April 30, 2008
That said, I've got a problem with this detail released by Texas officials -- I find it unreasonably prejudicial and not particularly illuminating.
Although Cockerell didn’t elaborate on the broken bones, a report by his department’s Child Protective Services division said medical exams and interviews indicated “that at least 41 children have had broken bones in the past.”“We do not have X-rays or complete medical information on many children so it is too early to draw any conclusions based on this information, but it is cause for concern and something we’ll continue to examine,” the CPS report said.
Maybe i'm nuts, but 41 kids out of 464 with broken bones AT SOME POINT in their childhood doesn't seem all that outrageous to me. It is less than 10%, which would probably be about the rate my classmates and I suffered growing up. Heck, I can remember one summer in which one of my closest friends fractured his skull when fell riding up a steep hill on his bicycle and another broke her arm falling out of a tree in her yard -- and there weren't 20 school-aged kids on our street. The raw statistics on the broken bones tell us nothing -- and until we learn more about the types of breaks and possible causes, we can't no that these 41 broken bones really mean anything. CPS should have waited to disclose the information until they could determine more conclusively whether these injuries were from normal childhhood accidents or from abuse.
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A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between the natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos and the world's gay women.Three islanders from Lesbos — home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women — have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name.
One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults the identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.
"My sister can't say she is a Lesbian," said Dimitris Lambrou. "Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos," he said.
The three plaintiffs are seeking to have the group barred from using "lesbian" in its name and filed a lawsuit on April 10. The other two plaintiffs are women.
We'll refrain from jokes about Lambrou being a male Lesbian (I vaguely to recall a Limbaugh caller over 15 years ago claiming to be a "male lesbian") and simply note that this lawsuit seems pretty frivolous to me.
But as I said, it does bring back memories of a classroom discussion a couple of years ago.
As do most world history texts, ours mentions Sappho of Lesbos as one of the great writers of Greek antiquity. One openly lesbian 10th grader immediately made the connection between "Lesbos" and "lesbian" and raised the point. The sort of banter one would imagine among 15-16 year old students ran for about 20-30 seconds until I could tamp it down, at which point I answered her question by noting that "Lesbian" would be the term used to describe anyone of either gender and any sexual orientation if they were from Lesbos -- and that in the ancient world the island was noted for its fine "Lesbian" wine and other products. So despite my assessment of the merits of the lawsuit, a part of me is glad to see the people of the island seeking to reclaim their right to the word.
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But as we read into the article, the real story seems to tell us something else.
So what we are actually told in the story is that John McCain is essentially tied with both of his Democrat rivals. The Bush thing in the headline is essentially a red herring. Indeed, the information in the headline seems to match up pretty well with the number of folks who seem intent upon voting for the Democrat who gets their party's nomination -- they would never vote for McCain, and are simply parroting the talking points that the Democrats have put forward for the last few weeks.
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09:59 PM
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Indeed, even though Democrats have an 18-point advantage over Republicans in a generic presidential ballot test (51-33 percent), this latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey shows Obama besting McCain by only three points (46-43 percent) and Clinton topping the Arizona senator by only one (45-44 percent).
But then again, so is MSNBC.
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[Ret. Col. Bud] Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.
But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.
Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.
McCain himself had been tortured and suffered grievous injuries after his capture by the North Vietnamese. They wanted to use him for propaganda purposes, but when he refused they made him suffer. Yet when he found one of his fellow prisoners suffering and in danger of being permanently maimed due to the sadism of their captors, McCain acted in the best tradition of our country by placing himself in danger to prevent that outcome.
There is more, much more, to this article – including the beautiful story of how the McCains came to adopt their daughter Bridget. I would only add to it that there was, in fact, a second baby girl who Cindy McCain brought back to the US for medical treatment – and the couple found another family to adopt that child as well. After reading this article, tell me that John and Cindy McCain, two decent people despite their past flaws and past mistakes, would not be the sort of First Couple who would make America proud.
H/T NRO's Campaing Spot, Hot Air
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A north London man is to appear in court charged with assault after two Orthodox Jews were stabbed in two random street attacks.Mohamed Jama Ahmed, 37, of North Circular Road, will appear at Hendon Magistrates` Court charged with two counts of grievous bodily harm.
The two victims, both men, were attacked within minutes of each other on Friday evening, but police say the incidents are not being treated as hate crimes.
I guess that when a member of the Religion of Peace commits a couple of violent assaults upon a couple of Jews on a city street for no apparent reason, there is no basis for treating the matter as a hate crime.
After all, we never hear violent anti-Semitic rhetoric out of Muslim communities here in the western world.
And Muslims rarely if ever engage in random violent attacks against innocent Jews just going about their daily lives anywhere in the world.
So it mustnÂ’t be a hate crime.
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The bruised economy limped through the first quarter, growing at just a 0.6 percent pace as housing and credit problems forced people and businesses alike to hunker down.The country's economic growth during January through March was the same as in the final three months of last year, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. The statistic did not meet what economists consider the classic definition of a recession, which is a retraction of the economy. This means that although the economy is stuck in a rut, it is still managing to grow, even if modestly.
Many analysts were predicting that the gross domestic product (GDP) would weaken a bit more—to a pace of just 0.5 percent—in the first quarter. Earlier this year, some economists thought the economy would actually lurch into reverse during the opening quarter. Now, they say they believe that will likely happen during the current April-to-June period.
"The economy is weak but not collapsing," said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America's Investment Strategies Group. "A recession can't be ruled out, although the stars are not lined up at this point to definitively say one way or the other."
Which makes us wonder – liberals have been telling us for months that we are in the throes of a recession. Economists, however, find that not to be the case and question if we are actually entering one. Could the recessionary claims all be partisan smoke designed to obscure the weakness of the Democrats running for the presidency and Congress? Are the Democrats willing to trash America’s economy – like they trash our military and the war effort – in order to improve their chances of electoral victory?
Great additional commentary on the non-recessionary recession at Don Surber, Right on the Left Coast and Blogs for Victory.
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April 29, 2008
Liberal Democrat and (alleged) funnyman Al Franken gets to run for US Senate instead.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, front-runner in the race to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, said on Tuesday that he has paid $70,000 in back taxes and penalties owed in 17 states, going back to 2003.Franken, who has earned income across the country for celebrity appearances and speeches, blamed his accountant of 18 years for failing to pay the appropriate taxes owed in each state.
