The DemocratICK Party has a long and storied history of election fraud in this country, yet somehow the New York Times seems to have ignored that history in today's editorial. Not only that, they have explicitly labeled GOP attempts to ensure clean elections as "code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people." Funny -- as an elected party official who sits on the county party's Ballot Security Committee, I've never been issued that code book.

Let's look at the fantasy offered by the editorialist board at the Times.

In its fumbling attempts to explain the purge of United States attorneys, the Bush administration has argued that the fired prosecutors were not aggressive enough about addressing voter fraud. It is a phony argument; there is no evidence that any of them ignored real instances of voter fraud. But more than that, it is a window on what may be a major reason for some of the firings.

In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. By resisting pressure to crack down on “fraud,” the fired United States attorneys actually appear to have been standing up for the integrity of the election system.

Let's begin with a reminder that every single one of those prosecutors, according to federal law, serves at the pleasure of the President of the United States, and he can fire them for any reason, or for no reason at all. There is nothing wrong or unethical about doing so -- as we were repeatedly assured by the Clinton Administration after Janet Reno fired all 93 in one fell swoop, including one who was a month away from indicting Dan Rostenkowski and another who was investigating the Whitewater Affair and the connection of the Rose Law Firm to it.

But moving on, please consider this -- for all the claims that there simply is no voter fraud on the DemocratICK side, the Times is lying. Let's see, there was the conviction of a half dozen Democrats in East St. Louis, Illinois, on charges of buying votes. The cases involving ACORN and its fraudulent registration of non-existent voters are too numerous to list. There were serious questions regarding the counting of provisional ballots in heavily DemocratICK Nashville in 2004. Evidence exists of at least 900 illegal votes being cast in Milwaukee on Election Day, 2004, as well as an attack on vehicles rented by the Republican Party by DemocratICK activists. In New Mexico (one of the states where a US Attorney was fired), the Bernalillo County clerk's office had to invalidate 25% of provisional ballots cast because the address where the person was registered didn't exist. Sorry, folks, but DemocratICK election fraud exists on a massive scale nationwide -- and complaining about it is not about suppressing votes, it is about cleaning up elections.

John McKay, one of the fired attorneys, says he was pressured by Republicans to bring voter fraud charges after the 2004 Washington governor’s race, which a Democrat, Christine Gregoire, won after two recounts. Republicans were trying to overturn an election result they did not like, but Mr. McKay refused to go along. “There was no evidence,” he said, “and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury.”

Later, when he interviewed with Harriet Miers, then the White House counsel, for a federal judgeship that he ultimately did not get, he says, he was asked to explain “criticism that I mishandled the 2004 governor’s election.”

Yeah, nothing to look at here -- despite the fact taht votes kept miraculously appearing in King County -- a major DemocrtaICK stronghold -- and the number of votes counted exceeded the number of votes cast by more than the margin of victory. Could you imagine the outcry if something like that had happened in favor of a Republican candidate for governor -- they NY Times would be demanding investigations and prosecutions.

Mr. McKay is not the only one of the federal attorneys who may have been brought down for refusing to pursue dubious voter fraud cases. Before David Iglesias of New Mexico was fired, prominent New Mexico Republicans reportedly complained repeatedly to Karl Rove about Mr. IglesiasÂ’s failure to indict Democrats for voter fraud. The White House said that last October, just weeks before Mr. McKay and most of the others were fired, President Bush complained that United States attorneys were not pursuing voter fraud aggressively enough.

As i pointed out, there is evidence of voter fraud by Democrats in New Mexico -- this prosecutor simply lacked the will to go after it.

There is no evidence of rampant voter fraud in this country. Rather, Republicans under Mr. Bush have used such allegations as an excuse to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups. They have intimidated Native American voter registration campaigners in South Dakota with baseless charges of fraud. They have pushed through harsh voter ID bills in states like Georgia and Missouri, both blocked by the courts, that were designed to make it hard for people who lack drivers’ licenses — who are disproportionately poor, elderly or members of minorities — to vote. Florida passed a law placing such onerous conditions on voter registration drives, which register many members of minorities and poor people, that the League of Women Voters of Florida suspended its registration work in the state.

Again, there is plenty of evidence of voter fraud in this country -- and more surfaces every election cycle. The problem is that it is not often prosecuted, because it benefits Democrats and such prosecutions open Republicans up to charges like those made by the NY Times of vote suppression.

The claims of vote fraud used to promote these measures usually fall apart on close inspection, as Mr. McKay saw. Missouri Republicans have long charged that St. Louis voters, by which they mean black voters, registered as living on vacant lots. But when The St. Louis Post-Dispatch checked, it found that thousands of people lived in buildings on lots that the city had erroneously classified as vacant.

Oddly enough, though, the NY Times forgets that in 2000 an injunction to continue voting past the legal poll closing time was obtained on behalf of a dead man in St. Louis.

The United States attorney purge appears to have been prompted by an array of improper political motives. Carol Lam, the San Diego attorney, seems to have been fired to stop her from continuing an investigation that put Republican officials and campaign contributors at risk. These charges, like the accusation that Mr. McKay and other United States attorneys were insufficiently aggressive about voter fraud, are a way of saying, without actually saying, that they would not use their offices to help Republicans win elections. It does not justify their firing; it makes their firing a graver offense.

If this charge can be proved, I'll gladly support prosecutions of those involved. But they cannot and will not be proved -- because the NY Times is lying through its teeth -- just like in the preceding paragraphs of the editorial.

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And very possibly before the US returns to the Moon in 2020.

China's surging space program could launch explorers on the moon before Americans make a lunar return, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told a congressional oversight panel Thursday.

Griffin offered the assessment at a budget hearing before the House Science and Technology Committee. The panel offered bipartisan support for an increase in spending on NASA's Orion moonship, which is falling behind schedule, as well as on unmanned science projects and aeronautical research.

Earlier this month, funding woes pushed the first flight of NASA's Orion back to March 2015, a six-month slide. That prompted a round of questions from Rep Ken Calvert, R-Calif., on whether the United States might lose its lead in space to China.

"How good is their space program? ... Do you think they have an opportunity to get to the moon before we do?" Calvert asked.

Griffin, who toured some of China's space installations last year and met with leading scientists and engineers, told the panel that China, with its strong economy, is capable of a come-from-behind lunar landing.

"I cannot speculate and won't speculate on what China's intensions are. I just don't know that," said Griffin. "As a matter of technical capability and political will, if the Chinese choose to do so, they can mount a lunar mission within a reasonable number of years, say a decade."

It's sad, really, that we will allow almost a half-century to pass between visits to the moon. I was six when the Eagle landed, and was and nine when Apollo 17 left the Moon. I will be 57 -- at least -- when the United States lands men on the Moon again. Frankly, I'll welcome Chinese success -- even while I lament the loss of focus of NASA during my lifetime.

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We can argue about whether or not aluminum bats are good for the game of baseball or softball – but is it really a matter for legislation?

The New York City Council passed a bill today banning the use of metal bats in high school baseball games, securing enough votes to override a potential veto by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and setting up a possible legal challenge from the metal bat industry.

Industry officials, who opposed the bill, said they believed the council was the first legislative body in the nation to pass such a measure. It also marks a long-sought victory for the billÂ’s original sponsor, James S. Oddo, a Staten Island Republican who began pushing for a ban that would have included Little League and independent leagues more than six years ago against intense opposition led by bat manufacturers. Mr. Oddo later narrowed his bill to draw broader council support.

