December 31, 2006
Here are the things I see in the coming year -- let's see if I do better than I did for the year just passed, or can beat my 2005 predictions.
1) Good news -- Fidel Castro finally dies. Bad news -- Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad don't.
2) Pelosi only seeks to remove GOP alligators from her ethical swamp -- and seeks a special investigation of the DOJ when John Murtha is indicted over his recently disclosed connections with a non-profit group.
3) Tom DeLay finally gets a trial after the Court of Criminal Appeals tosses the Ronnie Earle's attempt to create an ex post facto application of campaign finance law. DeLay will be found not guilty.
4) There will be a troop surge in Iraq beginning in March, with numbers being decreased in July. Next December will see fewer US troops in Iraq than are there as 2006 ends. Presidential poll numbers will rise as the troop surge stabilizes Iraq.
5) We will see a July resignation from the Supreme Court -- and there will be a serious fight over the confirmation of the president's choice of replacement.
6) Congressman Nick Lampson finds it necessary to strike a balance between his overwhelmingly conservative district and his overwhelmingly liberal Democrat supporters. He will have thoroughly alienated one or the other by this time next year, and polls will show him quite vulnerable to either a primary or general election challenge in 2008 (depending on which group he angers).
7) The Texas Legislature will screw up property tax reduction again -- and do nothing significant about teacher salaries and insurance. Congress screws up immigration reform, doing nothing to fix the leaking border while granting amnesty.
Royal weddings: Prince William and Kate Middleton, Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky.
9) The Houston Texans make David Carr actually compete for the starting quarterback position after drafting University of Houston QB Kevin Kolb in the third round. Carr remains starter, but has to keep an eye over his shoulder while leading the team to its first playoff appearance in franchise history (as a wild card team) -- but Kolb is clearly the future in Houston.
10) Muslims riot yet again over a perceived slight to Muhammad.
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, 
DD,
THE cover story on abortion in El Salvador in The New York Times Magazine on April 9 contained prominent references to an attention-grabbing fact. “A few” women, the first paragraph indicated, were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That reference included a young woman named Carmen Climaco. The article concluded with a dramatic account of how Ms. Climaco received the sentence after her pregnancy had been aborted after 18 weeks.It turns out, however, that trial testimony convinced a court in 2002 that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy had resulted in a full-term live birth, and that she had strangled the “recently born.” A three-judge panel found her guilty of “aggravated homicide,” a fact the article noted. But without bothering to check the court document containing the panel’s findings and ruling, the article’s author, Jack Hitt, a freelancer, suggested that the “truth” was different.
The issues surrounding the article raise two points worth noting, both beyond another reminder to double-check information that seems especially striking. Articles on topics as sensitive as abortion need an extra level of diligence and scrutiny — “bulletproofing,” in newsroom jargon. And this case illustrates how important it is for top editors to carefully assess the complaints they receive. A response drafted by top editors for the use of the office of the publisher in replying to complaints about the Hitt story asserted that there was “no reason to doubt the accuracy of the facts as reported.”
Indeed -- despite the evidence of the official record of the court proceedings, including the scientific evidence, the official line of the New York Times is that hte article was fair, accurate, and truthful. Even though the information in it was false and the reporter never bothered to look at the official court transcripts in the case.
Yeah, you read that right.
Mr. Hitt said Ms. Climaco had been brought to his attention by the magistrate who decided four years ago that the case warranted a trial, so he had asked the magistrate for the court record. “When she told me that the case had been archived, I accepted that to mean that I would have to rely upon the judge who had been directly involved in the case and who heard the evidence” in the trial stage of the judicial process, Mr. Hitt wrote in an e-mail to me. So he didn’t pursue the document.But obtaining the public document isn’t difficult. At my request, a stringer for The Times in El Salvador walked into the court building without making any prior arrangements a few days ago, and minutes later had an official copy of the court ruling. It proved to be the same document as the one disseminated by LifeSiteNews.com, which had been translated into English in early December by a translator retained by The Times Magazine’s editors. I’ve since had the stringer review the translation of key paragraphs for me.
The magistrate, Mr. Hitt noted, “had been helpful in other areas of the story and quite open.” So when she recalled one doctor’s estimate that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy had been aborted at 18 weeks, he used that in the article. (The only 18-week estimate mentioned in the court ruling came from a doctor who hadn’t seen any fetus and whose deductions from the size of the uterus 17 hours after the birth were found by the three judges to be flawed.)
