I let the first arrest pass -- but when you get a second one, it is certainly news.

Police charged a third person Wednesday in connection with beatings and rape that authorities say were carried out by a satanic cult.

Diana Palmer, 44, of Cottage Woods Court, surrendered to police Wednesday afternoon. She was charged with being an accessory after the fact of assault with a deadly weapon and was being held in the Durham County Jail under a $95,000 bond.

Joseph Craig, 25, has been charged with kidnapping, rape, forcible sexual offense and assault in the case. His wife, Joy Johnson, 30, has been charged with aiding and abetting. Both were being held Wednesday in the Durham County Jail.

Satanism and sexual assault -- you may be wondering what this has to do with politics.

Well, here it is.

Palmer is first vice chair of the Durham County Democratic Party. Johnson resigned her positions as third vice-chair of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice-chair of the Young Democrats following her arrest.

Which leads to this priceless quote.

State Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, called the case "an isolated incident" and said he doesn't expect any other Democratic Party activists to be implicated.

Two top leaders arrested in a Satanic sex case constitutes "an isolated incident"? I think that is probably a pretty god percentage of the party's top leadership.

And as an aside -- I know Johnson was a vocal supporter of Mike Nifong and the lying rape victim. I suspect Palmer was as well. Will they insist, as they did in the earlier case, that the woman making the accusation must be believed at all costs?

Posted by: Greg at 01:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Looks like the editors of the New York Times have quit taking their medication.

After all, that is the only way that they could have reached this conclusion in their editorial.

In placing these rulings in the larger context of the court after two appointments by President Bush — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both dedicated members of the conservative movement — it is important to note that the Guantánamo decision was 5 to 4. Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing justice, cast the deciding vote. In other cases, like the gun-control decision, the rulings might have been more sweeping and more damaging if the conservative bloc had not needed the moderate-conservative Justice Kennedy’s vote to form a majority. One more conservative appointment would shift the balance to the far-right bloc.

If that happens, the court can be expected to push even further in a dangerous direction. It would most likely begin stripping away civil liberties, like the habeas rights vindicated in the Guantánamo case. The constitutional protection of women’s reproductive rights could be eliminated. The court might well strike down laws that protect the environment, workers’ rights and the rights of racial and religious minorities.

The court was teetering on the brink in this term. Voters should keep that firmly in mind when they go to the polls in November.

What are the horrific decisions that the editorial cites? Oh, the ones you would expect -- the Heller decision (upholding the right to keep and bear arms), the recent death penalty case (which does not require that executions be pain free), lat term's Ledbetter decision (described as "baseless" -- which is true if one does not consider the actual language of the statute when interpreting it) and the upholding of the Indiana voter ID statute.

On the other hand, it cites the tenuous victories for endangered liberty found in granting unprecedented access to civilian courts to armed combatants captured in the field and the striking down of the death penalty for child rape as positive signs.

That the American public overwhelmingly supports the "conservative" decisions and was outraged by the "moderate" ones doesn't make a difference to the Times -- it is clear that they see the Four Horsemen of the Judicial Apocalypse (Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito) as dangerously out of step with the views of rightleft-thinking Americans and therefore fundamentally threatening to the liberties of Americans -- no matter how consistent with the text of the Constitution and the history of the entire Western legal tradition those conservative decisions really are.

Posted by: Greg at 01:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Over the last three decades, one of the regimes least amenable to diplomatic pressure from the West has been Iran.

Which is, of course, why there is such pressure to solve the problem of the Iranian nuclear program through diplomacy.

President Bush, in an appearance before reporters at the White House earlier Wednesday, was asked about increasing speculation that Israel will attack, saying all options remain on the table but that military action would not be his first choice.

"I have made it very clear to all parties that the first option ought to be solve this problem diplomatically," Bush said. "And the best way to solve it diplomatically is for the United States to work with other nations to send a focused message — and that is, you will be isolated, and you will have economic hardship, if you continue to enrich" uranium for a bomb.