“I know this is not the most pressing issue on the minds of New Yorkers,” Mr. Oddo said shortly before the vote, “but I really believe in this bill. There is risk in all sports, and there is risk in baseball playing with a wooden bat, but when the risk becomes unreasonable, people have to act.”

While this legislation covers only high schools, we all know that, based upon Mr. Oddo’s own words, that he is going to attempt to extend this ban into the private sector as well. And remember – when metal bats are outlawed, only outlaws will have metal bats.

It is easy to get worked up over the sad examples given in this story about individuals injured by balls hit with metal bats, but these cases are few and far between – and can be matched by stories about injuries from balls hit by wooden bats. Similarly, injuries happen regularly from balls thrown by pitchers. Maybe Mr. Oddo will mandate that all future games be played with plastic bats and waffle balls hit from batting tees.

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Actions are being taken to clean up the Texas Youth Commission, but it is too little, too late in my book. And Governor Rick Perry still doesn't understand the magnitude of the problem -- or his culpability for it -- based upon his belief that he and his incompetent appointees, not the legislature, should take the lead in restructuring the troubled agency.

Under pressure from the Legislature, Gov. Rick Perry announced Wednesday that the Texas Youth Commission board will resign amid new criminal allegations involving TYC staff and revelations that the juvenile corrections health care system is in shambles.

Perry and the Legislature are battling over how to rebuild an agency with high staff turnover and accusations that corrections officers and administrators have physically and sexually abused youth in their custody.

On Wednesday, TYC officials were trying to figure out how a former adult-corrections-system guard managed to land a TYC corrections officer job while under investigation for sexually assaulting a male inmate on his former job.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice Inspector General John Moriarty told a special joint legislative committee that TYC would have found out about the investigation if the agency had contacted TDCJ on a background check.

So let's think about this -- TYC is hiring guards without conducting complete background checks. That means that sex offenders were put in positions of power over incarcerated kids, with the ability to prey upon them sexually. Not only that, but volunteers were let in with even less screening.

That Rick Perry, the failed governor of the state of Texas, thinks he has any role at all to play in the reorganization of the TYC is pretty disturbing -- but then again, he has been more interested in playing doctor with the sixth-grade girls of Texas than preventing the sexual abuse young people in state custody. When viewed in conjunction with the Gardasil Affair, I think we can say that Gov. Perry has rendered himself irrelevant for the remainder of his term -- and political poison for GOP candidates in 2008 and 2010.

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I've got two reactions to this action by State Rep. Borris Miles (D-Houston) in response to artwork he found objectionable.

State Rep. Borris Miles personally removed two pieces of art on display at the Capitol that he found objectionable.

The artworks — a painting of a black man hanging from a rope and an illustration of a man tied to an electric chair with the inscription "Doing God's Work" — were part of an exhibit placed by the Texas Moratorium Network, which seeks a two-year moratorium on the death penalty in Texas.

In e-mail to House colleagues Monday, Miles wrote: "I was greeted with these images as I walked through the halls of the (Capitol) Extension this morning with my two children, ages five and eight. I consider them to be extremely inappropriate and highly objectionable.

"Capitol exhibits are supposed to serve a public purpose or be informational in nature. These pictures were hung with no accompanying text or explanation," wrote Miles, D-Houston.

He said he had spoken to staff at the State Preservation Board about the process for selecting exhibits.

Learning that the moratorium group was behind the exhibit did not change Miles' mind about the two pieces. He said Tuesday that he was still offended. Miles said he hopes a system will be put in place to screen future exhibitions.

1) There is a process for selecting and removing artwork in such a situation. Miles violated it, and therefore deserves condemnation without consideration of his motive.

2) I understand why Miles, as a black Democrat, would be offended by the image of a hanging black man -- after all, he is a member of a party that promoted the lynching of black men for decades, and so is rightly ashamed by the reminder of his party's heritage and the betrayal of his people that his membership in that party represents. How can Miles explain to his children (whose exposure to the pictures he claims motivated him) his membership in the party that actively embraced the KKK as its paramilitary terrorist wing and which still celebrates a Klan leader as "the conscience of the US Senate"?

Also, I noticed something and need to ask a question -- would the party identification of the offending legislator be left out of the article (as it was in this case) if he had been a Republican?

Posted by: Greg at 03:27 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Talk about your cynical ploys -- she is willing to support resolutions for a withdrawal of troops, but says she won't do so if elected. That should tell the American people everything they need to know about her willingness to lose the war to win the election.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.

In outlining how she would handle Iraq as commander in chief, Mrs. Clinton articulated a more nuanced position than the one she has provided at her campaign events, where she has backed the goal of “bringing the troops home.”

She said in the interview that there were “remaining vital national security interests in Iraq” that would require a continuing deployment of American troops.

So you see, "bring them home" doesn't mean "bring them home" -- it means leave them there but don't let them do anything. In short, she has been out on the campaign trail lying to the American people -- but then again, why should we be surprised, given her track record?

Indeed, she has said she will be even less sensitive to genocide than her husband was, for she says she won't let US troops stop ethnic cleansing, even if it is going on right outside their door. At least when her husband stood by and allowed the genocide to continue in Rwanda, the only US troops in the country were a few embassy guards. In other words, not only is she a liar, she sees it as her proper role to allow crimes against humanity to continue unchecked. The woman is completely amoral!

May I propose the following slogan for her campaign?

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If you are like me, there is never enough light to read by. The problem is that you've got the wrong sort of light source, and so need a different type of lamp. That is where Barnes and Wagner come into the picture.

Barnes and Wagner is a retailer of lamps and lighting of all varieties. Whether you need hanging lamps, wall sconces, floor lamps or contemporary table lamps, Barnes and Wagner can fix you up with what you need at a competitive price.

Not only that, but Barnes and Wagner offers free shipping on every item, every day,to all parts of the country. For taht matter, outside of Wisconsin there is no sales tax. And if you should have a problem with your purchase, Barnes and Wagner offers a guarantee of satisfaction and a no hassle return policy -- things that hopefully you will never need but which are always good to have.

Paid Endorsement.

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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to his involvement in 9/11 and more than two dozen planned or executed terrorist attacks on the US. He has done so before one of the Gitmo tribunals.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a string of others during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

Mohammed claimed responsibility for planning, financing, and training others for bombings ranging from the 1993 attack at the World Trade Center to the attempt by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes.

In all, Mohammed said he was responsible for planning 29 individual attacks, including many that were never executed. The comments were included in a 26-page transcript released by the Pentagon, which also blacked out some of his remarks.

he's an unlawful combatant who was involved in the intentional targeting and murder of American citizens. Speed him on his way to Hell by stringing him up with a rope dipped in bacon grease. He's gotten all the due process that he merits.

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If you shop online, coupon codes can save you lots of money. That's why you need to visit UltimateCoupons.com They have online coupons, promo codes, and discount codes that can save you 10%, 20%, even 30% off your purchases from online retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue and 1-800-FLOWERS. They also have promotional codes for free shipping or other great bonuses. SO before you buy on line, check out the coupon codes at UltimateCoupons.com

Paid Endorsement.

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Well, maybe not.

It turns out there are no such things as unicorns — and even if there were, they wouldn't drive trucks.

