Virginia, but he said that did not matter because DeLay could not say where he would be on election day. READ RULING

Texas GOP lawyers are already preparing the appeal to the 5th Circuit Court, and the filing is expected tomorrow.

In the mean time, the District Executive Committee selection meetings of the Galveston and Brazoria County Precinct Chairs from CD22, scheduled for this evening, have been cancelled by their respective county chairs. We Harris County chairs selected Kathy Haigler for the position last Thursday; Fort Bend County chairs selected SREC member Terese Raia last night. While many argue there would be no legal impediment to the meetings being held and selections for the committee members being selected in the other counties, it appears to have been decided that it was better not to prejudice the issue by taking action after the ruling.

Two weeks ago I laid out three possible scenarios if this ruling went against the GOP.

I see three possibilities.

The first, of course, would be that Tom DeLay could reestablish residency between now and Election Day, reentering the race as a candidate. This would be one logical outcome of the Democrat argument that DeLay cannot be determined to be ineligible before Election Day.

But the other option is more interesting, and contained in one of the GOP arguments in court yesterday.

Attorneys for the Republican Party of Texas say GOP voters would be hurt if his name appears on the ballot because DeLay wouldn't be the guy filling the seat if he won. A special election would have to be called if that scenario played out.

In such a scenario, the GOP would urge voters to select DeLay, with a view towards defeating Lampson and creating the need for a special election to fill the seat. But would enough voters be willing to go along with such a plan?

The third, and least likely, option would be to throw GOP support to Libertarian candidate Bob Smither, with the goal of making him the first Libertarian Congressman – and of making him the first Libertarian ex-Congressman after the 2008 election.

Judge Sparks did give an additional option -- DeLay could ask the Secretary of State to remove his name from the ballot entirely, leaving the GOP line blank. We would still be without a candidate, but it would be an improvement over the first two options and would facilitate the third.

I'll be real honest here -- I'm not terribly hopeful right now. While I disagree with the ruling, I cannot say that I have discerned any flaw in it substantial enough to get it overturned. If anything, the strongest argument that seems available to me is the presumption in favor of contested elections -- but the satutory scheme and the determination that DeLay remains the nominee may well be sufficient to meet the technical requirements for such a contested election.

Hopefully addressing the election code isues raised in this case will be a priority in the next legislative session.

UPDATE: Over at Capitol Annex, there is an interesting piece of speculation about redistricting as a result of the SCOTUS decision the other day. Could it be that the remap will be the basis for giving us (and lots of other folks around the state) a new round of primaries, and a chance to start from scratch? Vince also offers several other possible GOP options -- though some of them are vague enough that I don't quite get what he is suggesting.

MORE AT Isolated Desolation, Off the Kuff, Burnt Orange Report

OPEN TRACKBACKING TO Conservative Cat, Bacon Bits, Customer Servant, Dumb Ox, Jo's Cafe, NIF

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The Church has always grown when watered by the blood of those martyred for the faith. Two more Christians gave their lives in the service of Christ in the Philippines last month.

While officiating at a wedding on June 3, Pastor Mocsin L. Hasim received a text message: “Pastor, you will die today.” The 47-year old pastor had been receiving death threats for months. He brushed it off. After the wedding, he and his 22-year-old daughter, Mercilyn, headed home by motorcycle.

Their bodies were later found near their motorcycle in an isolated area of Zamboanga Del Norte province in western Mindanao of the Philippines.

Pastor Hasim had been shot 19 times, mostly in the back. Mercilyn was shot five times.

There were no known witnesses to the gruesome killings, but police suspect that there were three gunmen, possibly new members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a Muslim rebel group with a long history of armed conflict against the national government. One of the pastor’s nieces noted, “Also, some Muslim extremists in the area were inviting him to embrace Islam once again, but he refused.”

Pastor Hasim had received death threats in the months leading up to the murder. During a gift-giving activity in one community, a Muslim approached him and told him to stop what he was doing, lest he be killed. Despite these threats, he remained unmoved and continued his activities, even starting a radio ministry. Mercilyn accompanied him during most of his work.

