GeoBandy

Toddler defies "Monsters", follows Dad into strip club

2006-03-23T10:08:00.000-05:00

From BabbleFest:

This little gem is a variation on the familiar “child left alone in car while adult goes in some establishment” theme. Coming to us from Tulsa, Oklahoma, this version of the story lacks the tragic consequences usually associated with these accounts, and is actually good for a somewhat bemused laugh. It’s also good enough to get this guy posted as our “dipstick du jour”.

TULSA, Okla. -- A Kansas man was arrested at a Tulsa strip club after police said his toddler son was left in a cold car and found wandering into the club.

Christopher Greg Killion, 31, of Sabetha, Kan., was arrested Saturday on a complaint of "encouraging a minor child to be in need of supervision." He posted $500 bond and was released from jail.

The boy told police that his father told him to stay in the car, and that if he left it, "monsters would eat him."

A manager at the club had called police to report that about 30 minutes after Killion entered the club, a 3- to 4-year-old boy came inside looking for his father.

Officers determined that the boy had been left alone in a car in the strip club's parking lot.

The car was unlocked and parked about 20 feet from a four-lane street. It was raining and 45 degrees outside at the time, an officer noted in the police report.

Numbers don't lie: the truth about tax cuts

2006-03-17T05:43:00.000-05:00

If you missed this story back in January, like I did, don’t feel bad. Somehow or other the entire MSM managed to let this get by them. But Donald Luskin was on the job, and analyzed the actual fiscal results of the 2003 capital gains tax cut. And guess what? Once you cut through all the crap, it turns out that tax cuts cause economic growth and result in increased revenues. Now where have we heard that before?

Now let’s move forward a year, to January 2004, after the capital-gains tax cut had been enacted. Table 4-4 on page 82 in CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook of that year shows that the estimates for capital-gains tax liabilities had been lowered to $46 billion in 2004 and $52 billion in 2005, for a two-year total of $98 billion. Compare the original $125 billion total to the new $98 billion total, and we can infer that CBO was forecasting that the tax cut would cost the government $27 billion in revenues.

Those are the estimates. Now let’s see how things really turned out. Take a look at Table 4-4 on page 92 of the Budget and Economic Outlook released this week. You’ll see that actual liabilities from capital-gains taxes were $71 billion in 2004, and $80 billion in 2005, for a two-year total of $151 billion. So let’s do the math one more time: Subtract the originally estimated two-year liability of $125 billion from the actual liability of $151 billion, and you get a $26 billion upside surprise for the government. Yes, instead of costing the government $27 billion in revenues, the tax cuts actually earned the government $26 billion extra.

CBO’s estimate of the “cost” of the tax cut was virtually 180 degrees wrong. The Laffer curve lives!

This straight-A report card on supply-side tax-cutting was noted Thursday by Daniel Clifton of the American Shareholders Association — the man who predicted that exactly this would happen when the tax cuts were first enacted.

Clifton wrote on his blog,
a capital gains tax cut spurs the growth of new businesses, increases the wage of workers, enhances consumer purchasing power, and grows the economy at large, resulting in more overall gains to be taxed. When capital is taxed at a lower rate, any revenue losses are offset because there is more overall capital being produced, and thus more total revenue being generated.

Using the same kind of analysis, we can see that attempts to raise tax revenues by raising tax rates simply doesn’t work. Consider the massive increase in personal income-tax rates imposed by President Clinton and a Democratic Congress in 1993. Compare actual total tax revenues for the four years from 1993 to 1996 to what had been estimated by CBO in 1992 before the tax hikes took effect. Despite increasing the top tax rate on incomes by 16 percent to 28 percent, actual revenues only beat the 1992 estimate by less than 1 percent.

So what led to the gusher of tax revenues in the late 1990s that helped to put the federal budget into surplus? Simple: It was the capital-gains tax cut engineered by a Republican Congress in 1997. Compare actual total tax revenues for the three years from 1997 to 1999 to what had been previously estimated by CBO in January 1997. Despite cutting the capital-gains tax rate by 28 percent, actual total revenues beat the 1997 estimate by more than 11 percent.

As Luskin points out, these are actual numbers, not estimates or the rambling guesswork of politicians or pundits. The same thing happened in the ‘80’s. The Reagan tax cuts ultimately resulted in the most massive infusion of revenue any government anywhere in the world had ever seen. But what about the persistent myth that tax cuts cause deficits? Well, it is exactly that, a myth. When a deficit follows a tax cut and its resultant revenue boost, the deficit is the result of spending, not tax cuts. Here’s how that works: I don’t recall the exact number, but Congress in the post-war era overspent revenue at a rate of say $1.25 spent for every dollar in revenue. At that rate, if you have $100 in revenue, you spend $125, a $25 deficit. Spend at the same rate and increase your revenue to $1000. Now you spend $1250, a $250 deficit. Get it? Unless you reduce the rate of spending, as revenues increase deficits will increase too.

So what balanced the federal budget in the second half of the ‘90’s? The fiscally conservative congress which took over in 1994 and actually reduced the rate of spending, the 1997 capital gains tax cut… and billions of actual cash dollars transferred from Social Security and used to pay down debt and get to that “budget surplus” Clintonistas like to crow about.

U.S. agrees to support terrorist regime

2006-02-25T15:47:00.000-05:00

A senior State Department envoy has confirmed that the U.S. will continue to provide aid to the Palestinians, bolstering and supporting the terrorist Hamas organization which now constitutes the government of the Palestinian pseudo-state:

The United States will continue sending humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people even after a Hamas government is formed, a senior U.S. envoy told Palestinian leaders during the first high-level meeting between the two sides since Hamas' election victory.

State Department envoy David Welch said the U.S. continues "to be devoted to the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people and we shall remain so." Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Welch told Palestinian officials that U.S. aid would be redirected, but Welch did not specify how.

Erekat noted that hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid flow directly into infrastructure projects every year, and not into Palestinian government coffers.

"We urged the U.S. administration to continue helping the Palestinian people, as it did in previous years," Erekat said after the meeting. "They have never transferred a single dollar to the Palestinian Authority directly. The money was being transferred via non-governmental organizations."

The U.S. and the EU consider Hamas a terror organization and have threatened to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid if Hamas doesn't abandon its violent campaign against Israel.

Sadly, an empty threat.

It seems we never learn.

You can not distinguish between “humanitarian aid” for a society that chose, in an open election, to be governed by a gang of terrorist thugs and murderers, and the government made up of thugs and murderers. Any and all aid you provide will serve to prop up the government. The people of the Palestinian pseudo-state have chosen to become a terrorist pseudo-state, and any support of the Palestinians is support of terrorism. Period.

Remember “Oil for Food”? Yeah, that was to provide “humanitarian aid” to the Iraqi people. It paid bribes, built palaces, and bought weapons.

Arafat and his cronies stole untold millions, perhaps billions, in “aid” money, money that ended up in their European bank accounts, while pretending, for the benefit of western audiences, that they were unable, despite their best efforts, to stop the terrorist attacks they openly supported and encouraged at home.

Elections are supposed to have consequences. The consequences of electing Hamas, an avowed and unrelenting terrorist organization, should be treatment as a terrorist pseudo-state.

Instead, we will start the Arafat game all over again, where we threaten to cut off aid, and they promise to do what they can to stop the terrorist attacks, and we give them money for telling us what we want to hear.

And look the other way while they do what we say is unacceptable.

[for a previous post on this topic, go here]

New Jersey legislator seeks to circumvent driver residency requirement

2006-02-25T01:05:00.000-05:00

In an effort that echoes the Massachusetts movement to give "in state" college tuition credits to illegal aliens, a New Jersey legislator is seeking to circumvent the post-9/11 federal requirement that driver's licenses be granted only upon proof of residency.

TRENTON, N.J. --A New Jersey assemblyman is pushing to create a "driving privilege" card that would allow undocumented immigrants to motor legally on New Jersey roads.
Assemblyman Joseph Vas, D-Perth Amboy, is fine-tuning a bill that would allow Garden State residents to obtain driver's licenses even if they can't prove they are legally in the United States.

The initiative aims to get around the pending federal "Real ID" program, which in 2008 will require state motor vehicle departments to verify legal residency of driver's license applicants. Driver's licenses from states that do not comply will no longer be usable as ID to board airplanes or enter federal buildings.

In anticipation, the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission has begun requiring new and renewing license applicants to prove legal residency.

Vas postponed a scheduled news conference Thursday morning in hope of melding his proposal with initiatives by Assemblyman Brian Stack, D-Union City.

Wendy Martinez, Stack's chief of staff, said such a bill is still in the discussion stage.
"We are looking to explore the possibility, but not committing ourselves," Martinez said. Stack, a member of the Assembly Transportation and Public Works Committee, "is very much concerned with guaranteeing the safety of motorists and pedestrians in a bill that would address the concerns about people driving uninsured and without a license."

Look boys and girls, here’s the basic problem: these people are CRIMINALS. They are here illegally, in violation of law, they are lawbreakers. Here’s a thought…instead of giving them driving privileges, give them a ticket back to wherever they came from.

Oh, sorry, my mistake. They’re not illegal aliens, they are undocumented immigrants. And since they’ve already managed to get here without regard for our immigration laws, there’s no reason to deny them driving privileges:

Advocates say undocumented immigrants are already in New Jersey, and driving, so it serves the interest of public safety to make sure they are also passing driving tests.

"We need to stop being hypocrites and not accepting that they are an important part of the economy of our state," said Martin Perez, president of the Latino Leadership Alliance. "If we use this labor force, we have to assume some responsibility for making sure they get to their jobs legally and safely."

That’s right, Mr. Perez, it is the responsibility of the law abiding citizens to “assume responsibility” for making sure the illegal immigrants can legally drive to their illegal jobs.

How about instead we assume responsibility for sending them back where they came from, and stop finding ways to make life easier for people who disregard our laws and come to our country illegally.

By the way, the whole "insurance" argument is a red herring. In most states getting a license in no way requires you to actually have insurance. In most states, you just sign a form that says you have insurance. Even in those states that actually require you to show an insurance "card", it's not too tough to print your own, or pay for insurance for a month and use the card you get to get your "driving privilege card", good for years. But, none of these people would ever circumvent any kind of insurance requirement, right? It’s not like they have a demonstrated history of circumventing the law, right? Oh, unless you count that little “immigration” thing.

There are, however, signs that not everyone in the New Jersey legislature is an idiot:

Assemblyman Christopher Connors, R-Lacey Township, has reintroduced a bill to prohibit the state from granting any license, contract, loan or tax abatement to individuals who cannot prove they are legal residents.

New Ohio License plate sure to anger ACLU

2006-02-22T18:25:00.000-05:00

This license plate became available in Ohio yesterday, as a "specialty plate" for an additional $10 fee. Wonder how many lawsuits were filed today?

(Image from NewsNet 5, website of Channel 5, Cleveland ABC affiliate)

Russia joins crowd surrendering to Muslim cultural demands

2006-02-18T00:22:00.000-05:00

Russia, once the tough guy of both Europe and Asia, has joined the rising tide of cowering nations intimidated by the Muslim cartoon riots, with prosecutors investigating the editor of a paper which ran the Muhammad cartoons and the government shutting down another paper which ran an original cartoon:

Russian prosecutors opened an investigation into the editor of a newspaper that reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and another paper was ordered closed Friday after publishing a cartoon depicting Muhammad along with Jesus, Moses and Buddha.

The Prosecutor General's office said the Nash Region newspaper in the Vologda region, some 310 miles northeast of Moscow, have started a probe of Anna Smirnova on charges of using her position to incite hatred.

Smirnova's Nash Region newspaper, which published the cartoons this week, was the first such reprint by a Russian media outlet of the caricatures, which were first published in Denmark and have caused widespread outrate in the Muslim world.

This appears to have become the pattern: publishing the cartoons, or, increasingly, ANY image which does not measure up to Muslim religious standards, is "inciting hatred". Civilized nations started down this road when they began to legislate political correctness. In Russia, they're now taking the next step, and anything Muslims find offensive is going to be labeled as "abusing media freedom":

Separately, the mayor of the southern city of Volgograd said his order to close the City News was intended "to prevent incitement of enmity on religious national and social grounds, and also to stop the abuse of media freedom," according to an administration statement.

The drawing in the newspaper illustrated an article titled "Racists Can't Be in the Government" and depicted Jesus, Moses, Buddha and the Prophet Muhammad watching television. The TV screen showed two groups of people about to start a fist fight, and the drawing was accompanied by a caption that reads, "We did not teach you that."

Difficult to see how that cartoon is inflammatory, other than to the interpretation of Islam that prohibits any image of Muhammad. So now, the rest of the world is going to be required to observe Muslim religious principles or face the rage of Muslim mobs. And the reaction of Russia's "responsible" Muslim establishment is telling:

Russia's top Muslim authority, the Council of Muftis, said that the caricatures published by the Russian media had insulted Muslims.

"The Islamic culture bans all images of Prophet Muhammad, not only those which show disrespect. The Prophet mustn't be depicted in any context," the council said in a statement on its Web site.

The statement added that the council was not urging authorities to respond to publications, proceeding from the assumption that "authorities themselves must calculate and avert possible consequences of such publications."

Notice a pattern here? Do what the Muslims want or face the consequences, murder and mayhem.

Intimidation, plain and simple.

And it's working.

[also posted at BabbleFest]

Arkansas chicken saved by mouth-to-beak resuscitation

2006-02-17T03:10:00.000-05:00

Something weird out of Arkadelphia, Arkansas:

Sometimes a chicken does have lips, just not her own.

Marian Morris saved her brother's exotic chicken, Boo Boo, by administering mouth-to-beak resuscitation on the fowl after it was found floating faced down in the family's pond.

Morris, a retired nurse in Arkadelphia, Ark., said she hadn't had any practice with CPR in years. But her experience with the chicken taught her she "still had it."

For Boo Boo's sake, Morris said she's glad she still can do it.

Morris said, "I breathed into its beak, and its dad-gum eyes popped open. I breathed into its beak again, and its eyes popped open again." She told her brother to keep the bird warm.

Morris said the chicken is called Boo Boo because the bird is easily frightened. The family figures Boo Boo was startled and flopped into the pond.

Ummmmmmmmmm..............OK..............

Offensive Images

2006-02-17T03:04:00.000-05:00

Want to see some really offensive images?

Over at Babblefest, in the emsGallery Module, we've posted images from September 11. Somehow, I find those images much more worthy of violent protest than the Muhammad cartoons.

Jury Clears Flying Shrimp of Death

2006-02-17T02:59:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, the legal system has a sudden attack of common sense:

MINEOLA, New York (AP) -- A jury took two hours Thursday to reject a widow's claim that her husband's death resulted from an injury he suffered while ducking a piece of flying shrimp at a Benihana steakhouse.

The family of Jerry Colaitis, 47, had sought $10 million from the Japanese steakhouse chain, accusing it of direct responsibility for his death in 2001.

Benihana chefs are famous for their fast and furious knives and food-tossing stunts.

The lawsuit claimed the Long Island man wrenched his neck after a chef tossed a piece of shrimp at a family birthday party.

In the months after the party, Colaitis was treated by several doctors for various ailments and underwent surgery to relieve numbness in his arm.

Five months after that, he checked into a hospital with a high fever and died. His family said the fever was a complication of the surgery.

"This man was a rock," Colaitis family attorney Andre Ferenzo told the jury.

"Benihana and only Benihana set in motion the forces ... that led to his death."

The family claimed the unidentified chef tossed shrimp at the partygoers three times -- the last time at Colaitis -- and refused to stop even after their pleas.

Benihana attorney Charles Connick disputed the notion that a chef who relies on tips from customers would ignore such a request.

"I scratch my head and I wonder, is it conceivable to you?" Connick asked the jury.

Jimmy Carter: Circumvent US law to keep supporting Palestinians

2006-01-28T05:28:00.000-05:00

Buried in a FoxNews report on post-election palestinian demonstrations is the news that Jimmy Carter is advocating that the US government circumvent US law in order to continue financially propping up the palestinian pseudo-state:

Former President Carter said the United States, by law, would have to cut off direct funding to the Palestinian Authority as soon as Hamas takes control, but it should look for other ways to give money to the Palestinians, such as through the United Nations. Hamas has been branded a terrorist group by the U.S. and Europe.

"United States law would require that the money would be cut off if Hamas is in the government, so that's a foregone conclusion," Carter told The Associated Press.

***

Carter said the United States should increase its donations to U.N. and other aid groups earmarked for the Palestinians to make up for the cut in direct aid "so that the people can still continue to have food and shelter and health care and education."

The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem said the United States gave the Palestinian Authority $400 million in direct aid last year.

Carter met Friday with Abbas, who told him that the Palestinian Authority did not even have enough money to pay salaries at the end of the month, even with foreign aid.If the aid is cut off, "it would create an element of chaos unless the money is made up by other sources," he said. "If the Arab countries come through and the European countries continue to help and maybe Japan, they could continue to operate."

Hey! I just found a $400,000,000.00 budget cut!

As usual, Carter's naive view of world events keeps him from seeing reality. The palestinian pseudo-state (created largely as a result of Carter's embrace of Yassir Arafat as a de-facto "head of state" instead of the terrorist thug he was) is a horror show. Arafat and his cronies stole hundreds of millions in aid and stashed it in European bank accounts. Health care consists of trying to get into Israeli hospitals for free treatment (sometimes with a bomb strapped around your waist) or "palestinian" facilities rendered inadequate by the ramapant graft and corruption. Education involves a "kill the Jews" curriculum, complete with class pictures in masked suicide bomber attire and indoctrination into violent street demonstrations and suicide bombing as "holy martyrdom". The fastest-growing and most profitable segment of the economy is digging arms-smuggling tunnels. And a recent UN-sposored "palestinian cultural celebration" included maps of the region with Israel gone and the area labeled as "Palestine".

This is not stuff I'm making up, or even exaggerating. This is all from recent news reports. Don't believe it? Go do your own research, and here's your first hint: don't rely on the NY Times. You have to dig a bit to find the truth.

These are the people who danced in the streets on 9/11.

These are the people who elected a terrorist gang to run their government.

Elections have consequences. By electing a terrorist gang to be their government, they have now chosen to become a terrorist pseudo-state.

Not one dime.

Not one friggin' dime for the palestinians until their new "government" recognizes the State of Israel and outlaws terrorism, or "martyrdom", or suicide bombing or homicide bombing or "resistance" or whatever they want to call it. A "truce" or "cease fire" can not be considered sufficient. A terrorist state offering a truce is still a terrorist state.

Not one dime.

And any nation that continues to support that goverment, whether European, Arab, Asian or Martian, must be considered as supporting terrorism.

The true legacy of Jimmy Carter and his pal Arafat is the legitimization of terrorism as a diplomatic tool in the middle east. Time to start wiping out that legacy.

The Hamas terrorists wanted to run the palestinian "state". The palestinians have chosen to let them. Until they renounce terrorism - completely, including not just the streets but the schools and the mosques - they must be treated as the terrorist "state" they have chosen to be.

Not one dime.

Sites Worth Seeing

2006-01-28T05:19:00.000-05:00

Here are links to a few interesting sites I've come across recently.

No editorial comment this time, just stop by and check them out.

Malott’s Blog

Business for Your Health

The Flying-Monkey Right Blog

Enjoy.

Recent polling shows bad news for Hillary

2006-01-26T14:29:00.000-05:00

The most recent "if the election were today" poll regarding the 2008 Presidential election has more bad news for former First Lady and Presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton. In addition to polling that repeatedly shows Rudi Giuliani clobbering Clinton, the latest McCain-Clinton poll, conducted by Diageo/Hotline, shows the Republican Arizona Senator decisively leading Clinton 52 to 36 percent, a huge 16-point advantage.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a poll by a minor, relatively unknown agency, except that it is entirely consistent with virtually all other polls.

According to a January 25 NewsMax report, there's even worse news for Hillary:

By a margin of three to one, Americans say they would "definitely" vote against Hillary Clinton for president, a CNN/Gallup poll released Tuesday [Jan.24, 2006] has found.

While just 16 percent say they had made up their minds to back Clinton when she seeks the presidency in 2008, 51 percent say there's no way they want to see the former first lady back in the White House.

Men are the most vehement when it comes to the prospect of another Clinton presidency, with 60 percent telling Gallup they would vote against Hillary for sure.

Reporting on the Gallup survey in today's edition, the New York Post notes that women are slightly less repulsed by the notion of Mrs. Clinton running the country, with just 43 percent saying they definitely don't want to see her in the Oval Office.

Even Mrs. Clinton's liberal base isn't solidly behind her, with a full one-third of self described liberals telling Gallup/CNN they have no intention of supporting her in 2008.

The 2008 election is a long way off, and much can and will change before then. But those Democrats who have anointed Hillary as a sure thing may want to start hedging their bets. By the way, in the Diageo/Hotline poll, McCain beats "other democrat" by only 8 points.

[also posted at BabbleFest]

Canada turns right... or does it?

2006-01-26T14:26:00.000-05:00

Many are discussing the Canadian election results as if it were the equivalent of the Reagan Revolution in this country. I think there's a lot less to it than that.

Paul Martin's liberal government dripped scandal and corruption, leading to a no-confidence vote in Parliament and the resulting election, won by Conservative Stephen Harper. The liberal government had become so bad that during the campaign it was revealed that yet another investigation was underway: government officials were alleged to have leaked information that effected the Canadian stock market.

Wearied of one scandal after another, much of it looking like intentional graft and corruption, Canadian voters opted to do what people in democratic societies can do: throw the bums out.

I don't think there's any real doubt that the election represented a vote against the corruption of the liberals more than a shift in public opinion to the conservative viewpoint. Consider, for example, the way Harper toned down his anti-abortion and other socially conservative stances and drifted toward the center somewhat.

On the other hand, Harper has made no bones about his intention to increase defense spending and broaden Canada's role in Nato, reconsider the strategic defense umbrella, and improve relations with the US. He has also pledged to overhaul Canada's socialized medical system, which is at this point a real mess, and cut taxes.

One lesson should be learned from the Canadian election, and the election in Germany which saw Gerhard Schroeder tossed out: governments which make a mess of things at home can't save themselves by relentlessly bashing President Bush and the US.

Perhaps the anti-Bush and anti-US sentiment these guys were banking on doesn't run quite as deep as they, and the mainstream media, would like us all to believe.

[also posted at BabbleFest]

Leading Democrats denounce Palestinian results as fraudulent

2006-01-26T10:24:00.000-05:00

Pointing to the wide discrepancy between exit poll results and the purported actual count of votes in the Palestinian election, Democrats Al Gore, John Kerry, Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean declared the outcome "obviously fraudulent" and raced off to file a series of lawsuits.

Oh, wait, sorry. None of them said anything like that. My mistake. It's only when a Republican beats a Democrat that the exit polls reflect the "real" outcome. When Venezuelan socialists or palestinian terrorists pull out the surprise win, the exit polls were only exit polls, you know, which aren't intended to predict the outcome. And don't accurately predict the outcome. And democracy triumphs, as shown by the actual vote count.

Phone tax imposed to support War Effort

2006-01-19T03:11:00.000-05:00

Every phone bill in America now carries a 3% federal excise tax, imposed in large part to finance the war effort.