On Tuesday, a Billings prosecutor had told a district judge that Phillip C. Holliday Jr., 42, claimed a unicorn was driving when his truck crashed into a light pole earlier this month.

But on Wednesday, the chief prosecutor said it was all a misunderstanding. Apparently, Holliday told police an unnamed woman was driving when his truck hit the pole — not a unicorn.

"Mr. Holliday has other serious problems, but this is not one of them," County Attorney Dennis Paxinos said of the unicorn alibi.

The mixup occurred when a deputy prosecutor misunderstood an e-mail from a colleague who used the phrase "unicorn defense," thinking it was an actual statement from Holliday, Paxinos said. "Unicorn defense" is a slang term used by prosecutors when a defendant blames some mythical person for a crime, he said.

"It's kind of a code (between prosecutors) and the code was misinterpreted," Paxinos said.

Paxinos apologized "to the public, the court and to Mr. Holliday" for the confusion and said he has chastised the prosecutors involved.

Holliday has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of criminal endangerment and drunken driving. He is being represented by a public defender. Kristina Copenhaver-Landon, director of the public defender's office in Billings, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Still, if this guy was drunk, I'm sure that his story had no more basis in reality than the one about the unicorn.

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It was something of a shock to go to this site and find Rudy Giuliani in his underwear! Well, OK, not exactly Rudy, but a cartoon drawing of him over at CartoonDollEmporium.com, home of online dress up games that are the modern equivalent of the paper dolls that folks my age knew as kids.

And really, a site like this one can be lots of fun. Personally, I dressed Rudy in sandals and a Hawaiian shirt -- just right or him to go on vacation after he loses the GOP nomination to Mitt Romney, my preferred candidate. But there is also the option of dressing up Hillary Clinton -- whose image is considerably more flattering than any photo! Indeed, there are over 500 possible dolls to dress.

Now the nice thing about this site is that it is also set up to be kid-friendly. It has a chat forums for kids for kids that, from what I can determine, is limited to kids. It has a virtual economy, a Make Believe section, and a host of other neat features that make it a fun site for the little ones that mom and dad can feel safe letting them visit. Really, it seems like a good family site.

Paid Endorsement.

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1 Thank you for the sweet words
It makes us really happy when people write stuff like this. We truly try to make it a family site Hope you have a great day!!
Best
Raven CDE staff

Posted by: Raven Darknessa at Mon Mar 19 05:43:26 2007 (LSpA2)

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Looks like New York Senator and presidential candidate Hildebeast Roadkill Klintoon is out to resurrect one of her greatest lies hits -- but one that only serves to energize her political opponents.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday described past Republican political malfeasance in New Hampshire as evidence of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy." Clinton's barbed comments revived a term she coined for the partisan plotting during her husband's presidential tenure and echoed remarks she made last weekend in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary.

Her rhetorical red meat to a sympathetic audience of Democratic municipal officials comes as Clinton courts New Hampshire voters and squeezes donors for dollars ahead of a March 31 fundraising report deadline. She also continues to face criticism from the party's liberal base for her failure to repudiate her vote authorizing military force in Iraq.

Clinton asserted on Tuesday that the conspiracy is alive and well, and cited as proof the Election Day 2002 case of phone jamming in New Hampshire, a case in which two Republican operatives pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and a third was convicted.

"To the New Hampshire Democratic Party's credit, they sued and the trail led all the way to the Republican National Committee," Clinton said.

"So if anybody tells you there is no vast, right-wing conspiracy, tell them that New Hampshire has proven it in court," she said.

Someone needs to ask the Hildebeast what she makes of the trail of Democrat dirty tricks and voter fraud -- much more extensive than the pathetic and wrong-headed effort by a couple of operatives in New Hampshire -- that are committed ever election cycle. Do they constitute an Even Vaster Left-Wing Conspiracy?

And since she is so concerned about criminal activity that impacts voting, why is she calling for the resignation of Alberto Gonzales after the firing of US Attorney's who were not pursuing election fraud cases in an aggressive enough manner? Could it be that the targets in the cases that were delayed or ignored were Democrats -- and you and your party need election fraud to have a chance of winning the presidency in 2008?

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The Texas House of Representatives made the right move in telling Governor Perry to keep his hands off the genitals of the eleven-year-old girls of Texas.

The Texas House sent a veto-proof message to Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday that schoolgirls will not be required to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus linked to cervical cancer.

But Perry wasn't in town to witness the vote overturning his HPV-vaccine mandate, having embarked on an eight-day trip to the Middle East the same day the House took up the measure.

The House vote of 119-21 to tentatively approve the bill demonstrated a comfortable margin in case Perry should decide to veto it. Final passage on the measure is expected today.

"Let's continue to allow only parents and children and doctors to decide if this is right for you," said Rep. Dennis Bonnen, the Angleton Republican who sponsored the bill.

The sponsor of a similar bill in the Senate said he would begin lining up 21 votes needed to bring it up for floor debate. Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, said he expects a committee hearing before the end of March.

"The goal is to get the bill to the governor's desk by the middle or end of April," Hegar said.

Perry would then have 10 days to decide whether to sign the bill, let it become law without his signature or veto it. The bill has been on a fast track to give lawmakers time for a potential veto override — a rare event for a Texas Legislature.

Governor Perry wants to portray this as a vote in favor of cervical cancer. He should be ashamed of himself -- but his conduct in this matter shows he has no shame. This is a question of allowing medical decisions to be made by medical professionals, parents, and patients, not a single government official with questionable authority and even less competence to do so. Medical professionals have demolished his arguments from a scientific standpoint, and the Texas Attorney general has pointed out that Perry lacks the authority to make such a move under the Texas Constitution. Now the legislature is telling him that the move is politically wrong as well.

Hey, Governor Perry -- how about spending your time and energy to get the perverts out of the Texas Youth Commission, where they are sexually abusing young people under their authority on your watch, instead of playing doctor with little girls who just want to go to school!

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I like this proposal.

In all the uproar about preparing native Spanish speakers for an English-speaking culture, a different language question gets mostly the silent treatment. How can Houston's English speakers prepare for a world where Chinese and Arabic wield growing influence?

Chinese and Arabic both are notoriously hard to learn. But if knowing Chinese will open future economic doors, knowing Arabic may be crucial to make that future prosperous and peaceful both.

This year, New York took a decisive step to equip its students for the coming century. As Houston fights to convince students that school is relevant, it should follow New York's example by cultivating places for them to master Arabic.

Brooklyn's Khalil Gibran International Academy, for grades 6-12, will open its doors this September. The school will expose its sixth-graders, and ultimately all 600 pupils, to Middle Eastern culture, history and language.

Scrupulously, politics (apart from conflict resolution classes) will be excluded. Even so, by the time they graduate, the school's students will know enough Arabic to pursue training in diplomacy, international business and intelligence.

Americans, President Bush said last month, need such skills urgently. At the swearing-in of the new director of national intelligence, Bush charged the new spy chief with seeking more recruits with Arab language skills.

This proposal is dead on -- we should be teaching Arabic in our schools as a matter of national security. The Crusade Against Jihadi Terror is going to last a very long time, and we have few Arab speakers to translate needed intelligence material. This will enable us to "grow our own" Arabic speakers, and give us a leg-up in the national security area.

