And before it even went into effect.

Hezbollah, you see, refuses to comply with a major precondition for peace.

A meeting of the Lebanese government on the disarming of Hezbollah south of the Litani River was canceled on Sunday following an announcement by the Shi'ite organization that it was not willing to discuss the subject. Hezbollah informed the government of its stance through the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Beri, who serves as a conduit to the organization.

Beri informed Prime Minister Fuad Siniora of Hezbollah's decision, and Siniora decided to cancel the meeting.

This is the first time in weeks that a rift emerged in the official Lebanese stance. Officially, the government of Lebanon denied reports that any dispute has emerged.

Interesting, isn't it, that the government of Lebanon is taking directions from the terrorists? And that the jihadi swine are refusing not only to abide by UN Resolution 1701, but also by the earlier Resolution 1559, which required that the governmetn of Lebanon disarm the UN after Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon the last time the world community demanded that the Jewish state stop defending itself from Hezbollah attacks.

Olmert must go, and his successor must utterly destroy the terrorist bases in southern Lebanon.

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I've never made a secret of the fact that I find "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to be a flawed policy, and the ban on homosexuals serving to be equally flawed. But this argument in support of it is particularly dumb.

Even its supporters acknowledge that don't ask, don't tell isn't perfect.

"It's like what Churchill said about democracy -- it's the worst system possible, except for all the other ones," said Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University who helped craft the policy.

But, Mr. Moskos said, allowing openly homosexual service members would hurt the morale of the military rank and file and make many recruits uncomfortable.

"There are few situations in life where you're forced to live in intimate circumstances not of your choosing," he said.

I cannot help but point out the flaw in Moskos' position on the issue.

First, we have an all volunteer military. Nobody is "forced" to be a part of it. Individuals voluntarily chose to submit themselves to military discipline and military policies.

If anything, Moskos' argument is much more suited to arguing that the desegregation of the military by Harry Truman was unwise and inappropriate. After all, that happened during the days of the military draft, when there wre thousands of American men involuntarily serving and being forced to live in circumstances not of their choosing. Many of them, especially those born and raised in the segregated South, had no desire to live and work as equals with blacks -- much less find themselves under the command authority of those they had been raised to view as "niggers" who were inferior to any white man. Truman ordered desegregation to happen, and made it clear that those who could not accept the policy should be prepared to leave the military. And it worked.

Ending the ban on homosexuals serving in the military would create no more serious problem -- and those who find themselves unable or unwilling to serve with their fellow Americans on an equal basis should be prepared to leave teh military under less than honorable circumstances.

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From the Boston Herald.

Kennedy calls Cheney’s attack on Lamont “ugly and frightening”

Well, Teddy would know ugly and frightening.

Besides -- more people have been killed by Ted Kennedy's driving than by Dick Cheney's comments about Ned Lamont. I'll be concerned about the issue when the numbers change.

By the way, was Kennedy sober when he blamed America for the plot to blow up airliners with liquid bombs?

“Five years after 9-11, it is clear that our misguided policies are making America more hated in the world and making the war on terrorism harder to win.”

Who is making ugly and frightening comments, Senator? Whose words went too far?

Posted by: Greg at 10:59 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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My troll Ken, who claims to love Jews (but only the ones he claims are real Jews -- the anti-Zionist ones) is thrilled that more "Yids" (his word) have been killed by "God's troops" (again, his term for Hezbollah).

Why post this? So that it will be on the record what a pathetic wretch this anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying, dhimmified apologist for terrorism really is.

Oh, yeah -- he also praised Hezbollah for killing Marines in Beirut in 1983 in a note today.

Update: I meant to include this wonderful comment about Hezbollah.

Aquinas' 'baptism of desire' easily includes Moslem warriors who fight antichrists

Gee -- this stuff comes right out the neo-Nazi playbook.

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He opposed Israel and went to help Palestinian children -- only to be murdered by Palestinian terrorists. I wondered if he changed his mind as his life's blood drained from his body through a stab wound in the back?

Angelo Frammartino, a 24 year-old student from Italy who arrived in Israel as a human rights organization activist, was stabbed to death Thursday by an Arab knifeman.

"He believed in what he did and was always ready to help others," a friend described him.

The website of Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported that Frammartino was working for the setting up of a children's supper camp for Palestinians in Jerusalem's Old City, and was supposed to return to Italy on Friday.

The youth was stabbed in the back while walking with four friends in the Sultan Suleiman street in the capital, near the Prahim Gate.

The attacker left the knife at the scene of the crime and fled. Police set up checkpoints in the area and arrested three suspects for suspected involvement.

It is believed that the attack was a nationalistically motivated terror attack, and not an attempted robbery.

This guy opposed any Israeli effort at self-defense, and considered the various terrorist factions to be heroes.

In a letter sent a few months ago to a local newspaper, Angelo expressed his world view: "We must recognize that in a situation with no violence is a luxury in many parts of the world, but we are not seeking to prevent legitimate self defense operations. I never dreamt of condemning the resistance, the blood of the Vietnamese, the blood of nations under colonial occupation, or the blood of Palestinian youths from the first intifada," he said.

Well, they don't call them "useful idiots" for nothing.

H/t Israelly Cool, Jawa Report

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In other words, Hezbollah gets to keep on attacking. Here's hoping that an Israeli analog of Winston Churchill appears on the scene soon.

The draft ceasefire plan agreed to by the United States and France may result in an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, but it will not disarm Hizbullah.

It appears that United Nations efforts are concentrating on halting Israeli military operations throughout Lebanon, but no effort is being made to eliminate the Hizbullah threat. The draft agreement only calls for pushing Hizbullah north of the Litani, not far enough from IsraelÂ’s northern border to place Hizbullah rockets out of range from northern Israeli civilian population centers.

While the draft agreement supports UN Resolution 1559, demanding Hizbullah be disarmed by the Lebanese government, it does not make this a precondition to the implementation of the ceasefire.

The plan calls or the deployment of the current UNIFIL force in southern Lebanon, to be supported by some 10,000 French forces and 15,000 Lebanese army troops. Other countries may also send troops to take part in the force, which will be responsible to prevent Hizbullah attacks into Israel.

Fortunately, it looks like the energence of a leader with serious interests in protecting Israel from the jihadis may happen sooner rather than later.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced a backlash on Friday over a U.N. proposal to end the war in Lebanon, with army officers saying they were held back and right-wing rivals calling for new elections.

"Olmert must go," read a front page headline in Israel's left-leaning Haaretz newspaper.

Opinion polls, conducted before details of the proposed Security Council resolution emerged, showed public support eroding for Olmert, a career politician who lacks the combat credentials of many of his predecessors.

* * *

Leading members of the right-wing opposition Likud party called the resolution a victory for Hizbollah.

"We will work to bring down the government," said Likud's Silvan Shalom. Yuval Steinitz, also of Likud, said the Israeli government should resign and call new elections.

Kadima party officials say they believe that Hezbollah can be disarmed through diplomacy. Unfortunately, we have seen how well such diplomacy has worked over the years. Don't these folks recognize that the diplomatic option only when there are Arab leaders serious about peace -- and that the leadership of Hezbollah does not fall into that category?

H/T Tel-Chai Nation

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I got several interesting phone calls today.

One came from a GOP leader from the area . Another came from an elected official who is not seeking the CD22 nomination. The third was a return of my call to an old friend from years gone by who now works in Washington. All were "off the record" calls, so I cannot tell you who they are. However, I can tell you that the content of those conversations filled me with a bit of hope, and lead me to moderate my opposition to plans to run a write-in for the CD22 seat.

Suffice it to say that I now know that there will be a meeting of CD22 precinct chairs at a central location sometme soon. We will have the opportunity to freely weigh-in on the course taken by the Party, including whether or not we should support any write-in candidate, as well as who we should support if we do. I was told that while my initial suspicions of a plan to bring us a candidate to affirm was more or less correct, a number of individuals (some who were a part of the meeting and some who were not) raised serious objections to that plan and pushed for this more open, grassroots-oriented plan.