Mr. Hitt concluded the article with this summation of the Climaco case: “The truth was certainly — well, not in the ’middle’ so much as somewhere else entirely. Somewhere like this: She’d had a clandestine abortion at 18 weeks, not all that different from D.C.’s [another woman cited earlier in the story], something defined as absolutely legal in the United States. It’s just that she’d had an abortion in El Salvador.”
So the story was run based upon the word of the magistrate, and there was no attempt made to get a copy of the record -- a pretty shoddy piece of work. And what did the record show when the transcript was acquired, months after the piece ran in the NY Times magazine?
When Times Magazine editors provided me with an English-language version of the court findings on Dec. 8, just after the translation had been completed, there was little ambiguity in the court’s findings. “We have an already-formed and independent life here,” the court said. “Therefore we are not dealing with an abortion here, as the defense has attempted to claim in the present case.”The physician who had performed the autopsy on the “recently born” testified that it represented a “full-term” birth, which he defined as a pregnancy with a duration of “between 38 and 42 weeks,” the ruling noted. In adopting those conclusions, the court said of another autopsy finding: “Given that the lungs floated when submerged in water, also indicating that the recently-born was breathing at birth, this confirms that we are dealing with an independent life.”
Yep -- a full-term pregnancy, a breathing child, and a murder. No abortion.
But how has the official NY Times responded to the situation? By defending the article, and refusing to acknowledge that its contents are false, all without allowing the facts to finally be checked.
The magazine’s failure to check the court ruling was then compounded for me by the handling of reader complaints about the issue. The initial complaints triggered a public defense of the article by two assistant managing editors before the court ruling had even been translated into English or Mr. Hitt had finished checking various sources in El Salvador. After being queried by the office of the publisher about a possible error, Craig Whitney, who is also the paper’s standards editor, drafted a response that was approved by Gerald Marzorati, who is also the editor of the magazine. It was forwarded on Dec. 1 to the office of the publisher, which began sending it to complaining readers.The response said that while the “fair and dispassionate” story noted Ms. Climaco’s conviction of aggravated homicide, the article “concluded that it was more likely that she had had an illegal abortion.” The response ended by stating, “We have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the facts as reported in our article, which was not part of any campaign to promote abortion.”
And now that the facts are clear in the case, what is the response? To continue to defend the article as true, to reject the findings of the trial court as untrustworthy and possibly politicized, and to refuse to present a retraction or correction -- or even notify those who received the earlier response that new evidence was out there casting doubt on whether or not the article was fair or accurate.
The article was “as accurate as it could have been at the time it was written,” Mr. Marzorati wrote to me. “I also think that if the author and we editors knew of the contents of that third ruling, we would have qualified what we said about Ms. Climaco. Which is NOT to say that I simply accept the third ruling as ‘true’; El Salvador’s judicial system is terribly politicized.”I asked Mr. Whitney if he intended to suggest that the office of the publisher bring the court’s findings to the attention of those readers who received the “no reason to doubt” response, or that a correction be published. The latest word from the standards editor: “No, I’m not ready to do that, nor to order up a correction or Editors’ Note at this point.”
In other words, what are the standards at the NY Times? No standards -- not when it might present the paper in a bad light, and so the Times stands by the article that is factually untrue. So much for the "paper of record".
UPDATE: 1/2/2007: Well, looks like some others are picking up on the story -- including Michelle Malkin, The Saloon, Elmer's Brother, The Coffeespy, Blake's Blog, Hot Air, Roger L. Simon, Custos Fidei
UPDATE 1/3/2007" Could it be that the only staff member to lose his position over this scandal (at least in part) will be public editor Barney Calame -- because he has once agaain taken a position critical of, rather than endorsing, outrageous actions by the Time editorial staff?
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December 16, 2006
Former President Carter has decided not to visit Brandeis University to talk about his new book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid" because he does not want to debate Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz as the university had requested."I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz," Carter told The Boston Globe. "There is no need ... for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."
The debate request is proof that many in the United States are unwilling to hear an alternative view on the nation's most taboo foreign policy issue, Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, Carter said.
No, Mr. Carter -- the debate request is proof that Americans want honest discussion. You claim that you want to promote dialogue -- but when offered a chance for discussion and debate, you refuse to participate. I guess it is question of what the meaning of "dialogue" is -- and in your vocabulary, it means "shut up and listen to what I have to say."