The Spanish-American War, that is. The tax began as a luxury tax on telephones around the turn of the cenutry, and continues to be collected today.

Even on cellular phones. Which weren't invented until over 100 years later.

Some groups are now trying to get the tax repealed, and some federal courts have ruled the tax illegal. Of course the truth is, if the tax is eliminated, it will reappear someplace under a new identity. Taxes never really go away, you know.

You can visit www.mywireless.org for more on this topic.

Starbuck's wins landmark copyright case in China

2006-01-03T05:47:00.000-05:00

The BBC is reporting that after a two-year legal fight, Starbuck’s has won a copyright/intellectual property case against a Chinese competitor using a similar name and logo in 38 coffee shops in the Shanghai area.

Enforcing laws adopted in 2001, a Chinese court found the Chinese company in violation, and ordered it to both stop using the name and logo, and pay damages amounting to about $62,000.00.

Starbucks uses the name Xingbake in China. In Chinese, Xing means star while bake sounds like bucks.

Xingbake [the Chinese competitor – ed.] argued that it had registered its name in 2000, before Starbucks had secured its trademark in China.

However, Starbucks insisted that it had registered its name and logo in 1996 and claimed that the use of the Xingbake name in 38 Shanghai outlets violated its intellectual property rights.
The court concluded that Xingbake's name and logo was similar to Starbucks' and that the US firm was entitled to have the sole right to use its name in both English and Chinese.

Starbuck’s has operated in China since 1999.

China, along with India, has long been notorious for simply looking the other way while indigenous companies blatantly infringe on foreign copyrights and other intellectual property rights, often simply using a virtual duplicate of the foreign name and logo. The international community has complained in vain about copyright piracy and the export of what amount to counterfeit goods deliberately intended to look like the genuine article.

This case represents a landmark enforcement of foreign commercial rights against a local company. China, as it seeks to expand its international economic presence, will likely find itself more and more forced to play by international rules. The likely effect, over time, will be the erosion of Chinese protectionist policies and a lessening of the economic advantage those policies hve afforded Chinese companies.

[originally posted at BabbleFest]

First woman minister named to Egyptian Cabinet

2006-01-02T18:02:00.000-05:00

Egypt’s cabinet, newly reorganized following the December parliamentary elections, includes the first woman cabinet minister in the country’s history:

Aisha Abdul Hadi was appointed labour and immigration minister in the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif that was sworn in on Saturday.

The elections saw four women voted into the 454-member parliament, and President Hosni Mubarak, exercising a Constitutional provision that calls for the President to appoint ten members to Parliament, appointed five more. Egypt’s first woman cabinet minister has been a major figure in Egypt’s trade union organizations:

Abdul Hadi, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party, is a veteran trade unionist who began her career in 1959 as a representative for workers in state-owned pharmaceutical company.

She rose through the ranks, becoming vice chairperson of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, a position she held until her appointment to the cabinet.

While the Agence France Presse report curiously referred to Abdul Hadi as a “veiled woman” rather than “a woman”, she in fact eschews the face veil or full body covering worn by many muslim women. Apparently, she does wear a headscarf to cover her hair, facts which for some reason seemed to be of major concern to the news agency’s writers.

It really IS "just like Viet Nam"

2005-12-30T12:19:00.000-05:00

There is one almost precise parallel between the Viet Nam war and the Iraq war: the conduct of the "anti-war movement".

Rather than oppose the war as a matter of policy and work to legitimately shift public opinion on that policy, the "anti-war movement" of today has resorted to exactly the same disgusting (and frankly, anti-American) tactics as in the '60's and early '70's. Vilification of the American serviceman (serviceperson?), trumped up "atrocities" that have no basis in fact, fraudulent "veterans' testimonials" ("Winter Soldier", anyone?). Fortunately, there are alternative information sources today available to discredit much of this garbage.

There's nothing un-American about opposing the war, but there really is something distinctly un-American (and anti-American) about the anti-war movement. And what a surprise, many of them are either the same people (Fonda, Kerry) the same elites (academia, media, Hollywood, the "intelligentsia") and the same fringe groups (communists, socialists, anarchists) who formed the core and leadership of the anti-Viet Nam movement at its height.

What a coincidence! These are essentially the same elements that pathologically blame America for everything wrong in the world and see the US as the only obstacle in the way of the socialist Utopia that will be ushered in once all national sovereignty is ceded to the U.N.

Rove Implicated In Identity Leak

2005-12-28T09:41:00.000-05:00

December 21, 2005

WASHINGTON, DC—The recent leak revealing Santa Claus to be "your mommy and daddy" has been linked to President Bush's senior political adviser and deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, who stands accused of revealing the non-existence of Santa (below).

"If this devastating leak, which severely undermines the security of children everywhere and has compromised parent-child relations, came from the highest levels of the White House, that is an outrage," said former Bush counterterrorism adviser and outspoken Bush Administration critic Richard Clarke.

The identity of the mythical holiday gift-giver, previously known only in grown-up circles, was published in the popular Timbertoes cartoon in the December issue of Highlights For Children. Jean Abrams, a conservative firebrand known to have close ties to Bush appointees in the Department of Education, revealed "Santa" to be a code name for anonymous parental gift-giving.

Abrams and several other children's-magazine journalists, including Ranger Rick's Kristin Brittany and Cricket managing editor Shaina Belowitz, have testified before a federal grand jury on the source of the leak. Sources say that Randall Polk, Washington bureau chief for Weekly Reader, named Rove after serving eight days in jail for refusing to divulge his sources.

Federal investigators began to suspect a White House connection to the Santa leak when Abrams wrote in Timbertoes that the character of Pa had some "devastating information" on "very high authority."

"Did you know that Santa Claus is really just your mommy and daddy?" Pa's dialogue read. "It's true. Sometimes parents tell little white lies to their children to make them feel special."

Clarke criticized the leak as "foolhardy," saying it was "the kind of conduct you would expect from dangerous zealots who routinely confuse short-term political gain with the national interest."

"This leak compromises generations of undercover work on the part of U.S. parents," Clarke said. "Consider all the covers that will be blown, all the secret gift-hiding places that will be exposed."

The motivations behind the leak remain unclear, but some political observers have characterized it as a calculated act of retribution against Fairfax, VA second-grader Madison Harris. Harris, 7, wore an antiwar T-shirt to her elementary school during a Nov. 2 visit by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

"The shirt, decorated with doves and the word 'peace,' angered White House ideologues, who felt that Harris had undermined a tightly orchestrated visit," independent political media watchdog Ellen Applebee said. "An aggressive attempt to hit Harris where she lived was set in motion."

On Nov. 3, Rove told reporters, "People shouldn't take too seriously the opinions of someone who still thinks a fat man slides down the chimney into her living room every December 25." On Nov. 6, he told several aides, "I don't consider it precocious to wear peace T-shirts and, from what I hear, read Highlights."

Applebee cited these comments as evidence of "Rove's deliberate campaign against Harris."
During that same week, Rove is also believed to have placed calls to several of the children's-magazine journalists who were later called before the grand jury.

If Rove is responsible for leaking Santa's identity to the world's children, it would not be his first political "dirty trick." In 1988, he was fired from George H. W. Bush's presidential campaign for sending an unsigned letter to the young daughter of a Dukakis campaign adviser. In the letter, he revealed the sad ending of the film Old Yeller.

On Capitol Hill, many say they believe that the damage has already been done. Clarke cited the absence of Santas from several department stores across the country as possible evidence that their compromised identities fatally damaged their credibility.

"I don't envy parents of young children right now," Clarke said. "Trust has been shattered. I wouldn't be surprised if some moms and dads are forced into hiding."

[Also posted at Chimps at Work and Babblefest. I received this in an email. If you know anything about its origin please let me know]

Bill Clinton: Saddam's henchmen "good, decent people"

2005-12-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

From a post at BabbleFest:

Former president Bill Clinton praised Saddam Hussein's lieutenants and their underlings on Tuesday [Nov. 15th - ed.] , saying they were mostly "good" and "decent" people."

"When [the U.S.] kicked out Saddam, they decided to dismantle the whole authority structure," Clinton told an audience at American University in Dubai. "Most of the people who were part of that structure were good, decent people who were making the best out of a very bad situation," he added.

While Clinton didn't name, names, Saddam's authority structure was dominated by his two murderous sons, Uday and Qusay, as well as notorious characters like Ali Hassan al-Majid, [aka Chemical Ali], Barzan al-Takriti, who ran the Iraq's brutal intelligence service, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who governed northern Iraq during chemical weapon attacks in the Kurds, and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash [aka Mrs. Anthrax], who was a member of Saddam's Baathist National Command.

Clinton offered praise for Saddam's lieutenants during the same speech where he criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq as "a big mistake."

"Domestic spying" story not exactly accurate

2005-12-19T16:34:00.000-05:00

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Sunday, Dec. 18, 2005 10:10 p.m. EST

Clinton NSA Eavesdropped on U.S. Calls

During the 1990's under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon.

On Friday, the New York Times suggested that the Bush administration has instituted "a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices" when it "secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without [obtaining] court-approved warrants."

But in fact, the NSA had been monitoring private domestic telephone conversations on a much larger scale throughout the 1990s - all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.

In February 2000, for instance, CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft introduced a report on the Clinton-era spy program by noting:

"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency."

NSA computers, said Kroft, "capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world."
Echelon expert Mike Frost, who spent 20 years as a spy for the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, told "60 Minutes" that the agency was monitoring "everything from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs."

Mr. Frost detailed activities at one unidentified NSA installation, telling "60 Minutes" that agency operators "can listen in to just about anything" - while Echelon computers screen phone calls for key words that might indicate a terrorist threat.

The "60 Minutes" report also spotlighted Echelon critic, then-Rep. Bob Barr, who complained that the project as it was being implemented under Clinton "engages in the interception of literally millions of communications involving United States citizens."

One Echelon operator working in Britain told "60 Minutes" that the NSA had even monitored and tape recorded the conversations of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond.

Still, the Times repeatedly insisted on Friday that NSA surveillance under Bush had been unprecedented, at one point citing anonymously an alleged former national security official who claimed: "This is really a sea change. It's almost a mainstay of this country that the NSA only does foreign searches."

Big surprise here, huh? Another politically-driven load of garbage flung your way by the New York Times.

The NY Times: It's really not about news at all any more

2005-12-16T10:46:00.000-05:00

Let's see, on the day after the Iraqi election, the New York Times runs a "Bush OK'd Spying on Americans" headline.

Only a couple of problems. They've had this story, by their own admission, for about a year. Congressional committee members and the "terrorism court" (which has been around since the '70's) were briefed on the surveillance program. The program ended some time ago. And the "officials" who were "concerned about its legality" are all (surprise!) unnamed sources. Other than those "officials" and the ACLU (another real surprise) there's no suggestion that there is anything wrong with this, certainly not anything illegal.

So why break it as a "Big Story" today? Well, let's see... the Times can't report on the Iraqi election in too much detail, it doesn't fit their agenda... and they can try to undercut the importance of that story with this stuff, dutifully picked up by the rest of the MSM.

Anybody have any doubt why this story appeared today? It's not about news. It's about pursuing the Times' own political agenda.

UPDATE: Anonymous comment #1 sure was closer to bullseye than he apparently realized. The Times release of this story has helped block the extension of the Patriot Act in the Senate.

UPDATE 2: At Little Green Footballs, they're pointing out that this year-old story is tied to an upcoming book:

Risen claims the TIMES delayed publication of the article for a year to conduct additional reporting.

But now comes word James Risen’s article is only one of many “explosive newsbreaking” stories that can be found — in his upcoming book!

The paper failed to reveal the urgent story was tied to a book release and sale.

UPDATE 3: POWERLINE theorizes that maybe the Patriot Act, not the Iraqi election, was the primary target of this hit piece, and raises an ugly question: could the NY Times be coordinating with the Democrats? Wasn't there similar suspiciously timed "reporting" and "news" during the 2004 campaign? You remember, the whole "Fortunate Son" episode?

This morning, I wrote about the New York Times' publication of leaked classified information about a National Security Agency program involving monitoring of international communications between persons in America and known terrorists overseas. Many have wondered about the timing of the story; the Times says that it sat on the story for a year. Some have surmised that the Times was trying to take yesterday's election in Iraq off the front page. I think a more plausible theory is that the paper wanted to give cover to the Democrats' filibuster of the Patriot Act. The Associated Press says:

[T]he Patriot Act's critics got a boost from a New York Times report saying Bush authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the international phone calls and international e-mails of hundreds — perhaps thousands — of people inside the United States. Previously, the NSA typically limited its domestic surveillance to foreign embassies and missions and obtained court orders for such investigations.

"I don't want to hear again from the attorney general or anyone on this floor that this government has shown it can be trusted to use the power we give it with restraint and care," said Feingold, the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001.

It would be interesting to know to what extent the Times coordinates the timing of its stories with Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.

Poll has McCain leading Clinton

2005-12-14T21:55:00.000-05:00

From BabbleFest:

For the poll-watchers out there, here’s an interesting one. (Sorry, we lost our link for this one. You’ll just have to trust us, or go track it down yourself).

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week has Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) leading Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) 44% to 40% for the 2008 presidency if the election were held today.

The telephone poll of 1,230 voters surveyed from Nov. 28 to Dec. 4 had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points, so the 44-40 split is in fact essentially a statistical dead heat.

Candidates like "unsure" and "other" ran far behind and made up the other 16%.

Flight 93 Memorial: in memory of whom?

2005-12-13T14:39:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back, much was made of the “redesign” of the Flight 93 memorial because “some people” had misconstrued its basic red crescent design as being too similar to a widely recognized Islamic symbol, the crescent. [ed note: the muslim equivalent of the Red Cross organization is the Red Crescent].

The Stanford Review, however, has taken a real close look at the redesigned memorial, and reaches the conclusion that it is still an offensive, overtly Islamic structure.

The article includes extensive photographic and documentary analysis. Go check out the posting and decide for yourself what you think.

City refunds money to school zone speeders

2005-12-13T12:26:00.000-05:00

The city of Akron, Ohio, has decided to refund fine money to about 2,000 people caught speeding in school zones. It's not that they weren't speeding, it's just that they think it's not fair that they were caught speeding:

AKRON, Ohio -- Speeders in Akron will be getting some money back.

After getting hundreds of complaints, the Akron City Council voted Monday night to refund thousands of tickets issued from cameras set up in school zones, NewsChannel5 reported.
In just 19 days, the cameras caught more than 2,000 people speeding, issuing tickets up to $250 each.

Many residents said the cameras were not publicized and seemingly showed up overnight.
Councilman Mike Williams called the city's plan to put up the cameras a stealth method.
"I think people were ticketed unfairly," Williams said.

Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic said the cameras were publicized and they are making school zones safer.

He said 400 people a day were caught speeding by the cameras in the first few days. Now there are about 30 tickets given out a day.

The mayor said for now until the city decides whether to keep the cameras permanently, new tickets will be $35. The money will not go to the city's general fund, but to promote child safety only.

Motorists who already paid full price for their tickets are expected to get money returned to them.

Am I missing something here? Nobody is claiming these people weren't speeding in a scool zone. Nobody is claiming the cameras didn't work correctly, or that the tickets were issued in error. The sole complaint is that people claim they weren't warned sufficiently that the cameras had been installed.

Let's see...state law in Ohio has been 20 m.p.h. in a school zone forever. School zones are clearly posted with warning signs AND reduced speed limit signs. So anybody driving in a school zone knows (or should know) the speed limit is 20 m.p.h. I guess this falls under the "it's OK if you don't get caught rule"... "since we didn't know about the cameras, and didn't see the cameras, and we didn't see any police car, we had every right to break the law and speed in a school zone, and it's not fair that you caught us breaking the law."

Lafave plea bargain questioned by second judge

2005-12-09T09:49:00.000-05:00

Back on November 22 I posted about the plea bargain deal given to Debra Lafave, the female Florida teacher who repeatedly had sex with a 14-year old boy, pointing out that if the genders had been reversed the teacher would have been labeled a child molester and would certainly not have gotten off with no jail time. Lafave’s attorney had the nerve at the time to suggest that putting someone who looked like his client in prison was just not fair, the implication being that she would be molested.

Well, that plea deal appears to have hit a snag: Ms. Lafave molested the boy in two different counties, and the judge assigned to the case in the second county isn’t sure he’s buying the idea that the trauma a trial would inflict on the boy outweighs the state’s interest in bringing Ms. Lafave to trial:

Lafave was sentenced to three years of house arrest and seven years probation after pleading guilty last month in Hillsborough County to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery.

That plea agreement was supposed to also cover charges in Marion County, where Lafave allegedly had sex with the boy in a sport utility vehicle while his 15-year-old cousin drove.

But Judge Hale Stancil wasn't happy with an agreement the Marion County prosecutors reached with defense attorney John Fitzgibbons and asked for some changes, Ridgeway said.

Fitzgibbons said the judge indicated that he wanted to hear expert information about a trial's potential impact on the two boys involved.

Ridgeway said the attorneys would take a new plea deal to the judge.

So perhaps this child-molesting teacher will do some time after all.

[AP photo from FoxNews.com]

Russia sells Iran $1 Billion in missiles

2005-12-02T13:52:00.000-05:00

According to this Reuters report, Russia has concluded a deal to sell a billion dollars' worth of surface-to-air-missiles and other modern weaponry and technology to Iran.

Russia plans to sell more than $1 billion worth of tactical surface-to-air missiles and other defense hardware to Iran, media reported on Friday.

Moscow is already at odds with the West over its nuclear ties with Tehran but has sought to use its warm relations with Iran to be recognized as a key mediator between the West and the Islamic Republic.

It is difficult to see how Russia can position itself as a “mediator” between Iran and the west when it is selling Iran missiles which have only one obvious purpose: to attack US (or Israeli) warplanes seeking to knock out Iran’s nuclear program before they start building bombs.

According to Russian sources, this isn’t a proposed deal which might yet be prevented, the deal has already been concluded.

The Vedomosti business daily cited military sources as saying Iran would buy 29 TOR-M1 systems designed to bring down aircraft and guided missiles at low altitudes.

The paper, calling it the biggest sale of Russian defense hardware to Iran for about five years, said Moscow and Tehran had already signed the contract.

Interfax news agency separately quoted a source as saying the deal, which would also include modernizing Iran's air force and supplying some patrol boats, was worth more than $1 billion.

Nothing like throwing gasoline on a fire.

The Russians may be forcing Israel to take action. Israel, which surely must feel Iran can absolutely not be permitted to possess nuclear weapons, may end up deciding that they must strike before Russia equips Iran with new generation missiles and a modernized air force.

Some things never change. You can still generally trust the ham-handed Russians to come bumbling in and make a bad situation worse.

Cindy Sheehan victimized by right-wing media!

2005-12-02T10:12:00.000-05:00

Cindy Sheehan, media darling of the “anti-war” movement, is now complaining that she is being unfairly treated by the media.

Sheehan, already exposed as dishonest (“all I want is a meeting” – which of course she’d already had) and a raving anti-semitic (yes, she really said those things, even if the NY Times won’t print it), now reveals just how self-absorbed and self-important her self-centered “movement” is. Editor and Publisher reports that Cindy is upset that the media portrayed her book signing and anti-war rally, attended by maybe 100 people, as a flop:

NEW YORK Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and her book publisher are upset about Associated Press and Reuters photos that allegedly presented a misleading impression of her book signing last weekend in Texas.

Well, no, Cindy, “misleading” is when you imply that your son Casey was “a boy” considering “the priesthood” who was taken advantage of by big bad recruiters who misled him. Casey Sheehan was in fact a twenty-four year old man who made a man’s decision to reenlist while there was a war going on. He made another man’s decision to volunteer for the rescue mission on which he was killed. And Casey Sheehan persisted in that decision to volunteer after reminded that his classification as a mechanic’s helper made him exempt.

Cindy’s apparent inability to distinguish fact from fiction allows her to believe that a rally and book signing attended by 100 people or fewer is a big event. And her peculiar view of reality seems to have rubbed off on the publisher, who thinks the event was a “huge success”

The Washington Post, which carried Evan Vucci's AP photo, noted that at a protest the same day Sheehan had addressed a crowd of only about 100. “In the morning,” the Post observed, “Sheehan signed copies of her new book, being published this week, for an even smaller crowd,” although it cited bad weather as a possible factor.

But in a statement today, Sheehan accused “right-wing” sites of “spreading a false story that nobody bought my book at Camp Casey on Saturday. That is not true, I sold all 100 copies and got writer's cramp signing them. Photos were taken of me before the people got in line to have me sign the book. We made $2000 for the peace house.”

Her publisher, Arnie Kotler at Koa Books, meanwhile released a letter to her supporters, charging that “AP and Reuters posted photos - I can't imagine why - of Cindy sitting at the book table between signings, rather than while someone was at the table. And now the smear websites are circulating an article, with these photos, that Cindy gave a signing and nobody came. It's simply not true…. the benefit books signing in Crawford, Texas on November 26, 2005 was well attended and a huge success.”

AP photographer Evan Vucci responded that he was at the book signing from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., that at the time the pictures were taken, about five people had been in, and a few small groups continued to arrive later.

Peres quits Labour, will work for Sharon's new Kadima party

2005-11-30T13:40:00.000-05:00

The BBC is reporting that Shimon Peres, a long-time leader in Israeli politics, has quit the Labour Party to back Ariel Sharon and his newly-formed Kadima party:

Veteran Israeli politician Shimon Peres has quit the Labour Party and announced his support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for March's general election.

***
"My period of service within the [Labour] party has come to an end," he told a press conference in Tel Aviv.

"His [Sharon's] mind is set to continue the peace process and he is open to new ideas for peace. I support his election to seek these aims."

Prime Minister Sharon founded the centrist Kadima party earlier this month, redrawing at a stroke the entire political landscape. Several opinion polls in Israeli newspapers have suggested that Kadima, the Hebrew word for "forward", could win next year's election.

Metamorphosis

2005-11-28T10:23:00.000-05:00

Throughout his reign of terror, Saddam Hussein labored mightily to convince everyone – the people of Iraq, neighboring countries, the world community and potential adversaries, both foreign and domestic – that he was the all-powerful, all-knowing ruler of Iraq.

Like Stalin, he wanted one and all to believe that he knew everything that happened, that his agents were everywhere, that nothing happened in Iraq without his knowledge and approval. Like Stalin, he made sure that people, sometimes whole families, disappeared without trace or reason often enough to convince everyone else that even thinking thoughts of which Saddam would not approve could get you “disappeared” to one of his prisons or mass graves.

And when things happened without his approval, an assassination attempt here, a little rebellion there, he became the merciless and all-powerful engine of vengeance, executing the entire families of those suspected of involvement, destroying the orchards and fields of entire villages suspected of being the homes of those suspected of being involved. Sometimes even destroying entire villages and killing all the inhabitants, using such means as poison gas and mass execution.

He embarked on a pattern of forced relocation according to ethnic or religious background. You lived where you were told you could live. You lived the way you were told you could live. And you lived in fear that someone, anyone, might denounce you as insufficiently reverent toward the all-knowing, all-powerful Saddam. Whether it was true or not made no difference. And so even if you followed all the rules, you lived in fear of Saddam.

Which was just what he wanted.