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I guess that a salary of $302,000 isn't enough to motivate Abe Saavedra -- he needs a bonus of $67,250 to motivate him to do his job well. At 22%, it is clear that bonuses are much more generous for HISD administrators than for HISD teachers.

Houston ISD Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra will be $67,250 richer today when the school district distributes its latest round of performance bonuses.

Saavedra's new contract, approved by the school board in January, made him eligible for $80,000 in bonus pay based in part on students' test scores.

As head of the state's largest school district, Saavedra earns a base salary of $302,000. His bonus — 22 percent of his base pay — is more than almost all his teachers take home in a year.

"That's not going to be a morale builder," Gayle Fallon, president of the largest teachers' union, said about the superintendent's bonus.

About half of the Houston Independent School District's teachers received incentive bonuses earlier this year, with the average check equaling $1,850. That represents less than 4 percent of the typical teacher's base pay of $48,000.

let's see -- over 20% for a paper-pushing administrator who has minimal contact with kids, but 4% for the teachers in the classroom. And even then, HISD screwed up its bonus calculations and is asking for $73,700 in cash to be returned by teachers -- enough to cover the Superintendent's bonus. Here's a better idea -- since he did such a crappy job of overseeing the bonus program this year, why not give him ZERO this year and let the teachers, who actually do the real work of the district, have that money?

Posted by: Greg at 02:21 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well, besides those of us who actually have to teach.

One of the absurdities of No Child Left Behind is the absurd notion that 100% of children would meet grade level in math and reading by 2014. Such a mandate, while laudable, is completely out of the question. Getting EVERY SINGLE CHILD to grade level? It is a nice talking point, but just can't happen. Well, some in Congress are finally giving that reality some consideration.

No Child Left Behind, the landmark federal education law, sets a lofty standard: that all students tested in reading and math will reach grade level by 2014. Even when the law was enacted five years ago, almost no one believed that standard was realistic.

But now, as Congress begins to debate renewing the law, lawmakers and education officials are confronting the reality of the approaching deadline and the difficult political choice between sticking with the vision of universal proficiency or backing away from it.

"There is a zero percent chance that we will ever reach a 100 percent target," said Robert L. Linn, co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing at UCLA. "But because the title of the law is so rhetorically brilliant, politicians are afraid to change this completely unrealistic standard. They don't want to be accused of leaving some children behind."

Let's face a simple reality here -- we teachers are not stamping out widgets on a machine -- and even if we were, there would be a percentage that wouldn't pass inspection because of flaws in the material or the process. And when you consider that we are molding human beings, not hunks of metal or plastic, and that every human being has different abilities and interests, you can see where the goal becomes problematic.

When I taught English III (I now teach World History), I had students in my classes who were chronic attendance problems, who were ESL, and who were mainstreamed special education students (including one whose parents would not permit her to be in special classes, despite a 72 IQ). The reality is that I could have been super-teacher and not have gotten all those kids up to grade level.

After all, I cannot make the kid who isn't there learn. I cannot make a kid who doesn't know English read English at grade level. And I cannot make a kid who lacks the intellectual capacity to take in and retain the material learn how to read at grade level. And we won't get into the problem that the "snapshot" of how a kid is doing is taken with a test given on one day -- a day when the kid may be ill, tired, or still mourning the death of a close relative and therefore not performing up to ability level. Those are not excuses -- those are the realities you face when you deal with human beings!

And even with exemptions allowed for special ed kids (though often this translates to only the lowest of the low) and delayed accountability for ESL kids (except at exit level, where a kid who has been in the country for less than six months MUST test at grade level), you still cannot reach 100%.

Of course, the problem is that supporters of the law want to argue that any lowering of the standards constitutes "leaving children behind", despite the fact that there will always be children who do not meet the standard, no matter what teachers do. Is a goal of 100% admirable? You bet -- but it will never be achieved. I would prefer a goal of 90-95% -- one under which the standard is rigorous, but achievable when one takes into account the variations in ability, aptitude, and circumstances that impact student performance.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting piece by Kevin Drum from Washington Monthly.

1. Details aside (about which see below), I support the basic idea of NCLB. I'm fine with testing and I'm fine with holding schools accountable.

2. Different people had different reasons for supporting NCLB. I don't think Ted Kennedy supported the 100% goal because he wanted to label public schools as failures, but I think that a lot of movement conservatives and evangelicals did. These are not people who would ordinarily favor a multi-billion expansion of education funding and an enormous new intrusion of federal oversight into local schools, after all. Rather, they reluctantly supported NCLB because they were persuaded that it was a stealth measure that would eventually undermine support for public education.

Go ahead, call me paranoid. All I can say is that in the past, when I've given George Bush and his enablers the benefit of the doubt on things like this, I've turned out to be wrong.

3. Three years ago, when I asked about the 100% requirement, people told me that of course it would be relaxed. Just wait until NCLB comes up for renewal. 100% was nothing more than a nice-sounding goal that helped get the bill passed in the first place.

Well, it's renewal time and Republicans are still loudly insisting that we keep the 100% requirement. "Which child do Democrats want to leave behind?" they ask unctiously. So what happened?

4. The obvious solution to the 100% requirement, as Matt points out, is that school districts will simply reduce their standards to a point where even drooling idiots can pass. Not so. There are political limits to how absurdly low you can set standards, and in any case you're not likely to literally get a 100% pass rate even if all you have to do is randomly fill in bubbles. There's always going to be at least one kid in most schools who screws the thing up no matter how easy it is.

Besides, does this make any more sense than the 100% pass rate requirement? Why would anyone support a bill that motivates public schools to set comically low standards? Answer: see #2 above.

He's dead on in his analysis.

Posted by: Greg at 02:05 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Posted by: Greg at 06:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My darling wife and I have been to RodeoHouson a couple of times during its current run -- but were really disappointed that they dropped the collegiate championship rodeo that we so enjoyed last year and replaces it with the Xtreme Bulls competition. We enjoyed seeing the young people competing -- and look forward to seeing some of them in future years as professional competitors.

Hoping to cash in on the growing popularity of college sports, RodeoHouston three years ago started a collegiate championship, making the event the grand finale of its multimillion-dollar parade of concerts, livestock shows and pro rodeos at Reliant Park.

Until this year, that is, when the amateur rodeo was canned — replaced by Xtreme Bullriding.

"Ticket sales didn't see any jumps," Leroy Shafer, chief operating officer for the nonprofit Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, said of the college rodeo. "We felt it was in our best interest to put a performance back out there, something the fans would want to see."

The scheduling change, as Shafer called it, is indicative of the challenges college rodeo faces, even as its professional counterpart continues to gain public attention and financial support at a global level. Although many colleges host rodeo teams, their athletes often times face uphill battles to win the respect and financial backing of other university sports.

"It is an expensive sport," said Sarah Neely, spokeswoman for the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association. "It's not where you just need a gym. You have to pay for stalling, feed, horses, vet bills, trailers, trucks, diesel fuel — you run the gamut."

Her own organization canned its playoff championships five years ago because they were too expensive for small towns to organize. It still holds a national championship, which draws about 15,000 fans. Regional competitions also take place across the U.S. But unlike with other sports, college rodeo's economic dips, from gas prices to feed costs, can mean the difference for some cash-strapped students between competing and staying back at the barn.

I've got one of my high school students who is a calf-roper, and is looking looking for a college scholarship and eventual professional sponsorship. I'd hate to think that rodeo -- his passion -- will be something that is priced out of his reach by lack of interest at the lower levels of the sport.