This means that I did one of my commenters a grave disservice below because I was operating on obsolete/incomplete/inaccurate information. I'd like to publicly offer my apologies to Kathy for questioning her veracity on this matter.

I'd also like to add that, while I still have reservations about the possibility of any write-in candidate succeeding, I would be more than willing to support any decision that is not a mere rubber-stamping of The Virginian's hand-picking of a successor -- with the exception of a particular elected official from Fort Bend County whose personal, business, and political history contains too many skeletons for me to stomach.

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He is a hero to anti-war, anti-Semitic leftists on both sides of the Atlantic. He accepted bribes from Saddam. And now there seems to be a more explicit terrorist connection.

TERROR suspect Waheed Zaman met controversial MP George Galloway many times, his sister said last night.

Safeena, 24, said of her 23-year-old brother: “He saw it as his duty to stand up for his community and that’s what led him to know George Galloway. He has a lot of respect for him and has met him many times.”

A spokesman for MP Galloway, above, said: “Waheed Zaman is not a name that George is familiar with. He is not known to him on a personal level.”

There is no suggestion Galloway is an associate of Zaman.

Given GallowayÂ’s track record, I believe Safeeen Zaman.

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The anti-American terrorist shills at the Council for American-Islamic Relations are up in arms at the President for correctly describing the terrorists who planned to blow planes out of the sky as part of their global jihad.

A Muslim group criticized President Bush for saying that America is "at war with Islamic fascists" after U.K. authorities arrested 24 British citizens of Pakistani origin in an attempt to bomb numerous flights to the U.S. Thursday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the president's "hot button" terminology puts the name of Islam and the Muslim community at risk.

Bush called the attempted terrorist attack "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, believes Bush should not even mention Islam when referring to the would-be terrorists.

"We have to isolate these individuals because there is nothing in the Koran or the Islamic faith that encourages people to be cruel or to be vicious or to be criminal," Awad said. "Muslims world wide know that for sure."

What a load of shit. Most terrorists in the world today are Muslims, operating with an explicitly Islamic agenda based in the Quran.

WhatÂ’s more, the group wants the media to withhold information and lie to the American people about the nature of the terrorist threat.

In addition to limiting the president's comments, CAIR wants the U.S. media to disassociate Islam with terrorists "to make sure we don't start a religious war against Islam and Muslims." The group says American reporters should adopt the policies of the British media when identifying suspected terrorists.

Most British media will not identify terrorists as "Muslim," "Islamic" or "Islamists" even when physical evidence shows they were motivated by beliefs based on Islamic teachings or writings.

In other words, they want the American people to be kept in the dark regarding the true nature of our enemy.

And letÂ’s not forget this demand.

"We also urge local law enforcement agencies to coordinate with Muslim leaders to deter hate crimes," Ahmed said.

Sounds good to me. Now if the Muslim leaders of the United States would only cooperate with law enforcement in order to stop their jihadi followers from committing hate crimes against the rest of us, the situation would be much better. After all, hate crimes against Muslims (as opposed to speech protected under the First Amendment) are very rare and normally not violent – and have often been found to be hoaxes perpetrated by Muslims themselves. On the other hand, Muslims are killing people.

But I will concede this point.

"It is also important that our fellow Americans understand that Muslims are law-abiding citizens who should not be targeted or singled out because of their faith or national origin."

On the other hand, tracking chips like those placed in pets might be useful, just so we can keep track of the violent bad seed in the Muslim community.

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Seems like this is the constant complaint of the Muslim community.

``My first thought when I heard about this was that they are definitely going to blame us again," said Sima Mukhter, 27, a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin who works in a McDonald's restaurant on Edgeware Road. ``They always blame us because of what happened in the past."

We’re so sorry, Sima – how could we possibly think Muslims are responsible for this horrific plot?

Umir Hussain, 24, London E14
Muhammed Usman Saddique, 24, London E17
Waheed Zaman, 22, London E17
Assan Abdullah Khan, 22, London E17
Waseem Kayani, 28, High Wycombe
Waheed Arafat Khan, 24, London E17
Cossor Ali, 24, London E17
Tayib Rauf, 21, Birmingham
Ibrahim Savant, 26, London E17
Osman Adam Khatib, 20, London E17
Shamin Mohammed Uddin, 36, Stoke Newington
Amin Asmin Tariq, 23, London E17
Shazad Khuram Ali, 27, High Wycombe
Tanvir Hussain, 24, London E10
Umar Islam, 28, (born Brian Young) High Wycombe
Assad Sarwar, 25, High Wycombe
Abdullah Ali, 26, London E17
Abdul Muneem Patel, 17, London E5
Nabeel Hussain, 21, Waltham Forest

I wonder what common link these folks do have, Ms. Mukhter?

(H/T Malkin)

Posted by: Greg at 01:40 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Seems like this is the constant complaint of the Muslim community.

``My first thought when I heard about this was that they are definitely going to blame us again," said Sima Mukhter, 27, a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin who works in a McDonald's restaurant on Edgeware Road. ``They always blame us because of what happened in the past."

We’re so sorry, Sima – how could we possibly think Muslims are responsible for this horrific plot?

Umir Hussain, 24, London E14
Muhammed Usman Saddique, 24, London E17
Waheed Zaman, 22, London E17
Assan Abdullah Khan, 22, London E17
Waseem Kayani, 28, High Wycombe
Waheed Arafat Khan, 24, London E17
Cossor Ali, 24, London E17
Tayib Rauf, 21, Birmingham
Ibrahim Savant, 26, London E17
Osman Adam Khatib, 20, London E17
Shamin Mohammed Uddin, 36, Stoke Newington
Amin Asmin Tariq, 23, London E17
Shazad Khuram Ali, 27, High Wycombe
Tanvir Hussain, 24, London E10
Umar Islam, 28, (born Brian Young) High Wycombe
Assad Sarwar, 25, High Wycombe
Abdullah Ali, 26, London E17
Abdul Muneem Patel, 17, London E5
Nabeel Hussain, 21, Waltham Forest

I wonder what common link these folks do have, Ms. Mukhter?

(H/T Malkin)

Posted by: Greg at 01:40 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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After all, which political party holds the reins of power in the area?

A report released yesterday describes Orleans Parish prisoners trapped in flooded cells, deprived of food and water for days, and calls the scene at the jail ``some of the worst horrors of Hurricane Katrina."

The American Civil Liberties Union compiled the report through interviews with prisoners, Orleans Parish Prison deputies and staff and through legal and public documents.

``Prisoners went days without food, water, and ventilation, and deputies admit that they received no emergency training and were entirely unaware of any evacuation plan," the ACLU report said. ``Even some prison guards were left locked in at their posts to fend for themselves, unable to provide assistance to prisoners in need."

Other deputies abandoned prisoners in locked cells, where some were standing in sewage-tainted water up to their chests, according to the report.
Tom Jawetz, litigation fellow for the ACLU's National Prison Project, said the sheriff's office was ``completely unprepared for the storm."

Interestingly enough, the ACLU neglected to note that abiding by the law would have spared all of these victims from the horrors they suffered.

There is also this small note.

``The Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals did more for its 263 stray pets than the sheriff did for the more than 6,500 men, women, and children left in his care," Jawetz said.

Might I suggest that the 263 stray pets are of more value to our society than those criminals who have shown themselves unable to conform to the basic norms of society?

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Kinky thinks so.

Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman on Thursday asked Travis County prosecutors to investigate Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, accusing her of possibly misusing state employees to help her campaign.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle responded by distributing to reporters his office's policy manual, which states that criminal complaints filed by one candidate against another will not be investigated until after the election.

"It's typical mudslinging politics. So much for Kinky not being a typical mudslinging politician," Strayhorn spokesman Mark Sanders said, referring to the complaint.

Friedman filed his complaint based on reports in the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News that Strayhorn's state staff was preparing briefing papers for her to use even when she was making political appearances.

Strayhorn's campaign has defended the use of state employees, saying she is frequently engaged to discuss state business no matter where she is.

So Strayhorn is using state employees for campaign purposes, but Ronnie Earle is not willing to investigate it now. I suppose if she had the GOP nomination it would be different.

