A few weeks ago, I was privileged to attend the funeral and burial of a fine and decent man whose life experience included serving as a crewman on a landing craft during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. I remember him speaking of his experiences that day, and of the men who he watched die that day seeking to liberate Europe. And while he was a Yellow Dog Democrat, I know that the words of President Reagan on the 40th anniversary of D-Day were quite moving to him.

That is how a real president -- a real patriot -- honors American fighting men who gave their lives for freedom.

And then there is Barack Obama.

White House officials travelled to France at the start of March to discuss a visit by Mr Obama to Omaha Beach, the site of the American Cemetery, established in 1944 just after D-Day and where 9,387 American personnel are buried. Among them is Theodore Roosevelt Jr the eldest son of the 26th US President.

French officials and senior American military officers walked with White House staff through the cemetery discussing how the two presidents might follow the same route. But even before their trip, the White House had decided that Mr Obama would not travel there this week.

"It wasn't going to happen," said an American official in Washington. "We went through the motions to placate President Sarkozy but giving special treatment to France was not on our agenda.

Got that – they went through the motions of discussing a visit to a cemetery full of our honored dead, but never seriously considered doing so. Utterly shameful.

H/T Debbie Schlussel

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Yep, Religion of Peace and all that stuff.

International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Noor Husain, the father of a Muslim woman who eloped with a Christian man, led a mob of his neighbors and friends in an attack on his village's only church in Pakistan's Punjab province. After desecrating the church, the men forced their way into Christian homes, dragged out the women, and paraded them forcefully on the streets.

The assault, which occurred several months ago, so terrified the Christian community that 21 families fled, leaving only four Christian families who are still in the village.

"Petrified Christians locked their homes and fled to their relatives, living in other villages and cities, to save their lives," said Ashraf Masih, a Christian resident who has remained in the village.

Several Christians were injured, including two women whose teeth were broken.

I don’t think there is really much to add to this story, do you? After all, what we have here is a pogrom against a religious minority because a Muslim woman dared to exercise her free will by marrying a Christian. Such things are all too common in the Islamic world – but not in civilized nations.

H/T Gateway Pundit

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Are you considering cable? Well, if you live in the area served by Charter Communications, now might just be the time for you to act on those thoughts. They are offering boatloads of bargains and specials, including one that even includes all their many services. From time to time they have run contests in the past giving away such great prizes as an Xbox 360 or a Hybrid Car. Well guess what -- now they are giving you the chance to win a 22” flat screen HDTV each and every day in the entire month of April.

Charter Communications operates in 29 states. This Fortune 500 company wants to be the best and largest cable company in the world -- or at least the United States. And as an up-to-date tech company, they also offer such services as high speed Internet and telephone service. Their various service bundlest give you the very best price for their services, and beat out their competition. Oh, and about that TV a day thing -- Charter is also offering the chance to win a grand prize package that includes a 52” LCD flat screen HDTV, a Home Theater System, and one year of free Charter Digital Cable® service with HD programming. What a deal -- you just need to be a new or upgrading customer. So if you are in the Charter service area, now is definitely your time to act.

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The Left claims that the Right does – simply because we oppose gun control and support the Second Amendment.

On the other hand, the Left supports an actual cop killer – who lost another bid to get a retrial after some 28 years after he murdered a police officer in cold blood.

Death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal lost his bid for a new trial in the killing of a city police officer after the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will not take up the case.

Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and one-time radio reporter, had claimed prosecutors improperly excluded blacks from the jury that convicted him of murdering white Philadelphia police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981.

* * *

The 25-year-old patrolman had pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother on a darkened downtown street. Prosecutors say Abu-Jamal saw the traffic stop and shot Faulkner, who managed to shoot back. A wounded Abu-Jamal, his own gun lying nearby, was still at the scene when police arrived. Authorities considered the evidence against him overwhelming.

Who on the Left supports this cop-killer? YouÂ’ll find plenty of prominent liberals (and no significant conservatives) here. So remember which side really supports cop-killing.

Posted by: Greg at 10:43 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Are you looking for a career -- either your first or a new one -- that will continue to grow in the middle of our struggling economy? Well, consider this -- the IT sector is the fastest growing industry in the country today. But to become a part of it, you need training and the proper certifications, like A+ certification. Once you have A+ Certification, your opportunities for employment and advancement in the IT field increase dramatically. That's why it is a great certification for anyone looking to enter the world of information technology.

How do you get A+ Certification? The old fashioned way -- you earn it. Maybe you will choose the In-Classroom IT Training Course where you live. Or maybe you would prefer the self-paced Online IT Training Program. But either way, you end up with IT Certification.

One interesting thing that I have found among adult learners is that they prefer an online course. A+ candidates are no different. But there are a lot out there, so you have to find a good one -- and among the best is CBT PlanetÂ’s A+ training course.

This course features the Interactive A+ training CD course with multimedia, animation, and a+ training videos from an expert instructor who really knows their stuff. And best of all, you decide when and where you take in the content -- you can learn anywhere and anytime, day or night. So consider taking the a+ cbt program.

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Shortly before his execution, the condemned confessed to an additional killing that had been unsolved for nearly two decades.

Luis Cervantes Salazar was executed last month for the stabbing murder of a woman in October 1997. But shortly before his death, he was encouraged by his spiritual counselor to speak with Texas Rangers about other crimes he committed.

He confessed to the 1992 stabbing of a convenience store clerk in San Antonio, just an hour and a half before he was executed.

San Antonio police say his confession solved the murder of Melissa Morales. Salazar had not previously been considered a suspect.

My only problem with this is that we werenÂ’t told about this when the execution happened. After all, there was no reason to withhold the information from the public.