Sorry -- with oil at $146 a barrel, it is unlikely that Iran is going to be facing economic hardship any time soon. And given the fungibility of a commodity like oil, it is very possible for Iran to sell its oil to other countries despite an embargo -- indeed, the US has not bought oil from Iran for three decades, yet the Iranians have never had any difficulty selling oil on the world market.

What's more, the Israelis have an indisputable right to defend themselves from Iran -- and given the repeated threats with nuclear overtones made by Mahmoud the mad against Israel, it seems to me that there is a clear basis for Israel to believe that the program is intended to develop nuclear weapons with but a single target -- Israel.

So it is all well and good to call for a diplomatic solution to the current situation. It isn't our survival as a nation at stake. On the other hand, for Israel this is a matter of life and death.

Posted by: Greg at 12:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Now I have mixed emotions about this investigation -- and let me explain why.

There is, of course, an outside chance that someone involved in committing this heinous at is still alive -- though at the very least, said individual would have to be in his/her late 70s. More than likely, none of the perpetrators are alive -- making continued investigation by law enforcement a futile gesture.

On the other hand, it is important from a historical standpoint to learn, if we can, who perpetrated this grievous act of hatred and violence at Moore's Ford Bridge.

State and federal investigators said Tuesday that they spent the past two days gathering evidence in the last documented mass lynching in the United States: a grisly slaying of four people that has remained unsolved for more than six decades.

In a written statement, the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said they collected several items on a property in rural Walton County, Georgia, that were taken in for further investigation.

On July 25, 1946, two black sharecropper couples were shot hundreds of times and the unborn baby of one of the women cut out with a knife at the Moore's Ford Bridge. One of the men had been accused of stabbing a white man 11 days earlier and was bailed out of jail by a former Ku Klux Klan member and known bootlegger who drove him, his wife, her brother and his wife to the bridge.

The FBI statement said investigators were following up on information recently received in the case, one of several the agency has revived in an effort to close decades-old cases from the civil rights era and before.

"The FBI and GBI had gotten some information that we couldn't ignore with respect to this case," GBI spokesman John Bankhead said.

Let me say it rather bluntly -- unless there is credible evidence that one or more of the evil bastards that committed this crime is still walking the earth, this is a matter for historians and not the FBI. Yet reading between the lines, I can only assume that there must be some living individual who the authorities view as culpable for this heinous act -- or at least I hope there is, for otherwise we are witnessing a waste of law enforcement resources.

Also of note in the article is Rep. John Lewis' effort to create an FBI "Cold Case" division. That might not be a bad idea -- provided it is intended to look at cases in which there is a realistic chance of prosecution, not merely to investigate historical incidents in which the criminals have long since been dealt with by the judge of a higher court than any constituted under the US Constitution.

Posted by: Greg at 03:25 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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No, not his special help from his special friend, corrupt businessman Tony Rezko.

I mean from his mortgage company.

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

A $300 a month mortgage discount for a new Senator? Sounds rather suspicious to me -- especially in light of the recent disclosure of special favors to other Democrat senators by Countrywide. Since Obama's spokesperson says that the rate he received from Norther Trust was in response to an offer from a competing financial institution, one has to ask if that other lender was Countrywide -- meaning that Obama also benefited from the special program for powerful politicians.

And I'd like to argue that we should be questioning this -- after all, it certainly helped Michelle Obama's children!

Posted by: Greg at 02:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Caught live by a mobile phone camera.

The terrorist was a Palestinian with a residence card and work permit to be in the capital of Israel. It may be time for Israel to rethink that policy.

The Palestinian driver of a huge, yellow construction vehicle went on a rampage in central Jerusalem Wednesday, ramming several cars and two buses before a police officer clambered onto the careening vehicle and shot him dead, police and witnesses said.

Officials said at least three people were killed and more than 30 were injured.

