December 23, 2006
In 1996, Congress ordered immigration officials to create a system to track everyone who enters the country and everyone who leaves. That sensible directive lay on a back burner until 9/11. The Department of Homeland Security then hastened to set up the U.S. Visit program, which requires people to be photographed and fingerprinted at ports of entry for checking against databases of terrorists and other undesirables.That system has been running since 2004, and has plucked hundreds of bad people from the huge visitor stream without horribly disrupting tourism and business travel. But news came last week that the other half of the program — monitoring foreign travelers when they leave — has been abandoned.
The Homeland Security Department had hoped to begin tracking departures at the 50 busiest land border crossings by next December. But it has given up meeting that deadline after deciding that the cost — including time lost in long lines at the borders — would be prohibitive. Part of the problem is technological: tracking methods that would work are too expensive.
The Government Accountability Office, echoing the Bush administrationÂ’s conclusions, said that a cost-effective departure system may not emerge for five to 10 years. And so, after spending $1.7 billion since 2003 on the U.S. Visit program, the administration will keep doing what it has been doing at the nationÂ’s land exits, which is basically nothing.
It’s good to know who’s leaving the country — and who isn’t. About a third of illegal immigrants are believed to be those who entered lawfully but stayed after their visas expired. Some of the 9/11 hijackers were in this group. Hunting such people down is not even theoretically possible until you know whom you are looking for.
Of course, the formerly great newspaper then turns the corner into another in a never-ending series of Bush-bashing rants about the Iraq war and cutting taxes, but the overall point is correct -- we cannot control the borders until we know who is entering and leaving, and that won't come cheap. But then again, national security is one of the few legitimate things for the federal government to be spending money on, according to the Constitution.
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And so a PC weenie decides to protest --"> by lighting himself on fire.
A man used flammable liquid to light himself on fire, apparently to protest a San Joaquin Valley school district's decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacation.The man, who was not immediately identified, on Friday also set fire to a Christmas tree, an American flag and a revolutionary flag replica, said Fire Captain Garth Milam.
Seeing the flames, Sheriff's Deputy Lance Ferguson grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the man.
Flames were devouring a Christmas tree next to the Liberty Bell, where public events and demonstrations are common.
Beside the tree the man stood with an American flag draped around his shoulders and a red gas can over his head.
Seeing the deputy, the man poured the liquid over his head. He quickly burst into flames when the fumes from the gas met the flames from the tree.
The deputy ordered the man to drop to the ground as he and a parole agent sprayed him with fire extinguishers.
''The man stood there like this,'' the deputy said with his arms across his chest and his head bent down, ''Saying no, no, no.''
The man suffered first degree burns on his shoulders and arms, Milam said.
Kern County Sheriff's Deputy John Leyendecker said the man had a sign that read: ''(expletive) the religious establishment and KHSD.''
On Thursday, the Kern High School Board of Trustees voted to use the names Christmas and Easter instead of winter and spring breaks.
I'm sorry -- the only thing incindiary about the school district's decision was the inane response of this religious bigot. And yet somehow, I doubt we will hear many folks criticize his actions, because he was acting in the service of a politically correct agenda. If, on the other hand, this had been a Christian protesting a decision to close for a Muslim or Jewish or Hindu holiday, we would hear all about bigotry and xenophobia from those who play the identity politics card.
This double standard was noted in a comment on another site I frequent in a different context.
I think it's funny that someone who doesn't like Muslims is called a racist, but someone who can't stand Christians isn't.Not funny "haha", more like funny "hmmmmm".
Indeed.
Here''s hoping that when he gets out of the hospital, this flamer faces charges for unsafe public burning, arson, and destruction of public property.
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P, 
, December 22, 2006
U.S. Rep.-elect Nick Lampson underwent an angioplasty procedure to open a blocked vessel in his heart this afternoon and is expected to be discharged from the hospital Saturday."He's doing great — laughing and joking about getting out of Christmas shopping," said Lampson family friend Dave Matthiesen, a Houston-based attorney who had just visited with Lampson and his wife in the Congressman's private room at St. John's Hospital. "He's looking forward to getting up to Washington Jan. 4 to begin his term in Congress."
Lampson, D-Stafford, first went to the hospital Thursday night after complaining of illness at a friend's party. Doctors at St. John's Hospital in Nassau Bay ran tests on Lampson that night and today. During a routine angiography test around 3 p.m., doctors confirmed earlier tests that had indicated a blockage in a one vessel and decided to go ahead with the angioplasty.
Cardiologist Ghyath Samman performed the procedure by inserting a wire-mesh stent, placed on a balloon, into Lampson's vessel and inflating it to remove the blockage. Lampson was awake and alert throughout the procedure and is expected to make a full recovery, Samman said.
Samman added that Lampson should follow a low-cholesterol diet, but otherwise the congressman's activities will not be restricted.
Lampson had an angiography test several years ago, but this is the first time he has had an angioplasty procedure, Matthiesen said. The congressman has no other history of heart problems, he said.
"I think he's healthy as a horse," Matthiesen said.
I hope that last statement is true, because I draw a sharp line between political opposition and personal animus. I hope and pray that Lampson will serve out the next two years in Congress in good health.
So get well, Nick -- but understand that I and my fellow Republicans are working to ensure that you will be job-hunting two years from now.
(A little geography FYI for those not from the Houston area -- Christus St. John's hospital is directly across the street from Johnson Space Center, and about half a mile from the hotel where Clara Harris parked an SUV on her cheating husband several years back.)
UPDATE: Does this article from the Houston Chronicle confuse you -- given it was posted at 8:37 PM on Saturday night?
U.S. Rep.-elect Nick Lampson was discharged from the hospital Sunday morning, two days after undergoing an angioplasty procedure to open a blocked vessel in his heart.
Is there information we are not being told? Was Lampson readmitted following his release? Did Chronicle reporter Alexis Grant "phone in" the story hours before it happened? Or is this just sloppy reporting/editting by the local paper,confusing Saturday with Sunday?
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Prosecutors dropped rape charges Friday against three Duke University lacrosse players accused of attacking a woman who had been hired to strip at a team party, but the three still face counts of kidnapping and sexual assault.District Attorney Mike Nifong faxed a copy of the notice of dismissal to defense attorneys on Friday at 11:45 a.m. EST. The move took defense attorneys by surprise
In a news conference Friday afternoon, lawyers for the three players called on Nifong to drop the other charges as well, saying there is no evidence that their clients kidnapped or assaulted the woman in any way.
Nifong did not immediately return calls seeking comment about the dismissal.
The mere lack of evidence or a credible accuser, however, was not enough to get Nifong to dismiss all charges. Neither was the disclosure of prosecutorial misconduct on his part last week. And his actions still leave these young men facing a potential 20 years in prison. So Nifong tried to hide the story in by announcing it just before lunch on the Friday before Christmas, in the hopes that the disintegration of his case would be missed by the press.
The Washington Post's Andrew Cohen believes, as I do, that this ultimately bodes ill for Nifong's case.
There are two ways to digest today's big news about the dismissal of rape charges against the Duke lacrosse students. You can say that a very weak case against the three defendants has just gotten measurably weaker, which makes it almost non-existent. Or you can say that by getting rid of the rape charge, the prosecutor, and presumbly his complaining witness, now can move forwad on more solid legal and factual ground. While I think there is some truth to Option B, I'm going with Option A.Why? Because whatever shred of credibility the alleged victim had-- whatever residual confidence people may have had in her story until now-- is now lost. If the woman is now unsure she was raped why should anyone believe her beyond a reasonable dobut going forward that she was sexually assaulted-- touched in a way short of rape? I think this likely loss of credibility will more than offset the fact that the prosecution's case, without rape, is much easier to prove against any or all of the three defendants. For them, Christmas came a few days early.