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As a teacher, I hear a lot from my students what sort of recreational activities they enjoy. Those are a wide and varied lot, but I do have one segment that is interested in role-playing games -- those involving cards, computers, or the internet. Well, recently I've heard a couple of them talking about a new game they came across called HeroBits, which they found at HeroBits.com.

I was intrigued, and so I visited the website. I was initially struck by the homage to the old trading card games that were in vogue when I first began teaching and which still have a following. Indeed, the site has even launched its own trading card games with which players will be able to amuse themselves offline every bit as much as they do online.

Of interest to me is the other aspect of the site, which profiles the trading card artists who design these cards. Now that is great -- the ability to become a part of the fandom of these talented artists. There are also forums where you can have discussions with other HeroBits players. Why don't you drop by the website now and see what they have to offer you in the way of entertainment and fun

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The facts of this case clearly support criminal charges. Whether they support a conviction will be for the jury to decide.

As Robert Tolan and his cousin approached the front door, officers, who erroneously had been advised Tolan was driving a stolen car, arrived and ordered the pair to the ground. Tolan family members said that as they attempted to tell officers about the mistake, police pushed the young manÂ’s mother against a wall.

Tolan attempted to rise to protest and was wounded as Cotton fired his weapon multiple times. Lawyers for Tolan, who is black, have argued that the shooting resulted from racial profiling by white law officers.

The problem is that there was never really any reason to suspect that Tolan was engaged in any criminal activity. He was just a black guy driving in a nice area in a nice car – must be a criminal. And having witnessed the unprovoked assault on his mother by a rogue cop, Tolan had the audacity to try to stand up – and was grievously wounded as the cop unloaded his gun into him. While I’ll be the first to admit that I have a pro-police bias (my brother is a cop), I can’t see any justification for the conduct of Sgt. Jeffery Cotton. If there is any, let him present it at trial.

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It certainly is for one.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the nonvoting D.C. delegate to the House who aspires to be its voting representative, has made clear that she regards questions of constitutionality as irrelevant and that she thinks members of the House and Senate do, too. "I don't think members are in the least bit affected in their votes on the question of its constitutionality," she said just last week. "People vote their politics in the House and in the Senate."

Tell me, Eleanor, on what other points do you find the Constitution irrelevant? There is plenty of good legal argumentation against the constitutionality of the DC Representation bill, and not much in its favor. Indeed, the Attorney General had to reject the best legal advice of the top lawyers in the Justice Department in order to get an opinion from another part of the Justice Department that said, in effect, “well, we can defend it if we have to.” What other parts of the Constitution will the jettison if it suits their politics?

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As much as I hate ticket scalpers, I donÂ’t see this as an issue that Congress should be dealing with during a time of major economic upheaval.

Sen. Charles Schumer on Sunday unveiled a proposal aimed at giving fans a better chance to buy hot concert tickets at face value before ticket resellers scoop them up and raise the prices.

The proposed legislation would set a two-day waiting period from when tickets go on sale through normal channels before a ticket reseller can buy the tickets to put on the secondary market, Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a statement.

"The bottom line is we need to create a fair system where fans get first crack at good seats at a reasonable price," Schumer said.

Really, Chuckles? Fair as defined by who? Oh, yeah – by you and your constituents who couldn’t get ticket to see an over-the-hill rocker whose best work is at least two decades behind him.

But more to the point – don’t you have something more important to do during the Obama Economic Crisis?

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It all depends on how you look at it. Kim Jong Il claims it is a great success. Others call it a failure, since the satellite did not reach orbit. And it certainly highlights the fecklessness of ObamaÂ’s foreign policy. But was the launch really a failure?

North Korea's rocket may have fallen into the sea, but military experts cautioned Monday against calling it a complete failure, pointing out that it traveled twice as far as any missile the country has launched.

Although the distance was still far short of showing North Korea could reach U.S. territory, it rattled the North's neighbors and countries around the globe, with the U.S. and its allies pushing for quick punishment at an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting held hours after the launch.

The launch, which demonstrated progress, is a particularly worrying development for a belligerent country that says it has nuclear weapons and once threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire."

What the NorKs demonstrated was their ability to launch missiles that threaten most of Asia – including American military forces and strategic allies. What’s more, it is precisely the sort of test we would have expected, with precisely the sort of trajectory, if they were doing work on an ICBM rather than trying to launch a satellite. Think about that – and ask yourself if you really feel all that secure with the US merely seeking a UN condemnation of the NorK regime. Did Obama just fail that test that Joe Biden warned us would come early in his administration?

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The Knights Templar have always been a fascinating subject for me. Among the reasons for that fascination has been the speculation that the Shroud of Turin – believed by many to be the burial shroud of Christ – was once in their possession, and may even have been the idol that the Knights were accused of venerating when the order was suppressed. I don’t know whether or not that story is true, but we now know that the Shroud was once in the possession of the Templars.

Medieval knights hid and secretly venerated The Holy Shroud of Turin for more than 100 years after the Crusades, the Vatican said yesterday in an announcement that appeared to solve the mystery of the relicÂ’s missing years.
The Knights Templar, an order which was suppressed and disbanded for alleged heresy, took care of the linen cloth, which bears the image of a man with a beard, long hair and the wounds of crucifixion, according to Vatican researchers.
The Shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral, has long been revered as the shroud in which Jesus was buried, although the image only appeared clearly in 1898 when a photographer developed a negative.
Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican Secret Archives, said the Shroud had disappeared in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, and did not surface again until the middle of the fourteenth century. Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Dr Frale said its fate in those years had always puzzled historians.
However her study of the trial of the Knights Templar had brought to light a document in which Arnaut Sabbatier, a young Frenchman who entered the order in 1287, testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to “a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access”. There he was shown “a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man” and instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times.