Posted by: Greg at 06:29 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Posted by: Greg at 06:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here's hoping the GOP rejects this offer.

After Nevada Democrats dropped Fox as a host of its Democratic presidential debate -- and after Fox denounced the move as anti-free speech and "Stalinist" -- I thought...damn right! How dare the progressive party in America not allow the conservative Fox to air its presidential debate. So I today contacted key Republican party chairs in the four early primary and caucus states to ask that Air America host their Republican presidential debates.

Gree, of course, wants to argue that if the cancellation of the FoxNews debate by Democrats was Stalinist, a refusal to have GOP debates on Air American would fall into the same category. He's wrong.

First, the FoxNews debate was agreed to in advance and contracted for by the Democrats and the network before the cancellation was made due to ideological pressure.

Second, Air America does not have sufficient market-share or enough of a "footprint" to reach a significant number of listeners, while FoxNews is the largest, highest-rated cable news outlet in the country. The two are not even comparable.

Third, FoxNews is all an award-winning objective journalistic source, and presents both sides of the issues. Air America is a partisan entertainment network that is not taken seriously by anyone other than those in the final stages of bush Derangement Syndrome.

Posted by: Greg at 06:10 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 230 words, total size 2 kb.

I don't know about you, but I've got a lot of digital media files on my hard drive. One problem is that they are in a wide variety of different formats. There has to be some way to get them organized, and perhaps even converted into a couple of preferred formats.

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Posted by: Greg at 06:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This situation raises an interesting question.

How would you feel if a cashier made you swipe your own groceries because of his/her religious beliefs?

If you haev an opinion on the matter, feel free to call me at (612) 673-4308.

I'm a reporter who covers Target for the Star Tribune and the other day, I got a call from someone who said that an employee at the Target store downtown refused to run his bacon through a scanning machine. He was mighty upset, arguing that the cashier had "no right to work as a cashier at Target" if she wasn't prepared to swipe his groceries.

But he was a little vague on the details, so I decided to check it out myself. At the Target store on E. Lake Street, a cashier wearing a hijab looked uncomfortable when I showed up at the cash register with a frozen pepperoni pizza. She immediately called for help, and another employee rang up the pizza and placed it in the basket.

I asked her if it was because she was Muslim, and she nodded her head. "I can't even touch it," she said.

The E. Lake store has only has a few aisles of food. How do Muslim workers adapt in Super Targets where there are full-fledged grocery sections? And is anyone other than this caller bothered by this? Are there some Muslim workers at Target who feel they have to suppress their beliefs to avoid conflicts?

Interesting -- what do you think?

Posted by: Greg at 06:18 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It must suck to be "environmentally friendly" while doing more damage to the planet than the biggest, baddest SUV.

The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.

Before we delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, we will use the most popular hybrid on the market, the Toyota Prius.

The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000 revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you, it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right?

You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the PriusÂ’s EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs less then half what the Prius costs.

Fine, but where does the comparison with the Hummer come in?

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a PriusÂ’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalistÂ’s nightmare.

“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

Oops! It turns out that the Prius consumes 50% more energy to make and operate than the Hummer.

Will those states (like California) that give special benefits to Prius owners now repeal them?

Posted by: Greg at 06:15 AM | Comments (34) | Add Comment
Post contains 678 words, total size 4 kb.

1 You must be a horrendous educator if this reflects the quality of your academic research. Shameful. You are a liberal moron! Liberal with you idea of knowledge.Remember that post from a few months ago about a Hummer being greener than a Prius? Well, the outfit that compared those two iconic vehicles, CNW Research, has gotten its study picked up in England (where the comparison is between a Jeep Cherokee and a Prius) and Toyota is responding by calling the study "Recycled Rubbish?".

I was skeptical of the Hummer = green claim at the time, and people certainly got to talking in the comments about the post. Now Toyota steps in and says CNW is wrong on a lot of fronts, from simple factual errors to larger methodical mistakes. It's important to remember that Toyota isn't an objective bystander in the debate, but I've got to their claims make sense to me.

You can read Toyota's entire argument after the jump.
Recycled Rubbish?

CNW Marketing Research Inc. – Study on Hybrid Efficiency
A number of UK publications have recently re-presented the results of an old study by a North American marketing research agency, CNW Research Inc. This study makes some surprising and uncorroborated claims about the total environmental impact of vehicles over the complete lifecycle (i.e. production – use – recycling).

The media have picked up on one particularly eye catching claim, namely that the Jeep Cherokee is cleaner than a Toyota Prius hybrid saloon. This result runs contrary to all other research in the area.

The "results" of the CNW study

As with any model, it is critical that the methodology is valid, the assumptions are sound, and the data accurate. The CNW study makes several assumptions which undermine the conclusions arrived at. Without a scientific peer review, it is impossible to comment on any of these factors.

What is clear, however, is that the conclusions appear to be very different from the results of several other rigorous, scientifically-reviewed studies of the lifecycle impact of vehicles (e.g. Argonne National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).


Example 1: These studies conclude that the majority (80-85%) of the total lifetime energy use of a vehicle comes from the driving stage, with the remainder coming from the remaining stages of a vehicle life, whereas the CNW study shows these percentages to be reversed.
Example 2: Two Toyota models mentioned in the report, the Scion xA and xB sold only in the USA, are engineered with the same processes, built on the same assembly line, transported and shipped together, distributed through the same dealer network, have the same engines and transmissions, are about the same weight (within 50 lbs.), and have very similar fuel consumption ratings (one just over 35 mpg combined, the other just below 35), yet the CNW study shows the lifetime energy use of these vehicles to be very different (53 per cent).
Example 3: The CNW study states that hybrids require more lifetime energy than even large SUVs. Toyota's internal analysis does conclude that there is more energy required in the materials production stage for a hybrid, but that this is overwhelmingly made up for in the driving stage (the 80-85% stage), causing the hybrid to have a significantly lower lifetime energy use. There are also basic factual errors in the report, for example CNW claim that the hybrid batteries are not recycled.

In truth Toyota and sister brand Lexus have a comprehensive battery recycling programme in place and has been recycling Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries since the RAV4 Electric Vehicle was introduced in 1998. Every part of the battery, from the precious metals to the plastic, plates, steel case, and the wiring, is recycled. To ensure that batteries come back to Toyota, each battery has a phone number on it to call for recycling information.

Toyota and other environmentally conscious car makers have been using life cycle assessment for many years to evaluate various advanced vehicle technologies. Toyota, along with many others, believes that the best way to judge the environmental impact of a vehicle is to do a full evaluation of all the inputs and outputs in every stage of its life. The lifetime energy use is just one of the many things to look at.

The environment and the role of the car in CO2 emissions are rightly a very important subject for debate. Toyota welcomes such debate. However, the debate is not helped by sensationalistic reporting of an uncorroborated and unrepresentative piece of marketing research carried out in North America.

Posted by: drsurd at Tue Mar 20 06:46:12 2007 (Yp5wO)

2 Yeah, but truthiness is good enough for right-winger anti-environmentalists.

Posted by: Dan at Tue Mar 20 12:22:05 2007 (IU21y)

3 Dan -- I'm not an "anti-environmentalist". I am, however, anti-bad-science, which is why I oppose the current man-made global warming hoax. After all, as a student of history, I am aware of the cyclical climate changes over the last millenium or two that have seen the ebb and flow of glaciation -- such that Greenland was actually green rather than ice-covered when it was discovered by the Vikings.