Please offer prayers for Pastor Hasim's widow, Evelyn, and for Mercilyn's brothers and sister. This family has sacrificed much in the last 10 years, and now they have given two of their number in the service of Christ. They continue to receive threats from the unGodly murderers of their family members.

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More good news from yesterday's launch of Shuttle Discovery.

Early inspections have revealed no damage to the space shuttle Discovery, NASA said Wednesday after a day of checking out the spacecraft with on-board cameras. That means that when the shuttle meets up with the international space station Thursday morning it likely won't need emergency repairs while hooked up with the orbital outpost - unlike last year's daring spacewalk fixes.

Discovery's delicate heat shield and everything else appear at first glance to be in near perfect shape, NASA officials said, although it's still very early in the analysis.

Engineers are nowhere near finished poring over 70 minutes of video that astronauts shot using an extended boom armed with a laser and cameras to inspect Discovery's delicate reinforced carbon wing and nosecone.

It took Discovery's crew more than six hours to get 70 minutes of video because they had to move the boom slowly so not to bump the fragile shuttle skin.

Looks like we may have a perfect mission -- although there is one humorous bit in all this.

The first video of the right wing of Discovery showed whitish splotches on the black coating. When Ceccacci saw that in Mission Control, he said he laughed. That's because three weeks earlier he had noticed the same splotches on Discovery as it sat awaiting launch. He said they looked like bird droppings from a distance of about 10 feet.

"We didn't touch anything if that's what you're asking," Ceccacci told reporters, drawing a big laugh.

Ceccacci said the imagery experts will study the splotches to be sure they're harmless. If that's what they are, "it'll burn up," during the return from space, he said. There wasn't enough heat during launch to get rid of the residue.

Well as they say -- shit happens.

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When I moved to Texas in 1997, there was already an effort underway to revise the standards for the teaching of all subjects, including English. These standards, the TEKS, (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) were generally pretty good -- but in my opinion still lacked a serious focus on the basic building blocks of the English language. The result of these and the earlier standards, known as the Essential Elements, was that students were reaching me in grades 10 and 11 without having mastered essential skills for literacy. And I am not just talking about ESL students -- I'm talking about native speakers of English.

Now there is an effort to revise those standards to focus more on the fundamentals of language.

The education agency already has convened a teacher study group to study the English TEKS, and the revisions were scheduled to be presented to the board for approval later this year. But the board stopped that process in April and set a June 14 work session to hear from reading experts about the curriculum.

That meeting changed the minds of some board members, including board chairman Geraldine "Tincy" Miller, who apologized to McLeroy at the end of the meeting.

"I really was convinced we had an incredible curriculum, and it just needed a little tweaking," said Miller, R-Dallas. "We need to stop this process right now."

One criticism voiced at the session is that the TEKS are too student-centered, often asking students to use their attitudes, behaviors and ethics to interpret texts. For example, students in fourth through eighth grades are expected to "describe mental images that text descriptions evoke" and "compare text events with his or her own or other readers' experiences."

McLeroy calls such standards "fuzzy English" and wants to expunge them from the state's curriculum. He said such standards can't be measured on state tests.

Board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, voted in 1997 in favor of an alternate set of standards that was heavier on the basics of spelling and grammar. Critics said the alternate standards would wind up micromanaging teachers by dictating what and how they must teach rather than giving them the flexibility to determine how to reach individual students.

The problem is that the standards adopted were not terribly flexible, nor were they particularly measurable. it was all well and good that students were expected to express themselves in multi-media presentations -- except that the reality is that most texas schools lacked (and still lack) the computer and video equipment to make that a reality. And the hoped-for flexibility was not a reality -- teachers were still expected to produce results on a high-stakes test, so it was those portions of the TEKS that were measured on the TAKS test that became the focus of drill-and-kill instruction in many classrooms.