We now can date the Shroud back to the 1200s, significantly before the date that radiocarbon testing had placed it. And we now know that some of what the Templars were accused of was clearly unjust. So what we have here is a mystery and a history that trumps any novel – take that, Dan Brown!

Posted by: Greg at 12:21 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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That whole death thing is such a distracting bummer – and the resurrection is a bunch of crap that distracts from the really important stuff. At least that is the argument of Erik Reece, a guest writer for the Washington Post, who goes even further in urging that Christians reject faith for a radical social agenda instead.

The fact is, American Christianity has historically been focused so obsessively on the Nicene Creed -- which says Jesus was the son of God, who was crucified for our sins and rose from the grave three days later -- that it never made much room for the actual teachings of this radical Jewish street preacher.

This is why I'm against Easter. It celebrates the death of Jesus nearly to the exclusion of his life. If the Easter miracle can save us from this life, then why bother with the harder work of enacting the kingdom of God here? It is, after all, much harder.

Which brings me back to that word faith. I believe it plays such a disproportionate role in mainstream American Christianity, be it in the rock and roll mega-churches or the humbler places were I worshipped as a child, because it is a belief in what one cannot see. But that belief -- that faith in a salvational Christ -- is what will guarantee everlasting life. But when such faith is lost, as in my case, what am I left with?
I'm left with the teachings of Jesus -- words so radical, they got him killed, words so radical, they might still bring about the end of empire and the beginning of the kingdom of God.

Of course, Reece ignores a central problem with his thesis. If, indeed, the resurrection did not happen and Jesus was merely a radical preacher who got killed for his trouble, who cares what he said? Absent the Gospel message of the birth, death, and resurrection of the Word Made Flesh, there really isn’t any “there” there. Jesus then becomes but one more exponent of a radical utopianism who was scorned and rejected by the establishment of his day. – and what makes his words any more worth following than those of Buddha, Marx, or L. Ron Hubbard? Indeed, it is only the great miracle celebrated by Christians the world over that gives the obscure preacher from Nazareth an eternal significance that makes him and his words worthy of veneration two millennia after those events.

My question – why would the Washington Post pick this time of the year for this message? What other religion would the paper seek to denigrate and deny during its holiest season? Indeed, isn’t the decision a telling one about the bias of the paper and its religion editors, Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn?

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Indeed, Richard Poplawski is a member of the neo-Nazi racist group Stormfront, which is rejected by conservatives. He is also a devotee of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who is beloved of as many loons on the Left as he is loons on the Right.

His online profile suggests someone at once lonely and seething. He wrote of burning the backs of both of his hands, the first time with a cigarette, the second time for symmetry. He subscribed to conspiracy theories and, by January 2007, was posting photographs of his tattoos on white supremacist Web site Stormfront. Among his ambitions: “to accumulate enough ‘I punched that [expletive] so hard’ stories to match my old man.”

So let’s see – we have a mentally disturbed, socially isolated racist loon engaging in precisely the sort of anti-social activity that such folks have engaged in from time immemorial. Some of his beliefs track with mainstream conservatism, but more of it tracks with fringe beliefs that are rejected by mainstream conservatives. For the Left to try to claim otherwise is to attempt to perpetrate the “big lie” in order to delegitimize the beliefs of a sizeable portion of the American people AND portions of the US Constitution. Indeed, the next step will be to demand government action to silence certain “dangerous” points of view that they claim are not in the best interest of the nation to allow to be expressed. Indeed, by repeatedly claiming that “Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh” and other mainstream commentators and politicians are responsible for the crimes of Poplawski, they are engaged in rhetorical excesses that exceed anything in the words of those who they are demonizing. After all, not one of the targeted conservatives has called for acts of violence against political opponents, while the same cannot be said of many of their critics on the Left.

H/T LGF, Don Surber

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Now I’ve long conceded that most Muslims in this country are decent folks – but have been adamant that there is something in the religion of Islam that we should be wary of. It is a violent strain that comes to the fore again and again in the form of terror attacks around the world and terror plots exposed around our country. Islamic groups claim that anyone who is suspicious of what goes on in the Muslim community – especially in mosques – is motivated by bias and prejudice, because such things don’t represent the true face of Islam. But what are we to make of this?

Two young Americans who left their homes to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia held a rare “press conference” in southern Somalia on Sunday, saying they want to be killed "for the sake of God," according to a U.S. law enforcement official and a report posted on a Somali news Web site.

For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area and elsewhere in the United States who traveled to war-torn Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

Last month, a source familiar with the FBI investigation told FOX News that "several" of the men had returned to the United States, while others “are still there [in Somalia]." Today is the first time any of these men have spoken publicly.

"We came from the U.S. with a good life and a good education, but we came to fight alongside our brothers of al-Shabaab … to be killed for the sake of God,” one man said at the press conference, as translated by Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn.

Yep – more jihadis among us.

Where is the indoctrination of such values taking place? The most obvious place is in the mosques of America – even if only a minority of them. So while Muslim groups complain of surveillance activities taking place in mosques, I urge that such activities be stepped-up. After all, mosques are public places, where the public is freely invited. For agents to listen to sermons preached there is not a violation of any right, any more than an agent listening to a sermon at St. Miscellaneous Catholic Church or Holy Roller Worship Center violates any right. After all, these are things that are open to the public, and so there is no expectation of privacy and no need for a warrant for law enforcement to sit and listen to what is said.

And after all, we know that incitement to jihad is happening in the Islamic community. Keeping an ear open for incitement to such criminality is only prudent

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ThatÂ’s the only conclusion we can draw from these statistics provided by the Houston Chronicle regarding the effects of the Obama Stimulus Plan.