The accountant, Allen Chanzis of New York, "just made a basic kind of error that had a lot of ramifications," Franken said.
Franken said that he paid federal and state taxes on all of his income, but that the accountant had failed to properly distribute the tax payments.
Yeah, that-'s it -- blame it on the accountants.
At best, it is an indication that Franken is out of touch with the realities of everyday life for real Americans -- and that he lacks the judgment to hire competent professionals to do his taxes or to make sure they are paid in a proper, timely fashion.
Still, Democrats are going to try t elect him to the US Senate in Minnesota.
If he were a Republican, they'd be demanding a special prosecutor and jail time in each of the 17 defrauded states.
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DD, and 
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It is the story of a sexton in the synagogue in the Polish city of Oswiecim who buried most of the sacred scroll before the Germans stormed in and later renamed the city Auschwitz. It is the story of Jewish prisoners who sneaked the rest of it — four carefully chosen panels — into the concentration camp.It is the story of a Polish Catholic priest to whom they entrusted the four panels before their deaths. It is the story of a Maryland rabbi who went looking for it with a metal detector. And it is the story of how a hunch by the rabbi’s 13-year-old son helped lead him to it.
This Torah, more than most, “is such an extraordinary symbol of rebirth,” said Peter J. Rubinstein, the rabbi of Central Synagogue. “As one who has gone to the camps and assimilates into my being the horror of the Holocaust, this gives meaning to Jewish survival.”
If you want a story of faith and devotion in the face of absolute evil, this is it. If you want a story of dedication to the sacred that will put a lump in your throat, here it is. And if you want the story of a mystery solved after decades, this is the story for you.
May it inspire you as the words of the Torah inspired those faithful Jews who were responsible for safeguarding it even when they could not safeguard their own lives.
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Schools will be made to keep records of teenage pregnancy rates, pupils' drug problems, criminal records and obesity levels under government plans to give parents a true picture of children's lives.The ideas, set out in a discussion document from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, suggest schools would become accountable for 18 new targets, from bullying and neglect, to what happens to pupils after they leave school. Sources said the 10-page document, entitled Indicators of schools' performance in contributing to pupil wellbeing, calls for Ofsted inspectors to judge schools on the wide range of measures in addition to existing criteria such as exam results and exclusion rates. The measures could be implemented by Ofsted from 2009, and suggest that schools would become broadly responsible for children's safety, enjoyment and happiness.
So let's see here -- now teachers are going to be somehow held responsible for student "extra-curricular activities" like their sex lives, drug use, and off-campus diet. Schools will be rated not just upon academic indicators, but also upon these "indicators of pupil well-being" -- in other words, based upon criteria that are realistically beyond the control of school officials.
Take that teen pregnancy one. My experience is that most students do not become pregnant at school. We can teach abstinence (our current method here in texas) or supply socialized birth control on top of extensive sex education (the British method), but we cannot stop teenagers from "putting Tab A into Slot B". We are not in control of the diet of students outside of a school setting, or whether or not they do drugs away from school.
Indeed, many of these indicators are less related to school factors than they are to socio-economic or cultural ones. Why make tracking and remedying them the responsibility of relatively low-paid teachers -- most of whom are not trained to remedy them in the first place?
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Much of the damage has stemmed from a slump in the housing market, where prices are nearly 15 percent off their high in July 2006.In the 12 months ended in February, the Case-Shiller home price index, which measures the value of single-family homes in 10 major metropolitan regions, fell 13.6 percent, the biggest decline since records began in 1987. A broader 20-city index dropped 12.7 percent.
Of course, there is a reason that we have seen housing prices drop so precipitously -- the last several years have been a part of what analysts were calling a housing bubble. You know, as in the prices of residential real estate was significantly inflated beyond its actual value. And I certainly recall experts saying that in some metropolitan areas we were seeing prices exceed the real value of the property, and the ability of many consumers to afford to make real estate purchases. Not only that, but we were assured that we were headed for a fall wehn the bubble burst.
Well, folks, the bubble has burst. We have experienced what on the stock market is euphemistically called "a correction".
In other words, housing prices are adjusting to a more realistic level, below the highly speculative levels that they reached in the recent past.
Am I saying that the current situation in the housing market is a good one? Not necessarily. But it is interesting to note that the drop in home prices will put a house within the reach of folks who one year ago could not afford to buy one a year ago. These individuals, who acted responsibly and lived within their means, will now be able to make the purchase that they deferred as out of their price range. Shouldn't we be celebrating these responsible purchasers rather than rewarding the irresponsible ones who exceeded their means by giving them a government mandated (and maybe financed) bail-out?
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The Sedona Method presents itself as a way of bridging the ideas found in The Secret and A New Earth. It claims that the power and simplicity of The Sedona Method helps you to achieve freedom from ego while getting what you want through the Law of Attraction. Indeed, the website mentioned above is designed to show youhow The Sedona Method is the bridge between The Secret and the Law of Attraction though its various pages and videos designed to introduce you to the Sedona Method.
Frankly, IÂ’m not entirely sold on The Sedona Method and the related teachings of Eckhart Tolle. IÂ’ve seen many different programs over the years that claim to help you achieve some form of inner peace by letting go of negative energy and emotions. But based upon the positive statements of those who have tried The Sedona Method, IÂ’m inclined to believe that there is something to it. After all, when you have so many folks happy with the outcome of implementing the ideas behind such a program in their lives, it becomes clear that there is some merit to what it offers. So check out their offer of a free DVD and CD at their website to learn more.
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Here's the heart of the statement from the press conference this afternoon.
You know, I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992. I have known Reverend Wright for almost 20 years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought, either.
Now, I've already denounced the comments that had appeared in these previous sermons. As I said, I had not heard them before. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church. He's built a wonderful congregation. The people of Trinity are wonderful people. And what attracted me has always been their ministry's reach beyond the church walls.
But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century, when he equates the United States wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that's what I'm doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.
Unfortunately for Obama, none of that matters.
After all, Barack Obama is the guy who six weeks ago the speech">told us this about Jeremiah Wright.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Crazy Uncle Jeremiah is a part of Barack Obama -- and if he could not disown Rev. Wright six weeks ago, I don't see how we can accept the denunciation today. After all, nothing has changed from six weeks ago. The pastor has said nothing new. Unless, as Wright pointed out over the weekend, Barack Obama is just another politician doing what politicians have to do to get elected -- and in this case lying to the American public trying to save his opportunity to be president.