The episode spread panic as the driver used the Caterpillar construction vehicleÂ’s massive serrated scoop to overturn the bus from the Egged public transport company and leave a swath of tangled wreckage 300 yards long, plowing over at least five cars and colliding with a second bus.

Police believed the driver may have planned to crash the construction vehicle into a crowded market nearby.

“It could have been a lot worse,” said Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman.

I have since come across a report that four people were killed in the attack, though I have been unable to confirm that. The jihadi swine operating the backhoe was also killed by police in an attempt to prevent his from slaughtering any more defenseless civilians.

May God bring the souls of the innocents murdered this day into his eternal presence -- and may their murderer be cast into the deepest pits of Hell, there to suffer for all eternity.

Posted by: Greg at 02:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just a couple of months ago, Izea launched its SocialSpark.com social networking/advertising website and service. So far, it seems to be off to a great start, especially in terms of getting a buzz going for a number of shows on the USA Network and some very trendy clothing and personal care products. I like what they have done, and find the service itself to be well-managed and the social networking aspect to be developing in a positive manner. What it needs is additional advertisers for it to really take off, because there are some really great writers out there with good readership, ready to help promote products.

What would I like to see? Quite honestly, I’d really like to see some publishing companies to step up to the plate and begin advertising on Social Spark. As a science fiction lover since about the age of twelve, I’d be in heaven if Tor or Baen or one of the other science fiction Publishing houses began to offer some opportunities – maybe providing reviewers access to a chapter or two of some of the releases that folks are expecting. Imagine the possibilities if one of these publishers decided to start promoting their younger talent with a campaign of internet buzz – say for Naomi Novik’s latest Temeraire novel being published soon by Ballentine Books, or John Scalzi’s latest twist on the universe he created for Old Mans War that Tor will soon be bringing out. Think what such a campaign could do for a new author – or for the latest novel by one of the well-loved elder statesmen (or stateswomen) of the genre. Give bloggers who love the genre access to a preview and let the viral excitement begin!

Posted by: Greg at 02:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you recall, nearly three years ago there was a move in the UK to ban pictures, cartoon, and knick-knacks depicting pigs from government offices in some areas. Why? Because they were offensive to Muslims, who object to pigs on religious grounds. Those who put the ban in place (including some school boards, which banned books like Winnie the Pooh because of characters like Piglet), argued that they were merely promoting tolerance and harmony between people of different faiths -- despite the fact that it meant that a small minority were censoring the majority.

At the time, one of my commenters asked if dogs were next, given Muslim objections to dogs for similar reasons.

Guess what -- that scenario is now playing out in the UK.

A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims.

Tayside Police's new non-emergency phone number has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community.

The choice of image on the Tayside Police cards - a black dog sitting in a police officer's hat - has now been raised with Chief Constable John Vine.

And the local constabulary has apologized, expressing regret that they failed to consult with the department's "diversity adviser" over the matter before the card was put out to the public with the picture of Rebel, the force's new police dog.

Now come on. Like we un the US, most folks in the UK have been raised with the mentality that "Happiness is a warm puppy." Like the US, the UK is a country in which dogs are "man's best friend" and a part of the family. Why, then, apologize to the hyper-sensitive for even depicting a dog on the poster? Isn't there an obligation on the part of Muslims to recognize that the British majority does not take offense at the mere mention of the word "dog", and that they will have to deal with the reality that the majority view will be the one catered to?

Oh, yeah. This is the same country that made this decision last week, limiting the use of sniffer dogs near Muslims in London subway stations. Interestingly enough, the use of the dogs began after the 2005 bombings on that subway system -- by a group of Muslims, don't you know.

More at Lionheart, LGF, Gateway Pundit, Hot Air

Posted by: Greg at 02:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Not only is she soaking banks for her defaulted loans -- she's also soaking the taxpayers for a bloated car lease.