But watch now, as the trial of Saddam unfolds, and behold! A startling metamorphosis will occur. Aided and abetted by a virulently, unreasonably, and incredibly stupid anti-Bush press, Saddam will be transformed before your very eyes into a victim, a lovable and well-meaning benevolent dictator who was ignorant of the terrible goings-on around him. Who had no knowledge of the atrocities carried out in his name by evil underlings who deceived him and hid the awful truth from him.

The underlings, confronted by incontrovertible proof of their involvement in vast and incomprehensible atrocities (which will receive scant coverage from a world media busy with its search for another picture of some guy in US custody wearing underwear on his head) will claim they were just following orders. Saddam will of course deny ever having given the orders. And blame will be laid at the feet of a group of Saddamite functionaries now conveniently dead. These dead monsters will become the scapegoats, the evil ones who victimized both the Iraqi people and their beloved and benevolent leader.

Never mind the fact that the world knows well that any subordinate functionaries who sneezed without Saddam's OK died (or disappeared) years ago.

Just watch as the coverage unfolds. The media focus will not be where it should be, on the unspeakable horrors inflicted by the monstrous Saddam Hussein and his evil henchmen. It will be on Saddam, the victim. First victimized by those evil and deceitful henchmen, now victimized by the evil and deceitful US and its Iraqi puppets.

Someone call me if the mainstream media ever decides to actually report news again instead of churning out propaganda in support of its one-world socialist agenda. That is a metamorphosis I’d like to see.

No jail time for child-molesting Florida teacher

2005-11-22T13:23:00.000-05:00

Fox News is reporting that a 25 year old teacher who repeatedly had sex with a 14 year old student has entered into a plea-bargain which provides for no jail time:

TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida teacher charged with having sex with a minor pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of lewd and lascivious behavior as part of a plea deal that does not include any jail time.

The deal provides that Greco Middle School teacher Debra Lafave, 25, will not serve one day in jail in connection with multiple sex acts with a 14-year-old student unless she violates the terms of the plea agreement, which includes three years of house arrest and seven years' probation.

Can someone please point me to the most recent case in which a male 25 year old teacher repeatedly had sex with a female 14 year old student and did not serve a single day incarcerated?

This woman is a child molester, and if the genders were reversed she would be so labeled and treated accordingly.

A Thanksgiving Story

2005-11-22T10:01:00.000-05:00

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to "clean up" the bird's vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. John, in desperation, threw up his hands, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.

Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer.

The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior."

John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, "May I ask what the turkey did?"

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

"Worst economy since the Great Depression" trickles down

2005-11-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

USA Today is reporting on the effect, at the state level, of the Bush economy:

New Hampshire's Legislature is famous for its frugality, a habit that lets the state operate without a sales or income tax. But this week, the Republican-controlled Legislature met in special session to spend a little money: $10 million to help poor people pay heating bills and $3.5 million for electric bills. That's what an $82 million surplus lets legislators do.

"Our revenues are far enough ahead of projections that we don't have to cut anything and can spend a little when emergencies come up — like high heating oil prices," says Republican state Rep. Norman Major, who heads the Ways and Means Committee.

State and local governments are enjoying their strongest revenue growth in 15 years, giving legislatures the power to spend billions without raising tax rates.

This, of course, is the “worst economy since the depression” that the left keeps harping on. Let’s see, where is all this additional revenue coming from? Why, from the same place as the increase in federal revenues that has cut almost 23% from the federal deficit from 2004 to 2005…the economic expansion that has resulted from the Bush tax cuts.

Everybody since Julius Caesar, at least, everybody who is smarter than my toaster, has understood that cutting taxes results in economic expansion which results in increased tax revenues from lower tax rates. Don’t expect to hear any of this on your tv newscast though, because it certainly doesn’t mesh very well with the left’s “terrible horrible no good economy” blather, or the “tax cuts for the rich” mantra.

Want to see a liberal’s head explode? Ask him/her/it if tax cuts are evil, why did John Kennedy advocate cutting taxes? Ask them if they can tell you how many million lower income working folks have been removed from the tax rolls completely by the Bush tax cut structure. Ask them if they’re aware of the fact that the wealthy pay a higher percentage of the total taxes paid now than they did before the tax cuts. On second thought, don’t bother. Their heads may spin around or explode, which is fun to see, but you won’t change any minds. They already know what they think, and there is no point in confusing them with actual facts and figures.

So where is this money going to go?

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, chairman of the National Governors Association, says that replenishing rainy-day funds that states tapped heavily during an economic downturn in 2001 and 2002 will be a priority. "A lot of governors are nervous, even with the surpluses, because nobody wants to go back and make big cuts in education and Medicaid that we saw during tough times," he says.

Some early spending plans:

•Education. New Mexico will give teachers 6% pay hikes. Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, a Republican, wants to increase spending per pupil 8.7% to $5,347. California may be required to spend billions more on schools and after-school programs voters approved.

•Medicaid. States have started again to expand eligibility in health care programs for the poor. Illinois will offer subsidized health coverage to all 243,000 uninsured children in the state, regardless of family income.

•Pension plans. Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia and Tennessee will consider putting part of their surpluses into pensions for civil servants. Many states have underfunded pension plans that, if not fixed, will cost taxpayers large amounts in 20 years.

But remember, 2006 is an election year. So watch and see which state legislatures maintain a rational approach, and which engage in an orgy of vote-buying spending projects and pork-barrel boondoggles.

It's only "lying" if you're a Republican

2005-11-18T11:30:00.000-05:00

The Stanford Review has one of the most egregious examples of Democrats spinning their previous positions on Iraq that I’ve yet seen. Senator Jay Rockefeller trying to explain that he didn’t really say what he actually said, and anyway, he didn’t mean what he said, and anyway, he had bad information, and besides that blah blah blah…

WALLACE: Senator Rockefeller, the President says that Democratic critics, like you, looked at pre-war intelligence and came to the same conclusion that he did. In fact, looking back at the speech that you gave in October of 2002 in which you authorized the use of force, you went further than the President ever did. Let's watch. SEN. ROCKEFELLER (October 10, 2002): "I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11th, that question is increasingly outdated."

WALLACE: Now, the President never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn't it Jay Rockefeller?

After a little more semantic gymnastics and tangentially related BS wherein Rockefeller refuses to accept responsibility for his clearly defined position on Iraq in 2002, we get this remarkable exchange, possibly the ultimate in denial of reality:

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: Chris, there's always the same conversation. You know it was not the Congress that sent 135,000 or 150,000 troops.

WALLACE: But you voted, sir, and aren't you responsible for your vote?

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No.

There you have it boys and girls. The ultimate in nanny-stater denial of the role of personal responsibility.

Obviously, Karl Rove’s evil mind-control ray was operating at full power, causing Senator Rockefeller to say things he never would have said of his own free will, and can’t be held accountable for now.

Rockefeller, of course, went on to say that he relied on bad intelligence…which Wallace had already pointed out was the same as, or possibly even more detailed than, what the President presented to congress.

So here's the question for Senator Rockefeller: if you were relying on intelligence which turned out to be flawed, doesn't that make you a LIAR? Doesn't that mean "Rockefeller lied, people died"? Oh, sorry, I forgot...we have to apply that leftist double-standard here.

You know, that media double standard that means acting on the information you have available is only lying if you're a Republican.

The same double standard that makes CBS a victim in the National Guard memo fraud, hoodwinked by segment producers Mary Mapes, rather than a willing participant, ratifying the actions of Managing Editor Dan Rather.

"Great Lakes Triangle" strikes again

2005-11-15T15:39:00.000-05:00

Some of you may not know it, but there is a "Great Lakes Triangle" into which more planes and boats have disappeared than the famed "Bermuda Triangle". And according to this report, it has happened again:

MARBLEHEAD, Ohio -- The U.S. Coast Guard is helping to search for a missing barge on Lake Erie Tuesday.

The garbage barge was being towed by a tugboat when it came lose somewhere between Sandusky and Cleveland.

The crew does not know where it was lost. The tug Kurt R. Luedtke backtracked its original path, did not locate the barge. A Coast Guard Station Marblehead 47-foot utility boat is assisting the tug to find the garbage barge.

Ummmmmmmm...OK.........how do you "lose" a barge that you're towing, and not have any idea when it happened? Doesn't somebody look back there once in a while to make sure what you're towing is still following you?

Ohio: "progressive reforms" defeated

2005-11-09T09:37:00.000-05:00

Four major ballot issues failed in Ohio yesterday, providing an indication that there is no "Democratic" or leftward groundswell at the grassroots level in this state.

Like most "progressive reforms", the four ballot issues in Ohio were aimed at "taking the politics out of politics". Funded largely by out-of-state organizations (MoveOn, for example) and big labor, the measures would have put the redrawing of electoral districts and the management of elections in Ohio into the hands of non-elected committees of appointed members (retired judges, party hacks, depending on the specific proposal), allowed unrestricted advance absentee voting and imposed further campaign finance restrictions.

The problem with all such measures is that, while "taking the politics out of the process" of drawing electoral districts, running elections, etc. might initially sound like a good idea, it in effect tries to remove the functions of government from elected officials. Power then becomes concentrated in the hands of bureaucrats who are answerable to NOBODY, including the voters.

Trying to take the politics out of what are political functions is ultimately counterproductive. Elections are supposed to have consequences. We are supposed toget the government we elect, and be able to throw them out if we aren't happy.

Oh, one last thing... take a closer look at the four Ohio ballot issues. Clearly, the real intent wasn't "reform", it was to try and make it possible to STEAL elections in Ohio, as was done in the Washington governor's race and the Presidential election in Wisconsin in 2004.

Why did Kerry lose in places like Ohio and Missouri? One reason is that, unlike the masses living in the anthills of the big cities, folks spread out across the midwest seem to have a sort of internal "BS meter". They generally seem to know when they're being hoodwinked. Those meters were buzzing yesterday, like they did every time Kerry pretended to go goose hunting or compared the economic situation to the Great Depression. Or tried to explain for the fifteenth time why he didn't really mean what he said any of the last fourteeen times on any given issue, or told yet another version of the "Christmas in Cambodia" fable.

Public schools sponsor anti-US "field trip"

2005-11-05T07:37:00.000-05:00

Posting at BabbleFest, J.P Jones reports on a school-sponsored trip to an anti-US anti-Bush hatefest:

From Neil Boortz' website:

If you are sending your child to a government school for their daily programming, chances are overwhelming that your bundle of joy is going to wind up becoming a liberal Democrat. Today, courtesy of The Los Angeles Unified School District, we're going to show you how it's done.

There was a Bush-bashing rally being held in Los Angeles the other day. It was called "The World Can't Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime." Eager for as many people to attend as possible, the school district allowed 800 high school students from 10 schools to walk right out of class to attend. No word if they were given extra credit for their participation.

On top of that, adult staff were supplied to accompany them, and buses were provided for their return. That's right...taxpayer money being spent for the whole thing. Now stop and ask yourself something for a minute...suppose an anti-Hillary Clinton rally were being held. Would the same courtesy be extended? Of course not. The students wouldn't even be given the time of day to attend.

But because it was an event protesting the evil George Bush....the liberal, leftist, bedwetting school administration jumped right on board. Those who send their children off to be indoctrinated in government schools should take note.

Through the wonder of modern technology which is the internet, we don't have to guess at what went on at this school-sponsored day trip.

Courtesy of Little Green Footballs, we have available a photographic sampling of the fine educational fare made available to the kiddies at taxpayer expense, compiled and published by the seemingly ever-present Zombie. Check out the photo gallery for yourself, and watch for the three main themes: Communism is the world's salvation, 9/11 was perpetrated by the US government, and, of course, President Bush is evil/retarded/Hitler/a chimp.

Remember, some school administrators decided this was a wise expenditure of taxpayers' dollars. Do you know what they're doing in your kids' schools? Maybe you better find out.

BBC now casting Muslim riots as "oppressed poor" lashing out

2005-11-03T22:09:00.000-05:00

Apparently, the MSM ignored the Muslim riots in Europe until they could figure out how to spin it so it fits the agenda. Last post, we told you Reuters was spinning the Islamist uprising as "class warfare". Now the BBC follows suit with this report, which describes the escalating, and spreading, violence in terms of "poor immigrant" neighborhoods, never mentioning the word "muslim" until the closing paragraphs:

In scenes of escalating unrest overnight on Wednesday, shots were fired at police and firefighters, while gangs besieged a police station, set fire to a car showroom and threw petrol bombs. At least 177 cars were also set alight.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who earlier met the dead teenagers' families, said the violence was "not spontaneous" but rather "well organised".

He said the government would not allow "troublemakers, a bunch of hoodlums, think they can do whatever they want".

On Thursday afternoon, Mr de Villepin held talks with Mr Sarkozy, other ministers, as well as MPs and mayors from affected towns.

The areas affected are poor, largely immigrant communities with high levels of unemployment.
Minister for Social Cohesion Jean-Louis Borloo said the government had to react "firmly", but added that France must also acknowledge its failure to deal with anger simmering in poor suburbs for decades.

Muslim leaders have urged politicians to show respect for immigrant communities.

Dalil Boubakeur, the head of the French Council for the Muslim Religion, said people in the suburbs "must be given the conditions to live with dignity as human beings", not in "disgraceful squats".

There you have it. Muslims who have refused to assimilate and remained cloistered in their own self-contained communities, hamstrung by the backward cultural blindness of their Islamic societies, figures France needs to "show them respect" and "give them" the "conditions to live with dignity."

This is what happens when a socialist state with a stagnant economy creates the impression that it will "provide" for everyone, and then allows mass immigration of people who are not the least bit interested in assimilation. What you get is a large population of unemployed and largely unemployable foreigners living within your borders demanding that you support them in their separate society.

My hunch is that this is organized violence intented to intimidate France and the French. We'll see what comes of it.

I wonder what will happen when the UN wants us to provide troops to protect the Muslim population in a European nation that wakes up and realizes it's being overrun by foreigners who have every intention of making that country their own, and decides to do something about it.

Reuters spins French muslim riots as "class warfare"

2005-11-03T09:57:00.000-05:00

Betraying an astonishingly socialist orientation, Reuters reports on the most recent night of riots in French muslim communities without ever once using the word "muslim", instead explaining the violence as entirely a matter of the oppressed poor of Paris lashing out over social injustice:

Rioters shot at police and fire fighter crews in the worst night of a week of violence in poor suburbs that ring Paris, as France's conservative government struggled to quell the unrest.

Youths who rampaged on Wednesday night left a trail of burned cars, buses and shops in nine suburbs north and east of Paris, home to North African and black African minorities frustrated at their failure to get jobs or recognition in French society.

An oblique reference to violence, crime and rioting elsewhere in Europe also makes no mention of the fact that the rioters are muslims, and that the riots in Denmark are clearly attributed, by the rioters, to offenses against "the prophet", such as pictures published in a newspaper.

The pictures published were simply pictures of Mohammad, not in any way demeaning or offensive. But Islamic law forbids depicting him visually, and muslims throughout Europe have embarked on a course of intimidating Europeans into observing muslim norms, getting Pooh's pal Piglet and piggy banks banned in Britain by making workplace complaints.

The Danish newspaper, which has since hired security guards and received numerous threats, solicited and ran the pictures after having an author complain that artists were afraid to illustrate his work for fear of muslim retribution.

Anyone who doesn't believe that Islam has embarked upon a new age of conquest, aimed at subjugating the world to an Islamic way of life, has his head in the sand. Or perhaps somewhere else where the sun doesn't shine.

Over at CUANAS, they've taken the position that the European Muslim riots are being organized and orchestrated by a central entity. Visit that site for an intriguing series of posts on the topic.

"Worst economy since depression" keeps humming along

2005-11-03T03:10:00.000-05:00

Surely you remember the Kerry mantra from the 2004 campaign... "worst economy since the great depression, worst economy since the great depression..."

It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now. Despite major natural disasters and rising fuel costs, the Bush economy just keeps rolling along, as this USA Today report shows:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The economy shook off headwinds from hurricanes Katrina and Rita to grow at a faster-than-expected 3.8% annual rate in the third quarter, a Commerce Department report showed Friday.

Strong spending by consumers and the government helped power the expansion as growth in gross domestic product — the measure of all goods and services produced within U.S. borders — accelerated from the second quarter's 3.3% rate.

Economists had forecast GDP would advance at a 3.6% rate in the July-to-September quarter. The economy has now expanded faster than 3% for 10 straight quarters.

In its first snapshot of third-quarter growth, the Commerce Department said it could not separate the economic effects of the twin hurricanes that struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August and September, though it said incomes likely suffered a $40-billion blow from lost wages and rents.

Third-quarter GDP growth would have been more robust if the storms had not placed some drag on incomes.

Despite surging prices at the gasoline pump, the report showed so-called core inflation, which excludes food and energy, declined in the third quarter. A price gauge favored by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan — personal consumption expenditures excluding food and energy — increased at a 1.3% annual rate compared with 1.7% in the second quarter. That marks the mildest rate of core price rises since the second quarter of 2003.

Rioting Muslims in Denmark: "this is our area"

2005-11-02T15:14:00.000-05:00

Unless you live in a cave, by now you've heard about the muslim riots which, after several days, appear to be spreading in France and are finally being reported in the MSM.

But in Denmark, where muslims issued death threats after a newspaper published artists' drawings of Mohammad, rioting has gone on virtually unnoticed for days. Viking Observer has the story:

He calls himself 100 percent Palestinian, born in a refugee camp in Lebanon 19 years ago, and now out of work in Denmark.

"The police has to stay away. This is our area. We decide what goes down here".

And then the bit with the drawings of the prophet Muhammed comes around:

We are tired of what we see happening with our prophet. We are tired of Jyllands-Posten. I know it isnt you, but we wont accept what Jyllands-Posten has done to the prophet", he says aggressively, and the others nod approvingly.

Planned for three weeks

To of them are Turks, and it is the first time, that Turks and Palestinians act together, the 19-year-old says.

"We have planned this for three weeks. That is why only two were arrested saturday nigh. The police will cordon off it all. But we know the ways out", he claims, and then disappears, munching on a piece of pizza from Fun Pizza.

This is essentially the palestinian theory of statehood moving into Europe: regardless of lawful authority, the muslim population will do as it pleases, and expressing yourself with violence and destruction is just "their culture". And anyone who is not one of them had better steer clear, or suffer the consequences.

Eventually, with enough bloodshed, enough violence, enough intimidation, enough collusion from leftists who support your "struggle against oppression", it really will become "your area".

All justified in the name of Islam.

Michael Moore owns 2,000 shares of Halliburton stock

2005-11-02T09:44:00.000-05:00

This piece from WorldNet Daily, profiling (and, truthfully, promoting) a book by author Peter Schweitzer, is revealing.

"I don't own a single share of stock!" filmmaker Michael Moore proudly proclaimed.

He's right. He doesn't own a single share. He owns tens of thousands of shares – including nearly 2,000 shares of Boeing, nearly 1,000 of Sonoco, more than 4,000 of Best Foods, more than 3,000 of Eli Lilly, more than 8,000 of Bank One and more than 2,000 of Halliburton, the company most vilified by Moore in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

If you want to see Moore's own signed Schedule D declaring his capital gains and losses where his stock ownership is listed, it's emblazoned on the cover of Peter Schweizer's new book, "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy."

And it's just one of the startling revelations by Schweizer, famous for his previous works, "Reagan's War" and "The Bushes."

Other examples:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who proclaims her support for unions, yet the luxury resort, the vineyard and the restaurants she partly owns are strictly non-union. While she advocates tough new laws enforcing environmental regulations on the private sector, the exclusive country club she partly owns failed to comply with existing environmental regulations for the past eight years – including a failure to protect endangered species.

Noam Chomsky has made a reputation for calling America a police state and branding the Pentagon "the most hideous institution on earth," yet his entire academic career, writes Schweizer, has been subsidized by the U.S. military.

Barbra Streisand is another proponent of environmentalism, yet she drives an SUV, lives in a mansion and has a $22,000 annual water bill. In the past, she has driven to appointments in Beverly Hills in a motor home because of her aversion to using public bathrooms.

Ralph Nader plays the role of the citizen avenger – the populist uninterested in wealth and materialism, pretending to live in a modest apartment. In fact, he lives in fancy homes registered in the names of his siblings.

Schweitzer's point is to expose the rank and pervasive hypocrisy of the so-called "liberals" who want to have the government tell everyone else how they can live, and who take advantage of living in the US to bash the US at every opportunity. It's not too hard to find such examples. For instance, Teddy Kennedy's going out and getting his nephew's avowedly "green" law firm to fight the creation of a wind power generating system off Martha's Vineyard. Although the turbines would be barely visible on the horizon, Teddy doesn't want something so unimportant as the environmentally friendly generation of electricity to interfere with his seaside views...or, I guess, his property value.

McCain attaches "detainees' rights" amendment to military spending bill

2005-10-29T00:32:00.000-05:00

The McCain Amendment -- SA 1977 -- says the following..."No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."

I'm posting this language so you can evaluate it for yourself. Some will no doubt see it as a "terrorists' bill of rights" being enacted as US law. Others will see it as necessary human rights protection.

I have two questions: does this mean anyone detained by any US agency for any reason for any period of time anywhere in the world automatically, as a matter of US law, becomes entitled to access to the federal courts, which will necessarily then entitle them to an appointed lawyer and full Constitutional Due Process?

Probably so. Certainly, many federal courts would so construe it.

Second question, what is "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment or punishment? Is the standard subjective or objective? "Good cop bad cop"? Solitary confinement? Confinement in a coed facility? Confinement without a prayer rug or a Koran? Confinement without your headscarf? Without your prayer beads or magic crystals? Having your Koran touched by a non-muslim not wearing gloves? Britain has seen bans of piggy banks and Winnie the Pooh's pal piglet because muslims find them offensive. Would detention within earshot of pigs, or the smell of a kitchen where pork is being prepared be "degrading"? How about being served meals from a kitchen where pork is cooked? How about not being fed your preferred diet? How about not allowing animal sacrifices to someone whose religion does that sort of thing?

Think some of these are ridiculous? They're all actual complaints, either by muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay, or from lawsuits filed by prison inmates in the US.

The language of this provision is so broad that it essentially has the effect of guaranteeing US Constitutional Due Process rights to anyone stopped at a US military checkpoint anywhere in the world. In any house search in any combat zone anywhere in the world, US military personnel would be subject to these requirements. Ridiculous? This would become a federal statute applicable to any person anywhere "in the custody or under the physical control" of US soldiers. Persons at a checkpoint or in a house being searched would be "under physical control" of the soldiers.

The following links are furnished by the Center for Individual Freedom, with which I have no connection, for the purpose of contacting President Bush and the members of the Senate Conference Committee to object to this amendment. Use the links at your own discretion, I make no representation regarding them. You might also consider contacting your own Senators and House representative directly.

http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/terrornmii.html

AOL Members Use This Hyperlink

Iraq's Constitutional Referendum: some interesting numbers

2005-10-28T23:53:00.000-05:00

This Washington Times piece reflects the political progress being made in Iraq:

Nearly 70 percent of Iraqis voted in this month's constitutional referendum. The Bush administration and Iraq allies consider it a success. Here are some statistics that might explain why, compared with January's elections for the interim government.