But I think that Barack Obama might have revealed his real reason for speaking out today. Referring to Wright's most NPC speech, he said, "It was a show of disprespect to me."
Yes, there we have it. This isn't about principle, this is about his own ego. He's lashing out at Wright out of personal pique, rather than principle.
Anyone else need evidence that Barack Obama is simply unfit to serve as President of the United States?
By the way, I think I've found a new theme song for the Obama campaign.
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“Stop being crusader.”
That was the directive of British police to a Christian convert from Islam in the UK. His unacceptable conduct? Seeking police intervention after his life was threatened and a vacant house next to his was burned. Rather than protect his fundamental human rights, the police lamed the victim and suggested that he move to a new neighborhood.
A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report.Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set on fire.
Shocking – but not surprising any more.
Sadly, this happened in the kand that gave birth to any of the concepts that undergird out notion of unalienable rights. Today a higher value is placed upon not offending Muslim sensisbilities than upon the human rights of the rest of society.
And I cannot help but be struck by the word choice of the directive by the police.
"Crusader."
That is the word of choice for Islamists in justifying their attacks upon the civilized world. We are “crusaders” when they fly airplanes into buildings, “crusaders” when they set IEDs to maim and kill our soldiers, “crusaders’ when they behead their hostages in the name of Allah. For the police to dare to use that word to describe a victim of Islamist threats is disgusting.
And let us be clear – now they are threatening us with violence and death in our own cities for the crime of worshipping the one who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life instead of following Muhammad’s path of darkness. But somehow we who acknowledge this conflict is based upon the fundamental incompatibility of Islam with Western Civilization are presented as the bad buys by those who claim to be forces of tolerance.
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But is history wrong? Did Abraham LincolnÂ’s killer escape justice? Did Union troops kill an innocent man in a tragic case of mistaken identity? Those questions are periodically raised by assassination buffs and conspiracy theorists alike. And now it may be possible to lay the question to rest once and for all.
Sometime after 2 a.m. on a cool, cloudy Wednesday, a group of detectives and blue-clad troopers cornered a murderous fugitive in a tobacco barn on the Garrett family farm near Port Royal, Va."Draw up your men before the door and I'll come out and fight the whole command," called a voice from the barn. "Well, my brave boys, prepare a stretcher for me!"
A soldier lit a tuft of hay, threw it inside and spied the silhouette of a man on crutches, a carbine on his hip.
Pop! A shot was fired and, 143 years ago today, John Wilkes Booth - assassin of Abraham Lincoln - collapsed to the ground, mortally wounded in the neck.
That's what history says.But two local Booth family descendants - Joanne Hulme of Philadelphia's Kensington section, and her sister, Virginia Kline of Warminster - aren't convinced.
They think that another man was killed and that Booth, who they believe was the president's assassin, lived to a ripe old age.
Aided by Booth historians, researchers and scientists, the sisters may now be on the threshold of proving their theory through DNA tests.
Results of the tests will be revealed on television this fall.
Personally, I place myself among the traditionalists. That said, I am open to evidence that I am wrong to accept the official story. And given that there have been multiple individuals who claimed to be John Wilkes Booth years after he was supposedly killed at Port Royal, perhaps the evidence from these tests will substantiate or refute those claim as well.
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April 28, 2008
But what it also did was inescapably bind Obama to Wright -- but as long as Wright remained in the background, there was hope that the controversy might go away.
After this past weekend, it won't. Between his Bill Moyers interview, Dalas Sermon, Detroit NAACP address, and National Press Club session, Jeremiah Wright is going to be a serious issue at least through the Democrat Convention -- and up to November, if Obama still wins the nomination.
Some, like Andrew Sullivan, are advising Obama to dump Wright completely.
But Wright's cooptation of
Obama for his own agenda - his assertion that Obama's distancing from
him is insincere - requires, in fact demands a response from Obama.Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to
disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to
me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer,
Vietnam era's obsession with its red-blue, white-black, pro and
anti-America fixations. That is not what this election needs to be
about; and Wright's massive, racially divisive and, yes, bitter provocation
requires a proportionate response.We need a speech or statement from Obama in which he utterly repudiates this
poison, however personally difficult that may be, however damaging the
impact will be. The statement today will not do it. This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one
man's politics with another. It is now about Wright attempting to
associate himself and some of his noxious, stupid, rancid views with the likely
Democratic nominee. Wright has given Obama no choice - and he has also
given him another opportunity. He needs to
seize it.
I respectfully disagree.
Barack Obama had his chance to denounce, renounce, and repudiate Jeremiah Wright. Unfortunately for him, that opportunity was some six or seven weeks ago, when he made his overly-hyped speech on race. And I stated at the time, his failure to quit Trinity UCC and sever his relationship with Jeremiah Wright was a profound error. To do so now would be to prove Wright's words in the Moyers interview, that Obama is nothing but a politician doing what politicians do to get elected. As such, Barack Obama is permanetly -- and perhaps fatally -- damaged as a presidential candidate.
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Well, today my high school students are excited about another fight, and another couple of boxers. The two fighters are Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. A year ago, De La Hoya tried to defend his title against World Boxing Council welterweight champ Floyd Mayweather, Jr. at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. In the end, Mayweather won by a split decision after twelve rounds and earned the World Boxing Council (WBC) Light Middleweight title.
Well, now it is rematch time, with the return engagement scheduled for September 20, 2008. Do you want to be one of the lucky ones who gets to see the action happening live at the MGM Grand Garden Arena? If you do, you need to act early to purchase De La Hoya vs Mayweather tickets unless you want to end up with overpriced tickets from ticket brokers or scalpers – or worse yet, no tickets at all. Will Mayweather defend his title successfully, or will it again change hands in a spectacular display of the pugilist’s art?
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Now Texas law allows for the presentation of the voter registration card, which lacks a picture. As per that statute, I accept it, but I always have this niggling doubt in the back of my mind -- what if this has been stolen from someone's mailbox? I believe that a sstate-issued photo ID would be preferrable.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that nothing in the US Constitution forbids a state from requiring one for voting purposes.
States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.Twenty-five states require some form of ID, and the court's 6-3 decision rejecting a challenge to Indiana's strict voter ID law could encourage others to adopt their own measures. Oklahoma legislators said the decision should help them get a version approved.
The ruling means the ID requirement will be in effect for next week's presidential primary in Indiana, where a significant number of new voters are expected to turn out for the Democratic contest between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
The basis for the decision is a very straightforward one, and comes from one of the members of the more liberal bloc on the Supreme Court.