And still students reached upper grades without mastering fundamentals. My students this year had spent all but one year of their education under the new standards, but they still exhibit the same problems as under the old standards. Purposeful reading and writing remain beyond the reach of too many of them -- a complaint I've heard from fellow teachers in a number of districts. Vocabularies are limited ("Mister, quit using big words like "contemporary."). Spelling is terrible. The mechanics of the English language are a mystery ("Do we have to use paragraphs?" "Where's the verb? What's a verb?").

So I salute the State Board of Education in taking the opportunity to direct the teaching of English back to the fundamentals.

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Enron founder and former CEO Ken Lay died early this morning of a heart attack. Lay, convicted of fraud on May 25, was facing life in pison.

The recently convicted former Enron chairman Kenneth L. Lay, 64, died early today near Aspen, Colo., a family spokeswoman said. Lay, convicted of fraud and conspiracy for his part in the Houston-based energy company's collapse, faced the possibility of life in prison at his sentencing scheduled for September.

Family spokeswoman Kelly Kimberly said Lay died of a heart attack.

"The Lays have a very large family with whom they need to communicate, and out of respect for the family we will release further details at a later time," a statement from the Lay family said.

Lay's pastor, Rev. Steve Wende of Houston's First Methodist Church, had this to say in a memo to the church staff.

"He and his wife, Linda, were in Colorado for the week, and his death was totally unexpected. Apparently, his heart simply gave out," Steve Wende, of First Methodist Houston said in a memo today to church staff.

Lay was the public face of Enron, a major player in the corporate world and the Houston business scene until the collapse of the company in 2001.

At Enron, Mr. Skilling was the visionary from the world of management consulting who spearheaded the company's rapid ascent by fastening on new ways to turn commodities, like natural gas and electricity, into lucrative financial instruments.

Mr. Lay, the company's founder, was the public face of Enron. Known for his close ties to President Bush's family, he built Enron into a symbol of civic pride and envy here in its hometown of Houston and throughout the financial

Yet while the media liked to focus on the friendship between Lay and the Bush family, it is often overlooked that both lay and his company were large donors to politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Ann Richards, Jack Brooks, and Bill Clinton. It is often overlooked that while the collapse of Enron came during the Bush administration, the bulk of the financial shenanigans came during the Clinton Administration and should have been caught by the SEC.

UPDATE: Jeff Skilling has no comment on his co-defendant's death.

My wife raised the uestion of whether or not Lay's family will keep the millions of dollars he still had at the time of his death. CNN's article briefly examined this issue.

Lay's family may still face the music when it comes to the barrage of civil lawsuits filed against him.

Jacob Zamansky, principle at Zamansky & Associates, a law firm that represents shareholders, said Lay's estate is still liable for damages.

"Lay's passing isn't going to have any material effect on the civil suits," Zamansky said. "His testimony is still out there."

Still, how much of the pot will be available to claimants is uncertain. Lay testified that he had lost millions after Enron's collapse and most of his estate was depleted in order to pay legal costs and living expenses.

In addition, last week prosecutors filed a motion for the forfeiture of over $180 million in assets owned by Lay and Skilling. The government is not commenting on how Lay's death will impact that move.

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Well, the total number of missiles fired by the North Koreans appears to be seven.

All the missiles landed in the Sea of Japan.

North Korea test-fired a seventh missile Wednesday -- amid international furor over the regime's launch of six missiles just hours earlier.

The Japanese Defense Agency said one ballistic missile was fired from southeastern North Korea around 5:20 p.m. (4:20 a.m. ET), landing in the Sea of Japan about 10 minutes later.

The range of the missile has not been confirmed by CNN. However, Japanese news agencies said it was medium-range.

The seventh test came after North Korea launched one long-range and five shorter-range missiles shortly after 3:30 a.m. Wednesday (2:30 p.m. Tuesday ET). Those tests lasted about five hours.