As for the Toyota press release above, I have to ask a simple question -- since when do you accept the word of big Business with a financial stake in a controversy over independent scientific and academic researchers?

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Tue Mar 20 14:38:12 2007 (p6tyD)

4 That's funny - "since when do you accept the word of big Business with a financial stake in a controversy over independent scientific and academic researchers", from a guy who's posting paid advertisements. I think the logical points made by Toyota do a good job of undermining the bogus reasoning of the CNW report.

Posted by: Dan at Tue Mar 20 23:38:04 2007 (IU21y)

5 I disagree -- especially given all the other claims about the Prius made by Toyota that have not stood up to real-world experience.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Wed Mar 21 00:05:44 2007 (sB+jR)

6 Do you really disagree, or is that a paid disagreement?

Posted by: Dan at Wed Mar 21 15:09:13 2007 (IU21y)

7 Bite me, Dan!

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Even though President Bush pandered to Latin Americans by proposing an amnesty program that most Americans (you know, the people who are citizens of THIS country) reject.

President Bush yesterday said he wants the House and Senate to pass immigration bills by August but said the U.S. will continue to send home illegal aliens caught in the meantime, disappointing his Guatemalan hosts who wanted all deportations to end.

"The United States will enforce our law. It's against the law to hire somebody who's in our country illegally, and we are a nation of law," Mr. Bush said.

He said his plan is to find a bill "most Republicans are comfortable with" in the Senate, then begin working with Democrats in the Senate, before turning to the House.

But he received an earful from Guatemalan President Oscar Berger, who said he was worried Guatemalans are being deported "without clear justification," based on a raid at a leather goods factory last week in Massachusetts.

"The Guatemalan people would have preferred a more clear and positive response no more deportations, so to say," he said, according to a translation of his remarks at a joint press conference with Mr. Bush.

I've got an idea -- if these nations object so strongly to American sovereignty and American immigration policy, they should put their money (or rather, put our money) where their mouth is and reject all American foreign aid in protest. Otherwise, if these nations continue to promote the breaking of American law and violation of American sovereignty while sucking at the American teat, we should cut them off.

Posted by: Greg at 06:08 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 279 words, total size 2 kb.

There are plenty of much more significant reasons to oppose Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA).

The mysterious "non-theist" member of Congress was revealed today to be hot-blooded , 75-year-old Pete Stark of California . It's not the boldest announcement in the world. Stark is consistently ranked among the most liberal members on the Hill, and hails from a decidedly leftist district, so I doubt it'll cost him many votes. Though I guess you do have to admire the guy's moxie to wait until advancing years to announce his doubt about an afterlife.

I wonder -- will Barry Lynn and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State crowd come out and condemn Stark for talking about his (non-)r religious beliefs? Or is it only Christians of the Bible-believing variety who that organization (for years a hotbed of anti-Catholicism) want to shut up?

Posted by: Greg at 05:12 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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By now, everyone has heard about this little controversy surrounding remarks by General Peter Pace on the issue of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and gays in the military.

Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Chicago Tribune yesterday that he opposes any change to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which bars service by openly gay soldiers. General Pace, a Marine officer, explained why he supported the current policy:

“I believe homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts.”

As you can hear in this audio file posted on the Web site of The Tribune, General Pace drew a parallel between the ban on openly gay service members and the current military policy holding that infidelity is immoral and should be prosecuted:

“I do not believe that the armed forces of the United States are well served by saying, through our policies, that it’s okay to be immoral in any way, not just with regards homosexuality. So from that standpoint, saying that gays should serve openly in the military to me says that we, by policy, would be condoning what I believe is immoral activity. And therefore, as an individual, I would not want that to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with someone else’s wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not — we prosecute that kind of immoral behavior between members of the armed forces.”

Now let me note that the man is supporting current law and policy as set by the two political branches of government. Furthermore, the moral view of homosexual that he expresses is pretty mainstream -- indeed, they are the standard moral teaching of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (at least of those who still adhere to the notion that their respective books of scripture provide set moral norms). So I agree with Pace's position, expressed through his aides, that he has nothing to apologize for. Indeed, 'd argue that the gay rights groups really ought to be apologizing to the majority of Americans who hold beliefs similar to Pace's for the intolerance that they are expressing in condemnations like this.

"General Pace's comments are outrageous, insensitive and disrespectful to the 65,000 lesbian and gay troops now serving in our armed forces," the advocacy group Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said in a statement on its Web site.

Excuse me -- that demand is outrageous, insensitive, and disrespectful to the millions of Christians, Jews and Muslims currently citizens of the United States.

None of which, however, is an indication that I agree with General Pace about 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. I have long held and repeatedly stated that I believe the policy is wrong and should be changed. But to attack and demonize (not to mention question the patriotism of) those who hold to the historic teachings of the major monotheistic religions is much more offensive in my book than stating a moral belief held by all three of them.

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The Vice President has hit the nail right on the head.

In his speech, Cheney chided lawmakers who are pressing for tougher action on Iran to oppose the president on the Iraq War.

"It is simply not consistent for anyone to demand aggressive action against the menace posed by the Iranian regime while at the same time acquiescing in a retreat from Iraq that would leave our worst enemies dramatically emboldened and Israel's best friend, the United States, dangerously weakened," he said.

Let's assume the absolute best about the Neo-Copperhead Democrats. Let's assume that, unlike their Democrat predecessors during the Lincoln Administration, that they are not actively seeking the defeat of American troops in the field, nor are they supportive of terrorism against the recently liberated as members of their party were for decades following the American victory the original Copperheads opposed. Let's assume, in short, that their motives are not based upon treasonous support for the enemies of America.

If one makes all those assumptions, the DemocratICK position is nonsensical, for it calls for weakening the US militarily, diplomatically, and politically while at the same time demanding that we be prepared to deal with a different threat. It calls for leaving the enemy alone and negotiating with a nation that has acted against American interests for thirty years, both directly and through surrogates, while being prepared for "tough action" against that same nation. Those positions are antithetical to one another -- and prepare us for Munich-like "peace in our times" proclamation while that enemy continues to prepare to act against us. In other words, at best, the DemocratICK position is dangerous and wrong-headed.

UPDATE: Even the Washington Post, no hotbed of reactionary neo-conservatism, thinks the DemocratICK plans are stupid

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What's the big deal that it was discussed? For that matter, what's the big deal if it had been done? After all, such a mass firing isn't unprecedented.

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in October that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, according to a White House spokeswoman.

Excuse me, but there are two crucial points in this excerpt that need to be considered.

First, such a mass firing is not unprecedented -- and was carried out by Bill Clinton at the beginning of his presidency. Do Democrats really want to argue that such actions are illegal, unethical, or somehow tainted? If they do, I'm sure that the former President will make an excellent witness before Congress on such matters. I'm curious -- what would the impact of his testimony be on the presidential candidacy of his wife?

Second, do Democrats really wish to argue that failure to vigorously pursue election fraud cases is not a sufficient basis for firing? After all, those crimes strike directly at the heart of our system of government! Of course, the main perpetrators of various forms of electoral fraud in this country for the last several decades have been DemocratICK operatives and their allies, so I can understand the reluctance of Democrats to see such crimes pursued.