"The application of the statute to the vast majority of Indiana voters is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process," he wrote. His opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who is normally on the right, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is often considered a swing vote.The opinion left open the possibility that voters who had proof that they were adversely affected by such laws could petition the courts, but made it clear that it would be difficult for them to prevail.
In other words, the state has a legitimate interest in preventing voter fraud -- but the controlling opinion in this case allows for additional consideration of the question depending upon some showing of actual harm or disparate impact. By any stretch of all but the most fevered imagination, that is a reasonable standard to impose when one looks at a law that is neutral on its face and designed to safeguard something so fundamental as the integrity of elections.
Which only serves to prove that there are three members of the High Court whose hyperactive imaginations make it impossible for them to be taken seriously on this (or most other) issues.
Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer dissented. Justice Souter, in an opinion joined by Justice Ginsburg, said the Indiana law, which calls for a government-issued photo identification, like a driver’s license or passport, “threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state’s citizens.”
The so-called "nontrivial burdens" being the acquisition of a free state-issued identification card and presenting it on election day -- or within 10 days afterwards if they do not have it on election day.
Am I insensitive to the concerns of those who brought this challenge? No, I am not -- and agree with the Washington Post that the impact of such laws should be monitored to make sure that there is in practice no undue burden placed upon the exercise of the right to vote.
On the other hand, I am not at all in sympathy with the impotent attempt of the New York Times to overrule the nation's top court in today's editorial, in which it uncritically accepts all the arguments of those who challenged the law. But even those speculative claims fall victim to one of the undeniable realities of this case -- one of the plaintiffs in the case was found to be a fraudulent voter, and this law is likely to stop even more.
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Don’t snap a photo of the Masjid At-Taqwa in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn unless you want to be hauled away by a group of angry Muslims in Islamic attire to the basement of the facility where a group of twenty “security guards” in karate suits will interrogate you.
This might sound preposterous.But it happened on Saturday, April 24, at 3:00 in the afternoon.
Ali Kareem, the head of security for Siraj WahajÂ’s mosque, conducted the grilling. A small, muscular man with a wispy black beard that has been dyed red with henna, Kareem demanded to know the reason why a trio of kafirs had dared to photograph the building on a public street without securing his permission.
He further insisted on securing our identities and obtaining our motives for such a violation of Islamic space.
Being surrounded by a group of militant guards in a mosque basement from which there is no means of escape is not a comforting place to be for a Wall Street financier.
We tried to explain that we found the neighborhood with its halal meat vendors and food stores; Islamic dress shops, featuring the latest styles in burqas and hijabs; Muslim souvenir outlets, replete with bumper stickers stating “Don’t Be Caught Dead Without Islam”; and Middle Eastern restaurants offering a variety of goat dishes to be rather quaint and interesting.
This explanation was not sufficient.
Kareem was impatient and did not want a detailed explanation of the reason for our excursion (simple sight-seeing) or a graphic account of the sights we had seen and photographed.
“I ask the questions here,” he said, “and you provide the answers.”
Realizing that we were in a bit of a pickle, my companion explained that we were interested in various religions and knew Siraj Wahaj, the imam of the mosque, was a prominent Muslim figure whom we would like to interview for a news outlet.
This didnÂ’t work too well since we could not produce a business card from a wacko blog, let alone credentials from a national publication.
At last, we blurted out that we were admirers of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him) and wanted to obtain information about conversion. We were even knowledgeable enough to blurt out “Salaam” and “Allahu akbar.”
The last utterance seemed to be the “Open Sesame” that got us out of the basement and back to Bedford Street, where we managed to take a picture of the mosque before hailing a cab and making a getaway.
The experience was disconcerting. Surely, anyone who takes a picture of St. PatrickÂ’s Cathedral or the Riverside Church is not hauled off to a basement for questioning by a threatening figure in a karate uniform and a band of Ninjas.
What we have here is CRIMINAL ACTIVITY being conducted by representatives/employees of the mosque in question. Being that this is the United States, any person of any religion is permitted to be on a public sidewalk in any neighborhood. They are even permitted to take photographs on a public street under virtually all circumstances.
But apparently the folks of Masjid At-Taqwa don’t think that they are in America – or that the rights of citizens in this country rank somewhere below their Islamic sensibilities. After all, what legal authority did Ali Kareem and his band of 20 kidnappers have to detain Bos Smith and Paul Williams? What legal authority did they have to question them, demanding identification and the justification for their legal actions on a city street? Could you imagine the outrage if a local synagogue or church did this to a group of Muslims or ethnic minorities? The forces of tolerance and multi-culturalism would be waxing hysterical about the hate crime that had been committed!
I appreciate Smith and Williams being willing to document this crime. I’d like to encourage them to report the offenses in question to the New York Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – and to take their story to the local and national media.
After all, a bias crime is a bias crime, isnÂ’t it?
H/T Jawa Report
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The Rev. Jeremiah Wright says criticism surrounding his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church.Barack Obama's longtime pastor says he hopes the controversy will have a positive outcome and spark an honest dialogue about race in America. Wright says black church traditions are still "invisible" to many Americans, as they have been throughout the country's history.
Excuse me, but IÂ’d like to take issue with the contention that criticism of Wright constitutes an attack on the African-American religious tradition.
Unless, of course, the African-American religious tradition is built upon lies and hatred.
Like claims that the government invented AIDS to wipe out black people (he implicitly reaffirmed his support for that patently false theory today) and supplied drugs to the ghetto as a means of keeping the black man down.
Like such deep contempt for one’s country that shouts of “God Damn America” are mainstream and claims that America and the Klan are one and the same.
Wright claims to be quoted out of context, and from only one or two sermons. Yet Trinity UCC took down all links to his sermons, and quit selling all of them through their bookstore, as soon as these “out of context” excerpts became controversial. Why? What more is there to hide? Why not make them more widely available. To prove the “attacks” are scurrilous in nature?
And then there is the association with “black liberation theology” (a topic I was introduced to 15-20 years ago during my seminary days), a controversial school of thought that goes beyond merely interpreting the Christian faith from a black perspective and instead teaches something else. Today Wright embraced both the theology and its originator in their entirety.