• • Most Texans’ paychecks will be a little fatter starting this month as the Making Work Pay tax credit kicks in and employers reduce their payroll tax withholdings by about $13 a week.

• • Texas’ jobless are now receiving an extra $25 a week in their benefits as mandated by Congress, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.

• • Food stamp recipients soon will get about $38 a month more to spend on necessities, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

And before you feel all warm and fuzzy over Barry Hussein’s plan to let you keep enough of your earnings to take a family of four to McDonald’s once a week, consider this – at the end of the year, you will likely be paying that same cash to the government. You see, you didn’t get a tax reduction – all that this represents is a delay in you having to turn the cash over to Timothy “Taxes for thee but not for me” Geithner. So expect a tax bill this time next year if you are a productive American in exchange for your $50 a month increase in take-home pay. On the other hand, the non-productive will come out with about $140 extra in benefits extorted from the productive.

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Maybe, if someone had taken the time and had the initiative to report this to the proper authorities.

Kevin Greene, a former coworker at the vacuum plant, recalled asking him if he liked the New York Yankees baseball team. “No,” Voong replied. “I don’t like that team. I don’t like America. America sucks.” Another former employee said that Voong “kept to himself but made some off-the-wall comments like he wanted to kill the president”.

Hello! When someone starts talking about shooting the president, pick the phone up and call the cops -- or better yet, call the Secret Service. Don't assume that he is just blowing off steam or expressing some sort of dissent -- report him to the authorities. That is a line you don't let anyone cross -- whether the president in question is named George Bush or Barack Obama. In this case, doing so would have prevented a serious tragedy.

In a related note, Michelle Malkin notes that the anti-gun Left is already at work trying to blame any and all conservatives for the crimes of Jiverly Voong.

Posted by: Greg at 04:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In debt? Trying to figure out how to get it all paid off? Not sure where to turn -- especially if a personal loan may not be an option for you due to the debt you have? Maybe it is time to consider a different alternative for dealing with your credit card debt.

Posted by: Greg at 03:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You folks know my views on Barack Obama -- probably a nice guy in person, but not someone who I am inclined to support politically. But I do have to agree with the decision of one drugstore chain to ban the sale of this product.

It isn't about politics. It isn't about race. It is just plain about good taste -- or lack thereof in the case of this product. What more needs be said?

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I have made it really clear on this site moreethan once that I have little sympathy for sex offenders and don't believe that they have any right to privacy. Parents and teachers really have an obligation to find out who such folks are and where thy live so as to protect the young people in our care. After all, we saw here in Houston a few years back that even the nice upstanding guy with a daily show on the radio might be the sort to expose himself to little girls -- and I'm sad to say that I've even had former students convicted of sex offenses involving younger relatives. It is incumbent upon us to keep track of such menaces, especially since they can come into your neighborhood (or be convicted and registered) at any time.

Did you know that it is possible get a Sex Offenders Report by typing in your zip code on a website? Tracksexoffenders.net is such a site that will show you all the registered sex offenders in your area and offer you pertinent information about their offenses. That information can help you to be forewarned of problems and forewarned is forearmed. Maybe we can't stop every crime, but perhaps we can stop one or two from being committed against those near and dear to us.

Posted by: Greg at 03:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Whatever will Barack Hussein Obama have to say about these evil capitalists exploiting the working class?

The New York Times Company has threatened to close The Boston Globe unless labor unions agree to concessions like pay cuts and the cessation of pension contributions, according to a person briefed on the talks.

The company is looking for $20 million in savings from The Globe, which has already gone through several rounds of deep cost-cutting and staff reductions. The company does not report figures by newspaper, but executives have acknowledged that the Globe lost tens of millions of dollars last year.

The threat to close The Globe was first reported by The Globe on Friday evening on its Web site, Boston.com. The site quoted the leaders of two of the unions describing a meeting Thursday at which the company delivered the ultimatum.

Will we see special legislation to punish NYT corporate execs for their actions? Will we see efforts by the federal government out the failing liberal rag that may be shut down? And will the editorial staff of the New York Times condemn the culture of greed in their own corporate boardroom -- or are those simply reserved for WalMart and bond traders?

Posted by: Greg at 03:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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With the economic difficulties that exist in the US and around the world today, it is no surprise that people are worried about getting the best deal on everything they buy. That is even, perhaps especially, true of those who do any amount of shopping online. After all, we have all spent hours visiting different websites before we make that purchase, hoping that when we finally check out at the end of the process that we have really gotten the best deal. But is there a place where we can find those prices without all the work? Would it be possible for me to know that my price on a particular Digital Camera is the best one out there before I actually make the purchase? And what about online coupons and discount codes that might save a few (or more than a few) bucks on the total? Thanks to plaza101.com, you can feel secure that you are getting a good deal, because they offer both price comparison and coupons that will help you see a lower total at check out time. You can even read reviews and share your opinion about products with other users of the site, sort of social network shopping. So if you are looking to save, drop by and see what they have to offer you.

Posted by: Greg at 03:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've expressed this view a hundred times on this blog, noting that accepting the right of someone to hold a certain belief or behave in a certain manner is the essence of tolerance, not blithely holding all opinions, beliefs, and actions to be morally equal. I wish, though, that I had written this.

Freedom of thought and freedom of expression are essential in the pursuit of reason. It is reason that will lead us to truth, and the pursuit of truth has been the driving force behind progress since the Enlightenment. We cannot afford to abandon these principles now.