I guess it is simply the case that Jimmy Carter doesn't want to share the stage with a Jew as an equal -- instead he would rather visit a Jewish university and tell the Jewish students what is wrong with the Jews.
For shame, Mr. Carter -- you truly are the Worst President Ever -- and now have become the Worst Ex-President Ever.
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December 14, 2006
A laboratory hired by the prosecution in the Duke lacrosse case found DNA from unidentified men in the accuser's body and underwear but none from the defendants, according to a defense motion filed Wednesday.DNA Security of Burlington in May produced a report to Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong that made no mention of finding the genetic material.
Wednesday's motion raised questions about whether Nifong and DNA Security withheld evidence favorable to the defense. It also cast further doubt on accounts given by the accuser, who told nurses and police that her attackers ejaculated and did not use condoms. The tests revealed no DNA evidence from any of 46 lacrosse players then suspected in the case.
"This is strong evidence of innocence," said the motion, which was signed by attorneys for all three defendants. "There is not a single mention of this obviously exculpatory evidence in the final DNA Security report."
Defense lawyers for months pressed Nifong in court to release all test documents from DNA Security. The evidence in Wednesday's motion was contained in thousands of DNA Security papers that a judge in October ordered Nifong to give to the defense.
Defense lawyers, citing the state's open file discovery law and the U.S. Supreme Court requirement that prosecutors surrender all helpful evidence, asked for more lab records, including analyses, notes, e-mail and logs of phone calls. They also asked that Brian Meehan, director of DNA Security, be questioned under oath. A hearing is scheduled for Friday in the case.
And it would appear we need to shut down the lab, too, for ginning up a report tailored to the prosecutionÂ’s wants and needs instead of bringing the facts to light.
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People who melt pennies or nickels to profit from the jump in metals prices could face jail time and pay thousands of dollars in fines, according to new rules out Thursday.Soaring metals prices mean that the value of the metal in pennies and nickels exceeds the face value of the coins. Based on current metals prices, the value of the metal in a nickel is now 6.99 cents, while the penny's metal is worth 1.12 cents, according to the U.S. Mint.
That has piqued concern among government officials that people will melt the coins to sell the metal, leading to potential shortages of pennies and nickels.
"The nation needs its coinage for commerce," U.S. Mint director Ed Moy said in a statement. "We don't want to see our pennies and nickels melted down so a few individuals can take advantage of the American taxpayer. Replacing these coins would be an enormous cost to taxpayers."
There have been no specific reports of people melting coins for the metal, Mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey says. But the agency has received a number of questions in recent months from the public about the legality of melting the coins, and officials have heard some anecdotal reports of companies considering selling the metal from pennies and nickels, she says.
Under the new rules, it is illegal to melt pennies and nickels. It is also illegal to export the coins for melting. Travelers may legally carry up to $5 in 1- and 5-cent coins out of the USA or ship $100 of the coins abroad "for legitimate coinage and numismatic purposes."
Violators could spend up to five years in prison and pay as much as $10,000 in fines. Plus, the government will confiscate any coins or metal used in melting schemes.
The rules are similar to those enacted in the 1960s and 1970s, when metals prices also rose, the Mint said. Ongoing regulations make it illegal to alter coins with an intent to commit fraud. Before today's new regulations, it was not illegal to melt coins.
Now hold on – is the money MY money, or the government’s money? Do the coins belong to me, or to the government? What about the metal the coins are composed of – my property or the government’s? And if the answer to these question is that it is my property, where does the government get off penalizing my decision on how to dispose of the coins and their metal content?
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December 13, 2006
A violent solar explosion sent a dangerous wave of radiation through space late Tuesday, prompting NASA to order the crews of Discovery and the International Space Station to take shelter overnight, according to Local 6 News partner Florida Today.The solar flare erupted around 9:40 p.m., unleashing enough radiation to disrupt radio communications on Earth and in orbit while endangering astronauts circling 220 miles above the planet.
NASA flight surgeons and agency radiation experts determined that the burst of highly energetic particles approached a limit that made preventative action prudent, Florida Today reported.
Station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and shuttle skipper Mark Polansky were told to move their crews to the most shielded areas in either spacecraft.
They include the middeck of the shuttle's crew compartment and temporary sleeping quarters in the station's U.S. Destiny science laboratory.
The back ends of the American lab and a Russian command control center at the outpost also were options, the report said.
That is one of the more unusual hazards of space travel.