But what does that theological construct teach? That whites are intrinsically racist and evil and that “whiteness” must be rejected and destroyed. It is, indeed, a separatist creed every bit as much as the racist ideology of Christian Identity – and as such needs to be equally rejected by Christians who accept Paul’s declaration in Galatians 3:28.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (NKJV)
Now Jeremiah Wright is perfectly welcome to claim to be a Christian while rejecting the clear voice of Scripture by embracing Black Liberation Theology – but those of us who cling to the Bible and our faith are also entitled to critique the theological construct that he preaches from his pulpit. After all, Wright does not have a corner on what it means to be a Christian, nor does he have the exclusive franchise on calling for repentance and returning to fidelity to Christ.
To the degree that our doing so means repeating over and over again that there are elements of Black Liberation Theology that are fundamentally at odds with Scripture, then we must say that and that its purveyors are false teachers who tickle the ears of their hearers with false doctrine – and if saying it constitutes, as Wright claims, an attack on the black church, then such an attack is our duty as Christians. But the reality is that Wright, Cone, and other Black Liberation theologians are not the black church -- and that today's claim by Wright is nothing more than the playing of the race card by one more hate-mongering race-baiter of the Jackson-Sharpton-Farrakhan school orf racial division..
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April 27, 2008
It's almost like Googling someone: Log on to Facebook. Join the Washington, D.C., network. Search the Web site for your favorite school system. And then watch the public profiles of 20-something teachers unfurl like gift wrap on the screen, revealing a sense of humor that can be overtly sarcastic or unintentionally unprofessional -- or both.One Montgomery County special education teacher displayed a poster that depicts talking sperm and invokes a slang term for oral sex. One woman who identified herself as a Prince William County kindergarten teacher posted a satiric shampoo commercial with a half-naked man having an orgasm in the shower. A D.C. public schools educator offered this tip on her page: "Teaching in DCPS -- Lesson #1: Don't smoke crack while pregnant."
Just to be clear, these are not teenagers, the typical Internet scofflaws and sources of ceaseless discussion about cyber-bullying, sexual predators and so on. These are adults, many in their 20s, who are behaving, for the most part, like young adults.
But the crudeness of some Facebook or MySpace teacher profiles, which are far, far away from sanitized Web sites ending in ".edu," prompts questions emblematic of our times: Do the risque pages matter if teacher performance is not hindered and if students, parents and school officials don't see them? At what point are these young teachers judged by the standards for public officials?
In states including Florida, Colorado, Tennessee and Massachusetts, teachers have been removed or suspended for MySpace postings, and some teachers unions have begun warning members about racy personal Web sites. But as Facebook, with 70 million members, and other social networking sites continue to grow, scrutiny will no doubt spread locally.
The annals of teachers-gone-wild-on-the-Web include once-anonymous people who've done something outlandish with a blog or online video. Many people, especially in the Richmond area, remember high school art teacher Stephen Murmer, fired last year for painting canvasses with his buttocks in images on YouTube.
Of course, many of the tens of thousands of Washington area teachers put social networking sites or personal Web pages to constructive uses. Others push the limits.
I suffer from serious mixed emotions on such web pages. I'm a strong supporter of freedom of speech. However, I also recognize that we teachers are in a public role where our outside conduct can have an impact in our classrooms and schools.
Early on in my career, a colleague gave me some advice. It amounted to the following -- don't do anything where your students of their parents will find out about it if you don't want to explain it to your principal. Now this crusty old fellow was talking about patronizing the numerous bars and strip clubs that were to be found in one of the communities served by my school (something I didn't do -- but which had gotten a young ale teacher fired the previous year). But it was good advice -- and is even better advice in a day when all it takes is a few key-strokes and mouse-clicks to have activities exposed to the world.
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Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Sunday called Democratic rival Barack Obama insensitive to poor people and out of touch on economic issues.The GOP nominee-in-waiting rapped his Democratic rival for opposing his idea to suspend the tax on fuel during the summer, a proposal that McCain believes will particularly help low-income people who usually have older cars that guzzle more gas.
"I noticed again today that Sen. Obama repeated his opposition to giving low-income Americans a tax break, a little bit of relief so they can travel a little further and a little longer, and maybe have a little bit of money left over to enjoy some other things in their lives," McCain said. "Obviously Sen. Obama does not understand that this would be a nice thing for Americans, and the special interests should not be dictating this policy."
Remember - it isn't just the poor who spend a large amount of money on gas -- the middle class does as well, between work and recreattional activities.
And Obama's plan to support a tax increase on all Americans who pay income taxes -- not to mention the reimposition of income tax on lower middle class Americans whose tax liability was reduced to zero under the Bush tax cuts -- constitutes one more example of his lack of connection with the economic realities of average Americans.
But then again, this is the same Barack Obama who couldn't get by on the $58,000 salary from his part-time job, and whose wife has indicated how hard it is to live on between a quarter-million and half-million dollars a year. If you need a clue as to how far out of contact with the economic realities of most Americans Obama really is, that should do it.
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Thousands walked past Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin's casket during a daylong visitation at a civic center in Clermont County, east of Cincinnati, where he grew up. Many of them headed to Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds, for an afternoon memorial service.The crowd occupied the lower portion of the 42,000-seat stadium, behind home plate, stretching from first base to third.
Maupin's flag-draped casket was on a platform in the area of the pitcher's mound. The only people on the field were members of the 338th Army band and about 100 family members, military representatives and dignitaries.
This weekend was a long time coming for Maupin's family. He was captured on April 9, 2004, and executed a short time thereafter. His body was recovered this spring.
May the sacrifice of Matt Maupin, and of all soldiers in the war against jihadi terrorism, not be in vain.
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That is why EZUnsecured.com is a great resource for small business owners. They offer business loans of all kinds – lines of credit, short and long-term loans, and business credit cards. With EZUnsecured.com, you will have an easy application and approval process, fast funding of your loan, and great service from the associates you work with. So what are you waiting for? Contact them today!
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After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter.Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.
Hold on here for just a moment. Let's set aside the possible corruption angle here for a moment. Let's temporarily ignore the fact that Barack Obama was on the payroll of a campaign contributor for whom he was soliciting grant money from the state, and who made a campaign contribution once he got the grant. Let's just look at the part of the story I put in bold-faced type.
For his part-time job, Barack Obama was making $58,000 a year in taxpayer money -- and he could not not get by on that paltry amount. Never mind that he was making roughly twice the per capita income in his district (as a former Chicagoan, I'm well-aware of the area he represents and the poverty there). Never mind that the salary from his part time job put him above the average salary for teachers in the state of Illinois at that time by more than $10,000. And never mind that Michelle Obama was bringing home over $100,000 a year at the same time working in the corporate world that she now tells the little people to shun. He still needed to supplement the salary from his part-time job -- by taking cash from a political insider to use his office to get that contributor (eventually) over $320,000.