When she arrived in Congress last fall, Rep. Laura Richardson sought out a vehicle that would match her newfound status.

She settled on a 2007 Lincoln Town Car - the choice of many representatives who lease their vehicles at taxpayers' expense. But hers was distinct: at $1,300 a month, it was the most expensive car in the House of Representatives.

Richardson, a Democrat who represents Carson, has since become known for defaulting on two home loans and losing a third house - in an upscale neighborhood in Sacramento - at a foreclosure auction.

Interestingly enough, another California congresswoman is leasing the same sort of vehicle -- for roughly half of what Richardson is paying.

Not that Richardson's office wants to come clean on her car expenses.

Richardson's spokesman, William Marshall, initially stated that Richardson is paying only $940 per month for her Town Car, but gave no documentation of that. After he was presented with the expense report showing the $1,300 lease amount, he declined to answer further questions.

"No comment," he said.

Indeed.

But there's a whole lot more -- unauthorized drives, unreported repairs, tickets -- check out the whole sordid tale here.

Posted by: Greg at 01:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Which likely would have been committed in some other way, don't you think.

The Supreme Court's landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens' ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners use the weapons on themselves.

Suicides accounted for about 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There was nothing unique about that year. Gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the past 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 2.6 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent.

Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater.

Now here's the problem with that statistic -- is there some control for the type of neighborhood in which the public is more likely to feel a need to arm themselves? Do the statistics take into consideration whether the guns in question are ones legally owned, as opposed to those possessed by criminals? Lots of questions -- relatively few answers.

But here's my question for liberals on that suicide number -- so what? Isn't one of the mantras of liberals that people have a right to do what they choose with their own bodies? It certainly is when you discuss the sacrament of abortion -- so why should it be any different when someone decides to blow their own brains out with a handgun (or pop a handful of pills or slit their wrists)? After all -- in such cases the lives they are taking are their own, rather than that of an innocent baby. Seems to me that suicide would simply be one more act with which society has no right to interfere because, in the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy, "at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existing, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of life" -- which would seem to me to include a liberty to choose to lay down the burden of existence. Besides -- isn't suicide really nothing more than the ultimate reduction of one's carbon footprint?

And in any event, since when does the irresponsible exercise of a constitutional right by some justify the restriction of that right of others? We do not censor newspapers because of the irresponsible editorial decisions of the New York Times which regularly damage national security -- and so we should not ban guns on some theory that the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms is at time abused.

Posted by: Greg at 12:40 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Let's hope that "constitutional law professor" Barack Obama is more familiar with that document than he is with the Declaration of Independence.

I remember, when living for four years in Indonesia as a child, listening to my mother reading me the first lines of the Declaration of Independence - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Barack -- those are not the first words of the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, they are not even in the first paragraph of that document.

Let me help you out, Senator.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Now I somehow doubt that you actually wrote the early drafts of this speech, Senator. But I am sure that an anecdote like that must have come from you -- presuming the story is true, of course, and not the invention of a speechwriter. But regardless, I'd like to hope that you and/or your speechwriters would have caught this historical inaccuracy -- one which I believe most of my tenth graders would have caught.

Am I questioning your patriotism by bringing up this point? No, merely your command of history and the founding documents of this country at a time when you question the quality of civic education in this country later on in the same speech -- in the process insulting the professional competence of me and my thousands of colleagues around the country, I might add.

Now I could go on and point out the many ways in which your proposed platform is at odds with the views of the founders and the philosophy contained in the Declaration of Independence. Your proposed health care program, for example, will result in the erection of "a multitude of New Offices", and will send hither and yon "swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance" in the pursuit of your new policies and the taxes you will impose to fund them. But I'll refrain from doing so, because I don't wish to be accused of questioning your patriotism. So instead I'll simply confine myself to pointing out your ignorance, which is displayed for all the world to see in the midst of your pretty words.

Posted by: Greg at 12:20 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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