Maybe a few of us "just plain folks" should get a copy of Kinky's complaint and file it ourselves, just to ensure that the ciminal activities of "One Tough Grandma" get investigated and prosecuted in a timely fashion by the partisan hack prosecutor in Austin.

Posted by: Greg at 11:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The Washington Post has a great piece on how the terrorists were caught before they could mount their "mega-9/11" attack.

It all began with a tip: In the aftermath of the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings on London's transit system, British authorities received a call from a worried member of the Muslim community, reporting general suspicions about an acquaintance.

From that vague but vital piece of information, according to a senior European intelligence official, British authorities opened the investigation into what they said turned out to be a well-coordinated and long-planned plot to bomb multiple transatlantic flights heading toward the United States -- an assault designed to rival the scope and lethality of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings.

By late 2005, the probe had expanded to involve several hundred investigators on three continents. They kept dozens of suspects under close surveillance for months, even as some of the plotters traveled between Britain and Pakistan to raise money, find recruits and refine their scheme, according to interviews with U.S. and European counterterrorism officials.

Precise details of the plot -- how many planes, their destinations and the date -- remain unknown. The shape of the operation changed regularly as the would-be bombers considered which transatlantic flights to target and prepared for a practice run, which was expected to take place in the next few days, U.S. law enforcement officials said.

Investigators eventually pieced together enough information from a blizzard of stakeouts, tips and wiretaps to make clear that something big was in the works, and that the plotters' preparations were nearing an end.

"It's not like three weeks ago all of a sudden MI5 knew about this plot and went to work," added a U.S. law enforcement official, speaking of the British security service. "They'd had a concern about these guys for some time -- for months. Details started to emerge, and it became clear over the last couple weeks the nature of the threat and the individuals," said the official, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity.

I encourage you to read it all -- and to note that the tip that started teh investigation rolling came from within the Muslim community. I'd love to know how many such tips are received by authorities, and how many of them turn out to be valid.

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Let's look at a couple of quotes from "mainstream Democrats" on yesterday's actions to prevent a "mega-9/11" attack.

"Five years after 9-11, it is clear that our misguided policies are making America more hated in the world and making the war on terrorism harder to win," Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts said.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Bush and Congress needed to change course in Iraq and ensure Americans are protected around the world.

"The Iraq war has diverted our focus and more than $300 billion in resources from the war on terrorism and has created a rallying cry for international terrorists," Reid said.

* * *

"This event exposes the misleading myth that we are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here. In fact, the war in Iraq has become a dangerous distraction and a profound drain on our financial and military resources," Kerry said.

The first response? Attack Bush and seek to make political capital by denigrating the successful effort to stop the plot.

And let's not even get into quotes from the "netroots" Democrats who are claiming ascendancy.

You get the KOSsacks.

Today, we can see again what Britain gets for being a staunch ally of Bush. They get home-grown terrorists, bombings, and more terrorist plots.

You have to wonder what exactly are the benefits of hitching yourself to George W. It's like when you consider making an investment or major purchase. You look at the pros and the cons. We all know what the cons are: your people become a target for terrorists, and you breed your own terrorist cells.

So, what are the benefits? Ummmmm, well, uhhhh, okay not many. Blair has sold out his people so he can cozy up on Bush's lap. Tony is like any other man in power, he wants to more power himself, and be closer to those who have even more power.

And the DUmmies.

“Exactly—why now? Why is this major disruption being discussed NOW. What else is going on? This sounds lke another Bush diversion tactic...Get the media to discuss terror, because there is something else that they don't want us discussing. Bait & Switch technique.”

Heck, I even got a commenter here implicitly espousing a conspiracy theory for political purposes, arguing that the Bush Administration was manipulating national security for political purposes.

Curious that we're privvy to so much information. I wonder what's
REALLY goinbg on: what piece of news or bit of information is out there
that "they" want to divert us away from?

But the New York Times lives in a diffrent world -- which is the only way we can explain today's editorial.

Here is what we want to do in the wake of the arrests in Britain. We want to understand as much as possible about what terrorists were planning. To talk about airport security and how to make it better. To celebrate what worked in the British investigation and discuss how to push these efforts farther. It would be a blessed moment in modern American history if we could do that without turning this into a political game plan.

Fair enough -- except that the editorial was an attack on comments made by Dick Cheney on Wednesday and and others made by Joe Lieberman regarding ned lamon'ts weakness on terrorism issues.

I guess that only those who the editors oppose can be guilty of making tawdry political use of the terrorism issue -- it is fair comments when they agree with the comments.

But one Republican dared to pierce the Times' veil of hypocrisy.

A senior White House official on Air Force One, speaking on the condition of anonymity, dismissed the notion that there was anything wrong with these kinds of issues being mixed up in a political campaign.

“The issue is going to be discussed in the fall,” this official said. “Are you saying if the Democrats talk about the war, we shouldn’t? We will talk about the war, and we will talk about the consequences of the policies advocated by the Democrats.”

After all, the GOP has kept America safe since 9/11 -- despite the political calculations and games of the Democrats, who wouldn't mind a couple of successful terrorist attacks on American soil if it would help them take back Congress.

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This sounds like a project that only my troll Ken could love -- eliminating the Jews entirely from the Bible.

Adolf Hitler's deranged racist hatred against the Jews had no boundaries. In his war against the Jews Hitler instructed a group of German theologians to rewrite the Bible and the New Testament, in a bid to remove all mention of the Jews.

The German newspaper, Bilt Zeitung has revealed that in 1939 a group of Protestant theologians, loyal to the Nazi regime, established an institution for the "cleansing of Judaism from Christianity."

The institution's official purpose was to cleanse the Protestant Church of all ceremonies with non-Aryan influences, and to compile alternative scriptures derived from the Nazi ideology and spirit of the Church.

Church staff worked incessantly, conducting comprehensive surveys and publishing a large number of documents that imbued Christianity with Nazi commentary.

One of these publications, the German Book of Faith, included the rewriting of the 10 commandments in the spirit of Nazi ethics, and also added two more commandments:

Respect God and depend on him entirely; maintain silence before God; refrain from any form of hypocrisy; hold sacred thy body and life;
hold sacred goodness and respect; hold sacred truth and loyalty; honor thy mother and thy father; help thy children and become a role model; maintain purity of blood and sanctity of marriage; much wisdom; always be prepared to help and forgive; respect thy Fuhrer; serve in joy thy people through labor and sacrifice – this is what God demands of us."

Sick, disgusting, repulsive stuff -- but right up the alley of most of the anti-Semitic "Christians" who support Hamas, Hezbollah, and other genocidal jihadi out to erase israel from the map. Their beliefs don't really differ from those of the "Christians" who cooperated with Hitler in combatting "eternal Jewish enemy".

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We just need The Virginian to go away -- and stay out of the process of cleaning up the mess he has left in his wake. But the Chronicle doesn't see it that way.

The former congressman, who engineered a Republican majority in the Texas House, probably has reduced the number of U.S. House seats Democrats need to regain a majority. He owes residents of District 22 a fuller explanation of his behavior.

Whatever his reasons for cutting and running, Tom DeLay will never again be seen in the same light by either friends or foes. As a constituent labeled DeLay in a letter to the Chronicle, it seems "The Hammer" has become "The Quitter."

Really, it does not matter. We have been screwed, blued and tattooed by Tom Delay over the last several months Any explanation is irrelevant and unproductive -- and no more welcome than his involvement is selecting his successor.

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We voted for a constitutional amendment on spending and passed it, seeking to control government spending. But the only folks with the standing to enforce it are the folks only folks who can break it -- meaning that the amendment is null-and-void as far as the courts in Texas are concerned, because the people have no remedy for its violation.

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Houston taxpayer group against legislative leaders over the level of state spending.

Visiting state District Judge Bill Bender of Seguin ruled Monday that Citizens Lowering Our Unfair Taxes didn't have standing to sue the Legislative Budget Board over the state's constitutional spending cap, which limits the state budget from growing more than the Texas economy.