But the closely-watched Taepodong-2 missile, which some analysts say is capable of hitting the western United States, failed after about 40 seconds and landed in the sea about 200 miles (321 kilometers) west of Japan, U.S. officials said.

So what we have here is a failed missile test of the Tapeodong-2, but successful tests of the short and medium range missiles. It is clear that the tests of the more limited range weapons were intended to serve as a warning to the US and its allies that the North Koreans can do significant damage in Asia, even if they lack the capacity to reach the United States.

Captain's Quarters notes that the Taepodong-2 fell into the sea off Hokkaido 42 seconds after launch. This indicates a polar course designed to send teh missile towards Alaska -- a provocation of the first order, coming as it did on the Independence Day. Were we prepared to shoot it out of the sky? Were we prepared to retaliate had the missile continued further along that trajectory?

Clearly, this test shows that the North Koreas are still some way from deploying the Taepodong-2 -- and that concerted efforts by the United States and the international community must be taken to prevent the North Koreans from doing so.

UPDATE: The UN Security Council is meeting this morning.

The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session this morning to respond to North Korea's test-firing of seven missiles, as Japan and South Korea imposed economic penalties and nations around the world denounced the launchings.

The American ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, said as he arrived for the meeting that he hoped for "a strong and unanimous signal from the council that this kind of behavior is unacceptable."

And we all know how effective that will be, given in bringing Saddam Hussein to heel in Iraq.

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Project Guttenberg and other organizations have joined together to offer hundreds of thousands of ebooks for free between July 4 and August 4 as part of their World eBook Fair. I mentioned this last month, but wanted to highlight it again since it started today.

You are encouraged to participate in The World eBook Fair, by downloading any of the 1/3 million eBooks provided here for personal use. The World eBook fair is currently scheduled for the next few July and August periods as follows:

2007 1/2 Million eBooks
2008 3/4 Million eBooks
2009 One Million eBooks

The World eBook Fair, Project Gutenberg, and World eBook Library, along with our other participants, join together to encourage you to assist in bringing many entire libraries to the general public and to encourage ever increasing levels of literacy and reading.

We hope the invention of eBooks will advance the world as much as did the invention of The Gutenberg Press, and look forward to the Neo-Industrial Revolution following the advent of eBooks, just as the invention of The Gutenberg Press undoubtedly led to the first Industrial Revolution, and your participation can help bring this new revolution in reading and libraries to the world.

We heartily thank you for visiting The World eBook Fair.

We hope you and yours will find lifetimes of reading materials to expand your horizons over the years.

I've already picked up a few offerings from Baen Books, and will be downloading some classics over the next few days. The books come in a variety of formats, and cover a wide range of fields.

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Even though I oppose the flag desecration amendment, I'm no fan of flag burning. That's why I find this "celebration of the First Amendment" to be distasteful and disrespectful.

About 25 revelers celebrated their freedom of speech and welcomed the Fourth of July on Monday night with the "2nd Annual Old Time American Flag Burn."

Around a burn barrel at Seabright State Beach, organizer Brent Adams, 41, of Santa Cruz, declared flag burning not a protest, but a celebration of the Constitution's First Amendment.

"It seemed like a good idea to burn some flags just because we can," added fellow organizer Sha Lar, 32, of Santa Cruz.

Burning a flag just because you can is simply an exercise in juvenile narcissism.

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Well, that is the argument put forward by Steven M. Warshawsky at American Thinker. He correctly argues that the majority in Hamdan ran roughshod over the clear statutory language of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA), which was an exercise of Congress power to set the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and lower courts pursuant to Article III of the Constitution.

Under the DTA, the only court that is authorized to hear appeals brought by captured terrorists is the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (commonly known as the “DC Circuit”), which had ruled in favor of the federal government. Nevertheless, the five liberal justices of the Supreme Court (Stevens, Ginsberg, Souter, Breyer, Kennedy) concocted an explanation for why the DTA does not mean what it says, and then invalidated the military tribunals established by President Bush and the Department of Defense as part of the fight against international Islamic terrorism.