The dismissal documents may be found here.
Indeed, Nifong may be on the hook for criminal and or civil misconduct -- having possibly acted in a fashion that overcomes the presumption that he is immune from damages.
Great covrage at Durham Wonderland and LaShawn Barber.
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UPDATE: The New York Times has this great piece on the ongoing disintegration of the case.
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U.S. Hispanic groups and activists on Thursday called for a moratorium on workplace raids to round up illegal immigrants, saying they were reminiscent of Nazi crackdowns on Jews in the 1930s.They accused the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement of "racial profiling," or selective enforcement against Hispanics, for arresting 1,300 workers on immigration violations in December 12 raids at meatpacking plants in six states.
"We are demanding an end to these immigration raids, where they are targeting brown faces. That is major, major racial profiling, and that cannot be tolerated," said Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, at a news conference.
"This unfortunately reminds me of when Hitler began rounding up the Jews for no reason and locking them up," Democratic Party activist Carla Vela said. "Now they're coming for the Latinos, who will they come for next?"
Such claims are nothing less than Holocaust denial on the part of advocates for immigration criminals. Every American, regardless of religion, race, or ethnicity, should stand up and denounce LULAC, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials for daring to spew such falsehoods.
And might I add this note.
Round 'em up! Ship 'em back! Rawhide!
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The Iranian government is partly to blame for a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia, a federal judge ruled Friday.The ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth allows the families of the victims of the Khobar Towers bombing to seek $254 million in compensation from the conservative Islamic regime in Tehran.
Though intelligence officials have suspected a link between the Tehran government and the Saudi wing of Hezbollah, which the FBI has accused of carrying out the bombing, Friday's ruling is the first time a branch of the U.S. government has officially blamed Iran for the deaths of Americans in the bombings.
''This court takes note of plaintiffs' courage and steadfastness in pursuing this litigation and their efforts to take action to deter more tragic suffering of innocent Americans at the hands of terrorists,'' Lamberth wrote. ''Their efforts are to be commended.''
Lamberth relied heavily on testimony by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who investigated the bombings.
Two Iranian government security agencies and senior members of the Iranian government itself provided funding, training and logistical help to terrorists who carried out the attack on a dormitory that housed U.S. Air Force pilots and staff in Saudi Arabia, Freeh testified.
This unprovoked attack on American military personnel constitutes an act of war by Iran. There is therefore no need to await sanctions or any other action by the international community -- BOMB IRAN NOW!
More at Right on the Right & Stop the ACLU
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We know what happens when the right of Jews to exist is denied, but Carter has forgotten. The "Historical Chronology" at the beginning of his book starts with Abraham and grows more detailed in modern times. But between 1939 and 1947 there is . . . nothing!In the text, the history of Jewish suffering is accorded five lines, and the Holocaust is barely mentioned in passing. But as both Hanukkah and Christmas remind us, Jews are history's most persecuted people, and Israel, where we started, is our last, best refuge. Carter's bizarre book is a poisoned holiday gift for Jews and Christians, and a danger to Jews throughout the world.
You read that right -- Carter leaves the Holocaust out of the history of the Jewish People in his book, and only briefly alludes to it. I guess he has joined Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and David Duke (as well as my recently-banned Troll, KKKen Hoop) in viewing the Holocaust as a hoax. After all, how else does one explain the omission of the greatest evil of Carter's lifetime from a book in which he indicts the victims for the offense of genocide?
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On a scale associated with presidential inaugurations, Nancy Pelosi is planning four days of celebration surrounding her Jan. 4 swearing-in as the first female speaker of the House. She will return to the blue-collar Baltimore neighborhood where she grew up, attend Mass at the women's college where she studied political science, and dine at the Italian Embassy as Tony Bennett sings "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."But the hoopla is more than just a party.
Pelosi is grabbing the moment to present herself as the new face of the Democratic Party and to restore the party's image as one hospitable to ethnic minorities, families, religion, the working class and women.
"This is important strategic repositioning," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who teaches political communication and rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania. "Essentially, she's trying to embody the Democratic Party that she would like to offer the nation in 2008."
In her meticulous selection of events and venues during a week when she expects to attract media attention from as far away as Australia, Pelosi is clearly trying to bury the label "San Francisco liberal" that Republicans tried to affix to her during the midterm elections.
" 'San Francisco liberal' is a construct used very effectively for a long time by Republicans," Jamieson said. "It's a little like 'Taxachusetts.' It's telegraphic and very powerful. They haven't been able to get her identified with it because, to this point, a lot of people didn't know who she was. She's trying to position a counterimage before she gets well known."
Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman, said the four-day celebration befits a historic moment in American politics. "We've never had a woman speaker before," Daly said. "This is a big deal."
Now I'll concede that there were two days of Gingrich-oriented activities in 1995, but they were political events filled with speeches and were related to policy and governance, not celebration and revelry. It was a celebration of ideals and ideas, not of Gingrich. Pelosi, on the other hand, is creating NancyFest. maybe that is because the Democrats are bankrupt when it comes to idea.
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Now one federal appellate court has loosened at least one of those restrictions.
A divided three-judge court ruled yesterday that ads advocating for an issue and mentioning candidates can run during an election, creating a loophole in the law that sought to control the power of big money in elections.In a 2 to 1 ruling, the court found that the government had no compelling justification to regulate television ads such as the ones Wisconsin Right to Life Inc. broadcast in July 2004, which advocated stopping congressional filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees.
The ads ran when Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) was running for reelection and had opposed some of Bush's nominees. The ads made no mention of Feingold's record, instead urging Wisconsin residents to call their senators to express their dissatisfaction.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, joined by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge David B. Sentelle, agreed with Wisconsin Right to Life that ads such as theirs merely advocate a position without trying to criticize the record of a particular candidate.
The ads are not targeted "electioneering communications" and should not be burdened by the reporting requirements of the federal campaign finance law, Leon wrote.
The ruling was a key victory for Wisconsin Right to Life, which had sued the Federal Election Commission on the grounds that it had infringed on the group's constitutional right to free speech.
Needless to say, i believe this decision to be a step in the right direction -- though one which is clearly only a baby-step towards restoring political speech to its proper level of constitutional protection. After all, the court in this case clearly failed to apply a relevant portion of the United States Constitution in making this decision.
Amendment ICongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Now I realize that some might find the phrase "no law" ambiguous, arguing that "no law" means "any damn law they please" abridging freedom of speech or the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances. However, your average American, both now and at the time the First Amendment was ratified, has always understood that the First Amendment is intended to protect the right of the American people to be involved in the political process and to be free of government limitation and regulation when it comes to such political speech. I'm therefore pleased by this incremental restoration of a fundamental American liberty.
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An analysis done for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says that the PATH train tunnels under the Hudson River are more vulnerable to a bomb attack than previously thought, and that a relatively small amount of high explosives could cause significant flooding of the rail system within hours.The analysis, based on work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, revises some critical aspects of an assessment of the system’s vulnerability that was presented to the agency last spring. It makes clear that the tunnels — four tubes of varying design and sturdiness that stretch across the Hudson riverbed — are structurally more fragile than first thought.
A draft summary of the most recent analysis was given to The New York Times by a government official who was troubled by what the official felt was a lack of action in response to the analysis, which the official said the Port Authority got about three weeks ago. The official said the latest analysis indicates that it would take only six minutes for one of the PATH tubes to flood if a significant but not necessarily very large bomb were detonated.