• Polling centers: 6,235 vs. 5,677
• Poll workers: 171,000 vs. 102,000
• Applications to be poll workers: 450,000 vs. 110,000
• In violence-ridden al Anbar Province: 171 polling places vs. 33

The refusal of the MSM to rationally discuss and honestly report events in Iraq is appalling. The progress made in 2 1/2 years, measured by any objective standard, is astonishing.

The Miers nomination: the right was wrong

2005-10-27T14:32:00.000-05:00

yeah, I heard. I have a different take on that than most "conservatives"...I'd rather have Bush pick someone he's pretty confident he knows, as opposed to a) another "Souter" off a list who looks qualified and seems to lean "conservative" or b) a bona-fide well-documented right-wing ideologue who will not be confirmed anyway. "Conservatives" like to forget that the Republican Senate majority includes social moderates and liberals who are not going to support an obvious hard right-winger.

I have a real problem with the way "conservatives" have acted on this. Many of them have made it quite clear, while laboring mightily to make it appear otherwise, that what they really want is a right-wing ideologue, a conservative judicial activist. I'm a strict constructionist, and no more interested in having "conservative activists" than "liberal activists". I'm for a "judicial self-restraintist". I liked Rehnquist, who tried, with varying degrees of success, to push the Court back to a more "federalist" and less "nationalist" orientation.

I also think the right has done exactly what they've been complaining about, bitterly and justifiably, for years. Just like the left, they now think they should insist on an "ideologically" acceptable candidate, with a "paper trail" made available for inspection. Sorry, that's what the left has been doing to block judicial appointments, it's wrong for them and it's just as wrong for the right.

I think the hard right is becoming as detached from reality as the hard left.

First, there is no massive voting group called "conservatives" that "elected" George Bush. Bush, in both 2000 and 2004, in places like Ohio and Florida, Arkansas and Missouri, pulled an awful lot of votes from Reagan Democrats - these voters are neither anti-abortion nor libertarians, they're very much middle-of-the-road on balance (and many are, on "social" issues, a bit left-of center).

"Conservatives" didn't elect Bush, but they came darn close to electing Gore by not bothering to vote, or wasting a vote on Buchanan, in 2000.

Second, the "conservative" label is being applied as if it refers to a monolithic block of right-of center voters. In fact, there are two much smaller blocks of "conservatives" - religious conservatives and personal liberty conservatives (and a large block of “sort of” conservatives). Their interests are not only not always identical they are sometimes diametrically opposed. The recent Supreme Court case on assisted suicide is a perfect example. "Liberty" conservatives will see it as a states' rights issue, the federal government should butt out. Religious conservatives see it as a "respect for life" issue, and think the federal government should prohibit the practice.

The right-wing blather about her "not being qualified" was a smokescreen to try to avoid coming out and admitting they want a demonstrated ideologue. These are, after all, the same folks who piously insist that what they want is strict construction of the letter of the Constitution. The Constitutional qualifications for the Supreme Court are...absolutely none. No previous judicial experience, no legal professional... nothing. The idea wasn't to appoint "great legal scholars", it was to appoint people with common sense and good judgment, as determined by the President.

While many of the Founders were lawyers by education (if not really by trade...most were career politicians) most had little or no use for the long-tenured legalistic pseudo-scholar judges of the British court system. Remember, at that time equity jurisdiction was still maintained strictly separately from legal jurisdiction, the law courts and processes having been rendered so technical and hair-splittingly "scholarly" as to be useless for most purposes. I have a hunch the Founders would see our overly academic and legalistic federal judiciary in much the same way.

Miers was obviously no idiot. And as for not being a Constitutional "scholar", just once I'd like someone like her to sit at the "deliberations" table and say, to all those “constitutional scholars” , something like "I'm sorry, but where does it SAY THAT in the Constitution?"

The "qualification" issue is a non-starter. She was at least as qualified as Rehnquist or the 1/2 of the last 100 nominees who had no judicial experience. And surely as "qualified" as another guy criticized as "mediocre" who got the nomination through "cronyism". That guy was John Marshall, and heck, he turned out OK.

Well...that's surely more of a response than you were expecting!

[sent as an e-mail in response to an e-mail asking if I’d heard Miers withdrew]

Senate operating in full stupid mode

2005-10-22T01:10:00.000-05:00

Last post, I noted hopeful signs of congressional intelligence. Unfortunately, the rational interlude was short-lived.

The Senate voted 82-15 to table the Coburn amendment. The Coburn amendment was the provision that would have reallocated $223 million in pork spending for Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" to Katrina reconstruction. If you're not familiar with the issue, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (R-Ak), possibly the world's champion pork collector, secured total funding of $320 million federal dollars to build a bridge to an island off Alaska with 50 inhabitants. The island has ferry service. For a pretty good, detailed piece on this ridiculous bridge project, look here.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-Ok) proposed to reallocate that money to Katrina reconstruction, and specifically to bridge reconstruction.

Senator Patty Murray (D-Wa) actually said during debate that for anyone voting for the amendment, "we on the Appropriations Committee will take a 'long, hard look' at any projects in your state."

Nice, huh? The Senate Appropriations committee is apparently now operating a protection racket to insure the continued ability of US Senators to spend vast amounts of tax dollars on stupid, wasteful projects.

Didn't these 50 people notice it was an island before they moved there? Didn't the ferry ride to look at the property clue them in? Do they really have any right to expect the taxpayers of the United States to spend around FIVE MILLION DOLLARS per person to furnish them with a bridge?

Unfortunately, this idiotic expenditure is not unique, and it is nothing new. And apparently, this kind of crap is going to continue.

"Damn the taxpayers, full speed ahead."

Congress shows signs of intelligent life

2005-10-20T11:33:00.000-05:00

In passing H.R. 3971, the US Congress is showing signs of actually being inhabited by intelligent life:

The Senate on Wednesday passed without debate and sent to the president legislation that ends Medicare and Medicaid payments for erectile dysfunction drugs as part of a package that extends medical help for the poor and provides unemployment benefit aid to states hit by Hurricane Katrina.

"This legislation extends very important benefits for people who live on the edge of poverty," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

"And the provision included to offset the cost of these programs recognizes that taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for certain lifestyle prescription drugs through Medicare and Medicaid."
The measure ends federal Medicaid payments for erectile dysfunction drugs as of Jan. 1, 2006. Medicare payments for such drugs will be terminated Jan. 1, 2007.

Two important things here: first, ending the federal subsidies for viagra, et al. Sorry, but I don’t believe the federal government (that means you and me, the taxpayers) need to finance recreational drugs of ANY kind for anybody, any more than it (we) should pay for things like breast enlargements or body piercings.

Second, the bill embraces the notion of offset spending: if we’re going to furnish this that or the other aid to hurricane victims, we need to offset that by cutting spending on something else. (I’ll leave for another day the discussion of how much and what kind of aid we should be furnishing to hurricane victims.)

Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., who sponsored the original House bill, said the government could save $690 million over five years by stopping federal subsidies for sexual performance drugs.

The savings will allow the government to extend for two years the Qualified Individual program that helps low-income families with their Medicare Part B premiums. It extends for three months a temporary medical assistance program that helps families make the transition from welfare to work.

Now the bad news: the spending bill spends a heck of a lot more than it saves, even with the concept of offset spending being embraced:

Deal said the legislation also would provide $500 million in federal unemployment funds to hurricane-affected states to help them pay benefits to out-of-work people: $400 million to Louisiana, $85 million to Mississippi and $15 million to Alabama.

States will still be able to furnish ED drugs to the poor based on a finding of medical necessity, but won’t get federal matching funds for such Medicaid expenditures.

And here’s a further side benefit of this piece of legislation: no more free ED drugs for sex offenders:

A survey by The Associated Press earlier this year showed nearly 800 convicted sex offenders in 14 states received erectile dysfunction drugs filled by Medicaid.

Here’s hoping this is just the tip of the iceberg, with more common-sense legislation to follow.

China plans spacewalk, lunar exploration

2005-10-18T10:56:00.000-05:00

Following the successful completion of China’s second manned space flight, Chinese plans for space exploration appear to be running full speed ahead, with an ambitious agenda including spacewalks, lunar landers and orbiters, and a possible manned base on the moon, as reported by CNN:

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China hopes to conduct a spacewalk in 2007 and might recruit women into its next group of astronaut candidates, a senior space program official said Monday following the safe completion of the nation's second manned mission.

The Shenzhou 6 flight ended the first stage of China's plan, which focused on development of space vehicles, said Tang Xianming, director of the China Space Engineering Office.

The next stage focuses on developing ways for astronauts to walk in space and the ability to rendezvous and dock with other spacecraft, he said
.
"Our estimate is that around 2007 we will be able to achieve extravehicular activity by our astronauts and they will walk in space," he said at a news conference.

Those who dismiss the Chinese space program as simply doing what’s already been done, thirty years ago, by the Americans and Soviets, are missing the point. Japan and a European consortium have failed in efforts aimed at manned flight, largely abandoning those plans, although Japan still occasionally seems interested. Likewise, those who dismiss the Chinese efforts as little more than “buying” space travel vehicles and equipment from the Soviets are underestimating Chinese technology.

True, the Chinese are not doing anything that hasn’t been done before, but the fact is, no space mission, especially a manned mission, is a small accomplishment. And the Chinese program is obviously gaining confidence. This mission was far more complicated, and sophisticated, than the first Chinese manned flight in 2003.

Shenzhou 6 flew 2 million miles in 115 hours and 32 minutes in space, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The mission was far longer and more complex than the 2003 flight, when astronaut Yang Liwei orbited for 211/2 hours.

The Shenzhou 6 mission demonstrates that "China has grasped the core technology of manned space engineering and shows that China can independently solve high-technology problems and has earned a seat in the upper echelons of the world's science and technology fields," Tang said.

The Shenzhou 6 is a modified version of Russia's Soyuz capsule. China also bought Russian technology for spacesuits, life-support systems and other equipment. But space officials say all the items launched into orbit were Chinese-made.

The government already has announced plans to land an unmanned probe on the moon by 2010 and eventually send up an orbiting laboratory.

China said last year it would launch a moon-orbiting satellite in 2006. The 2-ton Chang'e satellite would orbit at least a year and record three-dimensional images of the lunar surface.

The lunar program -- named Chang'e after a legendary Chinese goddess who flew to the moon -- includes plans to land a vehicle by 2020 that would collect soil samples and conduct other tests, possibly in preparation for a manned moon base.

China clearly now has the ability, and apparently, the will, to become a third player in the outer space arena. To what end this ability may be directed is still anybody’s guess. But NASA and the US might want to consider this a wake-up call. Because of the pioneering efforts of the US and the Soviet Union, along with rapidly advancing technology, space, reachable only by science fiction writers fifty years ago, may get to be a pretty crowded place in the next fifty years.

(The photo reproduced above accompanied the CNN article linked in the post)

2005 deficit down over 22%, better than Europe and Japan

2005-10-17T23:13:00.000-05:00

USA Today reports on the federal government’s deficit figures for the 2005 fiscal year, which ended September 30. As I have previously reported, increased tax revenues resulting from the tax cut-fueled economic expansion (growth rate at around 4%) has resulted in a huge increase in tax revenues collected by the government.. The result is that the deficit has dropped nearly 23% in one year, leaving the US with a lower deficit rate than western European nations or Japan.

So why do so many on the left and in the mainstream media continue to talk about the economy in negative terms and harp on “skyrocketing” deficits? Because that’s what the agenda calls for, no matter what the actual facts may be.

WASHINGTON — The federal deficit hit $319 billion for the budget year that just ended, down significantly from last year's record red ink, although a surge in Katrina-driven spending promises to drive the shortfall up again.

The improvement from the record $412 billion recorded in the 2004 budget year, which the Treasury Department reported on Friday, is largely due to a surge in federal revenues from an improving economy.

Although the 2005 shortfall was the third-highest ever recorded in absolute terms, White House officials -- and most economists -- say the most important measure of the deficit is its size compared to the economy.

In those terms, the deficit measured 2.6% of gross domestic product. The 2004 deficit, by contrast, equaled 3.6% of GDP. That is well below the post-World War II worst-ever record, a 6% figure set in 1983 under President Reagan.

It is also lower than the government budget deficits for many industrialized countries. Although the European Union officially requires its members to keep deficits at 3% or lower, France, Germany and the United Kingdom currently run government budget deficits exceeding that goal, while Italy's budget deficit tops 4%. Japan's budget deficit averaged almost 6% from 1994 to 2003 and now approaches 7%.

So deficits are not skyrocketing, our deficit compares very favorably with other major industrialized nations, and, best of all, these are real figures for the past year, not imaginary numbers. You would think all this economic good news would be big news, front page news, tv newscast lead story news.

Well, you would think so, if the goal of the news organizations was to actually report news.

UPDATE: Welcome WIZBANGERS, and a big "thanks" to Kevin for the link. Previous posts regarding the increase in tax revenues, decrease in the deficit, and slowdown in the rate of goverment spending in 2005 can be found here and here.

Schroeder refuses to participate in German coalition government

2005-10-12T23:56:00.000-05:00

Just weeks after being narrowly defeated in German national elections, after which he demanded in a televised speech that votes should be recounted, and counted according to different standards, and vowed that his Social Democrats would “never” enter into a coalition government with the victorious Christian Democrats led by Angela Merkel, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced that he would not participate as a cabinet minister in the newly-formed coalition government. Merkel will head that government.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Wednesday he will not participate in Germany's new coalition government, ending seven years in power marked by a newly assertive foreign policy and efforts to prune welfare benefits that were a drag on Europe's biggest economy.

In a speech to a trade union conference in his hometown of Hanover, Schroeder also took swipes at President Bush and Tony Blair, opponents in the debate over the Iraq war.

Schroeder's Social Democrats lost last month's parliamentary elections to conservative Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, and Merkel struck a power-sharing deal Monday to become Germany's first female chancellor.

"I will not belong to the next government, definitely not," Schroeder said in his televised speech.
He thanked union members for their support during his seven years of government and urged the new leadership to push through economic reforms while maintaining the nation's social welfare programs.

It’s no surprise that Schroeder felt the need to take parting shots at Blair and Bush. Like Jacques Chirac in France, Schroeder spent the last several years propping up his largely ineffective government by demonizing the “Anglo-Saxon speaking” countries. The “newly assertive foreign policy” referred to in the news article amounted to little more than the reflexive opposition of every American and British initiative, from the Iraq war to European economic reforms.

France and Germany share the same economic stagnation caused largely by an aging population collecting huge social welfare benefits and a socialist state in which wages and benefits are pricing their workforce out of the international market. Both countries have apparently permanent double-digit unemployment figures and negligible economic growth. Yet both cling to a socialist economic model, placing them at increasing disadvantage in competing with the emerging free market economies of Eastern European democracies like the Czech and Slovak Republics and the ever-more privatized British economy.

In Schroeder’s case, he went to the anti-American well once too often, trying to make the Iran nuclear issue and American economic policy the central issues of the German campaign. But his “I stand up to the Americans” schtick had worn thin with German voters.

Ironically, Schroeder had originally been elected promising economic reforms. But it quickly became apparent that he could accomplish nothing with respect to the bloated socialist welfare economy of Germany, and so in the absence of any other policy he made opposition of Britain in European affairs and America in all things the centerpiece of his administration.

A cynic might be inclined to assume that Schroeder, who appears to be unable to accept that he lost the election, is putting some distance between himself and the coalition government in order to be in a better position to return to power in the future.

For a post describing Schroeder’s bizarre post-election television appearance, and his apparent refusal to accept the election results, go here.

New Orleans: "Toxic Soup" floodwaters not all that toxic, after all

2005-10-12T14:29:00.000-05:00

Another Katrina horror story turns out to be nothing but a myth:

First we learned that state and local officials had no idea what was going on, that Nagin’s “10,000 dead” and the police commisioner’s “43 incidents involving officers taking fire” were nonsense based on nothing in particular.

Then we learned that much of the reporting about the horrific aftermath was nothing more than just reporters reporting rumors reported by other reporters. There were no armed mobs roaming the city, no mass rapes, no bodies stacked like cordwood in the freezer at the convention center.

Now we learn that the “toxic soup” of floodwaters wasn’t really all that toxic after all. In fact, it was pretty much just like any storm water from any other rainstorm in New Orleans. Except, obviously, there was an awful lot of it:

The floodwaters that inundated New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina were not as toxic as some had feared, according to a new study.

Researchers at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge found that the water was similar in content to the city's normal storm water. The findings are published in the online edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

"What we had in New Orleans was basically a year's worth of storm water flowing through the city in only a few days," said study leader John Pardue, director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at LSU. "We still don't think the floodwaters were safe, but it could have been a lot worse. It was not the chemical catastrophe some had expected."

Some experts had predicted that the floodwaters from Katrina could destroy chemical plants and refineries in the area, releasing a deadly brew containing toxic levels of benzene, hydrochloric acid and chlorine.

Actually, many "experts" stated the "toxic soup" myth as established fact. And the media dutifully reported it over and over, like the all the other exaggerated and fabricated nonsense.

Here's a link to the "Overview" of the original report, published in Environmental Science and Technology Online. And here's a link to the full study.

China to launch second manned space flight

2005-10-11T14:19:00.000-05:00

The AP is reporting that China's second manned space flight is scheduled for Wednesday. As planned, the mission would be considerably more advanced than the first Chinese flight in 2003.

BEIJING -- China plans to launch two astronauts into orbit Wednesday for a mission lasting several days that is meant to seal its status as an emerging space power.

The mission, which reportedly could last up to five days, is more ambitious and riskier than China's first manned space flight two years ago, which lasted less than 22 hours.
The manned space program is a high-profile prestige project for the ruling Communist Party. The 2003 flight made China only the third nation, after Russia and the United States, to send a human into orbit on its own.

A rocket carrying the Shenzhou VI capsule will blast off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert of China's orthwest, the official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday. It didn't give a time but said there would be a live television broadcast from the launch site.

Live coverage would be a first for the Chinese space program, which is at least as secretive as the Soviet space program ever was. The 2003 flight had no live coverage, and earlier reports indicated that the coverage of this flight will be shown “almost live” on Chinese television, but with a delay. Foreign reporters are not permitted at the lainch site, located in the Gobi desert, and Chinese journalists permitted to cover the event do so with the understanding that all photos, videos, etc., are subject to confiscation if the authorities deem it necessary. Presumably this restriction and the delayed television broadcast are to enable the government to keep a lid on things in case something goes wrong.

According to the official Xinhua news agency, this flight is much more involved than China’s fist manned flight, which like the American and Soviet flights of the early 1960’s, involved little more than a few orbits.

The flight this week will be more complicated than the 2003 mission, according to state media.
Reports say the two astronauts will take off their 22-pound space suits to travel back and forth between the two halves of their vessel -- a re-entry capsule and an orbiter that is to stay aloft after they land.

***

The Shenzhou -- or Divine Vessel -- capsule is based on Russia's three-seat Soyuz, though with extensive modifications. Space suits, life-support systems and other equipment are based on technology purchased from Russia.

"Divine Vessel"... funny name for a communist country to tag onto such a high-profile piece of equipment.

Police departments find new source of revenue

2005-10-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

According to this published report, inventive police departments around the midwest have discovered a new source of revenue: billing drivers for making out accident reports.

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Police chiefs facing tight budgets are turning to a new source for money -- drivers who cause fender benders or more serious accidents.

A few dozen police departments in the Midwest began charging drivers and their insurers within the past year for the cost of investigating traffic accidents and writing up reports.

Bills for drivers range from $120 to $500.

"That's money we can use to buy a patrol car or pay for gas," said Lt. Don McCarter of the Griffith, Ind., police department. "Everybody's always looking for extra money."

How it works varies from city to city. Some charge only non-residents, while other departments just send the bill to the insurer and don't seek payment from drivers whose policies won't cover the cost.

Police officials say they are targeting drivers and their insurers because officers are spending an increasing amount of time gathering information on traffic accidents -- information that is only useful to the insurance companies.

Some police reports now require officers to note details such as the damage to the vehicle and whether air bags were used.

"We don't have any use for that," said Huron Police Chief Randy Glovinsky. "The only thing I need to know is the accident location and the severity."

Michael Gurich, police chief in Sheffield Village near Cleveland, said his officers are doing the work of insurers. "We have adjusters come here every day getting our accident reports. They're tapping into this for their own benefit."

The first question that comes to mind is, if the police don’t need the information for any purpose, why are they collecting it? Are the accident report forms mandated by the state? If so, why is the state requiring the collection of information by the police which the police don’t need and which is apparently only of use to insurance adjusters?

It’s an open secret in Ohio that the insurance industry has huge influence with the Supreme Court. One justice, elected recently, publicly stated after the votes were tallied that those who supported her campaign would “get what they paid for.” Most observers thought that meant the insurance industry. Does that influence extend to the legislature? Is the legislature prescribing forms, to be completed at public expense, that benefit only private insurance companies? Or is it some unelected administrative agency that prescribes the forms?

If the forms are not mandated by the state, what the heck are the police using them for? Why are they gathering information which is not relevant to performing police duties?

Predictably enough, there are differing views on the propriety of this new, but apparently growing, practice:

Although only a few departments, mainly in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, are billing for accident investigations, insurers are watching the issue closely, said Mary Bonelli, spokeswoman for the Ohio Insurance Institute, a trade group.

If the trend continues to grow, it could lead to higher rates or insurance companies may exclude coverage for fire and police runs, she said.

Bonelli said it's unfair for cities to charge drivers for this because they are already paying city taxes for such services. "In reality, you're paying for it twice," she said.

Another problem, she said, is that there is no consistency in how the fees are applied and that the departments are only going after insured drivers.

Cost Recovery Corp., based in Dayton, is one of a handful of companies that does the billing for about a dozen police departments. It also has been working with fire departments for several years to charge for ambulance and fire runs.

"It's fairer to have a user fee for those who are causing the situation," said Terry Henley, the company's president. "The alternative is to cut police officers."

About half of the insurers are paying the bills, he said, while others are refusing, leaving the cost with the driver in some cases.

Here’s another question. Presumably, you would not be “billed” for an accident that is not your fault. Are the police then waiting for the outcome of any court proceeding, and sending a bill only upon conviction or a guilty plea? Isn’t this then an unconstitutional additional element of punishment being handed out by a non-judicial government entity with no lawful authority to do so? Wouldn’t an alleged offender be entitled to notice that this might be a consequence of a guilty or no contest plea? And how much time are the police spending following up on these cases in order to bill only the guilty parties? Or have they simply farmed that out to the same collection agency that does the billing?

Anybody else see an equal protection problem here? If you follow the law (or act responsibly) and have insurance, you are subject to this additional penalty. If you are uninsured, you are exempt. And how come “the alternative is to cut police officers”? Wouldn’t the alternative be to have the police stop collecting information they don’t need, but that the insurance companies want to use?

I have to say, I have a problem with public officers billing taxpayers for performing the tax-financed service that their public employment requires, even though it is apparently unnecessary for the accomplishment of their public purpose. For that matter, I have a problem with the police collecting information they do not need for police purposes.

"No more Souters!"