* * *

Tom Kelley, a spokesman for Attorney General Greg Abbott, who defended the legislative leaders, said the judge "properly ruled that these issues fall strictly within the province of the Texas Legislature and the Legislative Budget Board."

Now the problem is that the Legislative budget Board has allowed for growth beyond what the amendment permits -- and the legislature has gone along iwth it, rahter than making the tough decisons to rein -in spending.

Clout's Edd Hendee, who also hosts the morning show on KSWV radio, notes the outrageous nature of this decision.

Edd Hendee, CLOUT's executive director, said the group will file an appeal with the Third Court of Appeals in Austin.

"If a taxpayer doesn't have standing in a courthouse, I question who does," he said.

After all, those violating the Constitution are unlikely to take legal action to force their complaince with the mandate -- but they have been held to be the only folks with standing to do so.

If you want to read more, Lone Star Times has coverage of the "hearing" -- at which the judge heard no evidence.

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Bravo to the Brits for breaking up this plot.

British authorities said today they had disrupted a "major terrorist plot" to blow up passenger flights between the United Kingdom and the United States, prompting a security clampdown at British and U.S. international airports and a cascade of delays in trans-Atlantic flights generally.

London's Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said 21 people had been arrested in London and in Birmingham England after a months-long investigation into what he said was a plan for "mass murder on an unimaginable scale." He did not say why the announcement was made today.

That seems like a bit of hyperbole to me -- after all, we can all imagine mass murder on a pretty big scale after 9/11. The plot here seems to have involved bringing down AT LEAST 10 aircraft, and as many as 50 people may have been involved.

The result has already been a disruption of trans-Atlantic air service that is only a fraction of what we would have seen if the plot had succeeded.

U.S. officials raised the "threat level" for air transport to red, the highest alert.

Passengers at Dulles airport in Washington and New York's John F. Kennedy Airport were told to expect intensified searches, considerable delays and new restrictions on carry-on items, with particular attention to liquids of all types, especially liquids with a gel-like consistency.

Medicines and baby formula was permitted but at airports in Britain, passengers were being asked to taste these liquids in the presence of security guards.

American Airlines canceled six Thursday flights between the United States and London to accommodate the delays at Heathrow airport, spokesman John Hotard told wire services.

American held three London-bound morning flights, one each from Chicago, Boston and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. To balance those cancellations, the airline also dropped three afternoon or evening flights scheduled to travel from London to those U.S. cities, Hotard said.

The British response has been even more stringent.

London's Heathrow airport, the busiest airport in Europe, was closed to most European flights Thursday morning after officials raised Britain's national security alert to its highest level -- suggesting a terrorist attack may imminent. Huge crowds formed at security barriers.

Homeland Security has responded by banning even more common items from aircraft.

" Due to the nature of the threat revealed by this investigation, we are prohibiting any liquids, including beverages, hair gels, and lotions from being carried on the airplane. This determination will be constantly evaluated and updated when circumstances warrant. These changes will take effect at 4:00 AM local time across the country. Travelers should also anticipate additional security measures within the airport and at screening checkpoints.

"These measures will continue to assure that our aviation system remains safe and secure. Travelers should go about their plans confidently, while maintaining vigilance in their surroundings and exercising patience with screening and security officials.

It appears that Muslims are still permitted on aircraft, however, despite their known connection with terrorist plots -- including this one.

More At Malkin, Hot Air, Jawa Report, Protein Wisdom, Captain's Quarters, Slapstick Politics, Sister Toldjah, Immigration Blog, Macsmind, Wizbang, Pajamas Media, It Shines For All

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That certainly seems to be the conclusion being drawn by law enforcement in this case.

Investigators in southeast Ohio said they were working to unravel how two Michigan men charged with supporting terrorism came to have airplane passenger lists and airport security information.

Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, 20, and Ali Houssaiky, 20, both of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, were being held at the Washington County jail on $200,000 bond each, which could be raised at a Thursday afternoon court hearing. Each was charged Wednesday with money laundering in support of terrorism.

Deputies stopped the two on a traffic violation Tuesday and found the flight documents along with $11,000 cash and 12 phones in their car, Sheriff Larry Mincks said.

It wasn't clear what significance the airline information might have. Assistant County Prosecutor Susan Vessels declined to comment on whether the manifests were for upcoming flights or those that already had flown. She also would not give the origin or destination of the flight or flights.

FBI spokesman Mike Brooks in Cincinnati said his office was investigating.

The pair have bought over 600 phones in recent months, phones just like thos being used in Iraq and other parts of the world by Cindy Sheehan's freedom fighters terrorists.

Washington County Sheriff Larry Mincks said initially the men lied about their reasons for purchasing the phones, which led to the charges.

Abulhassan and Houssaiky are expected to appear for an arraignment this morning in Marietta Municipal Court.

“Eventually they indicated they would sell the chips inside the phones to another individual in the Dearborn, Mich., area for $5 more than they pay for the phone,” Mincks said.

Maj. John Winstanley said the sheriffÂ’s office has received notices from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warning individuals are purchasing the phones for terror related activity.

“It’s their belief that they send these TracFones overseas, and they use (the chips) against the troops, detonating bombs,” Winstanley said.

And if Dearborn, Michigan rings a bell with you, it might have something to do with recent rallies over teh war in lebanon -- rallies in favor of Hezbollah, a group with a history of killing Americans.

Mincks said Dearborn has a large Lebanese population and has been the site of pro-Hezballoh rallies recently. He said the department was not profiling, but admitted that because of the suspects’ descent the incident “caused a bit of a stir.”

Of course we wouldn't want to profile folks who look like terrorists, believe like terrorists, and speak out in support of terrorists, even if they are buying items that are used by terrorists. After all, we all know that Islam is a religion of peace, right, no matter what percentage of the world's terrorist acts are conducted by Muslims acting in the name of Islam. There is certainly no need to look at Muslim groups or houses of worship -- and certainly not to give them special scrutiny. We need to pay every other group the exact amount of attention.

After all, we all know that the cops always closely scrutinize the membership of Curves whenever there is a serial rapist, just to avoid concerns about profiling.

(H/T Schlussel, Malkin)

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Thanks for the correction on the title, zalame!

Well, their Islamo-Nazi leader has talked about wiping out the Jews. Why should we be surprised that he has deployed troops to help.

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard have been found among Hizbollah guerrillas slain by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, Israel's Channel 10 television reported on Wednesday citing diplomatic sources.

It said the Iranians were identified by documents found on their bodies, but gave no further details on how many were discovered or when. Neither the Israeli military nor Hizbollah representatives in Beirut had immediate comment on the report.

Iran, like fellow Hizbollah patron Syria, insists its support for the Shi'ite guerrilla group is purely moral.

Israel says many of the rockets being fired against its civilian and military targets are Iranian made, and that Hizbollah fighters taking on its forces trained in Iran. Washington also accuses Tehran of actively funding Hizbollah.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards are traditionally very close to fellow Shi'ite Muslims in Hizbollah and were deployed in south Lebanon in the 1980s.

But Israel is still the bad guy, according to the international community.

(H/T Captain's Quarters)

Posted by: Greg at 03:16 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Greg, when you're updating the blacklist, do not, under any
circumstances, blacklist an URL containing square brackets, these
things: []



If you do that, you will break comments for the whole of mu.nu.  Which is a bad thing.

Until we can get everyone onto the new comment system (which doesn't suffer from this problem), please be very careful with this.  The spammers are deliberately putting poisoned URLs in the spam to cause this sort of problem.

P.S. Hey, nice comments!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wed Aug 9 15:46:39 2006 (FRalS)

2 you probably mean: killed in Lebanon, right?
And yes, I wonder why the Israelis are not showing pictures of their documents, that could have been a huge PR win.

Posted by: zalame at Wed Aug 9 16:24:46 2006 (59Iel)

3 Thanks for th correction.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Wed Aug 9 16:25:30 2006 (59Iel)

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An American sailor with a distinctly Jewish name is in the brig accused of spying -- for Russia.

A sailor facing espionage and desertion charges has been held at a Norfolk, Virginia, brig since March, the U.S. Navy said Wednesday.