Oh, yes -- once again we get the "anonymous public official with an axe to grind" giving the New York Times sensitive documents that the enemy can use to thwart our efforts to prevent terrorist attacks. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm coming to believe that the Grey Lady has put on a burqa and begun actively aiding the jihadi terrorists in their efforts to harm America.
And even if one wishes to be charitable and presume that this formerly great newspaper is not intent upon assisting our nation's enemies and abetting another terrorist attack on New York City, one still has to question the editorial decisions that go into the publication of such information. In particular, we need to start questioning the use of anonymous sources. I understand that there might be legitimate reasons for withholding the names of sources from time to time, but the current practice of obscuring identities and thereby rendering the public less-able to determine the credibility and motivation of such sources is troubling, to say the least.
Of course, the NY Times benefits from publishing material that helps America's enemies in at least two ways. First, it makes people think it is still a great newspaper standing up to the government. Second, it makes it quite certain that the NY Times offices will not be a target of any future terrorist attack -- because why would al-Qaeda attack its own military intelligence network?
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December 21, 2006
Now we find out a possible motivation -- Jimmy Carter has been beholden to Arab and Muslim money for his personal financial prosperity, as well as the ongoing support of his Carter Center. And these connections date back to the earliest days of his failed presidency.
Between 1976-1977, the Carter family peanut business received a bailout in the form of a $4.6 million, "poorly managed" and highly irregular loan from the National Bank of Georgia (NBG). According to a July 29, 1980 Jack Anderson expose in The Washington Post, the bank's biggest borrower was Mr. Carter, and its chairman at that time was Mr. Carter's confidant, and later his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Bert Lance.At that time, Mr. Lance's mismanagement of the NBG got him and the bank into trouble. Agha Hasan Abedi, the Pakistani founder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), known as the bank "which would bribe God," came to Mr. Lance's rescue making him a $100,000-a-year consultant. Abedi then declared: "we would never talk about exploiting his relationship with the president." Next, he introduced Mr. Lance to Saudi billionaire Gaith Pharaon, who fronted for BCCI and the Saudi royal family. In January 1978, Abedi paid off Mr. Lance's $3.5 million debt to the NBG, and Pharaon secretly gained control over the bank.
Mr. Anderson wrote: "Of course, the Saudis remained discretely silent... kept quiet about Carter's irregularities... [and] renegotiated the loan to Carter's advantage."
There is no evidence that the former president received direct payment from the Saudis. But "according to... the bank files, [it] renegotiated the repayment terms... savings... $60,000 for the Carter family... The President owned 62% of the business and therefore was the largest beneficiary." Pharaon later contributed generously to the former president's library and center.
When Mr. Lance introduced Mr. Carter to Abedi, the latter gave $500,000 to help the former president establish his center at Emory University. Later, Abedi contributed more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects. Even after BCCI was indicted — and convicted -— for drug money laundering, Mr. Carter accepted $1.5 million from Abedi, his "good friend."
Such a connection is clearly scandalous, carrying with it an appearance of impropriety if not an actual impropriety in the dealing of preferential treatment to Carter and his family.
And the financial connections continue with the founding and support of the Carter Center.
Carter is a major recipient of aid from the Saudis, for instance. Before his death in 2005, King Fahd was a longtime contributor to the Carter Center and gave Carter several million-dollar donations. In 1993 alone, King Fahd presented Carter with a gift of $7.6 million. And the king was definitely not alone in his largesse. As of 2005, the kingÂ’s high-living nephew, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has donated at least $5 million to the Carter Center...that we know about.The Saudi Fund for Development, the kingdomÂ’s leading loan organization and one of the sources of money for all those hardline mosques and madrassahs shows up repeatedly on the Carter centerÂ’s list of supporters. Carter has also taken money from the Bin Laden family - in 2000 he secured a pledge from the bin-Laden family for a $1 million contribution to his center.
Another big source of funds for Carter has been the United Arab Emirates. In 2001, Carter went to Dubai - a country where Jews are not permitted by law, incidentally - to accept the Zayed International Prize for the Environment, named for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the late UAE sheik and founder of the government funded Zayed Center, the source of some of the most virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda in the world. Among other things, the Zayed Center took a book written by a French author claiming that 9/11 was an inside job by the CIA and the Mossad, translated into Arabic and distributed it throughout the entire Middle East. And the Zayed Center is a prime benefactor and host to Holocaust deniers of all persuasions.
Carter got a $500,000 prize from these people, and when he spoke at the awards ceremony,he gushed that the "award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahyan."
Carter still receives an annual personal stipend from the Zayed Center.
Carter's book has been panned by most reviewers -- indeed, the only positive reviews I have read have come to me from my former troll, KKKen Hoop (whose rampant anti-Semitism and general hate-mongering finally got him banned). Carter, of course, complains that this is due to the influence of Israel and Jews in American politics and publishing. Indeed, Carter claims that he is just seeking to promote debate on the issue of Israel and the Palestinians, and that no college or university with a large Jewish enrollment will invite him to speak.
The former complaint, of course, is an anti-Semitic canard of long-standing -- and the latter is a lie.
Which brings us to Alan Dershowitz's piece in today's Boston Globe, challenging Carter on his refusal to debate the issues he raises after being invited to do so by Brandeis University, a school founded by Jews with a high concentration of Jewish students.
When Larry King referred to my review several times to challenge Carter, Carter first said I hadn't read the book and then blustered, "You know, I think it's a waste of my time and yours to quote professor Dershowitz. He's so obviously biased, Larry, and it's not worth my time to waste it on commenting on him." (He never did answer King's questions.)The next week Carter wrote a series of op-eds bemoaning the reception his book had received. He wrote that his "most troubling experience" had been "the rejection of [his] offers to speak" at "university campuses with high Jewish enrollment." The fact is that Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz had invited Carter to come to Brandeis to debate me, and Carter refused. The reason Carter gave was this: "There is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."
As Carter knows, I've been to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, many times -- certainly more times than Carter has been there -- and I've written three books dealing with the subject of Middle Eastern history, politics, and the peace process. The real reason Carter won't debate me is that I would correct his factual errors. It's not that I know too little; it's that I know too much.
In other words, Carter finds it necessary to resort to lies and slander to discredit his opponents. What he really wants is a free platform to lecture Jews about the evils of the Jews, free from rebuttal by a Jew. I agree with the assessment Dershowitz makes of Carter's refusal of an offer that meets his earlier criteria -- he is a bully who is afraid of anyone who might stand up to him and his lies and distortions.
And I'll take it a step further -- he is afraid that his disgraceful sell-out of an American ally will be exposed, and that the world will see that there is really little difference between his views of Israel and Jews and those of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and David Duke.
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Rival groups of monks wielding crowbars and sledgehammers clashed Wednesday over control of a 1,000-year-old monastery in a community regarded as the cradle of Orthodox Christianity, police said.Seven monks were injured and taken by boat to receive medical treatment. They were released after several hours. No one was arrested, but three monks were banned from re-entering the Orthodox sanctuary of Mount Athos, on a self-governing peninsula in northern Greece.
Esphigmenou monastery is the scene of a long-running dispute between Orthodox Church authorities and rebel monks who occupy the site. Both Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, leader of the Orthodox Christian church, and Greece's highest administrative court have ordered their eviction, but the monks refuse to budge.
The rebel monks vehemently oppose efforts to improve relations between the Orthodox Church and the Vatican.
The fighting broke out between the rebel monks and a group of legally recognized monks.
The outsiders attempted to force their way into the monastery's offices in Karyes, the administrative center, to begin construction of a new building. The occupying monks attacked them with crowbars and fire extinguishers.