And therein lies the problem. In order to reach the decision on the merits of the case in Hamdan, the majority had to engage in what may be the most egregious case of legislating from the bench which has ever occurred in American history. In doing so, it far exceeded the reaching for unbridled power of which it accused President Bush. This raises questions as to the legitimacy of the decision, and the propriety of following it. Indeed, it once more raises tthe spectre of an imperial judiciary, an unaccountable body steping outside of its proper bounds to overrule the political branches of government in their proper constitutional spheres.

And yet, where lies the solution to this problem. The partisan divide in Washington is such that the obvious constitutional approach, impeachment of the offending quintet, is out of the question. Democrats are so eager to strike at the president for partisan advantage that they will support the warping of the proper constitutional order if they believe it will aid them in taking back Congress and the presidency. In addition, the Democrats would be loath to give President bush even one more opportunity to reshape the Supreme Court with a conservative nominee. So much for that option.

The alternative reaches back to the days of Andrew Jackson. Jackson is quoted as saying of the Chief Justice, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." So, too, muight the president and Congress choose to ignore a decision that is illegitmate at its root -- not because they dislike the decision, but because the Court's very act of deciding was contrary to the law and the Constitution, and therefore illegitimate and void.

The truth is that the Supreme Court’s actual authority is only as deep as the willingness of the other branches of government and the American people to “obey” its commands. At some point, we have to say, enough is enough. I think we have reached that point with Hamdan. In my opinion, the President and Congress should treat the Court’s decision respectfully but as advisory only, and abide only by those aspects of the decision that they agree are in the national interest.

To take such a step would be a momentous decision in American history. As Warshawsky points out, the Supreme Court has th closest thing to absolute power in American government because the other branches of government, and the American people as a whole, have chosen to accept its decisions as final and beyond reproach even when they appear to exceed the bounds of constitutionality. Perhaps this decision constitutes the tipping point away from that consensus of infalliblity.

The President, of course, may not act alone in this regard. Such a course of action would require the support and consent of the bulk of Congress. Perhaps teh best approach would be for Congress to grant the President the statutory powers neccessary to follow the procedures in place pre-Hamdan, and to definitively strip all but the DC Circuit of jurisdiction in such cases. Indeed, the statute must EXPLICITLY overrule Hamdan in no uncertain terms.

Such a move would be daring, given that the judiciary has never been rebuked in such a manner. And in light of the reflexive deferrence that the American people give the Supreme Court, the action would have to be done in a manner which was clear to the American people as respectful to the legitimate authority of the Court but also necessary to preserving the powers of the other co-equal branches.

For if such a course of action is not taken, the reality will be that the checks and balances put in place by the founders will have been upset byt the branch seen as least likely to become the source of tyranny which destroys our Constitutional system of government.

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Even better than the Helen Thomas joke.

A big tip of the hat to BobG at Sweet Spirits of Ammonia.

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A picture perfect launch for Shuttle Discovery and the crew of STS-121.

The rain may put the damper on fireworks in Houston tonight, but the only firecracker that mattered to folks in this part of town went off around 2:38 PM local time in Florida.

With a rocket's red glare, Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in a spectacular display of sound and light befitting of Independence Day.

Commanded by Steven Lindsey, Discovery and its crew of seven astronauts roared from Launch Pad 39B to begin a 15,000-mph chase to rendezvous with the International Space Station.

As Discovery raced into the bright blue sky, cheers and applause erupted across Kennedy and along the nearby beaches of Florida's Space Coast. Today's successful launch came on the third try after the first two attempts to launch were dashed by poor weather.

Now under way, Discovery and its crew set their sights on a mission to deliver equipment, supplies and an additional crewmember to the station. While docked, the STS-121 crew will test new equipment and procedures to improve shuttle safety, as well as make repairs to the station.

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The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are The Dance of Escalation and Reaction by ShrinkWrapped, and It's an Islamic Jihad, Stupid by Townhall.com. 

Here is a link to the full results of the vote.