2005-10-05T12:58:00.000-05:00

I had planned a lengthy post on why the people claiming the Meiers nomination is a bad one because of “qualifications” or “cronyism” are full of crap. And that goes for the extremists at BOTH ends of the spectrum. Then I found this post by Beldar and decided, what the heck, why write something when I can cut-n-paste something even better than what I had to say…

Prof. Barnett asks: "Given her lack of experience, does anyone doubt that Ms. Miers's only qualification to be a Supreme Court justice is her close connection to the president?" To which I answer: Absolutely and emphatically, I do indeed doubt that! I challenge that assertion, and I fortunately have something more than sneering innuendo to refute it. By historical American standards, any Supreme Court nominee would be considered qualified based on a successful career in a sophisticated private business law practice — at the head of a large, first-rate law firm in a large city of a large state — that has also included leadership positions in the local, state, and national bar, plus a substantial tenure in public service as counsel to her home state's governor and then the President of the United States. Ms. Miers' overall qualifications compare quite favorably to those Sandra Day O'Connor had when she was nominated. Indeed, her qualifications are very much in the mold of, and quite arguably superior to, those of the late Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., who had led a comparable law firm (Hunton & Williams) to Ms. Miers' and had been President of the American Bar Association (in an era in which it was still an apolitical service organization instead of just another special interest pleader). Only someone uninformed or unfairly dismissive of excellence in the private practice of law could ask a question like Prof. Barnett's, even rhetorically.

But the saddest and most troubling part of the early, reflexive opposition to the Miers nomination is from people who, like Prof. Barnett, are muttering darkly (and necessarily vaguely) that this nomination is comparable to LBJ's nomination of Abe Fortas to become Chief Justice in 1968. The Fortas comparison is badly, badly misleading — a genuine cheap shot. Abe Fortas' nomination to become Chief Justice was doomed if for no reason other than it came at the end of LBJ's term. That he was LBJ's longtime close friend and adviser, however, is not what leaves the lingering smell; many, many other Justices have been close friends of Presidents. Rather, the lingering smell comes from the fact that Abe Fortas had routinely engaged in ethically questionable conduct — including possible financial corruption — that made him unfit to be a judge at any level. He'd sometimes used his undeniable skills and intellect in the service of wicked causes, among them securing Lyndon Johnson's senate election through vote fraud. He'd maintained relationships that involved extra-judicial compensation even while he was an Associate Justice. Unless and until Prof. Barnett is able to make and back up comparable allegations against Harriet Miers, then he owes her an apology for even mentioning her name in the same paragraph with Abe Fortas'. It's an unjustified smear, and it's beneath his dignity (and certainly beneath hers).

***

Moreover, the classic meaning of "cronyism" is selecting someone for a position that they're incapable of earning and totally unfit for on their own. If all Harriet Miers had to commend her, as Prof. Barnett claims, is that she's been George W. Bush's lawyer, and if we could find no reason in her record, other than Dubya's friendship, even for her to have held that position, then a charge of "cronyism" might be appropriate. But Harriet Miers was already an accomplished and respected lawyer and leader before she ever represented George W. Bush. She's had accomplishments aplenty that are entirely unrelated to him. She well merited, based on demonstrated ability, the positions through which they became better and better acquainted. By every report, she's discharged those positions competently and effectively, rather than just skating by on the basis of the President's favor. Prof. Barnett and the others who are crying "Cronyism!" are using friendship and trust that's developed through superb service with the President as a disqualifying factor, irrespective of the nominee's other credentials and experience. That's a mistake. Alexander Hamilton was not against friendship, he was against incompetence and incompetents being promoted due to friendship. Hamilton himself was both George Washington's friend and his military and then political protégé, the "son Washington never had" and also his most effective cabinet secretary.

It certainly seems to me that Prof. Barnett is using the facts that Ms. Miers comes from a practicing lawyer's background, and that she's become a trusted friend while serving capably as Counsel for the Governor of Texas and the President of the United States, as his sole bases for arguing against her nomination. I believe the nicest term for that is "snotty." It's an unbecoming attitude, and this essay is just not up to his usual high standards of reasoning and writing. There may be persuasive reasons for opposing the Miers nomination, but I don't think these reasons are them.

And as long as I'm shoplifting from Beldar, you need to see this full post, too:

I think Ms. Miers' nomination is, comparatively, a safe play, but I don't think it's the product of Dubya's standing in recent, or any, public opinion polls. I think it's mostly a product of two factors. The first factor — the one that became logically precedent to, albeit not more important than, the other key factor — was the unique-to-this-slot "need" to pick another woman to follow Sandra Day O'Connor. The first attribute used to narrow the field was thus whether a potential nominee had a Y chromosome, although being first didn't make an XX pair the most important criterion. No, the second and ultimately determinative factor can be completely summarized in three words: "No more Souters."

To you, me, the Senate, and the public, Harriet Miers may seem as much of a blank slate as David Souter was when Bush-41 nominated him. "Another 'stealth' candidate," many will say, "another blank slate about whom we know too little to make confident predictions!" That's already the official party line of the Dems, and it's something being muttered less loudly among puzzled Republicans as well.
But that is emphatically not the case from the perspective of George W. Bush. And the Constitution does, after all, give him the nomination power — not "the White House," not "the Republican Party," nor "conservatives generally," nor even "us'n who put him back into office." And he knows, and he's always known, that the blame for an appointee who turned out to become "another Souter" would likewise be placed on him. It's a responsibility and an opportunity whose benefits and risks he sought, but that he obviously takes very seriously indeed, because from Dubya's perspective, Harriet Miers was the one prospective female nominee about whom he personally felt that he could be most certain in predicting what sort of Justice she will become.

In fact, Beldar, to my way of thinking one of the most sensible and down-to-earth legal types in the blogosphere, has a series of excellent posts on the subject. It is absolute must read stuff... unless, of course, you're one of those left or right wing extremists who already has his mind made up and would prefer not to actually think about the issue. By the way, another nominee who was criticized as lacking experience and being qualified only by being a crony of two successive administrations comes to mind. His name was John Marshall, and he turned out OK.

NBC News misrepresents "weak levee warning" documents

2005-10-01T00:30:00.000-05:00

"New Orleans levee reported weak in 1990s

Records: Construction firm alerted engineers, but no action was taken"

That's the headline from this MSNBC report, alleging that "legal documents" show the Army Corps of Engineers was warned in the 1990's that the 17th Street Canal Floodwall was weak. However, a review of the actual document in question makes it clear that NBC is misrepresenting the contents of the document and making conclusions not supported by that document.

NBC News has obtained what may be a key clue, hidden in long forgotten legal documents. They reveal that when the floodwall on the 17th Street Canal was built a decade ago, there were major construction problems — problems brought to the attention of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

A 1998 ruling, by an administrative judge for the Corps' Board of Contract Appeals, shows that the contractor, Pittman Construction, told the Corps that the soil and the foundation for the walls were “not of sufficient strength, rigidity and stability” to build on.

***
The construction company said as a result of these problems the walls were shifting and “out of tolerance,” meaning they did not meet some design specifications. Nevertheless, the Army Corps of Engineers accepted the work.

Before we all leap to the conclusion the MSM wants us to reach, go have a look at the actual "court papers" in question. The PDF is available HERE. The contractor was trying to collect an extra $800,000 on the contract. "Out of tolerance" in this context means "not plumb" (or "vertically straight") and has absolutely nothing to do with the strength or adequacy of the levee... in fact the contractor admitted and agreed that the levee was adequate for its intended purpose.

This was actually a dispute where a contractor was claiming the site conditions caused delays and extra expense (and the failure to produce walls plumb to within 1/4") and the gov't claimed the contractor caused its own problems the way it placed its forms for concrete. And produced another contractor who had built a similar levee who encountered similar problems and solved them without incurring an additional $800,000 in time and expense and delays. It may well be that somebody had reason to expect that the levee wasn't adequate...but these documents have no bearing whatsoever on that question.

There's nothing in these documents that indicates anybody ever claimed the contractor (or the completed levee) didn't meet specs, resulting in a "weak" levee (or wall). The only spec the contractor didn't meet was being out of plumb more than the "tolerance" (ie margin of error) in the contract.

The argument the contractor made was to claim soil conditions and the existing sheet piling was too "weak" to support the framing for its poured concrete, causing the walls to be out of plumb. The government position was that they shouldn't have been supporting their framing with the sheet pilings and could have waited a few days for the soil to firm up.

Contrary to what NBC is suggesting, the contractor did not “warn” anybody “that the soil and the foundation for the walls were “not of sufficient strength, rigidity and stability” to build on.” This strongly suggests that the contractor warned that the levee as completed would be "weak". In fact, the contractor never raised the issue at all until after the wall was mostly constructed and the government complained about the plumb issue and construction delays and withheld some payments. And at that point, the contractor was not arguing that there was a problem with the levee as completed, it was only arguing that unexpected conditions made the job more expensive and caused delays in construction.

Keep in mind, the contractor went ahead and actually built the levy and accepted payment.

There's NOTHING in these documents that says ANY party ever said the levee as completed was "weak" or in any way inadequate or defective. It may have been defective in some way, I obviously don't know that. But these documents certainly don't lead to that conclusion.

By the way, NBC appears to also be wrong in asserting that concrete was just "poured over top" of an existing earthen levee. From the document they reference, it appears that a "cofferdam", a sort of temporary levee, was constructed to keep water back from the construction area, the earth levee was excavated, and the concrete seawall or levee was constructed around the sheet metal pilings used to anchor and support the original earthen levee. Additional sheet pilings apparently were added, and the government argued that the contractor would have had less problem framing for concrete if they'd waited a few days for the soil to "recover" after being drained and having pilings driven into it.

Change of Address for HISTORIUM

2005-09-29T21:08:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite sites, HISTORIUM, has relocated to a new address, HERE. Scriptor does a nice job with generally relatively short posts on a wide variety of primarily historical topics. After a late-summer hiatus and some relocation dislocation (moving is always a pain in the posterior) he's back to posting regularly. Stop by the new place and visit a spell.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

2005-09-28T10:20:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder why they phrase the oath like that for witnesses in courts of law? Well it's a recognition of the fact that there's "the truth", that is, as far as it goes, "the whole truth", which means the truth without distortion by omission, and "nothing but the truth" which means the truth without speculation, embellishment, assumption, or other "add-ons."

Want to see a graphic demonstration of the difference between "the truth" and "the whole truth"? Want to see a perfect example of how the media uses this distinction to spin and distort "news" coverage on a daily basis,while technically telling "the truth" but avoiding "the whole truth" when it gets in the way of the story they want to tell?

Then go HERE and see how a little photo manipulation (without actual alteration) distorts reality and presents a false picture.

You've heard the expression "figures don't lie, but liars figure"? Same for photos... photos may not lie, but liars use photos.

Hat tip to Little Green Footballs for presenting this gem!

Leaked memo on FEMA happens to contain the truth

2005-09-28T00:25:00.000-05:00

The AP is publishing news stories based on a memo prepared by a congressional aide and leaked to that news organization. Ironically, they seem to fail to grasp the fact that the memo reflects the truth.

Embattled former FEMA director Michael Brown says he was initially unaware of desperate conditions at the New Orleans Convention Center because it was not a planned Hurricane Katrina evacuation site, according to a congressional memo.

After learning from television about the thousands of evacuees who gathered at the center, Brown ordered food and water be delivered there. But Brown, who on Tuesday faces a House inquiry into the government's slow response to the Aug. 29 disaster, told congressional aides that "there is no reason FEMA would have known about it beforehand."

In Katrina's aftermath, thousands of people gathered at the convention center, where adequate food, water and other supplies were lacking and where violence was common.

The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, was written by a Republican congressional aide who attended a 90-minute briefing Monday with Brown, who resigned as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Sept. 12.

Those interested in looking at facts, instead of rehashing the rumors and falsehoods that ran rampant after Katrina, will recognize that the contents of this memo are the truth. We know now that the Convention Center was never designated as a shelter, and state and local officials never notified FEMA that it had become one.

We also know now that the AP story quoted above repeats one of the enduring myths of Katrina: the widespread violence at the convention center.

Contrary to widespread media reports, most of which have gone uncorrected, there were no piles of bodies, no mass rapes, no 40 incidents of gunfire involving swat teams, no armed mobs running wild at the convention center.

What there was at the convention center were a whole lot of folks who were never evacuated by state and local officials (yes, evacuation was THEIR job, not the federal government's) without supplies or relief workers because STATE officials (yes, STATE officials) refused to allow relief supplies or workers into the city (as confirmed by the Red Cross) in an atmosphere where it is surprising there wasn't more violence because the New Orleans cops were busy looting the Wal-Mart (as seen on film) or hiding out and the Governor refused to allow the 7,000 available Louisiana National Guard troops to enter the city.

I have yet to see any quantifiable, documentable facts which tend to show a SLOW federal response to Katrina.

Sure, lots of little anecdotal isolated incidents, like turning away Wal-Mart water trucks. But with an undertaking of any size, you're going to get those incidents. I have seen nothing that indicates the federal response overall was slow OR ineffective.

And if Governor Blanco had consented to federalize the National Guard response, there wouldn't have been any paperwork delays in bringing in Guardsmen from other states... although 7,000 Louisiana Guard troops should have been more than enough to maintain order in New Orleans, if she would have actually authorized them to do so.

Everybody's perception seems to be based on the Superdome, where the Governor refused to allow relief supplies to be delivered (FEMA had prepositioned 14 semi-trailer loads of supplies there...what became of that?) or relief workers to respond, while failing to provide any means of evacuation, and a whole bunch of hysterical, wild-eyed rumors that got reported over and over again as facts.

At some point during the 2004 election campaign, the MSM in this country abandoned all pretense at presenting news, and became an all-out propaganda machine for its own leftist agenda. That trend has continued, and is reflected in the grossly inaccurate coverage of Katrina.

New Orleans flooding already underway

2005-09-23T11:47:00.000-05:00

I'm beginning to see reports that New Orleans is starting to flood again, with the surge already topping the three-foot margin of safety on some of the levees.

Good thing those incompetent stumblebums in the federal government told the heroic Mayor to shut up and quit telling people to come back, eh?

Another leftist loses an election...and his grip on reality

2005-09-22T13:49:00.000-05:00

In an eerie echo of performances by recent Democrat presidential election losers Al Gore and John Kerry, leftist German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose Social Democrats were defeated in Germany’s national elections last week, is insisting that he actually won and should still be the chancellor.

BERLIN - A belligerent performance by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in a TV talk show after German elections, which his party narrowly lost, has drawn widespread criticism and fuelled alarm the country could be lurching into a political crisis.

Like most European nations, Germany has a parliamentary system in which the Chancellor, the equivalent of a Prime Minister, is chosen from the party with a parliamentary majority. When, as is the case in the German election, no single party wins a majority, a coalition government is formed by agreement among parties with enough members to total a majority. Schroeder, however, is demanding that votes be counted differently than they have always been counted and insisting that, once recounted as he demands, his party will have won the election. (Sound familiar?) Schroeder’s performance on German television was, to put it mildly, surreal:

A grinning Schroeder first accused the TV moderators of having "an intellectual problem" and not being objective in their reporting and questioning.

Turning to a grim-looking Merkel he said: "Do you seriously think my party will accept this offer for talks with Frau Merkel? ... Under her leadership she will never get a coalition with my party."

This was strong stuff given that Merkel's Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) came in first with 35.2 per cent, compared with 34.3 per cent for Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD).
The CDU/CSU won about 440,000 votes more than the SPD and will have a three-seat majority in parliament's lower chamber, the Bundestag.

Schroeder insists, contrary to German post-war tradition, that the CDU and its Bavarian CSU sister party must from now on be treated as totally separate parties. Under this interpretation his SPD would indeed have come in first on Sunday.

Most newspapers said Schroeder had "run riot" during the half-hour TV show dubbed "the elephant round". The Berliner Zeitung, which generally backs the Chancellor, called it "a bizarre appearance".

Other German commenters found the performance disturbing.

Arnulf Baring, a leading German political historian, termed the Chancellor's performance "shocking".

"He spoke on election night as if he was on the verge of carrying out a putsch," said Baring in a B.Z. newspaper interview, adding: "The way he is treating democracy and majority rule is truly threatening."

Members of Schroeder’s own party suggested he may have been drunk. Still others suspect that Schroeder’s intent is to throw the system into disarray and force new elections. Since most parliamentary systems don’t have a rigidly-scheduled national election, like the US, new elections are a possibility any time a coalition government cannot be formed.

The Free Democratic Party, which pulled 9.8% of the vote, would not be enough to put either Schroeder’s SPD or Merkel’s CDU into a majority, but is obviously a much-sought coalition partner. Either major party, with the FDP on board, could then scrounge enough minor-party votes to form a government.

Schroeder’s obnoxious behavior may have hurt his party in this regard, as he may have foreclosed the possibility of FDP participation with an insulting and heated exchange with the head of the FDP, Guido Westerwelle:

"You cannot be taken seriously," snapped Westerwelle who refused to address the defeated Schroeder as "Herr Chancellor" and instead called him "Herr Colleague" given they are both members of parliament and Schroeder is now only acting chancellor.

When Schroeder tried to slap down Westerwelle with a lesson on German politics from the 1960s, Westerwelle swiftly turned the tables.

"I may be younger than you - but I'm not more stupid," said Westerwelle, whose liberals increased their share of the vote to 9.8 per cent and are being sought both by Schroeder and Merkel as a coalition partner.

Following the TV talk show, Westerwelle declared his party would not even hold exploratory talks with Schroeder's SPD.

Like Gore, who, despite several recounts which showed otherwise, apparently still thinks he should have won, and Kerry, who from time to time takes a break from his windsurfing to mutter about “vote suppression”, Schroeder appears unable to grasp reality and accept his loss. Surely it is to some extent an ego thing. Gore and Kerry clearly believe themselves to be superior to George W. Bush (and everyone else, for that matter, at least in Kerry’s case.) It appears equally obvious from Schroeder’s condescending tone that he considers himself superior.

I wonder, though, if there is something more to it. Few people realize that, anticipating the defeat of George Bush in 2004, leading Democrats (Hillary was there, and Joe Biden, just to name a couple) traveled to Norway to meet with the European leftist parties (in European politics, those folks are socialists, by the way) to plan the new world order which would follow the ousting of the evil right-wingers from power in the US. One wonders if, along with discussing the role of the UN in enforcing a world-wide liberal agenda, they may have discussed the Democrats’ playbook for trying to destabilize and discredit electoral results they don’t like.

We all know the Democrats have such a handbook… how to dispute elections when there is no legitimate grounds for dispute. A few copies of it surfaced in the 2004 election. Maybe they shared it with their America-bashing socialist world-government allies from Europe?

By the way, I’m not making any of this up. I read about the leftist conference in Norway on the English language site of a Norwegian magazine or newspaper. But it was a couple of years ago, and back then I wasn’t saving links and pages by the hundred in case I needed them later. I believe I do have a hard copy someplace, and if I can find it maybe I can track down a link or some more information.

Environmentalist groups caused New Orleans flooding

2005-09-22T11:12:00.000-05:00

(Sorry about the lurid headline...just wanted to see what it feels like to be an editor in the MSM and write really catchy headlines that overstate the contents of the article.)

In a real eye-opener of a piece of writing, Human Events Online has reported on a long history of environmentalist lawsuits that may well have contributed to the massive flood damage caused in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project designed to prevent a Category 5-hurricane-storm surge from filling Lake Pontchartrain and flooding New Orleans was blocked by environmentalists intent on preserving “natural water flow” in 1977.

Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) used a lawsuit against the Corps based on the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) to halt the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project.

These folks have a website where they brag about battling the Army Corps of Engineers and New Orleans officials over flood-control measures, all of which, of course, they see as evil plots to drain wetlands and promote development. But I’m obviously not the first or only one to pick up on this issue, because in the last few days they’ve been busy getting stuff up on their website to explain why the flood control measures they blocked wouldn’t have helped.

Which is just plain stupid. Would it have prevented all damage? Who knows? Probably not? Would it have helped? Well, duh, common sense tells you that less flooding is better than more flooding, so anything that would have lessened the impact would have helped.

Furthermore, please note that their argument against the project wasn’t that it wouldn’t be beneficial, or even that it was unnecessary… but that the paperwork wasn’t adequate to demonstrate that the project was absolutely necessary:

SOWL’s argument against the Corps’ Lake Ponchartrain project claimed the Corps’ environmental impact statement was inadequate. U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz, Jr., agreed, issuing an injunction prohibiting the project. “Testimony reveals serious questions as to the adequacy of cost-benefit analysis of the plan,” he wrote in his opinion. “It is the opinion of the court that plaintiffs herein have demonstrated that they and in fact all persons in this area, will be irreparably harmed if the barrier project based on the August 1974 FEIS [Federal Environmental Impact Study] is allowed to continue.” Schwartz also ruled that associated flood prevention plans in Chalmette and New Orleans East must be stopped.

Perhaps Judge Schwartz would like to take another look at the “cost-benefit analysis” today. He might also wish to re-evaluate his assertion that “all persons in this area will be irreparably harmed if the barrier project … is allowed to continue.” In retrospect, it kind of seems like maybe some folks were irreparably harmed because the barrier project didn’t continue.

We (you and me, U.S. taxpayers) will now be expected to spend billions of dollars repairing damage that might very well have been avoided. How many lives would not have been lost? Or disrupted or destroyed? And what do you suppose is the environmental damage sustained as a result of Katrina?

So what was the nature of this plan the environmentalists scuttled?

The project would have built flood gates to block storm surges from moving into Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico, and also would have built additional levees in flood-prone areas. It had been drafted in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in 1964, and authorized as part of the Flood Control Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, five years before NEPA came into effect.

But you see, that project can’t be considered in a vacuum. You have to look at the big picture…which seems to make environmentalist groups even more culpable:

In 1986, nine years after they had been blocked in court, the Corps formally dropped the Lake Ponchartrain Hurricane Protection Project as part of a compromise with environmentalists that allowed the Corps to raise the levees around St. Bernard, Orleans, East Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. But the levee-raising program was not designed to protect the area against anything stronger than a Category 3 storm.

In other words, to settle a group of suits by environmentalist groups and be allowed to do something about flood control, plans intended to guard against a category 5 storm were abandoned in return for being allowed to go forward with plans to protect against a category 3 storm.

Are you following along, boys and girls? Plans developed in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s to guard against a category 5 storm were abandoned in order to settle environmentalists’ lawsuits and proceed with plans to guard against a category 3 storm. We have all heard it a trillion times… Katrina was a category 5, the levees were only designed for a category 3. Because the environmentalists had used the federal courts to block plans for a system to protect against a category 5 hurricane.

The 1986 settlement, of course, was not the end of it:

The House Task Force on Improving National Environmental Policy said NEPA lawsuits have prevented protection plans in New Orleans at least twice. In addition to the 1977 SOWL suit, the task force cited a 1996 suit brought against the Corps by the Sierra Club to stop a plan to raise and fortify Mississippi River levees. This suit argued that the Corps had not considered “the impact on bottomland hardwood forest wetlands” and the effect on Louisiana black bears and bird breeding.

Wonder how three to six feet of water have effected those birds and bears? And what do you suppose is “the impact on bottomland hardwood forest wetlands” of massive uncontrolled flooding?

Bill Clinton: classless trash in an expensive suit

2005-09-19T23:49:00.000-05:00

Bill Clinton sickens me.