Esphigmenou's rebel abbot, Methodius, said his monks were provoked.
"We were attacked and had to respond," he said. "They should be ashamed to call themselves men of the cloth."
In October, a court in the nearby city of Thessaloniki handed down two-year suspended sentences against nine monks and former monastery members for illegally occupying Esphigmenou's offices.
A pity that the rebel monks show neither submission to the leaders of their church nor charity towards their fellow Christians.
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Local Muslim leaders lit candles yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate Jewish suffering under the Nazis, in a ceremony held just days after Iran had a conference denying the genocide.American Muslims "believe we have to learn the lessons of history and commit ourselves: Never again," said Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, standing before the eternal flame flickering from a black marble base that holds dirt from Nazi concentration camps.
Around the hexagonal room, candles glimmered under the engraved names of the death camps: Chelmno. Auschwitz-Birkenau. Majdanek.
"We stand here with three survivors of the Holocaust and my great Muslim friends to condemn this outrage in Iran," said Sara J. Bloomfield, the museum's director, addressing a bank of TV cameras in the room, known as the Hall of Remembrance.
The museum, she noted, holds "millions of pieces of evidence of this crime."
This is a moving and inspiring article. I encourage you to take a look.
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December 20, 2006
The line of applicants hoping to fill jobs vacated by undocumented workers taken away by immigration agents at the Swift & Co. meat-processing plant earlier this week was out the door Thursday.Among them was Derrick Stegall, who carefully filled out paperwork he hoped would get him an interview and eventually land him a job as a slaughterer. Two of his friends had been taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and he felt compelled to fill their rubber boots.
"Luckily, they had no wives or family they left behind. But it was still sad. They left their apartments filled with all their stuff. I took two dogs one of them had. The other guy had a cat I gave to my sister," he said.
Greg Bonifacio heard about the job openings on television and brought his passport, his Colorado driver's license, his Social Security card and even a color photograph of himself as a young Naval officer to prove his military service.
"I don't want to hassle with any identification problems because of my last name," said Bonifacio, a 59- year-old Thornton resident of Filipino heritage.
I'd lay odds that you would find a similar reality in each and every community where these raids took place -- American citizens lining up out the door for good jobs that they need and want to do.
American jobs.
American workers.
They go good together -- when those workers are not aced out by those who violate our nation's laws -- and sovereignty.
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However, I've never gone quite so far beyond the pale in attacking another blogger -- especially given my later change of heart about the blogger in question as a writer and as a human being. My negative views of a year ago modified over the course of several months to an attitude of respect, and I had reached out to her -- but had never given a thought to taking down this post due to my longstanding policy of not deleting posts. That was a misjudgment on my part.
Debbie recently contacted me expressing her dismay at what I had written and a comment I had not realized had been left here and which should have been deleted due to its content. I deleted the comment, and further discussion has led me to recognize that the post in question should not remain on the blog. Not because it reflects poorly on me, but rather because it reflects poorly on her. Leaving a post of the former sort is appropriate and an exercise in humbling the soul; leaving one of the latter sort is to perpetuate an injustice.
Debbie, you have my apology -- and my respect for the way in which you approached me privately after I had wronged you publicly. I know that my words here are not much, but I offer them to you in a spirit of regret and contrition for the offense I have given.
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"The oppressive powers will disappear while the Iranian people will stay. Any power that is close to God will survive while the powers who are far from God will disappear like the pharaohs," he said Wednesday, according to Iranian news agencies."Today, it is the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime which are doomed to disappear as they have moved far away from the teachings of God," he said in a speech in the western town of Javanroud.
"It is a divine promise."
The time is now at hand to act against this maniac, before he has a chance to bring his nuclear plans to fruition -- if he hasn't already.
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Claiming he is the victim of legalized extortion carried out under eminent domain powers, a landowner in New York is asking the Supreme Court to hear his case.Landowner Bart Didden claims in a petition that a developer convinced the village of Port Chester, N.Y., to seize his land through eminent domain after Didden had refused to pay the developer $800,000.
As part of a 1999 redevelopment plan, the council had designated Didden's land as a "redevelopment area." This gives the council the power to condemn the property and hand it over to a developer of its choice.
Didden planned to build a CVS Pharmacy on the site, but the developer, Gregory Wasser of G&S Investors, wanted to build a Walgreens there. According to the petition, Wasser threatened to convince officials to condemn Didden's land under eminent domain if Didden did not pay him $800,000 or make him a 50 percent partner in the CVS project.
Didden says he refused the offer on Nov. 5, 2003. On Nov. 6, 2003, the village of Port Chester filed a condemnation petition to acquire the land and transfer the lease to G&S to construct a Walgreens.
Didden calls the case "extortion through the abuse of eminent domain" justified by the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. City of New London, in which the court ruled that the Fifth Amendment "takings clause" allows the government to condemn private property for redevelopment purposes.
"Essentially, the courts have ruled Kelo turns any redevelopment zone into a Constitution-free zone for property owners confronted by politically connected developers," Dana Berliner, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, said in a statement.
Frankly, we simply need to go a step further, and ban the use of eminent domain in any case where the land will leave government hands in less than 50 years -- or at least permitting land-owners and their heirs the right to repurchase their property for $1 if the land is to be turned over for private development in any time period less than half a century.
And if not, we simply need the Supreme Court to declare that private property, as understood by Americans since the founding of the Republic, no longer exists in this country.
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As a founder of the venture firm Bain Capital, he grew extremely wealthy buying troubled companies and fixing them up for profit. By 1998, he'd concluded he "had enough money" and began looking for another challenge. He found it in Salt Lake City, where the planned 2002 Olympic Games were embroiled in allegations of financial mismanagement and malfeasance. Taking charge, Romney got the Games back on track and sold himself as a Mr. Fix-it when he ran for Massachusetts governor in 2002.Romney's aides are hoping Republican primary voters will see a pattern: here's a turnaround specialist ready to fix the party, the country and the world. "The idea is to be the fresh perspective," says one adviser, who asked to remain anonymous describing strategy for a still-unannounced campaign. "McCain is yesterday, Giuliani is today, Romney is tomorrow."
But there is also this -- McCain is unpredictable, Giuliani is liberal, and Romney is a conservative. Everyone else is simply irrelevant -- including Newt Gingrich, who simply has too much baggage to possibly win an presidential election.
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"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
Will someone please explain to me how that constitutes an endorsement of religion. After all, the THEORY of evolution is exactly that -- a THEORY. How does saying that it is a THEORY constitute a statement at all about religion?
After all, the study of science is supposed to be careful, open-minded, and critical regarding the evidence presented to support a theory. How does urging exactly such an approach to the THEORY of evolution constitute an endorsement of religion, not of science and the scientific method?
I guess this means that the study of science in this country must be close-minded, slip-shod, and uncritically accepting of claims based upon the authority of the majority.
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The Iraq Study Group's recommendations will accomplish nothing in Iraq. Its expressions of "gratitude" to those of us Iraqis who fought on the battlefield for freedom and liberty ring hollow. The report ignores our accomplishments, dreams and sacrifices in favor of a concern for those whose ultimate goal is the destruction of democracy.Our federal constitution, which the majority of the Iraqi people voted for, is treated flippantly, as though it were a negotiable document rather than the hard-fought result of lengthy negotiation among those willing to participate in the new Iraq. Further, the study group's approach is driven by the concerns of the countries in this region rather than by the concerns of the Iraqi people.