Ariel Weinmann, 21, is suspected of having worked on behalf of Russia, said military sources close to the case.

He was likely to have had access to technical manuals and other material on submarine systems, Navy sources said. No one else in the Navy is suspected of having worked with Weinmann, they said.

The fire control technician third class, assigned to the submarine USS Albuquerque, attempted on three occasions to pass classified information to foreign agents, the charges against him state.

Those incidents occurred in March 2005 in Bahrain; October 2005 in Vienna, Austria; and March 2006 in Mexico City, Mexico, according to the charges.

In addition to the espionage allegations, Weinmann also faces desertion charges, which could result in the death penalty. He is accused of deserting in July 2005 during his first tour of duty.

A customs agent took Weinmann into custody March 26 at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport when he tried to re-enter the United States.

The case is the second involving allegations of military spying by Russia. The Defense Department has said it suspects Russia collected information about American intelligence in Iraq from U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, in 2003.

That didn't stop the Arab press from reporting the story very differently, according to the Jerusalem Post.

A US Navy sailor, Ariel J. Weinmann, is suspected of spying for Israel and has been held in prison for four months, according to an article published Monday in the Saudi daily Al-Watan. It reported that Weinmann is being held at a military base in Virginia on suspicion of espionage and desertion.

According to the navy, Weinmann was apprehended on March 26 "after it was learned that he had been listed as a deserter by his command." Though initial information released by the navy makes no mention of it, Al-Watan reported that he was returning from an undisclosed "foreign country." American sources close to the Defense Department told Al-Watan that Israel was the country in question.

Given the lack of a free press in Saudi Arabia, it is clear that this was an attempt at misinformation and propaganda to drive a wedge between the US and Israel at a crucial time for both nations. Are we really sure that the Saudis are partners in the war on terrorism -- or are they out to see to it that the terrorists succeed in eliminating Israel -- and her Jews -- from the face of the earth?

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Now such a statement could have been made at any time during the DeLay saga -- after all, we chairs were told it was our process to direct, right up until the point that the state GOP leadership and the local county chairs realized that there was a substantial bloc that actually wanted to go a direction other than the hierarchy wanted. Now it appears that the plan is to select a write-in candidate without the involvement of the real grass-roots of the party, and then tell us that we must support the candidate or face the wrath of that leadership for our disloyalty.

State and local Republican Party officials were scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. today in an attempt to find a write-in candidate to serve as the partyÂ’s last-ditch hope to hang on to Congressional District 22.

Party insiders named Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace as the two candidates whose names most likely will be discussed at todayÂ’s meeting.

* * *

Local party officials said Texas GOP Chairman Tina Benkiser has called a meeting of local party leaders – presumably State Republican Executive Committee members – at an undisclosed area location at 11 a.m.

Late Tuesday afternoon Benkiser issued a statement saying “Republicans are working together with grassroots leadership in the district to get behind and vigorously support one candidate, whether he or she is on the ballot or not.”

“We need to have a meeting of the leadership and get people together and come out with who we’re willing to support,” Kathy Haigler, a Harris County GOP precinct chair and SREC member. “You keep the door locked until you come out with one name.”

* * *

Haigler said party leaders may discuss potential write-in candidates this morning, then quickly call a meeting of precinct chairs within CD-22 – which encompasses portions of Fort Bend, Harris, Galveston and Brazoria counties.

It’s possible the precinct chairs would be asked to vote for one candidate, “and you tell anyone else if they run” as a write-in, “they’ll be blackballed forever” in future races by the Republican Party, Haigler said. “They’re only going to hurt the party by spitting in the wind.”

I'll say it right now -- any individual involved in making such a selection or offering such an ultimatum had better be prepared to be blackballed forever by the grass-roots. I've spoken to a number of folks this evening who are deeply offended at being cut out of the process by the leadership while being expected to act as a rubber-stamp for their selection.

And I say this especially because of the very wise observation of Sheryl Berg.

Sheryl Berg, Harris County GOP Senate District 11 chair, said she believes the choice for a potential write-in candidate is between Wallace and Sekula-Gibbs.

However, she added, GOP Chairman Benkiser may not “advocate for either one of them” because neither was likely to have been chosen by the four-person District Executive Committee that would have selected DeLay’s replacement had the courts allowed it. That committee’s members were to have been chosen by CD-22 precinct chairs in each of the four counties.

“At the end of the day,” Berg said of the Republican leadership, “I think they’re going to choose not to come up with one person.”

Let me make it clear -- it is not Tina Benkiser's place to advocate for anyone in this process. And as for the fact that neither Wallace nor Sekula-Gibbs (or Tim Turner, who has also indicated he would consider a write-in bid) were unlikely to be selected by the CD22 District Executive Committee, let me point out that the leading candidate has indicated his disinterest in giving up his seat in the legislature to make this long-shot bid, as have several other individuals. Only two have been willing to stand up and offer themselves as sacrificial lambs -- and it seems that the same folks who will not consider candidates who actually stepped-up to the plate earlier in the process appear to be out recruiting others to run, despite the fact they also would not have been selected by the DEC.

I'll state my position again for those who have not heard my words before -- absent the sudden emergence of a candidate who would overwhelm Lampson as a write-in -- which I believe would require selecting someone of the stature of former president George H. W. Bush, given the obstacles to winning such a race -- I believe the only reasonable choice is to discourage write-in candidates and throw our support behind Libertarian Bob Smither, whose name will at least appear on the ballot.

UPDATE -- Bob Dunn offers an additional revelation on today's meeting.

Texas Republican Party Chairman Tina Benkiser, resigned congressman Tom DeLay and local members of the state GOP executive committee met Wednesday to lay plans for bringing the party behind a single write-in candidate to run for the congressional seat DeLay just vacated.

What the hell is the supposedly-a-Virginian former congressman doing in the meeting to select my party's candidate here in Texas after he abandoned the job? I'm sorry -- any involvement by Tom DeLay inescapably corrupts the process and the resulting candidate. Anyone who stayed in that room once DeLay arrived is so tainted by his presence that they need to resign whatever position they currently hold and retire from politics due to a profound lack of judgement. And as for DeLay himself, he just needs to take his happy ass back to Virginia and stay there. We've seen what his help has done for us.

Then there is this little gem from Tina Benkiser.

Attendees at the Wednesday meeting with DeLay, Benkiser and members of the SREC said DeLay did not mention any specific candidate for his former seat in Congress.

“He’s expecting there to be a write-in candidate, but he wants the party to make that decision,” one attendee said. “He’s going to stand behind the party.”

* * *

“Obviously, I have talked with Congressman DeLay,” Benkiser said. “This race is not about him. This race is about giving voters a choice.”

She was not specific about how a single candidate will gain the party’s favor in serving as the write-in challenger to Lampson and Smither. She said holding a meeting with the precinct chairs from within CD-22 “is certainly an option.”

Listen, bitch you arrogant fool, you have just shown how far you will go to corrupt the process in order to get the candidate of your choice. That meeting with the elected representatives of the grass-roots is merely "an option" is a sign that you lack the integrity to hold your office. I regret having ever supported you for your position. Resign. Now.

And let me also say that I have difficulty imagining any situation which would allow me to support the candidate produced by this process.

Posted by: Greg at 12:47 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Former Democrat Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman was defeated in yesterday's Democrat primary.

Ned Lamont, a Connecticut millionaire whose candidacy for the United States Senate soared from nowhere on a fierce antiwar message, won a narrow victory in the Democratic primary last night over the incumbent, Joseph I. Lieberman.

Senator Lieberman, a national party leader and the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, conceded defeat in a phone call to Mr. Lamont shortly before 11 p.m. But then, in a combative speech to supporters in Hartford that was carried live on television news, the senator declared that he was not dropping out of the race, but would instead run for re-election as an independent this fall.

“As I see it, in this campaign, we’ve just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead — but in the second half, our team, Team Connecticut, is going to surge forward to victory in November,” Mr. Lieberman told cheering supporters.