His continuing self-aggradinzing effort to rewrite history, aided and abetted by the fawning leftist media, is disgusting. His personal conduct while in office, from having an affair with an intern, to lying about it under oath in order to perpetrate fraud upon the court in a lawsuit, to selling pardons to tax evaders like Marc Rich, was disgusting. His sucking up to the Hollywood crowd while paying lip service to leftist ideology while sticking close to the middle of the road to keep those poll numbers up was disgusting.

His exploitation of blacks and the poor was, and is, disgusting. Anyone willing to look at actual facts will find that the truth is the Bush administration has done much, much more for these groups than Clinton ever imagined. The Bush tax cuts removed millions of low-income workers from the tax rolls completely and shifted the tax burden even more disproportionately to the wealthy. Core education spending for the urban poor has more than doubled under Bush. The list goes on and on.

But Clinton, whose ego apparently knows no bounds, seems to believe that he is special. Rules don't apply to him. And he gets away with it. He is a serial molester of women and a political fraud. He had nothing to do with the economy of the 90's, which was managed by Alan Greenspan and driven by a Republican congress pursuing the balance of Ronald Reagan's agenda, such as welfare reform.

Clinton's true political legacy is "the campaign that never ends", to which we owe, in large part, the viciously acrimonious partisan climate of today's American politics. Clinton, perhaps driven by some deep-seated realization of who and what he really is, had no clue as to the separation between campaigning and governing traditionally observed in American politics. It was Clinton (and his charming wife) who kept private detectives on the payroll to dig up dirt on anyone who dared say anything negative. It was the Clintons (not the "Republican attack machine", or the "vast right-wing conspiracy") who developed and perfected the "attack and spin" style of politics: attack the critic, not on any issue, but personally, and then spin, spin, spin, using a friendly media to turn that critic into the one making attacks for cheap, petty personal reasons.

Well, I guess trash is as trash does, and Bill can't help bein' Bill. So we now have the (hopefully) final chapter in Clinton's "I'm the only one that matters, the hell with the country and the hell with the future" philosophy. Former presidents keep their mouths shut. They do not criticize successors, let alone seek out opportunities to go on national tv shows hosted by their old cronies and attack sitting administrations. Never in American history has a former president acted like Clinton did this past weekend.

But this is Bill Clinton we're talking about, and rules and traditions mean nothing. Bill is above all that. Bill is special. All that matters is Bill.

No matter how you wrap it up, trash is still trash.

Bill Clinton sickens me.

UPDATE: I've changed the title of this piece since I posted it. The original title was "...trailer trash in an expensive suit." I didn't change it for reasons of political correctness, which is one thing I don't worry about on this page, but because "trailer trash", while catchy, didn't really reflect the utter lack of class and crass gracelessness which is the point of the piece.

POWERLINE has an excellent itemized catalog of the litany of factual untruths spewed by Clinton in the interview. This should surprise noone, since Clinton has never let the truth get in the way of his personal agenda.

Blanco admits responsibility to state legislature

2005-09-19T23:42:00.000-05:00

Inadvertently caught on tape telling her press secretary she had bungled the response to Katrina by failing to request military assistance, as has now been widely reported, Louisiana’s Governor Blanco has changed her tune in trying to blame the federal government for state and local government’s failures.

"I really should have called for the military," Blanco said, while chatting with her press secretary in between TV interviews. "I really should have started that in the first call."

Unbeknownst to Blanco, her bombshell acknowledgment was recorded on a network satellite feed, and by Tuesday the clip was getting wide exposure in Louisiana news broadcasts.

In the early days of the Katrina crisis, disaster management experts repeatedly blamed the failure to send in the National Guard for the city's descent into chaos.

As has been previously discussed on this site and elsewhere, the decision not to send the 7,000 available Louisiana National Guardsmen into New Orleans was Blanco’s call, as was the decision to refuse to allow relief workers, including the Red Cross, into the city. Particularly, the widely reported misery at the Superdome was not the result of any slow federal response, but the result of Blanco’s decision not to allow workers and supplies which had been prepositioned for that very purpose to go to the Superdome for fear that people would want to stay instead of being evacuated. (See my previous few posts for links and details.)

Furthermore, it has become clear, especially since her taped admission, that Blanco initially refused federal assistance and troops, instead turning to a Clinton-era former federal official to try to manage the disaster on a state level.

Caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Blanco, speaking to the Louisiana legislature last week, admitted her responsibility and dropped her repeated attempts to blame federal officials for her disastrous decision-making and failures to act:

Where earlier she and her aides had openly blamed the Bush administration for bungling Katrina rescue efforts, Blanco announced: "The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility."

Just as surprising were Blanco's words of praise for the White House: "I want the people of Louisiana to know that we have a friend and a partner in President George W. Bush. I thank you, Mr. President."

Never Forget

2005-09-11T00:20:00.000-05:00

I'll be taking an early retirement

2005-09-09T10:03:00.000-05:00

Yes sir, I've just stumbled across my ticket to an early retirement on Easy Street!

For the reasonable fee of $250 per person (I'm not greedy) plus expenses (round trip fare) I'm going to charter buses in Cleveland, Ohio, and run them down to Houston so my clients can collect their $2000 government hand-out debit cards. I'll collect my fees and expenses from my clients, in cash, at the first ATM we see on the return trip.

Got proof of residency? "Washed away in the flood."

Got identification? "Washed away in the flood."

Somebody thinks this is a good idea. How long do you figure it will be before somebody actually implements my "early retirement plan"? Wanna bet somebody is already operating some variation of my plan? Wanna bet they end up giving out more cards than the total adult population of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama combined?

I remember when disaster relief meant somebody set up some temporary shelters, and you got a place to sleep, a shower, toilet facilities, and something to eat. Probably hot dogs, beans and macaroni and cheese, washed down with water or powdered drink mix.

And people were grateful.

Now we have people stampeding (according to an ABC tv broadcast this morning) and all-but rioting because they aren't getting their $2000 cash card fast enough.

I guess that's disaster relief in the age of entitlements. They figure somebody owes them something, as opposed to being thankful that somebody reaches out to help.

And for the benefit of those morons who want to turn Katrina relief efforts into a racial issue, let me point out to you that across the midwest, every year, hundreds, and some years, thousands, of folks are left homeless and destitute by tornadoes. Nobody rushes in to give them $2000 cash cards less than two weeks after the disaster. And quite frankly, most of them are white.

Governor Blanco... worse and worse

2005-09-08T11:22:00.000-05:00

After the revelations that Louisiana's Governor Blanco refused to send her 7,000 available National Guardsmen into New Orleans, told the President she needed twenty-four hours "to make a decision" about accepting outside (federal) assistance, and delayed FEMA and other federal relief efforts by refusing to request or consent to "outsiders" getting involved, we now have Major Garrett ay Fox News breaking the story that the Louisiana state authorities actually prohibited the Red Cross from bringing in tons of relief supplies to the Superdome.

Skeptical?

Well, the Red Cross website says it's the awful truth:

Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.

The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.

The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.

The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives.

As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for people to stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated.

So the truth is, while the mayor of New Orleans was screaming about not having any relief supplies, relief supplies that could have been delivered weren't, because state officials thought it would make people want to stay and the state wanted them to leave.

The state, of course, failed to provide any means for them to leave. So there they sat, suffering, perhaps even dying, because Governor Blanco is an idiot.

What did the governor do, and when did she do it?

2005-09-07T08:58:00.000-05:00

Excerpts from the State of Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan, which includes the “Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan”:

"The Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan is intended to provide a framework within which the parishes can coordinate their actions with State government in order to deal with a catastrophic hurricane."

So, these state and local officials actually did have a plan. The document clearly recognizes the possibility of a category 3 or higher hurricane causing exactly what happened… huge numbers of refugees, stranded people, flooding on a monumental scale. Yet if you review the plan it is obvious that state and local officials failed completely to implement any of the steps in anything like a timely fashion:

"Local transportation resources should be marshaled and public transportation plans implemented as needed. Announce the location of staging areas for people who need transportation. Public transportation will concentrate on moving people from the staging areas to safety in host parishes with priority given to people with special needs."

Hey, Mayor Nagin, what about all those school buses? Wouldn’t they be considered “local transportation resources?" Is it true that someone actually suggested using them, but the idea was rejected because they weren't insured for that use?

And state officials? The plan calls for the State to

"Mobilize State transportation resources to aid in the evacuation of people who have mobility and/or health problems. Deploy to support risk area parishes."

Yeah. The state managed to mobilize nothing. And please note, nowhere do the official plans call for the Federal Government to handle an evacuation.

The state government, starting from Governor Blanco on down, apparently did nothing, absolutely nothing, either, depending on which reports you accept, out of an inability to comprehend and react (i.e. they “froze” at the moment of truth) or because of partisan or personal political reasons. Did the Governor really need 24 hours to make a decision on accepting Federal help after it was offered because they (meaning the Bush administration) would “get the credit”? Or was this perhaps an effort to discredit FEMA, part of an on-going fight between that agency and the State of Louisiana, which allegedly misspent $30 million in homeland security money, and which the federal government has demanded be re-paid?

Did the governor really withhold 7,000 Louisiana National Guard troops and abandon the city of New Orleans out of fear that without “overwhelming force” there might be someone shot?

What the hell did she think was going on the city as it was? And quite frankly, 7,000 armed and equipped National Guardsmen would have looked pretty freakin’ overwhelming to a bunch of thugs roaming around the city with guns looted from Wal-Mart. You wanna use a .22 from Wal-Mart to take pot shots at an armored personnel carrier with a .50 cal machine gun?

Why did the state police turn back technicians summoned to repair the New Orleans emergency radio system after it collapsed?

No political officials, federal, state or local, caused the hurricane. But much of the disastrous aftermath appears to be clearly the result of state and local ineptitude.

By the way…at what point did the Governor actually get around to asking for federal help? Because quite frankly, the federal government has to be invited into a state. At what point did she ask for help from other states? That’s how the national guard works, you know. States control the national guard, and can ask the federal government to coordinate, and can “lend” their guard units to the Federal government. But the Federal Government, on its own, can not deploy guard units from one state into another. Governors, however, can. So when did Blanco ask anybody for help? According to Mayor Nagan, she rebuffed Bush’s initial offer to get things moving because she “needed 24 hours to make a decision”.

What did the governor do and when did she do it? Not much of anything, and way too late.

Negligent New Orleans mayor wants someone else to blame

2005-09-02T09:14:00.000-05:00

Congress was rushing through a $10.5 billion aid package, the Pentagon promised 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting and President Bush planned to visit the region Friday. But city officials were seething with anger about what they called a slow federal response following Hurricane Katrina.

"They don't have a clue what's going on down there," Mayor Ray Nagin told WWL-AM Thursday night.

"They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn — excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed."

The people of New Orleans should be "pissed" too... at this imbecile.

Here's a clue for you, Mayor Nagin: your administration left your city totally and woefully unprepared for a disaster which was not only forseeable, but inevitable. You see, when your city sits below sea level near the coast, sooner or later you are going to end up under water.

Nagin, knowing he will be aided and abetted by the Bush-hating leftist national media, wants to shift attention and blame for what is a disaster made infinitely worse by his own ineptitude and negligence. It is not now, and never has been, the responsibility of the federal government to provide instantaneous aid in a local disaster. The first responders are, by geographic necessity, local and state personnel. And in the critical 48 hour period following the hurricane, New Orleans demonstrated it was absolutely unprepared for the disaster that the geography of the city had guaranteed was only a matter of time.

Here are a few questions for you, Mayor Nagin:

Why wasn't your city prepared for this? It didn't come as a surprise. Any fool can figure out that sooner or later a coastal area at or below sea level is going to end up under water, and that water is not going to recede quickly. Water does not run uphill, you know.

Much of your city sits at or below sea level. Why didn't your emergency respose forces have a flood-proof backup communications system? All indications are that the Police Department completely dissolved, unable to coordinate or communicate.

Why was there no mandatory evacuation of densely populated low-lying areas before the storm hit?

Why wasn't the National Guard already mobilized and on-station to oversee such an evacuation? Or, since there was no evacuation, to maintain order?

Why weren't plans already made for "refugee camps" of some sort? The city's total plan for dealing with a homeless population seems to have been "send 'em down to the football stadium." Once more: much of the city is below sea level. Floodwaters are not going to recede quickly. Eventually, you will be flooded.

Why didn't the city and state have an evacuation plan? Once more: much of the city is below sea level! Floodwaters are not going to recede quickly! Eventually, you will be flooded!

That a sizeable portion of the urban population would be left homeless in the event of a hurricane or severe flooding by the Mississippi River was absolutely forseeable. No plans had been made for dealing with that eventuality. And it was an eventuality, NOT a possibility.

The magnitude of this disaster can not be overstated. But quite frankly, it has been made vastly worse NOT by a slow relief efforts after the fact, but by the fact that the city of New Orleans, which was absolutely going to end up under water at some point, had apparently NO PLANS to deal with that contingency.

The ineptitude and negligence of the city administration, and probably a series of city administrations dating back to the aftermath of the 1927 flood, has resulted in hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of deaths because of a total lack of preparedness to deal with a situation that was absolutely going to happen... again... some day.

Fats Domino rescued from floodwaters

2005-09-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

Finally, the tiniest bit of good news from New Orleans. Fats Domino, early rock-n-roll icon and long-time New Orleans local celebrity fixture, has been rescued by boat from Katrina's floodwaters. The legendary musician and restauranteur had been reported missing, but a news photo showing him being transported by boat has been published.

Wal-Mart gives Salvation Army $1 million for Katrina relief

2005-08-31T12:20:00.000-05:00

The Salvation Army is launching a massive effort to get food to victims and aid workers:

Currently, The Salvation Army is preparing to serve 400,000 meals per day to victims and first responders. Meals are being loaded onto 72 mobile canteens and two 54-foot mobile kitchens. The mobile feeding units will be dispatched into the most affected areas by FEMA, and will be followed, based on response needs, by other units The Salvation Army has at its disposal - trucks called comfort stations where residents can attend to personal hygiene; portable shower units; emergency response command stations for officers to direct the response efforts; and other equipment as needed.

Wal-Mart has donated one million dollars toward this effort. The Wal-Mart page linked above also contains links where you can donate to disaster relief through the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross.

And please bear in mind, the American Red Cross is NOT the anti-American leftist-sympathizing International Red Cross. The American Red Cross is a quality relief organization.

Is global warming causing increased hurricane activity?

2005-08-31T11:54:00.000-05:00

From the blog EU Rota comes an actual look, complete with charts and graphs, of just how well actual historical data meshes with the theory that man-made global warming is causing, oh, say, an increase in hurricane activity, as the nitwits in the German government are suggesting.

After reading the round-up of German newspaper editorials in Spiegel Online, one can't be blamed for thinking that global warming is leading to an increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes hitting the US mainland (strangely, Halliburton was not mentioned as the culprit in this present storm). Going back to 1851, what does the actual data from NOAA say:

WARNING: do not go to this site and look at actual facts and figures if you are a global warming enthusiast. Looking at actual facts has been known to cause extreme anger and confusion in global warming enthusiasts.

Fugitive circus monkey found

2005-08-31T09:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we brought you the story of the escaped circus monkey, described in a police bulletin as "two feet tall and wearing blue pants."

The monkey, still dressed in blue pants, has been recovered safely by owner-trainer Philip Hendricks of the Hendricks Brothers Circus, after someone "spotted two-foot-tall Dillion yesterday huddled in the roof area of a picnic pavilion at a park in Springdale, near Cincinnati."

Hendricks says the monkey was damp and hungry when found, and seemed happy to see him.

Bits and Pieces

2005-08-30T14:26:00.000-05:00

Rob at Say Anything has a comment on the 5-4 vote of the Dallas School Board that requires school administrators to learn to speak Spanish to better communicate with immigrants, or lose their jobs.

John Hawkins at Right Wing News has an Iraq FAQ that is definitely worth a look.

The Jawa Report has a report from Camp Cindy, including an assertion from a U.S. soldier in Iraq that the Cindy Sheehan circus is encouraging terrorists and getting American soldiers killed. Also posted are links to a few other first hand accounts and some photos.

For an alternative source of information and news from Iraq, try Multination Force - Iraq.

The suspect was wearing blue pants...

2005-08-30T14:22:00.000-05:00

SPRINGDALE, Ohio -- The bulletin issued by police in the southwest Ohio town of Springdale describes the subject as two feet tall, weighing eight pounds, clad only in blue pants and prone to sleeping in trees.

Dillion, a circus monkey, fled into a nearby woods early Monday after being frightened by a train whistle from tracks near where the circus was performing in Springdale, in northern Hamilton County.

I guess as long as the fugitive doesn’t get hold of a change of clothes, he should be easy enough to recognize. The circus is moving to the next stop Thursday, and hopes are that the monkey can be recovered before then.

[The monkey’s trainer] suggests that anyone who spots Dillion try to lure him with food. He's fond of apples, oranges, nuts, berries -- and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Feeding Kentucky Fried Chicken to a trained circus monkey. Boy, talk about getting the PETA people up in arms!

UN says British plan to expel terrorist instigators is illegal

2005-08-25T14:51:00.000-05:00

Well, that didn’t take long. Two weeks ago, in commenting on Britain’s intention to deport terrorist instigators and agitators, I wrote this:

What happens when some civilized nation, Britain, France, or Holland, for example, has had enough? What happens when some European nation elects a strongman who promises to “clean up” the “foreigners”? What happens when some European country decides that its only chance to survive as a nation is to prohibit all immigration from Islamic countries? Or that the only way to root out the Islamic terrorists already among them is to shut down all mosques, or outlaw Islam, or expel all muslims?

The UN, which has done and will do nothing to prevent the continued slaughter of Israelis by the palestinians, or the construction of nuclear weapons by the Iranian theocracy, will surely label any such step as “ethnic cleansing” and try to stop it. What will happen when the UN expects the US to send in troops to protect the muslim population of some European country from the European citizens of that country?

They’re not yet asking us to send US troops to Britain to force the British to leave hatemongering Islamist immigrants alone to push their cult of death, but the UN has leapt to the defense of Islamist terrorists and instigators, threatening to cite Britain for human rights violations. Britain’s threatened deportations, according to the UN, violate “international law” and the Geneva Conventions.

Manfred Novak, the UN human rights commission's special investigator on torture, told the Guardian he is seeking permission through the Foreign Office to visit Britain to discuss the issue with the home secretary, Charles Clarke.

In a statement on Tuesday night, Prof Novak said that the government's intention to return radical preachers to their countries of origin, even though some of those countries have a track record of human rights abuses, "reflects a tendency in Europe to circumvent the international obligation not to deport anybody if there is a serious risk that he or she might be subjected to torture".

His intervention came as Mr Clarke, in response to the London bombings, yesterday introduced a list of "unacceptable behaviour" which would allowing him to deport or exclude foreign citizens for glorifying or encouraging terrorism. Mr Clarke said the first exclusions and deportations would take place within the "next few days".

He rejected the UN criticism. He said "the human rights of those people who were blown up on the tube in London on July 7 are, to be quite frank, more important than the human rights of the people who committed those acts."

He added: "I wish the UN would look at human rights in the round, rather than simply focusing all the time on the terrorist."

But Prof Novak refused to accept the rebuke. "The UN is strongly concerned about terrorism and counter-terrorism. But there are certain standards that have to be observed in the context of counter-terrorism," he said last night. "We in the western democratic countries, in the fight against terrorism, should not step over these limits by violating international law."

Prof Novak, whose investigations take him round the world, said he could cite Britain when he reports to the UN general assembly in October but he hoped the issue could be sorted out before then. His main objection is to the government's policy of seeking memoranda of understanding from countries to which people would be deported that they would not be tortured. He said the memoranda were not an appropriate tool to eradicate the risk of torture.

In other words, the UN “human rights commission” says a nation has no right to toss out folks openly advocating violence, mass murder, or even the religious justification for the destruction of the nation itself, if the hatemonger might be “persecuted” in their country of origin. Obtaining the assurance of the government of the country if origin is not sufficient, if the UN deems that country to be prone to use “torture”.

This of course conveniently overlooks the fact that the hatemonger is in the host country in the first place only because that country chose to allow him entry. So now, somehow, “international law” guarantees an immigrant the right to stay in a foreign land, no matter how he abuses that courtesy afforded him by the host. Remember, this is the same UN that paid for the palestinians’ “today Gaza, tomorrow every inch of the land” propaganda barrage, a clear statement of the palestinian intention to eradicate the nation of Israel (a nation recognized, by the way, by the UN) from the face of the earth, and either kill the Israelis or “drive them into the sea.”

But in the view of the UN, the “human rights” of the Islamist hatemongers somehow outweigh the right of the citizens of Britain to not be slaughtered in the streets. The UN takes the position that “international law” and the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees prohibits deporting them back to their home countries “where they could be persecuted”. The British government, however, makes the case that their intent is in keeping with British immigration law.

Mr Clarke's announcement yesterday clarifies his existing powers under the 1971 Immigration Act and requires no new legislation. It comes into effect immediately and sets out the sort of behaviour likely to lead him to exclude foreign citizens.

They include expressing views which "foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence", "seeking to provoke others to terrorist acts", fomenting "other serious criminal activity", or encouraging hatred "which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK".

Mr Clarke argued that the new list of unacceptable behaviour would make it "absolutely clear" where the law stood, but was not intended to "stifle free speech or legitimate debate".

Although the moves mark a toning down of the government's original anti-terror intentions, they have caused unease among international observers. A second UN body last night also condemned the deportation proposals, saying Britain would be in breach of the 1951 Geneva convention on refugees if they were enacted.

The UN high commissioner for refugees said the government had failed to reply to a letter expressing its concerns.

Peter Kessler, spokesman for the UNHCR, said: "An application of these proposals, without access to due process, could amount to sending people back to countries where they could be persecuted. That would be in abrogation of the UK's obligations under the 1951 convention."

This is sheer stupidity, since the reason these nice folks would be persecuted in their home countries is… wait for it … their advocacy of violence and mass murder!

Well, if the Geneva Convention of 1951 prohibits deporting some monster who is trying to wage his jihad in your own back yard, killing as many of your women and children as he can, the solution seems pretty simple: repudiate the Geneva Convention on refugees. If a European agreement is perceived as preventing the deportation of these people, then withdraw from that agreement. And if the UN wants to complain too much about it, the western nations need to shut off the financial spigots and let them fund their own perverse activities.

What the UN fails to understand is that it is not a world governing body, much as it would like to be. It is an increasingly undemocratic and anti-western club for the pushing of the agendas of penny-ante states trying to collect a payoff from economic success of the the western democracies. What authority it has, what legitimacy it has, derives from its reasonably utilitarian availability as a forum, not from any right to dictate to any nation, member or not.

And the more the UN takes stupid positions like this, the less attention any of the nations it really needs for its survival will pay to its ridiculous pronouncements.

China launches "Mango Offensive" against Taiwan

2005-08-25T02:57:00.000-05:00

In a transparent effort to undermine support for Taiwan’s pro-independence government, communist China has unilaterally dropped or reduced import tariffs on mangoes, papayas, pineapples, starfruit and other produce cultivated in Taiwan’s southern region, an area which has strongly supported the DPP, Taiwan’s ruling party.