Many Iraqis, especially the Kurds, are justifiably concerned about this. No one from the study group visited Iraqi Kurdistan, which the group admits is safe and pro-American, and where there has not been a single U.S. casualty since the war. Kurds not only fought alongside Americans but lost some of our best men to American friendly-fire incidents. Yet we staunchly support the work of the coalition and are eternally grateful for the sacrifices the American people have made for our future.
The report is right to acknowledge that part of the problem in Iraq is America's inability to distinguish friend from foe. Unfortunately, Baker-Hamilton fares even worse in this regard. This comes as little surprise, since it was partly written by those who orchestrated the saving of Saddam Hussein in 1991.
Remember -- the Kurds have steadfastly supported US efforts to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. They have paid a terrible price for those efforts, as the United States has abandoned them in the past.
Once again Kurds are about to be sold out. Should the U.S. administration adopt the recommendations of Baker-Hamilton, the Kurds will be sacrificed to protect the interests of Iraq's neighbors. We were massacred in 1975 and 1991 by Saddam Hussein because we thought that our commitment to democracy and tolerance made us natural U.S. allies. We responded then, as we did four years ago, to American calls for the introduction of a new era in the region. Like Americans, we dream of a better future for our children, one in which they can grow up without deformities caused by chemical attacks on our villages.
Baker, Hamilton, and the Iraq Surrender Group have a different vision -- negotiate with America's enemies even if that means that America's friends once again pay the price of our failure to stay the course, honor our commitments, and support our allies.
Iraq's constitution should be treasured. Iraq's neighbors should not be allowed to violate our sovereignty. Democracy and federalism are the popularly chosen basis of the new Iraq. Never again should Kurdish wealth be stolen to finance genocide against the Kurdish people.While Kurds welcome American troops into their homes, Baker-Hamilton proposes that the United States revise its policies to meet the demands of those firing at its soldiers. According to the study group, we are all part of "a problem" that needs fixing, and we are equally unworthy of America's protection.
Don't sell us out to our authoritarian neighbors and those who are terrorizing our communities. We agreed democratically to participate in this project because we were guaranteed the rights needed to protect our people. We Kurds are asking President Bush and America to remember the sacrifices we have made to keep your loved ones safe in Iraq. We are asking you to keep a promise where those before you have failed.
We must stand by the Kurdish people, and all the peace and freedom loving Iraqis. We must finish what we started, resolute in the assurance that our course is correct and our goals are proper. If we do not, we show the world one clear truth -- the United States is not to be trusted, and American promises and commitments will not be honored when the going gets tough. In short, the decision that faces America is stark -- will we continue to be a great nation which stands with our allies, or will we simply be an impotent joke with which others ally themselves at their own peril?
Interestingly enough, the top leader of Iraqi Shiites has come out in support of US efforts to work with a coalition of Iraqi forces to isolate extremists, rather than negotiate with those who bankroll those who seek to bring down the US-backed government.
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As gunmen spilt it and warring politicians hailed its sanctity, ordinary Palestinians showed their disgust for feuding Hamas and Fatah gunmen by refusing to donate blood.Doctors at Gaza City’s main hospital are used to a plentiful supply of volunteers queuing up to donate blood for victims of Israeli attacks. But faced with the selfinflicted wounds of the nascent Palestinian civil war, that supply has all but dried up. “We are all frustrated and depressed,” said Dr Jumaa al-Saqqa, director of publicity at the Shifa hospital.
He said that his staff were used to treating countless victims from battles with Israeli forces. But on a day in which his hospital became a battlefield, staff were dispirited at having to treat the victims of violence between Palestinians.
“We have a shortage of blood in the bank now. During Israeli incursions hundreds of people come to donate blood but now nobody. Why give your blood? For whom? For one to kill the other? I want to just take my white coat off and go home.”
Outside, Ismail Haniya, the Islamist Prime Minister, protested that the “smallest drop of Palestinian blood is dear to us”. Yet even as he spoke, his Hamas fighters were kidnapping, killing and wounding security personnel loyal to President Abbas.
And a day after Tony Blair backed the “moderate” Mr Abbas, fighters loyal to his Fatah faction sparked the day’s violence by using an ambulance to attack a Hamas unit at Shifa Hospital, killing one Islamist policeman with a rocketpropelled grenade and injuring ten in the gunfight that ensued.This set off a wave of revenge shootings and kidnappings across northern and central Gaza. Hamas reportedly captured the Fatah gunman suspected of firing the grenade, and shot him dead, dumping his body on the street. Six gunmen were killed and dozens wounded.
Will the Palestinian people recognize that their society is dominated by thugs, criminals, and pirates and continue to reject them all? Are they prepared to let them die rather than allow the lives of more innocent Palestinians to be spilled as collateral damage in a hopeless war against Israel? Or will they start giving blood again once the victims of these terrorist factions are Jews, not each other?
In other words, is this boycott a hopeful sign for peace, or merely a temporary aberration?
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I sure didn't -- until I came across this article today. The designer's name is Robert G. Heft, and the story of how he came to design the flag is sort of amusing to this teacher.
As a junior at Ohio's Lancaster High School in 1958, Heft needed a project for his American history class.He found his calling when he came across the story of Betsy Ross, creator of the country's original flag. Armed with an idea, Heft took his family's 48-star flag and removed the blue portion of the banner.
It took him nine hours to cut out the 100 fabric stars needed to cover each side of the flag's top corner, he said. Heft went the 50-star route because of speculation that Alaska and Hawaii would become states.
Heft asked his grandmother to sew the blue section onto the flag, but she refused after realizing he'd dismantled the family's banner.
"She didn't want anything to do with it," Heft recalled.
Out of options, Heft took matters into his own hands, sewing his version of "Old Glory."
After working on the flag for 12 1/2 hours, Heft said he expected his grade to match his effort, but his teacher gave him a B-minus. Normally a quiet student, Heft said he had to confront the teacher.
"I approached him (thinking), 'Are you kidding me?' " Heft said.
After the discussion, the teacher told Heft that if he got the flag accepted nationally, he would give him an A.
Heft then sent the flag to a state representative and in 1960, his design became the country's official symbol. His teacher promptly bumped up his grade.
That sort of goes to show that a teacher never know what influence his or her words will have on a student -- and that it is important to be prepared to follow through on promises you make to students.
Heft still owns that original flag -- and speaks about his experience and patriotism to over 200 groups a year. He is working on a book about the flag and his experiences over the year.
Oh, and this July his design becomes the longest-serving flag in American history.
Not bad for a high school history project.
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Former employees are suing Swift & Co. for $23 million, alleging the meatpacking company conspired to keep wages down by hiring illegal immigrants.The 18 former employees are U.S. citizens who worked at a plant in Cactus, north of Amarillo, one of six facilities raided in a federal sweep that led to the arrests of nearly 1,300 employees and temporarily halted Swift's operations.
"These plaintiffs are ... victims in a longstanding scheme by Swift to depress and artificially lower the wages of its workers by knowingly hiring illegal workers," said their attorney, Angel Reyes.
And there seems to be a good prima facie case. After all, how do you explain the rate of pay dropping from $20 an hour to $12 an hour over the last several years, even as wage rates in this country have been rising? Simple -- get rid of those expensive Americans and replace them with cheap foreign laborers in this country illegally.
These border-jumping immigration criminals were not "doing jobs Americans won't do". No, they were (and others are) doing jobs that Americans are ready, willing, and able to do -- taking money out of the pockets and bread out of the mouths of American citizens by depressing wages in the industries in which they work.
And unethical businesses like Swift & Co. are willing participants in their crime against the American people.
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I guess this makes him The Early Frontrunner.