The senator said he was staying in the race because Mr. Lamont had run a primary campaign of “insults” and “partisan polarizing” that relentlessly blamed Mr. Lieberman for President Bush’s wartime policies, which the senator has supported and defended but also criticized at various points.

“For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot, I will not let this result stand,” Mr. Lieberman said of the Lamont victory.

Stand strong, Senator -- your party may have rejecdted you, but I believe an overwhelming majority of your fellow Americans support you as a man of integrity and decency.

By the way, such purges are common in the Democrat party. the far left became ascendant by adopting an America Last platform and running George McGovern in 1972. And back in the 1920s, former national candidate Oscar Underwood was purged from his position as Senator from Alabama for opposing the Klan. This is simply one more attack upon the decent center by the extreme elements of a party that puts ideology over America.

Posted by: Greg at 11:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Aside from a few pacifists, terror supporters, and other folks who have never met a suicide-jihadi they didn't like, Israelis are strongly behind the war in Lebanon which was forced upon them by Hezbollah.

As IsraelÂ’s war with Hezbollah finishes a fourth difficult week, domestic criticism of its prosecution is growing. Yet there is a paradoxical effect as well: the harder the war has been, the more the public wants it to proceed.

The criticism is not that the war is going on, but that it is going poorly. The public wants the army to hit Hezbollah harder, so it will not threaten Israel again.

And while Israelis are upset with how Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has run the war, they seem to agree with what he told aides this week — that given the weaponry and competence of Hezbollah and the damage already done to Israel, “I thank God the confrontation came now, because with every year their arsenal would have grown.”

Abroad, Israel is criticized for having overreacted and for causing disproportionate damage to Lebanon and its civilian population and even for indiscriminate bombing. But within Israel, the sense is nearly universal that unlike its invasion of Lebanon in 1982, this war is a matter of survival, not choice, and its legitimacy is unquestioned.

Even the bulk of the Israeli left feels that way. There is no real peace camp in Israel right now, says Yariv Oppenheimer, the secretary general of Peace Now, which has pressed hard for a deal with the Palestinians and on June 22, before this Lebanon war, called for a halt to air raids over the Gaza Strip. “We’re a left-wing Zionist movement, and we believe that Israel has the legitimate right to defend itself,” Mr. Oppenheimer said. “We’re not pacifists. Unlike in Gaza or the West Bank, Israel isn’t occupying Lebanese territory or trying to control the lives of Lebanese. The only occupier there is Hezbollah, and Israel is trying to defend itself.”

In the daily newspaper Haaretz, a cartoon satirized the group, showing a Peace Now advocate, balding with a ponytail, in a coffee shop saying, “It won’t end until we wipe Beirut off the map.”

When even the peace groups are supporting the war, it becomes clear how deep the support runs -- and that even those who object to war in virtually every situation recognize that this si a fight for Israel's survival against jihadis who will be satisfied with nothing less than genocide.

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This was a bit much. It harmed the dignity of the court and was insensitive as to the purpose at hand.

A state panel has disciplined a judge who ordered cheers in court for the Super Bowl-bound Seattle Seahawks before issuing a manslaughter sentence.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Beverly Grant asked about 100 people in court to say "Go Seahawks" before taking their seats on Feb. 3. Dissatisfied with the low volume of the response, she repeated the request.

That same day, Grant sentenced Steve Keo Teang to 13 1/2 years for manslaughter in the 2005 shooting death of Tino Patricelli, 28.

The Seahawks played in the Super Bowl that weekend. Patricelli's stepmother said she was offended in part because the game fell on the anniversary of her stepson's death.

Grant, who was appointed to the bench in 2003, apologized the following Monday. She eventually filed the formal conduct complaint against herself.

"Although my intentions were to defuse the courtroom situation, I realize now the inappropriateness of my opening comments," Grant told the commission.

The state Commission on Judicial Conduct gave the judge an admonishment, the panel's lowest-ranking punishment. An admonishment is a written reprimand.

At least the judge recognized teh error of her ways and had the decency to file her own misconduct complaint against herself.

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Or at least has been decisively rejected by the voters of her district for the second time in the last three elections.

A lawyer and former DeKalb County commissioner unseated Cynthia McKinney, the controversial incumbent congresswoman, on Tuesday night in a runoff election for the Democratic nomination in GeorgiaÂ’s Fourth Congressional District.

The winner, Henry C. Johnson Jr., must still defeat the Republican candidate, Catherine Davis, in November. But as the Democratic nominee in what has historically been considered a safely Democratic seat, he is presumed to already be on his way to Washington. Mr. Johnson led Ms. McKinney by 17 percentage points, winning 58 percent of the vote.

Mr. Johnson, 51, a trial lawyer in Decatur, Ga., said watching the returns “was kind of like waiting for a jury to come back.”

“I was glad to finally get to the end of the campaign,” he said.

At her campaign headquarters, Ms. McKinney began her concession speech by singing along to the song “Dear Mr. President” by the pop artist Pink. “I wanted you to hear this song, which says so much about why this election in Georgia was so important,” she said.

“Not only do we want our country back, we want our party back,” she said in a speech that criticized President Bush, the news media and electronic voting machines. She concluded, “I wish the new representative of the Fourth Congressional District well.”

This woman is whacked and on crack. It is nice that the voters of her district have had the sense to cry out "Enough!"

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Guess he needed to give it to us up the @$$ one more time before he departs the scene.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay will support a write-in candidate for his old seat, his daughter said today, one day after the state Republican Party lost its legal battle to replace him on the November ballot.

In a statement, DeLay said he would withdraw his name from the ballot. Since state law does not allow a party to replace an official nominee who withdraws from the race, no Republican candidate will be on the ballot.

Dani DeLay Ferro sent the Chronicle an e-mail confirming her father's intentions to support a write-in candidate.

"I will take the actions necessary to remove my name from the Texas ballot," DeLay said in his statement. "To do anything else would be hypocrisy."

"I strongly encourage the Republican Party to take any and all actions necessary to give Texas voters an up-or-down choice this fall between two major party candidates," DeLay said.

DeLay maintains that when he resigned from the House this June that he became a resident of Virginia to establish his new business.

"This decision was and is irrevocable, which I made clear from Day One," he said. "My action was taken in accordance with Texas law, federal precedent and common sense. I felt it was my duty to allow Texas Republicans to choose a new candidate for the Fall Election Ballot."

The write-in candidate ofptio is the worst of all worlds, in that it leaves room for multiple candidates and the process is combersome on the eSlate machines used in this area. Most folks will skip the race or vote for a regular candidate rather than take the time to do a write-in (which involves selecting and entering each letter individually with a dial-and-select set-up.

Besides, who will pick the candidate? DeLay? The party? Who?

I really think we just need to settle on the Libertarian for two years, so we can have a consensus candidate emerge from the grassroots.

And let me say it loud and clear, Tom -- Any attempt to get David Wallace on the ballot will result in the active opposition of most of the GOP precinct chairs in Harris County, and probably in Galveston and Brazoria Counties as well. I don't even know that he could command majority support among Fort Bend chairs. Don't even try it.

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After all, the same Lebanese troops that would fill the void in southern Lebanon are the ones who have been unable to control Hezbollah in the past, unable to bring about the dsarming of that terrorist force in compliance with UN Resolution 1559, and which the Lebanese president has previously threatened to send against Israel if it fails to stop attacking the Hezbollah terrorists.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel would "examine" the Lebanese government's proposal to deploy 15,000 soldiers to south Lebanon to replace Hezbollah militias, while an Arab delegation pressed the U.N. security council for an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from the country's south.

Olmert, who spoke as fighting continued on both sides of the Israel-Lebanese border, called the Lebanese government's proposal "an interesting step that we need to examine and investigate and see if it's all that it means."

Of course, the Arab supporters of terror want the UN to once again intervene in a manner detrimental to Israeli security.

In New York, Arab officials warned the U.N. Security Council Tuesday that Lebanon would erupt into a civil war unless there was an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops, Reuters reported.

Qatar's foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, representing a three-member Arab League delegation, told the council that adopting a nonenforceable resolution would have "grave ramifications" for Lebanon.