The Chinese trade initiative is aimed only at mangoes and other fruit produced in the south, where farmers have seen profits declining because of overproduction, and seem clearly targeted at influencing the Taiwanese local elections scheduled for December.

That [declining profitability] may change this month as China opens its doors wide to Taiwan produce, axing import tariffs on 15 fruits from August 1 to curry favor with farmers in the island's South, many of whom are staunch supporters of pro-independence President Chen Shui-bian.

Taiwan's leader is warning farmers against what he calls China's reunification ploy, saying Beijing is trying to erode his grass-roots voter base and make the self-ruled island of 23 million people more economically dependent on the mainland.

Given the relative sizes of China and Taiwan, China may believe that it can simply swallow Taiwan whole by absorbing its economy, and the mango offensive may actually be a first step in that direction.

While hardcore supporters like Chen Yan-hai stand firmly behind the DPP, others say Beijing's maneuvers will likely boost support for opposition parties like the Kuomintang (KMT), which oppose Taiwanese independence, ahead of local county elections to be held across Taiwan in December.

"The middle-of-the-road voters with no strong party affiliations will see their fruit being sold in China and think the KMT can better take care of the farmers," said Yan Kuo-hsian, a supply and marketing chief for Yuching's farmers association.

China decided to scrap the fruit tariffs after meeting with opposition leaders and pledging to work with them to boost trade ties across the Taiwan Strait. Beijing refuses to deal directly with the Chen government.

Members of the DPP say they are worried the issue will take center stage at end-year election campaigns.

"China's tariff policy definitely has a political objective, which is to get votes away from the DPP," said Chou Rong-hui, director of the party's Yuching branch, whose office is a tin shed next to the farmers association.

One bizarre aspect of this economic ploy is that the communist mainland is dealing directly with Taiwanese opposition parties, as related above, and with Taiwanese trade groups which have tended to support the pro-independence government:

Besides unilaterally canceling the import tariffs, Beijing has also called for talks with Taiwanese farm groups on revising customs rules to further smooth the way of farm exports to China.

Obviously, there are some aspects of the China-Taiwan relationship which would seem very unfamiliar to us. Can you imagine the government of China openly negotiating with the Democrats or labor unions in this country in order to work out trade terms that would undermine the US government?

Something for the appeasement crowd

2005-08-17T09:08:00.000-05:00

By way of Little Green Footballs, here’s the Hamas view of how to respond to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, courtesy of Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled Mashaal:

The implementation of the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip marks “the beginning of the end for Israel,” said Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled Mashaal.

Speaking to al-Hayat newspaper, Mashaal was quoted as saying on Tuesday that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as “the beginning of the end for the Zionist program in the region.”

The Hamas leader reiterated the movement’s commitment to the calm with Israel until the end of the current year, but added the “resistance is a strategic choice, because the withdrawal from Gaza is the first step in the way to complete liberation.”

The Damascus-based official stressed that “Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants the Gaza exit to be the first and last, and the payment for the continued control in the West Bank, settlement construction, wall construction, and the annulment of any possibility of establishing a Palestinian state within the framework of the Zionist project to end the Palestinian issue with the unlimited US support,” adding "We, however, see the withdrawal as first step for full liberation and achieving all of our legitimate rights. Today Gaza and tomorrow the West Bank and later every inch of the land."

OK boys and girls, there you have it: there is no meeting terrorists halfway, there is no live and let live with terrorists, there is no reasonable accommodation to be made. The appeasers are dead wrong, as they always have been throughout history.

"Today Gaza and tomorrow the West Bank and later every inch of the land."

The truth is, it's not all murder and mayhem

2005-08-16T14:44:00.000-05:00

Writing in the Sun-Times, Deroy Murdock points out that there is good news from Iraq, too, even if the media generally tries to ignore it. After discussing the strides in training and eqipping the Iraqis to handle their own security and military affairs, Murdock provides a litany of civil improvememnts to Iraqi society:

Infrastructure improvements also are encouraging. A new Kirkuk treatment plant began providing clean water to 5,000 people on June 27, the State Department says. Another 84 U.S.-led waterworks projects are under way in Iraq, while 114 have been completed.

Some 18,000 pupils will study in rehabilitated classrooms when they go back to school in mid-September. According to U.S. and Iraqi officials, 43 more schools were slated for renovation Aug. 6. So far, 3,211 schools have been refurbished, and another 773 are being repaired.

Iraq's monthly oil exports have grown from $200 million in June 2003 to $2.5 billion last month. This is due both to higher prices and to the fact that fuel supplies have swelled from 23 percent to 97 percent of official production goals in that period. These key improvements also help explain why Iraq's gross domestic product increased from a World Bank estimate of $12.1 billion in 2003 to a projected $21.1 billion in 2004.

Iraqis who endured Baathist censorship now enjoy a vibrant, free press.

Commercial TV channels, radio stations and independent newspapers and magazines have zoomed from zero before Operation Iraqi Freedom to -- respectively -- 29, 80 and 170 today.
Internet subscribers have boomed from 4,500 before Iraq's liberation to 147,076 last March, not counting the additional Iraqis who use Internet cafes. When Saddam Hussein fell, Iraq had 833,000 telephone subscribers. In July that figure had soared 356.4 percent to 3,801,822.

In the political arena, women hold seven of Baghdad's top 40 ministerial positions. While Iraq is more than 17.5 percent female, this is impressive political involvement for women in the world's most sexist region. Among others, women run Iraq's ministries of communications, environment, public works and human rights.

America's National Democratic Institute (a global outreach organization) last month trained 208 members of 70 political parties and 10 NGOs from across Iraq. They studied U.S.-style campaign skills including knocking on doors, canvassing petitions and organizing rallies. In another workshop, activists learned how to promote their parties' agendas on TV during two-minute and even 30-second sound bites.

Here's hoping all that training is including some basic instruction on things like objective news reporting and honest political campaigning.

Study links Tylenol with high blood pressure in women

2005-08-16T11:47:00.000-05:00

DALLAS — Women taking daily amounts of non-aspirin painkillers — such as an extra-strength Tylenol (search) — are more likely to develop high blood pressure than those who don't, a new study suggests.

While many popular over-the-counter painkillers have been linked before to high blood pressure, acetaminophen (search), sold as Tylenol, has generally been considered relatively free of such risk.

It is the only one that is not a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug or NSAID (search), a class of medications the federal government just required to carry stricter warning labels because of the risk for heart-related problems. Those include ibuprofen (sold as Advil and Motrin) and naproxen (sold as Aleve). Many had turned to those painkillers in the wake of problems with prescription drugs, such as Vioxx.

However, the new study found that women taking Tylenol were about twice as likely to develop blood pressure problems. Risk also rose for women taking NSAIDS other than aspirin.

"If you're taking these over-the-counter medications at high dosages on a regular basis, make sure that you report it to your doctor and you're checking your blood pressure," said Dr. Christie Ballantyne, a cardiologist at the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center in Houston who had no role in the study.

The research found that aspirin still remains the safest medicine for pain relief. It has long been known to reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems and was not included in the government's requirement for stricter labels for NSAIDs.The study involved 5,123 women participating in the Nurses Health Study at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

None had had high blood pressure when it began.

Personally, I've always thought the success of Tylenol was more a matter of marketing than any real advantage over aspirin. Millions have been spent over the years convincing Americans that aspirin "might" upset or damage your stomach. In fact, very few people do not tolerate aspirin without adverse side effects. Even now, Tylenol is running a new ad campaign urging people to avoid aspirin because it could be hurting their stomachs, even if there is no reason in the world to think it is.

The study's author refers to taking the medication in "high dosages", but this is deceptive. A little more detail reveals that "high dosages" have nothing to do with it:

In this study, the risk of developing high blood pressure for women who weren't taking painkillers was about 1 to 3 percent a year, researchers said. They found that that women ages 51-77 who took an average daily dose of more than 500 milligrams of acetaminophen — one extra-strength Tylenol — had about double the risk of developing high blood pressure within about three years.

Women in that age range who take more than 400 mg a day of NSAIDS — equal to say two ibuprofen — had a 78 percent increased risk of developing high blood pressure over those who didn't take the drug.

Among women 34-53 who take an average of more than 500 mg of acetaminophen a day had a two-fold higher risk of developing high blood pressure. And those who took more than 400 mg of NSAIDS a day had a 60 percent risk increase over those who didn't take the pills.

I would hardly say a dose of one extra-strength Tylenol per day would consttitute a "high dosage", but according to this study, one a day doubled the likelihood of high blood pressure.

Aspirin was regarded for many years as a "wonder drug." It then became fashionable to regard aspirin as somehow old fashioned or primitive, and an entire generation was discouraged from using it, until its effect on cardiovascular health became widely known. As time goes by, and more and more "advanced" alternatives are shown to have risks and side effects, aspirin increasingly appears to actually be the "wonder drug" it was originally labelled.

A site worth seeing

2005-08-15T05:56:00.000-05:00

The Daily Czech offers “Daily news, comments and observations from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.” It’s a uniquely European view of life in the former Czechoslovakia.

Disappointing News

2005-08-14T18:35:00.000-05:00

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadians can put away those extra welcome mats -- it seems Americans unhappy about the result of last November's presidential election have decided to stay at home after all.

In the days after President Bush won a second term, the number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada's main immigration Web site shot up sixfold, prompting speculation that unhappy Democrats would flock north.

But official statistics show the number of Americans actually applying to live permanently in Canada fell in the six months after the election.

Oh well, it was nice to imagine hordes of discontented leftist extremists heading north, but then I guess we knew all along it was just more empty blather. I'm still waiting for Alec Baldwin to pack up and get out of the country, which he promised to do in 2000. Oh, and I guess Robert Redford took a look at those European taxes (and the money to be made in the European film industry) and decided not to move to Europe, either.

Factcheck: anti-Roberts ad is "false" and "misleading"

2005-08-11T09:10:00.000-05:00

A couple of days back we pointed you to Power Line's exposure of the despicably slanderous falsehoods contained in an attack ad launched against Judge Roberts by a pro-abortion group. Factcheck.org is in agreement, pronouncing the ad both "false" and "misleading":

An abortion-rights group is running an attack ad accusing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of filing legal papers “supporting . . . a convicted clinic bomber” and of having an ideology that “leads him to excuse violence against other Americans” It shows images of a bombed clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.

The ad is false.

And the ad misleads when it says Roberts supported a clinic bomber. It is true that Roberts sided with the bomber and many other defendants in a civil case, but the case didn't deal with bombing at all. Roberts argued that abortion clinics who brought the suit had no right use an 1871 federal anti-discrimination statute against anti-abortion protesters who tried to blockade clinics. Eventually a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed, too. Roberts argued that blockades were already illegal under state law.

The images used in the ad are especially misleading. The pictures are of a clinic bombing that happened nearly seven years after Roberts signed the legal brief in question.

Anybody heard all those lefty voices denouncing this pile of garbage?

Anybody heard that CNN has returned the $150,000 or whatever they've already been paid, and declined to run the ad?

Yeah, me neither.

Blair gets tough, but is it too little, too late?

2005-08-10T22:08:00.000-05:00

A few days back, when the first reports appeared concerning Tony Blair’s plan to go after Islamic militants in Britain, I wrote this:

Tony Blair has apparently had enough. Realizing that the root cause of the Islamic terrorist movement isn't poverty, or Israel, or US foreign policy, Blair is taking aim at the true source: the death cult that is militant Islam.

This is a fair characterization: militant Islam is a death cult, nothing more and nothing less, and they seek the death, by mass murder whenever possible, of anyone and everyone who is not one of them. Either you will live in their perverted ninth-century vision of an Islamic paradise, or you will be killed.

What Blair is proposing is a good start, but the civilized world must go farther if it is to survive: the mosques that house the death cultists must be shut down. The "schools" that "educate" the death cultists must be shut down. The leaders of the death cult must be hunted down. The death cult of militant Islam must be stamped out, ruthlessly and completely.

This is not an issue of religious freedom, or freedom of speech, or civil liberties of any kind. Every civilized society in the world has realized that there are limits, and enforces those limits. We do not tolerate the "religious" practices of polygamy or child marriage. We would not tolerate the "religious" practice of cannibalism, ritual murder, or human sacrifice. We surely should not tolerate the "religious" practice of mass murder.

Pastorius, from CUANAS, added a comment and a link to a later, more detailed news article that made it clear that Blair’s initiative was much broader and deeper than that early report I read had indicated, and in fact included some of the measures I was advocating. (I’ve said before, I say again, if you’re not reading CUANAS regularly, you should be).

But then came this disturbing report, raising the possibility that Blair’s proposals may be too little, too late:

Intelligence chiefs are warning Tony Blair that Britain faces a full-blown Islamist insurgency, sustained by thousands of young Muslim men with military training now resident in this country.

This is a frightening possibility, but it should not have been unexpected. Not only Britain, but many of the civilized nations of Europe have huge unassimilated muslim populations, and a decade and a half of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” have left these foreigners to develop self-contained, insulated communities which identify more with their religion or ethnic group than with the country where they live.

The problem is not limited to Europe. Canada is very quietly trying to figure out to do with certain large muslim enclaves that have declared that their local religious tribunals are their ultimate legal authority, and that they are not answerable to Canadian officials. In Australia, some more assimilated muslim communities are raising the alarm about jihadist teachings in muslim schools and universities supported by Australian tax dollars in the name of diversity and muticulturlism.

In Britain, the recent bombings have jolted the government into action, and they are confronting the possibility of a full-scale domestic Islamic insurgency.

As police and the security services work to prevent another cell murdering civilians, attention is focusing on the pool of migrants to this country from the Horn of Africa and central Asia. MI5 is working to an estimate that more than 10,000 young men from these regions have had at least basic training in light weapons and military explosives.

A well-connected source said there were more than 100,000 people in Britain from "completely militarised" regions, including Somalia and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa, and Afghanistan and territories bordering the country. "Every one of them knows how to use an AK-47," said the source. "About 10 per cent can strip and reassemble such a weapon blindfolded, and probably a similar proportion have some knowledge of how to use military explosives. That adds up to tens of thousands of men."

Even though the vast majority had come to Britain to escape the lawlessness of their homelands, the source added, there remained an alarmingly large pool of trained men who could be lured into violent action here.

This threat had been largely neglected while attention focused on British-born militants who had been through training camps run by al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan.

"There has been a debate on whether we are facing an insurgency or terrorism," said the source, "and the verdict is on the side of an insurgency."

The thought of Britain, or any civilized western nation, being brought under widespread terrorist attack by the foreigners they have allowed ti immigrate is an ugly image. But the question then becomes, what happens next?

What happens when some civilized nation, Britain, France, or Holland, for example, has had enough? What happens when some European nation elects a strongman who promises to “clean up” the “foreigners”? What happens when some European country decides that its only chance to survive as a nation is to prohibit all immigration from Islamic countries? Or that the only way to root out the Islamic terrorists already among them is to shut down all mosques, or outlaw Islam, or expel all muslims?

The UN, which has done and will do nothing to prevent the continued slaughter of Israelis by the palestinians, or the construction of nuclear weapons by the Iranian theocracy, will surely label any such step as “ethnic cleansing” and try to stop it. What will happen when the UN expects the US to send in troops to protect the muslim population of some European country from the European citizens of that country?

The civilized nations of the world must act now, ruthlessly and relentlessly, to shut down the death cult of militant Islam. The cancer must be cut out now, before it becomes so extensive that the cure will also kill the patient.

How the Left became the tacit allies of Islamofascism

2005-08-10T21:08:00.000-05:00

I have remarked many times over the years that the political spectrum, like Einstein’s universe, is curved. If you go far enough to the right, you end up on the left, and vice versa. While the rhetoric of fascism and communism are diametrically opposed, the end result of the acquisition of political power, that is, the practical effect of either system upon the unfortunate average citizen, is virtually indistinguishable.

Writing in The Guardian Unlimited last Sunday, Nick Cohen drew a parallel between the liberals of the 1930’s who pretended the abuses of Communism didn’t exist, and today’s left, which somehow manages to pretend that the Islamist militants are not the bad guys, and thereby have become the tacit allies of the psychopathic fascism that Islamism represents.

Looking back on how his generation covered up the crimes of communism in the 1930s, WH Auden explained that he and his friends weren't true communists but fellow travellers. At home they defended civil liberties and stood up for freedom of speech. Abroad, they tolerated atrocities precisely because they didn't impinge on them.

'Our great error,' said Auden, 'was not a false admiration for Russia but a snobbish feeling that nothing which happened in a semi-barbarous country which had experienced neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment could be of any importance: had any of the countries we knew personally, like France, Germany or Italy, the language of which we could speak and where we had personal friends, been one to have a successful communist revolution with the same phenomena of terror, purges, censorship etc, we would have screamed our heads off.'

The immediate point of Cohen’s piece was to describe the unceremonious declaration of his long-time fellow liberals that he was no longer one of them, that he had betrayed the anti-war movement by questioning its motives, and had had the audacity to suggest that perhaps it should be easier to deport suspected Islamist terrorists.

I'm sure that any halfway competent political philosopher could rip the assumptions of modern middle-class left-wingery apart. Why is it right to support a free market in sexual relationships but oppose free-market economics, for instance? But his criticisms would have little impact. It's like a religion: the contradictions are obvious to outsiders but don't disturb the faithful. You believe when you're in its warm embrace. Alas, I'm out. Last week, after 44 years of regular church-going, the bell tolled, the book was closed and the candle was extinguished. I was excommunicated.

The officiating bishop was Peter Wilby, a former editor of the New Statesman and a friend of long-standing, who delivered his anathema in the Guardian. The immediate heresy was a piece I'd written about how difficult the courts made it to deport suspected Islamist terrorists. As I'd campaigned to protect asylum seekers in the past, Wilby used the article as damning evidence of 'a rightwards lurch'. The old bat didn't understand that genuine asylum seekers are the victims of the world's greatest criminals - four million fled Saddam Hussein - not criminals themselves.

Even if he'd grasped that the Mail was wrong and real refugees weren't villains, I doubt it would have made a difference. My mortal sin had been to question 'harshly the motives of the anti-war movement', and to that I had to plead guilty.

But Cohen has not betrayed the left. He rightly realizes that in fact it is the left which has betrayed liberal principles, if not all decent human principles. Pointing out that the left’s position today is indistinguishable from the justification of imperialism in the 19th century, Cohen makes the point, powerfully, that there is nothing “liberal” about the left, which defends the indefensible blood-thirsty fascism which is the Islamist movement.

Auden noticed a retreat from universal principles in the 1930s - communism was fine in 'semi-barbaric' Russia but would have been a screaming outrage in a civilised country. He should have been alive today. With no socialism to provide international solidarity, good motives of tolerance and respect for other cultures have had the unintended consequence of leading a large part of post-modern liberal opinion into the position of 19th-century imperialists. It is presumptuous and oppressive to suggest that other cultures want the liberties we take for granted, their argument runs. So it may be, but believe that and the upshot is that democracy, feminism and human rights become good for whites but not for browns and brown-skinned people who contradict you are the tools of the neo-conservatives.

On the other hand when confronted with a movement of contemporary imperialism - Islamism wants an empire from the Philippines to Gibraltar - and which is tyrannical, homophobic, misogynist, racist and homicidal to boot, they feel it is valid because it is against Western culture. It expresses its feelings in a regrettably brutal manner perhaps, but that can't hide its authenticity.

The result of this inversion of principles has been that liberals can't form alliances with the victims of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Iraq any more than the Auden generation could form alliances with the victims of Stalinism.

This isn't simply about international relations. Who is going to help the victims of religious intolerance in Britain's immigrant communities? Not the Liberal Democrats, who have never once offered support to liberal and democrats in Iraq. Nor an anti-war left which prefers to embrace a Muslim Association of Britain and Yusuf al-Qaradawi who believe that Muslims who freely decide to change their religion or renounce religion should be executed. If the Archbishop of Canterbury were to suggest the same treatment for renegade Christians all hell would break loose. But as the bigotry comes from 'the other' there is silence.

Thus, it is the leftists, the “it’s all Bush and Blair’s fault, there is no hope for democracy or freedom in muslim countries because the ‘those people’ really don’t want it” anti-any-and-all-war crowd which have abandoned all pretense at liberal or progressive thought, treating the violently aggressive Islamic fascists as the victims, and the average man in the muslim street as the tools and collaborators of the true enemy, the neocons.

Cohen suggests that he detects an undercurrent among liberals, a growing movement of folks who, like him, have reached the point where they are willing to break ranks with the leftist consensus and confront the evil of Islamism for what it is. The bombings in Britain he thinks, have been a wake-up call for many, and he likens the phenomenon to a ride on a train:

The thing to watch for with fellow travellers is what shocks them into pulling the emergency cord and jumping off the train. I know some will stay on to the terminus, and when the man with the rucksack explodes his bomb their dying words will be: 'It's not your fault. I blame Tony Blair.'

My advice to my former comrades is to struggle out of your straitjackets and get off at the next station. It would be good to see you on this side of the barrier.

I have long wondered how leftists could continue to call themselves “liberal” and “progressive” while espousing a philosophy which would abandon the people of the middle east to the oppression of a psychotic “religion” which is nothing more than a death cult; how people who are able to rationalize as cultural relativism a movement which espouses the slaughter of every man woman and child who is not one of them, could possibly think of themselves as "liberal" or "progressive".

Perhaps those on the left who truly are “liberal” thinkers are beginning to awaken to the realization that by jumping off now, they’re not abandoning their liberal principles. They’re getting off a train which has been hijacked by extremists who long ago abandoned the ranks of liberal thinking.

Slander of Judge Roberts begins in earnest

2005-08-09T09:23:00.000-05:00

John Hinderaker at POWER LINE has the lowdown on a despicable anti-Roberts media campaign now underway:

As a close observer of the political scene, I suppose I should be shock-proof. But what NARAL did today shocked me. It began running an anti-John Roberts television ad featuring Emily Lyons, victim of a 1998 bombing of an abortion clinic in Alabama that was carried out by Eric Rudolph. The ad goes as follows:

Announcer: "Seven years ago a bomb destroyed a woman's health clinic In Birmingham, Alabama."

Lyons: ""The bomb ripped my clinic. I almost lost my life. I will never be the same."

Announcer: ""Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber."

Lyons: "I am determined to stop this violence, so I'm speaking out."

It is not easy to fit so many lies and distortions into a 30-second commercial. The case referred to by NARAL is Bray v. Alexandria Clinic; you can read the Supreme Court's opinion here. The Bray case was decided in 1993; John Roberts was one of six Justice Department lawyers who signed an amicus brief on behalf of the federal government, and he argued the case for the government. You can read the government's brief here.

After providing, as usual, links to the original source material, POWER LINE discusses in detail the somewhat technical legal aspects of the case, and reaches the following conclusion. Which is, I might add, correct:

So NARAL misrepresents the Bray case in every particular. Roberts didn't "support violent fringe groups" or a "convicted clinic bomber." He supported the federal government's position on a specific question of law--correctly, as the Court found. NARAL's reference to a "convicted clinic bomber" is especially outrageous. The Bray case had nothing to do with a bombing by Eric Rudolph or anyone else, and Rudolph attacked the Birmingham clinic--the bombing that is referred to in the NARAL ad--eight years after Roberts wrote the brief on the Section 1985(3) issues.