Don Richardson, for those of you who don't remember, got a whopping 6% of the vote in the special election to fill the remainder of Tom DeLay's unexpired congressional term (Congresswoman Shelley Sekula Gibbs got 62%, Libertarian Bob Smither got 19% and Democrat Nick Lampson was too scared to run against a Republican who was on the ballot) and as a write-in in the general election received .28% (yeah -- that is twenty-eight one-hundredths of a percent, or 428 votes). But he's running again!
I hear that he is showing up at all the county GOP Executive Committee meetings in the district, and that he put in an appearance at Congresswoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs' recent open house in Fort Bend County.
Richardson, of course, has some problems -- including the fact that before this year it had been over a decade since he had voted Republican or participated in a GOP primary. He has yet to file his final FEC report and filed all of his earlier expenditure reports late. There is also the little issue of his having lied to the assembled precinct chairs of CD22 and his seeking a bribe from the RNC.
Needless to say, I won't be supporting Dishonorable Don Richardson.
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December 19, 2006
ere are the full tallies of all votes cast:
| Votes | Council link |
|---|---|
| 2 | The Peace Myth Andrew Olmsted |
| 1 1/3 | Baker's Bad Recipe Soccer Dad |
| 1 | The Sticky Parts of the ISG Report Recommendations The Glittering Eye |
| 1 | The Real Holocaust Deniers Joshuapundit |
| 2/3 | Vietnam and Iraq: Public and Government Opinion American Future |
| 2/3 | War and War Done With Mirrors |
| 2/3 | Iran's Plan, on the Second Page The Sundries Shack |
| 2/3 | Court-Protected Racial Discrimination? The Education Wonks |
| 2/3 | A Day of Infamy Right Wing Nut House |
| 2/3 | Pearl Harbor, 65 Years Later -- A Family Connection Rhymes With Right |
| Votes | Non-council link |
|---|---|
| 2 1/3 | The Clash of Convictions and the Remaking of the World of Wars Winds of Change.NET |
| 1 1/3 | Rummy's Farewell Mr. Smash Goes to Washington |
| 1 1/3 | Democrats' New Intelligence Chairman Needs a Crash Course on al Qaeda CQ.com |
| 1 | Ahberjibberjabber Are We Lumberjacks? |
| 1 | The Roots of Leftist Anti-Semitism? MaxedOutMama |
| 1 | The ISG and the USIP: Who Are These People and Why Are They Saying All These Things? Neo-neocon |
| 2/3 | Yes, Let's Bring in the Neighbors The QandO Blog |
| 2/3 | Bush Receives a Report Pillage Idiot |
| 1/3 | President Bush's Way Forward Big Lizards |
| 1/3 | Flagging Support Judeosphere |
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December 18, 2006
Freedom of speech and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances? Only if you register with the government first, and fill out all the burdensome forms!
House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) has pledged to take up a lobbying reform proposal that would impose new regulations on speech by grassroots organizations, while providing a loophole in the rules for large corporations and labor unions.The legislation would make changes to the legal definition of “grassroots lobbying” and require any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact their elected representatives to file a report with detailed information about their organization to the government on a quarterly basis.
The report would include identifying the organizationÂ’s expenditures, the issues focused on and the members of Congress and other federal officials who are the subject of the advocacy efforts. A separate report would be required for each policy issue the group is active on.
“Right now, grassroots groups don’t have to report at all if they are communicating with the public,” said Dick Dingman of the Free Speech Coalition, Inc. “This is an effort that would become a major attack on the 1st Amendment.”
Under the bill, communications aimed at an organization’s members, employees, officers or shareholders would be exempt from the reporting requirement. That would effectively exempt most corporations, trade associations and unions from the reporting requirements—but not most conservative grassroots groups, which frequently are less formally organized.
This bill is aimed directly at you and me, ladies and gentlemen. It is designed to quiet grassroots activists. No doubt the next move will be to apply these same measures to individual activists, including bloggers.
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Before David Paszkiewicz got to teach his accelerated 11th-grade history class about the United States Constitution this fall, he was accused of violating it.Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard NoahÂ’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.
“If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong,” Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.”
The student, Matthew LaClair, said that he felt uncomfortable with Mr. PaszkiewiczÂ’s statements in the first week, and taped eight classes starting Sept. 13 out of fear that officials would not believe the teacher had made the comments.
Since Matthew’s complaint, administrators have said they have taken “corrective action” against Mr. Paszkiewicz, 38, who has taught in the district for 14 years and is also a youth pastor at Kearny Baptist Church. However, they declined to say what the action was, saying it was a personnel matter.
I'm sorry -- PaszkiewiczÂ’s statements are out of bounds. They go well beyond an expression of opinion and into preaching.
Which is not to say there is not a proper place for the discussion of religion in a high school classroom. I teach world History, and am obliged to talk about a number of world religions. I strive to be neutral on them all, including Christianity. I do, however, find myself struggling to explain some of the finer points of Christian theology when we discuss the Reformation, because you cannot understand what it was all about without actually talking about the theological controversies that were at its heart. But I do not -- and steadfastly avoid -- preach my view of religion.
And even my fellow "extremists" on religion in the public arena agree with my view.
Even some legal organizations that often champion the expression of religious beliefs are hesitant to support Mr. Paszkiewicz.“It’s proselytizing, and the courts have been pretty clear you can’t do that,” said John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a group that provides legal services in religious freedom cases. “You can’t step across the line and proselytize, and that’s what he’s done here.”
On the other hand, that is not to say that I wholeheartedly agree with Matthew's position on the issue.
In a Sept. 25 letter to the principal, Matthew wrote: “I care about the future generation and I do not want Mr. Paszkiewicz to continue preaching to and poisoning students.” He met with school officials and handed over the recordings.
I don't think that discussion of Christianity -- even discussion that crosses appropriate boundaries -- constitutes "poisoning students."
Still, Matthew's actions in this case are every bit as appropriate as those of students who object to the political proselytizing that goes on in the classrooms of many liberal teachers and professors. I'm pleased he stood up for what is right.
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"My income is pretty low compared to my peers"
How little is this impoverished waif making?
According to a tax return released by the senator this week, the promotion nearly tripled her income from the hospitals to $316,962 in 2005 from $121,910 in 2004.
By my calculation, she has seen a 260% increase in her earnings in one year -- a year in which the major change in her life was the election of her husband to the Senate. I'll let you make the decision over whether or not that is suspicious.
Oh, by the way -- her earnings in 2004 would have paid the salaries of three teachers in my school district that year, and the 2005 earnings would have paid for nearly eight. So when I hear that she is underpaid, I have very little sympathy for her. -- especially when you consider that the family income in 2005 was $1.7 million, which would pay the salaries of 42 teachers in my district.
And these are the supposed champions of the little people.
H/T American Thinker
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December 17, 2006
A few Fort Collins merchants are adding a Jewish menorah to their holiday displays following a decision by the city last week not to include one in the city's display.Despite a renewed request by Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik, of the Chabad Center of Northern Colorado, the Downtown Urban Renewal Authority stuck with limiting the city's display in Old Town to nutcrackers, Christmas trees and elves.
"I showed them a video of every president lighting a menorah at the White House," said Gorelik. "It's so unfair to promote only one religion, but I don't think they reconsidered it for a moment."
This is the second year Gorelik tried and failed to sway the city.
So, on Dec. 21, as in past years, Gorelik will light a menorah in celebration of Hanukkah at the Old Town display, but after the ceremony it will be moved to a nearby pub's lighting display.
U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., will attend this year's menorah lighting.
Gorelik said more than a dozen other Fort Collins businesses and a school have called him about putting a menorah in their holiday lighting displays.