"If we adopt the resolution without fully considering the reality of Lebanon, we will face a civil war," the minister said. "Instead of helping Lebanon, we will destroy Lebanon."

Wellm perhaps these nations should begin by turning to Hezbollah and demanding that the terrorists lay down their arms and accept evacuation to Qatar or some other Arab state where they would no longer be a threat to Israel. Israel could then withdraw to its borders and have security. Unfortunately, that is not in the plans of the Arab League. All the concessions must be on Israel's part, under their proposal.

Prime Minister Olmert needs to just say "No!"

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The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are They're Not What You've Been Told, They're Our Neighbors' Kids. by AbbaGav, and A Difficult Lesson by Treppenwitz. 

Here are the full results of the vote.

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I guess you can get the Left-nuts to spend %12 to buy a CD, but not shell out $50 a head to go to the concerts.

Several concerts on the Dixie Chicks' ''Accidents & Accusations'' tour have been canceled after slow ticket sales, but the group says it has replaced them with other dates.

Kansas City, Houston, St. Louis, Memphis and Knoxville are among 14 cities no longer on the original schedule released in May, according to a revised itinerary posted Thursday on the Dixie Chick's Web site.

Other shows, including Nashville, Los Angeles, Denver and Phoenix, have been pushed back to later dates.

The North American leg of the tour kicked off July 21 in Detroit. Billboard magazine and other trade publications have reported lackluster sales in some markets, particularly in the South and Midwest.

Group spokeswoman Kathy Allmand said Monday that the total number of North American dates remains the same, with several Canadian cities added in place of the U.S. shows.

Oh, dear -- they are going to focus on the mighty Canadian market! I guess that means that Americans still are unwilling to forgive and forget their continuous insults to their country, their president, and their troops -- and to country music fans, who at one time made the girls a success.

And I just love this statement.

The trio released a statement last week attributing the changes to attempts to ''accommodate demand'' and said more dates might be added next year.

Seems to me that they are attempting to accommodate a lack of demand.

Posted by: Greg at 11:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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After Justice Scalia refused to stay the unanimous Fifth Circuit's decision, it is clear that the options for the GOP in this district come down to Tom Delay or nothing.

Personally, I hope for nothing.

Texas Republicans on Monday abandoned their court fight to replace former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on the November ballot after being turned back at the Supreme Court.

The decision came after Justice Antonin Scalia rejected Texas Republicans' request to block an appeals court ruling saying DeLay's name should remain on the ballot.

''I think all our legal avenues are exhausted in terms of affecting the ruling prior to the election,'' said Jim Bopp Jr., the attorney who argued the Republican Party's case to allow party officials to substitute another candidate for DeLay.

All I can say in response is "No shit." But then again, given teh fact that Bopp did such a pooor job litigating this case, the result was a foregone conclusion. I noted several places in the Fifth Crcuit's opinion where the judges simply said that an argument was unavailable to the GOP because it hadn't been raised at the District Court or because it was not presented until the final stage of briefs during the appelate process. That is simply sloppy lawyering. I sure hope the Party isn't paying this clown for his services.

For that matter, I'm somewhat relieved that things have turned out that way. The local powers-that-be had gone out of their way to ensure that the replacement candidate would be State Rep. Robert Talton, who stands to the right of Tom DeLay and has very few legislative accomplishments -- but does have the advantage of being the law partner Harris County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill. Those of us who dared oppose Talton were left out of the loop during the process of selecting a representative to the committee that would have selected the replacement candidate -- though the selectee (Kathy Haigler) did reach out to the dissidents following her selection, a move which demonstrates her integrity but also underscores the problem with process up to that point.

My personal preference would be to see Tom DeLay withdraw from the race. Remove his name from the ballot and leave us with a race between Democrat Nick Lampson, Libertarian Bob Smither, and the Green Party candidate. In such a case, I believe that many of the voters in CD22 will vote for the Libertarian. Ron paul is the cCongressman in one of the neighboring districts, so I believe that most GOP voters will be comfortable with Smither's philosophy. i also believe this will help us to get the seat back into GOP hands in 2008.

I also have words for some party officials. Tina Benkiser had better realize that she misplayed this thing every step of the way, and her support in this area is severely weakened. She conducted a power-play in Harris and Fort Bend Counties which guaranteed that the establishment-backed Talton would get the votes of at least two of the selectees to the District Exectutive Committee. That didn't even go down well with the Talton backers, who saw her interference as inappropriate. She no longer has our confidence as a competent leader or an honest broker.

And I would suggest to Jared Woodfill that he consider the reality that he has alienated a chunk of the grassroots, and that he will likely face a challenge in two years when he seeks reelection to his current position. If he wants to do what is right by the party, he had better begin mending fences if he can.

So let me say again -- withdraw, Tom, and discourage any candidate from seeking to run as a write-in, especially your little clone David Wallace. You have taken a safe seat and made it a net-loss for the GOP in 2006, so give the grass-roots a chance to grow an acceptable candidate for 2008 without your input.

Posted by: Greg at 01:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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What will this do to gas prices?

Oil company BP has indefinitely shut down the nation's biggest oilfield after finding a pipeline leak, removing about 8 percent of U.S. oil production and stoking fears that already high gas prices will shoot up further.

Steve Marshall, president of BP Exploration Alaska Inc., said Sunday night that the eastern side of Prudhoe Bay would be shut down first, an operation anticipated to take 24 to 36 hours. The company will then move to shut down the west side, a move that could close more than 1,000 Prudhoe Bay wells.

Once the field is shut down, BP said oil production will be reduced by 400,000 barrels a day. That's close to 8 percent of U.S. oil production or about 2.6 percent of U.S. supply including imports, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

BP officials said they didn't know how long the Prudhoe Bay field would be off line. "I don't even know how long it's going to take to shut it down," said Tom Williams, BP's senior tax and royalty counsel.

It is unclear if this is a case of production being down for a wek, or whether it will take longer.

But this should serve as a spur to opening up off-shore drilling and other oil exploration -- and put to rest the notion that oil companies are not good stewards of the environment. After all, BP is acting on its own, not based upon a government mandate to stop production.

Posted by: Greg at 11:18 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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From an interview with Chief Justice John Roberts aired on CSPAN this past weekend.

"Too many people think whenever there's any kind of dispute in our society, well let's take it to the Supreme Court and they'll decide," he said. "In a democratic republic that shouldn't be someone's first reaction. Their first reaction should be to resolve political disputes in the political process."

To my fellow educators -- this is a part of the CSPAN Classroom series, so it is available for your classroom.

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The New York Times has decided. Twenty-six days of war is too much.

It is now 26 days since Hezbollah and Israel began their latest combat — a very long time for the world to allow such a deadly conflict to rage in the Middle East powder keg. Yet the fighting still continues. Diplomats still dither over cease-fire details. Innocent people still keep dying.

Enough. This is the week that the international community must impose a truce, to be followed, in short order, by a political settlement and the dispatch of a robust international force to patrol LebanonÂ’s oft-violated border with Israel.

The Israeli government needs to thell the international community "Thanks, but no thanks." There has been an international force in Lebanon for three decades, and its presence has done no good. Israel has repeatedly had to enter Lebanon to stop attacks taking place from the very shadow of UNIFIL facilities, while hezbollah and other groups have operated with impunity. Indeed, the last UN resolution on the issue of southern Lebanon required the disarming of Hezbollah and disbanding of its military forces. That did not happen, leading to the current situation.

The time has come for Israel to complete the job at hand -- and to say that the UN is incompetent and incapable of bringing peaces to the region.

Posted by: Greg at 11:03 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Imagine that -- what goes in their ears impacts kids' thinking and sexual behavior.

Teenagers whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found.

Whether it's pop, rock, hip-hop or rap, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found.

Songs depicting men as "sex-driven studs," women as sex objects and with explicit references to sex acts are more likely to trigger early sexual behavior than those where sexual references are more veiled and relationships appear more committed, the study found.

Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the following two years as were teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Exposure to lots of sexually degrading music "gives them a specific message about sex," said lead author Steven Martino, a researcher for Rand Corp. in Pittsburgh.