People are so afraid of saying the wrong thing that we have blundered into a state of what you could call valuephobia. But modern, tolerant and secular society does not have to be a valueless society. Tolerance is not the same as surrender. Although we tolerate the views and ideas of others, we do not have to accept the creed of moral equivalence. Just because a state does not have a formal affinity to a particular religion does not mean it should avoid a robust system of values. For the most part, our concept of right and wrong is in tune with our basic instincts, and our understanding of the consequences of our actions. These values are codified by religions, not invented by them. There are other, different, non- religious values which are part of our heritage - the concept of looking after those who cannot look after themselves, of hard work, perseverance and saving for a rainy day. States cannot operate without values, and the seemingly all-pervasive fear of causing offence needs to be balanced by the benefits of clear guidance on what is desirable behaviour.

Indeed, we encounter much too much of this very sort of stuff today. Too often we see expressed in our public dialogue the notion that the only thing that is absolutely morally wrong is believing and stating that something is absolutely morally wrong. In the name of not imposing religious values we have seen values that are held by the overwhelming majority or Americans stripped from our laws in the name of a "tolerance" that will tolerate anything but the views of that majority. When will we recognize that the celebration of diversity that so many insist is a part of tolerance also requires a healthy respect for the opinions, values, and beliefs of those who constitute the majority rather than merely those of the minority?

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There might be some real violence and persecution of the BahaÂ’is then.

Dozens of Muslim villagers have attacked the homes of members of the minority Baha'i religion in southern Egypt, hurling firebombs and denouncing them as "enemies of God," human rights groups said Thursday.
The attacks began Saturday after a prominent Egyptian media commentator denounced a Baha'i activist in a television appearance as an "apostate" and called for her to be killed.

The Baha'i religion was founded in the 1860s by a Persian nobleman, Baha'u'llah, whom the faithful regard as the most recent in a line of prophets that included Buddha, Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad. Muslims reject the faith because they believe Muhammad was God's final prophet, and Baha'is have been persecuted in the Middle East.

Not only that, but the good peaceful Muslim police didn’t want to interfere with all the good peaceful Muslims who were attacking religious minorities. After all, the Baha’is are heretics and apostates in the eyes of good peaceful Muslims – and such folks really do bring such violence upon themselves in the eyes of good peaceful Muslims.

Could you imagine what would have happened, though, if Islam were not a religion that respects religious freedom and urges peaceful behavior in its followers?

Posted by: Greg at 03:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I’ll be the first to say that the comment isn’t funny and isn’t appropriate – but the response is way over the top, perhaps indicating serious emotional instability on the part of Terry McAuliffe.

During a recent appearance on behalf of Bob McDonnell — the Republican candidate for governor — Huckabee wisecracked that if McDonnell's supporters bump into someone who isn't planning on voting for the Republican, they should "let the air out of their tires and do not let them out of their driveway on election day."

The joke is a Huckabee favorite: he recited it countless times at campaign stops nationwide during his failed bid to win the Republican nomination in 2007 and 2008.

Nevertheless, McAuliffe — who made more than a few surrogate appearances of his own on behalf of Bill and Hillary Clinton — is accusing of Huckabee of inciting "voter suppression."

"Let's be clear," he said in a statement. "There are no jokes to be made about denying people the right to vote in this country. It's not a laughing matter. This is a right that people fought and died for, so as public figures, we must be sure that we are setting the standard."

McAuliffe, who has made a point of highlighting his creation of a voting rights institute when he led the DNC, accused McDonnell of "standing by silently as Mike Huckabee encourages his supporters to suppress the vote."

Oh come on – like anyone really believed that was anything more than a lame attempt at humor that we’ve been hearing for a couple of years out of Huckabee. But more to the point, it isn’t Republicans who are documented as engaging precisely the tactics Huckabee joked about.

IÂ’ll side with the Huckster on this one.

“As someone who served as a Governor for 10 years, I can say if these are the type of things Terry McAuliffe worries about and make him break down and cry, then he won’t last 10 days as Governor much less four years and he doesn’t deserve the people of Virginia’s vote.”

H/T Hot Air

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I’ll be the first to say that the comment isn’t funny and isn’t appropriate – but the response is way over the top, perhaps indicating serious emotional instability on the part of Terry McAuliffe.

During a recent appearance on behalf of Bob McDonnell — the Republican candidate for governor — Huckabee wisecracked that if McDonnell's supporters bump into someone who isn't planning on voting for the Republican, they should "let the air out of their tires and do not let them out of their driveway on election day."

The joke is a Huckabee favorite: he recited it countless times at campaign stops nationwide during his failed bid to win the Republican nomination in 2007 and 2008.

Nevertheless, McAuliffe — who made more than a few surrogate appearances of his own on behalf of Bill and Hillary Clinton — is accusing of Huckabee of inciting "voter suppression."

"Let's be clear," he said in a statement. "There are no jokes to be made about denying people the right to vote in this country. It's not a laughing matter. This is a right that people fought and died for, so as public figures, we must be sure that we are setting the standard."

McAuliffe, who has made a point of highlighting his creation of a voting rights institute when he led the DNC, accused McDonnell of "standing by silently as Mike Huckabee encourages his supporters to suppress the vote."

Oh come on – like anyone really believed that was anything more than a lame attempt at humor that we’ve been hearing for a couple of years out of Huckabee. But more to the point, it isn’t Republicans who are documented as engaging precisely the tactics Huckabee joked about.

IÂ’ll side with the Huckster on this one.

“As someone who served as a Governor for 10 years, I can say if these are the type of things Terry McAuliffe worries about and make him break down and cry, then he won’t last 10 days as Governor much less four years and he doesn’t deserve the people of Virginia’s vote.”

H/T Hot Air

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Public official uses taxpayer funds to pay illegal aliens for to clean her house. Criminal charges ensue.

A six-count federal indictment against Hidalgo County Commissioner Sylvia Handy is only the "tip of the iceberg," law enforcement officials said.