The eight days of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, mark the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C. after a long war. There was only enough oil for single night's light, but the oil lasted for eight nights.
Phil Pringle, who owns Pringle's Wine and Liquors in Fort Collins, said he's going to add a menorah to the holiday decorations at his shop.
"I'm Catholic, but I'm a great proponent of free speech," said Pringle. "Instead of being so antiseptic, I'd like to see the city be more tolerant."
Pringle said he understands the city's legal concerns, but believes symbols that reflect other religious beliefs could be included in the city's display.
"I have no problem with Kwanzaa or pagans. I wouldn't object to a winter solstice display," said Pringle, who has owned the liquor store for 24 years.
Gorelik said he has supplied several businesses with menorahs and said it's the city's Christmas trees that caused the dispute.
"This is not initiated by the menorah, it's initiated by the Christmas trees," he said.
The city should have included a menorah in its holiday decore -- and it should have also included a Nativity scene, out of recognition of the reason for the season. But I will remind Rabbi Gorelik that the menorah is, strictly speaking, a religious symbol whereas the Christmas tree is not -- a principle long upheld by American courts.
But most important, we see the inclusion -- indeed, the welcoming -- of Jews and their holiday traditions by average people, a reality not found many other places on this globe.
UPDATE: The New York Times has great coverage of this story today.
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President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday his country was ready to transfer nuclear technology to neighboring countries, nearly a week after Arab states on the Persian Gulf announced plans to consider a joint nuclear program.Ahmadinejad told a top Kuwaiti envoy he welcomed the decision by the Islamic republic's Arab Gulf neighbors to pursue peaceful nuclear technology, state-run television said.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer to regional states its valuable experience and achievements in the field of peaceful nuclear technology as a clean energy source and as a replacement for oil," state media quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Mohammed Zefollah Shirar, a top adviser to the Kuwaiti emir.
Unfortunately, we know that the Iranian program is not peaceful -- and that the Iranian leader has implicitly threatened to use nukes to wipe Israel off the map. Do we act -- or do we allow the situation to continue on, permitting Ahmadinejad to complete the work that he denies Hitler began?
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December 16, 2006
Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush said in Japan he would try "to beat the hell out of" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton if she were to run for president.Bush may be friends with former President Bill Clinton, but if New York's junior senator campaigns for the White House in 2008, as many expect, "I'll be back on the other side (of politics), and I will be trying to beat the hell out of her, if I possibly can," a grinning Bush said in Tokyo, where he spoke at Waseda University's school of sports and science.
Here here!
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Police charged five protesters on Friday during the second demonstration in a month outside the new Army recruiting station."We thought it was important to not have this recruiting station open quietly," said Emily McFarlane, a UNC-Chapel Hill junior who helped organize the protest at the Army Career Center, 1502 E. Franklin St.
About 30 protesters -- members of Students for a Democratic Society, The Raging Grannies and others -- held signs, walked in a circle and shouted, "Out of Iraq, out of our schools! Out of town, shut the war down!"
Property manager Analisa Bellamy, flanked by about five police officers, told the protesters to move to the public sidewalk several yards away on East Franklin Street.
After her second request, all but three protesters moved to the sidewalk.
Two of them, Barry Freeman, 80, and Janie Freeman, 71, were charged with second-degree trespass after refusing Bellamy's request that they put their signs down. The couple's 8-by-11-inch signs read "Hands Off My Grandchildren."
Stephen J. Woolford, 39, a peace advocate from rural Chatham County, was charged with second-degree trespass.
Attila Nemecz, 26, of Raleigh, and Eric Gardner, 22, of Apex, were charged with picketing.
I'm sure every one of those protesters considers themselves "pro-choice" -- but they want to make sure that their choice is the only one that potential recruits can learn about and access. They are not patriots -- they are anti-American fascists who actively support our nation's enemies.
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Mohabbat Khan Mosque Khateeb Maulana Muhammad Yousuf Qureshi said on Wednesday that a fatwa (decree) issued for the killing of a Danish cartoonist who had drawn caricatures of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), would not be withdrawn.“We have put a price on the blasphemer’s head, and will pay one million dollars to the person who kills him,” Qureshi told Daily Times. Qureshi said that the US government had banned his entry into America and refused him a visa after he issued the fatwa against the cartoonist working for Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Qureshi, who has been criticising the US and leading anti-US rallies, said he was not against Americans. He said he had visited the US every year between 1984 and 2000, but stopped going there after the 9/11 attacks. “I am only against US government policies which are anti-Muslim,” he said. staff report
Well, time for a little solidarity. more...
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The treasure, from a Bactrian tomb that dates from roughly the time of Christ, was secreted away by Afghans and hidden until the American liberation of their country following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
It was a mystery of legendary proportions. When a 2,000-year-old treasure trove went missing from Afghanistan's National Museum in the 1980s, the rumors abounded: Did the Soviets take it? Was it looted and sold on the black market? Were 22,000 pieces of gold, jewel-encrusted crowns and magnificent daggers melted down and traded for weapons?As it turns out, none of these plausible scenarios ever happened. Instead, a mysterious group of Afghans had stowed the so-called Bactrian gold underground and guarded its secret for over two decades of war and chaos. This month, some of the artifacts are on display at the Guimet Museum in Paris.
The group, the so-called "key holders," held the keys to the underground vault where the treasure was kept underneath the presidential palace grounds. They are believed to have hidden the treasure sometime after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They diligently kept their secret throughout the civil war of the 1990s and the period of Taliban rule all the way up through the 2001 American-led invasion.
"Over the last 20 to 25 years, during food shortages and money crises, this handful of people ... could have sold these collections instead of going hungry, but they never once sacrificed their own cultural heritage," Fredrik Hiebert, an archaeologist with the National Geographic Society, told the Associated Press.
There has to be a book in this story somewhere -- one that is filled with love of country, love of history, and a great deal of intrigue and courage.
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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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A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected most claims by slave descendants that they deserve reparations from some of the nation's biggest insurers, banks and transportation companies.The three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that slave descendants have no standing to sue for reparations based on injustices suffered by ancestors and that the statute of limitations ran out more than a century ago.
But the panel did keep alive a smaller portion of the suit, claiming that major U.S. corporations may be guilty of consumer fraud if they hid past ties to slavery from their customers.
The opinion, written by Judge Richard A. Posner, said that "statutes of limitations would be toothless" if descendants could collect damages for wrongs against their ancestors.
"A person whose ancestor had been wronged a thousand years ago could sue on the ground that it was a continuing wrong and he is one of the victims," the court said. It said statutes of limitations could be extended in some cases but not for acts committed 100 years ago.
The panel also said the descendants lacked standing to sue because their links to the slaves were distant.
Now the court did keep alive a consumer fraud claim, but I doubt it will prevail. After all, does a company have an affirmative obligation to disclose any connection to slavery in its distant past?
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Executions by lethal injection were suspended in Florida and ordered revamped in California on Friday, as the chemical method once billed as a more humane way of killing the condemned came under mounting scrutiny over the pain it may cause.Gov. Jeb Bush (R) ordered the suspension in Florida after a botched execution in which it took 34 minutes and a second injection to kill convicted murderer Angel Nieves Diaz. A state medical examiner said that needles used to carry the poison had passed through the prisoner's veins and delivered the three-chemical mix into the tissues of his arm.
In California, a federal judge ruled that the state must overhaul its lethal-injection procedures, calling its current protocol unconstitutional because it may inflict unacceptable levels of pain.
Judge Jeremy D. Fogel of the U.S. District Court for Northern California ordered the state to revise its procedures and consider eliminating the use of two drugs: pancuronium bromide, which causes paralysis, and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest.