Is there a scandal in these firings? Yes -- and it is that the democrats and their willing allies in the media have again created a scandal where there is none.

MORE AT Captain's Quarters, Sister Toldjah, Macsmind

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Vonage is one of the hot companies out there today, offering great VoIP services. Well, if you are interested, there is an online coupon available at the Vonage® Sign Up Promotion website. It will get you a free month of Vonage service, and that is a good thing if you are looking to switch from traditional phone service to VoIP Internet phones as an affordable alternative to traditional telephone service. So go save yourself some money on Vonage!

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One would have thought that this move by the company viewed as the source of all evil by the Left would be greeted with cheers and hosannas by the Democrats and their allies. It hasn't been -- because they are concerned about the possibility that they might not be able to tap into the source of all evil's money.

They needn't worry. The move will not significantly impact the American workforce, nor will it change the company's incorporation in America.

Ever since Erle P. Halliburton established the New Method Oil Well Cementing Co. in Oklahoma in 1919, his name has been associated with American corporate know-how in the oilfield services business.

But over the weekend, the company now known as Halliburton announced that its chief executive, Dave Lesar, would move to a new corporate headquarters in Dubai to focus on business in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia.

The announcement sparked warnings from members of Congress, who suspected that the company once run by Vice President Cheney was trying to trim its tax bill and remove itself from the limelight here, where it has come under fire about the way it obtained and executed government contracts, especially those connected to troubled reconstruction projects in Iraq.

"The CEO of Halliburton has decided to leave this country to move his offices to Dubai because he says it is 'a great business center.' That is a bizarre announcement," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who is a member of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Dorgan, who said he would seek hearings on the move, added: "I want to know, is Halliburton trying to run away from bad publicity on their contracts? Are they trying to run away from the obligation to pay U.S. taxes? Or are they trying to set up a corporate presence in Dubai so that they can avoid the restrictions that currently exist on doing business with prohibited countries like Iran?"

Interesting, isn't it, that Dorgan wants hearings on a legal business decision by a company? If Halliburton did choose to leave the US, incorporate abroad, and thereby exempt itself from all taxes, that would be legal. So would doing so for purposes of being permitted into markets closed to American companies. For that matter, so would moving to another country where the business is welcome, not reviled by one party for political gain. But Dorgan doesn't seem to care about the legalities of the situation -- he simply wants to conduct an Inquisition, a witch-hunt in an effort to embarrass the administration due to Vice President Cheney's former ties to the company.

Indeed, the best case to be made for a decision by Halliburton to move all operations and legal incorporation abroad would be the very hearings proposed by Senator Dorgan -- because such a move would enable the company to thumb its nose at political light-weights like Dorgan, seeking to make a reputation through a Fitzerald-style inquiriy.

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If you are looking to lease, purchase, or develop commercial offices or warehouses or other Orlando Commercial Real Estate, then York Property Company may be for you. They provide corporate real estate services and tenant representation in that area of Florida, and are spoken of highly by clients like Debbie Worden of LASCO Fittings, Inc., Dave Altorfer of United Facilities, and Thomas C. Hartmann of ABC Fine Wine & Spirits. If you are doing business in the Orlando area, you should consider using York Property Company for your commercial real estate needs.

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This has to be the single weirdest presidential "announcement" in my lifetime. After lining up all the national media to announce a presidential run, Chuck Hagel didn't.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) postponed a final decision on a presidential bid today and again declined to rule out the possibility that he would run as an independent.

"In making this announcement, I believe there will still be political options open to me at a later date," Hagel said at a news conference this morning in Omaha. "I cannot control that, and I do not worry about it."

The announcement, which was billed by Hagel and his staff as a definitive answer to questions about his political future, left far more questions than answers.

Hagel offered no insight into whether a presidential candidacy would preclude a run for a third Senate term, saying only that he would continue to raise money for both his Senate campaign committee and his political action committee.

Maybe White Flag Republican Hagel has figured out that there is no future for him on the national level -- or is acting like a Neo-Copperhead Democrat and counting on a disaster in Iraq as the means of advancing his political future. Speaking as a republican, I can only say that, politically, Hagel is dead to me -- and I will sit home rather than vote for any ticket that he would run on. Indeed, he may be the only Republican I'd be less likely to vote for than John McCain.

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Well, looks like the Commies hate me.

Could it be my posts on the oppression of Chinese Christians?

My support for Taiwanese Independence?

Or my comments on a Dallas politician's ex-hooker Chinese wife?

I don't know.

I don't care.

I'm just glad that I'm not considered politically acceptable by the Red Chinese Oppressors in Beijing.

Check here to find out if you are banned in China!

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That's right -- a group that is more interested in denouncing the US government than jihadi terrorists and which has had four staffers convicted of terrorism-related charges will be using a conference room in the US Capitol, courtesy of a member of the Democrat majority.

A House Democrat has arranged for a conference room in the Capitol building to be used tomorrow by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group criticized for its persistent refusal to disavow terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

The District-based group also is singled out by other Democratic lawmakers and some law-enforcement officials because of financial ties to terrorists.

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., New Jersey Democrat, reserved the basement conference room for CAIR's panel discussion Tuesday titled "Global Attitudes on Islam-West Relations: U.S. Policy Implications."

"We just see it as a simple room request," Pascrell spokesman Caley Gray said. "We did receive a room request and evaluated it and approved it."

He said the forum "opens up an important dialogue about global public opinion concerning the United States."

Still, the event's sponsor raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill, even if all sorts of groups routinely hold receptions and meetings in the Capitol.

"It does happen all the time but usually it is the United Way or some constituent group or Mothers Against Drunk Driving, not a group with supposed ties to terrorism -- in the Capitol no less," a Hill staffer said.

Mind you, this is a group that denounced and tried to disrupt

More the recent Secular Islam Summit and its participants. In the process, they rejected this statement of principles, the St. Peteresbrg Declaration -- which one can only presume lacks legitimacy among Muslims as much as the signers do.. I've highlighted some of the more outrageous illegitimate positions.

We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree.

We affirm the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience. We believe in the equality of all human persons.

We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights.

We find traditions of liberty, rationality, and tolerance in the rich histories of pre-Islamic and Islamic societies. These values do not belong to the West or the East; they are the common moral heritage of humankind.

We see no colonialism, racism, or so-called “Islamaphobia” in submitting Islamic practices to criticism or condemnation when they violate human reason or rights.

We call on the governments of the world to

* reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostacy, in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights;

* eliminate practices, such as female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage, that further the oppression of women;

* protect sexual and gender minorities from persecution and violence;

* reform sectarian education that teaches intolerance and bigotry towards non-Muslims;

* and foster an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation.

We demand the release of Islam from its captivity to the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men and the rigid strictures of orthodoxy.

We enjoin academics and thinkers everywhere to embark on a fearless examination of the origins and sources of Islam, and to promulgate the ideals of free scientific and spiritual inquiry through cross-cultural translation, publishing, and the mass media.

We say to Muslim believers: there is a noble future for Islam as a personal faith, not a political doctrine;

to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, BahaÂ’is, and all members of non-Muslim faith communities: we stand with you as free and equal citizens;

and to nonbelievers: we defend your unqualified liberty to question and dissent.

Before any of us is a member of the Umma, the Body of Christ, or the Chosen People, we are all members of the community of conscience, the people who must chose for themselves.