FBI agents arrested the embattled elected official and her husband at their Weslaco home Thursday morning, alleging they paid two women - both of them illegal immigrants - to work as servants using taxpayer funds.

Prosecutors accuse the pair of women of providing child care and housekeeping services to Handy's family while collecting county paychecks under assumed identities over a period of five years.

But authorities close to the case said their initial probe into the 52-year-old commissioner's hiring practices has since spawned separate investigations into allegations of witness tampering, bid-rigging and kickbacks involving county contracts.

Further state and federal indictments are expected against the commissioner and other alleged accomplices, they said.

Many further details follow in a rather complete article on the situation in Hidalgo County. But oddly enough, one thing is missing from the piece. No where is Handy’s political party mentioneed, despite the fact that she is a prominent member of a major political party. And what would that party affiliation be? A little check on the matter shows that it starts “D” and ends with “emocrat”. I wonder – why the omission?

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Well, the new roof is on the house, which makes it one more sign that my wife and I are rapidly approaching the day when we will be back in our house after teh trials and travails that followed our evacuation for Hurricane Ike. You don't know how good that makes me feel to type those words, because to me the new roof is really a symbol that the end of our project is near. After all, a good roof over one's head really symbolizes that one is safe and secure in so many ways.

I was lucky -- my contractor for all the repairs does roofs as a part of his business. But what if you are not doing a complete restoration following a disaster? Where do you find a well-qualified roofer who can take care of your roofing needs? If you are lucky, you know somebody who has had a good experience with a roofer. Maybe you can respond to an ad somewhere and find someone good. But maybe you should consider looking at a directory of roofers like this one that will help you find a good Indianapolis roofer. The site will connect you with various roofers who can give you bids for the work you need done -- and also offers you advice on what questions to ask before you accept a bid.

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The bill they have passed in Colorado is shocking enough.

A proposal to grant in-state tuition to illegal immigrants passed out of a Colorado state Senate committee this week after Democrats moved up a vote on the bill to coincide with a Republican opponent's absence from the state on a family emergency.

* * *

Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter has said he will sign the bill, which would give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants who have attended a Colorado high school for at least three years. The students must also attend college within one year of graduation or earning their GED.

On the other hand, legal immigrants and US citizens who are not from Colorado will pay out of state tuition while these immigration criminals get rewarded for their ability to evade the law for a sufficient period of time.

But what is even more disgusting is the parliamentary stunt pulled to pass the bill out of committee.

Republican state Sen. Ted Harvey's father-in-law has Alzheimer's disease and his health began deteriorating so rapidly early this week that Mr. Harvey was forced to take a few days off to transport the ailing man from Florida to Colorado.

Even so, Mr. Harvey had planned to return to the state legislature in time for Friday's Appropriations Committee vote on Senate Bill 170, the in-state tuition bill. He had also planned to vote against it, which would have resulted in a 5-5 tie that would have killed the legislation.

Instead, the committee's Democratic chairman, state Sen. Abel Tapia, seized the opportunity and rescheduled the vote for Wednesday. Without Mr. Harvey, the bill passed 5-4 and now heads to the Senate floor.

Talk about your seedy political gamesmanship – make sure an opponent of the bill is unavailable to vote so that it can be passed. In this case it was clearly dishonorable to move the vote up. The US Congress has long had a practice called “pairing” to avoid such situations – when a critical piece of legislation is before the body and a situation like the one faced by Sen. Harvey arises, another member of the body who would have otherwise voted the opposite way abstains from the vote in order to avoid taking unfair advantage of the personal crisis. Would that the dishonorable Albert Tapia had done the same – or simply have had the decency to hold the vote when it was previously scheduled.

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I’ll be honest – I find it galling that prosecutorial misconduct was the likely deciding factor in the 2008 Alaska Senate race. I even called upon Ted Stevens to resign so that there could be a replacement candidate in the race. But even now that the dirty tricks of certain prosecutors have come to light, I find this idea unacceptable.

Alaska GOP Chairman Randy Ruedrich said a special election should be held "so Alaskans may have the chance to vote for a senator without the improper influence of the corrupt Department of Justice."

"The only reason Mark Begich won the election in November is because a few thousand Alaskans thought that Senator Ted Stevens was guilty of seven felonies. Senator Stevens has maintained his innocence and now, even the Department of Justice acknowledges its wrongdoing," Ruedrich said in a statement.

Sorry, friends, that isnÂ’t how it works, even in a race as close as this one was. The reality is that we could point to some injustice or untruth that was the deciding factor in a great many races. Do we really believe that there should be do-overs for that reason? Of course not. So while conduct that ought to lead to criminal charges against and/or the disbarment of the Stevens prosecution team (or at least of some members of that team) has been conclusively demonstrated and implicitly acknowledged by the Attorney General, that is not a sufficient reason for overturning the results of an election.

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After all, the Second Amendment is as much a part of the Bill of Rights as the First Amendment.

An effort to limit the number of guns people can buy has failed again in the Illinois House.

The measure would have capped gun purchases at one a month, although the state police would have been authorized to grant exemptions.

Violations of the one-a-month limit would have been punishable by up to a year in prison.

Call me an extremist on the matter, but I find this sort of legislation every bit as repulsive as legislation that would limit Americans to buying one book or attending one church service a month. Any legislator who supported this bill needs to be removed from office for violating their oath of office – or at least tar-and-feathered by their constituents.