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December 12, 2006
A teenager responsible for a crime spree that sent police into a frenzy said he has no regrets in an interview about what led him to kill.
Lavender Howse, 16, murdered one man, and shot a child and a woman within a matter of hours in June, 2005."This ain't no place to be, especially for no 16-year-old," he said.
Howse was convicted of shooting a security guard in cold blood, then minutes later shooting a nine year old in the face and another innocent woman walking her dog.
"In a blink of a moment it can happen," he said. "That's how it happened to me, I wasn't even thinking. It just happened."
Now in prison, he won't even have a chance of freedom till he's 81 years old. His home is a prison cell after a life on the streets of East Nashville.
In other words, taxpayers will be supporting him for 65 years – at a minimum. And he feels not a lick of remorse.
For Howse, emotion is rare and remorse is unseen.
"I finally got over it, you gotta let it go, can't keep thinking about it," he said.
Even the nine year old gets little sympathy. He said he'd like to say sorry maybe, but for Howse it was just a mistake.
No remorse, no empathy.
But he claims to have found God – sort of.
Care to guess which religion this unrepentant murderer has picked?
He has found God in prison, and has converted to Islam while in the Metro jail.
Anybody surprised?
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Some of the scientists who first advanced the controversial "nuclear winter" theory more than two decades ago have come up with another bleak forecast: Even a regional nuclear war would devastate the environment.Using modern climate and population models, researchers estimated that a small-scale nuclear conflict between two warring nations would cause 3 million to 17 million immediate casualties and lead to a marked cooldown of the planet that could lead to crop failures and further misery.
* * * The new studies looked at the consequences if two nations dropped 50 Hiroshima-size bombs on each other's big cities. By analyzing population data and distance from blast, scientists predicted a regional nuclear war would kill 3 million people in Israel and up to 17 million in China. The U.S. would see 4 million blast deaths.
But the researchers say black soot from the fires would linger in the atmosphere, blocking the sun's rays and causing average global surface temperatures to drop about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the first three years. Although the planet would see a gradual warming within a decade, it would still be colder than it was before the war, the scientists said.
The cooldown would shorten the growing season by about a month in parts of North America, Europe and Asia. Normal rainfall patterns such as summer monsoons in Africa and Southeast Asia would be disrupted, possibly causing huge crop failures.
But as I understand matters, this would cut back on the warming trend that we are told threatens to bring about “the end of the world as we know it†– and the population reduction would slow the rate of growth and temperature increase. I would therefore think that liberals would advocate popping off several nukes ever couple of decades, because of we have Earth in the balance – or is such thinking merely an inconvenient truth?
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Some of the scientists who first advanced the controversial "nuclear winter" theory more than two decades ago have come up with another bleak forecast: Even a regional nuclear war would devastate the environment.Using modern climate and population models, researchers estimated that a small-scale nuclear conflict between two warring nations would cause 3 million to 17 million immediate casualties and lead to a marked cooldown of the planet that could lead to crop failures and further misery.
* * * The new studies looked at the consequences if two nations dropped 50 Hiroshima-size bombs on each other's big cities. By analyzing population data and distance from blast, scientists predicted a regional nuclear war would kill 3 million people in Israel and up to 17 million in China. The U.S. would see 4 million blast deaths.
But the researchers say black soot from the fires would linger in the atmosphere, blocking the sun's rays and causing average global surface temperatures to drop about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the first three years. Although the planet would see a gradual warming within a decade, it would still be colder than it was before the war, the scientists said.
The cooldown would shorten the growing season by about a month in parts of North America, Europe and Asia. Normal rainfall patterns such as summer monsoons in Africa and Southeast Asia would be disrupted, possibly causing huge crop failures.
But as I understand matters, this would cut back on the warming trend that we are told threatens to bring about “the end of the world as we know it” – and the population reduction would slow the rate of growth and temperature increase. I would therefore think that liberals would advocate popping off several nukes ever couple of decades, because of we have Earth in the balance – or is such thinking merely an inconvenient truth?
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December 11, 2006
The holiday trees that went away in the middle of the night are back.Tonight, Port of Seattle staff began putting up the trees they had taken down Friday night after a local rabbi requested that a Hanukkah menorah also be displayed. Port officials said the rabbi's lawyer had threatened to imminently file a lawsuit, leaving them with insufficient time to consider all the issues.