Yeah, that's right -- a group opposed to these principles will be using the US Capitol to further disseminate its hatred and bigotry. What next -- will Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. be reserving rooms for the KKK and American Nazi Party, if they make a "simple room request"?

MORE AT Captain's Quarters, Powerline, Blogger News Network

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Is, of course, that there is never enough of it.

I'll be honest, sometimes trying to keep up with all the current accounts as I pay off various loans and bills can seem like a daunting challenge. At times like that I'm glad that my home insurance is rolled into my mortgage payment, because at least that is one bill fewer to follow up with.

In the past I've even let credit cards get me in over my head, to the point that I've had to consider going to an outside source for debt advice. It isn't pretty or fun when such a situation arises, for it raises issues of personal responsibility and powerlessness at the same time. Now that I'm a homeowner, of course, Remortgages (or what we in the States call refinancing) becomes an option in the event that money issues ever become too tight. But regardless, there are always options available to deal with money.

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In my lifetime, there has never been a race for the Republican nomination for president that was truly "up for grabs" and without a clear front-runner well-before th primary season had started.

Think about it.

Goldwater.
Nixon.
Ford.
Reagan.
Bush.
Dole.
Bush.

Out of all of those candidates, only Gerald Ford had any significant opposition, and that was due to the unusual route by which he had reached the presidency.

This year is different, notes commentator Stuart Rothenberg. The top three candidates (McCain, Giuliani, and Romney) all have issues that could keep them from igniting with the base or which could tear them down before the primaries start. Even the second-tier candidates do not inspire enthusiasm or deviate significantly from the base.

Mike Huckabee and Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.)? Each is not without appeal, but both have critics and so far no way to raise the tens of millions of dollars needed to make a real race. Anti-tax activists in the Republican Party are equally anti-Huckabee, and the former governor of Arkansas told me months ago that he agrees with Bush's position on immigration.

Interestingly, I've asked a number of thoughtful political consultants, from both parties, who they think is most likely to be the GOP nominee and who is the least likely. So far, Giuliani is seen as the most likely and McCain as the least. That's not a scientific sample or a reliable poll. But that kind of anecdotal evidence has me more confused than ever.

Of course, none of this includes Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), an anti-Iraq War Republican who is conservative on issues but has the outsider/reformer image that John McCain once had but is now losing.

If you aren't confused yet, you aren't paying attention. This is a race that is not merely up for grabs. It's unusually unpredictable. The only thing I'm sure of right now is that the Republicans will have a nominee at some point next year.

This one is going to be interesting -- and the only positive note I can think of is that the Democrats have their own hotly contested race to deal with.

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The non-enforcement of America's immigration laws over the last couple of decades has been a disgrace that have allowed millions of border-jumping immigration criminals to enter our country and set up housekeeping in our communities, taking jobs from American citizens. In the proces, they have started families, and some of their children are American citizens. That is why the Houston Chronicle has come out with another editorial attacking the enforcement of immigration law and advocating against border security -- because of the impact of such policies upon those children.

Somehow, though it was meant to defend taxpayers, legal workers and oppressed factory employees, last week's immigration raid in New Bedford, Mass., ended up trampling all of the above.

Worse, the raid managed to traumatize an entirely different group: the 200 children left behind when their parents were seized from the Michael Bianco Inc. leather-goods plant.

The resulting municipal crisis exposed the stunning shortsightedness of Department of Homeland Security forces, which oversaw the raid. But in the bigger picture, it showed, again, that symbolic workplace sweeps are pointless substitutes for workplace/immigration laws that function: visa quotas that match labor demands and a reliable ID system for employers who really do want to comply with the law.

Currently, the New Bedford employers walk free until their court date to determine if they abused workers and guided them to buy fraudulent documents. Meanwhile, most of the almost 350 undocumented workers —who needed jobs so badly they put up with the firm's alleged mistreatment — are behind bars. Single mothers of very young children have now been released, federal officials say. But many of the estimated 200 children who were left behind remained cut off from their parents.

The stranded children initially included nursing infants; they still include small children stuck with foster care, relatives or, frighteningly, total strangers such as landlords, after their parents didn't come home from work.

"It's been a widespread humanitarian crisis here in New Bedford," Corinn Williams, director of the Community Economic Center of Southeastern Massachusetts, told the Associated Press. Added an outraged Gov. Deval Patrick, "Latchkey kids and some adolescents as well might have gone home after school with no one to take care for them."

To try to locate them and other children who fell through the cracks, Massachusetts has established a hotline. What a pitiful coda to a massive federal action that was weeks, maybe months, in the planning.

I'm curious -- what other group of criminals should not be arrested, and what other laws should not be enforced, because of the impact upon children? I noticed that the Chronicle didn't speak out on behalf of the children of the Enron defendnts or those charged with any other crime -- only on behalf of the children of foreigners guilty of breaking and entering into the united states illegally.

I'll reiterate my position on the question of children of illegal immigrants. Those who are not US citizens need to be shipped back to their country of origin along with their parents. Those who are US citizens need to be placed in foster care pending the revocation of the parental rights of their criminal parents -- or those parents need to permanently and irrevocably renounce the US citizenship of their offspring and take them back to their homeland. Just as we do not allow other criminals to benefit from the proceeds of their crimes, so, too, we need to ensure that border-jumping immigration criminals do not benefit from having had the opportunity to reproduce during the time they were violating US law. Oh, yeah -- and we also need to amend the constitution to end birthright citizenship for the chldren of illegal immigrants.

Is my position harsh? You bet -- but it strikes me as the only way to take away the incentive of having anchor babies.

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According to family tradition, my family was exiled from Spain to Germany during the time of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was also King Charles I of Spain. I'm really not sure why, as the reasons are lost in the mists of antiquity. Perhaps it was due in part to the traumas associated with the Reconquista under Ferdinand and Isabella and their exile of Muslims and Jews -- even many of those who had converted to the Catholic faith.

Whatever the reasons my family left Spain, it is a beautiful country. Many Europeans love to vacation there, and are interested in purchasing properties in Costa Almeria, an Apartment in Costa Blanca and other beautiful coastal regions of Spain. If you are interested in having a vacation place in Spain, I urge you to click the links above.

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Well, I suppose it is a possibility, but does he really have what it takes after a couple of years confined to television?

Not enough "star" power for Fred Thompson in a GOP presidential field that includes some of his friends? Whatever the case, the actor and former Tennessee senator is considering getting into the 2008 race.

Thompson, who plays district attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's drama "Law & Order," said Sunday, "I'm giving some thought to it, going to leave the door open" and decide in the coming months. "It's not really a reflection on the current field at all," he said.

"I'm just going to wait and see what happens," Thompson added. "I wanted to see how my colleagues who are on the campaign trail do now, what they say, what they emphasize, what they're addressing, and how successful they are in doing that, and whether or not they can carry the ball in next November."

Thompson impressed me in 2000, when many of us were quite interested in seeing him as the VP nominee. That said, I believe his decision to leave the Senate and return to acting has sapped some of his potential credibility, though he has kept up some of his involvement in the party.

A transcript of his remarks is found here.

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Looking for a flight to Brazil? How about between the US and UK? DialAFlight.com offers great deals on travel to many destinations -- and service is provided by people who have actually been to the destinations, so they know where to go and what to do when you ask them. Drop on by DialAFlight.com for more details, and book a flight.

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