The judge did not order executions halted, though they have been effectively on hold since February while he conducted a review.
The "pervasive lack of professionalism" in the executions, Fogel wrote, "at the least is very disturbing."
Forgive me, but since when did it become a moral, much less constitutional, requirement that executions be painless, bloodless procedures that spare teh convicted killer pain? Yes, I know we do not permit "cruel and unusual" punishment, but is it really cruel that a condemned man might be conscious of his punishment being carried out? Does it really shock the conscience that the guilty might feel some level of fear and pain, just like his victims did as he snuffed out their innocent lives? No, it does not.
But this illustrates the fundamental problem with the jurisprudence in this area. We have allowed judges to set themselves up as philosopher kings, deciding on the basis of some undefined standard what constitutes "cruel and unusual". We have judges who are intent upon ensuring that the condemned not experience on bit of suffering as their lives ebb away in payment for their crimes. The ultimate end is likely to be a ban on lethal injection -- currently considered to be a "humane" method of execution, on the grounds that any suffering on the part of the condemned constitutes cruelty which shocks the conscience.
However, I would argue that your average American holds a very different position on the issue. We recognize that capital punishment is, in the end, punishment. And while we do not want ancient spectacles like those in the Colosseum, burning at the stake, or crucifixion, we are not troubled that a killer might feel some discomfort as he experiences his much-deserved demise. I'd bet that your average American would have no problem with seeing the return of firing squads or the hangman's noose as the standard form of execution. Indeed, only the horrors of the Holocaust render the gas chamber unacceptable to me, the method of execution indelibly linked to the Hitlerian genocide and therefore morally unacceptable.
So I'll say it plainly -- rather than a lethal injection of three drugs, let's go back to the lethal injection of lead by a team of marksmen.
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n a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body's nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.
"I couldn't believe it," said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. "Mice with diabetes suddenly didn't have diabetes any more."
The researchers caution they have yet to confirm their findings in people, but say they expect results from human studies within a year or so. Any treatment that may emerge to help at least some patients would likely be years away from hitting the market.
This is great news -- but the "years away" part of the last sentence is frustrating. What we seem to have here is a cure for a life-threatening disease, one that may be confirmed very quickly -- but it will be much longer before regulators approve making those of us with diabetes healthy and able to live normal lives again without glucose meters, pills, insulin shots and highly regulated diets. Such delays seem cruel.
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December 15, 2006
Fadwa Hamdan is one of them.
Stomping her boots and swinging her bony arms, Fadwa Hamdan led a column of troops through this bleak Texas base.Only six months earlier, she wore the head scarf of a pious Muslim woman and dropped her eyes in the presence of men. Now she was marching them to dinner.
“I’m gonna be a shooting man, a shooting man!” she cried, her Jordanian accent lost in the chanting voices. “The best I can for Uncle Sam, for Uncle Sam!”
The United States military has long prided itself on molding raw recruits into hardened soldiers. Perhaps none have undergone a transformation quite like that of Ms. Hamdan.
Forbidden by her husband to work, she raised five children behind the drawn curtains of their home in Saudi Arabia. She was not allowed to drive. On the rare occasions when she set foot outside, she wore a full-face veil.
Then her world unraveled. Separated from her husband, who had taken a second wife, and torn from her children, she moved to Queens to start over. Struggling to survive on her own, she answered a recruiting advertisement for the Army and enlisted in May.
Ms. HamdanÂ’s passage through the military is a remarkable act of reinvention. It required courage and sacrifice. She had to remove her hijab, a sacred symbol of the faith she holds deeply. She had to embrace, at the age of 39, an arduous and unfamiliar life.
In return, she sought what the military has always promised new soldiers: a stable home, an adoptive family, a remade identity. She left one male-dominated culture for another, she said, in the hope of finding new strength along the way.
“Always, I dream I have power on the inside, and one day it’s going to come out,” said Ms. Hamdan, a small woman with delicate hands and sad, almond eyes.
She belongs to the rare class of Muslim women who have signed up to become soldiers trained in Arabic translation. Such female linguists play a crucial role for the American armed forces in Iraq, where civilian women often feel uncomfortable interacting with male troops.
Finding Arabic-speaking women willing to serve in the military has proved daunting. Of the 317 soldiers who have completed training in the Army linguist program since 2003, just 23 are women, 13 of them Muslim.
The story is inspirational -- and demonstrates how Muslims can and should be a part of every aspect of American society.
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The first is a motion to throw out the photo lineup.
The woman who said she was raped at a party thrown by Duke's lacrosse team misidentified her alleged attackers in a photo lineup that was "an incoherent mass of contradiction and error," defense lawyers argued in court papers filed Thursday.Attorneys for the three indicted players filed a motion asking a judge to bar prosecutors from using the photo lineup at their clients' trial and prevent the accuser from identifying the players from the witness stand.
Duke University law professor James E. Coleman Jr. said the case would be "effectively dismissed" if the court finds the lineup inadmissible "and rules that it is so suggestive that there can't be an in-court identification."
What evidence would be left without the identification? None, based upon yesterday's information about the DNA testing.
And then there is this -- which may be irrelevant, but could be a bombshell.
The woman at the center of the Duke lacrosse rape case is pregnant and due to give birth any day, roughly nine months after the team party where she says she was raped by three men.The pregnancy was confirmed late Thursday by a person familiar with the case, speaking to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Fox News and WRAL-TV in Raleigh reported that she gave birth Thursday night.
There had been no prior indication that the woman, a 28-year-old college student who already has children, was pregnant. She has not spoken in public since granting an interview to the News & Observer of Raleigh shortly after the party.
The person who confirmed the pregnancy to the AP had no information about the father. Defense attorneys have stressed for months that no sex occurred at the party. They have cited DNA testing that found genetic material from several men in the accuser's body and in her underwear -- but none from any member of the lacrosse team.
If the baby's father is not one of the accused, it probably won't impact the case at all. On the other hand, if one of the accused is the father, that takes the case in an entirely new direction. (UPDATE: She is not due until February. A judge has ordered a paternity test anyway.)
UPDATE: The fraud appears to be confirmed. Where is the US Department of Justice to deal with this obvious conspiracy to violate the civil rights of these young men?
The head of a private DNA laboratory said under oath today that he and District Attorney Mike Nifong agreed not to report DNA results favorable to Duke lacrosse players charged with rape.Brian Meehan, director of DNA Security of Burlington, said his lab found DNA from unidentified men in the underwear, pubic hair and rectum of the woman who said she was gang-raped at a lacrosse party in March. Nurses at Duke Hospital collected the samples a few hours after the alleged assault. Meehan said the DNA did not come from Reade Seligmann, David Evans, or Collin Finnerty, who have been charged with rape and sexual assault in the case.
Meehan struggled to say why he didnÂ’t include the favorable evidence in a report dated May 12, almost a month after Seligmann and Finnerty had been indicted. He cited concerns about the privacy of the lacrosse players, his discussions at several meetings with Nifong, and the fact that he didnÂ’t know whose DNA it was.
Under questioning by Jim Cooney, a defense attorney for Seligmann, Meehan admitted that his report violated his laboratoryÂ’s standards by not reporting results of all tests.
Did Nifong and his investigators know the results of all the DNA tests? Cooney asked.
“I believe so,” Meehan said.
“Did they know the test results excluded Reade Seligmann?” Cooney asked.
“I believe so,” Meehan said.
Was the failure to report these results the intentional decision of you and the district attorney? Cooney asked.
“Yes,” Meehan replied.
This farce needs to be ended immediately -- and Nifong needs to go to jail.
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