This is sort of intuitive, if you ask me. We have known for generations that advertising impacts the consumeproductpreferences and purchasing decisions of consumers. That is why so much money is spent on advertising, and why government restricts certain sorts of advertising. Why would the constantly repeated messages oin music not have a similar impact?

Not that there really needed to be this sort of study. Those of us who teach could have supplied researchers with all the anecdotal evidence necessary to reach this conclusion.

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And it is trying to get it from Africa.

IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.

A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was “no doubt” that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.

Tanzanian customs officials told The Sunday Times it was destined for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, and was stopped on October 22 last year during a routine check.

The disclosure will heighten western fears about the extent of IranÂ’s presumed nuclear weapons programme and the strategic implications of IranÂ’s continuing support for Hezbollah during the war with Israel.

When even the UN admits that Iran is seeking this material, there ought to be an outcry from the international communty and the American Left. But they really don't care -- after all, there are Jews to be bashed for defending themselves. Who cares about the actions of a rogue state ruled by a genocidal maniac?

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And do the same to Hamas, too.

That is the proposal of libertarian columnist Vin Suprynowicz, who acknowledges that war is a terrible thing and should be avoided in most instances.

But there are two major exceptions.

Rather than live as slaves, rather than watch our loved ones picked off one at a time while we stand by and do nothing, it is better to risk our lives -- and to kill as many of the enemy as humanly possible, by whatever means -- until such danger is decisively eliminated. It is better to respond to aggression by going to war. Not "going to social work." War, as in, "If everything around you is exploding, that's probably us."

Indeed, demanding cease-fires and temporary truces allows one side to initiate war with impunity, knowing that it will never be permitted to lose. Instead, those who cry "Peace!" will serve as the guarantors that there is no cost to unpovoked aggression by a weak party seeking to improve its position vis-a-vis a stronger and more restrained neighbor.

War in the Middle East has been a constant for some 58 years, since the founding of the modern state of Israel. That state has survived endless assaults upon its people and territory, but has never been allowed to follow through on its right to guarantee its own security by crushing its enemies. Instead, international pressure has been the basis for providing succor to the enemies of the Jewish state. The result has been more war and a constant threat to Israel's survival.

If war is evil, how much more evil is it to impose on anyone an endless stop-and-start war, which the righteous and aggrieved victim is never allowed to pursue to a victorious end -- the aggressor always allowed to rest and refit and then to come again at a time of his choosing, pecking relentlessly at the victim's liver?

Some will say Israel has committed aggression simply by existing. But to say that is to violate the U.N. charter, which guarantees the right of all member states to exist.

"But the Palestinians have no state!" the war-lovers cry.

Sure they do. It's called Jordan. In fact, the Palestinian Arabs got by far the larger part of the old British protectorate of Palestine -- and no one attacked them for daring to set up an essentially one-religion nation where Jews find scant welcome. The masses now huddled around the borders of Israel were kicked out by King Hussein in 1972 after they tried to overthrow him. How is that Israel's fault?

The defeatists cry that "Nothing can be accomplished by violence; war only breeds more terrorists who will fight forever."

Really? Sixty years later, is America still under attack by the aggrieved suicide-belted grandchildren of the Germans and Japanese whose cities we flattened and burned to rubble in '44 and '45?

No. Because wars usually do resolve these issues -- if one side is allowed to fight to a decisive victory. It's just that the pink petticoat gang shriek hysterically and threaten to faint dead away when confronted with the reality of how real wars really end.

Someone raises a white flag, and promises to fight no more if only you'll give the survivors some food and water and stop burning them out of their holes. Many of the conquered women marry the conqueror's soldiers and move home with them, giving up their native dress and learning to drive Buicks.

Israel can and has made peace with its neighbors. Nearly three decades ago, the actions of Begin and Sadat proved that. So, too, did the decision of King Hussein to follow the path that resulted in his grandfathers murder -- for Jordan and Israel are at peace as well. But when one side is unambiguously opposed to peace, no good can come of giving in to peaceful impulses -- for the end is ever the same.

But things could be different.

Today, Hezbollah and Hamas have a problem. All their planning was based on the fact that the world and the United States have never allowed Israel to really win a war -- they always call a cease-fire after a maximum of 20 days.

Can anyone see the terrorists looking around now, wondering when they get their next three years off for rest, refit and resupply? "Hey, it's been the full three weeks. Guys? Anyone? Hello?"

We started out saying war is horrible and is to be avoided whenever possible. But there is a corollary doctrine. If you want a generation of peace, those who launch wars have to be shown this, good and hard.

And that means forcing Hezbollah to its knees in southern Lebanon and Hamas in the territory it controls. That means a stark refusal to make nice when the world community demands it -- for the destruction of these two forces will not only pacify them in the long run, but may also have a salutary effect on those who seek to harm Israel while counting on being shielded by the international pacifist movement.

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I understand all the media arguments against requiring reporters to give evidence to under subpoena like every other American citizen -- it is based upon the notion that the First Amendment makes the self-defined "press" some sort of aristocratic elite that isn't bound by the same rules as the riff-raff -- read that "other Americans".

So listening to them whining is simply music to my ears.

ournalism groups on Saturday decried the jailing of a video journalist and other recent court rulings pressuring media workers to divulge information to the government.

The news media becomes an information-gathering arm of law enforcement when journalists are ordered to give up confidential sources or unpublished material, said Tony Overman, president of the National Press Photographers Association.

"When news sources believe that statements or actions observed or reported by journalists find their way into the hands of police or prosecutors, those sources will be less willing - or flat-out afraid - to cooperate with the media," Overman said at a news conference.

The photographers association and the Society of Professional Journalists announced they would help pay for the legal defense of freelance video journalist Joshua Wolf.

A federal judge in San Francisco ordered Wolf jailed this week for refusing to hand over unaired video shot during a July 2005 protest in which a police car was vandalized and an officer injured.

If my wife had such photos, nobody would bat an eyelash if a court ordered her to turn them over. If I, an "independent journalist and commentator of the new media" (AKA a blogger) had such photos, the courts would surely have the authority to order me to hand them to the authorities on pain of imprisonment. Why should Josh Wolf be exempt from the duty to obey a lawful court order to produce materials relevant to an investigation -- especially after the federal courts have repeatedly and definitively determined that the First Amendment grants no exemption from such obligations?

Similarly, in the Judith Miller cas, why should she have been exempt. If she had not been a reporter for the NY Times, but rather had been Scooter Libby's third cousin four times removed, nobody would have argued that she had a right to defy a lawful court order.

Of course, tehre is this arrogant claim from professional journalist groups.

"We must stand together as journalists, scholars, educators and American citizens for freedom of the press, on behalf of our country," said Julianne Newton, a professor at the University of Oregon's journalism school.

Freedom of the press, Ms. Newton, is the right to write and publish. It is not the right to withhold evidence or obstruct justice. Indeed, just as the right to freedom of the press does not adhere only to "professional journalists" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) but to every American, so too does the obligation to produce evidence fall upon every American -- journalists included. And particularly in cases where the illicit disclosure of information to journalists is th matter under investigation, the obligation is that much more clear.

But an option does remain. Journalists could stat claiming their rights under the Fifth Amendment, implicitly acknowledging that, in many cases, they are accessories to (if not direct perpetrators of) the crimes being investigated.

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Listening to these folks, you would think acting to end WWII was a bad thing.

Tens of thousands of people from around the world gathered in Hiroshima on Sunday to pray for peace and urge the world to abandon nuclear weapons on the 61st anniversary of the first atomic bombing.

In an annual ritual to mourn the more than 220,000 people who ultimately died from the blast, a crowd including survivors, children and dignitaries gathered at the Peace Memorial Park, near ground zero where the bomb was dropped.

"Radiation, heat, blast and their synergetic effects created a hell on Earth," said Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba.

Remember -- the planned invasion of the home islands was expected to cost the US military over one million dead soldiers, sailors, and airmen. The Japanese death toll was expected to be higher, incuding the civilian dead (the Bushido code required suicide rather than capture or surrender).

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