For NARAL to suggest that John Roberts has ever done anything to support violence against abortion clinics (or anything else) is so far outside the bounds of civilized debate that one can hope that, even in today's far-gone Democratic Party, sane voices will be raised to denounce NARAL's advertising campaign.

Unfortunately, I’d bet those “sane voices” denouncing this disgusting slanderous crap will be few and far between. Remember, you are talking about the party that plopped Michael Moore down in a box of honor at its convention. The party that still thinks Dan Rather is a “journalist” and Jimmy Carter is a “statesman”. I wouldn’t count too much on a whole lot of sanity out of that crowd. This is the party that never once denounced, or even debated, any of the slanderous nonsensical Bush-bashing babblings of the 2004 campaign.

An election which, by the way, Bush won…by a majority vote.

$12 Billion comes back from China

2005-08-08T13:58:00.000-05:00

From an AP report by way of Yahoo news:

Four Chinese airline companies have agreed to buy 42 Boeing 787 jets for a total $5.04 billion, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.

China's flag carrier Air China Ltd. and China Eastern Airlines Corp. will each buy 15 planes, Shanghai Airlines Co. will buy nine planes, and Xiamen Airline Co. will buy three planes, the report said.

The purchases come ahead of an expected visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to the United States in September and are a coup for Chicago-based Boeing over European archrival Airbus SAS.

In January, six Chinese airlines signed an agreement with Boeing to order 60 of its new fuel-efficient 787 Dreamliners for $7.2 billion.

Boeing spokeswoman Yvonne Leach said the company was still negotiating with Hainana Airlines Co. and China Southern Airlines Co., which were part of the previous agreement. "We have every intent of getting there with the two airlines," Leach said.

Xiamen Air is 60 percent owned by China Southern Airlines, which along with Xiamen Air also signed a contract in April to buy 45 Boeing 737s.

Note, the $12 billion dollar figure includes only the two orders for 787's; it does not include the April purchase of 45 737's.

Joint Chinese-Russian military exercises

2005-08-05T18:36:00.000-05:00

Sovereign Commentary has an update on the upcoming joint Russian-Chinese military exercises. This is one of the few blogs paying any attention to this event, which the MSM is all-but ignoring. Go check out the series of posts. Odds are, it’ll be an eye-opener for you.

High explosives from Iran intercepted in Iraq

2005-08-05T13:11:00.000-05:00

MSNBC is reporting that a large shipment of lethal explosives smuggled into Iraq from Iran has been intercepted:

U.S. military and intelligence officials tell NBC News that American soldiers intercepted a large shipment of high explosives, smuggled into northeastern Iraq from Iran only last week.

The officials say the shipment contained dozens of "shaped charges" manufactured recently. Shaped charges are especially lethal because they’re designed to concentrate and direct a more powerful blast into a small area.

“They’ll go right through a very heavily armored vehicle like an M1-A1 tank from one side right out the other side,” says retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey.

Military officials say there’s only one use for shaped charges — to kill American forces — and insurgents started using them in Iraq with deadly effectiveness three months ago.

Intelligence officials believe the high-explosives were shipped into Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary guard or the terrorist group Hezbollah, but are convinced it could not have happened without the full consent of the Iranian government.

How long before the mad mullahs in Tehran are in a position to ship nuclear bombs to terrorists around the world?

Blair seeks deportation of preachers of death

2005-08-05T07:46:00.000-05:00

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday announced new deportation measures against people who foster hatred and advocate violence following last month's transportation attacks that killed 52 people and four suspected suicide bombers.

Clerics who preach hate and Web sites or book shops that sponsor violence would be targeted. Foreign nationals could be deported under the new measures.

Blair said his government was prepared to amend human rights legislation if necessary if legal challenges arose from the new deportation measures.

Britain's ability to deport foreign nationals has been hampered by human rights legislation. As a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, Britain is not allowed to deport people to a country where they may face torture or death.

"Let no one be in any doubt that the rules of the games are changing," Blair said, promising to crack down on extremists blamed for radicalizing pockets of Muslim youth.

By the year's end, Blair wants to pass legislation that would outlaw "indirect incitement" of terrorism — targeting extremist Islamic clerics who glorify acts of terrorism and seduce impressionable Muslim youth.

The law would ban receiving training in terrorist techniques in Britain or abroad. A new offense of "acts preparatory to terrorism" would outlaw planning an attack and activities such as acquiring bomb-making instructions on the Internet.

Tony Blair has apparently had enough. Realizing that the root cause of the Islamic terrorist movement isn't poverty, or Israel, or US foreign policy, Blair is taking aim at the true source: the death cult that is militant Islam.

This is a fair characterization: militant Islam is a death cult, nothing more and nothing less, and they seek the death, by mass murder whenever possible, of anyone and everyone who is not one of them. Either you will live in their perverted ninth-century vision of an Islamic paradise, or you will be killed.

What Blair is proposing is a good start, but the civilized world must go farther if it is to survive: the mosques that house the death cultists must be shut down. The "schools" that "educate" the death cultists must be shut down. The leaders of the death cult must be hunted down. The death cult of militant Islam must be stamped out, ruthlessly and completely.

This is not an issue of religious freedom, or freedom of speech, or civil liberties of any kind. Every civilized society in the world has realized that there are limits, and enforces those limits. We do not tolerate the "religious" practices of polygamy or child marriage. We would not tolerate the "religious" practice of cannibalism, ritual murder, or human sacrifice. We surely should not tolerate the "religious" practice of mass murder.

SpudWorks

2005-08-04T14:38:00.000-05:00

John Wood over at the SpudWorks Blog has been posting a lot more regularly of late. An odd (which, in my world, is a positive descriptive term) mix of technology and odds and ends, the content ranges from the future of the mainframe to a cool flickr hack to France and China. Stop by and sample this interesting "assortment pack" of a blog.

NY Civil Liberties Union files suit to block subway searches

2005-08-04T14:13:00.000-05:00

The New York Civil Liberties Union today filed suit against the city to keep police from searching the bags of passengers entering the subway, organization lawyers said.

The suit, which filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, will claimed that the two-week old policy violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and prohibitions against unlawful searches and seizures, while doing almost nothing to shield the city from terrorism.

It argues that the measure also allows the possibility for racial profiling, even though officers are ordered to randomly screen passengers."While concerns about terrorism of course justify -- indeed, require -- aggressive police tactics, those concerns cannot justify the Police Department's unprecedented policy of subjecting millions of innocent people to suspicionless searches," states the suit.

For those unfamiliar with the actual text of the United States Constitution, there is no “right of privacy” anywhere therein. There is no Constitutional right to carry a backpack, suitcase, briefcase or dufflebag on a public conveyance. There is a prohibition against “unreasonable” searches and seizures. What is unreasonable about the police checking to see if you’re carrying a bomb onto the subway?

Personally, I would think not being blown to bits by some whacko terrorist would rank pretty high on the list of "civil liberties".

NATO to replace US troops in Afghanistan in 2006

2005-08-04T12:16:00.000-05:00

USA Today is carrying an AP report indicating that a multi-national Nato force will replace the 17,000 US combat troops currently stationed throughout Afghanistan for the purpose of providing security:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO-led international troops will be ready to assume responsibility for security across all of Afghanistan by the end of next year, freeing up thousands of American forces, a top NATO general said Thursday.

There has long been a plan to expand the 10,000-strong NATO force here into Afghanistan's volatile south and east, but the timing for its completion has never been specific. Washington has long sought such a move, hoping to relieve many of its 17,600 front-line troops still here.

"We are in a position that we can take over the responsibility for all of Afghanistan in the course of the next year," said Gen. Gerhard Back, who oversees the International Security Assistance Force mission from his base in Brunssum, the Netherlands.

He made the comments to reporters after a ceremony marking the change of the command of ISAF from a Turkish general to Italian Lt. Gen. Mauro Del Vecchio.

ISAF already maintains security in the capital, Kabul, and the country's north and west. It plans to increase its size and take over from the U.S.-led coalition in the violence-wracked south early next year, before gradually moving into the east.

It is not clear how many U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan after NATO takes command of security for all the country, ISAF spokesman Riccardo Cristoni said. But most American forces that do stay would be led by NATO, he said.Cristoni said it was also not clear whether the United States would keep a separate force dedicated to hunting Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders believed to be hiding along the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border.

Gee, maybe there really wasn't a secret US plan to build a gas pipeline across Afghanistan and keep it for ourselves forever!?

Does anybody think we WON'T maintain forces hunting for terrorists throughout Afghanistan and along the Pakistani border after the main troop withdrawal?

Russia bans ABC News

2005-08-04T11:53:00.000-05:00

In retaliation for ABC News' decision to broadcast an interview with the Chechen terrorist leader who claims to be responsible for the massacre of schoolchildren in Beslan, Sky News reports that the Putin government has cut off access to Russian officials and will not renew accreditation for ABC.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said: "ABC is now unwelcome to contact any Russian state organisations or bodies.

"A decision was taken that at the end of their period, the accreditations of the workers of this company will not be renewed."

Russian officials were left outraged by the Basayev interview, the terrorist who said he was behind the attack on a school in Beslan last September which killed around 300 people.

ABC News president David Westin said: "The mission of a free press is to cover news events - even those involving illegal acts - to help our audience better understand the important issues that confront us all."

"ABC News deeply regrets the action taken by the Russian government against ABC journalists operating in Russia, but we cannot allow any government to deter us from reporting the news fully and accurately."

I have mixed feelings about this. A free press is a wonderful thing. But I'm old fashioned, and I believe that with rights come responsibilities. I'm not sure providing a media platform for terrorists who murder schoolchildren is necessary to convey "the news". You might legitimately wonder how a media blackout would effect some of these whackos.

And I personally have a real problem with the long-standing tendency of the MSM to treat terrorists and criminals favorably, apparently based on a presumption that it's always the government (any government) that is the bad guys.

(Hat tip to the Jawa Report)

"Stealth" campaign backfires, Cleveland school levy crushed

2005-08-03T14:05:00.000-05:00

Despite a low-key campaign intended to bring out only supporters, the Cleveland schools tax was crushed in Tuesday's election by angry West Side opponents.

Thirty percent of all votes cast on the issue came from Old Brooklyn and the city's far West Side, neighborhoods known for their aversion to school tax increases. Only about 43,000 voters turned out at the polls, or about 13 percent of those eligible, which shows that a core group on one side of town sealed the fate of the issue.

Unofficial results showed 65 percent of voters against the tax and 35 percent in favor, an even bigger margin than the failed school tax issue in November.

While those pushing the tax levy had sought to make only likely supporters aware of the vote, the strategy may have backfired badly:

Campaign manager Chris Carmody said confusion among voters about the difference between an operating tax and the construction bond issue passed in 2001 contributed to the loss, as well as a bad local economy. He also blamed negative press coverage in the last week.

Backers of the tax ran no television or radio ads and mailed fliers only to a carefully screened list of likely supporters, hoping that opponents would forget about the vote. The tactic failed.

Emily Lipovan Holan, a candidate for the City Council seat that includes Old Brooklyn, said she was surprised by the anger of voters who thought a tax was being forced on them without their knowledge.

She said opponents seemed to come out in the last four days.

"There was no literature on the West Side and they're livid," Lipovan Holan said. "They're very angry with the mayor that they didn't include the West Side."

Also working against the school levy is a widespread perception that the Cleveland schools are badly managed, top-heavy and bloated, with a superintendent making a huge salary and receiving tax abatement on her residence. In fact, tax abatement may have been a major factor in bringing out angry opponents.

Levy supporters were embarrassed when local media disclosed that the couple prominently displayed in their advertising pieces was paying only around $800 a year in property taxes on a $150,000 house, with a $2,200 tax abatement through the year 2011, raising questions about how much residential tax abatement was handed out in the Cleveland school district.

Other recent disclosures that the district had miscalculated the number of students riding buses for several years and would have to reimburse the state probably didn’t help either. For several years, the district simply reported the number of eligible students, instead of the numbers actually riding, and collected state monies based on the inflated figures. The Cleveland Schools are now required to repay the difference.

School levies failed all across northeastern Ohio, with only a couple passing. One likely conclusion is that Ohio voters, pretty much across the board, don't want to pay more property taxes.

Trying to blame the defeat of the levy on “confused voters” or a “bad economy” is a load of nonsense. The levy was defeated for a variety of reasons, and those were NOT among them.

The state of the economy

2005-08-03T12:02:00.000-05:00

In the context of discussing the passage of CAFTA a few days ago, Donald Lambro made a point I’ve been making recently: while you would never know it if you get your news from the MSM, the economy is humming along, and has been, fueled in part and certainly kick-started by the Bush tax cuts:

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California made the most pernicious attack. She claims ending trade tariffs in Central America will help decimate U.S. manufacturing.

Mrs. Pelosi's timing couldn't have been worse -- for her -- because the day she made her charges, the Federal Reserve Board put out its business climate survey that said U.S. manufacturing is getting stronger.

The Fed reported most of its 12 regional districts showed "moderate to solid expansions in manufacturing activity and expectations for future factory activity were generally upbeat," helping it soar out of a small soft patch it hit last spring.

The aircraft and high-tech manufacturing industries were singled out as especially strong in San Francisco and Boston. Oil refineries were doing quite well in Atlanta and Dallas because of the increased need for energy. Fueled by the building boom, manufacturers of key construction materials, including industrial equipment and cement, were particularly busy.

While Mrs. Pelosi made her charges on the House floor, the U.S. Commerce Department reported a strong manufacturing surge in June. Not only were American manufacturers producing more in response to increasing customers orders, they were selling more abroad -- to the tune of $1.15 trillion a year.

In addition, new orders for big-ticket goods such as machinery, computers and appliances shot up by 1.4 percent, and Commerce revised its previous estimate for durable goods orders in May to show a 6.4 percent increase, helped by a lengthening list of new aircraft orders.

But how can Mrs. Pelosi, who has such information available to her almost daily, be so far off in her characterization of manufacturing? Was she listening to CNN's Lou Dobbs, who keeps telling his viewers America doesn't make much anymore?

The answer, unfortunately, is all about the politics of pessimism and denial, an illness that has long afflicted Mrs. Pelosi's party -- to its detriment.

In 1984, Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale repeatedly characterized the economy as virtually another Great Depression. In reality, it was bouncing back big time, a recovery attributed to the Reagan tax cuts. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry told voters the economy was the worst since Herbert Hoover when it was growing by more than 4 percent.

In fact, the Bush economy appears to be running on all-cylinders right now, according to a slew of new economic data in the past two weeks.

Despite the news media's gloom-and-doom forecasts of a housing bubble bursting, the median sales price of existing homes rose 14.7 percent, to $219,000, over the last 12 months. This was the fastest rise in property values in nearly a quarter-century, the National Association of Realtors said. The Commerce Department said sales of new single-family homes rose 4 percent last month alone. That's an annual rate of 1.37 million homes, perhaps the strongest sign of the nation's growing prosperity.

Mrs. Pelosi and her friends continue insisting there is a job shortage in America because of Mr. Bush's policies. But the Fed business survey shot down that charge, too. Most Fed districts reported an increasing demand for workers, both skilled and unskilled, along with much stronger demand for temporary workers. Skilled workers were in particularly short supply in some districts. Businesses said they could not find truck drivers in places like Cleveland, Richmond and Atlanta.

We've had 25 consecutive months of job gains that have produced 3.7 million new jobs -- at all pay scale levels -- that has pounded the jobless rate down to 5 percent, the lowest in almost four years.

So why is the MSM continually harping about "lost jobs" and "the state of the economy"? Why is it all doom and gloom all the time? Because the truth doesn't fit the MSM agenda. And make no mistake, boys and girls, the vast bulk of the MSM isn't the least bit interested in objectively and truthfully relating the news. They are far too busy spinning and spewing propaganda in support of their own agenda.

Petition drive targets acreage owned by Justice Breyer

2005-07-30T16:55:00.000-05:00

Justice Breyer has joined Justice Souter in having his property targeted by citizens seeking to convince local governments to exercise the "right" of eminent domain as laid down by the Supreme Court in the abominable Kelo decision, as reported here.

Libertarians upset about a Supreme Court ruling on land taking have proposed seizing a justice's vacation home and turning it into a park, echoing efforts aimed at another justice who lives in the state.

Organizers are trying to collect enough signatures to go before the town next spring to ask to use Justice Stephen G. Breyer's 167-acre Plainfield property for a "Constitution Park" with stone monuments to commemorate the U.S. and New Hampshire constitutions.
"In the spirit of the ruling, we're recreating the same use of eminent domain," said John Babiarz, the Libertarian Party's state chairman.

The plot mirrors the party's ongoing effort to get the town of Weare, about 45 miles to the southeast, to seize Justice David Souter's home. Souter's property is also the focus of a proposal by a California man who suggested the town turn the farmhouse into a "Lost Liberty Hotel."

The efforts are meant in protest of the high court's June ruling that let a Connecticut city take land by eminent domain and turn it over to a private developer. Breyer and Souter supported the decision.

Through a spokesman, Breyer declined to comment on the matter Friday. Souter has also declined comment.

Plainfield Town Administrator Steve Halleran said he didn't expect Plainfield voters to support the Breyer effort, but Logan Darrow Clements, of Los Angeles, said he's gotten support from thousands of people across the country for his Souter plan, and the town clerk in Weare said she had to return checks from people wishing to donate to a hotel construction fund.

The Supreme Court's 5-4 court ruling lets officials in New London, Conn., take older homes along the city's waterfront for a private developer who plans to build offices, a hotel and convention center.

Need I add any further comment?

(For a post on the Clements hotel plan for Souter's property, go here.)

Scraping Paint

2005-07-30T07:34:00.000-05:00

Here's my theory on scraping paint before painting your house:

You will never, in your lifetime, actually "finish" this job. You will just reach the point where you are willing to decide that you are "done".

Cleveland schools use owners of tax-abatement property in ad for tax levy

2005-07-28T12:25:00.000-05:00

CLEVELAND -- Leaders of the campaign promoting a proposed levy that would raise $46 million annually for the city school district probably wish they had done more research on the tax status of a couple featured in one of their campaign ads.

The couple featured in ads for Tuesday's school vote said in the ad that they had to carefully look at issues such as taxes before buying their home. The problem is that they live in a home with a tax abatement.

Ilona and Mike Emmerth, who volunteered to pose before their Cleveland home for campaign literature, say they didn't know that most of their home's property taxes have been waived until 2011.

"For what it's worth, I thought tax abatement only applied to new houses," Mike Emmerth said Wednesday.

The Emmerths' home, purchased for $152,000 in 2002, has a tax abatement on $111,000 in renovations done before the purchase. That saves the couple $2,219 annually on a property tax bill that would otherwise be $3,031, leaving a payment of about $812, said Robin Thomas, chief deputy county treasurer.

Campaign manager Chris Carmody said organizers tried to find a couple who pay a full tax bill and they thought the Emmerths fit that description. He said, however, that the mistake doesn't detract from the message that young people are buying homes in the city.

"Organizers tried to find a couple who pay a full tax bill"... it would never have occurred to me that you would have to look for somebody who pays their property taxes, but apparently, they must be hard to find in Cleveland.

Here's a suggestion: don't give people a $2,219 annual tax break in exchange for buying a house. Then you won't have quite so much tax shortfall to make up.

The folks pushing the levy want to get the message out that "young people are buying homes in the city"... but they aren't paying property taxes, so how much good is it doing the city? How many more of these residential tax abatement properties are out there? What is the cost in lost revenue to the city? And how much additional burden does it place on those who ARE paying their property taxes? And finally, if the City of Cleveland thinks it can afford to hand out huge tax breaks like this on purely residential property (it's not like this is a business that is going to employ people), doesn't that suggest that maybe property taxes are already way too high?

German high court strikes down wiretap law

2005-07-28T09:28:00.000-05:00

On July 19, in this post, I discussed the ruling by the German equivalent of our Supreme Court that struck down the use of the EU warrant in the extradition and prosecution of German citizens for crimes committed in other countries. Specifically, that case dealt wioth the court's ruling in a case that set free a suspected al Qaeda financier indicted by Spain.

Now comes more news from the German high court. The court has struck down a law enacted by the state of Lower Saxony, enacted after 9/11, which had expanded wiretap authority in terrorism investigations:

KARLSRUHE, GERMANY - In a setback for anti-terror investigators, Germany's high court Wednesday ruled that a state law giving authorities sweeping powers to tap phones is unconstitutional.

The Federal Constitutional Court said the law violates the Germany constitution's guarantees of freedom from official eavesdropping.

At issue was a 2003 law in the state of Lower Saxony enacted in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The attacks were plotted and carried out by Islamic terrorists based in Hamburg, adjacent to Lower Saxony.

The court, in rejecting the law, noted that the framers of Germany's post-war constitution specifically wanted to prevent a recurrence of Gestapo police-state surveillance.

Why the terrorists kill

2005-07-27T11:08:00.000-05:00

Over the past few weeks, I've written several posts arguing that, no matter what the "blame America" crowd thinks, the terrorist attacks are not the "result" of any action or policy of the United States, have nothing to do with the Palestinians, and will not subside if we give in and try to "live and let live." Daniel Pipes takes a look at the Islamic extremists and comes to the same conclusion I've reached: what they want is to force everyone to live in their 9th century view of an Islamic paradise... and they're ready to kill anyone and everyone who doesn't go along with them.

Most anti-Western terrorist attacks these days are perpetrated without demands being enunciated. Bombs go off, planes get hijacked and crashed into buildings, hotels collapse. The dead are counted. Detectives trace back the perpetrators' identities. Shadowy websites make post-hoc unauthenticated claims.

But the reasons for the violence go unexplained. Analysts, including myself, are left speculating about motives. These can relate to terrorists' personal grievances based in poverty, prejudice, or cultural alienation. Alternately, an intention to change international policy can be seen as a motive: pulling "a Madrid" and getting governments to withdraw their troops from Iraq; convincing Americans to leave Saudi Arabia; ending American support for Israel; pressuring New Delhi to cede control of all Kashmir.

Any of these motives could have contributed to the violence; as London's Daily Telegraph puts it, problems in Iraq and Afghanistan each added "a new pebble to the mountain of grievances that militant fanatics have erected." Yet neither is decisive to giving up one's life for the sake of killing others.

In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and Islamic law, the Shari'a. Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide ‘caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."

Terrorists openly declare this goal. The Islamists who assassinated Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 decorated their holding cages with banners proclaiming the "caliphate or death." A biography of one of the most influential Islamist thinkers of recent times and an influence on Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam declares that his life "revolved around a single goal, namely the establishment of Allah's Rule on earth" and restoring the caliphate.

Bin Laden himself spoke of ensuring that "the pious caliphate will start from Afghanistan." His chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also dreamed of re-establishing the caliphate, for then, he wrote, "history would make a new turn, God willing, in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government." Another Al-Qaeda leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, publishes a magazine that has declared "Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon," to be followed by the creation of a caliphate.

So how come so many don't get it?

Although terrorists state their jihadi motives loudly and clearly, Westerners and Muslims alike too often fail to hear them. Islamic organizations, Canadian author Irshad Manji observes, pretend that "Islam is an innocent bystander in today's terrorism."

What the terrorists want is abundantly clear. It requires monumental denial not to acknowledge it, but we Westerners have risen to the challenge.