A nationwide furor erupted over the weekend as news of the trees' removal spread, with a flood of calls to Port officials and harshly worded e-mails to Jewish organizations. Today, Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky said he would not file a lawsuit and the Port, in response, said it would put the trees back up.
"This has been an unfortunate situation for all of us in Seattle," Port of Seattle Commission President Pat Davis said in a statement. "The rabbi never asked us to remove the trees; it was the Port's decision based on what we knew at the time. We very much appreciate the rabbi's willingness to work with us as we move forward."
And I hope the menorah the rabi wants is put up -- and that a Nativity scene is added. After all, the rabbi has demanded the introduction of religious symbols to the airport's holiday display, which had been secular up to this point.
And by the way -- I'd like to heartily condemn those who have threatened the rabbi for his actions. Even though he was dead wrong, such threats of violence are never appropriate -- and especially not in the name of a holiday honoring the Prince of peace.
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December 10, 2006
After a humiliating plagiarism scandal that rocked the New York Times [NYT], Jayson Blair is quietly resurrecting his journalism career by writing about the very subject he says brought him down: Bipolar disorder.Blair, 30, has been lending his expertise to 3-year-old bp (bipolar) magazine. He wrote a first-person piece about bipolar disorder and the role it played in his downfall that bp magazine ran last year.
“It went through a very rigorous editing process,” said Editor Nancy Tobin. “We just have a very rigorous editing process and a great deal of fact checking.” Tobin admits she was skeptical of Blair at first. “When I first got a call from Jayson Blair I was very surpised,” said Tobin, who didn’t know he’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Before he wrote for them, Tobin said she “made very careful verfications that he was who he said he was” and had him fax her his diagnosis from his psychiatrist’s office.
But can you trust a thing he says?
H/T Malkin
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December 08, 2006
Te 2007 Atlantic hurricane season should have above-average activity, a top hurricane researcher said Friday.Colorado State forecaster William Gray predicted 14 named storms next year, including three major hurricanes and four other hurricanes.
Gray and fellow researcher Philip Klotzbach said fewer hurricanes are likely to make landfall compared to last year, which had the busiest and most destructive hurricane season on record.
It had 28 named storms, including 15 hurricanes, four of which hit the U.S. The worst of those was Katrina, which leveled parts of the Gulf Coast.
This year's season had nine named storms and five hurricanes, two of them major. That was considered a "near normal" season but fell short of predictions by Gray and government scientists.
No hurricanes hit the U.S. Atlantic coast in 2006 - only the 11th time that has occurred since 1945.
Gray's team said a late-developing El Nino contributed to the calmer 2006 season but that those conditions are likely to dissipate before the next June-to-November season.
"Despite a fairly inactive 2006 hurricane season, we believe that the Atlantic basin is in an active hurricane cycle," Gray said. The active cycle is expected to continue for another decade or two, he said.
In other words, despite not knowing what they were talking about last year, they are confident that they know what they are talking about this year.
So, will this heavy season be the fault of George W. Bush – or of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the Democrats, given that they are now in charge and setting the tone in Washington?
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If reports are true that Chelsea Clinton and her boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky are considering marriage, the father of the groom won't be able to attend the wedding until he is released from prison in November 2008.Ed Mezvinsky, a former Iowa Congressman, is serving a seven-year sentence for fraud after getting caught up in a series of Nigerian e-mail scams.
Initially, Mezvinsky became the victim of "just about every different kind of African-based scam we've ever seen," federal prosecutor Bob Zauzmer told 20/20 for a report to be broadcast this evening.
But then, says Zauzmer, Mezvinsky began to steal from clients and even his own mother-in-law to raise the money to try yet another scheme.
* * * After leaving Congress, Mezvinsky moved to Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs with his wife Marjorie Margolies, a former television reporter, who won a seat in Congress herself.
"They were seen as people of means; they were a legitimate power couple," said Gar Joseph, a political columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.
The Mezvinkskys were also close to Bill and Hillary Clinton and were frequent guests at White House state dinners.
Prosecutors say Mezvinsky used his connections to the Clintons and his son's social relationship with Chelsea to persuade people to give him money to participate in the scams.
Stupid and corrupt – seems to me to be a step down for Chelsea, whose parents are at least intelligent and corrupt.
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Indian men's penises do not match international sizes and most condoms on sale in the country are too big, according to a medical study.The Indian Council of Medical Research, the country's top health research institute, found 60 percent of men in Mumbai had penises at least 2.4 centimeters (one inch) shorter than international condom sizes, The Times of India newspaper said Friday.