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WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great-Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
more...

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For the second time this year, a Catholic priest has been stabbed in Turkey. This time the victim survived, but the incident is still troubling.

A French missionary priest survived a knife attack on July 1, but Church leaders in Turkey are worried by a rising tide of anti-Christian violence in the months leading up to a visit by Pope Benedict XVI

Father Pierre Brunissen was badly wounded when he was stabbed twice by a man who was prompted taken into police custody. Authorities said that the priest's assailant appeared mentally unbalanced.

The AsiaNews service reports, however, that Father Brunissen had received a number of threats in recent weeks, and the parish church he served in the town of Samsun had been vandalized. The violence and intimidation had increased, AsiaNews said, after the murder of an Italian missionary, Father Andrea Santoro, in the Turkish town of Trabzon, in February. The young man charged with killing Father Santoro, who was also described as unbalanced, shouted an Islamic slogan after shooting the priest.

Given the threats made against the priest in recent weeks, I doubt the official explanation.

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Plagued by liberals in his own party who reject his support of the Iraq war, former Democrat VP candidate Joe Lieberman has announced plans to make an independent bid for Senate if he loses his party's primary next month.

Under increasing pressure from Ned Lamont, a businessman and political newcomer who has criticized the senator for supporting President Bush on the war and other issues, Senator Lieberman said today, the eve of Independence Day, that he would begin gathering the 7,500 petitions necessary to run on his own should he lose to Mr. Lamont in the state Democratic primary, which is Aug. 8.

"While I believe that I will win the Aug. 8 primary," Mr. Lieberman said in a news conference today, "I know that there are no guarantees in elections. I'm very confident that if every Democrat or even a majority of them vote on Aug. 8, I will be nominated by a comfortable margin."

He added that the heat of August or a last-minute media barrage by his opponent could affect the results.

"My friends," the senator said, "after 18 years of working for, fighting for and delivering for all the people of Connecticut, I want the opportunity to put my case for all the people of Connecticut in November. They, after all, are the voters who have been good enough to elect me to the United States Senate in the November elections of 1988, 1994 and 2000.

Now this raises an interesting question -- what will national Democrats do in the event that Lieberman is defeated in the primary? Do they support him, or do they back his opponent, Ned Lamont? After all, Lieberman has indicated that he will continue to call himself a Democrat even if the primary voters reject him, and indicates he plans to caucus with the Democrats if reelected as an independent.

And what of Lamont? Would his victory signal a likely rejection of Lieberman in the general election? Probably not, despite his support by KOSsacks and DUmmies and other "Netroots" activists seeking to punish Lieberman for his failure to hew to the liberal line.

Lieberman is being challenged for a fourth Senate term by Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, a multimillionaire owner of a cable television company with little political experience. Lamont has put more than $1.5 million of his own money into his campaign, calling Lieberman a Republican lapdog and accusing him of straying from his Democratic roots.

The strategy has been effective. A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows Lamont gaining ground among likely Democratic voters, although Lieberman maintains high ratings among Republicans and unaffiliated voters. Unaffiliated voters are the state's largest voting bloc, followed by Democrats and Republicans.

So while Lamont may be able to get the nomination by appealing to the Left, it seems unlikely that he could beat Lieberman with the general public.

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Despite my earlier post looking forward to tomorrow's launch of Discovery, there may be another delay, for a more serious reason.

NASA officials delayed until this evening a decision on whether to go forward with the Fourth of July launch of the space shuttle Discovery after a 5-inch crack was found in the insulating foam on the external fuel tank.

NASA managers said they needed more time to evaluate the crack -- about 5 inches by 1/2 inch -- and will meet again at 6:30 p.m. EDT to decide whether to push ahead with the launch or delay it once again.

John Shannon, deputy manager of the space shuttle program, told reporters gathered at Cape Canaveral, Fla., that there were three considerations scientists needed to investigate further. They were: whether the underlying structure is at risk of over-heating, whether ice will form because of the crack in the foam, and whether other foam is in danger of coming off.