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I’ve always enjoyed BBC shows – especially classic comedy like Are You Being Served and Keeping Up Appearances, not to mention some of the current stuff that turns up on BBC America. One reason is that there is a level of freedom with humor – including somewhat risqué humor – that you just don’t find here in the USA. Unfortunately, as Mark Steyn notes, there may be a move to clamp down on “offensive humor” – and that is a bad thing.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, then criminalizing words is a way of disarming potential opposition, of inculcating a reflexive self-censorship in the citizenry. And, after all, self-suppression is the most cost-effective of tyranny. Political correctness isn’t merely the blasphemy law of our time. It makes communication impossible. It renders a people literally illiterate: the conventions of language used by functioning societies throughout human history—irony, indirect quotation, period evocation, and, yes, even comic stereotype—are all suddenly suspect. What a strange fate to embrace. In London, the Lord Chamberlain’s power to censor West End plays was finally abolished in 1968: it was widely accepted by then that there was something absurd in a palace courtier ruling that your script could have three “Bastards!” but not four, and that two specific references to sodomy had to be replaced with one vague allusion to heavy petting. Yet, four decades on, Britons now think it entirely normal for police constables and time-serving bureaucrats to function as literary critics determining the “intent” behind a throwaway jest.

To hell with it, and to hell with “sensitivity training.” The only way a multicultural society can live in freedom is with what the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle calls “insensitivity training”: we all need to develop thicker skin and rub along—without government monitoring. “CSI Catskills” is a totalitarian concept, and only a bunch of fairies would fall for it.

And just to clarify: IÂ’m not saying youÂ’re a fairy if you have sex with other men.
I am saying youÂ’re a fairy if you think the state should police our jokes.

Indeed, I wonder if any of the favorite shows mentioned above could really meet the standard set by the new law. And having seen PC sensitivities ratcheted up in this country in recent years, I know that this has diminished our entertainment as well as our ability to confront prejudice through humor. After all, could All In The Family be made today? I doubt it, even though the humor that would be forbidden is the sort of stuff that actually ridiculed the insensitive rather than their targets. After all, mockery has its place – and it is not the place of government to decide whose views are correct and may therefore be expressed (and conversely, wrong and not to be expressed) on social and political issues.

For that matter, I wonder if Elton John -- himself a proud gay man – could possibly get away with making this classic song.

After all, not only wonÂ’t people be allowed to laugh, even making the joke in the first place would be a violation of the law.

Posted by: Greg at 11:27 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Here is a piece of legislation I support, and which I think ought to be quickly passed by the Texas legislature. It rectifies a situation which I and many others view as an unacceptable distinction in how our students are now permitted to compete in interscholastic activities.

For the last 14 years, a handful of private schools have been asking the Legislature for a chance to participate in the league for public school sports and academic competitions.

And each session lawmakers have sent a clear message to those private schools by killing any related legislation — in most cases while the bills were still in committee.

But lawmakers championing the proposal think this could finally be the session they force the University Interscholastic League to accept private schools for district competition. A legislative panel could vote today to send the bill to the full Senate for debate. A similar bill is being carried in the House by Frank Corte, R-San Antonio.

“The private schools are making a simple request: Let our kids compete on a broader playing field in academics and sports,” said State Sen. Dan Patrick, who authored the Senate proposal. “I think that’s perfectly reasonable.”

Currently, two Jesuit schools — one in Dallas and another in Houston — are allowed to compete in the UIL because the league they belonged to was disbanded and deemed too large for the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, or TAPPS.

I spent my high school career in Illinois. And for the record, I attended a Catholic school. My schoolÂ’s football team played in the old East Suburban Catholic Conference, and except for a couple non-conference games played exclusively Catholic schools. During basketball season, our team played a mix of public, Catholic, and private schools. For non-athletic events, we competed with everybody else. All of it was regulated by the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), which was the Illinois counterpart to TexasÂ’ University Interscholastic League (UIL). And to deal with the selectivity/recruiting issue, private schools were ranked one level higher in terms of their size classification, with 1A size private schools competing at 2A, 2A size private schools competing at 3A, etc.

Why do I think this is a good idea, other than the fact that I have seen such a system work well elsewhere? First is the fact that the UIL has already allowed two schools to join because they had nowhere else to turn because of their size, so there is no longer a legitimate basis to say that the UIL is exclusively a public school league. Second, it will enable private schools in less densely populated parts of the state (ever been to west Texas or the Panhandle?) to compete with local public schools rather than force students to endure bus trips of significantly over 100 miles EACH WAY in order to have an event with another private school. Third, a number of districts in Texas have gone to open enrollment systems in which they even accept students who do not live within the district (not to mention the question of magnet and charter schools within public school districts), negating the argument about attendance zones and unfair advantages. The only down side I see is that some perennial powerhouse schools might find themselves facing new competition that could keep them from their annual trip to the playoffs or interfere with their winning yet another championship – which isn’t really a reasonable argument at all.

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I enjoyed playing bingo when I was younger -- there was a girl I dated, and when she went to play with her grandmother I would tag. I grew to enjoy the game mostly because I enjoyed the presence of the young lady. And since my girl and her grandmother played a couple of nights a week, I spent more than a little time playing.

With the coming of the internet, you can play online in your spare time. There are many sites where you can play, and others where you can learn about fun places to play. Take BingoPort.co.uk as an example. It offers a good list of online sites where you can play bingo and a comparison of bingo sites as well.
You can find lists of different sorts of sites, such as a section on free bingo sites. You can also find out about some of the more unusual bingo sites, too.

When one considers the various other features and connections to articles and sites where you can play bingo, you'll discover that it is a quite valuable site for those who are interested in playing online bingo. Check it out to learn more -- you won't be sorry.

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Since Barack Obama and his minions seem unable to use clear language to describe terrorists and our ongoing fight against them, country music great Charlie Daniels has a few suggestions for other euphemisms for him to use for things which normal folks would consider to be a threat.

have some suggestions for your vocabulary:

Rattlesnake - triangle-headed surface crawler

Black Widow Spider - red dotted black circle

Shark - fish with a toothy smile

Grizzly Bear - big cuddly fuzzball

Dynamite - stringed red stick

Ted Bundy - homo sapien with a slight attitude

Jeffrey Dahmer - peculiarly-appetited loner

Hey, they make as much sense as "man caused disasters" and "overseas contingency operations" for terrorism and the War on Terrorism (which really ought to be the Crusade Against Juhadi Swine).