Barack Obama tries to present himself to us as the common man. He wants us all to believe that that he understands us and our struggles. This story proves that it isn't true. If you and your family can't make it on over $160,000 a year without supplementing your salary through a shady deal with a campaign contributor, you clearly aren't a man of the people -- and are instead a charlatan trying to fool the American people.
But no doubt we will hear from the Obama campaign that there is nothing wrong with Barack Obama's conduct here -- just like they continue to tell us about his financial dealings with Tony Rezko. But I think it is becoming obvious that Obama's character is a real issue from which his campaign desperately wants to distract the American people.
H/T Hot Air, Sister Toldjah
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But the tomb of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and her lover, the Roman Consul Mark Antony, has never been examined by modern archaeologists -- because its location was lost in the mists of time.
Modern research seems to have found it -- and the site has now been made accessible. Archaeological work will start soon.
Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year.Zahi Hawass, prominent archaeologist and director of Egypt's superior council for antiquities announced a proposal to test the theory that the couple were buried together.
He discussed the project in Cairo at a media conference about the ancient pharaohs.
Hawass said that the remains of the legendary Egyptian queen and her Roman lover, Mark Antony, were inside a temple called Tabusiris Magna, 30 kilometres from the port city of Alexandria in northern Egypt.
Until recently access to the tomb has been hindered because it is under water, but archaeologists plan to drain the site so they can begin excavation in November.
Among the clues to suggest that the temple may contain Cleopatra's remains is the discovery of numerous coins with the face of the queen.
According to Hawas, Egyptologists have also uncovered a 120-metre-long underground tunnel with many rooms, some of which could contain more details about Cleopatra.
Given that the tomb has spent centuries under water, the question of whether or not the remains of the queen and the general survive is an important one. I am unsure as to whether Cleopatra was mummified, or whether Antony was cremated as was Roman custom at the time. And what treasures are there, given the great quantity of treasure taken back to Rome in triumph by Octavian (soon to be Caesar Augustus)?
Still, there s potential to illuminate the end of Ptolomaic Egypt, and with it one of the most storied women of the ancient world.
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Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger was released Saturday after serving four months in prison without charge.Fouad al-Farhan, 33, was detained Dec. 10 after authorities warned him about his online support of an activist group. At the time of his arrest, the Interior Ministry said only that his violations were not related to state security.
Farhan had used his blog to criticize corruption and call for political reform in Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy.
In a telephone interview Saturday, Farhan said he was happy to be free and described his time behind bars as "a unique experience." He said he had been "fairly treated" but would not comment on the specifics of his case.
"I will be blogging soon," he said.
This should highlight one point very clearly for most Americans.
Saudi Arabia is not much of an ally to America and shares little in values with our country, given that its sharia-enforcing fundamentalist Islamic government is little better than the fundamentalist Islamists against whom we Americans are fighting.
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Yet somehow the practice in this country in recent decades has been to treat the participation of Americans in such activities as a threat to "good government" -- and burdensome campaign finance regulations have been imposed upon Americans which have the effect of criminalizing activities that our Founding Fathers would have recognized as clearly within the scope of the First Amendment.
George Will chronicles one of these cases -- a brutal act under color of law designed to suppress the speech of a band of neighbors concerned about the future of their neighborhood in Colorado.
Parker North is a cluster of about 300 houses close to the town of Parker. When two residents proposed a vote on annexation of their subdivision to Parker, six others began trying to persuade the rest to oppose annexation. They printed lawn signs and fliers, started an online discussion group and canvassed neighbors, little knowing that they were provoking Colorado's speech police.One proponent of annexation sued them. This tactic -- wielding campaign finance regulations to suppress opponents' speech -- is common in the America of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The complaint did not just threaten the Parker Six for any "illegal activities." It also said that anyone who had contacted them or received a lawn sign might be subjected to "investigation, scrutinization and sanctions for campaign finance violations."
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of association, "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." The exercise of this right often annoys governments, and the Parker Six did not know that Colorado's government, perhaps to discourage annoyances, stipulates that when two or more people associate to advocate a political position, and spend more than $200 in doing so, they become an "issue committee."
Got that? Two people spending just $200 dollars together to participate in the electoral process constitutes a violation of the law unless they spend more to fill out and file paperwork registering them with the state and disclose incredible amounts of private information to the general public. What sort of information?
...they must report to the government the names and addresses of all persons who contribute more than $20; they must also report the employers of plutocrats who contribute more than $100; they must report non-cash contributions such as lemons used for lemonade, and marker pens and wooden dowels for yard signs.
Got that? For giving a mere $20 out of a sense of civic obligation, your name and address and political associations become a matter of public record. And if one gives the princely sum of $100, your employer will be disclosed to the general public. Gone are the days when good citizens at a community meeting can "pass the hat" and collect money to speak out on public issues -- reporting laws make those who conduct the meeting and the guy who owns the hat criminal.
Today's practices and laws are, dare I say it, unAmerican.
Let's look at the practices of our Founding Fathers.
Many of them wrote anonymous pamphlets published by anonymous supporters to advocate independence, the adoption of the Constitution, support for (or opposition to) the Jay Treaty, and the election/defeat of either Thomas Jefferson or John Adams in our first contested election.
I'll take their model of free speech above the regulated, domesticated and eviscerated counterfeit that the advocates of "campaign finance reform" and "public disclosure" advocate. The former is the free exercise of an unalienable right by a people fully possessing their liberty -- the latter the feckless submission of serfs to a to a ruling class that treats freedom as a revocable privilege. Would that this year's presidential race had a serious candidate who embraced the vision of the Founders regarding the First Amendment.
More At From On High.
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April 25, 2008
Truckloads of heavily armed police officers rounded up hundreds of people at the headquarters of ZimbabweÂ’s opposition party on Friday as plainclothes investigators descended on independent monitors of the nationÂ’s disputed elections last month, according to opposition officials, witnesses and the police.FridayÂ’s raid on the oppositionÂ’s nerve center and the election monitors signaled a sharp and very public escalation of the countryÂ’s deepening and increasingly violent political crisis, one that has been concentrated to date in far less visible rural areas.