Shannon said ice build-up on the tank caused the crack.

"What we think happened yesterday, when we had all of that rain, we had condensation," Shannon said. "It's very cold. It froze.

Not only did the foam crack, but a piece actually fell off the flexible joint and tumbled to the base of the launch pad. While the piece is not large and is less than half the size that NASA considers dangerous if lost during launch, I have to wonder if this raises questions of she integrity of the foam on the entire assembly.

Depending on the decision, we may se a launch tomorrow -- or we could be in for a long delay.

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The problem is that both major candidates have less than 40% of the vote, and the one behind in the count is claiming victory.

Election officials declared Sunday that they could not immediately determine a winner in the tightest presidential race in the country's history. Minutes later, the two front runners each declared victory, setting in motion an electoral crisis.

The contest pitted Felipe Calderón, a conservative former energy minister backed by business leaders, against Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the firebrand leftist former mayor of Mexico City, supported mostly by the poor.

Mr. López Obrador said at a downtown hotel he would respect the decision of the election institute even if he lost by one vote. Yet in the same breath he maintained he was convinced he had won by 500,000 votes. "This result is irreversible," he said.

Appearing before supporters a few minutes later at his party headquarters, Mr. Calderón rattled off the results of several surveys of voters leaving the polls and counts of key districts that showed he had won. "There is not the slightest doubt that we have won the election," he said.

Surveys of polling stations by election officials showed the contest was too close to call, and they urged people to remain calm until official results could be reported. The only thing clear was that a third candidate, Roberto Madrazo, the former governor of Tabasco State, was trailing the two front-runners.

At 11 p.m., with a quarter of the polling places counted, Mr. Calderón led the race with 38 percent the vote, compared to 35 percent for Mr. López Obrador. Mr. Madrazo had 19 percent.

Now my concern is what happens next. The votes will take a couple of days to be counted -- and if the trends hold, Calderón will be the winner. But López Obrador is the former mayor of the capital city, and could easily instigate a crisis by formenting an uprising among the many poor in Mexico City. After all, he has declared the result ireversible -- will he be willing to step back from the precipice if the final count proves him wrong, especially given his appeals to the people in earlier in the election to keep from being removed from the ballot?

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As it prepares to test weapons that threaten the continental United States, the North Korean dictatorship has announced the intention to go nuclear in the event of a conventional preemptive strike on the launch site or nuclear facilities by the United States.

North Korea ratcheted up the rhetoric in its war of words with Washington by promising an "annihilating strike" with its nuclear deterrent should the United States launch an attack, its media said on Monday.

Over the weekend, North Korea said it would bolster its deterrent in response to a U.S. threat, marking the first time it has so specifically mentioned the subject since a crisis began over its suspected plans to test-fire a long-range missile.

"The army and people of the DPRK are now in full preparedness to answer a pre-emptive attack with a relentless annihilating strike and a nuclear war with a mighty nuclear deterrent," its communist party newspaper said on Monday.

If we have knowledge of where theis so-called "nuclear deterrent" is located, we must destroy it immediately. In addition, Kim Jong Il must now be treated as a target for elimination.

And by the way -- thanks, Bill Clinton, for doing such a great job eliminating the North Korean nuclear program a dozen years back.

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Well, that seems to be the position of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Four districts stand out as leading prospects for Republican gains, but none is considered a guaranteed win.

The House Race Hotline, a nonpartisan publication, lists Iowa's 3rd District as the top contender for a Republican pickup. Rep. Leonard L. "Boswell's facing a well-funded, politically experienced opponent this cycle in state Senate President Jeff Lamberti," House Race Hotline Editor Josh Kraushaar said.

"And the district narrowly voted for Bush in the last presidential election. If there's one incumbent that Democrats are worried about, it's probably Leonard Boswell, especially given recent concerns about his health."

Mr. Boswell, 72, recently had a noncancerous tumor removed from his abdomen and has been restricted in his ability to make campaign appearances.