For 30 percent, the gap was five centimeters (two inches), said a researcher quoted in the article headlined "Indian men don't measure up".
The institute surveyed 1,400 men visiting family planning clinics across the country to conduct the "Study on proper length and breadth specification for condoms".
The study was carried out in a bid to improve the sizing of condoms, which have a failure rate of up to 20 percent in India.
"While improper usage is one of the reasons, there is also condom slippage or tear, which is associated with the size of the condom in relation to an erect penis," said Dr Chander Puri, director of the councils National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health.
[INSERT YOUR PUNCHLINE HERE]
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Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, an unabashed apostle of Reagan era conservatism and the first woman U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has died.The death of the 80-year-old Kirkpatrick, who began her public life as a Hubert Humphrey Democrat, was announced Friday at the senior staff meeting of the U.S. mission to the United Nations.
Spokesman Richard Grenell said that Ambassador John Bolton asked for a moment of silence. An announcement of her death also was posted on the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-oriented think tank here where she was a senior fellow.
Kirkpatrick's assistant, Andrea Harrington, said that she died in her sleep at home in Bethesda, Md. late Thursday. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Kirkpatrick's health had been in decline recently, Harrington said, adding that she was "basically confined to her house," going to work about once a week "and then less and less."
One of my favorite commentators, Bill Bennett, offers this eulogy for the former UN Ambassador.
Bill Bennett, a former secretary of education under Reagan, the nation's drug czar under the first President Bush and a leading conservative opinion-maker, called her "very forceful, very strong, a daughter of Oklahoma, great sense of humor. She held her own."Bennett said the Iraq Study Group so prominently in the news "would have been better with Jeane Kirkpatrick on it ... She had no patience with tyrannies, said they had to be confronted, you couldn't deal with tyrannies, that there were some people you could work with - these people you couldn't."
In other words, Ambassador Kirkpatrick was a true realist, unlike those currently accorded the title.
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December 07, 2006
President Bush vowed yesterday to come up with "a new strategy" in Iraq but expressed little enthusiasm for the central ideas of a bipartisan commission that advised him to ratchet back the U.S. military commitment in Iraq and launch an aggressive new diplomatic effort in the region.On the day after the congressionally chartered Iraq Study Group released its widely anticipated report, much of Washington maneuvered to pick out the parts they like and pick apart those they do not. The report's authors were greeted with skepticism on Capitol Hill, and Democratic leaders used the occasion to press Bush to change course without embracing the commission's particular recipe themselves.
The group's 96-page report roiled some in the Middle East, particularly Israel, which rejected proposals for concessions to Syria. And it drew fire from current and former U.S. officials who called its diplomacy ideas unrealistic, unattainable and even misguided. The U.S. ground commander in Iraq, while welcoming the report's broad principles, warned that meeting its goal of withdrawing combat units by early 2008 could prove to "be very problematic."
So let's get this straight -- the White house sees problems with it, the Democrats aren't embracing it, our allies are opposed to the ideas included, and the military finds its suggestions unworkable. Would somebody explain why the authors are being called "realists"?
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December 06, 2006
Mary Cheney, the vice president's openly gay daughter, is pregnant. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, are "ecstatic" about the baby, due in late spring, said a source close to the couple.It's a baby boom for grandparents Dick and Lynne Cheney: Their older daughter, Elizabeth, went on leave as deputy assistant secretary of state before having her fifth child in July. "The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild," spokesman Lea Anne McBride said last night.
Cheney, 37, was a key aide to her father during the 2004 reelection campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL. Poe, 45, a former park ranger, is renovating their Great Falls home.
News of the pregnancy will undoubtedly reignite the debate about gay marriage. During the campaign, Mary Cheney was criticized by gay activists for not being more publicly supportive of same-sex marriage. Her father said people "ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to" but deferred to the president's policy supporting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. Cheney herself called the proposed amendment "a gross affront to gays and lesbians everywhere" in her book, "Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life," which was published in May.
Cheney has described her relationship with Poe -- whom she took to last year's White House dinner honoring Prince Charles and Camilla-- as a marriage. The two met in 1988 while playing ice hockey and began dating four years later. They moved from Colorado to Virginia a year ago to be closer to Cheney's family. In an interview with the Post six months ago, when asked if she and Poe wanted children, Cheney said that was a "conversation I think I should have with Heather first."