Both raids began around 11 a.m. in ZimbabweÂ’s capital, Harare. Harvest House, the rundown, six-story headquarters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, was still cordoned off by the police at midafternoon. Computers and documents were seized.
The oppositionÂ’s offices had become an informal refugee camp for party supporters, some visibly wounded, who had fled what human rights groups describe as political repression in the countryside. Witnesses said they had watched as the police herded more than 200 of these bedraggled people, including pregnant women and children, onto buses.
At the same time, a smaller contingent of police investigators raided the offices of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an alliance of civic groups that enraged the government by analyzing polling data and projecting that the opposition had won the March 29 election, perhaps by enough to avoid a runoff in the race for president. Its findings were cited Thursday by the top American diplomat for Africa as the best evidence that the opposition was the clear victor.
What is really most shocking to me is that there is such silence here in this country about the goings on in Zimbabwe.
Celebrities rightly protest the actions of China in Tibet, but can't spare a word for the people of Zimbabwe. We have a candidate for president who says he is all about change who is unable to find a word to say about the suppression of the desire for change in another country expressed by its people at the ballot box. We have a news media that has done a pretty weak job of reporting on the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe.
Personally, I think what we are seeing here is the same thing that we have seen for years in the treatment of Darfur -- benign neglect. And interestingly enough, I think the cause is the same -- Africa, especially black Africa, is simply not a priority for the elite in America.
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(, Nearly 900 people die from Sudden Cardiac Arrest every day, often after experiencing irregular heart beat. Do you know the risks? Do you know the warning signs? If not, drop by InsideCardiacArrest.com to learn about this killer.
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BILL MOYERS:
In the 20 years that you've been his pastor, have you ever heard him repeat any of your controversial statements as his opinion?REVEREND WRIGHT:
No. No. No. Absolutely not.I don't talk to him about politics. And so he had a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of God about the things of God.
Yep, Jeremiah Wright has Barack Obama so neatly pegged – he’s just another politician who will do or say what he has to do to get elected, not a “new type of politician”. Maybe Wright should have preached more about “Thou shalt not bear false witness” than “God damn America” – it was certainly more needed by at least one of his parishioners.
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The recent “bitter-gate” flap involving on-the-record remarks by Barack Obama at a “no press” event in San Francisco is instructive. A HuffPo blogger – and maxed-out Obama contributor -- recorded Obama’s remarks and then wrote about them on her blog. While some in the Leftosphere objected, even the Obama campaign acknowledges that they fully expected the remarks would become public. We therefore don’t need to consider the question of whether an event news because a candidate or celebrity or public official says it is news, or because it really is information to which the public is entitled.
The reaction to Fowler's blog post then is just another bump in the inexorable sorting out of what the First Amendment means in a society where every person with Internet access has his or her own global broadcasting and publishing facility. The issue is less the distinction between "citizen" and "journalist" and more whether the Founding Fathers ever contemplated such a distinction in the first place.A close reading of the First Amendment and centuries of legal precedent says "no."
Somewhere along the way, America developed this notion of the “journalist” as some sort of royal priesthood, entitled to special rights and consideration that the ordinary rabble did not enjoy. That was, in large part, because of the practical obstacles to publishing a newspaper – much less in broadcasting over the airwaves.
Technology has now changed the paradigm. Each and every one of us has the ability to become the publisher of our own electronic newspaper or commentary magazine. Indeed, many of us, right, left, and center, have become latter-day versions of Benjamin Franklin Bache of the American Aurora, John Fenno of the Gazette of the United States or Philip Freneau of the National Gazette. Indeed, the pseudonymous semi-anonymity that many of us choose harks back to the practices of many of the Founders who published pseudonymous works within the pages of those newspapers of the 1790s. For that reason alone, Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association is quite right in the above quote with his recognition that there is nothing in the First Amendment – nor in the understanding of the framers – that justifies relegating bloggers (or the bulk of the citizenry) to some status below that of “The Press” in the eyes of the law and society. Or perhaps more accurately, there is nothing in those sources that justifies the elevation of "working journalists" above ordinary citizens in the eyes of the law.
UPDATE: Fellow teacher Darren at Right on the Left Coast brings up a similar point brought up by a different commentary from a different source. Drop by and check it out.
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But this one disturbs me in a special way.
Florida drivers can order more than 100 specialty license plates celebrating everything from manatees to the Miami Heat, but one now under consideration would be the first in the nation to explicitly promote a specific religion.The Florida Legislature is considering a specialty plate with a design that includes a Christian cross, a stained-glass window and the words "I Believe."
Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate's sponsor, said people who "believe in their college or university" or "believe in their football team" already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with "something they believe in," he said.
If the plate is approved, Florida would become the first state to have a license plate featuring a religious symbol that's not part of a college logo. Approval would almost certainly face a court challenge.
The problem with the state manufacturing the plate is that it "sends a message that Florida is essentially a Christian state" and, second, gives the "appearance that the state is endorsing a particular religious preference," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.
Now I don’t necessarily agree with the reasoning behind the ACLU’s opposition – but I agree with their opposition. There is just no need to put a crosses and stained glass on a license plate to display your faith.
Get a bumper sticker. Put a couple of the silver “fish” logos on your trunk. Have the vehicle painted up like the Sistine Chapel for all I care. Just not this.
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Winning in Pennsylvania has been good for Hillary Rodham Clinton's flagging finances.Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Wednesday that the campaign was on track to raise $10 million through the Internet in the 24 hours since the candidate appealed for money in her victory speech Tuesday night. That would more than double her cash on hand.
Clinton fundraisers said they are seeing a new wave of interest from people wanting to help.
"My phone has been ringing off the hook," said Patricia Edington, an Alabama antiques appraiser and "Hillraiser," as Clinton calls those who pledge to collect $100,000 or more. "It was sort of drying up in south Alabama. I had turned over lots of rocks down here. But people have been calling this morning."
Let’s see – she’s won more popular votes than Obama (if you REALLY believe in counting all the votes), and states with enough electoral votes to win the presidency? Why shouldn’t people be giving her money, given that she is showing greater strength than Barack Obama?
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April 24, 2008
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Local criminal defense attorney and former U.S. Congressman Craig Washington was indicted Thursday on a charge of aggravated assault in connection with a New Year's Day shooting incident outside his law office.Washington, who was out of town when the indictment was unsealed, is accused of firing at Taylor Brooks, an 18-year-old senior at Cy-Fair High School. Bail was set at $30,000. An initial hearing will be scheduled once Washington surrenders and posts bail.