The top three other prospects for Republicans are two seats in conservative Georgia districts and the home of embattled West Virginia Democrat Alan B. Mollohan, who faces accusations of corruption from critics who say he delivered lucrative private contracts to his campaign's financial supporters. Mr. Bush carried the district by 15 percentage points in 2004.

That does not, however, take into account the possibility of lost seats -- including the chance that my own beloved CD22 might fall into Democrat hands if they manage to keep us from replacing the ineligible Tom DeLay.

Republicans say they are also targeting Reps. John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina and Melissa Bean of Illinois. Both districts voted for Mr. Bush by more than 10 points in 2004, but both incumbent Democrats are considered likely winners.

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It looks like a July 4 launch for the space shuttle, after a second day of rain delays.

Flight controllers for the second day in a row Sunday scrubbed the launch of space shuttle Discovery, poised for liftoff beneath murky gray skies as lightning crackled and thunderstorms rumbled. NASA officials said they will try again Tuesday.

"We have scrubbed for the day," shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach told mission control at 1:14 p.m., only a few minutes after mission Commander Steven Lindsey and Discovery's six other crew members had been strapped into their seats. Launch had been scheduled for 3:26 p.m.

Leinbach said he and flight director Steve Stich conferred about noon Sunday after a clearing trend in the weather suddenly reversed, and decided two hours early to scrub the mission to provide extra time for refueling, a difficult and painstaking process. A full load of hydrogen should give the shuttle enough electricity to add a day to its 12-day mission.

Leinbach said the team will attempt to launch Tuesday, at 2:38 p.m., and Wednesday, if necessary. Bad weather is predicted for Monday, but some improvement is expected Tuesday. At no time Sunday were launch chances rated any better than 30 percent.

Should Tuesday bring a successful launch, it will mark the first time in the shuttle's 25-year history that the craft -- in effect an enormous rocket -- launched on Independence Day. John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team, called it "a great gift NASA can give to the nation."

Good luck, Discovery -- Houston is waiting for you.

Posted by: Greg at 03:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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From John Adams' Letter to his wife, Abigail, written the afternoon of July 3, 1776.

The second day of July, 1776, will be memorable Epocha in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp, shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forever.

You will think me transported with enthusiasm; but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of light and glory; I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph, although you and I may rue, which I hope we shall not.

So let us this day remember the work of Lee and Adams, Franklin and Jefferson, and all those patriots whose courage and love of country led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence two days later, on July 4, 1776.

This Post Will Remain At The Top Of the Page In Honor Of The Day. Newer Posts Will Appear In The Space Below.

Posted by: Greg at 05:59 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Unfortunately, the ceremony did not involve dropping strips of bacon in the grave.

Slain terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been buried in a ''secret location'' in Baghdad, Iraq's national security adviser said.

Mouwafak al-Rubaie would not say when the Jordanian-born militant, who was killed June 7 in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad, was buried, or give any specifics on the location of the grave.

The U.S. military confirmed the burial but declined to give details.

''The remains of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi were turned over to the appropriate government of Iraq officials and buried in accordance with Muslim customs and traditions,'' the military said in an e-mailed statement. ''Anything further than that would be addressed by the Iraqi government.''

But the families of the murderous jihadi leader express doubts.

Al-Zarqawi's older brother demanded that his body be transferred to Jordan, and accused the United States of lying.

''Bush took his body to the United States,'' Sayel al-Khalayleh, 50, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in the Jordanian city of Zarqa.

''Even if he is buried in Iraq, we will continue to ask for the body to be transferred and buried in Jordan,'' al-Khalayleh said. ''He should be buried in his own country.''

Jordan's government had refused to let al-Zarqawi's body back for burial because of the triple suicide bombing his al-Qaida in Iraq organization carried out in the capital, Amman, last year.

How about we send these family a bill for the bombs used to take out this murderous beast?

Posted by: Greg at 04:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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