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Posted by: Christian at Mon Apr 27 06:46:02 2009 (O/JFp)

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I hate smoking. I find it a disgusting, dirty habit – and one that has taken the lives of many family and friends over the years. I would not be terribly upset to see the possession and use of tobacco banned for health reasons. That is not going to happen.

The state of Texas, though, is about to take a step that I oppose – raising the age for tobacco use to 19.

Though they are legally considered adults and can serve in the military, 18-year-old Texans would be considered minors when it comes to smoking under a bill passed unanimously through a Senate committee Tuesday.

The measure would increase the legal age for buying tobacco products to 19, and would cut off an estimated $12.5 million in tax revenue for the state over the next two years.

San Antonio Democrat Sen. Carlos Uresti pushed the same measure in 2007, but after winning approval in the Senate it fizzled out in an end of session backlog of bills in the House.

Supporters say raising the legal age will prevent teens from smoking an extra year and keep cigarettes out of high schools, where they can be passed along to younger students.

Let’s see – you can drive a car at 15 in this state. You can get married without parental permission at 18. You can join the military – even be drafted – at that age as well. Heck, you can vote. But we are not going to let you smoke? This is even more asinine than the law restricting alcohol to those over 21, because tobacco use does not raise the safety issue that alcohol does.

So it is really simple – ban tobacco, or let all adults buy and use it. And do the same for alcohol s well.

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It seems like someone was out to get Ted Stevens – and was even open to suborning perjury and hiding evidence to get a conviction.

The Justice Department moved to dismiss former Sen. Ted Stevens' indictment this morning, effectively voiding his Oct. 27 conviction on seven counts of filing false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms.

The decision by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder comes after a new prosecution team discovered a previously undocumented interview with the star witness in the case that sharply contradicted the most dramatic testimony in the four-week trial. The information had never been turned over to the defense, the Justice Department said in its motion.

"After careful review, I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial, Holder said in a statement released this morning. "In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial."

The government is seeking dismissal of the charges "with prejudice," meaning that they cannot be filed again.

Personally, I’m not sorry to see Ted Stevens out of public life. I think he was one of the things that has been wrong with the GOP in recent years. However, the method used – with the obvious impact on the 2008 senatorial election in Alaska – is most disturbing. It appears that there was a rogue element in the Justice Department that was more interested in scalps than in justice.

In the end, Stevens was convicted of trying to hide illegal gifts from political supporters and friends. What the evidence shows is that Stevens made serious efforts to get bills so that he could pay for the gifts. We now know that the Justice Department attorneys attempted to hide that from the court. Unfortunately, the Obama Justice Department has not committed to taking serious actions against those who perpetrated this manifest injustice.

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Because, you know, they didnÂ’t say what he wanted to hear on the issue of representation of the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives.

Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.

* * *

In deciding that the measure is unconstitutional, lawyers in the departmentÂ’s Office of Legal Counsel matched a conclusion reached by their Bush administration counterparts nearly two years ago, when a lawyer there testified that a similar bill would not withstand legal attack.
Holder rejected the advice and sought the opinion of the solicitor generalÂ’s office, where lawyers told him that they could defend the legislation if it were challenged after its enactment.

Quite a different standard between the two positions by the two sets of lawyers. One is examining it from the standard of “is it constitutional?” The other gave an answer based on the standard “is it defensible?” That is a big difference, friends – and that Holder would reject the advice of those he calls the best and the brightest in the Justice Department on the matter is rather telling. Especially since this has been the consistent opinion of the OLC dating back to roughly the Kennedy Administration. After all, the District of Columbia is, self-evidently, not a state, for if it were there would never have been a need to amend the Constitution to grant it electoral votes in a presidential election.

There are three ways to proceed here that are in keeping with the Constitution:

1) Pass an amendment giving the District representation in Congress.

2) Include the population of the District with Maryland for representation purposes, and give it representation in that manner (the territory of the District was granted to the Federal Government by Maryland over two centuries ago).

3) With the approval of Maryland, admit Washington, DC as a state.

And for those who argue that Congress should grant voting representation to the District, IÂ’d like to ask why the same should not be granted to inhabitants of Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and every other territory in which US citizens are denied the right to vote?

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Years ago, I had a car that I loved. Believe it or not, it was a Mercury Lynx. What made me give that car up? Steering problems. No matter what we did to try to fix the problem, we just never quite managed to get the vehicle to steer right after I was hit by another driver -- and the cost of doing the job right was prohibitive.. This was pre-Internet, so I could have gotten my steering components at CarSteering.com. They have all the parts you could need at good prices, including things like steering rack s that are key to making sure that your car steers correctly.

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Good grief! What were members of ObamaÂ’s staff thinking? Like the Queen of England doesnÂ’t have an iPod?

An Obama aide reports that Mr. Obama gave the queen an iPod loaded with video and photos of her 2007 trip to the United States, as well as other songs and accessories, and a rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers, of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame.

According to reports, the queen gave the Obamas a silver framed signed photograph — a gift she gives to all visiting dignitaries.

Well, perhaps a bit better than the faux pas with the Browns, especially the Richard Rodgers songbook – but I’m sure that the BBC can readily supply Her Majesty with all the video of that 2007 visit that she could ever want – and we know that she probably has an iPod. Would someone get him to beef up his protocol staff so as to avoid any future such embarrassments?

H/T HotAir

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