Even if my belief is that a mixed-sex, two-parent family is the best family structure, I will not condemn or cast aspersions upon those who act differently.
And sadly, I suspect that the timing of this event was based upon politics. No, not the politics of her father and the Bush Administration, but the politics of personal destruction the Left has engaged in regarding homosexual Republicans and or homosexual family members of Republicans.
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December 04, 2006
More than 15 months after Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin on Monday tapped a leading regional planner and disaster recovery expert to head a new city recovery office.Edward J. Blakely, who helped coordinate recovery planning in California after two natural disasters and in New York City after Sept. 11, has been chosen to lead what is expected to be a five-person office and to serve as the leader for marshaling a recovery process that critics have derided as too slow.
``We think he's the best in the world to help us through this recovery,'' Nagin said at a news conference.
Well, now we know why New Orleans is still a ruin -- Ray Nagin was trying to find someone with a clue to help him rebuild.
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2) Will the Saudi Peace Initiative of 2002 finally bear fruit? Perhaps, if Israeli PM Olmert agrees to the framework This could lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, as well as peace between Israel and seven Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the Emirates, Morocco and Tunisia. Are the Arabs willing to guarantee Israeli security against the various terrorist groups they have encouraged in the region over the last several decades?
3) When even the incoming head of the Congregation for the Clergy says that the abolition of mandatory celibacy should be considered, can the elimination of the practice be that far away?
4) Fresh from his reelection as dictator, Hugo Chavez now plans on throttling the free press of Venezuela with a new censorship law aimed at those who criticize his government.
5) Here we have it – Steven Breyer is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court, as evidenced by his own words. If it is his intent to look beyond the Constitution to determine the validity of American law, he is in violation of his oath of office.
6) The New York Times is lamenting the possibility that the Supreme Court might interfere with local control of school districts that want to use race in assigning students to schools based upon race and ethnicity. Have the editors really moved so far from the principles of Brown v. Board of Education? And here is an early report on oral arguments on the topic before the Court today. And SCOTUS Blog offers a great analysis of why the race-based programs will likely fall.
7) More troops in Iraq, not fewer? That is the call of military leaders, not politicians – you know, the folks who are experts about the situation on the ground and what is needed to win. Sounds like a great idea to me.
8) Terrorists promote ignorance to get a grip on Iraq. I guess that means that only stupid people can support sharia law and jihadi murder.
9) Even though Prager was dead wrong in his column, I don’t believe he should lose his position on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council – an especially not at the urging of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization associate with groups out to finish what Hitler started.
10) John Bolton to leave the UN due to Democrat intransigence on his confirmation, despite doing an excellent job as UN Ambassador.
11) Another one bites the dust. The IDF does good work to eliminate terrorist scum.
12) NASA has interesting new plans for a permanent presence on the moon.
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2) Will the Saudi Peace Initiative of 2002 finally bear fruit? Perhaps, if Israeli PM Olmert agrees to the framework This could lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, as well as peace between Israel and seven Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the Emirates, Morocco and Tunisia. Are the Arabs willing to guarantee Israeli security against the various terrorist groups they have encouraged in the region over the last several decades?
3) When even the incoming head of the Congregation for the Clergy says that the abolition of mandatory celibacy should be considered, can the elimination of the practice be that far away?
4) Fresh from his reelection as dictator, Hugo Chavez now plans on throttling the free press of Venezuela with a new censorship law aimed at those who criticize his government.
5) Here we have it – Steven Breyer is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court, as evidenced by his own words. If it is his intent to look beyond the Constitution to determine the validity of American law, he is in violation of his oath of office.
6) The New York Times is lamenting the possibility that the Supreme Court might interfere with local control of school districts that want to use race in assigning students to schools based upon race and ethnicity. Have the editors really moved so far from the principles of Brown v. Board of Education? And here is an early report on oral arguments on the topic before the Court today. And SCOTUS Blog offers a great analysis of why the race-based programs will likely fall.
7) More troops in Iraq, not fewer? That is the call of military leaders, not politicians – you know, the folks who are experts about the situation on the ground and what is needed to win. Sounds like a great idea to me.
Terrorists promote ignorance to get a grip on Iraq. I guess that means that only stupid people can support sharia law and jihadi murder.
9) Even though Prager was dead wrong in his column, I don’t believe he should lose his position on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council – an especially not at the urging of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization associate with groups out to finish what Hitler started.
10) John Bolton to leave the UN due to Democrat intransigence on his confirmation, despite doing an excellent job as UN Ambassador.