According to the police report on the incident, Brooks told officers Washington confronted him in the parking lot at the attorney's office in Midtown about 8:30 p.m.
As Brooks tried to drive away, Washington is alleged to have fired at his 2002 Chevrolet Camaro, with three bullets striking the passenger side. Brooks' friend, Evan McAnulty, 18, also was in the car at the time.
Brooks and McAnulty, a senior at Cy-Falls High School, declined to comment on the advice of lawyers.
Washington did not return a message left on his cell phone. An associate at his law office said the well-known local political and legal figure would not comment.
The charge in the indictment, handed up by a Harris County grand jury, is a second-degree felony punishable by a prison term of two to 20 years and a fine of up to $10,000.
Washington, a Democrat, represented the 18th Congressional District for five years before being ousted by Sheila Jackson Lee in 1994. Jackson Lee accused him of losing touch with his district. He also was hurt by adverse publicity concerning his financial affairs and a tax debt.
Personally, I don't know what is scarier -- the fact that this guy has a gun, that it took so long for the indictment to come down, or that the people of the 18th District thought he was even worse than Sheila Jackson Lee.
But this does help explain why Democrats are so in favor of gun control -- it isn't that they are afraid of what ordinary people of ordinary judgment will do. They are instead afraid of what unstable persons like themselves will do, and believe that the only way of keeping themselves from engaging in reckless, dangerous activity that threatens the lives of others is to ban handguns.
I wonder -- will the local Leftosphere again remain silent about misdeeds by one of their own?
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A landlord whose north Houston apartment complex was closed by city inspectors over unsafe conditions last year has paid a $100,000 fine, officials said Thursday.The one-time owner of the Carter's Grove Apartments at 3405 North Shepherd, identified as Samuel Pinter of New York, settled more than 240 Municipal Court citations as a deadline approached last week.
Chief Prosecutor Randy Zamora said the fine was the largest against a single defendant in recent memory. The deal came after negotiations with Pinter's attorney.
"When you've got someone who is truly ignoring the laws of the city of Houston, and he is one of the worst of the worst, that's when we do everything we can to make them comply or suffer the penalty," he said.
Pinter and his attorney, Brian Cweren of Houston, could not be reached for comment Thursday. A spokesman for Pinter previously had blamed the city's enforcement on "gentrification" in the neighborhood, where new homes have sprouted up nearby.
Pinter's complex, which recently was sold to a Phoenix company that rehabilitates troubled properties, had so many unresolved electrical, plumbing and nuisance violations that city officials took the unprecedented step last year of closing the property and helping residents move.
Gee -- sounds just like the sort of problems we've seen at the multiple properties owned by Democrat State Representative Hubert Vo. Will the city of Houston be as diligent in prosecuting Vo for the multiple violations on his properties -- especially after he attempted to use his official position to intimidate those charged with enforcing the housing code? Or will Vo's political clout be sufficient to keep him from court?
Posted by: Greg at
10:38 PM
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Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal prelate whose consecration led conservatives to split from the church, said in an interview on Thursday that he and his partner of 20 years were planning a civil union ceremony to be held in his home church in the diocese of New Hampshire in June.Bishop Robinson said that by scheduling the ceremony for June, he did not intend to further inflame conservatives just before the Anglican Communion gathers in August in Cambridge, England, for the Lambeth Conference, which happens only once every 10 years.
He planned his civil union for June, he said, because he wanted to provide some legal protection to his partner and his children before he left for England for the conference. Bishop Robinson has received death threats, and he wore a bulletproof vest under his vestments at his consecration in 2003.
“We could have, I suppose, just gone to the town clerk and had that signed,” he said, “but, you know, I’m a religious person, and every major event in my life has been marked with some kind of liturgy and giving thanks to God.”
Robinson, whose selection as bishop despite living in flagrant disregard of biblical standards of morality, has been a key flash-point in the conflict between traditionalists and modernists within Anglicanism -- to the point that the Archbishop of Canterbury excluded Robinson from the gathering of Anglican bishops this summer. This deliberately provocative move on Robinson's part -- having what amounts to a gay marriage ceremony in one of his churches -- will only serve to bring that issue to a head. It certainly serves a a sign that the Episcopal Church is out of step with the overwhelming consensus of worldwide Anglicanism. Will it be the cause of the final separation of the two?
Posted by: Greg at
10:28 PM
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Israel's ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday called former President Jimmy Carter "a bigot" for meeting with the leader of the militant Hamas movement in Syria.Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, "went to the region with soiled hands and came back with bloody hands after shaking the hand of Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas," Ambassador Dan Gillerman told a luncheon briefing for reporters.
The diplomat was questioned about problems facing his country during a wide-ranging discussion with reporters lasting more than an hour. The briefing was sponsored by The Israel Project, a Washington-based, media-oriented advocacy group.
The ambassador's harsh words for Carter came days after the ex-president met with Mashaal for seven hours in Damascus to negotiate a cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas rulers. Carter then called Mashaal on Monday to try to get him to agree to a one-month truce without conditions, but the Hamas leader rejected the idea.
The ambassador called last weekend's encounter "a very sad episode in American history."
He said it was "a shame" to see Carter, who had done "good things" as a former president, "turn into what I believe to be a bigot."
I do disagree with the ambassador on one point -- it isn't the meeting which turned Carter into a bigot. He demonstrated his anti-Semitism some time back, in his book about the Israel-Terrorstinian conflict. The meeting with terrorists and the one-sided agreement that was nothing but a plan for the dismantling of Israel one piece at a time in return for nothing of substance is nothing but the fruit of Carter's embrace of the forces of Jew-hatred.
Posted by: Greg at
10:17 PM
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That's how I came across this site, http://www.NewMercedesDC.com, just doing a little bit of internet window shopping. The site is operated by American Service Center Mercedes in Arlington, VA, just outside of our nation's capital. Looking over their site, I was able to find a lot of information about the history of the Mercedes-Benz, and was even able to find links to in-stock automobiles. Glancing at the C Class, I found that with a little scrimping and saving I might be able to afford one of these beauties in a few years.
Of course, I'm a bit far away from the Washington, DC area to be able to make a trip up to buy a new car. But even if you live within 150-200 miles of Washington, DC, it would be worth your while to look in on their website -- they might just be able to save you enough money to by your New Mercedes DC rather than closer to where you live -- the prices are that much better!
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10:10 PM
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