11) Another one bites the dust. The IDF does good work to eliminate terrorist scum.
12) NASA has interesting new plans for a permanent presence on the moon.
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December 03, 2006
Now that may sound weird, but around here it isn't -- it is a sign that a launch is imminent, and that everything is going according to plan. After all, the guys who will miss the Christmas party are part of the team that will be guiding this little project once it gets of the ground on Thursday night.
They wield no scalpels, but seven U.S. and European shuttle astronauts will be prepared to carry out electronic bypass surgery when they lift off this week to overhaul an outdated power system aboard the international space station.Many involved in Discovery's upcoming 12-day flight consider it among the most challenging of the 33 space station construction missions that will be flown by NASA shuttle crews.
"This is a major milestone in space station assembly," said NASA's John Curry, the mission's lead space station flight director. "I will be pleasantly surprised if everything works without a hitch."
Curry's planning team has spent more than four years preparing a timeline of critical procedures that must be carried out by the astronauts, in concert with activities in Mission Control.
If successful, the shuttle crew will replace the station's 6-year-old temporary power system with a permanent electrical grid.
The overhaul will provide electricity to power European and Japanese science modules when they are added to the station in late 2007 and 2008. The work also will enable the 220-mile-high orbital outpost to house six full-time astronauts in three years, twice the current population.
Mission Control will interrupt the flow of electricity to half of the space station during two of the shuttle crew's three spacewalks. The interruptions will enable the spacewalkers to make more than 150 changes to external power lines.
"It's just like it was in your own home when your mother told you to turn off the lamp before you unplugged it," said astronaut Robert Curbeam, who will lead each of the near seven-hour outings.
Equally as worrisome, one of two 120-foot-long solar panels that have supplied electrical power to the station for the past six years must be retracted. The never-before-attempted retraction is necessary to provide clearance for a pair of similar panels on the solar power module installed on the station by the Atlantis astronauts in September.
Stretching 240 feet, the panels on the new power module are designed to rotate like a slow-turning aircraft propeller to collect sunlight that can be converted into electricity.
To establish the new electrical grid, the shuttle crew and flight controllers also must activate four external power distribution boxes and a pair of coolant pumps that have been dormant since they were installed four years ago.
The challenge for the shuttle crew and ground controllers will be to activate the pumps as quickly as possible after the distribution boxes are switched on during the second and third spacewalks. The cooling fluid circulated by the pumps prevents the boxes from overheating.
Discovery's launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is scheduled for Thursday at 8:36 p.m. CST.
The liftoff will be the first at night in four years. According to shuttle managers, NASA must resume nighttime launches if the agency is to finish assembling the half-built station. The project must be finished by 2010, the White House-imposed retirement date for the space shuttles.
"At this stage, every mission is critical. Every mission depends upon the success of its predecessor," said Mark Polansky, Discovery's commander. "Every mission that follows is concerned with how we finish."
Discovery's mission was once scheduled to lift off in July 2003, six months after the shuttle Columbia's in-flight destruction. In September, the Atlantis astronauts carried out the first of 15 flights needed to finish the space station.
After the cause of Columbia's breakup was traced to damage from foam insulation loss during liftoff, NASA used daytime launches for the best use of cameras that would track any loss of foam from the shuttle's external fuel tank. With no debris causing serious damage, NASA is more confident about night launches.
Discovery's crew will deliver an 11-foot-long addition to the station's solar power network.
Once the astronauts reach the orbital base, they plan to hoist the 4,100-pound aluminum truss segment from the shuttle's cargo bay with a robotic arm.
During the mission's first spacewalk, Curbeam and European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang plan to bolt the $11 million extension to the station. If the older solar panel refuses to retract, Curbeam and Fuglesang would be directed to use battery-operated ratchets to reel in the panel.
The spacewalkers could also face problems as Mission Control attempts to activate the dormant power distribution boxes and coolant pumps on the second and third outings.
Managers could add a fourth spacewalk. Replacement boxes and pumps are already positioned aboard the station.
"You are basically re-wiring your house while you live in it," said Kirk Shireman, who chairs NASA's space station mission management team. "So, we have spent a lot of time over the years developing procedures to back out of our procedures, another reason why this fight is so complicated."
So guys, we'll all be thinking about you when the gift exchange is going on -- because we know that you have something much more important to do. Good luck and Godspeed to all involved in the Discovery launch and mission.
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